Basics:
Where: Eden
Levels: 39-41
Min Team size: 6
Contact: Woodsman
Reward: Liberator Trial Badge & Boulder Gladiator Badge for completing the Trial as well as all members of THE TF that are within the level requirement recieve a random enhancement that enhances two attriubtes (ie Damage/Range) that may be slotted by Heros of any origin.
The Trial consists of two missions
All members of the Trial must be at least 39, & at least 1 member of the team must be within range (39-41) in order to start, all members of the team above level 41 will be auto-exemplared (to 41) at the start of the trial.
The Guide:
This guide is for both vetran Eden Trial runners who want to know how AV & Giant monster changes have affected the trial, as well as for 1st tymers. I personally prefer to run this trial quickly, but give explinations on all of the most common varients that are used. This guide is directed towards the leader of the team & gives failry detailed explinations as to why, so that informed descisions can be made. The guide is broken up into sections so that vetran runners of the trial need not read all the info they already know & can skip to the sections they are concerned with.
Team Composition:
I have led teams off all different make-ups so a certain team make up is not required, I would highly recommend at least 1 Tank, 1 Controller (read AoE holder), & 1-2 AoE Healers.
I prefer a balanced team with 1-2 of each archtype.
A someone with recall friend &/or grant Invisibility or superior invisibility can make things go much smoother especially if playing with less capable players.
Vengence is a really nice tool to have, as people will die.
Roles of each player by AT:
Tank - (or scrapper with alot of buffs) would be the #1 most important AT to have on hand during the Trial. Someone needs to be able to handle the damage dished out by the AV/Giant Monsters/Monsters throughout the trial.
Controller - Many of the mobs in the second mission will continually respawn, killing them doesn't do much good, but a good AoE holder can stop them in their tracks to where they are neither respawning or attacking, a very important role, but not 100% vital to a quick/successful run.
Defender - There is an obscene amount of bad guys throughout this trial, someone to midigate damage is highly recommended. I hate to use the term 'Healer', but at least 1 AoE healer is a must, Bubbles & other things can easily substutited instead of a second. A second controller would work fine in this role, but making 1 controller be both the Defender & the Controller can be very diffacult base on the sheer # of bad guys in the Trial.
Scrapper - Just do what they do best, Take & dish out the damage, pretty straight foreward job here.
Blaster - Another straight foreward one, dish out the damage & dont draw too much Aggro in the process.
Khleds - Fill in a role dependant on their build, its good to know what role they fill (ask them) before the trial starts so you know where to direct them.
Mission 1:
Killl 200 Devoring Earth (DE)
Pretty basic here, your in Eden so there is no shortage of DE to be found, however if you want to get this over quickly:
Spawns near the Founder's Falls Entrance are much lower in level & easier to kill.
Have only the team leader (also someone with Recall Friend may speed things up) stand next to the woodsman while the rest of the team stays close to the entracnce. Once the Trial has started, eat through the gray mobs near the entrance as quickly as possible, remember ALL DE count towards the 200 (swarms, eminators, underlings), ignoring bosses can also speed things up a bit.
Once the 200 are killed, you proceed to the second mission located right next to the Woodsman, having a dedicated person with recall friend here can really speed up the travel tyme of the team, those without vertical travel can be quite slow navagating through Eden.
Mission Two:
Defeat the Crystal Titan & Rescue the Heroes.
This Mission is divided into three sections & has a time limit of 3 hours, I will go into each section in detail.
I. Section one - The decent & Stone Wall
A. The decent
Upon entering the mission you will find yourself in a VERY large cave with several mobs of DE. Now we are being tymed & clearing every mob on this map there simply isnt tyme for. We will start skipping fights now.
Ignore the mobs as best as possible if a teammate has grant invisibility or superior invisibility now is the tyme to use it. Inertial Reduction from kinetics can also be very helpful.
What youll need to do is fall down these giant holes in the floor to the next level, the route I use makes it four 'levels' below the starting point but this can be more or less depending on the route taken. Once at the right 'level' you will want to gather your team together.
