Alpha Beelzebub Challenge

Overview

The purpose of the Alpha Beelzebub Challenge is to see if we have what it takes to kill Beelzebub in a direct fight, without any tricks or gimmicks. If we succeed, we will be the first party on iRO to take him down in such a fashion.

Before participating, players should familiarize themselves with our strategy, or at very least their individual class roles.

Given enough time, we may do a dry practice run against Fallen Bishop before Beelzebub spawns to practice.

When?

The planned time for attempting this will be on Sunday June 8th, on the first Beelzebub spawn after 10 AM PST. Its suggested that participants should keep track of Beelzebub's spawn times on Friday and Saturday to have an idea at what point in the day this might be.

Team Composition

Main Roles

• Main Tank (Lord Knight)
• Sacrifice Crusader
• 3 Support Priests (1 in forward team, 2 in support team)
• 1 Minstrel or Bard
• 1 Scholar
• 1 High Wizard
• 1-2 Killers (SinX)
• 1 Alchemist/Biochemist (With shield coating + Aid Potion)

Optional Roles

• Resistant Souls Crusader
• Soul Linker (Solo for links or Duo for Kaupe)

Reward

Players who participate in the entirety of the event will receive 16 DKP. All of Beelzebub's drops for this run can be rolled on through the DKP system.

General Strategy

At the core of our strategy, we plan on directly tanking Beelzebub with his Hell Flys on a single Lord Knight tank. The Lord Knight will be sacrificed by a crusader, bypassing the healing restriction of Critical Wounds.

The party itself is broken into two basic groups. The forward group is the team that stands within 9 cells of Beelzebub. This group consists of the killers, one priest, the wizard, and the crusader. The forward priest will make sure the tank has Assumptio, heal the forward group if needed, and keep Lex Aeterna on the boss. The wizard will be tasked with constantly using safety walls on the tank and keeping quagmire down. Ganbantein will be used to remove Magnetic Earth under the MVP and Tank, and it will be invaluable to counter Evil Land. He will also attempt to keep an icewall separation between the party and the boss, and in the event of rogue necromancers attacking, his SG will be the strongest weapon against them. The killers will do what they do best: Kill.

The second team, the support group, stands just outside of sight of Beelzebub and supports the forward group. This team consists of two priests, the scholar, and a biochemist. Between the two groups is the strings bard/minstrel, who should be standing in the correct location to support both the forward and support groups. One priest is tasked with healing the crusader and keeping it alive (as well as healing other party members should they become hurt), and the second priest will keep the party assumptio'd and remove negative status effects that hit party members. The scholar keeps Blinding Mist on the forward group and supplys the killers with SP. The Biochemist will be used initially before pulling to give chemical protection to the Tank, and for the remainder of the fight will support the tank (and party) with Aid Potion.

Refer to the illustration for a basic understanding of player positioning.

