Sunday, August 26, 2007

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 11, The Failure

Back after a little trip into the real world to check on things. You'll forgive me for getting political with it , I hope, but when something's important to you, it needs saying.

Dinner was an unremarkable noodle bowl from a Japanese place. Desert, on the other hand, was the last of my mother's white peach cobble which I had forgotten I still had. Delicious, of course.

Anyhow, back to the game. There are only a few more hours left in the weekend and, well, I could spend it watching PvP stuff or grinding out some more plat to get all the skills. But, at the moment, I want to play for myself.

My options at the moment include running some more quests. I've collected quite a few, especially around Olaf's place that, if follow, I believe would reward me with permanent versions of the Bear/Wolf/Raven forms I was exposed to. On the other hand, I could head back to the Dwarves and that defense master quest and see if there's anything more there. But, really, I have a hankering for another dungeon crawl or three. I know there's one nearby Sif's thanks to that boss hunting quest, so I'm going for that one.

I picked up the first rank of the Dwarf title track, Delver, while hunting down that Wurm, by the way. It gives me the global blessing/enchantment Stout-Hearted. Whenever I use a skill against a Destroyer, you steal 6 health or something. That's pretty nice actually. Not so much for me, but it also applies to all my Heroes. Still, I'm not expecting to run into any destroyers so I'm flying the Slayer flag.

Checking the boss quest's green arrow, it's pointing me into the one corner of Drakkar Lake I've yet to explore. How much you want to bet there's a portal to the dungeon there?

And, yep, it's a sucker's bet because there it is. With some helpful NPCs outside to give me a quest. Talking to them also reveals some info about the dungeon. Looks like there's going to be a door/key quest of some kind.

Inside. Well, it's a cave. And there are Dryders trying to kill me.

Yep, it's a gate puzzle. I hate those. But I just found a map which should make it pretty easy to solve.

Ah, more of those Stalagmites that look like crystal devourers with their heads in the ground. Stupid Frozen Soil. Also, they have those towers that throw snowballs and spout ice jets. Annoying.

Still hunting for the right switches to open the right doors. Found the last boss in my quest, though.

There's a giant floating spectral face in the wall. It's freaking me out.

Okay, for the record, here's how I went. First, open the red doors of Strength. Head right into the eastern door and grab the area map. Then backtrack and head north through the other door. At the top of the map, just past a rezshrine you can open the green doors of Fellowship. Head west, and open up the blue doors, then backtrack, go through the rightmost red door again, and hit the other blue switch - the blue doors will be open but there'll be an enchantment or something stopping you until you get all the switches. The last green switch is to the north, just past the blue doors of Duty and the ramp to the next level.

Down, down, down, into the next level of this dungeon lair. I hope this place doesn't have too many because, yeesch, crisscrossing that map took a while.

This level has a big red Skull. I guess I know where I'm headed. Now to figure out how to get there. Labled Remnant of Antiquities.

Just a little dogleg it is. The Remnant is a big nasty elemental. Lv29. He has a special ability Called Diamondshard Mist, creates an environmental affect that's a snare. There's also some nasty effect that just causes bleeding and 140 damage in a ward sized area, Diamondshard Grave (Pretty rough when you have some DP). Makes crossing the bridge murder. But the recharge on Diamonshard? 5 seconds. synced with with the Power Return my AI is packing. Now if I could just survive all the Ice Spikes and Deep Freezes. They hit hard enough to one shot my DPed henchies.

Man, I just can't put a dent in him. Even if I wasn't DPed to high heaven by now, I'm not doing enough damage to be anywhere close to finishing him off before I'm wiped. He's perma regening, too. I don't think I've gotten more than 5% off his health. This is ridiculous.

Yeah, I give up. There's no way I can beat this guy with what I have. I'd need to bring some kind of shutdown, caster-hate, that sort of thing. But, as for right now? I'm fucking pissed and I need a break.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

damn i just got here with my guildie and we got rocked.
we didn't do anything to him.
it's bosses like this that make me want to throw my computer out of the window.

Sausaletus Rex said...

Oh he's a beast. I neglected to mention it but I burned my Powerstone shortly before I quit, wiping out all my DP. Not dying in one hit from a Shatterstone let me survive long enough to almost finish him off. Basically, I had three fire Eles Heroes with Meteor Shower and I was chaining them as much as I could to keep him interrupted while running figure 8s to keep my henchies from bunching up (Power Return helped, too, but the AI's real dumb about using it.). Oh, and trying to keep everything protted and healthy because whatever henchie healer I had with me was a trainwreck.

Had him down to under 25% health before I got unlucky and got blasted by a Shatterstone when my PS was down and my hex removal was recharging, and my energy was sucking empty. I was a goner and my party crumbled in short order thanks to the AoE.

After that, it was rez at the portal, run back to the boss, try and chip away more health, get wiped quicker each time, rez up weaker, and barely manage to keep pace with his regeneration. Had him down to a sliver, just needed one last push to get him to pop but couldn't do it. Just collapsed one too many times and let him off the mat.

Freaking annoying as all hell but while I was tempted to throw my computer out the window myself initially, I've come around since. I'm aching for another shot at this guy. He's the kind of boss I love to hate. The kind you gather young newbies around to regale them with tales of wipes and TPKs past. I'm going to beat him the next time. Never got around to it during the weekend but I was thinking about how to smash him all day long.

There's some good tips at the unofficial wiki page for him, if you need the help. But for myself, the guy's an Ele boss so the key is disruption. You have to knock those spells and his ability to cast them out and then he's just a statue with a bunch of HP to whittle down. I was on the right path with those Showers, I just didn't pack enough interrupts/KDs with me to completely shut off the damage tap.

I'd almost consider bringing Gwen/Norghu just to deal with him (And I'm normally loathe to break out the Mesmer Heroes.). Loaded out with a couple interrupts, Arcane Conundrum, Backfire, that sort of thing - Power Block alone makes Remnant sadface clown. But a Ranger Hero with Broadhead, D-Shot and the like should work just as well without gimping a team as much. All those Ele skills he uses have pretty healthy casts, could even micro the interrupts to take them out if the AI was being stupid with it. The Diamondshard killer less so.

Beyond that, Ward Against Elements can help take the edge off his spike. And then you can get wacky with things like Mantra of Frost and anything that converts damage types. The AoE makes it tricky but if you have a good (ie non-AI smacktard) tank then things like Spellbreaker or ObsFlesh can help as well.