Pirate Jones after the update

[Pyzjyn]

<p>Still retained some difficulty but otherwise doable.</p><p>Had a temp, guard, mystic, illy, lock, and me (swash).</p><p>Temp starts by casting Sanctuary on pull. Guard reinforces. Swash debuffs like mad and rest of group lets loose on the DPS. At about 55-60%, adds will start to come over and keep your mezzer occupied. No biggie. At about 30% Swash needs to cast AE block. PJ will cast a massive AE that is reminiscent of the AEs he used to spam, somewhere between 25-30% health. If the swash times the block just right, the rest of the fight he can be burned down. </p>

[DngrMou]

<cite>Pyzjyn@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Still retained some difficulty but otherwise doable.</p><p>Had a temp, guard, mystic, illy, lock, and me (swash).</p><p>Temp starts by casting Sanctuary on pull. Guard reinforces. Swash debuffs like mad and rest of group lets loose on the DPS. At about 55-60%, adds will start to come over and keep your mezzer occupied. No biggie. At about 30% Swash needs to cast AE block. PJ will cast a massive AE that is reminiscent of the AEs he used to spam, somewhere between 25-30% health. If the swash times the block just right, the rest of the fight he can be burned down. </p></blockquote>Thanks Pyzjyn.  Does PJ give any indication that he's preparing to cast that AE?

[Emirikol]

First off, Thank you to the developers that addressed this.I'm actually most impressed that they didn't harm the feel of the encounter.  It is still challenging, but requires a lot less luck.I didn't crawl the parse but here is what seemed to be the same and different.1.) The bird taunt seems to be gone.2.) The bird can still hit but not like before3.) The adds can still do some decent damage and should be mez'd.  It's not an instant wipe if you don't get this immediately though.4.) Knock back is still there, stifle seems to be gone, fear seems weakened.  (And seems to honor the fear immunity of certain professions.)5.) Pirate Jones himself seems to have lost 100k hps (350k instead of 450k?)The encounter timing looks unchanged.  The encounter still requires a solid group who know how to play and definately can require some thought to deal with what is thrown at you.  There is no need to exploit or zone in 50 times to win though.  (Or pack serious DPS.)  We did this encounter with the anti-dps party just because we wanted to see if it could happen.Shadow Knight, Swash, Temp, Defiler, Warden and CoercerAE blockers on Warden and SwashI can't say thank you loud enough for making this a challenging but fair encounter.  I hope people are able to get people to try it with them again.  Reminds me a lot of the old bell quests from the original game.

[Pyzjyn]

<cite>DngrMouse wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pyzjyn@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Still retained some difficulty but otherwise doable.</p><p>Had a temp, guard, mystic, illy, lock, and me (swash).</p><p>Temp starts by casting Sanctuary on pull. Guard reinforces. Swash debuffs like mad and rest of group lets loose on the DPS. At about 55-60%, adds will start to come over and keep your mezzer occupied. No biggie. At about 30% Swash needs to cast AE block. PJ will cast a massive AE that is reminiscent of the AEs he used to spam, somewhere between 25-30% health. If the swash times the block just right, the rest of the fight he can be burned down. </p></blockquote>Thanks Pyzjyn.  Does PJ give any indication that he's preparing to cast that AE?</blockquote>Not that I could really tell tbh. Just found that if you cast it at the right time you won't wipe. There were quite a few times that the AE hit as I was still casting my AE block. Every time we failed.

[Rippitt]

Sounds like it's just as easy as before... ?

[Ristan]

<p>after 100 + attempts at the previous jones...it took us about 8-9 tries to get him after the revamp.  We went in with a t7 (raid) /t8 (instance) geared group, we haven't done much t8 raiding to be totally geared out.</p><p>Group set up: Paladin, Defiler, Necro, Swash, Swash, Dirge.</p><p>We had tried it with a brig instead of the dirge, but his round 2 aoe was killing us. We tried mezing the pirate adds, but we couldn't get them locked before the healer would die...so we went to full burn.</p><p>Basically it was a burn jones then his adds fight, and hope that his parrot doesn't pop.</p><p>On the pull one swash used advanced warning, we burn him to 50% or so, 20 secs after the pull the dirge pops blade dance, the adds would pop on the defiler about that time, the defiler would mass fear, and then paladin would aoe them to get them on him, and everyone just drop jones...necro life burn, swahses do their big attacks, paladin big attacks....dirge buffed the group with mit/parry buffs for the tank...we burned him in less than a minute (only had 2 aoes go off one on pull and one with bladedance up).  Once jones died, we killed his pirates, no deaths.</p><p>It took us a few pulls to play with group set ups, and also to get a pull that he didn't pop his parot (who fears ect) on the pull.</p><p>Still tough, but doable if you have a competent group and dps.</p><p><img src="http://kyrainetheranger.tripod.com/animatedsig.gif" alt="" width="400" height="100" border="0" />  </p>

