The mud-bound catoblepas

Information

Description

Catastrophe. That is the single best word to describe this thing mired in the
bottom of the pond. The face of a boar, with eight-inch tusks jutting from its
thick-lipped maw and fiery, blood-shot eyes stare back at you dispassionately.
A snake-like neck swivels the elongated head back and forth through the water
a good six feet from its bloated, buffalo-like body. Its long, club-like tail
thrashes through the water over its back, thrashing with enough force to knock
a man senseless if it were to connect. This creature doesn't look to be a
normal inhabitant of the pond. Chances are it fell down this hole and became
entrenched in the quagmire. Its great bulk suggests it has survived here on
those that have been unfortunate enough to find themselves near the pond.

Items

Inventory

Unknown coins

Pops

Strategy

Chars: 4 tanks with Nasrs, 2-4 vampires
Weapons: Randomised Magical/Nonmagical
Tunnel: None
IP Check: One or he uses gaze
Spells for Tank: Basic spells, Full tankset, Protection, Aqua breath, True sight
Spells for Others: Basic spells, Aqua breath
Elemental Shields: Shockshield

Notes

Make sure you have aqua breath. Cato will do damage to everyone in the room and gouges the tank a lot. Put any hitters in a lower style than the tanks. Cato has an annoying stun prog that is like bash, except it affects you for about 4rds. If you die at Cato, your corpse ends up in the room to his west. Any disarmed weapons become hidden. If you have five warriors with Nasrs then that's all you'd need. He heals if you have one spring in the room, any more than one and he heals himself fully - it is rumoured that springs in some of the surrounding rooms affect this too. He is also rumored to heal if you flee. The only recall room is the one with Cato in it, obviously making it difficult to get out if he's still alive.

balz tankset, shockshield, sanc, bless, max str/dex, aqua

6n, 3nw, 2n, 2nw, n, ne, n, ne, 2n, 2ne, 2n, ne, n, 2nw, 3n, ne, n, nw, 3n, 2ne, n, nw, w, 2nw, w, nw, s, e, 2ne

u, se, w, d, then trans, d(cato), w - from prep to w of cato

The mud-bound catoblepas bellows in rage and thrashes around madly! - 700hp prog

The mud-bound catoblepas swings its tail at you and strikes you square in the chest, lifting
you off your feet and sending you soaring.
<1539/1653hp 624/640mv [H]>
Your spine snaps backwards as you crash into the silt and muck.
-room kick, 450hp

The mud-bound catoblepas swings its strong snaky tail at Crovius and strikes his leg.
Crovius crumples from the blow and falls into the mud.
Crovius sprawls out haphazardly.
Having lost Crovius in the mud, the mud-bound catoblepas charges Yageth.
-tankswitch 1000hp

The mud-bound catoblepas swings its strong snaky tail at you and lands a glancing blow on
your leg. As your leg crumples from the blow, you tumble into the mud.
(the blood stained skull of repentance gets damaged)
You sprawl out haphazardly.
-tankswitch(out for a round)

The mud-bound catoblepas drags its lower jaw along the ground like a giant shovel.
With great effort, the catoblepas struggles to raise its massive head, but it crashes down
into the muck.
The mud-bound catoblepas chews the wet dirt like a cow with cud.
-restore (nothing to full)

Chars: At least 5 nasr warriors, and a vampire
IP: Very much so ip1.
Directions: #6 n;#3 nw;#2 n;#2 nw;n;ne;n;ne;#2 n;#2 ne;#2 n;ne;n;#2 nw;#3 n;ne;n;nw;#3 n;#2 ne;n;nw;w;#2 nw;w;nw;s;e;#2 ne
This takes you to the prep room.
From here, up, se, w, d, wait for trans. This puts you 1up from cato.
Spells: Shockshield, Sanc, full-tankset.
Notes:
Prepare everything in the prep room, inc shock/sanc, and then walk the maze through to cato.
Will randomly disarm and bury your weapons in his room.
Do NOT make more than one spring in cato's room, and do NOT spring the room west of cato.
Random program will hit hitters for 700 hp.
Basic rescue method, rescue as fast as possible. Repop is an hour long, so you have plenty of time.
After the kill, recall (only recallable in cato's room), repair, restock, get back to cato's room, re-do your tanksets here, and go west, log off, and log on
your idling chars, who should still be in the prep room.

You will need cure blind scrolls.

Pops: Catoblepas Tusk, Black Leather Mutant Armor, A study leather cinch (?)
Sac the tusk (1 in 3) for a Catastrophe helmet.

More info to come.

More cato run info

As far as we can see, you can pop one of three different cato mobs.
Easy, semi-hard, and pretty difficult.
From personal experience, only 'pretty difficult' will gaze you (this comes up as lag in prompt)

Anyway

Hardest cato will restore if you have a spring in the room before the maze. So, to ensure you can play it safe, we prep all n of [] before we portal point in
and go kill cato.

Hard, and easy, as far as we can see, have no different restoration progs,e tc, but I wouldnt be surprised if easy didnt restore even if you had a spring in
the room w of cato.
Easy drops QUICK though, to be fair.

For general purpose, prep all n of [], drink spring, portal in, and do shorts before the maze, and go kill cato

I think Easy cato is the one we use nasrs on, and standard/hard the one we use justices on.

as far as we can now see
some of cato's healing is dependant on weapons
one pop will heal for more if you use nasrs, so swap to justices
(this is evident by getting cato to few bruises then going back to perfect)
in which case you need to get eVERYONE to go to justices

this may possibly work vice versa as well

The 3 catos we can see so far are..
Easy cato, very simple kill

Hard nasr cato, is immune to nonmagic (in our experience, may also be another which isnt immune to nonmagic) which restores when justices are used on it

Hard Justice Cato (nasrs hurt it, but it restores, so you need to swap to justices. evident by restoring from few bruises -> perfect health).

There may also be levels within these, eg how much they gaze. But we arent sure about this.. It does, certainly, seem that the gazing is either very low
uniformly, or some catos pop with more gaze than others

My view of different catos, is in the middle of fenrir and Phyres posts.
I don't think its different mobs that spawn. But Cato is the mob with the most mprogs I have encountered - so he can be percieved very differently. Its a
spammy kill, and noone seems that interested in researching him.
Since Ive done over 20 solo kills, Ive done some research
For example I don't believe he has different immunes/resists - I have never failed to kill him after my first 4 kills, and I have never used anything but
nasrs on him - that should at least account for something.

he has a prog to room which is 700hp - this one goes up when ip2+, once ip8 it was over 1800 for me.

he has a prog where he _disarms_ and hides weapon - this is the reason I don't use justices

he has a prog where you get transed west and sitting or resting

he has a prog where he makes you sit or rest in his room

he has a prog where he tries to gaze random char in room - duration of gaze is depending on a roll with saves

he has a prog where he does 1k-1.4k to a char

he has a prog where he tries to heal a lot (its not a restore), this one often fails

he has a prog where blinds you - this one often fails (I don't care about this when I solo)

he heals a bit - sometimes enough to out heal 4 nasrs without immob. this also goes up when ip2+ not like corst but enough to make ip2+ hard even not
considering room damage upping

writing from memory at the moment, so Ive prolly missed some.

Since he has a lot of progs, and seemingly a lot of his stats is random (on spawn) he can be percieved as different mobs - but Im quite sure its the same
vnum.

and I also think:
1) ppl make the fight to hard, just rescue a char in trouble - 900hp is well enough to tank
2) the thing with springs is just a myth - Im willing to take a bet on this (since I can't be sure)

out