Hello everyone and welcome to my Von Leon guide! I have decided to make this guide in order to give insight on every possible detail involved in leading a run. The overarching goal for this guide is to give an in-depth view into organizing Von Leon runs and successfully clearing Von Leon. Much information is hidden among groups that run successfully, so this guide shines a light on the strategies. It's important for me to bust myths such as DPS barriers and help new groups to form. For that reason, this guide is mainly aimed at newly forming groups and groups who want to improve their runs. This guide will also be for individuals to learn how a group may be run, and also how they can best contribute on the individual level to ensure a run's success. The tactics contained in this guide mainly come from the Finland group, and while there is no one exact way to do things, we find these to work best. As your group improves, you may find yourselves employing different strategies or branching out from this guide, which is one of the goals. I will split this guide to 2 sections - organizers and players. As a whole this may seem like a lot of information, but as you run the boss you will realize much of it is intuitive, and with good leadership things can be picked up quickly. This guide will not list all the Von Leon mechanics and HP values. Before you read this guide it is a must to know them all, for that please check the following guides: here or here. As an organizer, your job is to plan every step of the run: - Prepare your members for the run, especially new players, and make sure they understand what is needed from them. - Find the balance between what you want the run to look like and what you have to work with. It won't always be ideal and you have to deal with it and make it work. - Record the runs, if something goes wrong, you can watch back and see what happened. Von Leon can be a forgiving boss, you can clear regularly once you learn the fundamentals. The room for error that you have is quite big - you don't have to execute everything perfectly. The first few runs might not clear, and it's perfectly fine to fail as long as you are improving. Set realistic goals for each run and constantly work towards achieving them. Before your run, prepare the following and post them publicly on your discord: 1) Party invite commands for party leaders, for example: Spoiler: Party invite command /partyinvite obfuscate confirm lastgrany tazan richdai Or: /pi obfuscate confirm lastgrany tazan richdai 2) TL, res and smoke orders - make sure bishops, buccs and shads memorize their place in the order. Here is an example of how it should look: When it comes to party composition, the organizer needs to have the following things in mind: 1) Strategy 2) Expedition size 3) Jobs 4) Synergy between the jobs Let's go through them one by one; Strategy: This boss is centered around mobs. Which means that the more melees you bring, the higher chance you have to clear. When sorting the party composition, your focus should be on clearing mobs efficiently, while having enough res and TL. NLs are acceptable, but it's not ideal to have more than 4 of them. It's also important to make sure you bring a bishop for every party (3 for the party size I recommended) and at least 4 buccs for newer squads. Expedition size: In my opinion, the ideal expedition size for newer groups is 18 (3 parties of 6). The sweet spot is 18 man, it should secure enough DPS/Res/TL comfortably while maintaining organization and avoiding confusion. It's important to understand that more players does not guarantee an easier clear. You need to keep everything in order - which is much harder to do the bigger the expedition size is. That said, I understand that it's not easy for new groups to gather 18 capable players - so anything above 16 will do just fine. As your group matures (at least on the current patch), you will find yourself running 12-14 man. Jobs: I will go through the jobs one by one, and explain which roles they fill for you as an organizer. This will provide the reasons for the typical party compositions in a successful expedition. Spoiler: Hero Despite not having the best damage, Hero will be necessary to you. You will need exactly 1 Hero (or DRK if capable) in your party to dispel/crash the Gargoyles defense up buff and for grouping mobs with magnet. More than 1 hero will drag you down, but if it's an unexperienced party you can definitely do 2 of them to make sure there will be def crash for mobs in case one of them is dead. Hero is also great for party leading since they have fast attack animation and fluid gameplay which means they will die less in general and have the room to partyinvite comfortably. That said, in smaller parties (such as the 12-14 man listed below), it's recommended to dispel defense up with bishops instead, and use the warrior spot for another Bucc/Shad. Spoiler: Paladin Sadly, Paladins are not great at anything in Von Leon - they serve as fillers. They don't provide any party buff or exceptional mob clearance, which doesn't make them desirable. That said, they're decent at clearing Golems, but it comes at the heavy cost of slow Gargoyles clear. You could bring a Paladin as a filler if there is no other choice, just avoid recruiting multiple. Spoiler: Shadower Shads are amazing for clearing mobs and for survivability, which makes them desirable in VL. You will want to have them all in the same party, with a minimum of 3 Shads and a maximum of 6, since ideally there will be exactly one party using smoke to avoid confusion. Shads work well together, and it’s highly beneficial to have a set smoke rotation set. While being just decent at clearing golems, Shads are the best at clearing Gargoyles, which is the biggest factor for speed, so more Shads = faster run. Spoiler: Buccaneer A must-have class and the most important attacker in this boss. The more you bring, the better your chances for clearing are. It's not only good for TL, but it's also the best class to clear golems or double mobs. I recommend bringing 4 of them at least for inexperienced groups, that way you will have a comfortable TL rotation, and by the time they're all used up the 1st one should be up again. Spoiler: NL NLs will always be in your squad and you shouldn't exclude them, since some of your members will want loot on them or simply not have another attacker. You should have a maximum of 4 NLs if you want a safe and comfortable run, try not to go over this number. NLs do have upsides - they die less, finish jail quickly and can party lead easily - use those to your advantage. Spoiler: BM/MM When it comes to SE, it's important to always bring spares. If you have 2 parties with NL in them - bring 3 SE, if you have only 1 ranged party - bring 2 SE. You don't want your run to end because of 1 DC. Ideally you'd want at least 1 of your SE to be MM, since Blind will help you minimize your death count. Spoiler: Corsair Sairs are just better NLs in this version of the boss. 1) They have better Gargoyle clear than NLs with splitter combo. 