Vanquishing Elona

It would be nice if there was a stickied vanquishing thread. Handling the noob island was no sweat but the mainland is something else. I basically gave up after running into all those Kournans in Pogahn passage. Fortunately I found the thread that told about getting rid of them by doing the quest they are involved in. Other areas seem to have large groups of inseparable enemies with rezs. My builds must be all wrong but frequently the references to the builds are quite cryptic. I am not a complete noob, I have all 10 characters all through nightfall and most through Cantha and Tyria too. My Monk who I wish to vanquish with has the 'People Know Me' title(12 maxed titles).
Any guidance would be appreciated.

For vanquishing Gandara, I remember one particular group of about 15 Kournans all bunched closely together. Several attempts to take them out failed (they had three monks) so I just timed Zhed and Sousuke to dump Meteor Showers on them at the same time. The KDs prevented successful healing and all the casters in that group died, so I was just left with the warriors.

I vanquished 27 of 34 areas in Elona with my monk before she got deleted. Most places I found just took patience and lots of flagging. Large groups of Kournans and undead in particular I had to micromanage the heroes a lot, setting targets and flags and making sure I took out the healers and rezzers first.

But I had to change my builds and strategy for what area I was vanquishing. Try starting with some easier areas to get a feel for what enemies you're fighting, except for Kournans since you've fought some already. As a prot bonder monk, I found Vehjin Mines easy (useful to have Divert Hexes there), as well as Bahdza and Marga Coast, for example.

My hero setups varied a lot, though generally consisted of armor bonuses ("Watch Yourself!", "Shields Up!", etc), anti-melee (necro curses, Ward Against Melee, Aegis), and shut down (mesmer interrupts on caster heroes, for example). Generally I had to set heroes individual targets to acquire and kill; Master, for example, was generally anti-melee so he'd focus on taking out warriors.

I employed Koss as a tank several times; gave him WY and also Dolyak (but disabled, so under my manual control), then pre-protted him, flagged and activated his defenses (this was before the armor cap). Then I led the rest of the party in after he was the target for all the enemies. Didn't always work, but was helpful in plenty of situations.

Not sure if I can really offer any advice, except for you to learn the enemy group compositions and their skills so you can adjust your party's builds to adequately cope with whatever they can throw at you. With undead, the monks and paragons rez so you'll need some decent interrupting capability - killing all the rezzers early on I didn't always find to be easy. Cry of Frustration I found invaluable in some areas.

For areas with difficult bosses, like in Shekoss in Joko's Domain and Korr in Turai's Procession, it's best to take them out first so if you can't at least you haven't wasted several hours clearing the other monsters only to fail at the end. Broad Head Arrow is a caster killer; in some areas (in Cantha, at least) I was running two BHA rangers and set them up to shut down individual problematic casters, especially elementalist bosses.

In Elona, after Istan, I'd probably recommend vanquishing in an order similar to the following:

Some easier areas:

Dejarin Estate
Arkjok Ward
Marga Coast
Sunward Marshes
Barbarous Shore
Wilderness of Bahdza
Resplendent Makuun
Vehjin Mines
Alkali Pan
Shattered Ravines
Sulfurous Wastes

Medium:

Bahdok Caverns
Gandara
Mahnkelon
Jahai Bluffs
Turai's Procession
Mirror of Lyss
Chokhin
Forum Highlands
Yatendi Canyons
Seborhin
Vehtendi Valley
Crystal Overlook

Difficult:

Ahdashim
Joko's Domain
Ruptured Heart
Poisoned Outcrops

From my experiences, of course.

Re-reading the above, I don't know if any of that is of use, but there it is anyhow.

Thx, thats a lot of useful info. BTW why did you delete your monk??

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I'm playing as a warrior, and have done all but 4 areas in Elona.

Forum Highlands-
I get killed by the two elemental bosses (dervish and fire ele, I belive) in this region. There is a hard Kournan monk boss in this region too (spawns with a Margonite Cleric).

Joko's Domain, Alkali Pan, Poisoned Outcrops.

All are impossibly hard because of unwurmable undead boss spawns with dual acolyotes/cavaliers. I have tried and failed both Poisoned Outcrops (didnt get halfway) and Joko's (was nearing 400 kills when DP got too high to proceed) with guild mates, while Alkali Pan's only difficulty is one single Undead boss (Mesmer, even with no hexage in my team, he manages to spam Hex Eater Vortex for a lovely 300+ AoE), with two acolyotes. Once I managed to kill both, but I had 45 dp by then and already had cleared all wurmable areas.

