Guide to being successful in the PvE Tombs

Forget it. This was supposed to meant to help people having trouble with tombs, but instead it turned into a big "flame me" about the builds I use because apparently me completing runs in 45 minutes isnt good enough because I'm a W/Mo or a N/Mo.

Call it Tombs...

[edit] Thanks

WOW this is the WORSE advice I've ever seen.... I don't even know where to begin..


The warrior should NEVER be a W/Mo.... this is pointless and makes your monks work that much harder because they are unable to use Seed, Breese, Healing Hands, Essence Bond, or the like...

The warrior has NO need for rebirth as he should be the first one to die if your team has proper agro.

W/Me is the best type since the warrior can pack elemental resistance which is a stance, use that along with Doylac Sig for Max defence agains Dryders..

As far as the rest of your build None of your characters should have Mo as a secondary unless absolutley necessary...

I also have a hard time believing you can clear UW in 45 minutes and die 1-3 times... my guild can clear "Tombs" with NO One dying.. and it takes about 60 min.. we have cleared it over 15 times..

Thats your opinion, and I'm fine with that. As for what your saying, I rarely tank in the New UW, only when the party needs a good one. I use these skills and like I said before I hardly die, the monks don't ever tell me they have trouble healing me. Sure having ele resistance is good for the dryders, but I'm not taking all that much dmg when I use Watch yourself, dolyak sig and defensive stance when dryders approach. It gives a huge armor bonus and no knockdown.

Having a monk secondary always helps. Having rebirth in the New UW is necessary, especially with an unexperienced party. Without a good tanker, or if for some reason the team gets wiped out, having rebirth helps.

Well there is more to having a Me secondary then just Elemental Resistance... maybe you are unfamiliar with "Fingers of Chaos" they remove enchantments on MONKs... so by setting your secondary to monk, Healing Seed, Breese, Healing Hands, and about 20 other monk enchantments become useless..

Weather or not the Monks you go with tell you this it doesn't mean it isn't true, they probably don't realize that their healind seed is being removed almost immediatly.. You are relly cutting down on the ammount of healing your monk can do by setting your secondary to Mo..

As far as the other members of the team having monk as their secondary the same applys if the ranger is getting attacked the monk can seed the ranger, the MONKs only option is to spam heals which is why you need a battery.. a battery in Tombs is useless unless you are over working your monks with a build like this..

please... for the love of god... it's called Tomb of Primeval Kings... not "new UW"...

Finally, I would also suggest that the Eles and the Necro set their secondary to Mesmer and use Mantra Of Resolve so they aren't constantly interruped... for that matter the Monks should also consider this unless you can stay back enough to avoide interrupts.

ToPK plz

Yeah, the original poster does not know what he is talking about at all. Do not use those builds if you want to be successful in PvE Tombs. He may have a skill or two right, but I suggest forgetting everything you read.

Also your advice at being a necro is bad....monk skills used on your Minions kill them faster (or make them degenerate hp faster) such as heal area.....not a smart necro are we now

From my experience tanking in the Tombs (YEAH - I SAID TOMBS!!!!), the most effective role of the tank is body blocking, especially when dealing with the grasp thingies. They'e constantly draining your energy and putting blind on you. (I'm sure the monks get tired of hearing "I've got blind on me" while they keep removing it!) What I've found works well in the tank department as a W/E is to have Ward against Foes for dealing with the grasps, Ward against Elements for dealing with the dryders. In either case, gotta use them early before you energy gets sucked out. (Aftershock is another option to take along as a nice compliment to Meteor showers.)

I think the fastest group I've been with cleared it out in about 1-1/2 hours. But I'm not about "fast," I'm about success!

You never ever ever EVER make your Warrior have a secondary profession a monk. Fingers of Chaos removes enchantments when they attack a Monk Primary/Secondary!

Yup, he hasn't got a clue.

I've seen some good advice, from the ppl who replied. Like Caster/Me for Mantra of Resolve. I'll add to the curse necro. Take blood ritual, a good team hardly ever needs a battery, good monks can sort themselves, good ele's don't nuke the last crasp that is already at low health. But at some points they may need it. Also if you take arcane mimicry (as a mesmer subclass) you can copy the renewal from the ele's.

Record is 25 minutes from what I've heard. Or is it 35? Either way it's not held by me, but a few of the party members I go down with when they team up with EvIL.

