Talk:Guide to hard mode

I'm hoping others will add to this, so it grows into a helpful guide. Alaris 12:54, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

Damage increase

Just so this doesn't get deleted, I'm explaining the math about why a 50% IAS is 100% more dps. Let's say a monster does 120dps base, in hard mode it would then do 120dps/(1 - 0.5) = 120dps / .5 = 240dps. By the way, 33% IAS is 50% more dps.75.181.32.207 03:32, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

seems that the max dmg for weapons are increased in hm. was taking 90+ dmg from wand/staff attacks...

If it is 50% INCREASED attack speed you would get an attack speed of 150% of the normal. So if a monster does 120 dps, it would not increase by 100% but it would be 150% of it's original, and since 1.5 X 120 = 180, the damage would be 180, and not 240.

Normal mode tactics

I deliberatly removed those tips which are not hard mode specific. This page should deal with hard mode related strategies only, those that are generally valid in all forms of PvE should go elsewhere, like the PvE strategy guide (where I copied those tips to). --Xeeron 15:01, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for doing that. I added a link at the beginning to the general PvE guide, so that people getting here from the hard mode page can quickly check both pages. Alaris 15:25, 3 May 2007 (EDT)

Are there gimmick teams that work well in hard mode? I remember the first time seeing a 3-man trapper team go through the Underworld, after failing as a 8-hench team... I was impressed. Do trappers work equally well in hard mode? What of other gimmick teams? Alaris 14:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Tbh, I have not tried many gimmick teams yet. The closest to that which I know works is 4 SF ellys. I strongly suspect that trapping (with big enough groups) or all Paragon would work as well, but havent seen it yet. Btw, why did you add the link to peppermint candy canes? Is there anything wrong with the other types of candy cane in HM? --Xeeron 14:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

We should add a short section about gimmick teams, which work, which doesn't, because I for one have a hard time clearing some areas. We should especially focus on teams that can be implemented using only henchs and heroes - for example, I used a trapper team using only heroes in PvP Zaischen challenge, with an elementalist filling in the last empty trapper spot. Likewise, all-paragon could be possible by switching some with warriors instead...? Regarding the canes, any dp-reducing item works. The previous link was broken, so I repaired it. The text still says "candy canes (and other dp-reducing items)", so that should not be confusing. Alaris 15:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Builds

I think it would be nice to post some useful builds here, in the discussion page. Alaris 14:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead!

Let's get the ball rolling here. As a Ranger, the two builds I have the most success with are:

BHA plus Epidemic to shut down catsters. Daze is quite useful in hard mode with the decreased casting time making twitch-based interrupts more difficult. When hard mode first came out, BHA was about the *only* thing Rangers were expected to bring. Instead I used the following to great effect.

When enemy armor is high, you can't argue with armor-ignoring damage, and Splinter Weapon can dish it out. Warmonger's is for casting on the melee. The riskiest thing in this build is Death Pact Signet. Great res, but big downside.

Which to run depends on circumstance. Splinter/Barrage needs a good cluster of enemies (3-4 min) to be effective and in many places the groups are too small. The one must bring skill, however, is Throw Dirt. It's the one skill that can reliably defend your teammates and not just yourself. --Valshia 21:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I've asked for some help on boards, and I got this build for my Paragon. It works wonders to keep my team alive:

This is to be used with 2 SF ele's, 2 monks, 1 wards ele, and etc. The last skill can be changed for Signet of Return or "Fallback!" depending on your needs. The key is to keep the group within shouting range. Alaris 22:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I started a simple guide to hero+henching Hard Mode missions as a primary Monk on my userspace, using information I have collected (link). I'm updating it as I complete more missions. Hopefully it will help some people get started on Guardian! Tadjinar 00:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Should this be named 'Guide to...' something? Though Guild to Hard mode strategy sounds meh. Backsword 17:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you show me the "guide to guide naming" that you refer to? ;-) --Xeeron 18:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Moi we are sarcy today, huh. But here you go. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Backsword .

Trick to remove DP

Not sure where to put this but in Hard Mode for many GWEN missions you can get to the transfer point, go in, resign and end up right outside the transfer point with ALL DP off of the party. Also removes any moral boosts. For instance, in "The Elusive Golemancer" run to Blimm talk to him, go into the instance, resign and end up right beside Blimm with zero DP. Eddietheman

Cool. If anyone else can confirm that, and all the places where this works, we should add a list to the guide. Alaris 02:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Istan 55 able?

