[Spoiler] How to deal with Sicarii, Skeletal Liches, and fiends and Crimson dragons

[Xel Naga]

Over the past week I've been pretty annoyed at how stupid some people can be. I've written this walkthrough / rant so that people can either learn from it or simply not have an excuse for not knowing how to do it now. I'm tired of 100 threads of the same thing from "casual" players that "can't" do this and that when it's simply because they won't learn. Even casual players can adapt to situations and learn, their statistical odds will be lower but that does not exclude them from anything and it surely doesn't mean they have to solo to get anything, although even casual players if they are fast learners can learn to solo content.

All the whine whine whine about how hard this and that is and

• why it's unfair.
• Why don't I get loot, why do I keep dying,
• Why doesn't this event revolve around my work schedule,
• why can't I get my gossamers,
• why do people sell the loot when people need quest items,
• why isn't my 80 begging getting me webs
• Why do I keep dying to graveyard spawns
• why is the spawn too hard, it's impossible to kill these things
• why does X template have no trouble soloing these and I cant do 10 damage
• why do i kill liches for days and get no drops

And the only question they should be asking is how can I make myself better and adapt to the situation faster

Here are my personal observations and experiences as a mage necro to survive, If someone cares to write a strategy guide for a dexer and archer feel free to add it below as I spend most of my time on a mage and would not be optimal to post about something I'm not 100% familiar with.



Sicarii: Slow moving speed boss easily out ran on foot.
Special Attacks:
Tossing webs at attackers and summoning them to her for melee attack.
Summoning Dread Spiders from cocoons she plants.

Walkthrough: Anytime you OR YOUR PET/SUMMONS deal damage to Sicarii there is a chance that she will throw a web at you in which two things may happen.

1. The web will miss and you will simply be interrupted at casting a spell or just walk away.
2. The web will land and ensnare you. 3 seconds later you are teleported on top of Sicarii and hit with a melee attack. You will have 1 second to run away similar to a bone liche before you get hit twice. Tip: MOVE away.

When you are ensnared you will notice you SEE the web being thrown at you before it hits you. What does this tell you? It's going to either hit or miss. So prepare yourself and cast INVISIBILITY you will be able to invis yourself BEFORE the web lands and BEFORE you are teleported to her. What does this inevitable do? It prevents you from taking any damage or dying other than the initial web landing damage of 12-15. So, PAY ATTENTION. It's not simply casting 2 EVs and standing there waiting for loot. Nor is it spamming all kill with a greater dragon and healing it from afar.

If you're with a group, what does it tell you when your party member just got webbed? They are about to take damage! Pre-cast a greater heal and / or invisibility to cast on them. Either heal them when they are teleported or invis them while they are webbed to avoid any damage and avoid any aggro drop from sicarii off your pet or tank.

If you're a caster and don't have a slayer book or good mana reserves to cast flamestrikes then quite simpy take the easy route of a novice mage. CAST your two EVs but IMMEDIATELY INVIS. don't just stand there waiting to be killed. Anytime your EV hits sicarii, which is FAST considering you will have two out. You may be webbed, so Since your webbing variable is not controlled now by simply casting direct spells on her you should be hidden at all times unless recasting EVs or rezzing someone (which I don't suggest you do when you have two evs out)

Casting Flamestrikes with a slayer book is a MUCH more effective way to deal damage compared to casting any summons. Let dexers or pets tank it and simply cast flamestrikes being sure to leave enough mana to cast invis in the event she tosses a web at you. BE PREPARED AFTER EVERY CAST TO INVIS YOURSELF.

Skeletal liches It's quite straight forward, if you have necro, corpse skin is your friend as well as an undead slayer. If not, use fire based attacks. MAX your resists, he has necromancy and magery at his disposal.

Special attacks: Will summon you to adjacent tiles around him. (easily bypassed by keeping obstacles between you and him such as a fence)

You will only be summoned to him at times on direct attacks by you, unlike sicarii your pets or summons won't trigger a teleporting summon of your character. What does this tell you? Use heavy hitting attacks. Larger hits means less attacks and less chances to be summoned to him. Many weaker attacks in fast speed may equal the same damage per second output but means you have that many more chances to be summoned to him and disrupted or killed.

When you are summoned: Do not stand there and die. RUN away. If there aren't many people attacking it you WILL be hit with a painspike as soon as you are summoned to him. Depending on your magic resists and physical resists you could be hit for over 100 damage within 2 seconds if he hits you once melee and once with a spike. So max your resists and be on your toes.

IF there are many shadow fiends around him or being kited around wildly by noobs without a clue then position yourself OUT of harms way before you start attacking. If there are 4 fiends attacking him due to Provo or simply because people are kiting them and they got stuck together, then don't be surprised if you attack him, get teleported and instantly die to him and 4 fiends' auras of life drain.

I simply would suggest to NOT be attacking it when there are fiends next to him unless you are confident you can survive the burst damage and get away before you die.

INSURE YOUR VALUABLES. When you die they WILL loot you. MONSTERS WILL LOOT THE HEAVIEST ITEM ON YOUR BODY FIRST.

So, it's wise to keep a large stack of gold coins on your body so that the gold is looted first before your valuable bag of reagents, bandages, or potions are looted. Keeping everything you loot in one bag is a big mistake because as such, it will be the heaviest item and be the first thing looted. That means all the work you just did are now on a corpse ready for someone else to get freely.

-----

Shadow fiends : STOP RUNNING THROUGH THEM, STOP TRYING TO RUN IN AND LOOT A DEAD SKELE LICH IF THERE ARE 1 OR MORE FIENDS ONTOP OF THE BODY, IF THERE IS A DEXER OR PET ATTACKING IT, KEEP YOUR DISTANCE AND WAIT TILL IT'S DEAD.

