Sequence Broke into the Ashlands!

[KnightofGrace]

Other than knowing that my boat would be cooked without defeating the Mistlands, I went in pretty much blind- was using a Level 3 Krom and a Level 3 Arbalest and had defeated up through Moder. (Armor was Carapace + Feather Cape)

Took a longboat to the nearest island to the boiling water, dropped a portal, freaked out when what looked like a sea serpent reared out of the water and launched fireballs at my longboat (4 hits on my boat had it within a hit or two of death), managed to kill the Bonemaw

Waited for favorable wind because I assumed Bonemass might be necessary, had a second set of portal materials ready to go as well as stuff for a stonecutter in case I needed it (good call!) and then sailed due south straight at the spires.

Longboat started cooking *fast* once the water was slightly red, steered as straight as I could through the spires while watching my boat's health, was fast enough to steer past a bonemaw or two but right before the boat exploded, looked for a spire with low to the water stuff, popped bonemass and leapt out of the boat onto the spire.

Built a tiny stone hut on the top of the spire and dropped my portal- my foothold was secured! It was still a decent ways to shore but looked like I had some spires available.

Made sure the hut was secure, sniped a few more Bonemaws and some Voltures, grabbed more portal materials and began the hop/swim to make it onto the shore (mistakes were made!) Got quite the welcome with a good mass of twitchers, lava blobs, archers, warriors, and 2 Morgens. Managed to find a rock that was tall enough to plop down my next portal before proceeding to die several times as I tried to secure a forward camp.

Found out the Krom's stab was pretty effective at staggering/2 shotting Askvins and Warriors, 1-3 swings usually took care of Twitchers and Archers, couldn't really handle Morgens but they seemed to wander off after crouching for a while. Used a mix of stone and raising earth to give myself less of a base and more of an arena where only a couple enemies could get in at a time. Started exploring nearby and dropping workbenches (bad idea!) and campfires, mostly sticking to the shorelines

Started slowly building bridges between spires thinking I'd need a way back out of the Ashlands to get materials out of the biome before I stumbled upon my first Putrid Hole and found Molten Cores suddenly not needing that bridge (hoorah!)

For me running around in Fenris/Ask Armor + Feather or Askvin Cape seemed to be the most effective way to explore, popping Bonemass or ducking into Putrid Holes if the enemies massed up too much and I couldn't bring them down, stumbled on my first Fortress

Crafting Bench + Wood Stairs eventually turned into Stonecutter + Grausten Stairs- Warlocks introduced me to how little fire resistance helped while standing on top of green flames (lol) but took it down and got my first Iolite and Flametal -> Storm Ripper!

Tried to mine some spires to pretty good success, made 3 Slayer Greatswords and a full set of Flametal Armor which aside from giving me a ton of defense felt most relevant due to extending the amount of time I could be on top of lava from instadeath -> 2ish seconds. The falling eternally bug was awful but moving onto the spike for a split second seemed to end it pretty consistently.

Took down 5 more fortresses before assembling enough bells, rebuilt my entire meadows base in Grausten. Made sure to put portals in each fortress conquered both for safety's sake as well as to have easier places to go on gear retrieval runs with.

Finally decided to finish off the Mistlands because I'd never fought the Queen before either (heh)- She + her Seekers did *not* like the Scourging Slayer lightning procs and the Flametal Armor + Bonemass + Poison resist potions made the fight slow but very doable.

Decided to take a stab at Fader- first thought: this is easy! He's doing so little damage with this armor + bonemass, proceed to get torched once he started adding mobs/some Askvin decided to show up (spawn area was surrounded about 1/3 in lava

Multiple deaths to get gear back prompted a change in strategy from Flametal + Ashen -> Ask + Askvin, proceeded to take him down with the poison Slayer occasionally switching to Scourging Slayer when there were too many adds without dying again.

And man was this run fun. I had a Krom/Arbalest before taking down the Elder in addition to a full set of Fenris and Root armors. Swapped to Carapace + Feather Cape when we finally took down Moder, invaded the Ashlands before we'd taken down Yagluth and then went back to finish off bosses.

Seed was: xHHNchblvh for anyone curious about the island just north of the Ashlands water.


