Too many Ulodytes + 4-man HM Parties = BS

When Hard Mode was first released, people mentioned almost right away the amount of Grawl Ulodyte overkill there was. For a 4-man party, there's simply TOO MUCH healing to handle when vanquishing these Ascalon zones. There are Ulodytes everywhere. One wrong pull and you end up with 3 Ulodytes healing 3-4 Grawl. These Ulodytes aren't normal healers either. They are super bionic kiters with almost limitless energy. A 4-man party simply isn't enough to handle this BS. People mentioned it a year ago, and ANet still hasn't done anything to alleviate the situation.

I'm sorry, but it's time for this BS to stop. For the love of everything, ANet needs to thin out the number of Grawl Ulodytes in these mobs or tone down their HM builds a bit. It's ridiculous. I shouldn't have the hardest time trying to vanquish one of the first zones in the original game. It's not my party. I've tried all sorts of combinations. I've been playing GW since June of 2005, so it's not like I can't put together a decent team build and/or pull adequately. I tried Scourge Healing. I tried knockdowns, Ward Against Melee, interrupts, etc... and nothing seems to work. It's not me. It's the damn mobs. The rest of the zone(s) aren't hard to vanquish at all. It's these damn Grawl-laden areas.

I am not sure how I vanquished those areas but I do remember how much of a pain in the arse those healers were. I think I had to do some serious pulling and the ability to place your heroes where you need them works wonders. I would recommend that no matter what profession you are bring a longbow. Pull from as far back as you can. Then run even further so that you can separate the mobs. Best of luck and bring Ursan Blessing! lol

If they team up on you you need to run off and do a new pull. You can't kill three ulodytes spamming heals on eachother (while a bunch of hammer knockdown warriors are doing their stuff too).

The good news is that they can always be pulled apart from eachother. I vanquished all those areas with henches, and although it's a bit tedious to take each mob individually, it can be done without too much difficulty.

It greatly helps if you can limit their WoH spamming, f.ex. by knockdowns (ursan + stoneskin works wonders).

My advice is to take someone with you, Pull extremely carefully, and hit multiple targets at once. I was an SS necro with a real smiter monk(Sig of Judgement), we brought another monk, and an MM(Sab's 3 necro). The Smiter would alway target the Ulodyte and I would spread hexes to the Hammer Grawls. Eventually the Ulodyte would be over-pressured, and die. Buy yeah, those groups are really hard - Probably the hardest in Tyria.

Lol, I went for ToA and cleared everything east of there. As you can get to every map east of ToA without entering a town. That means 8 man parties. Sure its annoying not being able to pick up all your drops and really annoying when you need to quit and go to restart later and have to run through all the maps you already did. But on the plus side I had an 8 man party and it was a cake walk :P

3-priest grawl group was actually first thing i encountered in HM. It got me excited that HM would be actually hard ... shame.

What i can suggest is to bring physical damage dealer(s) who can inflict deepwound (noticeable healing eficiency drop.) and ideally knockdown too. Switch targets/strip enchant when you notice healing hands and they should run out of energy eventually.

Wow. Good idea. Hell, even if I simply started from Yak's and made my way down there with even a 6-man party, I bet I'd have better luck. (And I'm talking waaaaaaaaaaaay down there - I was having problems with the Frontier Gate -> Ruins of Surmia Grawl mobs. )

It would be a pretty cheesy way of getting it done, not to mention take a long time to set up and do, but whatever works, right?



Yeah, that's how I got through the Grawl in Old Ascalon. I took both Koss and Jora and spammed Great Dwarf Weapon on them. For some reason (maybe I was just tired - it was late), I wasn't having the same success outside of Frontier Gate this morning. The 4-man limit really sucks, IMO. You just don't have much freedom in party allocation. Seemed like either I brought too much damage and then was at a loss for protection, or vice versa.

For even more cheese, run 4 Warriors with Stonefist and UB and just keep them AoE KD'ed until they're dead. Aren't PvE skills fun.

Because, apparently, there is no situation. People are getting legendary vanquisher by the pound.

There's several ways to deal with this. The by far best classes to bring into 4-man vanquishing are necros and mesmers. Various nukers or similar are subpar.

Mesmer with diversion is obvious choice against healers. N/Rit healer is good as well - they spam the weapon of..., which means constant life stealing. Enchant removal is a must. Anything armor ignoring, self-damaging is also great (SS, Insidious).

