Vloxen Excavations Manlyway

iTwilight

Academy Page

Join Date: Aug 2009

Shadow Form is Underpowered [Lies]

Mo/

Vloxen Excavations as a majority of you will know, in Hard Mode is the hardest 3 floor dungeon in the game and has mobs to the equivalent size of slavers exile.
They also pack them twice as close together making patrol links and over aggro 99% sure to happen
The ideas in this build team are a mixture of manlyway and of my own, in many different combinations. Some also from my fellow [KISS] members. I thank them for their help in this builds developement.

The Builds

A/E (OR /Me is a possibility)

Deadly Paradox
Shadow Form (Elite)
Shadow Sanctuary
Feigned Neutrality
Deaths Charge

IF Ele:
Glyph of lesser energy
Stoneflesh Aura
Glyph of swiftness (Means run can be done with no essences)
IF Mes:
Elemental Resistance
Optional slots for various emanagement etc.
Damage for MoP trigger (If you can hold while using daggers)
__________________________________________________ ________________________________
3 100Blades Warriors (W/A)
Air of superiority (IF NOT; Sun and moon slash)
"For great justice!"
100 Blades
Deaths Charge
"To the limit!"
Whirlwind attack
Savage Slash (OR an interrupt which uses energy NOT adrenaline)
OPTIONAL SLOT
__________________________________________________ ________________________________
Mark of pain nuker (N/A)
Assassins promise
"By urals hammer!"
Mark of pain
Barbs
Ventaris Aura
Masochism (POSSIBILITY)
foul Feast
Rresurection signet
__________________________________________________ ________________________________
EoE + Frozen soil SoS (Rt/R or R/Rt)
Edge of extinction
Frozen Soil
Signet of spirits
"You move like a dwarf!"
(POSSIBLY Ebon battle standard of courage)
Summon Spirits
Splinter Weapon
Flesh of my flesh
__________________________________________________ ________________________________
UA Monk (Mo/E)
Unyeilding Aura
Patient Spirit
Dwayna's kiss
Cure hex
Glyph of lesser energy
Heal party
Seed of life
__________________________________________________ ________________________________
THE LAST SLOT OF THE RUN (PLAYER #8 ) CAN BE OPTIONALLY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING;

Leecher - No skills
__________________________________________________ ________________________________
Elementalist Cleanup (E/Mo)
Unsteady Ground
Ebon Hawk
Glowstone
Ward against melee
Earth attunement
(ANY LONG LASTING ENCHANTMENT TO TARGET PERMA TANK)
Glyph of lesser energy
Resurection signet/Rebirth

OR

Another 100Blades Warrior, see the above build.

OR

Another MoP nuker, although this would require synergy over ventrilo

OR

Life barrier/enchantment factory (Mo/-)
Life barrier
Life bond
Balthazars spirit
Retribution
Protective spirit
Shielding hands
Seed of life
Rebirth

OR

Support Lord (Rt/-)
Ritual Lord
Union
Displacement
Shelter
Siphon Spirit
Splinter weapon
Armour of unfeeling
Flesh of my flesh

OR

Holy monk (Mo/-)
Ray of judgement/Signet of judgement
"You most like a dwarf!"
Castigation signet
(POSSIBLY Auspicious Incantation
Glyph of lesser energy) <----Depends on secondary
Seed of life
Balthazars aura
Judges insight

OR

Lurer - Lures the reviving undead away from the resurection shrine which generally respawn once dead every 2 minutes, this it to prevent trouble from when the party resurects or wishes to make a short retreat outside the room to perform emergency party recovery.

Skills: Any major run skills and survival skills to pull them (Shadow arts @ 12 would probably work long enough to pull all the undead into the right room.

OVERVIEW:
Tank will gather the various enemies etc etc. and ball them up just as he would in FoWsc or any other manly spike.

Mark of pain nuker and the warriors stand by waiting for the confirmation of the assassin that the ball is ready to be spiked

When ready, the assassin will let the MoP know and following this, the Mark of pain calls a taget casting mark of pain followed straight up by Assassins promise on the same target and then proceeds to back away as the warriors charge in.

The warriors will precast their various skills before the necro has cast Mark of pain and these include; Air of superiority (IF BOUGHT) "For great justice!" and 100 Blades.

Upon Deaths charging in the warriors will cast "To the limit!" straight away to prevent any hexes or wells that will hinder the use of shouts and any hexes that will hinder the use of adrenaline gain.
Upon using "To the limit!" which will give the warrior all of the required adrenaline if more than 3 enemies are in the ball, immediately follow up with Whirlwind attack.

