north tov

[EZ_Eldryc]

anyone know where there's a good write up on raiding north tov? I'm not having any luck googling for it.

[EZ_Korthuran]

what do you want to know about it? i dont know about any write ups but iv done ntov quite a bit in the past as have others im sure

[EZ_polkgaiimahn]

Look for Lenardo's guide in the Guides and Tactics section of Monkly-Business.

[EZ_Qutsemnie]

The only thing I would add to it is putting a SoS rogue on the far side while you pull flurries makes it easy to just beat down single flurries which is by far faster cause you can do it indefinatly regardless of crew size and gear. Theres no dealing with two cause the rogue can tell you when to tag.

[EZ_Fins Macgalis]

Flurry drake dps is insane. Literally, there is no other true definition of jamming a large stick up your butt then tanking a flurry drake unslowed. Of course, I say this because I'm a warrior, but I'm warning you. You don't want to pull agro or you will most certainly die. Flurry drakes, as the title implies, Flurry every single round of combat for 700's. Once slowed, they're bearable, but unslowed they make Vindi look like Freeport yard trash.

[EZ_NightGod]

Wait till ya get to PoP...THOSE mobs make flurries look like Freeport yard trash

[EZ_Fins Macgalis]

Hehe, I've tanked my fair share of PoP mobs and gods before. None are truly as exciting as flurry drakes.

Flurry
Flurry
Flurry
Flurry

Every around. I lub it!

[EZ_Averse Thule]

Cripple the flurries asap.

[EZ_Eldryc]

which ones are the flurry drakes? I checked allakhazam's bestiary and couldn't find them. But then a ton of mobs are listed for tov. I may have just missed them. Someone just told me the flurries are the ones with capital letters in their names. hmm...

[EZ_LenasLightarrow]

All named drakes and 'D'efenders will be laying the smack down

[EZ_Acturian]

Flurry drakes look like this:

An Emerald Defender

An Onyx Defender

etc, etc etc. Also any named drakes.

Trick to them is spamheal! Pop an evasive and you're okay. We never used discs because ... we were stupid. Malos, Tash, Slow, then cripple and keel. Flurries have 100k and are okay after slow, but pre-that, they quad 700 and since flurries, they're hitting at an unbelievable speed.

I'm not gonna tell you anything bout the dragons. They're mostly rooted, use it as an advantage!!

[EZ_Mythas Grimlore]

im pretty sure Reparm would put the flurry drakes to shame =)

[EZ_Rekcim]

Well, seeing as how we did it pre AA's and level 65, I would say that its a joke now no?? I can't imagine anyone having a problem in NToV today.

[EZ_ChianaXev]

It's still a shock to the system the first time.

If you're progressing through the game in somewhat linear fashion, even though you have lvl 65 and AA's, and likely better gear, there's still nothing quite like first-time experience with flurries. In general, a lot of the guilds doing NToV for the first time now are doing it with smaller numbers than first-runs at NToV back when it was part of the 'end-game', which skews perception quite a bit, and, I firmly believe, can make the flurries and the dragons there nearly as challenging.

If folks are 'slumming' (and I use that for lack of a better word, not used in a deragatory fashion), after having progressed past the NToV, I'm sure they would seem like a joke.

That all being said, they aren't nearly as bad as everyone makes them out to be, and after the first few encounters with them, most folks figure them out.

But a few hints:

- They can potentially hit as hard as Vindi, but their DPS is all focused on one target. No need to worry about a rampage tank.

- I've never seen cripple do any good... perhaps it lowers their attack enough so they don't hit as hard... slowing is much more important. They flurry every round if they're crippled or not (as far as I could tell).

- Don't panic! They seem a lot worse than they are, and initially all the 'flurry' messages can be kinda intimidating. In general, they don't tend to forget who the tank is easily (see green ones, below). Supernal light/remedy from a couple clerics with a touch of spell haste for the SL caster can keep a tank up rather easily on them until complete heals are landing regularly. Once slowed, their DPS drops way way down. Get the heals going, get the debuffs in and get the slow in. If you take your time and have all your ducks in order, and the debuffs/slows get in without pulling agro, you'll have a bunch of dead flurries in no time.

- Make sure you clear all the flurries (except the north one, he doesn't path down past the pit) before you move from the pit. An unannounced flurry in the middle of the raid can ruin your day. There's 8? 9? of them? I can't remember. They're the only roamers. All of the non flurries in the south part are static. (I'm probably wrong on that, please correct me of I am, anyone...)

