Roley and Addrianna defarge everything you always wanted to

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Nannwin
Of course I could be totally wrong and be talking out of my ass too so your mileage may vary
Posts: 415
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:45 am

Roley and Addrianna defarge everything you always wanted to

Post by Nannwin »

Kudos to Sony for this one: we finally reach an encounter with so many aspects, details, and complexities, that I can't wrap my head around them all at once. It's big, but once you get past those details, it's really not all that difficult.

Fundamentally, the event takes place in four primary stages. Spawn Roley + Adrianna; get Roley rooted; farm bane weapons; kill Roley. Realistically, those stages occur from most to least difficult. It's also a very long event as it stands right now, but will get shorter as we get comfortable with the execution of it all.

Clearing for Roley

This clear is a monster and requires as much attention as any other aspect of the encounter. We will start in the lobby and start pulling mobs. Ideally they'll come in small quantities, but with the number of shadowmanes and dancers out there with charm, we can't be sure. We need to clear the path to the Sisters crypts, then clear out the entire ballroom.

A quick explanation of the mechanic. For some reason, when a hostile NPC charms a player, that NPC will often decide to go hunting and find its new pet's friends. It will also bring any nearby friends along with it. So if a puller walks into the ballroom and gets charmed, potentially we could see as many as 16 dark dancers hitting the raid over the next 30 seconds.

Thus, we need to be prepared for insanity of the highest order. There will be at least one, probably two, ascendents of blood, with their familiar pets and insane regen; get them dead quickly. There will be a large number of orcs, which should be killed for the time being. When the dancers start coming, the real challenge begins, and we have to control them as they come in. Dancers are not mezzable, but have a low hp count; stay on the trash MA's target and burn them down as quickly as aggro permits- keeping in mind that the tank might be charmed at any moment.

OT's need to spread out, warriors and knights both, and tackle as many different targets as possible. Healers need to be fast on the draw, keeping all of those tanks alive, and your groups as well when the inevitable Curse of Darkness DoT's hit you.

The dancers' charm is called Waking Dream- tanks and pullers, max your MR for this.

Once we've pulled all the dancers, raid leaders will designate one dancer to be kept alive, then call for a move into the ballroom. Kill everything on aggro except that one dancer; orcs can be mezzed+blurred at this point. Pull the last dancer into the ballroom, along with any player corpses, and rez everyone in the ballroom center. At least 2 tanks should hold aggro on the dancer, so that a charm doesn't free the mob to start pounding on healers. We will pull and kill the two distorted watchers from the north end of the ballroom, then take some time to med and rebuff as needed.

Once we have the raid more or less in readiness- we might not be at 100% for this- we'll call to kill the last dancer. Roley and Adrianna will spawn.

Controlling Roley and Adrianna, and the first staking

When Roley and Adri show up, about a half dozen things need to happen in VERY quick time. I mean to the tune of 20 seconds. The wipe potential at this moment is extreme- stay on your toes.

Roley needs to be tanked. There will be 2-3 warriors designated to hold him down, and pull him to the NW corner of the ballroom. There will be about 5-6 clerics designated to keep those warriors standing. Treat Roley like Vule, except he hits harder- outrange the Curse of Darkness AE, and be ready to cycle targets as Roley mezzes warriors. The mez is infrequent, though.

Adrianna needs to be tanked. She also charms, so at least 2 knights need to hit her fast. Any healers not working on the Vule tanks need to be monitoring the Adrianna tanks. Adrianna needs to be cleric marked to remove her 750hp DS, just like the barbed skeletons way down at Demiplane zone-in.

Roley and Adrianna both need to be fully slowed and debuffed. Our shm/enc squad is superb about this, so I'm not worried, but it warrants a reminder.

Once both mobs have stabilized completely, we will begin working on the encounter for real. (Finally!) We begin by beating up Adrianna until 95% health, at which point she deactivates for 3 minutes and spits out a block of text, indicating that we can now enter a weapon farm. Everyone who is not involved with tanking Roley, healing Roley tanks, or tanking Adrianna, needs to target her and say "show" to enter the weapon farm.

See below for full details on how the weapon farms function. In short: assist the designated MA, and mez everything else. Once we acquire the bane weapon, a designated person will loot it- this will cause the ring event to end, everyone gets ported back to the ballroom, and Adrianna reactivates immediately.

