Not so Hollow Victory

In the HoT/Well mission "What Lies Below" there's a conquest achievement called "Hollow Victory", won by beating the final boss while afflicted with Barren Soul.

After attempting this innumerable times, thinking I was just resisting it (going in stark naked...mmm dark elf butt...with only enough gear to survive the DoT, like 2 pieces of equipment) I finally decided to actually look back at the logs....it's not that I'm resisting it....he isn't casting it. Or Soul Siphon that triggers it... or anything. At all. And I've sat there and held him tanked for like 10 minutes before until finally getting bored and just killing him.

I've been trying this periodically (It's not a huge deal, not needed for Bunny just a title, so maybe twice a month) for the last four months or so. So if it really is bugged it's been bugged for quite awhile. Before I submit an actual bug report, can anyone that has done this or tried this achievement recently confirm that he is, indeed, casting his DoTs or anything at all? Is there something stupid I missed that is supposed to make him fire them off?

Not really sure what to say to this. I can tell you that we did the achievement back in early September and it worked fine. Our fight lasted 2 minutes, during which 3 of the four players were hit 4 times, while the last (a box, who didn't engage from the start, for fear of killing the boss before we all got hit) got hit twice. From my logs, it looks to have landed every 30 seconds on each person, starting with the point when that person first engaged the mob. (So not all getting hit at the same time.) Hope that helps.

Yeah I dunno It's really weird. I have nothing filtered off (I do parses from time to time or to mess around so I have everything displayed), I was catching every single other npc in the game casting spells, players too, and pets. I have max leadership AAs so I can see exactly what spells are being cast. But I fought him for like 3 or 4 minutes this time before just saying screw it, killing him out of anger (all while still naked lol) and evacing to avoid a 6 hour lockout. But loading up the parses, not only through Gamparse but doing a Find in Notepad++ of the log too, nowhere did he cast any spells at all.

Maybe it's just bugged on Test? Wouldn't be a first... lol

Could it be that he won't cast it on the tank, and you being the only one in the zone means you're the tank?

Just a thought.

I don't think so. I had my bard along too, to request it and for Selos to run around, summoned her on top of me for the fight, also stark naked for resists (not that bard's aren't practically 100% resistant to all spells in EQ =.= lol ).

according to lucy, barren soul also does zombie illusion. just as a maybe, were you already in illusion form? perhaps there is a conflict and it wont cast it if you have illusion on already. person posted that if you have high corruption resists you can resist it easily - try dropping that ( in case something is wrong with yoru logs and you just don't see it trying to cast). grasping at straws here.

^^ Once upon a time, that was the preferred trick to beating the encounter. Just illusion yourself and Barren Soul won't land on you. Dunno iwhether it was ever changed to overwrite other illusions.

My pet had an illusion but that's it.

Just tried again. Did pretty much every conceivable thing in the book.

Took off nearly all armor. Enough to half my HP, cut my resists down to 500, corruption as low as it can possibly get (considered /resetaa to get rid of Corruption AA since I'm on Test). Did the same for the bard
No illusions or pet illusions
Mercs on passive.....mercs suspended.
Pull him out of the tunnel -- keep him in the tunnel
Killing all mobs in the zone -- leaving most mobs up.
Mage physically tanked instead of pet tanked.
No bard songs.
No buffs that were recourses of illusions (Gunthak Grit, Elemental Forms etc)
No buffs at all
Filtered "Spells - Other" to another window on top of pulling up logs. Can see "Yourmerc begins to cast a spell. <Cleric spell>" at a farther distance than i ever was from them mob...no attempted casts from him

Fought him for about 5-minutes. /removeplayers task. =.=

I think it's bugged lol. Ugh it's my last one too.

Well it probably is bugged but for future reference taking off gear and such wont matter because the spell is unresistable thankfully, meaning even bards will get hit by it if he casts it. I remember when the mob was current that he generally casts the spell pretty early in the fight.

It's possible he's somehow setup so that he wont cast the spell on level 100 characters, but that would be odd. There also were some major changes when CoTF came out and also in a recent patch that inexplicably changed a bunch of spells mobs cast(the latest patch changed bixie warfront mob abilities tuning them way up) so something probablaly accidentally happened to break that ability like how ashengate mobs were casting the really powerful headshot spell when COTF launched.

If i get some time to play I might go try this mission later tonight and see if it's working still on live servers.

I got the achievement first try just now so it may only be broken on test server. I had 2 mages and one cleric merc and i charged with my main mage and started meleeing from the start never once hitting pet attack and i just melee'd until he used his ability and it hit everyone. After the first ability landed I put my merc on pasive so that he would not cure it and after the 30 second dot faded it 'doomed' into the illusion / debuff necessary for the achievement. After this i just burned him down and the achievement unlocked unlocked for the character that lacked the achievement as soon as he died.

Mob is supposed to cast Soul Siphon, which subsequently casts Barren Soul 3 ticks later upon Soul Siphon fading. Soul Siphon being PBAE range 200, it would be just about impossible to miss it parsing log. If you're not seeing Soul Siphon casting in the first place, its bugged/broken.

My initial thought was that group heals or an aura was curing Soul Siphon before it manifested Barren Soul.

Are you killing it before the zombie fades?

That's not the problem. The problem was he wasn't casting it at all.

HOWEVER

This is what did it for me. I don't know for certain if this was actually the problem but the one time it worked (and the ONLY time I've seen him cast the spell at all. Ever) was just now when I tried it by going in and tanking him on the mage without ever engaging my pet. He casted Soul Siphon as he should and it triggered. It seems, however, that you CAN resist it. Oddly enough. But yeah, from the looks of things it seems he won't even try to cast Soul Siphon if a pet is on the aggro list, or at least tanking him. At least not for me. Quite possibly one of the more ironic moments in my EQ career. TRYING to get AEd and being upset when it doesn't cast.

At any rate achievement earned and problem solved! HoT conquest done! All that's left is Hunter's. Once again, I love you Falos!