Oh the Blood(bats)- Guiding you through DMS (Updated 7/11)

[Zzyli]

Welcome to your Guide to your DMS adventures! This guide's purpose is to explain about what to expect in DMS, and is designed so that it should be approachable for a complete beginner to the area (just because you have experience though doesn't mean that the guide may not be helpful). It should enable you to be informed about what the area looks like, what kind of enemies and quests there are, and what kind of things you can get from DMS. It does not cover recommended ring-sets and strategies, but there are links provided to some guides which do.

DMS' big public opening has become an incentive for me to tidy this guide up and tighten up on some information. I've made some minor changes. Feedback is more than welcome.

Q.What is DMS anyway?
A. DMS stands for Deadman's Shadow, and it is the most recent area to be added to ZOMG
~You can legitimately level up your rings past CL 10 using Shadow Orbs
~It's all brand new- new maps, new animated, new quests, new storyline

Q.When can we get in?
A.Area release was 11/11/11 for amulet or gem holders & it is publicly accessible to everyone as of 6/9/12.

I would like to think of this as more of a community guide than a one-man show. I'm no expert on the area (not that anyone is!Except maybe our fabulous Dev Team), and would love to get screenshots, data, hints & tips, DMS related jokes- you name it!


Relevant News
More Info on Bloodstone Amulet
DMS Open to Early Birds
Community Bar Explanation
DMS Permanently Open to Public

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If you notice any errors/inconsistencies, please bring them to my attention. Sadly, I am only human so mistakes do happen!

[Zzyli]

Accessing the Area
As of 6/9/12 'the curse' has been lifted by Gaia staff and DMS should be accessible to all users who are in a crew with a leader of CL 10 or over



Useful links
Dev Meat Archive- for the latest info from the mouth of [JK] himself
Don't Durp-Advanced Tips Guide on getting the most out of your DMS experience. Good after you've mastered the basics.
Fighting the Good Fight Guide which includes a lot of detail about killing Kamila
Not So Deadman's Guide Guide which provides some basic strategy for getting started playing
Tanking Mini-Guide A guide for tanking- like it says.
Buff Check Guide Tsukino has created an applet that can be used to help with assigning & tracking buffs. Click through to version 2.0 for DMS rings

[Zzyli]

Maps & Images
Dead Man's Shadow is a maze, so there is no specific A-B map- but there is a series of the same rooms set up in different configurations.

Get lost all the time? I've done up a template that you can use to help mark your progress in DMS. Click on the image to view the larger image. Basically, you just mark in things as you go along, and I've added a key to some things that you may want to put on your map. Saves you from those Scooby Doo moments of running around like madmen trying to find those last couple of rooms.


Yes, I am not very arty.

The caves are in sections- in the first section most animated are CL 11, with some CL 11.5 mini-bosses (Big Dog & Night Fright). There is a second section with animated at CL 12-12.5 referred to as the green room or green maze. At the end of the Green maze, there is a section of 3 rooms called the 100% room, as your avatars are at full size (also, you are 100% done with the annoying maze). At the end of this, there are stairs to the Crypt, which is a series of 4 rooms where you fight 1st form Kamila. From there, if you click on the bell tower, you will be transported to the area where you fight Bloodlust Kamila.


Image credits to -Shiny_Tsukkomi-

How to get in
The entrance is at the gate to Dead Man's Pass in Bill's Ranch.

You can enter the area through the door that was previously locked in DMP near where you found Stoocie (or where you go through to get to the clutch crate).

Enter DMP at any level of difficulty and even though you are level capped in that instance- entering DMS will restore you to your full level (up to CL 12.0)


A few pictures of people in DMS are below. Click on a picture to bring up a larger image.








Important!There is a nasty glitch that involves part of your instance resetting (e.g just the Green Maze), under certain circumstances, which is pretty rage-inducing. There's been some confirmed trigger conditions for this, though sometimes it's not avoidable. If there is only one person in a part of the instance (e.g. yellow maze, green maze, 100% room) and they disconnect, this will frequently reset that part of the maze. We are hoping that this glitch will be prioritised on the fixing glitches list, but just being aware of some of the trigger conditions may be helpful.