If you run through or within proximity of a fiend, it will cast a life drain hitting you and anyone around it thus healing it for the damage it just dealt. THIS IS NOT GOOD. It will simply make your life looting harder and kill 10 people in the process causing difficulty in the spawn and looting. It's quite simple, the corpse isn't going anywhere. KILL THE SPAWN FIRST BEFORE RUNNING IN TO LOOT. I'm tired watching people stupidly die over and over to fiends simply because they are greedy and want loot NOW. All they do is die, try to run away aggro 3 other people to the fiend's aura, get those people killed and expect a rez after. If you can't solo it, then heal the person who is and stay AWAY from it. The person soloing will not be happy to be hit with 80 instant damage from 4 ******* running around trying to loot a body that he's trying to clear the way to.

Why can't I get any Conjurer's Grimoires or trinkets ?! I've been at it for days
Ask yourself these questions, are you doing it during prime hours?
Are you soloing it or doing it when 15 other people are attacking?
Are you dealing under 1000 damage before it dies?
Are you simply killing one liche and waiting in the same graveyard for the respawn?

If you answered yes to any of those then that is why you haven't gotten any, or you simply have horrible luck.

You SHOULD be killing them at off hours, either before kids get out of school, or after they go to bed. If you can't because of RL obligations, then you should try the next things listed.

Only kill liches with a small group there, less than 5 people is ideal. Preferably best if you solo or duo it with another.

If there's 15+ people then it's pretty clear you won't have enough time to deal enough damage to have rights to a large portion of the loot. A larger percentage of the total loot means a larger chance that it will contain a conjurer item.

If you're waiting in one graveyard and killing one every 5 minutes then there is your problem. In that five minutes you could have recalled to all the graveyards and gotten loot rights to 5 more Skeletal liches. So the odds you had at getting a conjurer item is now multiplied by how many graveyards you manage to visit each spawn cycle. Clearly, the more you kill and the faster you kill it, the better chance you will have at getting one. If you're idly sitting by in the same graveyard chatting and waiting for it to respawn then you should not be complaining when you are not getting any drops when others have gotten many sets simply because they are more time efficient and chose to allocate skill points to optimize damage output for a given event.

I'm dying all the time ! I can't even stay alive long enough to deal damage let alone get loot !
Then ask yourself this, are all your resists above 60? If they aren't then you most likely will be getting one-shotted by a skeletal lich and sicarii. Don't go balls to the wall trying to get max regen, sdi, damage increase, stats, or anything unless you're perfectly confident at your ability to avoid death situations. Resists are your first priority, you're no good having maximum damage or regen if you're not alive to use it.

If you're dying due to negligence because you aren't learning from mistakes you make in an encounter then that is your own fault. Learn the abilities and special attacks of all bosses within the first few minutes of trying it out. If you still haven't learned from your first mistakes then ask people how to optimize your strategy. Doing things the wrong way will not get you anywhere but dead.

I wouldn't be able to count the times where people are dying to shadow fiends or sicarii's web simply because they refuse to analyze the situation and learn from what's going on. Step back and think, these encounters were designed with strategies to beat them. It's not a random instant death attack that targets only you. So learn from it and counter it.

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

EDIT: Added Crimson Dragon strategy on request.

Crimson Dragon Strategy:

Special Abilities:
Linear flame wall. (we'll call it flame wave) Shoots a linear wall of fire from the dragon to its target burning anything in the path for 2dmg per second? and disrupting spells and bandages. Will be stopped by obstacles such as walls or objects you cant move through such as bridges etc often leading to a large area of fire similar to a spellweavers field of fire.

Circle of fire. Dragon casts a radial wall of fire expanding from the dragon outwards of 10 tiles? Damage may received my be more in the inner portion of circle compared to outer ring, not yet bothered to confirm.

Flame spit. Crimson dragon shoots a ball of fire at a target dismounting them and dealing damage. Instantly around 100+ Damage, often followed up immediately with a circle of fire spelling immediate death if target is not healed quickly after being dismounted from the flame spit.

The fight seems pretty fairly simply tank and spank fight. (for those not familiar, slap a tank whether it be some dexers or pets on it, keep them healed and damage away without a care in the world)

Aside from the special abilities listed above it's a very straight forward fight. Keep your distance if you can, keep your tank alive, heal anyone who is dismounted immediately, heal yourself on circle of fires. I would as a caster suggest using a reptile slayer and casting energy spells such as chain lightning if you can afford the mana, or simply casting energy bolts or lightning. This seemed to be most effective for me. The video I will add after processing will show the end of one of the fights and examples of the circle of fire and flame waves.

Over time he will be targeting different players and pets with a flame wave which will infact make any caster fizzle if they're within those tiles. KEEP KITING him around to different locations and move him away from the fires. They will simply damage you and your casters making it more difficult to heal you and sustain ranged damage. It's also critical that you do not have to run through 10 fields of fires after being hit with a fire spit as you'll probably be dead before you get away. I'm unaware of what he hits for melee attacks as I'm always at range so someone can fill that info in later.

Do not use dragon pets, it will simply cause them to lose loyalty at a fast rate and cause them to go wild even if bonded. *You CAN* use a dragon pet but be prepared to always feed it throughout the entire fight and keep him and yourself healed always monitoring its loyalty. Keep in mind if you die, your pet will most likely go wild before you are rezzed. It is not suggested. Bring a high level healing Cu and you should be ok even though they are very low on fire resist it would be your best bet.

