9 Trials Guide

I wrote this guide in my faction for simplicity. I haven't seen anyone post one yet, so I thought I would try to share this with the general population of PWI in case anyone wanted to do it but couldn't figure out how to.

9 Trials

Some brief tips and GENERAL notes.

-To complete each trial properly to progress to the next, finishing @ stage 9.
-Grab the GOLDEN quest every time you do a trial, failure to do so results in no reward.
-Reward consists of XP + Rep + Warrior Seal + Arcanum Treasure (has the R8 recast mats, ranging from Memorial coins to Ore Packs) (2 from Trial #9)
-The more people generally the better. There are boss drops, but well, how you split it is up to you. Everyone gets the quest and quest completion, thats what most people look for anyways.
-Work together, its important. This instance is NOT meant to be soloed.
-If you DIE, don't worry, you do not lose XP in the 9 Trials. However, you do need to re-enter the instance [I believe, from what I have heard people saying, I normally get res/mystic buff so I've never gone out myself] and it does cost you merit points.
-Grab the Blessings of the Gods [Teleporter NPC] everytime you do each trial. It helps ALOT. Also, grab it inside each trial not outside in the base. What is it? Well, as per description, it doubles all skill damage. However, calculations showed that it actually quadruples your skill damage. I would say the 10,000 coins is worth it :P
- Each time you complete all 9 Trials, you can reset it, however, the HP of the bosses become ridiculously higher each time.
-These bosses are fully debuffable EXCEPT for HP reduction
-Every stage has a boss. It's a common goal, so I won't be stating it in each trial as a "goal". That should be self sufficient.
-Bosses have ALOT of hp. They also AOE, and carry with them AOE debuffs [stun/HP reduction/sleep/nukes/etc]. Do have a charm, if not, some pots, or a BB, otherwise, you may just die :P
-I have been informed that between stages 4-9 (trial #4-9) there is a chest called "Faction Chest" containing R8 recast materials. They are tradeable with the exception of a few openable packs that apparently disappear upon leaving the faction base. (Still figuring out how that makes sense since the forges are outside, probably something I have still yet to figure out)
-Each trial has an NPC that allows you to START and RESET. Make sure you have ONE person (probably faction leader/organizer) control this. You don't want people resetting the dungeon THINKING it needs to be or by accident, nor do you want people starting it when your members are not in place yet.




Explanation of each trial:

Trial #1 [ Trial of Balance ]

Goal:

-Balance each element with the same number of mobs.

Overview:

Simple procedure. Add up the total number of mobs in each of the 5 elements, then divide by 5. The result number is the number that you require in each room. Now, be careful, the mobs DONT die, they simply "reappear" in another element room. Below is a list of which element mobs go where after being killed (I will try to color code it to the best of my ability the color of each portal for the elements)

Earth moves to Metal
Metal moves to Water
Water moves to Wood
Wood moves to Fire
Fire moves to Earth

Side Note: Earth mobs have bramble when you hit them, make sure you don't suicide APS them.


Try to find if there is any room that has the correct number of mobs, if you do, leave it, and go "down" one element to clear instead. Why? If you have say 20 in Fire, and you need 20 in each room, there's no point to kill anything in fire. Start from Earth. By killing the mobs there, you shift the mobs to the next element, then you have no need to clear any mobs thats already "balanced". I would recommend having an equally divided number of squads [as possible] in each room, starting one at a time. After elements are balanced, the boss spawns in the central room you start in right in the center. Kill it, grab your reward. The boss does have some aoes, I believe it is physical, but with BB you should be fine.


Trial #2 [ Trial of Defense ]

Goal:

-To make sure that no more than 10 supermobs leak past the last room [at the very back]
-Kill 1 regular mob for "afk-check" completion

Overview:

There are 4 rooms total. If you look at the quest, it says 0/0 for two types of materials 4 times. Something like this
0/0
0/0
0/0
0/0
You want that to be 200/200. Why? As the quest says, supermobs will spawn, they are DAMAGE IMMUNE. DAMAGE IMMUNE. That means, you can't hurt it. How can you defeat this? Well, summon IDOLS. These IDOLS are actually just NPC mobs designed to kill those damage immune mobs.

