Subject:  Champion spawns *an interesting read reposted from uo forums* |
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Syn
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Date Posted: Wed, Jul 24 2002, 09:35pm
In reply to:
Lockie
's message, "Fel Dungeon tips for people not familiar with the rules! (add to the thread if you have a tip)" on Sat, Jul 20 2002, 03:55pm
This is a repost from the uo.com forums.
Ragnar_Iceblood (expert) 07/22/02 09:07 PM
While we are waiting for the harrower....
Greetings, I'm Ragnar Iceblood, playing on Europa, the shard that showed OSI that
yes, you need to test a bit more. We summoned the harrower twice, on the
shortest time possible, but alas, 20+ people got red.
Anyway, I thought I share with you my experiences from the 100+ champ spawns
I've been too since pub 16 was released. From being there 1 second, to dying
1 second before the champ died, I've experienced it all. I play a bard with
92 in provoke. (damn slow skill :) )
Many have questions from, what is a power scroll, how do i get a power scroll,
what is a skull? etc etc. Well read on, through my ramblings, which don't
have much structure to it :)
OSI have designed 20 champion spawns, 12 in Lost Lands, 5 in Felucca dungeons,
3 in Ilshenar. The Ilshenar ones don't give you scrolls, they only give you
titles, which you get at the other spawns anyway, so i don't see the point in
getting them. How to summon and find the various spawns, refer to an excellent
guide at stratics.
So whats the easiest spawn, whats the hardest? What char fits the best?
Again, tamers are at the top of the curve, bard second. Then a fully decked virtue
plate dexxer with a vanq weapon come close third. I think the lord oak's spawn
is the toughest, followed up by the fire spawn.
Whats fun at the spawns is that every class has its merits, and has a place at
them. You do however need numbers. 10 wont cut it, 20 you might have a chance
if you are extremely team spirited.
How do the spawns work? There are 16 levels of spawns. One more harder than the
other. An altar shows the progress, and this altar is located in the center of
the spawn. The progress is displayed by red and white skulls. One red skull
equals one level. You need 4 white skulls to get to the next red level.
So where do we go and not get PKd?
Well you just have to chance it. Take the
time and mark runes close to the entrances.
I got runes too:
moonglow recsu/recdu portal.
vesper graveyard.
marble building.
delucia entrance.
destard entrance.
deceit entrance.
despise entrance.
serpents hold entrance to fire dungeon.
PKs, might camp a dungeon, or 2, but on Europa they are quickly driven away,
and there are ALWAYS action somewhere on my shard. With runes close, you have
many spots to choose from if you spot red names.
Safest bet is to go in numbers, and so what if you get killed, you keep your
stuff, get a free ride to a city, but, yes you cannot go back in 20 minutes.
Lost Lands are designed nicely for those new to the Felucca facet. Once you
are in there, you got 12 spots to choose from. Places far of in the wilderness,
where no pks go to. Why? PKs are lazy, they want fast action. They dont want
to wander for 10 minutes before they find you. Go to lost lands with your
group/guild/friends, and fight and out of the way spot. Again look on stratics
for spawn spots. In lost lands, the spawn will rotate between these 12 spots,
and as far as I've been able to figure out, you cannot, force a spawn to happen.
We have tried, with 20+ players standing on/near an altar, and nothing will happen.
Again, if you don't care for a bit pvp action now and then, go to the Felucca
dungeons, most likely you will find some reds here and there, or an organized
group. Red and blue wars are coming back, to a certain extend. Although I do feel
bad for the reds. We get to loot, they get not.
So, I'm at a spawn, now what do I do, how do I know its a champ spawn, and how to we get it to spawn this "champ" ?
Depends on which spawn you are at. Lets take the destard one. Obviously you will
expect dragons in this spawn, and so you will, later.
In the main cave room in destard, we do have the old spawn, consisting of dragons,
drakes and the odd serpent. This is not part of the champ spawn.
The champ spawn is located in the north cave, not far from the shrine which is
there. This spawn will have snakes and slime, moving up to lizards, low level
ophidians, drakes , then dragons, before the ultra champ dragon Rikktor will spawn.
The low level spawn is ideal for dexxers. And fast tamers.
