Curse

Livingston · Feb 05, 2007, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Any suggestions on a valid way of hench/heroing the Bonus to Dunes of Despair?

My primary is a warrior.

I have Heroes of the following classes:

Warrior (Koss)
Monk (Dun)
Dervish (Melonni)
Ranger (Jin)
Monk (Tahlkora)
Assassin (Zenmai)
Necromancer (Olias)

I had no problem doing this back in the day, but since the AI update I have no idea how to do this.

I can usually take out all of the snakes with about 5 mins to spare. I then flag either Tal or Dunkoro near the Ghost to make sure he doesn't die from the siege wurms.

The problem is once I go over the South Bridge and engage the first general, he runs like mad all over the place spawning dozens of scarabs. If I ignore them and try to take out the general, they wipe my party, if I try to take them out first I run out of time...

Olias is pretty useless here as an MM, as the siege wurms make quick work of his minions so he becomes impotent.

I've read Guildwiki, but I haven't had any luck with any of the strategies they suggest.

Does anyone know if the Necrotic Traversal trick still works. I'd rather not use it, but I will if I have to.

Also before anyone suggests bringing other people, I want to do this alone, otherwise I'd already have it done with a bonder.

Any suggestions?

Livingston

Pick Me · Feb 05, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Necroctic Transversal still works, but you may or may not need it.

Untested theory:

Get an Assassin (primary or 2ndary) with a teleport to enemy skill. Equip other henchies with teleport to ally skill (recall, return, etc.)

Don't bring ghost to the main area, just let him stand by bridge.

Go to the bonus bridge and have your assassin (or you) to kill scarab. Get your henchies (you must force them to do this) to teleport to you. I think this should work (I think you still have line-of sight).

Your party (save 1, who will remain on the other side of the bridge) will be able to kill the bosses. Teleport back with target ally and complete misison.

That would be my guess, but I haven't tested it out yet. Killing your allies with vampiric weapons may not be a good idea.

mm00re · Feb 05, 2007, 08:06 PM // 20:06

like the previous posted said leave the ghost back across the bridge and just take your heroes to the back, doing so this way prevents you from having to worry about the countdown timer. Hopefully you will be able to aggro a scarab if it spawns close enough to the back wall, you may need to crawl along the wall until you are able to cast or hit it with a bow.

have necrotic travers or consume corpse on you or your hero along with rebirth.

the trickiest part is getting your hench's to draw aggro and die, it might be easier to gather a party of friends/etc.. or find a group that is trying for the bonus only.

be sure to have a vamp wep on you and you can slowly equip each of your heroes and let them die and rebirth them by controlling your monk or nec/monk hero and rebirth across the wall.

winterxl · Feb 05, 2007, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Does anyone know if the Necrotic Traversal trick still works. I'd rather not use it, but I will if I have to.

The mish is another one that's kinda fubar. You pretty much have to do this exploit. I got the bonus by traversing, and a second N/Mo used rebirth on our PUG who had vamp weapons.

If you don't do it, you'll have time/ghost related issues.

Dougal Kronik · Feb 05, 2007, 08:51 PM // 20:51

You can just have another player Monk the Ghost. As long as the party of 5 can go and kill all 3 bosses, the monk can keep the ghost alive and well for the 10 minutes.

RoadKill97 · Feb 05, 2007, 09:11 PM // 21:11

This is bloody easy with heroes and right timing. There is absolutely no need to try any tricky and unreliable stuff like Necrotic Traversal / Consume Corpse.

Use whatever team build you want, balanced works fine for example. No need to flag heroes nor leave any of them to defend the Ghost while you're killing the generals. One monk is enough, and condition removal is something you want, so take a hero to do monking.

1. Defend against the first wave. Kill enemies when they enter the fortress. The two last enemies in this wave are Enchanted Bows which appear at the southern gate.

2. Now you have plenty of time to kill the first general and all enemies around him. Kill scarabs first if there are any.

3. Return to defend against the second wave. Wurms should appear now (if I remember correctly) but just ignore them. Again, kill enemies when they enter the fortress. The last group has a boss in it.

