Tomb of the Ancients
The Tomb can be a real killer. With a good healing pet it actually has gotten quite easy ... well, everything is relative! I highly recommend that you have a class with at least max DEF. Just about any monster including the bosses will kill you very quickly if given half a chance. Generally there are 2 types of tomb groups, private and public. Private usually run by a small group of people who try to take the bosses down one at a time. Public is almost always a messy FFA (Free For All), all bosses active at the same time.
The trick is to survive and finish the tomb regardless of which way it starts out. Normally I would tell you how to do this unpotted and at least max DEF potted. It is very possible to do a Tomb unpotted but the question is, why would you? So instead I am going to talk generally about how to do the tomb. I will also throw some tricks, tips and other things to help you out.
Pot Drop, BES NUT GEB - Life
Item Drops BES - Ring of the Pyramid, Tome of Holy Protection
Item Drop NUT - Ring of the Sphinx
Item Drops GEB - Ring of the Nile, Scepter of Geb
Item Drops BES NUT GEB - Wine Cellar Incantation, Golden Ankh, Eye of Osiris, Pharoh's Mask
Item Drops Sarcophagus Priests - Geb's Ring of Wisdom
Item & Pot Drops Treasure Sarcophagus -SPD, ATT, DEF and Shendyt of Geb
Lets get her done!
There are up to 5 Sarcophagi that need to be cleared in order to activate the bosses. Rush or clear your way to each Sarcophagus. Clearing is safer but takes a much longer time. Rogues and Mystic are good rushers. Rogues have the edge though, cloak in the hallways between rooms and rush the room until you get to the next hallway, wait then cloak and repeat until you get to the next Sarcophagus. I should note that any class can rush, but there are many dangers. A lot of monsters shoot paralyzing shots there are things that confuse and monsters that will chase you down.
Lets talk about why you need to do the Sarchophagi. The Sarcophagus Priests drop Geb's Ring (not much good unless you are going for the set) and the Treasure Sarcophagus drops the Shendyt of Geb which is a very nice robe.
Lets talk rushing
Once you have reached the Sarcophagus, call SARC, letting people know that they can come and kill it. When rushing, I will call Sarc and leave to find the next one once people teleport to take of the Sarcophagus. There are a total of 5 Sarchophagi which may include Treasure Sarcophagi and Priests Sarcophagi. You only have to take out the Priest's Sarcophagi to activate the bosses which means if there are treasure sarcophagi in the tomb then it just becomes a bit faster.
Rushing with a Rogue is generally pretty easy if you have a 50 Heal, 50 MP Heal pet or better. Follow a couple of simple guidelines.
Rushing with Mystic is fun and a bit more dangerous than with Rogue. You are always visible which means everything orients on you as you enter the room. I would recommend at least a 70 MP Heal pet and your T0 or T1 Orb. Both of these Orbs cast stasis for a short time, 3 and 3.5 seconds respectively, but more importantly they only use 65 MP. Follow these tips for your rushing satisfaction.
Rushing with Trickster is a blast. I know you are thinking Bluenoser is a psycho but it really is fun. Go with your T0 Prism because of its low (60) MP usage. The Trickster is a very fast guy and with his teleports and decoys he can rush the Tomb successfully. Follow these tips.
Rushing with anything else. I have seen people rush with just about anything. Frankly I am always impressed when I see other classes rushing. I will try it sometimes on whatever class I am on, though only if no one else is rushing. Rushing in this case really is a bit of an art form I think, some luck and skill required.
If you are waiting for the rusher to call SARC so that you can go help it may be in your best interest to /Pause. There are some people that like to go into the rooms adjoining the boss room looking for monsters that they can drag into the boss room surprising people and sometimes causing people to nexus or die. Not nice people these draggers.
When Sarc is called, teleport to the rusher and help kill the Sarcophagus priests then kill the Sarcophagus as well.
