Initially would like to say hi to everyone. :)

I've been reading this board for a while now, and have picked up loads of sound advice, and am thankful that people are prepared to share this with the rest of us!
I was stuck at 52 for ages, then through reading these boards I discovered the Stalkers in PoN and haven't looked back!

Before i start waffling however, I'll jump straight to my point.
I'm in a rapidly growing guild of 250 members including alts, and we know have about 18-25 members on most nights who are in the 50-60 level range.
We have not started any real raids yet, but have managed to take out Phinny and Faydedar (please dont laugh :p ).
As far as gear goes most of us are equipped through bazaar purchases or camps (for example im kitted out in Elysian gear at the moment).
I seem to be the one who organises events, and just haven't got a clue where to start. I'd like us to start raiding properly, and moving into the Planes and up the tiers (albeit very slowly), and would like some advice from you good people where's best to start.
I've had initial thoughts of doing Lodizal, but now know he can be solo'd by any druid 59 or over with enough AA's, and skill. I've also thought about going for VS, but don't believe we have enough DPS to take him down yet, as our highest Tank is still only 55.
All suggestions will be more than welcome.

*edit for spelling*

I think it is safe to believe no one here will laugh at you for saying you have killed Phinny and Faydedar. We all had to do it at one time or another.

With mostly mid 50's toons available, I would start by assessing your strenghts.

1. # of clerics
2. # of enchanters
3. # of shaman
4. # of hours you can expect people to continously play

Obviously, you will need monks to pull, Warriors to tank the badies so on so forth.

If you post that kind of information, perhaps we could help you with some reasonable Raid style targets.

:)

I think having a raid force in the 55-60 range is a great time to start.

I'm sure you've thought about level appropriateness and relative ease of CR. I don't know what your collective experiences at raiding are, but I'm assuming you'll need some tuning.

Most of my suggestions are for places you can raid for a couple hours at a time, rather than single mob hits. I think most raiding forces build up by working together that way, rather than starting on more single mob hits.

VELIOUS:

In Velious, I suggest you think about starting with Kael raids, in the Arena and Plate cycle. Pro's: no big AEs to deal with, reasonably easy to get in and out, for latecomers to join, CRs not horrible. I'm not sure how the upgrade level would be for your crew; however, I'm willing to believe that some would be able to use the gear. You'll have to have good Coldain faction to finish questing the armor drops, pretty much.

IF/When Kael is reasonably easy, then you have a choice to make: pro-dragon (Claws of Veeshan) or pro-giant (Kromzek).

Even though you will have messed up your giant faction a bit hunting in Kael, I think there's some good reason to think seriously about going pro-giant.

Some things to think about: are the Halls of Testing (HoT) or West Wing in the Temple of Veeshan hunted a lot on your server, or relatively empty?

On my server, when my then guild made the decision, HoT was always busy, and WW wasn't. We went to the West Wing and were able to go almost any time we wanted without interfering with anyone. (Just in case you're not aware: in either HoT or WW, pieces drop which must be quested in Skyshrine [HoT] or Kael [WW], so you need ally faction with the appropriate quest mobs to do the quests [Claws of Veeshan in Skyshrine, or Kromzek in Kael]. You gain CoV faction mostly by killing Kromzek giants in Kael. You gain Kromzek faction by killing Velious dragons almost anywhere [Skyshrine, Western Wastes, and much of ToV].)

The other advantages I see to West Wing are: 1) You're always building the faction your people need to complete the armor while you're raiding. 2) You can have a cleric bot with good CoV faction run in to rez in if you have a wipe. 3) You can practice for the AE stuffs with the easier dragons in the Western Wastes, and get nice neck pieces for your people. 4) You can hunt other Velious dragons, like Kelorek-Dar.

The advantage to HoT is that there are more other quests available AND you can run to ToV much more safely, in general.

Most guilds try to get everyone pretty much on the same faction at first; at some point, most guilds kill both Dragon and Giant bosses, and many also begin killing the Dain. You'll make that decision when you're ready, of course. Until then, keeping good Coldain and Dain factions allows your people to work on the Coldain ring and shawl quests, which are GREAT fun, and a good way to give your raiding force a really fun time. (I think the Ring war is the best event I've experienced in EQ.)

