Imperial Shugo Tomb

The Shugo Imperial Tomb instance is back for the 2nd time this year.  Surprise,  surprise!   Lets review the basics.  The instance can be run by players lvl 51 and higher,  the entry point is in each faction's home city,  although there are also entry points in Inngison/Gelkmaros ,  and  you must be in a group of 3 players to run it.

First,  pick up the quest from the shugo who ports you into the instance.  For both factions it's Indianerk and the quest is called "Spirited Thanks".

Picking up the quest from Indianerk

Once you've picked up your quest and have a group,  you're ready to start!  Lets
discuss how this works.  Once you port in,  you'll arrive transformed into a shugo
warrior,  and none of your normal,  class based skills will work (they'll be disabled).
They've been replaced with a simple 3 skill bar as seen in the pic below.  The skill on the left is a basic weak 3 target AOE attack that can be used more than the other 2 (it has the quickest cooldown).  The middle skill is called Shugo Doom and inflicts 3K damage on just one enemy.  The skill on the right is called Shugo Sweep and is an AOE that does 566/567 damage on up to 4 nearby enemies.

These are the skills that are given for the first round of the instance.  In the later rounds
you'll be given more skills to help defend the Emperor's Monuments,  which are a trio of  towers that appear as soon as you or one of your group members speak to the shugo inside the instance.  It is your group's job to defend these towers, especially the one in the middle,   from the onslaught of enemies that will be coming to break them down.
 The first stage of the instance is the easiest.


The beginning of Stage 1

A great view of the 3 monuments you have to defend in order to win

 Enemies will be coming from the the top of the stairs,  so most groups position 2 ppl at the top of the stairs while the 3rd group member speaks to the shugo at the bottom to begin the instance.   When the game begins,  enemies immediately begin streaming in and your group has to fight them and keep them from reaching/harming the towers at the same time.  In the first stage its fairly easy to hold them off but in the later stages its nearly impossible.   I'll dicuss that in a minute.   In each stage there's a boss to be fought and hopefully you and your group have dealt with all the lesser mobs by the time the boss appears.   During each stage there's a break for about 10 secs at which point some new mobs,  called Shugo Tomb Ghosts appear.  They are semi-transparent and hover in the air.  Kill them quickly because they drop valuable items that your group will need  in the later stages of the instance.  The items are:  Cursed Chill,  an AOE freeze that can be used on groups of enemies to stop them in their tracks while you kill them,  Spell of Healing,  which is used to heal the Emperor's Monuments when its health gets too low.  They also drop 2 kinds of DP restoration items:  Trickster's Essence,  which restores 2K DP ,  and  Powerful Trickster's Essence,  which restores 4K DP.  In my experience they don't drop very often,  so make sure to bring your own DP jellies.


Killing the Tomb Ghosts is a must

  When you've killed the Stage boss,  it will drop some of these items also but its very important to get the items from the tomb ghosts as well,  because you'll need as many as you can get.  The stage boss also drops Treasure Map pieces,  which go to every group member.  Three pieces are needed to assemble a box,  which gives a tag when opened.  The tag is used to gain access to the Treasure Chest room at the end of the instance.  He will also drop a Treasure Chest Key,  which is only valuable if you can enter the abovementioned room.        

The final boss of Stage 1
 

Stage 2 is more difficult.  You are given a 4th skill called Shugo Venom,  which is a DP AOE that uses 1000 DP to inflict 339 damage on up to 8 nearby enemies.  
During this stage is when the Spell of Healings and the Cursed Chill will be needed.

Stage 2 battle

 

The mobs just don't stop and they cant be held off as easily as in Stage 1.  The Cursed Chills are used to freeze a group of mobs in place while your group quickly deals some damage to them and the Heals are used to restore the monument's health.  The boss for Stage 2 is Letzu Erezat,  an owl of the Strigik tribe of Sarpan. 

Stage 3 gives you a 4th skill called Magic Mirror,  which is used to shield the Emperor's Monument.   It reflects damage back to the attackers and uses 2K DP to cast.   The boss for Stage 3 is Captain Lediar,  another owl.   The  rewards for completing the final stage successfully include: a selection of Tags to roll on,  extra map pieces (which are used to assemble a box that will yield a tag) and possible extra treasure chest keys.  The gold tags are the best,  followed by silver and lastly bronze.  If you end up with a bronze tag and you have enough map pieces to assemble a box,  then do so to see if you get a better tag and use that one instead to enter a better treasure box room.  You can get certain pieces of gear in the treasure box room,  such as Stormwing gear,  which you'd need to run Besh Temple to get.  You can also get some excellent rare wing sets if you're lucky,  and there's also a chance at getting a pet that gives the new composite manastones.  I've never gotten any of those items,  although a friend of mine got the bone wing set and another friend got a piece of Stormwing gear.   I've gotten mithril medals and AP relics,  always crowns and goblets,  which makes it well worth the difficulty involved to successfully complete the instance. 