How can you get them? There are 3 quests at every NPC within each room. First two quests give the two mats required to summon the IDOL. The third quest is an exchange/hand-in quest, allowing the IDOL to be summoned. The other alternative to these mats would be to kill the mobs that spawn every some minutes [there is a timer that says]. These mobs ARE aggro [the ones that are initially there are not and drop nothing] and they will mob you so be careful. Set up some zhen if you want/can, and these mobs do drop random mats of the 4 rooms [so it may not be the one you need].

Side note: Make sure you kill at least one mob to complete the quest for not being afk :P

Side note#2: Killing the mobs drop mats required for any of the 4 rooms. Since you will be in ONE room, there will be useless mats. Assign one person to collect these mats [in each room] and deliver it to the other rooms. I feel this is required to add because only by doing that did we (I think) manage to get the 4 idols up for each room. (I believe that one of or both of the last two rooms did not have 4 idols up by the time the first wave of supermobs spawned).

Each room can have a maximum of 4 IDOLS, (50 per 2 different mats). Once you get all these IDOLS set up, you are basically done. Just wait for the supermobs to spawn and enjoy the show. Note that the supermobs can't be hurt by players, just watch the NPC do it. There are multiple waves though, not just 1.

After you beat each of those waves, the boss, of course appears. He is in the farthest room from the starting point. Kill him and claim the reward at the teleporter. Once again, don't forget to grab the golden quest. I forgot it several times

EDIT @ Feb 4 2012 Just putting in a small update. For this trial, if you do not have the number of participants, you can always dig dig dig before starting the trial since the chests are already there. If you fail the trial the first time through, the materials used to summon the idols stay with you so you can probably do it after a second or third try (depending on the number of people you have). Another strategy is to first dig before you start the trial. This way you can have all the idols for the dig quest, and just do the ones from the mobs.

Trial #3 [ Trial of Towers ]

Goal:

-Keep at least 9/18 guards alive.

Overview:

First thing's first. Grab 1 celesprite to complete your non-afk quest.

This one is relatively easy. You just need good DD + good number of people doing it, otherwise you'll probably fail pretty quickly. Once you start the trial, its basically a defend the tower/npc's. There are 3 towers, each one with a designated name [like "[b]Hell[/b]"]. Mobs spawn from 3 directions, marked by miniature like pillars, and they rush blindly towards the tower. Theres the big body-bag mobs, they explode, dealing aoe damage. There are the small arbiter of flame mobs [Nirvana boss] which I believe come from killing the Leaders that spawn during the assault. Killing each leader results in attack buff for the one who killed them. The last type of mob is a fiery golem kind of mob.

I would suggest having 1-2 BoA at each spawning zone, as well as 1-2 DB from wizards if you can manage it. Have the clerics set up BB of course, and have the non-zhenners watch for any mob leaks [that get past the aoe]. Make sure they do not reach the tower. APS particularly effective VS the leaders, as killing them grants an attack buff for them. Have a few people go around looting the Celesprite's because you can use them to summon helpful defence NPCs.

The celesprites are used for your quest, as well as summoning NPC mobs.

Below is a breakdown:

10 for a bunch of General Summer wannabe fan's (melee)
30 for some ghostly green/grey stone golem mob
50 for a sick tree (a big blue tree that seems to sit there staring at mobs).

I would recommend to have the golem mob (30) for killing the exploding mobs since they are ranged. The wannabe's die fairly quick to the explosions, but are good for the non-explosive mobs.

Side Note: Towers do not seem to be REQUIREMENT. We had one tower killed and we still finished the quest with no seeming detrimental effects. Also, tabbing can select the "ball" or "eye" (referring to rebirth) at the spawn point, allowing archers to keep up a constant BoA.

A mini-boss spawns somewhere around the tower near the end of the assault. Killing the mini-boss will halt the mobs, and you've successfully cleared one part. There are 3 towers, you need to defend each. Upon defending each of the 3 towers, and killing each of the 3 bosses, the main boss will spawn in the altar-like platform in the middle. Careful, if you are hitting in the water you may suffer damage reduction (because its like swamps, you may be "underwater")

Kill, claim your reward.

Trial #4 [ Trial of Duty ]

Goal:

-Protect NPC in the middle from dying.

