Ssraeshza Temple

go through Scarlet Desert off Twilight Sea and then to the gray. Someone should have told everyone a long time ago that the deep is a one way door and difficult to get to. if you are having a hard time getting to twilight sea, go through the nexus, to shadow haven, to echo caverns, to fungus grove to twilight sea. you want the southern entrance to echo caverns. the way is to go near the soul binder and into the room next to her then go around to the back and there is a secret entrance through the wall.

My rogue needs to work on her Sense Traps, Reveal Traps, & Pick Locks. I was told that this was a good place to raising skills on her trap skills, the only problem is she is only lvl 34 and to low to survive this zone. Any suggestions on other lower lvl zones she may work on her trap skills would be great!

Thank you in advance.
/bow

Tried shrink and many casting of shadow step spell and still could not get back into the Deep side. May try Whisper Wind AA next.

Dadijob (Prexus) TA Rocks

Zone out to the Deep is blocked. I tried a few minutes to play near it and did once get the message you notice a slight wind but no opening I could find

Dadijob (Prexus) TA ROCKS

Does anyone know where the temple skirmishers are located?

It seems to me that each time this zone has become a Hot Zone, even after the key issue was addressed, that the doors regain thier locking feature regardless of level. I just spent last night having to do the key quest for my 85 Pally so that he could go after the Emporer.

One item of note however is that the new Grumpy Goblin (from the Frostfell 2008 illusion quest) allows you to bypass some of the locked doors using a similar method to the shrink trick.

The zone in to The Deep seems to be blocked now in the basement.

Guy, it sounds like you know pretty much anything I want to know about SSRA, I was thinking about killing the emp, and was wondering if you still actually need the key to get into his chambers, because I was able to open the door to creator room and I have no key for it, and I know that they removed a ton of key/flags from the game. I was told you don't need a key to get into VT anymore, so I was wondering if you knew about emp room?

I guess not too much is happening there since I am the first person to post on it in nine months, and I was the last one posting here. Maybe I am obsessed with killing snakes.

In the last day, I solo'd the High Priest, Arch Lich, Creator, and Cursed Cycle.

Notes on those four collectively are that I probably had DMF for a few of the encouters, but not all of them, and almost surely I had it for the Arch Lich. I had Leadership AA's in efffect from being in a group with my boxes. I had an ATK campfire for Cursed, but not the others. I didn't die once to these guys. The wiz did evac me after the HP was dead, and loot was done becuase I needed to get to raids. The various traps and spells cast on you along the way are a pain. Ranger Potameid Salve is great for all these spells, but some are recast every few seconds so self cure is fleeting but does improve healing for the short duration of the cure. I have the keys for the keyed doors on the second floor from years ago having exp'd there. Notes on these mobs individually are:

High Priest: I cleared two guards by the door (Chapel somethings) so that I could get in, and fortunately they didn't repop real quick, so I was able to get boxes in to get loot after the HP was deceased, and in need of a priest himself. Surprisingly the HP didn't get complete healed like I thought might happen. I suspect this was from a lot of the snakes beating themselves to death on my damage shield and them also taking collateral damage if I cast Arc of Arrows, or mistargeted them after a self heal. And likely the CH'ers were dead when they would have my life rough with a CH of the HP. Later I realized I hadn't killed all of the HP's minions in the first go around, so went back and killed them all just so I could make this post. The repop time wasn't instant or nearly so quick like in the Emp's chambers, so I got lucky there. It seemed to be at least ten minutes, but I didn't time it.

Arch Lich: Didn't seem too hard, but as someone posted, make sure you are lev'd. Lots of undead snakes to clear before him.

XTC: I had both guards closeest to him repop while I offed XTC, but only one aggro'd. Repop time on these guys is ten minutes I think. DPS on this guy was mildly challenging that I remember.

Cursed: I had some unexpected company. I did the killing, but when the first snake FD'd me, the company apparently unintentionally lured off that one, and again exiled or cursed before they left. Fortunately I was able to get aggro back both times. I had some discussion with the other party regarding whose snake it was, and was hurried, had buffs waining, and didn't have time to properly think. So any benefit from the other party being there was more than out weighed by the hurried approach. During Exiled I got bugged, and couldn't cast from spell gems, but could click pots, hit Discs and AA spells. I survived that one barely (health at like 10%, and hoping I did exiled in before the 13K former DT went off again). The company left shortly after after I engaged cursed, and I was mostly on my own with cursed. I started cursed behind the 8 ball, but managed to recover. His DPS was probably as much as any of the encounters I have had there. But, I forgot to parse it.

