I re-performed this mission today without mez. Your group setup has high survivability, I think you can do it. Once you get the Captain to spawn, have everybody enter the hallway behind where she spawns and go around the corner to break line of sight before you hail her. You can hail her at that distance, even while invis, to update the step. Wait until the guards all rush over to beat up the elf priestess, leaving the Captain by herself. You can now step out and fight her where she's standing or pull her over towards the doorway. Do not pull her into the doorway at any time, she will leash, reset to full health, and strip herself of all your debuffs. When you get her down to 80% health, she will call over the first guard. All of the guards will now be on your extended target window, but only one guard should come over to assist the Captain. Switch to the guard, kill it, then take the Captain down to 70%. Keep doing this, alternating between the Captain until she calls for another guard, then kill the guard that comes to assist her. Be aware that once you get through three of the guards singly, your group may have enough heal aggro built up that the remaining guards will come at once. Have your healer fade, or be ready to catch all of the incoming guards and push some all-out tanking/burns. If you do get all of the guards, there is no reason to hold back against the Captain anymore; she hits hard and has a nasty nuke + DoT, so finish her off before resuming your focus on the guards.
Koryu, Thank you very much for taking the time to write this up. On our attempt all the guards came at 80% on her first call. I wish it were as you described that would be far more manageable. I guess my positioning caused all the guards to come at her 80% call? I will try to go around the corner on the next attempt/ Thank you again.
I had issues with this but eventually made it through it. I tried a few times using a fellowship camp in the instance which worked ok as long as you don't die in the same area as it was. Which was my case. I eventually summoned my corpse and sent my warrior in with a healer long enough for my other two characters could zone in. My normal group I run boxed is a warrior, shaman, enchanter, 2x dps caster and a healer.
Not about easy mode. It's about the game being VERY OLD and all of the players being 15 year older now and not so gung ho into the game. You are correct the original game would die fast if released today. For very good reasons. People who lived in eq 24/7 in the early days either don't play or play a lot less. The game has to adapt. I have done progression up to this mission and haven't tried it yet but I think some progression will be too hard for other players. Progresion that keeps a large part of the playerbase out of zones is BAD for the game even if it might make a few people happy to be part of an exclusive club. Problem is those who get past these missions are not enough to keep the game afloat. Just a thought.
For Burden of the Past, you can also separate some of the guards using pet pulling (mages for sure, not sure on others). For both the initial sets of adds and the final round with the Captain, you can send in your pet on the outside edge mob, don't do anything but let the pet get high enough on the aggro meter and when you see the name change on the aggro meter to the pet, then bring the pet back to you and only that mob will come. (Later on as someone said you might get a couple because aggro grew high enough overall). For the captain, you can hide at the front of the chapel in one of the sides out of line of sight of the captain. If you get her aggro, just back up (staying out of line of sight-can use one of the pillers for guidance) and she'll leash. Then use the same pet technique on the guards until the guards are all dead. Then just engage the captain.
Thanks for the additional strats. For myself I don't mind some of the harder progression. I do have to sit back and think through strats on some of them but that's fun.
Grats Corwyhn. What group makeup did you have and how did you end up pulling it off? (This was my 2nd least favorite mission so far, almost 3rd) and I'm only Thuli flagged.
. Paladin druid cleric mage wiz and chanter. Pulled the Captain into the pit. Then had group in armoury while chanter was in hall casting group mez on guards... had mage coh as chanter started mez spell and did that a couple times until we were sure all the guards were mezzed then rest was simple. Oh did something similar with the earlier waves of guards.. if they were mezzed and me blurred they generally went back to their seats in the pews and then could be single pulled.
Did this with a warrior and monk. Had cleric mercs. Set up warrior (me) and the clerics in the NE corner of the room. Monk did the hail and headed to group in the NE. Guards attack elf NPC and Captain is stationary at spawn point. Make sure you have a pillar between the group and the Captain (line of sight blocked). Monk pulls guards one at a time to the NE corner to kill. It is kinda tricky to pull, so just be patient. If you wipe, the monk can maybe survive the login and run to the SE corner to recover and continue.
I hide behind a pillar to do the final hail. Then, wait for the guards become busy with the npcs in the game. Once that is done, you can then move the Captain around. If you move him to far, he will warp back. At this time, several options, one is to burn the Captain down, CCing the adds as then came in, other is to get the captain into the pit, deal with the adds then finish he captain off. First time I did it, as a ranger, for first waves, other then the wave with the boss, I would punt one mob, and leash the others, allowing them to reset. I would repeat this till there was a manageable number of mobs incoming to the group. Mobs could be punted to the side, back or into a pit. Once the waves are somewhat split into manageable pulls the group moves up and gets them dead. For the boss wave, we burned the boss, while I punted the adds and rooted them with vinelash. In retrospect, I like the idea of punting the boss into the pit, dealing with the adds, then dealing with the boss without the adds. In case you have to recover, the best way is to zone in with lev. This way you spawn into the instance above the NPC and have a second or so to get your bearing before stuff agros. Key there is to get out of the room. One option is to zone in with a brainless warrior merc who loves to agro everything. Merc sacrifices themselves, while you get out. Best way to pull corpses, pretarget using an eye. If you have a shaman / enchanter, and magician, then have shaman or magician pretarget stuff. Run up and totem / stasis, move corpses, have magician coth shaman / chanter out before totem / stasis wears off. DA also works for running in, pulling stuff, and then leasing stuff. One thing to watch for is balance of the nameless being cast on whom ever has agro and does the leasing, that can be mitigated with DA / heals over time, delayed heals and spell shields.
