a manticore  

This is one tough cookie! Got my first and only kill of one of these last night. I think it was my 3rd attempt after running for my life on the first two. Was after the Mane and it dropped the Mane...yea! Needed this for my Prayer Shaw 6 quest, still on 4th but always looking for the items.

As a level 44 Ranger I found my arrows usless I suspect since they were not magic even though the bow was. Had to Snare, Stinging Swarm, Swarm of Pain, blast away with Burning Arrow and Flaming Arrow and repeat Stinging Swarm and Swarm of Pain once more to get this sucker down to about 50% before going head to head. He still had me down to about 25% when I killed him. Glad I got the Main so I don't have to worry about this guy anymore. Not worth if for the exp! :o These guys are Hard Core for there level and remind me of my first encounter with the Crag Spiders! Ouch! : (

Edited, Mon Feb 16 23:15:08 2004

These things scare the holy bejesus out of me. Looks like some perversion of a Plains of Karana Lion. Just that scorpion tail takes it way over the top. First time i saw one of these i nearly peed my pants. Thank Tunare I had wolf form on when it attacked. RUN DRUID RUN.

The manticore mane is used in one of the shawl quests. the quest might take awhile but the shawls get better with everyone... I think it is worth it..

Edited, Sun Mar 16 17:11:06 2003

Well this is a monster, so only really a bard or a enchanter can charm it. I have noticed if the beasty has ANY humanoid features at all, or is a monster of sorts... you can not charm it. I mean you would think a griffon is, but in every sense of the word a griffon is just an animal, just 2 animals combined.... This is basically a lion with a scorpion tail and the face of a man by mythology.... like I thought I could charm the badgers that walk in FM and I cant, you cant. They are humanoid... and wear armor and stuff... hense... a monster...I hope that makes sense. So you cant charm things with human like features, or that appear inteligent... in a sense.

For some REALLY weird reason I can not charm a Yeti (which I guess is also a monster) but I could nto charm a Towering brute monkey thing either. Ok, its a big freaking monkey... so what. I can charm a giant rino and a snake though.. Personally I think its weird I could only charm about 1 of 10 types of drake that I have come accross. The ones I can charm being the butherblock emrald drake, no others. And usually it helps to think MAMMAL when charming with a druid. but I CAN charm a crock and a snake. which are not much of a mammal type animal. Those are reptiles. I can also charm a Baslink which is actually one of my favorite pets by far, good damage

I personally would not fight this thing, If I had to, I would combine the root,dot,snare,snare AND pet. Or not root and do DD spells with a pet, so the mob chases me snared while my pet rips him up from behind, ALSO avoiding my pet being poisoned. So kite with a pet. or as I call it, reverse fear kiting.... where I run like a girl and my pet hits the mob.

perhapse a snow bunny, with feral spirit to make him mad powerful. And take out manticores left and right... right? maybe with thorns... and then hes the vorpal bunny from monty python quest for the holy grail.

The other thing people forget is that THESE mobs, a lot of them, were never really ment to be soloed. I mean I am sure they knew they would one day, but for the most part it was a new frontier and very dangerous without a group. I dont want to get flamed, I just mean originally.... they were supposed to be nasty.

Edited, Tue Jan 7 23:43:11 2003

44 Beastlord here.. I was soloing these things from 42 to 44 in EW and will continue to do it to I can't get anymore xp from them.. Alot of things in EW are pretty fairable to solo. STAY AWAY from RyGorr Fort.. hehe.. Those things are a huge under con if I have ever seen one. WOW... Great solo xp in this region from 42+ I am seeing. With the new mana/health reg'n spell.. Hardly any down time at all for us BL's. My 2cents!

Tygera Primalbane
44th Beastlord of Karana

For those of us charm crazy chanters and druids, these guys are the best pets in the zone. Quad for up to 113, lots of HP, kinda slow. Excellent pets, right up there with giants and griffons.