If I were to give any feedback on Ashlands beyond how much I enjoyed it, I'd say that the falling bug on spires definitely needs to be fixed and I'd love to see the spawners (and occasional Dverger Camp) *not* spawn inside of rocks though a well positioned lava blob tended to fix most of those.

There were times the spawn rates/rate mobs added in felt absurdly high but even the point where I had three 1* Askvin, a 2* warrior, multiple 1* twitchers, 3 Morgen, *and* a Valkyrie chasing me in a circle didn't lead to a death once I realized how much friendly fire the Morgen/Valkyrie were doing to everything else and just ran around until it was just 1 Morgen and Valk left. Figuring out how to line up enemy friendly fire also made the Fader fight pretty straightforward once I stopped worrying about the adds. I do think the Heat Resistance *might* need a buff on the Flametal Armor and/or give it a set bonus of reduced lava walking damage or something like that?

Also a way to not need to take down Moder for the Artisan table/blackmetal even if ludicrously difficult to achieve sounds fun. New Fuling caves that occasionally have Artisan Tables or Blastforges in them maybe? :D *Alternatively a way to find occasional already smelted Flametal in Ashlands!* Don't tell me those Dverger don't know how to do it!


TLDR: I did Ashlands (this playthrough) out of order and had a blast. Bugfixes are my only real negative feedback

[Mharr]

I was wondering how viable bridging between the spires would be.

[KnightofGrace]

Bridging was a nightmare so I wouldn't recommend it but getting the boat close enough that I could swim/float to the next one after it had burned up until I eventually reached shore wasn't the worst.

[Captain Obvious]

it's a shame you can't build the catapult sooner, the idea of launching myself into a hostile environment with the feather cape is too hilarious to avoid.

[Faceplant]

I'm on my way back, but doing hard mode with no portal. I don't plan to skip Mistlands, since I'll need to boat to get in/out, but had thought about trying bridging so I can get in/out easier.

Sounds like a fun time! Could you estimate how long the longboat lasted? If you'd have gotten to a spire soon enough, you could have repaired it, and probably sailed from spire to spire, repairing at each one, and then tear it down at the shore (quickly).

[locusofthought]

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Could you estimate how long the longboat lasted? If you'd have gotten to a spire soon enough, you could have repaired it,

Based on what I've seen with a Karve, boat damage per tick scales with time exponentially. So, even repairing it, there may come a point where the boat is destroyed almost immediately or at least before you can get to another spire and repair it.

[brown29knight]

Originally posted by locusofthought:

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Could you estimate how long the longboat lasted? If you'd have gotten to a spire soon enough, you could have repaired it,

Based on what I've seen with a Karve, boat damage per tick scales with time exponentially. So, even repairing it, there may come a point where the boat is destroyed almost immediately or at least before you can get to another spire and repair it.

You could always keep the materials for a second longboat in your inventory. It would mean forgoing most anything except the workbench, portal materials, and the most basic gear, but if it got you there you could drop the portal to go back for everything else. Would work even easier with more people sharing the tasks.

[locusofthought]

I tested the Longship, and it looks like a flat 18 damage per tick.
The karve takes 19 damage per tick, with no apparent increase over the course of a minute.
The Raft takes 19 damage per tick as well.
So no exponential growth after all. The devs are kinder than I thought.
For reference, my initial data was from a piloting a Karve into the Ashlands with perfect wind and making landfall on a spire after the Karve broke shortly before a combined Volture and Bonemaw attack and without any armor. Still got a portal on the spire.

[electricdawn]

I made it to the first spire with my Karve, so that seems to work fine, if you're sailing straight to it. From then it was just jumping using the feather cape and a bit of swimming. Bonemaws are actually not much of a problem with this method, if you climb as high as you can get and attack it with the bow. The main problem are voltures if you're in light armor.

But all in all, it's not even that difficult, IF you leave a portal behind you somewhere close, in case you do die.

Edit: Once I actually make it through to Vader (probably will never beat him) on my main char (using the default method with a Drakkar this time), I will try the Karve/Feathercloak approach again on my second character, now that I know where to build a spire portal.