Reaver's Fate walkthrough

[Gimpster]

Spoiler alert, everyone. Before reading these directions, you may wish to try the quest on your own (it is not that hard). If you need a little help, you can check the hint thread before coming for the answer.

Compressed version of how to win
1. Go inside Reaver's Fate
2. Aggro the big giant.
3. Wait maybe 10 minutes, or however long it takes for all 9 ceiling orbs to start spinning.
4. When someone starts flying, send him up through the hole in the middle ceiling and down the tunnel to the west to pull a lever.
5. Kill the giant.
6. Run to the puzzle room to the west, and solve the puzzle to open the four-color combination.
7. Run to the middle of the big room and open your chests.

Those instructions, however, ignore the various threats that will try to kill you during the mission. The following instructions go into more detail on how to survive.

1. Play the MasterMind game at http://www.irt.org/games/js/mind/. Set it to 6 balls in play, code length 4, allow same color yes, and 12 attempts. Play it until you can reliably do it every time; 12 attempts is much more than really needed, and allows a lot of room to recover from stupid mistakes.

2. Prepare the following spells in tavern:
Tumble, Resist Energy, Protection From Energy, Displacement, Sphere of Dancing, Finger of Death, Destruction, Bestow Curse, Banishment, Enervation, Haste, Heal, False Life, Greater Heroism. Clerics might prepare Symbol of Fear, but arcanes should stick with Sphere of Dancing.

3. Go into the quest, and buff everyone with all 5 energy resists, Tumble, and Greater Heroism. Consider wearing +10 Tumble or Balance items if you have space.

4. Advance into the big room, and stand somewhere around one of the corners, so you are not directly under an orb, and also not under any grooves, holes, or visible spikes. Don't bunch up too close to each other.

5. Aggro the giant. Fighters should try to hold aggro and stand him in one place, while whittling down his health. Buff them with Displacement and Haste, but don't really bother with stoneskin. Stormreaver does up to 43 points on a swing, and double on crits, so fortification is obligatory. He also has Cleave, so his swings hit an AOE in front of him. Fighters should be ready to shield-block a whole lot, because you are not in a hurry to get his health down.

5a. Once Stormreaver is aggroed, the timer on the wall starts counting down. You have around 20 minutes before the building explodes and your mission fails. Speed of progression is based on what random actions Stormreaver takes, and not on anything you do; your only goal is to survive until he does his job (while also bringing down his hp so you can easily kill him later)

6. Casters decide if they want to be charged or not. Being charged lets you cast many more spells without drinking mana potions, but it's a little risky. Your call.
6a. To get charged, cast Protection From Electricity and Displacement, then equip a shield and block next to a fighter. (For faster results, ask the fighters without aggro to back away while you do this). Each time Stormreaver hits you with chain lightning, your charge status increases by 1. At step 3 you will notice your max hitpoints increase by +50, which is the sign you are charged and should back away. For the next 2:30 you will have infinite mana, reduced falling damage, and be immune to air-elemental knockdown.

7. Stormreaver occasionally throws a slow-moving lightning ball out of his head that flies up to one of the 9 orbs in the ceiling of the room. On impact, the orb turns on and starts spinning, and it blasts the ground beneith it with a damaging electrical burst (so don't be standing there). And of course, it summons 5 air elementals beneath it.

8. Air elementals can be almost immune to melee, and if they plow into the group they can knock everyone over and prevent spellcasting or movement, so you need to deal with the threat. A Sphere of Dancing (cast ahead of time) will catch them, and then they can be killed with one-shot magic like Finger of Death, Destruction, and Banishment (a spell you probably don't use very much). (Mix in Bestow Curse or Enervate if necessary). If you can't cast Sphere of Dancing, Symbol of Fear might work, although then they could be a little hard to catch. For best result, your spellcasters are charged with unlimited mana, so they can easily nuke all the elementals. Also, remember that anyone charged is immune to knockdown, so he could step away from the group and hold elemental aggro someplace it won't be a problem.

