Guild Wars 2

Looking for some strategy on this dungeon.

We tackled path 1 last night. No major difficulties, until we got near the end.

My question…how do we deal with the HUGE mob of bandits/thugs that line the path to the last boss (Frost). Not only is this a huge mob (maybe 100 of them) but they are pretty tough individually too…like mini-bosses. We tried running past them…(fail)…we tried kiting them out and killing them in small groups (which might have eventually worked but would have taken hours)…and wound up giving up right near the end of the dungeon (which I hate doing).

Anyone successfully tackled this portion? If so, how?

Thanks for any input.

If you hug left wall they won’t aggro. One guy can go and pull next group (like 3-4 Silver-enemies?) back while others wait. Or just rush to room near two Riflemen. Or rush to end boss (hard).

Also you can run through the group, stick to right side, jump down from platform and they lose aggro. Then run to room near two Riflemen and kill them there.

If you get any problems later I suggest checking dungeon guides before giving up (my text-based guides are linked on my signature, not perfect but I’m working on it).

I think I know what you’re talking about. As Wethospu said, you don’t need to aggro the first giant group in path 1 (I think you can avoid it in path 3 as well, but I’m not sure if you can hop onto the ramp railing without pulling aggro anymore.)

You can skip a lot of those groups with stealth runs, so a thief with shadow refuge can make a lot of this dungeon much simpler.

If you want to do it without running past / skipping mobs (lack of thief, personal philosophy, w/e) One person sticks to the left (hug the wall, go behind the pillars) and pulls that group of 4 back to those giant doors you came in / left your group at. There you can deal with them fairly safely.

After that, you need to aggro those two riflemen guarding the tunnel without pulling the patrolling pair behind them. If you pull the extra patrol, you can still win the fight, but focus on the Thug if possible because his heals are really annoying. Get everyone into the shed on the right hand side of the tunnel entrance, then behind a corner inside it. The reason for this is it’ll force the 2 riflemen into near-melee range so they have line-of-sight, and the 4 other riflemen that spawn later will also be pulled to near-melee. If you stay out in the open, they spawn and just shoot you from relatively safe positions at least 1200 away, and are a huge pain to deal with. But if you all go in the shed, they have to follow you to get line of sight, where you can jump on them. It can be a tricky fight to set up, but you get a chest for it, so that’s nice.

After that, clear the first patrol (Archer & Thug) if you haven’t already. Then send someone to pull the group behind the riflemen on the scaffolding, then run back to a safe distance so you don’t have to deal with the riflemen simultaneously. This fight is harder, but a lot of the mobs in that group aren’t veterans / silvers, so it’s more doable than it looks.

After you clear them, run underneath the scaffolding the riflemen (enforcers?) are standing on (Dodge the kill shot!), recover your health if necessary (They won’t be able to shoot you until you’re up directly beside them), climb the ramp, and kill the two riflemen. From there you can walk safely across the scaffolding to near the cave exit. At that point, jump off the wooden platform, then another jump over the wooden fence outside the cave, and run up the riverbed towards the closed gate until you drop aggro. (You can also try to kill these groups, but it really isn’t necessary. This skip doesn’t require swiftness, stealth or stability, really, since once you’re over the fence the mobs take ages to path to you, and drop aggro once you’re in the back corner.)

All in all, you can get through this by sneaking around the really big groups, and pulling the smaller ones in pretty controlled ways. Or you can use group stealth to run past, if available, but I prefer more universal approaches, myself.

How my guild does it, it’s pretty easy to run the first pack if you all run at the same time.

Swiftness + Double dodge when you pass the mobs means you stay out of combat and get to the turn of the ramp with taking no damage. Every class has skills that make running trash, especially short distances like this much easier. It may require you to switch skills for one cooldown if needed, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to run the first group after the thief boss. The rest of it is just using AoEs since most of the groups are normal mobs that die almost instantly, which leaves a couple of silver mobs.

Great tips!

Thanks guys…have to give it another go now.