A guide to the Orc Cave - your easy way to a ton of XP and drops!

[Dobri 55]

In this topic:

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10019

 

Gogo gave us some info from GagleKas who posted some interesting stuff on the SIF concerning a cave in the Orc Region which is a source of wicked amounts of XP, drops, money and everything your heart desires. The rumor appeared to be... TRUE!!

 

However, before you go running to that cave to see the big deal, you should be aware of some things.

 

1. The 4 orcs in the cave run fast, have a very fast attack and hit like a ten ton truck.

2. The cave is very small - rangers and casters are severely hindered by the lack of space to run.

3. The cave has a bridge. If you're a ranger or caster and you're forced to fight on it, you're in for a tough battle.

4. There is already a pile of HC players' corpses of each class in this cave (figuratively speaking). High Elves seem to have died the most there. Be careful

 

If you're still willing to try your hand at it... Good luck

 

1. Getting there.

 

There are a few easy ways to get to this cave. My favorite is from the monolith near the cave you need to cross to get to Octagolamus. Although it's a long way, you can use this strategic point to do both boss runs and cave runs. The fastest way to the cave is from the village of Karagh. Just activate the monolith there and you're all set. This is a picture of these 2 options:

 

 

Another possibility is to use the Mount island port. Move to the port, use the boat to get to Karagh and make your way to the cave like this:

 

 

 

2. The Orc Cave.

 

Let's start with a view of the cave. This is the layout of the cave (maximum zoom):

 

 

 

You see it's very small, and it's very difficult to maneuver in there. Now let's take a look at the cave from within and analyze. There are 4 orcs and 2 spiders in this cave. The orcs always appear on the same spot in the middle of the cave. The 2 spiders can range from ordinary mobs to champions. They can be found near the orcs, near the chest, near the throne or near the entrance. Their spawn position is completely random. This is the interior of the cave and the spawn positions.

 

 

If the spiders are close to the orcs, all (or most of) of the orcs will charge the spiders, which gives you some free hits, unless you're bothered by spiders near the entrance. The worst case scenario is that the 2 spiders are at the entrance and you're forced to deal with them first, while the orcs are charging at you.

 

YOU MUST NOT LOOT any chests and crates found in this cave. They force it to stop respawning quickly. It is highly advisable to spend less time inside. Just kill, pick up the loot and leave.

 

3. What can you expect.

 

The orcs are Orc Warrior Champions. They have Physical resistance only, their attack is purely physical (978 damage at mob level 79, about 550 at mob level 55, thank you Zinsho for the info), and they have a lot of HP's (11.3k at mob level 78, alone in the server). The spiders are easy so no worries about them. Using poison relics is a must though

 

4. Increasing your chances of survival.

 

A lot of defense and a lot of HP is what's needed here. These champion orcs have a generally high chance to hit, and you need to be able to take the beating without dying. This means you need some (if not all) of these: high def value, armor lore, constitution, combat reflexes, toughness and shield lore. Then you need to hit hard and stock up on healing pots. Life leech would be nice as well.

 

5. The drops.

 

First of all, always keep a Mentor potion up and running while you fight here. Orcs tend to drop a lot of HP and Mentor pots. Other drops consist of high quality set items (I got armantin belt and blazing shoulders here, both 3-socket), high quality uniques (I got seyr's klinge, executioner's axe, officer's saber, a ton of polearms and an artamark's star), various magic items and almost no runes So this cave isn't good for the rune farmers.

 

6. Additional tips.

 

- The cave is ready for a re-entry as soon as you leave it.

- Lag may cause the orcs to appear a bit late. If you see that the cave is empty, don't give up just yet. Re-enter a few times and see what happens. If it's still empty after 4-5 re-entries, then you can give up

- Seems like porting back to Start island and returning to the cave doesn't force the cave to reset... So the best option is to start a new server and do the Cave runs again.

