Vindictus Ancient Elchulus Ballista Tips and Tricks

Vindictus Ancient Elchulus Ballista Tips and Tricks by SinDreadElla

After watching some of the NA vids and searching for methods of making Elchulus runs quicker here is what I found.
(As a side note, I think the Elchulus (from episode 10) requires the exact same ballista tactics.)
Credits goes to all the owners since all I’m doing is making things simpler to understand.

How to shoot Ancient Elchulus accurately and correctly:

————————————–taken from wiki——————————

NOTE: To make him fall you must shoot him 3 times quickly while he is far away from the side that he is flying into.
————————————–taken from wiki——————————

Now we all know that Elchulus only takes alot of damage when he gets shot down and crash landed.
To crash land him it is usually easier for him to be in his “8 pattern” flight mode.
But there is only a 1/4 chance for him to fly like that because whenever he takes off, he will either do:
1. The Meteorite AOE
2. The Napalm Bombing run OR
3. The troll flight (where he just flies a quarter lap around the map and comes back down)

Now the thing about Elchulus is, if he is flying in either the Meteorite AOE or the Napalm flight mode, you canhit him with the ballista and if the hit was successful, he will immediately change his flight to the “8 pattern” mode and hence, making everyone’s life easier.
There are some position where certain ballistas can interrupt the flight pattern of Elchulus.
But first let us look at the map of the position of the ballistas:

As you can see it is represented as a clock.

How to spot the type of flight?

If he:
1. starts flying high and in the “shape of the number 8”, he’s gonna do the 8-pattern flight so quickly get onto the ballistas.
2. starts flying high, but then suddenly dives beneath the map and out of sight, he is going to do the Meteorite AOE. Get to the designated ballistas (as written in the “Interrupting Meteorite AOE” section) when that happens.
3. flys low and really far away from the map, he is most likely going to do the Napalm.
Sometimes he might start flying high again when he gets far, but don’t let that get you tricked. When he does that it’s usually a single Napalm only though.
4. starts flying a quarter lap around the map or sometimes dive down and come back up. This is the troll flight.

Interrupting Meteorite AOE:

Many people may have noticed that Elchulus shakes off any ballista spears shot to him before and during the Meteorite AOE and will say it’s useless. But the thing is, they have never tried to shoot him when he has finished the AOE. Of course people are too busy taking cover at this point in time but here’s a couple of ways to shoot him out of that.

The 2 o’ clock Ballista
Perhaps the most easiest one since NA people use this quite alot.
After the Meteorite AOE, here is where this ballista should aim:

As soon as Elchulus flies right above this red point, release the ballista shot and it should hit his wing, forcing him to change the flight mode. Also the only thing this ballista requires is timing and the point where you have to aim is the most lenient (compared to the other ballistas) since his wings are spread out wide the moment the spear is about to hit.
Pot-tanking is recommended for the non-Lann ballista operators here.
(Definition for pot-tanking is written near the end of this guide)
And here is a video showing how it was shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr_iigiOZXQ&t=1m6s
And here is a video without any cuts to show the whole process of the flight changed and the crash landing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkny25l5m8&t=1m56s

The 4 o’ clock Ballista
The safest way to shoot the Dragon after the Meteorite AOE. This method allows you to take cover and shoot the Dragon at the same time. Pot-tanking is not necessary for ballista operators here and this ballista is recommended for Fionas and Karoks.
There are two points in which you can shoot so take your pick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnvY4OLA2hU&t=11m17s (if this link is not taking you to the right part of the video, jump to 11 minutes and 17 seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAhX9sGrACk
(Note: The uploader of the 2nd video said it’s a glitch, but I think that’s how the game is designed anyway.)

The 10 o’ clock Ballista
This ballista is the 2nd hardest to shoot the Dragon with and it doesn’t give you any covers unlike the 4 o’ clock ballista. The worst part is that the nearest water pool is 10 miles away from you on either side of the map. Using XE move is highly recommended to dodge the meteorites if you are not a Lann. Having an Evie with a golem (as shown in the video below) is another option.
Pot-tanking is not recommended since you’ll take alot of time to run to a pool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature…&v=6xumAhASYC4

The 7 o’ clock Ballista
Here is where you should aim after he finishes the AOE:

This ballista is the hardest to shoot him out of the AOE. It requires extremely strict timing and if you are not a Lann (like in the vid) Pot-tanking is highly recommended. Tank a hit from the Dragon while standing near the ballista and immediately get onto it as soon as you get hit, then fire the shot without hesitation. Also the two lovely water pools are right behind you so again, Pot-tanking is highly recommended.
Pot-tanking vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lt-DRNH8aE
Lann dodge vid: http://channel.pandora.tv/channel/video.ptv?ch_userid=oblix88&prgid=43330135&categid =all&
page=3

Interrupting Napalm:

Before I talk about interrupting the Napalm flight, a few things to know about is the fact that any shots done during the first attack is futile as he will simply remove the ballista chain(s). It MUST be done only after he has completely finished his attack.
Here is a video of the Napalm interruption in different situations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwjQhRG6pw

Why is Napalm Interruption hard to pull off?

The main problem of interrupting the Napalm flight is the fact that you can’t predict which side of the map he is flying into. You are usually left with the question is “Is he coming into my half or the other half?”. This is best done with 2 players who knows how to do the interruption, staying on both sides of the map (the top and the bottom).

