Forum Link Code:[url=]W-Me Enduring Visage UW Solo[/url]
The W/Me Enduring Visage UW Solo uses both Visages,
Dolyak Signet, and Warrior's Endurance combined with Energy based
attacks to farm the Smite Crawlers in the Underworld. Because it
does not use Healing Signet, it can also kill Coldfire Nights.
It has a very high survival rate and is possibly the safest
Underworld Solo Build around for its speed, finishing a run in
under 30 minutes.
Attributes and Skills
- * Weapon
mastery will be either Axe Mastery or Swordsmanship.
Equipment
- Armor
- Knight's Insignias.
- Runes of Superior
Strength, Major or Superior Vigor, Superior Absorption, Minor
Tactics, and Minor Weapon Mastery.
- Weapons
- A Zealous Axe or
Sword of Enchanting with a "Strength and Honor" or a "Dance with
Death" inscription. Since you have no weapon based attacks, Swords
and Axes work equally well.
- A Shield of
Endurance (Requiring Strength) with a "Run for your Life!" Inscription, or
any shield with equivalent stats. Arrahhsh's
Aegis is ideal.
- For those with the money, a Shield with both -2 Physical Damage
while in a Stance and while Enchanted is greatly
superior. There are no Green Items with these stats and they cannot
be created with Inscriptions and Upgrades.
- Any type of Longbow
or Flatbow. Since it
will only be used for pulling, the stats do not matter. Flatbow is
preferred, since you will be obstructed less frequently.
Usage
The Entrance
- Take the quest Clear the Chamber as soon as you can
without being seen by any Aatxes.
- Grasping Darknesses have a natural speed boost of around
33%.
- Aatxes have a natural speed boost of around 10%.
- This means that any time you aggro both Aatxes and Grasping
Darknesses, the Grasping Darknesses will get to your first.
- Turn your back to the mob of Grasping Darknesses you want to
pull, and wait till it moves near a group of Aatxes.
- Hit either "F" or "C" so that you don't cast spells on the Lost
Soul.
- Just before aggroing, cast Ancestor's Visage on yourself.
- Back up, aggroing the Aatxes. Instantly hit Enraging Charge
and rush for the wall in front of you.
- When the Aatxes aggro, the Grasping Darknesses will come along
with.
- The Aatxes will give up very quickly, but the Grasping
Darknesses will keep coming.
- As soon as you think you've lost the Aatxes, hit Dolyak Signet.
- Turn around and start attacking the Grasping Darknesses. You
should get enough energy from your Zealous Axe to use Sympathetic
Visage when Ancestor's Visage runs out.
- As soon as you get 5 energy, use Warrior's Endurance.
- Hit Ancestor's Visage again when Sympathetic Visage runs
out.
Notes:
- If you aggro a Dying Nightmare either while getting the quest
or while luring Grasping Darknesses, run like heck for the far wall
and hope the Aatxes with it break aggro before you get there.
- If they don't break, you will probably die. Just keep running
around using your Enraging Charge and hope they give up.
- Use Warrior's Endurance, followed by spamming Power Attack and Counterattack every time they recharge.
Maintain Dolyak Signet and your Visages.
- They do almost no damage, and their interrupts are non-existent
with Visages. These should be easy, if boring, kills.
- Once you've killed one group, lure the next and repeat.
Notes:
- Sometimes the third group will get itself stuck on the stairs
to the right. If this happens, kill the other two groups first,
then hit Enraging Charge and run past the right side Aatxes. Aggro
the Grasping Darknesses, then run to the right, straight into the
closed door. You should have lost the Aatxes, but the Grasping
Darknesses will follow you, and can now be killed alone.
- Since you couldn't care less if they strip your enchants, these
enemies pose no threat to you whatsoever after they have spawned
(except possibly around Smite Crawlers) and can either by killed or
ignored at your leisure.
Notes:
- The threat Dying Nightmares do pose is in spawning.
- All Dying Nightmares in the starting room have Aatxes mobs
associated with them. Aggroing them is considered a bad idea.
- Just don't. Try to avoid them at all costs. If you do manage to
aggro some, just keep running away until they leave you alone.
- Unlike some builds, you will not die in one hit from an Aatxe,
it usually takes five or six.
The Run
- Once you have completed the quest, run along the right side to
the open gate, being sure to break aggro with the three or four
nearby Aatxes.
- If there are enemies in the passageway, this is a (mostly) safe
point to stop and wait. Be careful of the patrols nearby.
- As soon as the passageway is clear, run through it. Try to time
your run so that you will not be seen by the Grasping Darkness
patrol, as even with Enraging Charge you cannot outrun them and
will be forced to fight. Use Enraging Charge just as you leave the
passage, and head to the left.
- If you can, try to run all the way past both groups of Aatxes
in one shot. If you can't, break aggro and wait in the big room
(avoiding patrols) until Enraging Charge has recharged, then run
past the last pair of Aatxes.
- Be careful, as you may have to wait till Enraging Charge
recharges to break their aggro. If this happens, you will end up
directly in the middle of the Smite Crawler group, and will be
forced to fight.
The Run: Alternative Method
- Watch the Grasping Darkness patrol in the room to the right, at
the end of the passage.
- As soon as you see them circle around and move away from the
end of the passage, hit Enraging Charge and run along the right
side of the room straight to them. The Aatxes behind you will break
aggro fairly quickly.
- As you reach the door, take note of where the Aatxes are.
