Solteris Event #3: Stalwart Defenders  

Quest Started By:Description:
Where:
Rating:
*****
Information:
Level:75
Maximum Level:125
Monster Mission:No
Repeatable:Yes
Can Be Shrouded?:No
Quest Type:Event
Quest Goal:
  • Loot
Success Lockout Timer: 108:00:00
Related Creatures:
Related Quests:
Era:The Buried Sea
Recommended:
Group Size:Raid
Min. # of Players:18
Max. # of Players:54
Appropriate Classes:
  • All
Appropriate Races:
  • All
Entered: Wed Jun 6 16:17:31 2007
Modified: Tue Dec 5 05:21:04 2023
This is the third event in the Solteris, the Throne of Ro raid expedition.

The golem Rear Guard Captain Balreth must be killed:

Rear Guard Captain Balreth says 'All who set foot in this realm without our leave should learn from your fate.'

Rear Guard Captain Balreth says 'All invaders must die by fire!'

Take Rear Guard Captain Balreth's health down to 20%, at which point he splits in two:

Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!

These two golems must be balanced within about 5% of one another. Take them down to 20% at which point each of them splits in two:

Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!

These four golems must be balanced within about 5% of one another. Take them down to 20% at which point each of them splits in two:

Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!

These eight golems must be balanced within about 5% of one another. Take them down to 20% at which point each of them splits in two:

Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!
Rear Guard Captain Balreth shakes violently. His face is splitting in two!

Fortunately they no longer have to be balanced at this point. Killing the 16 Balreths wins the event.

Additionally, Convergences of Ash and Flame spawn throughout the event and have to be killed. Also: Every 1:40 (one minute, 40 seconds), a DD and knockback spell is cast on everyone in the room:

Guard Captain's Strike (-520 Fire)
1: Decrease Hitpoints by 6000

If at any time the golems fall out of balance, you will lose the event in a big way:

Rear Guard Captain Balreth begins to tremble uncontrollably. You begin to see many faces emerge.

At this time, 20-25 Uncontrollable Golems spawn (max hit ~6,500) and slaughter your raid. Note: You cannot brute-force this event. It's possible to kill all of these adds, but doing so does not win the event (and it isn't known if it will even respawn without getting a new instance). The balance mechanisms MUST be adhered to in order to win it.

In the event of failure, Balreth resets after several minutes of being without aggro (note that any "Convergence of _____" adds do NOT despawn upon a reset):

Solteris shakes and trembles as the Rear Guard Captain has reemerged.



A chest spawns after successful completion. Loot includes 2 Small Phosphene Clusters (200 phosphenes each) + 2 items from this list + 0-1 Faceted Sunshard (does not always drop):

Band of Endless Fire
Blessing of Shifting Smoke
Enchanted Faceplate of Smoke
Fiery Dirk of Sacrifice
Firekissed Hoop of the Titan
Great Axe of Twin Flames
Pulsating Beacon of Fire
Shoulderpads of the Firewalker
Smoldering Faceguard of the Fallen
Smoldering Jagged Longsword
Submitted by: (Additional info submitted by Saraban)
Rewards:
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Newest version of Balreth at 110
# Dec 11 2023 at 6:25 AM Rating: Decent
6 posts
So I am bored and messing with trying uber gear a persona with level 75 BIS stuff to grind tradeskill aas for no real reason other then I don't actually care to play optimally... regardless I just did the event and can report that so long as you maintain some semblence of balance, you can get through the event just fine even if you spawn uncontrollable golems. I had 10 up total throughout the fight and it seemed mostly stable. The weird bug with the island chain respawning seems to still be a thing as I had constant adds bombarding themselves into me.

