Astuce's Guide to Kedge Keep

Note: Kedge Keep is 99 percent fixed on p99, Haynar is a god. The only outstanding bug has to do with targetting and getting pets to attack the mobs right away and can be overcome by toggling target or getting in melee range and then switching targets.

Kedge Keep is awesome. The only reason it's empty most of the time is because people are scared of facing the unknown. This guide will attempt to shed some light on all the camps available there so that more people come visit my favorite dungeon. Happy swimming!

The first camp in KK is the first zone in room. There are lancer swordfish that spawn there, about 6-8, and 1 piercer swordfish. All those fish are placeholders for either the impaler swordfish, or the fierce impaler who can drop gloomwater harpoon or darksea harpoon. These are some of the best xp mobs in the game, even as light blue cons they will give more xp than any other camp in the game. Pacify or calm animal is the best way to pull those to the zone in, and make sure you pull them in all the way, or else you can get adds after the initial lull wears off.

The second camp, which can sometimes be done with the first camp depending on your group, is the second floor. There are 2-3 piercer swordfish, 1 stiletto fang pirhana, 1 cauldron shark on the main level. The best way to pull those is to invis up on the first floor, drop down the shaft, target the piranha, then target the shark. Swim back up into the shaft, and pacify both (don't need line of sight). Invis again and then target 1 or 2 piercers (1 if there's 2, 2 if there's 3) and then swim back up the shaft and pacify the one or two. Swim back down visible and get aggro from the one that wasn't pacified, and pull it up to the first floor. Rinse and repeat until the whole floor is cleared. After that is done, there are two piranha's at the bottom of the shaft, lower than the second floor, one is the placeholder for the ravenous pirhana, who doesn't drop anything.

Still as part of the second camp, once the second floor is clear, if you go in the south wing but swim up instead of down it will lead you to a room with three spawns (4 on EQatlas map); one in the ceiling, and two in the little room. The one in the middle of the room is the placeholder for the golen haired mermaid, who drops the rain caller piece every time.

Third camp is from the second floor, swim east, then drop all the way down (3 on EQatlas map). It will be a single room with 2 cauldron or hammerhead sharks, one is the placeholder for cauldronbubble, who drops the hammerhead helm. If you choose to fight him in the shaft and not in his room it is important to consider that one mermaid will roam all the way into the shaft, so either you fight him in between her patrols, or you kill her first. Once bubble room is cleared there are 2 mermaid rooms that are easily accessible from the middle of the shaft, one has 3 spawns (one mermaid is halfway in ceiling), the other has 2 spawns. Shellara Ebbhunter routinely spawns in those rooms, any mermaid can be her placeholder but she seems to really like those rooms. She commonly drops gloomwater arrow and rarely the perlescent mask (monk only, awesome item). If you have enough firepower you can also take down the 2 mermaids above Estrella's temple (8 on Eqatlas map), easy to pull if you switch to 3rd person view right as you're coming out of the tunnel and pacify. Once they're both down, again it will be up to the quality of your group to decide if you can take out mermaids from the temple or not.

If you are interested in killing mermaids but someone is already camping cauldronbubble room, you can move to the safe den (6 on EQatlas map), nothing spawns there and you can pull from either the 2 mermaid rooms and/or the temple directly. Mermaids are druids, and on p99 they unfortunately have access to much more spells than they should (fixation of ro and ro's fiery sundering mainly), it is imperative to dispell them completely, makes the fight a lot easier, stuns are also a big big help, they have the same loot table as seafuries and routinely drop cash loots worth 100pp+.

Estrella herself is never up (thank you solo'ing chanters), but if for some reason she is, she will summon and is one of the 4 mobs in the zone that sees invis. She can be solo pulled if you pacify the 4 guards around her. She has mostly crap drops but her rare is the prayer shawl, the best droppable wis shoulders in game for priests.

Next camp is the undertow area (room where you see 9 and 10 on EQatlas map). This room is one of the reasons I love kedge. It's great dungeon design at work. The best spot as a group to camp that area is the southwest corner of the big room. It is safe to appear there except of course for the little cerulean sailfin types, the little fishies with like 50hp and an up to 400hp random AE nuke. In the middle part of the room, there are 5 missing tiles in the ceiling. In those spots there are 5 stilleto fang piranha's. They are weaker than their cousins from the 2nd floor. They can be easily single pulled without pacify as long as you swim really high and then move to their spots one by one instead of swimming close to the ground and getting in the line of sight of many of them at once. Either way, even with 2-3 of them at once it's a fairly easy fight. They are also recommended as semi-permanent pets for enchanters who want to practice charming in a group setting without too much risk.

