Journey of a Solo Purist

[FoxBat]

Some of you folks may be curious about my new warrior, Sophitia Foxifer. She was recently born in Ascalon, and is playing under a set of restrictions for now.

First, she solos, meaning no heros, henchies, or other party members. I partied with someone to grab a res signet, and there was another ascalon quest where I needed to flag Alesia at the enterance, but that was it.

Second, she's a purist, meaning no use of external resources. The stash is a box she can't remove anything from, nor will she recieve gifts or trades from others. This includes the various NPC traders, who operate on player-sold goods and economy, with the exception of dyes to take care of some hideous armor colors. (bright grey leather ascalon armor?) Additionally, she does not take advantage of my extensive account unlocks to buy skills before they would normally be avaliable; I follow Wiki as to what skills can be bought at which outpost.

My goal is to gradually work through Prophecies like this, taking on all challenges. All Missions+Bonus as well as whatever quests are deemed useful or uniquely challenging. Generally I fight my way anywhere rather than running, and I at least make sure that I've fought my way through a path once or prove myself capable of taking down a group type.

A few people (Mucco ) expressed interest in my travels, so I'll be updating this thread irregulary with highlights of my journey. I don't promise entertaining tales like Charis or Sirlin could spin, but then these shouldn't be as long and ponderous either.

Also I'll try to keep screenshots to one per post, so this thread doesn't become too onerous.

[Zed-F]

Good luck!

I'd thought about doing something like this long ago but concluded the monster packs eventually get too large and nasty for one person to be able to solo. OTOH, maybe things have changed since then enough that it might be possible. I really don't know how the EotN content figures into this sort of attempt, for instance -- I understand it's possible to get access to EotN stuff well in advance of level 20.

[FoxBat]

Pre-Searing Ascalon generally ends up being played with these "restrictions" whether desired or not, so there wasn't much out of the ordinary there. I chose the venerable WamMo for condition and hex removal, as well as alternative healing to heal signet. I'll also need to provide some healing assistance to required NPCs in various quests or missions, and it's already proved handy for keeping Rurik out of trouble.

At first I tried to see how long I could keep Survivor going as well, so I jumped out of the Arena battle with single-digit life left!, but made it. Upon returning I was thrown into the mission, so like a good soloist I flagged my henchmen and went at it with just me and Rurik. Shielding Hands was very useful at these low levels to keep rurik alive, as he doesn't take large chunks of damage with his heavy armor.

Ascalon itself is easy once you get it down, in fact I solo explored all of it with my long-gone Ranger once. Aside from the enemies being weak, you also quickly get ahead of them by 3 or more levels with all the experience from quests and solo battles. Explosive arrows are by far the most annoying part of fighting the charr, but it's manageable, especially by ducking around a corner and watching them fire into a wall while you work on the enemy warriors. (say that 10 times fast...)

In Piken Square there's two very useful collectors, one gave a 10-14 Sword with 15% damage vs Charr, and a 6 AC req 2 tactics shield with +10 vs Charr and +10 vs elemental (+20 vs elemental charr??) Sadly the journey to this place is where I lost my survivor status at level 7, but these items made my sweet vengeance upon the possible as I racked up all the quests in this area. The Siege of Piken Square quest spawns a Charr Captain warrior boss right outside the outpost, and he proved the most formidable fow I've yet faced, due simply to his healing signet. I tried to kill him with the power of sword and bleeding+deep wound, but he would not fall so easily. Nor could a hammer hardly dent him without the degen of bleeding that is so valuable at low levels. What I really needed was an interrupt on my sword, but as no such skills were avaliable yet, I had to spec 3 into hammer, get the bleeding and deep wound going, and then try to finish him off with Frenzy + For Great Justice + Hammer Bash spam. It must have taken 15 minutes or more, but ultimately the vile fiend didst haveth his brains smashed in.

Frenzy is an interesting skill to use in a solo situation, where you'll inevitably always have the pressure on you. Right now there's enough areas where I can handle the extra damage, and the killing speed you gain for it is phenomenal; but when hitting a large group, I'll usually have to refrain from using it until more are dead. Still, I also have a -2 damage while stanced shield, and you can actually end up taking *less* damage from frenzy in some situations! It seems like the damage reduction may be calculated before the doubling from frenzy.

