Dartain the Lost

[Daldaen]

A few things about this guy.

#1. He should be magic immune or damn near close:

Imbued Shield of Paineel - Alla (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=6386)

It is a Ribcage Shield
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#Jul 20 2001 at 5:09 AMRating: Decent
Aegiral
3 posts
I have it so i have submitted this new shield.

You can found it in the tower where are the NPC for Epic quests. The NPC is lvl 55, almost full RM. Sorry but i don't remember his name ...

RE: It is a Ribcage Shield
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#Jul 24 2001 at 4:37 AMRating: Decent
Aegiral
3 posts
Yes, almost fully Magic Resistant.

So sticking roots or slowing on him shouldn't really be doable. I seem to recall having no issue sticking snare or DoTs on him last time I was down there.

#2. He should drop 2 items off his loot table:

Withered Leather Tunic - Alla (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=6211)

Drops
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#Jun 20 2001 at 9:17 AMRating: Excellent
Anonymous
Anonymous
I was on the raid when this drops, it dropped off a named mob in the left graveyard - forget the name he is a erudite. Also dropped a book that is great for necros - Basically a spirit tomb with lots of negative stats but some mana. The room he is in is locked - have to have a rogue pick it to pull him. Easy to kill. Hope this helps- left graveyard behind locked door - erudite guy.

Tome of Miragul - Alla (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=5734)

Well, as one of the (few) Cimmerii of Erollisi Marr, I saw this item drop. The same wraith also had a Withered Leather Tunic, with very delectable statistics.

[Alunova]

A few things about this guy.

#1. He should be magic immune or damn near close:


Fixed, pending update.

As for #2, he currently has 3 items, is this incorrect? He should not have the leather tunic? Who should? Need more research on this one.

[Alunova]

Keeper of the Tombs?

[Somekid123]

Above statement doesn't define he drops two at once, the post can also imply that he has seen both drop not necessarily at once.

[Daldaen]

No, he should drop all three of those items, I just wasn't clear on the context:

The first quote under my point #2. It's from the Withered Leather tunic page. Bolded part #1. "I was on the raid when this dropped". References the leather tunic. Then he says in the 2nd bolded part that the tome dropped in ADDITION to the tunic.

The second quote is the reverse. He references the tome dropped and in ADDITION the Tunic dropped.

Also my first two quotes about the MR of Dartain are from the Imbued Shield of Paineel page, and clearly describe that he drops the shield.

He should drop two of the three items on his loot table each time.

[Daldaen]

Above statement doesn't define he drops two at once, the post can also imply that he has seen both drop not necessarily at once.

Not to be mean... But your reading comprehension is fail. Both of those quotes clearly say he dropped them simultaneously. The only alternative is that they were down there long enough for a second to spawn, which would make the 36hr respawn way off...

I was on the raid when this drops, it dropped off a named mob in the left graveyard - forget the name he is a erudite. Also dropped a book that is great for necros - Basically a spirit tomb with lots of negative stats but some mana. The room he is in is locked - have to have a rogue pick it to pull him. Easy to kill. Hope this helps- left graveyard behind locked door - erudite guy.

If it were saying he can drop, the bolded wouldn't read "Also dropped", but instead "Also can drop" or "Also drops"

Well, as one of the (few) Cimmerii of Erollisi Marr, I saw this item drop. The same wraith also had a Withered Leather Tunic, with very delectable statistics.

Again the tense of have used here implies they dropped simultaneously.

[Alunova]

Didn't notice the spawn time on him, will discuss this with the other devs.

[Somekid123]

Thanks alunova that's what I was implying. If you want change show something definitive.

ADD: Bah your edit doesn't go with what I replied.

[Tecmos Deception]

I appreciate the work the devs do on this project as much as anyone. But ... you really changed him based on two random, vague, not-exceptionally-reliable comments made by a single poster?

[Daldaen]

I appreciate the work the devs do on this project as much as anyone. But ... you really changed him based on two random, vague, not-exceptionally-reliable comments made by a single poster?

You are aware that almost no evidence exists regarding this mob (so far as I can tell) and they built him / his drop table mostly on their own?

He didn't even appear in Everlore or Allakhazam bestiary databases until 2002, a bit before the hole revamp.

However if there is a plethora of evidence out there that disagrees with what I posted, feel free to prove me wrong.

[Alunova]

I appreciate the work the devs do on this project as much as anyone. But ... you really changed him based on two random, vague, not-exceptionally-reliable comments made by a single poster?

Do you have 2 random vague comments saying he should not be MR to refute this? Typically if there is mention of something that specific, such as being MR, there was a reason for it.

[planarity]

You are aware that almost no evidence exists regarding this mob (so far as I can tell) and they built him / his drop table mostly on their own?

He didn't even appear in Everlore or Allakhazam bestiary databases until 2002, a bit before the hole revamp.

However if there is a plethora of evidence out there that disagrees with what I posted, feel free to prove me wrong.

Well in particular, his current incarnation is pretty damn MR (unmezzable with regular mezzes, even with tash). I don't know how much more MR he could be while still being "almost" fully MR. I don't think I could land slow on him either. Maybe the occasional root.

[Daldaen]

I'm pretty sure if you look through the Solo Artists Thread quite a few mentions are made of rooting and slowing him.

[Tecmos Deception]

Do you have 2 random vague comments saying he should not be MR to refute this? Typically if there is mention of something that specific, such as being MR, there was a reason for it.

