written by Khaletohep
Overview
The Halloween Quest 2015 takes you into modified versions of the Tarantia Common District, the Tarantia Noble District and the Catacombs. You’ll face diseased, zombie like citizens and Nemedian soliders.
A straight run without any resetting to get rare bosses takes about 25 minutes. The scenario is broken into three parts; after each scenario you can take a break and continue later on by talking to Hadrathus.
The scenario zones can be entered with a group other players, but can also easily done alone, too.
The scenario features one quest and two achievements,
- one for finding a total of nine special loot bags and
- one for killing a total of three rare bosses.
If you complete both achievements, you’ll get a special social armor.
This guide aims to get you through the whole scenario, getting all loot and achievements in one run. If you are not interested in the achievement, you can skip everything about loot bags and rare bosses.
The rare bosses seem to have a spawn chance of about 1 in 3.
I’ve made a video with a “perfect” run of the scenario, perfect meaning with all three rare bosses. It can be seen here:
The video is especially helpful to find the rare loot bags. It is not meant to be an example of how to play a conqueror, I pretty much suck at that class and was fighting with crashes, bad ping and constant interruptions during the filming.
Loot and Rewards
As a quest reward and random loot, you can get
- Halloween PvE Candy, which gives +50% XP for 1 hour,
- Halloween PvP Candy, which gives +50% XP for 1 hour,
- Halloween AA Candy, which gives +50% AA XP for 1 hour.
Rare loot bags and boss loot can also include
- Tainted Meat, which gives 25k AA XP.
As a quest reward, you get
- 1x Halloween Candy of each kind,
and can choose between - Rosary of Barbaric Memorabilia, a social amulet with several small animal skulls,
- Nemedian Abacus, another social amulet with a mummified hand,
- Hood of the Hallowed Name, a social cloak with a unique, cowl like appearance and
- 1x Tainted meat.
The first time you complete the quest, you also get
- two Gilding Tokens.
If you complete all the achievements, you’ll also get
- 110 achievement points,
- the titel “Hand of Asura” and
- 1x Shawl of Asuran Wrath, a social chest armor looking like a black tunic. It looks similar to the Red Hand Tunic, but with a white skull instead of a read one, and can be worn with trousers.
The Shawl and Hood can be seen in the video at 22 minutes 24 seconds.
Starting the Quest
The quest starts at a NPC called Hadrathus in Old Tarantia, near the entrance to the Common District.
The quest is repeatable with a cooldown of 16 hours.
Part I: Tarantia Common District - Night
After starting the quest, you’ll find yourself in the Tarantia Common District. The populace has turned from their normally welcoming and helpful attitude to mindless bloodlust.
Run or fight your way to just before the end of the first street, to a place where a palette and a fountain can be found.
Here, you’ll have to defend yourself against several waves of enemies. Wave may be a bit overdrawn, though, as they spawn pretty slowly, more like a drip than a wave.
Most enemies are pretty straightforward. A special type, though, deverves mentioning, the “Volatile Husk”. These zombie like creatures move close to you, then start a cast, at the end of which they explode. As they do not move during the cast, move away from them before it finishes.
At the end of this encounter, a rare boss can spawn, Porcius the Ghastly, just before you get the quest step to inspect the fountain, shown in the video at 3 minutes 30 seconds.
If he did not spawn, you can reset the instance to get another chance, as follows:
- Delete the quest.
- Teleport out of the district, best to Old Tarantia, Tarantia Common District or Iron Tower.
- Return to Hadrathus and start the quest again.
Update: Yorgomir (#6) has posted another, for some even quicker/easier way to find the rare bosses below. Check it out - it actually works!
Update: Sometimes, bosses aren’t counted correctly for the achievement without any apparent pattern. Best check after each kill and repeat the kill if it wasn’t registered. The second are boss, Valentinus, may be more affected than others, so be extra careful after killing him that the kill actually was registered. Any information on this is welcome!
Update:Boss No 2, Valentinus, not counting, may be caused by not completing the previous quest step at Hadrathus. Worked for me to fix the issue.
