Wine Cellar

Last updated: Exalt Version 2.1.1.0 (Nov 2021)
Locked Wine CellarWine Cellar Portal
Difficulty: 6Difficulty: 6Difficulty: 6Difficulty: 6Difficulty: 6Difficulty: 6
Teleportation Disabled
Music: Blasphemy
Dust Drops
49-115 Green Dust 16-38 Red Dust 3-7 Purple Dust

The Wine Cellar is a high-level dungeon that can be accessed after defeating Oryx the Mad God in Oryx’s Chamber. Upon Oryx’s defeat, he will drop a Locked Wine Cellar Portal, which can be unlocked with a Wine Cellar Incantation (or “inc”), an item that drops from most dungeon bosses. The portal will unlock if someone uses an Incantation close to it.

The Wine Cellar is one of the few sources of T12 Weapons and T13 Armors, as well as T6 Abilities. It is also the main drop location of the Tome of Holy Furor as well as the Oryx’s Battle Attires Knight ST Set. Minions can also drop public bags containing Wines, like at Oryx’s Castle.

Once the boss of the Wine Cellar has been defeated, three monuments will spawn in the middle of the boss chamber. Using all three Oryx Runes will activate the monuments, opening a portal to Oryx’s Sanctuary.

This dungeon must be completed to earn ‘Tunnel Rat‘, ‘Hero of the Nexus’ and ‘Realm of the Mad Godfame bonuses.

Notes

  • Unlike other dungeon portals, the Locked Wine Cellar portal will stay for a total of 2 minutes before disappearing, instead of 30 seconds.
  • The Wine Cellar was initially the only location where T12 weapons, T6 abilities, and T13 armors could drop. Therefore, these items are sometimes called “Wine Cellar Tops” or “WC tops” by players.
  • T6 rings do not drop in the Wine Cellar. They are exclusive to The Shatters, the Cultist Hideout, and Oryx’s Sanctuary.
The Realm Eye says:
Few things are of greater value to Oryx than alcohol, so it is no surprise that the Mad God would keep an extensive storage room for his liquor collection.
As soon as the foundations of his fortress was laid, Oryx demanded that an underground cellar be the first room built.
Despite having an immaculate castle, he spends the majority of his time in that single room with his most loyal minions. His taste in wine is known to be shockingly exquisite.

Contents


Layout


All players will randomly spawn in either the top or bottom right corner, and Oryx is in the large room on the right.

Screenshot

The Wine Cellar

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Enemies

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Boss

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Drops of Interest

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Tips and Strategies

Wine Cellars (WC) are very likely to be opened in most crowded realms. Most players will rush past the enemies in an attempt to reach Oryx 2 quickly.

  • Since most people will rush, do not depend on your cloak if you’re a Rogue. Tricksters, speed-boosted warriors, Ninjas, Mystics, and Assassins can and will keep up with you, potentially getting you killed when you get to Oryx. Instead of cloaking and sitting still, use your speed to circle Oryx like a melee class, but be wary of the Biles of Oryx (also known as “Purple Slimes”).
  • Don’t count on the stun - Often a large group of knights will gang up and keep Oryx chainstunned. In a public WC, however, there’s often very little coordination between them, and Oryx has been known to “blow up” at the end of a stun, killing large masses of characters. Don’t sit on Oryx.
  • Before HP scaling and Oryx 2’s additional phases were added, Oryx usually went down incredibly quickly once Knights kept him permanently stunned, making it difficult for most classes to get soulbound damage, especially if they struggled with the rush. This is no longer an issue nowadays due to the incredibly low soulbound threshold.

Rushing Wine Cellars

It is highly recommended that you have maxed speed or/and defense before attempting a wine cellar rush. Do not attempt to rush on an unpotted character unless you really know what you’re doing, or are willing to lose your character.

Most shots by the minions can be tanked and/or ignored (even on a robe class) as long as you don’t dive heedlessly into a mob. There are, however, three shots you should watch out for:

  • The purple goo left behind by the slow-moving slimes. This goo inflicts slow and sick - two status effects that, while not dangerous by themselves, will severely cripple your ability to deal with the other denizens of the Wine Cellar.
  • The spinning blue projectiles (confuserangs) fired by the Henchmen of Oryx. These inflict confuse, which can mess up your rush and send you flying into a mass of minions. Many unfortunate rushers have gotten caught by a confuserang and ended up crashing into a wall to be mobbed by an army of minions and then doomed to be utterly obliterated within split seconds. Don’t let this happen to you - dodging the confuse is second in priority only to avoiding the goo. Having some Holy Waters (they drop in Manors) in your inventory or/and a good Confuse control will help. Holy Water can heal and cleanse off any debuff effects that could quicky ruin your rush. If you happened to get confused and ran into an army of minions, do not afraid to Nexus.
  • The wine bombs thrown by the Vintner of Oryx, these inflict Drunk, which not only can cause severe lag in many cases, especially on low-end PCs, but the disorienting effect of Drunk can make it hard to dodge the shots of the enemies described above.

Most of the minions clump fairly close together, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble avoiding the mass of them. Sticking close to walls is often a good idea.

Historical Wine Cellar Strategies

This section contains historical strategies for WCs and do not apply to the current state of the game.

Wine Cellars were very rare occurrences when the dungeon was first released due to the rarity of Wine Cellar Incantations. The item is much more common nowadays, causing a Wine Cellar opening to be taken for granted in crowded realms.

“Private” WCs, in which the Incantation holder hopes to open to a select group of players, represent a full-fledged operation and are virtually nonexistent nowadays, but were more common shortly after the dungeon was initially released nearly a decade ago. When they do, scouts will scour servers and realms, looking for small-population (~20-30 is optimal) realms that are close to closing - i.e. on ents or liches. The entire WC group, including one person who carries an incantation (the “inc holder”), will then enter, closing the realm as fast as possible and possibly hiding in dungeons or tutorials so as to not draw attention. After Oryx 1, the incantation will be popped - often after a long pause, in the hopes that people will nexus, and occasionally with one or more diversionary pirate caves opened at the same time to trap unsuspecting randoms and prevent them from entering the WC.

Historically, players would clear out most enemies instead of rushing past them. In private Wine Cellars, players would stop moving right before Oryx’s room and allow certain classes (ex. Rogues) to get soulbound damage on Oryx first, ensuring that everyone in the group had an opportunity to deal soulbound damage. Due to the rarity and expense of Incantations (worth > 40 Potions of Defense before increased drop rates and item duplication exploits made them fairly common), it was expected that players “donate” to the Incantation user after Oryx 2 was defeated, especially if they received a good drop.

Many of these strategies were later used for Oryx’s Sanctuary before the rune drop rate was buffed.

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History

The Wine Cellar was introduced into the game along side the Wine Cellar Incantation in Build 115. To begin with Oryx only showed up in the realm, was killed and the realm would start over. Shortly after this was changed to Oryx appearing in Oryx’s Chamber that players got teleported to, and later the Wine Cellar was added. The Wine Cellar was added before Oryx’s Castle was, and opening a wine cellar use to be very rare due to the, at the time, rarity of Wine Cellar Incantations.

Ingame screenshot of the old wine cellar.

Before Patch X.32.4.1 (Jan 2020), the Wine Cellar portal had the following sprite:
Locked Wine Cellar Sprite (old)Wine Cellar Sprite (old)

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Trivia

There exists a Admin-exclusive version of the Wine Cellar, named the Wine Cellar Short. It’s the same as the Wine Cellar except it only contains a spawn room, and the boss room with Oryx. The map of the Wine Cellar Short looks like this:


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