2) They don't require SE. 3) Their Golems clear is decent with Torpedo. 4) VL attacks are very telegraphed so maximizing single-target DPS is not the hardest thing. Do not prioritize them over melees if you want smooth runs, but they are not deadweight. Spoiler: Dark Knight I feel like this is the right place to say that bringing ppl who aren't washed enough IS NOT AN OPTION. HB is not reliable in VL, and the moment the DRK dies or gets jailed during b2/b3, the other players requiring HB will die or become unusable. Not only do you make your success rely on a single buff, but if your DRKs can't zerk you also sacrifice DPS greatly. DRK is not easy to play properly in VL, as the DRK player will have to zerk the whole run. If you don't have such a player - avoid bringing DRKs. In case there are some aspiring pro DRKs out there, check the DRK section later on for further instructions. If you do decide to bring a DRK, make sure you have multiple Buccs in that party. DRK can die without SI since crusher animation is quite long. Spoiler: Bishop Bring the same number of bishops as the number of parties you have. If you go with a 14-18 man party size, bring 3. Except for the obvious res benefit, Bishops will be used to Holy Shield Gargoyle spawns and heal for lasers. Being washed on a bishop in VL is important, but not mandatory. The HP needed to tank everything with Magic Guard is around 3.5k, and 8k to tank gargoyle hit after dispel. If you have unwashed bishops have someone time dispel (1 minute timer) and the bishops need to be careful before each DP cast. Unwashed or new bishops should be put in the Shad/ranged party since they will have to play less risky there. If you don't have enough bishops - leave the Shad party without one, since smoke will protect them from gargoyles and meso guard protects against lasers. With all of that in mind, here are my 3 recommended expedition compositions: Spoiler: 12 man Party 1: NL - party leader Bucc/Hero Bucc Bucc BM/MM BS Party 2: Shad - party leader Shad Shad Shad Shad/bucc BS Spoiler: 14 man Party 1: NL - party leader BM BS Party 2: NL/Hero - party leader Bucc Bucc MM BS Party 3: Shad - party leader Shad Shad Shad/bucc Bucc BS Spoiler: 18 man Party 1: NL - party leader NL NL Bucc BM BS Party 2: Hero - party leader Bucc Bucc Bucc MM BS Party 3: Shad - party leader Shad Shad Shad Shad BS Those party compositions are just a baseline, and you can change that according to the people/jobs you manage to get for the run. Not every run will have an ideal composition, do your best with what you have. It's important to focus on mobs as soon as they spawn. As I said before, Von Leon is a very mob centered boss and this is what will make or break your run. All attackers must use their multi target skills - NLs use avenger, BMs use arrow bomb etc. If mobs are alive and VL teleported away, stay on the mobs and focus them until they're cleared. For Gargoyles - Holy Shield your party on Bishops, smoke on Shad party and just clear. Pay attention to def and remove it with your warriors and bishops. For Golems - you need to focus them over Gargoyles. Von Leon will consume uncleared Golems and heal a lot, which makes them much more dangerous for your run. The heal amount is 30m per Golem left alive, or 2% HP for B1/B2 and 1.5% for B3. If golems are summoned while Gargoyles are alive, it's important to call it in voice chat and switch over as soon as possible. This happens most often when VL summons gargoyles, TPs away, then summons Golems. Do your best to group them on Buccs and Warriors, and if there are any stray Golems that escaped - use your NLs to clear them. There are 3 important things to keep in mind in regard to Von Leon teleportation: - VL will teleport in the direction it's facing. - New VL body will spawn on the opposite side of the map. - Teleport is off CD on first spawn and when when a new body is spawned, meaning it can TP right away. This usually happens in 10-15 secs. With that in mind, why would you want to control where VL is on the map? - The right side of the map has a spot where your char will be hidden by others, so you want to avoid that side. - Throne area is awkward for body 3 since it's harder to jump lasers there. - Fighting on the left side will maximize DPS, since people will be able to attack instantly when coming out of jail. In order to control it, you will need to instruct your members to attack on the side that you call on voice chat. Keep it teleporting in the direction you want it to be by having everyone attacking on that side of the boss. If there is some language barrier in your run, or if not all members are in voice chat, make sure to communicate it in-game by saying "<<<" or ">>>" for example. It's not the most important thing to do, so don't stress it too hard, but it's a good way to keep things under control and build good communication. To give an example of my preferred way to do it: 1) Start by attacking on the left, then attack left again after the first teleport. 