Picture Portals - help

[licho]

Hi,
I have a question on soloing this one with ranger.
What is the way to do it to get some ingreediens (even if nto max).

Which of the minibosses do not summon elementals (the girl and buduare seems ok)?
Should i use portals? Or better just run in classic way?
Whats the best aproach to crest? Are they fixed for doors, or always different?

[Kourier]

I'm pretty sure that the crest drops and requirements are random (The doors and some crests laying around are always in the same place but different animals every time). Anyway my strategy on solo is just to complete - this consists of going through the backdoor and killing Sam (halfling?) and Temptia (succubus). Neither of these summon elementals and they are pretty close to each other. Usually I can pick up enough crests to get through both doors. I'm sure if I were better I could get 3 or more bosses...

[Ytteri]

Don't use the portals, it's too uncertain where you'll end up. The route I like to take is:

Servants Quarters to Gallery to Inner Courtyard (get all breakables and crests lying about in side rooms, and pick up kobold)
South door to Library, follow path to Bath House
South door, through the Back Door to Assassin's Crib, kill Sam
Continue to Other Back Door, continue on until you get to the Boudoir and kill the Succubus
*(If I still have time) Backtrack to Bath House and take east door to the Planar Observatory
Go through the north door, buy a quad damage (and speed boost if you have the time) from the kobold guy and make an attempt at the Half Orc

If I don't have a lot of time at *, I'll try to find a portrait and just kill spawns for more points.

You get extra points for opening doors, so open the doors in Inner Courtyard and Bath House that you don't intend to go through (right away) if you have the crests for it.

I was able to average ~1900 points (~300 goblets) running the quest at lvl 17 when I was lvl 15.

[Rizzia]

May be a little boring, but i'd suggest running through on the minimum difficulty, so you can map out the portals. From my experience they take you to fixed locations. You loose a star if anything follows you through (which is pure luck from what Ive seen) but stars dont equal ingredients.

[Puppetian]

Keep in mind that you also get a good amount of points for killing the spider queen in the sewer, my route consisting of sam, temptia, ugg and mother usually nets me around 400 goblets for about 20 mins of running.

[Ayyelos]

1) If you are farming ingredients, remember that the stars don't matter at all, your "score" will determine the number of ingredients you receive.
You earn points thusly (in order of most to least points received):
-Kill a boss (most points; more bosses killed, the better)
-Kill a red name (mother of the nest in the sewer, through the hidden door in the bath house)
-Open a door
-Kill mobs
When you start running out of time, go to any unopened door and try to open as many as you can, just to pump up the point score. Then kill mobs until the challenge times out.

2) Crests. You gather crests several ways:
-Breaking boxes and barrels (go into every side room in the first area and gather everything you can)
-Crests in the open (there are several spots that a crest may or may not appear, you will learn these "spawn points" the more you do it)
-Killing mobs
There are 8 crests total and also a skeleton key crest. I make a new hot bar and drag the crests to it in alphabetical order, when I leave the adventure they grey out, but this way I can easily see which crests I have. This way you don't have to look in your inventory.
Another good place to gather crests is the hallway between the bath house and the observatory-there is a path going north that has quite a few boxes (if you have time.)

3) Random. The crests you need and the ones that drop are all random every time. This can be frustrating when all you need is that stupid wolf crest and you have 8 octopus crests. The puzzle in the observatory always has certain crests, so learn how to solve that thing. If desperate, I'll go kill a bunch of mobs hoping for that perfect drop, but don't hold your breath on that one.

4) Elementals. I honestly don't know off the top of my head which ones summon elementals, but one thing to note is that the only one that really matters is the water elementals- they will heal the boss in question. The boss can only have 4 out at a time, so if none of them are water, avoid killing them until you've beat down the boss.

5) Just run. I suppose you could take the time to work out where each picture takes you, but it seems like a waste of energy to me. This is a zerger's dream quest. The main boss name is "Will Ewe Rushmore" for god's sakes. Find the most efficient paths, learn where the pictures are so you can avoid activating them if you need to. Dungeon alert sucks in this challenge.

One last note- I was having pretty good luck soloing this, however with even one other person it gets a little easier. Since the dungeon scales, more mobs will spawn, and generally you will have a larger crest pool to start with. When I was duoing it, we would run to the observatory, and I would go solo one of the bosses while the other person worked on the puzzle, then they would solo the other boss while I would shrine, then we'd go to Sam or through the secret door. You get the idea.

Hope any of this helps, happy hunting.

[GoRinNoSho]

My solo ranger route for epic picture portals is to sam, then temptia, then to the spider. That nets 300+ goblets per run and you avoid any bosses that spawn elementals.

[Tsuarok]

Is there a list showing which bosses are where?

[bhgiant]

Is there a list showing which bosses are where?

This is the map/guide I used to get me started. Best one in my opinion.

The path is laid out below; I change from Red pen to Blue pen in the Boudoir. The entire red pen line comes first. The blue pen line begins after you kill the succubus. I appreciate that's confusing, but I am awful at paint.



