Solo Monk Dreadnaught's Drift Farming

Author Edit: The chests which are mentioned in this thread have been removed in an update. This run is still good for providing you with a break from the tedium of farming other areas, and can provide very fast experience gain (by tyrian standards).

:: :: PART ONE - Preperation

:: Introduction

This guide will instruct you to tell you how to solo farm Dreadnaught's Drift with a Monk. This area is a difficult to access area, filled with high level foes who are determined to make your life both short and miserable. This guide will outline how to prevent those from happening, and to instead kill them and reap the spoils. The rewards for your efforts are often very profitable on all levels.

The thrill of success in this high end area, the regularity that rare skinned items drop, the number of runes, the unparalleled experience gain, and the access to countless chests are all very satisfying.

:: Warning

This is not an easy run. It is likely you will fail the first couple of times you try, and it is feasible that many of the people who read this will never get the hang of it! Its far from impossible, but it is certainly an acquired taste. My runs now take 1/3 as long as they used to, simply because I now know what to do.

:: Equipment

If you are familiar with the invinci-Monk build, you understand the basic mechanics of how this works. If you are not I suggest you A) read this thread: B) go farm something else. If you are dedicated, of course feel free to disregard my suggestions.

At bare minimum, you will need a set of normal armor without any life decreasing runes (any type of armor, of any AL), and a set of armor with superior runes in any

It is preffered that you have at least one additional piece of armor with a major rune in it, and one with a vigor rune in it. It is also prefered that all of your armor be Ascetics. I dont even use ideal equipment and get by quite nicely.

:: Armorment

You should have a -50 health focus, a -20 health focus, and a focus with no health penalty. The -20 focus can be obtained in presear, or found in a drop. Those -20 health items with max energy go for a good sum if they are tied to a Monk stat, as they allow you to have alot of extra energy in comparison to the presearing one. I personally use a req9 Healing Ankh with +12 energy that gives +4 armor -20 health whenever I can, for the energy.

Your primary hand should be a weapon of enchanting. You have three destinct choices here, you can either go with the retired HOD Sword, the Fiery Flame Spitter (old or new, doesnt matter), or a generic weapon modded with a longer enchant suffix. Preferably 20, but I used 11 on Righteous Theory for the longest time, and managed quite well.

:: Enemies

Just so you know what youll be getting yourself into - here are the enemies you will be encountering. I will include what skills I can remember, or rather the ones which matter for purposes of this run.

Stone Summit Heretic - Mesmer - Shatter Enchantment, Crippling Anguish {E}, Conjure Phantasm, Illusion of Haste
Notes: Unless you are totally pro, avoid.

Stone Summit Gnasher - Necro - Life Siphon, Animate Bone Fiend, Taste of Death
Notes: Life Siphon and Taste of Death makes these guys very frustrating to kill. Not worth it. Life Siphon also weakens your regen which weakens you.

Stone Summit Ranger - Ranger - Melandru's Arrows {E}
Notes: The -3 degen from Rangers is not enough to kill you outright, but when combined with Life Siphon...

Stone Summit Carver - Warrior - Disrupting Chop
Notes: If you are fighting them, get your important skills off before they can charge adrenalin, then cast sparingly.

Blessed Griffon - Monk - Smite Hex, Symbol of Wrath, Spellbreaker {E}, Holy Strike
Notes: Nothing to worry about here, other then their high spike damage due to Symbol of Wrath. Just throw up SOJ and wait for them to kill themselves.

Tundra Giant - Warrior - Earthshaker {E}, Giant Stomp, Crushing Blow
Notes: They throw massive boulders from a distance, which can knock you down. I am unsure of why you are not always knocked down by them, or if there is a specific circumstance to trigger the KD affect on you. Tundra Giants can not be knocked down.

Azure Shadow - Monk - Signet of Judgment {E}, Holy Wrath, Retribution
Notes: Try attacking them to increase energy regen, as the redirected damage from Retribution and Holy Wrath can quickly recharge energy.

Mountain Troll - Warrior - Disrupting Chop, Battle Rage {E}
Notes: Disrupting Chop is an awesome way to die fast. Battle Rage makes it so that if they hit you 4 times they will get a 25% speed boost - dont let them close range, or let them stay there.

:: Skills

There is no single skillset for this run, however until you get used to it I suggest you stick to this basic build (its what I use):

Protective Spirit
Healing Breeze
Shield of Judgment {E}
Balanced Stance
Sprint
Rush
Mending
Balthazars Spirit

If your having trouble killing Giants in one go with SOJ, you can switch out Rush with Blessed Aura. Rush may give an invincimonk more run time then Sprint, but Sprint can be triggered unconditionally, which comes in handy for later.