[Margen]

<p>I am glad they changed the encounter a bit.  I got my weapon before the change, but I still think it was mostly blind luck vs anything we changed.  We got an encounter where the bird didn't pop until Jones was at 3pct and we where able to kill him.</p><p> The encounter should be tough, but sorry it was a bit out of line with the rest of the end encounters for other classes, most of which I've either dpsed for or tanked.</p><p>Hope you all get your updates and gratz on your new weapon.</p>

[Tamo]

<p>I'm stuck on chardok (haven't grouped in a while), but our other swash got unlucky and broke armor on Jones.</p><p>Still a tough encounter and I'm glad that it has retained some... what's the word... balls?</p>

[Zebbin]

<p>As far as I can tell I'm only seeing that he has less hitpoints. We are getting AE'd every 10 sec or so and stifled. We used the status items to block stifle, swashy AE block on pull, temp sanc, druid shell after 20 sec. As soon as shell gone we get AE'd. As soon as stifle block goes we get stifled. And of course there is sitll the random pos bird. </p><p> So I guess, I don't feel this has been fixed to be inline with other epics. B/c I have done almost every other epic fight and they are cake walks by comparision to this encounter.</p><p> Basing off of other posts, I guess we will try with a dirge, and ditch the chanter, skip mez and just kill...</p>

[adamflanagan]

<cite>Zebbin wrote:</cite><blockquote><p> So I guess, I don't feel this has been fixed to be inline with other epics. </p></blockquote>How can you say this??? There are only two parts of our epic quest that are challenging, working out what to do and Jones. If you're following a walkthrough it can be duo'e/trio'd up to Jones in 4-5 hours.

[Faenril]

They should make it a solo green encounter then ppl will - maybe - stop complaining <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[RingleToo]

<p>I did this shortly after the update and while still very challenging, it's much more doable then before. I don't know how it compares to other epic quests, but compared to how this used to be it's a whole lot better. </p><p>His aoe's are still nasty, so being able to time those aoe blocks (which does require a bit of luck) is important. That bird is still bad news, too, but not the automatic wipe that it was before. We did wipe 6 or 7 times, but we did beat Jones. </p><p>We didn't have a dirge, but we did have decent dps with my swashy, a wizzy, and a necro. We had two healers - a templar and a warden I think - and a zerker for our tank. Basic strategy is still block aoe's and hit Jones as hard as possible. </p>

[Trojenn]

<p>I honestly still do not see were people are having any trouble with this encounter. Yes it was hard before the nerf but it was a [Removed for Content] good challenge. Yes i died uncounted times doing it but when i finished i actualy felt pride that we had beat it. After this nerf, we went in with </p><p>Swash Swash Fury Illusionist Warlock <-- it was all that was on in guild ATM.</p><p>I went in with AoE avoid up, everyone had /target macros for Jones, Warlock opened up with everything he had, me and my fellow swash burned as hard as we could, fury healed and the Illy just was a buff bot lol.. </p><p>We burnt Jones down in 43 secs and then killed his adds, the warlock died because after nuking on pull he had agro but besides that no one else died. We killed everything..</p><p>Us swashis ran Poisons : Stupefy, Gracelessness, Vitality Breach      We both have Potency Maxed on AA's</p><p>I am not one to sit and bash anyone for not being able to do something I just do not understand why other people are having such a hard time doing this encounter now. We have peoples alts that are in complete MC gear that have there Epics. Oh well, if someone can explain why people are having problems maybe i can help then..</p>

[Errolflynn]

Tried this 7 or 8 times always failed. We seems to either get stunned to hell or the bird pops or we get AoEed to death.I've looked at the parses and on one the bird did 44K dps. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/499fd50bc713bfcdf2ab5a23c00c2d62.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Zebbin]

