Vanquished! Canthan Day 5

Areas Completed:

• Haiju Lagoon
• Drazach Thicket
• Morostav Trail

Haiju Lagoon
Party: W, E, R, Dunkoro, Tahlkora, Razah
Foes: 168
Time: 1hr 16min

Most important things to watch out for: the extremely powerful channeling ritualist bosses and diversion.

Drazach Thicket, Morostav Trail
Drazach Party: W, E, R, R, Razah (MM), Tahlkora, Tahlkora, Master of Whispers (SS)
Drazach Foes: 233
Drazach Time: 56min
Morostav Party: W, E, R, R, Mo, Razah (MM), Tahlkora, Master of Whispers (SS)
Morstav Foes: 297
Morostav Time: 1hr 32min

If you can get groups to fight each other let them at it. Far pulls will let you avoid pop-ups and patrols. As with the other Forest areas, watch out for the Warden Ritualist, Mesmers, and Wardens of the Earth and keep in mind that the spirits will increase the bleeding degeneration to 5.

Vanquished! Canthan Day 4

Areas Completed:

• Jaya Bluffs
• Minister Cho's Estate
• Mourning Veil Falls
  

Jaya Bluffs
Party: W, Sousuke, Razah (Explosive Creation), Dunkoro, Healer Hench, Shock Hench

Watch out for the tengu necromancer's Wail of Doom. It made me completely useless for most fights involving a necromancer. It interrupts and disables all attack skills.

Minister Cho's Estate
Party: W, E, R, Tahlkora
Foes: 207
Time: 1hr 23min

Afflicted Assassins are the creature to watch for here due to Shadow Form. Also, the Afflicted Elementalist and Necromancers are really deadly if they are in a single group.

Also, the sickened animals here are level 23 and extremely fast. Pull them from a distance or they will get to your party before you can block them. Watch for the patrolling wolves since they can run in out of no where.

Mourning Veil Falls
Party: W, R, R, E, Razah (Explosive Creation), Whispers (SS), Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 218
Time: 1hr 37min

Argh.... Hard area to say the least. The bosses here are incredibly deadly and there are a lot of them. Proceed with caution and use every corner that you can. Also, the wardens and the insects here will fight each other if you can get them together but unfortunately the plants are neutral.

Vanquished! Deldrimor Bowl

Continent: Tyria

Party: W, R, N (blood spike), E, Tahlkora, Dunkoro

Crazy area to say the least. Half the parties have 2 or more monks, the warriors hurt if you let them get to your backline, and the rangers do a lot of damage (distracting shot, penetrating shot, etc).

Vanquished! Canthan Day 3

Areas Completed:

• Ferndale
• Eternal Grove
• Nahpui Quarter

Ferndale, Eternal Grove
Party: W, W, N (SS), R, E, Razah (Explosive Creation MM), Tahlkora (Prot), Tahlkora (Heal)

Pretty easy areas overall. Make sure you pull far. There are a lot of pop-ups and patrols here. A far enough pull will keep you safe from fighting 2-3 groups at a time. We had to do this a few times and it did give us some trouble especially with the Oni pops.

Watch out for the Warden Ritualist, Mesmers, and as always the ever a pain, Wardens of the Earth. Mesmers (Wardens of the Spirit) are domination with strip enchant and interrupts while the Ritualists (Wardens of the Seasons, Summer, Spring) spam Splinter Weapon for lots of AoE damage. We usually kept the Rangers for last but keep it in the back of your mind that their spirits will increase the degeneration of bleeding.

The Dredge aren't that bad if you can get 1 group at a time but watch the Dredge Gutters (Assassins). They shadow step and are very capable of a heavy spike.

Nahpui Quarter
Party: W, R, R, E, Master of Whispers (SS), Olias (MM), Tahlkora (Prot), Tahlkora (Heal)
Foes: 112
Time: 36min

Lots of corners to use so your warriors will be happy. Try to keep your party spread out a bit or the e-surge mesmers and double dragon mages will have fun with you. Also, necromancers here add degen to the mix.

Vanquished! Droks Run!

Areas Completed:

• Snake Dance
• Dreadnought's Drift
• Lornar's Pass
  

That's right we vanquished Snake Dance, Dreadnought's Drift and Lornar's Pass yesterday. We started out from Camp Rankor (for the 8-man party) as a full guild group but we lost one along the way. The group we had made most of the run seem easy. There was a few groups (one particular) that gave us problems in Lornar's but other than that only bad pulls, etc. got us in trouble but mistakes were few and far between. We had a truly exceptional group!

