Rt/me Smite Crawler Solo

Actually, I never practiced VwK outsdie the UW, as I said, it only took about 5 tries to get it. The way I do it is as follows:

Weapons I use: Firey Flame Spitter of Enchanting (20%) (helpful, not necessary)
Straw Effigy (+30hp/20%HSR factions offhand)

-Turn on illusion of haste. Take the quest from the lost soul and run back to the starting position.

-Turn on physical resistance, one of your visages, illusion of haste, and channeling if you have it (I carry channeling instead of soothing memories). Agro the grasps to the west, then run back to the east set of steps (but don't go up). The axates should break off long before you get there, but overkill is good. Let them hit you for like 3 seconds, then activate arcane echo, then VwK, then your second visage (my first one usually runs out right about now). If you brought channeling, spam vengeful weapon, if not, use it occasionally, keeping enough energy for VwK and SV/AV at any time.

-Wait until the middle group of grasps reaches the western steps. Make sure any patrol of nightmares is away from the group. Activate your enchants as before, and lure the grasps to the starting point (luring them all the way to the steps tends to break agro). Repeat killing process.

-Activate all your enchants again, run up the east steps and into the safe spot near the locked door towards the smites.

-Wait for the grasps to come down the steps, then throw everything on (even illusion of haste... sometimes axates will agro you), run back, then start killing.

-As you kill, try to move as far away from the door as you can without agroing axates behind you... otherwise you may agro foes on the other side of the locked door.

-Once dead, the doors will open. Make sure any patrol with a nightmare is out of your run path. Throw everything on (channeling isnt necessary if you brought it, I still keep SV or AV on for running, keeps the axates from using some of their strong attacks if hitting you), and run up the steps. Around here, you may need to reapply illusion of haste. Continue to run towards the smites. Reapply IoH until you're sure you've completely broken agro, otherwise they may lock on to you again even if they started to run back.

-For smites, throw everything on before agroing, cast Arcane echo while they run at you, and then VwK right away. With channeling, I spam vengeful weapon permanently while recasting VwK and all of the enchantments.

-After killing the 1st smite group, run forward until you reach a junction. A coldfire patrol passes through there every little while, so be sure to wait for them to pass before running by. If a nightmare spawns at the junction, kill it with vengeful weapon.

-Run into the spot where there are no coldfires. Its on top of a small cliff. Occasionally there will be smites there, if not they will be in the mass of coldfires to the east, or on the plains below the cliff. Pull a group with a longbow and kill them. Clear all of them out of the area.

-Wait for the coldfires to be a safe distance away, then run down below the cliff and head west. You'll see 3 coldfires as well as the rotating patrol from the junction, as well as a smite group. Pull and kill them.

-Run back to the junction, avoiding any colds. This time, you'll be luring any smites in the east. A patrol of colds generally goes up and down the long cliff face, be sure to avoid them. Pull smites back to the junction.

-After killing them, run north along the cliff face until you hit a wall at the very end (you can generally see an axate through it if you hold down CTRL. There should be a group of smites towards the end, pull them to the wall so you wont agro any colds.

-After killing them, follow the patrol of coldfires along the bottom of the cliff face, being careful not to agro others. When they start climbing a hill towards the possible chest spawn, you can slip into a monster free zone near a sheer wall. If there is a chest, wait for the colds to turn back, then run up and grab the chest.

-This is the tricky bit... unless you get lucky with smite positioning, you now either need to kill some coldfires to finish the run, or get off a lucky longbow shot without agroing any colds (really hard if the smites are in a bad position). To kill colds, I put up channeling only. I use echo before agroing, then VwK, and spam vengeful. Step out of any maelstroms, but other than that, allow the colds to hit you. Reapply channeling and VwK as necessary. At most you should have to kill 2 groups, usually one is sufficient. Experience will tell you which group, and when it's worth it to do so.

-Finish any smites.

-Run = finished!

Hope that helped you a bit.

Hmm I just realized all my directions were assuming you begin in the UW facing north... but it's actually northeast or something else

So I dunno about anyone else, but the SV/AV nerf kinda sucks. Channelling helps ALOT to maintain the needed energy, I'd strongly recommend it now. The build is still doable. I have my illusion/inspiration at 9/9 now since you wont get 9 seconds of visage without 12 illusion.. which sucks. So I took a point off illusion (didn't decrease the durations any farther) and put it in inspiration for slightly longer channeling/PR. Basically what this means is that grasps get a window in which to drain your energy and interupt you. It's a real pity that you don't get the 20% longer enchants bonus while holding VwK; that's what kills the concept right there. Also the rend enchantment buff means you need to be more careful than ever about nightmares while using IoH. They now pop up and use rend so fast you may not notice until your enchants are gone and you start to die.

Without channelling, I'd forsee this build running out of energy pretty fast.

I'll have to try that. I did a standard test run last night. I found that as long as I waited to cast the first visage until *after* the graspings were attacking, all was well. I also had to pay close attention to when I used phy resist. Time it so that you're just getting to max energy again when you cast haste to agro. Otherwise you could find yourself high and dry when you need to cast the next visage.

I may have to bit the bullet and stop using collector armor..

Another thing that could help is a +30 energy (gottahavavisageNOW) weapon switch.

yeah, I think having a 15 -1/27 -1 weapon set would help alot for those hairy situations where they interupt SV/AV and start spamming fear me.

I guess the +energy rit armor would probably be a better bet now too, though I think I'll stick with the +armor while holding an item stuff.

I mean keep in mind, they could end up tweaking SV/AV back, these changes are "temporary" (though I'd say it's not likely). This is really the only build that was affected though, other than energywise, since the other builds can use 20% enchant weapons since they don't hold items. I mean, I still use my firey flame spitter for the initial enchant cast bonus and occasional VwK faster recharge, but normally when you use a visage VwK will be running.

Oof! The new improved nightmares are nasty to a character who not only uses enchants for speed boot, but is dead in the water when they get stipped.

Going to have to work on the fast weapon spell - wand tag combo..

Question: How do I deal with 5 or more smite crawlers at once? I do fine with 4, it's just my final VwK ends too fast when there are still 2 or 3 more.

Doh, can't access page 12 for some reason.

edit: nm, someone must have deleted 1st post on page

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