Curse

Bloodied Blade · Jun 27, 2006, 05:39 PM // 17:39

It's taken me a while to adapt some farming builds to work with the assassin primary, but here they are:

Craw Stonereaper and his friend Zarnas are outside of the Altrumm Ruins in the Arborstone explorable section of the mission. The A/Me build to farm both takes practice and is rather risky because if you get body blocked during any part of the run you will die and need to retry.

Here's the build:

A/Me

12 + 1 Shadow Arts
Rest in Domination

Skills:

Backfire
Arcane Echo
Shadow Form
Shadow Refuge
Dash
Dark Escape
Shatter Enchantment
Energy Burn

For the run you just make an immediate left as you exit Altrumm Ruins and get ready to run past the mob of Wardens.

Before you aggro them, cast Arcane Echo. Follow the A Echo immediately with Shadow Form and use Dash or Dark Escape to start running past them. There's about a 1 in 10 chance that you won't hit a trap, and the traps that they lay down are Barbed Trap and Snare. Both cripple you and barbed trap also causes bleeding. Just keep running, using your speed boost skills as they recharge. As soon as Shadow Form blinks, use the echo'd version of it. If you keep cycling your run skills and going in a straight line, you should make it out of aggro a few seconds before your second shadow form wears off.

Heal up and get ready for the boss farming part.

Run back the way you came (you shouldn't have to go very far) and you will see an opening in the side of the hallway (these huge wooden double doors). Run through that and you will see Craw Stonereaper. Completely ignore him for now and keep running, use either Dash or Dark Escape to dump aggro from him.

A few feet away should be a water filled pool with a columned wall on one side. You should also be able to see Zarnas, our elementalist friend. This is where the run gets tricky and where shadow form also earns its keep again. You have to aggro him from the other side of the wall by using your aggro bubble. He spams stone daggers that hit for ~60 dmg each. THESE WILL KILL YOU IF THEY ARE HITTING YOU. If they are hitting you, use Shadow Form and back off. The point is to stand behind a portion of the wall that the Stone Daggers cannot hit you at.

Once you aren't being hit by the stone daggers (i.e. he is spamming them but they aren't doing anything to you because you are behind a wall) you are ready for the next step.

He will periodically cycle Gale in with his Stone Daggers. Gale causes Exhaustion and will eventually deplete his energy pool. When he stops casting Gale on you and all you see is his spam of Stone Daggers, move to the next step.

Cast Arcane Echo --> Backfire on Zarnas and let him deal damage to himself by spamming his Daggers through backfire. Refresh the hex as needed.

When Zarnas is down to the point where his next casting of Daggers will kill him, he stops casting them.

By now you may be wondering what Shatter Enchantment and Energy Burn are there for, and others may have just figured it out now.

He uses Aura of Restoration and should have a bit of energy left at that amount of hp.

Use Shatter Enchantment + Energy Burn in his weakened state and boom, dead elly boss.

Zarnas does drop a green.

---

Craw is probably the easiest part of this run and can also be done with an A/Mo.

Stand behind the wall closest to Craw Stonereaper so that your aggro bubble has aggro'ed him to you but hit wand attacks cannot hit you.

Move to the side and allow him to wand you 2-3 times so that you are down to ~120-150 hp.

Get back behind the wall where he cannot wand you anymore and cast Arcane Echo --> Backfire on him. He will eventually kill himself by casting through backfire and his spam of Defile Flesh (20% hp sac when he uses it) and Lingering Curse (10% hp sac). Backfire will add significantly to his hp sacrificing spells and contribute to his death.

If you are down to ~90-100 hp, use Shadow Refuge to combat some of the degen and give you some healing over time. You do not want to be over 1/2 of your hp though when you are doing this because he will stop casting Defile Flesh and Lingering Curse, effectively ruining the possibility of killing him.

Keep refreshing backfire until he dies.

Stonreaper drops yet another green...The Stonereaper is a very good curses staff for an SS necro: +5e (insightful) 20% chance for 1/2 recharge of curses, and 20% chance for +1 to curses.

Good Luck and Happy Assassinating!

BB

Note: There are guides out there for farming Stonereaper, and there might even already be an A/Me build out there identical to this one. I am saying that I created this build without seeing any build identical to it. If someone else has reached the same build, congratulations to them. The idea for aiding stonereaper in killing himself has already been posted, all I did was make a build that could both do that and farm another boss for a little extra cash.

