Curse

Avalanche · Sep 28, 2009, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Alright having some trouble on him, we are a Necro and a Ranger. I use to play a Spoil Victor to kill duncan solo + swap spirit. She uses Frozen soil and save yourself.

So far we tried following hero setups:
2 warrior 100b build
1 paragon
1 n/rt healer - sabway build
1 mo/me prot - prot/heavy hex removal
1 necro - mark of pain + ss

Couldn't get past first group, the degen was just too heavy.. and soothing images blocked her adrenaline.. the monk just refused to remove it X_x

Second try we tried the 2 man necroway thats on wiki, forgot FS this time but it felt abit low on damage so it failed too.

So I was just wondering if anyone beat it using H/H or has any good suggestions how to make it possible.
We beat tons of stuff in HM already, so we are not complete noobs :P And yes we would like to keep it to just the two of us, using the professions mentioned above.

Silmar Alech · Sep 28, 2009, 11:59 PM // 23:59

The actual challenge in this dungeon in HM is not Duncan, it is the way up to him.

My suggestion: drop the 2 warriors and the paragon, take a sabway-like minion master instead, a mesmer with a domination magic build (energy surge or visions of regret) and 2+ interrupts, and a second ranger. The rangers take Barrage+splinter weapon. Your ranger partner takes frozen soil, you take swap spirit.

Carry both Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support and begin each fight by using them as portable tanks. Additional PvE skills could be Necrosis (for you as a Necro) and Pain inverter.

You should do the SS/curses necro part yourself and leave the spoil victor part to a hero, since you are much stronger with a SS/curses build against 99% of the enemies in this dungeon than with a spoil victor build, which is useful only at Duncan.

You should probably even drop the spoil victor role entirely and carry an elementalist with support skills instead (earth magic wards/ward against harm/hex removal/aegis). Or take a ritualist with spirits and splinter weapon for your 2 rangers. Spirits from a spirit spammer ritualist hero are very good decoys for the inevitable enemy minions due to their low level and even give some cover.

The dungeon is stuffed with popups, much more than in NM. Pull them carefully one by one and try to not pull the Stone Summit groups together with the popups. Pull groups way back to safe ground, so no patrol group or additional popup will join mid-fight.

If you are able to reach Duncan in HM, you definitely have a team that can defeat Duncan. No special skills for him are required, only intelligent hero placement (flags) and tactics. You want to beat him, and if it takes 5 minutes longer it is still ok, I presume. If your heros have ~600 health (10% morale boost recommended), they can usually survive one spirit rift even if just not protected by protective spirit. Flag the non-attacking heros behind and out of Duncan's reach. I suggest that only you two and and 2 heros attack: the ranger and the mesmer. The others stay behind. Dodge Duncan's spirit rift.

The first time my guild and I tried to challenge Duncan, we did solely focus on Duncan, but we did not think about the way up to him. We failed miserably. The second time and ever since we solely focus on the way up to him and do not think about Duncan himself besides swap spirit. We succeed very good since then.

River Willow · Sep 29, 2009, 12:13 AM // 00:13

but my friend and I have been working on this dungeon too. He is a Sin and I play a Mes.
The Stone Summit groups and Restless Dead were much easier once I started taking Tahlkora as M/Rt with the build below~

RoJ
Smiter's Boon
RoD
Scourge Healing
Castigation Sig
Smite Hex
gaze of fury
flesh of my flesh

I did have to micro gaze of fury when we used frozen soil.

For other heroes, I took Jora with a cyclone axe build
and Livia with the reaper's mark variation of Sabway heal build.
My friend likes the Discord set~ he took the curses, the splinter bomber, and the life restorer.

We used a long bow to pull.

If you can afford a conset, you'll certainly tear out less hair.

hope this helps
happy hunting

Avalanche · Sep 29, 2009, 12:32 AM // 00:32

ty for suggestions, I usually played the curses part so it worked out great calling mop and so on.
Used the SV thing when we beat him on NM months ago as we failed terrible with normal fighting on duncan, while the way to him was just easy.

Will definitly use a conset on next try, just didn't want to waste money on it while our builds still aren't any good for it.
Didn't think about bringin a mesmer, aoe hex like vor surely works nice there I guess.. since the most troublesome part was to actually bring those freakin healers down, will definitly add that. Perhaps even AoTl on the mm, to take away all corpses from their summoners.
also like the idea of the roj with smite hex and sourge healing there.

Well got some new ideas now thanks for you, hope it also works out.. will update as soon as we try again ;P

Jeydra · Sep 29, 2009, 01:17 AM // 01:17

Your main problem is hero melee AI. Run this, should be simple.

