EZ Server

Hi All

Having done a number of UC’s on multiple characters, I thought I might lay down some information on the Ultimate Charm to give new players a starting point.  Hopefully others will share their strategies in reply to this give a fuller picture of the approaches you can take in tackling what seems to be the impossible.  In truth, from the outset this quest looks quite daunting and has been the end of many a good player.  

Best advice anyone can give – believe you can do it!!!

What is the Ultimate Charm?
As the name implies – it’s the best charm in the game.  The stats are as follows:
AC 300
Effect: Nexus Gate (Must equip.  Casting time 10.0)
Effect: Ultimate Worn Effect (Worn)
Focus Effect: Ultimate Focus Effect
STR +100 DEX +100 CHA +100 WIS +100 INT +100 AGI +100
HP +50000 Mana +50000 Endurance +5000
SV Fire +125 SV SV Disease +125 Cold +125 SV Magic +125 SV Poison +125
Attack +250
Regen +1500
Mana Regen +500
Endurance Regen +200
Shielding +30% Spell Shield +50% Avoidance +125
Accuracy +50 Stun Resist +100% Strikethrough +35%
DoT Shielding +50%
Haste 175%
Recommended lvl of 65.  Required lvl of 65


Basic Information
How do I make a UC?
You need to level all 4 charm types (Guardian, Sorcerer, Oracle and Brawler) to level 50 and then combine them in your magic box.

How do I make a charm?
Firstly you will need to purchase a v2 Noobie Charm from the Noobie Vendor in either Surefall or the Nexus.  Eventually you will need four of these (one for each charm type).  The v2 Noobie charm is about 10k.  Once you have a Charm Upgrade (of any sort) place it in your magic box with the v2 Noobie Charm and it will create your lvl 1 charm (ie.  Oracle Upgrade + Noobie v2 Charm = Oracle lvl 1 Charm).

Once you have a lvl 1 charm you simply combine the upgrade with the existing charm to get the next level (ie.  Oracle Charm lvl 1 + Oracle Upgrade = Oracle Charm lvl 2).

Where do I find these Charm Upgrades?
v1 Charm Upgrades are located in LDON.  These charms are used to level your charm to 25.  Levelling your charm from 25 – 50 requires you to go to a different zone.  See v2 information below).  The following should give a guide as to where you need to farm in LDON to get a charm upgrade type:

LDON level 2 = Brawler
LDON level 3 = Guardian
LDON level 4 = Oracle
LDON level 5 = Sorcerer
LDON level 6 = ALL Charm Types

*** Your best chance at getting a charm upgrade to drop is in LDON level 6 (see below for more info on this).

v2 Charm Upgrades are located in HoH (Halls of Honor).  All charm types can drop in any area of HoH.  Avatar of Heavens has the highest chance of dropping v2 charms.

So I want to go for a UC – who should I do first?
There is some debate about this but the general consensus is that you should do a Paladin first.  The benefit to your entire group is just too huge to ignore.  Yes, your main Tank is going to need the HPs on the UC eventually, but you need to keep them alive too.  A UC’d Pally is an amazing beast on this server.  

Best possible order =
Paladin
Cleric (or 1st if cleric is your only healer)
Warrior
SK (or 2nd if you’re using an SK as a main tank)

All other DPS classes (excluding Casters)
Casters last (although a UC’d Wizzie is awe inspiring)



Hints and tips.
I’m going to break this into the two legs of the quest: LDON and HOH.  They both require different strategies and tool kits.  Firstly, you need to know that your first UC will be the hardest.  The ones that come after will be markedly easier for a host of reasons.  I’ll make this guide specific to players going for the UC for the first time (really the tweaks you’ll make on your second, third, etc runs won’t be huge).

Tools:
- Level 70 Warrior 3.0 Epic with 4 x Angry Nerd V Augs (2 for each sword) and RoA lvl 43 (for ring clicky) and T2 boots.
- Level 70 Shammy 3.0 or 4.0 Epic (for HPs boost)
- Level 70 Mage for CoH

Advanced version will use 4 Mages.

