Curse

Sabine Gentry · Jul 18, 2005, 01:24 AM // 01:24

I usually play with my husband and henchies since we work well together. This mission seems to be nearly impossible. I have read old posts about exploits which they appear to have been patched since.

My question is, does anyone have a strategy for this misson which could work without a PUG. We play a Ranger/Mes and Nec/War both 20. Each time, we can kill all but the monk and his priest. We take it slow all the way and have tried it MANY times. I'm at the point where we'll take any help offered expect for possibly: "stupid noob, I did it the first try HAHAHA."... etc. ^_^

We don't have a guild yet so don't know many people ingame to ask (beg) for help. I turn to you!

Help in this hour of need.

Dzan · Jul 18, 2005, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Your ranger mes should focuse on shutting down Josso. If he cant get his healing spells off he is nothing. When he is dead, killing the priest is no problem. When the priest is dead, the mission is no problem.

viet · Jul 18, 2005, 01:46 AM // 01:46

it takes me a lot of tries to get thru thirsty & elona.

PUGs R bad but sometimes u dont have a choice.

i would hav gone with Ranger/monk. & nec/monk. nec/war is harder.

get as many skil caps as posible before u get to thirsty.

telarin · Jul 18, 2005, 01:49 AM // 01:49

for the last part when you face the healer boss and the priest, you need some way to interrupt the boss from healing the priest. A simple way is to get a fire ele dropping meteor shower on the boss while you kill the priest. works well most of the time. or maybe you could try using more mesmer domination spells like backfire/diversion/shame/arcane thievery on the boss. for necro, curses that reduce healing on the priest would help (i think)

Mind Wallaby · Jul 18, 2005, 01:49 AM // 01:49

Have the R/Me spam Diversion on the monk boss; this should shut him down fast. Given the way hench AI works, it's probably better if everyone attacks the priest so that the henches will focus fire (that is, the R/Me should attack the priest but Tab over to the monk and cast Diversion without attacking it).

Sabine Gentry · Jul 18, 2005, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Thanks Dzan: He pretty much figured some points would need to be moved to Mesmer for this one when we go back in.

I play pure blood magic necro. Will look into capping for future reference.

Hopefully we can put this henous test behind us soon.

I might bring my monk/nec down to help the ranger, but I really want the necro to do the quest too. :P

Edit: Thanks everyone! A few replies popped up while I wrote this.

Pippy Bloodstocking · Jul 18, 2005, 01:54 AM // 01:54

I can't imagine doing Thirsty River with henchmen. With a full group of six, a good tactic for me was to kill the whole team, then send two people inside to kill the priest while the other four hit the hero. Rinse and repeat for the other groups, but with the added caveat of not aggroing everything in sight (it's really easy to get swamped). It took me four tries before everything worked. This is a caster-friendly mission, but you need good warriors as meat shields, and to distract their champions. Also, keep in mind the resurrection schedule, and work with it so you don't keep fighting the ones you've already killed. And bring a capture signet; there are elite skills to be had in this mission.

Sabine Gentry · Jul 18, 2005, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Does anyone know if the anti resurect nature ritual would work on this at all or is that totally useless.

Pippy: Yeah we have tried groups but something always seems to backfire. It's simplier to work alone sometimes, but we might have met our match with this one.

telarin · Jul 18, 2005, 02:02 AM // 02:02

i dont think the nature ritual frozen soil will work since the rezz is not cast by the priest.

theclam · Jul 18, 2005, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Note that the mobs respawn every 2 minutes, so you should wait until about 3:45/5:45/7:45 before moving on to the second or third group.

With a N/W and R/Me, you shouldn't have any problems shutting down the Monk and Priest. Use Backfire, Diversion, Mark of Subversion, Distracting Shot, Disrupting Chop/Savage Slash, Knockdown skills, etc.

Bring Lina, Alesia, Stefan, and Little Thom. Take out one group of three, then go after the priest. You shouldn't have any problems staying alive.

dargon · Jul 18, 2005, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Heh, we don't even worry about shutting down josso, just clear out the mobs outside the tent, and then everyone rush the priest. Josso has a kick-ass heal, but he can't keep up with that much damage, especially if you drop an AoE on him before hand because he'll be healling himself as well as the priest. Infact, my guild just help a member get past him tonight, we rushed into the tent at about 30 seconds before the res and the priest was dead with 3 seconds to spare

Kishin · Jul 18, 2005, 06:29 AM // 06:29

The problem with hexing Josso is that since he's a boss, hexes only have half their normal duration on him. So basically, you need to snap Diversion off right before he casts. Just be aware of that. Mark of Subversion and Shame can also be helpful. Signet of Humility will shut off Josso's Word of Healing, but only for a short while.

Distracting Shot is nice also, but you need to use it before you see the skill icon on their bar, or its already too late. So either spam it or try to intuit the casts. Attack speed boosts like Frenzy and Tiger's Fury are worthwhile as well, as you just want to be pouring as much damage as possible while doing this.

A good mesmer or interrupter makes a world of difference here, otherwise you just have to give it your all. My guild was fortunate to have both a Ranger (myself) and a Mesmer when we did this mission, so once we figured out a strategy, it worked out, but came close. We ended up having the interrupters tie up Josso while others worked the Priest. (I used Choking Gas at one point to land several successful interrupts). The Priest has significantly lower HP than Josso and his own heals generally cannot keep up to the damage he takes. Once the priest is down though, you basically have the mission in the bag.

