The Umbral Plains  

There was a time when this zone was an incredible way for lower end guilds to build up the overall quality of their gear with minimal risk and time spent raiding. I remember leading simple guild raids with Tawro and Radir as our main targets, and getting 4+ upgrade weapons a day from them for my small guild. At that time Luclin had just been added, and many of the mid/high end guilds on my server were still raiding the North Temple of Veeshan. What blew many of my friends from high-end guilds away was the quality of the weapons off Tawro and Radir versus the risk involved. Up until that point, it was the best solution for the smaller guilds. Unfortunately not many other guilds caught on.

Later, I went on to solo Tawro and his spirit quite often as a 65 Shaman in order to outfit newer members in my guild. I was not able to solo Radir because of the 1 static, and 1 wandering guards in his room. Also, the Netherbian Swarm Caller in the tunnels leading to Tawro had an extremely small aggro radius, and could be skipped by simply running by him at Spirit of Wolf speed to expedite the raid.

To sum it all up, if you are in a very small untwinked guild, and are capable of short organized raids, the weapons from Tawro and Radir might be the simple solution you are looking for. In a few days an entire guild can be outfitted with their weapons, and you can move onto bigger and better things.



Hope all of this helps.

Could someone tell me how you get to umbral Plains?

Could a Lvl 62 War and 60 Shammy get decent xp from UP. Im looking for a new place to 2 box cause im bored of PoI, if not any suggestions would be appreciated.

I've brought my guild here on raids 3 times now. All we do is park ourselves at the zone in and I pull everything to the zone. I know people say that you can do most of the zone with one group, but kills will be extremely slow and besides, people come here for the loot now the experience you'll get with one group.

So anyways, we're not a huge guild. We usually get 14 people max to show up between levels 52 - 61. I have a 56 Bard and I'm the puller and we usually have a 59 Pally as tank. Pulling is very easy in this zone. The mobs I usually look for are Gantru Moktors which are right near the zone and drop nice plate armor. There are also Gantru Shojens (shamans) that drop crappy SHM/CLR armor but are PHs for raldukans who in my experience always drop something. Got a gantru charm and warmask off of them. If you go left along the zone wall you can find undead fallen soldiers which drop decent INT caster armor. I use OoS (unresistable tash-like song) to pull since it won't do damage so they won't summon. If you want to have a good time, make sure your puller has track or you'll miss some of the named. Most of the named can wander along the entire zone.

This zone is awesome for smaller guilds who can't do ToV yet. My guild used to do Kael arena, but the drops were even rarer and I think this place is actually better loot. We've raided here three times and we've gotten the 15int bracer, 15sta bracer, gantru warmask, two moktor BPs (I wear one), dream weaver cloak and sandals, dark assassin BP, one gantru charm, and the nice shield from the Fallen Sergeant (named iksar skelly). We haven't gotten the chance to do Tawro or Radir yet.

Lots of the guildies love this zone too now and last night we all just ran here for a few hours after a Hate raid. Another good thing is that armor is left rotting occassionally (we got free moktor greaves last night) and most of the time people aren't jerks and will be generous but sometimes people will let only let you loot it if you pay them and would rather let NO ONE have it than give it to someone for free. That kinda makes me sick. But oh well. Its a great zone for farming and mini-raiding.

McElven- 56 Wood Elf Bard
Officer <Jesters of Terris Thule>

Edited, Mon Jun 30 09:59:18 2003

I've been trying to get myself a set of armour for the past two weeks, on and off. Last night, first time on after the patch, myself and my other hunting buddy (lvl 64 druid) went up to UP, parked our furry little butts in the safe valley, buffed up, and began to hunt.

The lvl 64 is the puller, and we both noticed that snare didn't seem to be working on the Elysians. They were running around FAST. We pulled two and looks the same. Another druid in the zone noticed the same thing; he took off. After our two pulls, so did we.

Played around in other zones; snare seems to work fine there. I didn't try a Luclin zone; when I hunted in Maiden's Eye, I was grouped with an SK who was fearing and kept getting "cannot be snared" messages.

