weissblau - Vex Thal shards - tricks and tips

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weissblau - Vex Thal shards - tricks and tips

Postby Gloriana » Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:45 am

There are lots of guides to the Vex Thal key quest. I'm going to core dump some information I have learned the hard way about SHAMAN and the VT key pieces. I'll list each shard and then the frame. I did the quest at levels 63-64.

For great info on the quest background and story, visit http://eqquest123.netfirms.com/vexthalkey.html .

1. Scarlet Desert. Trivial to solo at 63 (way green), I'm sure it's easily soloable at 55+ or even earlier. Just go to the top of the plateau and pull the sun revs and reavers around the ruins. Pull all of them, and you'll have a shard in 30-45 minutes.

2. The Grey . Easy to solo at 63 with Malo/torpor, should be doable without or easily groupable in the high 50's. Go to the lake in the NW corner and kill the giant skeletons around it. Easy, easy single pulls. Be careful running through the rocks, there are traps; I stuck to the sand AROUND the rocks and was fine. From what I understand, these mobs are around level 55. Drop rate varies, expect a shard in the first couple of hours at most. UPDATE: On the NORTHEAST side of the lake there's a little beach with no rocks right next to a zone wall. This is a better place to set up camp than the west wall, which I used, since you don't have to pull through trapped rocks.

3. Sanctus Seru. Easy to solo the entrance at 63, but entrance mobs don't seem to drop shards all that often. I suggest invising up, running upstairs to the catwalk, heading LEFT and running all the way to the end of the hall. The second hall seems to drop shards more frequently. Kill anything you find in those halls. I have seen long dry spells with no shards here, but usually those people were hanging in the first hall or at the entrance; second hall mobs drop MUCH better. It helps to have a partner for this one, it can get hairy if you have more than one. These guards are highly MR and a mix of LB/DB to 63.

UPDATE: Paladiin and Kashale report that the shard drops in Katta Castellum as well. Read their posts below for details. Kashale has a GREAT post with a map and lots of detail on how to get this shard from Katta instead of Sanctus Seru. Kashale's post is at http://forums.interealms.com/shaman...91&postcount=48

4. Dawnshroud Peaks. Kill either rockhoppers or Sambata, whichever are up. I spent several hours in the bottom clearing down there to get out of the crowds, and got no shards at all. 5 minutes in the top cave and BOOM. Same thing happened for my wife. However, people have reported getting shards in the bottom cave, so maybe it's just less frequent down there. Note that if hoppers are up lots of people XP and loot grind here and you can often loot a shard for free - just do ME/SSeru first and /ooc every time you run through zone.

5. Maiden's Eye.

(This post updated with information from Corlathis, below). There are 5 shard droppers, all of which have Goranga Scouts as PH's. The only Scouts in zone that cannot spawn a dropper are the scouts near the Umbral entrance. Named that can drop shards are

Seer (straight out from DSP) can gate/caster (left back scout)

BM (staright out from AR) pure melee very easy to solo (right looking out from AR)

Prophet (trio of scouts just past AR towards Umbral along zonewall)

Forager/Savant. These spawn in the middle camp of scouts surrounded by skeleton traps. Far and away hardest to pull, but the camp seems to pop them the most often.

Usually prophet and battlemaster are lumped together into one camp and called as such. Kill Goranga Scouts until a named pops and pray. Soloable at 63 once you figure out how not to get adds. Best solo spot is to run to Akheva and set up camp in the little valley out front, at the zone edge to your left as you exit Akheva. There are two scouts around a rock at the other end of the valley. The BM spawns at this site, and he's by far the easiest named - just a warrior, and hardly any more difficult than a regular scout. Prophet gates, so beware.

NOTE: Previous versions of this post recommended rooting one of the two scouts at the BM rock and running back to camp. The rooted one won't follow you, but he WILL keep aggro on you, and he will transfer aggro to any other mob that paths by, so this technique is Not Recommended. Better to pull with slow and root the add closer to camp. Thanks to Zuksharn for pointing this out.

Here's a great map. The Chief and Spiritseer are marked in black but are NOT believed to be shard droppers. The area marked "camp" is the roamer-free safe pull spot usually used for the BM/Prophet camp, although if you can pull to there from the Forager/Savant camp more power to you.



6. Akheva. This is soloable at 63 but would be much easier with a partner. Invis up, run down the first hall to the room with the fallen column. Run around the column and keep running straight down the next hall (I hug the left wall to avoid traps). Run straight into the second room until you have passed the rubble on your left, then turn 90 degrees left. You'll see a smallish alcove on your left with a Shrouded Anisher in it. Kill the Anisher and set up camp in his alcove. No roamers here, just the repop every 15-20 minutes. Now go around the corner to the left and pull rocks. Shaded Stones are fairly easy to root-rot, Rubble Rousers have way to many hit points but don't hit hard.

BTW if you have a good group you can try to tackle the Va'Dyn at this same pull spot. He has tons and tons of HP and will put the hurting on your tanks until he's slowed. Be prepared for a 10 minute plus fight. But the big bonus here is that the VD drops a Glowing Orb of Luclinite, and is much easier to find up and take with a single group than, say, Rhags in Ssra, which are tremendously camped on my server.

7. The Deep. This zone was recently revamped and invis now gets you a lot farther than it used to!!! There are a few see invis mobs in and among the hundreds of others, so be careful. You can kill Thought Horrors at the invisible bridge or for more mobs cross over the bridge, follow the cliff edge to the left until you see thought horrors, and kill them all. Didn't try this solo, I'd really suggest a group here. Go to http://maps.eq-toolbox.com and get a map for the Deep, it makes crossing the invisible bridge trivial - just zoom way in and stay inside the lines.

