Is There A Hard Mode Guide?

I'm trying to go for the vanquisher and guardian title in Elona, and was having a semi-easy time until I had to fight mobs with 2 or more healers in it.

If I'm attacking one, ther other is healing it, not to mention the rest of the mob is pounding away at my hero/henchmen group.

Maegonites are just too hard in general....

Anyways, I tried taking along my two elementalist and amazingly, 2 meteor showers wasn't enough to out damage the healing spells generated from those healers.

Tried the general inteupt build on my hero ranger and that did no good.

I'd appreciate any tips to over come this fustrating obsitical. I'm attempting the titles for my monk character (I play as a glyph HB monk).

I've been having some success using Tahlkora to double bond Melonni using vow of silence and Veil of Thorns for snare (She actually uses them quite well).

Send her in and let the aggro settle, then blood spiking at will using Myself, Olias and Eve. Two more healer henches and either the Paragon or Ranger.

AoE will cause the scatter so i avoid it in HM.

Hope this provides some inspiration.

My typical setup goes like this:

(me) R/Me with Broad Head Arrow, Screaming Shot, Throw Dirt and Epidemic. Use BHA on casters, TD on melee. Spread conditions with Epidemic.

(hero) N/Me with a general Minion Master build and Order of Undead. OoU adds alot of damage. On top of that, when 10 minions are attacking a dazed monk, the monk will be disrupted with every attack. Throw in Signet of Lost Souls, Leech Signet for Hp and energy management.

(hero) E/Me with a general Searing Flames build, Leech Signet

(hero) Mo/Me with a Protection build and some hex removal.

(guildmate) E/Me with Searing Flames

(hero) E/Me with Searing Flames

(hero) N/Me with a curses build, taking advantage of the enemies increased attack speed. Spiteful Spirit comes to mind.

(hero) Mo/Me with a healing build and some condition removal.

I'd like to equip my heroes with a lot of interrupting skills, like leech signet, because the AI is able interrupt on the draw, much faster compared to a human player.

I have to admit I mostly play with the same guildmate, so we are able to bring 6 heroes. When I'd go on my own, I'd probably bring a R/Me (thats me), a Minion Master, and 2 SF ele's. Two hench monks, some necro/mesmer hench, depending on which campaign.

After vanquishing quite a few areas, I know for a fact it's useless to 'out-damage' a good heal or prot enemy Monk. The problem is you need to focus all your fire on one enemy to get its Hp down, whereas the enemy Monk only need to cast a protection or a healing spell to fully protect it, rendering your attack useless. In my opinion, it's much easier to just shutdown the Monk, and kill it. In the meantime the other enemies will be bashing at you, so bring some protection, like Elementalist Wards.

I also tend to bring only 'soft' resurrection skills, like Sunspear Rebirth Signet or the good old Res Signet. It's essential a fallen teammember is resurrected as soon as possible, so I can't be botherd with a 6 second Res Chant or something like that. And with about 5-6 bosses in each explorabel area, the Signets will get recharged fast enough.

Hope this information is usefull to you. You might want to chech the Builds forum for Hero builds and such.

Good luck on Hard Mode!

I've found things go smoother with extra healing. This means bringing 3 monks (often I'll use 2 prot, one ZB, one Divert Hexes, one Light of Deliverance/Dwayna's kiss), one of which is played by me. Kihm frees up a hero slot as she at least uses ZB. My other slot is for my curses necro.

I have been bringing an empathy/diverison/echo mesmer, but that hasn't been working out as good as it sounds. Diversion is a must for shutting down enemy monks (or anything with self heals) because interrupt skills don't recharge fast enough and heroes don't seem to use them often enough, but I think I will be better served by bringing a mesmer secondary, possibly even giving this role to one of my monks as 2.5 healers might be a better sweet point.

For henchmen, there's not really any _good_ choices to be had. Almost all of them have useless elites, like the paragon hench thinks they're a monk. I often bring any earth henchies for the ward, dervish for the self-heal, devona for the KDs, and an archer (because enemies only kite warriors, they don't kite arrows!).