The time-honored Healing Signet is my primary means of keeping myself up most of the time. Shielding Hands preventing just 4-6 per hit helps against the mild but frequent plinks against warrior armor. I've also tried running healing breeze when I need to keep an ally alive, it works OK but can be mana/stat intensive. Signet+sword proves the best when you're under heavy fire, as you can slowly bleed an enemy to death while constantly spamming heals if need be. Let it be noted that it's no match though for the group of 20+ gargoyles just north of Nolani Academy.

Speaking of which, Nolani Academy can be rough with a dimwit prince following you around. I took the time and care to clear the entire path between the academy and rin of charr, hand-to-hand and without any dull longbow shenanigans either. I even cleverly managed the bonus by pulling devourers to fight with the spirits (who by the way, have a ton of health and are immune to bleeding, so would take ages to kill), and while they were distracted with each other, ran the book to the pedestal, banishing most of the spirits and completing the bonus. So after all that effort, prince Doofus sounds Stormcaller, and then leeroys into three groups of charr at once, ending the mission. I gave it a second go, based on wiki information that Rurik won't get into trouble if you dash off west from the wall, and you can complete the mission. I was left alone for a while, but as I pushed forward, the Stormcaller cutscene somehow triggered and I was shot back over there, facing down the same three groups of charr. If you skip the cutscene Rurik will do you the favor of waiting around though, which let me pull and kill one group of charr, still leaving a dangerous two that could converge on our grop. So I aggroed one group on the left, which Rurik promptly charged off into, which fortunately put us out of range of the patrol on the right. Sneaking past that, the rest of the mission wasn't an issue, and I soon found myself at Yak's bend. That's where my ranger had quit soloing due to the difficulty, so I figured the actual challenge would begin there.

[FoxBat]

I'd thought about doing something like this long ago but concluded the monster packs eventually get too large and nasty for one person to be able to solo.

A long time ago, I saw a guru bragging post on this topic, on someone who had soloed all the most difficult missions in the game- and I believe this was before Factions was even released. That and some of the rediculous solo farming builds I've run before, gives me the encouragement to give it a go. Mostly I'm worried about missions where you're either under a time limit or have to keep some silly NPC alive, but given the chance to take the game at your own pace, anything is possible.

[FoxBat]

This mission took me no less than 6 attempts, so it should make for an interesting tale! But first, a little background on what lies beyond Yak's Bend.

The Stone Summit hit much harder than anything in ascalon. Their Howlers and Sages both have enchantment strips, and high-damage armor-ignoring skills like Empathy, Vile Touch, and Vampiric Touch. I had to have my behind soundly handed to me before I started reconsidering tactics.

The Yak's Bend weapon crafter held some invaluble items: a sword and shield with a +8 armor vs dwarves mod, which substantially improved my survivability. I had to add remove hex to deal with the sage's empathy (and the recharge reduction helped greatly!) In lieu of shielding hands (an enchantment), I relied on "watch yourself" for armor improvement. Wary Stance was appealing because the axe dwarves have a disrupting chop they like to aim towards healing signet, although care was needed as the hammer dwarves could then knock you down with griffon's sweep.

On the way to borlis pass, I encountered fun groups such as this one:




Fortunately, that mess of summit are actually composed of several groups. Unfortunately, they all come at once when you wake them up, so it takes several tries of aggro-grabbing to seperate them properly. Took a while to plow through that. Incidently, that huge mess doesn't spawn if you have the primary quest "The Way is Blocked" active.

As monk secondary I had a quest involving taking Cynn all the way up to Iron Horse Mine, and it took a good time to plow through all those sages and bleeding-immune elementals. Here the value of hiding behind walls really came into play, which let me frenzy with wild abandon.




After clearing the way for Firey Miss Priss (who would likely get herself killed otherwise), I grabbed her and ran up into Iron Horse Mine. First time around I somehow got her to stay put at the enterance, while I went ahead and slowly worked on groups of summit and ettins. The ettins pack both a wallop and weakness, which made taking out groups slow and involving alot of running away, letting gradual bleed deliver the killing blow. So slowly that there is a patrol which walks the entire course of the map, that came around and killed Mhenlo on my first attempt (I didn't even see his corpse, but I assumed that's what happened.) So I rezoned for another try, except this time Miss Priss wouldn't stay put and followed me around. This actually worked well when I caught the enemies on a corner and let the pound on me, while Cynn incinerated the clumped group in seconds. That trick let me progress quickly enough to save Mhenlo this time around.

