Spectral Vaettir Keg Farming

some screenshots omitted for security reasons

When holiday events come around I try to do a little farming to get some sweets/booze/party items/whatever else is dropping. In that sense, it doesn't really matter what sort of items a monster drops, all I care about is that I can kill a lot of things really fast and then repeat it really quickly. I personally get sick of raptor farming really quickly, so I looked around for some other way farm that sort of stuff.

Setup

After looking around, I found an Assassin build used to farm the hordes of Vaettir in Jaga Moraine in HM really quickly using kegs. Well, I don't have an Assassin nor do I want to make one, so I modified the build a little for my Mesmer.

[build name="Echo Shadow Form" prof=Me/A fast=8+1 deadly=10 shadow=12][Arcane Echo][Deadly Paradox][Shadow Form][Heart of Shadow][Feigned Neutrality][Death's Charge][Dark Escape][Dash][/build]
8+1 Fast Casting
10 Deadly Arts
12 Shadow Arts


[Dwarven Stability] would have been a lot more useful than Death's Charge, but I did not have it unlocked (nor do I even have a delver rank) on my Mesmer.

Weapons:
Any martial weapon with +5 energy and 20% enchant
Any req9 fast casting focus. one with +30 health is recommended. I got mine from a collector (which one slips my mind right now ><)
The Rose Focus is a semi-easy one to get.

Armor:
Armor rating doesn't matter too much. You won't really be hit.
I'd opt for Radiant insignias and a mix of Attunement Runes since you need a bit of energy to keep up Shadow Form. However, this isn't extremely important since my Mesmer was just using his regular old armor for Domination magic which had some survivor insignias and a vigor rune mixed in and did fine.

Running
Yes yes, this may be a bit annoying and frustrating, but its worth it once you get to the Vaettir. This is the path you take:



Orange path - you can pretty much avoid most monsters. If not just go ahead and start keeping up Shadow Form to run past them. The Ice Golems are a persistent bunch. They'll follow you for a while.

Green path - you have to use a permanent Shadow Form (if you're using my build) to get through this area. If you're using my build, the perma shadow form guide is in the "Massacre" part of the guide.

1. Start in Sifhalla

2. Exit Sifhalla into Drakkar Lake and hire Budger Blackpowder for 100 gold

3. Farming area

Basically, just use Dark Escape and Dash whenever you can to get there faster. Avoid Modniir as best as you can. Their Trample skill will knock you down and it goes right through Shadow Form. Also be wary of some Vaettir and Mandragor popups on the way.

The Massacre

Technically, any build can do this as long as the build can get from Point 1 to Point 3 safely and also be able to tank hundreds of Vaettir. I tried getting a similar build to work on my Monk but he had problems running there. I decided to go with my Mesmer because he can keep up Shadow Form forever. This is how I did it-

1. Cast Arcane Echo

2. Activate Deadly Paradox BEFORE Arcane Echo casts. If you activate it after, Arcane Echo is removed and you lose your chance for a second copy of Shadow Form.

-now here's the tricky part which may take some practice-
The copied Shadow Form will only stay as Shadow form for 20 seconds. If you don't/can't count 20 seconds in your head while you're doing this, I suggest you practice keeping up Shadow Form in another area before. I memorized when my copy of Shadow Form would go away (which was when the recharge line of the original Shadow Form passed the "3" in the skill bar). You have to activate the copied Shadow Form before it goes away. If you did it right, Arcane Echo and Shadow Form should be recharged while you still have 1-3 seconds of Shadow Form left. At that point, just start your chain again (ie, arcane echo -> deadly paradox -> shadow form -> shadow form) Like I said, you should practice this somewhere else before you try it. A Primary Assassin would have a much easier time doing this, though, since their Shadow Form can last longer and they can use Glyph of Swiftness instead of Arcane Echo.

3. Start aggroing as many Vaettir as you can. You can use Dark Escape to speed this part up. Since you're in Hard Mode, they move a lot faster so you won't break aggro as easily.

4. Once you've got a good amount, stand near Budger Blackpowder. If you get stuck in the middle of all the Vaettir, use Heart of Shadow to get out. Once you can safely talk to Budger Blackpowder, you can start blowing stuff up. Make sure he's targetted.

5. Just spam spacebar and F1 (or whatever weapon set you are using). Spacebar will talk to Budger Blackpowder and he'll give you a keg. F1 forces you to switch to your weapon and drop your keg. Just hit these two keys as fast as you can and watch stuff go boom. Don't worry about scatter. Since the kegs knockdown, they will usually not have a chance to even move. (note: If you need to start up your Shadow Form chain in the middle of a mob, make sure you drop your keg so you get the 20% enchant from your weapon).

