Curse

Sectus · Dec 19, 2005, 02:12 PM // 14:12

I've seen people demand ecto and gold to teach others how to do runs. I personally feel this is slightly unfair, it would be beneficial if everybody had open access to running info and it would make it easier for runners to enchance their techniques if they can share info to eachother.

So I'm gonna try my best to make a guide which describes how to do the most popular runs, hopefully it will encourage people to give this kind of information free.

I'd like to warn you all that I'm not the best runner there is, there are certain runs I'm not capable of doing. I'm also an extremely lousy artist, so these maps will have the ugliest running routes you have ever seen in your entire life. Consider yourself warned.

Kat Nimiolle's Running Guide!
Meow! =^.^=

This screenshot show my running gear and build. And yes, I'm running as a W/E. I've had many people claim it's impossible to run using that class combination but it works just fine. I've even had people leave my party once they see my class because they refuse to believe I'm a real runner, it's a shame many people think only W/Mos are capable of running, I've even seen W/R, R/W and Mo/W be pretty good runners.

Equipment!

Regarding armour I think just about anything would go for a runner. But I personally prefer gladiator's because of the extra energy. The only exception is the Knight's Gloves I wear. It's rumoured that -2 damage recieved bonus while wearing any knight armour piece is global, and wearing any other knight's armor piece would have no effect. Although I haven't been able to confirm this that's the reason why my gloves are knight's and not gladiator's.

I use a helmet which has a native Tactics attribute bonus. There's also an interesting helmet you can craft in Henge of Denravi called Liuetenant's Helmet which makes all hexes on you have reduced length. It has the drawback of having no attribute bonus and having 20 less armour than helmets in droknar's forge, but it can help running a great deal.

I have minor strength and tactics runes on my armour to increase those stats. Getting major or superior runes of those attributes would be foolish since the -50 or -75 health penalty would just make running a lot harder.

I'm using major absorption and major vigour runes on my armour as well. These aren't that expensive and I highly recommend any other runner to get that as well. You could try to get superior absorption and superior vigour as well, but I don't think they're worth the price. Superior vigour only gives 9 health more than major vigour, but it's still 60k more expensive. And superior absorption only gives -1 recieved damage bonus compared to major, and that costs 90k more than major absorption. If you can afford it, superior vigour and absorptions does help. But for those who can't afford it, don't despair since the bonus is negligible. I personally think the bonuses aren't worth the price of those runes.

I use no superior runes, and I've only got Major Vigor and Major Absorption runes. The superior ones are simply too expensive and I prefer saving my money for other stuff (like FoW armour :x), the superior runes can help but they aren't necessary.

I use the Denravi sword for running which has a native +5 energy bonus, this is something which is impossible to find in the game unless you buy it from other players (and it usually sells for more than 500k). Although, any other onehanded weapon with a good +Defense, +Health or Longer Enchants upgrade should suffice. The denravi sword is ideal, but that +5 energy bonus is far from vital, and considering the insane price of denravi swords I don't think it's worth it.

The shield I'm using is an old collector shield which has been replaced with another one, but a shield with the same stats still remains as a green shield called Grognar's Defender. When searching for a runner shield it's preferably to find something which reduces health taken, and of course anything but 16 armor would be unacceptable. Shields I recommend for running:

http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Grognar's_Defender - +45 Health while in stance, -2 received damage while in stance.

http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Malinon's_Shield - Same as the above only the bonuses apply while enchanted. I personally recommend the one above, you'll most probably spend more time in an stance than with an enchantment, although you have both most of the time.

Also, there's a good collector shield just outside the north exit of Camp Rankor, it has the same bonuses as the ones above only they apply while you have a hex on you. This is a very good shield when doing lornar's pass since you'll probably have hexes on you on the most difficult areas of that zone. It's also a lot easier to get than the 2 green shields mentioned.

The skills in my build:

Armor of Mist - Run 33% faster and get around +36 armour bonus for 17 seconds (plus a few more seconds with a Longer Enchants weapon). This is basically the backbone of my build, for every dangerous area I make sure to cast Armor of Mist whenever possible, it greatly reduces the damage I get and the speed bonus is very handy. It can also be mixed with any stance.

Charge - Run 25% faster for 11 seconds. Whenever Armor of Mist runs out I quickly change to Charge.

