Totem Axe Farm

[Fay Vert]

Well, i just gave it a try and after getting lost and spending 30 minutes trying to get to the right spot, i finally got back on track, just to get pwnd by the wind riders a few minutes later +___+

any tips?

To take on the wind riders, first count them, they can't really harm you with trolls up to counter the phantasm, but, cry of frustration will kill you if it takes a trolls out.

Start off just out of range, hight advantage if you can, or in the river for more healing. Kindle and then troll up, hammer one, preferably with a poison bow, you should easily get it down so that the remaining poison will kill it, turn and run out with speed, as soon as you have broken ambush, hit trolls, in an emergency you could have a +60 heath weapon to switch to.

Do this a couple of times to get the numbers down, you can kill them all with this hit and run but it's a little slow, so here is where counting them comes in. Go in as before with kindle/trolls and then spam Poison Arrow, you are waiting for cry of frustration to hit it, each rider will interrupt it in succession, as soon as you have been hit by CoF by all of them it is now safe to hit trolls/re-kindle.

When you are in a battle, also with scales and level behemoths, it's useful to keep trolls up and re-kindle, when you do, hit dodge to drop their dps down while you are not attacking. Use Natural stride whenever it is available to reduce damage.

Taking the life pods, edge forward slowly with W and watch compass, hit S as soon as you see a red dot. If you get one, kindle up, Poison arrow, and as the arrow is halfway, hit DShot, you will usually get the orison, but if you don't, no worry, just auto fire with a flatbow kindled up will kill one very fast.

If you get two, you need to attrition a bit, interrup an orison and auto-fire with a flatbow, you must keep kindle up, as soon as it gets below half, needle away. If you miss the interrupts keep at it, the other one runs out of energy soon enough anyway.

If you get three, it just takes longer as you interrupt one but have to get the other two out of energy. Yesterday I killed 5 in one run as I was distracted by my kids and ran into two behemoths! Takes a while and pull them as far out as they will go, but they will drop, every interrupt of orison helps. When you finally kill one, the others go down fast.

Finally getting there, run past all the spiders/oakhearts and as you enter the area of a different colour on the mini-map you will see a folk off to the right with the first set of trolls, turn in there, left at the wagons, next left again and up over the log. Rubber banding in GW sucks, but I have never had it on this run, just try to keep a wide birth. The spiders can drop on you but I find if you keep generally left on your run, the tend not to get in your way. If you do get stuck, don't panic, press X to flip yourself round, you may need to tap R a couple of times as when you bump into something you come out of auto-run. This will usually get you unstuck unless you get surrounded.

If you die, you can run past the spiders even after they have spawned, troll up before, use dodge/NS/ZH/NS cycle for permanent 33% run and block, if you get pinned, don't worry, it doesn't last long. Troll up in gaps.

Good hunting :flowers:

[Fay Vert]

Could you give me your build oh magic Fay? :p Ive been meaning to dust off my ranger..

For prophesies only I would go Poison Arrow, Distracting Shot, Dual Shot, Kindle, Trolls, Storm Chaser, Dodge, the last skill you could put in a ncie block like Whirling Defenses, or employ a secondary skill such as Holy Veil. maybe a warrior run skill or block or heal.

The build I use is

OgMU8kLj1MOUmHTrM24bSNsyfNA

Poison Arrow, Distracting Shot, Needling Shot, Kindle, Trolls, Dodge, Zojun's Haste, Natural Stride.

12+1 Expertise
10+1+1 WS
8+1 Marks

You don't really need the 3 running skills, two will do, but with three you can afort to die and still run through the spiders. And don't worry about pin down, it only lasts a few seconds, just don't panic.

[Acire]

Will try these skills on my next run. Comments?

