Mount Gunbad Guide
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Frequently Asked Questions
Wot's a Gunbad?
Gunbad is a zone that is located in the north west corner of the Badlands. You can zone in via the entrance in a cave.
Since Gunbad is a zone, both Order and Destruction can enter it and there's no limit to how many people can be in at the same time. However, both Realms get their own version of the zone - so there's no RvR going on inside. That being said, the entrance is quite an interesting spot in an Open RVR server.
There are also 3 instances in the zone, taking you to special bosses.
Lorewise, Gunbad was an ancient Dwarven hold, mined for its brightore. Ages ago the Night Goblins pushed the Dwarves out and made the place their own. There, they use their strange mushrooms and apothecary skills to build an army of huge and deformed (more so than usual) Squigs. The Goblins however, are dealing with problem from the inside - There are Undead lurking below the earth and the foul touch of Nurgle, the Lord of Flies, has been felt.
Oi! Why shoulda go dere?
Well, for one thing - it's a really fun zone with interesting visuals. And it also has great reward, both as boss drops and from the many pq chests and influence reward.
Dere's PQ and Influence in dere?
In many ways, Gunbad mimics an instanced dungeon as seen in many other MMORPGs, however, instead of 'trash' mobs to the next boss, you've got Public Quests. As you move inside and clear the rooms, the PQ counter goes up and when Stage II is reached, the 'boss' for that section of the dungeon spawns. You kill him, and you grab your bags.
While I don't have anything solid to back this up, I have never seen as many purple and orange bags during PQs as I did in Gunbad. I believe their occurrence is higher here then in the outside world... we once got 1 orange, 2 purple, 1 blue and 1 green bag as reward for 6 players!
Like any PQ, they give influence. Influence will allow you to pick rewards near the Rally Master, and also allows you to fight the bosses - yes, you need a certain degree of influence in order to fight each one. ALL the rewards are blue quality gear, from Basic to Elite. The main difference is the level of the rewards (Basic = lvl24, Advanced= lvl26, Elite= lvl28).
While you need a massive quantity of Influence to reach elite (Basic = 7k, Advanced= 27, Elite = 62k!), the influence actually goes up fairly quickly. You're still talking several hours in there to max it, however.
I want ma purples! Wen can me and da Boyz go in dere?
The lowest level mobs in Gunbad is level 23. And 90% of stuff in there are champions. The first Basic rewards are level 24. Gunbad is also in Tier 3, which is level 20+. So I'd say you really shouldn't go there before 20, and even at 20, you're more of a drag than a boon. Not to mention that since you won't even be able to use the items/reward you'll get from there... it does feel rather pointless, no?
I'd suggest waiting until at least rank 23 myself.
Since Gunbad is a zone, nothing prevents you from storming the place in a Warband... be warned however, that this will kill your Influence gain as well as make the competition for PQ bags that much more heated. It's really up to you how many people you want to bring. Do know that it has been designed to be done with 6 people.
As for a party make up, you probably want 1 Tanks, 3 DPS and 2 Healers.
Wese in! Dis place is da biggest! 'alp!
Yes, Gunbad is huge. It's easy (and lethal) to get lost in there.
The first place you go in is filled with Blood Sun Boyz/Oathbearers who will give you quests and have a Healer. You will respawn here when you die. I'm not going to go into detail about the quests, since the database will eventually pick them all up anyway. Suffice to say a lot of quests around level 24-28 tell you to go to Gunbad. Most quests in Gunbad also reward 6k-11k xp (so, about twice the average of outside world quests) and quite a few give blue rewards as well.
From there, you have 3 paths. A bridge to the west, a bridge to the east and a ramp leading down to the north called the lunatic descent.
Bridge to the East: Should be your first place to go. The mobs are between level 23 and 25. It takes you to the Goblin Lab where you'll fight the Mixmasta. You need Basic Influence (7k) to enter the Goblin Lab - which you should get on the way there.
Bridge to the West: The second bridge is for more seasoned adventurers (Squigs like flavors in their meat), with mobs between level 24 and 27. The path takes you to The Nursery, where you'll fight Glomp the Squig-Masta. You need Advanced Influence (27k) to enter the Nursery. 27k is a good chunk, you might need to repeat some pqs in order to get in.