The EoE Frozen Soil SoS ritualist must VITALLY AND MOST ESSENTIALLY MAKE SURE that the spirits are in range of THE WHOLE mob. Specifically the various Necromancer classes as they will attempt to raise minions. Frozen soil prevents this.
Another job that the EoE ritualist must make sure that they do is that at least 2/3 of the warriors have splinter weapon on them at all times, and advantageously all 3. (4 if you chose to opt with an additional warrior in the optional slot).
After the spike the ritualist should immediately make a move into the remainder of the group (If any as the successful spike should leave all enemies eating dust) and proceed to cast Signet of spirits, moving the spirits around wioth summon spirits to help clean up the remaining (if any) mobs.

The UA monk, will generally not have much of a hard job. Occasionally will you have to cast Heal party but remember this is always casted AFTER the glyph unless its on recharge.
The only time the monk generally has to focus is in Zoldarks room and a majority of the third floor and many of the mobs only come as 1 and the various sets of 1 there are dont actually ball together well.

The elementalist Cleanup slot is the most advantageous to the team as it provides a great set of defence for the third floor, because zoldarks minions are what you will be targetting. All of them are melee so therefore the Ward against melee that the elementalist carries is very helpful for the team and can reduce the work of the monk greatly.
The elementalist assists the Ritualist in cleanup by shutting down all physical classes (Rangers and melee) with weakness, ward against melee and unsteady ground.
Casters can also be stopped by unsteady ground because the AI of the mobs makes them tend to wand.
Additionally when fighting Zoldarks minions, it leaves them constantly disabled for the duration of Unsteady ground when cast as they will continue to attack and get knocked down which will in turn, proove advantageous with 100 blades, mark of pain and whirlwind attack. Splinter weapon also.

The rest of the roles are fairly obvious, Ritual lord spams the support spirits.
Dupe classes do whats mentioned above
Lurer completes the tasks mentioned above
Holy monk precasts mindbender alongside the 100b warriors and as they DC in, begins to cast Ray of judgement/signet of judgement
Enchantment factory provides defence for the perma tank while going throughout the dungeon as there is a W/E Stone summit that has aftershock and also oozes that feature this as well as shockwave although the sin does have skills to effectively survive to this its handy to have this.
Enchantment factory also provides cover enchantment for the last floor as the 5-6 minions of zoldark remove enchantments through shadow form with Expung enchantments which is a touch skill.

Thanks for reading this hefty wall of text, it took me a huge amount of time to think about the neccesary risks involved in this run for all possibly classes and any feedback will be addressed, questions answered, in all due time as they are posted

I would appreciate that also this build NOT be posted anywhere else and that you contact me beforehand if you wish to do so.

idril isildra

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2007

the dragons of cantha

P/W

hmm well thought off
i think this would be a really good working build set

Eragon Zarroc

Eragon Zarroc

Atra estern?? ono thelduin

Join Date: Jan 2008

Madness Incarnate

[Duo]

W/P

Hmmm, sounds interesting. Post feedback if/when you give it a shot?

mage767

mage767

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Oct 2006

USA

LOVE

Me/E

A variant of FOWSC, but should work.

Vlox HM is certainly harder than rest of the dungeons, but is still very doable with heroes + guildies/pugs, even without cons (though 1 armor of salvation helps a LOT in lvl2 against melee/piercing damage). For example, last week during zaishen daily, I did this twice on my war and derv without issues. Each run lasted under 1 hr start to finish. Lvl 1 took 7 min, lvl 2 took like 20-30 min, and lvl3 took 6 min.

Can post screens if you aren't convinced.

In summary, your builds will work, and would be fast like FOWsc, but end-drops of Vloxen are not 'cool', therefore, I don't know how popular this will be. Most pugs simply beg runners to have it run for 20-25k even though its very doable with a nice balanced team of SY warriors.

Sir Cusfreak

Sir Cusfreak

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2007

In your backline

No Tags [NONE]

looks good.

btw, it's Verata's Aura on your necro, not Ventari's Aura.
WTS MoP? nvm, bad joke.

But i think I'd play that necro a bit differently - AP/MoP = great. Lose Masochism, replace with...most anything. Technobabble is win. GDW. 'Sin support. something. Also, drop foul feast, imo, for...something else. Orders are good.

come to think of it, Great Dwarf weapon should appear a few times in this team.

just an opinion. Looks good, though, should stomp right through.

Sam6555

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jun 2008

Legendary Punk And The Wolf [pack]

A/

''I would appreciate that also this build NOT be posted anywhere else and that you contact me beforehand if you wish to do so.''

