VanCleef Assault

[MongoJerry]

Gnomeregan is not what you'd think of if all you've played are the Deadmines or Stockades instances. Gnomeregan is VAST - it dwarfs (pun intended) Van Cleef's hidey-hole. You do not approach Gnomeregan as a "one-time-through" instance. In fact, the quests there will force you to enter it more than once. At some point, you get a key that will allow you to enter a "back door" for the instance, skipping some of the initial way. Consider it a savepoint.

Yes, Gnomeregan is vast. However, it turns out that while the Workshop entrance ("back door") may be the shortest way to the end boss distancewise, but it's anything but the shortest way to get to the end boss timewise. The Workshop has large gangs of gnomes flanked by mechanostriders and other gnome machines every step of the way. It's a fun but tough experience to get through it all. However, there is another way using the regular first entrance to get to the end boss in a much quicker and easier manner. It involves jumping over a couple of ledges into the rooms below. It's difficult to describe it in words, but once you get an understanding of the geography of GM, you can probably figure it out for yourself. One hint is that the first jump has you jump onto an enormous screw in the middle of the room containing the oozes.

and we failed one of the in-instance quests (a brutal escort quest where your group is mobbed by 6-10 creatures at once with a tiny break in between).

Are you talking about the escort of the goblin quest? If so, it's fairly easy. The goblin "follows" one of the players, so you can go at your own pace and take whatever path you want. There aren't any special creatures who appear to attack him, so all you have to do is go back and kill the same mobs you did to get to him. If you get to him fast enough, you might not even have to do that, since the mobs might not have respawned. I'm guessing you had your bad experience because either a) Some of your groupmates moved too fast and woke up too many mobs (perhaps thinking that the goblin moved on his own like other escort quests) or B) you had respawns appear on top of you while you were fighting some other mobs.

I know that later on, it gets pretty insane though. The quest to defeat Gnomeregan's end-boss is still orange to my level 31 priest, and I bet it's a challenge to a solid group of 35's. Since Gnomeregan is so big, the level range is fairly large - the early stuff is level 27-28ish.

Yeah, it gets pretty insane later -- in a perfectly gnomishly insane way. Some suggestions I have are: Have at least one person in your party have the Gnomish Universal Remote to control one or more of the mechanicals that appear later. Have a lot of bombs prepared ahead of time and use them often. (It's nice that engineering items are so useful in Gnomeregan). For the final boss, have two people on "bomb duty." That is, they hit the red buttons on the conveyer belts when the heads open up to drop walking bombs. (The previous sentence will make more sense when you see the room). Also, having two or more rogues hitting Thermo with kidney shots (stun) really helps. Good luck!

[Tal]

Are you talking about the escort of the goblin quest?  If so, it's fairly easy.  The goblin "follows" one of the players, so you can go at your own pace and take whatever path you want.  There aren't any special creatures who appear to attack him, so all you have to do is go back and kill the same mobs you did to get to him.  If you get to him fast enough, you might not even have to do that, since the mobs might not have respawned.  I'm guessing you had your bad experience because either a) Some of your groupmates moved too fast and woke up too many mobs (perhaps thinking that the goblin moved on his own like other escort quests) or B) you had respawns appear on top of you while you were fighting some other mobs.

No this was the one involving a female who blows up one rock wall and you have to protect her from the resulting Trogg influx. When that is over she blows the second. This wave is more brutal with a elite mob coming on its heels.

[LavCat]

Lav, I tried to tell you in the game - that's just not possible.  The monsters in the instance respawn, and we were *very* far down.  All that way we had gone would have been filled in with monsters again.  It was impossible for you to get back to us without having the whole team fight BACK up to the start of the instance and fight BACK down again.

-Bolty

The plan -- had I found the instance entrance before you died -- was to don my cloak which grants invisibility for five minutes. I had no intention to engage the respawned monsters.

[JustAGuy]

It's a torch, or so it would seem, symbolizing the eternal flame, the ongoing pursuit of knowledge, or some such. Bolty said something about that when he was designing it.

[MongoJerry]

No this was the one involving a female who blows up one rock wall and you have to protect her from the resulting Trogg influx. When that is over she blows the second. This wave is more brutal with a elite mob coming on its heels.

Ah, yes. That one is tough. You need a couple of characters (probably mages) with aoe spells and some people able to throw bombs.

[Bolty]

Ah, yes.  That one is tough.  You need a couple of characters (probably mages) with aoe spells and some people able to throw bombs.

What we wound up using was the "Priest draws aggro with a heal/shield spell, and just casts Holy Word: Shield on herself from then on while the others beat the mobs down one-by-one" system. I'm not complaining - it actually worked well on the first group. The second group nailed us because the aggro wound up divided too much between myself (priest) and the mage, and I could not keep both alive. It was dumb of me to try, really - because if I just kept the shields on myself, I might not have run out of mana and could have remained alive as the primary aggro draw.

People sometimes don't realize how tough Priests are to kill - as long as we have mana, we can stay alive in the face of severe beatdowns. Many times that's all a party needs to beat a tough group.

-Bolty

[Bolty]

Van Cleef 8, Bolty 0.

-Bolty

[TheDragoon]

Ouch. :huh:

[DeeBye]

Van Cleef 8, Bolty 0.

