Curse

Mark Nevermiss · Dec 21, 2007, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Today I wanted to do this mission on my ritualist, and I decided to test a non touch-ranger way whereby my ritualist would be participating actively in bringing the beast down and not just watching or healing. So here is what I did:

Please note the builds I used could be perfected further because it was a first test. Also, the builds needed to be resilient to allow for reachiing Cyndr in the first place with little or no casualties.

This was probably the easiest time I did it.

Note: You need to do some flagging but its easy as you see from the image below:

In retrospect: I could have brought another blood necro instead of Xandra to accelerate things abit because Cyndr decided not to attack her and thus her [skill]weapon of remedy[/skill][skill]vengeful weapon[/skill] were not used.

My own build for this mission:

13 Channeling
13 Restoration
8 Protection Prayers
Rt/Mo

[skill]splinter weapon[/skill][skill]wielder's strike[/skill][skill]spirit rift[/skill][skill]weapon of remedy[/skill][skill]vengeful weapon[/skill][skill]nightmare weapon[/skill][skill]mend body and soul[/skill][skill]protective spirit[/skill]

Master of Whispers build:

14 Blood Magic
12 Soul Reaping

[skill]Soul Leech[/skill][skill]Vampiric gaze[/skill][skill]Blood of the aggressor[/skill][skill]Blood Drinker[/skill][skill]demonic flesh[/skill][skill]Blood Ritual[/skill][skill]Signet of Lost Souls[/skill][skill]death pact signet[/skill]

Xandra's build is not important. She was mainly a healer with Life to help with Mend Body and Soul.

Master of Whispers went all out on Cyndr and got healing and protection from Mhenlo/Lina who were safely hidden behind the wall [along with the rest of the henchies and Olias]

All I did was cast prot spirit on my self and use Nightmare Weapon every 10 seconds while wanding Cyndr to steal health from him.

I think the same strategy can be used in HM.

My Ritualist and his team

Xero Silvam · Dec 21, 2007, 04:52 PM // 16:52

I beat Cyndr in about 1 minute using 3 R/N toucher heroes.

'twas easy.

tmr819 · Dec 21, 2007, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Interesting combination, Mark. I have never had much luck with keeping my other henches "safely hidden" and yet close enough to be effective. Cyndr always seems to go for them if they are anywhere nearby.

I have lately been looking for a better way to deal with Magmus, Cyndr's replacement once you've completed this mission.

I think Magmus is more difficult than Cyndr, in many ways. I managed to defeat Magmus once with my elementalist by echo spamming ([skill]Arcane Echo[/skill][skill]Power Block[/skill]), but this method will not work on my warrior cause he hasn't got the energy needed to keep it going. Heroes really can't handle the "echo spamming" thing very well (unless I am doing something wrong in their setups). I have also been wondering whether [skill]Wail of Doom[/skill] with arcane echo might be effective on a Hero against Magmus, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm not sure whether the "attack skills" for Wail of Doom just works against melee skills, tho. At least Magmus is relatively easy to get to for my "experiments".

Magmus has no monster skills and all his spells are fire-based, but he sure spams them awfully fast.

Xylia · Dec 21, 2007, 05:19 PM // 17:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmr819

II'm not sure whether the "attack skills" for Wail of Doom just works against melee skills, tho. At least Magmus is relatively easy to get to for my "experiments".

"Attack skills" refers to skills that are designated as such in the skill description ("bow attack", "hammer attack", "melee attack", etc)

tmr819 · Dec 21, 2007, 06:46 PM // 18:46

OK. Thanks, Xylia, for the clarification. I guess [skill]Wail of Doom[/skill] would be pretty useless against Magmus then. Oh, well.

Mark Nevermiss · Dec 21, 2007, 06:51 PM // 18:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xero Silvam

I beat Cyndr in about 1 minute using 3 R/N toucher heroes.

'twas easy.

Touch rangers were discussed earlier. I was just exploring alternative means

anti_fashion · Dec 21, 2007, 07:03 PM // 19:03

pain inverter and UB tanks. owned before he hid under ground the first time.

