Wednesday, May 30, 2007

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.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

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.

Monday, May 28, 2007

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)

Sunday, May 27, 2007

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.

Friday, May 25, 2007

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

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

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

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

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.