So you've decided to travel into the terrible depths of that distant dungeon known as Caer Sidi. Is it the challenge? The treasures? The need to explore? The possibility of death? Hark, brave Albion, you must prepare your mind as well as your weapons.
| [ Getting Started ] | [ Onward to Caer Sidi
][ Up the Caer Sidi Ramp ][ An
Overview of Caer Sidi ] [ Caer Sidi Map ][ Caer Sidi Loot Information ] |
| [ Upon Entering Caer Sidi ] | [ Skeletal Sacristan ][
Spectral Provisioner ][ Lich Lord Ilron
][ Warlord Dorinakka ] [ Bane of Hope ][ Silencer ][ Lord Sanguis ][ Crypt Lord ][ Soul Reckoner ][ Host ] |
| [ Almost Done ] | [ Fames ][ Bellum ][ Morbus ][ Funus ][ Apocalypse ] |
Caer Sidi is located in the northwest corner of Caldey. The nearest bind point is in Fort Gwyntell of Dales of Devwy. Gwyntell would be an excellent point of gathering as it offers an area of safety for your troops to duel and tools and merchants for your crafters while you elicit aid for your raid. Binding in Gwyntell would be a good idea in case your raid wipes early and wishes to return in a reasonable length of time. It is also secluded enough to do the lottoing of loot afterwards.
A sizable raid should consist of at least 45 members of level 45+ people. More people would mean faster killing but more people to herd and lag. Fewer people would mean added hours to your raid as you try to kill the mobs. Your troops are looking at an at least 4 hour raid, not including lotto.
The raid leader (RL) needs the strength and charisma to handle an army. The position can be thankless and you will have to deal with whiners, wannabe leaders, constant afkers, and attention wanters. Delegate duties to people you trust. Do not be afraid to guide your army with an iron fist, one person constantly and intentionally making mistakes can wipe a raid. Be just and fair but do not take disrespect. Remember that this is a game, not a job.
The main assist (MA) should be a paladin to
quickly taunt the mobs off your puller. Grouped with the MA should be two
clerics (preferably with Bunker of Faith) a theurgist, a power source (though
you can get away with delegating a sorcerer to bless you with a power aid
throughout the raid), and someone to guard your paladin. A group we have been
favoring lately is a Paladin (MA), 3 Clerics (where one is buffing and healing
the puller), a Mercenary, a Theurgist (with PBT), a Paladin/Armsman with
guard, and a Minstrel/Sorc/Necro for power. Make sure the clerics are
protected, especially if they are healing the puller before the mob gets to
your troops. Please reiterate that your troops are not to pass your MA at all
times. This is for their safety; mindlessly running around a newly spawned
Caer Sidi is suicide. It helps if the MA is wearing a notable color. All of
your troops should make a macro to assist your MA (/macro assist /assist
The puller should preferably be a scout for
the long ranged attacks, studded armor, evades, and shield use. The puller
must understand that he can be subjected to many deaths for the duration of
the raid. He will also be ungrouped to reduce the number of mobs he pulls.
Have your puller bring the low accuracy arrows, for if he hits the mobs, he
will trigger the bring a friend code the next pull. He is to move ahead of the
troops, pulling as quickly but safely as he can. A cleric and a necromancer
should be assigned to make sure he is buffed. All clerics should help in
healing the puller or providing preferably full resurrections as needed
(/macro puller /target
The lootmaster (LM) should be someone your
troops trust. By the time your raid hits Apocalypse the LM will be holding 30+
pieces of loot and 12+ stones. On our raids, the LM hands the RL the respec
stones when we get to the horseman so they have room for the rest of the loot.
Announce your loot rules often while gathering at Gwyntell. Make sure your
troops understand these rules to avoid strife during the lotto. Rule macros
will help their spamming (/macro rules /c
If groups know the way to Caer Sidi and can safely get there, by all means, send them ahead. This will reduce the lag for the rest of your troops.
Head northwest until your hit a river. Follow the riverbank south/west until you hit the bridge. Cross the bridge and follow the river west. Continue west when the river bends south. Pause at the zone line to Caldey for the laggers to catch up. Head northwest until you pass Little Haven (aka the Barbarian Town). Try not to run through the town as some of your members might have bad faction with the barbarians. Head west and you should be able to see the Caer Sidi bridge on the coast. Wait here for the rest of troops to catch up to you if necessary.
The mobs up to the Caer Sidi entrance range from red to purple for a level 50. They can cast slow and have damage shields. Additionally, random lightning balls will hit your troops for menial damage.
Mobs tend to fall through the bridge. You will not be able to target them but they definitely can hit you. Just take a few steps back and the mob will appear on the bridge again.
