Isk
12-07-2003, 02:25 AM
Mad props to Wandor for putting this together, and to everyone who contributed with extra information.
Since the BoT tower bosses seem to keep getting mentioned, I figured I would share the info I have learned after farming the towers almost nightly for the last few months. If you want to learn these encounters yourself, don't read this, I am going to give specific info on how to beat these mobs.
***** SPOILER INFO BELOW *****
Basic tower info
The BoT towers are a great source of very good gear for mid level and non-raiding type guilds. The loot is good enough that even many raid guilded people can use some of the drops. The risk v. reward of the BoT towers is some of the best anywhere. To top it off, the respawn on the tower bosses is a short 6 hours.
To get to the towers, you will need to use the teleport pads at the end of any of the lower level wings. The easiest and shortest route is to run up the West wing. None of the non-named giants see invis so you should be able to get up to the courtyard with ease. Once at the towers, you will need 1 key per group to activate the port in to the tower. The key is aquired by combining 1 gem from each of the 4 wings that drops off any random giant in a Ring of Toreden that drops off of the level 65 named that spawn at the end of each wing near the teleported to the CY.
While each tower boss is a different fight, each tower shares 1 common strategy. Other than the named giants (there are some level 64 named that can spawn in the towers), all of the giants on the way up to the bosses can be pacified. The idea is to get to the boss with as little killing as possible. If done correctly, you can kill all 4 tower bosses in about 2.5 hours. That's 8 pieces of loot guaranteed, and the possibility of as many as 8 runes/specs as well. There are a few things you have to keep in mind of course.
1. Use a bard if possible. Not only does bard lull not take any mana, but in case of a critical resist, they can always Fade Memories to keep from having to engage the giant. If for some reason you do have to fight the giant, keep it way from the others and keep everything in the area pacified.
2. If you can't get a bard, cleric, ranger, druid, and enchanter pacify all work as well. When we have to resort to mana users, have a team of 2 do the work to keep 1 person from blowing all their mana just getting to the boss.
3. Pacify does not guarantee you won't get agro. What pacify does is it lowers the effective agro range of a mob. As long as you are not running over the giants toes, they should not agro, but people gave to learn to still keep a distance when they run by. Once your crew masters getting to the boss with no agro incidents, you will be able to tear through the towers in no time.
4. Lull team usually consists of luller and 1 SoS rogue. Using a rogue for targetting seems to work best so you don't miss any giants on the way and that you get the right target every time. Make sure that everyone give the lull team plenty of room to work and that no one follows the rogue. Generally, everyone needs to watch where the bard is standing. When the bard moves, everyone else should move to the spot that bard was at last.
Part 1 - Auliffe Chaoswind
Auliffe is the boss of the Southeast tower and arguably the easiest of the bunch to kill. The path up to Auliffe is a series of floating stairways with various platforms that the giants hang out on. At the end of each set of stairs and platforms, there is a teleporter that gets you up to the next level. Everyone needs to have levitation on for the run up. There are no barriers on the steps or on the platforms so if you fall off you will be ported back down to the entrance. At least with levi on, you might be able to make a run for some lower steps and catch back up with the group. The giants are pretty well spaced and you can get all the way to the boss platform without killing a single giant.
Once you are on the boss platform, your best bet is to go ahead and pull the 4 other mobs on the platform and kill them. They have a 20+ minute repop so you will have plenty of time to deal with Auliffe once they are dead. This insures you won't have any annoying adds during the fight.
Once Auliffe is alone on the platform, you need to engage him where he stands. Send in your MT first, then the rest of the melees 5-10 seconds after. Surround him and keep him centered as much as possible. His max hit is 900ish so defensive is not necessary but certainly helpful. Auliffe flurries, but does not have any other special melee attacks. 5 second rotation without defensive works pretty well for a tank with 8500hp or so. Adjust as necessary. He is immune to slow so the only debuffing you need will be ATK and resist debuffs.
The real trick to beating Auliffe is beating the AE - Lure of the Storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1035&source=Live). Since the are is wide open and outdoors, there is nothing the casters can hide behind. The melees will be stuck in the AE so you will want everyone to have levitation of some sort so they don't eat the G-flux. Buff MR as much as possible, the AE has a -250 resist check, but it can be resisted once you get MR over 400 or so. Bard playing AE resist will help a ton because the worst part of the AE is the spinstun component. If your MT and melees keep getting stunned you lose a ton of DPS and can run in to agro problems. Although Lucy lists a debuff, it is apparently bugged. Until it gets fixed, you DO NOT lose any buffs when you get hit with the AE.