No, I don't.

I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass, I just always got the impression that changes to p99 were made based on strong evidence, so when I saw an immediate "fixed, pending update" in response to someone of unknown level in an unknown situation making a "hey bro, he's RM" comment... I was a bit surprised.

As far as Dartain has been on p99, he's immune to stuns and mezzes (I think I recall loraen having rapture resist and it leading to his death during one of his solo challenge attempts) even though he's only level 55 (he hits for 160 anyway, so I assume he's 55). He resists about like drusella or a crypt named iirc, or at least he did when I did him a year ago or more for solo challenge.

[Alunova]

Dardain is reported to be in a locked room in the basement of the undead tower. Door is a rock, requires 201 picklock to open. Will take a couple groups around lvl 60 to get down there and keep it safe, undead tower is much much harder since revamp. Very hard hiting mobs, unslowable, unmezzable, greater density, etc.

There is almost no information available here, when there is nothing usable we go with what we have, even if it's vague. It's post revamp but follows the same trend.

[Tecmos Deception]

Eh. I guess it's just me generally feeling like most comments from back in the day were being made by teenagers who stacked agility on their warriors, people who were raiding places like the hole with 3 groups of level 49s playing on dialup without VOIP, etc etc. So when I see a comment about how something was "almost fully MR" with no elaboration on the levels or situation, I assume the situation was more likely a level 51 druid who got killed after he tried to snare a new add in the fight and less likely a level 60 shaman getting 80% slow resists after tash+malo.

[Alunova]

#2. He should drop 2 items off his loot table:


Now has a chance to drop 2 items and a slight chance to drop nothing.

[Daldaen]

Interesting... Slight chance to drop nothing was added for any specific reason? Or to just offset the double dropping change?

And Tecmos I have no doubts that the quote is not from a 60 shaman using a tash stick weaponized puppet stringed pet and a Malosini. However it does state that he is basically MR, and even if there is minimal evidence, I think the devs would only be making this change if it makes the game a bit harder.

If there were minimal evidence and it was saying he should be a pansy and hit for only 90 or never having an issue sticking a spell, I don't think they would've changed this.

[Wrench]

Interesting... Slight chance to drop nothing was added for any specific reason? Or to just offset the double dropping change?

Whenever there is conflicting or absent data we will almost always veer toward the more annoying/difficult option. This slightly combats the fact that players know most of the mechanics and nearly every drop and strategy is documented somewhere.

an unfortunate trend with p99, which imo does not always make for more classic feels

[Daldaen]

Fair enough. Just figured it would be low chance to drop 2 if anything. Similar to what was done with Estrella when I presented 2-3 quotes about her dropping two items each time she was killed from kedge guides back in the day.

But hey, this way it will be more classic. Not many will be soloing him and the allure to kill him may drop off so he may collect dust like he did back in the day.

[Tecmos Deception]

If there were minimal evidence and it was saying he should be a pansy

There was. One of your quotes said he was easy ;)

In both situations, the details are unknown and the words used mean different things to different people. And that's why I was surprised to see a change so suddenly, even if strong evidence is exceedingly rare. The "err on the side of harder" is perfectly fine; I'd never seen that stated before.

[Daldaen]

Context is important. The beginning of that paragraph includes the phrase "We were on a raid" and near the end is "easy to kill". But I think you were being glib.

I dunno why this surprises people. Before they got the coding to make mobs slow-immune, they had MR immunity to accomplish the same goal.

I'm willing to bet there are quite a few mobs on this server that aren't very magic resistant, that were magic immune during classic.

[Nirgon]

Gj Dald pal

[Pint]

I agree with tecmos, you have 2 very short posts that say he is 'almost' fully mr.. that means nothing, there is no context, it could have been a lvl50 cleric trying to stun him or a 60 shaman trying to slow him, theres a huge difference. Currently on my 60 shaman dartain is very mr if you dont tash and malo him, how can you base this change off such poor information.

The first guy doesn't even remember the npcs name!

[Daldaen]

Problem is, Hole is a very unknown zone in classic. Dartain the Lost didn't appear in most mob databases until after 2001. The ones that had him before that, had minimal info.

It was quite common in classic for mobs to have magic immunity as means to prevent slow from trivializing mobs as I noted above. I suspect that this mob, being the 2nd hardest 'boss' in the Hole, was magic immune as means to prevent slow.

If you find a post in era 2000-2001 saying that they could snare, root or slow Dartain, throw it up. But as is, that guy made a specific point to say he was magic immune. And it makes sense because of above.

Him being soloable on this server by chanters and shamans isn't classic.

[Pint]

Him being soloable on this server by chanters and shamans isn't classic.

This is unfortunate motivation for trying to change an npc. You keep saying there is no information on dartain, does that means you found 2 of the 5 posts that exist or 2 of 50? If its 2 of the 5 posts then this looks a lot differently then it does right now.

[Alunova]

1) He already had several anti-MR flags, although he had a very low MR value. This gives some behind the scenes evidence that someone thought he should be resistant.

2) There is more evidence that he should be resistant than there is that he should not be. Find some evidence that he should be slowable and/or soloable in classic.

3) It goes with the group spirit of Everquest. I have no doubt that he was soloable on P99, moreso if/when people understood which immunities he had. I have no doubt that there is or was a character just sitting at his spawnpoint soloing him every 36 hours. I would rather have him remain up and be killed by groups that walk through.

