User:Quizzical/Prophecies Hard

The Great Northern Wall
Difficulty: ***

Early on, there are some pairs of grawls that run back and forth. Don't chase them when they run away, as they'll come right back, but if you follow them, you could end up fighting three groups at once.

Well into the mission are some gargoyles fighting three grawl. Either side could win here. Stay out of it a while and if a grawl dies, they'll all die soon, so start killing gargoyles. If a few gargoyles die and no grawls are dead, the grawls are going to win, and can be a pain to kill with three of them healing each other with heal area, so focus fire on a grawl to help the gargoyles kill one.

Skip the cut scene to get a head start on the charr, and run away. Don't stop to fight the devourers on the way, but just run past them, even though they'll follow and attack you for a while. You need them to survive and eventually turn around and go fight the charr, to detain the charr. If things get really bad, you can have one character stop to fight the charr and slow them down while everyone else keeps running.

Fort Ranik
Difficulty: *****

One healer is not enough for this mission. You can get by with one monk and one paragon or ritualist or whatever that is only halfway a healer. It's also good for a monk to bring some divine favor healing, so that he can still heal a bit if power blocked.

Charr necromancers have some fairly nasty hexes, so you'll either need to bring massive healing or quite a bit of hex removal to counter them. Expel hexes works nicely.

When you start, there will be some charr fighting some NPCs a little up the path. Stay back from them, as a different group of three charr will come attack you, and you don't want to fight more than one group at a time. There is another group of two charr nearby, but they'll leave you alone if you leave them alone. It isn't necessary to save Saberlin for the bonus.

The path splits when that first battle is done. Go left rather than right, as it's easier to pull one group at a time from that side out of the next mess.

After that is done, the path is clear for quite a while. If you go up a ways, you'll see group of three charr including a boss come charging down the path at you. Not long after that, another group of three charr will follow. The two groups aren't linked, but they run quite far. If you have some NPC allies with you, you can take both groups at once, but if not, you'll want to only fight one group at a time. Pull the first group way back, as in, further back than where you fought the previous battle.

Charr mesmers have power block, and if they power block your monk's healing prayers, you might then have no healer for 15 seconds or so. You can sometimes bait them into wasting it by having someone pull and use a nice long cast in an otherwise lightly used attribute. A dervish using watchful intervention works nicely, for example.

Charr monks have shield of judgement. If you can't remove enchantments, just switch to a different target if you're getting knocked down by it.

Fight on for a while until you kill the next boss. There will be three charr up on a ledge where you can't melee them. Have group members with ranged attacks shoot them while the rest of the group stays out of range, and the attackers can back off if they take too much damage or the healers get low on energy.

When you move forward a bit further, three charr come running up the alley at you. Pull them back, so as not to get attacked by the group behind them at the same time.

If you have some casters with non-projectile attacks, you can attack the next group of charr up on a ledge pretty safely from below the bridge. If not, there's room on the other side to run past them out of range without running into another group.

When you get to the bonus, you want to pull the two overseers apart so that they don't heal each other with heal area. Run up to them, run away until one or both moves, and run back, and see where they end up. If they're too close, then repeat until they're far enough apart; they don't have to be very far apart to be unable to heal each other. You can stand between them and they'll heal you, too.

Just north of where you turn off to do the bonus, a group of three charr including a boss will come up the alley at you. Stay back and wait for them, so that you don't fight an extra group at the same time.

After clearing the boss group, hug the right wall as you go around and up to the mobs that will attack you from above as you run up the alley. This will get them to mostly shoot the ground while you get by in relative safety.

Ruins of Surmia
Difficulty: ****

Early on, you fight devourers for a while, and a lot of the groups pop up out of the ground. Several pop up groups are not far in front of a group that is visible from the start, so advance carefully and pull the pop ups back to avoid fighting two groups at once. When you have to go up some stairs to a ledge in front of additional stairs, there are two pop up groups of devourers on that ledge, so pull carefully.

Rurik can be a pain and not like to let you pull mobs. If you have multiple players in the group, Rurik likes to follow whoever is moving, so you can have someone stay back and move back and forth to keep Rurik back while someone else pulls.

After you kill the first boss, you fight mostly charr for the rest of the instance. Rurik gets aggressive and likes to run ahead in some parts, so you'll have to keep up with him. Once you get to the bridge, leave Rurik there until you've cleared as much as you can on the other side.

For the bonus, wait until the charr ember bearers open the gate as in easy mode. They usually stop at the gate and wait to be pulled, but not always, so do pull them promptly after they open the gate, so as to keep the shamans on the other side out of it.

The charr flame keepers all have meteor shower. You can run around near them and often get them to waste it, before having the rest of the group move in.

Once you get to the lever on the other side of the bridge, don't touch it until the charr have been cleared. If you let Rurik across too soon, he sees a group of 12 charr on the other side, observes that that is a huge group and if you take them all on at once, you'll die. Rurik then proceeds to charge right into them and die because he is an idiot.

The group of 12 charr is the only part past the bridge that is hard to clear. It is 6 or so separate groups of 1-3 linked charr. It is not at all obvious which charr are linked, so if you try to pull two charr, you likely pull two groups. The shaman is linked to two martyrs. Pull carefully, trying to pull only one charr at a time, so as to get only one group.

