Curse

chowdah · May 12, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

[SPOILER ALERT]
After getting all the way to the final objective in this mission I found out that you can't pull it off with all henchmen. Or at least I couldn't. It seems you need to have 2 heroes in 2 different places at once - something you can't do with henchies. After 20 minutes of jumping back and forth between the 2 crystals the stupid henchmen went and agro'd a huge pile of mobs and we got maimed right quick =(

Has anyone pulled this off with just henchmen?

JediNeophyte · May 12, 2005, 04:08 PM // 16:08

I did it. In fact, I did the bonus objective too. It took a few tries, but it is possible.

First of all: Bring a speed buff. I did it without one, but it was harder than it needed to be.

What to do: Run in, grab the crystal, and run off the left-most thorn pedestal. After the White Mantle attune it, just plop your crystal down and take it. Run back to get a new crystal, and take the right-most pedestal (DO NOT take the nearest one, ever!). The Mantle will take the left-most one while you're doing this. When you go back, take the left one back again. They'll take the right one, etc., etc.

Each time you do this, you'll "buy" some time: Even without a speed buff, you're faster than the Mantle. What I did at this point was to just keep running the crystals back and forth, and letting the henchmen slowly kill the White Mantle the pour out. It took awhile, but it's possible. Once you've whittled them down to just a few runners, you can ambush them at the LEFT thorn pedestal. Instead of alternating left/right, after you've taken the left, come back with a crystal to the left again. Form a wall with you and the henchmen to block the runner from the pedestal while the henchmen kill him. If he gets through, no biggie, use your own crystal to cap the pedestal and see if you can keep the runner from escaping. Go back, grab another crystal, and repeat until they're all dead. Then you're free to go back and kill the Demagogue, bonus mission done, cap the first pedestal nearest to the crystal dispenser, and voila.

Selene · May 15, 2005, 04:51 AM // 04:51

I think I must have been really lucky. I've tried this mission with 2 different characters and with only henchman. I had no problems at all.

I did have a speed buff, which apparently made all the difference.

In both cases...

1. Grab crystal, attune nearest pedestal
2. Grab crystal, attune far right pedestal
3. Grab crystal, attune far left pedastal

Win.

It was that easy for me. No fighting. In fact, the second time, I didn't even see a White Mantle, so they might have been still chugging along to get the first attunement.

Adacia Calla · May 15, 2005, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Selene

I think I must have been really lucky. I've tried this mission with 2 different characters and with only henchman. I had no problems at all.

I did have a speed buff, which apparently made all the difference.

In both cases...

1. Grab crystal, attune nearest pedestal
2. Grab crystal, attune far right pedestal
3. Grab crystal, attune far left pedastal

Win.

It was that easy for me. No fighting. In fact, the second time, I didn't even see a White Mantle, so they might have been still chugging along to get the first attunement.

Exact same thing happened to my party, the second time around.

First time, we were swarmed by 30 White Mantle and we couldn't move any crystals.

Qin Shi Huang · May 24, 2005, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Was I just lucky?!
I just finished this mission on my first attempt and only with henches.
I didn't do the bonus, though.
Basicly I started activating the gates, from the closest from the furthest.
The White Mantle re-captured ont of them, which I was able to take back and it all went smoothly.
This was my first time on this mission and I didn't go for the bonus, so I can't talk much about that one.
Cheers.
--Qin

Eclair · May 24, 2005, 01:46 AM // 01:46

I heard its actually more convenient to do the bonus with henchmen. Basically just camp one pedestal and kill the runner they send, then kill the envoy with the runner. Eventually they'll run out of envoys, so just go to where the runner spawns and kill the boss =)

delfin42 · May 24, 2005, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eclair

I heard its actually more convenient to do the bonus with henchmen. Basically just camp one pedestal and kill the runner they send, then kill the envoy with the runner. Eventually they'll run out of envoys, so just go to where the runner spawns and kill the boss =)

I was banging my head on the desk trying to do this mission with henches, then tried it again using something like the above and it became rather easy.

What I realized was that:
1) The number of White Mantle enemies is finite.
2) They don't ALL rush you or the pedestals at once.
3) They need the pedestal farthest from their base to win, just like you do.

So what I did was activate the pedestal closest to the Druid... then wait. While you're doing that, the Mantle will have activated the two pedestals that are farther away... but that's not enough to win. All it means is that you now know exactly who's coming and where they're going, and can plan accordingly.

The White Mantle party will come running towards your pedestal, with the crystal carrier being your obvious target. Use some sort of slowdown/Crippling skill on the carrier (Ranger = Pin Down, Mesmer = Imagined/Ethereal Burden, Warrior = Hamstring, Elementalist = several Water spells), which will allow your henches to carve him into ribbons.

