Major Stinging Stone

Difficulty: 25+
Timer: 13 Days
Can be Solo'd?  Yes

If you are missing one of your Atlan stones, it’s probably this one. This is by far the hardest Atlan stone to get. You’ll need a substantial party to make it to the end of this dungeon. The reason – hordes of Olthoi Soldiers. This quest doesn’t lend itself well to small groups, which I find to be the most common method of getting the other stones. Your group will have to be fairly large or strong to do this alone. Also, because of the numbers of bugs involved, you’re likely to experience a lot of lag. If you’re leading your group, try to keep everyone together or assign your next strongest fellow to bring up the rear and watch for stragglers.

Incunubula Vault is located at 35.9S, 47.2W, which is in the swamps of the eastern Direlands. Your best bet to get there is to find a portal to Swamp Temple nearby. If you can’t pick that up, there is a portal in Dryreach that drops you fairly close. Regardless of how you get there, you still have to run a couple km to reach the dungeon. The run is not safe at all. You’ll need to do a full buff, especially of your lower level companions to be safe. Be fast and avoid the really big monsters. Alternately, you could run to 23S 60E, which is just north of Sawato.  Once you hit the portal, go directly in, but don’t move from the drop point. If you wander too much, you can draw Olthoi up to meet you.

Once your debuffs expire, buff up. You will need acid and piercing protections and banes. You’ll want to use a bludgeoning weapon if you have one. If not, pierce works well too. When everyone’s ready, head down the near ramp (there are two in the foyer). The initial section is a maze of columns and bugs. Stick to the righthand wall as you descend and you will eventually come to a green door which leads to the right. Open it and head in. The corridor will twist around into the first of 3 major flood rooms.

Try to keep your forces inside the corridor to prevent the bugs from getting behind you. Once you have cleared the opposition, head across the room and into the hallway on the right. Follow the path, and you will come into the bridge section.

You’ll notice there are many Olthoi stuck atop the pillars of the bridges. Ignore them because for the most part, they can’t jump down and won’t pose any threat. There are bugs that can attack you, so deal with them instead. Follow the path across several bridges until you reach another bug door. Go in and again, turn left, follow the path before you and you will come into the second flood room.

This room is different because it has many entrances to it, so you can’t just block the one entrance and deal with the bugs. Watch your back and clear the room. Once the room is clear, head to the left of your initial entrance and follow this path. This will lead you to the halfway point. About here, your lv VI and lower protects will begin to fail and you will need to rebuff where it is safe.

Kill the few bugs outside the corridor here, then head halfway down it. Stop your group and rebuff yourselves. If you notice, there are bugs on the other side of the acid pit here. Your goal will be to get across this pit. You can do it the extremely dangerous way or the far safer and recommended way. The dangerous way is to jump across the pit. This is very dangerous because it’s a long jump and you can easily be knocked into the pit by a bug standing on the other side. I heartily recommend going the safer route, which is down into the basement. Head down the ramp, then navigate your way through the maze by following the left wall at all times. You will reach another up ramp, and this will lead you back up to the other side of the acid pit.

From here, run to the end of this ledge and take the doorway there. There is also a doorway close to the ramp. Don’t take this one. You want the far one. This path will lead you over a couple more bridges. Again, some of the bugs will be stuck on the pillars. They can’t harm you, so ignore them. When you see a surface portal in front of you, it’s time to stop.

There is an opening to the right of the portal which leads into the last flood room and the stone. When you get close, you will see the mass of bugs waiting to greet you. Stay back away from the opening and give your mages time to imperil as many bugs as they can.

The goal here is not to kill everything, because that will be very hard to do. The respawn rate in the last room is insane – around 30 sec to a minute. You just can’t kill them all. Your best bet is to send your strongest melees into the room first and draw the attention of the bugs away from the rest of your group. Give the melees a couple seconds, then take the rest of your group directly through the room and into the small hallway. A couple bugs do spawn in here, so be careful. The stone is found at the end of the hallway. After your main group gets into the tunnel, your strongest melees should retreat into the tunnel too and defend your party until everyone has a stone.

You’ll notice there are a couple gems that spawn there too. Make sure you grab the right stone. When everyone’s done, recall out and celebrate.

Congrats on finishing this dungeon!  You will need a stone tool to remove your stone once you have used it on your armor or weapon.  Removal can possibly destroy your stone, so be careful.  The timer on the stone is one day and you may have more than one stone at a time.