CC for Den of Vipers on Reaper

[UmbraCarmen]

We tried several runs of Den of Vipers on R1 as on hard was getting somewhat easy:

- Flesh to Stone on Naga's worked but for a very short duration making this infeasible (DC for transmutations was around 110) and this was without Bestow Curse
- Blindness on the Silith-Tar (Mage/Archer/Scout/Warrior) worked fine but was as easy to instakill or dps them so not sure about any gain here
- An off-tank with healer to Tank the Silith Abominations away from the circles which worked until there were four or five of them then a massive DPS burst killed everyone in the raid aside from the Tank and off-tank. This strategy was abandoned as hence unworkable as led to a failed run.

Was wanting any ideas or strategies for options other than taking 10 inquisitives a tank and a healer in there.

Ideas that were mooted (but unproven at least to us) were:

- Tier 5 Draconic Destiny Dragonform turn to Gold Feature
- Carceri (Cold) Warlock Absolute Zero feature to permanently lock in ice
- Tiefling Scoundrel (Bard) Ash Imprisonment

Does anyone have experience of these working on the Naga's or raid trash to prevent/limit respawn or alternative strategies specifically for Reaper (only)?

 

[Anurakh]

SSG raids have progressively become more and more hostile to spellcasters. SSG doesn't value a CC or IK role, so there are fewer and fewer relevant mobs that can be CC'ed or IK'ed. Of course, bloated HP bags aren't friendly to nukers' blue bars either. Den of Vipers is no exception.

There's no need for 10 Inquisitives. 10 DPS weapon users work fine. Casters will always be of limited use with the current garbage raid design.

 

[woq]

You do have to kill the red names. They get a progressively more devastating buff on them the longer they stay alive. Many ways to go about it, make sure you have good team debuffs/buffs and good coordination. Many ways to go about it without inquisitors, though inquisitor is the easiest way.

The undead nagas though can be cc'd by methods you mentioned in your post, and the white trash can be ik'd or controlled.

 

[Lominal]

You do have to kill the red names. They get a progressively more devastating buff on them the longer they stay alive.

Not quite but very close. It deals 0 damage until they get to 5 stacks, this takes ~ 2 mins. then they start hitting massive evil dmg every 2-3s. The orange nagas dont deal too much damage to annoy properly built dps/tanks with a healer, and the white names die very quickly.

 

[AbyssalMage]

SSG raids have progressively become more and more hostile to spellcasters. SSG doesn't value a CC or IK role, so there are fewer and fewer relevant mobs that can be CC'ed or IK'ed. Of course, bloated HP bags aren't friendly to nukers' blue bars either. Den of Vipers is no exception.

There's no need for 10 Inquisitives. 10 DPS weapon users work fine. Casters will always be of limited use with the current garbage raid design.

It’s not SSG but the very player base you invite to your party so you can raid. Everytime CC casters found a niche in r10 (group) content it would be “quickly” nerfed thanks to the whining on the forums.

Charm, Hold, Wail, etc as you mentioned have all been nerfed. Yet they were only nerfed after internet trolls came demanding it be nerfed because it made Reaper “trivial” and “allowed content to be cheesed.”

I mean, Charm was nerfed 2x in the last 4 years after no one used it for almost 15 years.

Instant Death spells have been repeatedly targeted by developers because melee and ranged felt it was “unfair.” Reaper just exasperated the “torches and pitchforks “ against this line of spells.

Hold/Disco haven’t been touched in a few years (that I am aware of) so the cycle of hate should be due any update.

Stone, Sleet, Command, etc have always seemed to be more of a “miss” when it comes to CC but are quickly adjusted if a use is found.

 

[Wizard]

SSG raids have progressively become more and more hostile to spellcasters. SSG doesn't value a CC or IK role, so there are fewer and fewer relevant mobs that can be CC'ed or IK'ed. Of course, bloated HP bags aren't friendly to nukers' blue bars either. Den of Vipers is no exception.

There's no need for 10 Inquisitives. 10 DPS weapon users work fine. Casters will always be of limited use with the current garbage raid design.