Note: Instant Killing Sarcs is fun but you all have be in on the plan. Get a number of melees and if possible an Ogmur Knight. Once ready, everyone charge the Sarc not shooting any of the priests. Hit the Sarcophagus with everything and bang its dead. Be aware that now the priests are a bit upset and will charge you. Teleport back to the boss room or just deal with the Priests.
Killing the bosses
Private tombs are very different than FFA tombs. Private are very organized and relatively safe while Public tombs are dangerous with boss shots and bosses coming from all different directions.
Public Tomb
If you are in a public tomb and there are a lot of people (5 or more) be aware that the tomb is going to be FFA. You really don't want to be using sword classes, Rogue or Tricksters because they have no safety margin if all bosses are active. Sure you can do it, but getting soulbound damage in is going to be risky, in my opinion it is simply not worth it.
If you know you are going to be in a FFA tomb it is safer to be on a ranged class that gives you distance from the bosses which allows time to react to the incoming shots. Stay close to the pillars of the boss room and unload everything you have at any nearby bosses. Use the pillars as cover, but remember when you come out from behind there could be boss on the other side of it. Try to make your ranged attacks and abilities work for you. There will be so many shots coming from many different directions that making a mistake will almost certainly mean death.
Keep one eye on the chat messages in case a boss dies so you can check to see if you got a drop. Sometimes when a boss dies and you see it on chat, it is safer to quickly hide behind a pillar and look at the mini-map to see where people are grouped so you can find the loot. If there is loot then don't automatically move to it until you verify the location and movement of the remaining bosses as they could run you over.
In this type of tomb the bosses can die very fast, if there is a large crowd it may just be safer to wait until all bosses are dead or just one remaining before you venture into the center to find your loot.
Private Tomb
These tombs are usually done with your guildies, or friends. It has become popular to do 3 person tombs where each person donates a life to the tomb opener. Everyone knows that it is not a FFA tomb. Usually there is one or 2 designated rushers, when a sarc is found everyone goes to kill it.
Take your time, activate one boss at a time until it dies. The accepted order is BES (yellow/brown), NUT (blue), GEB (green). It is highly recommended that in a private tomb you use melees or short ranged classes such as Ninja, sword and dagger classes. The other classes because of their long range can hit bosses that are on the other side of the room and activate them. Piercing classes are also frowned on because they can shoot through the first boss hitting the bosses on the other side. Any abilities such as poison, scepter and spell bomb are also frowned on because they can hit more than one boss.
Paralyzing the bosses will change their direction which is a bad thing in a private tomb. Having bosses traveling in opposite directions gets very dangerous. Anything that paralyzes a boss will cause it to change direction.
Pets that have attack or paralyze are usually not welcome in private tombs because they can wake up the bosses.
If there is a Knight in the group, let the Knight start the attack on each new boss with a stun. A stunned boss at the start may prevent weakness phase specially if you keep chain stunning it while everyone puts the hurt on the boss.
Once you have piled on the damage a Boss will enter its last phase we fondly call RAGE. During this time the boss is at its most dangerous.
The best way to take Bosses in RAGE is to hit them using ghost rum (makes you invisible) or use your friendly neighborhood Rogue. I always try to have a few ghost rums when doing private tombs. If they bosses can't see you they just tend to fire in a pattern which allows you to move into the area where the shots aren't.
Notes on Classes:
Public Tombs
The Tomb can be a real killer. With a good healing pet it actually has gotten quite easy ... well, everything is relative! I highly recommend that you have a class with at least max DEF. Just about any monster including the bosses will kill you very quickly if given half a chance. Generally there are 2 types of tomb groups, private and public. Private usually run by a small group of people who try to take the bosses down one at a time. Public is almost always a messy FFA (Free For All), all bosses active at the same time.
The trick is to survive and finish the tomb regardless of which way it starts out. Normally I would tell you how to do this unpotted and at least max DEF potted. It is very possible to do a Tomb unpotted but the question is, why would you? So instead I am going to talk generally about how to do the tomb. I will also throw some tricks, tips and other things to help you out.
