Guide to raiding - lvl 30 to 45

[Viorel]

After 10+ raids failed because of people making mistakes, I decided to write this guide. Its not the ultimate guide or something like that, it’s a collection of common sense rules.

In this guide I cover only one raid party with lvls between 30 – 45 (I am actually a newbee ^^).


Party setup: 1 Tank, 1 bishop/prophet (cleric), 1 shillen elder (shillien oracle), 1 DD, 5 nukers.

Tank
A char is a tank only if that char had HATE (or aggression). Its common sense, I know, but I saw a lot of people who think if their char has huge hp it can be tank. A tank must have hate. A safe choice is a tank with level higher than the RB level.
There is an excellent guide to tank on Lineage2 site, section New player guides -> Guides, all tanks please: read it.

Bishop/prophet
This char is the primary healer. I think after lvl 48 things will change, but until then you can use a prophet as a healer. Most raid parties that I have seen failed is because healers depleted their mana. So healers, please, conserve your mana. A healer with no mana = dead party.
Do not zerk the tank
Zerk the RB only if you know you can handle the healing.
DO NOT use your resurrect with xp return in fight, just a waste of mana, that mana is better used healing people (especially the tank).

Shillien Elder
This char is the secondary healer and recharger. Conserve mana, conserve mana.
DO NOT use your resurrect with xp return in fight, just a waste of mana, that mana is better used healing people (especially the tank).
DO NOT recharge the nukers. It’s the nukers job to manage their mana. If the tank has no mana to hate = dead party.

DD
You need a melee guy to be the targeter for nukers. Best choice is Warcryer. Party buffs and the most important thing: Chant of Life. This spell is great for helping healers to heal less and nukers to use Body to mind all the time.

Nukers
They nuke, enough said. Wrong, they must manage their mana. Ive seen a lot of nukers who spam nukes, and in the middle of the fight (usually when the minions respawn) they are out of mana.
Use body to mind all the time, I use this pattern: 2 nukes 1 b2m. If u have an WC, Chant of Life help a lot, if u don’t use pots.
If you cant manage your mana don’t ask for acumen. For inexperienced nukers is better not to have acumen, it will help them to manage their mana.

General rules:
- Follow the party leader instructions. If the party leader is inexperienced (or just dumb) - change him.
- DO NOT leave the fight because you think the battle is lost. The party leader should decide this. Its better to have a little organization when you want to drop a RB.
- Bid for items after each RB.
- Make the looting rules clear for everybody before the fight. Here are some sample rules:
o Party looting option: By turn or by turn including spoil
o Bid on full items and blessed enchants
o Regular enchants: if they are 4 or less: bid on them, one by one or bulk. If they are 5 ore more no need for biding, the party looting option will take care of distributing the enchants.
o Parts and dyes: no biding. But, they should be equally distributed between party members. Lets say the drop was 6 dyes, the drop should be distributed as follow: 1 for the guy who picked up the drop, other 5 droped one by one and picked up.

If I missed some rules (and I surelly did) please let me know, I will try to add them.

[Jute]

Spellsingers do not have Body to Mind, just an FYI.

[EllieBelly]

Raids at that level can be a lot more flexible. I'd say the base would need a tank with hate, one person just to heal, one person for buffs and recharges (which almost always is a SE, sorry EEs) then the rest DD's of any kind.

I don't agree with the rezzes, missing out on the damage a nuker, for example, does can mean the difference between a failed raid and a successful one. That is assuming people aren't dropping like flies >< sometimes a person is better off just staying dead...

As for healers conserving mana, yep definitely but that might mean ignoring your party. Like ignore a caster that wants buffs they don't need, ask people to carry cures for poison, wake up scrolls (soul scavenger), etc. Everyone having antidotes to a AOE poison boss (flame lord) makes all the difference, the healer can't cure everyone at once and heal the damage without wiping their MP in 5 seconds.

