Ashlands multiplayer tips

[Sesbian Lex]

Hi, so I reached Ashlands not long ago for the first time with friends and I'm looking for tips in order to survive better. I will admit if we don't watch every of our steps rn, we tend to die immediately.

With my friends going for a more staying in the back approach, do you guys have tips for me to stay alive longer during the beginning of this biome, especially during combat? Between having to deal with this and managing all the farming and food, I'm getting burnt out of the game pretty quick.

I'm looking for strategies, weapons/armor recommendation or anything like that. Thanks!

[SoCalMike91]

The most successful would be magic, hands down. Root staff is OP, the rest are very strong, especially at high skill levels.

If you're on normal difficulty, then consider using a 2h weapons and a backup 1h and shield, eat the best 3 HP foods and parry > kill, or at least serve as a distraction.
It becomes gimp on multiplayer hard mode imo

Other successful play style would be asksvin set with high level archery and/or arbalest

Hybrid magic melee is a safe choice.

I guess they're all viable but magic trumps all is what I'm saying.
Just be sure to level your sneak because it buys you precious time to finish your fights or get the sneak attack bonus.

Edit for food options -

Google a good chicken breeding tower, that's one strong source of HP food.
Double it up to increase production.

Lay out a bunch of cheap feasts for your friends, if they want the quick and dirty then bug them for the better feast ingredients.

Collect bonemaw meat, eat it at base before you head out, never carry.

If you're really the workhorse in food production your best bet is to have a round table meeting and bring the attention to what it is that is base food and what is combat food and how everyone can contribute particular ingredients

[Sesbian Lex]

Originally posted by SoCalMike91:

The most successful would be magic, hands down. Root staff is OP, the rest are very strong, especially at high skill levels.

If you're on normal difficulty, then consider using a 2h weapons and a backup 1h and shield, eat the best 3 HP foods and parry > kill, or at least serve as a distraction.
It becomes gimp on multiplayer hard mode imo

Other successful play style would be asksvin set with high level archery and/or arbalest

Hybrid magic melee is a safe choice.

I guess they're all viable but magic trumps all is what I'm saying.
Just be sure to level your sneak because it buys you precious time to finish your fights or get the sneak attack bonus.

Edit for food options -

Google a good chicken breeding tower, that's one strong source of HP food.
Double it up to increase production.

Lay out a bunch of cheap feasts for your friends, if they want the quick and dirty then bug them for the better feast ingredients.

Collect bonemaw meat, eat it at base before you head out, never carry.

If you're really the workhorse in food production your best bet is to have a round table meeting and bring the attention to what it is that is base food and what is combat food and how everyone can contribute particular ingredients

Thanks for the tips, I might look more into food as rn I'm basically doing a variety of foods for any occasion and also feast. I lack a bit of knowledge about it and just focused on making the best food I could with what I could farm and what we have at hands (hunting hares is PAIN lol)

Sadly as for the rest, this is much further than what progression I have rn and as for magic, I can't quite get there yet as we need more resources because my friends started on the magic before I could (and also the root staff is not yet something I can achieve because I can't imagine us facing a fortress without having to just constantly die for now...)

[Booneblaster]

magic shields and root staff. ice staff works well for quickly taking down single skellies.
troll staff is great for getting stuff off your back.
hunting hares is super easy with fireball staff. this also works against bug enemies OP.
for a group, one can summon up to 4 small skellies with an upgraded skull. before a fight, the shield staff can give them (and thorny roots) a magic barrier. I do this when entering a cave - for the morgen. then spam my roots. roots also work great for valkries.

sudden big fights - climp a high rock, launch a troll skeleton down on the ground and let it agro onto everything trying to get up at you. i think u can have up to 3 of them dudes. they aren't friendly to you tho, just be careful. but it will sure keep mobs busy, even a valkrie.

[Sesbian Lex]

Originally posted by Booneblaster:

magic shields and root staff. ice staff works well for quickly taking down single skellies.
troll staff is great for getting stuff off your back.
hunting hares is super easy with fireball staff. this also works against bug enemies OP.
for a group, one can summon up to 4 small skellies with an upgraded skull. before a fight, the shield staff can give them (and thorny roots) a magic barrier. I do this when entering a cave - for the morgen. then spam my roots. roots also work great for valkries.

sudden big fights - climp a high rock, launch a troll skeleton down on the ground and let it agro onto everything trying to get up at you. i think u can have up to 3 of them dudes. they aren't friendly to you tho, just be careful. but it will sure keep mobs busy, even a valkrie.

Sadly the staff if frost isn't doing much damage as enemies are stronger because we play in a group. I've seen it from my friend who leveled up his magic and its far from being able to deal with the skeletons.

I'll have to check what kind of magic I can afford to try since I don't think I can survive a fortress and the deadraiser would require me to sack off 2 food slots for eitr food, which would just make me die faster than I currently am. The shield staff would be good if I wasn't the one taking the hits but I'll keep it in mind anyway (I think it only does 200 shield when you start with it and with magic)

[SoCalMike91]

Try heavy armor and 3 HP food melee then, just be sure not to go sprinting around everywhere, you really have to manage your stamina carefully.

