Prison de Joaquin Raid

It was hard.


1st Attempt - 28 November straight after CW
dugunitrous : Romina - STW - Grandice
Cruz : Romina - STW - Nar
Lloydworth : Romina - Scout - Torsche
Pyratic : Musk - Scout - Elementalist
Almarech : Grandice - Scout - Hellena

We tried to follow the guide but upon entering, there was no mini-map (LAME). Mobs were a lot stronger than expected and since it was our first time, we were slightly unprepared. We failed to finish the raid even with Hrins, Triumph Fillers and Status Ampules, though we tried fighting until the end.

2nd Attempt - 29 November
dugunitrous : Trooper - Scout - Reckless
Cruz : Nar - Scout - Grandice
Lloydworth : Grace - Scout - Fighter
Pyratic : Elementalst - Scout - Fighter
Tlabbar : Romina - STW - Elementalist

We learned from our mistakes quickly. Moving as a group and luring + AOE made this attempt a lot easier. We knew where the "ambush spots" were and had Abyss Flares and Spell Hails waiting for them. We had better knowledge on what to expect this time around and it was definitely a lot easier and less painful.

We were all very happy that we completed it despite our "common" armor (no ELN users here!)

As for the drops.. well.. we should do this more often.

Recipe - ELN and Recipe - Prison Series 32AR Weapons

32AR items, HQ Earring, Recipe - Artisan Grade accessories

Gold/Silver Earring, Recipe - Magic Grade accessories

Innocentio Stance Book

note : I spammed screenshot button while the roulette was going.

I highly recommend Fighter/Trooper + Scout + Reckless/Ele for this raid. A lot of the mobs wont be able to hit flying, which makes Reckless very nice to use.

sGE Renaissance : Raid Galore

With the recent update of sGE to v5.0 aka the Renaissance, new content has been added including Castilla and Bounty Hunter Raids. These raids can be done anytime and have decent returns if you are able to complete them. The roulette system is applied to Castilla and Bounty Hunter Raids, which makes it ok to raid within a large group.

Bounty Hunter Raids can be repeated several times by doing them in the correct order and paying the npc silver bars. My group of 4 usually does veteran and above BHG raids, and we do them in this sequence:

1. Chaos Requiem 
2. Bahama (pay npc to be able to redo Chaos Requiem)
3. Skullic (pay npc to be able to redo Bahama)
4. 2nd Chaos Requiem
5. 2nd Bahama (pay npc to be able to redo Chaos Requiem)
6. 3rd Chaos Requiem

Aside from 12 roulette chances, clearing mobs if time permits enables us to get even more veteran tokens from Jack Spade (the npc inside BHG, dont miss him!). As for now, the only good thing I buy from him are Basement Treasure Box Keys for Torsche Mansion Raid Roulette and Tough Leathers for crafting. Skullic level is 100 to expert 1, Bahama is expert 1 to master 1 and Chaos Requiem is master 1 to master 10. If you plan your teams and training correctly, you can use the same characters for Skullic and Bahama (expert 1) or for Bahama and Chaos Requiem (master 1).

Loots worth mentioning from Chaos Requiem are 32AR items, Elite 96 Armor and Weapon items, Cut-grade Necklaces, Gold/Silver Earrings and Artisan-grade Recipes. Bahama also drops Elite 96 weapons (armor unconfirmed) and Refined Room of the Dead Key from Skullic. ASO boxes, tokens, reputation cards (medal of honour), veteran boots/gloves and level 100 items are common drops from all three.













Castilla Raids is the expansion of the storyline (i think, i dont really read much of it). Castilla can be accessed from the Ticket Seller at Port of Coimbra (where tickets to Bahia and Ustiur are bought). Castilla Mine is free to enter daily. After finishing Castilla Mine, you'll need a few Ancient Relic Piece, Ancient Relics, Ancient Gold Relic Piece and Ancient Gold Relic to progress further.

