Post by sabatuer on Jun 27, 2006 11:48:33 GMT -5
I pulled this off a site for use to learn.... This is Von 6
Preparation
I’ll first tell you about the encounter so you can get the idea of the tactics and communication required to defeat it.
The Plane of the night is made of 4 small islands and the zone in. The dragon sits on the middle island waiting for your group to approach. The dragon is not reachable via melee range until the pillars on the surrounding three islands are destroyed. Next to each pillar is a set of monsters. The Western side has around 5 Greater Earth Elementals, the Southern side has around 8 Prince Air Mephits and the Eastern side has around 4 or 5 Ice Flensers. When the monsters killed they will respawn at the pillar within a few seconds. Regardless of the status of any pillar the monsters will always constantly respawn upon death. To make things much trickier the pillars must all three pillars reach 0 health within a 5-10 second window.
When you start attacking a pillar you may take it down to around 5% of its health and it will give you a message. The message will basically tell you that you need to kill all the pillars at the same time. So to summarize once you bring any pillar below the 5% mark and you receive the message then you have 5-10 seconds to destroy all three pillars and if not, all three pillars fully re-heal.
As far as the dragon goes, there are two phases. The first phase is destroying the pillars and opening the gate that guards the dragon. The second phase is fighting the dragon. When your team walks out on to the bridge the dragon will fly up into the air and start casting Fireballs. Immunity to fire damage will not fully protect you from this damage because the majority of the damage is Epic damage. The fireballs will be shot at completely random people no one person will draw agro from the dragon while he is in the air.
The bridge is also a liability to your group’s success. There are a handful of restrictions to the bridge that your group must abide by. The group can only take so much weight in any one place. That’s not to say that on the bridge everyone can’t stand within a few feet radius however if that section of bridge is hit with a Dragon Fireball then that section of bridge may indeed fall. If a section of bridge falls it will not be coming back. Furthermore you cannot jump over a section of bridge (even with Feather Fall) that has been destroyed. A bridge section can also only take so much damage before it breaks. If fireballs keep landing at the same place on a bridge, the bridge will fail.
For Cleric spell preparation bring Fire, Sonic and Ice Protection. For Casters bring Magic Missle, Web, Phantasmal Killer and Charm. As far as gear anything you have to reduce Epic Damage (Platemail of the Giants), increase your reflex saves and improve your hit points, they would all be helpful against the fight to come.
Strategies
There are multiple strategies to destroying the pillars to successfully finish phase 1 of the Plane of the Night. Some are easier then others and there are also others that depend on a certain class fulfilling a unique role. Listed below is the initial strategy we used to destroy the pillars.
Pillar Strategy – Trailing Mobs
First off it is important to know how far down you can take the pillars before they give you the message that they need to be destroyed. So from the zone in fire at the pillars with ranged weapons (don’t worry, you won’t draw agro). When the health gets down to 10% reduce the number of attackers to see exactly how much health needs to be on the pillar before it gives you the warning. Feel free to let the first pillar re-heal itself just to make sure that your group knows how much health the pillar should have before they need to stop attacking.
Once your group gets a feel for the health each pillar should be left with before you finalize their demise, go ahead and bring both the East and Western pillars down to 10% or so before moving on.
Keep in mind that you will not always be able to shoot the pillars from zone in. In the very near future I do believe they’ll make the pillar “out of range” from attacks fired at zone-in. But for now, do what you must.
This strategy depends on one smart character that is built properly enough to do the task at hand. For us, that character was a Level 7 Ranger, level 3 Rogue. This character’s speed buffs and the Reflex saves made this strategy possible. Our Ranger/Rogue was named Fringe on the Adar server.
Now that the side pillars are taken down to 10% it’s time for game plan and buffing. Since your group is still at the zone-in you should have no problem going over a little strategy before destroying the pillars. Explain your strategy to the group and make sure everyone knows their role in defeating the dragon. Make sure nobody has any questions before letting loose your rogue.
