Prequesites[]
There are certain prequesites that you should take care of before entering a DP run. For starters, you need your stone. Buy one at the General Merchant in New Heiron (not sure about the Asmo side) and infuse it with your Blue Balaur scales (german patch…) in the Abyss. You should do that every time you did a run before you log out, so you’re set to go for the next run.
In addition, make sure to have:
- 50+ Major Life Serum
- 150+ Major Mana Serum
- 10+ Greater Running Scrolls
- 20+ Greater Healing Potions / Healing Roots
- 20+ Greater Courage Scrolls
- 5+ Perer Aether Jelly
- optional : Seed of Detection
As the bare minimum available. Casters will go through quite a bit of mana, so make sure you have some 80+ of the Mana Serum’s on you, and everybody should bring enough Life Serums to help supporting the heals when it gets critical. The CC Pots / Roots are mandatory as well, since you’re being transformed every so often while facing the tamers, and those pots will get you out of quite quickly.
You might not be needing all the consumables listed, however i strongly suggest to have them at hand. The Greater Courage Scrolls should always be up on the Tank, Chanter, DPS, so you can burn the mobs quicker, equally important is MB boos for the Sorc/Spiritmaster. The DP food comes in handy when you really need to pop something, but it’s more for emergency situations, since you pretty much have tons of DP going anyway.
Party Setup[]
You definately need - and there’s no way around this -
- Templar - as your main tank
- Cleric - goes without saying
- Chanter - don’t bother to do DP without it
- Sorcerer - you will need CC and AoEs
- Spiritmaster - add DPS and sprinkle bosses for loot
- Ranger / Assassin / DPS - Ranger and Sin’s are nice to locate Tree bosses
We’re currently doing it without a Ranger/Sin but rather have a Gladiator as in there, which at times puts a strain on the healer since it’s often more targets taking damage than having a Ranger being able to stay out of the AoE, but it works as well. You will need the Mantras from the Chanter as well as his buffs, since some attacks can one-hit players otherwhise, especially your Sorc and SM will be prime targets for that, due to their low armor.
Watch Aggro[]
Every group member needs to watch their aggro at all times. As you do more and more runs with the group, you get more familiar with the mobs, spawns and where to position yourself and things start to smoothen out. Still, you need to be on watch all the time. Getting adds will not only greatly increase the potential for a party-wipe, but also cost you precious time and decrease your rating.
DPS, DPS, DPS…[]
It shouldn’t specifically mentioned, but i’ll do it anyway. Don’t ever forget about your DPS. At no point in time you can sit back and relax. You’re against the clock and you need to burn down these mobs as quickly as possible. If you have a static group, you should consider pushing up your Tank, getting enchantment stones from unused armor to push him, and then gearing out everybody else. Throw whatever DPS you can, even if that means the Cleric has to add to DPS during heals. It will make a difference.
The Start…[]
Make sure everybody has everything (regarding consumables) on them, and all buffs are up. Only then activate your artifact to go into Dark Poeta. Once everybody has zoned in, open the door and leave heading to the right, evading all mobs and patrols until you cross the little river and come in front of the village. Here’s where the fun starts and you’ll start killing… Here’s a map of what’s ahead of you
The Spiritmaster Boss[]
First, get the single-pull in front of the village and burn him down. Watch the patrol inside the village, he’s next on your list and should be a single-pull as well. Then there’s two mobs on the left, which you should take out as well. In any case, the tank should always face the mobs away from the group to mitigate as much AoE as possible. Hugging the left, pass all other mobs and head to the little path that leads down to the waterfront. Here you’ll face another set of mobs, and will most likely get an add as well. Don’t fight them too close to the village, else you’ll get a patrol, too. After you’ve done that, you’ll see two mobs in front of the building with the Spiritmaster boss and a patrol between them. Wait a bit, that patrol does come out far enough to make him a single pull. Then finish off the two guards as well.
Fighting the boss himself can be done in two different ways. First, you should notice that on killing the boss, you will get two additional spawns of 2 mobs each. One down the pathway, the other one from the other side of the village. Drag the boss all the way down into the water. If you turn left when reaching the waterfront, there’s a nice little nieche in which you can tank-n-spank the boss and have the possiblity to line of sight some of his AoE. This allows you to NOT engage the additional spawns (2 patrols of 2 mobs each) and save some time. The compass shows the stretch of the water in which you would have to fight the boss.
In any case, the SM does some nasty AoE, Sleep and has two Reflect spells, so be wary, stay out of LoS for AoEs and have the SM dispell the shield (Nightmare and Mind Division should be what you’re looking for). If you do that properly, it’s tank-n-spank.
