Varden Dawngrasp Task #9

Task requires dealing 200 damage with Ice Lance, Ice Lance only deals damage if the target is already frozen and frozen thaws at the end of each turn. What’s the best way to combo this to complete the task?

Edit: I managed with Verden, Xyrell, and Lich King. On the boss of Barrens 5, Sunwalker Proudhoof. Killed the two extra guys. Waited for the boss to attack, used Taunt/Freeze on Lich King since it freezes until the end of the next turn then used Ice Lance next turn. Used Xyrell to heal Proudhoof so I could keep attacking. Tedious but doable.

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Another possibility would be to use Jaina’s Water Elementals (the Taunt’s pretty useless for this, but you can ust have them attack). Unless I misremembered their attack speed.

Water Elemental is what a lot of people suggested, but I found Lich King’s to be easier to time since it lasts until the next round. Wit water Elemental you have to hope an enemy will attack before your Lance hits.

From what I remember their attack speed is 5 (but once again, I could misremember this, only played 1 day), equal to Ice Lance. So if you’d first order the Water Elemental to attack and then order Varden to use Ice Lance against the same target, it would always work, since equal speed attacks go in the order you choose.

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This is correct and the way I completed the task.

Other than having Jaina/Lich King to combo with Varden, I’ve seen lots of other suggestions involving the Glacial Shard encounter in Apothecary Helbrim bounty (either by attacking it with one of your mercs and Ice Lancing him, or cycling through Blink Fox’ Mind Thief for its Ice Lance), using Winterspring mobs that freezes you to your advantage or fighting an opposing team with Mercs having Freezing abilities (Varden/Jaina/Lich King). But if you don’t own Jaina or Lich King and would like to skip finding the right opponents through RNG, I’ve used this strategy to get that Task done fast: having a second Varden. How?

Apothecary Helbrim (Heroic for extra opponent health).
Team: Varden, Blink Fox, Xyrella

Take out his two bodyguards while Cycling through Blink Fox’s Mind Thief until you get Helbrim’s Potion of Illusion. Using it will give you a 1 HP copy of Varden and Xyrella. Time its use so the copies won’t get immediately attacked since Helbrim can Attack (Xyrella’s Blinding Luminance to reduce its Attack to 0) or use Potion of Madness (wait a turn). With your copies: Have the two Vardens use Ice Lance, the two Xyrellas heal the damage, and use Blink Fox’s Mana Blink: since it refreshes and speeds up your moves, it allows you to do another turn of Ice Lances while keeping Helbrim alive. Repeat the cycling of Blink Fox’s Mind Thief to find another Potion of Illusion in case your Varden copy gets taken out while waiting for Ice Lance to go off cooldown and repeat. You can Equip Varden’s Band of Frost for extra Frost damage (or get lucky and find a Treasure for extra Frost damage) to speed up slightly the process.

Also, with Blink Fox, you can also Mind Thief an opposing Varden for Ice Lance (or Jaina or Lich King for their Freezing abilities) should you get that encounter along the way, but it should be faster just heading straight for Apothecary Helbrim.

So, in Theory, This is how i imagine myself do this task:
Comp: Blink Fox, Cookie, Jaina, Varden.
Location: Lord Banehollow Bounties [Normal Felwood-6]
Mob: Mad Summoner node (The Blue node, this is not a boss)
Open team: Blink Fox, Cookie, Jaina
Use the double Blink fox Setup (Link below), pump up Jaina until Frost dmg reach 75+ dmg so Varden Ice Lance 5 now does 100 dmg/shot (Ice Floes 5 does 87 dmg/shot), by killing the fish summoned by Cookie, Now that you have Cookie summon fishes for you, so don’t need to spare the Mad Summoner as a Mob Generator like i do in the Link (That setup i use before Cookie show up).
One you get there, kill Cookie and 1 Blink Fox (Only 3 Mercs allowed, Kill the real Blink Fox, keep the cloned one, because the Clone one has the clone skill you you can clone another blink fox after you bring in varden, so that you can refresh the cooldown skill) > bring in Varden > Jaina then Summon Water Elemental Atk into Cookie’s Fish, then Varden can 1 oneshot with a 100+ dmg Ice Lance. kill 2 fish and you are DONE, EZ.

What a coincidence? Varden task 9 pop-up today, i used this setup, and it took about 17 mins to be done, nice and EZ. (you only need to Stack Jaina up to 25 time x3 = 75+ frost dmg, Varden Ice Lance 5 deal 25, which will be 100 dmg output, kill 2 fish and you done).

been abandoning mercenary game mode since i can’t really enjoy fighting pit after certain update.

they also reshaped the quest and make it more of a chore lately which is counter productive to what have been promised in their promotional trailer video.

This is the right call, good for you.
As for me been grinding too much (No money involve yet), i can’t stop, if i do then the whole progress is a BIG WASTE OF TIME. So now i’m just grind new Mercs when they add more, and do the dailies task, Stop grinding task after they nerf Mysterious stranger.

Well, i didn’t play PVP (Didn’t even build the fight pit), pure PVE only, i grinded this mode just for sake of own all the mercs (F2P, ofc).

This is what is usually known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy, ie. “I spent money/time, so if I don’t spend more money/time the previous money/time was wasted.”

Have you tried comparing it to buying a big bag of candy and eating it?

Sure, once it’s empty there’s no more good stuff to be had, but you did have a good time while eating it. And it’s not like the candy was free in the first place.

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