9. From time to time (starting after the 4th orb is lit), Stormreaver will cast his Reverse Gravity spell, which not only crashes everyone into the ceiling, but also suppresses Feather Fall effects. An improved Tumble skill (with spells or items) can help you survive the damage, as can high hitpoints. When you're on the ceiling, you have a few seconds to heal up for the fall back down. Of course, you might die immediately if you hit any of the ceiling spikes, which is why you shouldn't stand under them. While on the ceiling you can push towards the outer edges of the room, which is a little safer and could reduce the secondary falling damage by riding down a pillar.

10. Once all 9 of the ceiling orbs are activated and spinning, Stormreaver will start giving a Fly buff to a nearby player when he casts a spell. For 2:30 you'll be able to move through the air. The fly buff is crucial to complete the quest, which is why you couldn't kill Stormreaver until now. The first thing to do when you start flying is to head straight up to get out of reach of melee attacks. Then you can decide if someone needs to fly to either the east or west levers. The west lever is to open the puzzle to win the quest, and the east lever is to raise anyone who might have died so far (or might die later).
Either way, you start by flying up the hole in the center of the ceiling, then follow a tunnel west or east.
The tunnels are lined with spike traps which allow no saving throw, and which cause damage even if you hit them very slowly. Although it's possible to get through without touching any spikes, be sure to be at full health before going down the tunnels. That includes possibly switching to a Greater False Life item, and casting spells like False Life, Aid, and Greater Heroism. Stoneskin can help too. If you get damaged, stop in place and heal up before moving forward at all.

10a. At the west lever you'll want to pull it immediately and then fly back out if you have enough time left. If you don't, you can either sit there stuck, or die and be rezzed if anyone is at the rez lever (east).

10b. At the east lever, you will find all the soulstones and ghosts of any player who died in the quest. Pulling the lever will rez them all in the middle of the large room (which might be too dangerous if there happens to be air elementals waiting there, or if Reverse Gravity is in effect).

11. Once the west lever above the puzzle room is pulled, you're clear to kill the Stormreaver. He can't attack someone flying at head level, so that may give you an easy way to fight him. Mages should try a Maximized Empowered Wall of Fire.

12. With Stormreaver dead, the puzzle room opens, so you can all relocate in there. From this point the timer resets to about 3-4 minutes before explosion, regardless of where it had been.

13. One or two players solve the mastermind puzzle, while the others defend them from the elementals that will spawn each time you make an incorrect guess. Repeatedly click the row of skulls to change the colors, then pull the lever to the side to input your guess. If you did well on the javascript game, this should be no trouble (so far as elementals don't hurt you). Use the same techniques to battle elementals, prioritizing air as the most dangerous and fire as the least.

14. Once the puzzle is solved, an announcement of your victory goes out server-wide, and 4 chests appear in the central room. Also, the barrier to the little room above the puzzle opens, and anyone who's dead is brought back to life in the center. Pulling the puzzle lever additional times can rez them again, in case they die again somehow.

15. Congrats, you beat the Reaver's Fate. Next time, try to solo it.


Other topics

Tumble buff- If you do not have a wizard or ranger who can cast the Tumble spell to reduce your falling damage, buy it from Finglar d'Phiarlan before you go in. (This option gives only Tumble +20 instead of +30, but still helps). Removing heavy armor and shields (especially tower shields) will also increase your Tumble skill, although you must weigh the threat of melee damage from Stormreaver as well.

Charming- One might think that using Charm, Suggestion, or Symbol of Persuasion on the Air Elementals would keep them fighting each other and out of your hair. However, the quest apparently has a trigger to spam Dispel Magic on charmed elementals at a high rate.

Abjuration items- Some weapons/jewelry drops with Spell Focus Abjuration. Few players hold onto these, but they'll give a +1 DC to your Banishment and Dismissal spells.

Casting against elementals- When a group of 5 elementals spawn, a wizard can respond with a chain of Finger of Death, Banishment, and Phantasmal Killer to defeat them all in short order.

Ring of the Djinni- this named item drops in the Lammania chamber in Prison of the Planes, and gives you an extra 33% reduction to lightning damage. It could help low-hitpoint characters survive the various electric bursts- the difference between 100 and 66 damage could be life or death.

Balance skill- helps you stand back up when an elemental has knocked you down. Although with proper execution you can avoid ever being overrun by an elemental, sometimes it happens. To recover faster, consider wearing a balance skill item, and especially look at removing Tower Shields, which have a huge armor skill penalty.