The Ranger/Rogue would be buffed with Fire and Sonic protection at the zone in. He’s given a 10 second head start. While he starts his run the clerics of your group will be buffing everyone with Fire Protection. Once the Ranger/Rogue passes the first pillar he will slowly drag the Greater Earth Elementals to the second pillar. Since the Rogue has higher reflex saves he won’t be held by the Elementals attacks. The rogue then arrives at the Southern pillar with the Mephits. He then continues his trailing by pulling both the Elementals and the Mephits away from the pillar. It’s important that the rogue stays just far enough away that both the Mephits and the Elementals will not get stuck and everyone will continue to follow.
The Ranger/Rogue now moves on to the final pillar with the Ice Flensers. The Ice Flensers are fast and painful but the Ranger/Rogue must pull all three sets of monsters to the middle of the bridge and then the Ranger/Rogue will die in a convenient spot (just far enough to have the ability to run to a cleric for a rez). Now that all the monsters are safely on the final section of the bridge we can occupy the pillars safely without fear of monsters.
Pillar Destruction
We return back to the rest of the group that now stands at the zone in. Now that we know the Ranger/Rogue’s job then we can understand how to destroy the pillars a little easier. Let’s say that the Ranger/Rogue is now leaving the zone in and starting his run. When the rogue gets to the Earth Elementals then the rest of the group moves out in a spread out manner as to not to put too much strain on the bridge at any one interval.
When the group reaches the Earth Elemental pillar it should be empty at the rogue should be at the Mephits. Have two pre-defined melee characters and one cleric sit at the Earth Elemental pillar while everyone else continues to the Mephit pillar. These three people will actively dodge fireballs while waiting for the rest of the group to get into position.
When the rest of the group arrives at the Mephit pillar our Ranger/Rogue will just be arriving at the Ice Flenser pillar. The melee characters will attack the Mephit pillar to within 10% of its health and stop attacking. Two melee characters and one cleric will now stay at the Mephit pillar while the rest of the party moves to the Ice Flenser pillar.
When the final group arrives at the Ice Flenser pillar our Ranger/Rogue will be stopping in the middle of the bridge to die by the hands of many, many monsters.
A lot of communication is required at this point because everyone group must say “READY ON ICE”, “READY ON EARTH”, “READY ON MEPHITS” and so on. When the leader of the raid yells “ATTACK” then the group destroys the pillars at the same time and with the destruction of each pillar a group member yells “ICE DOWN”, “EARTH DOWN” and “MEPHIT DOWN”. If everything went smoothly you’ll hear a message from the DM and you’ll return to the zone in.
At this point there may be a few straggler monsters at the zone in or on the bridge. What commonly happens is that the group gets excited because they just completed the pillars and they start taking the monsters for granted and some deaths occur as well as the loss of precious spell points. If you have to fight the monsters, pull them to you slowly, one at a time and PK them if possible. You don’t want to loose any spell points before the next fight so if a monster can be avoided to reach the zone in, do so.
There are other methods used to destroy the pillars but this has worked well with our group composition. On a given run we can generally have the pillars down and be in front of the dragon before our extended Fire Protection buffs wear out (3 ½ minutes).
Phase 2: Fighting the Dragon
The dragon doesn’t take nearly as much communication as the pillar strategy. Some quick things you’ll need to know about the dragon is that once he is approached he’ll immediately fly into the air and blow anyone off the platform who is not directly behind the two rocks near him. If you are blown off you will fall to your death above the Marketplace. Also once he flies into the air everyone that was not in his lair will be locked out for the duration of the fight. Currently there is a bug that prevents lowering the wall to the lair but eventually you will be able to redo the pillars to lower the wall multiple times.
Secondly the rocks behind the dragon will shoot fire from them so make sure that everyone has an active Fire Protection. The dragon should go down fast but having that little protection during the fight could make all the difference in the world.
Unfortunately the dragon went down so fast there wasn’t much of a fight at all. After a few immediate attacks he just stayed still for a handful of attacks before his final demise.
Overall it took about 40 seconds of 6 melee and 3 casters of Magic Missile and various weapon types to take the dragon down. It was a little too fast and hopefully future encounters will warrant more of a Dragon Strategy.
