Aion 3.0 Chronicles: Muada's Trencher

Last night Void decided to take on the other 12-man instance, Muada's Trencher. We didn't know what to expect going in and thought it was an actual instance, however, it turned out to be a single legendary-grade boss. We gave it a few tries to see how the boss worked and if we could handle doing it "legit" or not, we ran into some...issues.

Strategy: The first thing you need to do if you're going to follow this guide is drop a kisk outside of the entrance to the instance. Kisk res'ing during this fight is essential since the healers will already be bombarded with adds and will likely be too busy to res you. This boss also likes to enrage if you don't kill it fast enough, but fear not, there is a way to recover from the enrage.

IMPORTANT NOTE!: Enrage was a problem we ran into frequently, possibly due to our low numbers, and we have a solution for getting enrage off of Muada. We did something similar to the ol' Lannok trick where we had someone sit the first part of the fight out until Muada went nuts and killed everyone. Once everyone dies the buff runs off. Before Muada resets we had the person sitting out grab her to make sure she didn't reset before the rest of the group kisk reses and runs back in. This may not be a problem for full groups of 60's with good gear but we didn't even have a Sorceror with us so this was a necessary part in the fight for us.

Phase One: 100-75%
This is the easiest phase, Muada does a 360 degree AoE (Ray Thorn) that hits everything outside of 20 meters or so of her. To avoid being hit by this ALL party members must be standing close to Muada and the tank will be positioning the boss away from the rest of the group. Muada does some other minor attacks during this phase like projectile vomit but it's nothing terribly dangerous outside of Ray Thorn but be ready to run when phase two begins.

Phase Two: 75-50%
At this point Muada will use a skill called Rage and stun your party briefly, following this stun Muada will spawn a couple elite adds and add spawners. Now, we tried this several different ways and, possibly due to our less-than-average sized group, we were unsuccessful when we tried to burn the adds faster than they were spawning. One or two from each set would be left over and eventually overwhelm us.

To remedy this we decided to have all DPS stick to the boss as the Templar kited it around the circular room. When you do this it causes all of the adds to zerg around after various members of your group so it's important to kite when you've got a large number of adds on you. Moving in a circle prevents both the boss and adds from ever catching you since they are all pretty sluggish (<--Ohohoho so clever). After slowly but surely kiting and DPSing Muada out of this phase you enter phase three.

Side Note: If you feel you can DPS the adds down before more spawn then make sure to prioritize the spawners and be sure to utilize CC's (Unconfirmed, seemed most everything works on them though) and blinds (Confirmed) as both of them work on all of the adds. Also, when the adds die they melt into a puddle of acid and do significant damage to anyone that steps in it so be mindful of your environment.

Phase Three: 50-25%
Before you dig into Muada's health again it is important to kite off the remaining adds, they despawn after a while and no more adds should spawn. Once the adds are down have your tank settle Muada back into the same position as Phase one. The only difference between this phase and the first one is the additional AoE to complement Ray Thorn, Swiping Blow. This AoE hits in a 360 degree zone 15 meters around the boss, this needs to be outranged as it does heavy damage and knocks people down.

Every 20 seconds Muada will alternate between Ray Thorn and Swiping blow. To make sure nobody gets hit you run out of Swiping Blow and immediately back in after it ends to avoid Ray Thorn, repeat until the phase ends. Pretty simple.

Phase Four: 25-0%
Muada will use Rage, same as all new phases, and then burrow underground. Shortly after using this skill the text "Muada has created a giant sand hell, run!" pops up on your screen. Following the disembodied words' instructions quickly run out of the central area and onto the sides. I assume if you fail to do this you die horribly. But it's not hard to get out of so no big deal.

Once you're back on the boss he gets a new skill called Neurotoxin which he will randomly cast on party members. It does a medium amount of damage and puts a status effect on the target that cuts its attack and does damage over time. This is curable so clerics make sure you're dispelling the targets of Neurotoxin.

Muada will stop doing Ray Thorn this phase and will switch back to Projectile Vomit (Frontal Cone) and will continue doing Swiping Blow and Neurotoxin. Make sure to keep out-ranging swiping blow whenever Muada uses it and keep burning him down.

This should finish off the fight! Congratulations on defeating Empress Muada!

For those of you curious about the loot she can drop, there are two eternal necklaces (Caster/Melee) that Muada drops that aren't too shabby for PvE and she drops a fabled hat and shields. We got the fabled cleric shield to drop :3.

Thanks for reading!

