Welcome to Neferti's Everquest raid info page.

Raid notes.

If you cooperate well, have a good class balance and improve your tactics even relatively small guilds (like the one I am in) can do exciting things succesfully! So lets get right to the point!

Preparations before the raid

• Make level, class and resist requirements for a raid. For example 100 unbuffed MR/CR and level 48+ for a Vox raid. You can make exceptions for some people due to being short on certain classes. You can also make exceptions for Gnomes of course!
• Do not take too many people with you, if you have enough of one class dont be afraid to say no. Strive for class balance, zergling rushes might work in Starcraft but are no fun and take way too long to organise (buffs, ports, loot) in EQ. For some people making as many corpses as they can has become a form of art.
• Make sure everyone is on time for the raid and you are not missing key classes. The raid should have been announced on a guild messageboard, the guild motd and in guildspeak so they have plenty of chances to be reminded when it is. Also make sure you are on time for work the next day!
• Research the zone and the mob you are raiding very well. Some mobs can only be cast on from melee range, have immunities to fire/cold, can complete heal, gate and such, let people know this so they can prepare and memorise the right spells. Refer to the slow table. You want to know every weakness and ability of the mob and every corner of the zone, so people can ask you questions on what color socks your dragon is wearing today.
• Buy your components beforehand and take your resist gear from the bank beforehand. Dont forget your gnome kebob of course, cant work on an empty stomach!
• Have your settings the right way. If performance is a problem put your particle effects off, 3d sky off, dynamic lights off, luclin models off, data rate correctly and serverside filtering on and so on, umbra on for indoor luclin zones and off otherwise (should be automatic). For some people like main tanks and their clerics however, serverside filtering should be off so healing wont be too late because of lag. Maybe Moore's law will some day catch up with EQ expansion requirements and all this tweaking wont be needed anymore.
• Put all or most of your 'battle spam' options off if possible, like others hits, your misses, peoples spellcasting and so on. You need to see the orders you have to follow. Noticing that the average hit of gnome warriors is 5 more then trolls is useless. Because you couldnt read your orders 'Back off!' a mob got pushed off a cliff... with you going after it when it starts to summon. Wheee!
• Prepare all your hotkeys beforehand (for most people this should be an /assist main_assist_name key). You can also accomplish this though clicking on the mob (F8) then assisting it to see who is highest on the aggro list, this way your heal is often too late though. It is rumored some top secret tactics involve /assist on the mob then pressing resurrect.
• Have a -good- Corpse recovery (CR) plan. On a CR people can get irritated quickly. And if people leave, the CR becomes even harder. You dont want to have any xp res timers expire. Have rogues and monks ready, CoH mages, corpse summoners with enough coffins and an essence emerald, people with extra weapons in the bank, extra hate stones, whatever it takes. As long as you have a good plan it will cut down a lot on possible extended frustration. And you may be able to convince people to try the mob again... and again...

Gathering up and buffing

• Be patient when making groups and getting people ports, this is a nasty part of being raid leader. Ideally a guild should organise itself, people should be familiar with what kind of balanced groups to form and who the porters are. Of course its not a bad habit to express your gratitude to the porters. If none are available, buy a port from out of guild or use the Luclin spires. Even though people have been said to disappear when using out of guild ports, it might be the safest way of getting yourself to meet with a gigantic agressive carnivorous dragon.
• Dont mess around when gathering for a raid (pking eachother) come to a druid/wizard ring as soon as you can and gather in a remote place (depending on the raid, but NOT gfay, Karnors or FV or so) and be patient. Don't fall asleep at your keyboard when buffing or making the groups though.
• The group leader is responsible for buffing, not the raid leader. Also makes sure the group buffs itself with enough crap buffs (when fighting mobs which can dispel). Each group gathers in a different spot so it can be easily seen where each group is. Sadly theres always people who insist any buff that costs a peridot is crappy.
• Dont ask for unnecessary buffs. Dont go playing or running around during buffing, just be patient and wait in your spot. Unless that dragon pops on your head again of course.
• If you are not so confident in your enchanters, main tanks or main clerics you could put a death pact on them.
• Do not ask questions to the raid leader, ask them to your group or in /say, the group leaders should be well informed. Dont hesitate to ask questions either if you think they are important (but dont do it in tells to the raid leader) or if it is your first raid. Of course those questions should be related to Everquest.
• Listen to every word your raid leader shouts (or sometimes OOC). Raid leader and main debuffers (slowers, mezzers etc.) use shout, and noone else. Do as you are told as quick as you can (especially when moving). Do not bug the raid leader with tells. Dont drink alcoholic beverages when you are the raid leader, this goes for in-game drinks only of course.
• Make sure you dont get too much spam in a raid, its best to use guildchat for all communications. If multiple guilds join in you might have to use public channels, politely ask other people to stay out of those. Sometimes more raids go on in the same zone, in that case make sure every raid uses one of the three public channels (shout, ooc and auction) and turns off the two others. Keep other conversations to tells. If you like to spam a lot you should have been a Lumberjack.