2hp 1stam should be fine as well for normal mode, just have to dodge roll more often, but no stam = death.

Either way you guys are gonna need more eitr later anyway.


For hares there's been a lot of recommendations, best bet is stakes lined up near a bottleneck, or arbalest sniping.
I still need to try the pufferfish trap idea before I recommend that.

I would definitely focus on "decent" food that is easily mass produced over just trying to make "the best" all the time.

You can get "the best" food stockpiled after you and your friends have a pow wow on what ingredients you all need to prioritize gathering.

You -can- do all this content on harder difficulties with less than what you have now, it's not impossible, it just takes patience.

I'm currently raiding mistlands even before an elder kill on a no map no portal hard mode playthrough, deaths happens but only when I stick my neck out to take a chance, and don't have an escape route pre planned.

You guys got this! Just play patiently, don't Zerg into situations

[Cattastrafy]

Me and my single friend had a pretty good strat going on our first run.

He was full mage, I was full melee tank.

I rolled two hp one STM but I guess you could go 3hp.


Anyways, I mostly served as a distraction while he just blew them away with fire staff. You can even kite the enemies if you can't handle them while friends chew them up. If one of your friends is bows, they work fairly well here too, he can be more dps with the mage while you kite or tank. Frost arrows require a lot of farming if you run out of your initial mats, but they make short work of the harder enemies.

Regardless of your weapon preferences and skills, one of the safest weapons is mistwalker. It'll slow the warriors' walk speed and usually you can chain attack them before they even get close enough for their AI to tell them to swing at you, effectively having the same effect as a stun lock leading to their death and your safety. I assume frostnir would have same effect if blunt is more your thing.

For solo runs, I have always gone melee (mage is def better if you want to use it, I just don't care for the play style) and simple parry swing style works, takes getting use to the feint attacks.

Anytime I encountered a tough situation I'd say "nope!" And swap to bow and frost arrows. 1* askvin, or pairs of askvin, 1* warriors, all valkeries, morgens only if they had friends or were 1*, all got bow'd without question. Tough situations id just unquestionably hit bonemass too of course.

Mine a couple spires for your new weapons and some armor asap, the carapace armor is proportionally worse than just about any other biome progression equivalent compared to the "new armor". Basically you start out extra gimp compared to other biomes in terms of armor rating, but the new stuff is pretty well tuned and makes it more comfortable (duh).

Forts are easy. Make a bench, portal, and 4 stairways on the side, pop bonemass, fire resist mead, hop on it. Kill the two spawners and just murder everything. In theory bonemass cancels out the zerker mead penalty so I'd eat those like candy and mass murder (bog witch is new to me), your friends can do ae damage with magic or assist wherever. Priority is warlocks, ranger can prob focus on this while mage just aes everything and you swing with reckless abandon.

With any luck you'll get a good variety of gems and be able to make the cool stuff. Your mage's wild staff is god mode and chain lightning sword is pretty op itself too. Unless you agro some dwarves, Odin can't even save you from those suckers!

[Sesbian Lex]

Alright thank you so much guys for all the tips and useful info, I will dig into all of this and hopefully I will start surviving longer and being able to handle this biome!

[botocinza]

Also be super aware of noise. Falling trees and stoneworks just attracts more form farther away. before your done with the first batch. And that staff of destruction is louder than a maul.
Fight in the clear when you can and never get between Morgans or Askvan and lava. keep the Morgan out of the trees and ruins.

[L♥DK]

Originally posted by Hmm Monkey:

I'm looking for strategies, weapons/armor recommendation or anything like that. Thanks!

Hello there, I would like to recommend our trusty savior Root Chest armor. As for weapons, go frostner/demolisher/atgier for knockback, mistwalker works too but you said you got a DPS already.

And ALWAYS equip torches when running away from birds.

[Sotanaht]

General single player strategy for Ashlands still applies. Spam campfires. Everywhere. The more area you can cover with campfire radii (20m circle around each), even if there are some gaps in between, the fewer enemies will spawn. The campfires don't have to be lit, and they won't be destroyed by the environmental effects.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by L♥DK:

Originally posted by Hmm Monkey:

I'm looking for strategies, weapons/armor recommendation or anything like that. Thanks!

Hello there, I would like to recommend our trusty savior Root Chest armor. As for weapons, go frostner/demolisher/atgier for knockback, mistwalker works too but you said you got a DPS already.

And ALWAYS equip torches when running away from birds.

I wouldn't recommend the Root Harnesk personally. While there are a decent number of Pierce attacks, there are also a lot of non-pierce attacks as well. So you are sacrificing defenses against 2/3rds of the attacks in order to be stronger against 1/3rd. Worse, since Bonemass doesn't stack with the pierce resist, whenever you have Bonemass up you're just straight weaker than you would be in heavy armor.

