User:Ricewind/AoDCombat

This content is part of the Atlas of Discovery Expansion.

This guide is a WIP and may not be accurate nor complete!

The following guide takes the player through the combat of the Atlas of Discovery Expansion with as little effort as possible. This guide is targeted at people who have either completed or nearly completed the base game.

Every enemy in this expansion has a Barrier health bar as well as a regular health bar. Enemies cannot be damaged in anyway until the barrier is entirely removed. Only familiars are able to damage the barrier.

Two-handed weapons are strongly recommended during the entire combat section, unless the alternative is required for Damage Reduction or the alternative simply does more damage. This is because the familiar's hit-chance is based on the player's hit chance.

Since the combat portion is heavily focused on using familiars the following requirements are a prerequisite:

• Level 90
• Tortoise Dragon

Because the combat mechanics in this expansion are rather complex, and minor changes in enemy, equipment and player stats can make specific items better or worse it is always recommended to use the Combat Simulator to verify how to get the most kills per hour or drops per hour.

The minimal and recommended requirements for every individual section is listed within the sections below.

Preparing for combat

Required:

• Level 6
• Level 5
• Find Torn Chart

Recommended

• Old Summoning Amulet
• Ring of Summoning or Aorpheat's Signet Ring
• Necromancer outfit

Unlock the Ancient Market digsite and upgrade the map to perfect. It's heavily encouraged to also refine the map and get the +1 artifact bonus. Although it is possible to reduce the Tiny Artefact weight by 10, this generally isn't required as not that many barrier gems are needed for the entire combat portion.

From this the Ancient Market, collect a whole bunch of barrier gems. These are needed to make Tortoise familiars. These are a must have for all the combat in this expansion. Depending on how many tablets you can make at once, and the preservation chance, more barrier gems should be obtained. 1,000 - 5,000 gems is a good number to aim for, depending on the previous factors.

Make Tortoise tablets and an equal amount of Dragon tablets. If possible use the Necromancer outfit, Old Summoning Amulet and the Signet Ring for more tablet output. Equip both the Tortoise and Dragon tablets. These will be used throughout the expansion!

Entry barrier equipment

Requirements:

• Discover The Eye-Conic Cave
• Any combat equipment.

Recommended

• Old Summoning Amulet

This portion of the guide aims at getting the very entry barrier equipment items, outside of the familiars of course. Gear doesn't matter much at this point, prefer melee because it doesn't use resources. Use the melee weapon that provides the highest hit-chance.

1. Get the Barrier Touch Gem and Lesser Summoning Amulet from Blind Ghost.
   1. Optionally kill 100 of these for the Township task.
2. Make a Ring of Barrier Touch and equip it.
3. Get a Sapping Barrier Gem and Barrier Sapping Gloves from Vampiric Bat.
   1. Optionally kill 100 of these for the Township task.

Golem Territory

Requirements:

• All items obtained in the previous section.
• Find Ancient Stone Tablet
  • Level 35
  • Level 24

Recommended

• Summoning Skillcape or Maximum Skillcape
• Pure Crystal 2H Axe

For this dungeon, we still do not require any specific (B) armour. Use the familiars made earlier and let them do most of the work. Make sure whatever equipment you are wearing doesn't result in death, and whatever weapon you are using should once again provide the highest hit-chance that you can find. Melee again works fine for this dungeon, as it doesn't consume runes or ammunition.

Optionally, a Summoning or Maximum Skillcape can be worn to save some familiar tablets, but is by no means required.

Run this dungeon until you have obtained 10 Draining Barrier Gem to upgrade your gloves into Barrier Draining Gloves. The Township Task associated with this dungeon will also provide 3 gems.

All other items/loot received from this dungeon can be ignored. Do not use the familiar weapons. Unless the player is using very inaccurate and/or low level weapons, these will result in significantly lower clears per hour.

Dungeon Rush

The goal of this section is to unlock the Cult Grounds dungeon as fast as possible. The following two dungeons have to be completed once in order to unlock Cult Grounds. Starting from Trickery Temple the combat difficulty starts ramping up quite a bit!

Unholy Forest

Requirements

• All items obtained in the previous section.
• Complete Golem Territory
• Find Old Route Chart
  • Level 65
  • Level 80

This dungeon can be completed by ease, by using the same equipment as the previous dungeon. For instance, Ancient Armour will be more than enough to clear this dungeon. Just make sure you have enough damage reduction (combined with hitpoints) to survive the dungeon once. Melee is recommended to benefit from the combat triangle.

Trickery Temple

Requirements

• All items obtained in the previous section.
• Complete Unholy Forest
• Find Torn Scrolls
  • Level 90
  • Level 80

The monsters in the trickery temple deal a lot more damage than previous dungeons. On top of that, the enemies there have a reflect mechanic (where part of the damage the player deals is inflicted back upon the player), and a mechanic where the enemies' max hit is based on the player's max hit. All enemies in this dungeon are also magic-based. It is therefor highly recommended to use the ranged combat style, preferably with javelins or throwing knifes to lower the player's max hit.

Although the Trickery Temple also drops Barrier Exalted Shard and Siphoning Barrier Gem, due to the reflect and max hit mechanic, the Cult Grounds dungeon is prefered, as the player can focus much more on dealing damage, rather than having to deal with the max hit mechanic instead.

Even with throwing knifes the reflect and enemy max hit still become very high. Always make sure to use the combat simulator beforehand to ensure you are not going to die! Alternatively, you can also do one clear by manual eating.

Slot	Item (most effective → least effective)
	Aeris God Helmet
	Aeris God Platebody
	Aeris God Platelegs
	Aeris God Boots
	Throwing Power Gloves	Barrier Draining Gloves	Aeris God Gloves
	Maximum Skillcape	Ranged Skillcape	Cape of Ranged Preservation
	Lesser Summoning Amulet
	Deadeye Ring	Barrier Eroding Ring
	Ancient Throwing Knife
	Scaled Shield
	Old Summoning Amulet
	Ranged Hinder Scroll

Upgrading to (B)

This section is about clearing and effectively farming the Cult Grounds dungeon and the Cult Imp for Barrier Dust. The player can progressively upgrade their Aeris God armour pieces to increase the kills per hour with every item upgrade.

Requirements

• All of the requirements mentioned above.
• Complete Trickery Temple
• Find Lost Cursed Text

Upgrading to (B)

Req: Aeris etc.

Cult ground gives gems and shards to upgrade Aeris. Upgrade one piece at a time as soon as you can to drastically speed up clear times.

Req: Melee gear. Rec: Ragnar, big ron Cult grounds also unlocks Cult Imps which are efficient sources of a lot of Barrier Dust.

Melantis?

This area is a big brick wall unless the player has already met the pre-requisites. These monsters deal very high damage and therefor require a lot of damage reduction gear and bonusses. This area also requires Level 118 and a series of items.

> List all requirements to even enter Underwater Ruins

Underwater Ruins

Player has a choice of killing (Mermaid Archer > Merman > Merman Guard) for very good weapon upgrades, unless the player already has better TotH gear.

UGS is recommended for Archer farm.

Alternatively, the player can do manual Underwater City for (B) armour upgrades.

Finishing up

Player now has access to crystal behemoths for task + upgrade material for Arch / Carto Underwater Ruins drops BiS gloves, Shield upgrade, task access