Temple Of The Deathwyrm

[blackdoguk]

I ran it 3 times with that solution (the three times i have done the raid) but i was informed today that it is random. I probably just got lucky, or the DDO gods were taking pity on me for the times i died working it out the first time

Ah the DDO gods, I hope we one day get them as a raid boss. Remember you can DDoor out of the maze in the event you get a room wrong and don't mind running back.

[blackdoguk]

I've added an alternate phylactery portal room method and will post here for visibility. Let me know if this is working for your groups.

Alternate method

We've been trying out an alternative single portal phylactery method of late and time wise it has proved effective. Upon stepping through shadow portals have the party clear one side of the room. Send a single high DPS toon through a portal and take down the phylactery immediately. If the portal is wrong they will be ported back and the phylacteries will reset. That DPS should try and work their way back to phylactery side by killing shadows in the main arena. If the portal was wrong have another DPS step through and repeat the process until the phylactery is taken down. The rest of the party can keep shadows to a minimum on phylactery side and minimise DA.

I initially thought this would be nowhere near as quick as splitting the party over five portals, but in fact we found this to be a close run thing. What I didn't realise is that upon killing the real phylactery the rest of the party on shadow side can collect shards and arm the ritual circle straight away without having to work their way back through from the main arena. It also has the bonus of requiring far less communication in parties where that it is an issue,as well as limiting the "panic" factor of one person killing too soon and wasting a lot of time and coordination. Feel free to try this as I'd like to know what people find more effective.

[slarden]

I've added an alternate phylactery portal room method and will post here for visibility. Let me know if this is working for your groups.

Alternate method

We've been trying out an alternative single portal phylactery method of late and time wise it has proved effective. Upon stepping through shadow portals have the party clear one side of the room. Send a single high DPS toon through a portal and take down the phylactery immediately. If the portal is wrong they will be ported back and the phylacteries will reset. That DPS should try and work their way back to phylactery side by killing shadows in the main arena. If the portal was wrong have another DPS step through and repeat the process until the phylactery is taken down. The rest of the party can keep shadows to a minimum on phylactery side and minimise DA.

I initially thought this would be nowhere near as quick as splitting the party over five portals, but in fact we found this to be a close run thing. What I didn't realise is that upon killing the real phylactery the rest of the party on shadow side can collect shards and arm the ritual circle straight away without having to work their way back through from the main arena. It also has the bonus of requiring far less communication in parties where that it is an issue,as well as limiting the "panic" factor of one person killing too soon and wasting a lot of time and coordination. Feel free to try this as I'd like to know what people find more effective.

After seeing both methods the single portal method is just so much easier to coordinate, especially in a PUG.

[slarden]

Dwarven Maze:

http://youtu.be/yVDoOfYaunQ

- Not static.
- 5 Rooms, each with 2 exits
- If you take the wrong exit you end up at a dwarf that you can talk to and then just die unless you are able to Ddoor out. You respawn at a Res shrine and can do it again.
- to understand the riddle, you must be a dwarf or have high intelligence (36+)
- The riddle is always a statement if left or right and two more statements: whether the previous statement is false or true. Randomly mixed.
- There is one room with 6 portals. The correct Portal is either left or right of the speaking stone. That brings you to the last room. If you take the correct portal in this one you end up in the first room again. The key is to not take any portal and just jump up (there's a ledge). Destroy phylactery on other side.

First of all - great write up - very helpful.

I spent a little bit of time in these after the quest is over. There are 7 different rooms including the last room which is the way out.

Room A: Rune straight ahead. Portal on Left and Right. Portal Behind.
Room B: Rune straight ahead. Portal on Left and Right
Room C: Rune straight ahead. Portal on Left and Right. Targetable res shrine behind.
Room D: Rune straight ahead. Two portals on Left.
Room E: Rune to right. Portal Left and straight ahead.
Room F: Two portals on left with rune between. Portal straight ahead. Two portals on right. One portal behind.
Room G: Rune straight ahead. Portal on Left and Right. Way out behind.

I believe the combination of the room and riddle will always have a static answer, but I could be wrong. So far that's held true but my sample size is way to small to draw a conclusion. Still I am going to slowly work on mapping it out. To speed up the process I may start another thread devoted specifically to the portal maze.

Only a few rooms are visible from the end area which I am guessing is enough for someone familiar with this puzzle to map out the entire set of rooms.

[blackdoguk]

Nice work sir, I'll incorporate this into the OP. Will be running this tomorrow night and can start testing the room/riddle theory - sounds very plausible.

[slarden]

[QUOTE=slarden;

I believe the combination of the room and riddle will always have a static answer, but I could be wrong. So far that's held true but my sample size is way to small to draw a conclusion. Still I am going to slowly work on mapping it out. To speed up the process I may start another thread devoted specifically to the portal maze.