Map clarifications:
The map is sort of unclear due to the different pen overlap in one spot - the first time you come to the observatory, unlock the door to the right, but double-back and don't go through (as with several other doors you see).

Also, after you go through the N bath house door (your first visit to the bath house), head into the next corridor and go N, clearing both of the 'under' rooms. The second one has a freezer with a water elemental and 8 billion boxes. After looting that room, head back S and resume your path to the observatory.

If you're desperate for time, but have many crests of all varieties, consider killing Dr Rushmoor and getting the final doors before heading up to Crystal the Giant. Conversely, if you have plenty of time, but lack crests, settle for just killing Crystal for the score, then go try and farm crests through kills, but prepare for disappointment. If you have plenty of both (you should), I find it more convenient to kill Crystal first as shown on the map.

Other Things to Note:

This is just the broad outline.

Get every side room and crest. I haven't, e.g. in the servants quarters before the first door drawn a billion crossing over lines showing you getting the 3 downstairs to the R side rooms, and all the upstairs side rooms - which you should do.

Smash every breakable you see. Kill what's convenient, occasionally grouping up trash for a good ol' fashioned mass beatdown. AOE fire attacks to blow up crates are a plus. As is pick locks / knock.

Only other spoiler I'll include is to make sure you go 'up' in the Banner room. You don't need the jump power-up, but you do need a reasonable jump score, and Featherfall. Up to 9 crests can spawn up there. Get the grand chandelier in the centre last.

With some luck (there's invariably some) you'll 5 star as I have with this path. The luck shouldn't kick in until literally the last door or so. Prior to that, you will almost certainly have enough of all types. If you end up facing 8 wolves when you have 7 of everything else and exactly 1 wolf. Well hey. Random generation fun. That said you pickup literally every guaranteed drop save the rubbish in and around the bathroom, which never seems to have a crest for me regardless.

Other varations:
Picture Portals - do the exact same thing. You have less time though, so hurry. Also consider not going through the Secret Door to the Banner Room, and instead going through the Restroom tunnel. This is solely so the stupid kobold doesn't get stuck as he's want to do on the stairs down to the spider tunnel unless you wait patiently at the bottom.

Moving Targets - This one is a bigger pain to me. I'm not sure of the trick... were I in a group I'd just designate a kill squad, but solo I think you just have to cop potentially doubling-back a lot; or changing the route dynamically to go directly to bosses. Either way, blerg.

[jojoalva69]

I go to Temptia then Ugg(He's not that bad with air elementals) then the spider, and if I still have time, I'll run over to that rogue guy, whos name I can't remember...Without the rogue guy, that's about ~340.. Not that bad for the time it takes. You can even do that easily on epic. Or 21 :P

[psteen1]

i also go rogue-->temptia-->back track to bath house andthrough the secret door to the mother spider and through to the other side of the secret passage--> then ugg.

After that, my luck is usually bad enough that I have 5 of one crest and 0 of one I need. But in theory I would run north to the kobold, who would then kill me with his 4 elementals.

[tinyelvis]

These routes are sub optimum imo. If you run like this you will occasionally not have enough crests to open assassins door. I would suggest that you,

1. Make your way to the library breaking EVERYTHING in your path and collecting all of the crests in every room up to that point. Kill as many mobs as you can, but dont spend too much time here. Go invisible if you need to.

2. Make your way to the bath house. Again break and collect all crests.

3. Head left and down the hallway toward the wine cellar. Break everything. Dont kill anything until you get to wine cellar then kill. Once finished collecting here go back to bathhouse.

4. From the bathhouse head to assassin. Grab crests on ledges and in cages if you can. Make sure you get crests in water. After assassin head up over to Mistress in her bed chamber.

The above route will almost always insure you have enough crests to kill at least one boss and 99 out of 100 times the mistress too.

5. Teleport back to start or go invisible and run back to inner courtyard and open other door on east wall. Head to bathroom, breaking all as usual. Then to banner hall.

6. Go North to Grand entrance hall (dont open east door here yet). Get crest in fountain, then head east to chapel and up into armory.

7. After breaking and collecting, open war room door and kill Ugh.

19 out of 20 runs you can easily get this far without running into door/crest issues. At this point if you are low on crests and cant open the next door, you can head to spider and call it a run. Try to at least open the other door in banner room. You could then make your way to the observatory and open doors or get crests from puzzles. If you still lack crests to open the north door in entrance hall then go to spider.

8. Head back North to North exit of grand entrance hall climb to roof and from above head back to secret door. Dont forget to jump over and collect up to 4 crests on other side of roof. Jump down and go into secret door.

9. Head up to shady tenemants and Open Two doors. If I am low on crests or time, I often open the far door first. This will create a short exit and a quick return route if needed. If you have time fight Dr. Rushmore, otherwise head out to roofs again and jump down and put crests in door at street level.

