Endless Tower – Tenth Attempt

Overview:
Endless Tower is an instance dungeon that consists of 102 floors of increasing difficulty. Team members are challenged to eliminate all monsters in a room as fast as possible. To make the dungeon more challenging there are MVP rooms for every 5 floors. At the 100th floor of the tower resides Entweihen Crothen, which will be one of the team’s greatest battles. If the team managed to survive they will further proceed to a higher floor in which they will meet Naght Seiger. For more detailed information regarding Endless Tower please refer to the iROwiki site.

Previous Attempts:
The Endless Tower became a major part of our guilds adventures in Ragnarok Online. It has been a year since we first attempt to conquer the tower but until this time we failed to even have a glimpse of Naght Seiger. We spent countless discussions and preparations for our attempts. We have tried different party set ups, strategies and even improved our gears for our attempts just to see if our plan works.

For every attempt that we make we see to it that all of the members are available for the schedule. We always had a 12-man team for our serious attempts so as to maximize our firepower and we will not be wasting each other’s time and resources. We also tried working with another guild to boost our manpower. For a detailed story of our attempts please read my journals below.

• Ninth Attempt
• Eighth Attempt
• Seventh Attempt
• Sixth Attempt
• Fifth Attempt
• Fourth Attempt
• Third Attempt

The Cast:
The party composition for this attempt is focus more on brute force. We choose this strategy because we want to clear the low level floors early so that we will have plenty of time battling the higher-level monsters and MVPs. So for this attempt we increase the number of damage dealers but not sacrificing the efficiency of support characters. For our line up on this attempt please read below.

• Angel a Soul Linker – Eske support and Link support
• Blur a High Wizard – mob control and killer for Ghost type MVP
• Lite a High Priest – Healing, Buff Support and Resurrection support for High End MVP
• Furious Gold a Champion – tanker and killer for Low End MVP
• Lady Poison a Biochemist – mob control and killer for Low End MVPs
• Yamimaru a Champion – tanker and killer for Low End MVP
• *~Rednegel~* a Paladin – Tanker and main killer for High End MVPs
• SmartClip a Biochemist – mob control and killer for Low End MVPs
• BitterAngel a High Priest – Healing, Buff Support and Resurrection support for High End MVP
• Rokuemon Matsuki a Minstrel – Performance support
• Chazrelle a High Priest – Healing and Buff Support
• Blanche~ a Biochemist – mob control and killer for Low End MVPs

The Adventure:

Getting Warmed Up:
Our guild has collaborated with another guild for the second time around. We have been lacking with available members for this attempt so we needed the help of our friends on another guild. Most of our members have been busy with other things so we need to fill up for them. Two of the members of Excidium had already been part of our previous attempt so it’s easy for them to understand our strategy. And for the new comers from the same guild, we clearly instruct them on our plan and our goal. If I’m not mistaken, all of them had experience with Endless Tower so it’s not hard for them to adapt. All we have to do is to improve our synergy as a team when we are inside the Tower. As a usual precaution we informed our members with the things to bring like proper gears and consumables. We also advised that members should bring Kafra Cards for storage service in case we need to refill our consumables.

MVP floors form 5th to 75th:
Our team is in haste mode on the lower levels of the tower. Most of the floors were cleared in less than 5minutes because we are saving precious time. We only have 4 hours to waste and from experience most of which were taken away by MVP floors. I have created an album that contains some of our snap shots while clearing the lower levels. Some MVPs don’t have shots because I failed to capture the precious moments of bombarding the MVP before they were defeated.

80th Floor
MVP: Fallen Bishop Hibram
Monster: Necromancer
Difficulty: Challenging
Comment: Fallen Bishop Hibram has always been the start of pain for our team. From previous attempts he’s been consuming much of our precious time just by defeating him and this attempt is not an exception. Our Biochemists were doing little damage on him because of his low VIT so our hope of defeating him lies on the hands of our Champions. Hibram uses a lot of magical damages and annoying status ailments, which lengthens our suffering on the battlefield. We successfully defeated him by using Extremity Fist one after the other even if it means death after every successful blow.

85th Floor
MVP: Ifrit
Monster: none
Difficulty: Extra Challenging
Comment: Some of our teammates were not familiar with our strategy with Ifrit. We have to clearly explain to them about our magical methods of defeating Ifrit so that they will not mistakenly disrupt our magic. Not all members were needed on this floor so most of them chat at the back while the key players performed the magic.

90th Floor
MVP: Valkyrie Rangis
Monster:  Baroness of Retribution, False Angel and Lady Solace
Difficulty: Extra Challenging
Comment: Same strategy was applied with Valkyrie Rangis. The magic is perfectly working with her also. Our members patiently waited for the fast death of the MVP while concentrating on performing the magic.

95th Floor
MVP: Beelzebub
Monster:  Dragon Fly, Hunter Fly, Chonchon and Steel Chonchon
Difficulty: Extra Challenging
Comment: The magic strategy works fine with Beelzebub too. The problem with Beelzebub is that he has low normal damage compared with Ifrit and Valkyrie Rangis, which mean the magic strategy will be performed a little longer. His low firepower has been compensated with a lot of annoying status ailments and area damage skills that gives more challenge with our members performing the magic.

When his health is low enough he transformed into his true form but his annoying skills stayed. At the point when his health is too low, Beelzebub runs away while using the /hp emotion. I find it funny that a formidable MVP could turn into a helpless runaway monster.

