Talk:Duncan the Black

The picture is a litte hard to make out. Is it showing the monks as being completely out of range of the boss, with only the casters in range? Bcstingg 16:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Heh...even though it's extremely hard to kill this guy without mesmer, it's still extremely hard to find a group as a mesmer. Lightblade 04:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm Surprised no ones pointed out that its extremely SIMPLE to kill this boss. All you need is 2 necros (One SS one SV) 2 healers of choice and 4 other people to help those Ns and Mos get to duncan. The Necros sit in the safe from spirits corner doing their hex damage while the monks keep them alive. The other party members can /sit it will take a while but duncan will die. If you want to speed it up your eles can target the recuperation spirits to the left of duncan from the floor. Chukie1188 talk 14:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Strategies for beating Duncan the Black
Discuss.
 * Using the strategy stated above and the placements in the pic, it is quite possible to hench Duncan. One necro with SV, Life Siphon and Signet of Sorrow should be in the corner with a target lock on Duncan (Signet of Lost Souls helps too once he's below 50%). One monk with PS and some healing is sufficient to cover the necro. One other should die nearby Duncan when he's at such low life SV no longer triggers, allowing the necro to spam Sig of Sorrow. Flag everyone else to take out the spirits by the edge (if you kept your distance, the other group of spirits will not have spawned until someone runs up to Duncan). This is a minimalist setup, and of course you can add more damage-dealers to speed up the process, but it worked for me. --Thervold 18:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Great Dwarf Weapon for physical damage dealers is also nice, noh? --86.90.168.85 15:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Might seem a waste of an elite but I imagine Consume Soul would work rather well against the Spirits, even if it 0 Spawning Power -82.2.61.111 17:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem with Consume Soul is that, as soon as you kill the spirits, they will respawn again. One way to deal with them is through Swap - just have someone in your party with it, switching places with all the spirits until they're all out of range from Duncan. New spirits won't respaw since you haven't killed the old ones, at the same time you may just ignore the spirits if you place them far away from your party. This takes some time, but it makes killing Duncan a matter of time only. Erasculio 02:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I recommend Pain Inverter in 2 or 3 ppl of the party. This skill should put in the ele, necr or monk bar. With a tank, a bonder monk and a balanced party is so easy, only take care about the N-touchers before fighting with Duncan. GL to all --212.166.209.1 11:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The pic is out of date. There is now 4 group of spirits total, one located at the bottom of the stairs. Swap is strongly advised for this group.

Hex last half duration
I found hexes last half duration on him. Time for Wastrel's Worry Lightblade 17:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think all the Life Steal also goes through Duncan's Defense, like Grenth's Balance and Angorodon's Gaze. I'll test this as soon as I get a group that trust me enough to let me to do this :-/ Lightblade 06:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What makes it better is that GB and Demonic Flesh are core skills. Lightblade 06:42, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Nope...Duncan hits too hard and too fast for GB. And his health is too high.  Lightblade 22:17, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Farmable?
After you defeat Duncan and your back to storyteller, BUT don't accept quest reward, can you now repeat Duncan endlessly, so that you don't have to kill other bosses again to get to him? - Hell Nirvana 09:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

No they fixed that a long time ago. Now you have to kill all the previous bosses before you can kill Duncan again. Did i mention 3 monks, 4 Ursan Blessing with maximum rank in Norn Title and 1 SV/SoS Necro does the job of the complete Slavers' Exile in Hardmode under 1h30m? Ursan is a bit lame, I can't argue with that. But we all want Onyx don't we? We all want Pyroclastic right? We all want to have cool stuff...

I guess when you put it this way, doing it the Ursan way, It is farmable...Since on hardmode you get double the chest reward. So you have a small chance to get 4 Onyx gemstones at once and 2 Deldrimor Armor Remnants. That's a lot of money in 90 minutes. Not to mention the rare skins and greens dropping from the chest.

