Venril Sathir - unfair roadblock for some classes

TheSpin wrote:

1) my guild kills trak and dont expect any wipes when we go into VS for mythical updates. Typically its always a first pull
2) He became easier, not harder. Originally fatalisis and toxic could hit within 1 second of each other without enough time to cure. They changed that and made dots NOT trigger the fear making him easier
3) obviously mythicals make the fight easier, but so just better gear in general. We first pulled this mob plenty of times before mythicals.
4) I went to do VS a couple weeks ago with a friends guild who never killed him (i was playing an alt). And you wanna guess the reason they couldn't kill him? People are dumb and stay too low on power or get themselves feared at wrong times. Healers DPSing the named when toxic was incoming, etc. Not because the mob was hard, but because the raid wasn't working together as they should be.

mikeyswizz wrote:

First, you assume I am speaking only from experience. My guild has killed Venril many times, and have a pretty solid strategy, however, it is hardly an enjoyable encounter. Most other RoK encounters are at least fun to revisit occasionally, but Venril is avoided like the plague.
Secondly, why do you feel the need to insult people? Is this how you talk to your guildmates?

To the OP... you got him from 65% to 20%... just do what you did there for 20% longer... your so close its silly to create a thread to complain about it
My guild is one of the most casual on the server in terms of raiding and have only been doing it for a little more than 4 months, Just killed Venril on the 3rd pull our 3rd time into the zone. Was it hard? hell yeah it was hard... makes ya just that much more proud for killing it. Hell when I was in a full time raiding guild we spent way more tries than that doing it, and overking too! so your point that stricter raid guilds had it easier is untrue... well except for the fact that they called people out for not paying attention so that you could wise up before they had to replace you... your in a caual guild... appreciate what you have.
Its not just a roadblock for a couple of classes... its a roadblock for any guild that raids... go ahead and piss off your Coercers and Troubs... see how much longer your able to raid hehe
clearing VP and still not going back? I'd suggest you find another guild if your this burnt on it.

Lindar@Antonia Bayle wrote:

We're not burnt out on him yet and are still trying. However, I can see a time when we will visit far less frequently in order to concentrate more on VP and TSO as we should be doing. So, I will probably be lucky and get my update. It's going to be that much harder for people coming up behind though.
Yes, we're close. The point of the thread though was why should it take weeks and weeks of tries (40+pulls atm) to get down a T2 mob, when we can do Druu the first weekend that we try him and Nex on the 2nd visit - it just shows VS is out of line for T2. As I said in a previous post, I'd have no complaints with the fight at all (well, apart from it not being fun) if it was in Levi's spot or in VP. But where he is most classes can skip on by and they do.
After I get my Myth (and I will), I'll still have this view - unlike those here that say he's fine as the roadblock he is because they have their myth and begrudge others getting theirs.

riks@Nektulos wrote:

Banditman wrote:

Yes, it will summon adds if the person it happens to has enough hitpoints/prewards to survive the damage taken, because that person is now near dead with 0 power.
But, if you look at it that way, then in reality the only fail condition is getting the hitpoints of the entire raid to -160 (or die or wipe). The most probable cause of this happening is spawning the two epic adds.

Methods (as far as I remember when doing the encounter over half a year ago) of getting two epic adds:
- If you forget to click the clicky statues in time it will spawn adds
- If Venril reaches 90% health while the clicky statues are up it will spawn adds
- If you forget to use the Mistmyrian Soulcube at 65% health it will spawn adds
- After Venril is below 60% health, if you are not staying above 30% power (or 20% depending on the source) might (most likely) spawn the adds
- If you go above 60% power (or 67% again depending on the source) you will get zapped for a health and power drain, leaving you near dead with 0 power (the raid is more lucky if you get one-shotted)
- If you get hit by Mana Sacrifice and use too much power and brings you below the threshold
- If you get hit by the opposite effect of Mana Sacrifice and get too much power and brings you over the threshold
- If the tank get hit by Hateful Concussion (and not resisting) draining for 12%-22% power instantly
To add there is of course the situation if you fail to cure the Toxic Infusion before you get hit by Fatalis a few seconds later, and you will get a big disease damage and that person probably ends up dead. Ressurrecting (unless AA special stuff is used) or reviving will leave you with too low power.
Now, add the effects of the random 8% chance to get feared whenever you do damage to Venril, and the AOE stun Venril does at intervals to those closest people, and the random chance to get any spells reflected back at you or the group.
Watching the power wouldn't be that difficult if it weren't for all the added random effects that tries its best to hinder you in having the correct amount of power.

