Jade Scarabs: WTH?

I haven't done PvE in a while prior to starting a ranger PvE dude last month to unlock a few ranger skills. So I get to the Amnoon Oasis, got a 6 man party together for Augury Rock, and we all got wiped out by the first mob of oh... A DOZEN JADE SCARABS. Honestly now, what's with that? I dont' remember them being this difficult with my previous characters. It was a pretty balanced party too. 2 W's, 2 E's, R, and Alesia.

Those buggers are level 20.

They can:

strip enchantments
heal themselves every 20 seconds with parasitic bond
poison you
transfer the poison back to you IF you try to poison them BACK
run fast as hell
Do armor ignoring damage with Vile Touch
pop up from god knows where, 5 or 6 at a time, IN ADDITION to their buddies already on the surface which you aggroed
Work in tandem with their scorpion buddies spamming distracting shot.

My entire team went down in less than a minute.

There are about 10 mobs from amnoon to the teleporter.

Honestly now, what's the big idea?

They always have been able to do all that with my characters.

I rather enjoy having a minor challenge.

They've always been a problem. What I suggest is avoiding PUG's at the Oasis, because you'll always get someone who doesn't quite understand how aggro is bad. And then get some henchmen and go slow, taking care not to aggro too many at a time.

They are the Zerglings of GW.

And like Zerglings the trick is being able to damage many targets at a single time.

The mission Monk's Path has tons of these thing attacking you, I mean like 10 at a time in waves.

I found them easy, the trick? BARRAGE, the move does wonders against these things. They have fairly weak armor and since Barrage can be spammed everyone 1 second for the price of only 5 energy, taking them on is easy.

I did Monk's quest with myself and 5 henchmen for cannon fodder/healing purposes.

They used to be alot easier, the OP is correct. They are the victims of one of ArenaNets first nerfs.
They never used to strip enchantments but because people used them to have fun...that was put a stop to.

In conjunction with Barrage, try Edge of Extinction too. Lay that one down, and after a few barrage spams, you've got a pile of dead scarabs at your feet without needing to even break out the RAID.

I'm far from Markis at the moment

Though, I guess ignite arrows + flurry might work too, that is, if I'm not the first one to be swarmed.

Try combining Ignite Arrows + Dual Shot or Flurry and Edge, should allow you to take them out in no time.

if you need some help i got a necro and a r/w in desert willing to help can you say putrid spam! :P

Call targets

Its the only way to survive the desert

The only time I have made it past that area with other people was while running...all my other PUGs wiped. But I haven't died there once while using a full team of good old henches

Thank you all for the advice, and Elena, for your offer. I'm going to go try it out with henchies! Yay!

While barrage is a nice skill against them, its good to remember that the earliest you can get that skill is in the Iron Mines. Not necessarily very useful to someone in the Crystal Desert unless they've just been going back for kicks.

They did get a boost since release, but quite frankly they needed it. I could solo pretty much every one of them in the area with my monk (not a 105'er, just regular skills) before their boost. They needed the help.

You can actually still sprint passed them. It's not hard to do at all, you can even do the teleporter as well.

I love fighting these lil douches with a minionator. With level 16 death magic, simply animate bone minions (assuming you can get at least 1 corpse) and your meat shield will grow super fast. Heck, even if the nublet W/Mo in your party dies, you still get a corpse and energy. In my experience, monster baddies in the game love to go after boners more than humans, so I say, let em have it!

Running is for the weak.

Just to put in my .02, I was also surprised at the difficulty of the scarabs when I showed up to the Oasis for the first time last night. Wiped my party out before we had even gotten 100 yards out the door.

Definitely gonna bring Ignite Arrows next time, and do some Dual Shot spamming. Maybe see if I can find a couple of these other skills mentioned.

If you're not expecting to be zerg rushed, they suck. The trick I've used on them is PB AoE spells, and healing. If you're doing this a ranger, it makes it very hard since you have few of either.

When you're with henchies, figure that you're the one who'll take all the aggro, and prepare for it. Bring some defensive spells, and some AoE skills. Once you're sett, charge into a group of them so you take most of the aggro, hit your densive stance/troll unguent/whatever, and spam AoE as best you can. Let the Henchies do the nuking, and spot healing. Shoot scarbs gunning for alesia.

The problem you're having is only because there are two groups of Scarabs very close together directly outside of Amnoon. Move very slowly and you should be able to get the one directly north of you, then the one to the east, without aggroing both of them.

And there's a lot more than 10 mobs to the teleporter. Its a pretty packed fight from Amnoon, honestly. But take it slow and manage your aggro. Scarabs are little more than annoyances if there isn't 9+ of them.