Necromancer challenge: Mistress of the Stave

How to show Okri your necromancer is a Mistress of the Stave.

The Challenge

When I first tried this challenge I just spammed attacks head on into the first stormvermin patrol I came across. It failed so the next attempt needed a plan.

The Plan

So 8 elites must be staggered at the same time with bolt attacks. A single bolt will hit an enemy, spawn a secondary bolt to hit the next enemy, then spawn a final bolt to hit a 3rd enemy. No idea if there is any logic to the target selection or just random stuff. Anyway, at least 3 bolts need to hit 3 separate groups of (almost) 3 enemies each to reach the magic number 8.

Though, would that be enough? Would the first enemy hit still be in a staggered state by the time the 8th enemy is hit, or do we need even more bolts for the cascading effect of secondary/tertiary hits to reach some maximum rate of enemies getting staggered (like a nuclear chain reaction going off)? Better to just keep spamming after the first 3-4 attacks, just in case.

Since the bolts themselves travel relatively slow it's also (maybe?) possible to gain a slight advantage by compressing the rate of stagger (more staggers per second) using shorter travel distances for each bolt. It's not enough of a difference to make all shots hit at the same time, but the time window can be slightly compressed, increasing the chance of more enemies having overlapping stagger animations at the same time. I'm not sure if it's really needed, but it's a simple way to (maybe?) increase the chance of success.

The Setup

The next patrol appeared in the large 3rd tome cavern on Hunger in the Dark. Perfect, a large area with plenty of room for a clean setup.

In order to use bolt travel distance thing as an advantage, angled attacks are needed. Thus the patrol must be moving in a line towards something other than the necromancer. Lets put skeletons on guard in the path of the oncoming patrol. Patrol will see skeletons first and move in on them, allowing the necromancer to get that angle. Lets also move away from the skeletons a bit so the bots don't have time to rush in and ruin everything with their stupidity.

Now, wait for the patrol to take the skeleton bait. Hint: it's a trap!

The Execution

A simple illustration to help the words:


(proportions are a bit weird, add animation and 4 blue pew-pew sound fx in the brain to fix it)

Incoming patrol in red, purple skeletons in place, black player(s)/bots in the back out of the way. The patrol sees skeletons and starts closing in (still in formation, they only rush and spread out when they get close), as necromancer moves to the side. First attack the last enemy of the patrol, quickly spamming bolts (blue) across the length of the patrol from the rear to the front, then keep blasting away like a proper madwoman necromancer, I'm quite sure gleeful cackling or drooling giggling should help.

Hopefully the patrol still hasn't broken up to rush and surround their prey so the first few bolts should be spreading evenly among them. With luck the secondary/tertiary bolts will find unstaggered targets and the challenge completes after 4-5 attacks (like it did for me).

The Ranald

If it fails, pray harder to Ranald and try again.

Disclaimer: I can't really tell with this sample size of the singular if the plan is just that good (100% success rate for me... yay?), or if my luck was just that good to work on the first try. Maybe it's complete BS and all you need are good Ranald skills.

[Sister Sorrow]

Thank you, it was helpful. Did it today at Skittergate (Champion), between the first and second grimoire.

Used Dread Seneschal & Vanhel's Danse Macabre & Speed charm & Decanter.

The key is not rushing the patrol but waiting for the right moment. Bots stood behind with another player; their interference would probably have ruined it. And skeletons on guard did the trick.

Flanked the SV patrol from higher ground, took a sip of the Blue potion, and spammed bolts into different sides of the crowd… cackling like a necromancer madwoman, of course.