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Chironex

A guide to the Advanced Instance

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I wrote a guide for 80+ for my guild forums in IRON. Thought I'd share it here. Too.

 

This is not a step by step how to do it guide. I assume that the reader has some little basic knowledge about instances in general. How to form a team, how to go in etc. Also, this is a guide for FIGHTERS in the 80+ instance.

I have tried to be correct. And most of the advice is based on my personal experiences in the instance. I would be glad to be corrected where I am wrong and to be told about differences in opinion. :)

 

Cheers. I hope this is helpful.

 

Instances are an incredibly fun part of Eternal Lands(and several other MMORPGs). It is one of the ways of turning all that a/d training experience into something that is challenging, fun, and if efficiently performed a way to make a lot of gc.

 

In the following posts I shall try to share my experience of instances in general and the advanced instance in particular.

 

Before starting, here's a link to the wiki page:

http://el-wiki.net/Instances#Mountain_instance_80-100_a.2Fd.2C_160_hours

 

 

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Basics:

 

80-100 instance or advanced instance is a mountain instance. Which is to say, it uses the HUGE mountain map.

 

To make it easier to understand my references it would be convenient if the reader has the map of the instance in front of them. Here's a copy with some markers I added:

 

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af213/otohp_photo/instance_mountain.jpg

 

[A better map with wave occupation area shaded: http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af213/otohp_photo/MountainInstance.jpg ]

 

 

There are five waves: The chims/yeti wave, the chitros(imp like) wave, the Japita(penguin like) wave, the Nasparliu(Phantom warrior like) wave, and lastly, the Labagiu(male orc like) wave. Detailed strategy will follow.

 

The instance is over in 180 minutes or when the last laba is killed, whichever comes first.

 

Three types of builds, in general will make up the team for an advanced instance:

 

1> The fighter: This is a build that has high dexterity and might. He/she will do as much damage as is possible w/o ever being attacked by mob.

 

2>The tank: Even in the advanced instance, the tank is generally a specific build with high reaction and toughness. He/she takes the attack of the monster while it is being killed by fighters/rangers.

 

3>The ranger: A good ranger is important if the first wave consists of Yetis. Also, 2 man advanced instances generally have a ranger and a tank.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

Now I shall paint a picture of what happens sequentially in a typical advanced instance(please refer to map):

 

 

<O> You teleport into the Mountain map. Inside the blue circle marked 'A' at the bottom left corner.

 

<1> A bag is made for extra supplies taken in by mules, etc. It is marked and hypered.

 

<2> Wave 1: If the #ii is 40, it is forest chimeran(yay!). This part is simple enough. The stronger people in the group can solo or 2 at a time kill the chims, while the relatively weaker fighters concentrate on the chimeran being killed by the tank. First clear region marked 'B', then the bowl to the right(marked 1), then the bowl to the left(marked 2). If done quickly, and by a competent team, the chimerans should not spread and will be killed without much ado. Rangers need not range here. Get a sword. Whack stuff.

[However if team is slow off the block or starts late after entering chims will walk. One place where they might walk to and get lost is marked with an arrow North of mark 'C'.]

 

IF however, the #ii is 20, you are up against Yetis. Generally players who fall in the category allowed to enter the 80-100 instance cannot in general hit Yetis too frequently. This can be solved in one of two ways:

a>Multi it. Defense reduction will let your hits land. Fighters may use BP capes just for this creature.

b>Range it. This is a much surer bet. Generally a mix of the two is used. Take the same path as in case of the chimerans. The Yetis are tough. But they die without too much ado.

 

 

<3> Wave 2: Now move on to the place marked 'D' in the map. It is the entrance to the chitros bowl. There may be 30 or 40 chitroses depending on your luck. Chitroses look like imps. They have 1000hit points. A high attack, relatively low defense(80), and like all instance only creature,has the mirror skin perk. Single chitroses are not much of a problem. They get hit easily. When full team attacks one, it is killed in 30-40sec. The problem is that there are 30 to 40 of them.

Multiple chitroses at a time are a health hazard and cause about 50%rosto drops in this instance. Do NOT engage 2 at a time unless you're sure you can handle it.

They are typically lured one by one in the narrow part of the passage and killed. Once about 5 or 6 are left, go right in and hunt them in the bowl. Once you've killed all of those, you're through the roughest wave.

The chitros drop HE/SRs sometimes which is pretty handy. Also some Fire arrows which is used by rangers and fighters.

