Curse

Garbad_the_Weak · Aug 13, 2005, 02:21 PM // 14:21

How to win Thunderhead Keep v1.0

By: Garbad_the_Weak
Guild: Clan Honor (CH)

My name is Garbad_the_Weak and I am the guild leader of Clan Honor, a PvP guild. Reading these forums, I see a lot of players are struggling with Thunderhead Keep. I am writing this guide to share some tips and strategies that have helped me win this difficult mission. This guide is not the only way, and maybe not even the best way, but it is a proven method that I hope you find helpful.

PICKING YOUR TEAM AND PLANNING YOUR STRATEGY

First, fill your team with as many guildmates or friends as possible. In particular, try to get guildmates to fill the 3 critical positions – both healers and the lead target caller. This mission requires communication and trust and people you know are more likely to listen and communicate.

Second, pick your team carefully. Do not simply take the first 7 people who come along. This is important for two reasons. First, you will want to screen out people who cannot or do not follow instructions from the start. You need a team that can communicate and respond and if they can’t do that, they are a weak link. Second, you need to know what the player can bring to the group. Not every monk is a healer and not every warrior is a tank (even if they think they are). You want to keep your group “lean” by avoiding unnecessary duplication of skills so you can maximize your killing power.

Thunderhead Keep is like a MULLET – business in front and party in back. Spend the time to get a solid, intelligent team that can work together and synergize and you will cruise through it. The time and hassle of organization and teamwork is what separates the successful teams from the rest. After the win, buy a pint of dwarven ale and go nuts.

Finally, select a balanced team. You will need a good mix of healers, tanks, and killers. Other support skills, such as AOE spells, traps, interrupts, and knockdowns round out your team. The key in picking your team is making sure you have adequate support (tanking, healing, disabling the bosses, and so forth) while maintaining killing power.

I find the best core is two monks and two warriors. Warriors are great on this stage because they are self sufficient and can take a beating. You will want at least two warriors so you can split up and have one warrior wall each choke. Furthermore, with the exception of the Jade Armors, the monsters on this stage are relatively soft and good warrior can cut right through them.

The monks will handle the bulk of your healing; however, I do not suggest having more than two. There are two reasons why I don’t recommend a third monk. First, the monsters in Thunderhead don’t spike, they wear you down. Because you don’t have to worry about spikes, a pair of monks with good energy management skills (and careful aggroing) should be more than sufficient to keep you and the king fully healed. Second, a third monk is a real loss of killing power. Instead of a third healer standing around waiting for the nonexistent spikes, you could have a killer cutting them down that much faster.

For your killers, go with variety. You will frequently be fighting tightly packed herds, so AOE spells really shine. DOT also works very well, especially on the high AC Jade armors. It isn’t all that important what your support chars are, just so they can do their job – kill quickly.

One word of caution. I do not recommend bringing a pet or summons to thunderhead. Because you will be sneaking around a good bit you don’t want to risk a pet aggroing a boss at a wrong moment. Furthermore, because summons are not infused they tend to die quickly vs mursatt - right when you need them most. They can be effective in the right hands, but make sure they know what they are doing.

THE BASICS

Basics for Healers:

The healers should split up healing assignments at the beginning of the mission. One healer should take the bottom 3 plus the king while the other healer handles the top 5. Running mending/prot bond on the king wouldn’t hurt either if you can spare the regen. As needed, the monks should help each other’s assignments. As always, call out your energy if you start running low and rest as needed.

A healer should also be the person who talks to the king. You want the king as far away from battle as possible at all times, and your healer is the most likely to be safe.

Suggested Skills you don’t ordinarily use:

Well of Blood, Vigorous Spirit, and Dwayna’s Kiss -- the monsters in this stage are heavy on DOT so make sure you have low cost heals that can negate DOT hexes without burning all your energy. Wells work great because of the compact corpse heavy fighting. Vigorous spirit is a low cost way to let the warriors take care of themselves. A warrior running mending with a vigorous spirit should be self sufficient through most of the stage.

Basics for Tanks:

Your most experienced (and highest AC) warrior should be assigned as target caller. His role will be to lead the charge in (so he gets targeted), to focus the team’s fire on the appropriate target, and to pick where the team stops, pulls, or rests. No one should ever go ahead of your head warrior. When the warrior says form up or draws a line, stand on that wall – do not chase, do not rush in until your lead warrior gives the command.

