Runes of Magic US / AU

OK SO- people are irrationally terrified of VN. And that's silly, cause it's fast and easy and fun, and the loot is lovely, even 13 levels later (VN is 62).

There's already an incredibly exhaustive guide on the Euro forums in existence, and it's so exhaustive that it will scare the pants off you if you read it, so I won't even bother linking it.

This guide is for dummies, AKA, how Noto does it. Since we're all dummies, it works. Pro's, feel free to add Pro Tips in the comments.

YES IT IS A LONG GUIDE. BUT! Just bloody read it once, then go kill the boss, ok? It takes a hell of a lot longer to read this guide than it does to actually go kill Nightmare Androlier.

Basics/VN Courtesy:

VN is not an instance. Well, it is an instance, but it's a World Instance, like Bloody Gallery and the Ant Queen. That means that you can bring an unlimited number of people inside. Back in the day, an attempt was made that involved something like 6 full raids, all inside at the same time. I understand that server was down for a whole day lol. Don't do that. Less is more.

Anyway, since Nightmare Androlier is technically a World Boss, he respawns 8 hours after he gets killed.

Because of that, most servers with more than one endgame guild manage who gets to kill him and when. So please don't just wander in there, especially if a party is in there killing him. You'll die and you might wipe them, which will not contribute to peace and love in the universe. Just worldshout or whisper whoever you think is most likely to know who keeps track of which guilds kills him when. Chances are good they can find you a day and time to go in and try it over and over. And when you are successful (you will be) they'll be so proud, they'll work you right into the kill schedule. War them constantly if they don't

But, it is imperative to keep to your schedule. Don't gank Androlier. It's not cool. VN is for everyone, so don't hog him or act like a jerk.

Who do I need to bring? Party Makeup:

You need a tanky person. Androlier hits for a static 55k, regardless of how much pdef the tanky-type has, so feel free to bring weirdo tank combos, and buff HP. Ideally, you want 150k hp for the tanky person. Leave the eggrice at home.

For the first few tries, bring AT LEAST 2 healers, ideally three. Keep one on the tank, one to heal and one to do strategy and fill in heals.

BRING NO MORE THAN 12 PEOPLE!!!!!

I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH!!!!!

NEVER EVER EVER EVER BRING MORE THAN 12 PEOPLE INSIDE.

Why, you ask? Well, when Androlier does his nifty little fear skill, if you have 12 or less people inside, he will cast it on only ONE PERSON, which is manageable. MORE THAN 12 = CERTAIN HORRIBLE DEATH. Got it? KK.

The rest of your party should be dps, and as with most things, more is better- but you can get by with less. DPS classes should be at least 85k- but to prevent "oops forgot to heal that one" deaths, try to buff over 100k. More HP is generally better in VN, since there are no percent based AoE's. And bring HP pots, since your healers may be busy. There's a lot of damage going on in there.

First Phase: Crevices

Ok, so you have your party, you have your tanky person, you have your healers, you're all buffed, you all did the quest that Yarandor or whoever (she's in the guild hall I think) gives you that will let you inside (it's Varanas West, the tent, talk to the monster).

Head straight inside, to the first Crevice of Fear. Kill the adds, they aren't really a challenge, and immediately start dpsing the crevice down. Get it to zero, and leave someone there to put dots on it and smack it occasionally to keep it down. Crevices will regain health if left on their own. Once you get leet, you can easily do it fast enough to just run through and leave no one on crevice duty, but just leave one person at each crevice when you're learning.

Everyone else just goes to the next crevice. Lather, rinse, repeat. When you get to the last crevice, start smacking it (you need to hit it quickly, because the adds will respawn if you don't) but don't take it all the way down until everyone is ready. Buff up (don't blow any CD's or anything, just get your foods on and pets out etc) and when everyone is ready, dps the last crevice down.

People who are at the last crevice don't need to do anything. People watching the crevices will need to click the crevice they are at as soon as it turns green, and choose the "Willing to Fight" option. Choosing the other option sends you to the res stone in Silverspring, so don't oopsy. Willing to Fight will transport you directly inside Varanas Central where the rest of your party already is.

