Curse

Shyft the Pyro · Aug 01, 2006, 05:45 PM // 17:45

Of all the faction farming opportunities available in Cantha, Jade Quarry is probably the most fun but unused one. The problem lies both in the location of the mission and the lack of knowledge the few players who do manage to get in exhibit. I can't bring Jade Quarry any closer to House Zu Heltzer, so I thought I'd cover the basic points of gameplay and some common problems in a guide to spread what I've learned.

Overview

Jade Quarry is a fun, wide-open competitive mission located south of Cavalon and far east of House Zu Heltzer, at the very NE corner of Melandru's Hope. It does not have the same straightforward gameplay as the Fort Aspenwood mission and resembles Alliance Battles more closely. Due to the lack of natural "herding" barriers like the narrow gateways present in Fort Aspenwood, the Jade Quarry plays and feels more like a giant bowl, which can disorient new players unfamiliar with mission objectives.

Gameplay

The main objective of the mission is to ensure that your team holds as many of the three quarries as possible, so that the carriers - Kurzick Juggernauts and Luxon Turtles - can carry blocks of jade back to your base. As soon as the block is crushed under the mechanism your team will score a point. The team that scores ten points first, or the team that scores the most points when time runs out, wins.

The main gameplay objective, then, is to capture and recapture the quarries as frequently as possible. Initially, in order to capture the quarry for your team you must enter it before the enemy does. This will spawn your team's NPCs inside the quarry, as well as start a carrier. Once the NPCs spawn, capturing a quarry requires killing all of them, which can be quite problematic to achieve in one attempt, especially if you're also being harrassed by the other team.

Most inexperienced teams put too much emphasis on killing players or capturing guard posts, and while both strategies net faction points and XP neither does as much for your team as capturing a quarry. The Longbows that spawn at each guard post can slow down enemy players and carriers with Pin Down, but they generally constitute an annoyance rather than a threat and can be avoided easily. Likewise, killed players quickly resurrect at the base with full energy and can get back into the battle with minimal downtime due to the teleporters.

Location is the main thing to remember while playing in the Jade Quarry. Frequently it is better to capture a quarry and die than run or fight simply because you will come back with full energy at your base and can reposition yourself, moving out through a teleporter to any quarry that is left unguarded or requires recapturing. You can spend less time dying to three Longbows, coming back at the base and teleporting to the other side of the map than you will running over - which is a dangerous proposition even with a running skill.

Another thing to remember is to always use the "U" window while playing in competitve maps with multiple map markers. You don't have to keep it open all the time so it doesn't obscure your vision, but checking the minimap every once in a while will let you know which quarries and guard posts your team holds and which ones you should be focusing offensively on. Checking the minimap while waiting for resurrection is perfect because you can then teleport to the appropriate location rapidly.

Tactics

Jade Quarry is a nuker's paradise. Guard post and quarry NPCs are bunched up tightly in their starting locations, and nothing kills them faster than a properly placed AoE fire magic spell. That said, there is something to do in Jade Quarry for everyone.

-Warriors are the main harrassment machines in Jade Quarry. The best setup for a warrior is not to damage and kill NPCs but to distract them while a caster kills them, and to eliminate enemy players who might try to recapture the quarries. Speed buffs are essential for chasing down enemy casters, as are protective skills that will allow you to survive the attacks of NPCs while you hold their aggro. Distracting Blow is perfect for interrupting key enemy skills, and you want to bring condition and hex removal to prevent yourself from being killed too easily. Unlike the casters who can quickly resurrect with a new supply of energy, you are most useful while you're alive and in the face of enemy casters. Cyclone Axe and Triple Chop are both valid choices if you want to set up for NPC killing instead.

-Rangers are useful as caster and carrier killers. The degeneration from poison (and bleeding from Hunter's Shot, which always works because the carriers are always moving) can take down a carrier pretty fast, and the various ranger interrupts can likewise shut down an enemy caster. A speed buff and a defensive stance will allow you to survive longer, while Barrage can help your team capture guard posts and quarries. Trapping the quarries is also a valid option, but there's no guarantee the traps will get set off by an enemy tank instead of all the enemy NPCs once they spawn. Edge of Extinction, which generally rules Fort Aspenwood if used properly, does not do as much in the Jade Quarry simply because you don't want to kill all the NPCs - including the friendly ones holding a quarry for you - at once. You don't have "disposable" NPCs like the Luxon Warriors in Fort Aspenwood to set it off, so be very careful where and when you place it if you choose to bring it.

