>> Here's my question to all of you more experienced bards: What level can I
>> expect to have a reasonable shot at soloing the maid butler area? I'd be
>> quite content to just do the maid and butler room, and leave the hall and
>> kitchen alone.
>
>I haven't tried soloing there. Maybe I should.
I don't know what level you can solo it, since I didn't try it solo until
50. Basically, I just invis into the butler room and do a CoC, Hymns, CoD,
Niv's twist, switching to CoC, Chains, CoD, Chains when the mob is about
ready to run. If the gargoyle is a flouting, I'll throw in a Charm every
few rounds, but that's mostly just to mitigate damage intake. If it's a
jeering, I just AE both spots at the same time.
Next, pull the mob that's right outside into the butler room and finish it
off with the AE twist.
Next, standing at the butler end of the maid/butler hallway, pull the
closest hall mob to the butler room, and AE it.
Pull the second maid/butler hall spawn to butler, AE it.
Now you're left with just the two maid room spawns. You can either (1)
stand in the hallway green-pull the gargoyle (about 40% of the time the
maid/ph comes anyway), (2) lament the gargoyle and pull the maid/ph, or (3)
just take them both at the same time in the maid room, like you did the
butler room.
I generally don't have any problems with this technique, although a caster
will rarely take me down to a bubble. I've only had to zone once (make sure
you chain/pixie the mob, then fire up invis as you head out, so you don't
train the castle).
The Butler and Maid are rather easy, compared to their placeholders. The
Butler may lead with Harm Touch, but after that my health stays steady.
Both die quickly.
If the cooks are still up, pull the mobs you're fighting as far away from
the kitchen side of the room as possible, so the cooks don't keep healing
them (although, the healing is rather minute).
I tend to leave the cooks alone unless I have a partner. At 50, one is
usually green and the other is usually blue. I can pull them individually,
but the Harm Touch combined with their melee can really hurt.
As I'm writing this, I just realized I haven't taken advantage of Chain/Fear
in close fights at all in these rooms. Dumb bard.
If you're 47+ (maybe lower; that's when I first duo'ed the rooms), you're
better off soloing than you are having a partner below 47. The reason is,
if you do get a runner (note: don't have runners) at 47+, you simply heal up
while you wait for the mob to return; you can also chase it down past the
kitchen. If you have a partner who is below the "green pull" threshold, and
you have a runner, the castle is coming for you.
If you have a partner, realize that buff songs/spells (ie, healing) will
work if one of you is sitting in each room. A healing teammate is nice
because you can pull out your Chants line to make the kills faster.
Raiel