Now the build is pretty silly-looking unless you know the tactics. So don't bother complaining/flaming that the smite bar is ridiculous until you know how it's played. And yes, the fire skills must be on the Smite bar and the Mesmer shutdowns must be on the Ranger bar. It will not work the other way around.
It's a straight-forward 600 + smite/nuker + QZ ranger/shutdown. Again, yes the smites and nukes on the same character. Here's the build:
Player
[Protective Spirit][Spirit Bond][Shield of Absorption][Spell Breaker][Ancestors Visage][Sympathetic Visage][I Am Unstoppable][Blessed Aura]
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Atts: Divine-12+1+1 / Prot-9+1 / Illusion-9 (leaves 7 left over but oh well)
I use a staff 20% Enchant, +5 energy, +5 energy, HSR 20%. It actually only gives me 575 life but the difference to 600 doesn't matter. In the pic I changed to my FoW armor and a sword/shield set, of course you need to have 15 AL or something similar. I use Cathan 15al starter. I changed armors/weps for the pic so as to not give it away so easily.
Talkora / Dunkoro / Ogden
[Savannah Heat][Searing Heat][Fire Storm][Life Attunement][Balthazar's Spirit][Retribution][Holy Wrath][Rebirth]
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Atts: Smite-12+3+1 / Prot-9+1 / Fire-9
No specific weapon needed, maybe HCR Fire or 20/20 fire set. Half the time my Talkora has no weapon at all.
Margrid/Pyre
[Serpent's Quickness][Quickening Zephyr][Famine][Healing Spring][Diversion][Arcane Echo][Arcane Larceny][Arcane Thievery]
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Domination-10 / Expertise-8+1 / Wilderness-12+3+1
Anything that will give him at least 45 energy.
I had to cut it down a bit, the other person in the party screen is the Elemental Lord Taeres listed under the allies tab. He is still listed as a party member once you're done.
I'm going to assume that most here know how to 600-smite so I won't go into too much detail. I am also going to assume that each of you is familiar enough with FoW so I don't have to go into details and post a bunch of screens. Honestly, if you have not completed FoW several times before I would not suggest trying this as you will get owned simply by your lack of area-experience.
I will answer questions that are not covered in the guide. Please read first then ask.
Quests:
Tower of Courage: Very easy. Just use "I am Unstoppable!" right as any Abyssal's reach you. They die well before it runs out for me (rank 9 Norn). You need to have at least rank 8 or 9 in Norn for this to be the most effective. Shouldn't be a problem for all you Varajar Fells Ursan's ^^. Clear all groups around the spawn point and the two up the hill, then go around the tower and kill the trigger group last. Rastigan will have a clear run up to the tower at that point. Body-block the door to the tower and own the Abyssal's and Shadow Lord.
Wailing Lord: Very hard, until I figured out how to get past those pesky wurms. Even Mantra of Resolve didn't help, just too many interupts. Agro the wurms up, agro the Snarling Driftwoods. Pull back out of wurm range and kill the Snarling Driftwoods. Once dead, remove all smites/hero-maintained enchantments from you. Flag Monk Hero just outside of wurm range and send her in to the closest wurm. Basically you have to drop a fire spell, run back, drop a fire spell, run back. You actually have just enough time to get a 2 second-cast fire spell off before the wurms hit with Choking Gas. It's incredibly annoying and time consuming due to the mass interrupts, but it works well. You have to work fast to counter the wurms regen. Don't forget to heal the monk Hero as she/he will take a lot of damage doing this. If you don't take Scrolls of Resurrection then you get to go back to town if she/he dies.
Once all the wurms are dead re-smite up and go in. The spiders don't pose any kind of real threat, it's Nature's Renewal that does. Easy fix. Flag heros far enough back that they are out of NR range and kill everything. Once the NR dies off on it's own (after the Spiritwoods are dead) simply move up. You have to pay close attention to the range of NR as once the hero is in range then they are affected. Otherwise, only you are.
Keep moving up and killing in steps. It's rather easy once you know how to deal with NR and the wurms. A second group of wurms will pop up nearer to the Wailing Lord, you can actually use the terrain to block their interupts and drop them fairly fast.
Banshees and everything else, just kill. Wailing Lord will not attack so no worries there.