Additional Spirit spawns
It appears an additional group of spirits has been added to Duncan's entourage, right at the base of the stairs. This rather eliminates the 'safe' zone for casters to hit him from in the corner. -- Wynthyst 03:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Aye. As it says above by anon, Swap makes this fight much, much easier.
 * lolz, remember to sign Ryu...--Ryudo 03:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Change Drops
They should make it so that in hard mode the drops are 1 armor remnant, 1 onyx, 1 GREEN item of his, 1 random. I got a diamond and another onyx that is pretty lame for the 3+ hours you put into all the areas. Shinjinbukai  07:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If you were guaranteed a green drop they'd be worth less, so it's a trade off. I mean, Kerrsh's staff the quest reward is a great staff, same stats as Exuro's Will...and it doesn't go for beans. -Ruse 17:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the pink shield. Don't change the shield :) Pakuna 21:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Gaze of Fury
If you use Gaze of Fury on the spirits, will they still respawn or are they permanently destroyed? I notice they seem to have been permanently destroyed in other areas of Slavers -- I can't remember a respawn, but maybe we moved on too quickly for it to matter. -Ruse 17:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Gaze of Fury has the potential to agro extra groups. When Gaze of Fury is used the spirits will respawn.  It is best to use Swap to move the Disenchantment away from the person that is killing Duncan the Black.  If Swap is used the spirits will not respawn in the original location. Archangel Avoca 20:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Attributes
Are we sure he has 16 in Channeling? I think he has more since he can instantly kill a caster with 1 Spirit Rift --MageMontu 07:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't forget, if he's a boss he also does double damage GhostBear 15:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * And the Lightning damage gets boosted for the level difference before it's doubled. - [[Image:User HeWhoIsPale sig.PNG]] HeWhoIsPale 15:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Life Total?
Having a Necro constantly spamming Signet of Sorrow on Duncan takes around 12 minutes to kill him. The Recuperation Spirits at the bottom of the stairs were moved away onto the platform so they couldn't disenchant the Necro. It should be noted that the Recouperation Spirits were still in range of Duncan and provided hp regen (I believe it's either +3 or +4 pips). The estimated damage done over that time is around 54000 (720secs*75SoSdmg). Anyone know how much total hp he has? Tablett 04:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll spitball 52560 HP if he had 4 regrn... Cuz he gained 2 HP a second for 720 sec. 54000-(720x2) = 52560. --67.86.84.167 03:59, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

+4 pip hp ist 8hp/sec so its 720 x 8 = 5760    54000-5760= 48240. But doenst he have a natural regerneation? --Kerigolas 15:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * He does have natural regen, probably a firm boss regen, if I had to guess. Twam Valandil 94.209.65.245 12:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Grenth's Balance
Anyone tried it ? since he has so much HP isnt this THE BEST choice ? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:85.168.232.38 (talk).
 * Haven't tried, but i would guess if you tried while being, let's say, at 50%, it would insta-kill you, since you would receive the damage back thanks to Duncan's Defense.--Fighterdoken 00:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Grenth's balance is life stealing, no? So its not technically damage.--Ryudo 21:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

People misunderstand how GB works - the amount of damage you do to them is capped at the maximum amount you can steal (ie your max health minus your current health). So if you got your max health up to 800 with demonic flesh then sacced down to 300 you'd do 500 damage max with GB, if you had 800/800 though you would do 0. 88.212.144.188 06:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Grenths balance also doesnt "inflict" damage, so Duncans Defense wouldn't work, GB-you gain HP=to the difference between you and target, that foe loses an equal ammount Asvern 02:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Life Stealing isn't damage so it will not trigger Duncans Defence is what your trying to say. Flaming Hot Chilli  07:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * use [these] to have higher hp then grenth him to death -Talamare-   feedback  19:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Get to 8k hp and then infuse a couple of times to get to 1k/8k. THEN GB. Paddymew 19:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Additional skills?