Once the immediate threat is down, take out his escorts, while keeping an eye on when the next runner is imminent. You should be able to kill off all the escorts by the time the third runner is on the way.

At that point, it's CAKE. The runner does nothing but run straight for the pedestal, can't defend himself, and is an easy target once Crippled/slowed. Continue until all of the White Mantle army is dead.

Now go to their base and whack the Demagogue six-on-one; he falls easily.

Deep · May 25, 2005, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Another thing to try.....if you see the guy almost to a pedestal don't put on your seed. Just wait for him to drop his seed...then you drop yours. Worked for me

jshetley1 · Jul 12, 2005, 07:57 AM // 07:57

Well after about 8 tries with henchmen I finally gave up this morning and did this with a team. We got the job done by using 2 runners. I wasn't able to get the bonus though. Now that I don't HAVE to win to move on I'll probably go back and try with henchmen to get the bonus.

Mitsu Bishi · Jul 12, 2005, 09:54 AM // 09:54

Even when in a party that crippling/slowdown of the runners is the key to the win. The mantle always seem to go left pedestal, right pedestal, pedestal close to your home. So basically let them have the left one but attune the one near to your druid and then the right one. Camp that right one and they will always try to get it from you. Kill them all and you're done.

GranDeWun · Jul 12, 2005, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Winning with henchies is not too hard. Getting the bonus is very hard...you need to kill the boss INSIDE the Mantle camp BEFORE winning. Plant a crystal, defend it until few mantle left, work towards their camp, bottle them up inside it, kill boss. Possible, but tricky.

Mana Garmr · Jul 12, 2005, 01:36 PM // 13:36

The difficulty with henchmen probably depends on your class. If you have a skill that can slow down the guys carrying the crystal you're set. I finished it first time , bonus and all, with my ranger by attuning the nearest pedestal and then using pin down on the carriers when they came to take it. It took a while to go through all the mantle guys that way but I was never in any real danger of losing.

Mitsu Bishi · Jul 12, 2005, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Problem may be when the henchies are "stuck" with their opponents so they won't switch target to the carrier. Slowed down he is easy to kill but it might be difficult with only you doing the damage (and maybe Alesia with her staff).

PAC · Jul 12, 2005, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by GranDeWun

Winning with henchies is not too hard. Getting the bonus is very hard...you need to kill the boss INSIDE the Mantle camp BEFORE winning. Plant a crystal, defend it until few mantle left, work towards their camp, bottle them up inside it, kill boss. Possible, but tricky.

It doesn't have to be that hard. If you defend one pedestal and take out the runners one by one (it helps if you're ranger as someone else mentioned), then after a while there'll be no more - just the boss left in the camp. Then go down and kill the lonely boss (very easy), and finally attune all the crystals.

baalzamonbarnes · Jul 12, 2005, 11:21 PM // 23:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitsu Bishi

Problem may be when the henchies are "stuck" with their opponents so they won't switch target to the carrier. Slowed down he is easy to kill but it might be difficult with only you doing the damage (and maybe Alesia with her staff).

Um, no they aren't. Henches attack who you're attacking. Plus after you kill the initial escorts, you get to take on the rest of the White Mantle one by one.

Using delfin's strategy, I found this to be one of the easiest missions in the game.

VisVenti · Jul 20, 2005, 10:29 AM // 10:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by baalzamonbarnes

Plus after you kill the initial escorts, you get to take on the rest of the White Mantle one by one.

Somehow it doesn't work this way for me. once I kill the first group they start coming in ever larger gaggles, the fourth or fifth group has 2 crystal runners and 4+ escorts. I tried this three times, and every time as the battle kept getting larger (I just couldn't kill them off quickly enough) eventually one of them got through.

Haven't tried pinning the runners down though, so I'll give it one more try I guess - and if it doesn't work I'll go for the runnig strategy (and do bonus separately).

VisVenti · Jul 21, 2005, 12:09 AM // 00:09

Ok' I ve been at this for several hours today and have tried several different strategies for this mission so I thought I'd share what I have learned.

First of all, I've not even once managed to win the battle of attrition some posters here say they've been successful at, and I've tried this at least 10 times, using different henchies, different skillsets and picking different spots to do the battle. Now it's possible that I simply suck at this, however one thing I can say for sure is that the White Mantle never even once came "one by one". Normally, a second group of four is close on the heels of the first one, and while it's easy to dispose of the crystal carriers, it was impossible for me to kill them all before yet more of them started to arrive (with no crystals this time - they're coming to fight). And usually when the next crystal runners appeared, I was still fighting 4+ mobs, and then their escorts joined in and either one of the runners got through or my party simply got overwhelmed.