1. Apply Poison
2. Mark of Rodgort
3. Lightning reflexes (replace in favor of interrupt/damage?)
4. Whirling defense (replace in favor of interrupt/damage?)
5. Escape [e]
6. Dodge
7. Zojuns
8. Troll

Max degen for damage on a single target, and also inflicts degen to all adjacent foes (since they boosted MoR, it's a very sweet spell to use!) and max protection and run capability. Attributes something like:

14 Exp
12 WS
9 Marks
10 Fire Magic

[Fay Vert]

Crikey, that's a lot of defence!

This run can be done with just Poison Arrow, Dodge and Troll Unguent, anything else is just to speed it up.

[Acire]

The build actually became like this instead:

1. Barrage [e]
2. Mark of Rodgort
3. Lightning reflexes (replace in favor of interrupt/damage?)
4. Whirling defense (replace in favor of interrupt/damage?)
5. Troll Ungent
6. Dodge
7. Zojuns
8. Storm Chaser

I love the AOE burning with barrage and MoR using a fire bow. Lightning reflexes and/or whirling have to go though, i need something to speed things up, especially vs the Life Pods. Now, if I face three of them at once it's slow work to bring them down.

I like your build Fay, it's just I'm always trying to find other ways of accomplishing the same task! This build rocks vs the trolls if you want to take them down, and it's also very efficient vs the other mobs that are tightly grouped. If I could find the most efficient way of bringing down the pods as well...

[Notorious BOB]

The build actually became like this instead:

1. Barrage [e]
2. Mark of Rodgort
3. Lightning reflexes (replace in favor of interrupt/damage?)
4. Whirling defense (replace in favor of interrupt/damage?)
5. Troll Ungent
6. Dodge
7. Zojuns
8. Storm Chaser.

No Interrupt - that's why the life pods give you issues.

As for Barrage - its of little real utility for this run. Put it away for a while and use one of the other elites. You never know you might be able to go 'cold turkey' and break the barrage addiction. :rolleyes:

You really should listen to Fay.

I'm Captain Cautious on this run, but packing 2 'evades' and 3 running skills is total overkill and a waste of skill slots that could be used to far greater effect.

BOB

[Fay Vert]

...it's just I'm always trying to find other ways of accomplishing the same task! This build rocks vs the trolls if you want to take them down, and it's also very efficient vs the other mobs that are tightly grouped. If I could find the most efficient way of bringing down the pods as well...

Well, I'm with you on that, cookie cutters are great for getting you there and doing a job, but there isn't one that can't be improved. I can see the benefits of barrage too, there are times where the mobs can group up, and while the trolls are just a blur to me, I have cleaned them out sometimes if I am on the last run before bed, just for something to do.

You might like to consider something Billdoetree mentioned here (http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5017901&postcount=62), it takes less time. You do miss out on some cash, but it's fun farming the behemoths while you have half a dozen life-pods behind you spitting at you oblivious to what you are doing :grin:

[Acire]

As for Barrage - its of little real utility for this run. Put it away for a while and use one of the other elites. You never know you might be able to go 'cold turkey' and break the barrage addiction. :rolleyes:

Lol! I hear ya! :D

To be honest, I never was a barrage addict, I find the skill quite boring, but I like to try other ways of doing things!

So far, the original build by Fay is by far the fastest I've tried for this though!

[Fay Vert]

For a variation you could try this

Burning Arrow
Distracting Shot
Savage Shot or Screaming Shot
Apply Posion
Troll Unguent
Dodge
Zojun's Haste
Natural Stride

Expertise 10+1
Wilderness Survival 11+1
Marksmanship 10+1+3

Screaming Template Code = OgATcV8m1R3+Yu1zGfTqhV+rBA
Savage Template Code = OgATcV8m1R3+YUNzGfTqhV+rBA

You might want to switch a point from WS to Expertise as the Exp break point is good at 11 for 10e skills.

This build isn't as good at the Life Pods, but it does blow the Wind Riders away with ease and that makes it useful if you are doing the speed run thing of just farming axes and ignoring as much as possible.