2) Now when VL is all the way to the left, make it teleport to the right and then to the left over and over. 3) When VL HP is around 35%, start pulling it to the right side of the map so the next body can spawn to the left again. *On a side note, if the boss is all the way to the left do not let it face left at any cost, there is a nasty bug where it can TP out of the map and waste your time. You need to have one caller for the run, with 1-2 more people who can help while this person is in jail. The important things to keep in mind as a caller are: - Call only the relevant things. - Be calm. - Have a good understanding of the boss mechanics and what needs to be done at every stage. - Play on big client to see animations better, and preferably play on a char that is close to the boss (not a bishop). Animations to call: Rocks Dispel Gargoyle/Golems summons Laser Teleport Jail Situational calls: Call what side to attack after each teleport, if you decide to control the boss position. When you see someone die, call it. Apple check (for both NLs and non NL timers). Call def if you see it's not being dispelled during Gargoyles. When Golems are spawned while people are focused on Gargoyles, make a call to switch over to Golems. If people are in jail when mobs are summoned, let them know (For example - mobs on the right side of the boss for people coming from jail). When a bishop tries to res someone far away from the boss, also call bird animation (bird right/bird left). Leave the res/readds after res calls to the bs party leader. There are of course more examples of things you should call, different situations require different calling, but this comes to show that: - You shouldn't talk about other things while running if you want to be organized. - There's not much space for other people to talk other than the caller/bs pt leader, if they talk they need to only say important things (I DC'ed, died in jail etc.). Example for tracking timers if you choose to do so: Spoiler: Example Stay calm, don't panic when things go wrong and try to make quick and calm decisions. Don't spam the voice chat and don't start yelling or saying things like "oh no". It's very important to have one calm voice make the important calls, while the others don't spam the voice chat and follow instructions. Let's talk about what the approach should be for each stage and what you should pay attention to. Body 1 - This is where things are still nice and calm. Make sure all your party members are ready and present before starting (by designating one member to enter last for example). When you summon the boss, try to keep silent and call rocks calmly as not much will be happening until around 50% HP. This is the time to let your members get used to rock patterns and gain confidence and comfort for the rest of the run. When you reach 50% HP, Gargoyles will start being summoned every 2.5 mins roughly. Bishops need to use Holy Shield on their party members the moment they appear. Focus on clearing them efficiently, have your Hero/Bishops dispel def, Shads smoke and just burst them as fast as possible. You will know your pace is good when you finish B1 with about 48-50 mins on the timer, as B1 and B2 have less HP than B3. Body 2 - For the first 50% of B2, it will be identical to B1 for the most part. The only difference is dispel, which starts at 90% and happens every 1 minute. When you reach 50% HP, Golems will start spawning every 2 minutes. You must leave everything you are doing and clear those, as the heal from them is very dangerous. When reaching this point things can get overwhelming, think about it this way: You have 4 different timers to deal with now: Gargoyles, Golems, Jail and dispel. Those timers can sync in unfortunate ways, and it's important to keep your composure and power through it until timers desync. Ideally, you will want to finish this body with over 32 mins left to have a more stress-free 3rd body. Since it's not always possible, 28 mins will do just fine without any major mistakes - tho it might get tight. Body 3 B3 has more HP, every mechanic that was mentioned before and lasers in addition. Getting to this body is the first step to success, but this is where the real test begins. When starting, make sure everyone is aware of lasers starting so they can be in the right state of mind to dodge them. When someone gets hit by laser, Bishops need to heal them - more tips for that later. The 2 important things to keep in mind for lasers are: - Laser has a very wide range, and can snipe you from far away. - Mobs are not reliable for iframes, don't assume that because you stand in the middle of them you will not get hit. When you run out of res and need to TL - inform your members there will not be heals for lasers for a little bit so they can be extra careful. Eventually, when your group matures you will average around: B1: 10-12 minutes B2: 14-18 minutes B3: 20-23 minutes Those times should be your long term goal. Deaths in VL are guaranteed. It's better to plan around dealing with messy situations over counting on your members not to die. With that in mind the system I recommend is as follows: - When a member dies, they leave the party immediately and call their IGN in chat. - The bishop who needs to res (according to the predetermined order) makes a party and invites all the dead people. In my opinion, this is a better approach than having the dead people make a party, since it's hard to determine who will do that and can lead to very messy situations. - The bishop uses res at a safe moment, and then disbands the party instantly. - "Party leaders invite your members" needs to be called in voice chat, and party leaders will paste their partyinvites in chat. This process needs to be executed quickly and calmly - the longer you wait when people are dead the more potential for things to snowball and get worse. For each party, you will need to assign a party leader. That party leader needs to have the partyinvite line you prepared earlier ready. When people die and get resurrected, party leaders need to invite back their members. The party leaders don't need to communicate a lot or talk in voice chat, but they do need to: - Be attentive to what is happening in the run, respond to chat and invite quickly. - Play a job that is easy to chat with (NL, Hero, Paladin, Shad). - Be a player that you trust to have a low death count, since when they die they will have to pass lead to a different member. Getting invited back and passing lead is not always as easy as it sounds. - Have a second in lead in case the primary leader dies or disconnects. An important tip for party leading is having HP marks up to see who is dead/in jail/not in the party at all times. I highly recommend not using Buccs as party leaders, since they may eventually have to leave the party to TL. If you have to make a Bucc party leader, make sure you