When all is done and the dragon is dead he will spawn flame walls around his corpse, BE CAREFUL WHEN LOOTING. You will be taking 2-3 damage every second you're standing there and more often than not someone will simply fall over dead because they were more concerned with the looting than their hit points. HEAL YOURSELF repeatedly if you're standing in the fire or simply wait for the fire to fade before looting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig5ezB2-cr0
[YOUTUBE]ig5ezB2-cr0[/YOUTUBE]


Strategy over Stupidity. That's what gets you loot and completed objectives.


*I've taken several stops in writing this thread so my thoughts may be disconnected and incomplete, if there's missing thoughts or repeated info then I apologize but multitasking during post writing was never a good thing*

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

I agree with your reasoning.

Unfortunately I don't think those concerned would read it.

 

[Prince Caspian]

Good tips, and good strategies. Couched a little abusively, but hey, I can relate after dealing with all the jokers smokers and midnight tokers over the past weekend.

While fighting the skeleliches I was routinely leading the fiends out of the graveyard... to make the battles easier for all concerned. I noticed I was the only one doing so, so I asked everyone to follow my example. If a damn fiend targets you, and we were all archers and thus couldnt hurt it, lead it outside the cem and come back.

But oh no, that would take away their precious time to get in damage. They couldn't.

The GM rank in skills can take a long time to achieve in Ultima Online, but as I found this weekend from others, the rank of GM dooshbag can easily be attained.... just keep leading back fiends to the group fighting the skelelich so you can drive them off and get your own licks in (rolls eyes)

 

[Xel Naga]

I agree with your reasoning.

Unfortunately I don't think those concerned would read it.

I would hope they do, considering many spend what seems to be more time posting about their negative experiences with the event on stratics than farming or learning the proper strategy, this is specifically for targeting the group of players who seem to be lost when it comes to content that requires strategy and not just standing in one spot spamming one button over and over.

I really am glad I tried other MMOs with content that required such type of thinking and promoting group effort because it's that which gets me thinking outside of the box and what so many people playing UO for 10 years have either never learned or never had to learn. I'm hoping UO will definitely be releasing more content like this and hopefully things harder that require actual group effort instead of a mindless zerg of 100 dead bodies smashing into a boss over and over until it's dead.

Each boss should have a specific strategy created in mind in order to kill it with only a few alternate strategies that still work off the same principal in order to do so. I believe quiet simple it should not be able to be accomplished unless done in that fashion as to promote thinking and group effort instead of mindless zerging of masses.

Some food for thought:

Boss X Requires a party of a dexer, archer, tamer, mage, necro in order to kill it.

All phases: necro must permanently keep corpse skin up on the boss to allow damage otherwise no damage is done.

Mage or tamer must keep curse up on the boss at all times to allow damage to be done. Eval would be a Must as boss will have 120 resist so hybrid templates with 50 magery would not suffice.

Phase one.

Boss is mobile and will attack any player outside of a 5 tile radius, all players must move within this radius to prevent damage. Any player outside this radius will receive damage per second and damage received will in turn heal the boss.

Phase two. at 75% hp

Boss becomes immobile and any targets within a 5 tile radius will receive damage and heal the boss. All players and pets must be at range in order to deal damage and not heal the boss.

Phase three. 50% hp

Boss requires a tamer's pet (mare,beetle,dragon,cu,hiryu) high level taming required pet as so people can't simply toss up a few horses and call it a day. A high level tamer pet must be within melee range of the boss otherwise boss will randomly summon a player to the boss and deal massive damage. Pet will be the tank for this phase and must be kept alive at all costs.

Phase four. 25% hp

any pets now within range will be receive double damage as the boss has now learned of his weaknesses and adapted to the situation. Pets must now be called back or require massive extra healing. Dexxers will now receive half damage and are the optimal tanks for the remainder of the phase. curse and corpse must be kept up as well or boss will result in no damage taken.


that's just some random thinking. hopefully they will be able to boost the NPC AI and allow for some competent spell casting combos mimicing that of PvP so that players won't simply be oblivious to living against actual dangers rather than the usual poison every now and then from an npc thus making the transition for pvm players to be accustomed to pvp a lot quicker and easier as it would now be something they have encountered before.

 

[Xel Naga]

Good tips, and good strategies. Couched a little abusively, but hey, I can relate after dealing with all the jokers smokers and midnight tokers over the past weekend.

While fighting the skeleliches I was routinely leading the fiends out of the graveyard... to make the battles easier for all concerned. I noticed I was the only one doing so, so I asked everyone to follow my example. If a damn fiend targets you, and we were all archers and thus couldnt hurt it, lead it outside the cem and come back.

But oh no, that would take away their precious time to get in damage. They couldn't.

The GM rank in skills can take a long time to achieve in Ultima Online, but as I found this weekend from others, the rank of GM dooshbag can easily be attained.... just keep leading back fiends to the group fighting the skelelich so you can drive them off and get your own licks in (rolls eyes)

Precisely, I spent many times simply soloing the fiends after a death of a lich to try and clear the corpse for people and myself to loot standing there taking damage and withering. But of course you guessed it, the same players kiting fiends on you in battle would now be running in and out trying to loot the corpse only to cause the life drain to pop repeatedly healing it to full and most almost nearly killing me in the process. I've then stopped trying to help and simply wait till people run away with a fiend chasing them or die before I finish it off.

I used to also have provo and music instead of necro/ss as I found it to be more group friendly in provoking two fiends to fight each other off on the side along with any spawns rather than having them attack and chase the groups or people healing a dragon that was tanking the liche. Of course people would still simply run by the fiends, get aggro, run around kiting it through everyone else, killing the tamer, killing the pets, killing the EVs, and then die and want a rez.