[Acire]

I'm trying a BM build on this one. It still needs some work, but so far so good:

BM 14
Exp 13
MM 12 (all values including armor & runes)

1. Charm
2. Heal as One
3. Run as one
4. Predatory Bond
5. Poisonous Bite
6. Predator's Pounce
7. Read the Wind
8. Tigers Fury

The running part is somewhat harder, but not by much. HaO is an excellent healing skill. Biggest problem is that pet may get stuck sometimes against a mob of trolls, but that can be sorted out.

It's def. faster vs some mobs, like Wind Riders and such. It's also nice to be able to deal damage vs. two mobs at the same time, for example those annoying life pods!

Pros: Able to deal high damage, takes down behemoths faster, possible to fight two targets at the same time (good vs life pods), far easier to fight the Wind Riders, a personal tank to recieve most of the damage.

Cons: The running part is a little harder, pet may get stuck at times.

Still a work in progress, but so far it works quite well. I consider the core skills of this build to be Charm, Heal as One, Run as One and Predator's Pounce. All the rest are up for consideration to be able to crank up efficiency a notch or two!

[Fay Vert]

Speed against Behemoths is not relevent as they are very fast to kill anyway. I would have thought that build would give you quite a bit of trouble against the life pods, which you have no choice but to kill before the behemoths?

How long does it take to do a complete run? That means the jungle scale loop, lagoon and full circuit past the wind rider infested areas over the log bridges, either way, past the Wind Rider bosses.

[Acire]

Speed against Behemoths is not relevent as they are very fast to kill anyway. I would have thought that build would give you quite a bit of trouble against the life pods, which you have no choice but to kill before the behemoths?

How long does it take to do a complete run? That means the jungle scale loop, lagoon and full circuit past the wind rider infested areas over the log bridges, either way, past the Wind Rider bosses.

If I don't mess up, I kill the Behemoths (speed relevant or not, this build is faster, in part because of the skill Deflect Arrows they use, well, they can't avoid my pet!) first by sending pet in, pet doesn't trigger the spawn of the pods, and on most places I can stand outside trigger-range with my flatbow.

After the Behemoth's dead, I carefully move in to try and spawn one or max two pods at a time. If I get two, I set my pet on one and me myself on the other, or we both work the same target.
Works quite well, but in case I get more than one at a time, it will take some time. Sometimes I've managed to spawn 4 or 5, then I just ignore them and move on.

Against jungle scales and wind riders, this build is many times faster, since I don't have to run away, I can just stay and tank them, much because of predatory bond.

I take out every single behemoth, wind rider (including bosses) and jungle scale on my runs, so they tend to take a while. I can't say for sure exactly how long, but it feels this build is faster than the other.

I'm still tweaking the build, but since I'm a BM ranger at heart, I thought it would be interesting trying a BM build on this run!

I should add, that on every single run I've done on this mission, I've used the altar in the lower left of the map to get the +3 health regen blessing. This helps out a lot, but I've used this wether I've been running the original build or this BM build!

[Fay Vert]

Ah, a couple of interesting things there. The pet not triggering the Life Pods is very key, and explains why this works.

And the +3 regen will make things very easy against the wind riders as they only do -5 to you, so they would be very easy to prep up and block as you would have about 2 minutes of just shooting at them with no skills before your health got down.

These days I just kill the Behemoths and pretty much avoid everything else, you tend to get through about 16ish in about 30 mins, including the 6 min run to get to the first one. Two runs will generally get you 3 axes which sell in 10 mins on a good day, add a few other drops and it's about 12-14K per hour including merch/trading time.

[Acire]

One thing in regard to Troll Ungent vs Heal as One.

After being very succesful in the running part with only Run as one as my running skill (which has no blocking abilities), I though I should try a new go without my pet, and only using Storm Chaser as my running skill. Selfheal was Troll Ungent (@ +9 health regen). Heck, I even brought Melandrus Resiliance (thought it would serve me good vs the Wind Riders).