Also, never run ahead and agro another pack. Even if it means just standing there while the killers clean up a pack, it is better than running up to kill them and aggroing another group. Follow your head warrior’s lead on this attack and keep your healer’s workload light. There is no better compliment to a tank than knowing your healer is bored out of his mind from not having to do anything -____-

Suggested Skills you don’t ordinarily use:

Balanced Stance or Dolyak Signet. Both prevent knockdown and help you hold the line. Sprint is also nice to quickly move between combat areas.

Basics for Killers:

First and foremost, keep your distance from the tank line when the warriors attack. This doesn’t mean stand 5 steps behind them, this means stand at least an agro bubble and a half away. Monsters will usually run past the warriors for a few steps before targeting the lowest AC target. If you are too close the monsters will run right past the warriors and attack you, completely wasting your tank wall. This exposes the softer targets to fire and breaks up monster packs, making you take far more damage and deal far less damage.

On the other hand, if you let the warriors take the initial attack the monsters will run past, not see any nice soft casters and turn back to the tanks. Your warriors will be more than able to handle themselves for the two seconds while you wait out of range, and then not only will you have no fear of attack, the monsters will also be nicely clumped together ready for your AOE skills. You will kill faster and take less damage by completely staying away from the tanks for the first two seconds of the battle.

HERE is an example of good attack spacing. All of the casters are well outside of attack range.

Furthermore, “stomp” range is roughly the same as your agro bubble. If you are outside of agro range tossing spells at maximum range, you won’t get knocked down. Without the interrupts from the stomps, more of your nukes and heals will land, making the first 2/3 of the mission a breeze.

Lastly, there is no need for a killer to pull, ever. One of the warriors should bring a long bow to pull.

CLEARING THE CITY

The initial part of the stage is not particularly hard. The monsters packs are moderately diverse, but are small and manageable. Basic and traditional teamwork should handle it easily. Let me walk you through the hot spots.

The first is the bridge near the beginning, HERE. Groups often rush the initial pack and before they can finish it, a second pack arrives (often with a monk boss). Because they are low on energy, they often take casualties which handicap the team for the future. The solution is simple. Pull the first pack onto the bridge, do not engage them on the ice, like THIS. As you can see, the group completely avoided the patrol. Speaking of the patrol, I hope I’m not around when Paul Bunyan finds out we killed BABE.

The second area is inside the city itself. First, know your route. You want to travel clockwise from the door, as shown HERE. One you cut your way through a couple of packs, swing back down to hit the last patrols, as shown HERE. When you swing back to the far right, kill the boss and then let the casters nuke the three packs from below, as shown HERE. Be careful as you do this to make sure the healers are ready to support you and to make sure the king doesn’t agro. If the king rushes to the base of the stairs and you get pressured, you will not be able to retreat because the king will not move and will stand there and die. You need to be able to sweep the walls in one clear sweep or keep the king away.

Once you sweep the walls, the path to the fort shouldn’t be too hard. As you approach the fort, you will see a series of monster packs and a boss, as shown HERE. Kill the first couple of packs, then have one person hug the wall and run to the west catapults, as shown HERE. Stick close to the wall and avoid any fighting. Once you get there, nuke the monster packs outside the wall as shown HERE. Once you have destroyed those packs, return to the group and sneak outside the fort, as shown HERE. The door will look closed, but you can walk right through it. You call do all of this without aggroing any monster.

Once you are outside, look around and destroy the jades and such that are sitting around, as shown HERE. When you get back inside, hug the wall and pull the boss, and only the boss to you. Your warriors will need to be patient here. Be very careful, because a stupid agro can bring 4+ packs and a boss.

When the boss is dead (and he is a wimp), have one warrior carefully agro. This is done by hugging a wall and dragging them back to the group, as shown HERE. Finally, swing back to the other side and attack the last few packs from the south, as shown HERE.

Congratulations, the fort is clear! With careful agro and focus fire, you can do this with very little risk or effort.

DEFENDING THE FORT

After the movie, the group should run to your preassigned positions. One caster (healer or nuker works) should man each catapult, one warrior should run to each gate (from here out, the warriors should be known as east leader or west leader), and the remaining four should run to the middle. The leaders should always stay on the wall unless there is an emergency, while the killers and tanks should be at ground level all the time.

You do this to prevent a pack from slipping through while allowing you to quickly move your killing force between targets. One warrior and monk can hold the pack until backup can come. The bulk of your fighting force will move back and forth based on the reports of the monks. As needed, the 4 will split to cover pincer attacks. Think of it was the monk and warrior leader anchoring each side as the killers move between hot spots. You can see an example of us in position HERE.

