A lone dwarf stands.
Like dry leaves in autumn,
Eight orthons fall.
Noble faith undaunted.
On a shore of tempered steel,
Waves of devils crash.
R1 LVoD Solo:
This one has been on my list for a loooong time. For being so simple, LVoD is one my favorite raids. The concept of what you need to get done in each phase is simple enough, but it really tests your skill to execute it cleanly or Splat… and time to restart. After the LH Skele I tried this on Elite and breezed through, so I figured it was time to strap in for R1.
Quite a bit more prep went into this one than any other project I’ve done yet, which for me made it that much more fun and rewarding. Pure Pally axe and shield as a good dwarf should be. With my limited CC and IKs I had to get creative with gear swaps and clickies for the different phases.
Knowing when the phases trigger is crucial for being prepared with the proper buffs/gear/CC. I’m a single screen loser, so I have a spreadsheet on my phone I type Suulos health into and it spits out the exact HP for each phase.
1st Orthons: Buff up*, throw down solid fog and go to town. No sweat and usually didn’t need Epic moment or anything fancy. Generally takes me a minute to drop them.
Suulo beatdown: Nothing special. Lots of weapon swapping to keep buffs and debuffs** running so my axe arm doesn’t get too tired.
1st Devils: Buff up, swap to Devil gear***. Throw down solid fog and ice storms with LGS salt in offhand immediately before triggering. Watch the Con damage.
More Suulo…
Trap and Bats: There’s exactly 2 mins and 40sec between traps triggering and the start of the 2nd devils phase, start a timer so you don’t get caught with your greaves down. Now that it’s been remodeled you can chill directly under Suulo so he won’t hit you with any spells or chains. Traps rarely come to the center, but if they do you can laugh at their puny insignificance while grumbling about your lazy rouge and arti friends under your breath.
2nd Devils: Much harder than 1st round due to Suulo Chains. Make sure you gear swap, buff up and have Salt Clouds and Ice storms running. EA wings can get you out of a tight spot, an RFF pot or 2 and a Dark Discorp clicke also go a long way for keeping you alive when you need to regroup. US shield throw for CC, also the no save confuse from Primal scream T4 can be clutch. I died many times here.
More Suulo: Now with chains!!
2nd Orthons: Buff up, drop a couple solid fog clouds, chug an RFF pot and rock and roll. It helps a ton if Suulo isn’t in a Chain happy mood, but when he inevitably hits you with them slam a Dark Discorp clickie, wing away, and wait it out. Resist the urge to attack if chained, the long and slow animation can be a death sentence if a couple good hits land, the exception being QC if you’re at full health. I got lucky with my epic moment and hood timing and Suulo went easy with the chains allowing me to get some solid DPS done.
Even more Suulo… take a breather but don’t get lazy
Fire Bats: if you’ve done this on high skulls you very possibly have PTSD from these little guys. They drop in large lag-inducing waves and hit harder than you’d expect. Not terrible on R1 but man it sure would stink to die here… Salt cloud for good measure, D-axe and chill.
Last bit of Suulo… home stretch, line up and shake hands, GG big guy.
Oh… hey…looks like I got a reaper point… what a coincidence…
Alright where’s my beer?
Extra info for anyone that cares
*Buffs include:
Standard: Pally buffs, Good Hope clickie, Nightshield clickie, Comm pots, Lasting Ability pot, daily dice Lasting PRR/MRR/MP/USP pots, Yugo Pots, primal scream, Trance, Prayer, SancFerv swap.
Scary Time Buffs: Blood of Vol, Tensers, Superior Alchemical Pos Power pot, Displacement clickies (not for Orthons), Night revels candies, Rising fury pots, RFF pots, Owlbear cookies (rage bonus but works with defender stances), Prowess Swap, Dark Discorp clickies (it’s quite easy to grab 12 of these now, I brought over 20 I had laying around from the bad old days of LGS or bust, buuuut I think I only used 2-3 charges for this run lol. If you’ve never played around with these you might be surprised what actions do and don’t chase your little bat friends away).
**Debuffs:
I brought no less than 5 fully loaded sent weapon swaps (plus a swap for Ice storm wand and LGS salt offhand). With decent rotating I could buff/debuff with Shattered 5pc, One Against Many 4pc, City’s Beacon 4pc, Sanc Ferv 5pc, Prowess 5pc, LGS Dust, LGS Ooze/Tar, LGS Affirmation, 20% Vuln, Shadows Upon You, Consecrated Cinders/Sparks, Prayer, Meridian fragment for USP.
***Gear:
A grand total of zero MD items were used for this. Standard gear is 3pc Devils Dance, 5pc Dino (sky ring, lindals, birchlore, axe and shield), 2pc winter (boots, ring), 3pc Leg Bulwark (Raptor, Heart of Suulo, Myst. Bracers), Vecna Eyes. For the devils waves I needed more CC so swapped to Demise and Colossus for some solid passive CC and IKs, since that breaks my Dino set I also had to swap to 6 fingered gloves, buckle of transformation, and a Cannith ring with Pos Power/Lore and Ins. PRR. That got me to 5pc Vecna while still covering all the important stuff.