The easiest identifier to let you know you're at the right spot is a giant skeleton of a Rib Cage, none of the other levels have this & it can be seen from almost the entire 'level'. Because this part of the trial is unique it can lead to some tyme consuming confusion, as well as death for less skilled players. I know your thinking about your buddy with recall friend right about now, but unfortunatly this only partially works. The map is so large, that unless you are on the same 'level' your teammate will be out of range. So the only use for your buddy with recall friend at this point is to keep trying to TP as the lost member continues to drop down holes, once in range the teleport will complete. Traveling down as a group is definatly a viable option, just make it understood that you are just getting to the bottom & continue following even if attacked. When arriving at a new 'level' there is a small safe zone so you can regroup the team at each 'level' if this is how you want to do it.
Anyways ath this point you should have your team gathered & in the surrounding area see two Quarrys (Giant Moster) & a Stone Wall (AV), as well as throughout the trial a lot of DE mobs, find yourself a clearing large enough for the group & make your decision
B. Decision tyme (1)
The two Quarrys are optional, but there are reprocussions for not dealing with them, heres the deal:
The object of the 1st section is to defeat the stone wall (AV).
I'll go into this first so you can make an informed decision for your group.
As soon as the wall is attacked a never ending supply of DE will spawn right in front of the wall (not that the #'s keep getting bigger & bigger, but they respawn as defeated, figure 3-7 normal mobs combined - a LOT of DE), mostly boulders & Sentenials, they will spawn Cairns, which give a damage resistance to everything in the cairn's AoE, if a carin is buffing the Stone Wall it will be impossible to defeat it, basically you need to have three diffent things happening all at once.
1. Cairn patrol - Sentries drop cairns, cairns give a damage resistance buff to anything (namely the stone wall in this instance) within its AoE. A single cairn makes it extreamly hard to drop the wall, two make it impossible, Cairns must either be held (held Cairns do not buff) or destroyed quickly.
2. Wall attackers - The wall is an AV & with any AV the HP regen rate is extreamly high, your gonna need lots of high consisstant damage to drop this one.
3. Damage control - you will need to deal with the large mob of DE, simply defeating them will not work.
a. An AoE controller lays the holds down, held baddies will not respawn, also held cairns will not buff
b. Have a tank PULL the mob away from the group since they are not defeated they will not respawn & designate 1 (you must keep an eye on this, people tend to take it upon themselves to wipe out cairns even after several times of being told not to) person to patrol for cairns, after the mob is successfully pulled the patroller can rejoin the rest of the group & assist in attacking the Stone Wall. (This is the most diffacult method)
c. Ignore them, since the aggro nerfs (only 16 baddies will be aggroed to a single hero), this has become the option of choice (quickest), but several AoE healers will be needed (see Defenders under Team composition), type is not that important, as the group will need to keep close, so no matter how much [censored] & moaning that Blaster & Controller do, they MUST get into melee range of the wall & into the healing umbrella or they are dead (or worse innefecticve), a good Rad or Dark debuff on the wall will also end up affecting most of the spawn so thats can also be a huge help, or a Fulcrum shift from a kinetics will also have your team steadily hitting the damage cap. Your strenght comes from sticking together inside the AoE of all your powers, buffs, debuffs, & heals.
As the Stone Wall's HP drops the wall will call in the Quarry's, this can happen at 50% & 25%, usually 1 Quarry at each point, but have seen both come at 50% & have also taken down the wall entirey without either Quarry attacking. If the Quarrys are defeated prior to engauging the Stone Wall, there will be no monster 'spawn' at 50 or 25%
If you chose NOT to defeat the Quarrys before engauging (I prefer not to), I would expect to see at least one of them & possibly 2, it depends on what method you have been using to defeat the wall as to how best to deal with the GM 'spawn'.
a. you have the controller holding down the mobs - A free tank can easily handle one, but if the second one comes as well, holding aggro for both can be extreamly diffacult. My 1st recommendation would be to have a second Tank or a scrapper that has range or taunt can pull the second one (scrapper will do fine solo against a Quarry as long as he doesnt engauge in melee), this will make the last 25% go very slow, but is a fairly safe method. My 2nd recomendation would be to get everyone else (besides the controller that is holding & the tank that has the 1st quarry) to huddle up & ignore it, only a few HP left on the Stone Wall, so you want be able to keep this up.
b.Tank has pulled the mob - Well Huddling with 7 of your guys is very viable as long as enough heals, buffs, debuffs are going around & just ignore them, if you make it so that only 1 is attacking this is pretty safe. (wether just 1 comes, or you handle 1 before moving against the wall)
c. Ignoring the mobs - Well due to the aggro nerf, now that you have all these spawns attacking typically the Quarrys will come down & stay on the outskirts of the mob, patiently awaiting their turn to attack & since your not attacking the mob, they'll never get their turn, The wall drops, the team moves on & the Quarrys return to their perch. This is why this is my favorite method, you can have the entire team on the wall except one designated cairn patroller.
