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Healing the Lair of the Mad Dragon
krahct
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Ok, so my first foray into DC healing in raid was eye opening. Hands down, DC is the hardest class you'll play in this game. Everything was great up until the last boss...the Big Bad Dragon.
OMG...the aggro I was pulling was insane. I went through 25 healthstones, 10 pots and 1500 zen in rez scrolls before my party finally gave up.
They didn't blame me, but I felt bad. I couldn't keep them up without ending up with four big mage things on me and tons of whelps. I know someone should be pulling them off me but they were really struggling.
I was level 31 with mixed blues and late 20s green gear, I have most 2 points in threat reduction in both areas where I can reduce it and still I was pulling aggro like I had some kind of magnetic pulling everything in the dungeon to me.
How in the hell do you heal with DC and not end up dead and wiping the raid?
Once again, my hat tips to all you brave souls that play this class...wow, really probably the hardest class in the game to play....aside maybe from quest grinding with a GWF.
krahct
OMG...the aggro I was pulling was insane. I went through 25 healthstones, 10 pots and 1500 zen in rez scrolls before my party finally gave up.
They didn't blame me, but I felt bad. I couldn't keep them up without ending up with four big mage things on me and tons of whelps. I know someone should be pulling them off me but they were really struggling.
I was level 31 with mixed blues and late 20s green gear, I have most 2 points in threat reduction in both areas where I can reduce it and still I was pulling aggro like I had some kind of magnetic pulling everything in the dungeon to me.
How in the hell do you heal with DC and not end up dead and wiping the raid?
Once again, my hat tips to all you brave souls that play this class...wow, really probably the hardest class in the game to play....aside maybe from quest grinding with a GWF.
krahct
"I never make mistakes, I once thought I did but I was wrong"
Post edited by krahct on
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Asides from that, just keep out of the Red Circles.
Last night was the first time I finished the 'Lair of the Mad Dragon' at lvl34 as a DC.
My party composition and assignments were;
Devout Cleric (me) - Obviously healing, taking imp and add aggro and running to the Magus adds with everything
2 Trickster Rogues - Go straight for Magus adds and then switch to other elites when spawned (such as Doom Guard) or go back to Dragon
Great Weapon Fighter - Follow me around and focus on the small adds first letting cleave damage help with Magi and other elites
Guardian Fighter - Stay on the boss 100% of the time, taunting large elites when possible to make sure we constantly have damage on the dragon.
This worked very well for us, with me aggro-ing everything to one place the DPS could easily kill the adds fast and get back to the dragon. The one hard bit is when the 4 melee + Doom Guard spawn, we had the TR's kill the Magus first like always and then they focused the Doom Guard while the GWF AoE'd the 4 melee adds as much as possible while I tanked a little and focused healing myself and surviving.
As for me, what I did in order of priority;
Hallowed Ground - Place it to cover as much as you can, if an add is about to die, wait for the next because it might spawn in another position and then everyone moves and it is wasted.
Astral Seal - Always on the Dragon and on every Magus and the Doom Guard, try and put it on the 4 melee's but don't waste time, just through some random ones every now and then.
Sun Burst - (NOT IN DIVINTY) on every cooldown, try and hit as much as you can, you will need the AP and Divinity points as you don't often have time to stand and Left-Click
Forgemaster's Flame - Chose either the Dragon or Magus depending on how the party is looking but normally on the Magus (ALWAYS IN DIVINITY)
Sacred Flame - Use it when possible during low points, build as much AP as you can
Healing Word - Try to keep it rolling on the Guardian Fighter, else save a charge or 2 to help your DPS if they get hit by AoE. Although personally I put this as quite low priority compared to other spells and I could also have changed it for something else like Chains of Blazing Light to help with control.
As for companions; Use your Cleric, they really do help you out a lot, I cannot stress how much difference having a Cleric companion makes compared to a DPS, if it dies then try and res in a low period but don't sacrifice other people for it.
Be prepared to use a lot of health potions, they are cheap so don't restrict yourself when using them - are you at 40-50%? Use a health potion.
By doing this tactic with my party, no-one died and I was never below 20% hp due to low add count and good positioning of my team.
The boss requires smart play, it is not a DPS race, it is a survival. Once your DPS understand their assignments and priorities you will be able to kill this boss a lot easier. If you are in a PUG try to get people to communicate during the fight, let others know where adds spawn.
I hope this helps.
