Most Effective Monster

(I'm not sure if this belongs in the lore forum, but I'm less sure where else it would go.)

Saying we fight a lot of monsters in Guild Wars is like saying the sun is kind of hot. Most of them get smacked down by a competent team without incident, but there are always a few that we see coming and go "oh crap".

Most of the very worst have special monster skills (Glint), or have attributes jacked up way beyond our own capacity (Rain of Terror), or travel in multiples (Arm of Insanity). But some aren't too far removed from builds available to you and me, and it's those that I want to consider for the Most Effective Monster title.

Myself, I'm torn between the Ruby Djinn and the Jade Brotherhood Knight. The knight really has a lust for casters and unleashes devastating axe-based AoE. However, the djinn slams waves of damage into everyone AND sets them on fire. Also the djinn shares a skinn with the terrifying tinkerbells of Sorrow's Furnace.

How about you folks? What monsters in any chapter really messed you up but good? Feel free to also consider monsters that you considered overpowered for their place in the storyline.

Ruby Djinns are indeed scary, I'm forced to equip fire defensive skills like mantra of flame, specifically to deal with them. Besides that, those damn Avicara Braves in Mineral Spring are a slaughtering squad... and Ice imps, i hate ice imps.

Fire Imps gets my vote. Those are some nasty villains. They just kill you with Mind Burn and traveling with those titans makes them that much more potent. I hate them
Another group are those damn spiders and their interrupts and burning on Ring of Fire Island mission

Abaddon's demons are the only things that have ever killed me when I alt-tab so I guess I'll vote for them.

Spark of the Titans - love those little beasties.

I think the Wardens in Echovald Forest - the groups normally contain a nice mix of warriors, rangers, healers and mesmers...a potent combo.

I think it goes without saying that the monsters in the DoA are the absolute most powerful. However, this is not fair to answer with them as it is an elite area. If you're talking about non-elite monsters/non-bosses, I'll have to go with the Titans/Charr Lords during Titan Source (4 man party is a killer) or the Torment Creatures (that Call to the Torment means any mass AoE or teams that don't use coordinated spikes end up making mobs bigger rather than killing them.)

Any stupid birds (lvl20 and up) are the biggest pain, I think.

Dredge Gardeners.
I wished the factions henchie monks were half as effective.

Well not much can touch my dervish but one thing that puts the fear of Abbadon into me are those damned Rain of Terrors. They spike extremely well in groups of two or more and even with the interventions and a full spread of regen from Mystic regen I still have to really struggle to stay alive.

if we are counting UW/FoW then id say Aatxes, Shadow Rangers (Barrage on a AL 60 char is just nasty)

Now in non-elite areas id say Any of the Crags (huge ele dragons, use sandstorm) and the other guys they are almost always accompanied with the Shambling Mesa. EVERYTIME i go up against a group with both of em in it, a party member always dies (heros/hench)

Them dwarfs outside yaks, when your a low level! Empathy is not funny when your only been playing for a week or so

Most of the ele bosses in Factions.. they hurt!

Ruby Djins get my second vote though, I don't kite fast enough for them to not do lots of damage.

those avicara fierce have always been a pain for me

imps, annoying bird creatures, stuff that clones

Any monster that uses call to the torment is a real pain to deal with as the extra amount of time it takes to deal with them might result in a 2nd wave of enemies to close in on my team and I.

-Fire Djinn / Roaring Ether (especially bosses)
-Rain of Torment
-Dredge Gaurdian
-Shiro'ken Elementalist
-Spark of the Titans

Kormab burning heat.. or whatever its name is in the hidden city of adashim (spelling) To over powerd can wipe a team of 8 in the blink of an eye if you dont make sure your team is spread out

Fire Imps, not spark of the titan have my vote, haing 2-5 of them trowing meteor storm at you then spamming mind burn is incredibly annoying.

