Questions on AOIII for High Levels

[flyingscv]

Finally dinged enough to enter AOIII for the first time and noticed a few things that are very different from every other map so far. For example, there are two orbs that appears in some maps, and when you run through them, you get to wear them for a while. Do they do anything?

Also, in the Captured map, when you hit the cages, they will release either NPCs or monsters from earlier maps. Is it a) necessary to hit these cages b) what benefits are there to killing these monsters other than for quests as I noticed that none of them offered any drops.

Lastly, I noticed that when people do the Keeper run, they stop just before the final boss at the last room and just remake. Why is that?

[Lowlyspy]

The orbs are buffs, red buffs power, purple buffs armor

No it is not necessary to kill the prisoners

And people tend to stop before the keeper because they might be doing runs for items/money or they may be farming mynas.

EDIT: also it takes a while to kill the keeper so people might not want to take the time to kill him

[azulflame]

keeper runs are often for xp, I get a group, and take off where the grinders leave off. lots of people grinding from 49 to 50, and from 51-53 in CTK. there are three quests for the captive audience map: the prisoners, which need npc's, and two of the cyber quest ones that need you to kill the shadow prisoners.

the orbs do diferent things, and except for the green in gurg's room, they all have battle effects. click here to find out what they are.

[flyingscv]

ermm.. where do I click exactly?


keeper runs are often for xp, I get a group, and take off where the grinders leave off. lots of people grinding from 49 to 50, and from 51-53 in CTK. there are three quests for the captive audience map: the prisoners, which need npc's, and two of the cyber quest ones that need you to kill the shadow prisoners.

the orbs do diferent things, and except for the green in gurg's room, they all have battle effects. click here to find out what they are.

[Arterra]

lol nothing to click...

no need for a guide though, blue orbs give you mana. green orbs give you HP. red doubles your damage and purple doubles your armor

NOTE:
at gurgox, the green orbs are 3 second shields against his shout. beware, his shout is 5 seconds long, so if you grab one too early you will miss it.
at the magnetic golemn, the pillars with red orbs kill you and the ones with blue orbs save you. run for the blue!!

[azulflame]

sorry, put it in and was going to edit in a hyperlink, couldn't find one so I left it.
Gold - speed
green - full health
blue - full mana
purple - armor
orange - damage

green in gurg's room - 3 second shield against shout
blue in magnetic golem's room - safety against shockwave
red in magnetic golem's room - death from shockwave

[flyingscv]

this is all v useful. thank you all for your contributions!

[azulflame]

might be wrong agout SSC orbs, but I don't have map

[Raulur]

Lastly, I noticed that when people do the Keeper run, they stop just before the final boss at the last room and just remake. Why is that?

Because they are not strong enough to kill the keeper quickly. His shield is on a timer, and blast shot does not take it down like on other AO3 bosses. There is also a myth going around that he steals mages mana shield, which is totally false. I ran with an awesome group last night that killed him before his shield went up all but 2 times, and one of those he died right after the shield went up.

If you want to kill him, try to get with a group of mostly 50 plus, as they are probably working on the cyber set quests. The group we had was 3 level 50-52 dex birds, and a high 40s bear and mage. After a while the mage was replaced by a 4th 50+ bird. Slightly faster, but no mega combos.

[Otukura]

sorry, put it in and was going to edit in a hyperlink, couldn't find one so I left it.
Gold - speed
green - full health
blue - full mana
purple - armor
orange - dodge


green in gurg's room - 3 second shield against shout
blue in magnetic golem's room - safety against shockwave
red in magnetic golem's room - death from shockwave

No such thing as a dodge orb... redish-orange is double damage.

[azulflame]

No such thing as a dodge orb... redish-orange is double damage.

thanks. fixed

[Tamino]

keeper runs are often for xp, I get a group, and take off where the grinders leave off. lots of people grinding from 49 to 50, and from 51-53 in CTK. there are three quests for the captive audience map: the prisoners, which need npc's, and two of the cyber quest ones that need you to kill the shadow prisoners.

Actually, another quest was added in Captive Audience for a second Mystery Armor, requiring to kill T'Paxx and the Alien Jailers a number of times (drop rate about %30). This is why a number of players go to the jailers room nowadays, that was usually skipped by "killing shadows prisoners" quest people.

[Redbridge]

here's the link for the old orb thread, although, I'm not sure is fully clarifies all orb questions. An opportunity for someone to write a new one? Let me know you you do and I'll add it to my every increasing list of great guides (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?20352-Guides-Indexes-Helpsheets-amp-all-other-wonderful-stuff-in-one-place...)

http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?19591-Orb-etiquette

[Otukura]

I'll start on it tomorrow. :p