The Hollowshade War, made *easy*

[Kuraan Rak`Shir]

Here is my post from the Innoruuk server Marketplace forum. I'm just going to copy paste. Someone please sticky this, as it contains a lot of current and pertinent information.

I'm frequently in Hollowshade working the war around. I've got a strong handle on how to spawn the various mobs, so if you're needing help, send a tell. For the sake of those that are on when I'm not, here's a brief run-through.

Assuming the zone is freshly reset, and all mobs are in their rightful places, this is the surest way to get the chosen race a headstart.

To spawn owlbears, kill the named grimlings/defenders in the south.
To spawn grimlings, kill the named wolves/defenders in the east.
To spawn wolves, kill the named owlbears/defenders in the north.

Doing any of these will get your team a 1 camp headstart, and will put them only 1 camp away from taking over.

From here, it's easiest to get the owlbears to win, as they are aggressive by nature, so it seems. It's hardest to get the wolves to win; they get invaded a lot.

:arrow: The best way to get your chosen team to win is to have a 3-4 man squad, with at least one root capable caster. Make sure that any invading parties from opposing teams are exterminated as quickly as possible. To ensure that your team takes the camp they intend to attack, go ahead of them (they only walk) and wipe out the defenders that have spawned out front.

:arrow: Once you get your team to take over the entire zone, a named *boss* of that race will spawn in the fort near Shar Vahl. Now, it's very hard to resist killing this named, because they frequently drop awesome loot. Remember that if you get this named to spawn, you can farm your chosen team at your leisure. Simply kill the named to reset the zone and start the process anew.

I was soloing this war as a 49 Beastlord with ease. Just don't get ahead of yourself and this is very easy. Everything but the named in the fort will be green to 49, (exception: Scarflank, named sonic wolf in the south. He's Lblue on occasion) the named being Dblue or so til about 52.

There you have it. The beginner's guide to the Hollowshade War. I'm still looking for all pieces of the claws but the Toughened Sinew Lashings, so if you can help, please send a tell. I'm on nightly after about 10pm CST or so. Best of luck!

Kuraan Rak`Shir
51st Primalist of Shar Vahl
Innoruuk Server

EDIT:

Upon reading back through this post, I realized that I left a few pieces of key information out. Here's the other stuff I think you should know.

:arrow: The "invaders" I referred to are indifferent conning members of the race going on an attack. These spawn shortly after the named leader of a cave/camp is killed and another race senses weakness. These spawn and walk across the zone to the weakened camp. Outside the weakened camp, defenders (3-5) will spawn. These are perma-rooted and will summon. If these are left alive, they will do battle with the invaders, and there is a 50/50 chance that they will survive and win. Killing these defenders ensures that the invading party will take over the camp, spawning their race inside.

Other tidbits:

:arrow: Grimlings are by far the toughest race to do frequent battle with. They come in 3 flavors: Wizard, Shaman, and Warrior. All 3 varieties hit hard, and the 2 caster types cast hard. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

:arrow: Sonic wolves are the next toughest. They come in hard hitting Warrior packages most frequently. In the south camp however, "sonic stalkers" spawn inside the tent with Scarflank. These stalkers are Shaman types, and cast accordingly, including up to Healing for higher level members of their race. All sonic wolves "see" invis, as they use "sound waves" to track and kill prey.

:arrow: Owlbears are cake. They don't hit exceptionally hard, but do cast "Screech" which is a magic based short duration stun that does up to 65 DD.

:arrow: The camp in the south is easiest to hold, as all you have to do is go along the south zone wall and set up shop near the hut in the back. Kill the named and the bodyguards (they spawn at the base of the steps).

:arrow: The cave in the north is next easiest to hold, as all you have to kill is the named/PH's, as well as anything that aggros, which seems to be 1 in every 4 or 5 wolves once they're green to you. Simply keep the back 2 rooms in the cave clear, and you shouldn't have any trouble getting another race to attack. When they do, go out front and wipe the defenders.

:arrow: The cave in the east is a @$#%! to hold. It has a very fast respawn time, and anything in the cave will aggro on you. Keep this cave clear, and try to stay aware of what's going on behind you. There is little to no room to maneuver in this cave, so kiting is not an option unless you pull them out of the cave. One very successful method of holding this cave is to have a tank run in and aggro everything, drag it out and have an AE'er wipe the place clean. The best AE class for this is a high level cleric, as your tank is going to take a beating doing this.

[Xirax_Zorin]

Thanks for posting this info - was trying to explain it to a guildie who is starting the process - this helps...

