Curse

TheGizzy · Dec 03, 2010, 12:16 PM // 12:16

Seriously, doing this quest (aka "Wintersday Cheer") almost made me quit the game. I tried about 30 different times, using different builds, changing my secondary profession between mesmer/monk/ritualist/ranger, looking up farming builds for the Primeval Tomb for elementalists (similar monsters), swapping my party around and banging my head against the wall. I spent a good 15p and 15 skill points buying new skills and going back up against this quest over several days. I bought my heroes some hefty holy/dark damage dealing weapons in Kaineng Center and buffed their armor with additional runes/insignia.

None of it worked.

I read up on the monsters (Grasping Nights, Stalking Nights, Smite Crawlers, Shadow Vaettirs, Mist Vaettirs, Tortured Spirits, Coldfire Nights & Stalking Nights), and they all seemed to have major resistances to everything in my arsenal... they'd overwhelm and wipe my H/H party by the third wave.

I FINALLY came up with a build that overcame them, and I seriously only think it's because I was able to overwhelm them with damage. Anyway, I wanted to share what I used, and I hope that's ok. I poured through the forums looking for advice, trying out what bits and pieces I'd found, and I still kept dying... so maybe if another ele is looking in the future, this will help. I in NO WAY am putting this forward as any sort of effective or ideal build... simply sharing what worked for me, FINALLY. LOL

I went in as an Elementalist/Mesmer. Used a 20/20 10+energy fire (11-22) staff with perfect insightful & fortitude mods. Nothing elite/unique about my weapon/armor... nothing that someone with access to EotN shouldn't be able to get somewhere.

I used only one elite skill - Elemental Attunement. Biggest problem I had with most builds I found was that they required elite skills that could only be acquired by going up against ebbbbbiiiilllll baddies much worse than the ones I was trying to beat. LOL Since EA is easily acquired as an elite - I'm assuming any elementalist in EotN either has it, or can easily backtrack to the very low-difficulty missions it's acquired through. (I mean, really... Divinity Coast? LOL)

I also loaded Ebon Escape. You should already have this since you'd have needed to recruit the Vanguard in order to talk to Thackery to begin with.

Skill bar, left to right, contained: Ebon Escape, Lava Font, Bed of Coals, Arcane Echo (mesmer), Flame Burst, Inferno, Channeling (mesmer) & Elemental Attunement. I used Ebon Escape a couple of times to heal Lefsi Spiritchaser or my main healing monk...I think 3 times all total. No particular reason for the order of my skills, other than habit (I load my energy stuff from 8 & 7 all the time... it's where my passive skills always go when I'm gaming...far right) and then just trying to group the nukes around Arcane Echo.

I chose those particular damage dealers because they do not require an actual target. Major problem for an elementalist... going up against targets who cast wards against spells (stupid Blessed Griffins, I mean YOU too!!). And if you waste time hex breaking, or carrying hex breakers in your skills, you're not left with the ability to inflict any real damage.

Party-wise, I took lvl20 Monk Tahlkora (she's my main healer), lvl20 Dervish/Warrior Melonni, lvl20 Monk Dunkoro (he's my smiter) and from among the henchies I brought Lo Sha, Lina, Devona and Talon Silverwing. I also ended up leaving from Olafstead instead of coming through the Battledepths as I had previously... reason being, any build I had that was designed to go against the baddies in the quest were pretty useless for getting through those stupid Blessed Griffins. Coming the other way, I was able to avoid everything except a few Ice Elementals my party could handle, and a couple of pop-ups of the same kind of baddies I'd have at the quest destination... practice for the big event.

And finally... FINALLY... I kicked baddie booty. Honestly, I think I just overwhelmed them with damage... I mean, I don't think anything I launched was doing more than 10 damage at a time (pathetic, given that I have 14 in Fire Magic), per baddie, but it did it on such a wide-scale, and so frequently, I was able to overwhelm them with it. Oh yeah, attribute assignment was 6 Inspiration Magic (mesmer), 14 Fire Magic, 12 Energy Storage... my health is buffed to 626 with the heart of the Norn bonus thingy (+60) & my energy is 90.

I hope this helps someone... and I hope I've stayed within the forum rules (I think I have?). And I guess on some level, I just needed to be able to say, "Hey, look! I did it (even if it was just dumb luck)!" Because the gods of Tyria know, I was soooooo ready to give up. LOL

Rushin Roulette · Dec 03, 2010, 12:43 PM // 12:43

It sounds like you were trying the quest in HM if you say that you only did 10 Damage per skill.