Overview:

Now, this one is also pretty straightforward. A NPC sits in the middle, keep it alive.

Four towers will be present upon starting the trial, (based on experierience) one is elemental IMMUNE (I don't remember, there might or might not be), one is physical IMMUNE and the other two are normal. Recommending to have the parties that do not have constant zhenning AOE in the 4 sides killing mobs. Have the zhenners (seekers/wizards/archers mainly) DDing in the middle. The towers do aoe, but very minimal damage, but have alot of HP. They CAN be debuffed.

Grab the required loot [thorns] first to complete the non-afk quest. This (you need 2) loot can be found from the mobs that spawn in the 4 sides of the map. They disappear upon you grabbing two. Make sure you take a few minutes to grab it whether you be the ones DDing those mobs or DDing at the middle.

Caution: Killing a tower will spawn a mini-boss mob, so be careful and ready for a fight when the tower dies.

Side Note:Mobs seem to stop spawning from the side a tower is destroyed. At the same time, mobs spawning from the other towers get harder, and may also be physical or elemental immune.

After you have killed all 4 towers and each 4 mini-bosses that spawn, the main boss will spawn. Kill it, and get your reward.



Trial #5 [ Trial of Elements ]

Goal:

-To close each "eye" from each element and to summon the boss.
-Maintain over 0 elemental strength (having 0 will fail the trial)

Overview:

Kill the single mob required for afk-quest completion.

In this, you will see that there are 5 different rooms for each element. Head in there, and pick a random one. However, I feel that there is a set order for this trial. If you take a look at the quest, it does say you need to close the "eye" of each element. To close the eye, you need to kill a "tower" that lies within each room. Start with Metal. Why? Killing 1 tower will "close" one eye and at the same time "open" one eye. That means, there can only be at most 4 "Eyes" closed, with 1 open.

The boss comes from the Earth room, so we need to start with Metal.

The mobs inside each room drop items. Have one person per squad in each room pick up the Pads of <Element> and exchange it with Mr No. Problem. You would be advised to get at least 100 element strength because this will help provide you with some buffs.

After killing the tower, the "eye" in the next element will close. Proceed to the next room and repeat this process. Once you get to fire, hopefully you will be lucky and the boss will spawn after you kill the tower in the fire element room.

This is the order we used, it worked both times.

Metal, water, wood, fire, then earth

If you are unlucky, and the boss does not spawn, you must kill the earth room tower [I will explain below how to do this], then go back to metal, and repeat again.

The boss mob can basically be ignored in each room, its not required you kill them to finish the trial.

Side Note: If by chance you do NOT get the boss the first time through in the earth element room, you need to repeat the process. You will notice though the mobs/boss and the tower is damage immune. The only way around this is to lure the boss. He will periodically (every minute should be) spawn mobs. Inside those mobs, there is one called Unceased Soil (or similiar if I got it wrong). Killing that does a huge amount of damage to the tower. After killing enough of those mobs, the tower will die.

Side Note#2: The element strength decreases overtime. So just make sure to watch that and not let it hit 0 (preferably not under 100).

Once the boss spawns, kill him.

Side Note#3: The boss spawns minions when you attack him. They cast tons of nasty aoes. From what I know, killing one of those minions will kill the rest of them. Make sure to not stand up on platform either or else he may reset if everyone under the platform gets killed.


Trial #6 [ Trial of Eternity ]

Goal:

-Uncover the "mystery" message to summon the boss to kill

Overview:

Alright, so after 1 week of writing/compiling this guide I finally got to do this run. The last two times our faction did this I wasn't able to make the first one, and I'm not sure what happened with the other one. Oh right, I was writing the guide afk in there

This one seems more like some "false puzzle" game. You talk to the NPC here to grab the golden quest, and you grab the secondary white quest which has you obtain letter "fragments" from mobs. This may seem confusing, but what has to be done is you kill the mobs, they will drop the word "pieces" and also a manuscript. This manuscript is used for the golden quest. You only need 1.

Check your quest list, for it will say which ones (letter fragments) you need. However, upon turning it in does not mean you have finished it and are ready for the boss. You need to possibly do this multiple times. The first time through I only had to turn the letter quest in twice, yesterday I had to turn it in 4 times.

