User:Rotfl Mao/Vanquisher

Since I'm playing Mesmer, I'll focus on this class(+heroes of course). This is mainly for people who, like me, don't really fancyPUG's and do most thing with hero/hench parties, and are not really top gear pro gosu awesome players. Leave a comment on the talk page if you find this useful/useless, or got an idea, etc.. Feel free to add anything to this guide, regarding other classes, setups, other areas, blahblahblahblahblah anything.

Few Tips:
 * Equip some good ressing spell, rebirth perhaps. If you'll get in a tough fight and have to retreat, you might find yourself alone with everyone dead just near the spawn. If you rebirth them, they'll teleport to you.
 * If all of your party gets -60 DP, it's no cigar.
 * Take the bosses out early, especially the weaker ones. Morale boosts helps, with death penalty you probably won't take them out at all. Bosses in low level areas (Ascalon, Istan, Shing Jea) will usually not have elite skills, even if their Hardmode allies do.
 * It's better to fight with obeying heroes than idiots, no matter how many neurons they might have.
 * If you're an interrupter, memorise the pattern in which foes are casting spells, they're usually casting them in a same chain. Makes it easier to interrupt skills you don't want to hit you AND, you can actually predict when they'll be casting them and fire the interrupt split second before(there's always lag, let's face it...). With a bit(lot) of luck you could interrupt even 1/4 spells.
 * The enemies not only are much higher level but also move and attack faster and activate skills faster, also run earlier from AoE, kite and target your dumbass monks MORE THAN ALWAYS. However, if they're attacking faster it means they will take more damage from Empathy or other skills that rely on enemy's actions.
 * Experiment and have fun, that's what the game's about, no one want to be smashing their keyboards ^^

EDIT as of 28/04/08: As of some time most of the PUGs do all the vanquishing/dungs/missions/etc with this fukken Ursan/HB Mo bullshit. Just want to say that this page is dedicated to people that want to do this the proper way(blood, sweat and tears that is) and not just pressing 1 and 2 repeatedly like f***ets.

Builds
(work in progress) A proper build is essential to doing pretty much anything in Guild Wars, and Vanquishing puts a strong pressure on having a proper build because of the difficulty. I'll try to write down some builds here that i've used, maybe you'll find them useful. these are mainly herobuilds or builds for a human Mesmer(or Ele, since i have an ele TP). Of course, they're not really amazing, but should be a good reference, and can provide a rough idea how to prepare for a specific area.

Above is a three hero vanquishing setup that works pretty well. The Necro provides minions working as a damage source and a meat shield, and also uses Symbiosis to provide additional health. The Elementalist works as a snare and damage dealer, and the Monk is a general Prot Enchanter, with a changeable elite to fit a certain situation. Enchantments on your allies work with Symbiosis to provide additional health to you and your Nova'ed minions, who will last longer and shield you from the enemy for longer. This is a good build if you're using a hex-heavy build, for example:

because the enemies will bash happily at the minions, and won't run away from Dot AoE, so hexes will deal massive amounts of damage.

Ascalon
General Tips Old Ascalon
 * A lot of the enemies are Charr, so if you own EOTN expansion, put up Rebel Yell.
 * You can try Caravan vanquishing From Yak's Bend. six-man team has a significant advantage over four-man.
 * Watch out for tar slowing you down. Fighting in tar leaves you little chance of running away if something goes wrong.

Quite big area to start with. My build is Empathy, Ineptitude, Clumsiness for melee enemies(grawl, etc), Backfire and Arcane Thievery for mages. Leaves place for res, maybe some interrupts, something that suits you. Heroes/Henchmen: Tanking koss("Watch Yourself!", knockdowns are good for grawls)if you're not a warrior, Healing Dunkoro/Tahlkora, either Ele or N, I went with Flesh Golem Olias+horrors, Death Nova, the like.

Start going right to the statue of balthazar, get 50gp blessing, heroes will get that too so makes for a bit easier fights. Keep an eye out for devourers popping from the ground, don't advance too slowly but don't rush either. Leave NW part of the map(where the trenches are) for last, avoid the cave to the east completely - only devourers pop out there in big numbers(for 4-player team). When fighting grawls/ulodytes, target latter first, put backfire and steal a spell, switch(TAB) to grawl(s) and hex them with anti-melee(so they lose life). Now, if you stole heal area, ulodyte won't heal himself too much and die quickly. If you stole heal other, grawls won't be healed and will die quickly. Otherwise, you might want to retreat now.

To the south there's Bonetti(easy) and a grawl boss(if it's a monk you're in for a tough fight). Cobble Poundstone might appear at top-centre, be sure to interrupt healing signet, otherwise easy. Devourers mainly pop up in north, northeast, east. A devourer boss is in the cave to the West (where that hermit guy is), watch out for pop-ups in that area.

Regent Valley

Starting from Fort Ranik, you may use the same setup as from Old Ascalon, with a bit more emphasis on interrupts, consider Norgu if you're not a Me. Going off stop by the guards, couple of charr warriors with ash walker behind will engage them, stay behind and help finish them off. A lot less hulking elementals to deal with which is a shame since they're piece of piss really... Renegades will make for a tough fights, they use Mind Burn(even non-eles)/Fire Storm, try to interrupt this, Power Block works well(as on ugolytes). Regular renegades only got mind burn, steal this and they're just regular cannon fodder. Go down to the bridge and ignore area that leads to pockmark flats, there's only devourer pop-ups over there.

Up the southern path there's a small plateau with about ten grawls/ugolytes. Tough area to take at once, so flag the party and pull one. Thing is grawls come in pairs Grawl/Grawl Ulodyte, so pull those and dispatch one at the time. If you get into a fight with more than one ugolyte, you'll probably die, so just retreat.

Up to kings watch there's a Melandru shrine and a charr group, standard 3warriors/ash walker. Grawl closer to the western river tend to be loose kind, so if you aggro one, the rest will ignore it. There's more of them close to the shrine though. More devourers up past the northern bridge, with another concentrated group of grawl in about central area of the map, with some hulking elementals. Again, pull those one by one.

Pockmark Flats

Start from Serenity Temple, Devona will be waiting for you over there, so take her. You might want to change your build a bit for more interrupts/shutdown. Also, consider bringing more powerful skills with higher energy costs instead of cheap spammable ones.

You can start with clearing the big crater, there's quite a lot of mob over there. Along with hulking elementals there are stone elementals, which use eruption and earthquake, try to interrupt or disable these. After that there's only melee ward. What's a big problem however(at least for us Mesmers) are Storm Riders. Not only they have backfire, which you HAVE to interrupt/disable, but cast Panic on your warriors along with Energy Drain, and come in packs of 2-3. Consider bringing Lion's Comfort instead of Healing Signet and hex removal, i/e. Remove Hex on Dunkoro, Inspired Hex, the like.

Further down the map there are occasional devourer pop-ups and a few gargoyles along with resurrect gargoyle, kill that one first, it raises dead allies. Devourers are usually in a pack of four, one being necromancer type, the rest are usually rangers with Quick Shot, they spam it right after regular attacks which makes for a fairly high damage output, either blind, knockdown, etc. Empathy does good damage on them.

Southern paths are pretty low on mobs, mural of Balthazar is empty so no need to go there. There's a devourer boss south of the temple, past the riders circling charr meteor, looks alone but his spawn pops-up when you get close(lure him to avoid that).

