Curse

Richardt · Nov 12, 2007, 06:05 AM // 06:05

Well after almost 5 hours (3 hours on just the last floor), me and a guildie finished Shards of Orr in HM.
He ran a OF tank and I went as a smiting tank (the code is: OQMT44oSRaS8U0kAloeKTbhQmAA).
For heroes we had:
WoH healer
2 SF eles
Bonder
2 Signet smiters

Fendi took close to 30-40 minutes to kill.

the_jos · Nov 12, 2007, 12:08 PM // 12:08

We did this as 6 human / 2 heroes (healers) yesterday.
1 healing human, 1 snare ele (deep freeze + blurred vision).
1 Signet Smiter (might go Ray next time) and 3 Echo Ray of Judgment smiters.
No tank, just snare and spike the mobs.

I think it would be possible to adjust this build to use in a 2/6 team, but you need micromanagement then.

Hobbs · Nov 12, 2007, 03:04 PM // 15:04

I think this and Frostmaw may be the things standing between me and Legendary Master of the North. I can easily vanquish and do most of the HM dungeons but I dunno if i'll be able to spare 5 hours or find a group to do it. :S

Antheus · Nov 12, 2007, 03:18 PM // 15:18

SF eles are basically wasted spots here. Fire + HM don't mix. Any kind of necro would be considerably better. In addition, putting conditions on enemies exposes you to smite condition - so burning is quite counter-productive.

OF tank is mostly redundant as well - the heaviest damage is PBAoE and untargetted AoE in general (putrid, shockwave, earthquake). I can't remember how bad enchant hate is in that place, but I did have fair success with 600 build - perhaps a bit of luck was involved as well.

You'd probably be best off to replace SFs with smiters, although heroes monks are somewhat ineffective using smiting skills.

You might also consider paragon instead of bonder, although that requires a human player.

Richardt · Nov 12, 2007, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Yeah-2 more smiters would've worked.

One thing I did notice though with my smiters was that I had to micro them. Has any one else had that difficulty?

crokodil · Nov 12, 2007, 05:50 PM // 17:50

I`ve done most HM dungeons alone, but i cant beat this
I can get to 3rd floor without much troubles, but large groups there are too hard

Have anyone completed with ONLY h&h?

- Tain - · Nov 12, 2007, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Togira Ikonaka

I think this and Frostmaw may be the things standing between me and Legendary Master of the North. I can easily vanquish and do most of the HM dungeons but I dunno if i'll be able to spare 5 hours or find a group to do it. :S

I did Frostmaw in HM with h/h.. haven't tried HM Shards yet.

Richardt · Nov 12, 2007, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Togira Ikonaka

I think this and Frostmaw may be the things standing between me and Legendary Master of the North. I can easily vanquish and do most of the HM dungeons but I dunno if i'll be able to spare 5 hours or find a group to do it. :S

Not to get to off topic (Shards in HM) but me and the same guildie did Frosty's in HM with Ursan and a bonder. He had his WoH monk and 2 SF's and in addition to providing the bonder I had a N/Rt healer from Sab's build. Now I can't remember if we had a 3rd guildie or I brought a SS with me lol.

But I think it only took us 2-2.5 hours to do and was an Underworld of a lot easier than Shards.

*Curls back up into a ball at the thought of redoing Shards in HM again*

Vamis Threen · Nov 12, 2007, 10:12 PM // 22:12

I Shard's with h/h in about 4 hours. Team consisted of; me E/R (trapping & pulling), 3 smiter heroes (all Ray/ranged spells/judge's x2/RoD), 2 monks, Zho, Herta. I tried various team builds on the group just outside Gadd's Encampment until I found one that could survive. My own build was weak (WS=12) but the undead I pulled were a bit stickier when crippled in a trap, and the smiters were doing the damage anyway.

I'd try Sab's 3 x Necro build if I were going again, it worked in Rragar's when nothing else did. But I think there's no easy build for Shard's, it's all pulling and breaking up groups. Unless you can get 8 smiters together.....

Related to the above post, Frostmaw's isn't that much harder in HM than NM with h/h. I did it in HM immediately after NM, and once you know where the wurms spawn it's considerably easier. NM: 2hrs; HM 2hrs 15.