Guide
You need to think about charm farming in three ways:  

1.  You are going after charm upgrades and you need lots of them to drop.  For this reason you want to be on the level of LDON that gives you the best statistical chance of that happening.    That level is 6 (see here for information on this: http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=665.0 (http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=665.0))

2.  You need to collect all the coins you possibly can along the way.  Coins = charm upgrade fragments.  Collect 2000 points and you get to buy an upgrade from the LDON guy in the nexus.  A full half of the charm upgrades you get are going to come through the coin system.  With this in mind – your UC toon needs to loot everything.

3.  You need to acquire wealth as you go.  Wealth allows you to buy any charm upgrades that are for sale in Auction.  Again – looting all gems and (eventually) selling all charm upgrades that you don’t need (mainly because that charm type has hit 25 already) as you go will help with this.  With that said, you need to be on the lookout for any or all charm upgrades that are being advertised in ooc/auction and buy them.  

Farming
Xiggie Method (Taken from comments below)
- Farm level 4.
- Don't kill for upgrades - kill for points only
- Points gained through cards and coins


Strix Method
-  Teleport you and the support team into an instance of LDON 6 (you want the zone to yourself to maximise the amount of charms you can get).  Leave your mage at the zone in (If you have 4 you need to park a mage at each of the extremities of the zone).

-  Move to the Crossroads section of the zone.  Kill as you go to be safe making sure to loot with the UC toon.  Park your UC toon in the centre of Crossroads and your Shammy off to the side (safespot).

-  Buff your warrior with the epic on the shammy.  Use the clicky on your T2 boots.  

-  Pull to the centre of crossroads using your RoA clicky when the mobs arrive.  

-  Loot with the UC toon.  

-  Once the cycle is complete, use the Mage(s) to CoH the Warrior to the zone in (or if you’re using 4 mages – the various locations on the map that are populated) and begin the cycle again.  The reason I use the mages here is so that the warrior doesn’t die on the return trip to the crossroads (not to mention how much this speeds up the whole farming process).

-  As you farm, watch out for Charm Upgrades in auction/occ and buy when able.

***NOTES***
Don’t bother with the bosses on level 6 – they take up time to kill and don’t drop the 50 coins.  They can drop a Charm Upgrade but it’s not worth the time it takes to kill them.

For a guide as to how many dropped charm upgrades you can expect, please read the comments section that follows this guide.

At a rate of 1 per hour this leg of the quest is going to take about 100 hours (ie. 4 x 25).  

Tools:
-  A group that can handle HoH content.  You want to be able to clear the Avatars with some speed.  All your toons should have IV Augs minimum here.

Guide.
For me, HoH is really the worst part of this quest (probably because it takes me so long to zone).  It requires a LOT of zoning.  Some basic things you need to know:

1.  Avatar of Heavens has the best chance of dropping the v2 Upgrades.  
2.  Shadow drops upgrades but is not worth the time it will take to chase him around the zone.
3.  All other Avatars can drop charms but Heavens have the chance to drop up to 8 in one clear.

Farming.
-  This is fairly simple.  With your team clear public Heavens (if they’re up).  Clear all the way to the ramp at Hate.

-  At the Hate ramp, use the zone ring to take you back to the entrance and make a guild instance.  Enter it and repeat the cycle.  Exit the Guild Instance at the entrance.

-  Make a group instance and enter it.  Clear to Hate then use the zone ring to go back to the entrance.  Delete the Group Instance and wait 30 seconds before making a new one.  Repeat until you have a UC.

***NOTES***
Be on the lookout for v2 upgrades and buy them when they pop up.

You should be able to make enough plat in one clear to cover the cost of the next instance you are about to make.

Guardian and Brawler charms dropped less for me than the others on all the UCs I've done.  This does appear to vary for some players however.    

Hatebourne's link: http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=1461.0 (http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=1461.0)  -- more great info to assist


Cheers
Strix

why wait 30 secs

I dunno about that...Im currently at like lvl 36 guardian, 26 oracle, 27 sorc, 27 brawler...Guardians seem to drop just fine lol

for me it was brawler that was hard to get.
But indeed a huge difference for paladins.

