Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

**Alethea** · **Alethea** on Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:54 pm

Any interest in running this tonight?

We came pretty close to taking him down yesterday and now we have a sure-fire method for making the timer.

I'll be filling the minstrel slot (obviously) so we need 5 others.

**Aloisa** · **Aloisa** on Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:44 pm

I would like to complete the job this time... very close on the last one I came along for last night. Smile

I will be on as soon as I can be, probably closer to 21:00. If you do have to begin before that then no worries. I will be ready to go as soon as I have gathered some more food from my locker.

**Vinyalindo** · **Vinyalindo** on Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:00 pm

doing nightshifts over the weekend, so not going to be much around for few days

**Alethea** · **Alethea** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 1:44 am

Done.

Tips:

1. No more than one Burglar.
2. A lore master makes things a lot easier, they should use the raven pet to reduce shadow damage.
3. A captain makes things much easier too, almost essential as even if Igash bugs you can survive.
4. If you have any shadow resistance trinkets bring them.

Spoiler:: Once you clear the second set of wargs have a champion, captain or burglar run to where the Nadur is (up the stairs and to the right), once the orc knows his boss is dead the gates will close and he will wait for you all to arrive. To save on damage try and jump off the edge of his platform. This will probably be fixed in a couple of patches time so take advantage... the 10 minute timer is not long enough for any group that is not perfectly balanced or DPS heavy

**Lachlan** · **Lachlan** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:04 pm

I'm not sure that this is good advice about burglars. It's hard to imagine any reason why two burglars would be more of a problem than two LMs, two guardians or two minstrels.

Why would you not want two people hitting traited enrage to deal with the wargs? If there's any skill in the game which would make those mobs easily manageable that is it.

In anything except the smallest fights burglar's debuffing does scale up with more than one burglar. The reason is that all but one traited debuff are single target and take time and effort to apply/reapply.

Twice the burglars = twice the FMs = happiness. Please note that FMs have not scaled well in Moria and defensive FMs are now significantly more effective than offensive FMs. When in doubt, select a health/power FM, which will increase dps anyway by releasing your groupmembers to concentrate on dpsing.

There is much more to say about this but I don't want to go on about it. The present situation with burglars is very complicated due to Turbine's rather variable abilities in competently designing classes but they are effective in multiples.

Also, I really think that we should embrace doing content with unusual class mixes, rather than reject it. Actually I feel very, very strongly about that.

**Katelyn** · **Katelyn** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:19 pm

I ran Stairs in hard mode many times in a fellowship concistingof 2 guardians, 2 minstrels, a champion and a lore-master. It worked just as well as the group with a captain and a burglar replacing other minstrel and guardian.

**Alethea** · **Alethea** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:37 pm

Lachlan anytime you want to take on Igash in a group with no lore master and two burglars feel free, I am not telling you how to do things but I will drop out at that point.

These posts as always are simply my perception on how things can be done, they are not the only way and I am happy to listen to alternatives but when hunting with two VERY experienced burglars and 5 team members who had helped to down the boss 4 times in a row I am left with a very distinct impression of what I feel is possible.

I agree that we should try unusual fellows and make do with what we have available, however I also believe we have to be sensible and occasionally admit that a given combination will not work.

Spoiler:: The FM's do not make too much difference on Igash since:

a) The tank needs to keep the Archers and the Devoted out of the way so cannot participate. The devoted when in range boosts IGASH to a very high level.

b) The healer often does not have the opportunity to participate due to chain healing.

c) Burglars have rather low health and having two of them means that when darkness crush is cast there is often no chance to heal both before one is dead.

d) The running method (The best to restrain the damage caused by his darkness crush) also means that generally getting 4 people in the FM can be difficult as he recovers fast, tanking him is not viable since he hits very hard indeed.

e) After he is hit by an FM there is a 50/50 chance that Igash will use Darkness Crush and on more than one occasion I've seen a fellow wiped after running into his range for the FM. Remember this attack can do upto 2000 damage.

f) Igash also casts his spells more often if the devoted is near him, this is why the tank should never be in the top of the room.

The ideal party for this instance is:

1 x Captain - The extra morale they provide allows the group to survive a double Darkness Crush hit.
1 x Guardian - A good guardian with over 5000 morale can effectively tank both lurkers and the devoted out of the way from the group.
1 x Minstrel - Obvious Really.
1 x Lore Master - Makes the whole instance so much easier, mainly by keeping the minstrel topped up so she can chain heal.

The remaining players could be any combination of hunter and champion, or one of these plus a burglar. At a push the lore-master can be replaced by a burglar but this will mean that all conjunctions should focus on power for the minstrel. The captain can be switched for another hunter of champion but not having the Captain makes things a lot harder (though certainly possible).

The guardian stands as far down the passage as possible while still in healing range.

The minstrel stands in the hex/octagon next to the candle on the right... and runs behind it for darkness crush when given the chance.

The loremaster stands next to the stairs helping to heal the runner team, keeping tar on the floor and draining power for the minstrel. They should also use the raven for the extra shadow resistance it offers.

