RAID - Helegrod Walkthrough

[Isilene]

Part 1: The Drums of War

The instance begins with a pull of 4 archers, an ogre, and about 7-8 more mobs. The 4 archers are permanet deaths, but the ogre and other mobs will keep coming in waves until you kill the ones beating on the drums of war.

However, more mobs will not spawn if you keep them alive, so here is the strategy for part 1.

Main tank(MT) will need to pick up the ogre right away and pull it into a spot far away from the group. The tank will sit and bash on the ogre with a healer on him the entire time. This will take place outside the gates. EVERYONE else will let the other tanks pick up all the mobs and damage per second(DPS) on the Main Assist(MA) . NO ONE WILL DPS THE OGRE!

Once all the mobs are down except for the ogre--everyone moves in letting the Offtank(OT) pull the guys smacking the drums of war. Once they are all dead--everyone will run back to where the MT and Main Healer(MH) are keeping the OGRE at bay. DPS down the ogre and part 1 is complete.

As soon as the encounter is started, each of the Hill-men will run to one of the four campfires and then return with around four to six Corcur Seer and Corcur Blood-vowed. Such a large amount of adds can easily wipe a full raid. In order to mitigate this, two of the four Hill-men (the ones on the far left and far right) can be crowd-controlled by Lore-masters Iraedril and Celevon once the encounter is active. This will leave only two groups of adds to deal with. The Corcur Seer are primarily healers and may also cast a blood pact on a Corcur Blood-vowed that causes the Blood-vowed to receive all damage that the Seer takes. The Corcur Blood-vowed are melee combatants and have a frontal area-of-effect attack that can be devastating if there are many of them.

Deal with all of the adds first while Guardians and Lore-masters control the Four Hill-men. Proceed to take down the Hill-men one by one. The order is not all-important, but since three of them leave the battle prematurely it is recommended to get them out of the way first. Each one leaves once their morale reaches the following amount:

Grisgart - ~100k Breosal - ~70k Ansach - Unknown. Adhargal does not leave the battle, and must be defeated. Aside from their summoning abilities which can be interrupted, none of them have any special abilities. The most difficult part of the fight is dealing with the adds quickly while keeping the Four Hill-men under control.




Stage 2: Giant Boss: Skurovigan

There is one boss here. USE HOPE TOKENS. The MT will run in, aggro the boss for about 30 seconds, and then everyone will continue to do white(auto attack) damage to the boss. Conserve your power for the first stage of this fight! Cast a power ability, wait for it to regen, and cast it again. Eventually you will see a sign saying Skuro concentrates his attacks on XXX. Feel free to DPS hard. At 50% health, the boss will enrage and spawn adds. The MT always loses aggro here for 2 minutes. Everyone needs to stay calm and ignore when the boss is hitting you. 8 Snowbeasts spawn from the tents behind the boss. All tanks need to pick them up immediatly. ONE needs to stay alive. I suggest having a champion build a lot of hate and toss it to a LoreMaster who can keep it stunned the remainder of the fight away from the group. Once all the snowbeasts are down except for the one, start DPS on the boss again. Do NOT kill the last snowbeast or else more will spawn. Also, make sure the Mt picks up the boss after his 2 minute rage! DPS him down, then kill the snow beast.

Stage 3

--Go to the right of the opening gate(near the drums of war). Clear Bears--Kill Bear. Tank and spank..could probably 3 man it if you wanted to!

