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Eternal Grove HM

Ok so after a few attempts we were able to finally get Masters with the following setup:
South Team: 1 warrior (me with my HM thorns build), 1 fire ele, 1 MM (Razah), 1 Monk
North Team: 1 conjure barrager, 1 splinter barrager, 1 MM, 1 monk

We played off the high damage output of our barragers for one side and I tanked with the help of Razah's minions while Lyne dropped every fire spell imaginable on our side.

I would highly recommend each side take a minion master and a human healer. Also, after failing Masters once because of not doing this... I highly recommend that you setup the jugs as soon as possible. Get at least one in each doorway for a distraction in case something gets by you. This will give you time to get back before whatever gets by has a chance to kill a singer.

Thanks to everyone that helped out!

HM Raisu Palace

Easily the most frustrating HM mission that I've done yet. We must have tried this five times before we were finally able to do it. We tried the first 4 times with a full party of 8 (3 W, 2 Mo, 3Eles). After the 4th try, 2 of our eles had to leave so we replaced them with heroes (Razah as MM and ele nuker hero). We found the MM to be invaluable. The extra targets for enemies, the "wall" effect of the minions, and the damage (Death Nova) the minions added helpedtremendously. We finished masters with time to spare with the minions.

DoA News

So I took a little break after completing the Legendary Vanquisher title and haven't been hitting things as hard.

I did get to run a few test into DoA with 4 humans and 4 heroes. Good news: DoA can now be done without the default build. I'd advise against pugs if you are going to do non-build 8man. Bad news: heroes are doable now but incredibly hard. We got to Jodath in City and wiped with only him left. The monster wear you down little by little and sooner or later the DP gets hard to work with. The quest reward helped a lot though but the DP didn't stay gone for long. :(

Update 13 August 2007:
It'll take work to figure out what works for which area. Get a full human party of DoA experienced players and play around with some builds. In the least run through the areas a few times so others can become familiar with the enemies of each area and their skills.

Also, if you want to go through all the areas in sequence, the best build is still the default Balanced DoA build.

Legendary Vanquisher

Tonight I completed my last vanquish needed for the Legendary Vanquisher Title!

I know that I need to go back and retro-actively add all of the notes about the areas I've Vanquished in the past week. I've got some pretty good notes on kill counts and times but I don't remember all the party setups.

I'll post the notes and update this post later.

Thank you to everyone who helped along the way!

Evil forces in Fissure destroyed!

In an incredible expedition on the evening of July 5, 2007, eight adventurers successfully pushed the forces of evil out of the Fissure of Woe. Every foe was defeated and every quest completed. The ardent adventures did not go unrewarded for their efforts. The group was awarded with 25 obsidian shards, 6 non-chest gold drops, 4 obsidian keys, 1 Passage Scroll to the Fissure of Woe, 1 sapphire, and an undisclosed amount of gold. Rumor has it that a single member of the expedition deposited over 5 platinum into his storage account.

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 11

Areas Completed:

• Iceflow

Iceflow
Party: W, E, E, N, P, R, Mo, Dunkoro
Time: 30min
Foes: 140

This is a small area with lots of good corners. The corners are so good in some places that we were able to pull multiple groups at a time. The usual for Stone Summit works here. Dolyaks should be dealt with first while the tank holds the Carvers and Herders. Gnashers and Heretics are constant nuisances but the Carvers are capable of spiking backline characters and need to be dealt with first with Dolyaks. Just be careful with enchants as Heretics have Strip Enchantment.

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 10

Areas Completed:

• Frozen Forest

Frozen Forest
Party: W, N, E, E, E, R, Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Time: 2hr 39min

I was rushing to get through and probably took a few chances I normally wouldn’t so we had a few deaths that were unnecessary. Also, I really missed having an MM here too. The snares were so bad that I could not hold aggro as usual. I could re-position myself when needed, etc. An MM with body blocking minions would have been a great help with stopping melee from getting to the backline and giving the enemies a few more targets to attack.

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 7, 8 and 9

.: Weekend Edition :.

Areas Completed:

• Traveler's Vale
• Talmark Wilderness
• Tears of the Fallen
• Twin Serpent Lakes
• Regent Valley

Traveler's Vale

This is a very manageable area if done using the terrain and pulling (oh and without any quests). The patrols here were a problem but after the first one caught us we started pulling pretty far and didn’t have a problem after that.