I was using a bard with wurmslayer and a shaman that honestly was doing hardly anything. Wurmslayer makes it so that you basically don't take damage. I was trying to traditional DS tank it... but ended up piecing them down slowly with offhand only rogue damage.
Massive Bugs
# May 01 2023 at 8:37 PM Rating: Good
Scholar
*
59 posts
This fight currently has a very strong chance to bug out and be unwinnable.
Event mechanics changed
# Apr 03 2022 at 4:47 AM Rating: Decent
**
263 posts
As of the March 18th, 2022 patch notes:

*** Quests & Events ***

- Now all four missions in Terror of Luclin will have 6-hour replay timers. We previously changed 3 of them and neglected to message that change.
- Aten Ha Ra (ToL Mission/Raid) - Improved the combat pathing for NPCs in Aten Ha Ra's room.
- Aten Ha Ra (ToL Mission/Raid) - Added a speculative fix for the possibility that adds can spawn after the event is won.
- Shei Vinitras (ToL Mission) - The mission chest should no longer spawn until you have credit for killing Shei Vinitras.
- Shei Vinitras (ToL Mission) - Shei Vinitras should now leave a corpse.
- Stalwart Defenders (Solteris) - Unbalancing Balreth will no longer cause the event to fail. Instead, the uncontrollable golems will spawn once for each set of Rear Guard golems if they are unbalanced. The uncontrollable golems will need to be defeated to win the event.
- March 16th marks EverQuest's 23rd anniversary! The Mechanical Fortune Teller in the Plane of Knowledge has information about new quests, a new mission, and a new raid.
High Level Method
# Sep 14 2021 at 12:32 PM Rating: Excellent
15 posts
Due to how this event works mechanically, using high level characters can make this event extremely time consuming, and really easy to fail. This is how I farm this event.

I just want to preface that the pet method below presented by Jester84 below absolutely 100% works, verified by myself. The only issue is it takes a really long, long, long time due to using lower level pets as to not go out of balance. Not to mention it’s stressful due to the time investment and making a single mistake sets you back to start.

However, the definitive -- best method is to use a Necromancer. This will take the fight from well over an hour in length to about 10 minutes. You can do this solo, or with other toons. If you choose to solo this method just chain cast your self rune to prevent any serious damage. Or having a tank using a Honed Wurmslayer with their back to the mobs as to not riposte is actually the best method though. You/they will not take much, if any damage using this weapon.

The Process
Basically just burn down the first Golem until he splits. Make sure to not use a melee class post 25%HP to prevent Finishing Blow from proccing and bricking the event. Then, you, or your tank needs to grab the splits and get them as close to each other as possible. Use something that won’t allow riposte /bash riposte as Jester84 suggested below. There are loads of items you can use to accomplish this.

Then use the Necro’s Scent of Thule AA to debuff the mobs disease resist. Then drop the “Remote Sphere” line of spells. AKA Death Aura. The damage was recently nerfed on these but the level 109 one does roughly 47k per tick. To get through the double version it takes about 3.5 auras.

Be sure to manually turn the aura off via the aura window when the mobs split again. They will always split at 24% or lower. If you leave it up, and you hit mobs that are not debuffed with Scent of Thule they will resist it periodically and you will absolutely insta-fail the event.

Once they split have the tank, if you’re using one, reestablish agro and re-scent the four mobs, and repeat the process. And once again with the eight mob split. The final 16 can be killed however you want as you don’t need to balance them.

That's really all there is to it. Takes roughly 10 minutes from start to finish.

Extra Info
1 - I’m not 100% sure on this but the original mobs HP is the same for each round. It simply divides its self each time. So let’s say the main boss had 100,000 HP to start, (random numbers here btw). The first split would divide that total between two mobs therefore they would have 50,000 HP each. Then the four split each would have 25,000 HP and so on. I feel that’s how it works, but again, not 100% though. Regardless each split you need less auras as each individual mob has less total HP, which is why the pet method gets pretty tedious, especially on the eight-split version.

2 -Lower level Necros have the “Sphere Line” which is the same as Remote Sphere, where the damage emanates from the Necro, not a totem you place. They also do much less damage. This would still work if you have a lower level crew, it would just take longer.

3 - It's important to note that Remote Sphere lines is unable to crit which is why this is even possible.

