Curse

LouAl · Feb 26, 2006, 03:00 PM // 15:00

I had a similar experience with dunes of despair.
It was really hard the first time around (using PUGs). No one even wanted to try the bonus, but it still took me about 5 tries and 4 different pugs before I got it. Everyone seemed to think that staying near the altar was a bad plan, they all wanted to go kill the wurms right away...

So a little while ago I went back to do the bonus. There was very few people in the district so I grabbed henchies. At the altar, all the incoming groups were dead around the 6 min mark. We killed all the bosses and were done with a little time to spare.

Also, I had my ele stuck on THK for a little while. Kept getting into extra crappy groups full of afkers, leavers, and all that. (there seem to be a lot of leeroy clones in that mission). Then the monks went on strike so I just figured screw them. I got out my monk fillied his bar with prots and grabbed all the henchies except Lina. It took me about half the time to finish as with a pug.

So I went back with my ele and all the henchies excpet Cynn. I was set up as an earth tank using Life bond, Balth's Spirit, Essence Bond. At the keep, I lit the beacons and then just parked my butt at the king. The whole thing was pretty easy (although I did die with ele and not monk, oh well).

I could never get a group together to do the bonus. Everyone whines about how it is impossible. It probably would be with a PUG, but is easy with henchies (if you can tank well). EDIT: I should note that it is laughably easy to do with henchies because the jade kill most of the giants anyway...you could never make a PUG understand that would happen, someone would aggro them all (and at the same time).

Urfin · Feb 26, 2006, 03:17 PM // 15:17

Keyote: Yep, since release. Took a tiny break though - GW is surprisingly refreshing from all the grind & OMGsupergigahardcorePVP in EVE

SisterMercy · Feb 26, 2006, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ishmaeel

Now, that I don't believe, unless you have a strict interviewing methodology to determine who to allow into your PUGs and spend an hour forming your party.

PuG quality has deteriorated significantly. In the first few months of the game, anything was achievable with PuGs. Now, you might find 2 good players in the lot, 3 or 4 who are still (sometimes clumsily) learning to be good players -- which I can handle -- and almost always at least 1 moron.

Urfin · Feb 26, 2006, 05:28 PM // 17:28

I got an idea actually - maybe when you assemble a PUG you need to talk to them for at least 10 minutes about how you're totally not gonna aggro a gazillion mobs and just how much Power Attack should not be in the skillbar, etc. That should weed the millisecond-attention-span leeroys pretty neatly

Evan The Cursed · Feb 26, 2006, 05:34 PM // 17:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

There is absolutely NOTHING hard about those missions. I find them actually easier than others.

Nah... Thirsty River is... semi- hard. At least when Alesia runs up to melee the Rockshot Devourers and dies two or three times from their focus fire before I even get to the first team. -_-

And Lina isn't any help. I just wanna take those two aside and beat the crap out of them. "STOP tanking, that's MY job"

Damn Rockshots and their Dust Traps ;_; I can't seeeee

FalconDance · Feb 26, 2006, 05:38 PM // 17:38

As has been already said, *any* mission is hard if you have no idea what you're doing and/or aren't willing to learn. If you're one of those who whine "omg, I've tried this mission like 16 times!" and still haven't figured out a strategy to maybe succeed on the 17th and thus can help your party, then........

Keyote · Feb 26, 2006, 05:44 PM // 17:44

PUG's get drastically worse once you reach the desert. I help groups earlier in the game with my monk and many of them are on their first time through the game. They may make mistakes because they dont know any better, but they listen and work as a team so it goes smoothly.

Then you reach the desert and shiverpeaks...people who have no idea what they're doing think they know best. They wont listen because it hurts their pride to stop doing the stupid thing you just told them not to do. A large number of high level players just aren't smart enough to get any better at the game, but they dont realize or accept it and try to do things their way regardless.

Rayea · Feb 26, 2006, 05:59 PM // 17:59

well then, show off, tell me *exactly* which skills, strategy and what whay to kill ect, for a single necro/monk to do this?

i have tried every thing i can think of to get thru this mission, other than just randomly inviting myself into peoples groups, and i DONT want to do that....
*and yes, i do use the henchies*

i have been finding that i cant dish out enough damage to them, i ALWAYS get monk bosses, mostly 2 of them.
i cant get the critters to come when i want, nor go away, and those damn cursed buggers keep teleporting onot my corpse and ravaging the leftovers of the henches >.<

(i would like to have even ONE charater asended befor factions comes out....i dont need to get to droks, realy, though i would like that without running, but i dont even want to FINISH the damn game, just get my main assended....)

LordDeArnise · Feb 26, 2006, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keyote

PUG's get drastically worse once you reach the desert. I help groups earlier in the game with my monk and many of them are on their first time through the game. They may make mistakes because they dont know any better, but they listen and work as a team so it goes smoothly.