If you look carefully on that quest, it shows x/y, where x is the number of times people have turned it in, and y is the total number of times required to turn it in before you "complete" that stage. There are 3 stages, each asking for different sets of letters.

These letter fragments are tradeable and droppable. So everyone can just loot whatever they have, and whoever misses any letters can get them from others that drop or trade them. These mobs can be located with the quest because it tells you where on the map you can find the mobs.

The boss spawns near the starting area once you complete the quest. Kill her to get your reward.

Side Note: The last wave of mobs are fliers, if you kill them in the air, you cannot loot the drops because you can't fly. You need to pull them from the air [so hit and run off to drag them down] before killing them.

Side Note#2: The boss spawn mobs which blow up and do decent damage to surroundings.



Trial #7 [ Trial of Sacrifice ]

Goal:

-Kill enough mobs ( at least 222 I think )

Overview:

You need to kill enough mobs. From the quest itself, anything less than 222 mobs killed will result in a fail. Between 222-666 will spawn a greater demon. We always get 666+ I think, so I'm not sure if you fail or not if you get between 222 and 666. Anyhow, onto what I do know.

You need 4 cosmic shards (like the other "afk" quests) first.

Grab them from the mobs that spawn. This room is basically like a delta, except the mobs do not hit back (they can explode though). There is wave after wave of mobs. Total wave count is 11. I wont go into description about each wave as they spawn and tell you. Read below on a note about wave 8 however. Mobs are not "?" don't worry :P .


Side note: Wave #10 has exploding mobs and wave #8 has invisible mobs, so you will hopefully have SIN's for this. Don't fret the mobs have much less HP in comparison to the other waves. They move in a S pattern unlike the usual circular path. Had detection pots used on a lvl 103 archer, but they could not see the mob. However, am told that if you are 105 you can see them with detect pots. Another way is to set up the zhenning glitch archer with BoA on someone in duel or seeker spinning on the spot or DB from wizard.

I think this one is relatively easy, its just simply killing many mobs. You can paralyze these mobs, the BM fist 79 skill is pretty nice for this. Once the waves end, the boss will be spawned (or greater demon, or you will fail :P ). Kill it and be done with this trial.



Trial #8 [ Trial of Exodus ]

Goal:

-Break each soldier out of their cells (by killing the Warden mob in each room) then escort them to the center to kill a "Dark Crystal"

Overview:

This one is pretty fun. Its like jailbreak, then protecting the NPC from being destroyed by the mobs that spawn after. Two "rounds", first round freeing the first four, second round freeing the remaining four for a total of 8.

You are required to kill Pyro Jester for the "afk" quest. This mob spawns in the hallway after you free a soldier by killing a warden. Be careful, these mobs are explosive and blow up upon death. Just note that once you kill a warden (fb69 looking bosses) the NPC will spawn along with a swarm of enemies inside the cell and in the hall way. They have many sorts of aoe debuffs (sleep atk speed decrease, paralyze, you name it). You will need to kill all of them and prevent them from killing the NPC. I would recommend having lots of aoe as these mobs are pretty nasty and really annoying. Clear the hallway/room and bring the NPC towards the middle. Repeat this 4 times in each direction (N E S W). Don't worry if the NPC dies, you won't fail the trial. They are simply "recaptured" and you need to kill the warden again and repeat the process.

Side Note: Once you kill the wardens, mobs spawn INSIDE and OUTSIDE. I recommend you huddling inside with everyone and fighting your way out, as if not, your NPC has a higher chance of dying. (We fought our way out and still some NPC's were near death). Oh...wardens have bramble

Side Note#2: You don't need to free all NPC's at the same time. Work your way as a faction one room at a time if you lack numbers or firepower. You rather take a bit longer to finish then to always have your NPC die.

Side Note#3: I believe this is the only dungeon (I could be wrong) that gives free chi every certain amount of time (maybe 30-60 seconds). Tested this because during barrage I was gaining 40 chi periodically.

Once the first set of NPCs are saved, you will have to do the exact same thing in the opposite cells to save the remaining 4 NPC's. Do that, and the boss will spawn, kill him and obtain your reward. Boss does spawn those nasty annoying mobs though


Trial #9 [ Trial of Salvation ]

Congratulations, you've made it to the final trial :P . May you fail miserably on this one :P , jk . Did you see that spider looking mob in the 9 Trials update? Well, this is that map, and thats the last guy you have to kill.