It's cocky but I've stopped rezzing anyone who I see doing this repeatedly. I make it a point to heal and rez anyone I see who was helpful to the group as in kiting away fiends, killing them instead of attacking the liche, healing others, rezzing others, or healing other peoples pets. If people would just do what was beneficial to the group instead of the individual things would work much better in game and in real life. But alas, people being selfish ultimately lead to people who aren't into becoming so frustrated they become selfish as well. And the cycle continues.

 

[Prince Caspian]

If you can't solo it, then heal the person who is and stay AWAY from it. The person soloing will not be happy to be hit with 80 instant damage from 4 ******* running around trying to loot a body that he's trying to clear the way to.

Sorry about the double post but I had to make a comment about this section.

I can count on one hand this weekend when someone healing a dexxer who was keeping the Shadow Fiends at bay while everyone was busy looting.

No wonder it was rare to see them around.

I know I was complaining about this again in the last response but God Forbid someone actually give up their opportunity to get in top damage in order to support the rest of the group.... its all ME FIRST ME FIRST!

 

[Xel Naga]

Sorry about the double post but I had to make a comment about this section.

I can count on one hand this weekend when someone healing a dexxer who was keeping the Shadow Fiends at bay while everyone was busy looting.

No wonder it was rare to see them around.

I know I was complaining about this again in the last response but God Forbid someone actually give up their opportunity to get in top damage in order to support the rest of the group.... its all ME FIRST ME FIRST!

Yep, I can understand wanting top damage if it was an event that guaranteed the artifact to the top damager. But this event is nothing like that. It's simply random and quite simply the more damage you do you just get a larger chunk of the loot with a bigger chance at looting it. I don't simply get why people wont' group with a dexxer and duo it.

It's not hard at all to simply be a mage with some medi and bad gear to heal a well geared dexer and duo one in no time flat. In the end you can split the loot. Simple. Easy. Friendly. And in the end you'll make yourself a new friend and hunting partner. Soon enough you'll be able to make a competant PvM guild that works *gasp* TOGETHER and does stuff as a group to complete tasks.

 

[ColterDC]

It's amazing how being aware of your surroundings is such an overlooked "skill".

P.S. If you're a dexxer and you don't carry some invis pots.........you're a noob.

 

[Xel Naga]

It's amazing how being aware of your surroundings is such an overlooked "skill".

P.S. If you're a dexxer and you don't carry some invis pots.........you're a noob.

Hmm.. I actually completely never tried invis pots as I mainly play my mage or other caster templates with magery. Is one able to pop an invis pot when entangled in a sicarii web? Or only beforehand, though even beforehand it would require much less of my reaction time and lag to cast invis before it landed.

 

[Aboo]

Sorry about the double post but I had to make a comment about this section.

I can count on one hand this weekend when someone healing a dexxer who was keeping the Shadow Fiends at bay while everyone was busy looting.

No wonder it was rare to see them around.

I know I was complaining about this again in the last response but God Forbid someone actually give up their opportunity to get in top damage in order to support the rest of the group.... its all ME FIRST ME FIRST!

Although I disagree vehemently with the way the OP worded his opening to his post, I agree with most of what he said AFTER his/her initial insults.

I lost many opportunities to be in the top damage because I was peacing the fiends or barding the fiends on each other so people could fight the skeletal lich, or healing and/or rezzing there or at Sicarii.

When I first got into Sicarii he/she was already spawned and there was a ghost just standing there waiting to be rezzed. Stupid me I had never been to Khaldun before and everytime I had tried to rez inside I got that message saying you could not rez there so I just assumed the same applied for the area where Sicarii was. It wasn't until everyone there had killed Sicarii that someone took the time to rez the ghost. That's when I learned that you could rez inside that area. I spent the better part of the next hour rezzing ghosts and never got even 1 gossamer.

 

[UO Relic]

Good info one thing I would add to Sicarii, if your trying for your first kill to receive spinarette and poison sac you MUST be alive when Sicarii dies. If your dead you must kill again so if you see that Sicarii is almost dead may be a good time to invise and just wait to receive your items than push your luck and have to re-do.

 

[Prince Caspian]

How about something on Crimson Dragons now?

About the only thing I can offer is (as posted earlier) use the Mischief Maker because it has 100 Cold Damage, which is the SeeDee's weakness. I was using my Horselord (undead slayer and slow as Christmas), and just tickling the thing between slow shots.

While the MM is not a reptile slayer, the automatic-permanent-CW of the Cold Damage and the (much) faster rate of fire more than doubled my damage.

Many players (including yours truly obviously) instantly latch onto that Slayer property, and therefore choose that as the weapon of choice. However, if you study the resistances of the beastie, as well as your rate of fire, you can see that actually a non-slayer weapon would do a much better job. Again, the Crimson Dragon's best resist is Physical, which is pretty much all the Horselord's damage. So then the arrowheads turned to butter.

Another great tip posted that I don't see followed much is to MOVE when you get summoned in. As Xel said, keep on your toes. If you are multitasking and giving the battle less than your undivided attention, you probably won't react before the monster (skelelich or Crimson Dragon) gets in two licks, which will kill you even with all 70s.

 

[Prince Caspian]

I lost many opportunities to be in the top damage because I was peacing the fiends or barding the fiends on each other so people could fight the skeletal lich, or healing and/or rezzing there or at Sicarii.

I remember hating bards because I felt their provoke skill allowed them to take down the worst monsters with very little effort, while we warriors had to work much harder to take down the upper level monsters. (Mind you this was before they got nerfed to the hellhounds and back)

But boy did my opinion change when I experienced doing a large battlefield attack (ie Doom, Champ Spawns, and so forth) with a bard along doing Peacemaking (keeping everyone alive by not having 50 monsters target you), Provocation (turning a huge advantage into a liability for uber powerful monsters) and Discord (making the thing much more vunerable to the warriors attacks) to support our side.