There should be more outrage about this! Can you imagine another game invalidating 30%-40% (40% is the caster count in WoW, hard to tell in DDO because there are so many different specs) of damage specs in endgame? People would riot.

SSG please fix the balance.

 

[UmbraCarmen]

Ty for above advice regarding DOV.

Will try to test out DC's needed for will saves for the Carceri Absolute Zero on R1.

 

[FatBudScream]

Absolute Zero from WL Carceri I tried it last month, works fine on bone nagas and assassins, not possible on Mist stalkers.
They were definitly frozen, wont move any longer for the raid, can still be attacked and killed if needed.
DC was 80 in LH.

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

It's not a cc raid - it's a kill everything raid.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

IMO the best R1 comp is:
1 main tank
1 off-tank/healer for nagas
1 main healer for party
1 caster for trash (optional)
1 debuffer (optional)
7 dps

While inquisitives are the obvious easy button, melee can do fine on r1 if they know how to position properly and/or have enough hp/defenses. A caster is not necessary, but makes it much easier on higher difficulties, allowing dps to focus on priority targets. Ignore the caster hate... this is a great raid for casters. Plenty of trash to kill and the boss has a reasonably low amount of hp so nuking is also effective.

You can just kill the nagas like you would on hard, but it seems easier to tank them with a 2nd healer/tank once the difficulty goes up.

Other than that its mostly just a dps check once the other roles are sorted. Kill all the sillith as they spawn, then focus the hydra. Prioritise heads when they drop. Repeat.

 

[Anurakh]

IMO the best R1 comp is:
1 main tank
1 off-tank/healer for nagas
1 main healer for party
1 caster for trash (optional)
1 debuffer (optional)
7 dps

(---) Ignore the caster hate... this is a great raid for casters. Plenty of trash to kill and the boss has a reasonably low amount of hp so nuking is also effective.

LOL. The ideal is: 1 caster (optional), but it's a great raid for casters. How can it be a great raid for casters if a caster isn't even mandatory? SSG will have a great raid for casters when half of the current weapon DPS are mandatory casters, or when we don't have to worry about taking "too many casters" and those 9-10 slots can be casters or weapon DPS. SSG hasn't done any "great" raid for casters. The closest thing to that has been THTH, where two casters are very recommended.

So no, it's not "caster hate," and it's ridiculous that you use that expression when melee players on this forum cry their heads off as soon as there's an archetype that might have a little more DPS than them, because they're hit hard in high-reaper raids or because a boss or pillar is out of reach. For the love of god. We're talking about how casters make up half the classes in the game, and the ideal in practically every SSG raid is one caster (optional). I think we caster players do have the right to complain. The spectacle you melee players would put on if the situation were reversed would be fun to watch.

And as Sarlona Raiding said, this isn't a raid for CC and stopping spawns, it's a raid to kill everything. Flesh to Stone or Halt Undead are there to hold the Bone Nagas back for a few seconds so the weapon users can finish them off. The only permanent control is for one type of warlock (not even available for an entire class!), and that's because the devs haven't realized it's permanent yet. If they ever make warlocks decent (something I'm starting to doubt), they'll probably nerf it like they did to Hurl through Hell of the Fiend Warlocks. In principle, by design, control spells in DDO are not permanent, even if they are in pnp (like flesh to stone).

This raid is mostly a dps check. As always. SSG doesn't know how to do any other type of raid. Or if they do, they haven't proven they can do any other type of raid.

 

[PersonMan]

LOL. The ideal is: 1 caster (optional), but it's a great raid for casters. How can it be a great raid for casters if a caster isn't even mandatory? SSG will have a great raid for casters when half of the current weapon DPS are mandatory casters, or when we don't have to worry about taking "too many casters" and those 9-10 slots can be casters or weapon DPS. SSG hasn't done any "great" raid for casters. The closest thing to that has been THTH, where two casters are very recommended.

So no, it's not "caster hate," and it's ridiculous that you use that expression when melee players on this forum cry their heads off as soon as there's an archetype that might have a little more DPS than them, because they're hit hard in high-reaper raids or because a boss or pillar is out of reach. For the love of god. We're talking about how casters make up half the classes in the game, and the ideal in practically every SSG raid is one caster (optional). I think we caster players do have the right to complain. The spectacle you melee players would put on if the situation were reversed would be fun to watch.