While browsing through the skills in-game with Cheat Engine I found two skills that look like they could be related to this charming fellow. Could someone give their thoughts on these, if Duncan can summon spirits in one second and takes half damage from attacks? Even if they aren't skills on him they look like they could be related to him/the area. '''| Sounds Risky  | 01:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Accourding to the monster skills page those two skills do not exsist, did you make them up? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.234.38.234 (talk &bull; contribs) at 23:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC).
 * First, sign. Second, note that Risky used Cheat Engine, finding these skills in the gw.dat file. Since he hasn't made any pages for those two skills, of course they're not going to be in the list. Besides, there are plenty of monster skills in there that aren't in the game, like Unlock Cell. Follow the wikipedia link next time. -- Chaiyo Kaldor talk contribs 17:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Reference?
While reading | Dragons of Dwarven Depths, I came to notice to a Dwarf hige-king named Duncan. Could be named after him? 89.138.178.218 07:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Next, we find out that two of the Ancient dragons are named Paladine and Takhisis. I think that Duncan sounds like a semi-generic dwarf name, but nicely spotted. Though I don't think that ANet would name a xenophobic dwarf who locks himself up in a mountain after... Oh wait, never mind, Duncan the Black is evil and the one in Dragonlance isn't. Since, unless I'm mistaken, no high-kings of Thoradin were Daegar or Theiwar. Paddymew 21:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Yay! Dragonlance FTW! :D Nay the One and Only [[Image:User Nay the One and Only SIG.png]] 18:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

degeneration an answer by chance?
Since the great destroyer does not heal even tho its being degened be a simple monk, why not use health degeneration skills on him, he has not source of healing, damage done by degeneration is not considered damage, so it cannot be sent back, someone tell me if this might work, i also have never done this, tryin to get a group started, I JUST NEED STUPID DELDRIMOR REMNANT!!! --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:David117 (talk).
 * It may work with enough degen. I have been unable to fully test it, but i would say that, with two sets of spirits on, he has somewhere around +10/15 pips of health regen.
 * When i tried, took me 3 hours with a warrior using poison for degen (r9 longbow with zero archery, obviously) + empathy, so i would say the healing and regen the spirits provide has limits that can be worked with.--Fighterdoken 04:50, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Power Block
Easy to win with a power block mesmer or 2 you completely shut him down except defence skill (added by stamos) &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.5.223.153 (talk &bull; contribs) at 10:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC).

Degen works nicely
Doing this in HM with some friends and some heroes, they let me try degen on Duncan. I was running an A/N build with Spoil Victor and Pain Inverter. I threw in Black Spider Strike and Twisting Fangs. These were my only four attack skills, the rest of my bar was shadow walk, dash, swap and blood ritual (which I was using earlier in the level). We swapped key spirits (disenchantment, recuperation, shadowsong) away from the party and then I attacked. Duncan was dead inside three minutes - with more attack skills or if I'd been more ballsy in my attacks it would have been faster. The degen from poison and bleeding sped up the process though. --Nessarose 00:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

A PD or PB Mesmer and and a D/P Blind bot should be able to shut him down, he can no longer cast and he can no longer attack through blind, sounds good to anyone else? ~The Uz

would wail of doom work?
ok my idear is that wail of doom u could use to get his attribtes from 16 to 0 makinh him harmless is this the case?

Sure, but it only lasts 4 seconds; unless you had half your party carry it, it would barely make a difference. Also may be a bit difficult to get to him in the first place with half your party using Wail of Doom, which is a rather crap elite.
 * I'm pretty sure it only lasts 2 seconds on him. Paddymew 21:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Protective Spirit rocks this little guy
I came up with a nice strategy to beat this one and it came out to be great on HM! I went with my three friends there - me derv and 3 eles, and we took tripple necro and monk. After 'Swapping' all the ghosts out of range we all formed a small circle and placed all heros out of duncan's range but close enough to heal us. Eles started to spam Pain Inverter one after another and me in league with Olias spammed Protective Spirit on our little group. Duncan went down in... i don't know... 4 minutes? Maybe 4.5 ;) 212.122.218.135 01:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Easily H/H with BHA and swap
I used my R/A with swap and broad head arrow, but because of my inexperience there i gathered 60 dp right before Duncan. I cleared the area and used a powerstone, then used broad head arrow on Duncan as an opening shot. During the fight, i flagged them immediately whenever Duncan got a spirit rift casted. All I used was BHA, and my h/h did the rest in about ten minutes or so. They were Sabway necros (SV instead of SS), Mhenlo, Lina, Talon, and Herta (wish i didnt bring Herta, Duncan moving nearly got me killed due to her aoe spells). Also, considering his large amount of hp, I think if your party did get wiped, regen wouldn't do much for him (25k odd some hp above, dont think even 20 pips of regen would refill him in time) --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Richtofram (talk).


