So, I came out of retirement and lead another raid. Finally got to kill that damn Hand that had eluded me so far.
I have updated the sections regarding camping the Spiroc Lord and strategy involved to kill the hand of Veeshan. My previous zergling strategy for the Hand wasn't very good. :) Also, a good many spelling errors, grammar errors, and confusing points have been eliminated.
I'm a level 59 druid, recently retired. I began attempting sky trips starting around October 2000. I'm not from an uber guild. My raids have been open raids like you often see in fear and hate, which fail miserably when attacking sky.
And in the start, we did fail. I would say that each trip we normally failed whichever isle we did for the first time. Normally progressing about one additional isle each trip as we gained more levels and sky experience.
One of the most frustrating parts of sky is that screw-ups are raid ending. In most situations if you fail, you just drag corpses, res and try again. In sky, if you fail, it's not uncommon that you have to pack up and try again next month.
This guide is intended to help mitigate some of that pain for the new folks, with the average player in the low to mid 50's. The tactics discussed don't assume a hoard of level 60's, but they would work well for those folks also. :) It contains massive amounts of "spoiler" information - consider yourself warned. Sky can be can be a fun zone to learn, but it can also be a very harsh and frustrating teacher. I hope my guide makes sky more fun for you.
I've tried to include all pertinent information you need to get to the top and kill all possible mobs. However, there is a lot to leading and succeeding in sky besides just knowing how to kill things. I've added some leadership suggestions, but I recommend nobody attempting to lead sky unless they've had significant leadership experience elsewhere.
This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of the mechanics of sky: how the keys work, how spawning Sirran works, how to summon people between isle, etc. It covers Bzzazzt and higher isles especially well because they normally give people the most trouble.
If you have any feedback, corrections, or wish to send me any interesting screenshots from sky, you may email me at adawen@pobox.com
I'd like to thank Pini <Amicus> and Fardok <Talion> for going to about all my raids and being my right hand guys. And I'd also like to thank my guildmates and friends who kept coming up to help. Since they followed me to sky, I'm sure they would have followed me anywhere.
Thanks to Pini again for helping me with this guide. It's a bit more readable and correct because of him :)
Good luck to you,
Adawen EarthtruthThere are a few other good guides out there. I learned a lot from Hottoq's guide from the Safehouse. This guide is at least a year or so old, but not much has changed. Consult this guide for mob names, levels, and abilities. I try not to duplicate too much of this info, but I do try to provide more specific resist information.
Catranizi's Plane of Sky Guide has a good info on the mobs and drops.
The best quest/item guide that I have seen is Xekl's spreadsheet. You may still be able to view the safehouse thread. This is by far the best single listing of quests, rewards, and quest item locations.
These guides are pretty solid, but be careful when doing online research. I've read some guides that have stuff that is flat out wrong. Other guides are pre-kunark and not very relevant these days.Have a cleric camped on the first isle at all times to facilitate bringing up reinforcements. Ideally this would be somebody on the raid who has access to an extra PC and account. 56 res is nicer than 49.
Have a mule at a wiz port (Tox wizard spires was always my meeting place) with a few small coffins and several (at least 5) sky stones. This will both speed up any bad wipeout, and provide the stone when you need a quick port up of reinforcements.
It is generally a good idea to have a cleric camped out at all times in case of wipeout.
Necros should have an essence emerald at all times in case of wipeout.
Make sure keys are handled appropriately. Clerics and necros should be first priority, with paladins and SKs with summon corpse second. After that, it's who needs their mana the most (getting dueled and corpse summoned makes you OOM). I general say casters (except wizards) next, then hybrids, then pure melee. Don't let keys rot. Melees should learn to keep 3 hour corpses when they die to limit the amount of time spent dueling and zoning.
Leading sky is 10x harder than leading fear or hate. I recommend delegating as much as you can. One of the key difficulties of sky is bringing up reinforcements. Keeping a sustainable force up there is one of the hardest jobs for new sky leader and crew. Try to have a plan to be able to bring people up without totally shutting down action. It's very easy to get in a vicious cycle where people leave because the action is slow, forcing you to stop and bring more people up. Which in turn makes more people leave because they are bored.
Know your critical classes and make sure you have them: a couple warriors with defensives, mala/malo from a 60 mage/shaman, a couple necros who won't bail on you and leave you stranded with no way to bring up reinforcements, a good enchanter or two, and lots of good clerics (one res stick is almost a necessity). Malo/mala are almost required so I'll mention them again.
Sky is very weird because there are often mobs you don't want to kill, because they split into harder mob(s), or may interfere with larger objectives like camping the Spiroc Lord. This concept is very alien to a lot of players. So a large portion of your time will be spent telling people what you are going to kill, and in what order.
I've tried to recommend the strength (in levels) and numbers needed to succeed on the various numbers. Keep in mind that one cleric for each group is ideal, although I often manage with one or two more groups than clerics. Also, melee heavy works much better than caster heavy, although you do need your key casters. I know that these isles can be done with less than I recommend; these numbers are meant for groups that have little experience in sky.
Any mob in sky has a chance of dropping loot from the "common" loot table. Generally, the higher level the mob is the more likely it is to drop loot. Bosses will almost always drop an item from this table, often times 2. I recommend checking Catranizi's list. It's the same list as this but better.
All other items are keys or quest pieces.
Do not confuse the dropped haste belts with the quest haste belts. Quest haste belts are extremely rare, and are better than RBB or CoF.
For sky quests, your best bet for info is Xekl's spreadsheet. Class specific websites often have handy information also. EQCastersRealms lists all the quests and also has a handy list of all sky quest components with the class(es) that need them. Keep in mind that sky quest rewards have been changed several times since sky was released.
It's a good idea to have your quest items printed out before you go to sky so that you know what pieces you need.
Sirran is your friend. Sirran is an asshole. Sirran can make or break your raid. Don't spend too much time up in sky, or you'll become crazy like him.
Sirran spawns after killing the isle's boss. He will give you keys pieces for the next isle if you give him the item that he wants that dropped on the current isle.
There can never be more than one Sirran in sky. For example, if a Sirran is spawned on Faerie isle and somebody has been hailing him the whole time and you kill the Protector of Sky Azarack boss - game over - no Sirran, no keys for next isle. This presents some issues if there are two raids going simultaneously.
Sirran will assist any sky mob that attacks you.
Sirran double attacks for over 2k.
Hailing Sirran will keep him from despawning if you have linkdead people who need keys. But be sure to let him despawn when you're down with him.
Generally talking to Sirran is a bad idea. You can make him kill you or even worse make him despawn stranding you.
If you do want to talk to Sirran, I recommend waiting until everybody has gotten their keys for the next isle.
