Talk:Catacombs of Kathandrax

Strategy Advice??
OMG, what a mess this. Djinn like creatures, siege worms and lots of fire traps (blast and ball). So at the end, as I am fighting this beast, I keep getting some sort of fire bomb. 'Course, I couldn't attack with it in my hand, so I drops it and keeps fighting. I was in H&H micro-manage mode trying to keep them from getting the bowling pin treatmet. So, if anyone knows, was I supposed to be dropping the bombettes next to the boss? Was there really a way to kill the double extended-range siege wurms in the next to the last room? Anyone actually fight the way to the boss or just run from rez shrine to shrine like I did? Inquiring minds would like to know. Bsinkk 00:46, 3 September 2007 (CDT)


 * For the siege wurms, I interrupt one wurm's attack with distracting shot and forget about it (since distracting shot disables the skill for x seconds). I then just attack the other worm and either interrupt its siege attack as well with another skill or not bother with its attacks and just attack it until it dies. For the boss, I just used daze and, together with my henchmen, interrupted its skills whenever I can. I haven't really tried but maybe Ward Against Elements might help. Leosbane


 * The boss is more about placement...there is a strip in the middle between the two rolling lava balls where one can stand without endangering oneself. Flagging your henchies and heroes in the middle helps. Sadly, this doesn't always work, as the boss randomly hands out bombs, which do about 200 AE fire damage, I haven't tried the radius, but if you drop it, the thing goes >boom< immediately, while carrying it off somewhere safe to explode would be preferred, I suppose. All in all the boss himself does good damage, if he is not dazed/interrupted. BHA works wonders! -- Yu 11:50, 4 September 2007 (CDT)

breath of the great dwarf and extinguish is owesome here.

For this dungeon, we used a Life Barrier monk, LoD monk and RC monk, with Martyr on a paragon who was chant based. 2 Sandstormers, SS and tank. It would be possible to remove the Martyr or the RC monk for another damage dealer. BHA would not be such a bad idea but didnt think of it at the time and found we killed everything rather fast without one. This build pretty much took no damage and what damage there was, was nearly instantly replaced with LoD, was pretty much a walk this mission. Two notes, the Flame Djinn was an issue, get the entire group (casters, monks, everyone) to block it and stand next to him, LoD will take care of the rest, if you are having problem with heroes not standing next to him, give them melee weapons and they will go and try to slash him to death. Dont bother with bonds when next to him, he does messily damage and will just strip them off. For the final boss, get the tank to stand on him with a prot spirit, heal him like crazy and the boss will go down faster then the Flame Djinn. A someone said earlier about the rolling boulders, use their advice. -- Xeon 19:27, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

I updated the notes that said bring Winter AND Ward Against Harm because it is counterproductive - Ward is against fire and Winter converts damage to cold. I expect Ward Against Elements was meant - Ward Against Harm gives only a single point of better defense against cold, meaning your elite is best spent elsewhere (like an offensive earth skill, say Unsteady Ground or Sandstorm). The only real benefit from Ward Against Harm with Winter is some protection against physical damage, but I still think you're better off with something like Unsteady Ground (which does KD to attacking foes). In the latter case, the ranger (or an E/R) could bring Greater Conflagration and convert the physical damage to elemental, as well (in that case you could bring both wards, but I'm not sure if the extra armor would stack due to the stacking nerf). Spinal Shivers works well on a necro in conjunction with Winter, so it may be useful to bring an Spiteful Spirit necro with shivers. --Falseprophet 16:50, 11 September 2007 (CDT)

Brought Morghan with me with Stand your ground and cautery signet, lots of interrupts with a BHA ranger and a powerblock mesmer. 2 melee as damage dealers. Piece of cake.

We used a tank, a LoD monk, ZB monk, boon smiter, 3 eles (SS warder, SH, water) and a channeling ritualist. It wasn't really hard but for some reason I had alot of lag which made some kills on our side (slow reaction and thus lat KD's on critical skills such as SH. Also bringing Frigid Armor works wonders here Shai Meliamne 16:10, 17 September 2007 (CDT)

Why a water elementalist with Ward Against Elements? I found it much better with Ward Against Harm MageMontu 04:53, 23 September 2007 (CDT)

FINALLY BEAT THE BOSS!!!! after much weeping and gnashing of teeth... my fourth try. First 3 were with heros and henchies, this time was 3 people and 5 heroes

Me: A/N with grenth's balance and pain inverter. 2nd person : D/E with gail. 3rd : Rt with wanderlust, earthbind, dissonance, and restoration. hero1 : mo protect. hero2 : mo healer. hero3 : mo/me with some interupts and smites, plus heal party. hero4 : ranger with broadhead and interupts. hero5 : me with migraine, inteupts, and heavy degen (phantasm and the like).

