What's up with the Tomb Of The Primeval Kings

Hello everyone,

Ok, I need your expertise here since inside the game no one is willing to explain to me the details of this mission.

To do this mission everybody goes around asking things like: "b/p group LFG" or "GLF b/p Ranger...", ok, I have a Monk/Elemental and a Warrior/Monk and I have no idea what all that means.

Yesterday I got a group together, 4 Rangers, 3 Necros and myself, the Monk, they were all talking about "orders" and stuff; they even left the team to rejoin so that all Rangers and Necros were together... what for? Once we got in for the mission, there were only 4 pets and one of the players says: "Who's the fake b/p?"... WHAT?? what's that?

My questions are many...
b/p is Barrager/Pet... so? what does that mean? With my Warrior no one accepts me, how come? Why do you have to use pets?
Any detalis you can help me with, I will be more than glad to have.

Thanks a lot everyone.

1. B/P is Barrage/Pet, yes. It means that they combine a pet plus the elite skill Barrage to do massive amounts of damage when combined with the necromancer skill Order of Pain, or the necro elite Order of the Vampire.
2. If you're a W/Mo, its because the monsters use a stance called "Fingers of Chaos" which causes them to strip enchantments whenever they hit a Monk primary or secondary. Also, it causes them to inflict conditions whenever they hit a warrior.
3. That would be for a couple reasons. One, when they die it gives corpses to the MM. Two, they do some damage on their own. And three, they help body block.

B/p is basically the most used setup for tombs, because its fast and easy.

most people wont accept wars for tombs cause a war doesn't fit into a b/p team. your war will only have a chance if you find someone doing a balanced group and that doesn't happen often anymore, they are more of a cripple for the team as they are only good at close range and they'd get killed very fast. pets are used only for shield and for MM corpses.

if you want to do tombs you have to do either do bp or go with your guild as most people dont bother with tombs anymore

it can be done with a balanced group...but its nigh impossible with a pick up group....

Last night my guildmates and I cleared the Tombs and we used a "balanced" build. We had two Rangers (B/P), two Necros (a MM and a SS), a Warrior who had never been there before, one Monk and me as a Mesmer (Echo, Shatter Hex and a few Interrupts...). We had a second Monk but he had to leave in the middle of the second floor. We managed to do just fine nevertheless. I'd say we cleared the place pretty much as quickly as a B/P group would. Some even said that it was easier than a normal B/P group.

Anyway, I didn't get any greens but I got an Ecto in the third floor. We still have a few people who haven't been there so I guess we'll be going there again a few times

lol ive never been there either take me!

i use to do heavy tomb runs when it first openned up, back before the bp craze. and yes, for your average pug, going balanced can take 2+ hours (my worst coming in at just under 5 hours). if you run with guild groups, you can cut it down to somewhere in the 1-2 hour range. we use to run a 2 warrior, 3 ele, 3 monk set up. basic body blocking on the stairs and dropping as much fire power as fast as possible. you didnt need the 3rd monk, but it was nice to have in case of bad aggros. but the thing is, bp is just so much faster (and easier). a good team can clear it in about 40 minutes give or take.

ok, to answer some of your questions:

a bp tombs team consists of 5 rangers, 2 necs, and 1 monk.

the rangers will all bring barrage, as well as a pet and usually several interrupts. it is also important that at least two of the ranger bring two particular spirits, favorable winds and winnowing. these will help to greatly increase the dmg potential of the team. R/Mo is common for rebirth, to help save wipes from bad pulls.

one of the necs will go minion master, while the other goes as an "orders" nec, called so because of their skills "order of pain" or more commonly "order of the vampire". the build usually consists of OoV, blood rit, and some form of healing to keep up with your sacs (mending, healing breeze, heal party, ect...). your job as an orders is to keep the orders up on the party as much as possible and usually provide some other form of party support, ie heal party.

the monk is generally a straight healing monk. prot can work, as long as no one in the party goes monk secondary. the monster skill "fingers of chaos" will remove enchants from monk chars, making it very hard to prot in tombs. the monk rly shouldnt be doing to much work. the pets and minions should be providing an ample meat wall to protect the party from the mobs. a basic WoH monk fairs pretty well, but your build can vary, as long as its not dependent on enchants.

