Curse

Nubarus · Jul 10, 2010, 06:30 PM // 18:30

I did that battle last night with my Paragon and a bunch of pugs, it wasn't that hard.
What was the biggest threat was the horrible lag we had, but even that didn't help those puny white mantle and mursaat enough to defeat us.

Too bad the new weapons are pretty hidious, the only weapon that looks nice is the new staff. That was a big dissapointment for me personally.

But it was fun none the less.

Vilaptca · Jul 10, 2010, 06:42 PM // 18:42

I think the problem is everyone brings a MM. Once you get to the waves of Jade you have a pretty much useless character. Switch out your MM for something that will be effective the whole quest.

Garreth MacLeod · Jul 10, 2010, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by awry

Funny you should mention that because my party had two sins (including me) and I had monks and eles scoff and immediately leave, leaving useful comments like "two sins... really?".

My team was me(critscythe), crit barrage, splinter barrage, nuker, resto/channeling hero rit, ua monk. I've already done this mission 2x before and the this time was the easiest out of all of them. We sniped at ledge, flagged heroes to the edge of the ledge out of arrow sight and waited at the stairs for the second portion of the fight. Let me just say that splinter weapon devastated everything considering our team setup and the mobs never made it even into the center plaza.

I was the ranger in your team. That went so smooth. I had a blast!

aspi · Jul 10, 2010, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vilaptca

I think the problem is everyone brings a MM. Once you get to the waves of Jade you have a pretty much useless character. Switch out your MM for something that will be effective the whole quest.

Just finished a group with my ranger, and it had a MM in it, no problems acutaly. There are so many bodies from npc's too when the last waves hit.
First time I did it was without a MM though, spirits are always usefull

Mustache Mayhem · Jul 10, 2010, 08:15 PM // 20:15

just finished my ele.. they hardly seen the bridge xD calculated risk works like a ghetto spoil victor on the bosses.. think gonna keep that on my other chars I have to finish

the sos was on his/her game- I just pretty much sat back and mass condition.. probably could have gone with a full mesmer bar, drop meteor shower

haven't tried the splinter barrage yet but I dunno how it could be any better than a good sos.. the spirits put stretch marks on their mouths every time

Smith23 · Jul 10, 2010, 08:42 PM // 20:42

I just finished with my Elementalist. A Mesmer in the group with Panic and a good MM/Curse is a must so is a good nuker & healing monk. The mission is freaking hard but find the right group like I did and it's fun. You have to act as a team not by yourself and know what role you have and don't try to be a hero and step out of it.

Oh and make sure the person that has Panic does have plenty of points added to the Domination Magic or the skill is pretty much a waste of space. I've seen a ton of people say the mission is going to be easy because they have Panic in their skill bar with Domination Magic set to 0, which makes the spell last 1 sec. The Meteor Shower I was casting (with the aid of Glyph of Sacrifice) would do a better job.

Niila · Jul 10, 2010, 08:45 PM // 20:45

After two failed tries and wipes on perfected cloak groups I finally partied with imbagon and beat this quest. Our setup was me (caller with wards) + 3 discord heroes and imbagon with his panic mesmer hero.

Like usually in guild wars, deaths seem to come from bad positioning. Player should be taking full advantage of npc:s and fall back when shitloads of mursaat start pouring in. When you experience few deaths in the same time, I would suggest full party wipe for complete respawn with full energy and health. When you see last ele and monk boss with other mursaat you have won the quest since they don't seem to proceed further into keep but rather stay in the open area.

Gift3d · Jul 10, 2010, 08:50 PM // 20:50

as you can see, many people including myself have done this even before all the pve skills with relative ease.

oop! looks like it's time to get better at da game!

mrmango · Jul 10, 2010, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Indeed, THK v9000. (I love/loved THK, even when I was bad at it.. Actually I was lucky to never be bad at it. But anyway, great mission format, though shame there weren't any "traps" or things set up like a traditional fort with battlements et all.)

I failed my first time H/Hing, (Panic, Minion bomber, SoS, SoGM, level 10s) and so I pugged it. (Panic, MM, SS + MoP, SoS, ImbaSin, and UA monk) It was pretty swell, people died twice and I popped some cons for them to undo DP. I think some guy brought an Armor too, and some summoning stones. Was a great time, loved it.

Interested in trying it on HM.

headgear56 · Jul 10, 2010, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Just finished the quest a second time on my ele. No party wipes & most of the npc survived the battle. It isn't that hard. One person on my team has done 8 times, so it is possible to beat it.

Laraja · Jul 10, 2010, 09:38 PM // 21:38

I didn't have issues the first time at it either. It was a full PuG with no heros. Me on my SoS rit, two monks, a MM, a tank, an ele. A few of us died at one time or another but no party wipe. We pretty much kept the mobs contained just inside the gate. They didn't get any further than the stairs.

However, I did have a full conset with me and I popped those up right before the battle started. We all had DP erasing consumables too such as candy canes, shining blade rations, etc... All that probably heped a lot.

I thought it was really fun and very much enjoyed the challenge. Things in GW just haven't been challenging lately, and I think that many players have become complacent with the relative ease of HM stuff, and have forgotten what it's like to really do something difficult. Salute to Anet for making this a true battle and not something we can sleep walk through.

Can't wait to do it on my ranger and necro.

KageNoShi · Jul 10, 2010, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by dasmitchies

If you have a sin, use barrage build. Gwen with panic = massive shutdown.