The new spell changes are excellent. You see fields, chain/metor spells everywhere
nowadays, and they only affect monsters, or criminal/reds. So don't be afraid
to use them.
Once dragons starts to spawn, you will know you be very close to summoning the
champ, Rikktor. Which is a huge kick ass dragon.
Alas, I think this champ is the weakest one, it doesn't have any special attacks
and its very quick to die versus 20+ people. Just attack it, its even melee able.
You know which monsters belong to a champ spawn by experience, that is go out and
fight different ones. All 6 champs have different spawn attached to it.
A note for tamers: you cannot tame critters which belong to a champ spawn.
Some guides states you have to kill so and so many creatures to advance.
This is not necessary true through, because the last 2-3 skulls always goes way
to fast. It is tied somewhere on a formula like
level*critters_killed*critters_power > time_amount*powerlevel = chance for next
white skull to spawn. If you are to slow however, white skulls will dissapear.
The harder a monster is the fewer of it you have to kill to advance a level.
Hmm champ died, and I did not get a scroll! How come? I was there since skull 1!
Alas, as far as I've been able to figure out, how many monsters you kill doesn't
affect your chance of getting a scroll.
Many uses this to just hide by the altar and pop out when the champ comes.
Which is sad, i hope OSI changes this.
The easiest scroll to get, a 105 one, you can get from killing the spawn. It will
just magical appear in your backpack, assisted by some system like "You have
been awarded a power scroll!"
The scrolls, do not, appear on loot on the monsters, not even the champ.
Its totally random if you get one or not though. The better scrolls, 110-120,
you get from ASSISTING in killing the champ. Again a simple magic arrow is enough.
As long as you damage it, you have a random chance of getting a scroll.
I went 4 days without getting a single scroll, so it can be frustrating.
The champions do not have a scroll on its body. The scrolls will appear
in your backpack if lady luck deemed yourself worthy enough, AND you
have damaged the champ.
Some say the more you damage the champ the higher your chance. I dont beleive
this, since then tamers would always get a scroll, and alchemists would have a
very high chance too.
It all appears to be random.
So Rikktor is easy, how are the other champs?
Lets take them one by one:
Neira the necromancer:
Laughable easy. Maybe because this champ is so
over camped at Europa its not funny. It will always cause lag, to the
amount of freeze 1 minute lag :(
Neira spawn consist of undead's ofcourse, so any dexxer with a good
silver weapon does it good here.
Anyway Neira is a red ghost on a horse, with a red scimitar. She throws
bones at you which turns into undeads, if not dealt with quickly.
No special attack except from that so just nuke away, use arrows, or
even melee her. The spawn is actually more nasty than her.
Barraccon the piper:
He belongs in Despise, by the old ogre lord island.
He to is easy to kill, but he has a special attack: Whenever you attack
him you got a pretty high chance of turning into a ratman! And a grey one
too. Which is pretty bad news, since most people will jump out and try
to kill you.
Use pets, summoned pets, field spells seems to avoid turning you into a
rat. Being a ratman is not very funny. You cant even arm your weapon in
ratman form, and it takes 10 minutes or so to turned back to human.
Even pets gets turned to ratman, although these ratmen are blue.
Mephitis:
A huge black spider, belongs in Terra.
This one is fairly easy to kill also. Its special attack is that it
throws webs at you, teleporting you into him, then take a bite at you.
If you are unlucky, and not very fast, this is instant death.
Invis items are your friends here, as is a greater cure pot.
Stay on ledge that is nearby and use distance weapon. Ive meleed this
one.
Now the 2 hard ones:
Semidar: a foul succubus.
This one reflects almost ANY spell thrown at
her. Resulting in instant death. A simple fireball will instant kill you.
Rumours has it that female chars can ebolt away safely, and that
polymorphing to a female is advisable. Once again field spells ,and pets
seems to work fine. Melee I think works fine too.
Lord Oaks and Tatanja:
The champ(s) is not that very difficult, although you
have to kill Tatanja before you are even able to damage Lord Oaks.
Whats hard about this spawn is that the last level consist of etheral
warriors and serpentine dragons. Ouch. That is really really nasty.
You need good tactics to overcome this last level.