If someone in your group lets Rurik across the bridge too soon, the situation is still salvageable. Rurik will partially follow whoever is moving, so you can have one person run in circles to get Rurik to stay back, while another goes ahead and pulls one group of charr at a time.

Nolani Academy
Difficulty: ****

It is often easier to shoot some of the charr guarding the gate from above, rather than later to try to get them from below.

At the bonus area, there are some pop up groups of devourers up above near the path through the spirits of the fallen that you take. You don't want to fight both of those at once, obviously, so clear the devourers up top before taking on the spirits of the fallen.

Devourers are hostile to spirits of the fallen, so a pop up group of devourers can aggro spirits of the fallen, which run around and attack. If this happens, run away and the spirits of the fallen will go kill the devourers.

Spirits of the fallen come in pairs that do not move and in groups of three linked mobs. They take double holy damage, so a dervish with avatar of balthazar helps immensely. They have skull crack, and if they get your healer with that, it could easily be a wipe, so it is important to keep healers out of the way.

Once you get to the charr siege force, kill the rangers up on the ledge first. Sometimes they'll trade hits with you, and sometimes they'll run around. If they run around to get off the ledge, let them, but don't chase, as you'll run into another group. Don't let pets or heroes chase, either.

After clearing the groups of rangers and warriors, head west up the path that the lost soldiers came down from. Kill a group of rangers up there, and then you can shoot at an elementalist and some warriors from above. They often separate and run up the long ramp to get you, but not all at once, which makes things much easier.

After this, it's time to clear the boss group. The boss fight isn't hard, but be aware that occasionally when the group dies, the doors open prematurely and the remaining group of charr rushes in to try to kill Rurik. They have to go through a couple other NPCs to get to Rurik, so you have plenty of time to save him, but be ready to rush in if you need to. Usually the doors don't open until all the besieging charr are dead.

After the cut scene, Rurik turns left. If you go with him, it seems easy for a while, but eventually he is likely to run into a large group of charr and die. Instead, the way to protect him is to ignore him and run right, going west then south. Go kill Bonfaaz Burntfur, the end boss of the mission, before Rurik can get himself killed, and you win the mission. There will be some NPCs fighting some charr along the way; just run past them without stopping to fight.

Borlis Pass
Difficulty: ***

The first boss comes with a typical group, in addition to the boss. Kill the shiverpeak protector first, or it can keep the rest alive long enough to cause trouble. None of the bosses that could spawn here are much trouble.

After blowing up the gate, head west before you head south, and approach the group south of the blown up gate from the west. There are two roamer groups in the area, and this lets you readily kill one by itself. Dolyak riders are potent healers, but readily destroyed if you can interrupt mark of protection, which is made easy by dazing them.

The next boss to the south has a roamer group nearby. If you want for the roamers to come well in front of the boss, you can pull and kill the roamers by themselves.

For the bonus, take your time and wait for energy regeneration between pulls. Health degeneration can be sneaky in eating up your healers’ energy.

There is quite a mass of mobs just before the fort Rurik is in. The ice golems aren’t very strong, so you can handle two groups at a time, but perhaps not three. It can sometimes be good to leave an engineer for last, so that you can get a morale boost in case someone dies.

After a couple pulls in the end sequence, there are a couple dolyak rider groups, one of which wanders, and one of which stays put. The roamer group comes well in front of the stationary group, making it easy to pull by itself if you wait for it. The dwarf allies won’t wait, though, and often end up fighting both groups at once. It’s better to stay out of that and just let them die.

The Frost Gate
Mission difficulty: ****

Bonus difficulty: *****

The bonus can be quite hard, so you’ll have to pick your group setup mainly with the bonus in mind. There are two groups of stone summit guarding the broken ballista, each of which have two dolyak riders and three warriors. If you focus fire on a dolyak rider, the two can take turns casting mark of protection and shielding hands on your target, and keep those enchantments on your target the substantial majority of the time. Mark of protection gets cast too fast for humans to reliably interrupt, but heroes can sometimes get it. If you daze a dolyak rider, interrupting it is much easier. The dolyak riders have hex removal, so don’t rely on hexes to kill them.

Industrial strength enchantment removal such as assault enchantments or avatar of Grenth can keep the key enchantments off of your target. Lesser enchantment removal skills can help some if a human uses them to clear mark of protection. Heroes aren’t terribly smart about using them, though, and tend to remove shielding hands rather than mark of protection.

Whatever you do, it’s going to take a while to kill the dolyak riders, though, and in the meantime, the three warriors tend to all focus on the same target and try to spike it to dead. The key is to limit the damage they do, with blocking, weakness, blind, and AoE attacks that scatter the mobs. An earth elementalist with ward against melee, ward of weakness, eruption, and other AoE can do all of this by himself. An elementalist hero can handle this reasonably well if you lock his target on one of the warriors, so that he doesn’t end up wasting his skills on the dolyak riders.

Having minions and pets to get in the way can help somewhat, but minions tend to get spiked to dead by the warriors pretty fast. The location of the bonus and the time it takes to pull it properly makes it difficult to get a sizeable minion army up when you get there.

