Curse

Cryshal · Nov 07, 2006, 01:50 PM // 13:50

I did this quest with both my level 16 Paragon, and with my Ritualist w/Ranger friend, and our heroes. After a couple of tries, you get the feel of what you need to do. If things are going badly, pull back using your flag to reposition your group away from the battle. Heal up and try again. Of course, you will need to rez the fallen ones.

These harder missions are where you find what skills work best for you and your heroes. Take your time if the mission isn't timed. Watch where the bombardments fall and work around those spots.

SanchO987 · Nov 15, 2006, 06:45 AM // 06:45

My P/W with shields up. Nuff' Said. (By the way i got masters while i timed myself. 20 MINUTES!! (holy crap))

samborarocks · Nov 15, 2006, 07:04 AM // 07:04

Eilsys,

Don't give up..I did this mission at least 20 times with hero's/henchies. It can be done, all I had to do was level up the heros...........then it was really easy...........BTW bring Jin with interuppts/ or another npc with interupts.........

SR

EDIT: BTW" this mission s*ck*d...............tooo hard

AdverseE · Nov 15, 2006, 06:47 PM // 18:47

I was able to complete this mission easily with only 1 other person and heros. In addition, I didn't even use Koss. There's an easy way to avoid the siege attacks...just don't stand where they fall. Try to destroy the bowman w/field commander at the bottom of the stairs before getting in their range. Then rush them, don't pause in the area between staircases as thats where the siege weapons strike. Destroy bowman then move on. Kill the general and his men near the siege weapon and that will stop the siege strikes. He's a tough one as he continually uses paragon shouts to boost his health so if you have a necro with ulcerous lungs, that would help. Best thing to do once you've made it to the middle area of the castle/wall is to attack the next group of kournans with captain but keep a flag up around the corner for a Dunkaroo. He'll resurrect anyone who dies and keep himself from being killed. Then go up the staircase to the left destroy the next group of field commander/bowman, come back down, go to the right and attack the last group for complete mission and bonus. If you go into this mission, thinking you're going to hack and slash your way thru without intelligently deciding on good skills and builds for your heros and strategically attacking the groups, you are going to fail everytime. If you take it slow and smart, you'll do it first time through.

lennymon · Nov 15, 2006, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Heh, my nuker hero dang near soloed this mission at the end part last night, the archers dont move and there is always a way to nuke the bejeezus out of them from a spot where they can shoot you, SS works also, but any aoe elemental non line of sight stuff will pwn. The sieges only do a few points of damage each, but they kd, ward of stabilityor other anti kd helps casters quite a bit (especially with all the melee opponents with magebane smash).

I hope these little tips can help someone frustrated.

Ninna · Nov 15, 2006, 07:08 PM // 19:08

as soon as you finish the Time is Nigh quest,
you are able to visit the other chapters

why do I mention this?

if you bring Olias as MM (from Lions Arch quest) this mission is alot easier

let the minions take the frontline damage and use flags so that your party doesnt do any "rush and die" tactics

aohige · Nov 15, 2006, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Yeah. Go to Lion's Arch and grab Olias, make him a MM.
Go to Kaineng City and grab Zenmai, and make her critical barrage/interrupt.

Watch the Kournan army as they melt and bleed to death.

This is a very easy mission, but if you are having trouble with it, you can always count on extra help from heroes from other chapters.

ran93r · Nov 15, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

I have seen this mission from both sides now.
Completely breezed through this on my 17 P/W but today decided to bring my N1NJAAA from Cantha over just for something to do. Fair enough, I didn't level my hero's beyond 15 before my first attempt but after failing and failing and failing they were around 18 by the time I finally got through it.

After suffering through that god knows how many times (A/Mo but the Mo is just for show) I decided to bring some regen skills to help keep me up (despite running both monk heroes).

I found going for the Spotters first made things easier for me, maybe I'm just picky but I always leave the bosses until last, most hero's and hench can stand up to getting pounded by them. When going for the bonus there are a couple of spots where the Bowman can hinder your progress to the Spotters, in which case : Command your group to the Bowman front line and make a hole through.

