This is the final post I will do for EOK raids. Once you master this raid, the last two in Kor-Sha are not too bad. For some general raid advice refer to my previous posts: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/how-to-beat-queen-velazul-di-zok.244863/ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...beat-atrebes-vault.245095/page-3#post-3603436 This post will only delve into details and strats that are specific to this event. This is how my guild deals with this raid. As with many other raids, there are sometimes quite a few ways that guilds come up with that can be successful. Some of the following details and strats are intentionally simplified or alternately over-explained to take into account the intended audience of raiders that have not yet beaten or perhaps even attempted this raid yet. Raiders that have beaten these raids may find some new ideas that can be applied to make their raids run better, or they may be able to add some ideas that can improve upon my post. This strat is designed to be an easy way to beat the raid, but does not go into details on how to get the three achievements or how to beat it without breaking any shields. Some advanced raid forces do not need to break the crates for EOTD2 any longer and therefore can skip shield breaking. That is irrelevant to this post. Any replies to this post that detail how to beat the raid without breaking shields, or while breaking Flame Assaulter shields should be dismissed as far too advanced for a lower tier guild that does not have the majority of their raid decked out with EOTD2. Any mistakes or omissions I make will almost certainly be pointed out by others, so I am not sweatin it. Prep phase. At the beginning of the event three Frost Assaulters, three Flame Assaulters, Reaper and Snowblaze will be standing around waiting for you. Snowblaze is rooted and does not summon. It is not necessary to assign a tank for her at the beginning, and in fact her barrier will prevent tanking while it is up anyways. The barrier appears as a purple-ish aura around her. Reaper is the primary tanked boss on this raid. Assign a tank to each of the Frost/Flame assaulters. I choose SK's ideally for the Frost and Paladins/Warriors for the Flame. Assign chanters to place their Tash Totems right in the middle of the Assaulter spawn points. Assign Shaman to hit each Assaulter with Malo/Slow. Assign Rangers or Druids to snare each Assaulter. Assign debuffers and a Tank rotation for Reaper. Assign a Tank for the Beetle spawns. Players will be crippled by Aura of Kor-Sha until they complete Eccense of the Dragon 2. Until you complete EOTD2 your heals, melee, DD's and dots will not crit, handicapping your performance. This raid does not require EOTD1. Only the final event in the expansion requires it. Designate 6 recipients for Essence of the Dragon 2. Berserkers, Wizards, Rangers and Clerics are my top choices. Tanks bards and monks are my bottom choices. Some classes benefit far more on this raid from the crit chances than others. Note: Some of your monks might be elite players and benefit more from EOTD2 than a crappy Berserker would. Use your best judgement. Make these Audio Triggers or Gina Triggers: reaper points his blade at Maedhros = run to the Reaper! pests crawl all over your body = run NORTH up the tunnel- stay there til the debuff fades!!! snowblaze sets her gaze upon = move out of the auras! the snowblaze points and an electrical trace flows from her to Maedhros = run south into the beetle room! Obviously replace my name with yours. Most of these triggers can also be echoed in Voice-chat. Triggers are great and that's all some people need, but additional call outs in Voice-chat never hurts and often helps. Make sure your emote caller is someone that can pronounce all the names quickly and accurately FFS. Position the rest of the raid to the West and slightly North of R2 on the map. Phase 1. When you are ready to begin, do a verbal countdown in Voice-chat that goes something like this: "Tanks prepare to use Fortitude or Deflection in 5, 4, 3 , 2 , 1". Fort and Deflection will buy Assaulter tanks time to allow their mobs to be debuffed, slowed and snared before they start their kite. Kite the Frost Assaulters to the east around the scaffolding that's noted on the map. The Assaulters do a stun on the kiter and will need strong healers watching them. Placing a shaman, druid or bard in the kite groups for Spirit of Cheetah or Selo's is a good idea if you can pull it off. The Frost Assaulters will sometimes get stuck on the scaffolding while they are kited, which helps the kiters a little bit. Kite Flame Assaulters in the north part of the room intentionally away from the scaffolding. You dont want any more people near the scaffolding than necessary as the chance for Flame Auras will increase with more people present. Main tank will pull Reaper to R2 on the map. You want him out of the way so that his AE does not hit the rest of the raid while they deal with Assaulters or Beetles. Take reaper down to 90% or so. This will cause Reaper and Snowblaze to be out of balance and start the Flame Aura phase from Snowblaze. Flame Auras are far easier to deal with than the Frost Aura's that result from Snowblaze being at less hitpoint percentage than Reaper. Flame Aura's will burst after about 2 ticks and most likely kill anyone standing in them but are easy to avoid. Frost Aura's root the 3 names called out and very nearly ensure the death of those 3 people and anyone standing near them. I have survived it by calling for massive heals while going for the achievements, so it is possibly, but for the guilds that are trying to beat this for the first time the Frost Aura option should be discarded. Periodically players will be called out to move to the Reaper or run south to the Beetle room. Reaper emote will occur throughout