<p>Finally got him <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>setup was, 2 swashies, SK, illusionist, templar, wizard. </p><p>Strat:</p><p>Swashie 1 AE block on pull, Swashie 2 AE block a few second after 1st AE block down. Templar sanc on pull, Templar Ae Block self after 30 sec.  As others have said the key is DPS. One swashie did 5k DPS, the other 3.5k, illusionist 1k (silly mezzes) SK 800, wizard 2k. Mana burn  and ro mirical at 30%. We fought him on the upper deck in the back corner of the ship. Illusionist had bird mez macro and priate mez macro. Still took 8 attempts, mostly due to bird related deaths.  I'd say if your group is doing less than 8k dps it will be very hard.</p><p>The bird is what makes the thing so random, I honestly think he should just spawn at a fixed time to make the encounter more predictable. </p>

[Zebbin]

<p>double post pls delete</p>

[Foolsfolly]

I've tried this encounter with 4 completely different groups over the last 2 weeks. All groups were all 80's, partially raid geared, plate tank, 2 healers, enchanter, dps, and me. All wiped 10+ times before they gave up on me.I had anyone with less than 10k hp getting 1-shotted by the whirling blades as soon as aoe immunity dropped, enchanters getting resisted on every attempt to mes the bird, priests getting knocked around and feared..I just don't know what to do differently =[

[Trojenn]

<p>Try this grp setup..</p><p>Dirge Guard Swash Swash [Removed for Content] Warden....</p><p>Precast all temp buffs rigth before he spawns agro. Have tank rescue and reinforce immediately.. Have Blade Dance go up and CoB casted.. Max burn with everything you have.. You should knock him down to about 30% health or less in the first 20 secs.. After about 20 secs casts Swashi AoE avvoid and cast the second swash AoE avoid 10 secs after.. He should be dead by this time.. Everyon direct target Jones. do not worrie about the adds.. I am not trying to say anything bad but if you cannot get him to 30% with all temp buffs up and CoB running your going to fail.. We had him dead in 43 Seconds with about an 17k group Parse.. </p>

[Leenee]

<p>We just did this last week - Group setup - </p><p>Guardian - swash (me) - Dirge - Warden - temp - assasian - some raid gear, but not tons<img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>Tank pulled Jones to far south corner, Dirge started with dance of blades, I then did my aoe block, and templar followed. We called this out on vent. </p><p>We concentrated on Jones and ignored adds, had him dead first try, in about 45 seconds. Never got aoe on us. No deaths.</p><p>Woot! </p>

[Zaino Shadowave]

<p>Thanks for all of the help guys.  Following your example, I completed my epic last night on the 2nd try.</p><p> Group:  Swash, Swash, Illus, Guard, Fury, and Temp.</p><p>Took us the first pull to figure out when he became live.  2nd Pull went super smoothe.  Was challenging, and fun.  Great finish to a fun quest!</p>

[Errolflynn]

Did this last week with Guard, Illy, Swash (me), Warden, Defiler and Warlock.Took about 3 attempts till everyone knew what to expect. Think we got lucky also and the parrot did not seem to pop.

[Foolsfolly]

Tried this encounter again with a guardian, defiler, warden, monk and 2 swashies. Wiped over a dozen times before the guardian and defiler gave up and bailed.We replaced them with a ranger and a templar, had the monk tank, got Jones to 5% on the first try. Killed him second try.The templar made all the difference. Even with a monk tanking, he was just so much easier with that templar.

[riblete]

It seems like most (not all) of the successful runs without tons of deaths included a templar. What is the ability the templars are using that enables this improvement in performance?Also, how high a group parse in DPS do you think is needed? In my guild there is a brigand / wizard / Me combo that ends up in groups often since we are all working on our epics and need help on various steps. Together, we three parse at about 9,000 DPS on boss fights. Assuming one slot is a templar, and one is a monk (the normal tank for these events)... how much DPS would I need from the monk and other class? I have read that Jones has about 350,000 health now. 9,000 DPS (might be lower due to level of Jones?) should burn him down in about 39 seconds. But it seems everyone takes longer than that. Exaple is the 17,000 group parse that took 43 seconds that dirtybird reports above. That would give Pirate Jones about 731,000 health, or something was putting up wards or heals on the Pirate.I am just wanting to go into this prepared as my guild is a little reluctant on helping with the Jones fight. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/0320a00cb4bb5629ab9fc2bc1fcc4e9e.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Ashr]

The templar brings 40 seconds of sanctuary, which makes the entire group completely immune to all control effects.  Templar also gives the tank an additional avoidance check, and a targetted 30 second ae immunity.