So I have recently gotten back to doing the kill tasks in NoS. The last named I need in Shadeweavers (a tier 1 zone) in Commander Esline, who spawns in the tower from the placeholder "A Loda Kai Guard Commander". I had previously tried to get this named a while back, when the PH for nameds in Shadeweavers had very high hitpoints, and took a break from named hunting. At that time there was one PH that spawned on the lower floor, and the remaining 5 on the top floor. Due to the fast respawn rate it was only practical to do the PH on the lower floor (there are 4 mobs on that level), and not any on the top floor (there are ~10 mobs up there). A few months ago there was a patch which adjusted the high hitpoints the PH had down to the same as regular mobs in the zone. However, it appears that in this patch the PH on the lower floor was changed into a regular mob, and this is where the problem starts. The mobs on the top floor are a mix of undead and live mobs, so you can't invis to set up without using an exploit (invis/IVU cast simultaneously so you get both). The high number of mobs in a small space means that any attempt to pull any to the lower floor results in a train of about 9 mobs. This is in part due to the density of mobs and in part due the spiral staircase coming down resulting in mobs running past each other. The very fast zone respawn rate means that you cannot kill them fast enough even if you could CC before respawns start happening again. This situation cannot possibly be the intent of the devs since it means that this named is virtually impossible for most groups to camp, and remember, this is a tier 1 zone. The only realistic way to get this named seems to be either use a raid or train everything far outside and pick of the required mobs as they walk back. Neither of those things are going to be practical for most groups, so this is either poorly designed content with no actual testing, or it is broken content. The solutions are as follows: 1) get rid of the undead mobs in the room 2) reduce the number of mobs in the top floor to no more than 5, OR reduce their agro/assist radius to a level where it is possible to pull no more than 2 or 3 mobs with agroing the entire floor. 3) return the PH that was on the lower floor, it should never have been removed in the first place. Preferably all three of those. A basic criteria for all group content is that it should be doable for an average non raiding group, especially in a tier 1 zone. That means it needs to meet the following: (a) the named should be reasonably killable for a group; (b) the named/PH should be pullable in such a manner that the average group would have no more than 2 or at most 3 mobs; and (c) respawn rates should be such that a given area can be completely cleared by an average non raiding group before respawns. The current iteration of Commander Esline fails (b) and (c) very badly, which cannot be the devs intent.
I don't think this is a bug. It's more feedback. I've personally had no issues with groups of 4 with group gear at this camp. Bring 6 and the entire building stays dead. Pulling tools (including run some down the stairs and fade/FD/COTH) will let you pull the top mobs down to the bottom somewhat safely, or you can fight up top and just be ready to tank multiples (pet tanks are great) or CC a few. It's a harder camp, but as long as you bring a few friends and use appropriate tools, it's not impossible. You might have to play different or explore new tools until you find a strat that works.
When the expansion was released, all 4 of the mobs on the lower level were high hp placeholders. At some point, the number of placeholder mobs was reduced for all named in Shadeweaver's Tangle. In that patch, all 4 of the lower level mobs were made non-ph. It certainly would have been nice if they had instead made some of the upstairs ph mobs non-ph and left the bottom floor alone. But there are now 7 ph mobs and 3 trash mobs (the undead) on the top floor. I found what looked like the farthest spot away from at least some of the upstairs mobs. They all aggroed anyway. And because for some strange reason, the ph mobs in Shadeweaver's still can't be mezzed, that's fighting a minimum to 7 mobs to break in upstairs. Fortunately, I was able to tank all of the mobs with a Glyph running, and my group was able to just kill the 10 before they started repopping. So I agree with Petalonyx that it's not a bug, but it is still quite annoying.
First, is not an exploit. Being able to double invis your group is simple and has been around forever. Having one toon cast a long casting IVU and another toon hit a fast/insta cast invis is not an exploit...it's knowing how the spells work. As for the named, pulling it is not "easy mode", but far from the issue you make it out to be. A guildmate and I killed it just a few nights ago; the tank had random pieces of raid gear from previous expansions, but every other toon was group geared. Once you figure out where to set up/pull to (hint: on the steps up to the top floor), you're fine with a competent tank and some form of crowd control. High DPS helps, and so does headshot, though most mobs are 120 so HS is mostly irrelevant. Once you break/kill that first group of mobs it's an easy camp as long as you pay attention and don't have any extended downtime. You can either stay on the steps, or (as we did the first time we killed it) move around the platform from group to group. Again, as long as you can kill constantly with no real pauses, you can keep that whole floor clear. Otherwise, just stick to pulling that first group. You'll only be killing 1 placeholder, but it'll be with very little risk.