The leaders should constantly scan the horizon (holding down control) to see how many monsters are approaching and from what direction. As you see them, call out things like “2 mursatt east.” Communication is key, constantly update each other with things like – “backup west, 3 coming, I see a jade and a ele” and so forth.

The monsters will come in waves. Generally they alternate between sides but towards the end they start coming from both sides at once. The west will get hit harder than the east. With intelligent and active use of the catapults, you can kill or cripple most packs. The first few packs will stand in the target area and wait for a few seconds, giving you time to fire and kill them. Later groups will run straight through. Still, if you time it well you can always get off one solid shot on the pack, which can take ¼ of their life or more. This is a huge boost to the party. Furthermore, because you will attack them at the gate, the monsters will not yet have begun to regen their life from the catapult attack. (If you fight at the king, they will often regenerate most of the catapult damage back before the get all the way to you).

Basic attack pattern – blast them with catapult as they approach, warrior aggros at the gate, caster on wall nukes down, killers in middle assist where the battle is fiercest.

When the monsters approach the gate, the leader of that side should make sure they meet right at the gate. This is important because you allow the monk to heal you from above without leaving the catapults (or wasting precious seconds running around and down a stairs) and also because this allows you to fight on high ground that is a natural choke. As you cut the monsters down, report to the team “east clear.” Make sure your teammates know what is coming and how much fighting power you need to destroy it.

ALTERNATE METHOD

You can also avoid splitting your party in two groups and simply clump around the king. This method has the advantage of keeping all your offensive and defensive power in one place, allowing you to focus easier. It also requires less communication and teamwork. Finally, this method allows you to use the natural chokes and distance of the castle to increase your damage.

On the negative side, the king is in much more direct risk and the catapults are much less useful (as the monsters will usually regen most, if not all). Furthermore, on occasion packs outside the fort will be aggroed by your group inside. If this happens, they will stop and begin firing through the wall. This can put you at a severe disadvantage, as your warriors and line of sight spells will be useless, yet you cannot disengage because the king will be under fire.

HERE is an example of clumping. Note the two people on the wings running the catas, ready to return back to the group to support.

You will need to defeat a steady stream of white mantle, jade armor, and mursatt. You will fight three bosses (one of which can be destroyed only by catapult). By the time you get to the third boss, the Confessor, you will have WON. (I had to get a shot of some of my guildmates in – and our official mascot itsy bitsy

).

CONCLUSION

I hope this guide was helpful and entertaining. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] If you try the suggestions in this guide and still can’t win, drop me a message and I will help you out.

Garbad

corax5 · Aug 13, 2005, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Thats a pretty good guide, my second character is stuck on thunderhead keep atm, so I'll try some of that stuff, unfortunantly, being in a non active guild, its kinda hard to get a good group, but ill keep trying. Im sure the mission used to be easier though, the first time I did it with my ranger I did it, but that was a while ago.

fifty · Aug 13, 2005, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Ive never lost this mission or bonus even while using random pugs. im 5 for 5 with 3 bonus wins as well. Luck of the draw i guess. Good info, though. A lot of PvP experience has shown in the strat.

DFrost · Aug 13, 2005, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Good stuff, thanks for taking the time to write that.

I guess what it boils down to is that can one find enough players that are willing to listen and proceed according to the strategy.

JMFD · Aug 13, 2005, 04:36 PM // 16:36

ve done it two ways over 5 completions, and agree that it does depend on your group.

The way I did it for the first 4 completions was a revised way of the method first presented in the thread. Don't leave anyone at the gate, other than the people manning the catapults, instead pull everything to the centre at the bottom; within nuke range for both the casters on the pults, and has everyone together.

The last group we sat happily near Jalis, with four people manning the pults when nothing was in the fort. Killed several groups before they even got there. With a group containing a blood necro with WOP and WOB, and myself who is a healer/warder. At one point I had ward against mellee, ward against elements, well of blood and well of power on me.. awesome!

Bonus issues:
Dealing with the mursart boss
The mursaart boss can make or break things, and its arrival needs planning.If running a central build at this point everyone regroups to the king

Warrior: Cry, then allocate one tank. His job is to keep the boss busy while the rest of the team deal with the minions, one of the monks switches to healing/protting him only. Then mesmer/necro/ranger dots help considerably.

Ranger: Never had to deal with this one myself, generally the same tactic as with the warrior

Monk: Look through his minions, see if there is a healer amongst them, as there often is. Kill that first, then focus on the boss, using disruptions as often as possible. Maelstrom is nice as he may have multipke casters in his retinue.

Mesmer: Ingore until all the minions have been dealt with, if your monks are targeted have someone move to distract or interupt the interupter.

