Easier EoF raid zone?

[adaman]

<DIV>Hello everyone,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I wonder which are the 'easier' raid zones in EoF?</DIV> <DIV>T6 or T7, that doesnt matter... :p we just wish to check a new zone. Any info will be much appreciated ^^</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thank you very much</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Adaman, Splitpaw</DIV><p>Message Edited by adaman on <span class=date_text>12-15-2006</span> <span class=time_text>07:49 PM</span>

[Flor]

Freethinker hideout..

[Mr. Dawki]

<P>freethinkers is the easyest t7 eof raidzone so far, but its still much harder than labs</P> <P>MUCH HARDER</P> <P>if your a new raider i would get your gear from labs for a while before even stepping foot in freethinkers</P>

[Fews]

<P>In order of difficulty to complete in EoF</P> <P>Clockworx Raid Zone</P> <P>Freethinkers Hideout</P> <P>Mistmore Inner Sanctum</P> <P>Emerald Halls</P> <P>Pumpkinhead(He may end up being easier and lower on this list.. but won't know until we kill him)</P> <P>The Avatars</P> <P> </P> <P> </P> <P>I recommend starting with the Avatars...........................<img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />... just kidding.</P> <P>Though they are fun, as in.. Tap Tap Tap..uh Mr. Avatar we are here to "own" you..</P> <P>Then after the Avatar stops laughing, Wham very fast raid wipe. Fun to try, we did. Course someday the Avatar won't be laughing.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[Soldancer]

Mr.Dawkins wrote:"freethinkers is the easyest t7 eof raidzone so far, but its still much harder than labsMUCH HARDER"An understatement.I heard stories that even a top guild needed many dozen pulls for the first named in freethinkers. SOE told something from a raid "progresion" from KoS to EoF but there isn't any "progression". My guild is not uber but we was able to kill most non-static KoS mobs except Chel and Cruor. Now we stuck, since release of EoF it was not possible for us to get any EoF gear, very bad for the mood, atm people have no fun when raiding. If things will not become better we will loose players.No way for us to improve, we have best of KoS-gear, most of us have skilled up the important parts of the new AA-tree and improvements capabilities by adornments are ridiculous (hey, if SOE nerf a +400 hp adornment with the argue "it's overpowered" then they have lost any sense of reality).I remember that the "improvement range" in the early days of EQ2 was ~50%. Several generations of smallminded devs have compressed this range down to ~5%. It's all so sad - I'm not one of them who can't await Vanguard, I wanna stay at EQ2 but it looks like that I change too with the hope that the inevitable massive dropdown of the playerbase will change things in EQ2 so that I can come back.

[ReviloTX]

<P>I remember when I thought the Doom Trio in Lab's was impossible.  Now I can't remember the last time we wiped to them.</P> <P>*edit*</P> <P>And btw, it wasn't gear that made it transition from impossible to easy, it was strategy.  Most everyone lacks the proper strategies for EoF raids, thus they seem very difficult.  Once you have the proper strategy they will be much easier.</P><p>Message Edited by ReviloTX on <span class=date_text>12-16-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:58 AM</span>

[Kizee]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Soldancer wrote:<BR>Mr.Dawkins wrote:<BR><BR>"freethinkers is the easyest t7 eof raidzone so far, but its still much harder than labs<BR><BR>MUCH HARDER"<BR><BR>An understatement.<BR><BR>I heard stories that even a top guild needed many dozen pulls for the first named in freethinkers. SOE told something from a raid "progresion" from KoS to EoF but there isn't any "progression". My guild is not uber but we was able to kill most non-static KoS mobs except Chel and Cruor. Now we stuck, since release of EoF it was not possible for us to get any EoF gear, very bad for the mood, atm people have no fun when raiding. If things will not become better we will loose players.<BR>No way for us to improve, we have best of KoS-gear, most of us have skilled up the important parts of the new AA-tree and improvements capabilities by adornments are ridiculous (hey, if SOE nerf a +400 hp adornment with the argue "it's overpowered" then they have lost any sense of reality).<BR><BR>I remember that the "improvement range" in the early days of EQ2 was ~50%. Several generations of smallminded devs have compressed this range down to ~5%. It's all so sad - I'm not one of them who can't await Vanguard, I wanna stay at EQ2 but it looks like that I change too with the hope that the inevitable massive dropdown of the playerbase will change things in EQ2 so that I can come back.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Your guild sounds pretty similar to ours on accomplishments. <BR>You guys should be able to do the first 2 named in freethinkers and the first 2 named in MMIS. </DIV>