After having killed him (or skipped him), inspect the fountain.
Now, we want to collect the rare loot bags, which can be found at coordinates
- 580, 860, at the end of the street, to your right hand side, behind some chests, shown in the video at 4 minutes 00 seconds,
- 664, 890, in the shrine room, to the right hand side, shown in the video at 4 minutes 20 seconds,
- 855, 840, in the guard house, far right corner, besides a smal cupboard, shown in the video at 7 minutes 05 seconds.
After you’ve finished all of your business here, return to the district entrance, talk to Hadrathus and leave the district.
Part II: Tarantia Noble District - Night
After six years of fighting, conan still hasn’t managed to clear the Nemedians out of his front yard. This has enraged the Nobles so much they’re berserking and attack everything in sight (except each other and, for some reason, the Nemedians). Or it may have to do something with the quest (TLDR).
Anyhow, there’re scores of enemies here. Luckily, you can run past most of them.
Advance along the first street until you reach Hadrathus. Talk to him.
A rare boss can spawn across the bridge, in the garden to the left hand side, Valentinus the once Revered, shown in the video at 8 minutes 55 seconds.
If you want to get the Achievement, run there, check if he spawned. If not, you can reset the instance with the following steps:
- DO NOT delete the quest.
- Teleport out of the district, best to Old Tarantia, Tarantia Common District or Iron Tower.
- Return to Hadrathus and continue the quest again, using the talk option “I seem to have lost my way.”
This gets you into a completely fresh instance of the Noble District (Night). The instance can (and should) be resetted as often as needed to spawn Valentinus.
After he has mysteriously died from Cut-Throat-Syndrome, check for the rare loot bags, which can be found at coordinates
- 960, 1190, in the street behind Hadrathus below a tree, shown in the video at 9 minutes 55 seconds,
- 1041, 1171, in the tent where Valentinus can spawn, shown in the video at 9 minutes 20 seconds,
- 1045, 1127, below a tree in the western half of the cemetary, shown in the video at 10 minutes 50 seconds.
Now, skip or fight your way to the Catacomb entrance. Again, waves of enemies will attack. When they’re gone, enter the Catacombs.
Part III: The Catacombs
Scores of Nemedian soldiers have made the mistake to be here at the same time when you come along. This includes regular old melee fighters, HoXes and casters. As they are quite numerous and there are few points to reset them, one actually has to be a bit more careful here.
Clear the whole first floor. You’ll get a key in the right hand section, from some talkative Nemedians.
The first special loot bag can be found here,
- in the room with the talkative / key holding Nemedians, in the far right corner besidnes a table, shown in the video at 16 minutes 30 secounds.
Take the key, open the gate to the lower level.
Here, the second special loot bag waits for us,
- at the bottom of the right hand stairs, shown in the video at 17 minutes 50 seconds.
Climb up the ladder and advance through the catacombs until you reach a throne room - the one where the boss is in the “normal” Catacombs. Here, a rare boss can spawn, called Livius the Lurid, shown in the video at 19 minutes 15 seconds.
If he did not spawn, you can reset the dungeon with the same procedure as with the Noble District:
- DO NOT delete the quest.
- Teleport out of the district, best to Old Tarantia, Tarantia Common District or Iron Tower.
- Return to Hadrathus and continue the quest again, using the talk option “I seem to have lost my way.”
After some more killing, you’ll find a huge room with the final boss. Before attacking him, I advise to get the final loot bag - it is easy to forget once you’ve killed the boss. It can be found
- in the final boss room, opposite the boss, on an alchemy table, shown in the video at 20 minutes 24 seconds.
Kill the boss. He has several special abilities and spawns adds. I just bursted him down, but with some classes and equipment, one might have to pay attention and use the pillars to kite him or avoid his AoE.
After the boss is dead, Hadrathus appears again, gives you a quest reward (see above) and teleports you back to Old Tarantia.
When you’ve completed all the achievements, you’ll now get the aforementioned black tunic.