Staying Alive in the Subterrane

[mistertwilight23]

Any tips would be appreciated. Are you supposed to just sprint through the main room where you drop in - sprint to a safer area? Or is the map loaded with instant death around every corner? Is it useless trying to solo the Subterrane? I have an Exploiter Ranger, lvl 20.

[Jakarr]

The first drop off is the only place with the Living spells best to do is use a Weaking Bow on em with manyshot it will drop em into auto-crit quick. After that its alot of giant skelys which all ya need is dual Holy Warhammers of PG or something of the sort.

[MsEricka]

My monk regularly solo's the Subterrane, including the living spells. Not sure what you need but there could be a whole big list such as

more HP
higher saves
better weapons
more knowledge
and on and on

Without knowing exactly what you know and knowing your character I'm not sure anyone can help you.

Perhaps just try avoiding the initial dropdown and featherfall off to the right. If you run past the living firestorm and up the ramp you will see a hideyhole. Hide in there for a minute or two and the giant skeletons will actually run out and beat up the firestorm for you. Then it's just cleanup time.

[donfilibuster]

While the spells can be killed there's little need to bother with them and they also respawn i believe.
Thus people that head to the raids or to garamol, etc. just feather fall out of the way and keep going.
Naturally you can get your kills and tokens from the skeletons, devils and demons in the side tunnels.

[gara-xxx]

with high enough ac no1 can even touch you there ...
having a hireling healer helps (to me at last :)

[Hobgoblin]

its a raid instance, means no hirelings.

hob

[Aashrym]

with high enough ac no1 can even touch you there ...
having a hireling healer helps (to me at last :)

That would be a definite shoe tasting moment when you wrote that unfortunately. ;)

Sorry, dude. Hob beat me to it at least.

[donfilibuster]

So yeah, i bet everyone with the pack tried entering the sub upon reaching lv 14 on their first toon.
A quick plummet to a quick death and a frightening but fun experience, only to try again four or six levels later.

It isn't entirely unsoloable, just mind it is a raid area and thus would be as hard as soloing a raid.
(not the short ones naturally, you can solo dq and rf)

Just post a lfm for garamol and add that you need guide.
It'd be hard to not have one of the dozen people in the group know the way.
(though it happens occasionally, it's fun to be on a 12 man group where everyone is dead lost)

[Lorz]

with high enough ac no1 can even touch you there ...
having a hireling healer helps (to me at last :)

The Sub is not the same as the Steam Tunnels....mkay. :)

[mistertwilight23]

I bought up a bow of weakening - picking away at the living spells at a distance is nice. Nice to read that Sub isn't as insurmountable as it seems. Yeah I tried navigating it solo a few levels ago - that was a mess.

I'm keeping at it. Thanks for info!

[Glenalth]

Another option is stealth. You won't get as many kills, but you can have the spells fighting against the skeletons and other amusing things.

Here's an introductory video on how to use stealth.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1111770357062149413#

[Nyvn]

The Sub isn't subject to dungeon scaling. It's balanced for a full raid of 12 people, not that you can't solo it.

[Riorik]

So yeah, i bet everyone with the pack tried entering the sub upon reaching lv 14 on their first toon.
A quick plummet to a quick death and a frightening but fun experience, only to try again four or six levels later.


Not really clear why you'd have to wait until level 18-20 to survive down there. This area was open when the cap was still 16.

[sephiroth1084]

For dealing with the Living Firestorms and especially the Living Meteor Swarms, you need:
-good Reflex save (gear and buffs are important here, such as a +4 or +5 resist item and GH)
-greater fire resist
-sufficient DPS ot take them out quickly

also beneficial:
-fast, uninterruptable self-healing
-Firestorm Greaves
-Fire Shield (cold)
-Weakening weapons

Ultimately, the Sub can be very rough on a single player.

[Sarisa]

I regularly solo Garamol on my cleric. The living spells are the most dangerous things down there aside from rares, so what I do is sprint past them and continue straight past the locked lever (where you would normally go to in order to get to HoX, VoD, or Garamol). The living spells following you will still get a few spells off, but will eventually leash. Then you can go back to the lever, killing any skeleton along the way. As long as you kill the priest first, you should be safe. UMD'ing Fireshield (Cold) scrolls, Cloak of Ice, or hope Bracers of the Glacier trigger, and/or wearing Firestorm Greaves helps a lot in this part. You can dodge some of the cast spells but sometimes a skeleton may knock you back into it.

