Darkspire Walkthrough and Hints

[Aran_Thule]

Just found this posted by Tilda in FH but given lack of guides it might give people an idea of what to expect.

[quote="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]

[Aran_Thule]

Little update:
Ran through it last night and it is a lot easier.
Main differances i noticed where that at the spire the number of guards in side rooms is a lot less. probably about a third of what i remember.
When we killed a spire crystal several of the nasties attacking us despawned.
The mender(gargoyle) and runner are red and when they appear everyone should kill them fast
Raid time, 2 hours, less if you speed through, wardens are very useful with new changes as BT, TWF, shield guard ect make things a lot easier
would estimate you get about 20 named drops (2-3 per person) overall, noticed that the cloth vest/legs had interesting skeletal pattern not sure if other armour types look the same.

Thats all for now, good hunting everyone.