Spells: Vulak's "Gift of Aerr" AE didn't exist in our era + Ancient Breath was a lifetap

[CrazyPro]

TL;DR: Gift of Aerr needs to be removed, the 250pt nuke portion of Ancient Breath needs to be a lifetap prior to late June, 2001 in the timeline, and at that same point in the timeline the 60% slow portion of Ancient Breath needs to be lowered to 40%.

In the Original Trilogy client spdat.eff, there exists no entry for Gift of Aerr, this does not show up until some point in Luclin, as part of his revamping into a (initially very buggy and nigh impossible) ring encounter.

Anyways, here's what I've found:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020114...cID=2682.topic

Hothgar
Veteran
Posts: 208
(11/28/01 6:34:03 am)
Re: Vulak'Aerr
The original Vulak (the one with the 70% slow) did indeed have a 250pt lifetap AE on it. However, after FoH failed to beat him several times(15ish) and having clean fights end up at 40%, they changed her to a 250pt DD AE and 40% slow. Since then, she's had one other stealth nerf, leaving her as a pretty easy encounter.

Hothgar

The world first Vulak kill by FoH and Cestus Dei happened on June 29, 2001 assuming Furor's victory post wasn't a day or two later, so that places the Ancient Breath nerf probably a few days earlier (further down this bug report is a quote of someone saying the nerf was shortly before their world first kill) https://web.archive.org/web/20010719...?threadid=2155

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...00315715217541

nice
Oct 15 2001 at 9:45 AM
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397 posts
geeze guys, very impressed that he's even been killed enough to get this many different items listed. keep up the good work, one of the few mobs that are worth the large scale raid effort this requires.

As far as the person who said he could be slowed, /boggle. Can't slow lvl 75s bro, just wont happen. Hard enough to slow lvl 63s with tash and malo... lvl 75 would just own you if you tried. I think you meant that he slows you, not that he's 'slowable'

Theres a very simple strategy you can follow for any highend raid

1) give the warrior with the best gear an avatar to start the fight and refresh it every 6 minutes till yer mob is dead.

2) have 2 extra clerics specifically there to keep this guys hitpoints going up via celestial healing and short cast heals.

3) dedicated cleric doing nothing but casting complete heal every time he has the mana.

4) tons of wizards with dragonbane and good timing.

5) figure on an average of 1.5 clerics for each group... ie one cleric and one or two druid / sham. One cleric can heal the ae damage fine, but will run out of mana if the sham and druid aren't helping.

6) buffs are gonna drop anyway by the time yer goin good on this dude, so dont depend on them. Only buff you absolutely need to make sure is up is your main tank's avatar.

thats just some experience from trying some lvl 75 mobs with friends... never tried anything in north tov myself.

Since this dude does ae lifetap and slow I wouldn't reccommend even trying him without 50 lvl 60s as a minimum. You could probably squeeze off a victory with less if you really got yer timing and taunt down. Everything really is a piece of cake if you keep the mob on one guy, but crap happens... always does... always will. Guarantee you someone will drop a tiny bit too low on hitpoints and dragon will run around chewing people up while your main tank tries to re-establish agro. They didn't say much about the breath attack, but if its anything like the lava guardians its about every 5 seconds... ick 300dmg ae lifetap every 5 seconds? Could get real ugly. I think its perhaps his special attack, like monk mobs can use strikes every so often, and shadow knights harm touch.

I would think that by now the large guilds on each server are working together to nail this dude when he pops, but who knows? If you do tov a lot you might wanna form some guild alliances to kill this guy. makes kael armor look like newbie gear heh.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...99973540390437

breath weapon?
Sep 05 2001 at 7:16 PM
Anonymous
I heard is Breath weapon is an AOE lifetap! IS this true? Also how much does he hit for
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RE: breath weapon?
Sep 07 2001 at 3:27 PM
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18 posts
yep... its a 250dmg AoE Lifetap.

Although this comment below says his AE isn't a lifetap, it was posted a couple months after FoH first killed Vulak, and if the first post I quoted is to be believed, it was changed from a lifetap to a DD some time just before FoH first killed Vulak.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...00056151223845

poor guys.
Quote
Reply
Sep 15 2001 at 8:45 AM

LOL ok i just looked at that post,a bunch of newbie that don t have a ******* clue on whats going on.Vulak has 750khp and no he doesn t have 5000ac dumb ***,make me wonder how you cleared north wing with suc idiotic statement.he may have in the 1800something like that.His ae isn t a lifetap its just a DD thank you.
Get a damn clue before you post

Kinuvan the Minstrel

Virtuoso 60 Ayonae Ro
Eternal Wrath

A forum thread in Luclin (after his buggy revamp) discussing how his AE used to be a lifetap:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020729...cID=8665.topic

Arbaal Scalebane
Itchy Crotch
Posts: 771
(5/22/02 12:46:07 am)
Re: thank u
He already trippled and flurried for 1k, had a very hard to resist slow AE that was also a 250 point lifetap, and around 700,000 hp's. On paper, he was a very hard mob. What they forgot to take into account was that the only single flaw he really had was that he was slowable. If you can slow it, you can kill it. If he got a lucky flurry, a maintank would die sometimes, but really... He was way way way too easy. The first time we killed him, we had 30 groggy people at 7 in the morning and still won on the first attempt.

They should just put him back in, make him rooted, and add some respawns to his lair. Yeah i know that would make it like sooo many other Luclin encounters, but really, it's alot better than it is now. There's plenty of room for improvisation.
Arbaal McOwn

Tikker
Registered User
Posts: 482
(5/22/02 6:11:33 am)
Re: thank u
well arbaal he didn't lifetap

that was nerfed

if he still lifetapped he'd be harder(well not really, just take longer)

Tikker Gimblestan
thought I was done Xp'ing...

Arbaal Scalebane
Itchy Crotch
Posts: 774
(5/22/02 7:20:15 am)
Re: thank u
According to the spdat, his old AE was a lifetap and the 'new' AE isnt.

Not that it matters since he isn't fightable/triggerable for the time being.
Arbaal McOwn
Wizard of Remedy

Arlos
Registered User
Posts: 476
(5/22/02 10:32:01 am)
ezSupporter
Re: thank u
Actually, his old breath was NOT a lifetap, from the parses. It only had the lower target HP by 250 component, it did not have a corresponding increase own hp by 250 like all lifetaps do. The effect message made it sound like a lifetap, but it truly wasn't one.

So far as I know, the ring is STILL broken. The one and only time we tried it, it triggered as we were running to the room, and the guard mobs did a nice AOE DT. Instant death for the entire guild. Goes down as the fastest complete guild wipeout on record. rofl.

-Arlos

Tikker
Registered User
Posts: 485
(5/22/02 12:52:55 pm)
Re: thank u
i think his original AE was a lifetap arlos

IIRC tho, it was changed shortly before our 1st vulak kill
Tikker Gimblestan
thought I was done Xp'ing...
Magelo profile

Same person who just said it didn't lifetap suddenly does a 180?

Arlos
Registered User
Posts: 477
(5/22/02 1:58:35 pm)
ezSupporter
Re: thank u
It was changed before FOH's first kill. He was never killed while the breath actually lifetapped. It was also originally a 60% slow, not a 40% like it currently is or was.

-Arlos