More info:
Spells: Mind blast is great (20-25 per hit), harm is better (15 per hit, but twice as fast). You just have to be brave enough to get close.
There is no fame or karma gains and no instanced corpse, so as a mage, HEAL! You get the rewards anyway.
Fire does no damage (fireball/flame strike).
Summons are quickly dispelled, but a couple of earth elementals after the guy has been engaged for a while seem to last more than a second.
Reports are the dread warhorses do better than the cu's, but greater dragons drop like a ton of bricks. We had a single cu and a single DWH on Catskill's stranger, and they both lived pretty well.
Three people are not enough to kill the guy quickly. By the time we got another three there, we made significant progress.
Talking to it, to this point, has revealed only silence.
On Cats, the stranger cast no spells except dispell, but he used a ton of special attacks, including area fire attacks, poison attacks and the light attack we saw earlier on light demons. Mages keep your distance if you see a pillar of fire. You can't even get mini-heals off while under the pillar's effects.

We At Oath Found Our Second One At Server Up Also In Despise. It Seems That This Is The Dungeon They Are Spawning But Remember They Are Wondering So Where Is Still A Question.

This One Was Different From The First. A Lot Easier. 3 People 3 Dogs He Was Out In 20Minutes Flat. Keep Casting Mind Blast And Earthquake To Keep Him From Doing His Spells. As For The New War Horses, They Dont Really Seem To Matter. This Might Be Because Of The Different Levels Of Wonderers.
The Box Is Still Empty And The Gems And Gold Is Still The Only Loot. We See Now That The Box Will Now Have Something In It As Of Tomorrow. We Will Update You With What Loot Is Inside.

More-more info:

Dragons will lose loyalty VERY fast. The rest of the pets seem safe.

With two healers, rune beetles or dread war horses seem to do very well. With less than two healers, pets die.

I haven't noticed any significant changes as far as the ease of the guy, but I have noticed that our group has 1) grown and 2) gotten a lot better at hit and weave and 3) changed to mostly archers and tamers. That should say something, but what, I dunno.

I've found all three (initially) near the ogre lord's island in Despise. They wander very quickly and can turn up anywhere in a few moments.

Oh great, not more archer/tamer fodder...

Well, what do you expect? Archers and tamers are the best stand-off templates out there. I suppose they could have made the stranger like Shadow elementals, but then why exclude an entire class of people?

There's no reason a Sammy couldn't do well with a few friends cross healing, unless this is a one-hit-kill-wonder?

~M

Oh, samurai (don't even need the -pire suffix) or paladin do VERY well indeed, but the field damage comes so quickly at the end of the fight that the dexxer's armor is certain to need repairs immediately afterwars. But in my first fight, the dexxers definitely had the damage-advantage and we didn't lose a single one. It just involves more work than taming or porcupining, which is why most of us switched.

I did my first fight as a mage, my second as a tamer and switched back to my mage for fight 3. My mage is a better cross healer, which keeps everyone else alive. I got the reward anyway as well as the thanks of the people I saved.

I have read that the new items dropping out of the chest are peerless ingredients, minor arties, and even a crimson cincture! Someone please verify these claims.

You do realize that the reports of rewards just ruined my night.

Now I have to go hunting in Despise all night...

OATH Has Killed 3 Today. And Yes The Box Has Items In Them. But As Soon As You Open The Box All Items Drop On The Floor. So Far We Have Seen Peerless Ingredients, Cursed Arties, Misc Armor And Wepons. Cannot Verify About The Crimmy. I Highly Doubt They Will Drop Any Of The Rare Peerless Arties Like Crimmy Crystalline Ring Ethys.
Also Despise Is Not The Only Dungeon They Are Spawning In. We Killed One In Shame And One In Destard.
The Battle Is Still The Same. Fire Fields, Poison. We Have Found That Lighnting, Mindblast And Earthquake Seem To Be Best Spells For Him.
We Has Also Tried Giving The Stranger The Glass Dagger But He Will Not Take.

Thank you for your information! I appreciate it!