Griffon Run

It just recasts over the previous cast so you will only have 1 divine boon on yourself at once.

only one copy of the enchant can exist on you at a certain time, the previous copy is overwritten.

what progarm did you use to make the video?

I've switched up my E/Mo build to something more effective--I can now handle the entire group usually--although I can still rarely kill the bosses. New build:

Water: 15 (hat + sup rune)
Smiting: 11
E Storage: whatever is left...8 or 9 I think.

Divine Boon
Balthazars Aura
Zealouts Fire
Watchful Spirit
Balthazars Spirit
Essence Bond
Mist Form {E}
Armor of Frost

Start off casting Balthazar's Spirt, Essence Bond, Watchful Spirit (2 pips health regen--needed while luring the griffons).

Then lure the 3 sets of minotaurs. Once I've got the minotaurs on me, I cast Armor of Frost to pump up my armor while I lure the griffons, since they hit me alot during the lure. Then go gather as many griffons as I can and try to shake the damn MF rockshots. Keep doing this until I either have them all rounded up and no rockshots nearby or until my health drops to about 150. At that point I stop and cast:

Mist Form
Balth. Aura
Spam Divine Boon
Cast Armor of Frost whenever it recharges
Spam Divine Boon and cast Balth. Aura whenever it is available.
Recast Mist Form whenever it is available.

Once some of the monsters die I start having E issues. You will then find me plinking away with my staff and casting Divine Boon whenever my E hits 5. During this period, I will often make sure I "remove" the active Divine Boon enchantment so I can get that pip of E regen. I can beat the monk boss usually but it is not really worth it as it comes down to 5 minute duel of attrition as I wear him down with my staff while waiting to charge up to 25 E to cast Balthazars Aura. Considering I can do the entire run in under 4 minutes, it is not worth my time to spend another 5 just to kill this one boss when usually he drops nothing special.

wait? you have zealots fire in your skill bar but you dont use it?

i used your setup and used zealots fire just after mist form and it kills them much faster. i think you just forgot to mantion that.

yeah I forgot to mention that. Spamming Divine Boon doesn't do much without it. LOL. I cast it right after Mist Form. And I use the collectors Water Staff with +18% Enchanting mod.

Actually I tweaked it a little more and now I can kill the bosses. I have to do the run in 2 steps b/c I will die during the lure if I try to go for the last 2 pockets of Griffins.

Anyway, I replaced Watchful Spirit with Symbol of Wrath and now I can pwn it all.

I am curious how you deal with the griffs that dont want to get next to you and just kinda wait till one of em dies. When i do that as an ele i usually have to be mindful of the griffon pack sizes and how many packs are involved due to mana constraints.

When I use using Ele firepower and Eruption they would cause me a problem. This current build is not bothered by that. While Mist Form is up, they can't hurt me when they come in late. When Mist Form is not up, I try to have Armor of Frost up, which adds 40 armor so they do alot less damage. And I increased my Water to 16, so with 16 Water and +18% enchanting, my Mist Form lasts about 24.5 seconds. Recharge time is 30s and casting time is 2s, so I am without mistform for only about 8s, which with good Armor and with alot of the mobs dead I can survive the remaining onse fairly easy. It gets annoying when only 1-2 are left as then my E starts to plummet but also I am taking alot less dmg so I can afford for the battle to take longer.

Sounds like how i experience it, generally i end up having to run them around while i build up some energy while sacrificing a few hp as possible. Its just rather, frustrating that the pbaoe is so small that it wont go even 1 rank deep.

hello uhm i have a few questions. do u use any superior runes? and if so whats ur life with the sups?

depends if you have any vigors on you

minor vigor - 30hp
major vigor - 41hp (dont ask me why)
sup vigor - 50hp

your max health is 480 with no vigors on i think. Dazzler uses one sup vig which is -75 so thats about 405hp. 446 with major vig and 455 with sup vig.

i might be wrong with some of that tho..

btw have the griffons been nerfed? im getting really crummy drops. :|

Bring blessed Aura and you will have only 3 seconds mortality. ;P

Yeah I have 1 superior rune and 1 major vigor, leaving me with 446 HP's. When I was using my Fire/Water build, I went with 2 superior runes but once the battle started I switched to my fire staff which had +29 Fortitude, leaving me with 405 HP.

And, I have not noticed any nerfings. I got 4 max gold weapons in about an hour's work yesterday, plus quite a few gold shields which I always either salvage or sell to the merchant.

Do people actually buy gold shields? Should I be trying to sell them? I so dislike selling to people, it takes too long. I have a few "clients" that have standing orders in to buy unidentified gold max dmg weapons from me at a set price so I don't have to waste anytime when selling them.

