The Colosseum

Tired of hunting for XP?  Want to test your mettle against the finest monsters Dereth has to offer?  Have a lot of resources to burn?  Then the Colosseum is for you!

Looking for the strategy guide?  Download this file, in word format...

Why Bother?

The Colosseum is a money sink, plain and simple.  You will not make any money from fighting in the Colosseum, so whatever expenses you incur will not be offset by loot.  The farther you want to go, the more expensive it will be.  You also won't earn XP by killing the monsters in the Colosseum.  So why would you want to fight in the Colosseum?  Three answers - XP, titles, and Colosseum coins.  If you manage to beat the Colosseum, the rewards are truly without equal.

The Mechanics

The Colosseum is located west of Yanshi at 11.3S 37.5E.  There are two sections of the Colosseum - the Arena and Boss Fights.  Let's start with the Arena.

To fight in the Arena, you will need as large a fellow as you can gather (ie, 9 high level people).  To begin, find the Ticket Vendor behind and to your right from the drop.  Your fellowship will need one ticket for the whole group.  Tickets cost 5 MMD notes or one rare, although giving a rare is no longer a good idea with the advent of the rare exchanger.  Once you have your ticket, your fellowship should buff up.  You will need practically every damage type (see below), so expect a long buff.  When everyone is ready, have your group leader hand the ticket to the Master Arbitrator, in the middle of the room.  He will lock your fellowship and then your group may enter the Colosseum.  You will have exactly 1 hour from the time you turn your ticket in.

There are a total of 18 rooms in the Arena.  If your entire fellowship is 80+ (which it really ought to be), use the door to the right, to the Advanced Arena, which will allow you to start at room 6.  Each room has four spawn groups (actually each spawn group is made of two spawns that appear in short order).  As soon as you arrive in a room, you will find a bell placed right in the middle of the room.  When you ring it, the first spawn group will appear.  After you have defeated the first group in its entirety, the second spawn group will appear, and so on.  After you kill the fourth group, a door will appear on the north wall.  When  you use it, you will be portalled into the next arena.  Your reward will be based on the last door you use.  When you run out of time, your group will be portalled back to the entry room.  When you return, talk to the Master Arbiter for your reward.

The Arenas

Here is the critical information about each arena.  Note that the rewards listed require you to complete the numbered arena (ie, go through the door after clearing all 4 spawns).  Also note that the XP rewards given are percentages for characters under level 166 and then a static amount for everyone above.  I've rounded the actual XP rewards for arenas 6 and up.  Arena 13 has 3 spawn groups instead of 2 - Virindi/Carenzis, Path of the Blind Lugians, and then two spawns of Ursuins.  Arena 18 has 5 spawn grounds instead of four - 2 groups of Monougas, and then 3 groups of Elite Guardians, coming on groups of 1, 3, and then 6.

Arena Bosses

In addition to the Arenas, there are several Colosseum bosses.  To fight these bosses, you need to use their statues in the hallways behind the drop point in the Colosseum.  There are two subgroups of bosses - password bosses and special bosses.  To fight a password boss, you need to have made it sufficiently far in the Arenas.  These bosses are Stonefists the Golem, Killagurg the Mosswart, Azaxis the Virindi, the Swarm Demon Matron, The Master, and Gladiator Diemos.  Making it through Arena 8 is enough to fight the first four, but you need to have completed the Arenas to fight The Master.  You need to have finished the Arenas 10 times to fight Diemos, plus you must give his statue an Empyrean Golem Stone from the Pet Golem quest.  The special bosses require that you provide a special item to fight each.  To reach the special hallway where the special boss fight statues are, you will need to give the Master Arbiter an egg.  Each of these bosses involves two spawns - one of his minions (monsters of the same species), and then the boss and more minions.  When you defeat the boss, check his corpse and loot one of the champion tokens from its corpse.  A door back to the Colosseum will appear on the north wall after all the spawns are clear.  Be considerate and clean up after yourself!  Hand the token to the Master Arbiter for your reward.  You will receive a title and a special item for each boss.  If you don't want the item, hand it back in for XP.

Note that if you manage to defeat Gladiator Diemos, you will receive a Diemos Statue for your house (casts a spell that adds 45 to your strength for 2 hours) and a token.  That token can be turned in for an augmentation gem or a free level of XP.  With the exception of Diemos, all of the Password Bosses are on a 1 day timer.  Diemos is on a 28 day timer.  I am not sure of the timers on the special bosses.

Coins

In addition to the XP and titles you earn in the Colosseum Arena, you can also earn Colosseum Coins, the currency of the Colosseum Vendor in the main room.  He sells a variety of items, some mundane, some extraordinary, but the only way you can buy them is by trading Colosseum coins.  You earn 1 Colosseum Coin for finishing rooms 13 or 14, 2 coins for room 15, 3 coins for rooms 16 , and 4 coins for room 17 and 18.  What can you buy?  Have a look...

Strategy

If you are serious about beating the Colosseum, then your group needs to have a strategy and follow it to the letter.  Your group also needs to be a proper mix of classes and everyone will need to have the appropriate rares and gear.  The best setup is to have 6 mages, 2 archers, and 1 melee, but you can change that up a bit without ruining your chances.  Don't overload on mages though - you won't be able to clear Arena 8 without non-mage help.

