R.O.G.U.E Part Quatre: Call for Stealthy Players!

[Saekee]

This contest is officially closed to new contestants. All those who have profiles already started can finish on their own time!

Congratulations to those few who have achieved the difficult challenges here! Long live ROGUE!

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

Level 2: Faux Frozen Fish Sticks of Mystery: Stopping the Sahuagin, 2 kills (Kamimitsu challenge: 0 kills)

I just rolled a 'default path' throwaway Rogue because I level-up so slow... I decided to "deal" with all those '6 monsters' using the Poison trap, rather than the ice and sonic traps because after all Rogues Assassins are renown at dealing with poisons and using such efficient and painless methods. I was surprised how on Elite some of the Sahuagin; just past the 'warning bell' area, 'white eyes' locked onto me and wouldn't shake - of course they couldn't locate me - but really they shouldn't be able to see through walls.

I used the Pacifist Conduct; never at any stage did I swing my weapons, I let the fools kill themselves via their own stupidity, but took pity on the Spider: Kraak.

[Saekee]

nice! I finally updated the OP with the stragglers who posted before the close of entries! Good luck!

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

Level 4: The Saint: Stealthy Repossession, all prophets alive, 25 kills

This time; I used the Lamannia server, so I could 'Unlock Elite' but other than that it's the exact same default build, etc. I've never actually bothered to fulfil "Kill Fewer than 6 Prophets until the gem is stolen" prior to today, and also stealth to the end within one single run. Typically, I'll remove one or two of the early Prophets and ignore killing most mobs and Sneak past in most places.

I made good use of skulduggery; since my stealth skills weren't as fluid as they should have been. I wasn't on my normal Assassins so lacked any useful gear... I'll give you a hint of what I did when things went "a little ill" with the Prophets tracking me, near the start.

"A blind Kobold Prophet will not thank you for a looking-glass." >;-)

OK, that was a rather 'underhand way' of dealing with one or two prophets. The other Prophets I had less issues with them detecting me. But my Assassin is true to the trade, and UMD even at Level 4 is a useful skill.

My Assassin was mostly using a Great Crossbow to despatch the generic Kobolds - if they grouped - so I didn't accidentally damage the wrong Kobold (they tend to look similar if in mobs). The reason it took me so long was; I ran out of crossbow bolts and had to restock via the Lamannia store LOL. (Plus my UMD Success rate was low).

The 'Misadventure' was Witch Doctor Neecha, I let him perish in his own Fire Trap that he placed upon his Treasure chest. It serves him right for his jumping backwards; the kiss from my silent blades would have been much more merciful. ;-)

[Saekee]

good work!

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

Level 18: Best Intender: Good Intentions, reach end fight with no kills.

Again, I used the Lamannia server, so I could 'Unlock Elite' but other than that it's the exact same default first life build, etc. I'm not that familiar with the layout of the map for the quest: Good Intentions.

At the start some of the 'Animated Crates' got a little excited while I was trying to open the Shop door. Maybe if I was on my main Assassins that part would have gone smoother. I'm sure the shop had "Closed for Inventory" faintly written in dust on the floor by the door's step, or the door itself was extremely rusty and seized.

You probably can faintly see the Animatic activated for the final 'boss fight' roaming around (behind he 'Experience report').

I made the "Crates" throw themselves into the canal; they disappeared when sinking to the bottom... reappearing at their initial starting places by the very first NPC dialogue area. ;-)

I thought I'd do one of the quests near the higher end of the list, rather than doing them all in strict [1-14] order, etc.

I left "Animatic" wandering around rather than actually smiting it; Orben, created the automaton, carelessly he also had me dealing with a ruthless Kobold obsessed with Prayer beads. Plus "Durk the Deranged", wanted back his pesky Squirrel into the deal. Furthermore to make matters worse; Orben had me collecting contraband 'Pixie Dust' amongst other dubious things. That's just a recipe for disaster; his own robot set to eliminate him, was him "getting his just deserts" for his incompetence and drug peddling.

Orben is a ne'er-do-well, for certain, and the Animatic looked so "happy and blissful" after it had, its new gazebo to play around in, would have been a shame to spoil its fun. ;-)

[Saekee]

nice work!

[Arkantios]

This contest is officially closed to new contestants. All those who have profiles already started can finish on their own time!

Congratulations to those few who have achieved the difficult challenges here! Long live ROGUE!