Stage 4

-- The Drake Lair -- Lesson 1--Stay off the drake eggs Make sure you stay off the drake eggs DO NOT GO ON THE DRAKE EGGS! So you enter--you clear--be careful--nothing out of the ordinary. Eventually you will come to a room with levers--dont pull them. Also--did i mention stay off the drake eggs? Clear the room where the levers are. Clear the rooms below the lever room to the north and to the south so you can get to each of the gates. Create two side groups that contain a Guardian, A Minstrel, and a Hunter. One group goes to the south gate. Everyone else stays at the Big Gate room. Have your MT pull the South Lever-- At this time--the South gate will open--the small group of three will run in and clear the drake. At the main gate an elite master with about 4-6 drakes spawn--dps them down at the same time. The South Gate people will now see a lever--send another group--as many as you want as long as their is a minstrel guardian and dpser. The south gate will pull their lever and that will open the north gate. North Gate people run in--DPS down the drake- South gate will fight another drake and so will the main gate--Pull their lever. Main Gate Opens-- pull the south lever to release the north group, pull the north lever at the main gate to release the south group. Regroup Move on--pulling mobs--be careful. DONT STEP ON THE EGGS. Eventually you will enter a room full of elite master drakes. Let your MT pull them back to the ramp one at a time, sometimes a pull of two. Clear the entire room. When you move forward here, BE REALLY FREAKING CAREFUL. Do NOT get close to the other ramp. At the bottom of the ramp their are two scouts--they run and gather more mobs. a lot more mobs...and dont step on the eggs!! Before you attempt stunning them(which is resisted a lot!) have all your hunters lay traps but make sure they don't aggro the scouts. Have half your stunners targeted on the left scout, and the other half of your stunners targeted on the right scout. Have them all attempt to stun at the same time so they don't run. DPS them down as fast as you can without letting them get away. IF and WHEN they get away--they will aggro many mobs. Just micro manage as best you can. Stun as many as you can..use the hunter traps. They do AOE damage .. there are priests but they don't heal drastically. I recommend having your MA target the elites that AOE and get them down first. But if the scout is alive--kill him first!! If you wipe at least you won't hafta worry about the scout again. That is probably the hardest part of this stage.

==BOSS FIGHT== - No need for tokens Ok good job, pull, clear, get to the boss zone. DONT STEP ON THE EGGS. There are 2 elite worms and 2 elite dragons--they do a lotta damage, and you can't do damage to them. EVERYONE needs to DPS as hard as they can on Grisgart. LoreMasters are clutch for this fight, they can keep the dragons stunned the entire time until Grisgart is down. Burglars can stun as well, but usually can't stun lock the entire time. Tanks do your best to keep them off the healers if they are not stunned. DPS down Grisgart, then take out each of the worms/dragons 1 by 1. Loot the Chest. Stage cleared.

Note-In case i forgot to mention it, make sure you stay off the drake eggs.

==Stage 5==- The Spiders

BRING POISON Draughts and Salves.I recommend 5 per person. Champions make this fight easy. Clear everything, get drops, be careful, the tighter the group can stay the faster the spiders will go down. MT should pull big spiders away from the group. Clear..Clear..Clear Ok now you get to a room with water/ice in the middle. Your at the boss. USE TOKENS You fight 4 waves of spiders that get progressively more difficult. Stay in a nice tiny circle and you won't have a problem. Champions AOE, hunters watch your DPS, and everyone will be alive for the main fight. During the phase of the waves of spiders the EYE DOT will cause the bigger spiders to target on the person with the eye. If your a tank, keep the eye, if your not, get rid of the eye!Once the waves are done, the spider boss comes out.(Tiny down time before you fight the spider- regen as fast as you can and res asap) DO NOT STAND UNDER HER AND DO NOT STUN HER(CJ's are ok). Let your main tank get aggro, DPS away. If you have a poison, SCREAM AND YELL "(YOUR NAME HERE) HAS THE DEADLY POISON." It looks like an EYE-- also--IT ONLY KILLS PEOPLE WHEN THE SPIDER BOSS IS OUT--DO RUN IF YOU HAVE THE EYE. That is correct, DO RUN! If you pot and it doesn't get the eye off of you, get the hell away from the group. We are still discovering the range but so far you CAN be far enough away to sve the group. Use your pots to get rid of it, and hope your burglars and elves do the rest. Remember the bomb in MC--its the same concept. You will wipe the raid if you don't get that poison off. Small waves of spiders come in--stop DPS on the boss--take out the spiders asap. Back on spider boss.