:: Attribute Points

Heal 9 + 3 + (1)
Smite 12 + 3 + 1
Protect 8 + 3
Divine Favor 2 + 3
Tactics 5

An invincimonk's attribute points often change, so these are not set in stone, but there are a few things you should be aware of.

You should change headpieces to a +1 Healing scalp so that you can precast Mending at 13 Healing, then switch to a +1 Smite scalp. Itll really help against Stone Summit.

You might want to raise Divine Favor some more if you use Blessed Aura more effectively.

You should keep Smite at 16 all the time.

:: Inventory

You should bring 3 Superior Salvage Kits, and at least one Superior Identification Kit. Clear your inventory as much as possible. Chest drops here are very good, so bring tons of keys too (10+ is what I usually bring).

Do not salvage Tundra Giant Bracers, they are stackable and often salvage to 2 Cloth, or occassionally 1 Silk.

:: :: PART TWO - Dance the Dance

In order to get to Dreadnaught's Drift you must first pass through the lengthy Snake Dance. Zone to Camp Rankor, set your skills, clear your inventory, stock up on keys, and at least 2 (maybe 3 or more) -Superior- Salvage Kits, and a Superior Identification Kit.

:: To Live, You Must Die

[Alright, so I referenced The Wheel Of Time, sue me!]

Many parts of Snake Dance (especially the later ones) have lots of KD, which means you may not always have Healing Breeze up. This makes you alot easier to kill. The lower your health, the easier you can withstand attacks. If you dont know that much about the I-Monk and its mechanics, you are in for a tough time.

So, gather up some DP (one death should be fine) then throw up your enchants.

:: Your First Dance Lesson

Since the objective is to get to Snake Dance, head north and just run past all the foes. Killing them would remove your DP, and make you easier to kill. Dont worry, there will be plenty of slaughtering later =) just for now head north and try to avoid dying or getting bodyblocked. You might want to look at a map of Snake Dance if you dont know your way. Once you reach the half way point, there will be a rez shrine. I usually walk over it, right on top of it, then go die to some nearby Azure Shadows, so I can set my respawn point there [incase I die later in the run]. Then I recast enchants, and readjust health.

The northern half of snake dance is the most dangerous, as the Mountain Trolls are experts at body blocking, and can use Battle Rage to catch up to you. Around the area with ~50 Mountain Trolls you will see several groups of Giants that seem ripe for killing, but just wait, they will get their turn. Head to Dreadnaughts Drift first, so if you die you wont have to walk such a long distance.



All in all I wont give a step by step diagram of how to handle Snake Dance, as it is a suitable trial by fire for Dreadnaught's Drift.

:: :: PART THREE - Dreadnaught's Judgment

There are three seperate parts of what you will be doing in Dreadnaught's Drift. The first is killing the Giants, running the Frozen Chest, and running the Lost Strongbox. Through out all of this, be sure not to go too far north, as it can be very difficult to return to the Snake Dance/Dreadnaughts Drift

:: Killing The Giants

When you first spawn in Dreads you will see a group of Tundra Giants. Cast enchants, then aggro them. Dont worry, theres no need to throw up Prot Spirit yet, as the first thing the giants will do is run past you and towards the Blessed Griffons to the NW. They wont attack until they get to where they are going, so go stand nearish where the griffons are, except farther back into the cave. A secondary group of Giants will be charging up, and you dont want to aggro them when they get there.

Once they start KD'ing you, throw up Balanced Stance, then SOJ. Youll be surprised at how fast Giants go down! They do not get KD'ed from SOJ, so they kill themselves even faster. Youll probably have to wait for SOJ to recharge in order to finish off the Griffons.

You may notice that casting while facing Giants is difficult as Balanced Stance will not stay up through the whole fight. The key to casting while facing regular KD is to wait until you are actually on the ground to start casting. You will begin casting the moment you stand up, giving you a maximum window to cast your spell. I cast Healing Breeze and Protective Spirit as often as they recharge. You might want to also trigger Balanced Stance several seconds before you hit SOJ, so that you can have Balanced Stance recharged in time for when Giants start dying, your HP starts rising, so you can hit Balanced Stance again and switch armor (if need be) and still not have to worry about KD.

After you drop the first group, you should have a good idea of what to expect. Walk over a bit and aggro the group that moved in, and kill them.