This is a great write up and I am not trying to bash it at all. This is very organized and offers some really good pro tips for the up and coming. I have to disagree with the average of 4 upgrades per hour in lvl 6. I have farmed 6 ultimate charms. I have never seen 4 charms per hour on lvl 6. I have never even seen 1 charm per hour average on lvl 6. Pulling the entire zone and killing it with ease with the majority if my time spent looting got me about 4 a day. That was about 15 hours of constantly pulling/looting. Another day I spent 10 hours and did not get any upgrades.

The best that I have ever seen is lvl 4. Don't kill for upgrades, kill for points. I average about 2 to 3k points per hour plus upgrades. At least 75% of my charms come from points and of those points about 75% of those points comes from the cards. Those cards don't drop on 6.

Again, I am not trying to bash you or your guide, this is a great write up, very organized. I just have not ever seen results like that from 6.

Hey Stad

I've had, on occassion, a bugged out instance that was created right after deleting the old one.  Zoned in to find that I'd paid for the same instance as before.  The 30 second is a safety buffer.

Perhaps a rare occurance but I still do the wait. 

Strix

Hey Evil

Interesting.  I've done a few of these and on each it was the Brawler and Guardian.  Worth noting though that there can be some variation.  I've wondered for some time if loot tables rotate the frequency of items.  Kind of like seeing 6 Plate BPs in qvic one month then almost none the next. 

Cheers
Strix

Hey Xiggie

Thanks mate - still a work in a progress :)  Will make some tweaks as we go here.

If you don't mind I've added your comments about level 4 to the guide (Credited as the Xiggie method).  Thought that was a great addition :)


Changed the word "dropped" in that section.  Four per hour is not right for "dropped" charm upgrades - wouldn't that be awesome though :)

I feel it's higher than one an hour though - I'm almost certain it's about two.  Maybe I have good luck :)

If charms are selling - 4 per hour is certainly possible.  Just depends on how deep your pockets are and how much farming is going on in LDON I guess.

Actually - I might just drop those guesses out of the guide and let the ensuing discussion serve as a better guide for readers.  The more I think about it the more I think it's perhaps too variable to really make a good guess.  And the comments from you guys on your experiences are a fantastic addition to give a fuller picture.

Side note - I know before that Evil Gnome stole all that money I was able to buy a LOT of charms as I went.  The 12 charms in one hour was in that period - mind you, we're talking about a time too when there was a lot of charms for sale.  There was also a lot of people walking around with very deep pockets (Ponzi getting a UC in a week on two toons being a great example).  

Cheers
Strix

id have to agree with Xiggie on lvl 4 being the best for charm drops. While i havnt done any UCs yet, i have done 4 lvl25 charms all through ldon just within the last few weeks, 3 of which have been done on level 4.  The great thing about level 4 is both cards that drop are worth 50 credits each, so they add up real fast. I consistantly get at least 1 charm per hour just from tokens/cards using a 3.0 T1 war so im not even able to keep everything on lockdown. Im fairly sure its an average of around 500 points per clear if you kill everything start to finish.

Like I said, you made a really awesome post. It is very very organized and will help a lot of people as it is full a a lot of good information. I am glad you took my response the way I intended because I really don't want to discourage anyone from writing up guides like this. If you don't mind I would like to put this in my Xiggies Bookmarks post.

Not in the slightest.  Very cool - hehe.

Strix

PS - Thanks for the input and encouragement too :D

Very nice post Strix. This will help new and old alike. Lets face it, some of the old players still don't know what they are doing.
<--------------- me

Thanks for the guide! For a new player (me)<----- this lights the path. Really appreciate it!

Great guide!!

Could you use a Druid in LDON six for the succor and the Regen? It might help keep your warrior's health up so you could kill more. 

Great guide!! now I know how work on my UC my Druid. (yes I said UC on my Druid) LOL

It's nice to see a guide on UC's its always been a guess on what the best way to go about it. I may actually start mine now lol!