Kinda sad that this is closed. I've played an Assassin main for years and years and always said that I'd do this R.O.G.U.E stuff but I never got to it. Bummer, would have liked that Shen's robe.

[Saekee]

Kinda sad that this is closed. I've played an Assassin main for years and years and always said that I'd do this R.O.G.U.E stuff but I never got to it. Bummer, would have liked that Shen's robe.

well, it was open for a year!

Why not start a new series of challenges? Many are waiting to see if reaper settings get adjusted so that stealthing is not autodetected. Then we can create some insane ones.

[Arkantios]

well, it was open for a year!

Why not start a new series of challenges? Many are waiting to see if reaper settings get adjusted so that stealthing is not autodetected. Then we can create some insane ones.

Yeah, definitely my fault on not getting on it lol. And could definitely do that, though I'm not sure I have the time with school and work. Waiting to see how stealth pans out in reaper will be interesting.

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

Level 19: The Peacebreaker: Schemes of the Enemy, 25 misadventure kills, no actual kills, no completion necessary.

Again, I used the Lamannia server, so I could 'Unlock Elite' and level the Character swiftly - other than that it's the exact same default first life build, etc.

I didn't have enough alluring skills or requirements to pacify either the Cannith Guard <Lieutenant> or Bladesworn <Lieutenant>. If it had been one of my main Assassins, I undoubtedly could have sweet talked the Cannith contingent into helping me. I certainly didn't have a required Bluff DC: 74, for the Bladesworn Paladin either.

The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself within this quest; I let both parties engage in combat and fight-it-out... I decided to see which side seemed to have the stronger force and it was certainly the Bladesworn group. After the required "25 Kills", I let them dismantle all the local Cannith Watcher drones and hence: 34 Kills by Misadventure.

I noticed the Bladesworn had a fairly long leash; I convinced them to track me to the Iron Juggernauts, guarding the Power Relays. They also made light work of smashing those Juggernauts and Cannith Warhounds. I didn't bother recording the "Misadventure Kills" for those additional 'Power Relay' automatons.

Overall I would say out of the few "R.O.G.U.E Part Quatre" challenges I've completed so far... This was probably the easiest to complete.

For whatever reason none of those mobs encountered seemed to malfunction or chain reaction aggravate like they typically do in most quests. The Artificers quickly went stationary or passive, so they are likely programmed quite differently regarding aggravation targets.

[Saekee]

nice! Glad to see you still plugging away!

Yes, this and some others are easy. But I figured folks would be pretty cooked by the time they got to it & I couldn't find any others at that level. I was unable to stealth Sins of Attrition significantly, for example

[xjac]

Gwylan's Stand (video)

[Saekee]

Gwylan's Stand

Whoa nice to see you plugging away still! I watched a little of the video, gave me a fond recollection of this challenge too. All good!

[xjac]

Hahaha, finally.
Claw of Vulkoor video

I didn't want to use staff (doesn't fit my character's theme) so I decided to go with a shruiken. Took a lot of trials and error to find this optiomal way of avoiding getting seen (I did messed up before the final.chamber, but was able to shake off aggro).
Going pure melee without stealth attack is possible but would require a lot more patience and attempts, as you need to lure all scorpions out of sound range before you can break it.
You can rest twice in this quest to refresh clickies (three if you count the shrine in mirror chamber at the beginning), the giant room one is also a nice distraction (the scorpions win every time).
I am very bad with flaming sphere, I always mess up when casting it so I didn't bother after the first few attempts.
It seems like the spot bonus of the scorpions doesn't reset even if you break line of sight (or maybe all of them don't reset, it is just scorpions get the bonus faster and make it more obvious), as I often get spotted if I spent too much time in the same area (once I know exactly what to do and go through the area fast enought I don't get spotted while in stealth); not sure if moving far away would help or not.
The roaming scorpion before sixth guardian has a large hitbox, and will disable any noisemaker you put on the bridge. Luckily it has two alternating route and one of which it spends time getting stuck in the middle, allowing your noisemaker to take effect.
The last guardian is actually extremely easy for me, I think stealthing before moving and attacking in the tomb chamber helped. All I need to do is lure it away from the octate using a long chain of noisemaker (I lured it to the tomb chamber so I don't have to risk being detected in the narrow hallway).
Got all 50 breakables.

[Saekee]

Hahaha, finally.

Whoot nice work! Congratz. This was a tough one. I was in there on a poorly geared epic toon in reaper and it was rough too. That quest has so much longevity.

