Insta killed on trader quests at sea

[afk]

I have been doing these trader quests( about a dozen so far) and twice i have had my char insta killed. wearing 70 resist armor just go from near top health to dead in a split second. while the mobs seem to be stronger than normal they would need to hit me with 4-5 max damage attacks to insta kill me. this has occured both times on water with me in center of ship(so was killed buy ranged attack), against sea serpants and water eles and sometimes kraken(usually 2-4 total mobs). now most of mobs were engaged with my pets(2) when i am insta killed. i thought it seemed like the lag deaths from years ago, where you get hit by a number of spells but do not known it till you die(use to watch my ghost getting flame striked). however i have no apparent lag, and there are no animations of anything just alive one second and dead the next, so can't even tell if or what i was hit with. Given the numerous number of bugs i have been encountering while using the EC client(still sorta like it though), i thought it may be the problem. however figured i would ask to see if anyone else has been having this problem before i switch to the old client to do these quests in

 

[CovenantX]

It's the dragon's breath from the Krakens & Sea Serpents. Depending on their HP, it can do up to 200 damage, 60 if you're all 70s.

 

[Lady CaT]

I have been doing these trader quests( about a dozen so far) and twice i have had my char insta killed. wearing 70 resist armor just go from near top health to dead in a split second. while the mobs seem to be stronger than normal they would need to hit me with 4-5 max damage attacks to insta kill me. this has occured both times on water with me in center of ship(so was killed buy ranged attack), against sea serpants and water eles and sometimes kraken(usually 2-4 total mobs). now most of mobs were engaged with my pets(2) when i am insta killed. i thought it seemed like the lag deaths from years ago, where you get hit by a number of spells but do not known it till you die(use to watch my ghost getting flame striked). however i have no apparent lag, and there are no animations of anything just alive one second and dead the next, so can't even tell if or what i was hit with. Given the numerous number of bugs i have been encountering while using the EC client(still sorta like it though), i thought it may be the problem. however figured i would ask to see if anyone else has been having this problem before i switch to the old client to do these quests in

Yep. Been experiencing this for a while running trade routes. I'm guessing that the trade route creatures seem to have more hit points and better statistics than their ordinary counterparts. Their Fire Breath attacks also does a lot more damage! Thus the one hit deaths. I hide or go invisible while crossing water on trade routes. I didn't like large ships because often I would get pinned in place and die from the mob attack. So I started using the old smaller ships and basically sail away from anything that spawns and fight them one at a time if you want to kill them. Or simply leave them behind.

Open sea Kraken can breathe fire, much like a dragon. Sea Dragons and Deep Sea Dragon also have Fire Breath

Fire Breath is a ranged special attack that some monsters have. Every few seconds they will pause in their tracks and then launch fire from their mouth at an opponent; the amount of damage depends on the creature's statistics and how many Hit Points they have. For example, a creature with 1/4 life left will only deal 1/4 its normal fire breath damage.

If you are able to exit the creature's Fire Breath range between the time it is first activated and the time it is actually launched, the attack fails and you take no damage. The initiation of Fire Breath begins with a distinctive dragon-like roar.

 

[afk]

It's the dragon's breath from the Krakens & Sea Serpents. Depending on their HP, it can do up to 200 damage, 60 if you're all 70s.

well i know their hit point are much higher, so they are jumping off my pets and all attacking my char at same time( sorta like when 3-4 para attack me) , I am not sure how to counter that. they almost always reveal when i use invis, however i can turn down the sea quests or simply ignore mobs and try to outrun them, but not sure if this results in penalty to reward. anyone know if you need to kill mobs?

 

[afk]

Yep. Been experiencing this for a while running trade routes. I'm guessing that the trade route creatures seem to have more hit points and better statistics than their ordinary counterparts. Their Fire Breath attacks also does a lot more damage! Thus the one hit deaths. I hide or go invisible while crossing water on trade routes. I didn't like large ships because often I would get pinned in place and die from the mob attack. So I started using the old smaller ships and basically sail away from anything that spawns and fight them one at a time if you want to kill them. Or simply leave them behind.

Open sea Kraken can breathe fire, much like a dragon. Sea Dragons and Deep Sea Dragon also have Fire Breath

Fire Breath is a ranged special attack that some monsters have. Every few seconds they will pause in their tracks and then launch fire from their mouth at an opponent; the amount of damage depends on the creature's statistics and how many Hit Points they have. For example, a creature with 1/4 life left will only deal 1/4 its normal fire breath damage.

If you are able to exit the creature's Fire Breath range between the time it is first activated and the time it is actually launched, the attack fails and you take no damage. The initiation of Fire Breath begins with a distinctive dragon-like roar.

lored some and the hit points are in the 5x range of whatever the mob would normally have(basically paras without the super speed), will probally stick to land based quests and see how that goes

 

[Dot_Warner]

I abandon trade quests to any island except Jhelom or Skara Brae (since the crossings are so quick). Its simply not worth my time to sail for long periods when the likelihood of getting instakilled (and thus failing the quest) is so ridiculously high. (And no, nobody is going to want to group up so one person can finish a quest and be rewarded with some dragon scales...)

