Guild Wars 2

…It can’t be that hard ?
Almost all groups I do this with take at least half a dozen tries (before patch first-try usually)

Problem 1:
Defender/ Kiter getting overwhelmed and killed or not being able to keep them off Hodgins

Defensive Guardian with staff (hitting several mobs with each autoattack while moving) with stability utilities seems good but what to do if you dont have such a guardian or he can’t do it? At least a dozen of mobs, 25 stacks of bleed and lots of knockdown isn’t easy to survive…
I also know that the others shouldn’t run by Hodgins with adds in tow.

Problem 2:
Burrows don’t go down fast enough and everyone gets swarmed. (btw please finally fix the “obstructed” bug !)
Moving as a group doesn’t work well, splitting in three teams, 2 left – 2 right – 1 defender doesn’t work well either (1 at each burrow is even worse)
Are we doing the wrong order? Usually we do left, left room, far left, middle, right, far right, right “corner”. (worked well before patch but not now…)

Usually we make it (by a hair) after 6-10 tries due to luck (nobody getting knocked down at a bad time etc).

I know you are supposed to do your highest damage melee (ideally AOE) and use stability, protection, condition removal (for the bleeds) as much as possible, but other than that…?

People seem to love ice-bow (It’s great for path 3 but I feel it’s not that great for path 1), but “4” has a really long CD and must be channeled, “3” is meh, “2” usually gets “obstructed”, “1” is bad

What should you use as an elementalist? Before patch switching between icebow 4 and meteor was good but there was no knockdown and huge damage from adds back then. Standing still to channel is not a good idea now…

I would love to hear some tactics from different professions and roles:

Ex. Elementalist; burrow destroyer: weapon x, utilities x, y, z, use these skills, etc :-)

As Elementalist I use Ice Bow skill 4 mainly, then just drop it and continue hitting burrows with Meteor Shower and other AoE stuff. Also using Elemental Glyph in Earth for AoE blind.

A tactic that works well if you can get your party to listen:
-Don’t attack the front burrow.
-1 guy defends at NPC.
-Kill off the first chain of burrows.
-Wipe out the gravelings around NPC.
-Kill front burrow, and the remaining ones.
Although there’s tons of different ways to get it done. It all depends on how well your team plays.=P

Same as prepatch, except fight harder?

Milennin.4825:

As Elementalist I use Ice Bow skill 4 mainly, then just drop it and continue hitting burrows with Meteor Shower

^ this (except i add in the ice fan if point blank), im always amused when i see someone keep hold of it for auto attacks

Milennin.4825:

A tactic that works well if you can get your party to listen:
-Don’t attack the front burrow.
-1 guy defends at NPC.
-Kill off the first chain of burrows.
-Wipe out the gravelings around NPC.
-Kill front burrow, and the remaining ones.

Right burrows don’t start to spawn (or don’t start spawning mobs) before middle is down? Wiping out adds so they don’t get too many sounds good too.

As an Elementalist, I can usually take out 3-4 burrows by myself. Begin with a greatsword for you + one ally, take out the first left burrow, drop an ice bow as the first is going down, run up toward the second and hit stability and use #4 this will kill that burrow and you won’t get interupted (unless you die). Someone else should take the second bow and kill the THIRD borrow in the left line (not the one right at the end of the stairs). At this point there should be very few gravlings out, and only one line to worry about, your allies should be able to kill the one on the stairs… while you make it to the far right side to the second burrow on the right path, and use #4 (which should now be off cool down). Your ally with the other ice bow should be able to destroy the final burrow in the top left, if not drop some new ice bows and have at it. Total time about 90s tops

This is a typical guild wars 2 fight where you can run with high aoe dps and minimal support, but if it’s the right support at the right time it makes it easy. In this case having players able to identify then kill/interrupt/blind the leaping gravelings makes a lot of difference.

That being said, when I’m playing on my Guardian, Thief or Ranger…. Do not use non-piercing projectile attacks. The gravelings will get in the way and absorb the damage. AoE attacks are your best bet, most melee classes have a sweeping weapon which will do arc damage in front of them. If nothing else the basic auto attack will hurt a group of enemies and the burrow.

Guardian … Greatsword or Sword are your best bets. Staff hits max of 5 targets, and scepter is projectile. Use #1 and #2…. #4 works too
Ranger … if you have piercing attacks with long/shortbow those work, if not you’ll need to use Greatsword (pretty sure Sword attacks are single target)
Thief …. Shortbow if you really want to stay ranged, otherwise Dagger or Sword will work for sweeping damage to hit all the targets with basic attacks. DO NOT STEALTH it will break aggro you have on stuff and they will go to your team mates or if you’re trying to kite directly to hodgins.

