Vex Thal

[Varalla]

Make a long story short, my family guild with a raid force of 25-33 people, mostly level 70 with an average of 300 AA, a mixture of bazaar gear and DoDH rewards managed to take down Emp.

Our coordination is far from superior (but apparently our gut instinct rocks) and I did nae expect we would win the fight.
It was very very close.

Guild leader wants to raid VT now.
I dont know much about VT, cant find much info on VT.

Give it to me straight.
Is VT as hard core as I think it is and take raid caliber coordination?

My guilds morale is crazy high at the moment and I dont want to destroy it by steering us into something we stand no chance of beating.
We seem to do best on AoW raids that just require a tank standing there. Emp proved to be quite a challenge to our coordination.

[Zocon]

Should do alright,with no coth bots set up,clearing will take ages.

Mobs have alot of hp,and come with a bunch of friends.

Most of the named's are corner fights.

Although,with the level of gear your guild's in,the loot off nameds may be dissapointing.

[Jugerrnaut]

At 70/300, (even in all baz gear) VT should be pretty trivial for you. As stated above, pulls usually are more than you intend, that in itself will do wonders for your raid coordination.

Just plan and prepare for several off tanking fights at a time (clearing), and you'll be fine. Build your groups accordingly to accomodate 4 fights simultaneously.

Hint 1... Whenever you climb steps to a second level, NO mounts...
Hint 2... CoTH bots...
Hint 3... Have a bot Nec perma FD as raid moves during your first runs...

[Varalla]

Hehe, make that low end bazaar gear.
(They went completly apeshit over Blood and Emp drops.. to the point of fighting and arguing. They were eatting that stuff up.)

I was thinking VT would be like the Emp fight, only harder. (Seemed to make sense)

Thanks for the advice. Think we will give it a go :)

[Bruenorg]

First off, congrats on your emp kill. Man that was an awesome moment for our guild.

In addition to the advice above:

1) Pull as many mobs at a time as you have tanks, stuff them all in a corner and AE the crap out of them. Doing VT any other way is not fun and the slog can be terrible otherwise. This will do wonders for your raid's coordination. Get all the tanks in their own channel for this so you can all keep informed and shout if any get free or if more are incoming, etc.

2) Practice first by farming the Thall Va Xakra (http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=8778)'s who are located in the north and south wings of the palace entry hall. HERE (http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/map/VexThal/) is a map. They are on a three day spawn. That should give you a decent introduction for the general feel of the zone plus hopefully outfit some of your members who are not as well-geared.

Good luck with it! VT can be fun if it's done right which is contrary to popular belief. We still have retro-raids there once or twice a year...I never miss those! Some people will say I'm masochistic and that might be true. :p

[Soddof]

Brue really hit what i was gonna say on the heads...

watch out for the 4 arm mobs I think they split on death into 2 robey mobs.

Pulling through the doors is possible, we used a necro pet pull on the thall guys as we were a pure dark guild and so no bards etc.

Ill try and remember the location of a good guide to VT and stick it in an edit later

[Tybor]

/nod, the split mobs are a pita. and lots of mobs like to gate. forget the names of the gaters, but we used to have a designated person holler that XXXX gates, push NOW.

VT is a great zone, prolly my favorite in the game.

Grats on the Emp kill, now go have some fun in VT.

FLING BLING in 5 secs FLING BLING!!!

still have my hotkey ready!! =)

[Tempur]

I think as far as teaching people how to raid, there is no better place than VT. There is no such thing as a single pull and these are the original big HP mobs. You can generally get better gear via DoN, DoDH, and PoR, but those that have cleared VT a couple times generally have a better idea of raiding tactics which can be more valuable than gear.

