Taking a look at Vladic Dracul in Therakiel's Temple

Good morning class

Today we'll be talking about my least favorite boss in the Therakiel's Temple lair, Vladic Dracul. Keep in mind this is not 100% unbeatable, it is however the most challenging boss because of certain mechanics that continue to be painful even today. This is where things go from being fun, to crappy unless you are a full team of friends that can speedrun through that with no issue (I used to be a part of a couple, and even then, we still cut our teeth because of 2 mechanics solely). Mind you, some of the other mechanics in the boss that don't involve bats could actually end up hurting you, and the fight against Vlad, but the bats will make them all even worse.

So grab your fruit, grab your electricity, and let's get right into it.

First off, the way bats heal is they drop a unique dependency stack that each bat drops either one, two, or three stacks off overtime (Maximum 3). This dependency is unique because it specifically only heals the bats, and they hit, the more health they regain. This is also an AoE application, not single instance, meaning if you have pets, sigils, or have any members too far close to each other, these bats will heal swiftly and return them to full health. This is unless you have a geared one-shot FC build or a hard-hitting FAW with good positioning of the group, which, during times of chaos, that doesn't always happen. The bat healing needs to at least be cut in half, I understand that this healing can be nullified and debuffed, but that means jack diddly when chaos ensues.

Yes, healing can be debuffed, by Pestilence, the debuff Trauma (I believe?), and other abilities that could debuff healing. Pestilence is the better option because one AoE application applies it's heal debuff. But keep in mind, Vladimir has a few AoE tricks up his sleeve if you aren't careful, and the bats still hurt if you aren't careful, therefore leaving the Pestilence user vulnerable to punishment. Also, how common is it to see someone else use pestilence for endgame PvE, (NOT including those who belong to SGs that exclusively deal with this content, since more than likely they have everything).

Secondly, Bats can remove an random buff that you currently have. It can even be, for a split second, your block. This means that bats have to be killed, -ASAP-, which goes back to the argument of point 1. This also means that form stacks, are in danger, but that is not the worst part.

The amount of bats that are currently swarmed in your vicinity, will determine how many stacks of buffs they will take. If there is 3 bats in your vicinity, that's 3 buffs, if it's 5, it's 5 buffs! You can kind of see where this is going, especially when speaking mechanically that they deactivate your form, passive, and block for a split second to 2 seconds. This means that Vladic Dracul can infact snag a hard hit on you if you're a tank, or heal. And for DPS, weaken the amount of damage you can dish out, for healers, deactivate your aura to buff everyone in the team.

This makes it especially more annoying when Vlad is low and he manages to snag that last damn bite and HEALS, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sorry, flashbacks. Anyways, this needs to get looked at, Vladic Dracul is not fun, it may be fun for the more, well seasoned, ex-cosmic tanking, Chadus Maximals of PA's and FC's, Doomsday Clock Warrior, and 'SHUT UP AND DON'T TALK ABOUT IT' players, but how are you, supposed to welcome in new players, when Vladic Dracul is the true test of Therakiel's Temple.

You are free to disagree or provide input, but, this needs to be looked at. I was on corefitz's stream, he was DPS, along with Alto, superpatrik, and eventually myself. Ravenforce was healing. I tanked at first, but I switched with superpatrik to play as DPS to which he brought a dodge tank.

Everyone was doing very well throughout the run, we even beat Black Fang and Baron Cimitiere first try. It was a great run while it lasted, but, Vladic Dracul needs to get looked at.