Mount Gunbad: First DraftFollow

This is a work in progress that will eventually be made into a wiki guide. I'm terrible with names and stupidly did not take any notes >_<. If anybody has done gunbad and wants to add/modify stuff, tell me :). TFS is supposed to go back again tonight, hopefully I'll catch the missing info.

Wot's a Gunbad?

Gunbad is a zone that is located in the north west corner of the Badlands. You can zone in via the entrace in a cave.

Since Gunbad is a zone, both Order and Destruction can enter it and there's no limit to how many people can be in at the same time. However, both faction get there own version of the zone - so there's no RvR going on inside. That being said, the entrance to gunbad is quite an interesting spot in an open RVR server .

There's also 3 instances in the zone, taking you to special bosses.

Lorewise, Gunbad was an ancient Dwarven hold, mined for it's brightore. Ages ago the Night Goblin pushed the Dwarves out and made the place their own. There, they use their stranges mushroom and apothecary to build an army of huge and deformed (more so than usual) squigs. The Goblins however, are dealing with problem from the inside - There's undeads lurking below the earth and the foul touch of Nurgle, the Lord of Flies, has been felt.

The Dwarfs and the force of Order are going back to reclaim what was once theirs and get their hand back on the powerful brightore, which they need to fight the war. The Greenskins and the force of Destruction are going there because it looks like it'll be a fine 'scrape'.

Oi! Why shoulda go dere?

Well, for one thing - it's a really fun zone with interesting visuals. And it also has great reward, both as boss drop and from the many pq chests and influence reward.

Dere's PQ and Influence in dere?

In many way, Gunbad mimics an instanced dungeon as seen in many other MMORPG, however, instead of 'trash' mobs to the next boss, you've got pq mobs. As you move inside and clear the rooms, the PQ counter goes up and when Stage II is reached, the 'boss' for that section of the dungeon spawns. You kill him, and you grab your bags.

While I don't have anything solid to back this up, I have never seen as many purple and orange bags during PQs as I did in Gunbad. I believe their occurence is higher here then in the outside world... we once got 1 Orange, 2 purple, 1 blue and 1 green bag as reward for 6 players!

Like any PQ, they give influence. Influence will allows you to pick rewards near the Rally Master, and also allows you to fight the bosses - yes, you need a certain degree of influence in order to fight each one. ALL the rewards are blue quality gear, from Basic to Elite. The main difference is the level of the rewards (Basic = lvl24, Advanced= lvl26, Elite= lvl28).

While you need massive quantity of Influence to reach elite (Basic = 7k, Advanced= 27, Elite = 62k!), the influence actually go up fairly quickly. You're still talking several hours in there to max it however.

I want ma purples! Wot level can me and me lads go in dere?

The lowest level mobs in Gunbad is level 23. And 90% of stuff in there are champion. The first Basic rewards are level 24. Gunbad is also in Tier 3, which is level 20+. So I'd say you really shouldn't go there before 20, and even at 20, you're more of a drag then a boon. Not to mention that since you even be able to use the items... it does feel rather pointless, no?

I'd suggest waiting until at least rank 23 myself.

Since Gunbad is a zone, nothing prevents you from storming the place in a Warband... be warned however, that this will kill you Influence gain as well as make the competition for PQ bags that much more heated. Also, once you reach the end of the tunnel you're in, only 6 people can zone in to fight the boss, forcing you to break up your warband. I'd suggest just going as a party of 6.

As for a party make up, you probably want 2 Tanks, 2 DPS, 2 Healers. There's a lot of multiple mobs pulls, so having more then 1 tank helps a lot.

Wese in! Dis place is da biggest! 'alp!

Yes, Gunbad is huge. It's easy (and lethal) to get lost in there.

The first place you go in is filled with Blood Sun Boyz/Oathbearers who will gives you quests and have a Healer. You will respawn here when you die. I'm not going to go in detail for the quests, since the database will eventually pick them all up anyway. Suffice to say a lot of quest around level 24-28 tell you to go to gunbad. Most quest in gunbad also reward 6k-11k xp (so, about twice the average outside world quests) and quite a few give blue rewards as well.

From there, you have 3 paths. A bridge to the west, a bridge to the east and a ramp leading down to the north.

