BG Strategy - Gauntlet and Boss 1 (Durchest)

[Rytheran]

NOTE: This strat has been updated with some of my kin's learning experiences as well as some contributions from posters on this page. If you've got helpful comments or suggestions to make by all means contribute.

BG requires 2 good tanks (for Uruks), an off-tank (for boss 1 adds), at least 3 ranged DPS (for Uruk DPS), 2 main healers and a captain minimally (preferably 2). The remaining 3 slots I'd suggest a lore-master with the other 2 being DPS-capable at least. Our RK mentions that fire doesn't work well in this instance.

Entrance
The first two undead elite masters, flame and shadow, respawn every 2 hours or so. The flame undead will explode when he dies for ~4000 so probably a good idea for tank and melee to run away at 2-3k and let ranged finish him off. We've been assigning a tank each and burning down flame undead first.

Gauntlet
We have a forward and rear tank. Forward tank picks up first Uruk and tanks him away from group (they have 3.5k+ melee AoE). Ranged DPS kills the Uruks, while melee DPS other mobs. Rear tank helps with DPS and is ready to pick up Uruks appearing from the rear. It's essential that the forward tank stays alert for timed spawns.. it's ok to help clean up the trash but you need to be fast to pick up any incoming Uruk - and keep moving the group forward but don't lose line of sight of the group. One extra note for the rear tank: we got two Uruks from the front tonight so it might be worth staying with the group and watching for rear attacking Uruk but also listen out for the forward tank calling out 2 forward Uruks.

Uruks are fixed spawn locations as well as on a timer, so this is a DPS race too. As soon the Uruks are down and there is only 2-3 adds left, we move the group up until we spawn the next group. We don't move forward until all Uruks are down, though if you kill too slowly you'll get another wave.

Rinse/repeat until you get to the top of the stairs in front of the two undead masters.

Key success factors:
1) picking up Uruks quickly, moving them away from the group, and ranged DPS'ing them down first. DPS let the tanks position them before you attack.
2) forward and rear tanks picking up their Uruks quickly and moving them away from the group - ok to help clean up the trash but priority #1 is watching for Uruks, intercept and tank them away from the group
3) Bring poison and wound pots and have someone call out names/debuff so that pots are used when needed

Stairs before Durchest room
We stop on the ramp before this area to clean up the remaining Gauntlet mobs. At this point the respawns are non-Uruk so it's a good chance to heal up and go in for these next two elite masters. These ones appear identical and we do the same thing as the entrance ones: assign a tank each, burn down one then burn down the other.

Durchest (Boss 1)
Durchest has 4 abilities of note:
1) Lowering Threat. He applies a threat debuff every 10 seconds to a maximum of 3 people in front of him, excluding his main threat target. It begins 10% and tiers up to 210%.
2) Great Cleave. This is a distributed damage attack that hits a maximum of 3 people who have the lowering threat debuff on them.
3) Corruptions. They stack quite rapidly but according to some posters don't make a big difference. However, my kin uses corruption removals when they are up to keep them off him.
4) Heals. Every time someone dies he gets a heal icon. These stack on him, and he uses them one by one to heal himself for 200k morale when he gets under 100k morale.

We start the fight by tanking the boss against the wall with our two tanks. Everyone else stands in the middle of the room and begins DPS as well after 5 seconds or so (melee obviously need to run in).
Whenever an add appears, the tanks kite the boss around the room while the group brings the add to them and they burn it down.
Rinse and repeat for the 5 adds. During this time, constant corruption removal spamming is going on, and tanks are juggling threat when not kiting.

When the last add goes down the race is on to burn the boss down fast. We get our RK's to switch to healing to help with healing and even melee will range to avoid the 4k cleave AoE's he will be doing. Tanks will sprint when possible to distance themselves from Durchest and Engage swap aggro if hounding fear is getting the aggro'ed tank hit too much. We're going to try different methods of slowing him down to not only save the tank but also handle accidental aggro swap to a ranged DPS.