Phase Two: Mini Bosses

Ok, now you're all inside. There are three mini bosses you need to kill, and here's how we do it, it's the Dummies way. For the pro way, see Paz's post below.

Just run forward and engage the horse boss. He's right in front of where you are standing. He doesn't exactly obey the general rules of aggro, so have the tank run in and hope he can hang on. Just dps him down.

Now make a left turn and run until you see the boss that looks like a shadow demon from NoM. Dps him down. Apparently Yoman says he does a 50% AoE. I have literally never noticed this before, so it's not that big a deal. Just kill him.

Make another left and engage the boss that looks like an Ice Witch. **CAUTION** This one is the tricky one, and you need to pay attention to this bit, or she will wipe you. Firstly, the tank needs to run in close to her, and grab her aggro. Ranged DPS needs to STAY RANGED. Healers, stay at MAX HEAL RANGE. Back up, if you need to. Melee dps needs to pay serious attention to her cast bar and get ready to run.

AS SOON AS she starts casting End of Life (a ranged percentage based AoE, and yes I know I told you there weren't any- this one is avoidable) tank and melee and EVERYONE needs to RUN THE FRACK AWAY. She won't move as long as she is casting, she'll just stand there til she's done. Tank scoops her back up, lather rinse repeat until dead ASAP.


Starting the Fight: Standing, Kneeling and Androlier

Ok, as soon as the Ice Witch lady is down, res anyone who didn't run out of End of Life (there's always someone who doesn't pay attention). Again, this is a Dummies thing, but we all go and group up right where we spawned in, just to the left of the steps up to the Bank. Now, you can tank him anywhere you want inside Varanas Central- but we like the little area right to the right of the steps up to the Bank, right where you spawned inside when you clicked "willing to fight."

Here comes some strat: WHERE YOU STAND MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

Group up and start putting people in position. Androlier casts a Fear skill on one person every 30 seconds that he's spawned, and that fear is contagious, so you need to **NOT STAND TOO CLOSE TO EACH OTHER**. This is VITAL. Get at least 50 range away from everyone else. Ranged dps stands in the back, melee stands in the front, and after the boss is pulled, they need to arrange themselves around his very very wide back. He's huge, so there's room back there for plenty of rogues and warriors. The tank will need to turn the boss. Make sure the healers are in healing range of everyone. Take your time, til everyone is comfortable with where they stand.

Now, before you pull- actually, you should really do this before you even walk in the instance- EVERYONE NEEDS TO MAKE A KNEEL MACRO.

/kneel
/say FAN FEARED OHCRAP CLEANSE ME PLZ!!!
/kneel

Your macro needs to have the /kneel and your name and a line of say chat. What it says doesn't matter, but you need it to say something, so your party will be able to easily locate you.

After the pull, your group will look something like this:

.................................X X X
...................................O
...................................T
.............................X H X H X
...............................X X X

Or thereabouts. It's a crappy graphic, but you get the drift. Offset yourselves, with the tank in the middle, boss turned, melee on the back, ranged and healers in the middle- **ALWAYS ALWAYS AT LEAST 50 RANGE APART ON ALL SIDES!!!!**

So, you all have your kneel macros, tank pulls, everyone gets in position, and you start the fight. If you take too long dipping around getting in position, the countdown (says it in yellow in your general chat) will get close to running out. If that happens, and you need more time, just have someone swap gear and aggro him and die. That resets his timer. That way you won't need to do crevices and mini bosses all over again.


Last Phase: Androlier

Ok, this fight is all timing. Please, God, all be in vent. We do this (somehow) with half the people in vent and half the people not. People not in vent MUST WATCH THE RAID LIST AT ALL TIMES. People in vent can just rely on one caller. That's usually my job. Androlier is a fight in phases. Thirty seconds after he is aggroed, he will cast his fear skill on one person. If you are all standing correctly, and that person sees that they are feared and INSTANTLY starts spamming (and I do mean SPAMMING) their kneel macro, only that one person will get feared.

