Vloxen Excavations

Completion by an Elementalist in hard mode with Heroes and Henchmen

Wiki has a section asking whether it is possible to complete this dungeon in hard mode with Heroes and Henchmen. Some people have done it and their builds can be found on Wiki. I tried these builds without success but the builds suggested did not give full detail or describe the tactics adopted so they might possibly work for you. I found this dungeon extremely difficult and have spent many weeks adapting the ideas on Wiki and working out a way that works repeatedly. The following builds, strategy and tactics worked reasonably well with no wipeouts and manageable death penalty. The builds do not require consumables which would help a lot but are expensive. It required some micro management of heroes before, but never during, the various battles in the dungeon. Overall, with this team, the dungeon takes between 1 hour and 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The three heroes are one minion master with scourge healing and a hex remover, one minion master/spirit spammer hybrid and one spirit spammer with a hex remover. Herta, Aidan, Lina and Mhenlo were the henchmen. Basically, the strategy is to accumulate lots of minions and maximize their damage. The strategy also addresses the specific strengths of these dwarves and uses their key weaknesses.

Their strengths, in my opinion are:-
1. Summoners - dwarf minion masters who can create minions from dead corpses quickly;
2. Defenders and other dwarves which can resurrect dead colleagues; and
3. Contaminators and other dwarves which can stack powerful hexes.
Their weaknesses are:-
1. No hex removers
2. No Verata type minion turning skills
3. No ability to prioritise targets. They will quite easily focus their attention on minions and spirits
4. No ability to change tactics. Even if you have a lethal hex like Pain Inverter on them, they will still cast area of effect skills

I am an Elementalist with rank 9 in Norn, Asura and Ebon Vanguard ratings and used Ranger as a secondary profession. The skills were:-

Mark of Rodgort (Fire)
Pain Inverter (Asura)
Finish Him (Norn)
Fire Storm (Fire)
Glowing Gaze (Fire)
Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honour (Ebon)
Frozen Soil (Wilderness Survival)
Greater Conflagration (Elite Wilderness Survival)

I used a superior rune of fire to give me rank 15 in fire magic, rank 11 in Energy Storage and rank 10 in Wilderness Survival. I used pyromancer insignias to maximize armor levels against fire damage.

Broadly, the Greater Conflagration converts all your minion damage to fire damage. Apply Mark of Rodgort and your minions can keep a dwarf on fire permanently even though they have powerful condition removers. Moreover, it converts most of the dwarves’ damage to fire damage so, with Herta’s Ward against Elements, anyone within the Ward benefits from 24 extra armor. With the insignias, my elementalist had 104 armor level against most of the Dwarf damage. Finally, it makes at least two of the dwarves’ skills - Mark of Pain and Barbs - which enhance physical damage completely useless.

Frozen Soil prevents the dwarves resurrecting themselves which is important in many of the areas. For this dungeon it’s essential.

Ebon Vanguard Standard of Honour is just great with minions. You can test this by seeing how much quicker a group of minions takes down a foe with this skill cast.

Glowing Gaze is for energy management. So many Dwarves will be on fire it is not a problem finding one.

Fire Storm takes forever to cast but when you have the dwarves clustered and blocked by minions and combined with Mark of Rodgort and Ebon Standard of Honour it can be devastating. I found it best to wait until the dwarves were fully engaged with the minions before casting as otherwise I got interrupted. There may be a better Elemental skill to use here – I tried Flare and Lava Arrows - but found I preferred Fire Storm.

Finish Him really helped when foes were below 50% health. It usually killed them.

Pain Inverter will get a quick kill when you come up against a dwarf with area of effect damage. It is lethal against Warders who use earth elemental skills - sandstorm, churning earth and earthquake - and quite effective against Contaminators who use desecrate enchantments or Carvers who use Cyclone Axe.