[Soldancer]

Improper comparison. Sure, short after KoS Lab was really hard because players were not level 70. After they reached level 70 it wasn't that hard. Lab was that zone where we got the gear needed for the other KoS zones, there was a real progression.Freethinkers should be the zone where we can get gear for the other and harder EoF zones but something must be wrong if even uber guilds wipe dozens of times at the first(!!!) named there - and this time we can't level up to 80.

[Ballads]

<div></div><div></div>  First off, they did already nerf this mob some. He is however a pure strat mob, so that i highly doubt any guild killed first pull .Pure strat mobs require multiple pulls to see exactly whats going on. All of the difficulty is based in figuring out whats going on with the mob/enviorment. Thing is once you figure out whats going on youll slap you raidmates into doing what is needed, smack this mob in the mother [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing face, and move on to the next. Actually this mob is quite simple just  read the emote and take note what happens next.<div></div><p><span class="date_text"></span><span class="time_text"></span></p><p>Message Edited by pickle27 on <span class=date_text>12-16-2006</span> <span class=time_text>08:56 AM</span>

[mikemcmodmi]

I think the difference between EoF and KoS raids is EoF raids require not only strategy but skill.  We're having problems but I'm attributing it to lack of dps.  If you have the dps the mobs are a lot easier.  So if people have been going through the motions and never learned how to max your dps in KoS then you'll have real problems in EoF.

[Computer MAn]

<div><blockquote><hr>Soldancer wrote:Freethinkers should be the zone where we can get gear for the other and harder EoF zones but something must be wrong if even uber guilds wipe dozens of times at the first(!!!) named there - and this time we can't level up to 80.<hr></blockquote>Well considering we are clearing almost every zone in EOF (minus Mayong, and EH 2nd floor) in our KOS fabled you shouldn't need to gear up on Freethinkers. If progression actually existed sure I could agree with that but there is really no progression. I think what EOF is really doing is starting to weed out the guilds that can't come up with strategy's considering there really was no strategy to KOS. Once you know the strats CMF, FTH, MMIS (minus Mayong) are all really weak. And I don't know about a dozen pulls on the 1st named I think we killed him 2nd or 3rd pull our first time in.</div>

[Soldancer]

hm .. Aftermath. Place 2 in "Wealthiest Guilds" on Butcherblock, 31 members, all level 70. Hardcore Raiding Guild, right?btw: we are not idiots, we know that its important in this encounter to mind what the mob say and to react in the right way. I stated it before, we are not uber and few of us play all day long - most are employed.We play this game to have some entertainment and fun in the evening - we do not expect easy mode but we expect progression even for an average raiding guild.Atm it looks like that this incapable devs believe EoF raiding must be a kind of hardcore competition between uber guilds.If this game becomes more and more a hardcore competition and not a good entertainment, what it should be, then there is no reason for us to continue playing.<p>Message Edited by Soldancer on <span class=date_text>12-17-2006</span> <span class=time_text>11:05 PM</span>

[valkyrja]