- The green ones suck! They have a single target slow that's very hard to resist unless your disease (or is it poison? I'm not sure at the moment) is cranked. We always used SKs to tank these things if they were available.

- Blue ones gate (and this goes for all blues up there). Sieve them or be able to do a whole lotta dps really really quickly. We always had a small enough force it gave us ample time to sieve the mana out of them. If you're relying on sieve, make sure you kill them slow enough to drain all the mana out (that seems sorta counterintuitive to most mob strategies, but hey... worked for us). A gating flurry sucks. The blue ones also proc a mana drain. Best to not let your SKs tank these =)

- The flurries roam. Therefore anything and everything along their path will buff them. They'll have damage shields (usually big ones) from the druid squirrels, hit point buffs (not that an extra 1000hps matters one way or another), etc. I'd recommend leading with a dispel if possible.

- Try and pull only one until you have a good grip on the kind of damage they put out. Pulling more than one (especially when your clerics don't know about it) usually results in a few extra deaths until you're ready for it.

NToV, for someone who's never been there and even with all the spoilers, is still a bit of a system shock. If you're not used to raiding on that scale, it's a bit different world altogether. Even after clearing it a bunch of times, I still have a lot of fun going back there, and now it's a good learning experience for new recruits and such.

Hrm, I'll stop rambling now =)
Edited by: ChianaXev at: 12/29/03 8:09 am

[EZ_Arakasi Nightblade]

Ah, the good ol' Flurry-Gaters of NToV, have fun!

[EZ_Lemac Dushae]

The dragonfly looking ones also gate and are 100% magic resistant.

From a roguely point of view, expect 50-60% of the dragonflies and the red drakes to also have a damage shield on them.

[EZ_Averse Thule]

I have tanked em quite a few times, and to me, at least, it feels like night and day between a crippled flurry drake and non crippled one.

Whatever you do, dont let any drakes get off gate in NToV, or have a designated camp out cleric in a safe spot as soon as one gates to be cautious...that's about the only thing that should have a chance in resulting in a wipe in NToV anymore.

[EZ_ChianaXev]

Quote:The dragonfly looking ones also gate and are 100% magic resistant.

Ayup, disease slow only. But Mana Sieve (the level 34 enchanter spell) is not resistable. You can still sieve the heck out of them with it (but none of the other mana drains work on them).

And half of the squirrels are rangers (not that you can really tell the difference).

Once you get the roamers clear, it's pretty safe to have short pulling distances. We used to just move around after the flurries were dead, short pulls if any. Most of the time, even the gaters wouldn't even try to gate they were so close to home.

The black ones have a (weak) self damage shield (they're SK's, fun when they're flurries because they're not only flurries, they lead off with a nice little touch), so they'll always have a DS on inc. The reds will if they've passed in the vicinity of a druid/ranger mob. I've never seen one of the druid/ranger ones without one unless it's a freak accident. Edited by: ChianaXev at: 12/29/03 2:54 pm

[EZ_Eldryc]

anyone know repop time on the roamers? Especially the flurry roamers...

[EZ_stabmindaback]

30mins on the roamers...


BTW expect to go from Max Ally to CoV to Max KOS to CoV in your first night of raiding NToV...

So advise your guildmates that if they want to do any quests on CoV faction they better do it prior to entering NToV.

Stabm Indaback

[EZ_Qutsemnie]

the roamers arnt 30 min. The fastest is 2 hours.

I know because I was the rogue that would scout pulls and we would pull up the left side past vyemm and had to move fast to get into lady mirs pit in less then 2 hours. (which we did)


Also all roamers are flurries. Also while the fastest roamer repop is 2 hours some are longer and some seem to be really long (like a week for the named). The point is that NToV after a server repop always seems to have more pathers including named then when you come after 3 days after someone cleared it. After a repop theres a ton of flurries initially. like 5 to 6 on the left side.

edit:
appendium.
there is 3 two hour flurries on the left side. Those 3 path from aarys pit to the crossroads that lead to the north north part of ntov. (past vyemm and koi and mir) 1 on the right.
There is 1 two hour flurry in the south part of the north wing of ntov.



But anyway from north north ntov to wings the pathers you need to beat are 2 hours.

The statics are 72 minutes.







