Soloing UW in HM as A/Me (Image Heavy)

Videos
Sorry about not not putting any music in there, so this will probably be really boring. I'm really lazy. But this should help with any questions you might have.
Labyrinth First Room
Labyrinth Second Room
Chaos Planes First Pull
The Run

I don't think that many people solo farm the UW now days, thinking that 1) farming in HM is slow with the scatter (not true), and 2) drops are not better than NM (eh...).

If you truly believe that drops are not better in HM (not that since HM takes longer, it's less profitable), I have nothing to say... go farm NM all you want. BUT, if you think that HM isn't ideal right now because the efficiency of killing in HM is greatly diminished, this is a guide for you!


Who said HM caused scatter? 0_o


Do you still think HM doesn't have significantly better drops? I can't even hold any chalk in my inventory...


First off, the least important part - build. There are so many variations to this it's not even funny... However since I don't have EoTN, this is what I'm stuck with:

Skills:
Feigned Neutrality
Deadly Paradox
Arcane Echo
Shadow Form
Dark Escape
Ether Nightmare
Cry of Pain
Spirit of Failure

Attributes:
Shadow Arts: 12+3+1
Deadly Arts: 3+3
Inspiration Magic: 12

Equipments:
Max armor with radiant insignia on all pieces

This is the set you will use most of the time:
Spear of Enchanting (20%)
Inspiration Focus (Without FCR or FSR)

This is to kill the Dying Nightmares:
Defensive Inspiration Staff of Enchanting (+5, 20%)

This is for the run to Chaos Planes:
Totem Axe
Best shield you can find (Hopefully with -2/stance, or -5/20%)

Now to use the build...

First Room
First precast DP, AC, and SF, then grab quest and sit in the middle of the room. Aggro everything in the room without going up the stairs, the pull to this choke point.


Now start the killing!

Now you can either skip to the Third Room, or keep following the pretty pictures.



Second Room
Now proceed to the second room, the one with the terrorwebs, and aggro everything in sight, including the 2 stray aatxes patrolling in the rectangular room (wait for them to come to the second room), then pull the group to this choke point, and proceed on killing.




Now you've done the smite run equivalent of aatxes in 12 min in HM (~20 Aatxes = ~40 Smites)
Time to actually get to the interesting parts!

Unwanted Guest
If you ever wanted to try your luck at a purple crystalline sword, this is for you. Take the quest from reaper, and kill each group of terrorwebs + keeper of souls by pulling them together like this, ignoring vengeful aatxes at all times.


Third Room
Go back to the first room, then head to the right to the third room, aggro everything in sight (3 groups of aatxes, one of which is on the ramp next to the room, and 2 groups of graspings), pull to this choke point, and proceed with the butchering.




As you can see, 19 min isn't the most impressive time in the world. But keep in mind I do stop and kill every single thing, including DNM popups, which if you just ignore, should take about 15 min to clear all 3 room.

The Run
Now, let SF run out, and regenerate your energy and health. Clear any DNMs in the area by casting Dark Escape followed by Ether Nightmare and Cry of Pain, then wand him 2 or 3 times to kill him. Now, go switch to you third weapon set: Totem Axe and Shield, and start running!
For the actual path of the run, refer to either Donut Tzar’s or Th Fooster's awesome guides. Both of them have a link to a video showing the run, one in NM and one in HM.
Since this is now HM, 1) DNMs hurt… and 2) Charged Blackness moves faster. This is where Dark Escape comes into play. Once you reach the first fork, keep on running like shown in the video. As soon as the Charged Blackness starts patrolling (when you get do the dark alley, 4:36 in Th Fooster's video) use dark escape and run the rest of the way to the gate, ignoring any DNM that pops up. Once you are there, use the wall to block the attacks of any DNMs following you, kill them, and heal up. Now head to the…

Chaos Plane
The ever so wonderful ecto-land! Get into the perma-shadow sequence, and aggro the 4 banished dream riders as show here, and kill them.


Now grab all 4 of the groups of 3 mindblades, pull to this choke point and kill.


Refer to the above, but this time with 4 groups of 6.


And now with 9 in each group…


Be careful not to get body blocked by them while pulling them to the choke point. A easy way to do this is to face the other way, so your back is towards majority of the specters, then tap forward every other second. This'll ensure that all of them stays on your backside instead of surrounding you.

