8th shawl: Is this as crazy as it sounds?

[Canto Wolfheart]

Well the short and sweet of it is I'm a high level with very few high level friends. So short of begging my in game wife's guild to do it for me (which I really don't want to do) I don't have much of a chance of killing all those NPCs that spawn as a part of the 8th shawl event in Iceclad.

I'm a 62 druid and she's a 60 cleric. My best understanding is that this happens: I hand in the correct pieces to the general and he starts walking towards the gnome pirate camp on the northmost island. At a few points along the way, he is ambushed by giants or wolves. It is my job to keep him alive along the way.

My crazy plan is to simply aggro all the mobs faster than they can kill the general, and just keep them on the run the whole time the general strolls around where he has to. I realize that some of the mobs are immune to root and snare (but not fear I'm hoping?) and this may be a difficult task. But assuming I am crazy enough to try, and I manage to keep the mobs mad at me rather than the general, this will eventually end up with him walking his path and spawning the avatar that I have to hand my 7th shawl into to get the 8th correct? At that point I would probably be bound there ahead of time, and just train all the bad mobs away, die, and perhaps have my shawl laying there on a ready made corpse to hold it.

Should I still worry about aggroing and memblurring the general? Thanks in advance for your advice. I'll probably try it either way, but if there's any pointers you think might give me an edge, I'd love to hear them.

[tatanka7th]

I think it would be less effort to just ask some peeps for help. There are some nice drops from the quest mobs, that can be randomed off to those that help. That should be enough incentive to get some people to help you!

Tat

[Zallarenya]

At the very least, you're quite likely going to need to pull the general out from under the ice before he gets to the last island. It seems that more likely than not he gets stuck under there and requires someone to aggro him and then memblur him.

One other thing to consider while doing this is you're going to be endangering everyone else who happens to be hunting or travelling through the zone. I'd say this is the number one reason NOT to try your tactic. Yes, if you fail, it would ruin your day, but don't ruin someone else's in the process.

I've seen unkilled wolves stay in the zone, killing lowbies, so it might be that all of these mobs will not despawn and need to be killed.

If you really have no one you can ask to help, I have two suggestions:

1. On many servers, it's common to "sell" the quest's spawning of the Dain in Icewell, in return getting that guild's escort through Iceclad. Many guilds seek loot/faction from the Dain, and if they can kill him, the war in Iceclad is a piece of cake and doesn't require much time.

2. Host an open raid. Post on your server's message board asking for help, or recruit in /ooc or /shout in zones populated by folks of the level to help. Give them a shot at the loot that drops from the battles.

[Pootle]

Having done the 8th a long time ago, I would have to say you are doomed.

You may be able to agro all of the pops at the first wave, and pull them away (at this point i am not sure, but the dwarf may wait till this wave is killed before moving off) in which case all is lost.

If he does move on while you kite the forst 4 (5?) mobs, you are still going to have to be close to the Dwarf ready for the 2nd wave spawn. Remembering that 4 mobs are after your blood, and hanging around near the dwarf... again you are gonan get yourself and the dwarf killed.

Sorry to say this, but i do not belive that anyone has any chance at doing the quest this way.

[Ilona]

You're much better asking some people for help. The trek across iceclad does not take that long, and can be a nice change for those high lvl people used to spending hours upon hours on raids.

A few nice items drop that they can lotto between themselves.

Post on your server-specific messageboard here, and ask in your server's tradeskill channel. I know many tradeskillers will help each other with tasks like these, after all, most have all ready been there, done that - or will want to themselves soon.

Good luck!

[Azhdarkhos]

You also have to remember that not only do the giants/wolves aggro on the general, the general aggros on them, too. First wave, you are very likely to end up with a pack of mobs chasing you with the general chasing and attacking one of them from behind until he gets aggro on that mab away from you.

And, most importantly, do you *really* want to risk all the work that went into making the armor set on this scheme (not to mention the need to wait for the Dain to respawn to get another box if you fail - you can't use your shawl to spawn him again after the first time)?

[Chenier]

I think that even if you could get the aggro of all the ambushing mobs, it wouldn't work because 1) they spawn around the general and aggro on him and 2) the general aggro's on them - he doesn't just keep walking.

Being that his pathing is screwy enough, you're just inviting more trouble because he would probably follow you and your kite of mobs rather than continue his "normal" path.

I like the idea of trading your Dain spawn for a guild escort. I know that some guilds actually have people redo the shawl quests over and over so that they can spawn the Dain several times in one raid (and why not). If someone on your server is scheduled to do Dain, I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to get two in (two, two, two belts in one!) - and in return, a walk-in-the-park quest to help you with the 8th.

[splunge]

Yah, I concur. Talk to you local uber guilds. They prolly already know about 7th shawl owners being able to spawn the Dain at will.
Trade em a Dain Spawn for 30-45 mins of their time in ICO.

Oh and those claws that proc wandering mind are pretty nifty.

[claver]

If the general does not get agro from the quest giants/wolves it will ruin the quest.

It was posted on the old Eqboards from people that tried pulling the general past the giants using a FD class and memblu itr.....it didn't work.