4) His drops are very good items and will remain lucrative even in Velious. His drop chance has increased overall, and his difficulty was only really increased for those who want to solo him. He will still not be a challenge for most groups.

[Daldaen]

This is unfortunate motivation for trying to change an npc. You keep saying there is no information on dartain, does that means you found 2 of the 5 posts that exist or 2 of 50? If its 2 of the 5 posts then this looks a lot differently then it does right now.

EQStractics has him in 2001 guide, but minimal info.
Everlore doesn't have him until 2002
Allakhazam has a single post on Dartain, from 2012, and it claims he never even existed...
Allakhazam posts that I have are from the 3 items on his loot table. Most of them just talk about the lore of Dartain being an apprentice of Miragul. There are very few comments about Dartain himself as a mob, of them probably 5-10, and 2 of those are about his magic immunity. The other 3-4 talk about 2 item drops.

[pasi]

As usual, heres my take.

The guy who posted those comments was part of a raid in 2001. If you go into his post history, you can see he is commenting as a level 52 on a paladin quest in January 2002. You can further go into his profile and see that he left Allakhazam as a 54 paladin with fairly substandard gear in Velious.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/userinfo.html?char=107143

I don't think you should implement change based on the findings of what was likely a level <52 paladin on a level 55 mob that may or may not been debuffed.

Also, if you feel like doing some major detective work, this Aegiral is the same one on allakhazam:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/16639/page-68

If you translate the page, you get posts like:
Many thanks to those who were present.
(Apologies to those who do not for reasons x or y could participate, but it is not lo'bjet this post)

It is possible, the Hole was defeated with only two groups (52-56). All this was possible thanks to an intense discovery and coordination of both groups concrete, able to act completely autonomous way.
In fact, we all so prepared and swollen were in block, that we ca finally almost seems easier than it had feared
Excellent jumpers, excellent work enchanting and melees on non mezzables mobs, perfect and efficient management of mana from everyone (the big difficulty of the Hole), in short we have advanced a good pace without let trap by a staggering rate of respawn.
A master stroke so

Among the moments, strong, well be mentioned on the swan dive by the waterfall (which we economise qques hot combts the second part of the city, but given the limited Encounters problems, we could probably go through the too), and the final battle against the powerful Dartain the Lost (so difficult that Verant has discretion to give him two drops at a time like any good self-respecting big mob ).

Absolutely nothing to say more on tactics and technique. Difficult to put the bar or find details a "critical" in this context!

For the shaman FA: it therefore lacks more than two final fights has CoM, I will try to organize this week (probably Wednesday or Thursday evening)


Allocation of loot:

Loots FA:
- Engraved Ring (FA shaman): Kjeld
- Essence of a Ghost: Silh
- Essence of a Ghost: Auril

Non FA Loots
- Loam encrusted sash: Auril
- Withered leather bracers * 2: Fir
- Withered leather gloves: Kjeld
- Withered leather tunic: Auril
- Smoldering brand?
- Imbued Shield of Paineel AC22 str4 poison4 cold4 effect: enduring breath: Aegiral

Loots minors:
- Earthen qques Blades
- Paineel Steel Sleeves

Thank especially Erollisi Marr!
by Aegiral

It is through her ​​that we all survived a bout that could (the) end catastrophically, the Dartain against the Lost!

This guy was incredibly MR, no way to snare, to stun ... Nothing!

And when it started to leak (add 2 spectra) to the tower, incredible but true ben one of my root pass and eventually held suffisemment long as the one before it completes passes porch (hello train).

Divine intervention I tell you!

Yep I deserved this shield!



So... a guy who was at most level 56 (likely 52-54) was fighting a potentially debuffed level 55 mob and claiming the mob was MR based on inability to land stuns (no shit, he's not stunnable). This is the evidence that you're using for change?

We do see he did drop 2 items though.

[pasi]

Bingo, dude was level 52 in August 2001 with the 'MR' posts being posted by him in July 2001.

Aug 23, 2001
Aegiral Paladin 52

http://www.network54.com/Forum/16639/viewall-page-57

Aegiral Paladin 52 / Tados Necrotte 51
by Aegiral

Le reste ne vaut pas la peine que j'en parle.

Affiché le Aug 23, 2001, 11:14 AM

[pasi]

As always, I've got more stuff if you need it. For now though, this seems to be sufficient information for not implementing Aegiral's comments.

[Daldaen]

No way to snare either in your quotes.

I still see no quotes about him being slowable, snareable or rootable...

That is clearly not enough information. That is more information in favor of my bug report. No stuns, fantastic. He also mentions no Snares.... AKA very MR.

[pasi]

I'm not the one making the positive claim here relative to the default of EQ mobs.

You really do need to look at the source of your evidence though, man. For all of us.

If we would just go by anything that was posted in 2001, you'd have shit implemented like Tola eating corpses via Everlore posts.

[pasi]

With that said, you did find out that he drops 2 items. Props to that.

[Daldaen]

Everlore posts are pretty notorious for being horribly inaccurate on wild claims like that.

But dude... find me ONE post of someone in era saying they stuck a slow, snare or root. The posts you have are of players who actually killed the mob. Not the Everlore posts of level 20's giving their opinions on level 55 dragons.

I'm impressed that you find a french website about that guy though. Vetting 12-13 year old posters is pretty rough

[pasi]

Again, it is YOU looking to implement a change to the server based on a level 50-52 paladins statement of Yes, almost fully Magic Resistant on a level 55 mob.