For either Western Wastes, HoT, or WW-ToV, you'll want to have some level requirements and get folks to put together resist gear. (I'd think 52 for any of the areas should be minimum, but your experiences may vary. It can take a LOT of healer mana to keep someone up without decent resists, and level adds a lot to resists. At the same time, no one wants to leave friends behind!)

LUCLIN

While you're working on these mobs, you can also start raiding some Luclin mobs, especially Rumblecrush and err, well, the other UP mob (gosh, I can't remember).

KUNARK

I wouldn't think Fear or Hate are good starting points, and they may not have gear which upgrades what you can buy in the Bazaar or get in LDoN. But they're really tough, fun zones, and worth going in once your raiding force has good /assist discipline and such. (CRs in either zone can be a real pain, but you can often find help these days).

Finally, if you've done Faydedar, you should start looking for other Kunark dragons, though they seem to die pretty fast overall. Killing Kunark dragons will help your melees get better haste (if you're lucky). It can help dps a lot.

If you have folks working on epics (cleric epic, especially), you will want to put together raid groups for those areas; depending on level/equip, these should be do-able and fun. The old Plane of Air is a BLAST when it goes well, for example.

(I think Lodizal would probably be too much of a hassle, since he's probably not up long, and camping a whole bunch of people in that zone seems unlikely to be way fun.)

Good luck!

Raiding can be TONS of fun, especially when you get everyone working together well.

A good first test would be Trak in Sebilis. He can be a nasty little bugger sometimes, but is a cakewalk for more organized guilds with some PoP gear. He would probably be a good test. Keep an eye on when he is up or if there are some bards that need him for their epic. The breastplates he drops should be pretty nice gear for some of your people.

Also, you may want to do some exploring or gear gathering raids before smacking bigger mobs. Slaughtering things in Umbral Plains or Akheva could help the raid learn to always assist the MT. Kael at the arena is a good place to test this out as well and get some armor drops.

The next 'bigger' mobs I would suggest are Vindi and the clockwork dragon in Plane of Innovation. However, you'll probably need a CH rotation for that, so you'll need to work on that with your guild.

Those should be good starting points. :)

Thanks Suda. I know you won't laugh really, i just feel quite in awe on these forums with people frequently discussing the high end game.

As for our numbers, off the top of my head here's basically what we got :

3 Clerics between 55 and 61.
1 Shammy who's currently at 55.
2 Encs, one at 60 (very popular :)), the other at 55.
2 warriors in their 50's - but more up and coming.

As for the rest we seem to be very bard, druid, B/Lord and pally heavy. We have a shortage of warriors, necro's and sk's in that level range. As for the other classes we have one or 2 of each at least in their 50's.

As for time, if i give enough notice I can squeeze 3 to 4 hours out of people before they start dispersing.

Hope this helps paint a better picture.

edit *p.s. currently at work - so didnt see the other 2 posts. Will reply soon.*

We started by posting up a tier list and picking goals off that list one at a time. Once we killed the particular goal we would check it off the list and look at the next goal.

When looking at the next goal, you need to do a lot of research. We pick our next target and start a strat thread. Under that thread people post their experience with the mob (maybe from raiding with another guild), hints they find across the different EQ sites, possible healing strats, positioning, methods of pulling, etc. Once we make our first attempt, we go back to that thread, write up our notes and refine the strat based on what worked for us and what didn't.

Things to keep in mind are what kind of hitpoints your tanks need to take down a certain mob. For example, most would shoot for a 7-8k hp tank before attempting AoW. Leading up to your first attempt at AoW you would look around for smaller scale raids you can do that will yield loot to increase the hp of your tanks.