That's my overview of the Shugo Tomb.  It takes some planning and coordination on the part of the group members because its challenging,  but it pays well if you make it to the end.  Thanks for reading and have fun :D

Taloc's Hollow Part 2

In my last installment I had just finished killing Shinshir,  which gave me the item I needed to break one of the helper NPCs out of his cocoon.  I chose the Templar Engeius to accompany me on the rest of my journey.   Our journey through Taloc's now continues.  At some point of walking through the instance you'll arrive at a place called Muculent Grotto,  which is where your next boss fight occurs.  The boss is named Gellmar,  and he's one of Taloc's parasites (see pic below).

The location of Muculent Grotto,  where you'll find Gellmar

Sighting Gellmar

I always clear all the regular grade parasite mobs from the room first before fighting Gellmar,  although you'll end up having to fight Gellmar and a few of them at the same time anyway,  as some of them surround him and try to defend him.  In the pic below
I've just finished off the defending mobs and am finishing him off.

Dealing with Gellmar as he casts jagged teeth

As a reminder,  while walking through Taloc's,  don't forget to keep an eye out for Taloc's Soil,  which can be essencetapped for the quest item Taloc's Leaf for the quest
"The Wounds of Change" (see pic below).  It usually takes 2 runs of Taloc's  to complete this quest,  because there aren't that many of the quest item to be found in one run.

Finding the quest item Taloc's Soil


 

Obtaining the quest item

After dealing with Gellmar,  you'll eventually find your way to Kinquid's Den.  As you enter you'll be treated to a movie that gives you a hint on how to fight him.  As with Gellmar,  try to kill some of the smaller mobs before dealing with him,  tho it will be more difficult to do that because Kinquid flies around the room and is more likely to  aggro on you as a result.   In the room there are vent craters that spew gusts of purple
smoke.  The movie hints that the best way to fight Kinquid is by standing over a vent while it's venting smoke.  They say that this lowers his physical defense,  which is actually pretty strong.  I've tried fighting him both ways,  with and without the aid of the vent smoke.  I find that its a harder and longer fight to use the vents than it is to just keep hitting him without the smoke's help.  I find that using the vents is more difficult
because  having to be standing right over a smoking vent while being chased and attacked by him is a lot trickier than just standing anywhere I choose and fighting him.
The reason why is that the smoke moves from one vent to another and its hard to keep up with while fighting him.  You'll have a chance to try both ways because most players run Taloc's more than once. 


Fighting Kinquid as he charges up Kinquid's Bite



Facing the smoke vent that can be stood on to lower Kinquid's defenses

Another shot of him attacking us

Hey! I'm supposed to be standing there! Move outta the way!

And finally... Victory!

As you can see in the above pic,  the fight took a lot out of my Templar helper.  Its a good thing I'm a cleric!  

 

As you make your way out of Kinquid's Den,  this is what you'll see:

 

How things look after leaving Kinquid's Den

At this point I'm now crossing over into the final zones of the instance.  I'll cover that in Part 3 of this article,   coming soon!

The Guardian General Showdown Event

This new event,  which began on May 8th and ends on May 22nd,  takes place in Silentera Canyon in Jotun Square.  The siege begins daily at around about 11 a.m. PST and then again 12 hrs later.  The objective of the siege contest is for each faction to kill the opposing faction's Guardian General deity while defending their own general at the same time.  The faction to down the opposite race's deity first is the winner.   The reward for winning the siege is a Guardian General Treasure Chest,  which contains the following 3 items:

1. A mithril medal
2. A special manastone box which may or may not contain a special composite manastone
3. A major ancient crown

 Any player who can enter Silentera Canyon can participate in the siege,  meaning its open to lvl 50 and up.  I've attended 1 siege so far and it was uncontested by the Asmos (they didn't show up),  so it was very easy.   Its not always that way though
so its best to be prepared for a fight!

Here are a couple of pics that I've taken:

The new NPCs in Jotun Square.  This isn't during siege time.

Sometimes they aggro on one another and start fighting!

At the siege waiting for the dieties to spawn
 

Downing Furious Stalari

I'll post more pics if and when I go to more sieges.  Until then,  Have Fun in Aion :)