Well, 18 Hollowshade wars later, I've finally gotten my FT1 range item. Yay!
So I moved up north to Grimling Forest, to get started on my FT1 mask. It's pretty simple how it works, and actually pretty fun, and there's almost no downtime like the war had, so it's much more entertaining.
* What do I need to fight the rings?
- Good question, and I can tell you I really have no idea. Sorikk (my main) is a 65 monk with Staff of Transcendance, all DPS AA's, and almost 5.9K unbuffed hit points, and elemental/time gear. Limry is a 56 bard with 2.5K unbuffed hit points, his epic, and Karana drums and Lute of the Howler (so I can have lute + epic). For the purposes of this quest, he's following Sorikk with cantata, haste, damage shield, and nym's going usually. (GameVoice = 2box twisting made easy). With this pair, it's trivial. I often just leave Limry sitting there at the edge of the camp because the auto-follow gets goofy sometimes.
* How do the rings work?
- Go to the vah shir outpost and find the general. Say, "which camps" to him to see which ones have been cleared. The 9th camp is the one where the mask drops. By hailing the scouts outside the bank you can get the rings for camp 1 and 2, the veterans outside the general's place for 3 to 6, and the captain for rings 7 to 9. The script is the same for each, just say "here to help" and then "ready to go" and they will shortly leave to take you to the camp. When you arrive at the camp they will explain the objective and wait for you to say "ready to fight/begin/start".
* I want to know more about ring 9...
- The mission for ring 9 is the hardest by far. In all the other rings, the mission is to just kill everything, sometimes dealing with reinforcements you can't target, other times waiting for a named to show up, etcetras. In camp nine, you must protect a grimling traitor from harm till everything is dead. The attack comes in two waves, with some sparse reinforcements that don't quite rate as a wave in between.
* What exactly do you do?
When I arrive at the camp, I tell the captain "ready to fight" then he spawns the camp and about 7 grimlings rush the traitor in the middle of the camp. I run in and start nailing each one of them to get them to stop hitting the traitor. She can take a pounding so you have some time. They are mostly cyan to 56 so bring a team that can deal with that well. After killing off those initial aggro mobs, I pull one of the other spawns and run it through the traitor, and keep dragging them out of the camp. Back to where the captain originally started the ring from. I'll then wade back into the camp and kill the rest of the mobs, making sure I'm not in the camp for the last spawn. Nothing will attack the traitor again, you just have to get her through the initial attack.
* Where's my MFing mask?
- Patience, that's coming. When you kill the last spawn, make sure you're out of the camp, and the whole thing repops as this mob dies. In between the huts you'll see a Named Mob (first letter capitals) up, I don't remember the name. Because you pulled the traitor way out of the camp, none of the new wave aggros her (otherwise she will likely die before you can get them off). Just tag the named mob and it will come single or maybe with one or two in tow, nothing major. He will be cyan to 65, but not hard at all, mid 100-hitter, no spells, LOT of hit points though, and mitigates like all Luclin stuff. Doesn't summon, confirmed a few times. After you kill the named and he doesn't drop your mask (it will take a while), then kill the traitor. You will fail automatically, now run back to the outpost and tell the captain "ready to go" and hope you get the second camp north on the river. If you don't, beat those camps still 7 and 8 are clear, and you will get 9 every time. Just keep doing 9 till you get your mask. :)
If you want to beat the camp (like say you got bored and did the other 8 for fun) pulling the traitor out of the camp so she doesn't aggro is the secret to it. Enjoy!