The new tombs

As some of you may be familiar with, the previous incarnation of tombs has be renamed and moved to the battle isles. The new tombs is now a PvE area where you fight through four maps to kill 3 bosses at the end who drop a number of green items (you are likely to see 3+ green drops also.) This area cannot be solo farmed with any traditional solo farming build and needs to be more carefully approached to ensure success.

The reason this area is different from others is due to a new skill a number of the monsters have. "Finger of Chaos" is a skill unique to this area at the moment which has an affect based upon your class.

Warrior: Applies a condition with each attack (always blind or cripple)
Ranger: Attacks cannot be blocked or evaded.
Elementalist: Each attack interrupts.
Necromancer: Each attack removes a hex from the attacking monster.
Monk: Each attack removes an enchantment from you.

These take both your primary and secondary into account. Thus a W/R will be affected by blind and cripple every time he is hit and in addition be unable to block or evade the incoming attacks. An Ele/Monk will be interrupted each time he is hit and in addition lose an enchantment. For this reason it is important to note that there is no drawback for being a mesmer. As a result of this you may need to change your secondary class. For example no one should run a monk secondary unless they absolutely have to. Thus you should look at your build and determine what skills from your secondary you really, really, need. If you do not need secondary skills you should change your secondary to mesmer as it is the best possible secondary to run down there.

For Warrior: W/E and W/Me are the only remotely possible options. Being a W/Mo means no enchants will stick (thus no seeds or protection), being a W/R completely nullifies your stances, and being a W/N will make any hexes your team has (such as spiteful spirit) useless.

For Elementalist: You must play an E/Me down there. There is a very large amount of interrupts and the only way you have a realistic chance of getting off a spell is running an anti-interrupt stance. The E/Me will be bounds above every other possible ele combo (unless you plan to stay in back and just spam heal party as an e/mo.)

For Monk: You should play somewhat back and avoid being attacked. However you do not want to run a Mo/W. If an enemy sneaks past your warrior or a stray shot hits you, being cripple prevents you from escaping. Mo/E would be another very poor choice, however Mo/R or Mo/N should be workable.

For Mesmer: You get to choose the lesser of evils. Ranger secondary will probably end up hurting the least, however you should be able to work with Elementalist or Necro secondary if you watch your positioning. In addition you can use fast casting and anti-interrupt stances to counteract the elementalist penalty. If you are comfortable without enchants Me/Mo can work also.

For Necromancer: I would really suggest an N/Me due to the heavy amount of interrupting you will run into. At the same time an N/R should be easily workable and N/Mo if you choose to play without enchantments.

For Rangers: I would suggest R/Me more than anything else. The ranger penalty is fairly harsh and you are somewhat likely to draw agro as a ranger thus making the warrior, ele, and necro penalties quite undesirable. R/Mo can again work if you are willing to go without enchantments, but the swap to R/Me is easy and you probably weren't using much of your secondary anyway.

Good guide.

I suspect that in order to "farm" this area with any speed, you'll need a full balanced team. No tricks here.

I suspect that what will be needed is several monks, probably healing and prot, an interrupt ranger, (Fingers of Chaos actually takes a second or two to use..countering one..or more could be essential.), and enough power to take them down quick. Spread out so Energy Surge doesn't cream you, and be careful.

Hey Warskull..
I hate the New Tombs... ALthough Your Guide Seems To Make Sense
Be Ready For a Spike Team Again
( 2morrow That is D: )

Choking Gas.

That's the ticket I think.

I'd like to Note that Blind still works fine.

I was in a group with 2 rangers (both trappers who both brought choking gas) and a mesmer that steamrolled most groups we came across. I think going heavy on the interupts is key here.

Can I change my mesmer to become mesmer/mesmer?

It was fun once, although ghouls climbing out of solid granite doesn't make much sense. Personally I think it would be worth trying an max beast mastery edge ranger. In a lot of maps the enemies are close enough that you will hit many at once with edge.

i love the new tombs!
finger of chaos is an awesome skill hehe. so evil and so needed =)

ah, so that's why i couldn't remember what finger of chaos did to mesmers.

hope the new hard hitting chaos mobs + dream riders + terrorwebs will teach players how to pay more attention to their surroundings, when to cast enchants, and how to stay back!

Finger of Chaos
hehe
Me <-- Pervert..
but wow i just checked the old tombs a few mins ago.... and oh shit i almost shited my pants... ive heard you can get to HoH still there lol and get green items
so i was wondering since that old hoH has monsters.. whats the new HoH Look?