If you have tried other approaches we would love to hear your thoughts and strat ideas.
Conclusion
If you look at some of the screenshots with the Dragon Pics you’ll see the QA Lead of DDO’s staff, 5ig. 5ig was kind enough to accompany us through part 5 and 6 of the Dragon Quest to make sure we weren’t “exploiting”. It would seem that the Dragon Fight is still a little buggy right now. From what was explained to us it would be taken down in the very near future to fix the problem of people using ranged attacks to kill the dragon without drawing any agro (which can be done) as well as fixing the pillar problem where you cannot re-open the gate to the Dragon’s Lair once your team gets locked out.
Expect an update to this guide in the future when the Dragon’s Lair gets a little buff here and there as well as a little fix.
If you have completed the VoN series of quests look at the rewards we can chose from..... WoW
Belt of the Mroranon Strength +6, Moderate Fortification Belts
Cloak of the Silver Concord Charisma +2, Haggle +10, Diplomacy +10, Persuasion Cloaks
Docent of Grace +2 Enhancement, Tumble +5, Dexterity +5, Blanace +5 Docents
Dragon's Eye Magi, Superior Efficacy V Rings
Hammer of Life +4 Enhancement, Natural Armor Bonus +2, Heal +10, Repair +10, Casts Restoration (1/1) Hammers
Helm of Mronanan +6 Wisdom, +7 Intimidate Helms
Kundarak Delving Boots Freedom of Movement, Move Silently +5 Boots
Kundarak Delving Suit +5 Enhancement Bonus, Mithral, Silent Moves, Search +5 Breastplates
Kundarak Warding Bracers Constitution +3, Resistance +3, Protection +3 Bracers
Kundarak Warding Shield +5 Enhancement Bonus, Resistance +2 Shields
Ring of the Silver Concord Charisma +4, Protection +2, Command Rings
Ruby Encrusted Gauntlets Casts Flamestrike (1/1) Bracers
Silver Necklace of Prophecy Superior Glaciation IV, Cold Resistance
Greaseum....
Preparation
I’ll first tell you about the encounter so you can get the idea of the tactics and communication required to defeat it.
The Plane of the night is made of 4 small islands and the zone in. The dragon sits on the middle island waiting for your group to approach. The dragon is not reachable via melee range until the pillars on the surrounding three islands are destroyed. Next to each pillar is a set of monsters. The Western side has around 5 Greater Earth Elementals, the Southern side has around 8 Prince Air Mephits and the Eastern side has around 4 or 5 Ice Flensers. When the monsters killed they will respawn at the pillar within a few seconds. Regardless of the status of any pillar the monsters will always constantly respawn upon death. To make things much trickier the pillars must all three pillars reach 0 health within a 5-10 second window.
When you start attacking a pillar you may take it down to around 5% of its health and it will give you a message. The message will basically tell you that you need to kill all the pillars at the same time. So to summarize once you bring any pillar below the 5% mark and you receive the message then you have 5-10 seconds to destroy all three pillars and if not, all three pillars fully re-heal.
As far as the dragon goes, there are two phases. The first phase is destroying the pillars and opening the gate that guards the dragon. The second phase is fighting the dragon. When your team walks out on to the bridge the dragon will fly up into the air and start casting Fireballs. Immunity to fire damage will not fully protect you from this damage because the majority of the damage is Epic damage. The fireballs will be shot at completely random people no one person will draw agro from the dragon while he is in the air.
The bridge is also a liability to your group’s success. There are a handful of restrictions to the bridge that your group must abide by. The group can only take so much weight in any one place. That’s not to say that on the bridge everyone can’t stand within a few feet radius however if that section of bridge is hit with a Dragon Fireball then that section of bridge may indeed fall. If a section of bridge falls it will not be coming back. Furthermore you cannot jump over a section of bridge (even with Feather Fall) that has been destroyed. A bridge section can also only take so much damage before it breaks. If fireballs keep landing at the same place on a bridge, the bridge will fail.