-Assassins make excellent caster and carrier killers. Bleeding, poison and deep wound all make short work of the carriers, and speed buffs and debuffs let you catch up to carriers and players alike. You are nowhere as durable as a warrior or a ranger, though, so consider either going for hit-and-run tactics (the usual for good assassins) or run-and-die tactics (the usual for Jade Quarry casters to recover energy). If you've assassinated your target but don't have the energy or the speed buff to relocate yourself quickly, dying is probably the best option for you. Twisting Fangs and Shadow Form are two skills you should pay particular attention to, the first for killing and the second for holding NPC aggro or general invulnerability, as well as the near-instant death afterwards (unless you set up to avoid it).

-Elementalists are the main damage machines of Jade Quarry. Properly placed fire spells can eliminate guard posts in about ten seconds, while quarries generally take longer. Of the three other elemental lines only water magic offers comparable AoE damage, but the slower recharge and lack of repeated AoE damage make fire magic a clear winner. Of course, slowing down enemy players can be very helpful in the Jade Quarry, but that's not what you as an elementalist should be focusing on. Earth magic is nice too, but slow recharge and the fact that most of earth AoE is proximity based are both prohibitive. I highly recommend using fire magic skills with a three-second or shorter activation time, especially Searing/Teinai's Heat and Breath of Fire. Coupled with a Fireball or a Meteor, both of these can take out a guard post in one go. Resurrection does not remove skill recharge, so while Meteor Shower is as good in the Jade Quarry as ever you should avoid it.

-Necromancers can be nearly as good or better than elementalists in the Jade Quarry in terms of damage output, depending on the setup and the situation. While normally Minion Masters (MMs) rule any area with as large a number of corpses as Jade Quarry, the very size of the map prohibits MMs from being useful all over. Further, MMs lose control of the minions if they die, so the best thing a MM can do is help capture one single quarry and hold it with the minions to stop enemy attempts to recapture it. But Jade Quarry is a much more offense-driven map, so most necromancers set up with curses, for AoE degen and Spiteful Spirit for rapid NPC kills.

-Mesmers don't generally have a role in the Jade Quarry outside of caster distraction. As in all PvP, mesmers are excellent at shutting down enemy casters with Diversion and Backfire and interrupts, but lack the offensive capabilities to take down NPCs on their own. Since casters die and come back so frequently in the Jade Quarry a mesmer should focus not on energy denial (all energy is recovered when a character resurrects) but on things that resurrection does not remove, like exhaustion (Arcane Languor) and skill recharge (Diversion).

-Monks aren't generally as welcome in the Jade Quarry as they are in Fort Aspenwood. Healing does not play that great of a role in Jade Quarry since there are very few "safe" places from which a monk can keep NPCs alive, and since there are so many NPCs around a monk simply cannot heal them all. A smiting monk, however, would do an excellent job of capturing a quarry or guard post when paired with a tank, and could take advantage of the rapid deaths to recover energy.

-Ritualists lack the firepower to bring down the NPCs on their own, but can do well spamming spirits to protect a quarry. The spirits serve as an additional speed bump on the way of the enemy team and allow more players to converge on the quarry to defend or retake it. A channeling ritualist could try to "smite" off of a tank with Ancestor's Rage or "nuke" with Spirit Rift, but won't be able to kill as fast as most of the other offensive casters.

Strategy

The main thing to remember while playing Jade Quarry is that you're supposed to capture quarries. You should always check to see which quarries your team holds and adjust accordingly, heading to the enemy-held quarries to capture them or destroy their carriers. Jade Quarry is an offense-driven map because there are simply too many points to defend and the points are so far apart. Just as in alliance battles, it may be more beneficial to go around a defending team and capture things they aren't guarding than to confront the team head-on.

Immediately after loading, at least one nuker on your team should go to the extreme left of your starting area. There will be a guard post controlled by the enemy reachable from that spot, and you should capture it before the timer starts and the gates open so you have less work to do afterwards.

Split your team into two roughly equal groups and head towards the side quarries on the east and west walls of the battle area. If you are Kurzick, send a runner to capture the south quarry since it's located closer to you. If you are Luxon, consider sending a nuker and another character to the south quarry to put pressure on it right away while the rest of the teams are engaged elsewhere.

While heading out to quarries, do not use the main gate! Teleporters generally deposit characters closer to quarries than gates do, and even if you have a speed buff you can always activate the speed buff after teleporting. The teleporters are also much closer to the resurrection point than gates are.

