Curse

cerb · Aug 31, 2008, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scarn

From what I've found, after they use hexbreaker the first time, they use their spells which drains them of energy. The AI seems to give spells priority over hexbreaker, which results in no hexbreaker after a period of time.

Then that's even better!

Keep me updated.

Dae GW · Aug 31, 2008, 07:12 AM // 07:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scarn

From what I've found, after they use hexbreaker the first time, they use their spells which drains them of energy. The AI seems to give spells priority over hexbreaker, which results in no hexbreaker after a period of time.

Quote for truth, they only use hexbreaker once in a very long while.

And to clear some things up:

First ANet had nerfed the plains putting mindflay spectres and cursed dream riders in there. They also gave the mindblade spectres hex breaker.

After a while they removed them and they put mindblade and banisheds there again, because the mindflay spectres didnt really nerf the Underworld Speed Runs. They nerfed Ursan to do that.

Dae GW

(Srry for my bad english

)

pogi8 · Nov 15, 2008, 08:33 AM // 08:33

after all udates in chaos plains with hex breaker would this work then two?

mo/me tank same build

mo/n

[spiteful spirit] [insidious parasite] [signet of corruption] [reckless haste] [defile enchantments] [blood ritual] [patient spirit] [signet of rejuvenation] or [jamei's gaze]
atts: 12 curse 12 healing prayers (10+2) 8 blood magic
just an idea...

cerb · Nov 15, 2008, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by pogi8

after all udates in chaos plains with hex breaker would this work then two?

mo/me tank same build

mo/n

[spiteful spirit] [insidious parasite] [signet of corruption] [reckless haste] [defile enchantments] [blood ritual] [patient spirit] [signet of rejuvenation] or [jamei's gaze]
atts: 12 curse 12 healing prayers (10+2) 8 blood magic
just an idea...

I'm not sure how exactly players are able to take down Mindblades in NM with the necromancer build I described in the guide anymore - ranged Mindblades with Hex Breaker definitely make a challenge. I have for long uninstalled Guild Wars and find myself unable to test anything, and my theory is far behind me, making it hard to suggest anything. Anyhow, I still have an idea (which would have to be tested of course) to overcome that problem: the necro and the monk would synchronize themselves in a way so that the monk casts a SoA on the necro (although that wouldn't be needed on groups less than 9 - this is so that the necro doesn't take next to 500 damage when casting his cover hex to disable Hex Breaker) immediatly before he casts Reckless Haste, then he would use arcane echo and SS two Mindblades who haven't put Hex Breaker back up. If anyone has another suggestion (or can confirm that my idea is indeed doable), please let me/us know.

I can confirm that my HM build used to clear UW (not described in the guide, but described in my posts in this thread and in the farming forum) should still work. It is based on a N/Mo Smiter/Curser, so there should be no problem killing Mindblades with HW & Retrib.

Concerning your suggestion, I can tell you for sure that it will not work. The tank's partner should never bring heals. The builds described in Art of Underworld were optimal at the time of the writing, which means that they cannot be further improved. It is very hard to clear such a vast area as the Underworld with only two people, because you have to adapt to so many different enemies. You can come up with a specific strategy to counter one type of foes, but what about the rest? Four Horsemen would be easily done with two people if that was all you had to worry about. And looking at your example, I can tell that you forgot about smites. Soul Reaping too. You would need to let your mana regenerate between each group of Mindblades. It could work in the Chaos Plains but it wouldn't be particularly good; there are far more effective builds.

I hope my post enlightened you and if you have any more questions, I'll do my best to answer them!

cerb · Nov 16, 2008, 05:18 PM // 17:18

I have added an Appendix (#17) to the guide. It's about HM.

Taranos · Nov 19, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Like the others said wonderful and excellent, especially bestiary, could tell me how you did them?

Haodu · Nov 30, 2008, 07:47 AM // 07:47

The bestiary alone makes this epic win

cerb · Jan 17, 2009, 03:45 AM // 03:45

Ahh, this thread makes me so nostalgic...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taranos

Like the others said wonderful and excellent, especially bestiary, could tell me how you did them?

I spent at least 50 hours (nearly every day for two or three weeks) in the UW in preparation for this specific guide, I got used to each area quite well (I was accustomed to most already from playing so much but both areas contiguous to Chaos Plains I was less familiar with) and had specific visions of each, and more particularly of each monster, so i tried to find a font that represented every one of them, in my eyes.

You can probably see from the bestiary which monster I'm more fan of! I had a Comics Book vision of Dead Collectors, Terrorweb Queen, and Keeper of Souls, for instance. I had a lot of fun with Grasping Darknesses, Stalking Nights, Smites and Dhuum Brothers, etc.

