There are a lot of creatures in Paradise, custom or not, that many players have trouble with. I wouldn't dare to think that I've fought them all or that I've done it the best way, but I have noticed that there are a lot of them I have no difficulty with that others can't seem to get a handle on. So here are a few big bads that I have a handle on.
Dragons/Demons/Elementals (most varieties, Paragon, Terragon, or otherwise): Slayer book. Pew Pew Pew (if it's a dragon, I'll probably need to heal because of a breath weapon) Pew Pew Pe- Oh, it's dead. I exaggerate, there's a lot more duck and move involved, but that's the gist. Slayer books are very powerful, and even in the case of Terragon Dragons, I'm rarely in too much danger from these guys. Their magery is decent, but their real might is in melee and that's a place you rarely find me if I can help it.
Ancient Dragons: Worse than any of the above Terragons, without a doubt. Partially because of that jungle/swamp terrain. The basic trick is moving, Corpse Skin, and Fireball. Because they have a base 85 in all resists, the difference in an Energy Bolt and a Fireball is next to nothing. With Corpse Skin in play, I do more with Fireballs. Add in that easily spammed factor, and Fireball becomes the weapon of choice. One important thing to keep in mind with these guys, for anyone particularly squishy, is to never put an obstacle between you and them unless you're running away. If there's still line of sight to you, they will teleport on top of you. They generally have 115 Wrestling, so if your weapon skill is low be prepared to eat it.
Dreadhorn: I'm adding this one because it's an embarrassment to my heart and it's the one creature I've fought so far that I failed horribly on. Lately I've been using a Cu Sidhe as my primary companion, occasionally bringing out an Evo merc or Tordit to assist. So late last night/this morning, I take my merc and Cu against this monster. I never played beyond AoS on EA servers and only for a few weeks there if that long, but I've done my research on this guy so I knew he had crazy bad poison and could hit. What I didn't really grasp was the magnitude of these hits. Wow. He tore through both Cu and merc without much effort. So I'm left with ghost pets and an angry horse on my hands. That island he lives on isn't ideal at all, but my E-bolts are doing some business and he's slow enough that I can stay away. I think for about a minute that I might be able to just handle things like this.
Oh no. Not in Dread's house. Paralyze. His magery versus my 70 resist? No contest. He strolls on over while I'm stuck just standing there waiting for it, and that's one death. In retrospect, I should've had a way to break paralyze on hand because of that very fact. I've learned my lesson. So I blow a Sacrifice res, run away from the horse, and try to get my pets back to life. That doesn't really work out, he tags the both of them again just as I get the second one res'd, and we go right back to running in circles until he one-hits me again. I think he teleported that time, but it doesn't much matter.
So now I'm discouraged. I need to be better prepared, without a doubt. A bigger, tankier pet, boom boxes, pretty much anything more than this. So I head into the sparkle, thinking that it's the same as the ones in Doom and Prism that just boot you out, but no. I'm back on the mainland and the gate to Dread is still open. Interesting. I res and shrink my pets, take a moment to ponder the situation. I could go in, run around trying to mage him down, or I could go to the dark side: Mirror Image.
I hate Mirror Image; it's over used, over powered, and just too cliche and tactless. Everyone on the shard uses it as the go-to ability and I rarely see any other strategies offered to take down these tough creatures. Is this really the same situation, though? Having tried and considered other strategies, it would appear that my best chances lay with Mirror Image; does that restore the sense of tactic and thought to the ability for this brief moment?
Whether it does or not, I made a macro for Mirror Image/all kill, ran into Dread's house with four of them ready to go. I set the images to task with my tekagi on hand and proceeded to roll E-bolts his way. As the Images fell, I quickly replaced them and resumed spewing. He died quickly. It was anti-climatic. I am ashamed.
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