Showing posts with label Boss Strategies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boss Strategies. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Mare Sacro Monastary Dungeon Guide
Mare Sacro Monastary (MSM) is the first "Group" Adventure, ie 5-man dungeon, you'll gain access to as you progress in prestige in Skyforge.
Like most areas you gain access to for the first time, Skyforge seems alright with dumping you right into an Impossible rating version of the dungeon--don't do this if it's your first time and be sure to manually drop it down to a lower-star difficulty to get your feet wet. Group Adventures in this game are no joke and will wreck unorganized random groups, so you want to take the challenge at a reasonable pace your first couple times.
Entrance
Going in, the first several pulls are primarily groups of swarm mobs. They're not difficult to handle but CAN do damage quickly so be prepared to pop shields. Also, beware as you cross each bridge, as 1-2 kelps will jump up along most of them.
1st Gate
This pull can be pretty serious and is where most unprepared groups are going to hit a wall. The swarm mobs need to go down ASAP but targets after that are a bit of a crapshoot.
Icy Abyss Kelps hit hard and will pursue the tank in melee range. On occasion, it will pull in all nearby players and then create a bubble around itself which will burst, damaging players nearby after a short delay. Everyone pulled in needs to get away from it quickly.
Roaring Waves Naiads are simple ranged enemies. They can be kind of LOS'd behind the planters visible in the above screenshot, but they may path right up onto them.
I would recommend the tank grab all mobs and kite the Icy Abyss Kelp. I would also recommend killing it first before the Naiads to simplify the encounter but any order is mostly fine.
Labyrinth
The next area has this kind of grid-y layout with groups of enemies at each corner of the yellow triangle, single kelps scattered throughout, and 3 patrolling Icy Abyss Krakens. 2 of the Krakens patroll each of the vertical lanes and one patrols east-west across the middle-top lane.
Make sure, before pulling any groups and while fighting, that you are aware of where the Krakens are so that you don't pull them also. When and if you can pull them safely, they only take a minute or two to take down. I usually grab the horizontal one and then one of the vertical ones to have a clear path.
Incidentally, the Krakens actually do eventually respawn if you spend too much time in the area.
I usually pull this west group first and, as you can see, from the west corner (as opposed to a lot of groups that like to pull them towards the gate). This gives you a LOT more options for LOSing them for the pull and breathing room to kite.
Icy Abyss Naiads are rough and can shut down groups if you're not careful. Their big ability to watch out for is when they have a bubble forming above them; they will launch projectiles that will deal damage and trap the hit player in a bubble--which can be chained to deadly results (often if multiple players are standing near each other).
If your group is having trouble with the Icy Abyss Naiads I strongly recommend simply targeting it first.
I like to pull the east group from the opposite side. This group is relatively easy.
For this last group I clear out all the spare kelps on the side of the map that's convenient depending on which vertical Kraken was cleared out. This pull is the same as the one before the 1st Gate, sans swarm-types. Like previous pulls there's plenty of room for kiting.
Gauntlet => Cetus
This section has another 3 groups of mobs along with an extra quirk: starting from the second turn (the path leading directly to Cetus), groups of kelps continually spawn from Cetus and march down that hall. If you pull smart, this is only really an issue for the last pull. Be aware that any kelps that spawn and reach the end of the hall will just sit there if not pulled and then slowly die, so you can wait for waves to despawn before moving forward.
The first pull is pretty easy, just one Foamy Tides Ong and some kelps. The thing to watch out for with Foamy Tide Ong is for when they start to spin around; they will start to do huge damage in melee range.
Second pull is an ong with 2 support kelps. I strongly recommend pulling these back around the corner to where the first group was to avoid having to deal with the spawning kelps.
Third pull is a bit trickier unless you pull them far back around the corner, then it's just mostly dealing with Icy Abyss Naiad shenanigans while you take down the ongs.
Before moving on to Cetus, I recommend waiting for a wave of kelps to pass and then blitz straight for the boss, picking up kelps along the way, instead of stopping to fight them, because if you do you will start to get bogged down by rapidly spawning waves as you approach.