Then you reach the desert and shiverpeaks...people who have no idea what they're doing think they know best. They wont listen because it hurts their pride to stop doing the stupid thing you just told them not to do. A large number of high level players just aren't smart enough to get any better at the game, but they dont realize or accept it and try to do things their way regardless.

Not to mention that those morons will call you a "n00b" if you don't do their unorthodox approach. Personally, I don't say stuff like some players do on a regular basis, and I haven't seen that many PuG's on Elona that just act like morons and aggro the whole map. This leads me to four things:

They're probably of elementary / junior high age.
They're just too inexperienced and unwilling to learn from good veteran gamers.
They have a warrior they like to pull of a "Leeroy Jenkins" with.
They just flat out suck.

I don't have too much problems with PuG's, it's when the occassional moron or inexperienced comes in and goes totally blank in critical parts of the mission, going like "What am I supposed to do here?!" "Dude, where's my healing, you stupid monk?!", that drives us veteran gamers away from them.

Keyote · Feb 26, 2006, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayea

well then, show off, tell me *exactly* which skills, strategy and what whay to kill ect, for a single necro/monk to do this?

i have tried every thing i can think of to get thru this mission, other than just randomly inviting myself into peoples groups, and i DONT want to do that....
*and yes, i do use the henchies*

i have been finding that i cant dish out enough damage to them, i ALWAYS get monk bosses, mostly 2 of them.
i cant get the critters to come when i want, nor go away, and those damn cursed buggers keep teleporting onot my corpse and ravaging the leftovers of the henches >.<

Damage cant be the problem with hench, I've done this with a monk

Avoid fighting if you can get around them without agro and kill sages first. If you take the right route there isn't much fighting to do on the mission.

FalconDance · Feb 26, 2006, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rayea

well then, show off, tell me *exactly* which skills, strategy and what whay to kill ect, for a single necro/monk to do this?

i have tried every thing i can think of to get thru this mission, other than just randomly inviting myself into peoples groups, and i DONT want to do that....
*and yes, i do use the henchies*

i have been finding that i cant dish out enough damage to them, i ALWAYS get monk bosses, mostly 2 of them.
i cant get the critters to come when i want, nor go away, and those damn cursed buggers keep teleporting onot my corpse and ravaging the leftovers of the henches >.<

(i would like to have even ONE charater asended befor factions comes out....i dont need to get to droks, realy, though i would like that without running, but i dont even want to FINISH the damn game, just get my main assended....)

I'm sorry you've had such difficulty, Rayea. I, for one, didn't intend to brag or anything. Put me on your Friend's List (Cait is on a different acct), and if I'm available at the time (i.e. not in-mission/other quest), I'll try to get a couple buddies and we'll help you thru. We did this last night with a monk, 2 eles, a warrior and a mesmer (me). We lost the bonus but nailed the mission easily. (was the lost-how-many-times-count some of us had gone through)

(Oh, and I've taken a Ne/Mo through

)

Urfin · Feb 26, 2006, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Rayea: I haven't ever player a necro, but being a braindead W/Mo I'm pretty sure you can easily beat this on monk skills alone. Adding necro nastiness can't really make it worse unless you sacrifice yourself to death, I think. I can't say as for exactly which skills would be good here (@ work now, but I could suggest a build when I get home if you need it), but one thing to note for a caster is that henchmen respond to calls - CTRL+clicky to attack & call, or SHIFT+CTRL+clicky to target & call, the latter being more sensible in your case. They do concentrate nicely on what you call, so if you call (& kill) at least sages first, you should do fine. Look at the mission map on, say, www.guildwiki.org, take the back route, to both bases and don't use the bridge.

Tarkin · Feb 26, 2006, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urfin

Dunno, I haven't noticed any "time pressure" on Elona, my watch must be broken or something

Has anyone managed to do THK with henchies actually? Should be difficult, considering they can't very well split.

LOL make this with henchs and take the bonus... and kill a dam monk boss... just with henchs, manage henchs is a art...

Spenser_For_Hire · Feb 26, 2006, 11:31 PM // 23:31

for the most part, i do the first 5-6 missions solo, then do all the rest with henchies, i do the easier missions with pugs cause sometimes its alot faster then with henchies, since henchies do not have the best builds

SisterMercy · Feb 26, 2006, 11:45 PM // 23:45

The Crystal Desert missions are where players really start to learn to specialize, and to outwit opponents. You can't really get through these unless you do both (or you piggyback on someone).

Rayea, it gets to where you want to focus your necro. Obviously, you haven't got to capping Spiteful Spirit yet, but you can still make a decent curses necro, or you can focus on Blood Magic / Battery, MinionMancer or try something novel. For my ele-monk, I had to switch over completely to heal skills, and managed to get through the missions as a potent support healer.

