Kobold Island: Kobold Chaos

[SupTyr]

After doing the daily challenge I have to say:

...

...

Actually I'm speechless..

...

...

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?

[Nailog]

Like all the challenges, it requires a bit of practice.

Learn where the kobold idols are and go straight for them to get a bunch of parts right away.

Activate and upgrade 3 small extractors until you reach quota, then activate and upgrade a large extractor and defend it until time runs out.

Ingredients are handed out based on your score, and your score increases as you collect shards, so collect as many as you can.

[SupTyr]

Well, I have to admit it is somehow funny - yet in a rather strange way.

e.g.: crossing the map to pickup the supply crate, expecting to get like 100 shards or 10 turret builders or at least something slightly useful, instead a small blue disc appears: High Jump! -> /laugh

[jjflanigan]

Like all the challenges, it requires a bit of practice.

Learn where the kobold idols are and go straight for them to get a bunch of parts right away.

Activate and upgrade 3 small extractors until you reach quota, then activate and upgrade a large extractor and defend it until time runs out.

Ingredients are handed out based on your score, and your score increases as you collect shards, so collect as many as you can.

Just make sure you pay attention to time remaining when you do that. When you spend shards to activate and upgrade the large extractor, your score goes down based on how many shards you spend. If you don't have enough time left to recoup the expenditure you'll end up having a lower overall score.

[Sgt_Hart]

Kobold island is (IMO)basically for the RTS lovers who play DDO. Build order is king here.

I routinely solo this with a hire, summons, and drop cannons. In case you need it.. here's how I do it:

1. Snipe some of those kobolds in the center. Parts are needed #1.
2. >=4 parts, then go turn on the SOUTH small. This one can be defended by one cannon rather successfully, so it makes sense to have this one first, so your production rate is higher. You can defend the 2nd one ot come on while waiting to buy cannons.
3. When its ground out 10 shards, buy a cannon.
4. Place it North(Mainly) and east(slighty) of the extractor(Where it will intercept things approaching), you want a distance of around 5 feet.
5. Park hire slightly closer to extractor than cannon.
6. Moar kobold sniping for parts(Hit some as you run east, break idol if need be).
7. EAST extractor. Boot it up grab a cannon at 10. Use the wait time to snipe more kobolds.
8. IF hire/south have been unmolested this far, recall the hire, its not needed there.
9. Position cannon East(Mainly) and North(Slightly) of the extractor. This guards N and E approaches.
10. Wait for another 10. Buy cannon. SW this time, try to make sure it's not going to fire down at the kobolds(It'll die early if it does, as will extractor.)
11. Now we fret the west extractor. Optionally, run past north and turn it on. You don't need to hold it.. It's just a minor shard boost for 1 part. I would suggest making sure you kill anything nearby before flipping the switch however.
12. West, by now you have 20 shards, so buy first, and place at the ramp-top. 1 North of it, 1 south. Flip it on.
13. This is where it begins to be a reaction game.
14. When you hit 75 shards.. upgrade whichever extractor is MOST damaged(This re-set's health to 100%)
15. Clear/enable North if you feel so inclined.
16. Again, got 75 shards? Buy an upgrade.
17. Clear/enable North if you feel so inclined.
18. Final one: Buy an upgrade.
19. Run around, break idols, Kill lantern(If you have the burst DPS)
20. Provided you've done all the above correctly(Don't judge your performance until you feel comfortable saying "I know the map" and its your 3rd try of this method). You won basically at step 11 or so.

All that said:

Will you 6 star it solo? No.
Will you consistently, and easily win: Yes.

[danotmano1998]

If you think Kobold Chaos is tough, you should try the Disruptor!

With perseverance you can solo the Kobold Chaos one using the great post Sgt_Hart has above. Just takes some practice.

But try compunding your frustration with adding a ginormous skeleton warrior that appears randomly and just shuts down ALL production until it's dead. Oh, and it seems to appear in random locations as well. Good grief!

