Thread: Ost Dunhoth Strategy and Videos (Spoilers)

In response to the bantering that has plagued the Ost Dunhoth Progression thread, please continue the conversation here. It never belonged on the thread in the first place.

**UPDATE** - The Raid Progression Thread has been permenantly closed. I will continue it here in the near future if there is still interest.

Here are the videos of our kinship downing the challenge mode bosses in Ost Dunhoth for those interested. I only present these videos due to the 4 pages of response on the progression thread.

Please behave and keep the conversation focused and constructive. Continue any and all strategy discussion here, please not on the progression thread. I will update this thread with our kin's written strategy along with each video if there is interest, but I'd prefer that other kin's weigh in with questions, mechanics, and anything in between before posting the details. What you can gather from the videos will hopefully help those that are struggling with the boss fights and would like some help.

Gortheron (Part1) 1080p HD (new) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6JQT7SiYjk

Gortheron (Part 2) 1080p HD (new) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeIll_JJVt0

Ivar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmMWF...eature=related

Poison - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR6nj...eature=related

Fear - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5u_...eature=related (Interrupting Face your Fears)

Fear alt. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozGt7q2sbU4 (Using DnFtF or just healing Face your Fears)

Wound - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJPSr...eature=related

Disease - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWLra...eature=related

After skimming through the vid, I really can't see what was being done that caused such an uproar (but I have no idea what to look for).

If you're finding a way to reset the damage buff without incrementally killing adds, I think it would be pretty fair to say that this is "unintended".

Originally Posted by Evendale

After skimming through the vid, I really can't see what was being done that caused such an uproar (but I have no idea what to look for).

If you're finding a way to reset the damage buff without incrementally killing adds, I think it would be pretty fair to say that this is "unintended".

We killed the signature adds to decrement Gortheron. CC'ed the elites each round after they were low and DPS'ed the boss at a rate high enough to not let him tier up till about the end of the Forochel phase.

Originally Posted by Evendale

After skimming through the vid, I really can't see what was being done that caused such an uproar (but I have no idea what to look for).

If you're finding a way to reset the damage buff without incrementally killing adds, I think it would be pretty fair to say that this is "unintended".

The discussion in the other thread was regarding Durin's Bane as far as I understand. They are using an unintended way to avoid the "Face Your Fears" attack.

Looking forward to the next patch when that burglar skills tooltip gets fixed with the addition of: "Negates the activation of a certain skill Durin's Bane in Ost Dunhoth uses". That is what certain Resistance members seem to believe.

Originally Posted by Evendale

If you're finding a way to reset the damage buff without incrementally killing adds, I think it would be pretty fair to say that this is "unintended".

Are you saying Blinding flash is now an exploit or something??

Originally Posted by spockerized

Are you saying Blinding flash is now an exploit or something??

I'm confused too - just trying to make sense of what everyone said in the other thread. But apparently they were referring to something else, so nvm.

I'm sorry, but if avoiding attacks isnt the EXACT intention of HiPS, I don't know what is. I find it amusing that PA are the ones freaking out over this, though I am not surprised at the people carrying on about it.

PS: PA might want to start looking for a captain/burg/hunter now, for when a certain someone gets all his loot.


Also, congrats to Resistance!

Meh about the HiPS thing really. It has been used since forever to interrupt literally any attack that has an animation really. Durins Bane's not much different tbh.

Also, Im pretty sure that this HiPS "exploit/bug/clever-gameplay/whatever" is sort of intented. A long time ago, HiPS did not do this interrupting thing. This resulted in HiPS being bugged, when you used the skill when a mob was doing in induction attack on you, the attack would still go off and pop you immediately out of stealth again. This was especially prevalent in the Ettenmoors with the archers on you. I remember HiPS failing close to a 50% when using it to escape from NPCs. Lots of moaning and complaining from the burglars about HiPS being bugged.
Eventually, the devs fixxed it. They apperantly couldnt make it that the skill in the induction didnt pop you out of stealth, so they made it ON PURPOSE that HiPS would interrupt those skill that were already in animation/induction.

So yeah, HiPS is intended to interrupt skills when you use HiPS defensively. Ofcourse, this in not defensive use. However, interrupting is interrupting, the skill doesnt say you can only use it to get away. I'd rate it as normal, clever gameplay. Its definitely different then other exploits, like the SM-exploit, as HiPS is intended to interrupt skills. I guess the dev didnt think of using it offensively on bossfights tho. :P

Ok, now that we don't have to plague the other thread with this whole discussion. I hope that it's ok that this can be brought out in the open, if not forum mods feel free to edit my post, but I would like people to understand what the issue is so it's not just a bunch of people "complaining" as it may look to some. This really has nothing to do with kin vs kin or even boss kills, its actually a really broken skill that can be used throughout the game not just in OD. I've talked with a couple members from Resistance and funny enough, it's much less dramatic than the awesome forum trolling that we all got pulled into. They're open about the strat and we basically agree to disagree on whether or not this is an exploit, however at the end of our conversations the general agreement was that this is a pretty broken skill and should be fixed.

