Tomb of Annihilation Console Primer: Soshenstar River Exploration and Hunting

The release week of Tomb of Annihilation has finally arrived for the console crowd! Last Friday we’ve already looked at campaign, story and system changes of the new module. In the second part of our massive primer, we are going to go over the Soshenstar River and its attached systems.

Difficulty

First of all, let’s talk about difficulty a bit. The original item level requirement for Chult was 12,000. The devs have since lowered it to 10,000, but you shouldn’t expect things to go smoothly on that level. Soshenstar River is hard, and features a lot of annoying CC’s, mob densities and aggro ranges. What you can do is team up, but be warned that item level 12,000 is much closer to what you are going to need than 10,000.

Exploration and Achievements

The adventure map play its usual part in campaign progression, but comes with additional systems as well. Pretty much everything players do in Soshenstar River is based on exploration. Crawling through the jungle and figuring out stuff is certainly an important aspect of the module.

First of all you have some achievements that are based on finding mobs or items on the map. Our guide below will make it easy, but it’s also fun to search for yourself. It’s not too complicated and you’ll run across most locations by just doing the zone quests. And of course the Treasure Hunt is back with twelve new chests to find. Unlike its previous installments, maps are actually capped to six per week and the rewards are mostly unimpressive. This makes the Treasure Hunt a complementary mechanic, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s fun going for the chests, but shouldn’t be one of the main tasks of a module.

Hunting Feature

The most time players are going to spend on the Soshenstar River map is because of the new Hunting feature. It’s basically one of many sources of new gear, and requires continued and repetitive farming of certain mobs. Basically some creatures can re-spawn as rare version of themselves and have a chance to drop so-called Trophies. These can be exchanged at Port Nyanzaru’s Hunter’s Square for lures to other mini-boss like encounters, which have a chance to drop the next tier of Trophies. You have to work through this RNG chain until you will be able to lure and defeat the King of Spines, the capstone hunt of the feature.

The Grind is Real

I’m not going to lie: The grind is real with this one. To be able to acquire one Tribal Yklwa you need to slay hundreds of mobs on Soshenstar River. Additionally all Lures and Trophies are unique and can only be owned once per character. You can use the account bank and mail to work around this limitation, but the constant juggling that comes with it can be pretty annoying. Being VIP and having access to the mailbox is mandatory in my opinion.

But the feature rewards item level 480 gear in solo content, so it’s probably fair to not hand it out too easily. There’s a lot of useful custom gear to get as well as new legendary rings. In the end it’s up to you how serious you are going to get with Hunting. Definitely look up the collection and try to figure out what gear might be worth going for. Maybe you don’t even need to get all the way up to the King of Spines to acquire what you like.

Lures and Trophies Sell

Additionally Hunting might be something to consider even if you don’t find its rewards too attractive. Lure and Trophies can’t be sold on the Auction House, but very well traded. In the early weeks on PC you could get multiple Greater Mark of Potency for basic Trophies, the Tribal Yklwa was sold for up to 70 Superior Mark of Potency, if not more. The market settled over time, but just farming the Hunting feature can indeed be profitable. I would probably try to sell the first Trophies you get in any case, because the initial demand will naturally be high.

Overall I had quite some fun with Hunting. It’s just another way of selling grind, but chasing mobs, figuring out the best routes for certain Trophies and such is more enticing than comparable stuff in former modules.


That’s our preview of the Soshenstar River and attached systems. Tomorrow we’ll be going over other gear additions in Tomb of Annihilation to wrap up our primer. So make sure to come back! In the meantime post your thoughts and questions in the comments below and visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

3 thoughts on “Tomb of Annihilation Console Primer: Soshenstar River Exploration and Hunting

  • September 13, 2017 at 5:04 am
    Permalink

    Is there a guide about the fishing? Cause you get gear and crafting items and some trophies from the fishing as well. It also depends on where on the river you are fishing what kind of fish you get and if you get double fish or not.

    • September 13, 2017 at 11:27 am
      Permalink

      Fishing is mentioned in our Hunting guide, because it nets Trophies as you mentioned. Other than that, it’s mainly a source for Chultan Riches. If there are differences between fishing spots, we haven’t noticed it so far. We’ll ask around.

      • September 13, 2017 at 3:16 pm
        Permalink

        Thanks, I appreciate it. The always two fish thing seems to be a bug, now it doesn’t happen anymore.

Comments are closed.