Seriously, 5 or 6 attempts at that on the 20 Assassin. Maybe it was the low level heroes or my oustanding ability at suck, who knows

lennymon · Nov 15, 2006, 10:17 PM // 22:17

I believe the problem most have is that they go in and attack the archers. This will end badly when it pulls the next group into the combat, pulls siege attacks down on you and pisses off the boss while you are pffting around with a half dozen archers. You'll be far happier with a controlled pulling and in the case of the archers, nuking in place.

Bobbalouie · Nov 15, 2006, 10:51 PM // 22:51

I've done this on 10 chars now, the easiest way of dealing with the mass of bowmen is to bring Olias with Rotting Flesh. Have him hide in a corner and cast rotting flesh on them until they die, but make sure you've anchored the rest of your guys far enough away that they don't charge the stairs. Also, make sure he is set to defensive so he doesn't charge in. I also put tainted, well of suffering and putrid explosion on him, and things just melt around him. Could just as easily do Spiteful Spirit or degen, anything ranged that you can cast through walls would work.

To deal with the seige, just get within range of the siege attack but not aggroing any mobs, let it finish, heal up and attack.

With that solved, my greatest difficulty has always been the elementalist boss. Best way to disable him seems to be to have Acoylte Jin bring Broad Head Arrow. On my necro, I happened to have a 55 armor set on, so I switched into that for the boss and went in with prot spirit and my henchies anchored far enough away that they would help with the ele boss's guards, but not get instakilled by a fireball.

I bring the healer, motivation, illusion and holy hench, with Olias, Jin and the forced Dunkoro (he doesn't really matter much being lvl 6, just some simple healing is good)

Ole Man Bourbon · Nov 15, 2006, 10:55 PM // 22:55

I guess the guy has returned the game by now.

Amarande · Nov 16, 2006, 04:47 PM // 16:47

I think they may have jacked up the difficulty of this mission (and probably some others) with the recent enemy AI updates ... I've been to this mission perhaps 4 or 5 times with my Tyrian E nuker (who is now up to Moddok Crevice in the story, BTW - I've been working on a lot of stuff in Tyria and Cantha as well as focusing more on exploration than missioning in Elona so things have been going somewhat slowly).

First time I did the mission was within a day after Nightfall came out (I forget if I did it that very night or went to sleep and did it in the morning). Wasn't too hard, though took longer than I thought it would thanks to my not being used to Kournan Priests' healing capability (healers seem to have gotten a boost in general enemy-wise this chapter; previous chapters I had little trouble unless I was facing a Mungri Magicbox or a Wissper Inssani or those occasional enemy groups that have 4 monks or the like).

Anyway, I came back a few days ago to this mission (I had only got the Standard Reward the first day and wanted to get Master's), and found things seemed to have got much, much harder. The rangers seem far more adept at picking off a single target as you go up the stairs and without using something like prot spirit it is very difficult to avoid having to provide a sacrificial lamb in order to get up there in one piece. But at least one run I've been eliminated with only the E boss at the very end left standing - ALL other enemies eliminated. Part of this is that E bosses seem to have got a difficulty upgrade by being much more singlemindedly nuke focused (therefore getting a ridiculous efficiency out of their double damage ... Canthan E bosses weren't nearly as focused on AoE in my experience and this made most of them much easier), but I swear something's changed since that first day ... anyway it took me 3 tries to get Master's (not counting the time I had to /resign because I was trying to map and Kormir bodyblocked me into a corner), on a mission I'd done previously!

IMO, this mission actually is a tad hard for its point in the story ... the next three missions (Venta Cemetery, Kodonur Crossroads and in my case, Pogahn Passage) were all much, much easier, in fact I will go so far as to say they were easy, and I'm sort of hoping for a reasonable challenge again soon.

Chuba · Nov 16, 2006, 05:16 PM // 17:16

This missions shouldn't be that much harder to lower level characters either as the shout that effects you the whole time will increase your health and armor to the max of your profession (and health to even higher than the max of 480 if you have runes) to you and all your henchmen/heroes. It will only be a bit slower than with lvl 20 characters as your skills will be weaker as you don't have that many attribute points to spread around.

the_jos · Nov 16, 2006, 10:02 PM // 22:02

I've done this mission with 6 out of 8 characters and I did not have too much problems.
Both my D and P had collectors armor (not max).
Learn where the siege attacks drop and stay out of there.
The rangers tend to spike on single target.
The rangers use Wirling defence, doing 10-11 damage for each projectile they block (this also does quite some damage since all caster weapons seem to be projectile).