[Naje]

Imo, Emp is a harder fight than anything in VT. VT is trash, trash, trash, trash, named with 8.75 billion hps and 21k AC, then trash trash trash. It is one of the best places to learn to raid though also. People called us crazy for even doing VT in the era we did, but it made for a much much more skilled raid force that could adapt and recover much more quickly. Oh, and no matter what the gear level, the clickies in VT never go out of style =) Good luck with the shard farming drama though, that's always fun =/

[Tybor]

inc long asa post:: this was our beg guide to VT


STRAT] Vex Thal
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edit: if someone feels motivated to re-format this and make it more readable, feel free =p

How to get in The zone in is the door behind Rumblecrush spawn in Umbral Plains. You need the Scepter of Shadow with you the first time, but it will fit on your keyring after that.

Tracking A ranger or druid who invises up to the courtyard can track every boss in the zone from there. Rangers can track some stuff from zone-in too.

Spawns VT is generally fully spawned within 6 hours of server up. Repop is 6-7 days on Blob1 and all nameds beyond, 3-5 days on the two Thall Va Xakra's, and 6 hours on the courtyard key mob.


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The Plow

Each trash mob in Vex Thal have three attributes which affect how the raid handles them.

#1 is the first word of its name
#2 is the last word of its name
#3 is its appearance

#1 - First Word of Name

Eom > Pli > Zun > Zov > Qua in order of difficulty.

Enchanters:
Mobs whos name start with Qua and Zov are mezzable by enchanters. These are the only two types of mobs in the entire zone that can be mezzed. Zov's are slightly harder than Qua's but both these mob types are the two least difficult in the zone.

MT & Tank Mezzers
There are 3 remaining types of mobs that are not mezzable. In order from hardest to easiest they are: Eom > Pli > Zun.
Main tank generally tries to pick off the Eoms then the Plis then the Zuns.

*misc note: Eoms have very rare random chance to drop VT bane weapons and items from the Thall Va Xakra loot table.

#2 - Last Word of Name

The last word of the mob's name (Centien, Xakra etc) defines its class. It's not important to have the whole list memorized but it is very important to recognize two types: ___ Thall and ____ Zethon. Thalls are cleric mobs and Zethons are wizard mobs. This is significant because they Gate. Gaters in VT are the most common cause of wipes. Lower mobs like Zov Zethon can be chain mezzed at low, or stunned. However Eom Thall/Zethon can only be hit with pally AA stun and burned down hard with nukes when it gets into gate mode. It is suggested that one person make a macro like < %T > will GATE and use it each time the situation calls for it.

#3 - Appearance

Trash mobs in VT have three different looks: shade golems, fancy robes (like Shei) and plain robes (like Rygan Anisher in AR).

Fancy robes that look like Shei pop a plain robe on their death on the exact spot they died. The resulting plain robe is always equal to or lower on the mob difficulty list. The thing to note is that caster versions of the spawned plain robes do not Gate as their "bind" point is the place you killed their parent fancy robe.

Tank order priority (highest to lowest)

#1 non-mezzable plain robes or Golems (Eom > Pli > Zun)
#2 non-mezzable fancy robes (Eom > Pli > Zun)
#3 plain robes that pop out of non-mezzable fancy robes, regardless of whether the pop is mezzable
#4 mezzable plain robes or Golems (Zov > Qua)
#5 mezzable fancy robes (Zov > Qua)

The average pull in VT is 3-8 mobs at a time in camp, and that is the only way you can really move fast enough to keep up with repops. So not only the main tanks , but all the off-tanks should learn or sticky-note what's mezzable and what's not and learn to be quick about picking out the mobs they have to TM when a big pull comes in.

misc plow stuff
* ALL trash in VT is slowable, Eom and Pli melee mobs need to be slowed fast or TM's will start dying.
* Rogues do NOT pop any triggered mobs ahead of the raid. You do this even if you are SoS'd and run near their spawn. If monks pull the non-trap mobs from a distance the traps won't agro. On some pulls this can cut the size of the pulls in half.

The Zone

* CoH and Summon Corpse work everywhere in this zone

KEYS

There are three sets of keys for inner Vex Thal, which rogues and pullers will need. Generally it's a smart idea to key rogues before pullers. All 3 keys are keyringable.