Ascalon Foothills Small but not so easy. Run from yak's bend to have size-six party. Minion Masters have a bit of a problem with bodies, so try not to rely on them too much. The greatest challenge is the Hydras, with Meteor and Phoenix, and Stone Furys with Earthquake, Eruption and Ward Against Melee. You absolutely must interrupt at least some of these, otherwise you're toast. Elemental warriors are annoying with their Dwarven Battle Stance but well placed Ineptitude or Blinding Flash will make things a lot easier.

There's a statue of Grenth up the road, so get there first and get the 50g blessing. The only other type of a monster I've encountered over there are those Singed Oaks, Quickening Zephyr may be a nuisance but otherwise they're quite easy. As for the skills, your standard build will probably do, make sure you've got at least two interrupts, something to blind warriors, maybe put dwarven stance on your warrior to interrupt enemy casters, or knockdown skills. There's no bosses in this area.

The Breach Not really difficult. You'll encounter mainly Charr, so Rebel Yell is a good choice, along with some Vanguard skills. You might want to drop Ineptitude Here since it'll really work to its fullest on Warriors only. I've did it with my standard bullshit build (Empathy, Ineptitude, Backfire, Inverter, few interrupts) along with Hundred Blades Koss, Earth Knockdown Vekk and Healing Tahlkora.

The northern part are just Charr, mainly in groups of three, four. These will have a different composition, RRRW, RRW, MeMoWR, MoMoEW etc. What you need to be aware if is if there's a E in the party and interrupt it's Meteor Shower and then Backfire or Pain Inverter him, they spam Flare. You may also want to use Pain Inverter on the Monks since they'll cast Shield of Judgment (switch your monk to not-attack). W's are fairly easy, but R's deal some decent damage with Ignite Arrows and Dual Shot, and on top of that your H/H will start running around as if they were hit by DoTAoE. Necros will hex your party to oblivion so try to interrupt them and/or Backfire. The area to northwest holds a few gargoyles and the ruins where a few Ascalon Soldiers stand have a few Devourer pop-ups, not much of a challenge. Few bosses of various professions, also not really a huge challenge. Remember to pull carefully and you'll do this one without a major problem (My Vekk got 45%DP at the end and the rest died once or twice but I made it in the end).

Diessa Lowlands You'll want to start from Nolani or Courthouse, but run here from Yak's Bend instead - The party size there is six instead of four and that will give you a significant boost. I've got the same bullshit build as in The Breach(See above) except I've switched Tahlkora for Prot Ogden, plus Stefan and Alesia.

This area has a big variety of foes: Charr, elementals, gargoyles, devourers, storm riders or hydras, so you have to be prepared for everything. Start by going around from the north, towards the entrance to Flame Temple Corridor. You'll encounter mainly Charr over there so put on Rebel Yell. The composition of groups varies greatly although it's always either six or four. As with The Breach watch out for Meteor Shower and Necromaner hexes and try to get the Shamans or Martyrs first(watch out for Shield of Judgment). It's a lot easier to take these groups on with a group of six.

The gargoyles come only in three flavors: Shatter(Me), Flash(E) and Ressurect(Mo). Try to kill the latter ones first. Hex removal is useful here, as with Charr. The gargoyles aren't really dangerous unless in a big group. Other foes are met occasionally, devourer pop-ups are not very dangerous if you're aware of your surroundings and elementals are only either W's or E's. Empathy/Ineptitude first and Backfire/Pain Inverter the others.

There are two places that might give you a lot of trouble. The first one is a "Charr Temple" in the lower centre part of the map. The first part is not very tough if you know how to pull, but at the end(up the stairs) things might get pretty nasty. I've got a E and Mo bosses to attack me at the same time(and made it) so you'll have to be extra careful over here, don't go gung-ho and retreat when things don't work out the way you wanted. The second place is just north of Nolani Academy entrance. There's a huge spawn of gargoyles over there clustered close to each-other. Even with careful pulling it's not uncommon to aggro two groups at the same time, and with three Rez'ers you'll be pretty much hexed and nuked to oblivion. Interrupt and Backfire any and all.

Few bosses aren't really a huge challenge. I took two of them at once and survived. Also, consider doing Flame Temple Corridor after this, saves getting there with a 6-man party.

Flame Temple Corridor It's a good idea to do this area immediately after you've vanquished Diessa Lowlands, especially if you're in a party of six since it'll save you a lot of running.

The whole area consists of only Charr and a few hydras which should be dead before you'll ever reach them. The area is quite small and if you pull correctly it will be quite easy to vanquish. Most of the charr stand in a groups of two and don't patrol. The thing is they stand close to eachother so if you'll attack one the neighbouring ones will attack you, so you have to pull them away a bit. Better to be safe than sorry.

The biggest problem is the "temple area". There are five groups on the top with additional ones surrounding from below. Pulling them is a difficult task since they don't go far before retreating, and attacking head on is pretty much a suicide. You could kill the first two Scouts by letting them attack you while being healed from behind and hexing them so they'll kill themselves. After that you'll probably pull two or three groups at once. It's still possible to kill them at once if you won't aggro the E's standing behind them.

Dragon's Gullet Quite a difficult area to vanquish(at least for me it was). Also more frustrating as there's tar almost everywhere slowing you down. I used the same build as for two previous areas since I did all of them in one go. Because of hydras it would be wise to have an anti-caster hero.

The most dangerous enemy you will encounter here are Hydras, usually in packs of three or four. They usually cast Meteor before charging in to finish off with PBAoE. I got wiped twice because of them in this area, so you have to be extra careful, interrupt as much a possible, spread everyone so they don't have a chance to hit multiple targets, hex, hex, and hex.

Other mob is not really dangerous. Charr are only by the entrance and are easy to dispatch. Tar Behemoths are pushovers, taking full DoT/AoEDoT. They don't dish out much damage either and if for some reason you'll get in trouble you can always run easily since they don't move at all. Abominations can put some pressure on you but only if there's more than three of them. Try to interrupt their minion spell. They don't do much damage either.

Eastern Frontier (not vanquished yet)

Northern Shiverpeaks
Traveler's Vale Quite easy. Parth size is six, so take additional tank and monk and you'll be fine. Most of the groups are either 3 or 4, with an exception of a few. When fighting dwarves you'll get a pattern of either W/R/Me or W/W/Me/E(siege golem), or some variations of these. Target golems first as they use damage/snare hexes which really piss off(and make tactical retreats impossible...). You can take care of W's with Ineptitude/Empathy/Clumsiness. You could try with Arcane Thievery on sages since you'll get your profession spells(if you're a Mesmer^^) but then I've gotten useless crap like Illusion of Haste most of the time...

Few bosses, the toughest one is a monk in the pass northwest, although with careful interrupting and/or Backfire it's not too tough. Up the north there's a tricky area where mob patrolling areas are quite small and overlapping eachother so you have to be careful when pulling. One big 6-8 individuals group on the "top" of the map. Also, watch out for occasional Juniper Bark pop-ups, Signet of Judgment knocks down AoE - get caught in the fray and you're Dolyak food.

If you killed everything and still not get the reward, get back to previously visited areas, stone summit's got a few W/Me patrols with long paths, so you might have missed them.

Anvil Rock

There's been quite of some time since I vanquished something, and with the release of GWEN my build has changed a bit. You get six blokes and gals in the party, so I've got now W/Mo Knockdown Jora(Earth Shaker and the like), E/Mo Knockdown/Blind/Ward Vekk(Unsteady Ground, Earthquake, Eruption, couple of wards) and Mo prot Ogden, with Zealous Benediction, SoA, Protective Spirit, Reversal of Fortune and Signet of Devotion. Throw in Stefan and Alesia and you're good to go. I've got a bog-standard anti melee Ineptitude build with Pain Inverter Now the minotaurs here might be lvl.24 but they're piss easy. They don't have any elite skill and just annoy with Endure Pain, but don't dish out much damage at all, and with melee ward and prot prayers you're in no danger at all. There's a minotaur boss spawn point on the map, but he's pretty much pitiful.

