Velah

A terrible doom is written in Kundarak's shards! I must complete my studies! I will never escape this place alive. My sacrifice must not be in vain! I do not regret my bargain with the Aurum! There was no other way!

Type: Dragon (List)

Race: Red Dragon (List)

Monster Manual classification: Missing from MM: Dragon

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Boss: Purple Named - Powerful Boss

CR:  ♦18Normal ♥21Hard ♠26Elite ●♦26Epic Normal ●♥36Epic Hard ●♠54Epic Elite

Attack: 

• Claws: ~90-130 slashing per hit on elite. Slightly higher on epic.
• Bite: ~100-150 slashing per hit on elite. Slightly higher on epic, performs this attack less often.
• Special Attacks: Velah's Breath, Wing Buffet, Summons, Cometfall (see below for descriptions)
• Attack Bonus: 60+ on normal (100+ on Epic)
  

Special Qualities: 

• See Invisibility
• Resists/Immunities/Weakness: Immunity to Fire. 200% Vulnerability to Cold on Normal, Hard and Elite. No vulnerabilities on Epic.
• HP:  ♦~12,000Normal ♥~18,000Hard ♠~25,000Elite ●~350,000Epic ●♠742,932Epic Elite
• AC: Fairly low: 25 on Normal, and 45 on Epic.
• DR: DR/Magic (Trivial to bypass)
• Fortification:  ●50%Epic as of U11 (confirmed by Devpost)
• Saves: Normal: Fort 18+, Will 18+, Reflex 18+.  ●Epic Reflex: 25Epic  ●Epic Fort: 42Epic
• SR:  ♦21Normal ♥23Hard ♠28Elite ●35Epic
• Intimidate DC: Stationary monster thus cannot be intimidated with any effect
• Special Defenses: Shield (blocks magic missiles). Fast Healing - This dragon is regenerating quickly, you must overwhelm it! Ability to dispel debuffs placed upon her, each breath will remove any debuffs.

Habitat: 

• Plane of Night

Description: The final raid boss of the Vault of Night series, encountered in the Plane of Night raid which was introduced in Module 1: Dragon's Vault. She is the ex-leader of the Agents of Argonnessen until she fell out of favor and teamed up with the traitorous Arach d'Kundarak and the Aurum to try and somehow protect the dragonshards from the devils.

Special Abilities

• Detailed Notes on Special Abilities:
  • Velah's Breath: 100-300 fire damage on normal, 700-800 fire damage on Epic. Applies a severe debuff on a failed reflex save: Velah's Mark: 2 minute debuff that makes you take double damage from fire and a -30? penalty to reflex saves. So the first breath may not be enough to kill you, but the 2nd generally will be for those with low reflex saves. The Breath also hits you with dispel magic (d20 + 15 vs 11 + caster level of your buffs or you lose them. On epic this isn't a huge concern since CL20 buffs = DC 31, she has to roll a 16 or higher to dispel you. Luckily you can easily avoid this: Simply hide behind one of the rocks and it can't hit you.
  • Cometfall: If your entire party hides behind the rock and does not engage Velah for ~20-30 seconds, she will become enraged and fast-cast nonstop cometfalls upon your party, destroying you. You must keep her engaged as often as possible to avoid this.
  • Wing Buffet: Simply deals 30-60 bludgeoning damage, no save. And knocks you down (DC20 Str/Dex save). Unlike the breath, simply hiding behind the rocks will not save you from this. Overrun/Knockdown DC: 20, Strength or Dexterity whichever is higher. Must make the save for each wing buffet attack, regardless of how close you are, even behind the rock. Previously this would send you flying off the platform into space, ultimately killing you and ejecting you from the raid. Was quite a severe penalty that was somewhat unpopular among players. However Turbine saw fit to change it into its current, less severe form.
  • Summons: Velah will summon 2 "Velah's Claw" every 45-60 seconds. Although these appear to be fire reavers - they are actually Flesh Renders, and behave exactly like them (except they are weak to ice spells, unlike renders), including their lack of fire immunity and favorite ranged attacks - mass inflict wounds. As such, a Death Ward buff is recommended to negate the damage.

Strategy (Epic, but should apply to all difficulties)

• Before approaching Velah - decide on several key players. One to serve as the "main tank", one or two to handle trash, one to call the breath, as well as healing order and potential back up for these critical roles.
• Main Tank: You really can't tank Velah like you can other raid bosses, but it's still important to designate one for a couple of reasons:

1. To give the healers a target to focus for mass heals, as well as the other melee an indication of who to stand near if they are in need of healing.
2. To always have a player ready to engage Velah and be kept alive at all costs, in case trash becomes a problem and other melee are called in to help.