[Zzyli]

Animated & Loot
There are 2 values for some animated because there are 2 sections of caves. You'll only find the base level animated in the first set of caves.

Big Dog
CL: 11.5-12.0
HP: 17952-18732
Drops: Bloody Fabric, Werewolf Pelt

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Behaviour: This mini-boss is slow moving, with a heavy hit and a root debuff. It is immune to CC rings.

Blood Bat
CL 12.5
HP 5200
Drops: Blood Droplet, Red Eye

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Behaviour: Bats will gather in groups. They are fast moving and have a single-target attack. They have high willpower but any Crowd Control will work on them if it hits.

Chest
CL: 11.5
HP: 40-10,258
Drops: Gold
Behaviour: Chests have a short-range single target attack. They're susceptible to all kinds of crowd control.
Note: Only the chests with the 10k HP will hit back. The others are passive & will just sit there & be hit. Drops from the chests are still somewhat... broken, with some people reporting Otami Jewellery recipes and Jewel Eyes as drops.

Coffin
CL: 12.5
HP: 20,813
Drops: Clutch Claw

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Behaviour: Spawns Vampires, Vampiresses and Blood Bats. Once the coffin has started spawning enemies it can be attacked; until then it lies inactive and cannot be damaged. Coffins are only found in the Crypt and act as a form of health insurance for Kamila. Until all the coffins are destroyed on the screen she is on, she can only be hit for 5 HP at a time. They are completely passive and have no defensive abilities once activated.

Count
CL: 12.0
HP: 24,972
Drops: Nil
Behaviour: These are vampire type enemies found only in 100% room. They hold a mysterious resemblance to Louie (this is possibly not useful information, but I found it intriguing). Like Vampires, they have a targeted AoE attack, and they also have a fear debuff they use on their enemies. They resist Duct Tape, but Scaredy Cat and Quicksand are both effective (using them in unison effectively will immobilise a Count).

Grue
CL: N/A
Drops: Nil
Behaviour: A Grue will kill your entire party if you are unlucky enough to encounter one. However, as they are light-fearing creatures, carrying Solar Rays will make you immune to the Grue's effects. The Grue only strikes between Midnight & 1am Gaia time, and even then, it is a relatively rate occurance. Grues only strike in Yellow Maze and Green Maze, and hit the whole server at the same time.

Kamila
CL: 12.0-13.0
HP: 49,956- 126,282
Drops: Kamila Essence, Kamila's Curse (the renamed Abuse ring), Recipe: Kamila's Blood Magic, Recipe: Kamila's Blood Sword, Recipe: Kamila's Blood Scarf, Recipe: Kamila's Vamp Belt, Recipe: Kamila's Vamp Top, Recipe: Mint Sundae Sweets, (and apparently Recipe: Null Fluff Plushie?????)

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Behaviour: Kamila has 2 forms and after beating her first form, she takes on her second, and much larger form- Bloodlust Kamila. Kamila has her own section below in the guide.

Night Fright
CL: 11.5- 12.0
HP: 17,952- 18,732
Drops: Blood Droplet, Bloody Fabric, Red Eye, Recipe: Bloodbat

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Behaviour: With a high damage AoE attack and a fear debuff, Night Frights are a mini-boss deserving of respect and caution. They regenerate 230 HP per 5 seconds, and are immune to crowd control rings. However, they are very slow moving, and have a nearly 180 degree blind spot behind them.

Vampire/ Vampiress
CL 11.0-12.5
HP 7,634-8,675
Drops: Blood Droplets, Bloody Fabric, Vampire Blood

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Behaviour: Vampires and Vampiresses have a targeted AoE attack (somewhat similar to Heavy Water Balloon). They regain 220-250 HP per 5 seconds (depending on whether you are in the green or the yellow maze)- so it's best to focus on one at a time. Vampiresses are susceptible to all forms of Crowd Control, but Vampires resist Duct Tape. Females have a slightly lower willpower (will scare more easily) and males have a slightly lower dodge (you can get critical hits in more easily).