the whole fight until reaper is dead. Lightning emote will occur until Snowblaze is dead. Reaper will port to whoever is called out and then do his AE. This is why you run to him, so you can control who gets hit by the AE. Lightning emotee will get a flashing white aura around them. Anyone who is standing in a straight line from Snowblaze to the emotee will be struck for a lot of damage. That is why the emotee runs south, so that there is most likely no one standing between them and Snowblaze. Once Reaper hits 90% begin DPS on one of the Flame Assaulters. Pull any Assaulters and the Beetle to the center of the room near the torches. Insist that people stay fairly tight to the mob that is actively being killed including casters and healers. When the flame aura hits move East or West as a group just far enough out of the aura. It is very helpful to have a caller in Voice-chat for the East/West move. Stay tight near the torches and move no farther than necessary to stay out of the auras DPS needs to be disciplined and follow the Main Assist. DO NOT damage any of the other Assaulters that are being kited, they will summon and wreck the tank. For guilds that are new to T3 EOK you will be doing terrible DPS, and almost certainly the Beetle will spawn before you ever finish that first Flame Assaulter. The Beetle spawns in the southern small room marked B on the map. You can time out the Beetle spawn with a GINA trigger but I never felt the need to track that. Pull the Beetle to the center of the room by torches and apply all dps to it as it is the highest priority mob. DPS ignore any Flame Assaulters that may be at various percentage hitpoints until the Beetle is dead. When guilds are new to T3 and doing terrible dps, the Beetle will survive for a long time and many people will get the emote to run north. Watch your buff window and do not return to the raid until the debuff drops. This is a viral manadrain and will be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome on this raid. Rince/repeat on all 3 Flame Assaulters and Beetles. Assuming your Frost Assaulter kiters live, chances are their bright blue glowing shields will be broken by the time you are finished with the Flame Assaulters. When the shields break, they appear on the ground or wall or scaffolding where the Assaulter was at the time. Search the area around and in the scaffolding for the shields. They look like the Bulwark of Many portal gate clicky, or the doors in a guild hall that you use to go to the lobby. While you're searching for the shields, apply DPS to the Frost Assaulters that have had their shields broken. When you find the shields, be sure that a class that can actually use a shield picks them off the ground. Extra knights that are not kiting are perfect for this. Find the shield in your bags and place it in your secondary slot. Run up the ramp to Snowblaze and quickly enter her barrier and retreat. Enter and retreat 3 times and your shield should break. Once all three Frost Assaulter shields have been picked up and then shattered in Snowblazes barrier, the barrier will fall. Phase 2. When all 6 Assaulters are dead and the barrier is broken on Snowblaze resume dps on both Snowblaze and Reaper. Throughout the event it is smart to have whoever is assigned to Beetle tank duty to blow a ton of agro on Snowblaze from range while the Beetles are down. She will not summon and it makes it a whole lot easier if your healers do not have to heal someone that is tanking/meleeing right at Snowblaze. Ensure that Snowblaze stays at least 10% lower HP than Reaper for the rest of the fight. You dont want any pesky Frost Aura's popping up and ruining your day if you over-dps Snowblaze. Beetles will continue to spawn throughout the whole event and must remain highest priority to kill. Because of this, there is a possibility that dot damage can over-dps on Snowblaze while Beetles are up and cause the Frost Aura phase. Avoid this by telling your dot classes to dot both Reaper and Snowblaze fairly equally or assigning dot classes evenly to each mob to stay on. Instruct the 6 players that were designated for Essence of the Dragon 2 to run up the ramp passed Snowblaze and locate one of the crates in the room behind her. These players must break the crate open with melee or direct damage spells. Do not let a pet break a crate, that sucks. Do not have a berserker run in there and hit rampage and break two or more boxes, that sucks. Do not let a cleric break the crates with their summoned hammer pet, sucks. When a player breaks the crate they are granted a buff called Unstable Potion that lasts for 5 mins iirc. Stand directly in front of Snowblaze so close that you could tank her. You must be in front of her to be hit by her frontal AE. Once you are hit enough times you will get an additional buff, Unstable Infusion. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe you need to get hit once more with Unstable Infusion to finalize the immunity for EOTD2. Healers do your best to keep these 6 players up. If they die it is almost certain that they will not get the ACH. Crate breakers must still follow emotes and avoid auras. If called to run to Reaper, do it, but stand in front of him. Both Snowblaze and Reaper frontal DD's can count towards Unstable Infusion. Players standing near Snowblaze will often get hit by the Flame Aura. I have seen the decal submerge under the ramp so that it is hard to see while standing at Snowblaze. Be aware and give quick warning in Voice-chat when this happens. Once Snowblaze hits 39% it is safe to call full dps on Reaper. After reaper dies, finish off Snowblaze. Easy enough. As always, I will be happy to talk to raid leaders via in-game mail or tells or forum messages for more specific advice pertaining to the strengths and weaknesses of your raid force. Good-luck and Happy Thanksgiving!