[/QUOTE]

After starting to track this I was initially excited because the first 8 repeats I had were all the same direction based on combination of room/riddles. I found a few cases where this was not the case so it's more complex than just the combination of room and riddle. I am saving the screen shots of each room /riddle in a folder by puzzle so maybe a pattern will emerge. There may be a third dimension, but since neither the north and south puzzles are difficult for parties, it will probably not be a priority for most people.

[maddmatt70]

One key thing that you do not have in your guide is only kill one shadow and leave the others alive so you do not have to beat the shadow dragon down again if you do not find the phylactery.

[blackdoguk]

One key thing that you do not have in your guide is only kill one shadow and leave the others alive so you do not have to beat the shadow dragon down again if you do not find the phylactery.

Yeah, I haven't worked out the mechanic that prevents shadows from spawning a portal - there appears to be a time threshold after which a portal won't spawn from a shadow. Is this method spawning a shadow 100% of the time for you? I presume you're using the single portal phylactery kill method?

[maddmatt70]

Yeah, I haven't worked out the mechanic that prevents shadows from spawning a portal - there appears to be a time threshold after which a portal won't spawn from a shadow. Is this method spawning a shadow 100% of the time for you? I presume you're using the single portal phylactery kill method?

We just kill one shadow and everyone jumps in the bubble that pops up. If a few people miss then kill a second shadow for a bubble, but frequently everyone gets in on one shadow kill. Then just kite the rest of the shadows around the battle rager kiter is a good one for this. The single portal method is really fast actually despite the 16.66% odds or whatever it is. We usually kill the red names quickish. Then send someone into a portal solo and then they let us know when they have killed the phylactery and then you send another and kill the phylactery again if the second attempt is not the correct phyactery and send another in to kill the phylactery if the third one is not the correct one and so forth (you never change the laser at all just keep jumping into the same portal because it resets after the phylactery is killed). When you get the real phylactery killed then there are people in the shadow realm usually who can pick up some of the crystals for the braziers. Then you just kill a shadow that is being kited if you need to get more crystals for the braziers or if you need to send in another 7 or 8 in to try to get the phylactery.

I do not think there is any time threshold at all. I do think sometimes shadows do not spawn bubbles, but that is pretty rare..

[jskinner937]

I've added an alternate phylactery portal room method and will post here for visibility. Let me know if this is working for your groups.

Alternate method

We've been trying out an alternative single portal phylactery method of late and time wise it has proved effective. Upon stepping through shadow portals have the party clear one side of the room. Send a single high DPS toon through a portal and take down the phylactery immediately. If the portal is wrong they will be ported back and the phylacteries will reset. That DPS should try and work their way back to phylactery side by killing shadows in the main arena. If the portal was wrong have another DPS step through and repeat the process until the phylactery is taken down. The rest of the party can keep shadows to a minimum on phylactery side and minimise DA.

I initially thought this would be nowhere near as quick as splitting the party over five portals, but in fact we found this to be a close run thing. What I didn't realise is that upon killing the real phylactery the rest of the party on shadow side can collect shards and arm the ritual circle straight away without having to work their way back through from the main arena. It also has the bonus of requiring far less communication in parties where that it is an issue,as well as limiting the "panic" factor of one person killing too soon and wasting a lot of time and coordination. Feel free to try this as I'd like to know what people find more effective.

This is the method we have been using and seems to be the most efficient and does close to the same thing as the single portal method.

If you have 2-4 high burst DPS toons (anyone who can drop a phylactery in 2-3 seconds) in party send them through quickly. I send one through 2 and 5 since they are up and ready and can be switched fast. They just zone in and wait if you have more than 2 going. Have a person man north and south crystal and turn as soon as the other 2 enter 2 and 5. Once changed send the next 1 or 2 through 3 and 6 and countdown the all out burst and kill command. This is especially effective with furyshottersand sorcs with ruin and/or EB and DB. With only 2 you have 33% chance to succeed in almost the same time. With 3 you have 50% with a few seconds added and best of all you have 66% with 4. You could even coordinate the less DPS toons to start on a 2 count and have the higher DPS start on 1 to coordinate better. It works great for me and thought I would share, but you do have to have the right characters in your party.

[blerkington]

Hi,

This is a useful guide. Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to post it.

[blackdoguk]

Hi,

This is a useful guide. Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to post it.

Thanks, glad you found it useful.

I do not think there is any time threshold at all. I do think sometimes shadows do not spawn bubbles, but that is pretty rare..