A Gift Of Griffons: Really easy. Take quest to spawn griffons, then stay far away from them. If you agro the griffons, the run is over as they will follow you into everything you attempt to kill. Go clear the undead groups (which by the way are super easy, smites=holy damage ftw). Once clear, run back get the griffs and run to Rastigan for completion.
The Eternal Forgemaster: Somewhat hard, until QZ comes into play. To get to the temple you must of course kill everything in front of it (monks and mesmers). Problem is, you can't kill monks without some sort of melee to trigger SV/AV. The answer is one of those heart attack moments.
Agro and kill the group of Shadow Warriors and Abyssal's. Leave 1 warrior alive (just run away when only 1 is left, easy since they break agro at the start). You will need to use QZ here so you can chain "I am Unstoppable!". Once you have, come back and regen up, flag closer to the monks/mesmers and drop spirits (always keep QZ up here, famine is just a bonus speed boost). Go agro the warrior and kill him. Once he is dead you spawn a group of Shadow Beasts, which, are the most annoying critter in FoW for the build imo. You can stay up on them with only SOA and they love to use Consume Corpse. Plus, they don't hit hard so smites take forever to kill. Anyways, agro the Shadow Beast and take them into the monks/mesmers. Have Spell Breaker up or the run is over btw. The monks are always standing right next to each other so AV/SV plus Famine = no chance. I took EoE at one time and it was kinda funny to watch them all blow up. Miss cast something important like the SOA/SB chain then you're probably finished and there's not going to be a safe way to res you out.
Clearing the Temple is a lot more of the same. Kill the first group of Shadow Beasts and Abyssal's. Then, flag just outside range of a monk/mesmer group. Drop spirits. Wait for the patrol to move away, if you go in and the patrol is in range they will get in front of you and basically body-block you away from the monks=run is probably over. So when they are gone, Spell breaker up and go in. Watch your casts as spamming here hurts with QZ up. Spell breaker=21 e to cast. Once the patrol returns, hit IAU and AV/SV up. Don't forget to keep QZ and Famine up with constant Serpent's Quickness. You have to use the patrols to kill. Once you have cleared like this you end up with 1 group of monks/mesmers left.
Go up each ramp and agro the rangers 1 group at a time. Basically, agro and pull back so you don't set off the Shadow beast pop-ups. If you do pop one it's no biggie. The goal here is to kill the 3 groups of rangers, then run up to the top of the platform, kill the last group of rangers, then run down to the monk/mesmer group dragging the Shadow Beasts with you. There's your AV/SV trigger for the last group.
Defend The Temple Of War: Uber, ridiculously, stressfully hard. 2 separate groups of Shadow Beasts and Abyssal's spawn with no safe place to flag. They come up the ramps in sets hell-bent on killing the Forgemaster. So hard. Healing spring is here for this reason alone. Flag next to the Forgemaster and hit spring as needed. You really have to play smart here, luck is a part of it too. As the groups run up the ramp you have to agro them and begin to kill while watching for other groups. If the heroes take agro, flag them around the platform and try to get in the way so you take the agro. If the Forgemaster takes agro, try to get in the way to draw them off. You can survive with only SOA and spamming SV/AV(until Abyssal's come up) Keep Famine up as they will kill it off.
Btw, Famine+Smiter usually = death. However, since your hero monk never gains any energy after you start fighting (no Blessed Signet), then Famine has no effect, as his/her energy always remains 0.
If all goes well and you get a bit lucky you can do this. It's probably the hardest thing to do so I try to do it first before the others just so I don't have to mess with it at the end of the run.
Army Of Darkness: Somewhat hard. This is the second hardest quest just because of 2 monks... It's the entire reason the Ranger hero has the Mesmer shutdown skills.
Clear the undead groups in front of the plateau first. The problem here is there is a Monk and the Priest with no melee trigger for AV/SV. You have to cancel the 2 smites and then flag the heroes as far back as you can along the wall. Agro the monk and rangers and pull them. You can do this easily without agroing the Dragon Lich. The Priest may agro with you but if you pull them far enough back the Priest will eventually go back leaving you with the monk and rangers. If you still have smites up then the Priest will agro along with the Monk/Ranger group, healing them. You can't shut down a monk and kill him while there is another healing.
