Better in the desert

[moorewr]

I've been back to the desert and done much, much better with my brain in gear. :D

When I solo I can pick off gnolls one-by-one all day long (Hold Person, bloodstone and puncturing sword FTW!), and I can run everywhere. I've been picking my way through explorers that don't feature air elementals...

Had fun supporting a PUG - by the time I handed out extended DW, FoM, and hit myself with nightshield I'd used half my mana.

I thought I'd start a little advice thread down here for desert runners, repeating the list we had in the wow thread. Comments welcome.

Soloing in the desert:

Everyone must have:
Freedom of Movement
Fear Immunity (GH or immunity item)
Deathward
Striders

Really really want:
Shield or Nightshield
Elemental Resistances
Stoneskin (or block items)
Fearsome armor
Haste
Neutralize Poison
Remove Curse and Lesser Restoration

Tactics:
solo combat is best against the gnolls near the start - you can pick the size of your fight. Arcanes can do well in the desert if they can avoid despair.

Clerics with blade barrier have it made in the gnoll and drow areas


Any advice on the infamous solo bloodstone run? Just keep running around damage over time spells, I suppose...

[Eldamir]

Clerics with blade barrier have it made in the gnoll and drow areas

Clerics with blade barrier have it made in all areas of the desert .. :D


Any advice on the infamous solo bloodstone run? Just keep running around damage over time spells, I suppose...

What I do with Zhelda is this:
-- Apply buffs as listed above - include lightning, fire and acid resist as well as electric protect (lightning bolts suck)
-- Make sure you're wearing the reavers ring or helm of free will (or use your planar gird)
-- Clear the shrine with a blade barrier (most of the time these days, i don't bother with this step, but in the days before shroud items, it was a good idea)
-- Clear the mephit with a blade - loot chest.. if no mephit, don't bother stopping to fight as they'll all tether.
-- Run to the Thirsty One's chest - if you check on Thumak first and find him there, Thirsty won't be there. I kill him and loot his chest anyway because the desert has a vein of tomes running through it. Turn around and run out without killing anything if you can't target a chest in either location.
-- Run over to the Generals' chest and if he's there, lay out your 4th blade (3rd if you didn't clear the shrine).

What I typically do at this point is hit the shrine and clear the southern (firebrand) gnoll chests.
-- As you run by Haraja, Backspace to target his chest (or tab-target him - if you target an elemental, he's not there)
-- run up to where Darkfur is - if he's not there, just dodge everything and leap off the end of the hill.. this puts you on the path to Errulf and Ayurro.
-- Kill the 6 guys at the turn in the hill as they're kind of a pain to leave behind you while you are clearing the top.
-- Lay a blade right as you come to the top of the hill -- this will draw out most of them (and incidentally kill them). sometimes Errulf doesn't come out of his hut, so you'll have to go back in and flamestrike/cometfall/destruct/harm him into submission after his cronies are all dead.

This whole thing takes Zhelda about 5-6 minutes typically and gets the mephit chest, Thumak/Thirsty, General, Haruja, Darkfurr and Aruyyo/Errulf (or all undead, bloodstone, Ring of SpellStoring, Flint (+4 shocking burst dagger - l9) and firestorm greaves .. as well as a few spare chests just for good measure)

[Eldamir]

oh .. and if I'm feeling particularly nasty, I'll spend a bit of spellpoints and slaughter Ozone as well after hitting the General..
That consists of an extended blade barrier as a safety net, followed by Destruction .. sometimes, I'll toss out an Efreet to distract Ozone until I can destruct him too..

[Magikan]

Fear immunity item, Blur, Jump and Haste.

If you are looking for kills, lots of running around firewalls/bladebarriers
If you are looking for loot, just kill at the chests.

Do not stop moving :) you can provide your own evasion by keeping moving.

If you can use, it carry a ddoor/teleport/gtr teleport scroll for your own personal emergency exit.

[moorewr]

I might have to ship my royal guard mask over to Pants for the dire times. :)

[Eldamir]

word of recall scrolls work for clerics.

[moorewr]

word of recall scrolls work for clerics.

Indeed. :)

[Jules]

Great idea Moorewr

Jules

[Jundak]

Fear immunity item, Blur, Jump and Haste.

If you are looking for kills, lots of running around firewalls/bladebarriers
If you are looking for loot, just kill at the chests.

Do not stop moving :) you can provide your own evasion by keeping moving.

If you can use, it carry a ddoor/teleport/gtr teleport scroll for your own personal emergency exit.

Actually, I personally prefer the GH route to a Fear item. If a skelly is able to get the Dunce Spell on ya, no more casting for you. Your clickies, spells, wands, scrolls are suddenly useless...Sorta nice to have that extra boost to your saves out there.

Last thing I'd add is Acid and Fire resist. Just in case you're not moving around fast enough at some point. ;)

[Sidhearcher]

Excellent point Jundak, which reminds me... those Mnemnonic(sp?) pots cure feeblemindedness, so there's a reason to hoard the lesser and minor ones you pull on your lowbie fighter/barb/monk/melee class.

[moorewr]

Excellent point Jundak, which reminds me... those Mnemnonic(sp?) pots cure feeblemindedness, so there's a reason to hoard the lesser and minor ones you pull on your lowbie fighter/barb/monk/melee class.

A very useful thing to remember!

I've been running around the desert a bunch in the 12:30-1:30 PM EST range.. (the "Lunchtime Slayer") all and any welcome.

[Jundak]

Excellent point Jundak, which reminds me... those Mnemnonic(sp?) pots cure feeblemindedness, so there's a reason to hoard the lesser and minor ones you pull on your lowbie fighter/barb/monk/melee class.

Nice...was unaware of that. Or maybe I did and I've just forgotten. Don't know. But that's a nifty bit of info. :)

[Tiblorian]

For solo bloodstone I just used an evasion pally with some choice scrolls that probably aren't sold in shops anymore now that I come to think of it.