Heres my second submission, a collection of information about the Underworld, and soloing it with just a monk and a necromancer, hope these help
Complete 2man UW Farming Guide for Mo/W & N/Me
Intro
Why 2man UW? Because it is quick and easy. Sure, half the Ecto drops, but you can do 3-4 runs in the time you may do one solo run, and will get roughly the same amount of ectos drops. This guide will teach you the basics of how to 2man the UW with either a 55 monk or an SS/SV Necro. First I will go over the monk build, then I will step into the necro build.
I know there have been a couple of guides on exclusively the 55 monk build for 2man and also solo, but this is exactly what you need for monk & necro. Some may disagree with some of the skills in my Necro SS/SV build, but this has worked for me very effectively with either build at farming the UW.
The Monk Build
Equipment
Before going over weapons, first you need to get Ascetic Armor(tatoos). This will give you the energy you will need in the UW. Also you need the 4 Monk Superior Runes including Another Monk Superior Rune of your choice. So, for example, I have Healing, Smiting, Divine, and 2 Protection. This will lower your health to 105 Health Points.
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As you see with my main set, the trick to get 55 Health Points is that grim cesta. You can get this grim cesta as a reward from the "Cities of Ascalon" Quest. Its a real easy quest, don't pay 5-10k for this item, unless your lazy and rich
#1 - Is my main set. I mainly use this wand, since it is light damage I deal consistently 10-20 damage to Aaxtes, and I have a 10% chance of fast recharge for ALL skills.
Also they kill dying nightmares in almost one hit, so the light damage helps a lot.
#2 - This is the preferable set used by most 55 Monks. The reason it is not by me is because it messes up my timing for Healing Breeze/Prot. Spirit, and It is inaffective vs. Aaxtes, who use Deadly Riposte which causes bleeding and damage as well. This is the set I use to solo by myself though, since you can add enchantment mods to swords/axes, which allows SoJ to last longer.
#3 - This is only used for pulling enemies. Make sure this is a Longbow of some sort (Ascalon Bows & Storm Bows are Longbows). This helps you and mainly you Necro partner to stay safe.
#4 - This is my set I use if I am killed and have a DP. If you die, you can't use the grim cesta since you will have 1 health, although it worked for me once in a group of smites, I am not willing to try it again
*NOTE* Make Sure you Customize All your Weapons if you want more damage and will only be using it for this particular build
Skill Set & Attributes
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1. Mending - To Regen Life +4 From Bleeding/Attacks/etc.
2. Balthazaar's Spirit - Gain Energy & Adreneline from taking Hits
3. Rebirth - Just in cast Necro Dies in Hard to Rez Place
4. Restore Life - Just in case NEcro Dies in Easy to Rez Place
5. Healing Breeze - Regen life +9 for 10 Seconds
6. Bonetti's Defense - For 6 Seconds, 75% to block Attacks(5 energy per block, cast HB in this stance)
7. Spell Breaker {E} - For 12 Seconds, You can be target of any spell (dying nightmares)
8. Protective Spirit - For 22 Seconds, Damage you take deals only 10% of you Max Health
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Healing: 14
Smiting: 10
Protection: 14
Divine: 9
Tactics: 2
This is EXACTLY what you need Tank Aaxtes, Dying Nightmares, Darkness Squids, Smite Crawlers, Coldfire Drakes & even Terrorweb Dryders. There is a skill section on gameamp you can use if you are in question of a certain skill.
Some people will suggest "Oh you should really use this, instead of this, or take that in place of this". The fact is, at times I am just sitting there bored as heck because I'm just executing Healing Breeze & Protective Spirit in a chronological order.
For example, I see MANY 55 Monks using Essence Bond. Why? Essence Bond gives you + energy upon being attacked, when Balthazaar's Spirit gives you + energy & Adreneline upon being attacked. So if your using Bonetti's, why not use Balthazaar's spirit? It will work a LOT better. Also,
Spell Breaker is a comfort thing. I almost never use it anymore unless I spot a nightmare when I didn't expect to counter one. My deal is, safety first.
You may bring SoJ, but there is no need as the Necro should be able to kill them faster if you didn't bring it. Also, another thing, DO NOT BRING ZEALOTS FIRE IN A 2MAN UW GROUP!!!. I did that many times as a newb 55 monk and it drives Necros Mad, and I have had it done to me as well, and it just isn't safe to use at all, so just LEAVE IT.
Strategy
Once you Spawn in UW, Cast Mending & Balthazaar's Spirit.