Sirran will often spawn 10+ feet above the ground. If he does this, just pick an unlucky person to cast a spell on him and he will run down and kill them. Perhaps an SK could pull him away and FD. Sometimes it's because the corpse of the thing that caused him to spawn is still there. Like on Horses, the Keeper of Souls makes Sirran spawn high. Once the corpse is looted and poofs, Sirran falls to the ground.
| Item to turn into for key | rabbits foot and mini sword |
| Key name for next isle | key of beasts (Azarack) and key of swords (Dojorn) |
| Insertion method | find wizard and port up |
| Where to fight | anywhere near edge |
| Pets | shouldn't need them |
| Camp out cleric | shouldn't need one |
| Boss | thunder spirit princess, level 53, slightly resistant |
| Mob notes | 8 thunder spirits, each drop 3 of each key piece |
| Recommended force | two groups of level 50's can clear this isle |
| Strategy |
First of all, if you cast any AE spell including enchanter's AE stun. Don't use AE spells here, and be sure not to cast non-buff spells (nukes, debuffs, stuns) on other PCs. If you do, the quest hall will come kill you, and maybe a good chunk of your fellow raid members. Second, if you duel here, you will agro the keymaster and quest room mobs as well. Before you start pulling, give the princess a few plat to spawn the necro epic quest mob on Gorg isle, just in case anybody needs him. This isle is quite easy. Just fight anywhere near the edge, and pull faeries to there. When pulling stay near the edge, because the princess is in the middle. A common mistake is to agro the princess early. If this happens, then you have a problem. You don't won't to kill her unless all the faeries have already been killed. Also, she is difficult to mez with only tash on her. If this happens, you're best off getting somebody to train her around while people camp out. Another common problem encountered here or on Noble Dojorn isle is that people port to azarack before the raid is ready and promptly get slain by Azaracks. |
| What to do when things go bad | Laugh, port up a cleric as needed. |
| Other Notes |
Keys for both Dojorn and Azarack can be bought for about 400pp and 200pp respectively. The key to the quest room is only 1 copper. These are the only keys that can be bought in sky. Unlike the rest of the isles, 3 teleport dishes are on this isle. The one to the west teleports to Noble Dojorn isle (not agro) if you use the Key of Swords. The north teleports you to the quest room if you buy a Key of Veeshan from the keymaster. The one to the east teleports you to azaracks (agro)if you use the key of beasts(horn). Remember that Azaracks is the one place where you cannot corpse summon people up to (you teleport up into a fight). Make sure the right 24 people get keys to go there, or be prepared to buy them. The key to quest room has the same name as the key for the last isle (Key of Veeshan), but they are different. Killing the keymaster lowers your sky faction :) Don't recommend doing that. Beware of going to the quest room. They only way out is to jump back down to freeport. Or if you have a corpse, you can be ressed above. |
| Item to turn into for key | N/A |
| Key name for next isle | Key of Beasts (horn) *obtained from Faerie Isle* |
| Insertion method | just go up, isle is not agro |
| Where to fight | Inside windmill |
| Pets | yes. enchanters too, the AE will agro them |
| Camp out cleric | yes, safe because nothing here is agro if you attack |
| Boss | Efreeti Dojorn (not typical sky boss) |
| Mob notes | the 2 bladestorms are aproximately level 60. can be slowed after debuffed. |
| Spawn time | efreeti dojorn - several days |
| Recommended force | relatively hard, need 4 level 55-60 groups, or 5 groups level 50+ with a couple 55+ warrior and malo/mala |
| Strategy |
Kill Dojorn (lure only mob). Have warriors tank the two extra bladestorms. Slow bladestorms. Dojorn does an irresistible 200pt AE. Pathing is horrid there, so melee need to try to not push Dojorn around much or he will path to outside the windmill. After Dojorn is dead the bladestorms are pushovers. For this to go well, the warrior need to get agro on the extra bladestorm very quickly. Note that sometimes they take a while to come in. Other times they path poorly and will somehow end up on Gorgalusk isle and you won't have to fight one or two of them at all. |
| Alternate Strategy #1 |
Since the bladestorms are easier than Dojorn, you can kill them much quicker especially if you are caster heavy. Kill one or 2 bladestorms having a defensive warrior tank dojorn then try to camp out (hard because of AE). You will eventually kill both bladestorms and be able to deal with a solo efreeti. This tactic is more painful than the dojorn first strategy, but may work better for a force that just can't quite kill Dojorn while fighting both bladestorms. |
| Alternate Strategy #2 |
Pull bladestorm and efreeti to Gorgalusk isle. This can sometimes be very hard/boring to pull off, but it is possible. Be prepared to be patient to pull this off. Start off by pulling the 2 bladestorms to Gorgalusk. A magician using their lowest level bolt spell seems to work best. They stand on the edge closest to Dojorn isle, and try to bolt a Bladestorm as it roams around. The magician should stand still until the bladestorm gets very close. If the magician runs back to group immediately after bolting, the mob might give up on chasing him. Bladestorms seem to always come single this way. A ranger with raincaller may also work. Now you're ready for Dojorn. You need to get a Monk over to Gorgalusk Isle. Hopefully you have a monk and a wizard with all 3 keys to go to Dojorn, Azaracks, then back to Gorg. If not, there are other options available that I'll let you figure out. Have the wizard port the monk back to isle one, then come back. You should have a plan in case the monk dies on Dojorn Isle. Also, the monk will lose buffs after ports. Would be nice if you have a cleric there to buff him. You now have a monk on Dojorn. The monk aggros him and pulls him to the very edge of the island closest to Gorgalusk isle. You should have a couple rangers waiting with raincallers and their best range arrows. If you're lucky, they'll be able to pull Dojorn over to you. Also note, sometimes they get agro and get crazy pathing inside the windmill. If this happens the person who has the agro needs to camp out. |
| What to do when things go bad | If you don't have a cleric, it's easy to port one up again and buy them a key for 400-500pp. Res and repeat. |
| Other notes |
This isle can be and is often skipped. Its difficulty level is approximate to spiroc isle. This is also the isle that you spawn Gwan on for the Monk epic. The essence used to trigger Gwan will respawn 2 hours after doing the quest. Gwan is a cakewalk for any raid that is going to kill Dojorn or Azaracks. People are often confused on how you get off this isle. It has a teleport dish to Azarack isle only. On my raids we do Dojorn isle after Faeries but before Azaracks. |
| Item to turn into for key | Broken Mirror |
| Key name for next isle | Key of Misfortune (seashell) |
| Insertion method | Before going to Azarack isle, everyone but the assist should invis. Note that there are two teleport dishes to Azaracks, one on the first isle, and one on noble Dojorn isle. |
| Where to fight | At port in |
| Pets | Only for boss |
| Camp out cleric | No. whole isle is agro, no safe spot to res |
| Boss | Protector of Sky (Azarack) trigged by killing placeholder |