DO NOT ever run behind hodgins, don’t spawn seed turrets near him …. if you’re not next to someone who’s downed you probably can’t res them safely/in time… and try not to get knocked through the door.

Teleniel.1809:

That being said, when I’m playing on my Guardian, Thief or Ranger…. Do not use non-piercing projectile attacks. The gravelings will get in the way and absorb the damage. AoE attacks are your best bet, most melee classes have a sweeping weapon which will do arc damage in front of them. If nothing else the basic auto attack will hurt a group of enemies and the burrow.

Guardian … Greatsword or Sword are your best bets. Staff hits max of 5 targets, and scepter is projectile. Use #1 and #2…. #4 works too
Ranger … if you have piercing attacks with long/shortbow those work, if not you’ll need to use Greatsword (pretty sure Sword attacks are single target)
Thief …. Shortbow if you really want to stay ranged, otherwise Dagger or Sword will work for sweeping damage to hit all the targets with basic attacks. DO NOT STEALTH it will break aggro you have on stuff and they will go to your team mates or if you’re trying to kite directly to hodgins.

DO NOT ever run behind hodgins, don’t spawn seed turrets near him …. if you’re not next to someone who’s downed you probably can’t res them safely/in time… and try not to get knocked through the door.

Thief dagger only hits one target. Ranger sword’s second chain hit only hits one target. Its third hit is pretty wide, though is very wonky in general.

I always defend Hodg on my thief. The two most important factors are:

1: The kiter needs to stand north of the table’s right side. He will be in range to aggro both the mound by the stairs and the 3rd mound from the left chain.

2: The mound killers MUST NOT run south of the table, or try to help Hodg in any way. Just being in the presence of Hodg draws aggro to him.

The first mound in the right chain spits out hardly any enemys at all, and I find it much more helpful if the burrow killers don’t split, and instead all work on the left chain first. As for playing the role of the kiter, on my thief I use a shortbow, with dodge friendly traits. (I don’t usually use #3 on the shortbow, but occasionally every few runs I need to) I throw down caltrops, and use the poison field to aggro any gravelings. Other than that I just spam my 1 skill to kill a few random ones and proc “on crit” stuff, your goal is to kite not necessarily to kill. If your team does it right, you don’t need to throw down poison until they are on their way to the 3rd burrow, as some gravelings will fall too far behind your allies that they will pick up aggro on Hodg. The rest is just timing your dodge of the leaping gravelings, the bleed ones usually don’t get too close to get your stacks up very high since they are crippled from caltrops most of the time. If your team follows this method you can literally 3 man this (done it before), bring lots of noobs (again, done it before), have all non dps charactors (take a guess), or any other thing naysayers will insist will make your run fail here. AKA you can kite indefinitely, at least as a thief. I saw a guardian do it just as good as me, maybe even better, and thank you Mr. Guardian as you are the one who told me about the kiting spot.

Edit: I’m always open to run with someone and show them how to do it if you catch me online

It helps to kite him on top of the mound and everyone stay away from Hodges.

The more damage that you have, the easier/quicker it will be. The less time that it takes to destroy the mounds, the less mobs that can be spawned You’ll want to have at least one elementalist to use ice bow. The spare ice bow can make up for classes that are terrible at this part such as ranger and necro. The #4 ability on the ice bow should be staggered so only one person uses it per mound.

Having party members that are level 80 and level 80 exotics are the ideal but you won’t find that all the time in pugs. The closer your members are to that standard, the easier the dungeon will be.

Three words: bring an ele. Even a low lvl 35 elementalist with ice bow (better with fiery GS and glyph of storms and staff) > any high level profession (maybe except warrior) in AC P1 and P3.

This is because ice bow etc skills do not suffer from scaling.

If you have a mesmer that can generate lots of clones/phantasms, they can be quite useful at defending Hodgins. The gravelings rarely target him when there’s myself + 3 clones distracting them.

With my Engineer, I find it’s easy to either defend Hodgins or go after the burrows. If you are an Engineer or have one in the group, ask him to put down a mortar if he’s bought the skill.

When playing with guildmates, I can solo-burst down one of the burrows as it spawns with Mortar #5, Grenade Barrage and Elixir Gun’s Acid Bomb on top of the burrow, throwing Grenade Kit #1 while moving towards or away from the burrow to ensure complete destruction. Takes about ~3 seconds, and you could possibly do this while drawing aggro from the first burrow.

If you have a mesmer, have them create a portal near where the last burrow will spawn. This helps cut down the time that it takes to run over there (while in combat most likely) and can likely increase your odds of winning.