This issue was reported when this system was under development, but it was ignored It would be nice if the kracken could be toned down into something a bit less ridiculous. But I won't hold my breath for what is probably a <10 minute tweak.

@Kyronix

 

[CovenantX]

they almost always reveal when i use invis,

I used to just hold invis while I was sailing my boat to the destination area. the mobs that spawn from the water are much more difficult to survive than the land mobs. But I also used a provo/disco bard, I'd just spam invis myself while discording/provoking the mobs to kill each other.

anyone know if you need to kill mobs?

You don't need to kill them, but they supposedly increase your chance of getting a "rare" reward if you do...
I haven't noticed more rares than if I didn't kill em though, so the "+ bonus" for killing them isn't very much.

 

[MalagAste]

I abandon trade quests to any island except Jhelom or Skara Brae (since the crossings are so quick). Its simply not worth my time to sail for long periods when the likelihood of getting instakilled (and thus failing the quest) is so ridiculously high. (And no, nobody is going to want to group up so one person can finish a quest and be rewarded with some dragon scales...)

This issue was reported when this system was under development, but it was ignored It would be nice if the kracken could be toned down into something a bit less ridiculous. But I won't hold my breath for what is probably a <10 minute tweak.

@Kyronix

^^^THIS^^^ Doing any of the quests across the sea is a complete JOKE... You'll be dead before you reach the shores... I used to do them taking my GD with me and just remain invisible the entire trip because it's silly... and impossible... and if you show your head to stop the boat or anything else they kill you!.

 

[ShriNayne]

I stopped doing the ones by sea, I only do the land ones now, I died once too many times from those pesky sea monsters!
I never had anything I would consider rare, I only get resources or SoTs.

 

[petemage]

I really like those little repetitive quests, but in the end I only farm for the pinks and just take the moongates. Anything else seems hardly worth the time unless you really want to collect those signs and do it on your own.

 

[Deraj]

Fire Breath is a ranged special attack that some monsters have. Every few seconds they will pause in their tracks and then launch fire from their mouth at an opponent; the amount of damage depends on the creature's statistics and how many Hit Points they have. For example, a creature with 1/4 life left will only deal 1/4 its normal fire breath damage.

I'm not convinced that that is how it works in terms of the "1/4 hp = 1/4 the normal damage", but I don't have any evidence to the contrary, other than some observations. It seems like fire breath damage does not start lowering until the monster reaches a certain amount of hp around a certain range of hp typical to "normal" monsters. Once you start getting to the monsters with atypical hp, as in the case of trade quests mobs or EM mobs, their fire breath damage doesn't start to go down until their hp gets down to the normal range. Again this is just speculation on my part. I would love for some clarification on how it actually works is a dev is feeling generous.

 

[Amber Witch]

This is what I do and I manage to live 90% of the time.

Use UO tillerman as it really helps.
I stand as close to the tiller man as possible.
I stay invised the whole trip.
When the monsters pop I sail past them if possible then stop a few screens away.
I cast RC, cast invis, back up to the closest monster, staying away from other monsters as much as possible, stop and target myself.
Once that monster is killed by the RC and the coast is clear I'll dispel the RC, recast an RC, cast invis and sail to the next monster, stop and target myself.
Rinse and repeat till all are dead.
If you can't sail past them as the boat is trapped by all the spawn, stay invised until there's a hole and run for it, casting an invis as soon as you can. Stop a few screens away and do the above.

Don't give up. It's do-able.

 

[cdavbar]

I stopped doing the ones by sea, I only do the land ones now, I died once too many times from those pesky sea monsters!

It may take ten times longer, but use a row-boat. You never get sea spawn, you get the normal easy to kill brigands spawn on your boat.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Killing the spawn, as I have read it, increases the gp reward to the cities, but has no bearing on your reward whether you kill them or not.

I don't die on sea anymore, if a dexxer of any kind, disarm. Hand a map to the tillerman and say start. If you stand in the very back of the boat/ship and hide, they spawn will almost always appear far enough back on the side of the boat to not block movement. BUT-learning this the hard way, if you are not disarmed, you will still autodefend and become visible.

And yes, 5 line orders delivered piss me off when I get a handful of scales or a camping sot.

 

[Basara]

I'm with cdavbar:

The Rowboat is the way to go if going by sea, though it only comes up for Jhelom and Skara (where I go overland for most of it). I just go ahead and take the moongate for a lower reward if I pull a Moonglow or New Magincia, and everywhere else I go completely overland.

You can do a regular ship for Jhelom from the Beach south of honor, and most of the time won't get a spawn, but if I did that I'd have to use a different character's ship, since the character I do runs with owns a Brit ship that rarely leaves the FE, except when doing Zippy quests or white nets.