vanguard dungeon guide for group leaders and explorers.

i reposted this guide because i could not edit the other thread's post for some reason. I brainstormed bit and i think i got all the 4 dot dungeons covered now, for all levels.
lvl 8 to 12: Azebaj bee hive in qa riverbank east of khal in qalia, quests at outpost near rift. mobs are 3 and 4 dots. You can go to vault of heroes aswell. Its in se Thestra in half giant territory. Its not easy to reach: you have to fly east from veskal exchange. It has no quests. But worth visiting.
lvl 12 to 15: i like gardens of xia liu most. Go gulgrethor fortress rift in kojan, go west to next chunk and there is outpost with a tent that has quests for it. also 3 and 4 dots in here. Try out Gulgrethor fort aswell while you're there. Its bit higher level.
lvl 15 to 18: give khegor's end a shot. Quests for it are at thenwar's shield dam north of threerivers in middle Thestra. Its a hard dungeon, all 4 dots, mainstream, and very hard due to monster roaming patterns which make it hard to pull without CC.
lvl 18 to 21: go skrilien point NE part of Qalia and start the hunter league questline at the npc right near rift . it gives really nice yellow quality class armor. and involves getting some hard 4 dot dungeons. The dungeon is called Calendra's Coven. The entrance is not easy to find. Its a stairs down in the se part of the area with all the Coven cultist three dots. After you get zombie flesh for quest, give killing Calendra a shot.
The cyclops tower is worth visiting too. It is on island NE of skrilien point and is lvl 20+. The cyclops canot be target forced, so your tank needs to watch adds and roaming patterns. There is quest for this dungeon from a gnome npc that hid himself between sea and wall. Hard npc to find...
If you like a REAL challenge try killing the ant queen in the Ant's lair dungeon near renton keep. At some point in there you got to kill mobs that split in half each time you kill them. Its a real pain for a tank to get aggro in such a case, and its major bottleneck. Its a good test of a group's skills and roles though.
lvl 22 to 26: after last hunter league quest at skrilien, go to skwalra rock (fly from skrilien NW to island of skwalra) for more armor quests. there is even weapon quest in the end. All give best in slot class gear for chest, shoulder and weapon for lvl 21 to easily 35 and more.
You can go to Coterie Infineum Sanctuary in Central Qalia aswell for these levels. In the end you can obtain nice weapon. But it requires a lot mob killing, and going from here to there. You need a group that knows what to do to do this questline efficiently.
lvl 26 to 30: go trengal keep (middle thestra, northern part of continent), and maybe go for cairnsworth hall and and the other one they moved up to lvl 25. trengal keep itself is a very nice made dungeon, nice atmosphere, lot of players, and require you to always venture deeper and deeper into the fort. you can start this dungeon at about lvl 22 but there is no real need of farming here to 30. from 20 to 26 i'd do skawlra and CIS first.
lvl 30 to 36: Vol tuniel in the swamps south of wardship of sleeping moon (SE thestra). you must gain faction for celestine ward. In the end, with enough patience, you can gather class armor. Vol tuniel is really nice designed dungeon with cool mobs and nice immersive setting. Sort of sunken city in swamp.
Some people do Cragwind Ridge in these levels. You need to gather 500 slivers from mobs that don't even drop them always. I never bothered. But you DO get a red quality weapon if you have the luck of being in a group that has a player who farmed the 500 slivers. Whole group can get the red weapon, even if they did not help obtaining the slivers.
lvl 32 to 38: Dargun's Tomb in the northern highlands, Take rift NE thestra and rent fly mount and fly NNE. The quest givers for this dungeon are in a room inside the dungeon. There is good armor and a orange weapon questline in here. HUGE dungeon. It has books you can exchange for class armor.
lvl 37 to 40: Thelaseen in the eastern part of swamp, south of wardship. You can continue gathering stuff for class armor here. The setting completely different then vol tuniel and the dungeon is quite hard.. big packs of evil high elves (and even a part with dark elves!), drakes that negate armor (ouch as tank!), golems that punch you in the face...
lvl 38 to 45: Graystone (western part of thestra, beranid hills rift). This is definatly the hardest dungeon in the whole game after viirak got revamped to lvl 55. It features undead with very annoying mana drain poisons, endurance drains and god knows what more. Graystone has one big quest that gives BIS orange weapon that you can use until lvl 55. It takes a 6 man dedicated group willing to invest 15-25 hours in collecting 135 bloody insignias you collect from quests and mobs. This is a must be experience..
lvl 45 to 50: most people do swamp armor at this point in the swamp south of elani outpost (SW thestra).. it contains solo content and 3 group dungeons. One of them, mnalus lair, has the hegnerian event which rewards good items. You can also kill the prince and queen mnalus to spawn the mnalus king. The other two dungeons got a main boss as well, that has chance of dropping orange quality items. Its a big insect queen in one dungeon and a high elf(or wood elf?) prince in the other.
As group player i prefer Rahz Inkur (south qalia, central area). The dungeon is a hillfort that swarms with mobs, inside and outside. The mobs can NOT be crowd controlled. A psi can 'mirror' the mobs though.. You need a tank that knows his job for any group in Rahz Inkur. It has questline that involves freeing a bunch of slaves. This quest is commonly referred to as "RI outside" or the "deeloo quest". LOT of work around the entire fort.. But you get orange quality face mask in the end. You can get this quest in an outpost of tents, called "Deliverance". Its SW of the western ramp up to the fort. You can also try a questline to obtain a red quality helm. But this requires WAY too much work. Not worth it. The questline starts with "shadows of the zull" quest. You can get it from the majordomus in the harbor building near the coast south. You can also exchange the seering stones that mobs IN RI drop vs armor in this harbor city. See the provisioner for that, he is near some slave cages.
You can go temple of tehatamani area too with groups, this is SW qalia. Or visit Nusibe necropolis north of the temple area. But not many folks go there, since building the faction required to obtain all the real goodies is VERY tedious.
lvl 50 to 55: anything works really, especially since they removed the lvl 51-55 exp penalty for mobs below lvl 51. Mnalus lair atm is best dungeon to grind, since all mobs in there give exp AFAIK. Not sure though.

