Charming My Way Through Storm the Beaches

One of the things I like to be able to do with all of my characters is to make them self sufficient and to learn what their strengths and weaknesses are.  There is no doubt that my play style favors more of a melee character as opposed to a casting or ranging play style.  However, I still enjoy those types of characters as well even though I might not be as strong or skillful with those particular character types.  I bring this up because my character Larrs (Level 21 Bard/Fatesinger) kind of fits into multiple play style types.  Larrs is currently a Spell Singer focused bard and as a result he has a plethora of songs and some extremely fun and strong sonic based spells.  However, I have also built Larrs to dual wield, giving him some interesting melee abilities as well.  He is definitely an interesting character to play between keeping up with songs, spells, and attacks.

Larrs using his charm spells at the top of the base on Mistral Island to thwart his enemies.

I just finished taking Larrs through the Sentinels of Stormreach chain on epic normal, minus Spies in the House.  One of these quests includes Storm the Beaches.  Taking a closer look at Storm the Beaches, the most difficult aspect of the quest is dealing with the ballistae.  In the epic versions of Storm the Beaches, these extremely dangerous machines are not only armed but can also be fired by the enemy pirates that stand guard over them.  And when they are fired they do a tremendous amount of damage.  If you can get to the enemies before they arm and fire the ballistae then they are easily taken down.  If you are playing in a party, you can split your team to take on the enemies before they engage the ballistae, however if you are in the quest solo or with hirelings that becomes more difficult.  During this particular run through, I only had my hirelings to help me.

Larrs and his hirelings facing off against Captain Grim now that the ballistae are destroyed.

Luckily though Larrs has more spells than just his sonic damage dealing ones.  He also has a number of the “charm” spells.  So I decided to do an experiment.  I wasn’t quite sure if I would be able to charm these mobs and I also wasn’t quite sure how these charms would fight.  So to experiment, I entered this quest using the spy passage option and basically came down from the roof of the base and my way around the outpost.  By doing this I was able to see the ballistae and their guards from my position.  In most cases, the ballistae were guarded by hobgoblins.  By standing on the ledge one level higher than the ballistae in general, I was able to through down some charm monster spells and to land most of them on hobgoblins.  I sat back and watched to see if any enemies I didn’t charm would target me with the ballistae or if they would concentrate on the charmed hobgoblin.  Luckily for me, they focused on the hobgoblin.  I then quickly charmed the rest of the enemies and watched as they started to attack the ballistae.  This strategy worked out quite well.  When all of the enemies were charmed I went dow to the ballistae and brought my hirelings with me as well to knock them out faster.  I ran into one situation where we all got blown up by a ballistae and I’m not sure why.  I think one of the charmed monsters must have been broken free that I didn’t notice and happen to activate the ballista we were working on.  I had to buy a resurrection cookie from the DDO store but that was the only major mistake I had.  I was quite pleased to see this work as well.

Larrs and his gang beating on the ballista in Storm the Beaches.

Now I’m assuming doing this quest on a harder difficulty I wouldn’t have had as easy as a time.  Of course, Larrs lacks in a large amount of gear as well so that wouldn’t have worked.  I had also had a few other crowd control options under my sleave if this wouldn’t have worked.  In any case, it did work and I was able to make it through the quest with little difficulty and it just showed my versatility with Larrs.  That is something I always like to see.  Now Larrs will get the chance to check out his skills in the Red Fens and in Spies in the House.

Thanks for reading everybody and happy hunting!!