4 -Shamans’ Fetid Decay spell line will not stack with the Scent of Thule AA, or Scent of Terris spell line. That being said, I’ve never had a resist when the Scent of Thule AA was applied.

5- The adds that spawn will generally die when they get near the Aura. If they don’t, simply ignore them, as they don’t really do much.

6 - Finishing Blow will brick not just the event, but the instance as a whole. In order to spawn the next island you need to kill the Stalwart Guardian and get the loot chest. If this happens, he will not re-spawn, or at least he didn’t for us when we went to the final event of Island #2, and finished it and came then back, and then afk’ed a bit. To fix this, simply drop the DZ and get a new one, this will fix the problem.

7 - If you fail, and then kill the Uncontrollable Golems, this also hard bricks the instance. Repeat the process from #5.

8 - If you fail the event for whatever reason by going out balance and spawning the Uncontrollable Golems, you can Feign Death with the Necro to clear agro. Your tank will drop the DZ and eventually will be kicked from the instance. From here you wait for the Stalwart Guardian to re-set. This takes less than five minutes.

9 – In order to unlock all the armor/spell vendors in Katta you need to be present for every kill. Being in the task and logged out will not work. For this event on the round of 16 you can leave one golem up and log your lowbies in. You will need to keep the final golem agro’ed somehow though.

10- Finally, here is a video HERE that shows Doctor Nachoz using this method earlier this year. I really should have googled this before dropping so many hours trying to figure it out... Good on him for making a video though.

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone wanting to clear this really cool zone, or farm for gear for your lowbies. This method turns one of the worst raid events I’ve seen into a trivial encounter that you can farm very easily.



Edited, Sep 14th 2021 5:56pm by TirpitzLuminare
High Level Method
# May 14 2022 at 10:18 PM Rating: Decent
7 posts
1. This is the better of the two strats for sure.
2. Thanks for the shout-out homie.
3. Nice to see they finally fixed the event.
4. RIP our pro strats :(
Strats that work
# Jul 07 2021 at 3:14 PM Rating: Good
7 posts
Preparation

Group Comp:

110 Shadowknight – required for this strategy, does all the boss DPS, responsible for balancing

106 Rogue – interchangeable with any high level dps, responsible for adds

98 Shaman – interchangeable with any healer class, responsible for keeping rest of group (and pet) alive.

Spells/Hotkeys/Gear

Shadowknight

AE Taunt (jolt spell line) - NOTE: Make sure your taunt spell DOES NOT deal damage. We tried this strategy using Revulsion Rk. II (SHD/109) only to find out that it dealt damage at the same time. Once Balreth split into 8, the spell lucky crit for 55k on one and had one resist. That led to an instant fail.

Skeleton Pet – Our successful attempt was performed with the most current pet I had (Minion of T’Vem Rk. II, SHD/108.) I’d recommend using a lower level pet that doesn’t deal as much damage. It will make the event longer, but it is easier to control his damage, and thus will make the aggravating balance mechanic more manageable.

Pet Haste – This one is optional, but we used it in our attempt. We DID NOT use the highest level haste available, nor did we use Shaman haste. The goal with your pet is to take every Balreth clone down by 1% ONLY at a time. If your pet is too strong, hits too fast, or has a lucky round of combat, he can cause you to fail the event.

Hotkeys: Pet Attack, Pet Back, Pet Hold-ON, and all the NON-DAMAGING AE taunts you can put on your hotbars. Also have your Feign Death skill on your hotbar.

Gear: Current gear is fine and all the AC you can get. You will be tanking all the Balreth clones. You will also need a NON-RIPOSTING weapon set on your bandolier. I’d recommend not using a shield as I was getting the occasional riposte as a bash. Again, all it takes is one “unlucky” lucky crit and you’ll fail the event. I ended up using one of the artisan trophies in each hand. They’re easily acquired, and can be dual wielded, even by an SK.