dungeons worth mentioning and worth visiting (that almost noone goes to with groups)

imanjal dungeon in skrilien point chunk. lvl 18+, its on island ne of rift.
Tomb of lord tsang: lvl 19-23 or so. Its in chunk with this name on Kojan. The tomb is nice to explore, it has a weapon quest that gives orange quality weapons. But its tedious quest, and its not always clear what to do. But with a dungeon guide for this tomb you can pull it off.
cavern of the sea hags lvl 21+ dungeon on the coast NW of khal. many people even don't know of its existence. its an unfinished dungeon from beta, but its itemized and populated with mobs. The dungeon is right in the middle of nowhere in a chunk nowhere goes to. But its VERY nice to explore. As a teaser: it involves a bar of mesmerized pirates (yes, the sea hags mesmerized them) with dancing skeletons. Really. And on top of that: you can only enter the dungeon trough a hole in the cargo hold of a stranded pirate ship at the coast.
Hillsbury Manor: lvl 21+ estate NE of misthaven in NE thestra. It is the home of Lord Talfyn, a lvl 55 undead vampire. A group of lvl 21+ players can explore rest this house. Nice to do on halloween i guess.
Achatlan Cave SE of veskal exchange. lvl 25 or so. VERY hard dungeon due to roaming mobs that social aggro VERY far. It involves brownies! If you feel like brownie smashing go here... But be prepared to get owned. Those brownies pack quite a punch.
Cairnsworth hall and castle Landsview: lvl 25. They are between tursh and misthaven, near the coast road. They got revamped to 25 so players get a chance to do the full questline to summon Karujin in Trengal Keep. The dungeons themselves are small and straightforward.
Fallen Lyceum: lvl 30-35 this dungeon is SE of veskal exchange and west of alimora retreat rifts in thestra. You can get starter quest in alimora retreat. Make sure that your whole group gets quest from same NPC, as there are two "sides" you can do this quest for. If you make group with people that work on different sides, the quests get bugged. You have been warned; you can get stuck on a quest easily. Dungeon is full of Kaon fairies, twisted trees, necromancers and other kaon stuff. It involves a talking cat as quest giver. The questline is worth to do at least once.. but involves killing spree in a few buildings with VERY hard roaming and pulling patterns for mobs. You need tank that knows his job. Its not worth your time for items.. just for exploring and exp. Worth doing once.
Zossyr hakrel: lvl 30-40, several dungeons in this chunk. its north of tar janashir in qalia, south of mekalia. This desert area looks a lot like Kansas. Quest to start exploring the dungeon is at Zossyr hakrel rift from ghost mobs. It involves paying respect to several shrines. After that quest the ghosts ask you to explore the 4 dot dungeons in the chunk, one after the other. These dungeons are jewels, with really nice mobs and huge caves. Worth to explore all, but don't expect much in terms of items and rewards.
Dazar Cave: lvl 40 This dungeon in tar janashir chunk (central qalia, estern part) and it is a beta dungeon as well. it has mobs lvl 40 inside a big cave system. Really nice to explore at least once. The entrance is trough a ravine sw of rift (got to have levitate and levitate to the opening above the waterfall in the bottom of the cave) or a well hidden entrance in the mountains south of rift. Infomapadvanced map mod shows this hidden entrance on map.