Medals can be acquired through completion of quests such as killing the bosses, however getting the "quest kill" is not 100%. I myself took 6 tries to complete the first quest and gain my Chaos Steel Ararat Medal. Medals dont really do much (as far as i know) so theyre just for bragging rights / sense of completion. It's possible to power through these quests and finish them quickly but as I see no need to do so, I'm taking my time and only doing Castilla Mine daily if time permits.

Medals are used for...?

Since I've only done Castilla Relic once and not even stepped into Castilla Temple, I'm unable to share possible loots from those raids. So far, Castilla Mine is confirmed to drop DHr, but other than that nothing really amazing.







My personal recommendation for efficient Castilla Raids are musketeers + 1 tanking family/character, preferably with provoke. Squad buffers like Rio, Grace and Elementalists are also welcome if you feel your group lacks strength in weapons. For the more powerful and eager raiders, castilla mine is soloable with 2 musks and a scout or STW equipped with good armors and racial weapons.

Instanced Mission : Arsene Secret Vault *Revisited*

Refer here for previous article.

A minor change to this raid is that the final boss (Celine) now drops the following in addition to the usual Magical Amethyst, Liquefied Gas and Piece of Trump Card:

• Ancient Star Orb Box x3
• Ringmaster Arsene's Secret Key (for the regular Arsene Raid)
• Level 100 item

The ASO box drops in many instanced raids including Torsche Mansion and Bounty Hunters. This helps cover some expense considering the huge amounts of ASO needed for expert stances.

Instanced Mission : Dr. Torsche Mansion Basement *Revisited*

Refer here for previous article.

With the update of sGE to v5.0, some changes have been made to this mission.

• Torsche Liberation Buff now lasts for 3 minutes instead of 1. - This greatly reduces the amount of Otite Pieces used as well as decreasing the difficulty of the whole raid.
• There are now 2 Victors instead of 3.
• The last room now has a roulette chest, which needs a key that can be bought from bounty hunter guild shop using 3 veteran tokens

Despite the reduction of vet chips, pure gold bars and reputation cards, the roulette chest at the end increases the potential loots from this raid. Possible loots include:

• Level 100 item
• Medal of Honor B
• Cut Necklace item
• Portable ASO box (contains 1000 ASO)
• Golden Earring item
• Recipe - Artisan's Belt
• Recipe - Artisan's Metal Belt
• Recipe - Elite Le Noir
• Recipe - Dragon Heart
• White Gold Bar
• Elemental Jewel

Here are some screenshots of the roulette chest:

Brain of Argus #4, #5, #6, #4 again, #7, #8, #9

When i said in my previous entry that I will be leading the Brain of Argus raid, I thought it wont be difficult or stressful. Go in there, do the procedure, get the loots and done.

After doing Boss Summoning that night, I gathered a squad for the raid. The first batch had 7 people, which was a healthy number. BOA #4 consisted of Vugtis as tanker and me as main DPS. Our "roasted sotong" method is very dependent on our tanker, and Vugtis' internet connection is... not that reliable. Don't get me wrong, Vug is a very capable tank - if he is online. As fate would have it, Vugtis disconnected at BOA #4, and we aborted that due to people dieing left, right and center.

A small squad is enough

I then switched people around and designated Cruz to tank. It was his first time to do so, but he has seen me done the role several times. I had hoped seeing me do the tanking was enough for Cruz to tank well. As his first time on the job, he did pretty well :) BOA #5 and #6 was a breeze. We went and revisited BOA #4 on the same evening and finished it with no problems.

Roasted Sotongs

After the max emo time a.k.a. respawn time was over, I gathered a squad again to visit BOA three more times. I was not able to farm Amethyst Piece over the week, so I did not have enough to sponsor my raiders. Luckily, drummies (server's Highest family level - 56 + 2) had been farming at that map and was kind enough to provide AP for the rest of the crew.

