The Lost Vale: Part 1 - Preparating Yourself For The Dungeon
By: Damihdez
Here is a guide for getting yourself ready for the Lost Vale. I will be writing a series of guides to walk you through the dungeon, going in order of the quest line within. This information will be condensed from Nublet's guide found here http://vale.airdrawn.net/LV.html, and will include my own observations of the dungeon.
Part 1 is simply getting yourself ready for the adventure. First and foremost, you will need the right amount of Greater Wards or better(at the moment, these come from Sentinel or Conqueror gear). Nublet recommends the following breakdown:
o Tanks - Main Tank: 5 Wards, Off Tank 4 Wards
o DPS - Melee: 4 Wards, Ranged 3 Wards
o Healers - 3 Wards
I think that this really should be taken as the absolute minimum amount of wards for this dungeon. With the above setup, you cannot hope to get very far into the dungeon. For a realistic chance at completion, you will definitely need both tanks fully warded with greater wards and everyone else needs as many as possible. For example, if you have only 3 greater wards as a ranged DPS character, you will be taking 120% extra damage from enemies, and you will only deal 60% of your actual damage output to enemies. That makes you pretty close to useless. So, my recommendation is that you find a group that can run dungeons regularly and simply start with the Altdorf instances and RvR. You will also be able to determine how well your group works together, and will therefore work better together once you do reach Lost Vale. Also remember that Conqueror gear is easier than ever to get through the token system, so it is now a viable alternative to Sentinel.
After getting/verifying the appropriate amount of wards for your team, my next recommendation would be to arrange a time that everyone can attend a dungeon run once a week. It is fairly lengthy, so a possible stress-test would be to run Warpblade Tunnels and Sigmar's Crypts with your team one after the other. If everyone has time to do this, then they will also probably be able to do Lost Vale. Lost Vale has a 5 day lockout, so planning a regular dungeon run once a week is best.
It will also be a good idea to get as many types of Tome Tactics as you can. To get started, the Beastman and Bestial tactics will be helpful. I will write an ancillary set of guides for this after I finish the Lost Vale series.
Quest-wise everyone in your group MUST have the Pure of Heart quest from Phoenix King Finubar. This kicks off the whole Lost Vale lore, and it will lead you through the dungeon roughly in order of difficulty. If you go to the Phoenix King and he does not have the quest, you may have already done the first step. The first step is simply to go to the Lost Vale and talk to a guy on the beach. This is fine; you just need to be sure that EVERYONE in the group has started this quest. Also make sure everyone knows to talk the the relevant NPC's throughout the dungeon (usually the Everqueen's Spirit) to continue on to each stage of the quest.
Fly out to Avelorn and head north to the little dock right by the warcamp. Once everyone has joined the group, hop on the boat to go to the dungeon. Just like with the Altdorf dungeons, you have to all be in the party first.
The first step of the quest, as I mentioned, is to talk to Lanorith Mournfire on the beach. He will give you the next stage of the quest, which is to kill the boss known as Ahzranok (the first Lost Vale boss). Try to have everyone talk to him and accept his new quest at the same time (you want everyone to see what transpires next). Speaking of which, DO NOT run out to meet the guy fleeing the dungeon; you will see why.
Before you can start the dungeon proper, you have a brief encounter with a creature known as the Darkpromise Beast. You only need to fight this critter down to 80% health, then it will leave. Once it does, turn left and head into the western wing to find Ahzranok.