Dungeons difficulty

I'm a pretty new player and still discovering most of the game. Anyway yesterday I did one of the zaishen I had saved up, which was Duncan in Slaver's Exile. Now I didn't know what to expect, and a quick read on the wiki showed it was "Elite". Still went at it on hard mode cause I had been steamrolling everything on vanquishes and stuff, 7hero team(Necro/Rt healer, Panic+Inept mesmers, Splinter SoS/ST spirit spam/ST Shelter and RoJ smiter, I play a VoS dervish), and I started clearing pretty easily, so I thought, eh, whatever.

And then I reached the level with like a bajillion of dwarves rezing each other. I could probably have killed them if I balled them better, but meh wiped like 3times, with 4-5death on my main char, so had to get out since I couldn't even make the ball due to low hp. So I came back with Frozen Soil, cleared that level too, and went down to the roaring ether+ruby djinn level, and again, massive wipes, not enough spiking, and for the first time since I started playing the game, I actually had to move my heroes out of stuff cause they were dying too fast. Anyway I have to go out again due to death penalty, this time I come back on normal cause I've been at it for quite a while(having to run back everytime didn't help). Works alright, until(again) I hit Duncan. I try to pull him away from the spirits but no go, and I pretty much can't hit him due to perma blind and no dmg due to disenchant spirit, while my heroes slowly but surely get nuked to death. So I read up a bit, find out I should probably swap, grab that, come back, spend 10mins swapping spirits out of theway, then fight him again, die to heroes being packed too much, go back, spread heroes as best as I can and finally kill him, even though it was pretty close for a bit and took quite a while(and thank god I had Mystic Regen on me, was considering to replace it with Swap). On normal.

So my question is, how difficult slaver's exile is compared to other dungeons? Both the ones I see discussed in the hard stuff(DoA, UW, FoW, Shards of orr etc) and "normal" dungeons(basically everything else in EotN). I'm wondering if I should just get better preparation for the next bounties in dungeons(believe tomorrow has Arachni's Haunt) or if Slavers is much harder than the normal dungeons but still easier than the other ones I listed.

As a side note, I did enjoy it very much.

TL;DR: How hard is Slaver's Exile compared to other dungeons, since I had quite a lot of trouble.

Well, much more difficult, of course - it is meant to be the elite dungeon and thus hardest of them all.

Dungeon difficulty varies. In Normal mode, they are usually a bit harder than regular PvE. However, they do differ, with some very easy and some very hard.

Which ones are easy and which ones are hard will differ from person to person, but essentially:

-Slaver's exile is a step above other dungeons, as it is the elite one, with Shards of Orr NM and HM also very hard (still easier than Slaver's) and Frostmaw's burrows long and hard

-On the harder side: Ooze pit HM, Rragar's menagerie HM, Catacombs of Kathandrax, Vloxen excavations HM (has a few groups of Slaver's exile dwarvers that are much harder than the regular groups, otherwise normal)

-On the easier side: Arachni's lair, Bloodstone caves, Bogroot growths

In the end they're all doable, but more difficult than the regular PvE.

In my opinion, only Frostmaw is harder than Duncan. Both require a higher level of forethought (and flagging if you are H/Hing it) and preparation than the other dungeons.

I do congratulate you for completing Duncan though. I still haven't managed to finish him off in NM. I'm not sure why but hard mode seemed to be easier to accomplish for me.

Slaver's Exile is by far the hardest dungeon. The enemy groups actually have decent skill bars. Going in there in HM without knowing what's coming is asking for trouble. Making full use of the hero flags to keep your heroes spread out is most advised, especially in Forgewight (the one with all the Elementals).
The other dungeons are, by comparison, very easy and don't require anything special.


Not true by a long way. Frostmaw's Hard Mode isn't really threatening at all; Wurm Bile may be annoying as are the KDs, but beyond that there isn't much threatening (a few Chromatics and Stormcloud Incubi).