The issue is, if you watch (and listen) in the Durin's Bane video, once he starts doing face your fears, the burglars start using Hips as soon as the words come up in the chat log for the face your fears prompt (the voice prompt is 1 go, 2 go, 3 go, etc). The burglar does not have agro or anything, simply uses hips. This then, appears to somehow interrupt the script and the attack NEVER goes off (it is not absorbed, the dnftf is used for the other fire attacks in this video). It is my understanding that this can be used throughout the game, in the Ivar fight, to stop attacks and heals, in the mammoth fight to stop inductions. It can be used in 3 mans, 6mans, etc. Basically anywhere where you want to interrupt a script whether or not it is supposed to be interrupted. Furthermore, it is my understanding that minstrel feign death can serve a similar function.

Why this is not working as intended in my opinion? Burglar hips is a single target skill meant to put a burglar back in stealth and meant to drop any agro off mobs that the burg may have. If a mob that is agro'd on the burg is in the middle of an induction then that attack will be interrupted and the mob will reset. However, in these situations the burg does not have agro of the mob, so why on earth would it be ok for a skill that is meant only for the burglar to break a script that negates damage for the whole group. I would understand if it interrupted a skill if a burglar used hips while a mob was agro'd on it, but this is not the case. Furthermore, I would even understand if a burg that used hips would not take the damage himself, but the rest of the group would.

I know there was always a grey area with burgs and hips, especially hips pulls in BG. I never did it because it's completely doable and often more reliable to do it the intended way, but in this case I think we're far beyond grey area when raid wide effects are being completely negated.

That's all there is to it, a broken skill that's not working as intended. The rest of the snide remarks and attempts to start even more drama aren't necessary.

Originally Posted by jlr

I'm sorry, but if avoiding attacks isnt the EXACT intention of HiPS, I don't know what is. I find it amusing that PA are the ones freaking out over this, though I am not surprised at the people carrying on about it.

PS: PA might want to start looking for a captain/burg/hunter now, for when a certain someone gets all his loot.


Also, congrats to Resistance!

Wrong thread.

Originally Posted by FrenyaVictoria

Meh about the HiPS thing really. It has been used since forever to interrupt literally any attack that has an animation really. Durins Bane's not much different tbh.

Also, Im pretty sure that this HiPS "exploit/bug/clever-gameplay/whatever" is sort of intented. A long time ago, HiPS did not do this interrupting thing. This resulted in HiPS being bugged, when you used the skill when a mob was doing in induction attack on you, the attack would still go off and pop you immediately out of stealth again. This was especially prevalent in the Ettenmoors with the archers on you. I remember HiPS failing close to a 50% when using it to escape from NPCs. Lots of moaning and complaining from the burglars about HiPS being bugged.
Eventually, the devs fixxed it. They apperantly couldnt make it that the skill in the induction didnt pop you out of stealth, so they made it ON PURPOSE that HiPS would interrupt those skill that were already in animation/induction.

So yeah, HiPS is intended to interrupt skills when you use HiPS defensively. Ofcourse, this in not defensive use. However, interrupting is interrupting, the skill doesnt say you can only use it to get away. I'd rate it as normal, clever gameplay. Its definitely different then other exploits, like the SM-exploit, as HiPS is intended to interrupt skills. I guess the dev didnt think of using it offensively on bossfights tho. :P

Your last point sort of belies your first. If the devs didn't think of it, how could it be "sort of intended"?

So, when a boss wants twelve people to face their fears and take a 4k hit to Morale, one of them disappears, and all of a sudden he doesn't care about the other 11? That's the main point of the argument. If the one burg didn't take the 4k hit, I'd definitely not call it unintended gameplay. But the rest? They didn't disappear. They're still sitting there right in front of the boss. There is no "Group Hide In Plain Sight" of which I'm aware.

If the devs wanted scripts or special attacks, mechanics, et cetera to be interruptable, how about just give it an induction ring? Or did they just want one skill to be the one that interrupts it?

I'm interested now after five pages of trollage to see if anyone can actually provide a meaningful response, other than asking me if I'm mad lol

I just don't really understand where the rationale is to consider this something other than an exploit. "The bug has been around for a long time, and hasn't been fixed" is not valid reasoning. Nor is "well, the devs didn't say anything about it."