[Here's a picture : http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af213/otohp_photo/CHITROS-1.jpg ]

 

<4> Wave 3: Now it's the turn of the cute little penguins to die. You, with your team walk over to place marked 'E' on the map. By now, your tank is probably running low on HE/SRs. The fighters share their HE/SRs with the tank leaving about 12 restore worth of ings with them. The little penguins are called Japita. They have 10k hitpoints. And they are a pair.

The ranger lures one away from the other and it is attacked. The point is basically to keep on going till it dies. Use highest damaging weapon. Try cleaning it up as fast as possible. They have 70 defense, and with the defense reduction due to multy, everyone hits this creature every time. This is the creature to hit with sword+fire arrow with or w/o pots as the case might me. It eventually dies. And the drops are announced in local. Same thing with the next, allowing the tank to get mana up in between, and you're done with this wave.

[Here's a picture: http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af213/otohp_photo/JAPITA.jpg ]

 

 

<5> It is time for a restock. If bag has not been muled to chitros entrance, this means walking ALL the way back to the start. There you fill up and empty bag. Now walk over to place marked 'F' in the map. maybe take a short nap while your char gets there(j/k).

 

 

<6> Wave4: Nasparliu. These are badasses. Probably the only creature in the instance that kills even if there is only one of it. They have an a/d of about 145/80. That is to say they have the attack of giants. Barring crit dodge rolls and evanescence(10%), they WILL hit you every time. The critss can be quite high. There are either 7 or 9 Nasps in this wave. The trick is to kill them quickly before they send tank into mana cooldown. They only have 1200 hit points so this is not too hard.

Take them one at a time. First the bowl 1 is emptied. Then the bulb marked '2' is cleared. Then the rest can be found further ahead. Now the penultimate wave has been done.

 

 

<7> Wave 5: Now there are only the Labas to go. Labagiu are the end monsters in this instance with 20k hp apiece. They are a pair. They have an a/d of 110/102. They are something like dchims with increased might and a lot more hit points. Which means you will hit it generally speaking. With fire arrows, it is good to use accu pots. Again, the point is to go on hitting it till it dies. Tank might use eva pots to increase time before mana cooldown.

[Here's a picture: http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af213/otohp_photo/LABA.jpg ]

 

An interesting thing is that the laba are pinnable. The pin spot has been marked H in the map. It is a fence and the laba can be pinned easily. So pure ranging is another way to kill laba.

 

Once Laba dies, drops will be announced in local. Repeat for second laba. Now you have killed everything in the instance. You'll be teleported to IP. And asked to have a good day!

[Going out of instance: http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af213/otohp_photo/ENDING.jpg ]

Edited by Chironex

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we know what the instance is all about, we may now move into particulars.

 

When should you start doing them?

 

Well, that dpends on many things. If you're a ranger, the a/d does not make much of a difference as long as it's withing range for instance. The a/d at which a fighter can start effectively doing the instance varies with their attributes.

 

There are three things to consider:

 

1> Can I hit everything except Yeti with a sword? The chance to hit roll depens on the following factors:

a. The attack level.

b. The dexterity of the person(coordination+reasoning/2)

c. In some cases, by the might.

(The last requires explanation. Although might, per se does not affect chance to hit, it does determine if a non crit-to-dmg attack roll will cause any damage at all. In case the entire damage is absorbed by toughness or armor, no attack is recorded)

 

So ideally a fighter should have high attack and high dexterity. The modifiers of the sword also makes a good difference.

 

For example if you are 85attack and want to cause significant damage in an advanced instance, you must have a dexterity somewhere close to 28-30. While a fighter with attack 100 will hit similarly with say 22-24 dexterity.

 

 

2> Can I hit creatures if I use Fire Arrows with my sword? Fire arrows increase damage by a large margin(+15normal+35heat damage) but with a large(-25)accuracy penalty.

 

A fighter that hits a lot with the Fire arrows equipped will do almost twice, or in some cases more damage than a fighter equipped with exactky same sword and shield. This makes a lot of difference in an instance.

 

Obviously, very high dexterity and good levels are required. Accu pots help.

 

 

3> How many people am I going in with? Defence reduction determines what weapon you are going to use.

 

For example, you go in with a 6 member team and attack Laba. It's defence is reduced to 72. With a medium dexterity, you will probably hit it a lot with sword+fire arrows.