The range on the AE is rather small, only 100 range. All nuke casters can stay outside the AE range very easily so they will be pretty low maintenance, no heals or resists required at all. Your non-cleric healers can also stay outside of AE range by using smaller, longer range heals. Clerics CAN avoid the AE while casting cheal with an extended range item, but you are really taking a chance at having the MT move out of range if the clerics stay at max range. We have found the easiest thing to do is have the clerics stay close with a bard in the group playing Psalm of Veeshan. If a cleric does take an AE, they have a stunned hotkey so the other healers can spam heal the MT until the next cheal lands. The AE is only once every 36 seconds so it shouldn't be much of a problem with good resists. Any melees who eat AEs can back out of AE range and ask for heals as needed.
Loot for the effort is very good. Auliffe drops:
Blackblade of the Rain (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=23496)
Greatstaff of the Four Winds (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=24780)
Stormrider Carapace (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27289)
Wand of the Ice Storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=26747)
Ornate Leather Tunic Pattern
This tower can be done rather easily by 18 people. The optimal small raid will include:
2 clerics for cheal and Symbol/Ward of Gallantry
1 druid for debuffs and Bot9 and patch heals
1 enchater for VoQ and tash
1 bard for lulling and AE resists
1 bard for cleric/MT group for Psalm of Veeshan
1 plate tank (8500hp for 3 clerics makes it easy, more clerics for less HP)
1 shaman for buffs and Malo and patch heals
the balance in DPS
Part 2 - Eindride Icestorm
Eindride is the boss of the water tower and is not much harder than Auliffe in terms of difficulty. Getting to him takes a little more work and lulling up is a little trickier because the giants are closer together in a few places. Like the Auliffe wing, there are 3 levels to this wing with teleporters on the way up to the boss. Make sure people are paying attention so they don't take the wrong teleporter. The first one is located on the back side of the wall you are facing when you click in to the tower. It doesn't matter which way to go, left and right both loop around and meet at the pad up. To get to the 3rd level, there is only 1 way you can go, so follow the hall all the way around to the next pad.
This tower is slightly different in that you have to kill some of the giants on the way up. At the landing point of the 2nd and 3rd levels, there are giants there that will agro when you land. There is 1 at the spot on the 2nd level, 2 on the 3rd.
Eindride himself spawns at the end of the big room half way to the teleporter out of the tower. You will have to clear the 4 giants that you can see as you enter the room. Again, theya re ona 20+ minute respawn so there is plenty of time to kill the boss without adds. There are also 4 other giants that spawn in the room at the ends of each little hall that come off the main room. There is no need to kill these since they will not agro if you execute the fight properly.
Directly in front of Eindride, there is a diamond shaped tile on the floor. Your healers can set up here and not worry about getting agro or about getting hit with the AE. Eindride's AE is again the key to the fight. Raging Blizzard (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1050&source=Live) is a rain type spell with 3 waves. It is a targeted AE with a range of 100. As a melee it is hard to get far enough away from the MT to avoid the AE. Each wave does up to 600 damage and -400 mana. The resist check is against cold, so be sure to get seasons and cirle of summer. Also have a bard play AE resists to keep the AE damage down.
The rest of the fight is pretty straight forward. He is partially slowable and he hits for a max 900ish. When you are ready, send in the MT to pin Eindride to the back wall, the rest of the melees surround and pin. It is important that you keep Eindride near the center of the back wall. Like Auliffe, if a melee takes too much AE damage, they need to back out and get a heal. Also, it is important that no one turns the giant when backing out to get healed so that the healers don't get hammered by the mana tap.
Eindride drops:
Great Blade of Storms (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=22971)
Mantle of the Rainmaker (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=13670)
Twice Forged Steel Bulwark (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27168)
Ornate Breastplate mold
Part 3 - Brynju Thunderclap
Brynju is the boss of the northeast tower. Like the SE and SW towers, there are 3 levels you have to get through with the boss on the third level. As with the other towers, you can easily use lull or pacify to get all the way up to the boss. No tricky run up on this one, just make sure that people are paying attention and not using the wrong teleporter as it will send them back to the courtyard. The easiest way to remember is that the pad to the next level is NEVER the first one you encounter.
This tower is a little different than the previous 2 in that it is actually easier to pull this boss than it is to fight him at his spawn. Once you get up to the 3rd level, you are dropped in to a room with a teleporter on one side, and stairs leading up to a spiraling hall way that makes it way to a large arena in the center of the spiral. The giants in the hallway all wander making it tough to remember which have been pacified and making them harder to avoid agroing since they are often on the move. Once you get to the arena, the giants and the boss are up on a ledge that circle the arena. The giants leading up to the boss have a very fast respwan - 6 minutes. That coupled with the considerably smaller fighting area, and the possibility of falling off the ledge in to the arena make it a better choice to just pull the boss back to the port in room.
