The Hidden Forest

So I just tried sleeper again tonight and (assuming he doesnt path under the world) he's an extremely tough fight. I'm wondering if there is some strategy im missing (probably).

basically, I got him to around 45% but then ran outta mana. Second pull was just a nightmare. But the guy has a ton of HP. I'm not sure if he's just waaaay harder than the others, but I steamrolled all 4 warders pretty handily on my first trip ever to ST last night.

FWIW, im playing 12 characters, good balance and Im pretty much decked out in good gear for my level minus epic 2.0s (none).

The only strategy at all ive found useful is hiding the healers under the bridge.

healers under the bridge, you fight him just outside his bubble but make sure he doesn't appear under bridge.
Have crap buffs on MT and if you can, use cleric bot and ask him to crap buff you with resist. He does that insta. That's all.

Easiest way is to have a cleric bot in your group and make a hotkey with
#bot resist magic
#bot resist disease
#bot resist poison
#bot resist cold
#bot resist fire

and click that hotkey everytime you are beeing dispelled.

Thats the strat we used back when sleeper was the hardest boss around :p

iirc Sleeper also cast a slow witch you can cure with a cleric bot also

As above really. The important part is to keep up junk buffs on the main tank, and a cleric bot is great for that. Use the bot to cast resists on you before you start buffing, then hotkey it so 1 press rebuffs them all (#bot resist fire etc etc.) Having some instant clicky's is also a great idea, anything will do as long as you can click it quickly.

Healers under the bridge with lev on so they float and not in the acid/water. Nothing else to it. AE dispels which can be rough for the level but keeping your buffs up really help. And if some of your toons need a little respite from the AE, drop them behind the ramp with lev on.

I used to keep my casters & healers behind the ramp. Just pop out the wizard to nuke then hide again. The Sleeper dosent have much DPS himself, just lot of hp's and a really annoying dispell.

Farcical

I hide all my guys on the other side of a pillar and pull him next to the pillar. That allows them to avoid the AE, while still being in range of heals. I also stick everyone with lev and use the cleric bot. Getting rid of the AE helps a ton, however you wish to do it.

Thanks for all the replies.

I was doing the cleric buff thing as well... I guess I just need to make some refinements. Maybe hide the casters or, gasp, manually move casters in and out of ae.

I found this to be a healer mana intensive fight, so I made sure to get these two for my healers:

Orb of Spirits (Guk quest)
webtools/items.php?id=2422

Silver Chains (Jorleag ToV)
webtools/items.php?id=6421

cbarrett wrote:I found this to be a healer mana intensive fight, so I made sure to get these two for my healers:

Orb of Spirits (Guk quest)
webtools/items.php?id=2422

Silver Chains (Jorleag ToV)
webtools/items.php?id=6421

very good.... i actually have the orb and chains, [edited by GM to avoid 3rd party stuff]

i suppose that can definitely be a boon!

now that i think of it i also have that necklace from somewhere that casts mana flare. who cares if a box goes blind anyways? lol

fairly sure back in the day I used donor rangers that managed to just stay out of range, and 2 clerics hidden behind the ramp. With an assortment of toons popping in/out to do some dps. Wasn't very efficient but if I concentrated heals on just my tank, the cleric bots generally took care of the buff slots, and I generally managed to kill him with just a few toons dead. Long fight though.

I did have my chars with 2.0 though. Cleric one helps because of the group heal/cure clicky. If you've not done them yet I recommend doing your 2.0 they are great clickys.

Keeping up discs is hard at that lvl I remember, and generally I would end up running out of clickys and relying on healing power to stay alive until I had something to click. Make sure your tanks have the kael defensive clickys, and even check out Shadow Haven for the defensive clicky.

I envy your position in trying to kill the sleeper. I remember it with fondness.

Sounds like you know the strategy

Just need to focus on either improving DPS or improving healing efficiency/mana recovery on healers. Classic ole EverQuest. No mysterious orbs to click when a dragon emotes he's giving a sideways glance. No ducking at set % and fanning raid in/out of melee range like a finely conducted pool dance.

T3 was the last zone that really fully relied on the tactic of "overload boss' HP and give it a few AEs to make healers work" tactic of bottlenecking people from progression. Simple gear/numbers check that I envy today (I swear, if I find one more mob that does AE gflux or mem wipes I'm going to SCREAM! )

(watches as Vaion notes to add gflux, mem wipe, feign death, random evac, and random unresistable DT into one single zone-wide AE)