Hi there, I've been gradually getting back into Crossfire, having played it on-and-off over the years. One thing that has always frustrated me, is seeing the Scorn Sale Shop littered with gear from Zorn's castle, and I can't even beat Zacharus Zorn at the entrance to the Zorn quests. I have decent gear, IMHO, but he just rams into me and kills me in half a second, leaving me no time to react or heal (i.e. "I hope this guy isn't another instant-kill enemy; time to flip a coin and charge him").
Is there some trick or late-game armor (i.e. with high AC or bonuses) that I'm not aware of that players use to beat these monsters. I'm looking at an old "abusive artifacts" thread ( http://archives.real-time.com/rte-crossfire/Attic/msg00411.html), and it would seem my gear is significantly better (listed below). Also, I'm looking at another thread that notes Zorn castle is an easy way to grind to level 100 ( http://mailman.metalforge.org/pipermail/crossfire/2007-June/011546.html). However, everything has obscene stats (i.e. AC, WC, attack types, attack speed). I could always cheese my way through using "invoke charm monsters; killpets" abuse, but I actually want to do a legit playthrough of this game, without cheesing through the hard battles or using glitches. Is there some play balance issue I'm overlooking, or did some code change years back suddenly make a level 40 dungeon into an impossible level 110+ dungeon? i.e. the first character I need to kill just to get into this dungeon is: >> merchant "Irritable Zorn" >> ac => -120 >> attacktype => 65921 >> can_see_in_dark => 1 >> con => 85 >> dam => 85 >> exp => 20000 >> hitback => 1 >> hp => 10000 >> level => 200 >> maxhp => 10000 >> maxsp => 500 I'm using: - Valriel's Plate Mail (maybe just use chain mail of winter for the obscene AC boost? I've seen someone with WDSM fly through it, but I don't know the rest of their gear). - Gorokh's cloak, etc (i.e. I beat the heaven and hell quests, but the final monsters there also like to instant-kill a level 80 character too; so I had to cheese them with Red Death from Devourers). - Belzebub's Sword of devourers (multiple attack types, prevents confusion). - Valriel's girdle (better than fire god's girdle; best girdle even?). - Ancient bracers of dexterity (acid resistance). - Ring of halvor (prevent paralysis). - Ring of the elements (sometimes switch to ring of combat). - Wizard hat. The best AC I can pull off around now is about -14, hence why I was attracted to the Zorn quests (i.e. chaos crowns and other stuff to boost AC a lot). i.e. http://maps.deliantra.net/brest/zorn/castle.upper.floor.one.xhtml Any advice on better gear I should farm? I genuinely want to play through all of the dungeons (in the little downtime I have) over the coming months, rather than just re-playing heaven, hell, Warrior's Tower, Snake Pit and Wizard's tower, etc; but if I'm getting clobbered by an instant-kill monster I'm prepared for, no point in going into random dungeons that like to teleport you into a room of one-hitters. I've even pulled off getting to the WDSM a few times in Ancient Pupland (but, unfortunately, just got the Zonk instead, so I'm not lazy.
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