Sprint - A last resort if my above running skills can't be used and something I use while quickly running past areas with harmless enemies or no enemies at all. (sprint can also be mixed with charge to even further enchance the speed, but it will only increase the speed with 8% (the max running speed in the game is 133%) so it's rarely useful to do so)

Disciplined Stance - +24 armor and 75% chance to evade attacks for 11 seconds. Extremely handy, I use this whenever I can't immediately lose aggro and need to sustain incoming fire for a short while. I also use it if I ever need to wait for Balanced Stance and Armor of Mist to recharge while there's enemies around. It could be replaced with Defensive Stance which costs less and has a faster recharge, but Defensive Stance ends as soon as you use any skill, which can be a great nuisance.

Balanced Stance - Absolutely crucial when doing droknar's runs. Giants, Ice Golems and Wurms can be a real pain if you don't use this while running past those enemies. Avoid knockdown for 19 seconds.

Healing Signet - Pretty self-explanatory, this can also be used while enemies around if you Armor of Mist or Disciplined Stance up, the -40 armour will have little effect then. With the attributes in my build it heals for 145.

"I Will Survive" - Gives +3 health regen for each condition. One of the negative things about running as W/E is I have no way to immediately remove conditions, so this is my only counter against conditions. Fortunately, conditions are relatively rare when running (for instance, the only fearsome conditions in droknar runs are from Pinesouls's traps in Lornar's Pass, and those can be avoided by just running a safe distance away from them).

Endure Pain - 188 more health for 12 seconds. A necessary fallback if you're starting to lose your health and need a few more seconds to try to escape. It helps a lot if you time this skill correctly, it's best to use it when your health is around 10%. Using it too soon just makes it run out faster and reduces it's effectiveness.

The attributes I use (this is with rune bonuses):
Water Magic - 11
Strength - 7
Tactics - 14 (with tactics helm)

I'll go right ahead with probably the most interesting part of the guide, doing droknar's runs...

Lornar's Pass!

First of all, this is written specfically for my build, but most of these guidelines should apply to any other build too.

The (ugly) map above has a red line showing the general route to follow while running lornar's pass. As soon as you enter the zone, run to your right through a group of Ice Imps and Pinesouls, the imps will give you 90% slowdown, but that will disappear after a few seconds and you should lose aggro quickly. There's also a chance you'll see Avicara here, but don't mind them, they're pretty much harmless and you can run right through them.

Just follow the right wall until you're close to the wurm cave. It's possible there are some random Ice Imps group roaming the area, if they are direct obstacles you need to find a way around them. Avoiding aggro with imps is extremely important, if you get aggro with one ice imps group while there's wurm nearby you'll most probably fail to lose aggro and eventually die. If you aggro 2 ice imps group at one time they'll cause constant 90% slowdown which makes it completely impossible to lose aggro.

On the map I've displayed green dots of where possible ice imps groups can spawn. I've always drawn a blue line near the cave entrance, this is the general path you'll see an Ice Imp group patrol the area (this is a group which will always spawn), they can run really close to the cave entrance and it's important you avoid this group. I usually wait close to the cave entrance (even if there's a wurm on me) until that group runs past me, and then start running into the cave, just to make sure I don't aggro that ice imp group. You should also have time to run straight into the cave without waiting for the imps to run past, but this is more risky.

When you're close to the wurm cave (and you most probably have already aggroed a wurm), get Balanced Stance up, cast Armor of Mist and run in. You may lose Armor of Mist relatively quickly because of an Avicara Necro, if you lose the enchant just activate Charge. As you run through the cave and past the Avicara you'll most probably see a group of Icegolems and Pineouls ahead.

If the group is to your right, you're lucky, you should be able to sneak by them by just following the left wall. If the group is to your left, it can be a bit worse, you could just try to run straight through them, or if you're lucky enough to have lost wurm aggro, you can rest to the right and wait for armor of mist and balanced stance to recharge.

If there's more than one group of pinesouls and ice golems you're in bad luck, it's extremely difficult to handle 2 groups of those while also being attacked by 1 wurm (or with even worse spawns, 2-3 wurms), but it's still possible if you utilize your stances as best possible and get through the area as quickly as possible.

On the map I've shown the area where the wurms spawns with a green tint. The areas with a dark green tint are also areas the wurms may also spawn, but that's extremely rare. I've also displayed general spawn areas of Pinesouls and Ice Golems with purple dots.