35 was our record, 25 would be pushing it even with pride

i use both physical end elemental resistance on my tank and the 2 inspriation interrupts for energy management (mainly to stop meteor showers and wurm siege), i will survive as selfheal and signet of midnight to shutdown the meleemonsters.
i use the sword only for the added 7 armor

Every single secondary as monk? Have you ever completed the run? With the team you stated I can see you having a tuff time. Any team that has every player having to bring a rez is a bad sign too start with?I leave a team that insists I bring a rez(as a fire ele((850,000xp))on this run). This, in my eyes, is a clear case of theory as opposed to real world application.
As for setting records of speed runs, 25 minutes, sorry but until Im on a team that completes that run in 25 minutes, I tend to regard that as exagerration(a big one at that). There are simply too many monsters too kill in that short of time. Fastest team I have been on, is 1 hour and 25 minutes, people have told me thats slow, and I laugh at them, Ive joined teams that said we can complete in under an hour, and not one of those teams made it further than the second level. Then they proceeded to call everyone noobs for slowing them down by dying, while they l'ye dead on the ground. I could see on the run that took 1hr25 mins, time couldve been shaved off here and there but not one hour. Maybe 10-20 mins, Id like to get a run in in a hour, and I think it is possible. Not saying it is impossible(25 min), because I dont know that it is, but id like to see proof of a 25 minute run.

I loathe the people in tombs that expect people to be Mo secondaries just so they can bring a hard res. =X Who needs a hard res when you can have a solid group that can simply survive through everything?

also another skill is mantra of concentration-if u use a different elite like me

I'm seeing people saying that having a monk secondary causes removal of enches when hit by something using fingers of chaos and some people say that it only does the monk effect when you're a primary monk. Can someone say for 100% sure that being secondary monk causes the fingers of chaos monk effect on you, someone who ACTUALLY knows personally instead of just saying yeah i'm sure cause i read it somewhere so it must be true?

it doesn't matter if you are primary or secondary monk - you will loose your top enchantment on hit as long as fingers of chaos is active. (based on own experience as with mo/me, mo/n, r/me, r/me, ele/me and nec/me)
knowing your enemy is half the battle.

i agree with previous replies: serious casters use mantra of resolve and if needed the necro can throw a ritual.

regarding warriors - the best groups i have been in so far had no warriors at all Oo

One warrior's good, two may be doable but I'd try to stick with one. You only need one to tank if you aggro correctly, in any case.

E/Me and N/me are almost necessities due to their skills' cast times. As much as I try to explain this to my guildies, they're /Mo for the res only, it seems, which doesn't help their case, as when I monk I'm the one out of range by the time the party wipes. :\

The necessity for me is a ward thrower. That seemes to be the most important.

Well, i've never been in a party with a ward thrower, haven't made it all the time, but 15 of out 20 i have. Mostly go down with a buddie who is a necro, uses SS mostly, got some blood ritual for mana (but hates monks who spam their mana shortage after a 20 sec fight). For when the aggro is bad he brings enfeebling blood, great skill to use on those crasps, makes even an ele a tanker.

So true, most of the groups I failed with was with 2 warriors, now I leave those groups when another warrior joins. Body blocking MIGHT be a good idea, but its usually a -let's grab the first to wars available- solution. It depends on the 2 warriors working together, which the random pick-up warrior ain't always very good at. I'd rather go with one experienced warrior, who knows not to aggro when others aren't standing in the place he wants them to. This type of warrior also tends to go berserk when enchantments are cast on him just before a battle (pros know the reason why ).

And the thing about rez is also very true, you should be able to depend on the monks to run away in time and rez everybody. A warrior is the last to need a rez, if he starts running, he isn't doing a good job.

I'm an ele nuker when i go down, and when you hit those who use cry of frustration and get interrupted it's always more then once. Concentration may work for a large part of the tombs, but when you encounter specific groups MoR works so much better.

EDIT

most irratating thing happening in the party:

We were down to the HoH, started out in a 2 war party, one had dropped just before we reached HoH. The aggro had gone mad at that point, a clear clue that the remaining warrior didn't know what he was doing. So before we start in HoH I say, this is a tricky part, plz listen. He says ok. I explain and draw that he should get one group and one group only, as there are two patrols. I point the patrol out and say now when both are not in the middle section, but further away. The war goes up to the patrol.... and.... tanks. At a spot where the other patrol is going to be pretty soon. The rest of the group spots this, so the chat is going "back" "back" "warrior!" "back" "OMG". Other patrol comes, warrior dies, nowhere to run for us squishies and party whipe. This i could forgive, we all make mistakes sometimes, and learn from it. However back outside the warrior is frustrated, clearly he didnt realize that with the "back" we meant him. "why didnt you say 'WARRIOR GET THE F BACK'?"......... well we were stressed for time, didn't know he only understood stuff in caps, and yes i made a mistake of saying 'get' when i should obviously had said 'lure'.

i just organized and completed a 6 person run. we finished in a little over an hour.. maybe 1:10

i find what works best is: stance war who is aggro savvy, 2 heal monks (1 w/ sb), 1 lvl 18/19 mm (horrors and fiends), 1 echo ss necro and 1 echo nuker for those victory fireworks.

any group which i've been in that includes both an echo SS necro and a MM necro does well in situations which you aggro everything on the map. those minions keep the mobs off the casters and SS can be spammed so fast they just sort of die standing these.

