Vision of Destruction

[Roman]

the current record is 7 minutes on norm. 15 minutes on elite. To say that a pug can beat this without specifically trying to do so is ridiculous.

BTW i can beat Micheal Phelps in a swimming race and have done it many times. I just dont need to prove it to any of you idiots.

Oh yeah i once beat Mike Tyson in a fight...because i claim it, it must be true

Log in at about 2am PST and join ANY chinese pug. You may be surpised at what they do.

[Thelmallen]

How often are those Chinese groups really PuGs, anyway? I don't think anyone is saying that the Chinese can't run great raids as probably everyone in this thread has run with them and been suitably and appropriately impressed.

I don't want to speak for Moops here but I know that one of the reasons that these speed runs are done is to generate interest in the form of friendly competition, to keep people excited about the game as they have a goal to shoot for. If you don't want to be part of that competition or don't want to be friendly about it, that's your choice, Kongo, but there's no reason to personally attack Moops when she's done nothing to warrant such bilious comments from you. In addition, many of your current guildies were involved in those speed records, do you feel as hostile towards them as you apparently are towards Moops?

[spyderwolf]

i did some testing in pvp as well. the level 7 spell overrides both the level 3 and 5 spells. the level 1 spell stacks with the level 7 spell. tested it multiple times and in different orders. the debuff to the actual stats only stacks with the level 7 and level 1 spells. casting the level 3 or 5 spells and then casting the level 7 spell is a waste as it results in no extra str debuff at all. this is in respoinse to a few posts abotu debuffs on this thread.

[Hadrian]

Man, I do 3 minute pug VODs all the time. Check out this irrefutable proof:

[adm5893]

degenerate into a flame war?

I was just looking for some advice. It appears there is some difference of opinion on the party make up. I think we all can respect those opinions especially if those opinions have been successful.

For the record, I recently completed and the key tactic wasn't necessarily the need or lack of need for WF tank.

It was the ability of the group to work together to take down the trash and orthons quickly. Healing by the clerics, and casting of crowd control by the casters during the last bat spawn.

I guess it goes back to Team Work or knowing ones role and knowing ones capabilities in a raid.

Which also can be applied to other raids and quests.

[Enochroot]

Log in at about 2am PST and join ANY chinese pug. You may be surpised at what they do.

Wow, you're like the biggest **** I've ever seen on the forums. Congrats.

I play consistently through Chinese hours (live in Singapore) - and I while I'm in many solid Chinese runs, I've never seen close to a 6 minute "random" Chinese pug, nor even sub 15 minutes. (Not that they couldn't, but it's not like their pugs just nuke the quest every time)


If you're going to be such a **** post some of these sub 7 minute runs. There are plenty of Chinese achievements posted all the time, and I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a sub-7 post.


Also - regarding WF versus fleshie versus AC versus HP argument - it's generally thought of that WF = low AC high DPS and fleshie = AC. So ... don't be a **** about it. No one will be "racist" if you join with an AC WF tank. Stop being ridiculous.

[kanbeki]

while not having to heal the main tank is nice and all, having everyone else in the group turn off there power attack isn't too keen. at least for pugs. just sayin

[kuro_zero]

degenerate into a flame war?

Wondering the same, wondering the same.

It was the ability of the group to work together to take down the trash and orthons quickly. Healing by the clerics, and casting of crowd control by the casters during the last bat spawn.

I guess it goes back to Team Work or knowing ones role and knowing ones capabilities in a raid.

Which also can be applied to other raids and quests.

QFT. Well said.

[Enochroot]

while not having to heal the main tank is nice and all, having everyone else in the group turn off there power attack isn't too keen. at least for pugs. just sayin

A good AC tank will only have aggro stolen by the top DPSers on Sully. And if the party lets him know when they're coming in and he's haste boosting, they probably can too. And if it's on normal, that AC tank can rock PA as well, and no reason for the group not to.

Just sayin.