Suggestions: 1:Keep your hunters on the boss the entire time, let champions and guardians handle the spawns, under 20k health focus all dps on the spider. 2: Have everyone select in Options: Social Options: View only dispellable effects: This will really help in seeing the eye.


==Stage 6==- BRING FEAR POTS!! START STORING THE +10% SHADOW MITIGATIONS--EVERYONE--YOU WILL DIE IF YOU DON'T HAVE THESE! THE QUEST TO GET THEM IS REPEATABLE! Use Tokens. Summon the guy from the tomb. Main tank grab him. Everyone DPS him down asap. When adds come, extra guardians can pick them up but stay on the tombstone guy. When he dies the adds will go away. Thorog comes down. Main tank pick him up and face him away from the group. WATCH YOUR DOTS. Get rid of the eye if you have it with a pot. Much like the spider boss, you will wipe the raid if you dont get rid of the dot. Drakes come from stairs, LOS and bring them to the group. Spiders also come, Tank them and kill them...but not with your MT. your Mt has to be ready to pick yo Thorog anytime he flies away and comes back.

Suggestions:

For conjunctions use blue blue blue green green green. You never know who will be able to contribute to the conjunction right now since there is a horrid raid bug that gives people "invalid target". At least get some power back!

BRING POT(s)! Suggested that every member bring 20 Poison and 20 Fear Draughts and Salves. Hopefully members brings 2 +5 hope tokens. Also bring 5 Pure Pots of power and morale. Lastly it is asked that everyone sends their extra beryls to the jewellers in order to make us +5 hope tokens for our MT group.

Fear Restistance + Shadow Mitigation. Start stacking! For Fear resistance max out confidence, empathy, and idealsm! 13% Alone with those traits!




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Another Guide:

At Dolgan's request, I wrote a walkthrough for Helegrod based on the runs I've lead. The order is different then the Drifter's runs, for I tend to go easiest to hardest to warm people up. Dolgan asked me to share it with the kin, so if there's any feedback please let me know.

Clemmy.

Helegrod Walkthrough

Helegrod, when run without snags, takes about five hours. There are a lot of harsh weather effects during the first three portions of the raid, which are a headache and you may want to turn your atmosphere graphics to low to ease up on the snow drifts. It is a 24 man raid, and there are a lot of points where there will be double that amount of monsters on your screen so if you're having problems with lag, turning down texture quality, lighting, and landscape draw distance will help. By comparison to the Rift, Helegrod is intense and complicated (more mobs per fight, more instant death moments, and more CC needs) so pacing ourselves and taking breaks between fights is more then okay Good luck!

What to bring: - Everyone must have a full stack of (20) Milkthistle Druaghts and (20) Conhuith Flasks. No exceptions. - Everyone must have at least 5 +5 tokens each. No exceptions. - Battle Warding/Lore for fellowship leaders. - Many Athelas and Celebrant pots. - Destiny points for hope buff during the Thorog fight. - Shadow mitigation pots (flask/flagon of Miruvor) - Stack of traveling rations for summons back to Helegrod (repair trips will a must when fighting Thorog) -Minstrels need lute strings (overall threat reduction is very important)

Class Information: - 24 man raid. Need at least 2 guardians, 2 LMs, 4+ minstrels, 5 hunters, 3 champs, 3 burglars, 4 captains. Remaining spots - free for all. DPS lovely - Minstrels have Fellowship's Heart slotted. Will port out before Thorog for Song of the Hopeful Heart. - Captains must have legendary rezing trait slotted. - Guards must have Challenge the Darkness. - Champions traited for AOEs and have the trait that applies a bleed on critical hits removed.