Once you're out of the cave, you can go to the northeast to rest. But if there's only grawl up ahead I recommend to just continue running. Grawl are your least threat and it's extremely easy to run past them, they barely do any damage at all.

Once you're out of the dark green area shown on the map you should be close to the troll cave. Just run in and run past any trolls, if there's a high density of trolls you might consider drawing the trolls out into an open area before running past them, just to make sure you don't get stuck as they all surround you.

At the end of the troll cave you should be at a bridge and close to another area with wurms. At the end of the bridge cast Armor of Mist, start to run forward and once you're close a small stone activate Balanced Stance. This is the exact spot a wurm should attack you. When running up the hill you should encounter some Grawl Ulodytes, try to keep a keep a small distance away from them. If you run close to them they'll use a close-quarters spell which removes your enchantment, which is rather bad.

Just continue running despite the fact you have 2-3 wurms on you, you'll lose balanced stance after a short while, just keep running, they won't do too much damage. Once you got balanced stance recharged use it as soon as possible.

When you're close to even ground you should see a group of Grawl in a tight formation. At this point I usually stop completely and wait for Balanced Stance and Armor of Mist to get recharged. There's still gonna be wurms there, but they won't do any great deal of damage as long as you move a step away from them each time they knock you down, this stops them from using their normal attack skills or spells. You should also try to use healing signet, with the right timing you should be able to use healing signet right after you step away after getting knocked down (this is impossible if there's more than one wurm, and if there's more than one wurm close to the grawl, you should just go ahead and run with balanced stance as soon as possible).

When you're ready you activate balanced stance and armor of mist and run past the grawl (as last time, avoid getting too close to the ulodytes or they'll remove your enchant). You should now be in the dark green area shown in the map, there's a small chance there's still gonna be wurms on you, and even worse there's a chance there's multiple pinesouls and ice golem groups here. If you still have wurms on you just keep running and try to get as little pinesoul/ice golem aggro on you.

You should be able to rest and recharge skills further east, but with really bad spawns this area may be crawling with ice golem groups, which can be a real pain. When you're ready just start running towards the exit southwest, running right through Grawl groups is no problem, just try to avoid aggroing icegolems/pinesouls. If you're having a hard time, there's one rest spot to the southeast, which looks like a big building (it actually has a Grenth's statue in it which leads to UW), where you can stop to recharge your skills and health.

This last area is usually extremely easy or extremely hard depending on the spawns. If you're lucky the wurms won't follow you far and you'll only meet grawl groups. If you're unlucky you'll encounter multiple groups of pinesouls and ice golems. This can make things near-impossible, but just try to aggro as little as possible and use your stances well to reduce damage.

Some more notes about the enemies in lornar's pass:

Ice Imps: They always cast a spell causing 90% slowdown and if there's enough of the imps they'll spam it on you constantly. After the first group in lornar's pass it's vital you avoid all ice imps. If they're unavoidable then I recommend others in your group (that is, if you have someone running alongside you, or some low-level people you're running) to act as fodder and run into the group of ice imps, so you can run past them without getting any hexes on you. Also, if you have a party which are able to sustain a good deal of damage, it can be a great advantage if you lead them to the wurm cave and let them take most of the aggro there, it will make that part extremely easy.

Ice Golems: They can cast a hex which makes you walk slower for a short period of time and they cast Water Tridents which knocks you down if you're moving. If there's too many of the golems you'll have a hard time getting away without constantly getting hexes on you. But while running through one group of ice golems you shouldn't get the slowdown hex on you more than once.

Pinesouls: They throw big rocks at you which does surprisingly little damage, but the real danger is the traps they place. They randomly place barbed traps which will cause cripple and bleeding. Since my build has no way to remove conditions this can be extremely deadly. So I highly recommend you maintain a safe distance from pinesouls in case they've put any traps around them. After aggro, they will also cast a Muddy Terrain Spirit after a short while. This will render all forms of speed skills useless and can make a situation really bad. But they usually cast this spirit relatively late, so you should rarely see it if you're fast enough to get past these enemies.

Grawl: Grawls are slow and they do very little damage. But they can be harmful in some situations. The Ulodytes use a necro spell to remove enchantments if you get too close. And the grawl will gang up on you and do massive damage if you're slowed down by a nearby icegolem.

