Post by vallik on Apr 27, 2015 20:42:48 GMT -5
Let me pre-face this by saying THIS IS NOT A WHINGE POST!! FLAMERS MAY FEEL FREE TO STEER CLEAR.
With that out the way I just wanted to post some information for those like me that are soloing through the server and want a baseline of when something should be possible and what type of strategies to employ. I just finished up a 3 day long weekend in which I managed to get a good chunk of progression through GoD done (up to the brick wall that is Ikky Raid #4 to be exact).
Class: Warrior
Level: 75
AA's: Everything important plus a bunch that probably aren't. 8-900 spent give or take.
HP: Just over 45,000 according to #mystats. Just over 40,000 shown in client (RoF2).
AC: Just under 8000 according to #mystats. Just over 8100 shown in client.
Gear: Basically what is shown in the Warrior BiS list for plane of time (including ac augs) - minus the Avatar drops, along with a couple of drops from the Kod'Taz summoner ring and some aug's from greedy goblin.
Bots: Cleric, Shaman, Mage all PoTime geared.
Clickies Needed: Time's Antithesis (Slow), Blood Ember Greaves (Feign Death)
Notable problems before Ikkinz: None.
**Note: I do not use warp so I clear all trash.
Ikky Group 1: Singular Might
The hardest thing I found with this trial was actually the very first trash pull. Those Mastruq's hit HARD. I used Cleric & Shaman, pulled with Slow clicky on one and sent bots on the other so that Shammy would slow the second. Rest of the trash is relatively easy, just be careful of the wanderers. Diabolic Destroyer was actually not all that difficult compared to the trash pulls IMO. Killed the add's as they spawned, overall not that difficult.
Ikky Group 2: Twin Struggles
Simple. You should have no trouble here. I used Cleric & Shammy bot again.
Ikky Group 3: Tri-Fates
Another relatively simple one for the stats I had. Cleric & Shammy again. Cleared trash first then engaged one by one. One of the Flesh Hunter's seemed to drop abnormally quick. Not sure if he had less HP or I just got a huge amount of proc's in a very little time. The middle one seemed to hit a bit harder too. Burned Evasive but nothing I couldn't handle.
Summoner's Ring
Very simple up until Hexxt Chaos Provoker. This guy hits HARD. Caught me unaware the first time so I had Cleric/Mage out and he dropped me quick. Went back with Cleric/Shammy, popped evasive and managed to drop him. Had a few close calls but that is more due to bots being bots than anything else.
Ikky Raid 1: Righteousness - Be careful, trash (and nameds!) will respawn in here so you need to move quick.
This one had me banging my head against a wall for a good few hours. As per the GoD progression guide on the wiki I just skipped the Priests and went straight to the Defenders. Using Cleric & Shammy at this point. They hit hard, you will need to disc. The trash pulls in their room are harder though. You can leash the Defenders but there is a trash pull that will bring 6 golems barreling down on you. I ended up using evasive, burning down one and then zoning. Came back and then I could pull duo's to get the rest, once the Defenders are dead you can move on. Custodian was easy enough, just has a lot of HP so takes a while.
The Guardian of Righteousness was the one that had me banging my head against my desk. He hits HARD, he nukes HARD (over 9000!!) and he FD's you. I started to think this was impossible for me when I realised that no amount of healing my cleric or shammy could provide would keep me up. This is where thinking outside the box comes in handy. On Imperium mobs do not summon until 50% and this guy is perma rooted. Got rid of shammy, subbed in mage and range tanked him with bellow while the mage nuked him down. The cleric then only had to heal occasionally when I got nuked and I could focus on tanking and killing the adds. When he starts to get close to 50% pop evasive and continue to range tank him. Every so often he will summon you so just make sure to back up out of range ASAP to get healed. It can get hairy if you get summoned and then FD'd so make sure you are ready to stand and GTFO of range.
Spirit of Tunik I found was easier but by no means is he a push over either. I honestly cannot remember at this stage if I had the shammy or the mage out, sorry for that, but I do know that I tried the range tank strategy again and it failed horribly so I ended up face tanking him properly. I probably went Cleric/Shammy but I did drop him on 2nd attempt so definitely not as bad as the Guardian.
Ikky Raid 2: Glorification - Everything respawns so again be careful.
Ignored all nameds and just cleared trash through to the Guardian. Cleared out his room and the hallway wanderers to give myself some space then activated the Guardian with 10k pp. Fight is quite manageable using Cleric/Shammy. At 50% he will split. I was NOT able to tank both of these at the same time so I ran out of the room to leash them, dismissed both bots and FD'd. Once both bots are out make sure you tell them to guard somewhere in the hallway and then use some fancy FD/leash combinations to split the 2 Guardians. When engaging make sure your back is to a wall otherwise you will get thrown into the other guy OR out of the room and he will leash so you will need to start all over. At 50% this guy will also split into another 2 Guardians, but this time they were quite easy to tank together. Once these 2 are dead you are technically done with the raid as 2 piles of bones will spawn with your required item. If you want the loot though you can easily pull the last guy, let him split and then kill the final 2 guys.