Aaxtes: Be Care of dying nightmares when you pull the first two groups of Aaxtes on each
side of the bottom chamber near the stairs. Before you pull, cast PS(Protective Spirit), then pull with bow if too far, or just aggro if close. Keep a CLOSE eye on nightmares that might spawn in area after you aggro. If one does, Cast SB (Spell Breaker) before Aaxtes reach you, then just kill the
nightmare(s) with your wand. Once you do, pull Aaxtes back down to stairs, and cast these skills in this order:
PS, Bonetti's, HB(Healing Breeze).
Darkness Squids: These can be challenging. When your Necro takes the quest, make sure you are at the top, in line with the ghost you get the quest from at the bottom. What you want to do is aggro the two groups that spawn near you. As soon as you hear the yellow marks beep on your map, cast PS, then HB. Then take them as you would an Aaxte. You might want to be careful, they use a shout skill that zaps your energy, and also use disrupts and are very good at it. So protect you PS and HB with Bonetti's.
Smite Crawlers: DO NOT ATTACK THEM until they are ALMOST dead. They use SoJ(Shield of Judgement). The only thing you want to do with these guys is PS, HB, HB, PS. DO NOT USE BONETTI'S AGAINST A SMALL GROUP OF SMITES!!! The reason why is because the Necro has already cast Sympathetic Visauge on you, which zaps their energy if they hit you, and if they can't hit you it won't work.
This is the boring part for the monk, but exciting when golds and ectos fall! Remember all you do is, PS, HB, HB, PS. The reason in this order, is PS will last for 22 seconds, HB for 10, so you can cast HB twice before you will have to cast PS again. In a group of 10 or more smites, you might need to cast Bonetti's because they WILL kill you if you dont keep spamming HB & PS. So in a large group, disregard the timing and just spam the skills whenever your health gets low, which shouldnt take long.
Coldfire Drakes: These can be a challenge to the monk but with SB, it shouldn't be. Before you aggro a group, Cast PS, HB, then SB. Get RIGHT UP TO the Coldfires, so the Necro can get as close as possible to cast his spells without taking aggro because they break aggro very easily. Right before SB ends, Cast PS and HB again, then expect Maelstorm to hit.
Don't move, just take the damage, and Dont recast HB unless you know for sure you aren't in Maelstorm as if you are it will interupt your casting. To heal yourself keep casting PS as it will work in Maelstorm. If you get a chance to cast SB again and the coldfires are still not near death, cast it.
Terrorweb Dryders: After the Smite run is all said and done, you and your partner might want to do the first quest in chance of another ecto falling. You will have to defeat 3 Terroweb Dryders in order to complete this quest. Like all your enemies, make sure you group them close together, but these are more important to group closer than others.
Basically, you do the same thing in preparation to a dryder as you do with a coldfire. Cast PS, HB then SB.
When SB wears off, do not let HB wear off as you will die in 2-3 seconds from being set on fire. Also, cast SB if it recharges fast or if the chance arises. They may also use meteor storm on you, if they do move out of its way but do not let them break aggro.
*NOTE* Make sure against no matter what enemy, maybe besides smites, that you group them very close
together for the Necro so SS deals damage more effectively.
The Necro Build[B]
[B]Equipment
On my necro I use Tormentor Armor, which gives me 70 armor per piece. The main reason I chose this was just because it looks cool
. But if you don't have a staff or a weapon setup that has extra energy (my staff gives me 15 energy, which is plenty for me to 2man), or if you just like
that extra energy, go with the scar pattern armor.
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Also, I have all minor runes except my head scar pattern, which is +1 Curses and superior curse rune as pictured above.
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This is my setup, but this is all relative to the individuals needs, wants or haves
I use the storm bow in case I am with a monk who doesn't no how to pull or doesn't even have a longbow to pull! The Reason why death is so high is due to my Staff. You may have a blood or death req item/wand/staff that will help you distribute points more effectively. But this setup works just fine for me in the UW.
