A Rathe Councilman  

Just tried this last night on Combine, in a guild thats in a mix of gear ranging from NToV to DON Crystal. We're limited to a top level of 70 so far, and haven't had the long periods of farming that previous servers had that were at this point... tanks are lucky to push 10K hp and 2K AC.

When we pulled the first of the mezzable mobs, we got a real wake up call, he chewed thru several warriors before we got him locked down and sufficient heal stream going on; finally a 70 Sk with his 1.5 epic got aggro (easy enough once everyone with low HP aggro died) and held on for dear life, running Soul Guard and getting down to 10% hp repeatedly.

Hitting for up to 2800, quadding, plus a 200 a tic AE DOT and 1000 AD DD, these guys are mean mean mean. We took him down to around 20 % and called off the DPS,which was a little sloppy, we didn't get it landed till 18%. After some discussion and rezzing of the dead, we woke him up and took him down to 8%, remezzed.

Pulling the rest of the mezzable 6 was rough, we lost pullers right and left, because the mobs would mass AE the puller. Snared mobs would split nicely once the puller was dead, though. Sacrificial Ranger plan.

Using warriors going defensive, we managed to get the mezables down to under 10% much more easily now that we were prepared, this meant switching MT back and forth so the disc had time to refresh. Reports were that when low HP they didn't hit so hard. Some testing indicated that "low HP" meant somewhere south of 5% HP.

While we were rebuffing before heading out to get the unmezzables under control, we got another surprise. Mez broke on one of the mobs, and it banished the enchanter who was on it. Luckily, not far away, but this meant getting the mob back under control was a scramble. This happened a couple more times as we tried to get the rest of the job done; mez team must remain very tight and ready to patch mez each other's targets.

We moved over to the island, and eventually pulled one of the non mezzables. Got him down to under 5%, then set an SK on him, with a cleric all his own, and a shaman he'd have to share to keep the mob slowed. Rezzed up and rebuffed (yeah, I didn't mention it but we were still taking losses getting pulls and getting the mob under control) we got another pull inbound... when it pathed funny and ate the TM SK.

Facing two RC at once we had a very hard time, but managed to get them split up and the nearly dead one dragged aside. We were working on the second when we noticed the first was dying. TM had no weapons, took gloves off, still mob dying. We think someone dotted it in the panic, not sure. Nothing we could do but watch it die.

Event pretty much blown, we tried taking out the remaining mobs in the short time available, but wiped on them... would have been better of course to just TL out, but we aren't that kind of guild.


First try, next time we'll be armed with better info and ready for whats coming up, I think we'll beat this segment of the fight with just a little better plan for parking the TM'd mobs and pulling the next.

anyone got a good strat on pulling these ? haven't seen one yet we just trying these and only 2 bards.4 monks some sk's and necro but 5 hours later and only 3 got by alota deaths and I haven't pulled but sceen them all pulled very quickly.help would be appreciated.

ok - failed yesterday with a full maned raid.
Resigned after 5 hours.
First hour - coth of the raid by a preplaced coth mule and setting up the raid.
second hour - partial wipe due to LD of puller which brouht all councilmen into camp
third hour - five mezz mobs set up - 2 mezzer afk without informing - several casualties.
fourth hour - all mezzmobs secured 3 tankmobs down to 3% and offtanked by palas (me beeing one of the ot). The mobs hit fast but if they were kept slowed by shm they don't hit to hard aprox. 800'ish. 1 ot has a cleric and a druid as assigned healers - both were never below 90% mana
fifth hour - 4th TM pulled started slashing him to 10% for pala takeover when OT3 was banished. TMr ran after the banished pala cross the island agroing TM5 (not yet pulled). OT3 was running on island border to come back to fightspot and was killed by a full health councilman and hist TM3 - from there on we went down the drain. Some didn't dy at their spots and trained the mezzgroup - full wipe.

All the councilmen are level 68, there is no level range or variance.

Not really that hard to do? Are you living in some kind dreamworld?

This is a difficult event that takes a *lot* of patience from raid members just to keep awake. You also need a lot of clerics, tanks and Enchanters.

If you think hours of buffing and wipes on first attempts and then 2 hours on regular attempts is easy then you need to rethink the game. Lol.

This is a time consuming event and is far from easy. Now if you can go in and own all 12 mobs in one go without the mezzing and tank mezzing then respect...




Edited, Wed Jul 21 18:01:25 2004

It's hard to convey informantion about this mob without giving encounter info, so...

You find the twelve (as we often call them) centered on an island in the middle of a brown lake enclosed in a huge cavern. There is a roomy nook on the eastern edge of the cavern that you drop into for the encounter.

There are six each of two different types of coucilman. The two types are mezzable (M) and tank mezable (TM). Which ones are which can be determined by noting the mobs respective 'clock positions' with regard to compass North. I don't know which types are on which clock positions, but may add this info later when I get it (/me isn't a puller). All of the guilds I'm closely familiar with use a variation on the following tactics.