Bridge to the East: Should be your first place to go. The mobs are between level 23 and 25, it takes you to the Goblin Lab where you'll fight the Mixmasta. You need Basic Influence (7k) to enter the Goblin Lab - which you should get on the way there.

Bridge to the West: The second bridge is for more seasoned adventurers (Squigs like flavors in their meat), with mobs between level 24 and 27. The path takes you to The Nursery, where you'll fight Glomp the Squig-Masta. You need Advanced Influence (27k) to enter the Nursery. 27k is a good chunk, you might need to repeat some pqs in order to get in.

Ramp to the North: The mob starts off at level 27, and you can see a level 33 Hero squig at the bottom. I also believe this is where you'll fight Solithex, the cause of the undead invasion in Gunbad. Being only level 26 myself, I haven't done this yet. I'm also assuming you will need Elite influence to fight the last boss.

Once you pick a path, there's no branching option really, you just move from pq to pq until you hit the instance door.


Edited, Oct 9th 2008 1:48pm by Tyrandor

Edited, Oct 9th 2008 5:55pm by Tyrandor

The West Bridge to the Nursery

Mobs in this area average 600 influence (so 100 per player in a 6 men group) and completing a PQ will stage will net you 800 to 2000 extra Influence.

PQ1 (Don't remember the name)

Stage 1:
Kill 18 Squigs

Stage 2:
Kill a Squig Hero

A very important thing to note, is that it's possible (and in fact, quite easy) to run through this entire PQ without fighting anything if you're good at wall humping.

Anyway, the 18 squig Stage 1 is easy. There's a lot of them, just kill them. Near the end of the tunnel, you'll see some pestilent tentacle coming from the ground, fighting the squigs. While they aren't part of the PQ mobs, you might need to kill them anyway.

Once you kill them all, the Hero squig appears. Much like the first PQ boss in the East wing, he didn't do anything special that I can recall.

PQ 2 The goddamn mother@#%^ing hellhole!... er, I don't remember the name either >_>

Stage 1:
Kill 20 Nurgling
Kill 6 Plaguebearer

Stage 2:
Kill a hero Beast of Nurgle

This PQ just blows honestly. The respawn rate is jacked way to high and the mobs are tough and hit hard. Wiping because stuff respawn on you is extremely common here. We were even making jokes with another party who was having similar issues.

The first thing to mention is the presence of a Champion Chaos troll standing in the doorway. He's not part of the PQ, but you have to fight him. He's not going away. He hits hard, he has a cleave, and once he reach 30%, 20% and 10% - he drops all aggro.

In any case. The Nurgling are not Champion - but they hit pretty damn hard and usually come in swarm of 8 or more (and often have a plaguebear along). The tank needs to grab the majority of those, because they will tear apart a healer pretty quick.

The Plaguebearers deserve their own private corner in hell where they will burn for all eternity. Not only is their respawn rate way to quick, they either come with 4-5 Nurglings or they come together! See, there's 2 plaguebearer that roam the area... and their linked. It doesn't matter if you pull them while they're 100 yard apart or not, both of them will come.

And I hear you say 'It's only 2 champion!'. Well, those mobs have an attack called 'Infectuous Swipe' which can hit for upward of 2k on a tank. Because it's not mitigated by armor. If your healer are not careful, a few lucky hit/crit and one of them get your tank down. With two of them? It's not impossible (we've done it of course), but it's not easy by any mean, not when your tank can take 4k+ of spike damage in a second. In short, the plaguebearer do not @#%^ around, they are essentially champion with the dps of a Lord. On top of the Nurglings, who are normal with the dps of champions. Your tanks will get a trashing here.

Once you kill them all, the Boss will spawn near the entrance. He has a lot of hp (as in, a lot... his hp bar just doesn't go down) but luckily, he doesn't hit anywhere has hard as the Plaguebearers (It was easier to keep a tank up with the Boss + Plaguebearer on him, then it was with 2 plaguebearers). He has a very big knockback ability which he use about every 30 seconds. It's big enough to knock you across the room. Make sure your tank has his back to a wall.

Incidently, if you wipe early on this boss (due to respawn), you can come back and finish him off before the timer runs out if you run pass all the PQ1 mob.

