The Last Hierophant: H&H build/strategies?

Quote: Lol AP bar without Assassin's Promise

I say keep Finish Him! in Slaver's because their Monks are just so strong. Without Finish Him! there's a much better chance you miss Assassin's Promises. Actually even with Finish Him! you can easily miss APs, so be careful with them.

The Warders are dangerous yes. You've got a few options. You can kill them first - together with the Summoners, they are the most dangerous of the Summit. You can interrupt them (you do have You Move Like A Dwarf!). You can treat them as Burning Spirits (below) and flag heroes / henchmen apart. Or you can take the AoE yourself. With this method, you flag heroes far back, put Prot Spirit on yourself, and aggro. Highlight the Warder and see what he's casting. If he's using Churning Earth or Sandstorm, kite sideways for the spell to finish, then pull back to your heroes. You've blown the AoE spell and given you time to pressure out the mob.

Signet of Sorrow is a bad skill. Its only real use is to kill Duncan. Otherwise it's, what, 80 cold damage with 30s cooldown? Even with Assassin's Promise it's plain bad, especially on someone with as powerful energy management as a Necro. Don't use it.

The key to taking out the Burning Spirits in Forgewight is careful aggro. Give them the chance and they will annihilate you!! Execute pulls as much as you can. Flag heroes and henchmen apart before you engage Burning Spirit / Flowstone mobs - this part is absolutely essential. Interrupt Searing Flames / Rodgort's Invocation / Savannah Heat if you can - that's when YMLAD! is so useful. Spam as many summons as you can; every nuke that goes to a summon will not go to you. Don't use Cynn in the dungeon, her fire damage is wasted on the Burning Spirits.

One more thing. Pay close attention to when to pull back and disengage. It's much, much better to avoid a wipe than to risk one; especially if the mobs have MMs. If nobody is dying you can be pressured out (no Soul Reaping). Some key indicators it's time to pull out: you missed an Assassin's Promise. There are lots of red dots homing in on you on the minimap. Your heroes have very few or zero minions left. You've already suffered a few deaths and / or red bars are dropping dangerously low. If this happens flag your heroes away, KD whoever is in range with YMLAD, and get the heck out of there.

Forge is the hardest of the four bosses before Duncan, so good luck with him.

Originally Posted by Jeydra Your henchmen picks need some work. Melee henchmen are terrible; their AI is bad. Do not use them. You have two N/Rt's, you do not need another two Monks. Do not use two as well. I recommend Mhenlo since Lina is a Prot Monk who doesn't know how to prot (AI is like that). Use three damage sources of your choice, I'd suggest Cynn + Hertha + Lo Sha but you can use Aidan or Zho if you prefer. This is important. Lina is terrible with her energy and very unreliable at protting. Mhenlo and another healer and Prot Spirit on a couple of heroes is fine. I myself don't like Lo Sha. His skills do not complement yours very well. He has very little shutdown, is not very durable and only provides two hexes that could divert hex removal (Ineptitude doesn't really count). Zho has two interrupts and Broad Head Arrow, provides physical damage to trigger Mark of Pain and is more durable. Herta is an obvious choice - defensive wards and decent offensive capabilities. Cynn is growing on me; at first I was doubtful (fire damage is generally poor), but the damage done is usually sufficient and Meteor Shower is wonderful when it goes off correctly. My only complaint is that she has no method of causing Burning. This is more theorycraft on my part. I've never H/Hed anything in Slaver's nor have I really tried. I might recommend Fevered Dreams* over the AP-MoP/Caller build, but I'm not sure how well it would work with Discord. You're weaker offensively (but usually you're sufficient) but you defang a lot of the enemies and can usually keep healers, physicals and offensive casters in check. You should be ok providing the conditions for Discord, particularly if your heroes have some hexes of their own. * 12+1 Soul Reaping 12 Illusion 3+1+1 Curses Fevered Dreams Fragility You Move Like a Dwarf Finish Him Cry of Pain Enfeeble Rip Enchantment** Signet of Lost Souls **If you need the enchantment removal much more than the extra condition, take Rend Enchantments. nunix Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Dec 2005 N/ 06 Sep 2009 at 02:07 - 15 Well, switching henchmen seems to have had the biggest effect, cleared out Selvetarm's level today. Went with Mhenlo, Herta, Cynn, and Zho. Went almost perfectly, except for a couple of trouble spots (dungeon key room, then the first instance of chained clerics, then another instance of chained clerics) which were learning experiences, and I probably won't make those mistakes again. Selvetarm himself was a problem, and I finished it out at 60% DP. No points for style, but at least I cleared it, even if it was mostly by attrition and exhausting the dwarfs' signets. Those Warders with Churning Earth are really horrible. I kept the builds mostly the same, put.. something else on Olias than Masochism but I can't remember what. I took a couple of enchantment-removal spells but never really used them. I definitely missed having Rotting Flesh for some of the dwarf groups. Skipped on Mark of Pain because there just wasn't enough physical damage to really make it shine, things either died too fast or not at all (and this time, they mostly just died too fast). "Finish Him!" was most definitely useful, so I think I'll keep that on. Oddly enough, Signet of Sorrow was not so great, tho a little useful against Selvetarn, so maybe I'll drop that, drop my Soul Reaping down, and try and come up with something else. The trouble spots are the first fight and any post-wipe fights, since there's no minion build up yet. And every now and then there are a bunch of dwarfs that just beat the crap out of me. Not sold on Zho. Eve might be good for energy and enchantment removal. Will have to play around with things and see. Kinda dreading Forgewright's level; I wound up taking all three ranger heroes with Barrage, pets, and interrupts, and went Greater Conflagration + Winter, for the Catacombs of Kathandrax to deal with the fire damage. If there's only one Burning Spirit at a time should be fine, but more than one and I can just see the wipes.. party's all casters/ranged and tend to clump together. =/ Also, Cynn's all fire, so while she'll be good against dorfs, not sure about the initial fire monster groups. Jeydra Forge Runner Join Date: May 2008 06 Sep 2009 at 12:07 - 16 Quote: Originally Posted by Xenomortis You also forgot to add Assassin's Promise to that bar, giving you one optional.