Blake Steele Excavation

[Officer 1BDI]

Thank [deity of choice] for that walk-through in the forums, because there's no way in hell I was going to try to figure out that horrible maze on my own.

Unfortunately, I came on after staff pulled the battle challengers to fix them, so I haven't had a chance to defeat those two yet and reap the relevant rewards. :[

[Seerow]

So are the challengers just down for right now to fix a glitch or were they limited in quantity? I keep finding different responses on the forums.

I used a guide for the maze, after the long day I've had no way was I sitting around trying to figure that out. Got a couple neat items along the way, I'll probably click around in it tomorrow to see if I can get some more

[Griffin]

The way the battle challengers were apparently released and pulled is creating a lot of confusion for me. I don't like that the opponents are in limited numbers; they could've just made more "first 100 to beat so-and-so" achievements instead of having the opponents disappear altogether after a few hours.

I'm assuming that the Catoblepas and Skeleton Warrior aren't officially out yet, and the few people who mention beating them got them before they were pulled. I could beat them, but I'll be out of town most of tomorrow, so chances are great that they'll be totally gone when I'm back. :/

[Officer 1BDI]

4 of the challengers are back up now. There are still over 3000 left of each, last I checked. You have to beat everyone but the Manitcore 10 times to get all the prizes (for some reason the Manticore's achievement only goes up to 5 wins).

[Alecko]

Decoding the mural pissed me off for the first part, but once I was about halfway through I had most of the common letters memorised and it was fairly fun. I just used the guide in the forums to get through the maze. xD I mis-clicked my first go at around room 40 and I know it would have driven me mad trying to get through on my own.

I've maxed the scorpion and cobra and am at 5 wins on the manticore. I wish I'd upgraded my battle set months ago as of course everything is now inflated as hell. :-/

[Rakumel]

I never even looked at the code in Blake's journal for the ninth puzzle. I just thought, "Oh, cryptogram," and went straight to work. Most of you probably solved it already, but in case you're stuck or need a quick hint or two...look for certain patterns. A single character by itself is almost always "a" or "i". "The", "that", "and", "will", "shall" are also fairly easy to spot. Once you've identified those you're well on your way to solving the whole thing.

The Saheric language looks really pretty, by the way. I wish it were a downloadable font! XD

And oh, happy day! Battle opponents for Valtam that are actually a good match for him!! *cheers* It was a bit of work - my best weapons are the Fireside Bow, the Massaquerade and the Shear Sword, and healing is disabled for these opponents - but I managed to defeat the scorpion and cobra enough times for the achievements and prizes. I wish I could take on the Manticore and the Swarm too, but they're juuuuuust out of reach. Valtam might, might have been able to defeat the Manticore once with weapons that did more damage. But since everything's inflated right now, and I'm pretty sure these opponents are going to be an event-only deal, I guess I'll never know for sure.

But no matter. I'm so very pleased to see some opponents for us mid-range battlers! And a scroll as a prize, too, which was a nice touch. I'm anxious to see what it does once they get it working (I'm assuming the "takes up 9999 Alchemy points" is a glitch...it better be).

[AngharadTy]

Healing works on some opponents. If it didn't work on the Swarm, I probably would never have gotten 10 wins.

The 9999 alchemy points is supposedly an intentional glitch. They'll be made active after the plot is over. *coughSTUPIDcough* But oh well, it's Subeta, what can you expect.

[Cranberry]

I'm not sure, but I'd imagine they want to see how many scrolls are given out before they decide how good to make them. I'd rather wait for stats than have them downgraded later, really.

[AngharadTy]

I suppose so. But balance is just another thing Subeta is often terrible at. Mostly, I don't appreciate getting items that are pre-broken for me. It is not classy.

[Huggles]

Oh. Well then. I'm glad you mentioned that. I haven't battled in a while and I don't think I've ever had enough alchemy points to do much of anything. So, I assumed it was just an old item that I wasn't able to use. I wouldn't have sold it had I known it was new.

Edit: Nevermind. It was on page 2 of my shop. I'd forgotten about the other pages...

[Cranberry]

There are more opponents available now. I've beaten all of them enough times for their achievements except for the last one, the Lady of the West Wind. She steals a LOT and you can't heal against her. I've beaten her four times but can't seem to get that fifth win! I probably need more good scrolls or something, but I'm short on sp.

Edit: Finally got her a fifth time! That took a lot of battles (and a second Cobalt Eternal scroll).

[Griffin]

Turns out I can't beat the Catoblepas or Skeleton Warrior, and certainly not the Harpy. Training for years amounts to jack if you don't have god weapons and I don't exactly have a few hundred millions handy to upgrade my set, so that's that for me (:

[AngharadTy]

I barely got the skeleton warrior 5x. I really want to kill the catoblepas, but I'm having a hard time with it. I got two wins through luck and I'm guessing magic. If I had another healer or two, maybe I could do it, but I spent all my reading drive points on my malice and I only have a phoenix quill. Battling on subeta is just... way too expensive. Ugh.

[Ierosbats]

The Skeleton Warrior was actually easier for me than the Scarabs. The Scarabs had that awful scroll or whatever that blocked basically everything, and my stealer never worked to get rid of it. I got six wins against them, and I don't think I have the patience to try for more. I got to six wins pretty quickly against the Skeleton once I realized it wasn't blocking light, so I could finally use my Infinite again. I stopped at six because battling is boring and annoying, though. I can't beat the Cantaloupemoose at all, sadly. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It has too much freaking HP. I'm not even gonna try the harpy because.... no healing? Hah... noooot so much. Too bad, I like the hood wearable she gives.

[Alecko]

I barely got the skeleton warrior 5x. I really want to kill the catoblepas, but I'm having a hard time with it. I got two wins through luck and I'm guessing magic. If I had another healer or two, maybe I could do it, but I spent all my reading drive points on my malice and I only have a phoenix quill. Battling on subeta is just... way too expensive. Ugh.

I've got a Reviver of the Lion if you (or anybody else) want to borrow it.

I took one look at the new opponents stats and ran away laughing. I gave up on the manticore after my five wins and didn't even bother trying the scarab so I'd have no chance against these ones.