The Glade 4.0

So a few of us in the guild are at at or very close to 52, which is the max level you can enter Naggy or Vox's lair.

The question came up in guild chat tonight about how much time and effort we should spending solidifying gear and weapons at this level?

A short pause probably doesn't justify it, but if we are going to be here for a while, it might be worth working towards acquiring better gear.

For example, Raz is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to spend loyalty tokens on radiant crystals to get weapons that are marginal upgrades (or otherwise track down old world drops). It might be a good investment if he'll be using them for a while, but if were just going to press on into level 60 content, then spending them on a minor upgrade doesn't make sense.

Other than rare items like the Cloak of Flames, and just the distinction of being able to say I was there when Nagafen/Vox died, I don't really know if they are worth killing repeatedly or not, nor how logistically difficult it is to even find them up, and get everyone together to participate.

Personally, I'm indifferent on the matter. I'm just curious about other's thoughts?

I brought the idea up thinking it would be cool to take a breather and kill Vox/Naggy cause we can thanks to power creep and mercs. I don't think we need to worry about stopping long enough to farm the content; just to do it for fun and nostalgia.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I think a week-ish pause might be good, but I don't think farming it is necessary. If we wait for about a week, Rori, Grouse, and Ranelagh should be able to catch us- that leaves us with an actual 6 person group (amazing!).

Another stop at 55 would be excellent, that's where there really start to be AAs to grind out- although you can bank up to 30 while you wait.

As a note, remember that you can sell back your DoN purchased gear for a 70% return on the initial cost.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I am not sure about various expansion content, having just resubscribed I have veteran rewards but non of the loyalty cash business.

As far as 52, never did do Vox, so I am certainly up for a few dragon runs. With the defiant armour drops, farming old world gear seems to be pointless. Haste items not included in that of course. I'd be happy to crank naggy with a 6 man + mercs team. We don't have alot of any one character type, so doing them enough for each melee to get cloak of flames is fine with me. Who knows, maybe he'll even drop Blight.

Mcduff is 49 now, so not too long to catch up.

You guys should definitely grab some cloaks of flames just to be cool.

Haste that is level appropriate (whatever that means these days) is actually pretty easy to come by. Raz just got the 30% haste belt from the level 55 hotzone quest last night.

Not that I wouldn't love to have a Cloak of Flames =).

Anyway, like I said. I have plenty of alts I can play, or skills to catch up on, and AA's to farm, so I'm quite ok with a pause, long or short. I was just curious.

I'll have some playtime this week, so along with helping others where needed, I'm thinking of leveling a VahShir Berzerker. I've never played the class, and know almost nothing about it, but I hear they are great DPS. That'll be a nice change of pace from Raz. =)

I'm not clear on the merc mechanics other than in small groups (and I've still got a lot to learn there), nor what the restrictions are in the Vox/Naggy lairs (other than level).

How would we do this? Two groups with mercs? Set up a raid? Are mercs allowed in a raid? If not, will we have enough healing? Or will healing even matter if we kill fast enough ?


Edit: And who's in charge of screenshots and video ? :p~~

With the defiant gear available at those levels, Naggy and Vox are both doable with your party of 6 players. You will resist most of the AEs, and those you don't wont have enough of an impact on your total HP to cause the near instant deaths they used to. Merc's shouldn't have any problem keeping up.

However, merc's cannot be used while you are in a raid, so if you were going this route, you will need to be just 2 groups fighting together.

Also, the level of your merc may or may not be an issue. Merc's have a "fear" check when encountering mobs that are of a significant threat, or number of mobs, and if they fail, they will run away.

I don't know what the check percentages are, but when I first got a merc, prior to flagging for SoD, it would run everytime I pulled more than 4 mobs (light blue). Now, with the highest level Merc, I never recall it running in any group situation, and only once when I was doing Larder (which is around 40 mobs in a pull).

For reference though, there are currently some monster mission tasks in PoK in which you get to assume "old" player types as the game existed prior to Kurnak. The two raids are against Naggy and Vox, both if which are the same in abilities, but the player abilities are about halfway between what they really were back then and what you would be now with your available gear (I think the level 50 ranger buffed to 2K HP in the monster mission, its been a while since I did one).

The minimum to request the raid is 12, and with 12, its highly unlikely anyone dies.

Merc's have two raid based restrictions:

They can't zone into "raid zones", and they can't be added as part of a raid.

That said, I'm sure McDuff can keep us up with his Uber shaman healing.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

You guys are so gonna die if you go that route. I can't wait!

I'm not sure how hot shaman heals are. My merc rarely needs healing. Except yesterday when he tanked 3 yellow dromrek giants without running (good lad!)

By 52 I will have superior healing, and will attempt to be kitted out in flawed defiant, so should have a decent mana pool.