I think a druid would be a really creative variation :)

When you actually put a UC on your druid - it'll have to stand at crossroads to loot while your warrior kills.  This is mainly for the speed of the clear - the faster you can pull to crossroads where the druid loots the better :)

Good luck my friend :)
Strix

Are you not doing "/hidecorpse looted"?

The corpse vanishes immediately when you exit it.

No will be abused some how.

Very nice write up but it does need some tweaking.  Xiggie's method is the same one I use, I tried the whole ldon 6 thing for a while but I'd end up getting 3 charms in an hour then none for 5 hours often. 

Ldon 4 is much more consistent.  I just clear zone back and forth and average about 2700 points an hour and an oracle every 1-2 hours.  So I'd suggest staying in ldon 4 and buying all but oracle charms, for me I ended up with a level 25 oracle about the same time I was finishing all my other charms from points.

I was surprised you found the hoh portion more difficult or tedious.  I've always thought I would rather the UC require 200 of each charm as long as they all dropped from hoh.  I also disagree you'll be losing money doing hoh instances, going from all 25s to all 50s on my warrior in hoh pub when it was up then guild instance, then group instances while checking between for pub to be back up I made alot of pp.  I never took out of my bank to buy instances, just did some math and figured out how many gems I'd need to sell to get 10k and sold just them, while keeping all my remaining gems and I ended up with over 450k in gems when I was done.

Also I find it easier to "ring" back to hoh pub when you reach the hate ramp, if you make a new instance there whichever toon zones first might be killed by the partol before the rest of your party gets there.

I also disagree with whoever said guardians and brawlers drop less than others, my first hoh was growing evenly til all my charms were 38, then before i knew it I had a level 50 guardian and all my other charms were 39 and 40.  Then on my second UC I had all charms at level 25 and when my guardian was 50 my sorc was only 31 but that also netted me alot of pp, selling guardian upgrades got me over 900k before I finished my sorc charm.  Didn't mean for this post to be so long so I'll stop making it longer =)

Hi Smasht

Thanks for the feedback – I liked reading your whole perspective the quest.  It’s great to see vets wade in to help tweak the guide.

I think my dislike of HoH comes from the zoning.  I live a long way from the server and my ping times are often around the 350 – 600.  Loading can take a LONG time for me.

Ok – so I think I’ll make the following adjustments to the guide:

1.  I’m going to move Xiggie’s method to the top and Strix’s method to the bottom.  I appreciate not everyone likes to box a bunch of mages in doing LDON 6.  I also hear what you’re saying about getting 3 in an hour and then none in 5.  I found that instance versions seemed to do that more than public versions (not sure why).  

2.  Removing the line about losing money on the HoH part.  Not sure why I wrote that – might have been something in the editing I missed.

3.  Adding using a ring to get back to entrance in HoH.  Great point about the potential of dying after you rezone.

:D


That’s interesting – in all the UCs I’ve done my Sorcerers and Oracles came in first.  

Cheers
Strix

Don't take this the wrong way, but I may have misunderstood this from your English (Like I said don't take that the wrong way. The guide itself was GREAT)

If I read that right, and you're saying that instances cause more of a charm drought then public, I'd like to disprove that theory.

It took me ~30 hours to loot up enough coins / charms in just instanced ldon4 to get all my charms to 25. Not to mention when I decided to get my pally's charm up a bit more from lvl 1, from 2-11 took about 6 hours, and 12-21 a crazy 2 hours.

Basicly what I want to say on that, is public or instanced you're still fighting RNG. Sometimes it's win sometimes it's utter fail. But RNG seems to like me in ldon.....if I could just get that same luck in HoH now lol.

Yes, it's probably a bit hard to understand if you're not reading it in relation to Smasht's post.  I probably should have quoted him to make that clearer :)


Cool :)

Side note to the thinking on this.  The whole instance system is quite complicated.  Instances are all linked in some strange ways.  Tikki's spawning in T1 and T2 based on the creation of other instances is a good example.  Technically, the creation of an instance shouldn't really have anything to do with the other instances but it does.  My thinking on the "drought" of charms in instances (from time to time) comes from this. 