After charming and hasting these bad boys, you can tell since the landscape is soon literally piled up with carcasses

I was just in EW. Saw a blue one, and figured no prob being a 54 Mage. I buffed earth pet, and sat till full mana. Had C3 so it was not long. Pulled it using scars of sigil, it hit for 450. Sent pet in. I kept casting scars, and hit it 5 more times for 450 each. Pet must have been poisoned be cause he was down to 30 percent health by now. I cast char and that hit for 680, and manticore dropped shortly after that by pet. I was ok , just low mana. My pet was at 22 percent health after battle.. They must have a ton of hp. I nuked for a total of 3380 and pet was quading for around 56....

I won't attemp to solo another blue till i get my 55 spells..

I can quad them with 207 wis and C3 fairly easy.
Though they tend to break up at the end I just dot all of them with my ES vambraces and med.
Decent xp at level 51, where most stuff is light blue and green except manticores and a few rhinos, tundra mammoths, very few walrus' and the ulthorks are blue which helps the solo hunting druid on the move.

the most worthless mob in zone. Resists root a lot , has nasty poison, more hit points than a frost giant and has no worthwhile loot. Enough said

I'm a lvl 40 necro, these things have been easy to kill, just stick darkness then keep fear up and dot dot, redotting as necessary. Alot easier than snow griffins.

I'm a well equiped, lvl 46 Necro. and this is the nastiest thing I've fought in this zone yet. I made my highest lvl pet(multi hits for 47). He was hasted and had 2 velium weapons and barely lived with 3% life. 6 DOTs averaging 500hp each + 2 snares w/ 300hp each + a pet triple or quad hiting for 47hp = ? Pet also lifetaps and both his weapons seemed to be proc'ing velium shards. lol- totally not worth it.

I was heading to take out mammoths by the bridge and saw one of these fellows by the bridge. I had a water pet that was maxxing for 48 that I had buffed and filled up with ac (summoned plate, 2 daggers, defender on back, lev rings, coldstone) and fire shielded. I have 205 int and about +200 mana and dumped a whole mana bar on it.It killed the pet and turned just as the pet died, and I had to pull a druid stunt and dump down and med long enough to get a final burn off to kill it. It dropped a stinger and had very little experience. in my opinion these guys are about the next best thing to worthless to hunt for any reason except their quest items.

Nyanth, 46 Magician Quellious

I was doin a bit of charm kiting with my 40 bard today and made a pet of one of these bad boys. He killed 3 mammoths and a cougar before I finally had a mammoth kill him. Was an excellent pet.

Those guy are easy past 44 ..

At 49 you can start to quad them, but it's hard to get 4 of them.

They will break the gang aroun half a bub; and start running away; thta's boring to finish them.


With 187 wis + 60 mana i usually finish with
half a bub.


I quad kite in the GD zone corridor.
I never got more than 3.


Till 49 soloing them was cool xp.

nota : there is better places to quad.

I can't believe none of you guys ever got poisoned by these. Maybe they don't all have it, I don't know. But when my ranger was level 40, I teamed up with a 40 sk and we got jumped by one of these near the bridge in EW. I got the message that I resisted the poison, but the sk got poisoned and let me tell you his hps were dropping fast. I tried panic animal on it, but got the message that that spell is only for animals, so this thing doesn't qualify as animal. Anyways, we ended up zoning it and I dumped my mana trying to heal the sk. Barely saved his life. As I recall, it was a red con to us, and was hitting for just a bit over 100. Resisted a lot of spells too. Maybe it was just bad luck that we got the toughest manticore in the zone, hehe.

I killed a lot of these for XP in level 50, the ones that are blue to a 50th have around 3200 HP, I find that casting three unresisted Ice Comets will always kill it. They do not resist Bonds of Force much, and are not particularly cold-resistant. I have been hit and stung by them before, but in dozens of encounters have yet to see any kind of a proc or DoT from the stinger, even though the typical fantasy mythos says they have a nasty poison stinger.

I have no idea whether Verant tagged them as monsters or animals, but if Snow Griffins are animals, these should be by logical extension, since both creatures are chimeric admixtures of animals, the Griffin being Eagle and Lion, and the Manticore being Lion and Scorpion. Perhaps they are tagged as monsters though, because they do have humanoid faces.