Werewolf
CL: 11.0-12.5
HP: 10,175- 11,583
Drops: Bloody Fabric, Werewolf Pelt

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Behaviour: Wolves have a short-range attack with a small AoE. They are immune to Scaredy Cat but susceptible to other forms of Crowd Controls. They do not regenerate health.

All animated drop rings occasionally- the current in-game drops with a CL ~ 2.2 lower than the animated that was hit- so CL 8.8-9.9. There are no ring drops in DMS above 9.9.

Epic Recipes
These are special recipes available in DMS that will require much more than the usual amount of loot to craft. They will still be ZOMG recipes though- not to be confused with Alchemy (with the exception of Mint Sundae Sweets, which is clearly denoted as a Level 3 formula). With the exception of the Bloodbat, which is a rare drop from a Night Fright, all other recipes are dropped from Kamila (either her first form or Bloodlust form).

There are 8 recipes available. Big thanks to Quint for searching through a whole stack of random numbered URLs to find the details. There's the recipe, detailing what you'll need to make the item, plus the Marketplace listing for the finished item detailed below.

Epic Recipe: Bloodbat

Bloodbat:
Epic Recipe: Kamila's Blood Magic

Blood Magic:
Epic Recipe: Kamila's Blood Scarf

Blood Scarf:
Epic Recipe: Kamila's Blood Sword

Blood Sword:
Epic Recipe: Kamila's Vamp Top

Vamp Top:
Epic Recipe: Kamila's Vamp Belt

Vamp Belt:
Epic Recipe: Kamila's Vamp Jacket

Vamp Jacket:
Extra: Level 3 Alchemy Formula- Mint Sundae Sweets

Mint Sundae Sweets:

[Zzyli]

Quests
It is highly recommended you are at least CL 10, with most of your rings at CL 10 before entering DMS.
This is tough guys! There's lots of other game out there if you aren't ready & I would also suggest having beaten EB before. It's not a requirement, but it should get you used to effective crewing & buff assignments.

At the entry to DMP- talk to the Von Helson twins.

They will ask you to take care of something for them. There is a different gang of vampires in their mountain & they want them out. They tell you that the leader of this group is Alastor.

*Note*- This quest doesn't appear on your current quest list

Enter the Shadow:
When you enter the first cave, you will see Deva.

She says that she would like your help & firstly asks you to kill 20 monsters. After you have done this, return to her.
Reward 3-5 Shadow Orbs

Searching the Shadow: (Requires- Enter the Shadow)
Speak to Deva again. She says that one of her associates has gone missing. She asks you to search for Kamila in the first section of the caves.- This is a series of 20 caves linked in a random fashion each time you enter. Animated are CL 11-11.5
Once you have cleared the first section of caves, you will get a PDA update saying to search for Kamila in the second section of the caves. Animated in this section are 12-12.5. This is a further series of 20 caves.
Once you have cleared the second section of caves you will reach the 100% room and get your first glimpse of Kamila. You will get a PDA update to return to Deva
Reward 5 Shadow Orbs, 1,000 Gold

The Big Man: (Requires- Searching the Shadow)
Deva asks you to speak to Alastor, as she said that Kamila's plans may be a problem for all of Gaia.


