Thanks all for the room identification, including the top dog himself (although Raccoo upstaged you )!
I have ran this mission 5 times since the patch Wed. I haven't had any problems getting all 4 drop clues. The last mission I just completed was getting scary and I had cleared ballroom, library, and lab and didn't get any drops. I did end up getting the 4 from crypt, bedrooms, study (weapon rack), and ritual area, sure was nervous for a bit though.
For those that was confused with what room was what. I had that all figured out in my previous map pack update and expect things like that to be always updated previously the live patch... Like I have been doing since the last couple of years!
Only the right most Bedroom circle has mobs that can drop a clue, three in the lower room and one in the upper room. Any mobs you can skip in any other Bedroom area speeds up the mission assuming skipping is faster than killing. The marked Library area contains 24 mobs, the hallway connecting to the Ballroom has a 25th Library mob (important distinction, I have had a Ballroom Dancer and that mob both drop a clue) and the hall east of the Library has a 26th mob that always spawns, it may not drop a clue. The Lab has 8 mobs and sometimes a wanderer, since Ngreth listed the Ritual Area as having 13 mobs it's unlikely the wanderer can drop a clue but it's important to avoid when pulling if you find the mobs to be challenging. The Ballroom is the 10 dancers, the most obvious room. The Crypt has up to 3 wandering Bats on each side and around 8 undead in each large room. The Study has 4 mobs and a 5th outside in the hallway that always spawns but has never dropped a clue for me and 4 weapon racks. The Ritual Area also sometimes has a wanderer which apparently cannot drop a clue but it is very important for pulling if the mobs are challenging, it has an unusual path and can be encountered before any other Ritual mob or can be in the hallway past the 2nd Ritual area. With proximity pulling, patience and some kind of vision tool you can clear every relevant mob expect the Library and Ritual Area with only a 4 pull as the second Lab pull and a 3 pull for the lower Bedroom and one side of the Crypt and all other mobs 1 or 2 at a time. Extremely rarely both hallway options may have a 3 pull and the large marked Bedroom area could also have a cluster of mobs. In the Crypt area without a puller it's advisable to move into the large room after the first pull because the pathing is terrible even by Dreadspire standards. If the mission is challenging for you and you have 2 drops after clearing 5 areas and the 1 mob in the hall connecting the Ballroom and Library you most likely want to drop the mission. If you have 3 drops you have a decision to make. If you have 4 drops congratulations. (4 / 7 / 13)^100 = ~1.1% chance you wouldn't encounter the bugged mob in 100 cycles. That bugged mob would cause ~4.4% or about 1 in 23 missions to be impossible to complete.
1. Determine in the group if you want to clear 5 (not Ritual or Library), 6 (not Library) or 7 areas and how the Red Berry Paste will be awarded. If you cannot agree on these things do not begin the mission. 2. Zone in and turn in the invitation or not, completing the first step gives you more time to get buffs in Lobby after a wipe without the instance closing but instance closing shouldn't be an issue, do not hail the NPCs. 3. Kill up to 10 Ballroom mobs, the mob between the Ballroom and Library, up to 8 Lab mobs, up to 4 Bedroom mobs, up to 5 Study mobs and 4 weapon racks and whatever other mobs you can't avoid. Keep track of the food in each room as you progress through the zone if you want to save some time later. 4a) If you have 1 or 2 drops and have decided on 5 rooms or 1 drop and have decided on 6 rooms it's time for some/all people to leave the mission, don't be whiny or rude to people who do leave even if you want to continue. If some people want to continue or even if none do you can use ;gen, /gu or whatever to get replacements or even turn the instance over to another group. 4b) If you have enough drops that it's possible to complete the mission only clearing the number of rooms you agreed to prior to the mission clear Crypt, kill any wandering Bats first, take the first pull into the Hall and then move into the room hugging the right wall and clear counter-clockwise obviously stop killing in area if/once you get a drop. 5a) If you have decided on 5 rooms and have 3 or fewer drops or have 2 drops and have decided on 6 rooms it's time for some/all people to leave the mission, don't be whiny or rude to people who do leave even if you want to continue. If some people want to continue or even if none do you can use ;gen, /gu or whatever to get replacements or even turn the instance over to another group. 