Advancement Test Hall/Death Mark

< Advancement Test Hall

Description

Use Death Mark to defeat as many monsters as you can within the time limit. A higher score will result if you use this skill to attract enemies in quick succession. As the test rank increases, stronger monsters will appear and you will need a higher score to pass the test.

Equipment

• Advancement Outfit
• Cardinal Chain Blade

Points

• 80 Points: Successfully used Death Mark without defeating the enemy
• 120 Points: Defeated the enemy who bore a Death Mark
• 200 Points: Attracted 5 or more enemies with Death Mark (Resets cooldown for Crisis Escape)
• 200 Points: Attracted enemies 3 times in a row while maintaining Death Mark

Test Spawn Patterns

• Dan 1
• Dan 2
• Dan 3

Waves

• Wave 1: ? Hellcats & 2 Yellow Ghosts, repeating

Waves

• Wave 1: ? Hellcats & 2 Yellow Ghosts, repeating

Waves

• Wave 1: 13 Hellcats & 2 Yellow Ghosts, repeating

General Tips

• Your Chain Slasher, Close Combat, and Crisis Escape skill ranks will carry over into the test, so having higher ranks would be useful.
  • In order to use Chain Skills, Dorcha is required. Remember to maintain Dorcha levels throughout the test, or you may find yourself unable to earn any points in an otherwise opportune situation.
  • Anchor Rush can be used to break free from stuns, especially those inflicted from being target by many mobs at once.
• Killing both Yellow Ghosts will spawn another pair of Yellow Ghosts.
  • Killing only one Yellow Ghost will not spawn the next pair, allowing the player to kill one freely.
  • Yellow Ghosts are vulnerable to Defense Skill Lock, allowing the player to prevent one from using any attacks.
    • Combining the two together, it is possible to defeat one Ghost and permanently prevent the other from attacking.
      • One downside to this method is that Ghosts have more health than Hellcats; doing this setup can restrict the player's ability to get the 200 point bonus for attracting enemies 3 times. In addition, using the Ghosts to earn points can be easier than the Hellcats since the ghosts respawn faster and allow for more mobs to be summoned at one time.
• As long as the player does not attack multiple enemies, only one Hellcat will aggro the player alongside the two Yellow Ghosts.
  • The player can let the Hellcats naturally aggro their character one-by-one after defeating them if they want to prevent multi-aggro.
    • A riskier strategy involves trying to hit a Hellcat before one naturally aggros. This will save crucial time if it works, but if it does not the player may become overwhelmed by mobs.
• When the number of Hellcats alive drops to 6, another 6 will spawn.
• Manipulate the position of your targeted monster so that Death Mark pulls in at least 5 enemies to obtain 200 points.
  • You will not obtain points for pulling in less than 5, so guiding your marked enemy into a group of 5 other enemies is critical.
• Death Mark can be reapplied in the process of achieving the "Attracted enemies 3 times in a row while maintaining Death Mark" requirement
• Death Mark can be used as the attack that attracts other enemies, if it's used on a marked target

Strategy

Given the above information on scoring and the general tips outlined above, the best strategy for obtaining points is to leave all of the Hellcats alive and focus on obtaining 200 points from hitting a Death Marked Ghost to attract 5 or more enemies. The reason you should not be fighting Hellcats is because they are the most numerous type of enemy on the field at the start and any defeated hellcats will be diminish the amount of them until they are respawned. Having less Hellcats on the field makes it more difficult to obtain the 200 points.

Since you will be fighting Ghosts, you will be aggro'd by a Hellcat and one or two Ghosts. It is difficult to obtain points while you are being attacked by enemies other than your target. There are two ways to avoid the adds. 1) You can frequently use Anchor Rush to move away from an add that is getting near you or attacking you. Leaping a great distance away with Anchor Rush should give you just enough time to land, make an attack on your target, and prepare to leap away again. This process is very difficult with two adds chasing you, much more manageable with one Ghost dead and you targeting the other. You should always be prepared to use this anchor rush avoidance strategy. 2) You can use Crisis Escape to drop aggro, then cancel Crisis Escape when you are ready to attack your target again. If you have successfully pulled in 5 or more enemies when hitting the Death Marked Ghost, the cooldown on Crisis Escape will be reset. As long as you are successfully keeping Death Mark on your target Ghost and pulling in 5 or more enemies, you can keep using Crisis Escape.

Sometimes you will fail to keep Crisis Escape available because either the enemies moved too far away or or your Death Mark time ran out, or you killed the Ghost and have trouble getting into targeting the next one. In that case you will have to fall back on using Anchor Rush to evade the adds. It's important to know that when you are cycling between hitting your target and using Crisis Escape, you need to be close enough to be able to use Death Mark and you need to re-apply it on every 3rd or 4th hit that you do on your target.