Tired of wiping

Sigh. So I have a W/Mo using this build and I have 8 heroes from EoTN, and I'm getting frustrated with these late game missions and quests. I was doing Worthy Deeds, and I wiped several times before finally finishing the quest w/ 60% DP. I was doing Destruction's Depths with a team of heroes and a Rit. We wiped so many times that I got bored and was browsing the web while he slowly chiseled down the destroyers with his spirits. I tried Glint's Challenge and wiped at 14 points.

I was able to get through all of Prophesies with just henchmen and heroes, so I don't think I'm THAT bad of a player. So my question is, what am I doing wrong? Do I need to go through each of my heroes and model them after PvX builds? What can I do to practice whatever skills I need to complete these quests? I hope that completing quests with 60% DP is not how the designers wanted the game to be played.

first off..... are your heros fully geared? (insigs/runes/weaponry)

is there synergy between builds?

and in all seriousness, it is kinda hard to give any tips when we only know your build but not your heros

The destroyers pack quite a punch. Mitigating the damage your party takes will help loads.

Considering the majority of damage caused by destroyers is physical with some ele dmg you can use stuff like:
- Minion Master: When they're attacking minions, they're not attacking your party. Put death nova on them and they do quite some damage as well.
- Protective Spirit: Reduces incoming damage taken to 10% of max health, bring it at least once.
- Weakness: It significantly reduces the physical damage taken. Stuff like Enfeebling Blood is good.
- Aegis: Party-wide block is good, especially against the barrage rangers.
- Illusions specced mesmer: Stuff like Ineptitude, clumsiness, signet of clumsiness and wandering eye both prevents damage as well as causes a good amount of armor ignoring(!) damage.
- Armor: Bringing something like Stand Your Ground means +24 armor, that's about 34% damage reduction. (You have SY though so if you can keep that up decently this shouldn't be needed)


I normally bring all of the above.

First - understand & accept that you're going to die periodically. It's the nature of the game, especially while the varied content is still new to you. It's easy to roll through something when you've done it a hundred times, know what to expect, know how to position yourself/your team, know how to combat what you're facing. But the first time? It's a learning process.

If you're walking around with a -60% DP, I'd advise getting some DP removal. You can almost always find someone in Kamadan selling Candy Canes, or Honeycombs or something else that will either remove DP or give you a moral boost (which also removes DP).

Worthy Deeds sucks... that white rabbit is the devil incarnate. There's a reason you don't see people farming that area during festivals. They've got gimmick builds for farming raptors, vaettirs, etc. - but you don't see people farming the swarms the rabbit spawns. That's because it's hard as hell and a party is easily overwhelmed. (Note: My post will shortly be followed by a couple of people insisting that they can faceroll their keyboards and kill everything in that hole in the ground in seconds... tell them you want a video.)

I still can't do Glint's Challenge... even with some of the gimmick builds I've seen. Damn thing drives me crazy. Destruction's Depths was easy... until I got into the chamber with the bridge and the Destroyers rapidly wiped my party repeatedly. When I finally DID manage to beat it, I stood up on the bridge, right in the center, and did a whole lot of creative flagging with my party. I'm pretty sure it was pure luck I completed it, and I honestly haven't tried again. I will... just because I need to know that I can do it. LOL

There are always going to be certain quests that challenge us more than others, that other people really can faceroll and we're left looking at the -60% DP on our screen and thinking, "WTF?" It took me nearly 30 tries to complete the quest "A Good Deed." For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to kill those swarms, and when I finally did, and came here to share how I did it, I got told that the reason no one else had posted how THEY did it was because the quest was "so easy."

Made me feel like dirt.

Then I turned around and beat The Great Destroyer as easily as I can take down one of those Wurms people farm for Survivor in Ice Cliff Chasms. I breezed through it like it was nothing - yet the Wiki is full of dire warnings. I just danced my way through Arachni's Haunt for the first time... and I did it in Hard Mode. Had never even done it in normal mode. It was a cakewalk. I do Raven's Point & Oola's Lab & Frostmaw's Burrow, all in Hard Mode - NOT speedclears, for fun... I don't die, was not running a gimmick build or using consets, and until a few days ago I had to use 4 henchmen + my 3 heroes. Still did them many many times... for me, they're cakewalks. And I'm an elementalist, which is supposedly all but useless in Hard Mode. LOL

But other stuff just makes my head explode... stuff other people say is "soooooo easy."

The point of all this rambling is just to say - yeah, I get it. And yeah, it can be frustrating. But remember that you're talking about a few select missions amidst many... these just happen to be the ones that are most challenging for you (and a lot of others, too).

My advice would be to read up on the Wiki pages about those quests. Pay attention to the notes and skill suggestions. Try and examine "what" is killing your party... are you over-aggro'ing mobs? Are you getting hit with a lot of AoE? Are you doing something to ward against that? Are you especially susceptible to melee attacks? Look at the armor ratings and info for the foes you're facing.... like, destroyers have very high armor against fire damage and are immune to burning. That's important for an elementalist like me to know! Solution: I take Winter with me, turns all damage to cold. So I can ward against elemental damage that everything I'm encountering is now dealing (cold, by virtue of Winter), and still nail them with the spells I'm most familiar with (fire). Also read the Discussion or Talk pages associated with the quest pages on the Wiki. People often add additional information there that doesn't make it into the "official" Wiki page.

