Showing posts with label Dungeon. Show all posts

There is a bit of a loud-mouthed prick who has been tossed from German servers, with the IGN of Skyline. He and his sock puppets have been throwing shit around on the Games Campus forum and I must admit I was doing my best to keep him agitated. It wasn't difficult.

Now that many of his accounts and sock puppets have been closed, and probably his new playing characters too, I suspect he may try to move his stupidity over here. I'm not in the mood to be deleting posts from anybody. Most of you know that I almost never do that. It's easier to set the comments to moderated and I'll check the blog more often over the next few days to see if any comments need approval.

In other news Lilith and I had 3 successful full runs of the Golden Coins Mansion, and we both got our killer epithets. Lilith will need a few more levels to do a proper job of finishing for epithet runs, but I figure ShadowGuyver could do that job now. I would like to figure out where ShadowGuyver is too. He is Missing in Action.

We'll be doing epithet runs for league members once we get a couple more people just a little higher, or Shadow shows up. So get your passes together people. You'll need 3 purple passes, or 30 Letters of Yakumo, and don't forget to pay your tanker. I personally want clothes from the CS6 male damage set. The GCM boss drops those.

I have a few manuals to give away to our active league members, and a few elixirs too. Stay tuned to league chat for our next runs and anyone CS++ who can heal themselves could probably get some loot on their own.

Update: xenawarior went away happy tonight. She got the conqueror epithet for the Golden Coins Mansion, which may not look too cool up front, but if you're using a high dex build you'll get a 7% dodge bonus for using that epithet.

Golden Coins Clan's Sealed Gate(GCM conqueror)
Reflect 4% of physical damage to target
Reflect 4% of Chi Kung damage to target
Dodge increased by 7%
Chi Kung dodge increased by 7%

I'm doing a little testing in the Golden Coins Mansion and the Beast Palace. I know GCM really well, but it's been a while so a little testing doesn't hurt. At CS12 I can grind in there but the xp rate is not great. The hallway mobs are green for me and they drop CS12 BD weapons. The mobs in the lower two rooms are white/yellow for me and the mini-bosses are bright, bright red. LaCeNa, from the Thor's league and I were able to take those two down with no problems. These mobs didn't really drop very much.

The mobs in the side chambers are yellow/orange for me and again the bosses were bright, bright red. I'm not going to say it was no problem to take down those mini-bosses but we did it. We had to carve out a meditation spot in the hallway and I was throwing a lot of heals around, because LaCeNa is only CS10 and those mobs were red for her. She still out-damaged me though.

Obviously I have very little chance of getting the True General Wei epithet any time soon, which is sort of depressing.

One bit of good news is that the mobs in the side chambers will drop GL BD weapons and I got both a set of gloves and a spear, no slots of course and not really what I need. Isn't that always the way?

The top two rooms are full of red mobs and I only stayed there long enough to kill one mob.

In that 30 minute run I got only 3% of xp, which really isn't that good for a grind spot. Too much time spent killing the mini-bosses I guess. I got a couple of other drops though, a Water Seal and a set of male 10% vagabond boots, so at least that's promising.

LaCeNa and I tried the Beast Tower but I got disconnected almost immediately and didn't have time to make any notes. Last time I was in there it was a one hour grind dungeon, which helps, and as I recall, there is a set period of time in there where you can't meditate, so plan for it. Turn off your Meditation and Steps buffs, and switch to an old noobie active skill that doesn't use much VE. Of course, the better plan is to take a healer with you.

These dungeons will be great to break up the monotony of the grind until we get the Ice Map. I'll happily go in any group of three CS/GL characters, and we can split the price of the passes.

Who wants to go to the Golden Coins Mansion? Camlost, maybe?

(hehehe, thanks for the run Camlost. that was fun...)

- AxtTreiber

I wasn't sleeping very well last night so around 3:30 in the morning I got up to play for a while. I got to chat with a few of the really high level players on the German server and I got some interesting bits of information.

First of all the current level cap is Flower Crown 3, but not because of some sort of artificial limit. There are no more mobs after that level, and yes there are a couple of people at that level already. They have very little to do. They can run the Wild Tower dungeon for loot from each room, but they can't even come close to finishing it. They can also run the Choice of Fate and Valley of Hell dungeons, but the bosses don't drop very much because of the level difference.