The onus of proof is not on me in this situation.

Implementing changes based on this level of evidence would set a very bad standard, don't you agree?

[Daldaen]

Not at all. Especially since as I've stated many times before, it MAKES SENSE.

Many mobs were magic immune to prevent slows. We didn't have that code on P99 and the 2nd most powerful mob in the Hole one could reasonably assume was immune to slow like many bosses were.

Not to mention the things Alunova adds in addition regarding there being notes of MR in the mobs coding.

However I will search for more evidence to slake your lust. Really this isn't a large change other than for a level 60 ench/shaman who solos it, as Alunova stated. A group's experience with the mob will not shift much at all.

[Daldaen]

Found an interesting map atleast:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010624125745/http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~berjd/hole/Hole_Tower.gif

Not that its needed but:

July 2001 (http://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-3181.html)

We got two withered leather tunics off the same mob - Dartain the Lost, I think. I swapped my ulthork tunic for it right away and have never looked back. It is *very nice*.

Just wish it didn't look like ordinary leather...

[Scrubosaur]

So sounds like the guy was a low level paladin trying to stun a higher level mob that already has some MR. There was obviously no Malo or Tashanian since no one was high enough level. Probably need some more research before this guy is labeled as "nearly immune". If he was a mob that is traditionally more resistant to magic based spells I would make the leap but he isn't a golem or something known to be more MR.

[pasi]

Many mobs were magic immune to prevent slows.

I agree with this.

If you get bored of killing revenants, you can invis undead down to the crypt below (west courtyard just inside undead tower gate) and kill dartain the lost. He's 55 I think, dark blue to 65 before the xp changes. Make sure you kill the roaming wanderer the ducks into the crypt within the crypt. If you fight him in the far west corner in the courtyard, the other undead in the area will pact him nonstop and make for a longish fight. (Tho this was before destroy undead. It probably doesn't matter if you can kill him in less than a minute with chain nukes.)

From the perspective of a solo 65 cleric. So, there are an additional 5 levels at play here. This cleric does mention chain nuking down Dartain. These nukes are of course, magic. 5 levels did not allow you to cast a spell of a certain class on a mob that was resistant to that class. If you need evidence of the prior statement, you can refer to The Slow Guide (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fusers.owt.com%2Fprogreen%2Ftemp%2 Fslow.doc&ei=2W7QU76dGYGNyAT9hYCADw&usg=AFQjCNHi9_OaGlath1MnybgE6wHzMXOjWQ&bvm=bv.71667212,d.aWw&cad=rja) which was also written from the perspective of a level 65. You can see that NPCs resistant to a school at 60 were still resistant to that school at 65.

So, that should be pretty clear that he is not fully magic resistant.

Now, is he more MR than the usual level 55 named? On this server, he currently is. Part of that is being a caster (Shield) and part of that is that he frequently wears a tunic and NPCs appear to receive the stats from their inventory.

So, the question is whether or not he should be more MR than he already is. So far, the only evidence in this direction is that of a level 52 or below paladin attempting to stun and root an unstunnable red-con NPC. To further complicate this,
1) we have no idea on whether or not the NPC was tashed/malad/dispelled/etc.
2) the paladin uses the word "almost" with MR
3) We don't know if the paladin was aware the NPC was flagged unstunnable prior to his remarks.

I would hope all this yields the conclusion (while welcoming new information as it comes) that no resist changes should be implemented at this time.

What seems legit though is that he should drop 2 items.

[Daldaen]

NPCs resistant to Magic were not still immune to magic once the slow immunity patch went in.

October 2001 Patch (http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20011008.html)

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is very important to note that we have not made any NPCs immune to spells that they were not already immune to. Many NPCs that were previously immune to spells due to their high innate resistance to magic have had that resistance reduced and specific immunities added. So if you see an immunity message after attempting to cast a spell on an NPC that you hadn't seen such a message from before, understand that the NPC was already immune to that spell before due to high resistances, and the only difference is that it now has lower resistances in general and specific spell immunity (which is why you are seeing the message).

Him chain nuking him down is irrelevant at 65.

I'm headed out for the night I will look for more hole raid comments later on this guy.

[pasi]

That change was for several raid NPCs. The patch also compensated for stripping immunities by increasing effective HP pools. Consequently, it was not a blanket change, but rather focused on several unslowable Velious/Luclin NPCs where they wanted magic to land (AoW being the best example).

I would guess Dartain wouldn't fall under the umbrella of NPCs that the patch focused on. I could be very wrong though.

As evidence for the above, take a look at the slow chart. You'll notice there is a distinction between "unslowable" and "immune to slow." This patch focused on Velious and Luclin raid NPCs. As such, you'll notice that the Kunark stuff is simply "unslowable" as it was not give the immune tag at the time of this patch, but rather maintained resistances. Whereas the Velious stuff has an immune tag because that patch made the NPC specifically immune to slow rather than simply resistant to the school. Dartain is unlikely to have fallen under the raid NPC umbrella, and even less likely to have strayed outside the Kunark group.

To put simply, that patch didn't touch Kunark.

[Daldaen]

That patch occurred 2 months before Luclin was released. I think it definitely focused on some Kunark and Velious mobs.


