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Mad Dragon, a T1 dungeon?
thestaggy
Member Posts: 1,102 Bounty Hunter
This past weekend I joined two random queues in Mad Dragon (and I must say, there is no way in hell that a bunch of new 60s in the sub 10k GS bracket and blues can complete this dungeon, unless they are highly experienced (run the dungeon before with other classes).
Back story; My GF is a 16.8k Timeless Conqueror (8100 power, 1800 crit, 2100 arpen) that gets through all T2s (haven't yet unlocked VT or MC on him).
On both occasions I arrived in Mad Dragon with 4 party members standing by the first boss. A quick check of the stats and I could tell that a number of players had already tried to run through it and had clearly wiped, repeatedly, at the first boss. So, I charge in and rip through the first boss, using Enforced Threat to ensure boss and adds are focused on me as often as possible. It must be noted that in the first attempt the DC did not know what the hell he was doing as I never saw Astral Seal, Astral Shield or Hallowed Ground once, so I pity the low 60s that ran the dungeon with him before I got there. On the way to the second boss I was pming him and asking him if he had ASeal, AShield & HG and told him when and how to use them (I have a DC). At the second boss I managed to just about pull them through, pinning the boss at the foot of the ramp and telling the party to stand behind me to try and limit the amount of adds that get to them.
The above pattern was repeated in both runs, although for the second run I did not need to coach the DC on the fly.
Then we arrived at Chartillifax. . .Wipe after wipe. The best I could do was get that dragon down to 25% health before the death spawn (trio of Erinyes) overran the rest of the group. Even a party that had two 9 - 10k CWs could not control the add spawn. In the past I have tried to tank adds but the inexperienced player on the dragon could not cope and thus runs around, turning the dragon on the party and then everyone scatters.
Both parties told me that they had repeatedly failed here. Another observation; after a few wipes people start quitting and there are ubergeared (14k+, normal/greater/perfect vorpals) CWs & GWFs that join the party and immediately leave, no doubt players that are trying to join their friends' failed attempts at defeating Chartillifax.
I highly doubt any party at less than 8/9k can complete this dungeon and if they did it would require a specific composition. It would have to be a high DPS party because 30% death spawn of Erinyes and it would require a class experience level that is not in sync with the dungeon's grading. Considered a T1 dungeon, few new players to the game will have built up the necessary experience with their class in group play to deal with it, especially when the leap in difficulty from CT/CC/Idris (where one or two good players will carry the lot of you) to MD is so great.
Back story; My GF is a 16.8k Timeless Conqueror (8100 power, 1800 crit, 2100 arpen) that gets through all T2s (haven't yet unlocked VT or MC on him).
On both occasions I arrived in Mad Dragon with 4 party members standing by the first boss. A quick check of the stats and I could tell that a number of players had already tried to run through it and had clearly wiped, repeatedly, at the first boss. So, I charge in and rip through the first boss, using Enforced Threat to ensure boss and adds are focused on me as often as possible. It must be noted that in the first attempt the DC did not know what the hell he was doing as I never saw Astral Seal, Astral Shield or Hallowed Ground once, so I pity the low 60s that ran the dungeon with him before I got there. On the way to the second boss I was pming him and asking him if he had ASeal, AShield & HG and told him when and how to use them (I have a DC). At the second boss I managed to just about pull them through, pinning the boss at the foot of the ramp and telling the party to stand behind me to try and limit the amount of adds that get to them.
The above pattern was repeated in both runs, although for the second run I did not need to coach the DC on the fly.
Then we arrived at Chartillifax. . .Wipe after wipe. The best I could do was get that dragon down to 25% health before the death spawn (trio of Erinyes) overran the rest of the group. Even a party that had two 9 - 10k CWs could not control the add spawn. In the past I have tried to tank adds but the inexperienced player on the dragon could not cope and thus runs around, turning the dragon on the party and then everyone scatters.
Both parties told me that they had repeatedly failed here. Another observation; after a few wipes people start quitting and there are ubergeared (14k+, normal/greater/perfect vorpals) CWs & GWFs that join the party and immediately leave, no doubt players that are trying to join their friends' failed attempts at defeating Chartillifax.
