Solo Farming Rares

[puckstop98]

New Post over at Bear Shaman Problems: http://bearshamanproblems.blogspot.c...ing-rares.html

Full Text (sans links)

Someone on the forums had said farming solo instances like Refuge of the Apostate, Isle of the Iron Statues, Forgotten City (Unchained), and Dead Man's Hand (Unchained) for rares was full retard. I respectfully disagree. Doing Nightmare Bubbles would be full retard. Solo farming for rares is just partial retard and everybody knows you never go full retard. And having done it to get the Children of Yag shield, the Hyrkanian Chest and necklace (on different toons), it is also very tedious.

When I wrote the guide to Dead Man's Hand's main quest line, I ran the instance 18 times to get an idea of how much gold, Esteem Tokens, etc. would be gained. Dead Man's Hand, while fun, is the most time consuming of these solo instances but each one, if completing the quests in them, takes around 25-40 minutes (although I know people can do them faster if just going for the rares).

Here's the breakdown of average rewards for the solo farming instances based on at least 16 runs:

Instance Money (S.CCTT) Esteem Tokens Rares Mastery Imperial Insignias Hard Mode Tokens
Dead Man's Hand 59.1099 25.06 3 110K 0 N/A
Forgotten City 46.3855 17.67 1 90K 60 N/A
Refuge of Apostate 55.6311 21.5 2.65 70K 30 N/A
Isle of Iron Statues 40.50955 0 2 70K 0 3


Dead Man's Hand, Isle of Iron Statues, and Refuge of Apostate all grant 2-3 Rare Tokens. Iron Statue's Hard mode also grants an additional 2-3 Rare Tokens. Forgotten City only grants 1-2 Rare Tokens.

From a pure rares-per-hour, nothing beats Isle of the Iron Statues. This, however, is the most difficult of the four instances. Slith has a good walkthrough (http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2011/...-hardmode.html) while this video by Kay Bee below shows some short cuts to make hard mode a little less hard.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=2u5LMtzXy30)

Typically, once I get up on the second ledge to get away from the panthers and giant birds, I follow the path until the boss spider. Then I pick up the short cuts again. The main reason, other than I'm bad at platforming (being a keyboard turner and all), is that you get credit for animal kills for the minion spiders (and they don't pose a serious threat).

Once I've killed enough animals, I generally make a run for it to the rez pad before the final Ape boss where a pack of savage animals cut me down.

Refuge of the Apostate is probably your next best choice from a pure Rares/minute effort. Anvil of Crom's walk through (http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/04...-the-apostate/) is pretty good while AOC Wikia has a nice map of the maze area (http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Refuge_of_the_Apostate) (which will help make sense of the levers there). Refuge offers a blue weapon at the end of the instance, although chances are, it won't be as good as the weapon you already had just to get through it. But, to some extent, we all like vendor trash. And we really like paths that take you back to the quest giver. The optional ring quest you pick up just outside the instance was something that I often took and then returned when I did my next run, essentially only running it every other time. I valued my time more than 11 silver and then having to run through Kara Korum being chased by half the mobs between Ghost Hill and Fendgu.

Forgotten City, while used to give between 1 and 2 rares, seems pretty stuck on 1 rare based on the 16 runs I did. While this is a fun instance, I'd use it mostly as a barometer for whether you're ready to make the jump from Dead Man's Hand to Refuge of the Apostate. Unless you really, really want some Imperial Insignias. If you follow the group tactic shown on Conan College (https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=TapZzxZb2C8), you can get more Imperial Insignias. I'm not sure if it's a glitch that removes the 18 hour cool down or if it is working as intended. While I'm sure it's been commonly used, I wouldn't recommend this tactic as if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

All of the instances, outside of Isle of the Iron Statues, the mobs tend to drop bags that contain money, alchemy components, esteem tokens, and Mastery manuals. The undead pirates on the Island do drop Solider Kits, but the drop rate is pretty low (0-2 per run) compared to 6-14 bags in the other instances.

Happy (Solo) Hunting!

Updated: 1/19/15 - Fixed link

[Khaletohep]

I agree: HM Tokens are pretty quick to farm in solo dungeons, and they force you learn your class abilities and movement, too.

