Sleeping Dust Changes?

[Chette]

I was playing sleeping dust last night on my wizard. Was planning on doing the usual routine of FoD, let the rangers take down the casters as my spell pen isn't that great yet. I get into the quest and try to finger my first Orge....up pops the deathward symbol over his head. Hrmmm....strange. Try again on a different Ogre...same thing. The rangers use their stat damaging bows to let me know which ones aren't death warded...they are ALL death warded now, except strangely enough a few of the bosses, and everything on the lower level.

When did this happen??? I definitely played this quest a week or so ago and had no such problem. Has anybody else noticed this?

This quest used to be one of the less annoying Vale quests in my opinion, but now it's kind of ridiculous. I don't have enough mana to be shooting single target spells at every ogre in the quest. Fortunately I was running with two ranged characters otherwise we certainly would have lost the extra chest, possibly failed completely (hey, what can I say, I'm a two trick pony, if I can't finger it or set it on fire it makes my head hurt)

On the plus side all 3 of us managed to pull a Chipmunk Funk in the end chest, so if they've increased the drops there it may compensate for the extra aggravation.

Oh, also a spider cast waves of exhaustion on one of my party members...apparently they are casters now.

[basketaske]

it's a bug where mobs get epic ward. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not, it makes this particular quest more painful than it needs to be though.

As for the spiders being casters, some of them are called Heralds and they've been casters as long as I've had access to the vale.

[Chette]

it's a bug where mobs get epic ward. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not, it makes this particular quest more painful than it needs to be though.

As for the spiders being casters, some of them are called Heralds and they've been casters as long as I've had access to the vale.

But wouldn't epic ward also protect against level 1-4 spells, or am I thinking of something else? I had no problem hitting them with, like, scorching ray and what not. Is this a recent bug? I had definitely not seen this until yesterday. Is it a bug in that, sometimes they are warded and sometimes they are not (i.e. I just got unlucky yesterday)?

Hrm...I never knew about some of the spiders being casters and I have run that quest 50 times probably on various characters. Learn something new every day Thanks for the info!

[Matuse]

It's a recent bug, it's a periodic bug that can't be predicted.

The only "ward" that protects against 1-5 level spells is the one Liches come built in with. Epic ward prevents instant death attacks/spells (except trap the soul, which still works), reduces how much stat drain before capping you can inflict, and greatly increases the rate at which stat damage and negative levels are recovered.

[Chette]

Awesome, thanks again for the info, I am terrible at remembering the names of things

[lowborne]

It's a recent bug, it's a periodic bug that can't be predicted.

The only "ward" that protects against 1-5 level spells is the one Liches come built in with. Epic ward prevents instant death attacks/spells (except trap the soul, which still works), reduces how much stat drain before capping you can inflict, and greatly increases the rate at which stat damage and negative levels are recovered.

I think he is thinking about the ward that the Demon Queen gets after she goes nutso

[Junts]

But wouldn't epic ward also protect against level 1-4 spells, or am I thinking of something else? I had no problem hitting them with, like, scorching ray and what not. Is this a recent bug? I had definitely not seen this until yesterday. Is it a bug in that, sometimes they are warded and sometimes they are not (i.e. I just got unlucky yesterday)?

Hrm...I never knew about some of the spiders being casters and I have run that quest 50 times probably on various characters. Learn something new every day Thanks for the info!

You're thinking of mantle of invulnerability.

The effect they're getting is epic ward, the effect that appears on every epic monster. It does the following:

Provides dr vs stat damage
Provides quick regeneration of stat damage and negative levels (like 1/6 sec regen)
Immunity to all instant-death effects
Shortened duration for charms

Its a bug that it appears in non-epic quests, and particularly sucks in dust. If you are on normal or hard, I suggest a disintegrate after making sure there are no spiders in your line of fire: if they'd fail the save vs finger, they'll fail vs disintegrate and 700-850 damage is generally enough to one-shot them.



The effect that protects vs level 1-4 spells you're thinking of and the above posters are misdescribing is Mantle of Invulnerability, which provides total immunity to spells under level 5. (and occaisionally spells under level 7).

This buff is carried by Raiyum, the Black Abbot, and Suulomades, and also is used by Queen Lailat at "I am war, I am destruction". It is not innate to liches (other liches do not have it) and is a specific buff possessed by those monsters.