[Cerridanae Nytesoul]

Maybe it's just me, but I was farming for about 6 hours yesterday, and it seems like the war triggers automatically now. There were only 3 people in the zone when I was farming and none of them were killing nameds. It also doesn't seem to spawn grimlings at all anymore, just the wolves and owls switch over every few hours. This is on Fennin Ro, for reference

[OberonMiM]

you are correct. After 1 side goes down the war does trigger automatically. And to make things worse if a side holds 2 or more forts they will automatically loose unless you kill the attackers because "their forces are too thin"

So if you are aeing you might miss the zone annoucnment in the spam and loose the southern island without realizing it.

Whats worse is even when you hear it you dont know which side they are attacking so you have a hard time finding them (the annoucnemnts are kinda vague in that respect)

Since owlbears or wolves never control the south island unless the war has started it makes it a pain to farm them in peace

I wish that the location of the 3 camps would be random (ie sometimes grimlings spawn initiall on on top and owlbears somewhere else etc)

[Lothay]

Stickied by request.

~Lothay

[cattywumpus]

One note for the people doing the Kitty Cloak quests.

There is a huge reduction in the number of MoBs loose and running around. It makes collecting the needed components very slow unless you are capable of goin into the caves and hunting there. Much more dangerous than in the old days when you could camp MoBs near the fort or a zoneline and get what you needed quickly (relatively).

[Kadath]

There's a few more details I put together:

http://www.paullynch.org/Everquest/VSBL/hmwar.html

I hope it's useful to anyone else experimenting with the Hollwshade War.

[Balkin]

BUMP cause I see a lot of people looking for this lately.

Including me.

[Verdandi]

Restickied I'd unstickied since it went a while without any posts. Anyone want to compile everything into something we could put on the site?

[Kadath]

Might as well.... I'll check the article I have and post it here for that purpose.

[Kadath]

This breaks down into a series of posts, size restricted.


The Hollowshade War

Hollowshade Moor has a variety of mobs ranging from levels 10 to 35, with a number of uses. It is a poor hunting zone for levels 14 to 30, close to Shar Vahl; a source for most of the drops required to make the Sonic Wolf Bane weapons, the Officers Cloak and the progressive tailoring quest; and a source for one of the most popular ways of advancing smithing skill through the 200 mark, Shadowscream armor, or the progressive smithing quest. It is also the home of the Hollowshade War, a player controlled event; running the war is the best war of optimising the smithing drops. Since the war event was updated (fixed) in April 2003, this event is fully controllable by a single level 49 character of any pet class (and probably other classes as well). The war can be attempted by lower level characters; a group around level 35 should be able to run it to completion.

Allakhazam's Hollowshade Moor Quest. Check here for details of the drops, at the time of writing, the list of mobs was incomplete.

A number of decent mid range weapons can be found here: a +5 wis 1HB, a 2HB with dot/debuff proc, several piercers, and an average 1HS. There are two haste items; several items with +2 to +5 wis, various levels of int, skill modifiers of +3% for piercing, and +3% and +4% med, and an FT(1) item.

The west side of the zone is an open field with rockhoppers and rhinobeetles, roughly level 10-14. These drop pelts, and various items for the vah shir quests. Across the south end of the zone is a lake with turtles and fish, also with quest drops, and various ground spawns on the island for these quests. South of the lake on the west side, below the entrance to Paludal Caverns, is another area with a slightly higher density of hoppers and beetles - good to hunt in if you need their drops. As well as the common mobs, a named hopper, Dirtchomp, and a named beetle, Gorehorn, can spawn. These are roughly level 25. It is possible that they can be spawned by killing the "aggressive green" beetles and rockhoppers (ie the ones that will aggro even when green cons).

There are three camps: a village on the south wall, occupied by grimlings; a cave to the east, occupied by sonic wolves; and a cave in the NW, occupied by owlbears - as well as a vah shir outpost near the entrance to Shar Vahl in the NW. All of these four points can be occupied at various times and different combinations by the three factions (owlbears, sonic wolves and grimlings). The war is started by players, and continues until one faction holds all three camps, at which point it will take over the outpost. When a named mob in the outpost is killed, the zone resets back to its normal state.

Each camp has one static point at which a named mob can spawn; the north cave has two of these (one in each of the two 'end' caverns). In addition, there are several named mobs that can spawn outside the camps and will wander about their faction areas. Drops are best from the named mob of each group in their home camp, from which ever occupies the north caves, and from the final named mobs that spawns in the outpost. The drops required for smithing are commonest from whichever of the owlbears or wolves holds the southern village - shrieking and wailing substances (wolves and bears), for Shadowscream armor. I should point out that the owlbear smithing drops are also available in Paludal; and the sonic wolf drops in Grimling Forest.