Ikky Raid 3: Transcendence
Guardian of Transcendence hits pretty hard but you only need to drop 10% of his health. He is permarooted so you can have a bot nuke him down freely without worrying about summon but I just ran in and face tanked him with Cleric/Shammy. He doesn't last long enough to hurt, yet. Ignored all side rooms and just cleared trash through to the Flesh Hunter room from Tri-Fates. Guardian just before this room needs to be smacked down to 75%. Could probably range tank it and let mage bot nuke it down but I already had Shammy out so I just ran in and smacked it down. Does hit quite hard though so be careful.
**Important Note: It will be useful to clear the trash in this room - if not a full clear at least get the ones along the wall containing the door you just entered from and the ones sitting just outside each little "cubby hole". You will see why in a second.
Rinse and repeat on the Guardian to 50% this time. Again it is safe to range tank and let bot nuke him down, easy stuff. Clear through to the final Guardian room, get Cleric/Shammy and clear out the room. Rinse and repeat on Guardian yet again but you need to kill him this time. If at all possible you want to try and save evasive because once this guy dies things are gonna get nasty. I ended up needing to use evasive on the guardian regardless because his damage output was just too much for me. Once he dies the 4 sentinels will spawn and immediately aggro. You want to grab aggro asap before they pop your bots. This is where you want evasive, hopefully you can pop it or it is still running from the previous fight. Once aggro is sorted and your shammy pet is on one of them (you did give it 2 of the new pet weapons right? ) you can back up a bit and let the pet tank one. You need to burn down the 3 on you as quick as possible because damage input is huge, they have quite a lot of HP though! This fight really stressed my bots mana, pretty sure I ended the fight with both of them oom and was living through lifetap procs and the odd heal as they got enough mana back.
Once done, they next guy spawned back in the Tri-Fates room as per the wiki. I ran back there and engaged and he warped back to the room we just killed Guardian in. So run back again, summon your bots and engage. This guy will aoe your bots but using the Cleric/Shammy combo it was a rather easy fight, especially compared to the 4 sentinels. The final guy again spawned in the Tri-Fates room and this time did not warp when I attacked. He is a push over, just watch his HP before you engage and time it when it is low. I engaged at 13%, hit him a few times and he started to run (which is why we cleared this room!) so the fight was basically nothing.
Ikky Raid 4: Chambers of Destruction - No trash
Altar Construct: Hits hard, AoE's and knockbacks.
My HP was now a bit over 42k in client (48k #mystats), AC 10.5k in client (10472 #mystats)
Bots: 2x Cleric
Disc: Chained Defensive
Strategy: Parked Cleric's in hallway outside Construct's room. Pulled Altar Construct and tanked him with my back against the wall in the open area just before the door to his room. There is 2 reasons for this. When the add's spawn and my bots heal me they get aggro, the add's will attempt to run out into the hall to hit them and leash back. They will then get into an aggro/run/leash loop and can safely be ignored for the rest of the fight (I seriously hope this is not considered an exploit? If it is I will stop doing it - personally though I see it as a viable strategy that would have worked on live as well). The second reason I fight where I do is if I get hit with a particularly bad round and my bots are struggling to top me off I can quickly step out into the hall and leash Construct. Provided he is still above 50% this is perfectly safe, gives the bots time to catch up on heals and you can "reset" the encounter without resetting his HP. Once he drops below 50% and starts summoning though you can't do that any more.
Keeper of the Altar:
So I noticed on AllaClone that this guy was not immune to snare. I didn't know he was perma rooted or had crazy high resists either so my plan was to snare kite him around the zone. He resisted my snare non stop and turned out to be perma-rooted so I just face tanked him with 2 clerics out. Didn't have an issue. Run out of melee range to give the clerics some breathing room if needed and to deal with add's but other than that I quite honestly had no issues. First attempt kill for this guy, had a lot more trouble with the Construct.
**Note** You can probably treat this guy like the Guardian of Righteousness and range tank him while focusing on the adds. Letting a mage bot nuke him down then tanking the last 50% with evasive and moving out of range (he will even help out by throwing you out of range anyway!). I did not try this as I had both clerics out ready to try snare kiting anyway and just adjusted strategy on the fly without resetting the encounter. If you are struggling to face tank then try range tanking it.