have a 2nd player in the party who is attentive enough to invite back the Bucc and pass lead. The bs party leader is probably the most valuable person in your run. Their job is: Track res order and tell bishops when to res. Track TL order. Make TL party when res is down on all bishops. Have a partyinvite line with all the bishops ready, tell them to come to the far left/right together with a Bucc, form the party and use TL. This needs to be communicated quickly and done smoothly, especially in B3 where people can die from the lack of Bishops in parties. Have someone you trust and who can communicate in voice chat on this role, there's no way around it. The better this person performs and the more organized they are, the smoother your run will be. My recommendation is to use smokes for after telepoty to ensure 1 minute of smooth attacking. What it means is the following: 1) Wait for VL to tp. 2) Smoke right after on the side your party is attacking on. 3) Enjoy 1 minute of attacking inside smoke. This method works best with tracking jail/mob timers to make sure no smoke is wasted, so it's important to have a party leader who can keep track of smokes and can make sure things go according to plan. If you feel like your mob clear is not smooth enough, you could also smoke Gargoyle spawns as an alternative. You will need 4 Shads for a full Gargoyle smoke rotation (10 mins cd, 2.5 mins spawn timer). Make sure to utilize party chat to say when you smoked, for example: "s1 done", "s2 done" etc. It's also very important to keep track of who's in jail in Shad party, to know if you have to skip a smoke. If you get jailed - say "j" in chat while falling down. Bonus/loot is up to your personal preference as a group. For a new group it’s important to have a clearly defined loot policy so that there will be no drama about loot later on. Whatever you choose to do, you should make sure everyone knows about it beforehand. Here are 2 examples of a loot systems your squad can use: Von Leon loot is split into two parts, and you need to have a plan of how to handle both. - Loot from the boss itself - manuals, 6 nx cards, Hero's Will 10 and untradeables (Belt, Parchment, Medallion - 6 of each). - Bonus room (30 boxes). Belt is always in high demand, while parchment and medallion aren't. 1st system - fits runs up to 20 man only: Each member who signs up for the run needs to specify if they want tradeables or belt. Loot from bonus stage is individual, members keep everything they get. Tradeables looters get 2 bonus boxes by default. Tradeables looters get splits from Hero's Will 10 and Stars manual. Quiver and Bullet manuals will be raffled between tradeables looters. NX cards will be raffled between tradeables looters. Belt looters get 1 bonus box only, with no splits. If there are too many tradeables looters and you are forced to give some of them 1 bonus box only, raffle the NX cards between those who get 1 box. If it's a big expedition size, some players could be left with 1 box only and no NX. You can't always have a situation where everyone gets equal loot, and for that reason you have to use raffles. There is a RNG factor to Von Leon splits and this is something that you have to clear up with your members in advance to avoid conflicts. It's good to do the loot raffles before the run even starts to save you time later on, while tweaking it slightly later on in case of DCs. For example: Let's look at a theoretical 20 man run with 6 belt looters. - The 6 belt looters will get 1 box each, leaving 24 boxes remaining. - 10 tradeables looters get 2 boxes each, leaving 4 boxes remaining. - The 4 remaining tradeables looters get 1 box each, and the NX cards split between them. 2nd system - fits 21 man+ best: This system is identical to the 1st one (with 1 major change), so please read it first. The change is as follows: Belt looters get a guaranteed 5k NX card Belt looters get no bonus boxes This way you will be able to secure most of your tradeables looters 2 bonus boxes, while still keeping belt looters satisfied. For the bonus room, I suggest numbering the boxes and making a chart to avoid confusion. Spoiler: Example The blue circle is the spawn point, and the red arrows are the ropes. I suggest the following steps to make your bonus run smooth: 1) After killing the boss and looting all the untradeable items, instruct your members to wait on the throne while you sort the bonus numbers. 2) Give each member their numbers, ask them to refer to the chart/layout that you made beforehand. 3) Ask each member that understood their numbers to go inside the next map to the right, and wait there. 4) After you made sure nobody had issues and everyone is in, enter last. 5) Use the bonus room portal as "ready check" to ensure that nobody is afk. 6) Instruct your members to avoid hitting other people's boxes as they won't be able to loot the items. 7) Repeat the bonus numbers quickly, count down from 3 and go in. It's good practice to have a splits/loot channel in your discord for clarity, where you can post the loot from each run and announce when it's sold. As a player, it's important to understand that the biggest DPS loss is being dead. You should study your class properly before you go in - if you go inside raw you might be the reason the run fails, and I'm sure nobody wants to be that player. Understand what you have to do, be organized and play carefully. It's better to lose some DPS and not attack in the most efficient way if it means you will stay alive - the more you play the more you learn to be efficient. An important tip is to watch VL hands for animations and react to them. This will provide you with some rhythm, and help build an intuition for how many attacks you can comfortably fit before, during, or after an animation while keeping your survival chances maximal. Other than that - be on voice chat, listen to calls and be responsive to what you are asked to do and you should be good to go. After the run, a good way to improve quickly is to record your runs and find where you made mistakes. *One thing to note when playing a melee is the accuracy requirement. The official accuracy requirement for this boss is 220, however we found that to be incorrect and attackers will still miss up to mid 230's. Make sure to have 240 accuracy, which in most cases can be covered by baskets or gelts easily. DCs gatekeep many players from this boss, but fear not! There is a solution for most players. Here are a few simple but effective steps to stop DCing: 1) Change your system locale language to English: This is very effective for asian players who have their PC in korean/chinese, works like a charm. Spoiler: Guide - thanks @lxlx for this tip. 2) For people with laptops or CPUs with integrated graphics, switch to your integrated graphics. First, google your CPU and check if it has integrated graphics. Then, look up a specific guide on youtube for your motherboard on how to enable integrated graphics in BIOS and switch to it. I can't give you any specific guide for it, since it's different for every type of motherboard - invest some time and look it up. It can be tedious, but for some people it was a life changer. 