Side Note: The main fight for the Hornburg has a number of siege ladders and grapplings hooks that hit the main walls. Disabling these takes quite a bit of time and they will be refreshed throughout the course of the battle. In downtime (especially for duos) keeping these knocked off can help reduce the stress a bit while you're away on a side quest, but it is far from necessary and for the most part NPCs can hold just fine if you never do this.
Bringing Down the Siege Ladders
Basics
On the east side of the wall, up on the tower with the catapult, siege ladders and attaching hooks will land on the wall. Orcs and Goblins will climb up and attempt to destroy your catapult and you supply boxes. This quest is relatively easy for the most part, but a bad ladder roll combined with Trolls can be surprisingly difficult.
Tips
- It helps to repair the catapult as much as possible early on in the battle before you receive the quest, just for a little extra buffer
- All ladders are held on with grappling hooks that need to be attacked (like an NPC) and destroyed before the ladder can be removed.
- When attack ladder hooks, save your AE damage for right after ladder climbing mobs get over the wall and become targetable (kill 2 birds ?)
- Removing the ladders as fast as possible will immediately complete the quest, this is best, but unless you’re on your very last ladder, they are not priority 1.
- Priority 1 is any goblin sapper carrying a powder cask. These will light multiple supplies on fire or seriously bone your catapult
- Also make sure to help out with any trolls as they can do serious damage and prevent allies from saving important targets
- Ladders are not priority 1, but don’t ever let more than 2 exist at one time or you’ll get overwhelmed
- Any ladder left over after you complete the quest will continue to spawn orcs and goblins for the remainder of the fight.
- If you screw this one up bad, they can destroy your catapult leaving you without one for the rest of the BB.
Repair the Portcullis
Basics
Inside the East Side tower, there is a doorway that will be destroyed once this quest activates. You need to assist the workers in repairing the gatehouse portcullis in order to stop the orc invaders. This is a somewhat difficult quest due to the vulnerability of the repair workers and the short DPS distance given to the invading mobs.
Tips
- As soon as the quest starts, grab a box of supplies for an easy merit increase
- You can also help to repair the portcullis winches. This may be beneficial if you have enough engineer spec or are duo, but otherwise isn’t helpful
- Supplies are in multiple areas, grab these in between mob waves
- Save your heals and armor to support the workers, hit your haste/damage buffs when a wave is coming in
- Most of your time should be spent priority targeting and DPSing any mob that targets your workers.
Protecting the Gatehouse
Basics
On the west side, there is a trapdoor in the floor that will drop you down to the gatehouse and let you fight off the battering ram. After the ram, there are waves of mobs which will stream in and attempt to destroy the door. This is a pretty easy quest provided you’re able to get the ram down fast enough, but solo it's incredibly difficult to get the ram killed fast enough to get plat.
Tips
- Get in position right away, if you can’t stop the ram early it does enough damage to fail the quest within about 30-40 seconds
- Prioritize incoming mobs to protect the workers from the Orcs
- After the ram is down, waves come pretty slowly giving you time to repair or place traps
- Use haste/damage buff right away to help DPS the ram, keep using them as soon as they're up
Winches in the Windows
Basics
Probably the easiest of the available quests. Once this activates, goblins and orcs will start climbing through the west side tower and attempt to kill the defenders, destroy supplies, and raise winches to bring up more enemies.
Tips
- Goblin Vandals will come up and then randomly wander to a window and begin winching, once they start you have about 5-10 seconds to stop them before they get a winch setup.
- Prioritize the Vandals, they’re pretty easy to kill, especially when they group up
- A few 15-20k orcs will also come up the windows, it’s helpful to add DPS to these and support your NPCs, but never stop prioritizing the vandals. For the most part your NPCs will hold.
- If a winch does get placed, this is an immediate priority to get removed. Honestly, if you’re doing things right this should almost never happen
The Final Blockade
Basics
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