So there you have it folks, anyone complaining that Ikkinz is too hard to box - it has now been solo'd by a warrior with NO box and no twinking at all - everything I am wearing has dropped for me at the moment.
With that out the way I just wanted to post some information for those like me that are soloing through the server and want a baseline of when something should be possible and what type of strategies to employ. I just finished up a 3 day long weekend in which I managed to get a good chunk of progression through GoD done (up to the brick wall that is Ikky Raid #4 to be exact).
Class: Warrior
Level: 75
AA's: Everything important plus a bunch that probably aren't. 8-900 spent give or take.
HP: Just over 45,000 according to #mystats. Just over 40,000 shown in client (RoF2).
AC: Just under 8000 according to #mystats. Just over 8100 shown in client.
Gear: Basically what is shown in the Warrior BiS list for plane of time (including ac augs) - minus the Avatar drops, along with a couple of drops from the Kod'Taz summoner ring and some aug's from greedy goblin.
Bots: Cleric, Shaman, Mage all PoTime geared.
Clickies Needed: Time's Antithesis (Slow), Blood Ember Greaves (Feign Death)
Notable problems before Ikkinz: None.
**Note: I do not use warp so I clear all trash.
Ikky Group 1: Singular Might
The hardest thing I found with this trial was actually the very first trash pull. Those Mastruq's hit HARD. I used Cleric & Shaman, pulled with Slow clicky on one and sent bots on the other so that Shammy would slow the second. Rest of the trash is relatively easy, just be careful of the wanderers. Diabolic Destroyer was actually not all that difficult compared to the trash pulls IMO. Killed the add's as they spawned, overall not that difficult.
Ikky Group 2: Twin Struggles
Simple. You should have no trouble here. I used Cleric & Shammy bot again.
Ikky Group 3: Tri-Fates
Another relatively simple one for the stats I had. Cleric & Shammy again. Cleared trash first then engaged one by one. One of the Flesh Hunter's seemed to drop abnormally quick. Not sure if he had less HP or I just got a huge amount of proc's in a very little time. The middle one seemed to hit a bit harder too. Burned Evasive but nothing I couldn't handle.
Summoner's Ring
Very simple up until Hexxt Chaos Provoker. This guy hits HARD. Caught me unaware the first time so I had Cleric/Mage out and he dropped me quick. Went back with Cleric/Shammy, popped evasive and managed to drop him. Had a few close calls but that is more due to bots being bots than anything else.
Ikky Raid 1: Righteousness - Be careful, trash (and nameds!) will respawn in here so you need to move quick.
This one had me banging my head against a wall for a good few hours. As per the GoD progression guide on the wiki I just skipped the Priests and went straight to the Defenders. Using Cleric & Shammy at this point. They hit hard, you will need to disc. The trash pulls in their room are harder though. You can leash the Defenders but there is a trash pull that will bring 6 golems barreling down on you. I ended up using evasive, burning down one and then zoning. Came back and then I could pull duo's to get the rest, once the Defenders are dead you can move on. Custodian was easy enough, just has a lot of HP so takes a while.
The Guardian of Righteousness was the one that had me banging my head against my desk. He hits HARD, he nukes HARD (over 9000!!) and he FD's you. I started to think this was impossible for me when I realised that no amount of healing my cleric or shammy could provide would keep me up. This is where thinking outside the box comes in handy. On Imperium mobs do not summon until 50% and this guy is perma rooted. Got rid of shammy, subbed in mage and range tanked him with bellow while the mage nuked him down. The cleric then only had to heal occasionally when I got nuked and I could focus on tanking and killing the adds. When he starts to get close to 50% pop evasive and continue to range tank him. Every so often he will summon you so just make sure to back up out of range ASAP to get healed. It can get hairy if you get summoned and then FD'd so make sure you are ready to stand and GTFO of range.
Spirit of Tunik I found was easier but by no means is he a push over either. I honestly cannot remember at this stage if I had the shammy or the mage out, sorry for that, but I do know that I tried the range tank strategy again and it failed horribly so I ended up face tanking him properly. I probably went Cleric/Shammy but I did drop him on 2nd attempt so definitely not as bad as the Guardian.
Ikky Raid 2: Glorification - Everything respawns so again be careful.
Ignored all nameds and just cleared trash through to the Guardian. Cleared out his room and the hallway wanderers to give myself some space then activated the Guardian with 10k pp. Fight is quite manageable using Cleric/Shammy. At 50% he will split. I was NOT able to tank both of these at the same time so I ran out of the room to leash them, dismissed both bots and FD'd. Once both bots are out make sure you tell them to guard somewhere in the hallway and then use some fancy FD/leash combinations to split the 2 Guardians. When engaging make sure your back is to a wall otherwise you will get thrown into the other guy OR out of the room and he will leash so you will need to start all over. At 50% this guy will also split into another 2 Guardians, but this time they were quite easy to tank together. Once these 2 are dead you are technically done with the raid as 2 piles of bones will spawn with your required item. If you want the loot though you can easily pull the last guy, let him split and then kill the final 2 guys.