For Cleric spell preparation bring Fire, Sonic and Ice Protection. For Casters bring Magic Missle, Web, Phantasmal Killer and Charm. As far as gear anything you have to reduce Epic Damage (Platemail of the Giants), increase your reflex saves and improve your hit points, they would all be helpful against the fight to come.
Strategies
There are multiple strategies to destroying the pillars to successfully finish phase 1 of the Plane of the Night. Some are easier then others and there are also others that depend on a certain class fulfilling a unique role. Listed below is the initial strategy we used to destroy the pillars.
Pillar Strategy – Trailing Mobs
First off it is important to know how far down you can take the pillars before they give you the message that they need to be destroyed. So from the zone in fire at the pillars with ranged weapons (don’t worry, you won’t draw agro). When the health gets down to 10% reduce the number of attackers to see exactly how much health needs to be on the pillar before it gives you the warning. Feel free to let the first pillar re-heal itself just to make sure that your group knows how much health the pillar should have before they need to stop attacking.
Once your group gets a feel for the health each pillar should be left with before you finalize their demise, go ahead and bring both the East and Western pillars down to 10% or so before moving on.
Keep in mind that you will not always be able to shoot the pillars from zone in. In the very near future I do believe they’ll make the pillar “out of range” from attacks fired at zone-in. But for now, do what you must.
This strategy depends on one smart character that is built properly enough to do the task at hand. For us, that character was a Level 7 Ranger, level 3 Rogue. This character’s speed buffs and the Reflex saves made this strategy possible. Our Ranger/Rogue was named Fringe on the Adar server.
Now that the side pillars are taken down to 10% it’s time for game plan and buffing. Since your group is still at the zone-in you should have no problem going over a little strategy before destroying the pillars. Explain your strategy to the group and make sure everyone knows their role in defeating the dragon. Make sure nobody has any questions before letting loose your rogue.
The Ranger/Rogue would be buffed with Fire and Sonic protection at the zone in. He’s given a 10 second head start. While he starts his run the clerics of your group will be buffing everyone with Fire Protection. Once the Ranger/Rogue passes the first pillar he will slowly drag the Greater Earth Elementals to the second pillar. Since the Rogue has higher reflex saves he won’t be held by the Elementals attacks. The rogue then arrives at the Southern pillar with the Mephits. He then continues his trailing by pulling both the Elementals and the Mephits away from the pillar. It’s important that the rogue stays just far enough away that both the Mephits and the Elementals will not get stuck and everyone will continue to follow.
The Ranger/Rogue now moves on to the final pillar with the Ice Flensers. The Ice Flensers are fast and painful but the Ranger/Rogue must pull all three sets of monsters to the middle of the bridge and then the Ranger/Rogue will die in a convenient spot (just far enough to have the ability to run to a cleric for a rez). Now that all the monsters are safely on the final section of the bridge we can occupy the pillars safely without fear of monsters.
Pillar Destruction
We return back to the rest of the group that now stands at the zone in. Now that we know the Ranger/Rogue’s job then we can understand how to destroy the pillars a little easier. Let’s say that the Ranger/Rogue is now leaving the zone in and starting his run. When the rogue gets to the Earth Elementals then the rest of the group moves out in a spread out manner as to not to put too much strain on the bridge at any one interval.
When the group reaches the Earth Elemental pillar it should be empty at the rogue should be at the Mephits. Have two pre-defined melee characters and one cleric sit at the Earth Elemental pillar while everyone else continues to the Mephit pillar. These three people will actively dodge fireballs while waiting for the rest of the group to get into position.
When the rest of the group arrives at the Mephit pillar our Ranger/Rogue will just be arriving at the Ice Flenser pillar. The melee characters will attack the Mephit pillar to within 10% of its health and stop attacking. Two melee characters and one cleric will now stay at the Mephit pillar while the rest of the party moves to the Ice Flenser pillar.
When the final group arrives at the Ice Flenser pillar our Ranger/Rogue will be stopping in the middle of the bridge to die by the hands of many, many monsters.