Dreadnought's Drift!

This zone is extremely short. As soon as you enter it cast Armor of Mist and start to run right (towards the southwest). If you have any people with you, it can be beneficial if you tell them to run with you so they'll take most of the damage instead of you.

On the map I've placed 2 purple dots, this is where Stone Summit with Heretics might spawn. The first group is no danger, they patrol the area and won't reach you if you start running quickly. The second group however, they can sometimes be a big problem. Their spawning position can vary greatly and most of the time you'll easily avoid aggro. But if they're in the way you really should get someone else in the group to run ahead of you so they get the Heretic hexes instead of you. (by the way, the Heretics casts 2 hexes which slows you down and gives you -8 health degen... which hurts a lot, and there's little to do unless you use a build which can easily remove hexes).

Once you're past the stone summit you should get your first encounter with Giants, just get balanced stance up and charge or armor of mist and run past them. After that it's a safe path to the zone portal. You will lose balanced stance before getting to the last Giant group, but you might as well run ahead. You should still have plenty of health and those giants doesn't do that much damage and getting knocked down a few times isn't too bad.

Snake Dance!

This zone is a very long but with spawns which doesn't vary as greatly as lornar's pass and you'll encounter the same enemies for half of the zone.

If you're extremely cautious you could just stop after each or every second Giant group to avoid too much damage. But otherwise you should run along and keep Balanced Stance up and Charge or Armor of Mist while running past them. If you have armor of mist active they'll do 0 damage on you besides the Stomp attacks which does around 20dmg.

The area I've highlighted with a green tint is the only challenging encounter with Giants, it can have a high density of Giants making it hard to run past them. If you're really lucky you'll see a spawn of friendly lvl10 dwarves, this will make the start of this area a lot easier. But most times you'll see a whole bunch of Giants here. I've displayed red dots of popular resting spots, and you should use them if you're inexperienced in this area. But it is possible to run through that area almost nonstop, if you ever lose balanced stance with giants around you, just stop and use Disciplined Stance to greatly reduce their damage, and then continue running once balanced stance is recharged.

Once you're further into the zone, you will start to encounter Azure Shadows, they do little damage but they cast a spell which causes knockdown, so you should try to keep balanced stance up as they spawn.

Far south into the south you'll be close to a tunnel which always has a group of trolls on the other side, it can also have a small group of trolls in front of the tunnel entrance (this tunnel is displayed with blue dots on the map). I advice you to drag the trolls on the other side of the tunnel into the open until you see an opening between them you can run through. If there's trolls on each end of the tunnel you'll just have to hope for the best and run straight through them, with the slight chance of them surrounding you and making you stuck.

If you're running with a partner runner you can get the other runner to drag the trolls of one end of the tunnel while you lure the other trolls group away.

[see the below post for the second snake dance map]

Once you're past the tunnel you'll see waves of trolls and stone summit, just run past all of these. They're too slow to get in reach to do any harm. When you're close to the zone portal you should be careful, I've drawn 2 purple dots where there's a small chance of heretics spawning. If you see a Heretic spawn (which is very rare), you should try to run another way around, although there can be a heretic that way too. If both ways are blocked you should just run for it. Don't bother to try cast Armor of Mist before running past one of the heretics, they'll use shatter enchantment to remove it and deal extra damage on you. If you're lucky you should see Azure Shadows spawn nearby and they might attack the heretic and draw the heretic's aggro from you.

Last Zone!
[see the below post for the Last Zone map]

When getting to rankor you're ready for the last zone. Which is an extremely easy zone, it's so darn easy I can't remember its name! The only part of the zone with any form of the challenge is the start where you'll encounter several groups of Azure Shadows and Avicara attacking you. But as long as you time your skills well they won't be able to do enough damage to kill you. And once you're past them the rest of the way is harmless toward Droknar's Forge.

Temple of Ages!
[see the below post for the ToA map]

This is another popular run. First parts of the run from bergen or lion's arch is extremely easy. Only the 2 last zones pose any type of threat. The zone hightlighted with a green tint is a very straightforward one, but it has plenty of Grasping Ghouls which causes Cripple on you if they get too close. If you're able to avoid them the zone is pretty easy.