we got wiped in about 3 seconds first time we ran in by the fireballs (bad hero placement). then we got it down, and did not get wiped again until he was at 30% health. then we used a grail of might and powerstone of courage, and waxed him.

we were on vent. sin and derv held aggro, casters were set up in two lines. closest line was interupters, last line was healers. i used grenths balance to stay alive and the derv and i took most of the firebombs and yeleld to each other on vent to run when they came up. our rt kept the spirits up.

no idea why this is not a masters quest its so tough... but now that we have this build, i think we can replace a few professions here and there, like the smiting monk and the sin. a para might be nice to hold aggro with, and a necro might also be a decent addition. i would say the me, rt, and ranger are required for interupts and knockdowns. keep him on the gorund as much as possible.

23 Dec 2007

Bugged Boss
So we come up to this guy, i set my hero to broad head him, and my sin friend ofc had to rush to melee zone and get fried by two giant flame balls, despite having been worned several times. Nevertheless we rez quickly and start pounding him and as im mo im paying most attantion to the bars. Suddenly i have this glowing thingy in my hands, i drop it and start telling others over ts about it, and then everything is quiet. I was like wtf! where is the boss. All in all the fight lasted about 15 seconds (and we had nowhere near that high dmg output) so we r guessing he blundered into his own traps zomg Xd.
 * Err, that was a confusing read... could you stick to the point next time? I completed it last night with henchies on my own Assassin, the fireballs didn't even get to do half a circle before Illsundr died... Anyone patient enough to confirm this bug? 88.197.162.163 12:41, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Is the boss supposed to be "hard to fight"?
A walk in the park was it, after all, somewhat disappointing. My 3 Heroes were sec. Mesmers with two spell interrupts each... I didn't even notice any damage from the boss - by the time they were out of interrupts I had him dead (Assa ftw!). I haven't bothered about the worms in the next to last room though that surely would be possible. Just ran past them. Otherwise, take Frigid armor and kill them. Or use some ranged attacks. --Jorx 19:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you find it at all surprising? Heroes have UBER interrupting reflexes, and you had 2 per, wich means 6. I did it with one Prep Dazer, though, wich is too kinda prwnd. My monks were wanding (nothing to heal/prot) and we had 2 rangers, so he didn't get a thing through. Conclusion: Caster shutdown wins. --[[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (s)talkpage 15:38, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * We did use a ranger hero with broad head, but he still got alot of spells through. We couldnt get passed him while we didnt have any problems getting to the boss. -- Strike When Ready 10:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Caster shutdown is somewhat expected to win against a caster boss! :) Once more: robotic interrupting (and btw. healing) wins :) --Jorx 01:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

This might be crazy, but....
...If anyone's going to try for some fast burning removal, try an E/Mo with Martyr and Frigid Armor. I've tried this in Oola's Lab with the flame darts and it seemed to work on Zhed. Alongside with an RC monk it gets rid of conditions pretty fast.
 * That was a good tip to use Martyr. I gave that a try and it worked well.  I just got this dungeon crossed off my list with H/H, using Gwen (Power Block), Vekk (Ward Against Harm), and Ogden (Martyr).  Shadowlance 22:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Level 2 has the same physical appearance as level 1 at Oola's Lab.
I'm too lazy to change it... but i'm right :)
 * Sign your comments, ANet does reuse a bit! RT | Talk 21:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Pain Inverter
Is Pain Inverter still a valid skill to use on this boss? I noticed that the article changed recently with "<-- This is no longer true since using Pain Inverter on him only lowers his health by about one tenth of his health even if he kills your whole party while using it so its no longer a good strategy to try this. -->" being added, but I don't see any record of a change to Pain Inverter. This interjection also doesn't seem that authoritative. Anyone else confirm this? -- Twitch3z 09:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I have no idea what that's on about, Pain Inverter still works perfectly. I'm removing that note until it's proven otherwise, but I think it's utter crap though.[[Image:Bigrat2sAvatar.jpg]] Bigrat2  Talk  11:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It isn't that there was a change to pain inverter, it's that the boss got a big buff and now has a ton of HP. That being said, pain inverter still does a lot of damage to him.Xylia 15:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Ouch.
I wish I had henched this guy before they buffed him. Good grief, that is a lot of hit points. Between his insistence on not dying, his massive hit points, the fiery boulders and his regen, I was unable to hench him tonight. Considering how far it is to get to him, that was a bit of a bummer. Can anyone offer advice as to how not to get your henchmen rolled by the boulders? --Bishop 23:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Tried again tonight. This time with a Power Block mesmer and Zho. Also managed to find the spot in the center where the boulders would only rarely run over my H/H. Unfortunately, the ridiculous fire bombs still make it quite impossible to hench this one. If anyone has done it (after the Nov update!), I'd be very impressed. And please tell me how. --Bishop 23:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I did it just a couple of minutes ago, only one death when Devona ran under one of the boulders. But then again, I used the imba build for my paragon (SY! and TNTF!). My team was: Morgahn damage/motivation, Hayda damage/DA/command, Melonni Orders, Zho, Devona, Mhenlo and Lina. I didn't use pain inverter, and I have to say that Ilsundur wasn't dazed most of the time, so I had to move around the henchies so they wouldn't die in Savannah Heat. Other than that, the dungeon was nothing special. --LoofyGun 88.115.121.58 10:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That seems like a good strategy, although one I cannot replicate as my Paragon is not even in GWEN yet. TNTF! is easily the most imba of all the PvE skills, so maybe I should play him some more... However, I'm intrigued by your using Melonni with Orders, can you elaborate a bit on that? --Bishop 13:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)



