Spoiler request *Sealed Stairway*

[random]

I've just encountered one of these in the Avemorsh dungeon. What is it? And how do I unseal it?

[Variaz]

First, you must have defeated Quazar.

Then, you'll notice a locked door in the bottom quest of this dungeon. It will unlock after you kill Quazar, so you must go there and complete this short questline. You'll be rewarded with an artifact, and another item that has no apparent use, but can be used to unlock the stairway.

And then, get some high level blues(possibly reds, depending on your build), and get ready for a very, very difficult quest. (death counts shouldn't add up, although kipar reported that they DO add up on the bottom floor... Use backup save files, it's not cheating in this case. )

Good luck!

[random]

Okay. So I can safely leave it and it'll be there after I defeat Quazar? I just stopped playing until I got an answer because I'd never seen one before and wanted to make sure I wasn't passing a major opportunity.

Off to defeat Quazar! And hopefully not die, because I've put a lot of work into my level 40 Greater Mud Elemental without dying.

[random]

Okay, that was an...experience.

Is this section actually winnable in the current version of the game, heh?

[Gando]

No. Unless you are Kipar. In which case, yes but apparently still frustrating.

[Variaz]

Feb 16, 2010 0:23:04 GMT -5 random said:

Okay, that was an...experience.

Is this section actually winnable in the current version of the game, heh?

It's scaled enemies. It's hard at any stages of the game.

It can be beaten though. What part are you having trouble with?

I will probably soon start a post in the Difficult Content strategies with tips on how to beat it.

[random]

Feb 16, 2010 9:46:04 GMT -5 Variaz said:

Feb 16, 2010 0:23:04 GMT -5 random said:

Okay, that was an...experience.

Is this section actually winnable in the current version of the game, heh?

It's scaled enemies. It's hard at any stages of the game.

It can be beaten though. What part are you having trouble with?

I will probably soon start a post in the Difficult Content strategies with tips on how to beat it.

The hard part for me? Heh. That would be the part where my first opponent had 85 lives, blocked most of my attacks, only suffered little damage even when I did hit, and killed me in a few rounds.

There really wasn't much room to do hit-and-run techniques especially since there were no walls to hide behind and heal up. In older versions, I would have used Grow Trees to create a safe spot, but now the spell has been essentially nerfed into a "block line of sight" spell since most of the monsters with any power whatsoever can burrow through trees almost immediately (which I think is a mistake because, frankly, it'd be nice to have at least one spell that we can use to block opponents in these situations, but I've learned to live with it.)

I'm assuming that "scaled" means "scaled to the player's level/ability?" My current character can do level 55 dungeons with reasonable safety if I'm careful, so it was a bracing experience to meet an opponent that just overwhelmed me in short order.

[Variaz]

85 lives? Really? The gatekeeper shouldn't have had that much at level 40(that's your level, right?).

[random]

Feb 16, 2010 10:22:30 GMT -5 Variaz said:

85 lives? Really? The gatekeeper shouldn't have had that much at level 40(that's your level, right?).

How odd. I just tried again (with a back-up file) and it only had 21 lives. I know it had 85 lives before. I sat there gaping at it for several seconds.

But it still killed me in two rounds. A power punch took one life off. Unfortunately, it still had 20 more to work with when it beat me.

I've been keeping several skill/training points in reserve, both on blue items and with my own personal skill points, waiting to see where they would be most useful against the really tough opponents. I guess I can try to raise Magic Defense or Agility (defense is of only marginal use for a creature unable to wear body armour, cloaks or boots, right?)

Or I can figure out how to get immune to wind, since it was Wind Gusts that were taking away a million plus a hit.

Edit: And, yes, I'm level 40, almost 41. I've been playing to dungeon-dive and only just yesterday turned my attention to the quests.

[kipar]

Magic defense (50, maybe 100)should help against first creature. But if you can deal only 1 life per round to it... it's not good.

[Gando]

You need to pierce its defenses somehow. Thats pretty tough for a monster since class abilities won't help, maybe 100% magic returner + 200% immunity to magic?

[random]

I kicked up magic defense to past 100, did some considerable work with reflection, and tweaked some other stuff (Constitution for health, Martial Arts for damage, Agility for dodging.) The opponent has trouble hitting me from a distance, but slaughters me when we close. And having built up a melee-oriented martial artist Monster, I pretty much have to close -- most of my AP points are tied up in Paragon Monster, and I doubt investing the 10 remaining ones in my single damage spell will make much of a difference. I could do that and raise spellcraft more, I suppose, and try for a Jump-based battle of tedium, but I'm not sure if I can do enough damage to compensate for his natural healing over the space of 21 lives. As Gando said, no piercing means low hit rate.

I did cheat a little and created a back-up file to see what evolutions I had remaining to me. Only Andraos and something called a Lesser Four Elemental, both pure Essence monsters, which defeats the purpose of developing a humanoid one for 40 levels. Also, I've never even seen a Lesser Four Elemental, so I'm not likely to get enough essences to evolve into one unless I manage to level into the 50's. But I did test an Andraos and, well, died even more quickly.

[Variaz]

Hehehe, I'm happy to see that the secret level is as hard as I thought it would be.

But stick to your Mud Elemental I say. It's actually a good monster to complete this quest.

[random]

Heh. I've been testing it off-and-on inbetween doing my actual job the last couple of days. Finally, I decided to leave it be for the moment and am now playing around fighting Nightmares and deciding which abilities I want from them. I'm hoping perhaps for a green item or two to bolster my abilities before returning to try again, hopefully with more wind resistance.

Incidentally, does an elemental-based melee attack count as a magic attack for purposes of reflection/magic defense/damage return?

[Gando]

No it still counts as a melee attack which means phys immune/returns still work on it.