Ok, i tried using the 130hp derv to vanquish the whole of istan. i think it can work, the only monster that stops it from happening are pop up mandragors. I was just wondering if anyone else has found the same thing. also, soloable i got 4k in an hour, then i got bored. -81.77.16.57 17:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about Istan, but I know that at least Cursed Land in Prophecies is solo-able with a 55hp monk (Did accidentally vanquish it on a big farm trip to see how much i could farm) I don't know about the other neighboring areas. 86.52.205.91 00:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Hard Mode with Heroes

I'm experimenting with hard mode for the first time and since I couldn't get any real players to join me I went out with heroes. I noticed that every time we encounter a new foe, the foe singles me out in the group and focuses all his attacks on me. Is this part of the new AI that is given to foes in hard mode?--Worldly Tutor 05:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope, you just happen to be the first one in aggro range. — Rappy 05:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

What profession are you? Because that may be part of it. Foes do select their targets with more intelligence, such as monks or MM's are more likely to get hit. You're not likely to get singled out as a player though. As a paragon and ranger, I was not usually the first to be hit. Alaris 13:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Ctrl-alt-space to tell your heroes & hench to attack your target. This way you can come near foes (right outside aggro) and have your H&H engage. This might help. Alaris 14:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It could also be that you have the least health in your team. Are you using Superior runes (not vigor) and the rest of the team none or minor ones? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:The jos (talk).

Your levels of health and your profession generally have a substantial amount to do with enemies singling you out if you're not the first within aggro range, for example, on my Ranger I'm never targetted first, yet on my Ritualist I'm always targetted first, so yes, profession would have a significant amount to do with how the enemy prioritises you, especially on Hard Mode where AI is more powerful, your levels of Health also do come into play, if you have lower health than the rest of your team, of course your foe will target you first so they can kill you off quicker. Kinslayer / Talk 10:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Any suggestions on the best class for doing hm with heroes for titles and maybe getting through the elite places with heroes to boot?70.100.94.64 17:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Warrior or dervish. Anything that can be in front of the heros and call targets. --Xeeron 21:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd have said Ranger, because they are very versatile. So over all the different functions needed, they can adapt. Monk or Necro or Ele are also good choices, as they also are usually needed in groups. Monk in particular will make it easy to get into groups, when you need it. -- Alaris 16:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Well my ranger paragon and ritualist all seem to do well vanquishing, interested in mission titles, and places like UW with just heroes though the farming builds might be the only things that can go there.70.100.94.64 03:28, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

For most enemies all you have to consider is AR and HP.

Targetting is done by* the following order; AR (armor rating) HP (health points) and enemy specific targetting (*as in the Stygian Hunger in DoA which target on HP first and AR secondly) or automatic script activation (the latter as in interruption on skills over x amount of time when casted) which also can reaggro onto the target of the skill used.

In HM SY (Save Yourselves with a high rank) is the most powerful skill in the game (yes, that is excluding one skill we do not talk about and that is mostly used by ONE profession), it focuses aggro on the tank while buffing other players in range making managing aggro alot easier, if you can it will help in HM. Ward against foes (snares) can also help with aggromanagement.

Note enemies in HM reaggro quicker and will reaggro if they are body blocked to the person blocking (once upon a time enemies did not run for aoe and did not reaggro once they had choosen a target - the latter if i don't recall wrong - which lead up to "stancetanking" which meant cycling stances and bodyblocking, "cornertanking" and "cornernuking" latter being the elementalist skills fs and ms).

Recommended skills in HM are SY (Kurzick/Luxon: Save Yourselves) with IAU (I Am Unstoppable), PI (Asuran; Pain Inverter), if you're a rit go SoS (Signet of Spirits) and use Summon Spirits (Kurzick/luxon). Tryptophan Signet is also definitively worth mentioning. Ebon battle standard of Wisdom can also be useful in the easier-normal hard areas in HM.

"By Ural's Hammer!", Air of Superiority and Technobabble are skills worth having in mind for some areas.

