Reaver's Fate walkthrough

[Gimpster]

Spoiler alert, everyone. Before reading these directions, you may wish to try the quest on your own (it is not that hard). If you need a little help, you can check the hint thread before coming for the answer.

Compressed version of how to win
1. Go inside Reaver's Fate
2. Aggro the big giant.
3. Wait maybe 10 minutes, or however long it takes for all 9 ceiling orbs to start spinning.
4. When someone starts flying, send him up through the hole in the middle ceiling and down the tunnel to the west to pull a lever.
5. Kill the giant.
6. Run to the puzzle room to the west, and solve the puzzle to open the four-color combination.
7. Run to the middle of the big room and open your chests.

Those instructions, however, ignore the various threats that will try to kill you during the mission. The following instructions go into more detail on how to survive.

1. Play the MasterMind game at http://www.irt.org/games/js/mind/. Set it to 6 balls in play, code length 4, allow same color yes, and 12 attempts. Play it until you can reliably do it every time; 12 attempts is much more than really needed, and allows a lot of room to recover from stupid mistakes.

2. Prepare the following spells in tavern:
Tumble, Resist Energy, Protection From Energy, Displacement, Sphere of Dancing, Finger of Death, Destruction, Bestow Curse, Banishment, Enervation, Haste, Heal, False Life, Greater Heroism. Clerics might prepare Symbol of Fear, but arcanes should stick with Sphere of Dancing.

3. Go into the quest, and buff everyone with all 5 energy resists, Tumble, and Greater Heroism. Consider wearing +10 Tumble or Balance items if you have space.

4. Advance into the big room, and stand somewhere around one of the corners, so you are not directly under an orb, and also not under any grooves, holes, or visible spikes. Don't bunch up too close to each other.

5. Aggro the giant. Fighters should try to hold aggro and stand him in one place, while whittling down his health. Buff them with Displacement and Haste, but don't really bother with stoneskin. Stormreaver does up to 43 points on a swing, and double on crits, so fortification is obligatory. He also has Cleave, so his swings hit an AOE in front of him. Fighters should be ready to shield-block a whole lot, because you are not in a hurry to get his health down.

5a. Once Stormreaver is aggroed, the timer on the wall starts counting down. You have around 20 minutes before the building explodes and your mission fails. Speed of progression is based on what random actions Stormreaver takes, and not on anything you do; your only goal is to survive until he does his job (while also bringing down his hp so you can easily kill him later)

6. Casters decide if they want to be charged or not. Being charged lets you cast many more spells without drinking mana potions, but it's a little risky. Your call.
6a. To get charged, cast Protection From Electricity and Displacement, then equip a shield and block next to a fighter. (For faster results, ask the fighters without aggro to back away while you do this). Each time Stormreaver hits you with chain lightning, your charge status increases by 1. At step 3 you will notice your max hitpoints increase by +50, which is the sign you are charged and should back away. For the next 2:30 you will have infinite mana, reduced falling damage, and be immune to air-elemental knockdown.

7. Stormreaver occasionally throws a slow-moving lightning ball out of his head that flies up to one of the 9 orbs in the ceiling of the room. On impact, the orb turns on and starts spinning, and it blasts the ground beneith it with a damaging electrical burst (so don't be standing there). And of course, it summons 5 air elementals beneath it.

8. Air elementals can be almost immune to melee, and if they plow into the group they can knock everyone over and prevent spellcasting or movement, so you need to deal with the threat. A Sphere of Dancing (cast ahead of time) will catch them, and then they can be killed with one-shot magic like Finger of Death, Destruction, and Banishment (a spell you probably don't use very much). (Mix in Bestow Curse or Enervate if necessary). If you can't cast Sphere of Dancing, Symbol of Fear might work, although then they could be a little hard to catch. For best result, your spellcasters are charged with unlimited mana, so they can easily nuke all the elementals. Also, remember that anyone charged is immune to knockdown, so he could step away from the group and hold elemental aggro someplace it won't be a problem.

9. From time to time (starting after the 4th orb is lit), Stormreaver will cast his Reverse Gravity spell, which not only crashes everyone into the ceiling, but also suppresses Feather Fall effects. An improved Tumble skill (with spells or items) can help you survive the damage, as can high hitpoints. When you're on the ceiling, you have a few seconds to heal up for the fall back down. Of course, you might die immediately if you hit any of the ceiling spikes, which is why you shouldn't stand under them. While on the ceiling you can push towards the outer edges of the room, which is a little safer and could reduce the secondary falling damage by riding down a pillar.