Lewts!

• On open raids you might consider to ask an entrance fee for expenses like coffins (necro), peridots (enchanter, wizard and cleric) and pearls (mage, cleric). Sometimes the first few money loot items in a raid go to the people who make these expenses. Group leaders make sure every item goes to the ninja looter... erm I mean to the raid leader.
• Make sure loot rules are clear beforehand. Do some research on what can drop and who can and will use it. In some guilds, officers decide on loot. People who get an item hand their old equipment down the ranks. Some guilds give their main tanks the best AC and HP drops first. This makes the guild as a whole stronger, but make sure other people get something too once in a while. Most people on multi guild and pickup raids like rolling for items though. Of course all redhead human enchantresses should be given a bonus to their rolls.
• If rolling on something, let people who would use it give you a tell. Then the raid leader announces the names with a number in front of it, and rolls once. For example the raid leader asks which enchanters are interested in the stinkin' slippers of slightly swallowed slimes. Several people send him a tell but he notices some of them have boots of boasting already. He then announces, 1 - Neferti 2 - Tsunamii, then he rolls a 1 that means Neferti wins. Cuts down on late and missed rolls and a lot of frustration, also cuts down on people who dont really need the item.
• Do not -under any circumstance- change your loot rules mid raid. Unless there is something really really wrong and the entire raid agrees with the change (/shout send a tell to me if you do not agree with this change). Make sure your loot rules are clear and you can justify them beforehand (if need be). If you do change your policy mid raid people will get unhappy and leave your raid even if they do not care about the loot they might care about 'unfairness'. Make sure to 'forget' to hand out some loot after the raid.
• Do not ask for pulls of specific mobs or loot. Do not expect loot, you might get something nice but probably not. Be glad someone got something, people will remember that you helped them out, and will return that favor in kind. Try to be nice to people who give you a whack on the head.

During the raid

• ALWAYS use assist, and have attack on assist off. If the main tank calls for a switch DO SO as fast as you can. Someone should root the former target. Sometimes it is good to have several extra tanks designated beforehand to holding off unmezzable adds with root/slow/heal tank. Not attacking can save more people then attacking the wrong mob. Attacking eachother can be fun too on a PvP server.
• Only the main tank (main assist or MA) ever breaks a mez. The main assist will announce very clearly what the main target is. Everyone else has a button that says /assist name_of_MA (you can check if the mob is taunted enough by /assisting the mob and seeing if he targets himself). Everyone should have the 'attack on assist' option off, and wait attacking till after the MA has done so. Sometimes the MA needs to be on a mob 10 seconds longer then the rest of the raid to establish aggro. If you have too many enchanters on a raid it might be fun to break some mezzes if the raid gets too boring. Make sure your healer is paying attention!
• Root and stun mobs that are not mezzed and can be, try to slow them if possible and put a tank in front of it... but do NO damage to it so they wont summon. Do not use grasping roots but the non damaging wizard, enchanter, shaman, cheric, paladin or necromancer versions of the spell like root, enstill, fetter. Do not use sound of force but stun, do not hit the mob but only taunt. One of the best kiters is the enchanter who has zillions of spells made just to piss off mobs.
• In general do not use dots in raids on regular mobs. Sometimes people need to switch targets mid fight, when you use a dot this means the enchanter dies which often means the raid fails. Also these mobs die far to quick for these spells to be effective. Of course the necro dot that can turn a mob into a skeleton might get your tanks appreciation.
• Only mages (and necros) should have pets since there is a maximum number of pets that can be on a mob at once. Make sure pet taunt is off. Let your pet attack when the main tank has enough aggro /assist the main tank. Be aware of buggy pathing and place your pet accordingly. If a mob has an AE fire breath mages make fire pets since it will be immune to the AE. Make sure pets wont train mobs because of an AE (get the pet control skill). A novel way of pulling in Temple of Veeshan employs enchanter pets.
• Do not push mobs on to walls, into water or off ledges, pull back if you see that is going to happen. Mind pets here too. If you see a mob nearing something, everyone should stand between the mob and that obstacle so the mob gets knocked away from it. If that is not possible everyone should disengage and pull back, on a summoning mob this is a little harder but still works because it only summons each 12 seconds. Fighting things in water is not a good thing if you never learnt to swim, neither is pushing Vox on a wall so the melees cant hit her without their inflatable gnomish mountaineering kits. Mobs that poof and port when pushed in a wall, then summon people from the other end of the dungeon and kill them one by one might be a faster way of teleportation then conventional means though.
• When low on healers, druids and such save mana for heals and do not nuke. When getting really low on healers, druids and such save mana for ports.
• Dont be afraid to use your special abilities like lay on hands to save main tanks, clerics or enchanters in dangerous situations. You have that ability for a reason, now is the time to use it. By saving the cleric or chanter or main tank you might save the entire raid. Remember not to have the mob targeted when using LoH.
• Do not sit when people have an incoming pull, the mob will aggro on you. Stand up as soon as people say inc %t. Sometimes a melee group can pull a mob onto them by sitting, so the caster groups can stand in the back. Dont sit either after casting a high aggro spell like tashanian or slow. Although it has become a sport amongst enchanters to see how fast they can die.
• Do not wander away from the group, stick together or you may aggro additional mobs. Raids are not a time for exploring zones, do that when on your own or when playing someone elses char.
• When you get aggroed, invis drops or whatever, die away from the raid force, you can be dragged or summoned and ressed, a new break in because of total wipe out is only fun for the mobs. Of course that halfling pain sound is hilarious, so dont hesitate to train any furryfeet.
• Do not go AFK in nasty places, only in the designated rest spots. Dont swim in a warm pool of water if a resting spot is nearby.
• On a PvP server like Tallon, a battle might have to be fought for control of the zone (refer to PvP 101 and PvP 102) and treat others as you like them to treat you. If you do not corpse camp and xp kill your opponents they will treat you likewise. Sometimes.
• And of course everyone makes a mistake once in a while, just admit those and learn from them, dont get mad at eachother. Unless they take your lewts of course.
• Always thank everyone for coming, people spend a lot of time on the raid, and might not have gotten anything in return (no xp, no loot etc) so they might really appreciate a 'thank you'. Dont say 'thank you' too often to the guy who forgot to put the 'confirmation on nodrop looting' on.