Having dealt with Summit (and the laughable Centaurs) for a while now, I expected Borlis to be more of the same and therefore straightforward. Boy was I wrong! The centaurs, although generally not difficult, their longbows pack distracting shots for the healing signets, and the warriors harrass you with bleeding and deep wound. While these were manageable (thanks to wary stance and/or walls), the centaur Monks proved a touch more formidable, thanks to a 15-second healing breeze and condition removal. One time I had the archers firing into a rock just so I could frenzy constantly into the warrior and gradually drain the protector's energy, which took several minutes. After that I learned it was worth the risk to try and kill the low-armor (and non-blocking) protectors first.

After lighting the first seven storm beacons, I ran into more of the summit and ice golem mobs I was used to fighting before. The beastmasters I hadn't seen so much of, but they do fairly little damage, just watch for their opening stomp attack. So my foolhardiness got me into trouble when I met this deceptive group:




Two howlers, a sage, and a Dolyak rider. I've fought most of these before; how hard could it be?

Quite hard, I found out. After they killed me. Twice.

Just having those four there leads to a surprising amount of wand damage, thanks to I guess warrior's not as spectacular armor vs elemental. I found my healing sig barely able to keep up, factoring in the extra damage taken while using it. The Dolyaks carry heal other, meaning they absolutely must go down first. I had to spam remove hex to keep empathy off of me. Howlers are also a nusiance with plague touch, meaning I couldn't rely on bleeding degen to take them out (without taking me out in the process). They apparantly don't bother with their touch skills unless you are roughly in "adjacent" range, which means you can seperate the howlers and their high-damage attacks from your target, but it's a time-consuming process, and they won't always comply, running to and fro at the wosrt of times. Attacking two adjacent howlers is suicide though, so it must be done at some point.

Later on, I found it was faster to bring that hallowed warrior tool, the wand, and use that to build adrenaline from a safe distance, run in, unleash bleeding + deep wound on a target, then run out and let the degen do its work, repeating as necessary.

Having overcome that group on the third attempt (and then pulling out another such group from a summit boss, joy) I took a stab at the bonus objective, a jaunt through a small ice cave with some Dryders and a Drake at the end. Dryders who, by the way, taught me the meaning of abject fear.




These guys are a warrior's worst nightmare, featuring anti-melee hexes, degen, and armor-ignoring attacks. Constant healing-sig spam couldn't keep up with the health loss I was facing, so I had to damage a group, run out, (hoping not to get too many shadow strikes in the back), and then be ready to run back in before their regeneration kicked in. The cave first pits you against a group of three, then four, and then five, and I managed to fall down on that third group of five enemies with the adrenaline pumping.

So, after the third failure, I decided to return a little more prepared for this six-legged menace:



This picture is after having cleared the cave of dryder groups. I specced 5 points into healing for 15 seconds of +6 regeneration, as well as 10 health per attack. While I couldn't use this around those naughty sage+howler groups much, it more than counteracted the dryder degen and made those groups a breeze. This was a very good thing, since the pictured group was still a tough nut to crack. The Drake disables me with both Weakness from enervating charge and a snare from Ice Prison, further reducing my melee effectiveness while preventing me from running away if things look to grim. He also could disrupt my attacks with Whirlwind. Medium-powered elemental assaults from the drake and the dryder degen together gradually outdamaged my three healing skills, making this battle a dangerous affair.

To solve this without facing yet another restart, I would plink the nearest target with a bow and run away, keeping out of range of icy prison, and gradually buildling my adrenaline up in this matter. Once charged, I would run in, unload bleeding + deep wound, and get out as soon as the snares let me. I barely survived the assult and needed some time to recover, but so too would the dryder if I waited too long. So I ended up plinking that dryder with the same longbow just to keep their health regen from kicking in, while I worked on getting my own health up. The process was long and nerve-wracking, but once the dryders fell, the Drake was no match for the power of a Wammo. (Even if he did take ages to kill, and only because bleeding counteracted his natural health regen!)

Finishing what I thought was the "hard part" of the mission, I pushed on towards the gates that Rurik was hiding behind, to encounter this affectionately-named group "the ice golems from hell."



(Yes, hell has frozen over, if you haven't noticed my snowy environs!)

