Arwellyn had her first experience in Annúminas last night, and it was exhilirating, frustrating, and educational. What I learned was, aside from gleaning some hard-earned insights to this particular instance, is that over the few months break I took, I’d completely forgotten to work on her class deeds when I returned. Specifically, she could really have used Proof Against All Ills last night, which turns her Leechcraft (cure wound) and Tend the Sick (cure disease) abilities into AoE versions, and also allows Leechcraft to be cast while in combat. In addition, all of us should have had a stack of Pure Flasks of Conhuith and Pure Flasks of Lhinestad, which would probably have been critical last night since Arwellyn is only halfway to acquiring Proof Against All Ills, and is limited to advancing only 30 points per day.
Quick synopsis of Annúminas: there are three control points on the island, which give access to the three instances on the island. Rather than PvP like you’d see in the Ettenmoors, this is PvE territory control. I suppose similar to how Tabula Rasa has the Bane try to take over the control points so there’s always a push-pull for content access. Last night we did the Glinghant, Gardens of Annúminas instance, which only requires control of Clorhir. The other two instances require control of multiple points. The third point is also guarded by an Elite Master level mob who, while is possible to defeat with a knowledgeable and well-geared fellowship, I get the impression is most often dealt with by a player raid.
There are three quests to complete in Glinghant, each reward reputation with the Wardens of Annúminas and some barter items to save up to acquire pieces of the armor set, which for Arwellyn will be the Raiment of the Seven Stars. The quests are repeatable, but on a 3 hour refresh timer. Glinghant itself is a fairly small and linear dungeon consisting of four terraces and a single boss. It’s intended to be completed in roughly an hour of small but challenging fights and a “puzzle” to open each successive terrace. The first terrace has six levers around a pool, and a glowing limfraen flowing between various levers depending on which terrace the fellowship is working on. Once the first terrace has been cleared, the limfraen shows which two levers to pull simultaneously to open the gates to the second terrace. Once that’s clear, run back to the pool and the limfraen shows which three levers to pull to open the third terrace. To get to the fourth terrace to fight Nengon, the Nemesis level boss, all six levers must be pulled at once.
We had no problems with the first three terraces, but Nengon was a tough sonuvabitch. Only two of our fellowship (all kin and one friend from another kin) had been here before. We were getting all sorts of advice over the next hour or so (yeah, we took significantly longer than we’d hoped) and several wipes, all the advice was different. Most told us to take down Nengon first but never said why. Without the flasks and Arwellyn lacking Proof Against All Ills, his guardians were too much for us with fast-casting AoE disease and silence debuffs. Arwellyn was pretty much stuck standing still curing single targets of disease and silence, occasionally being able to heal or share power, possibly having enough time to throw a bane flare to stun Nengon’s undead spirit guardians. We tried to have our guardian tank Nengon while the captain handled the spirits so we’d kill all of them then turn our attention to Nengon. Classic technique that unfortunately taught us why everyone was telling us to kill Nengon first: he summons spirits indefinitely while he’s alive, which can quickly overwhelm the group!
Knowing this, we examined our disadvantage: a guardian, captain, two hunters, a minstel and lore-master is a bit lacking in the dps department. The hunters tried changing to power stance, but not only did that cause them to get all the aggro, it burned through their power and I was having enough trouble keeping the minstrel, guardian and captain charged up in between cures. We were told the Fellowship Maneuver Chill of Bone would be most effective against Nengon and also provide heals and power for the group, but we lacked a burglar to guarantee activation of a Fellowship Maneuver. We set Chill of Bone anyway, but were relying strictly on random chance for any of us to trigger then successfully execute the maneuver, which unfortunately did not happen. A champion possibly would have been better; not only can they interrupt Nengon (so can a burglar) but they have extremely high dps, the combination of the two would have probably meant a quicker victory over Nengon.
Our final attempt we concentrated fire on Nengon himself, everyone on full dps mode, while our minstrel kited the spirits around away from the group. That way only the minstrel would be affected by the disease and silence debuffs, also giving Arwellyn a single target to cure so she could help with dps and handle more of the healing duties. This technique worked wonderfully, though we did lose one of the hunters to Nengon. Once Nengon was down, our minstrel came over and resuscitated him while we all turned our attention to those nasty spirits at last, and celebrated our first victory over Nengon!
Terrific fun, challenge, and yes some frustration with all the wipes but ya know what? Learning what the mobs do and coming up with strategies ourselves is so much more rewarding than ALT+TAB-ing to someone else’s strategy guide on a forum somewhere. Even moreso when we realize we’re the underdogs without the proper consumables, traits or without certain classes who could easily turn the tide of battle. We were all going to take the brunt of the fight. We were all going to have to give 110% of our abilities. And we won! Now that we all have a good idea what happens in Glinghant and good strategies we came up with ourselves, the next time through we should be able to complete the instance within the suggested time. Looking forward to more! I love high-end content! Give me more!
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We did glinghant also and while enjoyable it is one tough cookie. It made me think twice before attempting the other Annuminas instances, though my brother torkek has done them and says they are enjoyable with a really good group