How delusional am I about solo farming Epics?

[phalaeo]

I've always thought it is fun to push the limits of what one can accomplish in game, so today I decided to see what I could do in Epic Content.

The objective was not to complete, rather to try and develop strategies and experiment with how my interactions with Epic Mobs differ than in non-Epic quests.

Background: I've only done a few Epics, and only in the last few days, so I'm really kind of jumping in blind as to exactly how Epic strategy and mob AI may differ from what I'm used to.

Objective: Clear out the front room of Epic Wiz King and survive. That's it. The front room.

Character: 18 CLR, 2 MNK Halfling, TRed. Offensive Caster build, low STR, Buffed and Crafted ~550 HP.

Plan: Go in, Bladebarrier, kite and observe.

Experience:

Went in, buffed and carefully scoped out mobs before attracting the attention of 3-4 Windlashers, a few hyenas and a Windlasher Cleric. Dropped first Bladebarrier and got about 80% complete saves, no damage. The tics that did damage were 1/2 damage saves at around 150-180 per tic. Normal numbers are ~300 per tic and ~525 on a crit.

Changed strategy and started to Energy Drain, which helped a bit, but not nearly efficient enough.

Third strategy was really not a strategy so much as a crapshoot- took out a Rahl's and blindly whacked, hoping to hit them with Armor Destruction in the worst case scenario that I may have to attempt melee damage.

Outcome: Killed 6-7 of the mobs, all Windlashers and Hyenas. The Clerics were not as easy, so I teleported out once I realized that I didn't have the proper tools on hand to do anything worthwhile.

The part where it hurts my brain:
This is pretty much a maniacal long shot, but I thought it would be possible to armor destruct the mobs, then have at them with Maladroit/Bonebreaking/Improved Cursespewing topped off with a little Contagion to do Dex damage, which would hypothetically lower their Reflex saves. Lower Reflex saves and being Cursed from the Imp. Cursespewing in theory make them more susceptible to Blade Barrier damage.... right?

TL;DR, and you're nuts:
A. Is it possible for me to solo farm the entry, both to test my effectiveness and limits or is this going to end in massive frustration?
B. If there are proven/good methods for Divine solo-farming Epics, what are they and what tools/weapons/spells are needed?

Last thing I need to admit so you can all have a good laugh at my expense- ;p
Right before I ported out, I thought that I'd pop a Wizard Hireling to throw a few Firewalls.... just to see what would happen. Yes, I know it's silly. Yes, I expected that a Hireling would be about as effective in Epic Wiz King as a Summoned Fiendish Spider would be tanking Suulo.... Climbed one of the ledges near the first shrines, summoned, and before I could even command him to FW, he got one-shotted. It was the best laugh I had all day.... I rezzed him about 4 times and before he was even up, he was skulled again... so much for that theory, lol.

[Beep]

Disclaimer: I don't have a complete answer for how to solo wizking on epic on a divine, I'm just writing some stuff I hope can be helpful, from my experience. If any of you more experienced people can suggest improvements, please post...

I did the same thing you did before I TR'ed (my build was 20 halfling fvs with silver flame capstone, caster spec. no t3 greensteel, a few bits of raid gear - dreamspitter, torc, greenblade are the main ones). I got inspired to try after I did a backpack ride of epic haywire, turns out it's pretty "safe" to do solo, only death is at the trapped lever in the symbiont room, but you can open the shrine first and just shrine after that. Can use deathpact to pass the symbiont room door because the warforged go berserk when you lose invis breaking down the door... deathpact makes them not block the door in a huge group after symbol of persuasion wears off.

Some strategies I found which were different in Epic than normal:

- DPS with blade barrier is almost useless except for a few spots, because the mobs just have so, so much hp, it will drain your mana really fast
- Summon a hezrou to find the puppies in the wizking start area (was in wizking once, we couldn't find the puppies so all the casters summoned hezrous and did a patrol... i guess it worked)
- Dealing with clerics - charm melee around them with symbol of persuasion, then move on. I guess it's pretty good for dealing with anything with a low will save.
- UMD invisibility scrolls, or bring lots and lots of invis clickies/pots. Actually just get UMD so you can use other stuff like fire shield, and not have to worry about running out of cookies or whatever
- If there's a particular area you have to move through that's unusually hard (e.g. the door to the symbiont room, epic haywire), deathpact, invisibility, open the door to break your invisibility, take the death, and res on the other side in a safe spot. It stops the mobs from forming a huge group and blocking the door or something else inconvenient
- Get blur (if not displacement) even when you are bb'ing, this is great for if you get a tiny bit of lag, or if there's archers.
- Watch out for spells you normally don't need to pay attention to - e.g. dancing ball in epic haywire, normally my Will save is high enough, but always in epic.