Now keep on going down on the minimap, then back up (follow the red line on the screenshot), and pull everyone to here.


Now 4 groups of Specters should spawn, however, I have not succeeded in pulling all of them in a single aggro, so separate them into two groups.

Specter Second Pull:

Specter Third Pull:

Bone Pits
This place is insanely easy. The only thing to watch for, is to kill all of them at the same time, or else they use well and regenerate, making killing them really really long. The collectors are melee , and the threshers are ranged. Choking point isn't exactly needed because they are extraordinarily fat, so they get stuck in any semi-narrow corridor as show here. As you can see, there is more than 3 collectors around me, yet they are all in range for ether nightmare and cry of pain.


Here is how long it took me to clear all 3 areas: labyrinth, chaos planes, and bone pits.

what sets this apart from the OTHER sin uw farming thread?

the fact that it shows how to do the UW run in HM...the run tactics change a bit

Quote: Originally Posted by Dark Tykane

this looks really good, i might have to try this when i get more money to spend on my sin.

I know that the mesmer skills are for killing but how exactly do they kill?
If it is in the pic then srry my computer wont load them : (
nm: looks like your just degening them to death+cop damage

What allegiance rank / sunspear do you need for the build to work?

So is it because you're only using degen that they don't flee?

In the first pic I don't see any body blocking or choking.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lethorn Maeran What allegiance rank / sunspear do you need for the build to work? it was workable with 8 sunspear/1 allegiance rank, right now i'm sitting at 9/2 tho, i'm sure you can go as low as 6-7/1

Quote: Originally Posted by Marverick So is it because you're only using degen that they don't flee? false, they still flee from degen. i am also using cry of pain

dont be mean to em teotuf :P they arnt running because he has em blocked against the wall and spirit/candle thingy

EDIT:im sitting at r8 ss and r5 luxon....works fine but the higher the better (obviously)

I'm just curious what happens if you aggro a group of charged blacknesses? They move fast enough in NM, in HM the 25% run boodt from Dark Escape won't de-aggro them.

Am I missing something? Or is it that if you aggro blacknesses the run's over?

Use Radiation Field instead of dark escape/empathy to kill faster.

Of course drops are better in HM, but only for golds and other stuff. Ecto's don't drop more, so people would rather kill stuff a tad faster without problems for farming ectos only. HM is good for pulling as much as you can as they will follow you further. Of course you can always pull big numbers of enemies towards "choke" points to keep them from scattering. I am sure people know you can make a bit more profit in HM, but they are mainly there for ectos... Definately get a bit more profit from scrolls and gold items from farming in HM. Good guide though, some people don't know much about pulling enemies to a wall or a place to keep them from scattering.

You can also use speed buffs from stuff like Birthday Cupcakes to help you on the running part, or if you can afford it, Essence of Clarity. I personally use Bday Cakes that I got saved up from the other weekend. That way I can take Mindbender along to make things easier, and no need to let SF wear off at certain points and wait for recharge. Auspicious is also great for energy gain, and being able to keep up shadowform with plenty of energy.

Interesting build. Great Job at it.

the only replacement you can make is if u have eotn, take mindbender so you can keep up SF constantly in the mountains, in which case you don't need dark escape anymore (it was there to act both as a speed boost so you can make it to gate before charged, and to reduce the dmg from DNM pop-ups, but if you can keep up SF, you dont need to reduce the dmg from DNMs)

feigned neutrality isn't needed, but i took it so I dont have to deal w/ bad luck of running into traps

Quote: Originally Posted by TarjaTeOrteyn

I'm so glad I got perma SF on my assassin.
Time for her to go nuts in UW aswell.
Good job on the guide!

Quote: Originally Posted by teotuf

damn all this looks very tempting but making a good Sin like that with all the titles <Sunspear, Asura, Alliance...> just puts me off -__-" (time needed for all this)

I Have an Elementalist that I farm chaos planes with but its NM and slow (50minutes)

A question for our Uber ecto farmers :P

Is farming Tombs of Kings for ectos worth it? (I can do it on HM with 4minutes per run to kill all foes that drop ectos on lvl1)

Can anyone tell me how the perma shadow form sequence works?
Any other way, guide looks SOLID!
Thanks

Quote: Originally Posted by Abonai Laguna