Messages

1

Upcoming Events & Strategy / Re: EoK - Frontier Mountains - T1 - Ancients (non-progression)

« on: April 27, 2017, 01:35:51 AM »

Ancients is a primarily group-content cycle of six events in Frontier Mountains. Each Ancient is spawned by an activity in the zone, and there are achievements for being in the zone to see each of the six awakened, and a further achievement for being in the zone to see all six ancients spawned in one hour.

Each Ancient other than Ancient Pinepeak can be killed for a group gear reward, and a group gear reward is given to everyone that receives the all in one hour ach too. These items can be combined with the raid drop Element of Kunark which will transform it into a raid-tier item.

EQResource has more detailed writeups of all events and links to the gear etc: http://eok.eqresource.com/ancients.php

Event breakdowns:

Ancient Pinepeak, Guardian of the Thicket

Collect "Enchanted Runestones" from Syldon stalkers which are near the Sarnak fort in the Northwest.

Turn in Enchanted Runestones to grove guardians which range east and north from the Druid rings to the Overthere zoneline.

After turning in approximately 30 Enchanted Runestones, there is a zonewide emote, and Syldon couriers start to spawn at the Sarnak fort, and run  from there to the Overthere zoneline. They will not stop to fight, but can be snared, rooted, or mezed.
 
You must stop all the Syldon couriers from reaching the OT zone. After about 12 minutes, a zonewide emote will either indicate you failed if any couriers got past, or that you stopped them all. Success means that Ancient Pinepeak will spawn, and everyone in the zone will be buffed with Ancient Pinepeak's Blessing (1h, 2500hp/tick regen, +75% runspeed, and an 80k proc that I think is sarnak-specific)

Ancient Starcollector, Guardian of the Pack

In NE area of the zone, every time 5 wolves are killed a frontier starhowler spawns until there are 10 up.

Kill the 10 frontier starhowlers to spawn Ancient Starcollector.

Ancient Broodmother, Guardian of the Blight

In the SE corner of the zone, kill 30 drogan tamers, which will spawn ~35 highweb swarmers along the southern wall area of the zone.

Kill the swarmers to spawn Ancient Broodmother.

Ancient Denmother, Guardian of the Cubs

In the SW areas, kill 50 bears to spawn the Ancient Denmother

(note: when killing the Ancient Denmother, she'll go down at 10% and Gerald the Obnoxious will spawn and run away. Chase him and say "loot" to make him fight you... he will drop the loot.)

Ancient Destroyer, Guardian of Strength

In the east, there are some burynai legion pacifists (I think 4 of them). Say invader to them, and a series of invading brutes will attack them. You can hail multiple pacifists at the same time to spawn more brutes at once.

Kill the brutes to save 10 legion pacifists and spawn Ancient Destroyer

(note: everyone who hails Elder Gemhummer at the burynai cave entrance after this ancient dies will receive loot)

Ancient Whitehorn, Guardian of the Stampede

Kill 30 rhinoceroses in the central area north of the big fort to spawn Ancient Whitehorn

(note: he doesn't fight back and runs too fast to keep up with, and regens if not attacked regularly. He stops briefly in 5 locations though, so setting a person to fight him at each stopping spot is required.)


To complete The Foretold Hour achievement, I think it's best to work in approximately this order:

Get swarmers and starhowlers ready and collect enchanted runestones.

Start killing rhinos and bears and swarmers while turning in runestones and completing the Pinepeak event.

Once first ancient spawns, send a team to save the burynai pacifists and continue to work the kill-based spawns and the wolves. Kill the ancients last, after you've spawned them all and got the achievement.

2

Upcoming Events & Strategy / Re: EoK - Chardok - T2 - Queen Velazul Di`zok

« on: February 05, 2017, 09:26:01 PM »

Some bits from my logs:

[Sat Feb 04 19:43:29 2017] You have taken 54188 damage from Flamesong of Ro by Queen Velazul Di`Zok
From this spell: http://spells.eqresource.com/spells.php?id=47593
4-tick 91k/tick dot 150' PBAE from Queen resist vs Fire

-----

[Sat Feb 04 20:08:01 2017] You have taken 52559 damage from Enveloping Smoke by A Di`Zok warcaster
From this spell: http://spells.eqresource.com/spells.php?id=47590
3-tick 111k/tick dot + skill/spell silence 100' PBAE from warcasters unresistable