So, question: did Sony just nerf this zone again? (Like they needed to make UP harder??)

Miosa Scincosmagia
Wanderer for 54 Winters
Tribunal

Edited, Thu May 15 12:59:49 2003

Question how is XP here?

And if a mage can solo here or not? LvL 54 atm

Thanks!

I'm a druid trying to obtain a set of Elysian armor and for some reason am having a lot of trouble getting into the Umbral Plains, the Xi Xaui in particular who guard the door from Maidens Eye can harm touch and see through invis and i can never get across without reanimating a drudge or two. any advice on how to get in will be greatly appreciated =)

I figured out i just had bad luck with spawns that see through invis, not all do and i was able to sneek through =)

Edited, Tue Dec 24 15:08:34 2002

Im wondering if these mobs IE: Disturbed Elysian Remains drop req Gems(Diamonds, Blue Diamonds? instead of the junk they drop?

Umbral Plains Strategy, Tactics, Hunting guide, Rare Spawn info Drops for All in thier mid to high 50's!!!!!

Well that is a mouthful of a Heading! Fact is I don't have ALL that info, but I think I can get us off to a start for those who have no info on UP and since I have been hunting there for a few days can give some insight into hunting there with a TANK..hehe. Aoe groups deserve thier own post ;) .

NOTE : IF BRINGING YOUR FRIENDLY TANK A SLOWER IS REQUIRED! UNLESS YOUR TANK HAS BETTER THAN DOUBLE DIGIT INTELLIGENCE THEN TO KEEP HIM THAT WAY HAVE GREAT (read LOTS of healers or CH or Ghetto CH)HEALING AVAILABLE). Alternatively without slow if your group has a very tough tank, and group is doing very high DPS you can (carefully) do single Gantrus, you will suffer more downtime though and it is much more dangerous.

General Info:

SLOW:A slower is HIGHLY recommended if you are going to employ melee. Alternatively a Melee with a weapon that procs slow can be used in a pinch. For survivability it is recommended that your slower is over 52nd level, for ease of landing slow and effect of the slow spell they should generally be 54 or higher. Lesser level slowers will work, but the mobs can kill a caster in seconds, repeated re-casting of slow can make for many deaths of the Enchie. Shamen are much more survivable.

DAMAGE: These mobs all have EXTREME numbers of hitpoints. If you are using melee for the main damage, it is recommeded that you have at least three melee in group and one of those should be a rogue or monk. Alternatively a Single melee and three or more pet classes can make the melee damage quotient work.Lesser configs of melee can work, but even with Haste like Shisshar and 36/40% haste items and good weapon damage, it's recommended that you have at least three melee if you don't want to take FOREVER to kill mobs.
It's all about DPS when employing melee.

MEZZABLE MOBS: Many of the mobs in Umbral can be mezzed however the DARK cannot and many of the named of course. MEZZ is your friend.

PULLING THE ZONE: At my level (57) I dont usually have too many problems with bad pulls(there have been exceptions) I usually don't get adds unless I want them. However the DARK and the STATUES in the zone have pretty long aggro ranges. Neither of them are mezzable so you will have to take those out first. Important note though is soft pull if you don't want to be summoned.

SUMMONING MOBS:
ALL MOBS IN THIS ZONE HAVE SUMMONED ME. (NOte exception is the Elysians) Usually not all at once (HEHE). But even that happens. Aggro can chain hard so be careful. When you see a bunch of mobs running around, might be best to simply choose your place to die if you cant avoid them as the puller. My worst example so far is last weekend I ran into a huge train of da's and was killed by them while being summoned (at least 7 or 8 times)all over the zone..that was no fun. Mobs will typically not summon you until they have achieved a certain level of aggro. Exception is the DARK who will summon you on simple hard pulls acertain amount of the time.

HARD PULL vs SOFT PULL:
Generally Hard pulling is good. The mob aggroes and it dosen't train other parties on the way into your camp generally. However the DARK in the zone are potentially perilous to hard pull, they WILL summon you, this could mean you die, pull more than one mob or train your group while you are at low health. This is NOT good generally. Soft pulling the DARK is preferred , but you will ahve to be careful you do not train other groups in the process.

