Thread: Saruman T2 CM (possible?)

I don't want to talk in the fire and Frost thread about Saruman. Fire and Frost seems to be impossible as you read in that thread. But what's about Saruman. I know they are non legit kills around but what about a legit kill. We did some hours trying this out.

Phase 1-4 are a walk in the park, but when Phase 5 starts the hell is breaking out. There are some mechanics that annoy me hard.

bubble on real saruman

If the shadow clone decide to put a bubble on the real saruman, all that aoe's will do 25% mehr damage on the raid, nothing you can do, to counter this. To get the bubble off you need to dmg them down. But the real saruman is immun to dmg. Nothing you can do. Just try to real through to that AOE's.


environment effects

Nothing you can do, if it's the wrong enviroment effect you need to switch targets. But shadow phase at the begin of phase 5 hurts so much. You can CC one clone for 70sek the other for 35, but then you need to assign someone to interrupts them. Or you dps them....
Same bull#### is when you kill Frost last and it switches to frost in the moment you kill the other. Now you will have to do -70% less damge... that will bring you in dps problems because of the enrage.


Polarity

Sometimes you stand away from that lightning bolts but get dmg, sometimes you stand right under them and get no damage, this mechanic is broken in so many ways. Melee's have no chance to avoid them when they need to dps the storm clone.


last phase wound/fear/disease/poison

cause you get 2 frost clones, you can get 2 debuffs at the sametime, okay you can cure on with pot and the other with class abilitys. But that class abilitys are may on cooldown. If you didn't cure all effects it's a wipe. That's really annoying. You should only be targeted every 30 secs.


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Last phase really hurts, you have to handle double polarity (see above), double red heal bubble, double debuffs (see above), 2 shadow clones. You get massive Raid damage, but need to put out strong dps to not hit enrage.

Don't get me wrong this boss seems to be killable but you need to be really lucky with AOE's, bubble and more. As you can see we are raiding orthanc for 3 month's and noone beat this on T2 or T2 CM. This encounter is way to silly. It's not hard tactic or skill wise. It's just luck dependend.

For me Bukot CM or Acid CM are harder, because the player makes the decision about a succesful run or not. Saruman is just luck. I think the tactic is more than clear, you just need insane luck, to kill him.

I have no clues how turbine can fix this fight, because if the decrease the outgoing dmg it's just boring. They need to revamp the whole fight, but i doubt anything will change to this fight.

Try to tank both Stormmaker in max Range to the Raid. And ignore them...
And take your full DPS to the Shadow / Acid Guys.
Timing with the Ringbuffs helps a lot in Phase 5.
I think a 3t Healer (Runekeeper) is a little "must have" in this Fight.

Our Problem are the 2-3 Seconds Freezetimes... Iorweth is hard enough with that Laggs after 8pm Raidtime. But Saruman with Challenge is just impossible, like Burio alrdy say...

The Bubble on the Real Saruman is stil a Problem... This Bubble should have nothing to do with the "to absorb damage" from the rest Moral of Saruman.

Looking forward to tonight, hope the Laggs dont pwn us.

As i said, the tactic is clear. And how to use ring's right is easy to understand. But i think it's way to luck based, there is no skill requirement. I think every kin that beat the bosses before saruman on t2 cm can kill saruman, you just that need lucky try.

Yeah lags annoy, but are not devasting like in Iorweth's Jumping Phase or Bukots Addspawn. But it get better after last update only have 2-3 lags per hour, that's okay. I don't think that Lags save Saruman and without lags there would be a kill. Because there was no kill the last 3 month's and it's only lagging 2 id's for now.

For Polarity it's not just distance you can get hit with it when you on the other side of the tower. You can easily make safespots, but the lightning bolt's should be the position where you get dmg, for now when you stand right under a bolt, you get no damage. It's hurt with double polarity to have no graphic fx where to stand, and where not. This boss is so annoying, we had a really nice try all was good. Then Saruman get bubble and one minute later frost lore resist 2 times. and then we get oneshottet one by one. There's nothing you can do. And scenes like that happen very often in that fight, and when this happen u usually fight already 20 minutes.

