The first (and easiest) dungeon in ToV is the Nexus Core. Last night the members of Torrent Knights decided to see how we could do against the zone, with two of us wearing ToV quested gear, one wearing CoE gear, and the last person wearing level 92 crafted gear. All of us were 95, but returning from various stages of the game. The group make up was:
- 95 shadowknight (tank in reckless, ToV quested)
- 95 inquisitor (boxed, ToV quested)
- 95 defiler (myself, ToV quested)
- 95 mystic (92 crafted gear)
- 95 berserker (CoE gear)
- 95 monk (mercenary)
When you enter the zone you’re greeted with a warning if you’re under the required crit chance. I just barely managed to squeak by, as did the tank. Everyone else was under. The zone plays out almost the same as the advanced solo, except harder. First you run to the center and click on the crystal, which activates the zone. You clear the center room (nothing fancy) and then a mini boss pops up. For this named you’re required to run away from and dodge his magic missiles. We didn’t have too much issue aside from a lack of DPS. The new ToV quested gear makes an enormous difference, as I was second on the DPS parse with the defiler, after the tank. We got a purple adornment and a priest hammer that I declined on so that the mystic wearing level 92 gear could get a few upgrades.
Once the mini boss is down the three remaining rooms open up. Each one with a named. We went west first, and it was probably the easiest named out of the ones remaining, but still quite difficult. The boss spawns globes on each side of the room, and if they reach him he heals. Thankfully they are % based, and he doesn’t just constantly spit them out, because we did not have the DPS to deal with these blobs. We just let them reach him, and fought him down from full again each time. A dagger for my swashbuckler dropped that round.
Next we went east. This is a very difficult boss. First we had to kite the rippers that roam the room and pretty much instantly kill anything they touch. Then the boss randomly spawns a bunch of shredders that also instantly kill anything they touch. We fought for quite some time and tried to find positions in the room where the shredder adds could not touch us, and managed to get the boss to about 30% but after numerous attempts we had to call it a night so people could get some sleep.
Still, it was a great experience, especially considering we’re hardly the “proper group” and most of us were not geared. I’m looking forward to seeing how we do once we have a bit more ToV gear.
I think the Fractured Hive Heroic is easier than Nexus because that Shredder Named is really tough.