DDOGamer: Rushmore Kills Me

[geoffhanna]

Can you beat any of the challenges in Dr Rushmore's Mansion?

-> I sure can't.

[AsburyParker]

I used to hate the Rushmore challenges. You spend however long in and may walk away with no collectables.

But now I use picture portals to grind epic tokens. I can get 100 tokens or more for each boss that I kill; I usually get 2 t0 3. My strategy is simply to break/kill everything to get as many crests as possible then open as many doors as I can; even if I don’t go through the door right away. This extends my time and makes getting around easier.

[phinius]

Challenges are not really challenges. I would call them 'luckages'. You basically need all the planets to line up perfectly, be rubbing lucky rabbits feet with both hands and both feet, all the squirrels in the forest must be dancing to 'YMCA', it has to be an odd Thursday in an even numbered month in a year divisible by twelve and you need to have won the powerball on the previous Saturday to complete some of them.

[PsychoBlonde]

Interesting--I find the Rushmore challenges to be among the easiest. They're among the few that are possible to solo and get all the stars. I like them, so I often solo them for xp when I'm TRing.

If you're having trouble, here are some pointers:

1. Go after the assassin first. He's always in the same place even in Moving Targets. I have yet to have a run where I couldn't get at least that far, and killing even one boss guarantees that you'll have at least 1 star and thus get some ingredients and xp from your run. You get to him pretty much by hugging the right wall until you get to the water then hop across to the door. There's only one 4-crest door on the way.

2. BREAK EVERYTHING. You get crests by breaking things and killing things, but the mobs respawn and stopping to kill them can eat up your time. So, really, you should focus on busting all the breakables you can find. The only exception to this is when you pick up a Quad Damage buff--then you should murderize everything you can find until it runs out.

3. Use tokens--the crests are pretty random but the token caches often have a couple of extra crests in them. It doesn't guarantee victory but it can make it much easier to be sure you have the crests you need when you need them.

4. When you fight the bosses that summon elementals, kill all water elementals but leave the others alone until you have the boss dead. Water elementals cause the boss to regenerate health at an insane rate and basically make them unkillable. If you kill the other elementals, though, you're likely to spawn a water ele and lose any progress you've made on the boss in a matter of seconds. So just kill the water eles and then focus on the boss.

[PsychoBlonde]

Challenges are not really challenges. I would call them 'luckages'. You basically need all the planets to line up perfectly, be rubbing lucky rabbits feet with both hands and both feet, all the squirrels in the forest must be dancing to 'YMCA', it has to be an odd Thursday in an even numbered month in a year divisible by twelve and you need to have won the powerball on the previous Saturday to complete some of them.

If this were true I wouldn't have a better than 75% success rate with 6-starring these challenges in SOLO runs.

[Phidius]

I really like the Rushmore Challenges, simply because the only person I have to keep alive in there is me. The other 3 types force me to play the "Protect Coyle" game, which is a bigger annoyance to me than the timed nature of the challenges.

I break everything in the first part before opening the first door, and from then on I stay invisible while I pickup the randomly-placed crests on my way to the Assassin, then double back and get the Mother of the Nest (sp?) behind the hidden door.

Each time you do it, try to add another boss to your list (Picture Portals or Behind the Doors) until you are comfortable with the map layout. Once you know where everything is (by memory, not looking it up online), Moving Targets becomes a lot more fun and profitable. The last run I did on Moving Targets got me 840 ingredients.

But I'm sorry to hear that you don't enjoy them. I feel the same way about the Lava Caves...

[Phidius]

Oh, and if you want someone to run them with you check if Gemstone or Stryde are online and I'll give you a tour. Stryde is 13 while Gemstone is 15, but I've got some level 20's if you want Epic stuff.

[Postumus]

I think the Rushmore challenges are the toughest ones for a lot of classes. I agree the assassin is one of the easiest to kill. I also like to go after the Succubus and the Orc. I find the Kobold and Rushmore himself to be the toughest to kill simply because of all the freaking elementals. I also find I do better on fast, self-healing melees in this challenge, or two-manning it.


Once you know the mansion layout, which bosses camp where, and certain static crest locations, it is pretty easy to consistently complete it. Never six-starred any of the Rushmore's though.

[phinius]

If this were true I wouldn't have a better than 75% success rate with 6-starring these challenges in SOLO runs.

My above comment was about challenges in general and with regard to 6 starring (or even 5 starring). Some are easier than others but most require a greater degree of luck than the ability to overcome a challenge. At least the Non-Rushmore's challenges are shorter and more attempts can be made.