| Mob notes |
9 Azaracks. All hit for 190 except placeholder that hits for 220. The place holder is the mob that normally just sits a bit clockwise of the port-in spot without moving around. With any luck, the placeholder will sit there until you are ready for him. Immediately following the death of the placeholder, the Protector of Sky will spawn a bit CCW of port in. Close to the port in, but out of agro range. All Azaracks and the Boss proc whirlbolt. Whirlbolt is an irresistible levitate/root/dot. Half are totally resistant to cold spells, the others to fire. After tash, a low 50's enchanter will be able to mez, but expect some resists. Same with slow |
| Recommended force | 5 groups of low 50's, more people can be counterproductive sometimes. A couple good enchanters is a necessity. 3 group of level 55-60 with experience will do this isle easily |
| Strategy |
Everyone insert invis, except primary assist who should be visible. When an azarack attacks, kill it and mez adds. Continue killing. Hopefully you can kill them before you get too many adds. Clerics seem to be especially tasty here and should mem both invulns. Casters can easily nuke them if they are using the right type (cold/fire), and they aren't too bad to slow once they are tashed. If the placeholder does attack you (notice the higher damage), you should try to mez it and kill it last. If you do kill it, and the Protector of sky agros on you, you're probably going to be wiped out. If that does happen your best is to train away the Boss from zone and try to do CR super fast. That last 10 times or so that I have done azarack, the PH has stayed in his spot until we ran over to kill him. Never ever pull until you're just down to 3 or so Azaracks left. Make sure you don't pull the PH (the one who doesn't roam around). The last few roamer you often have to take the fight to them, as they path poorly. After you kill the PH (hopefully the one that just sat over by the side the whole time) and spawn the Protector of Sky, rest up and summon pets to get ready for boss. |
| What to do when things go bad | If you get wiped out here, there's nothing to do but port everybody up, summon corpses, and try again. However if you killed 4 or 5 of them, you might just send one strong group, summon their corpses, have them finish all but the PH, then do CR. Use your best judgment. |
| Other Notes |
Shrinking before going up may reduce agroing additional azaracks. Invis is helpful, but not strictly required. It prevents casters from getting hit at the start, and helps the primary assist easily get a target. |
| Item to turn into for key | Animal Figurine |
| Key name for next isle | Key of Beasts (jester card) |
| Insertion method | Not agro, go on up |
| Where to fight | At dish |
| Pets | OK, but be careful when pulling eyes |
| Camp out cleric | Yes, isle is not agro, easy CR |
| Boss | Gorgalosk - casts stun, fire hits OK on it The main building (Taj Mahal) also contains too mini-bosses, the Heart Harpie and Avenging Gazer. These two have high MR and are harder versions of their roaming cousins. |
| Mob notes | The clouds cast invis on themselves, so keep see invis up at all times. Clouds are very easy, the eyes dispel and are very annoying. The roaming mobs spawn level 54-56 mostly, and the level 56 gorgs and/or harpies enrage. Gusts and clouds are easy to mez. Eyes, gorgs, and spirited harpies are mezzable with dazzle/kintaz (depending on level) after tash (malo/mala/malosini helps). |
| Recommended force | If you cleared Azarack, this should be no problem. 4 low 50's groups should manage just fine. |
| Strategy |
The secret to doing this isle well is all in the pulling. You can normally pull your first mob that roams just by casting from the dish. Expand from there pulling the roaming mobs. I try to leave the dispelling eyes till last. Puller needs to be able to cast to pull roamers. If puller grabs too many (I would say no more than 2 mobs until you get a feel), just let him die. The mobs won't attack unless you help. After roamers are dead you can pull the front 2 clouds from the front of the building. Then you can FD pull the 2 clouds and eye at the back of the building. This leaves the Boss (Gorgalosk) and the 2 mini-bosses in the building. If you hail the boss after it has flown outside the building, it will stay in place so you can isolate it from the other two. If you get both mini-bosses at once, you can probably train one around while killing one. It's very bad to fight both at once because the eye (Avenging Gazer) will dispell all your buffs. The Boss is comparable to the Azarack Boss in difficulty. I have only seen fire spells land on. |
| What to do when things go bad | Just camp in the cleric and res |
| Other Notes |
Just be patient with the pulls All mobs except the boss are slowable. It is possible to get chain agro from the bladestorms if they are up and you pull near the edge by the Dojorn isle. The shimmering meteors only drop globe quest pieces and can be skipped. If you do fight them, fight them inside the building after the isle is cleared. To pull them, simply target one, go into the building and cast on it. They cast a knockback spell that will throw you off the isle, so be sure to keep your back to a wall while fighting them. |
| Item to turn into for key | Bird Whistle |
| Key name for next isle | Avian Key (feather) |
| Insertion method | Not agro, just port up |
| Where to fight | Slightly CW of port in (this would be about 10 or 11 o'clock), if you watch, none of the roaming mobs will come close to you. |
| Pets | Yes |
| Camp out cleric | Yes, camp out invis |
| Boss | Keeper of Souls (triggered spawn, will despawn also, see below) |
| Recommended force | 4 low to mid 50's groups can handle this if you have malo, mala, or Occlusions. Add another group if you are doing defensive tanking of the split. 2 level 55-60 groups with mala/malo can kill horses, but they would need another group to kill keeper safely. |
| Mob notes | There are 3 white horses(pegasi), and 3 brown horses (griffons), all are level 52. White pegasus have low cold resist. Brown griffons have low fire resist. When killed they trigger the spawn of 2 new mobs, see below for more. The final level 56 horses enrage. |
| Strategy |
Have your assist go pull one horse. If he pulls more than one, let him die. Trust me. Let him die. Yes, it is easy to handle, but it's easy to screw up. So I recommend the safe course. It's very easy to just pull one horse though. Kill that horse. It will be very easy. Immediately upon its death it will spawn 2 level 54 horses at its corpse. Casters should be away and not sitting to avoid getting hit. Nobody should be attacking a horse yet. Have a brave enchanter cast tash on one, pulling it away from group. Assist calls to attack the one that is left. A level 60 magician/shaman casts mala/malo on the one the enchanter pulled (see alternate strategies below if you don't have mala/malo). This can now be easily mezzed by a low 50's enchanter. After this is mezzed, try to debuff the level 54 horse that they are currently fighting. When the level 54 horse dies, it will spawn one level 56 horse. This version is a bit tougher and has very high MR. Can be slowed but it is tough. After it dies, wait, med, and heal until ready to kill the mezzed one. Be sure to loot the 4 key pieces that first one you killed dropped. The one you mezzed will spawn another level 56 horse when it dies. For each pull, you kill 5 mobs total. Repeat this process for the 5 other roaming horses. After killing the initial horse, a mob named Ekim Nottap will spawn. ~70 minutes after he spawns, the boss Keeper of Souls will spawn at about 1 o'clock. This mob is agro, and is the first Boss that death touches. This Boss will despawn ~70 minutes after spawning. After clearing all the roaming mobs, engage the boss. It is best to go to the boss, but he can be pulled back to camp spot if there are still a few roamers about. |