The code is OgJToWmiVyXQuMmsYYsKX8616AA

Minion Master (Olias) N/Mo

Discord (Death)
Animate Bone Minions (Death)
Verata’s Gaze (Death)
Malign Intervention (Death)
Blood of the Master (Death)
Scourge Healing (Smiting)
Remove Hex (Monk general)
Signet of Lost Souls (Soul Reaping)

Olias needs Malign Intervention to stop the dwarves exploiting the corpses before you can. Without this, they will always beat you to the corpse. Verata’s Gaze which will turn the resulting minion to your side works well. As others have found on Wiki, I could not get heroes to use Verata’s aura effectively. Discord works adequately but Olias did not spam it focusing (probably rightly) on maintaining the minion army. I also managed this dungeon with Virulence which will apply massive conditions to add to burning and spread disease throughout the dwarf mob. It’s difficult to see how useful Scourge Healing is on a hero but Olias seemed to use it. In theory, Scourge Healing should give the healers something else to worry about apart from healing their front line fighters. But it is tough to check and I wasn’t sure it did anything against protection monks. Scourge enchantment should work better against those protection monks but I did not think that Olias had room for both spells.

I used a superior rune of death and a bloodstained insignia to give Olias ranks 16 in death magic, 10 in soul reaping and 9 in smiting prayers. Other than that he used minion master’s insignias and runes of attunement.

His code was OANDUsleOxsqwVQPgH2HtkqK.

Minion Master/Rit hybrid (Livia) N/Rt

Jagged bones (Death)
Verata’s Gaze (Death)
Animate Bone Minions (Death)
Rip enchantment (Curses)
Shadowsong (Communing)
Pain (Communing)
Anguish (Communing)
Signet of Lost Souls (Soul Reaping)

I found that Livia used Jagged bones on both Olias’s minions as well as her own. There was duplication between Livia and Olias in using Animate Bone Minions on the same corpse and Verata’s gaze in turning minions but, with these two, the team managed to keep between 10 and 20 minions virtually all of the time in the dungeon. The team always had more minions than the dwarves. Livia used rip enchantment to help when you have the protection monk dwarves (“Defenders”) using enchantments and it seemed to work. The spirits really help too but especially when you need to accumulate minions.


I used a superior rune of death and a bloodstained insignia to give Livia ranks 16 in death magic, 10 in soul reaping, 5 in curses and 9 in communing. Other than that she used minion master’s insignias and runes of attunement.

Livia’s code was OAhkUwG4RBmzS9KUF2dntvZOuqC.

Spirit spammer (Xandra) Rt/Mo

Signet of Spirits (Channeling)
Agony (Channeling)
Bloodsong (Channeling)
Painful Bond (Channeling)
Splinter Weapon (Channeling)
Mend Body and Soul (Restoration)
Spirit Siphon (Channeling)
Remove Hex (Monk general)

The 6 spirits created plus Painful Bond seemed to do a lot of damage and were essential in those spots when the minion masters have no minions. It was difficult to see whether Livia cast Splinter Weapon properly but it was used and the idea was to create problems for clustered foes both through area of effect damage and to spread burning amongst the dwarves. Mend Body and Soul is an important condition remover for the team. Together with Lina’s skill “Dismiss Condition” that seemed to be enough.

Like Olias, Xandra had Remove Hex which meant that, with Lina’s “Deny Hexes”, the team had 3 hex removers. This is important in this dungeon.

Henchmen

Herta is critical. She has Ward against Melee and Ward against Elements. With fast moving melee fighters common in the dungeon and with all physical damage converted to fire damage, everyone in the Wards had +24 armor protection and block melee attacks 50% of the time. Together with Livia’s Shadowsong, which will blind some of the melee attackers, their effectiveness is reduced considerably.

The two monks are also key as nobody else has any direct healing skills.

Aidan is probably optional but was chosen as I thought he would most benefit, like the minions, from spirit of Greater Conflagration, Mark of Rodgort and Splinter Weapon. I did not want a melee fighter as they would almost certainly move out of Herta’s Wards.