[Spudnik]

i would say you missed some points;

know your boss. it is good to fail a raid on a boss you havent fought before. this failure will help you learn what kinds of skills some bosses posess, what weaknesses some bosses have, and what kinds of parties some bosses require.

example: you simply CANNOT take down the warden of execution ground without a BD and SE.

now, as to your suggestion of 1 dd 5 nukers: really you dont need more than 2 nukers in any raid party IF AND ONLY IF you know your boss.

i have taken down more than a handful of bosses more than a handful of times using 5 dwarfs 2 healers and a nuker. when you know what youre doing you can take the boss down better.

that being said i offer some advice to help you understand and know your boss; READ THE INFO! click the down arrow beside the boss's name. read the boss's background. there are usually clues as to what classes are stronger to him over others. one fine example of this is Shacram. he HATES nukers. i have never yet taken him down when i had any mystics in the party including healers. so i bring archers and gladiators he goes down pretty fast (ghp ftw).

also in that little info section of the raid boss it will show some weaknesses, monster characteristics, and racial attributes; understand what these mean. dont take Spellsingers to a raid thats weak to fire. i mean you can, but a sorc will really do better. a word of caution tho: when a boss is weak to one thing, he resists another. in a MAJOR way.
water spirit Lian is a good example; he is weak to fire, but almost immune to water. the trouble is, he also AOE roots. so make sure your nukers dont draw aggro. how? simple. bring SH if youre gonna be a newb and take all nukers to your raid. SH has wind based attacks, so lian takes average damage. so long as your tank (which at this boss should be a BD) can hit hard and fast to keep up, lian wont cast root once in your whole raid.

these are just my own bits of knowledge, and i know for certain some newb **** is gonna flame me for saying you dont need nukers to take down a boss.

if you do, you dont know your boss nearly as well as you should.

[Viorel]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree with the rezzes, missing out on the damage a nuker, for example, does can mean the difference between a failed raid and a successful one. That is assuming people aren't dropping like flies >< sometimes a person is better off just staying dead...

[/ QUOTE ]
I didnt say: just let him rot there, just dont use rezz skills. Use scrolls.

And thx for your replies.

Btw, I dont buy that 5 dorfs ideea, maybe there is a boss where you can do that, but from here to put it into a guide is a long distance. From my point of view, the first sign of a good party is: no dorfs.

[EllieBelly]

Well I would make sure people know what they are accepting ahead of time, some people don't care but at 40+ scroll rezzing could get you in a lot of trouble as a healer. IMO

[Madders]

I've done lots of these raids with my orc and SE.

One of the main things I don't completely agree with is rez. I've been in occasions where initially things haven't gone according to plan - bad management, someone DC's at wrong min, etc - and an important party member has been killed. If for example it's the tank, that then can mean that the rest of the party has to try and hold the RB as best they can until the tank is back and can continue their job.

How then do you propose that they use a scroll to rez the tank, when do they have the time? As an SE I would immediately rez the tank using my skills. It is normal to have another healer so the mana I use doing that is worth far more than using it to heal and recharge a dying party that has no tank.

[Orvieta]

[ QUOTE ]
I've done lots of these raids with my orc and SE.

One of the main things I don't completely agree with is rez. I've been in occasions where initially things haven't gone according to plan - bad management, someone DC's at wrong min, etc - and an important party member has been killed. If for example it's the tank, that then can mean that the rest of the party has to try and hold the RB as best they can until the tank is back and can continue their job.

How then do you propose that they use a scroll to rez the tank, when do they have the time? As an SE I would immediately rez the tank using my skills. It is normal to have another healer so the mana I use doing that is worth far more than using it to heal and recharge a dying party that has no tank.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do understand the OP opinion that rez takes away mana for heals (and most important momentum of time to cast them) but a RB party (or parties) needs all its members...otherwhise it just flawed to start with.

So I second your opinion, as SE I rez the dead party members too, so that they can assist in fighting, while providing basic buffs if I have mana to burn.

[Lothlian]

[ QUOTE ]
example: you simply CANNOT take down the warden of execution ground without a BD and SE.

[/ QUOTE ]

You cant leave town without a BD and SE.

[Spudnik]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
example: you simply CANNOT take down the warden of execution ground without a BD and SE.

[/ QUOTE ]

You cant leave town without a BD and SE.

[/ QUOTE ]

well ...

sometimes you can. i take all melee out for shacram and i take 2 BD 1 SWS and believe it or not 3 paladins. (all buddies.)

guess who heals?

shacram has always beaten me when i have had any in-party buffer or healer or nuker. so oop buffs before we go, and paladins for inparty healing just because i can. its the ony way i know to take that particular boss out.

