Advanced "Solo" zones for Drinal signature way too hard

Go online and look up the scripts...you'll never get past Baz if you don't know the positioning for example.

Sounds like I'll get eaten alive

I don't know what I expected posting here. I should've known it would be a lot of "well I did it so you must suck, l2p n00b" type responses. Regardless, I've got it all done now. Thanks for your complete lack of sympathy, compassion, and understanding. I can see the eq2 community is right where it left off when I left a few years ago. After reading the responses to this thread, I remember why I left in the first place.

To be fair, there has been a lot of complaining lately. Yes, Wurmbones and Chelsith can be hard for non-healers and non-tanks (and non-solo classes like conjy). I am glad you completed it however, these are advanced solo, the only Solo zones were in Skyshrine and they were Covenant District and Lyceum of Recondite. The zone for Dracur Prime was an Advanced Solo.

The tag Advanced Solo means that the zone is about halfway between Solo and Heroic, this also means that some classes will see a mass difficulty jump. I think this may be what happened to so. While labeled as Solo the Drinal-Signature zones are actually designed for 2 players in most situations though 1 player may clear the zone.

Just finished this for the first time on my 95 Paladin in my sig. There were a couple of spots where I had trouble:

• Completely stupid mass fight right at the start of the series. There were so many mobs on screen I crashed several times. I had to redo this quest a couple of times due to that.
• Finding the three scouts - not challenging however the quest was so bugged I had to redo that one four or five times due to the escorted guy bugging all the time.
• Protecting the Tower from all the eyes/imps. Another crazy quest with WAY too many mobs. Had a really hard time keeping the power thingy intact.
• Throne of Fear - I lost the will to live after having to zone in and out of this zone far too often. Took me a couple of days to work up the willpower to go in for the fifteenth time...
• Sleeper's Tomb. The mob with the statues (Eternal Guardian?) Once again this encounter is so buggy its more blind luck than skill killing it. I cant believe it made it past beta.
• Wurmbone End - Last mob you need to click to get him off challenge mode. Took me four or five attempts to finally get him to stop changing to the harder encounter. Thanks to another very helpful player on chat I took their advice and got through finally.

Used one piece of loot from the questline because I forgot to upgrade my pre-DoV earring. All the rest of the loot in the entire line apart from the end cloak was muted. Of course being 95 at the start of it helped.

I found the story was really good but the implementation was just really rubbish. I felt a bit sad for poor old Drinal

The problem is that you have to do the advanced solo zones if you want to do the Obol planes quest. This is the problem with the Signature Quest -- it block you from doing the quest in the Obol zone. No other signature quest in previous expansion have blocked a player from doing solo quests in zones. The Developers said that was solable - well it really isn't and so you get blocked from the other solo quests.

I have found out, no matter what they say, that you are better off at 95 doing WE -- for some reason they are much harder than the advanced solo part of the signature quests in the Obol time line.

I completely agree with the original post. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves. To call these zones "solo" is a lie plain and simple. We aren't talking about facerolling the trash mobs that can be one-shot. We are talking about things the gargoyle boss in sleepers tomb. You have to tank the gargoyle boss for several minutes and get him to stomp the smaller gargoyles before you can even damage/kill him. This feet cannot be done by a even a raid geared mage without some form of healing.

The problem is compounded with the fact that essentially all solo content is now designed to be "solo" if you pretend you aren't using a merc. People claim they solo raids and all kinds of other things because they don't even acknowledge the necessity of the merc. While mercs are not a problem for those of us who have them; it alienates players who were told that Age of Destiny is "optional" content.

To further complicate the matter not only did they make mercs neccesary for so many things but they nerfed platinum in the game to the point that you barely make enough to even pay for the required merc.

Everything the original post claimed is true, and is made even more painfully obvious with sirens grotto instances and other new solo content in cobalt scar.

My monk can solo ToF, TotF, DC, WC, ST, and SG: Alluring Embrace without a merc. I anticipate that my Zerker will be able to as well, along with my conjy. My brig does require a healer since for most of the AS zones except ToF and TotF. So it is doable on some of them once you figure out the tricks to the bosses. I'm not lying to myself, I just have some characters that have high solo ability.
I agree that the kunark AS zones seem to be harder than the others, and for some reason they wanted to make SG harder still (though IMHO the obol/GS missions are the only things that might make them worth repeating)). Being a little prepared for advanced solo helps; in my case, using my crafters to outfit my first toon through these zones and then farming these zones for gear to give my other toons.

While I won't argue it might be difficult for mages to do AS zones solo since I've not taken my warlock through yet, many other classes can solo them (without a merc) just fine. We aren't lying to ourselves at all. I imagine some of them are very hard for mages though. However, the above comment is just ridiculous.

If you can't make enough coin to pay for your merc, you are doing something horribly horribly wrong. SOE has even lowered their cost! The 20 gold for a normal merc's upkeep at level 95 is a tiny price. That's like one or 2 adepts sold to a NPC vendor. You can broker some lower level adepts/gear for that much. A 20 something merc is 8 silver, drops sell for more and are plentiful. Some single shinies sell for enough to pay for a day or more of upkeep for a 95 merc, weeks or years for a lower level character.

Calling the zones "solo" would be a lie, which is why they called them "Advanced Solo". That means that some players may be able to do them solo, while many others will find it easier with the help of either a friend or a merc.

The last couple of times I did ST, the gargoyle died within seconds of starting the fight. You don't need to tank him for minutes. I suppose it could be hard to do these zones without any healing (I've never tried, as I've only done them on mystic/fury/necro and a swashbuckler that duoed them with an inquisitor), but that's where mercs come in. It's absolute nonsense to say that you can't afford mercs - since the alleged nerf, my necro has more than doubled the amount of plat she had, all via solo play. I have enough plat to pay 6000 hours worth of merc time on her, which clearly is more than long enough for even the most terrible player to complete the Drinal questline.