BE SURE TO REMOVE ALL DAMAGE SHIELDS AND GEAR THAT WOULD GIVE YOU DS!!!



Rogue

All you really need is to take care of the adds as they spawn. It’s a good idea to have the escape macro set up or the stealthy getaway in case of event failure. Monk is a good choice as well since they can FD on event failure should that happen. Same with Necro as they can FD as well as life flow to assist a little bit with healing the SK and they have plenty of DPS to clean up adds.



Shaman

Current gear, a HoT spell, and a general heal is all you need for this event. Just be mindful of your positioning as Balreth and his clones do ramp. You’ll need to patch heal yourself or stay out of ramp range. Have your AA gate as well as your gate spell readied up. If you fail the event, you'll need to get outta there and run back on reset.



OK, the strats:

Rogue hangs back, well out of range. They only engage adds when they spawn. Rogue does NOTHING ELSE until the final phase. Do not engage Balreth or his clones until 16 of them are up at once. Good job rogue. Sorry this event is boring for you.

Shaman positions right around the crest of the final bridge before Balreth’s spawn location. You may have to move around if Balreth moves forward to engage the SK. Your main objectives are to keep the SK and his pet alive. HoTs are preferable as they don’t generate the aggro that full heals do, but if it comes to that or a dead SK, heal your little shaman butt off. You may have to patch heal the SK pet and Rogue as well. If you happen to take aggro, turn your back and wait for the SK to grab aggro back from you. Don't flip out and go running off. Just be a good healer. Nuff said.

Shadowknight: You are the star of the show bud, so strap in.

Phase 1, 1 Balreth: Nothing too special here. Grab your whoopin stick and melee the first form down to 20%. Avoid DoTs. Just melee, send the pet in, use your spears, etc. At 20%, Balreth splits into 2 clones and you have a few seconds before they aggro you. Use this time to call your pet off, switch to your NON-RIPOSTING set, and prepare to fire off your AE taunt.

Phase 2-4, 2, 4, and 8 Balreths: Here’s where it gets tricky. As it says in the event guide, these guys have to be balanced down within 5% of each other, and there’s no real room for error. YOUR PET WILL DO ALL THE DAMAGE. Start off with an AE taunt and ensure you have aggro on all the Balreth clones. Target the Balreth with the most HP and send the pet in. I spammed the pet attack button until the Balreth I was targeting moved down by 1% HP, then I spammed the pet back button. Target the Balreth with the highest HP, spam pet attack, moves a percent, spam pet back. Rinse and repeat. These phases are going to be monotonous and mind-numbing. SECRET OF THE PROS: treat the pet back hotkey like a pause button for the event. Call the pet back, fire off an AE taunt, and give your eyes and brain a little breather. This will give your healer a chance to top everyone’s health bar off, give the rogue a chance to clean up the trash adds, and give you a chance to regain your focus. Slow and steady, 1% by 1%. It’s the only way. The transitions between each phase are just the same. Call the pet off, AE taunt when they aggro, then chip away at them with the pet.

Phase 5, 16 Balreths: You guys did it. Congratulations! The Balreth clones no longer need to be balanced down. They just need to be dead. SK switch back to your best 2 hander, AE taunt, Rogue engage everything (yes, even the Balreths at this point,) Shaman heals with reckless abandon, and go loot that chest.

If you’re still reading, best of luck to you and I hope this guide helped!

