Curse

TheRaven · Jun 24, 2008, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Ok, I'm going for the Legendary Master of the North title so I'm starting on the HM dungeons. So far I've managed to complete 2 of them with no difficulty, CoF and Raven's Point. (Yes, I did CoF on my own. Didn't pay a runner)

Next I'm trying Bogroot Growths. I considered this one to be a simple and easy dungeon in NM so it seemed a good one to do next in my "warm up" series.

Yeah right.

I'm a warrior and I'm using a standard aoe axe build. I brought along the sabway trio and my usual selection of henchies (Lina, Cynn, Zho and Aiden). Not fun. I struggled thru the first level and I do mean STRUGGLED! We limped onto the 2nd level with full 60% DP and I used a powerstone. The plants at the 2nd level spawn point finished us off quickly.

So, round 2. I read wiki and see that it suggests using a lot of SH Eles. That makes sense. Plants hate fire, right? Plants that can't move outta SH must really HATE fire. I got a plan.

Back at camp, I grab Zhed, Sousuke and Vekk, arm them to the teeth with fire nukes and pick up Lina, Mhenlo, Aiden and Zho. We head back out.

Geez, this round is worst than the first go. We die upon entering the dungeon. We can't even kill the first mob and I don't feel like wasting another powerstone. I had 5 hexes on me and I'm sure the rest of my team did as well (judging by the 8 pink bars that were rapidly turning black)

Round 3: Dump Zhed. Grab Dunkoro and load him up with anti-hex stuff. Attempt to buy flame thrower and a few grenades from a passing Asuran arms dealer and head back out. Result: a bit better. Made it past the first mob. Died trying to kill the Patriarch holding the boss key and the mobs surrounding him.

So, here I am. I know this isn't a hard dungeon. I've blasted thru it with no problems many times on NM. What am I doing wrong? Any advice on builds?

Please don't suggest something that will require real humans. Remember i'm stuck with 4 of the henchies for now. I know this dungeon is possible with henchies.

Of course 20 powerstones in my backpack will work as well, but i'm not quite that desperate yet.

Shayne Hawke · Jun 24, 2008, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Haven't done that dungeon yet, but I was thinking about getting to it today.

I believe the wiki also says that there's a great abundance of corpses, at least enough for 2 MMs. That said, I don't know why you wouldn't stick with the Triple Necro setup.

Henches I normally take are Lina, Lo Sha, Herta, and Talon. Considering this is HM and that you're a Warrior and I'm a BHA Ranger, I would swap Mhenlo for Talon and Zho for Lo Sha. For this particular dungeon, Cynn may be more useful than Herta.

Since there's two quests for the dungeon, I don't know if you've tried taking different ones after you fail? I thought I read about the mob spawns being slightly different.

I'll be able to give you a better idea of what to do if I finish it later today.

mage767 · Jun 24, 2008, 06:34 PM // 18:34

OK, here's what you are doing wrong:

1. Using Sabway.
Reason: Sabway performs underpar in heavy hex/condition regions and bogroots is one of them. The rit healer is not able to mend conditions of 8 party members simultaneously. There is absolutely nothing on sabway to remove hexes/conditions efficiently. You could bring a different rit skill that removes all conditions upon an item drop, but it may still not help.

2. Using fire eles
Reason: Heavy offense is not always the best solution. Sure, you can burn them to hell, but with no protection on your side, you will end up dead before them.

My suggestions:

1. Use 3 smiting monks: Rune up all 3 heroes with sup. smite + 1 divine, plus attunement + radiant insignias. Then give them Shield of Judgment {E}, smite hex, smite condition, reversal of fortune, GoLE, etc. The enemies are not undead. but they will have a hard time dealing with your team.

2. Use one or two motiv para heros with cautery signet {E} which removes all conditions, and one ele with convert hexes, or a healing monk with cure hex. You may also decide to give cautery signet to your rit healer.

3. If you still want to bring a MM from sabway, replace jagged bones with Contagion {E}. Don't get the SS or rit healer. And bring 2 smiting monks from option # 1.

Finally, bring your favorite 4 henchies.

Raku Clayman · Jun 24, 2008, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Doing this dungeon is easy if you pin back your H and H and slowly aggro as little as possible(bow shot). I did this with the Tri-nec Sab builds for my Heroes. One of my Henchies is a Healer Monk and one is a Ranger. Take your pick on the other two. I always like another Warrior and another Ranged character or a prot monk.