The "frost auras" are Freezing Pulse, a nasty DoT/snare/silence that targets three people. If you can keep those three people alive until the DoT refreshes, that refresh also hits the Flame Assaulters. This is how you break Flame Shields. Freezing Pulse will not AE spread to other players. We positioned most of the raid almost under the ramp (close to where you have R2 marked), reducing the damage/drain effect of Emanating Flames to almost nothing. Energy Shock is blocked by line of sight (and AE blasts around the target, not a beam effect, the emote is misleading), so hiding under the ramp prevents any damage from that. Beetles were brought west of the torches, but not into the raid to prevent the viral drain. You must break at least 3 shields to have enough fragments to cancel the snowblaze's Concussive Barrier aura. Shield fragments have to enter the aura a total of 9 times for collapsing the aura. Once you have the Unstable Infusion buff, that's all you need to acquire Essence of the Dragon II achievement, becoming immune to the zone aura. It no longer matters if you die, the achievement will still be awarded on event completion. Once this event is on farm and everybody is immune to the zone aura, Kar`Zok tanks will find it useful to break boxes so that they are immune to the Breath of Atrebe spell until Unstable Infusion wears off. Just one less nuke to worry about. Remember that Snowblaze 10% less than Reaper means Cold Rage, and Reaper 10% less than Snowblaze means Fiery Rage.
Great post again, Maed. Not how I got my first win, but should be a good way to get one nonetheless. One thing to note... and I'm truly sorry to the monks who don't have EotD2 yet... but... I know you've noted monks being on the bottom of your list. Just to explain it: monks crit the least out of all classes, which means we suffer the least in terms of crit loss, which also means we gain the least DPS. Don't give it to monks until your raid force is established. When it comes time to burn, monks can use Purify to rid themselves of the aura that hinders crits. However, this is very quickly reapplied, so make sure you time it properly. Good luck!
minor thing: you want to keep Reaper 10% lower HP than Snowblaze. you said it and implied it elsewhere, but this statement may confuse
Thank you for pointing that out, yes that was a mistake. Keep Reaper lower unless you're going for the Freezing Rage Achievement.
That's interesting, as we did the exact opposite for class choices. After Koryu's notes I can't see anything else you may have missed in the writeup.
Yeah, our choice was mostly related to how the raid tool had us arranged and less about specific tank tools.
I prefer to have paladins on Flame Assaulters so they can get back to splash heals asap. SKs are also incredibly more effective as kiters than paladins and always have been, so putting SKs on the mobs that I have planned to require the longest kiting makes a lot of sense.
You don't have to kite them. However that is a choice. A lot of things just depend on a guilds make up, strengths and strat.
You know your raiders much better than I do. Factors extrinsic to the output of /who may very justifiably inform your choice of tank assignments. I can testify that those other factors completely dominate my decisions. Using tank class in the way you do to justify these calls, though, does not make a lot of sense. The healing of paladin Splash is completely obsoleted by priest alliances. It is an invaluable, puissant curing tool, but there's nothing here to cure. Kiting is traditionally a SK role, but at this point basically based on mythology and socialization. Of course you may have players that have developed relevant skills based on your assigning them the role over and over, but that's not a class feature. There's no "incredible" baked-in kiting ability. Frost Assaulters unavoidably have their 80% reflect shields on through the critical first three minutes, significantly impacting SK self healing ability. Paladin self-healing does not need to be cast via the reflecting mobs, and with Grief-Sorrow-Dicho is large and immediate, particularly relevant in the aftermaths of the three Emanating Flames AEs that Frost kiters must endure.
