Gulgrethor Fortress : Vanguard Dungeon Review

Dungeon:
Gulgrethor Fortress 

Location:
East on the path from Gulkar’s Encampment, a town at the south end of the island with Martok. The path leads right by a holding point for Orcs, and into the Fortress.

Level Range of Mobs:
15-19, 3 and 4 dots

Screenshots:
Gulgrethor Fortress screenshots

Overview:

1. Entrance has 15’s with 3 dots, almost all single pulls.  From there you find increasing levels, double and triple pulls, 4 dots, as well as stealthers all over.
2. Once inside the main cave, several quests are available to your right on a platform, most are chains for more quests.
3. There are lots of different types of mobs: animals, melee’rs, casters, stealthers, flying, wandering guards… very important to look at what you want to attack first on every pull- and expect at least a stealth add every time.
4. With a balanced group averaging level 14, you can get pretty deep and tackle some of the 18 bosses.  But, with a low level group, crowd control strategy is very important to go the distance and save your healers some mana.
5. There are specific undead mobs that die, releasing multiple Cursed Spirits.  These spirits can be devastating with their stacking dots, and because they spawn on top of one another, it’s difficult to grab agro of several quickly.
6. This dungeon is huge compared to the Gardens, so plan to have a way out or recall available.  Getting to the back of the fortress can take about 30-40 minutes, and that is just going around the rim, and avoiding mobs along the way.
7. Re-pop happens at a relatively fast rate.  If you sit around too long, you are going to be popped on, so you have to keep moving forward, or at least staying close together.
8. While it’s great experience for lower levels, it can take a lot of time to kill mobs, so pay close attention to where you stand while fighting exceptionally long battles and avoid the agro from re-pops or roaming guards.

Walk through:

Quests are on your right as you enter the main area of the Fortress.  You can go down the right or left side, both eventually lead down to the ramp allowing ground level access to the dungeon.  Taking the right side is a much shorter distance to the ramp, and also has a shortcut that will be outlined in a minute.  First lets explain how to maneuver around this dungeon.  When you go down the right side you will get to the ramp leading down.  Once on ground level you are facing the main structure, and there are a few directions to go. 

Going inside the structure doesn’t really accomplish much unless you are looking for a lot of the large flying bat eye mobs- there are a bunch in the courtyard.  The ramps to the second level of the structure are all on the outside.  Our group usually headed to the left, avoiding mobs, and staying farther away from the fortress, until we saw a quick path to the ramp.  Once up the ramp, its pretty easy to see how to get around.  Several patrols that spawn regularly can cause additional agro, but other then that its pretty easy double pulls, with the undead and revenants spawning Cursed Spirits (hating these yet?).  The patrols are often named (Soul Seeker and Rampage) which both drop guaranteed loot, so keep looking for them to re-spawn.  Well, now that we know how to get around…

What’s the deal with this big structure in the middle and the 4 corners with orbs, the towers, AND why are there harbringer bosses at every corner… sometimes different bosses— it seems almost random????  Ok, let’s explain the whole ordeal.  First, there are quest chains that you have to go through.  Most are kill quests, some are collection quests.  Eventually you will get to a quest that requires you to go to the 4 orbs, and another quest to gather all 4 harbringer heads.  At each orb there is a harbringer that also has a named rare that can spawn.  The named rare will take a different form (wolf, spider, dragon, etc) and will be able to be pulled alone.  

Each harbringer is different, and some have some nasty abilities like AOE poisons, so be ready with all buffs just incase.  The harbringers will have 2 mobs near them and it’s expected to have a 3 pull, although 2 pulls have been done.  Killing an actual harbringer is the only way to get the head of a harbringer for the quest, but regardless of what is waiting at an orb, you can kill it and finish the orb quest.  Each rare spawn is a guaranteed loot drop, and most of the loot is good for the level.  If the group is good enough, waiting on re-spawns is the worst part about the loot farming or quest completing. 

There is a final quest located in Martok, that asks you to kill a rare form of another harbringer, not 100% sure of his name, possibly Viliconis.  He is the last harbringer boss at the top level of the fortress.  It’s not too difficult to reach him, except for the one mid level room that has several wandering mobs.  When you reach this room, its best to pull as many mobs as you can straight down the middle and when you see a chance- head directly down the middle to the staircase, it’s a safe spot to battle whatever agro you get.  From there you can rest then advance upwards and eventually reach the harbringer.  The last harbringer is supposed to be like the other harbringers, where his rare form has a chance at spawning, but this one is a very low chance at spawning.  For this quest, you need the rare version, so be prepared to camp the room a while.

Final View:

This dungeon is stunning.  There is so much to look at, and all of it looks great.  Huge chains come from different angles… Large Ziggurat-like structures, some with towers… Several staircases, ramps, walkways, walls- almost labyrinth qualities… Walking around the rim, fighting as you make your way to the back of the fortress- you can see bosses on the ground floor- one looks somewhat like a spider, another more like a dragon, several “Soulseekers” which are huge flying mobs resembling bats.

Once you reach the back of the fortress, its difficult to choose a path because there is so much available to you.  Variety of mobs in this dungeon is at it’s best, eye candy all over, increasing difficulty with bosses scattered with no clear cut paths, and roaming patrols keep you looking over your shoulder… Yes, this is what Vanguard is all about. 

Quick Tips:

Fighting on the Ramps:
The fortress is a big place, with lots of ramps and lots of double, triple pulls, even adds.  Its important to make sure you are fighting in safe areas.  Our group found that when you are running around on the 2nd level farming orbs and harbringer pulls, the safest place to pull and fight was the first long ramp up to the orbs in every corner.  The only mobs you will find are patrols that spawn in intervals, and the mobs at top and bottom of ramp, so pulling harbringers to the middle of the ramp is completely safe.

The Short-Cut:
This saved us a TON of time when we got to farming this place.  When you enter the main fortress/cave area and head down the right side, pass the quest givers on your left, you will see a corner stone below you that you can jump to.  It’s a corner stone that is linked to a ramp going up to an orb, so it’s a quick jump to the 2nd level of the fortress.  Look at where you are jumping to, the left side of the corner stone has 2 mobs (when the walker moves to the right side of the corner stone), and make sure there is no big axe patrolman coming… then have your tank jump first.  Have him jump and run through the mobs, carrying them to the ramp that leads down ward to the main 2nd level of the fortress.  Fight on the safe ramp area, then you are ready to pull the harbringer, or move to another orb.

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