Frostfire Dryders on the other hand will put tremendous pressure on your healers with their health steal and degeneration skills. Just four of them can be a really worthy opponent so try to Backfire and interrupt them as much as you can. You could also come upon a dryder boss of some profession, he doesn't use any skills so he's really a pushover. To the bottom right portion of the map there's a bit of Stone Summit to deal with, along with a Necro boss, Rind Windroot(?). A lot of Sages(Me) and Howlers(N) to deal with, melee characters might fins it difficult with Crippling Anguish and Empathy. It's best to Backfire and interrupt them. They also deny enchantments.

I strongly advise against starting from Ice Tooth Cave. Go from The Frost Gate instead and start dealing with the Summit straight away, then move north to dryders. After that you could start circling the map or go back and deal with dryders and centaurs near southern/southwestern portion. After that most of the map are minotaurs and a bit of centaurs. The latter are not the easiest enemies, but not the toughest either. The only problem is the Jolo Lighhauch Mo boss group, which has him and additional two protectors(on top of W's and R's) and is quite a pain to defeat. A good idea is to spike one of the Mo's and then retreat and regenerate. The counter clocked a bit above 200 enemies.

Griffon's Mouth

Small and relatively easy. Only a few Ice golems encountered here, with their Water Trident they don't pose too much damage. Worse are the Snow Ettins. Not only they are damage orientated Warriors, but usually come in packs of four. Get an anti-melee build with blinds (Ineptitude/Signet of Midnight/Blinding Flash) and spam Empathy and Clumsiness on them. they're fairly tough but don't carry any self healing.

Three bosses, elementalist dragon-like thingy, he doesn't deal massive damage but uses Glyph of concentration so your interrupts are useless(you shouldn't bring them here anyway). Warrior Ettin boss carries Healing Signet, so concentrate on other ettins while blinding him. Monk Ettin boss doesn't carry any skills at all.

Iron Horse Mine

Not the biggest or hardest area but it has its moments. Change your build to accommodate for enchantment/hex removal, anti caster and a bit of anti melee.Shatter Enchantment, Inspired Enchantment, same for hexes, Ineptitude, Backfire, an interrupt or two wont harm, such as Cry of Pain or Power Block. Also, if you have an Elementalist, you could change his build to fire, get your monk an hex removal or two, a few interrupts for a Ranger, dazed infliction, etc.

The south-eastern area contains patrols of stone summit: Stone Summit Sages, Stone Summit Beastmasters and some W's or R's. Beastmasters knock down whole party and Sages carry Empathy. Pain Inverter works on both of them. If you don't carry it, Interrupt the former and Backfire the latter. The cave to the north got only Snow Ettins which are quite easy.

The main strip mine are, among other parts of the map, contains a lot of Stone Summit patrols consisting of (usually) two W's or W/R and a Dolyak Rider. These carry Remove Hex and Mark of Protection among other skills so you have to have a plan for defeating them. As soon as you cast a hex on anyone the Rider will remove it, cast enchantments and then Protection on whoever is under attack. So what you have to do is cast a hex on anyone in their party that isn't Backfire, then cast Backfire on the Rider and start attacking him. Then try to interrupt Mark of Protection and if you're successful it's pretty much win, if you fail, Remove the enchantment, if you fail again switch targets immediately and wait until it wears out. If you'll keep attacking the rider it will just heal him. The Riders don't have much means of healing themselves so after it wears out they're pretty easy to kill.

The northwestern part is populated by Frostfire Dryders. As mentioned in Anvil Rock's walkthrough earlier they are quite dangerous. Usually they'll be alone or in pairs, but a few times you'll encounter a group of four or five. Spread your party so Suffering doesn't get everyone on the first cast and try to remove their most dangerous hexes, like Soul Leech. Good skill ideas for this part are Hex Eater Signet, Avatar of Dwayna, Hexbreaker Aria, Purge Signet or Convert Hexes, to name a few.

The rest of the map shouldn't be very difficult. A few patrols have long routes so after you've killed everything and still didn't get the Vanquisher, try to run around and look for those missing patrols. Also, get The Wayward Monk quest, Cynn Will help you.

Deldrimor_Bowl

Moderate size and a quite easy area. Centaurs, centaurs and even more centaurs! And coming only in three flavours, Shiverpeak Warrior, Shiverpeak Longbow and Shiverpeak Protector. So equip mainly anti melee with Backfire and Crippling Anguish or Imagined Burden - the Protectors like to run in circles while healing everyone so a bit of a snare is only good against them. Warrior with cripple infliction or Knockdowns is a good idea too.

About one-third of the groups you'll encounter won't even have a Protector in them. Thing is, a lot of them will have two of those healing eachother. I've actually got 2+monk boss in one group and got wiped, so you'll just have to hope for the best. Body-blocking running protectors is also a good idea. They don't have any hex removal, so you can base your build on that and fire away, or maybe get a necro hexer hero. Also, Rangers put Winter absolutely everywhere, so skills like Greater Conflagration or elemental based weapons/conjure anything are not a good idea.

A few bosses in the area, Necromancer I've encountered wasn't using any skills, unlike Monk and Elementalist(Ice). all in all, not so hard.

Kryta
Scoundrel's Rise

Small, but bloody hell is it annoying. You'll swear a lot on this map. First, mergoyle wavebreakers that you'll probably encounter first cast Grasping Earth and Deep Freeze. They deal fair amount of damage with this and Crystal Wave, so try to interrupt that. Worse are regular mergoyles, mesmers with Power Block. Of course, your monk will ALWAYS get hit by that. Luckily they don't deal all that much damage(it's still dangerous though) but use Mind Wrack/Spirit Shackles combo, so don't wand around too much.

Last, but not least, Bog Skale. First, they will cast Soul Barbs and then spam you with the rest of their hexes, triggering soul barbs. Life Siphon on a whole party, same for Price of Failure (switch monks/etc to non-attack mode and don't wand) and my personal favourite, Spiteful Spirit. With Curses at 20 it will hit you and adjacent allies for 45 damage... Now imagine this on EVERY party member... Even with massive hex removal you'll still get a huge amounts of damage. Spread your party and don't be afraid to retreat. Backfire them and interrupt SS or try to steal it(Arcane Thievery/Inspired Hex).

No bosses in this area. The swamp to the west makes you poisoned, so pull the skale over there to dry land before dispatching them. Toughest group is six bog skales about the centre of the map. No melee mob in this area, so focus your team on anti-caster skills. Interrupts, shutdowns, knockdowns, you name it.

Watchtower Coast

This area splits into two parts: the southern piss easy one and the northern "fuck this necro/mesmer shit!" part. So. Convert Hexes is an extremely good idea, get Shatter Hex or any other hex removal or two, preferably on everyone you can. Swing towards anti-caster with Pain Inverter and Empathy and you're good to go.

Go towards the northern, more difficult area first. Mergoyle Wavebreakers are not really dangerous, but Mergoyle and Bog Skale really pack a (hex)punch. Mergoyles use the Spirit Shackles/Mind Wrack combo so order your caster not to attack and don't wand yourself. Also, if you've got an Ele, switch his build from air - Mergoyle use Mantra of Lightning. Bog Skale will hex you to hell and back, especially with Spiteful Spirit and Soul Barbs which will trigger often since almost all they cast are hexes. SSpirit on multiple party members will quickly decimate them, but that's why you have Convert Hexes and other heavy hex removal. It's absolutely critical that casters don't wand at this point and Monks and Warriors stay relatively hex-free(especially monks). H/H Monk with SS on him will heal someone, get damage, heal himself and get damage, and so on until he stupidly dies. Also, pull carefully.

