All the monsters in the missions have a melee-aggro flag, and they will ignore pets if a character (actual playable or mercenary) is within the mob melee range. So the pet-tanking requires a range dps, if no actual plated tank is in the group. Mean Streets mission: Position the group on the bridge, about 150-200 steps outside the quest NPC. A character, capable of range-slow (a spell, an AA, or a thrown item) runs to location 1 and pull thugs with the slow. The red-con Jak will leash back and lose aggro, while the thug will run to the group and gets killed. Each camp has 2 thugs, 1 can be baned, 1 can not. They are spawned always in the same spots, so after a few attempts the puller will know which one to bane on the pull. After the thug from Location 1 is killed, repeat for Location 2. At this time it is possible to dispatch the fake Jaks in the Locations 1 and 2. Jak swaps every 2 mins and 40 secs, so the group can reposition close to the Location 1 and wait for the swap. Once it happens - verify that the fake Jake is in Location 1 and engage. You have 2 mins 40 seconds to finish Jak off. It is important to kill the fake before the next swap, if it is still alive and real Jak swaps in its place (which is a 33% chance, it can swap into any location) the mission turns ugly. Once Jak at Location 1 is dead, reposition toward Location 2 and wait for the swap. If the fake Jak is at Location 2 after the swap - engage and kill it just as before. After Locations 1 and 2 are clear, reposition inside the city, just north from the Pool in front of the palace entrance. That is simply a convenient place to be, pick your own battle camp. Pull thugs from Location 3 and Location 4 to the group and kill them. Jaks will leash back to their camps. Reposition the group near Location 3 outside the aggro range and wait for the swap. If the fake is swapped to Location 3 - engage it and kill under 2 mins and 40 seconds, same as prior fake Jaks. Once it dies the reset times starts ! You have about 30 seconds to engage the real Jak at Location 4. Good thing - all thugs and fakes are already dead, so the group simply runs to 4 and engages the real Jak. The fight has time-based spawns and health-based spawns. It seems that tigers (can be baned with slow) are time-based, and "a flickering illusion" of Jak are percent-based. Illusions attack for about 10-15 seconds then despawn. If dps is very high it can be several illusions at once. No need to burn, jsut steady kill. At 35% Jak spawns "an illusion" Jaks at Locations 1,2 and 3. Those illusions have very low HP and an average mob dps. A pet class can typically kill them under 20 secs with no healer. The goal is to send a character to Locations 3, 2 and 1 and kill illusions quickly. Meanwhile the group grinds Jak down to 22% of health, at which point it spawns another set of illusions. This time that character kills illusions at Locations 1, 2 and 3 and joins the group at 4 to finish off Jak. At 7% Jak spawns the last set of illusions, which can be ignored while finishing off Jak. After real Jak is dead the mission updates and the chest is spawned. The last 3 illusions are still up and annoyingly aggressive. Kill them at 3-2-1 at your convenience. This will grant 2 achievements. The 3rd one (Cut off the Head) requires 4 thugs to still be alive when real Jak dies. I do it with a ranger, a mage and a beastlord (can be substituted with and FD-capable class with ranged "slow" to bane thugs) The initial round of banes are done by the beastlord casting slow, then playing possum and the mage CotH'ing to clear aggro. Once 4 baneable thugs are gone - the ranger game begins. Starting at Location 4, the ranger Entraps the thug and kites him to the far end of Norther bridge, then the mage CotHes the ranger. Then the ranger Entraps and kites the thug from Location 3 to the same North bridge. Now, the the ranger kites the thug from Location 2 to the throne room of the palace. At this time the group can go and kill the fake Jak at Location 2 after the swap. Once the group is back on the bridge, the ranger Entraps and kites the thug from Location 1 to the palace. At this time Entrapment needs to be refreshed, as it only lasts 14 mins. The ranger runs to the north bridge and re-snares 2 thugs. After coth the ranger runs to the palace and re-snares 2 thugs in the throne room. After the swap the group kills fake Jak at Location 1, the after another swap kills the fake Jak at Location 3. Same as described above the mission proceeds, while 4 thugs are snare-parked away from the Jak spawn locations.
All the monsters in the missions have a melee-aggro flag, and they will ignore pets if a character (actual playable or mercenary) is within the mob melee range. So the pet-tanking requires a range dps, if no actual plated tank is in the group. Under Siege mission: The major annoyance in this mission is the aura around golems. It has a conical shape, which enables the trick: standing on a bridge rail between initial and "step one" position of golems (I'll explain why) and completely avoid the aura. Before the mission starts the group gather in front of the boss mob for preparation: place the fellowship camp, put pets on "guard" and put all 5 mobs (4 akheva and the boss) on ETW. Once done - the mage group coth onto the rail. The layout is symmetrical, so West or East side is just a choice. One character need to run back to the city side of the bridge to trigger the fight. Once triggered, 2 akhevans become active (2 closest to the boss, positioned slightly outward). Tank and offtank them with pets. Kill them one after another with a zeal (no burning yet). Once those 2 are dead, 2 more akhevans activate, tank and offtank those with pets. Send the pets to tank as soon as possible, the pathing is not perfect and there is z-axis involved as the group stands on a rail. Don't let akhevans run around freely. All 4 akhevans are typical NoS mobs - about 70 mil HP, average dps. Pets tank those easily with merc heals. Before the 4th dark-blue akheva dies make sure the main tank targets the boss and sends the pet to tank it. Do not let the boss run around on its own, things can get nasty. The boss has about 240 mil HP, and pet tanks it regularly. Every 60 seconds the boss casts Dimming Heart, which needs to be dealt with. Diring the fight some tegi adds spawn 1 at a time, can be offtanked for the entire fight, or can be be killed depending on your group make-up. If the boss is still alive in about 3 mins or so the things get weirder - it jumps to the middle of the bridge after some event message about "calling for help" and tries to engage the city defendants if left without a tank, so the pet needs to be resend to attack it until it grabs aggro. It makes sense to just burn the boss down once it engages (after adds die). This makes the things simple. Some special notes: golems walk along the bridge toward the "majority" of the group. So if the group is standing on the rail between golems' steps 0 and 1 (initial position and first step), then the golems go BACK to initial positions as the second step. And then go back forward again. and then back again. Basically - dancing around far end of the bridge. Pets are completely immune to the aura, so golems become just spectators. Dimming Heart is the mission debuff. Once it lands the character has about 30 seconds to run back to the city guards, target any "spiritist" and /say HELP to get debuff removed. This is required for the personal achievement, also, if not removed the debuff does some big damage (survivable) and spawns some nasty shade add (also survivable). Basic idea - kill 4 akhevans 2 at a time, then burn the boss down under 2 mins, while offtanking pesky adds. Once the boss dies all the adds despawn.
