David Hasselhoff's Guide to AMIB Ironmanning: Beatdown Edition

There are two ways to Ironman the AMIBS -

1) Sneaking through the levels all nimbly-bimbly as a thief and stealing keys.
2) Murdering everything that moves.

This guide will focus on the latter.





My Template:

Music | Provocation | Fencing | Tactics | Healing | Anatomy | Magery​

100 STR
100 DEX
25 INT​

Resisting Spells could easily replace Magery. Swordsmanship could easily replace Fencing as well, pick your favorite of the two.




Gear You Should Bring:
Repond Instrument
Silver Instrument
GM Instrument
Vanquishing Weapon of Choice
2-3 Deadly Poisoned Weapons
Invulnerability Armor of Choice
100+ Bandages
~20 Yellow Potions
~10 Red Potions
~10 Orange Potions
A Couple White Potions
Reagents (only if you have Magery)
Telekinesis Scrolls (only if you do not have Magery)
An Emergency Corpse Recovery Bag containing:

• A couple Bandages
• A couple regs
• A GM instrument
• A GM weapon

Strategies for the Boss Enemies:

Pirate Bartender


Found in: Red, Purple, Green
The bartender lobs molotov cocktails from range that do ~30 damage a pop. The bartender has quite a bit of HP and does considerable melee damage, so probably shouldn't be directly engaged. Provoke them into attacking a nearby sailor, then heal that sailor while stabbing the bartender in the back. Healing the sailor will flag you as a criminal, but there's of course no other players around. A blade spirit can keep the bartender occupied for a bit while you try provocation. Keep the heals going in a loop, as the bartender will likely mow through sailors in about 10 seconds or less. If you can't get a provoke to stick, you can try deadly poisoning the bartender and then running away while the poison ticks away, but this can still be dangerous if he tosses a couple molotovs in quick succession.




Pirate Digger:

Found in: Blue, Purple, Green
The digger will occasionally slam his pickaxe into the ground, doing ~20 damage to nearby enemies. The digger is considerably weaker in melee than the other bosses, though, and can be directly engaged in melee - just back off to heal when necessary.




Dread Pirate Captain

Found in: Red, Blue
The dread captain's attacks inflict greater poison, but he is otherwise a wimp. Keep your distance until you can get him provoked and then attempt to keep his target healed.




Pirate Ghost Captain:

Found in: Purple, Green
The ghost captain has magery, which is always a treat. Who doesn't love flamestrikes? The captain will also occasionally summon pirate ghosts to help him. The summons seem to trigger based off of the captain taking melee damage. He can summon up to a maximum of ~12 ghosts to help him. Luckily, the captain has a (relatively) very low barding difficulty and can be provoked onto his own ghosts rather easily. As ghosts continue to pop up, provoke them onto each other. Be careful of provoking too many ghosts onto the captain at once, as this will cause him to summon even more ghosts.




Undead Pirate Captain:

Found in: Purple, Green
The undead captain is similar to the ghost captain - when he takes melee damage, he has a chance to summon undead parrots, sailors, and ghosts to help him. His barding difficulty is quite a bit higher than the ghost captain, but he thankfully doesn't have any magery. Deadly poison does wonders here, as it won't cause him to summon help and he can't cure it. Run up, get him poisoned, and then kite him until the poison runs out. Re-apply, rinse, repeat until dead.



Particularly dangerous areas:
Red AMIB - Kraken Pen

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Three kraken will appear when you get near this area. If they all decide to firebreath you right away, you could get yourself killed in quick fashion. Approach slowly and it shouldn't be a problem.

Red AMIB - Pirate Ship

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This area is packed with a Navigator, a Quartermaster, the Dread Pirate Captain, and several sailors. The Quartermaster is probably the most dangerous of the bunch, so get him provoked right away.

Blue AMIB - Quartermaster on the Bridge

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The blue AMIB features T2A's legendary 'crap terrain' making for plenty of line of sight issues. Dealing with the Quartermaster on the bridge can be a bit tricky - if you can't get him provoked, lure him back to the entrance, cast Invisibility on yourself, and then continue on.

Purple AMIB - Ravine

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This area is very narrow and has a Digger, a Quartermaster, a Navigator, and a Boatswain. I ended up luring the Quartermaster away from the area and pulled him all the way back to the entrance. Without the Quartermaster around, you should have plenty of time to get the others provoked. If you're feeling particularly ballsy, you can sprint past this area into the cave - the pirates will not follow you in.

Green AMIB - Bartender on Deck

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Though not pictured above, this area has a Bartender and a Quartermaster. A flamestrike combo'd with a molotov can put a quick end to your green AMIB run. Try to pull them one at a time and get them provoked onto a weaker pirate.