Deeper in Darkness: (Requires- The Big Man)
Alastor asks you to kill 100 minions (Vampires/Vampiresses and Werewolves) in the caves, as he wants revenge against Kamila for plotting against him.
After you have killed 100, you will get a PDA update to return to Alastor.
Reward 5 Shadow Orbs, 2,500 Gold This quest will also attune you to the door in the first cave, which will warp you straight to the green maze

Getting Bloody Ready: (Requires- Deeper in Darkness)
Alastor asks you to kill 150 minions (Vampires/Vampiresses and Werewolves) in the caves.
After you have killed 150, you will get a PDA update to return to Alastor.
Reward 5 Shadow Orbs, 1,500 Gold

Pitch Black: (Requires- Getting Bloody Ready)
Alastor will ask you to collect 25 Tissue Samples from enemies from the caves. You can get them from Night Frights (in the yellow maze), Big Dogs (in the green maze) or Counts (in the 100% room).
After you have 25 samples, you will get a PDA update to return to Alastor.
Reward 5 Shadow Orbs, 1,000 Gold

Bloodlust: (Requires- Pitch Black)
Alastor will ask you to meet him in the Crypt.

Unquenchable: (Requires- Pitch Black)
Deva will reward you for killing 50 of Kamila's minions. This is a repeatable quest. Please note that once you have completed Bloodlust (the quest), you are unable to repeat this quest.
Reward 250 Gold

Meeting & Beating Kam
This isn't so much concerned with 'you need to bring these rings' or 'you need to have these roles', as I am very much a believer in allowing people to find their own strategies, but just explaining what happens in both 1st form & Bloodlust Kam.

First Form Kamila
You meet will fight Kamila in the Crypt, which is composed of 4 rooms, called for the sake of convenience- top left, top right, bottom left & bottom right. The crew comes in top left & Kam starts in the top right screen.

When someone goes and speaks to Alastor in the top right screen, this will trigger dialogue and after that, Kamila will start sending spawns towards the crew (Vampires, Vampiresses and Bloodbats at CL 12). Once all of the spawns have been killed, it is possible to attack the coffins on the top right screen. Until the coffins are all dead, you can only damage Kamila for 5 HP at a time- they're a form of health insurance for her. Other than that, coffins are totally passive. Once the coffins on that screen are dead, you can attack Kamila. Once she loses about 1/4 HP, she will run off to another screen & send spawns to the screen which the crew is on. You need to repeat this process on all 4 screens. 1st form Kamila only regenerates HP when she attacks others, so if you can avoid annoying her until you are ready to fight her, it will make your life easier. First form Kamila has a sleep attack and also a targeted AoE attack- similar to Vampires, but much harder hitting.

Bloodlust Kamila
Bloodlust Kamila is kind of like a Night Fright- she has high health regen (500HP per 5 seconds), a sleep attack and deals high damage. When Kamila is in her standard position, the far left of the screen is safe (she cannot see you there). When she drops to certain HP for the first time, she will spawn waves of Bloodbats. If you wipe/she regenerates- don't worry, you don't have fight those bats again. The bats come from the far right of the screen, and will fly towards your crew.

Kamila spawns bats at the following HP (x1,000) 113,99,85,71.5,56,42,28, 14.5. She has 2 types of attacks- a stabby ranged attack, and a droplet AoE attack. The ranged attack also has AoE, but it's directional in the direction of the person who holds aggro. Most of the time, there will be 6 bats in a wave, but occasionally as many as 12. There have been very rare occasions where she will spawn more bats but these seem to be a statistical anomaly. There are a fixed number of bats [48], so if you get more in one wave, you should get less in a later wave.

NB At present, some servers have a glitch where Bloodlust Kamila has no bat waves. This will probably be fixed at some future date, but if no bats turn up, don't panic! It's a known error.

Levelling Up
To level up past CL 10, you need 10 shadow orbs for each .1 CL for each ring. To level past CL 11, 20 orbs are required per .1 CL. So, short of getting higher CL rings and swapping/salvaging- 12,000 Orbs will be needed to bring all in-game dropped rings to CL 12 or 13,500 for all rings. That's a lot of orbs guys! To get best use out of your upgrades, I'd suggest levelling a core set of rings up to 11 (Meat, Mantis, Hack and Wish/Bandage is pretty standard), then levelling those rings up to 12. This minimises Ring Effectiveness Distortion (there's a complicated algorithm in-game which affects how well your rings work), and means that you'll have levelled rings that you'll be using a lot. After that- use discretion, or keep orbs available to level rings as required for more challenging areas (Green Maze and Kamila).