Glad you enjoyed!

jezzer1189 · Jan 30, 2009, 11:09 AM // 11:09

This is an excellent guide i've used it a bit now and it really does work well.

Something that may be a extra help when doing quest Wraithful Spirits, don't kill the stationary group of Graspings (the one with the hidden nightmare spawn usually) this will cause several of the friendly spirits not to spawn making the quest even easier as all you need to so is wand the lure the agressive tortured spirits away from the grasping group to kill them and its simple from there. Using this it is a assured method to be able to complete quest, was the tactic i used for spider runs.

Also I've been experimenting with coldfires and their use of spells, whilst using the W/Rt build I noticed that if you are up close to a coldfire and they are taking damage they stop using malestorm. I have been testing this with 55monk as well and it's the same. To save energy, before the necro comes in group them together and run up to them, this way you only need to cast SB once when you aggro and group them, works everytime. If you are unfortunate to get a malestorm on you it's no problem if your using MoR, just don't spam your spells and you gain a nice amount of energy as a result.

I hope people find these tips useful

Pookster · Feb 06, 2009, 03:50 PM // 15:50

In this age of UWSC etc it's still refreshing to read such a superb guide.

I've read this guide many times and still find it useful today despite
many runs. It clearly was a labour of love.

Shame you uninstalled GW, why ? Plus did I miss a post/link about The Mists
or was it scrapped ?

cerb · Feb 06, 2009, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Oh sorry, the project was pretty much abandoned. It was too much work for me (I'm at uni studying literature and I have to read for about 4-5 hours every day so I can't really devote any time to GW)

I still have the domain though, so maybe for GW2, who knows?

mojo8850 · Feb 18, 2009, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Love this guide.. Awesome Research..

One question which is bugging me is can a 600 / Smite do this as well, even if a 3rd palyer has to be involved, I mean clear the whole of UW in HM..

If we do require a third man what build..

jezzer1189 · Feb 18, 2009, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo8850

Love this guide.. Awesome Research..

One question which is bugging me is can a 600 / Smite do this as well, even if a 3rd palyer has to be involved, I mean clear the whole of UW in HM..

If we do require a third man what build..

Cerb will probably agree with this answer. This is yes. Wraiful spirits quest would be probably one of the hardest bits to complete due to the using IW, I personally prefer 55/SS in uw but I would say and I know people who have cleared uw as 600/smite.

If you are adding a third person, there are several options one is the obvious ranger famine build, or you could simply take another person with more support enchants such as succor, watchful spirit/mending, balf (so you don't have to) and then they could also take a more substancal rez such as UA and damage support if they also put a essence bond on you then they will have no problems with energy and be able to use pain inverter on tricky to kill foe. I do this sort of thing for Fow and we manage to clear a lot of FoW s a result.

mojo8850 · Feb 18, 2009, 09:40 PM // 21:40

But in HM Aggro break really fast

cerb · Feb 18, 2009, 09:57 PM // 21:57

I'm glad this thread still interests people ! Mojo, a full UW clear with 600/smite will pose many problems (Four Horsemen, Terrorweb Queen, Wrathful Spirits, etc.). Since HM was not doable two men with 55/SS (due to monster AI), I had come up with the solution of an hybrid SS/smite necro (more info on that on the first page of this thread, §17 if I remember correctly), who could switch between Retrib/HW and Spiteful Spirit depending on the situation. That build allowed me and Avarre to clear UW in HM, but we only tried it once (and succeeded). That build had its advantages and disadvantages but seemed to me at the time the only solution (I couldn't confirm that now since I have been gone for months and many things have changed). The Wrathful Spirits quest, quite unexpectedly, posed the most problems as jezzer pointed out. Although now thinking back on it, I would suggest (if you are using my build - the 600 hp monk with the hybrid Smiter/SS) to ignore the static group of Grasping Darknesses (which spawn Tortured Spirits - to avoid failing the quest) and that the monk just switches to < 135 HP and keep his health up with Divine Favor bonus and SoA.

If you want to add a third player, I would suggest aiming for more damage, such as a N/Me with Pain Inverter and switching the hybrid Smiter/SS back to a standard smiter. Of course that necro would have to stay back against melee mobs to avoid aggroing himself and only coming in range against ranged monsters. But that's okay, since you would mainly need him for speeding up Four Horsemen/Terrorweb Queen anyways.

Edit: I've had very good feedback about this guide but I never had the confirmation that anyone successfully cleared UW with it! To those who did : mind sharing screenshots ?

Resident · Feb 24, 2009, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Te be honest Cerb, We failed miserably most of the times. And it's taking freaking long.

600/Smite is doable. Pretty much faster than 600/SS smite!
The smiter build is the following:
Ray of Judgment, Glyph of Swiftness, Pain Inverter, Castigation signet, Holy Wrath, Retribution, Balthazar's spirit, Rebirth.