2 ubs 1 ele with pain invert, rest of the party was random.

Nemo the Capitalist · Dec 21, 2007, 09:32 PM // 21:32

4 touchers 2 monks and a tank own him bad kill in 10 seconds

life stealing damage=overpowered

Mac Sidewinder · Dec 21, 2007, 10:51 PM // 22:51

We had 3 life stealing Necros and took him down real fast. We didn't even really concentrate too hard on their builds. Just bring some life stealing and some healing and you are alright.

Pandora's box · Dec 31, 2007, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Doing it for the first time with my smite monk in a hero/hench party: wrong builds I suppose, can't even get near. I destroyed his carapace 3 times now but it always takes out the whole party. And after getting back from the res shrine the carapace is restored again. No damage done. So before I trie other suggestions posted here first 2 questsions:

1. Will the carapace always get back or is there a limit after which is stays down?
2. Would skills like Shield of Judgement or Signet of judgement acutally do some dmg back?

In my today's build Gwen was using her original interrupt build, but she had no success at all in interrupting Cyndr. So I wonder if I should use interrupts at all or simply go for the touch party with a lot of healing?

tmr819 · Dec 31, 2007, 06:41 PM // 18:41

I recommend using the three-touch-ranger method posted a couple pages back in this thread and bring interrupt/healing Heroes; interrupts do work against Cyndr's other damage skills -- just not the monster skill Pyroclastic Shot as far as I can tell. If you only have two rangers, bring an interrupter Hero or Healer Hero. (I've h/h'd this with two rangers, but three is faster.)

1. With the touch rangers, you do not need to bother with the kegs (which is a major pain with henches since they will stop fighting every time you go to grab a keg).
2. Not sure what those two skills you mention would do for you against Cyndr. Perhaps someone else might know...

The carapace comes back every time he submerges, but he does not submerge with the touch ranger method. I've had pretty consistent success with the Touch Rangers...

A skill like [skill]Protective Spirit[/skill] for yourself and the henches might also be a plus.

Mark Nevermiss · Dec 31, 2007, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora's box

Doing it for the first time with my smite monk in a hero/hench party: wrong builds I suppose, can't even get near. I destroyed his carapace 3 times now but it always takes out the whole party. And after getting back from the res shrine the carapace is restored again. No damage done. So before I trie other suggestions posted here first 2 questsions:

1. Will the carapace always get back or is there a limit after which is stays down?
2. Would skills like Shield of Judgement or Signet of judgement acutally do some dmg back?

In my today's build Gwen was using her original interrupt build, but she had no success at all in interrupting Cyndr. So I wonder if I should use interrupts at all or simply go for the touch party with a lot of healing?

After the carapace is down and him taking damage he will always burrow-->pop up at a different location with restored carapce---> regen health really fast unless you take the carapace down again fast it will get really frustrating with hench/heroes.

I dont think any kind of damage affects him ,even holy damage while the carapce is intact. Think of it as stone flesh aura with REALLY HUGE damage reduction. Only life stealing ignores all damage reduction.

Pandora's box · Jan 01, 2008, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Shield of judgment returns dmg: [skill]Shield of Judgment[/skill]
Would that work?

I'll try some builds tomorrow, thanks for the responds and Happy Newyear!

Longasc · Jan 01, 2008, 01:45 AM // 01:45

All these touch ranger builds are over the top and unnecessary.

Take your usual build and have a vampiric weapon and a blood necro with some lifesteals, done.

Pandora's box · Jan 01, 2008, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

All these touch ranger builds are over the top and unnecessary.

Take your usual build and have a vampiric weapon and a blood necro with some lifesteals, done.

Nope, did not work. Had a party with 2 blood heroes and a blood henchman, 2 interrupt rangers, a mesmer and a healer. I myself am a smiter monk. Using Protective bond allows me to bring down the carapice frequently but the problem is all the time: My party can't even reach Cyndr, he's too far away. The best result was bringing his health 1/4 down before the entire party was killed.