[Phidius]

while not having to heal the main tank is nice and all, having everyone else in the group turn off there power attack isn't too keen. at least for pugs. just sayin

Actually, I'd rather everyone turn off PA and add a few extra minutes to ensure an easy, low-resource run than wait an extra 60+ minutes before starting the quest because it's hard to find cleric's willing to shell out the bucks to help us get completion. Especially when you consider that it's too much DPS that seems to kill the group at the end (premature spawning of orthons/bats).

I don't mind spending the resources to get the items I'm looking for, but I don't PUG the toons who have them already.

[ubis46]

Tell turbine to bring back all those players everyone in the game thought need to go and you dogged on many post, as they did 21 minute VODS all day long without cheating i might add! just a thought

[Roman]

Op, my appologies for puting poo poo in your thread

Congrats on your completion! Teamwork certainly is the key, as well as a good leader that can get things back on track when everything doesnt go as planned.


To all those hung up on speed runs...

Due to scheduling for a contract I was on, I was only able to play during very early morning hours which seemed to be peak Chinese hours. During those 8 weeks I ran about 12 each of VoD, Shroud, Hound.

My very first raid during this time period was VoD, I joined an LFM and off we went. Completion time 10 minutes. Several more 10 minute runs during the next couple of weeks. Now, to be honest I didn't even know what my regular VoD run times were, but 10 minutes definitely seemed faster than usual. In fact, I don't even look at completion times unless the raid seemed abnormaly long or shorter than usual.

Anyway, I get a blind invite to run a VoD pug one morning. When we get to the raid I am told to focus on Sally. In fact every single melee was on Sally. There was no main tank and no orthon tank. Clerics mass healed and we fought Sally every second that she was on the ground, trash was ignored until she went up to her perch. Once she went up, we would clean up trash. DPS lag was horrble and several times I thought my laptop had frozen, then I would see a flood of red numbers come in short bursts, then everything would freeze again.

In the final minutes the lag was horrible, everythng would freeze for 2 or 3 seconds then I would see a few seconds of action, then freeze again. Then after one final freeze, I see the completion message. Completion time 8 minutes. Everyone in the group was excited and they started running through the spike traps. I'm guessing they were happy about the time. few days later I get invite again and same thing with completion time 7 minutes. Again the spike trap dance of joy. I had another 7 minute completion, a few 8 minute and nothing over 10 minutes during those 6 weeks.

It never occurred to me to screenshot it, it seemed like something these guys did on a regular basis. And to be honest I didnt think it was that much fun. I think 10-15 minute runs are more fun and relaxing to be honest. And a greater diversity of people can handle a 10-15 minute VoD using good strategy. It doesnt require 12 uber tweeked players to accomplish.

As far as the speed runs I went on the only strategy was maximum sustainable DPS on Sally and pray the lag didnt trip you up. The major reason I don't care for speed runs is they exclude a large number of peole who simply don't have the equipment to keep up. I don't thikn speed runs bring the community together, they just seem to alienate the uber leet from the majority regular folks. Speed runs aren't about skill or strategy so much as superior equipment. And once the great lag barrier has been breached I'm sure the top 1% will be running sub 7 minute VoD's on a regular basis, no strategy or thinking needed; just ultra leet builds with the best equipment need apply.

More impressive to me is a regular pug of folks that complete VoD in 10 or even 15 minutes using brains and strategy to overcome an imperfect group.

[Phidius]

Op, my appologies for puting poo poo in your thread

Congrats on your completion! Teamwork certainly is the key, as well as a good leader that can get things back on track when everything doesnt go as planned.


To all those hung up on speed runs...

Due to scheduling for a contract I was on, I was only able to play during very early morning hours which seemed to be peak Chinese hours. During those 8 weeks I ran about 12 each of VoD, Shroud, Hound.

My very first raid during this time period was VoD, I joined an LFM and off we went. Completion time 10 minutes. Several more 10 minute runs during the next couple of weeks. Now, to be honest I didn't even know what my regular VoD run times were, but 10 minutes definitely seemed faster than usual. In fact, I don't even look at completion times unless the raid seemed abnormaly long or shorter than usual.