Debuffing weapons- some characters can help fight the elementals by debuffing them so they fail more saving throws. A ranged weapon with Cursespewing will give them -4 on saves, although it will take several hits before they fail the save against curse. The Giant's Roar named bow from Stormcleave applies a -2 penalty, but has harder saves and will stick after fewer hits.

Banishing weapons- If you can get them, they can help beat elementals. A ranger with a banishing crossbow can defeat many elementals himself (crossbows are better than longbows, despite the slower firing, because they crit twice as often). Also, a banishing melee weapon can work well if the wielder first gets a Charged buff so he can attack without fear of knockdown.

Elite mode- on elite, all the threats do more damage and the monsters are tougher. The most important difference is that Air Elementals will have a moderate chance to pass their saving throws against enchantment and death spells. The most reliable way to ensure they fail saves is to use the Enervation spell: there is no save against Enerervate, and each hit applies a stackable save penalty of average -4 per shot. Even if you can't cast Enervate, it works equally well from scrolls. A bard or rogue (who might have no other way to contribute) can cast a stack of Enervate scrolls to drain the saves from the elementals. (On elite, the elementals' HD increases so Banishing weapons no longer work)

[LordDamax]

In the concise method, step 4 says pull the east lever. East is the res lever, west is the one that MUST be pulled to win the raid.

[LordDamax]

Here's my additions, observations and notes to Gimp's awesome post:

Step 2:
You can debuff the living snot out of the stormreaver. These spells I ALWAYS cast when on my mage, and it severly reduces the damage the SR gives out. I have personally verified this work on Purple named raid bosses:
Ray of Enfeeblement: No save, 1d6+5 strength damage
Curse: -4 to all rolls
Symbol of Pain: -4 more to all rolls
Crushing despair: -2 to all rolls
Waves of Exhaustion (no save): Exhausts him - -6 to str and dex, and should be 1/2 movement but he doesnt appear to slow down.

That is 12-17 strength damage, and -10 to all rolls. Thats at a minimum -16 to hit. It really does help.

Step 3:
As for resist fire, I dont think I've ever seen him cast a fire spell, so I dont believe it is necessary. Could be wrong. His melee attacks do sonic damage, make sure the tank have sonic resistance.

Step 6:
The ball he throws out that builds your charge does NOT do damage. Or, rather, if it does it's less than 30 (as I always have resist elec up) and I never take damage from it. The charge order is: Minor Static Charge, Major Static Charge, Minor Static Field (and buffs), Major Static Field, then you take a buttload of electrical damage from hit #5, but with decent HP, and a 120 point resist you can survive. When you have someone hit you with the madstone rod, it also strips the buffs, so be careful. The buff lasts 3 mins, however, not 2:30.

Step 7:
If you crowd the SR by the front door, sometimes the balls the throws can hit the pillars and fizzle out, make sure he's not jammed into a corner.

Step 8:
Banishment is your friend. My sorc, who has ONE lv 7 spell, carries banishment, because of how incredible that spell is in there. Also, GET THE MANA BUFF. Nothing is more fun than throwing spells with impunity. I got my cleric flagged so we could raid during the day when not many clerics are on... I got the mana buff twice in one raid, and had 42 kills on my cleric. It was a BLAST throwing destruction, banishinment, dismissal, heal, and prot elec with absolutely no care for my mana use.

Step 10:
The flight is 2 minutes, not 2:30. Gimp has the east and west levers backwards... EAST is the res room lever, WEST is the one needed to complete the quest.

Step 10a, b, and Step 11:
Swap east and west.

Step 12: You do NOT get more time to complete the puzzle. If you had 10 seconds left before, and kill the SR, you still have 10 second left. I've killed the SR and ran into the room, to see the runes disapear 3, 2, 1, BOOM. I do think your puzzle time is CAPPED (if you have 10 mins left, and get to the puzzle, it shortens to 3 mins) but it does not, I know for a fact, increase to 3 mins if you didnt have 3 mins left in the first place.

[Crabo]

As for resist fire, I dont think I've ever seen him cast a fire spell, so I dont believe it is necessary. Could be wrong. His melee attacks do sonic damage, make sure the tank have sonic resistance.