I've done this twice on my sin (MS/DB with SY

) and on my war(100B) and the second time with Panic helped with all the balled up Jade and Mursaat. Though I completed it the first time with...an SoS, derv, myself on my sin, war, AotL MM with daze, and a good monk. But both times were fun imo.

dancing gnome · Jul 11, 2010, 12:24 AM // 00:24

I personally had difficulty with some of the other WiK quests (not the bounties) but mostly due to four inadequate henchmen.

I can understand if people have a lot of trouble with this quest, it does require a bit of preparation.

Having said that...

I

FREAKING

LOVED IT!!!

I've done it over 10 times, repeating it on my ranger and warrior without reward because it's so darn fun. Watching splinter/barrage blow up large groups is very satisfying. Seeing !! appear above entire mobs heads every few seconds because of Panic is hilarious. Tanking huge mobs with a Defy Pain warrior set up while my squishies blew them up in the background was very rewarding. Sniping mobs from up on the bluffs is hella cool, I'm really impressed the design team did such a great job of ensuring Lion's Arch looks like a city under siege and the Shining Blade made real battle preparations to reflect this.

Seeing an actual army take on Lion's Arch makes me feel like the WiK really was significant. Normally I hate when the game resorts to "greater difficulty = bigger numbers" but this was the final show down, it had to be a big fight and it really felt that way.

Zinn and Blimm were ultimately a disappointment, but I don't care about that because the NPCs and their builds are so cool (especially the Ebon Falcons which I am liking the actual character development more and more - even if it is a little cliché) so having them all fight with me at the same time was pretty awesome. The fact that they auto res and the party can res as well is what really prevents this mission from sucking ultimately.

I also liked that although the mission does kind of limit you to AoE builds and certain builds are noticeably more effective (splinter barrage or panic) no class was excluded from being valuable (possibly sins, I haven't done it with one but I don't see them benefiting a lot from the large mobs, they can be intense). I even think there is room for a decent amount of variation in strategies each class can perform here without a huge loss in efficiency. My one big issue with this mission is the henchmen are level 10. You either bring someone else or suffer with useless henchies. They are more of a burden than helpful. I don't see why it's so difficult for the Live Team to make them level 20 for WiK content.

I just want to say kudos to the design team for making a truely fun and exciting mission. It didn't get tedious and I felt like I was accomplishing something as I did this. I also felt like my team was working together, between panic, buffs, spirit walls, minion walls and clever positioning (the defensive nature of the mission adds a lot to it's enjoyableness) actually being rewarding. Good work guys, this was a fitting climax to the WiK and didn't disappoint in it's large scale of action and significance.

The rewards aren't too bad either (I have a thing for greens and I liked these ones, even the ones with odd stats - greens named after allies are cool).

Chthon · Jul 11, 2010, 12:27 AM // 00:27

NM H+H - probably impossible with the two lvl-10 hench.
NM full players/heroes - Fun. Not precisely challenging, but you are likely to wipe on sheer numbers here and there.
HM H+H - probably impossible, at least for most classes.
HM full players/heroes - probably doable once we get a better grasp on how the monster AI interacts with the map.

Biggest issue for HM is that the allied NPCs fold pretty much instantly against any HM mob.

Now, for the $64,000 question: Can you get a party of 8 from ToA in to LAK?

HigherMinion · Jul 11, 2010, 12:58 AM // 00:58

When was THK hard? Someone remind me of that.

And @ OP, I'm pretty sure Anet didn't intend on players to be attempting this seriously with h/h. It's a very fun mission, and all the AoE tank n spank skills work perfectly here.

Ineptitude, Panic, Icy Veins, Rising Bile, Putrid Bile, Putrid Explosion, Spiteful Spirit, etc. Are super OP here in these mega-mobs.

Scarlett Romanov · Jul 11, 2010, 01:00 AM // 01:00

I managed to complete BLA using henchies and heroes. It was hell. I've been trying to solo it since the mission was released. I figured that if I had done the others by myself then I could probably manage to figure out a way to do this one too.

I didn't have cons or summoning stones. The builds I used are quite laughable (aka bad) but somehow I managed to push through. Panic and Meteor shower really helped out a lot. Positioning is everything on this map. Use the hills/walls/etc to your advantage.

Anyway, PUG it. Don't drive yourself insane trying to hench/hero alone.

HigherMinion · Jul 11, 2010, 01:29 AM // 01:29

I think the best place to choke the mob into a massive ball is the first set of stairs; placing spirits down there or having an ES war lock them while you blow them up. Works perfectly.

End · Jul 11, 2010, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Me and a friend did it...me a a sin...him as a crappy healer...and some heros we threw together on the spot...in hindsight a panic mes woulda just roflstomped...but it's really not that bad...we got through and he really is a bad healer...and he was our only one

Dark-NighT · Jul 11, 2010, 02:19 AM // 02:19

I just did it with a pug, we made it after 2 wipes, but we didnt do consumables and had a great time, i think this may go down as one of the most exciting battles in the whole of guild wars.

dancing gnome · Jul 11, 2010, 03:01 AM // 03:01

If I could do any one thing to improve on the battle I would have gotten Dwayna or Kormir to actually do something to help out (Dwayna because Salma reckons she helped and thus the Seraph are named in her honour, Kormir because she needs to good PR after being a cow in Nightfall).

I would also have given Princess Salma some kind of kick ass battle cry that affects all allied NPCs on the map. Just so players think about her and and think, "Hell yeah she is a kick ass Queen and someone I really enjoyed fighting with, someone with the power to rule the throne." Again, I think she needs the PR, it feels like other people did all the work for her. I want her to really help out, but directly taking part in the battle would have risked her dieing and making everyone hate her.