Anyway, I get a blind invite to run a VoD pug one morning. When we get to the raid I am told to focus on Sally. In fact every single melee was on Sally. There was no main tank and no orthon tank. Clerics mass healed and we fought Sally every second that she was on the ground, trash was ignored until she went up to her perch. Once she went up, we would clean up trash. DPS lag was horrble and several times I thought my laptop had frozen, then I would see a flood of red numbers come in short bursts, then everything would freeze again.

In the final minutes the lag was horrible, everythng would freeze for 2 or 3 seconds then I would see a few seconds of action, then freeze again. Then after one final freeze, I see the completion message. Completion time 8 minutes. Everyone in the group was excited and they started running through the spike traps. I'm guessing they were happy about the time. few days later I get invite again and same thing with completion time 7 minutes. Again the spike trap dance of joy. I had another 7 minute completion, a few 8 minute and nothing over 10 minutes during those 6 weeks.

It never occurred to me to screenshot it, it seemed like something these guys did on a regular basis. And to be honest I didnt think it was that much fun. I think 10-15 minute runs are more fun and relaxing to be honest. And a greater diversity of people can handle a 10-15 minute VoD using good strategy. It doesnt require 12 uber tweeked players to accomplish.

As far as the speed runs I went on the only strategy was maximum sustainable DPS on Sally and pray the lag didnt trip you up. The major reason I don't care for speed runs is they exclude a large number of peole who simply don't have the equipment to keep up. I don't thikn speed runs bring the community together, they just seem to alienate the uber leet from the majority regular folks. Speed runs aren't about skill or strategy so much as superior equipment. And once the great lag barrier has been breached I'm sure the top 1% will be running sub 7 minute VoD's on a regular basis, no strategy or thinking needed; just ultra leet builds with the best equipment need apply.

More impressive to me is a regular pug of folks that complete VoD in 10 or even 15 minutes using brains and strategy to overcome an imperfect group.

Well said: +1 rep

I'm impressed by PUGs who can complete using brains and strategy to overcome an imperfect group, regardless of completion time.

[gfunk]

Op, my appologies for puting poo poo in your thread

Congrats on your completion! Teamwork certainly is the key, as well as a good leader that can get things back on track when everything doesnt go as planned.


To all those hung up on speed runs...

Due to scheduling for a contract I was on, I was only able to play during very early morning hours which seemed to be peak Chinese hours. During those 8 weeks I ran about 12 each of VoD, Shroud, Hound.

My very first raid during this time period was VoD, I joined an LFM and off we went. Completion time 10 minutes. Several more 10 minute runs during the next couple of weeks. Now, to be honest I didn't even know what my regular VoD run times were, but 10 minutes definitely seemed faster than usual. In fact, I don't even look at completion times unless the raid seemed abnormaly long or shorter than usual.

Anyway, I get a blind invite to run a VoD pug one morning. When we get to the raid I am told to focus on Sally. In fact every single melee was on Sally. There was no main tank and no orthon tank. Clerics mass healed and we fought Sally every second that she was on the ground, trash was ignored until she went up to her perch. Once she went up, we would clean up trash. DPS lag was horrble and several times I thought my laptop had frozen, then I would see a flood of red numbers come in short bursts, then everything would freeze again.

In the final minutes the lag was horrible, everythng would freeze for 2 or 3 seconds then I would see a few seconds of action, then freeze again. Then after one final freeze, I see the completion message. Completion time 8 minutes. Everyone in the group was excited and they started running through the spike traps. I'm guessing they were happy about the time. few days later I get invite again and same thing with completion time 7 minutes. Again the spike trap dance of joy. I had another 7 minute completion, a few 8 minute and nothing over 10 minutes during those 6 weeks.