Requires a smiter, and there are no undead, subpar choice
Unless you can spike the knocked down target, it won't do much
That doesn't do much for healers. Aegis should be enough against the charr warriors
Interrupts don't help against spam. Backfire, diversion, daze, that kind of thing.

I did it with 3 heroes, and no PvE skills. Its a matter of 2 things. Interrupting the heals, and reducing the healing provided. I used my Ranger, and I took a Curse necro, Dom mez, and Heal monk. Although you already mentioned Scourge Healing, consider some of the other skills that can deal with them.... and remember, they only have 3 spells total.

[skill]Power Block[/skill][skill]Broad Head Arrow[/skill][skill]Backfire[/skill][skill]Mark of Subversion[/skill][skill]Shame[/skill][skill]Defile Flesh[/skill][skill]Diversion[/skill][skill]Arcane Conundrum[/skill][skill]Migraine[/skill][skill]Frustration[/skill]

Thats not even a full list, and it only covers 3 classes. Assassin and Monk both have nice options for anti-spell casting, and I didn't even go into what can be done when they use Healing Hands (shatter/strip/etc.). They have no hex or condition removal, and only 3 spells total, so it isn't that hard to make them useless. Arcane Thievery+Larceny gives them only Healing Hands, and that can be shut down with Sig of Humility.

Hard, yes. Needs to be changed, no. It can be done, and has been done. PvE skills make it absolutely easy.

I'm missing an Eastern Frontier because of them.

I've tried even by using mesmers, rangers with dazing and condition spreading and deep wound all at the same time... but nothing works.

Dazing do not last enough, and they need ONE heal area to almost completely heal themselves.

When I finally get to make a hero party than can beat them, it becomes almost useless for the rest of the area.


The only people I know that could beat the area started all of them from Yak's Bend.

Yargh. They should allow 8-parties in hard mode in any outpost.

You already can do that in the Whole Tyria if you leave from another outpost and all areas but one in Istan.

The only place that actually limits parties is Shing Jea. And that place cakewalk (Well, not the Portal meaning of cakewalk, I mean easy).


At least they should decrease a bit they healing prayers attribute.

BHA + MM

What healing?

If you aren't a ranger just bring any form of enchant stripping. With healing hands gone you can easily out damage heal area / other.


BTW if they are kiting from you use that to your advantage, make one kite away while you hit another.

Eastern Frontier finished the other day with three necros and a warrior with stability stances. Done. If people have been noticing the challenge since the beginning then GOOD. Legendary Vanquisher shouldn't just be a question of time + c-space.

Just spike them, yes it may seem like hard thing to pull off but its not impossible, a minion master, Spiteful spirit necro or para, and a monk are good enough. "You move like a dwarf" then a deep wound and good dmg output really drops them fast, despite ungodly attributes and what not, you have to remember this is AI, you can outsmart them ^-^

Bring a mesmer with [skill]arcane larceny[/skill][skill]arcane thievery[/skill] and with a bit of luck you got 1 monk left with only 1 skill..

Theses are the best HM areas. These areas actually are reasonably hard. It's a shame the rest of HM failed to live up to this.

Grawl healers are real easy to take out with everyone having a cold weapon and one of your necros carrying both spinal shivers and shivers of dread and another necro feeding him with blood ritulal. They can't get a heal off and if you can get them in close promity to one another you can sue spinning axe or that elite one and clobber everyone of them with a cold attack at the same time.

Hell, I beat a lot of areas with more than one healer all the time with my builds and only 3 heroes. Of course I do have different builds for different areas that's why you have "so many skills you can use" so, if you can only play with cookie cutter builds off of wiki then yup you're going to run into trouble and a lot because you don't know how to make different builds and use best judgement in different areas.

I have so many saved builds in my template list now according to areas or zones. All it takes are a few swift clicks here and there and my heroes are setup for THAT area with new skills and new equipment if required.

You've got to bring some interupts though in hard mode if you plan to survive and succeed. Everything doesn't have to be dps to win. I've won in many areas bringing two monks and just one other damage dealer, but, I have one monk setup as a smiter and mesmer interupter works for me.

Most people just don't know how to make creative builds, they'd rather run to the internet forums and QQ about how hard it is for "them" to succeed. lol

Uhm...No.
I vanquished old ascalon and regent valley with h/h in 1 go each. You sir just need better builds...

Thousands of other people have done it, if you cant then perhaps your not good enough at Guild Wars.

Those Grawl healers run away if they take too much damage and will simply not be pulled in HM(their hammer wielding buddies love me though). I'll have to try some of the stuff suggested in this thread.