Maximum Echo

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Orbital101, Dec 20, 2020.

  1. Orbital101 Augur



    Greetings Norrathians, this is Goodurden from Realm of Insanity on Xegony coming in with my first, yes I did say my first, Everquest video.

    Today we will be talking about the Temple of Veeshan mission: Aaryonar and getting the Maximum Echo achievement.. but before I do and since this is my first video let me tell you all a bit more about the group 13.

    Group 13 is the group designated for the progression on beta and the launch of the last 5 expansions. Our objectives are to find how to minimize the time it takes to unlock raids, how to work around bugs, and when I say bugs that does not include exploiting them but when something is broken we have to find a solution to keep progressing by either understanding the mechanics or share the info with the devs.

    Group 13 took a hit last year when they removed the progression to unlock raids and pushed raids to open for all at the same time but that didn't stop us from keeping ourselves in shape this year.

    Group 13 includes myself, Bahdah, Astralx, Panorramix, Villette, Bradley, Piemastaj, Sancus and Tolzol (he is taking a break from group 13 since he has a newborn!). We have 2 new additions this year, Farzi and Covennx that I have really enjoyed grouping with this year.

    Now enough said and let's jump right into the mission Aaryonar!

    First let me tell you all that our group was not first to get the achievement Maximum Echo and that Aldryn, Fllint, Kuvani, Kizant, Reisil and Uglyaf were the first to do it.Then we had Sancus, Piemastaj, Shmid, Jondolar, Panorramix and Jennre as 2nd and our group was 3rd. The mission in itself is the hardest part of Claws of Veeshan expansion too. You can win for the currency quick and easy or go for the achievement Maximum Echo which is not a push over, even for the best raid geared players. At the first look of the mechanics most will say you need 2 tanks, 2 healers a heavy nuker and then you have room for 1 more. Aldryn went in with 2 warriors, a druid, a shaman, a wizard and a bard, himself.

    Sancus' group went in mainly with casters, 2 mages, a cleric, a shaman, a bard and a paladin to kite, help OT the adds and help on group healing, while having 2 mages for coth to get the trapped person out of the traps and to call back the banished is ezmode. Maximum Echo is very healing heavy, tank intensive and requires everyone to do their parts.

    Our group was determined to win with what we had without the need to replace anyone. No coth, 2 tanks or 2 healers. The group make up was Goodurden (warrior), Astralx (monk), Bahdah (rogue), Villette (bard), Farzi (cleric), Covennx (rogue). We successfully completed all 3 achievements for this mission and our time to complete it was 19m 48s. I recorded it to share with you guys so you can see how it works. It's also important to note that I edited the video to make it shorter so dont use any timestamps to plan anything, I will provide you with that information. I'm limited on what I can share, but as long as it doesnt provide information about the raid I don't think Aldryn will deguild me.

    Now, let's focus more on Maximum Echo mechanics. The achievement says, 'Have someone gain rank 5 in each of the Elemental Echoes', which are the auras that spawn at exactly the same time and same spot, as well as the orbs phase that become random at that point. The orbs timer starts once Aaryonar goes below 60% and flies up so you want to keep Aaryanor offtanked until everyone gets rank 5. To get the achievement you need to get all rank 5 from each of the auras. You only need to tip toe in it and get the buff and return to doing what needs to be done. You will be the targeted person for what that aura's mechanic is (banish, fire auras, earth prison, lure). Each aura has their own negative effects and will reappear every 3 minutes 5 seconds. In other words, you need a minimum of 15 minutes 25 seconds to get rank 5... If someone dies they will lose the buff and will need to start their ranks all over again, but once you get rank 5 you can die and it will still register for the achievement.`

    The order that these effects start triggering are Earth > Shadow > Ice > Fire. The earth effect is first, at 40 seconds after the auras spawn, then 10 second intervals for the other 3.

    Earth (brown aura) will drop a trap centered on the target which will also trap anyone else around that person, 40 seconds after the auras spawn. These traps can only be damaged by spells, songs and pets at this time, you can't melee them. They have a good amount of HP and I dont think they intended players to kill them. These traps explode afer 1 min 25 seconds and do more damage the closer you are to a max of 215,000 with 500 range. I got hit by it a few time for about 15k damage but I have no idea how far away they were at that time. You can use CotH or even better dont even let it trap you by running and let it drop behind you.