Anyway, here's the list we keep. Not everyone agrees with some placement of mobs in certain tiers, but it's a general idea

Tier 1
xTrakanon
xInnoruuk

Tier 2
xVelketor the Sorceror
xZlandicar
xRhag`Mozdeth & Rhag`Zhezum

Tier 3
xOverlord Banord Paffa (CoD)
xKlandicar
xDain Frostreaver IV
xIkatiar and Eashen
xLenindara the Keeper
xThought Horror Overfiend
xStatue of Rallos Zek
Dozekar the Cursed

Tier 4
xThe Itraer Vius
xGrieg Venificus
Glyphed Serpent & Vyzh`Dra the Exiled
xXanamech Nexmirthafen (PoI)
xLord Yelinak
xKing Tormax
xCazic Thule

Tier 5
xTunare
xTemple Veeshan "North" (Aaryonar and beyond)
xXerkizh the Creator
xGrummus (PoD)
xHigh Priest Ultor Szanvor (CoD)
xAerin'Dar (PoV)
xManaetic Behemoth (PoI)
xTerris Thule (PoNb)


Tier 6
xBurrower Parasite
xShei Vinitras
xIdol of Rallos Zek & Avatar of War

Tier 7
xArch Lich Rhag`Zhadune
xHigh Priest of Ssraeshza
Vyzh`Dra The Cursed
Vulak'Aerr ring
xVallon Zek (PoTactics)
xTallon Zek (PoTactics)


Tier 8
xBlood and Emperor Ssraeshza
xLord Inquisitor Seru
xVex Thal
xSaryrn (PoTorment)
xAgnarr
xMithaniel Marr

Tier 9
Solusek Ro
xRallos Zek


x=we've killed it

Tons of good information here from everyone. I think Aquila Swiftspirit nailed it with the Velious, Kael and ToV raids, and Velious dragons. The Kunark dragons could be very good for you.

Rumblecrush and Doomshade both require a CCH chain of 5 or more Cleric/58+druid generally speaking. you might want to wait on them until your tank has 6-7k hps buffed. But Umbral planes has some nice mobs, and nice drops for a farming guild, Camp the IZ side of the tunnel and pull like crazy. Set your druids free :D

Yeah, the Kael and ToV faction armor raids would suit you, and potentially offer armor upgrades for everyone. Maybe you should look into starting there?

p.s. my old guild slaughtered what ever was moving :D

This is the tier that our server uses, I find it to be pretty accurate in terms of order of difficulty. You can use it as a reference as to the strength of your guild and try to master these targets one by one.

Tier 1 mobs are good to for clerics to practice the basic cch chain, and to figure out cch timing. Once clerics are familiar with cch, move on to tier 2. I find that Rhag`Mozdeth and Rhag`Zhezum are very useful for the entire raid to practice and learn how to establish main tank and rampage tank aggro since they are both perma-rooted. Move on to Derakor the Vindicator since he doesn't AE, if u can kill him repeatedly without wipes then move on to Zlandicar, Velketor and Paffa.

Tier 1
Venril Sathir
Trakanon
The Va`Dyn

Tier 2
Zlandicar
Velketor the Sorceror
Rhag`Mozdeth & Rhag`Zhezum
Derakor the Vindicator
Banord Paffa

Tier 3
Statue of Rallos Zek
Klandicar
Dain Frostreaver IV
Ikatiar and Eashen
Lenindara the Keeper
Dozekar the Cursed
Xanamech Nezmirthafen

Tier 4
Lord Yelinak
The Itraer Vius
Grieg Venificus
Glyphed Serpent & Vyzh`Dra the Exiled
King Tormax
Cazic Thule
Thought Horror Overfiend

Tier 5
Tunare
Temple Veeshan "North" (Aaryonar and beyond minus the "Ring of Vulak'err")
Xerkizh the Creator
All three Plane of Storm Lords
Vallon Zek

Tier 6
Idol of Rallos Zek & Avatar of War
Burrower Parasite
Arch Lich Rhag`Zhadune
Shei Vinitras
Grummus
Terris Thule

Tier 7
Vyzh`Dra The Cursed
High Priest of Ssraeshza
Aerin Dar
Agnarr the Storm Lord

Tier 8
Emperor Ssraeshza
Manaetic Behemoth
Tallon Zek
Saryrn
Aten Ha Ra
Lord Inquisitor Seru
Ring of Vulak`Err

Tier 9
Lord Mithaniel Marr
Rydda`Dar
Bertoxxulous

Tier 10
Rallos Zek
Solusek Ro

Tier 11
Fennin Ro The Tyrant of Fire
Xegony the Queen of Air
Coirnav the Avatar of Water
The Rathe Council

Great post by Aquila there - a good way to start raiding.

