To Curse the Sky, one kill: A Video Guide

[Qezuzu]

Someone asked me how one does this quest, or really any quest, with minimum kills.

It's 20% knowing the mechanics (sources of noise, what does and does not break sneak, knowing of extremely exploitable abilities like Shadow Phase, etc.), 70% your own twitch skills, and just about 10% luck.

There's really no way someone can learn this stuff without a proper demonstration. You can't just go "hey this is a noisemaker, it's a thing in this game, okay now go do it."

Thus:



1:25 this crest is just barely out of reach unless you jump "onto" the crate, which gets you a few pixels closer

1:40 two things can happen here: Slaad are all on your left and you can go upstairs without issue, or they're all blocking the stairs in which case you can use a Noisemaker to move them away, or you can do what I did and forget which piece of geometry can be climbed on

2:16 this room is the first "hard" one. It's all RNG, just be patient and wait for an opening. If you get hit by an Orthon/Bearded, even if it's a dodge/miss/etc, they will aggro on you and not leave you alone; they'll teleport right on top of you, even if you're invised, sneaking with >200 scores and half a dungeon away. You might have to wait until the humans are all dead and then move the devils. Again, just be patient in this room.

3:15 Flaming Sphere is probably not best for this section. I am a fan of them, Saekee, but noisemakers are a lot more predictable. At any rate, to get past this room, and all subsequent rooms like this, the mobs need to be brought into the hallway and then they need to be brought into the next room. This requires two noisemakers, in my experience: the mobs could hear, say, the noisemaker I put down at 3:31, if they had not yet been moved by the Flaming Sphere, but a lot of the times if it's too far away and the mob has not been "intrigued" in any way, they will not move. At any rate, what I did in the video would have worked fine and not required a second noisemaker had I waited about fifteen seconds so that the noisemaker could be active when the sphere was not.

Basic rundown of Flaming Sphere vs. Noisemaker:

Sphere pros:
-very large aggro/investigate area. Mobs will come in from quite a distance, and mobs will come more reliably (with noisemaker, as noted before, sometimes they notice the noise but do not move to it).
-Lasts longer. Sometimes, when a mob has finished investigating a noise, it will move back to its original position. Flaming Sphere delays this.
-does not require Rogue levels

Sphere cons:
-you are kicked out of sneak mode and invis when you use it. You can use Shadow Phase and similar abilities to get around this, but it does mean there is no way to use it in front of See Invis mobs
-it travels towards mobs/moves around in general, meaning you can only predict where mobs will gather when they move to investigate it
-initiates a cooldown on Invis scrolls. I don't think the Broom from Night Revels does this, however.

4:39 I took a big risk here by not moving that Orthon into a better position, but it worked out. You can get closer to a mob than you think, but it's always a gamble. In the event you do get aggro on a teleporting mob, and you don't want to reset or kill the mob, you can get some distance, quit out of your game, log back in, and hopefully you'll be in a position where nothing is aggros on you. It's really cheap, is borderline cheating, but it saves time. Note when you do log back in, you will be invis but not sneaking, do take note of that. Also if you have long load times, the instance might reset before you get back in and you'll be at the quest entrance.

4:55 these devils will not move until you start walking down the hallway. However, if you move too far, the Deneith soldiers behind them will spawn in, and the devils will aggro on them. This will prevent you from moving the Abishai and the devils with one noisemaker, and it will also cause you to have to wait until there's a clear path through the resulting fight.

6:04 these two soldiers are going to get shredded in a few moments, which is a problem because it could move the devils into a bad position. You see how long and narrow this hallway is? If two devils end up in a position where they're blocking the way, you have to pull them a very large distance and it will take a lot of time. Thus, it's important to grab the crest quickly and avoid the fight that occurs at 6:36.

6:12 just a note: if you do not pull the lever in the beginning, this room is incredibly difficult, as it will have something like eight devils who you can't really pull anywhere.

