Charodok B - My experiences

[Et^Cetera]

This is not a guide as such, but I wanted to share my experiences of this rarely used zone with the community for the benefit of anyone else thinking of going there. I have only hunted at the zone in area for 2-3 AA points... but will post more as i explore deeper.

IMPORTANT NOTE - I am very much a "use only what your group has" type person and dont run back to POK for KEI/Virtue every 3 hours. All this was done SELF BUFFED ONLY.

Background: I am a 65 Beastlord with (currently) 67AA points in the usual areas, Paragon, extended, BF5 and working on Weapon Affinity 4 at the moment. Am equipped in 95% bazaar equipment with a small amount of LDON items. As I dont raid, there is NO raid gear. I 2-box my 60/17 bazaar equipped Shaman for hunting here.

Getting there: POK to FV. Run through to Dreadlands, to Burning woods zoneline on North wall, then run though to NorthEast corner and zone into chardok. Finding the Chardok B zoneline is pretty tricky if you have never been there before but most maps will show it. Faction however plays a big part. If you have spent any time in nurga, the odds are you are non-KOS and can wander around. Sneaking/invis is tricky as there is a mix of live/dead mobs so a Mage COTH might be alot easer if available for a 100-200pp tip.

Getting out: Like the faction system in GUK, fighting in Chardok B give positve faction hits in Chardok A. So if you spend any length of time here, you can walk out un-touched. Failing that, as any sensible Beastlord should have, a gate potion will do nicely.

Mobs: About 80% undead with the remaining mobs looking like scaled wolfs or drogmas. With an AC of 1150 or so, I found the normal hit was in most cases between 170-220. But they dont seem to hit very often, with alot of misses being shown (not sure if CA3 is the cause or not), however, if the RNG is against you, you could get a sequence of 6-7 hits all in 30--45 seconds which will take 2000 HPs off you in no time at all. I found I needed a 2k heal every 5 mobs or so, while using Paragon fairly frequenly.

Resists: Could be a problem when a mob resists the pulling slow, but even then, you usually have time to run back to camp spot for a second chance at it before mob reaches you. Nothing particularly resistant to worry about though.

Exp: Not too bad, but perhaps I was getting used to Nurga exp. It took me 3 hours to get an AA point, but think that could easily be trimmed down to 2.5 once I get a pull cycle sorted. Alot of times I would hold a pull while waiting for a spawn which took 4-5 minutes to arrive. That said, I found that I had just the right number of mobs before re-pops started without having to run miles to get a mob. However, as the kill rate increases, the further out you have to pull, risking adds on the return trip and also lowering the amount of time you are fighting per hour. Will keep you posted once I move deeper.

Whilst not as fast exp as nurga, If you  feel Nurga is at the end of its `usefullness` and is now trivial, with Chardok B there is scope to improve here as your AA count goes up and it actually feels like a CHALLENGE rather than just a grind that you could do with your eyes closed.

Adds: Seem to be a fair few wanderers, but will nearly always come from the West of zone in and the area as you zone into is safe. Aggro radius seems to be fairly small and single pulling is easy. As a general rule you will only get adds in 2 situations. 1) Pulling a static spawn without checking for a wanderer close to it, or 2) getting a re-pop while running back to camp spot with original pull. Either way, there is a zone line right behind you as an option.

Loot: So-so. About 5pp per mob plus some gems. Some mid-level items (tribal war boots, something swiftblade RNG 2HS, a 9/24 peircer, mostly twink items, but also drops words and pages which are used in 55-65 research, so check before vendoring. Lots of no-drop items, and from what little reading I did, there are a fair number of `combine` quests for good items, although, I would imaging the `important` bits will most probably be on a raid sized boss


Pros:
Single pulls all day long (unless of pops or wanderers)
No casters or runners
Bank and merchants VERY close to zone line.
Can AFK at any time in safety either zoneing to A or at B zone in.
You usually have the zone all to yourself.
Potentially good quest items
Chardok A faction.

Cons:
Tricky to get to unless you already have non-KOS faction.
Not the best exp in the world.
Not the best Loot in the world.
No running back to POK for buffs every 3 hours.

Summary: If nurga holds no challenge for you anymore, and fancy a change of scenery, give it a try. Although, unless you are raid equipped, you might find the going tough without a healer friend/box. Nice place for paladins to slay undead.  Single groups of 55-65 will do nicely here although probly not accessable or enough, better for 2-boxers or people who like to camp out at their exp site.

[neight]

Mobs: About 80% undead with the remaining mobs looking like scaled wolfs or drogmas.

Any mob with a Sarnak model and the domesticated chokidai (the small ones that look like Iksar warders) are live. Everything else in the zone including the large chokidai is undead, with the possible exception of Korucust. Edit: oh yeah, the large golems are live too.

