Nightfall Vanquishing

1st Official Post

    I gave myself the question : ''Is it possible to VQ elona, with just a Nightfall account, NF skills and heroes?''

    And came to the harsh conclusion, that its probably not (easily) achieveable.

    Protection and healing is something i came up short with and i'm not able to make it happen, i had minor succes pulling it off whilst randomly getting pummeled by a small group of hekkets or kournan groups.

    So here is my question, how did Anet thought about this very select group of players ever to achieve completion (Elona VQ / Guardian / Lightbringer) or remotely even DoA with the select skills and heroes at their disposal.

    Iv tried multiple setups and combinations of skills and classes and they all struggle at best?

    I'm afraid Nightfall is the powercreep and victem of its own succes that is manageable by previous expansions, but on its own players will really fall victem to that.

    So, if there are any suggestions for those players that only have NF and play it alone, post them below.

    Cheers, Zeph.

    If you'll be content with putting water with wine, the glass will always be half full.

    If people couldn't complete those titles or content using only one game they would buy the other lol.


    Marketing.

    It was the 3rd game released, I don't think they gave a fuck about people who started with that opus, they just wanted to entertain people who were already playing the game while working on gw2.


    By the way paragons are actually very good at protecting their group, better with warrior luxon skill , but still decent without.

    • Official Post

    I don't think Anet necessarily ought to have a ton of sympathy for those players. If we're talking HM then they have to accept there won't be a ton of leeway. That's the whole point. You say what you've come up with is a "struggle at best" but that's what it was meant to be. Seriously, once you set up a modern meta build HM becomes easier than NM used to be. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't label it impossible. I'll see what I can come up with.

    Remember that H/H was, although never impossible, always meant to be a handicap. It didn't used to be like now where putting together teams is a matter of figuring out how much gamebreakingly overpowered stuff you can cram in. There was also a three hero cap. Working together with other players was key to getting through harder content. Through a combination of (theoretically) smarter play, (theoretically) better builds, and the ability to cover each others weaknesses (your lack of skill diversity, in this case), completing the HM titles + DoA should not be an issue for NF only players. If you're not doing that for whatever reason, i.e, doubling up on handicaps, then it's no surprise the content feels disproportionately difficult.

    What content have you tried so far? I'd start by doing some easy (relatively speaking) stuff and then working my way up.

    What builds have you tried?

    Here are some of the builds i tested out, everything in diffrent order of using.

    Even tried to mimic a sort of ''Esurge Stack'', and even that is subpar of what most are used too.

    However, here are the template codes with optionals noted below them.


    Monk

    OwUUMwW+SoOAgMwMJjspvrBkSCA

    Optionals : Tease - Healers Boon - Light of Deliverance - Energy Drain - Zealous Benediction - Divert Hexes

    _____


    Ranger

    OgojYtXaqO5acDqB6OgdufGaDA

    ^Scythe Pet Ranger

    OgkTY3rm1BAgbUNPGYznh2IvBA

    Optionals : Magebane Shot - Enraged Lunge - Barrage - Burning Arrow - Cautry Signet - Prepared Shot

    _____


    Mesmer

    OQlDApwTOAgpXO4CgTLCZA5N

    Optionals : Energy Surge - Enchanters Conundrum

    _____


    Necromancer

    OANDYaP/OAgqKJZlMTur1jAC

    Optionals : Pain of Disenchantment - Zealous Benediction - Divert Hexes


    OABCUshzStqWFOqoBAAAAAA

    Optionals : Aegis - Protective Spirit - Shield of Absorbtion - Healing Ring - Heal Party - Res


    _____


    Elementalist

    OgNDoMjtOkVcRxQX8LGrIjPC

    OgNDkMjtOc1UBswr2nRGfk3J

    OgNDoMjtO0NcxuYsiM+Itk3J

    _____


    Paragon

    OQSjQgmMqO3BZsPOHvjrx0bcMA

    OQSjQgnMqO3hUcM2C3h1wcYPMA

    ^Go For The Eyes just to proc Chant.

    _____


    Dervish

    OgmjkmrMbOfbzL3tbveduib5NA

    OgOj8sqKrOe3ZSAx+efpvz3yLA

    OgWjMgqMrO+0MA91+efxvg3yLA

    _____

    Warrior

    OQkSEZKP9F/CgJwsV4r/V5N

    OQkSE5JPjlyyXRwyXNs/V5N

    _____


    Would like to hear what you think of these.