PULLING TO THE MAIDENS EYE ZONE:
There are usually one or two groups pulling right in this rather large zone in area that exactly resembles the ME side in reverse. Nice place to get a feel for your group, but the occaisional train can make it a very dangerous place to be. Pull here with care. Note that there is a short tunnel from here into the mob area of the zone that has a pathing issue. The mobs tend to run back and forth here during a pull. To assist them in pathing , puller should stand in front of the tunnel until the mob attacks him/her. It takes a little practice, but once you learn the distance it will help. If you just pull straight in their buggy pathing sometimes prevents them from coming all the way to the group until subsequent pulls..this can be baaad news ). Of course for you soloers out there, this is an excellent sploit as long as you dont get too many adds ;) .



Mob Info:
Umbral Plains Mobs are generally 55+ ( maybe start a little lower) and range up to level 60. There are armor types for most classes available.Groups should generally have a slower, or at least a slow proc equipped melee. It is recommended that your slower/mezzer be at least 52, mainly because many of the mobs are over 57th level and resistant, and when they get angry, can take a caster out in a few seconds.Common types of mobs are:

Gantrus:

Gantru Moktor: Drops Moktor Armor for Plate classes (SHD, WAR,PAL,BARD,CLER)
Rare: Gantru Raldukan: This guy drops Raldukan armor, the Raldukan Pieces are generally comparable to Thurgadin Plate.

Gantru's Are big Trogs(Also known as Galorians), much tougher than Maidens Eye trogs, they typically double for 150's to 190's or even more and hit very fast. They have many thousands of hitpoints, but have one of the lowest AC's int he zone.Drops are about one in ten on the armor or so on a good day. The Rares are higher level and hit harder tend to be around level 57 or 58 and seems to always drop one of the pieces. Moktors are mezzable and never run btw. Recommend 54+ Mezzer though.
Gantru's have pretty low aggro. You can at my level almost run right up to them before they aggro. Single pulls are easily accomplished.

Gantru Shojen: Shamanistic versions of the above they drop DECENT Planar Shammy armor and Slow, and dot you. Careful thier dot is sometimes EBOLT or PLAGUE and can do a LOT of damage. Mostly known for thier annoying tendancy to slow dot you, and they run, so snare is a must.They are mezzable.
Gantru Shojilen: The rare type Shammy Not sure that there are Shojilen versions of the armor or not.

Elysian Remains:

Disturbed Elysian Remains Drops Elysian Armor for Druids. This stuff is comparable to GOOD planar armor.
Corrupted Elysian Remains: Drops some rare pieces that complement the Elysian very well but many that are useable by other classes. The Death Mask ,Death Watchers Shroud and Glimmering Statuette/ Very nice peices indeed.

Elysians hit FAST and not quite as hard as the Gorangas but quite a bit faster. They can take a warrior with 1100 ac and 3000 hitpoints to zero in under a minute! (Believe me I know I resemble that remark!). I have never faced the Corrupted, but I understand he is immune to stun casts and is level 58 to 59. Elysians are mezzable same rules as Gorangas. I don't believe the named are mezzable but don't quote me mez at your own risk ).

THE DARK:

Dark Assassins. These Look like Xi Vius from Maidens Eye, but like the Gantrus are a LOT tougher than thier ME counterparts. Still they have less hitpoints than the Gantrus or the Elysians and I think easier to kill in a way. Their most noticeable trait right away is thier EXTREME aggro radius. If you SEE one it COULD aggro on you , so pullers should take special care, they are one of the most common adds and CANNOT be mezzed. Their second most famous trait is the tendancy to snare dot your tank while they lay waste to your casters. These guys drop DarkSteel weapons on occaision and Dark Assasin (Ranger, Bard,Rogue) armor. This armor is equivalent to planar.
Dark Masters: The rare version of the above, a LOT tougher and When All slain triggers the DOOMSHADE spawn. They drop Dark Master (Ranger, Bard, Rogue) armor. Nicer stats than the Dark Assasin stuff. Equivalent to Thurg quest armor for Rogues or Rangers.