<div><blockquote><hr>Soldancer wrote:hm .. Aftermath. Place 2 in "Wealthiest Guilds" on Butcherblock, 31 members, all level 70. Hardcore Raiding Guild, right?btw: we are not idiots, we know that its important in this encounter to mind what the mob say and to react in the right way. I stated it before, we are not uber and few of us play all day long - most are employed.We play this game to have some entertainment and fun in the evening - we do not expect easy mode but we expect progression even for an average raiding guild.Atm it looks like that this incapable devs believe EoF raiding must be a kind of hardcore competition between uber guilds.If this game becomes more and more a hardcore competition and not a good entertainment, what it should be, then there is no reason for us to continue playing.<p>Message Edited by Soldancer on <span class="date_text">12-17-2006</span> <span class="time_text">11:05 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Just because you can't beat it doesn't mean it's too hard, it just means you need to learn how to beat it.  And if you have people quitting because they can't win right away, they don't seem like they are a big loss.  </div>

[Aandien]

<DIV>The first named in FTH you should be able to do.  That one is very similiar to mobs in KOS.  It just requires good jousting.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The second named however -- regardless if you know the strategy or not -- if your raids DPS is lower than about 18k dps - then you will never be able to kill it.  You have to either be able to have enough dps to kill a x2 and 1 heroic in less than 30 seconds (every 30 seconds for the entire fight -- and thus be able to sustain a fight like this for 10+ minutes) or have enough dps and healing skill to kill the named before you get overwhelmed by x2s (and thus make the fight about 2 minutes).  Either route you take requires a lot of DPS -- which many casual guilds simply do not have...not because of skill, but rather because of open rosters and bad raid setup.</DIV><p>Message Edited by AncientElster on <span class=date_text>12-19-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:03 AM</span>

[Aandien]

<DIV>The DPS comment also applies to Clockwork Menance Factory.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you can't bring a lot of DPS to the table -- don't bother.  The fight is trivial if your raid can sustain 20k raid dps.  It's slightly harder if you can only do 18k dps.  It's impossible though if all you can muster is 15k dps.  At 15k dps you won't be able to kill any of the 4 named before menance goes active -- and he'll be mem wiping every 5 seconds.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At 18k dps you'll have enough DPS to kill one of them (the tactician) and then you can at least stop the mem wipes (which is the crucial one to stop).  At 20k dps you can kill 2 of them...potentially even 3 if you push just little more...at which time it becomes a trivial fight.</DIV><p>Message Edited by AncientElster on <span class=date_text>12-19-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:06 AM</span>

[arieste]

<DIV>the l33ts speak the truth.   the first named in FTH and the first two in IS are VERY easy. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Actually the 2nd named in IS is probably on the same level of difficulty as Slavering Alzid in Labs.  I'm not exaggerating, it's a pushover. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The first named in FTH has been known to get bugged, and although it's supposedly fixed, he still does weird crap.  If he teleports and fears 6 out of our 7 healers, we wipe.  I think so would anyone.   But he isn't supposed to do that and when he doesn't we have him first pull.  Otherwise we have him 2nd pull.  He is not as easy as most labs stuff, but if you can kill Vyemm, you can definitely kill him.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The 2nd named in FTH is hard.  Hard to figure out and hard to fight.  It might be easy for the ubah-guilds, but for others I think it's hard.  That being said, my casual raid guild (raid twice a week) killed her on our second trip there and every trip since.  Usually not first pull, but getting better.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We've also cleared IS (except mayong), but after the first 2 it gets somewhat harder, especially for low DPS raids.   </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And EoF gear is not needed for any of it.  Actually if you've seen EoF gear, you would probably agree that it ain't gonna help much for anything <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   100AAs might tho.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Margen]

<P>We killed the first named in FTH two weeks ago, thought we had a good stratagy.  But last weekend he was doing some weird crap, he kept summoning like 4 people (usually healers) and his AOE was doing some wierd stuff like hitting a person that was behind people that weren't getting hit. </P> <P>We were jousting him based on his statements, but he was still summoning a lot of people.  After six tries, we figured something was screwy and went and ran DT.  Not sure if we were just having bad luck or if somethig was buggy.  Will have to see next week.</P>

[arieste]

<P>there is another (10-page) long thread on the reported bug with him and how to work around it if it happens.  look it up.</P> <P>(We haven't tried that crazy strat yet, but we know it in case we have to.)</P> <P>cheers.</P>