Can anyone see a chance to get this boss on farmstatus without changes to items and/or boss?

Originally Posted by Burio

Can anyone see a chance to get this boss on farmstatus without changes to items and/or boss?

I think chance is the keyword here. Raidbosses can and should be hard but they should not rely on luck to be succesfully completed

no temptations up there... with so many old men...

spent many evenings up there, alas it might be we have ignored something... there is a lot going on there...
eventually you have to find his hidden "saruphone" or gandalfs lost cell, call in the eagle squadron...
there is some kinda runestones above the plat, you can target them, they are out of range tho...

a confirmation like:

we understand your issues with that fight but listen folks, we have tested it properly and it is possible...

would defo help...

I'm sure it's entirely possible... at least there are no "hidden" mechanics like fire/frost.

That being said, a 3rd healer is absolutely necessary I think to deal with the overheals and damage in the last phase especially. And excellent reactive use of the rings as well.

The fight still seems entirely luck based (as far as challenge mode is concerned). I've gotten hit by polarity while killing the lightening guy as a melee class, hit by Saruman at the same time, thrown across the platform with an eye and landed in purple stuff. First off, this happens so quickly even with a 12k morale build I was dead by the time I landed in the purple and I was already preemptively bubbled so that didn't save my skin. Things like that just seem entirely luck based, there's not a whole lot I can think of that could have saved me.

This is another boss that most of the kin isn't motivated to try and work on. Plus the first 15 minutes of the fight are such a waste of time only to get to the last phase and have the group promptly wipe. It's quite a steep learning curve and not a forgiving one at that. And why bother doing Saruman T2 when you can get clasps on T1 now. In the time that we could spend wiping and working on T2, we can do 4 alt runs in 2 hours and get an average of 2 clasps/week. Making the clasps available on T1 really killed the motivation to continue working on that fight.

Originally Posted by Comma44

IAnd why bother doing Saruman T2 when you can get clasps on T1 now. In the time that we could spend wiping and working on T2, we can do 4 alt runs in 2 hours and get an average of 2 clasps/week. Making the clasps available on T1 really killed the motivation to continue working on that fight.

Umm ... correct me if I'm wrong, but clasps have always been available on T1? (just not that frequent)

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Umm ... correct me if I'm wrong, but clasps have always been available on T1? (just not that frequent)

Yes you're right they have been available but we hadn't seen one drop after killing it weekly. Since the drop rate has changed we've gotten 2 clasps out of 4 runs.

The Saruman T1 fight puts me to sleep as it is with it being so long, not sure I have the motivation to try T2 at all, let alone the challenge. My honest opinion is these fights were made ridiculously hard on purpose to give some kind of artificial longevity to the raid and keep the raiding community busy for as long as possible. The problem that Turbine doesn't realize is even the most hardcore raid groups will only beat their heads against a wall for so long before they go find something else to do.

Reminds me of when Rift rolled out their 3rd 20man raid and no one had killed the last boss 3 months in. Half of the raiding community quit and guilds started merging left and right. Trion promptly nerfed the fight after that and the boss was killed immediately after that patch. So I guess the point is, hard for the sake of being hard does not equal fun. There needs to be a balance between challenge and fun, jwbarry has completely lost sight of that balance.

The biggest problem is the bubble on Saruman that can't be removed. Without it the fight would be possible to farm on T2 (CM will still be pretty much pure luck), but like many others, we're not wasting much time on t2. At the moment we are farming him on T1 in a 6-man to get the most clasps/raidlock, although we were not lucky yet :/
6-maning takes a bit longer, but it's still worth it imo.

The Saruman fight has too many random elements, some times it works out great and other times it doesn't and you wasted your time on that run and have to start over, regardless what you do.

Not only is the fight too hard, but the loot is too bad. You get a clasp which is a mild upgrade to the necklace or cloak and a first age or two if you do CM I guess, but the rest of the loot is pretty poor compared to skirm drops, rep items and barter items.

