First to Engage: Exploiting the mechanic?

[pasi]

You guys have killed 41% hasted DW'n Hoshkar - you've already killed a stronger version of Zlexak which is one of the harder NToV dragons. Not to mention you did so while under duress of trains.

Thats why I made a very distinct, and very clear distinction between the first 3 months of velious, and after that point.

The first AoW kills took 3 guilds and 120+ people to get him to 70%, 30% and 20%, and two guilds and 90 people to get him dead, after months and months of farming NToV.

Considering what we know now, and what to farm, and how to gear, I still expect a properly tuned AoW to take 3 months of NToV farmed warrior gear.

I posted the math on the matter before, but AoW boils down to one thing - can you keep up a defensive warrior for a single round of his melee? If you can keep up a tank, it doesn't matter how hard the NPC is perceived - a 2-2.5 second CHeal rot ensures that they will never get to deal more than 1 round of damage before the tank is fully healed.

AoW has a DB of 254 and a DI of 45. He also flurries.

Max hit with defensive = 254 + 10*45 = 704.
Bash/Kick damage is more or less the DB.

Max round = 704*8 + 254*2 = 5632 + 508 = 6140.

A few things with this. 1) It's possible to take a Riposte. 2) It's very rare for an NPC to connect every hit. 3) Even with high ATK, the odds of distribution of 8 consecutive Max DI are very low. 4) He's not always gonna flurry 4 extra attacks and a kick/bash.

Top end Kunark warriors are 5500 HP. With sidegrades to drop a lot of AC for HP, you can reach 5625 or so in just Kunark gear. Velious raid buffs (PoTG + Divine Strength + Focus of Spirit) add about 300 HP. Unlike other expansions, Velious 60 spells are incredibly common.

So, assuming absolutely no gear upgrades, you're looking at a 5925 HP warrior. Now, to even get to AoW, you'll be killing Vindi and Statue. You'll likely end up with a Vindi/Statue BP or Vindi Boots unless you are incredibly unlucky (common drops). If you aren't a retarded guild, your main targets will be Zland/Kland/Sont/LtK/Yelinak.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect there to be 6k+ HP warriors within 24 hours of Velious launch. This is enough HP to realistically tank AoW for the duration defensive.

Now, I always get the DPS argument - our DPS don't have primal. So fucking what. DPS gains can more than be made up for by more players. Wu's Fists (assuming they don't get nerfed) are better than most monk weaponry. Ragebringer/RSS works great. Kael has a ton of great DPS pets.

How about the cleric mana argument? Well, if you ever raided Velious, you'll know that cleric gear didn't mean dick until the Luclin patch that nerfed mod rods. Velious is a buncha clerics starring at a wall, eating mod rods, counting to 3, and clicking a button.

The only 2 things that should prevent AoW from dying within 24 hours are 1) The Zone crashing. 2) A small guild blowing the spawn while everyone else is out getting ST keys.