To be honest that skillbar is not really optimal (to be polite). As an Ele, elemental Damage is pretty underwelming in HM. The best elements for Eles then are either Water (Snaring, controling and interrupting foes) or Earth (Churning Earth works wonders in HM as all foes are automatically moving faster than usual). Capping Elites is also pretty easy if you know where to look for the bosses in most campaigns (not counting the annoying multi spawnpoint bosses in Prophs).

The other problem Im seeing is that you rely heavily on melee heroes and henchies. Apart from melee H/H not being very good at targeting (Running around between foes like headless chickens comes to mind), the foes you were going up against are heavily geared against damage from Melee (Shield of Judgment on Smites or Frozen Burst from Coldfires for example) which means that half of your henchies were either getting blasted to neverland or sitting on their asses because of SoJ.

Fate Crusher · Dec 03, 2010, 02:59 PM // 14:59

I did this quest, not even knowing what I was going to be up against. I took a simple Discord build with heroes, Prot Hench, Earth Hench, Illusion Hench and Fire Hench. I did panic when we were overwhelmed, but it all worked out in the end on my first go.

To be honest, you're taking too many warriors/melee. 1 Derv and 2 Wars is silly when none of them probably use aoe damage skills.

I'd suggest the typical OP bars, Panic mesmers, Wota sins, Savannah's Heat/Searing Flames. You're also not doing anything to reduce the damage from creeps. With my discord, I bring a lot of AoE weakness spreading and Shadow of Fear. I also KD every target I call.

So you can swap yourself out and make a water build with Blurred Vision and Steam and some slow downs, bring some utility skills like the Standards and such.

Your bar is stupid (I'm not being polite). The reason why no one recommends builds and why there are no guides, is because it's not difficult and I'm sorry if you struggled with it for so long.

RedDog91 · Dec 03, 2010, 03:34 PM // 15:34

It shouldn't be hard...I completed the quest with a team of random heros/henchmen and no particular build. I didn't even know what the quest was and it was pretty easy.
Are you sure you weren't in HM?

Spiritz · Dec 03, 2010, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Ok ive only done the old wintersday cheer quests and a glance at wiki its same - but what i dont understand is the op saying "
I read up on the monsters (Grasping Nights, Stalking Nights, Smite Crawlers, Shadow Vaettirs, Mist Vaettirs, Tortured Spirits, Coldfire Nights & Stalking Nights), and they all seemed to have major resistances to everything in my arsenal... they'd overwhelm and wipe my H/H party by the third wave." .
Now i did it on 6 chrs and 3 of them i hardly ever use ( mainly mules now ) and it wasnt really that hard - i was expecting it to be harder and especially harder on 3 chrs i dont use ( my experiance with their profession would class me as noob lol ) but i got thru it.
Easy way i did it on ele - all out nuker build ( nothing special ) , spiritway hero setup , 2 monks and 2 other casters .The way i see problems arising is when you have a lot of melee - these days i like all caster/ranged because often your melee decide to attack other targets and suddenly your casters are being targetted and your then defending them.With casters you can flag them in middle ( which i did ) and let the foes come to you.
Smite tho - dont hex or condition them as they will self heal / smite hex = aoe dmg which many uw farmers know about and how much a pain they can be to take down - or easy if u do the 2 above.

Also i agree with the bad build part - nm/hm ( tho anet said only hm and lied ) too much aoe will cause a mob to split bigtime and then you get problems if they keep taking turns fighting - that can wear a team down faster than taking on a big mob.

LifeInfusion · Dec 03, 2010, 09:59 PM // 21:59

The key is to use snares before AoE (deep freeze, ice spikes is adjacent if you're using breat of fire or similar) or Meteor shower. Meteor shower is overrated though, it's adjacent range.

Don't use Firestorm, Teinai's Heat, breath of fire, Savannah's Heat, Eruption, Churning Earth (normal mode), Sandstorm, Chaos storm without a snare.

PBAOEs like lava font, bed of coals,symbol of wrath can be used to break aggro but don't use them for damage.

The fact that you're doing ten damage means you're not using cracked armor on warriors/rangers.

