Am I Mentally Retarded? (Can't beat HM Darkrime Delves)

Hard mode mobs can "suffer" from random selection meaning that sometimes you will happen across a group that is almost unbeatable in HM due to their total domination in a certain area. Depending on your build.

For instance today in Shards on my way to Gadd's I encountered a group of 6 Skeleton Wizards, 3 priests and 2 chained Clerics. That much blind and healing meant most of the physicals in the team were useless as my monks couldn't keep up with condition removal.

If I had been playing a less balanced team, and gone all magic, we would have nuked them in short order.

HM Guild Wars is more akin to a game of Paper/Scissors/Stone than anything else. Right, it gets really silly though when your 'rock' of a two man team can run dungeons like CoF/SoO/etc. and beat the dungeon's now paper thin mobs. (pun intended)

BTW, just want to reinforce the idea of bringing a blindbot (air ele) and good prot (Don't rely on heroes for these two roles unless you're some sort of RTS freak with multitasking skills of a god. ) since both can make this dungeon A LOT easier.

Being giants, Jotun possess great strengths:

* They cannot be knocked down. LOL I got owned. My bad - saw HM and just immediately thought to mention that skill.

Anyway - other things that make Jotun easier - blind, [Enfeebling Blood], [Protective Spirit], [Pain Inverter]. Also, since I'm a mesmer I have to plug Clumsiness here - they'll start their Stomp and then it'll be canceled and take damage. IMO there's nothing more satisfying in GW than interrupts. Pyro's mesmer bar looks great for a hero there.

Hard mode mobs can "suffer" from random selection meaning that sometimes you will happen across a group that is almost unbeatable in HM due to their total domination in a certain area. Depending on your build.

For instance today in Shards on my way to Gadd's I encountered a group of 6 Skeleton Wizards, 3 priests and 2 chained Clerics. That much blind and healing meant most of the physicals in the team were useless as my monks couldn't keep up with condition removal.

If I had been playing a less balanced team, and gone all magic, we would have nuked them in short order.

HM Guild Wars is more akin to a game of Paper/Scissors/Stone than anything else. Trust me, I know this, I have been stopped at the last group of a vanquish in EN because of a Charr group (Spirit Spammer, 2 monks, 1 Mesmer(with rez), 1 warder, and something else). Luckily though, those "good groups" usually only exist in the later areas and in EN, which is what I was saying in what you quoted me on, the "Hard" Hard Mode areas are rare in non-EN, but rather common in EN, as in NM they are already well balanced.

.. right. I'm using an air ele with Sabway and Herta, Mhenlo/Lina and.. tried several henches for the 8th spot. They're perfect outfitted (inc. sup vigor) with all the right runes and insignias.

I've seen it said very often that PVE is incredibly easy, there's nothing hard in PVE. I see people with healing breeze builds somehow survive. That begs the question: why am I dying?

It's all fairly easy until I run into a group of about.. 6-8 Jotun. You attack one, the rest all come; there's no way to pull just one. Pretty soon, someone just DIES INSTANTLY. Nothing seems to help. Later on, there's a gigantic gang of innumerable Vaettirs. Same thing - can't pull anything, instant death to a party member and it just gets worse from there. I've tried spreading blind and weakness on different enemies, I've tried doing nothing but spiking one - nothing really seems to matter. Tips? Is there something really, really obvious I'm missing from my play? Jotun are harsh in Hard Mode. I try to bring the following skills to help counter them:

[Ward of Stability] - I stick this on an Earth Ele hero, usually, and wards get cast early on in a battle by heroes.
[Blinding Flash][Epidemic] - I also play Ele in most of Hard Mode, I use this to keep as many Melee Jotun blind as possible.
[Enfeebling Blood] - as previously stated, always good to help reduce damage.

I tend to spike off the Mindbreakers first. They can severely disrupt casters with interrupts, hex-interrupts and Backfire. The last thing I need is me taking 140+HP damage from Backfire when casting Blinding Flash, or Dunkoro taking 140+HP damage when spamming Word of Healing.

I then try to get rid of any Bladeturners since they have the ability to remove hexes and bug Casters through Arcane Conundrum.

I then go at the Bloodcurdlers. I find the two types of Mesmer don't take long to get rid of, and the Bloodcurdlers are really irritating foes. They have a very nasty habit of surviving thanks to the lifesteal abilities.

I deal with the Skullsmashers last, because they're generally harmless when blinded.

As far as killing them goes, armor ignoring damage seems far better against them than anything else. Mesmers and Necromancers do work well, but also remember Health Degeneration is armor ignoring so try spreading Bleeding, Poison, Disease and/or Burning around to give them 10 health degeneration. I particularly love Disease as it's the condition that just keeps on giving. Degen conditions are far more useful than degen hexes (such as [[Conjure Nightmare] and [[Conjure Phantasm]) since they're often much easier to apply, and cheaper to apply, and also are able to be spread.