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Originally Posted by
Meriadeuc
You're quite correct here. I've attempted a solo VOD on a high AC ranger, and with the firestorm greaves, an occasional fireshield cold scroll and the bramble casters, the bats weren't much of an issue.
I found the 1st wave of elite orthons to be fairly straight-forward, and while I didn't get to the second wave I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be too much worse when the chains start up. I handled the first wave without CE on and was able to fight them and heal myself effectively without moving arround. The lower attack speed from the chains and the increased missing due to the attack penalties of CE would slow things down a lot, but with CE covering the loss of AC and without any real need to move around, I think that handling the second wave while shackled would just be a matter of time.
I found the first wave of devils to be a lot more difficult, since their to-hit is higher than the orthons (requiring the use of CE) and you have to fight them at the same time as Suulomades. I found myself needing to run or tumble around in order to heal or re-buff, since casting spells turned CE off and made me get hit much, much more. But by using these tactics I was eventually able to sucessfully get past this phase.
So the real problem I faced was dealing with Suulomades and the devils of the second wave when I was shackled. Due to the decreased AC and attack speed I couldn't kill the devils off without getting hit a lot, and I didn't have the mobility to move around and heal myself. Up till now, I haven't been able to find any way of getting past this phase when soloing.
This is an interesting idea for dealing with the second wave of devils, although I'm not sure I want to go to all the trouble of obtaining the hound shield to try it out. Even with the shield, you would still take a good deal of damage from Suulomades, since he usually hits for around 60, but I suppose that with some way of replenishing lots and lots of SP and some way of healing without being interrupted you could get through it. I think that it would take an eternity to kill off all the devils using damage guards, however, since they have such ridiculously high HP. Slay living guard might be the way to go here. You would still have to DPS Suulomades down while shackled, of course, but that I think would be feasible once all the devils are gone.