I usually go echo SS and can spam out 5 spitefuls before arcane echo runs out. it's lovely when your entire screen is overflowing w/ -37's all over the place just from stancing graspings. And w/ dying minions you almost never run out of energy. I also run mantra of concentration just because it lasts longer than resolve, and as a necro w/ only 45 energy, i'd rather not deal w/ the energy hit of resolve. I get interrupted maybe a total of about two times each on stages 2, 3 and 4 usually from a chain of frustrations or power spikes. at only 5 energy, i can keep MoC always on, and reapply it when it first gets taken off.

I've run as a heal monk quite a bit as well, sometimes as the only monk in a 6 person group, and I can say that w/mo's are generally a nightmare to keep alive. Being stance helps quite a bit, but nothing sticks to a player who's x/mo. This makes eles, necros, monks and rangers particularly hard to protect as nothing will stick to them. Half the time they think they can tank, so you end up wasting plenty of energy spamming 5 energy heals until even the recharge times of the spells can't keep up w/ the damage. R/mo's are the worst since their stances are useless as well - just hope they brought throw dirt!

But for necros and eles, mantras to prevent interrupts are a necessity.

And for the one posting about heal area increasing degen on minions.. that's just a gw urban legend. your minions will last much longer w/ heal area than without. I've done both (when i've been too lazy to change back to n/mo from n/me)

The fastest run i've been on was 50 min w/ an 8 person pug.. i'd sure like to see a 35 min run.
Very few people die in my groups. It seems pretty ridiculous to make every one go x/mo (one of the worst combinations in tombs uw) just for rebirth...

you hardly need rebirth in tombs uw anyway, unless the player doesn't know what they're doing and ends up deep in enemy territory. generally anyone who can only be extracted via rebirth has gone too far in.

as a ranger, i use all 4 traps, high expertise and wilderness, and one distracting shot for the worms.

it is much more better to use this build when going out with random ppl because u can make sure the monk is alive (with the traps) and interupt the damn worms.

Yes, Do u want me to prove it to you? This SHOULD be common knowledge.. it doesn't matter if your primary or secondary is MONK its the same effect I'm 100% sure I've ran as Warrior and Monk... PERIOD.. who ever is telling you its ONLY monk primary doesn't have a clue what they are taking about.

the two fastest Pug ways to beat tombs in my experiece is as follows
5 barrager/beast masters
1 order nec
1 minion master
1 heal monk

pets and minion bombs/fiends are really good tanks and are REALLY good at body blocking the stairs, tight corridors, bridges if all 5 rangers have pets and at least 1 or 2 of them using dire or low lvl pets for the MM

this is by far the fastest pug way of beating NUW, but its highly dangerous with only 1 monk, one bad pull and youll be running away and regrouping and rebirthing teammates which slow you down big time.
with this team i have beaten NUW in 45 minutes to over an hour with bad luck

the other team i use is
1 tank W/E ward against melee, ward against foes, when the melee mobs are slowed they go after closest target, seldom there is a mob that slips through, but the rest of your team can kill that one fast, and plenty of non energy skills like dolyak signet and watch yourself and bonneti if you can land enough hits through blinding
5 barrage/beast masters
1 orders nec
1 heal monk

this is a way more safe method of going through NUW, but less effecient, a good group like this will take 50 + minutes with little dying and regrouping

I haven't played Tombs as any other class (yet), but monk is my specialty, and I've had a lot of success and gotten many compliments while using this build:

16 Healing
11 Divine Favor
9 Protection

Word of Healing (elite)
Orison of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Protective Spirit
Heal Party
Healing Breeze
Healing Seed
Rebirth

The three direct healing spells are necessary since so many enchants get removed down there. And Spell Breaker is nice, yeah, but I can't even begin to count the number of times Word has saved people when aggro goes astray. If you've got a BIP necro, Heal Other could be used instead, but otherwise you're probably going to run out of energy when things get bad.

Protective Spirit has also saved countless people. Even if it's only effective for a single hit (seriously, what's up with everyone having monk secondary?), it gives me time to fire off a Word of Healing afterwards. It's also very nice when fighting Dryders.

Heal Party is pretty much a must. With Energy Surge, Cry of Frustration, and Fireball flying around, you need the whole party heals. It's also handy when fighting the bosses, since it lets you stand well outside of their spell range -- avoiding Backfire and Diversion -- while still healing. It gets pricy to spam, though, and is most effective with a battery necro in the party.

Breeze and Seed are best when you've got a W/E or W/Me for a tank, but if you're good at enchantment stacking, Seed can still work on a W/Mo. The trick here is to start the cast for Healing Seed, then hit Prot. Spirit so that it casts immediately after Seed. That's quick enough to cover Seed from the first hit of Fingers of Chaos, giving you time to throw on a Healing Breeze for another cover. By the time that gets stripped, Prot. Spirit should be recharged and you can throw it on again if need be.