Advanced raid tactics

• When fighting a dragon or other monster with an AE, melee groups should consist of 4 (or 5) tanks and 1 or 2 group heal classes. Clerics and paladins will use group heals to counter the AE weapon from these mobs. Also make sure your HP regen is maxed out by stacking druid and bard regen. Use an instant cast item if the AE has a dispel component. Jboots wont work indoors so get at least a gnomish tinkered telescope.
• With indoor AE'ing mobs, casters hide behind a wall. One melee should be designated to call out the AE. As soon as he or she shouts the casters come out of hiding and cast, then go behind the wall again. Behind the wall refresh your wizard epic or runes and wait for the next call.
• Some fights against an AE'ing mob are done in 'waves'. For example in a Trakanon raid, you send in one person to trigger the first AE. Then the tank group(s) will run in. Just after the next AE send in the rest of the groups (casters to finish off the mob). This way you avoid having the entire raid force subject to the AE weapon of the mob when aggro is not established yet.
• It is a good tactic to interrupt some high level caster mobs by having all tanks (sometimes even rogues) on one side and bash/kick, so they push the mob to the one direction. In addition you want to mana sieve as well as cast Torment of Argli on the mob. This will prevent gates and cheals if done right.
• Mobs should be hit by recant magic, malo (or mala), tashanian, occlusion of sound (55+ bard) then malosini, slow and other debuffs. The bard who sings Occlusion uses puretone, a percussion instrument like drums of the beast or his epic, otherwise the song will not work. Mobs should also be snared, sundered etc. if possible. Shout %t has been pillaged, tashed, malo'ed, slowed, snared if it sticks (make a hot key for this). Let everyone who can slow cast it, the best slow overwrites other ones anyways (and the difference of shaman and enchanter slow is small). Refer to the slow chart.
• If a mob flurries, rampages or has nasty procs do not forget to cripple it. These skills or procs are based on the AGI of the mob and cripple decreases that by 65.
• Some fights require 3 or more clerics to stagger casts of Complete Heal 5 or maybe even 3 seconds apart from eachother on the main tank, with additional people healing in the meanwhile. Make sure your complete heal spells are mapped to the guild/ooc/shout channel, and make sure each cleric knows the healing order. The main tank or main assist (MA) is a warrior with defensive discipline on.
• Defensive only lasts 3 minutes so sometimes multiple 55+ warriors are needed who will take turns tanking. In these fights aggro is often proximity based. Make sure to control aggro and aggro switches well, if such a mob ping-pongs you are all dead. Other healing classes will patch-heal in case a cheal comes too late (continually cast heals and duck them out at the last moment if its not needed).
• Some mobs need 2 main tanks instead of 1. These mobs have abilities which can knock your MA away from the fight for example by porting, banishing or knocking them back. Also some mobs rampage often, and since you dont want your clerics to be killed in rampages a defensive tank should take these hits.
• Make sure you know how the aggro rules work. In Velious for example mobs will kill people below a certain amount of health (roughly below 2 bubs) regardless of who is highest on the hate list. What this means is for example if you are fighting a dragon their AE will wear you down, if people (for example casters) have low health from this the dragon will switch and melee them to death instead of the MA. It might be hard to regain the correct aggro then. So hide behind a wall and yell for a heal if you are ever at 2 bubs or lower.
• Some mobs have 2 pets (which can be level 58+ creatures themselves) which need to be split during the fight. There are many ways to accomplish this. With Derakor the Vindicator for example you can kite either him or his pets while your raid force kills the other. Or you can use 2 monks working together, or make use of speed differences in the pets and its master. Or just tank them. Many ways that accomplish the same thing, do whichever you feel most comfortable with.
• Sometimes unconventional ways of pulling are required, some mobs require pulling that involves warping (pathing in this game is not exactly perfect and it is apparrently the only way to do it). Try out some stuff with combinations of spells, pets or FD.
• Don't be afraid to try out new things to test something. You can learn more on one failed raid, where you try out different things to see what works best in practise, then on all succesful raids together.

