Curse

HigherMinion · Jun 11, 2010, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Wastes is easy, you don't have to split- just stand in the middle and spread out; camp the spawns.

jetlaw · Jun 11, 2010, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Agree that Ice Wastes is now completely workable thanks to the Ice King buff. I have completed it numerous times now without difficulty with 2 people + heros.

The only difficulty has been the 4 Horsemen quest, due to the split and the enemy horsemen/dryders/skeltons overwhelming the person tanking on one side. So, my hope has been to refine the tank strategy & builds to make it easier for the tank to absorb aggro till the rest of the team takes out the other half of the enemy mobs. Alternatively, I have heard some folks mention completing this quest without a split, but it has not been clear if they are doing a round up in the area between the two spawn points, or if they are just fighting in front of the reaper. Either way, getting this solved seems like the biggest hurdle to a 2 person + hero FC.

One additional question, in case anyone knows: Do heros re-spawn in spirit form? It seems that no one has been able to provide a definitive answer to this question. There are queries about this on the official wiki, but no responses. :|

frostkisses · Jun 12, 2010, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Quote:

One additional question, in case anyone knows: Do heros re-spawn in spirit form? It seems that no one has been able to provide a definitive answer to this question. There are queries about this on the official wiki, but no responses. :|

assuming youre talking about the battle with dhuum, yes they do come back in spirit form. which,in all honesty, is probably better than any other build you can give them anyway. just remember to disable "encase skeleton" on their skill bar... you'll be a in a world of hurt if you dont.

P_A_A · Jun 12, 2010, 12:49 PM // 12:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by jetlaw

Agree that Ice Wastes is now completely workable thanks to the Ice King buff. I have completed it numerous times now without difficulty with 2 people + heros.

The only difficulty has been the 4 Horsemen quest, due to the split and the enemy horsemen/dryders/skeltons overwhelming the person tanking on one side. So, my hope has been to refine the tank strategy & builds to make it easier for the tank to absorb aggro till the rest of the team takes out the other half of the enemy mobs. Alternatively, I have heard some folks mention completing this quest without a split, but it has not been clear if they are doing a round up in the area between the two spawn points, or if they are just fighting in front of the reaper. Either way, getting this solved seems like the biggest hurdle to a 2 person + hero FC.

One additional question, in case anyone knows: Do heros re-spawn in spirit form? It seems that no one has been able to provide a definitive answer to this question. There are queries about this on the official wiki, but no responses. :|

An easy way of doing it is taking 1 ER for healing. When you get to 4h, make him bond the reaper and spam infuse on him (reaper "tanks" 1 side), while the rest of the group kills the other side

jetlaw · Jun 15, 2010, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by frostkisses

assuming youre talking about the battle with dhuum, yes they do come back in spirit form. which,in all honesty, is probably better than any other build you can give them anyway. just remember to disable "encase skeleton" on their skill bar... you'll be a in a world of hurt if you dont.

Yep, battle with Dhuum. Thanks for that, out of the many people I have asked, you are the first person to be able to definitively answer that question! Thank you very much for the info, I'll be sure to disable encase.

Quote:

Originally Posted by P_A_A

An easy way of doing it is taking 1 ER for healing. When you get to 4h, make him bond the reaper and spam infuse on him (reaper "tanks" 1 side), while the rest of the group kills the other side

Is there a specific infuser/bonding build you are using that you wouldn't mind sharing? I have seen a bunch of different infuse builds, and would want to take the one that has been tried and tested (especially with the enchant stripping from the enemy bosses).

Funny that you should mention the Reaper tank option, as I was actually considering the question as to whether it would be possible to have the Reaper be the tank one or possibly even both groups.

I presently have a Mo/D tank build I have used to successfully complete the Ice King quest, which uses a backup hero bonder and chained Spellbreaker (basically it is a modified 600 build). I was therefore looking at the question as to whether it would be possible to have the tank and bonder use their skills on the Reaper, using chained Spellbreaker to prevent enchant stripping and the bonds + the tank's healing skills to keep the Reaper alive. The key would be to keep the enemy from attacking the team members who are protecting the Reaper - but as long as the enemy stays put, it seems that this could have promise. I'll need to give that a try and see how it works. Thanks

frostkisses · Jun 15, 2010, 06:22 PM // 18:22

i dont suppose too many people try UW full clear with heros, and if they do, dont make it to dhuum. not usually fault of their own...heros have some silly logic.

