I've tried one or two of these so far, and have a few questions. First how close to Sol Ro/Elemental xp can these be? From what I've read the mobs are around the same levels, is the xp comparable? Without a CCer should this even be tried?
The people I would be trying these with are about as equiped as I am (no VT, some Ssra level). If we tried it it wouldn't be just to gain points, the hard items would be upgrades for us.
Thanks for any responses.
I have only done LDoN hard with Time equipped people so take my view accordingly.
The mobs in LDoN on a 65 hard mission hit fairly hard, but also have very low hit points. This makes them somewhat harder and easier than Sol Ro / EP mobs.
In LDoN, the trash hit for about 900 but they die very quickly to a good group. Generally, we will not try one unless we have some form of CC, as this makes it easier to have the mission be a success.
I still believe that the best group experience in the game can be found in the Fire or Earth, but LDoN is still good enough to be a solid use of time.
I think a solid group at the ssra level would be able to do this, but you would have to bring your A game. Even with my guildies, if we get sloppy on LDoN Hard, we will wipe.
LDoN hard is like 1 hour per AA (assuming completing the mission in 60 min), while PoFire kiting is 30-45 min per AA and PoEarth is 45-60 min per AA, in the few groups I've been in. LDoN hard is harder, since CC is so important, one way or another, and you have a time limit, but I haven't lost any of my 12 adventures. Never tried it without an enchanter, cleric or a plate tank - multiple 990 hitters on a pull brings back the good old pre-PoP CT trip feeling.
I've tanked in PoE and I feel LDoN mobs have pretty close the same dps, but while in PoE I didn't mind tanking since all we got was singles, in LDoN hard a few unslowed adds would just smear me on the floor.
So... I'd say LDoN hard is doable with Ssra level gear, assuming skilled, alert CCer, cleric and tank, some FT on casters, tank 7k+ at least and close to optimal group. -_-
Did a LDON hard yesterday, first time. Finished in 40 minutes. Had Warrior (8.8Kish), rogue (mith marr/bot weapon), bard, cleric, shaman and beastlord (me). We're sol ro flagged but not elemental, no vt, no ssra drops. We did an EC, easiest ldon dungeon imo, and it went very smoothly.
Our groups usually use a bard in place of the chanter.
Like the previous poster said, you definitely got to bring your "A" game.
The groups we bring are Elemental flagged, but lacking the true elemental gear at this time. Our average time for adventure completion is 60 minutes. When we get close to last piece we typically send an eye out or use bard tracking to search for named before looting last piece to give us some extra time. We also only do collections.
I haven't done many hard missions in awhile, but here's some random stuff from when I used to do them. One of the biggest problems I see in a lot of "hard" LDoN groups is being to heavily tipped toward either defense or offense. The mobs hit 990(ish), all mitigate slow that I've ever seen and have a fair amount of hps for those that are used to easy missions.
Paci get's resisted a lot and I've come to rely a lot more on mez/root/etc for CC as I've seen way too many clerics buy it on a pull and hit spots where the bard basically gave up after eating a few deaths and just brought 2-4 hehe.
Enchanters can actually add just sick dps if they are willing. I know a couple enc that have/will keep a pet for basically the entire mission and if you have an enchanter that is capable of such a thing then it allows you to go a bit heavier on the defense if needed and still have more than enough dps to get the mission done in time.
Finally, you mention loot and I just have to mention that I currently still wear a mask from a Tak hard mission. 90hps regen 2, some stats/saves/etc. It's quite nice. This mission we killed maybe half a dozen monsters (one of which was the named). Basically after the group realized they had no prayer at all of winning or even living through most pulls everyone was sitting around rez'n and meding and I started popping out eyes and scouting around. Half a dozen rooms in, past a bunch of mobs that did *NOT* see invis I saw a named totally solo in a hallway. We finished meding, invis'd up, ran over, killed, lotto'd and then headed out. Just saying that if you really are looking at it as a way of upgrading, if you happen to find yourself down on time and no chance of winning having a rogue go off scouting or wizzy or whoever you still might be able to a decent drop out of the mission.
Quote from: Ukator IcebloodI've tried one or two of these so far, and have a few questions. First how close to Sol Ro/Elemental xp can these be? From what I've read the mobs are around the same levels, is the xp comparable? Without a CCer should this even be tried?
The people I would be trying these with are about as equiped as I am (no VT, some Ssra level). If we tried it it wouldn't be just to gain points, the hard items would be upgrades for us.
Thanks for any responses.
Elemental exp is much better. Hard LDON it's closer to Solro exp
No, I do not recommend without real cc ex: bard, enc . Not saying it can't be done but there is just less room for error. 1 bad pull, pathing, ...anything and someone dies.
