Curse

General Typhus · Apr 14, 2006, 12:06 AM // 00:06

My guild has kept our 5 man FoW build a pretty tightly kept secret for some time now, but I've had a change of heart and decided to reveal the build to the general public.

The team consists of two JI/Barrage rangers, SS necro, tank, and 1 monk.
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Tank - W/Mo
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Attributes:
*8 Healing
*9 Axe/Sword/Hammer
*13 Strength
*Remainder in tactics

-Healing Hands
-Mending
-Dolyak Sig
-Balanced Stance
-Watch Yourself!
-Sprint
-Healing Breeze
-**Attack Skill** (A KD or interrupt is prefered)

Prefered weapons:
Any sword/axe/hammer of enchanting.

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Necro - N/Me
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Attributes:
*12 + 1 + 3 Curses
*9 + 1 Soul Reaping
*8 Illusion
*Remainder in inspiration

Skills:
-Spiteful Spirit
-Arcane Echo
-Inspired Hex
-Sympathetic Visage
-Suffering
-Desecrate Enchantments
-Awaken the Blood
-**Optional** *I Like Distortion in case aggro ever breaks off

Prefered Weapons:
-Curse 20% recharge wand
-((Green)) Villnar's Glove

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Two Rangers - R/Mo
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*16 Marksmanship
*9 Expertise
*Remainder in smite

-Barrage
-Distracting Shot
-Savage Shot
-Judges Insight
-Favorable Winds
-Essence Bond
-**optional slot** (Holy veil works well)
-Rebirth

Prefered weapon:
Any type of bow of enchanting

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Monk - Mo/x
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*14 Protection
*12 Healing
*11 Divine Favor

-Dwayna's Kiss
-Orison of Healing
-Healing Seed
-Healing Breeze
-Life Barrier
-Life Bond
-Essence Bond
-Rebirth

Prefered weapon:
Kephket's Refuge
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Alright, so now that you have your team ready, here's what you do. Off the bat, everyone puts all their bonds on the War. He then runs off to gather the aggro. Here is a map of route #1:

The group should stay WELL out of the War's aggro range (at LEAST a full circle) until the tank has the mobs rounded up. Wait a few to lock in the aggro, the tank should call a target when he's ready for everyone to run up. At this point the rangers and SS go forwards and do their thing. The monk can use Seed on the tank if need be, and heal anyone who takes damage from stragglers. //THIS IS THE BASIC STRATEGY FOR THE RUN//

After this group, you can move forwards, but again, stay back and let the tank go round up the aggro. Oh, for the record, since there are TWO rangers with FW, it should ALWAYS be up. (And well back from the group.) Anyway, here is map two:

Same strategy as before. Ignore the group to the left with the monks. *Oh, a note. The first priority is getting the Book. After that this run becomes a piece of cake.

So after group three, proceed with pull ONE group of rangers and a single abysall. You only need to clear the way, not clear the area. Here is map three of how things should roll, down to where you get to the hill which opens to the Great Battle Fields.

From here, use the same strategy and take out the Ether Breakers and Ice Hands. Should be easy with Judges Insight. From here move along the right hand side. Two skele impalers will pop out, just gank them. Heres the next map:

So from where the impalers are, using the same strategy, clear out the groups one by one and make your way to the Bone Dragons. Don't be afraid to take your time, and watch for patrols. The more runs you do and the more experienced your tank is with FoW spawns, the easier it will be.

Anyway, take out the first bone dragon and ether breaker, then take out the second. After you've done this, double back and take the Army of Darkness quest and the Eternal Forgemaster quest. After everyone grabs these quests, head back to where the dragons were.

Now this is the first tricky part (and only) of the run. Hopefully, your tank is good at pulling. You need to pull the shadow monks and rangers away from the priest of menzies and down the hill so he's out of their range, then proceed to kill them as usual. After you've felled them, go ahead and brutally own the priest. (A few shadow monkeys might pop out, they shouldn't be too much trouble.) Your tank should grab the book now, and you can all sigh, the hard part is over.

From here you should do the Forgemaster quest as usual, one group at a time. After this, your happy party members can grab their FoW armor and you can either quit, call it a run or move onto the second part of what we do. The Tower of Strength quest. If you decide to do it talk to Eternal Lord Taeres and head out the back of the forge. You shouldn't have a problem with any groups on the way. As long as you take it slow through this area, and keep out of Wurm Seige range while you're killing groups, you shouldn't have any trouble. Let the tank run back to the forge and grab the Mage. Kill the Shadow Lord, who is quite a wuss, and head back to Taeres for your reward. Now you can either a) run back and do the Rastigan quest, or b) return the book, get the xp and be done.

That's about it. For further quest information check out Guildwiki.. With a decent tank none of the other quests should be a problem.

Alternatively, if you take an SB monk you can usually clear all of FoW. (The Wailing Lord's forest is fun, with NR but shouldn't be trouble.) Also, sometimes we took an E-Surge mes or Choking Gas/Practiced Stance R/Mo to speed up the runs.

Good luck with it you fatties.

