Wizard101 Darkmoor Graveyard Speed Run

Looking for a challenge? We certainly got one with the Darkmoor Graveyard dungeon.  If you’re like most of us, your first run probably included a few potions, several surprises, and less sleep than you were expecting that night.

After effectively demonstrating what NOT to do, a team of us set forth to seeing how efficient we could make our runs.  This guide summarizes the strategies that worked the fastest.

 

 

Team and Gear

This guide assumes you have a storm hitter with either 90%+ damage (although more damage and more pierce is always good).  We’d also suggest that the storm max power pip percentage.  The other wizards can be any school, but will need to have the following spells trained:

• Spirit trap and potent trap
• Elemental trap and potent trap (different wizard than spirit trap)
• Elemental blades and sharpened blade (2 wizards)

With the massive pierce that the enemies have, we found it best to either go full jade with pet resist (except for the hitter!) or not worry about resist and maximize block (typically boots and wand), healing boost (typically robe, athame and ring) and critical (hat and wand) on our gear.  For wizards that will provide healing support when necessary, we suggest the Zeus Robe (20% outgoing heal boost), Cosmic Kris (21%/20% heal) and any ring with 33%+ outgoing heal boost.

Many thanks to Sierra, Valdus, Jason and several Duelists for their help brainstorming and testing the strategies.

Yevgeny “Bob” Nightcreeper

Yavgeny (I call him Bob since I can never remember his name) and his friends like to stun and shield.  We’ve suggested that they see someone about it but they don’t seem to listen.

To make the battle more predictable, we suggest using conviction.  If the wizards using conviction also wear an athame or ring from Diego (lowest ones are available for only 100 tickets), they will have 4 worry-free rounds to do as they please.

Assuming there is no tower shield on Bob by round 3 (a legion shield does not matter), we suggest taking him out with 4 blades on the hitter and 3 feints on him.   If there is a tower shield on Bob, then we suggest casting shatter on him.

Note that a minion may still be alive if it was shielded, so it’s helpful to have a couple of backup tempests.  Also note that you can skip Conviction if you get stunned the first turn, since you are only blading once.

 

RoboShane

As much as it pains me to say it, we’ve found the fastest strategy for Shane is to “shop for first.”  By this, I mean if you are not going first, flee the battle, coming back and try again (and again, and again sometimes).

We’ve found that Shane is typically the biggest threat to wreck a fast run (either massive damage or Glowbugs).  The best way to defend against him is to put storm dispels on him when he has pips and you can’t do it from second (he will take them off with a cheat).

Our strategy is:

• Round 1: Blade the hitter twice, dispel Shane and steal Shane’s blade
• Round 2: cast 2 blades (cast elemental last to protect the others from a Sierens or Levy), dispel Shane if he has 3+ pips (or storm minion with lots of pips if not) and prism
• Hit round: blade hitter 3 times and hit with a colossal Storm Lord or Glowbugs
• If things go wrong (e.g., Sirens or Storm Lord usually): on round 3 you can cast replacement blades, a storm dispel and wand him (not storm or myth) to reset the cheat

If you are  not the hitter and feel like maximizing storm resist, the following gear can give you 97%:

• Hat: Digger’s Mining Helmet (bazaar; 22% storm resist)
• Robe: Pandemonium Platemail (bazaar; 30% storm resist)
• Boots: Shoes of Pain and Fear (crafted from Azteca; 28% storm resist)
• Ring: Signet of the Sand Devil (crafted from Khrysalis; 17% storm resist)

One last note: We haven’t found a foolproof approach for Shane.  So even if you are first, there is still a chance they can wreck it with some big hits.  Hopefully we’ve increased the odds (ever in your favor?).

 

 

 Malistaire

We suggest taking care of Darkmoor Malistaire with a two phased approach.

In Phase I, the objective is to take out the minions as quickly as possible.  The hitter casts Galvanic Field while the others feint the minions.  Blade the hitter on the same turn they cast their hit (storm lord, tempest or glowbugs).  If a storm minions show up or one of the minions gets a shield, you can double feint them (although storm minions have a lot of resist, so we suggest using a regular or mass prism on them).  The hit could be done on turn 2 if everything went perfectly (and the storm has over 90% damage) but turn 3-4 is probably more realistic (it’s important to take them out quickly, so turn 3 is preferred).

If possible, put up a TC Sanctuary early in the battle.  Concentrate on keeping your health up since his hits can do a lot of damage (unicorn works well)

For Phase II, we used a bunch of traps that most of us haven’t seen since Krokotopia.  On the hit turn we blade the hitter 2 times, cast a TC doom and gloom since it is causing Malistaire to come back with “only” 25,000 health, and cast a King Artorius or Glowbug.  When Mr. “I’m not really dead” came back, we repeated (except blading instead of Doom and Gloom) .  The sequence was:

• Stack 2-3 myth / spirit traps and cast a storm prism (ideally in one round)
• Stack storm and elemental traps (1-2 rounds)
• Cast Doom and Gloom, two blades and hit with King Artorius
• Rinse and repeat
• Disco

Based on our calculations, we can kill the first Malistaire with 7 traps if both the spirit and storm traps are potent, assuming the hitter has Galvanic Field and 2 blades.  Otherwise 8+ traps should be enough.

For the second hit, assuming his health is 25K and you have Galvanic Field and 3 blades, you actually only need one trap if the dragon puts the 100% hex on him.  Otherwise 4+ traps should be enough.

We carried a few reshuffles but have not had to use them often with the smaller decks.  A myth wizard can be helpful, as you can swap out a myth trap for a spirit trap (myth rocks!).

How did your runs go?
Let us know in the comments!

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