My hardcore casual kinship started Squiddy Saturday’s last weekend where we are learning to take down the 12-man Watcher in the Water raid. Most of our core officers were present to learn from a benevolent Loremaster saint. We were running button hooks and other maneuvers just outside the Vile Maw’s door. I imagine it was a humorous spectacle to the hardcore groups that passed by. After almost 2 hours of discussion, we went in… and died.
Our benefactor said that the raid was rife with random occurrences some that are nearly impossible to overcome. Our first time, someone got hit by a dangler (a tentacle that grabs a player and hangs them in the air until it is killed) next to a first stage tentacle. The Watcher screamed and half the raid died. Two runs later we almost beat the second phase. This time the other captain got hit by a dangler in the shark pool (insta-kill roaming tentacles people lovingly call sharks), and I mistimed a shark while trying to free him. The patron Loremaster was still pleased with the progress, and so were we.
This is my first time really learning a multi-phase boss fight, and during our two hour lecture I kept wondering what I got in to. In the end it was quite fun to have multiple strategies and stages. Our benefactor believed that we might be able to down him next weekend with discussion and practice. Now our only problem is finding ~12 people to meet consistently on Squidurdays.
–Ravious
but you still have Zoidberg
I am at level 43, soon 44 – I guess I won’t see the guy before Mirkwood and return to him at level 65 or so. I will have to hurry to become 60 before Som release.
Good luck on your next try!
It was a real treat getting to co-captain with you, Rav (and, for that matter, running through Skumfil with you (on Geiri) just prior to the Watcher run to get you the gear you needed to go).
I think Lostmoon *might* have been a little optimistic about our chances next week, but not by much — we did really really well — better than I’d expected, actually. I thought everyone’s focus on the run was just tremendous.
The biggest trick to getting 12 folks together would be getting that configuration of 12 folks together who are all in the Kin — it would be a lot easier for our particular kin to get a few more melee guys in there and tank the watcher up-close-and-personal.
We shall see, though. In either case, I count it a real benefit that you were along to provide some much-needed whack-and-heal.
Do dead tentacles provide the captains with their needed defeat conditions to pop off those skills? That’s the hardest part of a lot of boss fights, I know, is when they have almost no way to unlock those skills.
From what I’ve learned of the Watcher fight it is an intricate dance macabre. ;-} I’m lookin forward to it someday for sure, especially with the stalwart heroes of the Council.
It seems to me that a hallmark of good challenging content is when you can say you had fun even when you got whooped. ;-}
After all of the (admittedly valuable) prep, I was struck by how quickly the fight actually progressed, and how well we did.
Makes the gear grind feel worth it, and gives an extra incentive to get other kinmates Watcher-ready!
The tentacle kills count for defeat responses on the Captains, so really, we get those things kicking off all the time.
-Two big(ish) tentacles in phase 1.
-Two “massive” tentacles in phase 2, plus a constant influx of small, low-hp-but-dangerous tentacles.
– A big clump of low-hp tentacles that die during the phase 2 to phase 3 transition).
-Two (constantly replaced) big(ish) shaking tentacles in phase 3, plus a constant influx of small, low-hp-but-dangerous tentacles.
Lots of stuff to feed on in terms of defeats.
The problem is only 2 of our defeat response skills are really good for this fight: higher attack rate for a minute and heal+dot. Our defeat scream is low damage and costs a lot of power, and our defeat response attack is an agro stealing attack, which we might night necessarily want. But I was popping the heal+dot as much as I saw it off cooldown.
My kin just killed the squid for the first time this evening. I think having everyone in the raid with a piece or 2 of the DN set really helped to give us some breathing space. With the use of Destiny Point hope, the average level of dread was 1, compared to 3 the last time we tried.
Still a tricky fight even with the extra radiance. I take my hat off to those Kinships that killed version 2.0 (corruptions stacking every 5s in the last phase instead of 10s now).
I can’t say I love this kind of fight, where one bit of bad luck, or one mistake by one person, is likely to snowball into a wipe. I wouldn’t mind if we could launch straight into the next attempt, but standing around for 10 minutes waiting for the defeat debuff to expire is tedious.
I must say, I was extremely distressed over not killing the watcher after months of attempting it. We hadn’t broken through the trolls of DN either after a couple weeks of doing those. We had the best lothlorien potions, scrolls, superior food, traits all 10’s, ect… but in the end I think it was getting some people to wear a little +15 armor that made DN and the watcher doable.
That little extra bit of radiance… doing the exact same strategy we have been doing the whole time, was enough.