I think noone is wasting more than 1-2 hours trying this per week. Many will waste no time to it. Personally i want beat every challenge this game offers like i do the years before it. And i want to beat it before the level cap raises.

But this Saruman fight may change my mind, we get really good trys that look like it could be a kill, but then you get unlucky and loose in seconds. There are so many scenarios you can not counter. Light armour class get heal bubble and a 5k aoe is nearly impossible to get up to full moral again without letting others in the raid drop drasticly. Burglars are really painful to play, because everytime they melee the storm guy, the will get hit with polarity which really hurts on medium armor class.

Don't get me wrong this fight seems to be possible on T2, but you need that really lucky try. And that try seems to be really rar. Come on there is no legit kill after 3 month, i doubt that all that good kinships and raids have forgotten how to play right.

I don't raid too much but, has any of you tried to run into Saruman with 50 p2w pots each and use one whenever your morale gets a little hit? Maybe they made a raid that u need to use their store to win. Just saying (:

The morale enhancing effects of store pots is far from enough to keep people floating with the amount of AoE that goes on. Of course, you're free to try if you want to

Any Dev say something about the 4 Stormstones that nobody can hit ? ;/

Maybe you can hit the stones with range-legacies (Loremaster, Warden). Never tried it, but maybe.
Other answer: 8 champions, 2 ministrels (12k morale, 40 % mitigation), 2 captains. One heavy class for each saruman and 2 healer.
Both ways are very dirty and class restrictive, but why not.

Originally Posted by Taladhan2

Maybe you can hit the stones with range-legacies (Loremaster, Warden). Never tried it, but maybe.
Other answer: 8 champions, 2 ministrels (12k morale, 40 % mitigation), 2 captains. One heavy class for each saruman and 2 healer.
Both ways are very dirty and class restrictive, but why not.

Hmm, AoE ball of fun, almost makes me which I had a champ.

4 trys on Sunday, 4 drays real saruman get bubble.
Hate this ####ing encounter. Stopped T2 after that and just did t1

So, there's a couple of things happening in this fight that are causing it be much more luck based when it comes to the tier 2 and challenge portions than we're comfortable with having. Burio did a great job listing out the specifics of some of the issues.

Changes coming with Update 7 to this fight.
Shadow copy will no longer put a bubble on the real Saruman
Lightning copies will no longer cast Polarity (turns out getting the graphic to match the damage area is a nightmare for some odd obscure technical reasons)
Acid Sarumans Poison/Disease/Fear/Wound countdowns can no longer stack on an individual

This should keep the fight requiring a lot of communication and coordination and maintain the majority of the current difficulty, while removing some random base conditions that can cause severe issues.

Originally Posted by jwbarry

So, there's a couple of things happening in this fight that are causing it be much more luck based when it comes to the tier 2 and challenge portions than we're comfortable with having. Burio did a great job listing out the specifics of some of the issues.

Changes coming with Update 7 to this fight.
Shadow copy will no longer put a bubble on the real Saruman
Lightning copies will no longer cast Polarity (turns out getting the graphic to match the damage area is a nightmare for some odd obscure technical reasons)
Acid Sarumans Poison/Disease/Fear/Wound countdowns can no longer stack on an individual

This should keep the fight requiring a lot of communication and coordination and maintain the majority of the current difficulty, while removing some random base conditions that can cause severe issues.

Very appropriate changes.
I hope you mean the countdowns of frost saruman that require pots...Acid does overheal that does stack but very rare. The main issue with this one will be even though it doesn't stack, there is no prevention from getting another one before the 30 sec pot duration ends. We had this in other instances of OD but we don't have this prevention method of over lapping debuff to pot cooldown on saruman.

Originally Posted by jwbarry

Lightning copies will no longer cast Polarity (turns out getting the graphic to match the damage area is a nightmare for some odd obscure technical reasons)

Is that the skill where the Saruman sends out a big lightning 'X'? Will this be removed from Tier 1 as well?

