Trying to understand how to defend against no-miss, no save, 4-5 hit instakill

[wyndzen]

It is obscure. You have no way to know the item even exists unless you look in the definitive loot thread or happen to be researching the necro pack.

And it is not an item that everyone has. I don't,

You are correct though - DDO does tend to spring these nasty surprises on you. You learn by wiping here, then research gearing up and redoing. This is fine provided you aren't permadeathing for the first time...

Thanks very much, Dunkle. You have reassured me that I am not crazy =)

I did happen to be aware of the mantle, I just haven't done that quest series yet. Been meaning to do it, but I hear that it involves a brutal protection quest, and we all love protecting suicidal npc's =)

In general, it would be nice if DDO was just a bit more solo-friendly. It seems that sometimes the devs go out of their way to stick a screw to somebody who is soloing, by putting gratuitous double-levers, or whatever else in the way.

Also, I'd feel like I HAVE to play a char with evasion, every time. In general, it tends to be a bit more fun to not have things like that that are such a must. This monk was my first char, but my two friends make a priest and sorc, and they ended up just recreating as 2mnk/X versions for evasion, and they say that the difference is totally night and day. Before they had evasion, it happened more than once that they literally could not progress in a quest, and I'd have to solo the last part of the quest myself, after a long hallway or bridge full of traps, such as in the Crimson Moon quest, or the sonic trap bridge in Sorrowdusk.

DDO is such a great game and you'd think that the quest designers would use a bit more common sense. There is a difference between a challenge vs. an annoyance. A challenge can be overcome multiple ways, with resources that a reasonable prepared person is likely to have. An annoyance requires a very specific item or ability (e.g. evasion, disarm traps, talisman of silver flame), and otherwise it just stops or kills you.

[Sarisa]

What source did you get your Deathward buff from? Visors of the Death Render, hireling?

(Greater) Dispel Magic make checks against the caster level of the buff, so you want your Deathward to come from the highest level source possible. They can still get lucky and knock it off of you, but you have a higher chance of keeping it. Visor of the Death Render's Deathward is cast at CL 7, so it's really easy for a CR14 or 16 mob to knock off of you.

Having run Temple of Vol at least 60 times, getting dispelled and then having enervate cast immediately isn't a common occurrence.

Also, that boss does not move around very much. You can park a divine hireling on the back side of the pillar away from him, and then run back behind it if needed. Usually you'll get several seconds to try to recover before he floats around to an area that he can cast on you again.

The easiest way to take him out, if you choose to not group for the quest, is not to use a divine hireling, but use an arcane hireling with Firewall, while you hide behind the pillar. He'll usually not move out of the firewall.

Even with deathward, expect to use a lot of lesser restoration potions. There are many, many vampires and shadows in this dungeon who like to cause stat damage.

[cardmj1]

Thanks very much, Dunkle. You have reassured me that I am not crazy =)

I did happen to be aware of the mantle, I just haven't done that quest series yet. Been meaning to do it, but I hear that it involves a brutal protection quest, and we all love protecting suicidal npc's =)

In general, it would be nice if DDO was just a bit more solo-friendly. It seems that sometimes the devs go out of their way to stick a screw to somebody who is soloing, by putting gratuitous double-levers, or whatever else in the way.

Also, I'd feel like I HAVE to play a char with evasion, every time. In general, it tends to be a bit more fun to not have things like that that are such a must. This monk was my first char, but my two friends make a priest and sorc, and they ended up just recreating as 2mnk/X versions for evasion, and they say that the difference is totally night and day. Before they had evasion, it happened more than once that they literally could not progress in a quest, and I'd have to solo the last part of the quest myself, after a long hallway or bridge full of traps, such as in the Crimson Moon quest, or the sonic trap bridge in Sorrowdusk.

DDO is such a great game and you'd think that the quest designers would use a bit more common sense. There is a difference between a challenge vs. an annoyance. A challenge can be overcome multiple ways, with resources that a reasonable prepared person is likely to have. An annoyance requires a very specific item or ability (e.g. evasion, disarm traps, talisman of silver flame), and otherwise it just stops or kills you.