Things everyone needs:

• Enduring Enchantment and at least one Archmage's Endurance augmentation (no drop buffs, one duration extension) - Alternative!  Have all level 8 buffs, which last 90 minutes.
• One offensive skill rare or Graveyard mini-rare (War for mages, weapon skill for other characters)
• Soulbound weapon
• Bludge Render with Mukkir Slayer property (melees without bludge damage should use pierce)
• Armor with real AL - there are hollow monsters!

Mage Necessities:

• Tusker Fists spell and a Bludge Rending Wand - this is an absolute must!
• Shadowfire Wand
• CS/CB Fire, Frost, and Bludge Wands
• Tusker Paw Wand from Dark Bobo
• Olthoi Slayer Wand from Gaerlan (only if your melee D is good or you plan on using a rare)
• Life Magic Rare, Melee D Rare if your melee D isn't very good

Melee/Archer Necessities:

• Lightning and Pierce/Slash Rending Rending weapons
• Fire Rending weapon with an Undead Slayer gem
• Melee D rare for archers with poor melee D

In addition to all of that, your group will need one Magic D rare, given to the mage with the best health and Life Magic skill.

Once you have a properly equipped group, it's time to get started.  I would strongly suggest that if you are running the quest with a new group, you make a couple practice runs through without rares to make sure everyone understands what he is supposed to be doing.  Refer to this guide (thanks to Wulfgar the Quick for compiling it) - it's in Word format so you can easily print it out and refer to it as you go through the arenas.  Here's the abbreviation key and some notes:

1. Each room has 2 groups of creatures, each group spawns twice, and each spawn has 2 sets. In the list below, (a) and (b) represent the two sets of creatures and each will spawn twice unless listed below. It is possible to skip the second set of each spawn if the first spawn is killed quickly; this is vital to being able to make it through in less than an hour.

2. In formations: Spread Out (SO) has one person per section of the octagon around the room.  Mages should cast toward the bell. Archers and melees target monsters not in the line of fire.  Teams (EW) has two groups of people, one group east of the bell and one group west of the bell.  Mages should cast toward the bell.  Melees and archers should target things outside of the TF range and try to avoid getting in the way of the TF.  All West (AW) has everyone stationed on the west side.

3. When Tusker Fists (TF) are used, they should be started as soon as possible and continued throughout the room.  Once only one or two monsters are left, switch to arcs.

4. In the list below, 13a1 and 13a2 indicate that there is only one spawn of those creatures. Same thing for 18 b1, b2, b3

5. In 14a on a rare run only, designate your person with the highest health and solid life magic to be your rare user.  That person enters to ring bell and begins to cast raven's fury in center of room.  After both spawns have occured, everyone else enters and mages go to teams and cast TF. Melees heal the person casting raven's fury in middle of room.  After the first group is down, everyone but the raven's fury user head into the SE corner.  The rare user stands about a yard out ahead of the pack in the corner and continues casting.  Everyone heals, except for mages who are not under attack, who should full power shift jump over the Virindi and fire Tusker Fists in at the horde of Virindi.

6.  The second spawn in room 16 is a horde of Swarm Demons.  For this spawn, your archers and melees should form a meat shield in the SE corner to protect your mages, who will be destroying the bugs.  Preparation is key - your non-mages should know which position in the wall they will be forming ahead of time so you don't have meat shield issues.  Archers are OK to attack the bugs, but melees are not.  One mage should make sure everything is imped and bludge vulned while the rest of the mages bludge arc using Gaerlan wands for maximum effect.  Note - if you are an archer in the wall and you are taking a lot of damage, you should invest in either a melee D or Armor rare.

7. Melees and Archers should use the appropriate weapon in each room. Exceptions are in 14a, where they heal the rare user.

8.  In 18a, instead of teams in the E and W ends of the room, the teams will take up positions in the NE and SW corners because of how big the Monougas are.

All of that being said, by the time you clear Arena 13, you need to commit to the rare run or save your rares for later.  The rule of thumb is if you have 35 minutes or more when you get to the Virindi spawn, you should use your rares.  Otherwise, save them for later.

A Final Word

The Colosseum is not easy.  If you want to beat it, expect to spend a long time organizing a team, getting properly equipped, and learning how to fight as a group.  It's not something you can simply pick up one day.  However, if you are willing to put in the time, there are really only two things that you need in order to win - preparation and discipline.  You can't win if you don't have the necessary equipment, augmentations, and battle plan.  Each rare run costs at least one attack skill rare per person, one life rare per mage, and one magic D rare per team.  The first two can be spectral rares from the Graveyard, so getting your team equipped isn't amazingly difficult.  If you aren't coming prepared, you are letting down your team, plain and simple.  All that goes on before your run, but what happens during the run is obviously just as important.  Colosseum experts are good because they know what they should be doing and what they will be doing against the next group.  Having a cheat sheet printed out (like the one at the top of the page) will make that a non-issue.  Still, if you decide to do your own thing or forget to do your job, you will cost your team.  Casting the wrong spells, running all over the place, or not knowing your responsibilities in critical rooms like the Virindi spawn or the Swarm Demon spawn can make the difference between a Colosseum win and a failed rare run.  Mistakes happen, but if you make one, do your best to fix it as soon as you can.  Just remember - come prepared and do your job and you will eventually get your Colosseum championship!