Lastly, they can camp bosses, and they've been doing that, basically milking the HP and Def Trink bosses while they can. They would very much like to have the Liaodong map as soon as possible. So would I.

They also told me that the 2nd role quests are bugged for everyone except Heavenly Demon. Apparently a kill on one of the Cave of the Conqueror quest mobs fails to register, leaving you stranded in the quest series. So, no 2nd role skills, no good clothes, and very slow grinding in the high EC levels. Because of that I will probably stop grinding my AxtTreiber character at EC8, where I could normally put on the clothes. I'll start camping those bosses too I guess.

At this point I don't see any need to spend any more money on experience cards either. I'll be EC1 today and a couple of our newer members are planning to join me there, and I mean today. Last night I mentioned in chat that we could spend a few evenings this week running CoF and VoH too, making sure that everyone has their epithets, so go get your passes people.

I wasn't planning to start a new character this early but if we don't get a patch very soon, we may see my nuker much earlier than planned. At the least I can get him to RL12, switch over to nuker and start training skills.

Anyway, here's hoping we get a patch sooner than "soon", with bug fixes and the Liaodong map.

- AxtTreiber

A couple of weeks ago I posted the story of the Altar/Palace grind. It's worth to read if you haven't already. A couple of our members are now right in the middle of it and one of them told me last night, "I have no idea when I'm going to level up."

Yes, it's that bad. If you're not running from high level mobs, you're suffering a kill-steal from another player. Events times are particularly bad.

Fortunately you have something to look forward too after the Altar grind. If you can put together a good party with a couple of hybrids, for their scale buffs, and a couple of healers for their VE heal, those 4 can keep everyone fully buffed with full HP and VE, and you can start to grind in the School of the Rising Sun at Little Master 10 or so. Why do you need full HP and VE in SRS? For most of the time you have there, you can't meditate in that dungeon. You should share your drops so those healers and hybrids get a fair deal too.

With purple passes the first mobs are level 171, or Hermit 3. At LM10 you'll be facing red mobs so it's best to go with a good group, and use the Killer of Shen Mo epithet for the extra attack rating. Green passes will give you purple level mobs, but red passes will cause the mobs to be bumped up 2 levels.

You probably got a fair number of passes as drops from Altar mobs. I know I did. You can make more passes from the various drops on the ice map, but that particular NPC seller is not in a safe zone. Again, you'll need to do that as a group and take turns healing each other and making passes. Those mobs can still do damage to my PS7 warrior, so it's best to be quick about it.

Anyway, back inside that dungeon there are a couple of things to do. With the help of higher level players a relative lowbie can start to unseal the various Sealed Epithets that you get from killing the ice map bosses. Just one note though, you don't want to do that until you have all 4 of the sealed boss epithets. Once you have all 4 of the sealed epithets you will receive the [Sealed] Conqueror of NSIP and that epithet is very good for some classes. If you unseal even one of those sealed epithets before you have all 4 of them you won't get that Conqueror epithet.

The other reason to run that SRS dungeon is the Blood Essences that drop regularly. Once you can solo that dungeon you'll start to pick up 15 or more per run, and basically you'll get rich along the way.

Complete runs of this dungeon are difficult. Time is a big issue and your party must be mostly high level players, PS level or more. Typically if you want to finish the dungeon you'll have to give up the idea of doing any unsealing work and concentrate on getting to the last room with the Hiyami boss.

As for getting around this dungeon, TS is doing yeoman's work on a complete map including nuker spots and we'll give some specific instructions about the actual run in the next post, once he is done with that map. Hopefully that will be today.

You've all seen a lot of my main character SpearDriver lately. Since I came back from vacation in April I've pretty much played this character non-stop, and during that time I've spent a freaking huge amount of time in the School of the Rising Sun dungeon, or SRS as it's usually known. I'll be writing a guide for that and how to unseal the ice map epithets very soon.

For now though, it's time to say goodbye to SpearDriver as a regular grind character. Experience rates are so low that I just can't bring myself to play that character unless I have an event and experience cards running. I did one of my base rate tests last night. At Projected Soul 3, I was getting 1.75% per hour, and that is just painful. So this character just became an event only grinder. I did level up though last night, and I'm hoping that the new Tibet collections will be released soon. In particular there should be a new clothing set at PS4 and that is why I worked for that level.