The southern part's got Tengu(W/R/Me), but they're not really dangerous(compared to Skale...) and there's not much of them. The Oakhearts might stand around alone but as soon as you attack them, Spined Aloes will pop-out from the ground to heal them. For hilarity, cast Pain Inverter on the aloe after it cast Holy Wrath and order everyone to attack it. The Wrath spell will deal damage to everyone and the aloe will take damage from Inverter because it deals damage. And there's nothing it can do about it ^.^ The oakhearts are pretty much easy Rangers with a few traps, usually there's only two of them so no problem here.

The Black Curtain Right, this is the area from which you will be doing Caravan vanquishing in three different directions, This>Kessex Peak, the Lion's Arch way up to wherever you want to finish, and Maguuma Jungle way. This area is really worse than Watchtower Coast even though you've got two more party members(since you're starting from temple of the ages). Most of the mob is casters so go anti-caster/hex removal. Again, Convert Hexes is REALLY useful, on top of your regular hex removal, Inspired Hex/Shatter Hex might help too. Any interrupts are also recommended, knockdowns, etc.I've went with my bullshit build with Inspired Hex, Hundred Blades Koss, earth magic knockdown/blind/ward Vekk and Prot Ogden. On top of that Stefan, Orion, Claude, Alesia.

Start going to the left on the map(your right as you exit the temple), this is a very hard area with a boss, but the swamp over here doesn't get you poisoned(for some unknown reason). Reed Stalkers are quite dangerous and spam Wastrel's Worry and Clumsiness, so don't wand (and order your monks/other not to). The Bog Skale Blighters are much more dangerous with their Spiteful Spirit. There are a lot of them here and to the south-western part, along with numerous pop-ups of Spined Aloe. You MUST interrupt SSpirit as much as possible and don't aggro more than one group. Also, if you're using hex removal, use it on Monks first, then on Warriors. In this area there's a Elementalist boss accompanied by a few imps. Nothing too dangerous.

The western part is dominated by Skeletons and undead and the waters cause poison. You don't need to take poison removal since it'll usually be on a whole party and you can cross the swamp in some safe places and just wait for it to wear out. To the north, packs of Rangers don't pose too much of a challenge. Further down there's patrols of Necrid Horseman+Hellhound packs. Kill the horsemen first, they're not very dangerous if taken one group at a time, but because of their long patrol routes they might appear in a middle of a fight with someone else. Also, don't engage them near Damned Clerics. These seem to be alone but as soon as you approach them a few Wraiths and Smoke Phantoms will appear and start attacking you. Again, they're not uber-dangerous if taken one group at a time, but watch out for the horsemen patrols, take the Cleric out first and interrupt any Chain Lightning.

Fog Nightmares inhabit southeastern bend of the swamps. When low on health they will use Grenth's Balance on a party member which can cause 250-300 damage in one hit. It's also a 1/4s activation time spell, so you'll just have to brace for impact(no-one died in my party because of that, but still...). They also use Mark of Subversion, which is annoying on your monk, so if you have hex removal use it on monks(they will try to remove it themselves and cause damage). The southern part will contain some minotaurs, but they're piss easy.

Kessex Peak

You might have come here right after vanquishing The Black Curtain and have a build that's not quite for this area. This doesn't pose much problems, but if you want to have a build especially for this, make it so you're resistant to interrupts, with hex removal, and with spells that don't need line of sight. Anti caster/melee. Also, don't use a Minion Master over here, your minions will get stolen by the cultists, although corpse exploitation spells will hurt the enemy Necromancers. Necrotic Traversal is a quick way to destroy the corpses but other spells may actually benefit you later on, like Putrid Explosion.

The first part is a long "corridor", with Fog Nightmares and Reed Stalkers with Spined Aloe pop-ups. Their numbers are small so they shouldn't be much of a problem, although hex removal helps(also, Pain Inverter on aloes). The next, large area is populated by Forest Minotaurs, Fen Trolls and Ancient Oakhearts. The first two are Warriors that don't dish out awesome damage but are quite tough, so try not to fight more than 4,5. The oakhearts are smiting monks with Breeze, but Inverter/Backfire deals with them quickly. One groups that might be a problem is near the southern exit, with everything mentioned earlier plus one or two Aloes. Blind is useful here.

The most difficult area here is near the Wizard's Tower, the Cult of Verata. The spawn over there is huge, so defeating it needs a method. Go around the first spawn that you'll see, and start attacking from the western side(there's some Hill Giants in the bend, easy). You have to pull very carefully. the cultists will come in groups of about six. Target the monks first and then Apprentices, since they make minions. If there's any minions, ignore them until you kill the apprentice, he'll almost always use Taste of Death damaging a minion. Then attack and kill the weakened minion quickly and go to the next apprentice. Also, remove hexes from monks, there's a chance you'll hit Migraine, which is very dangerous for casters. And with enemy rangers using Choking Gas you don't want to use slow-casting spells since you'll be interrupted all the time. Quick casting spells on everyone are the key here.

When you're cleaned the area so that there's only Verata and the mob around him left(before the last ramp), you have to go back down. If you aggro Verata or any of the cultists, the whole group will attack you(about 15-20 blokes) and there's now way you'll win. So go back down, move by the left slope. If you do that, eventually you'll aggro the group on the top, and then you have to run right under them. That way the Rangers won't hit you and the only thing you'll have to worry about is health degeneration from Migraine, since they won't have much direct damage spells. This is also the reason for which you had to equip spells that don't need line of sight. Kill the monks first, then Mesmers and Rangers. As for the Apprentices, you'll probably deal too little damage to kill them quicker than they can heal themselves with Grenth's Balance, so when there's only a few of them left come back up and kill them normally.

If you've got the Villainy of Galrath quest the vanquishing should be easier, although I did it without the quest so I dunno.

Cursed Lands

Small area, and if you're going from Temple of the Ages really easy to vanquish even with some standard builds. Nevertheless if you're having trouble just go with an anti-caster build, Backfire, interrupts(Power Block), or whatever you fancy. Balance your party towards casters rather than physical damage.

There are only undead in this area so bringing Judge's Insight, Avatar of Balthazar, Signet of Judgment or any holy damage skills will make this even easier. The majority of foes are casters, Elementalists, Mesmers and Necros. There are some Rangers and Grasping Ghouls but the ghouls are piss easy and R's really only annoy with Apply Poison. The sorcerers use Earthquake so interrupt this or cast Pain Inverter before for massive damage. Zombie Warlocks raise minions so either interrupt that or attack Warlock itself, he'll use Taste of Death. The reason that you shouldn't really bring many physicals here is that sorcerers carry Blinding Flash and Mesmers have Ineptitude, so they'll almost always be blinded.

But then again this area is not hard at all. Also, you might want to change your build if you want to caravan vanquish.

Nebo Terrace

A variety of foes, but if you're caravan vanquishing from Temple of the Ages it's not that hard. Be prepared for a variety of foes. A specific build is not really needed.