EDIT: It was noted on the SIF and I can confirm it: taking too long to finish the mobs may force them to stop respawning. So it's best to be quick

 

 

The bottom line is that High Elves, chars with mediocre armor and Purifying Chastisement Inquisitors are going to have a very tough battle on their hands here. I already lost 3 chars in this cave (HC Closed net HE, an Inquisitor and a Dryad in HC SP) and my HC MP BFG-shopper seraphim almost bit the dust as well - 3.5k armor, 8k HP weren't enough to survive the battle and I ported back to start island while pumping the space key like crazy. Granted, she has only armor lore and constitution... They're not always enough Especially with that need for click patch 2.40 gave us to change targets and attack...

 

P.S> This cave proved the perfect leveling place for the Astral Lord SW. Being cloaked all the time is a blessing. The Astral SW is a very slow killer by default, and this cave compensates for this big time. So I strongly suggest you astral guys to utilize it to the best of your potential.

 

P.S.S> For a better view of the cave and better understanding of the things that are in store for you, I've made a 2:27 minute clip for you all. You will see where the orcs spawn, where the chest that you must not touch is, and what can you expect. I hope you enjoy it... although I'm sort of dissatisfied by the quality youtube provided. I may try something like xfire as well...

 

Here we go!

 

 

Here's the link if you can't get it to view in HQ or full screen:

 

 

I hope you like it

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dobri

[gogoblender 3,378]

Excellent guide. And exactly what I was waiting for. lol, reading about all those deaths of peeps who went in and then leaving behind their corpses was a little scary/creepy.

 

The maps are great Dobri, you've really got talent for writing guides that are reader friendly. Comments and conclusions at the end are especially useful.

 

I'll be holding this guide close to the chest when making my next foray in with new toon.

 

Wish me luck, and to others who attempt the area, good luck to you as well.

 

 

gogo

[Spyrus 0]

I am going there and hope within 20 seconds I can kill them (which I do that already with HE and all bosses in Gold (I am at level 50 where

boss spawn at 60 )

[Spyrus 0]

No problem for my He with shroud they are dead in 10 seconds... it is funny watch them kill the spiders

 

This is me in front with a unique star I found :

 

Edited April 18, 2009 by Spyrus

[Viper007 1]

I can get much better experience roaming the desert or jungle but the drops in the cave are deff awesome.

[Dobri 55]

well, in my eyes, this is a lot. The Astral SW is a very slow killer, and here he gains level after level Alone in the server, with a mentor pot (91.5s duration) and only +15% XP per kill, I have 7.834 XP per orc. I can do 3 runs within 90 seconds (if they die quickly, 3 and a half). That's 4x7834=31336. 31336x3=94008. That's 94k XP every 1.30 mins. In my eyes that rocks

[Dobri 55]

I'll be adding a video of the cave as well. Made it with my slow killing level 74 SW It's uploading on youtube as we speak. As soon as it's finished, I'll post and add a link. Gogo or Schot may embed it if they want to

 

All done. Added the video in the first post

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dobri

[gogoblender 3,378]

Video rocks! Who's that doing the music?

 

 

gogo

[Dobri 55]

Credits theme, Red Alert 3 OST. You can find it on the bonus disks... or pretty much anywhere on a torrent The bonus disks have it at 320 kbps quality though.

[Viper007 1]

cool video I like the music

[stubbie 22]

dobri,

I have to hand it to you mate........everything you post is such a joy to read and watch.

 

You are very talented when it come to this sorta stuff.

Only gripe I have is the poor video quality that u-tube gives.

Love the music btw.

 

Thanks again for such a great guide........I for one appreciate all the effort you go to.

[Zinsho 0]

Not to steal your thunder Dobri, particularly since my compositing skills are highly lacking. I decided to fiddle around with trying to record videos so that when I get around to it I'll be able to show off what my other TG does against larger mobs.

 

 

(And the link for anyone who wants it directly in HD)

[Dobri 55]

Great work, Zin Your TG does kill fast and suffers minimum hits. If you like the cave and have no problems with the in-and-outs, you can get a lot of levels this way

 

You video just goes to show once again how slow killer the Astral SW is

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dobri

[Spyrus 0]

I want to upload a video too. What program do you use underneath?

