User:Quizzical/GWEN Hard

Against the Charr
Difficulty: **

You can avoid the group of six at the start by looking clockwise around the large formation just west of your starting location.

Warband of Brothers
Difficulty: ***

There are several spots in the mission where when you aggro one group, it will run away, while another group behind it moves up. Don't be in a hurry to chase the first group or you'll end up fighting both at once, which can be problematic. There are never more than six linked Charr in the mission, and few groups that are even that large.

The second floor has many groups of Charr that contain a healer and are near other groups. It is essential to pull such groups far apart, or else while you're fighting one group, a healer from another group will move up to heal, and bring its entire group with it. This is particularly critical when trying to separate a group of three from a group of six in two spots after clearing the prison guard.

At the start of the second floor, there are two groups of three that can easily be pulled and cleared before pulling anything else. After this, there is a group of five containing a prison guard, a group of six that wanders, and two other Charr that are not linked to any others. The prison guard's group will not chase very far before turning back. The wandering group of six stays very near the prison guard's group, so you may have to aggro both at once and then run far away to get the group of six by itself, without the prison guard's group. Regardless, pull the group of six far away from the boss to clear it before taking on the group with the boss.

Running past the spiders at the end of the second floor is a lot less effective than in easy mode. Move forward cautiously, clearing up to near Jadam Spearspinner, but be careful not to aggro the boss before you're ready. Note that your Charr allies like to run ahead somewhat, and this can aggro the boss, too. Once it isn't practical to pull much else, run past and into the door to the third floor. If any player makes it to the door, the whole party moves on, whether dead or alive. You'll have to flag henchmen and heroes to run with you, as they're more inclined to stay and fight the hordes of spiders that flood the room when you aggro the boss.

Trying to spike down Flamemaster Maultooth too soon may be ineffective. Coming within a few aggro radii of the boss calls many Charr into the area. Clear the various groups of Charr south of the boss first, so that they can't come rushing in. Pull apart the various Charr that do come or start near the Maultooth, as they tend not to be linked to much. Once all that remains is Flamemaster Maultooth and two Charr Seekers, it is safe to go after the boss, kill it, and end the mission.

Assault on the Stronghold
Difficulty: ***

Help Pyre's warband take the north siege devourer, then go take the south one by yourself, and then immediately abandon it to go fight by the north one again. Fighting off mobs as they come is much easier if you are by the north siege devourer and have the help of Pyre's warband. If you have a protection monk cast Life Barrier and then Life Bond on the saurus as it passes, the first saurus should be able to take down the gate on its own. Be sure to fight up close enough to the gate that the saurus doesn't go off radar and cancel the bonds, but stay far enough back as to not take fire from the Charr seekers on the cliffs.

The Charr beat the destroyers in the battle at the end, so you'll mostly have to fight Charr. Take out the two groups nearest the stairs first. Wait for the boss group to leave the north side of the pit, and then pull the other group on the north side of the pit to the top of the stairs to kill it. Next, set up your party on the north side of the pit, wait for the boss group to come back, and kill it when it comes. Finally, the other group on the south side of the pit will be all alone, and thus easier to kill.

Curse of the Nornbear
Difficulty: *

When combined with the conditions spammed by other mandragors, the dreamroot mandragor's fevered dreams makes it by far the most dangerous mob in the mission, so it should be targeted first in the mandragor groups.

A Gate Too Far
Difficulty: **

It helps to have some anti-melee skills other than spells that target mobs, or else the whirling wisps can do considerable damage in a hurry. Aegis or ward against melee work nicely. You have three melee allies, so there is no real need to bring more melee characters in your party.

Henchmen/hero AI is remarkably inept against the destroyers' tremor, and they'll mostly just stand there waiting to die, even when not knocked down. It helps immensely if you pull mobs away from the destroyer tremors, and then fight the tremors at full spell range (that is, out of earshot) after the rest of the mobs in the area have been cleared.

Blood Washes Blood
Difficulty: ****

There are vastly more vaettirs in the area in hard mode, and they are much stronger. Vaettirs have extremely high armor and significant self-healing, so it can take a while to wear them down, and their heavy health degeneration can put a considerable strain on your healers. One group of four is manageable, but two at a time is not.