Root Harnesk is much more helpful in the Mistlands, where closer to 3/4ths of attacks are either Pierce or Fire (and fire resist potions solve the latter even with the Root). It's also nearly mandatory against Fader because nearly all his damage is Pierce as well

[L♥DK]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

I wouldn't recommend the Root Harnesk personally.

Root Harnesk is much more helpful in the Mistlands,

Root Chest Armor still best in normal mob engagement. It can disable attacks from archers and 2/3 attacks of warriors.

Plus he is the tank, but that doesnt mean he must take all the damage. He must learn to back away or dodge.

For askvins/lava blobs, thats what the demolishers/AtgeirHimminAfl are for. Push them away so his partner can do his job.

For the bird, all he has to do is run around and not to get caught in its fire.

To be fair, I didnt even bother changing chest armor since iron age, I dont even use forsaken powers and ONLY engage only when I know I can win the fight.

I also got a partner and we also switch roles from time to time.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by L♥DK:

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

I wouldn't recommend the Root Harnesk personally.

Root Harnesk is much more helpful in the Mistlands,

Root Chest Armor still best in normal mob engagement. It can disable attacks from archers and 2/3 attacks of warriors.

Plus he is the tank:tank:, but that doesnt mean he must take all the damage. He must learn to back away or dodge.

For askvins/lava blobs, thats what the demolishers/AtgeirHimminAfl are for. Push them away so his partner can do his job.

For the bird, all he has to do is run around and not to get caught in its fire.

To be fair, I didnt even bother changing chest armor since iron age, I dont even use forsaken powers and ONLY engage only when I know I can win the fight.

I also got a partner and we also switch roles from time to time.

You've got Voltures which do 110 slash
Askvin which do Blunt and/or slash with all attacks
Morgen, which do half their attacks Pierce, half Blunt
Charred Twitchers, which do 75 pierce or 100 blunt. So all their strongest hits are blunt
Charred Warriors, which have 2 slash and 2 pierce attacks (the pierce does do a bit more at 160, but 150 slash is no joke)
Fallen Valkyries which always do mixed damage, their non-magic attacks always have both pierce and non-pierce damage
Charred Marksmen which are always pierce, but at 90 damage max
Lava Blobs do mostly blunt
Charred Warlocks do Pierce+Fire, but their summons are a bigger concern
Bonemaws are mostly slash (if you are on Water you can prepare specifically for them and Voltures)
Skuggs are pierce but it hardly matters.

The biggest threats are Warriors, Morgen and Askvin, and a bit from Voltures because they will always mess you up when you are low on health and trying to run away from the others. All of them have large slashing or blunt attacks

[L♥DK]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

You've got Voltures which do 110 slash. Solution: USE torches with one handed weapon

Askvin which do Blunt and/or slash with all attacks. Solution: dodge/side step, they have charging animation which are indicators

Morgen, which do half their attacks Pierce, half Blunt. Solution: Parry only the rolls, when it stands run to its side.

Charred Twitchers, which do 75 pierce or 100 blunt. So all their strongest hits are blunt. Solution: All are blockable, even with minuscule block skill, except 2*

Charred Warriors, which have 2 slash and 2 pierce attacks (the pierce does do a bit more at 160, but 150 slash is no joke). Solution: DON'T take the hit, push them away.

Fallen Valkyries which always do mixed damage, their non-magic attacks always have both pierce and non-pierce damage. Solution: That bird is kinda slow on attacking [except claws] which can be dodge/blocked by trees, rocks and fort walls.

Charred Marksmen which are always pierce, but at 90 damage max. Solution: Root Chest, Max damage I got was 20.7 which was also 2*

Lava Blobs do mostly blunt. Solution: run/dodge when it shrinks.

Charred Warlocks do Pierce+Fire, but their summons are a bigger concern. Solution: Demolishers 1 hits summons, fire resist meads for you know,

Bonemaws are mostly slash (if you are on Water you can prepare specifically for them and Voltures). Solution: 2 hits from Crossbows, 5 hits with frost arrows from Huntmans bow, prolly cuz I maxed bows during bronze age.

Skuggs are pierce but it hardly matters. Solution: shoot em from afar

The biggest threats are Warriors, Morgen and Askvin, and a bit from Voltures because they will always mess you up when you are low on health and trying to run away from the others. All of them have large slashing or blunt attacks

Again, most vets here will tell you. Fight a battle you know you'll win.

P.S. - We play on a server with 8* max with CLLC. so, X8 all those figures.

[LosLobos617]

Make sure you have a stone portal "camp:"

We go in atleast 3 deep, carrying a stone portal, stone cutter and crafting table. On the other side of an addressable stone portal is a cheat with all the mats for a forge and a battering ram.

We usually set up in ruins with a bit of roof to protect the wooden crafting table from fire rain.

Keep a full set of back up armor near the portal in your base for respawn runs.

The fire resistance barley wine is a must. Everything there has some kind of fire dam or dot. Sometimes just the ground itself. Barley wine will consistently save your life, those dots add up.