ok, as for when the team left and then rejoined, thats called "reordering". its usually done to make healing easier on the monk. the ranger are at top, because they are the most likely to take dmg if the line breaks. then comes the MM and the orders, who should both have some kind of self heal, meaning the monk doesnt have to focus so much on them. he should also be aware when they are saccing their life and when they are actually taking dmg. and the monk is at the bottom. this also helps when clicking through the party window because the monk will know where everyone is.

the "fake bp" was a ranger you didnt bring a pet (cant be a barrage/pet ranger with no pet, can you?), a no-no for tombs runs. they provide both effective body blocking until the MM gets rolling, as well as a constant supply of corpses for both the orders and MM.

and as said alrdy, your warrior will probably never find a pug in tombs. a warrior serves no purpose in a bp run. and balanced teams are rare at best. if you want to run balanced in tombs, its going to have to be a guild group.

*edit*
the wiki is your friend...

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:T...8Tomb_Ruins%29

its a bit old, but the basics are all there.

Geez that really sucks man. Can't even play as what you want.=|

Pretty much what everyone else said.

Standard barrage build is Barrage, Distracting Shot/Savage Shot, Favorable Winds/Winnowing, Throw Dirt, Charm Animal, Comfort Animal, Troll Unguent & Rebirth. Generally one ranger packs in FW and another puts in Winnowing. Rest put in both the shots.

So basically it goes like this: Lay down spirits, pull enemies, pets tank and die, MM raises corpses and gets his army going (You need pets for the corpses for the minions). Imagine 5 rangers spamming barrage which is boosted by FW/Winnowing/Orders and hitting multiple enemies........tremendous damage.

A warrior has no place in a B/P group as to do damage he has to go upfront where fingers of chaos will ensure that he remains blind half the time. Unfortunately this means that you will never get a group in Tombs as a warrior unless someone is running a serious balanced group which is usually a guild group.

Quote for fun:
Quote: Yesterday I got a group together, 4 Rangers, 3 Necros and myself, the Monk, they were all talking about "orders" and stuff; they even left the team to rejoin so that all Rangers and Necros were together... what for? Once we got in for the mission, there were only 4 pets and one of the players says: "Who's the fake b/p?"... WHAT?? what's that? 4 rangers = 4 b/p = 4 pets.
So no 'fake b/p' there

B/P is populair because it's very easy to play.
Rangers can push 1,1,1,1..... In some cases interrupts are needed, but one or two rangers can handle that. Same for throw dirt.
Remember to res the pets when they die.
The pets provide minions (my B/P build pet is even called Minions).
And do the body blocking with the minions.
Other team setups also work, put as stated above, take longer or require more skilled players.

The rangers should be behind the pets (which run forward to your target when you shoot an arrow) and the minions. Those should get the damage.

I did a couple of runs as Orders the last few days.
With a decent team, the monk should be watching almost 90% of the time.
Order of Vampire, with 16 Blood Magic + Awaken the Blood provides 19 life stealing for each hitting arrow.
With 6 arrows hitting, that's +114 damage / less healing for the monk.

The added damage from Fav Winds (+6) and Winnowing (+4) is 60.
So one ranger does +174 damage. Times 5 rangers is 870 damage.
That's on top of the regular damage.

That's theory, when playing it's less, since you have a small gap between Orders (which can be filled with Order of Pain, but that one has no life stealing) and you are not hitting 6 targets all the time.

The re-arranging of the team is for the Monk.
The Orders necro should take care of his own health (I run 4 sup runes, that's 180 health, Mending, heal party and Blood Renewal for healing. Mending alone almost fully heals when I spam Order of the Vampire).
The most important to heal is the MM, when he dies you get 10 lvl 18 minions (worst case) on your group.

With good coördination, the Orders necro is last in the group (far away from the fighting, because he's fragile. But near monk for Blood Ritual(if he needs it)). Second is the monk. The MM can be near him when the Minions ran towards the enemy.
The rangers are in front of them and ahead are the pets and minions.
The monk does not heal the pets, only the rangers and necros (and self).
Pet dies, MM makes minion, ranger resses pet.