You can also attempt to exhaust Josso's energy, I suppose, but that seems almost impossible with the amount of energy/regen bosses appear to have. Josso was pretty spent when the priest finally went down for us though, as our Mesmer announced that his Energy Burn ended up knocking off a much smaller amount than usual.

Sleazy_D · Jul 18, 2005, 04:33 PM // 16:33

I went with meteor storm on Josso for the win, but mark of subversion would help for when the preist gets low on health. Mesmer skills are really where you want to be, and choking gas or any other ranger interrupt couldn't hurt either.

Alternatively, you could go with Quickening Zephyr to try and energy choke Josso, while you're sucking away all his energy.

Point being, you have to play a game of denial on Josso, either by using energy denial, power block denial, knockdowns, or overtaxing him to get the win. You could bring a single Fire Ele with you with Meteor, and meteor storm for the added interrupting, and (s)he would be really useful for boku-damage on the mobs before the final battle.

Drakron · Jul 18, 2005, 04:47 PM // 16:47

I noticed one thing with all PUGs I did and beat River with.

We ALWAYS left one regular enemy alive.

I think a trick is split the group, so 2 attack the priest and the rest attack the monk boss and what happens is the boss will be too busy healing itself to heal the piest and so the priest goes down. then we leave one enemy alone and my guess is the monk boss will devote some of his time to support that enemy and that gives us time to beat him, after he is down we can east kill the forgotten sword since thats pretty much what is left.

With henchman is hard because when we got after the priest they usually get stupid, River does require some members to concentrate on a enemy as the others keep the rest busy, that becames expecialy true in the monk boss since 2-3 people can easy kill the priest as long the others keep the monk boss by healing himself and his closest alies.

franning · Jul 18, 2005, 05:17 PM // 17:17

I love to help in Ascension mission. Feel free to add me to your friends list and send me whisper when u see me online.

Lord Simatar
W/N

Eder · Jul 18, 2005, 06:19 PM // 18:19

As suggested already, try setting your R/Me to be as much of an interruptor as possible to stop the monk boss from healing the priest, and time your attacks so that you only have to kill each enemy team once (start attacking a group at 3:50, and have their priest down by 5:59, for example).

Diversion, choking gas, distracting shot, etc. are all good skills to shut down that monk boss. Someone also mentioned keeping him busy healing himself... I think it's too risky if you split your team in half to do this, but if you assign just one person to the monk boss and keep the rest of the team focused on the priest, it should work (backfire, energy burn, chaos storm and the like sound like a good plan to keep a monk busy healing himself).

Mourning Air · Jul 18, 2005, 08:56 PM // 20:56

The key for Josso (monk boss) is that you do NOT want just Josso and the priest left. If that is all that is left, Josso will focus on the priest and it's going to be hard to kill either of them before the timer expires. But if there are other enemies left, and they also need healing, Josso will lose focus. Especially if you can lure Josso out of the shrine first, which I was able to do while battling the last group. Make sure some damage has been done to the last group, of course, or Josso won't need to heal them. Then rush the priest at once.

A mesmer is very, very useful for priest killing. I am a mesmer and that definitely helped in doing this mission with henchies.

Most importantly, don't be afraid to retreat if it's getting too close to the 2 minute interval and you don't think you can kill the priest in time. Better to fall back and start over than to be stuck in the shrine when they all resurrect.

Also, here is the strategy I posted for Thirsty River with henchies if you want to try that. Most of the general strategy applies to any group, not just with henchies.

Age · Jul 18, 2005, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mourning Air

The key for Josso (monk boss) is that you do NOT want just Josso and the priest left. If that is all that is left, Josso will focus on the priest and it's going to be hard to kill either of them before the timer expires. But if there are other enemies left, and they also need healing, Josso will lose focus. Especially if you can lure Josso out of the shrine first, which I was able to do while battling the last group. Make sure some damage has been done to the last group, of course, or Josso won't need to heal them. Then rush the priest at once.

A mesmer is very, very useful for priest killing. I am a mesmer and that definitely helped in doing this mission with henchies.

Most importantly, don't be afraid to retreat if it's getting too close to the 2 minute interval and you don't think you can kill the priest in time. Better to fall back and start over than to be stuck in the shrine when they all resurrect.

Also, here is the strategy I posted for Thirsty River with henchies if you want to try that. Most of the general strategy applies to any group, not just with henchies.

That was interesting doing it with henchies.I still need to do this and I have done it 4 times mostly with a bad impatient group.I was playing the only Monk and with no secoundaries for back up I was doing the healing all the time and they expected it as told them to get another Monk for back up but they didn't listen to me.I just think it is a blessing form Dwayna as I didn't have my SOC in skill bar to get Word of Healing.

Sabine Gentry · Jul 19, 2005, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Thank you everyone!!

We are going to take all of your advice (well what we can use together) and see how it goes tonight. If anyone feels like jumping in definaly send me a tell. Hopefully though we'll shut Josso down with some mesmer strategy. I still have a a feeling it might take a couple tries to perfect this one.

Hopefully I'll have a "Happy Ending" update!

Sabine Gentry · Jul 19, 2005, 03:40 AM // 03:40

It worked!

Mesmer skills: Diversion/Shame/Power leak/Leech Signet/Signet of Humility

War skills on Priest including Finial Thrust.

Mission went beautifully.

Thank you all again.