Mob positioning for evading AE's, maintaining MA aggro, complete heal timing, efficient debuffing and MA switches are the most important aspects of high level play. If you do all this well and work together smoothly you can kill harder mobs with fewer people, which is also more fun to the raid leader because you spend more time on the actual fight and less on the buffing, porting... and waiting for the linkdeaths. *Crunch* Slightly crispy, but tasty.

Raid Rules

Note: This section might sound a bit harsh but it might come in handy with pickup raids and multi-guild raids. Probably it is not needed in guild only raids, but it can still be an interesting read. I left it mostly unedited from the original. The authors of this part were, at the time, members of the dark team on Tallon Zek.

1 - STFU

No one cares what you have to say. I don't want to hear you /shout "all your loot are belong to me", because I will call lights to kill you, and I’ll pay them to do it.

No one cares what you have to say at this point. you need to keep your yap shut.

This includes, but is not limited to your uber bullshit speak about how you will "own" this raid, your auction of some bullshit item that no one at this level would dare equip, much less be seen still carrying, or your damn inability to stop using the /shout channel to talk smack to some idiot who wants to babble as much as you do.

2 - Speak when you are spoken to

We have been calling raid information for 20 minuets, groups are all formed, buffs are starting to be issued, and you now have no group.

If you would have shut up to begin with, you would have seen your group assignment. If you had kept your trap shut and read, you would know what chat room to log to. If you would have crammed a sock in the hole you spew garbage out of, you would know what you are supposed to do.

How many times does the raid leader have to ask you not to use /shout? When are you going to STFU and listen?

Never?

Bad dog, we don’t like that. No CoF for you.

You do as you are told on a raid. That is why you are there. You are not leading the raid, you are there to do what you are told by the raid leaders. If you are told to send a tell to RaidLeader01, you send him a tell with the information he has asked for. You do this promptly, and you don't spam him with useless blabber. We don't care about any information right now except what we have asked for, and emergencies that pop up.

Some people have to be told the same things over and over again at every raid and continue to do the same stupid things every time after being told not too.

Too stupid to listen? STFU. Go away now. You are not needed here.

3 - Your opinion on loot rules and random rolls

We don't care what it is. We don't care whether or not you like it. We don't care how much you whine.

Leave now, go away. You are not needed here.

You are an -insert class here- and an item dropped you can use? Great. I don't want to hear it. Remember the rule about STFU? It's still in force. Remember where I asked what class and level you are to form the groups? Guess what this means?

I already know you are here. I know who can use what item. Stop spamming me with tells. I don’t care what you have to say about what you can use.

No, you won't random. I will do that for you, and I'll let you know who won. Don't like it? Leave, you are not needed anymore. Don't know your way back out of the zone? Not my problem, you should not have been yapping your mouth like an ass.

4 - Ninja POS

Ok great ninja looter, guess what? GM's can tell us who looted that mith mask. All your group members get a message when you loot an item. Everyone around you has already done a /guildstatus to see what guild you are in if you don't have a tag up.

Import of this? We know who you are. We know who leads your guild. We will INSURE you are miserable and have to recreate a new character if you ninja loot an item.

5 - The things you do

Everything you do represents not only you, but your guild. If you are a total fuckin moron, we will think the same of your guild. If you can't listen, we will think the same about your guild. If you ninja items, we will let your guild know, then think the rest of them are a POS.

