Did him several months ago, one group, 60BL, Necro, Cleric, 54 Mage, 56enc (me at the time). Sow all including pets. Necro pulled, BL chain cast a few spells to get agro, ran large circles while pet beat on him, and the rest of us nuked. Easy fight, not even close.
#REDACTED,
Posted:Apr 11 2003 at 7:06 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) har har har i would love to see all ur characters have that gear all at once
Valdanov does indeed pop on the back Balcony after Heretius is killed.
We had pulled Heretius out front and then had to go back in after Valdanov. First we tried to pull Valdanov off the Balcony with a monk. That did not work and the Castle was repopping. So we actually levved and sowed and floated in from the mountain behind, back onto the Balcony.
Valdomov is completely immune to regular melee weapons. You need bane dmg against Vampyre weapons. The stakes can be bought outside the graveyard (in Katta) that have bane dmg. The torches looted (after you kill them) can be found on the Tenebrous guards outside Katta. Or there is a sword quest for Paladins called Ashbringer. Those three are the only weapons that will do any damage to the Vampyre Lord.
The other method after killing Heretius inside on the second or thrid floor is to just keep going out onto the Balcony. I had 16 people (50-65) with me last night and we easily handled any adds that popped on the Balcony while we had Valdanov engaged.
The battle took 13 minutes with the Lord. We had 2 warriors, 1 Beastlord, 2 SK, 1 wizard, 3 clerics, 1 ranger, 2 monks, 1 shaman, 1 paladin, 1 druid and 1 necro. Pretty balanced raid group.
Thoraz - Paladin of 52 Circles (proud owner of the Loyalist Shield) Order of the Open Hand
I have found no less than SEVEN bane dmg vampyre weapons.
Ashbringer: Ghod this quest was annoying (I ended up paying 2 different people for MQ to finish cause I got so sick of the endless camping) but this sword ROCKS. My 59 pally was hitting in the 100s often and topped out at 170. Pity it's only good on vampyres.
Reflective Combine Claymore: One of the components for Ashbringer, but a bane dmg vampyre weapon in itself. This is what you receive after you turn in the coterie assassin garrottes.
Johanius' Stake of Slaying: Relatively easy quest.
Elaborately Guilded Wooden Sword: Even easier quest.
Phosphorus Torch: Yeah, they drop off the Katta guards, but you can also quest them if you don't want the faction hit. Give acrylian phosphate (drops off netherbians) to Triblix.
Vial of Blessed Water: You get this upon turning in ashes, fangs or vampyre blood.
Blessed Wooden Stake: These are bought from an NPC merchant.
Vladius pops in the center balcony right after you kill Heratius. He is level 62 and hits for 350 on average.
The real problem... my 60 Warrior beat on this guy for 10 minutes and did NO DAMAGE at all. I though he was runed at first but the rune never wore off. I didn't see a sigle "you hit" text message. I think he may be immune to melee damage. The only damage we were able to deal him was either from a Necro DoT or the 61 Necro pet. When the Cleric ran OOM we had to bail.
Vladius cannot be hit except by vampyre bane weapons. Not sure if pets can hit him without bane weapons, have heard both ways on that. Examples of bane weapons are Johanius' Stake of Slaying and Phosphorus Torch.
Well, we killed this guy tonight with no difficulty, but he seems to be PH for Vladius Zeevfeer.. Vladius spawned as soon as he dropped. was yellow to my 61 wizzy, and proceded to promptly beat the hell outta us.
We mighta stood a chance, but our tank was only level 52.
I can't be sure of his respawn, but what some of the previous posters said make sense. It seems he aggros the mobs nearby and eventually gets killed. Thus the appearance of a rare spawn.
All I know is that, if you keep the castle clear, he will respawn with relative frequency. To be more specific, we spawned him twice within one hour.
EDIT: I've been back there a few times lately and, sure enough, this guy did not spawn even after hours of killing every undead in sight.
The best thing to do is grab a small group of lvl 46-55 guildies (or their twinks) and rape the castle while waiting for him to spawn. The loot is suitable for low level twinks, and some of the flappies can drop decent 50's gear.
That one time I originally spoke about happened to be my first time ever in the castle. Wouldn't you know it Valdanov spawned twice, and we had to wait for Heratius to despawn since we were all in our early 50's and were really only there for exp and loot.
Now that I'm actually looking for him, and have a cache of vamp bane weapons in the Katta bank ready for a small raid, this guy is nowhere to be found. I go back there at least once a week, and have my necro parked in the balcony to check spawns on occasion. This mob truly is rare.