Key #1: This drops from Va-Dyn Khar who roams outside VT in the courtyard. He is a very easy, slowable mob who can be 1 or 2 grouped. He drops 1 "palace key" each time and no loot. This opens the door to the inside area of VT. He's not really a boss, and I think his re-spawn time is 6 hours or so, he's always up pretty much.

Key #2: Inside the first main hall to the north and south are hallways that lead to mirror image areas. Inside each is Thall Va Xakra who is the first boss guilds must do in VT. They each drop 4 loots and have 2 named "Va Xakra" guards in their room. These guards drop two "North Wing" keys each. This opens the door on the west end of the long entry hallway. Generally a guild's first VT raid is just on these two mobs and then up to Blob1 which yields a combined 8 keys. Their drops are quite mediocre (plus can drop randomly off Eoms anyways) they're not on the path to Aten, can't be CoH'd to, and are generally annoying to do, so most guilds only raid these one or two times before never bothering again.

Key #3: In a small room behind both DXX and DXV rooms are two more "Va Xakras" which each drop two keys again. This is the "North Tower" key which is required to gain access to DXXT who is the final boss on the first floor.

The Akhevan Warders

Most bosses in Vex Thal have several assosciated Akhevan Warders. They are generally between that boss and the next boss behind it, as well as a copy of each in Aten room itself. These are non-targetable mobs that will warp you to outside Blob 1's room if they agro (insta-death). Each time you kill a boss its Warders will depop. So basically you can't skip killing any of the warder depopping bosses by CoH'ing past.

There are 6 sets of warders in Vex Thal

#1 - Blob 1 at west end of entry hall (kaas thox etc)
#2 - Diabo Xi Xin and Diabo Xi Va share the same set of warders. Only 1 of these two bosses is killed as they are on opposite sides of the zone and lead to the same place. (first floor is shaped like a donut). It doesn't matter which, and is pretty much a raid-leader decision which of the two to go after.
#3 - Diabo Xi Xin Thall is the last mob on the first floor and depops warders
#4 - Thall Va Kelun at entry to 2nd floor
#5 - Diabo Xi Va Terminiel and Thunderos Xi Diabo share a same set of warders on the 2nd floor. Same deal as the DXX/DXV situation on the first floor, basically Puppetz will pick which one of the two to go for on each clearing.
#6 - VXAHR (aka mini-Aten) is the final warder depopper.

* Va Dyn Khar at zone in courtyard, the two Thall Va Xakras, and the two Aten Blobs are unrelated to the warder system.

The Bosses

Va Dyn Khar
- roams in zone-in courtyard, 6 hour spawn
- slowable, total gimp, drops no loot other than Palace Key

Thall Va Xakra x2

- there are two of these bosses, in the passsages going north and south from the main entry hall.
- they are pulled to the first open room you come across, where you can go either left or right to pull them (doesn't matter)
- they AE silence with a tiny range. It's extremely easy for casters to avoid
- slowable, hit gimpy, lots of HP, don't ramp/flurry
- drops 4 loots each time
- the two named "Va Xakra" guards in their rooms are the ones who drop the North Wing Key which opens the door on the west side of entry. They need to be pulled too for obvious reasons
- These two are on a different spawn time than most nameds they are 3-5 day as opposed to 6-7 day for rest.

Blob 1 (Kaas Ans Thox Dyek)

- located thru west door of entry hall in room to west
- this mob is perma-rooted (the only perma-rooted mob in the zone, btw)
- hits around 650, flurries, unslowable, enrages
- AE gfluxes. It's very important that the tank faces the mob either north or south and that all melees are on the opposite side. If any melees are on the east side of the mob the gflux can fling them into the door and bring 8 adds.
- you hug the edges of his room without agro'ing him to set up, there's little alcoves there to get ready in.
- it's "dyek" not "dyke" ...sickos
- drops 2 loots each time
- Setting up perma-CoH in his room is highly recommended to skip 1 hour plow for no reason. I volunteer Jaila for Pactum's blob 1 coh slave.