Most of the vaettirs can be avoided by starting from Longeye's Ledge and running through Bjora Marches to get to Jaga Moraine. It isn't necessary to fight anything in Bjora Marches, as the mobs move slowly and are rather spread out. Once in Jaga Moraine, approach the sacred altar from the east side and try to capture from the edge of its range. If you're lucky, you can sneak in, capture the altar, make the bear spirit appear, talk to the bear spirit, and then go back to Bjora Marches to start the mission proper.

If you're not so lucky, you'll aggro vaettirs in the process. There are several linked groups of four that can wander near enough to the sacred altar to aggro on you there, each of which probably won't, but it's likely that at least one will. If you aggro any vaettirs, immediately run away to the east and pull the group you aggroed over there where there is more room to fight. If you stay near the altar and fight, party members scrambling around will likely aggro additional groups and cause a wipe. If multiple groups follow you, keep on running all the way into Bjora Marches and then come back to reset the instance and try again.

Once back in Bjora Marches for the mission itself, there are a number of groups of three Charr or five mandragors that patrol long distances with overlapping routes. It helps immensely to pull only one group at a time, though two groups of Charr at a time is still manageable. You may need to wait a while for a convenient time to pull a single group, or pull a group far out of its route to get it out of the other patrol routes.

If you follow the western route to the shrine, you'll only have to fight one mandragor group, but it's quite a dangerous group. The dreamroot mandragor uses fevered dreams, and the other mandragors spread conditions quite a bit, too, which can easily get four or five conditions on your entire party at once, including dazed, so that the interrupts prevent most healing. You'll end up with a lot of conditions almost no matter what you do, as removed conditions will very quickly be reapplied. Flagging your party apart will at least mean that some party members are relatively safe. Kill the dreamroot mandragor first, as its fevered dreams is what makes the group so dangerous.

When fighting the five groups of Charr at the end, be aware that Charr dominators have resurrection chant. They must be killed quickly, or else they will continually resurrect anything else that you kill. Most of the groups have two Charr dominators, but no healers. The group with the boss has only one Charr dominator, but it also has a monk boss that is a very powerful healer, making it the hardest group. It helps to kill the dominator first, then the flameshielder, and then the boss.

Finding the Bloodstone
Difficulty: **

The hardest part of the mission is getting there. You can dodge past the various dinosaurs on the way, but henchmen and heroes will lag behind and often aggro mobs that you successfully avoid. It can make things easier to flag them at the start of the area and then go dodge the dinosaurs yourself until you can get to the start of the mission.

The Elusive Golemancer
Difficulty: *

The one star rating is for the mission itself; if you count getting to the start of the mission, it's two stars.

Genius Operated Living Enchanted Manifestation
Difficulty: ***

Because the bridge by the eastern golem can block line of sight, it is better to put the henchmen party at the start at the northern golem while you and your heroes take the eastern one. If stuck on line of sight, you can adjust in the middle of battle, but henchmen are not smart enough to do so on their own.

Talon, Lo Sha, Mhenlo, and Lina can reliably hold the northern golem kiln without needing further assistance from you. Other sets of henchmen may be able to do likewise.

After you have golems, some groups of destroyers will run long distances when you are still a ways off. It helps to approach but not pull and wait for a group to come, rather than running up to one group and getting another group further behind it to come running into range, too.

Destruction's Depths
Difficulty: ***

Shortly after reaching the second zone of the mission, you'll approach some Norn. There is a group of dryders that wanders back and forth in front of them. Disable any spirits or wells on heroes before reaching the dryders. Wait for the dryders to get out of the way and sneak past without aggroing them.

Three destroyers will come to attack you; go kill them quickly. After the first three destroyers are dead, run away immediately in the direction of Egil Fireteller. Run past Egil up the hill (not the narrow ice bridge) behind him and toward the doorway. Three destroyers will spawn, and then three more a little later, and both have to cross the path of the dryders that you avoided earlier. Often, the dryders will kill one of the groups of destroyers, and sometimes they will kill both groups. When the second group is dead, the onslaught of destroyers begins in earnest.

If you see any destroyers spawn up in the area where you are, that means the dryders have finished off the other early destroyers. Re-enable any disabled wells and spirits at this time, and kill the destroyers as they spawn. You'll have to kill six in the initial group, and then three more once those six are dead. After you've killed everything in that area and nothing else spawns to replace it, you'll have to go kill the twelve destroyers that came from other directions.