On the other hand, the running strategy suggested by JediNeophyte (2nd post in this thread) worked wery well for me. I have only a fairly weak run buff at my disposal (at least I thik so - 25% for 12 seconds, with ~30 sec refresh?) but was able to gain advantage relatively quickly, and within about 4 or 5 minutes all the pedestals were mine. The only trick to this is to keep on running... In my experience, taking the pedestal closest to the guardian at the begining didn't make any difference, tough it caused me to cross paths with the Mantle runners, while when not taking it I completed the mission without running into them at all.

As some other posters have mentioned, having a better run buff should actually make this quite easy.

There's actually an interesting twist to this strategy if you want to complete the bonus as well (or do the battle for for any other reason). I'll get to this in a sec.

A point I'd like to stress is, I am not saying that it's impossible to win the battle. I was twice able to hold out for quite long, killing 5-6 crystal carriers (and probably 10 or so other mantle) before one got through - and it's also important to note that my character is hardly optimized for damage dealing (lvl 20 healing Mo/R, i usually keep at least 10 points in marksmaship, but obviously am unable to spam special attacks the way primary rangers can, also and my bow is a bit subpar as I am a newb - no elite skills, either etc. etc.). So having an 'ubar' character with better skills/equipment, and also being a better player

might make enough of a difference in killing time to make it possible to win this one.

A few other points I believe important:

- configure your character for maximum possible damage output, as it's (quite obviously) crucial to be able to kill the Mantle as quickly as possible

- if you have healing capabilities, don't equip healing *enchantments* such as Healing Breeze or Vigorous Spirit, as they are likely to fail you at the crucial moment. (White Mantle Ritualists like to use Well of the Profane skill which renders these enchantments useless, however, regular healing spells work normally)

- other than crystal carriers, Abbots (healers) and Savants (elems) are the primary targets (Savants' Searing Heat can easily do way too much damage to your party for Alesia to keep up with, especially when you're fighting several of them)

- in my experience, pinning down didn't (obviously

) make enough of a difference but nonetheles can be very handy when a Mantle runner threatens to get past you and ruin the mission for you (alas, it has a very high energy cost for a secondary ranger with no Expertise, who is also a healer

)

- and finally, the running strategy can be used to weaken the enemy before the battle. The trick is to make sure you cross paths with the White Mantle runners and maybe even stop for a second or two so that your henchies engage, and then you KEEP ON RUNNING. They'll follow you for a bit and exchange some blows with the henchmen, however, they end up scattered and isolated on the map (after they've engaged, they never return to the Mantle camp) so that once you are comfortably ahead in the pedestal race you can stop for a few sec and easily pick them off, one by one. I am not sure for how long this strategy can be continued (IMHO it's possible that killing the second runner, or other somesuch event triggers the outpour of White Mantle from the camp). I didn't have the patience to continue this for more than a few mins, but if it works, it might actualy make the forthcoming battle much more winnable.

DOH, I just realized that this is more or less what Neophyte Jedi was talking about in his post, so it should definitely work I am not editing this out though, it took to much typing hehe.

On a final note, that Demagogue guy must be a quite a turd and certainly not a 'champion' of any kind, because with the advantage he holds he should be winning the mission 100% of the time, hands down [just kidding, obviously]

Traveller · Sep 23, 2005, 06:26 PM // 18:26

The first time I tried this mission with henchmen and my 1st character, it seemed impossible and I rather just went with a PUG. But now with my 2nd character I couldn't believe how easy it was. I placed the first crystal, dashed back, placed the second - still no sign of Mantle runners. I thought, they will surely strike when I'm on my way to the third, but to my amazement, I took all the pedestals without even a sign of the Mantle guys and went on to finish the mission easily. Is it tweaked to be easier or was I just incredibly lucky?

Shusky · Sep 23, 2005, 09:15 PM // 21:15

Yesterday I tried to hench it, with no success. It was mostly because I used the wrong strategy, however

Today, I did it with an incomplete group (5 people). Basically, me (a fire ele stacked with high-energy AoEs that would be normally quite suicidal), a monk, and a warrior defended the left-most pedestal, while 2 people ran the cristals. Very easily done, since the Mantle insisted on rushing us 3 with all its force and ignoring the others. With henchies, I can't quite picture any success.

Seta Fury · Oct 21, 2005, 10:43 AM // 10:43

I've done the mission several times with henchies. Most recent time was with my ranger and I just simply brought running skills and DID NOT engage the mantle, they just slow ya down. It can be done with henchies, but since they follow you everywhere and wont defend a crystal, I believe it's safer to just not engage the mantle at all.