We went off with a cold start with BOA #7. Vug was available again to tank, but was unable to maintain his connection for the first half of the raid. We also had a newcomer with us, who used AOEs (Abyss Flare) against the 8 sotongs. Sotongs are very angry mobs. You touch them once and they will not stop whacking you until you are dead. And die, we did. Without a tank, the ideal way to deal with sotongs is to attack them 1 at a time, with a scout on arnis upfront while elementalists and musks whittle away its HP. But due to Abyss Flare, all 8 sotongs engaged us. The family who turned them aggro quickly died, which left the 8 sotongs free to choose from the rest of the squad. There were 8 of us at the time and sotongs had a target fest. We were getting knocked backed and consequently dieing. It took me a fair bit of time to settle things down, even with the help of drugs. As we were finishing rounding up these wild sotongs, Vug's connection improved and he was able to tank the brain.

Cruz came online just before BOA #8, so again Cruz and Vug switched roles. This time around Cruz had minor computer problems and some people (including me, lol) went to the wrong channel for the raid. By the time everyone was gathered, there were 2 sotongs left. We moved on to the brain and it didn't prove to be a problem as we were able to down it before it hid it its shell and summon Argus.

Finally on BOA #9, everyone was familiar with their roles and we were able to do it a lot quicker. Everyone went to the correct channel this time (lol), entered the same time, stacked the right buffs and attacked according to plan.

Everything was going ok until I looked at my inventory and saw that I had brought 2 Prelude Rings. I could have lent them to our Prelude buffer for level 12 buffs. Many thanks to drummies for sponsoring them much needed AP and the faction's excellent Daemon bracelets. This will be the last time I will lead Argus raid (for now) as next week our Faction Leader will be back.

"oh, i have 2 prelude stance rings here"

loyd is not impressed

Another Boathon Successful

Faction Leader Week

I was the faction leader of Millenion once, when Vugtis was away for a week or two. It wasn't really that special, all I did was summon the Colony Boss/es each day, changed faction notice and maybe change a few memos.

Currently, Seitai is away on vacation for a week to God knows where. xBrotherHoodx, DestinyRoyal, PeppermintTea and OuYang are all busy with work - which leaves idunno_4 and me to handle faction matters. With idunno_4's schedule still quite full, the position of faction leader was passed on to me ._. (insert fangirl/boy screams here). It feels awkward being the "leader" of people who are more senior than me, who are stronger, better equipped and more knowledgeable than me even if it's only temporary. 

 
For most factions, there isn't really a big difference between FL and DFL. The one big thing is that the FL can kick and change DFLs, whereas the latter cannot do the same to the former. But for an actively-raiding and colony-holding faction such as Eminence, holding the faction leader buff is huge. Because Eminence is holding 9 colonies, the Faction Leader Buff (FLB) a.k.a Leader's Brilliance comes with +30% ATK and +30 DEF. This great increase in attack helps in winning raids from competitors.

Leader's Brilliance

With great power comes great responsibility. LAME! But great power indeed. With Seitai's departure, a few raid items have been passed on to me. These include bracelets for Ice Wizard Tower & Gate of Lightning and rifles for Swamp Frog Fish, Uraeus and Griffon. I also have the responsibility to summon colony bosses every night and update important raid timings. Last but definitely not least, it's my responsibility to lead the Brain of Argus raid. I know I've been doing it for some time now, but this will be the first time where I will be in charge of the raid ._.

Holding the FLB for Eminence feels weird and uneasy, maybe because I never expected to reach this level in the game, or even when I joined Eminence. I was already surprised to be appointed Deputy, to be trusted with an increasing number of raid weapons and now, the FLB. I hope I don't disappoint.. or do something dodoish. It'll only last for a week, then I'm back to deputy.