Look, if you can find a single post of someone claiming they successfully snared, root, or slowed him. Fine. But the post you have includes a multi-group force and the person posting says that he cannot be stunned, snared OR anything else. He goes on to mention the MR immunity several times in several forums. Which leads me to believe he didn't just try to stun twice, get resisted and go "wellp MR"

Allunova agreed with my evidence for the reasons posted above. So the onus is now on you to prove my evidence incorrect. Saying that because he is a level 52 paladin doesn't do that. If he were too low level to go there or didn't even kill him fine. But it shouldn't have to be a 60 ench/shaman complaining of MR to qualify as real evidence

So again, find a single quote from 2000-2001 saying he could be hit with magic spells.

[pasi]

The immune patch hit raid NPCs. Again, there is a distinction between "immune to slow" and "unslowable." This patch introduced "immune to slow." Kunark mobs that were unslowable due to resists remained unslowable due to resists, not due to an immune tag. Go browse through the slow chart and look for immune to slow on Kunark mobs. You will note that the only Kunark NPC that had an "immune to slow" tag was Black Reaver which occurred after the zone was revamped (which is even noted as post-revamp in the chart).

You should come to the conclusion that no, this patch didn't touch on Kunark. If you still think otherwise, this is a lost cause.

If you agree following that, we have the post of a 65 cleric chain nuking Dartain down without an issue. Levels do make a difference, but they won't turn an MR mob to something you can land spells on. It's why everything that unslowable (via MR) in Kunark at 60 is still listed as unslowable (via MR) at 65.


Honestly, at this point - I'm done caring. This change is clearly wrong, and if it gets implemented for other reasons even if being wrong, whatever. I'm ok with straying from classic. However, I'm more worried about making changes with this quality of evidence and calling it classic than I am individually about Dartain.

You have a post of a level 52 (or lower) paladin posting about how a mob was "almost completely MR" to his 52-56 buddies due to not being able to stun (an unstunnable mob) or snare. It's a level 55 NPC that buffs its MR and has MR items - it's going to appear to be very MR to groups of 52-56. They even say it's almost completely MR. "Almost" meaning that someone had to have landed something. In addition, we have a 65 cleric who chain nuked the guy down. If you want to base changes on the testimony of level 52s fighting redcons with vague remarks about the NPC, that's alright - I don't mind talking about this all day.

Now, I'm not going to spend the time if you're getting patches wrong. Unlike the above, that's something that is simple and pretty easy to figure out. I don't see any reason to debate the knowledge that we already have.

TLDR: Even if you go by the 52-56 group's remarks, they still landed MR spells. People in the future also landed MR spells. Immune patch didn't touch on Kunark as evidenced by compiled NPC slow charts.

[Tecmos Deception]

But dude... find me ONE post of someone in era saying they stuck a slow, snare or root.

This isn't the right stance to start from, Dald. It's silly to assume that everything should be impossible until it is proven possible. The vast majority of NPCs on or about level 55, whether named or trash, are NOT immune to stuff. You should be proving that Dartain is immune (or nearly so), not shifting a burden to someone else to prove that he isn't. And those comments, especially in light of pasi finding evidence to support my gut feels about them, don't seem like enough to do that.

[pasi]

This isn't the right stance to start from, Dald. It's silly to assume that everything should be impossible until it is proven possible. The vast majority of NPCs on or about level 55, whether named or trash, are NOT immune to stuff.

Pretty much what I've been stating. I'm not the one making an alternative claim here.

With that said, I did still present a case since my goal is for the server to be correct rather than for me personally to be correct.

[Daldaen]

That isn't my starting stance. That is my stance that after providing quotes from a raid in-era, people decided to question it. Which is fair, but I think his posts elaborate more than just a 52 paladin trying to stun but instead his entire raid not being able to land stun, snare or anything. As quoted below.

Thank especially Erollisi Marr!
by Aegiral

It is through her ​​that we all survived a bout that could (the) end catastrophically, the Dartain against the Lost!

This guy was incredibly MR, no way to snare, to stun ... Nothing!

And when it started to leak (add 2 spectra) to the tower, incredible but true ben one of my root pass and eventually held suffisemment long as the one before it completes passes porch (hello train).

Divine intervention I tell you!

Yep I deserved this shield!

Coupled with the behind the scene magic resistance flags Alunova mentions... I just don't see why the onus is on me to further prove the point?

If I had started with no quotes and argued for him to be MR resistant and followed up with, show me evidence that he isn't, that's fine. But with evidence that he is, even though it's from a low 50s paladin, the burden falls on someone else to counter that with a single post.

Your argument that he isn't MR stems from the fact that he is stun immune and the quote is a 52 paladin?

Also correct me if I'm wrong, weren't classic stun rules no giants and levels 1-55 (which included 55). While 56+ were immune? Cause after the patch which added level caps on all that stuff when they decided to increase levels, the PBAE stuns for chanters and the paladin stuns were given a level cap of 55, which worked on 55.

So shouldn't he be stunable if he weren't too resistant?

[Wrench]

If I had started with no quotes and argued for him to be MR resistant and followed up with, show me evidence that he isn't, that's fine. But with evidence that he is, even though it's from a low 50s paladin, the burden falls on someone else to counter that with a single post.

he actually did, your just ignoring his evidence

[Pint]

If you go down to dartain on a lvl50 toon and try to land mr spells on him you will find that he is 'very' magic resistant.. This is in line with everything that is being cited, what you want to do is create your own interpretation of 14 year old posts and say that very mr to a lvl 50 translates to fully mr to a lvl60.. This is not the right way to approach changes on p99.