And as Sarlona Raiding said, this isn't a raid for CC and stopping spawns, it's a raid to kill everything. Flesh to Stone or Halt Undead are there to hold the Bone Nagas back for a few seconds so the weapon users can finish them off. The only permanent control is for one type of warlock (not even available for an entire class!), and that's because the devs haven't realized it's permanent yet. If they ever make warlocks decent (something I'm starting to doubt), they'll probably nerf it like they did to Hurl through Hell of the Fiend Warlocks. In principle, by design, control spells in DDO are not permanent, even if they are in pnp (like flesh to stone).

This raid is mostly a dps check. As always. SSG doesn't know how to do any other type of raid. Or if they do, they haven't proven they can do any other type of raid.

I do miss the days when even just hasting the party was a good reason to bring a caster.

 

[Bjond]

Stone, Sleet, Command, etc have always seemed to be more of a “miss” when it comes to CC

I still like Salted Ice & Sleet a LOT. It's a no-save slow that buys enough extra time for DPS to wreck things without too much danger of being smacked to death, but salt won't help with reds in DOV.

This raid is mostly a dps check.

The times we've done more than Hard were all due to having a team where both guildies and PUGs magically sync'd up that day to bring their A-list DPS characters.

I don't consider a raid to be fully strategized until it's tank-limited rather than team-limited; ie. we can bring a team of weak baby puglets to R1~4 VOD and it just takes longer as long as we have an OT to lighten the load during add-phase.

DOV feels like it's still in team-limited mode; ie. still requires the "if everyone" stipulation to step up in difficulty even when tank/s can handle higher. I'd dearly love to be able to bring baby puglet dps into R1 DOV and have a strategy for making it work despite (of course) taking a bit longer.

Our current DOV strategy isn't much:

• position hydra for nice head drop (between circles, facing middle)
• melee takes out trash (hydra spin insta-kills all but super-tanky melee)
• ranged focuses hydra+heads from other side of head-ring (to pull head into ring)

I have 4 raid chars (tank, heal/tank, ranged, melee). I don't see a clear strategic pick, though, and thus have been bouncing between 'em based on which seems more useful that day.

Sadly, this raid truly feels like it needs to be renamed "10 INQs Kill".

 

[Monkey_Archer]

LOL. The ideal is: 1 caster (optional), but it's a great raid for casters. How can it be a great raid for casters if a caster isn't even mandatory? SSG will have a great raid for casters when half of the current weapon DPS are mandatory casters, or when we don't have to worry about taking "too many casters" and those 9-10 slots can be casters or weapon DPS. SSG hasn't done any "great" raid for casters. The closest thing to that has been THTH, where two casters are very recommended.

So no, it's not "caster hate," and it's ridiculous that you use that expression when melee players on this forum cry their heads off as soon as there's an archetype that might have a little more DPS than them, because they're hit hard in high-reaper raids or because a boss or pillar is out of reach. For the love of god. We're talking about how casters make up half the classes in the game, and the ideal in practically every SSG raid is one caster (optional). I think we caster players do have the right to complain. The spectacle you melee players would put on if the situation were reversed would be fun to watch.

You misunderstand me, I didn't say only 1 caster is optional, I said 1 caster for trash is optional. Casters are the best at dealing with trash in this raid, but you can have dps handle it as well, so its not required.

You are also free to bring casters in the dps slots as well. Nothing compares to ranged for this particular raid, but good casters can easily out perform melee here. Its a large room with random red spawns in the corners. The dps downtime for melee is very high relative to most other raids, especially for melee builds without speed and multiple leaps.

As for "you melee players" ... I play all roles, and caster has been the most fun for me in this raid. Melee is fine for low difficulties but sub-optimal. It's not bias, its just reality. Melee are great in some of the older raids; just less so for this one. If you play a build that has to spend half their time running to different targets, then its not going to perform as well. The situation IS reversed and I don't think I'm making a spectacle. Optimal groups only include 1 "melee" as a debuffer, but I still like the raid regardless.