For the mission itself, there are a lot of roamer groups, so it takes a lot of careful pulling. After you clear the first group of minotaurs, come up to about 2 aggro bubble radii from the next group and stop, and four minotaurs will come charging at you from behind the two you see. Shortly after that, you get to five minotaurs, three stone summit, and an ice golem. The minotaurs are hostile to the others, so if you wait a bit, they’ll fight and mostly kill each other.

When dealing with the ice golems and stone summit groups, before you pull a stationary group, look to see if anything behind it is moving. If so, it’s going to come up in front of the stationary group, so you can wait a bit and pull the roamer group by itself, rather than getting hit it while you fight the stationary group.

In the ice cave, take your time on frostfire dryders, as their health degen can drain healers’ energy. Starting a battle while the healers lack energy can lead to deaths or a wipe. Clear the dryders, but don’t talk to the dwarf yet, until you clear the way to the ballista.

Once you get to the area with the broken ballista, you have to pull the two groups far apart. If they’re kind of close when you try to fight them, the dolyak riders may move up to heal the front group, and then you end up fighting both groups at once. Unless you see it and run away promptly, that’s a certain wipe. Flag the henchmen way back, so that you have to pull the mobs well up a hill after going through the low point of the path. This also lets your ranged damage dealers have an elevation advantage. The mobs move at about the same speed you do if you have no speed boost, making it easy to pull them as far as you need.

Leave the engineers to the east of the bonus until after you’ve cleared the way to the ballista, unless you need a morale boost to recharge rez signets. Having a free morale boost there can help greatly.

Clear the area in front of the door that you shoot down before you use the ballista. Mobs from behind the door are hostile to at least some mobs in front of it, but if you try to get too many groups to attack each other, they could all end up attacking you instead, and then you die. It’s not that hard to clear the mobs in front of the door when they’re by themselves.

After blasting the door down, go near it and two groups of stone summit will run into the door area. Go back to the ballista and you can use it to kill the groups in the door. It takes about ten shots to kill them all.

For the three lever mechanisms at the end, the first one you activate opens a gate for mobs to come from the south. The second opens an analogous gate for mobs to come from the west. The third starts an invisible 60 second timer, and when that ends, you win the mission. The order in which you use the lever mechanisms doesn’t matter for these mechanics.

When you open a gate with mobs behind it, a group of three mobs (often including a boss) will come through it to attack you, then after a bit of a pause, two more mobs come. There is a longer pause, then two more mobs, and another small group or two after additional short pauses. The longer pause after the second group is enough for you to trigger one lever, kill the first two groups, then go trigger the other two levers and easily be able to survive the remaining 60 seconds. If the battle is going really badly after you’ve used all three lever mechanisms, you can survive by simply running away.

Gates of Kryta
Difficulty: **

Most of the mobs in this mission are undead, so they take double damage from holy damage. Dervishes with avatar of Balthazar work great. Any other martial weapon users should take a dervish secondary profession with heart of holy flame. Even at 0 mysticism, this converts all attacks to holy damage for 30 seconds. With martial weapon users hitting for about 100 damage on average, you’ll have enough DPS to breeze through most of the mission.

When you get to Justiciar Hablion, don’t talk to him. Unlike in easy mode, he’s lower level than the mobs this time, and has a tendency to leave his allies behind when he goes to fight, sometimes getting himself killed. Rather, go past him to the north and clear two masses of mobs. The first is four or so separate linked groups which are readily pulled one or two groups at a time, even without actually “pulling” them. The second is groups that start separate, but run to each other when players come near. They aren’t triggered to move when heroes come near, so you can flag heroes way ahead of your group to come near the group that moves and pull it, and the players can catch up as quickly as they can. This makes the fight far more manageable.

D'Alessio Seaboard
Difficulty: ***

All mobs except in some easy areas at the end of the mission are undead, and hence take double damage from holy damage sources. As with Gates of Kryta, having martial weapon users bring heart of holy flame helps immensely.

When you get to Hakewood, Benji will be attacked by a boss. Nizza the Sickle and Kemal the Deadened can kill Benji, so you’ll have to rush over to save him. Benji can survive indefinitely against any other boss. As soon as you save Benji, talk to him to get the bonus.

When you reach the gate to unlock to get out of the part where the offering to Melandru is, have all players stop at the gate, while you flag henchmen and heroes ahead. There will be a group of four grasping ghouls and a group of three. The group of four always spawns in the same spot, and flagging heroes ahead lets them get a head start on killing the four (which aren’t much danger to your group) before the three spawn when players arrive. If the three spawn on your side of the white mantle knight in the area, they’ll go kill him, which delays them getting to Dorian. If they spawn on Dorian’s side, they’ll go straight for Dorian, and he can survive a while, but you’ll have to hurry to get to him to help out.

Once you get to Dorian, mobs start spawning to come attack him from two directions. Three mobs come at a time. Skeleton monks have unyielding aura, a quasi-rez that can be a major nuisance if you don’t kill them promptly. The bigger danger, though, is that someone will run off and grab additional groups before they were supposed to come. Flag heroes at the shrine of mending, and make sure all players stay near it, too.

After you kill the second boss at the shrine of mending, Dorian indicates that it’s now safe, but he’s wrong. One more group will come try to kill him, a couple minutes later. You can wait for it, to head east to kill it on the way. Once that group is dead, then Dorian is finally safe, and you can proceed with the bonus.