Elementalist: The spikes from the ele the monks will hate, but again, ignore the boss and focus on the minions, you do not even need to have anyone distract. Necro keep your monks energised here! One interupter can be spared to lock down the boss if you have one up to it (my group didn't, but we had two good monks, and great blood necro)

Necro: Never had to deal with this one - someone else advise.

What do you need in the party?

Tanks, at least 2
Monks, 2
2 damage dealers, eles or certain necro and mes builds
One blood necro with BR,
One more, preferably interrupter
People who can communicate!

Just my take..

Roupe · Aug 13, 2005, 11:03 PM // 23:03

This is the most recent teambuilds i beat it with.

two warriors

two trapper &interupt rangers

two elementalists
and the Hirelings Mhelno & Lina

Getting the king safly to the keep was easy, one elementalist had him way back, and safe. Only some brief battles did the king and the elemtalist need to assist in.

Defending the keep

The rangers used Healing spiring, and traps mostly , and interupting bosses & enemy spellcasters -They trapped the doors, put a spirit that tanked and had a look out for incoming enemies, Sometimes they abandon the doors to assist the otherside (mostly against bosses)

the elementalists manned the catapults and nuked, those they missed (as well as beeing look outs for incomming enemies.

the warriors went back and forth, assisting the rangers at the gates

Old Dood · Aug 14, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Garbag! Excellent post! Nice work. And I will agree wholeheartedly that COMMUNICATION is the key! Especially this mission.

M. Jaden · Aug 14, 2005, 12:27 AM // 00:27

It's odd I've never had trouble with Thunderkeep... I beat the mission on my first try with my characters, guess I had the benefit of getting some random lucky pugs :P

HowardJones · Aug 14, 2005, 04:54 PM // 16:54

ive had four toons make it this far and the last time was terrible. All the missions even the easiest one with the infusion- had to do numerous times. The fifth time I tried thunderhead we were trying to get people to man the pults. I kept telling this one character to do it over and over and she just stood in the middle of the field not casting or anything. I finally asked "do you speak english?" and she said "no eghlesh"

lol boy this sucked. We failed and the next two times I did it I started noticing half the problem is that most players late night/early morning are foreigners...

all you really need to do is surround the dwarf at the fort after its clear, and pray your mates are dorks.

MaglorD · Aug 14, 2005, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Communication is key otherwise henchies are better. Today I tried to do Thunderhead Keep bonus with a PUG on my fifth character, the rest having completed the bonus. Even after painstakingly explaining the basic strategy to stay with king while I go light the torches before the mission even started, some players actually went and engaged the enemies in the centre and the primary monk and elementalist got killed. Then the totally brainless monk left. How stupid can ppl get?

Calrisian Nantos · Aug 14, 2005, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Wow very nice strat guide thanks,as a ranger I brought 3 traps and serpents quickness and kept the doors trapped pretty well,but we couldve never done it without the ele's at the top on the balistae,loved this mission gotta be one of the coolest ingame

Reiden Argrock · Aug 14, 2005, 09:03 PM // 21:03

looks good, but I might add that just about anything will work if you know what your doing. I just recently did it with 2 healers, 2 trappers, death necro, warrior, and 2 nukers.

The trappers were a nice help for when some mobs got by cata's but the 2 healers kept the majority of the mobs away with cata's, the best thing about this group was the necro, his fiends kept alot of stress off of everybody, throughout the entire mission.

The warrior, well, he was a nice guy

smurfhunter · Aug 14, 2005, 10:43 PM // 22:43

ive noticed that whenever i do it with a 'good' group, i.e. there are no e/mes carrying swords and shields, etc, no disfuctional character going off and pulling huge mobs...i always die.

on the other hand, whenever im in a partially disfunctional group with at least 1 weirdo and 1 person yelling at the weirdo we always make it.

maybe you can consider this as a guide: find 6 average players, one arrogant talker explaining to everyone why hes better than you, and 1 noob. then just pretend you know what your doing...

aB- · Aug 15, 2005, 06:33 PM // 18:33

I have a few things to add.

When going outside to kill the jades, I like to keep the king AWAY from the jades, as he is not infused.

Keep in mind that the king is INCAPABLE of pulling mobs. If a monster gets in his sight, he will automatically attack it without hesitation. So, you should make sure whoever pulls does not have the king on him. But as stated in your guide, the warriors should pull, and the monks should have the king on them, so it shouldn't be an issue.