Miscellaneous Tips:

• Take your time and be careful. You should always have plenty of time, as long as you don't die. I think my fencer actually clears AMIBs faster than my provo-tamer.
• Repond works on all of the 'human' pirates and Silver works on all of the undead pirates. Always make sure you're using the correct slayer instrument or you're gonna have a bad time.
• Things get a lot harder if you die and lose your horse. So don't die and lose your horse. If you do die and lose your horse, you can try dropping an 'emergency corpse recovery' bag near the entrance shrine when you first start to help you recover your corpse later.
• Repond and Silver weapons can speed things up, but any old vanquishing weapon should suffice (I did not have any slayer weapons and it was fine). The problem is never dishing out damage, it's staying alive.
• If you don't have Resist, try popping a white potion before engaging Quartermasters, just so you have that little bit of extra HP and can survive a couple flamestrikes.
• Remember to Telekinesis the chests to trigger their traps. You will feel like a dumbass if you forget. Not that I would know, I've of course never done that...
• Assuming you're riding a horse, and you should be riding a horse, you can cast one blade spirit and still be under the control slot cap. Use it wisely! The ghost captain and the quartermasters should be the only enemies capable of dispelling.
• Remember to check for the spawning rares while you're in there. More info available here.
• If you do die and you can't retrieve your body, you can leave the AMIB and your body will be dumped into Papua with you, as long as your corpse hasn't completely decayed. Note: it may take up to two minutes for the corpse to be dumped into Papua after you leave.
• If you complete them all, congrats! Make sure to PM a staff member in IRC to receive a nifty trophy:

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Other Build Ideas:
I bet a Tamer/Dexxer could ironman these, using a Nightmare to tank. The template would probably need Taming, Animal Lore, and Veterinary in place of Music, Provocation, and Magery. The hardest part would probably be the Ghost Captains, but if you eliminate the ghosts as they are summoned in, it could be slowly done.

Tamer/Bards could maybe pull it off as well, if their Nightmare was ultra-trained and they added E-bolts for damage. I failed when I tried it, due to not enough damage output (pirates take reduced damage from tames).



Essential related reading:
http://uorforum.com/threads/renaissance-blog-ancient-soss.1709/
http://uorforum.com/threads/ancient-mib-sos-ironman-guide.1716/


MUCH thanks to Deacon, as many of these tips are his!

Great guide!

I was able to use this template with Archery as my weapon of choice, and complete all 4.

I had a silver and a repond instrumet, though I don't think those are terribly necessary. I also had a silver xbow of force, so the undead in purple and green went down quickly. Did not have a repond bow, but it wasn't needed. I think the closest I got to incompletion was the red AMIB, which was largely because those darn krakens kept spawning in the pit. On the plus side, they can be provoked with 100% success against each other, and pirates, with a GM instrument. I was VERY cautious on this one as it was my first, and two krakens can really ruin your day if they get spells/breath in sync.

The heal-the-enemy trick was great, especially for the humans. If I had a repond bow, force through vanq, I probably wouldn't have needed it. For example, against the undead, I'd just provoke one thing at a time on the bosses, and by the time they ran out of spawns they were near death from my steady xbow bolts. But without such massive damage dealing, it was necessary to help the pirates live against their bosses a bit longer

Great guide Basoosh! I really appreciate all of your guidance and assistance.

Bookmarked!

this should get a sticky so it doesn't get lost

just a suggestion

great guide basoosh

Thanks!

Awesome guide! I used a provo/disco archer to complete all the events. The only problem I had was that I forgot to restock between blue and green and I ran out of bolts by the time I got to the last captain. Luckily I was able to kill him with 2 bolts left to my name (including bolts already bought from the vendors inside).

Time to page the big man for a pegasus.

nice cynic how many tries before u won each or did ya win first go

Technically, first go all around.

I had to do red twice because I missed a plat in one of the chests.

What about archery as the weapon skill or are the poisoned weapons necessary?

I use an archer and it works wonders, it's just slow.

Poisoned weapons are not important, it's actually in my experience that most of the harder pirates are immune to poison anyway.

Thanks now I need to get to work on my fisherman.

Archery is fine, assuming you use a bow or crossbow (they are very similar in speed and damage). Heavy xbows, even of repond or silver, are really slow in terms of damage per second.

If you have a nice slayer weapon, especially a bow or crossbow which can't be repaired, it's worth considering buying some fortification powder for it. It costs around 20,000 gp to fortify a weapon up to 255/255, and once that's done you can bring one jar of powder and apply halfway through the iron man run. That will ensure you're doing max damage the whole time, and get you out of the event sooner. Frankly it probably pays for itself, given the time it saves.

only question i have how you get loot out without being overweighted? lol

You're permitted two control slots - use the second one on a packhorse.

sonofabitchIdidnotthinkofthis

Only two control slots, not the usual 8? Does that mean dragons cannot go into the instances as they take up 3 slots each?

Also, if I bring an alt into the instance to help pack out loot can I still get the ironman trophy, assuming he deals 0 damage?

You won't receive credit as an ironman if you use more than 2 control slots.

but you can use dragons if your going in with a party of people
its only solo that you are allowed 2 control slots (horse,packhorse)or if your feeling not so horse inclined you can do (packhorse,Bladespirit) to help kill the mobs(only the non-magic kind though)

EDIT: Blue AMIB Intel
Once you cross the bridge and enter that stone building, you fall into a basement full of archers and mages that light you up like the 4th of july. You cannot go back through the door you just came from (because you fall below it for some random and unsuspecting reason) and if you run upstairs you will find even more death. I could not get past this point with a provo/melee character... fun stuff.