Pullers split the six M mobs away from the central grouping one at a time. They are each pulled to the roomy nook mentioned above, debuffed, beat down to within a couple of % of their lives, and mezzed.

After you stabilize the six M mobs and allocate resources for them, the six remaining TM mobs are pulled one at a time to different areas on the central island. Each is tanked while you set up for the final sweep. Note that TM mobs hit for 30%ish damage after they lose most of their life.

Each councilman summons, banishes, doubles or better for 3000ish, is slowable (mostly), and has a nasty AE. Even for a well-equipped tank they are not a trivial mob to deal with. Their AE DD/DoT/slow is nigh unresistable, has hyper-range, and is only curable via curse removal. As stated prior the AE range is well in excess of 100... more like 150~200 if I had to guess. For a high end guild, one of them is a pain and two of them at the same time usually means there is a wipe in progress. Overlapping AEs are harsh, especially on int-casters.

Note that wiping (even repeatedly) isn't uncommon for high end guilds, but here 'partial wipes' are possible. You'll have people all over the island when you start on TM mobs. Plan ahead for a 'partial wipe' by positioning each TM mob in such a way that it won't walk over another active TM crew on the way back to it's spawn.

In between each pull there is a potential rez / rebuff period. After the first 10-11 are all set up, you start finishing them off. The TM mobs are first to fall, often simultaneously, as the TM crews each start to open up the damage. Then all of the TM crews gather on the M crew and take out the remaining councilmen, one at a time. Many toons will eat a number of AEs during this, so healers and curers need to be on the ball. From the moment the first councilman dies you have seven minutes to finish off the other 11. The best way I know is to hurry through the first 11, med and rez as you can, then do #12 as prepared as possible for...

Avatar of Earth. He's not much harder than any single Rathe Council member. After he falls, enjoy your token shield (Time keypiece) and his loot, if you are one of the fortunate few.

Someone previously stated that this encounter was easy. I'd say, more accurately I think, that it is simple enough to learn, easy enough to train people for, but difficult in practice to pull off with regularity. You have many things against you... staying focused, boredom, potential LDs, ninja AFKs, FAAKs, and good old bad luck on a TM crew (with regard to failed reslows, spikes of heavy mob damage, lack of TM tank aggro, heal aggro, etc). Note that the raid force diminishes as the first 10-11 get situated, but that it rebuilds as the actual killing begins.

If you endeavor to see Plane of Time, this encounter will test your guild's meddle for sure :). Everyone must bring their 'A' game, focus, and know their roles ahead of time. I've heard the encounter can be done in 90 minutes or so by the elite. If your guild lacks, plan on 6 hours or so (or plan to come back another day for that matter). Despite the potential nuissances of it, some guilds do actually farm this encounter.

Some important encounter notes.
*** no buff slack -- not asking for / not receiving the proper buffs here can cause a wipe -- low hp aggro is a harsh liability
*** AE cures -- Remove Curse is good enough to remove the AE, and it's both cheaper and faster to cast than Remove Greater Curse; Radiant Cure is your friend too; make sure you load RGC up before facing the Avatar of Earth
*** MR debuffing -- each councilman is highly resistant, so full use MR debuffs... tash & sinia are a must, and HoS / AoD are highly desirable
*** mez crew -- overlapping mez redundancy is a good thing, and the mobs must stay aggro'd or they will regen very fast
*** assist targetting -- the one thing that that shouldn't ever have to be mentioned, but we all know it's a real issue -- if you don't /assist target here the encounter can easily wipe, nuff said
*** TM support -- you can conserve valuable player resources by having each TM cleric support crew (typically nec + bard + sham + dru) sit between two different TM clerics (i.e. MOB < TANK < CLERIC < SUPPORT > CLERIC > TANK > MOB)

I hope you enjoy the post. Hopefully it helps in some way. Good luck on seeing your EQ goals come to fruition.

Edited, Mon Dec 8 15:33:08 2003

"The Rathe is a council of twelve beings that rule over the Plane of Earth. Each member of the Council maintains an identical presence of grass-green hair and earthen skin with veins of gold and turquoise. The Council is an extension of the plane itself. Thus, if one member is cut down another will shortly rise to take its place. The Council of Earth is the only power of the Planes of Order to have looked down upon the material realm with interest, but remain truly neutral in their dealings with the lesser pantheon."


Niolen Silvertree
Druid of the 52nd season
Worshipper of Tunare
Player on Mithaniel Marr
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=759043

How hard do these bad guys hit? Do they cast anything? I know there is some kind of bug where its impossible to mez them or single pull them which makes it extremely tuff to kill them... Or did they fix that? Well i know some guilds out there have gone face to face with tehse guys, let us know what they are like.