Totemic Armor (Green)

[shuttlesworth]

I just completed all of the totemic armor quests on green, getting most of the pieces solo. The wiki was an invaluable guide (https://wiki.project1999.com/Totemic_Armor_Quests), but there are a few gaps/inaccuracies in the summaries there. In this thread I'll be posting some notes from my own experiences tracking down all of the various pieces, starting with the totemic helm (probably the hardest piece to get, and the most valuable).

Totemic Helm

The helm requires ground dufrenite, a banded helm (must be medium), an ogreskin chamois, and a glacier bear pelt.

The ogreskin chamois drops of a lizard page in Cazic Thule. The easiest way to get this solo is to camp the well that drops down to the gator pit (No. 8 on the Cazic Thule courtyard map, https://wiki.project1999.com/File:Ctcydetail.jpg). Two lizardmen spawn in the well room - generally, either a defender, sentinel, or page. This camp is pretty easy to split by rooting one in the well room, pulling the other back into the hallway, root rotting the one in the hall, and then re-rooting the one in the well room as necessary. You can do this at about level 25, although it's easier if you wait till 26-27. If you're too low on mana after killing the first one, you can root the other one and zone before the root drops. Then zone back in and kill the second one, and you have the camp split. There are zero roamers in this area, so it's very safe to camp (and it's a good solo exp camp in its own right).

The glacier bear pelt was the single hardest item to get for the totemic armor quests (with grizzleknot bark a somewhat distant second). The glacier bear spawns in the Everfrost caves and is on a respawn timer of almost exactly 7 hours and 20 minutes - the difference may be a few seconds either way. His placeholder is a single ice bone skeleton (there are not two placeholders, as the wiki suggests), on the same timer. As far as I can tell, both the bear and the PH spawn in the exact same location each time: just north of the intersection that takes you to Solun McMoor, at about +5100, -3900 (#1 on the map below). From there, the PH/bear paths to #2 on the map below, and then paths back and forth in a U-shape between #2 and #3:

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By far the hardest thing about killing the bear, besides the long wait time and the competition from other campers, is the Lich of Miragul, which paths all over the dungeon. As the wiki indicates, the lich can see through invisible and has a truly incredible aggro range - maybe the largest I've encountered in the game. Basically, if he can see you, he will aggro, and you will likely die if you don't gate quickly. The lich can apparently also see through "invisibility vs. undead" spells (although I have just heard this - I have not verified it), so potions of unlife awareness will likely not work.

On the advice of the wiki, I created a level 3 rogue to use as a spotter for the lich and the bear (a lot of other people seem to have done this as well, as there are a lot of low-level corpses in the cave and a lot of slowly moving invisible people with what look like fire beetle eyes equipped). This was pretty good advice: it takes about 10 minutes to level up to level 3, and this could pretty easily save you a death or two. One word of advice here: if you're going to go this route, don't create a barbarian rogue; instead, create a rogue that has at least infravision, as the caves are very dark and barbarians can't see sh*t.

After creating a rogue as a spotter, I noticed that the lich's movements are not random: instead, the lich follows a very specific patrol route around the cave, which I've reproduced below:

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This might be a bit hard to follow, but basically, the lich starts at the intersection just above #4 on the map below, then does a loop around the lower right-hand circuit (stopping briefly in the ice bone room at +4250, -4500), then retraces its steps; but this time, instead of taking a right at the intersection at +4400, -4900, the lich continues straight and then heads north. The lich stops briefly at #3, then turns around and heads down the hallway to Sulon McMoor (#1), but then turns around and paths through the western cave, back down to the crossroads north of #4. The lich then repeats this same loop.

As this map indicates, there is one cave where the lich doesn't enter -- at about +4500, -3600 on the map - and you'll often find other shamans camped there. However, even this cave is not 100% safe: the lich occasionally paths through walls as he completes his circuit, and I've seen him path through the west wall of the cave and attack a shaman who was camping there. The safest place to camp is at #4 on the map, as there's no chance of the lich pathing through a wall there.

The PH seems to spawn about 80% of the time. One easy way to tell whether the bear is up, as the wiki suggests, is to sit at #4 and cast "sense animal." If the bear is there, you will target him. If you don't target him, that means either the PH is up, or nothing is up.

If the PH is up, the best/easiest way to kill it is to use your rogue as a spotter and wait for the lich to path away. The best time to pull the PH is when the lich is on the second loop around the lower right-hand circuit and heads straight (east) from the intersection at +4400, -4900. It takes the lich about 5 minutes to come back into the lower part of the cave, which will give you plenty of time to camp your rogue, log on your shaman (hopefully camped at the southern edge of the cave, and pull the PH back to #4 on the map.

If the bear is up, you might not want to risk logging off your shaman in case someone else comes along and ganks the bear. In this case, one easy way to figure out where the bear is - and whether the lich is nearby - is to cast "vision," a level 19 shaman spell that allows you to see through your target's eyes. Basically no one buys this spell because it's usually worthless, but in at least this one circumstance, vision can be incredibly useful: you don't need to have line of sight for it to work, and it has a huge range - basically if the bear's in the cave and you have him targeted (through sense animal), then vision will hit. You can even toggle between different views (like you can with your character) to see what is on all sides of the bear. When the bear popped for me, I used vision to make sure that the lich wasn't around, then pulled the bear when he was right at the intersection above #4 on the map.

The bear himself is a pretty easy fight for a level 30 shaman (which is what level I was when I fought him). I cast malise to pull him, then just root rotted (note that the bear is immune to frost, which means no DD spells). I don't think I had a single resist the entire fight.

I got the glacier bear pelt on the first drop, and my sense is that it's a pretty common drop (not rare like the wiki suggests).

I'll post additional notes here on the other armor pieces when I have some more time.