Diabo Xi Va
- this depops the same warder as DXX. If you go North from Kaas room you will go in his direction.
- he's up the stairs in the big lava room after a plow
- raid preps outside the door on top of stairs
- unslowable, no AE, no rampage, hits around 900 I think
- tank charges in room and fights him at the front of his room, melees surround to avoid push.
- important not to push him anywhere near the two side doors, or you will get an add.
- once dead, the "Va Xakra" guards in the room behind his drop the North Tower key
- drops 3 loots + 1 Ancient Spell each time

Diabo Xi Xin
- depops same warder as DXV, if you go South from Kaas room you will go in his direciton
- up stairs in big lava room after a plow
- raid preps outside door, rampage tank charges in first to establish ramp. He is fought at front of his room near where you enter.
- Rampages, slowable, no AE
- important not to push him anywhere near the two side doors, or you will get an add.
- once dead, the "Va Xakra" guards in the room behind his drop the North Tower key
- drops 3 loots + 1 Ancient Spell each time

Diabo Xi Xin Thal

- This is the final 1st floor boss, he is at the far end of the donut-shaped first floor and you can get to him from both DXX or DXV sides, there is no difference in plow.
- He's up stairs in the lava room, can prep outside door
- Rampages, AE silence (small range), forgot if slowable, hits about 1k
- Rampage tanks pulls him to left side of room right by door, casters rush into room on the opposite side (right) to avoid silence.
- Again, dont push him anywhere near the two side doors or will get adds.
- Behind him is the portal up to 2nd floor. You can prep in the portal room after he dies, but on port up there are 2 mobs that will agro immediately.
- drops 3 loots + 1 Ancient spell each time

Thall Va Kelun

- At far end of big hall on 2nd floor entry.
- He is pulled to the port-in room which is the only place you're not at risk of tons of repops during fight.
- Unslowable, rampages, hits 1k roughly, procs a poison-based slow on the main tank which needs curing.
- Tank usually walks him along the back wall away from door
- Drops 3 loots + 1 ancient spell. This is the first mob that drops truly badass loot in VT.
- After he dies you can either go left in big hallway towards DXVT or right towards TXD.

Diabi Xi Va Terminiel

- left from TVK hallway after the longest and hardest plow in the zone
- after his hallway is pulled tank charges and fights him near his pop, melees surround
- everyone has to be careful not to click the port in behind him
- he is a wizard mob and casts spells which lowers his DPS.
- has a 1500 AE which is magic based and extremely easy to resist. It's pretty much a non-issue
- does not rampage or flurry, but forgot if slowable. He is not hard
- drops 3 loots + 1 ancient spell

Thundrous Xi Diabo

- right from TVK hallway after the longest and hardest plow in the zone
- after his hallway is pulled tank charges and fights him near his pop, melees surround
- everyone has to be careful not to click the port in behind him
- this guy is straight up melee, non-slowable, no special abilities or AE's
- drops 3 loots + 1 ancient every time

Mini-Aten (Xi Va Aten Ha Ra I think is real name)

- After TXD or DXVT have been killed the raid preps and clicks up to the third floor. On port in there are 4 mobs that will insta-agro. Once those have been killed the port-in room is safe to prep for mini-Aten.
- AE-gflux and rampages, slowable- rampage tank pulls her to either side of room to establish ramp, then we kill her
- drops 3 loots + 1 ancient every time
- the portal behind her is a trap. If you click it you will get warped to zone-in. After she dies raid moves through the fake wall behind portal.
- It's important that people stay clear of the clicky portal during the fight. It's possible to get gfluxed into it without even clicking.

