Miscellaneous: Venril Sathir aoe tap

[Ele]

http://www.foh[remove this tag]guild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/39180-brad-mcquaid-site-updated-44.html#post1476634

Venril Sathir Guide - By Claud Shadowflare of Xegony

Way back in the day I was the "VS Guy", who was responsible for many a Xegony wizard gaining his Gnarled Staff. While those days are behind me, I still know a hell of a lot about this fight, and can offer you the following advice.

About Venril Sathir
Venril Sathir has approximately 18khp. However, he procs a 1500 point lifetap fairly often, and is irresistable, as lifetaps go. He is level 55, although that's pretty meaningless. He doubles for around 300, and is a warrior.

Killing Venril Sathir

Set-up
Set up in the "prep room" (EQ Atlas Location #13). You'll need 3-4 groups (judging by where you say you are in the game). Aim melee heavy; rogues, monks, and rangers are great for this fight. You'll want a 60+ warrior (or as close to one as you can get), although he can be tanked by a 60+ ranger or a 60+ monk (in a pinch). You'll want at least 2 enchanters with Rune V, a few healers (druids, clerics, shamans, won't matter too too much). Sit any mages you have in the corner and have them cry to themselves after summoning mod rods and focus items. Other than that, they're useless for their fight; I'll explain why pets = bad later. A necro or two is nice for twitching your enchanters.

As far as buffing goes- ONLY, I repeat, ONLY HP buff your MA and your puller. No one else will need it. Here's the reason- if someone pulls agro off VS (which is VERY, VERY bad), they are probably dead. HP buffs for them = more lifetaps for VS. If they pull agro, tell them to stand and take the death with a smile, they earned it. Tell them that not getting HP buffs is incentive to get agro. Give out hastes to all your melees, and don't bother with clarities/KEI's; it's a 60 second fight, so they won't be necessary, and it's just more time you're wasting before the fight. Hit your MA and puller with Rune V, and your MA also with Spellshield.

Now here's to dispell the whole rune/spellshield myth that has been perpetuated since the NPC lifetaps got fixed. You CAN stop VS's lifetap with rune, but not with spellshield. The reason why rune works is because when an NPC has a NATURAL proc (not one on a weapon, like Nortlav the Scalekeeper in the Hole), if his attack lands on a rune, it's counted as a miss. If you doubt me, test it out on Tro Jegs in Scarlet Desert, Golems in Plane of Valor, those bastardly giants in Plane of Storms... etc, etc, etc. Spellshield will help reduce the damage the lifetap does, but VS will still be healed for the full 1500 hp.

Place an evaccer in as many groups as you have evaccers. I will explain later.

Pulling
I'm not sure how this goes since the recent harmony changes, but I believe it's still pullable by a ranger, druid, or monk with ease. Pull VS's 4 guards first. Kill them. There is nothing too tricky about this part.

The Fight
You'll be using a MA strategy. There will be no SA- if your MA dies, VS is going to lifetap himself to full by the time you can recover, and it's just not worth the effort. AGRO IS CRITICAL IN THIS FIGHT. In case you didn't get that the first time, If you screw up agro, you w[/i][/u] VS will enter from one side of the room (it's pretty obvious which one); have your MA positioned in the middle of the room, and everyone else pressed against the back wall, STANDING. The MA will intercept VS from the puller, trigger auto-riposte/block/parry once VS attacks him, and wait 10 seconds, so he can build up agro.

Your highest level enchanter will start chain casting rune towards the end of the 10 seconds. Unless your enchanters are the same level, a rune rotation will not work. The lower level enchanters' rune will bounce off. Don't worry, so long as your MA doesn't totally suck, they won't get agro. Have your necromancer twitch the first enchanter; when he runs out of mana (the enchanter, not the necro), have him call a switch to the next enchanter. The necro will then, if he knows what's good for him, switch twitch targets to the 2nd enchanter, who will start runing the MA.

Healers will all be targetting the MA and hitting him with small, short heals, like Divine Light. No complete heals, if you need to be doing that, you're dead. Tell them that under no circumstances are they to heal anyone but the MA or the puller.