The Dungeon

Level 1

Get the quest from Molenin in Umbral Grotto. Enter the dungeon from Vlox Falls and you’ll miss out half of the first level. Luckily you don’t have to fight the dwarves first. You’ll meet a group of 7 Skelk Corrupters (Necro hexers), Rampagers (Warriors) and Slashers (Assassins). But treat them with respect as you are not at full strength without your minions. Move to the limit of their patrol range and cast Greater Conflagration as well as the hero spirits. When the patrol comes into your agro bubble, they will attack and you just cast Mark of Rodgort and Pain Inverter on the nearest foe. Use Finish Him on dying foes and they should all go down without you incurring any death penalty. These tactics are applicable to fights where you have no minions.

You should pick up between 5 and 10 minions. Move east through the arch and past a shrine. You will find 3 groups of 3 dwarves. Each of these groups is easy. After defeating them all, you will probably have between 15 and 20 minions.

To the east of the cave are 6 dwarves including Taskmaster Durgon. There is a group behind this 6 who are handling the Dredge Slaves. Wait for them to leave to the South East. Get your agro bubble close to the nearest dwarf. Cast Spirit of Conflagration, Frozen Soil and all the hero spirits. Then cast Ebon Standard of Honour. Cast Mark of Rodgort and Pain Inverter on the closest dwarf – usually a Carver. He and his mates will rush to you and will be met by your minions. The Carver will suffer massive damage from the minions, the spirits and the burning. When he’s lost half his health, cast Finish Him and he’ll die quickly even if his healers try to help. Then you target the next melee fighter - probably Taskmaster Durgon. Usually I found that he was significantly damaged and could be finished off with Fire Storm and Finish Him. The rest will then go down easily. You should then have between 15 and 20 minions. These tactics are applicable to all fights with a balance between melee fighters and casters when you don’t have to lure.

Go South East and you will come to a tunnel with a mob of 8 casters. This is your first tough fight. They have a minion master and a number of resurrection skills. Firstly, identify the Warder and put him into your targeting box. The Warder is an elementalist and deals nasty area of effect damage which can decimate your minion army. He is also the easiest to kill. Watch how the patrol moves. You will usually see a Contaminator (Necro hexer) at the front wandering about but it does not really matter which type. Watch him move to the limit of his patrol range, then when he moves away, move your agro bubble to the limit of his patrol range.

Cast Frozen Soil and Spirit of Conflagration. Cast all the hero spirits that have more than 60 seconds’ duration. When the lead dwarf comes into your aggro bubble, they will all rush towards you and the minions will meet them demanding pretty much all the dwarf attention. Cast Ebon Standard of Honour but keep focused on the Warder and, when he stops moving, cast Pain Inverter. In seconds, he will cast an area of effect skill on your minions and commit suicide. You are now a team of 8 versus their team of 7. Turn your target to the lead dwarf. Cast Mark of Rodgort, Fire Storm and Finish Him and he should be dead. You are now a team of 8 against 6 and the rest should go down easily. You will probably lose minions but a minion army of around 10 is enough to complete the first level. These tactics are applicable to all fights against mobs which are predominantly casters.

Move further South East and flag your heroes an agro bubble away from the arch. Cast Greater Conflagration and Frozen Soil. Past the arch are two mobs of 6 dwarves each. The fight is easy as long as you do not agro both groups. Watch how the groups move and leave the left hand mob alone. Watch that sometimes a single characteur from the left hand side will move to the right. Wait until he returns back to the left. Wait until a melee fighter or a healer from the right hand side comes towards the arch, agro him, run back to your team and cast Ebon Standard of Honour. The right hand mob will follow. The minions will engage the dwarves and you cast Mark of Rodgort and Pain Inverter on the lead dwarf. You should win the fight easily. You can ignore the left hand group and walk through the portal to level 2.

Level 2

Build minions

You are at the top of the stairs with a mob at the bottom. This is a dangerous time as you have no minions. Wait for the mob to move right and go to near the bottom of the stairs so that when they return they will walk into your agro bubble. Cast Frozen Soil and Greater Conflagration and all the hero spirits with more than 60 seconds duration. When the dwarves attack cast Ebon Standard of Honour, Pain Inverter and Mark of Rodgort on the lead melee dwarf. He will usually get stuck with the spirits and Fire Storm followed by Finish Him will finish him off. Once you have killed one, the others should go down easily enough but be sure to maintain Frozen Soil and Spirit of Conflagration.