I highly doubt any party at less than 8/9k can complete this dungeon and if they did it would require a specific composition. It would have to be a high DPS party because 30% death spawn of Erinyes and it would require a class experience level that is not in sync with the dungeon's grading. Considered a T1 dungeon, few new players to the game will have built up the necessary experience with their class in group play to deal with it, especially when the leap in difficulty from CT/CC/Idris (where one or two good players will carry the lot of you) to MD is so great.
PSA: You don't need to grind Spinward Rise for your Elemental artifact main hand if you have some AD lying around. You can craft it via the Tyranny of Dragon's campaign screen.
Post edited by thestaggy on
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pit fiend requires fast dps on the spawns b4 they kill everyone, but many groups fail to do that and let the mobs kill the cleric while they focus the boss instead. also helps to have a gwf on mob duty while everyone else keeps the boss off of him.
erinyes is by far the most annoying healing mob ever in the game. a single one of them.......not 2......not 3 can fully heal themselves every second for 5 seconds if you are unlucky. it is so frustrating to be in a group without stuns and having to waste 30+ min to kill like 3 of them after pit fiend. after a while, i think we just got tired of it and knocked them off to their deaths >.>
as for chartillifax, many groups seem to misunderstand a very important rule in that boss fight. the group's dps does not matter in that fight except for the boss killer but everyone else has to survive for as long as possible while distracting all the mobs. this is difficult when many don't understand that cleric heals are proximity-based and try to fight in 3-4 different locations which forces the cleric to run back and forth trying to heal everyone. this is one of the fights where a guardian is useful as long as he doesn't tank the boss (seen several try that and die from all the poison damage because they can't dodge and block doesn't seem to stop it).
if i had to give this dungeon a theme, i would say it is almost purely about avoiding/mitigating damage rather than actually dpsing. but you are right, i doubt a full team of 9k players could win this as well.
People have been posting about the dungeon design for a long time now how the endless ads needs to be reworked. How difficulty should be looked at to improve progression for players. And so far nothing has come of it but I'm not surprised with how much they are pushed for new content not having time to look at the old content or fix all the bugs. I say for the small team they have they are doing a great job however I would love to see them maybe take a month and fix everything. On the plus they have been listening to their players base about the ad fest and can be seen in the new dungeons. I hope they keep up with this and look into progression more and loot drops which seem to be another problem entirely.
I think my point is that the game fumbles into a kind of weird balance when you get things like un-nerfed stalwart drops from a lower tier t2 dungeon that is really supposed to be t1. When that balance was "fixed" (aka totally disrupted) then you have less t2 characters in there matching up with lower gs characters and the over-difficulty of the dungeon becomes overwhelming for low gs players. Stick with cc, ct, or idris, doable t1 dungeons at the recommended gs.
Jugger Conq GF
....
Step 1... everybody dismiss non augment pets. GF tags dragon and takes it to the far left side of the battlefield and no one agroes the dragon meanwhile (that's the reason of pet dismissal).
Step 2... Gf dances with the dragon alone (if he is somewhat experienced its just avoiding the red and potting when you get hit by wings) the other 4 members of the party have 1 task and 1 task only, search and destroy hellfire magus, kill magus wherever they appear asap and the bothersome imps, when there are no magus... all dps dragon till another magus appear, rinse and repeat.
Interlude 1, 33%... 4 legion devils appear, the 4 man group takes them down with aoe without forgetting hellfire magus (if a magus appear close to the fight between dragon and GF, that magus has preference over devils), should be easy.
Step 4... go back to step 2.
Interlude 2, 75%... KEY OF THR FIGHT!! 2 devils 3 erinyes appear, there are 2 ways of dealing with this part, im used to teach players on how to deal with erinyes within the run, you kill them fast during dungeon... you can do the same during the fight, if the group is not good at killing erinyes, then switch places, GF goes to the eriyes and lures them out of the group, DC keeps him alive and the other 3 players dps down dragon and the few hellfires that appear.
The devil boss (do not remember which one it is, pretty much sure it is the second boss) is not that hard: burn everything together until he gets down to, may be, 30% HP. After that, it's a DPS rush.
Chartillifax too is not that hard. The post above is right on pretty much everything. Party composition is not really fixed. In my first successful run we got one GWF and 1 TR tanking him in the left side, making him face away from the team. My GWF, one CW and one DC on adds, grouping them up and burning them together quite fast. Only annoying thing is that Chartillifax has a ton of HP.