After 10 seconds or so, or when the warrior is convinced he has solid agro, he will call in the rest of the melee. They will all set up shop behind VS. You cannot be riposted when you are behind an NPC. If you get riposted, you can be procced on. If you are procced on, you have just healed VS for 1500hp and hurt your raids chances of success. Part of your job as raid leader will be to stand away from the fight and yell and curse at anyone who steps even close to the front of VS. This is why pets are bad- they WILL get in front of VS, despite whatever their owners plead to you with; they WILL get riposted, and hence they will be nothing but clerics to VS. No pets. (Note: I prefer limiting the raid to 24 people, just because when you get too many melees, they invariably edge closer to VS's front, because melees are stupid and don't understand that not hitting VS at all is better than hitting him, getting riposted, and healing VS for 1500hp. That call is up to you, but I strongly recommend limiting your raid size.)

I usually told a little white lie here and told the raid that VS had an AE breath lifetap that hit players in front of him; thus, if they were in front of him, they could heal VS just by being there. It worked amazingly well.

Now, since all of your melee are BEHIND Venril Sathir and NOT GETTING AGRO (stresses importance), they will be slightly pushing Venril Sathir. It is the MA's job to work VS around in an oval around the room as VS gets pushed.

The only magic that will land on VS is lure based magic. Hence, he's unslowable, unstunnable, unsnareable, unrootable, you get the idea. Use a magic based lure, it seemed to work best for me. Don't get agro. Even at the end, if you get too excited and try to burn him down, you can still screw up the entire fight by pulling agro off of VS. If he ping pongs, the raid is dead. I've seen many a VS at a sliver of life pop back to full health because someone blew their load early. Don't be that person. Just for that reason, I like to set up right near VS- if for some reason I do pull agro, which I shouldn't be lest I want to look like a total dumbass, I won't pingpong VS and he'll only get 1500 out of me before I die.

Fucking Up
So you followed everything above to the letter, and you still died. It will happen. Small screwups turn the tide of a VS fight, but here's some advice on how you can mitigate how bad a failure is.

If your MA bites it during the fight, EVAC. Don't ask questions, don't try to set up a SA, just do it. Before you can get rune going on an SA and have him get solid agro, VS will have healed himself to full life. So since you're starting over again anyways, it's best to only have to rez a couple people rather than an entire raid. Evac to the front of the zone and run back. Rez your dead, buff them, let them med up (if need be), and engage again. If you're good, you can engage VS again before his guards respawn. You don't NEED to have your MA's auto-riposte/block/parry disc up- that's merely helpful in the agro gaining process, but by no means is it necessary. If it hasn't popped yet but everything else is ready to go, go to it. Just start small heals a little bit earlier.

Review
The important points to drive home to your raid:

-Agro is critical. If you fuck it up, your raid will fail. If you can control it, you will eventually succeed.
-Positioning. If you're in front of VS, you're his cleric. If you're behind him, he can't riposte you.
-Agro is critical.
-Healing and Runes. Short, small heals only; no complete healing. Use Rune V, and no rune rotation unless both your enchanters are the same level.
-Did I mention that agro is critical?

[Nirgon]

Guess we can have a dev here start with confirming he will proc his brains out on like every swing (riposte included) or greatly up the rate from there if it isn't the case. Also making sure he doesn't proc if he doesnt hit through a damage absorb.

[koros]

That guide is 100% accurate.

[pasi]

The combat system doesn't allow for procs on ripostes.

This is easily testable by using furious on a warrior or just attacking a mob that has an innate proc and enrages.

[Treats]

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

The combat system doesn't allow for procs on ripostes.

This is easily testable by using furious on a warrior or just attacking a mob that has an innate proc and enrages.

After more searching on this I think you should be able to proc on a Riposte but it would be super rare.

Taking into account the PPM percentage compared to how many times you could Riposte in that minute it would be a really really low chance.

Weapon procs are calculated per combat round while Innate procs are calculated per hit I believe.

Some other examples of Innate -- Flurry/Rampage etc

[pasi]

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

After more searching on this I think you should be able to proc on a Riposte but it would be super rare.

Taking into account the PPM percentage compared to how many times you could Riposte in that minute it would be a really really low chance.