I got the feeling one has to be extremely lucky with the spot where Cyndr spawns. Buffing this guy because of the runners was not a good idea! It would have been much better to nerf its droprate instead. Now causual players like me suffer the consequence and get stuck. Spent over 5 hours now on this, without succes and that should not be so in an extention where everything else can be done withing 1 or 2 hours.

Mark Nevermiss · Jan 01, 2008, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora's box

Nope, did not work. Had a party with 2 blood heroes and a blood henchman, 2 interrupt rangers, a mesmer and a healer. I myself am a smiter monk. Using Protective bond allows me to bring down the carapice frequently but the problem is all the time: My party can't even reach Cyndr, he's too far away. The best result was bringing his health 1/4 down before the entire party was killed.

I got the feeling one has to be extremely lucky with the spot where Cyndr spawns. Buffing this guy because of the runners was not a good idea! It would have been much better to nerf its droprate instead. Now causual players like me suffer the consequence and get stuck. Spent over 5 hours now on this, without succes and that should not be so in an extention where everything else can be done withing 1 or 2 hours.

The idea when you bring blood life-stealing necros/touch rangers wahtever is NOT to use kegs on the carapace. Also try to flag the touchers close enough to Cyndr to be functional, while the rest of your party stands as far as possible but within range to be able to heal/prot the life stealing folks.

Also once Cyndr is defeated another boss would spawn in its place: Magmus, which was the target of the runners. And what anet did was simply nerf the kegs so that they could not be spam dropped, but within a delay to prevent using them to kill the boss fast and easy by players with run skills on their bars.

Dark Interception · Jan 01, 2008, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pandora's box

Nope, did not work. Had a party with 2 blood heroes and a blood henchman, 2 interrupt rangers, a mesmer and a healer. I myself am a smiter monk.

Im getting the feeling you're running subpar builds .. do you even have a prot monk and is your monk 100% healing? Dont want to be another gloater but I never had problems there didnt even bring any life steal but my builds were optimized so im getting the feeling your bars arent efficient enough.

tmr819 · Jan 01, 2008, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

All these touch ranger builds are over the top and unnecessary.

Take your usual build and have a vampiric weapon and a blood necro with some lifesteals, done.

I disagree. Nothing is "over the top" if you're having difficulty with a mission and just want to get it completed. There are a number of ways to get through this mission with an h/h team, but the touch ranger approach is the quickest and most effective one I've come across.

Pandora's box · Jan 01, 2008, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark Interception

Im getting the feeling you're running subpar builds .. do you even have a prot monk and is your monk 100% healing? Dont want to be another gloater but I never had problems there didnt even bring any life steal but my builds were optimized so im getting the feeling your bars arent efficient enough.

I don't know what subpar builds are.

There are several problems:

-I don't have Factions, so I can't use Vampiric bite. This leaves me with Vampiric touch as the only life stealing touch skill. Damage done that way is too low, and the touching necro's die too soon.
-All my necro builds are focused on Death magic. I don't have any blood magic equipment and gathering such for only 1 mission is not something I would want to do.
-Bringing the carapice down and than kill Cyndr is no good option for me: I simply keep fumbling too much when I run around - I need to target myself for healing after dropping a Keg, and than it takes too long to find the dwarf again, turn around, quite often in lag making a full circle so I get disoriented - thats a mess.
-Same for setting up a healing sequence around Cyndr: What? There is only 1 healer hench available and the whole bunch of henchies always sticks together. I tried to give my heroes monk healing skills as secondary but still they cannot even heal themselves properly when standing alone.
-My monk is a smiter/protector - he can have quite some damage but I'm not used to healing builds and targetting allies.

So until now:
1. Bringing down the carapace - I fumble too much when it gets tense; no option.
2. Life stealing: No vampiric gear and with only 1 vampiric skill dmg is too low, even with 3 necro builds; touchers keep dying.
3 Healing: Not enough healers available for a healing sequence - they have problems enough in keeping themselves alive. Same for protection.

For the moment I'm clueless how to proceed.

{IceFire} · Jan 01, 2008, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Get a 2nd or 3rd person, honestly, it makes the quest ridiculously easy since you can take his carapace down way faster...