Once you get to the port in room, make sure everyone is buffed and ready for the boss because he can come at any time. You will need 2 pull teams, 1 for the boss and one for the wandering giants. It really doesn't matter who pulls the wandering giants, any one can do it since they are usually singles. For the boss, you will want and SK and any secondary puller than can drop agro - monk, rogue, bard are all good choices. The idea is to get the boss without having to clear all of the giants leading up to him along the arena ledge. From the port in room, the spiral hall goes in 2 directions, to the left is the long way around the spiral leading to the ledge, to the right is a very short run to the arena floor. The trick to this tower is the pull - once your SK gets it down, this tower will be a very fast kill.
Once the first couple of wanderers are killed, yuor boss pull team can get to work. The SK will need to run in to the arena and drop a long lasting DoT on the boss. As soon as he agros, he will run along the rim and chain agro the other giants. As soon as he gets running, the SK needs to run back toward the arena entrance and FD. Once the giants reset and Brynju is out of agro range of any of the other giants, the SK will stand up and pray. It might take a few tries, but eventually, Brynju will warp down in to the arena rather than run around the ledge. As soon as this happens, the SK needs to make a beeline for the hallway and FD again in case any of the ledge giants got chain agro. At his time the 2nd puller will drag the giant back to the raid. Some times this is fast, some times it takes a while so once the pull team heads out, no AFKs allowed and everyone has to be ready for the pull. Once the SK is sure that he doesn't have ledge giant agro, he needs to haul back to the raid because he is going to be the rampage tank.
Brynju hits for 900ish and rampages, but not all that bad. A druid or shammy can keep the ramp SK healed easily. The MT just needs to plant his ass in a corner and let the raid push the boss on top of him. You will have to deal with 2 AEs, but both are pretty short range. Static storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1028&source=Live) and Thunder Call (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1026&source=Live). Static storm is a 0 sec stun with 1500dd. It only has a range of 20 so the only person getting hit shuold be the MT. Lucy lists a 2 slot dispell, but I am pretty sure that this also is bugged and does not actually dispell any buffs. It does not have any resist adjust so it is not hard to resist, make sure your MT gets plenty of MR Everyone else should be at max melee range anyway so they will never get hit with this. Thunder Call is similar excpet it only has a 1k DD component. This one is targeted at the MT and has a range of 25, so again if everyone is at max melee range the only person getting hit will be the MT. This AE has a -300 resist check so it is pretty hard to resist. Static Storm casts once every 28 seconds, and I believe Thunder Call is a proc.
Brynju Thunderclap drops:
Cap of Drowned Souls (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=9497)
Glowing Orb of the Stormwatcher (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27637)
Wicked Shank (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=24645)
Ornate Chain Tunic Pattern
Part 4 - Kuanbyr Hailstorm
Kuanbyr is the boss of the northwest tower. I saved this one for last, because in true SOE fashion, they managed to make this tower considerably harder than the rest. Even groups that can mow through the other 3 towers will have a hard time with this tower. About the only similarity this tower has with the others is that giants inhabit the area. Unlike the other towers that are multi-level and require you to progress up teleporters, this tower is a single level. While this would initially seem to make is easier, it really doesn't due to the fact that the area is much tighter than the other 3 towers and also the fact that a new and improved super giant lives in the northwest tower - meet the ass raping Skygge class of giants. While these giants aren't really any harder hitting or smarter than the other run of the mill giants, they do have an AE proc that plays havoc with even a fine tuned raid group. You will learn to HATE Stone Gale (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1031&source=Live). This AE is targeted on the MT (or who ever has agro) and has a radius of 20. While it's not a huge range, it is still devastating since it does 1500dd and is unresistable. It also has a 2.0 second stun so who ever gets hit will also not be able to trigger any means of agro reduction they have available to them. As long as everyone stays far enough away from the MT and keeps agro firmly planted on the MT, these giants aren't all that bad. However, you will find that these giants have a nasty habit of turning on an overzealous caster or rogue and proc'ing on a large group of people at once. This almost always leads to someone getting low HP agro and causing another proc. You can see where this is going, a single misplaced proc can lead to many deaths or even a CR if you get unlucky with low health agro. While I normally recommend lulling up to the boss as quickly as possible, in this tower I recommend killing at least 1 Skygge on the way up to make sure everyone has pulled their heads out for this fight. If you are having problems with deaths on the Skygges, Kuanbyr will tear you appart since he has the exact same AE.
