HCCO/Guide/13

From Melvor Idle
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To start, you should have: IDK!
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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 (or is gated behind a prior requirement that needs 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 remaining dungeons in the game cannot be fully idled, as the bosses' damage outpaces CO survivability. The dungeons either require gear swapping, manual eating or both. If you are paying attention to the game, most of the mechanics aren't particularly difficult to deal with, but your account must be babysat in some way.

Lair of the Spider Queen

The

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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.

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Ranged

is preferred for killing minions in the lead up to the boss as

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Ranged

has the lowest overall DR penalty against its weak style (-25% DR against

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Melee

) compared to something like

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Melee

(which has a -50% DR penalty against

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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. The only rewards from this dungeon are the pet and a new

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Melee

weapon. The pet, Webbie, has an always-useful -0.1s attack speed bonus and is therefore worth grinding out. The sole chest loot from this dungeon is the extremely powerful Royal Toxins Spear, which will be the best

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Melee

weapon available until the very end game. This spear gives better SC income than any other option when used for

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Elite Slayer

, and has better DPS than Ultima Godsword, FrostSpark 1H Sword and Ethereal Greataxe. This item is a hard requirement for

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Golden Cloud Mountains

.

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

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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

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Ranged

as the combat penalty for using the incorrect style is higher with

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Melee

and runes for

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Magic

take too much time to gather, making

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Ranged

the best style for fighting a variety of monsters. Since the boss, Spider Queen, has a 33% chance of spawning as

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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

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Melee

or even

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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

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Protect Item

(and

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Holy Aegis

) prayers or you will be at risk of losing your items on your next attempt.

Afflicted City

The requirement to enter this slayer area is one completion of

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Lair of the Spider Queen

, but luckily all of the monsters within can be safely idled. Even if you want to farm out items from

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Lair of the Spider Queen

, it is recommended to at least pick up Gauntlets of Rage from this area before committing to that grind.

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

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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 10k-15k of most of the potions dropped by this monster, so one will need to return to farm this monster in future. That is why very late game gear considerations are listed for future farming, but the Seccond-in-Slot gear loadout is perfectly capable of farming this monster adequately.

Cockatrice

Decay Bolts are a best-in-slot upgrade for both

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Magic

and

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Melee

but not necessarily for

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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

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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.

Similar to above, Decay Bolts are needed en masse for late game grinds, therefore very late game gear choices are listed for players returning to farm out the 100k Decay Bolts bolts needed for

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Golden Cloud Mountains

and

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Millennium Gate

.

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.

Cursed Forest

This dungeon is locked behind completion of

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Lair of the Spider Queen

, but luckily it can be fully idled. A lot of the items here are useful, as Mask of Madness and Mask of Torment apply very strong debuffs at the start of a fight and each have 13% DR (+1% over other options so far) that can speed up

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Slayer

and dungeon farming. Voodoo Trinket can be used in the passive slot for particular builds, although this is somewhat rare as the rune and opportunity costs are significant.

Like all other dungeon bosses, Lady Darkheart can heal, so one must have enough DPS to break through her healing mechanic. This build relies on stun-chaining with Lightning Coil 2H Staff to prevent her from healing, so the variance in kill times can be quite drastic. One can also speed up the dungeon considerably by swapping out low DPS items (mostly the Guardian Amulet and possibly Wasteful Ring) with higher DPS items (such as Shield of Magic Power [in the passive slot], Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs [to replace the amulet slot] and Burning Madness Ring) which also carry much more stun and status effect chance. The higher DPS builds cannot idle the boss fight or the dungeon mobs and is therefore the fight must be manually handled.

Necromancer Palace

Golden Cloud Mountains

Millennium Gate

Throne of the Herald

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