Farm UW Me/Mo + Mo/R

I've been playing around with this a little, saw a solo IW 55 mesmer build for UW but it wasn't so great on healing. The hero that follows you does nothing except throw up a spirit every so often and maintain enchantments.

First off you'd want to bring your hp down to 55 like a standard 55 build (sup runes, -50 cesta etc). The skills you use are:
Illusionary Weaponry (Elite)
Protective Spirit
Healing Breeze
Ancestoral Visage
Sympathetic Visage
Leech Signet
Power Drain
Mantra of Resolve
You want max illusion (16), enough inspiration so you lose 5 energy from MoR, enough healing prayers to give HB +5 regen (you won't use it much), the rest in protection prayers. Use the 55 weapons as well (totem axe or similar, and the -50 hp cesta)

For the monk, the amount of energy or hp doesn't matter. The skills you want to equip on them are:
Famine (Elite)
Watchful Spirit
Essence Bond (not really needed but does help out)
Balthazars Spirit
Succor
Mending
Blessed Signet
Ressurection Chant (or something similar that doesn't kill on res)
For the attributes you'd want 13 healing to give mending +4, wilderness survival at 12 so Famine does the most damage, the rest in divine.

This is a good setup to use with a hero instead of a human because the monk's job is painfully boring. All they do is bring up Famine and use Blessed Signet when necessary, such as when you're idle.

You only need to cast healing breeze when there are 4+ monsters attacking you, but if you have AV or SV on the 4th+ back away a few steps while the 3 attacking you die, then they come back and die as well. You don't need to use IW much, it only speeds up the killing. Well, if you plan on taking on the coldfires you will need to use it, since the damage they do is not melee. The reason for two interrupts is just in case two Dying Nightmares pop up at once (which has happened), you can interrupt both without having to worry about wanding them in time, also helps with some energy. I tried it out before with one interrupt and essence bond on myself, but energy is never really a problem since you're getting +1 on hit, along with +5 regen.

Always keep up MoR just in case, and run SV and AV back to back constantly (this will make the killing much faster plus prevent you from lose energy from interrupts and shouts). And the usual, always keep up Protective Spirit.

You don't want to aggro too many things at once, such as 2 groups of smites and a group of cold fires, cause your regen even with HB won't be enough. Works well with about 6 smites though, since half of them scatter when their hp is low from Famine, but come back once the other 3 are dead. Just try not to mix coldfires with smites, doesn't turn out pretty for the most part.

Good luck if you're going to try it, I haven't done much more than Clearing the Chamber quest, although you can clear all the smites and coldfires with it. Have fun

Been working on similar scenerio..but instead of using IW i use Mantra of recovery on my mesmer with 16 in fast casting..no healing spells cuz i use 10 points in protection and bring along shield absorption..only have to bring one Sympathetic visage. It's kinda hard to explain but with Mantra of recovery you can have shield absorption going constantly and SV up all the time...don't bring power drain use Power return instead since it has a 5 second recast time. with this build i think i can get away with having Margarid instead of the monk hero with 16 in wilderness instead of the monk healing skills. For times when i do get hit with riposte I bring mending touch and that works great. With this build tanking is unlimited to however many you can get on you at once since you are taking zero damage with protective spirit and shield absroption on.

Sounds pretty interesting. How do you kill the coldfires though? Sometimes I'd run into them when trying to aggro the smites, I know you can survive through them, but they do get pretty annoying with their snaring.

Well..the key to that situation..(had it happen to me on my test run, LOL) is to drag them into a group of smites..simple as that..then try to walk out of the Maelstrom...but really with 1/4 second casts and 16 in Fast cast you can handle Maelstroms.

It's still a work in progress like you...kinda funny I've been thinking on the same lines as you Vadimtli...maybe we can hook up and I could bring my monk or my mesmer....

One of the biggest issues i've found is they spread out so bad once they take so much damage....but the weird part is that if you only take on 2 or three at a time they don't do it. But..the whole point in ecto farming is fast turn arounds....and also the heros will "take" some of the loot...so not really that effeiciant when it comes to using heros.

Why no scythe?

A scythe is two handed, meaning no -50hp grim cesta. You can still SoA at 105 hp though