Dungeon Difficulty

So just for the hell of it, I asked a total of 883 random people on Guild Wars between last Saturday and yesterday what they considered to be the hardest dungeon in Eye of the North. This was based on both NM and HM experiences in PUGs, H/H users & Guild Groups.

Slavers' Exile was excluded.

The top three answers were:
- Shards of Orr (23.44%)
- Catacombs of Kathadrax (22.54%)
- Frostmaw's Burrows (20.84%)

Surprisingly enough, not one person said Ooze Pit nor Raven's Point.

So I simply ask:
- Do you agree that at least one of the three dungeons listed is very or extremely difficult regardless of play in NM or HM?
- If not, what do you consider to be the hardest?

Well if Slaver's is excluded then I would agree that Shards of Orr is probably the toughest, but I don't think any of them are particularly hard.

I'm surprised Vloxxen Excavations wasn't on the list.
It's got no incentive other than mastery points, a boss that is fairly tricky to kill, slaver's dwarves on two levels, heavy enchantment hate on the third AND has ressing foes on all levels so I'd say it is the hardest to do.
But all of this is pretty silly, I've H/H'd all the eotn dungeons (including slaver's) in nm and hm on my mesmer(pre-panic buff) and sin, even at their hardest eotn dungeons are a great deal easier than say UW and to a lesser extent DoA.

-Well, I would say nothing in PvE is extremely difficult in NM. 99% of HM is pretty simple once you know what you're doing too. I'm talking full H/H teams and no cons too.
-I disagree with that list. Hardest dungeon for me would be Rragar's Menagerie. Vloxen had a couple of tricky spots, as did Duncan. Shards of Orr was simple with a bit of holy damage and condition removal (300+ damage DSlashes, 500+ damage Sun and Moon Slashes = win). Kathandrax was easier than expected, especially after doing Rragars the previous day. I can't speak for Frostmaws because I joined a PuG due to it being the ZQuest.

And once again, posting up a 'what's hardest' thread brings in the "nothing's hard, I faceroll the game in HM without armor" people. Seriously guys...stop with the shenanigans...I guarantee you that in HM with henchmen, you're going to be feeling the burn from Vloxen's 12-man enemy dwarf mobs with massive MMs and rezzers, you'll be feeling Fendi's armor-ignoring AoE and repeated spirit spam/deb-shot ranger spawns, and I think even Kathandrax's bombs get a little annoying when he tosses them on heroes/henchmen.

I'd say Vloxen HM is the most difficult if you exclude Slavers' Exile.

Only the end portion of Shards of Orr is a pain. But because of that I do say it's one of the more painful one's to do with a non gimmick group setup. Though classes that rely on attacks (W,R,D,A) are easily made useless by enemy elementalists with their constant blinding.

Frostmaw.... Wurm Bile says "hi!". Agreed as one of the more difficult one's being 5 levels and all. Random wurm pops (along with their KD) and Incubus make for some fun times. And ya, I know level 1 and 5 are short. Incidentally, this is also my favorite dungeon.

Kathandrax is only painful because of the massive AoE fire damage, but that alone does make it difficult for many. Having a ShelterUnionDisp rit or Imbagon pretty much alleviates that problem for the most part.



Ooze pit is rather easy. One level, and since there is no enchant stripping going on, you can run bonds and such with little problems. Raven's Point, I can't think of any reason why it would be difficult at all. Both of these dungeons are among the easiest, IMO.

Vloxen. Maybe because there isn't a SC for it.

Shards of orr is annoying if you're a physical without heavy duty cleaning.

There was a thread about a VloxenSC (and a successful one), but I guess it was deleted. It's not so much that an SC isn't possible, it's more that there are no rewards (other than filling a book/motn).

To H+H in HM, I'd say the trickiest dungeons are Vloxen, Shards of Orr (Fendi irritates me no end), and Rragars. In that order.

Frostmaws isn't too bad as long as you're packing plenty of interrupts (though the huge number of pop ups can be a pain), and Kathandrax isn't too bad with plenty of hero micro to make sure the AoE doesn't hit all your H+H at once.

frostmaw is easy.

Vloxen or Shards probably gets my vote

Excluding Slaver's I would say:
SoO HM is the hardest by a long way, if only for Fendi Ninn.
Catacombs of Kathandrax HM and Vloxen HM are next. I wouldn't want to separate, but I would say Vloxen is more annoying for physicals than it is for casters.
Frostmaw's is often thought to be hard but it really isn't.
Rragar's is easier than Vloxen, not so sure on Kathandrax.