It's quite peculiar, however, how T2 top dungeons such as VT and MC, require very little strategy, while this T1 requires more strategy and coordination.
On the other hand, GFs are very well equipped to gather and deal with the adds, and IMHO, contribute a lot more to the fight there.
Mad dragon has been one of the most frustrating dungeon i had in this game, i was doing CN everyday in april and failing in MD, players enter the queue on greens, as fresh 60s, sometimes even is the first 5 man dungeon they face, or the first epic one... so you find players who struggle killing even the imps because their DPS is so low that imps kill them, pugs that take 10 minutes everytime they face 2 erinyes together... when i finally learned how to kill it was one of the most satisfying moments in a year o NW... so i love how people still feels the same... and i think people should pass that "grouping skill" test before going T2.
http://steelandmagic.pl/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=detail&catid=2:nwn-gallery&id=55:dmg&tmpl=component&Itemid=284#
i hope the link works
Steel and Magic
Later after they made the dungeon harder with leashing, they made it a ton easier by removing tons of adds from the boss fights, especially from the last boss fight here.
As stated in my post, lack of experience. A 8/9/10k TR/GWF who is tanking his/her first real boss messes in their pants and runs for it, allowing the dragon to spray doom all over the party, that again due to lack of experience, is struggling to deal with the adds.
The only time I (GF) successfully tanked adds was when my experienced 13k guildie TR tanked the boss, otherwise I tank adds and watch the GWF/TR crumble under the dragon.
Also, a (supposedly) level-appropriate GF (12k?) will not have the requisite DPS to beat an Erinyes in the damage-heal race and the Maguses will still deal an awful lot of damage before the GF manages to bring it down, which means the 30% spawn of doom will cause chaos. GWFs & TRs should be the ones prioritising adds while a GF keeps the dragon away from the party.
Problem with GFing anything BUT the dragon is hitboxing. If you press tab in that room, you will mark the dragon. You can face away from the dragon, look directly at a wall, press tab: MARKED DRAGON LOL. Threatening rush/Lunging strike? Hilarious volte-face swivel and MARKED DRAGON LOL.
If you do that and you're NOT the one tanking him, then he's eventually going to wander over and ruin your nice little erynes/magus killing zone.
If you've got the deeps, you can pretty much just bundle everyone onto the dragon and murder, but if you don't, getting the GF to drag the dragon away is pretty much the best use of your GF in this fight. Killing the dragon can happily proceed at a leisurely pace as long as your deeps and controls and heals are killing magi and erynes fast.
It's still a horrible fight, though.
All of the dragon hits are perfectly avoidable for any half decent TR, but hits from adds hurt and so a gwf/gf should be tanking them and luring them together to be killed.
That said still isn't a fight for 8k gs group, only a few *very* coordinated groups can do at that gs(people usually get spread and panic) and that's not the kind of player you find in a random queue for any dungeon around here.
I was the DC in this party, which was composed of one hr that had just hit 60 and had a 7889 GS from some purples I twinked him and the gear he had been lvling in. The rest of us were very well geared, 12k + and a stone for me, I know the cw had a full t2 set, and this is a pain to run. I have healed Mc and all the t2s multiple times often without any wipes so there was coordination and such.
Again, i think it is the Hitbox that is the main issue here. You cannot avoid targeting the Dragon, unless you get between the add and the dragon and face away from the dragon, so when you have someone close to the dragon getting swarmed by adds, you have to run up there and get the add because you cannot range them.
But yes, we had a GF come in shortly after you left and he tanked the boss while we dealt with the adds, flipping on and off the dragon along with the spawn waves. I believe this should be flipflopped with the PK T2 in terms of rating system. I think newer players will have better luck dealing with that instance than MD.
I think the idea that the gf should tank the adds and not the boss shows how unconventional/broken tanking is in this game.
I tried that noumerous times just GF cannot evade/block the big red circle attack.All other attacks are manageable.
The best strategy for the LOMD is the tr to tank the boss.Gf stays near cleric and protects him frpm imps .When mangus appear he dispatches them.When Erinyes appear the GF must isolate at least one and fight it on his own.The rest 3 must deal with the remaining 2 erinyes and the adds.if they have enough dps they ll survive.If not game lost.
