I won't be trying that again....

Well....I just spent several hours trying to walk the stretch from Beacon's Perch and southward through Lornar's Pass and whatever else might be down that way. It was....fun....as far as I made it, but now I'm wondering why exactly that stretch of territory is so hard? Tons of hostile NPCs, including several very nasty frost wurms, and not a resurrection shrine in sight? The treasure wasn't even very good, so what is the deal with this area? Why is it so heavily guarded?

The storyline means for you to stop in Beacon's and continue out the north exit, heading generally west towards Kryta.

That stretch south of beacons is the only way to run characters to the max armor crafters. Fortunes have been made many times over by people selling runs down through Lornar's (and 2 more maps south of that) to the town with the armor guys. They make it really hard to discourage people from rushing low-level characters to max armor and bosses with elites and skill trainers with skills you weren't supposed to have yet. They don't make it impossible ... well, hard to say exactly what their reasons are, but many seasoned players (with money already to buy the armor and the run) starting new characters preferred to go straight for max armor rather than paying to craft new armor at the single-step-up crafters along the way. Some used it to skip over large sections of the storyline and just get to the later, harder areas. Some people also use this to have max armor on low-level characters in the low-level arenas in Tyria. (If you have Factions or NF, it's not required anymore, since you can get max armor from those chapters easily once you get to LA.)

The only henchies available to bring along from Beacon's are way too squishy out there. It's henchable from the town on the south end, as the henchies are lvl 20 there and the max party size is 8. The area really isn't all that hard with 5 friends on maxed out characters, though.

And I agree, it's fun! I love the wurms! As for res shrines, hmmm ... there's one at the top and one at the bottom. I can't recall if there's one near the halfway point though.

But really, Lornar's is an easy fight compared to what you meet in the next zone south.

Follow the primary missions and quests in Tyria, and you'll eventually wind up on the south end w/out having to run or fight through all that.

Cheers, and good for you for at least going out to see!
Luny

Welcome to the post-apocalyptic Droks run. Now featuring even more nerf for your money.

That's why Beacons is full of people looking for a run. They want the max armor now. But with the new AI having changed the behavior of the mobs, most runners gave up. The few left who can do it charge about 10k for the service.

With the resources available at Beacons, the state of your armor and skills, it is impossible to do yourself. The only outpost is near the end of the area. Check out the maps on guildwiki.org or in the map section of this site. It's that long north/south stretch from Beacon's Perch to Droknar's Forge.

I used to make that run with my ranger, but not anymore it usualy takes a tag team to get it done now. Only those hardcore runners are left now. Also total wurms 11, a gruop of friends and I started from the south and went counting them as we killed them (pain in th tail totaly those things wouldn't go down easy at all). That number includes one boss wurm.

Mega Mouse

That boss wurm is my favorite wurm of all! And he has FoC! And sometimes you have to rezone and redo because you accidentally let him die underground! And that tiny map is just packed full of fun ... I like Ice Dome, too, but it's missing giant curse necro wurms.

I know I'm nuts, but friendly trips to go pick on Maw always make me happy.

Angelic, the more I think about it, the more I hope you do try that again someday. Just give it some time until you're approaching from the south.

Well, I *may* try it again some day, I just got a bit tired of being sent back to the resurrection shrine by Beacon's Perch again and again

But mainly I was just surprised at how difficult it was, and I'll admit I was disappointed not to find any good drops after going through all that lol

The thing I don't understand about Arenanet nerfing the Drok's Run to kingdom come is that anyone doing the story missions the correct way can just get to Lion's Arch, then hop over the Kaineng City and buy max armor there. There's only a one mission difference between Beacon's Perch and Lion's Arch, so why bother paying for a run when you can follow the storyline and get max armor at Kaineng?

If people want to blow their money getting a run there, why does ANet care? They themselves provided players with a legitimate and easy way to obtain max armor at the next major city, anyway, so it's not like they're forcing players to play through the game in the intended order to get the armor.

Ok, unless I am missing something.....if ANet wanted to prevent low-levels from reaching Droks without going through the game, why did they even make the path (Beacons - Droks) in the first place? When the created the game, why didn't they just block it off (maybe at the end of Lornar's Pass) with a mountain or something?

Glad to hear it! And no worries, lots of us had that same experience ... "Great game, let's explore all of it! Hmm, here's another zone we haven't checked out yet. C'mon Alesia, C'mon Stephan! ...... Ah, there are the red dots, let's get 'em! .. Um, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore ...... OWWWWW!!!! What in the name of the gods was that?!?!? I .. I ... I don't even know what killed me, but I thought the level cap in this game was 20! ...... Maybe we should save this one for later."

good times!

I suspect it's like this. Before Factions, they left it easy* because players wanting to rush through to max armor or end-game areas on their second, third, etc. characters was a pretty valid argument. It may make the real PvE purists unhappy, but Prophecies is a LONG storyline and it seemed to get old for a lot of people on multiple passes.

After Factions and now Nightfall, like you said, anyone with either new campaign can get max armor on a Tyrian char MUCH easier just short ways away. (I can't imagine buying or begging a Droks run ever again.) So, if the increased difficulty is intentional on ANet's part, it serves two purposes for them:

• more incentive for people to buy the newer chapters when they can't afford Droks runs in-game
• maybe cuts down on the total low-level Tyrian chars rushing max armor, so also cuts down on the people getting max armor for the low-level arenas. That always seemed to be the common community argument against max armor on young chars, and doing so really is something of an exploit. (Sad, too, when people want to play in those arenas and find they haven't a chance of being competitive vs. lvl 8's in max armor. It's a bad and self-renewing cycle. I doubt they'll ever make it absolutely impossible, or they would've already ... those arenas won't let you in if character level > limit, so with the new inability to switch armor in PvP I'd think they could stop you from getting in if armor level > limit. And I'm told the starter arena on Istan doesn't have an armor limit either ... thus the frequency of Consolate Docks ferries.)

There's my theories. *shrug* Since the new chapters have actually made it easier for people to get max armor on low-level characters, that may be an indication that the increased difficulty of the run these days is just a side-effect of all the AI changes, not something ANet did to nerf that run specifically.

Luny


* well, easy enough to drive the average run price down to 2k or so. I think it always took a fairly well-practiced runner(s.)