Pot Drop, BES NUT GEB - Life
Item Drops BES - Ring of the Pyramid, Tome of Holy Protection
Item Drop NUT - Ring of the Sphinx
Item Drops GEB - Ring of the Nile, Scepter of Geb
Item Drops BES NUT GEB - Wine Cellar Incantation, Golden Ankh, Eye of Osiris, Pharoh's Mask
Item Drops Sarcophagus Priests - Geb's Ring of Wisdom
Item & Pot Drops Treasure Sarcophagus -SPD, ATT, DEF and Shendyt of Geb
Lets get her done!
There are up to 5 Sarcophagi that need to be cleared in order to activate the bosses. Rush or clear your way to each Sarcophagus. Clearing is safer but takes a much longer time. Rogues and Mystic are good rushers. Rogues have the edge though, cloak in the hallways between rooms and rush the room until you get to the next hallway, wait then cloak and repeat until you get to the next Sarcophagus. I should note that any class can rush, but there are many dangers. A lot of monsters shoot paralyzing shots there are things that confuse and monsters that will chase you down.
Lets talk about why you need to do the Sarchophagi. The Sarcophagus Priests drop Geb's Ring (not much good unless you are going for the set) and the Treasure Sarcophagus drops the Shendyt of Geb which is a very nice robe.
Lets talk rushing
Once you have reached the Sarcophagus, call SARC, letting people know that they can come and kill it. When rushing, I will call Sarc and leave to find the next one once people teleport to take of the Sarcophagus. There are a total of 5 Sarchophagi which may include Treasure Sarcophagi and Priests Sarcophagi. You only have to take out the Priest's Sarcophagi to activate the bosses which means if there are treasure sarcophagi in the tomb then it just becomes a bit faster.
Rushing with a Rogue is generally pretty easy if you have a 50 Heal, 50 MP Heal pet or better. Follow a couple of simple guidelines.
- Cloak in the hallway, rush through the center of the room if possible which will allow you to map out the room for exits.
- A Planewalker cloak is very handy if you have one. If not run the sprite world tons and you will eventually get one, don't forget to sell the DEX.
- Remember, you have generally have 5.5 seconds of cloak time so take your time, pausing briefly to avoid stray shots as you make your way to the next exit.
- Don't bother stepping on the bomb switch. A maxed DEF Rogue has no worries about a little bomb damage, specially with your 50 Heal pet (or better).
- If you get paralyzed by the many different things that cause paralyze, try not to panic. If you are cloaked you are still safe except for the initial damage. If you have a Planewalker once your cloak runs out and the second for cool down is finished simply teleport to safety. If you only have a regular cloak be prepared to move away from the critters that will chase you down, cloak as soon as possible.
Rushing with Mystic is fun and a bit more dangerous than with Rogue. You are always visible which means everything orients on you as you enter the room. I would recommend at least a 70 MP Heal pet and your T0 or T1 Orb. Both of these Orbs cast stasis for a short time, 3 and 3.5 seconds respectively, but more importantly they only use 65 MP. Follow these tips for your rushing satisfaction.
- If at all possible stop / rest in the hallway allowing your MP to recover a bit.
- Depending on the room you may have to cast stasis a few times. This is the time you really need to be accurate and hit the group charging you trying not to miss any. You don't want to use extra MP because of a missed shot.
- In times of panic, the tendency is to spam your Orb, but you really have to resist so you save at least one shot for that REAL emergency.
- A Mystic will have better luck plotting his route through the rooms dodging the crowds trying to greet him and only using stasis as a last resort to get by his fans.
Rushing with Trickster is a blast. I know you are thinking Bluenoser is a psycho but it really is fun. Go with your T0 Prism because of its low (60) MP usage. The Trickster is a very fast guy and with his teleports and decoys he can rush the Tomb successfully. Follow these tips.
- Use your speed, go wide around the monsters or go between, teleport to get past and teleport when paralyzed.