100th Floor
MVP: Entweihen Crothen
Monster: Thorn of Recovery, Thorny Skeleton, Thorn of Magic and Thorn of Purification
Difficulty: Bloody Hard
Comment: We have successfully reached the floor of Entweihen Crothen for the third time and most of us had been mentally prepared for the challenge on this floor. Most of our discussions centered on the battle with him and the brute force strategy had been formed because of him. We have reached the 100th floor with plenty of time to burn because we know our battle with Entweihen will be long and painful. Our first strategy is to eliminate the Thorns blocking our way towards Entweihen. But doing so means we have to bombared the Thorns with a lot of Acid Bombs from our Biochemists. Next is to eliminate the Thorny Skeletons that could reach us to prevent knock backs. Lastly, when Entweihen is within our Biochemists range they will bombard him with all their might. The strategy sounds simple but our execution is bloody.

The death rate is high with battling the Thorns alone and the death rate is higher when we bombarded Entweihen. Our High Wizard continues to cast Storm Gust to spread the healing capability of the Thorns of Recovery. Our High Priests has to continuously cast Pnuema and Sanctuary to ensure the healing and protection of the members and in between they also cast Lex Aeterna to maximize the damage. Our Minstrel has to ensure that the Bragi's Poem is always played to counter the Slow Cast from the Thorns and to ensure a fast pace battle. Our Paladin has to cast Devotion on our damage dealers and to act as their second life and at some time she also casts Battle Chant for added HP and stats. We do have a solid support players and talented damage dealers so I can say all of us are doing their job right.

When Entweihen Crothen has fallen, he vanished together with the rest of undefeated Thorns. That was a good thing because we had spent most of our resources on this floor and we have a few left to burn. Our team is very happy with the turn out of the battle. Our efforts have finally paid off but it’s too early to celebrate since we still have a higher floor to conquer. Even if we wanted to spend more time on the floor we have to move on further.

I wandered around the 100th floor for a bit and floor had the ambiance that you are actually walking on top of a high-rise building. I have observed that there is no portal or stairs leading to the top floor but I have read that the Endless Tower had 102 floors in total. Someone informed us that we have to talk to the Lucid Crystal in order to proceed to the higher floors. We talked to the crystal and found out that Entweihen Crothen is the right-hand of Naght Seiger and we have to defeat him again in order to face Naght Seiger. I was shocked with what I've read but I guess we don't have a choice so we proceeded. But Instead of defeating Entweihen again as the crystal has said, we have been forced to spawn to our last saved point. All of us has been caught off guard with what happen so we have to purchase a Purification Stone from the Hypermart just to re enter the tower. And then we have to climb our way to the 100th floor again and re-organize ourselves. Luckily Entweihen did not spawn at the top floor for the so called second battle. We talked to the Lucid Crystal again and then it warped us to the 101st floor.

101st floor
There is nothing special on this floor aside from the long staircase leading to a castle-like room. On the right side of the portal going to the 102nd floor there is a Life Spring. The Life Spring I believe is the one responsible for fusing the Twin Swords of Naght Seiger to obtain a Violet Fear.

102nd Floor
MVP: Naght Sieger
Monster:  Anopheles, Orc Skeleton, Wind Ghost, Khalitzburg
Difficulty: Extra Challenging
Comment: Upon entering the floor we have a little idea on what was going to happen. Most of our members were already anticipating with the spawn of Naght Seiger so they are insisting that we have to proceed with the formation. But for a while there is no sight of Naght Sieger so instead of waiting for nothing we tried to roam around and killed the Anopheles. Then a series of messages from Naght Seiger come out followed by the wave of Orc Skeleton. After clearing them a wave of Wind Ghost spawned followed by a wave of Khalitzburg.

When all of the minions were defeated, Naght Seiger has appeared at the throne area of the room. The members hurriedly went into formation while waiting for the lure from our Champion. Naght Seiger was very shiny in red and blue holding his twin swords. Together with him are his faithful Dark Illusion mobs. After a few seconds our Champion had informed us that he is having trouble luring Naght Seiger because he’s fast moving, fast attacking and with high damage. Some of our members helped in luring because we are in the state of running out of time.

I thought that we will be burning a lot of time here but the normal damage of Naght Seiger is too strong that makes our magic strategy a lot faster. What we didn’t expect is the Area Freeze from him. Most of us did not bring any anti-Frozen gears so our magic has been interrupted a lot of times because we are frozen. Luckily one of our High Priest had an anti-Frozen on so our magic strategy had continued but on a slower pace. After a few minutes we were able to defeat Naght Seiger and looted some of his precious treasures.

The Analysis:
Our group made it at last! For the first time, we have been successful in conquering all floors of the Endless Tower. The brute force strategy proves that it really pays to have high damager dealers on the team. However our strategy had been very expensive in terms of resources but it’s okay because our goal is to finish the tower at any cost. Maybe in our future attempts we will think of strategies on conquering the Endless Tower with fever resource consumption. Our strategy, effort and talent have paid off.

What I didn’t like on the climb is after we conquered the 100th floor we are forced to spawn. Thus we have to climb back on the tower until we reached the 102nd floor for Naght Seiger. This means that each of us have to buy a Purification Stone on the Hypermart in order to re-enter the tower! Climbing the tower again wastes so much time without the aid of the ashes. We have to sacrifice all this things in order to face Naght Seiger. But anyways we are still very happy that we have shown our best in this attempt.

Credits:
I would like to thank my guild Bozanstvena Staratelje for participating in this run. Also I would like to thank our friends from Excidium whom we shared our pain in climbing the Tower. Without these dedicated and talented members we will not be able to successfully conquer all floors of Endless Tower. Til the next climb!