The captain heal the running team, looks shiny and saves his last stand ideally for when Igash does 2 Darkness crush in a row.

When in need of healing people should try to stand in front of the throne on the same side as the minstrel, under no circumstance should they run upto the minstrel with Igash in tow as he has many AOE attacks. Nor should they run behind the throne again as this usually wastes the the heal the minstrel was singing, wasting time and meaning she has to move onto the next target for healing

I'm sure there is a place for wardens and Rune Keepers but so far I have yet to really hunt with them.

**Alethea** · **Alethea** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:42 pm

Katelyn wrote:I ran Stairs in hard mode many times in a fellowship concistingof 2 guardians, 2 minstrels, a champion and a lore-master. It worked just as well as the group with a captain and a burglar replacing other minstrel and guardian.

That is also a good group, you have two primary healers with one for each of the two groups which lowers the overall threat levels making it easier for the guardians to do their job. The Guardian by its nature can take more damage so can run the boss round quite well while the champion goes all out to kill him. The lore master throws down the tar to slow the boss (limiting the damage he can do) and can keep the minstrels in power, though this is no longer as necessary since they will not be healing as much.

**Alqua Losse** · **Alqua Losse** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:39 pm

To be honest I've found whenever running the Stair, that it's the people themselves working together and thinking their way around most things that has been the key to effective runs. I'd be quite prepared to go on a two burglar run sometime, just to see if it could be done.

Spoiler:: We've found that the best way to get the thing done in time, is to get a burglar or guardian etc to aggro the boss and then we retreat downstairs a little with the other mobs. Once the boss is aggroed the time thing doesn't matter in the slightest. I've been on this run a good few times and that's worked virtually every time. Also use the loremaster to stun one of the archers permenantly stunned to reduce damage on the guardian.

**Lachlan** · **Lachlan** on Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:04 pm

No worries Alethea, I've made my point and I respect your ones as well. No sense in arguing further, and I don't think we disagree all that much really Smile

.

I was quite taken aback and disappointed about how much difficulty our guild group had with the wargs/stealthers on the stairs. I don't think this is all that hard a fight. Perhaps we could use pulling technique, so we don't have to use an exploit (which will probably be fixed soon) to get through. It is strange that pulling is not much discussed in LOTRO.

It seemed to me that on one occasion, when the mobs were taken cleanly (I think maybe by a proximity pull), and hauled up the stairs to fight, that the front two came separately and the fight was then straightforward. Not sure about this, but it certainly looked that way. Even if they didn't, pulling the mobs back and allocating mobs for different group-members to pick up will help, and stop them spiking the minstrel, the tank, or a single offtank.

**Coltsfoot** · **Coltsfoot** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:05 pm

Although we did have to tweak the standard techniques a bit, I was with a group yesterday that managed Igash, Grand Stair, in Hard mode, first attempt, which was made up of 2 Burglars, Minstrel, Champion, Loremaster and Me (as Captain). Just thought I'd let people know it can be done.
That said, it was a bit tricky, and not everyone got out alive......

**Katelyn** · **Katelyn** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 2:43 pm

Was a lot of fun though, wasn't it, Colts. Even with that skunk drunk hobbit!

**Alqua Losse** · **Alqua Losse** on Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:11 pm

So, does that really count? I mean, surely it should have been 1.5 burglars?!

**Cycorus** · **Cycorus** on Mon Jan 12, 2009 11:29 am

I was there yesterday with 3 champions, 1 guardian and 1 minstrel. We needed about 17 minutes for every run in hard mode... It was just running and killing everything. GS is a great place for earning money, settings and item xp too (7 chests every 20 minutes in hm)

PS. Actually we did a normal mode too and I found a nice looking cloak near the troll boss. Unfortunatelly lost the roll Sad

But Im sure I will try to organise a lot of normal runs to GS now to take the cloak Smile

**Ellentar** · **Ellentar** on Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:08 am

That was my first Moria instance last night and I enjoyed it very much despite the, ehm, tactical retreat.

I can think of two reasons this didn't work very well:

1) Lack of experience for some of us: Even some simple things in this fight take a minimum of skill. I know that my very poor twitch-skills meant that I could hardly hit Igash when he was running around as I couldn't catch up or even would go too far and have him out of sight. This effectively meant that there was one less dps person in the group. Thankfully a lot of the time I had him force-agroed on me so I was the kite-runner and I didn't have to hit him in the first place.

Is there anything we could have done better to slow him down? A Guardian on overpower stacking stagger on him? I don't know the classes well enough to know who can slow and who can't.

2) We didn't do much with the Devoted and I'm wondering if next time it will help us in any significant way to have him tanked out of the way. I read that he buffs the boss when near him, but I am not sure how significant that is for the overall fight.

Anyway, as I said it was great fun for me to have a go at it for the first time, but I understand that it must have been more frustrating for people who have won these instances a few times and their expectations would have been higher than mine. But even then, thanks for not showing it and being the best company Smile

Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within

Re: Grand Stairs Hard Mode - Some may find spoilers within