[Dobri 55]

The program that's easy to use and allows for a nice edit (at least for me) is Video Edit Magic. Try it out, I think you're going to like it

 

While we're at it, I hope you liked the video. It shows why I decided to use a 3-aspect build for the Buffer SW (you did question my motives in my buffer guide I remember). Although when teaming up with players only 1 of the party buffs - Augmenting Guidon or Rousing command will be up at the time (and it's more than enough), the skeletons actually require both of them to be effective. They are not strong as the players are and tend to miss quite a lot And sadly, there isn't always a friend around to team up, so the Astral SW has to fend for himself from time to time.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dobri

[Zinsho 0]

Dobri, that wasn't the TG I was mentioning yesterday though. For the one in the vid the Orc Cave is worthwhile, for the other not quite so much because he can get such huge experience values by rounding up. (Biggest I've seen him get was ~125k at level 50 from one Area of Effect sequence in the swamp) I suspect people will find the cave works great for anyone oriented towards boss/single unit killing while mob killers will still find other areas faster since they can kill enough other enemies to make up for it.

[Spyrus 0]

The program that's easy to use and allows for a nice edit (at least for me) is Video Edit Magic. Try it out, I think you're going to like it

 

Sorry, I am asking again, but I do not have any camera or any other external device. How can I capture with the program?

[jimdingsdale 0]

Tried this cave with my level 95 seraphim.

She killed everything in there in less than 10 seconds.

Got the odd good drop, but nothing I can use.

Gave me 100,000 xp average.

Could only get it to respawn 2x, then star a new game.

A bit disappointing.

Have to do it 30 times to level up.

Edited April 19, 2009 by jimdingsdale

[Dobri 55]

The program that's easy to use and allows for a nice edit (at least for me) is Video Edit Magic. Try it out, I think you're going to like it

 

Sorry, I am asking again, but I do not have any camera or any other external device. How can I capture with the program?

 

IF you're not sure what you're doing... better don't try it I use fraps to capture everything that's happening on the screen, but remove the frame rate indicator, cause otherwise it's ugly. Then I use Virtual Dub to encode the fraps video with a codec of my choosing (usually ffdshow) - the plain avi fraps produces is way too big: 10 minutes may be like 3GB, depending on the game and the screen resolution. My 2.27 mins were about 400MB. After I encoded it with ffdshow, it was like 25MB, 2.27 min clip. Then I used Video Edit Magic to add music, video effects and such.

 

It's not easy at all, so if you're willing to try your hand at it, you'll need to spend a considerable amount of time doing that - and learning those 3 programs. Fraps is easy, but virtual dub and Video Edit have a lot of functions which are confusing, even to me, even though I made like 4-5 clips with it already

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dobri

[Spyrus 0]

Ok, I have virtual dub & virtual dub mod for a long time when I encode divx & merge avi.

I get the 'Fraps' and try it. (I have irfanview for images but does not capture video).

[stubbie 22]

My icey HighElf using Raging Nimbus is able to handle this cave very easy in Platinum.

 

Not sure how other difficulties would cope but I thought I would pass this info on because the cave has been a death trap for HighElf's in the past.

[Vyse22 0]

Anyone try this on the console versions yet? I will try to get there today and try it out. Only level 19 though but I am in that area.

 

Just went there - I need to work on my build before I can go there consistently but I can confirm that the same "bug" is on the console version. All the items I got were crap though. But I have bad luck - level 20 now and have not seen anything better than a white.

 

Tough room for silver campaign level 20 - I died twice so the most I can confirm is I was able to clear the room 2 times in a row without having to restart a game.

Edited May 21, 2009 by Vyse22

[amunra517 0]

also might I add as a fire HE I rock this place. Magic coup seems to be bugged I take no damage in this cave with MC. also kill in 30 secs or less. take longer than 40 secs you probally wont get a respawn. and I am on console version yes.

Edited May 22, 2009 by amunra517

[Chareos Rantras 0]

Excellent Guide, will check it out on my seraphim to see if I have the killing speed/kills to compete these orcs

 

cheers!

Chareos Rantras

[J Hawk Phranx 1]

also might I add as a fire HE I rock this place. Magic coup seems to be bugged I take no damage in this cave with MC. also kill in 30 secs or less. take longer than 40 secs you probally wont get a respawn. and I am on console version yes.

Ya im on a console too using a level 32 SW and the respawn takes sooooo long I didn't even see the second respawn after I destroyed them the first time and I waited like 5-7 minutes before leaving.