As long as everyone is 65 it's worth a shot. Just make a solid group without any gimps.
ex: war, clr, enc, bst, evac, dps
No gimps? Darn I can't go then:(
You know what I mean 8)
Aye :)
For hard LDON you definetely need CC of some type. My typical hard setup for a group is a tank with 8500hp+, a good cleric, shaman, bard, me and another dps. I don't know if I would take a tank with lower than those HP but I heard wars can tank hard with less after the patch that gave them a mitigation boost. As a beastlord on hard preslow is your friend and works awesome. Especially if you have a multi-pull because it gives the CC/slower time to get things under control without generally having to worry about aggro.
Well I'm not elemental flagged, but have done a couple of high risk guk adventures.
For me, I can compare the exp to BoT, it was about the same per kill, roughly 3% AA. The mobs hit like Kriegers but dont have the insane hitpoints.
It's a great place to go for exp, especially if you dont care about your win/loss ratio. The group I was with were all elemental+ equipped, hell the enchanter had more unbuffed hitpoints than I did fully buffed.
Tried this finally last night. We didn't have any CC but figured what the heck. Group was BST, CLR, WAR, DRU, SHA, and RNG. We tried to root adds or seconds. It was very fun, a failure but very fun:) Next time we do it I will bring a chanter or at least a FDer. Its wild for a guy in a pre Ssra guild *pretty much* to fight mobs that for 900 each.
Is Rujarkian the best spot to try these? Always seems to be less mobs, or they are spread out.
Ruj is ok, but there's that one map...I can't recall the name, but if you get it you're hosed. There's a few spots on it with multiple, i.e. 6+, pulls. Nasty map.
If you want to play with hard and get your feet wet, I'd recommend Mistmoore. The pulls there are very easy.
I've only done about...15 or so hard, but my ideal setup would be me, cleric, bard, any of the 3 plate tanks, and 2 dps. Bards are the best damn pullers/CC I've seen on hard runs and my slow is sufficient assuming the cleric and tank are well geared. For the other two dps, I'd probably prefer monks. High dps and not situational.
I've tried tanking a hard before and while it's doable....it's rather ugly. :P
Don't forget if you dont have a chanter/bard can use a mage/necro for cc if you are in the proper theme. Did a Butchblock the other night with only a necro for cc (and not much there is flagged undead, just a little) so we had to do a bit of rooting - monk/bst/cleric/sk/necro/mage. I got wacked, the SK got wacked twice, but we finished with a win.
Personally I am still torn, as far as LDoN points if a hard is worth is, since with that same group we prolly could have done 2 normals in that time - kinda a toss up, aside from better aug drops.
Yeah ghoat for me the only reason to do hards is if someone is after a certain drop. The increase in augs is pretty minor usually (+7 instead of +6) and even with "good" groups if you don't get lucky on collection drops you can usually get in two normals during that time. Points wise, charm upgrade wise, and what not I still go with normals. Hards are more fun, especially if you have the right people, and the exp is decent, but a single bad move on hard can cost you anywhere from a few minutes to the win.
Normals make me want to go to sleep or to dig my eyes out with a rusty spoon. Hards can be fun if ye have a good group. That's the major difference .. and the fact hard names drop niiiiiiiiiiceee stuff. -_-
My first trip to a hard adventure had 3 named mobs....there were upgrades for 3 people :) While I agree that in the time it takes to do a hard you could do two or more normal adventures, but the loot drops make them worth the effort in my opinion.
With a solid 65 group the Hard mission are not too bad. I was getting about 2% to 3% per kill on the hard Ruj missions I did. Took us about an hour to complete each one.
I have done several hard advs, and teh three things you have to have are 1) cc, first and foremost some kind of cc, bards make the best pullers, cc you can find, with a bard pulling most of the remaining troubles are minor. 2) You need a plate tank that can take some dmg. Preferable an e-plane euipped tank, 8kish hps etc, and last you need a healer clr, who can keep the tank alive, the other three spots are dps, dps, dps. With me I do not have greast gear i try to kill, and stay out of the way. With cc, tank, and clr, any group should be able to succeed. Plus i have lost more advs to server crashes (4), than to hard advs, (1).
I do most of my hard missions with full PoTime equipped people so take my talk with a grain of salt. As long as your tank is around 8khp and your cle/casters have decent FT, you should do alright if you take your A game as someone previous said. When it comes to CC, if you can't get a bard/enc then i suggest EC mission, those are pretty much the easiest ones and can mostly get along well without a form of CC.
The BEST fun i've had in LDoN was just the other night, group consisted of 2 paladins, 3 beastlords and a cleric, at one point of time we had 6 mobs + 1 named mob in camp, total mayhem but nobody died .... but as i said earlier, all potime flagged and decently equipped.
