Solo Monks in the Orchard

[ezgoezit]

So I found out yesterday that my monk isn't ready to solo the Orchard for rares (looking for the tapestries). I decided to spend the rest of my game time yesterday upgrading eqipment because I was lagging behind in that department, but I'm still thinking I'm not ready to solo there yet. Most importantly, I don't have a weapon that really hurts those flesh golems. Please advise me on what I'll need before I can really go there with it it becoming resource draining.

Here is all of the pertinent char data that I can think of:
Lvl: 11
AC (with air) 43 unbuffed
HP: 251
Saves: 19/21/23
100% Fort
Stats (with eq): 18/24/21/14/28/10
Deathblock/spearblock robe with deathward clickies
"Dusk Heart" trinket
20% neg. energy absorbtion from the "Belt of Thoughtful Rememberance"
Best weapon: (biggest area of opportunity that I can see) +2 pure good wraps of weakness (or whatever the wraps that take str each hit are called)


Just a brief moment to rant on finding decent wraps at this level. The most "decent" wraps for this lvl range seem to be the devotion wraps in the Shadow Crypt. I never see LFMs on Sarlona for that series and it is not a series you can do solo at any level or even with the help of NPCs. The best and closest wraps I can even find in the AH is +1 metaline at 2mil gold. I'd pay rl money if I could get a pair of those without having to go through the torture of that quest series!... Ok, rant over...

[Impatiens]

So I found out yesterday that my monk isn't ready to solo the Orchard for rares (looking for the tapestries). I decided to spend the rest of my game time yesterday upgrading eqipment because I was lagging behind in that department, but I'm still thinking I'm not ready to solo there yet. Most importantly, I don't have a weapon that really hurts those flesh golems. Please advise me on what I'll need before I can really go there with it it becoming resource draining.

Here is all of the pertinent char data that I can think of:
Lvl: 11
AC (with air) 43 unbuffed
HP: 251
Saves: 19/21/23
100% Fort
Stats (with eq): 18/24/21/14/28/10
Deathblock/spearblock robe with deathward clickies
"Dusk Heart" trinket
20% neg. energy absorbtion from the "Belt of Thoughtful Rememberance"
Best weapon: (biggest area of opportunity that I can see) +2 pure good wraps of weakness (or whatever the wraps that take str each hit are called)


Just a brief moment to rant on finding decent wraps at this level. The most "decent" wraps for this lvl range seem to be the devotion wraps in the Shadow Crypt. I never see LFMs on Sarlona for that series and it is not a series you can do solo at any level or even with the help of NPCs. The best and closest wraps I can even find in the AH is +1 metaline at 2mil gold. I'd pay rl money if I could get a pair of those without having to go through the torture of that quest series!... Ok, rant over...

Having a Deathward clickie is probably one of the most important things you need for Orchard. Negative levels are a killer. Honestly though I'd just put up an lfm "tapestry runs" and do it with a group. Why go through the pain of trying to solo it at low levels when you can have someone up to level 19 in the adventure zone with you and still get credit for slayer/rare/explore?

[Kaervas]

MrCow's Monster DR Bypass list

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=178393

You'll need adamantine to get through Flesh Golem DR.
You'd get that for free on your fists at level 16 but that's a bit late.

Before that point you should consider metalline handwraps (your best bet is watching the deneith brokers like a hawk) or, and I think this would be a -lot- easier, adamantine or metalline kamas/quarterstaves or even returning shuriken.
There are not many golems that you absolutely must kill in the orchard, you can run away from almost all of them. I can see the need to kill only 2 - the one that sometimes spawns at the Shrine which is near the bonepile Rat rare, and Parcae (the named flesh golem).


The easiest option by far would be to hook up with someone with wall of fire and someone else who can throw heals here and there.

Edit:
Just thought I'd add, wall of fire doesn't do much good against the flesh golems, just mentioning it since it makes the *rest* of the place trivial.
On my wizard that was lagging behind in spell access due to the 2 lvl rogue dip, I used Prismatic Ray without any metamagics, spammed it until the Violet beam hit and warped the golem away (instakill).
Until you get Disintegrate there is not a whole lot you can do as an arcane against golems that is SP efficient. Well, aside from buffing melee combatants in your group.

[rimble]

Ideally:

- Spectral Gloves from Offering of Blood in the Desert (Ghost Touch and +2 ToHit, ML 13 tho)
- For most things: Holy Handwraps of Greater Undead Bane, Holy of Pure Good, Force of Pure Good...just something damaging.
- For Flesh Golems: Metalline Handwraps of Greater Construct Bane (or get to level 16 so your fists are Adamantine), Metalline of Pure Good...does Smiting work on them? Maybe just wail away with Handwraps of Smiting.
- A couple Goggles of the Flesh Render Guards from Tangleroot for Death Ward

Level 11 is a pretty low level to be soloing out there (without Wall of Fire) in my opinion.

[Rockcrusher]

Wraps of disruption. Many can be disrupted easily.

[Baahb3]

I break the orchard up into two halves. The incorporeal side and the solid side. For a while I would just stick to the solid side. Find yourself some holy or undead bane handwraps and you should be fine on that side. Wait until you have some good ghost touch wraps or the spectral gloves then go tackle the incorporeal side.

The incorporeal side is more difficult IMO as you need constant deathward and your AC really does not matter much to the wraiths and shadows.

As for the golems either wait unitl 16, pay a ton for metaline handwraps or just carry a metaline q-staff. They are not the best but they are pretty cheap to find, even ones with construct bane are available for reasonable prices.

[Superspeed_Hi5]

Get a pair of cheap smiting HW from the AH. I tried doing what you are doing on my monk at lvl 11 and the DR on the Golems is really the only problem I had. They do have a great Fort save because on at least a few times I ended up killing the beastie through sheer damage (even though it was halved). After a while I just gave up and went back into the desert to claim the 28K xp from Gnoll & Undead kills.

Went back into the Orchard once I got Adamantium fists and wow what a difference.

[ezgoezit]

Thanks to all for the replies. It was great info.

[Turgar]

smiting handwraps will lay the golems flat.

[Arvess]

I break the orchard up into two halves. The incorporeal side and the solid side. For a while I would just stick to the solid side. Find yourself some holy or undead bane handwraps and you should be fine on that side. Wait until you have some good ghost touch wraps or the spectral gloves then go tackle the incorporeal side.

The incorporeal side is more difficult IMO as you need constant deathward and your AC really does not matter much to the wraiths and shadows.

As for the golems either wait unitl 16, pay a ton for metaline handwraps or just carry a metaline q-staff. They are not the best but they are pretty cheap to find, even ones with construct bane are available for reasonable prices.

+1 rep.

Early on, I go for the caravan, the rat hills, the northern crpyts. I also have a path that hits Parcae the golem if he spawns away from the tower and also makes a mad dash to the zombie in the cave. You can also hunt down the fire elemental

For golems, I also use greater construct bane.

[Impatiens]

Best weapon: (biggest area of opportunity that I can see) +2 pure good wraps of weakness (or whatever the wraps that take str each hit are called)

Just FYI weakening doesn't work on undead, so they really would be less than ideal for Orchard.

[TPICKRELL]

I've had reasonable success with Great Construct Bane hand wraps on the golems and Ghost Touch of Pure Good on the wraiths. Of course it got a lot easier once I reached Admantine fist attacks. I tried Smiters but for me the Greater Construct Bane worked noticably better.