6:50 the cats see invis, and often they get into that aforementioned state where they will notice a noisemaker but not move to it. They are also very slow. Just don't place your noisemakers too far away and don't be too quick/slow with them and you should be fine

8:15 I didn't have to use Shadow Phase here, but it's safer to use it whenever you pull a lever/open a door/etc. If you'll notice, I have five Thunder-forged robes. If you want to be sneaky a lot I recommend getting at least getting two of them. Remember to invis again when phased and do not move.

8:35 Slaads do not teleport and do not see invis so I just phase through them. Sometimes, tumbling through a mob will not aggro it but there isn't a consistent way to pull this off. Shadow Phase will allow you to walk through mobs if you don't have a tumble-through-mobs ability, though it can easily be twisted from Magister Tier 1. At 9:15, you can see that mobs without those special properties will lose interest quickly.

10:00 it is difficult to pull these mobs correctly. The devils will very quickly return to their original positions. The cats see invis, are much slower than the devils and will also return to their original positions. Unlike some mobs which may or may not return to their original position after finishing an investigation, these mobs consistently do it 100% of the time.

10:15 at this moment you can see me checking if I have an "eye". If the eye next to your character when sneaking is present, you are in a mob's cone of vision. Sometimes, their cone goes through geometry that it should not. Be aware of this eye.

11:34 you can see that these mobs start to return to their original position almost immediately after there is no noise to investigate

13:35 Malicia's cone of vision prevents me from checking whether or not the corner is safe (it usually is, but I like checking anyway). I just turn her around with a noisemaker. Unlike the trash, she does not return to her original position.

14:45 bluff doesn't work in EE, the DC's are too high. Assassin's Trick is like bluff but better in every way. Bosses without see-invis will need a few tricks in order for them to get into melee range.

15:48 enjoy fighting Malicia in first-person view while using Deception. She takes up most of your screen. Hopefully your parent/sibling/signifigant other/etc. will not walk in on you.

18:28 SO LONG NERDS

[Wanesa]

OT: 6-7 kXP can be collected repeatedly by running invis to the grotto it takes 1-2 minutes with recall

Gj anyway

[genneko]

what a stealth skill! well done!

[Holymunchkin]

+1

[Wizza]

+1 Very nice! The first-person view with Malicia was the icing on the cake

[Saekee]

Nice stuff, Quezuzu! Excellent analysis too.

I have not run the quest but plan do to do so soon enough. Once I do, I plan to watch your video more slowly to see if I can add anything. Looks like you really mastered this quest!

I am looking forward to seeing more stealth vids from you also. We can add this to the stealth guide soon.

[Qezuzu]

My new record is 13 min 38 sec. While I do have this quest down pretty well, a lot of the improvement was from a trick I discovered, one I probably should have realized awhile ago. So what's this one weird trick monsters don't want you to know?

Well, apparently blinded mobs do not have a zone of auto-detection i.e. if you're directly in front of them, they can't see you. Which makes sense, because they're blind. And by no auto-detection I do mean none whatsoever, you can be inside the mob, dancing, and they won't know you're there (so long as you're still sneaking; they can still listen).

And you know how Rogues have spell traps? Web is the one that gets all the attention due to being a persistent AoE effect that doesn't check spell resistance. Well there is one other persistent AoE effect that doesn't check spell resistance: Glitterdust. I've known of Glitterdust for awhile and I've used it in conjunction with Web for guaranteed Sneak attacks, but combined with the above mechanic, it's very useful for stealth. Actually it's not just very useful, it makes a complete joke out of it.

Step 0: get high Disable Device.

Step 1: place Glitterdust trap (fairly close to the group you're trying to blind, but it doesn't have to be super close.

Step 2: step back a few feet

Step 3: place Noisemaker

Step 4: when the mobs set off the Glitterdust trap and get blinded, tumble through them (obviously you will need some ability that allows you to do this, but that's available in Acrobat and Glitterdust traps are Rogue-only anyway). You have 42 seconds to do this (some may wander out of the cloud, in which case they will no longer be blinded).