[Daldaen]

he actually did, you're just ignoring his evidence

Which is? I haven't seen any quotes about him being snared, rooted or slowed. The only quote is of a 65 cleric chain nuking him in 2003.

So what is the correct way to approach changes when I come across a post saying he is very MR when their raid of level appropriate toons killed him back in Kunark/Velious, when literally almost no other information exists regarding this mob?

I'm curious if people's claims about him being MR are true but the only logs I have against him on P99 are as a level 60 Druid and I don't think I had any snare resist or magic DoT resists (though, those have a higher -check).

[Erati]

someone give me his spawn time and I will test this out with you Dald :)

[Daldaen]

The 3-4 level 60 enchanters/shamans disagreeing with me likely have the timer if I were a betting man.

But really... Can no one find a webpage about Dartain with a little more info? This could all be resolved with a single post of a guy saying he snared nuked rooted or slowed him in 2000-2001.

[Man0warr]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you. Every ghost in that Tower is super MR already.

[Daldaen]

That's fine and I said in my OP he should be MR or damn near close. From my experience with him at 60, I don't think I had a single resist. Which sounds wrong to me given level 52-56 couldn't land anything.

52-56 not landing anything on a 55 mob means a 60 should, if the mob isn't outright immune, have a very tough time. Even when fully debuffed.

[Nirgon]

Reminds me of ice well guards. They aren't magic immune necessarily but they would resist 5/6 siphon strengths. Mobs like this I would describe as nigh immune whereas a mob like stone spider I'd say is completely immune. The 5/6 drain resist on mobs like this always puzzled me.

[Man0warr]

All I know is as a Enchanter, the ghosts in the tower are incredibly hard to mez even with Tash. Maybe 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 success.

[pasi]

If you go down to dartain on a lvl50 toon and try to land mr spells on him you will find that he is 'very' magic resistant.. This is in line with everything that is being cited, what you want to do is create your own interpretation of 14 year old posts and say that very mr to a lvl 50 translates to fully mr to a lvl60.. This is not the right way to approach changes on p99.

Yes. It's very very difficult to land binary spells (all or nothing) on debuffed even con mobs, let alone red con mobs. I often get a bunch of resists on tashed level 55 nameds (aka Dartain or Crypt). I can't imagine 52-56 characters regularly landing spells on a potentially undebuffed mob (no malo here, potentially tash). As far as level 60 slowable nameds, it's nearly impossible to land. On my Emp Chottal solo, I managed to land slow at around 40% after almost chaining it. And that is on a tashed mob... on multiple attempts

Anyhow, the argument for this:

1) A 65 cleric is able to land magic nukes on Dartain in 2003.

2) Levels help with resists, but they do not circumvent resistant mobs.
Evidence for this is various Kunark raid NPCs which were unslowable even while debuffed to a level 65. Interestingly enough, I got a copy of the level 70 slow chart and even level 70s could not slow these mobs while they were debuffed.

3) It is extremely unlikely that Dartain's MR status was changed in this time. The previously mentioned immune patch only hit Velious.
Evidence for this is the fact that nothing in Kunark transitioned from resistant to an immune tag; only Velious mobs did. The Kunark mobs that received an immune tag (a Black Reaver) all did so after the 2003 revamp of their respective zones. Dartain was taken out of the game at that time. Hell, Kunark mobs not having an immune tag might still be the case on live.

From these 3 statements, we can logically deduce that Dartain should not be MR. It doesn't tell us the degree of resistance, but we know the NPC isn't MR. A 52 paladin isn't landing much and a solo 65 cleric isn't having any issues. I would wager a level 60 with a MR debuff would face more similar resist patterns to the solo 65 cleric (undebuffed) than the 52 paladin. The current state is that the entire area is very resistant to level 60s with the exception of the Fallen Erudites which are a much lower level. That seems right to be, and there's been no evidence presented that has suggested otherwise.

Now, it would help me if you could identify which of the above 3 points you do not agree with so that I can focus my posts on that rather than include all this information with every post.

In addition, I don't think my enchanter has left EC in a year. There's not exactly a conflict of interest here for me.

[Daldaen]

I agree with #1 and 2. #3 I am somewhat skeptical on... but as a compromise I think increasing his MR to higher status rather than immunity would be a fair compromise based on the evidence presented then, yes?

If a mid-50s group finds it so MR that they call it immune, it should be more MR than it is currently.

Post up some logs of him resisting and getting hit by spells, I'm assuming pre-tashed.

PS - You mentioned he is Stun immune, shouldn't be vulnerable to stuns? Shouldn't classic mobs NOT be stun immune unless Giant, level 56+ or MR immune?

[Tecmos Deception]

The 3-4 level 60 enchanters/shamans disagreeing with me likely have the timer if I were a betting man.

But really... Can no one find a webpage about Dartain with a little more info? This could all be resolved with a single post of a guy saying he snared nuked rooted or slowed him in 2000-2001.

I don't play hardly ever, pasi is above the lure of mere pp, and greeny eats pieces of shit like vib gaunts for breakfast (and so he doesn't farm dartain). It's nothing personal, Sonny :)

[Daldaen]

I don't play hardly ever, pasi is above the lure of mere pp, and greeny eats pieces of shit like vib gaunts for breakfast (and so he doesn't farm dartain). It's nothing personal, Sonny :)

It strikes me as such since literally the only people disagreeing are those who have soloed him several times in the past. I'm sure if you dug through ECTunnel histories you'd find a few posts about selling withered leather tunics and tomes of Miragul too!

