Balefort Sewers guide

[mycroftxxx]

Environment

Fire traps and exploding barrels

These are basically the same as in the goblin stronghold. Fire traps, once fuming, can be set off intentionally by attacking them. You can use this property to purposefully clear them before passing. Do this with a range weapon unless you have a death wish.

Don't explode a fire trap or barrel (watch those weapon AOEs) when a player is next to it—this is a booting offense in my book.

Toxic waste barrels

There are two maps in which these appear. If you get too close to one, you breathe toxic fumes and immediately lose >90% of your HP. Stand there and you die. So don't do that. See other comments under Roach Motel and Fetid Halls.

Portals

There are several portals to “hidden” maps (not available from “Host Game”). Unlike other campaigns, these portals require you to have a particular daily quest before entering. You can still stalk your way into the map through Join Game and My Friends.


Bosses

One of the cool things about Balefort Sewers is that the bosses require some individual technique. In previous campaigns, the bosses are mostly a DPS/HP battle. Note that this section represents my best assessment of the bosses at the time of last edit, and may be updated as I make new discoveries or the game itself is updated.

Goldfever (Bandit Boy Hideout)

In addition to direct hits, Goldfever has a special attack/skill called Gold Fever. This is like a debuff. It appears to do some damage and briefly stun the player. In addition, it starts a timer, which on expiration causes the player himself to cast Gold Fever, infecting any other players nearby. When Goldfever infects a player directly, a green orb appears on Goldfever, and also on at least one of the Soul Chests; breaking one of these chests fast enough will “cure” the fever and prevent the player blasting others. You'll recognize that someone has the fever because they'll be doing a “Celebrate!” emote continually.

Note: Like other attacks, Gold Fever is dodgeable, so sometimes the orbs will appear with no player being infected.

Note: Keep in mind that in addition to the blast damage, the fever is infectious. Players hit by the blast will also get the fever, and themselves explode, even if they die in the blast.

Note: There is some condition under which you can get multiple orbs—I'm no longer certain what it is—but they all disappear when you break one chest.

Special note: Why do I run out of pots when I have aggro? If I'm kiting, there is a very careful balance between my distance from the boss and his range to hit me. I can kite for a long time solo, but if other players are pushing him around, it often pushes him in range to hit and stun me. Then either I die or I spam pots and pray. If there's a bear in the group, I shouldn't be keeping aggro anyway. If I think it's a hopeless situation, I may just let myself die faster and save the pots. Yes, you heard it here: your (push) attack on the boss is killing me (indirectly), and probably also you.

Questions:
Does proximity to the chest and/or Goldfever matter for curing the fever?
Can a single chest cure multiple players?
Does leaving the orb on Goldfever and not breaking a chest prevent him from infecting anyone?

My whacko theory is that Goldfever's attack actually leeches your HP (soul, as in Soul Leech) and stores it in his chests (possibly for his later consumption), and that opening a chest gives back those HP to the opener. I'm still collecting data on this.

Bandit King & Queen (Bandit Boy Stronghold)

These two are deadly together. They have a wicked combination where the king beckons and the queen repeatedly lightnings the prey. (Listen to their sound effects, BTW.) They can wipe a group in seconds. They need to be separated as quickly as possible. If you get them far enough apart, they will stop trying to get close (think of hematite magnets), and their combo attack will be inoperative. Just don't push them around so they get too close again. Also, don't push one so far that it resets and goes back to the other.

The easiest and simplest way to separate them is for a bear to go in the room alone, lock onto the king, and—from as far away as possible—taunt him. Then retreat out of the room and the king will follow. DO NOT fire any weapons or attack skills; they're close enough together than you're guaranteed to get both.

If you're lacking in a bear, another separation method is to crawl up the wall to the side of the king, and then slowly inch toward him until he just notices you. If you do it right, you'll still be outside the queen's range. Once the king starts to follow, go back toward the entrance and out of the room with the king in tow. If you accidentally get both, you can just go past the reset threshold and wait for them to reset—easier if you don't have any other players interfering. Again, DO NOT fire any weapons or attack skills; your presence is enough to alert the king.

Special note: While warriors with more armor and elves with mana shield may be able to survive the 1-2 combo attack by potting, this works very poorly for archers, who have weaker armor and no HP reserve. If you're a warrior or elf and are telling people to just dive in and attack one while ignoring the other, you're being a selfish git and will get all the archers killed. (Same applies to the Galactic Overlord room.) I will just leave if this happens. BTW, it's also a stupid “optimization” in that it will actually cost you time.