 * Yeah, he's as harmless as a lamb once dazed or interrupted. The most annoying part of the dungeon is swapping the spirits and the most difficult probably getting to him. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:24.78.51.88 (talk).
 * I have always wondered what people without "Swap" do here... I used Empathy + degen, but sure took a while for him to drop dead XD.--Fighterdoken 09:02, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I know first clear I did (without swap) I just brute forced him to death with a friend and 6 heroes lol. Not really that difficult a fight24.7.74.140 06:59, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Toucher
Would a toucher be able to kill Duncan like really fast and easily? I know the damage would be high if the toucher took anyway damage, but... If you had a good monk, with Protective Spirit, you could negate the damage, life steal and get past Duncan's Defense. --Warnlord 01:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well one wouldn't, but if you had many then maybe, but then you've got the prob of killing the npc's just to get to him. Mortsu 10:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Disable and recharge?
Would spells like Diversion, Arcane Larceny, Arcane Thievery, and Smooth Criminal be effective on him? Does disabling or increasing recharge even affect him at all?


 * Distracting Shot works to disable spirit rift, assumable that other skills work too. Twam Valandil 94.209.65.245 12:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * What is the disable time? meaning, are disable times on duncan reduced by any %? If several people were to bring say, Smooth Criminal, could near all of his skills be constantly disabled (assuming max asuran rank)? 68.104.204.103 07:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Signet of Binding
I wonder what would happen if somebody would use Signet of Binding on the spirits?Because they don't get destroyed.And i wonder if something strange would happen if Duncan killed them. :o Super Range Ranger 20:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

ur idea was working right after they changed singet of binding,but they kinda fixed it,now only works again Enemy casted spirits,and not all those Spirits that just spawn at slavers.79.177.130.247 07:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Doesn't work against any enemy non-created spirits anymore, such as Spirit of Portals. Paddymew 04:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Vampiric Assault?
With 0 Dagger Mastery, wouldn't it be possible to spam Vampiric Assault + Moebius Strike on him for life stealing en masse as soon as he goes to 50% hp? It should minimize the "feedback" damage taken while healing oneself. The low attack damage might also be useful in conjunction with Nightmare Weapon. Paddymew 19:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Ridiculous place
This is an absolutely ridiculous place. I've tried for 2 weeks to get help on beating Duncan in NM and not a single player has helped. The other offerings I have seen are players running HM for large sums of money. I can't even make it to Duncan let alone have a chance to kill him. I read the above and how it is supposed to be easy to do this but where are these players? I can't find a single player to help or show me. This place is so unbalanced that it's not even fun. It's like the Bison solo thing....everyone says to spirit spam it....well, what if you aren't a spirit spammer?? What about the other classes?? What if you don't have the secret builds for these things/areas, as only those builds work. What isn't the game balanced where you can use other classes or builds? Why have so many skills if you only use a few of them over and over. I feel bad for new players as they have no chance and a lot quit.
 * You'll find lots more folks doing Duncan, including in NM, when he's the Zaishen Bounty quest (about once every 66 days). Just keep an eye on the Zaishen Quest calendar. Kirbett 02:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Did him h/h hm with balanced party. Only used an armor at half of the dungeon... if you dont suck, you will make it..?82.73.136.207 02:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That said, any class can spirit spam. Even warriors and paragons. Equipping a staff with energy helps, but isn't neccessary. Build on my userpage. - Ander01 15:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Consume Soul
would Consume Soul work on the spirits? if so, you can use it + Infuse Health for some power heal AltCtrlTheLEET 18:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You already asked this on the Consume Soul page, and I just answered it. Be patient. And yes, it does work, though I'm not sure about the efficiency of your idea. --Kyoshi (Talk) [[File:User Kyoshi sig.png]] 18:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Another strategy
We tried everything we could think of to beat Duncan. (And all those ideas listed here). We thought we'd have to do it with players and tried to recruit. Eventually we came up with this and FINALLY beat him:

Primary Fire Elem to nuke us (using Savannah Heat) thru the cave / Secondary Assassin to help move the spirits with swap. Also used Smooth Criminal to disable Duncan's spirit rift 9 out of 10 tries.