Yes you could absolutely tank all the mobs rather than kite. Keep in mind the intended audience though. The first time ROTE beat this, it took us 38:48. After getting fully geared and pretty much everyone having EOTD2, our best time got down to 10:49 so far. Most of the guilds that beat it from here on out will likely be after hitting 110, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to beat the raid, but I suspect at best it wont be faster than 30 minutes even at 110 without anyone having EOTD2. Why tank Assaulters for 20+ minutes that can be kited? Mana is the number one consideration for a guild that hasn't beaten Kar`Zok yet. Tanking all those Assaulters is an unnecessary drain on healers. It's not just knowing my raiders, it is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the classes. You're also apparently forgetting what its like to do this raid without EOTD2 even though its only been 3 and a half months since you first beat it. You're telling me that paladins are just as up to the task of kiting as SKs by utilizing our Grief line and Dicho? Quick way to get OOM with all the manadrain on this event. Those are extremely heavy mana cost spells and additionally each have very long recast times. The mana issue gets better over time as your get more people their EOTD2 but it is a very immediate and present issue when a guild hasn't yet beaten this. Paladins can kite on this raid but they will never be better at it than SK's. You are overselling the Healer Alliances, they certainly have not obsoleted paladin splash every 18 seconds. You are also completely missing the usefulness of paladin for the additional patch heals/group heals we can do as long as we are not kiting. This raid is inherently chaotic even after having farmed it for almost 10 months. You're going to benefit far more from additional paladin heals than you ever would from paladin kiting.
Note for wizards that some of our spells can't be reflected by those flame assaulter shields. Like these: Shocking Vortex Rimeblast Cascade Hoarfrost Cascade Alliance Self Combustion Splash of Pyroxene Silverstorm/Skyblaze Pillar AA Nukes
Kiting makes this easier. For us, tanking them worked too though at the start - and better than kiting even. For us. I like that you even suggest kiting here though, when for Queen you called it "getting cute"... I don't think these can be "oversold" - only "underemployed". With alliances on the add tanks, you almost need no AE heals anymore (or at least drastically reduce their need) AND can single-heal more for more. Basically, even Rangers can AE heal that way, and the small heals from alliance add up too. Totally have to agree with this one. We didn't win this until we stuck PALs into the tank groups not to primarily tank, but for their additional heals (and their aura). With the added benefit of having a "spare" tank in the group who could catch a dead tank's mobs quickly and buy some time for the rez-rebuff. (i.e. for a reduced chance of a loose mauling the raid which was our number one killer/wiper)
Its not an exciting role that's for sure but it does really pay off. The extra healing (being proactive and not reactive) can make a huge difference. The only job here is keep your group alive and use every mana reclaim ability you can when they come available. Use the mana cost reduction abilities also to help extend that mana pool.
oop, lil' misinfo here. Alliances fire on priest(cle/dru/shm) heals only, not hybrid ones. Punchline is the same, but off on that detail Aura - Armor - Spire are a big deal especially before heals are critting, as base heal amount is more meaningful than normal. Ditto bard Pulse song, you may apportion bards differently if tanking is challenging. If your raid has such a spread of tanks that you don't have to use Paladins to take hits, I envy you
This also works for the Enchanter MindXXX nuke line! Super valuable information for the 10 remaining raid Enchanters in EQ!
hmm. Right. I forgot about 10: Limit Caster Class: CLR 11: Limit Caster Class: DRU 12: Limit Caster Class: SHM somewhere in time... Thanks for the catch
Thank you. We just put our first real night into this event. We've 'tried' it before but that was months ago and without a full raid. We totally attempted tanking everything and tanking beetles all the way across the room. I can't believe they are snareable. Bwahahaahahaha... hahaha... ha. Yeah, knowing they are snareable changes things. I'm not getting cocky about it, but that will make things much different. I edited out the bit about the initial post accidentally saying to keep the Snowblaze 10% lower since I see another already brought it up.
Tanking beetles away from the raid can only make the raid slower at killing them. Definitely bring them right to your fighting force.