Ranger - DPS build of choice (e.g. Turret);
Necro - I'd say the Moloch bar (N/A AP MoP);
N/Mo Sabway MM with Rend Enchants, Aegis, Prot Spirit and Aura of the Lich;
Spirit spamming Rit x2, one with Frozen Soil;
Monk or N/Rt healer x2, if using N/Rt's make sure to have some hex removals on other characters;
One more damage character of your choice (e.g. Smiter, VoR Mesmer, Paragon).

You need one Swap somewhere, but you do not need Spoil Victor or Signet of Sorrow (which is pretty useless except against Duncan, but then you can easily kill Duncan without it anyway so why bother?).

See this link, and links therein. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10398649

Silmar Alech · Sep 29, 2009, 09:06 AM // 09:06

Regarding conset: We do Duncan in HM always with conset. Don't make it even more difficult by not using one, especially as long as you are still exploring this dungeon.

And it's not expensive. Craft it yourself. Collect every white drop while you play and salvage the materials, which you should do anyway. Iron, dust and bones are abundant. The only rare thing is feathers, which could be farmed near Lion's Arch, or near Seitung Harbor, or simply be bought. The price of one conset is then approx. 1k (3x250g+salvage kit usages).
You will probably need 2 of them until you are accustomed with this dungeon. Our first guild run in HM took perhaps 45-50 min, and now we manage it in 25-30 min.

Bring additional consumables as well: Birthday Cupcakes, Candy Apples, summoning stones, Honeycombs or Rainbow Candy Canes for morale boost, four-leaf clovers against hero's death penalty. These things are for usage, not for trading. The first run is the most difficult, so don't be afraid to get the best support you can get. In later runs you can and will probably leave out these boosters. Do you ever do Urgoz's warren? There you get a Mystical Summoning Stone. Duncan's dungeon is the one where the Gaki is most welcome. It is the best summoning you can get (but don't let the Gaki stalk you from behind

)

Avalanche · Sep 29, 2009, 11:48 AM // 11:48

Ah yea getting consets wont be a problem, I run most things on sin including slavers and we do feather farm alot.. so money ain't a problem ;o

And glad to hear gakis are useful.. I have like 100 of those thanks for urgoz speedclears X.x

madriel222 · Sep 29, 2009, 01:25 PM // 13:25

I don't really recommend a minion master here because you'll constantly be fighting for corpses with the Stone Summit Summoners. You have some other solid options for corpse exploitation though, namely wells and Putrid Explosion. Well of the Profane, Well of Darkness, and Well of Suffering all work wonders here. This should also open up the bar to include Spoil Victor. That might not be the best skill in town, but it can down the fast attacking dwarves quite fast and certainly help as you take down Duncan.

Best of luck, don't get poked to death =D

Avalanche · Sep 29, 2009, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Alright we just did it in HM, I created some teambuild using your suggestions.
Was incredible easy, rushed through it in 40 minutes.. died once as my healer ran into spirits as I swaped them <_< Aggroed 2 stone summit groups once + touchesr but those 6 heroes actually did a great job staying all alive and beating the crap out of the foes ^^
Duncan also just died without one of us going down

Thanks alot :P

River Willow · Sep 29, 2009, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Jeydra's team looked pretty good to me. Is that what you went with?
And I wondered about the MM thing so thanks to Madriel for confirming.
Death to Duncan

Avalanche · Sep 30, 2009, 12:21 AM // 00:21

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d..._/HMDuncan.jpg

There I made a screenshot of the teambuild, I know expert focus is for nothing . Was yelled at by the lady for not thinking that barrage removes preperations ;o She took summon spirit then instead.. to move frozen soil around if it ends up in a bad position during a fight.
On my necro I could have probably taken something else instead of signet of corruption, perhaps ebon sin or an ebon ward would fit in well.
The MM actualy was useful, or at least i thought so.. he kept a constant amount of 10 minons up who did well to help trigger mop and barbs.
Was worried about the first RTs energy at first, but the hero managed it well enough to keep the spirits up.
Healers did just fine, the n/mo did good placing dwaynas sorrow on the minions for groupheals.
For the mesmer I just added some extra hex removal since on first try I was feeling like the hexes killed us and I ran out of ideas what else to add on his bar^^. He got alot of hate tho, knew why I placed some little selfheal on it xD Also vor / backfire + ss combined took casters down in an instant. Oh yea and i changed inspirition magic to 10 and added rest points into fast casting.

Like I said it took 2 groups of summits down easily without anyone dying, not even getting close to critical health.
Mobs went down fast, thinking back of it.. frozen soil wouldn't even be needed but it sure made it faster.

At duncan we didn't bother to flag heroes back when he used spirit rift, we just spread a little and attacked with full power... he went down quickly, like in a minute if even that.

Perhaps it helps someone else who has trouble on it

Now only vloxen left for HM, guess we gonna keep this build.. or add some roj, will just see

Silmar Alech · Sep 30, 2009, 11:36 AM // 11:36

Congratulations.

The build: Nice setup.

But you're optimistic... I would take a few more rezz skills.