Aten Blobs x2 (Kaas Thox Xi Va Aten Ha Ra is full name)

- these are in the two side rooms in the big hallway after Mini-Aten.
- they proc a 1000-1500 DD on tank and ae gflux. These are both slowable (magic)
- their damage output is insane prior to the slow. Quad 1650 + the proc.
- Suggested strat: bards and beastlords help try to get a little slow in when raid charges in until shamans can get their big one to stick. These mobs both need to be slowed damn fast and kept slow the entire time.
- There is a special pin spot in the far side of room that is hard to explain but will allow rogues to backstab while keeping the mob in one place. Any where else in the room kind of sucks because the blob tends to get stuck in the light fixtures.
I will try to draw a map of the pin spot when I have time.
- these each drop 3 items + one ancient spell

Aten Ha Ra

- port up is at the far end of the big hallway where the blobs are, and for once this port in is safe. The port-in room is the prep room.
- Rampages, AE silences (small range), same 1500 magic base DD that DXVT has (easy to resist), AE gfluxes, slowable
- Basically ramp tank agros her as raid charges in and gets ramp. Rampage is not a big deal on her, its not frequent.
- Raid surrounds and kills, none of the AE's are really frequent enough to worry about but casters need to keep away from her to avoid the Silence one.
- drops Soul Essence for neck each time + 1 loot from her melee loot table + 1 loot from caster table + 1 loot from priest table + 1 ancient spell every time.

Other Things

- First off, there is a lot of information in this post. Don't get intimidated by it. After the first 5 or so clearings you will know this stuff inside out. Dont worry about trying to remember what all the bosses do, how the warders work, or where to get the keys from. Just focus on remembering and/or writing down the mez/tank orders for trash. This zone is about plows, the bosses are all quite easy.

- Vex Thal is a matter of teamwork over gear and numbers. I'm not saying this to sound like one of those annoying motivational posters they have in offices with crap like "Innovation" written on them and a picture of a bird =/ Really mean it, any size raid as little as 3 groups regardless of gear can clear the entire zone if they work together and pay attention.

- The first time will be a blast, but subsequent plows will basically suck like you've never known EQ to suck before. Please keep in mind it's not just sucking for you, but for everyone else there too. Whining and complaining about the plows, being in a grumpy mood because of them and stuff like that just makes them feel longer. Seriously, just try your best to deal with them, play hard, and enjoy the company of your guildmates. It's is the only way to do this zone.

- Vex Thal plows also re-define how a guild can raid. You must autofollow someone in your group if you have to go AFK for any period of time, even if its just a 1 minute bio break. The raid is going to be constantly moving to avoid getting repopped on. There's also new requirements in attention span. You'll be plowing hundreds of mobs with stupid amounts of hitpoints, half of which pop more mobs that also have stupid amounts of hitpoints on death. People need to be very careful to stay awake and not go into zombie mode. After 200 mobs of boring plowing, 1 single mob that gates because people aren't on the ball can wipe the raid and ruin a whole night's effort.

- Recovering from wipes in VT is very hit and miss. CR teams need to be quick, consents need to be quick and you can't go ninja AFK after wipe. To avoid a coffin summon situation after a wipe, everyone needs to be alert, or an entire night's effort can be wasted.

[apolyon]

Named kills are a joke these days. Most people I knew who still did VT cleared the whole thing with less than 1 group, including AHR. Their gear was good, granted, but we're talking 3 maybe 4 people instead of 30+.

With your level of gear I doubt there's a mob in there which would need more than 2 clerics tops ... probably only 1 cleric and a shaman HoT for the hardest stuff.

The zone itself is what sucks so bad. If you can get through the armies of 'whoops i pulled too many' and the hours of tedium, your guild will do just fine :D

[Gunnar]

It sounds like a good place to take your folks Val. Clearing may still be a little time consuming with a small force of bazaar geared 70's, but, good practice. We never did it, but, you can plant a coth bot in a few handy places. The encounters are relatively simple and it's a fun place imo. Long late night raids there years ago had me rolling on the floor laughing so hard I cried. kewl stuff hehe.:)

[Rayde]

VT encounters arent exactly rocket science, not much info would be required imo.

[Soddof]

VT is trash, trash, trash, trash, named with 8.75 billion hps and 21k AC, then trash trash trash.