Once the 5 piranha's are dispatched, you can pull the mermaid in the other corner of the room (10 on EQatlas map), she's the placeholder for Coralyn Kelpmaiden, who drops the sharkskin drums. You dont have to pacify the seahorses close to her she will come single. After that you can kill the 2 seahorses in the little alcove where undertow spawns (9 on EQatlas map). Seahorses can be either druids or clerics, they are also very important to dispell, and stun, and as clerics, they can complete heal. Once those two are done if undertow or his placeholder is up (8 hour respawn), he will be at the top of the dome of that little room, he's not that tough and is once again usually chanter solo'ed so you won't see him.

Further in this camp, depending on firepower again, you can start killing the seahorse caves. In the first room there's 3 static spawns, and 1 roamer. Pacify your way but expect to fight them 2 at once, so a chanter to mez or charm or a bard to charm (most of the time they're too high for a bard to mez) is recommended here. Once you've taken care of the 4 horses you can pull the seahorse matriarch (11 on EQatlas map), who drops shield of prexus (permanent enduring breath).

Backing up to the 2nd floor, if you take the south wing, it will lead you to other camps in the zone. The first one you run into is cauldronboil room (nice hybrid gloves, 13 on EQatlas map). There are 3 sharks in that room and one mermaid in a jail cell. It's not recommended to do that camp in that room because of how little spawns there are, unless you are max xp and only looking for the gloves. You can pull to the crossroads (12 on EQatlas map) as there is only a bull shark (rarely frenzied bull shark) that roams there sometimes and he's relatively weak. Experts of the zone will also point out that from the crossroads is another way into Estrella's temple (8 on eqatlas map), but I'm trying to keep it somewhat coherent (sorry if I failed!).

Further in this area you will reach the bottom of a shaft (E on EQatlas map) which leads to frenzied room (14 on EQatlas map). Using the same technique as shown for the second floor, this is a good spot to invis and get 2 targets to pacify the sharks in the room. There are 3-6 sharks in that room, the number varies from spawn cycle to spawn cycle. The frenzied cauldron shark can spawn in that room, common drop is shark tooth and rare is the abalone gorget. Once that room is cleared, it is recommended to move into the room, on the east side. There's a nice open area to set up camp and continue pulls there from many camps at once. You can easily reach boil room (13 on map), and you can also pull the patriarch room (15 on EQatlas map), there's only 2 seahorses in that room usually, one of which is the placeholder for seahorse patriarch, who's a very high level wizard that rarely drops the seahorse scale cloak. The only other mob that rarely spawns in that room is the frenzied shark (very weak mob) who has the same loot as the other frenzied sharks in the zone. Once the seahorses are dispatched you have ferocious room (16 on EQatlas map) which is a single spawn shark that once in a blue moon will drop the driftwood treasure chest.

The last place left is phinny's temple (17 on map). It is safe to swim around the ledges visible, the only mobs in that room are the 4 swirlspine seahorses that guard phinny and phinny himself when he's up and they all see invis anyway. Most raids/groups set up on the NW corner of that room. To pull phinny most people will actually use either a cleric or a necro or someone with a shiny brass idol. The idea is to aggro all 4 seahorses and pull them away from the room, then have someone else go tag phinny and pull him up to the west ledge of the room. Once the seahorses come back they dont interfere with the battle. Phinny himself is not that tough, just make sure to have your resists up if you fight him with a tank, as he will nuke a lot. He will also pillage enchantment (4 slot dispell) so it's important to have either an EB item or a bard that sings EB song constantly on those fighting him up close. Most guilds tend to not even use any tanks and just have pets fight him.

Once phinny is dead you can still fight the swirlspines. They are extremely high MR mobs so you must have a FD puller to split them (until mez push is fixed for bards, no I won't explain here). They are cleric mobs with a very large mana pool, and they will c-heal (sometimes 4 times in a fight) so bring lots of dps and/or people who can bash. Any time a swirlspine seahorse dies, a swirlspine guardian MAY spawn. It spawns below, where phinny was, and it is not social with any other mob, meaning if you have 2-4 guardians up, you can just pull them one by one without worry. The guardian is very similar to the regular swirlspine, and it can drop the swirlspine belt (4 ac 16 percent haste). If the guardian isn't engaged within a few minutes (less than 10 mins I'd say, not exactly sure) it will despawn.

I hope this guide will help some people feel a bit more adventurous and try one of the best dungeons ever made! -Astuce