Youll notice pretty soon that Tundra Giants drop what can only be quantified as a '****-ton' of Giant Slayer Hammers, many of which are purple and gold. Infact, Frost Wurms have a tendency to drop alot of these too, but the only Frost Wurm near here is Maw the Mountainheart. You can try to kill him... if you want to. Its possible, but difficult.



The pink dot in the bottom left is where you will be fighting this first group.

:: The Frozen Chest

The next thing youll be farming is the Frozen Chest. Follow the path northish, and stay as east as possible. Kill everything but Stone Summit in your way. Youll want to use Alt+Cntrl to look at the cliff to your East. You should see a Frozen Chest eventually. In order to get there you have to run past some Stone Summit, then circle around and approach the Frozen Chest from the east, going west.

The Frozen Chest is the blue dot in the above map.

You will have to run past some Stone Summit to get there. Make sure you dont aggro a Heretic, and dont use a speed booster until you are almost to the point where they will have to give chase. This will give you maximum time to drop aggro, and a speed boost in order to dodge the arrows from Stone Summit Rangers, which, after they apply Melandru's Arrows will make you bleed, stacking some heavy degen on you. Precast Healing Breeze to keep from dying.

As you start moving up the rise towards the Frozen Chest, 4 different groups of Stone Summit will swarm in from the edge of your radar and block your exit! [Make sure you drop aggro before getting up there!] You will have to kill them if you want to get out alive. Which is perfectly okay with me =)

Make sure you are at low hp, precasting healing breeze, and are close enough so all them can attack you. Sometimes, a few will get body blocked and youll be left with some which didnt die in the first SOJ, like this



An interesting glitch that happens very often here is you can see their scripted destination before they get there.

Here is an action shot:



After you are done killing the Tundra Giants, gather up the spoils, then open the Frozen Chest. Btw, you dont need to use a key =D AND it drops all armors, AND it drops 5-10 of them! Golds are rareish, but they do happen. The armors can come from any type of mob - Titans, Grawl, Charr, Undead... I have even gotten some "Jade Pauldrons" from this chest, presumably from the Mursaat's Jade Armors, even though they never drop any such item! (heres proof: tinyurl.com/a2w8n)



:: The Lost Strongbox

The Lost Strongbox is heavily guarded, and *WELL* worth the effort.



It is the weapon equivalent of the Frozen Chest (and is marked in green in the map I provided). You dont need a key to open it, and it drops 5-10 weapons, with a very high droprate for rare skinned weapons. Weapons such as Dwarven Axes, Crystalline Swords, Magmas Shields, Brute Swords, Ghostly Staffs and many more.



You will have to watch the patrol which contains the Heretic (thank god theres only ever one), and when it starts moving north-westwards, run as fast as you can, then a bit before you get to the hairpin turn, use a speed boost and focus on dropping aggro. Once youve done that, pick up the drops. You can then die, respawn where you entered the area, and move back into Snake Dance.

This will take a bit of doing, but if your a fan of rare skin items, this is your best chance to get one. You can also try to use Spellbreaker here to make the running easy, but dont expect to be doing much killing then.

:: Returning To Snake Dance

In order to prevent anti-farm from kicking in hardcore, zone back to Snake Dance and progress southwards, killing everything you come across. I usually go to at least a bit past the swarms of Trolls, killing all the Giants. Trying to take Trolls just insures that you will be dying, shortly after having Disrupting Chop hit a crucial skill. Of course, if your pro you can try taking a Mo/Me or Me/Mo to go through and kill the Trolls too, but youll be loosing anti-KD skills. A Mo/W or W/Mo can do it too of course, but Bonettis Defense against that many Trolls is bound to fail a decent amount of the time.

When your done, just die and respawn near Dreadnaughts Drift, so you can zone. Again, dont get too near the midway rez point.

:: :: PART FOUR - Conclusion

:: Notes

The areas marked in brown and red are where the Shrine of Dwayna and Maw the Mountainheart are. Locked chests in Dreadnaughts Drift seem to drop much much better then the ones in Snake Dance. THis may be superstition, but its paid off for me so far (I just got a r10 energy+5(enchanted) 20% recharge fire magic from there, as well as a near perfect 10/9 Insightful Raven Staff of Shelter from there while I was writing this up!).

:: Workshop

I might be doing a workshop on this run later if there enough people interested. If you want to know what that is, click here: http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=381040

It will be 3k per person. If you are interested, post here. Do not contact me in game or private message me, post in this thread.

:: Primary Thread

This thread is a copy of one I posted on my guild forums. That is the primary thread, and is upkept the best. It can be found here - http://p3.forumforfree.com/here-vp946-rfe.html#946