The Lake[]
Head down to the lake. As soon on the top level map, you basically have to circle it twice. Once outside, to clean the aggro, and only then attack the three bosses. Start from the location seen on the compass screen, and watch the patrol to your right there, you don’t need to kill that mob. Also note the tree on the right ahead of you, there’s an invisible spawn which you want to kill rather now. Since it’s just a single invisible, you should be fine having the tank just running up and making him spawn. The whole reason for this is that you need to kill the three bosses at the lake, and mobs at the waterfront tend to be social - they join the fight. So dispose of them before that happens.
Have a look at the gigantic range of these bosses. You don’t want to aggro them before you cleared everything, so everyone in your party should be well aware to stay away from their range. Not doing so will cause you trouble !
Happily circle the whole lake and dispose of all the mobs near to the water front. If you see a Captain (and there are 4), grab these guys, they give you quite a few points which will help you on your rating.
Once you’ve circled and cleared, you’re left with the three bosses. Divide your group so everybody knows which controller they’re on. Have them kill the controllers as quickly as possible, while the tank goes in. Don’t use your iron skin as of yet, but make sure the Attack controller goes down quickly. They will respawn, so everybody needs to keep an eye on their assigned controller (Attack, Defense and Property controller). Tank and Spank the bosses down.
Take note that on the compass screen you can see the party being split so everybody is on one of the controllers to dispose them as soon as they spawn. The last boss (if you continue the circular motion) should be approached by the tank with Iron Skin up, as he can hit very hard and one-shot the tank.
For the healer, you need to position yourself rather close to the boss, but not facing him directly. You want to keep your whole group in heal range, and the controlers are spread afar quite a bit, so make yourself ready. Also, it doesn’t hurt if you keep an eye on controllers as well.
To the Trees…[]
Next you move to the tree bosses. Again, there’s a lot of mobs you don’t need to engage, and you want to keep it down to a minimum to save time, depending on how fast / good your group is. Stay on the left and circle through the mobs, dragging the single-pull patrol a little bit deeper to the spirits. There’s a spot free of aggro to the left of that patrol, and that’s where the whole team has to move to while dragging the mob. Then you head forward, killing the spirits on your way. Be aware that there are some invisibles as well, so dispose of them quickly. You should reach a location with two tree stumps. One is where your tank will be, the second one is still in heal-range and provides line-of-sight when facing the bosses. Clear the two mobs around that. Now you should have either your Ranger, or the Sorcerer (optional Tank with Seed of Detection) locate the first tree boss and drag him to the tree and tank him. He does some nasty damage, but nothing that’s not healable. At 25% though, he puts a crippling condition on the whole team, and that’s when you HAVE TO LINE OF SIGHT and get behind your tree down there. Watch the boss, his Grudge Explosion will wipe the party of you don’t LoS him. If he runs away, just stay put. He’ll come back. As soon as Grudge Explosion is off (and it crits most of the time for quite a bit of damage), heal up the tank. So save your Flash of Recovery for that ! After the boss is down, you have to locate the 2nd tree boss and drag him to the same spot, rhinse-repeat. Only this time the tank should get his Iron Skin up when he see’s Grudge Explosion coming in.
Bugs Incoming[]
After killing the Tree Bosses, keep left and evade all mobs hugging the left wall. Sometimes somebody will aggro something, so carry on until you hit the little road and kill them right there. As soon as you hit that road, move to the right side and hug that wall. From now on, make sure to loot every mob since you want to get your Processed Drana for the Stigma Quest. It’s a group loot.
If you want to save some time, get the gate down on your way to the Bugs. It’ll spawn 2 mobs at 50% and once it’s down. Kill the first spawn, then almost get the gate down and finish it with ranged attacks only. The mob spawn, won’t aggro you and will despawn once you’re back, so you saved yourself 2 mobs and a bit of time there ! Clear your way to the spot with the Drana Lumps and make sure the first and 2nd (to the right) lump are free of aggro and allow you to move around easily. Don’t pull the big bug (Boss) as of yet, but also clear the way deeper in so your tank can freely move and pull. Now those Bugs are relatively easy to kill, it’s more endurance and proper reaction of all the team members. Basically, you want to drag the boss over the Lump of Drana, which will make him eat that lump. During that time, he won’t do anything, and you can happily DPS the hell out of him. Watch his ‘Drana Pause’ buff, at 5s, you need to get moving the respective other lump of Drana and repeat the process until he’s down. If all goes according to plan, you can more or less get 12% health down per stop. However, there’s certain things to consider when doing this. As the groups stands at the Drana Lump waiting for the boss to come in, make sure that
- You are stacked on of each other. Else the boss will throw AoE which hurts !
