Velious Solo/Duo Challenge Official Thread (and Trio/Group)

[DeathsSilkyMist]

4+ West Waste Dragons (like Hechaeva) and 6+ West Waste Dragons (like Ionat) are pullable without lull, FD, etc. It just takes watching for pathers and dodging them. For Ionat you do need Sont to be killed or moved away from the entrance for a lull-less pull.

https://youtu.be/igpbLuNe0ls?feature=shared - Bravatar solo pull and kill on a Shaman, self buff only.

https://youtu.be/oPxeOVuX0G8?feature=shared - Ionat solo pull and kill on a shaman, self buff only.

I am not 100% sure if Ice Burrower is a worthy target. They do not summon, and their AoE is a proc triggered in combat, so they won't randomly dispel you like a 4+ Dragon unless you are in range to get attacked. They don't have extra HP regen either. As fas as I know any class with a ranged attack can eventually kite them to death. In the video below I show how you can just run back and forth along the shore to avoid adds.

https://youtu.be/5fsvt1xfuqY?feature=shared - Ice burrower solo kill Shaman, self buff only.

Now that mobs can no longer be interrupted via push, I do not think it is actually possible to solo/duo a 6+ Dragon that can CH. You will need to fight them on their spawn point to avoid gate, and they will CH multiple times. The long kill time though multiple CH's and the high probability of adds is a tall order. Not sure if a solo enchanter or a duoing enchanter would be able to sieve it well enough by themselves while doing their other duties. I have tried to do the 6+ CH dragons both solo and duo a few times. It didn't work well either on the spawn point or pulled to the shore.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have tried to do the 6+ CH dragons both solo and duo a few times. It didn't work well either on the spawn point or pulled to the shore.

They seem to have an elevated mana regen rate compared to default mobs. The wife and I were able to duo numerous 55+ CH'ers and gaters using mana drain (mortificator staff on her shamana), but not the CH'ing WW dragons. We've seen them CH 7+ times so alternately their mana pool might just be that huge. Maybe both. Our effort was a complete standoff where we eventually got bored and camped/cleared aggro. Disclaimer is it's been some years since we tried them so stuff might've been changed in the meantime.

Coming from a shadowknight perspective I'll attest to the usefulness of snare-feign splitting in some areas.

Gregendek Icepaw is too easy for that tier and is at least a full tier easier than Khelkor. Both the mob itself is much easier and the room/split is also dramatically less risky. Difference in damage is double 240's more or less, compared to quad 290's.

Plane of Growth is troublesome due to Protectors. Many 'solo' challenges in there would involve somebody else keeping those occupied.

The other castle named in velk is Kerdelb, basically identical to Bledrek other than drops. These guys hit for 400+ with fairly high MR but can be camped in a pretty controlled manner.

Faction plays a huge role in Velious, far moreso than was the case during Kunark. Doing stuff in Velketor, Kael, Skyshrine, Growth, Siren's, etc is much, much easier for players who are non-KOS. A Velious challenge should account for this because it modifies the difficulty so greatly, much moreso than outside buffs do.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They seem to have an elevated mana regen rate compared to default mobs. The wife and I were able to duo numerous 55+ CH'ers and gaters using mana drain (mortificator staff on her shamana), but not the CH'ing WW dragons. We've seen them CH 7+ times so alternately their mana pool might just be that huge. Maybe both. Our effort was a complete standoff where we eventually got bored and camped/cleared aggro. Disclaimer is it's been some years since we tried them so stuff might've been changed in the meantime.

This was my experience as well. Maybe a Shaman/Enchanter duo could do it if the Shaman soloed the dragon completely, and the Enchanter only did lulls/CC on adds and sieves on the dragon. Have the Shaman use a Mort Staff, have the summoned enchanter pet with mort staff, and the Shaman can use https://wiki.project1999.com/Red_Dragon_Tooth to summon a pet that can hold a weapon (doggo cannot) and put a third mort staff on that. The AoEs would probably kill the pets though. The Shaman would need to keep them Torped up.

If both the Enchanter and Shaman have a bio orb they may be able to blind kite it once it gets low enough. They will be able to malo + tash it for the best chance at landing blinds. You would need decent luck, as you could get a string of resists during a CH/Gate cast while blind is off.

Originally Posted by Zuranthium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Solo Grandmaster/Duo Master:
* level 56-58 Western Wastes Dragons that don't C-heal or Chaos Breath, plus Bufa/Nintal/Espora/Gangel/Quoza, plus Stronghorn / Tantor / Breezeboot
* Laoch Yailin / Laoch Jaklor / Quadrix Velic / Supreme Laochsmith Psorin / Eldriaks Fe`Dhar / Ralgyn

Back to OP's list, I don't think Tantor or Stronghorn should be on the list for the same reason as Ice Burrowers. They do not summon, so you can kite them Indefinitely on any class with a ranged attack, or just keep agro on yourself while you have a pet beat it to death. Any class can use bio orb + https://wiki.project1999.com/Red_Dragon_Tooth .

