Curse

Richardt · Mar 25, 2008, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quru-Vloxen is a cakewalk in NM.

In HM it's a pain.

Sethellington-yes I am

But you can achieve about the same thing if you can get a warrior buddy with DSlash and SY!-however in Shard's this is a little harder to do as you need to be careful with blinding.

If however you don't have someone that can run SY!, then there are some alternatives. Bring a Bonder (and you can run this on a hero) helps-but be warned in areas with enchant removal this isn't much of a viable option. You can also bring a para hero with something "Stand Your Ground!" or one the Ebon Ward that gives armor etc.

You can pretty much steamroll any area so long as you know what you're up agaisnt and can counter it. If you're planning on doing these dungeons in HM, do them in NM first to get a feel for them. The harder dungeons aren't that bad in NM so it's good practice.

Silith · Mar 25, 2008, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Hmm I have the Legendairy Master of the North title now but I still need 1 dungeon. It seems to be nearly impossible. The Ooze Pit, any suggestions or tips on how to tackle this one?

Free Runner · Mar 25, 2008, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quru

What the hell - vloxen was second dungeon i did at EOTN (not counting heart of the shiverpeaks). I played necro, 1 support para-hero, 2 healer heros, then fire hench, earth hench, fighter hench and blood hench. Just steamrolled it, thought died once at the end boss because i forget to flag heros. I think i'm trying Slaver's Excile some day if you really say thats easier than vloxen.

Vloxen on NM is easy. Vloxen on HM is a pain in the ass. It takes the Slavers Exile versions of the Summit.

All the Summit are able to res, you have Warders setting off Sandstorms all over the place with Dreamers and Contaminators spreading hexes and conditions across your party and then just to top it off the Summoners begin to build a nice army of exploding minions from the corpses of your party. And this is all with the HM Enemy Bonuses active.

When i was going for the LMotN title i found that single dungeon to be the hardest. Its not impossible with H/H but it would probably be a challenge.

Richardt · Mar 25, 2008, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Silith as I have said a couple times-PROT!

Let one person take the brunt of the damage from the volatile oozes and make sure the rest of you team can kill the other oozes effectively.

When we did this, we had a DSlash warrior with Whirlwind (so basically under FGJ DSlash will power Whirlwind which will then power DSlash-great on mobs, not so much so on single foes-but then just spam DSlash). He also had Dolyak to prevent knockdown, and then we brought 2 monks specially designed to prevent spiking-a traditional bonder, and then a Life Sheath protter. For Life Sheath we basically took the ZB prot monk from pvxwiki and swapped elites.

Without cons it took us about 50 minutes, and only wipped at the final boss-mainly because when you kill a prismatic it spawns more, and they're not always in front of the tank lol.

EDIT: I hear that you can use the vanguard assassin on the volatile oozes-they'll blow him up instead of your party, so that's an option-we also tried that but I don't think it works that great. The rest of the oozes can be countered with standard means, but the volatiles will kill your party in a heartbeat.

Silith · Mar 25, 2008, 07:34 PM // 19:34

So I can take my Koss or something alike and make him total protection (defensive skills) and 2 protter monks to keep him alive. Then as Henchies I take the healer Cynn for damage and? 2 spots left. Also what should I do myself? I can FC nuke or go Domination Interrupt. If It's needed I can Obs Tank too but that makes it harder to get to the dungeon.

I'm talking about HM ofc.

Sethellington · Mar 25, 2008, 07:49 PM // 19:49

i would love an SY! friend. if you're a para and use an imbagon, or are a war and use an SY! Dslash build whisp me, i'm gonna be doing these dungeons. Some NM all HM also guardian of tyria ^^

if that works and i get a contact, I'll be amazed! Hope it works though

BigDave · Mar 25, 2008, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silith

So I can take my Koss or something alike and make him total protection (defensive skills) and 2 protter monks to keep him alive. Then as Henchies I take the healer Cynn for damage and? 2 spots left. Also what should I do myself? I can FC nuke or go Domination Interrupt. If It's needed I can Obs Tank too but that makes it harder to get to the dungeon.

I'm talking about HM ofc.

You can run there without much trouble in HM. Just start from Longeyes, go east across the top about 3/4 of the way then head down past the Charr Fort. Watch the patrols and you can get around them quite easily, no running skills required. Same method for getting to Sacnoth aswell.