I'm going to try and test this, perhaps the shadows are buggy, but quite often I see one killed that has been kited for a while and not spawn a portal - I'd like to know why. As it is spawning more isn't too much of a pain.

This is the method we have been using and seems to be the most efficient and does close to the same thing as the single portal method.

I like the hybrid multi portal approach - sounds like your groups are well coordinated. 2 and 5 seem like good ways of doing things. though on EE we sometimes only clear half of shadow side (one horror and one beholder) and use portals 1-3.

I like taking an approach which keeps players cycling through as they can help keep a lid on the main fight if needed. I usually leave a healer, tank, blitzer, back up tank and kiter on the main arena side, but without a strong group this team can easily be overwhelmed by EE deathlords.

[Steelstar]

I'm going to try and test this, perhaps the shadows are buggy, but quite often I see one killed that has been kited for a while and not spawn a portal - I'd like to know why. As it is spawning more isn't too much of a pain.

The Shadows in the endfight have a flat chance at spawning Shadowy Remains (portals) when they die. It was originally a lower chance, and was raised to about 2/3 for the Live release as a result of Lamannia feedback.

[rest]

Six laser puzzles make me want to hang myself. Six laser puzzles, with three of them being in that purple junk makes me want to eat a bottle of pills, slit my wrists THEN hang myself.
Red-named trash is lazy design. Especially red-named trash with 200k+ HP.

I ran this with my guild twice. Once, we lagged and wiped at the end fight. Everyone logged off after that. The second time we completed. I hope I never have to run it again. The portion of the end fight mechanic that I saw, aside from the red-named trash, was interesting. Otherwise this raid is awful. It's like if someone bad at making raids tried to copy the abbot and failed miserably.

I haven't run the red dragon raid yet but, if the same person who made deathwyrm made that one, I don't think I'll bother.

[Teh_Troll]

Six laser puzzles make me want to hang myself. Six laser puzzles, with three of them being in that purple junk makes me want to eat a bottle of pills, slit my wrists THEN hang myself.
Red-named trash is lazy design. Especially red-named trash with 200k+ HP.

This is the best description I've ever seen of what's wrong with this raid.

[blackdoguk]

The Shadows in the endfight have a flat chance at spawning Shadowy Remains (portals) when they die. It was originally a lower chance, and was raised to about 2/3 for the Live release as a result of Lamannia feedback.

Cheers Steel thanks for the input.

Matty this is definitely the strategy to go with, ill amend the guide accordingly.

[jakeelala]

Six laser puzzles make me want to hang myself. Six laser puzzles, with three of them being in that purple junk makes me want to eat a bottle of pills, slit my wrists THEN hang myself.
Red-named trash is lazy design. Especially red-named trash with 200k+ HP.

I ran this with my guild twice. Once, we lagged and wiped at the end fight. Everyone logged off after that. The second time we completed. I hope I never have to run it again. The portion of the end fight mechanic that I saw, aside from the red-named trash, was interesting. Otherwise this raid is awful. It's like if someone bad at making raids tried to copy the abbot and failed miserably.

I haven't run the red dragon raid yet but, if the same person who made deathwyrm made that one, I don't think I'll bother.

they're both actually really awesome raids.

the mirror puzzles take a couple minutes each once you try them a few times, no different than puzzle room in VoN.

I COMPLETELY agree the purple seizure vision **** just has to go and be completely scrapped. It was a bad idea and adds nothing to the game.

Lag is a serious problem, but that can happen anywhere and isn't really specific to this raid.

The loot from these raids both crafting and Named are actually pretty cool. And all the other puzzles in Deathwyrm are sort of awesome. Have you been to all of the puzzle rooms?

[Eth]

Lag is a serious problem, but that can happen anywhere and isn't really specific to this raid.

I disagree with this. The lag is very different from usual lag. This lag stays around related to certain people. As soon as those people leave the instance the lag vanishes instantly.
From what I can tell so far it's most likely related to the shadows and some screwed up AI.
I hope some dev takes a look into this.

[Wipey]

I believe Gratch commented that it's the same as Mabar lag, screwed shadows pathfinding or ai or I don't know what.
So, if you get to yellow + alert with shadows and can't kill em fast, you are doomed.

Another thing is, I swear that ranged attack in puzzles room will go after your cleric, so would almost every shadow.
Helmed Horror will go after me ( cleric ) almost 100 % even without doing ANY damage.

[Eth]

Another thing is, I swear that ranged attack in puzzles room will go after your cleric, so would almost every shadow.
Helmed Horror will go after me ( cleric ) almost 100 % even without doing ANY damage.

That's the case in every quest. They made divines aggro magnets, followed by arcanes. Even if you just faceaggro them.

My ranger on the other hand get's completely ignored by almost everything.