Obviously, doing that really sucks down the energy, so you don't want to do it all the time. Make sure you've got a good aggro going, with everything on the tank before you try it. (The delay may also draw out a Fingers of Chaos or two before you cast Seed.) Otherwise, if some Grasps break and hit the casters, you'll find yourself with half your energy gone and Prot. Spirit still recharging; not a good place to be.

Rebirth shouldn't need any explanation.

Oh, and one more little note: For the love of god, don't use enchantments around Dreamriders. They use Shatter Enchantment for around 100 armor ignoring damage. I've seen the tank go down many a time because the other monk in the party tried to use enchants, only to have them shattered, and have been killed myself in the same way when the other monk was trying to heal me.

And if you're thinking that I must get interrupted all the time, not having Mantra of Resolve (even though I am actually Mo/Me) -- well, you'd be wrong. As a monk, it's really not that hard to avoid interrupts down there. You just have to pay attention to your surroundings. Stay out of Scythes' and Dreamriders' cast ranges whenever possible; don't stand next to party members or else you'll get caught by Cry of Frustration; watch who else is getting hit with Cry (let the resolve nukers soak it up, they have the energy) so you'll have a better idea of when the baddies will be able to throw it out again. It's kind of funny to be chain casting my direct healing spells while watching the other monk get interrupted once, twice, three times, but it can seriously hurt the group.

I've only been once but it was with the most excellent team i've ever had the pleasure to be with

Guardian
Remove Hex
Mend Condition
Aegis
Divine Boon
Offering of Blood {E}
Rebirth
Reversal of Fortune

EDIT: Mo/N
14 Prot Prayers
12 Divine Favour
10 Blood Magic

We had another guy with a similar build and 1 heal monk

The others were W/Me using inspired hex W/N forgot, E/Me echo nuker, battery necro, spiteful necro

the ele left in the courtyard slowing our progress heavyly(sp), and the healing monk had left some time near the begining through err7

Er, who came up with this fallacy? AFAIK all Minions have a fixed degen rate with perm degen pips added every so often. Using Monk skills on them will not speed this up.

Well of course I disagree and have completed the tombs 4 straight times with a W/Mo and if I hadn't been a W/Mo we would have tanked in two of them, but, I only bring "rebirth" as a W/Mo (I only sink 1 attribue point into it so it doesn't decrease my warrior powers). A warriors main job is to 'block' the mobs from getting in the rear to the casters. This is why I like a 2 W/Mo group at least. I don't really care if the other playes make /Mo characters, but, I have the ability to escape and use Rebirth if things go badly. Cases of the 2 we had problems they only grouped me as a Warrior when they should have gotten one more. So, just because one plays a W/Mo doesn't mean they use "enchants". So you're never ever ever is completely wrong and rediculous. (smile)

Perhaps he means that if you keep healing your minions with Heal Area, the permanent pips will keep on increasing, making them difficult to maintain.

I really hope you are joking. If not, please re-read this thread. Then uninstall the game.

Here are a couple of mesmer builds I have been running. Illusion works very well I've found. Degen, inept/clums takes out single targets very quickly - i.e. stop insanity's quick. It also helps fleeing caster allies very well if you use inept, clums, leech (though no one has ever noticed )

For domination as the core of the build I've basicly been echo'ing empathy and spamming that and shattering the tanks hexes, backfire, inter as needed. Or you can roll out two (or 3 if you hit fast recharge) backfires for dryders - or echo your inter, then catch two meteors.

Its also worth mentioning the mesmers here attack alot as well - so you will still hit them with the illusion build.

Resolve can happilly fit in there in place of an inter or inspired hex. It will also help on rebirth - which mesmer is also usefull for down here, you can get four rebirths non stop with the right canes/chakrams. I dont personally rate resolve because it just kills my energy and i still take the negative effects. Although im considering adding it lately because twice ive been last man standing and intered on the rebirth (still dont like it ).

Obviously you didn't read the thread it's about the new TOMBS/UW, not about W/Mo play totally. So, you need to read before you speak cause you don't know what your talking about.

bad suggestions from the op

What he means is that with a Monk secondary, any enchantments on you, whether you put them on yourself or by another monk, will get stripped by the monster skill "Fingers of Chaos." Therefore if you want monks to be able to do their job effectively (Healing Breeze, Protective Spirit etc. are all enchantments), you can't go /Mo.

Well he should have stated that then. But, nevertheless W/Mo's are just as effective as any other. I've been thru 4 times, completed them all and got excellent drops. So, I'll continue to play my way and he can go whatever himself. (Smile) I certainly don't have any problems getting into groups. (smile)