So, say hello to AxeDriver again. I'll be grinding him on the ice map during normal grinding time, and adding to his Constitution stats so that he'll be available to help with epithet runs in the Golden Coins Mansion. For now that dungeon is owned by warriors, but the rest of this league wants the epithet too. I'm doing my part by adding Constitution, so you can too if you want that epithet.

Edit: I'm going to have to rethink this, and I don't know what to do. AxeDriver is getting 3.5% per hour in normal grind, twice what SpearDriver gets, but if I split the event grind and normal grind time between the two of them, neither of them is going to level up even once per week.

That's pathetic!

- SpearDriver

It's always a popular category on this blog and I'm going to have to change the build on my hybrid a bit, so it's time for another post on the topic. A hybrid build isn't quite as simple as a warrior build.

Let me show you my warrior build and you will see what I mean. I maxed out my strength and dexterity ages ago. Since then I've only been adding to Constitution. For a PvE warrior, that's all I need. With HP ornaments that character is now basically unkillable even when grinding on orange mobs, as long as he's hitting something.

A hybrid build isn't quite that simple though because you have options for things like nukes, which are really helpful, but they're useless without Wisdom or Essence. Of course you want to be able to play a normal grinding game too, so you need Strength and Dexterity as well. The one break that we get as hybrid players is the Constitution self buff. Most players don't add any chi points to Constitution. Unfortunately, that doesn't work anymore.

A few weeks ago there was a change to the dungeon bosses and most of them now hand out a major all attributes penalty. The Golden Coins Mansion boss will quite happily debuff you, and give you a minus 47 all attributes penalty. I used to be able to solo that dungeon, but with only enough Constitution for relics I would go to my knees if I even went near that guy now. For the next few levels I'll be add to Constitution. I pay for premium too, and that buff doesn't get taken away by the Mansion boss debuff so I think a base of 50 Con should be enough.

I'll let you know when I get there.

- SpearDriver

Penalty from miniboss:
-17 constituce
-17 dexterity
-17 essence
-17 wisdom
-17 strength
bleeding

Penalty form boss and miniboss - any form of boss gives other penalties
debuffs
-14 constituce
-14 dexterity
-14 essence
-14 wisdom
-14 strength
-9% damage
-9% CK damage
-30% live
-18% vital energy
-40% dodge
bleeding
Blood poison
derozientation
disturb nerves
-47 all atrib
+ EW

We did 3 runs in the Golden Coins Mansion last night, for the Yellow Dragon Sword of Collapse epithet. It seems everyone wants this particular one, and we're really happy to help out, once you've reached a reasonable level. In our league that is GB4 and the three guys who got their epithet last night now know why we ask for that level of achievement.

Yes, I know you can get that epithet at much lower levels. You can get that epithet at LS0 if you have a full team of high level players who know exactly what they are doing. We don't have that. We have a couple of players who are willing to help out once in a while. Everything ran really smoothly last night on those three runs, because the 2 or 3 high level players helping out know exactly what has to be done to deliver that epithet. The guys who were standing around watching the dungeon run even got some loot out of the deal, so everyone was happy right?

Well, not completely.

The other part of the deal for an epithet run is that you bring your own dungeon passes to the party. Passes to GCM are incredibly valuable and very few people are willing to sell them. From a solo purple run I can usually make 6 million just in gold, and usually that much or more in sellable drops.

The easiest way to get those passes is to grind on the LiaoDong map and you can start doing that at EC3 or so. You'll need 10 Letters of Yakumo for each purple pass, and if you need help to trade those material for the passes, you just have to ask. One way or another, it's up to you to bring the dungeon passes to the party.

It is not the least bit fair to be asking high level players to take an hour out of their playing time so you can get that epithet, and then they have to burn valuable passes for you too?

- SpearDriver

I think everyone knows by now that RedCross from our league has been playing his vagabond character most of the time, but I don't think many people know about his latest accomplishments. Red has said a few times that playing a vagabond is like playing this game on the hard setting, and he's right. I've tried and it doesn't rock, or roll. It's hard.

You need the best equipment possible and I don't recommend you try it as your main character. You need to be rich in-game in order to be able to buy all the items your vagabond would need. There's no bands or league, and very little chat except for party chat. It can be a lonely road, but as [VGM]Hermes said, "they party like animals".

It's a good thing too because there are no party quests and the dungeons are usually impossible until you are too high a level to get any good drops. Despite the difficulty Red has done some amazing things with that character.