3) Make sure you play on stable connection. If you DC a lot - consider plugging your phone to your pc and share your mobile data through USB. Sometimes it's the more stable option. After doing all that, I highly doubt you will get regular DCs in your runs. There will still be the occasional dc here and there, but that's to be expected with such party size. In this section, I will explain how to play each class in Von Leon, and provide gameplays to demonstrate. Open the relevant spoiler for your job: Spoiler: Warrior (Hero/Paladin) Playing a Warrior is not hard, your attack animations are quick and you can move around freely. Your job is to group the mobs with Magnet and Rush and to help with clearing them. When you see the mob summon animation, start charging Magnet, and release it as soon as they appear. When Golems escape and start walking around, try to magnet and rush them. As for not dying - just dodge the rocks by walking when it's possible, and with Rush if it's a long line of rocks. Lasers are easy to dodge since your attack animation is short and you have plenty of time to react - just stay focused. I also recommend dodging every lightning with rush iFrame, since the timing is very easy to learn and you will avoid some frustrating deaths that way. Spoiler: Rush iframe For Hero - When Gargoyles are summoned they will cast Def Up (20% less damage taken), so you well have to crash def. For Pally - use your ACB (multi-target skill) to clear mobs. I would not recommend using Heaven's Hammer as it will lock you in place, but it can be done if you are iframed just after getting hit by a mob. The warrior room is pretty simple - Open the chests, push the mobs to the spikes and then trigger the spikes with the lever until a key drops. Since there is really not much else to say, here's Hero gameplay to demonstrate the things I mentioned: Spoiler: Hero pov - Thank you @CodGhost for the gameplay. *If you get in a situation where you have absolutely no escape, you can try to dodge rocks with Rush iFrame as well. It's not reliable and is very hard to replicate, but can be attempted in situations where you have no choice. Spoiler: NL NL is only useful for single target damage, and that's exactly your role. You need to be as efficient as possible while having a low death count, since your class is the easiest to play and doesn't contribute much in other ways. Avoid dying to rocks by walking away from them, do not panic and use your Flash Jump unless you have no choice. Dodge bird stuns by laying down when they fly towards you. Try to rebuff when it's safe and not when buffs run out, for example while dropping to jail or right after a non-lethal animation. If you try rebuffing without looking out for animations you might get locked in Shadow Partner animation and die. Attack using TT when there are no mobs, use Avenger when there are. NL jail is also the easiest and can be done in roughly 15 secs, just flash jump to the top and open the chest for the key. Spoiler: NL pov - Thank you @CodGhost for the gameplay. Spoiler: Shadower Shad is fun and very forgiving. Your chance to die from lasers is low, which is what makes it far less risky than other melees. However, it would be very useful to learn the mechanics and all the little tricks before going in. Before I can explain what to do in each situation, I will describe 2 important Shad mechanics that you should put to use: 1) Dashing with Assassinate's last hit - If you hit an arrow key, your char will dash in the direction you clicked. If you canceled the combo with a non-arrow key (pots, acp etc.) it will dash in the direction you are facing. This is important in situations where you need to dash quickly - such as dodging rocks. You will see this being used a lot during the gameplay I will link. Spoiler: Demonstration It is also a good way of checking that you hit VL without losing DPS, as the dash will only go off if Assassinate hit. 2) Dodging with Boomerang Step iframe - Bstep has an iframe that is very reliable, but is short and requires understanding of when exactly it occurs. The iframe happens in the beginning of the skill, so you basically need to click it right before you get hit. Spoiler: Demonstration Or a whole run of dodging: - Thanks @nut and @Zkittlez for the videos. Now for the different situations you need to deal with: - When rocks appear, dodge them by walking to a safe place, dashing to a safe place or dodging with bstep iframe if there's no choice. Assaulter is useful to reposition and get back to the proper side of Von Leon afterwards. - When you see bird animation (roar), hold down arrow while in Assassinate. You will either dodge it with bstep iframe or lay down right after and dodge it anyway. - For lasers, hold down jump arrow while in assassinate as demonstrated: Spoiler: Jump Laser can also be reliably dodged with bstep, if you are not in the middle of another animation. Even if you get hit by laser, it's not a big deal since you will only get hit for 50% of your HP due to Meso Guard. For that reason, use 100% HP alert to have your HP high enough to keep tanking hits while lasered. As for mob clear: Use your smoke when it's your turn on Gargoyles, and just use the Boomerang Step + BoT combo until they're all dead. It's very straightforward and very effective, this is where you are most useful as a shad. Shad jail room is the same as NL. Just jump up the platforms and then use Assaulter on the mobs to climb up. At the top right corner, open the chest for the key and go to the portal to exit. If you have issues with mobs being AFK outside of Assaulter range, use an alternative method: Spoiler: Alternative jail method Thank you @GreedyTW for this method! Watch the gameplay to have a better idea of the different methods I described: Spoiler: Shad pov - Thank you @nut for the gameplay. Spoiler: Buccaneer I will just copy and paste this section from my Bucc guide: Buccaneers are essential in Von Leon and it's important to master your class before attempting it. You will need to learn how to both maximize your damage and use your iFrames to stay alive. I will not be teaching you about Von Leon mechanics in general, but only give you Bucc specific tips. - Massive thanks to @autismax (tompson) for helping me with this section. Your job in Von Leon is: 1) Stay alive and use Time Leap when it's your turn, help your squad have enough res to successfully clear. 