Originally Posted by Comma44

Ok, now that we don't have to plague the other thread with this whole discussion. I hope that it's ok that this can be brought out in the open, if not forum mods feel free to edit my post, but I would like people to understand what the issue is so it's not just a bunch of people "complaining" as it may look to some. This really has nothing to do with kin vs kin or even boss kills, its actually a really broken skill that can be used throughout the game not just in OD. I've talked with a couple members from Resistance and funny enough, it's much less dramatic than the awesome forum trolling that we all got pulled into. They're open about the strat and we basically agree to disagree on whether or not this is an exploit, however at the end of our conversations the general agreement was that this is a pretty broken skill and should be fixed.

The issue is, if you watch (and listen) in the Durin's Bane video, once he starts doing face your fears, the burglars start using Hips as soon as the words come up in the chat log for the face your fears prompt (the voice prompt is 1 go, 2 go, 3 go, etc). The burglar does not have agro or anything, simply uses hips. This then, appears to somehow interrupt the script and the attack NEVER goes off (it is not absorbed, the dnftf is used for the other fire attacks in this video). It is my understanding that this can be used throughout the game, in the Ivar fight, to stop attacks and heals, in the mammoth fight to stop inductions. It can be used in 3 mans, 6mans, etc. Basically anywhere where you want to interrupt a script whether or not it is supposed to be interrupted. Furthermore, it is my understanding that minstrel feign death can serve a similar function.

Why this is not working as intended in my opinion? Burglar hips is a single target skill meant to put a burglar back in stealth and meant to drop any agro off mobs that the burg may have. If a mob that is agro'd on the burg is in the middle of an induction then that attack will be interrupted and the mob will reset. However, in these situations the burg does not have agro of the mob, so why on earth would it be ok for a skill that is meant only for the burglar to break a script that negates damage for the whole group. I would understand if it interrupted a skill if a burglar used hips while a mob was agro'd on it, but this is not the case. Furthermore, I would even understand if a burg that used hips would not take the damage himself, but the rest of the group would.

I know there was always a grey area with burgs and hips, especially hips pulls in BG. I never did it because it's completely doable and often more reliable to do it the intended way, but in this case I think we're far beyond grey area when raid wide effects are being completely negated.

That's all there is to it, a broken skill that's not working as intended. The rest of the snide remarks and attempts to start even more drama aren't necessary.

Kam if I read what you said as I am half asleep I think I completely agree with you. HIPS IS broken as heck and ive been crying for it to be changed for years. FFS go to SS tier 2 and when the last boss does his ability to control a member of your fellowship have a burg use hips and watch what happens.

There is no such thing as an exploit just bad programming and that is what truly is at fault.
Now thinking of it I can't really think of a boss fight you cant use HIPS to do something for. Well maybe Gortheron but maybe we just haven't found something you can HIPS in that boss fight.

Originally Posted by spockerized

go to SS tier 2 and when the last boss does his ability to control a member of your fellowship have a burg use hips and watch what happens.

I've done that to avoid the Burglar spirit previously, and was indeed surprised by the outcome. Definitely script breaking.

I don't think it should break all inductions, but I can see why it would break AOE ones, even if the Burg does not have aggro. If it applies to the Minstrel version, then it probably apples to the Hobbit flop too. Hobbit raids FTW!

One thing I would like to point out, is that Resistance has been very open about their strategy, by posting full videos. The music overlay is deliberately not blocking raid vent chat, so there is no question of any guilty cover-up in my mind.

/wave to Kam & Geoff across on that other server

Originally Posted by john_anthony

playing with semantics here. it's clearly an exploit. it's more clearly an exploit than many things which have been outright called exploits by the time devs caught up with them (e.g. the original grand stairs jumping thing).

bad programming is the devs' fault; taking advantage of bad programming is players' fault -- simple as that. if you are taking advantage of bad programming that you have yourself admitted shouldn't work the way it does, that's essentially the textbook definition of exploiting a fight.

it is an exploit because it, contrary to every single dev intention for that fight, eliminates the defining aspect of durin's bane challenge mode. it eliminates the special attack that is the whole point of the the end of that fight. it doesn't mitigate it; it eliminates it in a way contrary to every intention of the raid's designer. period, full stop.

people who are using this approach aren't really doing DB challenge mode because they inappropriately eliminate the element that DEFINES the challenge mode. they're doing a tame alternate universe version of the fight and getting credit for the actual thing.

this is an exploit that simply slipped through the cracks because of how turbine's programming silos works -- the person who is designing class skills is working totally separate from the person designing boss fights. as a result, they can't figure out the extent of the exploit till after the fight is already out and players figure things out that a better integrated team would've figured out beforehand.

as i've said elsewhere, ultimately this is an issue of personal and group integrity. if you are using mechanics that YOU YOURSELF HAVE ADMITTED ARE BUGGED, you are exploiting. if ultimately you care more about bragging about firsts and loot, you would consider using exploits to get things done. if you actually wanted to play the game for its own sake, to push yourself by actually doing the fights as intended rather than looking for a backdoor to eliminate the challenge, you wouldn't be all that tempted to do so.

in the final reckoning, it's a question of character and of why people choose to play the game.

