Teleport - Altep

[Vesper]

Quest > Me

/throws up the White flag.

Have checked Alla's, and several other MB's for hints on where the Tablet can pop, an have yet to have any success there, or ingame via running room to room to room to room to room to.. w/Sneak. I have however accomplished missing a Coffer, dying twice(doin the Quest on my 52 THF..now 51 again), and realizing that Quicksands is one big ass dungeon. Looks like this is one spell I may just end up having to buy

[Yuanlung]

It's not hard... just very time consuming. I myself finished it twice on 2 different characters. First time I soloed it, the second time with a partner.

It's just a matter of repeatedly visiting all possible spawn point until you find the tablet. It might be easier to go as BLM or sub BLM for warp. I had to warp a few times because I could not find a safe place to reapply sneak in time.

[Icemage]

The only problem with running around in Quicksand Caves is finding safe spots to Sneak in. You generally have about 15 seconds of warning before your Sneak drops, though, so its not that bad if you know what you're doing. Every time you go somewhere, consider yourself to have a 10 second window to find the next safe spot. There are safe places to cast, you just have to keep your eyes peeled for them. If you see the fade messages start showing up, turn around and head back to your last safe spot to reset it.

I really don't recommend trying to do this quest without either being able to Escape yourself (using BLM main with WHM sub for Sneak, requires BLM40/WHM20 at least however), or bringing someone who can cast it. Quicksands has a lot of one-way spots where you have to drop down to get into the next map, and once you do so you can no longer get back to the start without either using Escape or Teleport-Altep.

A somewhat less efficient way to do it is as WHM34/BLM17+ with your home point set at either Rabao, or (if someone owns the Kuzotz region) set at the War Warlock/Iron Musketeer/Templar Knight stationed at the cave on the northern part of Eastern Altepa Desert.


Icemage

[Vesper]

"Tele-Altepa, Found it!"

Now to work on the last one, Vazhl, I think I did the hardest part, just getting up there to get the Crystal heh. I lucked out and a 62MNK escorted me.

As far as killing the Shadows, I've got some friends who said they would help me out w/that, Im just hoping that finding this Tablet wont be as ardous as it was in Quicksands~

[Kitalrez]

Well, for anyone else viewing this thread for tips on the quest, Killing Ifrit has a very nice map of the Quicksand Caverns. Out of respect for their bandwidth I won't directly link it, but it's pretty easy to find off the site.

If you have the map handy, you want to enter the Caves at the J/K-7 entrance in Eastern Altepa Desert. Here's Allakhazam's writeup of the quest. It's pretty self explanatory, do as others have suggested and set your HP to Rabao or the flag on the Western Altepa zoneline, then just make multiple runs.

The one major benefit to quests like this is it teaches you how to run a search pattern for randomly spawning objects, (this skill will help you out immensely when you get to AF coffers, trust me). Basically, when you're confronted with multiple spawn points, pick a path that hits the most possible spawn points FIRST, then on following runs go back and pick up the points you missed. You've got a 1 in 5 chance of the ??? spawning at each point, if you don't find it on the path that leads to 4 points, you know exactly where it is.

You've usually got lots of room to recast sneak on yourself if it wears, most of us typically overestimate how much space we need to recast this without aggro.


For those of you going to Fei-Yin for Vahzl, here's some tips:

1. Get a chest spawn map printed out ahead of time, this'll save you a major headache later. These forums have a link to a website with lots of these maps.
2. Go with another WHM or two if possible, it makes it much easier. Of course, use common sense and pick people who are going to stick around for awhile and not bag it when they get theirs.
3. Look around for item farmers... you'll see a bunch of people here, some of those are THFs farming lifebelts, (this'll make it more difficult for you, but not impossible), but a bunch are just people farming pots/dolls/golems for tradeskill items. When you find a farmer, offer your group's services to that person as well as all non-key drops in exchange for their help. Trust me, 2-3 WHMs will raise a farmer's efficiency rating here by several hundred percent. On Diabolos at least, as long as you aren't demanding a share of the drops, few people will turn down this offer. Multiple WHMs in the party sweeten this deal, since the farmer knows you're going to be around at least until everyone has a key.
4. When you are ready for the big chest run, plan your route to hit just the spawn points on the map you can reach without having to go downstairs. The basement and the area on the west side of the map are filled with lots of aggro creatures that like to bunch up on you. It's not really worth the hassle, best to just wait for a THF to trigger a respawn somewhere a little safer for you to reach.
5. Keep your hp up... shadows have a very large aggro radius to low hp. Also, memorize which rooms have golems, magic pots, and dolls... these are the only rooms you really need to be careful around beyond simple common sense with sneak. Golems detect on sight and magic, dolls and pots hate anyone casting.
6. If, for whatever crazy reason you disregard my advice under #4, there is a safe hallway on the west side of the map. It's at F-8, just S of the shadow room, on the left side of that square. The bats don't wander up that hallway, and if you keep enough distance from the shadows, they don't visit you either.

Lots of luck.