Before we leave: -We'll meet in Rivendell and go over the 'what to bring' list one more time to make sure everyone has everything. If at some point people are going to be switching out characters during the raid, we'll make sure they're properly stocked up as well. Helegrod is located North-East of Gloin's camp. Gloin has a provisioner where you can purchase more pots should you need them. -Each raid group (4 fellowships) will be assigned a 'leader'. The leader is used for scroll distribution and token order. Captains are a good choice for fellowship leaders to better organize their 'Muster Courage' skill and determine when that'll be used versus fear pots. You can use /fellowship chat to organize within your group.

Note to Raid Leader: Collect these items: The Staff, The Crown, and The Ring which you'll get from the chest of Storvagun, Grisgart, and Zaudru. They will be used later in the Raid.

Stage 1: Cold-Bear

Race: Beast Difficulty: 53 Arch-Nemesis Morale: 147,220 Power: 18,158 Damage Type: Fire Damage -Cold-Bear is a small mini-boss to the right of the main entrance. He is entirely optional, for he has no impact on the rest of the raid. He does drop a nice two handed axe that is really good for champions, but it's a rare drop. -The fight is straight forward. We clear the bears (some elite, some regular) that path around his den. The tank triggers Cold-Bear and we tank and spank him. During the fight he'll call forth a few waves of mobs (elite and regular). -This fight is doable in a well organized fellowship, so it's no stress at all.

Stage 2: Orc-Drummers

-Directly in front of the main entrance is an archway. We will meet to the right of a stone beside it, eat, read scrolls, and go over the fight. -There will be orc archers and a green goblin that we burn down. During this stage a troll will come forward. A guardian MUST pick him up and move him to the left of the archway (but inside) and tank him there with a minstrel. NO DPS is allowed on this troll. He is to be held in place and not killed. If the Troll is allowed to die, then the cycle repeats - spawning more archers and more drummers. -The rest of the raid moves forward and takes out the orc-drummers at the bottom of the slope. They heal one another, so focus fire is essential. - Once the orc-drummers are dead, we kill the troll and the encounter is over.

Stage 3: Servants 4

Race: Man Health/Power: Varies Difficulty: Arch-Nemesis Damage Type: Superior to everything -We will gather on the stairs just beyond the orc-drummers. Entering the doors will start the encounter prematurely so hold ground. Once we start the encounter exiting the room will reset it so make sure you follow instructions on where to stand. Pop +5 tokens, scrolls, eat and whatnot and wait for the raid leader to direct stuns. -There are 4 arch-nemesis Angmarim on the platform. Grisgart and Ansach can NOT be stunned. The other two can. The fight will start when the LMs stun the two stunable arch-nemesis Angmarim. -After that the entire raid moves onto the middle of the platform. The guardians pick up Grisgart and Ansach and tank them while minstrels keep them alive. -The raid will burn down the elite adds that come from the corners of the courtyard. -When the adds are down, we will focus fire on one arch-nemesis at a time, leaving Ansach for last. He is the only one that can be defeated, the other three will turn green and retreat from battle. -When Ansach is slain we are finished the encounter.

Stage 4: Clearing to Storvagun

-Getting to Storvagun is an encounter in it's own. Once we leave the Servants 4 courtyard we will be met by a long climb up the side of a mountain where we will not break combat. It is important to wait on cooldowns and have everyone present before we move forward. -First will be giants, then more giants, then master elite drakes, then more giants etc... - Try not to burn any cooldowns while on this leg of the raid. If someone dies, they can retreat and run back to meet us. Combat does break very shortly at one or two points, but not enough to get a rez off and we need to save captain and in combat rez's for the Storvagun battle. -The encounter ends at the top of the mountain near the arch-way before Storvagun.