(I think I did it too fast.. as you can see from the picture the damage is trying to push off my screen lol. Normally the kegs do 50 damage each but Shadow Form reduces your damage. It's still pretty fast though if you can spam kegs well)

6. Pick up your drops and kill any leftover Vaettir if there are any. I can usually aggro them all at once but sometimes there a group that wanders off.


7. Once all the Vaettir are gone, you can go into Bjora Marches and then back into Jaga Moraine and start over. You can do this as long as you want, which will probably be until you get bored or you run out of inventory. I highly reccomend having a completely empty inventory except for 1 Superior ID kit and 1 Superior Salvage kit. A single run through all the vaettir will probably take 1-2 minutes.




I was not actually hoping for any good drops, just a place to kill things really quickly for holiday drops. This place drops a lot of golds. You'll also get some mesmer tomes and glacial stones. You can use the stones to get some gloves crafted (100 stones) or sell them to others who want the gloves. After about half an hour, this is what I ended up with:

I personally like this a lot more than raptor farming (or I did once I could actually run there). It seems to be faster, too. Besdies, blowing stuff up with kegs is a lot of fun. You can even get some Norn points while you're at it. The build may take some practice and there are probably better ways to do it, but this is how I've been practicing it. Like I said, an Assassin can this a lot easier. They can run to the spot a lot faster as well, especially with Dwarven Stability.

Hopefully this interests someone else. If not, then at least you guys know what I'll be doing on my mesmer during wintersday

Heck, I'll probably be doing it a bit beforehand as well. 70 golds away from my next Wisdom title[b][i]

I did this farm during the last event, and I'm never going back to raptors. I use my sin and usually only spent about an hour a day doing this, but I would end up with 150+ of each event item, and a full inventory of golds.
Granted I left everything else, but golds and event items on the ground, but I still came out with 5 stacks of each and 100K from selling the golds to the merch.

So budger is at that entrance when you rezone from Bjora? Cool. Guess Stealthy Pammie is going to stop being a mule for a while and try this....providing Lady let's me actually play any in the next month.

Pampered

Following the Shadow Form nerf, I've been looking at alternative builds to farm this. An A/E or A/Me can still do perma SF fine, but other classes have to use other options.

Here's one I found that can farm the Spectral Vaettir just fine on HM. The build is designed to simply run from Longeye's Ledge without Budger Blackpowder and kill the Spectral Vaettir on it's own. If you want to try running it from Sifhalla, you might be able to speed up the killing by bringing him instead.

[build prof=E/Me earth=12+1+3 insp=12 air=3+1][crystal wave][teinai's crystals][ether nightmare (luxon)][cry of pain][glyph of swiftness][obsidian flesh][stoneflesh aura][mantra of earth][/build]

Geomancer's Insignia are ideal (for Earth Armor) but don't seem to be necessary (based on what I've read). Any weapon will do as long as you have 35 energy and a 20% enchant mod.

Keep up Obsidian Flesh and Stoneflesh Aura by using Glyph of Swiftness to reduce their recharge times. Maintain Mantra of Earth for damage reduction and energy. With all 3 defenses up, the Spectral Vaettir will hit you for 0 and be unable to cast spells on you.

For your damage, use Ether Nightmare followed by Cry of Pain (you don't have to interrupt anything for the damage to occur, as long as your target has a mesmer hex), and then the two crystal spells. All damage is armor-ignoring and one or two repeats of this cycle should kill the Spectral Vaettir you've gathered.

If your Luxon or Sunspear rank is poor, you can try alternate damage skills. Don't bother with skills that do Earth damage though; Spectral Vaettir have 160 armor vs earth. :p

If you opt to bring Budger, I suggest dropping the damage skills and bringing running skills instead.

Note that you can run this as a primary mesmer. Build is as follows (for attributes mouse over icons):

[build prof=Me/E earth=12 insp=11+1+3 air=4][crystal wave][teinai's crystals][ether nightmare (luxon)][cry of pain][glyph of swiftness][obsidian flesh][stoneflesh aura][mantra of earth][/build]

Timing of the enchants will be a bit tighter, but you can still maintain them with Glyph of Swiftness and a 20% mod.

-Jonathan

Forgot to add, here's where I found the build. There's some videos and stuff you can watch.

http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:E/Me_Glacial_Solo_HM

Enjoy!

-Jonathan