Pick up the key and move right to open a large door.

Turn left and you will have a mob of about 8 dwarves of melee fighters and casters which you should be able to handle relatively easily as you did with Taskmaster Durgon .Then there are 3 which you should lure to avoid taking them with another mob of 8. Then you turn right and take the larger mob with the same tactics as you used in starting level 2. These are relatively easy fights as long as you don’t take two groups at a time.

Oozes

You then need to go through the sewers and will meet lots of popup Oozes. This build is not ideal for Oozes as they do not create corpses and have a large number of area of effect skills. Luckily there aren’t that many of them. Flag your team at the opening of the sewers and lure the Oozes – as few at a time as possible – to your team and they will go down. The Oozes spawn at two points. When the first group is killed flag the team a little further forward. Then kill the second group the same way. You will probably end the Ooze section with no minions and one of the team may have manageable death penalty. At the end of the sewers, there are 4 dwarves. Flag your team at the end of the sewers, get the spirits all fired up and lure the dwarves into the trap. They won’t last long.

Open the door and there will be 3 dwarves which are easy. There may be another patrol of 6 which you should only fight if necessary but they are easy. Then turn left and fight some more skelks. If you go right you will go in a loop back to the same place via a boss spider Zalnax. Leave this area alone as, if you lose minions and suffer death penalty later, you can come back and recover both by vanquishing this area.


Taskmaster Krug

You will then come to a mob of 10 dwarves including Taskmaster Krug at the top of some stairs with a group of slaves. Use the same tactics used with Taskmaster Durgon to defeat this mob except you must cast Frozen Soil as well as the other spirits. Most of the time you will manage this without incurring death penalty but it’s not an easy fight. The key is to ensure your spirits are all ready before the mob engages and make sure you maintain Frozen Soil. Go through the door and kill a few more dwarves one large group and one small group taking care not to agro them both.

You’ll then face a pool of water with a mob of 8 the other side. This mob consists mainly of casters and has a height advantage but will usually be located to either the right or the left of the path. Approach the mob from the side opposite their location to minimize their height advantage and then use the same tactics you used on the mob of casters in Level 1. The Warder goes down first and with luck most of the group will be surrounded by minions. Cast Fire Storm on the group, Pain Inverter on the Contaminator and Finish Him on anyone with less than 50% health. You’ve already got Mark of Rodgort going so most will be burning. You should win this fight but make sure you keep Frozen Soil alive.

Go up the hill and you’ll see 4 archers. Leave them. You’ll also see two patrols of 3 and 6 dwarves respectively. The key is not to take both of these two mobs at the same time. Flag your team at the bottom of the stairs leading to this area (“Flag Point A”). Use the same tactics you used when luring the mob at the end of Level 1. Lure the larger of the two mobs when the 3 are furthest from you and the 6 are closest. . When they are down, lure the mob of 3 and repeat. Then go up the stairs and take the 4 archers ensuring that your minions take all the archers damage. If they are allowed to focus on one of the party, they can be dangerous. Go South East, defeat the group of 4 and open the door.

Taskmaster Bellok

You will see in big room a group of around 10 dwarves including Taskmaster Bellok with some slaves. This is the most difficult fight in the dungeon and deserves most care. Do not fight him at the top of the stairs as, if your party suffers a wipe out, you will be resurrected by the nearby shrine and will be dead again quickly. Flag your team back at Flag Point A defined in the previous paragraph. At Flag Point A, cast Frozen Soil and Conflagration and get all spirits with more than 60 seconds’ duration fired up. Go back to the top of the stairs leading down to Bellok and, using a bow, agro any melee fighter in the group. You have a height advantage so you don’t need to get close. Then run back to your team at Flag Point A and most of Bellok’s group will follow you. You then cast Ebon Standard of Honour, Mark of Rodgort and Fire Storm on the lead melee fighter. Use Pain Inverter and Finish Him as appropriate. Your minions and spirits will do the rest and one by one they should all go down. Make sure you keep Frozen Soil going so they can’t resurrect anyone. This is possibly the most difficult fight in the dungeon.