Many many guilds cut their teeth on Kael raids - nice way of equipping members and learning raiding techniques.

I also like City of Mist as a raid zone - many classes need epic pieces from there, and it's probably a little easier than Kael for starting off with. Having a rogue with 200 (I think) lock-pick makes getting in a lot easier.

Check out Old Sebillis as well - take a raid force down to the Juggernaunts area to get spells for your casters, and more valuable raiding experience.

I'd recommend starting with "zone raids" rather than "single target" raids - spend a couple or more hours in the zone, learn to work together as a team - it'll all be useful stuff for the future.

The first "boss mob" that my Guild took was Servitor in Griegs End - we learned how to do CH chains with him, and positioning and aggro management - very very useful :) Rumblecrush is a good target in Umbral, also look into Spirit of Radir and Spirit of Tawro (I think) - we were able to kill them before we started on Rumblecrush. Also in Umbral are Zelnithak and Doomshade.

Won't be long before you're working your way towards Vindi (Derekor the Vindicator in Kael) :)

Above all, have fun - raids can sometimes get stressful when things don't go right - learn to cope with the wipes and the CRs as well as the mindless slaughter of mobs. I always used to think we learned more as a Guild coping when things went wrong than when everything went right.

Hope this all helps :)

Hugs,
Tiniane.

The biggest thing is: are your people willing to die trying stuff?

the biggest hump guilds that are starting to raid need to get over is a willingness to go somewhere, trying something, die, CR, and try again. Don't be discouraged by dying. Rez up and try again. If you only try what you know you can kill, you'll move alot slower then you can.

I also think doing longer raids, especially ones where you can have people leave and join like kael arena are good ways to start.

the target suggetions are really good: Trak, kunark dragons, Vadyn, servitor, Rumble crush and the other UP named, the smaller events in Nightmare, PoS named giants and vindi maybe later, zlandicar, Kael Arena and then ToV East or West. Hedge in PoNightmane... maybe the prototypes in the factory in PoI (might be a little hard)

don't start too fast, but don't be afraid to try stuff =)

This is all great advice, thanks everyone. :)

I will use and post one of those tier's on our guild site and take it from there.

I managed to hit 57 today after a good morning on the Stalkers ( i love that camp), so am only 1 level away from being more useful within a group in relation to healing.

As a guild we have already done a couple of successful raids to CoM on the reavers and into the castle, and had fun in zones like Torigans (but no named), Kedge and Karnor's where we got to VSR and tried naively to take him out without success.
With these raids we used simple Main tank and main puller tactics and got everyone else used to assisting MT. This was goos fun in Torigans where the puller would sometimes bring a couple fo mobs to the raid, with the MT switching target frequently giving us all good practise. It worked well and we spent a fun couple of hours in there without any deaths.

All of the guild are willing to die trying new things - and even before i start a raid i make it perfectly clear that they are likely to die and lose a little xp, but they always seem to tag along :p
My main concern at this time, is i dont want too many wipes during raids as this will discourage people from re-attending.

Guaranteed they are going to happen, but I want to promote raiding as a fun and productive thing and dont want every raid to end up wiped.
With this in mind I may start in Kael. Some of our experienced members have been there and know the zone, and I agree the armor would be nice upgrades. Will get this organised and tell you how i get on.
As from there we have a plethora of options, and will put it to the guild and see where they want to try. UP is a nice zone, but a pain to get back to incase of a wipe. I've been going there a lot recently with a couple of other druids to root rot the Elysians, and we are now both kitted out in the Armarni of druid equipment (just wished the stats reflected the flashy look lol).

