Phinigel Autropos should be mezable

[Lasmori]

The wiki states that he is unmezzable: http://wiki.project1999.com/Phinigel_Autropos
(I can't check to verify this bug on p99 itself as my bard is still 8. Forgive me if the wiki is just wrong.)

On live, I used to solo Phinigel on my bard quite a bit back in the day. (First for myself around lvl 54 then repeatedly for others after I had my epic.)

The tactic was as such:
1) Invis past most of the zone until you are in the upper chamber
2) Around the star with the seahorses, you lull several of them and then swim down star shaped hole being careful not to agro anything. (There where spots on the star that you could sneak down without agroing your lull targets or the unlulled stuff across from you. I forget if I tossed invis in for safety.)
3) Phinigel agros, you pull him down to the bottom of his chamber
4) Repeatedly mez while meleeing. This interrupts his casting. Hold the mez and heal as needed.

I had heard that it was possible for a bard to solo him... and after my guild wiped several times to the seahorses while trying to kill him for my epic update I figured I would just try soloing it. My first time killing him I didn't have an enduring breath item... so was twisting Tarew's Aquatic Ayre, Song of Twilight, and I believe a haste song. When I got low on health I would would stop attacking, keep him mezzed, and twist in some healing songs... while nervous as hell and accidentally forgetting to turn off attack :P.

I killed him this way repeatedly to help many mages and wizards get their epic updates over the years. (Kill him, lull the guardians, get the person down to loot... they would occasionally agro stuff and die... was fun.)

He was reasonably easy if you can get at him without the adds.

[Lasmori]

I think eqdiva may have had the tactic on their forum for the epic. I've been trying to poke around at it via archive.org, but not sure if I can get at older posts. (archive.org didn't start picking up eqdiva until 2004 and the pagination was done in javascript by the looks of it, so that's not working.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20040819062536/http://www.eqdiva.com/eq/epic.aspx

[Lasmori]

This post talks about "mez tanking" him. It's from 2004 and not "classic", though I don't think Phinigel changed since then.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041106162054/http://www.eqdiva.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=37453

[Lasmori]

Looked through the EQ patch notes on allakhazam up through til dec 2004 and didn't see anything specific to Phin.

(I used this, click the dates for the actual patches)
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches.html

[Haynar]

So you want us to make changes so you can solo phinny?

All over that .....

H

[Daldaen]

I think they want you to make changes, because classic.

[Lasmori]

So you want us to make changes so you can solo phinny?

I think they want you to make changes, because classic.

Isn't something *not* working as it did in classic considered a bug?

My bard is 8... I am not going to attempt soloing him any time in the near future. Would I want to try at some point? Certainly! It's something I feel nostalgic about doing from "back in the day". Kinda the point of the server no? :)

One person's word doesn't mean much, so I even posted a reference from 2004 (see above) mentioning the use of mez as part of the bard strategy. (I know 2004 isn't "classic", but forum references from kunark/velious are hard to come by.)

[Lasmori]

Comments from the 2004 post quoted here for your pleasure:

https://web.archive.org/web/20041106162054/http://www.eqdiva.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=37453
Phinni will be tough to get single but if you get him then you can mez tank him.

Phinny should be easy to single. My MO is to find a seahorse that doesn't see invis, and swim down past him to the bottom of Phinny's "pit". You need to hug the wall closely to do this. Once you're all the way at the bottom, swim up a notch and Phinny should be targetable. Tag with OOS/HOS and pull Phinny to the bottom. Never had an add this way, if you're nervous you can lull the seahorse on the side you're on I guess. Once Phinny's on the bottom with you it's just a matter of tanking him down and mez-healing as needed. You might want to get level 64 and Requiem of Time first.

As a side note, it can be kinda humbling to see how much more easily a mage can solo this mob than a bard can... lol.

For Phinigel, I mez-tanked him. I fought him in his cave, but a lot of people pull him to the ledge after lulling the seahorses. In retrospect, I should have done that because fighting in the water is a pain.

[Velerin]

On a side note, on live the seahorses only see invis ~25% of the time. On here I've never seen them not see invis.

[Lasmori]

On a side note, on live the seahorses only see invis ~25% of the time. On here I've never seen them not see invis.

Ah that's right! A 25% chance or so to spawn being able to see invis. So you would check and see which ones didn't see invis, lull the closest see-invis-ers... and then drop down where the guy(s) who couldn't was.

I loved that... was so interesting to figure out how to get down there without dying :D

[Nirgon]

Mez with what spell is what you gotta prove methinks

[Tecmos Deception]

Mez with what spell is what you gotta prove methinks

Yeah. Those posts are from way later than classic era are suggesting being level 64+ to solo him might be a good idea. You're gonna have to find stuff about 60s back in 2001 or earlier soloing him before you come close to convincing devs to change him, probably.

OP: what you "remember" doing on live doesn't mean squat here. Need real proof from classic era. Not trying to be rude, it's just that we all "remember" things being a certain way and are oh, so often incorrect about it.