4. After killing the boss and others, go south to finish the bonus. Kill the two remaining generals and their henchmen. Congrats, you have now done the bonus and there should be still at least two and half minutes left. Return to defend the Ghost if you want to do mission too. (Killing the generals will trigger more enemies to attack.)

RoadKill97 · Feb 05, 2007, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Anyone have any tips on how to get that small corner?

You can walk through the bridge.

Also, you can flag henchmen with the "All" flag. Use it first, and then the hero flags if you want to place them to different spots.

One more thing. Your Koss should have +1 to Axe or to whatever attribute. I mean, you DID put one of those runes into the headgear, right?

Livingston · Feb 06, 2007, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by mm00re

the trickiest part is getting your hench's to draw aggro and die, it might be easier to gather a party of friends/etc.. or find a group that is trying for the bonus only.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dougal Kronik

You can just have another player Monk the Ghost. As long as the party of 5 can go and kill all 3 bosses, the monk can keep the ghost alive and well for the 10 minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

@Livingston -- It looks like I'll be doing this mission again tonight to catch that last corner if you would like some company.

You guys can see this part in the OP right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Livingston

Also before anyone suggests bringing other people, I want to do this alone, otherwise I'd already have it done with a bonder.

Do people just skim through the OP and not read everything or what? I don't get it...

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKill97

This is bloody easy with heroes and right timing. There is absolutely no need to try any tricky and unreliable stuff like Necrotic Traversal / Consume Corpse.

Use whatever team build you want, balanced works fine for example. No need to flag heroes nor leave any of them to defend the Ghost while you're killing the generals. One monk is enough, and condition removal is something you want, so take a hero to do monking.

Hey Road. You say there is no need to flag a monk on the Ghost, but if I don't the siege wurms kill him in less than 1.5 minutes.

Have you actually done this yourself recently since the AI update? As I said before, I had no problems doing this mission with henchies before Nightfall came out and they implemented the AI update.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKill97

1. Defend against the first wave. Kill enemies when they enter the fortress. The two last enemies in this wave are Enchanted Bows which appear at the southern gate.

2. Now you have plenty of time to kill the first general and all enemies around him. Kill scarabs first if there are any.

3. Return to defend against the second wave. Wurms should appear now (if I remember correctly) but just ignore them. Again, kill enemies when they enter the fortress. The last group has a boss in it.

4. After killing the boss and others, go south to finish the bonus. Kill the two remaining generals and their henchmen. Congrats, you have now done the bonus and there should be still at least two and half minutes left. Return to defend the Ghost if you want to do mission too. (Killing the generals will trigger more enemies to attack.)

The thing is, I don't seem to have enough time between the first and second waves to go out and kill the first general, and even if I did, once both waves are dead, if I go out to finish the last two generals without flagging a monk on the Ghost, he will die from the siege wurms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

As you can see, I was missing some runes for my heroes so I didn't even have an optimal setup. However, I stationed all 3 of them with the ghost at the altar and just took off running with my monk using natural stride and storm chaser at 10 wilderness as soon as the timer started so I had a full 10 minutes to explore. Of course, the two dumb henchmen I brough with followed me instead of staying with the 3 anchored heroes. Meh. My heroes killed everything sent at them (with the ghostly heroes damage as well) and actually took no deaths. I managed to edge what I thought was everything, but I just got my map analyzed and it appears I missed the most southwestern tip. Anyone have any tips on how to get that small corner?

You seem to be talking about exploring the area to the south, I have no problem doing that, I'm talking about the bonus where you need to kill the three generals to the south.

To the other guys: About Necrotic travel and assassin teleport. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try these if I can't work it out any other way. Though I don't think you can teleport through walls with the assassin, though I may be wrong.

Livingston

RoadKill97 · Feb 06, 2007, 07:53 AM // 07:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Livingston

Hey Road. You say there is no need to flag a monk on the Ghost, but if I don't the siege wurms kill him in less than 1.5 minutes.

Ignore the Wurms completely and they should leave the Ghostly alone. Luck also plays a small factor in this.

Quote:

Have you actually done this yourself recently since the AI update? As I said before, I had no problems doing this mission with henchies before Nightfall came out and they implemented the AI update.

Mesmer
Ritualist

Notice the Spiritbinders, Olias as a crappy MM (with BR), and my newb builds.

