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mod-playerbots/conf
Crow 8585f10f48 Implement Serpentshrine Cavern Strategies (#1888)
Edited: Below description of methods were brought up to date as of the
PR coming off of draft.

### General
I've starting leveraging, to the extent possible, an out-of-combat
method to erase map keys. This is mostly useful for timers that need to
start upon the pull because I dislike having to rely on a check for a
boss to be at 100% HP (or 99.9% or whatever) because it can be
unreliable sometimes.

### Trash
Underbog Colossi: Some Colossi leave behind a lake of toxin when they
die that quickly kills any player that is standing in it. The pool is a
dynamic-object-generated AoE, and bots will not avoid it on their own (I
think because the AoE is out of combat, plus the radius is much larger
than the default avoidance radius in the config). The method does not
require bots to be in combat, and simply gets bots to run out of the
toxin. You will probably still get a couple of idiots who drink in the
middle of it, but in my experience, the vast majority of the raid gets
out, and healers that escape can easily keep up a couple of fools until
they've drank to full.

Greyheart Tidecallers: Bots will mark and destroy Water Elemental Totems
immediately.

### Hydross the Unstable
The strategy uses 2 tanks, with the main tank assigned to the frost
phase and the 1st assistant tank assigned to the nature phase.

- The main tank will tank the frost phase, and the first assistant tank
will tank the nature phase. They each have designated spots and will
wait at their spots twiddling their thumbs while Hydross is in the other
phase.
- Hunters will misdirect to the applicable tank upon the pull and after
each phase change.
- The phase change process begins 1 second after Hydross reaches 100%
Marks. The current tank will begin moving to the next phase tank's spot
for the next tank to take over as soon as Hydross transitions.
- DPS is ordered to stop after Hydross reaches 100% Marks until 5
seconds after he transitions.
- Bots will prioritize the elementals adds after every phase change,
unless Hydross is under 10% HP, in which case they should ignore the
adds and burn the boss.
- Ranged bots should spread during the frost phase to mitigate the
impact of Water Tombs.

### The Lurker Below

- There is a designated spot for the main tank.
- Ranged DPS will fan out over a 120-degree arc that is centered
directly across from the tank spot (to try to spread to reduce Geyser
damage while also keeping them behind Lurker).
- When Spout begins, all bots will run around behind Lurker. The intent
is to keep a distance with a radius of 20 or 21 yards and within 45
degrees (either side) of directly behind him. Movement is specifically
tangential along an arc so bots don't run in front of Lurker.
- Spout's duration is tracked by a timer. The mechanics of the spell
itself are rather unique and don't involve a continuous cast or aura to
track easily so I settled for the timer.
- If you have 3 (or more) tanks, each of the first 3 tanks will be
assigned to one of the 3 Coilfang Guardians during the submerge phase.

### Leotheras the Blind
The fight is designed for a Warlock tank. You can choose the Warlock
tank by giving a Warlock the Assistant flag. If you don't do that, your
highest HP Warlock will be picked. Do NOT switch the Warlock tank to a
co +tank strategy--the designated Warlock is hardcoded to spam Searing
Pain on Demon Leo and otherwise will engage in normal DPS strategies. If
you don't have a Warlock at all, the strategy has some methods built in
to try to make things work as best as possible with a melee tank.

- The Spellbinders get marked with skulls and killed in order.
- There is no designated spot or designated tank for the human phase.
Your tanks will fight for aggro. Ranged bots will attempt to keep some
distance, and when Whirlwind starts, everybody will run away from
Leotheras.
- During the demon phase, your melee tanks should take a backseat to
your Warlock tank, who will receive help in the form of Misdirection.
Bots will get the hell away from the Warlock tank so the Warlock tank
should be taking every Chaos Blast alone.
- During the final phase, your regular tanks will tank Leotheras, and
the Warlock tank will tank his Shadow. The melee tanks will attempt to
separate Leotheras from his Shadow so bots can focus down Leotheras
without getting hit with Chaos Blasts.
- Bots will wait 5 seconds to DPS after every transition into human
phase, 12 seconds to DPS after every transition into demon phase, and 8
seconds to DPS after the transition into the final phase. There is no
waiting on DPS after Whirlwinds, even though it would be ideal. It's not
a big deal to live without, and for various reasons, it would have been
a pain in the ass to deal with.
- Bots will save Bloodlust/Heroism until after Spellbinders are down.
- To deal with the Inner Demons, I disabled DPS assist for bots who are
targeted and force them to focus only on their Inner Demons. This is
sufficient in my experience for all DPS bots and Protection Warriors and
Paladins to kill their Inner Demons, even at 50% damage. Feral Tank
Druids and Healers still need help, so the strategy hardcodes their
actions while fighting Inner Demons. For example, Resto Druids are coded
to shift out of Tree Form, cast Barkskin on themselves, and just spam
Wrath until the Inner Demon is dead. There are no bot strategy changes
used for this method.