The bunny outside Ashford Abbey in Presearing :P

Kournan Healers. Simply for the fact that they cause so much gnashing of teeth for so many about the running A.I.

But my vote goes to those paragon demons that replicate themselves and others. They're a must kill first target.

Ice Imps - The bane of my chest running in Ice Floe.
Aatxes in UW - They pounded me on my first UW trip.
Dwarves outside of Yaks - First step up in challenge.

Yeah there is others that hit for hundreds of dmg but you know what to expect from them. I choose mine on the impact they made on me during my first tour of GW.

Best Monk >>> Drige Gardener
Best Warrior >>> Night Fall Shadow warrior
Best Ele >>> Shiroken Elementalist
Best Ranger >>> Avarica firece
Best Mesmer >>> Roaring Ether
Best Necro >>> Night Fall Shadow beast
Best Ritualist >>> Star Light
Best Assasin >>> Drige Cutter
Best Dervish >>> Enchanted Bush(the one that use ebon dust Aura)
Best Paragon >>> Kournan Phalax

Pfft you left out Maw..

Dont get me started on the Dredge...

Where do i press the genocide hydrogen bomb button of doom on them?

Mungri Magicbox or Acolyte of Balthazar. Every 10 minutes in sunspear sanctuary, someone will whine about not being able to cap...

The flame Djinn in the Final Assault quest were pretty effective.

Hardest enemies for me are (excluding UW and elite missions):

War - Jade Armor
Ele - Shiroken Ele
Monk - Dredge Gardener
Ranger - Stone Summit Ranger (SF)
Necro - "Can't think of any"
Mesmer - Stone Summit Heretic
Assassin - Oni
Rit - Jade Brotherhood Ritualist
Derv - Madness Titan
Paragon - Spear of Torment

Fire Imps and Ice Imps. Ice Imps due to the huge amounts of them in each "aggro" group

my vote is the dream riders on the chaos plains in uw.

It kind of depends on what class I play. With a ranger, most casters are quite easy (Broad Head Arrow + Lightning Reflexes ftw) while with a ritualist I'd have more trouble.

I gotta vote for the Avicaras and Dredges though. They have many professions and those melee ones really hurt and are a pain to take out. Oh, and large groups of enemies (like Ice Golems and Mergoyles) that use hexes are just plain annoying.

[wiki]Maw the Mountain Heart[/wiki] is a pussy cat. I love that guy.

For me, I think Dredge. Particularly Mungi Magicbox's group...Jeez...a Monk boss healing a Monk healing a Monk boss. Sourge Healing ftw

Roaring Ethers can be really Nasty when as you approach them they all use Energy Surge at the same time. Go with that Light of Deliverance Dunkoro, Go!!

Oh, anything that knocks down. Mainly Tundra Giants. Ward of Stability ftw, but if you don't have it it REALLY annoys me when they use Giant Stomp one after another. They can just keep you continually down that way.

I would say those ranger Giants in the desolation. Ever took your monk through Nightfall? When you are in the Desolation and facing those Giants combined with an Awakened horde, the giants will always pick you, because youre a monk. Choking Gas + Debilitating Shot is a bitch and they dont switch targets... not on me anyway

Naga's in the Jade Sea... I really bloody hate them. I always take the kurzick path on my way to an amulet of the mists just beacause the naga's are on the luxon side.

Avicara have three skills on their bar and yet manage to be a terror to many. WARK WARK!

[wiki]Mungri Magicbox[/wiki] makes my female Monk wet.

With Chae-Soon however, I removed all patrols from the area, laid the sin-spike barrage down on him, set Devona on the other Monk... and left the minion hoarde to clear up the other Dredge while we kept the monks busy. After Fleshy McGolem and his Shambling friends were done elsewhere they came to help us utterly destroy the monks beyond any hope of further healing..... and [wiki]Mungri Magicbox[/wiki], the David Bowie of the Dredge world, went down.