The last zone can be slightly tricky. I've shown 2 routes on my map. The route in red is the safest one, if you follow that route and stay close to the hill you'll encounter almost no enemies. If you take the more direct route which is displayed in green you'll encounter undead rangers capable of making you crippled which can make things a lot worse. I highly recommend the red route unless you're running with others or using a build where you can remove conditions multiple times.

Everywhere else!

Besides the areas I've listed above every area in the game can be easily run (besides the southern shiverpeaks) as long as you have Sprint. Perhaps the start of the desert can be slightly tricky, as you exit Amnoon Oasis you'll have to run to a teleporter with enemies around you. But besides that it's really easy to run to any place in the game. This is a nice way to start practicing running if you've never done it before. You could do it while helping others reach places in the game while you learn the basics of running and learning how to best avoid the AI.

Other parts of the southern shiverpeaks however, that can be tricky. And it's something I've yet to master. Running droknar's->copperhammer mines is impossible because of the Ice Dome zones which literally has dozens of Heretics all over the place. Running from rankor->war camp isn't too hard. Running to the first zone is easy, and the second zone is always easy as long you don't encounter groups with heretics. And if you do encounter those, you can just run back to the zone portal and get a new spawn, which is hopefully better.

Running war camp->citadel is a bit more tricky, but it's relatively easy if you have a bunch of henchmen with you which can draw most of the aggro. Running citadel->copperhammer is something I don't have any experience with. But I reckon the zone's insane amount of ice imps would make things difficult.

Copperhammer->Iron mines isn't too difficult. You might encounter some groups of heretics which can ruin your day, but I think it's possible to avoid any heretic group in that zone. Iron Mines->marhan's grotto/thunderhead keep is pure hell. The zone with grotto and thk has gigantic armies of ice imps. I don't think that zone is possible unless you're using a build which can sustain a ton of damage while you constantly get slowed down by all those ice imps. You'll also need to confirm you have infused armour, otherwise the mursaat in that zone will rip you apart.

Sanctum Cay!

This is a popular mission to run since many people are looking for runs to get to the desert as quickly as possible. And it's an extremely easy mission to run through. What I did was to replace Balanced Stance with Sever Artery, replace Armor of Mist with Armor of Earth, remove all points from water magic, put 10 in swordsmanship and the rest in earth magic. Then I just used charge and sprint to run through the mission until the end part where you need defend the magician. While waiting for the boat to arrive just I made sure Armor of Earth was active all the time and tanked the enemies until the boat appeared.

Elona Reach!

The only mission in the desert which is runnable (there's runners advertising to do the Dunes of Despair and Thirsty River missions, but those missions has to be fought through, you can't run completely through them). And it's very easy once you've gotten the hang of it. It has very stable spawns and there's little risk once you've learned how to do it. I've made a video of how to run this mission further down in this guide.

General running tips!

-When running to droknar's you'll have to keep in mind that Lornar's Pass can have completely unforgiving spawns. It's possible to get 3 wurms on you, with 2 groups of ice golems and pinesouls casting slowdown hexes, muddy terrain, and general nasty stuff to damage you. Those situations are basically impossible to survive. While lornar's pass should be possible to survive 80% of the time I think certain spawns are simply impossible to get through.

-Having a running partner can be very wise. It makes even the toughest spawns of lornar's pass possible to survive and it can make running a lot more fun since you have someone to race with.

-Learn to time your skills well. Sometimes it would be foolish to activate balanced stance too early with only a few minor enemies around knocking you down once when there's 2-3 other knockdown groups you have to run past with no rest spots in between.

-Learning to improvise is also very important. You can't rely on experience only when spawns in the game can vary greatly. This is especially important in lornar's pass since I constantly meet spawns I haven't seen before (once I had a wurm follow me to the very end of the zone!), so you need to take quick rational decisions based on what enemies you encounter. If you try to use the same technique as last time which worked against a different spawn it might get you killed.

-There's 3 methods of controlling your character which can also be an advantage to master. You can manually control your character using the WASD and QE keys, or you can use the mouse to click on the ground where the character should run to (this is technically the fastest way to run since the game is a lot better at pathfinding than a human player), or you can press R for the character to automatically run (this can be handy if you need to type something while you're running).

-Having your minimap up at all times (U key) is something I highly recommend unless you've memorized the route you're on. It's great reference to use when deciding which next turn to choose.