Quote:

The thing is, I don't seem to have enough time between the first and second waves to go out and kill the first general, and even if I did, once both waves are dead, if I go out to finish the last two generals without flagging a monk on the Ghost, he will die from the siege wurms.

Well, you'll just have to do better because there is definitely enough time.

Livingston · Feb 06, 2007, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Well I see the proof, but I have no idea how you get the wurms not to attack the Ghost.

I just tried it again and nearly got success.

When the timer hit zero I had the last general down to 1/4 health.

I know I will get it next time because in that instance I accidentally unflagged Dunkoro when I was going for the last two generals, and the Ghosts hit points started depleting rather quickly until I ran back to the fort and reflagged Dunkoro onto the Ghost.

I pretty much used the same strategy you described, but I also dropped the slow totem on to the West gate. This saved me heaps of time.

So hopefully I'll get it in the next go.

Note: I could probably take things down a lot quicker if I had an ele hero...

Livingston

DeanBB · Feb 06, 2007, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Roadkill you never really answered *when* you did the bonus. The worms will kill the ghost now if left unprotected, which is different than the way it used to be.

I'm not sure how I would do it without a human monk to protect the ghostly, we just did it last week with a guild + heroes team using a protector monk.

And yeah, the bosses running around making the pop-ups join in gets annoying especially when you have limited time. I played a Water elementalist to help reduce the problem.

rezabm · Feb 06, 2007, 05:30 PM // 17:30

To get bonus I brought one hero monk set up as bonder (life barrier, life bond, mending, watchful spirit, essence bond, blessed signet, signet of devotion), I used shift click to disable those 5 maintained enchants and I put them manually on ghostly hero. I left the bonder hero flagged on the bridge out of fire and immediately after Mr. Ghostly takes his position on the rune circle, me and rest of the team went after three bosses. Works great to me, I hope it helps.

Regarding the kiting bosses, kill their crew first, then they stop kiting, also luring and retreat helps a lot. I got wiped by scarabs too to be honest

RoadKill97 · Feb 06, 2007, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeanBB

Roadkill you never really answered *when* you did the bonus. The worms will kill the ghost now if left unprotected, which is different than the way it used to be.

Well, Livingston was asking if had done this before or after the AI update and Nightfall, and both those pics show that they were taken after the update (heroes didn't exist before NF as you know). I did the bonus with a mesmer a few days before the Wintersday event and a month ago with a rit. And I just did the bonus again with my warrior to see if this still works. Here's a pic of completion. I didn't bother changing builds other than "Watch Yourself!" to Expunge, so I could remove those damn Kinetic Armors.

About the Wurms, just don't attack them and don't draw their attention to the Ghost, meaning that don't go near the Ghost at all, especially if a Wurm is bombarding your team.

xcutioner · Feb 06, 2007, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKill97

Notice the Spiritbinders

And its a wonderful idea, thank you for sharing it.

Jetdoc · Feb 07, 2007, 01:32 AM // 01:32

I've soloed this bonus many times with my warrior utilizing the Necrotic Transversal trick, but the easiest way to do it with henchmen/heroes is simply to put all your heroes to guard the ghost. They SHOULD be able to take on the onslaught of coming from the three gates.

If you can do that, then it's your job to go solo the three bosses (kind of what I do with the Necrotic trick) with your warrior - just bring a Warrior build that can deal with the damage and can interrupt the bosses.

MrTickle · Feb 07, 2007, 02:18 AM // 02:18

If you do try to solo it and try Necrotic Traversal, MAKE SURE if Olias is in your party he can't use the corpse else you're going nowhere

Livingston · Feb 07, 2007, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by rezabm

To get bonus I brought one hero monk set up as bonder (life barrier, life bond, mending, watchful spirit, essence bond, blessed signet, signet of devotion), I used shift click to disable those 5 maintained enchants and I put them manually on ghostly hero. I left the bonder hero flagged on the bridge out of fire and immediately after Mr. Ghostly takes his position on the rune circle, me and rest of the team went after three bosses. Works great to me, I hope it helps.