Oh, I also found a non-max dmg gold weapon yesterday which I id'ed and ended up getting a perfect 10/10 sundering hammer grip which I sold for 30k. So I would say it is not nerfed.

I can't use that for 3 reasons:

1. I just don't have room on my skillbar.
2. According to the description, it only lengthens Monk enchantments, so won't affect Mist Form
3. As a non-monk primary, I cannot boost my Divine Favor, so it would only give me 10% anyway.

what kind of armor are you using?

I just farmed some griffons, and... have they been nerfed?
I mean, I got a ton of white & blue stuff which could've dropped in a mission in northern shiverpeaks, then I got a golden longbow 14-21 +4 armor & "longer duration of poisoning" and a purple shortbow 11-19 +10% vs Charr.

At that point I decided the party was over.

Me? I'm just using Hydromancer armor (AR: 60). When I cast Armor of Frost, that adds I think 40 more, taking me to 100 for ~35s.

oh i meant what armor is the guy wearing in the video

I believe he is wearing full Wyverns armour.

Not nerfed, but maybe a run of bad luck. I got a couple of decent drops yesterday, but nothing beats the Gold Max Defender Req8 with +7AR vs Charr

Except how often will you be fighting Charr?

i think he was being sarcastic...lol

I think it just got nerfed.... I spent the entire day running it, it takes me about 5 minutes to clear the entire area...(just like the video) and i only pulle done gold... and 2 purples... anybody else have anything to comment on this?

Well I recently got a Max damage War Hammer; Fire Damage; +20% while health is below 50%; and 26 HP. I also received a Max Damage Barbed Long Sword with +15% damage while health is above 50%; req. 8 swordsmanship. However, I sold it for 400k. The guy wanted it mainly for his sword collection. He REALLY wanted the 8 req. I don't think it's been nerfed. But, if you keep repeating yourself the drops will start to diminish. I usually do 4-5 runs and then do something else.

It just got nerfed. I did like 6-7 runs just now and not a single gold. A few days ago I was pulling 8-9 golds in the same amount of runs. Bah. This sucks.

Its not nerfed.

Just got many golds including.

Fiery dragon sword

+ 19% damage while health is below 50%

HP+29

Almost perfect : /

I wonder if they do individual checks on how many times u run a day and base drops off that? I know Diablo 2 does something similar to that.

I think they do. I left the area, did some southern shiverpeaking, then returned, and got one good run - then two crap runs again. So, a couple of runs per day, then.

i got a question about ur build.. wat happens if u dont have 3/1 vamp axe haft? if u have 2/1 can us till do it?

I do em fine with a 2:1

I farm griffons with a very different setup than the one so far; it's probably not as good, but I can take two groups of griffons without risk as long as I remember to click my skills as they run out... As it's a completely different build you guys might find it interesting.

Anyway, I've got a W/Mo with this setup:

---
Healing 7
Smite 8
Protection 0
Strength 9
Sword 9
Tactics 12
---
Live Vicariously
Healing Breeze
Symbol of Wrath
Balthazars Aura
Defensive Stance
Gladiators Defence
Bonettis Defence
Sprint
---
Droknar Gladiator Armor
Max shield
Staff energy +10
Zealous sword, energy steal 1/-1 (not really necessary thanks to Bonettis defence, and the sword doesn't really do any of the damage, the sword is only to charge Bonetti)

I start Live Vicariously, equip the staff, and round up two groups of griffons (and any nearby minotaurs), if any devourers show up I hit sprint - you can outrun minotaurs and devourers but not griffons. I only take two groups of griffon because that gives some marginal if there's adds.

When the mobs surround me, I target a griffon, then in rapid succession hit Gladiators Defence, Balthazars Aura, and Healing Breeze, then switch to sword and shield.

Just when Gladiators Defence runs out (10 seconds), Bonettis has charged, and I click that. When Bonettis runs out, Balthazars Aura is charged, and I click that, then Bonetti again (it will be ready to go immediately).

When Bonetti runs out THIS time, Gladiators is ready to start, so I enable that, and hit first Healing Breeze, then Symbol of Wrath, and, if I need extra healing, Healing Breeze again.

All monsters who were next to me by the start of the battle are now dead, and my health is above 50%. Any griffons holding back will charge in now, if so I run the cycle one more time and they're toast.

I *can* take the bosses, but it takes for ever to whittle them down, so I usually avoid them.

The biggest problem with this tactic is that it's a bit fiddly. Occasionally I will forget to target a griffin with my sword, so Bonettis doesnt charge, and then I'm toast. But as long as I follow the script, I'm in no danger. Latecomers is no problem as I can keep cycling these skills forever; I never run out of energy.

