Discussion Thread - The Spinner of Shadows

[RandomKeypress]

Bugged out for me too. Tried elite with a pug - lev 20 monk, lev 20 wizzie, my lev 20 rogue and lev 20 FvS hireling. Not a bad group, but the hireling died a few times. Was actually quite fun, despite the spinner being immune to damage most of the time - we need more pots.

Problem was the monk was too good and I forgot to warn the party about doing the wards too quickly. There was never a shortage of little blue spiders and so he actually managed to get all the wards lit before the orange spiders even got summoned. We got imprisonned and everything died. No orange spiders, so we were okay.

Eventually the prison ran out - I presume it's timed which is why people are trapped in it after the cutscene - and we ran around a little, but there was nothing we could do.

[Grosbeak07]

i went to do it on normal and lit all of the wards then i get held no saves nothing while she beat on me and killed me whats even worse is this





was there suppose to be 2 of her? and i had no objectives so there was absolutely nothing i could do to her.

ok that eternal prison really sucks. it gives you no saves at all or timers. so she just comes up and kills you over and over. i hope this is just because of the unpolished version

That was the same bug I had. I just kept respawning, The two of them would kill me, I'd respawn (frozen) and they would kille me again. Trying to log out or recall made the game crash.

[-Zephyr-]

Just soloed it on elite myself, and I have to say it's awsome.
The DM cutting itself was a bit annoying, but at least we have voice covers this time ! I guess a timing fix won't be hard to do.

The quests didn't bug for me, I was indeed unable to find enough blue spiders before completing the optionnal. I did run around for a while before I understood I could (and had to) hit the red named... Good thing I was set to general chat, and ended up seing the silver flame guardian shouting me to stop being stupid and attack her already (I was running around far from him, in the lava side, so couldn't see him with his (Say) above his head). Maybe make it more explicit ?

I am sure it will be a quest I'll love running on epic in a good party.

Something I didn't pay attention to is if we have to run again the 2nd quest to be flagged for the 3rd. If yes, please consider letting us get the quest from the outside once we've completed it once... I know we can enter even when not flagged when partying with someone flagged, but considering the 2nd quest is rather long (at least it was for me when discovering it ! so many anti-zerg measures in this one) it'd be nice to skip it if we just want to run 3rd part on epic.

[Grosbeak07]

Something I didn't pay attention to is if we have to run again the 2nd quest to be flagged for the 3rd. If yes, please consider letting us get the quest from the outside once we've completed it once... I know we can enter even when not flagged when partying with someone flagged, but considering the 2nd quest is rather long (at least it was for me when discovering it ! so many anti-zerg measures in this one) it'd be nice to skip it if we just want to run 3rd part on epic.

Yes you can do the 3rd part seperate. There is a quest giver outside the crack in the harbor.

[sirgog]

Run this again, this time on Epic. Solo on a medium-geared Pale Master that has had a lot of kiting/circle strafing practise.

SPOILER ALERT! This quest is fun to figure out for yourself. I highly recommend you do that BEFORE reading this post...





Initial trash pull: These mobs need more Spot. We can attack them before they can see us, and pull them apart one at a time. This does not look intended.

Oh and one thing that might give you shivers:
(Combat): You roll to see if your spell penetrates Drow Priestess's spell resistance. You roll a 20 (+27): spell resistance failure!
The Drow Warriors have SR 46. The Rakshasa isn't high (maybe low 30s), I usually can PWK it.

Still, the first fight is easy. I've never *failed* to save the Silver Flame, so not sure what happens there. Edit: Tried to fail it. You cannot, the SF thingy is invincible. I sat dead watching him getting gnawed upon by spiders for ten minutes. TEN stacks of the Demon Spider Poison debuff - ouch. Seriously ouch. That's what, +3000 damage each time it is hit?


Spinner encounter, Phase 1

The Spinner is an absolute TERROR in melee. She has True Seeing, hits for ~115, and has a debuff that she applies (maybe on confirmed crits, maybe on Vorpal strikes, maybe a % proc) that inflicts a supernatural poison on you. If you don't get it removed immediately (and no player magic can do this, you'll know what I mean if you run the quest), some future melee hits will do an extra ~300 damage. I got hit by that nasty surprise exactly once and actually managed to live.

At first it's you versus the Spinner, and the goal seems to be to get her to 40% to trigger Phase 2. This is easy enough - 3-4 pots gets me there solo, a full group should use ~10-20% of their resources (SP/Boosts etc) here.

The ability to CC the Spinner with the help of your little argent friend is an interesting addition. Somewhat surprised that we get the same number of SF vials on each difficulty - I might have expected 100 on C/N, 12 on H, and 4 or 6 on E/EP.

Spinner encounter, Phase 2 (0 to 24? Silver Flame Wards)

This strikes me as a 'split up - 2-4 play with the Spinner, the rest split up, kill spiders and pull any trash they can't handle to the main group' sort of phase. Think Hound of Xoriat phase 1. This phase goes on a while, as it can be hard to actually find all the spiders, and is IMO quite dull.

You have a few choices for dealing with the Spinner. Beat her up hard and she'll flee for a while, or you can CC her with the SF vials. Alternately you can kite her, and make sure that when she starts her Binding Chains variant, you heal up first.

Oh and why on earth are the minispiders CR 24 - believed to be the very highest CR that you cannot get an Epic Scroll from? Please make these CR 25 instead (with the small increase to stats that would entail - the ~10% more HP, +2 to-hit, etc).

Phase 3: The Big Optional

Your flaming buddy is attacked. It is really important to be near him when this phase starts, as time seems quite tight. This is a 'protect the NPC' phase and is well-tuned on Epic, IMO. Hard I think the NPC needs more HP in this phase or needs some other defenses.