Anyway, back to the boss. Once you are sure you can handle the Skygge giants, lull your way up to the big room with the table in the middle. The northwest corner will not have any giants in it, you need to get your raid there and clear the entire room along with the next hall that leads up to Kuanbyr. Make sure that you have everyone freshly buffed before you start pulling and make sure that everyone is paying attention, once you start killing you are on a timer and you can't stop until the boss is dead. Once everyone is set, start chain pulling all the way to the boss. Once you get the table room clear, you will need to move your raid to the southeast corner next to the weapon rack. This is where you will fight Kuanbyr. It is extremely important that you fight here, the success of the raid depends on proper placement of the boss. I believe the respawn on the giants is on the order of 20-25 minutes and you have to have the boss dead before repops or you will likely get worked.
Unlike the other 3 towers, clearing the giants around the boss is not enough. In this case, Kuanbyr has 3 named stormrider guards that are linked to him. They WILL add even if you pacify, FD, or what ever. His assist range is very large, so even if you manage to split them, they will still add unless you can somehow get the boss out of assist range before he summons aid from the guards. While it may be possible to split the mobs with a combination of FD and snare with a couple of pullers, it's not practical because you have a time limit to deal with. This is where fighting at the weapon rack come in to play. Due to the lay out of this part of the tower, the southeast corner is situated the furthest away from the spawn point of the mobs. This is the ONLY area in the table room that is outside the assist range of the guards. You can fight in the room before the table room, but this will require even more clearing and make it much more likely you will have to deal with repops. It takes more precise execution, but fighting at the weapon rack is a much better location.
The trick to winning this tower is the pull. You will need to set up your pull team and have all of the mobs pretargeted so everyone is on the same page. Your pull team will consist of: the MT, 1 mezzer, 2 snarers, 1 bard. The MT will target Kuanbyr, he will also be the one who will get first agro. This is important because we need Kuanbyr to follow the MT to the weapon rack corner quickly so the rest of the pull team can work. The mezzer - preferably an enchanter since the bards have a more important job - will need to target Iri. This is the only one of the bees that is mezzable. Once the mezzer has a target, he can go back down to the raid and work from there. The 2 snarers will each need to target Hrani and Leister. It is beneficial to have the toggle target function mapped to a single key stroke so they can quickly aquire targets to be snared. Both Hrani and Leister are immune to mezz, but both can be snared and rooted. How you handle these 2 mobs is the key to victory. The bard will also need to target both nonmezzable mobs and have toggle target mapped to a single key. Once the bard has both targets, he too can wait for the pull with the rest of the raid. You will also need a rampage tank to get the boss on target so that he can not only set rampage on incoming, but the rampage tank can also assist in getting the mob to the corner ASAP.
Once all targets have been aquired, the MT will need to pull Kuanbyr. This will agro the boss and all 3 bees. It is vital that the MT makes his way back to the weapon rack corner are quickly as possible. As soon as the mobs agro, the 2 snarers need to quickly try to land a snare on the 2 snareable mobs. With a little practice the first snare should hit the mobs before they even get to the stairs. At this point, the snarers need to head to the southwest corner of the table room - away from the weapon rack. They need to make sure that they do not outrun the bees and lose agro to anyone else in the raid. At this point, at least the boss and Iri will be coming to the raid full speed. If you have 2 enchanters, one should tash Iri while the other mezzes. If you only have one, you will have to take your chances and pray for mezz to land. He is not ungodly resistant, but be sure a healer is keeping an eye on the chanter, Iri must be mezzed until the other 2 bees are under control.
If you get lucky, both snares will land and the snarers will now become kiters. If not, they need to keep snaring until both mobs are snared. Once both are snared, they can be rooted across the room so the bard can do his thing. As soon as the mobs are both snared, the bard will need to land an occlusion of sound on the mob and then chain Highsun on each mob until it lands. Highsun will send the guards back to their spawn point. If you have Kuanbyr positioned properly in the weapon rack corner, they will NOT return to assist Kuanbyr. The snare team and the bard need to stay on this until both mobs have been gated. Once they are gone, you can gate Iri or keep him on ice until the boss is dead. I prefer to gate him as well, less danger and none of the guards drop loot anyway.
As long as your pull team does their job, you should have a relatively easy kill. The actually boss fight is only a little tougher than a Skygge. Like the other bosses, he hits for 900s. He can be slowed so debuffs will need to go in once rampage is set. Everyone will need to be MR buffed because he has a second AE - Hail Storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1032&source=Live). Unlike Stone Gale, this AE CAN be resisted and luckily it does not have a modified resist check. If it lands it can do up to 400dd and it has a 0 second stun. It should be easily resisted with Guard of Druzzil and bard song.