You can chug SoW pots to counter Stronghorn's SoW speed if you don't have SoW as a spell.

[Goregasmic]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

.
Faction plays a huge role in Velious, far moreso than was the case during Kunark. Doing stuff in Velketor, Kael, Skyshrine, Growth, Siren's, etc is much, much easier for players who are non-KOS. A Velious challenge should account for this because it modifies the difficulty so greatly, much moreso than outside buffs do.

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Back to OP's list, I don't think Tantor or Stronghorn should be on the list for the same reason as Ice Burrowers. They do not summon, so you can kite them Indefinitely on any class with a ranged attack, or just keep agro on yourself while you have a pet beat it to death. Any class can use bio orb + https://wiki.project1999.com/Red_Dragon_Tooth .

You can chug SoW pots to counter Stronghorn's SoW speed if you don't have SoW as a spell.

I agree about the faction point but at the same time if you're only using zones with no faction you'd basically cordon off a big part of velious. Best way to deal with this would be allowing a completion kill number below the threshold of requiring to be factionned. But factioned zones like chardok were most likely left off the first challenge because they're trivial for factionned people and mostly impossible for KOS. Like, a chanter could try velks golems but no shaman is getting there on their own for 1 attempt and making the crawl was part of the rules of the first challenge.

Another point would be if you need bio orb to make a pull, that's a 150k item. You'll be able to count on your fingers the number of people who will be willing to park that much money for a solo artist challenge. Kinda like how the first one basically required non-chanters to get puppet strings to compete. Nobody is farming red dragon teeth either.

Problem with loraen's list IMHO is it was basically a chanter challenge and the biggest factor for success on most kills was charm not breaking. More accessible kills would be fun and stuff like tantor/ice worms opens it up a little. Could be in the disciple rank though.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Goregasmic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Another point would be if you need bio orb to make a pull, that's a 150k item. You'll be able to count on your fingers the number of people who will be willing to park that much money for a solo artist challenge. Kinda like how the first one basically required non-chanters to get puppet strings to compete. Nobody is farming red dragon teeth either.

Oh that wasn't the point I was making. Bio orb in that scenario is just used to maintain agro while the summomed pet from the tooth beats the mob to death. It wasn't for pulling. It was a bit of an extreme example, but it shows how any class can kite non summoning mobs. Tantor / Stronghorn / Ice Burrowers are above level 60, so blind won't land most of the time, it's just for agro.

If you need an easier example for Tantor / Stronghorn / Ice Burrowers, a Ranger can simply bow kite them forever with Tolan's Bracer to summon arrows. Warriors/Rogues/SKs/Paladins can corpse arrows to do the same thing and/or fletch in the field. Every class with a pet can do the trick I described with bio orb and tooth, etc.

There's at least one way for every class to kite Tantor / Stronghorn / Ice Burrowers to death, it may just take a long time. That's why I think they are a bit too easy. Maybe they could be in a lower tier OP hasn't made yet, like disciple or warmup.

[Samoht]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

https://youtu.be/igpbLuNe0ls?feature=shared - Bravatar solo pull and kill on a Shaman, self buff only.

https://youtu.be/oPxeOVuX0G8?feature=shared - Ionat solo pull and kill on a shaman, self buff only.

You used a known exploit to kill the dragons in both of these videos. Please stop posting them as any sort of evidence other than you being completely disingenuous in any discussion on these forums.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Samoht [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You used a known exploit to kill the dragons in both of these videos. Please stop posting them as any sort of evidence other than you being completely disingenuous in any discussion on these forums.

People need to not be posting in this thread if they aren't going to be contributing relevant information and opinions on difficulty levels. Maybe I should start a discord channel instead, so DSM can't ruin the discussion as usual. I would prefer to use the forum though, so everyone can see and contribute.

What you bring up about the water trick to avoid AoE's is a worthwhile discussion. It's not something that is ever going to get changed, so I don't feel strongly about trying to disallow it. The current tiers for the western wastes dragons reflects using the water trick. If enough people do feel strongly about wanting to disallow it, then most of those dragons will need to be bumped up to a higher tier.

I'm also still waiting for feedback about these Plane of Mischief MOBs - https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...0&postcount=61 - and all of the MOBs in Kael that I posted about a couple pages ago. After these three topics are addressed we can move on to discussing other zones.