The first lower part contains the undead just like in the Cursed Lands and all tactics from there apply over here with the exception that the groups are larger, often six, and usually clustered so you have to pull carefully. The small part above this one has a few Caromi Tengu, usually W/W/R/Me, with a party of eight pretty much easy. Further up north you'll encounter Bog Skale and Bog Skale Icetooth. Icetooths are not really dangerous apart from the fact that they spread AIDS, but the regular skales use Spiteful Spirit and you have to interrupt that or have a good hex removal. Luckily they don't come in large groups. Even further up north there's Gypsie Ettins in small packs, Empathy/Ineptitude/Clumsiness make short work of them, just interrupt their Healing Signet.

There is a small area south from the place where you exit from Beetletun with a few Inferno Imps. This is easy to miss so if you're missing a few kills you'll have to backtrack here. The northern area(where some NPC's are) doesn't contain much foes apart from abovementioned ettins. Also, the usual Spined Aloe popups through the area, and there's a statue of Dwayna so you can get a Blessing from it. Cloak of Faith can be quite helpful.

North Kryta Province

A really large area with variety of foes. It's not overly hard if you're doing caravaning from Temple of the Ages. Bring your standard build with some hex removal for Skale and Mergoyles.

Going from the Nebo Terrace entrance there's Ascalon Settlement. There aren't any foes there but you can run through it to get to the beach which is mainly populated by Mergoyle and Bog Skale. On my personal note, I find fighting Mergoyle easier and easier each time I encounter them, especially with 8-man team. Bog Skale are still dangerous with their hexes, Convert Hexes or Withdraw Hexes are great counters for this along with mesmers hex removal or Hexbreaker Aria to name a few. Remember to interrupt Spiteful Spirit. Also, there's a part on the cliffs where you can only get from the far eastern part of the beach, where the boss is.

The skale populate a lot of the northern part of the beach, cliffs and all of the eastern swamp. Down south there's groups of Fire Imps. The most dangerous spell they possess is Rodgort's Invocation. When cast by two or three of them it can easily wipe most of your party, so interrupt this one, or if you want to take the risk cast Pain Inverter on one of the imps and interrupt anyone else. The western-southwestern part are mostly Tengu, groups of three-four, pretty easy to dispatch even with a party of four. There's a small area to the far west that has a few tengu, the entrance is quite small so you can miss it.

Tears of the Fallen

This area is small and stupidly difficult. You might want to run here from Fishermen's Heaven, but go from the Temple of the Ages instead. And don't take Claude or anything with life sacrifice, Claude tends to use Blood Ritual while having Disease, Life Siphon and Spiteful Spirit on himself, which puts a huge strain on your healers and often kills him. Bring a lot of Hex Removal, and interrupts. The whole area is populated by large groups of Bog Skale Blighters, Bog Skale Icetooths and occasional Grand Drakes. Icetooths are not really dangerous on their own and in groups of three, four, but with blighters it's just hex, self damage, and aids bonanza. Don't even bother about bringing condition removal, Disease will just get reapplied almost instantly. The drake in the group will often not be a part of the group, so you can pull him and then deal with the rest. If left with the group he'll just add a really powerful spike to the already idiotic bonanza.

Target the Blighters first and interrupt their Spiteful Spirit and try to kill them as fast as possible - each killed foe means less hexes, especially Life Siphon. Also, spread out and don't stand near corpses, or bring some corpse exploitation spell, to prevent them from casting Putrid Explosion. The Icetooths will put disease on anyone hitting them in melee so if you don't want this to happen you can not use melee(and ranged), use Tainted Flesh, or maybe Illusionary Weaponry although I didn't test it so I don't know if it works. Also, try and get different hero races, like Jora, Ogden or Vekk. Since disease spreads between the same race, they'll won't spread it or get infected by humans.

Also, if you ran here from the temple consider doing two southern areas at the same time, with a eight-man party.

Twin Serpent Lakes

It's a good idea to do caravan vanquishing, since you'll have a larger party and will be closer to a statue of Melandru. Focus your build at anti-caster with hex removal. The usual Convert Hexes is very useful here.

Once you start from the north run to the statue at the far northwestern corner and get the "To Conquest" Blessing, it'll give you +3 health regen, and since Disease is -4 degen it'll reduce it to -1 once you get hit by it. Also, it works as long as you don't zone out and can't be removed, even by death. Your heroes will also get it. Now the White Mantle might want you to get some powerful anti-melee skills but they're few and much less dangerous than Mergoyle/Skale combos. Target the Abbots and Savants first, and if you've got a Enchantment Removal skill wait until they cast Shield of Regeneration and then strip it. As for the savants, try to interrupt Searing Heat or Fireball, or put Pain Inverter on them for a good amount of damage.

There's no Blighters over here, but the Bog Skale Icetooth/Mergoyle groups are very tough to beat. While mergoyles on their own are not very dangerous, paired with skale make a difficult foe. For those groups alone you have to have a powerful hex removal, possibly Tainted Flesh, interrupts... Mergoyles' Power Block will shut down your one-attribute party members so try not to rely on them too much or spread your skills over multiple attribs. They also use Spirit Shackles/Mind Wrack combo, so the faster you wand/attack the worse. The groups will almost always be either eight or four members, 4/4 or 1 Skale/3 Mergoyles. There's one way to beat even a large group with a 30, 40% DP. Wait until they spread out a bit and then target and spike the closest one and run. They don't have much direct damage spells save Deathly Swarm. After they turned back, heal, rinse, repeat until there's so little of them you can take on them all. And don't use Air magic against Mergoyles, they use Mantra of Lightning.

The rest of the enemies are relatively easy. The tengu have quite powerful melee fighters, but Ward Against Melee and/or Aegis will give you advantage over them. Again, hex removal is useful against Ineptitude used by tengu Mesmers, and order your monks or whoever not to wand to avoid unnecessary damage.

Stingray Strand

This area is not really difficult even with a six-man team from Fisherman's Haven, but there's two groups that are insanely tough so I advise doing caravan vanquishing until here. Also, bring some hex removal for Skales and some form of defense against fire magic, like Mantra of Flame, Elemental Resistance, Frigid Armor, Ward Against Elements, Ward Against Harm or other forms of gaining elemental armor, such as Sentinel's, Pyromancer's or Pyrebound Insignia

Most of the area is populated by small groups of Tengu and Skale. The tengu are quite easy to dispatch since there's usually three or four of them. Ward Against Melee and Aegis give a significant advantege over them. The skale consist of the usual Icetooths and Blighters, so heavy hex removal is a must, and interrupts for Spiteful Spirit. All tips from other locations apply over here. The groups are relatively small so they shouldn't be that much of a problem.

The worst problem are Inferno Imps using powerful AoE skills, especially Rodgort's Invocation. The first encountered groups are tough but manageable, but further down south you'll encounter two groups of eight-nine imps, and the damage they deal is insane. Spread your party, use as much defensive and anti-fire skills as possible, interrupt the Invocation and just hope for the best. I don't think Dazed would work well over here since they're not very tough, and since it'll be a lot of them it would be pointless. I'd also like to note that in the end my whole party was at -60DP except for Koss and the last group of eight was taken by kill-wipe method: Koss stayed behind, the rest spiked one imp and died, Imps went back, Koss resurrected everyone, went back, spiked another imp, and so on.

Talmark Wilderness

This area is easy and tough at the same time. The main two problems here are Bog Skale/Mergoyle groups and Inferno Imps. Get your usual build out but get yourself Mantra of Flame, although it isn't necessary if your monks are decent.