I nearly spat my coffee out reading this! so so so so true... when my necros guild started in Txevu I had VT flashbacks...

[Greyfin]

In terms of AC and hitpoints, VT gear isn't all that competitive with what you can get one group these days, but... the clickies and effects on this gear are why you still see high-end people bothering with this admittedly time-consuming zone. Of all the stuff I've ever looted, the clicky shrink is probably the one I use the most, and I got mine for 5 points since everyone else had gotten theirs.

When I was planning out my loot for VT I was looking at the best HP/AC stuff I could find, but in reality, the clickies are where its at... (imho).

[Bustauff]

Start PLing them Mage alts!

[Brutul]

Don't be scared to take em to VT at all. If the Emp was in VT he would be the toughest mob there, as well as the most complicated. Main thing about VT is having enough time to clear through all the trash, but almost all of the bosses were trivial the first time we got to them. Some strategically placed mage and cleric bots will really speed things up in there, and if you can manage to pull 4 and 5 mobs at a time do it, saves a lot of time and keeps people from falling asleep :).

If you're tanking the bosses you are already far better than any tank going into (or coming out of) VT in the old days :)

Must haves from VT are aten gloves and the fast-cast shrink bracer btw. I didn't get either fo them and have been kicking myself ever since (well gloves never dropped for us but I lowballed the shrink bracer like 9 times and wound up never getting one :p).

[Chatja ogre]

TVK is tougher than emp, but otherwise I agree.

[Kaeltan]

In terms of AC and hitpoints, VT gear isn't all that competitive with what you can get one group these days, but... the clickies and effects on this gear are why you still see high-end people bothering with this admittedly time-consuming zone. Of all the stuff I've ever looted, the clicky shrink is probably the one I use the most, and I got mine for 5 points since everyone else had gotten theirs.

When I was planning out my loot for VT I was looking at the best HP/AC stuff I could find, but in reality, the clickies are where its at... (imho).

I wish I had gotten the shrink clicky as well, Being a dwarf it's not needed so much, but you can target others with it, Though as a paladin, the invis click mask is an effect that is nearly impossible to attain elsewhere.

[Candien]

Insta cast invis pots > 15 sec casting time VT mask, regardless of the cost :p

[scrab1]

Dont try the AE approach until you're comfortable pulling 10+, and your tanks are good at picking up the robe splits once they start dying.

[Master Natura Katana]

WOWOWOW Scrab is still around /gasp /faint

[bombayxev]

Dont try the AE approach until you're comfortable pulling 10+, and your tanks are good at picking up the robe splits once they start dying.
our rule - if you tank a 6 arm, you are responsible for tanking the robe he spawns. pretty easy really since he'll pop right on top of you.

the other thing to watch out for - make sure your tanks know which mobs are gaters, and have them set up a macro like:

/rsay << %t >> is getting low on heath!

so your main assist knows to swap to your mob and burn it down before he gates out and brings back a half dozen friends.

[Cree]

#1 - Blob 1 at west end of entry hall (kaas thox etc)
#2 - Diabo Xi Xin and Diabo Xi Va share the same set of warders. Only 1 of these two bosses is killed as they are on opposite sides of the zone and lead to the same place. (first floor is shaped like a donut). It doesn't matter which, and is pretty much a raid-leader decision which of the two to go after.
#3 - Diabo Xi Xin Thall is the last mob on the first floor and depops warders
#4 - Thall Va Kelun at entry to 2nd floor
#5 - Diabo Xi Va Terminiel and Thunderos Xi Diabo share a same set of warders on the 2nd floor. Same deal as the DXX/DXV situation on the first floor, basically Puppetz will pick which one of the two to go for on each clearing.
#6 - VXAHR (aka mini-Aten) is the final warder depopper.

Diabo Xi Xin and Diabo Xi Va do not have any warders associated with them. my guild used to skip both of them every raid. DXX has nice clickies so it was such a waste to skip.