Rakshasi Citadel: lvl 41-43 (Seawatch coast rift western middle qalia, then fly to the island west.)this dungeon is ideal for an eve of "something else". Quest givers are to the left of the temple entrance around a campfire. Hard to find them.A dedicated group can finish the quests for these humanoid cats in a full eve. Its one of the nicest buildings you'll ever venture in.. Its a big oriental palace that features flying demons, beholders (yes, beholders!) and other stuff. Worth exploring at least once in your VG career.
Islands of madness lvl 42-44 NW of seawatch coast rift, on the islands north of rakshaha citadel. this is a VERY hard outdoor area due to the nature of the mobs. They attack with claws that negate armor, so your tank will need at least 2 healers. Even one 3 dot is harder then a normal 4 dot mob sometimes. The idea is item farming from bosses here. The items they drop are VERY good for their level. If you got the skill to navigate the dungeon your group can get several very good drops for each person.
Plains of anguish: lvl 40-44 nice chunk NW part of thestra with couple of outdoors 4 dot areas.. Ideal if you like undead atmosphere and killing gazillion undead. OR, you can side with the undead at the outpost and go kill a brotherhood of undead hunters in a fort east of outpost.
Vault of the hidden: lvl 42 to 46 This dungeon is a chunk west of tar janashir in qalia. Entrance is at an area with pillars stickng out of sand and a building that is half buried. Its once again a beta dungeon, but it has mobs and bosses. Its an industrial site.. It has giant drilling systems controlled by gnomes. It has golems that patrol. It has half giant mercenaries. And elementals. You can spend a lot of hours in this dungeon wit a good group exploring.. Its a huge dungeon.
Trickster's dungeon: lvl 40-46 this dungeon is in Razad chunk north of rahz inkhur in central qalia.Outpost for dungeon is somewhere in middle of desert, its NE from razad rift behind the hill you see at the rift. The dungeon is quite nice to do, but doing the whole questline is tedious, as it involves getting in and out of the dungeon like 12 times. Its a typical desert dungeon with mummie undead, snakes, daubs, flesh golems and beetles. In the end you can go to a pocket dimension with cyclops.
Xennumet: lvl 42-45 this dungeon s a couple chunks north of seawatch coast, in NW Qalia. The entrance is on an island. You need a key though to open the entrance, which you can obtain by doing a questline for gnome researchers in an outpost in stranglewater shore chunk. The outpost has no rift, and almost noone on the server has this key... But the xennumet dungeon is really nice. It has mindflayers! And you can do event in the end that involves players to use a power armor suit to kill the main mindflayer. You actually need to fly around with jetpacks, picking up bonus damage globes and other buffs to be able to kill the boss.
The entire quest process to get to this event is VERY buggy. The dungeon needs a lot of work bug wise.
Old Targonor: lvl 48 or so. The city is west of the plains of anguish rift. If your group aoe's enough of the mobs in the undeac city, a boss will spawn. These bosses drop REALLY nice loot. But they are mobs that require raid tactics. Don't attempt them unless you got guide on what to do with each mob. You can identify what boss has spawned by reading the message the undead lord shouts accross the chunk, after you killed enough mobs. You need a well geared tank for this and players that know their job.

grrr now i can't edit the posts yet again. This problem really needs to be looked into. Can you only edit a post within 15 minutes of creating it or so? Makes no sense...