Start off with clearing northern portion of the map, that where the imps are. You might know how deadly they are if you did Stringray Strand for example, but this time you'll try a different approach. There's a few groups of at least six specimen and these pose most danger to your party. When close to them, flag you h/h so they're about two earshot ranges from the imps and step forward towards them(imps that is). You should be seeing imps on one end of your aggro bubble and your party on another. Now Cast anything on the closest imp so they attack you. Now the imps will use Immolate and maybe Incendiary Bonds but will not use Rodgort's Invocation because you're a single target and your monks and mantra will keep you alive without a problem. Just Backfire or Pain Inverter them, even throw in Empathy since they'll "wand" a lot. Your casters/ranged attackers might run and join the fray, you should still be alright. Most of the groups are two-four, these are quite manageable as long as you don't screw something up.

The south-southeastern part contains a lot of Bog Skale Icetooths and Mergoyles. These are not the toughest groups on the planet but they're tightly packed so be extra careful when pulling and keep an eye on your H/H running around. Also, don't wand around Mergoyles, they use Spirit Shackles and Mind Wrack. There's usually only one Icetooth in a four-man group so take him out first. The mergoyle are not really dangerous in small numbers.

The rest of the map is mainly populated by Ancient Oakhearts, Fog Nightmares and Forest Minotaurs. The Oakhearts use Retribution so Pain Inverter works on them just like on Spined Aloes, they also throw rocks so Empathy is good too. In groups of two or alone they are easy to kill. The minotaurs are in somewhat larger groups, even eight, but they're not difficult either. They don't hit very hard, and are just tough to kill. They use Flurry so Empathy will be a little more effective on them. They're are also quite dumb, as all minotaurs, not reacting to damage and spells cast on them. Fog Nightmares are dangerous, but not alone or in pairs. They will cast some hexes on you and even use Grenth's Balance but it's nothing you couldn't manage since there's only two of them tops. The only nuisance is that they tend to pop up near oakhearts or other mobs making the fight more difficult. When in doubt, retreat.

Majesty's Rest (not vanquished yet)

Maguuma Jungle
Tangle Root

Quite large area but not really hard. Equip an anti-melee build with a hard interrupt, like Cry of Pain or Leech Signet. It won't hurt to have one or two anti caster skills but it isn't necessary. Get Stefan and Alesia and you're good to go.

Start from Maguuma Stade and go straight up. The main enemy you'll encounter in the higher parts are Jungle Trolls, and because of them you have the interrupt. Attack them however you want but as soon as they cast Troll Unguent, interrupt it, it will make a fight a bit easier. Other than that they don't do much damage, but use Endure Pain and are tough to bring down. Also, they will usually be accompanied by at least two Life Pods. They use Holy Wrath so Pain Inverter works on them just fine but since there'll always be more than one you can order heroes to attack all of them at once. Because of Holy Wrath they will lose 10 energy with each hit and won't heal anyone. Always deal with them first, if you're having trouble with attackers you can Blind them with Ineptitude, Blinding Flash or Eruption.

The other melee attackers you'll encounter are Moss Scarabs. They deal more damage than trolls and heal themselves with Vampiric Touch but otherwise are not very dangerous either, unless encountered in really large groups. They also use Verata's Gaze so don't bring a minion master over here. Probably the easiest enemies on the upper part are Redwood Shepherds. They have useless spirit, don't do much damage, don't take much either.

Lower part has a lot of trolls, more spellcasters and a Melandru shrine when you can get a Blessing and bump your Morale. Wind Riders don't come in groups larger than three or four and can take little punishment so they shouldn't be a problem. They also cast really fast so Backfire will trigger often on them. Jungle Skale are nothing compared to their Krytan skale friends. The only thing they do efficiently is inflict Disease on everyone, and maybe strip enchantments. Piss easy. Also, since Wind Riders also strip enchantments you might want to drop a prot-monk over here, and generally don't use much enchantments.

Ettin's Back

This area is relatively easy if you proceed carefully and have a proper build. For this, I've dropped Vekk and went with Livia with Spiteful Spirit, some empathy-type spells, Life Siphon and, most important, two Enchantment removal spells. This is very important for this area. Other than that I've got my usual anti-everything build with Hundred Blades Koss and protection Ogden. It's advised to use protection enchantments and enchantments in general over here because of Symbiosis. Consider taking Illusion of Weakness.

The whole area, except for a far eastern part, has basically three types of enemies: the centaurs, devourers and stalkers. The centaurs are the reason you brought enchantment removal - their Protectors will use those a lot, so attack and strip them first. In hard mode, the only skill they can use to heal themselves is Blessed Signet, all of their spells must target other allies. It's also a good idea to try use Well of the Profane, but you'll lose the prot monk + symbiosis advantage you would have. After you've dealt with all protectors target Warriors first - they use "I Will Avenge You!" and deal fair amount of damage. Rangers can be dealt with last.

Enchantment removal gets handy when fighting Thorn Stalkers. These enemies use Mist Form which renders your attacks ineffective, so removing it makes fighting them that much quicker. They also deal fair amount of damage with their Earth and Air Magic spells. Their Whirlwind/Aftershock combo is a source of AoE knockdown and deals large damage, so spread your party. Also, don't bring two warriors over here, they'll be less effective against them. The devourers mostly pop out in various places, although a few of them are already unburrowed. There's just two(well, three) types of them, a Ranger and a Necro. Since the Ranger attacks quite fast it's a good idea to cast Empathy, Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite or Pain Inverter on them, on or two spells might even kill one by itself(very unlikely). Necros spread mass conditions and do it quite fast so transfer should be taken in favor of removal, although i didn't suffer much. The only problem with devourers is when they pop up in large groups.

A few groups have long patrol routes so you might miss some of them.

Dry Top

Quick and easy area with only one tough group. Use the build for Ettin's Back since there will be centaurs, stalkers and devourers here just like in that area. All tips and strategies for Ettin's Back work and apply here so I don't think there's a reason to write them twice. Root Behemoths, new monster in this area, are pretty pitiful, they can't move so will take full DoTAoE damage, are easy to run away from and generally are pushovers. The only group to give you some trouble will probably be centaurs in the eastern part of the map in the open area, with 2-3 Protectors. These are quite difficult to wear down. Mass degeneration would put some strain on the healers and bypass Life Bond. Spiking one at the time they're busy healing or reapplying enchantments is a good idea.

Reed Bog

While I was writing this, the article for Reed Bog had wrong monsters listed as appearing there, in reality there's no maguuma warriors, skale or wind riders over there. The whole area is quite small but has a lot of popup so proceed cautiously. Bring a general anti-melee/ranged build.

I don't know why but I had a real problem with Moss Scarabs over here. They seem to pop up in waves, it looks like you've got only two or three to fight but then another pops up, and another, and two more, so you're always fighting four or something. Your monks need to be prepared for long fights rather than spike healing. Also, Pain Inverter won't trigger on Vampiric Touch, and don't bring a minion master here, they'll steal your minions. Along with scarabs you'll encounter Redwood Shepherds. These are really easy, don't dish out much damage, are not very tough and generally die quickly.

Southern and eastern part of the map are inhabited by Maguuma Spiders and Jungle Trolls with Life Pod popups. As long as the pods cast Holy Wrath on them or someone you can attack the target of that spell and it will drain them of all energy. Casting Pain Inverter on them while doing that will cause a lot of damage. The spiders can be dangerous in a larger group, especially with everyone poisoned. Bring a party-wide heal, such as Light of Deliverance or Heal Area if you're bunched together. The trolls are also dangerous if encountered in a large group with Pods and/or spiders. They can look as if they're alone but as soon as you aggro them, ten thousand enemies will unburrow and kill you to death. Which sucks. Pull carefully because you won't be able to run away when enemies are using Pin Down, Signet of Judgment and Backbreaker.