Lunatic Descent: The mobs starts off at level 27 and you can see a level 33 Hero squig at the bottom. You will face Wight Lord Solithex here and after that, the last boss of the instance, 'ard ta feed. You need Elite influence in order to zone in to Solithex's room, and you need to have killed 3 previous boss (as well as turned in the quests to kill them) in order to enter 'Ard ta Feed's room.
Once you pick a path, there's no branching option really, you just move from pq to pq until you hit the instance door.
The East Bridge to the Goblin Lab
Mobs in this part average about 300 influence per kill (50 each in a 6 person group). Completing a PQ Stage nets between 700 and 1500 influence.
The area starts with a handful of non-pq Night Goblin and Spiders that you have to fight.
PQ1 Mangle the Wrangla
Stage 1:
- Kill 8 Stonemaw War Trolls
- Kill 8 Blightbreath War Trolls
- Kill 8 Dreadmane Howlas
- Kill 3 Redeye Wranglas
Stage 2:
- Kill Masta Wrangla Glix (Hero)
This one is pretty straightforward. The mobs in Stage1 often come in pulls of 3 to 4 however, so be ready. The Wolves have an AE move that lower damage done and the Trolls have their famous AE knockdown and AE vomit. The goblins have bows, and they love to use them on the healers if they're not properly tanked. Ranged class should stay far back, give the tank some time to build aggro, because if you start nuking right away, you'll most likely steal aggro while he's knocked down. And that's not good.
Glix will calls trolls to his help during the fight. The summon his timed, so the faster you kill him, the less trolls you'll have to deal with. He'll either summon a handful of non-champion tiny trolls, or a champion troll. Killing them first so you don't get swarmed is a good idea.
PQ2 Kizzig's Gobbo Place
Stage 1:
- Kill 10 Snottlings
- Kill 30 Redeye Villagers
Stage 2:
The snottlings are non-champion and are very easily dispatched. The redeye goblins come in two varieties - melee mounted on a wolf (Redeye Howlagits) or caster (Redeye Alchemists). The casters are squishier over all and much like the earlier archers, will default to the healer if nobody is tanking them. So kill them first and avoid yourself the hassle. There's also a giant called Blarpot the Old) wandering here. As far as I know, he's not part of any quest and he isn't part of the pq either. He is, however, in the middle of the place and you can't really avoid him. He hits fairly hard and he has a huge AE knockback move (pull him AWAY from the remaining goblins). For many people, this will be their first 'Encounter a Giant' TOK unlock.
The Goblin hero here is a bit trickier. For one thing, he has a really badass hat. For another, he has a whirlwind type of move that deals damage to all around him. He doesn't hit that hard however, so your melee should be able to stay in. He also has a pet snottling called Chipfang Da Lit'l. Chippang is a normal mob, but he has an independent aggro table and will from time to time attack someone other than the tank on Kizzig's order. If you kill Chipfang first, Kizzig enrages and hits much harder.
PQ3 Mad Mixas
Stage 1
- Kill 30 Risen Undead
- Kill 3 Redeye Mixas
Stage 2:
- Kill Shaman Verboom (Champion)
- BEFORE 10 Night Goblins jump in the cauldron
Stage 3:
- Kill the Herald of Solithex
This is where the PQ takes the kid's glove off.
The Risen Undead comes into several varieties. There are the Deathshadow Bone Giants (yay tok unlocks!) who are... gigantic. They hit really hard (800 on a tank), but don't really have any special features. There's the pack of 3 Deathshadow undead, usually composed of 1 melee (Warrior), 1 archer (Arbalest) and 1 caster (Haruspex). Make sure the tank grabs aggro on all 3, because the archer/caster will destroy your healers. The damage output of the mobs jump compared to the previous 2 pq. Your healers need to be awake.
The room is a big circle, with a huge cauldron in the middle of it. There's a huge half-moon ramp going up to the cauldron. The top of the ramp is also where the instance to the boss is located. There's a pair of redeye fanatics on each side of the ramp, they are not the Alchemists you need to kill, but you're going to want to clear them out for Stage III anyway. The Alchemists are standing on the edges of the cauldron. They're all casters, so you're going to have to do a balancing act and go fight them over there, falling in the cauldron means taking 2k damage per tick.
Now Stage 2 is a joke. The Champion comes out of the instance door, and every 10 seconds or so, a goblin will run out and jump into the cauldron. That being said, he's only a champion - It takes about 20 seconds to kill him >_>. I've yet to even see more than 2 goblins makes the jump in. He also doesn't seem to have any special abilities (he dies too fast anyway).