Well, shoot. Maybe I should get off my ***, then. Though, it would be pretty depressing if I got to level 52 in less than a week /played time, after retiring at 58 with months and months of /played time.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

A single Dromrek seems to be the same amount of threat as Vox or Naggy, so I'd wager you would be just fine.

Dig in! Leveling is sooo much faster than my first go around. I have 1 day 6 hours played and level 49. (And still no clue about how to play my new class =P )

As far as how to play a shaman goes:

I can't answer much on the Root/DoT soloing (or any soloing), but I've done a good bit of healing with my shaman, they aren't that bad- especially if you're playing them full time, and can canni to keep mana up.

Make sure you do the quest in Gunthak for your heal over time (stoicism?)- it will help a lot.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Well, for what it's worth, Raz at level 52 has just over 5000HP and about 1460AC with merc buffs (Temerance).

Resists are P227, M212,F201, C194, D178.

I read that Vox hits for 204, and has an AE fear and I believe an AE cold.

I was soloing (with the merc) the hotzone quest mobs (Dragorn Peon ~12kHP) in Boodfields last night. Yellow to 52, and they were hitting for about 270 if i recall. The merc had absolutely no problem keeping up with heals. It just took forever to kill them with my pitiful damage output.

If I'm reading the specs on the vox/naggy encounters, they should be of similar difficulty?
Bb
What about clearing and adds? do they do crazy things like spawn ice giant babies while your killing them?

Also, I read something about 'belly casting', where you have to be under the belly to hit them with spell damage?

I also saw a suggestion that because they are indoors, that walls block AE, that healers should hide when she starts casting.

Unfortunately most of the information on these encounters dates back to long before defiant gear and mercenaries existed, so it's kinda hard to gauge.

And Kaffis, you absolutely need to log in and play. I'd be happy to group with you on one of my alts if you are looking for some company.

I'd better get on that Gunthak quest then. As far as regular healing I honestly don't get alot of practice since my Merc rarely goes below 96%, I stop looking at his health. Maybe I should snag Razael and practice without mercs. I hope he has a buffer on his level xp.

I don't see any need for farming, but I defienitely want to kill Naggy for nostalgia and Vox because I never did in the past.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sure, I can go with you to gunthak or dulak to get your spell quest. I'm about 50% into 52 and am currently on full AA (14 banked so far and run speed 3 in the books), so lots of death buffer to play with. We could try it with just your tank merc, or with no mercs at all if were really feeling frisky.

Also, Zyerne might be interested in this too, as she needs (needed?) a spell quest in Dulak as well.

You can also do it with the tank merc there as DPS, to get practice healing.

Set it on "assist" instead of aggressive, and mark Raz as the Main Tank/Main Assist, and the tank merc will focus on DPSing whatever Raz has targeted.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Its been a long time, but I recall Vox and Naggy double attacked for 255 and had a bite attack for 204. However, Vox is a cleric, so she will also try to heal herself with Complete Heal, which takes a while to cast, so she won't be doing any damage once you get her low enough. She used to be the hardest raid because her channeling was so high, if she got off a CH, chances were really high the raid would run out of mana before you got her back down to that point again.... 2 CHs and you were doing CR.


Naggy and Vox both are old world mobs, so have their HP capped at 32,000.


The adds aren't bad by themselves, but they might give you problems trying to get them out of the room without having Vox or Naggy come with them, and I doubt the ability of 6 players with 6 mercs to fight naggy and 8 fire giants at the same time.


Pretty much, yes. Their spell resistance is factored on distance, so unless you are pretty much directly under them, your nukers won't be able to do any damage. They still use this mechanic in current raids. This does not apply to dispelling the dragons, which for Vox you should do, since she buffs herself with cleric buffs.


There are areas to hide healers for both dragons, but with the current gear levels, this shouldn't be a concern. The AE Fear is PB radial and the fire/ice AEs are directional cones, so you can just face the dragons away from your healers/mercs to avoid the worst damage.

Of course, if at your levels these two dragons aren't enough of a challenge, you can always take on Gore and Talendar in Kurnak, which are essentially higher level clones, without all the adds to clear first.

And then on to Trak!

My concern is more actually finding any of the dragons up- I'm sure they're hot targets for everyone.

I haven't seen them up on my home server (FV) for months... They're all permacamped.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Naggy will probably be a problem for a while given you need him dead for the Cleric Epic, which I'm betting is still a pretty handy item to have on a new server for raids.

Yeah, Vox seems far less relevant (What, Paladins and Bards?), and thus more likely to find.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Nevemind

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Naggy will likely be perma-dead.... But even with just a few epics relying on Vox, she drops some nice loot aside from that- especially the 10 slot, giant, 100% WR bags that are very popular.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.