-Fest
(Tiamat/Assassin/60)

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Aion 3.0 Chronicles: Elementis Forest & Argent Manor

Warning: This guide contains a ton of Fest-isms and due to this I have decided to give you all a key to decipher my ramblings.
List of known Fest-isms:

Safety Golem = Hetgolem (Things that spawn around Boss #5 of Elementis forest)
Rock O' Doom = Not a real "boss" but gives a loot chest
Yoda Monkey on Crack = Monkey boss (Boss #4 of Elementis forest)
Junkie Golem = Final boss of Elementis Forest who is overdosing on a tree.
Safety Golem Slavemaster = First boss in Argent Manor, utilizes safety golems to heal himself.
Where did my hp go? Final boss of Argent Manor, Zadra Spellweaver, hits like a truck throwing another truck at your face. Doesn't drop anything when "killed"
Where did my hp go? Pt. 2: The Reckoning: Final form of Zadra Spellweaver, is annoying until 25% Hits like a truck throwing another truck at your face and then firing a rocket at your nuts.

Well if you've taken a look around the map at all the new instances you may recognize Elementis Forest as one of the new twelve-man instances. This instance is part of a set, complemented by Argent Manor, similar in fashion to Upper and Lower Udas in the previous zones.

The Forest portion of the instance isn't setup like a dungeon or your typical instance at all. If anything it reminded me of an open zone and even contains some repeatable mob kill quests. There are a total of five bosses in the forest and I'll give a brief description of the strategy involved for defeating each of them. At some point in the near future I'll actually record these bosses and add commentary so stay tuned :D!

Boss #1 Canyonguard: This dude is a giant golem that you run into literally a few steps into the instance. He's a pretty standard tank n' spank boss that spawns some adds every so often that the group must shift priority to. His other noteworthy skill is Canyonguard's Wrath (Rage?) which is an AoE he will cast every two minutes or so, it has a range of 15 meters. Outrange this skill. It does quite a large amount of damage if you get caught in it and he repeat casts it three times before returning to normal.

In regards to the adds: The Canyonguard will spawn these boulders that don't really do anything for about a minute then they "hatch" into elite earth spirit adds. The dormant boulders can be burned down so you don't need to kill the actual adds. I believe there are a total of four or five adds to dps down during the last spawn so it's quite manageable.

Once he dies he turns into a bridge and spawns a chest which, from my two runs, contained Fabled accessories and one Eternal piece of armor (plate shoulders).

Boss #2: This next boss is a little more tricky since you need to have one group handle the invisible adds that constantly spawn at put a shield on the main boss. This can be done by using the plants on the ground that spawn around the boss. These will allow you to see the invisible adds and burn them down (they're really weak). Our group had the gladiators focus on these adds since a few AoE's is all it would take the drop the group of them.

More adds! This stupid horse also blips in and out of existence every phase and summons a literal wave of adds that encircles you. The first three waves are no big deal but towards the end, especially the final wave, things can get bad if you aren't careful. The final wave of adds consists of these jellyfish things that must be either burned down immediately or kited until they de-spawn. IMPORTANT NOTE: Never attack them from the front, they like to do frontal explosion AoE's that do some nasty damage. These adds do de-spawn after a relatively short period of time.

Aside from all the waves of adds this boss is fairly easy and shouldn't give groups much trouble.

Boss #3 ROCK O' DOOM: At the top of a hill your party will encounter a large rock. It has a legendary health bar and is most easy piece of crap the hardest boss in the game. You gently push the giant boulder of death down a hill where it slams into another rock and gives you a chest with some golds, haven't seen an eternal out of this one yet.

I hesitate to call that a boss.

Boss #4 Yoda Monkey on Crack: After carving your way through adorable monkeys wearing leaf hats you'll encounter a large version of the Yoda-monkey pet from Esoterrace. This guy is like a mix of the first two real bosses and will blip out of existence and spawn adds. These are much more manageable than either of the previous bosses though as they don't have much health. This boss does nothing special outside of the adds just focus fire and you'll be fine. Also, mark the main boss so you can tell when he reappears, helpful for your tank since the adds look identical to the boss.

Boss #5 Junkie Golem: IMPORTANT NOTE: There are a bunch of adorable circle golems surrounding the area that the boss is in. These are used in the fight and I strongly suggest burning them all down before starting the fight.

This boss likes to put DoTs on people that can only be cleared by using the corpse of one of the aforementioned adorable circle golems, we'll call them safety golems. The boss will frequently resurrect all the golems and you can just have your gladiators AoE them down without much issue. It is important to keep the boss away from the safety golem pile.

When you get two debuffs on you it is important to cleanse them so your healers don't get overwhelmed. One debuff is manageable and waiting for two keeps the supply of safety golems high.