[FuRiouSQ]

<blockquote><hr>AncientElster wrote:<div></div> <div>The first named in FTH you should be able to do.  That one is very similiar to mobs in KOS.  It just requires good jousting.</div> <div> </div> <div>The second named however -- regardless if you know the strategy or not -- if your raids DPS is lower than about 18k dps - then you will never be able to kill it.  You have to either be able to have enough dps to kill a x2 and 1 heroic in less than 30 seconds (every 30 seconds for the entire fight -- and thus be able to sustain a fight like this for 10+ minutes) or have enough dps and healing skill to kill the named before you get overwhelmed by x2s (and thus make the fight about 2 minutes).  Either route you take requires a lot of DPS -- which many casual guilds simply do not have...not because of skill, but rather because of open rosters and bad raid setup.</div><p>Message Edited by AncientElster on <span class="date_text">12-19-2006</span> <span class="time_text">10:03 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote>your wrong on this one, this mob can be beaten with as low as 8k dps or even lower if you knew what was cuasing the adds to pop <span>:smileywink:</span><div></div>

[theriatis]

<DIV>*listens to ANY small bit or hint of Advice on how to stop the Spawns*</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We did this Mob a couple of times, never coming down more than 48%...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We tried alot of things, with Offtanks, Mezzers, Switch here, switch there,</DIV> <DIV>Stifle, Stun, Nuke'em, Hit'em, gimme 15k DPS...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We now what he does (spawning x2 when he fingerpoints, spawning heroics</DIV> <DIV>who heal him etc.) but maybe not deep enough...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Any small hint (not necessarily a walkthrough) on how to stop it</DIV> <DIV>would be appreciated...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Regards, theriatis.</DIV>

[NoNameChosen]

<DIV>The easiest zone and also the quickest is The Clockwork Menace Factory. It can be done in about 20 minutes when you know the tactic, mob doesn't do to much damage and can be done with less then a full raid.<BR><BR>Second on the list will be Freethinkers Hideout, here the strats for the mobs can be learned in a matter of 2 pulls except for the 3rd named, he is kinda nasty. Once you know his strat, it's also pretty easy. The last named in the zone is very easy as well. If you are lucky you can get some legendary drops from trash mobs which are not bad mobs at all.<BR><BR>Next would be the Inner Sanctum, most named are fairly easy if you know the strats (easily learned). The few tricks to the zone make it more challenging as well as annoying <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> The only hard encounter is the last mob, Mayong Mistmoore. Once you know the tactic he is doable, besides that you need the luck of the zone not lagging to due SoE [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing up <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><BR><BR>Last of the zones is Emerald Halls, depending on the mobs you get, it's a very hard but also very fun zone (besides the amount of trash mobs).</DIV>

[arieste]

<P>honestly, im not sure why everyone says menace factory is a walk in the park.</P> <P>My guild has killed the first 3 mobs in FTH (we'll kill the 4th one next time, ran out of time on last trip) and everything in IS except mayong. </P> <P>The two times we tried factory we wiped and wiped.  We know the strat for it, but honestly, we can barely get past the first named there (forget his name).  We haven't really concentrated on it, since we only raid a couple of days a week and can't do everything, but we went twice, wiped and haven't bothered since.  </P> <P>We really must have missed something, we thought that first name requires high DPS, but if people are doing it without a full raid... hrmm...</P>

