Darkspire Advice

[Donledirse]

lo all,

I'm looking to run a few darkspire farming trips in the near future. So I am looking for advice on optimal group setup and tactics to do this as quickly and easily as possible.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Tilda]

Average raid time is two hours with power fonts and PvE tricks (MCL3, etc.) I've done it in as little as 45 minutes. Without fonts/tricks, I can't really estimate how long it would take. Listed below is a good generic group that you can put together in any realm – I’m not going to get into any specialist groups, like death servant necromancer focus or animist clump groups. While it might be nice to have things like that, every Dark Spire run I’ve done has consisted of a group setup like I have listed below, and we’ve only wiped out a couple of times, mostly to encounter bugs.

Shield tank
Shield tank
AE caster
AE caster
Primary healer
Spec buffer
Optional (DPS tank is good)
Optional (archer, pet class, secondary buffer)

Hint: It helps if your healer, one tank, and one caster all have Purge 1. The second Cavern Boss will AE mezz, and that can wipe the group.

A few notes:

The shield tanks are crucial to the success of a Dark Spire raid. If you’ve got a pet class with juggernaut, great – save juggernaut for the boss. However, do not allow your pets to run wild. “Passive” is your friend, and keep one finger over the “release pet” button. Often they'll run off and you'll need to kill them fast to avoid adds.
Depending on your group CC is sometimes worth doing, it can takea while to land, and dosnt last long, but , for example is worth doing if you're a largley caster based group.

Dark Spire is divided into three areas - natural caverns, the Spire itself, and the throne room. There are three boss encounters in the cavern and three more in the Spire.

Part One: The Caverns

The natural caverns are entirely purple mobs (and some blue con spiders). The purple mobs are meleers, interrupt casters (thane-type and DoT casters), and archers. They'll come in groups of three with every pull, if you use a caster/archer to pull. Don't body pull - that's a great way to die horribly.

In general, you’re going to have some line-of-sight issues. Spider webs and even rays of light can block your LOS. You may have to zoom in to first person view in order to target the mobs. Before pulling, though, back up. Go slow until you get a feel for it – the AI seems to be programmed to target your healers/support classes, so stay aware, but make sure that your healers know to kite mobs into the PBAE. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that each shield tank stays with the AE caster he’s guarding, and be aware of blocking arc.

___ healers ____________ tanks/casters ________ puller ______________ mobs ___

1. Healers hang back.
2. Tanks/casters set up a bit farther down the cavern.
3. One puller ranges ahead and hits one single mob once, then runs back to the tanks/casters.
4. Kill everything that charges. Archers/ranged casters get on any archer mobs that hang back.
5. Move ahead a little bit and repeat.

Note that when you get to the larger caverns, you can kill off the mobs near the entrance, then slide along the wall to avoid the rest of the trash. Nothing will BAF (beyond the linked groups of three that you get with each pull), so if you’re careful and control your pets, you should be fine. Trash mobs have a slight chance to drop ROG (we usually get 2-4 pieces of ROG per run) but it’s mostly crap. You’re not missing anything if you leave them alive.

Natural Cavern Bosses

The three bosses in the natural caverns all have pretty much the same tricks, for each realm’s instance. When fighting the boss mobs, do not use the formation shown above. You want your group to be fairly tightly spaced, at least

The first boss will summon adds that are blue/yellow, usually spiders. Have your group form up just at the entrance archway to the boss’ cavern. One person bolts/shoots the boss, and then your AE casters go to town. That should pull the adds off your healers and kill them quickly. This boss will also come with a sub-boss; again, AE casting should take care of this just fine.

Set up for the second boss in the same way. The second boss is a pain in the butt, because it spawns yellow/orange adds out of each person – they’re called Soul Shards or something like that, and they can wipe a raid. However, if you hide your group down the corridor, around the corner, and run the boss back to him after nuking/taunting him, you should only get one soul shard, which makes life easier


The second boss will also AE mezz. If you’re lucky, she’ll follow that up with an AE DoT, which happily breaks the mezz. If you’re unlucky, everything will kill your healer while the rest of the group is mezzed. This is where Purge 1 comes in handy.

CLEAR THE WAY TO DARKSPIRE DOORS BEFORE KILLING THIRD BOSS!

The third boss is a pain in the butt. First, you have to clear the entire room where the third boss can be found, because the main boss will summon a sub-boss to kill your group, and will then merrily teleport around the room, kiting your tanks/pets through all the mobs that are still spawned there. So be patient and kill off all the trash mobs first. Remember that you have to move carefully to get LOS to the trash mobs (especially around some of the rays of light that block LOS) and just send one puller to stick to the perimeter of the room and pull back to the entrance.

The third boss starts out neutral. To start the encounter, send in the tank with the highest HP to speak with the boss – you should fully expect the boss/add to almost immediately lifetap for 1300+ HP.

