Game Mechanics: Dartain the Lost

[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 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

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.

[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]

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

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]

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

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).