Rest of the dungeon

You should have got this far with each of your team having less than 15% DP. If so, you will find the rest of the dungeon easy. Make sure you put Pain Inverter on the Ancient Effigies and make sure at the end that you target Zoldark’s minions and ignore Zoldark. He’ll go down by losing health when he resurrects his minions.

If you’re not an Elementalist, you can adapt this approach to find a way through. I would guess that a Curses Necro or Domination Mesmer with Ranger as secondary for Frozen Soil would work just as well.

You’ll be fine. Good luck and I’d love to know how you get on, suggestions for improving the team or a different approach that worked for you.

Mythryr Took

pretty good guide - when ive done this with 2 humans and heroes ive always taken a spellbreaker monk (i play melee 90% of the time). I basically tank with spellbreaker on me while rest of the group kills, its not the fastest method but it works. I also wont go after their casters at the back till their minions are dead since they will run rampant on my team

Not 100% sure on conflag though since that wont allow use of barbs/mark of pain which is better than burning imo Spirits & Scourge Healing look like a good ideas though - only thing i could see lacking is prot spirit (not sure if the monk henchmen have it) but i would have to throw that on a necro somewhere

This post has been edited by Legendary Devona: Sep 14 2009, 11:37 AM

Thanks for the feedback.

I tried tanking with Obsidian Flesh with Mantra of Resolve to prevent interrupts and a hero with Balthazar Spirit for energy. I also used Sliver armor. Although I had some success, I never completed this dungeon. I found that I only had to make a small mistake and I was dead. Also, if I let my team get too near me (easy to do as I wanted to ensure that Frozen Soil was up) the dwarves would often run past me and get to my team. That always resulted in a wipeout. I would guess that as a melee fighter you are more robust than my ele.

I would have liked to use curses/blood attributes in this build but I needed too many slots for other things. Broadly I needed one and a half bars for minion master skills and one and a half bars for spirit spamming skills. Add in the requirement for hex removers and there isn't much room for those great necro hexes and buffs. As for me, I needed the ranger skill Frozen Soil so, as an ele, I just did not have room. I tried using a curses necro hero instead of a spirit spammer and found it much less successful.

If my primary profession was a necro, I agree with you that Barbs and Mark of Pain would cause more damage. I'd probably drop Greater Conflagration and put in Spiteful Spirit. But don't forget that the dwarves have Barbs and Mark of Pain too so converting all the dwarf damage to fire damage negates some of their most powerful skills.

Yes, Lina the henchman has protective spirit. Your point is valid though as I have no idea who she used it on.

I'm working on improving my team build though because, as you point out, maximising the damage output of the minions is key. I'm swapping Discord for Order of Undeath and swapping Rip Enchantment for Sundering Weapon. Olias did not spam Discord much and I'm not sure how important Rip Enchantment is. I'll let you know how it goes but the extra damage added directly and, through cracked armor indirectly - on a per hit per minion basis should give a similar effect to Barbs and Mark of Pain. Order of Undeath of course buffs all minion damage not just physical.

Again thanks for the post.

Mythryr Took

True when you are limited, minions are better. Its good to improve builds, im nearly always changing something in my builds hehe ive recently grown to love healing seed - its pretty amusing when you are tanking a mob, then all my minions come in and they get healed insane ammounts from seed hehe

Order of undeath is risky imo, alot of self damage and im not sure how well heroes use it. Death elites are pretty sucky imo though (apart from discord). Although i am tempted to switch all my discorders elites to Flesh Golem in a good corpse area just for fun.