In HM you can easily get overwhelmed if you aggro too many at once.

joshuarodger · Jun 24, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

maybe try the skill [[spotless mind] on all of your heroes and standard hex removers on monks. the smite monks may be a good idea with smite hex and smite condition. if you want to use sabway, just take one or two skills out of each bar and run a hex removal. check the skills used by lina and mhenlo in EOTN and take the one with the best hex remover. i actually haven't done this on HM but it's a suggestion. haha, you make me really want to go try this out.

StormDragonZ · Jun 24, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

I did this dungeon not too long ago, but on my Mesmer.

My piece of advice is to pick Giriff's quest version because a Mesmer final boss with [skill]Energy Surge[/skill] is a lot less evil than a Ritualist boss with the elite skill [skill]Defiant Was Xinrae[/skill].

joshuarodger · Jun 24, 2008, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by StormDragonZ

I did this dungeon not too long ago, but on my Mesmer.

My piece of advice is to pick Giriff's quest version because a Mesmer final boss with [skill]Energy Surge[/skill] is a lot less evil than a Ritualist boss with the elite skill [skill]Defiant Was Xinrae[/skill].

that's why you use [[signet of humility] on him before the fight and spam it on recharge. i still think the mesmer boss is much, much easier though.

Richardt · Jun 24, 2008, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Some dungeons are different creatures between HM and NM. I can't stress this enough-just because you walk through a dungeon in NM doesn't mean you'll be able to do it in HM!

While plants are weak to fire-you brought to much AoE. HM enemies will run the minute they're hit with fire AoE, and EotN monsters are more effective at running than other campaigns. I'd tone it back to just one nuker.

The N/Rt healer is crap in most HM dungeons. Why? 'Cause the average HM dungeon mob relies on some combination of these three: heavy conditions, heavy hexing, heavy spiking. When it comes to these, the N/Rt just can't keep up. You're better off bring a hybrid monk.

I wouldn't load up on to much hex removal on the monk-each hex removal you bring means less healing he does. I'd consider something along the lines of [spotless mind] or [cure hex]. Both are low cost and can easily be stuck on any bar. If you're still worried about heavy hexing, switch your ele heroes secondary to mes, and bring along [hex eater signet].

And there's a ton of bodies laying about-use that! Bring an Jagged Bones MM and let him have some fun down there. Or bring a Rt/N and pack [explosive growth] for some more pain.

If you can, massive damage reduction will help greatly-since you're a warrior, you might want to consider doing the DSlash/SY! spam.

Fragile Feeling · Jun 24, 2008, 08:56 PM // 20:56

I did this dungeon yesterday HM with some people from my guild and I brought Blessed Light and it helps quite a bit, the energy cost is a bit more, but the condition and hex removal is really quite nice, but aside from that Sabway doesn't really have hex removal and in a dungeon like that with all the hexes and conditions, you have to have the perfect balance of damage with heals that are sporting hex and condition removal.

JoeKnowMo · Jun 24, 2008, 10:34 PM // 22:34

[[Foul Feast] on the N/Rt resto helps greatly with the conditions. [[Diversion] and [[Backfire] are too useful to leave out in this dungeon or the Blooming Nettles can keep healing forever with Glimmer of Light - put them on the SS necro. Put [[Dwayna's Sorrow] on the MM.

You could go W/P and fit [[Hexbreaker Aria] on your bar. If you run a D-Slash build you can spam SY! and Hexbreaker Aria which should help out a great deal.

SY! helps prot against the spikes. Foul Feast limit mass condition degen. Hexbreaker Aria will help against mass hex degen. Dwayna's Sorrow along with Life and PwK should help with pushing party bars up to counter the mass degen.

Round out the party with Mhenlo and Zho and 2 others... probably the Eles.

I did a run today with another player. I ran a LoD hybrid along with Sabway. He was an Ursan with 2 SF eles and Gwen with E-Surge and Dom skills. We wiped a few times due to overaggro, but otherwise we moved at a good pace.

Pull carefully in some spots. Watch out for the Incubus pops. Go for the healers early in battle. Good luck!

Shayne Hawke · Jun 25, 2008, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Finished the dungeon about an hour ago on NM, gonna try it now in HM.

To be honest, I don't know how it's going to be so much harder. Hexes that they cast didn't seem that bad. It was mostly degen, which was easily handled by the Triple-Necro Resto. The MM almost always had max numbers of minions and was only on low supply when the Ritualists put Splinter Weapon on the Warriors and cut them all down.