Key success factors:
1) spamming corruption removal on the boss when not kiting him
2) keep people alive. Each time someone dies he gets a one time heal ability per person

Hope this helps.

P.S. There is a way to prevent the Gauntlet from respawning after the boss fight but I'm not going to post it here for now (you can find threads on that elsewhere). If Turbine is reading this, please consider turning off the Gauntlet respawn once it's cleared or at least reduce it to patrols only: this content will never be seen by 80% of players as it stands (like DN and Helegrod)... add the time sink and 800s+ repair bills for tanks and frankly it's a waste of development time that would be better spent adding new zones, abilities, classes or skirmishes. Skirmishes... need better raid rewards... another topic

[alotz3]

I still believe it's too early to be telling ppl the strategies for all this stuff, but i especially don't want ppl to be misinformed about these fights, causing them to waste their time with the wrong mechanics. Just gonna point out there is one mechanic mentioned in the boss fight that isn't entirely accurate, just so people know to be open about it.

[stubing]

Originally Posted by alotz3

I still believe it's too early to be telling ppl the strategies for all this stuff

Why? It has been a month already and there is no time restriction on guides by Turbine. If your kinship doesn't like it, just tell them not to look up these guides.

[UF001]

I'm going to agree with the poster above me on one point - if you're gunna post a strat, make sure it's accurate. One point in your strat is blatently innaccurate.

Just because it works for your group doesnt mean you're actually dealing with the mechanic correctly.

[bubbajman]

everyone needs to stay in Turbine's box at all times.

[Spacmanbobr]

Yea, it's definitely fine for strats on the first boss, even 2nd, but I would say people who have beaten the Lieutenant should keep their mouths shut, also because I don't think anyone has still downed hardmode (I don't count exploiters).

[Rytheran]

If anyone has ideas or suggestions feel free to reply... I'll update this thread as my kin is pretty focussed on mastering this raid without using exploits.

We're not hard core raiders - so I'm reaching out to average kins who want to collaborate and share ideas.

To those of you who just want to poo poo can I give you one piece of advice: being helpful and explaining what you disagree with shows intelligence and maturity... simply saying it's wrong just demonstrates that you don't really know your subject matter.

Look forward to more ideas....

[Suza]

Originally Posted by Rytheran

If anyone has ideas or suggestions feel free to reply... I'll update this thread as my kin is pretty focussed on mastering this raid without using exploits.

We're not hard core raiders - so I'm reaching out to average kins who want to collaborate and share ideas.

To those of you who just want to poo poo can I give you one piece of advice: being helpful and explaining what you disagree with shows intelligence and maturity... simply saying it's wrong just demonstrates that you don't really know your subject matter.

Look forward to more ideas....

Saying it's wrong does not mean we don't know our subject material, we have worked hard to learn the strategies, and while we may admit the information rytheran posted can work, it is not 100% guaranteed to work, so while they were lucky when they ran it to have it work out that way, relying on it to work that way everytime is inviting a wipe.

It is kind of like the skirmishes... if you run them and see only Wound Takers, Bearers of Blight, Echoes of Death and Pale Trappers and learn the strat for them, this does not mean that the next run you will not encounter Daywalker-Berserkers and Dourhand Keg-Masters, which you have no strat for, having never seen them before.

[KenR]

Originally Posted by Rytheran

If anyone has ideas or suggestions feel free to reply... I'll update this thread as my kin is pretty focussed on mastering this raid without using exploits.

We're not hard core raiders - so I'm reaching out to average kins who want to collaborate and share ideas.

To those of you who just want to poo poo can I give you one piece of advice: being helpful and explaining what you disagree with shows intelligence and maturity... simply saying it's wrong just demonstrates that you don't really know your subject matter.

Look forward to more ideas....