To end this post on a lighter note,

Raid : Undertaker

Every once in a while, when people go to Arsene raid, they check if the zone boss has spawned. The Undertaker spawns in its own room, so camping for it isn't that hard. When the boss spawns, mobs in Culverts gain extra AR/DR, and the path to Zeia is closed.

Undertaker isn't that difficult, but may take awhile to kill if not adequately equipped. His high HP, hard armor and high defense require MC / HG users with human bane equips to deal with him quickly.

Hard Armor. High HP. High Def.

I recently participated in this short boss raid with my EMN faction mates Lloydworth, Vugtis, Pyratic and Solferino. We were surprised to see that a Recipe - Crafted Fire RES Necklace dropped.

Undertaker Loots.

The Crafted necklace needs the following items to make:

Cut Necklace Crystal×1 Jewel Powder×5 Enchantment Chip Level 100×30 Elemental Jewel×5 Ambrosia×10

(source : Wordwood)


Although expensive to make, this necklace is currently the top end necklace. It can be chipped with very nice stats which makes it the best necklace even until version 5.x. Making a Crafted Necklace is definitely worth the expense.

Raid: Brain of Argus #2 and #3

Eminence faction again raided Brain Of Argus, and to my request I played as tank again. I brought Coimbra Trooper (who wore Seitai's ELN), Scout and Emilia (who is still wearing Liberatrix' Armor).

The team was very well formed. Vugtis brought Grace (Shotgun Blaster, Flintlock) and Rio (Serenade, Prelude) and Pyratic brought Elementalist (Domination Fire). The rest of the squad were in Flintlock or Outrage Shot.
 
From our previous attempt, we tried to damage several Bribantras simultaneously by luring them together in a small clump and using AOEs such as FireWall. This time, I successfully lured all 8 Bribantras into a small group so that they can easily be hit.

Come here sotongs.

Our Faction Leader admits that this is so far the fastest way to do Brain of Argus raid.

Inside the boss room itself was nothing new. I provoked the sotongs while everyone else aimed the brain. I am loving Defiant Aura from the Crusader stance for its 100% provoke. At one point I even managed to inflict provoke status on Argus Brain! I was too busy running around and tanking to even press the screenshot button. I'm now waiting on Lloydworth to get me some screenies.

I know right. Now get back to child labor.

Raid : Brain of Argus #1 and #1.5

Even though I have done several Brain of Argus raids, I have not talked about them in detail yet, hence I will start the count here.

For some time now, I have always used Grace - Scout - Grace in this raid due to Flintlock's extra damage to Argus' Brain. At some point, I switched out Flintlock for Shotgun Blaster for the Hound Buff, and included a Rio for Shining Ballade and Prelude Buffs. However, it's been a dream / goal for me to tank Argus but I haven't had the chance yet. There usually is a more senior tanker around who will play this role.

This afternoon, only a few were available to do the Argus raid. Luckily I was there as well as my.. "friend" Lloydworth. I asked if I can play tanker and our FL said yes. I'm glad Seitai gave me the chance to tank Argus, it will be another addition to my achievements. I used my Coimbra Trooper and Anton (scout). Emilia (with borrowed +6 Elite Calienbino3DR) was the final part of my team as per Seitai's suggestion in order for me to cast spiritual shield.

Below is what I used to tank Bribantra. It's not mine, it's only passed to me to play as a tanker. It has "Catherine Torsche" written all over it.

Owner : Seitai of Eminence Faction - Rembrandt
B> Phantom Guard 2DR. (or any shield better than e84)

The first round of Argus was traditional tanking - 1 Bribantara (a.k.a. sotong) at a time. At the boss room I was also semi-successful at keeping the three sotongs away from the DPSs making their lives easier.

The second raid Setai wanted to try something different, so he asked me to tank several sotongs at a time while he spammed firewall. It turned out a bit faster than the traditional way of killing! However, once we reached the boss room, the boss haven't spawned yet so we all went back leveling (hence Argus # 1.5).

Align the Bribantras for FireWalls!

(H)_(H)