8. Acrylia Caverns. Go set up shop in the "jail" area and you'll probably have a shard every 5-6 kills, although dry spells do exist. Need a group to be comfortable for this one.

Sorry, I got this a LOOONG time ago and followed someone else there, so I didn't remember the details - but here's Walruss Touth's guide to getting to the Jail area:

Invis up, take a right, then take the second left until you reach a gate.

Go through the gate and go straight til you see stairs with undead skeletons on it. You can kill the skeletons or IVU past them.

At the top of stairs just out of agro range of skeletons, reinvis. Go straight a little ways and look right for a door.

Go through the door and go left. You should see a white palm tree shaped statue, click on it to zone in Inner Acrylia.

Once in, go straight down some steps, watch out for mobs that see invis. At the bottom of the steps turn left and you will see a gate guarded by two grimlings.

If neither sees invis, just run straight through and your in the jail area. If they see invis you will have to set up camp outside and kill em both at the same time. Be careful there are wanderers that will come. The jail area is safe however.

The big shard droppers are the grimling bloodguards although I've seen the shard drop from pretty much any grimling there.


9. Fungus Grove. Get a port to Twilight, zone into FG, invis and lev up, run off the LEFT side of the pathway and in the same direction as the pathway. You'll see some bugs guarding a cave. Go down the cave as far as you can until you see Priest Klacknak or whatever his name is. Run past the priest to a little valley next to a big rock (shiknar herdmaster is there if you go too far) and set up camp here. Kill the warriors, the warlord, the priest, and go through the little tunnel in the priest's room and kill the royal guards. Group is recommended if you want to be able to clear all the spawns. FG can go for hours and hours with no shard, or one can drop quickly. Cash loot here is great - save the droppable loot for vendor sales of 15-25 plat each and the royal guards drop belts and pants to sell to players in bazaar.

10. Ssra. You'll get this one with your guildmates grinding in the basement for green metal. AE groups are the best way to tackle this - you can get a shard about every second clearing of the mines, subject to the normal random variations. If you don't have access to an AE group, you'll need at least a partner, because the mobs summon and don't come single. An enchanter for mezzing is nice, a cleric/pally for pacify is nice, or just get some good DPS and whomp up on the multiples. Somewhat MR but slow usually lands by the second try, and they don't hit hard.

FRAME.
To get the frame, you'll need an Essence Emerald and a Wisp Stone for each person.

Essence Emeralds come from Necromancers casting the Sacrifice spell on a willing victim levels 46-59. Sacrifice uses a regular Emerald as a component. The victim loses XP as if a death and cannot get it back with a rez. EE's are typically for sale in the bazaar, on Rodcet you can get them for under 300p if you watch a while.

Wisp Stones are summoned by mages. They are NORENT but you can pick one up before you go into Akheva.

The frame can be gotten at any time, before or after getting shards. Get a group with some CC and healing power and head to the frame room. Ware the traps - stay close to the walls. There is a trap at the exit to the room where the shard camp is that can't be avoided and can't be disarmed - either fight the mobs, or better have a FD'er trip the trap and FD. Mobs will despawn after a time and the trap will be disarmed. In a pinch, you can train them to zone and COH back. Once at the camp spot, kill the four-arms and the Sacrificed Remains until the Shimmering Presence spawns. Turn in Wisp Stone first, then a robed guy spawns; turn in essence emerald, get frame. No conversation or hailing necessary. Presence spawns about every 20-30 minutes on average.

ALTERNATE SOLO METHOD FOR FRAME (Thanks to Landragoran for posting this):
The scepter frame can be soloed as well if you have decent armor/hps. Here's how that works. First announce that the zone will no longer be safe for the next 5 minutes so everyone should stand clear (if anyone is actually in that zone). Then invis up and go plunging down the hall (sow speed), go as far towards the scepter area as you can triggering traps along the way which will give you a GOD AWFUL train behind you. At some point you'll need to train them all back out and you'll take some damage. A virtue would help a lot here. Train the trap-spawned critters out and then zone back in. The trap-mobs will be gone unless they aggroed other people (who will shortly be gone teehee). Get your hps to full, invis again, and go further. It will probably take a couple times of training trap mobs to zone before you clear the way totally. Once you have cleared traps tho, then go back to the scepter area where you will find a line of 4 hooded mobs and behind them, an altar with 4 "sacrificial remains" and above the altar will be 3 of the 4-arm types. This part is important and you should shrunk at least once for it to work properly. First thing . . . DONT SIT. Not unless you are invisible at the time anyway. You must get on the altar behind the sacrificial remains right in the middle of the corner thingy. Only the nearest 3 remains should be killed . . . and you must kill them without taking your back off the wall or stuff will aggro and you'll have to train out again. They have like 1hp each so mem a small nuke (burst of flame perhaps), and zap the three nearest you when they are up. They respawn in 3.5 minutes, and at some point, killing one will trigger an invisible soul mob to spawn which you will see by his name. Give him the wisp stone and the EE and get your scepter. Then gate out.

ADDENDUM ON SOLO FRAME (Thanks to Dohrian):
I stayed just at the entry of sacrifial pit room, sent pet to kill sacrifial remains, and stayed invised. Pet get aggro on killing 3rd remain, so either kill only 2, or kill all and zone out.
I was able to make turns in without aggroing, in center of sacrifial remains.
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Gloriana
 
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