EOTN - Duncan The Black - Advice Sought

[Aoi Enishi]

Dear Katarine

What timezone do you play in?

Ill Help you get through, might even get one or two XM'ers in on it, trust me you'll get it done, dont quit on GW just yet. You can pm. me in game on Aoi Enishi or one of my many other characters, ill be playing usually around 18:00 GMT+1 and till around midnight. Im online alot.

[Fluffball]

I think at this point the problem is with your positioning. The teams suggested (hell probably even Discord, I don't know) should get you through this.

Pull all enemies a reasonable distance. Not only to avoid pop-ups but also to 1) over-extend their melee 2) ball their casters and 3) make retreat very easy.

On a related note use body blocking whenever possible. This is just a good habit to get in to if you plan to do elite areas/end game content. Things like DoA HM and etc are literally impossible (7H) without doing this.

You want to find something to catch the enemies on. The most extreme example is a corner, you flag heroes behind the corner, you pull and the enemies get stuck on you trying to go around the corner to get the heroes.

___EnemiesYou
...............|
...............|heroes

That's the obvious example. As you get better, you can do this on almost nothing, even the slightest bend in a wall or steps or hill, you see where it happens. You don't have to be a "tank" just put PS on yourself.

[satomz]

A few things, more of double checking list for you than advice.

As well as Frozen Soil (& we have started to take 2x Frozen Soil now) I tend to take a Signet of Spirits build, with Pain, Anguish, & PvE skills - so, would I be better not having the SoS build & going for Poison/Burning instead - despite the fact the Defender can remove these in a blink?

The burning/poison build worked for me, but it's not guaranteed to work for you as well. It does, however, makes the defender use Dismiss Condition than some other useful skills. And since you have a bow, you can actually interrupt key skills better.

I noticed a few things about your spirit spam build. You mentioned SoS, which is a channeling elite, being used with Pain and Anguish, which are communing spirits. Ever consider having another spirit spam hero and assign communing to that hero (using elites like Signet of Ghostly Might or Wanderlust) and go purely channeling on your character or vice versa? Also, you do have multi-target or fast recharge hexes while you are using Anguish, correct? Are you carrying any skill to help the spirits stay alive, like Armor of Unfeeling for damage mitigation or Spirit Leech Aura for healing? Since the warriors hit hard, you actually would want some skills that helps the spirits stay alive a bit longer if you are taking spirits.

Make sure that you also have your Deldrimor title up, as it's really easy to forget about it (for me at least).

I want to finish it once & for all - it's just the Duncan portion of Slavers - just that one, Final, section - so would Discord see us through?

Next attempt is Tuesday - we'll try Discord ...

At this point, with you being this frustrated, I think Discord is definitely worth a try. If what you have been doing is plain not working, might as well try something new to you and flex your mind out a bit.

[Egg Shennn]

I've not come across any Eles so far in the Final, Duncan Dungeon.

Stone Summit Warders are the Eles that throw the sandstorm and churning earth at you...

I make a habit of doing Slavers pretty regularly, I'm not a VS farmer, I play the dungeon because I enjoy it, so I routinely take my 6 characters who are able to go there through in succession.

I mentioned using a Psychic instability mesmer (with several other interrupts) and I find that helps a lot.

Making a Rit be one of the FS droppers can give the FS spirit a lot of benefits - around 40-50% more health due to Spawning power, and protection if you use Armor of the unfeeling (to reduce damage his spirits take by 50% and no crits on them). As well, using summon spirits moves FS so the rit can move FS out of a danger spot...

[Katarine]

Stone Summit Warders are the Eles that throw the sandstorm and churning earth at you...

I make a habit of doing Slavers pretty regularly, I'm not a VS farmer, I play the dungeon because I enjoy it, so I routinely take my 6 characters who are able to go there through in succession.

I mentioned using a Psychic instability mesmer (with several other interrupts) and I find that helps a lot.

Making a Rit be one of the FS droppers can give the FS spirit a lot of benefits - around 40-50% more health due to Spawning power, and protection if you use Armor of the unfeeling (to reduce damage his spirits take by 50% and no crits on them). As well, using summon spirits moves FS so the rit can move FS out of a danger spot...

What, exactly, is your Team Build?

I queried the Ele's simply because of the 7 attempts so far, one we failed to get to the dungeon, 5 we failed to get past the very first Stone Summit group & 1x we wiped on the 2nd group of Stone Summit... no Warders encountered so far.

[Egg Shennn]

What, exactly, is your Team Build?

I queried the Ele's simply because of the 7 attempts so far, one we failed to get to the dungeon, 5 we failed to get past the very first Stone Summit group & 1x we wiped on the 2nd group of Stone Summit... no Warders encountered so far.

I've killed Duncan in NM and HM more times than I can count, with my own character being either Derv, Monk, Rit, Ele, War, or Para.

The heroes I've used have been pretty much everything under the sun. I generally favor using KD's and interrupts in there, so in HM Eles with churning earth (since all foes move faster than normal, it kd's them when they try to run out of it), unsteady ground, Psychic Instability Mesmer. I generally use a rit healer and a prot monk.

I did Duncan on saturday with a group of players who had never done it, still pretty green, and we succeeded in HM with no real team build strategy to speak of.

What times of day do you play? Some of us could probably meet up with you and at least look over all the builds and give tweaking suggestions, or come along to help. I've still got 5 of my characters duncan ready at this time...

[Fluffball]

There is something seriously wrong that we're all missing. Not making it to the dungeon is a really weird problem. A single SoS rit can kill everything on the way there all by itself, the mobs are really small and non-threatening. I think you should take up Egg's suggestion to look at your team or watch you play.

You're not runing you/your heroes with several superior runes? Maybe your healing/protting builds are badly organized with too many >5e spells?

[Katarine]

We finally managed to complete it last Tuesday, thanks to 3x Discord Heroes.

Thank you to everyone who stopped & took the time to post their thoughts & suggestions in this thread.

Those that stated Discord, although not fancy, would get us through, were absolutely correct. After so many failures this was our final attempt - & we chose to listen to the voices here & use the Discord team.

Thank You

[Fluffball]

I think that confirms my theory your healers were out of whack. If that's the last end-game thing you want to do, great you got it out of the way end of story. If you plan on doing other end-game things, you'll want to look at the builds of your backline.

Congratulations.

[Katarine]

I think that confirms my theory your healers were out of whack. If that's the last end-game thing you want to do, great you got it out of the way end of story. If you plan on doing other end-game things, you'll want to look at the builds of your backline.

Congratulations.

Hmm... my nephew mentioned a Frostmaw's Burrows before he left last week ... so I think there's still a lot more to do - but Duncan is done & out of the way

On Healing, as well as the 3x Discord Necro's I had a Healing Monk with Unyielding Aura & a Blood Battery (Blood is Power/Blood Ritual/Comfort Animal/Signet of Sorrows/Frozen Soil ...), & a Psychic Instability Mesmer.

My Ranger/Rit went Signet of Spirits, with Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, "Finish Him!", Summon Spirits, Frozen Soil ...etc & my nephew took Swap.