- You are in line with the incoming boss to lead him directly over the drana lump. This might require moving around as the boss will sometimes change direction. Watch out for that
- Don’t attack the boss until he starts to eat his drana. Sheath your weapons if you have to.
- If the drana lump is bugged, you need to drag him back and forth between the two lumps until you’ve got him to eat, which can cause deaths
That’s more or less it for the bosses. Here’s where you will loose most of your time if something goes wrong, so don’t screw it up. Drag the remaining two bosses into the same location and rhinse-repeat. If you follow those 4 guidelines, it shouldn’t be a problem at all. After the first big, the team moves up a little bit and clears some additional adds to make the pull for the tank easier, some happens for the last bug. If a bug has around 12.5% HP left, you can stop moving and burn it down easily.
To the Gates[]
Now you need to head back towards the original Spore Road. There’s a barricade which you have to tear down. At 50% and 25% the barricade will spawn adds. The first adds are easily handled, the 2nd pair of adds is a Templar and a Mage. Sleep the Mage and kill the Templar first. As soon as only the mage is left, the Sorcerer can push in and AoE (Big Magma Explosion) the Fungus inside. This will save some time due to the recharge. As for the Fungus, if you caught aggro and don’t want to deal with them yet, run. They are easily beaten, but they will kill your team quite as easily as well. The double-spawn is the same for the 2nd gate as well - the Mage will spawn at the tree to the left of the 2nd gate, so that’s where the CC goes. Again, some procedure. I mentioned above a tip for saving time on the gates, and strongly encourage you to do so !
Fungi[]
Those mushrooms are worth points, so kill them. If you have a Gladiator, he can work with the Sorcrer to more quickly kill them. Basically you want your Sorc to ninja ahead once you’re down to fighting a single mob and take the Fungi out ahead of time.
The Mine[]
Upon reaching the mine, you have to stay right and kill those mobs there, making your way into the mines. If you want the research manual, you have to turn left inside the mine and kill the Shugo Professor there - but only if you have sufficient time left. There are some mobs here and there, but tank-n-spank them easily.
Telepathy Controller Boss[]
That’s a huge tree boss who will pick you up to body-slamm you into the ground. It can hurt quite a bit. Three rules
- Don’t stand in a circle on the ground, stand between the circles
- Have tank and party not stand at the same spot
- No AoE whatsoever
There will be adds spawned, but as long as you don’t do anything to them, they will not attack you. So don’t use any AoE. Check which party member gets bodyslammed for spot heals and get your party heals off, and beat that critter down. Nothing really fancy about this, apart from occasional stuns from his attacks. You will also need to throw some party heals after the boss is down, as the damage doesn’t stop right away. Don’t forget about that.
Generator Fun[]
One thing to note about the generators is that you don’t want to aggro any of them unless you have cleared everything else. If you do, run into the cave to break aggro. Drag whatever patrols you can into the cave, that should leave some mobs to the right as well as 3 mobs to the left remaining. Move to the left, right where the path upwards starts. Move there as a whole team ! Kill the mobs there, make your way up and down on the other side. Sleep healers and kill the rest. Now that only the generators are left, you can engange them. First get the one in the middle, then the one on the left (as seen from top of the Abyss gate). Avoid having anyone stand right next to your tank, those floating generator cores will one-shot them if they’re too close together. Burn them down quickly, and don’t loot them yet, as too many cores are floating (only if the tank actually gets to loot). For the last generator, move to the other side, and have the tank stand in the corner and simply maintain aggro from range. The Chanter will heal, while everybody else will do ranged DPS. Too many floating cores there. Even the Cleric needs to DPS and only occasionally throw a group heal to support the chanter. Boring. Once all three generators are down, the Brigade General spawns in front of the Gate. Now’s the time to quickly loot the three generators and advance to the boss.
Brigade General[]
You need to keep him on that platform, else he resets. He also spawns adds that the Sorc can kill with AoE, so keep the party close together, it makes it easier for the Sorc to AoE the adds.The boss himself can hurt quite a bit, but isn’t really a big deal. At 25%, he does Absorb Energy, which is a heal. You need to get a Festering Wound on him, to mitigate that healing effect a bit.Once the boss is dead, you’ll get your grade and have 5min to enter the Abyss gate to face the end-boss. Recharge Mana, rebuff and off you go.
The endboss depends on your grade, and i’ll put together more on that later. Have fun and happy days in Dark Poeta
Dark Poeta Guide Written By hoschi