I usually run Dual SFs, 1 Glimmer of Light healer, Dual Monk henchies, Cynn, and Devona/Gehraz. I myself play offensively, hardly ever tank in the Desolation, because the battleground is largely open, and casters are the biggest problem.

Every single region up till the desolation is easy/doable, but undead bosses just make me want to hit something. Rezzing is not a good evolution for PvE mobs, in my opinion.

the alkali pan is actually very easy, even with the mesmer boss...I sent in a hero as an aggroer, then flagged em back to were the rest of the team was waiting in wurms, destroyed them easily...just use a hero to get their attention!

just take a hero with [skill]natural stride[/skill] and a longbow easy to lure them back to your wurms!

I tried Alkali Pan again, this time with a friend, and we managed to lure the boss back to wurms, though it was a complicated affair of rebirths, hit and run and kiting mobs. After that it was a breeze.

Did Forum Highlands today as well, testing an Oath Shot Spirit Spammer, and finding it to be a great sucess in reining in the huge damage from the Djin + Ether mobs. Monk boss was easy, due to the abscence of a second healer. I found him to be easier than Skree Griffons. Needless to say, Vanq'd that one too.

However, If anyone would be so gracious as to tip me off to some magic way to Vanquish Poisoned Outcrops, I'd be delighted.

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This has been quite helpful and I have been able to vanquish some of the 'easy areas'. Sunward marchs was helped by having an MM, SS and multiple eles. The Acolyte in the castle was probably the hardest to kill. I may have lucked out with the large herd of Notukas as we were able to lure them through a narrow pass where we nuked the whole herd. None the less I couldn't have done it without some candy canes and a helpful guildie.

hi

I just finished vanquishing Elona.
My tatic was
Ranger --> me like intterupter , and agaist undeads i use frozen Soil
Ritualist hero with Shelter and Union
Necro Hero MM
Monk hero-protector(aegis)
Elemtalist--> my friend, he was sering flames
Elemtal hero SF
Elemtal hero SF or water with malestrom (if we need to fight against ruby djins and some elemtal bosses we use mesmer hero with intterupt skills--> try to do total shutdown or we take tank warriror hero and flag him in front to tank)
Monk hero-heler

Tatic for fighting was to lure agro near walls(like beyond corner) or to narrow space to have them group, never take on open field. Elemtal with his group was litlle behind me to avoid taking agro and when foes group around me he fry them
Important was before fighting to cast shelter and union. Which protect you against few first attack special from fire elemtals with AOE damage and some kind of spikes if you miss them to interupt.
Vanquishing solo with henchs is very hard. My advice to take atleast one more player with heroes for that.

Yeah i finished my vanquishing too just now actually..

For the undead zones (Joko's Domain, Poisoned Outcrops) i used holy wrath , judge's insight and some ways to reduce incoming damage (lifebond/lifebarrier). Sometimes, you can get lucky with the terrain even though the terrain doesn't favor you directly but fighting in the open is really risky in the above zones (if they de-aggro from you and bash the healers instead).

At least these two zones have some rocks/mountain walls that you can use to your advantage. Except near the big necromancer group that can spawn, be very careful of them if they're present (at poisoned outcrops).

Another difficult zone for me was Garden of Seborhin because the Wrecking Balls (=Diamond Djinn's) kept killing us, very quickly, sometimes in 2-hits. The only trick i came up for this was to use my title skill (There's nothing to Fear) it made it much easier with Razah as Boon/MM - although Razah was already that but it wasn't enough.

Margrid is BHA/Epidemic that i lock on casters (Ruby Djinn's etc), she was also the puller for us. Remember that you need more than average dps to kill the Diamonds because their regen is crazy, too much healing and they just wont fall (too much DP is bad too..).

Mmmm. so dont forget your title skills people . I wish i had used mine sooner it would have made things much more simpler :P.

Three most difficult zones for me:

1. Barbarous Shore
2. Poisoned Outcrops
3. Garden of Seborhin

The Hidden City of Ahdashim was a pain since multiple Ruby Djinn are fags. I got through it using Eternal Melandru, getting pre protted, flagging heroes/hench back a bit then charging alone to try and soak up the nukes. I paid them back in full with Wearying Strike and Warmonger's Weapon. The team exploded many times when multiple Ruby Djinn popped up so 60 dp rolled in quickly but my insurance policy was leet: Death Pact Signet.