### Fathom-Lord Karathress
You will need 4 tanks. Your main tank will tank Karathress, and an
assistant tank will tank each Fathom Guard. If you have fewer than 4
tanks, then the priority order for tank assignment will be Karathress,
Caribdis, Sharkkis, and then Tidalvess.

- Roughly, the tank spots are (1) for Karathress, near where he starts
but closer to the ledge for LoS reasons, (2) for Sharkkis, North from
his starting location on the other side of the ramp, (3) for Tidalvess,
Northwest from his starting location near the pillar, and (4) for
Caribdis, far to the West of her starting position, near the corner.
- Note that the tanks will probably clip through the terrain a bit when
going to their positions. This is due to me implementing a forced MoveTo
to the tank position coordinates. There is something weird about the
maps in Karathress's room, and the tanks will take some really screwed
up paths without making them go directly to the exact coordinates. So
this looks stupid but is necessary.
- One healer will be assigned to heal the Caribdis tank. Because AC
Playerbots does not yet have a focus heal strategy, this just means that
such healer has a designated location near the Caribdis tank's location.
This healer can be selected with the Assistant flag.
- Hunters will misdirect the Fathom Guards onto their applicable tanks.
If you don't have three Hunters, the priority is Caribdis, Tidalvess,
then Sharkkis.
- DPS will wait 12 seconds to begin attacking. After that, they will
prioritize targets as follows:
- (1): Melee will always prioritize Spitfire Totems as soon as they
spawn. This will continue through the duration of the fight.
- (2): All bots will kill Tidalvess first.
- (3): Melee bots will move to Sharkkis, and ranged bots will move to
Caribdis. I understand this is not the standard kill order for players,
which would have the entire raid kill Sharkkis next. The reasons I have
done this differently are because melee DPS is much stronger with 3.3.5
talents vs. in retail TBC, and because bots get really thrown off by
Cyclones and therefore they struggle to kill Caribdis quickly. You do
not want Karathress below 75% HP before all Fathom-Guards are dead or he
gets a huge damage buff.
- (4) If Caribdis dies first, ranged bots will help with Sharkkis.
- (5) Everybody kills Sharkkis's pet.
- (6) Everybody kills Karathress.

### Morogrim Tidewalker

- The main tank will pull the boss to the Northeast pillar, with the
tank's back against the pillar.
- A hunter will misdirect the boss onto the main tank upon the pull.
- When the boss gets to 26% HP, the main tank will begin moving the boss
to the Northeast corner of the room in preparation for Phase 2 (which
begins at 25%). The tank will move in two steps to get around the
pillar.
- When the boss gets to 25% HP, ranged will follow the main tank to the
corner and stack up right behind the boss. They will also move in two
steps.
- There is no method for melee since they will just naturally follow the
boss anyway.

### Lady Vashj

**Phase 1**:
- The main tank will tank Vashj in the center of the arena.
- If a Shaman is in the main tank's group, that Shaman will attempt to
keep a Grounding Totem down in range of the main tank to absorb Shock
Blast. This should continue in Phase 3.
- Ranged bots will spread out in a semicircle around the center of the
arena.
- If any bot other than the main tank gets Static Charge, it will run
away from other bots. If the main tank gets Static Charge, other bots
will run away from the main tank. This method should continue in Phase
3.
- If any bot is Entangled and has Static Charge, the bot will attempt to
use Cloak of Shadows if it is a Rogue, and Paladins will attempt to use
Hand of Freedom. This method should continue in Phase 3 (with some
modifications).
- Bots will not use Bloodlust or Heroism (saved for Phase 3). Bots will
not use any other major cooldowns, either, such as Metamorphosis (saved
for Phase 2 and 3).