I would suggest additionally that you bring some kind of interrupt skill in order to stop certain plants from exploding or spawning new creatures with their monster skills. Pulls are only slightly effective in this dungeon, but you'll want to do it with as many small enemy groups as you can before you rush powerful or stationary targets. If when you're fighting the plants there are two of those Monk plants that summon the other plants, AoE might be good, but I found shutting one down to be more effective.

Lastly, I think mage767 hit something you might be lacking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mage767

2. Using fire eles
Reason: Heavy offense is not always the best solution. Sure, you can burn them to hell, but with no protection on your side, you will end up dead before them.

Edit: I just finished doing it in HM. Sabway works fine. Interrupts helped a lot. Because of the tight spaces and compacted mobs, it's important that you only fight what you need to.

TheRaven · Jun 25, 2008, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Thx for the tips guys. Unfortunately stuff came up and i didn't get a chance to attempt the dungeon tonight like i planned. I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know how it works.

Fionn Falaich · Jun 25, 2008, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

Finished the dungeon about an hour ago on NM, gonna try it now in HM.

To be honest, I don't know how it's going to be so much harder.

Agreed, it's not so much harder on HM than on NM. I didn't take any special precautions on HM and finished it first try, without any notable difficulties. Careful pulling helps in places.

Quote:

Sabway works fine. Interrupts helped a lot.

Sabway is fine for what it is, but I don't particularly care for it and I never run it. The lack of interrupts and hex removal are some of its limitations. I ran myself as air ele, and took MoW as SS, Livia as MM, Gwen as dom mes with interrupts and hex removal, two monk hench, Talon, and Herta. I would not suggest taking more than one MM because the final boss(es) can wipe minions in one shot, leaving you effectively with only 7 in your party or 6 if you take 2 MMs, which might leave you without sufficient damage to finish the job. Not a good scenario. Honestly, not too much unusual here.

ps: also, try to isolate the final boss from his gang and flag your party apart. The bosses have devastating AOE skills if your group is bunched together, but if they are flagged apart, the bosses can't do much damage, certainly no more than hench monks can heal. Good luck.

Richardt · Jun 25, 2008, 04:39 AM // 04:39

I redid this dungeon again tonight. The only really annoying hexes I noticed were when you're fighting the plant creatures. We did fine with minimal hex removal.

I highly suggest though using a hybrid monk-they can catch the spikes better. And if you're doing Giriff, I believe I spied the end mesmer boss throwing out [[shatter enchantment], so be careful about your enchants.

Kyomi Tachibana · Jun 25, 2008, 08:50 AM // 08:50

I did this dungeon with my guildie in HM and multiple runs in NM, he was running an Assassin's Promise mesmer build, not quite sure exactly what, I was running Song of Purification paragon, we had one MM, one Divert Hexes monk, one N/Rt restoration, one Rt/Me channeler/resto hybrid, one fire Ele and a BHA ranger.

We did the dungeon a few times on NM, to scout it out (and try and get a Frog Scepter) and got the entire dungeon run to about 15 minutes. There are some spots where you can just run past, most notably towards the end of the first level where there are the multiple plant monks, iirc.

Using what we learned about the running past certain spots we made it through in HM in about 20 minutes with no deaths.

The rit healers don't heal for much, and iirc you can run past most of the plant monk mobs, this was all awhile back though, when the Frog Scepter first came out.

Although when we went in HM I switched to imbagon.

mage767 · Jul 10, 2008, 08:19 AM // 08:19

Did this dungeon on my necro + H/H in HM without ursan and without cosumables. I was a SS/Prot necro, so pretty much I did all the pulling of the frogs while my heroes (MM/P with Cautery + ER Prot + SF Fire ele) ensured that I didn't get bogged down.

Except for a few deaths in the final level, no major issues.

Took me 1 hr, and both gold drops sucked...

N1ghtstalker · Jul 10, 2008, 10:34 AM // 10:34

did it yesterday with someone else and heroes

my build was this
[wts pain;OgVCoMzDZdJQMKiIDdBuAjD]
the other one had [ursan blessing]
we took two of these babies with us
[livia is hot;OANEQTxW+5gGqCL16RABPoIqqA]
and my monk was this
[dunkie;OwUUMwG/EoSNgWaZALfdRbaTfoRA]
and here's my zhed
[wewt;OgNCoMzDZlYUERG6iyKuANC]
the other guy had this
[livia is hot again;OAhjUMGcIPYbin0cyNMHnV1LGA]
and Gwen for interupting

we also took some dp removers cuz the patriarch caught us too with surprise but with good luring you can pull the groups around him and he's no problem