This part is tricky. You need to pull back so the monk runs in front of the rangers to attack you making him the closest one to you. Once you have this done, bring up your monk and have him/her hit you with Retribution, then Holy Wrath (in that order), flag him/her back. Then bring up your Ranger so he/she is just outside of the Monks range. Select the Monk, Arcane echo, Diversion, wait a second or two, then echoed Diversion. This will usually take out the Monks two primary heals. You may still be able to use the Echoed Diversion one more time and then follow up with the two Skill Steals. This pretty much shuts the monk down. It's a bit difficult as you have to keep an eye on yourself because the rangers can own you if you drop the ball.
Multitasking and micromanaging at it's finest. I would suggest being very familiar with this kind of play well before attempting FoW. Once in a while this chain will not shut down the monk and you end up in a game of attrition, seeing who can last the longest. I sat there for 10 minutes once... The rangers will eventually die off and then you just have to wear down the monk. It's slow sometimes but you can get him.
Once dead, go grab the Priest, pull him back and do the same. He drops pretty easily in comparison. Use the same shutdown chain as the Monk. Echo, Divert, Divert, Divert, Steal, Steal, Own. You may have to kill him while he stands next to the Lich because he doesn't like to agro far back like the Monk/Rangers did. If so, flag heroes way back, prot up, and run in to get the Text. Run back a bit (outside initial agro range of the Lich) and die. You can't outrun the Lich while carrying something. Once your dead, rebirth yourself up, grab the Text and complete. Work fast as the Lich may begin to patrol (easy to evade though).
Restore The Temple Of War: Easy. Clear the cave very slowly (moderate interrupts) and keep Spell Breaker up at all times due to the Dryder's and Lingering Curse from the Seeds. It's a good idea to take the Hunt quest on the way so you can grab the Wolf at the end of the cave.
Khobay The Betrayer: Somewhat easy. Kill everything along the way. All patrols need to die or you're run could be over. You may need to use your Ranger to shutdown the Smoke Walkers if they won't suicide to your smites. Also, kill the wurm with your Hero monk's fire skills. The wurms can be annoying to the Heroes. You might need to pull Khobay away from the wurm he's next to, plus to try to get him away from his monks. You may want to pull everything back to bunch the casters together and then go in to SV/AV+Famine them all to death.
Tower of Strength: Easy. There's one group of Rangers with Monks along the way that you have to deal with. Simply drag a group of Abyssal's and Shadow beasts into them like when you're clearing the temple. Other than that there's a lot of melee and a lot of Abyssal's so keep QZ going for IAU when needed. Also, you need to kill the wurms here, both of them. Don't want your heroes getting slowly owned. Once clear, go back for the Tower Mage and complete. Afterwards, I suggest going back to the Temple and continuing from there vrs. cutting through to the Burning Forest.
Slaves of Menzies: Easy. You can take the quest first or clear then take. Which ever you prefer, they all die in the end. You need to keep QZ going at all times so you can chain Spell Breaker. Otherwise, the Scales, Mesmers, and Hydras will own you. Nothing better than a full enchant strip when you have only 15 AL.
The Hunt: Easy. The Shard Wolves die pretty easily. There's a few of them along the way so you may have to backtrack to get them all depending on the order of the quests you choose to take.
End Chest: Golds, Passage Scrolls, 1 shard, 1 onyx, 1 obsidian key, 1 lockpick are the usual drops. Worst I have ever done is 3 Scrolls... thanks Anet. I usually end up with near 20k in drops and merch food (lots of trips back to the Forgemaster to sell) I've had a run where I got 14 Shards, and a run where I got only the one at the end chest... In testing this build I farmed 86 Shards in total. To give you an idea of the time it took to get this right.
Again this entire thing is not for the farm, but for the challenge. That's all this is. To be able to say you soloed FoW with 2 heroes, in Hard Mode. Please save your comments if all you have to say is how slow it is and how there is so much out there other than this to make cash. This is not about money.
The entire run can take up to 5+ hours to complete due to the meticulousness of the run. Ursan runs take an hour or so. If you want only the end chest I'd suggest that.
Having experienced the possibilities of this build in FoW, (and other ares I.E. CoF <--r10 Dwarven just from that lol) I have come to believe that most anything should be able to be done with the 600+Smite/Fire+QZ/xyz. The Ranger having the ability to be variable really makes the build open up with possibilities. It merely takes time to figure out and solve tactical problems.
. I'm gonna give it a try somewhere next week or so
