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Melwhin
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re: Barad Gularan Guide

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Barad Gularan: Udunion

PREPARATION

Special Items

The scroll and staff required for the battle with Udunion are found on the sorceresses in the east and west wings of the fortress. The horn is upstairs in a chest that is guarded by a cargul.

The use of the staff and the horn are utterly crucial to survival - failure to use them at the correct time causes instant death to the entire party. The scroll is vital to finish the battle, but failure to use it does not cause instant death - it heals Udunion. The items must also be used in specific places in Udunion's room when he says specific things. The areas and quotes are listed below with the corresponding relics.

It is extremely useful for multiple group members to have the same item. Three main relic users are assigned. If one of them can't use the relic for any reason (dead, suffering bad potion cooldowns), a fourth person who has all three items can be available to cover for them. It wouldn't have been possible for us to win this fight without having such cover available.

Staff of Dark Shadows - Left Sigil
"Shadow take you!"

The timing with this item is easy when practiced. Do not use the item until immediately after he is finished saying the phrase. If you fail to use the item, the party is one-hit killed.

Scroll of Ruin - Right Sigil
"Come dark fire!"

This item seems to have the most difficult timing, possibly because the audio clip may be the longest. Frequently, we've seen the scroll fired but it fails to work. Failure to use this item correctly allows Udunion to heal for about 30,000 morale.

Horn of Anor - Middle Sigil
"Burn!"

Rather easy timing. Failure to use this item allows Udunion to hit the party with about 3000 fire damage. It is occasionally possible for some individuals to live through this attack, but very, very unlikely. For example, we once had one person live through this attack while the rest of the party died.

Buffs, Potions and Equipment

Because this is a long fight, any buffs that assist with power regeneration should be used. For captains: You may be tempted to put your critical buff on the DPS classes, but power is more important in this fight. The critical buffs may be helpful near the end (when he's 15k or less), but you'll probably be too busy to be handing out buffs in mid-battle.

Udunion makes frequent use of shadow and fire damage and sends attacks at random people occasionally. Equipment that adds to vitality is recommended, if possible. Have a bite of Roasted Chicken before entering the room for a modest boost to Vitality.

Hope tokens are a must. Two +5 tokens are highly recommended. You might be able to get by with a +4 for the warmup battle.

Every member must bring a number of Flasks of Conhuith (fear cure) and Healing Draughts (wound cure) - minimum 5 per member to be sure, 10 or more recommended for security.

Classes

Heavy DPS is highly recommended for this battle. The battle is on a timer that causes Udunion to start throwing double death debuffs that can very easily get out of hand. For this reason, it is ideal to defeat him as fast as possible.

Here are the classes we used in this first victory:

Captain, Champion, Guardian, Hunter, Hunter, Minstrel

One hunter had the Staff of Dark Shadow and the other had the Scroll of Ruin. The Champion had all three items for backup use. The Captain had all three items but focused on using the Horn of Anor. The Guardian and Minstrel needed none of the items.

The Captain's fear cure was used frequently to handle debuffs that were getting out of hand. Minstrels can cure fear as well if needed. Three battle rezzes were available - at least one was used.

Communication

The importance of communication in this battle can't be stressed enough. Depending on your group makeup, you may need members with multiple relics to cover each other if one person dies or their potions and cure skills are on cooldown. Many deaths can be prevented by group members letting each other know about death debuffs (discussed later). Ventrilo is highly recommended because, in my experience, it is noticeably faster and clearer than the in-game chat.

THE WARMUP

The warmup consists of a sorceress, three caretakers, and numerous ghosts that the sorceress summons. Udunion does not bother you during this phase. The room gives dread, so pop a token before going in. Bring down the caretakers as fast as possible. Caretakers have been occasionally observed to absorb damage when standing on the fire, so keep them off of it if possible. Lure the sorceress off of the fire grating - she appears to only summon ghosts while on the fire. Luring her away can be difficult. It's possible to know when she'll follow you by watching to see whether she's engaging in melee or not.

When she is at about 15,000 morale, the sorceress will start using a powerful attack that saps all members of the fellowship of a huge chunk of morale and transfers all of it to herself, usually healing several thousand morale. If left uninterrupted, she can chain these attacks to last almost indefinitely. Timing is important in this phase of the battle to avoid drain chains. If she chains too much, you'll end up starting the final battle on low health and power.

