Duncan the Black HM

ST is soul twisting and FS is frozen soil ( stops rez with dwarfs )

Aaha, sorry.=p Alright, I'll give that a try next time. I did bring Frozen Soil the other times, but I think the Stone Summit killed it pretty fast...

Ohh, and without the Necromancer with the Signet of Sorrow, what's the strategy against Duncan?

Easy one I had a post, exactly same as u got right now.

So ill give u some tips ;')

1. Take for henchies, mesmer earth prot healer
2. For heroes I took 2 spirit spammers and 1 MB (Might work better to replace 1 spiritspammer with Smiter, need to try that out )
3. I ran a hundred blade build for massive AoE damage (FTW)
4. U take aggro, I used enraging charge to get a little in front of ur team so u took most hits
5. Frozen soil...
6. Be carefull 1 group at a time, watch pop ups from restless dead thingies, overaggro = wipe.
7. take swap at duncan, just swap the spirits around the stairs away from u and ur team, then I just flagged my team spread, so his spirit rift only would hit 1 of my guys then u just stay back and relax, and let the hero and henchies do the work.


If u try these and still something goes wrong, post here or PM me IG im gladly to help

I Hate Charmander

Thanks a lot for the tips guys.=p Can't wait to try out this strategy tomorrow.^^

ST rit with shelter and union will make you laugh at duncan (edit: its also kind of "lol dmg" in general)

I tried a run today, and after a few failed tries and making some changes I managed to finally kill him.=P It went pretty hard with the first few groups, didn't have enough firepower to really take them on, but the kiting trick worked well, although took some time. Had a few deaths in the first half of the dungeon, but after that it was dead easy. Death Penalty was easy to work off on the Restless Deads and on the easier groups of Stone Summit further in the dungeon.
Thanks a lot for the help.=D

Congratulations.
You were running an awful lot of defense - one ST Rit, a Smiter (Nec?), an SoS-Rest hybrid N/Rt (!?) and both Monk henchmen. I imagine your biggest issue was being unable to kill the enemy before they could inflict a lot of damage. I recommend replacing Whispers with Xandra (tougher spirits and more damage) with Siphon Spirit over SoLS. I can't see Life being too necessary either - might as well take Bloodsong over it.
Since you haven't got Mark of Pain in your setup either, I'd be tempted to run Dragon Slash instead of Hundred Blades.

The first mob in Duncan is definitely the hardest mob in the dungeon. It's also one of the toughest balanced mobs in the game to deal with H/H.
Xandra's energy most likely suffered as a result of Spirit Rift and Life (two 10e skills) - Bloodsong and Ancestor's Rage are both 5e skills - try those instead.

Good point on DSlash though - Soothing Images is a pain and it's hard to keep it off with only spot removals.

Thanks, then I'll give Xandra a try again next time, and hopefully deal some more damage.^^

Personally id take

ST rit
Tease mesmer with splinter weapon and ancestors rage
Tease prot monk (and only the heal monk hench)

i tend to take rupts on all my heroes, because these function as offense (rupt heals) or defense (rupt offensive crap)

Edit: assassins promise fire ele can pump out a LOT of damage, might want to try that

Edit 2: http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:W/D_Enduring_Scythe This build might have more offence

Edit 3: i fail no spirit swap with that nvm

Just go with spiritway and roll it, with one of the spirit heroes taking frozen soil. Never had issues with HM duncan this way, and alot of others have been the same. Frozen soil is especially important if you really want to be heavy on defence, otherwise they will res all day. pop a conset for even more facerolling. Full communing/channeling set will act as a wall plus other goodies such as disenchanting annoying defender buffs etc which pretty much make it a cakewalk (harder imo is forgewight because heroes like bunching up and you can only interrupt so many flowstones and djinns before one gets off a devastating attack on bunched h/h)

PS: Duncan's spirit rift is not an issue, if you have your heroes ready to flag as soon as its cast. You don't even need to rupt him this way, though its nice if zho or a mesmer has him shut down. When I last did Duncan I had a mesmer hero along and if it failed to rupt rift, I just shifted the heroes straight away with flagging and had no issues with it.

Edit: I like to run Mhenlo/Lina/Herta/Zho for my henchies, though you can probably replace Lina as her set isn't that fantastic. Zho provides useful daze and rupt, though I think Lo Sha isn't a bad choice at all either (actually pretty solid for Duncan area imo). Herta has good earth magic as well as ward against melee (AFAIR). Mhenlo is just a healer slot being used up.

Just thought I'd drop in and say that on the back of the advice on this thread I went and did HM Duncan last night. Only wiped twice, and thats because I didn't bring any healing on my heroes, just the hench monks.
Heres what I used:

Me: R/A
Assassin's Promise [E]
D-Shot
Sloth Hunter's Shot
"You Move Like a Dwarf!"
"Finish Him!"
Read the Wind
Swap
Sunspear Resurrection Signet

Xandra: Rt/any
Signet of Spirits [E]
Bloodsong
Ancestors' Rage
Splinter Weapon
Painful Bond
Renewing Surge
Spirit Siphon
Death Pact Signet

Razah: Rt/R
Soul Twisting [E]
Shelter
Union
Displacement
Armor of Unfeeling
Boon of Creation
Antidote Signet
Frozen Soil

Olias: N/Me
Aura of the Lich [E]
Cry of Frustration
Animate Bone Minions
Death Nova
Putrid Bile
Enfeebling Blood
Masocism
Foul Feast

To be honest, I rarely even used Frozen Soil - when I did use it, it really helped, but I found that I could keep the dwarves busy enough that by the time they ressed their healer another two were already down and I could just kill him again. I do think, however, that this was a risky strategy and if I hadn't been in such a rush I would have waited and made sure FS stayed up.

Duncan became a pain after a while because my MM became essentially useless as there were no bodies and any horrors he created through AotL would just run off and attack one of the spirits I had neglected to swap away, in the future I think I would replace him with a Panic Mes.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Pv...me=&Go=Indsend

I just bring that along, disabling Awaken the Blood and Frozen Soil while fighing my way to Duncan - because she (being Livia) sac herself too much if using Awaken the Blood and spamming Blood Ritual. I micro manage Frozen Soil when fighting the damn Summits, which helps alot cus they are ressing like hell.

For Duncan, swap all spirits away. Now sacrifice yourself, just run towards Duncan and die right in front of him - this allows Livia to spam Signet of Sorrow. Flag Livia in the corner next to the stairway, flag the rest of the heroes so that they dont attack Duncan but prot/heal Livia (Livia and the rest's aggro bubbles are just slightly touching each other)
Now the real fight begins, disable: Blood Bond, Blood Ritual, Well of Blood, Frozen Soil - so that shes only spamming Spoil Victor, Signet of Sorrow, Awaken the Blood and Signet of Lost Souls.

I run 18 Blood (12+1+3+2(Awaken the Blood)) which makes Spoil Victor deal 115 dmg, and with a 40/40 Blood Set on Livia, she can keep up Spoil Victor, even tho hexes only last half as long on Duncan.

Make sure heroes cast prot spirit on Livia, otherwise she will get spiked out - sometimes u have to manage that yourself, sometimes u can just leave the computer - and when u return, he is dead and ur free to grab the chest.


I hope that helped - I haven't read the entire thread, so sorry if someone already told u all this garbage

/Ash