If it's a 4 member team, you go for high damage weapon w/o accu bonus. Like a halberd or an orc slayer

For a 2 member team, you go for a weapon which gives positive accu bonus like a radio rapier or a jagged saber.

 

 

If you want to get bags(do max damage on mobs), you have to determine what weapon gives you maximum number of hits. Strike a balance between damage done by a weapon and the number of hits it can land. If you still land hits with a high damage weapon set(say thermal+fire arrow), that is the best case scenario.

 

__________________________________________________

 

 

 

 

Builds:

 

A more or less ideal build for a fighter:

p/c/r/w/i/v = 36/48/24/4/16/16

 

This particular build, for example would hit all monsters(except Yeti) with a radio rapier from ~attack lvl85 and hit most with radio+fire arrow from ~attack91. However one can fight in an advanced instance with lower attribs than these.

Threshold of acceptibility of a build: To be honest, ANYONE falling in the range for instance can potentially fight in one, especially if tank is good. However your fighting in the instance should be justified by an actual share in the damage dealt. Below this threshold, the fighter just acts mainly as a defence reduction, like a very expensive, resource devouring summon.

 

Might: Might, your attack level and stated damage of weapon decides the damage dealt per turn. Now, we must remember that damage will not increase linearly with the increase of the 'might' attribute. The reason for this is that, the first bits of the damage dealt is absorbed by the toughness and armor of the opponent(in non crit-to-dmg rolls). What this means is that for a time, when you start increasing might from a low level, you'll do no/insignificant damage. After this is part is completed, your damage will start increasing regularly with increase in might. We must make sure that might is NOT below or around this level.

In the advanced instance, there is no point fighting if you have might near 24. You'll just not do damage. Your might attribute MUST be atleast, if not much more than in the range of 32-36.

A relatively lower might build is acceptable if the 'dexterity' attribute is very high. But low Might+low dexterity will not work.

 

Dexterity: Dexterity, attack level, and weapon modifiers decide how many times you are going to hit a particular creature/monster. If you are building a character mostly to fight in instances, this is the attribute you should be focussing on. Your minimum dexterity level is determined to a large extent by the weapon you use, as modifiers can be huge. A simple test is to use your instance set on a fluffy. Everything in the instance barring the first wave had lower defense(when multied). If you can't hit a fluffy regularly with the instance weapon, it's time to either move on to a better weapon, or just train a little and gain some levels.

 

[Modifiers-

Accuracy: This increases chance to hit. Works like increased attack level without the damage bonus.

Critical to hit: This is a percentage chance of landing a hit irrespective of your attack/dexterity and opponent's defense/reaction. You want this modifier in your weapon if you have truble hitting.

Critical to damage: This is a percentage chance of bypassing armor IF you also manage to land a hit in that turn. You want this modifier if you land hits consistantly. It will help deal ENORMOUS amounts of damage.

Non-Physical part of the weapon's damage: This part works like a perpetual crit-to-damage roll. If you land a hit, this damage WILL occur no matter what the toughness of the monster. For example the radio dmg of R2, or the cold+heat damage of the thermal, the heat damage of the equipped fire arrow.]

 

 

What we are concerned about is the total damage dealt. It is the product of the number of hits landed and the average damage dealt per hit. In determining the minimum build criteria, both have to be considered. (Lower hits+greater dmg per hit) vs (higher hits+(lower damage per hit) is considered and a balance is struct for optimum damage. If confused, always go towards greater number of hits.

 

 

Build1: p/c/r/w/i/v = 24/48/12/4/12/16 This build has 36 might and 30 dexterity. This is more or less the minimum build for a good fighter. At attack lvl 85-90, use a radio rapier(or JS) on harder monsters and a scythe for easier monsters. After att90, use Sythe mostly. Halberd may be used for Japita.

 

Build2: p/c/r/w/i/v = 24/48/24/4/12/16 This build has 36 might and 36 dexterity. This is a very decent fighter build for instance. At attack lvls 85-90, use a Sythe or OS on harder monsters and R2/thermal/great sword+ fire arrow for easier monsters. After attack lvl 90 use Halberd on harder and R2/thermal/great sword + fire arrow on easier monsters.

 

Build3: p/c/r/w/i/v = 36/48/24/4/16/16 This build has 42 might and 36 dexterity. This is close to the ideal build for this instance. Below attack lvl90, use halberd on harder waves. R2/GS/pinky+FA on easier waves. After attack lvl 90, barring the first wave, use sword+FA on everything(with pots on laba).

