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Saturday 9 August 2014

Source of Corruption - Solo?

So I'm down at the Waterfront, and quite enjoying it in this part of Zafaria. Actually, truth be told I like all of Zafaria pretty much. And there are plenty of different areas to explore. Even better when I come across a dungeon that is more than one fight to win. And that is when I was led to the "Black Palace" quest - defeat the Source of Corruption. Expecting to go into a fairly standard sort of fight, I was happy to see this one had slightly more meat to it.

Unfortunately the first effort ended in failure, no converts and the many death enemies in here meant that it was probably a foregone conclusion! Easy to know when a dungeon is more than a small battle - time to port back in differs significantly. In this case I had 30 minutes.... and I knew that going solo in this one might take a bit of time.

Looking over at Central you can easily see that there are few things to complete to earn the XP. First up are a couple of boss fights, Ice boss surrounded by 3 death minions - Oh what a joy this battle was going to be!

By the way, I didn't look up any tips or tricks in this battle. I like to try and figure it out myself, I just popped over to grab some images for the blog! The Ice boss fights were about as standard as they come. I had the added issue of all the minions being Death so plenty of converts in play in these battles.

Word to the wise though.... stick to the outside and go where the arrow tells you when you are moving around between fights. The minion battles are not required.

Once these boss battles are done you have to shatter some stones. I got caught in way too many side battles doing this part - so take care when you are finding each one!

As you move further into the dungeon, who just know that final boss fight is not too far away. I was expecting Ice, as this one had had plenty of Ice and Death all the way, but no - it was to be a Storm boss.

Time to defeat Tim-Tim-SnakeEye. Health-wise we are not talking the biggest boss, but Storm, well they have a pretty hard hits if they don't fizzle! And this is one of my favourite Storm Spells - a purple headed dragon slowly moving up out of the mist, then just staring, mocking you with the hit that is to come. I just had to take a pic!

Back to the battle, my health looked precarious fairly quickly in this one, and hits like this one didn't help. But the biggest issue was a Tower Shield. And yep, you've guessed it, not an ordinary Tower Shield - that would be far too easy! But you know what? A 90% Tower shield is bad enough, but one that is recast EVERY time you get rid of it - we had another cheating boss on our hands. So what was to be my strategy this time?

I immediately thought of Poison again. First round to get rid of the shield, then hit while it is missing. Hmmm. It didn't work. I had so many Pips spinning around me and no clue what to do. One thing that was certain, however was that I needed to heal to continue. I had packed 2 Fairy cards and 2 Sacrifice cards in my deck. I hardly ever heal myself, so don't tend to want to waste space with these cards. When the Fairy appeared I grabbed her with open arms and played a Fairy heal for probably the first time in months!

And that was when something curious happened....

Now I know enough to realise that this was a hint, and it showed when I healed (which as you can see was needed badly!). Then the best thing happened - the Tower shield evaporated. Hmmm. Time to play my 9 pip and get a real hit in.

Almost 4,000 and I'm back in the game. So healing helped me out. But I only had one more Fairy, and I need to get a boosted half-life back spell ready with as much back hit as possible ready for that Fairy. Blades and Feints were all I had, so I got them ready while I waited for that Fairy.

Getting a bit hairy now. My health is depleted and the Fairy is in hiding. But there was a Sacrifice there.
It would use my blades, it would most certainly defeat me, and bring me back losing my battle setup, but the real question is - Does it count as a heal? I had no option but to use it and see what happened - we were definitely at "Kill or be Killed" stage in this battle!

So I played it. I was defeated as expected, lost my pips, my aura and my blades, but I was healthy and that Tower shield was no more. I only needed 4-pips to run my Vampire and the result was good :)

This was a real risk to take at this stage in this dungeon, so I am really glad that it worked out well.

I love being able to do these fights solo - really makes you think through and apply a strategy, but I still have a couple of battles to do that I just can't solo. The Helephant Tower is one that I have tried solo a couple of times, but I know it is ultimately futile. I know I will need help. The other is Poseidon - the 2nd Aquila battle. I still think that maybe I can do this. I have got to the final battle twice solo'ing, just never completed that final battle. Time will tell, but I reckon I need to shout up a couple of friends for that Tower!

Anyway, that's it from me for now.

Have fun, until next time,
Tabitha

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations on soloing again :) Great write up too.

    What a coincidence though. Thursday, a friend called for help... where? The Black Palace! Now if I'd just read your post beforehand it would have reminded me of his cheat. I just could not remember, it seems so long since I was there and it was a while before one of us cast the first heal.

    I'm sure that you will get :Poseidon by yourself. Think that you are right about the Tower though, friends will be useful. I've finally got through it but needed the friends. I think that first battle is the worst!

    My little Death is now in Dragonspyre. She solos but seems to keep picking up company and today I was so pleased she did. It took forever to collect the crystals that we needed and, having someone pleasant and friendly to talk to as we battled the same creatures for well over an hour, was a joy.

    Have a wonderful weekend.

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  2. Hey Scarlet! I look forward to hearing from you at the weekend!

    Do you find it very different when playing your Death Wiz? I can't imagine what it would be like to run a different school through :)
    I like it when you tie up with someone for a while doing the same quests. I did the same through a fair bit of DS as it goes :)
    You have a lovely weekend too.
    Tabitha

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  3. Thank you :)

    Think that I may prefer playing on the Death wizard. I like the spells, like hitting and healing all in one. I'm also finding it easier that it was when I went through with my Balance wizard. That could be because Balance is my first wizard and I was still learning to understand how best to battle? However, I am assisted by a much better pet than Balance had at that level, that might also be making a big difference :)

    Little Death also seems to be using the same deck for her encounters in Dragonspyre. I seem to be able to discard more cards than I tend to do whilst being Balance. (Balance now has decks tailored towards specific encounters and the recent Storm Mastery amulet has proved a godspend when faced with Balance bosses.)

    Re-reading your post, I'm guessing that you now also use different decks for different encounters. So I imagine that, when I reach higher levels, little Death will also create tailored decks.

    I do have fun questing on Balance though and enjoy the feeling of achievement that I get when I solo something difficult. I know that you know how good that feels :)

    Have a happy Sunday and good luck in your treasure hunt :)

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  4. Hey Scarlet. While I was at DS I pretty much used the same deck. It started changing a bit in Celestia. I think the tipping point was that the bosses needed more specific spells, whereas for the side fights I just needed to streamline. I was spending too long discarding cards to get what I wanted. So I culled most of the deck and ended up with between 10-15 cards depending on which school I was battling.
    Have a great week!
    Tabitha

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