At this point, the Adrianna tanks (2 of them) need to keep Adrianna off the raid, and preferably away from the raid so she doesn't stack up extra DoT's on us. We will then beat Roley to 90%, causing him to fall over. DPS classes clear out, and the person who looted the bane weapon clicks it on Roley. A number of things happen in this instant: Roley loses another 5% health; Roley becomes permarooted for the remainder of the event; and Roley memblurs completely.

An important note here- since Roley isn't rooted up 'til this point, it's critical that he's in a good position when he flops. If he flops inside a wall, we'll have serious trouble with the rest of the event- in fact, we will let him pop back up, and beat him back down to 90% in a better position. It might be adviseable for superpush melee classes to clear out around 92% and let the more stable DPS bring him to 90%.

Anyway, once this staking has been done, Roley's rooted, forever; we just need to babysit him a bit. Firstly, we have to let him regen to full, so he stops summoning. Warriors should tag him with aggro discs, then walk out of melee range as he summons. Keep your DS off. Healers, keep the warriors alive as Roley regens. Keep the knights tanking Adrianna alive too, she's still beating people up all this time. Once Roley has regenned to 97%, he becomes an idle observer in the corner. Two people need to keep aggro on Roley at all times; if he mezzes everyone on his aggro list, the encounter might reset. But as I said, the mez is infrequent. Furthermore, once you have aggro, you can run across to the NE corner of the room and outrange his mez. This should stabilize Roley without any damage or attention for the next while- permitting us to focus completely on Adrianna, and farming up more weapons.

Farming bane weapons

Adrianna starts at 100% health each time we start beating on her. To make her port to a ring event, we have to beat her down in health. Each time, we have to deal another 5% damage to make her talk. 95% the first time, 90% the second, and so forth. Each time we activate her for port, we need to leave behind a couple people to hold Roley on aggro, and a couple of knights to hit Adrianna as soon as the ring ends. Everyone else needs to target Adrianna and say "show", this will port those people into the ring event.

(As a reminder- this should be obvious- the first weapon farm occurs while Roley is being tanked in the ballroom. The warriors and clerics holding Roley need to stay behind.)

There are three different weapon farm events, each in a different area of the keep, all near the ballroom. Each event has an inherent 3min timer- that is, when Adrianna reactivates, the ring event ends and everyone gets ported back to the ballroom. If we complete the ring event early, and loot the bane weapon before the 3min timer is up, then we get ported back the instant the bane weapon is looted, and Adrianna reactivates. Whatever the case, knights need to be ready to pick up Adrianna, and healers need to be ready to heal those knights, each time a ring event ends.

A critical note on this stage of the encounter: ABSOLUTELY NO detrimental AE's of any kind may be used. This includes, but is not limited to, AE tash; AE slow; AE hate; AE mez; and, unfortunately, enchanter epic 1.5/2.0 click effects. If any of these effects hits a trapped chest or coffin, the container will AE Fine Red Mist. This will cause either mass death, or mass consumption of mana and time while people scramble for cures. We can't afford this impact of AE damage at any stage of ANY encounter, particularly not this one.

These are the ring events, Adrianna's text for each, and their precise details.

The Library

Adrianna says 'There is a small battered chest not far from here. It contains nothing of intrinsic value, but perhaps you can shatter it and use a fragment of the wood as a weapon against what is left of my husband. I can take you there if you'd prefer for me to [show] you the way.'

This one seems to come up most often. We land in the secret room, north off the library, with four maggot-ridden guardians. Mez the guardians (singly, not AE) and assist the designated MA to kill them. Meanwhile, a rogue or two will be testing the three chests in the library to see which one is not trapped, then destroying that chest. The chest contains a Splintering Oak Stake, clickable by war rng brd rog.

If we aren't fast enough to acquire the weapon during the 3min timer, the chests will remain up in the room after we get ported out. We can then send rogues and a weapon looter back to the secret room of the library to pick up the weapon. Important to note: anyone can open the door to get into the room.. But you can only open the door to get OUT if you've completed the Frustrated Functionary quest in regular DSK. If you get trapped in the library secret room, yell for someone to retrieve you.