Mamnoon Lagoon

This has to be one of the most annoying areas to vanquish, most probably top 5 in difficulty. Before you start doing anything read the area's talk page to get a rough idea how bad is it. I went with a human help on this one, but it can be done with H/H. I had two elementalist tankers with permanent Obsidian Flesh,(you can have it permanent either with Glyph of Swiftness or Serpent's Quickness and a +20% enchant mod), with just damage spells. The rest were just two pure heal monks, me and a Spiteful Spirit necromancer. Two things: Don't take a minion master, Jungle Skale steal them with Verata's Gaze, and don't put any enchantment on any monk, just make them pure healing. Any enchantments on your party will be mass-shattered. It's good to take some party wide healing such as Heal Party or Light of Deliverance.

Getting into the lagoon is pretty easy, as is dealing with groups of two Skale and single Root Behemoths. The real problem here are groups of Wind Riders. As soon as you aggro them you'll have life degen on all of your party, mass interrupts, mass shatters and Migraine both in game and real life. To defeat them you have to clear the area of all the other enemies first, especially pop-ups of Life Pods.

When you're ready to fight a group, have your Elementalist cast and maintain Obsidian Flesh and stand in the way of the group, while the rest of your party stands well back. The idea is that when your elementalist get aggro from the mob, the Riders will be unable to cast any spells on them, which will greatly reduce damage and pressure and will allow them to cast their direct damage spells. At this point the Riders will start wanding at your tanking eles. If you're standing close enough(aggro buble), monks will be able to heal them, but if you want to stay further away have your monks cast party healing skills i mentioned earlier, your tankers will be healed as long as they appear in the monk's Sphere of influence. Occasionally riders may break the aggro and attack your back line, if there's less than four of them you should be able to take them out without much of a problem, just remember to spread out, cast Spiteful Spirit quickly and use interrupt prevention skills such as Mantra of Resolve or Glyph of Concentration.

Sage Lands

There are a few things here that might prevent you from finishing this area. They are, in order: Mesmer Wind Rider boss, Maguuma Spiders appearing while you fight something else, and bringing a Minion Master. There are areas in this map where you have to be aware that enemies might appear suddenly from all directions.

As for the build, I have managed to vanquish this area with a gimmick Me/E Glimmering Mark air fastcast build. You want to bring monk(s) with some hex/condition removal, so Blessed Light will be perfect. Also, an Elementalist will be a good asset. Whatever you do, don't bring a Minion Master here, your servants will get turned against you by Moss Scarabs. Making a melee/physical intensive build is also not advised, since Thorn Stalkers that you'll encounter later carry Mist Form

First enemies you'll encounter will be Wind Riders and Moss Scarabs. The former are very dangerous anti-casters, but there are ways to defeat them, one of them is described up in the Mamnoon Lagoon guide. Few things to remember are no monks with enchantments, not clumping together, and having Blessed Light ready, which will remove enchantments, you might also try Patient Spirit. If you have a Warrior in your party, have him aggro them while you stand well away, they'll concentrate on him, giving your casters space to breathe.

Scarabs are not really dangerous as annoying, since Empathy and Pain Inverter don't work on them fully, since they steal life. Easiest way to defeat them is just to concentrate and nuke one, move to another, and so on. Aoe will damage them, but they'll quickly heal themselves with life stealing, so it's just a energy waste, really. Thorn Stalkers and Thorn Devourers are quite easy in comparison to two previous enemies. Stalkers are even easier if you don't have any melee fighters in your party, since they won't get knocked down with Whirlwind and slammed by Aftershock. Also, spells go through Mist Form. When fighting devourers make sure to quickly hex everything, especially Fevered Devourers with Backfire for example. Blinds and Spiteful Spirit are also good idea along with Inverter, Empathy or Ineptitude.

Now There are two things left, spiders and the Me boss. Spiders are annoying in a way as Scarabs are, since they just descend from the trees when you're taking a leak under one and stab you from behind. They also cripple and poison you, and that's why you have Blessed Light. Again, try to hex everyone at once when they're still descending. It's those few second during which you can deal some damage to them and/or hex them heavily. It's good too, since they don't heal themselves. If you have a warrior, have him equip "Shields Up!" for this one.

The Me boss is very tough not only because it's a wind rider, but because if you just go gung-ho on his ass(tentacles) a swarm of spiders will kill you. So advance carefully, and pull/clear the trees to the left of the boss first. Then, spread heavily and split into groups, so you don't get caught in multiple interrupts. Start with the smaller Riders, and kill them off one by one, before going for the boss. When done properly, he's not actually that hard.

Silverwood (to be written)

The Falls (to be written)

Crystal Desert
Diviner's Ascent (to be written) Prophet's Path (to be written) Salt Flats (to be written) Skyward Reach (to be written) The Arid Sea (to be written) The Scar (to be written) Vulture Drifts (to be written)

Southern Shiverpeaks
Witman's Folly

Quite easy and quick area to vanquish. Get an balanced anti-melee/caster build. A minion master is not recommended since some foes carry Verata's Aura. Start from Port Sledge and move right, you'll encounter Azure Shadows over here. Their main damage sources are Signet of Judgment and two spells that deal damage back to the source. You can try to interrupt that but it's funnier to cast Pain Inverter on them and just wand them to death. There's a spot with a boss and a few shadows around, watch out for pop-ups over there, you might find yourself fighting not four but ten shadows and this is quite dangerous.

The Grawl and Grawl Crones are either piss easy or stupidly difficult. Easy when encountered in small groups, but often aggroing one far away will get a 12-grawl group on your head. Having Aegis, Ward Against Melee and some personal anti melee skills like Distortion or mass blind/knockdown is useful over here. As for Crones try not to rely on Enchantments and conditions over here, since they will remove the former and transfer the latter on to you. There's a group near the entrance to the Forge that will start running around the map clockwise. I've encountered only one Grawl that started running after I've attacked him. Since the mob in HM is faster it's better to just go counter clockwise, otherwise you might never catch up.

Grenth's Footprint

This area is quite hard, and has got an annoying monk boss, so bring enchantment removal especially for him. Also, a general all-round build is fine too. Bring a few interrupts for more annoying spells.

Starting from the camp I suggest you go east first. The Stone Summit patrols over here walk in some strange, semi-random patterns so if you pull one group watch out that another doesn't come right at you by accident. These groups will usually consist of a Warrior, Ranger, Necro and a Herder, this can change for more Warriors or Rangers, added heretics, siege golems or Dolyak Masters or or a mix of the lot. Try to target the monk first and strip the Mark of Protection they cast. Then try to target Stone Summit Gnashers, they raise minions and left alone can make a small army of them which can get you in trouble. Also, for a strange reason I find their Rangers to be more dangerous/annoying than Carvers. Ineptitude is good against them, as is Blinding Flash. The Stone Summit Herder uses Giant Stomp which also knocks down every stone summit in range, so if you plant Pain Inverter on him before he stomps you can take about two-thirds of his life away with one shot. Siege Ice Golems annoy with their spells, notably Deep Freeze, but they cast Water Trident fairly often so Backfire should make good damage on them. Try not to use signets around them.

On the far east and far west there are exits do neighbouring areas guarded by the Sorrow's Furnace type of Stone Summit. There's only one group by each exit but it usually has two Priests who resurrect. A good idea while attacking them is to kill one priest and then when hitting the other let him cast Ressurect almost until the end and then interrupt it when he's almost finished. This will give you a few seconds in which he won't heal anyone. The other groups in the area are Pinesoul/Siege Ice Golem/Ice Imp combos. take the imps first immediately and interrupt any and all Maelstroms. These are devastating against you casters, especially those hit with Mind Freeze since they won't get out from under it with a massive slowdown. Fortunately there's usually only one imp in a group, so he shouldn't be too difficult.