I do agree though that Ooze Pit HM is very hard. Took me 6-7 attempts to complete it on my Rit. The AoE damage in that place is staggering. If you don't focus the damage onto a single target then you can kiss your group goodbye. How you do that is up to you. I ended up doing it with a guildie (necromancer) and heroes. The only way to focus the damage was for one of us to act as a tank. I went as a Rt/E Obs Tank, ghost forge armour and vital weapon and we had a hero monk use Life Barrier on the whole party. I'd take the brunt of the attacks, pull everything together then the rest would nuke the hell out of them. Usually had 1-2 stragglers which were no problem to handle. The volatile oozes were hitting me for 13 damage if i remember right

Tanking the bosses was easy. If they can't cast they can't hurt you. All heroes were flagged back, i'd tank them and my guildie would keep comming in and put Insidious Parasite on one of them until it died. Their healing skill doesn't work against IP and without spells they'll just attack you constantly. When one died i would back off and let the ooze kill me, my guildie would rez me then i'd tank the ooze, kill them then kill the next boss.

I usually don't go for tank 'n' spank builds but the AoE damage in that place is huuuuge. I actually found Vloxen HM to be easier. And Shards is a joke if you take 4 AoE smiters and an AoE KD. Only problem is the boss. Whoever thought that encounter up should be shot.

Silith · Mar 25, 2008, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Tnx. I agree totaly I've done all Dungeons on HM without problem except now for The Ooze Pit. I'll try the OBsidian Build I used for Slavers Exile.

- Tain - · Mar 25, 2008, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Imo... that's not a great idea. Relying on a tank is a very flimsy way to get through any dungeon. I already posted this, but bring Ward of Stability and Ward Against Elements - The quick damage spikes come from the Earthbound Oozes, and what makes it hard to heal is the knockdown from them and the Aggressive Oozes. Those 2 wards got me through HM ooze pit with only 1 death, which was from a giant boulder. Think about what's killing you and work with it.

Richardt · Mar 25, 2008, 08:08 PM // 20:08

When I usually give advice I normally give it assuming you have access to humans-so my advice prolly won't work for H/H.

You could prot up Koss-but keep in mind that heroes like to move around even if they're flagged-making him use say Dolyak and Flail should for the most part prevent it (he'll be moving 90% slower so he'll still roam, but not as fast lol).

Since you're a mesmer, either FC nuker or shut down are very good choices. I would be more inclined to say keep your bar as is in the SS you showed above-good mixture of anti caster and melee.

Pretty much your problems will be with the volatiles-once you've taken care of them it isn't that bad.

EDIT: As Tain said using a "pure" tank is bad-when I say "tank" I usually mean a warrior with a couple survival skills (Endure Pain, some antiknockdown, and some form of self heal with the rest as attack skills). Remember-having a person who's sole purpose is to tank means one less damage dealer in the group!

BigDave · Mar 25, 2008, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richardt

EDIT: As Tain said using a "pure" tank is bad-when I say "tank" I usually mean a warrior with a couple survival skills (Endure Pain, some antiknockdown, and some form of self heal with the rest as attack skills). Remember-having a person who's sole purpose is to tank means one less damage dealer in the group!

Sometimes you run up against an area you just can't seem to do. Maybe you're just having a bad day or maybe you just can't figure out what to do. I'd tried everything i could think of with H/H and just couldn't get it. After 6-7 attempts and failure every time i'd just about had enough so i resorted to a tank'n'spank setup. It's cheap, fairly easy, boring and has a skill level about equivalent to Ursan, all things i try and stay away from. But it worked for me.

I H/H'd my way through Vloxen HM on my second attempt after few tweaks to the team setup and without a tank. Ooze Pit was just one of those areas that was getting me more and more angry. Maybe if i'd have gone and done something else then come back the next day i'd have had more luck but it was just pissing me off. I wasn't letting it off that easy

Richardt · Mar 25, 2008, 08:50 PM // 20:50

I'll admit I'd use OF tanking for a couple of dungeons (and yes Ursan too

) for LMoN on my warrior-sometimes that sort of thing is just the easiest way to do so.

After a particularly bad experience in Shard's of Oor in HM with an OF tank (that crappy team build is floating around here somewhere-don't look at it though! It's embarrassing lol) and with being bored with Ursan I've been trying to get creative with some areas-it's been a nice challenge (almost LMoN on my para as well

).

Still haven't thought of a good non-Ursan way for Vloxen HM yet. I will try the Frozen Soil trick-works great in Slaver's so it should do wonders there. Plus with me now being an invinci-para that should make things easier.

I'd been dreading Ooze Pit in HM-then I got to thinking about using 2 protters and what do you know? It worked! We could get a better time if I didn't have to micro the Life Sheath monk lol (that and if we were careful around those boulders!).

BigDave · Mar 25, 2008, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richardt

Still haven't thought of a good non-Ursan way for Vloxen HM yet. I will try the Frozen Soil trick-works great in Slaver's so it should do wonders there. Plus with me now being an invinci-para that should make things easier.