Do NOT stick to the mobs on the ramp. They will oftentimes run over the side, dragging your body into the water.
Keep your troops together. The spawn rate is fast and moving quickly up the spiral is key. Have your troops drag any mobs on them up to the safety of the herd. Dallying behind will require a rescue from a group, possibly endangering and splitting your forces.
Once you have reached the flat part of the top of Caer Sidi mountain, wait for your troops to catch up. Do not zone in until they are all with you. Admire the special effects upon the pillars, take pictures :) When you are all ready, zone in all at once.
All of the mobs in Caer Sidi are purple to a level 50. (Everything is 75+)
Progressing through Caer Sidi is very linear. There are locked doors where you have to kill the right Key mob first before you can unlock the door. There is not an actual key that drops per se. Caer Sidi is not as friendly to small raids as the other realms' counterparts.
Multiple pieces of loot drop off the 10 Keys (2 items and occasionally a stone), the Horsemen (2 items and 1 to 3 stones), and Apocalypse. Loot will occasionally drop off the lesser mobs in the dungeon.
Try to limit your afks in number and length. The more people go afk, the longer your raid will take, endangering your force.
Caer Sidi is not the best place to get experience for the amount of time you spend in the dungeon.
It is possible for minstrels to charm the few animal type mobs (unhallowed companions) of Caer Sidi. However, once a mob is charmed, any loot that it might have had will not drop. It is possible that mob you charm might have had the object your really wanted from Caer Sidi, not to mention the others who would have wanted that piece of loot.
Stay behind the MA at all times. The only people who can be in front of the MA are the puller, the RL, and perhaps a disbanded cleric to resurrect the puller. For the safety of your fellow Albions, please stay behind the MA.
Do not hit a mob until the MA hits it. This includes melee, ranged attacks, and pets. There are some creatures with ranged attacks that will not come any closer as long as their target is in range. Do not rush ahead to kill a mob as you might accidentally lag pull a few of his friends.
Keep the puller buffed and healed. A constantly dying puller only slows down the raid.
If you have to go afk, please turn off your auto loot (/auto s) just in case a piece of loot falls in your hands while you are gone.
Everyone needs to try to loot quickly before it degrades. Each group should have a designated looter.
Do not jump along the walls. Too easily will you get stuck or fall through.
Certain mobs in the dungeon do different types of elemental damage. Dark lights, lich's eyes, etheric residues, Soul Reckoner, and Funus all do spirit melee damage. Fames does body melee damage.
Link dead people are fine; the whole dungeon is set to respawn 8-10 hours after the first Key lord dies. So, what you have cleared stays cleared till the whole dungeon resets. If someone takes a linkdead death, that person might be able to rejoin the raid by appealing. This is not guaranteed and depends on the CSR, remember to thank him profusely.
As you enter, a wandering manifestation could agro upon your party so be wary as you zone in. Buff up (including the puller), make your macros if you have not, test your assist, repeat the loot rules, and make sure people know what the MA looks like.
Move your force to the top of the spiral as the puller goes down the stairs to pull the mobs in the bottom room. When the bottom room is clear, move down and hold at the bottom of the stairs, facing south. Puller should empty out the south room.
Move to the north corridor and hold at the top of the stairs as the puller clears to the north. Then move north and hold in the T-room. Clear the west side of the track and then work your way around the track going east.
Skeletal Sacristan's annoying habit is to run around. Upon attacking, it will look at the person it agro and scream. It is important to clear the north wing because it will call for help and will bring the entire north wing upon you. Make sure to stay together as you chase him around. If members do get left behind, just run around the loop until you find the south corridor back to the spiral stair case room.
Move back to the spiral staircase room. The raid needs to stay along the western wall of the spiral staircase, stay away from the western door. A slew of mobs are just on the other side of that door and it is very easy to lag through and pull more than is intended. When the puller has pulled everything in the west wing, attack the key.
Spectral Provisioner likes to cackle and run away with permanent speed of sound. He also drops sacks of decaying junk in your pack which will encumber you in place. Your troops need to destroy these sacks instead of dropping them on the ground to make it easier to loot afterwards. Just stick to the key until he is dead.
Move to face the eastern corridor of the spiral staircase room and clear the agro in the big room.
Lich Lord Ilron creates copies of himself. To get rid of all the copies, you must take down the real Lord who will remain opaque. Killing the copies does not help your cause and it is important your army assists your MA. The key also AE mezzes so get your resists up (spirit mez, heat, cold, body DD's), keep your antimezzers towards the back and get purge ready.
