Welcome to my written guide for a any/Dervish build that works for farming the following areas in The Fissure of Woe: Tower of Courage / Strength, Fissure Shore and Spider Caves.
Albeit other areas are possible with the build we'll focus on these for efficient farming.
There is a video of a run showcasing the points mentioned in this guide [ here].
You'll need at least a Zealous Scythe with a of the Dervish suffix, a Caster Weapon of the Dervish as well as a Shield with -2 damage while enchanted will help with running, pulling and balling.
The build can be found here. The usage of consumables is not needed with a bit of experience. As the build is not running I Am Unstoppable! you can not take care of Abyssals, I would suggest dropping Drunken Master for IAU and using either Cup + Slice or an Essence (especially if going for an FoW Armor run) or playing the any/Dervish Burst variant for farming Tower of Courage during Pantheon Week.
As generic knowledge, Shadow Mesmers as well as Shadow Beasts will not cast Empathy / Spiteful Spirit on you if you have a non martial weapon equiped (Staff, Wand).
Spawn Area (Tower of Courage):
- Enter FoW, pop Alcohol + Drunken Master (DM), move towards the left group (1x Shadow Monk, 2x Shadow Warrior, 1x Shadow Beast + Patrol of 1x Shadow Warrior, 1x Shadow Beast)
- Cast Vow of Piety (VoP), Extend Enchantments (EE) and Vow of Silence (VoSi), run towards the Monk with 33% IMS and sidestep left, right while doing so to trigger the foes to ball
- Once balled, start attacking the foes, casting Grenth's Aura (GA) and upkeeping VoP, EE, VoSi
- If a shadow army group only consists of 1x Shadow Monk, it will, upon recieving damage, always cast Healing Breeze followed by World of Healing, if you interrupt WoH with You Move Like a Dwarf! it will die before being able to cast another spell
- Clear the group (Warriors will stop using Healing Signet once below 30% health) and proceed upwards to the right to catch the two patrols (1x Shadow Monk 1x Shadow Beast each), make sure to ball them correctly so that both monks are hit at the same time
- There is another group straight up the hill with a Shadow Beast popup
- Proceed back to the spawn area to take care of the right side, there is a patrol of 2x Shadow Elementals coming down the hill which sometimes get healed by the Monks on the hill so draw them a bit towards the spawn area
- Proceed with the groups on the hill (2x Monk, 1x Warrior, 1x Mesmer +2x Beast popups; 1x Monk, 2x Warrior + 1 Beast popup)
- Then run towards the entrace to Fissure Shore and make sure to grab all three patrol groups there as them patroling through the area can be annoying (1x Mesmer, 2x Elemental; 1x Monk, 2x Warrior; 1x Monk, 2x Beast), focus Monks, then position at casters and YMLaD! Healing Signet
- From here on out you can either proceed to Shore and Cave or clear the remaining Shadow Army in the area (4 bigger groups, including one that consists of 4x Monks that has 3x Beast popups, pull out the Monks from their location and ball them correctly, they will eventually die, always prioritise to YMLaD! WoH / Heal Area)
Fissure Shore:
- There is not a lot to say about Shore, you want to clear 4 groups consisting of 3x Snarling Driftwood as these are the only foes in the area dropping Obsidian Shards, always maintain VoP, EE, VoSi to be safe from Doubter's Dryders and Ancient Skales
- Check the two recommended points on the picture for pulling the Driftwoods with a long / flatbow, 1. has 3 patrols coming in range, 2. has a rather static group, proceed to Cave afterwards
Spider Cave:
- When approaching Cave there are three Dryders infront of it, pull the middle one with a long / flatbow and walk towards the wall on the right to ball both Dryders.
- Once you proceed towards the entrance of the cave (before aggroing the 3rd Dryder), groups of 3x Armored Cave Spiders will spawn, aggro them while they are still a bit in the cave and ball them as you did with the Dryders
- If you did so correctly you should be able to clear a group of 3x Spiders before the next spawn comes in, the build can tank up to 9x Spiders whilst attacking one target through GA and VoP
- Once all waves are handled, dispose of the Dryder to the right of the entrance and pull the one Dryder in the cave towards the waterfall.
- On entering the cave you'll get greeted by the first group of popups / dropins, ball them by running around them with 33% IMS, there will always be 2x groups of 3x Spiders and 1x Dryder until you reached the end of the cave
The Rest:
- When leaving the cave, there are multiple groups of Shadow Army, all the way up the entrance of the Lake of Fire and the Tower of Strength areas, these sometimes consist of multiple Monks and Beast popups but if you made it this far I am sure you can handle them
PICTURES WILL FOLLOW ONCE I HAVE A MOUSE