The 9-man Deep

[Lurker Wyrm]

Last time we went down to The Deep during the free-for-all weekend, we only took 9 people with us. We could/would have beaten Kanaxai but for some reason we forgot to bring Inspired Enchant (oops). Anyways, here's what the team consisted of:

2x warriors with Recall as tanks
1x BiP necro acting as secondary tank when we needed an extra body to block
1x SS necro
2x Fire eles. One was a Renewal nuker, the other SF
3x monks. One was RC, 2 had Healing Seed, and at least 1 had LoD.

I would think it might be possible (and worth trying sometime) to cut that number down even further, possibly to 6. We could get rid of 1 monk, a fire ele, and the BiP (monks just have to be careful and not spam spells). I'd also like to try using a dervish to tank at some point. Anyway, as long as at least 1 person has a mule or unused char kept there we can go whenever we want.

Another thing to try is adding EoE to one of the chars and seeing how that works.

[FoxBat]

If you want to talk efficiency, searing flames, sans something like a ToF paragon, is pretty worthless as a 1-of. The renewal nuker has it's place. I wonder if the tank-y warriors can afford to ditch some stances in favor of more damage. Shield of Absorption is pretty rediculous and prot spirit will catch anything that won't.

For a minimal size team, trappers are possibly another option. Though oni seem to die so fast to nukes when walled. SS doesn't seem so hot in such a situation... only rather good on the bosses which generally aren't a huge threat. Maybe the SS can be replaced by a trapper, they would make a good 3rd-wall member as well, and they can fit your EoE.


I have a mule permanently parked in each elite mission and am happy to escort anyone there anytime.

[Lurker Wyrm]

When we did the run and I was warrior, my skillbar was Dolyak, Desperation, Hammer Bash, Riposte, Deadly Riposte, Auspicious Parry, Heal Sig, and Recall. In other words, I only had 1 stance and it was more for adrenaline than defense (though it is good at stopping hits). If I'm a war next time, I'll probably switch Auspicious and Bash for Shove and Drunken, and possibly Heal Sig for Lion's Comfort.

The damage from SS is pretty amazing if you think about it. If it's a-echoed, you've got 2 of them on 2 Oni that are attacking, which have Demonic Agility; a fast attack that double strikes is going to cause a lot of damage really fast.

[DamadmOO]

Both me and arctic will always have a character parked in both elite misions as well. The characters may vary but since we both have parked characters we always but back in another character.

It should be possible to drill it down to 6 members. but don't forget that kanaxai needs quite some knockdowns. Ofc the KD's will be a lot easier if at least 2 ppl bring the inspired enchantment. I think this would be the necro's or ele's.

Since the necro's are already mesmer secondary they might be the best choice. The ele's can become ranger secondary and bring EoE. I never did run out of energy problems (except within the disenchant area but i can bring GoLE to fix that problem) and you can always run dual superiours since it won't be very likely that you are the target anywhere in the mission.

With a 6 member team it will have to be something like this:
2 Warriors
2 Monks
1 Necro
1 Ele

Another thing i just thought about is that it is actually a good idea to have the necro standing in the wall when you are about to get to the area where you get all those Chaos Storms. The necro will be their primary target so the other members don't have to be kiting from 1 of them to the other. I know that as an ele i forgot to bring glyph of sac last time. But i am not sure or there is space on my bar for that skill.

However it may look interesting to try this with 6 members i won't mind to keep going in with 9. As long as we can field that amount of players that is. Ofc 6 players is more of a challenge but i think that the more nice ppl to play with the better it is. At the same time i have to add that going in with 12 is total overkill and then half of the members won't have to do anything at all