| Alternate Strategy |
Have a defensive warrior tank the extra. If he's a beefy tank, he won't get hit too badly. You may have a shaman or magician try to cast the malosini line on this extra while the warrior is tanking it. After tash, you can land this with some difficulty (i.e. most of a mana bar). If you do, it is worth it. Have the warrior back off and mez it if this happens. |
| Alternate Strategy | If you have a level 60 enchanter, they will probably be able to mez ok without Malo/Mala. |
| Alternate Strategy | Tash plus the bard song Occlusions of Sound should be able to allow a magician/shaman to land the malosini line without too much difficulty. After this the extra is easy to mez. I have never tried this (bards are scarce), but I suspect it should work just find. |
| Alternate Strategy | Horses can be pulled to Gorg isle by jumping from down to Gorg from horses. This gains you little and often ends up in your puller dying or falling to freeport. |
| Crazed (Pini) Boss Strategy | Debuffed, the roaming horses make good pets for the Boss or Overseer of Air. Be warned that it will assist if the enchanter dies. If killing the Keeper, and the horse agros on you after Sirran pops, then Sirran will assist it. Hopefully just your enchanter will get killed. After Sirran spawns you should move the charmed mob out of Sirran's agro range. |
| What to do when things go bad | The key thing to remember here is that splits are agro and will camp your corpses. If your cleric is camped out invis, it should be easy to drag a class with invis to safety, res them, and wait for them to drag the rest of the corpses. |
| Other Notes |
All horses are slowable, but the level 56 variety is a bit difficult to get slowed even with malo. Boss excepted of course. If you killed Noble Dojorn, the Overseer of Air spawned here in the windmill. He is covered in next section. I believe he will assist the horses, so don't fight horses next to him. The level 56 spawns of the brown griffons will drop a sphere of swirling color every time (for ranger epic). Getting 6 total when clearing the isle. The Paladin Fiery Avenger quest is done on this isle. No evil PCs should be on horses when this quest is being done or Inte Akera (the quest mob) will kill them. He spawns in the windmill and has an insane agro range. (%%% somebody give me a good link to this quest) The Keeper of Souls now drops the cloak for Necro Epic most of the time, and has dropped 2 on occasion. People always want to know how to spawn the Keeper of Souls twice. I tried this a couple times in late 2000 and early 2001 and never got it to work. The most popular theory is to kill all 3 roamers of one type, wait for keeper and kill. Then kill the roamers of the other type, wait for keeper. But whenever I waited for second keeper it never spawned. |
| The Boss | This is the Efreeti that spawns on horse's isle. He will always spawn dual-wielding 2 FS daggers, so he will always quad attack for 750. I am pretty sure that disarm is useless even if it succeeds. Some times he'll be wielding an efreeti weapon instead of a dagger. He has an irresistible 300pt AE, and Death Touches. |
| Recommended force | 5 groups of low 50's or 4 groups of level 55-60. Doable with less if you're experienced |
| Strategy |
I have everybody summon pets, including enchanters. The AE will agro the enchanter pets onto him. He's really not that hard as he has laughable resists. 32k hp mobs aren't that bad when icecomet lands for full. Get him debuffed and slowed quickly and don't ping pong him and he shouldn't too bad. Be ready for his enrage, that's what kills the most people (/laugh rangers). Your casters can easily do a couple thousand damage apiece. I recommend for melee to have their riposte/dodge disciplines ready to prevent from becoming quad-riposte 750 splatter. Killing the overseer will cause the Hand of Veeshan to spawn on the last isle. If you killed Keeper of Souls with fewer than 6 deaths, he shouldn't be much a problem as long as you approach him right. In a good raid, you will clear all the roaming horses and still be waiting on the Keeper to spawn. So then you can kill Overseer before the Keeper. |
| Item to turn into for key | Noise Maker |
| Key name for next isle | Key of the Swarm (Onyx) |
| Insertion method | Port in is safe, but isle is agro, so don't walk around much |
| Where to fight | Port in is approximately 6 o'clock. The issue here is you need to move CW to avoid agroing the Spiroc Guardian (at 3'o'clock). But if you go too far CW you will agro the Lord on the pull. I recommend fighting at about 8 o'clock. This should at the CCW edge of the low flat area about 9'oclock. |
| Pets | Not until ready for Lord (Boss). Spirocs cast AE which will play hell with pets and mez. |
| Camp out cleric | Yes, preferably invis in case there are still mobs camping the site |
| Boss | Spiroc Lord, DTs, blinds, roots, 667 (I think) irresistible AE |
| Mob notes | 3 level 58 vanquishers, 6 lesser spircos (arbiter, banisher, caller, expulser, walker, revolter), Spiroc Guardian and his little druid pet bear. A very odd behavior here is that the spirocs seem to have VERY low agro ranger here (almost to the point of not being agro), but VERY LARGE call for help (assist) ranger. Example, you can see the lord with agroing him, but if you fight a lesser spiroc there, he will agro on you. |
| Recommended force | 4-5 groups low to mid 50's, the more levels the less painful. If on the low end you may only kill one or two vanquishers the first time before having to camp out. |
| Strategy |
First off, spawns are linked very weirdly here. The lesser spirocs are linked to a vanquisher. One pair per vanquisher. They will respawn unless their associated vanquisher has been killed. The Spiroc Lord will respawn if Spiroc Guardian is still up. The Spiroc Guardian will respawn if any lesser spiroc is alive and NOT AGRO So the goal on the pull is to kill the vanquishers first, because they won't repop. Where you pull to helps a lot. As mentioned above, I recommend pulling to about 8 o'clock, a small jog CW of port in. This should be on the CCW (port-in side) of the low area at about 9 o'clock. I recommend having somebody expendable pull the vanquisher in the house closest to port in - the bird house with the arbiter and banisher running around. A paladin who will hit DA right after he pulls works well. This pull will bring 1-3 vanquishers, 2-6 lesser spirocs, and very likely the spiroc guardian. The assist should pick the first vanquisher he sees and get everybody to kill it. The lesser spirocs are easy for the enchanters to mez. Remember you have no pets because they can play hell with the enchanters trying to mez. Have warriors set up to tank the extra vanquishers and guardian. Get the extra vanquishers and guardians slowed ASAP. Healers who heal early will probably get ganked or need to invuln. After the vanquishers are dead, kill the guardian if it came. It will respawn but not reagro on you. Then kill the lesser spirocs in alphabetic order of their name (but do not kill the last one if the Guardian is not up and you want to camp the Lord). If you are fighting at the port in area, then the repopped Guardian will agro on you if you fighting something there. That's why I don't recommend fighting at port in. If after killing everything a vanquisher is still up, pull it using same tactics. Sometimes it's tricky to pull without getting DTed. Watch the roaming path and pull when they are farthest from the Lord. At this point, you must decide whether you are going to farm the lord. If you are going to farm the lord, go to the next subsection. If you don't want to camp the Lord, then you should kill the Guardian before the Lord. To kill the Guardian you should go back and fight at port in. If lesser spirocs are up when you pull the guardian, have a warrior tank the guardian while killing the lesser spirocs. If you kill the Guardian first, he'll just respawn again and agro on you if there is anything out there which remains unpulled. |
