Enter the Kolbold

[munglee]

Hello....just got dun running enter the Kolbold on normal...5 man and we had a HORRID time finishing the quest...the spells were hitting us for 300+ damage (with fire resist and a 30 reflex save)anyone else have this prob...or are we just nubs?

[Velexia]

1. Meteor Swarm now has 100% unavoidable damage (kind of like a 30 foot wide ray spell).
2. Ability Damage is no longer a viable way to deal with the infinitely respawning Living Meteor Swarm spell.
3. This makes for hard times.

[archora]

Yep had the same problem. That quest is rediculous if you dont have evasion you can barely step into the room and if you dont have outstanding evasion you may aswell forget it. I do have a solution though, dont run the quest ever again just hit the explorer chests for a while then buy the khyber essence, job done no need to do that stupid quest ever again :)

[Shade]

Yep had the same problem. That quest is rediculous if you dont have evasion you can barely step into the room and if you dont have outstanding evasion you may aswell forget it. I do have a solution though, dont run the quest ever again just hit the explorer chests for a while then buy the khyber essence, job done no need to do that stupid quest ever again :)

Actually people relying on evasion was the problem. Meteor swarms new bludegoing damage has no save, so evasion doesn't work on it.

They don't do 300 unsavable damage tho. Meteor swarm does 0 x 4 fire dmg (with resist fire), + 10-30ish x4 bludgeoning, so ~120 dmg at best. They do cast cometfall tho, which does 300+ dmg on a failed save, but they always did that since the quest came out.

Beat it the same way I always did on my non-evasion barbs.. DPS. Here is step by step
1. Lotsa buffs, get so many they get cut off up top.
2. Sprint boost to boss
3. Beat **** out of stupid kobold very fast (don't let him jump down)
4. Locate "living meteor swarm". Destroy at all costs. (note there is only 1, and he takes 30+ seconds to respawn, the rest are firestorms and delayed blast fireballs = no dmg with evasion, or very little with non evasion + firegreave
5. Kill Efreeti fast and danger before evil swarms respawn
6. ????
7. Profit!

Tho lots of alternative strategies will work if ur group lacks dps, such as:
A) Good wizard with ooze pupet - spells are no problem
B) Symbol of Persuasion carefully placed = you don't tank the living spells... the Mephits do! (who happen to be quite immune to fire dmg, so they sorta just dance around each other funnily)
C) Stat damage still disables spells for 1 full minuit, if your group can't DPS the boss down in that time.. I dunno.
D) Nukes! 2 proper nuke sorcs synchonous cold of colds will destroy every spell at once before they can even react. Single sorc can do it in 2 casts. Frenzied fire elementals die pretty fast to nukes also.

If anything with the +4 lvls and big DPS boosts we got, this quest is that much easier. Yes its much harder for ur average monk to solo it.. But it was kind of a joke that 1 evasion toon could solo this quest easy with no risk in the first place.

[Jendrak]

Actually people relying on evasion was the problem. Meteor swarms new bludegoing damage has no save, so evasion doesn't work on it.

They don't do 300 unsavable damage tho. Meteor swarm does 0 x 4 fire dmg (with resist fire), + 10-30ish x4 bludgeoning, so ~120 dmg at best. They do cast cometfall tho, which does 300+ dmg on a failed save, but they always did that since the quest came out.

Just a couple quick corrections.

1. The bludgeoning damage isn't new they just fixed the spell since your save was never supposed to affect it.
2. Meteor Swar is only 2 meteors not 4 so its should only be 12-62 fire and 4-26 bludgeon at best.
3. It's not cometfall they cast but flame strike.

Other than that he's pretty much right on.

[Shade]

Just a couple quick corrections.

1. The bludgeoning damage isn't new they just fixed the spell since your save was never supposed to affect it.
2. Meteor Swar is only 2 meteors not 4 so its should only be 12-62 fire and 4-26 bludgeon at best.
3. It's not cometfall they cast but flame strike.

Um none of those are not corrections, they're all wrong.

1. No. The spell never did bludgeoning damage in module 8. Not for players or monsters. Also not in mod9 beta release. This was only added in a late patch in beta, I put up a thread explaining it and tested the damage myself the day it was added.
2. Meteor Swarm is 4, read the description. However, due to some glaring bugs with the spell, generally only 3 of the 4 hits connect and deal damage. Also DDO also doesn't use regular math for damage, Your assuming it does. A minimum of 4 damage is not possible, all spells in DDO math do a minimum of 50% of the normal PnP damage dice.
3. Incorrect again. Flame strike is present in that encounter - but not cast by the living meteor swarms. Each living spell can cast 2 different spells:
Meteor Swarm: Meteor Swarm + Cometfall (nice ~300 dmg ones)
Firestorm: Firestorm + Flamestrike
Delayed blast Fireball: Delayed blast Fireball + Scorching Ray

[Velexia]

One of them, the Delayed Blast Fireball I believe casts Scorching Ray as it's second spell.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

Tho lots of alternative strategies will work if ur group lacks dps, such as:
A) Good wizard with ooze pupet - spells are no problem
B) Symbol of Persuasion carefully placed = you don't tank the living spells... the Mephits do! (who happen to be quite immune to fire dmg, so they sorta just dance around each other funnily)
C) Stat damage still disables spells for 1 full minuit, if your group can't DPS the boss down in that time.. I dunno.
D) Nukes! 2 proper nuke sorcs synchonous cold of colds will destroy every spell at once before they can even react. Single sorc can do it in 2 casts. Frenzied fire elementals die pretty fast to nukes also.



