Deck the Halls: A Guide to Castle DarkMoor's Upper Halls

[Katherine_Light]

This is the Mercenaries101 guide to the Upper Halls, the secind dungeon in Darkmoor.
For our guide on the first dungeon, Castle Darkmoor, click here.
For our guide on the third and final dungeon, The Graveyard, click here.

Upon completing the first Castle Darkmoor instance, you gain access to the Upper Halls, where you will fight your way through passageways, stairwells, and upper chambers in order to clear the path to Malistaire!



The Upper Halls begin in a simple hallway, with mobs protecting the way past them to their boss. Note: on test realm this fight was optional. On live it is not. It will pull the first person who comes near them in the hallway, so be careful not to get too close if you don't want to be first in the battle.

Following this area, you enter a second hallway where you will meet Ahktang Warcrawl, a draconian with a vendetta.

Ahktang Wormcrawl

Cheats:

• Akhtang has inate pierce of 40%.
• Whenever a charm is cast on a player or himself (including pet blades and spells with charms as after effects), Akhtang will cast a steal charm spell to grab it for himself. I Rip It From You
• If you place a dispel on Akhtang, he will immediately cleanse it.
• The draconian minions may often cast an interrupt insane bolt. These seem to frequently be triggered by treasure cards and pet heals, but the exact trigger hasn't been narrowed down yet. Take This
• The draconian minions will sometimes cast wild bolt on themselves or other enemies, including the boss, which will remove prisms, feints, etc. (No cheat phrase, seems to be random and not in response to a trigger.)

Strategy:
Buff up your hammer for a one hit kill as usual. Use traps to buff, and focus on auras, elemental/spirit blades, and bladestorm to minimize the cheat (remember that the fire portion is stolen from elemental and the life portion from spirit blades, and the bladestorm from the balance wizard who played it; this can add a LOT of extra power to the boss' attacks). If the boss is getting too powered up, you may want to keep stacking plague and virulent plague in your sideboard to offset some of the extra blades you've passed his way. Alternatively, you can trap first, blade later when the boss is low on pips and less threatening.

Treasure Cards You May Want:

• quench (fire dispel)

Upon defeating Akhtang Wormcrawl, the swinging axes blocking the hallway will stop moving and allow you to pass. Further down this hall you will find draconians waking around in the hallway behind him; thankfully, these enemies are completely avoidable. Hug the outside walls and walk around them to the other side, and enter the next hallway.


This next hall will place you in a stairwell which will lead you even higher into the Castle's tower. Along this stairwell you will find another locked door behind which is hidden... BUNFERATU! Since he's an optional boss that you don't need to complete to finish this dungeon, we've given him his own guide.


At the top of the stairway you will find one last hallway, wherein dwells the Spirit of Darkmoor.

Spirit of Darkmoor

The Spirit of Darkmoor is the unrequited love of Shane von Shane, and he's not willing to let her go... not even in death. Determined to keep her by his side, she is trapped in this castle, bound by dark magic.

Cheats:

• The Spirit of Darkmoor has inate pierce of (approximately) 40%.
• She resists myth, life, and fire.
• Not a cheat, but as an interesting note, the minions in this fight do not cast earthquake. The Spirit of Darkmoor, however, can.
• All single traps (including pet traps, but not including AoE traps like windstorm) will trigger a myth efreet on the person who cast it. The after effects of myth efreet is a trap rather than a weakness. I Shatter Your Chains
• All blades will trigger a bone dragon (sun spell but hits as fire damage) on the person who cast the blade. Burn, Wizard! The ticks of this bone dragon are currently bugged in that they are invisible. It doesn't look like you have any ticks remaining on you, but when the time comes for your turn, you will still take damage from them.
• She has a cheat pattern that cycles every 5 rounds.
  
  • Round 1-5: Myth Cycle
    
    • At the end of every round, she will shatter one player. This Place Defeats Us All
    • At the start of round 5, she will interrupt to cast time of legend, mythspear, mythblade, mystic colossus
    
    
  • Round 5-10: Life Cycle
    
    • At the end of every round, she will cast renegerate on herself. Darkmoor Holds My Spirit
    • At the start of round 10, she will interrupt to cast a life damage bubble, life spear, lifeblade, hungry caterpillar
    
    
  • Round 10-15: Fire Cycle
    
    • At the end of every round she will interrupt to cast link on one player. We Are Connected
    • At the start of round 15, she will interrupt to cast Wyldfire, fire spare, fireblade, Fire From Above.
    
    
  • In each of these school based cheat cycles, she can use power pips from that school. Eg, in rounds 1-4 she can cast an earthquake for 3 power pips.
  