The ice golem group on the left has peculiar behavior. They tend not to notice you right when you get in their aggro range, waiting until your attack, and even as they take their sweet time deciding to retaliate, they will run *away* back towards the gate with the other golems/dwarves as if you weren't even there! This means I couldn't pull to seperate this group out of the pack, and their patrol group took them in range of other groups that wouldn't pull very far. To get around this, I had to watch for when this golem pack began to walk back towards the gate, then run in, kill one of the dwarves of the usual four-pack of Dolyak, Howler, Howler, Sage, and then run out before the golem patrol came back and froze me in my tracks. This took ages to pull off, but it did work in the end, and I was treated to Rurik's usual jabberings that cause one to anticipate his coming death with joy.

So, I figured I had the mission finally sorted; just had to run up and light a few more storm beacons, right?




Two groups of stone summit near the end had other ideas, treating me to a screen reminisicent of Diablo's blood-drenched screen. Hours of careful fighting down the drain...

The thing I wasn't prepared for here was that those Dolyaks I was battling earlier have Strength of Honor, which adds a warrior-bane extra armor-ignoring damage to the attacks of axe and hammer-wielding dudes. You wouldn't know this from fighting those howler/sage groups naturally. Of course, aggroing two groups who happen to be together and hoping the NPC dwarves along for the ride could sort it out wasn't the best of ideas either. When I came back on the sixth (successful) attempt, I seperated the groups properly, and then took out the dolyak with the usual hit and run tactics (and I definitely ran, with axe-wieldings threatening to chop my healing sig, as I had left wary stance at home.) But beyond them were just a few weak beastmasters guarding the beacons, and they did nothing to stop the blue flames from burning brightly.

(What happened to the fifth attempt? Well I dropped the monk healing since I had completed the bonus and wouldn't be facing dryders anymore, just summit who strip enchantments. Except when I hit the first Sage I realized I had left my Remove Hex at home. Oops. )

So there is Borlis pass, which I spent levels 13 to 15 on.

For my commentary, I really like how this variant is playing out so far. It's pushed me both to take advantage of every resource the game offers (such as collectors, quests, and crafters I had ignored before), learn the ins and outs of the AI, (like baiting and pulling howlers with their penchant to run after you at close range), and improve my level of play (e.g. cancel-spamming healing signet to draw out interrupts). All of these push the game and oneself to limits akin to D1 Ironman which my own take on the variant hadn't recreated as succesfully. On top of that, death and near-death experiences in missions provide the kind of adrenaline rush my cowardly survivor longed for but rarely faced. While death just sends you back to the mission start, given the slow clear speed of a solo player, that's a significant setback, and it's enough to add tension and force more careful and aware playing without being as frustratingly punishing. I don't know how many others are as anti-social or masochistic to give this sort of thing a try, but I'm sure a ranger or some kind of caster would also make for interesting and very different play. If I can figure out how to transfer this environment to level 20 teamplay then all the better, but I will keep plugging along for now with my lone wolf warrior.

[Zed-F]

If I can figure out how to transfer this environment to level 20 teamplay then all the better, but I will keep plugging along for now with my lone wolf warrior.

I don't know about team play, but it sounds like it's possible to reach LA approaching level 20. It might be possible to turn an existing character into an ersatz soloist that starts there (or Kaineng Center, or Yohlon Haven) and continues onward through the campaign. That way you don't need a free slot and to level a character, you just need to figure out what ought to be available for your character at that point and set them up accordingly.

[FoxBat]

My progress has been stalled for a while, mostly due to the Frost Gate bonus. The mission itself was just more of the same summit from Borlis Pass, the only slightly tricky part was dealing with groups of 3 Sages (mesmers) + 1 Dolyak (monk). There was too much empathy flying around to remove hex them all, meaning I had to pace building adrenaline and let bleeding from Sever do most of the work. Getting Rurik killed in the cutscene was all to easy (and rewarding!)

As mentioned, the Bonus is the hard part, which I've failed countless times. There are two groups of summit guarding the ballistae you need to guide the dwarf NPC to, each group containing three melee and two dolyaks. The Dolyak's main skill is Heal Other, which is naturally useless at protecting themselves, but very effective at protecting each other. On top of that they put strength of honor on the melee guys, meaning I could not survive standing toe-to-toe long, let alone frenzy.



