Dunes of Despair Bonus Need Advice

Hi Dudes
I need some advice or suggestions. Having trouble with the bonus mission at dunes of despair. We tried a couple of things ie not starting count down timer then necrotic travel out but that did not work as monsters out of range so we could not travel to dead body...leaving monk and warrior on protection duty and charging out to generals...survival rate zero...So i need advice from some of you blokes who have actually succeeded in doing the bonus. what strat did you use and what builds do you suggest...will try again tonight.
Thx your input will be appreciated.
Nehsher TalonStrike.

Remeber only Kick a dire wolf when it is down.

It helps to have a completely human party. Henchies usually cut it close (sometimes too close).
Necrotic traversal trick + vamp weapons works very well, so give that a couple more tries. Note that you can't pull that one off with henchies.

ok we did have a full human party... but can you explain the necro travel trick a bit more ..ie how to implement it within the context of this bonus mission.
Nehsher TalonStrike.

p.s When taking candy from baby trolls make sure the mother is not anywhere nearby and always Alway wash it off before puting it in your mouth

Me and my 2 friends tried the necro traversal trick many times, but never succeeded. Either the enemies were only enchanteds (no body), or the damn monster ran away before we could kill him in range of necro traversal.
So what we did was start the timer, kill the first groups, then wait for boss on west bridge, after he was dead we went all to the generals. It went fine until I noticed the Hero's health dropping So I rushed back (W/Mo) and gave him a healing breeze, then aggroed some of the enemies, while my teammates finished the generals.

Thx for that will give it a try..
Any other suggestions from ppl who have done this bonus?
Nehsher TalonStrike

If in doubt who the enemy is, just follow my Arrows!

Necrotic works. Just might take a try or two to get a decent spawn on the other side. What you're looking for is scarabs; true, sometimes the Forgotten boss on the other side is close enough to the edge for you to use him, but that's kinda rare. Scarabs on the other hand are much more likely to be there.

So, get as close to the edge as you can, and move around a bit, to trigger any possible scarabs located there. Just kill them from the distance then, and use Necrotic. Move around some more, once on the other side, to trigger more scarabs; bring them to the edge again. Once they're dead, the rest of your team can use Necrotic to teleport to your side.

If there's members in your team without Necrotic, they'll need a vampiric weapon to kill themselves as close to the edge as they can, and you need either a N/Mo or Mo/N with necrotic+rebirth, to rebirth them over to the other side. Easiest if everyone has necrotic for themselves, tho.

This can be henched, to a certain extent. In the past I've done it as a necro, with two other necros (one mm, one SS, one blood), abandoning the henchies on the other side of the pit. Possibly doable even with less human players. Those guys who can solo Thirsty could prolly blast through this. (if they don't depend on any monk skills, that is). All you need to fight are a few scarabs, a couple of enchanted, and three bosses. Nothing remarkable. Breakfast of champions.

Ok thx for the advice. but now lets assume not everybody is necro primary or 2ndary. R there any other suggestions that does not involve necromancers

just so you know, you only need one monk left behind that takes care of the ghost. its quite easy until the last few seconds where you actually have to think about what you are doing.

about the part that comes after hero - i have no clue, ive never been there, im a lazy bum and bond :P

Basically, the rest of your team dosent matter, but you need 2 monks: 1 Healer or Boon/Prot and 1 Bonder with some healing (kiss works really well).

Do the mission as normal. When you get to the arena, have the bonder do his thing on the hero and hang back up the ramp as not to draw aggro to himself ~ mending actuallly works moderately well for this build so you dont have to heal the hero as often. The other monk needs heals and mend condition (if you have warriors or rangers), and goes with the other group of 4 people who rush the generals.

As long as everyone brings self-heals to mitigate not having the extra healing, you will be fine.

I have tried this a few times, it seems that the Scarabs aren't on the other side of the South Bridge. The Boss and Enchanted are to far away. I suppose its hit or miss with the Scarabs being there.

I bonded the hero up and tanked with 4 henchies while my friend ran all of the spots..

