HM and Elite Areas

Alright .. here's a few questions i've been wondering .

I have to admit, i seldom do HM because i haven't completed everything in NM . and i used to PvP alot until i started to focus on PvE a few months ago .

I've always wanted to do a 2 man + 6 hero or maybe even 1 man + 3 hero and 4 hench to complete elite areas such as UW/DoA and even in HM .

I run a physically oriented team build .

MoP Nuker

OoV Protter

AotL Splinter MB

ER Protter

and 1 healer and 3 more physicals .

Vanquishing isn't really hard as i was expecting . I've just tried it . The only problem with HM is when i over aggro and everything dies .

Anyway, a few of my questions are

1) Are physical oriented teams weaker than caster oriented teams in HM be it vanquishing or elite areas ?

Many whom i've asked told me you cannot complete DoA in HM with a physical team .

2) Is it not possible to do elite areas (NM and HM) with h/h ? Even if it's just for the challenge and not for the rewards ?

I can't seem to remember what my other questions are .

Are there a few things i should know ?

Please don't tell me to finish NM first >.>

Team builds vary for each elite area. The same builds don't necessarily work equally well in UW and DoA for example.

Most elite areas can be finished in NM with H/H (henchmen not allowed everywhere).

I'd suggest you give the Fissure of Woe a try. In my opinion it's the easiest of the elite areas and can certainly be done with a 6-hero team.

Physical h/h teams are generally weaker than ranged h/h teams because of hero AI.

you cannot take any henchmen to UW, FoW, Deep, Urgoz, DoA.

1 - i guess you can do everything in a physical team, just not with dumbass 1234 builds. don't expect easy and idiot team builds to work in any elite area, even with casters (SF is 'special'). as long as there's a logical synergy and enough prot/heal/damage, everything should work.

2 - look up - no henchmen in elite areas. you can play with henchmen at glint's challenge or 'elite' dungeons (slavers' exile is considered the hardest and the last by the most, rragar and soo hm can be pretty demanding when h/h).


just look around on gw wiki, wikia and pvx and read about hm, check some builds, start thinking synergy instead of plain damage output. hm is not difficult, just a bit demanding and you might need to run several various builds rather than all-in-one for all locations as in nm.

why is this so ?

elite dungeons e.g. rragers are not elite areas e.g. doa ?

is it okay if i die a few times in HM ? sometims over aggroing and eles can wipe my team .

oh yeah .. i didn't know that you can't have henchmen in elite areas .

my builds are .. MoP, Rigor Mortis, Barbs, Enfeebling Blood, AP, EVAS, FH!, Mindbender

OoV Protter - OoV , Mark of fury , strip enchantment , prot spirit , aegis , dwayna's sorrow, SoLS, Renew Life

AotL MB - AotL , Animate bone minions, Death nova, putrid bile, infuse condition , foul feast, splinter weapon , SoLS

ER Protter - ER, aura of restoration, aegis, spirit bond, prot spirit, rof, shield guardian, infuse.

What am i missing here ?

i think that the name of 'elite areas' is made up by the player community. uw, fow and doa are considered to be them, usually urgoz, deep and tombs are taken into account, too. slavers' exile is the so-called 'elite dungeon'. i'm not sure, but i think that the wording 'elite xyz' isn't used anywhere in the game besides elite skills.

usually, 'elite area' is just a more demanding, harder place that requires a lot from the players - be it fully developed and working builds, staying alerted all the time or knowing and using all the generic pve tricks.


dying is normal in guild wars - it would be much worse if you died all the time till -60% on the whole party and get wiped out to the town.

you find out, it's part of the fun from this game :3

I know that everyone is supposed to know what these are, but I'm not going to bother to look them up.
If you are going to put in the time to type out such a long post you could also take the time to type out the whole spell name, at least the 1st time.

Possibly yes, but I got Legendary Vanquisher on my Ranger using essentially a Barrage/Pet group. About 80% of it was done Heroes&Hench and the rest was 2 players + 6 heroes. (And mostly done pre-EotN, so no PvE skills or consumables.)
This is not to brag, but to point out that it can be done with a physical group. "Your results may vary"
Note, though, that no matter what sort of group you might take, you may need to tweak the overall group inter-relationship for various harder areas.
For elite areas - I've done The Deep with a team of only 9 humans, and with 3 humans + 9 heroes. Urgoz's with 3 + 9 B/P group (NM)
DoA in HM is a whole other issue. .

As has been said, many of the elite areas don't allow henchmen, but humans plus heroes is viable.

Yes, crap happens. Just keep in mind that you will get a Death Penalty if you die, and if everyone in the party gets 60DP, it's game over. But, that's what Candy Canes and consumables are for. EDIT: and, of course, there are places where any party wipe is game over.

hm may cause some trouble, but nm is pretty easy, with the exception of foundry which is highly demanding area unless you buy 600/smite/famine run.

You die individually in one of the elite areas, yeah that's ok...party wipe is another story.

Elite areas are places with no rez shrines. You wipe, its over.

DoA, UW, FoW, Deep, Urgoz, Tombs, Sorrows.

Slavers is not one. The quest 'The Last Hierophant' is marked 'Difficulty: Elite' but it's not one of the actual elite areas; Party wipes still result in a rez. While tougher, it's still just a dungeon.

well i know 2 of those builds( this is for Quaker who didnt know).