Stage 3 is a scary, scary stage. You fight the Herald of Solithex, who is MUCH harder than the actual boss. The Herald will float around above the cauldron. The Herald has a LOT of hp, and he hits very hard. He also has a Cleave (a 180 degree attack), so don't stand in front of him unless you need to. Furthermore, every 20 seconds or so, he'll open up a huge purple portal in the floor, with black stream of energy coming out. If you stand in it, you'll die. If you stand beside it, you'll die (The stream of energy whip people around it). The portal disappear over time, but slowly - he'll have easily 3 or 4 of those up at a time.
A tank should pull him at the bottom of the ramp, and essentially take a few steps back every time he opens a circle, taking him from 1 side of the ramp to the other. That is why you want to kill those goblin guards in Stage 1. If you don't, you cut your moving room in half, and will probably end up fighting him at the top of the ramp, near the instance, surrounded by 3 purple circles that will slaughter everyone.
The Goblin Lab
After fighting the Herald, this boss is a push over. :P
At first you'll have to fight Krunk da Big 'Un, a giant who is essentially the same mobs you fought earlier in the gobbo village. At 10% health, the Masta Mixa steps in. He talks some trash to the giant and turns him into a giant chicken, which promptly run away.
The Masta Mixa is basically a tank and spank; however he will use 'Fist of Gork' from time to time. Two green hands appears, balls up into fist, and smash the ever loving crap out of the ground... and you if you're standing there. Don't stand there, move out. It's kinda like what the Herald does, except that it fades before he summons another one and you have a huge room to get away in. On top of the animation, he also calls out the name of the player the Fists are initially casted on.
After a while, he will let go of his Gitzappa da Stick, which will start to float around as an unnattackable target - note that it can still be hit by Area Effect, so AE snare are a really nice way to get it off whoever it decides to beat on. The stick will randomly attack people, not causing much damage but disrupting cast time... it also has the ability to stun people for up to 1 minute, while it does this, it is channeling a green beam to the target and no longer attack. This is why it's important to have 2 healers, because if you only have 1 and he does it to him, you're pretty much out of luck. So far, I have yet to see the staff attack or stun the Tank, making me believe it randomly target group member who are not #1 on the Mix Masta's aggro list.
The West Bridge to the Nursery
Mobs in this area average 600 influence (so 100 per player in a 6 person group) and completing a PQ will stage will net you 800 to 2000 extra Influence.
PQ1 Squig Crazy!
Stage 1:
- Kill 18 Squigs
Stage 2:
- Kill Griblik da Stinka
A very important thing to note, is that it's possible (and in fact, quite easy) to run through this entire PQ without fighting anything if you're good at wall humping.
Anyway, the 18 squigs Stage 1 is easy. There are a lot of them, just kill them as you go down the path. Near the end of the tunnel, you'll see some pestilent tendrils coming from the ground, fighting the squigs. While they aren't part of the PQ mobs, you might need to kill them anyway. There are some goblins in there as well, some are linked to the squigs. While they aren't part of the PQ, there are several quest to kill them.
Once you kill them all, the Hero squig appears. Much like the first PQ boss in the East wing, he's a push over. He does have a conical AE effect, but it's really not much to worry about.
PQ2 A Taint From Below
Stage 1:
- Kill 20 Oozespawn Nurglings
- Kill 6 Oozespawn Plaguebearers
Stage 2:
This PQ just blows honestly. The respawn rate is very quick and the mobs are tough and hit hard. Wiping because stuff respawn right on top of your party is extremely common here.
The first thing to mention is the presence of Bilebane the Rager, a champion chaos troll standing in the doorway. He's not part of the PQ, but you have to fight him. He hits hard, he has a cleave.
The Nurglings are not Champion - but they hit pretty damn hard and usually come in swarm of 6 or more (and often have a plaguebearer along). The tank needs to grab the majority of those, because they will tear apart a healer pretty quickly.
The Plaguebearers deserve their own private corner in hell where they will burn for all eternity. Not only is their respawn rate way to quick, they either come with 4-5 Nurglings or they come together! There are 2 plaguebearers that roam the area... and they are linked. It doesn't matter if you pull them while they're 100 yard apart or not, both of them will come.
