Foppish Sleeves
Foppish Sleeves - Artifact For basic info on this encounter, see: http://www.visionofsages.net/toa/artifacts/fop.html
This one is a lot of work. If you're lucky, you can simply buy the Kibisis (looks like a bag) and Kerubis' Scythe off of CMs. If you're not so lucky, ask around or you'll have to farm them. The Kibisis drops off of taurs and maybe siam-hes in Volcanus. Farming taurs with a ML9 pet is pretty easy really and could be quite profitable - I got a Regarding Shades 3/3 while looking for a Kibisis. Kerubis' Scythe drops fairly rarely from all manners of tritons.
Next you need to kill one of the 3 named gorgons in the little ruins SW of Aerus Haven. I prefer Kasora (~10k, 17k Green Glades) because the other 2 may root or mez you just as you get the head which causes the snakes to spawn while you're helpless and you can't outrun them. Plus you're on a timer before the head rots and every second counts.
Once you kill one of the named gorgons, if you have the scythe and bag in your inventory, you'll automatically chop the head off the gorgon and put it in the bag. Now it's time to run. You have about 6 minutes to get the head from the kill place to Bergopes and he's way out at 52k, 9k in Arbor Glen. If that wasn't bad enough, the bag spawns big red snakes behind you as you run. So if you stay in one place too long, they chase after you. The run took me about 6-1/2 minutes on permasprint speed, so you'll need some form of speed plus permasprint to get you there in time - skald, RM, or aug healer speed should all work. You'll get messages along the way telling you about how long you have left. If you die en route, you'll lose the bag, but will still get the messages until the head would normally have rotted. The route I take is pretty much straight north from the gorgon ruins, past the gorgon maiden camp, then NW til I'm passing Aerus Haven on the left - dodge the centaur messengers that may be in the woods there. Then I skirt along the north end of the Green Glades and Arbor Glen zones until I get to Bergopes' hill.
Bergopes is a tall cyclops at the top of a tall slanted spire of ruins. If you attack him without using the gorgon head, you can't get him below 50% because of his heal field. To deactivate the heal field for 15 minutes, you must use the gorgon head while standing between the two walls about halfway up the spire. Park your bot there in a power font - he can heal at will from there as Bergopes doesn't move and doesn't use ranged attacks.
Run up to right next to Bergopes and put your pet on Stay, pop ML9, and send the pet after Bergopes. You must be within about 700 radius of Bergopes in order to attack him with the pet and with your focus shield. Put up your realm-castable damage shield and then your focus shield. During the fight, Bergopes will AE stun those around him, though it's hard to notice when you get hit with it. Pay attention to your buff bar at the top of the screen for when it happens, then just keep putting your shields back up as you can.
Also during the fight, Bergopes will pick you up and throw you in random directions, but not very far. When you land, you'll only have 1 hit point left. This will happen about 6-8 times during the fight so bring some heal potions to get back up to speed quickly. Run back up the spire and get in range of Bergopes again and recast your shields. Since your pet was on Stay, Bergopes will be hitting him the whole time you're running back, so keep your realm-castable damage shield up as much as possible so you're doing at least a little damage while you are out of commission. Heal the SM up to full with the bot so when you get thrown again you won't die.
There is some kind of code in play with Bergopes so that he throws more when more people are attacking him. So you may want to play around with other people attacking him, especially if they can't otherwise contribute. You'll probably want them to get out of Bergopes' range when you get thrown so the pet retains aggro.
If you brought anyone with you, put them to work if you can. A healer type can run to wherever you were thrown and heal you to get you back up the spire faster. A speed class can help you move faster. Other classes have some kind of RA or artifact that can heal you. Also, if you can, keep the single-target friggs on your SM while you're not healing, that will get you back up quicker as well.
Bergopes has a lot of hits but he doesn't hit particularly hard. Just keep at it. He'll likely live through the first ML9 pet, so don't panic. Just keep your shields up and get back in action quickly when you get thrown. When ML9 comes back up, pop it again. You'll get a one minute warning when Bergopes' heal field is coming back up. The fight will also probably outlast your power font so recast it when you get a chance.
Bergopes drops the artifact, a spirit legendary component, some Lightning-Etched armor, and ROG shields.
Note that there are a couple places where you can use exploits in this encounter, but I don't publish that stuff. It's more fun to do it legitimately anyhow.
1. posted by Bluebird ShhhhhImConcentrating @ 10:27 PM 1 comments