Entering Vloxen Excavations HM, then...

/resign

I've searched the forum, but can't find much about this dungeon, and wiki discussion pages have something, but can't find a way to make it work.
This is the last HM dungeon I need for my book, but I cannot go through.

I need some advices from those who have beaten it.
And I need builds and strategies, for warrior, mesmer and ritualist, using H/H.

I've already done the other HM dungeons by H/H, except Slaver's where it is easy to PuG since it is farmed a lot, and Heart of Shiverpeaks, where I found another player who wanted to do it togheter.

I'll try Vloxen again in a couple of weeks since I'll take a break from GW out of frustration.
In June I had a two weeks break for the same reason, and left this dungeon until last week.
During last week I've been trying to get this damn dungeon done, but there's always something that doesn't work: if I bring an hex pressure team, I can get past the stone summit mob with the healers and rezzers, since they don't have hex removal but I'm weak against the rest of the dungeon enemies; if I bring a balanced team, can't outdamage the enemies...

Tried with guildies, but we failed harder than with bots, and they don't want to do it anymore...
Tried with PUGs, but it's the same, if not worse, since you can only find 1 person at time willing to do it...

With PUGs (mostly 1 or 2 other human players + heroes) tried a balanced build and an Obsidian Tank team (as for Slaver's, but heroes AI can't handle that situation very well.

What's even worse is that a lot of people is just looking for runners. They don't want to do the dungeon "the old way", because it is too hard. There is something wrong if you can't find people willing to play in a videogame, but just want a run. (And that something IMO is not the people...)

[/rant]

The builds I used so far:

1) Sabway + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Cynn
2) Command/Leadership Para + Motivation Para + Resto Necro + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Cynn
3) Command/Leadership Para + MM + Resto Necro + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Zho
4) Curse/Illusion + MM/smite + Resto Necro + Mhenlo + Lina + Lo Sha + Zho/Herta
5) 3 SF eles + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Lo Sha
6) 2 SF eles + 1 water snares (with ward against harm) + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Lo Sha
7) 2 SF eles + 1 BHA ranger with FS + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Lo Sha
8) MM + Resto necro or Curse necro + BHA ranger with FS + Mhenlo + Lina + Herta + Lo Sha

and others I don't remember now.

I always brought Frozen Soil if I had no hero ranger. But if the spirit is into the dwarves attack range, it will be killed by them, if it is out of their range, they simpy use a rez from outside the spirits range.

I've been suggested to use Ursan, but I don't see how it would be better than the rest (especially now that has been nerfed).

I followed the instructions written in the discussion pages of the two wikis, but with no result.
Is there something I'm missing?

I'll be playing some games on my 360 to relax for now, gaming shouldn't be this way, but I'll try this dungeon again after 2 weeks, with a fresh mind.
Any advice is really warmly welcome.

try using discordway instead of sabway
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Discord_Spam

works a lot better than sabway, imo

I did it with my ranger H/H in hard mode... don't recall exactly what I used, I belive I used barrage, as a R/W. Xandra/Dunkoro/Olias probably, with cynn/herta/mhenlo/eve (or maybe the mesmer hench, I don't remember)

wasn't that hard. boss was super easy. Didn't use consumables.

There is a pretty foolproof but very slow method to get it done, an extreme version of the hit'n run tactic. You must be A/X or X/A with [Shadow of Haste][Ebon Vanguard Sniper Support][Dash] (max or near-max Vanguard rank recommended) and if X != R you'll need a hero with [Frozen Soil]

Proper positioning is the key. First, lay FS into a place that will just cover the mob in question, preferrably away from the primary attack path. Then, flag the H+H at least 2 aggro ranges away and activate SoH at that place. Pick your target, push EVSS to run in and cast it on the target. Immediately when EVSS completes hit Dash to return to H+H and thus break aggro. You have a 10% chance to instakill your target, and if you Dash out fast enough mobs won't chase you, thus keeping FS safe. Repeat until you can beat the remaining monsters by normal tactics.

I wrote a guide for this dungeon for a monk primary. You could try it for an ele primary as well if you use Ether Renewal. Here's the link:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10295945

Sorry, I don't have a Warrior, Mesmer or Ritualist build. However, I'm guessing for a Ritualist primary, you could go for a Weapon of Warding spam. The build revolves around using Atunned was Songkai and Renewing Memories in order to spam Weapon of Warding.

For a warrior, you could try an Obsidian Flesh tank and just go for tank 'n spank.

No clue for a Mesmer

Bring Frozen Soil

I've beaten it with my warrior, using Sabway and playing with my brother and three heroes. It was hard, but we finally got through it after many close attempts.

The problem really is the dungeon. It isn't even a master's quest dungeon, but it has elite area monsters. No one sees a problem with that? It's easy in normal mode. I don't know, I play to have fun, not get frustrated, and this dungeon is rediculous.

