Forsaken World Tanking Strategy for Arena of Souls (AoS)
This guide will focus on the tanking strategy for clearing the arena of souls instance. It will also give general tips and know how on how to beat the instance. This guide also assumes the tank is a protector, which is also highly recommended. It is also recommended that you have a warrior along to off tank.
The Arena of Souls is a level 40 gear instance. It is different then the other dungeons currently available because instead of navigating an area and killing monsters and bosses along the way, you stay stationary while the monsters come to you. The arena is just that, it's an arena, sort of like the Colosseum. There are nine rounds of monsters and bosses that will spawn, each round harder then the last.
When you first enter AoS, you will see this.
What you want to do first is talk to Dillipoli, he will give you options on how many rounds you think you will finish. If you know you can finish the instance, or think you can, choose the last option. Whatever option you choose, you will then receive a quest that is completed when you finish the round you chose. The quest gives good xp and soul gold, so make sure you take one that you know you can complete.
Also up here is Rogge, who can fully restore your HP/MP once every 5 minutes. He is useful for when you die, you can get him to heal you and get right back into the fight.
This is your battlefield.
The instance will begin when everyone in your squad jumps down and is in the arena. The two doors on the south side will then be blocked off, and the first wave will spawn. It is important to remember to do all your buffing before you jump down, or you won't have a chance to. The way you want to set it up is you as the tank should be closest to the doors with the rest of your squad behind you. Make sure your team understands this before starting. When the mobs spawn, they will come out of the doors in front of you. Since you will be closest, they will auto aggro you first. Don't move from where you are though, let the mobs run to you, and once they are in range, use earth rift to aggro them, and then the rest of your team can attack. Make sure your team knows not to attack until you do, as it makes things harder then they should be. Also, between rounds, it is important you recover your HP/MP and re buff as fast as possible, as the next round will be spawning soon, and won't wait for you.
Round 1 - Duelists
Number of Monsters - 4. 2 from the left door, and 2 from the right door.
Strategy: The first round is simple, treat them like regular mobs, and simply focus fire on each one of them until they fall. The duelists are ranged mobs.
Round 2 - Hobgoblin Gladiators
Number of Monsters - 4. 2 from the left door, and 2 from the right door.
Strategy: These are the same as the first round, except they are slightly stronger and melee. Aggro them all close to you, and let your group use their AoEs to finish them faster.
Round 3 - Elite Soldiers
Number of Monsters - 4. 2 from the left door, and 2 from the right door.
Strategy: Once again these are just upgraded versions of the last round, bring them close and aoe.
Round 4 - Saron the Centaur Warrior and Centaur Duelists
Number of Monsters - 4. 2 Centaur Duelists from the left door, Saron and a Duelist from the right door.
Strategy 1: Once you AoE and aggro them all, you attack Saron, while the rest of your group focus fires each of the Duelists. Make sure to keep your guardian mode stacked at 3 always, and that you never lose it. This goes for all rounds. Once the Duelists are all dead, focus fire on Saron. You should hold aggro on all of the mobs the rest of your group is not attacking. AoE when you can and taunt if needed.
Strategy 2: Once you aggro them, ignore the duelists and have your squad focus fire on Saron. You need to keep aggro on all mobs, use hard smash/taunt/mass taunt if needed. Sometimes the Duelists will auto change target, even if you still have aggro on them. They will walk away towards someone else, but they will come back. Keep your guardian mode stacked at 3, and once Saron is dead, focus fire on each of the remaining duelists until they fall.
Round 5 - Hungry Yale and Whiny Gray
Number of Monsters - 2. Hungry Yale from the left door, Whiny Gray from the right door.
Strategy: Before the monsters spawn, confirm which one you will kill first with your group, it doesn't matter which one you pick, as long as you all attack the same one. Once you aggro them with AoE, focus fire on the one you picked. Keep your guardian state stacked at 3, and make sure to hold aggro on both of them. You will need to throw a hard smash or a taunt once in a while at the one your not attacking so it won't aggro on your healer. Once the first one goes down, just focus fire the other until there both down.
Round 6 - Barbaric Fighters
Number of Monsters - 2. 1 Fighter from the left door, 1 Fighter from the right door.
Strategy 1: This is where it starts to get hard. this is where I start using my recovery aura, so if you haven't been, start using it now. How you handle these bosses will depend on your stats. If you have high enough HP/Def, you will tank both of them at once. Once again, make sure you confirm with your group which one you will attack first, and then AoE aggro them, and build your 3 stacks of guardian state. Focus fire on 1 of them and make sure you hold aggro on the other. Once one of them reaches half health, both of them will transform into werewolves. This is where it gets difficult, it is basically a berserk state where they do high damage and have a high chance to crit. The problem you will run into is when they both crit, they will do massive damage and almost kill you. You need to be ready for this, and have rocky protection on hand. Once your hp gets low, use it. During rocky protection, you should be able to get to full health, and be able to finish one of them off. Once you kill one, focus fire on the other until it goes down. Once you kill one, the other one will occasionally stun you, and switch targets for one attack, and then come back to you, there is nothing you can do about it, but make sure to hold aggro otherwise.
Strategy 2: If you don't have the HP/Def needed to handle the double crit (I would recommended at least 12k HP), you will need to tank 1 of them, while a warrior tanks the other. Pick which ones you will attack first, and have your group focus fire on the one the warrior is attacking, while you tank the other. Keep your 3 stacks of guardian state and be ready with rocky protection. Once the first one falls, just focus fire the other until it falls.
Round 7 - Scarlet Hammer
Number of Monsters - 1. Scarlet comes out of the left door.
