Curse

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 07:57 AM // 07:57

Well my usual build got to Duncan with a little trouble but made it, but didn't have any way to kill him. I read about taking degens and such, but I never seem to have the fire power to kill anything.

I H+H the whole way. Any suggestions for hero's and henchmen to take?

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 03:58 PM // 15:58

ANy suggestions for skills or classes?

Darkobra · Sep 14, 2007, 04:10 PM // 16:10

A Sandstorm/warder elementalist with blinds and weakens generally helps with melee classes.

You'll also want a Spoil Victor necromancer for Duncan in particular with Well of Blood and Blood Ritual as support.

I've not been to Duncan yet, so I don't know if Pain Inverter will be of any use. It's an Asuran PVE skill you get through a load of side quests which I can't be bothered getting into the detail of. But a lot of people keep saying that you won't beat Duncan without Spoil Victor. How true that is, I don't know.

Engel the Fallen · Sep 14, 2007, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Ah thanks for the advice. The melee took me by surprise too. Was like wtf was that as I got raped in seconds with my normal team.

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Whta kind of blinds should be used? there is still the problem of killing the summits, especially when you get defender/priest/summoner in a pack. The priest/defender keep everything alive and the summoner makes sure you don't last long enough to kill either.

Darkobra · Sep 14, 2007, 05:31 PM // 17:31

It was actually a build I decided to experiment on myself. I had a previous green earth staff drop, the Arbor's Earth Staff, then Searing Flames was rendered useless due to Destroyers, so I made myself an earth build. Then I saw just HOW BRILLIANT it was at rendering melee completely useless. The only issue I have are the spell casters, but that's what a team is for. So I know my earth build works very well. (I miss fire...)

A ranger on my team took Frozen Soil, I think it was, to stop the constant resurrecting of the enemies. That can help you get through the main dungeon too. One thing one of the more "experienced" (I question that, but he did go through the dungeon at least once) dungeon crawlers insisted on was taking Spoil Victor.

I'll be able to have a more definite answer when I fight Duncan myself. But if he is actually melee, you'll have no problems with your usual wards and anti-melee with good monks by your side.

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Well one thing I've been finding is, I throw up frozen soil and either they whipe it out, or it doesn't do anything, I've killed guys watched frozen soil last the entire fight and see the guy we killed in the first few seconds still there at end of the fight. WIch comes back to my whole problem, if I design a team to last longer and counter spell such as backfire and such there just isn't enough damage to kill anything. I'm getting frustrated, I'm frankly tired of using dual fire mages *not using SF* but unless I do nothing dies.

Lord Feathers · Sep 14, 2007, 05:44 PM // 17:44

I've tried the hero & hench mode but trying to place a necrmancer with SV at the bottom of those steps once everything is clear except Duncan and his spirits is not as easy as people in these posts are making it seem. Even with flagging a monk back, putting your SV necro in place and letting him spam SV on Duncan doesn't always work. The AI will at times like to do it's own thing and you'll actually be controlling those heroes in-order to keep the monk healing the necro and the necro where you want him.

The DOA mentality of the " LEET " has indeed made it's way to the grotto and I can see why one would rather hench & hero this then wait 1/2 hr to 45 minutes for the flavor of the month builds to appear in whatever town your standing in. Getting to him is no problem, taking him down is quite another with a hero team.

Myself I'd suggest a two man team of hero & henchies. There's less of a chance for someone to aggro the entire area and wipe your party from the start and you'll only have two people to worry about and not 8 different ideas of what everyone should be doing. I can see the write up on Wikki working but...... getting the AI to understand that is another thing.

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Anyone suggest some skill sets? I'm really running out of ideas. I'm thinking of going baco to my fire mage dual and just sticking SV on one of my mages just so I can GET there. *sighs* AOE seems to be the only way to do it for me, otherwise I sit there spamming kill the ****ing priest and watching it repeatedly get down to 5-25% health and nothing happens, or I do kill him and he just gets ressed a second later.

AlienFromBeyond · Sep 14, 2007, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Feathers

I've tried the hero & hench mode but trying to place a necrmancer with SV at the bottom of those steps once everything is clear except Duncan and his spirits is not as easy as people in these posts are making it seem. Even with flagging a monk back, putting your SV necro in place and letting him spam SV on Duncan doesn't always work. The AI will at times like to do it's own thing and you'll actually be controlling those heroes in-order to keep the monk healing the necro and the necro where you want him.

That's because when people say that they're talking about a human necro. I don't think anyone has tried it with a hero one, precisely for the reason you have shown.

Lord Feathers · Sep 14, 2007, 06:02 PM // 18:02

I'm running a splinter shot ranger, a MM necromancer equipped with SV, A Belt Avatar Dervish and a Monk. The rest are henchies, mage, interupt, monk, and earth henchie. I throw down Frozen Soil and keep that behind my group. Then pull " ONE " group and start pounding on them. Once your MM gets some minions going life get's easier but the stone summit can be a pain in the butt. If your reading all these posts on how ppl are simply mowing this area down your really only seeing someone bragging or some LEET SOB making himself feel like somebody. This area is not a slam dunk no matter what team you run if you hero & hench it.

The Dervish will help with the restless dead

The MM / Combo SV necro helps get thru the area and to Duncan

The splinter / Barrage I use seems to help run the monks out of energy and spread damage around enough so not everything can heal and you actually start killing something.

The Monk hero can be set up however you want.

