W/Mo high level areas/loot trouble/preparing for hardmode

[mindfray]

So my W/Mo is level 20, has drokners forge platemail and the following weapons




i just got the elite flourish last night, i think the green sowrd would work wonders with flourish, its just i need to farm for a green or gold shield that uses strength instead of tactics.

what heroes would you suggest for hard mode? how should i set them up? and where do i get them?

i have a few heroes and tried hardmode outside ascalon city. i killed up and over 30 monsters with only a few drops, and those were only gold.

i don't know if i just don't have enough patience, or are the drops supposed to be slow in hard mode? it seems i get more drops with atleast one human party member than myself heroes and henchies.


also been killing stuff in the crystal desert since it's high level stuff and nothing of value is dropping except the occasional gold pile.

any and all advice appreciated.

[Alaris]

1) Drops you get are shared between your and your party members (including heroes and hench).
2) Hard mode is slower at first (if you even succeed) but with practice and better team builds (or solo builds) you will be able to win fights at a pretty good pace.
3) Heroes are in Nightfall and EotN. PvE-only skills are mainly in EotN, and are quite useful in hard mode. I'd focus on that first.

Good heroes to have on a team: a minion master, a rit spirit spammer, a mesmer interrupter/shutdown, and some healing/protting. I am no expert on team builds though.

[raspberry jam]

Nice swords. I recommend Victo's Bulwark for strength shield, it (or any shield with stats like it) is one of the best strength shields in the game.

what heroes would you suggest for hard mode? how should i set them up? and where do i get them?

I'd recommend, just like Alaris says, one minion master (necromancer with some "Animate XX" spells), one spirit spammer (ritualist, preferably with the skill "Signet of Spirits" as elite), one interrupter (either mesmer or ranger is fiiine), and some monk or two to keep everyone alive. If you don't have all of that - don't worry about that, bring what you do have and fill out the rest with any other hero or henchmen. Or why not bring another player along.

You get heroes by following the storyline in Nightfall/EotN.

i have a few heroes and tried hardmode outside ascalon city. i killed up and over 30 monsters with only a few drops, and those were only gold.

i don't know if i just don't have enough patience, or are the drops supposed to be slow in hard mode? it seems i get more drops with atleast one human party member than myself heroes and henchies.

It's true. The loot code in this game is a bit funny. In some areas you will get more drops if you go with one or two other human players. But yes, it can be a bit slow. On the other hand, even though Hard Mode outside Ascalon City have level 20+ enemies, it's not a good place for farming.

[Alaris]

Rangers are good for interrupts, yes, I forgot to say. Just put Broad Head Arrow if you have it on them, plus a few interrupts, and they can keep casters cursing. They are more susceptible to blinds or blocks, but then, they are also a lot more resilient than mesmers.

[Fluffball]

Unless you really like farming, skip it. You can easily buy the shield you want, probably for 5k. Hell, I give away greens sometimes because I run out of inventory room. Farming for specific items rarely works, but these things drop as you play through the game.

[BrettM]

Loot in HM tends to follow the same value pattern as loot in NM. Loot in lowbie areas is going to be poorer than loot in higher-level areas. While the HM foes have the same levels in all areas, those in the lowbie areas, such as Old Ascalon, have weaker builds and come in smaller groups.

Don't set your expectations too high. The merch food has a higher average value in HM (make sure you ID everything), but it is still merch food. Even when solo farming in HM, gold drops are rare and golds with a decent req or perfect mods are even rarer. When using a full party, you can do many a vanquish without ever seeing a single gold drop of any type, and rarely more than one or two crap golds.

[satenia]

i don't know if i just don't have enough patience, or are the drops supposed to be slow in hard mode? it seems i get more drops with atleast one human party member than myself heroes and henchies.

Important to note is that heroes and henchmen do get their share of loot just like any human party member, but their assigned drops don't show.

(... not that I would want to see Koss getting all the good stuff)

[mindfray]

Right now I'm doing some stuff in EotN. i first chose to help the ebon vanguard. i suspected some of them were held captive in a charr camp in grothmar wardowns.

every single time i engage the main group in the camp with the char monk boss, no matter what i attack, or even ctrl space to ping my heroes to attack the charr monk boss. hp never goes down much. right now that group decimates me every time. i have no clue on how to conquer it.

its like the boss makes everything invincable it seems. very frustrating.

was using ogden as Mo/R and put the rest of the points in wilderness survival so it can use troll ungent for a quick self heal, i have vekk as a E/Mo with points in energy storage, air magic and a little in healing prayers , gave him healing breeze and a reusable res.

then i had m.o.x with no changes to its build. and healer hencman, protecter henchmen, blood henchmen, and i forgot the last one...

[Fluffball]

You may want to peruse the professions forums. Your hero builds are definitely the problem. You have almost zero damage in your team build. Also for example, troll unguent isn't a quick heal, in fact I think it may be the longest casting heal in the game.

Stick with only healing and protting spells on the monk, and stick only with ele skills on the ele. Ideally stick with 2 healers per 8 man group. Update MOXs build or take a henchie in his place, since the henchie has a complete skillbar with an elite skill.

[Alaris]

Troll unguent is only good if you have no other healing skill alternatives, so I'd drop that off your monk. Self-protection stance, maybe, but I'd put back those wilderness survival points into prot or heal. On a full healing bar, I like to put patient spirit and that healing signet (I forget its name) amonst other things.

Heal breeze is not the best heal choice (it's ok), I'd recommend patient spirit instead for your ele.

Three healers seem too many, which means you're not killing things fast enough. You could hybrid one if you want, give him about 4 heal skills and 4 smite skills.

I generally like to have a minion master, and it's easy on those to hybrid healer (I usually go N/Rt with restoration skills).

MOX could probably use an update, not sure what though.

edit: also, what elite skills do your heroes have? If the answer is none, then you should work on that.