My opinion:

Greatest return of investment (HM Tokens / time):
1. Isle of Iron Statues (10-15 min, Turan port gets you just in front of the dungeon)
2. Dead Man's Isle (less quick, but same port)
3. Refuge of the Apostate (needs Kara Korum port, long travel times) - can be higher if you need Legion/Scarlet Circle reputation or quest tokens
4. Forgotten City (end of the world, just 1 HM token)

Greatest Fun:
1. Forgotten City (quick fights, nice graphics, not that frickin' dark as the others)
2. Refuge of the Apostate (great looks, fun fights)
3. Isle of Iron Statues (adrenaline rush)
4. Dead Man's Isle (Why is everything grey? Is this Fallout 3?)

The Wikia guide is making a bit angry. I originally wrote that guide for the Test Live Forums. I deleted it there after some we're-not-allowed-to-talk-about-it-incidients which made me unable to update it regularly. Then, I posted it in these forums, again, but it's not possible to post pictures in the raid/dungeon forum (where it would make sense), whereas it is possible to do here, as proven by this cat:



I instead posted it in our guild forums, where our admin somewhat ****ed it up, and parallel to that, somebody copied it to the Wikia (without asking, of course, but at least giving credit - ("courtesy of") my a$$).

Personally, I really love writing guides, making cool pictures for them and so on. Did some for our guild forum, did some on Youtube - it's just sad to me that this forum doesn't really support that. This forces the community to individual sites like (the excellent) Cynara's Blog, the ever helpful AoC > TV and last, but not least, the Assassin's Hideout. I alway pull some hairs our when I see Slith's butchered re-posts in these forums and compare them to how cool they can look with less restrictive administration. That was one of the things they got better in Guild Wars, I think: They had a wiki for players.

But well, someday, maybe, ... when everybody's gone...



As a sidenote:

AOC Wikia has a nice map of the maze area (http://aoc.wikia.com/wiki/Refuge_of_the_Apostate)(which will help make sense of the levers there).

There's a formatting error there (needs a space between the brackets, I think).

[puckstop98]

Thanks Khaletohep! I just fixed the link.

I think there not being a good go-to place for new players has hurt people just learning the game. Since a lot of games have extensive player generated information (wowhead, for example), games without seem 1) dead and 2) too challenging to stay with.

Slith, Cynara, and more recently, Conan College have put together some really good guides (which I try to credit when cited). When I see a new post has gone up, I usually read it on their sites instead of here just because of how the forums limits pictures, etc. This was the first time I bothered with adding links to the forum post (which, I'll probably do for non-humor related links).

When I'm grinding for rares, I'll usually do the two Turan ones for a few days and then go to KK for Refuge for a couple of days, just to mix it up. KK might be my least favorite zone in AoC as it's depressing and has too many trash mobs. I'll do Forgotten City when I'm in Gateway, just because it's fun. It's also the gear test before going to Refuge.

[Anubium]

When I grind for rares, I'll do milestone quillin farming if no raids/sixies are ongoing or I want some mindless videoyoga that I can do while still watching TV (now if I could just figure out how to read and farm quillins, my life would be complete). I can farm 37 milestones in about 10 days if I do it moderately often late at night btw. Then I do a run a night to statues to get the 5 rares.

If I do sixies then I rarely win rolls on milestones anyway. And for me its faster to farm the unchaineds imo than go on most pug sixies for rares.

I can run statues and not kill any mobs if I don't want to beyond the statues and the two vultures and the ape. I generally kill the pirates after the statue area just to see if I get a decent box.

[Kurt2013]

The problem with solo grind is, that it is totally unbalanced in design. Only certain classes and chars beyond a power threshold can do as stated in the posts above. Just as comparison the usual numbers from fresh chars:

- isle of iron statue: you should know all the tactics and even then it takes 30 mins minimum, even if you know the shortcuts. Be prepared for no reward at all, if you have not enough heal pots and power to survive two hits from the ape in a row.
- refugee of apostate: same, some classes start having trouble with the first boss even and others can not finish the final one (e.g. hours wasted, no rewards). So make sure, you can deal with multiple khitai mobs with ease and can survive or heal. The scripting makes it not easier in the first fight, since retreat or kiting resets the boss.
- forgotten city: quite easy to get to the final boss, even as undergeared 80, but you need some dps and potions for the first boss and additionally luck for the second. Can take up to one hour till you realize you are too weak for it.
- dead mans isle: even average geared chars can get to the final boat boss, but here you might find out you have no chance to win (again after at least one hour of fighting, thus NO rewards). But the final boss might change, if you try again later (and not delete the quest)

Bottom line, best way to get some rares as newbie is to do normal modes or find people to help you with hard modes (again, some classes have it here easier as others to get run through or do their intended role. Try finding a hm as underpowered tank for example...).