Anduin · Jun 16, 2010, 02:18 AM // 02:18

Sorry to hijack this for a second, but I was wondering if there is a section on this forum to make posts looking for groups?

Even my full human player guild teams have failed the last couple times I have tried this stupid area. I just want to finish The Waiting Game with all 8 of my characters (no monk or ranger) and never set foot in there again.

Why they felt the need to hamper this area for the regular players and make it a gold mine for the SCers, I'll never know.

chullster · Jun 16, 2010, 10:56 AM // 10:56

Just tried the 3 person 5 hero build in UW NM, but changed the SoS human to a hero.

made it in 2h 51 minutes. I put pain inverter on my bar for dhuum, turned out it was a wasted slot, all the heroes interrupted judgement of dhuum 95% of the time.

One hero and my girlfriend came back as a ghost, me too right at the end, but by then dhumms rest was full so I just used the damage skill only.

The bars could use a tweek here and there, and we over used cons, ie a full set a dhuum, where as just an essence would probably be enough.

Me and the girlfriend reckon on getting it down to 2 hours shouldn't be asking too much, especially with more optimized builds etc, ie I dont think the sin tank is needed at 4H, if you crowd 4 heroes either side of him, a 2nd DwG human might kill stuff quick enough. More experimentation is needed.

So good luck to all you couples

P_A_A · Jun 16, 2010, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by jetlaw

Is there a specific infuser/bonding build you are using that you wouldn't mind sharing? I have seen a bunch of different infuse builds, and would want to take the one that has been tried and tested (especially with the enchant stripping from the enemy bosses).

Funny that you should mention the Reaper tank option, as I was actually considering the question as to whether it would be possible to have the Reaper be the tank one or possibly even both groups.

I presently have a Mo/D tank build I have used to successfully complete the Ice King quest, which uses a backup hero bonder and chained Spellbreaker (basically it is a modified 600 build). I was therefore looking at the question as to whether it would be possible to have the tank and bonder use their skills on the Reaper, using chained Spellbreaker to prevent enchant stripping and the bonds + the tank's healing skills to keep the Reaper alive. The key would be to keep the enemy from attacking the team members who are protecting the Reaper - but as long as the enemy stays put, it seems that this could have promise. I'll need to give that a try and see how it works. Thanks

The build changes if you want to rely on the bonds or on the infuse spam.

If you rely on bonds (aka, you'll be maintaining 9 enchantments, -5 mana deg), apart from the usual ER, AoR, Protective Bond, Protective Bond, Life Attunement and PS - this leaves you 3 extra spaces. I like to take Infuse (lol xD), Burning Speed - emanagement gets hard with 8 -4 energy triggering at the same time - and IAU to prevent the group dying if i get knocked down.

If you want the infuse powa, take spirit bond and gdw.

Attributes as you wish

jetlaw · Jun 16, 2010, 08:51 PM // 20:51

chullster:

First, congrats on what appears to be the first 2 man UW full clear! Although I know it is a PvX team build, since the PvX build lacks any specifics on tactics for the quests, you deserve credit for a job well done!

I presume that the builds are all essentially the same as the PvX Wiki UW Heroway team build? (Obviously a few modifications would have been needed for the SoS, but I'm just curious if you needed any other modifications to make it through.)

Would you mind sharing some of the key tactics you needed to use for the quests? The biggest question I have is about the strategy you used for 4H. Did you use the standard choke point strategy, or did you need to do something different? Also, what was the party split for this (basic 4 + 4, or did you have certain heros flagged on the other side)?

Sorry for all the questions, I just really would love to FINALLY get past this area (post Dhuum).

P A A:

Thanks very much for they build and the strategy idea for 4H.

chullster · Jun 16, 2010, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Well, today, we did it again, but with a D/A using deadly paradox and shadowform for 4H, with a couple of sin enchantments and asuran scan plus attack skills.

Tank stands just out of aggro range of reaper, other 7 people on other side, again just out of aggro range of reaper.

I brought GDW instead of pain inverter on my bar this time, so the derv could KD too.

chiuna · Jun 17, 2010, 02:58 PM // 14:58

I did it today by myself with 6 heroes, using a modified version of the heroway build on pvx wiki. I played an emo bonder, and dropped the tank and glaiver and soul twisting ritualist from the pvx build. I used a hero for SoS, and I added a panic mesmer because I like panic so much

Other build changes I made were: I gave the keystone mes life attunement to put on me instead of balth spirit. I gave the SoS prot spirit instead of a res in case I lost bonds, and pain, anguish, and spirit siphon instead of the pve skills.