-----

[Sat Feb 04 20:26:51 2017] a Di`Zok warcaster begins to cast a spell. <Electric Blast>
[Sat Feb 04 20:26:51 2017] Your body shakes with electricity.  You have taken 65460 points of damage.
From this spell: http://spells.eqresource.com/spells.php?id=47591
103k dd + 2500 mana drain + 1s stun 75' Targetted AE from warcasters unresistable

-----
Puppet info:

Stunnable: [Sat Feb 04 19:43:23 2017] A Di`Zok puppet is stunned by infinite colors.
Charmable: [Sat Feb 04 21:11:51 2017] a Di`Zok puppet says, 'My leader is Sylphan.' (also the achievement mentions charming these guys)

-----
Sycophant info:

Arrival announcement: [Sat Feb 04 19:43:08 2017] With the arrival of her sycophants, the Queen is impervious to further harm.

3

Upcoming Events & Strategy / Re: TBM - Plane of Health - T2 - Stem the Tide

« on: June 18, 2016, 07:52:19 PM »

Mana Burn is 4 (?) or 5 (?) minutes maybe...so it might be one to consider but with the long refresh if there are limited Wizzy on raid it might be better to hold off until later.

Just want to clarify this... the mana burn debuff effect has a duration of 2 min with a limit of 500 procs, but during a raid full burn it lasts much much less than that, like 10 seconds before the 500 charges are gone. When we're using it outside of everyone on full burn like during Wither and Decay, it lasts around 30s.

4

Upcoming Events & Strategy / Re: TBM - Crypt of Decay - T2 - Emollious

« on: June 17, 2016, 04:25:10 AM »

Half Traps got changed sometime earlier this year and it sounds like it really should be called "Full Traps" now... this is the DGC issue tracker report for it if you'd like to upvote it.

https://dgcissuetracker.com/browse/EQ-851

But apparently the task should read "Always put him in the aura to match his color" nowadays.

~Celebairn

5

Upcoming Events & Strategy / Re: TBM - Demiplane of Decay - T1 Raid - Anashti Sul, Damsel of Decay

« on: April 30, 2016, 05:53:20 AM »

Just to get this in the forums... there have been changes to the tendrils and they're a lot less awful now... in particular, they despawn within a few minutes (3 min maybe?) which limits how many are up at one time.

6

Upcoming Events & Strategy / Re: TBM - Demiplane of Decay - T1 Raid - Anashti Sul, Damsel of Decay

« on: February 09, 2016, 12:24:11 AM »

When Anashti casts Gifts of Anashti Sul, it has a 50% chance to trigger either Gift of Endless Life (good effect) or Gift of Living Death (bad effect).  However, I believe the 50% chance factor is variable based on two range mod integer values in the spell data which affect the chance % to which either DoTs are cast.  The degree to which these range mods factor in is perhaps based on the distance the player is in relation to the source target, or maybe the distance the player is in relation to other player(s).  I suspect; but have yet to thoroughly test, that it is the latter, not the former, and that each time Anashti Sul casts Gifts of Anashti Sul AE, if no other player is within 25' range of you, that there is a very small chance or no chance that you will be hit with either DoT type.

I'm pretty sure there is something like this mechanism at play... I always try to stand away from everyone (I stand on the fin things upstairs) and I've never been hit by a curse until downstairs (and sometimes even longer)

7

Wizard / Wizard DPS in The Broken Mirror

« on: December 19, 2015, 11:06:05 PM »

I've cribbed sections of this from Manaelil's TDS post. His techniques are basically the same as what i'd recommend, so many thanks to his information which I've expanded on here.

What spells to memorize

Rather than give you my spell loadouts, I'm just going to list off what you absolutely need to keep loaded and then some of the options.

The Core Spells (you should always have these loaded in every situation):
Nukes: Ethereal Fuse, Ethereal Skyblaze, Ethereal Rimeblast, Claw spell (Claw of the Flameweaver or Claw of the Oceanlord)
Buffs: Quiescent Harvest, Twincast
Hate reducer: at least one of Concussive Storm, Synapsefreeze, or Dichotomic Fire (if you're fully AA'd with Concussive Intuition, Mind Crash, and Arcane Whisper, and Silent Casting you might be able to argue you don't need a hate reducer spell)
Shocking Vortex (DD with 100% chance to cause target to take 50-100% more damage for 18 seconds/24 DD nukes)

Other Spells:
Secondary Nukes: Cloudburst Stormstrike is fast dps, but can stop you from moving if you need to for raid mechanics. Be very careful.