If I could build my own team with all heroes, I would have:

3 monks, 2 necros (MM and curses), 1 attack buff paragon, and 2 archers (one interrupt spammer).

You do not need a guide, you are simply not up to the task.

Hate me, but people asking "how can I kill two healers" are not even capable of normal mode and should definitely not bother with hard mode.

I'm sorry, but "How can I kill two healers in hard mode?" _is_ a valid question. In hard mode, healers can cast twice as many spells (half cast time _and_ half recharge!), kite like mad and nearly completely ignore melee with movement alone, and have insane stats so their spells heal for oodles. Combine this with the fact that healing/protting is meant to reverse the damage output of 2-4 people, situation depending, and you have something that is not difficult so much as annoying and frustrating.

I had to abandon one of the Ring of Fire hard mode missions because no one thought to bring any interrupts/shutdown for a single monk boss. Aura of Faith, CoP, and Orison of healing. Even a crappy skill like Orison of healing and that mob was able to survive against a party of 7 (one player had quit earlier in the mission).

For the record, I was playing a monk, so interrupting wasn't exactly something I could do.

A better gaming experience.

I agree, BHA and minions make for a good combo.

Which area are we talking about? I would like to see if I can out-spike them.

While they indeed heal for more, attack for more and run even more than ever - most of them still have their ultra crappy skillset in hardmode. A common weakness is their total and utter lack of condition removal (with very few exceptions).
So:
Dazed > Every caster
Weakness > Every physical mob

And another good thing to do is to exploit the inhuman reflexes of your heroes. Give them Powerdrain and Leech Signet, investing some points into inspiration and you not only have superior emanagement but also even more interrupts in your pocket. And the heroes use it oh so well.
Plus hexes like Diversion totally ruin those weak skillsets though the reduced hex duration on most mobs makes it a bit difficult to apply.

I'm not fond of MMs in Hard Mode, as one AoE seems to eliminate the entire army. Every time. Stupid overpowered damage.

Not in Hard Mode. They cast too quickly even for Heroes.

Bleh, minions. I'd rather have corpse exploitation in different way. I just love putrid explosion and some wells would be nice too. Minions indeed just die way too easily in HM (not that i've ever been a fan of them).

/edit:
Actually IN hardmode. Sure they won't get every single spell but they still get enough of them and be it out of sheer luck. Direct interrupts work slightly worse in HM but they still work.

I run 2 MMs and 6 SF eles D=

zOMG, Cookie Cutter! :X

Well i'd have to aggree with this, if your having such trouble and trying to tackle it with multiple meteor showers then you're just not ready for hard mode.

Ive been vanquishing on my mesmer and never seen any problems with monks, the casting 2x as fast makes it easier i'd say.

[skill]Broad Head Arrow[/skill] > Hard mode

Norgu equals win

There are guides but they do not specifically tell you how to kill mobs, however I can offer this advice:

Call targets heros and hench follow all called targets - this ensures you are all concentrating on the same monk.

Still having problems...

If there are two monks and one will not die have one or two hench with some interrupts like Jin target the second monk... they won't be able to stop all skills but they will get lucky and hit a few and the 2nd monk will start healing itself leaving the first monk without additional heals.

Margonites

Use your LD Gaze and pull

Flag your heros/hench out of range and make sure to pull only one group at a time. This can add time to vanquishing, but it is worth it

Use some creativity IE:-

if margonites are where wurms can't go in the desolation areas see if they are close to sand and can be attacked using wurm long range skills or flag henchies just out of the bubble for the rocky area then move forward leave your wurm and pull groups back to your heros/hench still in wurms.(it is a little tricky to get them not to spit themselves up but practice makes close to perfect)

IN General tips

Any hero with a monk secondary can take a hex removal skill or a condition removal skill


If you still are really bad after all this buy a few candy canes/ four leaf clovers and keep your dp down while you hack through

Hope this helps, but in the end if nothing works ask the community to go with you and help in a specific area

Well i can give some tips:

