3k TBS 125 (Escorting Xiao Qiao) - trapping npc

Position A, B, C is the needed position to be in to trap xiao qiao.

If you don't fill position A, the npc will move around you and go ahead, so make you you keep position A fill in (I tested it already).

In case you can't tell from the pic
oracle - exactly horizontal to npc
sheriff - one tile ahead horizontally to npc
druid - two tiles ahead horizontally to npc

When you move your mercs at first turn make a note of how far your mercs can move at each turn.

If you are soloing this, sometimes you could be short on a tile when you move, so make full use of how many tiles your mercs can move. I lost the npc a couple of times because i couldn't get any mercs to fill in position B, everyone was short on tile movement by 1 ... >.<

That's why I made a note of which column the mercs will have to be to trap npc on the first picture.

Extra security - I noticed if I filled position B first, sometimes I can't get any mercs to move to position A. Try to get a merc to fill in position A first , then B, then C.


Trapping npc should be alot easier if you duo, can work together on this.

Another note: You get allies after a couple of turns, what I do is keep npc trapped until those allies spawn from the glowing tent, then move ahead to kill mobs. Its much easier if you got allies to help you.

You can't keep the npc trap forever, eventually the mobs will walk down and if they get near the npc, xiao qiao escapes your trap even if you don't move, its kinda weird that way.

However, you do have enough time to keep npc trapped for upgrades and waiting for allies to spawn.

Good luck!

Thanks for a great explanation and sharing your secrets of trade



Will be trying my first solo run as soon as i get hold of a feast buff thanks to you

Link to official AO forums thread about this mission. It contains trap map. The unknown map on bridge is NET trap!

Also found there is numerous occasions when you can trap NPC in the below fashion. One of the good times is after/while killing the first group.



However i'm still a bit under-geared for this mission and it requires a lot of scrolls for me to get through 2nd group.

Also i failed @2nd mini, who killed NPC 100% -> 0% in 1 turn. So be sure to agro minis (hit them hard enough) with your mercs so minis don't hit NPC.

yea that's pretty much why I given up trying to solo it. Uses so much scroll and it still very chancy too.

Please ignore my last picture since its wrong!

You can trap NPC at (almost) any time. NPC is one slow animal. Moves 2 tiles/turn and it's quite dumb one too. If it thinks you can't see it, it thinks it can't see you too.

So NPC moves 2 tiles/turn and it has a general direction to get to its target. After a few runs you should know which that targets are, thus knowing where NPC wants to move. All you have to do is block that tile and the 2 adjacent tiles + the 3 tiles behind those. If you successfully block NPC it wont move at all.

On the below image red lines represent general direction of NPC. Lets just assume we dont know exactly where it wants to go, but we know for sure it wants to go in one of those directions.



This i find very useful near 2nd group of monsters. I block NPC and let those NPCs that spawn near players base agro some mobs closer to me for easy picking by my ranged. Also they nicely destroy flame trap. Its a good place to finish your upgrades and also lure melees out of the den. New group of NPCs should spawn every 5 turns or so. Thy are splendid cannonfodder

So this is a screenshot of my usual 2nd mini boss fight position:

Note that blockade should/could be 1 tile to the right but oh well, it worked. Summon gate is destroyed! You have plenty of time to kill summon gate and prepare for 2nd mini since NPC stops at the end of the bridge.

It also seems to me that if my melee main atacks with magic chances of that mini agroing him are slimmer than those of attacking with left click, even though magic deals more damage. This is pure speculation and it probably only valid for my gear & magic setup.

Ok I got another way to trap it at start. It only uses the cata and it stay trap the whole time at start so you can use all your mercs to kill the mobs near the cannon mobs at the fort. However everything depends on trapping the npc near the tree.

It works beautifully if you use my first method of trapping npc before allies spawn. Only difference is you move oracle, main and sheriff to the same horizontal line as druid and put the cata on the same spot sheriff used to be at point B. After two turns the npc will go to the spot near the trees and you can move cata to the spot on the picture.

Good luck!