Questions about Lakrum Instances

[Goanad-KT]

Okay. Recently returned player that last played around 4.0 when the cool kids would go to Abyss and grind AP to get gear. Now there is not an abyss and not sure how all that works to be honest. I do know I'm horribly under geared even at 80 now which I attained somewhat quickly from initially 64 upon return. 

So there are these instances I guess now where some gear is available. Apparently the paid monthly people get more shots at them during a given time period which is cool. 

My question is: How many players are these tuned for? 1, 2, 3, 6? Full groups? Also, how much are timers used to disqualify from completion if you chose fewer people than a full group? I HATE HATE timers and have encountered two so far in instances upon my return. 

Any help would be appreciated. 

[Prinz-KT]

Note, the instances are to obtain PvE gear.  If you are interested in PvP gear then get the two quests from the NPC at each artifact to kill five elyos mobs at a nearby camp and to kill five balaur mobs at a nearby camp.  There are three artifacts on the asmo side of the map, three on the elyos side, and three in the middle.  Each of those weekly quests will give you 13 genesis crystals that you can use to buy ancient PvP gear and ancient PvP enchantment stones.  **Some people recommend saving your genesis crystals to buy the better PvP gear coming in 7.0.  Some people are saying it may be October when that happens.  If you want gear now go ahead and buy it, when you get it to +15 you can purify it to the next level of gear (ancient -> legendary -> ultimate) or to the equivalent level Tier 2 (T2) gear once game version 7.0 arrives (T1 ancient +15 -> T2 ancient +0, etc.)  T2 gear is a good bit better than T1 but T2 ancient gear is still just bit less good than T1 legendary.

*** Check Youtube for videos of the instances for boss mechanics etc.  Or have someone in your legion explain it to you.

To see how many people are meant to run an instance you can click on the blue up arrow to the right of your skill bar then click on Instance Info.  You might have to click on the ALL tab.  It will tell you the name of the instances, the number of players expected to run it together, and your instance count.  If you have run all of entries for an instance it will tell you how long until that instance resets.  Most instances reset Wednesday morning.just after maintenance.  Sometimes there is a short period of time after maintenance when the entry counts have been reset (because the server was shutdown and brought back up for maintenance) before the weekly reset time that gives you a chance to get a couple extra runs in.

You also hit "M" to bring up your world map.  Hover you mouse over the little cave symbols that denote entrances to an instance to see number of players and when it resets AND what kind of gear drops from the instance.

After you have your initial Lakrum gear the next place to get PvE gear is in Cradle of Eternity (CoE) .  For asmos it is at Hinushia Scout Outpost.  Three man instance.  If you hook up with someone with gear it is very quick.  Looking the last boss will give you Typhon's Reward box will has two boxes of random gear for your class.  You can "retune" this gear to randomly reroll the bonus stats on this gear, something you can't do on the Lakrum gear.  You can get accessories from the solo instance Mirash Sanctum (at Mysterious Mushroom Dwelling Scout Post for asmos).

After CoE you'll want to run Frozen Monolith (at Ancient Red Tree Forest in the north, for asmos) for legendary armor and "feather" accessories (plume, bracelet, wings) and Bastion of Souls in the middle south for legendary accessories and weapons.

Then you can graduate to Primeth's Forge in the middle north for ultimate/legendary armor and feather accessories and Infernal Drakenspire Depths (IDD) (in the north at Archon Outpost for asmos) for ultimate/legendary weapons and accessories.

After you are kitted out from there the goal is to run the 18-man Veilenthrone instance.