If this had been a change to a named cycle mob in Skyfire, I doubt any of you would've posted. Just sayin'

[Daldaen]

2003 Post (http://www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php?10110-New-Robe-Quest-Coming-Up/page3)

#1 - Tome of Miragul - Drops from Dartain the Lost, in The Ruins of Old Paineel (The Hole). Reportedly a pain to get to, and you need a rogue, and to be prepared for many magic resistant, unmezzable mobs.

Talking about people's experience getting the book before revamp (bout a month before this post). Since Dartain was pulled after the revamp. Also because the door was unlocked with the revamp.

Gives credence to high MR mobs.

[pasi]

It strikes me as such since literally the only people disagreeing are those who have soloed him several times in the past. I'm sure if you dug through ECTunnel histories you'd find a few posts about selling withered leather tunics and tomes of Miragul too!

If this had been a change to a named cycle mob in Skyfire, I doubt any of you would've posted. Just sayin'

I hear ya. I don't think either of us play very often. Yesterday was the first time any of my characters has left EC in 2014. No worries though :) - this tends to happen on a lot of threads, I've been implicated in all sorts of causes! I have a high level war/cler/enc/rog/monk/sham/necro, so pretty much any post on a bug thread can be tied to be arguing out of whats good for character X.

And yeah, I was trying to follow up on Kalendrox's (a pal of mine) link to the Dartain thread on EQTC, but to no avail on the waybackmachine. The ghost area is already very MR for its level (mobs are 49-52ish) as Manowarr indicated. It's one of the reasons that withered leather gear is so expensive on this server. I will pretty much avoid that area outside of nameds already up who are guaranteed to put out big $$$ and people who need me to kill Kindle for them. I'm very surprised that Aegiral mentioned that he was able to land root in that area.

I think there's also a misunderstanding over how resistant Dartain/Ghosts are on the server currently. My post where I mention to root him doesn't talk about keeping him rooted. The goal is to tash him, then root him for a long enough time that you can land slow (while trying more than 1 slow due to cooldown). After that, you memory blur him so that the pet will hold aggro when root inevitably breaks. I still have attempts where root resists/breaks too much or there are too many slow resists where I have to cap out. Him and all his ghost pals are pretty resisty as is. I'll try to find him up and fraps a fight of him sometime soon.

All in all, I appreciate the initial post. He should be dropping 2 items at a time. We got some positive changes from this thread.

[Pint]

Daldaen the reason we are all posting here is bc we have extensive experience with the mob and area that you are trying to change and it goes well beyond "I was down there one time and I think snare landed real easily." Why don't you do some leg work and run a low 50s toon down there on p99 and show us your logs.

[Daldaen]

See aformentioned perma-campedness. The last 5-6 times I've been down there on cleric for ranger/sk/pal/ench epics he hasn't been up.

But no one has responded to my comment about why he is stun immune if he isn't a 'giant mob', level 56+ or magic immune.

No one has posted their own logs either.

[pasi]

Getting a bit off track on this one, but I like where this is headed.

I would think the reason he is stun immune over here is because the Revs are stun immune. Now, the question would be where we are getting the information that Revs are stun immune. I don't know.

Probably the best source of knowledge that we have of this area of The Hole is going to be Gello over at EQclerics (the cleric I mentioned before). He was a guy who soloed that area at 60 and 65 and frequently posted about it on EQclerics.

As with anything, when you start looking for answers, you'll find that 2 questions arise for every 1 question that you answer.

I posted one of his posts at 65, heres 60:

This doesn't answer your question (actually the fallen erudites don't summon but I'll get to that), but I'm able to solo the summoning revenants (wanderers even) fine. But not when they're surrounding by mobs that can pact faster than I can deal damage.

When fighting summoning stuff:
1) Click off all damage shields. They prevent you from parking adds. MoR is great since you can choose which mob gets hit by a damage shield.
2) Don't damage the adds. Make it a habit to turn off attack while root parking.
3) For stuff in the undead tower, keep RM/RD/RF up always. RD for the Insidious Retrogression (it's easy to resist with moderate RD), RF for the ignite blood/bones, RM for the ST's and snares.

There's two places I solo at the undead tower, depending on how buried aego is. The easier spot time-wise is the top of the undead tower in Ghost of Kindle's room. This is a good spot to practice killing summoning mobs. You'll have a good amount of time to recover, it's a viable spot for those without a manastone. Almost always (I want to say always but could be wrong), one of the two revenants is dubious, one is kos. Neither will assist the other. (A dubious will assist a dubious and a kos will assist a kos always) Have immobilize up. You want the fastest possible root because if the revenant gets away you'll get adds. You won't get a ton of adds unless you chase the mob. Mobs flee at a max of 200 feet. So if the mob flees and you didn't root them in time or don't think you will, immediately strafe/run to the back of the room behind the Ghost of Kindle. You may get lucky and be able to zap it from there. If you lose it, and you're against the back wall before it gets to far, you're likely safe until a roamer meets with it. When that happens both will warp back onto you. Root one, pull the other away and finish it off, then stone up to take on the add. If you chase it, or stay in the middle of the room, you're likely to get a ton of adds. If the mob is moving slow because you got it to pixels then it's likely safe to chase. The one guarding the room between Kirn and Kindle is almost always dubious. I use the L5 stun to stop fleeing mobs then immobilize.