Defensive Stance, you wonder? It doesn't really do any good, it's just a backup if I mis-click and accidentally cancel Gladiators or Bonettis.

EDIT: I also tried changing Sword skill and Strength to zero, and instead bumping Smiting, but I didn't feel it really killed the griffons any faster. Also, having decent strength and sword skill means I can take on casting monsters, like Hydras, reasonably well.

Yah I need to go do something else for a while. In 10 runs I have gotten ONE purple and ONE gold - and the gold was one of those XP scrolls.

Has anyone done a calculation of the XP gained per hour doing the min/griff run versus doing the mountain troll cave run outside the Forge? Putting aside the value of the better drops from the desert run, I'm curious to see which is more efficient. I'm willing to do both for an hour, chart the total XP gained, and post the results. Is anyone else willing to do the same (to increase the sample size)?

The troll run I make is to cast my enchants outside town (so my energy regains during the run up the hill), sprint through the inevitable and annoying group of birds, hope they don't follow me, cast Zealot's just outside the cave, charge in and press buttons rapidly, gather loot, remove enchants, grab the chests only if they are within immediate visual range, then run up to the nearest remaining group of trolls and commit suicide (I do this because I'll rez right next to the door to town and can pop immediately back out again. Mapping back to town can cause you to have to make up to a forty-five second run back out, if you get dropped by the armorer.). The total time for this run is approximately 2.5 minutes. Anyone have a more efficient route?

My Augury run makes sort of an inverted "S" shape. I hook a left at the start of the bowl, pick-up the first group of non-charging min's, sweep up the two or three griff groups along the edge, move to the middle to pick up those couple groups, then turn left to the other edge and pick-up the two groups there (including the boss group). I've only been interrupted by rockshots three or four times using this route and I only have to hit div boon two or three times while gathering the herd. Anyone have a better route they'd care to share?

Anyway, I'll try to gather the XP data and post it this weekend.

Well Griffins are about 2 and a half minutes to gather, and a minute to kill roughly (depends if I'm getting hit). Now it is too easy to keep a scroll of berserker's insight up once you start fighting, and that will get you around 11k exp. Figure a minute back in camp to sell stuff, and repeat. Keeping a berserker's scroll up when doing trolls might be a little tougher because I've noticed they don't like to follow too far so you can't gather as easily. Plus, they all do a disrupting attack which can make for an easy death (depending on your build).

So does the berserker's scroll stay in effect even while in town or do you have to keep putting a new one on for each run? If going to town doesn't trash the effect of the scroll, does it matter whether you map back to town or run through the door? Even if you have to use a new scroll for each run, that's well worth it in terms of time spent per XP.

Edit: I got berserk and hero scrolls mixed-up. The hero has the flat ten-minute time limit, right? If so, my questions about going to town would apply to it. With regard to the berserker's scroll -- does it take up your off-hand slot? When do you typically apply it during the griffon/min runs? Can you put one up in the middle of combat or is it like doing a salvage or ID (prevented during fighting)?

Scrolls no longer stack(that is if they used to) the previous scroll will be changed into the most recent one.

You can throw it up during the fight which is what I always do. You just double click it while it is in your inventory, so it does not take your offhand spot.

When you return to town, the scroll is lost. Those berserkers scrolls were cheap before, under a platinum. Used to make enough on a griffin run to buy a scroll and have a bit of profit. But, those days are gone now since berserkers are around 2.5 platinum.

id like to thank kalgrath for giving me this build.. it works but i die a lot... iono i just cant stay alive long enough for the 2nd wave of healing hands.. im pretty sure im using skills correctly so i gotta question. is there any other move more effective than vigorous spirit?

I'm having trouble doing this. I followed the OPs build, but after I engage, they kill me because bonetti's takes too long to charge, and if I do get it and start to cyclone, then once healing hands is gone, I can't keep myself up. Is the vampiric add-on a necessity? How much life do you have?

The vampiric is not necessary, IMO, it only makes it worse. What is necessary though, is a +18-20% Longer enchants mod. Trust me, throw that on your axe and you won't have a very hard time doing this trick.

I actually do this fine with a 2:1 haft and no extra enchant. I think its more of a timing issue. Hit cyclone then HH then bonettis then the other buffs then bonettis again to keep you alive a while til cyclone and hh recharge. I use bonettis a lot just to cut down on the damage I take early on as skills are recharging. I tried different combinations and now I usually am successful on 3/4s of my runs pulling the full mob. Only real problem are the rockshots who can disrupt you - but if there is only 1 or 2 usually I can manage that as well.