Curse

Jeydra · Jul 05, 2009, 04:25 PM // 16:25

I thought I could H/H every area in the game that can be H/H'ed (certainly everything mentioned in another thread, from Vloxen's HM to Eternal Grove HM), until I impressed myself with today's ZQ.

I'd said before that Duncan HM is the single hardest H/H'able area. For certain it's harder than Vloxen's - the hardest fight in Duncan is the first one, happens before you get any minions, and to kill Duncan you have to slot in Swap at least somewhere. But Forge HM appears even harder. You have to cope with some massive odds, including:

1. 9-on-8 fights with you the 8 (ouch! The worst it gets in Duncan HM is honorable 8v8);
2. MANY Stone Summit mobs with two healers (there's only one in Duncan HM);
3. Stone Summit MMs who can make it really difficult to come back from a wipe (not to mention outcompete your MMs to the bodies);
4. Constricted terrain vs. mass Fire Elementalists (also gives line-of-sight problems);
5. Mobs with both Stone Summit healers and the Fire Elementalists where the Summit healers keep the Fire Ele's alive long enough to wipe your poor, cannot-be-flagged-apart henchmen.

I've put a variety of builds against Forge HM with varying degrees of success. After like 5 tries I finally got it done running 2 spirit spammers + VoR Mesmer + Ether Prot myself + Hertha + Mhenlo + Lo Sha + Zho, but it took careful flagging, long pulls, micro and basically every PvE trick I know, and still wound up almost 60'ed out at the end of the dungeon. On the bright side though, at least I finished.

Anyone managed to H/H this with less pain, and if so, with what teambuild?

madsGW · Jul 05, 2009, 08:48 PM // 20:48

H/H slavers exile is tough, but its possible. when i did the dungeons in HM, i used normal sabway (SS, WoR healer, MM prot) and Herta, Zho, Mhenlo and Lina. i was playing SH nuker myself. but ye i used a shitload of DP removals ;p

Zodiac Meteor · Jul 05, 2009, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Yeah, I don't think you can H/H it without

Quote:

a shitload of DP removals

The best thing to do, grab some guildies and friends and do it with an organized build.
I did it under 40 minutes with a PuG, it wasn't the best team ever with 2 really bad pulls, but we didn't wipe

What we had is:
Perma, set for VSF running...?
SS also for damage
VoR/Cry for damage, duh
HB monk for the extra heals/prot
2 Spirit spams working together with offensive spirits
Infuse spam for heal and bond the perma.
FS ranger with BHA

It wasn't anything fansy like 1 perma, 5 RoJ/Cry, 1 HP BiP, 1 UA. In fact those teams failed when I tried

Quote:

Friends are your best allies... in guild wars

EDIT: Wow, you did it with H/H well scratch my suggestions. Hmm, why does it say elite dungeon when it's so hard

Deratrius · Aug 19, 2009, 08:27 PM // 20:27

To be honest i don't think I would even TRY Forge in HM with H/H.

I remember trying with allies several times and kept failing. Best we did was 600/Smite and got to get the key at first boss but after you come back at the begining and open the gates it just get too hard and we couldn't get past that summit group. Difference between 600/smite and balanced was that as balanced we had all died quite a few times while we didn't so much with the 600/smites. So basically our problem was inability to deal enough damage more than ability to survive hard core groups.

How did it work with the perma by the way? I mean it's not like vsf where the perma can keep the agro while you calmly nuke the defenders?

It's been a bit so I don't remember with more details. it's a bit like DoA to me, something I doubt I will get to beat in HM unless I manage to get in a very experienced team some day.

Jeydra · Sep 10, 2009, 11:42 AM // 11:42

Probably one of my finest H/H achievements ever, but I do fear everything will become so routine in time ...

Perfected Shadow · Sep 11, 2009, 12:52 AM // 00:52

Ok I tried it and it was very painful. Instant aggro and wipe after a long loading screen, then I saw that I forgot Rigor but I kept going anyway as I had a lot of honeycombs to waste. The place reminded me why I hate HM summit groups. They stack prots so fast that they have shield of regen, spirit bond, guardian, pensive guardian, and other stuff on the targets that I've switched to in less than 2 seconds.

I think a full player physical based team with an imbagon can do this fairly well because the summit would be incapable of protting 3-4 things at once.

The chest rewards were an idol and a diamond...

Jeydra · Sep 11, 2009, 01:21 AM // 01:21

The first time the dungeon owned me, I was soooooooo tempted to use some Clovers, but the urge to prove to myself I can successfully H/H such a difficult dungeon won out, and I finally made it almost but not quite DP'ed out

This second time I used no consumables no clovers no nothing, just lots of technique.

Grats on the successful run, the drops tend to be terrible though.

Perfected Shadow · Sep 11, 2009, 11:19 AM // 11:19

In your screenshot you had morale! And used no dp removal at that. That's quite a feat. Can you give some advice on your "lots of technique"? I've tried long pulls a couple of times but I had difficulty spiking stuff down because the defenders were always right behind. Needless to say I'm not very proficient on pulling and spiking so can I has tips?

And what about the minion bomber? How did that fare with the large amount of ele aoe in that place?

Jeydra · Sep 13, 2009, 09:10 AM // 09:10

Thanks for praise

I don't know if what I did can be replicated by an Assassin. When I did my pulls, the Defenders (and Summoners) often chased me first and left themselves exposed. I don't know why, but that left them open to getting spiked down quick - a major thing with Frozen Soil up. Even if they do not die, I know the teambuild has enough resilience to pressure out the Summit before they pressure me out, which really leaves only one danger: dying to the Summit Warder's AoE. And so I manually split heroes / henchmen before aggro against Summit groups as well - this also helps me manually micro Prot Spirit on targets, even though I usually don't do this.

Also, for all its inferiorities compared to other versions, E/A does have strong spike capabilities. It can for example take out a Burning Spirit alone, quickly, before the massive AoE damage overwhelms the henchmen. I'd take aggro with Protective Spirit, retreat less than normal and then start spiking out the Burning Spirits / Flowstones one by one before aggro breaks. This is one of the reasons why I /hug the Superior rune ... but even with this it's a hectic battle as the massive AoE goes off and party bars all drop dangerously. It can't however be done with Assassin primary, too.

Another thing I did do was to make full use of the two Ritualists. Double-Rit builds have a powerful advantage in tough areas like this one: you can lay down spirits before you aggro, thus bringing all your damage to bear quickly. Another major strength is Painful Bond, which I think is an even better spike skill than Discord. Put it on your target, call it, micro Rend Enchantments if you really need to and boom, he's dead.

The minion bomber did really well I would say, it's a tribute to just how vital the hero is in my playstyle. Compared to the earlier Forge run I did (first post) the difference was the minion bomber compared to a VoR Mesmer, and the difficulty of the run was as different as the sun and moon. The Burning Spirits / Flowstones blew up the minions really fast, yes, but then those mobs die really fast too. You just have to be careful you don't die before they do. With the mixed mobs, there are both fewer Burning Spirits / Flowstones and only one healer, so spiking down the healer -> AP! -> spiking down the Burning Spirits / Flowstones works. This run I actually found those 9-on-8 groups relatively simple because they tend to have Forge Imps, which aren't threatening.

Hope that helped, one question though: why don't you run a Smiter over Tahlkora? Smiters can use Unyielding Aura as well, and with Smiter's Boon they're pretty good at bar push. Considering you already have Mhenlo + Vekk on Ether Prot, I'd think that's a good alternative. You might also be able to get the Smiter to maintain Strength of Honour, although I'd imagine the energy demands of 2 maintained enchantments would be too heavy ...