Since the Ray of Judgment buff, this skill is soo imba. What we manage to do is every quest before the chaos planes. Then we failed at 4 horsemen cause we stood on the wrong side and got hexed. To be honest, I have no idea how to do that quest.

cerb · Feb 25, 2009, 05:48 PM // 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Resident

Te be honest Cerb, We failed miserably most of the times. And it's taking freaking long.

600/Smite is doable. Pretty much faster than 600/SS smite!
The smiter build is the following:
Ray of Judgment, Glyph of Swiftness, Pain Inverter, Castigation signet, Holy Wrath, Retribution, Balthazar's spirit, Rebirth.

Since the Ray of Judgment buff, this skill is soo imba. What we manage to do is every quest before the chaos planes. Then we failed at 4 horsemen cause we stood on the wrong side and got hexed. To be honest, I have no idea how to do that quest.

The reason we ran a hybrid SS-Smiter was not for run speed, it was rather an optimal choice of speed/utility/possibility (as in, being able to clear the UW). One problem (for which I thought of the hybrid SS-Smiter) was of course the Behemoths. But it was suggested that Pain Inverter + running into traps kill them instantly. That's even better. The SS-smiter build I suggested has a wildcard skill, which allows you to bring PI (the reason we did not was because Avarre didn't have EOTN).

Next you have the Spawning Pools, Wrathful Spirits, Ice King, Imprisoned Spirits, Unwanted Guests, Terrorweb Queen, and of course, Four Horsemen. Bunch of reasons not to rely too much on HW/Retrib themselves, which led to the hybrid SS-Smiter.

But let's go back to Four Horsemen. The monk will need to bond the reaper with Life Bond because he needs a source of energy (in NM, with 55/SS, the nec had BR - but BR alone isn't enough in HM). Of course, remember to switch to a 60 armor set before beginning the quest. Now, with Life Bond on the reaper, Balt's Spirit and Blessed Aura on the monk, the quest can hardly fail.

You have to stand in the correct spot (shown in the screenshots or in the videos) - a tiny land point in front of the reaper - to make sure the groups do not reach you. Once the quest is started, the monk must make sure to keep SB / SoA on the reaper. Your partner should wait a little, until the four groups (12 terrorwebs + 4 Horsemen) are attacking the reaper before doing his job. He must kill the Terrorwebs first, so he will pick a side and deal with those Terrorwebs. As soon as he casts his spell, he should back off to the same land point you both stood at before the quest, and so should the monk - as soon as you cast your thing, go back, and make sure to never aggro.

Things get a little more complicated in HM because quite often some Terrorwebs will go after you even if you didn't aggro. The monk should keep PS and SB (life bond + Balt's = no energy problems, remember?) on both players - and not forget the reaper - while his partner takes care of these as soon as possible. This is one situation where I'd rather have SS/Insidious over Ray of Judgement. When Terrorwebs are taken care of, your partner should scout the Reaper's Horseman target, and attack it as well. Sometimes that target will be behind another, which means you would have to aggro one to get to the far one. If this happens, be very cautious. You could try to run alongside the edge of where you're fighting from and take a detour around the closest Horseman to reach out for the reaper's target. Whatever you do, there are two important rules when doing the Four Horsemen quest:

1. The very second your spell is done casting, pull back a good number of steps
2. Do never aggro anything towards your monk. He can take care of the reaper fine, but he cannot help you (since his only ways of healing is through enchantment and the Horsemen are very nasty with enchant removals), and bringing Horsemen to him can only cause problems.

The smiter could also try using Ray of Judgement or SS/Insid on the closest Horseman, even if it is not the reaper's target. It would take a bit more time though, but is safer. Do not bother with Pain Inverter, it really won't do anything here.

If you still have problems... *argh* Well I had uploaded like three videos of different Four Horsemen runs, but looks like FileFront took them down. I will try to upload them on youtube soon.

Good luck!

cerb · Feb 25, 2009, 07:09 PM // 19:09

I made a group for fun, for those interested:

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/group.php?groupid=39

Chin Lae Prowesss · Mar 02, 2009, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Wow, that guide was amazing, i just finished my book and i had a spare 2 hours an boy was it worth reading. GREAT Job =DDDD

D A R K S O I F O N · Mar 03, 2009, 03:05 AM // 03:05

be4 it was nerfed with the ecto drops dwo uw hm speed clear rocked. I used to farm with my guildy like 35 ectos each. Now it's abit annoying but get some nice weapons out of it. Does anyone know if a roj bomb build can work in uw hm. My mate tryed it with 4 monks in hm and reckons its unbelivable power and dmg they get whilst being protected by the enchanments.