It never occurred to me to screenshot it, it seemed like something these guys did on a regular basis. And to be honest I didnt think it was that much fun. I think 10-15 minute runs are more fun and relaxing to be honest. And a greater diversity of people can handle a 10-15 minute VoD using good strategy. It doesnt require 12 uber tweeked players to accomplish.

As far as the speed runs I went on the only strategy was maximum sustainable DPS on Sally and pray the lag didnt trip you up. The major reason I don't care for speed runs is they exclude a large number of peole who simply don't have the equipment to keep up. I don't thikn speed runs bring the community together, they just seem to alienate the uber leet from the majority regular folks. Speed runs aren't about skill or strategy so much as superior equipment. And once the great lag barrier has been breached I'm sure the top 1% will be running sub 7 minute VoD's on a regular basis, no strategy or thinking needed; just ultra leet builds with the best equipment need apply.

More impressive to me is a regular pug of folks that complete VoD in 10 or even 15 minutes using brains and strategy to overcome an imperfect group.

Speed runs do not require uber gear neccesarily, and those sort of attempts are only an occasional run here and there so I hardly think that anyone needs to feel excluded from the majority of play. In fact our 25 minute Elite Shroud was done with no green steel weaponry. Mostly people were using weapons like transmuting of pure-good. We did a trial normal run and found that even with mostly plain transmuters, we were able to do a 1 rounder in part 4. Party coordination is far more important than high end gear, especially in VOD.

More on topic, to have a successful VOD run, people need to be very aware of their positioning at all times... its the single most important aspect of the raid IMO. Here are some positioning aspects that the leader should remind people of during the raid:

1) people who don't have agro should attack orthons from the back.
2) stay in whatever CC the group is using!!! (We use fog AOE's quite often), or stay grouped instead of running after devils (wait for them to come to you.. they die almost instantly when confronting a tightly ).
3) stay in formation and block if you steal agro from the main tank (if you run away you will just scatter the party and cause chaos)
4) stay in whatever CC the group is using... wait, did I say that already? I could swear nobody heard me because you are all running around like drunken monkeys...arrggh... here come the bats!

Groups with this kind of coordination do well because of much higher killing efficiency and better effectiveness of mass healing. Keep people in the same healing radius and mobs will die faster and less resources will be spent.

In fact, I think that a group with plain transmuters and cheap vorpals could probably manage a quicker VOD completion time then a tricked out raid gear group because of decreased lag.

Also, when the final wave of bats come (the most common fail point in most raids imo) there are several ways to take care of things:

1) if you are a cleric, throw down a few maximized blade barriers as soon as the orthons are dead.. it uses far less mana then having to try and heal the party from all the fire damage. Double check that they have fire protect up.
2) If you are a caster, cast fire shield on yourself, then either blanket the entire area with web or start spamming mass protect from elements on the party (probably scrolls only if you are a sorc). You can kill bats effectively with spells like cone of cold and ball lightning.
3) if you are a melee, double check that you have fire protect up.. umd a fire shield scroll if you have the ability (32 DC I think).

Also, if you are the main tank, stop beating on sally when the orthons come, until they are dead (if you are killing them), as the bats trigger based on sally's HP level, and you generally dont want to have them at the same time (oops).

[Vileborg]

I've run this quite a few times, and the only time I've run into troubles with a raid is when the raid leader has a different strategy from the commonly accepted strategy. The bat phase has been the cause of the only failures I've ever had on this raid. The biggest failure I've had is because the raid leader expected me to put down blade barriers instead of using the mass healing strategy. Unfortunately, I wasn't told that this would be the strategy until after the bats spawned, and by then it's too late on many accounts. I was in place and committed to mass healing, in fact had started the process. The group ran off and took detonations wiping rather quickly. Pandemonium ensued, and the end result was a wipe with only a sliver left on the boss. The run cost me 3/4 mil Gold in resources and a nice verbal bashing. So my advice would be to ensure you inform everyone what strategy you plan on using to make sure everyone is on the same page.