| Camping the Spiroc Lord |
First off, only kill the Guardian if you're sure he'll respawn (I.E. there is at least one lesser spirocs still up). If there is no Guardian, and still a lesser spiroc alive, have everyone camp out and clear agro. When the spiroc loses agro, the Guardian will spawn. If you killed all the little spirocs, then bye-bye lord camp - no more Guardian - the Lord will not respawn. The idea is to kill everything on the isle except the Lord and guardian, then kill Spiroc Lord ad nauseam. If all the vanquishers are dead, and a lesser spiroc or two is still up, it's often easiest to just pull the Lord. I recommend putting a single tank on it, and have all your casters nuke the hell out of it. Just make sure it dies before the lord. Alternatively, have a ranger or someone pull the little spirocs that come to help the lord away and mez them. Just be sure that Sirran doesn't spawn near them and you're well away from the Lord. After Lord is dead you can kill them at your leisure. If you do this, be sure to fight a bit more clockwise closer by the lord to ensure that you don't agro the guardian and lord at same time. Remember the lord will respawn right away. So you need to pull the Lord away from where he spawns. Remember that Sirran will spawn, and he will assist the next time you try to kill the lord if he's too close. If Sirran is too close to the lord you might have to pull Sirran away, or wait for him to despawn. This becomes a geometry puzzle of where to pull Lord to so you won't agro Sirran, the Guardian, or the Lord right when it repops. :) |
| Untried Strategies |
A level 60 enchanter should be able to dictate one of the vanquishers on the initial pull, this would help a lot. |
| What to do when things go bad | Cleric should be camped invis. If spirocs are camping your corpses train them away. |
| Other Notes |
All mobs on this isle are slowable except the Lord. There should NEVER be more than one puller out. If the Lord DTs and you have more than one puller out, you can pull the lord plus the rest of the island on you before you are ready and this not good. Most spirocs here have druid/ranger damage shields. I recommend wizards/druids/necros (other classes are more busy) dispell the main target first thing. Try not to dispell slow :) In my experience the Wingblade drop is about 1/3 of the time. I have seen dry stretch of 8 in a row, and I've seen him drop it 3 out of 4. |
| Item to turn into for key | Dull dragon scale |
| Key name for next isle | Key of Scale (Saphire) |
| Insertion method | Go up invis, port in is agro. After zoning in head around CCW and go behind the gears to the dish. The area near the dish is safe. If you agro anything, head back to where you ported in and die. |
| Where to fight | Normally at the dish. |
| Pets | Yes, be careful |
| Camp out cleric | Yes, make sure he's camped invis, you'll need him |
| Boss | Bazzt Zzzt. Hit's very hard, ~800. Has an AE effect disease spell |
| Mob notes | 3 level 50 Bzzazzt at start. Splits covered below. Everything on this isle is agro. All mobs on this isle cast deadly poison. A poison resist in the low 100's is pretty good if you're 55+. |
| Recommended force | 6-7 groups hopefully more mid 50's than low 50's. 5 groups 55-60 would be ideal. |
| Strategy |
First off, make sure everybody knows that the Bzzazzt's ARE agro, although you are ok in the safe spot. Then plan to be trained by somebody whose curiosity gets the best of them. Let everybody know if you get trained, NOBODY should attack anything, this is a sure plan for a even bigger wipeout. Anybody who can do non-damage taunt (ranger, druid, sk, etc), should try to taunt one and train it away, enchanters may try to mez, and anybody else should try to camp. Being trained by the bees sucks bad enough, being unprepared can cause all out disaster. Next, get inserted. I recommend a cleric and inviser be the last folks up in case somebody trains and wipeouts. Or get the camped out cleric up and invis early then you'll be safe. I will refer to 3 bzzazzt as "left bee", "middle bee", and "right bee". The directions are based as if you were looking from the dish behind the gears. Bzzazzt is HARD. For the average EQ player, I don't know quite how to describe it. I would say comparable to Sev in EJ, but easier to screw up. Harder than Lord D in velks. In some ways harder, and in some ways easier than doing HoT in ToV. 30 level 55-60 people will do OK if they know what they're doing. I'd recommend 36+ people if you don't have a few high warriors. Expect as many deaths here as you have had on all the isles before this. Expect a wipeout or 3. Have your CR plan ready. Bzzazzt is HARD.
The 3 level 50 bees are pretty easy. They are mezzable with some effort after tash, easy after malo is on them. They hit for almost 400 damage, but they're only level 50 mobs so they're not that bad. Problem is they split on their death, each in a different way. The middle bee is the one that will eventually split into the boss. I've never been able to single pull them. We always get all of those that are up. So expect to get all 3 when you pull.
Did you hear Bzzazzt was hard? Have your CR plan ready There are several ways to approach this. What I recommend is kill left bee and subsequent spawns, then camp out to clear agro. Then kill right bee and splits while keeping middle one mezzed. Then you can keep middle one mezzed until you're ready for the real action. I considers the left bee splits slightly harder than right bee, but the left splits are easier to manage in some ways. Doesn't really matter which you do first. If you have balls, there are some other options. Either kill the middle (and boss) first or second, and use one or two charmed bzzazzts as pets. If you don't quite have the strength for the boss, this could save the day (or ruin it). If you have a couple enchanters on the ball supplied with wands of allure (3 charges of level 49 charm, instant cast, drops from Worry Wraiths in Fear), then you may want to try this. If you do this, then you will need to keep Sirran hailed and away from the fights if you want the 16 keys from the 2 remaining Bzzazzt. I have used one bzzazzt pet to kill boss twice. Both times the boss died. Once worked sweet, once the Bzzazzt lost charm at the end and Sirran wiped the whole raid out. We were able to recover from the wipeout just fine though (/cheer camped out invis cleric). I generally don't recommend this approach if you have the manpower to kill him normal.
