Guild Wars 2

I’ve been avoiding dealing with them including parts of my low level personal stories that include them. I’m not sure what it is, as I have tried different methods, but what makes them so difficult? I’ve gone up against them where I had been down scaled from level 50 to 25 or whatever with maxed out gear and I still get beat down a fair amount.

They seem to be much stronger than other mobs, they charge you in larger numbers, and even when I try my ranger they will blow past my pet and beat me down. They deal a lot of damage real fast it seems. I’ve noticed this with the nightmare court or what ever they are as well.

So what I’m wondering is their a specific type of attack/condition that they are more susceptible to? Do I need to just kill one or two, run away then come back and kill a few more and so forth?

Of all the mobs I have encountered they seem to be the most difficult to deal with so far solo PvE. Keep in mind I’m still low-mid levels. I thought the bandits that would respawn on top of each other were bad. :P

It is mainly the Thralls. They can frenzy which lets them run faster, attack faster, hit harder. On top of all that they will all poison you. In addition do dealing damage to you over time Poison will also reduce the effectiveness of your heals.

The best approach (assuming you don’t have a character that can just stand there and exchange blows) is to use some sort of snare. Ranger should have the trap that cripples and bleeds along with one that chills. Use one and when the cripple or chill is about to wear off use the other. You should be able to kill them before they get to you or at the very least their Frenzy should have worn off by the time they get to you.

There are a lot of places with Risen in them where you can either avoid them, or pull them in smaller groups. Pulling and line of sighting are your friend.

If you’re on the US servers, I can guest over and help you if you like.

Playing a ranger you should not have problems dealing with risen.

Both your bows have cripples (longbow is an aoe), shortbow has a stun as well, and longbow has a knock-back. You have pets that can cripple, chill, fear, etc. You have all this without even resorting to traps.

The key is knowing where and when to start the fight so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Best to learn this now and enjoy beating on risen, because the concentration of them will increase as you advance into higher-level maps and personal story. They also get tougher with more varied attacks including pulls and stuns.

If you need any specific info on PvE ranger builds, weapons and playing tactics, I suggest you check out the ranger sub-forum.

With Risen knowing your enemy is a really good thing. The generic Risen (human, Charr, Norn, Asura) come in three varieties:
Thrall – Moves quickly, most of damage comes from poison: To get away from these you have to run really far away or use cripples.
Brute – VERY SLOW but if they ever hit you, you’ll be knocked down: They also do more melee damage than the Thrall. Keep moving and you’ll almost never get hit by them.
Plaguebearer – Runs up to your face and explodes, taking out half your health and putting 4 conditions on you: They’re pretty easy to spot because they have a green aura around them, and they stop moving and have a charging up glow right before they explode. Try to get the timing down between when they stop moving and when they explode, so you can do a dodge roll right as they explode. If you’re too lazy to do this there’s also the ranger skills Shortbow #3, Sword #2, or Lightning Reflexes that almost guarantee you get out of range of said explosion without having to time it or anything.

Notice one thing about all these Risen? NO RANGED attacks. With a Ranger, pick up an axe in your main hand and run around them in circles throwing the axe at them just outside of melee range. The fact that there’s a lot of them will actually make you do MORE damage with a main-hand axe because of the bouncing effect.
Risen do start to get ranged at higher levels, but these ranged ones also have different names (Krait, Corrupter, Pirate, Noble, etc).