I could agree with this if it wasn't for the fact that it does something for every mob/boss in this silly game. Fool me once shame on me fool me twice shame on you. BURGS are in fact the most OP class in this game hands down.

*edited before Sapience see's it*

This sure seems like an exploit to me. I could care less if a kin needs to use it to win a fight, though. That's their choice and has no effect on me personally, so I don't get the outrage. But yes, it's an exploit and lessens the value of the kill.

Originally Posted by Comma44

However, in these situations the burg does not have agro of the mob, so why on earth would it be ok for a skill that is meant only for the burglar to break a script that negates damage for the whole group. I would understand if it interrupted a skill if a burglar used hips while a mob was agro'd on it, but this is not the case. Furthermore, I would even understand if a burg that used hips would not take the damage himself, but the rest of the group would.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about it. HiPS should not break the boss' script and should not stop the rest of the raid from taking AOE damage. I would be very surprised to hear that this is WAI.

My philosophy is that if you want to use questionable tactics in your raids, go right ahead, it doesn't impact me. I just wish that this strategy wouldn't have been shared like it was in-game and in the videos. It seriously trivializes challenge mode and now that it's out there it's going to spread like wildfire, which means no more alt runs with other raid groups unless I'm willing to do it. Them: "Hey Toe, can you do OD with us tonight?" Me:"Absolutely!" Them:"Can you bring your burg?" Me:"Ummm... on second thought...".

In the future, can we please save sharing questionable strategies for farm mode or even better, don't share them at all? It wouldn't be a big deal in another month when this strat is just a shortcut to guaranteed loot, I might even be tempted to use it myself, but this has gone too public too early for my liking.

Hopefully the devs will either fix it or put out a statement about whether or not they consider it an exploit and encourage/discourage its usage.

My sincere apologies for going off in the other thread as I told Geoff last night its dumb to even care about this.

It would be nice too see a dev comment on this though just to clear things up for everyone.

Arne if that was anywhere near true you should contact me in game because I would like to know when this happened. But please that isn't needed in this thread.

Thank you everyone so for for keeping the conversation more or less civilized.

Also I wanted to point out that the progression thread is now permanently closed thanks to bantering between my kin and others and I'm ashamed of it. I thought better of both of us.

So just a few things that HIPS does do:

1) Interrupts a mobs induction skill if used during the induction.
2) Drops the burglar off of a mob's or group of mob's aggro table (unless they are in an attack duration animation)
3) Prevents the burglar from breaking stealth due to damage for 10 seconds.

HIPS does not break mob 'Scripts'. When a mob morale bar turns green, that is a script and cannot be interrupted because the skill is not an induction and not interrupt-able. If you are wondering what skills that a boss do are inductions, use 75% addle on the mob and see what skills they are doing take longer than normal. Those are skills interrupt-able by HIPS or debuffable by addle/Writ of Cold.

Here is a link to my original Burglar raiding guide with notes on HIPS:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...iding-guide%29

We used a HIP's interrupt in the Durin's Bane video on his various face your fears attacks, We have also downed him with no interrupts or only a few interrupts. The skill itself is a tactical fire attack, along with almost all of DB's other skills aside from shadow smash with is tactical AoE shadow damage. If anyone is taking a 4k hit from face your fears, I think you should re-gear your characters. My minstrel with Ballad of Flame, Fire DP, DN set, 15% tac defense, and frost lore on the boss gets hit for around 2.5 - 2.7k damage from the attack, much less than lash of the whip.

And in response to John Anthony, no, 'Unlucky' for us was lagging attempts where we had rubber banding issues with DB or the like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AlhF...layer_embedded - rubberband fail

Burglar HIPS interrupts skill was not used for any other boss fight because there was no skill that was desirable to interrupt that was an induction skill.

Since some do not think it is a legitimate strategy, I will post a video of our run on Friday where we do not interrupt any of the bosses attacks. I am still bringing my burgs, however, since its the 2nd most played class in our kin and they have the highest single target DPS in my raid with marks and tricks included.

Ok it's settled then, Resistance beat it without using the burg interrupt. Is this argument over now?

I just think it is kind of silly to be cutting down kins like this. If you don't want to use tactics that other people have found that you consider questionable no one is forcing you to do so. You can state your opinions on the matter fine but I see no need to call them dishonorable or to say their achievements are any less of an achievement because of it. They just found another way to do the fight and they have done the fight the "regular way" too so I still think they are doing a great job with this raid. If the devs decide to come out and say this is not WAI and it is an exploit i'm sure they will have no problem doing it the "intended way".

