Taming the Flames

[amyndris]

Any tips for this instance? My group of friends (Fighter 7/Paladin 2, Rogue 9, Cleric 9, Wizard 9) are getting TPK'd repeatedly doing this dungeon on Hard (level 6+1).

The Wizard's Ice Lance does great damage, but he runs out of mana soon, and with a Rogue, Fighter there, we just keep tripping over each other as Fireballs blast us. There aren't really any Rest Shrines that we can see in that dungeon as well.

The repops of course, don't help with the mana issue.

Any tips on what we can do to make this dungeon less frustrating? I'm sure I'm missing something, but this quest is rapidly falling into the "not fun" category.

[Drekisen]

Learn it on normal and then just go thru it as fast as u can, unless u want the optionals in which case u will be needing fire resist 20 at least, which they sell in potions at the twelve potion vendor or which a caster will get at level 7.
You will also need resist electricity 20, air mephits in there have shocking grasp.....no save on that spell.

I would suggest bringing protection from fire and electricity potions as well.

Freedom of Movement will be nice, lots of Earth Eles and on hard thier earthgrab will be harder to resist.

Lastly I would really suggest everyone gets either frost weapons or elemental bane weapons, elemetals have inherent DR, which means it cannot be bypassed, so u will only get the damage from ur str mod for an amount minus thier DR.....say u roll a 12 on damage for ur attack and thier DR is 10 on hard....u will only hit them for 2 points of damage. If u use frost and bane weapons tho u will get all that extra splash damage.

And bring lots of heal potions or wands, to conserve on the healers mana.

Run at appropriate level, this quest is tough.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Fire resist and protect.
If you take a lvl 7 caster he will have better resists.

Worst fight is actually the Air Mephits.

Killing all the elementals is optional, and doesn't give much XP (might be more now though)

Most elementals will not follow you.

Stay together.

Invisible evasion guy to get key.

Don't start with Elite. :rolleyes:

[Zenako]

Synergy is needed.

Resists are about mandatory. From your casters, or even better from the House P source if you have enough favor to get them.

Tips. Direct damage spells from casters is not cost effective in this quest. Someone should use a cursespewer on the mobs, while casters dismiss them.

Elementals can be weakened with Wounding and with Weakening weapons, making them a alot easier to kill.

Some mobs respawn, but many do not. Go slow anyway you can to control the numbers. There are really only a couple of spots where the battle can get out of control (with the sudden spawn of the mephits and elementals just before you get the key is the worst.) Set up some crowd control to slow them down. Freedom of Movement is essential. Concentrate attacks to elminate mobs quickly. Summon up help (or alternative targets for the Mobs with Monster summons. Use summoned mobs that have immunities like Hell Hounds do to fire.)

It is among the most challenging quests to do at level in the game.

[Shade]

Tell your wizards to stop wasting all his mana on ice lance like a noob.

Get him to load up these spells and use them only:
Haste, Protection from Energy, Heroism, Resist Energy, Jump, Perhaps fire shield cold versiion for himself.

Get everyone extended fire and lightning resist and jump, heroism. Stay hasted the entire adventure. Have the wizard cast protection from fire on the main 2 melee often. The cleric can do thte same or cure, tho protection is more effecient often (120 pnts, sometimes more then a cure)

Melee need to be using icy burst weapons and power attack. If you don't have any, well don't do hard.. Do normal, and use just regular ice weapons you can get off the AH very cheap. If the melee doesn't have power attack, he will have to reroll, because killing elementals, (DR10/-) without it, is a big waste of time.

The key to the quest is to keep moving. Unless you have a truely elite party that knows the quest well, killing everything and going for the optionals is not a possibility, especially not on hard. At the first fork, hug right. You'll encounter some mephits, kill them.. Then fire protect the rogue or fighter, have them run all the way down the fire area huggign the wall around to the chest nearby, inside is a key.. Opening the chest can be hard to time, so the rogues evasion may help, tho its doable without. Get the key and regroup.

Head to the otherside of the circular ledge up top, don't fall down. Pull the lever, and head thru the next area.. Youll be forced to fight at a few occasons, but you need only kill the mephits, not the fire elementals unless there causing trouble. At the end talk to the guy.. He opens the way to the end.

Go back to teh start, DDoor would be a good idea if your wizard has it. Go straight, jumping off the ledge this time, the door is open.. All the way straight to the end.. Kill the boss, get the note.. Ddoor again and go back to talk to the guy you found earlier in the west passaage.

There is 1 shrine in the quest.