Skill Set & Attributes
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1. Resurection Signet - In Case Monk Dies
2. Blood Renewal - To Heal Self, which can be replaced by other Skills as well
3. Awaken the Blood - Gives +2 Att. in Blood/Curse for Skills for 34 seconds
4. Sympathetic Visauge - For 14 Seconds, Taps 3 Energy/Adren from adjacent foes whenever target ally takes malee dmg
5. Descrete Enchantments[i] - Deal 64 shadow dmg to foe and adjacent foes, & 21 dmg for ever enchantment maintaned
6. [i]Suffering - Cause -2 life regeneration for 32 seconds to foe & adjacent foes
7. Arcane Echo - Arcane Echo becomes next spell executed for 20 seconds
8. Spiteful Spirit{E} - For 21 seconds, foe and adjacent foes take 37 shadow dmg if foe attacks/casts spell
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Curses: 16
Blood: 9
Death: 8
Soul Reaping: 2
Illusion: 8
Strategy
Basically, for all enemies besides smites, you execute same routine to kill enemies. As soon as the monk aggro's, you cast Awaken Blood, then Arcane Echo. When you know he has full aggro, you cast SS on one enemy, then the other SS on the other enemy. Try to get SS on as many other enemies as possible. While doing this, cast Suffering and Descrete Enchantments to deal some damage and life degeneration. The monk may also need Sypathetic Visauge for the Darkness Squids.
Smite Crawlers: As soon as monk aggro's group, cast Arcane Echo. When all smites are attacking him, cast Sympathetic Visauge. I timed how long it takes for my energy to go back up to 40 energy, and it is roughly 10 seconds, but there are other ways to do this.
You could even count off 10-12 seconds, then cast the other Sympathetic Visauge on the monk. I wait unti my energy reaches 35 energy, then cast SS, Suffering, and Descrete Enchantments. This SHOULD take care of all the Smites, if it doesnt, just recast SS or shoot the remaining Smites as they won't have enough energy to cast SoJ.
Wow that was a really long guide, and I hope it will help people who want to get into Farming the UW in a 2man
group.
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Ultimate UW Monk Solo Build
There are a lot of UW Solo builds out now and I have been putting my contributions into the huge tutorial thread along with everybody else, but it's getting to the point where the good information is buried so far back that nobody can find it.
All of the UW Solo variants are based on Protective Bond at lvl 17 using the 20% +1 offhand, but many of the other versions have some significant weaknesses. The Divine Boon/Zealot's Fire builds simply don't do enough damage for the cost, and are VERY vulnerable to bleeding and small mobs, and for the createures that they do the damage to it isn't needed. The Healing Breeze build is very vulnerable to interruption which can get you killed in UW. Anybody who wants to bring Symbol of Wrath is not using their skills effectively, because at 2 second casts and 30 second recharge for only 150 points of damage you simply aren't going to do a lot of damage and are wasting valuable space on your bar.
Finally, none of the previous builds can survive TERRORWEBS, which this one can handle comfortably, meaning you can now do every Ataxe, Grasping Darkness, Coldfire, Smite, and Terrorweb in the game. You should even be able to do the spirits that use IW, meaning you could easily get 20kxp or more solo in UW if you wanted to.
Ok, here is the new build I have been running, which can easily handle big mobs of 15+, mixed mobs of darkness/ataxes, and terrorwebs. I can sit inside 3 malestroms at once without even losing health, etc.
I realize these are all variations on the same theme but I have found this to be the most effective and highest survival of all the versions I have tried so far, and it's still just as fast as anything else, and only requires 5 buyback points to complete.
Starting:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 8+3
Protection 12+4
Divine 4+3
tactics 2
Ending:
Healing 9+3
Smiting 11+4
Protection 10+3
Divine 4+3
tactics 2
Skills
Protective Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Mending
Watchful Spirit
Bonetti's Defense
Blessed Signet
Balthazar's Aura
Shield of Judgement
1. Wear Protection hat and hold protection +1 offhand, cast Protective Bond until it's +1
2. Change to Healing hat for healing of 13, cast mending so it's at +4 arrows
3. Change to Smiting hat, drop 2 points of protection, add 3 to smiting.
4. Change to -50 offhand from "Cities of Ascalon" quest for 55hp and the Smiting skill 20% recharge wand from Droknar's Forge collector
5. Cast Balthazar's Spirit and Watchful Spirit
Now you are ready to fight. Notice that we have NO direct healing spells. We don't need them. At your current stats you have 6 arrows of constant regen, and only take 2 damage for each hit. Since most creatures take slightly more than 1 second to attack in melee you can safely stand inside a mob of 6 without doing anything indefinitely. What I find happens is that even a larger mob (such as 8 grasping darkness) will have enough momentay pauses that you never need to do anything when standing inside them.
However, you can take mobs of a much larger size using Bonetti's Defense and Shield of Judgement as "control rods" To put it simply, turning one of these on will reduce the enemy attack rate to about 1/3-1/4th of the previous speed, meaning the mob you can handle will scale up from 6-8 to 18-24. Please note that when fighting Ataxes, you will be bleeding which will count as 3 arrows in your mob calculation.