Forgot to add the triple class Stone Summits. Hey, the game cheats, we should too.

When my mesmer ran through, I admittedly had help from an awesome guildie - but I can show you the bar I used.

[build name="Vloxen" prof=Me/Mo illusion=12+1+1 insp=10+1 fast=8+1][Shrinking Armor][Clumsiness][Wandering Eye][Ineptitude][Cry of Pain][Pain Inverter][Power Drain][Rebirth][/build]

Nowadays I would swap out Ineptitude for the new [[Lyssa's Aura]. We did have major problems on level 2, I think it was the Jagged Bones boss's group. Instead of bringing a MM, we brought a corpse exploiter - [[Putrid Explosion], [[Consume Corpse], etc. - and then [[Verata's Aura] and [[Verata's Gaze] to help stop the ridiculous armies that the Stone Summit MM's could throw up.

Obviously Rebirth is for "oh shi-" moments, and they were plentiful

That dungeon is a BITCH, good luck sir.

h/h is difficult, but two people 6 heroes is very very easy. Though I guess I'm semi biased because I've probably done Vloxen more than 50 times for customers of mine lol.

Just make sure you take enough healing - summitt don't win in prolonged fights because they run out of e and you can spike their backline. I'd suggest a n/rt, HB monk, and n/mo icy prot. If you have another human, ideally they play a front man and can take a few SH eles or barrager rangers/sins.

a tank definitely helps. Not terra or anything that extreme, but Dslash/sy works perfect. You're biggest problem is in level 2, when you fight the MM boss. He's not the only MM in the group and if you don't kill fast, he'll summon faster, and then the minions start becoming a problem.

Just remember to bring a lot of DP removers. We died a few times at the MM boss, but every other spot we steamrolled through no problem. If you keep your health high, and keep your priorities straight, he'll go down easy and the dungeon becomes cakewalk. Cuz IMO, the dungeon end boss Zoldark is nothing compared to what you've had to fight on your way there.

I did Vloxen a long time ago with H/H, and didn't remember it as being very difficult, so I went back to have a look and... damn!

I couldn't even get past the first group of 18 stone summit guarding the door lock to level 2 (after killing the first stone-summit boss). In normal mode the group which kills the dredge slaves move through the door after killing, so if you wait you can fight them as several small groups instead of one big, but in HM they all stay and guard the door - and that was a complete roadblock.

Hurdle#1: Stone Summit have hard res: Solution, You NEED Frozen Soil. I modified the Sab curse necro to a N/R wiht FS and microed it.

Hurdle #2: They are capable of putting out large Hex and Condition stacks: Solution, Conver Hexes, Divert Hexes and RC are very good skills to pack down here, I modified the Sab MM to be a N/Mo with Convert, Deny Hex and Spirit bond.

Hurdle#3: Their Minion Factories, Solution: Have the Sab MM pack Verata's Aura, they aaaalll go boom.

Hurdle #4: Their healers, there are at least 2 or 3 per mob, they are hard to interrupt, solution: Knocklock. My best run down there, was with another warrior, between us we each Knock locked a monk, killed them then systematically destroyed the rest of the team. For a warrior I was a D-slah Headbut smammer, and the other guy was a hammer IIRC. For an ele earth magic or GoR meteors might do the trick.

Hurdle #W: for warriors, the dreamers pack soothing images, the warders have ward against melee, the defenders have blocking enchants, solution, the above convert hexes necro, Divert healer and a sam necro with Rigor Mortis.

With all these solutions in the party, we waltzed through the dungeon, every time I've tried them since, it's been like pulling teeth, because these conditions weren't met or we lacked some critical component.

I don't think you need a res, it just make it a lot easier.
Other tactics may consist of focussing on keeping pressure on them,take down hard rezzers, slow down melee trains, worked for me.

It might get laborious on some groups, but with an active build like the discord one mentionned earlier, you can do it without FS. Sabway is too passive for these areas.

Thanks to everyone for your answers.

When I'll come back to GW after this two weeks break, I'll try all of your advices to see if I can get this dungeon done.

Quote: Originally Posted by Anduin The problem really is the dungeon. It isn't even a master's quest dungeon, but it has elite area monsters. No one sees a problem with that? It's easy in normal mode. I don't know, I play to have fun, not get frustrated, and this dungeon is rediculous. QFT
I couldn't have said it better.

Laylat's guide is really full of details, really useful.

Quote: Originally Posted by Laylat For a warrior, you could try an Obsidian Flesh tank and just go for tank 'n spank. Quote: Originally Posted by MisterT69 a tank definitely helps. Tried that; sadly the heroes and henchies don't act very well in the Obsidian Team. The healers have a strange tendency to go wanding the enemies afret I move the party to go nuke. And then all the bots seem to act as if they want to be targets.

Many suggest [[Verata's Aura]... tried it, but heroes don't seem to use it properly.
I have to micromanage it, and even then, in that chaos of the fight, is a bit hard to see how the MM is positioned and where is moving. I'll try it again.