Sacratus Ignis · Nov 12, 2007, 11:12 PM // 23:12

lmao, 5 hours??? i beat this one HM in 45mins with 4 humans 4 henchies lol. absurdly easy with SoJ smite heroes and 2 UBs.

if this and Frostmaw are all you've got left for legendary master, you should be joining me in that company soon...

crazybanshee · Nov 12, 2007, 11:14 PM // 23:14

I did Shards HM in less than 4 hours with purely heroes and henchmen after giving up on finding anyone to do it with me. I brought along consumables (particularly essence of celerity) I had the 2 nec/rit from sab's necro builds, but instead of bringing the mm hero I brought a smiter hero (not sure how effective he was, I didn't micromanage him and he frequently died) I also brought mehnlo, devona, talon, and zho. I myself was a modified sf nuker, mostly using glyph of sacrifice/meteor shower to knock down healers and light of deldrimor for massive holy damage on nearby targets. I got it first try with careful pulling and selection of targets, and using essence where needed on the 3rd floor to get to the boss. The boss took a while because I ran out of essence and had to keep doing as much damage as possible, dying, and running back from the res point but I finally wore him down

dracion · Nov 13, 2007, 12:35 AM // 00:35

me and 2 or my buds did this dungeon in 2 and a half hours, mabye a but more, it would of been 2 hours but one of my friends accumilated dp and died almost instantly.(it was 3 man btw, probley could of done with a 2 man int he same time.)

Stalking Tiger · Nov 13, 2007, 11:11 AM // 11:11

A guildie and I cleared the whole dungeon in about 3h on a 2 men team (no henchies or heroes)

Fendi was a pain but with little pratice not that tough

apocalypse_xx · Nov 13, 2007, 04:12 PM // 16:12

The 600 smite builds work great here, just myself and my Dunkoro finished it in no time, a little tip for finishing Fendi quickly is to stand in the fire traps near the entrance to his room, Fendi will then also walk into the traps to attack you and get himself owned. The only real pain in the arse part is sometimes it is difficult to keep spirit bond up due to the massive number of hits you can take when Fendi's buddies are respawning, however, if you die, just get Dunkoro killed and it is a short walk back to Fendi who doesn't regen, and obviously since you are duo, only a few kills removes your DP each time.
Hope this helps

Added the screenshot when I got home, Dunk is dead cause he got owned in a fire trap,lmao, oh, and I did die a few times while killing Soul of Fendi, but I did manage to string several rounds together in a row

Hobbs · Nov 13, 2007, 04:29 PM // 16:29

I very rarely use smiting monks so is Ray of Judgement or Signet of Judgement more effective here? And how many smiters should I be taking?

Matt_Night · Nov 13, 2007, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Togira Ikonaka

I very rarely use smiting monks so is Ray of Judgement or Signet of Judgement more effective here? And how many smiters should I be taking?

Ray of Judgement combined with some smaller smite spells are real ownage in shards - done it HM yesterday and although i was running fire ele, i saw what kind of masive dmg 4xRoJ spike was doing.

Richardt · Nov 13, 2007, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Togira Ikonaka

I very rarely use smiting monks so is Ray of Judgement or Signet of Judgement more effective here? And how many smiters should I be taking?

Depends-RoJ is a nice heavy AoE smiting hitter, but has a 15 energy cost and a 30s cooldown. If you can echo it that would be great. I normally run RoJ on my ele heroes when I set them to smiting. If you go with Mo/Me and try to have your heroes echo it....be prepared for disappointment. My Dunkoro was echoing everything but RoJ (including Signets!)

SoJ on the other hand costs nothing (being a signet), nice AoE, and causes KD to whomever you cast it on and only a 20s recharge. However, it does ~20 dmg less.

My signet smiters were Mo/Me and I gave 'em Mantra of Inscriptions and then 12 inspiration-makes signets recharge 46% faster so you can pump out SoJ faster (and other smiting signets-like signet of rage, bane signet, signet of mystic something and castigation signet) so you can get a nice DPS for only 10 energy (the cost of the Mantra). In my experience you have to micro the Mantra though (I have to do this even with my hero bonder).

So if you want a burst of Holy damage, go with a echo RoJ and hope that kills 'em in one blow.

If you're expecting more drawn out encoutners, got with all signets and take Mantra.

EDIT: I should mention when I did this in NM I had one of my eles go E/Mo and he used RoJ very nicely. I went with SoJ for HM expecting it would work better.

Antheus · Nov 13, 2007, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

....be prepared for disappointment. My Dunkoro was echoing everything but RoJ (including Signets!)

NPC AI cannot use echo in such way. This is a known fact since heroes were introduced.

Running it with players however works like a charm.

Richardt · Nov 13, 2007, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

NPC AI cannot use echo in such way. This is a known fact since heroes were introduced.

Running it with players however works like a charm.

Usually when I run heroes with echo it's my hero ele with MS and SF. He nomally does it alright (echoing MS) but every so often he would echo SF lol.

This is one of my first times using a hero with signets.....and yeah I wished I had a video of it. It was hilarious watching him echoing signets

tekDragon · Nov 14, 2007, 12:48 AM // 00:48

Yeah... doing this dungeon with HnH in normal mode was such a nightmare for me as a primary ranger. It took me 4-5 tries to get through it.

I have no idea what my approach will be in hard mode but I'm not going to HnH it that's for sure. Hopefully by the time I get around to doing it people will have a better idea what the better ranger builds are.