• Trash killers: "Velah's Claws" aren't terribly difficult at first, but they continuously spawn and will eventually overwhelm the party if not dealt with, so always designate at least 1 strong player to handle them. Arcanes are often ideal for this, as spells like wall of fire, ice storm and polar ray are all very effective at taking them down, and they can generally self heal to some degree. But melee can serve just as well given they can self heal well, or have some attention from a healer.
• Breath caller: Velah's breath can devastate and kill your entire raid group if not dodged. So, knowing when it's coming is critical, to allow you to avoid it. Many players cannot see the tells (smoke/fire coming out of the nose), so having someone call it out on voice chat can be a great help.
• Where to stand: Ideally you separate your melee and healers, so that there is less confusion in targeting, and less chance of trash getting in the way of the melee dodging the breath. Recommended setup is healers behind the right rock (where it's quite possible to heal all the melee on the dragon with zero risk to themselves) and melee on the left rock while dodging breath. The person handling trash will generally run around between the rocks as necessary, but if they prefer to be stationary, they should do it on the right rock near the healers.
• Timing: Each breath comes at exactly 30 seconds from the moment someone engages Velah, so if you're lagging or can't hear voice chat, you can also try to time when you need to run away. Exactly when she is considered "engaged" can be tricky however.

One of Velah's "egg"

• Velah's Eggs: Once Velah reaches about 20% health, she will spawn roughly 8-12 eggs, in random locations around the battlefield. If these are not killed within 30 seconds, they will turn into extremely powerful fire elementals. Kill them as fast as possible as they are devastating if not dealt with. The eggs are rather low HP trash mobs, so they can be eliminated quickly. In addition, when attacked, they spew out fire which deals ~75-150 fire damage, and also regenerates a similar amount of spell points. So ideally have your entire group minus the main tank, and 1 healer on the tank stay together and eliminate the eggs quickly, so everyone gets healing, and as many as possible get back spell points. Although she won't use Cometfall during this stage, keeping the tank up on Velah can still be wise, especially if he has guard proc such as a Favored Soul's Condemnation active.
  • During this stage, the breaths will take a little longer to happen, ~45-60 seconds. So don't rely on timing, and instead keep an eye out for the smoke/fire from her nose. Luckily she will not summon eggs and breath at the same time, generally she will summon them right after a breath or AI reset - eg, when she's ready to do a breath but no one is in range so she doesn't.
  • Egg stats/type: The eggs have roughly ~500-800 HP and are typed as fire elementals. As such, Banishing weapons work well, as does anything which deals cold damage, as they take 150% from it. Ideal arcane spell tends to be Frost Lance, as it deals 3 hits, and thus allows 3 shots of SP regen.
  • Fire Elementals: Should you fail to kill some of the eggs, the elementals have extremely high hitpoints and thus can't be melee'd at any reasonable rate, they can however be insta killed and have low fortitude saves.. So have your casters on alert and ready to do so should you miss some eggs.
• Backup plans: Should your trash killers die, you should call in all non-tank melees to help clean up. The tank should stay engaged on Velah at all times, as if she is not engaged for a certain period of time, she will destroy the party with Cometfalls.
• Notes for heroic difficulties: Due to Velah's hit points not being very high on heroic difficulties, you may simply be able to kill her outright in one round without needing much strategy. That said, you may still want some players behind the rocks in case of lag or known bugs killing your party (such as automatic breaths when players disconnect near the end).

Appearances as an NPC

Name: Velah

Race: Red Dragon, Elf

Gender: Female

Affiliation(s): Agents of Argonnessen

Locations:

• The Chronoscope
• Bogwater Tavern
• Anniversary Party

Description: Ex-leader of the Agents of Argonnessen.

Notes: Before she is killed in the Vault of Night, Velah can be seen in another areas of Stormreach. She is also mentioned by other NPCs around the game. Those are listed below in chronological order.

The Chronoscope

Velah and Cydonie are seen on the back of the floating tower from where Veheer F'nord coordinates the resistance to the Devil Invasion.

• Velah: If the Devils get too close to the dragonshards, then the dragons of Argonnessen will smite every living thing on this continent.
• Cydonie: Argonnessen cannot become involved here. That would wreak more destruction than the Devils are capable of by themselves.
• Velah: You show too much trust in the lesser races, Cydonie. Their Vault of Night won't keep the dragonshards safe in situations like this.
• Cydonie: I don't think the Vault of Night is in any danger. The Devils seems focused on the Marketplace.
• Velah: The lesser races should never have come to this continent. They brought this disaster on themselves.
• Cydonie: Velah is the head of the Argonnessen delegation. I must acquiesce to her lead.

Bogwater Tavern

Velah can be seen sit in a reserved table, talking to a dwarf. If you approach, you can hear their dialogue, one phrase at a time:

• Velah: The key to the Prophecy is in the Vault—will you not help me, my love?
• Dwarf: I won't have any problems getting in—after all, I designed the vault!
• Dwarf: The golem will help when the time comes...
• Dwarf: If I do this, my brothers will never forgive me.
• Velah: Yes, yes, I know your house of bankers will not approve of our liaison. But does it matter?

If you try to talk to them, however, each one will try to expel you from the proximities:

• Velah: We desire privacy—leave us be.
• Dwarf: The lady and I are trying to have a conversation here.

Although this is a foreshadowing for the Vault of Night storyline, they never leave the tavern, even after you complete the Plane of Night.