Stage 5: Storvagun

Race: Giant Difficulty: 53 Arch-Nemesis Morale: 214,840 Power: 18,315 Damage Type: Remarkable to everything -Storvagun is a arch-nemesis giant. He's not a difficult boss by comparison but he summons forth waves of about 12-15 elite snow beasts. We will pop +5 hope tokens, scrolls, eat, and whatnot and then enter the room. -The main tank will run towards Storvagun and pull him around to have his back facing the group. Storvagun has a nasty kick back so the tank needs to keep his back towards the far wall (to the front of the platform there is a drop of that will lead down to the Servants 4 courtyard. You do not want to end up down there. ) But don't stress, the platform is huge! -All ranged, LMs, minstrels will stand to the left of Storvagun on a small rise amongst the tree line. Make sure to communicate with the tank if he's moving to far out of you healing range and LOS because minstrels can't move, but he can. -At 100k-ish Storvagun will summon 10k elite snow-beasts out of a stone arch-way to the right of the tank. Champions need to break off of Storvagun and hold the snow beasts in the area by the cave entrance (beside Storvagun.) He'll keep summoning more so everyone but the Champions just burn Storvagun down. -At this point Storvagun will also go into random aggro mode for a short while. Main tank just keep working on him and minstrels keep healing -Finish off snow-beasts and we're done!

Stage 6: Clearing to Zaudru

-Enter on the bottom level to the right of where the Servant 4 fight is. -There will be a cavern pathway where you fight through regular and elite spiders and master elite Angmarim. Best to mez the Angmarim and burn down the adds. Rinse and Repeat. -Only notable 'event' in clearing to Zaudru is off to the side of this path there will be many dark cave entrances (non-instanced) that if you come close you trigger Zaudru babies. This is a great place to farm them for the quest. If you hit all the caves you can complete that quest in one (occasionally two) runs. They also drop the venom vials for another quest.

Stage 7: Zaudru

Race: Spider/Insect Difficulty: 52 Arch-Nemesis Max Morale: 140,287 Max Power: 22,366 Damage Type: Unknown -Dismiss all pets (they can receive the 'poison' eye and wipe parts of the raid). -This fight is pretty tank 'n spank. With a few twists... -The fight begins when you pull the 2 Blood-sworn Elite mobs standing in front of Breosol. -Breosol does a short speech and send in a Master Elite Silk-spinner along with a 2 elite spiders and about 6 normal spider babies. It is very important throughout this portion of the fight you kill the Silk-spinners last. Killing the Silk-spinner will continue the encounter. -There are four waves in total, doubling each time. Mez the Silk-spinner's, clear adds, kill silk-spinners. -Zaudru kills Breosol and then will come to us. -Each group needs to have a hunter that's on 'poison duty.' Make sure you have 'show dispellable effects only' on. Throughout the fight Zaudru will throw out an AOE attack that 'dots' the players in range with a large green eye. That eye is a timed poison that if not cured, it explodes the player and potentially other players within a short distance. Poison pots often fail, so hunter cure poison is the primary and only reliable way to remove this effect. HUNTER'S KEEP TARGET ON GROUP MEMBERS AND CURE POISON NON-STOP!! -Expect to be rooted for the duration of this fight. -During the fight we will also get waves of adds, alternating between elites and regulars. AOE off Zaudru and burn them down.

Stage 8: Clearing the Drakes

-The Drake room is on top of a small platform in front of Zaudru's cave. -Enter and clear to the first gateway. This is a good place to farm for the Hatchery Raider quest, but if you wish to skip this quest, STAY AWAY FROM PURPLE LIGHTS/EGG CLUSTERES!! When touched, they release 4 drake hatchlings. -When you get to the main platform, clear all Drakes and hatchlings. Clear the passageway to the North and South gate rooms as well. -Create two side groups that contain a Guardian, A Minstrel, and a Hunter (and one or two other people - Fellowships 1 and 2 for example.) One group goes to the south gate. One to the North. Everyone else stays at the Big Gate room. Have your MT pull the South Lever. -At the main gate an elite master with about 4-6 drakes will spawn, DPS them down at the same time. The South Gate will open and Fellowship 1 moves in and clears the rooms. The south gate will pull their lever and that will open the north gate. -North Gate people run in, DPS down the drake. -South gate will fight another drake and so will the main gate. -North Gate Fellowship can pull their lever and the Main Gate Opens. Pull the south lever to release the north group, pull the north lever at the main gate to release the south group. -Everyone regroup.