Edited by: Qutsemnie at: 12/31/03 5:36 am

[EZ_sakkathdeath1]

Quote: You can still sieve the heck out of them with it (but none of the other mana drains work on them).
Necro Mind Wrack is disease based

[EZ_ChianaXev]

Sorry, none of the other chanter mana drains work =) I know nothing about necros, honestly, as I've never played one past about 4.

[EZ_HaloChanter]

Well here's a very rough and quick run-down.. Not been in NToV for a bloody long time.
Though finding out for yourself is obviously the more fun, you may as well hear spoilers here if anywhere.
In order of likely appearance..

General hints: Walls are a brilliant tool in this zone. Use them. When and how should be extremely obvious. Bard resists and cleric CH chains are, hopefully, familiar in their advantages to you now. Use them, always. Splash heals, multi-tanking, runes and debuffing should all be standard methods of fighting. These are all key here too. NToV is usually the "gateway" to a new era of playing. For the first time you get to "clear" a zone for genuinly good loot, which you couldn't do before, unless you've done VP or ST.

Ikatiar the Venom - 700's, slowable, rampage, pretty much Vindi with less HP and DPS.
Eashen of the Sky - 700's, wizard, 300 fire/cold AE, weak DPS due to casting. Can gate.

The 2 above are unique pulls, each being in a room with numerous mobs. There are a number of ways to pull them. You can do it single, using a bio orb, or a tag team of monks (who don't mind taking one for the team, which they will), or clearing the guards first. HINT: Ikky and Eashen are faster than their guards.

Aaryonar - Hits 900, slowable, AE mana drain and dispell. Bard lull song is ideal for getting him away from his guards. Watch out for those flurries, however. And don't, obviously, fight him in his pit.

Depending on you taking the right after Aaryonar..

Lord Feshlak - Rooted, one of the easier dragons in the zone, cold (?) based AE dispell, hits for max 650, but has the DPS of a Giant Wooly Spider.

Dagarn the Destroyer - Again, one of the easier ones. Straight melee, hits for no more than about 650. Pull him to Feshlak's cave to avoid crappy positioning on the ledge.

Lord Kriezenn - Unslowable, hits for about 900. That being said, doesn't hit for max much, quite weak DPS. Fire based AE, not positive if it was a dispell.

At this point you oughtta turn around and back-track until you pass Aaryonar's pit and stumble upon Lord Vyemm.

Lord Vyemm - Pretty much the hardest dragon you'll face here. Hits for 1050, disease slowable only, Gflux's and knocksback. The idea here is to avoid having your entire raid flung in to the lava. It's not too hard to work out a way to have him facing other than towards the ramp, as to avoid this disaster. When you've done that, just tell everyone to splash heal the MT. Forget CH's. Lots of runes and splash heals. As with all dragons, spells from melee range, though he is very, very MR. Oh, rooted, btw.

Lord Koi'Doken - Always my favourite fight, for some reason. He will be in a pool of water when you encounter him, with a pet you usually cannot pull without the other. So instead of messing around, just pull the two. Use a hybrid to offtank the drake, and do so some way from the raid to avoid low-life killing. Koi'doken has an AE dispell stun, lasts for something annoying like 8 seconds which, in addition with his usual HP, will make this a long fight by anyone's standards. There is a small cove you can use for cover, and well.. usual initiative applies.

Lady Mirenilla - Easy as pie. Rooted, cold based AE dispell, slowable.. usual tactic. Nothing to it.

Tripplets: Zlexak, Cekenar, Sevalak.
Pulling these is usually the bane of an NToV clearing. For first timers, you'll want to toy around with monks tagging. Usually setting one up on the first ramp, one up by the stairs to the tripplet room, and one inside, ready to pull. With the right timing, you can tag either of the left or right dragons, Sev and Cek. I'm sure monks can offer better advice, but either way, it will be a pull you'll spend some time getting to know.

Sevalak - Old world baby. Think of Hoskar, if you ever did VP. 1250 AE, Gflux, and about 40khp. Just burn him down, nothing to worry about, and only drops crap hybrid stuff.

Cekenar - cold based AE dispell and mana drain. Fight him at the bottom of the ramp as to beable to take advantage of the walls. Hits for 700ish, slowable, no biggie dps wise.

Zlexak - Up there with Vyemm, toughness wise. Has Sev's AE, but with a 55% diseased based slow component. Your DPS effectively cuts in half, so use MGB heals and group heals to get you through the prolonged pain. The DoT can become a real problem over such a long time. Best idea is to just burn him down.. discs and AA offensives and such. Quicker the better.