2) Use the right combos to maximize your damage, Von Leon is a DPS check and you can't afford to slack on damage. 3) SI your melees/MMs/sairs. 4) Help with clearing mobs with Dragon Strike + Snatch. Bucc is a complicated job to fully master in Von Leon, and it requires a lot of experience and feel for the different timings to fully maximize your DPS. For that reason, I will describe 2 different methods to attack this boss, each will require a different mindset. 1st method: (better for more inexperienced players) With this method, you will need to just use a certain combo for each body, while reacting to the different skills after the combo ends. It is the easier way to attack, but you will risk a few RNG deaths, though I believe you can average 0-2 deaths consistently if you do it well. Use Barrage+Demolition for 1st and 2nd body, while having them on separate keys for more control. It is okay and often necessary to slightly delay your skills to match their iframes with Von Leon's attacks. Let us go through the different scenarios you can face with rocks and how to deal with them: 1) If rocks are dropped before you started your combo, use Barrage iFrame to dodge: Spoiler: Barrage 2) If rocks drop while in Barrage, dodge with demolition: Spoiler: Demo 3) If rocks drop while in Demolition, which is bad timing and a dangerous situation, dodge with corkscrew right after Demolition: Spoiler: Corkscrew For 3rd body, you should switch to Barrage + Dragon Strike. This combo will give you more room to react to lasers as the animation is shorter, just use barrage iframe to dodge it or use Demolition/Corkscrew Blow as your panic buttons. 2nd method: (maximize DPS while maintaining more control) This method is more reactive, you will not know what combo to use in advance. It is the harder method without a doubt and can be overwhelming at the start, but if you feel like you have good control of your character, try it. To execute this method, you will have to: 1) Have all your skills on separate keys, and be used to clicking them when needed. 2) Watch out for VL hands, and react accordingly to specific skills. For b1 and b2, start off your combo by using Barrage. The reason for this is Barrage being a 100% safe skill to use, as chaining it with Demo will guarantee continuous iFrames until the end of the full combo. After you Barrage goes off, you will need to watch for the next animation. - If the next attack is bird stun, follow it up with demo to dodge. - If the next attack is rocks, and barrage ended early on into rocks animation (before they appear on the floor), follow it up with Dragon Strike. You will dodge the rocks with your next Barrage cycle. - If the next attack is rocks, but it's already late into the animation (rocks already appeared, about to fall), follow it up with Demo. - If there is no animation just yet when Barrage ends, follow it up with Dragon strike to safely wait for the next animation. - For any other attack/skill, just use Demo after Barrage is done. After you are done with the combo, click Barrage again to go into the next combo, and repeat. For mobs, you will exclusively use your Dragon Strike + Snatch as mentioned before. For b3, you will still use Barrage as your starter, but will have to react to skills differently, as laser animation is quick and can snipe you after using Demo. After your Barrage ends: - If the next attack is laser, and it's early on in the animation (eyes glowing, laser is still not on the ground), use Demo to dodge it, it's perfectly safe. - If the next attack is laser, but it's already late into the animation (already shooting the laser), use Corkscrew or just jump to dodge it. - If the next attack is bird stun, but early into the animation (just started to roar), use Demo to dodge it, it's also perfectly safe. - If the next attack is bird stun, but late into the animation (bird about to go off), use corkscrew or lay down to dodge it. - If the next attack is rocks, dodge them with Corkscrew, by walking away or by pausing and using another Barrage when it's safe. This will depend on the timing of the rocks and the situation, but avoid using Demo for this at all cost in b3, only as last resort. - If there is no animation yet when Barrage ends, follow it up with Dragon strike to safely wait for the next animation. - For any other attack/skill, just use Dragon Strike, as using Demo on those exposes you to being sniped by laser. Note: as you gain more experience, you will find small optimizations, like using Demo on Golems consumption animation as well as early on into ground slam and claw attack skills. Those are timings that are hard to describe with words, and you will just have to get a feel for them eventually. Start off by following the basics listed above, and eventually you will end up finding more ways to be efficient. Jail: Use your Corkscrew iFrames for this. The golems 1 shot you, so you need to push the mobs and jump over them. Full jail room video: Dangers: Other than the dangers described before (rocks, laser, bird stun), there are 2 other things that can kill you. I will do my best to describe them and to explain how to avoid dying to them. 1) Transformation expiring: I will start off by saying that having level 11 Transformation (or higher) is very important in VL. If your Transformation expires in the middle of any skill, it will cancel your current