-Bolty

I can't decide whether :( or :lol: is more appropriate

[Nystul]

Ouch!

I got VC on my first try, and haven't been back to try it since.

[--Pete]

Hi,

What happened this time?

I got dropped by lag on my way to the rendezvous. When I logged back in, I was dead and my ghost got lagged out before I could even get back to my body. That was as much fun as I felt like having just then, besides it had the feeling of an amen -- a very bad omen. So I went to the PvP server and started a character there -- about four hours non-stop playing and not even a lag spike.

--Pete

[Lissa]

Alright...time to try this again...

Wednesday, 5 PM Pac/8 PM Eastern, another run at VC.

[LavCat]

Do those of us who were finally successful get to try again?

[Bun-Bun]

Argh! I'm already booked for Wednesday. Good luck!

[Crusader]

Do those of us who were finally successful get to try again?

I guess that the team will primary consist of people who haven't made it yet and fill out any open spots with anyone who can help.

[Roane]

Sadly, that's too early for me. Good luck!

[Cryptic]

This obsession is getting personal. Perhaps VanCleef's real name is Valjean?

"I have known the thief for ages
Tracked him down through thick and thin
And to make the matter certain
There's the brand upon his skin
He will bend, he will break
This time there is no mistake."

:P

[Bolty]

This obsession is getting personal.

No, really? :)

Seriously, one of my probs is that every one of these 8 attempts has been winnable except for 1, when I had a level 14 and 16 in the party (far too weak for the instance). In every other situation, either server crashes, player lagouts, or the all-too-common problem of a party member making a critical mistake has ended the attempt. But I know we could have succeeded.

Sometimes the mistake is that the party does not accept when it is outmatched - this occurred last time when about 6-7 mobs were aggroed on the ship and came for us at once. Instead of fleeing, the party stuck around and was annihilated. There is no shame in recognizing an unwinnable pull and retreating. ESPECIALLY the characters that can res (Paladins, Priests). This happens despite repeated /v Run and just typing RUN! in the party chat. Personal beef of mine - I think that players feel that if they run, they're letting the team down, but I'd much rather see a res'ing class playing cautiously and saving us than throwing yet another attempt at VC and 2 hours down the drain. :)

If I bring a party with me of high-level players who just gank the whole instance, I'm admitting defeat. We have some very good players here, and it's just stupid that we're not able to accomplish this.

-Bolty

[Tal]

Sometimes the mistake is that the party does not accept when it is outmatched - this occurred last time when about 6-7 mobs were aggroed on the ship and came for us at once.  Instead of fleeing, the party stuck around and was annihilated.  There is no shame in recognizing an unwinnable pull and retreating.  ESPECIALLY the characters that can res (Paladins, Priests).  This happens despite repeated /v Run and just typing RUN! in the party chat.  Personal beef of mine - I think that players feel that if they run, they're letting the team down, but I'd much rather see a res'ing class playing cautiously and saving us than throwing yet another attempt at VC and 2 hours down the drain.  :)
-Bolty

I can't agree with this more but with a caveat. I've been (for the most part) playing the role of tank in my times through the VC encounter. One thing people don't understand is that as the tank I won't run. Not that I can't or have no desire to but because I have usually spent most of the fight trying to piss off every mob that has aggroed the party. If I run, I bring the train with me. ;) It also means that even if the party (with me in tow) does manage to get out of aggro range of the first mob we encounter it will get re-aggroed when it passes its buddies who are still aggro'd onto the party. For that reason I expect to go down fighting and buying time for the rest of the party to escape. A good rule of thumb that I use when playing in parties as a pally that if there is a second pally. Whoever is the smaller of the two is the one to break and run. If I'm the bigger pally and I say run I mean it. ;)

[JustAGuy]

Another thing I find, while tanking, is that if you're with a group, and people agree to flee, some people don't run far enough away. Since I've drawn all the aggro most of the time (starting to happen less and less as my sword becomes obsolete) when it comes time to sprint to save your life, they just take a nice stroll down the lane, stopping no more than 20 feet away thinking they're perfectly safe. But in reality, they're still close enough that when I turn Divine Protection on and lose aggro, they become the next target, and get swarmed. At this point, there's nothing I can do for them except run past them, hoping to ressurect them once they perish and try not to extend the train; but sometimes the train keeps going. I've gotten those Redridge Gnolls that are north of Lakeshire all the way into Lakeshire once, with a party member and I leap-frogging the aggro.

I believe that most players should understand what a winnable situation is by now. Five players all level 24 vs five 25+ mobs isn't necessarily winnable fight, with certain player combinations, and it might be wise to regroup and strategize. The key here, is strategizing. It always helps to focus attacks on one mob, and that's what I tend to do. I look for which mob is hurt the most initially, and I focus my attention on him as well. It's tough to do when it's 5 vs 6 or 7, since it can seem a bit chaotic. And for a healer/tank like me, I have to watch other people's health bars as well.

Basic rule of thumb; if you're in a fight of more elites than players (say 5-24's vs 6-25+'s), when the first player dies, run away. RUN AWAY! 5 vs 6 is maybe doable with the right players and the right use of items/skills. 4 vs 6 is asking for trouble, especially against higher level elites, and 3 vs 6 is death.

That doesn't apply to non-elites though, I can take 4 by myself :).