Can I Solo my Wizard sub-class quest or is a group required?

[Sadistic-Savi]

<DIV>I am at level 19, and need to collect Gnoll stones to get access to my Wizard Trial.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>All the guides say that I need to get these stones in Blackburrow. Is there any alternative or will I be forced to group in order to get these?</DIV>

[Eleis]

Grouping makes it really easy, but solo is possible. Just below Sir Jaered's Camp (however you spell his name) you will see some islands with gnolls on them (the islands eventually lead to a BB entrance). You can kill gnolls on those islands to get the stones, I personally have not done it, but several of my friends verify that it is possible to get all the stones there, although it takes an enourmous amount of time.

[Sadistic-Savi]

<DIV>Thanks...I will try that. On the way to BB (following the coast) I get ambushed by pairs of Gnolls. I have died 6 times so far....they persue you across the entire zone and they are <EM>always</EM> casters. I managed to kill one pair of diviners....and got the stone for Diviners off them, because they were only blue to me. The Oracles were white though...and kill me every time. But I am only missing 2 stones now. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In BB proper I tried attacking a group of greys that included a chanter...no luck. I cant solo a group of 5 greys apparently. </DIV>

[Onion]

<DIV>I went solo on it and did it with no effort.</DIV>

[adamflanagan]

i tried to solo them in BB. i managed to get one stone but it took forever. it seems that the grouped ones drop stones much more frequently. <div></div>

[Kraf]

Also, you should get credit for the kill without having to kill the entire group, so take out one quickly, break encounter and run. Then come back. <div></div>

[Sadistic-Savi]

<DIV><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Grouping makes it really easy, but solo is possible. Just below Sir Jaered's Camp (however you spell his name) you will see some islands with gnolls on them (the islands eventually lead to a BB entrance). You can kill gnolls on those islands to get the stones, I personally have not done it, but several of my friends verify that it is possible to get all the stones there, although it takes an enourmous amount of time. <BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>This worked perfectly. Thank you very much for the advice. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>There is an ambush on the log bridges that connect each island. On the first bridge is a random pair of green spawns. On the 2nd the spawns are blue. They are random, but are always either Chanters, Oralcles or the other one (forgot the last one). These are normal spawns, and I was able to solo the pairs easily (though the chanters can be dangerous if they manage to mez you). Using Tognue-Twist to stop them casting spells helped quite a bit. 4 nukes was all it took for the toughtest mob. They respawn about once every 10 miutes. Everything else on all three islands was grey to me at level 19. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This would have been MUCH faster and easier than grouping had I known about it ahead of time, not to mention it would have saved me about 4 or 5 deaths. You dont even need to go into BB at all. Just swim out to those islands. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I completed my trial last night as well (the trial itself was laughably easy...kill 3 blue-con elementals, 1 at a time,  and then kill a single white con elemental).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyway, thanks again. This saved me a lot of frustration. I dont mind grouping sometimes, but I absolutely <EM>despise</EM> being forced to group to advance in the game at all....<BR></DIV>

[DataOutlaw]

The fastest way to solo this has not been mentioend here... I did it with both a Conjurer and a Wizard (I am an alt addict). If you have the subclass quest in your journal then go to the Blackjcurrow entrance and run east along the mountain wall. You will get jumped by a pair of 1 down arrow casters. From there run across to the FireMyst Gully entrace and run East along the mountain wall again and you will get juimped by a pair two more times before it opens out into a plain leading to the south beach. These three pairs of gnoll casters will take about 5 minutes to recycle before you can run past the spawn points for more spawns. Only takes about 30 minutes total to complete that part of the quest and they are easy kills solo. This was the pair of diviners that chased someone across the zone mentioned in this htread.

[adamflanagan]

*sigh*... if only id known about this when i did my wizard training. i dont know if any one remembers back in december when sony messed up the servers for 2-3 days but after that when we all got double xp i was sat in BB for most of the time camping greys for my wizard quest. <div></div>

[Sadistic-Savi]

<P>The other method worked better for me only because it was so much less risk. It is dangerous for me to take on even one 1-arrow, nevermind 2. I dont have the best gear and my spells are all apprentice IV (only have one Adept 1...Blaze). </P> <P>The island method was fun, low risk, and I got my stones in less than 30 mintes. Best of all, I dont need a group to advance in the game. I will be sure to spread this to other Wizard wannabes in the future.</P>

[fmarz]

<DIV>so how does the island method work...you have to wipe out the island?</DIV><p>Message Edited by fmarz on <span class=date_text>03-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>10:46 PM</span>

[Sadistic-Savi]

<P>No...at level 19 everything on the islands was grey to me. The mobs you need are on the log bridges connecting the islands. </P> <P>Swim to the farthest (smallest) island. When you get to the middle of the log bridge connecting it to the middle island, you will be ambushed by 2 green (no-arrow) mobs, one in front and one from behind. They are ambushes, so you will not see anything on the bridge till you trigger the ambush. These will be chanters, oracles, or diviners. I never saw any other types spawn. </P> <P>I rooted the one behind me, hopped over him, and trained the other one back to the small island. He dies easy. Your root should hold the first one till he's taken care of. </P> <P>You can either wait 10-15 minutes for the ambush to respawn, or repeat the process on the next island. These mobs will be blue though, but tactics are the same. </P> <P>I was not in any real danger and got my stones in half an hour. I dont rememder the exact levels of the spawns, but I was level 19 with all my major spells at App IV or Adept 1. </P>

[Valdec]

<P>A tactic that worked for me is to solo single mobs (I picked on yellow and orange wolves in bears in NE antonica) until your XP is well over 100%. (Mine was 173%)  It might be a bug, but although my lvl didn't change, my con'ing did.  (ie. things that used to con green turned gray.)  It seems to treat you as though you were lvl 20, although you show only 19.  (I don't recall, however, if that affected my spell dmg.) It made soloing the mobs in BB a lot easier, although it was still a bit tricky with the last group -- I wish I'd known about that gnoll island strategy!  :smileyhappy:   The final part of the quest was embarrassingly easy; the elementals con'ed green to me, the final elemental giant only blue!  Took literally just a few seconds to finish each of them off.</P> <P>I wonder if getting your lvl up to the max (220%) would treat you as though you were lvl 21?  Didn't try that...</P> <P> </P>