Cetus himself is pretty benign, the real trouble is with the intermittently spawning kelps, which can do real damage if they're not managed.
A lot of my troubles tanking this fight have been solved by simply kiting full time and picking up adds as they spawn. It makes the fight very safe for everyone.
Leida the Conquerer
I recommend clearing out all the kelps in the courtyard leading up to Leida just to minimize the risk of extra accidental pulls during the boss.
Leida is a pretty simple fight. The first, most immediate thing to watch for is geysers that will spawn beneath players and then erupt, dealing large damage if they're not avoided. Second, at 15x and 7x HP, Leida will create a shield and spawn two Naiads. The shield reduces damage to the boss and deals damage to anyone standing inside it; to break it, both Naiads need to be killed.
The two Naiads spawn at opposite sides to the left and right, which can make them tricky to pick up. Often, one may wander into Leida's shield, in which case they need to be pulled out (with either abilities or manually--can retreat a bit into the courtyard). If you can get threat on both quickly, you can cause them to cluster up by moving into the recess on the right/west that you can see in the background of the above screenshot.
Elsewise she's pretty easy to shred down, putting an end to MSM.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Denova Normal Mode Progression
Went back into 8-man Normal Denova with whomever we could scrape together; we've adopted an unusual raid schedule this week since the new stuff came out on a Thursday. First boss was already down from the 16-man we ran last night. Got up to and through several attempts on the last boss.
Second boss, the tanks, have some tricky mechanics but aren't really all that hard once you've learned to juggle them. For people just wading into it, it's important to know not to destroy the shield generators on the add phase and that Double Destruction must be dealt with by some coordination between two DPS and the tank. There's a lot more to it, but dealing with those two mechanics is a start.
The third boss is a puzzle boss and likewise pretty easy once you've got the hang of it.
The last boss was kinda fun and tricky. We got close several times and with a little cleanup (ie not raiding with several members in a time zone where it's 2AM) it'll be pretty simple to finish off.
Also, it's important to keep in mind that mid-way to the next boss after every boss there's a chest containing an additional 4 Black Hole Commendations. The lockout on the chest seems tied to the death of the previous boss. When we started and got to the chest between bosses 1 and 2 we were unable to open it; we surmised that the reason has to do with the instance resetting (similar to how the boss-loot boxes regenerate but are inaccessible for the pylon and council bosses in EV). Also, we had one member swap out for another after the second boss and the new guy we brought in couldn't access the chest after the second boss--furthermore after we discovered this we tried to bring back the guy we swapped out and he couldn't access the chest either. So if you're going to call it a night after one of the bosses and still want the additional loot, make sure you clear your way to the chest before you close shop.
Second boss, the tanks, have some tricky mechanics but aren't really all that hard once you've learned to juggle them. For people just wading into it, it's important to know not to destroy the shield generators on the add phase and that Double Destruction must be dealt with by some coordination between two DPS and the tank. There's a lot more to it, but dealing with those two mechanics is a start.
The third boss is a puzzle boss and likewise pretty easy once you've got the hang of it.
The last boss was kinda fun and tricky. We got close several times and with a little cleanup (ie not raiding with several members in a time zone where it's 2AM) it'll be pretty simple to finish off.
Also, it's important to keep in mind that mid-way to the next boss after every boss there's a chest containing an additional 4 Black Hole Commendations. The lockout on the chest seems tied to the death of the previous boss. When we started and got to the chest between bosses 1 and 2 we were unable to open it; we surmised that the reason has to do with the instance resetting (similar to how the boss-loot boxes regenerate but are inaccessible for the pylon and council bosses in EV). Also, we had one member swap out for another after the second boss and the new guy we brought in couldn't access the chest after the second boss--furthermore after we discovered this we tried to bring back the guy we swapped out and he couldn't access the chest either. So if you're going to call it a night after one of the bosses and still want the additional loot, make sure you clear your way to the chest before you close shop.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
1.2 Day/Nightmare Pilgrim
1.2's finally here, woo! Also, check out this slick promo for those of us who have been around since the beginning.