There is an 'epic' version of mantle possessed by the wizard king in epic wiz-king. This version, which has no different name, also blocks lv 5-6 spells (eg, it stops disintegrate). This version will very occaisionally apply to the other monsters which have mantle, which is most notable in the Black Abbot raid or in normal wizard-king where they will be immune to disintegration.

Mantle is a buff with a finite (1 hr) duration, and in the event that you are able to fight one of those monsters for long enough, the buff will expire and not be refreshed. However, the Black Abbot re-casts Mantle when he teleports down from the hand of the statue every time, so you cannot afk for an hour inside a puzzle in order to let the buff wear off. However, if you somehow fight him for an hour, his buff wears off and he can be damaged with Wall of Fire.

[BangsLiekWhoa]

The only "ward" that protects against 1-5 level spells is the one Liches come built in with.

There is also the "mantle of invulnerability" IIRC that blocks all spells 4th level and lower. Wiz king, for example, has this. EDIT: bah, Junts finished typing first... silly work...

It's a recent bug, it's a periodic bug that can't be predicted.

I thought they said they had fixed this? Maybe it is one of those things that was listed to be fixed in U7, I can't remember for sure.

I was with her, and it was quite strange seeing almost all the ogres (except the named ones strangely enough) having both Epic Ward and Minion statuses. This was one instance where Precise Shot really paid off. We just dealt with the epic ward and completed anyway. Like she said, we still got all 3 chests at the end and all three pulled a Funk! That was nice at least. I had heard about the epic ward showing up in quests on regular difficulties (we were on normal) but I had not seen it yet. Alas, we still were able to prevail without any real trouble.

[pumagirl418]

two options when this happens:

recall out and reform. cross fingers it does not happen again...

or go for f2s (flesh to stone). your ranger or melee friend can take it out... if not hit the ah and brokers for a nice crit based weapon to take them down urself when f2s'ing

[bunitchu]

bah, everything will get death ward now, and u know y? because devs dont want ppl one shooting stuff.

As a observation, many spells on this game are going beyond the point they should b able to go, for example, when u try to cast a death spell on a warded mob, the little black skull appears on top of their heads...oookiedookie... but hey, guess what? for some reason my great command also triggers our friendly skull....so no mind affecting for warded mob? i believe we have a super buff on our spells =S

also, some spells manage to b contraditory, like implosion, because on the general description there is a big NO after the spell resistance, but on description, it says it must pass a spell resist to land it.

the more i see this stuff the more i want my tr. 2 trs as wizard, then sorc nuker, then i will give a nice special finger to show to every mob that laughs at me just because they have the devs godly buff that goes beyong its normal effects, or that irritating blue barrier that keeps frustrating my devious plan.

[BangsLiekWhoa]

No real need for flesh to stone. My paralyzing longbow was just fine at paralyzing almost every ogre first hit. After each one in a group was paralyzed, all that was left was to kill and reapply paralyze if it happened to wear off before we got back to a particular ogre (I think this may have happened once the whole quest).

[Chette]

No real need for flesh to stone. My paralyzing longbow was just fine at paralyzing almost every ogre first hit. After each one in a group was paralyzed, all that was left was to kill and reapply paralyze if it happened to wear off before we got back to a particular ogre (I think this may have happened once the whole quest).

Yes but the point is to let me feel like a hero for a few quests so that I don't feel bad when I let you pike my terrible wizard through Amrath and other things

In summary, not fair, wizard angry, I wanna call the whaaaaambulance.

[BangsLiekWhoa]

Yes but the point is to let me feel like a hero for a few quests so that I don't feel bad when I let you pike my terrible wizard through Amrath and other things

In summary, not fair, wizard angry, I wanna call the whaaaaambulance.

Yeah, but you got to pike us through the necropolis... It kind of goes back and forth. Next time we can do coal chamber and let you run the show.

[Missing_Minds]

I thought they said they had fixed this? Maybe it is one of those things that was listed to be fixed in U7, I can't remember for sure.

Fix with U7, so for now we get to deal. My advice, if you see it happen, recall, reset, try again.

[BangsLiekWhoa]

Fix with U7, so for now we get to deal. My advice, if you see it happen, recall, reset, try again.

Thanks! I couldn't remember, and couldn't find it quickly.

EDIT: Oh, and for those that like to have screenshots for proof...