Nektropos Castle: Tribulation  

I don't know why, but I've always been an obsessed fangirl when it comes to the Nektropos Castle instances. I first fell in love with the original but now my favorite is Tribulation.

I tried to do a write-up for this zone, but I am summarizing-handicapped (seriously, not kidding. look at what's below this.), so I gave up. *lol* If anyone is interested in a complete waste of time, they can read it here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg5sj3bw_0f66zbhg4


I'll just expand on what Shadusanator wrote with some details/corrections. First of all - the zone can be VERY buggy. Sometimes the golem won't spawn, none of the nameds will give any AA, the final encounter can screw up (they'll run about the courtyard and disappear through doors you can't open, really werid), and if you zone out without locking the zone and go back in, the shinies will be in scattered locations (probably to prevent farming them, or so I tell myself).

1) While the loot is generally sub-par, yes, it is important to mention (I think) that the nameds do, from time to time, drop level 70 masters. Some of these spells don't upgrade, making the masters invaluable for the classes that own those spells. The ones that do upgrade are transmuter lovemuffins. Cross your fingers for a mana!
~ The nameds are:
- Coaltergeist (70 ^^^ heroic). As said, he spawns in the Caretaker's room when you grab the key. He doesn't always spawn, however. Sometimes you just get three whirling embers.
- Skrarot Snikdush, Grogsnot the Mellow, Szatch, Tygrin Amenweth, Maskin Spindlefoot, and Tiha Amenweth (72 ^^^ heroics). A group of "adventurers" in Sheila's bedroom. They'll be fighting two ghostly remains when you walk in. Whether by the ghostly remains' hands, or by yours, when one of the group dies, Skrarot or Szatch will say "Get us out of here!" and they evac. Really cute. d: I've managed to kill all of them but one before they evaced... Skrarot got away. *snaps fingers* The trick is just to get them all down low in health, then AoE. I'm 92% positive they all give their own AA, but I don't know for absolute certain. However, afaik, they don't give any loot.
- a blood-drenched golem/A Plasma Golem (70 ^^^ Epic x2) in the Chapel (with a candlestick!) He spawns as either of those two after you kill the four pools of gore. He has an AoE or two, but nothing killer... and as Shadus said, he's more like an Epic x1.5. d:
- Angrimar the Torturer (70 ^^^ heroic) is in the Jail. She likes to teleport whoever she's aggro'd on into a jail cell (I run the zone with my tank pet and he just runs through the cell door, so I've never gotten to play with getting someone out). If she dies inside the cell, it is possible to click through the bars, so no worries.
- At the end of the zone, you run into some familiar faces... and while they drop loot this time, they haven't ever given me any AA. Losers. ):

2) Here's the info on the "Cleaning Melanie's Room" quest:
Melanie is sitting in the middle of her room surrounded by little moppet dolls and she has a quest for you. There are five real dolls mixed amongst the "fake" dolls - by fake, I mean that clicking on them will summon a group of four aggro moppets called "a dolly" (70 ^^^ heroics). Oh, and by the way, you only have 3 minutes to put away the real dolls (i.e. put them on her bed; the real doll will turn into a movable object, like a piece of furniture)! The strategy for this is to watch the dolls carefully, as fake ones will wiggle occasionally. There are other strategies, of course, but that's the intended one. My personal favorite is my personal secret. You'll have to play with it yourself to find out. (;
Successfully completing the quest will "unlock" the toy chest beside her bed, which can contain a wide variety of things.
~ Known Toy Chest Rewards:
- A Ragged Doll (gives you a pet moppet doll)
- Sack of Marbles (AoE slow charm) <-- you will see that and --v that a lot.
- A Sewing Needle (itty bitty sewing needle weapon that gives +6 tailoring)
- Apron of the Artificer (waist slot item that gives +5 to all the crafting things, e.g. scribing, artificing, metalshaping, etc.)
- Scattered Masters (tend to be level 67 afaik) & Adepts (more often the latter than the former)