I have seen a lot of bad mouthing in this forum as of late and it is really kind of saddening. Why can't we all just kick some butt in the raids and be happy for each others accomplishments?.. in other words... Why can't we all just get along

<3<3<3 Ali

Originally Posted by darkalice

Ok it's settled then, Resistance beat it without using the burg interrupt. Is this argument over now?

THAT part of the argument should never have been started. However, the real argument is not over. Is HiPS "interrupt" an exploit? It really shouldn't be called called an interrupt since there is already a game mechanic for that & this is clearly not an interrupt. Should HiPS be changed, raid bosses changed, HiPS disabled in boss fights, or things left as they are?

LS/IHW was changed because it was too powerful, trivialized content & made raid design difficult. I think HiPS, when used is this manner, is just as overpowered and needs to be looked at.

It is same as using a burg's Lockdown to break off scripts (scripts as in the boss is suppose to do that attack which is NOT AN INDUCTION but you're locking down the boss which is why you're breaking off the scripts). Turbine gave all bosses stun immunity and made everything CJ immune after DN to ensure that the intentional scripts are not interrupted.

So HIPS is NOT a valid interrupt but an actual bug where the boss is about to fire off a skill which has all ppl targeted in the room but once HIPS activates all of the targets are lost instead of just one. Which is why this exploit has a minimum usage and probably won't work on other bosses where scripts are single targeted. Yes its a mistake on turbine's part to allow this to happen and it's sad that it isn't fixed. But taking advantage of this is the very definition of an exploit.

Originally Posted by darkalice

Ok it's settled then, Resistance beat it without using the burg interrupt. Is this argument over now?

Again, wrong thread. That thread is locked. Not sure why people keep trying to bring kin vs. kin into this thread, unless you just want to get it locked again. It is as if other people are trying to keep that argument going, lol.

This thread is about skill vs. raid.

Originally Posted by darkalice

Ok it's settled then, Resistance beat it without using the burg interrupt. Is this argument over now?

Like others have said that's not what this thread is about. Please stay on the OP's topic. We don't need another thread locked.

If a boss calls a persons name, to me, that means the boss is targeting that person for a specific attack, regardless of aggro, regardless of effects that attack may have on the rest of the group. If a burglars name is called, I see no problem with hipsing to prevent the attack from going off, at least with the current state of things. For that matter, I have no problem with anyone doing whatever possible to prevent the attack with the skills given them. There is a difference between exploiting and emergent gameplay.

Originally Posted by Yosoff

THAT part of the argument should never have been started. However, the real argument is not over. Is HiPS "interrupt" an exploit? It really shouldn't be called called an interrupt since there is already a game mechanic for that & this is clearly not an interrupt. Should HiPS be changed, raid bosses changed, HiPS disabled in boss fights, or things left as they are?

LS/IHW was changed because it was too powerful, trivialized content & made raid design difficult. I think HiPS, when used is this manner, is just as overpowered and needs to be looked at.

Anyone to ever call Hips in any shape or form a 'Interrupt" is reaching at best and rationalizing at worst.

Its a bug, its a exploit, its unintended behavior. Call it what ever ya'll want, its been around for almost two years.

When a boss skill does a logic check, see's 12 people available for his special attack, targets those 12 and queue's up that skill only for it to be broken completely because one or more of those 12 have dropped from the bosses targeting data, is clearly not a creative way to interrupt.

Boss skills that can be interrupted are created that way purposefully. With visual FX to facilitate groups coordinating such a interrupt.
Boss skills that can't be interrupted do not share the same features as the above example and are not intended to be able to be interrupted.

When its all said and done, its a problem with the way Boss skills check targets and fire off those skills after everyone is targeted and the skill is queued up. I'm sure Jdub, Lui and team will come up with a solution and it will involved HIPS not breaking these types of skills.

If a boss calls a persons name, to me, that means the boss is targeting that person for a specific attack, regardless of aggro, regardless of effects that attack may have on the rest of the group. If a burglars name is called, I see no problem with hipsing to prevent the attack from going off, at least with the current state of things. For that matter, I have no problem with anyone doing whatever possible to prevent the attack with the skills given them. There is a difference between exploiting and emergent gameplay.

Fully agree. But if a boss skill doesn't target a single person but targets all available targets, one of those targets becomes un-targetable thus breaking the skill from firing off at all for the remaining targets, thats NOT emergent gameplay.

Thats breaking content via a bug. Which is also called unintended game play, some people would even call it a exploit.

Originally Posted by jlr

...If a burglars name is called, I see no problem with hipsing to prevent the attack from going off...

I give Geoffwise a lot of credit for basically saying; "this is what we're doing & this is why I don't think it's an exploit".