Step 5: for every corridor/room/doorway/etc. where mobs are blocking your way, repeat this process.

It's fast, it's easy, it's consistent. It's much better than trying to move stuff to another room (and then have it move back when the noisemaker runs out, or just have them notice it but not move anyway because it's slightly too far away).

This can also be used as an alternative to Shadow Phase for levers, if you blind everything near the lever they obviously can't see you open it.

By the way, there is a chest available in the courtyard if you take a left at 2:55. It can be ransacked in about 20 minutes if you sneak to it. It is locked, however, so if you're not a Rogue it's a no-go (unless you're some sort of sneaky Artificer).

[Saekee]

My new record is 13 min 38 sec. While I do have this quest down pretty well, a lot of the improvement was from a trick I discovered, one I probably should have realized awhile ago. So what's this one weird trick monsters don't want you to know?

Well, apparently blinded mobs do not have a zone of auto-detection i.e. if you're directly in front of them, they can't see you. Which makes sense, because they're blind. And by no auto-detection I do mean none whatsoever, you can be inside the mob, dancing, and they won't know you're there (so long as you're still sneaking; they can still listen).

And you know how Rogues have spell traps? Web is the one that gets all the attention due to being a persistent AoE effect that doesn't check spell resistance. Well there is one other persistent AoE effect that doesn't check spell resistance: Glitterdust. I've known of Glitterdust for awhile and I've used it in conjunction with Web for guaranteed Sneak attacks, but combined with the above mechanic, it's very useful for stealth. Actually it's not just very useful, it makes a complete joke out of it.

Step 0: get high Disable Device.

Step 1: place Glitterdust trap (fairly close to the group you're trying to blind, but it doesn't have to be super close.

Step 2: step back a few feet

Step 3: place Noisemaker

Step 4: when the mobs set off the Glitterdust trap and get blinded, tumble through them (obviously you will need some ability that allows you to do this, but that's available in Acrobat and Glitterdust traps are Rogue-only anyway). You have 42 seconds to do this (some may wander out of the cloud, in which case they will no longer be blinded).

Step 5: for every corridor/room/doorway/etc. where mobs are blocking your way, repeat this process.

It's fast, it's easy, it's consistent. It's much better than trying to move stuff to another room (and then have it move back when the noisemaker runs out, or just have them notice it but not move anyway because it's slightly too far away).

This can also be used as an alternative to Shadow Phase for levers, if you blind everything near the lever they obviously can't see you open it.

By the way, there is a chest available in the courtyard if you take a left at 2:55. It can be ransacked in about 20 minutes if you sneak to it. It is locked, however, so if you're not a Rogue it's a no-go (unless you're some sort of sneaky Artificer).

Clever stuff! Will have to try this. An assassin can do assassinate with a blinding TF weapon on a single mob and, in the event of a fail, it is blinded. Not the same, but something. Ghoste would do this with his stealth mage--go behind mobs and cast blind.

[Rys]

Apparently someone thought that completions like this are way too cool so implemented kill to proceed mechanic in this quest. Can anyone point me to the release notes when this happened? I mean it's already silly reaper is gated by 'must kill 10 monsters' but even this? Let's not support various playstyles. Barbar all the way. /sigh

[Qezuzu]

Apparently someone thought that completions like this are way too cool so implemented kill to proceed mechanic in this quest. Can anyone point me to the release notes when this happened? I mean it's already silly reaper is gated by 'must kill 10 monsters' but even this? Let's not support various playstyles. Barbar all the way. /sigh

Don't know, I never ran it regularly but it must have been several months after I did this run.

New quests are full of kill-to-open levers, too. DDO is first and foremost a hack-n-slash MMO, not a DnD-based game.

At the very least, there's still a large number of quests that can be completed without killing 95% of what you're "supposed to." Even on Reaper, with the tremorsense reapers everywhere and the shared aggro mechanic, it can be done using a pretty cheesy loophole.