Beelzebub AI

Fly Form

• At Full HP
• Hell's Judgement - Expect him to use this every 15 seconds. Likely it is the most dangerous of his attacks in Fly form aside from Vampire's Gift. Pneuma will block these, but remember that if you are hit by hell's judgement placing pneuma right away will only mean pneuma will end before the next hit. Most important here is that the sacrifice sader has pneuma or he will take both the tank's and his own damage.
• Clashing Spiral - We plan on countering this attack on the tank with use of ghostring armor, so this shouldn't be an issue.
• Pulse Strike - This will hurt the tank a bit if safety wall is down, but if people are standing in position only the tank should be struck.
• Area Sleep - He casts this frequently, expect to see it every 6-10 seconds. All players within sight of Beelzebub will be put to sleep. The two killers should use some kind of protection against this (nightmare carded headgear).
• Area Silence - Also appears every 6-10 seconds. Keep green potions on hand.
• Exile - Very rare, on average he'll use it approximately once every 2-3 minutes. We plan on using icewalls separating Beelzebub from the party to prevent him from attacking party members in case this occurs.
• At 70% HP
• Vampire's Gift - The biggest obstacle in fly form. This will occur every 10 seconds, and will likely bypass pneumas. Between assumptio, demon resistance gears, resistant souls, and blinding mist people shouldn't die to the attack. Because of the small number of players exposed to his attacks I do not expect him to recover much from this attack. The killers will be the most vulnerable. If they start dying, they may need to consider switching to icepick + shield and cursed water, sacrificing damage for survivability. The Sac sader may be in danger here too due to taking hits from both the tank and for himself. Keep an eye on the sader and if it dies he needs to get back to sac'ing the Tank ASAP.
• At 60% HP
• Agi Up - Agility Up will completely prevent the killers from damaging Beelzebub. The Scholar will need to come into range and Dispel him. Note that Beelzebub does not attack the nearest enemy like most bosses do, and hence it is imperative that Beelzebub is separated from the party via icewall before being Dispelled. He will re-cast this every 30 seconds, so the scholar will need to be alert, and icewalls need to be maintained until Metamorphosis.
• At 50% HP
• Metamorphosis - If he reaches this point, he will change to his larger form, and be restored to full HP.

True Form

• At Full HP
• Hell's Judgement - With Beelzebub's increased attack power this becomes the #1 danger. Pneuma's need to be maintained to prevent wiping, and the scholar needs to keep blinding mist down.
• Clashing Spiral - Again we should have this skill properly countered with the use of ghostring armor.
• Pulse Strike - Same as before, but will hurt the tank more than it did in fly form. It happens every 5 seconds, healers should keep an eye on the crusader to make sure it is being healed.
• Magnetic Earth - When cast on the Tank, it will extend to the ground 3 cells away from the forward group. There should still be enough room left to continue using icewalls. The Wizard will need to Ganbantein under the Tank and MVP so that he can continue to safety wall and quagmire. Expect a new Magnetic Earth every 30 seconds.
• Slow Casting - The entire forward group will be affected by slow casting. This will slow the killers somewhat, affect the forward group priest, and make re-sacrificing the tank slower. Players in the support group should be unaffected.
• Magic Mirror - Not an issue, as none of our killers are casters.
• Exile - Very rare, but still a valid threat. Icewall needs to be in place in case this occurs.
• At 80% HP
• Area Petrification - One of the major obstacles, occuring every 15 seconds. While our forward priest will be stone immune, all other forward party players will be guarenteed petrified. When this happens, the support group priests can break stone curse on the forward group by using bless. Some organization here would be best, one priest could free the bard and the killers, and the other priest could free the crusader and wizard. The bard/minstrel should be first priority to free, followed by the wizard, sader, and killers.
• At 50% HP
• Evil Land - The moment he hits 50% HP, Beelzebub will place an Evil Land, and then renew it every 15 seconds. This Evil Land will be centered directly on the Tank, and must be removed with Ganbantein immediately. The killers will likely become blinded by just 1-2 hits from evil land so they should be ready to use green potions to counter.
• Area Soul Drain - A disturbingly powerful disabling skill. When cast, Beelzebub will drain 40% of the SP of all players within range. On average it will occur every 15-20 seconds, but it is possible for it to occur as fast as 5 seconds. At this point the scholar will need to be active refilling SP. It would be best if some players in the forward team brought some SP items for this.
• At 3% HP
• Stone Skin - Effectively at the very end, Beelzebub will activate Stone Skin when he has 200k HP left. This will reduce all physical attacks by 80%. We will have to do aproximately 133k damage to him like this to end the fight.
• At 1% HP
• Escape - Beelzebub will attempt to run when he has 66k HP left. He is effectively dead at this point, as he is unable to use any offensive skills or recover HP.

