For those of you who dont frequent the main board, and so i can find it again when i need to reference it (things dissapear so fast from the main board).
Hello all, I spent a really long time finding my coffer chest in Castle Zvhal Baileys, and decided to write up a walkthrough for others, to make it easier for them.
First off, I suggest getting the in game map. It is extremely easy to get, and cost 16K on Shiva server.
The quest is here
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/quests.html?fquest=249
Take all of 30 seconds, if you buy the Flame Degen from AH, or you can get the drop from ordells.
Moving on, I found the best coffer spawn map I could find, and I looked at a lot of them. Amazingly enough it was the FFXI-Atlas site, the link is here.
http://www.ffxi-atlas.com/
FYI, there is an option box that pops up by your mouse, click *treasure*, for the spawn locations.
Now that we have the maps, I’m going to do my best to explain the way. Both maps leave a lot to be desired as far as actually telling you where to go. I had been in this castle several times, for dark spark and shadow lord, and coffer key hunting, but I guess I wasn’t paying much attention, since it all seemed brand new to me.
But first a few other things.
Getting to Castle Zvhal Bailey's
Get yourself a Tele-port Vahzl. If you don’t have the crystal, print the maps from the FFXI-atlas site, and get to the crag. Go west from the crag. At lvl 60, I had a few of the banshee type mobs con EP, and an evil eye or 2, so you may need to sneak/invis yourself to get past them. When you come to a clearing, you can go left or right, make a right. Go down the hill, and to the light shinning out of the ground. Make your way to the top of this area; the entrance to the Castle is there. Demons and some evil eyes will be EP to a 60 WAR, so sneak/invis as needed. You can also easily run away from them if you know where the door is.
Mobs and agro in Castle Zvhal Bailey
Inside you will find most all of the beastmen types (including Demons), and Ahriman type mobs (eyes).
I found as a 60 WAR, that the Evil Eye's at the beginning don’t agro sound if they are only EP. I don’t know if they agro sound at all (this site says they do), but since they didn’t agro sound to me (I used them as a test near the entrance since I wasn’t sure), I assumed all eyes didn’t agro sound, and only sight (since the Evil Eye's did agro sight on me). My first death was because an Ahriman farther in agroed me on sound, so just assume that all eyes agro sound and sight.
The Gobblins agro sight, the Demons agro sight, Orcs agro sight, Yaguado agro sight, and Quadavs agro sound. Eyes agro sight and sound, and elementals agro magic.
So I suggest you bring with you one or more of the following.
WHM main or sub for sneak and invis. I personally hate doing it this way, as the spells are just so unreliable. There are not a lot of safe places to recast here, and if your timers aren’t up for some reason, you’re dead.
Silent oil/prizm powders.
Nin main or sub for Tonko
I went as WAR/NIN, for the Tonko benefit, and bought Silent Oil for sneak. You can be in this place for 10 minutes, or like me for 4 hours+. I died numerous times, finding safe places to recast, learning the mobs and areas, and ******** up. The last time I went in EXTREMLY prepared, and after a long hard search finally found my coffer.
I also bought a reraise headband (70K$) which gives the reraise 2 enchantment, and promptly used it when I got to the harder parts of the dungeon. I didn’t need it, but not a bad idea to use it, and if you know your going to die find a safe place to do it.
How to obtain your coffer key
I managed to see someone shouting in Lower Jueno for a coffer key party. We needed 4 keys total, and had a very strange party setup. One member d/c and never came back (ironically the person who set up the party), and we had a 70 RDM and 75 DRK helping out. This made it very easy to kill the mobs, but there were bigger issues.
The pop times for the demons is a very long time. I didn’t time it, but I would say 15 minutes or so. This meant, we would kill all 5 mobs in each easy to get to room, and wait for 10 minutes, or we could move rooms. The DRK suggested moving rooms, since the coffer can pop in each of the rooms you fight in, as well as 4 other spots.
Our method was to go to a room, clear the mobs, rest, and move to the next room. I will give directions on this in a sec, but first the mobs that drop the keys.