I usually use the "cleric blade barriers everything else in the area, while the melee types beat down the kobold and the named efreeti" method.

Then the melee's can peel off whatever they feel like hitting (one at a time) while the target dummy runs around healing himself.

[Chiapet]

OK, I read the post, and basically did exactly what was recommended. We buffed, dropped the barrier, ran like crazy to the Kobold, started taking him down, and every living spell concentrated on us and pounded us into ash. Let me ask this question...is it possible to Enfeeble the living spells to a point that they are still alive, but cannot attack due to so many negative levels? Also, I was on my rogue last night, was able to get to the Kobold, and was able to successfully attack him without the Living Spells pounding me. Problem with that was everytime I would pound him down, he would jump into the lava and regen. That is when we came up with the idea of all possible DPS rushing in to strictly attack him. I am wondering if it would be feasable to get someone to kite the living spells out of the area, back up top, and give the rest a chance to beat them down. I understand that whomever is kiting would be signing their death warrant, but it is a thought. Are there any other suggestions out there?

[Shade]

OK, I read the post, and basically did exactly what was recommended. We buffed, dropped the barrier, ran like crazy to the Kobold, started taking him down, and every living spell concentrated on us and pounded us into ash. Let me ask this question...is it possible to Enfeeble the living spells to a point that they are still alive, but cannot attack due to so many negative levels? Also, I was on my rogue last night, was able to get to the Kobold, and was able to successfully attack him without the Living Spells pounding me. Problem with that was everytime I would pound him down, he would jump into the lava and regen. That is when we came up with the idea of all possible DPS rushing in to strictly attack him. I am wondering if it would be feasable to get someone to kite the living spells out of the area, back up top, and give the rest a chance to beat them down. I understand that whomever is kiting would be signing their death warrant, but it is a thought. Are there any other suggestions out there?

Doesn't sound like you used any of the strategies I suggested actually.

Sounds like you ran in with no plan and hoped for the best..

DPS rush in and win can work - but only in a very strong and well equiped group. And still requires some basic knowledge of kobolds.
Kobold 101:
All Kobolds always jump backwards every 2 seconds while being melee'd. That's backwards away from the person hitting him. So, if you run up and just attack from a random side, he will indeed jump into the lava and cause your doom as fighting him there is deadly. So all melee much approach him dead on center infront of him, and fight him dead on.. He will jump back into his corner where you can box him in and take him down within 30 seconds in a strong group. If it takes much longer, the spells will be up and kill your party unless your healers are exceptional.
Even once he's dead, you have to kill the living meteor swarm, just have to tab really fast and locate it and melee it down - theres only 1, doesn't have much HP but can be hard to find in all the confuion. After that, you have 30 seconds to kill the efreeti before it respawns again.
The moment the Efreeti dies, the living spell no longer respawns - as he was controlling them. So whipe out the last of them.. Then your safe to finish off the reimaing elementals and mephits.. Or just get the chest and ddoor out if there taking too long.

Either way the group will need some healing.. So you need a very tough healer that can survive the aoes. I find this quest is one of the best tests of a healer, as many other quests the healer can heal without getting attacked, which is easy.. This one - just can't. It may be possible if your cleric has enlarge and sits way at the back of the tunnel - i've never seen that tho, no clerics have enlarge heh.

With pretty average gear (lower dps group) you have to use the alternate strategies I recommended.

To answer you question: Yes, you can str damage a spell to 0, which disables all his spell casting ability. But they have a decent str, 20-30ish.. So it takes time ,and stat damage regenerates at a point of 1 per minuit. So one disalbed, they will resume after 1 minuit.. Being there are about 6 spells in there, this is not a particular easy or reliable strategy unless you have several rangers with weakning of enfeebling bows on many shot..

Easiest way is the ooze puppet. You do need a wizard (almost no sorcs have this loaded) with a decent Int and spell pen tho, they have decent saves and SR. It works on all the living spells and has a very long duration (15+ minuits with saves every 1 minuit)

Another way is symbol of persuasion.. This is harder as it's has to be positioned perfect, as you don't get 2 tries at it due to its massive cooldown. You need to put it where you can catch every mephit.. Then back off far enough so the mephits get the living spell agro. after that it's a pretty safe fight as long as you stay out of the aoe range. Tho with the blunt dmg from meteor swarm, it will kill the mephits eventually, so you still need to DPS fast.

Nukes.. This ones not that hard.. But does require very good sorcs to pull off efffectively. They need maximum cold damage, fire shield on themselfs, and have to be able to take a hit. As it will take 2-3 cone of colds to destroy all the spells, and after that they will generally have all the elemental agro too, so they gota be able to self heal thru the fireballs and hold that agro while the melee take down the kobold + efreeti. On my sorc I can kill all mephits, spells and elementals without running out of SP using purely cone of cold and heal scrolls on myself, but it's not something you will see happen often. And still relies on the group doing enough DPS to kill the kobold and efreeti fast, as the spells respawn every ~30 seconds, and killing them the 2nd time is often difficult as they can surprise attack you while your busy with the elementals.