65 LDON Hard Questions

Tastian · January 22, 2004, 04:53:23 PM

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.

Argach · January 22, 2004, 05:25:23 PM

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. -_-

Jakemm · January 22, 2004, 07:31:51 PM

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.

Shalymar · January 28, 2004, 06:29:42 PM

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.

Reaking · February 02, 2004, 05:59:42 AM

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).

Urim · February 02, 2004, 09:09:51 AM

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.

Kaspur · February 02, 2004, 03:36:40 PM

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!

Dysz · February 03, 2004, 12:27:51 AM

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.

Sitstay Goodbear · February 03, 2004, 05:41:30 PM

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

Pojodan · February 04, 2004, 01:00:20 AM

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.

TheOriginalGronker · February 04, 2004, 03:02:27 PM

Quote from: PojodanPulling and CC seem to be the key items.

And binding as close to the dungeon entrance as possible ... :wink:

Grymslade · February 11, 2004, 06:53:24 PM

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.

Phlashh · April 01, 2004, 12:23:26 AM

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

Tastian · April 01, 2004, 12:46:35 AM

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)

Argach · April 01, 2004, 02:26:41 PM

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.