Re: Benediction - The Balance of Light and Shadow
Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2015 10:27 am
Ok, so I finally completed it and found many of the tips posted here not working for me. Maybe it's a latency issue, maybe just skill. Here's my thoughts on the encounter, hoping it will help with people struggling:
Stats and buffs used:
-HP: 2750~
-mana: 6017 (Basic DME farm stats attainable by anyone)
-gear: mostly prebis and a couple of substitutes like sublime wristguards
-foods and buffs: Lesser mana oil, sagefish delight, oil of immolation (came with 15, used 8), 3 mana pots, 2 dark runes, self buffs
-specc: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxMrsVZfxtcb0VZx (as presented by Docholy earlier)
-spells used: FH rank 4, Renew rank 5, Abolish Disease, Holy nova (but I needed to use it only once)
Like said, dispeling the purple plague is important since it's the most damaging.
BUT HERE'S THE FIRST BIG POINT:Many people suggested just renewing green plague npc's. But I found myself constantly swamped by the damage even with renews up. The green plague spreads to other healthy npc's. I don't know if this is a server specific bug or working as intended but as soon as I cured every npc the wave stayed free of any disease. This is important because the archers do laughable damage (I monitored around 5% damage per arrow while spectating other player and one arrow is shot once in 4 seconds). So I always focused curing before heaing and from my experience the healthbars stopped into crawl making healing and conserving mana easy.
HERE'S THE SECOND BIG POINT: After curing diseases DO NOT prioritize npc's that are targeted by 4+ archers (evident by fast loss of health in quick succession). There are 8 or 9 archers and they target randomly. But what I haven't seen anybody mention is that they stick to their targets until dead. This means that if about half of the archers happen to pick the same target you'll waste all your mana healing that guy. I just let them die and the archers usually spread around other targets after this, making healing really easy and not hectic at all.
Otherwise all the tactics already posted by others worked great: pop first mana pot at 60-70%, then cycle pot->rune->pot as needed, use oil of immolation with wild abandon as it's free in terms of mana, use holy nova noly when your hp drops <50% and remember that holy nova doesn't heal the npc's.
My priority list formed out to be like this:
-cure the purple plague
-pick the lowest health green plague patient (and stick to him until cured and over 80%hp)
-cure the plague, flash heal him to 70%+, renew
-repeat from step 2 until all green plague is cured
-calm down and prepare mentally to cure plague of the next wave (this is important, take half a second to focus because you just made it through the most hectic part of the wave, rest is cake)
-throw heals as needed (not many needed at this part, you can mostly let mana regen)
I really hope this helps you guys, good luck!
Stats and buffs used:
-HP: 2750~
-mana: 6017 (Basic DME farm stats attainable by anyone)
-gear: mostly prebis and a couple of substitutes like sublime wristguards
-foods and buffs: Lesser mana oil, sagefish delight, oil of immolation (came with 15, used 8), 3 mana pots, 2 dark runes, self buffs
-specc: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#bxMrsVZfxtcb0VZx (as presented by Docholy earlier)
-spells used: FH rank 4, Renew rank 5, Abolish Disease, Holy nova (but I needed to use it only once)
Like said, dispeling the purple plague is important since it's the most damaging.
BUT HERE'S THE FIRST BIG POINT:Many people suggested just renewing green plague npc's. But I found myself constantly swamped by the damage even with renews up. The green plague spreads to other healthy npc's. I don't know if this is a server specific bug or working as intended but as soon as I cured every npc the wave stayed free of any disease. This is important because the archers do laughable damage (I monitored around 5% damage per arrow while spectating other player and one arrow is shot once in 4 seconds). So I always focused curing before heaing and from my experience the healthbars stopped into crawl making healing and conserving mana easy.
HERE'S THE SECOND BIG POINT: After curing diseases DO NOT prioritize npc's that are targeted by 4+ archers (evident by fast loss of health in quick succession). There are 8 or 9 archers and they target randomly. But what I haven't seen anybody mention is that they stick to their targets until dead. This means that if about half of the archers happen to pick the same target you'll waste all your mana healing that guy. I just let them die and the archers usually spread around other targets after this, making healing really easy and not hectic at all.
Otherwise all the tactics already posted by others worked great: pop first mana pot at 60-70%, then cycle pot->rune->pot as needed, use oil of immolation with wild abandon as it's free in terms of mana, use holy nova noly when your hp drops <50% and remember that holy nova doesn't heal the npc's.
My priority list formed out to be like this:
-cure the purple plague
-pick the lowest health green plague patient (and stick to him until cured and over 80%hp)
-cure the plague, flash heal him to 70%+, renew
-repeat from step 2 until all green plague is cured
-calm down and prepare mentally to cure plague of the next wave (this is important, take half a second to focus because you just made it through the most hectic part of the wave, rest is cake)
-throw heals as needed (not many needed at this part, you can mostly let mana regen)
I really hope this helps you guys, good luck!