Actually, DDO was originally set up for group only play. there were IIRC only 5 solo quest in the entire game. Yes, you could solo most of the quest but that was not how the game was built. When DDO went F2P, Turbine decided to build in solo questing into the game and went back to the old quest to make that possible. However, some of the quests were not able to be transfigured to soloing because it would completely break the quest. That is why you have quests with multiple levers and such. Hope this information gives you a better understanding of the game mechanics.

[brian14]

But then there are bosses that do this dispel followed by a no-miss, no save multiple negative level attack, such as a beholder boss or this quell boss I ran into in Temple of Vol. I was lvl 15, doing a lvl 14 adventure, and the quell boss defeated me with no hope of me fighting back or defending myself. There is no other attack type in the game that does anything like this.

Are you talking about red-named quell which appears after clay golems? Three weeks ago my AA 15 soloed that quest with a cleric hireling. As soon as clay golems died, I clicked a Kythri cake to summon a Hound of Xoriat. The hound took aggro long enough for me to unload multishot into the quell boss. I was using frost holy burst bow of PG, before entering the adventure I put Oil of Incandescence on it, and cast Imbue Acid Arrow. So every arrow was doing holy/good/frost/acid/light damage. They were also arrows of undead slaying -- useless against red-named, but quickly take out his flunkies. I killed boss quell within 20 seconds.

So while I used up some limited-supply items (Kythri cake and Oil of incandescence), it is hardly "You must use One Specific Obscure Item" boss. I can think of some other combinations to take him down.

Then I died in final boss fight

[Propane]

Beholders have a very low STR - stat damage them (bow if you can) for auto-crit!

[wyndzen]

I never played PnP, but from my understanding this is a very traditional thing for a DM to do. The DM's role is to challenge the players by forcing them to leverage their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. Otherwise, the DM is nothing but a glorified narrator.

/saving throw against DM rage (fail)

Let's say that you are DM'ing in PnP, and your friend is the player, playing solo.

You say, "there is only one way to go, you need to jump down into a room down a hole, or else you can stand there and do nothing."

Your friend, the player, jumps down. You say, "ok, there is an undead monster. It casts dispel on you. Roll % dice. If you roll a 1, you keep your death ward. If you roll 2-100, you lose it. Ok, you lose it. Now the monster casts another spell. No, it cannot miss you. No, you don't get a save. You lose 4 levels."

"What do you do? Ah, you attack? You hit a few times. It is down to only 90% of its hps. Now it goes. It again casts a spell. It automatically hits, and you get no save. You lose 3 levels."

You try to run? Oh, you can't. The room has no exits, sorry. You attack? You miss, because of all those negative levels. Now it is his turn. He makes you lose another 3 levels. Shall we continue?"

Heh. That actually isn't how PnP goes. There certainly are DM's who enjoy killing players and going on powertrips, but those are people with psychological issues, and nobody likes to play with them for long, of course.

[brian14]

Just get the silver flame talisman ( 10 charges are enough for almost every encounter) or bring a hireling with death ward and restoration or you can roll a wf and be immune to negative levels

BTW, cleric with Restoration will NOT help you in this particular fight. The very presence of quells -- not even red-named, -- prevents casting of healing spells.

That's what killed me in final boss fight BTW -- I concentrated on the vampires, and did not even notice there was a quell in the room.

But as I already described in my previous post, red-named quell is doable for a prepared level 15.

[wyndzen]

What source did you get your Deathward buff from? Visors of the Death Render, hireling?

(Greater) Dispel Magic make checks against the caster level of the buff, so you want your Deathward to come from the highest level source possible. They can still get lucky and knock it off of you, but you have a higher chance of keeping it. Visor of the Death Render's Deathward is cast at CL 7, so it's really easy for a CR14 or 16 mob to knock off of you.

Having run Temple of Vol at least 60 times, getting dispelled and then having enervate cast immediately isn't a common occurrence.

Also, that boss does not move around very much. You can park a divine hireling on the back side of the pillar away from him, and then run back behind it if needed. Usually you'll get several seconds to try to recover before he floats around to an area that he can cast on you again.

The easiest way to take him out, if you choose to not group for the quest, is not to use a divine hireling, but use an arcane hireling with Firewall, while you hide behind the pillar. He'll usually not move out of the firewall.

Even with deathward, expect to use a lot of lesser restoration potions. There are many, many vampires and shadows in this dungeon who like to cause stat damage.

