Dungeons and Dragons Online usually introduces new raids everytime they release new modules. Players may have felt that that they have hit the jackpot when Module 7: The Way of the Monk was released. Together with a new playable class, several mid-level contents and whole lot of gameplay improvements, two new level 18 raids were launched, much to the delight of the players. Admittedly, the previously released raid, The Thirteenth Eclipse, had been played many times over and players are getting restless. All secrets have been discovered and all known tactics have been used to beat the raid boss, Arraetrikos. It was not surprising that all eyes were on the two new raids as soon as the subterranean was opened. If you recall, each server was required to turn in a number of tokens in order to open the Subterranea, where the two new raids are housed. The tokens only dropped from the end chests of 5 of the 6 the existing DDO raids: The Twilight Forge, The Demon Queen, The Reaver's Fate, The Thirteenth Eclipse, and the Vault of Night. The Black Abbot raid was not included because nobody has completed the raid after the exploit was fixed.

The two new raids, The Hound of Xoriat and The Vision of Destruction, were welcomed with open arms; but it did not take long for the players to develop a certain fondness for the Hound raid. This is not surprising because it is by far the shortest raid in the game. It can be completed in less than 6 minutes if done correctly. If there are some mistakes, a party wipe is guaranteed. On the other hand, Vision of Destruction did not get the thumbs up from the player base right away. In fact, it was deemed the most difficult raid to complete, next to the Black Abbot raid, which players branded as "impossible to complete". Even though the Vision of Destruction is one tough raid, it gives a sense of achievement and fulfilment everytime it is completed. This is because it needs to have a sound strategy. This means that there are some requirements that need to be satisfied in order to succeed. As with other raids, different raid leaders have their own preferences when it comes to the party make up and proper deployment of the classes. There are times when some requirements are not met because there's just not enough players at a particular period, which led to leaders devising and trying out new plan of action.

This article hopes to guide players in completeing the Vision of Destruction raid with the least amount of resources expended and higher chance of success.

RAID BACKGROUND

The raid is bestowed by Delvarrion Iravati who is in the Marketplace where the tent once was. "Delvariion told you of a vision he had where House Deneih was sucked into an infernal portal, much like the Marketplace Bazaar. He fears this vision was a glimpse into the near future, and asked that you explore The Suberrane and determine if there is any truth to his fears". With that said, your party must head to The Subterrane to investigate and find Delvarrion's fears have merits. It's up to your party to allay his fears and protect the citizens of Stormreach.

GETTING TO THE RAID ENTRANCE

The Subterrane is directly below the ruins of the Market Bazaart. It is said to be an underground tomb that were constucted by the giants. The are is used byt the devils as a launching for thier sinister attacks on the city of Stormreach. Just like the Wilderness Ares that were introduced in previous modules, the Subterrane is an explorer area where you can get experience points by discovering explorer points, slaying a cerain number of creatures, and getting the rare encounters.

Upon entering the Subterrane Central, you need to put fire resistance on in order to protect yourself from the attacks of meteor swarms. They do a great deal to fire damage that can result into instant death. There's no point in buffing since there is a high chances of debuff as you make your way further into the underground tomb. Just use haste to expedite your travel. There will be several ancient giant skeletons that will appear from the ground (you first saw them in the Gianthold Tor pre raid quest). Do not step or run through the lights from the ground because you will get debuffed. Creatures may drop ancient shards upon death, pick them up and collect them. They can be turned in for useful items. There are times wherein you cannot pick them up by clicking the mouse. An alternative is to use backspace to target the monser and then press the letter "U". This works all the time.

Make sure that everyone has the quest before making your way to the raid entrance. Those who do not have the quest will not be allowed access into the raid and will most likely be asked to leave the party or run back. However, running back means that you will have to deal with respawns. You can ask party members to help run with you but not everyone will be happy with the additional waiting time. A 12-man party in this raid is ideal. Anything less will be quite dificult especially if the man you're missing has an important role in the raid.
Also, have a cleric, a caster or a ranger memorize a summon monster spell. This has an important purpose and will definitely make your run faster.


