I recently completed the level 55 quest "Cracking The Stigma Threshold", a quest that I began writing about some time back. See my first post on this quest for a full recap. After grinding 60 mobs for a total repeat
of 5 times, I'm happy to report that the drop rate stayed the same for every rep quest and hardly changed. There might have been a slight reduction in the drop rate on the last rep, but not by much, maybe 7 out of 10 mobs dropped the item while 8 of 10 dropped them on the earlier reps. Its a reliable quest that isn't quirky or hard to complete outside of the fact that its a long quest to begin with. Oh and while you're out there in Conqueror's Ravine, you might just spy the shugo who sometimes spawns there. He sells high level
designs for crafting! What a nice surpise! I saw him for the first time on my last rep quest, and picked up a couple of designs. You can also sell junk loot and other items to him, which is really convenient while grinding out there and running out of room in my inventory.
It was nice to return to Reemul and get my final stigma enabled. Finally - Quickening Doom - Wow! It really rocks and only has a 1 minute CD.
I hope this was a helpful article to those of you who needed answers about this quest or are soon having to complete it.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Aion 2.7 The Arena of Choas Part 2
I've run the Arena several times since my last post and can now offer a better description of the instance and what goes on there. There are 3 rounds to each run and players can be ported to any of 6 possible places to run those rounds.
The Plaza of Struggle - This arena is also used in the arena of discipline (the 1v1 instance). It's a
Roman coliseum sort of place with an upper tier accessible by stairs and a main level. The main level is a center surrounded by a wall. Outside this wall is a running area with large nooks to stand in. The nooks have faces! A power up called "blessed relics", worth 1250 pts, spawns in the center, usually at the beginning of the round and towards the middle of the round. Be careful though, because if the
instance starts in the Plaza of Struggle, everyone goes running for those relics! Those aren't the only power
ups to get. Go upstairs and you'll find Flame Throwers, worth 500 pts, which deal out a flume of fire from the mouths of one of the faces downstairs, lets hope your enemy is standing there!
The Collapsed Wind Tower - This place is vertical in build and requires flying to navigate through. The main
thing that players in this place go for is the Cannon. This item can be found on the middle wall of the tower, in a nook that was made to house it. If you can get to this item before anyone else, you've got a big advantage. Once you've got control of this item you can tab lock onto players and fire "cannon balls" at them
or fire a paralysis debuff. I prefer the cannonballs because they kill quickly and help me rank up fast. Most players are hip to this tho, and try to fly out of range of the cannon. The cannon will tell you if the targeted player is out of range. In that case just keep tabbing until you find one that can be targeted, and kaboom!, the most satisfying kill ASAP in the entire instance. If round 1 of the Arena starts in the Wind Tower, and your player is placed behind the cannon, you've got it made. Likewise if you respawn behind the cannon during the round and nobody else is already at it. The only downside of using the cannon is that when it disappears after about 15 secs, the player is poisoned and low on health, which is an easy target for those who were waiting for the cannon to fade.
MuMu Garden - This place is a flatland that's easy to run around in. It's also a pretty small place in comparison to some of the other places. The power ups that exist are huge gatherables that spawn for a very short time and require a minimum of 350 gathering skill. I think they give 1750 pts for gathering them and it takes a much shorter time to gather them than regular gathering so its worth it. There's also treasure boxes to be had, which yield crucible power up buffs, like restraint water, explosion water,
faster casting water, etc. Watch out for the Maus, they're elite and they aggro. The mumus are worth pts too and aren't hard to kill, but since the place is small, its likely that someone might attack while trying to kill one so the decision is yours.
Alquimia Culvert - This place is alot like a dungeon. Its also a big maze. The bottom floor of the place has
swamp water that puts a slowing debuff on toons. Stay on the small areas of safe land and jump from land bit to land bit if possible, and watch out for the sprays of sewage while walking along the tunnels of the maze: the sewage outs you from hide and possibly puts a debuff. Ranged fighters can go to the landing at
mid level and shoot players on the ground floor from above, a definite advantage.
Decayed Garden - My least liked area of the arena. Its a circular place with a hill ring to run along on the perimeter, water below the hill ring, and a hill in the middle of the lake. The most important thing to remember in this place is : Dont fall in the water! It puts a damage over time debuff on toons that takes so much HP off per second that its almost impossible to beat, even if you get out of the water quickly. Sometimes taking a potion works if you get out very fast, but most of the time its certain death. Stay away from it at all costs. The hill in the middle can be reached by gliding, and there's relics to be had on the hill, but players often don't make a strong enough glide, end up in the drink, and then its bye bye...
Cassus Manor - This is the haunted house of the arena, and the place with the most mayhem IMO. The aggro is close here, and there's alot of mobs to kill for points if killing players isn't working for you. If you spawn in a room with no other players or can get to an empty room, you can level up by means of pve, and not lose points from being killed. The place has an upstairs and a downstairs, the upstairs is reachable by
means of 4 staircases, which lead to 2 hallways, which each lead to a room with a mob or two. The most valuable mob in the manor is Pale Carmina, who is very tricky to kill because of a buff called bladestorm,
which is actually a reflect buff. All attacks on her are reflected back to the attacker when bladestorm is cast.