Thanks for the answers. What about the dungeons in the other campaigns, FoW, UW, DoA and so on? Maybe they're not named dungeons I just use the term as a general thing.

Also on this, what do you mean you haven't killed him on normal but have killed him on hardmode? Wouldn't HM be well, harder?

IMO, Forgewight HM is the hardest dungeon to H/H. Due the massive AoE damage, and ur heroes tend to ball up so they get killed really fast

I can't think of any dungeon that is "hard"... Duncan is piss easy, provided you have FS and such to get to him.

Stuff like Frostmaw is dead simple with heroes, a total no brainer.

The only boss I can't think of that is tricky if you don't handle correctly is Fendi, but I suppose the same could be said for Murukai if you don't rupt/daze/knock etc.

It all comes down to taking the right skills for the job really.

I guess trench/frost aside, DOA would be very difficult with random pug setups

Dungeons were only introduced in EotN, so no dungeons outside EotN. You egt the "Elite areas" of Fissure of Woe, Underworld (core, accessed from Temple of ages), The Deep, Urgoz warren (Factions, complicated 12 man affairs) and Domain of Anguish (Nightfall, very hard). Generally considered very lucrative, read the wiki pages abotu them first.

Oh, and ignore Venganza's post, he's obviously played GW too much and forgot not everyone is as good. For your, "starting dungeons for the first time", see my post.

I'm doing Dungeons HM once just for fun. So far I have done all, just need to do Dunan HM and Heartwhatever. Every dungeon was easy, except SoO. But that was just fun with guildies, since we didn't take any melee, I was tank with SoS. Was fun, we basically after we figure out how to do it we did it pretty easy. Fendi wen't down due to me spamming heroes around him.

Frostmaw is easy as hell.

I'll have to do Duncan HM these days, waiting for my GF to go out.

FOW NM is plain easy, just focus on ice hands and skeletalah ethekrshkrhse whatevers its called, and you should be fine

Slaver's Exile is in fact 4.5 different dungeons: 1.5 are Thommis+Stormweaver, 1 is Selvetarm, 1 is Forgewight, and 1 is Duncan himself.

Thommis+Stormweaver is the usual difficulty.
Selvetarm is a bit harder, but not very much.
Forgewight is very hard. In hard mode even more difficult than Duncan. Probably the hardest dungeon of all EOTN dungeons. In normal mode difficult enough.
Duncan is also very hard, but not himself. It's the Stone Summit on the way, in addition to the tons of popups. It is reasonably hard, as soon as you know what's going on. Once you know the spawn points of the undead, and the patrol routes of the Stone Summit, you get it.
Fendi Nin in the Shards of Orr is a more difficult boss in hard mode.

As far as I see it, the 4 sub-bosses are rarely done in hard mode. Especially Forgewight if you aim for Duncan at the end. Only Duncan himself is done in hard mode. In case you didn't notice yet: It is possible to do all 4 sub-bosses in normal mode, then switch to hard mode and enter the dungeon to do only Duncan in hard mode. This counts as a hard mode run for the Master Dungeon Guide.

Here is a somewhat funny video of my last Duncan run with friends and heroes. It's "funny", because we had a lot of disconnects and lost 2 members due to disconnects just before Duncan. Ignore/disable the german comments. They basically only point to the Stone Summit Priest who ALWAYS comes down that stairs in front of his party. Later, they only tell who is currently disconnected and that we just lost the guy who was supposed to swap Duncans spirits, so we had to fight him with 6 members instead of 8 and without swapping. Most interestingly, we didn't even carry the usual Duncan killers Spoil Victor and Signet of Sorrow. The last comment complains that I didn't knew who was doing the damage. My spirits attacked the other spirits, but not Duncan. The Necromancer heroes healed or made minions. The Ranger was to interrupt and do AoE damage with my Splinter weapon, but not doing single target damage to Duncan. The pet was there to absorb damage. The monk healed. The mesmer - well, he did it all alone. We others only danced around Duncan's Spirit Rift.