[Credit to guildy Huntmaster for writing up the brief walkthrough....you piece of shit.]

Huntmaster · Apr 14, 2006, 12:13 AM // 00:13

God, i'm awesome.

sh4ft3d · Apr 14, 2006, 02:28 AM // 02:28

Lol.... Nice team btw

Ira Blinks · Apr 14, 2006, 03:05 AM // 03:05

my 2 wood planks:

- totaly approve monk build, but it is probably too hard for a pug... One monk should be able to run decent prots and healing at the same time, but people too lazy to for that. Also I found it very hard to convince healer to bring essence bond or spellbreaker.

- tank build is kinda weird... I never found mending being anything usefull in pve. Also overlaping enchants with monk is a bad idea.
Elite choice is pretty poor to - if you really want monk elite, then take spellbreaker or shield of judgement. Monk will have to cover up your enchants when you charge in anyway.

- for necro I prefer domination as secondary. Shatter hex has only 10 sec recharge, and Backfire will help silence up multiple monks since you dont have a nuker. I do realize that Inspired hex means third SS, but I found that energy wise it is much more efficient to wait for echoed version to recharge.
Suffering is crap. I never saw any use for this skill unless you have FoC on your skill bar. If you fight single group long enough for Sufffering to do some damage, then you should revise your build.
Basically Desecrate + Shatter Hex ftw to spike things down.

- rangers... oh rangers... The reason I dont like them is because their power is proportional to the amount of rangers you have in the group. And you cant rely on just one. Now problem is that when you have more than one person in the group with the same skillbar and responsibilities, at least half of them will be slacking. Besides Barrage group really belongs to Tombs simply because there are no healers there and that means dps ftw. In FoW - you missed one interrupt and mobs are back at full health.
Another reason why rangers are not good choice is that your build doesnt have enought hex removals. Barragers are very weak to SS and Empathy and tend to not watch for them.

As for avoiding doing Tower of Courage quest:
Some groups I go with do the same thing and I tend to not to argue, but when I start the group I always insist on doing it. Its a good test for players you have recruited. Good time to watch for morons and zone out and form a new group before favor is gone.

got lah · Apr 14, 2006, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Barrage Rangers pretty useless imo, besides the fact they steal your lewt and speed things up.

Seriously, why DO you need a wammo with mending? Against shadows, you eat Shatter Enchantment. Against Ancient Skales with Massive degen, you eat Rend enchants, and Healing Hands? ><><><><><><>< PALADIN ALERT =0

Well not bad overall, but 3 man fow ftw =p

Huntmaster · Apr 14, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Well, things seem to work fine as we have used this build many times.

The comment about the w/mo taking something like SB, SB would last like 8 seconds.

As for barrage rangers being useless and stealing loot, thats a pretty naive and ignorant comment. :/ Also, doing these runs, the people we take have become our close friends, so it's all good with drops.

Your Pally comment is pretty uninformed as well. When you have mending and healing breeze on you, the degen isn't bad, plus when you do do the fire forest, you have an SB monk, so there are no problems. With the shattering, usually the essence bonds drop first, and as long as the LB and LBarrier don't drop, things are perfectly fine.

I'm suprised nobody has commented on the balanaced AND dolyak thing. I never run the tank in these and have never understood why you'd take both of these.

Either way, thanks for the criticism, only helps things get better.

Ira Blinks · Apr 14, 2006, 04:51 AM // 04:51

spellbreaker will save your lower back big time when you get your enchants rended by skales or when shepperds spiking you down. Either way you missed major part of the comment which is "if you want to use monk elite...". If you dont want to use monk elite, glad's will do just fine.

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I'm suprised nobody has commented on the balanaced AND dolyak thing.

Nothing to comment - they are perfectly fine.

Other things:
- bonds should never be shattered. Thats why monk taking healing breeze - to constantly cover up more important enchants.
- i totaly forgot about Endure pain. That is awesome skill when monk got interrupted/esurged

Huntmaster · Apr 14, 2006, 05:29 AM // 05:29

Well here's the thing, you're NEVER that pressured. There are no points in the run where the team is like "oh shit, oh shit, we're all going to die!" Hell, theres not even a point in the run where i've ever seen the team going "oh shit the tank is dropping!"

And the skales and shepards aren't part og the regular run. You go after them if you bring a 6th member, the SB monk, who just add some extra healing which counters pretty much all the damage, because to be honest, it's not bad at all.

Ira Blinks · Apr 14, 2006, 03:04 PM // 15:04

why not solo farm the spiders then?

Avarre · Apr 14, 2006, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Now this is the first tricky part (and only) of the run. Hopefully, your tank is good at pulling. You need to pull the shadow monks and rangers away from the priest of menzies and down the hill so he's out of their range, then proceed to kill them as usual. After you've felled them, go ahead and brutally own the priest. (A few shadow monkeys might pop out, they shouldn't be too much trouble.) Your tank should grab the book now, and you can all sigh, the hard part is over.

You have five people, and you're pulling that part? You should just move straight in and level the place imho...