Let's make a list;

First Vagabond on Bardo to make Humble Master.
First Vagabond ever to get the Killer of True General Wei epithet.
First Vagabond ever to make Little Master, and...
First Vagabond ever to make it to the Hermit levels of the game.

For his latest trick he's grinding in the School of the Rising Sun Dungeon and what's more he's helping people with the North Sea Icy Plain sealed epithets that can be unsealed by killing mobs inside that dungeon. Last night the Vagabond Sword helped my SpearDriver character to unseal the Silver Spirit epithet. Yes you read that right. A vagabond, the weakest character in the game, was tanking for a warrior.

How crazy is that?

I need that Silver Spirit epithet for the hit point return that it gives. Hit point return is the only way a warrior survives the grind on the Ice Map and I already have 14/1000 hp return. Even with that I still have to run and meditate once in a while. The extra 3/1000 from the epithet will be really helpful, and thank you again Red for the help in getting that epithet.

I'm looking forward to your next great achievement, Chi Breathing for the Projected Soul levels.

You know we'll be putting on a party for that one!

- SpearDriver

Our next league project is mostly for the higher level players because this is going to take some organized work. Sorry Lowbies! We'll help with GCM and other dungeons when you ask, but we need our epithet runs too, and we can't do them solo. Go grind. Level up, and you can play with the high level players too!

On the North Seas Icy Palace, as it's properly know, are 4 bosses. You can read about them here. If you can kill any one of them you are awarded a [Sealed] Epithet by each one of them, and once you kill all four of them you are awarded the [Sealed] Conqueror of NSIP Epithet.

[Sealed] Conqueror of NSIP Epithet stats:
Defence increased by 10%,
Movement speed increased by 5%,
Chi Kung attack rating increased by 6%,
Attack rating increased by 6%,
Critical rate increased by 600/10000.

That sealed conqueror epithet is actually worth to use too, unless you're a warrior. The NSIP Conqueror epithet gives a very nice defense bonus for non-warrior roles. Warriors are better off with the Yellow Sword or Black Dragon Epithets because of the extra damage. Warriors all build strength and are all above the defense cap by the time they can grind on the ice map. Warriors should better use the Yellow Sword or Black Dragon epithets.

Now for the good part. We can unseal those [Sealed] epithets. It's a quest you get in Hefei every time you kill one of the Ice map bosses, and those epithets get so much better once you do those quests.

The most important of the four boss quests is the one to unseal the [Sealed] Silver Spirit Epithet. That unsealed epithet is planned to give 3/1000 hit point return, and because of that, every time Silver Spirit spawns we get a huge KS fight. You have to have the [Sealed] epithet before you can unseal it. We're all fighting for it, and we're all trying to help our league mates and friends to get it.

What I find nice is that this isn't like the Shen Mo fight. Nobody is yelling, NO KS, YOUR LEAGUE IS KoS, BRING YOUR NOOB LEAGUE TO BP, I KILL YOU ALL!!!!!

Silver Spirit is what she is, a boss with an epithet, and we all want it and need it. It's actually kind of refreshing, considering that whites and blacks are all there looking for this epithet. You bring all the help you can to the fight, and either you win or you don't. I can't imagine what this fight looks like on Asura.

Anyway, that hit-point return effect doesn't work just yet, but I would love to have the epithet once the bug is fixed. On the ice map an extra 3/1k hp return can mean the difference between life and a quick death.

So, what's the plan? Over the last couple of days I've been tracking the spawn times on Silver Spirit. I grind in that area anyway, and I can almost tank that boss. Almost. Any hyb/healer can keep me alive while I do that, so long as they don't attack the boss.

So I have been inviting CS++ players to join me for the Silver Spirit spawn times and I tank for them as best I can. Goodgrrrl joined us for one boss-spawn and it was a huge help. In the last 24 hours I'm 3 for 3 in terms of players and epithets. It hasn't always been easy, but we're getting there.

I want to build a team of GL++ players who can raid the SRS dungeon. A strong HM level party can get to the Hidden Katanas and that is the mob we must kill to eventually Unseal the Silver Spirit Epithet. We can't go much farther than the Hidden Katanas, but that is all we need for now.

Today I helped three players get at least one of the Ice Map boss epithets. We have a lot of work to do until we all get that Unsealed Epithet of the Silver Spirit. If you can help or heal, or tank an epithet run, then I am calling on you. Let's get it done.