For all the trouble, Kuanbyr drops:
Gargoyle Talon (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=24646)
Greater Stormwatcher Horn (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=25800)
Stormriders Signet (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=10232)
Ornate Silk Robe Pattern
Since the BoT tower bosses seem to keep getting mentioned, I figured I would share the info I have learned after farming the towers almost nightly for the last few months. If you want to learn these encounters yourself, don't read this, I am going to give specific info on how to beat these mobs.
***** SPOILER INFO BELOW *****
Basic tower info
The BoT towers are a great source of very good gear for mid level and non-raiding type guilds. The loot is good enough that even many raid guilded people can use some of the drops. The risk v. reward of the BoT towers is some of the best anywhere. To top it off, the respawn on the tower bosses is a short 6 hours.
To get to the towers, you will need to use the teleport pads at the end of any of the lower level wings. The easiest and shortest route is to run up the West wing. None of the non-named giants see invis so you should be able to get up to the courtyard with ease. Once at the towers, you will need 1 key per group to activate the port in to the tower. The key is aquired by combining 1 gem from each of the 4 wings that drops off any random giant in a Ring of Toreden that drops off of the level 65 named that spawn at the end of each wing near the teleported to the CY.
While each tower boss is a different fight, each tower shares 1 common strategy. Other than the named giants (there are some level 64 named that can spawn in the towers), all of the giants on the way up to the bosses can be pacified. The idea is to get to the boss with as little killing as possible. If done correctly, you can kill all 4 tower bosses in about 2.5 hours. That's 8 pieces of loot guaranteed, and the possibility of as many as 8 runes/specs as well. There are a few things you have to keep in mind of course.
1. Use a bard if possible. Not only does bard lull not take any mana, but in case of a critical resist, they can always Fade Memories to keep from having to engage the giant. If for some reason you do have to fight the giant, keep it way from the others and keep everything in the area pacified.
2. If you can't get a bard, cleric, ranger, druid, and enchanter pacify all work as well. When we have to resort to mana users, have a team of 2 do the work to keep 1 person from blowing all their mana just getting to the boss.
3. Pacify does not guarantee you won't get agro. What pacify does is it lowers the effective agro range of a mob. As long as you are not running over the giants toes, they should not agro, but people gave to learn to still keep a distance when they run by. Once your crew masters getting to the boss with no agro incidents, you will be able to tear through the towers in no time.
4. Lull team usually consists of luller and 1 SoS rogue. Using a rogue for targetting seems to work best so you don't miss any giants on the way and that you get the right target every time. Make sure that everyone give the lull team plenty of room to work and that no one follows the rogue. Generally, everyone needs to watch where the bard is standing. When the bard moves, everyone else should move to the spot that bard was at last.
Part 1 - Auliffe Chaoswind
Auliffe is the boss of the Southeast tower and arguably the easiest of the bunch to kill. The path up to Auliffe is a series of floating stairways with various platforms that the giants hang out on. At the end of each set of stairs and platforms, there is a teleporter that gets you up to the next level. Everyone needs to have levitation on for the run up. There are no barriers on the steps or on the platforms so if you fall off you will be ported back down to the entrance. At least with levi on, you might be able to make a run for some lower steps and catch back up with the group. The giants are pretty well spaced and you can get all the way to the boss platform without killing a single giant.
Once you are on the boss platform, your best bet is to go ahead and pull the 4 other mobs on the platform and kill them. They have a 20+ minute repop so you will have plenty of time to deal with Auliffe once they are dead. This insures you won't have any annoying adds during the fight.
Once Auliffe is alone on the platform, you need to engage him where he stands. Send in your MT first, then the rest of the melees 5-10 seconds after. Surround him and keep him centered as much as possible. His max hit is 900ish so defensive is not necessary but certainly helpful. Auliffe flurries, but does not have any other special melee attacks. 5 second rotation without defensive works pretty well for a tank with 8500hp or so. Adjust as necessary. He is immune to slow so the only debuffing you need will be ATK and resist debuffs.
The real trick to beating Auliffe is beating the AE - Lure of the Storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1035&source=Live). Since the are is wide open and outdoors, there is nothing the casters can hide behind. The melees will be stuck in the AE so you will want everyone to have levitation of some sort so they don't eat the G-flux. Buff MR as much as possible, the AE has a -250 resist check, but it can be resisted once you get MR over 400 or so. Bard playing AE resist will help a ton because the worst part of the AE is the spinstun component. If your MT and melees keep getting stunned you lose a ton of DPS and can run in to agro problems. Although Lucy lists a debuff, it is apparently bugged. Until it gets fixed, you DO NOT lose any buffs when you get hit with the AE.