This dugout here was important for the first attempts. Selected behind me is a group of two ettins, up ahead are a mess of stone summit including a ballistae operator, and to my right rear is the path to the bonus area. The first time I attempted this, I had some insane luck that I haven't been able to repeat in 20 attempts. The two ettins behind me managed to somehow fight their way through the summit ahead, kill the ballistae engineer, and then get themselves stuck there. Then, the first 2-dolyak group spawned close enough that I could pull them all the way up the hill, around the bend, and into this blast area by hugging the wall. The mobs get stuck and strung out on the wall here, and I could effortlessly pick them off one by one. Then I pulled the ettins out from their stuck place, and had them follow me all the way down to the second group. The ettins soaked up enough damage from the summit to let me do my thing, while also distracting the healing from the Dolyaks. I had one of them down to a sliver of life, before the last ettin died and they turned their attentions on me.

Of course, this was impossible to reproduce again in 20 tries. If left to their own devices, those ettins tend to die either from the ballistae or the enemy sages. They are difficult to run past too without pulling them into the ballistae group. Also I could never get the first bonus group pulled up past the hill anymore, and there's no-where for them to get caught down in that area. I tried hamstring to seperate one and that still didn't work, nor did hit-and-run tactics. I could lure the ettins down to kill the first group but not the second one, and I couldn't get any further ettin groups to interact with the bonus summit. While I "could" continue on and return for the bonus much later with better weapons and skills, that just didn't feel right to me.

So, after a recent update, I choose the lesser of two cheeses:



Sophitia was about 17 at the time, meaning she could summon the fire imp. Not having bought any campaigns in the online store, I'm not sure why I am eligible, but apparantly I am. Although I never said anything about bonus items, I haven't taken advantage of the War Pick or the like. One thing I liked in theory about the imp was its resource limitations: you only get to summon it once per hour (effectively once per mission.), meaning if you let it die, it's gone. That meant I'd have to save it for when it was really needed. At level 20 he would disappear, meaning he could be thought of as an alternative to cheesing lowbie areas with lategame skills and gear.

So, armed with that, I set out for the bonus one more time. This time I equipped strength of Honor for that little extra damage push my pathetic sword needed. I lured the pair of ettins down to the first bonus group, and between them and a lucky distracting blow, I managed to get one dolyak down before the ettins expired. Once one is gone, the second is a piece of cake. Facing the second group, I called forth my Igneous Imp and charged past the summit's warriors. His fire damage and hardy exterior worked just long enough for me to get the first Dolyak down, promptly after which the summit pounded him into a pulp. The damage had already been done though, and the lone leftover Dolyak didn't have a prayer.



After that, and a few dead Dryders and Ettin later, it was simple to lead Rornark over to the ballistae, blow up the bonus gate, get the attention of the HUGE ice golem mob and then blow them up with this ballistae, slowly work through the remaining ice golem groups, and running the plans back up to Rornark. Well, easy at least, albeit time consuming.



After that, the jaunt to the Gates of Kryta was simple. There were some important skill quests in Beacon's Perch, offering Bonetti's Defense and Balthazar's spirit. Just had to kill masses of smite junipers. More fun was the masses of Centaurs from the primary quest:



Like the "Ice Golems From Hell", these guys have some funny aggro, meaning they sometimes break away from you to follow their patrol route. That's a problem when it leads you into groups of 20+ of them. Otherwise, they weren't too problematic. Nor did I die too getting lost in the ettin cave. After traveling through that amazing frosty-wasteland-to-sandy-beach transition, it wasn't long before I was at the Gates of Kryta.

[FoxBat]

And now, part 2 of why this was delayed so long.

Gates of Kryta was a rude wake-up call. I managed to quickly frenzy myself to death against fragility from the skeleton mesmers. The armor-ignoring degen for hexes and poison wasn't helping any either, plus half the enemies are immune to bleeding. So it was time to drastically reconsider my skillbar:



Pure 100% Wammo! This is the kind of build I needed to survive the hairier undead mobs, with Balthazar's Spirit to power the heavy energy costs. The amount of healing you get out of vigorous spirit alone is surprising, and it shoots through the roof once you start spamming cyclone axe. Live Vicariously was overkill in that I usually wasn't taking enough damage to afford that plus everything else, and could've been replace with something more useful like Dismember.