They drop two items that I know of: The Manticore Mane, used in the EW "Blanket" Quest, and a manticore Tail, no known use as far as I can see.

Manticores move at the same speed as the Dire Wolves, and can be outrun using J-Boots. Multi-kiting is not recommended, because of the high hitpoints. As a 50th Wizard, my strategy was this:

Cast J-Boots (or drink SoW potion), and cast Steelskin. No other buffs are necessary. Move to within the range of Bonds of Force, and pull with that snare spell. Use the Staff of Temperate Flux (spam it baby) to determine when you have run out of casting range. When you get the "Out of Range" message, stop and make a slight turn to right or left (to prevent interruptions). Cast Ice Comet (this also works with Conflagration or Draught), and as soon as it hits, repeat the running and Staff-clicking and nuking until the Manticore dies. At level 50, I had 203 INT and about 100 mana in items, and killing a blue manticore took one BoF and three IC's, leaving me with around two bubbles of mana. If you then cast Harvest, and med for a minute or two tops, you have enough mana for another Manticore, barring excessively unlucky resists. If you get an add while kiting a Manticore, simply retarget to the add, cast Immobilize and then BoF on it, switch back, and continue kiting. Remember to zone after finishing the Manticore though.

Sorry if that sounded like a strategy guide, but I noticed tons of Druid, Shaman, and Enchanter Manticore-killing strategies, and thought the Wizzies might like a few hints. =)

Thats a really silly statement--stick to bb (thats blackburrow, genious) and camp the ledge for a little longer little guy.

just a little word of advice, don't bother using darkness of any kind against these guys. i don't know about a druid's snare, but it resisted my darkness 6 times in a row before i got it to stick only to realize that it runs slow anyways. i had to zone because i wasted so much mana trying to dark it, but you can outrun them without sow. if you have jboots or sow, they are no problem

from Allakhazam's:
"This is the sixth prayer shawl quest. You need to do the first 5
before this one.
You need 1 Woven Giants Beard, 2 Siren Hairs, 2 Manticore
Manes, and 2 Drakel Dire Wolf Whiskers."

Although it is listed for all classes and all races, the stats would suggest that it is an item
for wisdom- and intelligence-based casters. So far there are 7 levels to this quest, and it begins in Thurgadin with the Burlap Prayer Shawl.
Again, from Allakhazam's:

LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
AC: +6 Wis: +6 Int: +6 Cold Resist: +6
Weight: 2.0
Classes: All Classes
Races: All Races
Inventory Slot: Shoulder
Velious Required: Yes
Can be stored in Small and larger containers
Last updated: Wed Jun 6 11:47:40 2001

it hit me for 101... and proced obsidain shatter on me ouch.. it coned blue to me me 41

I'm a 51 Wizard, and was merely passing thru the area one day, not expecting to find anything here.
I happened on on of these things, and retaliated in turn. One Shackle, and 3 Ice Comets later, i noticed some actual movement on the blue of my exp bar. I must say this piqued my interest.
I normally don't solo, as i have no jboots, and always get in trouble, but these guys are easy.
HP is no more than 3300, as 3 ICs finished them. The only time it would take more, is for partial resists (I hit for 79 once, but another IC finished it).
The biggest problem here, is running into the damn wolves, and using too much mana trying to Shackle them, and loosing the kill. Since they don't seem to forget as in Kunark, you have no choice but to zone.
All in all, however.. it's a great solo spot for 51, when you're waiting for the LFG flag to go away.

SAme Kendis`Dai
51 Wizard
MMarr.

not shock of spikes, shock of swords :)

I killed one of these and got a Manticore Tail. Anyone know what its for?

fyi, i've been hunting near the sleeping dragon in the southern area, and at 42, some manticores are yellow. my 50 wizzy friend says they take 5 unresisted ice comets to kill, so they have 6k hp and go up to lvl 43 at least..