Ikky Raid 3: Transcendence
Guardian of Transcendence hits pretty hard but you only need to drop 10% of his health. He is permarooted so you can have a bot nuke him down freely without worrying about summon but I just ran in and face tanked him with Cleric/Shammy. He doesn't last long enough to hurt, yet. Ignored all side rooms and just cleared trash through to the Flesh Hunter room from Tri-Fates. Guardian just before this room needs to be smacked down to 75%. Could probably range tank it and let mage bot nuke it down but I already had Shammy out so I just ran in and smacked it down. Does hit quite hard though so be careful.
**Important Note: It will be useful to clear the trash in this room - if not a full clear at least get the ones along the wall containing the door you just entered from and the ones sitting just outside each little "cubby hole". You will see why in a second.
Rinse and repeat on the Guardian to 50% this time. Again it is safe to range tank and let bot nuke him down, easy stuff. Clear through to the final Guardian room, get Cleric/Shammy and clear out the room. Rinse and repeat on Guardian yet again but you need to kill him this time. If at all possible you want to try and save evasive because once this guy dies things are gonna get nasty. I ended up needing to use evasive on the guardian regardless because his damage output was just too much for me. Once he dies the 4 sentinels will spawn and immediately aggro. You want to grab aggro asap before they pop your bots. This is where you want evasive, hopefully you can pop it or it is still running from the previous fight. Once aggro is sorted and your shammy pet is on one of them (you did give it 2 of the new pet weapons right? ) you can back up a bit and let the pet tank one. You need to burn down the 3 on you as quick as possible because damage input is huge, they have quite a lot of HP though! This fight really stressed my bots mana, pretty sure I ended the fight with both of them oom and was living through lifetap procs and the odd heal as they got enough mana back.
Once done, they next guy spawned back in the Tri-Fates room as per the wiki. I ran back there and engaged and he warped back to the room we just killed Guardian in. So run back again, summon your bots and engage. This guy will aoe your bots but using the Cleric/Shammy combo it was a rather easy fight, especially compared to the 4 sentinels. The final guy again spawned in the Tri-Fates room and this time did not warp when I attacked. He is a push over, just watch his HP before you engage and time it when it is low. I engaged at 13%, hit him a few times and he started to run (which is why we cleared this room!) so the fight was basically nothing.
Ikky Raid 4: Chambers of Destruction - No trash
Altar Construct: Hits hard, AoE's and knockbacks.
My HP was now a bit over 42k in client (48k #mystats), AC 10.5k in client (10472 #mystats)
Bots: 2x Cleric
Disc: Chained Defensive
Strategy: Parked Cleric's in hallway outside Construct's room. Pulled Altar Construct and tanked him with my back against the wall in the open area just before the door to his room. There is 2 reasons for this. When the add's spawn and my bots heal me they get aggro, the add's will attempt to run out into the hall to hit them and leash back. They will then get into an aggro/run/leash loop and can safely be ignored for the rest of the fight (I seriously hope this is not considered an exploit? If it is I will stop doing it - personally though I see it as a viable strategy that would have worked on live as well). The second reason I fight where I do is if I get hit with a particularly bad round and my bots are struggling to top me off I can quickly step out into the hall and leash Construct. Provided he is still above 50% this is perfectly safe, gives the bots time to catch up on heals and you can "reset" the encounter without resetting his HP. Once he drops below 50% and starts summoning though you can't do that any more.
Keeper of the Altar:
So I noticed on AllaClone that this guy was not immune to snare. I didn't know he was perma rooted or had crazy high resists either so my plan was to snare kite him around the zone. He resisted my snare non stop and turned out to be perma-rooted so I just face tanked him with 2 clerics out. Didn't have an issue. Run out of melee range to give the clerics some breathing room if needed and to deal with add's but other than that I quite honestly had no issues. First attempt kill for this guy, had a lot more trouble with the Construct.
**Note** You can probably treat this guy like the Guardian of Righteousness and range tank him while focusing on the adds. Letting a mage bot nuke him down then tanking the last 50% with evasive and moving out of range (he will even help out by throwing you out of range anyway!). I did not try this as I had both clerics out ready to try snare kiting anyway and just adjusted strategy on the fly without resetting the encounter. If you are struggling to face tank then try range tanking it.
So there you have it folks, anyone complaining that Ikkinz is too hard to box - it has now been solo'd by a warrior with NO box and no twinking at all - everything I am wearing has dropped for me at the moment.