What you described is not what people are doing & not what anybody is talking about in this thread. DB does not call out any individual names for "Face Your Fears". It's a non-targeted AOE attack.

Here's the issue as I understand it: DB says; "Face your fears", any random burg hits HiPS, DB goes; "duh.. where did everybody go?" and instead of the entire raid getting hit for 2k-4k of tact fire damage nobody takes any damage at all.

Originally Posted by Grampsaz

Anyone to ever call Hips in any shape or form a 'Interrupt" is reaching at best and rationalizing at worst.

Its a bug, its a exploit, its unintended behavior. Call it what ever ya'll want, its been around for almost two years.

When a boss skill does a logic check, see's 12 people available for his special attack, targets those 12 and queue's up that skill only for it to be broken completely because one or more of those 12 have dropped from the bosses targeting data, is clearly not a creative way to interrupt.

Boss skills that can be interrupted are created that way purposefully. With visual FX to facilitate groups coordinating such a interrupt.
Boss skills that can't be interrupted do not share the same features as the above example and are not intended to be able to be interrupted.

When its all said and done, its a problem with the way Boss skills check targets and fire off those skills after everyone is targeted and the skill is queued up. I'm sure Jdub, Lui and team will come up with a solution and it will involved HIPS not breaking these types of skills.


Fully agree. But if a boss skill doesn't target a single person but targets all available targets, one of those targets becomes un-targetable thus breaking the skill from firing off at all for the remaining targets, thats NOT emergent gameplay.

Thats breaking content via a bug. Which is also called unintended game play, some people would even call it a exploit.

I haven't actually watched the video, but are you saying that in the situation in question, the boss is either not calling out a specific name, or that a burg other than the name being called is hipsing to stop the attack? If so, I'm not sure how I feel about that. That's a little more obviously unintended and I don't know that I would do that.

Edit: thanks Toe...yeah, that's a little bit different lol

To Both PA and Resistance kinships as well as any other persons whom I may have upset over my involvement in the "closed thread" I would like to apologize for my involvement.

To Alex I should not have publicly said what I did say, for that I apologize.

Good Luck to everyone in everything you do.

My thanks to Geoff/Resistance for posting those videos. Some might argue it's too early and one notes the controversy regarding fear t2 challenge fight.* I posted video walkthroughs for pretty much every fight/section of Barad Guldur and appreciate someone else doing something similar for Ost Dunhoth.

The thing that struck me the most actually - controversies aside - was power. It looks like no one ever runs out of or even gets low on power. How do you/they manage that? My cappie generally does well but some of our key players run dry mighty fast.

*I would prefer to understand how to handle the Face attacks without resorting to HiPS.

Going for two locks in one day guys?

In that case...



PS. Anything with a targeted AoE will get confused if a burg blinks out.
Ivaaaaar!

Lol Frank on Geordi's in before the lock

As for power in the videos, our captains normally trait for Leader of Men with 6-second rallying cry with power return. Also Lunalove, our Loremaster, is pretty on top of his stuff and our whole raid knows to build for ICPR and eat food. Our minstrels give Call to Greatness or Song of Aid to our raids at specific times for rally cry power returns and RK self-motivations.

Another thing most people don't realize is that if you build for the damage type (both melee/ranged/tactical and damage type) your raid will take very little damage in compared to what you would unprepared for the fight.

Durins Bane - All tactical. Determined by having a burglar tank with Knives Out and see how much damage is dealt to the tank or the group with 95% melee defense. Short story - its not melee Long story - the bosses auto attacks on the tank are melee but his "triple attack" is tactical and all the bosses AoE's for fire and shadow damage are tactical. So to greatly, greatly reduce incoming damage we all stack 15% tactical defense, run Tale of Frost and Flame, keep up legacied and traited ballad of flame for +1500 fire defense and +1100 shadow defense, wear our 4-piece DN set for fire defense, Frost Lore the boss at all times, and use the fire defense flame DP buff.

Frothmar - Mostly melee for his AoE's and ranged/tactical for his 'Catch' skill. Almost all acid damage in here so we use the old Moria 3-piece set, acid defense DP buff, 15% melee defense, and improved warding tale.

Disease - Ranged damage from the tree, melee from the adds.

Wound - Mostly common damage, improved warding tale or tale of battle for wound resist.

Ivar - all tactical shadow damage. We stack insane amounts of shadow defense for this fight. Innocence, Honor, Fidelity, Tolerance, and Mercy are the 5 common virtues along with a pocket item with lots of tactical defense such as Clinker or the Phial of Glow Worm Ooze. On top of that we keep up the minstrel 1100 shadow defense ballad, the lore master raven, BG set bonus, and shadow defense DP buff. We pop IHW:LS at the end of the fight when the raid has the incoming healing debuff and kill him with oathies.