If done with henchmen, I find it incredibly difficult, if not impossible to pull anything. Everytime I failed the mission with henchmen, it was always a result of pulling. When you try to pull, the king will spot the enemy and charge, while your henchmen stay near you. The enemies all attack the king, and the henchmen healers do not prioritize the king's life over anyone elses. In addition, it seems as though the healer henchmen do not often realise the king is getting low on health.

Using my R/N, I was having extreme trouble keeping the king alive. I ended up changing my secondary profession to R/Mo for healing. I chose the highest healing spell I could find, which was infuse health. I was healing the king at the cost of my own health, but it seemed as though once I used infuse health the henchmen would heal me right back up.

For defending the fort, I like to go to each side of the fortress and kill what I can to maximize the ghost's damage potential. Once the mursaat/jades start coming, I found it better to retreat to the king. You have to make sure your king does not get any aggro from mursaat/jade because he is not infused and will take heavy damage from spectral agony. Use the catapults when nothing is around, and when the bosses come, KILL THEM LAST. Their damage is only slightly more than regular monsters, but their health and healing is much larger.

MaglorD · Aug 16, 2005, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by aB-

I have a few things to add.

If done with henchmen, I find it incredibly difficult, if not impossible to pull anything. Everytime I failed the mission with henchmen, it was always a result of pulling. When you try to pull, the king will spot the enemy and charge, while your henchmen stay near you. The enemies all attack the king, and the henchmen healers do not prioritize the king's life over anyone elses. In addition, it seems as though the healer henchmen do not often realise the king is getting low on health.

Using my R/N, I was having extreme trouble keeping the king alive. I ended up changing my secondary profession to R/Mo for healing. I chose the highest healing spell I could find, which was infuse health. I was healing the king at the cost of my own health, but it seemed as though once I used infuse health the henchmen would heal me right back up.

Yes, this is one of the biggest problems with the mission...the damn stupid weaking king and stupid Mhenlo. They're an act.

King always charges anything at sight. He isn't infused...yes I'm certain now and stupid Mhenlo can't be bothered with healing him.

The Amazing Krandor · Aug 16, 2005, 04:56 AM // 04:56

I just did this mission with my Necro/Monk. With henchies. At first, I went in as full Necro, and never made it to the fort. Three times. Jalis just kept rushing into battle and dying.

So, I switched over to full Protection/Smiting Monk (10 Smiting, 11 Protection, 9 Blood [had to keep some Blood magic points since I have a 12-pt energy item that requires 9 Blood], 10 Soul Reaping). And I had little difficulty with the entire mission. Just kept the protection on Jalis, along with Balthazaar's Aura and kept Zealot's Fire (the only two smiting spells I took) up. Once we got to the fort, I switched everything over to Devona, and we stayed up near Jalis. Killed everything as they came up the stairs. Really, it was just tedious, not difficult. Confessor Dorian went down just like a regular Justiciar. And the Mursaat boss was annoying, but I treated him just like every other boss: take out the riff-raff first, then focus on him.

My conclusion: Monks have it easy, and can easily complete the mission without a PUG, if need be. I suspect my Mesmer/Necro will not have such an easy time....

MaglorD · Aug 16, 2005, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Well I finally completed the bonus with henchies using my Me/E with zero healing. And guess whom I got for the boss? That's right Demetrios the monk mursaat boss. He had mursaat monk, jade armor and mursaat elementalist accompanying him.

Garbad_the_Weak · Aug 25, 2005, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Bump.

Garbad

fugazzi · Aug 25, 2005, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Funny thing about this mission, we had 6 players (none were primary monks) and added Lina and Menhlo. Failed miserably the first time. Got back to outpost and decided to pick up 2 monks and after several requests got a primary monk accepted. He came in, looked over our roster and said something to the effect, this'll do. He then began giving orders, saying only Warriors can tank and no one else, or he'd leave. At this point, a couple of party members whispered and said they didn't like his attitude so the leader booted him. We ended up with 7 players, none were primary monks, just secondary and carried useless Menhlo for the last spot. It was a heal-yourself type party, with most of us being secondary monks.

The 2nd try with this group was a breeze, finished it with 2 rangers, a bunch of warriors and menhlo, who was running around lost most of time.

Manning and using the catapult effectively was instrumental in beating this mission. We must've killed or heavily damaged the jades and mursaats with it and that made it a lot easier as we had maybe 2 players guarding each gate to finish them off.

Kirlain · Aug 28, 2005, 08:18 AM // 08:18

great guide.

However, using this strategy, even with a good group i can never hold out for whatever duration. We get so close only to be overwhelmed by too many enemies.

Im already on my 11th try and it's getting rediculous.