Ratraz in Neriak
 

Does anybody know if he gets assisted? I know on live he never did, but I'm wondering if I can get in there as an Iksar and kill him safely? Thanks.

Step into that bar, throw down, and fuck him up.

I wouldn't suggest this, currently. I tried to begin camping Ratraz today as a level 16 necro, and had to FD immediately due to a merchant (specifically Cecile K'Jartan) assisting him. This never was a thing on live back in original/kunark days, as I camped Ratraz back then for a few levels with no one helping Ratraz.

I see from other posts that the DreadguardInner no longer assists the DarkBargainers, but I'm not sure why merchants are assisting questkill NPCs...

yea truth, you should wait for him to path out because he has like 4 assists inside, i forgot about that cus I haven't killed him since 1999.

but I did wear Happy Love bracers for like a month back then cus of the name alone and everyone was like waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatarthooooose

He does pathout alone on p99 I have seen that.

I am pleased to say that he is very fair game after he paths up the stairs onto the railings. He stops up there for a time, and free of any outside assistance, he drops like a rock. So far, all is well!

I'm sure it's a technical issue because it looks like the devs know that he should not be assisted in any way, but in the meantime if anyone wishes to camp him (when I'm not around, hah!) the upper levels of neriakc are the way to go.

pretty sure the assist is 100% classic, I remember my first time doing the quest.. it was one of my first quests and i was like HOLY SHIT then I cried about how the devs were so cruel.

I have not attacked him on p99 so my memory of the whole bar jumping me can only come from the last time I played, 1999

I'm 100% sure the assist is not classic, I specifically remember (as do plenty of others on Allakhazam) killing him ~100 times or so inside the bar, directly near the dark elf rogue and the merchant inside The Maiden's Fancy, with no troubles from either, and the pathing outside was equally not dangerous (also according to multiple posts from Allakhazam.) I've also seen the devs here say (in other posts, specifically about Ratraz) that merchants shouldn't be assisting anyone, though some randomly do. In this case, i've only had merchants assist (due to wonky fears/pathing upstairs), however the guards simply sit in their lawn chairs eating popcorn, watching the fight.

On a side note, I firmly believe that the faction hits that Ratraz gives are off. On live, it is -50 for DarkBargainers and -5 for DreadguardInner & DreadguardOuter, which falls in line with those mentioned Allakhazam posts about how people were turning in ~5 or so red wines to fix the faction. On this, I could totally be wrong, as I'm unsure if changes were made at any point, and some of the posts there were dated circa 2002. I do know that on p99, his faction hits are -30 for both the guard factions, and iirc for DarkBargainers as well. (Red Wine turn-in is +1 per guard faction and +10 for DarkBargainers on live, and seems to be true on p99 as well, as I maxed my faction and one Ratraz kill takes 30 turn-ins to get back to max.) I don't know if there is sufficient evidence out there to confirm that changes are necessary, and it seems Ratraz isn't popular enough here to warrant the work, so I definitely won't sit around waiting for a fix or anything, if it's even broken.

But I figured I would point it out that it may not be exactly how it "should" be. If any devs (or other players for that matter) care to research, feel free.

Edit: I should add that my memories of camping this NPC come from before Kunark, so while the dates on some posts I mentioned (I should probably link those but I'm busy-ish atm) are 2002, Ratraz was definitely killed inside the bar, around merchants and guards and other NPCs all the time without any outside assistance. I'm kinda curious as to how you pulled the whole bar, really. Did you insult one of the dancers downstairs or something? lol

Go kill him on Live and note the faction hits, post em up here.

I did that, please re-read.

Edit: Quoted myself for ease of re-reading. :D

To objectify the situation, I found http://dragonsofmist.com/alla/npc.php?id=42002, an Alla clone for Dragons of Mist, a different "Classic Everquest" server, with Ratraz's detailed info. As it is not official information, I don't know how solid it is, but it does fall in line with p99's faction numbers for Ratraz of -30 across the board.

Just something to think about.