This is all gauged from my H/H experiences in HM. In NM everything is fairly easy, but I would say Vloxen plummets down the list and SoO still sits at the top.


Vloxen HM: People say this is hard but it's only got three hard mobs - two are toned down mobs from Slaver's Exile and the other is the Mesmer boss mob, but you can separate the boss from the rest after the initial pull. I think the Mesmer's group is easier than Bellok's, but you need to be careful with Bellok - a longish pull makes it easy enough. For physicals it's a little different as there is a large amount of enchantment removal and Clumsiness spam is infuriating.
I think people are just taken aback by the massive jump between this dungeon in NM and Hit in HM. Something similar happens in the Ooze Pit but Ooze can be dealt with much more easily.

Shards of Orr is really only tricky as a result of Fendi Ninn. The rest of the dungeon is fine and the only annoyance is the constant blind spam, but you can build for that.

Kathandrax has some scary Eles. That's about it. Certainly since the Mesmer buff this shouldn't be much of a problem.

Shard of Orr only becuase of the 4000' away rez portal

It is the hardest as well IMO

Slavers is hard for certain characters (solo with hench) but a cake walk for others IE: Mesmer

Frostma was my first one I ever did but i rezed my way through it it can be tough for some and very tome consuming

What? frostmaw's is hard? i facerolled it in HM no cons nothing am i missing something here?

Frostmaws is be hard as hell,

Has those dreaded spiking Incubus in large groups that spam knockdown, blind and daze.
Wurms Bile is an AoE hex, lasts 20 seconds, dealing 40 damage each second with a total of 800 damage. Bosses increase damage dealt to 80 over 20 seconds and Frostmaw increases it to 160 per second.
Wurms cause AoE knockdown, immune to knockdown and have cover hexes.

It's difficult at parts but those parts are few and far between. The boss can be a total joke if you just add 1 GDW.

I'd be interested in seeing an overall ranking, 1-18, for all of them. Do eeeeeeet!





(and fwiw, i didn't find frostmaw's "hard" -- i found it "long" and "time consuming" -- cons or no cons. that many morale-boost-providing wurm 'bosses' makes any dungeon slog bearable)

Order of difficulty in HM (assuming no speed clears, no cons, balanced grps, no SF/OF tanks...):

1. SoO (Most of dungeon is easy except Fendi spawning bunch of rits with mass AOE, hexes)

2. Vloxen (Most of dungeon is challenging, but final boss is easy)

3. Catacombs of Kathandrax (Need to be prepared against fire eles)

4. Frostmaw (Above average difficulty)

Rest of the dungeons don't even make it on my list...

If Slavers is excluded, I agree on Shards. Just did it recently and agree with the previous poster that the res shrine is 10 miles away from where you need to be.


It wasn't rip my hair out difficult, but just difficult enough to be annoying.


I would've lol'd if a few people mentioned the Snowman dungeon... I love that place.

Ooze pit and raven's point are amongst the easiest I've tried. Oozes just slowly fade away under some snare and Panic.
The easiest(excluding the Snowmen and Fronist ones) would be Arachni's, since most enemies are physical attackers, and it's rather empty.

The hardest... that would be SoO and Kathadrax.
Vlox would be hard too, not the last boss, but the travel there.

Anyways, with a proper team, all are easy. I did SoO under 50 minutes with a PuG in one Zaishen quest, and we never got even close to a wipe in the last boss.

Depends on your team comp ofc, but the hardest are probably SoO/rragars. Vloxxen is exceedingly simple except for the one necro boss. If you can prevent him from making minions its a cakewalk. The 200 damage death novas are what truly make that fight difficult.

SoO is much, much easier if you're using some form of melee character because you can abuse holy damage easier than a caster can.

Kath is a simple matter of flagging/agroing properly, and compared to Forgewight it's nothing.

Frostmaw's would be difficult if all the worms didnt pop up in the exact same place and proceed to explode 10 death novas on themselves. The 4 norn are excellent meatshields for the incubus as well. A copy of Ward of Stability and flagging helps immensely too.

Oddly enough, duncan isnt difficult at all. Hardest dungeon overall would be forgewight, although we were excluding slavers so..SoO on a caster, rragars otherwise.