Gortheron - Whew, this fight is just insane but I just have the whole raid use Charm of Defense and Tale of Warding and hope for the best

CREEPS ARE OP!!!

No FREEPS ARE!!




wait, this aint the place for that? Seems that way.....u guys catchin up to the MP boards lol

Originally Posted by Yosoff

Is HiPS "interrupt" an exploit? It really shouldn't be called called an interrupt since there is already a game mechanic for that & this is clearly not an interrupt.

I beg to differ. HiPS IS intended to interrupt. It IS intented to interrupt any attack that is about to happen on you. So that, per definition includes raidwide AoE attacks. So I dont agree that this is an exploit, I see it as emergent behaviour.

Should HiPS be changed, raid bosses changed, HiPS disabled in boss fights, or things left as they are?
LS/IHW was changed because it was too powerful, trivialized content & made raid design difficult. I think HiPS, when used is this manner, is just as overpowered and needs to be looked at.

Now this I definitely agree with.

Originally Posted by gakj3

Your last point sort of belies your first. If the devs didn't think of it, how could it be "sort of intended"?

Because, what I suspect is, that they intended it to interrupt, but didnt realize the possible powers of being able to interrupt every freaking skill. So if my hypothesis is right, I'd call that "sort of intended".

So, when a boss wants twelve people to face their fears and take a 4k hit to Morale, one of them disappears, and all of a sudden he doesn't care about the other 11? That's the main point of the argument. If the one burg didn't take the 4k hit, I'd definitely not call it unintended gameplay. But the rest? They didn't disappear. They're still sitting there right in front of the boss. There is no "Group Hide In Plain Sight" of which I'm aware.

I agree that this is definitely not what jwbarry intended.

If the devs wanted scripts or special attacks, mechanics, et cetera to be interruptable, how about just give it an induction ring? Or did they just want one skill to be the one that interrupts it?

Do you think its an exploit if you interrupt a skill with a CJ? This is not a rethorical question, Im seriously interested.

I'm interested now after five pages of trollage to see if anyone can actually provide a meaningful response, other than asking me if I'm mad lol

I wasnt online when the trolling happened, but I tried to give the best, meaningful response I could.

I just don't really understand where the rationale is to consider this something other than an exploit. "The bug has been around for a long time, and hasn't been fixed" is not valid reasoning. Nor is "well, the devs didn't say anything about it."

To me personally (Im not in Resistance or whatever, my kin hasnt even downed fear T2 yet), the rationale would be that it is emergent gameplay. I dont have any problem with (ab)using emergent gameplay tbh.
Allthough, I can see there is a very thin line between exploit and emergent behaviour, and I cant pinpoint the exact differences in detail tbh.

Originally Posted by gakj3

Again, wrong thread. That thread is locked. Not sure why people keep trying to bring kin vs. kin into this thread, unless you just want to get it locked again. It is as if other people are trying to keep that argument going, lol.

This thread is about skill vs. raid.

Right thread. I was talking about how people can state their opinions here without bringing kin bashing into it and stating I don't approve of kin bashing. I was going to state that on the other thread but it got locked before I could :P

As for the topic of if hips is right or wrong to use. I think like exploiting it is a grey area. Besides everyone who was posting on the topic before already stated all their arguments for this topic anyways... it just also happened to include some bashing.

Originally Posted by DarthKeryx

*I would prefer to understand how to handle the Face attacks without resorting to HiPS.

It was mentioned in that other thread already, so hopefully this is not a huge spoiler at this point. Bring at least 2 RKs and use "do not fall to flame", since face your fears is fire damage it will be absorbed. The timing can be tricky due to the fire puddles though, especially at the transition. For this particular fight, I think RK heals and ranged DPS are highly desirable, so the more RKs the better (just make sure they have plenty of morale).

The way we do the face your fears attack in other runs is just to again, stack your defenses and heal. Do not fall to flame is nice, we used it in the vid as well as HIPS interrupt, but we've done runs without RK's and no burg interrupts and it goes well. Just give call to greatness to your cappies if you need an extra AoE heal on your minis and have your group make sure to have their incoming healing up and Captains be Leader of Men for extra incoming group heals. Save your cooldowns for the end, stay tiered up to +15% outgoing healing and +10% Anthem of the Third age, use a Warden with Conviction, and IF legacy maxed on your book.

Honestly the only thing that is really difficult about challenge is making sure that everyone is facing him and not rubberbanding/lagging at the time. Best solution we found is to make sure you never fully turn around from the boss, just run sideways when shifting instead of facing 180 degrees away from him each time.

Again if face your fears is hitting you for over 2.7k take a look at your defenses and tactical debuffs on the boss.