- If you have the MP to spare, try leaving a decoy about an inch (2-3 cm) in front of a hallway (but to the side, not in line of site) which will stop the monsters from following you.
- Remember, when possible a hallway is usually the best place to rest up to restore MP.
- Try not to use all your MP when in a room so that you have enough for the emergency escape teleport.
Rushing with anything else. I have seen people rush with just about anything. Frankly I am always impressed when I see other classes rushing. I will try it sometimes on whatever class I am on, though only if no one else is rushing. Rushing in this case really is a bit of an art form I think, some luck and skill required.
- If you have someone that you trust to remain safely unpaused in the boss room, then on your chat bar type /teleport "your friends name" and if you ever get into trouble just hit enter and you should teleport to your friend.
- Generally, going wide, dragging the monsters to the wall will usually allow you to run around the crowd.
- Sometimes the lesser critters (is that really possible) will chase you to a corner, they can be easy killed allowing you to rest up in a corner.
- Clear the area around the entrance to the hallway, allows an area to rest.
- When moving from a hallway to a room, be aware that monsters tend to hide against the walls by the hallway exit. Either poke your head around the hallway exit to see what there or just rush through to the clear space beyond.
If you are waiting for the rusher to call SARC so that you can go help it may be in your best interest to /Pause. There are some people that like to go into the rooms adjoining the boss room looking for monsters that they can drag into the boss room surprising people and sometimes causing people to nexus or die. Not nice people these draggers.
When Sarc is called, teleport to the rusher and help kill the Sarcophagus priests then kill the Sarcophagus as well.
Note: Instant Killing Sarcs is fun but you all have be in on the plan. Get a number of melees and if possible an Ogmur Knight. Once ready, everyone charge the Sarc not shooting any of the priests. Hit the Sarcophagus with everything and bang its dead. Be aware that now the priests are a bit upset and will charge you. Teleport back to the boss room or just deal with the Priests.
Killing the bosses
Private tombs are very different than FFA tombs. Private are very organized and relatively safe while Public tombs are dangerous with boss shots and bosses coming from all different directions.
Public Tomb
If you are in a public tomb and there are a lot of people (5 or more) be aware that the tomb is going to be FFA. You really don't want to be using sword classes, Rogue or Tricksters because they have no safety margin if all bosses are active. Sure you can do it, but getting soulbound damage in is going to be risky, in my opinion it is simply not worth it.
If you know you are going to be in a FFA tomb it is safer to be on a ranged class that gives you distance from the bosses which allows time to react to the incoming shots. Stay close to the pillars of the boss room and unload everything you have at any nearby bosses. Use the pillars as cover, but remember when you come out from behind there could be boss on the other side of it. Try to make your ranged attacks and abilities work for you. There will be so many shots coming from many different directions that making a mistake will almost certainly mean death.
Keep one eye on the chat messages in case a boss dies so you can check to see if you got a drop. Sometimes when a boss dies and you see it on chat, it is safer to quickly hide behind a pillar and look at the mini-map to see where people are grouped so you can find the loot. If there is loot then don't automatically move to it until you verify the location and movement of the remaining bosses as they could run you over.
In this type of tomb the bosses can die very fast, if there is a large crowd it may just be safer to wait until all bosses are dead or just one remaining before you venture into the center to find your loot.
Private Tomb
These tombs are usually done with your guildies, or friends. It has become popular to do 3 person tombs where each person donates a life to the tomb opener. Everyone knows that it is not a FFA tomb. Usually there is one or 2 designated rushers, when a sarc is found everyone goes to kill it.
Take your time, activate one boss at a time until it dies. The accepted order is BES (yellow/brown), NUT (blue), GEB (green). It is highly recommended that in a private tomb you use melees or short ranged classes such as Ninja, sword and dagger classes. The other classes because of their long range can hit bosses that are on the other side of the room and activate them. Piercing classes are also frowned on because they can shoot through the first boss hitting the bosses on the other side. Any abilities such as poison, scepter and spell bomb are also frowned on because they can hit more than one boss.