  
• If a minion dies while the Spirit of Darkmoor is still alive, she will leviathan the person who attacked. The leviathan does base 777 damage and will be either myth, life, or fire depending on which cheat cycle she is in at the time. After attacking the player, all enemies will be healed by 777 health points, reviving the minion who was killed. The Depths of Darkmoor Strike at You! This makes it effectively impossible to kill any minion while the boss is still alive. e

Strategy:
Treat the Spirit of Darkmoor as a normal boss, but if you will be buffing frequently with traps you may wish to pack myth shields for yourself. Alternatively, you may wish to put on myth resist gear for this battle.

Trap before you blade. The myth efreet carries a heavy punch, and you want to get that over with so that your healer (or pets) have time to get you back in shape. The last thing you want is to feint on the last round and be surprised to find your head spinning as the boss is killed. In addition, by saving blades for close to the time of the hit, you may avoid many ticks of the cheat fire DoT that you will garner by blading.

If you can't kill all the enemies in on hit, go for the boss first. Trying to kill the minions and then focus on the boss will not work in this battle since we will keep bringing them back after they are killed.

Treasure Cards You May Want:

• none necessary!

Defeating the Spirit of Darkmoor will allow you to ascend into the highest halls of Darkmoor Castle, where you will find Shane von Shane in his library.

Shane von Shane

Though shocked you made it this far, Shane von Shane challenges you to a duel! If he wins, the Spirit of Darkmoor will stay tethered to him in the castle, but if you win, she is free to show you onward, to Malistaire's lair.

Cheats:

• Shane resists death, myth, and life (yes, LIFE), and boosts to storm.
• Shane version 1.0 has 40% pierce.
• at the beginning of round 2, Shane will cast an interrupt vampire on one player.
• at the beginning of round 3, Shane will cast an interrupt Dr. Von's monster on one player.
• beginning on round 4, at the start of every round he will do a Shane's monster attack which attacks and beguiles one random player.
• any time Shane is attacked, he will begin the vampire/Von's/Shane's monster pattern over again, giving you a few more rounds before you have to deal with beguile. This seems to apply only to the initial attack when it is played, and not damage done by a DoT.
• any heal (even a pet heal) will cause Shane to immediately attack the healer with a vampire.
• if a feint is played on Shane, he will hit it off by blading himself with a pact. Other universal traps are fine.

Strategy:
Buff up for a one hit kill on Shane using blades, school specific traps, tri-traps, etc. Hit him regularly with small hits to keep the beguiles (and larger spells like Von's monster) away. Alternatively, you can play hexes and curse on Shane and use strangle to stop his cheat spells. Death shield your healer so that they can freely heal the team without worrying about the damage done my vampire. You can also feint him by death dispelling immediately before playing a feint. I would recommend this only on the last or second to last turn before your hammer hits, or else you may end up hitting off the feint with smaller hits to keep the beguiles at bay.

Treasure Cards You May Want:

• strangle (death dispel)

After defeating Shane von Shane, you are able to release the Spirit of Darkmoor from her unearthly prison and set her free. In gratitude, she leads you to Undead Malistaire's lair in the third and final Darkmoor dungeon, the Graveyard.

[Adventurous]

For Shane, you could also use a single target hit to one shot him to avoid harming your team mates.

As for Nosferabbit, I don't know if there's a way to stop his cheat, but you can beat him before he starts using it. Unless you have extreme amounts of death resist, I recommend you bring at least 3 people to fight him. He starts his cheat at the end of the 3rd round and beginning of the 4th. He will buff himself at the end of turn 3, including a dark pact that removes your feints and other universal traps. Afterwards, he will cast the new shadow death spell at the start of turn 4, and it will do massive damage to everyone. He will repeat this cycle every turn after turn 3.

To beat him, spend every turn before turn 3 casting blades on your hitter and/or traps on Nosferabbit. With 3 or more people and a decently strong hit, this should allow for enough damage to defeat him on turn 3. If you fall short on blades/other boosts, save your feints and universal traps for turn 4. You'll take a lot of damage, but will have an extra round to set up.

Sometimes the minions will cast virulent plague and death dispel. Both of these can hinder your setup. For the Virulent plague, it's not too unlikely that they'll cast more than one. If you spend too much time cleansing them, you may not have enough blades to beat the boss. For this reason, I would recommend simply overpowering the plague with more blades. 2 stacked blades will overpower one -40% weakness. As for the death dispel, I'd recommend more than one person be able to cast feints. There won't be time to dispel it, so if your feints are disabled, you may have to rely on your team mates to do it instead.

Use small, trimmed down decks for this fight. Carry only the spells you need. There won't be time to heal or shield or anything. Dispels won't be very helpful since he cheats with multiple death spells, and you could have used that turn to boost instead of stall. Make sure everyone coordinates their boosts so that they all stack. If you don't have enough stacking boosts, it may be best to just skip the fight. That is, unless a way is found out to prevent his cheat.

[Morgan Mythcaster]

As for Nosferabbit, I don't know if there's a way to stop his cheat, but you can beat him before he starts using it. Unless you have extreme amounts of death resist, I recommend you bring at least 3 people to fight him. He starts his cheat at the end of the 3rd round and beginning of the 4th. He will buff himself at the end of turn 3, including a dark pact that removes your feints and other universal traps. Afterwards, he will cast the new shadow death spell at the start of turn 4, and it will do massive damage to everyone. He will repeat this cycle every turn after turn 3.