Now I love bards. When I see the peacemaking or provoke messages, I know we will have such an easier time of it...

 

[Xel Naga]

I remember hating bards because I felt their provoke skill allowed them to take down the worst monsters with very little effort, while we warriors had to work much harder to take down the upper level monsters. (Mind you this was before they got nerfed to the hellhounds and back)

But boy did my opinion change when I experienced doing a large battlefield attack (ie Doom, Champ Spawns, and so forth) with a bard along doing Peacemaking (keeping everyone alive by not having 50 monsters target you), Provocation (turning a huge advantage into a liability for uber powerful monsters) and Discord (making the thing much more vunerable to the warriors attacks) to support our side.

Now I love bards. When I see the peacemaking or provoke messages, I know we will have such an easier time of it...

Yea it's sad we'll be seeing less and less of them because of the fact that a bard template simply wont do enough damage to get looting rights for things like this and many people soulstone different templates or simply don't try anymore.

Although I disagree vehemently with the way the OP worded his opening to his post, I agree with most of what he said AFTER his/her initial insults.

I lost many opportunities to be in the top damage because I was peacing the fiends or barding the fiends on each other so people could fight the skeletal lich, or healing and/or rezzing there or at Sicarii.

When I first got into Sicarii he/she was already spawned and there was a ghost just standing there waiting to be rezzed. Stupid me I had never been to Khaldun before and everytime I had tried to rez inside I got that message saying you could not rez there so I just assumed the same applied for the area where Sicarii was. It wasn't until everyone there had killed Sicarii that someone took the time to rez the ghost. That's when I learned that you could rez inside that area. I spent the better part of the next hour rezzing ghosts and never got even 1 gossamer.

I'm a he, and indeed the post is brash in every way shape an form. It's purely out of frustration of a week of dealing with people who refuse to learn and simply complain. That along with a quick swift kick in the toosh to get people's attention is quite effective compared to pleading with them nicely to follow outlined steps. tough love.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Xel:

Don't get me wrong, I agree that things like that would be good. I just have less faith in the public, I mean if they don't have the sense to figure this stuff out in the first place I'm not sure they'd have the sense to read a post about it. Obviously most clueless people don't realise their clueless.

Prince (RE-Crimson Dragons):

They drop crimson cinctures.
They can't be discorded.
I haven't lored one yet so I'll take your word for it on the resists, but bear in mind if there are necros present using corpse skin - that spell does +10/-15/+10/-15/0 to the targets resists... I'd guess they have high fire but with a corpse skin poison might be lower than cold... using my necro I do more with corpse skin/poison strike than I do with mindblast, wither or harm.

 

[Nexus]

I take a Stealth Tamer down there, when Sicarii I send my Cu Sidhe in, and stand back casting Greater Heal. When I get hit with a web I immediately hit my Hide Macro, I'll hide and when I'm pulled in Sicarii won't target me for a melee attack and I can simply walk back out and start the process over.....Also if I get low on Mana (which happens with no Med) I can stealth in hop on the doggie when his hits get low and run off and rarely get targeted for doing so. This lets me heal the dog up with bandages and send it back in.

 

[Xel Naga]

How about something on Crimson Dragons now?

About the only thing I can offer is (as posted earlier) use the Mischief Maker because it has 100 Cold Damage, which is the SeeDee's weakness. I was using my Horselord (undead slayer and slow as Christmas), and just tickling the thing between slow shots.

While the MM is not a reptile slayer, the automatic-permanent-CW of the Cold Damage and the (much) faster rate of fire more than doubled my damage.

Many players (including yours truly obviously) instantly latch onto that Slayer property, and therefore choose that as the weapon of choice. However, if you study the resistances of the beastie, as well as your rate of fire, you can see that actually a non-slayer weapon would do a much better job. Again, the Crimson Dragon's best resist is Physical, which is pretty much all the Horselord's damage. So then the arrowheads turned to butter.

Another great tip posted that I don't see followed much is to MOVE when you get summoned in. As Xel said, keep on your toes. If you are multitasking and giving the battle less than your undivided attention, you probably won't react before the monster (skelelich or Crimson Dragon) gets in two licks, which will kill you even with all 70s.

Crimson Dragon Strategy:

Special Abilities:
Linear flame wall. (we'll call it flame wave) Shoots a linear wall of fire from the dragon to its target burning anything in the path for 2dmg per second? and disrupting spells and bandages. Will be stopped by obstacles such as walls or objects you cant move through such as bridges etc often leading to a large area of fire similar to a spellweavers field of fire.

Circle of fire. Dragon casts a radial wall of fire expanding from the dragon outwards of 10 tiles? Damage may received my be more in the inner portion of circle compared to outer ring, not yet bothered to confirm.

Flame spit. Crimson dragon shoots a ball of fire at a target dismounting them and dealing damage. Instantly around 100+ Damage, often followed up immediately with a circle of fire spelling immediate death if target is not healed quickly after being dismounted from the flame spit.

The fight seems pretty fairly simply tank and spank fight. (for those not familiar, slap a tank whether it be some dexers or pets on it, keep them healed and damage away without a care in the world)

Aside from the special abilities listed above it's a very straight forward fight. Keep your distance if you can, keep your tank alive, heal anyone who is dismounted immediately, heal yourself on circle of fires. I would as a caster suggest using a reptile slayer and casting energy spells such as chain lightning if you can afford the mana, or simply casting energy bolts or lightning. This seemed to be most effective for me. The video I will add after processing will show the end of one of the fights and examples of the circle of fire and flame waves.