Head back to the staircase and wait as the puller clears the room below. Then move the entire force down and head east. Hold in the T-room as your puller empties the south room. Beware the wandering phantasm and try to kill it before the Warlord fight
Warlord Dorinakka hits hard. Unless you have agro, stand behind him to avoid his many parries. Sticking to him also sends him into the walls, so just use /face. If he does start to head into the walls, step back. Loot dropped in the walls is loot lost.
Kill Bane before the Silencer because Silencer will not move from its spot and because Silencer could teleport your troops into agro-infested areas.
Move north, pulling all of the damage-over-time mobs in the Silencer room and then head east. Work your way through the tunnels. There is an archlich at the end of the right path and he could mez you but he really is not a threat to your force. Then go down the left corridor, trying to pull everything in the pool waiting below.
When ready, jump into the water (you do not lose hit points if you land in water) and work your way west. The force should stay at the first fork in the road, making sure not to head south, while the puller clears the right fork's tunnels until only Bane is left.
Bane can teleport to one of three places when he is at 20% health. Melee him down and then stun with spells and air pets. If he does happen to teleport, send a group back to the pool and another to the other tunnel of the second fork. If you do not keep him in melee, he will regenerate his health.
Make sure you kill Bane before Silencer. Head back to the pool and climb up. Make sure your troops remember this path from the bottom of the pool (up the ladder and all rights).
Silencer changes color occasionally. If you happen to hit him with the melee/spell type that he is immune to, he will teleport you to the bottom of the pool. So your troops need to pay attention to what is broadcasted and/or Silencer's color. If someone is getting too hurt by Silencer's attacks, step back on the tiles. Silencer cannot move from the area at the end of his den.
Head back to the pool (lefts from the Silencer room). At the first Y, face south. Pull one of the guarding deadeyes and wait for it to come to your army. Its attacks are ranged so if its target is in range he will just keep shooting so make sure that person runs back a few steps to lure him closer to the army. Do not rush up to the deadeye or else you might agro the mobs behind the gate.
When you have killed both deadeyes, the puller needs to pull the 4 crusader antitheses in the next two rooms. Crusaders have the nasty habit of turning invisible and untargettable if left alone for too long. You need to stun any antithesis adds to keep them from going invisible. If one does turn invisible, do not panic. There are several ways to get your target back. One is if he actually hits you when you are not targeting anything. Then people can guard and intercept you to get the crusader target. Healers can try to steal agro from the group being hit by overhealing. In turn their tanks can guard/intercept the healer. Earth wizards can also cast ground target area of effect. The other method of targeting the antithesis is to log out and back in, quickly targeting the crusader when he logs in.
When you are done with the antitheses, clear the barrel room then pull the fake Lord Sanguis. He appears as a regular blood mage and will not drop the required loot (he may randomly drop a piece like any other regular mob in this dungeon). When the copy dies, the real one shows up in one in the back of the room. Kill any other mob before killing him.
Lord Sanguis is 99% resistant to slash damage and 100% resistant to several magic types. He is highly vulnerable to crush however.
Head back to the pool (the right fork after leaving the barrel room) and up the ladder. Once at the top, take the first right fork, then left, then right. You should be back in the main spiral staircase room. Time to go south.
The top of the stairs is where your army will be camped for quite some time as your puller tries to clear everything in this wing. It is imperative that your army assists when the MA has something targeted. Your MA will need to pay attention to the puller. If the puller accidentally pulls the Crypt Lord, you will have to let the puller die, especially if you have not cleared the entire wing. Crypt Lord will call for help from everything in this wing so it is best to clear everything before engaging him. Best to let the one puller die than wiping the entire force. If the puller does die, send in an ungrouped cleric to resurrect him when safe.
Once your puller has cleared the four way room and the stuff to that room's north, west and south (besides the key), you can move the army into the four way room and north to finish the last two rooms of the wing. When entirely clear, zerg the Crypt Lord.
Now head back to the main stairwell room. Time to go west. When you first enter the wing, there will be a couple of antitheses in the S-curve. One trick you can do is here have your puller agro the Reckoner after dealing with the antitheses. This will pull all the mobs in the area on top of the Soul Reckoner. Then have him relog and continue pulling (remember the buffs). If you do this, move to the west side of the 4 way room. If not, read on. The goal is to move the army safely into the four way room so your puller can pull the entire west room and then proceed north around the area back into the Reckoner room clearing as you go.
Soul Reckoner is an easy key to take down. Hopefully by now your troops will be automatically assisting your MA. Take down the souls first and then the Soul Reckoner. The Soul Reckoner does spirit melee damage and also lifetaps.