MoP Nuker is just a Guy that brings "mark of Pain" so that when you get everything in a close balled up form you can nuke one guy and it hurts all of the enimies in range of that 1 enemy.
And AOTL is Aura of the lich( elite skill) You use this to rapidly turn ever corpse in the area inot one of your servents. Its a great way when you have been fighting a long battle and you are getting essentially beaten just use that skill and you got a nice minion army again in the blink of an eye.

More like - too lazy to bother looking them up.

Btw, Mark of Pain is often over-rated and/or miss-used. Many people don't realize that "adjacent" means basically melee range. Unless the targets are sitting right next to each other, it doesn't work well. MoP needs to be used in conjunction with someone or something that will pull the mobs into a tight bundle (such as a tank).

i used the name 'elite dungeon' for slavers'. please read my posts and check the wiki before replying.

even if the no-shrine is the requirement to call something an 'elite area', it's still made up by players, not the game itself. difficulty may be hard/master/elite, but that's usually false check and the quest/dungeon proves much easier than it's flagged to be.


further edit: if no-shrine is the rule, then is the great northern wall an elite mission?

I don't think anyone was trying to "correct" you, just adding to what you said.

But anyway - "elite" dungeons and areas are actually named by the game itself. Not necessarily "in" the game, but in the documentation and descriptions given by ANet/NCsoft. There may be some areas that are only called "elite" by the players, but most are "officially" elite.

For example:

Biggest problem with physical teams and h/h is the AI of the heroes and hench. Even with micro control of builds and flagging, it just isn't easy to overcome the weakness of the AI. Set them on Attack and they attack things before you want them to. Set them on Guard and they kite when you don't want them to, follow you when you kite, or don't attack quick enough. Set them to Avoid and they don't attack at all.

Biggest problem I see with melee hero/hench (which is what most physical teams are based on) is the targeting/aggro control. They may follow a target more than they should, which causes them to pull the healers farther than they should do, and/or it will aggro more groups. If you restrict them (Guard) they will not stay on a target that kites as well as they should, and switch targets when you don't want them to.

Caster (or Ranged) heroes and hench don't have to move as much to target and attack the enemy. This means if a monster is kiting, the ranged hero/hench will still be able to attack it without moving as much. And since they are farther away, they don't attract aggro from other groups.

Now, this isn't to say melee/physical hero/hench teams can't work. They just take more control and understanding than the ranged/caster teams. I managed to get Legendary Vanquisher on my Ranger using hero/hench for about 90% of the zones. I never used a warrior, dervish, or assassin for those areas. Paragon I never used, but could have if I had wanted to, Ranger I took Zho/Daemon for their respective areas. The AI for the casters worked well enough for me to handle 95% of the game. I had 10% of the game I worked with other people to complete, but only 5% of that was areas I wouldn't have been able to do with my setup.

So, outside of UW, FoW, The Deep, Urgoz, and DoA, they can all be done. Some take more time to do, and more control. But it is certainly viable.

Sorrow's Furnace has rez shrines.

It wasn't an attack - but the term 'elite area', it isn't all player made designations. The no-rez categorization was also an ANET description, I'm pretty sure. I remember reading it somewhere, anyway. I'm not gonna toss in a bunch of handy links, though, cause it isnt worth the research time, tbh.

I definitely agree with the point that the "Difficulty: xxx" tags are seldom very accurate. (snowmen? really?)

anyway, it really doesnt make two shakes if Slavers is a dungeon or an 'elite dungeon', officially; I was really just trying to clarify the answer to the OP's 'can I die' question, not be some anti-semantic word-nazi.

i see we have a terminology clash . lol .

Anyway, thanks for all the info on physical teams h/h .

And about elite areas, i will try them out one day .

I seem to have this thinking that if you die, you die . and the warrior henchmen that i use keep over aggro-ing .

I can survive 2 mobs of a total of 8-10 enemies . but i can't if that number increases or if there is a boss in it . I've been trying my build in Jade Sea . It's usually the AoE attacks from kunnavangs and the massive aggro that kills my group because of the warrior henchmen .

Personally, i find that a physical team can do alot more damage than say, discordway .

In discordway, you take them down 1 by 1. in a physical team (if you have splinter / mop etc ), you're taking everyone down at the same time . yes they have to be adjacent but thats where minions come in to tank for you .

Ive tried discordway . I find it really boring though ..

I'm going to try SoO with my build knowing that SoO has a lot of anti melee . I just want to see how long i'd last over there .

Make sure you set them to "Guard". Then, they will only attack what you attack.

You can set henchmen to guard?

Oops, was thinking hero. I think that flagging the h&h would help though. Flag them just before the first group you attack and they shouldn't attack anything that is more than weapons range + agro bubble from the flag. (Be aware that that can be a goodly range if you have a Ranger hero/hench with a longbow.)

You didn't say what your team make-up is, but another idea, of course, would be to use a Hero warrior rather than a hench, if you can swap some other hero's function for a henchman.

this is what i run

me mop nuker - mop, rigor mortis, barbs, enfeebling blood, ap, evas, fh!, mindbender

1) OoV nec - oov, strip enchantment, mark of fury, aegis, prot spirit, sols, renew life

2) aotl MB - aotl, putrid bile, animate bone minions, death nova, masochism, infuse condition, foul feast, splinter weapon.

3) ER prot - er, aor, ps, aegis, sb, rof, sg, infuse

i can drop oov nec for a sos restoration riit