[Kadath]

Running the War

To start the war, just kill the named mob in one of the three camps. That will trigger an invasion from the next camp counter-clockwise, which will be defeated if you don't help the invaders; while the invasion is underway (it lasts for 6 minutes), killing any of the other nameds has no effect. Once one camp has been taken over, invasions are automatically triggered at random every 12 minutes; these are usually, but not always, unresisted. The zone announcement has been adjusted to be reasonably clear if the camp attacked will be defended or not. If the invasion is the one you want, you need once more to kill the defenders, if they spawn; if it isn't, you will have to kill the attackers, which is best done as they start to leave their base. Just one attacker reaching an undefended camp will take it over.

The system seems to be arranged so that all three camps won't be taken by the same group without player intervention, so the team with two camps will always be undefended, and the team with one camp will always defend it. So if a team has one camp, it will always spawn defenders; if it has two it will never spawn defenders. This means that player intervention is required to end the war, as well as to start it.

I have been told that there is some magic system to force the 'correct' invasion to happen; but watching the person who claimed this, the 'wrong' invasion happened three times in a row, so I assume this is false. I have also heard that you can aggro an attacker and pull it into the winning area; I have tried, but I haven't been able to succeed with this. Attackers from the north and east leave from the caves, but attackers from the south spawn on the sandy spur in the lake by the east wall. By waiting for the right group to set out and helping them to win, you can arrange for any combination of two groups in the three camps. The attackers are variously called grimling invaders, furious owlbears, and sonic wolf fiends. They are non-aggro, and slightly easier to kill than the general run, whereas the defenders are harder, and they summon. Grimling invaders have two types, one of which (in the yellow jerseys) is immune to changes in run speed; the other is not. Aggro them, and they will turn to you.

As soon as one group has taken all three camps, the vah shir leg it for the zone accompanied by rain and thunder, and the victors take over the outpost. The named mob that spawns is typically level 35ish (dark blue to 40, light blue to 52), and as soon as it is killed, the zone returns back to normal.

If you want the owlbears to win so that you can try for the FT 1 range item, first kill the grimling chieftain. He summons, and casts a form of snare (called Quicksand). When killed, he only uncommonly has any of his drops - but you'll need to kill his two bodyguards to loot. These three often drop acrylia, as well as the usual grimling drops. At the back of his hut are two spiritists, who will chain heal. Once the three at the front are down, take out the spiritists. As soon as the chief drops (within 30 seconds), the owlbears set out, and five grimling defenders spawn. These summon, backstab, and use Strong Poison on you. Kill the defenders before the furious owlbears arrive, and the owlbears will take over the village. In the chieftains place will be a screechmaw, who drops an owlbear claw earring or a sinew wrapped owlbear ribcage (chest slot).

Next, you will have 18 minutes from the chieftains death, 12 minutes from the owlbears taking over the village, to get to the wolf cave in the east. If the wolves attack the owlbears, five sonic wolf fiends will set out. It is easiest to kill them as they parade outside the cave. Keep on doing this every 12 minutes until the owlbears attack. Then three sonic wolf defenders will spawn; kill these - I think they can summon as well, but it is possible that they don't. Defenders are all perma-rooted. Then race to the outpost.

At the back of the outpost spawns Skriat'Chakku (named owlbear). I target her from the road, then run around the back and cast on her - she warps through the wall onto me, and can be safely killed without interference from the other owlbears. She is immune to changes in run speed. The commonest drop is the owlbear bone club, but both the +5 cha cap and the polished owlbear beak piercer is common. The rare drop is the eye (FT1).

To get the grimling Prince Garzemort, start by killing the sonic wolf cave packleader; for Gnarlik, start with the owlbear denmaster.

This cycle can be over in 25 minutes; at times, it has taken close to 90 minutes if the luck of the random number generator was against me. The same approach, with a different starting point, can result in each of the three groups winning. The boss wolf, Gnarlik, is a reasonably easy kill. The hardest is the grimling Prince, who is extremely magic resistant. He sometimes resists both Splurt and Bond of Death, which are generally never resisted; life taps seemed to always land. Cold nukes always landed for full; I don't know about fire. If left to their own, they can easily kill a level 49 pet, although they are easy solo kills at that level.

[Kadath]

Just for Smithing

The ideal situation to farm smithing drops is if the grimlings are eliminated, and owlbears and sonic wolves swap camps around the zone. If the war is run to completion, leaving one group in control of the outpost, then you will have created a dangerous situation for low level characters entering the zone, and run the risk of someone killing the boss mob for their drops and so reset the zone. If the south village changes ownership between bears and wolves, just start to collect the other drop; keep on until you have as much as you need. When there are only two groups in the zone, the camp ownships will keep on changing, but one group will never win without player intervention. As a matter of courtesy to other players, when you have finished with the zone please run the war to completion and reset the zone; they may want grimling drops just as much as you want smithing drops, and they may be of insufficient level to complete the war.