Did you hear Bzzazzt Isle is hard? Have your CR plan ready. LEFT BEEThis one has a split setup very similar to the horses you fought earlier. After you kill it, it splits into 2 level 55 Bazzzazzt's. Nobody should be sitting around the time this splits, or they will ping pong around hitting the sitting people. Bazzzazzt are slowable and spells land ok after debuffs. I recommend having a warrior with defensive tank the extra. Shouldn't be too bad if you get it slowed fast. Enchanters can mez these with the level 54 spell Glamour of Kintaz. But that mez will suck their mana fast. If a warrior can get agro fast on the extra you should do well. If you ping pong this around, it might kill several folks before the warrior gets agro. After you kill the first level 55 Bazzzazzt it will spawn a level 57 Bizazzt. This one hits very hard (~700) and has extremely high resists. Don't expect to get it slowed. This one will enrage. Pet users don't let your pet die to enrage, it still needs to help kill 2 more mean mobs. After you kill this, kill the level 55 Bazzzazzt that the warrior has been tanking, and the level 57 Bizazzt that then spawns. This is a hard fight, it's not uncommon to be wiped out or lose half your forces on it. If you succeed, then things look good for the final boss fight. If you do win the fight, you are now left with 2 mezzed bzzazzt (or if your enchanters all died and you have a couple folks training them around). Don't attack these. You should camp out to clear agro. Because they are both annoying to keep mezzed and you probably don't know which is which now. Leave somebody to train them away after everybody is camped out. They return back to their spawn points once they lose agro and snare wears off. If it looks like things are going to fail, train stuff away to the opposite side of the isle. The splits have no home spot and will stay camping the corpse of whomever they killed last. The names of the bees can be confusing. A general rule of thumb is to attack whatever is on the top of your tracking list (most recent spawn). Did you hear Bzzazzt Isle is hard? Have your CR plan ready. RIGHT BEE (common split - 3 level 55 Bazzzazzt)First off, the right bee has a bit of an identity crisis. It splits two different ways. This way is the common way, the other way is described below. When you kill the right Bzzazzt, 3 level 55 Bazzzazzt will spawn. These are the same as the 2 that were part of the left split, but after you kill them, nothing new spawns. Just decide whether you're going to tank the two extra or try to mez one or both them (Glamor of Kintaz). Dictate would probably also work well also. I recommend tanking the extras, because it's easy and will work better if you get the uncommon spawn. You should be able to drop the first one quick with nukage. Just remember that you are keeping the middle Bzzazzt mezzed through all of this. I consider this easier than the left bee split, but because it is 3 mobs initially versus 2 from the left split, and the possibility of the alternate split (below), I recommend doing the left bee split first. If you killed the left bee before this, then you are down to just the middle Bzzazzt left. You can keep it mezzed until you are ready to kill it. Laugh at your enchanter when tash and malosini wear off and they are unable to mez it, but do not kill it. RIGHT BEE (uncommon split - 2 (Bzizzzt?) that hit for 1000+ but low hp)I've only see this once out of a half dozen or so Bzzazzt clearings. Frankly, I don't recall what these are called. But if you only see 2 new spawns on track, and your tanks are dying fast, this is probably why. These hit very hard but have very low hp. What you have to be worried about is your assist dying (2 mobs doubling for 1k can do that quick), and all your tanks sitting around banging their assist key to no avail. If you get this split, I recommend just shouting "Attack %t NUKE HARD, attack %t" As long as they're not attacking mezzed Bzzazzt, you should do OK. Did you hear Bzzazzt Isle is hard? Have your CR plan ready. MIDDLE BEE (yes this is the boss eventually)The spawn setup for the middle bee is:
The good thing is you never fight more than one at a time in this fight. The bad news is that Bzzt is tougher than any of the previous bosses, and Bazzt Zzzt the boss is rougher. The queen bitch Bazzt Zzzt does a large area effect disease spell (soandso's flesh begins to rot), so have your disease gear and buffs up when you're going to fight her. Resist disease 120+ should be OK. This is the disease same spell as Fear's old Dracoliche before they buffed him and Cazic into Velious class mobs. This spell isn't a major part of the fight, but it will kill pets and stick on low level folks without resist gear. For this fight, I recommend fighting in the middle of the isle, on the other side of the gears. The reason for this is that you have to have a VERY strong group to kill all 4 successive spawns in one fell swoop. This way if you do camp out, the dish area will be clear for CR. The Bzzt before the boss is very tough. It's very easy to lose tanks to this mob because it hits so hard. After killing him, if you didn't lose very many tanks, and your clerics still have their mana, go ahead and kill the boss. Ideally you want to get this guy agro on your best warrior and have him go defensive disc. For most new crews though, once you spawn Bazzt Zzzt, I recommend camping out. Drag and res the dead, and attack the boss fresh. Remember that after you spawn the boss, it will despawn in ~70 minutes. Remind everybody to save disciplines for this fight. I recommend people have their riposte/dodge disciplines ready, so that melee damage will not kill them. It is possible to kill all 4 spawn one long fight, but I recommend waiting until you've done it once the cautious way to get a feel for the difficulty. Remember that you need disease resist in addition or poison for the Boss. After you kill Bazzt Zzzt boss, Sirran will spawn. It's VERY important if you want to kill the Eye and Hand of Veeshan to spawn the sister of the spire. Did you hear Bzzazzt Isle is hard? Have your CR plan ready. Narris (Sirran), sister of the spire, and farming keys for last isle.After killing the Bazzt bitch boss. Sirran will spawn speaking backwards. This version of Sirran is there to spawn the sister of the spire (the boss of the next isle). Without spawning the sister, you will be stuck on drake isle and unable to proceed to the next isle. To spawn the sister, you must tell Sirran "llaw eht htiw eno ma I" which is "I am one with the wall" backwards. Other similar phrases also work. Drake isle normally just provides around 24 keys to the final isle of Veeshan. But, the sister drops 2 key pieces each time. You can trigger the sister as many times as you want, and get keys for everybody in your raid. To do this, one person must remain behind on Bzzazzt isle when everybody else goes up to drake isle. They need to "/say citanul eht narris liah" (Hail Sirran the Lunatic, backwards) every minute or so to keep him from despawning. If you say the correct phrase he will reply back something backwards. After the raid on drake isle kills the sister, the person entertaining Sirran should immediately tell him "llaw eht htiw eno ma I" to spawn a new sister. You may be tempted to not have the sister up for a while for various reasons. However, I suggest ALWAYS spawn the sister IMMEDIATELY after a sister is killed. The reason for this is if Sirran by some chance despawns (person with him went LD, fell asleep, etc), and no Sister is up. Then you are stuck on drake isle and unable to proceed to kill the Eye and Hand of Veeshan. If Sirran despawns and the Sister is up, you will still be able to get quite a few keys and hopefully will have enough people to kill the eye and the hand. When you are ready to stop farming the sister, you should spawn the last Sister, but do not kill it until Sirran on Bzzazzt to despawns. After he has despawned you can kill the Sister which cause Sirran to spawn on Drake isle and you will be able to get your keys to Veeshan Isle. I have never seen the Sister despawn, and have seen her up for at least 24 hours. |
| What to do when things go bad | You have the cleric camped invis right? I sure hope so. If splits are camping the dish, you can probably go to one side or another and be able to res safely. Just try to get as far from them as possible. If they do agro on you, be sure to train them away. |
| Other Notes |
Don't forget the train mez method, a la fear. Especially if they are snared this works quite well. Fear Grunties the ranger enchanter. A case can be made for rushing the bees instead of pulling them to the dish. This will keep the dish area clear for CR. Whatever you do, be sure that you have planned for CR. There is normally some very hairy action on this isle, which can make keys rot. Remember each Bzzazzt drops 8 dull dragon scales for keys and will rot in 8 minutes. Make sure clerics and necros get them first and that they don't rot. |