C. The Stone Wall
No matter how you chose to deal with the Quarrys & respawning mob in front of the wall there are some constants in taking down the wall.
While the Stone Wall is huge however there is a location near the ground that all your attacks will be centralized on, this is where you want the majority of your team located. Kepping the majority of your team together will help with the heals, & dont discount any AoE debuffs if you anchor the wall all the DE in melee range will also be afflicted, that & kinetic heals is why this location is ideal.
After defeating the Stone Wall you will want to get out of there as quickly as possible it is natural for teammates to want to attack to mobs there, so make sure you give the order to move quickly so you dont get drawn into an endless battle you dont need to fight.
Continue down the hallway till you get to a large, highly toxic, lake with Three bridges going across it bring us to the next seection...
II. Section 2: Ambrosia farming & The Mold Wall
A. Ambrosia farming
The mobs on the bridges are the only ones in the entier game that will drop ambrosia. Ambrosia give damage resistance to the Crystal Titan (final boss of the Eden Trial) & all heroes in melee range of the Titan will need some.
- MAKE SURE EVERYONE ON YOUR TEAM KEEPS OPEN INSPIRATION SLOTS so they can collect the ambrosia as they drop.
To be on the safe side, I would recommend 3 Ambrosia for each melee char, 1-2 for melee support (ie kinetics, that like to be close but dont necessarily HAVE to be). Typically clearing two of the bridges will give you just enough.
If you have a real strong team & are trying to break speed records here, because of the nerf to being 1-shotted, if you have enough healer to get you from 1-full HP in a few seconds it is thoretically possible to do it with 0.
If your team is VERY slow at killing I would max out at 5 per melee char.
- I'll go more into Ambrosia in the third section, just know for now that you should get some for later.
After collecting the desired number of ambrosia, there is a long cave filled with DE spawns that leads to...
B. The Mold Wall
The cave leading up to the mold wall is filled with DE spawns, they should be skipped, the timer is ticking people, no time to kill everything, just get past them as best you can.
The are four things to be aware of when attacking the mold wall.
a. The Mold wall (AV)
Its big, its moldy, its an AV wall, it doesnt attack or do anything, but it does have alot of HP & HP regen.
b. Spawns
Just as with the stone wall there are spawns of DE in front of the mold wall that will continually respawn as defeated. The big difference here is that they do not spawn cairns & therefore do not present all the challanges that the mobs in front of the Stone Wall did.
c. Lichen Colonies
Scattered around the outskirts of the mold wall chamber, they start to spawn lichens as soon as the 1st Hero is in range & as far as I know continue to spawn lichens until the colony is defeated.
d. Lichens
Little whie blobs that the lichen colonies spawn, they move pretty slow & seem to slow migrate their way aimlessly away from the Lichen colony after spawned.
There are two methods to taking down the mold wall, I'll go over the most widely used, much slower, & overly cautious method 1st.
1. Colony sweep - Have the team gather next to one of the Lichen colonies (doesnt really matter which, just keep the team together) & take the colonies out 1st, & then the Lichens, move on to the next one & repeat till they are all cleared (not certain of the number, but I would guess there are around 6 colonies). After all are cleared proceed to the wall.
2. The quick way - Complety ignore the Lichens & the Colonies - While you may get arguments from your teammates to the contrary, rest assured that clearing the lichesn/colonies is completly superflouis & a big waste of tyme. The wall can be defeated before the slow moving lichens can get close enough to pose a threat, not to mention the aggro nerf means that even if they do get close enough they will not bother you, & finally lets say they did, they are really a minor annoyance & dont do enough damage to be concerned about nor do they buff the Mold Wall in anyways. Lets move on to taking down the Mold Wall. I have led this trial dozens of tymes & even with the most wretched/disorginized/slow team, this shortcut can always be used.