Unless you have massive AOE and are wasting things real quick the Stone Summit will REZ fast enough you can't keep up, that's where frozen soil comes in. Keep an eye on it and if it runs out throw it up again. The Stone Summit summoners can also get out of hand as well, you give them enough bodies before you take them out say hello to lots of minions.

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Yeah summoners are a bit of a catch 22, you leave them alone and focus on healers they build a army, you kill them right away and unless you can spike them your in for a bit of a fight while your team gets hit.

What is a good MM build? I've been trying, but even with 15 death magick I never seem to get very many as they get wiped out as fast as I build them. I've tried looking at the wiki page but didn't really see anything that worked for me.

ChoKILLate[FDG] · Sep 14, 2007, 06:38 PM // 18:38

I go in as a Dervish, with Lyssa for energy and the one skill to recharge it, which also does 100 pure holy damage to everything in the area! For heros, I've found a smite monk helpul in harder areas. My hero monk has reversal of damage, smite condition, judges insight, and scourge healing along with a few other smite and divine spells. He acts as a third healer while also being a damage dealer. This build of course works even better in dungeons with undead as they take double damage.

For the SV necro, I would make him full blood spiker and not worry about the minions. Bring wells for health regen and to steal minons from the enemy. Wells tend to be a faster cast. GL

Lord Feathers · Sep 14, 2007, 08:00 PM // 20:00

For the Stone Summit I like using Jaggies and making exploding minions. The Hero AI is actually pretty good with them.

dwchang · Sep 14, 2007, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Frankly I had similar problems getting TO Duncan with Heroes and Henches and REALLY didn't wanna go to Searing Flame Eles since I heard you needed Spoiled Victor. However, I got fed up with the necros and their lack of damage in GETTING to Duncan so....I went back to SF Eles.

In short, SF Eles and the basic strategy still works. You'll get their a lot easier and so long as you pull out once or twice while fighting Duncan (to heal), you'll be fine. The main reason you need to pull back (at least for me) was the SF Eles will be getting hit with Duncan's "Retribution" like spell and so the Monks can't keep up with the damage.

If you pull out and heal up, Duncan will regenerate some HP sure, but nowhere near the amount you inflicted. I pulled out twice and still beat him with H/H in 10 minutes or so. More importantly, I was able to get to him a lot easier than with Necros.

My team was:
-Myself (Dragon Slash Warrior)
-2 SF Ele /w two Mesmer interrupts for Energy Management and well...interrupts.
-Heal Monk
-Interrupt Hench (VERY useful)
-Fire Hench
-Heal Hench
-Prot Hench

wolfwing · Sep 14, 2007, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Side question, anyone know what the stairs to the right of Duncan are on the map?

wolfwing · Sep 15, 2007, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Hmmmm dang, well I took spoils of victory but his health never seemed to move at all. Ironicly though I got through the entire with with 7% bonus so it was actually my best run....yay for dual fire mages without SF.

Sasuke The Betrayer · Sep 15, 2007, 02:40 AM // 02:40

Hehe. I have NO idea what you guys are talking about. The only hard part I find is the beginning (I do Heroes with a friend... who loads slow lol) and we (most of the times) get pwned b/c of his late load on the first mob. Anyways, once reaching Duncan, I recommend you have a SS/SV (SV by itself is fine, but just takes longer).

Please. I scanned through this, but you should really use SWAP. I can't even express how much easier it makes Duncan. It's SO simple. Use Swap, the spirits get moved, and just throw a couple of spears at Duncan. He'll use your spells on you, and afterwards, flag your SS or SV or both such that your hero's cast distance is at the max to cast on Duncan. You should continue spearing Duncan as he hits you with normal attacks (I'm a warrior and he uses his atk skills only on me). By doing this, your necro heroes won't get hurt and they continually cast on Duncan. (Duncan will only cast on your heroes if he moves. If you didn't know, the cast range of a hero/human is BARELY bigger then a monster, so they can always cast first on them) Even if Duncan DOES use spells on your heroes, its good if you have a HB monk that can bring them up quickly. Even if they die contintually, Duncan will go down (And recuperation can't heal him because he got swapped :P). Good luck.

yishin · Sep 15, 2007, 03:56 AM // 03:56

Yeah I'd recommend swap too.
Lately people are offering ferries to Duncan. I decided to use one. But that would mean since I like playing with heros and henchies that I would have to beat Duncan with 7 men instead of 8 men. I tried the build I used beating him with 8 (me and 7 h/h) but now without the mesmer hench.

The problem with playing h/h is it takes a lot of time especially when you are 1 man down. As you can see it took me 1:23 to reach Duncan. I only aggroed spirits on Duncan's right hand and used swap (my ele hero has swap) to relocate them.

Here you see where I flagged the heroes. Since the nec has Spoil victor he is the one who is nearest to Duncan with Tahlkora right behind him. You can also see I disable some skills of Tahlkora (same goes fro the nec). I myself playing ele brought pain inverter, I feel it quickens the fight. I enlarged the life bar of Duncan to see when I was going to nuke him (since spoil victor only works when your target foe has more life than you).

At 1:37 I finally killed him. So the final battle only took 14 min.
I probably won't h/h with 7 men since it went so slow.

Hope you can use some ideas in your next run. GLHF

okashii · Sep 15, 2007, 10:07 PM // 22:07

wiki also suggests a strategy with sig. of sorrow = one person takes a nap at Duncan's feet and the Necro spams the sig, anyone tried this ?

also Grenth's Balance might work well on Duncan (its easy to make a 900hp N/Mo)