However i do find with the change to Masochism you can lower your soul reaping/death abit and spec into a 3rd/4th attribute without losing much damage - I have a n/rt with SS, minions & splinter and he never had problems. I run masochism on all heroes - just take a n/mo with vigorious spirit and that covers up all the self damage when the necros cast.

Oh and if you are tanking, blocking on corners/walls works wonders - monster AI is pretty stupid and im pretty sure if melee is next to you and the wall is on the right they wont be able to run away. This is majorly abused in farming hehe

edit: oh i just noticed you are using superiors too - personally i dont use them it makes heroes who already get spiked easily die even more easily lol i prefer more health with possibly +60health staffs. Good staffs etc & rune setups are essential in using hero partys.. I have had to moan at Jo a number of times for not runeing her heroes properly

This post has been edited by Legendary Devona: Sep 15 2009, 11:47 AM

Thanks Legend. Love the idea of healing seed. I take your point about runes – I’m probably a bit lazy.

I've made the following changes and finished this dungeon in hard mode with no deaths and no consumables. It took 59 minutes.

1. Fire Storm (too clunky) to Blurred Vison (another hex which together with Ward against Melee make the dwarven front line and Zoldark’s minions pathetic)
2. Discord (hardly used) to Order of the Undead (to buff the minion damage)
3. Scourge Healing (could not see its impact) to Death Nova (again to synergise with the minions)
4. Rip enchantment (could not see its impact) to Sundering Weapon (to create nearly permanent cracked armor)
5. Remove Hex (thought 2 hex removers was enough) to Dwayna's Sorrow (lots of party wide healing with minions dying which offsets Order of Undead HP loss)

All these new skills were used extensively by the heroes. The dwarven monks simply could not heal their front line quickly enough.

I used the point you make on corners regarding tanking to help with the engagement tactics. So with the Taskmaster Krug fight I moved as far to the left as I could against the wall before engaging. That way, their melee fighters do not spread out as much which makes them much easier to use area of effect hexes (Mark of Rodgort, Blurred Vision & Painful Bond), area of effect condition applicators (Sundering Weapon) – and side damage (Splinter Weapon). This tactic which I also used against Bellok makes everything a lot easier.

The builds used were:-

[E]Ele/Ranger

OgJUoyVyScSID+CrD5iylxkXHRHA

Glyph of Lesser Energy
Mark of Rodgort
Blurred Vision
Ebon Standard of Honour
Pain Inverter
Finish Him
Frozen Soil
Greater Conflagration [E]

Fire Magic 9+3+1
Water Magic 9
Energy Storage 9+1
Wilderness Survival 9

[N] Minion Master

OANCUsIDStKcFOD4BOQLpqC

Order of the Undead [E]
Animate Bone Minions
Verata's Gaze
Malign Intervention
Blood of the Master
Death Nova
Remove Hex
Signet of lost Souls

Death Magic 12+3+1
Soul Reaping 12+1

[N] Minion Master/Spirit Spammer hybrid

OAhjUwGloSLVXBVBkhnNfTRbVVA

Jagged Bones[E]
Verata's Gaze
Animate Bone Minions
Sundering Weapon
Shadowsong
Pain
Anguish
Signet of Lost Souls

Death Magic [12+3+1]
Soul Reaping [9+1]
Communing [10]

[Rt] Spirit Spammer

OAOk0kho4Si01UnY5U1EGj0EzkRD

Signet of Lost Souls [E]
Agony
Bloodsong
Painful Bond
Splinter Weapon
Mend Body and Soul
Spirit Syphon
Dwayna’s Sorrow

Healing Prayers 9
Restoration Magic 8
Channeling Magic 11+3+1
Spawning Power 8+1

Then add Herta, Lina, Mhenlo and Aidan as before.

Think I’ll try a few other areas now and try and incorporate your other ideas. Most other areas don’t need Verata skills or Frozen Soil.

Anyone who still has difficulties with this dungeon can always pm me in the game and, if you're prepared to play the role of any of the henchmen, we can run through it. I've had lots of help from others in my guild and alliance and would be happy to help out.

Mythryr Took