Fallen Soldiers:
Vah Shir Skellies, these undead former soldiers are rather mundane mobs for this zone really. Mundane to me cause someone forgot to include combat animations. They are about the same level threat as Moktors, with slightly fewer hitpoints, and dont hit quite as hard. They drop nice caster 'Dream Weaver' armor. The Rare Fallen Seargent Drops an Awesome 20 ac Caster Robe the Vah Shir Skin Robe and some nice weapons etc for other classes as well. They aggro more than Moktors, so single pulling is sometimes more challenging. Fallen Searg Cannot be mezzed. Note that there is a Mob trap in the fallen soldier area near the tree spawn. That means you sometimes get a 'free' mob on pulls when pullng along the zone wall to the tree.

Netherbians:
Netherbian Ravagers are the common mob, they drop 'Decaying' armor, a type of caster armor. The rare Netherbian Hive Fiend drops Crown of the Hive and some other pieces. Their difficulty reminds me of the Elysians, they seem a bit tougher than the fallen soldiers and hit fast like the Elysians.

Dathor:
Common are the Shak Dathor.These are pretty tough aliens! Make the aliens in ME look extremely mild in comparison, they hit fast and hard and have about as many hits as the Moktors. These guys are arguably tougher than any of the other standard mobs in the zone. I have not hunted them enough to tell you about their drops.
Rare is the Shak Dathor Warlord. I have never fought this guy, but I assume he is pretty tough as he drops the Shak Dathor Warhammer a 75 damage weapon. I imagine he hits in the 300's but don't quote me.

Zelniak:
Gigantic Zelniaks : There are what I call the EXP cows of the zone. Exp cause they are good exps, Cows cause they look like huge Horses or Bovines ;) Tough mobs lots of hits not very resistant to much though can be nuked easily, dotted etc. These cows have TEETH and hit like the gantrus, but are more dangerous because of higher hitpoints, but have similar AC as the Trogs.
Zelnithak : This Named is not for the light of heart, or the light of Group. Procs aoe disease and some kind of Stun. Proc does 300 points in a VERY large area and is very hard to resist at lower levels. The only time I have seen him I was standing at the front of the tunnel had 165 mag res at 57th level and all reistances over 100 due to wearing my raid gear. I was only able to resist 50% of his AOE's as a 57th Warrior. When he is in the tunnel his aoe will likely extend into the entire zone in area, he almost killed me before I realized I had to zone out, zoned with 250 hps. This proc did not seem to be partially resistable, it would land or not either for 300 damage or no damage. It took two groups with very respectable DPS 15 minutes to take him out. They had two clerics chain casting CHEAL at least on a 61st level MT.

MOB LOCATIONS:

NOTE: All mobs wander the zone, many seem to have a 'patrol' routine (path) where depending on where they spawn they walk a certain route and return to thier spawn points. Others seem to kind of wander until they hit the zone wall and get stuck..there are definitely some pathing problems here, so be careful.

MOKTOR: Straight out form zone, and to the right of the zone you will find multiple spawns of these guys

ELYSIAN REMAINS: 'Safe Valley'(yeah right!) Go past (carefully) the ruins of Vex Thal (far right of zone)and right past that at the zone wall there is a valley , pulling seems to work best from there.

THE DARK: Straight out from zone entrance you will come upon the DARK assasins etc. They are concentrated a small distance from the Moktor Spawns.

FALLEN SOLDIERS: Take a left and follow the zone wall, you will see a big tree in a little depresssion, for real fun go past the big tree and fight along the wall there, lots of these guys. The camp known as 'the Tree' is in the corner and you can pull alot of Netherbians there as well.

DATHOR: Can be found in the same area as the Elysians

ZELNIAK: They seem to roam the zone and concentrate most between the Galorians and the DARK.