Primary Elem used his energy attributes to provide for Secondary Ritualist that dropped healing and resurrecting sprints. His elite was signet of spirits which was used against restless dead, summits, and other sprints, not Duncan.

Two hero monks to heal and protect (major elite was Light of Deliverance that heals all the party without being too close.)

Hero Warrior with secondary Assassin to move spirits and keep Duncan occupied with knives that bothered with 20 points of damage but got only 40 points in return with Duncan's Defense which the monks easily healed. Her elite was defy pain.

Hero Ranger with frozen soil to keep the stone summits from resurrecting. Also elite broad arrow skill that kept dazing Duncan.

Finally two Nacros with nothing but life stealing skills, especially elite Spoil Victor.

It was slow going to move each spirit...and slower still to get Duncan down to nothing. Between my two nacros stealing at minimum 140 points, Duncan must have had thousands for my nacros hit him with life stealing spells about 100 times between them!

Again, give yourself lots of time, this is tedious and you must be patient; you can't imagine how many times I wanted to just nuke him and get it over with. So hard to stand there casting smooth criminal over and over. It wasn't much fun for the others to all play supporting roles (heal, resurrect, daze, bother) while the only ones that could do real damage without triggering the massive point damage of Duncan's Defense was the nacros with their slow drain of life skills.


 * Lrn2Sign plx. four tildes (these thingies ~ ) DemonicFahrir 10:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * All those nacros always gets me in the mood for Mexican food. --Manassas  [[File: User Manassas Mannysig.png]] 11:06, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Gotta watch that Mexican food, it'll give you the sprints. XD 98.193.237.4 22:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Simple Tactic H/H Hard Mode
I was going through this on HM using H/H.

I was running the following:



Me: Mo/Me: RoJ Nuker - Heroes: Spiritway - Hench: Healer, Protection, Fighter, Guardian,

Basically I looked up the strategies you guys posted about Swap etc. Seeing as I had none of these skills with me I tried something different:

Going the long way round onto Duncan's platform (not the stairs) I flagged my heroes in a corner just on the edge of the aggro bubble of the group of spirits in-front of Duncan.

From there I moved myself forward so I was to the right of these spirits and just within cast range of Duncan, I then proceeded to Echo RoJ onto Duncan while putting the odd pain inverter and Ebon Vanguard Assassin on him.

Meanwhile, my two Warrior henchmen auto-move forward to dispatch the group of spirits I'm standing next to, but they are flagged far enough away to not interfere with me and Duncan. The same applies for the spirits summoned by the Spiritway heroes.

After about 10mins Duncan was dead without any issues what-so-ever. I was the only one doing damage to Duncan and I was the only one taking Damage from Duncan.

See the image to the right for the radar positioning. --Lyenyo 20:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Soul Twisting makes this so much easier
Boon of Creation, Soul Twisting, Displacement, Shelter, Union, Armor of Unfeeling, Summon Spirits, Optional. Since disenchantment spirits make monks' lives hard and mirror of disenchantment is on stone summit mobs. --Life Infusion &laquo;T&raquo; 04:28, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyone still having trouble with this? Take ST rit with the build up there. Take Swap yourself and take BHA ranger and a frustration mesmer. He cant get off a single spell and take Devona to to knock him down alot.--83.82.62.210 19:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. My. God. After several dozen times trying to take down Duncan NM with my warrior and 7 heroes, this worked!  On my warrior I used Brawling Headbutt to knock him down when the heroes didn't interrupt Spirit Rift right away, and used Swap to get the spirits out of the way (nothing works if you don't do this).  On my one of my Rit heroes, I used Boon of Creation, Soul Twisting, Displacement, Shelter, Union, Armor of Unfeeling, Dissonance and Restoration (Summon Spirits is for players only).  Note that this is an extremely defensive build that doesn't need microing, which is exactly what you need for Duncan.  I brought up the old BHA build (it's archived on pvx, just search for "BHA" and used that on a ranger.  The other 5 heroes were from the 7 Hero Player Support build (I dropped the minion master for the BHA ranger and modified the SoGM Smite Razah Rit to the ST build. Now I'll see if this works in Hard Mode. --50.46.145.167 03:16, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to work - can't get past the mobs. Also codes on pvx wiki are invalid.