As expected, had to go through every one of my characters to set up the new UI and do some rebinding. Also transferred excess funds to Abraxane to buy some Legacy unlocks. DO NOT buy Rocket Boost it's a complete waste of 2-4.5 mil; it's a 110% speed boost (ie same as the highest level mounts) that can only be used out of combat and in areas where you can mount. So it's useless in PvP et al and anywhere you can use it you might as well mount up anyways.
MoX went through the first boss in Denova on 16-man Normal then shifted to work on Nightmare Pilgrim in a half-MoX, half-Ghost Codex 16-man raid.
Here are some of the essential quirks to Nightmare Pilgrim:
-Start with all DPS on the The Thing From the Stars (hereafter referred to as TTFtS), the reason why will be apparent as the fight goes on. They need to be killed at the same time.
-It's a pretty simple fight until TTFtS gets to ~50%. As TTFtS approaches 55-50% you'll notice two key things:
--First the Nightmare Pilgrim (hereafter referred to as NP) will do an aoe knockback and then put up a shield (he channels it), attempting to damage NP while this shield is up will instead deal damage back to you ie do not attack him while this shield is up.
--Second and at the same time, several members of the raid will receive a debuff called Bloodmark. Who receives the buff will be identifiable by a shaft of white light that comes down to the affected players. Players with this debuff will have massive damage inflicted upon them if they damage TTFtS.
--Thus as TTFtS approaches 50% all DPS should stop (or to be more precise, have everyone stop as soon as NP puts up his shield) and wait until Bloodmark is up (it should be up by the time NP stops channeling the shield). Everyone who receives Bloodmark should start DPSing NP, everyone else should resume DPS on TTFtS.
-Bloodmark lasts 90 seconds. As its duration is close to finished the above pattern repeats; NP knockbacks and shields, Bloodmarks go out. The rest of the fight is basically juggling this mechanic.
-There's some intense tanking mechanics to the fight as well, but I'm personally pretty oblivious to what the tanks were doing.
As expected, had to go through every one of my characters to set up the new UI and do some rebinding. Also transferred excess funds to Abraxane to buy some Legacy unlocks. DO NOT buy Rocket Boost it's a complete waste of 2-4.5 mil; it's a 110% speed boost (ie same as the highest level mounts) that can only be used out of combat and in areas where you can mount. So it's useless in PvP et al and anywhere you can use it you might as well mount up anyways.
MoX went through the first boss in Denova on 16-man Normal then shifted to work on Nightmare Pilgrim in a half-MoX, half-Ghost Codex 16-man raid.
Here are some of the essential quirks to Nightmare Pilgrim:
-Start with all DPS on the The Thing From the Stars (hereafter referred to as TTFtS), the reason why will be apparent as the fight goes on. They need to be killed at the same time.
-It's a pretty simple fight until TTFtS gets to ~50%. As TTFtS approaches 55-50% you'll notice two key things:
--First the Nightmare Pilgrim (hereafter referred to as NP) will do an aoe knockback and then put up a shield (he channels it), attempting to damage NP while this shield is up will instead deal damage back to you ie do not attack him while this shield is up.
--Second and at the same time, several members of the raid will receive a debuff called Bloodmark. Who receives the buff will be identifiable by a shaft of white light that comes down to the affected players. Players with this debuff will have massive damage inflicted upon them if they damage TTFtS.
--Thus as TTFtS approaches 50% all DPS should stop (or to be more precise, have everyone stop as soon as NP puts up his shield) and wait until Bloodmark is up (it should be up by the time NP stops channeling the shield). Everyone who receives Bloodmark should start DPSing NP, everyone else should resume DPS on TTFtS.
-Bloodmark lasts 90 seconds. As its duration is close to finished the above pattern repeats; NP knockbacks and shields, Bloodmarks go out. The rest of the fight is basically juggling this mechanic.
-There's some intense tanking mechanics to the fight as well, but I'm personally pretty oblivious to what the tanks were doing.
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