[Ele]

Wiki is player maintained and the devs do not update it or make sure it is correct. The info on the wiki usually gets pulled from the live entries on Allakhazam and then has to be manually corrected for P99 by players.

As others have mention above, you'll need to bring some evidence from 1999-2001 (Classic to Velious era) of him being mezzable or at the very least using those era spells by players 60 and below.

[Sturgeon]

Even if it was meant to be mezzable I don't see it being changed so that one of the end bosses especially for an epic would be allowed to be soloed.

[Daldaen]

Since him being duo'd is just fine...

[Nirgon]

He can be pet cheesed np.

I just want to see what mez spell was used.

[Daldaen]

I would assume song of twilight.

[Lasmori]

I would assume song of twilight.

Indeed!
http://wiki.project1999.com/Song_of_Twilight

(Note that Phin is 53)

[Lasmori]

Yeah. Those posts are from way later than classic era are suggesting being level 64+ to solo him might be a good idea. You're gonna have to find stuff about 60s back in 2001 or earlier soloing him before you come close to convincing devs to change him, probably.

OP: what you "remember" doing on live doesn't mean squat here. Need real proof from classic era. Not trying to be rude, it's just that we all "remember" things being a certain way and are oh, so often incorrect about it.

The point isn't that he is "soloable", but that he is mezzable. Never mind that I first soloed him without being 60 my first time, but that's irrelevant.

People believing my solo abilities doesn't really matter *at all* to me. I just wanted to make sure that the fight worked as it did in "classic". The posts I linked to specifically talking about mezzing him. They are from 2004 yes, but finding a post from 2001 is exceptionally hard. I also read through (and linked to) the patch notes from 1999 to 2004 with nothing being mentioned to changes being made to Phin.

(Those patch notes don't always mean a lot either mind you, stuff was constantly changing that wasn't in them.)

Allakhazam has comments of him being soloed from back in 2002... and people replying on this forum have talked about duoing him. It's not some "crazy idea".

[Lasmori]

I just want to note that I am new to the server as of a couple days ago.

I thought the intent of the server was to replicate how the game was in "classic" as much as possible, and thought that I could possibly help in that regard.

I noticed what looked like a discrepancy (also mentioning that I did not have the ability to verify if the discrepancy existed on the server itself, just that I saw it in the wiki). I then provided an example (The only one that I could find given the nature of "classic" being 13-14 years ago.) of where people specifically mentioned the tactic that works on live, but wouldn't on p99 if the wiki is correct.

I also mentioned that I had personal experience with said tactic (because I feel terribly nostalgic of doing the fight that way).

I can't really understand the hostility... and am kinda feeling a bit discouraged from submitting future bug reports at this point.

[maximum]

I can't really understand the hostility... and am kinda feeling a bit discouraged from submitting future bug reports at this point.

I don't think there's any hostility. Words are hard to interpret without inflection.

Keep posting bugs, please. If anyone (or any logfile) can corroborate your organic memory, then the bug will get some traction (and attention).

[Ele]

I can't really understand the hostility... and am kinda feeling a bit discouraged from submitting future bug reports at this point.

Don't worry about people jumping on your post as a form of hostility. There are some passionate posters here in bug reports. Big changes require big evidence. Things on P99 exist as is and it is incumbent upon each of us bug report heroes to bring forth the best contemporaneous evidence we can must to align the server with classic. Devs can't really go off modern anecdotes about stuff we did 10-15 years ago, so we have to find contemporaneous webpages and stuff to support our positions.

However, sometimes we can't find the things on our own and just bare bug reports have to be posted to get things moving with crowd sourcing. Don't feel discouraged.

[Iumuno]

Mez cap in the old world was 51 or 52 until somewhere during Velious or Luclin, when it was lifted to regular caps as we know them.

[Lasmori]

Mez cap in the old world was 51 or 52 until somewhere during Velious or Luclin, when it was lifted to regular caps as we know them.

Very possible. I could see my being able to mez him done after changes being made to the level range you could mez. (And maybe being why I even thought to mez him). My first bard's epic (On Inny) was done pretty much exclusively with my guild before Velious. The second (On Rathe) may have been made after Luclin came out, so it's very possible they changed the level range for mez a bit by the time she picked up Song of Twilight.

[Iumuno]

May 8 2002 patch:

- The Hole now uses Kunark-level Mez/Charm/Taunt rules

But I believe it was applied elsewhere in the old world too.

[Tecmos Deception]

I can't really understand the hostility... and am kinda feeling a bit discouraged from submitting future bug reports at this point.

I didn't see (or have) any hostility. I specifically said I wasn't trying to be rude. It's fine that you're starting with a memory of things being different, but without hard evidence that isn't going to amount to anything by itself. If the devs changed something for every person who thought they remembered doing something a certain way at a certain time on live + found a few comments from 2004 supporting them, this server would have been dead years ago.