Anyway, I thought that if I could manage with just one running skill, hey, more room for attacks and versatility!

I soon found out though, that just having Storm Chaser and Troll Ungent for selfheal was a lot worse than Run as One and Heal as One, and I died a lot easier.

To me it seems that the ability to heal yourself almost instantly with 137 health (@ BM 14) is far better than the 180 health over time you get from TU (@ +9 regen)?

Or it may simply be my pet that took some aggro from me, sharing my "burden" on the running part, I don't know.

Anyway, conclusion from this first test:
Run as One + Heal as One works very well here, Storm Chaser + Troll Ungent does not work as good.

[Fay Vert]

I might give BM a try just for fun, it's been a while since I took Spoof out solo. Also, as I said earlier, you can do it with just Poison Arrow, Dodge and Troll Unguent on your skill bar.

[Echomaster]

Where is the "Totem Axe Farm" located in Prop or NF?

[II Constantine II]

Where is the "Totem Axe Farm" located in Prop or NF?

This post's a bit late but it's in Prophecies, location "The Falls" Ventari's Refuge is the staging pont i guess. im a late starter to Totem farming but got used to it now so i do it every now & then. a buddy asked me to make a 'How too' vid... enjoy :wink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSJjeERGKQ

[Fay Vert]

That reminds me

Minimal Totem farming:


Poison Arrow (Apply Poison would do)
Troll Unguent
Natural Stride

Wilderness Survival 12+1+1 (12 would do)
Bit of Expertise, bit of Marksmanship (0 would do)

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o58/FayVert/gw473.jpg

You just need to have a bit of basic running skill to get there, that shot was about 20 mins in, 8 min run, two axes by half way, though the rest of them yielded none.

[Notorious BOB]

Was over at PvXWiki and noticing that the Totem Ax "build" is absolute sh*te despite being labelled as "great"... oh boy :rolleyes:

In the advent of EotN and a tweak here a tweak there, the Totem Ax run can be made a lot easier.

Nothing fantastic but...

1. Trolls
2. Apply Poison
3. Kindle Arrows
4. Distracting Shot
5. Melandru's Resiliance
6. I am Unstoppable
7. Zojun's Haste
8. Dodge

Much as Fay has already demonstrated :flowers: following notes....

I am Unstoppable - stops u getting crippled by spiders

Melandru's Resiliance - immediately negates poison and also allows u to go toe to toe with wind riders if u want a fan or three.

Kindle and Distract for Life Pods, Poison Arrow for everything else.

[Fay Vert]

lol, yes, I noticed that dreadful build on pvxwiki too.

Anything that takes the riders easier is good, though these days I just run through everything and only kill behemoths.

I also have this trick for taking out the life pods.

1) If you get annoying pods (say they popped up as you ran through losing riders)

X..........LLBL

2) Walk away to draw them way away

X..........LLL....................B

3) Walk past them and kill the Behemoth

LLL..........X..........B

Get cocky and you can do this with a triple cluster

LLLLLLLLL..........X..........B.B.B

Saves a lot of time on the run :cool:

[Notorious BOB]

Took me a while to work out the advanced graphics there Fay! :laugh:

The most frustrating thing (has always been this) is rubber-banding while doing the run. Made all the worse because it respawns you way back at the entrance to the reed bog... arghhhh.

Ah well, did my first run in ages today (have been grinding faction, although gawd only knows why) and dropped 2 Axes before getting rubber-banded to death running through a wind rider boss mob... :rant:

As for PvXWiki - well we are dealing with fruitloops who believe that everybuild has to have Rez Siggy in it :shocked:

[Fay Vert]

Took me a while to work out the advanced graphics there Fay! :laugh:


I thought a vid would be a bit OTT :smiley:

[Fay Vert]

Having never got a forgotten fan, I thought I would go hunting. Decided to take the pile by the collector near the rock overhanging the falls on. They dropped two fans.

Looks like its only that group there and not the rest that drop them, unless anyone knows different.