Nice guide, thanks for posting it!

I figured it might be good idea to note that this isn't a comprehensive list of dungeons. I'd suggest heading over to some of the player community sites like Dungeon Guru, VG Walkthroughs and The Telon Project for more detailed information.

i would add all that information, if they enabled forum users to edit their posts a long time after they posted them. As of now, i can't edit my posts. It looks like you can only edit them very shortly after posting your post, and not let's say a day after.. Real shame, cause i thought of a lot more info to add

Great post Awarr. A lot of these dongeons would get mostly overlooked if not for posts like this. Most appreciated.

I love this post!!

It should be 30 minutes. We'll check on it.

I love the guide but finding people to do the dungeons is another story (weekends/evenings are usually good but other times...). I'd love to see a huge increase of group stuff going on though.

woot. plz change it so that you can always edit posts. I don't see why a 30 minute timer makes sense...? What is the reasoning behind that?

Should kinda be no time restrictions, if I want to come back to a post and add more info a week later, should be able to

My thoughts exactly.

Awarr, this is great information, you should help the community sites with their information too! i'm planning on running back to all the lowbie dungeons and mapping them for dungeonguru

feel free to use all my guides there, if uou list my name... can't realy be bothered. Most players come here first..

This is awesome! I keep seeing things like "where do I go after KE/HL/etc?". I tried castle landsview last night, which was fun and rewarding, and plan on doing the sea hags next! That sounds awesome.

I remember when I started and would find a hole in the ground, then proceed to invite people to explore that hole in the ground lol no quests or promises of good loot, just exploration, atmosphere, and challenging group content!

Thanks for the post! I hope it encourages others to get out there!

thx thufir. I wish i could edit my post since it has some faults and lacunes. TRICKSTER is NORTHWEST from rift not NE as guide states, for example. And i had more info to add

"cavern of the sea hags lvl 21+ dungeon on the coast NW of khal. many people even don't know of its existence. its an unfinished dungeon from beta, but its itemized and populated with mobs. The dungeon is right in the middle of nowhere in a chunk nowhere goes to. But its VERY nice to explore. As a teaser: it involves a bar of mesmerized pirates (yes, the sea hags mesmerized them) with dancing skeletons. Really. And on top of that: you can only enter the dungeon trough a hole in the cargo hold of a stranded pirate ship at the coast."

Went last night with a full group. Be prepared for groups of mobs. Only one or two come single. There are 6-8 named mobs and 1-2 bosses. Excellent experience, loot, and very challenging. It was kind of sad though, my group discovered two yellow peices! Get out there! Explore! Highly recommend trying this out! Super easy to get to and great atmosphere! I could say so much more but don't want to spoil anything.

another vote for exploring *all* content! this game has some of the best dungeons i have encountered in any mmorpg. and a coupla of 'em could compete with tabletop ones ive run as well

glad to hear, Thufir.. Coments like yours make me want to add lot more info to guide. But i still cannot

Hope you reached the main room with all the hags and killed the real fat cap boss hag.. Did you find the exit from that room too? Its hole in ground that leads to the "exit" in a cave near shoreline. Note: you cannot enter the dungeon trough this exit.

The dungeon s ideal to farm platinum coins at lvl 20-26 or more while still getting exp in group. Most people farm the ksavari gulch bosses at this lvl.. GO GROTTO OF SEA HAGS instead for plat coin. Mobs and bosses repop in 10 minutes or less, and the cap boss is surrounded by 100 lvl 24 5 dot mobs. Very good exp and coins to be had here.

any update on making it possible to edit posts any time, instead of 30 minutes? I'd love to add info to the guide, but I can't