Haven't gone into it myself, but from what I have heard once you get on the inside it is exactly the same as before.

Really???

http://static.flickr.com/40/88824556_987fd999e7_o.png <----CLICK THIS!!!


http://static.flickr.com/38/88824557_df44931027_o.png

it's not uber fast but it's not really any slower then the full parties i've had

ANET certainly did their homewrok to make this farmer proof.

And so we are back to five man farming groups

I say, put a ranger spike group together. Should be able to drop groups of enemies very fast, and plow through the area faster than the five-man groups. It is all about the speed remember, the sooner you get through the sooner you can get a green! Or not, since there are eight of you, but hey, whatever!

Thanks for the info Warskull.

5 man won't work here. Remember the magic behind the 5 man Oro farm is the gear trick. There is no gear here.

just wondering how many greens drop at the end?
i assume it's not 1 for each party member or else there wouldn't be any reason for minimizing party size.

Christ, can't I enjoy any PvE before everyone and thier brother starts 5-man farming the damn thing. *Sigh* Better join the 8 mans while they last, so I can run something besides the same 5 builds over and over again.

I just tried this 3 times, never made it to the end but made it almost there. We did very well with 3 ranger trap artists, a necro ss Warrior Monk and 3 monks. THe only reason we didnt make it was because we got antsy. Let me tell you, its not easy getting a mature group together, too many droppers.

Eight man group took about an hour to clear the whole thing. Seven of us got greens, one got a double drop. A couple missed their drops as we wraped rather quickly.

Group was two warriors, two monks, two necros, one SS, one MM, and two ele's. All guildies made it much easier.

What are those little icons in the screenshot?

The little head and the chest and stuff?

I doubt we'll be seeing very many W/Mo's here. W/Me or W/N will be the best tanks.

I'm having a bit of success with my E/Mo with Glyph of Concentration. Worked pretty well with a six-person party (two people dropped after level two).

I love this new content. :D

I doubt 5-man groups will be very popular... that place is damn HARD, even with a full group.

My advice:

• Learn to pull well. Pretty much all the groups patrol, and if a second group walks into yours, you're dead. Also, baddies rise from the ground, making even a deceptively easy group of 4 a team-killing mob.
• EVERYONE that's a monk primary/secondary should bring Rebirth. When things go wrong (and they often do), there's no telling who'll make it out alive. I'd recommend some people go /Mo instead of /Me for this reason.
• If you do have lots of /Mo's, then enchantments aren't likely to be useful. I'd recommend 2 healer monks and 1 protection monk, and even the protector will have a hard time.
• Monks should pack condition and hex removal, since there's lots of both. You can't keep the warriors condition-free all the time, but you can keep them un-blinded long enough to land a hit, and un-crippled when it's time to flee.
• AoE spells, like Heal Area and the Ward line, are great if you've got a cluster of casters in the back. Keep in mind though that you'll be up against Meteor Showers, so you're dead if you stick together too much. If you see someone casting Shower, call it so the monks can scatter.
• Interruption is LOVELY. 2 people (ranger and mesmer) on interruption is highly recommended.
• If all else fails, console yourself that the prices on the new greens should drop in a week or two

I've been thinking, would a necro with Balance of Grenth be useful?

Your kidding me right?





........And the Necro had four skills.

Good game Anet.

(PvP players, btw. kekekeke)

2 boon prot?

Did this last night with a friends group and got to the 4th map before we all had to stop because of how late it was! We didn't stop because we got beat, but most of us had to go to work the next day, and we weren't certain how many more levels we had to go to get to the reward.

Our group: we had 1 human necro, 2 human mesmers, 1 human elementalist, 2 human rangers and 2 henchy monks. We had NO warriors.

One mesmer was equipped as an energy drainer including Mind Wrack, and this was very useful because of all the fast casting mesmer enemies. They cast too fast for spell interrupting, so the best way to stop them is to drain their energy. And Mind Wrack at a high domination level does a lot of damage.

One mesmer was equipped as a warrior stopper, with ineptitude, clumsiness and empathy along with chaos storm and some spell interruptors. Ineptitude and clumsiness were very usefull against those melee creatures that kept pushing forwards and attacking. And was usefull against all spell casters as they also attack in between spells.

The elementalist was equipped for a bit of tanking, and, well, she died quite a bit also.

The necro was MOST helpful as a BIP necro! Supplying energy to all of us.