ROFL!!!!! Don't post it on guru for all to see then?

charlzz93

charlzz93

Academy Page

Join Date: Sep 2009

London

[GS]/[ToA]/[Zraw]

Me/

Looks pretty good, if you manage to set up a team pm me, ill come as a 100b

ign mesmerizing lemon

WarcryOfTruth

WarcryOfTruth

Site Contributor

Join Date: Nov 2009

Atlanta

[LIFE]

P/

Quote:
Originally Posted by iTwilight View Post
I would appreciate that also this build NOT be posted anywhere else and that you contact me beforehand if you wish to do so. you posting it here means that its gonna get posted elsewhere, with or without your knowledge of it

Ritualist of Fail

Banned

Join Date: Jul 2009

Gulfstream Owners Club [GS]

A/E

Very well written, maybe make a video or screenie of it thanks

Vazze

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2006

lmao manlyway: hiding behind your tank and playing a gimmick is ANYTHING but manly ... also: last time I checked vloxen was doable with HH....so?

Quote:
Originally Posted by iTwilight View Post
I would appreciate that also this build NOT be posted anywhere else and that you contact me beforehand if you wish to do so. ....you want a royalty? omfg

Ghost Dog

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2008

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by iTwilight View Post
I would appreciate that also this build NOT be posted anywhere else and that you contact me beforehand if you wish to do so.
Start by not using a slight variant of someone else build before you try to deebo rights to it.

jonnieboi05

jonnieboi05

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

Mableton, Georgia

Guild Ancestors Reunited [?????????]

Quote:
Originally Posted by mage767 View Post
A variant of FOWSC, but should work.
This.

Vloxen is harder than the rest of the dungeons in EotN but tbh I think it's still rather very easy (whether NM or HM, it does not matter).


As for you asking people to not post it anywhere else? Well... The first though that came to mind was "I wonder how many people posted this on PvX by now". xD

If you had no intention of people spreading this around like some fresh meat about to serve 25 to life in a Federal Prison then you should not have posted it on Guru. Ever.



~LeNa~

Zodiac Meteor

Zodiac Meteor

Imma Firin Mah Rojway!

Join Date: Aug 2008

At the Mac Store laughing at people that walk out with anything.

E/Mo

This is worse, my guild used.
2 ER infusers
4 W/D enduring scythers
1 imbagon
1 Orders necro

We used 3 essences (1 for each level) and we rolled the entire area. Not a single death and we didn't even stop at all.
Charge in, kill, next group.
We killed faster than they can rez or heal. With the mix of orders and Great Dwarf weapon on 5 physicals the dwarfs mobs were stuck on the ground.

Zoldark in HM is laughable, We used the, charge in, kill minions, kill Zoldark. It took 30 seconds because Zoldark was on the ground 24/7 thanks to Great Dwarf Weapon.
Man, I wish I had fraps then... The dungeon took 30 minutes at most.

I'm not saying your build is bad, it's just telling you what results I've gotten and comparing. Keep in mind we spent almost 45 minutes making the team! But we had amazing results. The reason it's 'worse' is it's slower. I've been on many manlyway's and it takes time to set up the team and set up the spike. Which from what I've seen charging in and kill a mob is faster than, setup spirits, tank pull, get mob on the wall facing the left, wait for call, then spike.

Comments on your build:
I see manlyway as a slow tank n' spank, (ALL tanks n' spanks are the same to me) and it is widely overused because it seems super safe. The plus it is super safe and most PuG's love it. When I join a team and tell them my ER infuser is a healer they /laugh, /zrank with their brown spear and leave.
Nothing personal against you, just the generic, "if it's not this, you can't win" way of thinking.

Edit: Woops, Zoldark, not Fendi. Well, they are both very annoying and they summon the undead, they both wear black and red, they are both necro's, they are both on a level 3 dungeon, they both use spells and nothing else. Almost the exact same thing

iTwilight

Academy Page

Join Date: Aug 2009

Shadow Form is Underpowered [Lies]

Mo/

*Equips Topic proof glasses*
Yeh, I know the only reason how I managed to not slip Fendi in there ... is that I did say to myself, "NOT FENDI! Definetly Zoldark".

Seemingly enough, amongst the set of guilds we have here, it takes about 10 minutes at most to set up a manly spike team and its mainly a core team so we generally do get the jobs done efficiently.
I'll consider about the W/D though, perhaps changing the Necromancer to MoP echoed in which 2 MoPs go down and the W/D running scythe will just bomb them.

Oh, and JonnieBoi, the size of the mobs in Hard mode are slavers exile like, whereas in Normal mode they are just like any other normal stone summit group, so the difference between Hard mode and normal mode is most noticable in this dungeons, FTR.

Hopefully I'll be testing it this Saturday if I get the mains of my team together, I'll be sure to PM any of those who volunteered their help here and see what we can arrange ^.^

Thanks for the feedback guys