Do not underestimate those guys. They have an attack called 'Infectious Swipe' which can hit for upward of 2k on a tank. Because it's not mitigated by armor. If your healer are not careful, a few lucky hit/crit and one of them get your tank down. With two of them? It's not impossible (we've done it of course), but it's not easy by any mean, not when your tank can take 4k+ of spike damage in a second. In short, the plaguebearers do not kid around, they are essentially champions with the dps of a Lord.
Once you kill them all, Garrolath will spawn near the entrance. He has a lot of hp but luckily, he doesn't hit anywhere as hard as the Plaguebearers (It was easier to keep a tank up with the Boss + Plaguebearer on him, then it was with 2 plaguebearers). He has a very big knockback ability which he uses about every 30 seconds. It's big enough to knock you across the room. Make sure your tank has his back to a wall.
Incidentally, if you wipe early on this boss (due to respawn), you can come back and finish him off before the timer runs out if you run past all the PQ1 mob.
PQ3 The Squig Nursery
- Kill 30 Monstrous Squigs
- Kill 20 Swarming Lil'l Squigs
Stage 2
- Break 15 Nursery Slime
Stage 3
- Kill Foul Mouf da 'Ungry (Hero)
The monstrous squigs are Champions, the small squigs aren't. There are quite a few Redeye Squig Masta in there as well and while they aren't part of the PQ, they are quest mobs. There's also a named Goblin called Kurga da squig-maker) that is a quest mob - be careful, he is a hero. Stage 1 is pretty easy. The Squigs always come in group, either huge swarms of non-champions, or a champion with some small one of 3 champion and 1 goblin. If you're careful to only pull 1 group at a time, it's actually pretty easy.
The Nursery Slimes are the big balls of gray... stuff... sticking up off the floor. A couple of hit will break them and spawn a lot of angry little squigs or 1 champion squig (it's random).
Foul Mouf will spawns at the north of the room, right beside the Instance door to the Nursery. Being a hero, he hits hard and also has a lot of hp. He also spews green vomit in a cone in front of him, so don't be there if you don't need to.
The Nursery
You'll enter a big circular room, with a ledge in the middle. On the ledge is Glomp da Squig Masta. Around the ledge, are about 4 groups of non-champions squigs. Clear them all and Glomp will engage you.
Glomp has a bow, so he'll start shooting right away. He will not come to you. So you should go up on the ledge (there are several ramps) and tank him there.
At first, he's a pretty basic Tank and spank.
At 80%, he disappears and 3 Squigs appears and rush the party. We jumped down to join our healers and dispatched them. Glomp appears on one of the many ledge surrounding the room and if you're close enough to him, he will use his bow on your group, once all the squigs are dead, he return to the middle platform. This time, he has a few more tricks up his sleeve, when you rush to meet him. He throws a batch of green sludge on the floor. Standing on the sludge causes 300 damage per tick. The Sludge will stay for the rest of the fight. He also has a 'waagh' blast which goes in a straight line, hurting it all it touches (Just don't stay behind the tank).
He will repeat this at 60% and 40%, dropping a new puddle of green muck every time he reappears.
A quick note about the 3 Squigs - they're easy. This is a nice time for the healers to top everybody up, for you guys to take it slow and gain your Action Point back to full, get your morale gauge up and get your moral cooldown to reset. When you go back to fight the boss, you can unleash your morale and have a full action bar.
Now at this point, the relatively small ledge is pretty much filled with acidic green muck. The healers and dps should be ready to adapt to the spot the tank picks to hold the boss at.
At 10%, he gets mad, become unattackable for a few seconds as he summons a HUGE squig. The squig promptly swallows him and he starts fighting you from inside his squig armor. His armor increases and so does his melee damage. He loses his Waagh blast, but he will start to periodically stomp the ground in a frenzy (You can't miss it, it raises a huge dust cloud that totally obscures your vision) - this usually the first thing he does after getting in his squig. This stomping does easily from 600-1000 damage per second to anybody standing near. So if you're a melee and you're not a tank - GET OUT OF THERE! The fastest way is to jump down the ledge.
The tank sadly, has to stay in. If he jumps down, he resets the boss. So the healer have to keep him up during this, He'll jump for good 10 seconds or so, then he stops. Melee can rush back up. Just be aware that you need to disengage when he jumps, and to spam heal the tank when that happens, and you'll eventually finish him off.
