The other little hints about the combs - By Amaziah

By now, most of the major hints and bits of information about combing has been published by other people who were in the combs hunting around for various things (mainly eggs) well before I was. I'm not going to bore you by reiterating what has already been said, I shall just point out a few little tips that could help you.

Where?

With the introduction of clan towns, finding the entrance to the catacombs can be a very time consuming task. Especially if the combs are in an obscure room in one of the clan towns with over 100 rooms. The same applies to zones that you haven't been to much before (if at all). There are a few little things that you can do to find where they're hiding. If they're in a clantown that's relatively small then you job is a little easier.

• First technique: Know the zone or clan town that the combs are it. I for one don't use this method in clan towns as learning the layout of 30 or 40 clan towns is a bit of overkill.
• Second technique: One way to find the entrance is to shout out for a summon to the entrance or have a clannie or townie to summon you. Shouting out has, for me, not been very sucessful and I prefer to use other techniques.
• Third technique: This only works if they are in a clan town. Showclan # will show all the clanshops in the town. If the combs load in, or next to any of the shops then you're in luck. When you get to the clantown you will be directed to the exact room by using guide and asking where the appropriate clanshop is. This also applies for altar, scribes, banks etc. The only difference with them is that you don't know then name of the altar/scribe/bank/fountain/etc room until you ask the imp.
• Fourth technique: This one is my personal favourite. The first step is to check where to see if anyone is at the entrance (although this doesn't usually work as almost everyone is "Lurking about"). Failing to locate a player at the entrance you check who is in the combs. "Who", without an argument will show all players online that you can see (make sure you can detect invisibility). Just keep going through until you find someone who is in the combs. When you've found someone in the combs, start tracking them. This technique should guide you to the entrance of the combs by just following their tracks. This doesn't always work. If the combs have been there for a while, the tracks will have disappeared and if the person that you were tracking was summoned to then entrance you will be following a dead end. If your tracking is not very sucessful then just find another person in the combs to track instead.

Earth crystals are very useful when the combs are in a relatively inaccessable location (inaccessable by a portal). For example, if the combs load in obsidian spire (as they frequently do) an earth crystal will get you there much faster than a dragon (I'm frequently one of the first three in the combs when they load at obs).

Once you are inside there are a few tips that I'd suggest:

• Charming whirlwinds when you're on the first level. They have 10k hp and as such, they make good tanks.
• If you enter a room with a hidden mob then bs mephit or c shockwave mephit. It won't do much harm if the hidden mob is not a mephit and it's much better than being backstab because you tripped or a cave weed was holding you.
• Flee as soon as a cave ray or whirlwind moves you. That way, any aggressive mobs in the room you move to won't attack and you can reenter the room while sneaking relatively safely.
• If there are mobs that might have eggs and they're in the same room as a cave ray or whirlwind then cast a room spell as soon as you enter. The rays and whirlwinds won't move you if you're fighting something (including the ray/whirlwind so you will have time to get the eggs off the other mobs before you flee away from the cave ray)
• Lay traps instead of shielding the room.
• When after xp (the combs are one of the best places to xp) look for centipedes. They are the best xp mob in the entire game. Whenever you kill a centipede it splits into 2 smaller ones. These smaller ones also split into even smallers ones and so on. In the end you kill 15 parts and get over 2 million experience, even if you have an xp cap (maximum experience that can be gained per kill) of less than 400k. After killing a centipede, there is enough blood in the room to cast bloodbath as fully heal then entire form.
• Having a cleric in your form greatly increase your survival rate when combing. If you are not very big, then make sure you have a cleric and stick to the upper levels of the combs. The lower levels contain more mobs and the mobs are bigger and frequently are spellcasters. Even heroes will die quite quickly if they do not take the proper precautions (such as trapping & shielding rooms) when fighting in the lower levels of the combs.
• Always remember where the nearest ore room is. Spellcasters regen around 250 mana at a time when resting in a room that has ore in the title. And are back at full mana in under a tick.