Dunes of Despair bonus

This is a bonus mission for necros.

Take a PUG with as many necro's as you can find.
Do NOT bring the ghost to the altar. (Ghost+Altar=Timer)
Then go as far south as possible.
You will see the fort across a chasm.
Use area spells to kill bad guys.
This causes scarabs to burrow out of the sand.
Kill them too.

Now use Necrotic Traversal or Consume Corpse to teleport to the other side.
Send every available necro.
Let the necro's kill the bosses.

Take your time, the timer doesn't run.

What's a 'PUG'?

"Pick Up Group"

just standing around, advertising your name in a mission area, waiting for some random party to "pick you up".

What happens if the bad guys are out of range of area spells (or ranged attacks)? Then what (regarding the necro method above)?

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Trying it last night - often the boss and his mates were out of range. However, waiting around often produces a scarab or two, which is sufficient to do the job.

However, even with three necros all getting over there, our party still wasn't able to complete the bonus. The three necros just weren't enough to kill all the bosses. They eventually died, and I (yet again) gave up for the night.

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I've been trying to find a group for this and having difficulty. If anyone wants to try give me a shout. I'm very experienced R/Me who's beaten all bonus cept this one and most w/ just henchies.

The closest I came was first time ever doing it w/ henchies.

Helpful hint: Though not quite enough to get me by w/ henchies. Needed 10 secs more or so. Henchies don't have quite the raw firepower of real ppl. However, they follow my strategy exactly and stick together as a group while running to enemies and also w/ called target.

Order of enemies:
Stay on stage.
Forgotten, Left, right, up, left.
Then run up.
Kill 2 enchanted bows.
Depending how long this took, can venture south kill some scarabs or 1st boss or enchanted.
Run right.
Kill 2 enchanted.
Run slightly out the door, kill boss + 2 helpers.
Run back straight out south door.
Kill the guys there 1 group at a time.

The reason you run up and to the right is so that you quicken the process giving you ever so slightly more time to kill the south fort guys. Waiting for them to attack would waste half a minute is my estimate.

I quit! Dunes is not worth it. Bah!

I finally did it. Whoo hoo! With all henchies, Alesia, Lina, Thom, Stephan, Orion.

Use the strategy I outlined. Also the best killer combo for enchanted is empathy and chaos storm. Also brought backfire for bosses. Maxed out domination.

So you empathy one of the enchanted, tell everyone to target 2nd one and chaos storm that one. By the time that one is dead the 1st will likely have killed itself off or be at 10% health or so. All in about 15 seconds.

Then for boss, just backfire the dude, chaos storm, and I used distracting shot on the ranger boss who had troll unguent. Distracting shot also useful since backfire has slight recharge time. Also brought along choking gas to help shut down bosses.

I'm sure with a better ele than orion, it'd go even easier. As far as monks go, lina and alesia are pretty awesome at protection and healing. I didn't have to use my unguent once so could've actually brought another skill.

Basically, best advice is, learn to kill enchanted fast and shut down bosses. Enchanted have some sort of damage reduction or insane armor. So bring something like empathy or chaos storm, conjure phantasm, poison, disease, etc. Something that ignores armor.

I gave this bonus a shot with a PUG and it failed. I see some strategies posted here now so can give them a try.

I was wondering, the hero is fairly tough, has anyone tried bringing a monk with 4 enchantments and just having him protect the hero from out of agro range while the rest of the team goes for the bonus? Will he survive?

I'm thinking something like...

Life Barrier
Vital Blessing or Succor
Mending
Watchful Spirit

The monk is back up by the bridge so never gets attacked and life barrier has no chance of dropping. The 5 attackers would only take out the forgotten/enchanted on the way to the generals and the rest of the enemies would all be pounding away at the well-enchanted hero. Unless the monk could sneak in to cast healing spells as well without drawing any attacks.

Anyone tried something like this?

It works, I tested it out successfully with henchies to make sure it works. This method will work for doing both the bonus and the mission at the same time.

You need an all human team, no henchies, since you have to split up and that just doesn't work with henchmen. Bring 2 monks, one of which will have the sole responsibility of keeping the ghost alive ("the protector") and the other keeping the "away team" alive. This may be a good time for wa/mo's to run mending or watchful spirit and run off of adrenaline and signets. A good monk can keep a team of 5 alive though.

The monk protecting the ghost is to bring 4 enchantments, blessed signet for energy, signet of devotion for a no-energy heal, another heal such as orisons, and one more skill of his choosing. It may be good to skip the rez spell and take another heal or protection, but choose one with a 5 point cost as you won't have any energy regen.

I brought...

Life Barrier (elite) - reduces all damage by 44%.
Mending - health regen +4
Watchful Spirit - health regen +2
Succor - health and energy regen +1

Healing = 13
Protection = 12
Divine Favor = 9

You want at least enough divine favor to get 12 energy from each use of the blessed signet and enough healing for mending +4 (13).

Procedure:

Fight your way to the altar. The protector monk can use Succor on the other casters for improved energy regen, or mending, whichever is appropriate. The rest of the team really does all the work.

When the fight starts with the enemy ghost, have the protector drop any enchantments on the team and start placing them on the ghost. When he takes the altar he should have all four in place.

The protector now backs away, up the ramp towards the bridge so as to not draw the attention of any enemies. The other 5 team members, the away team, then heads for the generals camps to win the bonus. They can kill whatever enemies are in the way but don't have to take the time for any others.

I did this with henchies and kept the ghost alive while ALL of the enemies came and attacked him for the full 10 minutes of the altar ritual. I was able to move down and cast orisons and signet of devotion to heal him and used blessed signet after 2-3 castings of energy spells. He didn't drop below 3/4 health and I was never targetted, even by the enchanted that came in to melee range of the ghost.

I did move back up as enchanteds came up the stairs, just to make sure they didn't spot me. Once they engaged the ghost I just stood at the bottom of the stairs and kept healing him.

Life Barrier is an elite that is available out of Iron Mines, so a non-ascended monk can't do this. Life Bond is only effective against attacks and there are at least 8 arcanists casting spells so won't work as a substitute.

If the away team beats the generals for the bonus they can scout around and attack critters on the outside of the fort but there is no need to come back and face the 12-15 enemies surrounding the altar.

This seems like a much easier, safer way to beat the mission and bonus compared to trying to have 3 guard the ghost and 3 attack the generals or using a necro teleport to get outside the fort.