Regarding the kiting bosses, kill their crew first, then they stop kiting, also luring and retreat helps a lot. I got wiped by scarabs too to be honest

HFS! You are a genius (or I'm an idiot

). I was so pissed that my heroes can't be descent bonders. But I never thought to trigger the skills manually then disable them to get them to keep it up. It's brilliant!

Thank you for all of the suggestions, but it turns out Roadkill was right, but that isn't all of the story.

I just took my first shot on it today before coming here to read the posts since my last and I accidentally beat it!

LOL. I say accidentally because I made a mistake compared to what I normally do. Usually I flag Dunkoro to the Ghost when I go to take the first general. I have not done this 2-3 times and he HAS died. This time was different though. He didn't and I actually forgot that I was "supposed" to do that.

So I come back and take care of the second wave to the west. And once more I forget to flag Dunkoro on to the Ghost. I then beat the bonus with 50 sec to spare.

http://i15.tinypic.com/498zlh4.jpg

Here's the thing though. Olias as an MM creates 3 keys to completing the mission with heroes (in a normal manner and without bonding).

Normally the siege wurms will blast the crap out of the ghost. As I said, I've not flagged Dunkoro to the ghost before when taking out the first general and he has died multiple times. But I did not have Olias in those instances.

It's funny because the first key to it is something that was really annoying me in game while I was playing.

The First key: When you are taking out the different groups of snakes, some of the minions will brake off and start attacking the wurms. Now of course they aren't going to kill it, but it makes the minions top target priority.

That means that the Wurms are targeting a couple of minions most of the time that you are going around taking on snakes.

This means that they are not targeting the Ghost.

The Second Key There are only two wurms that threaten the Ghost. The one to the east and the one to the south. The two to the west are out of range.

Thus when you are heading out of the South exit, make sure that you get the aggro of the east wurm.

This once again means they are not targeting the Ghost.

The Third Key Once you leave the Ghosts range, meaning his name will darken on your party menu, the wurms will not target him unless they were already doing so.

Thus if your minions were distracting the wurms to begin with and you make sure you have the aggro of the wurms as you leave the area. They will not attack the Ghost, unless he was their target at another time, and I think he will be if you don't have the minions distracting them early on.

Now I'm not 100% certain on all of this because I am piecing it all together after the fact, but I believe this is the reason why it works with an MM hero, and not without one.

I'm going to test it a couple of times just to be sure though.

Livingston

Cherno · Feb 07, 2007, 06:13 PM // 18:13

You can do the transversal trick for just the bonus with heroes. It is actually quite easy as you only actually need to have one vampiric weapon for the whole party. This mission is easy to get to the bonus area and complete the bonus with just heroes and yourself, so you don't really need to worry about having the extra two henchies you can't control.

Of course you have the problem with getting the spawn to be right to get a corpse at the ravine. Once done, have the necro hench teleport over. Use the vamp weapon yourself, be brought across. Then in your I window, switch your vamp weapon over to a hero, and repeat until all are over.

Note: If using a necro hero to do the transversal, they get super twicty on the other side while waiting for you to die. They have a tendency, especially if on Avoid Combat to run away and cause scarabs to spawn. It may be a slow method to do it, but is possible if you are having problems getting people in town to do it.

Also, shadow stepping can't get you across the ravine. And you can no longer transver back around the front of the gate to complete the mission once done with bonus.

Dougal Kronik · Feb 07, 2007, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by rezabm

To get bonus I brought one hero monk set up as bonder (life barrier, life bond, mending, watchful spirit, essence bond, blessed signet, signet of devotion), I used shift click to disable those 5 maintained enchants and I put them manually on ghostly hero. I left the bonder hero flagged on the bridge out of fire and immediately after Mr. Ghostly takes his position on the rune circle, me and rest of the team went after three bosses. Works great to me, I hope it helps.

Regarding the kiting bosses, kill their crew first, then they stop kiting, also luring and retreat helps a lot. I got wiped by scarabs too to be honest

Tried this last night, and it worked great!

Got the bonus with over 2:00 minutes left on the clock. Only thing is I had to disable the enchantments and trigger them manually, then leave the two signets as Dunkoro's only available skills.

Celestial_Kitsune · Feb 08, 2007, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Herohench master Val written a guide on getting Dunes of Despair bonus. See "Dirty Way" for more up-to-date version.