[Sgt_Hart]

But try compunding your frustration with adding a ginormous skeleton warrior that appears randomly and just shuts down ALL production until it's dead. Oh, and it seems to appear in random locations as well. Good grief!

Wish that blankety-blank-blank had a map icon.. Like sir glow-n-show.

That said.. sprint/haste-boost and/or arcane's haste/expedious do make it possible to solo.. Just have to have the burst damage to down him within say.. 60 seconds of finding. Much past a minute and he'll complicate it for you.

[SupTyr]

Thanks for the tips and the decent walk-through but completing the main objective was not the issue here.

It was more my friend who told me we can do better than ~600 shards and activated+upgraded a large extractor. Then the real chaos started.. The small extractors already seam to produce a steady flow of mobs. Once a big one goes online (and is upgraded) mobs spawn in packs of 5-10 with rednames too. They spawn out of nowhere around the extractor. Sometimes right on top of the extractor, sometimes right on top of you...

If it was only the spawn rate that was wrong I probably would have shrugged it off and not made a rant-post but there seems to be a lot of stuff wrong with kobold island

- spawn rate of mobs
too high imo, no doubt an epic caster party could nuke them off the island but...
- scaling with party size
the island is large and the extractors are scattered around the island, forming a party seems a logical choice, it isn't because inviting only one more person results in a lot more enemies
- mobs spawning out of nowhere
imo the mobs should have visible spawn points (like in madstone crater where the mobs come through gates and then walk up to the target), spawning them out of nowhere is very cheap
- useless buffs
the supply crate drop should be worth it, high jump is stupid on the island, even speed boost is not worth running up to the crate
i'd suggest something like 2min invulnerability for the extractors or a 1 min implosion buff (could help reduce the gap between casters and melee here)
- the archon
if i'd be the designer I'd make the archon hard to find (no map marker), easy to kill and permanent (appear after 1min/100shards extracted and not disappear unless you kill it), so once you find it you'd had the option to farm the drops or kill it for the optional without emptying half your sp bar on it
- the disruptor skeleton
on the other hand should be easy to find but rather hard to kill in a short time

- kobold villages and idols
imo these are the only nice and creative element and a lot of fun to burn down
( "Maybe you won't kill kobold and take kobold's stuff this time?" )

I think this challenge has potential as a RTS mini game as someone mentioned already. But look at other RTS games for example: enemy mobs don't just spawn in your base out nowhere! they have a base/source where they spawn one by one and once there are 5-10 they go and attack you.

[danotmano1998]

Thanks for the tips and the decent walk-through but completing the main objective was not the issue here.

<clipped>.

Ahhh, now THIS is a substantially different post than your first.
I can't say I really disagree much with what you've posted here.

The mob spawns are quite ridiculous, I must agree. Typically when I run this one, I will set my DDO volume down to zero and que some pandora just so I don't have to hear..

"An extractor is under attack!!"

every 5 seconds for the next 15 minutes.


I don't know, for some really strange reason I enjoy the difficulty these ones are giving me, so I really can't complain much.

Though I would love to hear how someone has accomplished all the objectives on this series. So far I'm just using the tried and true process of elimination method. A few hints could be helpful.

[Deathdefy]

I 5 starred Kobold Chaos solo yesterday; was only CR 12 though as I'm a bit gimpy this life. http://my.ddo.com/leaderboard/challenges/ (Khyber, Kobold Chaos, Level 12)
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=356248 is my best effort to date.

The biggest trick is to suck up running around like a headless chicken instead of burning cannons early on protecting the smalls since this murders your potential.

