Hardest raid encounter on this server?

[Erati]

if they made ToV dragons unslowable - holy moly things would be far more interesting when encountering them

Cazic Thule should get a mini shout out here as he is a major pain in the ass and will beast on any unprepared raid force. I feel guilds have wiped to him more frequently than most non-Sontalak or AOW encounters. Sont/AoW are a bit overtuned so the margin for error is slim to none, Cazic can be overcome with some good raid set up and execution.

Slaying him cleanly probably still one of the most fun and satisfying raids bc its all about executing the strat and surviving from 100%-0%.

[Lojik]

Originally Posted by xKoopa [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But the recharge cost..

As stated in my first post: it all depends on what you think is a smaller investment: how ever many 100k to down sont in a relatively short time, or 80 people spending hours clearing trash. Plus what are recharge costs on tunare encounter and clearing growth.

Edit: the answer is probably tunare, it's just people are willing to put forth the investment for some bis loot.

[Raev]

Originally Posted by Erati [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

if they made ToV dragons unslowable - holy moly things would be far more interesting when encountering them

The content isn't super hard, but it's actually pretty fun when you do it with reasonable numbers, i.e. 30-40 rather than 80-90. The problem is variance; no one wants even a 1% chance at losing after all that tracking, so everyone zergs.

[Erati]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The content isn't super hard, but it's actually pretty fun when you do it with reasonable numbers, i.e. 30-40 rather than 80-90. The problem is variance; no one wants even a 1% chance at losing after all that tracking, so everyone zergs.

I disagree. Even only having around 40, most those dragons slowed are very casual kills if DPS knows how to duck around corners and the clerics dont fall asleep with the 4-5 sec pause.

Dragons melt with 80 tho and yes its very very trivial even without slow, but being able to slow these beasts really takes the edge off how scary they 'could' be

[Freakish]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The content isn't super hard, but it's actually pretty fun when you do it with reasonable numbers, i.e. 30-40 rather than 80-90. The problem is variance; no one wants even a 1% chance at losing after all that tracking, so everyone zergs.

The problem is vultures*. It's frustrating to kill something to 20% and then another guild swoops in and kills it. AoW wasn't killed without a vulture at first. Same with Cazic-Thule, and others i'm not remembering.

[Daldaen]

Sontalak is the easy winner on P99 because we have non-classic mechanics.

If we had 100% Classic EQ mechanics...

• Sontalak's AE would be every 12 seconds and the proc would only hit the MT. The fear would be far more easily resistable and anyone with decent resists when hit would be feared for 6 seconds or less. This fight would be doable with 30-40 P99ers.
• Tunare would not be perma-rooted. Allowing a good puller to pull her from her spawn location to the temple east of the zoneline, which then let's you corner tank her negating the challenging Knockback/root mechanic which forces tank swaps and speed bumps. Just a tank/cleric/DPS fight like most of the rest of EQ. Doable by a solid 60 P99ers with a fairly optimized CH chain, warrior list and melee DPS.
• AoW like the above, simply a check against number of clerics, warriors and melee DPS. Doable again by a solid 60 P99ers. I think AoW would be doable with around 30-40 players if you are running 10-15 Druid/Enchanter Charmers, 10ish Clerics and a few mages/shamans/Paladins to Debuff and control breaks. But the world will never know!

Given classic EQ Mechanics, I'd say AoW wins the most challenging fight. His damage output and mitigation are higher than Tunares, and in classic Velious due to her not being permarooted you could negate her ability entirely to force tank swaps or kill random DPS.

This assumes the raid mob in a vacuum. If you're talking about the environment then Tunare simply because that clear sucks. A classic NToV crawl sucks about as much though...

I'd really love to see Vulak Ring Event implemented here. Just to provide one challenging raid that doesn't get snap FTE'd. In era that's a raid that is actually tuned to a 60-70 man raid where everyone's role actually matters. Or Luclin cause hot damn there are some many great raids to pick from.

[Mendo]

Originally Posted by Erati [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

if they made ToV dragons unslowable - holy moly things would be far more interesting when encountering them

Cazic Thule should get a mini shout out here as he is a major pain in the ass and will beast on any unprepared raid force. I feel guilds have wiped to him more frequently than most non-Sontalak or AOW encounters. Sont/AoW are a bit overtuned so the margin for error is slim to none, Cazic can be overcome with some good raid set up and execution.

Slaying him cleanly probably still one of the most fun and satisfying raids bc its all about executing the strat and surviving from 100%-0%.

Let's make TOV an outdoor zone like VP!

The thing with Cazic is that guilds are racing to him. That's part of the challenge. The other big challenge is that you have to blow up the entire plane of fear while at the same time making sure that you get CT from your opponent. You really have two raids at the same time.
1. Blowing up fear
2. Fighting CT

[Maciver]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sontalak is the easy winner on P99 because we have non-classic mechanics.

If we had 100% Classic EQ mechanics...

• Sontalak's AE would be every 12 seconds and the proc would only hit the MT. The fear would be far more easily resistable and anyone with decent resists when hit would be feared for 6 seconds or less. This fight would be doable with 30-40 P99ers.
• Tunare would not be perma-rooted. Allowing a good puller to pull her from her spawn location to the temple east of the zoneline, which then let's you corner tank her negating the challenging Knockback/root mechanic which forces tank swaps and speed bumps. Just a tank/cleric/DPS fight like most of the rest of EQ. Doable by a solid 60 P99ers with a fairly optimized CH chain, warrior list and melee DPS.
• AoW like the above, simply a check against number of clerics, warriors and melee DPS. Doable again by a solid 60 P99ers. I think AoW would be doable with around 30-40 players if you are running 10-15 Druid/Enchanter Charmers, 10ish Clerics and a few mages/shamans/Paladins to Debuff and control breaks. But the world will never know!

Given classic EQ Mechanics, I'd say AoW wins the most challenging fight. His damage output and mitigation are higher than Tunares, and in classic Velious due to her not being permarooted you could negate her ability entirely to force tank swaps or kill random DPS.

This assumes the raid mob in a vacuum. If you're talking about the environment then Tunare simply because that clear sucks. A classic NToV crawl sucks about as much though...

I'd really love to see Vulak Ring Event implemented here. Just to provide one challenging raid that doesn't get snap FTE'd. In era that's a raid that is actually tuned to a 60-70 man raid where everyone's role actually matters. Or Luclin cause hot damn there are some many great raids to pick from.

Tunare was super easy to pull on my monk. Put box druid in tree, harmony everything. I would assist druid from the bottom and use bio orb to pull her. Didn't even need line of sight. I was still using her loot at level 85 when i quit, clicky belt and snare stick ftw. Good stuff.

So why have they been altered here? Developer choice or they can't figure out how to make it the same? I've noticed small differences since i started playing, but i didn't think they were altering things on purpose...

[Erati]

totally agree @Mendo and thats what makes him fun- the chess match with all those kite going on. The encounter himself though cannot be face rolled without the proper raid make up and strategy.

I feel you could bring pretty much any type of raid force on a slowed ToV dragon and as long as the pull is clean the kill is pretty much in the bag. Getting a train to come down and wipe you seems to be the only way anyone fails to slowable dragons in ToV.

[Kodim]

Thankfully for Tunare even if you wipe, you still have multiple chances because no one is waiting around to snipe.

It makes it a lot less stressful. CT on the other hand has so much going on; Draco/Golems/AoE/CT all in one raid.