Heres to the future :cheers:

Ooh!! ooh!! Togiran's! :P

Very very under-raided mobs. But I bet Overlord and Overseer in Togiran's would be great targets for you as well (mmm, Spiritseeker Nadox in Nadox would probably be pretty good too). They aren't crazy difficult mobs (Overseer has been done with as few as 3 or 4) -- but both have a script associated around them and interestings AEs, so they're fun mobs to beat up.

Alla's has good info on 'em both and the script associated with 'em. Overseer is the easier of them -- Overlord may be a bit out of reach for the moment. He's not bad in terms of melee or AE damage, but he feebleminds, so, RC or remove curse is kind of a necessity.

The better drops off overseer (to tickle your fancy :P -- although honestly he's just a fun mob even if he drops, /shrug, mmm, barbarian blood):

Ring of the Dread Gaze
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
AC: +8 Sta: +10 Wis: +7 Int: +7 Magic Resist: +15 HP: +70 Mana: +70

Supple Black Gloves
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
AC: +13 Cha: +4 Wis: +8 Agi: +8 Disease Resist: +8 Poison Resist: +8 HP: +50 Mana: +50
Classes: Cleric Druid Shaman

Woven Hide Slippers
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
AC: +8 Dex: +9 Cha: +6 Int: +9 Fire Resist: +12 Cold Resist: +12 HP: +45 Mana: +55
Classes: Wizard Magician Enchanter Necromancer

On Quellious they're up far more often than not, I suspect it's that way on most servers.

Originally posted by duralupal
But I bet Overlord and Overseer in Togiran's would be great targets for you as well
The Overlord is incredibly nasty for a level 57 NPC and on par with Trakanon for overall difficulty because of the AEs. If you failed to Venril Sathir's remains, the Overlord will likely wipe the floor with you. The Overseer on the other hand is much too weak to be considered a raid target, unless you are all in the low 50s.

As I said, Overlord is probably beyond them yet due to the AE :P

Overseer is a raid mob for a 50 to 60 guild (small raid) -- the 500 point AE combined with the length of the fight due to slow/snare AE make it so.

And both fun mobs :)

Guess I'll give the rest of the LoY rundown :P

Spiritseeker Nadox in Nadox isn't that tough really (single groups and less do him), but he might be considered a raid target for you yet (hits about 650, mitigates slow). He's straight melee, get the tank on him, let the tank build agro, get him slowed. Probably good practice on agro control actually and keeping agro on MT.

If you have your 'chanters with you broodmother in Nadox could be fun, she's similar to Nadox melee-wise. Script associated with her though, she'll walk around the various rooms agro'ing lots of stuff -- the mobs aren't tough necessarily, but you'd need a good size force there for that level range and some good CC. Oh, she's not targettable until you go through the script. There's actually kind of a cheap way to get her without doing the script but....where's the fun in that? (Broodmother does still spawn btw, she wasn't completely taken out of the game).

Inny-Nadox. Mmm, well beyond you yet gotta think :(

Captain in Hate's Fury -- don't even think about considering spending time to ponder the question of getting all the damn quest items to spawn him. Man I hate that drunk buccanneer.

Just on a side note, you should be able to do VSR just fine, I'd guess that losing to him was more an expression of just not being used to raiding together yet.

It sounds like you've already started on epics if you're taking out Faydedar, but I'd recommend getting familiar with all the epic boss mobs. 3-4 groups should be plenty for even the toughest epic encounters, and you'll end up with a very nice piece of gear. Get all your monks, rogues and rangers their epics, and you'll dramatically increase the damage output of your meleers. The bard epic is wonderful, but you'll need to put together 3+ groups of 52 and under to take out Vox.

Kael raids are a good source of gear as well. You might also consider sending groups to Dragon Necropolis and Siren's Grotto to collect some of the rarer quest gems, instead of purchasing them in the bazaar.