If you succeed in capturing a side quarry, push on into enemy territory. If you encounter no resistance, capturing a guard post will provide a speed bump to the enemy's attempts to recover the quarry. If you meet resistance and die, refocus the attack on another quarry: while your enemy will be killing your NPCs you will have a chance to kill theirs and get an extra carrier. After that, you can come back to the original quarry and recapture it, since your enemy will likely have moved on.

Your team only needs to hold two out of the three quarries to win in the long run, but remember that your enemy will not be sitting on their hands and just let you win (if they've read this guide

) You need to keep attacking the quarry the enemy team controlls in order to claim it for yourself or to at least keep the enemy team's attention on that quarry.

Killing a carrier is not as good as capturing a quarry in that it does not let your team score, but it does prevent the enemy from scoring. If you're set up to kill enemy carriers, try to hang out somewhere near the central intersection of the map. All carriers must travel over level terrain, so - for example - Kurzick Juggernauts from the east (green) and south (purple) quarries must go through the intersection SE of the two guard posts and the jade outcropping. If you're going to take on any guard posts, try to capture those two because they overlook the main avenues of carrier advance to their respective bases. Pin Down can let you have a little bit more time to kill those pesky carriers.

And lastly, if you're only coming to Jade Quarry in order to unlock your map, participate first and map second. "Mapping leavers" give a bad name to all cartographers and are currently part of the reason Jade Quarry sees little to no action.

Afterword

I know that Jade Quarry is mostly a ghost town, but it's an incredibly fun mission to play. It gets more populated in the evenings and on the weekends, and I believe that if people actually knew how to win in it things would change and it would see a population increase. So instead of mapping and leaving, or just asking Fort Aspenwood people to move over, do your part. Don't be a part of the problem; be a part of the solution. Walk your guildmates to Jade Quarry today, and tomorrow there might actually be enough people there for everyone to get in!

Sir Mad · Aug 01, 2006, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

And lastly, if you're only coming to Jade Quarry in order to unlock your map, participate first and map second. "Mapping leavers" give a bad name to all cartographers and are currently part of the reason Jade Quarry sees little to no action.

I had to get there a few time to get my last 0.x% and actually I did the contrary: explore, then kill. 3/4 of the players there where there to explore anyway. The other 1/4 was here to see what the mission looked like, not to win or try hard to.

The main problem of the Quary is you can't ask people to get involved when there is no one there. And there is no one because.. there is no one there and people don't want to wait 1 hour to participate.

Clinically Proven · Aug 02, 2006, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Looks like a really good guide.

Unfortunately, being in the GW middle of bloody nowhere -otherwise known as Australia, where it's no-one's prime playing time - I'm still yet to see the inside of Jade Quarry.

I hope one day it'll be kicking along as it sounds like more fun than Aspenwood.

Effendi Westland · Aug 02, 2006, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Excellent guide, hopefully this will spark more quarry action!

Paperfly · Aug 02, 2006, 08:04 AM // 08:04

Quote:

Unfortunately, being in the GW middle of bloody nowhere -otherwise known as Australia, where it's no-one's prime playing time - I'm still yet to see the inside of Jade Quarry.

I changed to the US server, making "prime time" 9 am to midday instead of 10pm plus (Europe). Guild Wars was messing up my sleep patterns.

Cymmina · Aug 13, 2006, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shyft the Pyro

-Mesmers don't generally have a role in the Jade Quarry outside of caster distraction.

This is complete BS. My mesmer has seen more action at Quarry than you have if you really believe this. You hail assassins/warriors/rangers as being excellent professions for this map, but a good Illusionist makes minced meat out of them (2 spells in particular easily cut their health in half with armor ignoring damage). Using the potent degen skills in the Illusion line, I'm more than capable of taking out any set of NPCs on the map I choose.

In fact, I consider a domination mesmer to be extremely weak here. Sure, you can disable casters very well, but quite frequently you'll go up against a team with only 2 casters. Disabling is fine, but damage is king.

Shyft the Pyro · Aug 13, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cymmina

This is complete BS. My mesmer has seen more action at Quarry than you have if you really believe this. You hail assassins/warriors/rangers as being excellent professions for this map, but a good Illusionist makes minced meat out of them (2 spells in particular easily cut their health in half with armor ignoring damage). Using the potent degen skills in the Illusion line, I'm more than capable of taking out any set of NPCs on the map I choose.

In fact, I consider a domination mesmer to be extremely weak here. Sure, you can disable casters very well, but quite frequently you'll go up against a team with only 2 casters. Disabling is fine, but damage is king.

Any profession can potentially take down the NPCs, but mesmers (and assassins, and monks, and ritualists) lack the AoE skills that allow them to take down the NPCs fast. In taking the NPCs down, speed is the main objective because if the enemy team sees you they will be able to come to the aid of the NPCs and either kill you or chase you off.