[RunningWolf]

I find that by switching up my play style from 'what I want' to 'what the devs were thinking' that I'm often able to easily overcome content that was otherwise extremely difficult. Ranger is a great example of this. Previously I got beat to death (try to run some of the solo stuff with a ranger and no great gear). Then I switched up my spec, put a point in the shield ability for the knockback, and I open up ranged, then switch to melee combat (and still do fair DPS) with my KB and a snare and full traps (and my bomb). It completely changed the way I play my ranger and made things much more playable.

Likewise with my Sin - for solo play I have the stun, kb, and such abilities. I burst enough damage with no real gear to speak of that I can kill most things.

Barb I switch from two handed weapons to having two weapons in each hand.

Granted, the only classes I've not played these higher level ones on are casters - so maybe they can't hold their own - but I would think there must be a mechanism in place with them as well, just like every other class - it's just not always what I want.

In the example of dead man, that run is a pain if you get the wrong girl - but as long as you take appropriate action at the right times, it's very much doable, even in blue crafted gear (at least on every soldier class, all rogue classes, and bear shaman - but then I have never run across anything my BS couldn't do solo better than any other class with no gear).

The problem with solo grind is, that it is totally unbalanced in design. Only certain classes and chars beyond a power threshold can do as stated in the posts above. Just as comparison the usual numbers from fresh chars:

- isle of iron statue: you should know all the tactics and even then it takes 30 mins minimum, even if you know the shortcuts. Be prepared for no reward at all, if you have not enough heal pots and power to survive two hits from the ape in a row.
- refugee of apostate: same, some classes start having trouble with the first boss even and others can not finish the final one (e.g. hours wasted, no rewards). So make sure, you can deal with multiple khitai mobs with ease and can survive or heal. The scripting makes it not easier in the first fight, since retreat or kiting resets the boss.
- forgotten city: quite easy to get to the final boss, even as undergeared 80, but you need some dps and potions for the first boss and additionally luck for the second. Can take up to one hour till you realize you are too weak for it.
- dead mans isle: even average geared chars can get to the final boat boss, but here you might find out you have no chance to win (again after at least one hour of fighting, thus NO rewards). But the final boss might change, if you try again later (and not delete the quest)

Bottom line, best way to get some rares as newbie is to do normal modes or find people to help you with hard modes (again, some classes have it here easier as others to get run through or do their intended role. Try finding a hm as underpowered tank for example...).

[Raeil]

Definitely takes a certain level of gear and aa's on some classes. I've been running some lesser geared characters through some of these lately and the difference is... breathtaking.

Bear Shaman in crappy blues pretty much walks through everything without breaking a sweat. Is a little low on dps so fights take longer, which can be a nail biter on the spider in Iron Statues, but is almost unkillable.

Demo in culture and blues is about the same as the Bear Shaman but in reverse. Isn't that sturdy but kills things fast enough that it doesn't matter plus the heal from the pet and the high regen from buffs helps a lot. While I have cacodemon and bindings of the skylord maxed I can't say how much difference they make since I never tried before maxing them.

Guardian in culture and some T1 is borderline. Bit of a struggle but doable except for Drostan and his rats. I don't think I could have beat that without Stall the Advance. Certainly not consistently.

Last guy in Forgotten City pretty much had his way with my freshly minted, offline leveled ranger in the set of T1 from the sub offer. Granted I'm clueless on rangers and had only the 80 aa's from leveling to work with but damn... Plus not being able to kite and heal up really hurt on the ranger. Finally beat him by simply going balls to the wall, all out, in his face, everything I had dps. I don't even want to think about Drostan and the rats with the ranger and haven't tried Iron Statues yet.

On the flip side none of it is even remotely challenging on my well geared and aa'd characters, a DT, ToS, Barb and HoX.

[puckstop98]

The problem with solo grind is, that it is totally unbalanced in design. Only certain classes and chars beyond a power threshold can do as stated in the posts above. Just as comparison the usual numbers from fresh chars:

- isle of iron statue: you should know all the tactics and even then it takes 30 mins minimum, even if you know the shortcuts. Be prepared for no reward at all, if you have not enough heal pots and power to survive two hits from the ape in a row.
- refugee of apostate: same, some classes start having trouble with the first boss even and others can not finish the final one (e.g. hours wasted, no rewards). So make sure, you can deal with multiple khitai mobs with ease and can survive or heal. The scripting makes it not easier in the first fight, since retreat or kiting resets the boss.
- forgotten city: quite easy to get to the final boss, even as undergeared 80, but you need some dps and potions for the first boss and additionally luck for the second. Can take up to one hour till you realize you are too weak for it.
- dead mans isle: even average geared chars can get to the final boat boss, but here you might find out you have no chance to win (again after at least one hour of fighting, thus NO rewards). But the final boss might change, if you try again later (and not delete the quest)

Bottom line, best way to get some rares as newbie is to do normal modes or find people to help you with hard modes (again, some classes have it here easier as others to get run through or do their intended role. Try finding a hm as underpowered tank for example...).