Edited, Jul 7th 2021 8:49pm by Jester84
bleh
# Jul 11 2020 at 12:39 PM Rating: Decent
Scholar
**
340 posts
115 bard. Tried H2H, tried DS only, tried steel dagger (3 dmg) in OH. Always unbalanced. Only thing that didnt unbalance was bard AOE dots but after 15 min one was still at 100% and the other at 99%. Closest I came was with the steel dagger in OH, but when it got to 4 they unbalanced pretty quick. Want that cancel magic clickie for my monk.
bleh
# Nov 02 2020 at 3:21 AM Rating: Decent
*
50 posts
I took my box crew of ten level 102-109 plus my 115 cleric. I tried every melee class barehanded and couldn't get past the 4. I finally got the 8 phsse down to 55% with just my cleric meleeing only the entire time. I got tired after an hour and a half and slipped up made my monk attack the wrong mob(he was only killing adds then FD). I was so pissed that I quit for the night. I may or may not try again in the next few days. This event just isn't worth it, but I'll probably try once more at least. It was only my 4th attempt so it'll probably be a lot easier when I'm more awake. One thing about this, you better be up for a long, long fight if you plan on attempting it at 100+ solo/box.
At 105
# Apr 15 2015 at 3:05 PM Rating: Decent
Scholar
17 posts
After dozens of attempts at this event with a box group of 100-105's in full raid gear I learned a few things.

-There is no way to cheese this event by burning it down, I managed to kill him before he split the first time with SK/Wiz burning him down but it bugged the event and he would not respawn, had to ditch the raid and re-request

-Phase 2, the first time he splits, is very strict with the 5% rule, however phase 3 with the 4 splits is much more relaxed, I could get 5-10% difference and it would not reset, but in Phase 3 it went straight back to being as strict as Phase 1 was. This caused me a ton of problems.

-Using current or near current raid gear makes this ridiculously easy to fail, a few lucky ripostes or procs ruin it. I changed to using an ALEX in main hand (aged left eye of xygoz) to stop riposting while using another character to do the damage, a mage's pet. The problem with that was my tank was an SK and he could not keep himself up with not attacking, being able to life leech or using taps, so I had to box a healer as well. The problem with that ended up being the adds which became a problem due to having to focus so attentively with the health balancing, the healing, the making sure SK did not get mobs behind him, etc.

-In the end the only reason I could do this was because his splits have no health regen to them, or at least none that I could see in the dozens of attempts. You will win this event by attrition, don't go into it thinking it will be quick or you will just annoy yourself to no end at the failures.

Edited, Apr 15th 2015 7:39pm by SirGoonie
At 105
# Aug 06 2017 at 2:25 PM Rating: Decent
**
331 posts
Just tried this event with a 105 Berserker with a TBM raid weapon, TBM raid cleave, and T1 EoK gear everywhere else. DPSing Balreth (single) down to 20% was very quick. I balanced the pair of Balreths using empty hands. I had a boxed 102 shaman and the pet was sufficient to keep the adds down.

Unfortunately, when Balreth split into 4, balancing got very difficult. Eventually 2 uncontrolled golems spawned (not 20-25). I thought "what the hell" and balanced them down just in case. Nothing happened. As you said, if those spawn, then the event is failed.
raid tactic
# Oct 25 2012 at 10:33 PM Rating: Decent
15 posts
Use two tanks with shining rampart. Update shining rampart before it wears off throughout the event. Most of raid will just handle adds. Use pethold command on all pets.

When the first golem splits the tanks each drag one to opposite sides of the dome where the round circle is on the walls (to the left and right of the entrance). The raid does NOT attack the mobs. When the mobs split, NO ONE ATTACKS.

No damage shields please. Tanks don't attack unless told to, they just taunt.

One person, the raid leader, calls out to the raiders to bring the mobs down by 5%. Preferably you only have one or two people do the damage. When these split at 20% there will be 4 mobs.

Same 2 Tanks AE taunt. Should be two camps with 2 mobs each. Same as before, no one does damage until raid leader calls it. Bring it down 5% at a time. Preferably one or two pet classes do the damage....go slow. When these split, tanks AE taunt so they each have 4 mobs each. (two tanks A and B---tank A has 4 mobs and tank B has 4 mobs = 8 mobs total). Bring them down to 20% same as above.

When these 8 split, it becomes a free for all. No more balancing, just kill the remaining mobs in the room for the win.



Sucks!
# Jul 10 2009 at 1:40 AM Rating: Decent
19 posts
This event sucks so bad it made me go blind in my left eye.
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