The range on the AE is rather small, only 100 range. All nuke casters can stay outside the AE range very easily so they will be pretty low maintenance, no heals or resists required at all. Your non-cleric healers can also stay outside of AE range by using smaller, longer range heals. Clerics CAN avoid the AE while casting cheal with an extended range item, but you are really taking a chance at having the MT move out of range if the clerics stay at max range. We have found the easiest thing to do is have the clerics stay close with a bard in the group playing Psalm of Veeshan. If a cleric does take an AE, they have a stunned hotkey so the other healers can spam heal the MT until the next cheal lands. The AE is only once every 36 seconds so it shouldn't be much of a problem with good resists. Any melees who eat AEs can back out of AE range and ask for heals as needed.
Loot for the effort is very good. Auliffe drops:
Blackblade of the Rain (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=23496)
Greatstaff of the Four Winds (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=24780)
Stormrider Carapace (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27289)
Wand of the Ice Storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=26747)
Ornate Leather Tunic Pattern
This tower can be done rather easily by 18 people. The optimal small raid will include:
2 clerics for cheal and Symbol/Ward of Gallantry
1 druid for debuffs and Bot9 and patch heals
1 enchater for VoQ and tash
1 bard for lulling and AE resists
1 bard for cleric/MT group for Psalm of Veeshan
1 plate tank (8500hp for 3 clerics makes it easy, more clerics for less HP)
1 shaman for buffs and Malo and patch heals
the balance in DPS
Part 2 - Eindride Icestorm
Eindride is the boss of the water tower and is not much harder than Auliffe in terms of difficulty. Getting to him takes a little more work and lulling up is a little trickier because the giants are closer together in a few places. Like the Auliffe wing, there are 3 levels to this wing with teleporters on the way up to the boss. Make sure people are paying attention so they don't take the wrong teleporter. The first one is located on the back side of the wall you are facing when you click in to the tower. It doesn't matter which way to go, left and right both loop around and meet at the pad up. To get to the 3rd level, there is only 1 way you can go, so follow the hall all the way around to the next pad.
This tower is slightly different in that you have to kill some of the giants on the way up. At the landing point of the 2nd and 3rd levels, there are giants there that will agro when you land. There is 1 at the spot on the 2nd level, 2 on the 3rd.
Eindride himself spawns at the end of the big room half way to the teleporter out of the tower. You will have to clear the 4 giants that you can see as you enter the room. Again, theya re ona 20+ minute respawn so there is plenty of time to kill the boss without adds. There are also 4 other giants that spawn in the room at the ends of each little hall that come off the main room. There is no need to kill these since they will not agro if you execute the fight properly.
Directly in front of Eindride, there is a diamond shaped tile on the floor. Your healers can set up here and not worry about getting agro or about getting hit with the AE. Eindride's AE is again the key to the fight. Raging Blizzard (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1050&source=Live) is a rain type spell with 3 waves. It is a targeted AE with a range of 100. As a melee it is hard to get far enough away from the MT to avoid the AE. Each wave does up to 600 damage and -400 mana. The resist check is against cold, so be sure to get seasons and cirle of summer. Also have a bard play AE resists to keep the AE damage down.
The rest of the fight is pretty straight forward. He is partially slowable and he hits for a max 900ish. When you are ready, send in the MT to pin Eindride to the back wall, the rest of the melees surround and pin. It is important that you keep Eindride near the center of the back wall. Like Auliffe, if a melee takes too much AE damage, they need to back out and get a heal. Also, it is important that no one turns the giant when backing out to get healed so that the healers don't get hammered by the mana tap.
Eindride drops:
Great Blade of Storms (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=22971)
Mantle of the Rainmaker (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=13670)
Twice Forged Steel Bulwark (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27168)
Ornate Breastplate mold
Part 3 - Brynju Thunderclap
Brynju is the boss of the northeast tower. Like the SE and SW towers, there are 3 levels you have to get through with the boss on the third level. As with the other towers, you can easily use lull or pacify to get all the way up to the boss. No tricky run up on this one, just make sure that people are paying attention and not using the wrong teleporter as it will send them back to the courtyard. The easiest way to remember is that the pad to the next level is NEVER the first one you encounter.
This tower is a little different than the previous 2 in that it is actually easier to pull this boss than it is to fight him at his spawn. Once you get up to the 3rd level, you are dropped in to a room with a teleporter on one side, and stairs leading up to a spiraling hall way that makes it way to a large arena in the center of the spiral. The giants in the hallway all wander making it tough to remember which have been pacified and making them harder to avoid agroing since they are often on the move. Once you get to the arena, the giants and the boss are up on a ledge that circle the arena. The giants leading up to the boss have a very fast respwan - 6 minutes. That coupled with the considerably smaller fighting area, and the possibility of falling off the ledge in to the arena make it a better choice to just pull the boss back to the port in room.