Once everyone is ready, remind everyone to have their feather fall on at all times. Head straight and drop down making sure you land on to your right near the door. There will be a bunch of gian skeletons and meteor swarms. Once you killed them, the lever will be unlocked and you will be able to open the door. Just head straigth avoiding the lights and when you reach a T road, turn right. Kill any giant skeletons that have followed. There is a rune that needs to be deactivated in order to open the portal. It is a wisdom rune and any tune with at least 14 Wisdom can use it. Enter the portal and fight the spiders to gain access to the next door via a lever. On the other side of the door are various creatures including troglodytes, archers, orthons and devils. Kill them first before dropping down. Keep in mind that you need to jump down on the right side to land on the right area. After jumping down, kill any trash mobs that you enconter before heading further north. If you turn to you right you will see a passageway leading up a ramp to the left. There will be enemies that will spawn in this area as well. Clear the area before proceeding. The reason why you need to clear every area is to avoid being overwhelmed by attacks when more creatures spawn in the next area. Since majority of the creatures are Orthons and Devils, they can teleport to where you are. The more you clear the area, the less problem you'll have when you get to the entrance. After clearing, you can move forward and you will get to a ramp that leads to a button on the floor that needs to be stepped on in order for it to light up. There are three other buttons on the other 3 sides and one in the middle. You can make the jump on one button directly opposite to where you are standing. The other buttons can be lit up by jumping down and using the appropriate passages leading to the other ramps. The middle button is a little bit tricky because if you try to jump down to it, you will die. Remember the summon monster spell? Well, that's what you will use in order to light up the button. Have the caster or cleric, or ranger target the button and summon the monster. Once the friendly monster steps on the button, you are good to go.

When all buttons are lit, the portal leading to the shrine will open up. However, the portal leading to the raid entrance is still closed. You need to pull a lever in order to do this. Upon entering the newly-opened portal, you will find a shrine with a chest to the left, and a ramp to the right. The lever is way up top and you need to go up the ramp to get there. The trip to the lever will be met by a whole lot of creatures. It's important to clear them as well. The area leading to the ramp all the way up top will be quite laggy and can sometimes cause many deaths. Have a sneaky toon get to the lever as fast as possible, while the others deal with the teleporting Orthons and Devils. When the area is cleared, and lever is pulled, head back down to the shrine. Get your chest and shrine up. There's no need to buff in this area because the next part is the raid instance itself. Just zone in to the portal.


PREPARATION

Voice Chat

This is one of the few quests in the game where you need to make use of voice chat. Instructions can be clearly communicated if the leader has a microphone. It is recommended that people find time to listen to the strategy very carefully so that there will be no need to keep repeating things over and over. The raid can get really messy that's why it's important to say things on voice because it is quicker and will not take your attention from the mission. This is not to say typing in party chat is not possible. It can still be done, but you can get distracted. Listening to the raid leader is also a must to ensure the success of the raid.

Buffs

Upon entering the quest portal, you will find a shrine and another portal which will lead you to the raid instance. Don't zone in just yet. This is the best time to buff up the entire party. Every available buffs should be given to melee types, especially to the tanks assigned to do certain roles. The buffs should be extended because the raid is very long and can last for more than an hour, depending on how the party is moving along. The must have buffs are: Deathward, Greater Heroism, Fire Resistance, Electric Resistance, Sonic Resistance, Protection, Blur, Stoneskin, Barkskin, and Bard Songs. The tank that will be assigned to get major aggro should be given AC-enahcing buffs such as Barkskin and Bard's Inspire Heroism. Additional hitpoints for everyone will definitely help so it wouldl be great if the Paladin's can give Virtues and the Clerics cast Heroes' Feast before everyone shrines.

Crowd Control

There will be several waves of creatures consisting of Orthons, Devils, and Bats. They are mean and tough and can easily cause a mediocre group to wipe. That is why casters should come prepared with their crowd control spells. Make sure your casters have Solid Fog (or Acid Fog), Web, and Otto's Sphere of Dancing. Some guild leaders do not allow the disco balls because they can cause lag and if not maximized or heightened, it wouldn't work as well as expected. To be safe, ask the leader first before you zone in. Web and Solid Fog will be the main crowd control spells to use.

Aside from crowd control, casters will also be assigned to remove the curse of party members. While each member should bring their own remove curse pots, the main tank should have a designated curse remover. This is because when the main tank tries to remove his curse, he can get hit and die, consequently losing the aggro of the named boss. Casters are not expected to use their offensive or damaging spells because they can get much of the aggro and will end up dead early in raid. They can start dealing their damage spells towards the later part of the raid when the boss only has a few hit points left.

Rogue

There are traps in the raid that needs to be disabled. This is where Rogues come into the picture. The Difficulty Check of the traps are not known, but a 55 works on normal. It's been discussed that the DC is not particularly high and rogues with decent search and disable trap skills can do the job without any problems. It may be a little different scenario in hard or elite difficulty.