5b) If you have enough drops that it's possible to complete the mission only clearing the number of rooms you agreed to prior to the mission clear Ritual area, kill the wanderer first or confirm it's not up and they pray, between pathing and the Orcs standing and casting 6 mobs are a distinct possibility, if the wanderer is nearby it's 7 mobs. Using the teleports to split the room is very risky, the mob can end up somewhere inaccessible. If the mobs are challenging concentrate on the Orcs, assuming you kill both of those it's trivial to (evac), rez, rebuff and then kill each Gargoyle. For the 2nd room aggro the Orc while having a clear view of the mob and do not move, you will be a little right of the doorway around the edge of the raised section closest to the doorway, decent chance you get 4 mobs assuming the wanderer is dead and the Orc doesn't cast much. If the mobs are challenging again concentrate on the Orc, if the Orc is dead move into the room hugging the left wall after evac and/or rez and rebuff. 6a) If you have decided on 6 rooms and 3 drops it's time for some/all people to leave the mission, don't be whiny or rude to people who do leave even if you want to continue. If some people want to continue or even if none do you can use ;gen, /gu or whatever to get replacements or even turn the instance over to another group. 6b) It's time to pull the Library, may Tunare have mercy on your soul. The most important things to keep in mind are that the bookcases other than the one with the secret doors are not walls and that you've already spent a lot of time on the mission and (foolishly) agreed to clear all the rooms before starting the mission. 7) After getting 4 clues fill the mission with 6 players if for instance your group includes mercs and hail the party guests and the task locks. 8) Assuming you're not the only real person have at least two people state the murderer and food in group and/or voice chat, if those answers do not match carefully go over the clues and see what mistake was made by one of the people, possibly RNG/ROG. 9) Consult your notes and/or visually confirm the location of the food in front of the murderer, even if you spend an extra 5 minutes on these last two steps, it's worth it if it avoids even one bonus failure. 10) Hail Melion, click two keywords to advance the quest, turn in the food and 4 clues, click the two correct answers and kill the murderer. 11) Award the Red Berry Paste by the method you agreed to prior to the start of the mission, do not be whiny or rude and TL someone to Undershore even if they just rolled higher than you did. 12) Once people who have done the mission have zoned out, anyone you added can zone in for the large XP reward if they are Level 100ish or higher. On FV (not sure on current state of server XP bonus) a Level 104 with lesson gets about 1/4 of a level, a Level 110 with lesson gets about 70aa and a Level 85 without lesson gets about 4aa. The mission was completed by two Level 76s or one Level 70 and other than a 110 sometimes being briefly in the zone to kill Weapon Racks none of the characters participated in the mission so that doesn't factor into the XP reward. Can't have lower level players catching up, they do now get 5 Com Coins, the Level 70 will never be able to equip the Extruded Black Pearl even though they moloed the pre-patch version of the mission a dozen times because oh noes his stats might go up from doing content.
All the listed killing and clue-gathering in Rickate's walkthrough happens before even hailing the party guests, which is what triggers the death of Mr. Smotts.
This was all after the patch (about 16 hours ago) as I had not tried this mission before. For the ballroom after the first pull which they came in three the next closes mob for me agroed the entire room which was like 8 mobs or so. The library was about the same and the circle room (study?) also brought the entire room as did both sides of the crypt. This was my test run as I had not done it before so I was playing it a bit safe trying to figure out the dynamics of the mission and such. I will play a little less like a bard pulling next time and take on more but even 8 mobs only hitting at around 3k looking at the parse for the whole event there are tons of mobs that are getting off 30-50k hits which for me would result in a pretty fast death if half of them decided to get these off at the same time. I will say I wont bother with the arachnid tunnel unless I don't get all of the pieces which should save me some time. Maybe there is a scaling issue also where at 108 I am seeing mobs tuned more for 110 which is why I am seeing higher damage totals. I also did not understand the evidence thing fully before and thought he would only "take" the correct food item so I guessed the wrong room from the start because I picked the room from the first food item I gave him which he accepted. I was pretty tired and was a bit sloppy on my end missing his dialog when I gave him the food. Overall not my favorite mission but certainly still pretty fun and rewarding assuming I can actually complete it and get my aug.
Hotfix Notes: April 20, 2018 *** Quests and Events *** - Removed the chance for one of the clues to spawn on an inaccessible NPC.