Used one Powerstone to get to the boss, one Peppermint Candy Cane and one Armor of Salvation while fighting the boss.--Glass 22:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That offers some advice that I think I can build on, especially by confirming what I suspected: that intense interruption is the key. Daze obviously wasn't enough. --Bishop 11:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

polymock piece?
most dungeons seem to drop polymock pieces from the chests, think we need more confirm on this.

backfire
backfire works awsome against this spamming bitch, still have to find something to stay alive as he slaughtered my party 50+ times. my heroes get roasted with savannah heat which seems to make my devona run in terror, straigt in a boulder ofc and when you thinks your day is all lousy u get disconnected gg (Omfg rank ten guy 18:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC))
 * If he's taking heavy damage from backfire, that means his spells are going off en masse. Which means you're dead. I don't think that is a winning strategy. --Bishop 11:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

HM Becalmed Djinn
The Djinn automatically charge upon entering aggro range, is this normal for HM, or a bug?
 * Also, Daze didn't affect Ilsundur at all! --Icey 23:21, 7 February 2008 (GMT+1)


 * I don't think the Djinn issue is a bug. Happened to me a week ago in HM.  Unfortunitely, when I zoned into level 3, there were two Djinn at the entrance :( So every beatle and spider were enraged basically the minute I entered.  Not fun.  17:05, 5 April 2008

Level vs Floor
Marcopolo47 I noticed you changed instances of "level" to "floor". Why was that done? The game calls them "levels", and that matches other dungeon articles too. Shadowlance 01:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The game calls them levels? /sigh, i was gonna change all of them. "level" is so amibiguous to "Level", though!--[[Image:Marcopolo47 signature new.jpg]] (Talk) (Contr.) 01:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah - I think I will change this one back to level for now. If there's concensus to change it to floor though, we can definitely discuss it.  Shadowlance 12:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Illsundur, Lord of... *Squish*
I just found the silliest way of killing this boss in hard mode, provided you are under 45% death penalty and have Pain Inverter. Flag all your hero/hench into one tight ball just outside of Illsundur's aggro radius and wait for a rolling boulder to come near. Then, cast Pain Inverter on the boss and immediately throw yourself into the boulder's path before Fire Shield kills you. Since boulders give no DP, you can do this over and over (usually takes 4 or 5 times) until the boss dies. He doesn't regen outside of combat so you can take your time waiting for boulders to come around. I'll add this as a strategy on the page. Xyzyx 03:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Very clever. Will help my H/H attempt tremendously.
 * I have no idea how this works ? Are you committing suicide alone or with your henchies ? And, why the hell, is this triggering pain inverter ? And why do you need to do it only 4 or 5 times ? PI does 80 dmg so that's obviously not enough to kill the boss in 4 or 5 times. I am puzzled here... --Mallouck 09:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * He's taking the damage from Flame Shield, and then before it kills him, he dives under a boulder to avoid the DP--Powersurge360 09:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Been running this for a week...
I've been trying to get myself an emerald blade, and have run this dungeon 20+ times in the last week and a half. Have successfully run solo+heroes+henchies, as well as with 2-3 players+heroes. Our average 2 person NM run lasts about 40-60 mins. We use 2 "sabway" N/Rit healers, 1 "sabway" MM, and then 2 water ele heroes (ward against harm+AE water spells), and a Mo/Me WoHealer for good measure. Generally the 2 players are Ursan W/Me with Mantra of Flame. NM this party build is just total easy-mode. Solo I run with 1 N/Rit healer, 1 N/Mo MM, 1 Water Ele/Rit, and 2 monk henchies, illusion henchie, and earth henchie. Also pretty easy. At this point i've seen at least 40+ drops from end chest, and no emerald blade (although have gotten many nice golds, like fuchsia and astral staves, all the illsundur's greens, as well as diamonds and onyx).

water ele build: OghjswMc4QvDXDTDQiQDIDGDJXA