To eliminate grimlings, start as for the owlbears to win, and kill the grimling chieftain, then his defenders. Owlbears will then own the south camp. Every 12 minutes one of the camps will change ownership; there is no way to you can force a specific camp, such as the south village, to change, but you can prevent a change if you wish, by killing invaders before they reach the camp. If you really want the wolf drop, rather than the owlbear one, just be patient.

Mid Level Raid Plan

If I was intending to do this as a mid-level raid, I'd want at a minimum 2 groups of 35 - 45s, up to four groups, one with a tracker. Station a group at each of the camps, and use the fourth to track named mobs in the middle of the zone, plus track the invaders. If you have two groups, use one to kill the trigger mobs and kill defenders, and the other to intercept invaders. Start by killing the appropriate trigger mob, then have all groups commence killing all the nameds for the next 5 minutes. In the south, you only need kill the chief's hut (2 healers, 2 bodyguards, and the named). In the north, you should be able to walk between many of the mobs without aggroing, although the entries to the two caves with nameds at the back have two guards that are likely to aggro, and the nameds are close to other mobs, and adds are likely, depending on your level. The only way to handle the east cave is to kill in to the named placeholder, and sit tight waiting for respawns. I have seen someone pull the named through the roof of the cave, but I don't know if this is still possible. The east cave is by far the toughest to deal with. Nothing in the zone can see invis, so it may just be possible to invis a group in to kill at the named spawn point; in the east cave, I can pretty much guarantee 2 or possibly 3 adds, depending on timing and exact positioning.

Killing defenders will be tougher at this level, as they are permarooted and summon. If you kill the normal entry guards (bodyguards/guardians) first, you should be able to kill defenders from one end. The grimlings will be the hardest to defeat, but they don't have wanderers pathing through the defenders area.

Keep killing the nameds until you have enough drops, then cycle through a different way. You should be able to get owlbear/sonic wolf claw earrings for everyone, and a variety of other items.

[Kadath]

Named mobs

Village:
grimling chieftain
Scarflank
owlbear screechmaw

East Cave:
sonic packleader/Ghowlik
owlbear fleshrender/Skriat'Chee
grimling tribal leader/Grurn No Eyes

North Cave, Main position:
owlbear denmaster/Skrietat'Chu
sonic wolf/Dreadmaw Wolfkin
grimling guard/Gniktar Grimwit

North Cave, other named:
owlbear fleshrender/Skrietat'Cha
sonic wolf/Fireclaw Wolfkin
grimling guard/Gleeknot Gnitrat

Outpost:
Skriat'Chakku
Gnarlik
Prince Garzemort

Wanderer (North Central, between the two rivers):
Curfang
Gamtoine Cursmakk (not seen personally)
Skrietat'Chet
Wanderer (North Moor, outside owlbear caves):
Prince Skriatat
Warpaw Dankpelt (not seen personally)
Wiknak Grimglom (not seen personally)
Wanderers (West and South Moor)
Gorehorn
Dirtchomp

Sonic Wolf Bane Claws and Garrison Cloak

The sonic wolf bane quest at first sight isn't worth doing; the claws themselves are less powerful than polished steel ulaks, which you can easily get for yourself solo at high twenties, and it involves considerable pain camping mobs in Hollowshade to find the required components, as well as a relatively high level (135) in one of the hardest to train tradeskills, tailoring. However, the end of this series of quests is well worth getting, the Officers Cloak (now Vah Shir beastlord only, unfortunately), and to an extent justifies the time spent on the long camps in Hollowshade.

It is possible to multi-quest to get the Journeymans Cloak, skipping the claws entirely, if you can find someone with the claws already who is willing to MQ With you. You still need drops from the war, but the biggest trouble is over.

See the Sonic Wolf Bane and Cloak quest write ups for details. Note that all of the owlbear and sonic wolf drops only come from the wandering spawns outside the caves, not from inside the caves or the wanderers that leave the caves. Combine these with your stretching dowels to create toughened sinew lashings. Note also that drops for the weapons are very rare (possibly non-existent) if the group in question isn't in its home location. This means that the wolf bane quest conflicts with both smithing farmers and also people who are trying for the rare drops from the outpost bosses.

[Itzena]

One more detail: If one species holds two of the camps and is attacked by the remaining species - defenders will not spawn (and you'll get an zonewide message saying that).

This can make the penultimate stage of the war quite tricky.

And I've found another website about the war.