Conserve power by autoattacking until the sorceress is down to about 15,000, then start laying on heavy DPS. Use your interrupt skills when you see her bend down very briefly to her knees - that is the signal that she is about to start the attack. The champion Clobber skill does not seem to interrupt her, but the guardian Stomp skill does. The skill must be carefully timed to succeed. The sorceress' drain can occasionally be resisted.

If you get a conjunction and your party is low on power, anything that will replenish your power is recommended. All blue works well. If your party has a lot of power, all yellow is good. Of course, if you have multicolor conjunctions that you've planned to use, it's great to use them, but you have to make sure that you can hit them. In this battle, it's usually best to go with a 'safe' conjunction that the party will get something out of even if one or two people miss a color - there's too much at stake, including hope token timers.

UDUNION - OPENING MOMENTS

It is highly recommended to gather together and use a +5 Hope Token as the sorceress drops below 2000 morale, but only if you know that she's not about to heal herself. When the sorceress dies, the tank needs to immediately begin drawing aggro on Udunion. Udunion begins the battle by unleashing extremely damaging ranged fire attacks.

Captains, you might be kissing your poor heralds goodbye in this initial barrage. (Udunion once specifically nuked Waheed before he did anything else, that monster...) If your herald lives, park him somewhere near the tank and the healer. I found that having him stand off near the left sigil, off the fire but still within buff range of the tank, worked well. Just don't have him attack Udunion - he'll perish at the hands of flame rather quickly.

DPSers, hold off on attacking for a little while. Udunion isn't particularly dangerous while he's above 50k morale. Let the tank build up aggro while you autoattack, or you're likely to find that Udunion will be quite violently unhappy with your involvement in the fight later on.

DEATH DEBUFFS

A few words about these before moving on, because they can pop on you at any time during the fight, even at the very beginning on occasion.

There are two debuffs Udunion randomly uses. They last about 7 seconds. (This number is a guess - we should try to look at the tooltips in the next fight and get a definite figure.) One looks like an eye with purple color and the other is the same eye but with a reddish color. These can be somewhat difficult to tell apart at first, but with practice, the distinction will become easy to make.

The purple eye is a fear effect and the red eye is a wound effect. These can, and must, be removed either with fear/wound potions (mentioned above) or class-based fear/wound cure skills. Captains and minstrels can remove fear while loremasters, with a certain trait, can remove wounds in combat. If these debuffs are allowed to wear off naturally, they instantly kill the target.

Look out for your groupmates and be sure you know which debuff is on them before you tell them to do something. Most of the time, when a person is in a hurry to cure something, they'll listen to the first person who called out the debuff. You have about seven seconds to cure the debuff. Taking two or three to look, think and then very clearly state, "Arufa, wound," will go a lot further toward success than falling all over yourself in a panic and and stuttering out the wrong debuff. Make sure you tell the person forcefully and confidently so they are sure about which potion they need to take.

You have to coordinate closely with those who can cure effects. If you get both debuffs on yourself and only one cure skill is available, use a potion to cure the effect that your fellow can't cure while the fellow cures the other effect. Group members should try to let each other know how potion/skill cure cooldowns are doing if the debuffs are getting out of hand.

Thanks to Chizow of the LOTRO forums for the following tidbit: Anything that can give you resistance to fear or wounds, i.e. the Captains' fear cure/resist buff, helps to avoid the debuffs since they can be evaded and resisted.

50,000

Slowfight Udunion for a while, using mostly autoattack. When he hits about 50,000 morale, he'll unbind from the floor and be able to move around the room. Hopefully, the tank will have generated enough threat to keep Udunion roughly still. Back off on DPS when appropriate if Udunion starts attacking people other than the tank. The tank should try to keep Udunion away from others as much as possible.

Whoever has the Staff of Dark Shadows should be on the alert for their signal around this point in the battle if not before. Preferably, this person is a hunter so that they never have to leave their spot beside the sigil.

45,000

The user of the Scroll of Ruin (again, preferably a hunter) should start getting paranoid about his signal at this point. Crank up the DPS a little - remember, you want this fight to go as fast as it possibly can without making things too hard for the tank.

40,000

The user of the Horn of Anor needs to be paranoid now. For the rest of the fight, the main relic holders should not leave their stations except for emergencies (running a short distance to cure or be cured) or when ordered by the leader. DPS should be churning out pretty hard at this point.

RELIC USE

While standing on a sigil, you are affected by a debuff that makes you 'vulnerable to a special attack.' This appears to cause you to catch the death debuffs a lot more easily. Because of this, it's important to spend most of your time off of the sigil. Step onto it only far enough to activate the item, then step back off as quickly as you can.