You have to learn to identify what it is that is killing you... WHY you are dying is the key to learning NOT to die again.

Agreed, identify what's killing you - you've H&H most of the game so your setup can't be all wrong.

Creating builds for all heroes from scratch is fairly difficult, especially if you haven't played the class, and there's no shame in taking a few idea's from PvX or even the existing henchmen builds.

Post your team also, in that case we can see if that needs some improvement.
I used almost the same build for my war through EOTN so I know there is nothing wrong with it. But you do need some serious buffing from your team because some if not most destroyers are high armoured even in nm.

Please remember that each campaigns and eotn are slightly different in terms of ease/hardness.Prophs is easy for some players and factions easy for others - some players will recall having major probs with places like viz square and yet a few months later when returned found it easy - i even found eotn easy after my 2nd chr did it.
Even war in kryta first gave players some difficulty due to the new skillbars the foes had as well as not having 1 set foe build but 2 or 3 that radomly set - its easy to set a team build when you know set skills but when you are faced with foes who skill bar has changed on zone you may have problems.
Most players within first few months of gw will have plenty of deaths - every did when they started , gw is also a game with a learning curve that never really stops - new skill updates affect both us and foes and forces new tactics.
Like my guild motto goes - its better to die trying than die standing around.

Another gd friend is the gw bible ( 2 editions as theres 2 wiki`s lol ) and its there to give insight into gw game be it foes skills in a zone to mission hints and walk thrus.And using the wiki`s doesnt mean your a bad player - means you are being prepared .

And one piece of advice for any chrs and specially wars - dont rush in and expect to walk out alive , pull carefully and be cautious .. dying can be easy but staying alive can be hard.

Like many parts of the game, things that seem hard at first will be easier with a different tactics. Let's take Worthy Deeds as an example as you mentioned it:
* Koren Wildrunner, only hard part is to find him, so just search around the lake.
* Myish, lady of the Lake, just clear the roamers patrolling the area first
* Nulfastu Earthbound, flag party at top, use Shadow of Haste and run to middle, timing it so it ends just when the spawn is triggered, shadow stepping back out. Then just pull mobs to your party with a bow. Eventually Nulfastu will be left and easily killed.

Nah, what you need to do at Nulfastu:
- go to Sifhalla
- load your party with spike skills (e.g. monks with signet of judgmet / roj, eles with air elites, etc)
- go down the rabbit hole with the hole party, careful to just not pop the enemies
- get ready...
- pop and spike the boss! (ctrl ping the boss so the whole party spikes it)

Should take a minute or two/three from Sifhalla, I do this on Zaishen Bounty days. Sending a hero or something down to pop the enemies and then working your way down is just way too slow.

If you wipe, rethink your strategy. If you wipe again, rethink your strategy again. Redo until you are successful.

You can of course use overpowered builds and make it easy for yourself, but what's the fun in that?

I'd be willing to bet it's hero builds and standard tactics like aggro management and pulling. If you don't know how to make a hero build or don't have decent skills unlocked, henchmen may be better.

You don't have to directly copy templates from PvX to be successful, but you can get some good suggestions for skill synergies and ideas from there. There's no shame in using PvX before you know how to play the game and make builds for yourself.

But it's impossible to know without seeing what you're running.

Honestly, I almost never pull or use any tactics other than bum rushing everything in normal mode, and I'm not that good. What I do have is a pretty decent hero setup which is really the key to the game. I pretty much just use the builds from http://www.gwpvx.com. But here's what I am running:

Me - Pious renewal Dervish with Save Yourselves!

"Sabway"

Necro 1 - Xinrae's Weapon Healer
Necro 2 - Jagged Bones Minion Bomber with Protection Spells
Necro 3 - Spiteful Spirit Curser with Strength of Honor too (applied to me of course)

"Spiritway"

Rit 1 - Signet of Spirits + Restoration Healing
Rit 2 - Signet of Ghostly Might and a crapload of communing spirits

"Mesmerway"

Mesmer 1 - Panic and Domination spells
Mesmer 2 - Ineptitude and Illusion spells


I know everyone is going to say "WAY TOO DEFENSIVE" and it is, but if you are dying a lot, heroes like that will drastically protect you and you could always dial back a lot of the defense as you see fit. I realize you may not have all those heroes but you could sub in other casters of you wanted (I would just strongly avoid any melee heroes).

As far as weapons go, you can pretty much give them whatever, it's really not that critical. What is critical is investing in runes and insignias which are unfortunately very expensive right now. For the most part you should just stick to minor attribute runes.