* always think of what you'll face in a area (What kind of enemies and what kind of counters)
* remember the hm enemies have increased speed and damage. (Churning earth now knockdowns any hm creature that walks while in it, Empathy, Spoil Victor and Spitefull Spirit are better then ever.)
* [optional]Bring a mesmer or a necro. (They can obliterate enemy monks and warriors)

As for these HM monks, There are severall ways of dealing with them:

Disabling skills:
[skill]Echo[/skill] / [skill]arcane echo[/skill] / [skill]arcane larceny[/skill] / [skill]arcane thievery[/skill] / [skill]signet of humility[/skill] / [skill]blackout[/skill] / [skill]diversion[/skill]
Just to steal up to 4 spells and disable them for 37 seconds as a example and disable their elite for a short period. the hm monks op was talking about would have Spell breaker i think so disabling that elite and then trying to steal it would work wonders.

Hex punishment:
[skill]spoil victor[/skill] / [skill]spiteful spirit[/skill] / [skill]mark of subversion[/skill] / [skill]Backfire[/skill] / [skill]empathy[/skill]
Will also work good at putting pressure on enemy monks, just note it won't work well vs teams with hex removal!

Healing Reduction:
[skill]lingering curse[/skill] / [skill]defile flesh[/skill] / [skill]malign intervention[/skill] / [skill]mark of death[/skill] / [skill]predatory season[/skill]
Beware of the facts that predatory season also heals and affects your team, and that the healing reduction cap should be around 66%.

E-denial:
[skill]spirit shackles[/skill] / [skill]ether lord[/skill] / [skill]ether phantom[/skill] / [skill]drain delusions[/skill] / [skill]power flux[/skill] / [skill]panic[/skill] / [skill]depravity[/skill] / [skill]wither[/skill] / [skill]well of weariness[/skill] / [skill]malaise[/skill]
Currently it's pretty much useless with the major energy regen from these hm monsters, even with increases speed and permanent spirit schackles (-5 energy when they attack) they will still gain energy!

Of course there are way more builds and skills that will be usefull but i'll leave it at this for now.

Reminds me of those silly Jade brotherhood knights, empathy and any other dmg on attack skill will trigger on each target they hit with Triple chop!
(One hit kill when they attack a mob of minnions)

Please do not bring non-constructive comments into this thread. The OP was looking for advice - Provide the OP with advise or refrain from posting. There's no such thing as "not ready". No one was ready for hard mode when it first came out because they didn't know what to expect, but they still played it.

Anyway.

If you have heroes, a good tip is to set an anti-caster as a target-lock onto one of the monks, while the rest of your party pounds on the other. It's the best technique I've come across myself, so I'll hope that'll prove useful. Mesmers and Rangers make good anti-casters, even a KD warrior will do the trick. And like cellardweller shortly replied - Broad Head Arrow is good.

Pure brawn, no brain doesn't get you far in HM. Especially meteor shower, which heroes cannot use effectively, since tank doesn't bunch them up, they simply attak random target.

A mesmer, or interrupts on other classes go a very long way in HM. For healers, it's important to not simply go for healers, but put pressure on entire group. They can heal themselves, or they can heal others, but not both. And once their entire party is dead, they don't do much damage, so you can focus everything on them.

Other thing is to look at their skills. If they rely on enchantments, bring enchant removal. If they are weak on self-heals, go for them first, if they are smiters, ignore them, if they have strong self heals, or PBAoE heals, go for their party first.

Then there's other, more area specific counters. Scourge healing might work if they don't have hex removal, so might backfire, conditions can work as well.

But brute force won't cut it.

I play a warrior so I am usually the one calling and groups with 2 monks are hard especailly when one is a boss, main problem is their speed when they kite..I like to take charge and eat a cupcake, then I can keep up with them and my hero's/hench can kite better due to charge as well. And I use leech sig and can't remember the other interrupt..power drain or something on them and/or the elly. Also ward mele is good for your hero elly to have if you choose to take one. Luckily my guild has 2 or 3 people going for the title and I usually get to have 2 people and 6 hero's so it is not that hard in most areas

My view about Hard Mode, in terms of giving advice is simple.

Hard Mode is played out in an instance or mission, that you have (hopefully) done before. This means you know 75% of the time, what to expect.