In the Desert, Blood Magic focus works well, cast a Well of Blood whenever you get a chance (try to keep closest to the corpse in the middle of the fray so the well sprouts up there, while staying out of the thick of it), and Mark of Subversion works really well on the casters. If you bring Blood Ritual and supply it to the monks when they need energy, they'll love you for it. Symbol of Wrath is a good way to keep the baddies off you, since they run away from it (it's technically AoE).

Don't be afraid to bring Rez Signet instead of Rebirth, since the latter kills your energy and brings the person back at a fractional state; RS brings them back at full health and energy, and recharges every time you kill a boss (and there are lots of those in the Desert missions). Someone else will bring Rebirth to pull from sticky spots, or you might even be able to fit both on your skillbar.

Make sure to readjust your attributes accordingly.

Studio Ghibli · Feb 26, 2006, 11:50 PM // 23:50

As everyone else is saying, these missions are not hard.

People, however, insist on making them hard.

The last time I did the Elona Reach mission, I had to constantly remind the PUG I was with (it was their first time) to ignore the timer and to stop rushing.

Thirsty River is hard because people make it hard. People fail to bring the proper skills. People fail to manage aggro correctly. The last time I did Thirsty River, the PUG was swearnig up and down that, in the second arena (with the two groups), they both auto-aggroed you, so there was no reason to, as I was suggesting, aggroing only one group at a time.

Roffle.

I did THK this morning. No one died. At no point did anyone panic. In fact, one of the warriors actually went on strike because another warrior picked up his fellblade.

And no one really cared.

Mister Overhill · Feb 27, 2006, 01:46 AM // 01:46

Well, different builds call for different strategies. Put two r/mo toons through there last summer with all henchmen. Left the two tanks home because they tended to run off and aggro mobs in close quarters, especially good old Stefan. After taking the mission, going back to cap skills was a snap. Same with Thirsty River.

Riding a bike is easy too, once you've got it.

Lady Lozza · Feb 27, 2006, 01:49 AM // 01:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ishmaeel

Now, that I don't believe, unless you have a strict interviewing methodology to determine who to allow into your PUGs and spend an hour forming your party.

lol You can not believe all you want. I was playing at a time when suddenly everyone really started to understand what they were doing, but we had yet to get any players from "other" online games, if you take my meaning. We took it slow, didn't denegrate certain characters, made sure we always had a mesmer in the team (Willa went down VERY quickly), stopped when necros/eles/monks were low on energy. RoF, Abaddon's, and Hell was done with the same group - so in that respect I was lucky.

Rayea · Feb 27, 2006, 01:50 AM // 01:50

well, i managed to get my blood and death skills up in the teens, i grabbed that vamp elite spell from a boss in there, and have tried the snealy,sneaky aproch, but for some reason, they ALWAYS know im comming....

*maybe it has somethng to do with Misha not having had a bath, and all that leather does make one sweaty

*

im not that keen on rebirth, but res signet, i dont kill enough in time to keep using it, and i often get bottlenecked near the bridge...
(im usually comming towards the bridge via that passageway to its right when you face it, and theres a buch of sage twerps up on the top area that ALWAYS come down and take out my team...cant tell you how many times i have had to hide around the corner, wait for them to bugger off, then nip back in and heal/res my henchies....i even stopped taking my beloved Claude, it was too much to ask him to keep dying for Misha *grumble*

i usually have 2 healer skills *healing type and a res type*
i had one leet (cant spell the proper word tonight grr) that is the vamp one and one capture sig (just in case i got a monk boss)
the rest are usually blood/death.....the two boney summon, the first on you get as a necro (those black circles that are mass critter attck)
cant remember which ones else...

but they always dogpile on me....gees, its like they are taking it out on me that everyopne else is walking thru it blindfolded, with no armour on and a large clown outfit on to disguise them ^.^

Numa Pompilius · Feb 27, 2006, 01:58 AM // 01:58

The first time through I played exclusively with henches, and had some problems with Elona and Thirsty before I figured out the tactics.

The second time through I played a monk, and when I got to Thirsty, I got a bazillion invites. OK, I thought, why not.

O. My. God.

Wipe after wipe after wipe. Suddenly I realized that really bad players become concentrated at the harder missions, because they get stuck until good players carry them through. In most missions, people went AFK, and players scattered all over the map (which doesn't exactly make healing easy). I especially remember one guy who used sprint to solo-charge into enemy groups, even though I told him that then I couldn't keep up, and couldn't heal him. Naturally he bitched and moaned every time he died too.

Fifth try I finally got a decent PUG, and we got through - even though one of the guys was level 12 or something, and had very weak armor (requiring as much healing as the rest of the team combined).