- If they're in the Passage or coming towards it, run past them
as fast as you can. This is the hardest part, as it is far too easy
to be trapped against the wall. They will only get two or three
hits off at most if you make it past. Run to your left.
- If they're still in the room, just keep running. Hug the
left-side wall. Enraging Charge will wear off about now.
- Keep running to your left. Just as the Aatxes behind you catch
up, hit your recharged Enraging Charge.
- the Aatxes behind you will break aggro just as you run into the
pair in front.
- Run straight through them, towards the Smite Crawlers on the
other side. In this method, the Aatxes normally break aggro before
you reach the Smites Crawlers.
Notes:
- Lag is extremly dangerous when running through the narrow
passage with the Aatxes. It's very easy to get body blocked without
you knowing it. Your character will keep running but infact he is
stuck between the Aatxes, if this happens, your run will most
likely end here. The best thing you can do is just wait until they
are far away from the Passage
- Pull one group of Smite Crawlers with your bow to a place where
you can fight them alone. When fighting multiple groups, a mistake
often leads to death.
- Once you've gotten to the spot you want to fight at, hit Dolyak
Signet and switch weapons.
- As soon as they start to reach you, hit Ancestor's
Visage and Warrior's Endurance.
- Wait a few seconds until you think they've been sufficiently
drain of energy, then start attacking.
- When Ancestor's Visage is halfway recharged, cast Sympathetic
Visage.
- Handle them just like Grasping Darknesses, but here Visages are
required to stop their healing. Warrior's Endurance will provide
you with plenty of energy to maintain them.
Notes:
- If you start taking damage from Shield of
Judgment, it means you have not fully drained their energy.
Cast your next Visage and switch targets.
- Once you get down to the last Smite Crawler, the energy drain
is much slower. It can out heal you easily though, so make sure to
keep your Visages up.
- Occasionally, for unknown reasons, a Smite Crawler group will
become hostile to all other Smite and Coldfire groups in the area.
Just let them die, it's not worth running in for the loot.
- You should be able to handle up to five Smite Crawlers at once,
which is the largest that most groups contain.
- First, identify their patrol route. Stand in front of their
path, so they they're walking towards you when they see you.
- Hit Enraging Charge just before getting in their range, you
should be able to reach them before they can cast Shard Storm or Maelstrom.
- As soon as you get in melee range, hit Dolyak Signet, Lion's
Comfort, and Warrior's Endurance.
- Fire off both your attack skills. Keep attacking as often as
you can with your attack skills, using Warrior's Endurance and
Dolyak Signet when they recharge.
- You can use Lion's Comfort twice per Dolyak Signet, once just
after it's used, and once about 9 seconds later. The rest of the
time, just keep the adrenaline stored.
- You will be at around 100-200 health the whole time, but if
done properly, you should survive.
- As they cast Shard Storm often, running away is unlikely to
succeed.
Notes:
- Coldfires have no valuable drops, and thus it is often better
to skip them altogether then to kill them, unless they are blocking
a mob of Smite
Crawlers.
- Killing groups of two is fairly easy, but groups of three are
not recommended.
- If you do need to kill a group of three, try to find a barrier
that you can pull them to. Hide behind it to block Shard Storm
until you see them cast at least two of their Maelstroms, then
engage.
Safety Spots
This is a map of the path taken by this build:
Click to see a full size version
- The Green line is the path you should be taking.
- The Red dots are the Safety Spots.
- If you need to take a break or recharge, go to the closest
Safety Spot you've cleared, and stay there.
- All enemies can be pulled to at least one of the marked safety
spots and fought there.
- Two of the Safety Spots are not on the path. These spots are
only used when a group of Smite Crawlers spawns in a bad location
nearby.
- All of these spots (except the ones in the middle of The Run) are free of Patrols.
Survival Tips
- When trying to run around Aatxes, always try to go past on the most open
side. They like to trap you by forcing you to run to one side, then
cutting you off. Running past them close to walls is a good way to
dig an early grave, as is running past them without Enraging Charge
activated.
- If the Grasping Darknesses interrupt one of your
Visages and drain all your energy, just keep Dolyak Signet up and
keep hitting them. Eventually either you'll get up to 5 energy and
you can use Warrior's Endurance to gain more, or
they'll just die. They can't kill you as long as Dolyak Signet is
up.
- If you hit Dolyak Signet when you didn't mean to, just stop
running. You can't escape anything while slowed, so stand still and
tank if there are any enemies in the area.
- Use Enraging Charge while Warrior's Endurance is recharging,
followed by Lion's Comfort for a quick heal. Remember to do this
only after you've activated Dolyak Signet.
Variants
- Counterattack can be replaced by any other 5
Energy attack skill with a quick recharge. Be warned of energy
problems if you do change it. This is not recommended unless you do
not have access to Counterattack.
- For experienced players, Final Thrust or Dismember can replace Lion's Comfort. Be warned
that this will make aggroing large groups of Smite Crawlers
and/or Coldfires much more dangerous.
- The only variant for the attribute distribution is 10+1+3 Strength, 8+1 Weapon Mastery,
2+1 Tactics, and 12 Illusion
Magic. This variant is slightly more effective against Smite
Crawlers, but kills slower. Only recommended if you have no Grip of
Enchanting for your sword or axe.
- There are many variants to the strategies proposed for pulling,
running, and tanking. None were considered effective enough to
include here, but if it works for you, use it.
Counters
Skills Template
For Axe
For Sword
See also
Warrior / Mesmer 