Bring en ele hero with bsurge (blind), enervating charge (weakness) and shell shock (cracked armor) and epidemic (spread the conditions to adjacent)
minor air run in head for more blind

That takes care of physicals for you. To counter the casters bring mesmers with panic and/or psychic distraction (both requires both gwen and norgu) and an overload of interrupts

Now that everything is blinded, weak, has cracked armor and can't cast anything, proceed to c-space.

Identify what wipes you. Use the damage monitor to see which skills were used against you. Then counter those things.
While I do most areas with one big balanced 7h team build, I often whip together an area-specific build.

the first response makes a good point, I bet we will see a lot of people having trouble with 7 hero parties if A.) the builds aren't good B.) the heroes have low life and aren't runed/equiped.

If you only have, say, your discord team (shutter) runed out, you are better off with henchies since they are "fully equipped" Heros with mediocre builds, no runes, are starter equipment are quite bad compared to some of the hench in the game. Herta in Eotn wasn't too bad a of a party choice tbh.

Stop playing warrior, or learn to flag your heros, try not dragging your casters and healers right into the frontline of the battle.

If he's playing NM Eye of the North he probably never has to worry about aggro control or flagging, so I'd say hero builds and equipment are probably his ultimate issue rather than tactics and strategy.

That being said, BASIC flagging a lot of times can be as simple as planting a single group flag and shooting a single shot with a longbow. I think a lot of times players hear "flagging" and they picture extremely complicated battle formations and micromanagement.

Runes don't make a huge difference on heroes. I'm sure they make some, but they're by no means necessary. I'm currently able to steamroll almost all NM stuff and a decent bit of HM with zero runes on my heroes.

It all comes down to builds, in the end. So I'll echo everyone else, and ask what your party build is, because that's probably it. That or really really bad pulling.

Thanks for the tips guys. I definitely use flagging to control my heroes, and I have a long bow to help pull mobs...but often times when I pull one mob, the whole freaking group aggros anyway.

I was live streaming myself trying to get through Oola's lab for Little Workshop of Horrors. So here is ~12min highlight of my gameplay and the wipe. I guess what I should have done was pull all the way back to try and deaggro them? (hopefully it's not too terrible quality)
http://www.justin.tv/rcapote/b/281226943

I got futher on my second try, but I couldn't figure out how to kill the second flame keeper at all. I was able to clear out most of the golems, but not enough I guess. So it pretty much went down hill from there: (~4min)
http://www.justin.tv/rcapote/b/281227244


Hero builds:
Ogden:
Dwayna's Kiss, Cure Hex, Heal Party, Healing Breeze, Vigorous Spirit, Shielding Hands, Rebirth and Glyph of Lesser Energy

M.O.X.
Radiant Scythe, Pious Fury, Pious Assault, Heart of Holy Flame, Faithful Intervention, Chilling Victory, Victorious Sweep and Rez Signet

Livia
Life Siphon, Vampiric Gaze, Strip Enchantment, Unholy Feast, Well of Blood Animate Bone Horror, Deathly Swarm, and rez signet

Jora
Sever Artery, Gash, Savage Slash, Pure Strike, Power Attack Flail, Thousand Blades and Warrior's Endurance

Vekk
Lightning Strike, Lightning Javelin, Whirlwind, Blurred Vision, Fireball, Lava Font, Glyph of Lesser Energy and rez signet

Gwen
Cry of Frustration, Chaos Storm, Imagined Burden, Shatter Hex, Conjure Phantasm, Empathy, Glyph of Lesser Energy and rez signet

Pyre
Read the Wind, Kindle Arrows, Savage Shot, Hunter's Shot, Ignite Arrows, Throw Dirt, Troll Unguent, and rez signet

yeah, it's your hero builds. Honestly, those builds are so basic right now, I'd rather just see you using the henchmen until you get more skills.

I would go to the PVX site and look into some team and build ideas. Another thing you can do is get Xandra (assuming you have Factions; if not don't bother). She is really easy to get in the Norn tournament. Just keep re-entering the tournament until you face her (she will always be in the 2nd round). A rit hero is very strong.

Also, I'm not sure what campaigns you own. Not having all of the campaigns will limit your ability to develop the best builds.

So I would make your first priority getting your heroes some decent skill bars and ideally replacing undesirable professions with better heroes (ideally more necros, rits, mesmers, etc...), but even then what you have is definitely workable with the right builds. If you have Nightfall, I would strongly recommend playing through that campaign first. This will unlock a ton of additional heroes for you and give you access to skill trainers. To get your heroes elite skills, you will need to unlock them first. First of all you need to make sure your character has ascended (check wiki on that, it depends on which campaign you started on). This will allow you to freely switch your secondary professions. At that point you can switch your secondary to any profession, get a signet of capture, and go out and capture elite skills for any profession you want (elites your heroes will be able to use). You can also go to skill trainers and buy more skills for your heroes. Alternatively you can accumulate zaishen coins via the zaishen bounties and quests and cash them in for Flames of Balthazar. Via Balthazar faction you can unlock elite skills on your account too (if the area of the elite is not readily accessible to you).

Yea, I have all of the campaigns, but have only played through Prophesies. My warrior is from proph and is ascended.