Nikhera's GW Rantings

When you do the 600/smite thing, henchs are sufficient for the last 4 slots in your party.

I still think that you could run some build
- with yourself as E/Mo (with Obsidian Flesh, protective spirit, shield of absorption and spirit bond, essence bond, aura or restoration as replacement for monks' divine favour healing)
- combined with a smiting hero (retribution, holy wrath, balthazar's spirit, vital blessing, (life attunement?)).

Frozen Soil on another hero.

Obsidian Flesh will make you safe from their hexes (= no enchantment removal from their dervishes), the protection stuff you can use on yourself instead of micromanaging a hero. Keep all of your H+H wayyy back so that they don't put hexes on any foes until the mob is reduced in size (= no enchantment removal from their mesmers).

Just have plenty of health (> 600 health with Vital Blessing, even after a couple of deaths) and a +20% enchantment duration item.

And just be aware that there seem to be problems with mobs with a lot of their elementalists, but life attunement should help you there.

Add in Pain Inverter for Drojajam or try to catch his sandstorms on yourself instead of letting the H+H catch them, and bring a couple of DP removing items.

I've tried, this, actually, and I was mostly unsuccessful. :( I have to take a Sup Earth rune, I think to make it last long enough. (Plus Glyph of Swiftness.) I'll tinker with it some more.

Oooh, I remember what the issue was! Awakened Gray Giants. They have Choking Gas, among other bull****. They kept interrupting whatever I tried to cast...how do you deal with that? :<

Oh... ouch. :(

Then it should probably indeed be the 600 hero with Mantra of Resolve. But it's micromanagement at it's finest...

Hrm, I wonder if I could do it easily on my monk... testing right now.


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Yes, I think I can do it - it worked against a couple of testmobs, including that N boss who had 2 rangers. But I need 2 heroes, my smiter and a N/R with Frozen Soil and Blood Is Power. All of those 3 have a couple of skill slots open for your suggestions, too.

And I need the Euro Server for the ping.

You're right, the rangers are the problem here. When I need to use the mantra, spellbreaker and those 2x10e + 1x5e spells, I'm out of energy already, and then they come and hurt me with Debilitating Shots. 0 energy = no way to refresh Spirit Bond in time. This is the reason why I need the BiP hero; a bit of Livia's emo cutting action solves all my energy issues in that regard.

Want to team up? I can't promise that it'll work absolutely surely, but if it does, you only have to bother with the Margonites and insects and help out the smiter once the elementals are all hitting on me but taking forever to actually die.


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It works really well, even againt Meikir the Prismatic, who had plenty of rangers, 1 monk, plenty of eles.

Pain Inverter is probably not a good idea, because we should really aim for only me getting hurt at all. But Backfire would be sweet, to be used on any caster who's targetting his team members or corpses, and to be used when my spellbreaker is down. Also something, anything against those annoying paragon elementals (Diamond djinns), because they take ages to die, since they're always busy singing or whatever. Scourge Healing or Diversion would be sweet perhaps, against their Leader's Comfort spam.

Margonites are a problem - not because they actually remove my enchantments, but because it takes so long to cut them down. Reapers most of all, but also arms of insanity. Spiteful Spirit, or Empathy + Backfire (backfire on the reapers = gg) would help.

There's the minor issue that Livia will BiP Gwen all the time, which is trouble when they're actually in aggro range of the foes. That's probably putting stress upon the monks, but that isn't my problem. :P

Suggestions for the BiP-build would be very welcome.

The "run" will take at least one hour, and probably more than 2 hours, too. That's, because I'm too timid and anxious to aggro more than 1 group at once. Speaking of anxiety, we need someone with Rebirth, too.

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It even works against Drojajam with 2 eles + 1 wammo. (That's the mob setup that spells "nya nya nya, your vanquish fails right now, right here" normally.)


Anyway, I think I stop my tests now. If you want to team up, say so in another comment or PM me here - I'm still at Tabula Rasa instead of GW, so you won't catch me ingame very likely, but I wouldn't mind to log into GW for this.

Actually, I'd love to. I can easily provide Rebirth, the SS necro and other heroes. (Prot/heal type monk, or maybe more damage? I dunno.)

When I do use Gwen I usually set her up with interrupts, as I'm not the biggest mesmer expert, but I can tailor her build to whatever we'd need.

I could bring some damage skills as well - burning or armor ignoring spells or something.

In my experience, daze works wonders on Reapers. (Just wand away.) Lightbringer's Gaze is also good, because it's an AoE interrupt and damage.