[Zzyli]

Strategy
Not much in here- I'm a big believer in letting people work out what works best for them.

Different crews have got different stuff to work for them, but a few basic tips.
~ Make sure that you have a full complement of buffs (except for Fleet Feet, which isn't useful as there is no speed element)
~ Make sure you have some debuffs/crowd control rings for handling extra enemies that you aren't currently attacking
~ Appoint a leader who you can trust & gives clear directions
~ Listen to your leader!

I would suggest for more detailed strategy, looking at this guide or this one.

As per a request- I have put a mini guide in the guide for using some of the rings that you may not have used often before DMS (does this make it guide-ception?)
Using Your Unloved Rings
Knife Sharpen???? Adrenaline???? Who even used these rings before except for making stupid jokes during buff assignments? Below is a visual for what each of these rings look like, and a quick explanation on what they do.

Adrenaline- Decreases the dodge statistic of an enemy, making it easier to get in critical hits. Higher rage ranks have a larger dodge debuff. This ring also does minor damage to an enemy


Duct Tape- Holds your enemies in place and will temporarily put them to sleep. Higher rage ranks have an AoE effect. If someone hits a enemy who has been taped, the tape will break and they will wake up.


Knife Sharpen- Decreases the accuracy of an enemy, making it harder for them to hit you. Higher rage ranks have a larger debuff. This ring also does minor damage to an enemy.


Quicksand- Holds your enemy in one place so they cannot chase you for a while. This ring has an AoE effect from R1, but larger rage ranks have a wider area of effect. This ring also generates a lot of hate points.


Scaredy Cat- Scares your enemies & makes them unable to attack for a while. In some cases, they will leave the boundaries of the screen, meaning that you are unable to attack them. Higher rage ranks have an AoE effect.


I would also suggest for more information, to check out Guide to Rings, Stats & Ghi. They have detailed numbers on how these things work.

Understanding Aggro In DMS
Owing to a lot of confusion about the use of the word aggro and the fact that people haven't really needed to understand it clearly before, a little bit of information follows about how aggro works in a DMS context. For a much more detailed guide, check out I Hate Aggro, full of numbers & more!

Aggro stands for aggression/aggravation. What it means basically is that if you have aggro for a certain animated, they will put you as their number one priority to attack. How do you get aggro? Each animated keeps a hate list and the person who is highest on their hate list is the one who has aggro.

You earn hate points basically by attacking the animated, healing people who the animated hate, using CC or debuff rings on the animated- basically just interacting with them! The animated will only attack the person with aggro and anyone who happens to be standing near them (in their line of attack).

Vampires have a targeted AoE attack, so standing around the person with aggro will get you hit and Wolves have a linear/small conical attack, so standing in front/behind of the person with aggro will get you hit.

The person who is most likely to hold aggro is your crew healer. Why? They are collecting hate points every time that they heal someone, and so unless one crew member is a much higher CL or does ridiculous damage per second, they will keep aggro. If you don't have a dedicated healer, the person who is most likely to have aggro is probably one of
I)The person with the highest CL (if there is a 0.5+ difference)
II)The person with a high DPS build (e.g. 3 swords+ Ghi Amp)

In DMS, the animated will collect hate even if you aren't attacking them, as they automatically give 1 point of hate to the first person they see, and will assign extra points to people who heal them. You may notice that only one person is able to lure animated- this is because of aggro. Animated won't respond to other crew members because they don't hate them enough.

Because of this, and the fact that you are dealing with one or two targets at a time, if you are smart about it, you can minimize the damage that your crew takes.

Crew member with aggro is represented by a red star

In this set up the person with aggro is standing with the rest of the crew, so everyone is being hit by the wolf. More stamina is used healing as well as attacking


In this set up the person with aggro is standing away from the rest of their crew, so they are the only ones getting hit by the wolves. Most of the crew can use their stamina just on attacking the wolves and the person with aggro only needs to heal themselves.