[Starshaper22]

Man this quest kicked my butt, but it's doable. I did it on solo and died 6 times, the 6th was because I fell and took 8 damage with only 8 health left. But yeah, fire resist 20, haste, all good things here. Fire Elementals don't follow you, the weak ones, the large might but those you can take down fast then get out of the way. You just have to know the dungeon, and then you can make a plan and survive it. When I attempt it on normal sometime later on, I bet I won't die as much. Simply because in normal I could probably just tank all the damage with a fire resist, but I am level 11 so that's not so hard at that point!

[katana_one]

Not exactly a current thread but I figured asking here would be better than starting another thread about the same quest.

As a level 7 cleric am I wasting my time trying to run this on solo difficulty? It's supposed to be a level 6 quest, but I've died 4 times in a row on solo diff without getting past the first two fire elementals.

Or do I just suck that bad? :P

[Cedwin]

Not exactly a current thread but I figured asking here would be better than starting another thread about the same quest.

As a level 7 cleric am I wasting my time trying to run this on solo difficulty? It's supposed to be a level 6 quest, but I've died 4 times in a row on solo diff without getting past the first two fire elementals.

Or do I just suck that bad? :P

At level 7 you should have resist energy 20. Are you putting on fire resist? Also as others in the thread mentioned, killing the fire elementals is optional, you can just run past them.

[ddaedelus]

Not exactly a current thread but I figured asking here would be better than starting another thread about the same quest.

As a level 7 cleric am I wasting my time trying to run this on solo difficulty? It's supposed to be a level 6 quest, but I've died 4 times in a row on solo diff without getting past the first two fire elementals.

Or do I just suck that bad? :P

I believe I was a level 8 or 9 paladin before I could solo it and that was only after spending every pp I had on an improved fire resist item (best thing I ever bought).

I should point out that my paladin is my highest level character so is not twinked out with uber gear.

It is possible that you suck badly. But if so, at least you have company.

Edit: What Cedwin said.... you should have fire resistance going. Those two elementals shouldn't be bothering you at all. The air mephit/earth elemental gank is what will challenge you.

[katana_one]

Yes, I am using resist fire. But the two fire elementals just past the entrance come right for me, usually summoning hellhounds as they close then blasting the bejeezus out of me. Resist goes down pretty fast at that point. You're saying i can ignore them?

[ddaedelus]

Yes, I am using resist fire. But the two fire elementals just past the entrance come right for me, usually summoning hellhounds as they close then blasting the bejeezus out of me. Resist goes down pretty fast at that point. You're saying i can ignore them?

Resist doesn't go down. It cancels 20 points of fire damage each time you take fire damage for 1 minute per level. You're thinking of the other kind of elemental Protection spell, the one that blocks 10 points per level then goes away. Use the former, not the latter (or use both).

And yes, you can ignore the fire elementals. They will respawn if you kill them anyway. Everything else (mephits, hellhounds, earth elementals) you'll have to kill.

[DANTEIL]

So I tried to solo this on my lvl 9 wizard the other day and got completely flummoxed. Previous posts above mention a key?? I ask about this because I used up all my mana running around the circuit, killing all of the earth elementals and mephits and then killing and re-killing the spawning fire elementals, all the while looking for some way to open up the round door at the top of the dungeon, across from the ladder that goes down into the firery hole. The DM voice made it sound like I needed to get through that door in order to drop the barrier to allow me to go down the ladder, but I never figured out how to open the door, and so after all my mana got used up, I had to give up and recall out. What did I miss?

[Kaervas]

I did this with a level 6 cleric, alone, on normal mode. It was my first character since the Stormreach beta, so no hand-me-down gear or stacks of the best consumables, and no prior knowledge of how the quest worked (I only found the Lost Quest Guide some time later).

I didn't have any problems with the quests from the other NPCs in the same tavern, so I figured "hey, how bad can this possibly be".
While figuring out the dungeon I think I went through around 8 full cure light wounds wands, and some large unknown number of cure moderate wands (I love Wavecrasher Manifests). I had to make 2 very rushed trips to pick up extra wands and scoot back before the 5 minute reset timer.

