Totem Axe Farming Nerfed?

Have they nerfed Totem Axe farming?

I just went on a run with my new War/Ranger build for it and the little pods were nearly IMPOSSIBLE to kill. I was pretty surprised, but I knew it couldn't be the build because the attacking skills were the same as the ones in my old build.

So I promptly re-zoned and equipped my original War/Monk build.
It took me a total of about 10 minutes to kill just TWO pods.

When I got hit with a group of 3 I couldn't even get a single one down past 50% health. What the hell is going on?

Is anyone else having similar troubles? And do you know how to work around it?

I tried a run right after the 10/27 update and it took a ridiculous amount of time. They'd try and kite, run or whatever, and even with two warriors hitting on them it was a long time running to actually kill them. I'm sure there are ways around it but it is a pain. Maybe scourge healing or something. Try searching or the farming forum.

Rajazan's Fervor FTW!

And you never had this problem with the exact same characters before?

(bte this isn't a suggestion)

Aren't the new AI changes just so much fun? Who doesn't like chasing mobs around in circles forever!

Yeah, it's even worse that they run around in circles. It pretty much ruins everything.

A ranger told me that he can do it without having to deal with the pods because his ranger uses a bow. That way the pods won't appear until you go to collect your items. Then all you need to do is run from them.

My problem is I don't have a ranger.

I just got an idea to try to make my warrior a ranged figher, but that may not be all that practical. Especially with the wind riders and such floating around. :[ And rangers also have a horrible time trying to get through the whole area in the first place so it's best to try to create a new warrior build to deal with the AI changes.

I've looked at all of the skills and so far I don't see any combination that would work.

@The Pointless:
No I have never had this problem before until the updates.

That may be their revenge. We go their warrior chasing our monk forever, XD.

Yup, many 'solo' farming is gone.
Why don't you try to go with a party that wants a Totem axe too, one of you keep the axes and the others screen capture the agreement on the chat window and then you make the run some times until you get one for each one of you and done. Then the one holding the axes give them away.

This is the way we do in Boss runs in Furnace to prevent quitters.

I use my ranger to farm totems. It is a great build because you don't need to worry about the life pods due to range attacks. However, I did a run last night (havent done one since the updates) and found it a pain in the behind.
The trouble I had was with breaking aggro. Usually when I run past the life pods (after picking up my drops, like totems) the I can break life pod aggro pretty easily. Last night they followed me all over the map!! This caused trouble because they would follow me to the next behemouth and then heal it while I attacked making the next kill near impossible. I find this irritating to no end. I only did 2 runs so I will see if I can work around it......

i use apply poison and a longbow, i'm warr/ranger, the bow dosnt do much damage but i let the poison kill them, then collect the items and go, i dont worry with the life pods as they do about 1 damage a hit to me. i just stand there and tank them as i kill the next wurm. then run on untill i see the next one.....works fine

I did a couple runs yesterday and didnt find anything to be majorly changed. I ran a poison arrow ranger with kindle arrows. Got 2 axes. It may be harder for warriors now but my ranger build seems to be unaffected.

Just use the Flag Trick....w/heroes/henchies

1. Kill all the pods and others foes... leave the wurm...
2. Send them away... flag trick...
3. Just return and kill the wurms...

Ah yes! Great idea!

So if we use the henchies throughout the map and just use them to kill pods, then get them out of the map area, you automatically get all drops correct?

With my build i can kill the pods extremely quickly. just have 16 axe mastery, dismember, exe chop, dis chop. there will be two of them. find the one who uses mend condition (he cant use it on himself) and spike it before the other one can heal. i can kill one before they heal eachother in a couple seconds. also i recomend using flurry to attack faster. even with the dmg decrease, you can get the adren to use exe chop. oh and btw use dismember to both kill one quicker and find the one that has mend cond. dont use eviscerate because high adren cost.

I'll try that out, but your paragraph kind of confused me in the way that it was worded.

