GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 12, One Big Giant

Once more unto the breach. I'm still annoyed at that boss fight. Spent all that time marching through that dungeon only to fail at the very end with absolutely no way to prevent that failure (Except, of course, for not dying in the march to the boss, of course, but you try keeping all your suicidal henchies alive in that dungeon and see how well you do. The Remnant's frost attack hit everyone for 140 and bleeding every ten or so seconds, and his Shatterstone hit people with 60AL for 300+ on each hit. And I don't even want to talk about what his Deep Freeze does when you're all bunched up.). No one to blame for myself but I'd have liked a chance.

Well, to cool off for a bit, I marched some other characters to the Eye of the North and bought up as many skills as I could. If you'll recall, one of my goals heading into this weekend was to grab all 100 of the new skills. I didn't quite make it there. But not because I lack the gold. I managed to scrounge up enough to, just barely, afford them all. And not because of a lack of skill points, I have more than enough to plunk down on all of them. No, I left a few proffession unlocked because I want specific character to have them. And they need to get there, get a few more points, and so forth. So, I'm left missing the Necromancer, Warrior, Dervish, and Assassin skills for now. But if and when I pick up the box, it won't be too hard to get them.

Next, I headed to the Nameless Isle to work with some of my new skills. Mostly worked with the Sin stuff since I had one already rolled up.

I was intrigued by the Signet of ?. Which lets you get an early Deep Wound. Tried out the various lead attacks and didn't find any all that appealing to start off that chain. But dropping Impale would be worth it. I also took the revamped Shadow Prison/Expose Defenses for a spin and found it to be still perfectly serviceable. Used Tiger Stance, too, and that worked as well as advertised.

After that, I spent some time Dwarven Boxing. Just to let off some steam.

Now? Well, there are about six hours left until 12PST when the event should end. I'm hoping to run at least one more dungeon. Maybe catch an obs match or two. And then find out if there's any sort of event or party as the event closes. This'll be the last release for GW, so I'm hoping to be there for something cool. I'm also pretty exhausted at this point, so I don't know if I'll be able to make it.

So, I want to find another dungeon. There's Raven's Point near Olaf's where I did the Gate Too Far quest. I'm going to assume there's something in there even without that quest. But I've already seen that place. But there is another place where I entered an instance that might be obscuring some content. Bjora Marches, where I used the Bear form for Blood Washes Blood. I haven't explored in there and there's no place else to explore, so I'm gong to see if I can't find a dungeon there.

I could go from Gunnar's or I could go from Sif's. I pick Sif's since I know the way already.

The trip to Bjora is pretty uneventful. I'm trying out a mad idea with my henchies here. I've switched out one of my SF Ele for something a little different. An E/N set up with a bunch of AoE Necro hexes. Mostly anit-melee stuff like Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood and the like. Why not go with a primary Necro you ask? Well, I don't have any runes so there's no advantage there. And with the Elementalist, I should have a better energy pool and management to power out those expensive hexes. I don't know if it'll work but I'm sick of the Fire Eles and looking for a change. It's not doing horribly so far.

Up in the top left corner of the zone are some green dots. I investigate and, sure enough, there's a quest pointing me to a nearby dungeon. A dungeon that promises Jotun. This...could get interesting. The quest has greater rewards than the one leading to the annoying Remnant of Antiquities which means it's probably considered harder - as short as that place was and as near the main plotline, I figure it's a starter dungeon. But, then again, the rewards for the Wurm dungeon were greater yet and the place was larger and I did that just fine. So, what the hell. Why not? Into the Darkrime Delves.

I seem to be on the trail of a great Jotun. I can live with that.

Aw, hell. Bats again.

In the next chamber are some Jotun fighting some Stone Summit Dwarves. I'm not sure who to hate more, so I decide to hate on everyone.

The watchwords here are avoiding early deaths. There's going to be a boss. It's going to be a Jotun. It's going to be fierce. I want to avoid picking up a lot of DP that will put me in a hole. Mhenlo is not cooperatingwith me, though.

Found the level map. Looks like some powder keg action. Along with some locked doors.

Big Jotun Warrior is guarding the boss key in a room with Dryders. He goes down easily enough, though.

Now I have to find the Dungeon key.

DP check. I'm at +9. One of my Heroes is at +2. The others are at under one death's worth in the hole. I suspect Mhenlo is heavily DPed, though. It's like the enemies know he's the LoD/Infuse. Except he doesn't infuse. And he's pretty shitty with the LoD, too. So, he's perma ProtSpirited now.

Chasing down the dungeon key takes me to a far-off corner of the map. It's behind some ice jets but it's really not a challenge to get.

Neither is getting to the door to the next level. Took a few more deaths so my DP is a bit higher than I'd like. I'm at full morale myself but no one else is.

Completely lost now. What the heck am I supposed to be doing here?

Oh, missing the portal somehow - no pip on the mini-map to guide me, however. It was right there in the locked room but I ran past it a few times. On to level 2.

Which is huge. This is, again, going to take awhile. Still taking the kind of chippy incidental deaths I'd like to avoid. Haven't come close to wiping but the DPs slowly but surely building up.

Only a couple hours to go in the sneak peak now. I'm getting really sleepy.

Finally made it to the portal, but it's locked. I need the key held by a boss to the south, I guess. And, of course, he's surrounded by Jotun. Tough fight. Lots of deaths on my part which is bad. But once the boss is alone, he's dead meat.

With my wonderful new key, it's on to the next level and, apparently, that boss's mother. *wimper*

It's a pretty easy path to the boss, though. Unfortunately, I'm well DPed up by the time I get there.

But, apparently, walking up and smashing face isn't good enough to her. Quest log says I need to find some way to kill her, so after a wipe, I head south looking for one. There's a room with a mini-boss and a level map. And that's it. Huh. Oh well, back to clearing out the minions.

The end boss is Havok Soulwail and when they say giant, they aren't kidding. Topless so I hope it's a he instead of a giantess. Doesn't seem to have any special tricks, though. At least none I've seen so far. Just big and hits like a ton of bricks.

That was a lot easier than the last boss battle, that's for sure. I get another Diamond for my troubles.

Well, sir, that's about all the dungeon running I think I can stand for one night. I think it's time for a quick caffine break and then we'll be back to close this sucker out.