3) Fake shinies summon about 4 nihilistic entities, which are 71 ^^/^^^ heroics. Real shinies summon... collectibles!
~ Shinies: (ordered how you would run across them in zone progression)
- "Storage" area on basement-level floor: 1 fake (in the hallway outside the "storage" rooms) and 1 real (in the storage room to your right)
- Coaltergeist's room: fake is closer to bed, real is further from bed.
- Guest room outside Sheila's bedroom: fake in center of room, real at foot of the chair.
- Lord Everling's Dining Room: fake in the pile of bottles (poltergeists in disguise), real in the far corner of room. Just strafe along the wall to your right and past the fireplace and you'll be fine. There are some poltergeists on the table in middle of room.
- Hallway leading to Library: fake.
- Chapel: real.
- Torturer: fake is against the wall, real is the one closer to you.
- Down the hallway in chunks of collapsed wall (which sometimes turn into 70 ^^^ heroics): fake.
[EDIT]
Okay, I zoned in today and the shinies were borked, in different locations than usual. I don't know if they're randomly scattered or if someone might run across them like this, but here is my borked shiny evaluation:
Quarters of Lord Everling: real is beside table/chairs.
Caretaker's Room: fake is on the bed.
Hallway between guest rooms and Elise's bedroom: real.
Hallway outside Dining Room: fake.
Lord Everling's Dining Room: Poltergeists have moved around *sigh* The shiny further in is fake (no ? above it, so it turns into mobs if you approach it). The one right in front of the door is real.
Chapel: both are fake (in front of door and beside altar/statue).
Jail: both are real (beside wall and near torture devices).
I died to the stupid crushing blocks in the stables (apparently I can't add 45% + 45% + 45% well enough to know that my health was too low to handle three at once d: *lol*) so there might be some in the courtyard. I'm too tired to run all the way back to find out, sorry!!

There are three tome collections in this zone as well, but I don't know by heart where all the pages are. Once you finish the collection you can't see the pages anymore, and I finished it way long ago. I know that they're pretty much in most of the rooms. Just do a run through the zone and you *should* be able to find them all.


If you're on the Bazaar server and want to check out this zone, I run it every day, and I'd be glad to give a guided (or brief) tour for free. d;

Edited, May 20th 2009 2:42pm by Aurelis

Edited, May 22nd 2009 11:08pm by Aurelis

For anyone trying to check this zone out - don't. Here is some info on it. Just spent some time there and completed it.

It is Nek Castle backwards in that you enter through the crypt and exit through the front door. In that it is fairly straight forward. Generally mobs do not respawn with 3 exceptions. Hall roaming vortexes (4 total in zone) and 2 crumbling walls in the ramp / outside area. The last exception to this is in the Library. The books will spawn at a rate of 1 per 8-10 seconds in the room. They are all 68-72^^. So dont stay in there longer than needed or they will add up.

Now basically you go through secret doors to get up to level 3 from the basement. You will come up into the bookshelf in the capts room. Go to the room to the right (Caretaker room) and inspect the fireplace for a key. Careful because 3 embers will spawn, 1 named (coaltergeist), after you loot the key. Make your way to Melanie's room. She has a mini quest that if you can pick up her dolls within 2 min 30 seconds she wont be in trouble. If you accept it the dolls on the floor will spawn active. all 70-72^^^ and there are 6 of them in 1 group. If you win you can loot something from the chest in her room near the bed.

Now go upstairs (nek level 3) and make your way over to the other side. It will bring you down into Sheila's room. Kill everything in the various rooms but what you really need to do is to get to Diedre's room where you can get into the main level of the castle (lvl 1). Once you are there it is simple. Kill to the main courtyard - once you kill the 3 spawns in courtyard about 6 named will pop. all 70^ so its not bad. You will get a chest - hail everling at the end for a status reduction statue for your house (200 status I believe).

There is an epic 2x golem in this zone you can spawn (lvl 72 2x epic). We took him out with 4 people (79 swash, 79 warden, 75 dirge, 71 wizard) so its easy. But no status, no AA for the kill, a Treasured Chest as a drop... btw, all named dropped Treasured except final kill leaving the zone. The loot is terrible and the mobs mostly come in groups of 2x ^^^ plus 2x ^^'s or worse - often 4 ^^^ Heroics at a time. Most mobs are lvl 68 to 72 and hit fairly hard for their level.

The collection quests - I finished one of them when I was there. My Beloved I think it was called. Once I handed it in I got no aa, no exp, and the reward was a book I can place in my house (nothing about it).

Lots of traps (shinies that spawn 4 mobs at a time) and normal traps like blocks falling on your head for 45% health damage of your max health. I was being hit for almost 4k damage when I neglected to disarm them. Floor spikes are common as well.

Basically the loot is completely subpar for the zone - the collection quests are listed as lvl 20 and dont have any AA or EXP associated with them. The epic didnt give guild status, personal status, or AA... Just normal exp. It was hard but it was more like a 1.5x epic for the level. The zone is not completed in my opinion or the developer who designed it should get canned.

-Shad