Jorlleag - Weak dps, slowable, hits for 600ish. Cold based AE dispell. Problem with him is that he gates, and if he gets it off, he's going to summon half the raid back to him, which also happens to be right next to the lovely and stunning (literally) Lady Nev. So mana sieve and push at around 20%. Besides that, an easy kill.

And finally..

Lady Nev - If you lack DPS, this could well be the hardest fight in the zone for you. Lady Nev is rooted, but has a 750 magic based AE stun/spin, which lasts for an annoying 12 seconds. The fight takes AGES, and it can become - besides sickening - extremely boring. Nothing big DPS wise, usual slowable, 700 hitter.

And that's your quick and rough run-down.
As said above, watch out for flurries, make-sure the area around you is clear before engaging a named (remember, respawn is 72mins), and watch that lava.
Hope that helps.

[EZ_Loninn]

Jorlleag is the only dragon in ntov that dispells period. Well actually just pretty much disregard any of the AE's mention in the above post since only a few of them are correct.

For example Lady Mirenilla has an AE silence, not to hard to resist but if your doing ntov for the first time more then likely your healers don't have exceptional resist so hide from it.

Dagarn the Destroyer isn't a straight melee fight. He does have both a fire and cold based AE that go off a lot. Pin dtd on the wall thats on a ledge where you killed Lord Feshlak at. Anyone that can hide from the AE, like healers, shrink up and stay at the ledge.

Lord Kriezenn has a couple second stun it'll interrupt heals, there is a nice hidding spot behind a ledge on the right side.

Lord Koi'Doken stun isn't 8 seconds it's more like 1, basically it just interrupts spells.

On Lord Vyemm you can use CH's, just cast it right after a gflux then use patch heals when needed between. His DPS is much lower these days with PoP disease slow. I've personally kept up a low HP tank (under 8k) on him with nothing more then 2 clerics. Forget runes, they are not needed on any mobs in ntov.

[EZ_HaloChanter]

'Well here's a very rough and quick run-down.. Not been in NToV for a bloody long time.'

- Don't be hating.

[EZ_Qutsemnie]

Lady Nev == Grieg and if you have to you can fight it like grieg.


(Pull everyone but the tank back and find the handle on the fight again + med before sending everyone back in)

[EZ_simysima]

ikatar isn't slowable, eashan doesn't gate.. zlexaks AE is 1250 or so nuke + slow, disease based ye.

Also eashan is a warrior i believe, enrages and doesn't cast any spells besides AE and the usual thunderblast proc all the drakes have.

Ikatar and Eashan were changed while back, they don't always run faster than trash near em anymore.. it can be a lil more complicated. Edited by: simysima at: 1/3/04 8:01 pm

[EZ_Dalrek Scalebane]

Speaking of NToV..how can you tell if RoV is up? Thylex just has to be there or is he always no matter if its up or not?

[EZ_Qutsemnie]

Pacify works in ntov. Pulling isnt at all the same as oldschoolers describe. They put challange where theres none now cause of paci.

Though a good monk can still get eashen faster then a paci'r. But regardless if your having trouble get targets and paci. assist. paci. assist. paci. assist.

Also it behooves you to leave a mage on skyshrine faction if its at all feasible.

[EZ_StevoWevo]

Quote:Speaking of NToV..how can you tell if RoV is up? Thylex just has to be there or is he always no matter if its up or not? Thylex will respawn when ring is triggerable. Keep in mind you can trigger the ring even if you havent killed all of the lords and ladies, leaving DT mobs in the back of the ring area...

Respawn on failure is quick, an hour or two, if that.

[EZ_Qutsemnie]

respawn on failure seems to be fast enough that by the time you get done with CR its ready. For first time RoV i would advise having someones twink cleric or buffer01 cleric logged out at a safe spot.
Thats actually true of first time NTOV. Theres plenty of good rezzing spots to keep a cleric camped out.

[EZ_Acturian]

things quad for 900 btw.

[EZ_Shismar]

on rooted mobs the debuffs that are not unresistable, i.e slow, need to be done from melee range. Seen many a dragon belly...


Shismar
Elder Prophet of Shining Alliance
Prexus

[EZ_Futumsh]

A few corrections and additions to the above info...

Ikatiar doesn't rampage, only has a poison proc that isn't worth worrying about.

At least one, probably more, of Eashen's guards are not pacifiable.