Handy to have fire resist on for the fire eles in the puzzle room.

[Gimpster]

The flight is 2 minutes, not 2:30. Gimp has the east and west levers backwards... EAST is the res room lever, WEST is the one needed to complete the quest.

The surest way to remember it is to look for the map dot of any dead players waiting in the soulstone-vacum room.

[LordDamax]

Handy to have fire resist on for the fire eles in the puzzle room.

Touche

[Gimpster]

The flight is 2 minutes, not 2:30. Gimp has the east and west levers backwards... EAST is the res room lever, WEST is the one needed to complete the quest.

Editted. To summarize, as you come in you are facing north. The staircase to the puzzle room is on your left, covered by a blue force field (west). A window looking down from the rez room is to your right (east).

[Gol]

Each spinning skull spawns 9 eles, not 5 (sorry, I know I'm nitpicking).

[The_Cataclysm]

Each spinning skull spawns 9 eles, not 5 (sorry, I know I'm nitpicking).

No, it's 5.

[jaitee]

No, it's 5.

yea, i think its 5 too, i could be wrong

[narizue]

Its been five everytime that I have been in the raid.

[Tanka]

Confirmed on 5 Elementals.

[smodge13]

ring of the djinn and lightning resist doesnt protect you in anyway from the lightning bursts i have tested this and checked (you also get no save for some reason), the elementals lightning balls however they do help you against

[Harbinder]

Good report Gimp I give it an A.

[LordDamax]

5-manned then 4-manned this today, and I can say one thing: GET THE FREAKING BUFFS.

On our 4 man we had 1 cleric (me), a mage, a ranger, and a paladin.

I got the mana buff twice, and not only kept everyone alive, but got 42 kills (compared to 12 and 12 for the wiz and ranger). Not only did we kick ass, but it was hella fun.

[Shade]

3. Wait maybe 10 minutes, or however long it takes for all 9 ceiling orbs to start spinning.

You sure that works if you simply.. wait?

I tried that once as the elemental were all too far away to see us. We waited for a while, and while the stormreaver still shot his bolts to the orbs.. Every single one hit the same orb so the quest didnt progress and we ran out of time.

I believe its neccesary to kill probably 1 elemental per orb shot.

And yea you'll take every type of damage there (first few times i did this quest i adamantly demanded all resist and the group leader told people not to buff me because he didnt believe anything except lightning was delt...)
Fire - Elementals at the ends aura + fireballs .. Will interupt/kill puzzle doers if they dont have it.
Cold - Stormreaver casts ice storm.
Electric - Obvious one, chain lightning from elementals and stormreaver and the orbs.
Acid - Stormreaver has a few acid spells, i think melfs and acid rain.
Sonic - He wields what i'd guess is a +5 Screaming burst adamantine greatsword (with superior two handed feat)

And while its extremely difficult to melee the elementals, you certainly can. I've got over 30 kills on my barb outkilling every cleric, wizard and sorc a couple runs. Trick is a paralyzing greataxe - so you can keep them still and avoid the knockback by using the greataxes greater reach (you dont get knocked down with the right buffs, but you still get pushed away if you get too close)

[Gimpster]

And while its extremely difficult to melee the elementals, you certainly can. I've got over 30 kills on my barb outkilling every cleric, wizard and sorc a couple runs. Trick is a paralyzing greataxe - so you can keep them still and avoid the knockback by using the greataxes greater reach (you dont get knocked down with the right buffs, but you still get pushed away if you get too close)

Melee on them is easy if you prepare. With the correct buff (step 3 Reaver charge), the elementals do nothing to knock you or blow you at all. It becomes a small question of how much damage you can do through their DR (or an opportunity for a Banishing Rapier to shine)

[Gimpster]

Here is a further Q&A on the subject of this quest.

If you were a cleric, where would you stand to start spamming the heals? I've done it once and I stood inside the initial doorway. I got bounced around a little bit but we were successful.

Well, it all depends on where the tanks are, huh? Wherever the guys are fighting the giant, you want to be following a short way behind.

Having them bring the giant to in front of that doorway is OK, although I tend to do it in one of the corners of the room (usually the south-west corner). It doesn't matter much, so long as you are standing under a fairly low ceiling. Some people claim that the corners are less vulnerable to hits from elementals, for some reason.