I hope you're right though and it's just the RNG battle :)

Cheers
Strix

Yeah I just reread Smasht's post. He was talking about ldon 6 heh.

I've had horrible luck with charms there. I've prolly done 10ish 2.0 page runs, and while clearing all that in ldon6 I haven't seen 1 charm drop, and yes that actually encompasses a large number of mobs.

My personal experience on the first UC was that LDON 5 provided the best returns, with LDON 2 and 4 tied for 2nd, LDON 6 in 4th.  I'll be first to say my testing was limited and could easily have been skewed by excessive drops on 5 during the test.  That being said, the armor card drops on 5 added up rapidly with the tokens.

My strategy using a solo SK* (4.0 / 4.5, T4/T5) was brain dead simple... Kill everything on 5, loot and sell everything for points and upgrades other than sorcer. I ended up looting my sorcer 25 upgrade before I finished my brawler 25 so I had to finish off on LDON 2.  Skeezy spent 146,000 LDON credits on purchasing 73 upgrades to get his UC.

The HoH portion was a lot of helping others finish their UC's and catching the rot, running around soloing Heavens (The easiest ones to kill, as well as best loots.) and popping instances.  Starting out I was just barely strong enough to clear Heavens before respawn.  I did not find it terribly expensive to finish the last 25 or so charm upgrades via re-popping guild instances.  (I tend to avoid group instances after many issues with them.)

For subsequent UC's things are much easier.  I *hate* LDON.  I would have a ton of alts if they didn't have to each go through there!  :D  So the cleric and pally grew their UC's off chasing Shadow.  The Cleric spent 20,000 LDON credits for his UC.  The Paladin spent 0.  I'm tickled pink this option exists and exercise it actively! 

I would like to see a similar option for those that do not care for HoH.  Make it take longer, like doing v1's off Shadow hunting, but give folks a choice of hunting environments.

* By solo I'm saying I am playing only that one toon.  In LDON contexts that is completely accurate.  In the HoH context it holds the same meaning, me playing one toon and killing stuff alone, but also includes work with groups where I am playing a single toon.  I don't want to suggest I entirely soloed my first UC; while an SK could do that, it would take forever!!!! :D  Shucks, as it was it took a long while and didn't finish till a double loot weekend hit! ;)

Excellent write up and edits, thanks folks!

Skeezy Ratty Troll
Lihom The Butthead Cleric(tm)
Punkadin Trollpet
Slab O Meat

Thanks for your input Skeezy - great perspective :)

Cheers
Strix

Hi guys,

A question here about charms...

Some time ago I upgraded for my BST its charm V2 noobie charm for the first time with an oracle charm .   Later I read that a BST should have a brawler charm.

Can I downgrade its V2 noobie charm  or do I have to start the whole thing again, buying a new V2 and running trought the Ldon's ?

Bye,
Alrazor

I'm not sure which is best but u can't trade them so if u do want to change you have to start again

Sorc is best for all classes except Pally/Cleric

Just throwing this out there. May want to add in may post and what-not. Good work btw

http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=1461.0

-Hate

Thanks Hate - moving this link into the body on the first page.

Strix

its been a wile since any one really updated this but.  After you get a uc on your pali i think 6 is probably the fastest as i turn three plus an hour and thats not counting the 10 credit tokens you get to.  I use Pali (to pull) as the pali can heal him self with the new instant group heal if he needs to and can take a hit as well.  Rest of group is bard for selos and a DS Druid for new 11 min regen and new 15k base aoe, wizzy for new aoe, 2 mages to coth me one parked by each boss if im feeling lazy i will park shm out in pub and grab a hp buff ever 54 mins from him.  I first pull the page 10 boss then run mage there then kill page 9 boss pulling everything to entrance with selos this goes prity fast.  after first round of killing you can coth to the two far ends of the zone and do this in two pulls then look one big pile of corpses.  I usually only have to wait a min or two for mobs to respawn.  one upgrade every two or three piles of corpses is the average some piles i will pull a couple upgrades out of.  Your tank dosent have to have a ton of hp since he can heal him self and runs faster then mobs with selos as long as you can aoe them fast at entrance.  Just how i do it but seems to be way faster then ldon 4 i spent alot of time there on first one and 6 now for second and third seems way faster.

ummmm... what?