Resists: Could be a problem when a mob resists the pulling slow, but even then, you usually have time to run back to camp spot for a second chance at it before mob reaches you. Nothing particularly resistant to worry about though.

Yeah, I'd call these mobs "slightly more resistant (to MR) than average." I generally had few problems, but the occasional mob will resist slow several times.

Exp: Not too bad, but perhaps I was getting used to Nurga exp. ...  Will keep you posted once I move deeper.

There are three "tiers" of static mob difficulty, and two rooms from which roamers (of two different difficulty levels) spawn. The exp was never great at the ZI (well, maybe it would be in the 50's).

Adds: Seem to be a fair few wanderers, but will nearly always come from the West of zone in and the area as you zone into is safe.

The roaming adds are really the only thing that makes this zone fun (or dangerous, depending on your point of view). The key to learning how to progress through the zone is identifying the few spots that are safe from wanderers.

Lots of no-drop items, and from what little reading I did, there are a fair number of `combine` quests for good items, although, I would imaging the `important` bits will most probably be on a raid sized boss

None of the quest items here are on any raid target.

The Staves of Suffering and Glimmering Gems (4 of each, use Identify) result in Black Enchanted Amulet. This is a basic "collect-and-turn-in" quest, and should be fairly easy for anyone who can hunt in the zone to complete.

The Pages of [Clay/Decay/Dust/Stone] are used to spawn a mob. Killing him and turning in the resulting item results in Golem Heart Ring. The golem hits for 600ish if I remember correctly, and getting that far back through the castle may be a challenge if you're unfamiliar with it, so a group may be a good idea.

The Druushk's Assistant's [Arm/Jaw/Skull] are used in a Veeshan's Peak quest for Mask of the Sky Dragon. Getting the drops isn't difficult (though time-consuming), but I have no intentions of keying or factioning for VP quests any time soon, so I have no other information.

I don't remember exactly what the remaining items (sword pieces) are for. What I do remember is that to proceed in the quest, you have to kill eight relatively tough mobs in Chardok (A, not B; so much for faction) and they resulted in an absolutely horrible back item.

Can AFK at any time in safety either zoneing to A or at B zone in.

The zone-in area on the B side isn't always safe. There's one "stopping point" on the pathing of roamers from the easier room that puts them within aggro distance of the zone-in point. They aren't here often (there's tons of places they stop; you'll see this as you progress further) but it is possible. Also, mobs that are spawned as traps do not move when they don't have aggro. If someone spawns the trap mob near the zone in then trains out, that mob will be sitting wherever it was when they zoned out until it despawns (~20 mins).

Neight

[ignignokt]

66 beastlord in all droppable/attunable gear. Self-buffed plus Elixir of Clarity X potions I get 1 AA every 90 minutes at the zonein. Pull 1 at a time to the zonein, you should be able to get all of the mobs to the left and all of the mobs up to the junction (where the bridge with the golems are and the hallway east to the "castle")

Its dead easy, 100% safe. To the point its almost boring. Pull with slow, cast a dot, melee till its dead. I only have 32 AA's. Maxed combat agility (made a HUGE difference).

For fun try crawling in deeper :) they hit a little harder but the xp is a little better. Its my favorite grind since I work fulltime and go to school and generally only get to play an hour a night.

ignignokt

[Dasquid]

I would have to say Chardok a/b is one of my favorite places in the game for soloing. At 70 I can pull one, send pet in, chimera blood it and then go get another to fight myself. Drops there are somewhat rare, and its the same you get in Chardok randomly. But I have noticed a ton of words drop there that can be sold in the bazaar, which adds up after a while. I have only seen 2 named pop near the zone in, but both have nice tribute items on their loot table. Rabid Chokadai drops a jagged bone hoop,(crap, I dont even loot that most of the time) or Hoop of the Shai'din, sells fairly well for about 5k in the baz, but tributes for around 15k points. Krizznot Bonewalker is a ghost named, can drop a bracer that sells for about the same as the shai din hoop, and a dagger that is worth about 18k tribute points.

I would have to say my favorite part of Chardok B, is that it raises Chardok A faction. Which means you can kill named in A, pretty much at will with very little danger, and I have been suprised at how fast alot of that stuff still sells.

From my experiences, almost every named can be easily solo'ed by a BL without much trouble. A few get a little tricky because of close proximity to other mobs. Battle Master Ska'Tu and Underboss My'liki are 2 examples of that. There are around 10 named I can solo with ease, the only place its really tough to do is at the herb house, but I have managed to get both grand herbalist and wizened herb collector/alchemists acolyte solo. Just takes a little creativity.