Curse

S{R}Raptor · Dec 18, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Aggro the monks then walk them through their own catapult fire. Sure you will take a hit, but with defy pain up you should be fine.

To use traps even with a warriors weak pips of energy, just find a nice high energy focus and energy mod with a sword and full radiant and attunement runes for your armor and you should be good with plenty of energy and that should be plenty to easily create traps.

Bill Clinton · Dec 19, 2010, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by S{R}Raptor

Aggro the monks then walk them through their own catapult fire. Sure you will take a hit, but with defy pain up you should be fine.

To use traps even with a warriors weak pips of energy, just find a nice high energy focus and energy mod with a sword and full radiant and attunement runes for your armor and you should be good with plenty of energy and that should be plenty to easily create traps.

Yeah I was thinking of that. With cupcakes and stuff I can net a bit of extra energy, too. If it comes to that on THK, i'll go for it.

I wont have defy pain in the ice caves of sorrow, but I like your idea of luring them into their own sieges! Because they arent melee enemies I can just lure them into the center and step out myself. Having said that, this seems to be quite hard to pull off - when I try to pull them they just switch targets to Evennia rather than run to me. It'll just take some good timing and catch them there, or I can run a long way back then outpace Evennia back to the mobs so she isnt there when I pull them.

sandor · Dec 19, 2010, 11:03 AM // 11:03

This might help. www.youtube.com/user/woodenpotatoes he is doing a prophecies solo playthrough and I think you can get a lot of info from his videos and him as well. Good luck.

Bill Clinton · Dec 19, 2010, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandor

This might help. www.youtube.com/user/woodenpotatoes he is doing a prophecies solo playthrough and I think you can get a lot of info from his videos and him as well. Good luck.

Hehe thanks - Thats me!

sandor · Dec 19, 2010, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Clinton

Hehe thanks - Thats me!

OOwh snap

. Never mind then.

Bill Clinton · Dec 20, 2010, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Just posting to confirm i've finished the Ice caves of sorrow without much of a problem. I did come across that glitch where they dont die, twice infact. But other than that it went without a hitch and i'm moving on.

Edit:
15 atribute point quest and Iron Mines of Moladune also completed without much to comment on. I'm at THK...

Edit2:
Its just as I originally feared - Jalis cant be told to wait anywhere. Whenever I agro anything he goes charging in. Damn. Ideas, anyone? Maybe I can block him on something..?

He's so much more difficult to keep alive! He can take a beating, sure, i'll give him that - but because he's always in the front lines he's usually drawing as much agro as me. Not like Evennia at all. Maybe i'll try using two monk bonds on him for protection or something and kill/survive myself on pure adrenaline... Anyone wanna make some bond suggestions? Or any hell any healing suggestions. Looks like there isnt much enchantment removal before the fort.

Lets see, the build needs 3 things:
a) Able to keep Jalis alive while I cut a path to the keep
b) Able to kill fast enough to stop me getting mobbed at the keep
c) Able to keep me alive as well.

Edit3:
After a few hours I managed to make it to the city with jalis alive, but when we're in there he just gets his ass handed to him. I've tried running super far away from him to bug the ai and stop him from following, but its not working. Getting pretty frustrated, really. May have to try trapping but I cant see that helping me all too much. I'm sure I need shadow form to survive against any mursaat elementalists and stone summit mesmers I come across.

Edit:4
Been continuing my efforts all day. It seems that theres no real way that I can block Jalis and keep him away from me. Somehow he always worms his way back. Which means I have to fight with him about...
I've gotten pretty good at agroing enemies in just the right way so that I take most of the focus but its not full-proof and very time consuming (I have to run ages away from the mob, then charge into them from such a long distance that I get ahead of Jalis and the melee hones in around me rather than him).

I've spent a few hours in spamadan buying mysterious summoning stones looking for Gaki's, but even after I eventually got one it didnt seem to help much. Jalis is still dying before I come close to clearing the city.

So i'm going to give trapping a shot. Probably cost me a lot in the way of cons to raise my energy to test it, but hey i've already blown through 20e worth of red rock.

Edit5:
Nah, trapping doesnt seem like the best way to go about this. I can see it will be extremely tough with Jalis hanging around my ass all the time, he screws up the pulls.

Edit6:
Yay! Figured out that I can block Jalis. Though... it'll take a while. It involves killing an awfull lot of those extra Tengu and Griffons on the side-path before reaching the town. We're talking 20-30 minutes at the start before being ready to enter the city. This mission will be a bitch if I die near the end... looking about about 2-3hours for the whole thing, asuming I can even do it.

Anyway, this means that, except for the first few fights, I dont have to worry about keeping Jalis alive! I just need to develop a build that has enough survivabilty and damage to keep alive and kill monks (potentially monk bosses on bad spawns).

Edit7: Scratch that. Blocking Jalis means losing any summoned creatures I want as well, which means waiting the hour for sickness to wear off. And i'd have to do that twice, since I need him to go open the gate at the back of the city. I realise with enough damage we can kill fast enough that Jalis doesnt die. Still, its tricky though and will take more practice.

Edit8: Still too tough. Cant get past some bits, trying with the Gaki again. Which is a pain because it costs so much in the way of mysterious summoning stones (no one seems to have mystical stones for sale) and i'm convinced that shining blade monks are bugged or something, i've never seen one in 40+ horns.

Edit9: Gah. Over 60 stones and no Gaki. Screw that. Time to try daggers and blind spamming the enemies... or something.