The boss I've had most problems with was the Dervish.
The other bosses can be interrupted without too much problems (I used Jin with broad head arrow for best results, but mesmer hench should also work)

The key for me was staying out of the rangers crossfire, kill bosses asap (call target).
Investigate what skills should work best in the mission.

I know the mission is sometimes really hard, but it's very possible to finish.
Do consider that the henchies are (only) lvl 15.
And afaik (from observation), Anet build all missions in such a manner that a full hench team could finish alone.

lennymon · Nov 16, 2006, 10:34 PM // 22:34

BHA works quite nicely on dervishes as well if you focus fire they get very few enchants up if any (even bosses).
For a non elite using variation for boss shutdown (which would be more reaonable for newer players - whom I'd expect to be the majority of folks having difficulties...), consider bringing Acolyte Sousuke set as illusion/inspiration mes with the following skills (or as close as you can considering skill trainer limitations):
optional: accumulated pain(or phantom pain, deep wound is good not just for the reduced max health but also reduces effectiveness of healing), leech signet (nice, as it can interrupt any skill, fairly long recharge though - rely on a ranger to interrupt, but the conundrum/frustraion will allow the ranger to shut OFF a caster boss)
Illusion: arcane conundrum, frustration, clumsiness, signet of clumsiness (pain and suffering for any opponent)
Inspiration: power drain, spirit shackles
REZZZZ!

This guy is a bosses bad dream (a few elites create a nightmare and access to all 3 chapters/elites: worst nightmare). Manually target the Elemental boss with this hero, they'll do an admirable job of party damage mitigation. Spirit shackles alone messes up dervishes damage output pretty heavily and the anti caster stuff makes Zenmai(set for critical marks) or a player/other hero ranger with savage/distracting shots really good enough at boss caster elimination.

sage tank · Nov 17, 2006, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Use the walls to you advantage, ele boss's fire ball won't hit your party nor will the archer, use non sight damage source if you could or have tank go attack

Pkest · Nov 17, 2006, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninna

as soon as you finish the Time is Nigh quest,
you are able to visit the other chapters

which (aside from potentially gaining 2 new lvl 15 heros) also lets you do some of the quests in Cantha to level both you and whichever heroes you have in your party when you turn in the quests. Should be able to get all your current heroes to lvl 20 with just some (albeit dull) running around.

cynnn · Nov 17, 2006, 05:43 PM // 17:43

I don't know what's so difficult with this mission, its basically kill, move on, kill, move on, kill faster, there you go. Might be harsh but if you are having problems with this mission already, chances are, you will most probably have more problems than an average player with the missions towards the end.

So i'd recommend, guildies / friends to help. Try to cut down on henchmen numbers. Hero's are alright.

ducktape · Nov 17, 2006, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuba

This missions shouldn't be that much harder to lower level characters either as the shout that effects you the whole time will increase your health and armor to the max of your profession (and health to even higher than the max of 480 if you have runes) to you and all your henchmen/heroes.

Really? It doesn't seem to be working. I was doing Consulate Docks yesterday for the first time and I saw a strange icon mixed in with all the enchantments I had on me. I wondered what it was so I hovered the mouse over it and it said "Sunspear battle cry: Your health is a minimum 600 and your armor is a minimum (whatever)". My health was not at 600 and neither were the health bars of any of my heroes, it's kinda hard to check and see if it the AL boost was working, but the shout seems to be broken.

Dr Imperial · Nov 17, 2006, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by jshetley1

One word: IMPOSSIBLE. I want my 50 dollars back. If the other missions on mainland are this hard I'm through with nightfall. This mission should be at the end of game not the stupid start. Most will never see the mainland in nightfall because of this one screwed up mission.

are you serious? I don't remeber this mission being hard at all. Then again I havent done it in a long time. If you need help with it I will be glad to help you. (IGN: Dr Imperial) But if you thought this mission was "impossible", then you are outta luck when you get the Gate of Madness....:P