Agreed with the difficulty differences for classes. DMH was a pain in the rear on my sin (who has underwhelming to moderate gear) while my conq (also moderate gear) was able to roll through the instance (though, as I noted in my walkthrough - some of the final boss can be very challenging for some classes). I haven't even tried it on my necro or pom. I do believe if you can easily roll through DMH, you're ready to try Forgotten City. If you can't handle Forgotten City, don't go to Refuge (and you may even want to skip KK). The first three times I tried Isle of Iron Statues I got wrecked - both by the mobs throughout the island, and by not knowing the final battle tactics.

Before World Bosses, I usually did the NG grind until I'm rank 4 in Hyrk or Wolves and buy the Khitai faction blues and maybe a purple (feet or wrists) before heading off to CP or KK. At that point, I think I was ready for the Unchained instances.

[Chillee]

The problem with solo grind is, that it is totally unbalanced in design. Only certain classes and chars beyond a power threshold can do as stated in the posts above. Just as comparison the usual numbers from fresh chars:

- isle of iron statue: you should know all the tactics and even then it takes 30 mins minimum, even if you know the shortcuts. Be prepared for no reward at all, if you have not enough heal pots and power to survive two hits from the ape in a row.
- refugee of apostate: same, some classes start having trouble with the first boss even and others can not finish the final one (e.g. hours wasted, no rewards). So make sure, you can deal with multiple khitai mobs with ease and can survive or heal. The scripting makes it not easier in the first fight, since retreat or kiting resets the boss.
- forgotten city: quite easy to get to the final boss, even as undergeared 80, but you need some dps and potions for the first boss and additionally luck for the second. Can take up to one hour till you realize you are too weak for it.
- dead mans isle: even average geared chars can get to the final boat boss, but here you might find out you have no chance to win (again after at least one hour of fighting, thus NO rewards). But the final boss might change, if you try again later (and not delete the quest)

Bottom line, best way to get some rares as newbie is to do normal modes or find people to help you with hard modes (again, some classes have it here easier as others to get run through or do their intended role. Try finding a hm as underpowered tank for example...).

No offense Kurt, but this is simply not true. My ranger has a couple of Khitai pieces (essentially the wrists and boots bought from vet points) and the rest is a mix of t1/t2, and I can easily do the ape boss. A ranger has enough CCs to kill the ape by throwing rocks at him. It also doesn't take 30 minutes. If you're taking 30 minutes, then you're doing it wrong. Not just how you play your toon but how you navigate the island. If you want to stop and see the sights and do the other quests then maybe it can take 30 minutes, but if you just want to race through and get your rares, it's not 30 minutes. A decently geared toon can easily do Island in 10 minutes, and even a poorly geared one can do it in less than 15 once they learn how.

Any class can do Ape. I've done it on classes of all types in gear from garbage blues on up. It's not hard if you pay attention. If the ape is 2-shotting you, then you aren't paying attention to the buffs you get from the pads, nor your own CC's.

4 or 5 rares is a non-reward? That's more than you'll get from some of the 6 man hard mode dungeons.

An hour to get to the final boss of Dead mans hand? Again, you're just not doing it the quick way. You don't have to do all the sidequests to get the rares. It shouldn't take anyone more 15 minutes to get to the last boss, and once someone figures out how to kill the 3 different bosses, they aren't difficult. If it's the guy instead of one of the 2 girls for the last boss he might cause a poorly geared s/b guard trouble, but even that isn't hard once you learn how. Conqs and DTs should faceroll him with anything above Atzel gear, and he won't even be a challenge for a decent dps toon.

If someone is having trouble with the 1st boss in Apostate - and his one simple mechanic - then they really need to go back and learn how to play that particular toon. And learn how to watch cast bars.