Head north from the four way room and then hold in the west path. Two antitheses block you here. Then continue west and hold, facing north. Puller will need to pull two deadeyes from the northern room (remember to let the deadeye get to the army before engaging). Two more antitheses are to the east of the room. Stay in this corner hall as your puller pulls the stuff on the other side of the door near the door. When the door is safe, move the army to just beyond the door but stay very close to the door to avoid lag pulling. Here is where pulling gets tough. The puller needs to pull all 4 deadeyes from upstairs, without dying to the Host. It might be helpful to have a cleric following the puller around to heal as he runs down the stairs. Just make sure that both run back to the army after a mob is pulled, especially if it is a deadeye. After the 4 deadeyes are dead, and the Host is away from the stairs, have the army move up and have them stay by the north wall.
The Host is easily the most difficult of the keys. Similar to the Soul Reckoner, there are 6-8 versions of the Host. Your MA needs to choose one. This is where assist is very important. Each Host will dish out lots of melee damage so its important to focus your efforts on one Host. Once one falls, the rest will fall. Host will easily wipe an unprepared raid. You can also try to kite the Host if your puller can keep the rest of the Hosts entertained while the horde piles on the one Host chosen by the MA.
Once you are done with this floor, the puller with his cleric needs pull from the next room up while your army waits in a corner. There will be an archlich among the upstairs mobs along with 2-3 etheric residues (AE dotters). Try to kill the residues first before the mezzer. Even if the archlich mezzes your army, the DoT's of the blob will nullify the mez. When the puller says the room is empty, move the army up.
The east hallway has three antitheses that will need to be cleared. Puller and cleric then need to try to clear the mobs in the next stairwell room, especially near the door. Then the army needs to move into the room, swarming the deadeye in the southwest corner if necessary. Then clear this room and the room to east (map for the prima guide shows it to the west which is incorrect).
Move up the stairs and take care of the 4 antitheses waiting at the top. You probably do not want to engage all 4 at once and having some of them turn invisible, so try to stop the raid two-thirds up the staircase and pull them one or two at a time.
All that remains are the Horsemen, Apocalypse, and their adds. Buff up, group up the puller, and give your army their instructions.
The general rule of dealing with all the Horsemen is to take care of any adds that appear, then the gryphon (fate's bearer), then the Horseman.
Your army has one minute in between each Horsemen to buff up again and get loot to the LM.
There maybe times that a few of your troops will be teleported to the center of the room. Just try to run back to the corner.
When your army is ready, move to the southeast corner of Apocalypse's room and stay BEHIND the pillar. Raid leader needs to run to the center of the room and say, "I challenge fate" to start the sequence.
The easiest of the Horsemen. Kill his bearer and then Fames himself. Casters should save their power for the next Horsemen though. He melees for body damage, so do not forget your resists.
Bellum and his war incarnates are 99% resistant to melee damage, so casters are very effective here. Puller will need to pull one of the floating weapons that appear after your minute of preparation is over. This will bring 3-4 other floating weapons but if you take down the one the puller hits (your MA should be assisting the puller, the other adds will be immune to damage), the others will fall. Repeat for the other set of weapons and then the gryphon. Then Bellum. Everyone needs to melee Bellum to bring up his to-hit bonus. Have your theurgists dump all their level 7 pets they can on Bellum. Then the casters can unleash all their power, making Bellum fall quickly.
If you are not doing the corner approach, use Bunker of Faith when the weapons appear.
Horseman - Morbus (Pestilence)
Just like with Bellum, puller will pull a set of adds when they appear. Do not try to cure the disease they cast on you. It happens so frequently that it is not worth the power. The swarms and Morbus are 100% resistant to spirit damage but cold damage is highly effective. Morbus has 3-4 sets of adds that need to be killed before the bearer and then Morbus himself. Hardest part of Morbus is targeting the big roach.
Here is when it is most important that your troops listen. Pull the bearer. Then the Horseman. Only clerics (melee or smite) and bows (long, short, and cross) can damage Funus. Use level 1 theurgist pets to up the to-hit bonus, they are too small to actually hit so there is no fear of healing him. Any other attacks will completely heal Funus. Funus is not hard to kill, but the length of the fight depends on how well people are listening.
Same tactics (except you need at least 100 people). Get your heat resists up and kill the Harbingers of Fate (99% resistant to melee). They appear in pairs after a few deaths. Try to keep your casters alive. Not much you can do about the Raining Fire. Then have the melees get on Apocalypse. When your casters power is reasonable full, unleash the pets and the spells. Another strategy is to unload all the pets you can before the Harbingers spawn, and hopefully kill him very fast. My server has killed him once, before the to-hit changes.