Etherals eat WWs for lunch. So beware :)
Final one: The Harrower.
Harrower is the only champ, from now on called super champ, you can get
stat scrolls from. All the other champs you only get skill scrolls.
The Harrower is summoned from the star room. (Which are now disabled
on all shards). In the star room you'll find 6 altars, which various
names representing the other champions.
On the champions bodies, you will find a skull. You need all 6 skulls
to be able to summon the super champ. Once all 6 skulls are sacrificed here,
a black gate will appear, which will take you to a random dungeon.
On Europa we got Hythloth, then Deceit.
The harrower is very hard to kill, which i wont go into details about
here, instead i will tell you about why he is disabled.
When we last summoned & killed him, about 20 people got many murder
counts, without attacking people. Yes thats right, OSI designed
a monsters which hands out murder counts.
What it does is to reflect your attack against OTHER players!
One guy had 150+ counts. 5 cool points to OSI for turning all those
people blue again.
After killing champ, you might have gotten something better than a 105. 105
are blessed, but can be stolen. 110+ are NOT blessed, which means if
someone pk's you, the scroll will drop to your corpse. (they have the note
(cursed) on them).
When the champ dies, gold will poor everywhere in a gold shower. Quite a
nice effect, but is pretty useless since if you had bothered to loot the
spawn will you was working it, you are overloaded with gold anyway.
Then a black gate will appear on the center of the altar, leading to the
fabled starrom. The starrom contains the altars for summoning the harrower,
and a regular moongate. This means you have a very quick getaway from the
dungeon you where in.
However, this is a haven for pks, and thieves. So I don't recommend going
here, unless 20+ people went in before you. I always, always, trek out to
the exit, or use the various shortcuts OSI have placed in the dungeons.
There are teleporters which leads to the other dungeons with champs in.
Learn where they are so you can escape quick.
And in most cases, there are not a such a big jouney to the main land.
UOAM is your friend :)
Balancing issues:
-find a way to award those who work the hole spawn.
-don't award those who hide by altar and only damage the champ (altar campers)
-nerf tamers. Yes I'm afraid to say it but tamers still out damage
anyone. Its sad to see 4 dragons chomping away at a champion, and
are still winning. Not only do this block the view of the champion so others
cannot target it, but it also puts the tamer in complete safety. A simple
savage do more damage to pets than these über monsters do. pathetic.
-the last 2-3 skulls go way to fast. Should be a bit harder.
-the first 1-5 skulls take to long. Should have a middle ground here
-whats the point of preventing recall/gate and having the Felucca
changes in the Felucca dungeons that do not have a champ? (wrong,shame, etc..)
-why don't wisps carry loot? (since they are now part of a champ. spawn)
-bards usually carry a lot of instruments now, since they need the various
bonuses versus the spawn. How can we change instrument without using a charge?
-fix so you can force a spawn. If x amount of people are inside a inactive champ
spawn, activate it.
Bugs:
-firehorns ignores noto query, and damages blues
-last target ignores noto query and damages blues
-protection is bugged. IF you try to protect someone who are already
protected, the game doesn't tell you saw, and the person you are trying to
protect gets the protection screen. Which one will protect this person
if he clicks ok? The first or the last?
-there is no way to see which person(s) you protect.
-why do bards get this spam so everyone can see if they try provoke a
pet? "They are to loyal to their master to be provoked"
-justice is bugged beyond belief. It is way to easy to get to lvl 3.
-slayer bard instruments seems to work the opposite for me. I seem to
fail MORE trying to provoke 2 ophidians with an ophidan instrument,
than with a regular gm lute. I havent had a chance to test this a lot,
so I might be wrong.
-fix lag issues on Deceit
So any tips? How do you get scrolls the fastest?
Well, as ive learned, its all about chance. But as we all know, fewer
who participate, the higher chance of getting one.
I recommend finding a random spawn in the lost land, get your friends
together, and do that one.
The most heavy action are deceit on Europa. Not only does it lag, but
you get like 100+ people there. Leaving very little chance of getting
a scroll.
Then you have the little thing called justice, which ups yours chances
of getting a scroll. Read more about it at uo.com
Thats it for now,
Ragnar Iceblood, Minax, Europa.
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