And yes, I sighed. My opinion on book is known :/

I really don't like the necro build, but if it works I can't say too much. From the looks of it you just took an UW necro build and did no work on it, which isn't the best pattern in FoW.

Decent guide though, should help some of the people newer to fissure. Not sure why you skip Rastigan though... his chest can drop some nifty stuff and there's plenty of loot clearing that area.

4runner · Apr 14, 2006, 04:47 PM // 16:47

NIce guide, Cool!

4man FTW!!!

NinjaKai · Apr 14, 2006, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Great. How very nice. Another build that gives people an excuse to exlude people from groups.

fiery · Apr 14, 2006, 05:36 PM // 17:36

I seen a build like this already, agreed 4 man rocks.

Cherno · Apr 14, 2006, 05:47 PM // 17:47

IRA, JI Barragers are awesome down in FoW. A single JI Barrage can do ~250 dmg per enemy. I guess that isn't very useful afterall.

Huntmaster · Apr 14, 2006, 07:40 PM // 19:40

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why not solo farm the spiders then?

Well, ever since we've encountered some guild issues, thats what we do now.

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You have five people, and you're pulling that part? You should just move straight in and level the place imho...

There are, i believe, 3 monks at this part. Without something to hold aggro, and ball up everything, and with the priest healing, the killing is very slow and painful.

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Decent guide though, should help some of the people newer to fissure. Not sure why you skip Rastigan though... his chest can drop some nifty stuff and there's plenty of loot clearing that area.

Thanks. With the rastigan part, i completely forgot about it until i was at the end of writing this, and by then i had become real unmotivated to finish, so i threw it in. We usually get it done either off the start or right after we get the book.

General Typhus · Apr 14, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

You have five people, and you're pulling that part? You should just move straight in and level the place imho...

And yes, I sighed. My opinion on book is known :/

I really don't like the necro build, but if it works I can't say too much. From the looks of it you just took an UW necro build and did no work on it, which isn't the best pattern in FoW.

Decent guide though, should help some of the people newer to fissure. Not sure why you skip Rastigan though... his chest can drop some nifty stuff and there's plenty of loot clearing that area.

I run the necro most of the time. SS,SV and echo are the only real essentials. Suffering and distortion are just optionals. Desecrate is good for pushing the monks over the edge. Inspired is nice for a 3rd SS as well.

I've run part dom and really, it's unnecessary. Everything dies quickly enough. Most monks dropped before I could even get a backfire off. My current SS setup works very well in my opinion.

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Great. How very nice. Another build that gives people an excuse to exlude people from groups.

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Me/N

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Also, sometimes we took an E-Surge mes or Choking Gas/Practiced Stance R/Mo to speed up the runs.

Bitch elsewhere please.

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why not solo farm the spiders then?

Tedium and repetition ftw?

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I seen a build like this already, agreed 4 man rocks.

That's wonderful, thanks for sharing. You may also drop one of the rangers if you are a dropRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO.

Avarre · Apr 15, 2006, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by NinjaKai

Great. How very nice. Another build that gives people an excuse to exlude people from groups.

Yeah, people really complained when we put out a 3-man FoW build... troll on!

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Typhus

I run the necro most of the time. SS,SV and echo are the only real essentials. Suffering and distortion are just optionals. Desecrate is good for pushing the monks over the edge. Inspired is nice for a 3rd SS as well.

I can understand the inspired part, that's a good trick. However when I SS'ed for 3 man teams, I found that echo wasn't really worth it, which is why I said I had problems with the build. Things like defile flesh and barbs are superb against shadow monks, and I feel those are more effective than the standard echo/sv setup as they allow more flexibility of the build. Imho, since you have a book tank (/sigh), you can drop distortion entirely... even if aggro does break, you should be able to kite away safely.

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Originally Posted by Huntmaster

There are, i believe, 3 monks at this part. Without something to hold aggro, and ball up everything, and with the priest healing, the killing is very slow and painful.

I only remember two... aaanyway.

That's why I suggest defile flesh and barbs over echo and sv... because you can fire them all at once target and with 2 rangers adding +24d/s, you can bring down a target that's split off, where 2 SS from echo won't help.

As for holding aggro... you have a warrior and lots of space to take aggro first, act like it

Racthoh · Apr 15, 2006, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Things like defile flesh and barbs are superb against shadow monks, and I feel those are more effective than the standard echo/sv setup as they allow more flexibility of the build.

Rangers using JI, I believe Barbs is physical damage only.

Avarre · Apr 15, 2006, 04:20 AM // 04:20

They don't need to use JI against the shadows, as the major benefit is against skeletons :/

Well since that would damage the ranger builds... defile on one monk, 1 ranger interrupt the second monk (concussion shot in optional?). If monks are split, barbs would work better... if they're together, JI barrage would work. Oh the situations!

General Typhus · Apr 15, 2006, 04:29 AM // 04:29

I tried out barbs, as Rac said, JI makes it holy, and voids barbs. Distortion is optional. Free slot. Defile flesh fits nicely in that free slot as well.