To beat him, spend every turn before turn 3 casting blades on your hitter and/or traps on Nosferabbit. With 3 or more people and a decently strong hit, this should allow for enough damage to defeat him on turn 3. If you fall short on blades/other boosts, save your feints and universal traps for turn 4. You'll take a lot of damage, but will have an extra round to set up.

Sometimes the minions will cast virulent plague and death dispel. Both of these can hinder your setup. For the Virulent plague, it's not too unlikely that they'll cast more than one. If you spend too much time cleansing them, you may not have enough blades to beat the boss. For this reason, I would recommend simply overpowering the plague with more blades. 2 stacked blades will overpower one -40% weakness. As for the death dispel, I'd recommend more than one person be able to cast feints. There won't be time to dispel it, so if your feints are disabled, you may have to rely on your team mates to do it instead.

Use small, trimmed down decks for this fight. Carry only the spells you need. There won't be time to heal or shield or anything. Dispels won't be very helpful since he cheats with multiple death spells, and you could have used that turn to boost instead of stall. Make sure everyone coordinates their boosts so that they all stack. If you don't have enough stacking boosts, it may be best to just skip the fight. That is, unless a way is found out to prevent his cheat.

Have the first person cast Strangle and the second cast Sanctuary. Nosferabbit will interrupt to cast Doom and Gloom again but will fizzle. He never makes another attempt. Once you can heal effectively, the fight is a lot easier...even if you miss defeating him by round three

[Katherine_Light]

TY for all the tips on Nosferabbit, guys! Will try out a bunch of different things and see what works best.

Re: taking out Shane with a single target hit to avoid hitting a friend; that does work to avoid hitting anyone who may be beguiled, HOWEVER, if you kill Shane when someone on your team is beguiled, that person will not have technically been on your team when the boss died... which means that they do not get boss drops after the fight. Which really kind of stinks for them. (Ask me how I know, lol.)

[Winterstone]

It appears that Shane's cheat hits are now in a 3 or 4 round cycle.

Round 1 he did nothing.
Round 2 he hit with a Vampire.
Round 3 he hit with a Doctor Von's.
Round 4 he hit with a Shane's Monster.
Round 5 no hit was used (but one of our team members had died from our storm's hit).
Round 6 he hit with a Vampire and died.

I would guess it's now either a 4 round cycle, or the 3 round cycle stops when someone dies. Either way it makes this battle much more manageable than it was before. We're in Part 3 now and I will see if the new Shane follows the same cycle.

[Katherine_Light]

Thanks for the info, Winterstone! They've done a LOT of tweaking to Shane (both versions) this week, so I'm going to give both this dungeon and the Graveyard a thorough testing next week in hopes that they'll update them and make them a little more stable of the weekend.

[Katherine_Light]

Updated! Lots of changes to this one; new cheats for the Spirit of Darkmoor, Shane's beguile being kept away by attacks, the first battle cannot be skipped but the third can, Akhtang's minions occasionally attacking him for what seems like no reason (though that one seems glitchy)... fun dungeon, if a little long at times.

[Neptunick]

Updated! Lots of changes to this one; new cheats for the Spirit of Darkmoor, Shane's beguile being kept away by attacks, the first battle cannot be skipped but the third can, Akhtang's minions occasionally attacking him for what seems like no reason (though that one seems glitchy)... fun dungeon, if a little long at times.

On the Spirit of Darkmoor, we killed the minions but the boss stayed alive. Then she cast an interrupt life leviathan spell which targeted a teammate and then it healed everyone on her team, even her dead minions.

[Katherine_Light]

On the Spirit of Darkmoor, we killed the minions but the boss stayed alive. Then she cast an interrupt life leviathan spell which targeted a teammate and then it healed everyone on her team, even her dead minions.

Woooow TY! I checked the "big" bosses (Blackwater, Shane v 1 and 2, and Mali) for minion recall/resummon/healing, but didn't think to check the mini-bosses and they don't normally do that. GREAT to know, I'll check it out at Ahkteng and Chaney as well now just to be safe. (Already check that at Yevgeny pureply by accident, rofl.)

[Katherine_Light]

I got a direct message saying that the Spirit of Darkmoor healed up all the minions after they were killed in a battle, and then did a different cheat attack. (Sorry if you're reading this, Destiny; I'd give you credit for this as well as Nickopedia info but I'm not sure what your username here on Central is!) I'll be testing this out to find out the exact parameters of the cheat. Thanks to both of you for making me aware of this, finally get some time to get in and check this cheat out today. In the mean time, try to kill them all at once, or take out the boss first! I'll update asap once we get more detailed info.

Edit: The team did some cheat testing this afternoon and I've added the info to the guide.