A lot of communication is required at this point because everyone group must say “READY ON ICE”, “READY ON EARTH”, “READY ON MEPHITS” and so on. When the leader of the raid yells “ATTACK” then the group destroys the pillars at the same time and with the destruction of each pillar a group member yells “ICE DOWN”, “EARTH DOWN” and “MEPHIT DOWN”. If everything went smoothly you’ll hear a message from the DM and you’ll return to the zone in.
At this point there may be a few straggler monsters at the zone in or on the bridge. What commonly happens is that the group gets excited because they just completed the pillars and they start taking the monsters for granted and some deaths occur as well as the loss of precious spell points. If you have to fight the monsters, pull them to you slowly, one at a time and PK them if possible. You don’t want to loose any spell points before the next fight so if a monster can be avoided to reach the zone in, do so.
There are other methods used to destroy the pillars but this has worked well with our group composition. On a given run we can generally have the pillars down and be in front of the dragon before our extended Fire Protection buffs wear out (3 ½ minutes).
Phase 2: Fighting the Dragon
The dragon doesn’t take nearly as much communication as the pillar strategy. Some quick things you’ll need to know about the dragon is that once he is approached he’ll immediately fly into the air and blow anyone off the platform who is not directly behind the two rocks near him. If you are blown off you will fall to your death above the Marketplace. Also once he flies into the air everyone that was not in his lair will be locked out for the duration of the fight. Currently there is a bug that prevents lowering the wall to the lair but eventually you will be able to redo the pillars to lower the wall multiple times.
Secondly the rocks behind the dragon will shoot fire from them so make sure that everyone has an active Fire Protection. The dragon should go down fast but having that little protection during the fight could make all the difference in the world.
Unfortunately the dragon went down so fast there wasn’t much of a fight at all. After a few immediate attacks he just stayed still for a handful of attacks before his final demise.
Overall it took about 40 seconds of 6 melee and 3 casters of Magic Missile and various weapon types to take the dragon down. It was a little too fast and hopefully future encounters will warrant more of a Dragon Strategy.
If you have tried other approaches we would love to hear your thoughts and strat ideas.
Conclusion
If you look at some of the screenshots with the Dragon Pics you’ll see the QA Lead of DDO’s staff, 5ig. 5ig was kind enough to accompany us through part 5 and 6 of the Dragon Quest to make sure we weren’t “exploiting”. It would seem that the Dragon Fight is still a little buggy right now. From what was explained to us it would be taken down in the very near future to fix the problem of people using ranged attacks to kill the dragon without drawing any agro (which can be done) as well as fixing the pillar problem where you cannot re-open the gate to the Dragon’s Lair once your team gets locked out.
Expect an update to this guide in the future when the Dragon’s Lair gets a little buff here and there as well as a little fix.
If you have completed the VoN series of quests look at the rewards we can chose from..... WoW
Belt of the Mroranon Strength +6, Moderate Fortification Belts
Cloak of the Silver Concord Charisma +2, Haggle +10, Diplomacy +10, Persuasion Cloaks
Docent of Grace +2 Enhancement, Tumble +5, Dexterity +5, Blanace +5 Docents
Dragon's Eye Magi, Superior Efficacy V Rings
Hammer of Life +4 Enhancement, Natural Armor Bonus +2, Heal +10, Repair +10, Casts Restoration (1/1) Hammers
Helm of Mronanan +6 Wisdom, +7 Intimidate Helms
Kundarak Delving Boots Freedom of Movement, Move Silently +5 Boots
Kundarak Delving Suit +5 Enhancement Bonus, Mithral, Silent Moves, Search +5 Breastplates
Kundarak Warding Bracers Constitution +3, Resistance +3, Protection +3 Bracers
Kundarak Warding Shield +5 Enhancement Bonus, Resistance +2 Shields
Ring of the Silver Concord Charisma +4, Protection +2, Command Rings
Ruby Encrusted Gauntlets Casts Flamestrike (1/1) Bracers
Silver Necklace of Prophecy Superior Glaciation IV, Cold Resistance
Greaseum....
You'd think there was a method of killing the Dragon that did not involve mass suicide. 
FIne, if that's how it has to be, but jeeze, if that's the only way to do it the designer should be taken outbehind the woodshed and have things explained... with bricks and clubs, mostly 