 

Build4: p/c/r/w/i/v = 24/48/48/4/12/12 This is a specialised/dedicated 'fight in instance' build. It is relatively weaker than say, build 3 in pvp or if ighting w/o tanks. But WITH tank, this build will do more damage in a low man instance. This is the build of a fighter in advanced instance farming. I do not recomment this build however as it WILL cause difficulty in out-of-instance game play.

 

 

______________________________________________________

 

 

 

Gear: Use AT LEAST a steel set+CoL. There is no point in using a titanium set unless you happen to be a tank. Ideal gear is dragon armor+RDHoLaM+NMT.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

NOT DYING IN INSTANCE IN SIX EASY STEPS

 

 

 

 

1>Inventory:

 

Always have a perfect inventory. Forgetting something important kills.

Make an inventory list with the following and save it.

 

These MUST be taken with you:

 

10-15 rings of disengagement.

2-3 rostogol stones(atLEAST 1)

1 tele ring

3-4 tele to range essies(but NOT TTPR. Either keep less than 5 ttr essies. Or remove TTPR from quickbar beore entering. Once you tele out of instance you cannot re-enter. What is even worse is that your emu worth of supply as well as your share of the damage is gone. It might prove difficult for rest of the team to complete)

1 extra Col or RDHoLaM

1 good weapon. A thermal serp or a radio rapier is good for instance.

1 extra weapon. A scythe or a halberd.

Armor

2 moon meds or 1gath+1moon med

NMT cape(if possible. BP if not)

FR cape

10-12 Fire arrows

2 of each type of keys

6-10 accu pots

Now calculate remaining EMU and divide by 4.2. That is the number of SRs. Once you've put in the SRs, fill the remaining EMU with HEs

 

 

These items are optional:

 

5-10 Attack potion

5-10 potion of coord/phy/reasoning

5 EMPs

Extra SoP for tank

Extra short bow

MoL

Harm/Poison essies to tank part time

Summon stones.

 

However it is better to use as few slots as possible as accu pots are non stackable.

 

 

2> Clear leadership

 

Make sure one person, even if he/she is of low lvl issues the orders. Generally the tank does this. If tank is inherently passive, find someone in team whose judgement you trust and let that ONE person make the decisions. That person can be you if you think that'll work. Two people giving different directions in a difficult situation will lead to brick drops.

 

 

3> DON'T be a bloody hero

 

Someone in team keeps peeking ahead of the tank(or lurer) and gets caught by 3 chitroses or 2 nasps. Do NOT return to help. This will inevitably result in the following scenario:

Fighter 2 in diss cool down eventually manually disses(or comes out of cooldown) and flees. The mobs attack the fighter1 who went to help. Now fighter 1 goes in cooldown. fighter2 or someone else comes to rescue and so on. I have seen many deaths like these.

 

Keep faith in your fellow fighter. Unless they actually ask for help, they'll come out alive. If not, and you try to help, you'll multied after he/she dies and will probably die too.

 

Running away as a group in an instance is a VERY important skill.

 

Further tips on escaping mobs:

If more than one is near but not engaged, WAIT for all of them to engage and THEN use diss ring. Otherwise you'll be re-engaged. And this time in diss cooldown.

 

An useful skill is diss+tele to range. It's not quite as easy as it sounds, but once mastered it will get you out of plenty of sticky situations.

 

 

 

4> Watch out for those Mirrors: I learnt it the hard way. Was at 210 hps at penguins. Next thing I know, I'm dead. Consecutive mirrors. 75+135!!

If you are not the tank, don't let your hitpoint go down below your max damage plus 20.

If you are the tank, don't let your hp get down below max crit of monster+your max damage+20

 

This wastes some additional resources. But that is the price to be paid for the extremely high damage dealth out.

 

 

5> Get the ranging fix: That causes brick drops quite frequently. You resync and wake up at spawn.

If necessary, get your fellow fighter/tank to get it even after the instance has started and you're between waves. Once done and client rebooted, you'll have a much safer instance.

 

 

6> Don't freeze: When that huge bad monster comes striding your way, remember it's a pattern of pixels. You're not really going to die. At most you drop a rosto. In a particular situation, like when you're in diss cooldown and mana cooldown and get attacked, be calm. Try manually disengaging. Use your EMPs and GHPs. Put on your MoL and SoP if you have. Once disengaged, walk away, or if possible tele to range.

