Thread: The Acheronian Warlord Goes Down (strat)

Well, the other night (they're starting to blur together) I met some nice folks in a PUG I set up for "Halls of the Eternal Frost." Even though I'd leveled past this zone I felt compelled to complete it once I gained more experience. Amongst all the angst and negativity about killing the endboss "The Acheronian Warlord" I felt there had to be a way and wanted to give it another shot. Ophian joined in on our 2nd attempt at the boss after a few from the 1st group had to leave.

Group make-up
2 Guardians
1 Conqueror
1 Demonologist
1 ToS
1 Priest of Mitra

Note: This boss CAN be brought down with other types of groups, but obviously your strat may change a bit.

Possible bug
There was a bug that groups used to give up on if they encountered it. Sometimes, the "activator" with the sand would be stuck in combat when trying to talk to the Warlord; making him unable to be activated. If this occurs, simply log out and back in. You'll be fine after that. Just make sure your group is ready before you talk to him.

The Strat
Note again: We looked up no strats or suggestions online prior. Just made it a point to work through the problem and get it done.

Basically this huge scary cohort of the Grim Grey God is surrounded by summoned epic minions (u cant 1-shot them though). The sand you gather at an altar prior in the instance is used to "activate" him. Initially, he's alone... but once activated is surrounded by about 8 of these epic guards.

The initial key is making sure the ENTIRE instance is clear of mobs prior to starting the battle, because you can expect to be running away. Make sure you run through the entire instance setting off all the statues and killing them, including the ones in the chamber where the Warlord is situated.

The chamber where the Warlord is located is actually a subchamber off of an extensive hallyway system in the shape of a square. This system is bisected in the center by another long hallway.

The idea is, the person with the sand activates the Warlord and ideally a tank or Ranger then pulls aggro from the entire group (warlord + guards) and starts running around this hallway system.

The MAIN TANK of the group, positioned off to the side of the hallway system with the main group then draws aggro on the boss alone leaving the guards to run with the kiter around and around.

The main group stays actively hidden so that any AoE effects dont accidentally go off drawing aggro from the guards as they run by. The alternate strat is positioning the group enough down the alternate corridor to be out of range... but, this has a catch. The Kiter will usually need heals every once and a while as he's going around the hallway system; one BIG heal is usually enough. So staying close to the kite path helps this.

Once the MT has aggro on the Warlord you then start to damage him down as quickly as possible; before the kiter runs out of gas and dies. Once the Warlord is dead, all the guards will despawn. Speed is crucial here as many times the MT wont last long enough under the pounding the Warlord gives (so having a ranged DPSer is good); aggro management has to be dealt with also. Pots and consumables are a must. Buffs should be plentiful also.

If there ever happen to be any straggler guards you need to deal with, if defeated they actually become an ALLY to the group and will help you defeat the Warlord. This is another potential strat to this since in theory one could kite the whole group and pick off the guards one by one until your ALLIES are many. The caveat again to this is, the Warlord will summon more and more guards as time goes on.

So... that's the strat to this battle. It's pretty much the 1st real taste at tactical endgame. I was supposed to be taking screenies, but alas I forgot. The Warlord is quite a beast to behold.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate that Age of Conan is NOT an easy game. It takes a solid strat and fluid tactics in many of these dungeons to succeed. Many people are not equipped mentally to deal with the stress and chalk the game up as simply being "bugged." It's not bugged. Just takes a TG-quality group to get through it.

(posts like this will go into the PvE strat section once we change the forum title)