And if you are a buffer and you don't know what the hell you are doing, let the raid leader know and he will assign someone to let you know what to do.

Is this your first raid?

Then you don't know what the hell you are doing, so ask. Don't just stand there and look retarded when someone is saying "BUFF ME YOU STUPID FUK!" because their buffs are wearing off since it took you 45 minutes to ask everyone else in your party what you are supposed to do and you still dont get it.

If you don't know what you are doing, be honest enough to admit it and someone else will do your job. This is the way we end up with Cleric buffs at the top fighting a mob that AE dispells

Know what? You will NOT be disrespected if you admit you are confused by the whole sceen. Those that have been on a number of runs remember that their first one was a blur. Have the balls to admit that you are having a tough time, and you will be both looked after and taken care of.

Don't like it? STFU. Go away. You are not needed here.

6 - PAY ATTENTION

Don't sit there AFK for 45 damn minutes and then bitch that you are clueless. Go away now, you are useless.

Don't log your damn 4th account on, and be clueless about what is happening. This is all your fault if you die and get me dead as well.

Logging in a buffer account? Great, thanks. The faster we buff, the faster we get cool shit. Loggin in your uber twink for that trade in GFay real fast? Get outa the damn zone please, you are gonna get me dead. You obviously have no clue. Therefore don't make me rely on you now, while you try to regain brains you never had to perform your function in the first place.

Loggin in a twink Enchanter for the raid? You need to leave. Right now, just go away. I count on you to mez and tash, not cast a damn haste spell that any Shami can backfill in the zone.

Loggin in that twink Cleric? LET ME KNOW you are a dual play char and you are not coming. I rely on healers to keep us alive, not you to be siting there doing nothing, and me left to try to figure out why I am dead now after endless /ooc of HEAL ME I AM ABOUT TO DROP HERE!

(Notice I did not say /shout? Remember what this is for? You don't? Leave, you are useless.)

7 - My time and your time

My time is valuable, do you have respect for that? No? Leave, you are useless. Have the decency to respect the time and effort that is required to plan and execute a large scale rade.

Don't start in /ooc 10 minutes into getting the raid organized you are bored. It takes some god damn time to get everyone in the proper group with the proper buffs.

If you don't have a fucking half hour to spend sitting around waiting for everything to get organized get your ass back to OT and continue soloing.

Another thing for you. Raids are designed to do things as a group, not to cater to your own version of how life should be in EQ. Guess what? If you complain that there isn't any decent loot or good exp in what we are doing, your ass won't be invited back for the next event which may involve getting the loot you need.

Have a bad attitude? See that cool screenshot of the A_Uber_Weapon_01 you want? Print a copy and tack it to your forehead cause that is as close you are gonna get to seein it in.

8 - Your opinions after the raid

This is when your raid leaders turn back into regular human beings. This is when you send them a tell and let them know any comments you have. This is when you get a response to your concerns. This is when we have common courtesy and hear you out.

Do it during the raid? STFU. Leave. You are not needed here.

-Recap-

• Keep your mouth shut
• Do as you are told
• Don't use /shout, your raid leaders use this
• Listen closely
• Don't use /shout, your raid leaders use this
• Don't train and get us all killed
• Pay attention to /shout, your raid leaders use this
• Don't be a piece of shit ninja looter
• Don't whine in OOC that you don't understand the loot rules
• Don't use /shout, your raid leaders use this
• Don't be an idiot and use SolB, PoF, PoH or PoG as your auction spot.
• Don't go AFK for any extended period of time. If you are AFK, let someone know.
• Have patience and respect for people who are working hard for you

Howling Stones or Chararsis

The map (author unknown) shows almost all spawns, generally this dungeon is fun, not much gating summoners. The goo, golems, ghosts and the feasters run and should be snared, others are all skellies and dont run. The basement mobs are not shown on the map but it crawls of (HT'ing) mobs there, it is the area where you fall in if you step on a trapped carpet or stairs.

Refer to this Map for spawn points.

The red squares with a cross through it are pitfalls, DONT step on those carpets! You start in the middle of the zone. North wing is easiest, then west, south and east. You have to go through the south wing to get to the east wing because the east stairs are trapped. Drusella Sathir (necklace of superiority) the wife of Venril Sathir dwells at the end of the east wing (she can be killed with a single high level group if everything goes well). South wing is very nice for items (Sash of the Dragonborn haste belt drops there, the bloodpoint and other things like hand of the reaper).