Another section of whining about Duncan
Mostly my problem with Duncan is how it's pretty much impossible to beat him unless you have somebody bring Swap which then makes him much easier (still a bitch though) and it's not very hard to do but it takes SO DAMN LONG to swap the spirits. As it stands, the only thing that all of those spirits accomplish is being a huge time sink so that you can even stand a chance of beating Duncan and if you try destroying them THERE'S NO BENEFIT because they'll just respawn and be on your ass again in seconds. If there was some sort of benefit for destroying the spirits (something similar to Zoldark the Unholy and his Animate Undead with the health sac) then this fight might be actually fun and somewhat balanced.

Also, if you're trying to beat him with just heroes there's no way to spread them out enough to avoid getting raped by Spirit Rift (and they will get raped brutally) because HURR DURR THERE AREN'T ENOUGH FLAGS ON YOUR COMPASS TO MOVE ALL YOUR HEROES INDIVIDUALLY. I realize now after looking at this page that I should've brought something to inflict Dazed to stop him from anally ravaging my entire party, but still, if there's any reason to ADD MORE HERO FLAGS this is definitely one of them and I might've actually managed to beat him if it wasn't for that. These complaints all involve normal mode too and I'm sure he's MUCH worse on hard. Pjwned 03:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I managed to beat him with just heroes (on normal) so the fight is definitely doable even by yourself if you just daze him constantly, but my point still stands about the spirits being an annoying waste of time and NOT FUN IN THE LEAST to deal with. Pjwned 04:17, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Read if you're having problems with Duncan's Spirit Rift
Like the title says, if Duncan keeps annihilating your party with Spirit Rift and his other annoying nukes then believe it or not but draining his energy is actually really effective. Normally energy draining doesn't do shit against foes in PvE because they just keep casting anyways but it almost completely shuts down all of Duncan's casting. My personal favorite for this is Chaos Storm since it drains 2 energy per second at ≥12 domination magic and does awesome armor ignoring damage to boot, and with Duncan just sitting there most of the time (after a certain point he does run out of the chaos storm aoe but I think that's only when his energy is completely gone) it's pretty damn good against him. I had 2 mesmer heroes using this and he died FAST, much faster than any times before too.Pjwned 05:43, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know why you're making such a fuss about Duncan. At least in hard mode, he's nothing compared to the mobs you have to wade through to get to him; he just has tons of health and a bunch of annoying spirits to slow proceedings down. Here's how you can kill him with almost any team build, once you've swapped his spirits away.
 * Bring a rit with Soul Twisting and Shelter.
 * Flag your group about 2 aggro circles away from him.
 * Flag your top 3 heroes up front, making sure they all have ranged attacks, and then release their flags.
 * Attack him. Micro Shelter if necessary to ensure it's always up.
 * This will slowly but surely wear him down with no risk to your team. The bulk of your team is outside attack range, so Spirit Rift will only hit 3-4 targets at most which Shelter will negate, and you don't get overwhelmed by triggering Duncan's Defense. Your healers should easily be able to keep up, and he doesn't heal so you'll kill him eventually. Bring any other skills you deem necessary to get past the earlier mobs and/or speed up his demise. -- Hong 06:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought I was pretty clear that I was specifically talking about Duncan and his nukes and offering some advice on how to deal with it for whoever has any trouble with that part. I also don't see why you feel the need to go HURRR UR STRATEGY IS DUMB USE MINE INSTEAD BECAUSE I R SMART. Pjwned 06:25, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm just saying that Duncan isn't as big a problem as you're making him out to be. Nor did I say your strategy was dumb; I simply provided an alternative. However, it seems that you don't want to have an actual discussion. That's fine, but you may find that there are better avenues for unidirectional monologues. -- Hong 06:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that he's enough of a problem by himself to warrant having an actual strategy against him (aside from swapping away his spirits) instead of just trying to brute force him to death without any thought (which will likely get you killed) and I was posting a strategy that I found to work pretty well. I don't see how it's necessary to say "USE THIS STRATEGY INSTEAD" and post something completely different right under