Lyceum of Abhorrence - trying to break in post EoF

[quasigenx]

My guild has been clearing Labs pretty regularly, and we're trying to break into Lyceum. We have had 4 or 5 raids in this zone so far. We are able to clear the trash without incident, and down the first named (Essence of Fear). However, the second and third named have always given us problems. We have killed Gnorbl the Playful once, but that was pre-EoF and we had to revive and zerg to beat it.I understand that these named have gone through a lot of changes with regards to mez-ability and AE strength, so I'm looking for input primarily from people who have beaten them relatively recently. Here are the strategies we are using on each, and their usual outcomes:<b>Gnorbl the Playful</b>We have a single mezer about 50% of the time we raid. If he is available, we will attempt to AE mez on the pull. Since AEs no longer break mez, we are telling people to go nuts on the DPS and try to down the initial heroic adds as quickly as possible. Typically we have a MA to target through for the adds, while the MT tries to keep the named on him.Usually the raid ends up wiping withing 20 seconds, as the initial damage burst levels the MA and then starts killing DPS. We're not sure if we should be able to heal through the initial damage from the adds, or if we should be trying to take them out of the fight, possibly with more mezers than we usually have.We do have targetting macros for the named and know the bit about the taunting/healing dumbfires. We're just not getting that far. Usually we never get all the adds down before they respawn in between wipes.<b>Gnillaw the Demented</b>We have had little success with trying to have necros possess the adds. Typically we have from 1 to 3 necros on the raid, and we assign each and add to possess, which they will then turn on the named. Usually we have limited success with the initial pull, but then on the wipe the encounter breaks and the adds never reset to their initial positions. This makes all subsequent pulls harder and harder as the adds move their spawn points to where they were when the necro possessing them dies.We have also tried not using necros and having a ranger pull to the top of the long stairs, to an MT set up in the corner who will taunt the named. An MA set up on the opposite corner of the top of the stairway attempts to taunt the adds and acts a DPS targetter to down them one at a time. We have been able to pull this off a few times, but always end up not being able to heal through either the adds or the named damage for more than 10 seconds.Our typical raid force has between 6 and 8 healers. Usually only one warder, with the rest split between furies, templars and inquisitors. Any help would be appreciated.

[Lig]

<P>For Gnorble one strat that works well (and I know people are going to freak but it works well anyways) is haveing 2 tanks. Pull into room and have both tanks taunt eye. Healers target through eye. AoE like [Removed for Content] mad to kill the first fearling tots, then the adds will spawn. They pretty much go to the MT and take him out, but since you have a second tank taunting he is fine. Get 1st tank up ASAP, feed power and start him taunting like crazy again. Then 2nd MT will go down from those adds but 1st tank will have plenty of agro built up. If not you can mem-wipe or just call for DPS to slow down. Rinse repeate till he is dead. Once you have the strat down he's a wimp. I know people are going to say mez the adds so MT doesn't die but this is tough to do.</P> <P>Gnillaw: Well there are 2 ways to do this but I like the split tank way the best. Have one tank pull all the mobs but have MT rescue named. Pull named to corner right at stairs while the 4 adds are at corner at door (this puts them out of AoE range. Have everyone else stay at door on oposite side of adds. Burn the hell out of the adds while the MT keeps named on him and is being healed by designated healers. Once adds are dead it's a piece of cake.</P> <P>The 2nd waty to do this is just root those adds. Wizzies can root them forever. The problem with this is that the Wizzies are out of the fight and your DPS drops a lot. so you might run out of power doing it this way. However I know it has been done this way as well.</P> <P> </P> <P>Hope that helps</P>

[Jayad]

<DIV>Don't mez the initial adds.  Burn them down with massive AOE.  They should die very fast.  Have your healers spam, and tanks intercept, if needed.   On the named, using a /target macro is very important - no target assisting!  Have your melee stand at absolute max range from the named and they won't swing on the adds most of the time.  Everybody has to be very careful to not cast on the adds when they cast a skill.  No ranger auto-attacks, dumbfire pets, pets, etc.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You can mez the spawned adds or off-tank them, just use no-dmg taunts.  If everybody is not hitting them as designed, the fight doesn't last too long. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is one of those fights where you just have to have everybody doing it right.  And your MT needs some gear to survive.  You want the defensive buffs from the dirge and a warden if it's a problem as well.  Coercer or second hate buffer in the MT group.</DIV>

[Roriondesexiest]

<DIV>Gnorbl is easy if you don't kill the dumbfires/</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Right off the bat nuke your butts off to kill all the tater tots, you kill the dumbfires but you aren't working on named yet so who cares if he heals himself.  Freehand + 2 big wizzie/warlock nukes  + everyone else aoe'ing takes them all down fast.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Once the last tatertot is down, everyone focus on named, entire raidforce has to make macro /target <Name spelled correctly here> and pay attention to what they are doing.  If you kill the dumbfires they heal gnorbl and as stated they will taunt you away.  Pet classes are a pain in the [I cannot control my vocabulary] on this guy cause pets get taunted away easily.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>When the dumbfires spawn mez em.  Gnorbl himself doesn't hit hard at all, the dumbfires do all the damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Gnillaw we just usually mez his adds and tank taunts, then breaks mez on gnillaw to get him into the corner.  We just do this to get the fight stabalized then the adds come and MA targets them and burns em down quickly then onto gnillaw.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I have found that getting the fight stabilized on lots of these guys is key, lots of mobs use their big hits up front and put tank in deep right off the bat.  Once you make it thorought the inital spike things are usually pretty easy.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>Message Edited by dalessit on <span class=date_text>01-29-2007</span> <span class=time_text>10:56 AM</span>