Highly annoying fight? Indeed, at least in my personal opinion.
Difficult encounter? In my opinion, not really, but affected by luck. It requires the attention of the entire raid, and not get unlucky with any power drains/fears/reflects. Unlike all other raid encounters in RoK (except Trakanon) you can not allow for a single person to get distracted for a few moments or any ninja AFKs, even emergency ones. Which is why I would believe it does seem so out of bounds in "difficulty" for the RoK raid encounters.

Like was mentioned in this thread already, Monk, Fury, Mystic, Troubadour, Ranger, Coercer, and Conjuror needs Venril Sathir for their mythical weapon.
Is for example an assassin that needs Tairiza (Thuuga), Leviathan and Druushk more worthy of the mythical weapon than a ranger that needs Tairiza (Thuuga), Venril and Phara Dar?
I agree with the Original Poster. Our guild has killed Venril two times the last year. We do not have any plans at all to go back unless a new recruit would need Venril for their mythical. And we still occasionally do PR, Thuuga, Pawbuster, Overking, Leviathan. Although less now that we try to spend some time with the TSO raids.

I've always wondered who came up with the smart idea of having one person stand in a corner clicking statues while the rest of the raid fights it out. That person can even be out of raid and is then apparently not even affected by the power watch (not tried this).
The only approach to this fight if you are having problems is to find and remove all the reasons that cause you to fail one by one. If its a person not being able to watch their power, have them only auto attack and keep power at 50% or if even that fails have them not revive and lie dead on the floor when you kill him. Otherwise do what it takes from banning green noxious spells that can be reflected to avoiding the fear to timing/parsing Mana Sacrifice and dealing with it like it were an AoE that has to be jousted (call out on voice before and after it hits).

LHFOwner2 wrote:

Hi, I found an issue.
40 pulls is 2 nights worth of raiding.
8 minutes (long enough to kill him) for the attempt itself and 2 minutes to revive and rebuff means 10 minutes between pulls means 40 pulls is a little over 6.5 hours of raiding. Even if you raid twice a week for 3 hours a night, 40 pulls should be a little over a weeks worth of pulls.
if your not putting everything in to this encounter, don't expect too much back from it in a hurry. its a mob that requires practise more than anything, and 40 pulls is not that many.

My guild was well over 100 pulls when we finally killed it. This mob is really not that hard, it's simply very strict in terms of one fail condition. Since the game tells you who is screwing up, you single those people out and tell them to go stand in a corner with the following instructions:

1. You stand here.
2. Get your power down to 50%.
3. If your power gets back up to 60%, click Sprint on and immediately back off.
4. Do nothing else.

If they cannot follow those instructions, kick them from the raid. They are not worthy of being in a raid.

TheSpin wrote:

Precisely.

Banditman wrote:

My guild had about 30 pulls before we got him. Now when we go back we just have the toons who cause the problems just sit thru the fight as the core of us know what to do .
He really is an easy fight as long as people can listen to what the raid leader says which you will need to learn as you progress futher into VP anyway this fight is just about TEAM work.
But i do know every time we go there i do expect to die at least once lol !!!

Asif wrote:

This fight is the antithesis of team work. Overking requires teamwork. Nexona requires teamwork. Venril involves 24 individuals performing independently of each other.

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

I agree, but probably not in the way either of you would like.
Venril was originally intended to be the first roadblock in RoK raid progression. A competant guild should be able to kill every mob up to him on their first pull, as there is no challange up to this point. As the first of several roadblocks in RoK, he did a fantastic job, and the fact that every single player needed to kill him to get in to CoD made it as effective as it was.
The problem is, people complained and got him sidelined in progression. Now he is no longer a roadblock in RoK progression, he is just a roadblock for a few classes when gaining their mythical. I say set him back to being a required kill for CoD access, and remove CoD and VP access from any character that has not killed him.
Get him right back in progression where he should be.

Dasein wrote:

Feeding power to those that require it is teamwork, as is having a non MT group healer throw a reactive or ward on the MT if the MT healer is unable. This fight may require less teamwork than some other raids, but to say it involves none is simply wrong.

Noaani wrote:

Just about every fight requires that or similar things, so I suppose Venril requires the minimal amount of teamwork expected in any raid encounter.