Divinity Coast
Mission difficulty: **

Bonus difficulty: ****

Once you get a villager, you’ll have to be careful about pulling, as if you run away, the villagers won’t, and they can die. For all villagers after the first, mobs near a villager can start attacking once a player comes near the edge of radar range. Heroes coming closer does not trigger mobs to start attacking, so you can flag henchmen and heroes way ahead of your group and have them standing right next to the villager when mobs start attacking.

You may have to manually tell a healer hero to heal the villager to keep him alive. The only mobs that can attack villagers at their spawn points are warriors, so anti-melee skills can help immensely. An earth elementalist hero with ward against melee, ward of weakness, and eruption can help a lot. The warriors come in groups of three.

The second villager will be attacked by one group of tengu as soon as you come in range. The third villager may be safe, but will often be attacked by one group of tengu, and occasionally two groups. Sometimes there is also a group of tengu in front of the villager. If you have three heroes and two henchmen, including two healers and an earth elementalist, they can handle a group of tengu warriors on their own, so you can flag them ahead and let them fight. If there are multiple players in the group, you can still flag them ahead, but you’ll have to join in the fight.

When you reach the fork in the road, go west rather than south. You can try to save a merchant by flagging heroes ahead if you like, which gets you a morale boost and some practice, but nothing more. From the spot where the merchant spawns, to the west will be another merchant just inside radar range, and he will be attacked by three tengu and quickly die. Further west, just outside of radar range, will be another merchant and three tengu who will attack him when you come close. Just west of him will be a villager, who won’t initially be under attack, but once the second group of tengu kills its merchant, they’ll proceed to the villager.

If you’re alone, you may be able to clear the first group of tengu by flagging heroes and henchmen ahead to let them kill it, and make this part easy. If not, flag whatever heroes you have ahead, but once they come under attack, you’ll have to run up to help out. Go after the back group of tengu to save the villagers, but help with the front group of tengu, too, as they can kill the villagers you’ve already saved. This fight gets chaotic, and you may take some deaths, but it is manageable.

By the second merchant is a path south to the final villager. The last villager usually is not under attack, but if it is, it will be from ettins, which can kill faster than tengu. It’s safer to flag heroes ahead just in case.

The Wilds
Difficulty: ****

At the start, a combination of pop-up groups and groups that wander long distances can make the pulling tricky. Moss scarabs can produce armor-ignoring damage spikes, while life pods can knockdown (and hence interrupt) and do significant damage, in addition to healing. Pulling one group at a time is critical to avoid getting overwhelmed.

Killing each of the first three entangling roots also causes additional mobs to pop up in the area. Clear the other mobs that are already up with the entangling roots before killing the entangling roots, to avoid being overwhelmed.

After killing the first entangling roots is an intersection where to which three moss scarab groups will run, and two life pods often pop up near the middle of that area. Run around in the area while the moss scarabs are away to see if the life pods will pop up, and if so, pull them separately. After that, pull one group of moss scarabs at a time before moving on.

After killing the entangling roots on the way to the bonus, there is a group of moss scarabs around a corner after you turn west. Don't run up to them, as another group will pop up in front of them. Yet another group wanders long distances and will come in front of the group that you may see first. These other two groups should be cleared before you pull the group that you see first.

The centaurs guarding the bonus area can be tricky to pull, too, with eight groups, six of which wander along paths that overlap a good deal. Immediately after the cut scene, one group will charge at you, and is easy to clear alone. When you get to the next fork in the road, you want to wait in that area for two more groups to come, one at a time. If you move north on the right fork, flag henchmen and heroes back and run up to the next fork to make a group that is way back start moving. The first group that comes to you will come to this second fork in the road and turn aside, while another group will come further south. You need to keep out of the way of the first group until after you clear the latter group.

If you go back to the first fork in the road in the centaur area and go left instead, you'll get to a group of centaurs just standing there and not moving. Another roamer group comes, so wait for the roamer group to come to the first group and leave, and then you'll have plenty of time to kill the stationary group. Go kill that last roamer group, and the rest of the centaurs are only groups that don't wander much.

At the bonus area, there are two bosses for the bonus, and two other bosses right there that you don't need to kill. You may wish to leave one or both of the latter in case you need a morale boost later, but once you're through the bonus, the rest of the mission is fairly easy.

Bloodstone Fen
Mission difficulty: **

Bonus difficulty: ***

The bulk of the mission is pretty easy using pretty standard easy mode tactics. The thorn stalkers use mist form, which can be annoying, but not terribly dangerous.

For the bonus, you'll need to run vine seeds around without killing the jungle guardians. The jungle guardians have barbed trap, so don't come too near them or you won't be able to run past very well. Set heroes to avoid combat while running past guardians, and use flags liberally to guide henchmen and heroes on a particular path well wide of the jungle guardians. Be aware that pets, minions, and spirits can still kill jungle guardians even if a hero is set to avoid combat, so it may also be necessary to disable some skills. You will need to set at least some heroes back to guard to kill the moss scarabs that pop up.

The first druid sometimes often gets stuck on the first jungle guardians. Running around and getting the jungle guardians to move often frees it, but it may also help to kill the spirit of primal echoes.

The next two druids can be reached without having to carry a vine seed past any more jungle guardians. The one at the east can be reached by going under the log bridge you crossed to reach the vine seed flowers in the bonus area.