Additionally, if you have wizards/bards casting Sphere of Dancing, you might adjust your position so those spells are protecting you from elementals.

If you were a cleric, where would you stand to start spamming the heals?

Note that clerics in this raid should not only view themselves as healers. You have the Destruction and Banishment spells, so use them to help fight elementals.

For the purpose of mana conservation and overall fun, I strongly suggest that clerics (like all true spellcasters) get themselves a stage 3 Charge Spellpoints buff for maximum power, whether you like to heal or nuke. Clerics will find it easier to get charged than mages, because you have more hitpoints and healing to survive the hits until the buff is ready.

[Kraldor]

ring of the djinn and lightning resist doesnt protect you in anyway from the lightning bursts i have tested this and checked (you also get no save for some reason), the elementals lightning balls however they do help you against

Electric Resistance does block the lightning bursts, in your combat log it will say:
"Lightning Burst did 80 Damage; 30 was blocked by your damage resistance"

[Gimpster]

Is the res room tunnel as long as the switch room? We wiped several times and then finished it without a death, so we didn't have to try and res people and never had anyone try to get there (I did the switch to open the puzzle room and didn't have enough time to fly back out). We're trying to figure out what we should do if we have dead people after completion or if we need

The tunnels are about the same length, but the general feeling is that the path to the res room (east) is a little tighter and trickier than to the west puzzle lever.

If you have enough people left alive to complete the puzzle, you sure don't need to go res anyone.

==Basic facts of death in Reaver's Fate==
1. When people die that instance, the ghost and soulstone are both sucked into the rez room holding area.

2. A lever in the rez room will bring all those ghosts back to life in the center of the main room, with current mana and with 14 hp.

3. When the puzzle combination is complete and you pull that lever, the ghosts are also rezzed in the same way. You can do this more than once, but only for the number of puzzle rows you have left.

So, once you get some live character into the rez room, he can crank the lever and give your team unlimited extra lives from then on. However, the point where they spawn could be deadly: there might be air elementals waiting in the center of the main room, or gravity might be reversed. Either way, they could die as soon as they pop out. They could potentially die and rez as fast as you pull the lever, which could give negative -20,000 XP debt in under a minute.

==Side Factoid==
The Storm Reaver activates and deactivates Reverse Gravity on his own (it isn't an effect with a set duration timer). If his aggro target leaves his area (such as by flying away through the ceiling), he could stop moving completely, which might leave Reverse Gravity active indefinately (or at least until someone else does enough damage to pull aggro).

==Two players in rez room==
If you somehow get multiple live characters in the rez room (such as by miscommunication of who goes where), you may want to have all but one of them /death so he can be rezzed out by the lever. Alternatively, the character who flies into the rez room can trade places with a ghost. He can cast Raise Dead directly on one of the ghosts, and then /death himself so the other guy rezzes him out. That might be required if he is more important for completing the mission (such as if he's your lead puzzle solver)

==Decision Time==
When you have 9 orbs lit and your first players start to fly, you need to make a choice about where to send them: to the puzzle lever (west), the rez lever (east), or stay in the air of the main room and help fight elementals or Stormreaver. The choice is driven by the status of your team: how many characters are dead, and how many you need to win. Also, your level of confidence in completing the flight (and back) is a factor.

At the extremes, if nobody has died and you don't expect anyone to die later, you don't need anyone to hit the rez lever and you can just go straight to the puzzle lever. Conversely, if you have only 1 guy left up and 11 are dead, he should go rez them back into action. (Although it might not be possible for them to survive respawning if there are numerous air elementals in the center).

For in-between scenarios, you must weigh the value of recovering the dead characters with the value of the character who would be stuck at the rez lever (as he is unlikely to have time to fly back). Which of them is more important for your defeat of Stormreaver and then solving the puzzle? It very much depends on the situation.

Personally, I almost never send someone to the rez room. Chances are that nobody in the group has died, or there's only one fatality and it doesn't matter. If by some oddball chance or mistake we had too many deaths to proceed without raising people, I'd be halfway inclined to simply recall everyone out and reform the party to try again from the start. The quest is only 10-15 minutes, and we may as well do it again and do it right.