BTW..did I mention SLOW is almost a must be safe and slow the mobs here you will thank me if you fight here a lot?/??? hehe


Edited, Tue Dec 3 12:31:08 2002

Hi Guys,

With all the new weapons, abilities and such what is a poor tank to do? I am poorly equipped tank according to some. However with my crappy Defiance and Junky Frostbringer, I can hold taunt against ANY rogue, but the rogue needs to simply do one thing: STAY BACK A FEW STEPS PLEASE! In taunting 'matches' ( funny how it seems to get that way) unless the tank has very superior weapons it will be hard for them to taunt of a rogue equipped with equal weaponry when the Rogue stands two inches from the mob. Do yourself , your group and your tank a favor, stand two steps back. Your GOOD tank knows that the proximity of his ugly mug to the mob pisses that mob off bad, but the proximity of your piercer in the mob's butt ticks him off more! In general I have been seeing alot of classes that want the tank role, the only ones that have any legitimate claim to it is the SK and Pally, they can mitigate the damage well. Otherwise stand back and you will be suprised how well that 'crappy' Lammy equipped tank can do.

Ive only just started going to UP recently when I found the exp in OS starting to slow down and I wish I had found it earlier. Its a great place and the exp is pretty good.

I havent ventured thoughout the whole zone yet, but so far I have found that the best spots to hunt are outside the zone entrance. Less lag and if u pick a right spot and get your casters up on the wall a bit, not much chance of adds, although you may get the odd one.

The few times I have been there we have been camping the NW part of the zone, i.e. turn left out of the zone entrance.

Groups have been mixed, but i have found the following to be useful -

a. Slower - goes without saying - mobs here have lots of HP and hit reasonably hard, so without a slower its big downtime for clerics. Slower should be at least lvl 55. My preference is actually for an enchanter, around level 57-58 b- as then they dont get so many resists and can also do crowd control.

b. Tracker - A bard is great in this zone, or a druid or ranger. This is because they can pick up the nameds on track and pull them to the group. Without a tracker you won't know when the nameds drop and they are the ones with the loot.

c. Two tanks - Occassionally, you may get a Dark avenger and another mob. As the DA's cant be mezzed, its useful to have the second tank to offtank if necessary. Therefore, my ideal group is something like this-
2 slots for Warrior/pal/sk, ranger/bard/druid, cleric (or CH druid), enchanter/sham, rogue or wizard (for dmg).

Theres been some posts about who the best tank/aggro control is but I think any class can tank reasonably well here, although pallys/sks have the edge in aggro. However, if you set up your group right, constant pulling means very little downtime, so after a couple of fights its hard for the sks/pallys to regen mana. In the groups Ive been in all the tanks have gone to 2HS for better DPS output. This does mean that aggro is a little harder to control and there was some ping ponging between tanks and occassionally to the slower, but a good cleric/spot healer and proper use of the warrior shield disc generally meant no untimely deaths.

Once you get comfortable with the group, you can get the bard or tracker to chain pull when the 1st mob is down to less that 20%hp. This will keep a nice even flow of mobs to you.

Loot. So far, loot has been pretty good. Each time I have grouped we have managed to pull at least 1 or 2 nameds and they drop some decent stuff and trinkets which can sell for 1-3kpp, so I have been reasonably compensated for grouping here. The cash drops are also not bad and they do drop gems too.

MR - do keep up your resistances. Especially if your pulling. The DA's can snare you and if you get snared away from camp that means ur pretty much dead. The gantru sheikens (or something like that) also like to cast slows, so if your pulling them get the healer to have cure disease memmed.

Gulug
57 Myrmidon

iv been playing for a while and looking forward to this place but now i find that u need more then 1 group well i was just wandering if there was a whay that u could just go in the umberal plains with just say 1 group what would that consist of .

I looted a couple of Elysian skulls last night they are no drop any one have any idea what they are for? a quest maybe?

There is a transport ring at the back of the Fire Cave. It's like the ones in Fungus and Twilight. I haven't clicked on it, since I have no idea where it would put me. Has anyone tried?