On the map (http://img.enterwiki.net/images/Fieldmap_TheSubterraneCentral.jpg), head toward the blue dot just east the lowermost 'C' portal to leash the living spells.

The skeleton priests will hit you with Dispel quite often. Be able to survive in this part without buffs.

Once you're past them and kill some skeletons, go back into the first locked lever and door (it's the circle just southeast of that 'C' portal on the map), head to the bottom of the stairs. If you turn right, that's the path to the VoD and Hound raids. If you turn left, then you can head to the Garamol (Icy Raiment, Sun Blade, etc) rare. If you know about the 'G' rune, just ignore it if it shows up here.

Follow the path around until you get a to a fork in the path. You should see a glowing rune in the middle of a group of columns. Look for a symbol on the side of the rune (it'll be a stylized 'G'), and head in that direction. If it's to the right (east), you'll be in a dead end with a rune. Using the rune will open a green portal to the Garamol rare. If it's left (west), head in that direction and you'll get to a shrine.

The next area is guarded by an elder Beholder. Be sure to use a Silver Flame necklace or some other sort of protective item. Since my melee damage is rather low, I use a pet (either an earth or an air ele) as bait and hide behind a column. When his back is turned, level drain and destruction. As an exploiter, your melee damage should be good enough to kill him quickly with the only risk being a Disintegrate failure.

Rebuff (FoM is important), then look for another large circular rune in the middle of the area. Look for a 'G' symbol inside the rune. If it's there (it'll be pointing right (east)), head down off the bridge and toward the shrine. Note that although a shrine is displayed on the map, it is on a different floor of the Sub, so you cannot use it. There should be another rune and portal here, opening it will bring up a green portal to Garamol. If you come down here and the 'G' wasn't there, it'll open up a red portal and spawn a bunch of devils.

The door to the north is filled with devils, trogs, and tieflings. Head north, then west, then up the ramp. You'll have a large spawn of devils appear here. Then head north and drop off the platform. Head east after this for a shrine and another rune portal. This is the third of three possible places that Garamol's portal can be in.

When you go into Garamol, you'll appear in mid air over a LONG drop. There will be a large number of traps along the way down. You're evasive but it's still a good idea to take off your feather fall and only put it back on when you're nearly touching the ground, in order to avoid being hit by the traps. There are several skeletons (including a wizard and a priest), the skeleton king Garamol, and a few spectres. Try to avoid stepping on the gold too much, or getting too close to the ramp with the chests. People also say to avoid jumping as well. Any of these may trigger Garamol to send you back into the air through the traps. If you're in a group, any person can trigger Garamol to send the group up in the air, and it's random who gets sent up. Once you kill everything, wait a few seconds then you can approach the chests. The one on the right is where the Icy Raiment, Sub Blade, Frost Brand, Flametongue, Dwarven Thrower, Luck Blade, and Mace of Smiting may come from.

When fighting Garamol, you'll likely have to do it without buffs. Both the priest and Garamol will spam Greater Dispel. Garamol has a lot of HP, and fairly high spell resistance. Heal and Mass Heal are subject to spell resistance, but mass cures are not.

Like others have said, high HP, good saves, permanent fire resistance, Fireshield (Cold), Firestorm Greaves, a Silver Flame talisman or some other Beholder protection item, some form of DR, high AC, and some form of effective self healing that's not subject to concentration checks all help survive in this area.

For the other areas (the path to the Hound or VoD raids), I don't know quite as well so you'll have to ask someone in game. The same things apply though, only that Beholder protection becomes even more important on the path to Hound.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

A great soloist took me down there once, and showed me a thing or two.

He ran by the Living Spells until they leashed back. Snuck by things that could be snuck by. And used terrain, including door levers as partial protection from things he had to fight.

I've been /dance ing with Xoriat Orbs ever since. :cool:



But it is a high lvl raid environment. Soloing down there is very, very difficult.

It is way easier to take a few friends along.

[TFPAQ]

Sarisa laid it out pretty well.

However, I do have to say that going down there to solo Gar for icy rainments was the most grindy, miserable time playing DDO that I have experienced, bar none.

That's being said about a toon that I regularily solo much of Amrath, DQ, etc on.

After number 7, I just called it and begged guildies to go with me for more chances at the rainments.

Run 9 (full group) we had 5 rainments drop - finally!

And I'm still wearing my white dragon scale robe ... until I pick up AC +8 Bracers ... ouch...

[mistertwilight23]

awesome info! thank you. I will update this thread after I get the hang of Subterrane.