Goblin King (Swill Pitz)

The goblin king periodically goes into a healing mode. During this time, he has a green aura, stands still, and does not attack. At this point, the totem is vulnerable and must be destroyed. If the totem is not destroyed, it heals the king (not fully—something like 50% of his total HP). You have about 6 seconds to do this, so you have to switch FAST and hit HARD—no slouching.

Trashheap (The Catacombs)

Trashheap himself isn't a particularly interesting boss, but the room he's in has a different type of grate that releases toxic fumes. You can seal the grates; they act like NPCs with a lot of HP, so some sustained fire will “kill” (seal) them. I like to seal the first two as I enter the room, giving me a place from which to fire at Trashheap without worrying about additional damage.

Cockroach (Roach Motel)

The cockroach feeds on spilled garbage and heals. There are two good ways to kill him:

1) Don't spill any garbage. This means ABSOLUTELY NO AOES. That includes weapon procs—meaning your keeper staff (among others) is right out. Lots of people fail here because they don't realize they're AOEing.

2) Spill all the garbage first, and then hit the cockroach full force with everything you have—AOEs, combos, etc.—until he's dead. This works because the bins take some time to regen, and you have all that time to AOE away. Sometimes groups fail here because they're too lazy/slow, and the bins respawn while they're AOEing away.

In general, method 2 seems more reliable with random PUGs. Either method can work, but mixing the two is almost certainly a fail.

Note: He doesn't heal until he gets to the garbage and eats it. It is possible to prevent him from doing so before it disappears into the ground, but that requires coordinated effort to pin him.

One unexplained thing is: even though in method 2 he gets damaged before the spilled trash disappears, I've never seen him eat it in that case. Maybe he has to sustain a certain amount of damage before he feeds?

Other bosses and mini-bosses

always spawn: Catspaw (Bandit Boy Hideout), Oil Slick (The Catacombs), Stench (Roach Motel)
random spawn: Blanky The Safecrack (Bandit Boy Hideout), Drusila Badelf (Bandit Boy Stronghold), Ooze (The Catacombs), Goop (Roach Motel), Noodles (Swill Pitz)
hidden maps: Beargular (Bank Vault), Waylay Blackbeak (Bandit Cells), The Animator (The Steam Chamber), Dr. Noxious (Fetid Halls), Goblin Shaman (The Goblin Tunnels)

AFAICT, none of these have any interesting fight capabilities.


Maps/Quests

The Catacombs

To animate the dead slimes, you must first have the magical residue, and then touch the slimes. They take a few seconds to animate, but you don't have to touch them continuously. You get the residue initially by either clicking on the marked Dead Sewer Slime at the beginning of the map or touching it with your character. While you have the residue, there will be a blue mist swirling around you. The effect wears off, but is renewed each time you animate some slime.

Roach Motel

If you kill one of the green suited guys next to a toxic waste barrel, you get a temporary Toxin Protection buff that allows you to get close to the barrels without dying. If you stand on top of a barrel and fire, you cap it, and it no longer produces toxic fumes.

Questions:
Occasionally someone in the party assailing the bunny suit does not get the buff. Why?

Bank Vault

The main thing about this area is that you enter in the middle of a heist, and are attacked immediately. Be ready to buff.

Bandit Cells

When you open a cell, thugs will spawn behind you (right at the entrance from the hallway to the cell). Be prepared for this. As an archer, I'll generally thorn wall the instant the cell pops; with a mage, we can nature strike them right off.

The Goblin Tunnels

Only thing of interest here is that you have to kill the Goblin Shaman before you can hit the Explorer's Bones and free the Haunted Soul.

The Steam Chamber

Beware of invisible enemies. If you see swords and shields floating in the air, you aren't hallucinating—they're “animated”. You have to kill The Animator before the chests appear.

Fetid Halls

The goal is to kill Dr. Noxious. But to get to him, you must pass a long line of toxic waste barrels. It is not possible to do this without activating the Hazmat Containment Unit and getting the Toxin Protection buff. To do that, you must finish its quest—which is to say, clear the rest of the map. There are lots of suited guys with big guns; don't annoy them all at once if you're soloing.

Note: The toxic waste barrels can't be capped here, so each player must activate the Hazmat Containment Unit to get the buff. That means each player must finish the quest.

There's something weird here. If I reenter Fetid Halls, the ! appears over the Hazmat Containment Unit again, but it gives me the option of either taking the quest or just reactivating and getting the buff. If I take the quest again, I have to complete it.