Worse part of the run was probably the amount of gold left in items laying across the three areas because of full inventories. Since there were no Merchants along the way, we had to drop the least expensive items as we picked up more high price drops.

Party: W (thorn), W (axe dmg), E (renewal ms), N (ss), N (mm), R(int - had to leave after Snake), Mo (heal), Mo (prot)

Vanquished! Canthan Day 2

Areas Completed:

• Kinya Province
• Panjiang Peninsula
• Sunqua Vale

Ok I've had to make some changes to Kousei's build for these areas. The 4 man party made it hard to just bring tanking skills so I've added some damage. (Updated my Hard Mode Tank build post)

Sunqua Vale, Kinya Province
Party: Kousei (W), Razah (Explosive Creation rit), Sousuke (SF ele), Dunkoro (LoD monk)

There were pretty straight forward and easy. Pull and get the groups one at a time and you'll be fine.

Panjiang Peninsula
Party: Kousei (W), Razah (Explosive Creation rit), Sousuke (SF ele), Dunkoro (LoD monk)

Panjiang on the other hand can be a bit harder near the Crimson base in the Southwest. String out the enemies near the warrior boss and make your pulls as far as you can. The boss that gave me a bit more trouble was the Sin though. His healer is very capable yet trying to take the healer first left the backline open for the sin to attack. In the end, I ended up tanking the Sin Boss while I rotated Sousuke between using Meteor Shower on the healer and then back to pounding the Sin with SF.

FoW has been cleared!

Although it didn't feel like it, it certainly took long enough. Our guild's organized pve last night was Fissure of Woe. Fortunately, we were able to clear every area of FoW! There were a few quests left and about 1-3 mobs in all of FoW standing when I left.

After clearing the starting area and getting Ras safely to the first fortress, we decided to take a different approach than our normal runs. Instead of heading north to get to the "normal" forgemaster route, we headed off to the beach first. We continued our counter-clockwise path around FoW until we got to the burning forest (somewhere in here we lost our first warrior). There we took the groups that we needed to clear to get out of the burning forest and headed to the forgemaster quests. After finishing up the forgemaster quests, we lost our second and last warrior. We decided to press on and so we slayed the 2 Dragon Liches next then headed off into the forest of the wailing lord. We headed into the forest from the northwest entrance which ended up being a much safer path (i.e. from now on that's the way I'm going). We ran into a bit of trouble with the warriors there but after we found a good routine we made excellent time for a party of 6! After clearing the Wailing Lord's forest, we then moved on to the Burning Forest. We shamed the area's reputation if I do say so myself as we moved through most groups with little effort. After the Burning Forest, I left so the party was down to 5 but I'm sure they must have cleared the rest being there was so few groups left.

We did run into trouble every now and then due to bad pulls, over aggro, etc. but we had great communication going and some great head's up play which kept us in alive and kicking.

Thank you to everyone in the party last night. Excellent monking and teamwork!

Party: 2x Warriors, 2x Rangers (1 was me), 1x Ele, 1x Sin, 2x Monks

Vanquished! Canthan and Tyrian Update

Tyrian Areas Completed:

• Griffon's Mouth

Canthan Areas Completed:

• Bukdek Byway
• Shadow's Passage

We really didn't have any trouble points in these areas. Thanks to Gaile and Donut!

Razah Explosive Creation

After much request, here is the build that I run on my Razah hero.

Primary: Ritualist
Secondary: Necromancer

Skills

• Boon of Creation
  
• Explosive Growth
  
• Animate Flesh Golem (Elite)
  
• Animate Bone Minions
  
• Death Nova
  
• Blood of the Master
  
• Strip Enchantment
• Flesh of My Flesh
  

Attribute Point Allocation

• Death Magic: 12
  
• Spawning Power: 12
• Blood: Left overs
  

Updated:
- 13 August 2007 :: removed Infuse Condition and Taste of Death for Strip Enchantment and Flesh of My Flesh

Vanquished! Saoshang Trail

Continent: Cantha
Enemies: 34
Time: 16min

Two monks and heavy damage will get you through this. There is a lot of monk monsters so the battles may get long.

W/Mo Hard Mode Tank

Primary: Warrior
Secondary: Monk

*NOTICE: If you can't sit back and tank this build isn't for you. It is not a damage based build.