I am working on my 3rd uc, and that seems like a really complicated way to do it. I have always just used my warrior to pull, he mass kills so much faster then my pally. I farm ldon 4, use those points to buy brawler. Then i farm ldon 5 and use those points to buy gaurdian. Just a system i use that works well for me, because im not a big fan of killing in ldon 2&3. I am sure everyone has their own system that works well for them.

I've just been pullin to crossroads with war and UC toon waiting at crossroads. Using Coth a lot too. Seems to be almost as fast as farming 4 for points, but less boring because 6 is not a bland cave full of rocks to dodge. Also pulls in 4 have a tendency to lag me out.

I really liked 6, its constant pulling and a good amount of gems if you wanta get some aug cash. Honestly think its the best to uc with since all charms drop there. If you find yourself needing just Oracles and one other though i'd camp 4, it is the most reliable imo. To each his own though, either way you look at it is a long grind, but worth it.

6 also doesn't have stones of descent, and you can set up audio triggers for "II" (that's two is) and "lore" on your looter so you know when to destroy augs or if for some reason you're trying to loot a charm that you already have one of.

I tend to like 4 the best as well ... especially on double loot weekends ...

No one hunts 2 or 3 because of the doors... they really take too much time to open...

5 is okay, but found there isn't enough mobs

Lastly 6 doesn't have cards, and bosses don't drop 50's that really can add up ... plus the mobs die a bit slower than the other levels ... I found 6 is actually worse on double loot weekends as you have to wade through twice as many corpses many of them holding illusion cards and augs

I will say L2 and L3 need card, coin, or charm rates slightly increased to compensate for the doors and smaller mob pools.  Just my opinion though.

L6 has always been very generous to me with double loot. I get a hefty amount of charms. If you don't need a certain charm (say brawler), find some lowbie to clean up bodies in exchange for that charm. This will give them something to do, something less for you, and overall time savings.

Just my opinion and experience. Your milage may vary. etc etc

-Hate

At least 6 doesn't have stones of descent. Here is the best way to deal with the trashy loots on 6:

1) Set an audio trigger on your looter character for "upgrade" and have him leave all channels to avoid it triggering from people selling charms. Another audio trigger for "lore" is also a good idea, in case for some reason you are trying to loot a charm you already have (perhaps mid pull or something)

2) Take a 10 slot bag, and put a 1 stack of the 10 credit token in every slot. This ensures you can have 10000 credits worth of inventory space at least. You can do this for multiple bags. Put the bag lower down in your inventory (like, slot 6-8). You can do similar with the illusion cards, and kind of destroy them as you go.

3) Make sure the first 2 containers are completely empty. This is where all your stupid augs will wind up, as well as charm upgrades should you loot one. This way, you can easily go through and destroy your augs every couple pulls. You can make an audio trigger for II if you want as that will trigger when you loot a worthless aug, but this is kinda unnecessary.

4) If you decide to use eqbc (kind of a grey area, but it's not automating gameplay such that you could be afk farming) you can make a macro on the guy you are feeding the charms that is:

/tar corpse
/lootall

Then, while you are pulling mobs, you can have a hotkey on your puller that is:

/bct [charname] //keypress #

Where [charname] is obviously your looter, and # is the hotkey number. Make sure your looter has /lootnodrop never so that it just cleans every single corpse. While you are pulling, you can be mashing the button to have your other guy loot the corpses, which greatly increases your efficiency, since you can pull and loot simultaneously.

Final note: Manually loot chaos/balrog so you don't accidentally loot the pages/weapons and have them junking up your inventory.