“The mobs on the top floor are a mix of undead and live mobs, so you can't invis to set up without using an exploit (invis/IVU cast simultaneously so you get both).” Bards even get an AA that gives group-Invis, group-IVU and group-levi. Does this make us the expoiters #1 of EQ? - Ok, overwise: Nasty camp, we tried it with Bard-BST-MAG-Druid and two mercs but gave up finally since the phs aren't lullable or mezzable, tend to ignore snare and the undead mobs were only slightly better.
What bards can or can't do is irrelevant, regular invis/IVU is not supposed to stack. It is only possible because a bug allows both to land if they are both cast at the exact same time. That is not part of the intended game design, which means using that method to double invis is an exploit. Getting back to the camp, I am a raid warrior, my group has real shaman and rogue, along with two merc healers and a merc rogue. With that setup I can tank 3 NoS trash mobs at once, although it is sketchy as F doing that. Ten is out of the question. My CC is the shaman doing his knockback roots, but when I tested this most of the train appeared to break root immediately, so that is not feasible. In any case I doubt my dps could kill all 10 before the respawn happens, which is very short in this zone. Back when the PH still had tons of HP I could only kill one PH and 2 or 3 regular mobs before repops. It will be more now the HP was rebalanced, but no way I can come close to killing 10 before respawn (best case is 6 or 7). I doubt most casual groups would stand a chance of being able to do this named with the current setup of mobs in the room. The only option I can think of is using the invis exploit to find a position where I can fight only one of the 4 groups of mobs up top and hope the rest don't add. I will try the position suggested above and see if that works. This camp was never intended to be almost impossible for most people like it currently is. This is a tier 1 zone after all, but the current setup in this particular camp renders it one of, if not the most, difficult camps in the expansion. You either need a very good group or a raid. There was supposed to be a single PH downstairs for weaker groups, but that was removed when they reduced the number of PH in the patch, which I am quite certain was not the intent, hence it definitely falls under the bug category.
Also the merc AI/Pathing there is HORRIBLE mercs will run across half the width of the space outside to tower to heal the designated puller; while if you run over a rock the mobs warp instantly to you. It's just bad all around.
This part is not true. It may not have been intended for a character to have both invis and IVU at the same time, but we can't know that unless told. The fact is regular invis/camo overwrites and removes IVU, but IVU does not overwrite regular invis/camo. So getting both types of invis on a character has nothing to do with casting at the exact same time. Let's say a group mate has had regular invis for 10 minutes. If I then cast IVU on them, they would have both types of invis, but I would be visible (or have only IVU if I used group IVU). This has been possible for longer than we've had the Group Perfected Invis and IVU AAs. As for the camp, I hope the spot mentioned works for you to pull only some of the upstairs mobs. If you're on Emarr, I'd be willing to try to help if it doesn't work.
I made a new character recently, so once again I'm doing hunter in NOS. So I went to the Commander Esline camp. The PH on the bottom floor is missing. Which makes this camp hard. I tried double invising and going to the top. Every single mob aggroed when I attacked two mobs seemingly out of the way. . I didn't have time to do anything. I'm very disappointed in how this named was changed to only the top floor. Put the PH back on the bottom floor.
The problem is the area was not originally designed that way, it was changed to the current unplayable state when they changed the mob PH. The top floor was always unplayable, but now the named is out of reach for most players simply because of local bugs. No idea why the bottom PH was removed, that should not have happened. As for the top floor, it is simply broken. If a pull agros everything in a densely packed area then there is obviously an issue with pathing and/or agro ranges, you should expect multiples until the area is broken, but agroing everything is not supposed to happen. Most other PHs in fairly packed areas can at least be pulled without agroing everything, so there is obviously a problem with this particular area. The other issue is that the fast respawn rate makes it extremely difficult to clear the floor, even if you were able to CC the massive pulls, and probably impossible for most groups to do, meaning the camp is inaccessible to almost everyone. That is NOT a design intent, contrary to what some here are pretending. This is a tier 1 zone. It is without question a bug. How to correct that bug? Since it relates to agro ranges and pathing, really the only way without a lot of recoding is to reduce the number of mobs in the room, or spread them out more around the tower.