We can't complain, the shield is incredible.
Edited, Tue Mar 25 13:29:33 2003
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Duke Ardnahoy Noble Lord Protector of the 70th Crusade Fennin Ro - EQ I
Ardnahoy II Fearless Guardian of the 40th Tour Mistmore - EQ II
I had a couple groups clearing the castle to try to get him to spawn and he never did. Not in 12 straight hours. I've been watching the spawn for 4 months now and have not seen him yet, although I did miss his death by about an hour once.
I'm still heating up the poker to stuff up Verants **** for this crap.
killed him with 55war,56 nec,56 cle and 58 chanter. I kept warrior with bedlam and the cleric didnt heal once. were never resisted. The warrior was glad when we noticed the Helm was nodorf :p
It would seem that the key to spawning this guy would be to keep all the named dead, and all the general's dead as much as possible, we had him spawn 2 times in a row, 50 minutes apart.
He has around 24000 hp, hits for 165 tops, flurries alot, and procs the 200 point unresistable tap alot ( this is the only thing that makes him nasty )Depending on your luck, you can have a relatively easy go at him, or it can get really tense because he is tapping every other hit. Once he is slowed / crippled he is extremely easy to take down, the fight is pretty much getting him slowed before he taps your tank / slower to death.
He is immune to movement spells ( i.e. root, snare, darkness ) And all stun spells. This is a pretty easy fight if you know what is coming, but if he catches you off guard he will probally kill you before you know what hit you. Spawns on balcony on top floor, does not roam. if he wipes you out, dont worry about him camping your corpse, he will camp corpses for about 15 to 20 mins then despawn.
He no longer agros on the other vamps, seems to drop Votallis ashes every time.
My group dropped him a little while ago (55 monk, 57 necro, 56 cleric, 55 shammy, 54 bard, 55 enc), and he dropped Vampyric Volatilis Ashes, the cloak, and a ruby crown. Anyone happen to know what the ashes are for?
Alright, my group just dropped this guy and it seems that we were in fact unlucky, and we figured out what happened. It seems if the first hit on the flurry is a life tap, all the other hits are as well, so our warrior got tapped about 9 times with those 2 flurries and dropped like a rock. The highest hit we saw was around 250. He is an easy fight once he is slowed except you have to keep an eye out for the flurries and procs. His life drain seems to proc alot more than the other vamps, about every 4th hit was a life drain. We estimated his HPs at around 25000. Tough, long fight with only one melee.Hope this info helps.
This guys pretty nasty since the last patch. Also that cloak is clickable self DMF at level 30.. nice for SK. prepatch - 60 shammy, 57 drood, 57 mopnk - easy droppable post patch - above plus 60 drood, 57 warrior - quite a long battle.
This guy is not an easy fight, we tried him 2 times with 57 warrior with 4k hps and 1100 ac, he died in under 2 seconds from him, was prolly just unlucky but heres why. He flurried 2 times in a row, and proced the 200 damage life tap 3 times, he did over 2k damage in less than 10 seconds.
Don't know if anyone else has witnessed this, but this mob has issues. Myself (60 necro), 60 shaman and a 47monk were clearing the fort when this dude popped on balcony. With no taunter to get him off our shammy (torpor healer) this was the longest battle I think I've witnessed in EQ.
At one point when we were both oom and the shammy got to 40 life, the shaman ran off the balcony and headed for the zone. The monk and I were FD on the top floor. Respawns started. Heratius proceeded to whack the centurians and generals as they spawned. Was the weirdest thing I've seen, but maybe thats why his helm is the helm of vampiryc traitor, and maybe he gets killed when he aggro's the whole castle and this is why he's so rare.
Anyways, he didnt' drop the fist to help twink my monk, and no helm to help the bank fund, instead dropped a crappy no-drop necro sk cloak with clickable bobbing corpse (like 17 sec cast time).
ah no wonder hes never up... wish I knew his repop timer, named vampire on the top floor probably whips his **** with that annoying shiftless deads spell.
Would be nice but hes immune to changes in run speed -- Bring at least one 55+ tank and preferably a few group members for this guy. an do a lot of damage real fast with his lofetaps and flurries so be prepared.
this guy has no timer...hes just a SUPER RARE.... I have hunted this place for WEEKS and seem him once.....dropped a SWEEEEET helm abd took about 10 min to kill