PQ3 you guessed it, no name >_>

Stage 1
Kill 30 Big Squigs
Kill 20 Small Squigs

Stage 2
Break 15 nursery pouch

Stage 3
Kill Foulmouf da 'Ungry (Squig Hero)

The Big squigs are Champions, the small squigs aren't. There's quite a few Redeye Wrangla (Goblin) in there as well, and while they aren't part of the PQ, they are quest mobs. There's also a named Goblin (Something da squig-maka) that is a quest mob. Stage 1 is pretty easy. The Squigs always come in group, either huge swarms of non-champion, or a champion with some small one of 3 champion and 1 goblin. If you're careful to only pull 1 group at a time, it's actually pretty easy.

The Nursery pouch are the big ball of gray... stuff... sticking off the floor. A couple of hit will break them and spawn a lot of angry little squig. Since they are not elite, they're easily dispatched.

Foulmouf will spawns at the north of the room, right beside the Instance door to the Nursery. Being a hero, he hits hard and also has a lot of hp. He also spew green vomit in a cone in front of him, so don't be there if you don't need to.

The Nursery

You'll enter a big circular room, with a ledge in the middle. On the ledge is Glomp da Squig-Masta. Around the ledge, are about 4 group of non-champion. Clear them all, and Glomp will engage you.

Glomp has a bow, so he'll start shooting right away. He will not come to you. So you should go up on the ledge (there's two ramp) and tank him there. Our healer stayed below, so we fought him on the edge to make sure he had line of sight.

At first, he's a pretty basic Tank and spank.

At 80%, he disappears and 3 Squig appears and rush the party. We jumped down to join our healers and dispatched them. At which point he reappears and the ledge and start shooting again. This time, he has a few more tricks up his sleeve, when you rush to meet him, he throws a batch of green sludge on the floor. Standing on the sludge cause 300 damage per tick. The Sludge will stay for the rest of the fight. He also has a 'waagh' blast which goes in a straight line, hurting it all it touches (Just don't stay behind the tank).

At 60%, he disappears again, and summon 3 more Squigs. When he re-appears, he will will drop another (2nd) patch of Green sludge.

At 40%, he disappears again, and summon 3 more Squigs. When he re-appears, he will will drop another (3rd) patch of Green sludge.

A quick thing about the 3 Squigs - they're easy. Stupidly so. This is a nice time for the healers to top everybody up, for you guys to take it slow and gain your Action Point back to full, get your moral gauge up and get your moral cooldown to reset. When you go back to fight the boss, you can unleash your morale and have a full action bar. If anything, the boss would be harder if he didn't do this. Then again, if your tank suck and can't pick up 3 mobs, this might be a problem.

Now at this point, the relatively small ledge is pretty much filled with acidic green muck. The healers and dps should be ready to adapt to the spot the tank picks to hold the boss at.

At 10%, he gets mad, become unattackable for a few seconds as he summons a HUGE squig. The squig promptly swallow him and he starts fighting you from inside his squig armor. His armor increase and so does his melee damage. He loses his Waagh blast, but he will start to periodically stomp the ground in a frenzy (You can't miss it, it raises a huge dust cloud that totally obscure your vision) - this usually the first thing he does after getting in his squig. This stomping does easily from 600-1000 damage per second to anybody standing near. So if you're a melee and you're not a tank - GET OUT OF THERE :P. The fastest way is to jump down the ledge.

The tank saddly, has to stay in. If he jumps down, he resets the boss. So the healer have to keep him up during this - if you have the Rank2 morale that increase block by a 100% (what else are you using to tank? Raze? :P) , now's a smart time to use it. He'll jump for good 10 seconds or so, then he stops. Melee can rush back up. Just be aware that you need to disengage when he jumps, and to spam heal the tank when that happens, and you'll eventually finish him off.




Edited, Oct 9th 2008 11:54pm by Tyrandor

Didn't see you write a guide for gunbad.

Slacker.

That's not Solithex, that's his herald. Solithex is a boss in lunatic decent ;p

great guide. Me and a guild group (order) cleared out the first wing last week. Just wanted to clear up that warbands dont have to be broken at the end as we took ours through the portal to kill the masta Mixa with 11 people.

after the herald outside the mixa was a joke.. He just kept asking us to play with his zaptwig or something.. what a pervert

Thats a fantastic and helpful guide.
Kudos, and Rate UPs to you.

And thank you. I'm just hitting 23 now, and looking forward to it.