When GF finishes with one erinya aids the group ,or better mark some devils to attack him and hopes that the group can kill the remaining the time.And then aid him or the cleric move the group to GFs vicinity.
And in reality is far more chaotic.But yes with TR tanking my guild killed the dragon in second attempt.It worked this way.We were all at 10-11K while the TR was 13k.
I agree that the GF is not the optimal class to tank the boss. Because of the wing attack being unblockable (WTF?) and the red circle being larger than it appears (WTF?) it's really taxing on a GF. I've done it but that's because I popped pots like crazy. It's definitely doable because aside from that attack you can keep the dragon occupied easily. But why bother if there's a TR around? He can evade attacks much easier and take the boss down faster. This boss battle is broken in that respect.
A GWF should only tank the dragon if there's no GF and TR around. He has a good dps output but his aggro management is lacking that's the key of tanking this boss. He doesn't have the defensive capabilities of the GF nor the dodging abilities of the TR. He works very well on dispatching the mobs, especially since they can eat up the CW and the DC so quickly otherwise. CW should focus on keeping the adds managable and throw some dps to the dragon when they can, as they always should and the DC should have a Astral Shield down by himself and the CW. Then the DC can throw some heals to whomever is occupying the dragon and the mobs.
If you're willing to give the fight the time is needed you can do it, but most people just spam like crazy then scatter, destroying the synergy of the whole battle.
Obviously if we'd HAD a TR, that would've been a better choice ("no damage taken" is always better than "damage endured") but hey.
Also, I'm not a terribly good tank, so that doesn't help, but still...for a T1..jeebus. Spellplague is easier than MD..
And no PK ain't easier, PK is just played a lot more, probably 50 times for each MD run, so people is used to it, know what to do, how to kill everything... but is not easier, is just slightly more difficult as it should be for the easiest T2 after the hardest T1.
LOL. PK you can run with a pug of low GS players. First DD I did was a sloppy PK with an average GS of maybe 9.5. Mind we took it one room at a time and folks died but you can just mitigate the whole thing eventually with no gear and no idea what you are doing. A good team that knows the dungeon can run multis durring DD or even off DD. You try the same composition (low gear and experience I mean) in LMD and just wipe.
I can tank the dragon. Both as a new 60 with only two purples (T1 boots and arms) and as an overpowered T2. I can take his hits just fine. What I can't take are the Maguses, the swarm of Imps and the Legions that the rest of my party cannot control/deal with.
And again, a GF that is still gearing up will almost certainly lack the DPS to kill an Erinyes. I am a T2 Timeless Conqueror and I have to wail at an Erinyes to kill it 1v1. A GF in mostly blues that isn't a conqueror and has 0 - 500 crit/arpen is not going to kill an Erinyes by himself, he'll just tickle it. I have been that GF as well.
Every failed Mad Dragon in my experience has ended like this:
1 - I die first because Maguses, Imps and Legions swarm me.
2 - I die last at 25 - 30% because party was overrun by Erinyes spawn of doom.
Chartillifax has never killed me. Only those adds kill me.
GF aggroes the hellfire magus and takes them to the left, everyone else hits the dragon and moves right.
Everyone ignores hellfire magus for the whole fight (if you don't kill them they don't respawn). They have 3 attacks, a straight line laser (can move sideways to avoid, or block), a small targeted fireball (blocked) and a small aoe that knocks you up; this automatically targets everyone at a close radius, so if the gf has moved them away from the party, they only target him (and can be blocked or moved away from).
Rest of the party kills imps as they spawn, protecting the DC and dps dragon. If a stray imp goes for the gf, he should have no problem killing it, since hellfire magus should never really damage him.
At 70% legion devils spawn, party kills them quick and easy except the one who holds aggro of the dragon (must make sure dragon faces away from the party as it fights).
At 30% legion devils and erinyes spawn, gf grabs the erinyes (always holding the magus) and kites them on his side till the dragon dies, rest kill the devils then focus down dragon (should be very easy for the gf, at worse he will need a few pots or a few HoT from DC).
As long as players understand how aggro works, gf knows how to hold aggro and take some damage, and the melee understand how to not die from the dragon's attacks, it can be done like this regardless of gear score.