I think this dungeon is one of the most fun high level zones for xping, most mobs dont run and gate like in Chardok. It is however not an easy dungeon, there is no zone out you can run to easily. Also the zone in is not safe, you might take 2 harm touches and a severe beating even before you have control of your character. You must also be aware that people die QUICK due to multiple HT so always let a big tank pull and hope he or she gets singles. Scout a bit with a rogue and if you see 4+ mobs with HT send in a paladin or the cleric with DA and let the enchanter mez. A level 57+ puller can bring mostly singles and can make this dungeon much easier. Mobs pathing is strange in some spots, make sure you dont train yourself (in the east wing you can aggro the entire south wing through a wall) and watch out your pet wont run. If you dont have a rogue you can only do the north wing, kill a few entrance mobs until you get a tallow-marked candle (from a bottomless feaster). This opens the north wing, most other keys drop off the bosses in the wings. However these are rare spawns. All the keys are norent so you have to duel someone and leave them on your corpse at the zone-in so you dont need to camp them again next time. Rumors abound of a fabled master key quest but noone found it. Its best to always bring a rogue, very nice for damage, scouting and CR.

Rogues are excellent with CR which could be very painful otherwise, most things dont see hide - and the odd ooze that does, can be sneaked past. If the corpses are past the paintings, let the rogue pull them to the bottom of the painting, then fall in the carpet trap for that level, take the porter to zonein and then walk in and drag them further. CR in the east wing can be very slow because you have to move through the south wing first (not sure if you can drag over the east stairs).

My group recommendation for xping would be 57+ warr, 54+ enchanter, 201 lockpicking rogue, 49+ cleric, druid (snare, evac) or wiz, shaman (or extra slowing enc) or anyone else (last spot doesnt that matter too much). Note that HS got an upgrade at some point which added an AE to the golems (can break mezzes) and a lifetap proc (a la Venril Sathir) to the ghosts, this makes the dungeon considerably harder when you get multiple mobs.

Chardok royals raid guide

Several good maps and drops information can be found here

These maps will get you to the royals area, one thing to remember is to keep moving. Respawn in this dungeon is very fast. You can speed up the trip to the royals area considerably by using AE tactics or by moving a group with a CoH mage ahead. Be prepared to fight some pretty big pulls. In some places pathing is dangerous, do not ever let a mob run away. The shaman mobs in this dungeon give this funky level 61 spell 'indoor sow' to any sarnaks they come across, so dispel and snare everything. Otherwise when they get to 5% life they shoot out of wherever like a gnome out of a potato gun.

The old safe spot near the stairs from the prince area to the library area got removed, several mobs spawn near now. You might still be able to create a small safe spot, do not move far from the stairs. Pull the prince and his guards to this 'safe spot', make sure your enchanters are ready for a big pull. Monks can have a difficult time splitting all the guards before repop because many of the mobs here are casters, plus its more exciting anyways to pull everything at once. You can also use AE to clear the guards while the prince gets killed by your melees.

When moving from the Library to the Herbalist room, get rid of your pets. Just recast them in the fight itself. They can get aggro from the kings aoe if you are pulling the king guards up the ramp. Additionally, they can path and fall in the pit (guess what happens then).

Pulling the king and queen guards can be quite challenging, especially since you have such a small window to fight in. There really isn't any good way to do it, there are just different bad ways. You can (DA) charge in and mez all the guards. Or you can pull the guards and then pull or charge the mob. You can even leave the guards up and single pull the King or Queen (hoping they wont gate during the fight). Whichever works best for you, however, they all have their own pitfalls and problems. Its best to clear the king's room first. Make sure to be in melee range to cast on all these mobs.

• Korocust - Level 59-60 or so, blinds, can be debuffed and nuked. Real easy. Can enrage near the end of the fight, so save your nukes. This guy is actually not a real Sarnak, but a dragon spy in disguise working for the Ring of Scale (his faction hits are the same as the other chardok stuff tho).
• Prince - Level 58-59, blinds, gfluxes, casts some other spells, can be debuffed and nuked. Pretty easy.
• Overking Bathezid - Level 65, very resistant to magic and nukes. After Malo/tashan you can land debuffs on him and stun him. Lures land well, other spells can land but not reliably. He complete heals, gfluxes, gates, blinds and has an unresistable fire aoe thats pretty minor. If you fight him in his room make sure that you don't get gfluxed through the hole as this will aggro the herbalist area (so either clear it or don't fight under the hole). If you pull him, make sure he doesn't gate.
• Queen Velazul Di'zok - Level 62 or so. She doesn't have many hit points (around 18k or so) and has very low resistances. She has the same AE as Rak'Ashir in CoM, a fire based bard song that does around 800 a tick for 3 ticks. Her Fire aoe is either a bard song or a proc, so runing people might prevent this. Most people use fire pets to do the damage while a runed warrior using 55 disc (and being healed) tanks. In the meanwhile others go full offensive (or use archery). She can gate, so if you pull her make sure to nuke her dead before she finishes casting. It's very difficult to pull her guards, but pretty easy to pull her solo to the king room. Pulling with lull song might be easier then splitting with monks. Besides mage fire pets, charmed guards are also immune to her fire AE so you might want to leave some up for your enchanters to play with. You can kill her with very few people if using AE nukes to kill her guards while you use group complete heal and things like spell casting fury mastery, manaburn, harm touch and lifeburn on her.