I'm in EST timezone. (GMT -5) I'll be a little busy Thursday (exam on Friday) but my weekend is free for sure.

Okay, then lets meet up next weekend. :)

I'm in the GMT +1 timezone. 6 hours time difference mean that there should be plenty of room to team up at a time when one of us doesn't happen to be fast asleep.

How about Saturday, around 20:00 (8pm) GMT? That's 15:00 (3pm) in your timezone and 21:00 in mine. Should be plenty of time before my bedtime, even if I should screw up at a lot of mobs.

A bit earlier than that proposed time would be welcome from my end, too. :)


Last warning though: there won't be a lot of action for you, the rebirthing aside. Only a small selection of foes on that map don't seem to die very fast when they see a monk in starter armor.

It'll be a bit like a CoF run, only that I'm slower and die more; and you can do a bit of action vs those paragon elementals, dervish+monk margonites and ranger+necro+warrior+other demons.

If it's your last vanquish, this might be a bit anticlimactic. But it's up to you.

I guess I don't mind that much. :D I just hate the fricking map!

It's not the last vanquish. XD I still have Joko's domain and 80% of Vabbi to do. (I'm at like 23/34?) And then Cantha. And Tyria. ;)

We can meetearlier, too, maybe around 1:00? (19:00 your time)

Oh, Joko's Domain. There's another nice one. It shouldn't be too bad when you delay the junundu parts until after the non-junundu parts, except from that huge amount of foes.

19:00 would be good for me. :)


I did one more testing or training run last night to be a bit faster and more reliably surviving on Saturday, and the following critters were prone to survive longer than a few seconds:
- sometimes, an awakened acolyte will be the last one standing and kite out of FS's range. That requires immediate attention from everyone before he can get a resurrection chain going.
- diamond djinns. From my mesmerish point of view, I'd hit them with empathy, but SS will be good too. Both would be better. Maybe we can set up your Gwen with an Empathy-based build of some sorts, or just bring elementalist stuff that hurts them (I don't know much about elementalists, but I am sure that elementalists can hurt HM critters, too.)
- torment necros and torment rangers. Hit them hard when they're entering the "call to torment" state.
- margonite reapers and clerics.

Insects catch me by surprise, so I had them all over the H+H instead of all over me a couple of times. Insects aren't difficult per so, but just be prepared to cut them down in such cases.

Sometimes, Livia might be too close to me when I'm aggroing mobs, and get 1-2 of the mob's members on herself, because her self-cutting activities make her an extremely interesting target, perhaps even more interesting than that awkward monk in starter armor.

It would help if you could handle such critters in some way, or at least be able to apply a Prot Spirit&Shield of Absorption on Livia.

If a Ruby Djinn or an elementalist elemental breaks aggro, Pain Inverter should be able to handle these (and try not to spread out a bit).


I think we should bring
- you with damage-dealing and pain-inverting abilities, perhaps with techno-babble, too.
- 1 prot hero (Prot Spirit, SoA, Aegis, GoLE, Life Sheath, Dismiss Condition, #, Rebirth? (set to manual control)),
- 1 healer hero (particularly for Livia's needs),

I'm open for just about anything on the other two slots, but with a bias for a domi-based Gwen or Norgu. (Empathy, Power Spike, VoR, Power Drain, Drain Enchantment, Backfire?/Mistrust, Shatter Enchantment?/Diversion, Flesh of my Flesh).

I've a strong bias against melees here, because they might cause more breaks of aggro. But a MM might be nice in the case of insects going wild or as diversions when in need for a speedy retreat. Or a curses necro might be nice, to help with the monsters that survive. Or someone to inflict some dazes.

I have 1 slot open for your suggestions on my bar (It's Light of Deldrimor at the moment, which isn't too bad, but there might be better things.)

My Gwen has 2-3 slots available. She only can use Signets, but hasn't a whole lot of attribute points outside of Illusion and Fast Casting at disposal. Oh! Signet of Disenchantment, for instance, would be good on her.

Livia has basically 5 slots available and attribute points in Blood, Wilderness and Soul Reaping... though I think I'll give her Troll Unguent and Healing Spring and the like. Maybe a cheap snaring trap, too.

I forgot one detail, the IGN. My monk's name is Lytha De Medici, and I'll be doing a warming up in a few minutes. :) Just whisper me when you get online.


Ok, I'm in EU english 1 now.

One skill, set to manual control, that destroys a friendly spirit, might be nice when I'm down and FS is still up.