Regent Valley
Party: W, E, Razah, Tahlkora
Foes: 155
Time: 1hr 24min

The more I play in the 4-man areas the less I want to. These areas can be extremely difficult. The abundance of Grawl Ulodytes was the largest aggravation here. Most of this area was fairly simple using the terrain and pulling, but when 2 Ulodytes aggro, it’s nearly impossible to take them down with 4 people.

To kill them, separate them. They have a very strong Heal Area and it will keep them both up through multiple Meteor Showers. Luckily, I was running a damager build so we split chores. I charged adrenaline on one then quickly switched to the second while Lyne (E) dropped Meteor Shower on the first then turned her other spells on my target. This seemed to work quite nicely for us and we were able to cruise along once we figured it out.

Talmark Wilderness
Party: W, W, E, Mo, Mo, Razah, Sousuke, Margrid
Foes: 227
Time: 1hr

Imps here are pretty powerful but other than that not too much to worry about.

Tears of the Fallen, Twin Serpent Lakes
Party: W, E, R, R, Mo, Mo, Razah, Norgu
Foes: 72 (Tears), 181 (Twin)
Time: 22min (Tears), 55min (Twin)

Warning: You are now entering hex country.

These area were nothing but Scales and Mergoyles. Both come in two flavors. The Scales come in Spiteful Spirit and Tainted Flesh while the Mergoyles come in Power Block Mesmer and Water Elementalist. As a warrior, I felt like I do when I’m tanking in DoA: all meat shield with no other duty to the party other than holding aggro. The SS scales run Spiteful Spirit, Price of Failure, Soul Barbs, and Life Siphon. The Mesmer Mergoyles run Mind Wrack and Spirit Shackles. I spent most of the time in these zones unable to attack without paying for it.

Underworld Excursion

This week our guild’s high-end PVE excursion was to the Underworld. Our group walked away with 15 ecto! (3 for me :)). We decimated the Labyrinth, the Chaos Plains, the Bone Pits, the Forgotten Vale, and the Spawning Pools. We completed Clear the Chamber, Wrathful Spirits, Terrorweb Queen, and then it got late and we got adventurous. We then returned to the Chaos Planes to try The Four Horsemen (none of us knew what we were in for)… We killed a few Terrorwebs out of 1 of the 4 Banished Rider boss Horsemen groups and then it all went south. Not knowing the quest we setup badly, the other groups rushed the Reaper, and even though our Ritualist was doing an awesome job spirit spamming we couldn’t get back to help him and the Reaper deal with the other Horsemen and their Terrorweb groups…

It really was an excellent run though and it was actually Kousei’s greatest and most far reaching excursion into the Underworld. I had never even been to Chaos Plains, Bone Pits, and Spawning Pools with any character before last night.

Thanks to all who were in the party!

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 6

Areas Completed:

• Sage Lands
  
• Majestry's Rest
  
• Nebo Terrace
  

Sage Lands
Party: W, P, R, E, Rt, Mo, Mo, Olias
Foes: 236
Time: 1hr 10min

So many pop-ups….

Spiders, necromancer touch scarabs (who do melee damage for you thorn tanks out there), devourers, etc. I’d venture to say close to half (if not more) of our kills were pop-ups. This area is one of those areas that you’ll feel extremely frustrated after vanquishing it. Not too much was painful here but then again we had two good human monks.

Majestry's Rest
Party: W, P, R, E, Rt, Mo, Mo, Olias
Foes: 55
Time: 28min

Ok, so we all thought this area was going to be incredibly difficult. We left from Temple of Ages for the 8-man party, ran through Curtain, and fought what little we had to as to get to Majestry’s Rest. We killed only what we had to kill to get to Rotscale in case we needed to work off some death penalty. Fortunately we didn’t have to do that though. We killed of the group at the foot of Rot’s bridge and then we were able to get him and all of the Dragon rangers onto the bridge quite easily. We had to retreat a few times when our casters ran low on energy, etc but we finally whittled down the group to just Rotscale. At this point, I got behind him so he couldn’t retreat and we pounded on him… Then we pounded on him some more... Then some more until he finally went down. Some 10-15 minutes of this vanquish was killing Rotscale and the inhabitants of his little island.