Chardok is a fun zone, but the spawns come fast so you get easily swarmed. There is also wandering runners that can summon which can get REAL nasty! Dont ever push a mob off a cliff or into a wall. Always have a good CR plan (camping people out, have non kos rogue to drag).

Dragon Necropolis

Getting there

Getting to this zone will take a while, to get through SG either use in zone evacs, fight your way through or use invis after killing the seahorses (they see invis) and swim up the waterfall (takes some practise). Do not stop if anyone dies on the way through WW, make sure everyone is invis. An AE on you from a wandering dragon will drop everyones invis so make sure you travel in small groups and track KOS dragons that can see invis. The zone in is two way and safe on the DN side, so make a small CR group inside DN if anyone died on the way there and zone out to get the corpse.

Traps

Upper Floor MOBs

Chetari Area

Paebela Hunting

There are some good maps available by Doccus of Bristlebane.

Temple of Veeshan

This is an interesting zone, all the mobs here are like dragons, can not be mezzed or charmed and have an AE. Just the normal spawns here are tougher then Vox and Nagafen. Do not go here below level 55 and if hunting in HoT make sure everyone has the right faction, dont allow any kos people there if you are dragon aligned, even if you use CoH it might give problems. Use a high level monk to get single pulls, multiple AE's stacked will get you dead quick and mobs can cheal eachother.

Pulling might be difficult because of extremely bad pathing and mobs warping a lot. On every pull dispell the mobs first, some have very high damage shields on which can kill your monks quick. Follow with tashanian, malo, maybe occlusion of sound, slow and snare. If you have multiples they might dispell eachothers slow. Make sure to sieve the white wurms so they cant cheal themselves (and other dragons). You might also in addition to pushing the mob (even rogues) use torment of Argli on them to prevent gating after you sieve them. When pushing the mob make sure you dont throw it off a ledge. In the future using wizards with their anti gate spell for this will work.

If you are on Giant faction it is not easy to get in the zone, someone has to train Sontalak away from the entrance and an invis mage walks in near the entrance, then summons everyone across WW. The zone in is safe but you have to fight 8 mobs who do not drop any armor to get to the good areas, west or north. This map by Sparr is useful for navigating the non HoT parts if your guild is on Giant faction.

If you are dragon aligned just run through WW invis to avoid aggro mobs like the ice burrowers, and zone in, just walk to the hub go in the door on the east wing (halls of testing or HoT) and start your pulls. Make sure to avoid Dozekar of course. If hunting in halls of testing this map by Ravhin might come in handy.

Only really high level very well equipped guilds can do the north wing and most of the nameds, have many Ragebringer rogues and Dragonbane wizards for damage, enough clerics, defensive tanks or you will die there quickly. Do not go anywhere near north wing if you arent ready, these mobs are KOS to everyone. You need a very good pull team to survive there, and you need to use the wall strategy to your utmost to survive. After having cleared north ToV I must say it is quite a step up from the rest of the zone. HoT and some parts of west wing can be done with 1 (good) group.

The old planes

Trakanon

• Dispel him at the start of the fight, he is buffed by Topalumj and much more dangerous then he is without those buffs.
• Get 175 PR, might use a few buffs and potions. Too much PR is a waste. Levels are more important for resisting the AE then your resists.
• Have shamans use their Velious quest leggings with abolish poison chain this on people.
• Clerics use group heals and paladins use their level 55 group heal, at least 1 paladin and one cleric or 2 clerics in each group would make the fight almost trivial.
• Multiple people heal the main tank, staggered cheals are not needed in a quick and easy fight as this.
• All healers that are not doing group heals, abolish poison and heal whoever yells or on the main tank.
• As soon as trak is aggroed on the main tank, use all offensive disciplines you have. If you are a healer dont worry about mana just chain your heals. The fight should be less then 30 sec. Use malo and occlusion of sound and normal fire/cold nukes will land. A quick fight means his lifetap (not the same as VS by the way) wont hit much and he wont be able to AE as much.
• Do not aggro him where he can not get to, he will move on the bridge or the juggernaut caverns just before the bridge, and not return for 26 minutes.
• Maybe group a CoH mage in the tank groups and CoH them back into the fight when they get trak touched. This could in theory bring other aggro mobs, probably wont matter or happen.
• A good strategy is to attack in waves, melee wave will go first and the casters go last, make sure you wait moving until he has just breathed.
• Have patience, pulling his lair well is not easy.

