Creature Feature #14: The fearsome balron

[jamesio]

I don't know if I hold the record or not, but...

A long time ago when tamers could bring more than one dragon with them, I got bored and tamed 33 of them in a row. I kept stacking the dragons in my house while I went to tame the new one that spawned.

After I lined them up for some pictures, my friends and I went to Terra Keep. A balron appeared on the screen and I did the infamous "all kill" command and he dropped before all of my dragons got onto him. It literally looked like a "single hit" kill. He had full health and then dead. No red was seen... He just died.

I then tried it a few more times with the same results. I think about 20 of the dragons got on him, but he died before all of them moved away from me.

The funny part of the story was having all of my friends hide so I could do the very dangerous "all release" commands as fast as I could and then hide myself.

We sat there for about an hour just watching avengers and other things drop like flies, not to mention quite a number of people who recalled in (I don't remember if I felt sad or happy about that part).

I did that when I had Rembrandt on the Chesapeake shard...

 

[Lord Kishkuman]

Back when ilshenar first came out I used to spend hours fighting balrons in the blood dungeon with my Bard/ macer. I miss the days when you could spend a whole day in ilshenar and never see anyone. I fought him enough in those days that I could quite easily work the balrons and Blood Elms on foot (I didn't use horses much back then). That's how I made my first Million GP. Now I just go their with my dragon and let him munch on the balrons.

 

[MacAndrews]

How do you get past all the crazy quantity of Gargoyles in Hyloth L4 to get at the balron?

They spawn like vermin en masse!

Would love to know.

 

[Blackmarlin]

lol, better hope your wife dont see this post ...

 

[Ravens0ng]

I've solo'd a few, last one was with my well trained but non GM WW, all melee skills in the high 90s. My vet is 102 and magery is 105. Between vetting and casting GH the WW never was below 3/4 health. The Bally actually dropped very quickly. loot was horrible, about 800 gold and a might weapon.

Do these guys still drop Vanqs, and if so, how often?

 

[Guest]

a Bally with 800 gold? I've never seen one with that low cash. The lowest I've seen one spawn is around 1300. They still spawn vanqs but not too many. Before pub 16 my bard used to kill alot of these. At one point he went for 3 weeks of going there without a single vanq. That 3 weeks can easily total around 700 balrons.

 

[Mortace]

I decided to go after these guys in Blood dungeon the other day with my part trained dragon. I prepped up (bless/arch protect - takes it from 60 to 80 AR and trust me you will notice the difference when it wears off! and a dex potion for me - faster vetting), and pulled it over.

the fight was quite short but boy was it intense. lots of fast vetting and greater heals later (even another arch protect) and the bally was low on mana. from my dragon constantly losing health it started to gain it slightly.

then I hit the moment I was dreading - Balron enters 'fly' mode. of course my dragon gave chase - so I called it back and vetted it up to full. all the while the Bally was looking like a lost lamb. I cast bless on myself/dragon medded up to full mana again and sent the dragon after the Bally. of course I couldn't vet at this point so I wanted its last 150-200 life to go fast... so the dragon munched it while I cast e-bolt/flamestrike to finish it off.

the loot pretty poor realy 1300 gps and a poor sword - but the most important part for me was the fight. If I want easy money then bloods are round the corner - but this fight was REALLY fun. it pushed me to the limits and it also pushed my Dragon to its limits - something some of the other critters will never do (only laziness/lag/spawn luring etc.).

since this first one I have taken another 3.5 (one was already half dead) and have truly enjoyed each one - as each one is a true challenge.

for anyone feeling like trying it here are my vital statistics
Taming 97.5
Ani lore 110
vet 95
Med GM
Mage 101
eval 105
resist 0

drags stats (810 str)
tactics GM
resist low-mid 90's
anat 95
wrestle 99
mage 70
eval 90
med high 90's

if you have the guts to try it the feeling of victory is something that will stay with you forever.

good luck and happy hunting!

 

[Soam Azing]

balrons are crap...i used to be scared of em, but then I got me LJ nice and trained up...i slice through balrons like butter!

 

[mrwarpig]

Between the balron and the ancient wyrm the balrons the tougher one to fight. The ancient can kill a lot faster (firebreath, FS, para bite) but the balron's more brutal with it's spells (nox, FS, mana vamp). My main paladin has no healing, so mana vamp=death from this great beast.

 

[Guest]

Not as much fun as a Bard or Mage tamer, but a peace tamer takes these out easily. My Peace Tamer also has Discord and if used, I can Kill these things with just a Mare or Fire steed. Now that the stat loss has been reduced, I'm going to try the Balron using only my Kirin.

No matter how you kill the Balron, anybody that does knows that the tide can turn quickly against you. Death can come in seconds (lag..confusion..Heck, death can happen in the time it takes to set your drink down!)

If you want a good time (Challenge) for one or more tamers, Grab you trusty Dragon and start at the entrance to Hythloth. See if you can walk down all 4 levels to kill the Balron at the Bottom. The Gargoyles and Daemons on Level 4 are a hoot. And to boot, there is hardly anyone ever there!

 

[Austerlitz]

nice challenge!

some time ago i started a solo venture into hythloth wth my nightmare and dragon intending to fight the balron, but curtailed it after marking a rune somewhere on the 2nd level. The spawn was getting a little too hot and bandages were running low /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

I was checking out the various dungeons recently on stratics and noticed that balrons apparently spawn in wisp dungeon in ilsh. It appears to be not too hard to take shortcut to level 8 where the balrons allegedly spawn, anyone had any success hunting balrons there?

 

[MelodyTamer]

Not wisp dungeon. Blood dungeon. Just south of the Load Oaks champ spawn by Spirituality.

 

[Austerlitz]

err...

http://uo.stratics.com/content/atlas/ilshenar-wisp.shtml

i see balron spawns in two places here...

 

[Blue Fin]

I have hunted ballys in Wisp dungeon, they spawn with some imps (those imps are annoying little feckers)

 

[Blue Fin]

I have hunted ballys in Wisp dungeon, they spawn with some imps (those imps are annoying little feckers)

 

[mrwarpig]

Here's where you find balrons in the wisp dungeon.

 

[Lady Nico]

*chants* Terra-Terra-Terra! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

For real fun I used to drag the terra Bally out to the ophids/mare spawn and let the ophids/drakes/dragon peck away at him....and yeah, Substantial Broadies *laughing hard!*

I have a special relationship with Lord of the Abyss. He killed me which was no biggie given that I (a) was on 56k dialup, (b) was FAR less experienced & (c) died both easily & frequently!! What I could never forgive Lord of the Abyss was that he went on to kill my second-ever tamed mare (*grrrrr!!!*).

Each time I went head to head with Lord of the Abyss was for Wunder.

Thanks for the creature feature!!!

Vix/Nico

 

[MysteryWombat]

In better days, the Mage Tower would frequently crawl through Hyloth, killing everything in sight. We could muster 20-30 GM mages back in those days (Back when GM mage really meant something) and the balron would fall pretty quickly to their collective wrath.

Alas, those days are gone. My dexer can, however, just about solo the thing depending on his luck and timing. It takes a lot of potions and a lot of luck. If I recall correctly, these things ignore being posioned too, much like the orc brute.

 

[Sir Frederick]

lol, after reading this thread I decided to take my semi-trained wyrm to take on a balron (mid 90 skills)....it wasn't a match at all...the "collector of souls" collected one more wyrm soul I'm afraid!

I have just over 100 vetting and 115 lore...and I was casting g.heals as well....no luck. I think I'll try again once I get peace up! still around 93 (just don't like the idea of sailing around the world for another skill!) lol, was interesting though