| Item to turn into for key | Replica of the Wurm Queen |
| Key name for next isle | Key of Veeshan |
| Insertion method | port up not agro, just go up |
| Where to fight | low area a bit CCW of port in, stay a good ways away from edge so people don't get Gravity fluxed off |
| Pets | yes, not much mezzable here. |
| Camp out cleric | yes, doesn't need invis, be sure to get the camped out cleric a key to next isle. |
| Boss | Sister of the Spire (triggered by speaking with Sirran on Bzzazzt isle) |
| Mob notes | Lots of roaming drakes, 8 sphinxes around building (DTing enchanters), 8 undine spirits (level 53 cleric wisps) |
| Recommended force | 4 groups of mid 50's. A group or two less than required for Bzzazzt |
| Strategy |
Congratulations, the worse of sky is now behind you, and you have a nice coast to the top ahead of you. Don't get too complacent though. You can still get wiped out here, but it shouldn't be too hard to avoid and CR is easy. First off, two areas of this isle are agro with DTing mobs. Inside the building the Sister of the Spire has a small agro radius. If you get near the dish, near the last isle where the hand and eye of Veeshan are, then the Hand will DT you. The rest of the isle is not agro though. I've always fought in the low area near the edge a bit CCW of where you port in. No good reason for this, but it works. Don't fight too close to the edge, because you can be gravity fluxed off by the drakes. Start by pulling the roaming drakes. The only drakes that you will be able to cast on are the black ones (Heartsbane Drakes), all the rest are lure only, or nearly lure only. Drakes are not mezzable. Pathing is horrid, expect a few large pulls at the start. Beware of bad pathers agroing a hoard and coming in when you don't expect. As a general rule of thumb, let the puller die if they get more than 4 or 5. Assign a few tanks to tank/kite extras. If the puller watches the pattern well, he should do OK. The puller needs to baby them in. I recommend paladin or SK for puller. The last couple drakes will be pretty hard to pull. Use Pini's enchanter trick and bindsight it in order to keep an eye for when it gets close to the isle, and then tash to pull it in. After all the easily pullable drakes are dead, move up closer to the building. Close to it, but well out of assist range of the closest Sphinx. Sphinxes are easy to pull solo. Just have somebody take the DT and have a warrior pull. Be sure to dispel them since they are enchanters. If you can have the person taking the DT agro with dispel, that would be wonderful. Should only get about 2 deaths per Sphinx, the initial DT and one second DT. These have manageable resists, can be slowed and nuked. When pulling the ones near building stay on the far edge so that you don't agro the sister. If you have trouble pulling the ones towards the back, just wait until you're done camping the sister to kill them. Now I recommend camping the Sister until you have keys pieces for everyone. Kill her in the same spot you pulled the Sphinxes to, at the bottom of the ramp. Have paladins or necros invuln pull after someone takes the initial DT. She has an irresistible AE for 1000 damage, but doesn't hit very hard. Should be very easy to kill with just 3 or so deathtouches. Each time she will drop 2 replicas for keys. In additions she will drop a nice rare quest item, and 2 "common" loot items. So in addition to camping for keys she's nice to camp for loot. After everybody has a Wurm Replica, get everyone keys by letting the Sirran despawn on Bzzazzt, killing sister, then getting your keys. Take a break and let Sirran despawn. You'll want the whole island clear to kill the spirits. After Sirran has despawned, it's time to kill the undine spirits (clean up any Sphinxes you left first). Move everybody to one side of the island. Assign a couple people to train spirits, and somebody to pull off of them. I compare this pull strategy to the Fear temple pull. You'll want a lot of free room to train them around well out of CH range of the rest of the group fighting. Pullers/trainers need sow and high MR. They are clerics and dispell on occasion so keep that in mind (hide sow and MR at the bottom of list). They aren't too hard to mez. Just remember to nuke/stun at end so they don't CH. The wisps live in the attic of the building, and are a bit hard to see. VERY IMPORTANT - dead wisps look just like live wisps. Be sure to loot all the corpse. As everybody should have turned in their replicas for keys earlier, so you don't need to save these, can just loot and destroy replicas to clean up the corpse. Spirits really aren't that hard as long as you have an enchanter on the ball. It's pretty easy to handle 3 or 4 at once, just all 8 can get nasty with them CHing each other. Nothing should be left on this isle now. |
| What to do when things go bad | Log that cleric in and res. |
| Other Notes |
Make sure the camped out cleric gets replica AND turns it in to key for possible CR on Veeshan isle. In my experience this isle normally drops 1-3 crowns of elemental mastery for the mage epic. They can drop off any of the mobs on this isle. This is random though, and I have heard of none dropping. For a small sample of 3 trips, I have seen 2 drop once, 3 drop once, and 2 drop on clearing all but the spirits. Don't let the person keeping Sirran around on Bzzazzt fall asleep. That will end your sister farming. |
| Item to turn into for key | N/A last isle |
| Key name for next isle | N/A last isle |
| Insertion method | If hand is up, you need to invis everybody, and go up and behind the windmill (as far from the eye as possible). If hand is not up, you can just go because the eye is not agro(but will assist the Hand). |
| Where to fight | Behind the windmill, as far away from the eye as possible |
| Pets | sure if you have time to summon them. |
| Camp out cleric | he's on drake isle with a key |
| Boss | Hand and Eye of veeshan. Both DT. Hand is Agro, Eye is not. |
| Recommended force | 4 groups will handle just the eye easy If the hand is up, I recommend a group that was able to completely kill the middle Bzzazzt spawn including boss in one sitting(5-6 groups level 55+) |
| Strategy |
If the hand is not up, it easy, just go up, and kill the eye whenever you are ready. The eye is a pushover, comparable to the sister. The hand double for 865, procs a 500 dd, and AEs for 200 - one mean bastard. Both are lure only of course. I am 99% sure the Hand of Veeshan will DT you anywhere on this isle. Thus there are no safe spots to summon to if the Hand is up Before you go up, might not hurt for a necro to have a 3 hour corpse on Drakes in case of total wipeout. Thus the cleric on Drake isle could res him up to there. But you'd still have to port everybody back to sky to summon corpses. The idea here is that everybody has keys, invises, and goes up together all at once to the far end of the isle behind the windmill. If you are the back end of the isle, you can attack the Hand without agroing the eye. If you do somehow agro the eye, as long as you kill the hand, the camped out cleric with key on drakes can come up and res you all, because the eye is not agro. For your first time, I recommend giving all players rune V before going. It is a small cost considering how expensive a wipeout is. Melee should use their appropriate discipline on the eye - something to do extra damage or riposte/dodge disciplines should be ready if the plan on agroing. The hand is VERY mean. Significantly more so than the queen bee. You have been warned. Congratulations, you just got your phat quest pieces and have become one of the few folks to get to the top of sky. |
| What to do when things go bad |
If you kill the hand, the camped out cleric (who got a key right?) can come up safely and res everybody and you can kill the eye of veeshan at your leisure. If you get wiped out and failed to kill hand, you're in a world of hurt. You're going to have to port everyone back up to sky. You then have to decide if you're going to give up on the raid, or summon corpse to drake isle and try again. Either way everybody is going to have to have their corpse summoned. You're going to need to think about this hard - it's going to be a bitch to get everybody into the summon group. You would probably form a group for summon link by summoning somebody's corpse who has all the keys back to the first isle. Have them invis back up to drake isle, invite necro, and pivot group leadership back to somebody on isle one. See the appendixes about Summoning Reinforcements and Recovering From total wipeout for ideas. |
| Other Notes |
Odds are somebody's invis went down and got DTed on drake isle during the rush, remember to have the camped out cleric on drake isle res him. When jumping off, try not to land on any isles or chains on the way down :) |
This strategy has worked on all islands up to and including Drake isle. Also, let's you know what to expect if you're a reinforcement coming up to sky. Necros and classes with bindsight should pay especially good attention to this.