Im sorry but as i read that i almost knew what was comming and its funny.
Ive not tried slavers but ive read on the diffuclty etc - and we all have rushed into a place because we think the team cant die , myself many times lol.

This is my way of doing Slavers Exile:

This was the team: Me as R/W (Triple Chop AoE, ftw!), 1 rit, monk, panic, e surge, SoS friend with FS.

I used wiki just to see map where it is boss, didn't read what enemies are there, my bad.

Thommis+Stormweaver - I first wend and did Thommis, then resigned. After I have resigned, I remembered Stormweaver is in same area. Okei, just went and did him, then resigned.

Forgewight - that is one with burning spirits and shit? If so, I freaking hated myself for not even reading what enemies are there before entering. No PI, no something against fire, nothing. We had little problem, I think there was one wipe out or two, but that was just because I didn't know area, so I rushed in instead of even reading wiki.

Selvetarm - rushed through.

Duncan HM - I have to do him yet. I've went with friend, but we got overwhelmed because honestly, I think another hero would be more suitable, since when I flagged, he didn't move, or he didn't even had FS up. Things like that really make difference here, when I pull. Will do these with me as R/W (feeling bored having a bow, axe ftw!), 2 rits, 2 mes, 2 nec (one is MM, other is some curse), 1 sexy monk. 1 nec will have Spoil victor. Maybe even 2?

My way of killing enemies was usually this:

Flag heroes or rush to enemies, kill wardens, then others.

As the self-proclaimed 'casual gamer' who runs H/H almost exclusively - I would say that FOW is the easiest of the end-game content, then UW, Deep/Urgoz (haven't finished these because i'm not clever enough to get around the portals), Slavers, then DoA. I haven't tackled any of these in HM yet, but maybe someday if I ever have long stretches of free time. lol

IMO, my list of easiest to hardest Endgame Content to H/H in HM is (I don't use cons btw):

FoW, Frostmaw's, Justicar/Sveltrem, Duncan, WoC, UW, Forgewright, Titan Quests, DoA

Honestly, parts of DoA are near impossible to H/H in HM,like the foundry. And the titan quests just require you to spam shelter like your life depends on it.

What's so difficult about Frostmaw HM?

Come on, it's not hard. It just requires people to actually bring something different.

You can steamroll through the monsters on Duncan's level on HM if you bring Frozen Soil and Edge of Extinction. You can move his spirit's out of the way with Swap, and then for actually killing him spirits from an SoS Rit can solo him. He won't even attack them if you get spirits in attacking range and false attack him.

False attack, AKA click to attack him but pull your character away just as you're about to attack. This signals your spirits to attack. Furthermore with Spiritleech Aura they can heal themselves, Vampirism and Bloodsong will be able to survive on their own even.

If you don't like that then you can have someone die infront on Duncan and them spam Signet of Sorrow.

Honestly, it's just pulling and attacking the right targets. Nothing is HARD in PvE with all the OP skills at our disposal, there are [thankfully] some places that you can't use the universal build for.

EDIT: Imho, when you compare it to other dungeons, Slaver's Exile only seems hard because it has 5 parts. 5 parts which make it even easier, you can pop in and out of the dungeon for each part. Not to mention if you need it in HM you can do the other 4 level's in NM and then finish Duncan in HM for the cherry pie.

There isn't any dungeon I would call hard. Frostmaw's Burrows is just a zerg and there isn't anything there that a mesmer can't shut down with ease. The balled up enemies in there are just begging to be killed.

Actually, Hard Mode can sometimes be just as easy as normal mode. Use the increased attack speed of enemies to your advantage. Always use every available resource to your advantage and boom, you have a strategy.

Just a tip (You don't have to take my word for it), but that's a horrible way to engage enemies. Why? Because while your heroes are running to the spot you flagged them to, they're already taking damage and monsters are already getting more hits on them. On top of that they're all moving together in a nice little ball for enemies.

