User:Ricewind/Sandbox2
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This content is part of the Atlas of Discovery Expansion.
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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:
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Tortoise 
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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:
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- 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
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.
- Get the
Barrier Touch Gem and 
Lesser Summoning Amulet from 
Blind Ghost.
- Optionally kill 100 of these for the Township task.
- Make a Ring of Barrier Touch and equip it.
- Get a
Sapping Barrier Gem and 
Barrier Sapping Gloves from 
Vampiric Bat.
- Optionally kill 100 of these for the Township task.
Golem Territory
Requirements:
- All items obtained in the previous section.
- Find
Ancient Stone Tablet
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Recommended
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
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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.
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- Find
Torn Scrolls
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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.
Upgrading to (B)
Requirements
- All of the requirements mentioned above.
Aeris god armour
Scaled Shield
Pure Crystal Crossbow
Emerald Bolts- Draining Barrier Gem
Recommended
The pure crystal crossbow might seem an odd choice for a level 60 Crossbow, but in terms of damage, is usually beats out all other crossbows available in the base game.
From this point onwards, the combat starts becoming a lot more serious. The goal in this section is to get to the Cult Grounds dungeon as fast as possible. Although it can be accessed earlier, the Trickery Temple has some enemies dealing reflect damage, and worse, base their max hit on the player's max hit. This means hard hitting weapons like a crossbow with Jadestone Bolts cannot be used.
Clear the following dungeons once, in order, to unlock Cult Grounds. This will be the place where god armours can efficiently be upgraded into their (B) counterparts.
Golem Territory
Req: Find Old Route Chart
Unholy Forest
Req: Find Torn Scrolls
Trickery Temple
Req: 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
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