Feldon I’m not the first to have visited this zone. Indeed I was in beta and I did not run it, so hundreds have done it first. I guess wanted to be “surprised”. Well, I was surprised alright!
We wiped on the first trash not once but twice. We got knocked around, stunned, blurred vision, burned, frozen, and all sorts of nastiness. Agro problems were surprising considering the ballyhooed “tank balance” which was supposed to go in with TSO. Some of the positional taunts (+1 hate position) just flat out did not work properly at all.
We went in with an SK tank, but he graciously traded roles with a Mythical/Fabled Monk. We also had a Wizzy, Conjurer, Ranger (that’s me), and 78 Templar. We certainly had a tough time at first. Once we figured some things out and learned the boss strategies the hard way, it’s going to be “not bad”. A couple of mobs have serious AoEs which you have to use a trick to keep under control. Otherwise they are doing 3-6k damage all at once.
Our monk described it in one word: Brutal. Casual groups with Mastercrafted and Legendary are going to get eaten. The developers describing this zone as “Easy” confirms my fears that since most of the group zones on Beta were tested by Fabled/Mythical players, and folks who were not so well-geared typically did not get invited to groups, the difficulty level was cranked up.
The templar had a tough time keeping up with heals. A problem which will probably be resolved with gearing up and gaining 2 levels. The hard-earned Exquisite and Ornate chests yielded 2 major upgrades for our healer so we’ll be back swinging here soon enough. Probably with that healer’s main — an 80 epic Illusionist. 🙂
It was a nice touch to have the Void Shard chest about halfway through the zone, with a key on a subboss or tough trash mob. We did not finish the zone (I had to run to the airport to pickup a roommate), but we all got a shard due to this chest. It will be slower, but folks can start gearing up from these chests even if they can’t take down the main boss yet.
I have posted the strategy we hammered out under Miragul’s: Scion of Ice at Zam.
P.S. Appropriating and repurposing furniture found in dungeons is fun! 🙂
May be cos the only healer you had was a 78 templar, but when we ran Scion of Ice it was very easy.
Did it with a Guardian (me), Swashie, Coercer, Conjuror, Pally and a Templar. We have only legendary and T1 RoK fabled (except the Conjuror who also has his mythical).
Zone was easy, no wipes, no aggro issues and no issues healing.
Next time we run it, we will take an Illy and an 80 healer. Should be a lot easier now that we know the strat. 🙂
The zone was quite easy to solo-heal for warden 80 (me), no raid gear, but instace fabled jewelry. Tank was also non-raider, as everybody else except one mythical coercer. Bit confusing quests, but generally really easy.
If anyone has any strategies for Najena Deep Forge and is feeling particularly Generous, let me know. Specifically the Smithy. We tried pulling the hammers from the room with a bruiser and just burning down the Smith. We tried pulling the Smith from the room and leaving the hammers. Each time, we got eaten at about 40% of the Smith’s health by 6 stacked elemental detrimentals.
I figured out the puzzle to open the Lava wall.
Got some advice on how to kill him. The hammers have an AoE debuff that can be used against him. We’ll try that next time and see what happens.
Pull the trash in the smithy room out and kill it, but leave the hammers. Then once all trash but the hammers is killed, pull the smithy, ignore the hammers. When the hammers die they do an AE that reduces your mitigation. So just burn the named without using AE 😉
I keep seeing people say that, but we have tried leaving the hammers and pulling Doomhammer to the opposite side of the zone. He still kills us DEAD with several 3k hits. He has 6 of his Armor effects stacked on us.
I’m guessing you had a very high DPS group that was able to burn him down in 20-30 seconds?
Yes it is possible that we just ‘burned through’ the script. However try pulling a single hammer and kill it. It puts a detrimental on your group that I think will only make him hit harder. I’ll check next time I go there if i can figure out more about the fight.
You HAVE to kill the hammers against the smith. If they are left up during the fight they each put up an AoE dot that wipes you more or less quickly (depending on gear, healers etc.)
Just kill all the hammers, then immedietly pull the named, then kill the hammers as they spawn til they named is dead. You do get an incurable trauma detrimental from them when they die, but the AoE you get if they’re up is MUCH worse.
It’s possible that the AoE is completely avoidable by just pulling the named far enough away from the hammers, dunno haven’t tried that yet.
Another strategy guide for The Deep Forge has been posted:
http://downloadonlygamer.com/2008/11/23/everquest-2-deep-forge/