I used [[Frozen Soil] too, but the dwarves know hot to move away from its range if it is too far, or simply destroy it if it is close to their aggro range.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sacratus Ignis Just make sure you take enough healing - summitt don't win in prolonged fights because they run out of e and you can spike their backline. I didn't know HM mobs could run out of energy, I remember that when HM came out, some of the tactics tried were to try with e-denial to kill the enemies, but it seemed they had an unending source of energy

Quote: Originally Posted by Hugh Manatee

Quote: Originally Posted by Mangione Tried that; sadly the heroes and henchies don't act very well in the Obsidian Team. The healers have a strange tendency to go wanding the enemies afret I move the party to go nuke. And then all the bots seem to act as if they want to be targets. The monk henches are now set to Aggressive. If you aggro a group then back off, you'll find that everyone EXCEPT the monks follow you, while the monks keep running back to wand. I suppose ANet's made that change to make it harder to sneak past monsters or use advanced tactics while H/H'ing.
Quote: Many suggest [[Verata's Aura]... tried it, but heroes don't seem to use it properly. I tried it yesterday, and the hero used it randomly. Most of the time he was completely unable to turn any summons, and when I microed it any summons turned were immediately lost when the enchant was shattered (and it was shattered in seconds). Basically it didn't work.

Quote: I didn't know HM mobs could run out of energy, I remember that when HM came out, some of the tactics tried were to try with e-denial to kill the enemies, but it seemed they had an unending source of energy They have a 5e "rebate" on spells, so that 5e spells are free and other spells 5e cheaper, and they have, I believe, 1 extra pip of energy regen, but it is completely possible to have them run out of energy. Especially useful against monks.

Quote: Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius I tried it yesterday, and the hero used it randomly. Most of the time he was completely unable to turn any summons, and when I microed it any summons turned were immediately lost when the enchant was shattered (and it was shattered in seconds). Basically it didn't work. Yes, now I remeber why heroes were failing with Verata's Aura and my party was smashed as soon as I used it... I was able to capture the enemy minions, but as soon as they turned on "my side", the enchantment was ripped and all the minions turned hostile again (and with them, turned hostile even "my" minions).

Had not even the time to throw in a cover enchantment (and heroes have no idea of such strategies).

So, basically, using Verata's Aura is like making a gift to the enemy giving away my minions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius Rushing the group immediately, and taking them on with the boss, will likely lead to a wipe, but could possibly keep them from guarding the door. Will try that. Rushing will make the group with the prisoners merge with the group with boss, that means a bigger group with melees, rangers, a necro, 2 mesmers and 2 healers... But I could try that when I'll get back to it. My other idea, at least for my mesmer, would be to use the Me/A runner-farmer build, the one using SF. Flagging the henchies back, I can reach the door, open it and go to level 2... this might be viable to get past level 1, but the problem is just moved to level 2, since insane groups are still there. EDIT: I forgot to mention another thing other than the slaver's mob taking a vacation in Vloxen: After the first door on level 2, if you get killed by the team with 2 MMs in it, you might as well resign. There is a rez shrine right there, and they will camp it, spawnmobbing your team. Been in that situation a couple of times... and it's not funny at all finding yourself from -8% to -60%dp and kicked out of the dungeon because of spawnmobbing. GG to who designed the dungeon.

There's another thread here about Frostmaw where there are some builds to go through Vloxen w/ H/H in HM w/o consumables (I think for Vloxen, I know for Frostwaw). I haven't tried it, but he's gotten good feedback in the thread and didn't need SY! or anything like that, so it seems pretty robust.

Link to relevant post: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...9&postcount=10

Here's the setup I used for H/H (no consumables):



Basically guerilla Sniper support usage with FS up on some hard groups, and some bodyblocking got the job done. I had Gwen camp warders because I'm too lazy to flag retarded AI out of Sandstorms.

I went in with a heavy-damage build, and this dungeon kicked my ass again. This time I got a lucky break on the first group, but when I'd killed them everyone had DP and the next big group turned out to be a roadblock.

Two healers, two mesmers, two warders, one curse and one death necro, all level 26 and in a tactically advantageous position - that's pretty harsh to get through with H/H.

Either I'm doing something seriously wrong or this dungeon is way harder than Kathandrax or Frostmaws.

I did this with a couple other people, was hard as hell. Have to pull groups as far as you can, so their aggro starts to go beserk.

Strangely enough, I had already DONE this dungeon, with a few Ursans I believe? Just some random pug. No idea what happened, I can't remember any of it, just that it was stupidly easy.

Quote: Originally Posted by fenix

Strangely enough, I had already DONE this dungeon, with a few Ursans I believe? Just some random pug. No idea what happened, I can't remember any of it, just that it was stupidly easy. Yeah, same here!

Maybe a skill balance has beefed up the mobs or something?