A few of our higher level Sacred Flowers players have decided to work hard on recruiting new players to the league, and I can only cheer them on. The SF clan is one of the smallest clans because most of the players in this game are male. Even in the SF clan, it's something like 2/3rds men playing female characters. The guys do that because everything is cheaper for the Sacred Flowers, from clothes to books, to manuals and more. On the down side, good weapons for Sacred Flowers are harder to find than for the other bands.

So Pinky-Lu, and Iminda and AraiYuzuki have started a Donor account of their own, to help them attract new players to the league. I've given them permission to take all the useful SF skill manuals from ManualMan, all the SF type clothes from Donor, and any useful weapons we may have stored at the Courier. That should get them off to a good start.

If anyone wants to donate SF material you can contact any of those three or Xena, if you see her. If necessary I can open that account too, to take donations, but as it is their project I would like them to handle things if they can. Let's see some donations!

In other league news, we ran the Wild Tower last night with a small party and finally completed the bloody thing. We had 2 GL level warriors and 2 CS level healer/hyb types that did most of the work, and a small number of lower levels came along for the ride. Shinigami-UK can now tell you why we don't often offer a run in the Wild Tower. We should have gotten a few screen shots of Shini, on his knees!

That place is deadly to lower level characters, and it's hard to finish even for high level players. I don't know of anyone who has ever solo'ed it to the finish. What are you guys doing for fun?

- SpearDriver

Yellow Dragon Sword of Collapse

Here is simple guide for players who wants to get a Yellow Dragon Sword of Collapse epithet. Gather in Linbei village at Hangzhou to form a party.

Requirements:

- 3 purple GC passes

- 2 GL10+ players (tanker+finisher)

- your level GB++

- Below GB: All attack success pills or 1000dmg pill

A. Wait in first room till poisoning goes off, be in peace mode and meditate when needed. Should be over in 5-10 min.

B. Use LF to run near B-location and here you have to wait more likely 30minutes before going to attack last boss form.

C. Go attack with active when tanker/finisher calls you. Dies in 5 minutes. Be sure to pick all drops to access Main exit room.

D. LF trough C to E and break last door yourself.

E. Loot all chests in main chamber and move to other chambers (green on picture) if you can heal yourself.

Martial boss: 2 forms, doesnt give epithet.

Main boss: 3 forms, timer starts when first form dies, third form gives epithet.

PRIMARY method for tanker and finisher:

- use 1% logout-method and let finisher to continue where tanker stopped.

ALTERNATIVE method for tanker:

- you can do this with just one HM+ helper: kill boss till 1% and wait 2 minutes before going to finish it yourself, this means that you can be tanker and a finisher on same run. Requires that killer-person keeps attacking whole time.

Yellow Dragon Sword of Collapse epithet:

Damage increased by 150

Chi Kung Damage increased by 150

Attack rating increased by 6%

Chi Kung attack rating increased by 6%

Critical rate increased by 600/10000

ps. in purple run chests can drop lvl 3-5 elixirs, 5x5 and 10x2 manuals, 60k-90k gold, various nuggets and talismans. Poisoninig goes off after all 6 minibosses dies. Full run takes about 50 minutes to complete. When last timer appears so does debuff appear too.

more information about Golden Coin Mansion can be found under:

http://phpbb.acclaim.com/9dragons/viewtopic.php?t=73386

Mansion GB6 female warriors clothes set:
hp +100, ve +100, damage +100, 1/1000 hp absorb, speed +7%, no defence, 6 pockets total


Here some pictures from those new clothes, you need to wear all of them to get full effect.
There are 2 version of each set, Chikung based clothes and Kungfu based clothes. Allpictures below are Kungfu based clothes. First clothes are from BT/GC, second one from Voh and third CoF




and here picture of new back


their full effects are still unknown, i had cof jacket that gave 50HP when same collection says only 25HP... same with on third picture: 1%dmg reflect on hat when collection doesnt say it.

<< full set of pictues

Anyone know what these things are? Somebody dropped them in Linbei, so I picked them up to have a look. I've never seen them before.

Anybody know?

Edit: Ahah! Just google and you shall receive. They are keys for the inside of the Beast Tower, but they drop there on every run, so they are basically worthless outside of the dungeon.