A few thoughts on how best to obtain a set of Elysian Armor from a Lvl 60 druid without epic. First, find 300 Disturbed Elysian Remains (preferably one at a time) and kill them. Snare, root, debuff with Ro's, Winged Death, Breath of Ro, Drones of Doom (courtesy of ES Vams), repeat as needed. At 60, they hold root pretty well, and it takes about seven series of the three dots to kill em. Easy kills, taking about 10 minutes each. About one in eight drops armor, I figure it took around 300 kills to complete my armor set. I agree with those who say that the tunic is the rarest drop, with arms, legs and crown not too far behind. Boots, gloves and bracelets are pretty common. About one in five drop gems, about a third of which have meaningful vendor resale prices. Spell drops were very rare (4-5 in all those kills) with the 52 Druid spell Foliage Shield being the most noteworthy. Now that I've got my armor completed, I'm never going back to those godforsaken nasties, or that laggy, begging for an LD zone again. I've heard that Elyssian armor dosen't stand up to the Kael/Thurg sets and would have to agree, but it beats the hell out of what I had, and cost me ZIPPO. By the way, twice now I've seen a standard Elyssian Remains that had a gold "glow" around it. I was unable to snare either, but this may be an indicator similar to the "glowing wurms" in GD. Anyone else seen one?

Hiya all,

Just a few tips on doing the umbral zone btw. Here is what i do with my 52 Paladin, who is the MT for all my organized pickup RAIDS or zone groups. Since most mobs summon...i pull with Force (stun+dd)...move to tunnel...cast stun...move into room with pulled mob on the way.

ODD PATHING at zone will make the mob wander down and back out of the tunnel to get into the zone pull area. Since mobs are aggro'd on PALLY MT due to stuns...

/ooc aggro has been established now debuff and slow him...
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Believe it or not...you can have your pull TASH'd, MALO, slow, dotted...while in the tunnel on his first RUN down and back out of the tunnel due to pathing.

Once he's coming back to you to enter the room...Paladin *sk works great here* stuns him for more aggro and to establish aggro management. Sure a Paladin doesn't have the HPS of a true TANK. But we can HOLD and RIP aggro better than most others...just like our SK brothers.
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I have watched other groups in umbral use the WAR MT approach. It's easy to spot...cuz you see the casters ping pong summoned to the Summoning MOB. Not a pretty sight from a casters perspective.
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My Paladin only finds problems with the NAMED gantru...*radu and drak*. Holding aggro on them is a beast and a half. A beast cuz they hit hard and stun you more often than not...which means you aren't taunting or stunning to hold their attention as well.
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A good friend of mine questioned my MT approach with pally vs war aggro control. I said fine...we'll test this out.

I held pulled with stun and did my approach to hold aggro and proved my pt by not having one caster summoned, while they debuffed/dotted/slowed/nuked at the first part of the pull...within in seconds of me tanking the mob and no deaths. Mob went down easily with no confusion or worries whatsoever.

The 55+ war in haste gear with two lammies and haste buff pulled next....he called his aggro control well later than mine. He had over 6 summons of the casters summoned to the mob vs My ZERO summons of casters to mob. Chanter nearly died tashing and slowing. Druid and Cleric almost died. It was a hard kill once the ping pong set in.
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Ping pong summons can be solved easily...just have a good pally to MT for you. Leave the dmg dealers behind the mobs to wail away with sweet dmg...while the pally takes the pounding...lol ^_^

Edited, Tue Mar 12 21:51:30 2002

You dont need more then one group here if work together well. Easy to pull to zone if no evac but only room for one group. Can go into zone but often 6 pulled at a time so hard on mana for chanter but did with success with 60war 60cle 60dru and me 59enc. There is spots where you can pull single or very few at a time.
--
lvl60 chanter
Triad Continuum
Luclin

We recently pulled to the maiden zone in Umbral just had 2 groups, killed alot of Moktors. Got one very decent drop.. a BP.. was well worth it. Experience here isn't bad either. The DA's seem like they are completely magic resistant. Can slow though and even cripple if your into that. Unmezzable so far, so kill those first :D.

Zane on VZ