Anything that works well in Slavers also works well in Vloxen. Frozen Soil reeeeealy helps. MM or corpse exploitation is nearly a must. Also the MM boss on level 2 is a nightmare without reliable shutdown/careful luring. He raises high level minions faster than you can and he spams [skill]deathly swarm[/skill] all the time which hits 60AL for 370dmg from him. Also his group is pretty large. Other than him and the Slavers style Summit groups the place isn't that bad. The regular Summit aren't very hard. There's just 4-5 groups in there that really up the difficulty level.

Sethellington · Mar 26, 2008, 10:52 AM // 10:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richardt

When I usually give advice I normally give it assuming you have access to humans-so my advice prolly won't work for H/H.

i have access to human players, but i don't think any of them run PvE God mode,, unfortunately. So I''ll have to make do with what I can get. Don't get my wrong I really appreciate all the tips in here guys.

Miska Bow · Mar 26, 2008, 12:06 PM // 12:06

Vloxen and Shard of Orr.

I do this one using these builds

Me as Holy ranger

Hearth of the Holy flame is use only to convert my dmg into Holy dmg

With

2 Holy Dervish

1 protect monk hero with splinter weapon that is casted on me.

2 monk henchies 2 ele henchies and consummables.

Bassically i run up to the mob with the 2 dervish and lauch "Light of Deldrimor" and "Eternal aura". What's left of them (usually not much

), goes down pretty fast.

This team build i mostly use in Shard of Orr, so its no really adapted to Vloxen. But with carefull pulling and letting the h/h have time to recharge it can be done with ease.

A couple of these dungeon are tricky to do, what will get you to the end boss in a breeze will somtime fail on that end boss.

In Vloxen when dealing with the Stone Summit, take out the monks then the gnashers as fast as possible. If you let the gnasher raise to many minions your in deep trouble.

Edited: Im r 9 dwarf and r10 sunspear.

Richardt · Mar 26, 2008, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sethellington

i have access to human players, but i don't think any of them run PvE God mode,, unfortunately. So I''ll have to make do with what I can get. Don't get my wrong I really appreciate all the tips in here guys.

Give them cookies and I bet one of them could be persuaded

But you can easily make due if you have a couple warrior buddies-I'm a big proponent of the "tank wall"-give a couple warriors (you can make due with Dervs and Sins if you have to) some utility skills and attack skills, have them line up, and then smack around anyone stupid enough not to go around.

A good one is Dolyak Signet-decent armor+anti knockdown-but if they need to move quickly it kinda falls apart.

For attacks it's usually either Triple Chop/Cyclone Axe/Whirlwind Attack or DSlash/Whirlwind Attack. Have someone throw Splinter Weapon or Great Dwarf Weapon around and you have a recipe for pain

AND you can further enhance this with Order of Pain (or Vampire) and the Ebon Ward of Honor.

While a PvE God Mode player is nice-it's not neccessary-we were doing dungeons without them for a while before I thought to use DSlash to power SY (sadly like 20 other people thought of it before me

). All you really need is judicious placement of your frontline with the right skills.

House Silvermoon · Mar 26, 2008, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

The relative difficulty of HM dungeons depends on how you tackle them. Herohenching has its specific weak and strong points that differ from those of a balanced team of real players that differ from those of a lolpwnage ursan team. Having H+H'd almost every HM dungeon including Rragar's and Vloxen (clean runs, no consumables to boost performance) my experiences most closely resemble Charr's and Richardt's lists.

if u dont mind me asking how did u h/h some of the hard ones like vloxen, rragars, shards, and the one with all the fire eles next to the burning forest.

Voltaic Annihilator · Mar 26, 2008, 07:43 PM // 19:43

i did vloxen NM on my first try...dunkoro as HB tahlkora as WoH, master has jagged MM, mehnlo, cynn,devona,eve

tmakinen · Mar 26, 2008, 08:19 PM // 20:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaic Annihilator

i did vloxen NM on my first try...

Great, now do it with H+H in HM and you'll find out why it is known as a major pain in the derriere

To Silvermoon: I have already given pretty detailed tips and descriptions for H+Hing the hardest HM dungeons, just look further down for specific threads (except maybe Shards but then again I couldn't see any difference in difficulty between NM and HM, just pack enough holy damage and be prepared to zerg the end boss). Concerning Kathandrax, the end boss used to be a joke, then it was fixed and suddenly it was the most difficult end boss, worthy of a gimmick build (Vengeance), then it was fixed again and now it can be zerged, so no difficulty there. HM dungeoning 101: always bring a BHA ranger, except for Vloxen bring two

Charr · Mar 26, 2008, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDave

Also the MM boss on level 2 is a nightmare without reliable shutdown/careful luring.

What many people don't know about 2 Stone Summit bosses on lvel 2 is that they are not part of the large group that is with them, so you can quite easily lure the group to a place where they won't bother you and just deal with the boss.