Strategy: This boss is pretty simple, the only danger it posses is it's frontal AoE. So, make sure you attack it first, aggro it, and then turn it around by running towards the door it came out of until Scarlet is facing the door. Then just tank it like normal. Keep aggro and keep your 3 stacks of guardian state, and make sure it stays facing the door. Also, make sure the rest of your party knows to stay behind it. It should go down pretty easily.
Round 8 - Lycil Moonlight
Number of Monsters - 1. Lycil will come out of the right door.
Strategy: This boss can seem difficult, but as long as you do it right, it is quite simple. Before you fight him, make sure to tell your team to not AoE, as it can cause problems. Start off by attacking the boss and building aggro as normal, build your 3 stacks of guardian state, and keep them up. The only thing you have to worry about is that Lycil will spawn mobs from time to time. Make sure your group knows to ignore the mobs and only focus fire on Lycil. What you need to do is make sure to save your earth rift, and watch carefully. As soon as the extra mobs spawn, AoE to make them aggro you. As long as you made sure to tell your group not to AoE, it should be enough to keep aggro on the mobs. If you have a bard in your party, they can also AoE sleep, which will help out a lot. As long as you AoE at the right times, and keep aggro on the mobs, Lycil will go down quick enough.
Round 9 - Bobouruk, Alatas, and Moroda
Number of Monsters - 3. Moroda will come out of the left door, Bobouruk and Alatas will come out of the right door.
Strategy 1: These three are easily the hardest and most annoying bosses in the instance. Bobo is a goblin mage, who can transform people, making them unable to attack or move for 10 sec, Alatas is a elf archer who can heal, and Moroda is a mele dwarf who can chain stun. The main idea for these three is to split them up. This will once again require the need of an off tank, preferably a warrior. The first strategy to split them up is to have the off tank start out by aggroing Moroda, and keeping him aggroed and away from the rest of the group. The off tank will be stunned more then they aren't. While they deal with Moroda, it is up to you to aggro the other two, who will both come out of the right door. Once you do this, your group needs to focus fire on Bobouruk. You need to make sure to keep your 3 stacks of guardian state, and don't be stingy with your pots. Also, make sure your ready to use rocky protection if needed. Use it as soon as you think you need it, because if you die, it is very likely your group will wipe as well. Your job is to make sure you keep aggro on both Bobo and Alatas, which can be difficult if you get transformed. Once your group manages to kill Bobo, you then need to switch targets. As soon as you see Bobo go down, you need to take aggro from the off tank over Moroda. Your group then needs to focus fire on Moroda while you hold aggro on the two remaining bosses. Make sure to use your AoE/taunt/mass taunt as much as needed to keep aggro, while keeping your guardian state at 3 stacks. Eventually, Moroda will fall as well, then simply focus fire Alatas until she dies as well.
Strategy 2: In this case, you will split the three by you tanking Moroda and Alatas, while the off tank and your group tank/kill Bobo. Right off the bat, you need to be the closest to the left door. As soon as the bosses spawn, target Alatas and taunt her, run a little towards the back of the arena, use earth rift to keep aggro on Moroda and Alatas, and then move to the north end of the arena. You want to be as far away from the rest of your group as possible, but still close enough so that the priest can still heal both you and the off tank without having to move. Pick your spot well, because as soon as you stop moving, you will be stunned, and won't be able to move. You will get about 1-2 attacks between being stunned for 3-5 sec, so make them count. What you need to do is make sure you hold aggro over both Moroda and Alatas while the rest of your group kills Bobo. A good way to do this is make sure you alternate targets. I will use counter strike on Moroda, get stunned, and switch targets to Alatas. The next chance I get to attack I will use counter strike on Alatas, get stunned, and switch back to Moroda. If you do this along with using earth rift as much as possible, you should be fine. Use taunt if needed, but do not mass taunt no matter what. If you pull all 3 bosses things won't end well. Once your group kills Bobo, then like before, switch targets to Moroda. At this point, it is simple to do so, because you already have aggro over him and Alatas, and you will no longer be chained stunned. Keep aggro while you kill Moroda, and then switch to Alatas after.
After you have finished all rounds, a treasure chest will appear along with a trackstone. Attack the chest to receive your final drops, and then you can teleport out of the instance with the trackstone.
Random Bosses
There are two rounds that will happen randomly during your arena run. They can happen at any time, and might not even happen at all, but tend to happen after round 5 up to before round 9.
Crazy Gamblers
Number of Monsters - 8. 4 will come from the left door, 4 from the right door.
Strategy: The gamblers are easy to kill, just AoE and focus fire until they all fall.
Storm Titanosaurus (Dragon)
Number of Monsters - 1. The dragon will fall from the sky. There is a bug where you won't see him unless you look up. So if people in your party start randomly taking damage between a round, look up.
Strategy: The dragon will root you. You need to tell your group to stand behind the dragon, just as with Scarlet. As soon as you see him, taunt and attack to pull aggro, and if you can turn him around from your group if you haven't been rooted yet. He is mostly simple. Keep your guardian state at 3 stacks, and keep aggro. The one different thing about this boss is that once in a while he will drop his target, and pick up a new one. I think he resets his aggro, but I'm not sure. Either way, no matter what you do, he will stop attacking you and attack someone else. This is simple to get around, just save your taunt, and as soon as you see him start to attack someone that is not you, taunt him, and he will return to you. If your fast enough, he won't even get an attack in on the other person. Other wise just focus fire until he goes down. The dragon is the only boss in the instance with special loot, as he has the chance to drop Lvl 2 soul crystals.
This is all that I have. Please give constructive criticism, and state and changes or different strategies there are. Remember, this is all from personal experience, and all the strategies I listed have been used successfully for me in the past. I still need some photos/get better ones, so if you have any you want to let me use, it will be appreciated.
by ihazcookies