Chardok B has some very nice drops: a FT2 neckpiece, an IH4 cloak, 15sta 40 hp boots; all off of rabid chokidai which can spawn at any skeleton / undead chokidai spawn point. Running down to Chardok B is trivial if you know the way, but for folks unfamiliar with the zone it can be a painful, even deadly experience. CR difficulty, again, depends on how knowledgeable folks are.

As mentioned above, Kunark dragons, early Luclin stuff, and PoP all make good raid content for 55-60. Good luck!

Our guild is a "family" guild that raids (sub elemental). The way we got started was to have an "epic night" once a week. Most epics have mobs which would be raid level for the level of your guild and it is a good way to get people used to raiding and appreciative of the benefits of doing things together rather than exp grinding.

Couple of things. Don't let anyone tell you you cant do mob XYZ without class A and Class b. Work with what you have, you will be surprised at what you can achieve. Some advice isnt bad, but there are differences of opinion (use a monk for pulling?????). Places like kael (arena and platehouse), Kedge and so on are great ways to learn raiding fundamentals. Think about how you are going to handle loot - an "honour system" will get you started but will it be good enough for when something really nice drops?

The key to raiding is not classes, its not gear, its not levels or mobs, it is raid leadership. Without that nothing will be done.

One last idea for raiding is PoG (not Tunare). The regular protector spawns, the availability of named mobs, are all good tests for your raiding skills. Regular drops of armour and gems will keep people's interest. Get your druid's their epics first tho...

raid PoG??? :eek:

you ebil ebil people :p

<----always abstained on Tunare raids :D

Kendali Thistlewood
Storm Warden of Tunare

/shrug I PLed a warrior just so I could go on them. I am also a karana druid.

Then after a 8 month hiatus from EQ I came back and just said "fug it" for a Tunare kill. Was actually quite fun. I had better hope that if there is ever an "epic II" it doenst involve old world factions LOL

Just checked back and seen all these replies :)

In relation to VSR - it wasn't a specific raid when we tried to take him down. At the time we were just playing around in the zone, stumbled across the skeleton form and tried to take him out. None of us knew anything about him and just couldnt handle his regen rate. Little did we know the you had to do 2 hand-ins for the druid epic lol. :eek:

On the advice received here, I have organised 3 raids over 6 days in Kael. I've found some good guides on raiding the arena and bank areas so plan to start there.
This has also been extensively discussed on our own site, and during the game amongst us officers. We only have one (luck bugger that he is ) druid with his epic, and realise the neccessity of getting our Clerics, Rogues et al's epics. We have run a couple of raid nights with success and are moving towards these people having their nice new shiny epics.
Something else that has crossed my mind is how to distribute loot. We wont be raiding often or hard enought to implement a dkp system, so may have to knock something up which suits our guild the best. I have had a few thoughts and will try them out. If they work I'll post here and catch your opinions.

As for raid leadership, this is gonna be a very steep learning curve for me. I feel preperation is the key, and will be doing plenty prior to kick-off. I have led a couple of small raids before, and lost control quite easily due to being too nice and not trying to upset people. I now know I'm gonna have to bin that attitude and start becoming firm. (grrrrrr :D ).
I'm gonna make it prefectly clear that if they dont do what they're told, when they're told i'm gonna boot them from the raid. Sounds harsh i know, but will make sure those that like to wander (and there's ALWAY bloody one) or do their own things toe the line.

Anyhoo -i'm waffling. (bored at work again). First Kael raid is on 14th Nov.
Wish me luck, and see you all in PoTime soon. haha :)

Did Kael riad last night. Force was 3 1/2 groups strong. We had a 54 sk as mt, and no slower of any kind but still no deaths. spent about 2 hours in the arena and chain pulled to our hearts content.
Only got 1 drop, and the MT won it so that was good.
Also had the enjoyment of watching (from a distance) another guild come in and take Vindi out.
I was involved in tells with their raid leader at the time, and he mentioned Vindi's rampage list. I understand rampage, but whats did he mean by this list?

GREAT to hear you've had a good start.

Here's a suggestion for leading. If someone has a tendency to errr, wander, then put them in charge of something that will keep their attention. Make them a group leader, and have group leaders deal with getting buffs and making sure their whole group is in place. Put them in charge of giving latecomers directions.