How do you know who that person is? Well, he will cast a blue debuff on them that easily shows up on the raidlist and he also does an emote (I just listen for the "DING" noise). Have the caller yell out "SO and SO is FEARED!" Now, if you have p/k's that are UNUTTERABLY LEET, they can cast Calm Heart on the feared person THE SAME SECOND THEY GET THE DEBUFF. The debuff MUST be BLUE for Calm Heart to work. If they cast Calm Heart after the blue buff turns purple, the person instantly dies. So, really- no matter how leet the priests are, don't risk it. Just do the strategy.

How to Cleanse Fears:

Ok, so someone is feared and they instantly started spamming their kneel macro. Why do they need to do that anyway? Well, the fear debuff is contagious, for one, and for two, they need to spam that macro so they don't go running around like an idiot. They need to spam it so they freaking stand COMPLETELY STILL. This is so you and your party can run up and use the alt skill that appeared above your skill bar on them, and to do that you need to run up to them and click the alt skill. That's why you need that say line, so you can locate them easily in all the shiny.

Androlier casts fear > feared person starts spamming kneel and caller yells out who is feared > everyone is frozen in place for a second or two > they use that second to click the feared person's name on the raidlist so they are targeting them > they visually locate the person, orient towards them and start pressing the run and jump buttons > as soon as you are all unfrozen you run and jump towards the feared person while simultaneously spamming the alt skill > your toon rushes towards the feared person and kicks them and the alt skill goes on CD > healers heal > you hang around til the CD is over and use the alt skill again unless the caller tells you the fear is cleansed > you IMMEDIATELY RUN BACK TO YOUR POSITION.

Make sense? Read the sequence of events again. It sounds a lot more intimidating than it actually is.

The caller is watching the raidlist to see when that purple buff disappears. It goes away as soon as the feared person gets "kicked" (that's the visual that your toon does when you use the alt skill) 8 times. You get 5 seconds to do this iirc. Otherwise, the person dies. The fear is only contagious when it is blue- as soon as it turns purple you will all be unfrozen and able to run to them safely.

Now, chances are good you will flub this a few times. That's ok. The dead ones can res out and run back, unless you're in the last phase. In that case they may as well just stay dead and wait, cause they'll die on the way back in. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS BY JUST IGNORING THE FEAR AND CHAIN DYING. Just kick the feared one, who **NEEDS TO BE SPAMMING THE KNEEL MACRO THE WHOLE DAMNED TIME**. If they run around like crazy and refuse to use the macro, kick them from party.

Now, if you manage to have 12 people in your party, feel free to let the tank and at least one healer be exempt from kicking. You have time to kick each feared one twice each as long as you don't diddle around getting to them. If you attempt to do this with like 5 people, everyone will have to kick twice- healer and tank.

Now What?

Ok, so you have this kicking thing down, and he does this fear thing every thirty seconds, right? Yes. But I said something about phases, right? Yes. He stays spawned (and fearing) every 25% of his health. Then he despawns. So, if you have lots of dps, you could just burn him to 75% and not have any fears at all. Alternatively, if you have low dps, you could have two or three fear phases per 25%. So, what happens at 75%? Adds.

Androlier disappears and 1 add spawns. Kill the add. Some adds have nasty AoE debuffs, and if you don't kill the add or adds fast enough, Androlier will absorb them and gain back 25% of his health per add he absorbs. So, unless you can dps the adds to dead, you'll be in there til he enrages and kills you.

Now, what he does is spawn adds every 25%. 75% = 1 add. 50% = 2 adds. 25% = 3 adds.

So, you need to get those adds down. And you need to not die to the adds, so stack on the tank as soon as Androlier despawns. That way the add won't spawn on top of someone's head and the tank will be right there to grab him/them. You'll get random ones at 75% and 50% and all three of the nasties at 25%.

You need to do some dps management now. If you are light on dps, you need to assign one person to burn each add in each add phase. Also, some of them have worse debuffs than others, so you should kill them in order, and all target the same add. Do the big purple man first, the shadow demon guy second and the purple ball last. If you have lots of dps, just burn them all down at your leisure.

AS SOON AS THE ADD IS DEAD, GET BACK IN POSITION!