Edit10: Hmm... been trying to block Jalis again, this time using shadow of haste. Its pretty easy to block him, and I can even reach the city in just a couple of minutes this way. But he loves to worm his way closer to me and as a result runs into the mobs I skipped. I need to either find a better, more secure place to block him or I need to fight my way there even though he's blocked. Which isnt preferable. Edit11: Its cool, I found a nice easy place at the start to block him and he'll never follow me.

I also got to the keep itself now that I can block him! I did some of it with henchies, though, and as a result it seems to have glitched like mad and nothing save for one group of 2 jade armours and a bow came to attack me. Wierd, couldnt complete the mission as a result. Gonna have to make sure that blocking him isnt going to make that glitch continue happening.

Edit12: The glitch was random. Which is cool because it means there is one small stretch of mission where I can avoid fighting. The keep itself... i've had a few attempts. The stone summit at the start are not much of an issue at all really, but when the mursaat start coming they pack too much damage for me to survive against. Thankfully, as far as I can see, there arent actually any monks around there unless I get unlucky and they spawn as a boss. I dunno... maybe i'll try going with a centurions set of armour and defy pain. Defy pain would mean I have to fight that one stretch between the keep and the city but, honestly, when im killing 90% of the mission anyway I dont think its a big problem. But then those mesmers... damn those mesmers really hurt if I dont have shadow form. I doubt I can get past them (they come in groups of three and I can barely handle one)

Edit13: Read on wiki that if you leave through the west gate ASAP after the cinematic you can stop the initial waves form killing Jalis. Doing that I could kill the jade out in the fields making the second wave easier! But it doesnt work very well, the second I return the place is crawling with stone summit. Running out of options...

Edit14: Meh. Since I already broke my rule about not using foreign secondary professions I may as well try spirit spamming as a ritualist. Makes sense since I have to fight everything anyway. Here goes nothing.

Edit15: Wow! Looks like I underestimated the power of a spirit spammer. First test really using it I easily cleared the whole city before Jalis was killed, and I wasnt even really paying attention! We may be on to a winner...

Edit16: Argh! Its god damn freaking useless. Spirits arent infused, the mursaat beat the crap out of them.

Edit17: As far as I see it I have two possible ways to complete the mission. First is to spam consumables untill my shadow arts is 15 and use an essence of celerity. That lets me maintain shadow form without paradox, which means i'll have enough energy to keep it up indefinatly as a warrior. Then with an armour of salvation and dolyak signet/shroud of distress I might have enough defense to survive against a huge number of mursaat at one moment in just 3 skills. That gives me five attack skills to wipe out the enemy. The only monks i'll come up against (with good boss spawns) will be in the last group of attackers - where confessor dorian and a priest are. Thankfully there are no mursaat in this group so I can use a shining blade warhorn or something to grant me enough damage to kill them. Its just a matter of keeping the enemies away from Jalis the entire battle, which can be achieved with good positioning.

The only other way I can imagine is counting on luck for the mission to glitch so I can kill everything around the fort but also survive by myself or something...

Edit18: It appears that some mursaat dont follow the normal path, they are specifically there to try and get into Jalis' agro and bypass me. They make fighting at the top of the stairs quite difficult unless I learn exactly which ones they are and move accordingly, which could take me a while. My other option would be to take the fight to the courtyard. The foes seem to move in a left-right-left-right-left-right formation, so with a red rock candy I should have plenty of time to get from left to right and agro everything before it gets up the stairs. The question is whether I will begin to accidentaly break agro when moving across the courtyard and whether I have enough defense to survive when the ranged enemies arent obstructed as they would be at the top of the stairs. Though I might be able to remedy that by adding the skill way of perfection, which is very inexpensive and provides a further -5 damage reduction and minor healing. Edit19: Scratch that, Dolyak Signet slows me down too much to make that a viable option. Guess I need to learn which ones are trying to f**k me over. Still going to use way of perfection though, the more defense the better. Lets see... thats 3 (sup absorption) + 3 (kinghts insignia) + 2 (shield) + 5 (armour of salvation) + 15 (shadow form) = -28 damage reduction and 158 armour with +8 health regen and 75% block chance. Sounds like enough defense to me.
Edit20: Bah. Sounds like a lot of defense? Still risky as hell. The mantle come with savage shot... so that means dispatching those guys ASAP and potentially leaving my post..

Edit21: Tried it again today. I dont like how close Jalis is. However I think I may have understimated my defense a little, i'm going to try doing it in the courtyard again and just use Dolyak signet a bit less.

Edit22: Defending the courtyard is too tough. I have to run backwards the whole tme so that I dont break agro, which is super annoying - and its just plain easy for an enemy or two to slip in or something. So i'm going to try attacking the spawn! By sieging that first group before killing dagnar, and letting the bonus mursaat come into the keep and defend it for a while, i'm hoping to be able to sneak up to the choke point. After all - those first bonus mursaat can easily handle the entire first wave on their own (unless I get unlucky and they dont agro the stone summit). Once again I find myself relying on luck but there you go ^^. I'm optimistic.

Edit23: After two *weeks* of blood, sweat, tears and thousands of gold on consumables I have finished it. Will bump this thread after I have the vids uploaded and need more help.
Edit24: Not going to bother bumping this, since I never really got stuck again. I completed the challenge about a week ago now, you guys can find all the episodes on youtube if you want. Thanks to everyone that helped!

Bodock · Mar 09, 2011, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Awesome job!!