The worst part about revenents isn't that they cast ignite bones now (I love that cast on me), but they cast dispel an awful lot. With just RD/RM/RF/aego/baotr up, I was getting aego dispelled every 5th mob. It's no problem manawise but really hurts the bank. Because of this, my preferred spot is the fallen erudites in the left courtyard down below:

There's one wanderer that roams the courtyard. Wanderers in my experience are always summoners. They're tougher than revenants and can HT in the 700s. Worse, there's like 4 other revenants in the left courtyard that can keep pacting nonstop. It's not unusual to fight it for 10 minutes with the mobs pacting the wanderer and its hp bouncing from 55 to 68% for most of the fight. So to start breaking the spawn I use banishment of shadows to poof the initial roamer. He's tough/impossible to kill unless you get him away from the others which you will later. Once he's gone I run down (invis undead) into the catacombs and run into the back corner of the first tomb and kill the fallen erudite. Some are light blue, most are dark blue, they never summon. I run from room to room, killing the fallen erudites. There's only four of them in the catacombs but respawn is fast enough that you won't have much time before the wanderer respawns (manastone isn't used much during the fights but it's vital between fights to keep up with respawn). After the last dies, I put up improved invis undead and run out to the steps and wait for the wanderer to respawn. Once he does I hit him with a non-damaging spell (L5 stun) and run back to the end of the catacombs. This is far enough away that the other mobs won't pact. I kill him here, put up invis undead, and the first fallen erudite will already be up. Took 5 seconds to kill the first wanderer, so be prepared for respawns to already be up. Don't run down the corridor now without invis undead or you'll make a small train on yourself. Once this set is killed the spawn will be broken pretty easily.

Spell lineup for me has been:
Stun
Ethereal Remedy
Exile Undead
CH/Banishment of Shadows
Immobilize
Improved Invis Undead/Epitaph of Life/Pet
MoR
Yaulp V

The pet is useless against revenants unless you MoK them. They have a pretty hefty damage shield. I want to squeeze CE in there somewhere, but I can heal myself faster with ER and the occasional crit helps turn the tide of a close battle. Banishment of Shadows and a small pile of star rubies will make life easier here. Just about every undead short of Dartain is banishable. It's very temping to use 3 banked points for innate invis undead.

Yes I'm a freak, no DA or gate. :P I use the Hammer of Souls, manastone, have 4101hp and 1207ac self buffed using the hammer, 31% haste and 147 dex before Yaulp. Primal will make this easier, but I doubt a hammer of the sun will since almost all casting is done while the mob is beating on you.

XP-wise, I really haven't watched close since I'm too busy trying to stay alive. I'd say about 3-4 blue an hour. Not stupendous compared to a group but very good for what I've done in the past. It's a wicked fun place to solo, if not for the xp than for the experience.

Just going off that, you can come up with a list of at least 10 things that are different on Project 1999. This is an area of the game that was not traveled much when it did exist and was removed from the game at the baby stages of MMORPG information gathering.

[Pint]

Banishment working down there would be pretty nuts.

[Tecmos Deception]

Why don't you do some leg work and run a low 50s toon down there on p99 and show us your logs.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure if you run a level 52 down there, you'll find Dartain to be "almost full RM."


But no one has responded to my comment about why he is stun immune if he isn't a 'giant mob', level 56+ or magic immune.

It struck me as different when I've been to the hole and run into a number of level 54-55 mobs that were immune to stuns and mezzes (even rapture), but I'm not about to start a thread asking for a change when I have no real evidence in support of my position ;)


No one has posted their own logs either.

Again, that's now how bug reporting works. If you think something should change, it's supposed to be on you to prove that it needs to be changed. Show a 52 landing spells on an undebuffed Dartain and I certainly won't be claiming his resists are fine anymore.



Not that any of this really seems to matter anymore, since Alunova already "fixed" this.

[Tecmos Deception]

I just noticed that the cleric talking about soloing hole didn't understand the benefits of clickies to protect against dispels. See? People were TERRIBLE at this game back then, lol. Even someone who was soloing one of the most remote, nasty areas of the game, with a class that isn't much for soloing at 55+, didn't know tricks that everyone on p99 knows about.

And that's why I was surprised at the idea of changing Dartain based on a vague comment from a low-50s who was probably trying to blind or stun Dartain without MR debuffs... and who concluded he is "almost full RM" because 5 of his spells resisted before his raid of level 50s killed the dude.

[Daldaen]

Next time you find him, I would be happy to try nuking him on my 55 cleric or 51 wizard. For science.

And as for dispells... I've felt they aren't exactly classic for some time but haven't researched it much. Deserves another thread. There's more to it than top-down debuffing.

[Nirgon]

We gettin' classic dispel system?

:D

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

I nuked him last night on my enchanter. I also successfully landed slow.

56 enc.

[Tecmos Deception]

I nuked him last night on my enchanter. I also successfully landed slow.

56 enc.

Thanks for the details.

[Daldaen]

I need to get my 51 wiz down there. Spam temperate flux staff on him to see resist percentage since that's a magic based debuff (even though it only debuffs fire and old), with no special resist check.

[Erati]

I need to get my 51 wiz down there. Spam temperate flux staff on him to see resist percentage since that's a magic based debuff (even though it only debuffs fire and old), with no special resist check.

someone supply Dald with the timer for scientific research pls

he doesnt want loot

[Daldaen]

Or a dev on dev server can load a 50-55 wiz, create a Staff of Temperate Flux and spam click it for 100-200 trials, see what percent resist and adjust accordingly.