Paralyzing the bosses will change their direction which is a bad thing in a private tomb. Having bosses traveling in opposite directions gets very dangerous. Anything that paralyzes a boss will cause it to change direction.
Pets that have attack or paralyze are usually not welcome in private tombs because they can wake up the bosses.
If there is a Knight in the group, let the Knight start the attack on each new boss with a stun. A stunned boss at the start may prevent weakness phase specially if you keep chain stunning it while everyone puts the hurt on the boss.
Once you have piled on the damage a Boss will enter its last phase we fondly call RAGE. During this time the boss is at its most dangerous.
- BES shoots large stun blasts and chases anyone that gets close. His stunning shots will prevent or at least slow down any damage dealt to him. Meanwhile he unleashes his shotgun at the offending persons.
- NUT will charge anyone that gets close and send tons of parallelizing shots. Nut is most dangerous because when he switches to rage if you are too close you risk getting paralyzed and then taking his shotgun. If he is chasing you, clicking on someone on the other side of the room can be a life saver. Another way of avoiding him is ducking behind a pillar which gets you out of his line of site. If he can't see you he will stop chasing you.
- GEB will stay in spot and fire tons of shots, scarabs and artifacts. If you get too close then it will jump away. Getting close to GEB is hard for a melee due to the amount of crap he is sending your way.
The best way to take Bosses in RAGE is to hit them using ghost rum (makes you invisible) or use your friendly neighborhood Rogue. I always try to have a few ghost rums when doing private tombs. If they bosses can't see you they just tend to fire in a pattern which allows you to move into the area where the shots aren't.
Notes on Classes:
Public Tombs
- Assassins Plague - Plague is amazing. Stand on the outside track chuck your plague as far as you can into the center. You will hit every boss. Spam your Plague, use your MP pots to keep the poison going.
- Assassin - Stand by a pillar but not behind except to dodge incoming shots. Time you throw so that it lands on at least 2 bosses. Since you have to be a bit more accurate you won't be spamming it but if you run out of MP then use your MP pots to keep the poison going.
- Ninja - Ah the Shuriken, it does so much damage but be accurate though. Stand by a pillar and throw it into a group. In this case having a T4 will allow you a few more hits. Use your MP pots when you get low on MP.
- Bow classes - Use your paralyze or slow abilities. Bows allow hits on multiple enemies. A Doom bow is a very nice weapon here. If you don't have one then its time to run tons of UDLs.
- Sorcerers - The scepter really is handy here. You want to activate it close to a boss so that you are at least hitting the boss. The scepter will also target the artifacts as well. Using your highest tier piercing wand fire into the group standing beside a pillar. If it gets too busy then back off to the outside track and your wand still reaches. Pop some MP pots when you get low.
- Staff classes - Stand by the pillars pounding on the bosses as they come by. All abilities can rack up damage points so spam them when you can. If it gets a bit scary then go to the outside track and hit them from there
- Piercing classes - Never fire into the center of the boss room unless there is only one boss left. Position yourself so that you are firing at a boss (through the boss) that is not in front of another boss so you do not risk waking another up.
- Staff and Wand classes - Position yourself so that if you miss the boss you are aiming at you will not hit any that are behind them.
- Knight Ogmur - If there are other Knights with normal shields then Ogmur can help here.
- Knight - Stunning the bosses and carefully counting to 3 or 4 and repeating the stuff (chain stunning) or watching other Knights and allowing 2 seconds to pass after they stun, you can keep the boss stunned for a very long time allowing other to pile on the damage. Make sure that your stuns don't hit any other bosses that are close.
- Warrior / Paladin - Try to buff your friends the faster you take down the boss the less risky it is to everyone.
- Pets - If you have an offensive pet, you can minimize damage to unactivated gods if you circle the outside of a pillar as the boss comes around, you may actually cause your pet to miss its chance to attack.