Something to note: if you leave from Majestry’s Rest, kill everything outside of the desert area before going there. We were able to complete this without stepping foot into the desert area.

Nebo Terrace
Party: W, P, R, R, Mo, Mo
Foes: 154
Time: 51min

You’ll need hex removal for the mergoyles and scales and condition removal for the undead. We were able to get by with minimal condition removal and a lot of hex removal.

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 5

Areas Completed:

• Watchtower Coast
  
• Ascalon Foothills
  
• Diessa Lowlands
• Flame Temple Corridor
  

Watchtower Coast
Party: W, R, R, E, Tahlkora, Razah (MM)
Foes: 158
Time: 41 min

There is more scale and mergoyle troubles here so bring your hex removal.

Ascalon Foothills, Diessa Lowlands, Flame Temple Corridor
Party: W, E, R, R, Rt, Tahkora
Foes: 58 (Foothills), 365 (Diessa), 103 (Flame)
Time: 16min (Foothills), 2 hr 8min (Diessa), 35min (Flame)

We left from Yak’s Bend and just kept going. After doing them with 6, I don’t want to imagine doing these areas with only a 4-man party. The Charr and Gargoyles in Lowlands and Flame Temple can do an insane amount of damage in an incredibly short amount of time. The Charr Warriors have Wild Blow and I was running my Gladiator’s Defense thorn build….

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 4

Areas Completed:

• The Arid Sea
  
• The Scar
  
• Spearhead Peak
  

The Arid Sea, The Scar
Foes: 260 (Scar)
Time: 1 hr 48min (Scar)

We started from Elona. That’s right we brought an 8-man party into the Crystal Desert. The hydra can be fun if you don’t take them down fast enough and watch out for pop-ups but other than that not bad. We did have to run around for 10-15 minutes on each of these to find the last 1-2 groups/monsters.

Spearhead Peak
Foes: 233
Time: 1 hr 45min

This area was fun. Our Elementalist lost communication with the server 10 minutes after a new build had been released so she couldn’t join back up… We did well over half of this area with 7 people and I had flag only control of her two heroes with their resurrection skills permanently turned off. The area wasn’t too bad after we got the feel for the area but it took a lot longer to bring stuff down. Watch out for patrols! We did wipe a few times at the beginning because we were rushing a bit and not watching patrol routes and not pulling far enough.

Vanquished! Tyrian Day 3

Areas Completed:

• North Kryta Province
  
• Ice Flow
  

North Kryta Province
Party: W, W, E, R, Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 197
Time: 1 hr 39min

A lot of bog skales.... That much Spiteful Spirit sucks! Everything else wasn't too bad but the degeneration plus the SS was hard to deal with. Thank god for Lyne and her infinite MS build.

Ice Flow
Party: W, E, R, Margrid, Razah (MM), Master of Whispers, Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 212
Time: 1 hr 38min

Pull! Ice Imp groups can become overwhelming fast if you pull more than one group. The Mursaat group patrols can be problematic as well so pull again with these. Another thing to watch out for is the size of some of the Mursaat groups. String them out for a bit of help.

Vanquished! Canthan Day 12

Areas Completed:

• Silent Surf

Silent Surf
Party: W, Razah (MM), Sousuke, Dunkoro, Illusion Hench, Interrupt Hench, Protector Hench, Earth Hench
Foes: 268
Time: 1 hr 8min

And that's all for Cantha! I am now a Canthan Vanquisher!

Vanquished! Canthan Day 11

Areas Completed:

• Shenzun Tunnels
  
• Raisu Palace
• Rhea's Crater
  

Shenzun Tunnels
Party: W, E, Razah (MM), Sousuke, Jin, Master of Whispers (SS), Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 253
Time: 1 hr 18min

Same as Sunjiang District.

The Ritualists are a pain with Flesh of My Flesh, the Elementalist do a lot of damage and the Mesmers can really aggravate casters. Take your time and don't throw caution to the wind and you should be fine given your monks can handle the extreme amount of damage these guys can dish out.