Devs take note.

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

Level 17: The Wiles Master: The Mask of Deception, 60 misadventure kills. No completion necessary. (the 'fun' break.)

Again, I used the Lamannia server, so I could 'Unlock Elite' and level the Character swiftly - other than that it's the exact same default first life build, etc.

The first upper screenshot is when I attained slightly over the required: 60 Misadventure kills. The reason there were 7 actual Kills by that stage, was down to how I had to play the quest (major lag issues) and a few accidental kills.

Breakdown: two of the kills were purposeful Assassinate strikes one on the 'Arms Master' as he was a 'Champion' and I wasn't in the mood to deal with him via 'misadventure means' (even though it would be simple) and the other Assassinate was the 'Bartender' - I just felt like killing him. Two other kills, was when I got completely "stuck" between the outhouses and the only way I could move was to slay the mobs obstructing.

The other three remaining kills strangely registered as; Shyntrae killing the "mobs" even though Shyntrae actually didn't. Those other three that were wrongly attributed to me, were actually still under a "Bluff" or "Assassin's Trick" effect when I had a scroll; Summoned Monster kill them.

I have a slow internet connection and quite often get lag, so I wasn't able to use the Traps to kill any of the mobs whatsoever!

Note: When the Traps were "active" in a prior "test run" they were causing me up to [17% data Loss]. You cannot play DDO that effectively when you get high 'latency' and 'data loss' into the double figures. I'm not sure why the Traps were causing massive Lag Spikes, maybe it was because of the frequency of animation of each individual blade and sound effects, etc.

Therefore instead of an easy twenty minute quest to obtain "60 Misadventure" it was a gruelling: three hour, thirty minute crawl... LOL

I could have talked to the Arms Master and got the 'Disrupt the supplies' optional room to open, but I had to get my Misadventure quota without being able to use the simple option of luring the mobs into the traps. Therefore I wasn't in the mood to spend further time getting the "Runner" to open that room.

Other than that (Optional: Disrupt the supplies) by the last Screenshot I had eliminated every mob present before taking the Mask itself. I'd become a little worn out (after the 62 Misadventure kills) and over three hours, so opted to Assassinate any remaining Champions or Casters I came across on the lower floors...

Therefore we can conclude there were: 87 Monsters (not including the Supply room) present in the quest instance on Elite prior to taking the: White Dragon Mask.

It would have been so much easier; if I weren't plagued by lag, and had the luxury of using the Traps against the mobs. Until the Traps triggered I had no lag, and it couldn't have been the mob density effecting things as the only ones living were the ones spawned by the Boss appearing outside.

So basically I had to use a very convoluted method of softening-up the mobs, without killing them and keeping using Summon Monster scrolls, etc.

Actually most of the Mobs don't climb or jump that often; so the small lampposts in the courtyard that are maybe 6-foot high, with lanterns attached can be used as safe (from melee) perches.

[Saekee]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

Level 17: The Wiles Master: The Mask of Deception, 60 misadventure kills. No completion necessary. (the 'fun' break.)

Again, I used the Lamannia server, so I could 'Unlock Elite' and level the Character swiftly - other than that it's the exact same default first life build, etc.

[To be Continued...] I'll add the comments later on. :-)

nice! Great to be reminded of this old effort of mine!

edit: read full report—ouch! But props to your persistance

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

It's still the exact same Rogue Assassin because I level-up so slow...

Level 6: The Insurrectionist: Irestone Inlet, kill only the officers and free the prisoners (3-6 kills depending on optional spawns, 3 misadventures)

Actually on my first run I completed the quest within an hour albeit there was a bug with the Scorecard. The results erroneously displayed and attributed a 'Misadventure kill' due to "Yaaryar's schooner" exploding and destroying an already wounded Hobgoblin as an actual Kill.

So the second attempt; I made sure that bug couldn't reoccur and took it much slower and had several long 10 minute breaks, etc. The only real threat to "failing" would be; if any Hobgoblin Cleric successfully cast: Hold Person, and immobilised me. More than likely, I spent well over an hour of resting though its far better than risking failing the: Hostage rescue mission.

With not being that familiar with chaining "Noisemaker Traps" I had varying success pulling an entire group away from the hostages. Typically they'd "pull" most of the group away but they'd be a lone strangler not effected, etc. Also sometimes I didn't seem to place them close enough to the mobs - when 'triggered' they weren't always alerting the mobs. Also the Noisemakers seem to have quite a long delay until they actually 'activate' after being primed, which can be a little confusing (wrongly leading you to think they've not been positioned correctly).