**Phase 2**:
There are two central mechanics to this phase, both of which were
challenging to get bots to execute properly. First is the system of
prioritizing adds. The large playing field and multiple types of adds
coming from random directions make this phase not doable with realistic
DPS under the standard Playerbots target selection system. Therefore, I
took inspiration from liyunfan's Naxx strategy for Phase 1 of Kel'Thuzad
to disable dps assist and create a custom target selection system.

First, a cheat with respect to the Coilfang Striders: 
- Tanks will permanently have the Fear Ward aura applied to them if you
have raid cheats enabled. This allows them to tank the Coilfang
Striders. The standard strategy was to have an Elemental Shaman kite the
Strider around the perimeter of the arena, with ranged players
(including healers) spamming DoTs on the Strider. If you can make bots
do this, then great, but it's far beyond my capabilities. Therefore,
with the cheat, the first assistant tank is responsible for tanking
Striders and keeping them away from Core passers (described below) and
Vashj. Evidently it was (and is, in TBC Classic) possible to tank (and
melee DPS) Striders by wearing a Dire Maul Ogre Suit, which would give
you enough reach to stay out of the Strider's fear. I actually tried
that, and it does not work, either because AC's radiuses are not the
same or just because bots do not maintain the same level of precise
positioning. But anyway, the point is that technically the Striders are
tankable by real players, so maybe that will make you feel better about
using this cheat (it's fine enough rationalizing for me). I found this
fight to be unmanageable without this cheat (i.e., using a method that
would only have bots try to run away from Striders) because each Strider
was guaranteed to wipe out a couple of bots, and you really cannot
afford to lose anyone. YMMV though.
- If cheats are enabled for Striders, Hunters will attempt to Misdirect
the Striders to the first assist tank.
- If cheats are not enabled, bots will attempt to use slows/roots to
stop the Striders. I have some logic for them to use Netherweave Nets,
but I suspect it does not actually work so I may remove it instead of
trying to get it to function properly.

Target priority is as follows:
- Hunters and Mages: Enchanted Elementals, Coilfang Striders, Coilfang
Elites.
- Other Ranged Bots: Elites, Striders, Elementals. 
- Melee DPS: Elementals, Elites.
- Tanks: Elites, Elementals (except if cheats are enabled, the first
assistant tank will instead prioritize Striders and then Elementals)
- Everybody else (basically means healers): Elementals, Elites, Striders
- If there is more than one of the same target, bots will prioritize the
one that is closer to Vashj.
- In all cases, the valid attack ranged is limited so that bots should
not leave the central platform.
- If somehow a bot ends up too far from the center of the room and is
not actively attacking anything, there is logic to make them run back.

Handling Tainted Elementals and the Tainted Core: I will make another
post about this later. It is easily the most complicated strategy I've
ever worked on (far beyond anything on Kael'thas even) so will
necessitate a long explanation. The tl;dr is that there is a chain of
two-to-four bots that receive/pass the Tainted Core before using it on a
Shield Generator, and if you are playing by yourself, you probably need
to turn raid cheats on, in which case there will also be a bot that
teleports to, kills, and loots the Tainted Elementals (i.e., the bots
will then handle the entire sequence of shutting down Shield
Generators).

**Phase 3**:
- The main tank will pick up Vashj immediately and try to keep her away
from Enchanted Elementals.
- DPS will burn down residual adds from Phase 2 in the order of (1)
elementals, (2) strider for ranged only (if you have more than one up,
you're dead), and (3) elites (hopefully you have only one up, but two
with one almost dead is possible).
- Hunters will kill Toxic Sporebats. This works quite well, but they
(and anybody else if ordered to target Sporebats) have a tendency to
levitate up into the pipes at the top of the room when killing the
Sporebats. To counteract this, a method forcibly teleports bots to the
ground if they get more than 2 yards above the ground.
- The Phase 1 Cloak of Shadows/Hand of Freedom method is now expanded to
include bots Entangled in the Sporebat poison pools (with Hand of
Freedom usage prioritized on the main tank).
- There is a specific method to avoid the Sporebat poison pools. The
Vashj tank will move backwards when avoiding poison.

---------

Co-authored-by: kadeshar <kadeshar@gmail.com>
2026-02-08 12:31:23 +01:00
..
2022-03-12 22:27:09 +01:00