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Honor of the Waves Path 1

Published Jan 4, 2023 Updated Apr 5, 2023
Moe

Honor of the Waves (often shortened to "HotW") is a legacy Dungeon available in the base game. In Honor of the Waves Path 1, you will eliminate Ginva The Butcher, who is planning to kill Kodans in their refuge and erase their whole race.

While completing this dungeon you can use as well as to maximize your damage output.

Once completed, this dungeon path will reward you with:

  • 61 Silver
  • 100 Tales of Dungeon Delving
  • Experience

Way and events on the upper level of Honor of the Waves Path 1

Way and events on the mid level of Honor of the Waves Path 1

Pavilions of Meditation

Start and Way to Icebrood Troll

After selecting the path, the western gate will open. You will face 4 Elite Icebrood enemies, they either need to be killed or you need to use Stealth to path them. Kill the 2 Corrupted Ice Turrets which will only be vulnerable to power damage to advance, cleave the 2 Elite Icebrood Seers guarding them passively. Expect to get Chilled a lot here.

Lying ahead is an Ice Dragon Totem together with several Elite Icebrood enemies, but all this is not required for path completion and can be skipped. Kill them if their pressure is too high. Continuing to the right of the stairs will make you face more Icebrood enemies together with a Svanir Ballista which will knock you back with it's projectiles every second. Walk past and down the stairs to encounter the first boss, Icebrood Troll.

If you don't have enough Stealth for this section, you can go up the stairs to the left and jump over the roofs and snow mountains to drop down to the Icebrood Troll. Make sure to not come close to the patroling group of Icebrood Wolves. The short way (green) that requires to stealth or to kill the enemies and the longer, safer way (red)

Gallery of Peace

Icebrood Troll

The Icebrood troll has 2 dangerous attacks:

  • Troll Smash: A projectile that bounces from player to player, dealing semi-high damage, Daze and Weakness.
  • Stomp: He jumps up in the air and lands, dealing very high damage in a big AoE around him. Upon landing, he will cast a seismic earthquake towards every player. Both attacks deals very high damage. Dodge out of the big red AoE as soon as you see it. The seismic earthquake afterwards can be jumped.

Occasionally, he will roar to inflict Fear and Weakness on everyone around him. Killing him opens the door behind him, leading to Aldus Stormbringer.

The icebrood troll in the Gallery of Peace

Palace of Gathering

Aldus Stormbringer

After a small dialogue, Aldus will turn vulnerable, along with some Sons of Svanir in front of him. These additional enemies will respawn regularily after being killed.

The additional enemies are great to rally from in case you are in Downstate.

Aldus himself is a stationary boss. He will begin this fight with 41 stacks of Shield of Jormag, preventing him to take any damage and reflecting all projectiles. Hitting the boss will remove one stack of this buff, so you need to hit him multiple times to make him vulnerable. Every 25%, he will regain the Shield of Jormag stacks. Additionally, he has 2 attacks:

  • Frostbolt and Frostbolt Valley: His ranged auto attack, dealing medium power damage.
  • Frozen Ground: Casts an AoE under a player, ticking for medium power damage every second. Step out of it if possible.

There is a very special twist to this boss, because his Breakbar does not need to be broken in order to CC Aldus. Any Launch or Knockback will cause him to interrupt the cast of his current attack. Since regaining Shield of Jormag is considered an attack as well, it can permanently interrupted with enough CC to prevent him from getting those stacks. Guardian's is especially good at this.

Killing Aldus will unlock and open up a hole in the ground next to him.

Aldus Stormbringer in the Palace of Gathering

Port Hold and Midships

Way to Ginva The Butcher

Drop down the hole onto a beam and then to the ground floor. Directly dropping also works but you will take more damage. In the cave, there are several Icebrood enemies with Svanir Ballistas that deal Knockback and damage when they hit you. Run past or Stealth by and head to the south of the cave. Kill the enemies if the pressure is too high for you.

You will find a small corridor with red AoEs on the ground, these will Knockback when you touch them, so it is easy to get stuck in a chain of Knockbacks. Use save spots on the left and right of the corridor and head to the next save spot whenever the AoEs are gone. At the end of the corridor, you find an Elite Icebrood Hunter. Kill him and interact with the door chain. Interacting unlocks and stops the AoEs.

Blink skills are great to get past the corridor.

The corridor with the red AoEs

After interacting with the door chain, enter the next room and kill the 2 Elite Icebrood Kodan to open the door leading to Ginva The Butcher.

Starboard Hold

Ginva The Butcher

Ginva is surrounded by 3 totems, each of them giving him a boon every second, either Protection, Regeneration or Resolution. You can kill the totems to prevent him getting that boon, but they will respawn after a while. Ginva is a Ranger has 3 attacks:

  • Crude Swing: His auto attack, cleaving for some damage in front of him.
  • Splitblade: Resembles , deals medium damage and Knockdown.
  • Whirling Defense: Resembles , deals high damage and reflects. Immediately gain distance when you see this attack.

Sometimes, he will cast an AoE around him that inflicts Chilled for 5 seconds each pulse.

The Regeneration from the totem doesn't heal him for very much, so it is usually not worth killing. If you only have Power based builds, the Resolution totem can be ignored as well. If you focus on Condition Damage, kill the Resolution totem and ignore the Protection one.

Ginva the Butcher with the totems

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