Very informative, thanks. I think that, if I am to play DDO long term, I just need to reconcile to the idea of often needing foreknowledge of many quests in order to beat them without dying. 9 in 10 times, you don't need foreknowlege (with a halfling monk, at least), but 1 in 10, you just have to know what is coming up. You just have to know which hireling to have, where to position that hireling, which spell to have it cast, etc.

I'm glad I did this post. It opened my eyes to various other tactics (amidst several people telling me to use deathblock, which doesn't help against this issue, or to just try to avoid having rays hit me somehow), and it helped me realize, on my own, that I possibly could have won the fight if I had just used my healing dragonmarks to damage the Quell.

[bryanmeerkat]

Let's say that you are DM'ing in PnP, and your friend is the player, playing solo.

You say, "there is only one way to go, you need to jump down into a room down a hole, or else you can stand there and do nothing."

Your friend, the player, jumps down. You say, "ok, there is an undead monster. It casts dispel on you. Roll % dice. If you roll a 1, you keep your death ward. If you roll 2-100, you lose it. Ok, you lose it. Now the monster casts another spell. No, it cannot miss you. No, you don't get a save. You lose 4 levels."

"What do you do? Ah, you attack? You hit a few times. It is down to only 90% of its hps. Now it goes. It again casts a spell. It automatically hits, and you get no save. You lose 3 levels."

You try to run? Oh, you can't. The room has no exits, sorry. You attack? You miss, because of all those negative levels. Now it is his turn. He makes you lose another 3 levels. Shall we continue?"

Heh. That actually isn't how PnP goes. There certainly are DM's who enjoy killing players and going on powertrips, but those are people with psychological issues, and nobody likes to play with them for long, of course.

Ok lets say you are playing solo , and your with your DM and he has a quest module that says is suitable for 4-6 players , level of 14 .
And your a level 15 solo who insists that you want the DM to run that module . Whos the putz , you or the DM ?

[tadloth]

This is very helpful, but I also have a couple of objections.

Part of my original point was that there AREN'T any tactics that defend against attacks that are no-miss, no-save, no-heal, and kill in a few hits. I did state up front that I realized that I could have had one particular item. It seems to me that auto-killing a person for not owning one particular item is bad quest design. Other than maybe having a hireling with restoration and having that hireling not die, I basically can't think of a way to defend.

Different bosses are difficult for different toons. As a rule, if you decide to solo a game that is designed with party play and different types of toons, you will and should come up against bosses that are very difficult to kill for your particular character.

If all the bosses were designed in a way that they can be defeated by every type of character in the game, the game would be extremely dull and easy.

The attacks are not "no heal." They can be healed by restoration scrolls or spells or cleric bursts. I also believe that in most cases there are ways to avoid the attacks (e.g. range beholders instead of standing right in front of them), and I think, although would not swear, that most also have some save or another (negative levels is I think a lvl 9 spell, so spell resistance might help, even though I admit at lvl 9 it may be hard to get SR high enough to matter against a level 9 spell).

As for the "one single item," it's not really one single item - deathblock can be found on random loot, on the mabar cloak, on the silver flame pendant, on the red fens helm,...

If it is the negative levels you are complaining about, then things are a bit tougher since negative energy absorption is pretty rare (silver flame pendant, beholder optical nerves, scarabs of protection), and I have not seen too many restoration wands either, even if you had the umd for it. Still not "one single item" though.

Surely, it is reasonable, and not bad tactics, to enter a dungeon and not summon a hireling with restoration, or to not have one particular item. Of course, I understand, now that I died, that I need that one particular item (or be a warforged) to have any chance of living. But that just seems crazy to me. At least, it seems that this is basically the only thing that auto-kills you this way in solo DDO, provided that you play a halfling monk in the first place. Although maybe they exist, I can't really think of any other type of char that can generally solo adventures and expect not to die regularly. Maybe a 9th lvl and higher halfling ranger, or a hybrid char that has evasion and healing.

That's what your complaint seems to boil down to - that you can't solo every single quest on a halfling monk. As I said above, that is a good thing, not a bad one. As to the whole warning thing, I seem to recall that temple of vol has a party based challenge tag, or maybe it was ghosts - not 100 percent sure.

Regarding beholders, heh, yeah, the first was a shock. Then I fought them with a party of 3, and it was no problem. Then we ran into a beholder boss and died immediately, same story: dispel, negative levels, no miss, no save, no heal.