Relics should be hotbarred for ease of use. Keep every relic you have hotbarred so that you can access them all quickly if you have to cover for someone.

Try not to use skills that have long induction times if your phrase is likely to be shouted at any time. Try to wait until immediately after any phrase is shouted and then acted on until you do anything that'll keep you from using your item for any length of time. This is the best way to prevent accidents caused by skill lag.

THE REST

The most important things to remember are to act swiftly while staying focused, communicating, and thinking before you act. Pay attention to your potion/skill cooldowns. If you're a captain, your fear cure is on a 30 second cooldown and should be saved for emergencies.

The group may have to make a conscious decision to let someone die in order to avoid disrupting the rest of the members' efforts too badly in regards to skill cooldowns and item use. Hopefully, battle rezzes will be available to fix the situation. For example, we had one relic user die, and our cover member took over my position while I used a rez. This turned out to work extremely well, and is actually how we really discovered how useful a 'cover' member is.

If you've used your relic very recently (within the past 20 seconds or so) and Udunion yells your phrase again, you may want to have your cover member fire the relic instead so that you don't get tagged with a debuff that can't be cured because of cooldowns.

There are more subtleties to this fight, especially depending on your group composition and communication, than can be described in a guide. After you attempt this fight enough times, you start to get a decent feel for approximately when he'll do something. The fight can be nerve-wracking and extremely tense, but try to remember that the many threats of 'instant' death aren't exactly instant. You do have time to perform what actions need to be performed as long as you aren't trying to do too much at once by yourself.

The only times the fight gets truly unmanageable are when Udunion uses the same phrase a bunch of times in a row or decides to put a lot of random debuffs on someone in a short time, stressing potion and skill cooldowns and usually killing the person. One death can be overcome with a rez and a cover member if needed, but we usually kick ourselves out of the instance and start over if a second person dies.

Good luck to all groups who attempt this extremely challenging battle. May you defeat him in far less attempts than it took us.


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re: Barad Gularan Guide

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Another guide for the instance:

Group Makeup:
Group makeup depends on weather or not you are going to attempt the final boss, Udunion. For this guide, I will be assuming you are going to attempt to kill him. If you are not going to be doing the final boss, take whatever you can get, but a minstrel and tank are highly reccommended (however, the first boss can be farmed without either).
You'll need:
1 Guardian
1 Minstrel (Rally and Hopeful Heart reccomended)
1 Lore Master (In-Combat wound removal a must)
2-3 Hunters
1 Capt/Champ/Burg (if not bringing 3 hunters)

Things to bring:
1 Hope Token for Udunion, Some form of hope for Forvengwath and Castellan (Hopeful Heart reccomended-if not availible you'll need tokens)
Everyone will need 5+ of both Wound removal and Fear removal potions per attempt on Udunion.
Highly reccomended that both the Loremaster and the minstrel bring the Salve form (the potion that can be used on other people) of the Fear Removal potions, atleast 5 each.
Reccomend that the minstrel bring lots of fear potions if you dont have a captain, lots of fears get tossed out in here, and it is possible to get silenced.

Barad Gularan is a relativly short, easy, and fun instance in Angmar. It is located in Nan Gurth, it's the big tower/castle thing in the middle, to get there you have to A. Clear up the path leading to it through many elites/signatues/normals, which will probably take at least 20 minutes; or B. If everyone in the group, or at least a captain, has done Book 9 Chapter 2, you can drop group, use the reflecting pool to do the instance: Oakheart's Might and leave the instance right away and you will be right outside the doors to BG. Obviously, B is much easier, and will save a lot of time.