AEs: for events we use AEs on, I like
Self Combustion (PBAE with 2-tick 5k dot on caster and 12-25% mana reduction for single target dds. Hits unlimited targets, damage drops off the farther target is from caster, 50' max range)
Funnel of the Frostdeep (Directional AE, chance to stun caster for 2s, 12 targets, 50' range)

Spell priority orders

To keep it simple, start with this standard casting plan... Alternate Eth. Skyblaze and Rimeblast, and hit Ethereal Fuse whenever it comes up and Claw of the Flameweaver and Shocking Vortex as much as you can (see Claw section below).

Claw of the Flameweaver > Shocking Vortex > Ethereal Fuse > Ethereal Skyblaze > Ethereal Rimeblast

In between each cast, you will hit one of your Force of Will/Flame/Ice AAs during the spell gem refresh. They're free damage when used this way, so always use them between casts like this.

DPS Increasers

Shocking Vortex in a raid probably pays off for someone else more often than for the caster, but it helps the raid, so cast it when you can.
Thricewoven Stormstrike pays off 1 in 4 times you cast it by increasing your next nuke by a 150% or so, but one in 20 you get reduced damage for 2 ticks. I don't use it a lot since it's kind of gamble.

Secondary Nukes

You can look at Manaelil's post if you want rigid rules on how to use secondary nukes, I do it more by instinct than he did apparently. It basically comes down to adding in one or both of these variations:

Cloudburst Stormstrike: This spell is the highest DPS spell we have due to instant cast. By casting it with Force abilities in the gem refreshes on either side, you add fast DPS without taking very much time away from our big flashy nukes. ** Warning: Cloudburst Stormstrike roots you when you cast it. If you might need to move for raid mechanics, do not use or even load it. **
Rains: by dropping rains into the mix, you get "free nukes" from the second and third waves of the rain. (In theory... I don't actually like rains much, too many ways to go wrong).

Claw of the Flameweaver

Manaelil's previous post said it already, although he didn't list all the possible beneficial procs:

This spell is so central to wizard dps that I have an entire section devoted to it.

Claw of the Flameweaver always procs beneficial effects. The chances and effects are listed below:

5: 10% Chance to trigger: Twincast
8: 6% Chance to trigger: Syllable of Refreshment

Not only can you proc twincast (twincast is the best thing ever created for casters. You basically spend 1x mana and 1x counter for 2x damage) but you can proc forceful rejuvination which will refresh your harvests.

Note:

One of the most important things about claw is that during ordinary twincast (the 18s to 21s one) it should be spammed as many times as possible. If used consecutively 3x times during twincast there is a 50 percent chance of another twincast. There have been times where I've chained twincasts for an entire raid boss. This doesn't happen often but when the stars align it can be a significant boost to dps.

Burns

Sustained vs Frenzied Devastation: A number of our +critchance lines were merged and renamed in TBM, leaving these two sharing a timer. Max Sustained Devastation increases crit chance of 58 casts by 26% and increases mana cost by 19%. Max Frenzied increases crit chance of 45 casts by 51% and increases mana cost by 50%. On a raid there is essentially no use for Frenzied, because other people's abilities such as Auspice, IoG, Black Wolf, etc will already have you at 100% crit rate using Sustained.

Primary Burn:
Sustained Devastation
Silent Casting
Second Spire of Arcanum
Improved Twincast
Arcane fury
Fury of Kerafyrm
Empowered Focus of Arcanum

Note: Twincast no longer overwrites Improved Twincast, so if you cast Claw, you won't be risking losing your ImpTwincast counters. That said, during primary burn is probably the one time that casting Claw isn't quite as useful.

Secondary Burn:
Arcane destruction
Fury of Ro
Twincast (spell)

Note: During secondary burn, cast Claw as much as you can for more Twincast proc chances, and also use an instant-cast nuke to get as many spells as possible cast within your 21 second twincast buff.

Other Types of Burn:

Intensity of the Resolute (7th Year Veteran Reward) - big DPS increase. Perhaps Curmugly has the numbers on when it is best to use it, I usually toss it in with another burn, or with Sorcerer's Blade. Usable about once every 3 hours.