Clerics and Bards

Aside from all the lovely buffs, Clerics and Bards will be in charge of keeping party members alive. Bards should keep track of the song buffs. When the songs are gone, the Bard should let everyone know that he or she will start singing again. This way, everyone can group up and get the songs. Clerics should try to save spell points as much as possible. Early in the raid, they should start using Heal Scrolls and Mass Cure Moderae Scrolls. It would also be nice if they have some potions of elixir of major mnemonic enhancements. This is not really required, but it can be very useful when things get hairy towards the end.

Party Make Up

The party make up can spell the difference between a successful run or a party wipe. It may look like the Vision of Destruction quest was designed for tanks who are not only able to deal massive damage, but also to hold a tremendous amount of aggro. Basically, there should be two main tanks. One should be able to hold aggro of the named boss, Suulomades, and the other one should be able to lead the other members in clearing the mobs. Both of these tanks should be able get the aggro so that other party members don't get much damage. An intimidator who can get the aggro of the mobs will be an asset in the party. It's not a requirement, but it will make the run very smooth. It will also help the party save up on mana and other resources. The downside is that the intimidate-tank should at least have an intimidate of 55 and above. Lower intimidate skills may not work as well. There are not many builds out there that invest heavily on Initimidate skills, so you'll be lucky to have one in the party.

In the absence of an Intimi-tank, a Warforged tank can be just as effective. With a Warforged tank, there's no need to worry about being affected by the curses. The downside is that casters will have to take care of the healing, instead of the clerics. Adjust your party make-up accordingly if you are keen on using a Warforged tank in this raid. You might want to get two casters. One will be assigned to be the healer of the Warforged, while the other will do the crowd control.

Of course, if you can manage to get a tank with high intimidate skills and a Warforged who can deal massive damage, then you can have the smoothest Vision of Destruction raid possible.

Here is the recommended party make-up:

3 Clerics
1 Caster
1 Bard
1 Rogue
1 Tank For Suulomades
1 Tank To Lead the others in clearing the waves
4 Melees/Rangers/Monks

Note 1: If you have a Warforged Tank, make the necessary adjustment on the number of Clerics and Caster.

Note 2: A Ranger can have a special role when the bat wave starts (more information about this later on).

Note 3: One cleric should heal the main tank and the other 2 clerics should mass heal the party.

Keep in mind that you can play around with the party make up as you see fit. If you are running with guildees, it's quite easy to gauge how strong the party. However, if you are running with pugs (pick up groups), it might be wise to follow recommended party make-up. There's no telling what the characters can do until you are already fighting the onslaught of orthons and devils.

WALKTHROUGH

Upon entering the raid instance, nobody should move. You will notice that the room has a pillar in the center and spike traps below it. Suulomades will be on top of that pillar. He will descend from there and will also ascend to it after each wave. The entire room is trapped with electric and force traps, but they will only go off if the Rogue fails to disable them. There are a total of 8 trap boxes. The rogue should start to disable the traps. Before the rogue can finish disabling the traps, WAVE 1 of Orthons will start attacking the party. It's important to position the group in the south area because Suulomades will need to be brought to the north, as far away as possible from the entire party. This will also be the area where the mobs should be dealt with.

WAVE 1: ORTHONS

The first wave of mobs are the Orthons. We all know that they can teleport from one place to another. Caster should lay down solid fog and we; but the should not overdo it. A couple of heightened web and 1 solid fog will do just fine. One tank should position himself in the north to be ready for Suulomades, while another tank should get the aggro of the Orthons. If using an intimidate tank, he can easily get the aggro of all Orthons and tell the rest of the party which Orthon they should be hitting. You will know which one the tank is hitting because the Orthons will light up in blue. There will be about 6 to 8 Orthons in this wave. It's important to remember that the party should let the Rogue disable the final trap first before killing the last orthon. Suulomades will have desecned into the room and the other tank should hit him a couple of times to get the aggro and take him back to the wall over at the northern point of the room. Before the party helps out in beating the boss, the tank should be sure that he as the aggro. Only then the other melees can start helping take down the boss.

To make sure that no other melees get Suulomades' aggro away from the main tank, they should only hit the boss at the back. This is also a good way to avoid being cursed. If you get cursed, you should remove it yourself. For the main tank, the bard or the caster should remove the curse for him.