mine without any real reason why and especially not when it's already posted in another section up above that's very clearly visible. Pjwned 07:31, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And I don't know why you guys are going on like this, you both have great strategies, they both work and they both will probably help players which have trouble killing Duncan. --User The Holy Dragons sig.png The Holy Dragons 09:38, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally I don't see anyone reason why one wouldn't micro a Terratank hero to kill him. -- Briar    The Spider  09:47, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess I just can't see why people would prefer to make things much more complicated than they need to be (this goes for the ST/Shelter strategy above as well) rather than just using 1 non-elite skill (ideally with more than 1 person but still) that does good damage and drains his energy which results in him barely using any spells at all. I should mention (in case it's not obvious) that I'm not saying that all you need to do is drain his energy and you win, but it helps a great deal. Pjwned 17:38, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Odd behaviour with DoT AoE and Duncan's Defense
We did a guild run into Slavers last night in HM, we had broadhead arrow to perma-daze, constant -10 degen through bleeding and disease, a couple of warriors to keep him interrupted (because of daze) and kd'd, a bonder, a rit healer, SoS and a damage over time fire ele. I think Duncan managed to get about 5 attacks off and, though nobody was timing, he couldn't have been alive for more than a minute and a half. The ele was laying down savannah heat, bed of coals, firestorm, lava font, teinei's heat etc so he was getting huge damage done to him, but the ele was only taking tiny amounts of damage from Duncan's Defense. None of the bonds we were using should have reduced it by that much. Anyone have any ideas how this works? - Bramblefeet 12:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone on the talk page for the skill said that Searing Flames doesn't bounce back, and posited that it may have something to do with it being conditional damage. Some of the ele skills you mentioned are PBAoE (non-targeted), which might also be treated differently, and none of them really cause "huge damage", just lots of little packets over time (along with burning, which doesn't trigger Duncan's Defense). Could also depend on what skills the "rit healer" was using. Lots of rit skills and spirits can limit damage. -- FreedomBound [[Image:User_Freedom_Bound_Sig.png|19px]] 13:44, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, Savannah Heat does cause huge damage on the last packets and the ele certainly wasn't getting 200+ damage done to them, more like 10. Nothing on the Rit either (actually I think it was a Nec/Rit) that would account for it. I guess it's just one of those mysterious Anet things. But yeah, super effective way of taking him down fast. :D - Bramblefeet 15:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably only bouncing back the initial damage, then. Which almost kind of makes sense, because only the initial damage is targeted? Who knows. I'd hate to ask and then have them "fix" it. -- FreedomBound [[Image:User_Freedom_Bound_Sig.png|19px]] 15:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Spirits + Spiritleech Aura, solo Duncan strategy
Kinda surprised nobody posted this here yet. This works best on a Ritualist or Assassin, but you can do it on any profession if you take more then 1 human or bring heroes with the required skills. It also works on Hard Mode. Bring SoS/Vampirism/Bloodsong, Spiritleech Aura, Swap and a long/flatbow. Get to Duncan, swap the spirits away, get close enough to attack him with your bow, summon your spirits and use Spiritleech Aura. The spirits will attack Duncan, who will not move, attack or cast spells because you are outside his range. Screenshot: http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/3497/dunc.png Waar Kijk Je Naar  12:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Used this strategy to kil duncan in NM. since i was a necro/sin i used my razah to do this tactic

he only use SoS, bloodsong and spiritleech aura so it took longer. all his other skills disabled. Give Razah a longbow and afk for a couple of mins and he will kill him :)    its so nice to have a hero solo duncan with only 3 skills

Surprise pull
We were all ready to do the spirit swap thing when some of our minions or a pet aggroed Duncan while we were killing the restless dead on the platform. We backed up and Duncan followed us stage left where we hacked away at him with impunity without being bothered by the spirits and just having our healers look after us with Healing Seed. Hadn't seen that before. Cut out all that messing around with Swap. - Robdalf 03:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)