Once your party has made it inside the doors of BG, the fun begins with 3 Gularan Warriors/Guards in front of you. You must kill these to open the gate behind them. These gularan warriors are located throughout the instance, so get used to fighting them. They can root, throw out a varitey of fears, and when killed, a ghost pops out of thier armor. They cannot be mezzed by the LM, however a minstrel can sleep them, or a hunter/minstrel could fear them. When you choose to fear them, obviously do it in an area where they wont come unfeared and bring friends. Once you have killed those, move up a bit and have the tank pull one of the patrolling guards (note: usually you will agro two of them here) and kill them one at a time. I reccomend killing the ghost right away before moving on to the next guard when fighting these guys in groups.
After everyone has moved into the large room with a fire-grate flooring, you will want to clear the group of guards patrolling on the right or the left (dosent matter which side; you will eventually kill all of them). Usually you will pull three, and sometimes another patrolling one will agro during the fight.
After you've cleared the group of patrolling guards on one side, it's a good idea to clear the ones on the other side before beginning the Forvengwath fight (to avoid accientally agroing them during the fight).
Once you've got the large room with the fire-grate flooring cleared, have everyone group up in the center of the fire-grate on the beam that crosses it in the middle. No one should stand on the fire, it does a weak DoT. Forvengwath will be straight ahead of you. He is a very easy boss when done right. The fight is started by walking up to him, but before your tank does that, assign atleast 1 hunter (with another ready to help if needed) to killing the ghosts that spawn throughout the fight. During the first half of the fight, ghosts will spawn in the center of the room and try to get to the corners, if a ghost makes it to the corner, he turns into an Elite Gularan guard; during the Second half (forvengwath will say something at this point) ghosts will spawn in the corners of the room and try to reach Forvengwath, if one does it will heal him for several thousand morale. So the main thing for this fight is to kill the ghosts quickly. Once everyone understands what to do, have the tank run up to Forvengwath, then run back when the boss starts talking. At this point you should put down Hopeful Heart, or drop a hope token. A ghost will spawn, and the boss will run to the center. Simply Tank and Spank him down. Once he dies 5+ ghosts pop out of his armor, and should be AOE'ed down BEFORE looting the boss (he sometimes has a lot of stuff, or some very nice teals, if he's looted during combat someone may miss out on rolling, or roll on something they dont want).

After Forvengwath is history, you will either need to go to the left or the right (assuming you are going to kill castellan, and collect the items necessary to kill udunion). The side you choose will be dependant on what pieces your hunters already have for the Udunion fight. To kill udunion, you will ideally want to have each ranged person with one of the three unique pieces, which are: The Staff of Dark Shadows, Scroll of Ruin, and Horn of Arnor. The Staff is off the miniboss on the left, the Scroll off the miniboss on the Right, and the Horn is from Castellan's chest, directly overhead. So, pick a side, and kill the patrolling Gularan guard first. Once he's dead, you'll have to clear the room of 4 hillmen; two protectors and two healers. Mez one healer, possibly fear, root the other, and kill the protectors first, then kill the healers. Once this room is clear, head upstairs and you will have to clear another protector/caretaker combo. After they are dead, you will end up facing a hallway with four gularan guards in it. This is a great time to use a root-pull, quickly kill two of them, then kill the other two. Once these guys are dead, do NOT run forward yet. The miniboss, a sorceress, is directly ahead. Getting near her causes her to start a fairly tough encounter. She will run to a corner and spawn 4 hillmen (2 protectors/2 caretakers) while she either summons ghosts or heals. You can all pile on her and kill her while trying to interrupt the hillmen healers, or use the easy, although somewhat a glitch way. The easy way is to have everyone but the tank run back to the front door of the instance, and the tank will get just close enough to her to start her talking and summon the adds, then the tank will also run for the front door. Once the adds that are following reach the gate that was openend in the beginning, they disappear! Once the adds have disappeared, run back and you will usually be met by the sorceress halfway, along with a bunch of ghosts that she summoned. AOE the ghosts, kill the sorceress, and give the drop (either the staff or the scroll) to a hunter that does not have it.
After she is dead, head up the stairs behind where she was, and have everyone wait on the wood flooring there. Castellan Wisdan is in the room ahead. Castellan will not attack you right away though, you can either A. Wait about 10 minutes after someone runs in and starts the boss talking B. Light 4 torches (one at a time), which will spawn 2-3 Gularan guards each, kill the guards, then Castellan will attack you or C. Have someone run in, start the boss talking, then have everyone run back to the beginning and clear the other side of the instance, so you will get the other piece for the last boss.
I recommend taking option C, or A if you do not need the other piece. If you take option C, you will need to repeat everything that you did for this side, including the miniboss fight. By the time that you have cleared the other half of the instance, Castellan will be ready to fight. You should not fight him inside his room, there is simply too much dread. Have everyone group up by the window next to the wood flooring. Castellan is a very easy fight, but does require either Hopeful Heart or a hope token. So, put down Hopeful Heart or token, have your tank run in the room and agro Castellan, then run back to the group. Tank and Spank him down, there's no adds or anything special to worry about. He will drop the key to his chest, which is next to his throne, in the room he was pulled out of. Whoever wins the key will get to unlock the chest, after it is unlocked anyone can open it and take what they want, however only one person at a time can be in it. The chest will contain the Horn of Arnor and The Key to the Summoning Chamber every time, along with some random purples and sometimes a nice halberd. Have whichever ranged person that does not have a piece take the Horn, although the Loremaster/Tank/Minstrel should NOT take any of the pieces because they will need to be mobile during the boss fight, the people with an item will need to stand in a specific spot throughout the fight, and should not move far from it ever. If you don't have three hunters, you could put a captain/burg on one of the pieces, however they will not be able to contribute to the DPS of Udunion.