All the monsters in the missions have a melee-aggro flag, and they will ignore pets if a character (actual playable or mercenary) is within the mob melee range. So the pet-tanking requires a range dps, if no actual plated tank is in the group. When One Door Closes mission: Gather the group in the center of the large room where the fight will happen and prepare by putting pets on "guard", placing the fellowship campfire, bard's Echo aura etc. Step back toward the quest npc toward the corridor. The distance should be far enough to not get hit by mob's melee and close enough to cast shorter-range spells. Once ready - a character talks to the quest npc to trigger the event. The boss blob (Mutable Monstrosity) spawns at the closed door and attacks. intercept it with the pet in the vicinity of the campfire (the zone is laggy, so make sure the tanking pet is engaged firmly). Start the burn: send all those swarm pets, do the debuffs, summon pet hosts (Pet attack for the ranger, Attack of the warders for a beastlord, host of Elements for a mage, Song of Stone for a bard etc.). And then TURN your BACK to the boss mob to avoid rooster's stun. Burn-burn-burn! At 2 minute mark the vortex (swirling stones) add spawns deep in the corridor and heads toward the room. It is inactive until it walks all the way in, which means if you have a pet class assigned to offtanking the add it has to /pet attack repeatedly until the add activates and the pet engages. Otherwise the add will become lose and do nasty. The add can be "cured" to get bane'd, which is an achievement. I use bard's Aura of Absolution, which removes all debuffs (poison, disease, curse and corruption), which is quite convenient. Another achievement is to avoid (run outside of it) red aura the boss periodically (about every 60 seconds with complications) casts on a single character. If no characters (including mercenaries) avoid being hit with the aura then the group will get the achievement.
All the monsters in the missions have a melee-aggro flag, and they will ignore pets if a character (actual playable or mercenary) is within the mob melee range. So the pet-tanking requires a range dps, if no actual plated tank is in the group. Spirit Fades mission: Gather in the middle of the cave room and prepare (pets on "guard", campfire etc) The group gathers on top of the large boulder next to Shea. The event phases (3) gets triggered by aiding Grakaw. Heal it, Cast a major statistics buff on it, cure it (again, paladin or bard remove all, so I am not sure is that a curse or corruption) There are 2 mutually-exclusive achievements: trigger phases by Stat buff, Heal, Cure, or the sequence Heal, Cure, Stat buff. Once one of those is cast the phase begins. The phase boss spawns. Heal spawns a worm - just kill it. Cure spawns a gnawer (floating teeth with a tail) - kill it (it has the achievement tied to it). Stat buff spawns large Blob. Those bosses spawn at the Grakaw and after a bit engage the group. Also, there is 30 seconds timer between the phases, must trigger next or the task resets. The blob is nasty. It spawns 5 mini-blob adds at approximately 85,75,65,55 and 45 %. Adds sit for about 10 seconds idle then engage. Kill them, or things will get even worse. At 40 % (please note, the last add spawns at 45%) the boss blob becomes idle for about 15 seconds, then splits into 2 large blobs (just as nasty boss mobs). Each blob spawns adds at 70%, 35% and 5%. So the plan is to offtank the second big red blob with a second pet. Spawn the add at 70% of the first blob, kill it, keep grinding the first red blob down to 35%, kill the second add, grind the boss down to 5%, kill the third add, finish the big blob. Now focus on the second red blob. Repeat killing adds at 70 %, 35% and 5%. One the boss of the third phase dies the task locks, so you must add your alts, friends, guildies before that. Adds can be targeted by /target LESS The gnawer boss (spawned by Cure) periodically (every 60 seconds) casts some debuff on a random character. That character needs to run outside the large green aura before the debuff expires. That character will get an individual achievement if it does it every time it was cast on him. Since the achievement is individual if more than 1 character needs it this phase may be looong. the pet with a mercenary healer can tank that gnawer indefinitely, so everybody can have a chance for the achievement. conveniently - the person who cleared the debuff can zone outside by talking to shea and asking to [leave]. this way the debuff in 60 seconds will be casted on somebody else. They can zone back in for the next phase. Also, the characters who are in the task and not contributing to the fight may wait outside and zone in after the chest spawns for the achievements, flags, coins, loot etc. Everybody needs to do this mission at least 2 times for Savior and do it with 2 different sequences.