Androlier will respawn and 30 seconds later, yup, more fear. Lather, rinse, repeat. As soon as he despawns, STACK ON TANK! As soon as add/s are dead, POSITIONS!

Here's the sequence of events: Androlier spawns > dps him in positions > 30 seconds after spawn, fear phase > cleanse fears and reposition > dps boss > 75% boss disappears > STACK ON TANK (caller yells "STACK ON TANK!")> 1 add spawns > kill add > boss reappears > positions again (caller yells "POSITIONS!") > dps boss to 50% > STACK ON TANK > 2 adds spawn > kill adds > boss back, POSITIONS! > dps boss to 25% > STACK ON TANK > 3 adds spawn, burn them > boss back, BURN HIM!

Now, there's one more thing you need to know. As soon as he gets to 25%, he will no longer cast any fears, so you may as well stay stacked on the tank. Varanas will catch on fire, and now is when your tank usually DC's lol. Make sure everyone has their graphics on low. **YOU MUST MUST MUST SAVE A BIG BURN FOR THE LAST 25%** Really, you need to save two burns- one for the three adds, and then one for the last 25%. Why? Well, after about 30 seconds, the mini bosses (remember them?) respawn immortal. You can't kill them. And the Ice Witch will cast her End of Life all over you, and you'll wipe like dogs. So burn him before that happens.

Now, that probably sounds a lot scarier than it really is. And you don't even need that much burn. We usually have one mage burn the last three minibosses, and just me burn the boss to 0%. And we five man it a lot, and we did that before we all had ToSH weapons. So, really, the dps requirement is not that high.

In Conclusion:

VN seems scary and impossible. It isn't. My instructions are probably kinda intimidating. The thing is, it takes longer to explain to someone HOW to do VN than it takes to actually DO VN.

The trick is- stand in the right places. Use your kneel macro. Call the fight. Stack when the adds are up and stay in your positions when Androlier is out.

He's a dream to tank- anyone with adequate aggro and hp can do it. It is challenging to heal when you also have to do the kicks, so make it easy on your healers and bring enough people so they can skip the kicking. Make sure the tank drags Androlier back to you- no one but the melee peeps should have to run to the boss. And the tank also needs to not move around- he needs to keep that boss pinned down and turned away. Now, when it's the TANK that get's feared... ugh. But it's still doable- just keep an HP pot handy if you have to get close to the boss when you're kicking the tank or a melee. He'll AoE you badly. Healers need to watch for that too and have a GH or MEF ready to go.

Loot him fast. He'll disappear shortly after he dies. Don't wait for people to run back to roll loot. Just do it lol.

Now, there's a simple trick to getting the chest with the cape in it to spawn, and you'll discover it on your own naturally once you get good at killing him, and there's a sort of a pact that people have always kept about the chests- we don't tell the trick. You literally can't avoid doing it, you don't need to figure anything out- and it's just tradition, as it was passed on to me, and I respect that If you kill him four or five times and no chest spawns, PM me here on the forums and I'll explain- just keep it to yourself, mmk? When your first chest spawns, baby- you've arrived

I welcome, as always, pro tips from the pros. This is how we do it, and like I always say, if Noto can do it, freaking anyone can, cause we're dummies, and I'm the Head Dummy

Now, if you follow these instructions to the letter, you literally cannot lose this fight. You'll wipe a few times, and then it will all click, and you'll be smacking yourself on the forehead, cause it really is MINDBENDINGLY EASY.

Troubleshooting/FAQ:

* Why are two or three of us getting feared???

Well, if that happens, someone is standing too close to the feared one. Spread out more and try again. If it keeps happening even when you're spread out good, and you just cannot explain it, chances are good some idjit is standing inside VN bringing your total to 13. It will backfire on them shortly though, since they will die over and over, and eventually get bored and run out. If you catch them, war their guild for a week, and it'll stop.

* Why does he keep going back to 100% health???

You need to assign people to burn the adds faster. They have to get down in 30 seconds iirc, or he reabsorbs them and heals 25% heal per add he reabsorbs.

* Why am I casting so SLOW???

The big purple man casts a ranged AoE debuff that slows casting waaaaaay down. It's a real pain, so always kill him first. Your casters will thank you, and you might get healed more.