Of course, dark path monks have their own version of super-crazy madness, doing 500!! damage with 1 attack, possibly the most entertaining thing I've ever done in a game, but it doesn't work on undead, and in this case it was a boss undead quell that got me.

Yeah, beholder bosses are tough, should prolly bring a cleric/FvS for one. Once again, that is a good thing. Don't recall too many of such bosses though - theres the undead one in Ghosts, the named outside in Orchard, what else? I suspect you wont have trouble with the named beholders in the twelve

[bryanmeerkat]

Me, clearly. Or else I'm a baba ganoush.

Good so this thread is done then ? Or would you like to kick up a fuss because you cant solo the shroud before we move on ?

[wyndzen]

Ok lets say you are playing solo , and your with your DM and he has a quest module that says is suitable for 4-6 players , level of 14 .
And your a level 15 solo who insists that you want the DM to run that module . Whos the putz , you or the DM ?

Me, clearly. Or else I'm a baba ganoush.

[English_Warrior]

To be fair I find the Necro 4 series the least solo friendly bunch of quests in the game....so don't feel bad.

Even for my solo-friendly toons (WF Wiz, WF FVS, Evasion + UMD toons) the number of level draining/stat damaging/dispelling/anti-magic/insta-kill mobs you encounter just makes it (for me) one of the few areas where going a group is preferable than going solo. Not to mention the multiple occaisons where you need to be in 2 or more places at the same time.

As mentioned, your friends are:

Silver Flame Talisman.
Mantle of Worldshaper.
Any 'hard' Deathblock item (not cast deathblock).
Any spell absorbtion item.
Spell Resistance.
Restoration.
Killing that dangerous S.O.B ASAP.
Using the terrain to your advantage.
Using summons/hirelings as bait/cannon fodder.

[Nospheratus]

No, it cannot miss you. No, you don't get a save. You lose 4 levels."

It can actually miss you!

In PnP it's a ranged touch attack - so it's easy to miss - and in DDO if you move slightly to either side, it will simply miss...


Besides all protections already mentioned, you can also try a weapon with disruption. All undead hit by one must roll DC 17 WILL save or die. Sure it's a quell "boss", but this one can be disrupted IIRC. All other mobs in that quest will die very very fast with such a weapon!

For beholders, stun them and then crit them into oblivion. This situation is really not that hard, not even for untwinked toons if you know what to do.
The thing about beholders is that if you aren't properly protected, you need to have some luck...

[AZgreentea]

Ok lets say you are playing solo , and your with your DM and he has a quest module that says is suitable for 4-6 players , level of 14 .
And your a level 15 solo who insists that you want the DM to run that module . Whos the putz , you or the DM ?

Thats another good point. D&D isnt really meant to be played solo. It was meant to be run as a party so that the different classes could use their abilities to help each other. Thats why it will always take more work to solo DDO than it would to run it with a group (in general).

[sweez]

One thing: context.


Sure, from today's F2P-P2P perspective, the Silver Flame talisman might seem like an obscure piece of gear because people usually don't buy Necro 1-3 (they get told to pick up Necro 4 for Minos and the raid, if they get told to pick up any Necro at all). But, think about this - at the time Necro 4 came out, game was still fully subscription-based, and everyone played through Necro 1-3 because they didn't really have all that many quests to choose from. So, in that context, I'm quite sure that the Silver Flame talisman was a pretty common item, and that Necro 4 quests were designed with that in mind.

Now, I'm post-F2P myself, so I might be talking out of my ar$e, feel free to correct me.


On a side-note, you don't even have to buy/play Necro 1/2 to complete the talisman - you just need to do the Cursed Crypt 3 times and you're good.

[Baloran]

Also, I'd feel like I HAVE to play a char with evasion, every time. In general, it tends to be a bit more fun to not have things like that that are such a must.

DDO is such a great game and you'd think that the quest designers would use a bit more common sense. There is a difference between a challenge vs. an annoyance. A challenge can be overcome multiple ways, with resources that a reasonable prepared person is likely to have. An annoyance requires a very specific item or ability (e.g. evasion, disarm traps, talisman of silver flame), and otherwise it just stops or kills you.