Some ideas:

- What about the other Symbols? I found symbol of persuasion to be useful because it's a distraction, has anyone else tried symbol of stunning or weakness? are they useful?
- What about the order's wrath stun? (or even chaos hammer slow?) Can we use extended order's wrath and a dreamspitter to give out lots of neg lvls?
- How well does contagion work in epic? How do you use it?

[Lithic]

A FvS/Monk could easily farm ADQ1 for scrolls and chests (I use to before I went on my TR spree). You run around bladebarriering the first room (the one that leads to all others) and have the efreets chase you until they die. Thats about 25 kills IIRC. Then you can easily get the 3 chests, recall out and repeat.

As for finishing a quest, I have no idea.

[Krag]

B. If there are proven/good methods for Divine solo-farming Epics, what are they and what tools/weapons/spells are needed?

You can farm von1 entrance for scrolls just as good as any arcane. As for the Desert, you can kill some monsters but 10-50 times slower. This is not "farm".

[EatSmart]

Invis clickies and pots are handy. They let you bypass rooms that you cant solo and get to rooms that you can solo.

One of the Amrath belts has a long duration jump clickie that will get you up on to perches. (be careful, some are exploits rather than perches)

DDoor scrolls if you have enough UMD. - Handy for doing a quest objective and then DDooring rather than fighting.

[Angelus_dead]

This is pretty much a maniacal long shot, but I thought it would be possible to armor destruct the mobs, then have at them with Maladroit/Bonebreaking/Improved Cursespewing topped off with a little Contagion to do Dex damage

Epic Ward provides around a 95% chance to ignore each instance of ability score damage.

[vyvy3369]

The easiest character I have for soloing epics is actually my Bard, and I've actually been soloing the entry to Wiz King a lot for scrolls - Fascinate any groups, then dance & melee them one at a time. Radiance for free sneak attacks even let me turn PA on except vs. the bosses (which have ridiculously high ACs - for them I turn off PA and make sure to impr destr).

I tried ADQ1, and it just wasn't as quick for me. Yeah, you get some chests out of it, but meh - I have all the seals I need, just missing scrolls really.

[phalaeo]

Thank you all for the suggestions- I will try them!

[maddmatt70]

Use invisibility when farming chests so make sure you can scroll that, have clickies or pots. Concentrate on farming chests and then as a different excercise kiling certain easier to kill mobs for scrolls. That will get you scrolls and seals the hard part for you will be getting the shards.. Good luck with that.

[moops]

I solo the front of Wiz King on my FVS, and on my Cleric ( whom is being TR'd atm) but they are pure and have 38 Wis/40Wis,max spell pen feats and enhancements, the FVS has Evocation Focus, and they have all the top gear cept Eardweller. Make sure you have a Jump Clicky.

Most of the mobs take damage in my BB's, there are only 2 that give me trouble and will save, and I throw BB until I get a crit, and then energy Drain the 2 and they start taking damage--these 2 can be tedious--but you can also go in and just kill everything else but them--but since I heard that seals sometimes drop in the crest chest, if I have time Ill goof with them.

I also do the beginning of OOB every now and then, but wiz King is such a short run so its easy to pop in there while waiting for something else to happen. I have not farmed ADQ for scrolls as I usually just get the chests in there.

The invis clicky from Amrath is just about enough to farm the 3 ADQ chests--I also use a couple invis pots. I don't even DDoor on my alts and each 3 chest run takes 3-5 mins depending on if i miss a jump.

[Matuse]

B. If there are proven/good methods for Divine solo-farming Epics, what are they and what tools/weapons/spells are needed?

DQ1. Snake corridor. Infinite respawn of melee-only troglodytes. Just don't go up far enough to aggro the Convoker.

The center platform has 3 major problems:
1) The efreeti and fire reavers are EXTREMELY accurate with their 150 point delayed blast fireballs. You spend a great deal of SP healing from that.
2) When they are casting DBFs at you, they are not running through barriers, significantly reducing your damage.
3) The AOE spamming disjunction floor sparks will geld your casting enhancer items (no potency, no arcane lore), as well as disable your runspeed items so the monsters can catch you and beat you to death.