Once Castellan's loot is distributed and you have a person with the Staff, the Scroll, and the Horn, as well as the Key, it's time to go play with Udunion. Head back to Forvengwath's room, and you will notice a big door behind where he was standing. Inside is Mulvaire, a sorceress, three caretakers, and Udunion. Open the door, but do NOT run in right away. You will notice three glowing circles of light, one in each side of the room. The person with the Staff of Dark Shadows will need to stand next to, but not on, the light circle on the LEFT, the person with the Horn of Arnor will need to stand next to, but not on, the circle in the BACK of the room, and the person with the Scroll of Ruin will need to stand next to, but not on, the circle on the RIGHT of the room. To recap:
Staff: Left
Scroll: Right
Horn: Back (behind Udunion)
The reason you must have someone right next to these circles of light during this fight is because Udunion will say a certain phrase, and these items will interrupt the attack assigned to that phrase. If the attack is not interrupted, he will either do a MASSIVE AOE of Shadow damage or Fire damage, or he will do a huge heal on himself. The fire/shadow AOE will usually cause the group to wipe, so it is imperative that those attacks are stopped. To stop the attack, the person with the corresponding item will need to step on the light circle and use the item within 3 seconds of the phrase being said. The phrases are:
SHADOW TAKE YOU! = Staff of dark shadows must be used (shadow aoe)
BURN! = Horn of Arnor must be used (fire aoe)
COME DARK FIRE! = Scroll of Ruin must be used (massive heal)
He says these phrases audibly and in the /say channel. Have everyone watching the say channel, and one person should shout out who has to use thier item right away.
The reason everyone needs to bring wound and fear potions, and a LM is almost a neccessity, is because Udunion will give out a Wound or a Fear, or sometimes both to whoever steps in a light circle. He also randomly gives these wounds/fears to everyone else in the room. THE WOUND/FEAR WILL KILL YOU INSTANTLY IF NOT REMOVED!! The wound/fear is either a Red eye (wound) or a Purple eye (fear). So, before the fight everyone should go into social options and check "show dispellable effects only" to make it easier to notice the debuffs. When someone gets an eye twice in a row, they will likely be on cooldown, so first the Loremaster should try to remove it if it is a wound, if it's not a wound then the LM or the Minstrel will need to run to that person and use a fear salve quickly. When someone gets both eyes at the same time, they should use thier fear potion first, then get the LM to remove the wound, or have minstrel use a wound salve on them.

Once everyone in your group is fully aware of the seriousness of the eye debuffs and how important it is to use the specific items at the right times (and to step on the light circle ONLY when using the item). Have your tank run in and start mulvaire talking. The caretakers will run out first, along with a constant supply of ghosts from the sorceress. Kill the caretakers using any means neccessary, then, if mulvaire has not came out of the room yet, have hunters shoot her untill she does (or addle/enrage). Make sure everyone is outside of the room when Mulvaire dies. Once she's dead everyone should group up and one person will need to use a +5 hope token. Once everyone has hope, have the tank run in, followed by everyone else. Tank should start establishing agro while the item users will get next to thier circles of light. The minstrel and LM should be ready to run to anyone that gets an eye. Ideally Udunion will be tanked facing the door, with the LM and Minst behind him, as well as Melee dps if you have it. The hunters should stand next to thier circle with auto-attack OFF and use quickshots and other skills with low induction times and dps the boss, while being ready to QUICKLY get on the light circle, use the item, and get back off. At around 60k health he will start using Shadow Take You, and at about 40k health he will start using both Burn and Come dark Fire. Throughout the fight everyone will need to remain alert and aware, ready to remove the eye debuffs if they get them, or to shout out if they are on cooldown and get a debuff. The LM's primary job is to remove wounds, and be ready to run to a person and use a fear potion if neccessary. Tank should keep Udu in the middle the whole time. Only the tank should be infront of Udu. Minstrel will need to watch everyone's health closely, boss can do a ranged attack on anyone in the room. Good Luck with him! He is a very challenging fight.


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