Vanquishing Tips/Help

I searched for something like this but didn't find anything, please point me in the right direction if I missed something.

Anyway, I decided to start vanquishing Elona. So far I've only done two areas, both easy, which are Plains of Jarin and Gandara, the Moon Fortress.

I'm a Ranger, and I have every second profession unlocked, and I have most ranger skills, and quite a few from other professions.

I've got my Sabway heroes kitted out, that's no problem, but I have two questions.

1) Is there a "best" build I should use for me? At the moment I'm running something along the lines of [Prepared Shot][D-shot][Concussion shot][read the wind][pain inverter], and other ranger utilities. With this build I can apply daze more readily than BHA.

2) What henchmen should I take in 8-man areas?

Thanks a lot!
-Tai

For heroes, Sabway is fine.
I prefer to use Discord, though. Alot more damage, more minions, stil lthe same healing capabilities. You'll have to take a Prot monk and 2 of the Discord heroes with this, though.

If you're still going for Sabway (I vanquished Elona with Sabway), take two healing monks (Heal and Prot), a Fire Ele and Earth ele. You'll be fine.

Make sure you flag your heroes accordingly in areas where you need to pull enemies ie. areas with high concentrations of enemies such as the Desolation.

I would prefer running BHA + Volley, because sab has splinter, and splinter volley just plain owns. The build I used to vanq most of elona was:

BHA, D-Shot, Volley, Pain Inverter, 2 optional pve skills, and 2 optional skills, usually flail for IAS and/or lightning reflexes, throw dirt, lightning reflexes depending on the area.


Henchman wise, I generally took the paragon hench, Mhenlo, and the 2 eles. Sabway has plenty of heals and prots, and the para aint that bad a healer without being to shabby on pressure.

Only area I found difficult was.... jahai bluffs, but I didnt run sab with that. Was trying my own triple para build right after the incoming buff and it didnt work so great.

i find that sabway can't out-damage the more balanced mobs, i'm obviously doing something wrong, but i'm gonna try and create a R/Ne that has BHA + volley, then assorted necro skills according to which of the sabway i replaced...

I mainly have Barrage as my elite, although I do swap to BHA/BA if I think they might be more suited to an area. [[Savage Shot]] [[Distracting Shot]] [[Needling Shot]] [[Pain Inverter]] and any other 2 PvE skills, nice choices are one of the Asura summons, and either the Vangard standard of honour, or the Vangard assassin.

Regarding Heroes, Sabway works fine for a lot of areas, and for Elona, Mhenlo, the 2 ele's and Sologon are fine. Aggro control is usually the key, if you have that nailed LV isn't far away. Just watch out for the spotters especially near forts

yeh agro control is ussually the problem for casters. since tanking the damage is very difficult.unless u make urself tank with defensive skills but then again u cant do much damage. wich can be boring.
rangers however can tank ele damage. and a tip before taking agro flag hench back make hero cast ps on you. and go tank the damage and learn to control agro.

control agro control agro control agro control agro and its a breeze

Learn to love BHA. Barrage is fine for areas where you need to provide the damage and there's no need for shutdown, but generally I run BHA for H/H.

You'll need several prots or an imbagon for areas full of Djinn, i.e. The Hidden City of Ahshadim. Try to bring holy damage for undead (duh) or the sheer number of them will wipe you in no time. Frozen Soil helps big in these undead areas. Enchatnment removal is no problem in Elona except for the mandragors in Kourna so use that to your advantage.

Flatbows are your friends, btw. Flags too. You don't want 3x SF hitting your whole H/H party.

What I don't like while running a ranged class is the lack of Deep Wound, so try to bring "Finish Him!" for your PvE only skills options.

oooh, forgot about flags, they we're my bigest lifesaver. if you go on the options menu and tie 'order hero 1/2/3' to a button on your number pad (not on your keypad) it makes ordering your heros a lot easier. i find the number under the compass too smaller target to quickly click when under fire

BHA build far the best. I would run that with epidemic-virulence necro or something in that direction. Add some blind and deep wound etc too

If you go 8-man area's, I would advice you to get a vanquishing buddy. Having heroes is way better then h/h as far as I concern.