The Lunatic Descent
Mobs in this area average 1200 influence (so 200 per player in a 6 person group) and completing a PQ will stage will net you 1000 to 2500 extra Influence.
PQ1 Red Eye Stomping Grounds
Stage 1:
- Kill 8 Redeye Stompin' Giant
Stage 2:
- Kill Big Oaf
You'll have to go down a long ramp (the descent itself) before you get to the first PQ. There are a couple of goblins pulls on the way down, but nothing top difficult. Do be careful, some of them have knock backs. Make sure your back is to something solid and not the abyss.
The PQ itself is actually quite fun. You'll be fighting giants and their goblin entourage. The goblins are not part of the PQ, but you'll have no choice but to fend them off anyway. Redeye Mindmeltas, Redeye Instigatas, Redeye Oaf Herdas are the mobs you'll bump into here, along with the quest mob Redeye Stompin' Giants. The goblins are nothing special, being basic melee mobs and Mindmelta is a basic ranged mob.
The giants actually go down pretty easily and while being nothing special, the 3 to 4 goblins that are linked to every giant are the real challenge. This is a lot of mobs for a small group to handle.
PQ2 Shadowweb Spawning Ground
Stage 1:
- Kill 10 Blackfang Widows
Stage 2:
- Kill Velkyrrix
- Kill Blaz da Tamin' Masta
This PQ is extremely AE friendly - a Bright Wizard/Sorceress (or 2, or 3) will make it much easier. In this one you need to kill 10 Blackfang Widows, not to be confused with the Blackfang Venom and Blackfang Webspinner which also patrol the area with their Redeye Spida Breaka. The patrol usually comes at you as 1 spider and 2 goblins.
The Widows are mostly stationary and close to an egg that cannot be attacked. Engaging the Widow and getting to about 80% hp will make the egg break and release 5 to 8 Blackfang Hatchlings which will swarm over the party. While they are non-champion, they can still make short work of most squishies classes and can lead to a wipe if not handled properly.
The Stage 2 mobs spawn near the end of the tunnel and, oddly enough, are both only champions. There's no Hero to fight here. They can easily be tanked and defeated.
PQ3 Redeye Nightmare
Stage 1:
- Kill 50 Deathshadow Undead
Stage 2:
- Kill Arathremia
A huge gap separates both forces, archers from both sides shooting at each other over the gap. There are 3 bridges over the gap, but two of them are broken. Only the farthest one (from where you enter) is still standing.
In order to get to the PQ mobs, you will have to handle some 4 Goblin pulls - Redeye Deathblasta, Redeye Deathdeala and Redeye Mushroom Addict will be standing in your way.
As you get closer to the gap, you will notice several Redeye Plinka by the edge of it, who are shooting back at the undead across the bridge. Do not engage them. Engaging a plinka makes all the plinka on the edge of the gap engage you (even those who are so far away you don't even see them on your screen) and the plinka have the longest range I have ever seen. If you aggro them, they will shoot at you from across the gap until you get out of their range - which is massive. You literally need to Run to the other side of PQ.
So what do you do? Well, the best option is to wait for the plinka near the bridge to die - they spawn with low hp and lose hp from the Deathshadow Dreadeye on the other side of the gap. So be patient, wait for the plinka to die, and run in before they respawn.
Note that while the Dreadeye are PQ mobs, they function in much the same way as plinka - They are not worth killing (and aggroing).
Once you're across the bridge, you'll run into several group of undead - Deathshadow Knight (Melee) and Deathshadow Archer usually come together. They are a pretty standard pull, do be careful and make sure the archers are tagged by the tank, or they will focus fire on the healers.
Deathshadow Specters (Melee) usually comes in group of two... with Deathshadow Nightmare tagged along. The nightmare often flies very high above, but don't be fooled - he is linked with the spectres. The Nightmare is rather squishie, but he hits really hard and can come from an unexpected direction (often smashing directly into the healers) when he swoop down to join the fight.
As your clear the first level, you'll eventually get to a ramp. Going up the ramp will reveal a 2nd level, with a portal to the Gunbad Barracks as well as another ramp leading to the 3rd level. On this second level, you'll also see plenty of Deathshadow Construct - huge bone giants. Those guys hit really hard and have a powerful frontal cleave attack. They come in groups of 2, or paired with 2 smaller Deathshadow undead (usually archers).