Other than that, this is a straight fight. Kill the add first, since it lifetaps. In Hibernia, the add is a giant lifetapping pig. In Albion, the boss is a chick and the “add” is actually the NPC guy who’s in the first chamber. I can’t remember who it is in Midgard, but it’s the same theory. One main boss who teleports randomly around the room, and a second sub boss who lifetaps.

Note that you MUST kill the third cavern boss in order to open the doors to the Spire.

ONCE YOU KILL THE 3rd BOSS, MOBS START SPAWNING INSIDE THE SPIRE.
So, clear the way from 3rd boss to the doors. Then kill the 3rd boss, then run and sort out spire crystals etc So you never really get any huge mob spawns.

------------------------------------

Part Two: The Spire
If the spire doors bug on you, get the person to die to some aggro by the walls and then rez them through.

The Spire entrance consists of a ramp that spirals down the wall of the chamber, turning clockwise. There are three platforms that stick out to the right, towards the middle of the chamber. If you stand at the edge of the platform, a caster/archer can target and hit the giant green-con red crystals that are built onto the pillar in the center of the room.

These platforms are interspersed with three trapmaster rooms that are to the left of the ramp, built into the wall of the chamber. You’re going to have to go to each of these spots, in order.

The longer you take in the spire to kill the 3 central crystals the more mobs will come up, you're best bet if you get loads of them is just to kite them while killing the cystals as fast as you can, as iirc they all despawn when the 3rd crystal is dead.

1. Enter the spire. Look through the doors. Ahead of you, you’ll see the platform that points to the first crystal. About 2/3 down the hallway is the left-turn that starts the ramp that spirals down.

2. While most of the group runs in and stops at the top of the spire, one caster/archer should run ahead to the end of the platform and kill the crystal.

3. As soon as the crystal is dead, run down and left, into the first trapmaster chamber. Kite the adds. Note that if you run past the trapmaster chamber, you’ll run into the blades trap and die horribly. Try to avoid doing this.

4. Get deep into the trapmaster chamber and AE everything you’ve just kited in, along with the trapmaster.

5. Disarm the trap. (click on the little pillars until someone gets a gem thing, then click on the main crystal)

6. Run back out and down the spiral ramp. Nuke the crystal,

7. You can now run all the way down to the 3rd crystal which removes the add spawn.

Then you just have to deal with trapmasters.

The first trapmaster is an easy melee fight. In order to disarm his trap, though, you need to go through the room, right-clicking the obelisks to destroy them. The obelisks will either damage you (about 20%) or they’ll give you a crystal. Once you get the crystal in your inventory, you can go to the large trap crystal in the back of the chamber and right-click it to disarm the blades trap.

The second trapmaster boss is a caster who hangs out at the back of his chamber. When you kite the mobs down the spiral and into his chamber, he’ll spawn a flying gargoyle – a Mender. It is critical to kill the mender! If you can’t stun the Mender (shield slam is your friend here), you’ll have to chase it out into the spire and follow it up or down the ramp. If the Mender escapes, it will repair the crystals you’ve been destroying and make them unkillable, which means you’ll have to deal with a constant stream of adds. After you kill the Mender, it’s easy enough to kill the trapmaster. Note that this boss also buff-shears, so check your buffs before leaving this room.

The third trapmaster boss is another melee fighter. When he gets low on health, he’ll spawn a Runner that must be killed. Get your casters/meleers off the trapmaster and onto the Runner. If the Runner escapes, he’ll run down the spiral, around the central chamber, and across the bridge, forcing you to deal with a bridge defense force. Kill the Runner, then get back onto the boss. Whoever loots the boss will get a crystal in their inventory. If you get the crystal, go right click on the trap crystal inside the trapmaster’s chamber.

Now you’re up to the middle of the spire. Head down the spiral to the base of the cavern, then around to the right, until you reach the bridge. If you’ve done everything right to this point and killed the Runner in trapmaster room 3, you should see a bridge with open gates and no mobs. If the Runner escaped, the gates will be closed and there will be a defense force that you have to kill.

Note: You may be affected by the same “closed gate” bug that I described earlier. It’s tougher to handle this one, but you can try to kite Knightsguard Valens onto anyone who’s stuck. More on that in a moment.

When you cross the bridge, you’ll be tempted to head up the spire to the right. The ramp will spiral around and to the top of the spire. However, don’t. Hiding off to the left, around the base of the spire, is Knightsguard Valens and a gargoyle named something like Valens’ Sentry.

Kill the Sentry first. If the Sentry gets away, you’re in for a huge pain in the butt. More flying gargoyles will spawn, and they’ll attack you as you try to run up the ramp, grabbing hold of you and dropping you onto the bridge. This is a repeat of Harpy Air from ML2. Just kill the Sentry, then kill Valens. If you’ve got to kite Valens onto someone who’s stuck on the bridge with the “closed gate” bug, you’ll have to be careful about aggro – you may have to wait long enough for Valens to de-aggro, especially if you’ve got paladins twisting heal chant.

