Desert Nudity

[Lurker Wyrm]

Only a few comments to make:

The first boss before you enter the compound is always a Mesmer with Mantra of Recovery, so /me can cap that if needed.

Recovery is the fast casting one, Recall is the inspiration one.

Under the 2 minute mark there are two groups of three that spawn on either side of the general's fort, I don't know if your idea was to catch them while there.

When you defeat each general a group of 3 will spawn and attack the ghostly. As I recall, there were no other spawns that late into the mission besides those.

The other option would be to bring two Backfires (or arcane echo Backfire...good luck with the energy though...) and put them on at the same time; we need to watch for the half hex/condition duration on the boss though, so the kill must be made quickly.

Arcane Echo and Backfire both cost 15 energy, so I don't think that will work. I had forgotten about the half hex duration on bosses, so I'm not really sure how that will work out. The AI is fairly predictable with spells, so timing interrupts might work out. Diversion might offer some help also.

Edit: had another thought: Arcane Thievery.

[FoxBat]

Yes, it is Recovery. Recall is in Dragon's Lair.

When you defeat each general a group of 3 will spawn and attack the ghostly. As I recall, there were no other spawns that late into the mission besides those.

So the key, Ironically, is to kill the last general with almost zero time on the clock. Either that or try to rush the spawns following general's death.

Edit: had another thought: Arcane Thievery.

Why yes, my Monk would like Word of Healing....

[FoxBat]

Victory@Dunes! Only took us three tries...

We didn't get anywhere near the bonus since we had such a hard time handling just the mission. The Sand Wurms became our bane both times, dying on the first one with a few centaur archers. The second go we hexed them from a distance while letting Hawk absorb the brunt of the damage, then ran in with rangers and interrupted his attacks. This only led us to the Altar where the Wurm Siege pressure wiped us again with all those arcanists running amok.

The third time proved to be the charm thanks to Wyrm's sage advice: as long as you don't proceed too far forward on the altar, the wurms never wake up. This meant leaving the northern arcanists to futily pound on the ghostly while hanging back on the ramp and taking out any that came close. In general as a role-reversal we let the Ghostly do much of the tanking for us poor frail nudists. One smack of an earthquake or stoning from an arcanist tends to drop your health at an alarming rate! This strategy ultimately worked and we stood triumphant over that Ghostly Imposter.

At the end after Seijin left, the five of us saundered up to pick up Elona Reach. It definitely reminded us why to monks are much better than one; by the end I was the only one alive running into the mission zone with a sand drake on my heels! Discussion on how to tackle this mission is pending.

[Zed-F]

Die? A lot?

[FoxBat]

Actually Elona Reach looks relatively simple. The main thing to keep in mind is that there are many patrols with very long paths. You can avoid fighting most of them or pull them out and fight one group at a time this way, just mind that they don't end up collapsing on you. The Sages have gotten an upgrade to their Word of Healing which makes them fairly accomplished monks, some kind of shutdown/backfire will be essential and they need to die first. Minions are, as typical for the desert missions, about useless, so its blood + curses. We'll fight anywhere from 3 to 4 bosses so odds are good of getting something with a cap sig.

[KingOfPain]

by the end I was the only one alive running into the mission zone with a sand drake on my heels!

Okay, so you don't count so good... But how do you stay so white after all this time in the desert!?!?



KoP

[Lurker Wyrm]

Okay, so you don't count so good... But how do you stay so white after all this time in the desert!?!?

SPF 5000.

[FoxBat]

Well, last night didn't go quite as planned.

Seijin was absent (would've preferred to hear in advanace ) but our old nudist Drasca was up for the challenge. We tried about 4-5 times to clear Elona Reach and kept on failing.

Right now our major creature threat is the Arcanists. An unprotted hit from stoning or earthquake is absolutely deadly. The Swords etc. don't help any but they are manageable in the absence of Arcanists.

One tactic for mitigating them is to abuse wall cover, their wands and stonings can't go through that. If we really want to push that, then builds need to be optimized so they can mostly work through a wall. (Flare, Firestorm, bow attacks etc. need line of sight.) Earthquake must also be caught and interrupted; we usually need to cluster around a wall to have a good attacking position from safety. Since there are often two arcanists, it may be too much to expect one memser to catch them all. Mesmer secondary and a single power drain would probably do the job.

The second approach, which works really well when it works, is to keep aggro on a single tank. Things die fast and we take hardly any damage in this case, but it is hard to keep ranged attackers aggroed on someone. The only way to make this work consistently is from a combination of two factiors:

1) minimize the time others spend in their aggro circle. This means either long-rage bows (technically recurve should be enough), relying on pet attacks, or doing hit-and-run castings (run in and empathy/backfire, run out; run in, drop a big fire spell, run out. etc.)

2) keep the attackers disabled before engaging. This could mean the tank aggroing to clump enemies, and then having two chained meteor showers on their heads; it could also mean spirit shackles or the like on smaller groups.

In either case the Tank and their group needs to have an idea about optimal positioning. When doing a pull, the tank needs to pull ranged guys far enough so they won't attract allies (including ally monks, who will respond to them being damaged.) At the same time, the group needs to be far enough back that the tank isn't running past them. The tank needs to take the first few hits without anyone in his aggro circle, then the monks barely move into his circle, then everyone else engages.


The other problem beyond aggro management is mission strategy. It's important to stick close and move as a small group rather than a train when trying to sneak by patrols, which we figured out by the end. We learned the hard way that we have to kill a patrol on the way back to the fort after the first group, then from within the fort pull the first western group a good long way.

All of this also exposes a philosophical problem about these strategies starting to feel like old-school DoA, but I'm stubborn enough to at least finish the desert missions before re-evaluating that.

[Zed-F]

Well, last night didn't go quite as planned.

Well, I did plan to die a lot... that part worked out pretty much as expected.

1) minimize the time others spend in their aggro circle. This means either long-rage bows (technically recurve should be enough), relying on pet attacks, or doing hit-and-run castings (run in and empathy/backfire, run out; run in, drop a big fire spell, run out. etc.)

2) keep the attackers disabled before engaging. This could mean the tank aggroing to clump enemies, and then having two chained meteor showers on their heads; it could also mean spirit shackles or the like on smaller groups.

I generally found that it's helpful if, instead of staying at the very edge of aggro range, the tank moves in close with them. This decreases the chances that the mobs will run past the tank and spot non-tank characters behind the lines. Of course, it's then important that the back line not get too close or use too many aggro-breaking DoT spells.

All of this also exposes a philosophical problem about these strategies starting to feel like old-school DoA, but I'm stubborn enough to at least finish the desert missions before re-evaluating that.

Hm? DoA? What?

[FoxBat]

Hm? DoA? What?

The strategies about hit-n-run/meteor shower were the "standard" way of doing Domain of Anguish before all the PvE skills came along. You stuck all the aggro on a single obsidian flesh tank with tons of bonds/prots, alternating with spellbreaker, etc. You had to keep the enemies focused entirely on the tank, then casters move in and meteor shower/deep freeze, followed by searing flames nuking. It's generally tedious gameplay that made our few veterans of the place (xyn, arctic/moo) swear it off. Personally I couldn't stand that pace back when tanking was "the" way to handle FoW/UW and so on.

I think nudists are heading in that direction if we don't want to be dealing with these frustrating mission failures. When I think of the elementals or crystal spiders in Dragon's Lair, all I can think of is Obsidian flesh etc. etc. It's definitely harder doing that while nude, but not necessarily any more fun.