Loose guide to Juggers/Reets

Basically, there are two ways to do Juggers/Reets. One is with a low 50s raid, where you have multiple people capable of slowing and rooting, but only 1 enchanter capable of kintaz. Juggers have very low resist rates to everything, so you should have no problem using root and slow to crowd control. His lair is easily pulled by one or two monks using feign. Just wait until he reaches the back and pull the juggers and the protector. No need to clear Tolapumj or his 2 guards. What you will have problems with is tanks taunting - I suggest getting yourself a shadowknight who knows what he's doing. These'll be out of your warrior's range for tauntable mobs. SKs with spells can taunt really well. Pallies can't, because their stuns break root without actually stunning the juggers. If possible get 2+ SKs so you can multitank them to keep the agro on tanks at all times. Heals on tanks shouldn't be a problem if your shamans and enchanters are keeping them ALL (yes, even the ones people aren't tanking) slowed.

If you're doing it with a single group of 58+ chars, you probably don't need this guide or you shouldn't be trying it.

• Don't use CoH to clear your agro. It's *very* unreliable on juggers/reets, and just about never works on Trakanon himself in my experience.
• You will need at least one 54+ enchanter. Glamour of Kintaz is a nice near-foolproof way to mez a jugger.
• That said about the enchanter, your main way to crowd control should be root + turgurs, and, if you're having problems keeping them off your casters, split tanking. Glamour of Kintaz will leave your enchanter OOM most of the time, and unable to buff or to dazzle the reets (most of which can be mezzed with plain old dazzle).
• The pulling is very straightforward, unless you want to try something crazy like getting Tolapmuj with Trakanon still up There's only one path to take once you're in the jugger area with mobs in it.
• Be careful in the courtyard area (just under the bridge past the first 2 jugger spawns). The pathing there sucks and if you let the two outside juggers respawn, it can be hell to keep them from agroing (and +2 juggers onto what you already have can easily kill a low 50s raid).
• Remember that juggers and reet casters DO NOT see invis (except for possibly the roamer jugger, not sure...). Neither do 99% of all myconids. An invis'd cleric can easily do CR himself.

Venril Sathir, Scalekeeper and other lifetap proccing mobs

For mobs it is very important to keep aggro on one person the entire time. Get a small group of people who can do damage fast, a few lure capable wizards and a few rogues are always nice. You need a high level (55+) warrior with good AC and fast proccing weapons to taunt. First off dont give anyone but the main tanks any HP buffs, certainly not the casters. If casters get aggroed there is no time to outtaunt in the time it takes VS to kill them, so its best they only feed him once before they die. Cast rune 3 on a few high aggro tanks (monks for example) before the fight. The only buffs you need are haste and clarity. You dont need groups.

Send your main tank in first, and let him taunt and solo the mob for 10 seconds. Two enchanters (preferably of the same level) stagger casts of rune 3 on him, a little more then 2 seconds apart (half the casting time). I also did this a few times as the only enchanter, but I used rune 5 in that case. The MA never even lost any hitpoints.

Make sure the main tank is the closest player to Venril at all times, as aggro is partly proximity based, all others stand behind him and as far as possible while still able to hit him. If you play on a PvP server, kill anyone who is in front of VS (taking riposte life taps). Extra enchanters can check with an /assist on Venril Sathir who is the current highest on the aggro list (this should be the MA). In case the MA dies they can make the switch in time. Dont heal anyone who gets hit besides the MA (you may rune them however). They did something wrong by over-aggroing so let them die and learn the hard way, don't make them feed VS even more. Wizards will wait till he is quite hurt until nuking (some say 70 health some say 50). Do not chain nuke in the beginning, if you get aggroed you just undid all your damage. Hopefully it will be a quick fight, before your enchanters mana runs out, if it takes too long and he lifetaps a few times just port to DL and try again. Reportedly the way that damage absorbers like bedlam and rune blocked procs got changed. If a tap would do 1500 damage, and rune 5 + bedlam (1050 damage absorber) was on the MA, then 450 of the damage will still be tapped now.

This page is not complete, several tactics I used are not on this page. I may add things after our direct competition guild has found them out by themselves anyways. It may also be more fun to find out things by yourself, it gives a bigger satisfaction if you know you devised a strategy for a certain mob yourself then to just have it given to you.

There have been quite a number of changes in the game, for example druids now have a form of cheal and monks will have more difficulty pulling so in some cases SK's will have to do this job. Also in Planes of Power, the long lasting marathon fights of Velious will be something of the past.

I hereby wish thee many an exciting adventure.


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