Some team builds I use:
2 Monks (me + bud) Gwen for shutdown, SS, MM, 2-4 KD Warriors. Some area's you dont need shutdown, or some area's your KD fails.
2 Monks, SS, 2 MM's, 3 SF Heroes, with interupt energy management.

Hope it helps I've gotten 25 areas vanquished with these so far.

Wha? No needling shot? Bring Barrage, Splinter weapon and Needling shot to wipe any leftovers. As for the rest of the bar.. Some defence skill like Whirling def, and the rest is really not that important. You could get a pet for the rest of the skills.

I use lightning relfexes, andtidote sig (to help if my necros are busy), and death pact for my last three.

I can't speak to Sabway because I didn't run it once to vanquish Elona, but I can at least help with the other questions.

1) I brought a BHA/Epidemic hero with me almost everywhere and I can't remember any area that I wish I hadn't. I'll trust that Concussion Shot does the job good enough for you, so the build is probably fine for just about everywhere. One thing I would mention is that if you use Expert Focus as your prep instead of RTW, you might be able to use a different elite if there's one you think would be more useful for the area.

2) My team setup was me (a mesmer), BHA Jin, hybrid Dunkoro, MM/Aegis Olias, Mhenlo, Sogolon, Devona, Gehraz. In four man areas I brought hybrid Dunkoro, MM/Aegis Olias, and a Earth Shaker Goren. The only area that I had actual trouble was Joko's Domain.

Your build is fine.(make sure one of the blank spots is volley since volley+splinter is awesome.)

And for henchies,bring Mhenlo,Herta,Cynn and the mesmer(odura?) or Lina depending on the area.

I'd always recommend taking a melee henchie. Serve as cannon fodder and it's one less squishy to care about. Not to mention, Devona has some KD which is just awesome for mob shutdown.

Really melee henchies are bad ideas IMO.

Even on guard they aggro every thing they possibly can.

If you want a solid target take a para.

not to mention that if you bring a mm, then its best not take agro away from the minions.
daze is very good in HM and since you use concussion shot that should work out allright.

EF is a really good idea, but unfortunately, quote wiki: "The energy reduction is applied before Expertise." c-shot is 25 energy, so two energy down makes it 23 energy, not much of a difference in the long run.


Thanks for all your help guys

Sorry but even with the AI deficiencies (spelling lol?) Devona beats Cynn in the fact that she doesn't requires to be protted and healed constantly when being attacked. Cynn doesn't even has any shutdown skill and fire damage, as with any elemental damage, is lame in HM.

Aggro is never a problem unless you don't know how to pull.

And I usually take both Devona and Sogolon as a ranger, Odurra has worst than awful energy management and sits there wanding because her spells recharge too slowly. If I want a henchie to c+space, I better take something that deals decent damage.

I don't get your point.

Mob AI goes for the lowest armored and with less hp ally. Certainly a melee henchie won't draw aggro away from the minions, much less if they're bombs.

As for the OP, I use Prepared Shot in undead heavy areas. I just can't stand the energy drain from Quicksand.

As you can see by the various answers, there are many types of "builds" that can be used to vanquish. But, in reality you don't even need anything as fancy as that to vanquish 99% of GW. The only times (IMHO) you need anything special are parts of EotN.

For example, this team build I used (Quakeway ) in this thread:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10316894
was what I was using when I got Legendary Vanquisher - no Sabway, no Ursan, just a basic Ranger/Pet group. And that build was arrived at when I was doing EotN, prior to that it was even simpler.
I sometimes thought about using some other sort of build, but other than a couple of places where I had a buddy help me (2 humans, 6 heroes), and a few spots in Vanguard territory, I never really needed to, and, most important, I enjoyed doing it that way.

So, my point is, don't be too overly concerned with having the "best" build. There is no "best" and "good enough" is good enough.

Yeap, getting the job done is the important part. What works in one area, sometimes will not in another.