Perhaps I should not have used that particular line in the guide, considering mesmers now have some strong degen hexes like Conjure Nightmare. As mentioned, degen is an excellent means of neutralizing both the carriers and the players, but mesmer degen is not AoE degen and won't capture a quarry as fast as a Meteor Shower or a horde of minions.

Like in Alliance Battles, degen usually rules the day because players don't bring their own regen and can't rely on a monk. The problem with putting degen on the players is that they will respawn quickly after dying and can relocate themselves to a different part of the map. The problem with putting degen on the NPCs is that degen generally takes a longer time to kill them than damage, especially when it's not AoE degen.

I do admit that degen mesmers can do an excellent job of killing players in Jade Quarry, but while mesmer degen may get the job done in capturing guardposts or quarries I don't believe it can do the job as fast as possible. I have, however, seen a lot of mesmers harass the enemy team very effectively, with hexes and interrupts, to make capturing outposts a pain - and I'm talking both about caster and melee character disruption.

Your experience is no less valid than mine, but I wrote the guide basing it on my experience. My point is that every profession can find something to do in Jade Quarry, and not that you're limited to the roles I describe if you wish to win.

Shyft the Pyro · Aug 20, 2006, 07:28 PM // 19:28

One important thing I didn't mention in the guide (because I consider it an exploit) is the fact that, after capturing the outpost closest to your base, you can get out of the base with Prophecies teleportation skills (Consume Corpse, Necrotic Traversal) before the timer starts. The Factions teleportation skills (assassin shadow stepping and elementalist Ride The Lightning) do not work when used on the enemy NPCs, probably because most "cliffs" are made impassable in Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood and those skills recognize that as they're supposed to teleport you to living enemies rather than dead ones.

Whatever your personal stance on this "exploit" is, this particular tactic can make really close games very hard, so make sure to capture as many quarries as you can if the enemy team uses this exploit against you (which you'll recognize when an "enemy team captures quarry" message pops up before the timer expires). Winning isn't impossible, but it becomes very difficult with a disorganized or a disoriented team.

TheGuildWarsPenguin · Aug 20, 2006, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Kurzick Jade Quarry has 3 districts, but the Luxon Jade Quarry has one half-full district. Im in a Kurzick Faction Farming Guild but I lose too often in Fort Aspenwood and Alliance Battles are dull. So I only played it 4 times before. Nice guide btw.

Shyft the Pyro · Aug 20, 2006, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGuildWarsPenguin

Kurzick Jade Quarry has 3 districts, but the Luxon Jade Quarry has one half-full district. Im in a Kurzick Faction Farming Guild but I lose too often in Fort Aspenwood and Alliance Battles are dull. So I only played it 4 times before. Nice guide btw.

Thanks. This only proves my point: the problem for Kurzick players has been not the fairness of the map but the access. This weekend, when any PvP character can get to Jade Quarry from Great Temple of Balthazar, Kurzick side is flooded. Luxon side has seen a population increase as well, but it isn't as noticeable because Luxons don't have to wait nearly as long as Kurzucks do.

Paperfly · Aug 21, 2006, 11:18 AM // 11:18

One weekend later, I know more about the map and only have one comment -

Quote:

Of the three other elemental lines only water magic offers comparable AoE damage, but the slower recharge and lack of repeated AoE damage make fire magic a clear winner.

...Earth! I found an Unsteady Ground "nuker" worked much better than a fire elementalist as you didn't have to either cripple yourself with Meteor Showers or give up your disruption by having no KDs.

Generally easier casting costs, recharge times, and defensive options beat the slightly higher Fire damage, from what I found.

Shyft the Pyro · Aug 21, 2006, 04:32 PM // 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paperfly

One weekend later, I know more about the map and only have one comment -

...Earth! I found an Unsteady Ground "nuker" worked much better than a fire elementalist as you didn't have to either cripple yourself with Meteor Showers or give up your disruption by having no KDs.

Generally easier casting costs, recharge times, and defensive options beat the slightly higher Fire damage, from what I found.

Well let's just call fire magic a "personal preference" then

Vermilion Okeanos · Aug 21, 2006, 07:07 PM // 19:07

In my most humble honest way of saying this, this guide is very wrong in terms of almost everything about the classes.

While I leave you to figure the classes out, I would like to add... Your 2ndary class play a crucial role in this map for all classes, capable of doing all kind of solo carrier killing and solo capping is the key to win (and of course, those anti-solo killers guarding quarries like a big bad bulldog).