Did my first Hard LDoN last night and it was in Tak. Kind of reminded me of how I feel stepping off the bus arriving at Marine Boot Camp. First thoughts were "What the Helll did I get myself into!).
I have Bazaar level gear and 49 AA's and got invited into a group make up of people from top couple of guilds on my server (Maelin).
We had Warrior, Bard, Monk, Ranger, Cleric, and me. It was a 26 collect and it went to crap really fast. We wiped (all but Cleric) in first 5 minutes when mezz broke. Lost Cleric 10 minutes later when mezz broke, lost Bard after a mezz broke again. Best I could do on slows was partials. About 1/2 the group wanted to just give up within first 1/2 hour and only 5 out of 26 collected.
We stuck with it just for the exp and actually ended up winning right at an hour! I went from 13% AA to 91% with 100% into AA.
CC seemed to be major with mobs being easy if one at a time. Mezz broke and people died pure and simple. Exp was ok but not great but I would do it again in a second!
the only hard i have done was in rujarkian. i had a time pally tanking so slowing was a breeze (i believe i was main slower, which helped a lot to not have to worry about having a slot for shaman) and we had a fading mem. bard pull.
on second thought, i did a takish hard once, without any intention of winning. after wiping to a 2 pull twice (it was the first pull both times :() we realized there's no way we can win and called it.
i have heard guk is the most challenging hard (due to the crazy dungeon layout for pullers) and EF is the easiest, but that's just what i have heard, as i dont do many hard adventures.
Hey Y'all,
Hard level missions are really enjoyable imho. The experience is excellent and there are upgrades to be had for pre-elemental/time folks if you can work well together.
I have become much more bold with my Hard groups lately and have found pretty much without exception that Solid Play > Gear in there. Fantastic items and mega aaxp certainly doesn't hurt at all but I don't want everyone to think that only post ele players need apply.
My group from last night was a SK (High aaxp, Ele), BST (Me - 200ish aaxp, pre-Ele), DRU (Mod aaxp, pre-Ele), NEC (Low aaxp, Pre-Ele), ENC (Mod aaxp, Pre-Ele), CLR (High aaxp, Ele/Time)
Holy Trinity + BST, DRU, NEC? It failed miserably right?
/grin
Now...admittedly we had several Ele people in key positions but if you look clearly we were NOT your typical Hard LDoN group. Our damage output was suprisingly good but more importantly we didn't make many errors durring the evening. Excellent tanking, healing, and slowing (if I do say so myself) made all the difference. We had as many as 5 mobs in camp on a couple tricky pulls but never wiped due to solid play. We did 2 Hard missions in about 3 hours and dropped a total of 5 named mobs (/cheer). All in all we had a great time. I got to watch some excellent play, and even learned a few new tricks/tactics.
Hard LDoN at lvl 65 is basically Lower Guk at lvl 50 about 4 years ago folks. You will most likely need the 'holy trinity' but that's not so different from any challenging group dungeon. A good group can make super exp and find many nice treasures. A bad group will die in minutes.
To the original poster. It is very worth it. Your level of play will improve and you will find many upgrades to be had as well.
/wave
- Sitstay Goodbear
P.S. I've now completed about 18 Hard missions and around 200 Normal missions. I remember almost all 18 of my Hard missions and am pretty foggy on all the Normals.
/wink
My one experience in LDoN hard had my group of almost entirely non-Elemental folks failing, but only by about 10 minutes.. we partially wiped 5 times during the ordeal so if we had only done that 4 times we likely would have won.
Pulling and CC seem to be the key items.
Quote from: PojodanPulling and CC seem to be the key items.
And binding as close to the dungeon entrance as possible ... :wink:
Hard LDoN relies on the quality of your group mates more so than the "holy trinity" of classes. I've done them without a cleric or crowd control before, and we won. Not a single member of that group was elementally equipped either. It wasn't pretty, but with skilled members, we did fine.
Simply need an 8k+ tank, healer(s), slower, and you're gtg if they know how to play their class well.
We have a group of us on Brell (all BSTs) that are getting the nerve up to do a All 65 BST Hard LDoN. We have done many a normal mission, our best time so far is a kill 52 in under 30 min. Crazy you may say? Yes, but if we pull this off, think of the bragging rights !