Noaani wrote:

The idea of creating roadblocks in progression seems like a good way to lose players and little else.

Dasein wrote:

Only if players arn't interested in meeting a challange, which is what raiding in an MMO is all about.
Anyone that is not willing to put forth the effort required for an undertaking, reguardless of what that undertaking may be, will end up quitting. This is not the fault of SoE, its the fault of the players that want everything handed to them.

Dasein wrote:

This made me LOL

EQ1's height was during the end of Luclin and into the PoP era. PoP was probably the single most roadblocked progression expansion I hav ever played. (consequently it still stands as my favorite expansion of all time) You flat-out could *not* advance to certain zones until you had flagged from previous zones, nor could you enter raid zones until you killed everything in the order it was intended.
There is *nothing* in EQ2 that can be considered a roadblock. 98% of the game is accessed without any sort of flags or levels required. The final 2% contains a few mobs that need to be killed in a certain order, and I gaurantee those will go away with time because the casual players complain that they are "too hard"
Raid mobs in EQ2 are NOT challenging, not in the least. The hardest part about raiding is getting 24 competent people together who can pay attention and understand that raiding is not about YOU, but about the TEAM. 24 people working together towards a common goal.
There are guilds out there who formed up and cleared RoK + VP within 4 months simply by putting in 2-3 nights a week into it. That's not hardcore. That's pretty damn casual. But by gathering the right type of people together it is entirely possible. All it takes is 24 people who WANT to win, who have a DESIRE to succeed with each other, and who can focus on something other than **** for 3-4 hours at a time. THAT is the challenge of raiding, not the scripting of these encounters.

The main problem with this encounter is absolutly no fun at all. It's a pain. I can think of no redeeming features for this encounter. Getting a raid force to go there is a pain as no one wants to go. No trash drops, not the greatest loot drops, nothing but a few poor classes need him for epics.
It needs changing - no fun, underused content that should be changed.
As for the post above re: PoP - pop encounters were relatively fun 0 infact A1 entertainment compared to VS and none of them required the ridiculous level of detail that VS does.

We've killed him.
It's just unfair that some classes need that one for their mythical, when Overking is just so easy. I know a ton of people who are planning their alts depending on whether they will need VS or not, that's how sad it is.

Andric_D wrote:

Bingo. I've been in guilds before that kill Avatars and when I came along as a Troubador without a mythical, everyone rolled their eyes when they realized they had to go back and kill VS. It's just a horribly designed fight. Period. When you design a fight that is so hated that a guild leader in an avatar killing guild litterally has to PHONE CALL guildies and beg them to come on for a T2 mob then YOU SCREWED UP.

If it wasn't for a few poor saps needing VS for epics, he'd be sitting inside nearly untouched and only used as a "bragging" tool by masochists who feel the need to pat themselves on the back. As it's been said before EQ2 isn't that hard and neither is VS to be honest, it's just an annoying and painful fight with little reward except for one Mythical update. Even before the pulls, my Avatar killing guild had to assure me that it could take quite a few pulls between the server-side lag, statues bugging out, and other minor screw ups from the raid. If you can't see something wrong with the picture of an Avatar-killing that kills Avatars often in ONE PULL guild knowing their going to wipe a few times to a T2 mob then I don't know what to tell you...
And whoever tried to say EQ1 raid mobs are "harder" than VS is, Lol. Little story: I've raided back in Luclin days where people had to farm for hours for seru/shissar bane weapons to fight Lord Seru and the Shissar King in order to progress to the final raid zone where the trash mobs all had billions of hp inside. Sad thing is, that stuff is still more fun than VS which is pretty sad. Going into the PoP era, there were tons of roadblock mobs including the Plane of Earth fight. I remember old school Fires of Heaven with Furor (Anyone who raided in EQ1 should know who I'm talking about) basically threatening SoE because the fight was broken to the core and impossible to beat. SoE "fixes" it and FoH moves on to Plane of Time and realizes nothing there is itemized and no NPCs/Raid mobs are up until the next patch. GG SoE.
In the end, don't even fool yourself into thinking VS is some kind of "pro" fight. It isn't. It's just not fun. If you somehow still think VS is a hard fight, pick up something like Devil May Cry 4, Street Fighter, Raiden, old school Castlevania games, Left 4 Dead on expert mode, and most FPS/RTS games so you'll learn what "hard" and "pro" actually is. At least the above games are actually fun, challenging, AND difficult for their boss fights, what's SoE's excuse?