By having a mix of Bonetti's and Blessed signet you can have ample energy regardless of the enemy type. Signet's don't work against Grasping Darkness, but Bonetti's fills up instantly. However Bonettis doesn't work against Coldfires or Dryders but Blessed Signet works quite nicely.
As I said, all you have to do is count the size of the mob and you will know how to control them. Pretty much without fail if the mob gets overly large, that also means that Bonetti's will charge up. If I need my health bar to fill up because of excess hits I just turn on Bonetti's and it shoot straight back to the top.
Also for interruptions, starting by first casting Bonetti's will create the casting window you need to get Shield of Judgement or Balthazar's Aura. If you have both available, do the SoJ first, because it then give you 20 seconds of casting time for Bath Aura. Otherwise you can wait for Bonetti's for your next opportunity.
When fighting Coldfires, simply turn on SoJ as often as you can. When you are in a malestrom, simply move out of it and cast Balt Aura, then move back in. Also, you can use your Blessed Signet while standing in the Malestrom because you technically aren't casting. It also works against Ataxes, but the Darknesses will interrupt your signet.
Smites are so easy I don't even need to talk about them. Just cast 1 of each and they will probably be dead or almost dead. You can easily take 15-20 smites if you can find that many together in one place
Terrorwebs are a little slower but very possible. Run in and run circles around them until all 3 cast their meteors. Then activate SoJ and Balth Aura as often as you can. Once they run low on energy they start to do regular attacks which are vulnerable to SoJ. You may not get many SoJ hits the first time around but by the second cast they should be falling. The funny thing is that with +6 arrows, even when you are on fire it only drops you to -1 for 3 seconds which is 6 damage. Over that same 3 seconds you might take up to 9 hits but that's still only about half your bar, and then as soon as the fire ends it goes right back up. I have absolutely killed all the terrorwebs without a proper heal spell in a very reasonable amount of time.
One last thing about the terrorwebs - they have an attack that seems to hit for -3 energy. I haven't figured out what it is yet but something they do can potentially break your Protective Bond. The way to fight it is to never cast anything to take your energy below about 7, that way you have a buffer of at least 2 of these attacks without getting killed.
The Guide to Soloing UW on 55 hp Monk with different 2nd classes Mo/W, Mo/Me, and Mo/N
The Mo/W gets boring after a while, so I just like to screw around with other 2nd classes and have fun with them Soloing UW. I'm gonna share the skill setups with you.
For the Mo/W, you use:
A weapon (Axe/Sword with +20% longer enchants), but you need a rod to kill dying nightmares.
Blessed Aura (nuff divine favor to make it like 27%)
Mending (13 healing prayers)
Balths Spirit
Bonettis (6 seconds is good enough)
Shield of Judgement (make this 20 seconds of 50 dmg)
Prot Spirit
Healing Breeze
(Whatever you want here, I use sprint to get away from the aatxes if my enchants get stripped)
For this build, you want to cast all three permanent enchants first. Then use prot spirit and healing breeze before you hit a group of aatxes. If a dying nightmare pops up, just kill it before it strips your enchants and then continue with the build. When you get enough adrenaline, use bonettis, then right after, use Shield of judgement. Cast Healing breeze and prot spirit enough to stay alive and repeat until the aatxes are gone.
For Mo/Me you use:
pretty much the same skill setup, but instead of bonettis you use Mantra of Concentration before using SoJ. Take out that last skill (sprint) and use Leech Signet to interupt the dying nightmares and steal some energy from them. This build is harder to use, but its also fun.
For Mo/N you use:
Mending
Watchful spirit
Balths Spirit
Healing Breeze
Prot Spirit
Spiteful Spirit
Blessed Signet
(anything you want, i use plague sending to put blood back on the aatxes when they bleed me, but you could also bring a spike to kill nightmares)
This build is also harder, but faster than the others. What you do is put the enchants on, then use blessed Sig. Put prot spirit and healing breeze on and run in. Kill Nightmare first, then keep yourself alive. To block the savage slashes from interupting the Spiteful spirit which you will cast on the Aatxes, you use mending. The aatxes have an interupt about every 10 seconds, so when you want to cast spiteful, Cast mending first. They all interupt the mending and then you are free to cast SS. If you have 3 on you however, and only 2 interupt the first mending, just use mending again until you are safe from interupts.
I hope you guys all have fun going out to test these builds/improve on them. As I'm new to the site, feel free to give me credibility if you think I deserve it. I will keep you guys all updated on the builds i make and im currently working on UW solo builds with different classes. Also coming up with a 2 man build that will be different from the SS/SV + 55 Monk, because we all know that gets boring.