Well I would suggest getting the "insignificant wretch" mechanic in the strat. This is the mechanic that reduces your percieved threat. You can luck through the fight without knowing about it at all but controlling which 2 have the wretch makes the fight much easier.

[Belaeren]

Originally Posted by alotz3

I still believe it's too early to be telling ppl the strategies for all this stuff, but i especially don't want ppl to be misinformed about these fights, causing them to waste their time with the wrong mechanics. Just gonna point out there is one mechanic mentioned in the boss fight that isn't entirely accurate, just so people know to be open about it.

I don't understand the desire for secrecy here. Why does the strategy need to be hoarded like a state secret? If people want to solve the challenges on their own, they can ignore posts like this and have fun on their own. If different people want some helper tips then why not share them? People can clearly note "Spoiler Ahead" so people can stop reading as desired.

I do believe credit should be afforded to people that put in the time and intellectual effort to solve the challenges and win the instance. Why not post that strategy with your kin name and raid party members listed out clearly, so subsequent teams can follow the "Preying Mantis Strategy" (as an example) with everyone aware of where it came from? Just like pilots use the Immelmann maneuver, and chess players have lots of strategies/gambits named after the original innovators, why not take the lead to be first to publish a strat for BG and name it after yourself?

IMO simply responding "you're wrong" without correcting the mistake with proper info is a bit immature - people wouldn't do this in real life, if it weren't an anonymous forum for a game. At least I would hope not.

[cwswim03]

Originally Posted by Belaeren

IMO simply responding "you're wrong" without correcting the mistake with proper info is a bit immature - people wouldn't do this in real life, if it weren't an anonymous forum for a game. At least I would hope not.

Agreed. It's been a month. Start sharin the strats (of the whole raid) IMO. You can leave out Hm strats if you want. Even with the strats.... it's still hard to execute as is shown by the relatively few amount of people who have beaten the LT. Hard modes will be even harder to execute. But... definitely strats can be shared by now.

[Adarel]

Originally Posted by Belaeren

I don't understand the desire for secrecy here. Why does the strategy need to be hoarded like a state secret? If people want to solve the challenges on their own, they can ignore posts like this and have fun on their own. If different people want some helper tips then why not share them? People can clearly note "Spoiler Ahead" so people can stop reading as desired.

I do believe credit should be afforded to people that put in the time and intellectual effort to solve the challenges and win the instance. Why not post that strategy with your kin name and raid party members listed out clearly, so subsequent teams can follow the "Preying Mantis Strategy" (as an example) with everyone aware of where it came from? Just like pilots use the Immelmann maneuver, and chess players have lots of strategies/gambits named after the original innovators, why not take the lead to be first to publish a strat for BG and name it after yourself?

IMO simply responding "you're wrong" without correcting the mistake with proper info is a bit immature.

^. What is the big deal? You got your server first, grats. So what if others want to kill him too. I don't understand this at all - maybe because I'm used to communities who are kinder?

[cwswim03]

Originally Posted by Adarel

^. What is the big deal? You got your server first, grats. So what if others want to kill him too. I don't understand this at all - maybe because I'm used to communities who are kinder?

He's agreeing with you... reading comp ftw.

[Belaeren]

Originally Posted by Adarel

^. What is the big deal? You got your server first, grats. So what if others want to kill him too. I don't understand this at all - maybe because I'm used to communities who are kinder?

Yea, like Roov said, re-read my post - you seem to have misunderstood me. I was posting to support the notion that strats should be posted. I never made a claim to have done anything in BG, I haven't even been in there yet. Sheesh.

[Banaticus]

Originally Posted by alotz3

Just gonna point out there is one mechanic mentioned in the boss fight that isn't entirely accurate, just so people know to be open about it.

Originally Posted by UF001

I'm going to agree with the poster above me on one point - if you're gunna post a strat, make sure it's accurate. One point in your strat is blatently innaccurate.

Boy, you two are lumps of useless noninformation. Thanks for nothing.