Switch any golems away from melee at this time. Flag your party around the center of the narrow ice bridge. While facing your party, back up to get closer to the pack of destroyers, until within range to shoot them. Shoot and run away and see what comes. If nothing comes, try again. If everything comes, run away until they leave. Ideally, several destroyers will come and the rest will stay put, in which case, you can kill the ones that come while the rest leave you alone. Repeat until there are few enough destroyers left that you can safely charge in and finish them off.

Sometimes the dryders will be unable to finish off the early destroyers. If this happens, wait for the destroyers to kill some Norn and fight there way to the center of the area. Switch any golems away from melee, flag your party back, and pull the destroyers up the hill as far as possible to fight them there. As soon as they die, run up the hill to get out of the central area and fight the destroyers on that side only as before. Remember to re-enable wells and spirits if you had any to disable.

The reason to disable wells and spirits is that if you don't, they can sometimes aggro destroyers that arrive after you leave the central area, and pull them up to you. This can make this section of the mission much, much harder. The reason to avoid the dryders on the way in is so that they can later kill some destroyers.

If you wipe, you will rez nearby and can try again. If you wipe before clearing the destroyers that spawn on top of the hill by Egil Fireteller, then most likely some destroyers from that side will trickle down into the center area, meaning you have that many more destroyers to try to pull apart. If you're lucky, some destroyers will get stuck on dead golems, and will be easily killed there.

The reason to fight on the ice bridge in the latter part is that often melee destroyers will run past the golems. If you get into trouble, run away and the destroyers will stay and kill the golems. If the golems die, they block the ice bridge, and melee destroyers that ran past them will get stuck trying to run away. This often leaves a few destroyers for you to kill by themselves before recharging the golems and continuing.

The reason to back toward the destroyers when pulling them is that the golems like to stand about half of an aggro radius in front of you. If facing the destroyers, the golems will run off ahead of you and aggro the destroyers before you can, and then not run away when they should. The golems will then end up dead in a useless spot. Melee golems tend to do this even if you do pull properly.

In the final area by the Disc of Chaos, you want to clear most of the room before fighting the boss. The two groups on the sides down only one flight of stairs are easy to clear. After this, switch any golems out of melee as before. Go to the west side where you can go down one flight of stairs and then up a flight of stairs. You can attack the group on the lower floor from above and kill it there without any risk of aggroing the boss. Melee henchmen or heroes may need to be flagged back repeatedly. You can kill most of the group on the east side by flagging your party back, backing up as before (to keep golems away), aggroing the group, running away, and waiting for it to come.

To pull the group in the far back, go back to the west side and flag your party back. Back into the Disc of Chaos to aggro it, and the group of destroyers in the back will come. As soon as you aggro the boss, run away, and flag your party to ensure that they run, too. Keep running until you're no longer being followed by mobs; you may have to run all the way past the original doorway and down the stairs on the other side. If you dawdle and run a little at a time, you won't be able to break aggro, and the destroyers may spawn camp you. If done properly, the destroyers will probably kill a golem or two and then turn back. The group of destroyers that was behind the boss will now stop in front of it on the west side, making it easy to pull that group alone and recharge your golems. After that, all that remains is a boss and one other destroyer of lives, making the mission easy to finish.

A Time for Heroes
Difficulty: ****

Hard mode makes the other destroyers somewhat stronger, but the boss here is still level 31. If you kill the other destroyers in the area before pulling the great destroyer, it won't matter that the other destroyers were stronger. This is much easier if neither of the two destroyers near the great destroyer are destroyers of deeds, in which case the difficulty would be fewer than four stars. You can reroll the mission until you get easier destroyers if so inclined.

The big difference in the great destroyer itself is that it gets flame jet in hard mode, which will do well over 1000 damage if you don't have any means to reduce it other than 60 armor level. Any character that gets hit with flame jet will instantly die unless either the character is enchanted and has considerable other damage mitigation against fire, or the character has extremely high damage reduction against fire damage. Flame jet gets used lightly enough that you can assume you'll take some deaths and simply bring the rez signets to handle them when they happen.

The great destroyer does not use call of destruction in hard mode. That means that if you interrupt lava wave, it will never call in any extra destroyers, which makes the fight vastly easier.