Cannith Challenge Tutorials

[EllisDee37]

All Cannith challenges are soloable by any character who can kill stuff. Due to scaling, it's noticeably more difficult to solo if you bring a hireling so I would recommend you use a self-sufficient character and no hireling.

The videos linked in thread are of my dedicated challenge farmer, a level 16 pure monk with dragonmark of passage for DDoor. He runs challenges at CR20 for +40% parts bonus. As an added plus, he can just barely open the chests you get for killing bosses, which have an ML of CR-4.


Extraplanar Palace

• Buying Time
• Labor Shortage
• Dragon's Hoard

Lava Caves

• Time Is Money
• Colossal Crystal
• Circles of Power

Kobold Island

• Short Cuts
• The Disruptor
• Kobold Chaos

Dr. Rushmore's Mansion

• Behind the Door
• Picture Portals
• Moving Targets

Note on videos: I run in 1024x768, which youtube recognizes as HD but for some reason it doesn't default to 720p when I play them back. (I think my connection speed is slow.) You may need to manually select 720p when you play them by clicking the little gear icon in the bottom right of youtube's player.



Also, I was concerned about youtube having a 15:00 limit per video so many of the challenges are broken into multiple parts. In those cases I link to playlists instead of the videos directly. Choose "Play All" from the playlists to watch the entire challenge without interruption.

[EllisDee37]

These are torch line challenges. If you have never run a torch line before, go into Circles of Power (over in the lava caves) once to practice the spacing. Without doing anything, the kobolds will bring back enough crystals to buy 10 incense torches after around 10 seconds. Buy them, then spend the next 10 minutes or so practicing your placement and spacing. I use a mental 4-count to measure the distance between torches on a monk or hasted wizard, a 5-count on regular-speed characters.

In all Extraplanar Palace challenges, generally speaking you fight mephits in the east and yugoloths in the west with animated armors on both sides. I find mephits far easier to deal with so I always start with the east side on any extraplanar palace challenges.



This small area will always (okay, maybe 99% of the time) contain enough crystals to reach 100, which will spawn Devashta on Buying Time and Labor Shortage. For Dragon's Hoarde she doesn't show up until you have 150 crystals so you might want to extend the line a little further east to ensure you can get 150 before pulling up the line.

In any case, the concept here is to finish laying down the line to the east before Devashta spawns, then kill Devashta while your workers are clearing the east. Once you kill her, you can then start rotating the line around the map, first to the southeast, then southwest, then west, and finally north.

Start

Standard beginning: Buff yourself, then pick up all five torches in a straight line plus the one to the west of the foreman, for a total of 6 torches. Leave the torch in the east untouched; we'll be using it as the base for our torch line.

After picking up the six torches talk to the foreman and buy all five workers. You may have to wait a few seconds for the last couple greens to come back to afford the last couple workers. Do not wait more than 5 seconds; come back and buy the rest later when you come back to buy torches. (For Labor Shortage, buy barrels instead of workers.)




Scout Ramp

Place your first two torches to the east, then take a quick run up to the first plateau on the ramp to the north (labeled "A") to see if there are any purples or mobs there. Mephits may not be visible at first, so go all the way onto the first plateau and wait for a beat. If mobs are there go ahead and kill them all. Usually there won't be any purples there. If there aren't, go back down the ramp and finish placing the initial line east, south, then down beneath the ramp labeled "B", killing mobs as you go. You'll have one torch left once you finish placing those first 5 torches.




Buy Equipment

With the initial line laid, run (or DDoor) back to the foreman and buy your equipment from the foreman. Here's what I general buy: (If running with tokens, treat Buying Time the same as Dragon's Hoarde.)

Buying Time: 5 torches, 0 barrels, 0 teleporters, 0 healing torches
Labor Shortage: 10 torches, 10 barrels, 2 teleporters, 1 healing torch, Permanent Speed Buff
Dragon's Hoarde: 10 torches, 10 barrels, 2 teleporters, 1 healing torch


Extend Line

Once we have our equipment it's time to quickly finish laying the line east before Devashta spawns. Generally I try to finish the torches before placing the teleporters, but each map is a little different so use your best judgement. The two preferred locations for teleporters are highlighted in green. Note that for Buying Time speed runs I don't buy teleporters but I do try to cast DDoor in the teleporter locations.



Once the line is laid go wait for Devashta and kill her when she spawns. After killing her, pull up the line to the east and head southeast, then southwest, then west, then north. Buying Time speed runs will only do the east without moving the line at all. Labor Shortage will only move the line once, to the southeast.


Ramp Variation

Things are slightly different if there are purples in the first ramp to the north. When that happens, instead of continuing east I place the initial line up the ramp. I use two torches for this, being sure to put the second one on the plateau proper. If you just put one torch near the top of the ramp the kobolds won't be able to smell the crystals on the plateau.

Once the initial line is laid up the ramp, go and scout the rest of the eastern area to kill all mobs while the kobolds clear the ramp. Then buy equipment, pull the torches off the ramp, and lay down the rest of the line quickly so you can meet Devashta when she spawns.



Buying Time

For Buying Time, my goal is to never buy time. Done right, you can consistently average around 240 parts per 5:00 running 4 levels under the challenge rating, 300 per 5:00 during bonus weekends. That's almost 50/minute normally, 60/minute on bonus weekends. Buying time is my go-to challenge, my preferred place to farm xp pots and epic tokens.

