This isn’t a guide to beating Lost Vale, let me just get that cleared up right now. I’ve often thought about doing a guide like that since I run the damn thing every 4-5 days, but I just haven’t gotten my ass in gear over it. Some people forgo Lost Vale entirely for the much more sandy Tomb of the Vulture Lord. To each their own I suppose. Sure, Tyrant is typically better than Darkpromise, and the weapons there are usually better than the purple drops in LV, oh and the accessory pieces are actually a collectible set that doesn’t blow turds… Feh, you know what, I’m really just not a fan of the desert or something.

My reasons for running LV are mostly tied to it being the closest thing in WAR to a more traditional raid environment. It’s big, sprawling, has lots of bosses on a mostly linear path, drops lots of gear left and right, and is challenging most of the time. Maybe not as challenging as it could be, but I’m dumb enough to get us wiped on trash on a regular basis, so that’s always a factor. PvE in WAR is like therapy from the high tension battles constantly going on in RvR and scenarios. You can let your mind relax as you anticipate the mobs scripted attack sequences. There’s really no worries if that Engi is going to land mine your healers, if the KotBS is staggering your DPS, or if that WH is popping off one squishy after another. Mobs show you their crotch, and are kind enough to leave your squishy friends alone if you’re not retarded about it.

Moving right along, we have the LV Super Run. Basically what you need to do is take every toon that you have and bring them to the portal of LV before a run. If they’ve finished the right side before they can take loot from any wing. If they’ve finished the left side, they can grab loot from either the right or left side but not the middle (unless they glitch through). If they haven’t finished the left side, then grabbing loot from the right will be tricky due to untargetable mobs that will attack them, but glitching through the middle will work the same. The Untargetable mobs however will be distracted by Guard, and with standard immunity, the fleeing loot-collector will have enough time to mount up and get their ass in gear. A healer will be needed to rez the dead tank after the mobs wander away. The other caveat is that they need to be rank 40 to get through the portal. Currently when I run LV, I have my Shaman and Squig Herder sitting outside waiting for drops in their favor.

As a personal preference when getting all of this sorted out I like to make a Warband instead of a single party. All the offliners are alts of the group that are waiting for drops, assign priority to your alts per group. Ergo, if I have a Squig Herder in P2, and another member has a Squig Herder in P3, the one in P2 would have first dibs on drops. Each person is allowed one alt per party in the warband. So, when we kill a boss there’s a cascading effect on loot distribution. Need on Use is enabled, and everyone PASSES on the loot if they cannot use it. Once everyone passes, you do a checkdown of each party to see who needs what. 

If someone in P2 needs a piece, they log off their main and while offline the party leader switches their alt and main. When they get logged in, they can run inside LV and sprint straight to the boss to collect their loots. Now, chances are fairly good that you’ll have more than one person claiming loot on an alt. To do this, have both alts log in and join the party. Before they attempt to loot the body, turn Master Looter on for one of them, this way one person still loots the body, but can assign gear to other alts in the party. When in doubt, the least geared alt gets gear first, imo.

Now, this can make running the instance take quite a long time, but you really maximize your loot distribution in the process. It’s one of the very few ways that you can work around the system of random loot drops across 12 classes for one piece at a time. Bring three alts to the party and your chances to get useable loot from every boss kill skyrocket dramatically. I’ve done 4 Super Runs now and every time there’s been upgrade pieces for at least one of my alts. It makes catching up in gear on some of those lowbie toons significantly less painful.

Hope this little guide gives everyone a heads up on one of the more ludicrous ways to keep your alts geared and ready for battle. Also, if you’re from Mythic and you’re thinking about nerfing this you’d better be putting in a boss-kill-token system so we can buy gear pieces first. This shit ain’t easy to come by.