* Why are the minibosses all jumping us at once???

Well, you need to engage them carefully, in order, and even then, sometimes one or two of them get aggroed from across Varanas. Do them in counterclockwise order and you'll have fewer gangbangs. If you get gangbanged, KILL THE FREAKING ICE WITCH FIRST.

* What is this debuff that just randomly exploded me???

You took too long killing him- that's what he does instead of having a normal enrage timer. He blows up your heart. Isn't he a cutie?

* Why did the count on the crevices suddenly go back up???

You took too long killing all of them and one of them healed back up to full. This is why it's better to keep someone at each crevice til you get used to it. Just backtrack, kill it all the way down, and leave someone there or hurry the frack up.

* Why did I just randomly transport out to some weird transporter in Real Varanas???

You let his countdown get to zero after an attempt and he kicked you out. The crevices will disappear too, but they'll be back in 5 minutes. So sorry, try again!

* Why do almost all of us die at the very end, right when he dies, for no apparent reason???

It's bugged. The live one needs to just freaking loot him. You don't get debt or dura loss, so quit whining about it.

* Why am I getting like 2 fps???

Cause it's one of the most graphically intense fights in the game. I don't care if you have a Cray Supercomputer, turn your damned graphics all the way down, and take off those sparkly wings!

* Where the heck is Androlier? I just killed the minibosses and he didn't spawn!

Well, he's gone for 8 hours after he gets killed. You can still kill minibosses all you want but he won't spawn. When he does, you'll see a red emote no matter what zone you are in that says "Julius Lifay has a great nightmare blah blah something" that means he's back and ready for your lovin. If you slept through the worldwide emote, just watch for the same red emote as soon as you zone inside. No red emote, no Androlier. Come back later. Or find the schmucks that ganked your Androlier and war them for a week.

* I left party and I'm still inside! Am I gonna be bugged forever and ever????

No, dipwad, I told you it was a world instance. Parties don't matter in there, it isn't a real instance. You'll need to walk or recall out- or die conveniently and res

* Are you completely sure that we can't kill this guy just by having enough people to res and run back every time someone dies from fear? Are you sure we can't just use Calm Heart? Do we really have to do all that fear cleansing bullcrap???

Yes. I dare you, try it. I want at least one golden hammer sent to me for every attempt. No, really, try. I always need hammers. Just kick people. It's fun. Sheesh.

* We keep dying whenever the fears happen, just from the AoE Androlier does. How do we fix that?

More healers. Smarter healers. Pots. Stat more hp. Buff a little more. Don't give up.

* We heard the ding emote right at 30 seconds and no one got feared at all. Did we do something wrong???

No, chances are you just won the RoM lottery and one of your pets got the fear, and they don't die from it or spread it. Yipee!


Happy Hunting! Loot me an Aoth mage earring will you?

You all are so critical.

And I meant no disrespect to Crysara, who deserves all the kudos in the world. But his/her guide is just plain scary. You think mine is bad??? Someone link it. It has every single bloody detail about every single skill every single mob in the place does, and it's outdated too, since you can safely ignore half of the old strat thanks to being 13 levels higher than the instance. Mine is just as long maybe, but I skipped all the details and just added practical stuff.

Now, half the crap you all added to mine is already in there o.O

Which means you skimmed.

Damn you all. My prose is so entertaining, it's worth reading. That said, I'll try and clarify where to stand, even though I did say we do it right where we spawn inside, to the right of the Bank stairs.

And turning Androlier isn't because he does a close range AoE (doesn't he do a close range AoE??? shoot) but because that way your spacing works better with the melee against his back, tank in the middle and ranged dps/healers grouped right where you spawn in. Like I said, that's the Noto method- your mileage may vary, and you can tank him anywhere you want in there.

And you weren't sposed to explain the chests Yoman No cookie for the bad Munchkin! It's not my fault, Paz! Good on you for adding in all the "how to do the quests" crap tho, thanks. I was waaay too lazy to write all that out. And I never noticed the demon dude doing a 50% AoE. Either we kill him before he does it, or the healers are just like, meh, GH/MEF.