With this build and axe in hand, the first half of the mission is easy enough. It's again the damned bonus that is rough. Grabbing the Orrian text summons three smoke phantoms (wraiths), equipped with Chain "BAM You're Dead!" With their aura of restoration, I could barely damage one before they had my life down to a sliver. I could easily outrun them and carry the text to safety, but where's the Honor in that? So I made my infernal pact and let the imp do the dirty work..... and dirty work it was. The guy has low threat or high armor or something, meaning that 99% of the time, mobs preferred to go after me instead of him. All I had to do was sit there and tank through the phantoms and everything else, while the imp burned through everything with immolate spam. Since he was at my level (17), that's quite some impressive elemental damage. I managed to keep him alive through the entire mission, letting him burn some blind-spamming skeleton sorcerers that I couldn't touch either.

So after doing that, I fell into a quandry. The power the Imp displayed here just felt like cheating. The guy makes Orion look like a pansy. On the other hand, I wasn't sure that I could beat the bonus without him, save running from the wraiths like a pansy myself. I stopped playing for a while and delayed on writing this report till I figured out what I would do about the imp.

In the end though, I did go through the mission again, this time with some different help:



Yes, it's the UberTank, Oink. Not nearly as impressive damage as the imp, but he did help me at some critical points. If you avoid going near the historian, Oink will follow you outside of lion's gate, all the way to the river that the Orrian text lies in. With him, as well as some weapons/armor I bought from Lion's Arch and Bergen Hot Springs respectively, I could take on the phantoms.

Three phantoms still did too much damage for my hyper-defensive build to keep up with. Most of it wasn't even the chain lightning, they have a very impressive (and armor-ignoring) Conjure Lightning buffing their melee attacks. TWO phantoms however, were another story.



The phantoms are hostile to the other undead hordes on the cliff above, meaning if I ran around correctly, I could have one or two of them chasing the undead while I focused on jost one enemy. The damage from two wraiths I could keep up with, allowing me and oink to gradually score kills on them.

That trick wouldn't work for the other groups of phantoms that would spawn further down the river. Fortunately I had other tricks.



This phantoms' other two buddies are those two dots in the southeast. Normally they don't pull this far, but this guy chased me down to get his chain lightning off. The green triangle on my radar is Oink coming in from the other side, blocking his escape. Needless to say, this phantom perished alone, making the other two a simple matter.

The last group of phantoms, I saved a special treat for:



The two Lightning Drakes that I managed to run past earlier. While the drakes deal impressive damage and could nearly kill me, they didn't have the health to last more than several seconds against the Phantoms. I only had one of them down to about half health when both drakes were down. I had to pray that Oink would keep the others distracted long enough to finish this one off. (They inevitably will shift focus away from Oink if you stay in their aggro too long.) Somehow I managed to pull just that, and the Bonus was defeated.



Although not really necessariy, I let Oink tag along for me for the remainder of the mission.



This was the second difficulty that imp made all-too-easy. A mess of sorcerers can keep me perma-blinded, which makes damaging them tricky to say the least. Still, Oink and the archer support here was enough, as long as I did the tanking. As we pressed on, Justicar Hablion got himself nearly killed several times, running out ahead of his White Mantle entourage. Once again happy I picked wammo and could toss a few life-saving enchantments his way.

Down now to the final boss, I knew I had to bid Oink adieu if I wanted bonus credit. I then returned to face him alone, and I was worried because the boss himself was a sorcerer. How would I get past his blind defenses?



Fortunately, a lone sorcerer proved not so capable. Blinding flash is expensive, so their energy tends to run out after you waste a minute or so swinging into the air. My axe took a much larger piece out of him afterwards.

Inbetween all this mission fun, I did various sidequests around North Kryta Providence and Nebo Terrace, picking up skills along the way. The tengu, large masses of ettin, and Skale Icetooths all made my life miserable, and I ended up dodging many of them. I'll have to exact some vengeance later... Also I went and did Orrian Excavations quest, giving me access to the Signet of Capture, which I'll be using soon for even more skills. In that quest to get it, you have to fell a large number of golem elementals with amazing drop rates on white junk, I got three dye from the lot of them. Might be a good place to farm dyes if one was inclined.

[Zed-F]

Good job on getting to LA! And at level 17-18 rather than 20.

Still thinking that starting a level 20 at LA and going from there is the easiest way to get into the variant without dedicating a slot to it. I'm not sure I'll get around to doing that anytime soon but it could be fun.

[Seijin]

In the end though, I did go through the mission again, this time with some different help:

Yes, it's the UberTank, Oink.

I used to grab Oink to tag along on undead farming runs in that little valley at the start. He makes a good body blocker for the melee things.