10. If you have time (i.e. three or four minutes) jump back up and go fight crystal in laundry room.

11. Head back to banner room and open door to east (this is assuming you did not need to detour here earlier). Make your way to observatory and open last two doors.

12. If you have not done it already go kill, crystal, rushmore, and/or spider.

13. If you have more than two minutes left go look for kobold and get 5 star finish for the heck of it.

[Mathermune]

If you are running purely for materials, what worked for me was running the extra-planar palace challenges and trading in the ingredients. I *despise* running Rushmore, a mephit wing run takes me 5-8 minutes and I can squeak 100-150 ingredients. It's no more efficient in terms of ingredients per minute, however it's far less irritating and easier to break up, doing it 8 minutes at a time rather than half hour slogs.

When soloing with my sorcerer I summon my cleric hireling, throw on death ward. Grab the extra torches. Run north up the ramp, turn left and then either down the ramp or right into the room depending on where the most purple crystals are. Kobolds can use dimension doors if you have the capability.

20 Mephit Wings for 10 Illuminated Manuscripts
20 Arcanaloth Scrolls for 10 Jeweled Goblets

20 Epic Mephit Wings + 1 Epic Dungeon Token Fragment for 10 Epic Jeweled Goblets
20 Epic Mephit Wings + 1 Epic Dungeon Token Fragment for 10 Epic Illuminated Manuscripts

[donblas]

My solo ranger route for epic picture portals is to sam, then temptia, then to the spider. That nets 300+ goblets per run and you avoid any bosses that spawn elementals.

Coincidentally I did this myself this morning with lvl17 ranger on lvl16 difficulty and had no problems at all getting 309 ingredients and 7k XP.

Basically cleared all the rooms before the first door to make sure of having all the crests, picking up the kobold on the way.

Then pick up all the stuff on the ground floor of the gallery, then the next room has a few crest so pick them up. Open the library. Then open the other door if you have the crests. Loot library. Be careful that the kobold doesn't get snagged (if I jump off the upstairs bit of the library right near the end he seems OK) and avoid most of the pictures.

If the ritual chamber has a crest go get it otherwise ignore. Go up the ramp and jump down towards bath-house, avoiding the portal there. Kill elementals in bath-house and grap any crests upstairs.

Open door to the backstairs, grabbing the crest on top of the pillar before running through traps (fire resistance, and pick locks for more crests if you can).

At end of traps go up and smash stuff then go down and open door to canal. Cross canal to Sam's, and go in and kill him, loot the crests upstairs and those underwater. Swap 2 minutes of time to kobold (you should have plenty), for maybe speed boost and quad damage.

Open gate to the backstairs to temptia, killing everything up to her door. Go in and kill her while still speeded and with quad damage (manyshot helps).

Run back though traps then in any order clear storage area, open door in planar observatory, go downstairs to kill spider and anything else you have time for.

It takes too long to kill the bosses who have elementals so i avoid them.

Result, as I said, 309 ingredients and 7k XP, and no danger.

[KraahgDaAxe]

I find it funny that people here are telling you to go to the assassin first when most PUG groups I have joined say to hit Ugg first. Personally I agree with the people here (what do most PUGs know?).

I ran with guildies on challenges pretty much all weekend for ingredients. I got a group of 6 together and we started running for favor. We ran PP at 20th and it was the first time ON THE MAP for 3 of them. We completed in 38 minutes, with the last star being turn in 2 minutes of time to the Foreman. I believe we netted somewhere in the realm of 600-700 ingreds (this includes the 20% bonus).

Our path was Assassin-Succubus-bathhouse(shrine)-Ugg-secret door-Kobold-rooftops-Rushmore-final door(blocking way to Rushmore)-DDoor-time turn in.

Also, I am proud to say, we 6 starred 5 challenges in a row, including Time is Money (not hard), Buying Time (also not hard), Dragon's Hoard (harder), PP (hard), Labor Shortage (not hard).

Kraahg

[Jorianon]

I find it funny that people here are telling you to go to the assassin first when most PUG groups I have joined say to hit Ugg first. Personally I agree with the people here (what do most PUGs know?).
Kraahg

I always go assassin/succubus, mostly because of how close they are. If I can't open his door, I can move on to hers without wasting too much time backtracking. Plus, they are several crests underwater, and always two in the secret room upstairs in the assassin's crib.

After the succubus I usually ddoor to avoid the traps in her hallway and then hit the mother of the nest and try for Ugg if enough time remains.

As far as who has what elementals, Smiling Sam and Mistress Temptia have none; Ugg has two (only earth/air), Crystal has three, and Dr. Rushmore has four. Destroy the water elementals, and earth too if you have trouble dealing melee damage (Ugg's AC is insurmountable for me if he has his earth elemental guards around.)

[~Cavalier9999]

If you are just looking for goblets it may actually be more efficient to farm scrolls and trade 2 for 1.

[danzig138]

This is a zerger's dream quest.

Not really. You have to break all kinds of stuff to get crests. Zergers typically do not waste time with breaking things.