Skills

• Rez Sig/Sunspear Rebirth Signet
• Mending Touch
• Healing Signet/Lion's Comfort
• Watch Yourself
• Gladiator's Defense (Elite)
• Deadly Riposte
• Riposte
• Sun and Moon Slash

Attribute Point Allocation

• Strength: 8 + 1 (with a req 9 shield)
• Sword: 10 + 1 + 1
• Tactics: 12 + 1

**Note: I use minor runes as I cannot justify loss of health on a tank.

Comments

• the build is designed to negate as much damage as possible from the HM melee enemies allowing you to tank
• given good aggro control you should be able to isolate your party from most/all of the enemy party
• any armor set should do but i would bring at least a few energy pieces
• i recommend a sundering and vampiric sword with a flat/long bow for pulling as a weaponset

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Ok so some of the 4-man areas were giving me a problem with damage output so I made a few changes. These changes fixed that:

4-Man Skills

• Rez Sig/Sunspear Rebirth Signet
• Mending Touch
• Healing Signet/Lion's Comfort
• Watch Yourself
• Gladiator's Defense (Elite)
• Barbarous Slice
  
• Gash
• Sun and Moon Slash

Updates
:: May 28, 2007 - 4 man party size skill set.

W/N Vampiric Warrior

Primary: Warrior
Secondary: Necromancer

Skills

• Rez Sig/Sunspear Rebirth Signet
• Plague Touch
• Demonic Flesh
• Life Transfer (Elite)
• Blood Renewal
• Barborous Slash/Sever Artery
• Gash
• Sun and Moon Slash/Galrath Slash/Silverwing Slash

Attribute Point Allocation

• Strength: 8 + 1 (with a req 9 shield)
• Sword: 11 + 2
• Blood: 11

**Note: For strength and sword I use minor runes. Cannot justify loss of health.

Equipment

• armor:- gladiator armor all but helmet- duelist helm with swordsmanship rune- strength rune- superior absorbsion rune- superior vigor rune
• weaponry:- use what you like best but I think for this build the ideal weaponset is a max Vampiric of Enchanting and a max Sundering switch- with perfect mods you'll be stealing 3 life per hit and demonic flesh will last an additional 20% longer which for demonic at blood 11 is an over 10 secs extra

Comments

• as with any build pull at every chance because if you get swamped by monsters even the best build can be overwhelmed
• cast blood renewal THEN demonic flesh - if you cast demonic flesh first, you will sacrifice more health due to a higher max hp
• keep blood renewal on at all times - when it ends cast it again immediately- in general this build does not have energy problems BUT areas with lots of conditions can cause a problem if you do not have a condition removal monk or don't control your use of Plague Touch
• oh and last but not least... your monks will love you as you heal yourself taking the pressure off of them but don't forget to tell them that you are going to be sac'n life
  

Play Tactics

• common tactic is to start off before a fight with blood renewal then demonic flesh
• start off with life transfer on one target and fight the target until you charge your adrenaline skills then take your target out with the sever artery/gash/galrath combo
• watch life transfer as you can waste it if used when a target has too low health and general only cast it on a target with 50% or more health... unfortunately only experience with the build can help you learn this one
• if you desparately need health regen change to a new target, cast transfer, and then switch back that way you won't cancel your own spell when you switch back to other target and kill them

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Vanquished! Vulture Drifts

Continent: Tyria
Enemies: ~250
Time: ~1hr 30min

Party: W (tank), E (endless ms), R, Sousuke (searing flames), Tahlkora (healer), Tahlkora (prot)

So here's how Vulture Drifts felt sometimes: take a step, scarab pops up, kill it, repeat.... It got kind of aggrivating but the good thing is that there weren't many pop-ups with other groups. That maybe happened once or twice. The area itself wasn't that hard but coming from Elona it seemed to take forever. Drifts has mostly 2-3 enemy groups which after Elona is a welcomed change but it does increase the time a bit. Overall it was a pretty easy area even though we wanted to pull our hair out due to the popups lol.

Vanquished! Mirror of Lyss

Continent: Elona

Party: W (tank), E (searing flames), R (burning arrow interrupt), Me (heavy interrupt), E (endless ms), Mo (healer), Mo (prot), N (mm)

My last Elonian area for the title and it went quite well. I had help from a friend so it was me, her, and 6 heroes. The only thing that gave us any trouble was the Roaring Ether boss. Its spike sent me to the dirt but the rest of the party made out quite well. We did freak out when we couldn't find the last group but after about 5 minutes of running around we found it, killed it, and I'm finally an Elonian Vanquisher!

Thanks for all the help I've had along the way!