The north druid is the hardest to reach. Long range heals from spirits or heal party can help, as can self healing and running skills. You'll have to flag any henchmen far away from the jungle guardians, as they can find creative ways to kill the jungle guardians. Heroes can be closer if set to avoid combat. If you have multiple players, then if your runner dies after placing the vine seed, the rest of the group can stay back and complete the bonus, to make the jungle guardians turn friendly before going out to rez.

At the bloodstone, two groups will come to the edge of the bloodstone (as approached from two different paths), to be easily cleared before taking on the boss.

Aurora Glade
Difficulty: ****

Be careful about getting Less Longbow killed for the bonus. When you get close to him, he'll sometimes engage with two white mantle, in which case, if you stay near radar range, the white mantle won't attack, and he'll slowly kill them.

The easy mode tactics for the crystal attuning area almost work in hard mode. The mobs run faster, so it helps if your runner has a movement speed skill, but it isn't entirely necessary.

The big problem is that there are three abbots, which are now pretty potent healers. Their healing and defensive skills are almost entirely enchantments, so heavy enchantment removal can greatly diminish their healing. However, if two or three abbots come up to heal, in addition to a group, it can take quite a while to wear them down. If the next group reaches the party defending the northwest capture point before the previous group is dead, it can be big trouble.

The abbots can often be prevented from coming prematurely if the party will stay way back at the northwest capture point, instead of coming out further to attack. This doesn't always work, but when it does, it makes the mission pretty easy.

More importantly, the crystal runner can buy the group at the northwest capture point more time to kill a group. Rather than waiting until the white mantle gets close to the northwest capture point to claim the northeast one, grab it while they are still far away. The white mantle runner will then take the northeast capture point, and his convoy will see no one there to fight, and head back to the white mantle base, along with their runner. Do this as many times as necessary until the rest of the party can kill the previous group at the northwest capture point, and then revert to the usual tactics to funnel one group to the rest of the party at a time.

Riverside Province
Difficulty: ***

This mission actually plays out very similar in hard mode to how it goes in easy mode. Even running away when you pull too many isn't much of a problem, as in spite of the hard mode speed boost that mobs get, they still won't run very far from their tower.

If you have multiple players, it is important to coordinate running away so that either the whole group runs away or else no one does. If only part of the group runs away, the rest die. It can work to set a standard rule of, if more than four mobs come, everyone runs away.

Sanctum Cay
Difficulty: *****

Inferno imps have Rodgort's invocation, which can destroy a group quickly if you bunch up as henchmen like to do. The imps are less inclined to use this skill if a player runs well ahead, so that at any given time, most of them only see one character within their aggro bubble range.

The lightning drakes can be pretty devastating air spike elementalists, too. There are three groups of two or three, and if you pull more than one group at a time, you're likely going to take deaths if not a full wipe. One group heads onto the shore a ways to easily be pulled separately from the other two. Sometimes the other two groups separate a good bit, and sometimes they stay very close together. In the latter case, you can sneak past them and get the scepter to the restless spirit as necessary for the bonus.

There are a lot of undead in this mission, but they're mostly pretty easy, so it's not worth bringing a bunch of holy damage. The exception is the last fight, where you fight a bone dragon boss and three other undead immediately after crossing some poisoned ground. Get everyone out of the poison, and try to spread out a bit so as to not all be interrupted by choking gas.

After the cut scene, you fight a lot of white mantle with some undead allies that die pretty quickly, as well as a white mantle boss. There's a group of three white mantle after this, and then a group of five. You can avoid the group of five by going into the northwest corner, and the five will walk past, and then stop--and will not come back to hit you from behind.

When you get to the dock, the hard part starts. If there are multiple players, be sure to discuss strategy before getting there to make mobs start coming.

If you only want the bonus, then make sure everyone (including henchmen and heroes) stays far away from the dock. Head south with with your party, and get out of the way of the first two white mantle, to let them run right by you. You may have to kill a group of three, but then can take the restless spirit where it wants to go and complete the bonus.

If you only want the mission, then run to the dock quickly to make Vizier Khilbron spawn, and start his (invisible) three minute timer for the boat to arrive. Kill the white mantle that come as quickly as you can. It can help to bring a stance removal skill to end dryder's defenses. Either interrupt searing heat or get out of the way of it (and use flags to get henchmen and heroes out of the way, too). After a bit, whichever white mantle boss you haven't fought so far will also come. If the monk, be aware that it has restore life, and interrupt it. When the boat arrives, jump on, and you're done.

If you want to do both the mission and bonus in the same run, it's doable, but harder. Avoid the dock initially while heading south, as if you were going to do the bonus only. Try to intercept the pairs of white mantle that come running from the south, and kill the group of three that is in your way from that side, too. Once five white mantle come at once, that is the last that are going to come, so once you have killed those, you can go finish the bonus.

When you head back to the dock, there will be 16 white mantle standing there, including whichever white mantle boss you haven't yet faced in the mission. The white mantle are in six separate linked groups, but because they all stand in the same spot, if you pull one, you likely bring them all. There is also a pair of white mantle who wander along the beach, but don't stand on the dock. Kill them separately.

