HCCO/Guide/13

From Melvor Idle

To start, you should have: IDK!
At the end, you should have: IDK!

This section is very much a work in progress. Details of the meta are still being developed as players explore options beyond idle content. This page will be incrementally updated to document the progress.

This section of the guide is dedicated to aspects of the game that cannot be idled. Everything here requires manual play and thus encompasses some level of risk. At the end of the day, there just aren't enough bonuses available to a Combat Only account to be able to idle all the content in the game. The good news is that with extremely dedicated play, one can seemingly beat the entire game.

Dungeon Gauntlet

The next three dungeons cannot be fully idled, as the bosses' damage outpaces CO survivability. The dungeons either require gear swapping or manual eating. If you are paying attention to the game, none of the mechanics are particularly difficult to deal with, but your account must be babysat in some way.

Lair of the Spider Queen

The Lair of the Spider Queen features a completely unique mechanic where the boss, Spider Queen, has a completely random attack style each time she spawns. The minions in the dungeon also have a similar mechanic as their spawn pattern will be completely random, so expect to face all 3 combat styles in this dungeon. Ranged is preferred for killing minions in the lead up to the boss as Ranged has the lowest overall DR penalty against its weakest style (-25% DR against Melee) compared to something like Melee (which has a -50% DR penalty against Magic enemies). The boss can comfortably be dispatched with appropriate late game gear (needed to out-dps her healing) and the corresponding style, so the main difficulty of this dungeon is simply being present when the boss spawns in order to switch to the correct gear loadout.

Suicide Method

Here we detail a semi-idle method that involves a 67% chance of death, but has enough flexibility to allow the player to use Protect Item, meaning there is no risk of losing any items on death. It goes without saying that this method obviously cannot be used by HCCOs and is for MCCOs only.

This setup can idle the whole dungeon up until the boss with no issues. We choose to use Ranged as the combat penalty for using the incorrect style is higher with Melee and runes for Magic take too much time to gather, making Ranged the best style for fighting a variety of monsters. Since the boss, Spider Queen, has a 33% chance of spawning as Magic based, there is a 1/3 chance you will be able to idle this boss with the above setup (note that using anything other than the BiS setup will result in drastically reduced kills/hr due to compounding effect of low DPS vs healing monsters). If she spawns as Melee or even Ranged, she will kill you if you are idle. If you are paying attention you can easily eat or switch gear setups to obtain the corresponding triangle bonus, but if you are idling then you will simply die and have to re-attempt the dungeon. Each clear takes on average about 12-15 minutes, so check back after that period to see if you were successful with your attempt. It is also worth noting that while Shield of Ranged Power is faster for clearing trash mobs leading up to the boss, Gauntlets of Rage are better in the prolonged fight with the boss.

IMPORTANT: note that after each death, your HP will be reset to 20% and your prayers will be disabled. After each death you must eat and re-enable your Protect Item (and Holy Aegis) prayers or you will be at risk of losing your items on your next attempt.

Cursed Forest

Necromancer Palace

Afflicted City

The main upgrades from this location are Decay Bolts from Cockatrice, various potions such as Hinder Potion III from Plague Doctor and the extremely powerful Gauntlets of Rage from Goliath Werewolf. The rest of the drops are largely irrelevant and are only for completionist.

Plague Doctor

We opt to use Protect from Magic to mitigate the affliction debuff that Plague Doctor applies, which can lead to a chance of death if enough stacks accumulate.

In the late game, one can expect to need about 5k-10k of almost all of the potions dropped by this monster, so expect to farm for awhile.

Cockatrice

Decay Bolts are a best-in-slot upgrade for both Magic and Melee but not necessarily for Ranged, strangely enough. The game currently has a bugged interaction where the decay effect from the bolts activates regardless of whether the bolt is used or consumed. The high rate at which bolts are consumed and the slow rate at which bolts are farmed from Cockatrice means that these bolts won't really be used much for Ranged directly, so only a handful are needed for now. This is until the very endgame where several weeks must be spent gathering ammo. You only need to equip 1 Decay Bolt to activate the effect.

Goliath Werewolf

The item we are after from this monster are the Gauntlets of Rage. These items feature a hefty -3% DR, which when combined with the 8% DR (or more) sacrificed compared to typical gloves, this item overall has a huge -11% relative DR bonus. So why is this item considered useful? Well, both of the above negatives can simply be ignored by equipping the item in the passive slot instead of the glove slot. The opportunity cost paid for this slot is generally a DPS comparison (compared to the three power shields), rather than a survivability comparison.

In situations where survivability is needed, Guardian Amulet will still be the go-to item, but for situations when DPS is needed, Gauntlets of Rage will be used for longer fights (as the effect needs to ramp up) such as boss fights, and one of the three power shields will most likely be used otherwise for shorter fights. There will rarely be a situation where these gloves will be worn in the actual glove slot, as situations where the -11% relative DR penalty isn't a factor are also situations where the fight will not be long enough to allow the glove effect to ramp up enough.

As these gloves work for all three styles, consider grabbing up to 3 sets for future convenience.

As Goliath Werewolf has the rage effect himself and can stun, this fight can be quite dangerous. This is why we opt to use Ocean Song with Earth Layered Shield over Lightning Coil 2H Staff for the extra DR, on top of both DR prayers.

Golden Cloud Mountains

Millennium Gate

Throne of the Herald

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