As far as heroes go, use the necroes (bring an Aotl) standard Sabway or Discordway, Ritualists (bring a SoS) - spiritway (check gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki for it) works decently with the necro cookiecutter builds, Nukes work at some points (ele with glyph of sacrifise, meteor shower and firestorm + fire attunement, dmg and hard res), rangers (spike builds which all consist of hitting multiple targets with splinter) or rupt builds which should be used with cornertanking (consist of Broad Head Arrow and the mesmer skill Epidemic) and is also used as the former.

Note Winter (ranger) with mantra of frost (mesmer) works well and has been used in teambuilds, mostly know for being used in the DwG doa builds.

There are some paragon skills that can also be invaluable; "Fall back!", "Go for the eyes!" a with minions master, there are also negating skills such as "Never Surrender!", "Stand your ground!", "Can't touch this!" and "We sball return!" the latter being excellent on elementalists as they can run it with fallback aswell without having any energy issues.

Monks are more complicated, I prefer running 1 clean'ish heal and one clean'ish prot.

I hope this helped anyone still possibly reading this, noted useable for all areas, however elite areas are usually done by a full human party with specific builds and there are some quests in WoC that needs tweaking, The eternal grove mission in factions HM where you need to split, the titan quest chain (given by Vision of Glint) and Slavers' Exile in eotn. I would also strongly recommend going with another person doing Unspeakable, Unknowable in Sorrow's furnace.

As it makes it alot quicker and easier, especially if you are doing it for the first time.

Have fun and good luck!

=p

i think ursan should be the only thing under this guide —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.154.188.10 (talk • contribs) at 17:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC).

Is that truly satisfactory, though? I prefer to vanquish with style, savoir faire, faire avec grâce; perhaps there are even more French phrases, this sort of theme sure seems to be one they enjoy. Anyway, I'm sure there are others who like it your way, and others who like it mine; the point is that it's very easy and simple to do Ursan HM or not, so there's no reason to remove content for that purpose. --Chaiyo Kaldor talk contribs 17:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Think about the poor kids who don't have EotN! Think. About. Them. </guilt trip> --JonTheMon 17:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Lots of problems with Ursan: (1) not H&H-able, (2) requires EotN and high Norn rank, (3) costly consets, (4) need 3 monks, (5) boring, (6) about to be nerfed, (7) lots of people don't want to use it, (8) not needed anyway. -- Alaris 17:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Flawless Victory! +50 Balth! I don't care if you disagree, if I were the computorz, I would give a flawless victory. --Chaiyo Kaldor talk contribs 18:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add that many of us (me included) achieved our vanquisher titles before EotN was even released, and Legendary Vanquisher without a single use of Ursan Blessing (aka Ursan Curse). -- Wyn 23:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

And others of us refused outright to Vanquish or HM anything using Ursan. Flea Ridden Bears (Ursan) are only useful for Pick Up Groups to guarantee a reasonable lvl of success. A well balanced team can outstrip the capabilities of Ursan by a long way. Xiay 15:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Update 21-05-2010

With the new update and the changes to HM mobs, is the article still up to date? Just wondering, because there was talk about changed HP regeneration, total amount of HP and faster casting times. If so, this is the perfect time to update the article, being the article of the month on the main page...

• Hard Mode no longer affects monsters' activation speed for skills with default activation times under 2 seconds.
• Monsters in the Underworld, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, and Fissure of Woe now have innate health regeneration in Hard Mode only.
• Monsters in the Underworld, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, and Fissure of Woe now have reduced health totals in Hard Mode only.

Sjeng 18:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The first point is relevant, and has been added, but the second two should be on their respective pages imo --San Darkwood 19:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

O Rly?

In general, hard mode is simply more difficult than normal mode PvE: No wai!!

ohmygad ur so clevar. --Neil2250 , Portal Jumper 20:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I am still wondering why they implemented HM in the first place, considering most people still playing this game do not want more challenge but more grind. Koda Kumi 10:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

It doubled the amount of grind a player had to do. -Auron 10:45, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Hard Mode would have been hard if player mentality wouldn't include finding the easiest exploit for everything. 145.94.74.23 06:26, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

You can take a PvP build and still have an easy time destroying it. So, no. Morphy 11:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)