Flag most of the group way back, except for a puller with a flatbow or longbow. Head to the north of the dock, on the beach, select a target on the dock, and use the bow. If in the right direction, you'll run toward the dock, graze against a small ledge, and fire at something on the dock. Turn and run to get back to the rest of your group. While running away, be careful not to come too close to the dock, or else the vizier will spawn and die almost immediately, resulting in mission failure.

If no mobs from the dock follow you, return and try again. If some (or all) do, then run away and get back to your group. It helps to have a skill that boosts your running speed, as if you don't, the mobs will catch you. The warriors can chain knockdown, so if they catch you, you're not going to move significantly before you die. A ritualist can buy some extra time for the puller by setting up a long lasting spirit on the path, so that mobs will stop to attack the spirit.

The mobs will chase you for a while, but won't chase forever. Once you get out of range, they'll cut off the chase and run back toward the dock slightly, but not very far. If the monk boss was killed earlier in the mission, you can slowly kill the mobs with health degeneration hexes or conditions, as the mobs will have no healing skills. If the monk boss is alive and came in a pull, it will be harder, but you can still spike down mobs one at a time while being careful not to pull very many. If one player stands close enough, they sometimes stay to attack that one player, rather than running away.

Once you kill however many mobs came, if there are more still on the dock, return and repeat the process. Once the dock is clear, you can run up there to make Vizier Khilbron spawn. No more white mantle will come attack, so you only have to wait three minutes to complete the mission.

Dunes of Despair
Mission difficulty: **

Bonus difficulty: *****

The bonus difficulty is awkward to rate, because it depends largely on whether you can get something to pop up to make the necrotic traversal method work. If so, it is actually pretty easy. If not, it is among the game's most difficult challenges.

The key is to bring very heavy armor-ignoring damage. If you have the bad fortune to draw the monk boss, it helps to be able to daze it.

A mesmer hero can solo a siege wurm in under a minute if given wastrel's worry, power drain, and leech signet. When a siege wurm pops up, flag the hero within range of it, lock the siege wurm as his target, and set him to "fight", rather than guard or avoid combat. Test the hero's build at the first siege wurm by the second bridge to see if he wastes energy on other, unnecessary skills. During the siege, you may have to temporarily disable some other skills while the hero kills siege wurms to prevent him from wasting energy.

If you only want the mission, it's pretty easy: run around killing everything in the siege as it pops up. You can leave a mesmer hero to solo a siege wurm as needed while the rest of the group goes elsewhere.

If you want to do the bonus, the necrotic traversal method is the easy way. If you wish to complete the mission after doing the bonus, then when you get to Goss Aleessh, head east and clear any jade scarabs that pop up to the east. Kill the two enchanted that come with Goss, but pull the boss itself to the east, and kill it right against the wall near the end of the yellow path. Do not exploit the corpse, but leave it so that you can warp back across the wall here later. You can then use Goss Aleessh's corpse to warp back to the other side of the fort walls, and proceed to do the mission.

If you want to do the bonus but don't have the good fortune for a mob to pop up where you can use the necrotic traversal method, it takes a very strong group, but it is possible.

After you start the siege, wait by the ghostly hero for a while. Kill the first three groups of forgotten that come, then head east a bit to kill the fourth group. The first siege wurm will pop up to the east at about this time, so send the mesmer hero over to kill it. Have the rest of the party head to the south gate to kill the two enchanted there, and then to the west gate. You can tell when the hero has killed the siege wurm from his hero panel by when he is no longer locked onto a target. Unflag the hero to join the rest of the group when that happens.

The next siege wurm will pop up at the east gate while you wait for the boss group to come, so kill it promptly, and then kill the boss group when it arrives. If the boss dies with significantly less than 5 minutes left, you're taking too long and probably can't get the bonus, so you may wish to just stop and stay by the ghostly hero to at least get credit for the mission.

Otherwise, the group should head to the south gate. Jade scarabs die relatively easily, but can be a major nuisance if left up, so killing them is your top priority. Kill the siege wurm when it spawns there at 5:00, as well as any jade scarabs that pop up, and then kill the first general's group. When the general is nearly dead, one player or hero should head to the spawn point of the group of forgotten that spawns west of the compound when the general's group dies. Attract their attention to keep them from running off to attack the ghostly hero, and the rest of the group can join in and help kill them.

Next, head to the southeast general inside the compound and kill his group. If any jade scarabs pop up on the way, kill them first. If you have a lot of time left, you can have one player or hero go back near the south gate to the main fort once the second general is nearly dead, and attract the attention of the forgotten on the way to enter the fort through that gate. The rest of the group can join the battle as soon as the general dies. The party can then go kill the third general's group to complete the bonus, and then head back to the ghostly hero to save him from the final group of forgotten.

If you are short on time while fighting the second general, then have the whole group stay to fight him and ignore the extra group that spawns when he dies. Instead, have the entire party go kill the third general's group to complete the bonus. The mission will end before the group that spawns with the second general's death can kill the ghostly hero.

Thirsty River
Difficulty: *****

The rockshot devourers early in the mission have barrage, so spread out when fighting them. Also beware of their traps. Don't bring a melee henchmen, as they get too aggressive and aggro extra groups. A hero on guard rather than fight is acceptable.

It helps immensely to be able to daze the enemy priest when trying to kill it, so that it cannot spam word of healing on itself. Broad head arrow works well, but be aware that a couple enemy priests are near a ranger with throw dirt. A ranger hero with broad head arrow can also bring antidote signet to cure this himself.