Of course I made use of Bluff to separate the Officers so I could perform the "Mandatory" mission kills without risk of interference. Yaaryar is mostly in stealth and tends to surround himself with bodyguards so you have to be very selective about separating him from his henchmen (you don't want to kill them by accident).

About the only issue I had was clicking through the Hostage dialogues; sometimes the text was slow to change; it didn't register my clicks, causing a camp to get aggravated during that time delay... So I had to flee, and retry one or two hostage rescue dialogues. I did that just to be sure the Hobgoblin Clerics didn't have enough opportunity to slow me, and to prevent the melee blocking my escape routes. If any 'Green Dungeon Alert' occurred, and the Champion mix was unfavourable it took a long while before the roaming mobs went back to fully passive state.

So basically I was learning how to use Noisemakers on moderate sized mobs during the quest duration... As typically I use other Rogue techniques to control small mob movement or separate individuals.

[DYWYPI]

Shyntrae, the Invisible Seeker...

It's still the exact same Rogue Assassin because I level-up slower than a sloth...

Level 8: The Assassination of Rowan Watzun from Shadow_Jumper (Hsoftl), 10 kills max, no traps, no prisoners freed. Update 1: kill only from Spellburst. Update 2: no kills from Saekee.

I completed the Spies in the House within 30 minutes so it was rather speedy for me as I'm not at all familiar with the quest's 'advancement' mechanics past the first area, and I don't enjoy being flung around by air jets - so it's a quest I've only run a handful of times before at Epic and never on Heroic.

I wanted to try and see if I could avoid any actual kills; on my first "test run" I failed by being fried, on the electric floor with the Air Elemental. I failed by a split-second to get back onto one of the crates. With the second attempt of the quest I was successful. :-)

The second time I ran the quest; it was fresh in my mind what happens on the Fire Elemental area. It was very tempting to just kill the Elementals. I also realised where the locked Lever was, which people had mentioned so that helped. Presumably the lever usually opens after you kill mobs - like I said I'm not familiar with the quest.

Regarding: the first area where you enter after the swim was rather easy so long as you keep your jump skills high enough. I knew that from past experimentation.

With me not having my usual Rogue gear I couldn't easily see the Mephits in the tunnel with running water (after that area).

For the area with the ladder (after the first large area tunnel) a single Noisemaker in the water was enough to pull the Arcane skeletons. I possibly could have just run past them as they didn't seem to be that alert.

The first electric Floor (before Rowan Watzun) was slightly bizarre as the Archers on the walls that likely cannot detect you somehow managed to be alerted. I think some "animated armours" also broke out from the ground. I could hear noises, but I was on a lower level, so they shouldn't have activated.

There's likely some broken chain-reaction monster aggravation (or misbehaviour) going on in that area... The Arcane by Rowan Watzun, wasn't even agitated when I stood next to it - I got stuck by the rocks it was standing by.

The archers as usual have arrows that are heat seeking, auto tracking, and can manage to hit you when really they shouldn't. With Rowan, I just "bluff pulled" him onto the Electric Floor. In fact most of the mobs in that area were consigned to the: Electric Toaster. It was just easier than waiting for Green Alert to clear after Rowan had been sizzled.

I was short of time so luring them to the floor was far easier hence the high Misadventure. On my first test run attempt I slew Rowan without alerting anything. So it would have been trifling just taking him out.

The Fire Elemental area was taxing! I really dislike traversing via air jets and the Air Elemental was being a pain again. Those Cold Traps hit like a truck if your cold resistance is weak and you being buffeted around. Again, it was very tempting to just slay them rather than fleetly dancing and dodging. Though once the nuisance of the Air Elemental had been removed from the equation; simply pull the Fire Elementals with Bluff into the Cold jets... and watch their fire get snubbed out.

The rest of the quest after that was just a simple stroll...

So basically it was the Air Elemental that was the hardest foe and could have easily led to numerous deaths, e.g. buffeting you onto the Electric floor, etc.

If I was going for zero kills; it would have been fairly easy to just kill Rowan and the Elementals, having a much lower and cleaner Misadventure count. Albeit my Rogue was enjoying "toasting" those hapless fools on the Electric Floor far too much (she was giving them a taste of their own medicine). ;-)