My Shadow Lab ExperienceFollow

I'm just a few bars shy of 70 and geared pretty well (at least, I think so, since I have a few pieces from Aethien's list already). Granted I do still need some upgrades. As far as previous instance experiences, I've done pretty well, usually top 2 in damage (but not always DPS??) and my guild mates have come to appreciate and rely on my CC ability.

Last night a guild mate asks if I want to come along to Shadow Labs. I think to myself "why not? I'm almost 70, and do good DPS and CC, maybe Sonic will drop... can't be that bad." Needless to say, we failed... miserably.

Initial group was druid healer, druid tank, SV hunter (me, the only non-70), mage and warlock. For all except the mage, this was our first time in SL. The beginning was a little rough, just getting used to the larger sized pulls and learning the nuances of the mobs and 1st boss. We wiped once or twice, no big deal. Then we arrived at Grandmaster Vorpil...

We tried different strategies listed:

1.) I was on add patrol, but group couldn't bring him down before adds started spawning like crazy... wipe.

2.) Mage helps me with add duty... wipe.

3.) Kite away from adds... wipe.

4.) All-out DPS... wipe.

Repeated the above way too many times, and eventually gave up.

My question, then, is was it me? Was I the weak link that just made it impossible to provide enough DPS (even though for most of the run I was 1st in damage)? Am I just not geared well enough to do the lvl 70 instances yet? What am I missing?

I don't intend to turn this into a "check out my gear and tell me what to do post." I know that there are needed upgrades and once i hit 70, I can at least purchase one or two of them.

Thank you for your advice/comments.

Edited, Dec 14th 2007 2:08pm by Rycerz

For vorpil, I've tried all the strategies too. Your best bet is to kite him away from the adds, but it has to be done a certain way. First you kite him south, then after first teleport north, then after that teleport south again, then north again. All DPSers full out on Vorpil the whole time. If you don't have him dead by the 3rd or 4th teleport, than no, your group did not have enough DPS to bring him down.

I do not really think that it was your fault though. If you weren't 70, and were out DPSing a 70 Warlock and 70 Mage, then they were probably doing something wrong, especially the warlock. Despite the sig, cause this isn't Amayu, this is Lathais, her bf, I am a warlock. I have never had a Hunter out DPS me on a boss. On trash, and overall in the instance yes, but not on a boss. Your group just did not have enough DPS, and it isn't your fault.

You said you kited Vorpil away from adds. How exactly did you do that? The typical pulling pattern that I've seen is to pull him south the first time, then when he does his Draw Shadows move (aka Teleport everyone back to the platform), pull him north, then after he Draws again pull south again. He should be dead by this time (and it isn't too uncommon to kill him after the first 'port). With this strategy you simply ignore the voidwalkers unless they're dangerously close to Vorpil.

WoWWiki's Grandmaster Vorpil article.

The first two times you describe would likely lead to a wipe, especially since you'd never done the encounter before (and the second time, with you AND the mage on add duty, would leave only the warlock for DPS on Vorpil, which seems painful). The third and fourth times, how successful were you on keeping him away from the adds? Was someone not focusing on the boss? Were adds getting through to him? If those voidwalkers detonate, it hurts, lemme tell ya, and them healing him just rubs salt in the wound...

Yeah... those detonations really really do hurt. :(

We did try the North/South kite strategy, although it seemed too chaotic (not the strategy itself, but rather our execution of it). I don't think our tank was pulling far enough to each end of the room. I offered to pull and draw him further back, but he didn't seem to want to do that.

In the end, I think it was the group's lack of experience with the instance that resulted in us not doing everything optimally, and, in the end, the resulting failure.

EDIT:
I really don't want to put blame on the other members of the group... I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't the weak link. :)

Edited, Dec 14th 2007 2:49pm by Rycerz

Nice sentence. I wish I could figure out what you are talking about, but I only speak English.