This is a quick death, as I found out the hard way. Strategy: wait out the buff without attacking and go for the kill when it runs out, for a reward of 1,500 pts. Btw, these rooms are also the place where the treasure boxes are placed for this area.
And that's it! I hope you found this helpful. I'll try to post some pics of the instance, which is gonna be a challenge to get, but if anybody can it's an assassin, thanks to invisibility skills :)
The Plaza of Struggle - This arena is also used in the arena of discipline (the 1v1 instance). It's a
Roman coliseum sort of place with an upper tier accessible by stairs and a main level. The main level is a center surrounded by a wall. Outside this wall is a running area with large nooks to stand in. The nooks have faces! A power up called "blessed relics", worth 1250 pts, spawns in the center, usually at the beginning of the round and towards the middle of the round. Be careful though, because if the
instance starts in the Plaza of Struggle, everyone goes running for those relics! Those aren't the only power
ups to get. Go upstairs and you'll find Flame Throwers, worth 500 pts, which deal out a flume of fire from the mouths of one of the faces downstairs, lets hope your enemy is standing there!
The Collapsed Wind Tower - This place is vertical in build and requires flying to navigate through. The main
thing that players in this place go for is the Cannon. This item can be found on the middle wall of the tower, in a nook that was made to house it. If you can get to this item before anyone else, you've got a big advantage. Once you've got control of this item you can tab lock onto players and fire "cannon balls" at them
or fire a paralysis debuff. I prefer the cannonballs because they kill quickly and help me rank up fast. Most players are hip to this tho, and try to fly out of range of the cannon. The cannon will tell you if the targeted player is out of range. In that case just keep tabbing until you find one that can be targeted, and kaboom!, the most satisfying kill ASAP in the entire instance. If round 1 of the Arena starts in the Wind Tower, and your player is placed behind the cannon, you've got it made. Likewise if you respawn behind the cannon during the round and nobody else is already at it. The only downside of using the cannon is that when it disappears after about 15 secs, the player is poisoned and low on health, which is an easy target for those who were waiting for the cannon to fade.
MuMu Garden - This place is a flatland that's easy to run around in. It's also a pretty small place in comparison to some of the other places. The power ups that exist are huge gatherables that spawn for a very short time and require a minimum of 350 gathering skill. I think they give 1750 pts for gathering them and it takes a much shorter time to gather them than regular gathering so its worth it. There's also treasure boxes to be had, which yield crucible power up buffs, like restraint water, explosion water,
faster casting water, etc. Watch out for the Maus, they're elite and they aggro. The mumus are worth pts too and aren't hard to kill, but since the place is small, its likely that someone might attack while trying to kill one so the decision is yours.
Alquimia Culvert - This place is alot like a dungeon. Its also a big maze. The bottom floor of the place has
swamp water that puts a slowing debuff on toons. Stay on the small areas of safe land and jump from land bit to land bit if possible, and watch out for the sprays of sewage while walking along the tunnels of the maze: the sewage outs you from hide and possibly puts a debuff. Ranged fighters can go to the landing at
mid level and shoot players on the ground floor from above, a definite advantage.
Decayed Garden - My least liked area of the arena. Its a circular place with a hill ring to run along on the perimeter, water below the hill ring, and a hill in the middle of the lake. The most important thing to remember in this place is : Dont fall in the water! It puts a damage over time debuff on toons that takes so much HP off per second that its almost impossible to beat, even if you get out of the water quickly. Sometimes taking a potion works if you get out very fast, but most of the time its certain death. Stay away from it at all costs. The hill in the middle can be reached by gliding, and there's relics to be had on the hill, but players often don't make a strong enough glide, end up in the drink, and then its bye bye...
 |
| Round 1 Arena of Chaos starting in Decayed Garden - Me and other Contestants |
 |
| Another view - theres the hill in the middle with the relics surrounded by the deadly water |
Cassus Manor - This is the haunted house of the arena, and the place with the most mayhem IMO. The aggro is close here, and there's alot of mobs to kill for points if killing players isn't working for you. If you spawn in a room with no other players or can get to an empty room, you can level up by means of pve, and not lose points from being killed. The place has an upstairs and a downstairs, the upstairs is reachable by
means of 4 staircases, which lead to 2 hallways, which each lead to a room with a mob or two. The most valuable mob in the manor is Pale Carmina, who is very tricky to kill because of a buff called bladestorm,
which is actually a reflect buff. All attacks on her are reflected back to the attacker when bladestorm is cast.
This is a quick death, as I found out the hard way. Strategy: wait out the buff without attacking and go for the kill when it runs out, for a reward of 1,500 pts. Btw, these rooms are also the place where the treasure boxes are placed for this area.
And that's it! I hope you found this helpful. I'll try to post some pics of the instance, which is gonna be a challenge to get, but if anybody can it's an assassin, thanks to invisibility skills :)
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