    Shadow (purple aura) will banish you to the west area which (requires some pre clearing) 50 seconds after the auras spawn... You can have the tank on Aaryonar do the shadow aura so they are the one to get banished, as they will get summoned right back. You can also use the /rewind command but we dint know want anyone saying that we we're exploting this command was so we decided to not use it.

    Ice (blue aura) will lure you toward the middle pillar with Pull of Sleet 60 seconds after the auras spawn. Pull of Sleet debuff is a 225k DD and a 6.5k mana DoT for 3 ticks. That is acceptable after the dot damage reduction. What becomes not acceptable is when you have Pull of sleet, as well as Roar or Curse debuffs and when people fail to place the decals and traps away from the group.

    Fire aura (red aura) will drop 3 fire decals centered on the player 70 seconds after the auras spawn at a 6 seconds interval which need to be isolated away from the group.

    Now on top of these effects 20 seconds after the auras spawn the script casts a random damage over time and tbh no matter which one you end up with you better have something going to help you stay alive. Keep the group together for group heals, heal over time and time your glyph and disc, especially if you're the tank. We also kept getting both the Curse and Roar at the same time when we first tried to figure out the achievement. Thats over 530k damage a tick which made us put the achievement on hold to focus on something else.

    Now on top of all that, a racnar spawns every 2:25m, pre Grolik phase. If Grolik phase is active then you get the golems (guardians) instead of the racnars.

    From here you are on your own to complete the mission


    Things to setup pre starting the event are:
    Aaeyonar tank spot and healer(s) and test group heal range
    Assign who is going to get which auras
    Assign a general location to regroup that keep everyone in range of group heals and position Aaryonar
    Assign where the traps and fire decals are going to get dropped
    Petalonyx, Svann2, Pano and 22 others like this.
  2. Bahdah Augur

    *We had warrior on shadow, monk on earth, bard on fire and a rogue on ice.
    Thunderkiks likes this.
  3. gnomeboss Augur

    thank you for taking the time to type out all your insights and play-by-play.
    Kamor likes this.
  4. Cadman Elder

    Oh, is that all? :eek:
    minimind and Bahdah like this.
  5. Sissruukk Rogue One

    So, this is all accomplished during the first phase (before Aaryonar jumps into the air)?
  6. Bahdah Augur

    Correct. The first phase - if you dps him to 60 and he goes up you cannot continue the achievement.
  7. Kelset Elder

    Wow, very cool of you to put this up.
  8. Sissruukk Rogue One

    Thanks everyone for figuring this out. Sounds like fun!
  9. Astral64 Augur

    This is a very well made event and I have enjoyed it thoroughly.

    Absor knocked it out of the park.
  10. Bahdah Augur

    I too enjoyed this. Takes me back to atrocious pre nerfed - I wouldn't be against having an achievement with the likes of a strategy play as this for each mission.
    Nniki and Ssdar like this.
  11. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    The reality unfortunately is that developing a "strategy" chieve across all missions takes too much guess work for the Devs - it would be complete luck to get it to work. The fact that the average win for this chieve takes 1 hour to achieve it places that right out on display. The numbers in this game are too large. We've needed a stat squash for years and we'll never see one.

    You'd also need to have Devs work with players on group missions the way they do with raid forces to get raids right. The Devs need us as fodder to manipulate an event to try and make it both challenging and possible. The majority of EQ players will struggle on these events until they are balanced - it's clear they use feedback on group content post Beta as they don't have the man power to get the missions to their intended state at launch.

    Thanks for posting the video. This is really cool.
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  12. Proximoe Elder

    stay on sides. front has a cone ae and mana drain component. rear has a tail lash/stun. rest is easy if ya coordinating
  13. Nniki Augur

    When we did it last Sunday, we had a cleric, shaman, bard, ranger, and two shadow knights. We just happened to have that group makeup for progression, didn't plan it out for this in particular, but it made the achievement very easy once we figured out what was going on. It's a fun fight to figure out on your own. We were held up because we weren't sure why the echo counters weren't increasing but later realized that only occurred during the first phase for whatever reason. I believe it was our ranger who suggested we try it that way.