1- have someone (a GF but i'v seen it done by a rogue too) keep the dragon busy so it won't puke on the rest of the party while they work on the adds.
2- have the rest of the team kill the adds as soon as they spawn, you don't want hellfire magus to knock people around or imp slow them and they are not going to stop spawning.
3- at 70% (i think) health it will spawn 4 extra legion devils, deal wit hthem right away.
4- at 25% or so it will spawn 1 shocktroop and 2 erynny, be ready to focus fire the erynny down right away or you're in for a mess, if you get to and survive this wave you're done.
as you can see i don't even mention attacking the dragon in here, you just kill him by attrition when adds are down. the cleric at low level has no astral shield but you should have cleanse: be sure to cleanse everyone with revive sickness or poison and you're doing a good job.
edit: ninja'ed by the post above xD
Astral shield
Sunburst
FF
Hallowed Ground/Divine Armor when its up
Dragon Guild
I play both a CW and a cleric, if the CW is competent the fight isn't really that hard.
Icy terrain + steal time + shield + entangling in tab + singularity is what I use on my CW. The CW should be able to control everything during the whole fight using those powers aside from the magus which can be controlled often but not they will get some casts off. If the CW stands next to you and keeps icy terrain going the imps are taken care of with that and steal time. When devils come CW shoudl cast singularity, shield pop while it sucks them in and icy terrian where they land followed by steal time when they start moving out of icy. AT this point he is probably ready to singularity again, rinse repeat.
When the shocktrooper spawns everyone aside from teh cw and the person with dragon aggro should beat down the shocktrooper while the CW perma CC's the erinyes. After shockboy is dead dps switches to 1 erinyes at a time, CW uses entangling force/steal time when a erinye hits 50%. Rinse repeat.
The hardest part of this fight as a cleric is finding a group that can do their job right. Can be very frustrating.
Edit: this of course is the strategy for level 60. The normal level 30 ish version I would just suggest not doing lol. If you insist on doing it, have a sound strategy to deal with the adds I guess.
If you're doing a pickup group, form the party via zone chat and tells -- don't just queue up. Build a balanced party that includes at least one CW, one GF, and one GWF.
Once that's done, make sure everyone has lots of healing potions (50+), and carry extras on yourself that you can hand out later if needed (in case someone forgets or is stingy, or the number of wipes just gets so high that people are legitimately running out of pots).
You can expect to wipe 3 or 4 times with a pickup group before people get it right. The fight takes some learning, as does the teamwork involved.
As others have already explained above, make sure the team understands that focusing on killing the adds is very important. You need to have at least one teammate who is looking out for your safety and ready to come smack imps for you, in case you get caught and can't blast them down yourself. (A CW or GWF is the logical choice for this role.)
As the cleric, I actually recommend you load encounters that focus on AoE damage and crowd control. Chains of Blazing Light is very helpful here for immobilizing the imps so that you can put space between yourself and them, and also deals a nice chunk of damage, making them easier to clean up. If you are able to kill a full squad of imps using a single combo of your own spells, that's preferable.
Remember that you can always use Soothing Light (divine right click at-will) in a pinch to heal an ally who is taking too much damage, even if you don't have any actual heals in your encounter tray. If you do want to have one heal in your tray, I recommend Healing Word, as it's versatile and functions well even when the team is spread out. Definitely have Astral Seal as an at-will and keep it on whatever your teammates are hitting (though don't worry too much about sticking it ion imps, as they'll die fast).
If you have a GWF, have him/her keep the Slam daily loaded and ready to cast when the boss summons the last major wave of adds (the one with the shocktrooper). If the GWF runs straight for the adds and turns on Slam and starts using the Wicked Strike at-will to hack through them, it is possible (but not guaranteed) that he will be able to establish threat on them and keep them gathered. Once they're focusing on him/her, the GWF should activate Unstoppable and be ready to chug pots and kite out as necessary. Throw the GWF some healing if he/she truly needs it, but be wary of healing aggro and be ready to run if the enemies turn on you.
If you don't have a GWF, then you may find that the best way to manage the last wave of adds is to have the GF go for them instead of the boss. (I haven't ever been in that situation so I can't really say for sure.)
Good luck!
check out http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?174901-The-Critical-Cleric-(Deistik-s-build)
it was a huge help when i got there. some of it you'll need to adapt a bit, but by 36 or 37 you'll have all the tools you need to actually heal again.
agro will still be broken though.