[ReviloTX]

<P>We stopped charming on Gnillaw a long time ago, because as you mention it makes subsequent pulls extremely difficult.  At least until you feel very confident that you will win on the first pull, I would recommend the same.</P> <P>We have used a lot of strats on Gnillaw, all successfully at times and sometimes not.  It really just depends on your raid makeup.  Back before we had a regular shaman or two, we would root the 4 adds away from Gnillaw and take him out first.  Now that we have more healing available, we usually just tank them all and kill the adds first.. split tanking works as mentioned if your MT can't handle the damage from all of them.</P> <P>Gnorbl is a tricky one.  AE rooting on pull to keep the tots away works fine, we did that last week.  Moreso now than pre-EoF, the initial spike damage on the tank is pretty high, especially if he spawns his pets while tots are still alive.  Most tanks won't live through all of that, so keeping the tots of him is important.  Sounds like you probably know about the /target hotkey too, if you've been able to kill him before.</P>

[Thornn]

<P>There are a few other things you can do help. On Gnorbol when the adds pop and you mez them the MT also can tower of stone which will buy a few extra seconds. Also if you are really having issues holding the mez, also use the stun this buys you some time to remez, or get the refresh on your mezes. It is a complete ranged fight if you are new to this encounter, once you do it a few times and your brigands and swashys learn how to target macro effectively, they can go in to debuff with out issues, this will help. Also if you are running 3 healers in your MT group, when the adds pop you can stun heal this can help keep your tank up if you are have issues mezing. bottom line if your raid  hits the macro button before they cast you will win this very easily. so tell them Macro, Spell, Macro, Spell they have to do this as they may get tuanted off. Have the raid force stand in the doorway and the tank charges the named keep the named in the pit. if someone pulls aggro they can run to the tank to assist the tank with regaining. I have had casters get aggro run to the front and tank him for up to 30 seconds or so he does not hit that hard once debuffed..</P> <P> </P> <P>on <STRONG>Gnillaw the Demented </STRONG></P> <P>Mez on the pull and have the off tank pull the encounter. the OT should pull it into the hallway. The MT group and your extra healers can enter the room and move to the left, the MT will pull the maned just after the OT pulls the encounter. Have the MT park the named which is very easy now with the PLANT ability. the adds go into the hall. Raid stand in the hall and assist the OT. kill the adds, you should be able to get one down before the mez breaks on all of them, and work them we never need more then 2 healers for the OT and with a water pet we have done it with one easy. then after the adds are down have the raid move in. </P> <P>For the main tank you need big heals upfront he will hit pretty hard till you get him debuffed. once debuffed, then it becomes a position fight. Watch the KB and keep him out of the wall. Remind everyone that he will heal from 2% to 25% one time. They need to manage mana for this. He has a short range crushing AE that you can call very easily for the joust if you need to, we just heal right through it with out issue now but back when we were 1st doing this zone we jousted the crushing ae. keep him walled so the tank does not get shot across the room.</P>

[Slayer505]

I've solo tanked Lyceum several times with no difficulty at all except bugged Vilucidae (and yes I'm a berserker, not a guardian).  Usually we clear everything up to Vilucidae in ~30-45 minutes.For Gnorbl:  Massive AE as already stated until the initial adds go down.  I usually pull the named to one side of the doorway, then when he casts his dumbfires, chanters mezz them and I move the named to the opposite side just to give a little seperation from the named and make it easier for the chanters.  EVERYONE needs to be spamming the /target macro.  Absolutely no dumbfire pets should be used in this fight since the fearling tots will taunt them.  If you see anyone that keeps waking up the dumbfires, just tell them to sit the fight out since they're doing more harm then good.  He usually goes down pretty easy for us.For Gnillaw:  First off, you can walk all the way into his room if you stick to a wall.  I usually hug the left wall and position myself right behind gnillaw for the pull and stay there the entire fight while the raid force postions themselves on the left wall within healing/nuking range of my position.  For the adds, we'll have necros and coercers charm the ones we can (that's usually two or three) and then have chanters lock down the remaining ones.  You can also use the guild lvl 50 charms from the city merchant to charm the adds as well.  The charmers can position themselves along the walls closest to their charm target.  If needed you can just burn down the adds before starting on the named.  I've tank 1 or 2 adds and the named while the adds were burned down, but this is alot riskier then charming/locking down.  Once the named is down just burn down the charmed mobs one at a time.  Whatever you do, DO NOT evac with a charmed mob.  We did this once and managed to recover but the encounter was all jacked up and it took a long time.Vilucidae is another matter.... <grumble>  They really need to fix him and fast.  Right now he's the hardest mob in KoS.  We've cleared every KoS zone (including DT) but Vilucidae just will not die.  Clearly there's something wrong there, but he already has his own thread....<div></div>