The last 25% is the increased damage, improved healing, hexing and general builds and reactions of the creatures.

But since you should already know the mission, instances and areas, you should know what creatures to expect. They may have buffed skills and different reactions, but you will still know what to expect and what to expect to have been buffed up.

If its a monk, then chances are its healing is oober effective. If its a mesma, then chances are its hexing, interupting, and head-aching if oober effective.

So on and so forth.

Basically, aslong as youve done that area already, and your not one of these people that comes to a continent to starts it in HM before NM, you should be able to handle it.

As for specific advice on certain creatures. Obber monk in HM are a pain in the a**! If your able to, my advice is single them out, wait for everyone to have full regen on skills and engery and just give them everything you can.

Plus interupt their protection and healing like crazey, and try to have someone interupt the other monk to stop them healing their team.

But if you focus on one, it should eventually go down.

It took my PUG ages just to take out a single guard in a tower in one of the prophercies missions in HM. I had to wait for full regen, to NUKE it and it only just killed him combined with degen and hexing.

I tend to agree with the rest, best way to deal with two monks is set one interupter on one, and pile on the damage on the other, then quickly take out the other, as they tend to quickly rez,

The problem i can't cope with is when there is a paragon that can rez, by the time you kill the second monk the paragon tends to have rezzed the first one, this has been particularly problematic for me in Joko's Domain, where you have an ele boss, two Acolytes and two cavaliers, and no ability to draw them to wurms

I have Guardian of Cantha, am 2 missions away from guardian of Tyria, and have vanquished 18 areas in Elona (I will never get guardian of Elona because I cant beat the miime in tihark orchard mission).

In all of these areas I have steamrolled them with Minionmaster.

Yeah Minionmaster is no good in (1) areas where mobs have verata gaze (2) any place where mobs use a lot of AoE, commonly firestorm or churning earth, but these areas are few and far between. Most mobs dont have AoE damage, so minionmaster works great.

And the vulnerability to AOE is not a matter of Hard mode... The vulnerability to AoE happens because of the SOUL REAPING NERF. Before the soul reaping nerf I did lightbringer runs in the depths of Madness (which had difefrent spawns then). The creatures in the depths of madness include AoE from dervishes, Barragers, Searing Heat, and Firestorm.

Before you could count on your soul reaping to re-raise an army in the middle of the fight, because soul reaping triggered on deaths. You still had a chance. After the nerf, soul reaping went according to a timer and a firestorm caused a party wipe. Minionmaster was no longer viable in an area with heavy enemy AoE (fortunately, not most of the game).

Now the spawns in Depths of Madness were also changed when hard mode came out, so you no longer have to face titans and torment creatures at the same time... so its not the best place to test anymore... But I assure you the vulnerability of minions to aoe is equally troublesome in normal mode.

I guess all areas for Vanquishing title have sort of their own tricks to them.

In general, I would not go for AoE stuff, like Searing Flames and such. Unless you get a team with like 4-5 SF eles, scorching away.
My approach is, interrupt them and spike 1 target at a time. Hopefully you can take down their firepower before your monks get overpowered. Meteor Shower doesnt do much dmg compared to other skills, on one single target. It does good dmg against groups, but most HM groups scatter fast. So it is better to have some good monks and spike them one by one.

Make use of their 50% increased attack speed. Reckless Haste takes care of their hits, so does Well of Darkness. Combine that with Price of Failure, Spirit Shackles, Spiteful Spirit, Spirit of Failure, Insidious Parasite and Enfeeble and any HM monster will be turned into a fluffy kitten. While you mitigate their damage and your monks prot/heal, your interrupter ranger can siege the annoying targets. A fullly hexed monster in this setup, has a 97% chance to miss, does about 130 dmg per second to himself and cant do any annoyin healing or AoE spells.

Ofc, you can still get overwhelmed, so pay attention to patrol-routes and stuff.

Also, to the best of my understanding, elemental damage is possibly more gimped than physical damage thanks to level differences. A level 30 monster will not take much damage from a nuke, but will still take decent damage from a sword.