Ok, you say it was your first try so here's a few tips (in addition to the write-up above which makes it far more complicated than it needs to be): Here, as you can read already, you need to be aware that the dancing pairs are agro-linked but CAN be spread out across the room. You CAN pull a single pair (ROGs can pull them single somehow even, no idea how; i think that range to the partner and fade/escape might have something to do with it, but i am a WAR and know nothing of such sly tricks) by simply being careful and patient. Without FD or any tricks, i CAN pull a single pair; if i can then so can anyone. And if you pull 4, it's still quite manageable. But remember: Patience, Grasshopper! Library is probably the "worst" room to pull, due to the pathing there, yes. Usually, you have 4mobs right inside the door with - as was indicated "between the lines" above - more nearby behind the shelves. Assist range is big enough to get you the whole room If you have a puller (this is where they are still having a limited worth at least), then make his life easy by clearing the ballroom and staying in the hall you came from, to the dining room - that gives him the whole width of the ballroom to split mobs (my 105SHD did this in the hard version just fine in a 110 task). He only needs to clear specific mobs really too, to break the assist-chain - but if you want to be safe, you have him single-pull mob by mob that you tag and kill in the hallway outside the room while he pulls/separates the next. But even if you have no puller, this is still "ok" to pull with an acceptable risk as a WAR (i.e. any non-pulling/FD class) but you have to expect and deal with 4 or 5mobs: Open the doors from max distance (which is just outside agro range) and take note of the mobs left+right; also take a look inside and remember the mobs behind the shelves. And then do NOT taunt or otherwise actively agro them but simply creep closer until THEY agro on you (proximity agro!). Simple pulling 101 really. If you get too close or actively pull, then chances are that you need your planar overdose... "circle room" would be, i guess, the ritual area (the area where vule is in the raid instance); the study is the short bit above that, with the weapon racks (where the shadowy student spawns in the base zone). Ritual area has the problem with the warping mobs, they like to warp to where you entered the area from study and attack your party from behind. As i said above, you best rush one mob and deal with the assisting mobs - unless you make it move much it won't be the whole room. Same is true for the Crypts, as you can read in the write-up above and even in my post that you quoted: After killing the bats, you do NOT pull the room. While entirely possible (especially if a ROG does the pulling), it is simply not needed - wasn't even needed in the original, hard form. Instead, you invis up and move your group inside+right into that corner. With the tank being a bit outside that corner, along the east wall towards the north to be closer to the mob between the coffin. Then you attack that mob only, and you will get the lying one in the coffin to the right and maybe one more to add - no more than the three though. After these are dead, as was said above, you move counter-clockwise along the wall to the next mob and fight it too at it's spawn. If you try to actually pull that room, then pathing and assist ranges WILL take care that you get the whole room, so you better can escape/fade/FD after snaring one so you get it single on the ramp. I agree. i don't think i've ever gotten a drop from them anyways, but we did kill them pre-patch out of desperation mostly when we were missing one item. Generally, when you get a drop in a room, you can abandon that room as i have never had one room drop two clues (and well, you can always return if you find yourself missing one). No matter how many rooms you "have to" clear, this went from being a 3hr run with a full and "optimal" live group to being around 2hrs while boxing ineffectively (ALT-Tabbing with 3accounts). So quite bearable now, and most certainly doable for everyone. Yes, that is a little catch that Ngreth seems to have implemented through the hidden flag - only hand in the "real" clues, don't be too hasty but take your time and you will be fine, it IS straight-forward. It's worth noting again that this task now locks with the completion of the 2nd step (that change wasn't in the patchnotes i think) i.e. with the hailing of the 8th guest.
I wonder if the time the mission is possible to do will be extended. It has been changed a lot, has been hard/impossible to do due to the bug mentioned in the hotfix, so would be nice if the mission would available for 14 - 30 days longer that was original intended.
Why would you make the final quest item consumable? Ohhh I discovered the murderer, but lets eat the proof on the way to telling everyone! Good way of wasting a few hours.
I know that now, but too late - both consumed. How stupid to make the a final hand in item consumable!
There have been plenty of instances where a consumable (even some temporary) items were part of a quest in the pasty fyi.
Here is a tip someone gave me recently: Put your regular food/drink in the first 2 slots of the first bag. That way anything that you receive will always fall in into a slot that wont get eaten.
I understand what you are saying and I knew that information- but you are missing my point. I would not expect a quest item to be consumable.
Dancers arent agro linked but positon linked (always been) wich means you can root and fade np if you kill before root drops.