[Kurt2013]

No offense Kurt, but this is simply not true. My ranger has a couple of Khitai pieces (essentially the wrists and boots bought from vet points) and the rest is a mix of t1/t2, and I can easily do the ape boss. A ranger has enough CCs to kill the ape by throwing rocks at him. It also doesn't take 30 minutes. If you're taking 30 minutes, then you're doing it wrong. Not just how you play your toon but how you navigate the island. If you want to stop and see the sights and do the other quests then maybe it can take 30 minutes, but if you just want to race through and get your rares, it's not 30 minutes. A decently geared toon can easily do Island in 10 minutes, and even a poorly geared one can do it in less than 15 once they learn how.

Any class can do Ape. I've done it on classes of all types in gear from garbage blues on up. It's not hard if you pay attention. If the ape is 2-shotting you, then you aren't paying attention to the buffs you get from the pads, nor your own CC's.

4 or 5 rares is a non-reward? That's more than you'll get from some of the 6 man hard mode dungeons.

An hour to get to the final boss of Dead mans hand? Again, you're just not doing it the quick way. You don't have to do all the sidequests to get the rares. It shouldn't take anyone more 15 minutes to get to the last boss, and once someone figures out how to kill the 3 different bosses, they aren't difficult. If it's the guy instead of one of the 2 girls for the last boss he might cause a poorly geared s/b guard trouble, but even that isn't hard once you learn how. Conqs and DTs should faceroll him with anything above Atzel gear, and he won't even be a challenge for a decent dps toon.

If someone is having trouble with the 1st boss in Apostate - and his one simple mechanic - then they really need to go back and learn how to play that particular toon. And learn how to watch cast bars.

How does your experience of a ranger make my post untrue? Obviously a ranger can kite the boss, but still you need to survive one or two hits in case of unluckiness. And you should agree, that as ranger with single dps you are not the fastest in killing the rather lnear mob army before the ape. And again, i was not assuming new players know all the tricks and shortcuts...or even if they know, they most likely can not do them all due to power. 30 mins is even a good average in my opinion. You have to take into account, that lower powered chars (i also would NOT consider a char with t1 and t2 items or khitai blues undergeared). For an average number you can not assume you win all the fights or blast through them or manage to run by. Not all players can even do this due to the game setup. And when you get unlucky, the days chance for a hardmode is ruined and you have only a shot at 1-2 rares. You still don't believe me? Do the maths: One encounter roughly takes at least 05-2 minutes. Hippos, Snake, knockback, Tigers, Birds, snake, spiders- boss (skipable, if you only want normal mode) - panther, snakes, (optional runpast), snakes, spiders, tigers - statue fight (due to script at least 5 mins) - pirates - pirates - (optional runpast) - birds, boars, pirates - final boss (10 mins). Boss fights take longer obviously. Sure, you can run past a few, but only at specific points. And here it comes into play that you can actually survive a few hits from normal mobs as well and have potions. As undergeared player you do not kill the mobs fast. You also have to kite a lot. You also need potions. You need to rest more and longer. You also can not skip certain parts (depends on class as well here). You can encounter a fight you simply can NOT win with current build or power level. All these things have to be considered, if you throw out numbers...(trust me, i have grinded the isle with all classes at different powerlevels myself with and without knowledge of how it is done AND i talked to people in various guilds and various power levels).

Same goes for dead mans hand...at the very least you need to kill a few mobs in the crater, on the path and through the jungle and then the mobs at the bordello (because you have to run and kite probably). Again 20 mins at least just for all the mobs...not even counting in the bosses. I again think it is safe to assume for undergeared chars that not everything works on first try. And the silence debuff can be very annoying and downslowing. Same with Drostans first battle. If you have not high prot, high dps or high aoe, you can easily loose this battle and it is down to luck. Do you even get a rare token, if you just do the isle on "chained/normal" mode? In unchained mode even the normal mobs are dangerous or at least they slow you down or force you to fight them a few at a time.

It is also not a matter of paying attention. You need to be able to survive a few hits due to latency and sheer combat length and murphy. You can not take a lucky shot (or a good run) and declare it to the average. And even if you manage to do it on one char (out of?), it does not mean others are not sharing the problems i mentioned. And i have not even ventured into the psychology of grinding a lot...

And 4-5 rares in ONE day, compared to the normal modes you can repeat at a hourly schedule AND have an additional chance to get blue or purples for your class.
I do admit that my suggestion to do normal and hard modes was biased on personal preferences, because i can simply not do these solo instances more than a few times a week on a good mood, though if subbed, i could do a few group runs in a row. And if i personally solo, i have to take my time...