As a ranger, you should know how it works after the first two areas.
The MM is somewhat more difficult, since not all know how to send their minions. Monking is straight forward healing.
Orders is just keeping Orders up as much as possible and give occassional Blood Ritual / Heal Party. Most difficult part is positioning (not near those enchantment strippers and any enemies) and avoiding damage (monk got to close to Darkness yesterday, I moved forward, gave him BR, did not notice the Backfire the Darkness put on me, bye Order necro).

That's all.
If you want to know more, just ask.
I've played all roles in B/P, but like Orders most.

Quote: Originally Posted by Milennin

Hello all,

Thanks to everyone that took their time to answer and share some light my way.

After reading all your comments and links (specially the one ss1986v2 gave me), I decided to go to the Tombs and give it a try and I completed that quest.

Obviously I used my Monk, I changed my skills to a 'Tomb Build' based on what you can see in this link http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:T...8Tomb_Ruins%29 and it went ok. I say Ok because nevertheless I got killed a couple of times, in fact, there was a time where only 1 Ranger was left, she ran, came back and rezed us all.

This has been the most difficult quest I've done until now.

For some reason some people don't like a Ranger/Elementalist I don't understand why, any thoughts about this one?

Thanks again everybody (y)

Zuertex

Quote: Originally Posted by Berontros -snip- first off, gratz on getting through it. and dont worry too much about your near party wipe. it happens sometimes to even experienced guild teams. all it takes is just one poorly fired arrow and the mobs can get heavy (especially in level 2 and the start of level 4). thats why the rangers usually bring rebirth.

as for the ranger/ele, their are two main reasons why. the first is the above mentioned rebirth issue. some just feel better knowing that no matter how bad it gets, it just takes one survivor to get the whole group back up. the second and main reasons because of a particular build that many r/e barrages tend to run:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:R...Barrage_Ranger

by using an elemental bow string along with conjure flame and barrage, the ranger is able to increase his dmg output as well as bypass some bonus armor of the enemy (the warriors +20 vs physical for one). this is fine and good but not in a normal tombs bp team. look at OoV:

[card]Order of the Vampire[/card]

OoV, as well as its sister skill OoP, only trigger on physical dmg, not elemental. this negates the orders on the conjure ranger, and defeats the purpose of the orders altogether (unconditional, party wide dmg increase). if i recall, winnow also only adds to physical dmg, so you lose those bonus points as well.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sofonisba

Quote: Originally Posted by Milennin

Oh yeah, I wouldn't want to fail the mission after investing 40 minutes on it and not making it to the end, oh no, yet I understand Milennin in the sense that it feels good when after trying really hard at something you finally make it.

I completely understand this mission now thanks to all you guys. Nevertheless I think that is a little unfair for the other professions that there's no way they can ever make this mission because the nature of it... though you say that a balanced group can do it yet probabilities of someone creating a balanced group are next to slim.

So with this in mind and relating to the Tomb of the Primeval Kings' mission, my new question is:

Are there any missions out there, like the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, where only specific professions are best to do those missions?

Thanks again.

well, you can bp just about anything in pve. the way the ai works and how the zones are laid out, bp can succeed just about anywhere. tombs, SF, FoW, Urgoz Warden, and about any mission where the fire is focussed, corpses are at least somewhat available, and no splits are needed (not sure how bp would work in THK, unless you pulled to the inner stairs).

as for other spots, im not sure. im mean, you will always see the bias if you dont fit into the "holy trinity" of gw: tank, nuke, monk. your generic balanced group goes for two tanks, two nukes, two monks, and then 2 wild cards, and those spots usually go to interrupt ranger and MM. no matter where you look, ppl will look for cookie cutter. not because they are against wild or different builds, but because they like to run what works.

Why can't a W/Mo do this mission as a Monk replacing his/her warrior skills with the Monk skills?

Quote: Originally Posted by kumarshah

Quote: Originally Posted by kumarshah