The bosses over here can be quite a challenge, especially the Elementalist and Monk ones. I got wiped at those, be extra careful. With the Ele, spread out so doesn't hit you with Deep Freeze, or better still daze him and kill his guard first. Also, he can be knocked down. The monk boss has Mark of Protection and is quite tough, so it could be a good idea to kill off his guards first. Also, you might want to try and kill him the first thing you do when vanquishing this area, since he spawn in two locations close to the camp. If you get wiped you can always start again.

Ice Floe

This area is regarded by many as the hardest area to vanquish in the entire game. This is mainly due to groups of Mursaat and Ice Imps, which form the majority of enemies here. This is indeed, a very hard area to vanquish, and I suggest bringing a few consumables, notably the Powerstone of Courage, in case of a -50%DP situation half way through the area.

I've went with a Me/N heavy hex build, since the enemies here have no means of removing them. So to my standard Empathy, Backfire and Asuran Pain Inverter I've added Necro's Spiteful Spirit and Insidious Parasite. I also took three monks into this area, one Shield of Regeneration proter, and two regular healers, one with Word of Healing and some regular single target heals, and one with Light of Deliverance and some party-wide heals like Divine Healing and its clone. If you're taking elementalists, keep them non-fire - Mursaat Mesmers keep Mantra of Flame on them. In fact, ice ele for slowdown will probably be more effective against Armors. In general, apart from the monks it's good to take a lot of powerful damage dealers, although AoE wasn't my flavour of choice here.

Start from Thunderhead Keep and clear the top area first. There's a lot of mursaat over there and they're much more dangerous than Ice Imps, and you have to pull them carefully. Have some of your party members concentrate on the monk, if there's one, and the other ones on the most dangerous enemies. In the top area the groups will mostly consist of Monks, Warriors and Mesmers, and out of those the warriors are most dangerous. They will immediately go hard on your monks, and they can deal around 100-150 damage in a single hit. It is therefore imperative that you hex and nuke them at the very beginning, while other members of your party keep the Monk occupied. As for the mesmers, you just have to spread(flag) your party so they don't get caught in Energy Surge. Also, keep your Monks at the back, those mesmers hit with a decent energy denial. If you're worried, you can put some energy management skills on them, like Power Leak or elementalist glyphs.

Further down the map the Mursaat get reinforced with Rangers, Eles and Necros. All of those are also very dangerous, in my opinion E>R>N. When possible, try to interrupt Eles' Chain Lightning, since it packs a punch. After that just hex and nuke them, and switch to Jade Bows or Necromancers. The thing here is to determine how can you position yourself. If you can hide behind a rock or something that will block projectiles, go for the Necros first. Bows will fire with Oath Shot, obviously miss and disable all of their skills. Necros on the other hand will put large pressure on you with life steal, Life Transfer, Life Siphon and Insidious Parasite. As such, life degen skills are near useless against them. Also, cast Shield of Regeneration whenever one of your allies gets hit with Life stealing spell. And have your monks not wand, since they'll just damage themselves if they get hexed with parasite.

Ice Imps are either stupidly difficult or piss easy. At times, they will just stand and wand at your party, or cast Ice Spear. Spread your party wide again, and when aggroing, put some distance between yourself and the party, but enough for the monks to heal you. As soon as you start getting hit, start casting hexes on everyone. The idea here is that Imps might cast Maelstrom on you, and waste them, since you're only a single target. Also, if they'll attack the whole party, there's a chance you'll still emerge victorious because of the party spread, and three monks. If you have an Ice Ele, have him cast his own Maelstrom on them, especially if they're tightly packed. Warriors and Rangers are less effective here, since imps carry Frigid Armor, but enchantment removal will work wonders on them. They may be also accompanied by Pinesouls, but they are far less dangerous than imps.

Funnily enough, I haven't encountered any Azure's and White Mantle in this area, although the area description mentions them.

Dreadnought's Drift (not vanquished yet) Frozen Forest (to be written) Icedome (not vanquished yet) Lornar's Pass (not vanquished yet) Mineral Springs (not vanquished yet) Snake Dance (to be written) Spearhead Peak (to be written) Talus Chute (to be written) Tasca's Demise (not vanquished yet)

Ring of Fire Islands
Perdition Rock

A very hard area, fortunately only one that needs to be vanquished over here. Large, a lot of damage, a lot of bosses. Bring an anti-caster build, a lot of interrupts, and fire resistance. No fire elementalists/fire arrows/etc, or minion masters. I've got a Backfire, Pain Inverter plus interrupts(might try Power Block, and a Hundred Blades Koss although knockdown or Headbutt/Skull Crack would be better, A Broad Head Arrow Ranger Interrupter and a Prot Ogden.

The first area is circled by a few groups of Mahgo Hydras and Flesh Golems. The first ones will often use Glyph of Renewal and then Meteor Shower and another Meteor Shower right after the first one, so you'll have to interrupt it twice, which means you'll have to land two interrupts for each Hydra. With 3 or 4 hydras this is often impossible, that's why you have to land Dazed condition on as many of them as possible as soon as possible and just blast away. Also, since their spells are AoE you can try Inverter on them. The golems will cast some pansy hexes (well, except for Lingering Curse) and then raise bone minions. Don't attack the minions and go straight for the golems, they can't take much damage and die quickly.

Once you've don't that area start moving right and around the island. You'll encounter a lot of bosses on your way so even if you'll die a few times you still should have a Morale Boost on most of your party, which really helps against massive damage over here. Also in this area you'll start encountering Dark Flame Dryders and Drakes. The dryders are necros like golems and also have Lingering Curse but other than that they don't dish out much damage and shouldn't be a problem unless you'll aggro three groups together or something. The drakes will go face to face with you and blast with Point Blank AoE for a lot of damage, combined with Mark of Rodgort for burning. Inverter works on them pretty well but it's a lot safer to interrupt them since they'll usually run to soft targets.

The western area has a Ether Seal and a few Jade Bows and Armors. Since there's only a few of them it's possible to to kill them even without infused armor, but i don't recommend that without very good monks. To the south of them there's a lot of Phantoms, alone or in small groups they're annoying at most(especially for Warriors/Rangers with Signet of Midnight but over here there's a fair anount of them so pull carefully or you'll get interrupted to death. There also might be a wurm here, does a lot of damage but blinded he's not a problem at all. Further to the west there's just more drakes and Breeze Keepers annoying just like phantoms but with Migraine instead.

If you want you can try and give each member Elemental Resistance or Mantra of Flame for reduced damage and energy gain although it will only work on some enemies and getting hit by Meteor Shower to gain energy is not the best idea. You can also try Greater Conflagration/Winter combo, and use Spinal Shivers on top of that.

Shing Jea Island
Saoshang Trail First Canthan area that i've vanquished. It's very short, with few foes. Start from Seitung Harbor, you'll get six people in a party. This is important, because although few, enemies at this area put up a decent fight.

The proper build for this area is essential. Don't bother with bringing aoe nukers or DD's, and focus on anti-caster hexing instead. i've brought myself as a hexer/interrupter, Livia as a Spiteful Spirit/degen hexer with enchantment removal, two good monks, a fire ele and something else i can't quite remember. there's not much more to say about this area except that almost everyone and their mother are monks and you have two ways of defeating them: Nuke one to oblivion, hopefully dealing more damage that they can heal, or hex everything you can see. The second option seems to be quite more efficient, with an ele nuker finishing them off. Also, thread lightly, enemies like to appear out of nowhere in this area.