Weapon procs are calculated per combat round while Innate procs are calculated per hit I believe.

Some other examples of Innate -- Flurry/Rampage etc

I can link you to a great number of defensive parses, but I think this one should be sufficient.

9 hours of parsing, almost 30k ripos, running 3 procs equating to 0 procs on ripos.

Ok, testing the ripost thoery. Have set up myself with Panther, BP and have a lifetap proc aug. Ripost disc up and running.

I have 3 potential procs, so unless everyone else has either had a bug occur or mis-read something then I think a 9 hour parse should show some procs.

Results are in: (corrected the results due to erroneous parsing)

Duration: 09:10:56
Total riposted attacks: 29182
Total procs: 0
Total swings: 58365 (100% chance of double attack on ripost)
Total Frenzy swings: 14369 (49.23 ~ 50% chance of frenzied swing)

Defensive damage done-
Riposted attacks: 27997
Parried attacks: 2376
Misses: 2
Hits: 5

No procs happened during the parse.

I WAS RIGHT (My parse was wrong >.<)

http://www.goberserker.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3890

[Samrothstein]

So you're going to make him proc almost every time on normal swings if I read all this right?

[Ferok]

Players cannot proc on riposte. That may or may not apply to Venril Sathir. The guides for VS I've read certainly indicate that he was able to proc on riposte.

[Treats]

More digging on the Riposte thing, seems NPCs and PCs should work the same way. The difference is only between Weapon and Innate procs.

Venril Sathir should definately be able to proc Deadly Lifetap on a Riposte:

Weapon-based procs: CAN fire on a MISS but CANNOT fire on a RIPOSTE.
Innate/Buff-based procs: CANNOT fire on a MISS but CAN fire on a RIPOSTE.
(Proc cannot fire if the Mob Ripostes and Misses)

Proc cannot fire if the Mob Ripostes and Misses? This is kind of difficult, does a Ranger or someone else know any old logs of Flurrying or Rampaging through Weaponshield? (I think I remember this happening but I'm not positive)

This is in line with what I posted earlier:

Weapon procs are calculated per combat round while Innate procs are calculated per hit I believe.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...t=11382&page=3

---------------------------------------------

Found this thread on the Cleric forums too regarding the AE Mez -- Some quest for him? This person could of just been being douchey...

Quest involves making him cast a 30 second aoe stun and 30 second aoe mez...

http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1107

------------------------------------------------------------------

Another guide here:

Strategy 1
Times Implemented: 5
Times Successful: 4
Times Failed: 1
Note: Failed attempt had someone pull aggro off MT which broke down Rune Order/Target, Healed VS from 50% to full life.

Buffs

No resist buffs are needed, Lifetap cannot be resisted. Normal raid buffs are a good idea, but HP buffs aren't needed on those who won't be tanking VS. (It will just feed VS More life if someone screws up and gets aggro).

Potential-tanks or people who have a high potential to get Aggro should have Rune-Line and Bedlam-Line spell prior to pulling.

Melee should always turn on attack only while facing his back. One riposte could mean 1600+ Damage to someone at 1500 life to VS. To put in perspective how important that is, that just negated half a minute of you attacking - and that's assuming you can do 50DPS against VS. (Its probably less)

VS has special aggro rules where Rune V does not pull very much aggro at all; Good thing too, as it would make him exponentially more difficult if this was not the case.

http://nyxxsopenraids.yuku.com/topic/1027#.UIhEManB-uI

Interesting also they note that VS has special aggro rules regarding the Runes.

[Nirgon]

There is also such a thing as lower level aggro that I'm not sure is the case on this server but we'll leave that alone for .. well I think a long time hehe.

After going through everything, I'm going to agree that he should just have a much much higher chance to proc his lifetap on hits and the same with a riposte.

Other than that as long as he resists at least half of the lure spells casted on him, he's in good shape.

What an elaborate ruse the aoe tap was.. I for the life of me cannot explain why he is showing this as a listed ability. We definitely hid behind a wall until it was deemed okay to go in, go figure.

There is definitely a different spawned version of him that gives him the other line of spells.

The bottom line is if he gets through a rune on a double attack, the results should be extremely dramatic.