[soupertc]

DQ1. Snake corridor. Infinite respawn of melee-only troglodytes. Just don't go up far enough to aggro the Convoker.

The center platform has 3 major problems:
1) The efreeti and fire reavers are EXTREMELY accurate with their 150 point delayed blast fireballs. You spend a great deal of SP healing from that.
2) When they are casting DBFs at you, they are not running through barriers, significantly reducing your damage.
3) The AOE spamming disjunction floor sparks will geld your casting enhancer items (no potency, no arcane lore), as well as disable your runspeed items so the monsters can catch you and beat you to death.

you can bring all the Efeeti and Reavers all down to the the room you enter in....this allows you not to get disjuncted and also gives you cover from 99% of any spells that get thrown. If someone is in group with you have them pull mobs down....if not pull em down slower. I do it this way and if I'm getting impatient just kill everything on top platform. The only issue with killing everything up top is the mobs will at times get stuck on the grate in the middle of the floor....all ya have to do is throw a BB right on them then BAM they get unstuck.

On a Caster all ya have to do is pull as much stuff to the Scorp pit as ya can. You won't be able to kill the Renders but Firewalls kill the scorps and Driders....Acid Fog will kill the Efreeti. Gets your DA down...maybe a chance for a scroll.

I ransack my cleric and caster like this every week....my Rogue,Bard and Barb I just run to chest.

I've ran VON 1 on my caster solo up to the boss fight....then had my buddy on his cleric help me there. They can be done solo though....just depends on how much intestinal fortitude you have I would say. Good Luck!!!

[Delt]

you can bring all the Efeeti and Reavers all down to the the room you enter in....

Meh, I like the drop down floor area in the poisoner. Drag it all down there, toss a BB in the middle and skirt around the outside for an easy win (rinse and repeat for any other mobs you want to drag). Even easier on an arcane of course, drag trash down there, climb back up, toss some aoe on the crowd and have a smoke.

Either way, I find that room basically negates any need to heal.

[Valiance]

18 mins 18 kills, a token and a chest. This is by far the most reward for the time I've found in solo'ing epics. OP has a similar build to the one shown.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=235230

V

[soupertc]

Meh, I like the drop down floor area in the poisoner. Drag it all down there, toss a BB in the middle and skirt around the outside for an easy win (rinse and repeat for any other mobs you want to drag). Even easier on an arcane of course, drag trash down there, climb back up, toss some aoe on the crowd and have a smoke.

Either way, I find that room basically negates any need to heal.

So basically it's the same thing just a diffrent location...and that's what I do with my arcane too...for the same reason. DQ 1 Seal and Scroll runs will make ya smoke....cause it's so **** mind numbing!!!!

[phalaeo]

For clarification, a few specifics to help you help me.
Character is 18 Cleric, 2 Monk, 1 x TR (34 Pt.)
WIS is currently maxxed at 38, will top at 40
Two Spell Pen Feats (SP and Greater SP)
Maxxed SPen enhancements
Stormreaver's Napkin
Greater Arcane Lore.
I'm well geared and travel with clickies to cover pretty much anything and have a decent UMD, so DDooring, Invis. and other scrolling is possible.

Tried some new things mentioned here today in Epic Snitch.
Opening room, Symbol of Persuasion'ed, and kited until the mobs were charmed. I Energy Drained the Seer a few times while they beat on her and honestly, it was so smooth that I could have stood there sorting my inventory. Broke Enchantment on the melees to release charm (knowing it would only release a few), rinse, repeat. The last one I wanted to play safe, so I summoned a Hezzie to distract it and just threw the Hezzie scroll heals.

This method seems to work, although it's long and tedious. Long isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it gives me some time to observe Epic mob behaviour and Damage output.

In the few guild-run Epics I've been in, the Arcane will throw a Mass Hold on the mobs, which allows us to beat on them with Dreamspitters. That works great, and I have a Dreamspitter, but how well will Mass Hold work off of a scroll on Epic Mobs? I suspect that it will not land, but you never know.

[Carpone]

how well will Mass Hold work off of a scroll on Epic Mobs? I suspect that it will not land, but you never know.

Mass Hold Monster isn't vendor sold, so even if it worked, scroll availability is limited.