I go:

NB:
*Kill the Archon when it spawns if it's even sort of maybe near you. No guarantees it'll come back.
*Always kill kobolds as you run from point to point. Your biggest problem will always be parts with this method. Hence, ranged weaponry of some description (spells / bow / x-bow) is a huge boon.
*Get supply crates if they're close. They can contain 20 or 30 mechanical parts. It won't though.
*It doesn't matter if small extractors die after you have activated your first large
*It doesn't matter if large extractors die after you have activated your second large (you'll still get the "upgrade all 3 larges" star even if they have subsequently died)

1) Kill 4 kobolds then grab 'Idol to the S of the ship' (the sunken area between extractor 2 and 1)

2) Start extractor 2, kill mobs that insta-spawn

3) Start extractor 1, kill mobs that insta-spawn

4) Start extractor 4, kill mobs that insta-spawn

5) Start extractor 3, kill mobs that insta-spawn

6) Run to whichever extractor is under attack and defend it

7) Upgrade as soon as you hit 75; interesting decisions between waiting at an extractor while another is under attack so
you can upgrade without lost time happen here

8) Repeat steps 6-7 until all the smalls are upgraded

9) Repeat step 6 until you have ~240 shards extracted

10) Head to NE Large Extractor, grabbing the 'central idol on the rock' and 'idol between extractor 1 and the NE large' on the way.

11) Being killing red-named at NE large extractor

12) Activate large extractor as soon as you hit 300 whether or not the red-name is dead yet

13) Defend the large extractor until you hit 400 then upgrade it

14) Defend the large extractor until you hit 500 then upgrade it

15) Buy 3 canons

16) Place and upgrade the 3 canons around the large - whatever formation works for you. I do one on each corner of the large that isn't facing the wall. They happily shoot through the extractor so it's not a huge deal.

17) Run to NW large extractor, grabbing the 'Idol between Small Extractor 4 and NW Large Extractor' on the way

18) Hit the redname once or twice, then upgrade NW extractor as high as possible.

19) Kill the redname or at least ensure it's aggro isn't on the extractor, then run E, and follow the land ramp up to where the 'Idol above NW Large Extractor' is. Kill the 4 kobolds in the camp BEFORE picking it up.

20) Follow the land ramp along until you hit the next group of kobolds and kill them too.

21) Drop down to the NW large extractor and upgrade it fully, waiting for more shards if necessary.

22) Buy, place and upgrade 2 Canons. The positioning here should be somewhere close to the NW large extractor, and facing the ocean, so there's a chance they can shoot up at things on the cliffs above.

23) Wait for Djinn. I tend to run about where the 'Idol between Small Extractor 4 and NW Large Extractor' was; there's a few groups of kobolds to kill around here too.

24) Kill Djinn - he's hard and I'm still not sure of his spawning conditions. I think it has something to do with your current pool of crystals being over 1000. Depending on your time remaining when he spawns, you may want to bring him to a set of canons, or kite him towards the final idol as you head there yourself.

25) Invisible if you have it, then make the trek all the way over to the final idol. It's located far to the SW, between extractor 2 and SW large extractor.

26) Get the idol; if you think you'll still have less than the 18 parts required to fully upgrade the last extractor, kill the kobolds first.

27) Run to last extractor, upgrade it fully.

28) Try and kill redname before time runs out.

This has worked for me 3 times or so now. You actually gimp your score by upgrading the final extractor, but it gets you a star.

[brian14]

How do you get the hireling to defend the extractor? Yesterday I tried: focused on the extractor, and clicked "shield" icon on hireling's bar. As soon as I ran off, hireling followed me. What did I do wrong?

[brian14]

Will you 6 star it solo? No.
Will you consistently, and easily win: Yes.

I soloed Kobold Chaos many times, usually at 1 level above that of the toon used. I succeeded (1 star) almost every time, but never got more than 2 stars. Lantern Archon seems to have very high armor class for its level; my rogue mechanic managed to kill Archon once with repeating light crossbow and anarching bolts, my Rgr 6/Clr 3/Rog 2 tried failed miserably with bow but can kill it with banisher/paralyzer TWF and Haste.