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___________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

I had in mind a section about fighting ethos in an instance, like tank formula, etc. But that might be better stated under a general guide for instances.

 

Again, hope this was helpful :medieval:

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You mentioned NMT (not everybody has a fortune) or BP cloak. What about Mirroring cloak?

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I've never done the Advanced instance (was past it when instances were implemented) but this looks like an excellent guide, it's clear that the author understands the combat system well.

 

edit:

and @saxum:

For the tank mirror cloak is good, better than BP... but for the dps' it's pointless. Even if a mirror hit can be mirrored, which to this day i'm not 100% sure on, a BP will still easily work out better because increasing your crit-dmg chance by 10% every time you successfully hit (which should be 85-95% of the time, depending on mob having eva perk or not) is much better than having a 10% chance of mirroring something that only happens 10% of the times when you successfully hit (so <1% chance per round of the effect occurring).

Edited by Korrode

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Like this guide it shows clearly the Mistakes we done in Instances and has all important pointers in it, People going after it will fair better then i did in the beginning of this instance

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I had in mind a section about fighting ethos in an instance, like tank formula, etc. But that might be better stated under a general guide for instances.

I haven't found the general guide (if it exists), so what is the good/best build for a tank in this instance ?

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Excellent guide, thanks for posting it.

 

There is one thing I don't get: 'Now calculate remaining EMU and divide by 4.2. That is the number of SRs. Once you've put in the SRs, fill the remaining EMU with HEs'

 

1 SR weights 5 emu so I think the 4.2 is wrong.

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There is one thing I don't get: 'Now calculate remaining EMU and divide by 4.2. That is the number of SRs. Once you've put in the SRs, fill the remaining EMU with HEs'

 

1 SR weights 5 emu so I think the 4.2 is wrong.

It is.

What you want is:

(EMU / 41) * 5

 

Calculators at this site btw:

http://www.paradoxcomputers.com.au/el/hesrtake.php

Edited by Korrode

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The other way to calculate your HE/SR ratio is this: -

 

 

1 restore uses 4 HEs and 25 mana.

1 SR pot gives 20 mana, so per restore you use 1.25 SRs.

 

4 HE/1.25 SR = 3.2 HE/1 SR

 

HE weighs 1emu, so for every 8.2 emu you have, fill 5 emu with SRs and 3.2 with HEs. Hence,

 

no.of HEs = (free emu)*3.2/8.2. Fill rest with SRs.

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When I just promoted to 80-100, I've read this guide a few times and it helped me thru a lot of instances. I can recommend it to anyone wanting to do the advanced instance.

 

Allthough the builds posted give you an excellent idea on what to do, I give you my built at that time and my experiences with it.

 

Build 5: p/c/r/w/i/v = 28/48/16/4/12/20. This build has 38 might and 32 dexterity. I used a scyth till I was 90's attack, then I switched to radiactive rapier with fa's on all monsters except the first wave (there I used r2 with shield). When I noticed I could not hit well, I used att/coord/reason/accu pots to increase my accuracy. This was in 4-5 man teams. In 3 man teams, I just used scyth on all except the first wave, there I used r2 with shield.

 

 

Some small extra pieces of advice.

 

The guide mentions that you need to find a modus between hitting and damage per hit. The trick I still use to determine if I could hit a monster well is: Look at the first 15 rounds of combat and see if you get exp every round. If you do, keep that configuration or experiment with a less accuracy, more damage one.

 

Nothing is more frustrating than running out of resources just before Labas. Wouldn't it be nice if you'd had an emergency bag after Nasps so you could use that when this happens? We had one, and it saved us a few times. Stuff we had in that bag: sr/he/eva/def pots, skull key and fa's.

 

You can make such a bag as follows: before you go to the Labas, or when you are done with them.

 

To do before means that you'd have to make a calculated guess how much more resources you need for the last 2 Labas.

 

To do it after, you need to make sure there is a bag on the ground when you finish the instance. So make a bag with 1 gc/fruit or whatever before you kill last Laba and keep that bag refreshed (Safer is to make 2-3 of them so 1 accidental pick up won't get you kicked out) till you are done making emergency hyperbag. As long there is 1 bag on the ground, the instance will not finish (unless it is time I think, never tested that).

 

*edit: typo's

Edited by DonC

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