animation and iFrame - which can kill you if rocks/laser hit you as a result. Avoid it by: - Remap one of your quickslot buttons to Transformation, so you will be able to see your cooldown. The top buff bar is not reliable for this skill. - Click Transformation after 1 minute, when cooldown period is over. This will renew your Transformation safely, as it has 2 mins uptime and only 1 min cooldown. This is a very simple tip, but it will save your life. 2) Animation cancels: While playing Bucc, you will notice VL cancels a lot of animations. Spoiler: Example If you play correctly, you will have time to react to canceled animations too, but you will have to notice them. Please note the following: - If you saw VL making some weird hand gesture/animation and you cant quite tell what it was in b1/b2, just pause for a second to see if it was rocks. DO NOT go into Demo, because you can get sniped by rocks that way. - If you see the same thing in b3, you need to consider the possibility that the canceled animation was laser. Laser will not visually appear if canceled, and if you just click Demo you can get sniped by rocks if the canceled animation turns out to be rocks. For that reason, use Corkscrew to dodge a potential laser/bird while still having time to react to incoming rocks after. Here is a full recorded run to demonstrate the methods I mentioned (far from a perfect execution, but good enough for learning): Spoiler: BM/MM Your job as SE is not complicated, but you might face some situations with unavoidable deaths. Attack using your single target skill and SE your attackers, there's not much else you have to do. When mobs are summoned use Arrow Bomb on BM or Piercing Arrow on MM. If your BS is in jail or dead when there are Gargoyles and you dont have Holy Shield, stay away from them, you can die to their stuns very easily. Do not use summons as they will mess up the mobs aggro. On MM - make sure to have your Blind active and have it on VL constantly, it helps greatly with reducing the death count. In your jail room, you will have to push the mobs on both sides of the map (with Dragon's Breath), then hit the lever to trigger the spikes and kill them. When all the mobs are dead, the chest with the key will appear. Break it and walk out. As for staying alive - there are really no tips for this, just walk away from rocks, and if theres a long rock line get on your mount and run. Make sure not to be on the mount when the rocks themselves fall, because it makes your hitbox larger. Lasers shouldn't be much of a threat to you as they're easy to dodge by just jumping. Spoiler: MM pov - Thank you @cremcrem for the gameplay. Spoiler: Bishop Bishops have a huge responsibility, but are also generally easier to play. Stay calm and focused, do not die and try to Res swiftly when it's your turn. If you are unwashed - be aware of the dispel timer and avoid dying to dispel + attack Spoiler: ”HP tresholds” 3.5k: Survive everything with Magic Guard on. Dispel is dangerous to you, keeping track of the timer recommended (1 minute from last cast). Stay away from Gargoyles whenever dispel is about to happen. They have a <8k ranged magic attack that’s independent of the VL dispel. This means you can get dispelled and hit by the attacks before you even have time to react. 8k: Survive gargoyle magic attack without magic guard. Very comfortable to play. Just watch out for VL canceling dispel animation. 18k: Survive everything without magic guard. What you should do during the run (outside of res) is as follows: Use Dispel on your party members to remove slow and bleed. Use Holy Shield right when Gargoyles appear, so your party will not get stunned. Heal whenever a party member is hit by a laser. When it's your turn to Res: 1) Leave your party. 2) Invite the dead people into your party. 3) Wait for a safe attack animation and Res, do not Res them right into rocks. If you are Ressing far away from VL, ask for the caller to call all animations for you so you won't get hit by bird stun. 4) After ressing break the party you made and signal to the party leaders that they should invite their members back. If Gargoyles are summoned soon, wait to cast Holy Shield on your party first and only then go and res. Use your Holy Shield cooldown (2 mins) to estimate if Gargoyles are summoned soon. Find a comfortable way to create a res party that works for you. This will take some practice but stick with it. Examples: You can put your left hand on arrow keys to dodge rocks while you use the mouse to right click players and invite them with the menu Wait for safe boss animations and type a partyinvite-command part by part while the animations play. When it's time to TL: 1) Leave your party. 2) Go where you are told to go. 3) Join the new party and stay close to the other bishops to get TL. 4) Go back and join your old party. For Bishop jail, different people use different patterns, but you just need to open the boxes in time and get the key, then you can exit. When you need to do the max range teleports to reach platforms, approach the platform edge first by walking and then tap or spam your teleport key. If you just hold your teleport key while walking you are very likely to teleport to the edge of the next platform and fall off wasting precious time. There is some extra time even if the key is inside the last box so don’t panic if you fall once or twice. *If a box doesn't break properly after 4 hits, move on. The box with the key will definitely break. This has been a known bug for a while, where only the correct box will open sometimes. Tips and tricks: - Teleport is your friend when dodging rocks but learn to be comfortable with just walking in between rocks to dodge them. It’s sometimes the safer option when there are a lot of scattered falling rocks all around you. - Use HP mark as a bishop - it helps a lot with understanding if someone got hit by a laser. - If you are in a melee party and comfortable with jumping lasers, you can start spamming heal in the air after you jump. This way you can heal more if someone gets hit. Heal is divided among party members so sometimes in a melee party you can’t heal enough without doing this. - You can use speed + jump potions or gear to help with jail and jumping lasers as you won't need to attack during VL. - If you are washed