@ Whooty, I sorry lovey, I got on kinda late, and writing all that took forever. Hubby made me actually cook last night (isn't he a meanie?) and I didn't have time to get on at all. I'll be on tonight for a little, promise. And yes, siggy is epic. Hurry up and clear KDM hard so I can skip all the dying and just run it after you all figure the strat out, will you? Yes, you can hit me now.

Quoted from "Kefkai;573367"

Yeah I feel the same way, this post is titled "for dummies", I think somewhere along the way someone forgot about what a dummy is.

At first I was like holy crap this is a long post, then I saw Yoman's post and I was like holy crap that's a long response back.

And, HEY- are you and BL doing VN? No?

Read the darned guide and just go do it. Sheesh. Just tell Ebi he can get the tank set for his r/k and he'll be all over it. 8% more stam. And it's fast too, so there's no complaining about how "I just don't have time to do instances." Pretty sure Ebi has 15 minutes.

Honestly though- we were failing miserably on Annelia at the time that we finally tried VN, thanks to Paz taking my baby alt on Osha in so I could watch it once- and we did it successfully the very next day. It was a HUGE morale boost for the guild, and we decided shortly thereafter to tell Annelia to kiss our bums and went straight into ToSH successfully, too.

So don't knock it. Try it. Just forget everything the guide says except the important bits- kneel macro, stand apart, the two sequences of events. You have enough dps to burn the minibosses easily, and to burn Androlier too, and you can even get Ebi to tank it if he takes his Recons out. He'll be useful for once.

Quoted from "Kefkai;573506"

We were in KuBN HM last night trying to do the strategy actually, main problem was that DPS weren't burning the pickers fast enough. Ebi isn't really our tank or anything Xeno is, not that he's always on at a reasonable time though since he's TW. Honestly, I've never had any doubts that we could do VN, but no one ever really wants to do VN lol besides it always seems like someone's doing it, hell I'd kill for the def cape but no one is quite as interested as me.

But my point was that if you're writing something for "dummies" that generally "dummies" aren't smart so they like short things and this didn't end up being very short.

Ehhh. You can be a dummy and know how to read more than one paragraph at a time.

If you can't read my conversational and entertaining guide (and I'm humble too! bah dum bump ching!) then you don't have much hope of actually getting in there and doing the strategy, cause it doesn't lend itself to manhandling.

The thing is Kef- if you are working on KBN in earnest, and really sweating it- and my people are too, I'm just not there to sweat with them thanks to the job-from-hell-that-makes-me-get-up-at-4-freaking-am, you are gonna be feeling one of at least two possible ways: fired up and ready to go (and in that case, by all means keep going!) or, horribly disheartened and feeling like you'll never be able to kill a boss. If you get to the disheartened, omg I never want to see KBN again phase- try VN.

It's a guaranteed win.

The strat is just complicated enough that people have to cooperate, and easy enough that everyone will get it pretty darn quickly- so you really feel like you accomplished something. And that can really charge you back up when you're feeling down and defeated.

Since you can easily complete this in one evening, and from then on be able to do it in less than an hour, and then less than 15 minutes- you can put it in the list of "fun things to do when the guild is sick and bloody tired of failing for 8 hours straight."

So, while I won't say- well come on guys, go try it tonight! since if you're on a good progressive streak, you don't want to lose focus- I will say, hey- when you get to where people start making excuses for not going to KBN- then throw VN at them.

Just keep it in mind, is all I'm saying.

LOL @ ALL OF YOU now that I read through the whole thread!

RoMage, you don't need to remember it, all you need to do is read it to your guildies once. They'll get in there and die, and then refer back to it. Lather, rinse, repeat. You'll be looting the boss before you know it.

Yoman, when you get less busy, are you available to have my internet babies? And me and Crysara probably need to have a talk. Of course, considering the two of us, we might want to block out a considerable amount of time, since apparently we both like to write. A lot.

Broguey- well, my poor book is languishing since I am too tired to write real stuff and not tired enough to avoid writing RoM crap. So it's RoM's loss and the world's gain

Paznooboo- stop nudging me when I am at work and start being online the two hours per night I can play. Sheesh.