[Aandien]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> FuRiouSQ wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>your wrong on this one, this mob can be beaten with as low as 8k dps or even lower if you knew what was cuasing the adds to pop <SPAN>:smileywink:</SPAN><BR><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Every 30 seconds he points a finger at someone.  They get stunned and their defiled soul starts killing them.  While the defiled soul is alive, they are permanately stunned.  You used to be able to let that person die and rez them and they would stop being stunned -- but that was fixed and they now get restunned after rez.  You could also move the raid and mem blur them since their aggro range was tiny -- and while you can still do this, it takes too much time and isn't worth it.</P> <P>Also every 30 seconds you get a heroic add that if it gets within range of the named lands a mighty heal -- those run through a portal about 3 seconds after that spawns (which is signaled by an emote from the named).  While there might be a potential way to close the portal before they can come through -- its really not an issue anyway as they are just simple heroic mobs who don't really detract from the fight as long as you have 1 person aggroing them as they spawn.</P> <P>If you could actually stop the epics from spawning you could probably kill this named with 2 groups -- one to kill the heroics and one to kill the named.  However, since I don't see any way to stop him from spawning the defiled souls (they are exactly 30 seconds apart, starting 30 seconds after he is aggro'd, so it's not being triggered by someone's actions).</P> <P>A few people seem to hint that you can stop the x2's from spawning at all -- or at least they are somehow entirely removed from the fight.  I'd love to be educated on how to do this named with less dps.  It's annoying the way we end up killing it every week.   So if you don't want to share publicly, feel free to PM me.  Until then we'll just keep killing it the hard way apparantly.</P>

[Aandien]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> arieste wrote:<BR> <P>honestly, im not sure why everyone says menace factory is a walk in the park.</P> <P>My guild has killed the first 3 mobs in FTH (we'll kill the 4th one next time, ran out of time on last trip) and everything in IS except mayong. </P> <P>The two times we tried factory we wiped and wiped.  We know the strat for it, but honestly, we can barely get past the first named there (forget his name).  We haven't really concentrated on it, since we only raid a couple of days a week and can't do everything, but we went twice, wiped and haven't bothered since.  </P> <P>We really must have missed something, we thought that first name requires high DPS, but if people are doing it without a full raid... hrmm...</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I agree with you.</P> <P>Menance factory requires you to kill 2 encounters with 1 epic + 3 heroics, then another encounter with 1 epic named and 3 heroics in under 8 minutes.  The named does curse of insanity and if the 3 heroics aren't killed fast enough it wipes you from the ae.  Not to mention the named has 2 ae's himself.  While killing these encounters isn't necessarily hard in 8 minutes....</P> <P>You then essentially *have* to have time to kill the tactician -- who is epic with 4 adds.  Failure to kill at least the tactician means the Menace is going to be mem bluring himself every 5 seconds or so.</P> <P>So at minimum you have to kill 4 epics + 13 heroics in under 8 minutes -- and have enough time to get back power to fight the menace.</P> <P>This fight is not possible without good DPS.  Yes some guilds can kill it with less than 24, but those are the same guilds who, when they have 24, do 24k dps or more.  Try killing it without pulling any of the 4 optional named -- that would simulate not having enough DPS in the raid to actually have enough time to kill those -- which, for a lot of guilds, is a reality.<BR></P>

[FuRiouSQ]

<blockquote><hr>theriatis wrote:<div>*listens to ANY small bit or hint of Advice on how to stop the Spawns*</div> <div> </div> <div>We did this Mob a couple of times, never coming down more than 48%...</div> <div> </div> <div>We tried alot of things, with Offtanks, Mezzers, Switch here, switch there,</div> <div>Stifle, Stun, Nuke'em, Hit'em, gimme 15k DPS...</div> <div> </div> <div>We now what he does (spawning x2 when he fingerpoints, spawning heroics</div> <div>who heal him etc.) but maybe not deep enough...</div> <div> </div> <div>Any small hint (not necessarily a walkthrough) on how to stop it</div> <div>would be appreciated...</div> <div> </div> <div>Regards, theriatis.</div><hr></blockquote>every 30 seconds he points his finger at someone. every 30 seconds he also does something else to whom he has targeted. check your combat logs for this. if he doesnt point his finger at anyone he wont call any (epic or heroic) adds. it will blow your mind once you figure it out if you thought the strat involed dealing with x2 epics and peon heroics. <div></div>

[TimidMou]