There is some Defending whatnot quest in the Southern Shiverpeaks however that makes Ice Titans spawn in Mineral Springs... [in fact I didn't know they weren't totally standard there until I was told yesterday]... and while the bigger titans are easy as p!ss to take down... a large group of smaller mesmer and monk-level titans are hell to deal with (not least because the mesmers backfire and empathy-spam everyone while the monks constantly heal)... I told those bastards doing the quest to focus their fire on the small ones first... but would they listen? Would they hell?! .... It was a massacre the moment that last one cracked to the mesmer level... The SS necros were exploding left, right and center.... My IW kept getting stripped... Horrible...
But then... I've been told the standard fare in Mineral Springs besides Avicara.... is Ice Imps.... and boy do I hate Ice Imps...


More monk issues come with those Dolyak Masters in the Southern Shiverpeaks.... (northern ones are too low-level to pose a threat)... along with their Bone-Fiend-raising (corpse-thieving) necro friends.... The Dolyaks... if in greater numbers than... ONE... tend to be able to constantly keep themselves and everyone else at full health. It requires the full attention of my entire party and the whole undead hoarde to take down one sometimes... and by then THEIR necros have stolen the corpses, raised their own hoarde... healed by the other Dolyak.... Its a pain in the arse of epic proportions.


And just to rub even more salt in the Monk wound....
.... Shiroken Monks.
While they're not as nasty as Shiroken Elementalists and their gratuitous Silver Armour and AoE flaming death.... I hate Shiroken Monks because they require concentration to beat... and obscene spell-timing. Its almost impossible to SS them to death as they whip up all kindsa spell immunity and remove hexes from anyone and everyone in the area. Sometimes I find its best just to kill everything else around them and then let the entire undead minion hoarde of Olias converge on them as one...


Oh... and a special word goes out to Afflicted Ritualists.... which are effective in large numbers for a few reasons:
#1. Flesh of my flesh. Even more spammable since the weekend's spell-buff extravaganza... ALWAYS cast on another Ritualist... often one you can't even see. The health loss isn't an issue if there happens to be a Monk there as well (and enough of an Afflicted hoarde to distract from the constant task of spiking ritualists).
#2. Afflicted Soul Explosion. Kill 'em... they explode.... they're resurrected by another one... repeat.
#3. There is something disgustingly distracting about that wobbling, multi-limbed pillar of flesh.... perhaps the fact that it has a buttcrack...
At least it makes them easy to spot from a distance, and since I've stopped trying to Assassin-spike 'em down and started SS and MoPing them... they've become a lot easier. Doesn't mean they can't still be annoying. Often enough that Monk's Construct in Sunjiang Explorable is backed up by two ritualists... Take down the construct and he is instantly resurrected; attack the ritualists and they're instantly healed. The only way is to separate them... or nuke the lot (not in my capability).

Skree groups in Vabbi are quite effective, exp. with that monk boss.
And Naga bosses are often a pain.

Wind Riders of Maguuma.
They are defeatable, sure, but everytime you see a group of a dozen of the things, you feel a headache coming on...

The boss that carries healers boon takes a specialized anti monk team to take it down. Any normal team can beat on it for hours with no effect. And if you target his minions instead, he just fills their life to 100% when you get them near dead.

... You mean those floaty things?...
They're easy as pie.... eating pie that is. I just equip a good pair of daggers and attack them without bothering to use skills. Just a straight attack and they go down.... much like the Dragon Lillies in Haiju Lagoon on Shing Jea: best taken on without skills.

-Torment Duplicators, most of all the Necromancer, bloody corpse theives!
-Pre-Infusion Mursaat- omfg run!
-Ice Imps
-Drought Creatures (Mesa & Crags)

Edit:
-Roaring Ether. Total Bitches.

Edit2:
-And when your new to Kryta, Mergoyle, wtf Spirit Shackles!
-Spiders in The Falls, excessively annoying.