Double Napalm

For Double Napalm, Elchulus flies in 4 different ways.
And for every Double Napalm, he always attacks twice and breathes fire that covers 3/4 area on the map. This basically means only 2 ballistas are safe to stay on for each attack and they have to be the ones that are on the opposite 1/4 area of the map that he is flying into.
The following methods are the safer methods that will allow you to safely shoot while you’re staying on the ballista.
There are 4 pictures below each named for the area which he initially starts flying into.
The red arrow shows the flight path of the Dragon while the green arrow shows the recommended ballista that should be used after his first attack.

1. Bottom right corner

Recommended ballista: 7 o’ clock ballista

2. Top right corner

Recommended ballista: 11 o’ clock ballista

3. Bottom left corner

Recommended ballista: 5 o’ clock ballista

4. Top left corner

Unfortunately I still haven’t found a ballista that would allow you to safely and correctly interrupt his Napalm when he flies like this, mainly because the 1 o’clock ballista cannot turn much to the right side. Therefore even if you shot him correctly, the interruption won’t take place because the ballista spear can’t reach to the point where Elchulus’s flight ends.
It could be possible to use the other ballistas on the right side of the map (the 2, 4 and 5 o’ clock ballistas) but that would mean risking the chances of getting hit and killed by the Napalm, not to mention the strict timing of shooting the ballista the moment Elchulus breathes fire.
Nonetheless, here is the flight pattern shown on the map.


Single Napalm

The interruption process works the same way as double. When Elchulus is about to do the single Napalm, he will start flying away from the map (like the normal Double Napalm) but then suddenly stop and start flying randomly (without doing any attack like he normally would in the Double Napalm) before he starts flying in again to do the Single Napalm. This can be easily mistaken for the Troll flight but it gives you a lot of time to let you know that it’s not a troll flight. If he starts flying over and across the map, follow him to that side and hope that he doesn’t attack the side you’re staying on.

Interrupting Troll Flight

Aaaaand there is no way to change his flight pattern or crash land him during the troll flight cus that’s what Elchulus is suppose to do. To troll ballista operators. :3
This involves flying in multiple ways like flying:
1. a quarter/half lap around the map. (to confuse people with the 8 pattern flight)
2. diving down into the map only to come up and back on the map after a second later. (to confuse people with the Meteorite AOE)

FAQ

(Note: All of the FAQ I’m answering is solely based on what I’ve experienced.)

Q: We hit the dragon not just 3 times but sometimes even 4. Still, he didn’t crash. What is going on?
A: Like this person from the Wiki guide said:

To make him fall you must shoot him 3 times quickly while he is far away from the side that he is flying into.

This basically means when the Dragon is slightly descending during the flight to breathe fire. If he has finished his breath attack, any further hits will be futile, and he will remove a single extra chain everytime he does the semi-circular round trip around the map. And what the author forgot to mention is that only the final hit (that will cause the crash) needs to be shot before his breath attack was done.
Simple answer is-
When Dragon already has 2 chains on him shoot the next ballista when he comes back in-land and before he breathes fire.

Do You Know?

After the ballista spear hits something, it takes 10 seconds for the ballista to automatically reload another spear.
(If you missed the Dragon and it flew off the map, it will still hit the “end of the arena” [the invisible wall that encloses every dungeon])

During his “8 pattern” flight you can extend his flight time by hitting him with the ballista.
If no one hits him (or tries not to because they want the last hit to add numbers to their DPS) he will quickly end the flight.
Therefore each and every shot counts to extend his flight time, even the last ones that fail to take him down. But of course there is a limit to how many rounds he fly (I’m not sure if it’s definite) and he will come back down if the party doesn’t manage to take him down in time.

Shooting a ballista at a nearby shelter would get the ballista spear stuck in the shelter’s wall.
The best part about this is the fact that you can remove the ballista spear from the shelter by using the “grab button” to instantly refill a spear in your ballista.
Lower level players can stock up ballista spears this way. But ballista spears expire if you leave it on the ground for a while.

Like Colru, Elchulus usually seems to obey the simple rule of rotating the four flights.
Even though it isn’t always in the same order, it can be predictable.
To make the explanation simple, I will be using the “probability theory” in Maths to explain this (since the AI for Elchulus most likely uses this).
Say you have a Red, Green, Blue and Yellow balls in a bag.
If the first 2 balls you took out are Red and Green, you can be sure that the next ball you will pull out from the bag is either Blue or Yellow. If 3 balls are already taken out, you can definitely predict the colour of the remaining ball in the bag.
After all the balls are taken out, they are then placed back into the bag where you randomly draw it out again.
Similarly, Elchulus flights works the same way. If Elchulus has already done Napalm, Meteorite AOE and Troll flight, you can be sure that the next flight will be 8 pattern flight and hence get onto the ballistas as soon as he flies off. And after doing all four, he will start a new set of flight rotation.
One last thing to take note of, is the fact that in some runs, he will not obey this probability rule, even though he does most of the time. Hence why I underlined the word “usually”.

Pot-tanking definition:
Pot-tanking is the process where you tank a single attack to prevent you from being knocked down. All you have to do is drink a potion (any potion) while standing. Any single attack that hits you during this standing animation will prevent you from being knocked down and that attack will cancel your drinking animation. You will still end up taking the same damage as normal, and your pot won’t be used up as long as the attack hits you during the animation.
Pot-tanking can take any hit that doesn’t hit you more than once. This even involves attacks that normally knocks down a character in Slashing High such as Colru’s Boulder, Dragon’s Meteorite/Napalm, etc.
It’s use is very limited in most raids, but is very useful when shooting the Dragon with the ballista where you need to tank his meteorite AOE so that you can get back on the ballista ASAP.

Hopefully after reading this, people will try and take full advantage of the Dragon’s flight no matter how or where he flies.