[Dalamarthalas]

We're taking Shacram down everyday on Lionna. 1 Tank, 1 SE, 1 Summoner, 5 Nukers. Casualties happen when someone does something stupid.
but I agree in general. You don't *need* nukers for a successful raid. Especially the ones too smart to use btm (if they have it).

[Spudnik]

[ QUOTE ]
We're taking Shacram down everyday on Lionna. 1 Tank, 1 SE, 1 Summoner, 5 Nukers. Casualties happen when someone does something stupid.
but I agree in general. You don't *need* nukers for a successful raid. Especially the ones too smart to use btm (if they have it).

[/ QUOTE ]

u know why u winz all teh time? summoner.

not many summoners on my server, and when i find one they dont want to raid.

i would take a Warlock i am bringing up, but i dread doing anythin else but raiding with him. egads i wont have ANY skills but summons and i am by no means rich enough to twink him out or get him crystals.

summoner in your group = automatically win every raid. no fair!

[Dalamarthalas]

We've done it without summoner as well. It's just our most usual setup. And it's ES not WL (that DoT doesn't land too often)

[Krissa]

!. The 30-45 raids are very easy if you know what you are doing, and they can be successfully made in many different ways. For example, it is hard but still possible to put down many 40+ raid bosses without Empower when the only healer+recharger is an EE and 3 of the nukers are SpS. Still, high-level OOP buffs help a lot, and finding an OOP buffer or two is usually not a big problem. Pots may help, too. But knowing your raid boss helps the most.

2. You don't actually need a bishop to heal a tank. The SE+EE duo works like a charm even without OOP buffs. Good tanks for 30-45 raids do not need spamming heals or recharges at them, except for heals during minion killing times (if the tank prefers not to UD at that time). And it is generally better to have 2 rechargers in the party instead of just one recharger even plus one extra nuker: Higher Mana Gain rules.

3. The average DPS during the raid is what is crucial for the raid success. Acumen is good. The rechargers are better to start to recharge nukers immediately, spellsingers first, then nukers with BtM. BtMs are slow, they eat into the DPS a lot. When rechargers have spent about 1/4 of their MP, they should rest to regenerate MP, and nukers start to BtM. It is NOT hard for a sitting EE to save a nuker from a reaggroed 45- boss with no stun (of course, you need to stand up when the boss successfully mass-roots a nuker)... well, if the nukers do not BtM themselves to an one-hit death. Of course, every heal should use BSpS, and it is better to use BSpS for recharges (it makes them land faster and gives more time for a recharger to regen sitting).

4. Rezzing a nuker with a scroll is WAY TOO SLOW. It eats the HP and MP regen time of 2 persons (the rezzer and the rezzed), and it switches them both out of damage dealing and healing/recharging during that time. And the deaths in the raid groups with a good tank and a good EE are quite rare.

5. You do not really need a warcryer for buffs, and you definitely do not really need Chant of Life for heals. Just use Group Heal with BSpS if you have more than 3 nukers BtMing.

6. DON'T PANIC. Never. Whatever happens, it does not mean the ultimate failure of the raid. Even if the tank goes dead, you still may have chances to succeed, if the group does not panic. The tank running OOM rarely means any deaths for a 45- raid, if the group adapts. If the tank spamming hate cannot get aggro back from a nuker (the nuker in this case is usually a Spellsinger), sometimes it is even better to stop to recharge the tank and start to recharge the kiting nuker, however paradoxal it may sound. If the nukers and rechargers are running out of MP and the minions' respawn time is nearby, it may be better for them to sit regenning their MP, and for melee part of the party to continue fighting to slow the HP regen of the boss. And so on, and so forth.

[Brans]

Hmm, those Posts are before C5? Cause after C5, i dont think just one party in this lvl range can handlee a RB.

[Spudnik]

some can

you would think it crazy to to do tho.

[MalineII]

It's difficult with one party plain out - it's not at all undoable if you use the right DDs.

I still see raids shouting for nukers, no wonder people think they need two parties.

[Spudnik]

for single group raiding, i have found the ultimate party; 3 tank 2 healer 3 ranged 1 nuker.

as long as the boss isnt archery resistant, youll break that bastige boss in a buff round.

[MalineII]

Why on earth three tanks?

[Spudnik]

cause healers need to alternate, and with only one tank the mp for hate will run dry fast.

3 tanks = when one runs out, others can begin hating. no need for a recharger like this, and makes full use of a good tank.