Individual Roles

Forward Group

• Tank - The simplist of the roles, once the tank is in place, he only needs to be active if he is exiled or the sacrifice is broken. As such, the tank will likely play the additional role of Resistant Souls crusader.
• Crusader - The crusader's job is to keep the Tank sacrificed, and to stay alive. The sacrifice should be re-cast periodically to prevent it from breaking (make sure you have a phen on for this). Usage of Guard will probably help. Because the crusader is taking the hits for two people, he should be packing as much HP, armor defense, and ranged resistance as possible. If in the case the healers cannot keep up, the crusader will need to pot.
• Wizard - The wizards jobs are many. His primary goal is to keep Safety Wall up on the Tank, and Quagmire on the ground. The wizard should also keep icewalls up to have a barrier of separation between the MVP and the party in-case something happens. In fly form when the MVP needs to be dispelled, its imperative that these walls are up or the scholar cannot dispell. In his second form, the wizard will need to ganbantein holes out of Magnetic Earth in order to continue using safety wall and quagmire. The wizard will also need to be ready to ganbantein out Beelzebub's evil land. Each second that passes with evil land on the ground, posesses increased difficulty in keeping the party alive, and the killers will be unable to strike the MVP while it is down. Its ok to let the tank go without safety walls go down for a bit to take care of more pressing issues. If a necromancer goes onto the tank, using SG may be required to remove it.
• Priest - The main role of the forward priest will be to support the main tank directly, and make sure he has assumptio. If the Wizard has to stop walling in order to kill a necromancer, the forward group priest should take over. The priest can also heal the forward group and throw lexes as needed. Use a Hell, Horn, or Royal Guard shield and switch to plasterer's after he switches form.
• Killers - Most important part of the killers is having the right counters ready. Make sure you have a nightmare carded headgear, green potions hotkeyed, and a dark blinder would be pretty nice as well. If struck by hell's judgement, you may want to use cursed water instead of waiting for a priest. Using icepick + immaterial sword Soul Destroyers, the MVP should die fairly quickly. If you begin to die due to Vampire's Gift or Hell's Judgement, you may consider switching to Icepick only with cursed water and shield in off-hand. In fly form, when waiting for the scholar to dispell you should stop attacking in order to prevent targeting mishaps.

Support Group

• Priests - The support group priests will need to divide up their work. One priest will need to focus on healing the Crusader and the party, and the second priest should focus on keeping the party buffed and ensure pneuma does not go down. Based on our setup, three pneumas are needed to keep the forward group covered. In order of importance, are priest-wizard-crusader, than both killers, then the bard/minstrel. Making sure everyone has assumptio is perhaps even more important than using pneuma. When an area status strikes the party, the priests will need to act fast to fix the affected players. The priest focusing on healing should free the crusader and minstrel, and the priest focusing on support will free the two killers and priest. Note that if people start dying, healing should always become your first priority (except for pneuma). The biochemist can pick up on the tank healing if needed.
• Scholar - The role of the scholar is to make sure party members have SP. To begin with this will be mostly both the killers, but when he starts to drain SP the scholar will have to be quick as all players in the forward group will need SP. Also important is to keep blinding mist on the party. Two blinding mists should cover the full forward party. In fly form, the Scholar will have to step forward to dispell the MVP. Its very important that you make sure that the party is separated with icewalls from the boss before dispelling.
• Biochemist - Biochemist should give a chemical protection for shield on the tank right before he pulls the MVP. Once the battle starts, the biochemist should focus solely on healing the tank only if he needs it. If the fight appears as though it will become longer than 10 minutes, you may need to make a dash and re-coat the tank.
• Minstrel - Minstel's job may be tricker than usual. Because so much rests on the minstrel being alive and using magic strings, the Minstrel should be fairly well geared with demon or ranged resistnace. At very least, it needs to survive Vampire's Gift, and if it can't, it needs to be ressed quickly. Status effects will kill the songs, so you will need to watch these and re-cast as needed. In his true form, Beelzebub will begin to drain SP, so if you notice you have < 40% SP make sure you call it right away so you can continue to provide strings after the next drain.

Failure

If we fail to kill Beelzebub within a one hour window of first fighting Beelzebub, upon agreement of participants we may switch back to trapping the MVP.