    We actually tanked on the opposite side of the room both to be closer to the racnar spawns and to keep the dragon effects from hitting people collecting echo counters. It helped keep everyone close together for group heals, and it was also useful to be in range of the heart of the temple casting messages to capture them in the log since they don't broadcast very far. But that's pretty cool that the dragon will summon the tank back over; we didn't consider that.

    We had one SK tank the dragon, and the other tanked the racnar spawns. The shaman took earth since the prison doesn't affect being able to heal others, the bard was on shadow since they could return quickly, the racnar SK tank took ice to keep close to the healers and dragon and be in line of sight for the racnar if necessary, and the ranger took fire as they could range damage racnar or support the group while handling fire auras if need be. At least, that was our thought process with those choices. It allowed the dragon tank to just tank and the cleric to just heal.

    Setting up GINA timers for everything in this event helps a lot, especially when it comes to positioning for the earth and fire effects. If needed, the ice pull effect can be blocked with DA. However, DA doesn't block the banishment effect. Intruder's Curse can still hit the player returning from banishment in the hallways. Knowing and preparing for when the double dots are going to occur is probably the most critical piece.

    We had played with it at one point probably a day or two before our win just sitting and waiting to see what would happen. Not that it's relevant to doing this achievement, but I think if they're both active long enough you'll get both golems and racnar. Although, I'm not sure what kind of state we had it in that day, as they were spawning very quickly:
    [IMG]
    Ssdar, Bahdah, Duder and 1 other person like this.
  14. AZerker New Member

    Awesome job and Congrats!

    I guess if it was that tough for the top raid geared people of EQ, the rest of us can group geared guys can wait another 2 expansions to get it. Perfect group mission for raid players. Will Raids be geared toward group players then?
    Dyna and Fenthen like this.
  15. Xyroff-cazic. Director of Sarcasm

    Yeah, it's the gear that won this for them. You nailed it.
    Elyssanda and Fenthen like this.
  16. Oruatyrim New Member

    Did this tonight... Traditional ideal set up of, War, SK, Clr, Shm, Mage, Mnk... Yes all toons are raid geared which was deciding factor for our strategy.

    Warrior tanked Aary in the fire aura the whole time... put FGrowth, and Composite Blessing on during the fire auras to just eat the traps and healed through. Monk-shadow, mage-ice, Shm-earth... regrouped between Ice aura and fire aura each time... faced Aary toward door so no breath/tail hits.
    Mage was able to CoH the monk each time and the shm out of the trap which we spawned beyond the racnar spawn points. (We precleared from event area to banish point so a run back was still possible.

    Using this strategy, for group geared toons....all you have to do is not tank Aary in the Fire aura, and have the Mage(or whatever class you use) do the fire aura and spawn the traps away from the group.. can then swap the cleric into the Ice aura since you can just get pulled in but can still heal/cast.. just have the regroup spot close enough to get heals. And pre-clearing the hall makes it so you can run back and not need a CoH from the mage.

    The only reason this is as hard as it is, is because 9/10 times, every group mission that has a raid equivalent usually also has group level AE's/Spells... the issue currently is that this mission is casting Raid level AE's. But.. If you can beat the mission, you can do this achievement. Just tweak your strat. based on the info posted on this post. The only damage you HAVE to take is the roars and the curse. everything else is avoidable..

    All that said.. I love this event, I love the raid and I like the group version as well... Good times.
    gravestrikes and Ssdar like this.
  17. Cadbane Journeyman

    If I transfer over for like 30 minutes, will you take my Krono and get me the achieve :)
    Bahdah likes this.
  18. Bahdah Augur

    Come through.
  19. ArtremasEQ Augur

    We've also completed this one. - SK, Shaman, Necro, Cleric, Rogue, Zerker. - Grp not by design for the ach, just our Standard push group. There are more optimal group makeups for this Ach.

    Strat somewhat similar to what I see above, just set for our group makeup / our own figuring out. (Sham and Necro stayed out of Auras, other 4 did the aura thing).

    It was quite a bit of work with everyone on top of their game / using lots of class abilities, Based on that, I suspect this is going to be hard to achieve in pure group gear team to do it due to the intensity of the AE's. Requires some sharp playing.

    Now waiting on the bug-fix for Vulak Ach to finish.

    Regds.
  20. Lodn New Member


    Which achievement for Vulak?