The one important skill this boss uses is Overload. When he uses this it puts a 20 second buff on him that makes him hit for 6-8k per hit. The tank and probably DPS need to back off when he does this skill. Kiting is not needed as the skill will make the boss stop moving completely, just sit back and let the buff run out before continuing the killing.

That concludes the Elementis Forest portion of the guide. Onto the fun part.

Argent Manor: This is a lot harder than the forest portion of the instance and the bosses are much less forgiving.

Boss #1 Safety Golem Slavemaster: This boss is a dick. Not only because he yells at the safety golems but because they heal him and buff him if you don't murder them first. This boss is surrounded by five safety golems that he will call over at random to heal and buff him. These MUST be killed before this happens. If more than two reach him he will likely wipe your group. We discovered that, while these golems are invincible until called, they can be hit through their shield by DoTs and any delayed activation skill (Lava Tsunami, Delayed Blast etc.). This is a good way to get a start on the dps before they're actually called in. It is advised to have at least 10 people for this fight. We did it with nine on our first run but the dps was a close call.

Once all of his adds have been called he's a very easy fight and you just tank n' spank him down.

Boss #2 This wall is stupid: After defeating the first boss head down the stairs into the room with a big wall and some elemental transformation things. Basically all you do for this "boss" is transform into the elemental spirit that can do damage to the wall. It will shift what it is vulnerable to every 30 seconds or so. Aside from that, there is nothing to this fight, it doesn't even hit you back.

Boss #3 Safety Golem Roller Disco: This guy is actually just another big robo-golem and does a couple of annoying things that don't really do anything at all. First off, as my name for this boss implies, he summons two safety golems to roll around him in a circle. Presumably to make himself look cool. These golems take no damage and appear to do absolutely nothing. The only real skill of importance to pay attention to is the ranged reflect he puts up. To remedy this all you need to do is make sure everyone is within seven meters of the boss. Then you just dps him down.

Also, avoid the jelly on the floor it appears to drain mana and debuff you. He does something to the main tank at some point that would essentially insta-kill him so watch for that and make sure someone is ready to alt-tank.

Boss #4 Where did your hp go?: This is actually just phase one of the final boss. He is a bastard. There is no freaking strategy for this boss. The only thing you can do is pray your clerics/chanters can put out the heals to keep your templar up through this guy's ludicrous amounts of damage. We had a level 58 templar in full stormwing gear in full tank spec do this fight and he was still barely living through some of this guy's attacks.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Similar to the first manor boss this dude has three crystals he summons one at a time starting from the far right, then middle, then left. When these crystals become vulnerable EVERYONE needs to burn them. If one happens to cast a buff on the boss he will begin one-shotting everyone.

This boss also loves randomly targeting people and pulling them towards him while doing about 7k damage. Depending on how many healers you have (We had two clerics and a chanter) they may be too busy spamming every heal possible on the tank so be ready to pot back up.

Once you get him to around 25-30% he will run away. No loot will be given. It's okay to be mad.

Boss #5 Where did your hp go? Pt. 2: The Reckoning: So this jerkbag decides to get even stronger now. The first phase of this fight is the hardest. You have to deal with his linear AoE's that do massive damage so stay spread out, healers and ranged on the right, melee dps on the left, have the tank stick to the wall with the boss facing away from the group.

The boss now has several new AoEs and still loves to pull people randomly to him. He also spawns fire on the floor that damages you so mind your surroundings. We had our tank die about 35% in and continued the fight by having whoever had aggro kite around the circular room. This worked well since the boss likes to stop and AoE a lot, giving the group time to recover. Then we worked our way through the aggro list until the templar had it back.

At about 25% he enters his final phase and calls a stupid golem to start shooting lasers at the group. AVOID THE RED DOT! Thankfully this part of the fight is the easiest. Zadra will frequently stop and just float in the middle of the room, allowing you to focus dps on him. Aside from that, he is exactly the same as before. You can have your group kite him around until he stops in the middle to simplify the fight further.

Extra Notes: Most (if not all) bosses have an enrage timer so mind your dps and try to limit the length of these boss fights so you don't wipe from enrage. Also, for anyone curious about our party setup for these two runs we had:
Fest - 60 - Assassin
Hikosejuro - 57/58 - Gladiator
Iamthelaw - 60 - Gladiator
Arkadies - 58/59 - Cleric
Etherea - 58/59 - Cleric
Bennyhinn - 58/59 - Chanter
Vengefulone - 58/59 - Templar
Zenji 58/59 - Ranger
Spankmi - 57/58 - Sorceror
Vikarious (2nd Run) 60 - Sorceror
Congratulations, you've completed Elementis/Argent!