After several beatings, the boss will become invulnerable. This is when he reaches about 75% or 80% of health. You will know this because your damage numbers will be zeroes and they will be marked yellow. This is the signal that he will be on his way back on top of his pillar. At this point he will aggro anyone randomly. The one who gets his aggro will be hit with lightining. It's important for the party to spread around so that it's easy to determine who has the aggro. Whoever has the aggro can go to the middle of the spike trap facing the pillar. He will not get hit by Suulomades while standing there. He just needs to be aware of the spike trap and hope he saves on them on his way there. While this is happening, the caster should start putting another heightened web in the south area. Get ready for Wave 2!

WAVE 2: DEVILS

At this point, the devils will start to spawn and attack everyone in sight. They have incredibly high hitpoints that the best way to get rid of them is by using vorpals. You may have crazy damage using your other weapons, but vorpals can get the job down much quicker. Besides, you don't want the devils to be spending much time in the room. When all the devils are dead, the boss will come back down from his perch and will once again wreak havoc. The same tactic used in Wave 1 should be done in wave 2 as well. The main tank should still hold the aggro of the boss. He will then again calls on all the other melees to start hitting the boss from the back to lower his massive hit points. When the bearded devils respawn, everyone, except the main tank goes back to the south and start clearing the area again. When Suulomades' hitpoints reach 50%, he will go back up to his pillar. This is again a good time for everyone to heal up and rebuff with songs.

WAVE 3: BATS

The first wave of bats will start spawning when Suulomades gets back up to his pillar. Web should work well to stop them on their tracks. This first wave of bats are more annoying than deadly. Rangers should start bring our their bow and arrow and target the bats. With Many Shot feat and Improved Precise shot ativated, just a couple of hits can kill the bats. This works so well that hte bats are dead even before they get to annoy the tanks. It is also at this point when the boss will start hitting someone with chain lightnings and fireballs. Whoever the unlucky person is, should go to the center pillar (with spike trap). This is the safest place in the area because the boss can't reach you from there. Whoever has the aggro will also be chained. If you are chained, you will move very slowly. To get out of that situation, you can tumble to move away from the rest of the party. This will go on for a bit until the boss decides to drop down again. The same tactic should be used with the main tank getting his aggro and the rest go on to the south area. The main tank should signal when to hit the boss from behind so that all the melee can come rushing in. There will be trash mobs that will spawn while fighting the boss. When it happens, everyone should move back to the south area and clear trash mobs there.

WAVE 4: ORTHONS ARE BACK WITH LITTLE HELP FROM BEARDED DEVILS

When Suulomades' health bar goes down to 20%, the red named Orthons will be back in full force. The bearded devils will join the fray which makes the fight a little more heated. Stick to the strategy and things will be less chaotic. The main tank should hold the boss' aggro while the other tnak will lead the rest of the party in subduing both the devils and the othons. Casters should put web and solid fog. In certain situations, the cleric can put a blade barrier to help take down the mobs if they start to become too overwhelming. Since it's quite a mess at this point. The main tank in charge of keeping SUulomades at bay should just shield block in order not to get too much damage and die. Dying means losing the aggro and Suulomades will start attacking the party. It can get ugly if the aggro is managed very well.


WAVE 5: FIRE DETONATOR BATS

When the number of devils and orthons are at manageable levels, it's time to rebuff with Fire Protection and Fire Resist. This is because Suulomades will start to spawn the fire detonator bats. They are 100 times meaner than the first wave of bats. These bats can deal massive fire damage that can easily cause a party wipe. Rangers will be in-charge of bat-killing duties using bow and arrow with Many Shot and Improved Precise Shot activated. Casters should now spam heightened web all over the area to make sure that some of the bats can get caught in them while the rangers hit them from afar. Clerics can also cast Symbol of Death and Blade Barriers to help kill the bats. Casters can also use insta-kills spells on the bats as well as Area of Effect spells.

When Suulomades' health drops to 5%, the party can start attacking him and casters can start to cast their damage spells. This should be done very quick because the longer he stays alive, the more chance he will spawn more pesky and deadly bats. If more bats spawn, just ignore them and focus all resources on Suulomades. He will drop down very quickly. When he dies, the bats will go down with him.

The Vision of Destruction raid is a success! Congratulations!

This is a raid that makes use of all the resources of all the classes. It may be the second most difficult raid in the game, but it is arguably the most fulfilling. It's entails sound strategy and a good party make up. Doing the raid in normal or hard difficulty can be done without too much problems. It's on elite that will really test your patience and your will.

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