If you’ve done everything right to this point, after Valens and his Sentry are dead, you’ll have a free and clear run up the ramp. Ignore any pets that are standing around on the ramp – they won’t attack you unless you attack them first.

If something’s gone wrong, just make your way up the ramp. You’ll have to cope with Gargoyle Air or random adds on the ramp, so fight your way to the top as best you can.

Once you reach the top, you’ll see the dungeon’s main boss – Morrigan, Gullveig, or Morgana, depending on the realm.

The of the group should attack her. She really doesn’t do anything too deadly, though it’s entertaining to watch her turn people into obelisks. When you get her to around 20% hit points, she’ll teleport away, and a shimmering red curtain of light will appear. Step through until you port across the chasm, into the hallway leading to the throne room. Congratulations, you’re at the final encounter.

The Throne Room

When you teleport through, feel free to take a break to regen mana, redo resists, and summon pets. The final encounter won’t start until you charge forward to the throne room.

As soon as one person crosses the invisible threshold between the hallway and the throne room itself, all the bosses will spawn and a red curtain will appear, sealing off the throne room so you can’t exit. Anyone entering will be instantly teleported right before the throne.

Be prepared to unleash havoc on the dungeon boss, and ignore everyone else. Note that the dungeon boss is not the chick you fought at the top of the spire. It’s her boyfriend – Dub in Hibernia, Fafnir in Midgard, Mordred in Albion. Use AE to peel the red/purple spawns off the healers, but otherwise, concentrate all of your attacks on the boyfriend. Once he dies, everything despawns, and you win Dark Spire.

An easy technique that works for me is to target a mob in (morgana for alb) in the throne room and nearsight/mez/nuke pull.
Then you can spend your time shrooming/buffing up at the point you ported in at and let the mobs come to you. Again though, just focus on the boss mordred/fafnir/dub, a class spamming disease on him here is handy as sometimes he likes to heal himself.

The key issue for DS raids is not to kill the last cavern boss until the route to the door is clear.

Bits of that from vn boards, other bits my own additions/tips.
Rep welcome

Tilda

 

[Kaun_IA]

very interesting, gave a rep point for that!!!!!

GJ

 

[Ballard]

Average raid time is two hours with power fonts and PvE tricks (MCL3, etc.) I've done it in as little as 45 minutes. Without fonts/tricks, I can't really estimate how long it would take.

Used to do it in less than an hour with a RvR style tank group and DD casters (no PB or aoe). On classic server with low RR people,no fop and other nice ml abilities.

Run a normal setup i.e. a standard balanced group, CCer, couple of healers, a few tanks (one with guard) , and one or two casters.

As long as your tanks know how to guard and taunt you should be fine. I wouldnt bother with AOE casters at recommended above, Mezz and assist is far safer and very fast.. Done it 20-30 times.

 

[Tilda]

Aye, on lamorak we're getting it done in under 2 hours now.
Thats with 1 pally, 3 sorcs, 2 cabbys, 2 clerics, which isn't the best setup

Also, holy rep spam batman!!

 

[eggy]

Jeez so much Tilda spam.

I just get some random people, kill the mobs and we're done in 40 mins?

 

[Gear]

Nice guide but talks about the hard way to do it. There is a better way and takes only an hour, maybe less if the same people repeat it.

 

[Donledirse]

Nice guide, thanks Tilda. I will give this a shot soon then

 

[Enli]

Nice guide but talks about the hard way to do it. There is a better way and takes only an hour, maybe less if the same people repeat it.

and there are some easier things and tricks but if they wanna know, pm me or Gear, things for hibbie ears alone

 

[Tilda]

If you're refering to the run to first boss, die and hope your last healer lands PR on the other one before he dies trick. I think for someone who's never done DS before, it would be best to learn how to do it normally before you try something that can easily cock up.

 

[censi]

5 anis and 3 healers for easy mode.

 

[Enli]

If you're refering to the run to first boss, die and hope your last healer lands PR on the other one before he dies trick. I think for someone who's never done DS before, it would be best to learn how to do it normally before you try something that can easily cock up.

nope smth more simpler and better
and i've done DS a few times now, had a good teacher in gear

 

[Gear]

It's not like there's a huge secret, I just cba writing it

 

[Donledirse]

It's not like there's a huge secret, I just cba writing it

Anychance you can private message me the secret way of doing it then?

Easymode farming would be nice, so I can flood market with DS items

 

[Gear]

I tried to start writing up how it's good to do it for the CF forums, but I'm doing so much work lately that really I can't be bothered to write anything (apart from the job things and useless spam on forums )

If I get the time and energy I'll just say how it's done tho others that came along on my ventures there can tell you the tricks. As I said, it's nothing secreet, and would be nice to have a plethora of DS items in the market.

 

[Enli]

to take some of ya gear, they can also spam me for it ingame