You may have to flag heroes not that far from the enemy priest. Merely calling a target can lead to heroes shooting at a wall, or stopping short of the enemy priest because they come in range of something else and attack it first.

For the bonus, you'll have to rush in quickly save King Khimaar. You may sometimes have to manually have heroes heal him, though this generally isn't necessary if you're quick enough in getting there.

For the monk boss, it helps to lock a mesmer hero with several interrupts onto the boss while the rest of the group kills the enemy priest. This will mostly prevent the boss from healing the enemy priest. A player can't necessarily fill this role, as players don't have fast enough reflexes to interrupt the quick casts of hard mode apart from dumb luck.

For the ranger boss, one of the groups won't come out of the compound on its own. You can get them to come out if you cast a line of sight ignoring spell through the wall when they wander a little north of the boss. Run away a bit to get them to follow you outside. The boss should stay put if you do it right.

Elona Reach
Difficulty: ****

Pull the big group of minotaurs early on, as several more minotaurs wander back and forth in the area and will join in the fight if you don't.

There are two types of difficult groups after the cut scene, and several copies of each such group. One such group has a sage, cursebearer, and two enchanted swords or hammers. The sage is an extremely potent healer, so it's difficult to kill other mobs without first killing the sage. It helps to be able to daze the sage so it can't heal itself. The rest of the group can deal considerable damage, so it helps to bring some anti-melee skills to dampen their damage output while the group mostly focuses on the sage.

The other potentially difficult type of group is a sage and two arcanists. Again, the group must focus on and kill the sage first. The arcanists have earthquake, so it can help to spread out or have one character watch arcanists and interrupt earthquake.

Two groups patrol similar paths just west of the ghostly hero. It helps to pull the first away from their patrol path and into the fort, so that you don't get attacked by the second group at the same time.

The group slightly south of the west bonus priest location is close enough to another group with a sage that the other sage will sometimes come up to heal, even if you don't pull the other group. It helps to pull the former group away from its location to prevent this.

The monk boss will not heal other groups that are out before you pick up a crystal, but it may move over to heal the extra mobs that are released when you pick up a crystal.

Augury Rock
Warrior difficulty: **

Ranger difficulty: *

Necromancer difficulty: *

Elementalist difficulty: **

Monk difficulty: *****

Mesmer difficulty: *

Assassin difficulty: ****

Ritualist difficulty: *

Dervish difficulty: *

Paragon difficulty: ***

A warrior, necromancer, mesmer, or ritualist can easily defeat the doppleganger with skills that do damage to an attacking foe. Don't attack to avoid taking the damage yourself.

A ranger can win with pet skills, since the doppleganger has no pet.

A dervish can use ebon dust aura and an ebon scythe to permanently blind the doppleganger. The doppleganger has no ebon scythe.

A paragon can bring many spear attacks, and then get into melee range so that the doppleganger will switch to its axe and be unable to use the spear attacks.

An assassin can bring black lotus strike, golden lotus strike, golden fang strike, death blossom, shadow walk, shadow of haste, smoke powder defense, and flashing blades. Put attribute points into dagger mastery and critical strikes, and ignore shadow arts. When the battle starts, use flashing blades, and then, in order, black lotus strike, golden fang strike, death blossom, golden lotus strike, golden fang strike, and death blossom again. The doppelganger will often prefer one of the other stances rather than flashing blades, or end flashing blades by using one of the other stances soon after casting it. This lets you block most of the doppelganger's attacks while it cannot block yours. Note that both you and the doppelganger are permanently enchanted by a mission effect, so golden fang strike will cause a deep wound.

An elementalist can bring mark of rodgort, conjure flame, kinetic armor, stone daggers, and nothing else. Put all of your attribute points into fire and earth magic; energy storage doesn't matter. Bring a fire wand or staff. Cast conjure flame and then kinetic armor just before entering. Cast mark of rodgort immediately when the battle starts, then use your staff or wand to attack. Cast stone daggers often enough to keep kinetic armor up. You'll do damage mainly with conjure flame and the burning from mark of rodgort, both of which ignore armor and neither of which the Doppelganger can use, and the very high armor from kinetic armor will prevent the Doppelganger's attacks from hurting you very badly.

As a monk, use retribution, shield of judgment, scourge enchantment, and restful breeze. Cast retribution before the battle and leave it up for the entire battle. Use shield of judgment as often as the cooldown allows. Use scourge enchantment often enough to keep it on doppelganger constantly, as this will ensure that even with the divine favor healing, doppelganger's casts give it roughly no net healing. Keep restful breeze on yourself most of the time, and do not attack, as this will end restful breeze. Retribution and shield of judgment do enough damage to kill doppelganger in well under 2 minutes.

The Dragon's Lair
Difficulty: **

For the third facet, mobs have interrupts, enchantment removal, energy denial, and substantial damage outputs. They're quite manageable if you only pull one group at a time, but this may require flagging heroes and henchmen back repeatedly.

For the fifth facet, it helps immensely to bring ward of elements. Some interrupts for earthquake can help, as well. You may have to pull mobs through the damage wards at some points to only pull one group at a time.

