What is the problem with traps you say? Well here are quiet a few:
1) Trappers are very slow. Trappers need to set spirits, lay couple of sets of traps and then pull, while in most cases al you need is a little firepower. Elite mission itself is long enough to slow it down even further by setting traps before every group.
2) Trappers are unreliable. They can kill mob melee when pulled right but casters/rangers laugh at them.
Emergency recovery rate is pretty low as well. Couple of thorn wolves popped up at wrong location cause panic.
3) This is pretty much follows from first two. Most trapper groups fall apart in wardens area because they can not pull casters into traps and because mission took too long and few people have quit/dropped by then.
Now the only reason I see people are so found of trappers is because of thorn wolves' area. But let’s face it, thorn wolves are friggin newbs. They don’t have any support nor survivability. They are dead easy to burn down and one ritualist turns them into helpless kittens. Thus trappers are waste of time!
Now here is the build I used a few times (when I was able to come up with group that have balls to drop trappers) with very good success rate and most importantly very fast!
1) 4-5 fire nukers - main firepower
2) 3 monks
3) Ritual lord spirit spammer
4) Battery necro
5) Trapper with dust trap and eoe
6) Tank to pull stuff around into nice nukable balls
7) Whatever else floats your boat (more eles? :P)
Few notes on builds:
1) Nukers should be nukers and not shitty halfass dps eles. This means echoed/renewed meteor shower and rodgort's invocation falling non stop on mobs' heads.
There should NOT be any crap like dragon's breath or searing heat or firestorm on their bars. However I strongly recommend taking Bed of Coals. Its an excellent defensive spell, which will keep melee busy while you nuking casters. Ward against melee with 3-4 points in earth is pretty good to.
2) For monks suggested elite is spellbreaker, since most of the damage there comes from spells. Other things to consider is heal party and extinguish.
3) Ritualist - shelter and displacement are pretty obvious must-have's
4) Necro should have 55 gear and go full blood with bip, wells and blood renewal.
5) Ranger should have eoe up at all times. Another thing he must do is lay down dust traps (and whatever else he can) by casters.
Tactic:
1) Pull everything you can (along the wall so they all stacked in one nice ball)
2) Get ward/dust traps/displacement up
3) Ignore melee and nuke casters
Note on lvl10 popups.
If you put up couple of spirits and move out of range they will suicide on spirits. You only need 2 or 3 because Though Stealers are faster than Vampires and will die first not harming the spirits.
This works very well with popup at the fireflower bridge. Just leave a few spirits behind when you moving up to second torches and you wont have to worry about those noobs attacking you from behind while you killing wolves.
Note on first room with dredges.
You shouldn’t be afraid to pull the whole room at the start. You can use corner by the gates to shield you from dredge rangers while nuking them and melee shouldn’t be a problem.
If you can do it once, you shouldn't have any problems dealing with balanced mob groups in the future. The only hard part is warden eles with their churning earth, but I’m sure you all know not to stand in it.
Note on thorn wolves.
These guys are dead easy. Don’t even bother with meteor shower, unless you pulling more than one group (which you might wanna do to speed things up).
Just burn them with rodgorts, fireball, bed of coals. With blindness, displacement and ward on your side they shouldn't even touch you. So pull as many as you can and nuke em - lots of fun
Note of first warden room.
Please forget all that three-at-the-time crap. People just made that up because they had no better theory at the moment. Popups will trigger ONLY if all members of the party are in that room at the same time. Leaving just one person behind is safe.
Second room with wardens.
Some people are trying to pull exhaustion bark to the cliff to kill him... I say it is easy enough to just kill wardens protecting left path but it is up to you.
However weakness bark is pretty easy to nuke by standing next to the wall. I highly recommend to do that because earth wardens with stoning + weakness = ouch.
Third room with wardens.
Dead easy. Just pull warden groups one by one to the corner and nuke em. Ignore static mobs unless they attack you (which they sometimes do).
The great popup room.
Works the same way as first warden room. Doors will close and ~10 wolves will spawn right by the gates only if all party members walk into that room. Trigger will be disabled after second gates are open.
I'm sure you all know how to handle Urgoz, so hf.