As for RK heals in this fight, we started with an RK healing the tank, now we are doing usually just the RK's on DPS because DB is very weak to tactical damage and he dies wicked fast with burg/captain marks, ancient craft, and tactical damage. Alternatively the RK's can be specced 3 blue and 4 red for stacking fire dots while healing when needed with master of writs.

Originally Posted by TheMinstrel

To Alex I should not have publicly said what I did say, for that I apologize.

No worries man its all water under the bridge. I apologize for what I said too. I'll buy you that beer in 3 weeks

Still waiting for that Dev response

So this is what happens when a conversation starts in the morning instead of late at night? Everyone is a little more rational and able to have a good discussion. I tried to keep my posts as rational as possible last night, but I do apologize if I got caught up in the ridiculousness of it all.

I'm glad that this discussion took place, there's really not much else to say about it that hasn't already been said. I see it as a clear exploit, completely broken skill, and most definitely not working as intended. For some it's a grey area, and for others it's completely justifiable. I guess we need to wait for a dev response on this. Like others have said, burgs hips has been broken in one way or another for years now, so I don't expect a quick fix by any means. I guess it's up to a group on what stance they take on this issue, and in the end no one can control that.

Originally Posted by spockerized

There is no such thing as an exploit just bad programming and that is what truly is at fault.

I agree, this is bad programming, but in the end you will find that turbine very much so believes that there are such things as exploits and will ban for it, been there done that. I doubt they will ban in the case of burgs hips, a. because its far too controversial as evidenced by the past 24 hours, b. impossible to track, c. too much work to fix.

And geoff, totally not necessary to post a video of you guys doing it without burg hips, that just feeds back into the previous thread... you don't need to prove anything to anyone here. I know you guys can definitely do it and are a very solid kin . I know some people will start to use this bug/exploit/whatever you want to call it when they are otherwise not able to execute a fight. That's fine, in the end no one is losing anything here and the only victory that should count is your own.

I basically agree with Kamriel. From my point of view, it sounds pretty clearly unintented (hence an exploit). But I seriously doubt anyone would get banned for it for the reasons listed above.

The sad thing (well maybe you don't see it this way if you think there's nothing wrong with HIPS interrupting) is that in response to this thread, a large proportion of people are likely to now go and use HIPS interrupts excessively throughout OD and in general instances.

Well I'm honestly disappointed things have gone as they have. As the original person who assessed the video and determined the exploit and jokingly said in vent to a random person how gay it was then commented in kin chat about it for kicks and giggles for people to enjoy the last thing I wanted was a drama fest. I'm dead tired of drama and that's the reason I haven't played my Freep in the moors in weeks. It really is astounding how fast a rumor can spread if you tell the wrong person. I admit at the time it seemed amusing to post it on the forums as 1 post and then let the rest of the servers decide how legitimate resistances accomplishments were but I think a few people got defensive over kin mates, for example I just said maybe next time you publicly post a link to how to kill a boss with unintended usage of skills at least leave out vent. I won't get involved in any drama with kin or person but for my part the past is past.

Back on track, just thought I'd mention that as possibly the instigator of all this junk. As mentioned earlier on in the post the boss takes however many people are in range and then will apply it to that number. The formula is there written awaiting to be applied. By subtracting one with a legit skill of subtracting one player (the legit aspect to it) you are putting an error into the formula to crash the outcome (the exploit aspect). The overall picture however is far more unintended and cheating then absorbing or taking the hit. Other notes are, you can kite this boss around and he wont really do much, including face your fears. The skill is in fact based on the range that the tank is on the boss, or it will never go off or as far as I know could possibly be canceled with the range element. I know this from a 7 man T1 fear boss run we did last night.

To Geoffwise I honestly never thought resistance was as good as it is, however you guys have imputed more time and effort than any other kin on Brandy and deserve the first total clear title and forum reputation or whatever you want to call it. I also believe you have done all the fights including fear boss legitimately. For what its worth I respect you and your kins abilities but I don't think that anyone should make the most watched post about OD kills possibly in the world of lotro and not do the fights as intended regardless of even if its done once (especially the first time).

On my part of and as a member of PA, I wish peace between us and none of the laughing and rude gestures I'm getting from your kinmates as I walk around 21st hall. As I said I'm sick of drama and if you see any of my kinmates doing anything of the sort inform me immediatley. I would incourage your newfound raid and skills from the inputed time to do raids in the future correctly though even if this is not considered an exploit by a dev. I think the one thing we agree on is its a broken feature and should not be used.

Honest and sincere congrats and achieving all 6 kills legit as the first on Brandywhine. If I have said anything in the above scentences that is disagreeable please send me a tell in game I won't be replying here again. I mean well by everything I wrote and stand by it.

Thanks, Yelk.