Lord of the Rings Online REVIEW
Narbugud Vibrations
By Jason Winter
Last week, my Lord of the Rings Online kinship, Guardians of Gondor, took a stab at Dar Narbugud, the new endgame raid dungeon. Though we’d been in DN many times, we’d only gotten through the first four bosses. The final two bosses – the Blind One and the Mistress of Pestilence – had wiped us every time.
This was only my second time inside DN. I’d been in the previous week’s run, which, as usual for our runs, only took down the first four bosses without even attempting the Blind One (who must be defeated before you can take on the Mistress). On Thursday night, we took down the first four bosses again (and I won the roll for an armour piece J ) and we called it a night, with grim aspirations of taking down the final two bosses on Saturday.
Saturday came, and we steeled ourselves for the upcoming epic battle. We read the strat on the Blind One, which is so detailed as to have people standing in specific, pre-ordained places in the boss’s chamber. The Blind One emits a toxic gas cloud around him, dealing heavy damage to anyone close to him. As such, we only have two melee classes in the cloud and I, being a captain with very limited ranged offensive capabilities, was mostly relegated to healing duties. We’d learned of a few tricks that made the fight easier and, on our first attempt, took down the Blind One for the first time!
Our jubilation was short-lived, however, as we burrowed deeper into Dar Narbugud to confront the Jabba-the-Hutt-like Mistress of Pestilence. Half a dozen or so wipes later, we’d all but forgotten about our victory over the Blind One, due in large part to the last wave of adds in the fight against the Mistress. In that final phase, three adds spring from the edges of the room and almost instantly lock a random player down. The mez is unbreakable and, 20 seconds after it initiates, the locked player is killed automatically. Trying to take down the adds with several characters incapacitated was a challenge that was stymieing us greatly.
Then we hit upon the answer. As soon as that wave of adds began, we would all (minus the main tank) gather around a spot and wait for the adds. Then we’d let loose with all our AOEs while also focusing fire on a single mezzer to break out at least one character. When he was free, the remaining two would be weakened by the AOEs and we’d be able to burn them down faster. It was tense; at one point, I was mezzed and was broken free with just one second to spare!
In between the waves of adds, we’d pummel the Mistress for all we had, trying to burn her down as much as possible before the next wave. Her health dropped to 150,000…then 100,000…then 50,000…the last wave of adds came when she was around 15,000 morale. That was when I had my close call with the mezzers, and I said, “If I go down, just ignore it and finish her off!” Man, I’m heroic!
I didn’t go down, but the Mistress of Pestilence did, to a series of whoops and cheers in our Ventrilo channel. Dar Narbugud had been cleared of the plague that infested it, at least for a little while. And the best news was that my repair bill wasn’t even too high.
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cooLlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll! AW...