Raisu Palace
Party: W, E, R, Rt, Razah (MM), Olias (blood), Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 261
Time: 1hr 24 min

Not as bad as we thought it would be but it definitely deserves caution. The major thing to remember is if you do happen upon multiple groups... run! Unlike some other areas if you aggro multiple groups here, it is much safer to run and reposition once one group breaks off or just break aggro all together.

Rhea's Crater

Party: W, E, R, Rt, Razah (MM), Master of Whispers (SS), Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 264
Time: 1hr 34 min

Wavecrest Stonebreak (Water Ele boss) = evil! Unfortunately his group is a patrol and we didn't fight it until last so we couldn't drop DP with other groups. Prot Spirit (Mo), Shelter (Rt), etc would be extremely useful... but we didn't have them. I think we all got a bit worried that we'd DP out. Still don't know how we pulled it off but we finally beat him.

Vanquished! Canthan Day 10

Areas Completed:

• Sunjiang District
• Unwaking Waters
  

Sunjiang District
Party: W, R, E, Rt, Razah (MM), Master of Whispers (SS), Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 210
Time: 1 hr 20min

Lots of Afflicted. The Ritualists are a pain with Flesh of My Flesh, the Elementalist do a lot of damage and the Mesmers can really aggravate casters. Take your time and don't throw caution to the wind and you should be fine given your monks can handle the extreme amount of damage these guys can dish out.

Unwaking Waters
Party: W, R, E, N (MM), Master of Whispers (SS), Jin, Tahlkora, Tahlkora
Foes: 153
Time: 51 min

We did well in this area which was worrisome for a fear of us before we entered. The biggest issue is the amount of patrols. Pull far so you don't encounter multiple groups. A protector monk helps a lot too due to the Ride the Lightning elementalist.

Vanquished! Canthan Day 9

Areas Completed:

• Archipelagos
• Gyala Hatchery
• Boreas Seabed

Archipelagos
Party: W, Razah (MM), Sousuke, Dunkoro, Interrupt Hench, Illusion Hench, Earth Hench, Protection Hench
Foes: 174
Time: 1 hr

Gyala Hatchery
Party: W, Razah (MM), Sousuke, Dunkoro, Interrupt Hench, Illusion Hench, Earth Hench, Protection Hench
Foes: 191
Time: 57 min

Boreas Seabed
Party: W, R, Razah (MM), Sousuke, Sousuke, Tahlkora, Dunkoro, Jin
Foes: 220
Time: 56min

These three areas are comprised of mostly the same enemy types and there are a lot of groups that will fight each other making your job much easier. For example, in Boreas Seabed there are a lot of patrols that will patrol right into hostile groups if you stand far enough away and just enjoy the show. The Naga Ritualists can be a pain if you let them live for too long but make sure to kill any melee first unless you have a live, human tank.

The areas aren't too bad and as you can see I did 2 of the 3 with just heroes and henchmen. I have tried to do Sunjiang District a few times with heroes and hench and the Afflicted area of effect is too much for the AI. It looks like I will need to get the gang together to finish off Cantha.

Vanquished! Grenth's Footprint

Party: W, W, Mo, N (MM), Jin, Sousuke, Tahlkora, Master of Whispers (SS)

This area has a lot of groups bunched close to other groups so you will want to make long pulls to avoid extra aggro. Corners should be used when you can but with an MM it's more important for bunching enemies than for protecting casters from melee. The warriors were usually only 1 per group maybe 2 and that's if the group had a warrior at all. Corners will also help with groups consisting of a lot of rangers. They can do a lot of damage quickly if they decide to spike a target. As usual, the Gnashers (necromancers) are a pain and as such should be targeted after any warriors are dealt with. The groups consisting of Ice Imps and Ice Golems, be sure to spread out to avoid AoE spells.

Vanquished! Maishang Hills

Party: W, R, Razah (MM), Sousuke, Sousuke, Tahlkora, Dunkoro, Jin
Foes: 189
Time: 51

Before I go too far, remember to pull the Assassin boss and the Elementalist Island Guardian boss groups together. Then, you can sit back and watch the fireworks and kill the remaining 2-3 creatures after. Thanks to Donut for that tip!

More Naga, Wallows, and Kappa here. Naga have channeling ritualist who's AoE can be deadly if you don't spread out. Wallows can spike a single target if you aggro a large enough group and they all target the same person. Kappa at this level are pure annoyance here.