Once you get to the port in room, make sure everyone is buffed and ready for the boss because he can come at any time. You will need 2 pull teams, 1 for the boss and one for the wandering giants. It really doesn't matter who pulls the wandering giants, any one can do it since they are usually singles. For the boss, you will want and SK and any secondary puller than can drop agro - monk, rogue, bard are all good choices. The idea is to get the boss without having to clear all of the giants leading up to him along the arena ledge. From the port in room, the spiral hall goes in 2 directions, to the left is the long way around the spiral leading to the ledge, to the right is a very short run to the arena floor. The trick to this tower is the pull - once your SK gets it down, this tower will be a very fast kill.
Once the first couple of wanderers are killed, yuor boss pull team can get to work. The SK will need to run in to the arena and drop a long lasting DoT on the boss. As soon as he agros, he will run along the rim and chain agro the other giants. As soon as he gets running, the SK needs to run back toward the arena entrance and FD. Once the giants reset and Brynju is out of agro range of any of the other giants, the SK will stand up and pray. It might take a few tries, but eventually, Brynju will warp down in to the arena rather than run around the ledge. As soon as this happens, the SK needs to make a beeline for the hallway and FD again in case any of the ledge giants got chain agro. At his time the 2nd puller will drag the giant back to the raid. Some times this is fast, some times it takes a while so once the pull team heads out, no AFKs allowed and everyone has to be ready for the pull. Once the SK is sure that he doesn't have ledge giant agro, he needs to haul back to the raid because he is going to be the rampage tank.
Brynju hits for 900ish and rampages, but not all that bad. A druid or shammy can keep the ramp SK healed easily. The MT just needs to plant his ass in a corner and let the raid push the boss on top of him. You will have to deal with 2 AEs, but both are pretty short range. Static storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1028&source=Live) and Thunder Call (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1026&source=Live). Static storm is a 0 sec stun with 1500dd. It only has a range of 20 so the only person getting hit shuold be the MT. Lucy lists a 2 slot dispell, but I am pretty sure that this also is bugged and does not actually dispell any buffs. It does not have any resist adjust so it is not hard to resist, make sure your MT gets plenty of MR Everyone else should be at max melee range anyway so they will never get hit with this. Thunder Call is similar excpet it only has a 1k DD component. This one is targeted at the MT and has a range of 25, so again if everyone is at max melee range the only person getting hit will be the MT. This AE has a -300 resist check so it is pretty hard to resist. Static Storm casts once every 28 seconds, and I believe Thunder Call is a proc.
Brynju Thunderclap drops:
Cap of Drowned Souls (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=9497)
Glowing Orb of the Stormwatcher (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=27637)
Wicked Shank (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=24645)
Ornate Chain Tunic Pattern
Part 4 - Kuanbyr Hailstorm
Kuanbyr is the boss of the northwest tower. I saved this one for last, because in true SOE fashion, they managed to make this tower considerably harder than the rest. Even groups that can mow through the other 3 towers will have a hard time with this tower. About the only similarity this tower has with the others is that giants inhabit the area. Unlike the other towers that are multi-level and require you to progress up teleporters, this tower is a single level. While this would initially seem to make is easier, it really doesn't due to the fact that the area is much tighter than the other 3 towers and also the fact that a new and improved super giant lives in the northwest tower - meet the ass raping Skygge class of giants. While these giants aren't really any harder hitting or smarter than the other run of the mill giants, they do have an AE proc that plays havoc with even a fine tuned raid group. You will learn to HATE Stone Gale (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1031&source=Live). This AE is targeted on the MT (or who ever has agro) and has a radius of 20. While it's not a huge range, it is still devastating since it does 1500dd and is unresistable. It also has a 2.0 second stun so who ever gets hit will also not be able to trigger any means of agro reduction they have available to them. As long as everyone stays far enough away from the MT and keeps agro firmly planted on the MT, these giants aren't all that bad. However, you will find that these giants have a nasty habit of turning on an overzealous caster or rogue and proc'ing on a large group of people at once. This almost always leads to someone getting low HP agro and causing another proc. You can see where this is going, a single misplaced proc can lead to many deaths or even a CR if you get unlucky with low health agro. While I normally recommend lulling up to the boss as quickly as possible, in this tower I recommend killing at least 1 Skygge on the way up to make sure everyone has pulled their heads out for this fight. If you are having problems with deaths on the Skygges, Kuanbyr will tear you appart since he has the exact same AE.
