From Mog to you: Darkhold full clear, 4 chests, 20 minutes remaining.

[DoctorMog]

Well if you or anyone else can... can you give a few details/tips/etc. on how to do this as a melee?

Sure.

Most of it is just knowing what moves the bosses do.

[Richardd]

Has anyone done it with a GLA tank or is MRD tanking essential for speed?

Also, how essential is bowmanship for quickstride?

we did it 42 seconds short (our 2nd attempt) with GLA. MRD shaves off plenty of BR time so I would suggest using it for the speed kill. Bowmanship cuts off a good 2~3 seconds on it I believe.

[Corrderio]

Sure.

Most of it is just knowing what moves the bosses do.

Doesn't really help since I don't know exactly what to look for since I only did a real fight with Batrall once xD

[DoctorMog]

Doesn't really help since I don't know exactly what to look for since I only did a real fight with Batrall once xD

Thats why I'll include it in the video?...

[Corrderio]

Well I'm just asking in case I do find another shell before then.

[Zdenka]

We GLA tanked it and I don't think anyone used Bowmanship. I'll just type out general strategy, people can figure out what works best for them.

We run through as 2x GLA, 4 or 5x Mages, 1x ARC.

Quickstride at beginning, a mage sleeps first frog (and whatever else is around it) and another sleeps 2nd.
First mages sleep is back up for the 3rd... everyone groups at circle (ARC goes and gets Warlock Pattten chest... doesn't cost any time).

6 people go to center circle next room, 2 go to small one. In next room 4 go to drake circle, 2 go to each other one. Since its mostly GLA and mages it doesn't matter who goes where, just decide ahead of time.

GLA runs leading the way again, sleeping toad in tunnel and you group up in front of last tunnel run. 1 of the GLA runs and gets the Bladedancer chest (optional, probably costs 15 seconds- 20 seconds) and rebuffs happen.

ARC takes the lead and gets hit by the first pack of mobs, then other GLA quickstrides past him (with everyone else, ARC doesn't quickstride) and you get to the circle and go through. I think at this point you should have 54-55 minutes on the clock.

ARC now uses his quick stride to go past the ghost to reach ogre, can get the Rev. Bliaut chest if you want but probably costs you another 15-20s. If there is a LOT of ghost at start, have 1 GLA agro first set to reduce damage ARC takes running through.

Should be at Ogre with 53ish minutes, hurry and swap classes (we did 3x ARC, 1x GLA, 2x CNJ, 2x THM) and everyone go to blue circle to make it pop faster.

DPS ogre as usual, we killed it in 4-5 minutes... someone can get Ogre chest and move on. GLA (whom now is ARC) gets a stoneskin rebuff DURING ogre fight and sentinels/quickstrides past the 2 ghost sets + toad... goes all the way to far NW corner in next room and may or may not die... if you got any ghosts (from the big room, the tunnel ones leash) you can AE them down now.

Avoid eyes binds, pop circles (without agroing any more ghost) and then AE down the skelletons. Our ARC's all have Leg Sweep on and alternate it as an AE WS to help prevent any deaths. (no one class swaps anymore after Ogre).

Run to Bartaal, buff up, engage. We popped it at 42:40 I think remaining on the clock for win attempt. ARC 1 2 3 all pick up seperate skeleton with 3x multi RS ferocity (for threat!) and drag it to behind bartaal. When there they try to form a triangle so the forward AE doesn't hit all of them.

All 4 mages keep the blue circle down while AEing on Bartaal. GLA tank requires little to no heals during phase1, and everything dies super fast. By the time skeletons die Bartaal is at about 75% (2nd phase is 70% I think... just eyeballing I guess). We reset the circle again and get full DoT line on him + Bloodletter etc, and then P2 skeletons pop.

We pick them up (ARCs) and drag to the west. Ghosts make AEing on boss dangerous, and slow since we move the boss in P2. Everyone goes over on the 2 grouped skulls and AE's them down except for the 1 CNJ main healing the GLA.

Activate circle, DPS boss. P3: MT now STOPS moving Bartaal around and "dances" his WS's (on our winning attempt of the 2 our GLA didn't get hit by a single WS by Bartaal in P3).

We originally were going to AE skeletons in P3 but a missed pickup (and wasted time) by one ARC cut our time down too much so we decided to just let them beat on whoever and kill Bartaal with them up. We then proceeded to kill him etc. If you cannot beat Bartaal's P3 in 1 blue circle "down" you may consider thinking of ways to up your DPS some. If you must remove his shield twice in P3 your DPS maybe lacking to beat in under 25m.

I think we had 35:37 left on clock when he died. If we had done everything perfect and skipped chests, maybe 38:00 is reasonable. Or if we just decided to ignore skeletons in the first place (maybe a quick pick up by ARC's so they don't go directly to the mages) could have increased kill time by another 60s or so. That was roughly a 7 minute kill of Bartaal, and its possible to do it quicker.


Theres a strategy for people that want one. It may not be the best but it works for us and what we have available.

[desslok]

we did it 42 seconds short (our 2nd attempt) with GLA. MRD shaves off plenty of BR time so I would suggest using it for the speed kill. Bowmanship cuts off a good 2~3 seconds on it I believe.

our run zdenka mentioned was with gla tank on both ogre and bartaal

edit, his strat post beat me to it

[Richardd]

our run zdenka mentioned was with gla tank on both ogre and bartaal

edit, his strat post beat me to it

yeah it's most definitely achievable with GLA MT - I was just throwing out my opinion.

[KingZeus]

Here is the bow
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/3118/bowdi.jpg

Congrats and respect to all the other linkshells continuing the fight!

[Keftenk]

Just to comment on Zd's post: We actually ran with less mages and another archer, it didn't really matter though since it was all just for running through all the monsters. Could run with 4 PUG if you really cared, its just important to be high burst/high DPS classes for Ogre and the skeleton room (then ofc Bartaal).