Did with three characters, SK, Monk and Shaman, averaging about 1 hour and 45 minutes per run after the first try.
This is definitely a mission where ‘haste makes waste’:
- Mobs can aggro through walls – to include the patrols outside the wall aggroing on you when you pull a mob inside that runs along the wall. If you aren’t sure you haven’t aggroed extras, let the main tank tag the mob from the monk then have the monk sit away from the group for half a minute so you can flop if someone extra comes up and starts pounding you. Better than risking a wipe.
- Mobs can remember your monk a long way off – there have been a few times where the monk stood up, and 10 minutes later a mob (or train of mobs) came charging out of nowhere to pound him and the party. It’s worth waiting a minute extra on the ground for the ‘your enemies have forgotten you’ message if you have aggroed a batch.
- You can run out through one of the zone-outs here, and it will transport you back to the start point. Doing that will NOT result in losing aggro, however. (see above)
- The fights here are pretty easy. One healer can keep up - even against an unslowed red mob, there is more of a risk of running out of mana rather than not being able to heal fast enough. That being said, try to be at least half mana before engaging a yellow and 3/4 when engaging a red mob, just in case.
- DPS – don’t discount the shaman DPS. It’s not much, but the ‘claw’ dot is free, and the extra damage the shaman can do with is spear is almost as good as his dot. It will make a noticable difference in how long the fights last.
- Mobs will respawn after an hour – so if you don’t move quickly enough, you’ll end up fighting the same mob twice.
There are three series of fights here: The Emissary, inside the fort proper (three target mobs), and the tunnel underneath.in the fort (two target mobs).:
1) The Emissary starts inside the fort. When you ‘locate the fortress,’ he starts moving towards the OOT zone with his two bodyguards – not before. He moves slowly, so you want to get him soon after he leaves the fort unless you feel like waiting twenty minutes at the OOT zone-out while he takes his sweet time getting there. Finding the fortress consists of getting close to it. I recommend having everyone set up where you plan to kill him, staying well clear of the fort, and then having someone approach the fort to trigger the emissary’s journey. There is a yellow text emote when he starts to move.
I set up my ambush on the green hill just north of the fort entrance. The Shaman can set up there right at the top – an easily recognized landmark. The SK who will attack the emissary goes halfway down the hillside to the west, and can climb up one of the rock fingers there to look around. The emissary will pass on the valley floor just to the west. When the emissary is well away from the wall (and any patrols), the monk runs down between the two bodyguards to get aggro, hamstrings the frog, then runs off towards OOT. The bodyguards will quickly outpace the froggy chasing the monk.
When the bodyguards are safely away, the SK can come down the hill, pull the, and run back up the hill towards the shaman. I’ll stop halfway back to cast some DD spells while I pause to make sure froggy doesn’t lose interest. As he gets closer, I’ll back the SK up to where the shaman is for heals, DoTs, etc.
After froggy is well away from where he was aggroed, the monk can flop and wait. The bodyguards will go back to where they were first aggroed, ignorant of the frog being bashed nearby. The SK and shaman on the frog is an easy fight. Froggy will slow, dot and root. Shaman can cure the dots easily enough. Only problem is if the SK is rooted when froggy runs (as he will run towards the spot the bodyguards return to). Just have the SK save mana for two DD blasts when he runs, and hamstring the emissary at 22% or so to slow him. That, and the shaman chasing should be enough to finish him off before he reaches the bodyguards if they have returned.
Once the Emissary is killed, set up camp in front of the entrance to the fort. You want to be far back so when the monk pulls someone out of the fort, the SK is able to ensure that no one else is coming before tagging it. Several patrols of giants will hug the walls as well – another reason to stay a ways back.
2) Inside the fort one of the froglok targets will always be in the hut in the SW corner of the fort, opposite the entrance. The other two frogloks will be located randomly inside huts in the fort. Note that they can be in any of the huts, to include the SW hut (forcing you to break two named). You can’t get two named anywhere but the SW hut, though.
The emissary will respawn an hour after he is killed in front of the north-eastern most hut; his bodyguards at that point will either head back to him (if you trained them off), or respawn (if you killed them). The emissary will NOT restart his journey to OOT, however, when he respawns. So you don’t need to worry about killing the Emissary again. If you haven’t cleared all targets on the northern side of the fort by the time he respawns, however. you will probably have to waste time killing him a second time. So you want to clear the north first.
What three characters, after killing the emissary:
- kill the two mobs at the entrance, one at a time.
- pull the wanderers that pass by the entrance one (there seem to be three)
- when there is a gap in the wanderers, the monk heads in to verify location of any target mobs in the huts on the north side. You can run down the grassy strip between the ‘runway’ in the middle of the fort and the huts, and look in the huts at various angles to see who is there. If it looks like the hut is empty, you can head up to the entrance of the hut to look in and confirm - you won’t aggro a mob outside the back of the hut in by doing this.
If there are named in the huts on the northern side, clear as required and pull those named first, fighting them outside the fort. With three mobs, you won’t have the DPS to clear the whole fort before you get repops, and you want to clear any targets you need to kill in the north before the emissary repops.
After you eliminate any targets on the north, clear around the fireplace. (Two or three mobs wander by there) When that is clear, move camp inside the fort to just west of the fireplace. Once there, start pulling the guards (usually three wandering froggies) along the south and then the named. Have the monk pull them first to the open area in front of the huts – to make sure that you have only one mob – before bringing it back to the fireplace. If a character dies here, you may have to clear the entrance to let them back in due to repops, so you want to be carefult.
Runners can be a challenge here – when a frog hits 20% he’ll start heading north, threatening to agro the Emissary and his guards who have probably repopped by now. Make sure that your SK and monk are ready to hamstring them as soon as they start to run, and blast with the SK DD spell. Once they are below 10% they will stop moving, letting you finish them off.
3) Clearing the tunnel with the giant commander and general is pretty easy compared to clearing the three frogs inside the fort. The commander and general you have to kill are always at the end of the tunnel. Two giants wander through the tunnel, going the length from where the generals are to the tunnel entrance. When you are done with target mobs on the southern side of the fortress, pull the first giant you see walking up to the tunnel mouth to the camp by the fireplace to kill him there. (You wouldn’t want a second giant walking up on you fighting in the tunnel.) After pulling him, the group can move into the tunnel to kill the second wanderer wherever you meet him.
All that’s left is to split the two giants at the end of the tunnel and kill them one at a time. It’s impossible to agro one without the other. It may take a few tries for the monk to split them, but it should be possible for the SK to tag one of them and let the monk flop so the other walks back to his hole - just remember to have the monk stay on the ground until he is forgotten. Since the monk is on the ground for a lot of this fight, usually I try to have the SK tag the yellow-con mob. Then after that fight is done, the SK can pull the final mob with slow.
Once you are done, head back to the entrance to hail the NPC there and claim your reward. Or, if you haven’t suffered too many deaths, just have everyone suicide on mobs in the fortress – you’ll end up repopping at the zone-in faster than you can run it.
Zopharr
Quellious