Need help with the antimagic quest

[scwizard]

So runes are not ok, but infusions are.
Gaining a manabar is ok so long as you get the quest first thing when you start the game.

Those are the requirements for the quest, but what are the requirements for clearing the arena without dying?

What monsters can you expect to see, I've encountered:
Skeletal mages
Fire imps
Various air elementals
Some other monster I don't remember
Orc corrupter (killed me)

What spells do they cast? In particular what does soul rot do (I think it's the reason I died to a stunned enemy).

What are the monsters you need to watch out for most in the arena? What spells do they cast? What do those spells do?

How many monsters do you need to kill in the arena to complete the quest?

What's a good level to attempt the quest? What resistances should you try and acquire?

[PowerWyrm]

I've only completed the quest with berserkers, but from what I can tell:
- you can encounter X types (umber hulk, xorn, xaren)
- you can encounter dreads (very nasty - my berserker kept missing those, and unless you spent points in Perfect Strike, you are mostly toast)
- umber hulks and banshees can easily confuse you to death, so either have high confusion resistance, or a wild rune that can remove confusion
- monsters mainly cast curses and status ailments (confusion, stunning, hp or stat drain), mages cast fire/mana bolts, elementals cast lightning bolts
- you can get the quest at level 1 to meet the initial requirements, but trying it at level 11 is pure suicide (but don't delay... you don't want to skip runes/wands/rods/Angolwen/quest rewards forever)
- hide behind the rocks! they're there for that...
- the number of monsters to kill seems random (more than 5, less than 10)... but the orc corruptor is the last one, and he's guaranteed

[greycat]

With the Dreads, most characters cannot hit them reliably. You're counting on the 5% chance of auto-hit (I think) to get regular blows in. But if you have any kind of retaliation damage (like a wyrmic's Icy Skin, or certain armor/shields), or a Cursed's Life Leech, that can wear it down over time.

The Dreads don't seem to be able (or willing) to path to you through the rocks in the northwest. Instead, they'll just circle around and around the rocks, following you, while your regen infusions heal you faster than it heals. (They do regenerate, slowly. If you miss too often, and have no autodamage, they'll get back up to 100% health, which is very frustrating.)

I've spent what must have been over a thousand turns killing a Dread in there before. It can be done.

[scwizard]

Ok, all those monsters seem like ones I can handle with my warrior, although there's a chance killing the dreads might be a pain (I train weapon combat a bit, but from what you're telling me it sounds like the accuracy boost from that is insufficient).

I still don't know how to approach the orc corrupter though. It's good knowing that he's the last monster at least. No one's told me what soul rot does or what spells the orc corrupter can cast.

EDIT: Ok, I found this thread: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=22184
There it saws what Soul Rot and Blood Grasp do. They're both just basically massive blight damage from range. With a little bit of blight resistance, and making use of the rocks, I should be able to take out the orc corrupter.
Also more points into constitution than I've put in prior might be on the table.

[kazak]

The first time I did the antimagic quest, I had to rely on the Cursed's life leech to take out the dreads, which took well over a thousand turns. With my last couple characters to do it (berserker and wyrmic), I spent those ten levels putting my generic points primarily into weapon combat (rather than just going half-sies with the other weapon damage talent). With that at or near max, I was able to hit them often enough. Basically just swing away when I can, and then run around the rock piles to heal as needed. Hasn't given me too much trouble that way.

[Postman]

Is antimagic quest worth it for beginner? It sound like a lot of dangerous grinding and limitations. Is reward big enough or it's just for achievements? Or it depend on class(I mean fighter-like of cause)?

[PowerWyrm]

The Antimagic tree kinda sucks. I was expecting something more useful, like the old "antimagic field" from ToME which prevented monsters from casting spells.
- Resolve: the effect is useless, but the stamina regeneration is priceless... so one point in it is very worth getting the quest
- Aura of Silence: this is a limited version of the old antimagic field, worth put a point (or some points for better range/duration)
- Antimagic Shield: useless since it prevents stamina/equilibrium regeneration and doesn't absorb enough damage
- Mana Clash: gives your fighter a ranged attack, costing equilibrium that can be regained with Resolve; if the mana drain actually depletes mana from the monsters, rending them unable to cast spells, then you should skill this talent and maybe max it

[greycat]

- Resolve: the effect is useless, but the stamina regeneration is priceless... so one point in it is very worth getting the quest

The effect is similar to Premonition, except that it fires after you've taken damage. So it helps against the second (third, fourth, ...) attack, but not the first one.

Imagine you're in a place where a bunch of monsters are all shooting lightning at you. Voila! Lightning resistance.

Imagine you're in a place where there are a bunch of monsters that all do cold damage. Voila! Cold resistance.

- Aura of Silence: this is a limited version of the old antimagic field, worth put a point (or some points for better range/duration)

Being able to silence enemy spellcasters is quite a powerful ability.

- Antimagic Shield: useless since it prevents stamina/equilibrium regeneration and doesn't absorb enough damage

Hardly useless! It knocks a fixed amount of damage off every elemental attack. Imagine you're being hit by an acid splash, while something's lightning-bolting you, and you're whacking away on a multi-hued drake with fire/cold retaliation damage. Antimagic Shield will reduce the damage from all of those. In fact, it will probably reduce all of it to 0 except the lightning bolts.

- Mana Clash: gives your fighter a ranged attack, costing equilibrium that can be regained with Resolve; if the mana drain actually depletes mana from the monsters, rending them unable to cast spells, then you should skill this talent and maybe max it

What he said.

The orc corruptor in the arena is a huge challenge (and some of the other possible opponents aren't pushovers). But you're going to have to face corruptors (and their hideously broken player-killing talents) at some point anyway.

[Sirrocco]

Antimagic shield is quite handy - for any class that doesn't use equilibrium already, but does have a reason to push will. Max it out, and your survivability against elemental attacks goes way up. Well worth it. Also worth noting that the *only* equilibrium-recharge it turns off is the Resolve recharge. Swallow still works (and can be gotten from the Sandworm Queen, for those who are not wyrmics). Meditation still works (it may not be *worth* it if you have meditation, but it *works*). Walking around on the overland map still works. If you're Cursed (for example), and have a few generics to burn, why *wouldn't* you invest in antimagic shield? It's not like the equilibrium is doing you any good anyway.