Sorcerer's Blade - Every DPS caster should have one of these player-made Sorcerer's Blade with them and bandoliered for quick access http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=87953 The buff from it is the best crit/critsize/damage buff in the game at around 300%. Usable about once every 3 hours.

Procs

Because our Fury AA lines increase the damage of proc crits, spell proc abilities are very valuable to wizards. This has become even more significant with changes over the last 6 months that allow more than one proc to fire from a single cast. This means that you should make sure to have whatever procs you can get. Some options:

a) make sure whatever weapon you are wielding has the best type 4 proc aug you can find.
b) use Ancient Hedgewizard Brew when you can. (http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=42140&menustr=035000000000)
c) convince Furro we need to do the Neriak: Houses of Thex raid to get this belt: http://items.eqresource.com/items.php?id=94937 and never change your belt again. (** but I call dibs)

Glyphs

Glyph of the Cataclysm is +crit +critdamage when no other burns are running.
Glyph of Lost Secrets improves mana efficiency for 15 min if you have no bard in group.

Familiars

Choose between Improved Familiar and Prismatic Familiar. Prismatic will give you more damage, but the mana regen from Improved is significant, especially if you aren't well-geared or if you just got battle-rezed. If by some miracle you get a Bard in your group, then you should be using Improved.

Harvests

Harvest early, harvest often if you have room for the mana. Just don't waste time harvesting while burn abilities are up. You should definitely be using your AA harvest and Quiescent Harvest, and perhaps the older spell Bucolic Gambit too. Because I don't use as many fast-casting spells these days, I don't load gambit personally anymore.

New in TBM

Dichotomic Fire

This is our new 101 spell in the expansion. It is a special 6-rank spell line that you level up via progression. It deals 100065 (rank1) to 127710 (rank6) damage for 16000ish mana, and drops 25% of the hate the mob has for you. Efficiency wise, it's slightly less mana efficient than ethereals. It crits, but it cannot be twincast.

Especially once you get past about Rank3, Dichotomic Fire is a really great nuke. Big damage, drops agro at the same time. I'd recommend firing it anytime you get a Gift of Mana proc and it is available. Its mana cost is significant compared to other nukes though, so be careful not to run yourself low when you need mana.

Mana Burn

Mana Burn has been relatively useless for a long time, but it has received a major revamp in TBM. Ranks 13-16 have been added, and these ranks have a new effect. Rank 16 costs 60000 mana, does 2.4 million damage (doesn't crit as far as I've seen) and adds a 2-minute buff to the mob that blocks further mana burns and increases the damage of of the next 500 spells to land on the mob by 19200 (excludes lifetaps and resource taps). In a real raid during a DPS burn, the 500 counters lasts less than 10 seconds, maybe around a minute if it's a lower-dps phase.

This means that MB is an extremely potent boost to the overall raid damage output, adding in a total of 12M damage in very short time frames and repeatable by the number of wizards we have around. Since we usually only have one or two wizards, we currently just coordinate timing between ourselves, although it's sometimes being called in DPS assigns. Having to coordinate more MBs more would be a really great problem to have, invite your wizard friends!



Change Log
20151220 - after checking some numbers, removed suggestion that Frenzied is useful.
20160417 - removed Rain spell comments, I haven't been able to show them to be regularly useful. It is possible to eek out some extra DPS with Rains in some situations, but there's too many downsides.
20160417 - Updated new behaviour that prevents twincast and twincast procs from overwriting Improved Twincast.
20160417 - Minor improvements/cleanup.
20160417 - Major update to Mana Burn and Dichotomic Fire sections
20160531 - Update with to add Shocking Vortex, AE spells I like, and details of Dichotomic.

8

Freelance Ramblings / Re: COTF HA have gotten nerfed

« on: December 06, 2015, 08:08:44 PM »

My experience is that most COTF HA are essentially the same since the scaling change. The mob dps output is up slightly but 105 tank and healer merc are still fine, which means you can do them with any 3 random classes. If you do the daily bonus HAs the reward for the time spent is still great, especially if you make sure you have LOD or a potion running when you finish and get the task reward.

The Gribble mission mobs got hp buffed a fair bit too. Still doable, but takes longer than before. To be real though, those 3 tasks were broken-ly easy (and boring to be honest).

I'll be max AA again this week mostly from trying to run 2 of the daily COTF HAs a night.