In Rushmore's, I always find myself searching for more and more mobs to kill in hopes that I get that last freaking crest to open the last or next to last door. Killing the bosses is not really a problem, its finding enough of the correct crests to open all the doors. Before you say it, yes that includes breaking everything, killing everything I find and searching all accessible areas for crests.

[FestusHood]

Personally, i prefer to head for the succubus first through the front door. Then i take on ugg the orc who is right by there. Then i double back to the bathhouse. Depending how much time i have left, i may go down the side passage where the wine cellar is to get more crests.

Once i get back to the bathhouse, i check my time. If i have 3 minutes or more left, i will head for the assassin, then up through the back door where the succubus was, out through the front door and back to the bathhouse. Doubling back over those spinny traps outside the back door can be pretty rough, especially on a toon without evasion.

Once you get back to the bathhouse, open the secret door (make sure you can do this) and go downstairs and get the mother spider. If you have time, move on up the stairs from there.

A tip is to open nearby doors even if you don't plan to go through them, to gain more time. I personally run out of time more often than i run out of crests. At least on moving targets and picture portals.

One thing about moving targets that i think makes it the hardest one, is that crystal the giant, who is the toughest boss, loves to go and hang out either by the assassin or the mother spider. I'll freely admit that on most of my toons, i can't kill her, and most of my fails on moving targets (which are admittedly rare), are due to her blocking my path to a desired boss, forcing me to try for another one and running out of time.

The first rushmore challenge is crazy easy at low levels, say below level 10. You get lots of time, and you can pretty easily just beat down crystal while totally ignoring the elementals, water or not. I would say my actual failure rate on this particular version is well below 1%.

[FestusHood]

I think the Rushmore challenges are the toughest ones for a lot of classes. I agree the assassin is one of the easiest to kill. I also like to go after the Succubus and the Orc. I find the Kobold and Rushmore himself to be the toughest to kill simply because of all the freaking elementals. I also find I do better on fast, self-healing melees in this challenge, or two-manning it.


Once you know the mansion layout, which bosses camp where, and certain static crest locations, it is pretty easy to consistently complete it. Never six-starred any of the Rushmore's though.

On my pale master, i find the planar palace challenges to be extremely tough. The living armors are so frustrating to me in there, that i acutally took to dual wielding smiters to take them out.

[EllisDee37]

On my pale master, i find the planar palace challenges to be extremely tough. The living armors are so frustrating to me in there, that i acutally took to dual wielding smiters to take them out.

Same, until I managed to twist in energy burst. Makes them a breeze.

[FestusHood]

Same, until I managed to twist in energy burst. Makes them a breeze.

I haven't even started working on draconic yet. But here's another tip. Sledge. Yes, the level 22 Warforged barbarian hireling that is 100% immune to positive healing. My pm is an elf, but i have reconstruct slotted just for him. My own personal golem, i take him everywhere i go. Soloing devil assault, i have no problem that he has more kills than me. That's what i brought him for, and i never have to drink pots in there.

[redspecter23]

You mention that you have trouble with the Rushmore challenges, but from the picture you have showing, it appears you have at least 3 hirelings with you. I'm not sure how the scaling works lately, but for the longest time anyone extra in the group was adding double scaling both in quantity of foes as well as their HP. Even three gold seal hirelings would be hard pressed to provide more benefit than the scaling they add.

Now in some ways this might be beneficial. More mobs means more chances at crests, but you'll also be slowed down, particularly at boss fights if your dps is on the low side. At any rate, I thought it might be worth mentioning in case you had any issues with mobs slowing you down.

[FestusHood]

You mention that you have trouble with the Rushmore challenges, but from the picture you have showing, it appears you have at least 3 hirelings with you. I'm not sure how the scaling works lately, but for the longest time anyone extra in the group was adding double scaling both in quantity of foes as well as their HP. Even three gold seal hirelings would be hard pressed to provide more benefit than the scaling they add.

Now in some ways this might be beneficial. More mobs means more chances at crests, but you'll also be slowed down, particularly at boss fights if your dps is on the low side. At any rate, I thought it might be worth mentioning in case you had any issues with mobs slowing you down.

I solo all the challenges a lot, and i have a hireling of some kind with me 100% of the time. I will attest that they add more benefit than they detract by scaling the quest.

But then, i'm one of those kooky people that still thinks that having a full party makes quests easier than soling, because even mediocre players add more benefit than is needed to overcome the scaling effect, which i think is generally overestimated.