Originally Posted by dietlbomb

Is that the skill where the Saruman sends out a big lightning 'X'? Will this be removed from Tier 1 as well?

Oh man.. if that's the case... thank YOU jwbarry. That skill is so annoying because it's hard to tell what the main directions are on the Saruman that does this. He sort of twists his body a little bit so when you think you're at a 45 degree to one of the main 'poles' of this Saruman, you're really right in line of one of the bolts. UGH... I've always hated that effect.

Next question: when is update 7?

:P

Originally Posted by jwbarry

Changes coming with Update 7 to this fight.

Wouldn't Update 7 still be a few months off? I assume the next patch will be Update 6.1. Do you mean that the fix will be happening then or do we need to wait months for the fix?

Originally Posted by jwbarry

So, there's a couple of things happening in this fight that are causing it be much more luck based when it comes to the tier 2 and challenge portions than we're comfortable with having. Burio did a great job listing out the specifics of some of the issues.

Changes coming with Update 7 to this fight.
Shadow copy will no longer put a bubble on the real Saruman
Lightning copies will no longer cast Polarity (turns out getting the graphic to match the damage area is a nightmare for some odd obscure technical reasons)
Acid Sarumans Poison/Disease/Fear/Wound countdowns can no longer stack on an individual

This should keep the fight requiring a lot of communication and coordination and maintain the majority of the current difficulty, while removing some random base conditions that can cause severe issues.

these are not the changes we are looking for

why dont you just reduce the damage? keep polarity, keep the bubble, keep the grims...
reduce the giants dps, reduce polarities damage... would b just fine...

Originally Posted by Moripopori

these are not the changes we are looking for

why dont you just reduce the damage? keep polarity, keep the bubble, keep the grims...
reduce the giants dps, reduce polarities damage... would b just fine...

I don't understand why you want to keep the bubble on the real-saruman? You have no chance to control who get it, lucky try he will not get, unlucky try he will #### your down with bubble. Where is the fun to wait for that lucky attempt?

Why keep polarity when they can not make it work right? For know you don't know about you stand right or not because it's random where you take damage and where not. The Graphic don't show anything. You can stand right under the bolt and get no damage... Where the fun to get a lucky attempt where you not get it? Specially for the last phase and it's double polarity.

Where's the fun with double wounds/fears/poison/disease?

All this three changes will remove a lot of luck on that saruman. I think we loose over 75% our trys to that bubble on real saruman. I don't think this boss will be a walk in the park after update 7. You still will need high survivability and good dps. It's just more fun that you don't need that much luck.

Good changes jwbarry!

Thank you jwb. It'll be nice to have something to work on again that doesn't require (almost) impossible luck.

Any information perhaps JW on the one part of the fight we just cannot seem to grasp, lying just out of our reach?

...what the blooming heck is up with those VERY up there storm...gem...things, kinda like the ones from Kalbak (Lightning Wing) but unreachable?

And yes, terribly sorry CuruornEU but there has not yet been a confirmed Saruman Tier 2 or above completion to date. Likely due to the difficulty WITH addition of very variable 'luck' factors in play that cause too much for players to actually account for. Similar to the issues RE: Fire/Frost (tweaking required).

Originally Posted by Sir_Thorblod

lol, being elite about an exploit kill... this is so much fail, words cannot describe it... *facepalm*

+1 epic fail

Originally Posted by Ultiheart

Any information perhaps JW on the one part of the fight we just cannot seem to grasp, lying just out of our reach?

...what the blooming heck is up with those VERY up there storm...gem...things, kinda like the ones from Kalbak (Lightning Wing) but unreachable?

Those are just used visually to draw the lightning beams during the time when that dayfile is active. Ignore them, they have no bearing on the fight whatsoever beyond visuals.

Originally Posted by Sir_Thorblod

lol, being elite about an exploit kill... this is so much fail, words cannot describe it... *facepalm*

Exploit kill? The screens & video's I saw were completely valid. I think you're talking about something else.

I am aware that there are pathetic kins attempting to exploit Saru T2 and still failing to do it.