First off, let me describe what I call Pivoting. This is the term I use for changing the group leader of the group. It's very simple, but people often don't understand what or why it's going on.
You have a group of 3 people. Anybody besides the 3 core people might as well disband. The 3 people are:
The group leader may start at lower island and use keys/res to go higher. Or this may be someone who bindsighted to invite somebody on isle 1 as discussed later. This person will invite somebody at the lower level, then he will invite a necro at the higher level. The "pivot target" then targets the necro using one of the function keys F2-F6. In a 3 person group this will probably be F3. The "pivot target" must keep the necro targeted while the group leader disbands the group. After the group disbands, the pivot target invites the necro, and anybody else on the lower isle who needs their corpse summoned.
Also note that the necro should keep the "pivot target" targeted in case something goes wrong. He can invite the pivot target into a group and they can repeat the process.
The basic way that people bring up reinforcements is:
This has a few disadvantages. The wizard might have to suicide, the wizard may poof keys jumping out of sky, and you can only bring up 4 people at a time.
However, the advantage of this method is it is very reliable. The method takes a bit of practice to be able to implements
With this method, any random wizard in Gfay can port up the new people, and no one has to die (except the people being summoned).
Voila, you were able to port up a full group of 6 new arrivals with no 3 hour experience corpses of people already up top. Your wizard didn't have to get a 3hr corpse and worry about losing their keys if they jumped.
Your really have to think about this a bit before it make sense and you don't do anything stupid. So here's a quick homework question. Combine the basic and fancy methods to solve this.
You have a wizard with a 3 hour corpse on Spirocs. You have 5 people waiting in Tox to come up. How does this wizard bring all 5 people with one sky stone?
ASSIST
We normally have a bit of trouble with melee pushing stuff around, especially pushing stuff towards the isle edges - NOT GOOD. You should know by now that all melee attacks (including all classes and pets) push mobs a slight amount each hit. So generally the mob will move in the direction that the majority of the melee are facing. For this reason, my second prime directive to melee is "ALWAYS FIGHT WITH YOUR BACKS TO EDGE" i.e. pushing mobs away from the edge. This is second only to assisting. Of course, getting too far away from the edge can also be a bad thing, but generally this rule holds true.
ASSIST
Be ready for enrage. All mobs 56+ enrage in sky. This includes all bosses, a few roaming mobs on Gorgs, the 3rd version of the horse split, Spiroc Vanquishers and Guardian, most of the high level bees, and all drakes on drake isle. I have seen raids fail when enrage killed most of the remaining tanks.
ASSIST
Generally be smart. Know what stuff you should be attacking. Also, just because somebody is hitting on a mob, doesn't mean you should be too - it might be the warrior tanking an extra that you don't want to kill. Listen for the assist. Know when it's safe to attack/taunt that mob attacking your cleric, and when you shouldn't because the enchanter is trying to mez it. This isn't fear/hate where you just sit and hit assist all day, it requires more tactics.
Oh yeah, remember to ASSIST
You're going to camp out eventually, make sure your raid knows when it's a possibility and how to handle it.
There are lots of ways to do camp outs. Lots of ways will work, just make sure your raid knows what you're doing. Nothing sucks worse than a small stream of people coming back in to be killed, keeping the mobs there.
First, make sure your monks, necros, and SKs know that when camp out is called, they should feign death instead. Once it's clear for everybody to come back, they should /quit out to be safe. Sometimes a FD necro with an essence emerald can make a painful CR easy.
I do what I call the AFK method campout. This means that everybody logs a secondary, and gives me a tell occasionally. I will set my AFK message accordingly. Hopefully I have invised before I camped out so I can come back in and scout to give the all clear. If I die, then I will depend on the monks or necros to scout. If none of the monks or necros FD, then I will tell a non-essential class to come back and check. Once it's clear I set my AFK message accordingly.
If train away on campout is needed, make sure people know to do it. This especially important on splits that camp your corpses on Horses and Bzzazzt isles.
A typical problem is after you camp out, the mobs will camp the scene, especially if they were snared. You'll need one of your scouts to train them away. They should be prepared to die, but if they're sharp they might be able to make it. I saw one necro (Junobil) pull two bzzazzt away from the dish, FD, then pop up and use his Circlet of Shadow to insta-invis himself and walk back to the group.
Once again, just make sure your raid is informed of your method before the situation arises. Trying to educated people while everybody is dying doesn't work that well.
It happens sometimes: everybody that can res is dead. You either don't have a camped out cleric, or he died somehow. Luckily, you should be able to get a cleric back up there in 30 minutes or less. The key is being prepared and knowing what to do. This can be the difference turning a 1 hour+ CR down to just 15 minutes. One useful note is that I have never witnessed any mob in sky see through invis.
First off, you need to locate a sky stone, and a few small coffins. You put these on a mule, right?
Second, put together your emergency CR group. This should be:
This group ports up. The necro should summon the first cleric (if all goes well this is the only summon that you do). The cleric should be sure to loot all the keys, but should leave an item on his corpse. Ideally he'll wait for res until after CR is well under way up at the island you died (by summoning the corpse up to there). This will get your CR going that much faster.
Quickly buff the cleric up with hp buffs, clarity and sow. A rune from the enchanter won't hurt either. The cleric then prepares to run the gauntlet back your isle. When he is ready invis him. The three islands that are agro are Azaracks, Spiroc, and Bzzazzt. Before going to Azarack, he should have his key to get him to the next isle ready (ditto for Spirocs). Nothing sucks worse than trying to find your key with several azaracks beating on you. Invuln + sow should work ok on azaracks if invis goes.
Hopefully your cleric makes it up and starts ressings folks. If he fails then you can start with the backup cleric, or res the first cleric's corpse which is still sitting on the first isle.
Also, beware when going through Spiroc Isle that if invis fails, you'll get DTed by the lord. I recommend the clerics have a few invis potions in case their invis wears off partway up.
If you are well organized for this, your raiders won't even realize you didn't have a cleric camped out. If you are not prepared for this, then it can take a long time to do CR and people will get frustrated and leave your raid.
Standard raid practices normally apply in sky. Here is some sky specific advice, and a bit of emphasis on standard raid advice.