My guildmates and I have done this named mutliple times, all AFTER the change. Aside from a few pieces of random (not current) raid gear here and there, every one is in full (or near full) NoS T3. Is it a sucky camp? Absolutely. Is it "broken"? Not in any way. It DOES require a good tank that's well geared, fully AA'd, and actually knows how to tank multiple mobs. Crowd control (mez) does make it much easier, but it's not required. A ranger and/or rogue helps make quick work of the blue con mobs. You need a full group of actual players...mercs will most likely get you killed every time. You need to set up on and pull to the stairs. You need a healer that's on top of their game and can take some hits because they WILL get beat on...a lot. You will need good dps...no "hit attack and then AFK" people. Lull/pacify as many as you can before you pull. It's possible to just focus on pulling that first group on the top floor, but you'll only be getting 1 ph a round. If you want all the ph'ers, you're probably going to have to move around the room: kill one group of mobs and take their spot, pull another group, rinse and repeat. You CAN pull all groups to the stairs, but you're gonna have kill super fast. Don't be stingy with burns...you HAVE to kill as fast as you can. There is NO downtime on this camp, if you're killing every ph'er, so make sure everyone has had their potty breaks before you start.
Im already finished with this, but wonder how you manage to pull just one group from top floor. They always seemed to have room wide social agro. Unless they changed that?
An SK tank can make this camp easier, as the Vampire dudes can be Undead Lulled. That helps with a lot of the social aggro. When we pulled that platform recently we would tend to get about half the room on the break. Shield Flash/Deflect and AE aggro and the rest is pretty easy, especially if your group uses burns. Yes, this is mostly a full group type of camp in its current form. Should it be? I don't know, but I do appreciate that at least ONE hunter camp in the whole expansion provides somewhat of a challenge.
I agree a PH on the first floor would be nice for less than ideal groups. I got the named in about 4 rounds so I never got to find an easy mode. I pulled things outside after failing to set up on the second floor (I had hoped for a smaller agro radius). But my group geared group of WAR/BRD/ROG/BZR/DRU/SHM managed to handle a brute pull of something like 7. I was surprised, I evacced the first time I saw the pull and just went for it the second time and did fine. The rogue spat out insane DPS on the human mobs so they all fell within the time of the tank's defensives. Without that DPS it may have been a lot harder. Not sure how many actually got Mezzed, not enough for sure. I was planning to move the group up to the second floor after we got confident in handling those pulls, figured we could probably keep up with the spawns on just the second floor. Failing that was going to get the bard to pull a little more gracefully than the warrior was (he just ran up, stuck his tongue out at the mobs and ran back). But we agreed to move on after one named. None of us were skillful pullers. But yes, a difficult camp to be sure.
Even though I can't say what your group did, I can say it was a maximum of 3 mezzed. Only the 3 undead mobs on the top floor are mezzable. The 7 placeholders are not ><
After a few try's I found a way to make this trivial. My group, I box 4 mages and a chanter. I removed one mage from the group and used it as out of the group DPS. I used 2 healer mercs. I stood about half way up the stairs, I never moved. I sent my Eye of Zomm up to top and targeted the vamp that's close to the stairs. I used calm on it. The first pull was the most important one by far. After I calmed the vamp I targeted the PH that was close to the stairs that was just left to my group. I got 4 mobs with this pull. My pet stonewalled the 4 incoming mobs, I made sure my pet had aggro on them, slowed them and l killed them. I didn't use my burns because this was my strat, I didn't want to kill them quickly because this set up my future pulls. Four mages and the chanters ADPS was enough DPS to get the job done. After I killed the 4 I pulled the single vamp. After that I got 3, 2 or 1 mob. I kept the floor clear of PH's Never had mana issues. At the worst I still had 95% of my mana left on all 4 of my mages. I had to kill close to 200 mobs before the named spawned. I killed it with 2 adds and won. The end.
Pacify/lull as many as you can from the stairs. Even with that, we still usually got 4 or 5; ranger headshot helps tremendously on the blue con live mobs. Trust me...it took multiple tries and a couple of deaths to figure out which ones will agro and which won't based on which one you initially pull. There's definitely a lot of trial and error involved. Again, if you don't have a tank that can handle multiple mobs, you're kinda screwed. I can't speak to how it was before they removed the bottom floor ph...we only ever did it after the change. It's all a matter of lulling and pulling one that won't agro everything. Once you get the first group cleared, the rest are much easier since you have more room to fade/split on the pulls.
What we did was clear the bottom then pull the top and fade, then pull stragglers as they pathed back up.
Yeah, we tried that first, but the respawn is so fast that the extra time it took to try and split some (some would immediately start pathing back, some would hang out downstairs for unusually long times) would mean stuff would repop on us. We gave up and just set up on the stairs.
This camp is great, but it requires a decent amount of DPS and is a pain to break. It was much better when the PHs were on the bottom. Additionally, there does seem to be a lot of pathing issues if you are pulling them to the sides of the building to kill. We've had mobs warp outside, and then agro everything on the way back.