[Mulilla]

<P>Did lyceum last week, but Vilucidae, who seemed imposible due to stance stacking and huge resist.</P> <P>Honestly we are a weak raiding guild, but have some fun adventuring and supporting our local menders, so this is not from the perspective of huge DPS or the "best fabled you can get" guild.</P> <P><STRONG>Gnorbl the Playful</STRONG></P> <P>No chanters, so no AE mez.  It is not a leet strat, but it worked:</P> <P>Just burn down the adds as fast as you can.  Use assist macro.  Used 2 tanks, and let die the target of the dumbfire pets.  Pets die after their target is dead, rezz the poor soul and continue (thats why 2 tanks, just in case the target is the tank).  No AE on dumbfires, no player dumbfires.  Honestly it went quite smoothly even without AE mez<BR><BR><BR><B>Gnillaw the Demented</B></P> <P>No chanters last raid, so pet pull, both troubs locked down 2 adds, necro charm other and the raid  focused on free add first, troub's adds after, then named and last charmed one.  Be carefull if you use charm because the mob will stand out of its usual place afterwards and if you wait for too long to release the charm the encounter might reset and you will have to kill Gnillaw again (yup happened to us <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)</P> <P> </P>

[Catodon]

Gnillaw (and Vilucidae for the first 75%) is one of the best kos mobs for a necro's ooze slime debuffer pet to really shine, since its debuff includes drastic reduction to riposte damage and double attacks.  If you are raiding with 2-3 necromancers it would be a good idea to get at least one of them headed down the gravecalling line for that pet. Too bad Vilucidae always resists the effect during  his last stance, bleh. In my experience keeping all the adds mezzed and having a ma break mez and attack one at a time has always worked fine for Gnillaw. (With a solid chanter around anyway.)<div></div>

[quasigenx]

Hey guys, thanks for all the help. Just to follow-up, here's what happened on our raid last night:<b>Gnillaw the Demented</b>We decided to tackle this one first. We failed on the initial attempt, where the plan was to charm all the adds with a combination of Allure of the Undead (the city merchant items mentioned above) and Necro possession. Both failed, giving a message that the mobs could not be charmed. Looks like this was changed recently. Even so, we got him down to 50% in the ensuing chaos.Second attempt was much smoother, and successful! We ended up splitting the adds from the named with two tanks. The off-tank (SK), pulled the encouter with an AoE taunt, and then immediately cast his AA that leeched mitigation from the entire encounter. This turned out to be a huge key, as this caped his mit, and he absorbed the inital burst damage with only light healing required.We then had the MT rescue the named off him, while DPS proceeded to burn down the adds. By the time we switched to the named and got him down to 20%, everyone was out of power. So we wiped, revived and ran back. We were able to get back before the adds respawned and pulled the named into the hallway for a quick kill.<b>Gnorbl the Playful</b>We also failed on the first attempt here, when we tried using the Tunare root god ability on the pull, and having the MT plant the rest. Initial AEs got aggro on the DPS, and we went down in spectacular fashion. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Next pull, we decided to split them again. Again, the SK mit leech came in handy with this 10+ mob encounter, and he was able to cap his mit and survive quite easily while we burned down the tots. Once we switched to the named, we were able to kill him in quite a long fight with people dying and either getting rezed or reviving and running back twoards the end.Our main problem with this kill was that we were really bad about killing the dumbfires. I think we managed NOT to kill them just once or twice. But we were still able to power through for the kill, abeit messily.Next time, I'm going to keep people ranged on the named to avoid one-shotting the dumbfires with auto-attack.<b>Vilucidae </b>I was a bad raid leader and didn't do any research on this guy what-so-ever. We did a quick search and found info on his stances, flowers as well as controversy around whether he is currently bugged. We didn't manage to get him under 98% on three pulls, so we called it a night.Thanks for all the help, it really made a huge difference in our raid! I think we can get those first three down consistently now.<div></div>

[Jayad]

<P>Congrats.  Keep working on it and things will keep getting better - plus you'll have better gear over time.  Having better tank gear, resists, etc. will make a big improvement.</P> <P>Vilucidae is very, very hard now compared to the rest of the zone.  He bugs every time for us just about, although we can do it.  Once you get the pull and setup down on him, he's not too bad til the last 25%, where it is a different world at the moment.</P> <P>Gnorbl *can* be done with melee, but your guys have to be paying attention to their target and barely hitting him with melee range.  You don't want button mashing on him because you will tend to hit his pets.   Also, certain classes get AE procs (like swashies, warlock offensive proc buff, fury damage shield buff, etc.) and they need to turn it off.  We do it with absolutely no pets of any kind - not summoner pets, dumbfires, procs, godpets - nothing. </P> <P>use a parser to find out who is hitting them.  It's trivial with ACT.  Have a stern talkin' to with people who aren't paying attention. </P><p>Message Edited by Xney on <span class=date_text>02-01-2007</span> <span class=time_text>12:11 PM</span>