10. Once all 9 of the ceiling orbs are activated and spinning, Stormreaver will start giving a Fly buff to a nearby player when he casts a spell. For 2:30 you'll be able to move through the air. The fly buff is crucial to complete the quest, which is why you couldn't kill Stormreaver until now. The first thing to do when you start flying is to head straight up to get out of reach of melee attacks. Then you can decide if someone needs to fly to either the east or west levers. The west lever is to open the puzzle to win the quest, and the east lever is to raise anyone who might have died so far (or might die later).
Either way, you start by flying up the hole in the center of the ceiling, then follow a tunnel west or east.
The tunnels are lined with spike traps which allow no saving throw, and which cause damage even if you hit them very slowly. Although it's possible to get through without touching any spikes, be sure to be at full health before going down the tunnels. That includes possibly switching to a Greater False Life item, and casting spells like False Life, Aid, and Greater Heroism. Stoneskin can help too. If you get damaged, stop in place and heal up before moving forward at all.

10a. At the west lever you'll want to pull it immediately and then fly back out if you have enough time left. If you don't, you can either sit there stuck, or die and be rezzed if anyone is at the rez lever (east).

10b. At the east lever, you will find all the soulstones and ghosts of any player who died in the quest. Pulling the lever will rez them all in the middle of the large room (which might be too dangerous if there happens to be air elementals waiting there, or if Reverse Gravity is in effect).

11. Once the west lever above the puzzle room is pulled, you're clear to kill the Stormreaver. He can't attack someone flying at head level, so that may give you an easy way to fight him. Mages should try a Maximized Empowered Wall of Fire.

12. With Stormreaver dead, the puzzle room opens, so you can all relocate in there. From this point the timer resets to about 3-4 minutes before explosion, regardless of where it had been.

13. One or two players solve the mastermind puzzle, while the others defend them from the elementals that will spawn each time you make an incorrect guess. Repeatedly click the row of skulls to change the colors, then pull the lever to the side to input your guess. If you did well on the javascript game, this should be no trouble (so far as elementals don't hurt you). Use the same techniques to battle elementals, prioritizing air as the most dangerous and fire as the least.

14. Once the puzzle is solved, an announcement of your victory goes out server-wide, and 4 chests appear in the central room. Also, the barrier to the little room above the puzzle opens, and anyone who's dead is brought back to life in the center. Pulling the puzzle lever additional times can rez them again, in case they die again somehow.

15. Congrats, you beat the Reaver's Fate. Next time, try to solo it.


Other topics

Tumble buff- If you do not have a wizard or ranger who can cast the Tumble spell to reduce your falling damage, buy it from Finglar d'Phiarlan before you go in. (This option gives only Tumble +20 instead of +30, but still helps). Removing heavy armor and shields (especially tower shields) will also increase your Tumble skill, although you must weigh the threat of melee damage from Stormreaver as well.

Charming- One might think that using Charm, Suggestion, or Symbol of Persuasion on the Air Elementals would keep them fighting each other and out of your hair. However, the quest apparently has a trigger to spam Dispel Magic on charmed elementals at a high rate.

Abjuration items- Some weapons/jewelry drops with Spell Focus Abjuration. Few players hold onto these, but they'll give a +1 DC to your Banishment and Dismissal spells.

Casting against elementals- When a group of 5 elementals spawn, a wizard can respond with a chain of Finger of Death, Banishment, and Phantasmal Killer to defeat them all in short order.

Ring of the Djinni- this named item drops in the Lammania chamber in Prison of the Planes, and gives you an extra 33% reduction to lightning damage. It could help low-hitpoint characters survive the various electric bursts- the difference between 100 and 66 damage could be life or death.

Balance skill- helps you stand back up when an elemental has knocked you down. Although with proper execution you can avoid ever being overrun by an elemental, sometimes it happens. To recover faster, consider wearing a balance skill item, and especially look at removing Tower Shields, which have a huge armor skill penalty.

Debuffing weapons- some characters can help fight the elementals by debuffing them so they fail more saving throws. A ranged weapon with Cursespewing will give them -4 on saves, although it will take several hits before they fail the save against curse. The Giant's Roar named bow from Stormcleave applies a -2 penalty, but has harder saves and will stick after fewer hits.

Banishing weapons- If you can get them, they can help beat elementals. A ranger with a banishing crossbow can defeat many elementals himself (crossbows are better than longbows, despite the slower firing, because they crit twice as often). Also, a banishing melee weapon can work well if the wielder first gets a Charged buff so he can attack without fear of knockdown.

Elite mode- on elite, all the threats do more damage and the monsters are tougher. The most important difference is that Air Elementals will have a moderate chance to pass their saving throws against enchantment and death spells. The most reliable way to ensure they fail saves is to use the Enervation spell: there is no save against Enerervate, and each hit applies a stackable save penalty of average -4 per shot. Even if you can't cast Enervate, it works equally well from scrolls. A bard or rogue (who might have no other way to contribute) can cast a stack of Enervate scrolls to drain the saves from the elementals. (On elite, the elementals' HD increases so Banishing weapons no longer work)