Don't be afraid to explain the concept to your crew if they don't understand. It's totally worthwhile to understand how aggro works in DMS, even if you don't always use aggro control methods.

Miscellaneous Info


Inviting Crew Members While not strictly DMS only, and relating to all of ZOMG, it may be useful to know that the /invite command is (mostly) fixed. Stuck in the caves & need a new member? Try using '/invite'. The crew leader needs to type this in their chat pane, for instance, to invite me to your crew, you would use
'/invite Zzyli'
This will send an invitation to the person whose name you select. It doesn't show up as pending like it does if you click on their avatar or use the recrewt list, but it does work. It's important to note that this is case sensitive, so you need to make sure that the person's name is spelt exactly as it is written on Gaia.

Occasionally, you will find some users who can't use /invite or be /invited. It may possibly be linked to whisper being broken, but it does work most of the time. It's pretty useful!

Contributors
We love you all!
heart Tarot Rune heart ~ for his fabulous lead-up thread
heart The Awesome Dev Team! heart ~for making new & exciting content for us all
heart Dr Quint heart ~ For searching through a whole stack of URLs to find recipe details
heart Spartan05089234 heart ~ For a fabulous compilation of strategies.
heart FF1 Red Mage & his crew heart ~ For being absolutely crazy and playing for extended periods of time, and then passing the information they find out on to me.

Too many others to count- but it's certainly not a one-man show!

[Zzyli]

Banners
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I have a (crummy) banner.

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Much nicer banner designed by the delightful Sylfaerien

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Also, a mini banner/button. Take up less signature real-estate and need a magnifying glass to read the information!

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If you enjoyed this thread and have questions about Alchemy, I also have an Alchemy guide.

[Laird of Dunans]

Is it at all possible to do the area solo? My computer and connection appear to be way too slow to work in a crew.

[Barasch Deluxe]

❝Ｔｈｅ ｇｏａｌ ｏｆ ａｌｌ ｉｎａｎｉｍａｔｅ ｏｂｊｅｃｔｓ ｉｓ ｔｏ ｒｅｓｉｓｔ ｍａｎ && ｕｌｔｉｍａｔｅｌｙ ｄｅｆｅａｔ ｈｉｍ.❞

Too soon, methinks. If you really wanted to make the thread so soon, you shoulda left it closed until the area is actually available. A guide for an as of yet non-existant area is kinda useless. xD! Just my opinion, of course.

[Zzyli]

Barasch Deluxe

Too soon, methinks. If you really wanted to make the thread so soon, you shoulda left it closed until the area is actually available. A guide for an as of yet non-existant area is kinda useless. xD! Just my opinion, of course.

Just let the thread die then. I probably just can't contain my excitement & Kenny has had his recruitment thread up for ages. I'll bump it up again when we actually get some content. Sorry sweatdrop

[Angel Essayez]

I think this guide will become usefull, and now it's also usefull becouse you don't need to search in the announcements to reread the info. I've already added this guide in my browsertabs, probably I will need this in the future, so keep it up! cat_3nodding .

[Salt N Burn]

What I would like to know...where is the entrance/how do you get in?

[Zzyli]

GCD Fae Serena

What I would like to know...where is the entrance/how do you get in?

I've updated the info, but here it is just for you!

How to get in
You can't at present, but the entrance will be the gate to Dead Man's Pass in Bill's Ranch.

Words from [ JK ] : "Fictionally, that gate where Stoocie is found is the entrance to DMS. However, due to technical limitations, this wasn't feasible. We did come up with a solution to allow players to enter from there, but that would've required another instance, separate from the current, existing DMP to allow for it to work. And this was more trouble than its worth, so we went with this route."

When the area is opened, there should be an option to enter either the existing DMP or the new DMS.

[xX_KiSsEs-Me_Xx]

I love your forum smile I might need to get a bloodstone before it runs out.... Or wait until the curse is lift.... Plz keep the updates coming heart

[II_Kisame_II]

/facepalm