I'll try to add videos next time I run this with Void :D!

Thanks for reading!

-Fest (Tiamat - 60 Assassin)

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Aion 3.0 Overview & AP

After trying several times to write about everything Aion's 3.0 update contains I realized that I was generating what I could only describe as a small book. So I decided to divide it up into a series of "guides" and general information posts discussing the various aspects of 3.0 and how to go about them. Some of these posts may be small tid-bits on quests I found or secrets discovered.

This first post will be on the new ways to gain AP in 3.0 that weren't previously available. The first thing I'd like to mention is the new Tiamaranta's Heart fort sieges and how awesome these sieges are if you participate in them. These forts go vulnerable three times a day and are a great way to assist both yourself and your faction in the AP department.

How these sieges help you: From all of the sieges I've attended thus far I believe the lowest amount of AP I've gained from dps'ing the fort boss was about 2.9k. This makes the paltry 800-1200 AP you gain from Gelk/Ing forts seem irrelevant considering it takes significantly less time to do the new TH sieges.

Typically both Asmodians and Elyos take two forts each and should a player participate in both forts during a vulnerability the total AP gain could be close to 6k. If you siege all three vulnerabilities you're talking 18k AP a day just from 20-30 minute sieges. Supplement this with frequent T-Dredges and PvP daily quests and you've got a rather large chunk of AP coming in every day.

How these sieges help your faction: The TH fortresses operate in a similar way as the Gelk/Ing forts, if your faction owns two or more forts a portal will open up. This portal will take you to Tiamaranta's Eye, a map that contains several daily quests, both PvE and PvP, that assist players in their AP gaining process.

This map also contains AP chests, like the ones found in Esoterrace, that come in varying sizes and may be opened by keys of the corresponding level. This is a fantastic way for people to gain AP since it is like having access to a 24-hour Esoterrace with PvP and a distinct lack of soul crushing-ness.

There is also a nice world boss in the Eye that spawns at weird times (on certain days), Governor Sunayaka. This big ol' dragon drops eternal grade weapons and accessories (Hairpin +?) at a high rate. These are some of the best weapons 3.0 has to offer and are on par with the Vasharti weapons from Rentus Base. Protip: This boss takes significantly less time than an instance and potentially spawns multiple times in any given spawn day. <- Great option for gearing up.

Unfortunately many players (On Tiamat-Asmo) don't take advantage of this zone and have displayed a minimal interest in fort sieges and the Eye's goodies.

That's all on this for now, more to come soon!

-Fest (Tiamat - Assassin)

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PAX East "Controversies"

Okay so apparently people have gotten all up-in-arms about PA's handling of two events that occurred at PAX. After reading both sides of the argument I have to say...I have no idea why anyone is mad. PA did fine handling the situation with Jessica Nigri's cosplay outfit being too revealing, no matter what decision was made there would be fallout. As Gabe (Mike Krahulik) mentioned in a post earlier this week he, and PA in general, were "vilified" last year for the booth babes being "exploited" to sell games. Now this year Gabe has to ask Jessica to cover up a little because her outfit was too revealing and there were many families with small children in attendance who did not feel that was alright for their kids to see.

People chose to take Ms. Nigri's situation extremely personally and barrage Gabe and PA with complaints and false stories insisting they kicked her out on Sunday. They simply had her change into a T-shirt that was less revealing than what she was wearing before in an effort to respect the wishes of those select few who weren't comfortable with her showing that much skin. If anyone raging about Nigri getting "kicked out" reads this I encourage them to go take a peek at the pictures of her on Sunday, wearing a slightly more modest shirt, totally still at PAX. She was not kicked out nor did she appear to be mad at all. I question the validity of all the articles trying to fan the non-existent flames of controversy that seem to exist only in the minds of people who didn't actually go to PAX.

The other "controversy" was concerning a gentleman who, at previous PAXs, decided taking off his pants to disrupt panels was cool. He was promptly banned from future conventions. He begged to be let back in this year and PA agreed provided he promised not to take his pants off on stage again to ensure panels remained uninterrupted. This guy agreed to these terms and was allowed back in where, predictably, the first thing he did was disrupt a panel by taking his pants off.

People are mad because...? I'm sorry do people want to see that? Does this guy do other things? Somehow hearing that he was banned, let back in, and re-banned for doing the exact thing they had him promise not to do doesn't seem noteworthy. If you don't want to wear pants...cosplay as Vincent Brooks (from Catherine). People either really like to see this guy's junk or just want something to whine about since PAX is always fully wonderful and awesome.

/endfestrant

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