Although I also do love evasion on my monk, it is not needed on every toon. I mostly soloed a H-Orc Barb to level 18 and I just ran through traps (at least on normal). Energy resistance helps to migate some damage. Some traps can be bypassed by jumping and featherfall, some traps like one of the bridges in Sorrowdusk can be avoided if you just run faster than the trap (need a haste pot or a sprint boost).

So I think this is a challenge - not an annoyance.

One of the few real annoyances in the game is named Coyle... (part 3 of Threnal east) - This quest is really annoying to solo with some classes.

Cheers

Baloran

[Sarisa]

Desecrated Temple of Vol is the most solo friendly of the Necro 4 quests. It's insanely easy to solo with a cleric (RS Burst with the meta's on and decent devotion/potency can 2-3 hit the Quell, even when Intercessioned) or a prepared caster. Non-WF melee's will have more trouble, but a bit of foreknowledge and preparation will carry you through.

Ghosts of Perdition is marked "party based", and it isn't that easy to solo. You have to kill two fairly high HP rednamed Wheeps and they can't be kited near each other within about 40 seconds (though once in a while they glitch and teleport to you). Check MrCow's videos for how to handle them with melee, caster, or divine based classes. A monk will have no problem with that part as long as they can dish out good damage (Mabar wraps for instance), but may have trouble with the ghostly beholder at the end if you do not have the Silver Flame talisman or some form of beholder/doomsphere protection. Beholder's Optic Nerves may or may not work. I've heard conflicting reports about them, so I'm not sure. I know the Silver Flame Talisman works.

Fleshmaker's Laboratory is an easy solo up until the last part, where a hireling is almost essential. You have to hit 5 runes within a few seconds, and even with a monk's run speed and (if you have it yet, abundant step) it's fairly hard. MrCow's videos again will give you some hints on doing that part.

Inferno of the Damned can be an easy solo with foreknowledge of the quest. It's difficult if you don't understand it well. Remember the lesser restoration potions (Cinderspawn CHA damage).

UMD is a very good thing to have, but it won't help you much when you are hit with several negative levels and suffer the penalties for them. UMD'ing Restoration scrolls is quite difficult at that point.

That quell boss is rednamed, so it can't be disrupted. The other quells in the quest and all the vampires but the four honour guards are yellow/orange and can be disrupted easily. Having a disruptor in Vol is a great suggestion and highly recommended. Aside from those 5 rednames, a bunch of easily killed bats, the optional inevitables, and a few rats, everything in the quest can be disrupted.

For solo'ing beholders on my cleric, I handle them by either summoning "bait"[1] while hiding behind terrain. Once the bait gains aggro, level drain if necessary (Subterrane ones) and destruction. Alternatively, I use a stat draining weapon to lower their strength or dex to autocrit status. Once in autocrit, their eyebeams no longer seem to work, but they still keep their antimagic cone.

Not that it helps a level 14/15, but you can also earn a Silver Flame talisman from the Abbot raid as well. Only Necro 4 is needed. It requires the hefty flagging and successfully running the raid 3 times to get, so you probably won't be able to earn one before level 20.

[1] Good Beholder bait includes Dense Stone Earth Elementals from Greensteel, because of their high fort saves, and Fire Elementals from Summon IX, because they don't move around too much, can take a few hits, and can actually dish out reasonable damage to a Beholder. Earth elementals also have reasonably good odds of Earthgrabbing a Beholder and putting it into autocrit status for a few seconds. When this happens, grab your biggest crit weapon (Heavy pick, greataxe, or Rahl's Might) and beat it down.

[Pikeman]

I am late to the party, but I thought I would chime in with some info no one has mentioned yet. I had some similar experiences as the OP with my Pally. The first beholder I met in Korromar put a very bad taste in my mouth. At that point I decided that that toon would devote its existence to the slaying of beholders. As others have said, the first thing to do was to get deathblock. Then, I considered optic nerves, silver flame talisman etc. to guard against neg levels, but found them wanting. Instead I took the second level of the Hunter of the Dead PrE for Pallys. It grants "sealed soul" making him immune to level draining attacks. With level 20 Pally saves, sealed soul, deathblock, and 9 free restorations per rest, beholders are much less scary.

Oh, also note that ship buffs are not dispelled by beholders.

[Missing_Minds]

Oh, also note that ship buffs are not dispelled by beholders.

Neither can bard buffs, which can make vert's "greater hero" song situationally useful.