My second piece of advice would be to all raiders. One of the biggest tasks that takes a player from a standard PuG raider to an asset on any raid is the amount of damage and survivability of your toon. I see way too many people who don't focus on HP's and then get ****ed when they die. I honestly don't know what a good threshold would be, but my cleric has just shy of 300 and is quite survivable in most cases. I've encountered melee that have 200 or less and are shocked when they die instantly from certain blasts, or start taking considerable damage during a heal cast on another player. If I'm casting heal on someone else when you start taking damage there's a global cooldown and a delay from the time your heal is keyed until it lands that I can't do anything about while your dying, but if you have a few more hitpoints to register the damage and survive the global cooldown, and landing delay, rest assured another heal is coming in your direction as fast as you can register your health has dropped.

The other part is raid damage. Part of every persons job on the raid is too avoid unnecessary damage. I honestly don't know how certain melee manage to take next to no damage on orothons while others require a constant stream of heals, but at some point healing you exceeds your benefit to the raid, and rather than drain all resources on a person I've had to turn off the faucet of heals to save the raid. This happens more so during phase 4 of shroud in which ranged dps casters and rangers alike sit there and take whole cycles of blades through them, but it also happens on orothons. If you are fighting a boss next to someone and your taking tons more damage, ask them what they are doing to avoid damage, it's part of your job.

I don't want to sound like an elitest, because I am flawed and I don't know everything there is to know about my class, gear, or even how certain raids work, but if your willing to take the time to give advice I'll be glad to listen. I've already learned a great deal more about this raid for the countless amounts of good advice posted here, and for the knowledge I am eternally grateful.

Farasin - 16 Cleric - Sarlona

[Enochroot]

My second piece of advice would be to all raiders. One of the biggest tasks that takes a player from a standard PuG raider to an asset on any raid is the amount of damage and survivability of your toon. I see way too many people who don't focus on HP's and then get ****ed when they die. I honestly don't know what a good threshold would be, but my cleric has just shy of 300 and is quite survivable in most cases. I've encountered melee that have 200 or less and are shocked when they die instantly from certain blasts, or start taking considerable damage during a heal cast on another player. If I'm casting heal on someone else when you start taking damage there's a global cooldown and a delay from the time your heal is keyed until it lands that I can't do anything about while your dying, but if you have a few more hitpoints to register the damage and survive the global cooldown, and landing delay, rest assured another heal is coming in your direction as fast as you can register your health has dropped.

Interesting you say this -

One - your cleric could have more yourself unless you started with 8 con. Which I hope isn't true.

Two - a cleric should never die in VoD during the bats - ever, unless he gets sully aggro. And generally this means the MT has gone down. Generally this means you have failed your task already.

Run in jumping circles, forever. Heal the MT at all costs - quickened curse/heal/mass pro works pretty well. Rinse, repeat. Reapply your own pro's if necessary. I've solo supermanned a non-WF fleshie ranger this way easily on an 1170 sp dex-based battlecleric.


Judge not, lest ye be judged yourself.

[Vileborg]

Could you elaborate on the different ways to stack HP's on a toon? I've tapped into a few but as I stated above I'm don't know all the answers.

Strategies differ, when you are using a Mass Healing Strategy that involves being in close proximity for heals, and then raid runs off and explodes that leaves you a pretty prime target for a mass invasion of bats from all directions.

It's like the north staging strategy for part four of shroud. Being near the north portal allows your healers and casters to get just within casting range and entirely miss the waves of blades circling as by the time they path from their west starting spot around to the north they are far enough into the spiral as to not cross through your party, but the staging area is unfamiliar to people, and causes mass confusion whenever a raiding party uses that strategy.
I find it fairly easy to either hug the wall or move inside the first pass and then duck outside the second pass and completely miss the blades, so either strategy works for me but if you didn't tell me you were using the north strategy I'd be at the normal spot with probably half the raid.