For the sixth facet, you can avoid fighting all groups of five mobs except for the second one. The crystal guardian is the most dangerous mob in that group.

Glint is a pushover if you have shadowsong.

Ice Caves of Sorrow
Difficulty: ***

Heroes are infused, but henchmen are not, so be flag back uninfused characters when fighting Jade and Mursaat, especially for the bonus.

It can be helpful to leave the first white mantle engineer you come across alone, so that a free morale boost is available if you need it later.

Once you get past the branch off to go do the bonus, avoid fighting the white mantle savants and sycophants. The groups along the normal route wander clockwise in circles, and will get out of your way if you wait for them. Two groups with identical routes usually patrol on top of each other by the powder keg station, and fighting both at once can be truly deadly.

At the end, Mursaat move faster, and thus usually don't all get killed by the catapults. If you attack them before they reach the end of their route, they come in linked groups of six, which can be rough even if your entire party is infused, as Evennia isn't. Once they reach the end of their scripted route, they come unlinked and wander randomly. If you wait long enough, they will wander into range of the final catapult and die. You can also pull and kill one or two at a time. They are hostile to most stone summit along their route, but not the boss group at the end of their scripted route.

Iron Mines of Moladune
Difficulty: **

White mantle and stone summit are still hostile to each other, but will sometimes break off to attack you if you try to run past. Wait for them to mostly kill each other off before attacking.

White mantle are much stronger now, so unlike in easy mode, it is important to pull and kill only one group at a time. This requires careful pulling near the first ballista, as well as at a few points on the bonus route.

The mobs at the end out in front of Markis are not linked to him or each other, so you can pull and kill a couple at a time, or blast them through the walls with skills that ignore line of sight. Clear enough that those that remain won't be a problem when you try to run through. Getting Markis plus several other mobs all at once can be trouble.

Thunderhead Keep
Difficulty: ****

Keeping King Ironhammer safe up to the siege is critical. He is as reckless as before, and the mobs you face are stronger.

Be sure to kill some giants outside the fort with a ballista before starting the siege. Likewise, kill the bonus jade as soon as they come, as if you wait, they might aggro on you at a highly inconvenient time later.

White mantle are much stronger now, but most of the siege is still manageable with about the same tactics as in easy mode. It is especially vital not to kill the Mursaat or Jade boss that comes until all other mobs in the fort are dead.

Confessor Dorian's group is sometimes very difficult. He comes with one white mantle priest, and five white mantle that are not priests, chosen at random. Savants and sycophants are the hardest. Sycophants have skills to shut down both casters and martial weapon users. Savants can do massive area damage, so spread out. These two types of mobs and the white mantle priest are the top priorities to kill. The other white mantle are much less troublesome, and Dorian's heal area isn't much of a problem, either. Try to blast Dorian's group with ballistae a few times as they come around the perimeter of the fort, before entering it.

Ring of Fire
Difficulty: ***

The start can be trickier, as the Mursaat that leave to chase Brechnar Ironhammer come back much sooner. Get your group as far to the east as possible and pull mobs to there.

Pull mobs away from ether seals before trying to kill the seal. This is especially important for the pair of seals attached to Mursaat towers just inside the fort that Vizier Khilbron advises you to avoid. The easiest way to breach this area is to head north of the seals and kill the north seal first, after killing everything else that wanders near it.

Abaddon's Mouth
Difficulty: ***

Breaching the fort by having the whole party run into the south corner as soon as the ether seal is killed still works, but the party really does have to go into the corner. You'll have to flag henchmen and heroes, and get players to all go all the way into the corner. Standing in the doorway or making a couple token steps toward the corner before stopping on the ramp will draw two or three additional groups of mobs and quite possibly get you wiped. If grouping with players who aren't terribly bright about tactics, you may have better luck pulling one group at a time out the doorway to kill it, though this wastes the powerful Chimera of Intensity enchantment.

There are at least five groups of mobs that patrol the area around the lava pit on the bonus route. If you're doing the bonus, carefully pull and kill one group at a time. Rushing in will get you wiped.

Leah Stone does not understand the concept of going around locked chests, and chests are far more common in hard mode. Her route tends to be straight lines from one corner to the next to minimize her distance traveled while running, so her route is fairly predictable to see if she's going to get caught on a chest.

The second pair of bosses are most easily attacked from the south. There is another gate further south that you can enter through, which makes it easy to pull and kill the Mursaat behind the bosses without bringing the bosses, too. The south gate sometimes glitches and will not open when you kill the ether seal if there are dryders inside the gate. Let the ether seal kill the dryders and recharge its HP before breaking the seal to avoid this.

Don't rush into the six ether seals at the end, as they're powerful enough to kill you in hard mode, even with Chimera of Intensity. Rather, kill two ether seals and wait until you've killed all six of the Mursaat Guardians that come before killing any more seals. The Seal Guards do minimal damage even in hard mode, so they're the lowest priority target if there are other mobs attacking you.

Hell's Precipice
Difficulty: ****

Load up on as many defensive skills as you can. A water elementalist with ward against harm and maelstrom works well, as do heroes with interrupts. Bring at least three healers, and more if you have trouble. It can help greatly to interrupt the sparks of the titans. In mixed groups, the target priority is sparks, hands/fists, burning titans, bosses, and then ashen hulks. The general tactics are very similar to easy mode.