Kijik Oni Hanryuu · Jun 27, 2006, 07:27 PM // 19:27

Woot Go BB *puts his farming face on* Ima make me some mooooooolaaahhh

Bloodied Blade · Jun 27, 2006, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Zarnas won't make you a lot of cash, but I'm gonna stockpike maybe 3 of his just in case someone wants them (I think he drops a wand, a focus, and a staff, I know that I've gotten the wand to drop).

Stonereaper can also be done as an A/Mo (but you won't be able to do Zarnas in the same run):

I got the inspiration for this one from another thread that suggested Scourge Sacrifice.

Shadow Refuge
Scourge Sacrifice
Shadow Form (just in case something goes wrong)
Dash
Dark Escape
Purge Conditions
Remove Hex
Smite Hex

just make sure that you don't remove or smite off the hex that heals the boss when it ends. Once you're clear of traps (Dash to traps, Dark escape through them) use Purge Conditions and get behind the wall that you use to farm Stonereaper as an A/Me.

I usually get staves ~1 in 3-5 runs.

Sily Wabbit · Jun 27, 2006, 08:12 PM // 20:12

heh, no wonder I seen The Stonereaper being sold for 7k..

nice work on the build.

Fezz · Jun 27, 2006, 08:24 PM // 20:24

You actually only need the Mesmer skills from this build(assuming you are Luxon). So it can be used with any primary except Warrior and Ranger since they don't have the regen.

You just have to get killed and you rez behind all the mobs and its a safe walk to the bosses.

mathijn · Jun 28, 2006, 01:45 AM // 01:45

Ranger has troll urgent, Melandru's Resilience, all regen skills

Fezz · Jun 28, 2006, 02:03 AM // 02:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by mathijn

Ranger has troll urgent, Melandru's Resilience, all regen skills

I meant Energy Regen, A Echo+Backfire, plus another Backfire 10s later can kill your energy, most likely leaving you unable to finish the job with Shatter Enchantment or Energy burn

Shadow-Hunter · Jun 28, 2006, 02:03 AM // 02:03

I belive he mean Energy regen to keep backfire on the targed..

~Shadow

Edit: i was too slow -.- >_>

Bloodied Blade · Jun 28, 2006, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Why would you want to die when there's only 1 mob that you have to get past anyway? I didn't say that you couldn't do the farm with anything else, I just wanted to find a farm that you could do with an ASSASSIN. If I wanted something I could farm with another profession there are plenty of guides for that already.

EDIT: and getting to the bosses is the fun part of it...why would you want to just die and rez? That's just boring. My way is much more fun and can be done no matter what faction you are. It's not even a 3 minute run to reach the bosses.

Kijik Oni Hanryuu · Jun 28, 2006, 05:10 AM // 05:10

I want more sin farm builds anyway, I lumma sin and I wanna be able to use him for more than just reaping the living and bartering their dead sould with grenth, then having my MM Shadow swoop in and make minions out fo their lifeless corpses, then having my ele Kijik come in bunr their bodies as to not have a single trace og their existence.

Bloodied Blade · Jun 28, 2006, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Well, I'll try to get more assassin farming guides / builds out here in the future. I'm working on Wing and other bosses.

Bloodied Blade · Jun 29, 2006, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Update:
I have found another varient that works for farming Zarnas Stonewrath and Craw Stonereap. I am currently working on the monk boss (yet another "Stone" name).

12 domination
12 Shadow

Backfire
Arcane Echo
Shadow Form
Shadow Refuge
Dash
Dark Escape
Empathy
*haven't decided yet, likely going to be the skill that helps kill the monk boss*

The only change in this build for tactics is that it's a tad easier (in simplicity) to kill Zarnas Stonewrath.

When his next casting of Stone Daggers would kill him (with backfire on) he stops casting. Maintain backfire because he DOES attack. Follow backfire with empathy and Zarnas should be dead a few seconds later.

Currently the only reason that I haven't been able to kill the monk is that I can't overcome Divine Favor + Shield of Regeneration. Lyssa's Balance might help me do that and I will be testing it tommorrow.

EDIT: For those of you having trouble getting behind the "wall" to fight Zarnas Stonewrath, it's the stone divider between the two of you. If you run straight up against it with him on the other side, his daggers and attacks will miss. All you have to do is let him Exhaust his energy pool down with Gale and he's a sinch from there.

Bloodied Blade · Jun 29, 2006, 02:55 AM // 02:55

After further consideration, the most likely skill for the final slot in the build will be Inspired/Revealed Enchantment because it is replaced by the skill it removes for 20 seconds, which also happens to be the recharge on Shield of Regeneration. This means that SoR should only be on the monk boss for a few seconds before it is removed. If the monk uses reversal of fortune, allow him to remove it by attacking through empathy.

The monk is fought by hiding behind a wall too.