Delegate where/when you can. Have a healer start a healer channel and coordinate healing. Same for debuffers, tanks, pullers.

***

Rampage is a kind of unique agro. As I understand it, rampage works off a couple basic rules.

1) Rampage list is based first on the order the mob puts people on its initial agro list.

1a) The person the mob is actually agro'd on doesn't take rampage damage.

1c) The rampage list is fixed, and as long as the highest person on it is in range, that person will have rampage (exception, an FD monk; though FD doesn't always/generally clear rampage agro once the monk gets up). If the highest person on the list is out of range, then the next person gets rampaged until/unless someone higher on the list gets in range. Death, zoning, etc don't usually clear the rampage list; that means, if Person X dies from rampage, gets rezzed in within range of the mob, Person X will regain his/her high spot on the rampage list.

For example: Say Puller A pulls the mob, and FDs. Tank B shoots an arrow and gains agro. Tank C shoots an arrow and gets on the agro list. Melee D ran up to look, and gets on list next. Healer E heals B, and gets on the list. Healer F heals B and gets on the list.

Fight starts. Puller A remains FD, and Tank B gains agro successfully.

Mob rampages: if C is in range, C will be rampaged. If C is out of range, D will be rampaged.

D dies, C dies. Healer E is now on rampage...

That's when things usually go bad. Healers usually can't heal tanks for a big fight AND heal themselves fast enough.

The key, then, is to get someone tough (a plate tank, preferably) high on the agro list, and to have the puller willing to stay FD or out of range if they can't handle agro.

Ideally, you'll have a second and third tank type to shoot an arrow as the mob comes in, but NOT gain agro over your MA. They then stay in rampage range. Your healers can assign someone to cover the rampage tank. Also, having your people each make a rampage message, and hit if if they get rampage, helps. (You can't figure out the rampage damage with assist healing. Alas!)

The problem is that spam flies by fast, so sometimes people don't realize fast that the damage they're taking is rampage damage and not agro or AE type damage.

***

To clarify, then, regular agro works based on the amount a mob hates people. An MA, taunting, using high proc kinds of weapons (or weapons which proc hate) tries to make the mob hate him/her more than anyone else. Heals on someone the mob hates, and doing serious damage more than the MA (chain DDs, lots of dots, melee damage) can take move people above each other. Similarly, spells such as "Jolt" and skills such as evade and FD can reduce the agro a mob has towards a specific toon.

For regular agro, then, a raid force can do lots of agro adjustment to manage the agro list. The same force has to manage initial agro to manage the rampage list, since it doesn't get changed so long as someone high on the list is in range to be hit.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, I hope! But I think that's the basics.

Wow :)
And here's me thinking that a rampaging mob hits ALL players in range. Didn't realise that rampage had a 'list' of sorts and carried similar characteristics to Aggro lists.
I can see know how you can use that to best effect - thank you for the in-depth explanation.
Something I did notice was people getting itchy feet last night as we found it quite easy going. Once I explained it - everyone got the hand of ONLY assisting the MT when he called it, thus reducing damage to a select few, and even though he was only lvl 54 the SK in question held the aggro very well.
We are doing the same zone in 3 days time, so if I get the same co-ordination again I may push forward a little and hit a few of the 'red mobs' that were on track.
Safe to say though - we're gonna steer well clear of Vindi ;)

Great to hear KD arena went well :D

People will always get bored on raids, one solution is to pull faster
:burn: those mobs down

3 Hours and only 1 drop? that is really bad luck(Personal experience is more like 1 drop every hour), more drops would have probably made the night more interesting for everyone.

Also, one quick note about the Rampage list (there seems to be some debate on this, but personal experience seems to confirm this). Nothing will take you off the rampage list of a mob. You can FD, Zone or even die and when you come back you will still be on the same spot on the list. So if someone dies to RP, make sure to drag the corpse away from the mob before the rezz, or a quick death is waiting.

Grats on Kael and glad it went well.