Then, when I ran it with my ranger, he went on his war with 4 henchies, defended the hero killing everything, and had time to explore the SW corner with me at the last 3 min.

"A different approach is to split up the party. For example, a single Monk using Life Bond, Life Barrier, Mending and Watchful Spirit is able to keep the Ghostly Hero alive throughout the whole attack, so that the remaining five players can go for the bonus without having to worry about him. "

from guildwiki.

Off topic, but he same thing of necrotic travesal can be applied in Aurora Glades mission and bonus.

kill all unil you reach the last vine thingie gate and dont use the crystals (get the bonus from the guy that is being attacked by the white mantle guys).

now wait there by the vine gate until one of the pigs roaming arround the area comes up within range. kill it, use necrotic and then your party to use the vamps and then you can kill the demagogue (level 16 only) who will be on his own , yes no big mobs arround, take your time and explore the area before you activate the crystals.

i did this on my own with the bots just to get 0.01% of that area.

no doubt necrotis traversal will be nerfed soon by anet.

Quote:

Have someone bond the ghost. Just stay back out of agro range and let the ghost tank. Life Bond, Life Barrier, and an occasional heal is all that's needed. There's no enchant removals in the main mission area. Even a couple humans with hench can easily do the bonus that way.

Edit: Just saw the post above thiss a few spots up. Bah.

There are some alternatives from the factions skill set:

Assassin: Death's Charge, Recall, Spirit Walk.

Elementalist: Ride the Lightning.

Shadow stepping probably wont work.
You can only shadow step to where you can normally reach by walking (think about shaddow stepping as walking to somewhere very very quickly)
Not sure about ride the lightning.

Ride the Lightning is the same as shadow stepping, afaik.

Yeah if the path is blocked then you can rtl or shadow step there.

This is in the skill description for Death's Charge on guildwiki:

"Because this skill allows for shadow stepping, it makes it very easy to move both up and down from ledges as long as theres an enemy where you want to go. Its recharge time is a bit long, but the low cost and healing make up for this. "

The description for Ride the Lightning:

"The riding lightning part of this skill behaves identically to shadow stepping, as opposed to teleporting. "

Quote:

I posted this a while back, it's fairly accurate. The number on the left is the in game timer..it's how I do the bonus fairly consistently with a moderately good group. Standard follow-the-leader fighting..no tricks here.


9:55 2 Arcanists spawn East; Meet them at the bottom of stairs and dispense of them quickly.
9:35 2 Arcanists spawn South,
9:15 2 Arcanists spawn West; Kill these four quickly in the field outside of ghost stand.
9:00 2 More Arcanists Spawn East
8:45 2 More Arcanists West; Actively dispense of all remaining Arcanists.
8:00 Worm spawns East; ignore. Arcanists should be dead.
7:45 Worm spawns South; ignore.
7:30 2 Bows spawn South; Actively dispose of them by pulling. Note: If your PUG is quick enough, you can step outside south gate and aggro the jades. If your party is really really good you can kill the boss, but dont try either of these as it will cost you the bonus.
7:15 Hammer/Sword Spawn West; Destroy them at gate.
6:30 Worm west; ignore.
5:40 Boss Spawns West with Bow/Sword; Kill as quickly as possible as your now on bonus time.
4:00 First Boss dead at West gate; always at 4:00. Good parties can save time here and have 4:30 atleast. Immediately run out south gate at this point.
2:50 Second Boss dead outside South gate, 3 Arcanists head from South to gate to gank the ghost through the West gate; ignore them.
1:30 Third boss dead inside fort.
0:22 Final boss dead; Bonus done, although ghostly hero is getting pwned by the arcanists that spawned at 2:50.
0:00 Mission done, ghostly hero at 25% health. Often hero dies but bonus complete. Ways to compensate for this are slow totem, or send monk back at about 2:00 mark.

Note on slow totem: Leave it at the west gate to ensure mission success by slowing down the 3 arcanists that sneak in the base. I never do this but it would work.