The fire elementals were not a problem since I didn't have to kill most of them and constant movement meant their fireballs kept missing. Being level 7 for 20 resist would have been nice but not essential. Doing the optional to kill 40 (or was it 50?) of the respawning fire elementals is absolutely not worth the trouble.
The earth elementals were easy as the AI was content to let them stand in lava and firespouts. Getting them there was mildly troublesome with the Earthgrab, but no big deal.
The greater/fernia fire mephits were a bugger with their regeneration but still doable. The Nicked Longsword with its 1d6 frost was a life saver, cutting the lesser mephits down in 2 swings.
The worst part by FAR was the air mephits - using a short-duration but constantly-reapplied Blind effect, and I did not have a permanent blindness ward item at that point. Only on later alts did I realize it was possible to get BtA no-ML Blindness Ward goggles/rings from the Sharn Syndicate chains with a little patience and repeating. Whenever possible I dragged these to the lava pits to roast - killing them toe to toe just wasn't happening with the blindness miss chance, the lack of double frost damage, and their regeneration.


Once you grasp the general layout of the dungeon there are a few good parts of the terrain you can use to make life quite easy. I wish I'd known them beforehand.
The floor spike trap arrays will mince whatever you manage to pull into them. After aggroing the boss I just scooted back to the nearest trap and it destroyed 80% of his minions.
The small gap that you have to jump over to reach the right side of the dungeon just after entering the main cavern prevents things chasing you. Use it and a ranged weapon to your advantage to minimize the damage you take. Sometimes creatures try to follow you across and fall in the lava too.
The more annoying enemies (earth elementals and air mephits) are susceptible to roasting, and there's plenty of *that* to go around.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Not exactly a current thread but I figured asking here would be better than starting another thread about the same quest.

As a level 7 cleric am I wasting my time trying to run this on solo difficulty? It's supposed to be a level 6 quest, but I've died 4 times in a row on solo diff without getting past the first two fire elementals.

Or do I just suck that bad? :P

it is very, very difficult to solo at near the quest level with a char who does not have evasion.

It can be done, but I think you need to have experiance both with the quest and with some good tactics to help get you through certain rough spots.

IMO mephits are the most overpowered creatures in the game.

[Vordax]

Pretty much Shade has it spot on, keep moving and resists. I also find it useful to throw out a extended suggestion spell on a mob or 2. Pulls aggro from the party.

Vordax

[katana_one]

Hmm. Yeah. Just tried it again. Level 8 Cleric now. So I took the above advice about the fire elementals and buffed myself with resist fire and just ignored them. Hopped the ledges just to the right just inside the entrance. Went down the tunnel that ended in two round doors facing each other. Popped the lever, DA went to green immediately and I find myself surrounded by 4 earth elementals and at least that many air mephits who commence to pound the living daylights out of me in about 6 seconds flat.

Wow. This was on solo diff. I hate to think what this will be like on normal.

[Kaervas]

After a while you'll notice which mobs respawn and which do not. Kill whatever doesn't respawn as you encounter it, then you can always run back to the main lava room and abuse the lava to kill the hard-hitting earth elementals and the pesky air mephits.

Also make sure you have electricity resist when you encounter air mephits.

[tfangel]

I just want to point out that this is one time i will definitely complain about how turbine did something. The first version of this quest was fine, a tad short (about the length of the giant caves in threnal) and a bit easy to farm, which people did. They didn't like that and took it down to change in the extreme. I think they went way too far. Before it was fine, especially for level, but now it's rarely run and a pain in the butt.

While i don't mind dungeon alert on most quests, it's another example of them doing something to run the quest not the way they intend and going too far. The Threnal chain is another example, although changing it so you can actually do stuff to colye is a good change.

/rant off

Back to topic, resist is your friend, and since protection no longer is immunity to it, just a nice topper if you are still taking too much damage. Learn on normal if you can too. (repeating what a lot of people have said, lol)

[parvo]

What is TPK?

[tfangel]

What is TPK?

Total Party Kill i'm guessing.

[ddaedelus]

So I tried to solo this on my lvl 9 wizard the other day and got completely flummoxed. Previous posts above mention a key?? I ask about this because I used up all my mana running around the circuit, killing all of the earth elementals and mephits and then killing and re-killing the spawning fire elementals, all the while looking for some way to open up the round door at the top of the dungeon, across from the ladder that goes down into the firery hole. The DM voice made it sound like I needed to get through that door in order to drop the barrier to allow me to go down the ladder, but I never figured out how to open the door, and so after all my mana got used up, I had to give up and recall out. What did I miss?

If you go right from the entrance you'll hit the branch where you're spammed with earth elementals and air mephits. In that room is a lever that opens the door behind you. Beyond that door is a room you have to circle on a ledge. Fire traps abound. At the end of the ledge is a chest. In that chest is the key.

[katana_one]

Total Party Kill i'm guessing.

Correct.