Over time he will be targeting different players and pets with a flame wave which will infact make any caster fizzle if they're within those tiles. KEEP KITING him around to different locations and move him away from the fires. They will simply damage you and your casters making it more difficult to heal you and sustain ranged damage. It's also critical that you do not have to run through 10 fields of fires after being hit with a fire spit as you'll probably be dead before you get away. I'm unaware of what he hits for melee attacks as I'm always at range so someone can fill that info in later.

Do not use dragon pets, it will simply cause them to lose loyalty at a fast rate and cause them to go wild even if bonded. *You CAN* use a dragon pet but be prepared to always feed it throughout the entire fight and keep him and yourself healed always monitoring its loyalty. Keep in mind if you die, your pet will most likely go wild before you are rezzed. It is not suggested. Bring a high level healing Cu and you should be ok even though they are very low on fire resist it would be your best bet.

When all is done and the dragon is dead he will spawn flame walls around his corpse, BE CAREFUL WHEN LOOTING. You will be taking 2-3 damage every second you're standing there and more often than not someone will simply fall over dead because they were more concerned with the looting than their hit points. HEAL YOURSELF repeatedly if you're standing in the fire or simply wait for the fire to fade before looting.


[Video incoming as soon as you tube finishes processing]

 

[Xel Naga]

I take a Stealth Tamer down there, when Sicarii I send my Cu Sidhe in, and stand back casting Greater Heal. When I get hit with a web I immediately hit my Hide Macro, I'll hide and when I'm pulled in Sicarii won't target me for a melee attack and I can simply walk back out and start the process over.....Also if I get low on Mana (which happens with no Med) I can stealth in hop on the doggie when his hits get low and run off and rarely get targeted for doing so. This lets me heal the dog up with bandages and send it back in.

Very nice suggestion. I've seen so many tamers simply plop over dead when their greater dragons are attacking. Let's hope the tamers out there all have hiding/stealth on a stone somewhere.

 

[Petrify]

You can 2man sicarii and crimson dragon with 2 dexxers x-healing. Crimson you just stay dismounted, only time you will die is if it does the 60 dmg AoE + 60 dmg hit. You need 70 phys/poison for Sacarii and 70 phys/fire for Crimson, the max that Sicarii will hit for is roughly 38 which is quite easy to heal through with 2 dexxers... Crimson the max it will hit for is 60.

 

[Haddy G]

Special attacks: Will summon you to adjacent tiles around him. (easily bypassed by keeping obstacles between you and him such as a fence)

I was actually pulled through the fence at Vesper cemetery, so obstacles don't always work.

 

[Petrify]

I was actually pulled through the fence at Vesper cemetery, so obstacles don't always work.

It pulls you through the fence if its not standing next to the fence. It should look like this:

LichFenceYou. 3 tiles in a row.

 

[ColterDC]

if you study the resistances of the beastie

Yep, I've noticed several people saying their uber dragons were getting their asses handed to them by the Liches. So I tried first my doggie, then my dragon. The doggie did 100 times better than the dragon.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm betting the Liches do cold damage which is why the doggies are so much better to use.

 

[ColterDC]

It's amazing how being aware of your surroundings is such an overlooked "skill".

P.S. If you're a dexxer and you don't carry some invis pots.........you're a noob.

Hmm.. I actually completely never tried invis pots as I mainly play my mage or other caster templates with magery. Is one able to pop an invis pot when entangled in a sicarii web? Or only beforehand, though even beforehand it would require much less of my reaction time and lag to cast invis before it landed.

I have not fought the new spider (whatever the name is)

If it's the same as the Arachnid champ spawn boss, then I would assume no, since you are essentially frozen in place.

 

[Nexus]

Yep, I've noticed several people saying their uber dragons were getting their asses handed to them by the Liches. So I tried first my doggie, then my dragon. The doggie did 100 times better than the dragon.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm betting the Liches do cold damage which is why the doggies are so much better to use.

Yea I noticed that too, Most creatures with Necro AI like to spam wither (cold damage) so that's the one time I really do prefer using a dog over say a Beetle and Mare or Beetle and Kitsune.

 

[Xel Naga]

Yea I noticed that too, Most creatures with Necro AI like to spam wither (cold damage) so that's the one time I really do prefer using a dog over say a Beetle and Mare or Beetle and Kitsune.

Almost every undead NPC does damage of cold and physical combined with the exception on DP'ing undead creatures such as darknight creepers in room1 doom which does physical poison damage. A skeletal liche is a bone demon enhanced so logically its damage will most likely still be that of a bone demon's elemental spread.

http://uo.stratics.com/database/view.php?db_content=hunters&id=726

50% Physical 50% Cold.

 

[Xel Naga]

Crimson dragon fight now listed in the original post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig5ezB2-cr0

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

while were on videos

http://www.thezogcabal.com/Crimson/WarofShadows/WarofShadows.htm

 

[Xel Naga]

while were on videos

http://www.thezogcabal.com/Crimson/WarofShadows/WarofShadows.htm

Very nice !! That video kicks the butt out of my crummy little youtube one :<

How'd you get such good quality on such a good compression I haven't the slightest about video editing and just picked the first shareware game video recorder off google. lol.

 

[laurlo]

thanks for the guide

 

[Nematode]

"Do not use dragon pets, it will simply cause them to lose loyalty at a fast rate and cause them to go wild even if bonded. *You CAN* use a dragon pet but be prepared to always feed it throughout the entire fight and keep him and yourself healed always monitoring its loyalty..."

If I just give a single "All Kill" command onto the Crimson, will the dragon lose its loyalty gradually on its own, without further command from me?