The Laboratory

Adrianna says 'There is a cache of ancient weapons not far from here. The armaments are mostly decorative, brittle and worthless, but there is one armament forged of oak that can harm Roley. See that you acquire it! I can take you there if you'd prefer for me to [show] you the way.'

The raid lands on the ramp leading down into the lab area, right next to the ballroom. There will be 2-3 spiders and a zombie in aggro range right away. Mez all the spiders and kill the zombie. DO NOT KILL THE SPIDERS, there's no point, and their AE's will only hurt us. The zombie drops a Splintering Oak Lance, clickable by pal shd ber. Looting the weapon will despawn the spiders and port us back to the ballroom. This is by far the easiest of the three ring events.

The Crypt

Adrianna says 'There is a coffin not far from here. Within it is kept a decorative oak club, brittle with age. It may prove useful against what is left of my husband. I can take you there if you'd prefer for me to [show] you the way.'

The raid lands just inside one of the crypt areas under the Sisters event. There are four female vampires in the area, called enraged ascendants; they like to use Curse of Darkness, charm, and other such delightful effects. Mez them, assist the MA, and kill them off. Meanwhile, particular rogues will again be searching for the untrapped coffin. (It's possible that caster or priest trap spells might be necessary for this part of the encounter; if the rogues can't get a response from the coffins, don't try to open them, call for casters to try. Casters, don't touch a coffin unless told to do so.) Once the correct coffin is found and opened, it can be looted for a Splintering Oak Tonfa, clickable by mnk bst.


Each time we return from a ring event, Adrianna tanks need to grab her aggro, and a cleric needs to mark her to abolish the DS. Reslow and debuff her. Beat her up until she offers to port us again. It's a somewhat boring loop once we get into the swing of it

If people die in the ring encounters, don't rez them in the ring rooms- the port back will sometimes take the player but leave the corpse, or take the corpse but leave the player. /corpsedrag anyone who dies, their corpses will come with you across the port. Then rez them in the relative safety of the ballroom, away from Adrianna.

A critical note on bane weapons. If you die with a bane weapon in your possession, it disappears. For some classes, such as rogue and berserker, we will probably ask you to sit out of future bane weapon farms once you've looted one, to eliminate the risk of dying. For other classes, you need to be careful not to get killed.

Other important details on bane weapons: in order to loot a weapon from a chest or coffin, you must be off aggro. If you're on aggro when the ring starts, then you will need to wait until the mobs are cleared, or use an aggro clearing ability like FD, FM, or Escape. If the ring event expires with the weapon unlooted, you can simply run back and loot it afterward.

Also, you must have all 5 blood flags in order to loot bane weapons.

Lastly, if you loot a bane weapon, you are to immediately /join ceroley. This channel will be used to track the number of bane weapons acquired, and to designate the order of clicks once we start beating up Roley.

Killing Roley

This is, by far, the easiest part of the encounter. After we've rooted Roley and farmed up an additional 8 bane weapons, we will finally kill him. MA's need to set up a rotation, to counter Roley's mez, and clerics need to be ready to heal those MA's. Roley and Adrianna need to be completely debuffed. At least 2 knights, preferably those without bane weapons, need to be focused on controlling Adrianna; these knights need to be healed against Adri's damage.

DPS classes with bane weapons need to keep their aggro minimal, to avoid sudden and terminal cases of death.

Start by beating Roley down to 80%. He has a ton of hp, this will take a little while. When he hits 80%, Roley will fall over, with an emote about going prone. The ceroley channel will coordinate (preferably in advance) who will click a bane weapon; that clicker targets Roley and clicks the stake. Roley will pop back to his feet; he will completely clear aggro; he will completely clear debuffs; and he will lose 5% of his health.

Give the MA a moment to grab Roley again, and beat him down to 70% (only 5% more). He falls over again. Next stake clicker clicks; Roley blurs, wipes debuffs, and stands back up again. Repeat until dead. This process is VERY fast, owing to the fact that half the damage is done by the stake clicks.

When Roley falls, he and Adrianna repop as high elven spirits and are reuinited in death. How romantic! (I like Sashia's version better.)

Audio Trigger Summary

None for this encounter. I suppose it might be useful for some people to create triggers for "Dreadful Allure" or "Waking Dream"- Roley's mez and Adrianna's charm, respectively- if you have Spell Awareness available.
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No fear, no doubt....All in, balls out

"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
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