    Honestly found it a tad difficult to come up with these builds, not only for their need of simplicity but also to what was available and still had the ''preform'' somewhat.

    Cheers,

    Zeph.

    If you'll be content with putting water with wine, the glass will always be half full.

    Doesnt seem you tried that hard. I mean its some harder to vanq areas that is not meta.

    Doesnt sound like you played Guild wars from the start.

    I can only speak out from the monk standpoint since that is what I have played since I started playing monk in 06.

    LOD is nerfed and is more or less nerfed to oblivion.
    As a monk player I have always had 2 other monk heroes in my team.

    You should always use prot when vanqing atleast to negate the damage.

    Always have I used zb build for myself, a SOR and a woh/HB heal build with resses.

    DH is not for vanquishing unless its insanely hex heavy in certain areas and I have never used DH in a vq myself,but certain dungs I guess DH is really useful

    I guess Guardian could be somehow challenging,but I have always been protting, I really love Jagged Bones build,SF ele's,a derv tanker,2monk heros,and a rupt mesmer

    And DOA isnt meant to play with heroes,its meant for players. And DOA is not what it was way back when NF was released towards today's DOA.

    When titles were introduced I had no problems to do vanqing,guardian titles, I played the game with friends and groups of 2-8 persons.

    • Official Post

    team build challenge!

    Just remembered that. Not only is it NF only, but there are a bunch of extra limitations as well. It's only one area, but it does show what good execution can do.

    Also, how do you feel about mercenary heroes? They don't technically violate the NF only theme but are against the spirit of the challenge. It would also be dumb for someone to spend on mercenaries before having all the content.

    I'll refrain from looking at your builds too closely until I've had a chance to put something together myself. It also doesn't help that you're listing individual builds rather than a team - this makes a particularly big difference here.

    I might even take up this challenge myself. I used to love to theorycraft and make my own build, this could be a fun challenge and find something other than meta.

    I wouldn't care of making superior builds as long as they're decent and fun to play.

    Well the builds on their own compiled toghether make the team as there is not alot of variation possible in the sense of hero availability and excluding mercs for its purpose.

    The Builds posted before are assembled in any combination you like to the extend of whats available and to what works for you or not.

    You could choose for 3 SF eles with TAOF paragon, but also none of the before suggested.

    I dont think that people who only have NF will buy mercenaries before any of the other expansions so I will exclude that option in the making of a decent team.

    Likewise the purchase of Mercs will quickly result in a team based on gimmicks. (mesmer / necro staking).

    Id like to refrain from making this a ''who is first to make a meta'' sort of challenge because there are plenty of metas around undefyable (which requires All campaigns), and defeats the purpose of making a well balanced team for the regular NF players to do end game content and title hunting rather than doing it for yourself losing its integrity.

    The sole point of this thread is to make something work with the limited resources NF has available for the normal NF only player that requires (due hero limitation) them to have a balanced team for VQ / Guardian / Cartho / LB / SS / UW / FoW / DoA.

    They'll never become metas, aslong they will work excellent for the said niche part of the player base for its purpose and the players goals mentioned above.

    The monk attribute line being the only sole healing tree without secondairy conditions required knocks ritualist healing off the table in NF.

    However that also comes with heavy Energy use and they dont excel in its management.

    Suggestion would be 2x N/Mo, 2x Ele, 1x Mes, 1x BiP para, a Barrage Ranger, VoS/Dwayna Dervish or hybrid Smite monk.

    If you'll be content with putting water with wine, the glass will always be half full.

    whats wrong with Kihm and Mhenlo? Almost all VQ I did on my main were with henchies only and unless there were some big skill rebalances since then I think they still should be viable enough. Ok there is some wiping and it is slow but it goes. I have to admit that the hard areas I remember doing with other players but Kourna and Istan should be fine with just henchies. For monks I always used henchies till we got 8 hero parties. Unless by using just NF skills you mean also that you exclude Core skills and you use skills only specific for NF? Other henchies I used in NF were Herta, Gehraz (dont ask why this one, I do not remember and I wonder now myself) Me myself I ran 100b war with whirlwind attack both available in NF. I have to admin I do not remember much more especially hero builds (Olias Jagged bones MM but no more details) since it was looong time ago. I will try vq some areas with just henchies to see how it goes now.