Sure this works when you have protection to support your heroes, but this doesn't always work as I'm sure you've encountered sometimes. Most of the time, it's best when you get the first hit on a mob.

Note: If you have trouble properly shutting down enemies, there are some monsters where you wouldn't want getting the first hit, because they spam their most powerful skills right away and decimate you (Ruby Djinn, Wind Riders, etc). So what do you do then? Make a meatshield/tank for that first attack and get them to attack that target. Their deadliest skills will be recharging and that's when you make your move.

You can do this with a MM, or even more easily with a Spirit Spammer. And you don't even need to stand in AoE. The biggest mistake I see so many people do is just stand in Fire Rain and Meteor Showers because they're so used to rolling through the game by pressing a few buttons.

I did Frostmaw NM & HM back when EotN was new - before the builds were set and the wiki had a how-to. It was hard. I think the experience scarred me for life as I haven't been back to repeat it since my last character made it through. I have two new characters that haven't done it yet and the thought was depressing. I'm glad to know it is so much easier now.


I mean that I have gotten eight characters through Duncan on HM and not one on NM. I have no idea why I cannot complete this dungeon on NM other than that I suck at it.

I will point out that the HM trips were with groups who obviously were carrying me along. No one wants to group up to do him NM so it's just me and my H/H and we fail.

Oh, I didn't express myself.

I use 2 tactics normally:

1. NO FLAGGING - I just run to the group and kill, if I know i'll have some crazy elementalist or mesmers, I take PI and i target one target so heroes attack it while I PI other target (so mesmers "don't" shut down target i want to PI). If enemy attack with some AoE skills (example Meteor Shower) offcourse I'll flag my heroes. If battle is longer, i can flag heroes in middle of combat, depends the path battle takes.

2. FLAG MODE - I flag 1st ritualist to position X, 2nd ritualist to position Y, and monk on position Z, all not near one to another so AoE don't hit them all. I then make ritualist uses their spirits. One thing I tend to do 1/50 situations is flag this way, let ritualists use their spirits, then re-flag them to other position. This is for some harder battles, which are in 99% not needed.

I usually knows what enemy can do what damage, so I don't have problem shutting main chains of enemy teams, and then shut other down easily after their main chain is down.

That for Meteor Shower and Fire Rain - I totally agree, had few friends get killed that way, then they are like "O.o, you flag your heroes in middle of battle?!".

Thanks for inputs though, someone will probably need them

Me personally - it's funny when I say NM is usually harder for me. I normally don't die in HM, while in NM i die here and there, probably because I take it too "easy", and some things can make you shocked even in NM.

Nothing really; Wurm Bile is a bit silly and the KDs on popups are annoying if you don't bother to build for it, but it's easy to push through and simply kill everything.

Early experiences tend to colour opinions (for everyone); the game has pretty much only gotten easier since and certainly H/Hing it wasn't a problem after the Rit update..


Frostmaw is one of those dungeons that looks a lot harder than it actually is. Remember; absolutely nothing in that dungeon has healing.

Here is my input on Duncan HM since I just did it.

First off, many people recommend Swap as one of main skills. I've did it without, and there is no need for it.

I'll write how I did this dungeon:

1. I accidentally runned into stone summit groups because my GF came from my back, hugged me and kissed me and I accidentaly runned into enemies, aggroed all and died. And I got ressed at Beacon 1m of them, so it was a nice stuggle to stay alive again.
Second chance.

I flagged heroes (2 rit and 1 nec) at other positions (as i wrote in post before), and put up FS behind some corner (FS could last just 42 sec long, forgot to put points in Wilderness..don't do that mistake). I flag all heroes behind, then run a bit to try to trigger those spirits. When they would pop up, i would run back, and then kill them. They are not hard, it's easy to go against 2 groups of those spirits.

One advice that I did: When i first aggroed all, i just runned through map to pop up all spirits, then died. So I didn't have some "pop-up" on begining.

Just flag your heroes, pop up spirits if you have them, put up FS behind, and use longbow to pull enemies. I focued on Warders, Defenders, Zealots, Summoners and Priestes.