Phlashh Bangkitty
Elder Feral Lord
Mythic Voyagers
Brell Serilis
It'd be nuts. Pet stuns won't land. All mobs mitigate slow. All mobs hit 990 a shot+. No CC of any real sort, crazy aggro range, solid hps. The jump from "normal" to "hard" is a walking advertisement for "medium" lol. Defeintly be fun though and if nothing else you have a shot at some good loot. Be sure to take lots of screenshots too I'm sure lots in the community here would like to see. 8)
65 hard with just bsts? O_O
Single mobs wouldn't be too hard as long as people do realize they must all spam heal a lot, two should still be doable as long as cool nerves prevail, but 3+ would start to show the limitations of heals-per-second, and there's just no realiable way to pull hards with beastlords. Perhaps a Mistmoore or Miragul adventure would be possible to win, but it'd be hard work.
A lot depends on healing AAs and focus gear, I can put out about twice (or well, ~1.6x) the healing than a 0 AA/0 focus beastlord myself .. and of course the ac/defensive AAs of the tanking beastlords, paragons, mana regen etc.
i suppose if the beasts had 5k+ unbuffed, then you could just rotate tanking for each mob, so each bst could regen while they are on heal duty. i can't imagine it will do really well though :D
if you do it, you get to laugh at me and all the others who said you couldn't! :P
Hopefully on Monday night, The Brellian Beastlord Suicide Squad will attemp the hard LDoN. Will keep y'all posted :)
The Brellian Beastlord Suicide Squad might have a chance.
Assuming you all have the same pet focus and similar pet AAs each warder should generate similar aggro. It may be possible to let the warders tank each mob and use ranged spells for damage. If the mob splits it damage between warders heals will be easy and the massive regen between fights will save mana. 6 warders equals 360-380 DPS. Add nukes/dots and you'll knock em down ok. A paragon every 2.5 mins will let you nuke a hell of a lot :)
Remember to suspend/unsuspend your warder if he uses enrage during a fight.
EF seems to have the least multi pulls to me. Once you make some space you might be able to kite 1 or 2 adds while the other 4 or 5 guys take down one at a time. If you use slow/incapacitate for aggro they should stay above 97% and be unable to summon (right?).
Don't forget mage pet toys, nuke focus bracers, and something to snare the runners.
I really hope you guys do this, please report back...
Quote from: bham
Remember to suspend/unsuspend your warder if he uses enrage during a fight.
Not to derail, but why do this?
It resets the enrage timer, apparently.
Quotebham wrote:
Remember to suspend/unsuspend your warder if he uses enrage during a fight.
Not to derail, but why do this?
Pet enrage will never refresh. Once your pet uses it once he never gets it back until he dies. However, if you suspend then unsuspend him it refreshes and is ready to go again.
You need quality group members. Ive never done one without a bard. Seems like the key component there single pulls and fading memories. Coudlnt see anyone but a cleric healing there either but maybe a druid could get the job done. If your used to tanking/off tanking normals lol get that out of your head fast unless you got some real sweet gear and defensive AA's.
I tanked a high risk LDoN a week or so ago without a bard. We had a monk puller, cleric, shaman...and necro I think, besides me, and ended up losing by 30 seconds. (That's with the 15 minute delay at the beginning cause of a wipe after which the SK tank LD'ed and never returned.) So even high risk LDoNs can break the molds that we set for them...
Game on,
its all about the gear.. had some punks in guild laughing two nights ago.. Cause they just did a hard Ldon.. with no slower CC... that was No chanter.. no bard... no beast... no shaman... and completed it, win 40mins give or take 5.
QuoteIf your used to tanking/off tanking normals lol get that out of your head fast unless you got some real sweet gear and defensive AA's.
Well yes, but it's very doable with maxed defensive AA and 5k+ unbuffed hp.
I've tanked and pulled a good few (successful) hard LDoNs now, even a couple with only Rangers for CC. It takes a good, on-the-ball Cleric and group members who know what they're doing - but it's a ton of fun.
and what about pet pulling ?
I found some information with /search on the forum but not a full discussion about this aspect either in normal or in Hard ldons. From what I read : hard ldon .. pulling single mobs with a level 60 pet ..
The pet has to be green to the mob to single pull it. Not sure if light blue works. The level 56 pet spell, which summons a level 43 pet, should always work. The level 58 spell, which summons a level 45 pet, might not work. Unless I'm off on levels vs. cons.
In any case, there is a guide on pet pulling here somewhere...probably in The Beastlord's Companion section. Give it a run speed buff, extra hp, and Calliav if you have it. If you're going to be constantly using it to pull, just keep it out, otherwise keep your other pet suspended. I think the biggest thing to note is that you need to be far enough away that you don't get assist aggro and bring other mobs in. The aggro rang on mobs is different between "engage" and "assist". I don't really have too many details on that though.
Game on,
You also have to make sure you don't jump up over the pet on the hate list. If you want to have some fun then pet pull a mob at the back of a room and as it's coming in single sit down. 8P Mob will get pissed at you instead and here come friends hehe.