Tactics your going to want to use for the mold wall are very similar to those used in the Stone Wall, without the extra headache of Carins & Giant Monsters getting in your way.
Basically target the wall & huddle up your team next to the spot where the attacks land & have the ENTIRE TEAM attack the wall. As with the stone wall the wall its self does nothing, you may want a tank to pull aggro away from the group, or have a controller hold the mobs, if your team can't handle the damage, but other than that keep the rest of the team together & attacking the wall for a quick win.
Go through the hole where the mold wall was & you will find some more holes in the ground like at the begining of the trial, jump through.
III. Section 3 - Rescue the Heroes & Defeat the Crystal Titan
A. Rescue the Heroes
There is a little Pedastool there, where you should have your team gather for travel & stealth buffs.
Once everyone is good to go, have everyone run all the way to the far side of the cavern, you will notice a Monster called Crystal Titan on top of a large pedastool, take care to NOT aggro him.
On the far side of the Cavern, you will find 4 Rock formations, large stalagmites if you will, comming up from the ground. As you approach, Sardonyx will spawn in the alccove that the rock formations are in, you need to get your team in there & clearing this area out as quickly as possible.
As you clear, make sure to destroy the 'doors' to the formations, once down, Heros from the Woodsmans group will emerge. They will assist in attacking, but will not move more than a few feet to do so.
Once the alcove in the back with the rock formations is cleared & the Heroes from Woodsmans group (4) are free'd you then need to decide how to attack the Crystal Titan.
B.Crystal Titan
There are two widely used & viable methods for taking down the Titan, Ill cover each here in detail.
a. Conservative Method (Slow & Safe)
Simply start clearing out ALL the mobs in the moat & in the surrounding area, note you do not need to clear the mobs in the entrance to this section where the team fell through from above.
Once ALL the surround mobs are cleared, gather your team buff up & charge in. I'll go into tactics after the aggressive method.
b. Agressive Method (Fast & Risky)
Ignore the outlying mobs all together & charge straight in.
How are you gonna do this you ask......one simple word: Vengence - Yup, the ol scrafice for the team, have one selflesss member of your team, go off alone & die a valiant death. Once this is done, either TP the teammate back to the group (make sure they dont accept a rez), buff up the team to the max, cast Vengence & CHARGE!
When making the charge, a few things to remember:
1)Pop ambrosia when you are within Range of the Titan & Keep ambrosia running throughout the fight.
- The Titan has two main attacks, Salt Crystals a single target ranged attack (hold) & an extreamly powerful footstomp. (The footstomp is what you should be worried about)
- Ambrosia are a damage resistance to the special type of damage the Titan does. (are 100% ineffective against anyother enemy in the game)
- Ambrosia last for 30 secs to a minute (sorry exact #'s not that important to me, just keep an eye out for when they start blinking)
- Anyone within melee range of the Titan should have an active ambrosia going. With enough Healing it is possible to outheal the Titan's ddamage rate & not need any ambrosia at all.
2)50%
Once the Titan reaches 50% health any & ALL mobs in the main chamber that remain, will charge up & attack the team. If you thought the Titan was tough, its gets to be alot of fun when a couple hundred of his freinds come to help. If you cleared these 1st, its not an issue at all. If you went the fast route, you really need to ramp up your efforts here & drop this guy QUICK!
Keep vengence up if at all possible, keep popping ambrosia, spam regen debuffs on him & just attack as quickly as possible, soon your squishies will be fighting at aggro cap & wont last very long past this.
Once the titan has been defeated, the trial is over.
All members of the team will recieve the Liberator Badge &
Team members in the appropiate level range will also recieve an enhancement that buffs two attributes & is usable by any origin.
One last thing I'd like to go over:
Regrouping:
So ya went for the fast attack on the Titan & lost, team morale has been flushed, but there's still tyme on the clock.....is there tyme for another shot?
Yes there is.
Things to remember for the regroup:
1)Your gonna need more ambrosia, so clear whatever is left of the mobs on the bridges
2)If ya couldnt take him down w/o clearing the 1st tyme, your prolly not going to be able to do it the 2nd, so take the extra tyme & clear around him, it really does make things much easier.
That concludes this guide hope you have found it insightful.
Good Luck on your Eden Trial
- Ryu