Could you like re-phrase it in a more simple way? :]

you could always consider taking natures renewal as a w/r because if the pods cast holy wrath they will get severly disadvantaged and quite often the cast it twice so i dont see them casting heals anywhere near enough this is just a thought though and not tested though.

have 16 axe mastery. put on flurry. use dismember. if it gets removed, switch to the other pod. because it cant mend itself it will die quickly. to kill the mend condition pod, flurry to full adren and dismember - exe chop -dis chop. kills it very quickly.

Thanks Mesmer. :]

I'll try out that build soon.

Last night I tried my original build but this time with Henchies. I don't get as many drops from the mobs leading up to the falls mainly because the henchies need to follow me and I just have them fight with me anyways.

When I get to the behemoths I use henchies to kill the pods then I station them off my mini map so when I kill the behemoths I get whatever they drop.

And the plus side of this that makes up for the lack of extra drops is the fact that the henchies are a GREAT help with taking on wind riders.

your welcome btw.
actually, if have defy pain, you can kill the windriders (and most other things) solo. their only dmg is conjour phantasm, and cry of frustration.(and shatter enchant) as long as you dont try to healsig or go in with mending on, they wont be able to kill you. just spam defy until you kill 1 or 2, run away, healsig to full, kill some more. it might take a while, but for smaller groups its not that bad.

Hmm, I'll definitely try that one out.

My old build was something like this...

HB, Healing Sig, Healing Hands, Vigorous Spirit, Galrath Slash, Sever Artery, Riposte, Sprint

It kept me alive through pretty much everything and I made quick work of all of the mobs that I ran into. My main problem was the wind riders, but I solved that with the Lieutenants helm and just spamming my healing spells. It got kind of tough though.

ok i just did a run with a new w/r build and it was real easy heres what i used.

Pent blow
Eviscerate
executioners strike
heal sig
shields up
sprint
apply poisen
natures renewal

attributes.
strength 8
wilderness survival 7
axe 13 (+1)
tactics 12 (+4)

and my stratergy:

Use a longbow and take out the behemoth at long range with apply poisen
this prevents the pods spawning and takes about a 30 seconds to kill one.

after killing it cast natures renewal heal if nessesary and move to trigger pod spawn apply poisen and hack away eventually all the pods will run out of steam when this happens spike away with your 3 attack skills at once.

i have consistantly taken out 3 pods at once with this build its easy.

the only problems ive had are jungle scales following me all across the map : / but the build can kill them just takes a while.

this build could also use melandrus resistance if you are having trouble with wind riders. and troll can replace heal sig if you wanna go that way.

*edit* hmm another easy way might just be to use fire skills as spikes namely conjure flame or
Starburst: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Star_Burst

I actually thought of a different build that seems to work pretty well.

I use a FDS and the following:

Sprint
Defensive Stance
Sever Artery
"Victory is Mine!" {E}
Healing Signet
Gylph of Lesser Energy
Flame Burst
Mark of Rodgort

Attributes:

Strength: 2 + 1
Swordsmanship: 8 + 1
Tactics: 12 + 3 + 1
Fire Magic: 10

This way I can take on up to 3x Life Pods at once.

Against 3 I try to pull two of them together then cast Gylph of Lesser Energy -> Mark of Rodgort (affects both of them) -> Flame Burst

Keep attacking one and use Flame Burst again once it recharges (you should have more than enough energy). This either kills one completely, or almost kills it. If it doesn't die I use Sever Artery + Victory is Mine! to recharge energy and hit them with another Flame Burst which does the job.

However, this takes a while and requires good timing, so lately what I do is slowly edge towards the Behemoth until I see a Life Pod pop up. This way you aggro only two at a time.

Killing two is a cinch because they can't outheal burning + Flame Burst.


The only problem I have is that I can't seem to run past the Breeze Riders (they follow me further than I'd like) and have to fight through them. This takes a while and requires careful pulling and healing.