In the past few months I did the emps chambers. The blood golem with loot was up. He was greeen to me. He was a joke. I also offed all eight of the emps guards, who were even easier than the golem. I was expecting instant repops, but it may have been more like a minute for them to repop. Once they were dead, I being in the nook with my back against the door, had a few minutes to rebuff and got no guard aggro there when they repopped, and almost hit OOC regen when the emp aggro'd me from all the way across the room and killed me in short order. I had several dot's or curses on me at once and didn't get a chance to see which ones, but I assume I had the one that prevents healing. I was dead in ? 30 seconds. I didn't get a chance to try to cure myself. I don't see anyone soloing the emp for at least several months, probably longer. Duo with a cleric is likely if it hasn't been done already.

Previously I have posted on Rhag 1, Rhag 2, the imperial guards, and maybe other mobs. I have killed the iksar slaves, and all the other easy mobs every where that I can find them. I got to 300 tailoring there and killed extensively in the basement, first and second floors. I got my VT key back when it was useful partly by killing a bunch of skelly's. The captured thought leach and the iksar slave on the third floor are not killable because they can't be aggrod so far as I know, but I tried. There is even a pair of mobs in the well in the ghetto I killed IIRC, or I explored it for sure. I tried to shadow step off of the beaten path to the rooms on the map for which there is no access, to no avail. So I probably killed all of the minor nameds that pop in the temple at some point along the way. To the best of my knowledge I have solo'd the enire Ssrasehza Temple except Emperor Ssraeshza himself, the non loot versions of the Blood Golem in the Emp's chambers, and the non loot versions of the first two cursed cycle members, and that is it. From what I read the non loot versions are the same in all ways to the loot versions, except no loot. I did kill the emp once with an uber raid of nine about a year ago.

Loot of note was: Necro got Mindpuncture from HP, and Sceptre of Paralysis from Exiled., cleric got a shawl from HP. Most of the other stuff rotted, but I took home some blood and spells because I had room.

Ranger was about 26K hp , 4600 AC mostly SOF raid gear when I did the killing most recently. Lesser gear for the other kills in the past.

Edit: I guess I didn't say goodbye to this zone yet, as I suggested I would do in the post below. There are still a few pieces of loot for my boxes. And does the key for the emp still work? Will the key work at level 1 or is the honor of paying homage to the emp only for those level 55 and higher, but no one below that can any longer hail the Emp? I will find out the next time I get a chance. (My cleric got a key for the emp at level 1 yesterday and the combine for the key still works at least.) And then there is the need to solo the Emp now that I have killed everything else.

Edited, Jun 18th 2008 1:52pm by Guyyug

Edited, Jun 20th 2008 12:36pm by Guyyug

SSRA is one of my favorite zones, and it is too bad there is little experience for me to be had there now that I am level 75. But there are still things to do besides experience.

You can read my post about the Shissar Scales Trail here: https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=17378. I maxed my tailoring at 300 there today (Yeah Me!). The Shissar Scales Trail is kind of boring, but I reached my goal, and more quickly than I would have by killing mixed brown and green snakes elsewhere in the zone.

If you want a little challenge, you can read my post about Imperial Guards here: http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.shtml?id=7858. There is a challenge in getting there, and once there you can be uninterrupted by clueless yahoos. Shissar Scales, Sunshard Ore, miscellaneous tradeskill stuff and experience are to be found here.

Additionally you can work on your key to the Emp, The Ring of the Shissar. If you melle at all, before you say hello to the Emperor, you should get your corrupted shissar weapon by killing named skellys in the basement till you get strange green metal, and an appropriate base weapon by killing an Elite Temple Guard. The combine can be done in one of the two forges in the basement if you want. You can get the keys for the HP, Arch Lich, and XTC by getting lucky when you kill Comm 1 and Comm 2. If you are exceedingly lucky you can get a horse which is about Spirit of Eagle speed by killing Comm 1 or Comm 2. You can get one of the ten shards needed for the key to Vex Thal by killing trash skelly's at the far end of the mines in the basement. You can also get the hardest part of the Vex Thal key, which is the Plains Rift after the Emperor Ssraeshza is dead. There is the kitty mask from the Assassin, his rare drop. The Emperor also drops a White Ornate Chain Bridle, which is as fast as an SK/Pally AA horse, but not quite as fast as bard speed. I don't know how it compares to the new deck of card bridles from LON.

A lot of the details for the above activities can be found at http://www.project68.com/eq/Jolo/guides/ssra/. The author Jolo wrote a most excellent article, and I still refer to it when I need details about one thing or another.

I have spent countless hours there, and since I have done all of these things except get the kitty mask (not equipable by a ranger, so why bother?), maybe will be saying goodbye to my favorite zone of all time.

How does one get to the imperial room where the mobs that drop the insignia are? Have been searching for a while now, and get caught by the traps. I know its on 3rd floor, but which room?