Originally Posted by CuruornEU

Exploit kill? The screens & video's I saw were completely valid. I think you're talking about something else.

I am aware that there are pathetic kins attempting to exploit Saru T2 and still failing to do it.

And where are this screens and videos?

Originally Posted by CuruornEU

Exploit kill? The screens & video's I saw were completely valid. I think you're talking about something else.

I am aware that there are pathetic kins attempting to exploit Saru T2 and still failing to do it.

Step 1: start filling in the hole you're digging.

Step 2: pull the foot out of your mouth.

Step 3: apologize after SS proves nothing.

cba to quote a bunch of ######s, but please dig ur own hole buddy



Phase 5 (look at ring)
Last storm
Tier 2 (challenges)

SS shortly after reviving the player that took it, he was 1 shotted by polarity due to positioning mistake by the player tanking it.

QQ less, l2p please

Edit: fixed SS link

far be it from me to disprove any ss, though they can be photoshopped and cropped. This looks legit to my untrained eye. I'd be the first to grats if it's true.

Question: why not put it in the progression thread?

and can you post the vid? That would be ultimate proof.

Originally Posted by CuruornEU

...

Well, you still can't type like a human no matter how many mobs you kill.

Originally Posted by mrfigglesworth

far be it from me to disprove any ss, though they can be photoshopped and cropped. This looks legit to my untrained eye.

Question: why not put it in the progression thread?

I'm not in the kin that did it, their leader/officer/someone posted in servers progression thread they did it. Their kin is disliked and half the server cried it wasn't legit.

Why they didn't post anything anymore, I do not know. But when I asked for SS's to my mates they showed me several.

Edit: @walrus, several people immediately cried blasphemy and insulted several of my friends. Now I provide proof and you refer to the way I type on a forum I could talk perfect english on here, but cba. Now back on topic please.

- Noone would kill Saruman in a legit kill with 1 Tank
- Noone would in a legit kill the storm saruman last

They posted in the progression thread:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...04#post5974804

as you see only screenshots from last storm saruman and that saruman clone is in a place (outside the plattform) where you never will get a clone without exploiting. It's already known what they do there. As you can see too he did fraps the fight, but never release a video, from all other bosses he had posted youtube videos. You know why? Yeah, that kill was exploited.

One hint you don't need 2 tanks when you never in combat with all 10 sarumans at one time, that's why you will never see a other screenshot with more then the last 2 sarumans. He could easily provide that screenshot from that fraps...

More too say?

And btw: Solstice or Divine Retribution are known as exploiters long time. Ask them about leutnant exploit, or sword hall exploits where the most of them get permbanned for.

Originally Posted by CuruornEU

cba to quote a bunch of ######s, but please dig ur own hole buddy



Phase 5 (look at ring)
Last storm
Tier 2 (challenges)

SS shortly after reviving the player that took it, he was 1 shotted by polarity due to positioning mistake by the player tanking it.

QQ less, l2p please

Edit: fixed SS link

LOL, you cant be serious! Sorry but one tank doing Saruman T2 is NOT going to work. 100% exploited, and the ss they posted before they had the Sarumans on the cliff side tanking him and doing damage. It was stated back then, moving it o the side and having it feared was an exploit Please stop!

Originally Posted by Ellery01

The kin in this screen shot (Divine Retribution, formerly Solstice) are the ones who were unable to verify that they had done it without exploiting (fearing sarumans outside of the arena in the video they provided I think) in the progression thread. I've no idea if they did it more than once or whatever, nor do I have an opinion on the matter, just stating a fact.

Trust Ygear, if there is an exploit he knows about it. Maybe there are some new one out there, who knows, fill us in if you know please. ;-)

Originally Posted by Burio

And btw: Solstice or Divine Retribution are known as exploiters long time. Ask them about leutnant exploit, or sword hall exploits where the most of them get permbanned for.

Agreed! When you have a history, its hard to believe anything that is posted/said by those kins. I for one did love the approach taking to validate the kill, and in the end the kin could not come up with any proof they got the kill without the exploits.