[BlackSteel]

2. The smoothest runs I've been on have included a high AC main tank. If you have a WF main tank who's depending on DR, make sure you have plenty of Reconstruct scolls. For example, I always carried 200 when I was one of 2 casters. Rarely did I use more than 120, but it's better to be prepared. Unless your casters have 8,000-9,000 spell points, that is.

I refuse to tank on my barbarian unless theres a WF sorc that I trust. Theres absolutely no reason a sorc cant do it with mostly their SP, using scrolls for simple burst healing if/when necessary. Fleshy wizards, or people who pick up reconstruct w/o any enhancements usually end up overburdened very very fast trying to heal the main wf tank. I've had too many VoDs that had to change strats mid quest b/c the WF healer was just insufficient, whereas I've never had a problem when picking up a WF healer who was WF themselves.

Popping recon scrolls w/o scroll enhancements, or using the spell w/o a few ranks in force/repair is far less effective than having a fleshie tank with a decent will save.

Back when I was doing regular runs tho, I always ran it with a guildee sorc. And we had a little extra strat worked out where when orthons popped he would drag one over to me while tanking sulu. I'd always try to help by taking down 1 orthon while the rest of the raid took down the other 3. Sometimes in a bad group this might involve 2 orthons. And even had one raid where everyone else just seemed lost, and me and the sorc had to do 3 of the 4 orthons ourselves in the corner with sulu while rest of party got together on 1.

To the OP, if you're concerned about failures, particularly if you're the cleric. Find out whose the main tank/main healer before joining. If you dont know em, dont join the group. Or start your own group and cherry pick who joins.

[Enochroot]

Could you elaborate on the different ways to stack HP's on a toon? I've tapped into a few but as I stated above I'm don't know all the answers.

Strategies differ, when you are using a Mass Healing Strategy that involves being in close proximity for heals, and then raid runs off and explodes that leaves you a pretty prime target for a mass invasion of bats from all directions.

It's like the north staging strategy for part four of shroud. Being near the north portal allows your healers and casters to get just within casting range and entirely miss the waves of blades circling as by the time they path from their west starting spot around to the north they are far enough into the spiral as to not cross through your party, but the staging area is unfamiliar to people, and causes mass confusion whenever a raiding party uses that strategy.
I find it fairly easy to either hug the wall or move inside the first pass and then duck outside the second pass and completely miss the blades, so either strategy works for me but if you didn't tell me you were using the north strategy I'd be at the normal spot with probably half the raid.

In terms of HP "stacking" - I dont know what you're asking about. Base HP+Con+GFL+GS+Con Tome+Minos - 14 con non-wf or dwarf should come in around 350 after minos fix (right now should be around 370), more if you fit toughness into your build.

For VoD - it matters not what the party strategy is, in terms of your fall-back plan. The order of importance for keeping up from least important:

casters
squishie poor dps melee
poor dps melee
squishie dps melee
dps melee
the other cleric
MT <-- in SE corner behind suul will block much bat explosions
yourself <-- yourself running in circles and jumping is your best survival tactic

Let them die in that order. Do not ever, EVER let the last two die. No matter what strategy you employ. Center mass heal on MT if you need to - as soon as the rest of the list has dropped (or most of the rest, and mass heals no long make sense) - just keep that MT up and for the love of god, keep yourself up. Don't even bother ressing unless you're pretty **** sure they won't just die again. But since they died the first time buffed up, odds are, without buffs and with death penalty, they'll probably die again, so it's on my list of low importance.

I don't even know what you're talking about in shroud 4, you could very well be right about whatever it is - I've always run in circles, and I will always continue to run in circles, at least on non-evasion toons.

[soupertc]

wow I'm away for awhile and look what this thread became!!!!

I've done every "JOB" in this raid....and none are to hard or take up resources. I've solo clericed this on hard in a PUG and didn't use a single pot...used 34 Mass Mods and 20 Heal scrolls. I've been solo healer on warforged and not used a pot and used 50 recontruct scrolls.

This raid is not recources intensive.