 

[Fizzleton]

it is not always a matter of "dump persons" doing foolish things. I have some kind of "situation awareness" developed in all the years that allows me to fight any creature no matter how thick the spawn is (and death is a rare occasion to me). However, I learned how difficult uo is for unexperienced folks through my kids. peeps aren't aware of a lot of things when they concentrate at one aim (eg, dealing damage to the lich to get looting rights). They don't have timing, they don't get what is going on besides the baddy moving, etc. etc. The only thing that heals this is - experience.

If I watch someone doing foolish things now, I try to think at my kids and offer help, even if these guys stand up and do the same foolish thing again. They are learning -hopefully.

 

[Yalp]

Here's a couple notes I'll share from my examples..

magincia quest... I had extremely fast drop rate when I used my paladin, chiv and overseer sundered blade on the corrupted souls.

Skele lich's.... provoking the shadow fiends on them, when there is a tamer/pet tank is a VERY Bad idea.. the tamer has to stand there and vet the pet.. the area affect of the shadow knows no bounds.. all are toast.

Skele lich's... can be solo'd with a well trained greater dragon ( I know tamer haters will jump on this). Get the Skele to the fence. Have yourself and your draggie on the opposite side of the fence. Dragon will use his mage to take down skele.. it won't take 2.2 seconds, but it will be effective. If the dragon teleports over the fence, call it to you. Keep it within 1 tile and you can vet it while you are on the other side of the fence.

Crimson Dragons.. a well trained Hiyru will do upwards of 50-75 per hit. Like the OP.. keep moving the crimson dragon when the fire fields are laid out. He should remain fixed on the pet and the tamer can vet,

 

[Turdnugget]

Xel, I think that if they bump up NPC AI doing combos and such, they need to make their spell visible with words like in PvP as well.

I'm sure people would get way bum'd not knowing that the skeletal lich is about to cast a explosion/flame strike evil omen pain strike on them and teleport them by their side =)

I always thought it'd be unique to have an NPC PvP trainer type character... an NPC you can duel, that uses combos like in PvP so that way new people to PvP, or returning people who are rusty have something to practice on.

 

[Aboo]

Yea it's sad we'll be seeing less and less of them because of the fact that a bard template simply wont do enough damage to get looting rights for things like this and many people soulstone different templates or simply don't try anymore.

There are still some of us around that will be there anyway simply because we love the game and I, personally, love helping players. That's where I got my nickname in UO, Dark Angel. I belonged to the Dark Star Guild and the members voted on titles for each of us. I got Dark Angel because when we would go on a hunt, I was the one always looking out for the others and healing them.

I'm a he, and indeed the post is brash in every way shape an form. It's purely out of frustration of a week of dealing with people who refuse to learn and simply complain. That along with a quick swift kick in the toosh to get people's attention is quite effective compared to pleading with them nicely to follow outlined steps. tough love.

First I apologize for saying he/she but since many people call me a "he" I prefer to not just assume someone is one way or the other until I am told.

I understand the tough love, I have 4 children and 7 grandchildren, but I believe there were some things you could have left out. There are some legitimate concerns/complaints about how the Web quest was made to be done. If you do indeed have a full time job and can't devote HOURS upon HOURS to trying to obtain the gossamers, it is frustrating that there are people there just to farm them and sell them for outrageous amounts thus effectively prohibiting those that soley want to obtain a web for their own person use.

 

[Xel Naga]

Xel, I think that if they bump up NPC AI doing combos and such, they need to make their spell visible with words like in PvP as well.

I'm sure people would get way bum'd not knowing that the skeletal lich is about to cast a explosion/flame strike evil omen pain strike on them and teleport them by their side =)

I always thought it'd be unique to have an NPC PvP trainer type character... an NPC you can duel, that uses combos like in PvP so that way new people to PvP, or returning people who are rusty have something to practice on.

It would be nice but I don't think that would be too effective on some mobs since they have FC 10, the spam alone would be pretty annoying let alone being able to read that fast to see what combo's they casted as it would probably be scrolled up past the 3 line mark and we'd need to have the journals open to know what combo was coming.

 

[Xel Naga]

I understand the tough love, I have 4 children and 7 grandchildren, but I believe there were some things you could have left out. There are some legitimate concerns/complaints about how the Web quest was made to be done. If you do indeed have a full time job and can't devote HOURS upon HOURS to trying to obtain the gossamers, it is frustrating that there are people there just to farm them and sell them for outrageous amounts thus effectively prohibiting those that soley want to obtain a web for their own person use.

I felt the same way at first and got to the point where I realized it's futile to simply try and use meteor swarm and chain lightning to steal a tag from someone casting wither. Even precasted the delay is still slower than wither cast. So I got my first web via withering in sicarii's room but now I've moved on to greener pastures and no longer need to. Do some exploring around the world and you may find that sicarii's room isn't the solution to everything. While I won't spoil exactly what I mean, there are other threads that dabbled on the subject and explain it further.

 

[Aboo]

I felt the same way at first and got to the point where I realized it's futile to simply try and use meteor swarm and chain lightning to steal a tag from someone casting wither. Even precasted the delay is still slower than wither cast. So I got my first web via withering in sicarii's room but now I've moved on to greener pastures and no longer need to. Do some exploring around the world and you may find that sicarii's room isn't the solution to everything. While I won't spoil exactly what I mean, there are other threads that dabbled on the subject and explain it further.

You don't need to spoil it, my niece and I already figured it out from reading other threads. So although we managed to get what we needed, it is still frustrating to see gossamers selling 2 for 400K+ and you know it's all those people that are farming them which keeps the legitimate people from obtaining them. Enough of my rant.