Well, we regrouped yesterday and were able to do it. Tank had an opportunity to run SL with a PuG earlier, so had a chance to work on pulling to opposite ends of the room. That combined with my higher DPS (some gear upgrades once I hit 70... ding!!) helped a lot and we were able to take him down after one try. Although, I'd like to try and see how aimed shot would affect this now.

Lol... now what to do with Murmur? I read all the strategies. I had come into a PuG that were up to Murmur and two of the group bailed after getting the Kara key fragment (while the others were fighting Murmur). We were able to down him fine. However, then I regrouped with my guild mates, we just couldn't get him down below 20%. This time, I think healing was the issue. I know Murmur has to be a slow steady fight, and I don't think healer could keep up. But what's the deal with Murmur's Touch? We would run to tent once affected, but still got a nasty blast effect. Someone even said that Resonance killed them, but tank was at melee the entire time, didn't come out during Sonic Boom.

Anyway... I know this isn't the forum to ask for help on specific bosses, just kind of a rant.

Thanks!

I've always considered the "kite strat" for Vorpil to be a Bad Idea. Why? Two reasons. First, you have to drag him through areas where the mobs spawn to get him north/south. Second, if you drag him south then the mobs from the north move through his teleport location (and vice-versa if you drag him north) - so if he teleports you have no time to react because the mob just instantly explodes.

In the one PUG where I managed to not one-shot this boss, the key to success lay in convincing my teammates not to use some crazy kite strategy. Instead they just needed to learn2DPS and burn down adds. If everyone is killing adds, it's easy; the boss' abilities himself aren't particularly tough, even for "just hit 70" characters who aren't amazingly geared.

Of course just because you're not "doing the Kite Strat" that doesn't mean your tank should root himself and never move. If he sees an add slipping through, he should be prepared to move around the platform slightly - but the only movement that tends to be necessary is within the vicinity of the stairs/teleport location.

Murmur
If the healer is having trouble keeping people up, the tank should run out to dodge the big nova Murmur does, and then Intercept immediately afterwards. Apart from that, if DPS bandages themselves and has enough DPS to kill Murmur before the healer runs out of mana, you should be good.

And as you said, the tent's a great place to take less damage from the Touch ability for classes without slowfall.

Edited, Dec 17th 2007 3:14pm by Axehilt

Crappy PUG or skilled group, kiting him increases the risk of random blowups (due to the two reasons I covered in my other post). The risk wouldn't exist if you simply killed adds first then DPSed the boss.

That's clearly the way the fight was designed to work, and it's really a cakewalk as long as your DPS classes don't suck at targetting voidwalkers and laying down some burst DPS on them.

I find for shadow labyrinth, the order of difficulty goes vorpil>blackheart>murmur, which is totally bass ackwards, but whatever. As long as anyone knows the simplistic RUN AWAY SO YOU DON"T KILL YOUR TEAM strategy, murmur is a pushover. I think Blackheart is more luck than anything.

Vorpil is an odd one. I went in with a guild run, and we must have died 8 times. we tried the outright DPS and got smashed by the explosions, we tried a DD on the wraiths and it just went too slow. There were no deaths up to him, and when we finally did beat him, we went through murmur like a train.

Well, I did SL with a PuG a few days ago, and we beat Vorpil like he was a mere annoyance o.O I was on the wraiths and managed to clear a pretty good path for the tank. Only one ended up blowing up. That party had wiped 4 other places in the run too.

I've had that Wrathfire Hand-cannon sitting in the bank since I got it, even after putting an adamantite scope on it. The Nagrand quest reward (Hemet's Elekk Gun or whatever it's called) might have lower dps or whatever, but it has an attack speed I can actually work with. I put on the Wrathfire Hand-Cannon and instantly noticed that my attack speed was suddenly less than 1.5 seconds. How am I supposed to weave Steady Shot with that? So yeah, it collects dust. I'm close to the Consortium Blaster so I'll just use that one.