The second ramp takes you to the 3rd level, which is essentially empty until Stage 2, where the boss spawns. Behind the boss's spawn point is the portal to 'Ard Ta Feed.
Stage 2 spawns Arathremia, a powerful wight. She has an ability called 'sleep', which she will use randomly on members of the party. This takes you out of the fight for 5 seconds. She also periodically calls Deceived Souls to help her. These are non-champions and can easily be off tanked. She calls them quite often however, much faster than the cooldown on challenge, so you have to be careful since your tank might have a hard time catching them all. When she gets to low health, the minions turn on her and help you kill her... it's actually rather funny to watch.
Arathremia has a rather short leash - if you go down the ramp, she will reset, despawn and respawn after 1 minute. You have to fight where she stands.
The Gunbad Barracks
Here you'll finally face the source of the undead problem in Gunbad: Wight Lord Solithex. Solithex is a really fun encounter, but it can also be taxing on the group, especially if you go in there unaware of his abilities.
The room he's in his empty at first, with a huge gong-like object in the middle and 3 unmoving construct. Hitting the gong will start the encounter, the ground will start to shake and Solithex will appears in a swarm of bats.
The fight essentially has 3 phases, each seperated by a break where Solithex disappears and summons help.
Phase 1: Solithex doesn't hit that hard and he can easily be controlled. He does have an ability where he puts a bubble around a party member. This bubble has about 2,000 hp and prevent the 'bubbled' character will take a lot of damage over time. But he can break the bubble by attacking it. Other party members can help him. 2,000 hp is not a lot to go through, so as long as dps is wise enough to switch to the bubble every times it comes up, this will be no problem.
Break 1: At 70% hp, Solithex disappears and the 3 ominous constructs in the room are animated. They are exactly like the construct in the previous PQ (down to the same name). Since there are 3 of them your tank will be taking quite a trashing and since all 3 have that frontal cleave attack, any melee dps foolish enough to stay there will get trounced in a matter of seconds.
Phase 2: Solithex comes back. This time he's added two new moves to his arsenal. He now has an area effect move that punts people in the air. Unlike Big Oaf's move, it does not cause fall damage (only the initial 1,000 or so hit of damage), however, it is not limited to a small area around him - He seemed to send the entire group flying every time he did it. This can be dangerous since it means you need to give some group healing and a well timed punt can interrupt casting. His other ability is similar to sorceress volcano spell, he casts it once at the beginning of the phase and it stays around for a long while, usually well into Break 2. Do not stand in it as it deals upward of 1.5k per tick.
Break 2: At 30% hp, Solithex disappears once again, and 4 Mourkain Pillars appears in the room. Shortly after, a Deathshadow Drudge will appear in the room. And then another... and another. They never stop coming and it doesn't take long for their numbers to be extremely hard to manage. While they aren't elite, they will be rushing all over the place and may very well swarm you. Destroying the Mourkain Pillars slows down their spawning rate and destroying all 4 eventually stops the spawn, putting an end to this break. Have your tank grab and hold as many of the drudges as possible and have your dps focus on killing the pillars.
Phase 3: Solithex comes back, and odds are you'll still have some drudges to deal with. While he doesn't add any new moves, he does add a time constraint, Deathshadow Undeads (from lowly Dreadeyes to mighty Winged Nightmare) spawn around room and start to slowly shambling toward the middle. Those guys are champions, and you need finish off Solithex before they join the fight, or you will be crushed under an unending wave of champion.
Upon killing Solithex any remaining Drudge and Deathshadow undeads disappears.
The Squig Boss
You've faced and defeated the mad alchemy of Masta Mixa, slaughtered Glomp and his twisted Squigs and even conquered the undead menace of the Wight Lord... what terrible beast remains in the depth of Gunbad to challenge you?
Who, as it happens, is a total push over.
The room he's in is huge, feel free to engage where you feel the most comfortable. 'Ard ta Feed is a very straight foward tank an' spank. He does nothing but hit the tanks and spew forth green goo from his head cavities. The green goo is an area effect that seems to have a very wide range... but even if it hits your party, one healer to keep the tank up and one healer to keep the party up should be plenty.
The main challenge in facing 'Ard ta Feed isn't him - it's getting the proper level and then killing all the other bosses to gain access to his chamber... but he's essentially a loot pinata.