My first experience of raiding in Kael was a Vindi raid by another guild that invited my guild along. This was my second raid so I was very nervous / excited about the whole affair, my previous raid was a Naggy raid.

Everything was going well and then we were on to Vindi. We started to fight and everything seemed to be going well, suddenly people started to drop :confused: and I saw the cry for All Clerics to camp NOW. Two seconds later I was sitting by our friendly SB in PoK.

The raid had wiped, yes we had lost but I was on a real high as its moments like this that make EQ a fantastic game.

So good luck with any future raiding. It can be frustrating but there are some very sweet moments that make it all worthwhile.

And here's me thinking that a rampaging mob hits ALL players in range.

It does in some Planes of Power encounters, and I believe LDoN raids, but I don't think anywhere outside of those.

/nod

Some mobs AE rampage, and pretty much hit lots or everyone in range. But none of the Kael mobs does that I recall.

For your level you may get some nice upgrades doing the platehouse - most of the named there are not as hard as arena mobs and a lot of them seem to drops*something* - it's not Thurg armour but the drop rate is much more predictable.

Rogue and cleric epics are (now) easier than druids, and the druid's is not particularly hard (beastlord's is ridiculously easy). Some epics (e.g. warriors) just arent worth doing nowadays.

Also keep and eye out for quests that require more than a group to do - for example hte 8th shawl would be a nice challenge for your guild with a great reward at the end and all your casters should be encouraged to do that. Similarly for your melee the 10th ring is a great set of quests, with guaranteed loot at the end.

Thanks for info. Greggo.
Have heard of the Plate House and am planning to pay a little visit when we next venture into the zone.
As for our guild epics we are slowly moving our way through them. We usually just knock a quick group or 2 together for any hard encounters and just go do it. Guaranteed we are mainly concentrating on the druid and bst encouters as they are the easiest, but has been agreed we need our clerics to have their epics asap.

A couple of guilidies have done some parts of the 8th Shawl on their own and are doing quite well. Personally I haven't started looking into it, but will read up on it a bit more now.

As for the 10th Ring War I've heard and read a lot about it - and frankly it scares the **** out of me lo :D

That many mobs in all those locations will mean some serious co-ordination and control. Maybe once i'm more confident in my ability at running things we may start them, but not for now. I've read that a mid-50's druid can solo up to the 8th (?) ring so will suggest that to people as a start in preperation for the 9th and 10th encounters.

Anyhoo, I'm getting lots of good ideas from you good people, and appreciate you sharing the knowledge.

Regards,

my suggestions to you would be:

1. kelorek`dar - haste mainly, bio orb for pullers

2. servitor of luclin - ft1 caster wand, decent 2hs, chanter mask

3. talendor - haste mainly

4. kael - arena/plate house - armor. also, nobody ever seems to hunt this spot on my server anymore, but if you take a right at bank and make a camp right by where the wolf pit is, you can score some nice items with a good puller. coldain skin stuff, cloak of the maelstrom, ranger bow - and armor drops - just don't fall into the pit heh.

5. umbral planes - tons of named mobs here. - try one of the cave mobs - Tawro or Radir. they both drop nice weapons. wack any of the other named in umbral - gantru dralkenr, gantru raldukan, etc. zelnithak drops some nice gear too - ft2 range item being one. zelnithak is harder than tawro/radir, but easier than rumblecrush. once you get rampage tanking/healing figured out, rumblecrush will be easy.

6. trakanon (cr can be nasty here if unprepared)

7. faydedar - epics mainly/misc other gear

8. gorenaire - haste/imp. damage 3 cloak/epic etc

9. prince/queen/king in chardok (nasty cr if unprepared) -
epics/some weapons/misc. gear

you should be able to pull these off without too much of a problem. with these 10+ mobs/camps available to you, you should be able to find one of them up/available. the more you do them, the closer you get to being able to do the next "tier" of mobs.

lots of other good suggestions here too. these mobs are pretty easy overall and most dont' take alot of time really.

good luck :)

-Horratio, 65 Druid
Legend of Marr
The Rathe