-One mistake I've seen other runners do is making a really bad situation even worse when encountering multiple groups at one time. For instance, if you're at the end of the lornar's pass and you see 2 groups of icegolems/pinesouls in the way then that's a tricky spot to get through. I've seen other runners try to run in the middle of 2 groups like this and ending up aggroing *both* groups, which is super bad. If you're in a similar situation, it might be an idea to just run straight into one of the groups to avoid aggroing the other, that way you only have to deal with one of the groups.

-The Liuetenant's Helm (which reduces the length of hexes) is something I learned of relatively late and I had always done my running without it (the video below was done without that helmet as well). After experimenting the helm certainly helps a lot in certain areas. Although compared to the tactics helm I use it has the disadvantage of less armour and stances which lasts 1 second less (doesn't sounds like much, but it's a difference an experienced runner definitely notices). I've started to use a routine where I keep my tactics helm on most of the time, but while running through areas in Lornar's Pass where I encounter Icegolems or Iceimps, I'll quickly press I and switch to my Liuetenant's helm, so that whatever hex I'll get on me it'll disappear quickly. Once I've ran away from those enemies I'd switch back to my normal tactics helm.

Droknar's Run Video!

As the saying goes a picture tells more than a thousand words so I guess a video would tell about a billion. The video lasts exactly 20 minutes and it shows a droknar run entirely from start to finish. The quality isn't all that great unfortunately, I have little experience with video encoding and I think 20 minutes compressed to about 100mb will get ugly compression artifacts anyway. But it's still viewable though some of the text (enemy names and damage counters) are very difficult to read.

Link here: http://rapidshare.de/files/9499205/droknarrun.avi.html
(if anyone know of any other free place I could upload the video I'd appreciate that)

A few things went really really bad in this run but I still made it. The first incident happened really early with me aggroing an additional group of ice imps while running into position near the cave, fortunately I lost aggro as soon as the slowdown hex finished.

While in the cave the pinesoul/icegolem group didn't have a position more to the right or left as I usually encounter them, but they were directly in my path so I just had to run straight ahead. On the other hand, the wurm disappeared rather quickly so I had one less enemy to deal with. If the wurm was still on me while the Avicara, Ice Golems and Pinesouls attacked me I would probably have died.

Also, I normally play in 1024x768 but for this video I turned it down to 800x600 to ensure a stable framerate, this had the sideeffect of my weapons-bar overlapping my Endure Pain slot on my skillbar. I wasn't aware of this prior to the run so I accidentally switched to my hammer for a split second as I tried to activate Endure Pain. This is why I did a quick interface change after exiting the wurm cave.

Shortly afterwards I also got a bizarre case of lag as I tried to run past a group of grawl, you can notice I suddenly start to teleport from place to place.

The last half of lornar's pass went pretty smooth, and I was lucky to get such a friendly spawn at the last part where I usually see at least 2 groups of icegolems/pinesouls, but I only encountered one group.

The dreadnought's drift zone could easily have gone completely wrong. I was extremely unlucky to get a spawn of heretics directly in my path, and I did aggro that group but I barely managed to escape the hexes since the heretics weren't able to get into casting range within time.

After that I did become a bit more cautious than was necessary, I had enough health to just run straight for the portal in dreadnought but I played it safe and recharged all my skills and health before running past the last group of giants.

Snake Dance overall went pretty smooth, there was one place I normally get a spawn of giants but I met griffons instead, normally I have to use Disciplined Stance at this spot to evade the rocks the giants throw while I recharge. But with the griffons that part was easier and I got to lose less health than normal.

The end parts of snake dance was slightly tricky, the troll tunnel had trolls at each end, so I just had to run straight through and try my best to avoid getting surrounded. And at the very end I got a spawn of a heretic close to the zone portal, which is a spawn I see very rarely. I tried to go around the other way to the portal but I noticed there was a heretic that way too, so I retreated to my main path and just ran straight through while aggroing the heretic. The griffons nearby fortunately got busy attacking some azure shadows, but the heretic managed to take away half my health before I entered the zone portal.

Elona Reach Video!

Yesh, I ended up making another video, this time of Elona Reach with bonus objective completed. It's 10 minutes in length, link here: http://rapidshare.de/files/9518240/elonarun.avi.html

I did a few mistakes in this run, I wasn't quite sure if I activated the first ghost (I couldn't remember if you had to do anything more than just make him appear) so I wasted some seconds running back and forth and checking my quest log. I was also generally too cautious in the run, too many times I stopped up to recharge skills when I probably could have just run straight ahead. Also, I did a mistake by not running the second crystal back to the hero right away, I activated the second ghost with it, but that wasn't necessary since I could have done that with the third crystal.