Anyway, back to the boss. Once you are sure you can handle the Skygge giants, lull your way up to the big room with the table in the middle. The northwest corner will not have any giants in it, you need to get your raid there and clear the entire room along with the next hall that leads up to Kuanbyr. Make sure that you have everyone freshly buffed before you start pulling and make sure that everyone is paying attention, once you start killing you are on a timer and you can't stop until the boss is dead. Once everyone is set, start chain pulling all the way to the boss. Once you get the table room clear, you will need to move your raid to the southeast corner next to the weapon rack. This is where you will fight Kuanbyr. It is extremely important that you fight here, the success of the raid depends on proper placement of the boss. I believe the respawn on the giants is on the order of 20-25 minutes and you have to have the boss dead before repops or you will likely get worked.
Unlike the other 3 towers, clearing the giants around the boss is not enough. In this case, Kuanbyr has 3 named stormrider guards that are linked to him. They WILL add even if you pacify, FD, or what ever. His assist range is very large, so even if you manage to split them, they will still add unless you can somehow get the boss out of assist range before he summons aid from the guards. While it may be possible to split the mobs with a combination of FD and snare with a couple of pullers, it's not practical because you have a time limit to deal with. This is where fighting at the weapon rack come in to play. Due to the lay out of this part of the tower, the southeast corner is situated the furthest away from the spawn point of the mobs. This is the ONLY area in the table room that is outside the assist range of the guards. You can fight in the room before the table room, but this will require even more clearing and make it much more likely you will have to deal with repops. It takes more precise execution, but fighting at the weapon rack is a much better location.
The trick to winning this tower is the pull. You will need to set up your pull team and have all of the mobs pretargeted so everyone is on the same page. Your pull team will consist of: the MT, 1 mezzer, 2 snarers, 1 bard. The MT will target Kuanbyr, he will also be the one who will get first agro. This is important because we need Kuanbyr to follow the MT to the weapon rack corner quickly so the rest of the pull team can work. The mezzer - preferably an enchanter since the bards have a more important job - will need to target Iri. This is the only one of the bees that is mezzable. Once the mezzer has a target, he can go back down to the raid and work from there. The 2 snarers will each need to target Hrani and Leister. It is beneficial to have the toggle target function mapped to a single key stroke so they can quickly aquire targets to be snared. Both Hrani and Leister are immune to mezz, but both can be snared and rooted. How you handle these 2 mobs is the key to victory. The bard will also need to target both nonmezzable mobs and have toggle target mapped to a single key. Once the bard has both targets, he too can wait for the pull with the rest of the raid. You will also need a rampage tank to get the boss on target so that he can not only set rampage on incoming, but the rampage tank can also assist in getting the mob to the corner ASAP.
Once all targets have been aquired, the MT will need to pull Kuanbyr. This will agro the boss and all 3 bees. It is vital that the MT makes his way back to the weapon rack corner are quickly as possible. As soon as the mobs agro, the 2 snarers need to quickly try to land a snare on the 2 snareable mobs. With a little practice the first snare should hit the mobs before they even get to the stairs. At this point, the snarers need to head to the southwest corner of the table room - away from the weapon rack. They need to make sure that they do not outrun the bees and lose agro to anyone else in the raid. At this point, at least the boss and Iri will be coming to the raid full speed. If you have 2 enchanters, one should tash Iri while the other mezzes. If you only have one, you will have to take your chances and pray for mezz to land. He is not ungodly resistant, but be sure a healer is keeping an eye on the chanter, Iri must be mezzed until the other 2 bees are under control.
If you get lucky, both snares will land and the snarers will now become kiters. If not, they need to keep snaring until both mobs are snared. Once both are snared, they can be rooted across the room so the bard can do his thing. As soon as the mobs are both snared, the bard will need to land an occlusion of sound on the mob and then chain Highsun on each mob until it lands. Highsun will send the guards back to their spawn point. If you have Kuanbyr positioned properly in the weapon rack corner, they will NOT return to assist Kuanbyr. The snare team and the bard need to stay on this until both mobs have been gated. Once they are gone, you can gate Iri or keep him on ice until the boss is dead. I prefer to gate him as well, less danger and none of the guards drop loot anyway.
As long as your pull team does their job, you should have a relatively easy kill. The actually boss fight is only a little tougher than a Skygge. Like the other bosses, he hits for 900s. He can be slowed so debuffs will need to go in once rampage is set. Everyone will need to be MR buffed because he has a second AE - Hail Storm (http://lucy.fnord.net/spell.html?id=1032&source=Live). Unlike Stone Gale, this AE CAN be resisted and luckily it does not have a modified resist check. If it lands it can do up to 400dd and it has a 0 second stun. It should be easily resisted with Guard of Druzzil and bard song.
For all the trouble, Kuanbyr drops:
Gargoyle Talon (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=24646)
Greater Stormwatcher Horn (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=25800)
Stormriders Signet (http://lucy.fnord.net/item.html?id=10232)
Ornate Silk Robe Pattern