Questions Regarding The "Travel to an Apex Vault"

[Siliconhobbit]

After finally getting to The Watch and completing all of the turn in and speak to so-and-so quests, I'm left with the Keep The Beasts At Bay quest to Travel to an Apex Vault.

So, some questions if I may?

I've seen the three portals downstairs, and I assume these are portals to the vaults.

• Which one is which? There are no labels on them.
  
• Do I need a team to set foot into one of them?
  
• Can I go into one and then come back out to complete the quest?
  
• Is there a minimum Tier level of gear I should be using if I want to attempt one?
  
• Can Vaults be completed as a Solo?

Any other help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[wildbill]

Originally posted by Siliconhobbit:

After finally getting to The Watch and completing all of the turn in and speak to so-and-so quests, I'm left with the Keep The Beasts At Bay quest to Travel to an Apex Vault.

So, some questions if I may?

I've seen the three portals downstairs, and I assume these are portals to the vaults.

• Which one is which? There are no labels on them.
  
• Do I need a team to set foot into one of them?
  
• Can I go into one and then come back out to complete the quest?
  
• Is there a minimum Tier level of gear I should be using if I want to attempt one?
  
• Can Vaults be completed as a Solo?

Any other help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.

There are hints, but no labels.

Left one is I think desert. Should have like sand/desert colored rock in front of it. Middle is forest. The right one is swamp. Look at the floor in front of each for the clue.

They are not designed for single player. Your first time in, you should watch to see that someone goes in first. You can always teleport out if you find yourself in there alone and try again later. Seemed like the left was the most popular one, I'd try that one first.

If you leave, hmm, probably doesn't complete the quest unless you kill the boss at the end. Sun Giant, the big tree, a huge bear.

There is a NPC that checks that you are of the proper gear level. Talking to her I think gives you access. You will know if you can't enter, but if you got to the watch and use the free coat you are given, I think you should be able to enter. I think I was just a bit over gs 100 when I went in the first time. I'm almost there again on a 2nd character. Might try the watch tonight.

You can do vaults solo, but probably not initially. You might need to buy a bit of gear first. You can also purchase the blueprint for the card that lets you create your own vault from your private portal at your base. In that case, I think you can set them for lower difficulty than the public. I've yet to try and do that though. Can't say I know the difficulty on the public ones, maybe they are set to hard?

[Siliconhobbit]

Awesome. Thanks for all of the info!

[william_es]

The watch public vaults should public matchmaking. You will be grouped with up to 5 other players automatically. I've always had a full group to run those dungeons, regardless of what day or time I entered them. Matchmaking is nearly instantaneous.

If you buy the recipe to make portal cards for the apex dungeons, those are solo unless you are private grouped with other players before you enter. Those are private, no matchmaking.

You can't leave a vault through any normal exit until you reach the end and kill the boss. That opens a door that leads to the exit chamber, with the boss loot. I've never tried "travel to respite" while inside a vault, not even sure if it works.

For gear level, you should do okay with blue level gear or higher. If you're doing a solo vault... well... that's REALLY going to depend on the difficulty level you set it at. Extreme difficulty is level 220, and you will need REALLY good gear for that.


For the dungeons, the left is desert, middle is forest, and right is swamp.

Left is fabled sun giant boss. It's always daylight, and the terrain is tan stone. Definitely the easiest of the layouts to navigate. The daylight is a HUGE bonus.

Middle is fabled eoten (ent) boss. It's always dark and gloomy with a purple black scheme. Lots of water, and at one point there an extremely annoying room with huge crystal spikes that you're supposed to run and jump through.

Right is Jana boss, a named version of humbaba, the giant quadraped from the swamp hunt realms. Same setup as the fabled eoten, dark purple black and gloomy. Also has a lot of water. One of the most annoying features of this dungeon is the exits that lead to further room are often hidden in corners and hide to find. You can easily get left behind as all the other players run off to the next room.

Bring an umbrella and climbing picks.

There's at least one type of puzzle where the reward essence will be up on top of a series of columns. You can either navigate a fiddly jumping puzzle or simply use picks to climb right up the column with the essence reward on top of it, then glide off the top with your umbrella.

There are also many other places where it's going to be super convenient to use picks.

Like other dungeons, there are wood urns located around the levels. The ones with brass trim will have special elemental ammo in them, for slingbow, pistol, shotgun, and rifle. Totally random, but it begins to add up if you have enough inventory space to carry it all out. In some runs, I see many people ignoring the brass trimmed urns. Yours for the taking.

I have seen some people using the track legend enchantment to point towards the boss at the end. Kind of sauve trick, especially in the eoten or jana dungeons where the darkness and layout make it hard to see well.

If you enter a public vault, and get left behind by the other players... don't sweat it. You can stay in the dungeon and loot everything. You miss nothing by not being there to kill the boss. All the bosses loot will be in a chest in the very last room with the portal leading out of the dungeon, along with tons of essence.

[wildbill]

Originally posted by william_es:

You can't leave a vault through any normal exit until you reach the end and kill the boss. That opens a door that leads to the exit chamber, with the boss loot. I've never tried "travel to respite" while inside a vault, not even sure if it works.

Yes, you can "travel to respite" or "travel to watch" when in a vault. Was just there this morning and did just that. Had a problem with my back pack breaking, but couldn't figure out what happened right away, so traveled back to my respite and fixed it.

BTW, sometimes there is just no one in there. I went in, was alone, died like 5 times and then left. Went back later, was a full crew of 5 people that time and finished the quest to defeat the apex creature (boss). BTW, you don't actually have to kill it, just someone in the vault has to kill it, not you personally.