Template codes used:
bonder: OgNDwcPPTkE3MaR3VHE0k0C1CA
keystone mes: OQNDA7wvN/g8spjrZ9pHPAeK
panic mes: OQNEAqwD2yQDyBkOBnMYEmB0JA
sos: OAOk8YgrITKz1scGt/mVToJzseA
(the others are the same as wiki)

Since I was bonding, I never had the team split up, I just prot bonded important npcs and mobbed it. I did flag the heroes into place before taking the quests though. Some screenshots that show positions of heroes:

4h:

Ice Wastes:
I started out with them like this-

Then I moved them closer together after the spawns came because Razah's spirits weren't attacking where he was.

Pits:

I didn't take a picture, but I flagged the heroes to where the keeper of souls spawns between lab and chamber before I took unwanted guests. And to be safe I did some teleporting around to get into easier positions to go after the keepers, although I don't think that was actually necessary.

I used consets for ice wastes, plains/pits, dhuum and one extra armor of salvation when I lost some bonds and panicked. I also used eggs & corn to make ether renewal easier to keep up since I'm not used to playing emo bonder. The timer said 5 hours after dhuum was dead, 1 hour of that I was away eating lunch, and I wasn't trying to rush, so I think this could have been done in maybe 3-3.5.

jetlaw · Jun 18, 2010, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Nicely done chiuna, that is most certainly an accomplishment! Most importantly, thank you very much for the builds and the screen shots, I greatly appreciated it! Good to see that there is more than one way to make it through, and that if you have patience, you can make it through on your own (with a little help from a friend to "lend" you their heros).

Now you guys have me inspired that the UW Heroway team build provides a very good framework for a team that is running with heros. I plan to do some more testing on this shortly.

FoxBat · Jun 19, 2010, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Finally had our successful split-clear, although it took 3 hours so I'm not sure we gained anything.... one team of 2 spirit spammers, illusion hero, panic player, and another 2 spirit spam, keystone hero, barrage ranger. Splitting the quests as needed was even easier than a tank, the hard part was sometimes slow going clearing the places up to it.

Anyway as mentioned, the key is really mesmers. They can destroy large dryder groups completely, and protects your heroes not only from damage, but running around like idiots from AoE as well as protecting spirits and shutting down aura of resto.

jetlaw · Jun 22, 2010, 12:05 AM // 00:05

I have now been able to use a slight variation of the Heroway team build to complete Ice King and 4H (did numerous times with 2 humans + 6 heros, and once with 1 human + 6 heros).

Amazingly, which is now the most problematic is the Imprisoned Spirits (Bone Pits) quest. This quest used to be easily manageable, but the spawn types and locations have changed substantially since the addition of Dhuum. If you are at the spirit spawn location facing the bridge, silver dryders now spawn to your left, while the terrorwebs spawn in a circle on the reaper side of the bridge (the side of the bridge which is closest to you). Sadly, the wikis don't have maps showing specific spawn points. I see chiuna's screen for the pits showing the hero placement, but the screen doesn't show the spawn locations, and that team was running with the spirits being bonded.

Accordingly, I have two questions:
(1) Does anyone have a map or screen shots showing the specific spawn locations for Imprisoned Spirits?

(2) Both chiuna's screen shot and my successful run used a human bonder. My current team config is able to dominate most of the other zones, but doesn't use a bonder. Any thoughts/suggestions on completing this quest with heros in a team without a bonder? I presume that a different party split would help, but I am still trying to sort out the best possible tactics.

As always, thank you all for your time and efforts!

_________________________________________

EDIT: Found solutions to both of these issues. Now know the spawn points and solved the issue with the need to protect the spirits.

WarcryOfTruth · Jun 22, 2010, 02:52 AM // 02:52

There's an infinite amount of combinations that are possible, the one he used is just one of the more common ones. When me and my co-leader do it, we'll show you what we use

jetlaw · Jun 24, 2010, 06:16 AM // 06:16

I am VERY pleased to report that I have FINALLY made it through, and with 2 people + 6 heros.

Here is a screen from the successful run.

Thanks to Anduin for joining me on this run and for doing an awesome job.

chullster · Jun 24, 2010, 01:08 PM // 13:08

Congratulations Jetlaw on achieving your goal

Countess Marie · Jun 24, 2010, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Hey, just dropping in to give props to 2-man UWers. That's leet status, period.

Next is Hard mode, eh?

-CM

frostkisses · Jun 24, 2010, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Grats on your full run