KOS was a great expansion for the ordinary raid guild. You know that eventually any guild with 24 active players would be able to clear most of labs perhaps with the exception of Vyemm (which requires some amount of skill/strategy). Ditto on deathtoll (Tarinax and Cruor were hard, others not so much. Amorphus is "medium" if you knew the strat). And this pattern persisted for all raid zones. In EOF this has been changed, and every named in every zone is hard. I do not know what caused the devs to make this change. Could it be that too many high level guilds complained that content were too easy? Perhaps they were worried about losing hardcore players to Vanguard, which is due for a release soon? Or is this just the usual strategy of making content hard at first to challenge the top guilds, and then nerfing the content down at a later date for the rest of the player base? Only time will tell.

[THteampink]

There are many guilds that claim there is a way to stop the epic adds on the second named in FT.  We have tried many methods and really cannot see a way to do this.  In the end we just end up offtanking them and burning the named.  If there is honestly a legit way to stop the x2 adds, and someone has confirmed it works, I would be interested to know how to do it.  PM me if you do not wish to make it public.   We can beat the mob the offtanking way, just curious if it is actually possible to stop the epic adds or not.<div></div>

[FuRiouSQ]

used the same non x2 epic strat tonight and at 20% he healed with no pointing the finger or x2 epics but we did notice after the heal we were PB AEing and the newly stealth heroic was right there laughing at us, other then that bug, flook or whatever you wanna call it the strat still worked perfect. also heard and read in the WW channels that this newly stealth heroic cant be seen untill attacked with AEs so you off tankers may want to be carefull with this bug? <div></div>

[Caetrel]

<hr size="2" width="100%">There are many guilds that claim there is a way to stop the epic adds on the second named in FT.  We have tried many methods and really cannot see a way to do this.  In the end we just end up offtanking them and burning the named.  If there is honestly a legit way to stop the x2 adds, and someone has confirmed it works, I would be interested to know how to do it.  PM me if you do not wish to make it public.   We can beat the mob the offtanking way, just curious if it is actually possible to stop the epic adds or not. <hr size="2" width="100%">It is absolutely possible to beat him via no adds at all, no x2, no heroic.  I have no prob explaining how if you send me a tell. <div></div>

[Beragon]

<DIV>The only challange on EoF mobs i see, well is the AoE lag. I dont see really any Tactic beside well ok Menace. But thats maybie because our Guild dps is really high, so we dont have a problem to burn down Epic encounter. Only mob that really wipes us right now is Mayong himself because of the 10-15 sec lag and Trumbler..</DIV>

[TheGReddy]

<P>Okay i see alot of conflict between hard core raid guilds and casual raid guilds.</P> <P>A way to sorta fix this maybe is to do what they did to Poets Palace. Make different zones that are harder or easier.</P> <P>And maybe change the loot table up a little so you dont get really great gear by just doing a sucky zone.</P> <P>But there are probably many possible ways to fix this so dont go hating on me for this idea:smileywink:</P>

[Lariu]

<DIV>EoF raid zones are for people who really want a challenge. Even the first named in FTH is extremely tough until you figure it out and execute a strat with some discipline. Then scratching our heads until figuring out the chaperons in MMIS. Personally, I think the first few weeks of chain wiping in these zones were v fun. Ok, we weren't getting loads of uber loot, but that's not what raiding is always about - it's also about working as a team to overcome obstacles - and unlike KoS, in EoF we appear to have some decent obstacles to figure out.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The "hmmmmmm.. ok that didn't work, how about we try.... this...." part of raiding is what makes it fun, imo. Zone-in, own the zone, call out and camp, gets old fast.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The other thing I'd say is that none of these mobs are out of the reach of any given raiding guild - you just need to get your heads into it and figure it out. The more experienced guilds will just figure it out quicker - because they already have months or years of practise at trial-and-error raiding and the organisation and discipline that are always a huge help when executing a strat. So long as you make progress each raid by getting at least closer to a solution or seeing the strat but not quite figuring out the execution, people shouldn't be getting dispondent about it.</DIV>