Vyemm hits for 1200 max, but with good AC doesn't do it often.

Dagarn hits for 700, but has higher ATK than most of the other dragons. He rampages, but so rarely it doesn't really need to be considered seriously.

Zlexak's AE can be cured with 1 shot of pure blood or blood of nadox. Handy for assuring your tank keeps agro, along with keeping the dps up.

Sevalak's gflux either is single target or targeted with a tiny tiny radius, not sure which.

Jorlleag is the only dispeller.

Kriezen is the only unslowable one, Vyemm is disease slowable only, and the rest are fully slowable.

[EZ_BollixBraker]

there are 2 types of flurries
first the named flurries (ie, they have actual names, don't ask me what those names are). they are on a 1 week respawn. best if you can kill these all first b4 starting on the regular flurries.
second are the regular flurries. a flurry will be known by the capital letter at the start of its name (or to be precise, the indefinite article will be a capital letter, therefore "a onyx defender" is a regular mob, but "A onyx defender" is a flurry.) The regular flurries are on a 3hour 45 min timer.

If you are low numbers/ low dps / not great gear, then:
1. kill arry
2. move to pit
3. wait for named flurries to path around
4. kill all named flurries solo. there are 3-5 named flurries.
5. once all named flurries dead, start killing regular flurries, don't stop from this point on. there are 3-5 regular fluries
6. once all regular flurries dead, move out, clear the ordinary trash (on 72 min respawn) and clear around and kill all the dragons on lower circle (ie, feshlak, dagarn, kreizein, koidoikdn, vymem, mirinella.)
7. you have 3 hours 45 to clear those b4 worrying about flurry respawn.
8. now, move to the back corridor. you have 1 or maybe 2 flurries in your way.
9. clear to joreleg, pull and kil him
10. engage lady N (see strat above)
11. try to split the triplets. We have a super sk puller, belenos, who was able to split them at lvl 60. you can do it. it is tough though.

[EZ_ChianaXev]

We do NToV with relatively small numbers. With the north set, we generally do Jor, triplets, then reclear trash/roamers then nev. Since Lady Neverdie-ya can be a long fight, we use that to buy us as much time as possible between respawns.

[EZ_Yoshinkai]

I was wondering if anyone had some info on the Vulak Ring --How it is started, who is the trigger mob if any?

[EZ_Acturian]

jorlleag gates at 5 not 15 like everything else btw. when we were 2grp'ing ntov way back (yay fun times) , we had everyone save nukes and everything and had it all go off at 15% .. he went 15, 14, 6, 5, started gating. so save it until you see it

[EZ_Maneranae]

splitting the trips isnt that bad at all. There are a lot of ways to do it. I did it for my guild every time we did Ntov and im a paladin. So anyone can do it.

[EZ_Chopjoo1]

split the three stooges on my 59 monk on first throw a while back... there's nothing to it but LoS.

[EZ_murghkhor]

I would think everyone would agree pretty much unanimously, that ToV was the best end game zone for an expansion, hands down. Contenders are VP (yawn, stay in 1 room while pull team brings them all to you), LC (yawn, dark robe mob #2341 ......), Time (probably the second best zone, still not near as exciting as a NToV run was). And ToV not only had NToV for end-game but also West ToV (3 more dragons) and HoT (Dozekar) for armor farms and more named........ And it was exciting to get to. Deep in the claw of veeshan with dragons guarding and roaming. Compare that to the lame Luclin entrance, even worse Time B entrance (here, take a wasted / empty zone, Time A). VP had a cool entrance as well.

[EZ_StevoWevo]

Thats probably one of the bigger problems w/ EQ right now... whats next? We killed all the dragons, we killed all the gods, the rest has to be made up and has no pre-existing lore/storyline to go off of - makes us not care as much about the content, and focus even more on just what it drops.

[EZ_Zassk]

To start Ring of Vulak, just have any player walk past the halfway mark on Vulak's bridge. As long as a player is alive beyond the halfway mark, the ring continues. (Feigned death players don't count.)

If the ring despawns due to a wipeout, it can be re-triggered almost immediately. People who camp out during a wipeout will generally re-trigger the event when they reload, before they can even leave the area. People who attempt to drag corpses out of the room will also re-trigger the event.

Nothing in the event is mezzable or pacifiable nowadays, so it is basically all about having enough tanks/healers to occupy everything that spawns, and enough DPS to kill a whole wave within the wave timer (9 minutes or so, I forget exactly).