The henchy Monks were EXCELLENT! I cannot emphasize this enough! We started the tour with two human monks, same friends group but other characters, and we failed! The two henchy monks do the job well! And why are they so good? The cast hex removal VERY OFTEN, and that is something that human monks don't often even take with them!

We had great success here because we played very patiently and carefully, pulling back even during a battle, as otherwise other mobs will become involved.

If we realized how close to the goal we were, I don't think we would have stopped. I look forward to our next tour.

Edit: I realized I had the team composition incorrect so I have now edited the above. I originally wrote that we had 2 warriors and forgot one of the rangers and the one necro. We did have some Warriors in the group for our first attempt but that is where we had human monks and we failed miserably. For our successful second try, we had no warriors in the group at all! And we didn't need them. This place is filled with spell casters, and filled with melee creatures that run around a lot shifting their targets, and so for us we did well without warriors.

I did this with a group last night also and spent an hour or so going through.

Do we have any screenshots of the bosses or the items they drop yet?

cant wait to see!

guildwiki.org

We did this last night with a full guild group (one full healing monk, one full-active prot monk, three warriors, three elementalists (one warder, two fire). Pulling was essential, what blunders we had came mostly from bad pulls, or bad positioning (melee monsters got at the back). Otherwise it was fun and we do it again i think.
For another matter the drops were a bit random at the end i think we got two double green drops, three people got one green, and three got none. I would have prefered here a more balanced distribution, but afterall the devs must have got their reasons . Otherwise it is a great update, cheers!

Bad pic, only SS i got, was busy trying to heal. The purple guys are 3 lvl 30 mesmer bosses with 2 terrorwebs and some other insanley overpowered pve enemy.

Finished it with 6 guild mates and a rank 10 Pick up.

Lots of greens dropped, the bow, the hammer, the staffs, the axe, the sword,

The knife is a guildies (or was)
I got the sword and the bloodstaff, customized the blade, and sold the staff for 100k....

very tough, take a Blood necro (wop owned) and lots of candy canes.

THIS WILL NOT BE SOLOED, EVER.

Very nice guide, good job.

Now i wish i stocked up in candy canes instead of spending all my time farming

Damage to Ogres, interesting....

good stuff i henchied the first map ^^ till that bunch at the end

Hahahaha... Well, this is proof that ANet listens to their customers: a special farming area!

I tried to do this last night with henchmen (just for kicks, after the massive download) and I have to say that I got destroyed time and time again. I had no idea that the fingers of chaos were the culprits for annihilating the party. Time to switch secondaries...

Those are the small icons you got in the "Menu" on the bottom of the screen.
You can drag and drop them, but I find it easier to just press "I" for items etc.

I did the same exact thing just to see what it was like because I did not have the time to find a decent PUG. We got to the 2nd map (not sure how far in, we made it to the Wurms though). I have to say that the Kaishen henchies seem to be a lot better than the older guys (Lina, Alesia, Orion...etc) but they still have some work to do. The warriors, for example, will still stand right in the middle of a meteor shower until they get killed. This area is indeed tough but if you take it slow, pull wisely and DO NOT AGGRO, you should be fine.

Here's my question. What is with the chained souls? are you supposed to kill them or what? what is their function?

The chained souls are kind of funny in a sick way. They pop up, then die horribly.. poor schmoos.

I have seen them casting rend enchantments, but I'm not sure if it really matters in that enchant-hostile area anyway.

CCs are very useful right now, but I did it with a 6 man team with friends, and we only used 5 candy canes total. I'm sure that the next round we won't need more than 2 at most. The attack style/pattern of the mobs remains relatively consistent throughout. I'd say the tricky part is that when you hit the third and fourth maps, it's so open that the dryders can easily hit the monks/casters with fireball. One or two shots of that can easily wipe out a caster.

I saw the post above about not bringing a warrior, but I thought the tank was very helpful. If you have a good tank, they'll know how to bottleneck the mobs in and/or pinch em in on the corners. Throw some ss and well managed nukes, and it's really pretty simple. A BiP/BR necro is a must in my opinion, and I liked having a good ele in place of an MM (yes, I experienced both).

Small agro pulls is critical. Hex removal is a must; I brought Convert Hex which worked great (removed the hexes and gave an ac boost if there was a necro hex). Love the zone. Kiddies and true noobs who don't know how to farm/play without the "holding item trick" are going to really struggle here.

The Acolyte