Abyssal Demon
Ahriman
Arch Demon
Blood Demon
Doom Demon
If you look on the map from the link, from left to right top to bottom, the second and third maps are most important. The "Circles" on the second map, correspond to the small "Circles" which correspond to the "Squares" on the third map. On the second map, when you reach each circle, there are 2 torches lit in 3 spots on each circle. By falling off the edge in each of the lit torch areas, it will bring you to a different ledge on the third map. If you look on the third map, you will see 3 different walkways connected to each small circle, which is connected to each square. I know this sounds confusing, but it will make sense when you do it.
Ok so for coffer keys, if you elect to move from room to room, you need to pick a circle from the second map (doesn’t matter which circle). Position yourself around the circle on the second map, which will correspond with the circle on the third map (luckily, the maps line up nicely, meaning the NE circle on the second map will line up with the NE circle on the third map and so on and so forth). If you can print the third map slightly larger then it is on the website, you will see that each corridor has a small ledge that sticks out, which will be where you fall. You need to make sure to fall down the right set of torches, to land on the ledge that’s connected to the "Square". If you fall down the wrong one, you will end up at the very bottom, and need to make your way back to the second map. Kill each mob in the room, then sneak/invis for the move.
Once a room is clear, you need to fall down to the bottom of the circle, and go to the only stairway leading back up, and make your way back to the second map. Once on the second map, there are gates in some areas that prevent you from going the shortest route to the next circle. So go back up the small stairway (this leads you to the elevation where the circles are), and get to a different circle. Make sure you note which ones you have gone in at which times, because a mistake means about 5 minutes to get back up to the second map. Pick a different circle, rinse and repeat until you have all the coffer keys you need.
How to get to the second map
This may seem like a silly section, but this castle is big, ill try to make it easier for everyone.
When you enter the castle, you basically have no choice but to follow the path to a 4 points crossroad. If you go strait, you end at the gate where Dark Spark is, but don’t go that far. Make a left (or south) at the 4 points, and go to the small stairway and go down. Then go north and west till you change into map 2. At the squares at each end where the circle are, there is a small staircase; this brings you to the elevation of the circles, where you drop off the ledges. Once your on that elevation, you can walk all the way around the map, but the lower elevation there are gates that prevent you from going where you want to go, so I suggest getting up on the second elevation right away.
Additional tips on finding the chest.
Each of the 4 "Square" rooms has coffer chest spawn. If your hunting coffer keys via the "Change rooms" method, then you will be covering each of those 4 pops regularly. The other 4 pops can be "EASILY" checked via the following method.
Each of the 4 square rooms has 3 ledges you can fall onto (map 3). The ledge that leads to the "Square" room where you fight coffer key mobs (outside squares), a ledge that leads to a narrow dead end path, and a ledge that leads to a smaller inner square room. If you fall in the one that has the narrow path, you will come to a dead end, where a coffer spawn point is. But there are 4 of them, and if the coffer isn’t in that section, you must fall to the very bottom of the Castle, where the hardest mobs are. There are tele ports in this section, each will tele port you to its corresponding "Square" room. For example, if you fall down to the narrow path way from the ledge of the NE circle on map 2, and no chest is there, and you fall to the very bottom, you will take the tele port to the NE "Square" room (the outer ones where you fight coffer mobs).
While at the end of each of the narrow pathways, you can see all 4 coffer spawns. But to take that path, and fall to the bottom, you’re first putting yourself at risk from the hardest mobs in the castle (should sneak invis drop), but your also making the trip back longer. So what I did (after doing this several times), was drop to the ledge that leads to the smaller inner square room. From here you can also see all 4 coffer spawns, and if you find it, you can go back to the circle on map 3, and fall down for the shorter path back to map 2, and then down the correct narrow path to the coffer. This was just my prefered way of doing it, either way will work.
If you have checked all the spawns, and haven’t found any, I suggest logging off for a little bit. I get frustrated running in circles for a long time, and if the coffer chest moves once at the wrong time, it could take you near 45 minutes to an hour to check all the spawn locations again. So I would say to check the 4 points that are all together "FIRST", and if the chest isn’t at any of them, then begin to search each "Square" room (this is because you can see all 4 spawn locations from one spot).
I have one suggestion for moving rooms, the ledge that puts you into othe square room, with the coffer mobs, you can sneak invis on the edge of them with no danger. I suggest dropping any sneak invis you have one, and reapplying them for the move.
Anyways, I hope this helps someone out, I know I would have spent a lot less time in there had I known some of these little tricks. Good luck fellow adventurers, I know I was extremely excited to get my last piece of AF.