For a long time I used to buy teleporters and barrels, but found that for 5:00 Buying Time runs this generally meant the kobolds were doing nothing for the last 30-45 seconds of the challenge after having finished the area. It also made it hard to lay down the entire torch line before Devashta showed up. So now I don't bother with them. This also nets me an "extra" 20 crystals by not spending them on two teleporters and ten barrels.

Note that if you're running this with daily tokens, doing 5:00 runs is counterproductive. For token runs, buy time around 5 times (to make it a 20:00 run) and follow the Dragon's Hoarde plan.

VIDEO: Buying Time
VIDEO: Buying Time (ramp)

You'll see in the (ramp) run I ran out of time after buying torches thanks to an ill-timed "Incoming!" So I quickly laid the east-south line and DDoored back for Devashta, never getting the east-north line laid. This hurt production a bit, but I still managed 245 mephit wings for my efforts.



Labor Shortage

Labor Shortage won't let you buy workers, so all we get is barrels for increasing production. Buy all 10 barrels and place them as early as you reasonably can. Also, buy two teleporters and place them in the eastern line at the start, but be careful not to place them too early or you'll spawn Devashta before you're ready. While you can't buy workers you can buy buffs for them. I like to buy just the permanent speed boost.

Since this is a fixed 10:00 run I generally buy a single healing torch and place it in the center by the foreman, to act as an anchor for the line.

VIDEO: Labor Shortage



Dragon's Hoarde

This is a fixed 20:00 run with no special features. To that end I buy all five workers, all ten barrels, both teleporters, and a single healing torch for the center to anchor the line. I do a clockwise rotation aronnd the map: east, southeast, southwest, west, then north if time permits.

Your workers will clear areas fast, so buy the full ten torches (though you can start with five) to allow starting to place the next line in the rotation as soon as you lay the last one. When laying "future" lines, skip the first torch to avoid connecting it until you're ready.

VIDEO: Dragon's Hoarde (playlist)

[EllisDee37]

These are torch line challenges. If you have never run a torch line before, go into Circles of Power once to practice the spacing. Without doing anything, the kobolds will bring back enough crystals to buy 10 incense torches after around 10 seconds. Buy them, then spend the next 10 minutes or so practicing your placement and spacing. I use a mental 4-count to measure the distance between torches on a monk or hasted wizard, a 5-count on regular-speed characters.

In all lava cave challenges there are yellow circles of power semi-randomly located around the map. If you place a teleporter in a circle, both you and the kobolds can teleport to and from that teleporter. For you to use them, click on the teleporter in the circle, or click on the little rock pile at the start to go back out to it.

The map is confusing due to there being 3 different overlapping levels. I've added my amateurish dotted lines to try and clarify the different levels, but the only way to really understand how it's laid out is to either run around in there or watch the videos.



I start all lava caves essentially the same way:

• Buff up, turn around and grab the two free torches from the entrance
• Buy 5 workers and 10 barrels and place all 10 barrels
• Buy 2 teleporters and 2 healing torches
• Pick up all the torches, replacing the 2 "main" ones with healing torches

Lava Caves isn't my strong suit; it's the map I know the least well of all challenges. Generally speaking I avoid lava caves where possible.



Time Is Money

After the standard start as detailed above you'll have 2-3 minutes left on the initial 5:00. If I saw purples to the east when picking up the torches I head east. If not, I run north to the bridge and look for purples on the western bridge as well as the platform to the east.

If I still don't see any purples, I start to get frustrated. Choices are then to jump down to the western bridge anyway and hope for purples in the turn, jump all the way down and hope for purples in the octopus cave, or head north and fight through an army of scorpions.

Usually I try for 5:00 runs to maximize my parts per minute.

VIDEO: Time Is Money



Colossal Crystal

I always farm the progenitor crystal from the octopus cave, which is straight north jumping all the way off the bridge. There are two possible circles of power down there, both of which work well. If there is no circle I recall and reset to try again. Because of that, I interrupt the initial start listed above to go scout and clear the octopus cave before laying barrels.

There are three main places I search for octopus crests. First (and preferred) is on the western bridge. On the north end of that bridge there's a pile of rocks, which often have an octopus crest. If it's not there, another spawn place right near there is further north, take the first left, and then about halfway down that cave on the right. The third place I look is east of the starting area.

For security crests, the preferred one is on the north side of the main bridge. If you find it there, wait and kill the two scorpions that will aggro on you. If you ignore them they'll head in to the kobolds and start killing them. The second location I typically go for is straight ahead from there, wrapping around and taking the first left. Head straight to the dropoff; a security crest spawns in that pile of crystals. Whether it's there or not, just jump off the cliff to get away from the horde of angry scorps and live with the moderate dungeon alert.

VIDEO: Colossal Crystal (playlist)



Circles of Power

There's no particular plan for Circles of Power. It's very long, and all you need to do is farm purples. So after the start listed above, run around and look for purples to farm.

VIDEO: Circles of Power (playlist)

[brian14]

Colossal Crystal

I always farm the progenitor crystal from the octopus cave, which is straight north jumping all the way off the bridge. There are two possible circles of power down there, both of which work well. If there is no circle I recall and reset to try again. Because of that, I interrupt the initial start listed above to go scout and clear the octopus cave before laying barrels.

VIDEO: Colossal Crystal (playlist)

There is always an octopus crest either on the bridge, or across the chasm to the east of it. If you have Abundant Step you can always get that crest, whichever side it happens to be on. If not, you may have to run down eastward passage and waste time fighting a bunch of drow.

[Stoner81]

For the kobold island ones I have started killing the kobolds then using the totem that way I get more parts and saves me running round all the totems.

Stoner81.