you can use dispel to remove def from gargoyles (and VL/Golems if they overlap). Note that party members count towards dispel’s target cap so this is most effective in a ranged party where you can position yourself to only dispel gargoyles. - Avoid using genesis unless you are in the shad party where you can use it inside smoke to help clear gargoyles. - When going into risky situations during B3 where you are likely to get hit by a laser, buff yourself with Infinity beforehand. That way when you are hit by a laser, you will still have the MP to use Hero's Will and get out of seduce. Thank you for this tip @fuzzything44 . - Thanks @autismax for helping with this section. Spoiler: Bishop pov - Thank you @CodGhost for the gameplay. Spoiler: Corsair As I mentioned before, Sair is sadly not ideal currently - but certainly doable. As a Sair, you really don't need to do anything special, just attack as you normally would and dismount for VL attacks. Just remember that you have to re-egg after every teleport. For Gargoyles: 1) If you are in smoke party, just use Torpedo. 2) If you don't have smoke, use your Flamethrower + Ice Splitter combo. For Golems, just use torpedo. Spoiler: Sair pov - Thank you @Dong for the gameplay. Spoiler: Dark Knight There is no way around it, DRK is hard to play in this boss and most players will sadly not attempt it because of the risks. Having that said, if you pull it off you will be far better than a Hero. If you do want to attempt it, please read the following and try to understand if you are willing or able to do it. @lxlx's guide explains everything in detail, this guide is a must if you are going to attempt it, here. I will still explain it here for the sake of this guide: - Use cheese on 35% in your auto pot (each auto pot tick is 5%), that way your will get healed to a minimum of 10.5k HP. - After getting hit, use Unagi or Cheese to 14k. If you are between 10k and 11k hp, use Cheese, if you are above it use Unagis. That way you will maintain 14k-15k HP at all times and zerk. - When you are clearing mobs, hit Cheese key 1 time just before you are about to get hit by VL attacks, since tanking mobs is not reliable. - If you are far away from VL while clearing mobs, pay attention to ground slam animation, it can snipe you from far away. Spoiler: Slam snipe The hard part is being consistent and not messing up a single time. If you don't zerk constantly, you will be losing a lot of damage. Other than that, please read the Hero section above, since your job is the same. Spoiler: DRK pov - MASSIVE thanks to @nut and @autismax for going over my guide multiple times and fixing all the mistakes, while adding input of their own. Thank you for also fixing my grammar and making this guide readable! - Thank you @Nerd for those pretty banners, I love them - @lxlx @nut @CodGhost @Dong @cremcrem @Zkittlez for providing gameplays. - Every Finland member, for gaining experience together and helping with the knowledge to post this guide. If you have any further questions or feedback about the guide, feel free to ask me in DM or in the comments - I'm very open for feedback. You can expect this guide to keep improving and updating to be relevant.
great guide! totally comprehensive and covers everything there is to know about organizing and running vl
Few notes from my end: Honestly 4-5 shads + 1-2 sairs in a party is pretty reasonable: holy shield isn't needed because of smoke, SI is a very small DPS buff to sairs, and sairs should be able to just use wings for a very forgiving laser timing. You recommend to not have buccs as party leaders, so this should be common sense but: never ever make a bishop a party leader. Make sure your party leaders/secondaries know to never give the bishop lead. If there's space in the /partyinvite command, it's helpful to add the leader to it, in case they die and need to be added by the secondary. If you're running using discord voice chat, set the voice channel to have a maximum of 99 members - then the channel will show you how many people are connected, to make it easier to see if everyone's in VC. Bishop tips: When healing, be very careful of followup lasers. Most of the times I get hit by lasers is because I focused on healing No will 10? No problem! Cast infinity before going into a risky situation in b3, and while infinity is up, you can still will out of laser sed! It's definitely worth to wash to >8k HP so you don't have to worry about getting dispelled and then mobs killing you instantly. Gargoyles in particular hit super long range.\ Edit: oh right when I'm bishop lead/hosting I'll personally use this site to track the CD of all bucc's TL, to give me a better idea how much ress we have left: https://www.timeanddate.com/timer/
We will have to agree to disagree on this, because: 1) I don't believe there's much benefit to Sair without SI and SE, as it will not provide more DPS than other jobs. 2) If I do want SI and full Gargoyle smoke rotation, I will also have to count on the Bucc dodging every laser. I don't think it's worth setting up around a Sair like this. At least for less experienced people, I prefer recommending the safer approach (+1 shad +1 bishop), as I also believe another shad will be infinitely more useful. I will add this (with credit of course), that's very smart. Thanks for your feedback! appreciate it
Just goes to show how forgettable they are at VL. At least they have rush and hammer. And threaten, if that even works
Great guide! Very happy to see the community efforts toward VL!!! and I just noticed a small typo here!
I average 0 - 1 death per Von Leon after reading this guide. Let Donn1e's light shine a memory so bright she will be remembered forever!
I couldn't get into the game after changing the system locale language to English, and nothing happened when I clicked the launcher。～f4
This is not Von Leon related, but here is the fix: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/update-86-27-08-23.222546/#post-1345304
It's not that the client crashed, it's that I clicked on the launcher and there was no reaction (not even an error code). After I changed the system area and language back to Chinese, the game can run normally again I've tried to do what TIM says and it hasn't worked. It seems I can only play if I don't change the system area and voice