Having tried a number of challenges with full groups, i was initially afraid that the scaling would make them crazy hard. I was surprised to find that they were actually even easier than they were solo. That's most of them any way. The ones where you basically have to split up, like the kobold island ones, are of course noticably tougher with full groups.

I would say, in terms of difficulty due to scaling, it goes 6-5-1-2-3-4 in terms of optimal group size. In order of ascending difficulty.

[EllisDee37]

I find duoing with a guildie (no hires for either of us) is the absolute optimal group size for rushmore, extraplanar and lava caves. Still undecided on the optimal group size for kobold island; I keep wafflling between 1, 2, and 4.

Most of the time when I need to farm up mats I do it pure solo, no hires or summons, regardless of challenge type. For heroic mats it's my level 15 light monk challenge farmer, for epics it's my pale master w/energy burst.

Without exception, they're all pretty darn easy to true solo.

EDIT: I do bring a cleric hire for colossal crystals, but only summon him when I'm getting ready to grab a colossal and set him to defend the carrier.

[FestusHood]

I find duoing with a guildie (no hires for either of us) is the absolute optimal group size for rushmore, extraplanar and lava caves. Still undecided on the optimal group size for kobold island; I keep wafflling between 1, 2, and 4.

Most of the time when I need to farm up mats I do it pure solo, no hires or summons, regardless of challenge type. For heroic mats it's my level 15 light monk challenge farmer, for epics it's my pale master w/energy burst.

Without exception, they're all pretty darn easy to true solo.

EDIT: I do bring a cleric hire for colossal crystals, but only summon him when I'm getting ready to grab a colossal and set him to defend the carrier.

See, i grew up with hirelings in ddo, the way modern kids grew up with iphones. Iphones i find to be mostly useless, and i dont see what the big deal is with them. Not so hirelings. I've been using hirelings since about 2 hours after i started ddo. I actually find them to be one of the more intriguing things about the game.

My figher does better than my pale master in most of the challenges. Now he can scroll heal himself 100%. But he doesn't often make his concentration checks, due to me foolishly not maxing out that skill. Even if he could, it still just goes a lot smoother if there is a hireling throwing heals on him than if i constantly have to interrupt my fighting to swap to scrolls.

People say once you go umd, you can't go back. I've made many fully self sufficient toons. But in the future, i will continue to make some that aren't. It's just not a pride thing with me. For toons that don't need a hireling to heal them, a dps hireling still adds. That level 23 ranger, i forget his name, is pretty impressive. Everything he kills is something i don't have to kill. That saves time, mana, resources, whatever. In the challenges, time is a major factor, as you know.

Since we are talking specifically about rushmore, i like to let the hireling agro and take care of the mobs while i continue to smash boxes. In most cases, by the time i'm done, so is he.

[EllisDee37]

The ranger could be useful in rushmore, for sure. I may try that next time I run it; my PM can always scroll heal him.

I also grew up with hires in DDO, but after ~6 months or so I got a feel for self-healing with my bluebar and never looked back. I'll still bring hires for soloing heroic elites in the 6-12 range because my self-healing usually hasn't kicked in yet and they're cheaper than cure pots, but as soon as I get reliable self-healing I drop them like a bad habit. heh.

I generally don't like hires because they spread mobs out, reducing my aoe damage. (Acid rain, great cleave, energy burst, etc...)

[FestusHood]

The ranger could be useful in rushmore, for sure. I may try that next time I run it; my PM can always scroll heal him.

I also grew up with hires in DDO, but after ~6 months or so I got a feel for self-healing with my bluebar and never looked back. I'll still bring hires for soloing heroic elites in the 6-12 range because my self-healing usually hasn't kicked in yet and they're cheaper than cure pots, but as soon as I get reliable self-healing I drop them like a bad habit. heh.

I generally don't like hires because they spread mobs out, reducing my aoe damage. (Acid rain, great cleave, energy burst, etc...)

The mansion, and devil assault are both a soloing master blitzers dream situation. A constant flow of trash mobs to feed it. A hireling healing me instead of me messing around with scrolls makes a noticeable difference in the time spent killing mobs. Espcially if you are fighting the tougher bosses.

In the planar palace, i can't imagine trying to beat down the marilith while scroll healing myself. At the very least, it's gonna be a huge time sink.

[DDOisFree]

This was only on level a level 15 challenge, but we were a level 15-18 group just farming for XP and favor:



http://i.imgur.com/qsHVuog.jpg

We completed it with over 17 minutes left to waste, so then we just all split up and killed respawns for more points. I died at the end though due to my SP running out while solo killing some mobs.

I couldnt solo this one though, my sense of direction is non existent.