The official Hounds of Hard Core League 6 survival guide

[spifflove]

This is a thread to consolidate strategies to mitigate the Hounds threat and to list their strengths and weaknesses. I will go first:

1. Do not abandon or get separated from your group.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

I overheard two hounds in Korthos:
hound one said: I killed an adventurer with a wooden leg named Smith.
hound two said: What was the name of his other leg?

[ekaterina]

Play with sound on to hear the howl as they prepare to zone in.

Always have a hireling if going solo.

Make sure the hireling is set to be active - that gets it to the dog a lot faster than a defensive setting.

[brian14]

Have a pet or a summon at all times if possible. They draw aggro, even if not always.

Do not stand still for long. Ideally, do not stand still at all: if you need to wait for something, walk around in circles.

I may be wrong, but I think the howl can only be heard if DM's Voice is on. If true, it is not enough to just have sound on.

[marinersfan]

- Agree running around and ranging seems to be the way to go. Having hires being the only melee seems useful.
- Your group needs to have some burst dps. When my bear druid died, I switched to a higher dps/lower survivability build. If the hounds are going to kill in 1-2 shots, I think dps matters more than 30 extra hp at level 2.
- Have voice chat and be ready to use it. We probably would have party wiped if I hadn't called one out, as nobody else in the group knew we had one coming and were going to go engage a boss fight at the same time. I called it out, everyone stepped back a few steps, one person asked "where?", then a couple seconds later got his answer lol. (this one killed both of our hires very fast)
- Don't put too much faith in pets/hires taking aggro. My first character had a wolf pup, summoned wolf, and hire and I couldn't get aggro off of me.
- I sincerely wish the champion hounds would follow the same rules as other champions (not till level 3 content). This is an annoying feature that's causing many to rage quit. I was in an excellent korthos group last night and even that almost got wiped in the collaborator as we got a spawn right after starting fight with drexelhand - 2 characters got 1-shot incapacitated. Thank goodness there were 3 in group with healing capabilities. The fvs and cleric both got dropped, bard was able to get both of them back up before dying. The non-champ hounds feel about right in Korthos on elite, however I've only seen one of those and about 5 champs.

Questions:

Has anyone found any form of CC for these things? I'm only running lvl 2/3 groups so far. Can confirm color spray doesn't work at all.

Higher level characters: can anyone say if these things get a little easier as character power increases?

[Kayze]

Has anyone found any form of CC for these things? I'm only running lvl 2/3 groups so far.

Death is the best CC.

[brian14]

Borderlands, level 1 Artificer with a dog and Byron Scoutsword hire. The hound appeared during a fight with the lizardfolk. If people are correct about hound's strength depending on the highest level in the party, this is a level 1 hound. Fey Hound had 136 hit points. Fey Hound's attacks did only 5-6 damage to Byron, even though I did not cast Fire Resist on him. It's a bag of hit points. You need serious DPS to kill it fast.

[DAVIDARC]

Has anybody encountered Hounds on Korthos Island?

[Discpsycho]

Has anybody encountered Hounds on Korthos Island?

Yep, in Heyton's Rest even. Also in lowbie wilderness; I've personally seen one in Borderlands (solo, even), and I've heard of folks finding them in Korthos wilderness

[MysticBeanSoup]

Has anybody encountered Hounds on Korthos Island?

I ran into four or five during the Korthos quests (sunny side) - in village quests and those in the wilderness area. In two cases I was solo and others in party - I recommend being in a party, but don't know if there is any scaling effects.

[Careall]

- Pets, hires, and summoned critters are almost necessary (Druids, Artys,and PMs might be the kings of this HCL)
- Party-wide DPS is important to kill the hounds as fast as possible.
--- The less time a hound is around, the fewer stacks of vulnerability everyone will get
- More hit points can keep you from being one-shot killed.
- Keep the party together.
- Quicker runs seem to mean fewer hounds.
--- Pick and choose your optional quest goals
--- Avoid entering a quest before the group is ready to enter together.
--- Don't go afk or pike unless it is well planned (survivable, but risky and often better to take the xp hit for re-entering)
- After each hound attack, pause and let the debuffs go away.
--- The hounds seem to not do a lot of damage from their element (e.g. 400% max vulnerability [500% total, or x 5] to 5 points of damage is only 25 damage).
--- The wizard caster in the next combat hitting you with a fireball for 20 damage that scales to 250 damage is the risk.
--- Each stack of vulnerability takes 10 seconds to fade, so 20 stacks will take a bit more than 3 minutes.
- The vulnerability stacks seem to be dungeon-wide (observed, but not confirmed)
--- A hound that isn't aggroed on anything doesn't seem to hand out debuffs (observed, but not confirmed yet)

[DAVIDARC]

I ran into four or five during the Korthos quests (sunny side) - in village quests and those in the wilderness area. In two cases I was solo and others in party - I recommend being in a party, but don't know if there is any scaling effects.

Thank you. Thank you to all repliers. I wonder if there is a difference between snowy and sunny Korthos? In any event I am beginning to suspect my efforts at Hardcore would even more futile than previous. (Highest level 9). For personal reasons I have to AFK without warning.

[Kayze]

Thank you. Thank you to all repliers. I wonder if there is a difference between snowy and sunny Korthos? In any event I am beginning to suspect my efforts at Hardcore would even more futile than previous. (Highest level 9). For personal reasons I have to AFK without warning.

Tutorial vs the rest of the game. People in snowy korthos can only group with other people in snowy korthos.

[Careall]

Tutorial vs the rest of the game. People in snowy korthos can only group with other people in snowy korthos.

To take that idea a step further, I expect when guild ships are up with energy resist and other buffs, the difficulty of the hounds will drop.

[Sylvado]

- Pets, hires, and summoned critters are almost necessary (Druids, Artys,and PMs might be the kings of this HCL)

To an extent, my pet and hire called a wildcat strike on the last hound I faced and hid around the corner while I fought it alone. However, as an arti I have not had an issue dealing with them ranged. I suggest everyone have a range weapon. They are slow. Also, you get plenty of warning, I would avoid dealing with them while engaged with anything else.

[Sylvado]

Thank you. Thank you to all repliers. I wonder if there is a difference between snowy and sunny Korthos? In any event I am beginning to suspect my efforts at Hardcore would even more futile than previous. (Highest level 9). For personal reasons I have to AFK without warning.

For personal reasons I have to QUIT without warning, fixed it for you.

That is why I solo, I am usually working while I play, the trade off is I work pretty much any hour day or night as required. As such committing to a group is difficult.

[Careall]

[Sylvado]

How long did it take to beat down the hound with a level 1 character?

[Careall]

How long did it take to beat down the hound with a level 1 character?

I didn't even bother. The hireling took about five hits to kill it. Enough time to set up the screenshot, but the hit after this killed it.

Edit: It took me longer to realize I wasn't dead and didn't need to run out of the quest before looting the chest. Since I didn't hear it attacking, I paused for a moment to check it out.

Nothing.

I crept over to the chest and saw the pup tangled up in the kobold traps.

[DAVIDARC]

Tutorial vs the rest of the game. People in snowy korthos can only group with other people in snowy korthos.

Let me clarify. Do hounds spawn in snowy and sunny? I am sure the answer is yes.