Need some FoW/UW Tactics Explained

I've recently started exploring the FoW/UW. Rather than learn by repeated deaths and frustrating others by wasting time and money, I figured I'd see if I could get a little background.

I've now made a few runs. Some have been great and some have been horrible (all depends on the group). Being a E/Mo I've generally just been able to go with the pace.

Can someone explain the idea behind a trapping group to me? I know obviously that its a bunch of rangers laying traps but exactly how does the tactic pan out? What's really happening?

Also, what's a smite run? Is that using cleric skills or actually going after what I think might be smite mobs? Again, whats the setup behind this group.

These are pretty much the two types of groups being formed. I'm just wanted to learn what I can now before I go any further.

Thanks

I haven't run a trapping group, but from what I gather, the basic idea of it is that you have all the rangers lay down traps in a small area. When the mobs run over that area, they'll all take lots of damage, get a couple DoTs, Blind, and Cripple. From there, it should be pretty easy to kill them without needing a Monk to heal.

A Smite run is where you kill Smite Crawlers for drops. You can do Smite runs with as few as two people (or maybe even one). At a minimum, you want a Protection Monk and a nuker. Often, they throw a tank, a healer, or another nuker in with that.

usually a trapper group and smite runs are synonymous with each other

a trapping run is basically many rangers stacking up traps within a few feet of each other, then once the preperations are ready, one lures a group to said traps and poof! fireworks (and corpses). with a 8 man group (each with 3 traps) as many as 90 or so traps can be layed down in a minute's time (with the proper builds of course)

but of course now the number of rangers needed for a successful trapping group has been brought down to 3 or so

For UW:
Don't take quests until told to.
DO NOT take Unwanted Guests unless everyone is absolutely up to it.
When fighting smites, make sure they gather around one tank before you nuke (and don't attack them physically)

For FoW:
Don't talk to Rastigan until you've cleared the tower.
When faced with shadows, go Monk/Mesmer/Ele/Warrior for best results (some like to kill ele before mes).
Get away from the stupid warriors who will attack when they have Spiteful Spirit on them.

Great info Rac,

Now mind telling me why for each of those? Thats exactly the information I'm trying to find out.

Here's a good formula for UW (group), haven't ventured into attempting solo or 2-3 man group but I know they can work based off some recent experiences

2 Rangers (primary or 2ndary), 3 Wars, 2 Monks, 2 Nukers (obviously this amounts to 9 so 1 of the ranger needs to be secondary.
Trappers lay traps in a line, War's line up shoulder to shoulder behind traps/line, Monks buff Wars, Ranger pulls, wars block-agro, once mobs are locked onto Wars, Ele's rain down, monks heal when/if necessary - Rinse and repeat.

FoW - I've done this more times than I care to remember so will proclaim myself and expert.
2 War, 2 Monk, 2-3 Nuker, Mes/Necro - preferably Domination/Blood for the interupt/Energy/Heath Regen/Degen. As previously mentioned, when you spawn do not talk to ghost, let everyone load and start with groups to the left of the ghost (if you're facing away from him). Also as mentioned before, take monks down first out of the Shadow mobs, then mes/ele, then beasts, then Wars. ALWAYS watch for patrol patterns until you become more familiar - - nothing worse than an axious party member agro'ing intended group at the wrong time......*when another patrol is near*.
Take down initial group, then 1 War/1 Beast that are slightly up the hill to the left. You will see a Monk & War standing by themselves, but watch as another Monk & War are patrolling up to that spot and back down. Once done with them you can start to go up the hill to the left of the tower - this will draw a group of 2 Eles, 1 Mes, 1 war who were standing a lil ways away but it also spwns a shadow beast. After they're dead move back down to starting area by ghost to clear the War/Beast/Mes/2 Ele's to the right of the ghost - again be careful as a patrol of 2 additional Ele's are going up and down the hill behind this mob and in close proximity to them is a group of 2 Monks/1 War/1Mes looking out over the starting area(you'll get to them shortly). Pull the first group closer to ghost once those 2 ele's are on their "uphill" patrol, then when the group is dead let ele's come down to their deaths. From there, go up the hill to the far right and you'll see 1 Monk + 2 Wars standing there chatting - nukers target Monk, Wars will then come down to you. From there move up the hill to where that group was standing and you'll again see that group of 2Monks/War/Mes standing over to the left.....leave them be for the moment as you will see a couple of patrols moving at the top of your minimap, one of which breaks off your way. 1Monk, 2 Wars....lay them to waste THEN go for the Mo/Mes/War group. From here it's best to make your way back down thru starting area and up to the left of the tower..........why you ask (good question)? Now you will start in on the Abyssal + 2 Rangers groups around the tower and once the first abyssal goes down, the ghost is ready to come up the hill to give you first quest and if any party member is in eyeshot of ghost....he'll come a running **Note - Anytime an NPC ghost-eternal dies while youre down there.....poof.....you've failed and have to go back out. So by approaching tower from the back-left side and around....you're well out of the ghosts range until your ready. Once you've cleared out the 3-4 Abyssal + 6-8 Rangers, have one party member run down in range of ghost and he'll come right to you so everyone can take 1st quest.
From there you can head down onto the plains area - Etherbreakers, Icehands, Skeletal Bonds, Berserkers & Rangers. As mentioned before there is an order for which ones you want to take down first - Bonds=monks, Icehands=Eles, Breakers monk/mes, Berserkers - Axe Wars, Rangers=self explanatory. If you're a weaker class and are agro'd by a berserker, just run around a lil bit and they usually move on to someone else. Once you get more experienced there are plenty of other quests down there worth 10k exp plus the bonus chest reward upon completion.
My best advice is - watch for patrols until you get more familiar with patterns AND.....Shadow Mobs and Skeletal Mobs......don't like each other *hint*hint*
.....sorry for such a long post

P.S. To answer why - If you talk to the ghost first it makes your job ALLOT more difficult from the start (trust us). Why kill in certain order?? THe monks down there heal and heal WELL, so why dull your sword on the tough war's when you can bathe it in monk/ele/mes blood first?

Here we go:
When you take quests, mobs will spawn. If you don't clear out an area before you take the quest, you will have a very difficult time killing both the regular mobs and the spawned mobs.
Same reason. Unwanted Guests is a very difficult quest, so you usually don't want to do it until you've finished everything else that you wanted to do.
It's always good to have mobs group around the tank, before you nuke. Smites use Shield of Judgement, so it's bad to use attacks on them.
Rastigan will follow you around if you talk to him. It's best to clear out the mobs first, because if he dies, you get ported back to ToA.
You kill the Monks first, because if you don't, it will take forever to kill other things. You kill Necros second (not Mesmers), because Necros have Spiteful Spirit, which does AoE damage whenever someone attacks or uses a skill while it's on them.
Same thing as I said above. Warriors have a tendency to ignore it and keep on swinging, so it's best to stay away from them.