AO3 Boss Strategies

[Ayrilana]

After having been in countless groups of people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing, I've decided to post this as a means of venting. I'm just listing the ones people are having issues with but if people want to add onto this or clarify things then feel free to. Everything can then later be condensed into a single post for people to refer to.

Players should be at least level 45 to really be effective. Tanker and melee potions should be used to make things easier with tanker potions being the most useful of the two. They're both 1,500 each and you'll easily make enough from the drops leading to the bosses to afford them. If everyone wipes on a boss, then everyone should respawn. It's annoying for the mages who have to come look for you and you're usually within aggro range of the boss.

AO3 Map 4 - Gurgox the Great

He's incredibly easy if people know what they're doing. ONLY mages get the green orbs since they need to be able to resurrect people. NO taking more than ONE orb. I was in a game where some bear would go in and circle the room taking all of them. When he starts roaring, wait a few seconds before you take the orb otherwise it'll run out before he does his AOE attack. Headphones really help when you need to listen for the roar.

AO3 Map 5 - Galactic Overlord

If everyone is going to do a direct attack then they definitely need to use elixirs. Mages need to constantly be spamming heal when available. A bird should use whichever skill (break armor, blast shot?) it is of theirs that breaks his shield. If there's no bird in the party, save the barrels for when his shield is up. This means NO AOE attacks.

Most parties I've seen just glitch him. This is done by having the person with aggro hide in the corner closest to him (left) right before the gate. Usually the mages stay here as well and revive those who die in the OL room. You'll want one bird at least with two being better. The bird does his break attacks and attacks until he dies. A mage rushes in and revs everyone and then head back outside to the corner. This method is slower but it works if everyone does their part correctly.

[Zeus]

That's a great guide, but the problem is most of the newbies that don't know these methods do not have a forum's account, so until the forum's is advertised a lot more in game, I'm afraid we will have a lot of noobs.

And the thing that breaks the shield is shattering scream+blast shot, resulting in the cruel blast combo.
TO the avians out there however, before casting this combo to break the shield, I recommend you debuff him first, because he will dodge your scream often, thus not allowing the shield to be removed.

[Phoenixking]

How about keeper or plothozz there tough because they have strong weps and are long range

[Zeus]

They aren't too tough. Just corner them and AOE them out, as well as debuffing them. If you have a bear, you can stun lock them too. You can do it with a bird and enchantress too but it is tougher.

[Ayrilana]

How about keeper or plothozz there tough because they have strong weps and are long range

I didn't bother with those because if everyone buffs up and there's enough DPS, you can just whittle away at them. You need a tank for either of these to take the hits while the mages spam heal. Although, I was in a party last night though where we had no tank and just blasted through them like nothing. You can also glitch Plothozz with the rock right by where he spawns using a trick similar to that for OL. The only catch is that nobody can use AOE.


That's a great guide, but the problem is most of the newbies that don't know these methods do not have a forum's account, so until the forum's is advertised a lot more in game, I'm afraid we will have a lot of noobs.

True but I'm sure there's a number of people on here that don't know. The more people that do know helps make things go smoother. They don't even need a forum account to view this thread. I was on these forums for months before I made an account. They really should advertise the forums in the message you get whenever you long on.

[Phoenixking]

Plothozz is tougher then keeper wich i dont get

[drewcapu]

did they do something to gurg in the last update? I used to be able to time my stomp a lot better to avoid the chi shout but now I practically never avoid it.

[Ayrilana]

did they do something to gurg in the last update? I used to be able to time my stomp a lot better to avoid the chi shout but now I practically never avoid it.

I usually wait 2-3 seconds after he starts roaring to grab the orb

[drewcapu]

bear stomp. not orb.

[Ayrilana]

Whoops. No idea about that lol

[Blaquehaaart]

Gurg is easy...I hate it when people run around grabbing all the orbs though. I especially hate when I'm tanking him...and I intentionally position myself next to the orb, and someone takes it.

[Sky../]

Just came from doing keeper runs (mostly full mage/bird) party. All mages just spam heal debuffs and aoe and he dies before he gets his shield up. PlothoZ does seem harder. Or maybe its because i'be never been in a good team that would take plothoZ. Most of them only go for keeper.

[Bigsleazy]

Just a Reg blast shot takes away shield. No combo necessary

[Fyrce]

OMG just blast shot for OL.

I'm rarely in groups that glitch him. Generally I don't have the patience and just straight killing works better. I HAVE been the only bird and it seems fairly important to have a bird in your group. The bird should at least have an armor elixir, especially for only bird. Even with tank elixir, it's important to be ready to spam HP pots. That's birdie. Mages die a lot, so heal a lot, use mana shield every time possible and elixir, though elixired mages can still die.

NOT using AOEs really hampers your party. If you find that your strategy is NOT to use AOEs, you can still do it, but know that it's really slow and probably not the only way.

If you want to use barrels, it's better to keep OL near one or two. That way, whenever it's there, it goes off and hits him.

As for Gurg, he's easy. And I run real quick from people who do not learn to leave the orbs for mages. And tank him? Um, what? No need to tank him. If you have to, fine, keep him in one corner but you do not need an orb. Leave those for your mages. If you do not have mages, then it's better to clear to Gurg. If you cannot do a lot of damage to Gurg, better to leave the orbs to those who can! And what's with people who drag him all over the BIG room? If you have to run, could you please run on one end of the room? Maybe on the far wall only? At least try to keep it so some part of the room is safe from his roar. Because if you are running, you are definitely going to let him roar once or twice or more.

