Raid

A raid is a highly difficult and tactically challenging quest with great rewards of experience points, treasure and more--if you survive its dangers.

A Raid Party Needs Diversity
Raids allow parties of up to twelve players. Raids can be started and adventured by only one character or with a small party. However, the available party slots in a raid imply the strong likelihood that class-specific talents will be needed throughout the adventure--talents such as Open Lock, Intimidate, Wall of Fire and Heal that are very unlikely to be available at the difficulty class needed in the raid for a single character class.

It is highly inadvisable to enter most raids without at least one (non-multiclassed) Cleric, Rogue, Wizard or Sorcerer, and Fighter or other melee-class.

Hirelings can not be summoned to fill slots of a raiding party, although summoned creatures or companions can accompany a player. Summoned creatures are generally avoided, however, for they could attract enemies that should not be disturbed or killed, which might jeopardize the entire raid.

Voice chat, and following the Raid Leader
Experienced participants in a raid often designate a raid leader. This character has completed the raid before (often several times) and knows the challenges, prerequisites and dangers ahead.

The raid leader often uses voice chat to quickly communicate what's needed of party members. Raids are fast-moving and complicated adventures where typing out instructions is usually highly impractical--and perilous. It's a very good idea to activate voice chat in your game options, even if you haven't a microphone yourself, so you can hear the raid leader's instructions.

Good raid leaders will bring you to fortune and glory--if you follow their instructions. A zerging or inattentive party member may not only get themselves killed but get the entire party killed or otherwise cause the quest to fail. Don't be a Leeroy Jenkins.

The harder a raid's difficulty, the more likely that a "pick-up group" (a party filled with players who have little to no history in questing together) will fail in the quest, as some players may "fib" about their own experience or character strength needed to aid the party successfully. Guilds often help in organizing raid parties for greater effectiveness.

See the Fighting in groups article for more tips on how to best help in a party.

Flagging and other Prerequisites
Most raids in DDO require the player character to complete prerequisite quests--that is, to be flagged before you may enter a specific raid. The Chronoscope and Tempest's Spine are raids that don't require flagging.

As with most quests, raids have a minimum level requirement necessary for the quest to grant experience points to the character.

In addition to a flagging requirement, some raids may require gathering of ingredients or collectibles as "keys," in a sense, that also qualify you to enter a raid.

Raids often contain specialized ingredients for things such as Green Steel items as well as much of the game's very specialized and useful raid loot.

Enemies and Bosses
Enemies in a raid are not affected by dungeon scaling but are generally much stronger and tougher than a similar enemy in a normal quest.

Raids are often the climax of a story arc, such as defeating Queen Lailat or the Stormreaver. These end-bosses are often so powerful that knowledge of what bypasses their damage reduction is vital if any attempts are made to attack them. In addition to strong defenses, raid bosses often have very high hit points that may take several minutes to whittle down, even if most of the twelve-character party are attacking at once.

Some raid bosses can't be defeated at all until you bypass their virtual invulnerability to damage through mechanisms in the game. Sor'jek Incanni, the boss of the Tempest's Spine raid, can't be damaged until you disable his weather-control powers. Xy'zzy, the boss of the Hound of Xoriat raid, can't be damaged at all until you trick its spawns to attack for you.

In both examples, while attacking the boss, the party has to manage being attacked by outside forces, such as the boss itself, environmental effects that could blow you off a top of a mountain, enemies that target Clerics or other effects that could lay waste to whole parties at once.

Pre-raids
Some raids have what's known as a pre-raid, a six-party quest that serves as a final key to entering a raid. Earlier versions of some DDO adventures required pre-raids to be completed before entering a raid--even if the player had completed the pre-raid before their last adventure into the same raid. The Against the Demon Queen adventure is one example, consisting of a pre-raid and the raid itself.

Pre-raids are a bit challenging because it requires potential raid parties to split into two 6-party groups to complete the pre-raid separately, then reunite for the raid itself.

Completing a Raid, End-Reward Loot and Raid Timers
A raid often has the most experience points, loot and Favor you will encounter in the game.

In addition to loot found in the many chests while in the raid itself, all raids, as with most normal quests, have end-reward loot available from the NPC quest giver. Picking up this end-reward immediately after completing a raid is extremely important, and not just for the benefit of uniquely named loot.

Every raid (except for Tempest's Spine) has a raid timer that prohibits a character from repeating the raid for 2 days and 18 hours from its last completion. The raid timer begins AFTER you have received your end-reward loot from the quest giver, so it's very important to speak to the quest giver immediately after a raid. Else, three days might have passed for you, but to the quest giver, you haven't fully completed the last adventure and must wait 3 more days before re-entering a particular raid.

Repeating Raids is a Good Thing
Raids have another special counter that records how many times a character has entered and completed a specific raid.

Characters who complete their 20th run in many raids will often be given access to select one item from the entire unique raid loot list of that raid from the end-reward list.

In addition, some raids will also give tomes that permanently increase your abilities, like Strength or Wisdom.

The Shroud raid provides one unique ingredient that is prized for Green Steel wearers: a "Cleansing Essence" that allows the use of more than one Green Steel accessory (not weapon) without succumbing to the Taint of Shavarath, which slowly kills you without the use of the Essence.

The special reward repeats every 20th cycle, at 40 completions and 60 completions.

To check on how many times that a character has completed a raid while actually in-progress inside that raid, look on the XP summary from the quest objectives window.

When you're not in the raid and need to know how many times you've completed one, type in /quest completions in your chat window to show a list of all raids completed.

To see all raid timers marking elapsed time remaining before you can re-enter, type in /quest in your chat window.

Essentials for entering any raid
Raids are not ordinary quests. Some will have few or no shrines available to players. Clerics may be tasked to a raid objective that prohibits them from healing others, requiring characters to be more self-sufficient. Death is likely in any raid from hit point loss or death spells, and even resurrections may not be possible in some instances. Your weapons and spells must also be able to defeat the improved saves against their damage reductions or spell resistances, or you simply will not damage your enemies. Rust monsters will quickly damage your weapons and equipment.

Raids are also often filled with inhospitable obstacles such as lava, long underwater tunnels and acid pits, traps, and mobs that even twelve players may find pressed to control. Your abilities such as Strength or Intelligence must be as high as you can make them to simply open doors and chests and levers to proceed through the raid.

New players should read "Help! Am I Raid Ready?" for information on common essential equipment for most raids, and other information.