Failure here makes the rest of the quest harder.

Phase 4: Spinners and Hezrou, oh my!

As phase 2, but you now have what seem to be instantly-respawning Epic Hezrous of Doom (the ones that hit so hard Horoth flinches just thinking about it). You now need to get ~12 more Wards and are under quite a bit of pressure, but the pressure does not escalate.

The Big Letdown

No final chance to knock the Spinner to 0 HP (maybe an optional to 'mark' her, LOB style?) This makes me sad. The quest just abruptly ends when you do not really expect it to.

[DANTEIL]

So I just finished this on Normal on a lvl 20 artificer with my pet and fvS hireling. I saw some of the same bugs as others (e.g., odd timing on the dialogue) but I was able to complete it eventually, even though it took me a while to figure out the goals. The final cutscene was very impressive (although it still lacked sound effects etc.) -- nice set up for MotU!

I did talk to the silver flame guy outside and did talk to the silver flame inside, but I have to say that I was still unprepared/unsure what to do when the Spinner herself showed back up almost immediately. I kinda expected her to lay low until a final battle. The first time I got her almost down to nothing fighting by the silver flame but then she mysteriously rose into the ceiling -- I didn't know if that was scripted or not. Nor were the various phases very clear, although I'm sure repetition will help there (white spiders then 'demons'/reavers then red spiders?). And did I really have to get her health down in order for spiders to pop up? They seemed to appear and disappear. Oh yea, and her poison, whatever that was, did bad things to me that I'll need to figure out for next time.

The potions are annoying -- I ended up wasting most of them because of bad targeting, or my tendency to keep clicking while I'm fighting, thus spewing several at a time. So perhaps that's my fault...

Eventually I figured out the shard/light the flame mechanic although i died a couple of times on the way. I was surprised when I was whisked back outside where I could resurrect myself (or have the hireling do it). Very considerate of the Silver Flame! However, one time I dawdled out there too long and when I returned the red spiders were there and I had failed the 'protect the flame' optional. In any event, I couldn't figure out when that flame could give me potions and when he couldn't.

My hireling was killed at the moment I lit the last flame and the final scene began. I thought that was coincidence but perhaps not.

After the very long previous quest, it was nice to have a single-room/big-boss quest -- kind of like a palate cleanser

[lopkon]

Experience relies on a bugged out normal, a finished normal and a failed epic run all with a lvl 20 medicore melee FvS.

First of all: YES, awesome!
The whole final encounter has a very good design, it contains scenery/atmosphere, a good amount of challenge and the possibility to customize strategies. It even feels a bit raidish from the design. Very nicely done and that's not only talking about the quest itself, but also the general developement of encounters. LoB and now Spinners of Shadows really have a general feel of something like hound, combined with beat up elements a la ToD/VoD. Epic seemed not really soloable to me (at least not without tons of resources) which is nice after the epic dissapointment of the first quest in the chain.

BUT (there is always one isn't it?) there should still be some polishing:
-> overlapping DM text needs to be fixed
-> obviously the bugging out (2 Spinners, traped in the cage)
/* eventhough when I bugged out the first time, I seriously thought it's intended. Sure the Silver Flame Guardian got killed, so who's supposed to rescue me now? That's what I thought. It would be kinda cool, you get the completion, since you actually trap her, but you are trapped with her - so die before you get the loootz! */
-> maybe disable some store goodies (similar to raids) at least on epic, it would support the challenge and raidish feeling
-> you get a 'do you really want to pick it up' message on the Silver Flame bottles if you are in a party (tested with hireling) - not good
-> it wouldnt be bad if the map would be a bit smaller too, it felt a bit exhausting to run around all the time
-> Blue Spiders: actually I think they should either become more dangerous or the fighting stat aspect should be removed from them (like have a special way to kill here [a club, the Silver Flame bottles, Returning Gel. Cubes...] )

Well, thanks for the nice entertainment, getting all excited to meet the great Lolth.

All hail.

[RandomKeypress]

Re-run after update. Normal difficulty, OP toon.

Yay for the voice acting being in sync - pretty good effect. Thanks too for stopping the prolonged paralysis after being pulled from the chamber and for not killing my hireling. I appreciate the latter is pretty much a flavour thing, but I did feel that the certain death on victory was a little unfair.

Having the boss HP instantly refresh to full during the final stage was annoying - it would've been nice to be able to drive her off for a short period while killing spiders. When you're soloing, you always have her at your tail, being annoying.

I actually noticed the orange spider swarm as a fun part this time through - the other times it had seemed a little weak. Don't know if you changed it, but it was a nice bit.

Good quest, will play again, on live.

[I_Bob]

Been away from the game for about 3-4 months, occasionally reading the forums. Saw these were up so tried them.

This one was, by far, the best of the lot. It wasn’t just kill, kill, kill. Strategy is needed. The art was much better. Lots of atmosphere. Not a huge trek just to get there.

There are bugs and all, which I’m sure will be addressed. The overall feel was very good. This one will be run again and again.
If the first two can be brought up to this standard, the whole quest will be very much fun, which is why most of us play in the first place.

[GeneralDiomedes]

You definitely brought your A designers out on this one, brought a big smile to my face just walking around. As soon as I saw the entrance archway, I knew that this quest was going to be quality.

[junior_w]

I did this quest with my level 18 Monk in the normal setting.

I don't have much to say, just I like it!!! Entering in the room being paralyzed by the demonic presence, seeing the Spinner betraying the Rakshasas was nice.

The Spinner is really well design, the way that she flee the battle was well thought. I didn't try the quest in higher difficulties, but I believe the fight must be a blast.

The end of the battle with the plot twist put a "we are ******" expression in my face. Nice work.