I like how both of you address the cost of mercs which is really the least relevant thing to begin with it so you can ignore the real problems.

This fight is scripted so that you are not supposed to be able to kill him until after he charges and stomps the smaller gargoyles.Which is something he absolutely does not do within the first few seconds of the fight But like many fanboys who feel the need to defend problems with the game I am not all surprised facts have basis in your perception. But thank you for confessing to exploiting; it does wonders for your argument.

The gargoyle -is- scripted, but chance plays into that script to some degree. I have been lucky enough to have him wipe all three gargoyles in his first charge, I didn't really time the encounter, but the reuse on combat mastery wasnt ready until a little bit after the fight. Other times it does take longer because my positioning or timing just seems to be off, Can my Brig hold out as long as the monk? No, without the ability to use walk the plank or his many stuns, he relies on other people to hold the enemies attention. Recognizing that some classes are better built for solo and others are not seems to be lacking in one side of this discussion. They are harder than walking into Dracur Prime (solo), but I dont consider this a problem. 'Advanced' sorta warned me they would be tougher. Some of my classes can do them alone, some with a merc, and yet others still need a player companion to complete them. A lot of times, the mechanics help because they make healers non-essential ((Baelon of Thule, Barodas, Phobis, etc)). My point is, dont give up just because you got thwacked the first couple times, in fact expect it. But do some critical thinking afterward and say 'what did I do that didn't work' or 'where do I have the opportunity to improve.' If it's upgrading your skills, finding better gear or adorns, hiring a merc, or asking other players on the tricks they use to successfully navigate through these zones. My point is depending on your class, you might need more help going through these zones than others, they aren't necessarily impossible to solo though.

Never ignored the real 'problems'. I already posted twice in this thread about them as I see them. Earlier stating that I wished SOE had never put the word Solo in the name of the zones because of people assuming that everyone is going to be able to solo it despite the advanced portion of the name. Advanced solo zones are really duo zones. They are designed in such a way that those of a certain level of gear & skill can solo them, however they still allow one to bring in a partner or merc. Devs should rename them so we can stop having these threads. The difficulty of the zones themselves isn't the problem, it is the perception of the players when the word solo is thrown out.

I also stated that I had no real issues running through the zones myself other than the final named in ST which isn't even needed to finish the sig quest. Many other people have been in the same boat with most classes.

i did the quest on my dov 1 geared illy, and was able to solo them all with merc.
the WBE boss took a few times because of the knockback, couldn't click him fast enough. that was easily fixed by letting my healer merc take agro at the start and no knockback.
the questline can be solod with merc by any class if my illy did it. you just need to learn the scripts, or learn how to play your toon.
i hope they add more molo zones in the future with scripts, it makes the zones fun instead of just burning through it with all tank n spank mobs.

I run the AS zones on 12 of my 95's. Some of them use a merc, most don't. I find them to be enjoyable and not too hard at all. ALL of my gear is from soloing exclusively. Go pick up some collections in Cobalt Scars for full sets of 170 stat gear and you can clear all of them in less than 15-20 minutes each.

Don't forget to use the green clicky items for 50% heals. If you still find a particular zone too hard, just ask for some help.

I range pull the mob so that he runs at me thru two or three gargoyles. I time it so that there are gargoyles between me and him when I pull. Job done.

Should that fail, I run into gargoyles so that they knock me back, away from the mob. Allowing me to get other gargoyles between me & him again.

The point is, you don't have to be anywhere near him to get him to collide with two or more gargoyles and then just finish him off. That's not an exploit.

I like how you seemed to miss all the people who did offer advice and tried to help. I was about to offer my own help but I am glad you have managed to do the zones now. They can be frustrating, I found them easy on my zerk and inq but my necro took a while to work out how not to get squished a lot (and it was usually my own fault). He did still complete it at 92 though, which was the only thing that made me feel good about completing it a third time- except the nice cloak.

I only had crappy gear on at the time and barely any reforging and it gave me an incentive to get my act together and adorn everything and reforge how I wanted. Took a lot of research (seriously I lost days to reading forums etc) but it has only benefited me.

Note, though, that even some of the people who disagreed with you were still trying to offer advice on how to find it easier. You won't do yourself any favours dismissing them as wrong just because you were annoyed at having trouble. We've all been there with something and it's usually a case of persistence and seeing if or where you can improve.

Oh well, they might not be a 1 minute run through, sometimes they do anoy, but secondly the reward at the end of them all, isnt that bad. Done those for about 10 times
The only anoying ones, where the healers ^^ (can manage to get much dps out of them..... my fault tho)

Sorry I just ran into this little gem from the OP. At least you called the fact that people were going to tell you that you need to learn to play. Because ANY CLASS can do any of the advanced solo zones, solo. Without a merc. With any gear as long as you aren't in starter island gear. And apprentice spells.

But really. Buy gear upgrades off broker. Upgrade your spells from expert to master. Learn what the abilities in your knowledge book do (No they aren't there just cuz you get to click the pretty purple/orange/red/blue/yellow/green buttons with swords and butterflies on them). And then try again.

Says the guy all decked out in Raid gear... not very helpful or needed.

I had 0 issues with the zones either, but then again

1) I play a Paladin
2) I was in Skyshrine EM Raid gear when I did them.

My Daughter's squishy non raid dirge had issues with the zones even with her merc, so she got me to come help her with them.

@ OP grab a friend.