TheGizzy · Dec 03, 2010, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Thanks everyone for the feedback. It wasn't hard mode... I only just finished Prophecies last week and then got into doing EotN. I've been playing GW about 6 weeks at this point, and spent the first two of those in pre. It's clear from your comments that I'm not being as smart about utilizing my skills/henchmen as I could be, which means I need to focus some attention on understanding what some of my other elements and skills can do... I'm a Diablo throwback, where you COULD rely almost exclusively on one element and brick your way through the game... I needed the reminder that this is NOT Diablo, and I have to approach things differently. So thank you.

wilebill · Dec 04, 2010, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Gizzy, when new to EoTN it can be rough. There are some dinosaurs up in Asura territory that are just plain evil unmixed and undiluted! But you will learn a lot.

I have only done the Good Deed quest as one of The Chosen People: a Ranger. Was in Normal Mode, did not notice it was hard. Think I was running pet build with Otyugh's Cry, Vampirism, Snowstorm. Pet was my only melee. Dr Pecker! The friendly pecker upper who never lets you down!

Heroes and hench all casters. Eve always worth it.

I compliment you on this post! Worth reading because it was informative and fun. Really enjoyed it.

Two hero sets to acquire based on Necro heroes as you play through. Discord Way that others can explain. And Sabway. Can find threads on both on this board. I run a modified Sabway always, but Discord works even better, so I am told.

TheGizzy · Dec 04, 2010, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Thanks Wilebill

I've been reading some more on other threads and learning more about which heroes/henchies people take with them. I always just assumed it was best to take the melee fighters with me, to let them tank while I handled most of the casting... it's another area where I haven't made the best use of the game mechanics and haven't understood what's necessary.

I'm also reading up on the builds - discordway, sabway, spiritway, etc. More things I didn't understand the value of. LOL

I realized in reading more that there was something else I'd seen that I had not really understood "what" I was seeing. When I'm in Kamadan, I often see a lot of trade requests relating to skill tomes. I hadn't really known what they were for or why they were so in demand... somehow I didn't make the connection between those and the various skill packs NCsoft sells. I don't know why, in hindsight it seems pretty obvious. LOL

But it tied into my confusion over many of the builds I often see people putting forward... I wondered how they made it far enough along in the game to be able to acquire some of the uber elite skills. I thought to myself, "c'mon, I'm getting stalled out on this quest... how can I expect to conquer some ultrauberbaddie at the end of Factions (which I've barely even touched yet) in order to obtain a skill to use 'today' in trying to get through EotN?"

My brain finally made the connection... some players (not all who present builds I'm sure) are buying the skill unlock packs and then buying tomes to gain use of the skills.

I feel a bit stupid for not having understood that sooner... I could have saved myself quite a bit of headache...not to mention platinum on skills I "settled" for because I couldn't imagine acquiring the ones I WANTED any time soon.

I'm not a particularly courageous player, nor a very adventurous one. This whole concept of switching between builds/armor sets/weapon sets depending on what you're facing is pretty new to me... and so I'm having to learn as I go what other people have known "forever." I'm also a pretty shy player... I'm not likely to go into a town asking to join or create a party with others... so the only examples I have to follow are things I read here, and I'm reliant entirely on myself and my heroes.

I'm really glad Guru is here. I've found a lot of patience with my very newbie questions and a lot of guidance with correcting my very newbie mistakes. I appreciate that a great deal.

Rushin Roulette · Dec 04, 2010, 09:42 AM // 09:42

Dont worry about things like this. At the start we didnt knwo you were new to Guild wars... and beleive me there are enough posts in these forums from players who have been playing 3+ years boasting about how they are having trouble with the game because even after 3 years they are using terrible builds. Theres a deffinite difference between having played ages and already have better skills than a new player who doesnt have any other skills available or doesnt yet know about various mechanics of the game.

As for Tomes you can buy from players, they wont help you yet im afraid. They can only let your character learn skills you already have unlocked on your account. This means that you either have to buy the skill pack from Anet or go out and buy the skills from trainers or capture them using signets of capture after killing a Boss foe. Only then will the skill tomes be usefull for you.

Another very important feature of GW which will make the game a lot easier is Guildwiki. You can access it from ingame if you press the F10 button. That will pop up with a whole list of all skills you have and which were used against you recently. It also has all your active quests listed. Just click on one of the lines you want infos about or type your search word at the bottom and it will open up the Wiki page you are looking for.

Mouse at Large · Dec 04, 2010, 11:12 AM // 11:12

It's maybe not on your radar at this time, but a good way to get a feel for the game and get skills is to go for the elite skill capture title in NM. It may seem daunting at first, but it does force you to wander round different areas and set up builds/teams to deal with the mobs you will encounter

GL btw.