I think Plohtoxx is only hard if you don't have a tank or two (players who LOOK like bears but who do not know how to use tank skills are also not bears; unfortunately there are probably more pseudo-bears than real bears out there). And with the bearless teams... well... no wonder. Birds can stun a bit but most don't even know they can, so again... no wonder.

And no, blast shot does not take down the Keeper's shield. Just because they look like the same sort of shield does not mean they work the same way... really.

[Vaelma]

Myself and another mage took down Plohtoxx last night. Was awesome. As usual didn't get anything worthwhile but was fun.

I am one of those mages (pally) that does aoe OL. They are my highest damage spells and they can blow the barrels when they respawn.

Question, i always try to get to Keeper quick. I've been in lots of groups that wait until we clear the aliens before smacking Keeper. Sometimes that's well after the cut scene. I'm wondering if that's too late? Gives him time to put his shield up? I've been in groups that rush right to him also. Seems to me when done the latter way he seems to go down faster and also the mage aoe's take out the aliens at the same time.

[Formora]

If you're only killing keeper you need to clear the mobs because he doesn't spawn until most of them are dead. If you go plothozz first it's easy because the mummies are weak.

[Zonbonemaru]

Love the strategies but why doesn't players use the xD! They know them but never use... Ironic

[Claypool]

I wish I could find pick up groups with 1/5th this amount of coordination. I'd have finished up Cyber on my bird too by now.
Is it just me or did Ao3 drops get nerfed seriously with the release of cyber armor. Before cyber I was seeing void, rift etc drop maybe every 7-10th run. One time before the patch I saw power armor drop 3x in 8 runs. I did my entire cyber quest on my pally and only saw a scimi, a keeper's staff and a shield drop in terms of decent pinks. Anyone else noticing this too?

[Fyrce]

Drops seem same to me. They might have been better a long time ago, but they seem same through the rebalance. I'm not a big farmer though, and considering the small bit of farming I do, I'm probably ok on luck. YMMV.

If you are doing that many pick up groups at 50, it's time to put more effort into that friends list a bit more, i.e. you might need to train some people or find ones to train. You could try leveling some trainable people... and remember to boot the non-trainable ones. Don't waste your limited gaming time more than you have to.

If the good players aren't befriending you, try to find out why. Usually it means a remedial skills class... Generally a good group should result in everyone being friends.

[Claypool]

I play a lot at 3:30am-6:00am EST when I can't sleep. A lot of the times there's somewhat of a language barrier between me and the folks I'm grouped with. I've been making the best of it but I would definitely prefer to run with folks who have more than a roomtemp IQ.

As for drops, still strugglin'.
:confused:

[Ayrilana]

Plothozz is easy for a group of mages. I was in one last night and we were spamming heal and sharing aggro. I also finally was in a party where a bear could tank and hold aggro. My advice is to not attempt him until the party is close to level 45. When I see a bunch of people in the 30s I just leave because I know we won't beat him. They're too low to do any damage assuming they can hit him in the first place.

[Fyrce]

OMG, level 30s on Plothozz. No wonder. LOL. Sry, I was assuming all appropriate levels. Apparently I don't hang with low level groups. Lowest level I saw recently in Ao3 was probably a level 43 on my search for Quest npc.

Mages are great. I have no idea why people find Plothozz hard.

As far as I can tell, Keeper shield timer does not start at cut scene. It looks like he triggers but he doesn't. He stays still. If he comes to you, then yes, he's triggered. Start killing him. He's so easy now though that I don't even really care if his shield goes on once. He can still die with his shield up.

I have some people I play with late night (for me). They don't speak English very well. Chinese I think. Some are Koreans and there's also a group of Japanese. The Japanese speak better English but I haven't seen the whole group of them in awhile. We used to do a lot of Ao2, which was great fun. The others can speak English but try to keep to simple words, like boss, gather, rush, clear, keeper, gurg, OL, pot. The ones I play with already know how to play. It's new joiners who don't. So I'll do the talking if needed. They don't care as long as the running is still fast. Otherwise watch out: they know what the BOOT button does.

[Claypool]

Absolutely get what you're saying. I surely don't mean to suggest that everyone that plays between those hours is a 'tard or something, by any means. I've gotten plenty of good groups at that time. I just find that personally, I have a better chance at getting into a well oiled group during daylight US times and that's something that could probably be chalked up to my lack of speaking the prevalent languages of the 3-6am EST time period. :LOL:

I'm starting to meet more folks in the game that are serious players as opposed to casual folks who happened to have hit the cap so that's helping out a bit too.

[Pootew]

Thanks for sharing this, I haven't run these bosses yet, still only lvl 45, but at least now when I do I won't be a total noob.

[Guolin]

Great and very useful guide - a general AO3 Boss strategy (against normal bosses like Keeper, Pl'thozz, T'Paxx, etc.) wouldn't be too bad either.

[Ayrilana]

Great and very useful guide - a general AO3 Boss strategy (against normal bosses like Keeper, Pl'thozz, T'Paxx, etc.) wouldn't be too bad either.

There's no strategy to them so I didn't bother. For Keeper, you want to kill him before his shield goes up. This means everyone is spamming their skills.