Stage 9: Grisgart

Race: Man Difficulty: 51 Arch-Nemesis Morale: 134, 569 Power: 17, 470 Damage Type: Unknown -Continue clearing from the switch room, mind the eggs (unless you want to kill them.) -On a platform you will see Grisgart, two worms and two drakes. The drakes do a knock back so the MOST important thing about this fight is keeping the drakes mez'd at all times (can throw you back into hatchlings that you cannot clear before the fight... very bad!) -Start the encounter, mez the drakes, everyone on Grisgart. DPS him down. -When he is dead, he will spawn two Master Elite spirits. Kill them. -Kill the worms. -Kill the drakes. -One more spirit! Kill, him!

Stage 10: Preparing for Thorog

-First thing you must kill the 4 master elite priestesses that are over the bridge on top of Zaudru's Lair. They will heal Thorog during the fight if not taken care of. -Once clear, leave three burglars and three hunters on the top platform. The rest of the raid assembles on the Servants 4 platform down below. -Drugoth: Race: Ancient Evil/Wight Difficulty: 54 Arch-Nemesis Morale: 147, 555 Power: 18, 738 Damage Type: Unknown -He's the pre-boss to Thorog. The raid leader will place the items collected from the previous bosses inside his coffin located on the platform for the 4 Servants fight. Once the 3rd item is in the coffin, he spawns. Everyone ball on top of him and burn him down (ignoring the adds, they turn green and leave when he hits around 3k health.) -Dismiss all pets (they can receive the shadow 'eye' from Thorog and potentially wipe parts of the raid.)

Stage 11: Thorog

Race: Dragon-kind Difficulty: 53 Arch-Nemesis Morale: 310, 481 Power: 52, 699 Damage Type: Unknown -Once Durgoth is defeated, you'll have about 15 seconds before Thorog flies down and lands. -IMPORTANT NOTE: Thorog has a fear 'eye' that acts the same as the poison eye/wound eye in other boss fights - if not cured, you will die and possibly kill others close to you. Captains.. you're best serving the raid as a support class during this fight. Heal, muster courage the MOMENT you see a fear eye on one of your fellowship members. You are in the best position to be calling out fear dots. Let people know when they have one and you cannot cure it. Pots fail some of the time, so BE ON TOP OF THIS! -When he lands the MT will grab him and turn Thorog's head towards the Drake room entrance. Let the tank build some aggro and start DPSing. -POSITIONING: Hunters on the top platform can DPS from that distance. Go for it. The Burglar's on that platform, just hang tight. The rest of the raid: spread out around Thorog in a semi-circle behind him. The closer the better (seems the shadow-bolt instant kill is used on people at a semi-far distance.) Stagger the group so if someone is hit with the shadow ball and it isn't cleared, their death won't cause the death of a large section of the raid. -ADDS: Hunters switch from Thorog to the adds when they emerge. First Drakes, then spiders and so on. DPS them down and try and pull aggro from the tank and healers. -After about 100k of damage Thorog will turn green and fly into the air and land on the platform just behind the hunter and burg party. Burglar 1 will hit an all yellow CJ. ALL CONTRIBUTE! If CJ fails, Burglar 2 get ready. This will counteract his healing and force him into flying right back down onto the main platform. -Rinse and repeat! -IF THINGS GO BADLY (but they won't ): Leaving the room will cause the encounter to reset. Exit the doorway you entered to originally fight the servants 4. The minstrels can come back in after it resets, rez the dead, and everyone can take a breather.

Good Luck!