Goal:

Kill 400 mobs and 6 generals [they look like Acephalid Death Knights] AND both forms (yes he has two forms) of the boss in 50 minutes time

Overview:

Its a simple condition, but it's not as easy as you think, especially if you lack numbers or healers or any sort of class for that matter. Grab all your buffs, this will be a fun trial. Try to set up BB's with squad. No BB? Then you die if you're near everyone else where the mobs are. Imagine LOTR, how Gandalf and such ran their men down at the orcs? Or better yet, battle for Gondor how you saw all those orcs outside? Imagine them rushing all down at you. 3 paths, filled with mobs, rushing down at you. If you have the numbers, then you can sit in the middle and BB, killing them. I believe every mob there has AOE, with the earliest ones having PHYSICAL debuff. Important to note that if you are wondering.

You'll finish the AFK quest with ease because the point in this one is to kill mobs.

There will be some mobs that come down with lots of HP (somewhere in 10m HP or so). Use those if you like to aim your zhen (mainly BoA I guess). Otherwise, try to eliminate them as fast as you can. Mobs drop loot, which can be picked up and exchanged at the forges (double click them and you will need 20) for ANGEL OF WAR NPC's. They help you, but be careful because they will aggro mobs too.

If you lack the numbers, best to go to the right or left side and pull mobs bit by bit. There will be some mobs that will spill into your path anyways [as there are 3 lanes, right, center, left] so kill them then pull. Kill then pull. You need to have 400 though so time accordingly. This is why you need a certain number of players, because there's so much AOE and the mobs are "?" in levels.

Some things I would like to reiterate is that you should not be going afk here. If you have to sure you can, but it's best not to. Every squad should be having a cleric, and every squad should have FULL buffs pre-starting of the trial at least. What makes this trial hard is that theres just so many mobs, and even though they do not hit hard individually, if you have 20-30 or more then that multiples. 200 becomes 4000 or 6000.

Aside the 400 mobs required, you will also need 6 general mobs that spawn. They are located randomly, and are alone, so you can always sit an assassin to camp them and kill them.

Once you get the 400 mobs and the 6 generals, you will be able to go after the boss. Run up the hill and you will find him there at the very back waiting to give you a quest reward once you kill him. Just be careful, he has two forms, and he has a very nasty occult ice. His attacks and occult seem to hurt more the lower his HP. He also has self-buffs.

Side Note: Don't bother going up or near the abomination mobs. They are immune to damage and will just one shot you (I was hit for 1.5M).

Side Note#2: The boss has two forms, so just because the first one seems to have a lot less HP, don't think thats it. He's got "round two" in him.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The timer (50 minutes) for this trial is for the 400 mobs and the 6 generals AND BOTH FORMS of the boss. Make SURE you KNOW this.

This concludes the guide that I've written. I hope that you all enjoyed reading it. Pictures below with regards to each trial. At this time, I still have to re-run trial #6 as I was busy writing this up while we were doing that trial. Hope you all enjoy this new event as it's a nice change from the usual 6 squad instance solo.


TRIAL PICTURES


Trial #1

Metal Element Room

Water Element Room

Wood Element Room

Fire Element Room

Earth Element Room

Boss


Trial #2

Hallway

Room 1 (Red)

Room 2 (Blue)

Room 3 (Green)

Room 4 (Brownish)

Boss 2nd run through

Trial #3

Trial 3 Area

Trial 3 Fighting

Trial 3 Boss

Trial #4

Trial 4 Area

Trial 4 Boss

Trial #5

Metal Room

Water Room

Wood Room

Fire Room

Earth Room

Boss in Earth Room

Why are there Wood mobs in Earth? LOL We has been STALKED

Trial #6

Trial 6 Area

Trial 6 quest drops

Boss

Trial #7

Trial 7 Area

Boss

Trial #8

Trial 8 Area

Guards Area

Angry Lady Boss

Trial #9

Overhead view of Trial #9

SO MANY ANGELS!

Trial 9 Boss (Both Forms)