For the run I replaced Balanced Stance (nothing causes knocks down in Elona Reach) with Whirling Aura which can evade magical projectiles, very handy for reducing the damage of Stoning the Arcanists uses in this mission. But it's very easy to run away most of the enemies in the game, I'll bet it may be possible to run the mission using nothing but charge and sprint. Some of the sword enemies can cause cripple though which can be a pain (actually happened in this video, even though I had Disciplined Stance up, but they do have 25% chance to hit even if I have the stance up).

--------------------------------------

Well, that's it! I hope someone get some use of this running guide. If someone has any other running builds or tips I'd like to hear those. Especially any tips of how to run to all of the southern shiverpeaks outposts.

Sectus · Dec 19, 2005, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Because of a forum limitation I had to remove 3 images from my above guide. Here are the maps for Snake Dance Part 2, Last Zone and Temple of Ages:

phosho · Dec 19, 2005, 03:27 PM // 15:27

wow this is very thoughtful of you, this looks like it might actually work. im going to have to try this tonight, THANKS!
;D

Lord Mendes · Dec 19, 2005, 03:50 PM // 15:50

nice
thank u sectus

coolyguy · Dec 19, 2005, 03:56 PM // 15:56

What the hell man... you deserve person of the century award! Very much appreciated. Thanks again!

Favour Getter · Dec 20, 2005, 03:24 AM // 03:24

=) nice

Sectus · Dec 20, 2005, 10:41 AM // 10:41

I just added a video of a droknar run to the above guide. Direct link here for those who don't wanna read through all the text looking for the link :x

http://rapidshare.de/files/9499205/droknarrun.avi.html

Sectus · Dec 20, 2005, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Another video! Elona Reach time: http://rapidshare.de/files/9518240/elonarun.avi.html

0siris · Dec 20, 2005, 08:38 PM // 20:38

wow cool

Sectus ftw!

Ranger Li · Dec 20, 2005, 11:25 PM // 23:25

<3 Ivy

Gj, if any LBS members flame her i will kill you, you've been warned

Guitar Geek · Dec 21, 2005, 12:36 AM // 00:36

use lieutenant's helm or i'll slap you! MUST USE THAT! 50% shorter hexes=gg for the golems and imps.

Nice job though, interesting to see a w/e run it =)

Edit: Oh yeh Conan speaks like 3 other languages, and english is his last one so chill about his grammar. My second is spanish and I suck horribly at it.

0siris · Dec 21, 2005, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Quote:

The shield I use is the old collector shield outside rankor (which has now been replaced with another shield). It's extremely important you get a good shield. 16 armor and some good reduce damage bonus helps a lot. I personally prefer the shield I'm using because most of the time I'm in a stance. A shield with these stats can still be found, it's one of the green items in sorrow's furnace.

If its the crimson carapace you are talking about - you can get one for 5 bleached shells out by heroes audience i think

Sectus · Dec 21, 2005, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guitar Geek

use lieutenant's helm or i'll slap you! MUST USE THAT! 50% shorter hexes=gg for the golems and imps.

Isn't the Lieutenant's helm removed from the game? I can imagine it making things a lot easier, but I don't have it and as far as I know you can't craft it anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torric Icefist

If its the crimson carapace you are talking about - you can get one for 5 bleached shells out by heroes audience i think

Hmm, I didn't know that. Although, bleached shells are pretty difficult to get :x

Sectus · Dec 21, 2005, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caleb The Pontiff

The LT. helm is still available, from the armor crafter in HoD.

Yikes, I wasn't aware of that. I had always thought it disappeared along with the weapons in Denravi... if I only had bothered to actually check the armour crafter there ø_ø

I just did a quick test run in lornar's pass (interestingly I had to download new data as I loaded the zone, has anet changed it?) and ice imps and ice golems are certainly less dangerous with this helmet, although I do get more damaged.

pkodyssey · Dec 21, 2005, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Just had a w/mo run me to droks earlier today and was chatting with him, he shared his entire build with me and told me that the LT Helm is a huge advantage.