Now, great boss. I hate that dude, so hate him.

When you are approaching to him, a lot of spirits will pop up. I don't suggest going versus them, it's annoying as hell. What I've did was:

There are stairs up to him, and right of that stairs in corner I flagged all heroes, so his spirits from up can't shot down. Your casters from that corner can use skills on Duncan, so just use them (my heroes usually just used E-Surge and Spoil Victor on him), because my spirits that were summoned couldn't hit anything.

What I've did there was simple and I guess efficient: I would just hit up spirits that would spawn behind us (1m at our back, at the beginning of the stairs. 6 spirits pop up, so I used Triple Chop to get AOE, then would just use SAVE YOURSELVES!).

That way to get duncan from 100% to 0% HP was few minutes, but my heroes couldn't get under 70-85% of their HP. Except Razah, he once died, but he got ressed.

Finished him, and until I have figured out that that spot could dmg him and he can't do shit to me with his spirits...that time i was pissed off.

Easy boss after I figured out this, probably many of you know for this, but I haven't read ANYTHING that would help me at this boss, because I wanted to have pleasure of killing him myself with my made up tactics when I come to him.

Excuse me for my english grammar, I'm tired as hell.
This is suxxy sketch I just did, but it should give you approx info how I did it:

This was touched upon in an earlier thread:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/d...n+diffic ulty

I second that.

Seconded on Forgewright being the hardest. The easiest part of that dungeon is the boss himself.

Yes, Duncan can be defeated without using Swap, but the heroes will, silly guys and gals that they are, not understand that they need to focus on Duncan onstead of the spirits. So, the spirits will still distract them.

As for Duncan, everyone gets scared by his Duncan's defence, which your healers can generally keep up with just fine, and forget about the real threat - Duncan's Spirit rift. Bring diversion against the guy, and just spread out a bit. You'll be surprised at how little damage you take compared to an un-diverted Duncan...

I just have to comment, thank god, this is not a make everything easier post, thank you OP for wanting to learn how something is done.

Everything on wiki you read is correct, Frozen Soil, Swap Spirits away from Duncan, bringing some skills that do not do direct damage. Disable skills on heroes that do direct damage on Duncan. Flag heroes apart, have healers on flag 1 and 2 so you can separate them on either side of the group formation. Bring your own Spirit Spammers with Shadowsong, Shelter, Union, Wanderlust and have that hero flagged back so Duncan can't reach them but, spirits still attack him. Never under estimate the power of a Daze condition, basically shuts down any caster including Duncan.

I'll be giving a test once again the way I killed Duncan without using Swap or any other skills. My friend tried that method I wrote upon on thread yesterday and he killed it without problem too, so for people not wanting to use Swap etc., be free to try my method (I'm sure people did before me that way, but I just found it on my own since I didn't want to read any "known" ways to kill Duncan).

I'll be doing all areas again so I can help one guildie with his HM book, should be fun

Simply move the flag of the hero that's being targeted by Spirit Rift; you know what to look for (a low flying blue orb) and have plenty of time to react. It's preferable to taking a not particularly useful Mesmer skill and trying to land that and it's good practice.

Not on my reflexes and multitasking ability. I'd sooner disable all the Soul twisting prot ritualist's skills and manually make sure Shelter is up all the time.

Also, diversion after diversion after diversion, and soon you have Duncan just sitting there, using no skills at all. Which is good, since Duncan has other killer skills available too...

If Diversion works then that's fine but I would still recommend a person tries to improve their play; nobody is beyond improvement. Certainly microing a hero away from Spirit Rift is reasonable practice; you have a lot of time to react, a clear visual clue and you don't need to worry about anything Duncan will due during the time you're not looking at him. Spirit Rift is his only scary attack skill; you don't really notice Spirit Burn and Spirit Boon Strike (he does a fair bit of damage with them but it's not combined with anything else so it's easy to shrug off).