Most monsters beeline for extractors and rarely aggro on you, so you do not need that much healing. IMO, if you have any self-healing ability, get a melee or an arcane hireling rather than a cleric. I like paladins best because they can heal themselves and I need not keep an eye on their red bar.

[licho]

Note about hires: Not all works right, i tried with fighter (set on active) and it didnt worked (it was castle i think) on the other side the cleric one did some job.

As for strategy for 2: Kill kobold camp, catch small extractors protect them 3+4, 1+2. Upgrade. And wait for quota. Build some cannons at least on 2. Go for idols.

Getting this */** for *** i need to work it out still.

[SirShen]

Unless you are a caster this cant be soloed. Iv tred on fighters and fail every time. 500 is just too dam high. I just give up trying to solo this at level. Its just a waste of my time.

Id like to see the states that show how many times this is failed.

[danotmano1998]

How do you get the hireling to defend the extractor? Yesterday I tried: focused on the extractor, and clicked "shield" icon on hireling's bar. As soon as I ran off, hireling followed me. What did I do wrong?

I typically just bring my hire close to the extractor, set them to attack mode, and then force them to stay with the "dont move" button.

They WILL guard the base and stay put, but don't expect them to live real long without your backup.

<snip>

Wow, nicely detailed walkthrough!

I'm going to give this a try next time I go through there, thanks for the advice!
+1

[brian14]

Wish that blankety-blank-blank had a map icon.. Like sir glow-n-show.

That said.. sprint/haste-boost and/or arcane's haste/expedious do make it possible to solo.. Just have to have the burst damage to down him within say.. 60 seconds of finding. Much past a minute and he'll complicate it for you.

I always solo Kobold Chaos and Disruptor at 1 level above character's level. Last time I ran Disruptor (at level 13), by the time I found Giant Skeleton it was almost dead by a magefire cannon. Not even upgraded!

Unless you are a caster this cant be soloed. Iv tred on fighters and fail every time. 500 is just too dam high. I just give up trying to solo this at level. Its just a waste of my time.

Id like to see the states that show how many times this is failed.

As I said, I solo Kobold Chaos and Disruptor all the time, at one level above. My main is currently Ranger 6/Cleric 5/Rogue 2. With either paladin or sorc hireling, I only fail when really unlucky with Giant Skeleton. Granted, my main is not entirely "melee", but I had pretty good success with my rogue (and paladin hireling).

[holwic]

Unless you are a caster this cant be soloed. Iv tred on fighters and fail every time. 500 is just too dam high. I just give up trying to solo this at level. Its just a waste of my time.

Id like to see the states that show how many times this is failed.

I solo'ed with my lowbie rogue and I can even have one large extractor fully upgraded.
Did it a few times at lv5 and lv7, even level challenge......and yes I do use a cleric hireling but I always park him at extractor 1.
Getting over 1.2k crystal is a cakewalk......
Edit:1.2k EXTRA crystal

Perhaps you need better gears/strategy/skills/build......

[Spiderson]

Unless you are a caster this cant be soloed. Iv tred on fighters and fail every time. 500 is just too dam high. I just give up trying to solo this at level. Its just a waste of my time.

Id like to see the states that show how many times this is failed.

you must be joking this challenge is really easy to do with a pure fighter/ranger

[Stoner81]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...allenge-Farmer

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/429624

I used to hate all of the challenges until I used the above two links and now I have no issues with them. However, the above are for getting materials not XP which might not be the same methods

Stoner81.

[RobbinB]

Well, I have to admit it is somehow funny - yet in a rather strange way.

e.g.: crossing the map to pickup the supply crate, expecting to get like 100 shards or 10 turret builders or at least something slightly useful, instead a small blue disc appears: High Jump! -> /laugh

Supply crate is absolutely ridiculous. It should contain a fixed number of shards, 2 buffs, and a possibility for an "extra" item, eg. turret.