 

[Xel Naga]

You don't need to spoil it, my niece and I already figured it out from reading other threads. So although we managed to get what we needed, it is still frustrating to see gossamers selling 2 for 400K+ and you know it's all those people that are farming them which keeps the legitimate people from obtaining them. Enough of my rant.

Though I'm not taking a position on either side, one could also think of it this way.

A player may not have any time during the year nor know-how to really make any money, farm bosses, or do peerless to advance economically in the game to buy their favorite house spot, new equipment to better themselves, or much needed powerscrolls. It's events like these that allow the casual player to on chance accumulate items that are worth millions upon millions of gold to pay for what they could not afford during the off-seasons. Of course there will always be the merchants who do nothing but look for money making opportunities as well. These people tend to equip themselves with the perfect skills and gear for whatever the new hot items are.

Though if it frustrates you a lot, you could always just imagine maybe they're taking that money to buy their first 7x7 or first non looted set of armor xD I've seen some rather new players jump for joy when they got their conjurer items just as I've seen people yawn at getting their 10th set. There's always a silver lining and where one person benefits another always receives the short end of the stick.

Especially in an economically driven game such as UO, money and any money making opportunity will draw much attention and activity from all players alike. It's just to be expected in this game now with the same trend for 10 years.

 

[Aboo]

Though I'm not taking a position on either side, one could also think of it this way. . . Especially in an economically driven game such as UO, money and any money making opportunity will draw much attention and activity from all players alike. It's just to be expected in this game now with the same trend for 10 years.

What you say makes sense and normally I would agree with you. However, when you are talking about a scenario that has a limited time span, such as this, I believe there should be a way to keep the gold farmers from taking away from other players the ability to finish a quest just so they can make themselves richer.

I liked how the 25K ticket quest was done because there really was no way to keep anyone else from finishing the quest. Sure a lot of people got the tickets and then sold them for ridiculous sums, but they were unable to get more than they were allowed and could not, in the process, keep others from completing the quest because of their greed.

 

[RedRum]

OUTSTANDING POST! I hope you don't mind, Xel, but I've posted a link to it on the GoL site for my guildies to read and learn from.

Being that I was able to get most all that I needed the first couple of days of PUB56 {while trying to figure out all the tricks to staying alive (no SNF pun there)} I've been standing back and watching the "Greedy Folks" get others killed and such. I've found that if I heal, rez, help others, etc. that this game has MUCH MORE MEANING now. I still get decent loot and still have fun.

One thing extra that I hate...When I'm trying to rez someone (bandies or resurrection) DON'T RUN AWAY. I don't know how many times I've precast Rez, and chased some MULDOON around just to have it fade away OR I've been on my archer (Red Rum) ran up to someone dropped a bandie on them, just to watch them either run off, or step just out of range of the bandie taking affect. Like you said...pay attention to what is going on around you. I've stopped chasing and just watch people run on by and go on about my business.

Like others have said, I try to weed out the ones that are NOT helping and just out for themselves and being greedy...they get the "Oh, did you need some help?" from me as I watch them go "oooOOOoooOOOoooOOO"

Once again Xel, nice post. If anyone gets their feelers hurt by your brashness, oh well...don't take things so personal.

 

[Xel Naga]

OUTSTANDING POST! I hope you don't mind, Xel, but I've posted a link to it on the GoL site for my guildies to read and learn from.

Being that I was able to get most all that I needed the first couple of days of PUB56 {while trying to figure out all the tricks to staying alive (no SNF pun there)} I've been standing back and watching the "Greedy Folks" get others killed and such. I've found that if I heal, rez, help others, etc. that this game has MUCH MORE MEANING now. I still get decent loot and still have fun.

One thing extra that I hate...When I'm trying to rez someone (bandies or resurrection) DON'T RUN AWAY. I don't know how many times I've precast Rez, and chased some MULDOON around just to have it fade away OR I've been on my archer (Red Rum) ran up to someone dropped a bandie on them, just to watch them either run off, or step just out of range of the bandie taking affect. Like you said...pay attention to what is going on around you. I've stopped chasing and just watch people run on by and go on about my business.

Like others have said, I try to weed out the ones that are NOT helping and just out for themselves and being greedy...they get the "Oh, did you need some help?" from me as I watch them go "oooOOOoooOOOoooOOO"

Once again Xel, nice post. If anyone gets their feelers hurt by your brashness, oh well...don't take things so personal.

Sure thing ! Link away, glad some people find it helpful. I know many players like to just plop over and pout whenever faced with something difficult and challenging instead of trying to overcome it themselves. It reminds me of spoiled children who just whine and cry to their parents till they get their parents to do it for them instead of dealing with it themselves. I fear that most of those whining babies are now grown up and here on UO whining to devs as their new parents for easier content to be fed to them on silver platters. And like a loving parent that spoils their lazy babies they keep feeding easier content and dumbing down the game to a level fit for 5 year olds.

 

[Haddy G]

It pulls you through the fence if its not standing next to the fence. It should look like this:

LichFenceYou. 3 tiles in a row.

Ok Thanks. I was always standing back from the fence.

 

[Boogieman]

I would as a caster suggest using a reptile slayer and casting energy spells such as chain lightning if you can afford the mana, or simply casting energy bolts or lightning.

I have to disagree with this suggestion. MIND BLAST is definitely more efficient if you look at the amount of damage versus mana spent.

Fighting the crimson I discovered that only in large groups does it pay off to cast summons - if you are only 3-4 mages they just get dispelled too fast. Don't know about spellweaving and nature's fury. So I just blast away with mind blast.

 

[Sneaky Que]

OP was one of the best I have read in awhile on Stratics. A harsh voice of reason, told like it is.

And the only question they should be asking is how can I make myself better and adapt to the situation faster

Very well said.