Challenge Missions Ladder: Discussion and Strategy

EDIT: Official ladder up: http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...er/default.php

Gaile's announcement of upcoming features intrigued me:

The 8 challenge missions (5 in Factions, 3 in NF), which were previously useless, may now see some light. A long time ago, I had a very fun time an an organized Altruum Ruins group...

A few things to know about Elite Missions;

All-human groups are necessary to get a very high score, due to the tactics required in some missions. Yes, there will be elitism in all-human groups. Deal with it, Assassins, Dervish, and Mesmers. (Although Mesmers are useful in Altrumm Ruins.)

Typically, groups are the standard cookie-cutter for the 8-man missions. 1 Warrior with "Charge!," an MM or two, an SS, two Monks, then anything else (someone will figure out a niche skill-build for each mission. Count on it) The two missiosn without 8-man requirements (Remains of Saldejahara and Shadow Nexus) require different strategies (and are broken. Certain classes have advantages in the Junundu, and Lightbringer 8 is a near necessity for Shadow Nexus high scores.)

And hopefully, the rewards will be worth it. I got 4th in several of the NF Challenge Missions once, and I only got 500g. Really. I'd appreciate a small buff...

Well, if ArenaNet does the Ladder correctly, they just created a viable method of replay value for PvE.

Tomorrow, when the update releases, I'll take a break from my lv. 20 Draenei Shaman and be online to test the challenge missions (Syria Blackblood). I can SS or MM with stunning ease, and have similar heroes, for those who have seen me play.

Actually, the challenge mission in Zos Chivros (I hope that's the right name) in luxon territory, has you hold out against waves of enemies. However, you can get bonus points for killing other monsters on the map, so I think sins will be pretty useful.

Bring a 55 for the Solo challenge mission in nightfall and collect points til you make a mistake.

Bring a ritualist and camp the spawn. Unless you make a very bad mistake, you can kill until you get bored if I read it right.

Even better

You can't 55 Sahlahja anymore. Maddened Touch removes all enchantments.

I don't see how you could pull this off either.

Found it while I was randomly looking through the wiki. It's under PvE farming builds. Rt/P with "Can't Touch This" using bloodsong and VwK to do lifesteal on the maddened spirits. Essence Strike and Gaze from beyond kill infestations.

I thought it was pretty interesting. I dont want to link to the article directly from here, but look under PvE farming builds.

Did Aurious Mines just for fun with my super-ultimate hero build and Henchmen. Got the Daily High score on my first try with no effort at all. That Challenge Mission is broken. If you have an MM, you can kite the Enchanters away...

Then the only difficult part is the 15+ Mob fights that result as a script bug. Of course, a well placed Mark of Pain takes care of that easily.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:R..._Spirit_Killer

The notes are wrong on possible armors. It also seems like it takes more effort than its necro counterpart.

Last I checked most people had given up trying on Challenge Missions.

In which you are completely correct, I tried it once.. what did I earn? Some pocket change and some materials, now its about bragging rights. This is something I would now definitely love to get my guild involved in.

I would love to try the challenge missions more, but my guild/friends just aren't interested in them. I like Dragon's Throat but it takes forever to find a team there and when I do they usually turn out to be noobs without a clue how to proceed.

I tried Dragon's Throat...yeesh, Afflicted Soul Explosion is broken. Did get about 120 points with a dual MM build...that's quite low. I don't think MMs work there due to that skill.

My personal favorite is Dakjah Inlet. It's pure speed.

You know that they can change a lot of things there.
In a few hours your "tatics" are going to be useless.

We all have to wait and see. Then we can talk about it.

The reward system for challenge missions is messed up. It encourages people to sandbag. In Altrumm Ruins the big reward is 2000 faction for a new high score for the day - so everyone just stops when they barely beat the high score, because they don't want to set the bar higher for future runs.

Say the current Altrumm Ruins high score is 102. If I make 3 runs of 155, 154, and 153, in that order, I'll walk away with about 4k faction. I get the big 2k bonus for getting a new high score the first time, and lousy payouts the other two times because no high score.

But if I make runs of 103, 104, and 105 - which requires MUCH less skill, I walk away with about 7K faction because I gamed the system and made sure I got a high score every time. Really lame. Go and look at the high scores there and you'll see a bunch of people intentionally beating their last score by one.

Payouts should be much more linear, and higher in general.

Well, the "Challenge Mode Ladder" is apparently just an extension to 50 places.

They didn't even reset the scores!

What the heck? Am I missing something?

Maybe the supposed official announcement will clear things up. They'll peobably put a reward for the top placers. (i.e. who can exploit the most. I can't believe ArenaNet didn't fix the broken instances...)

Well they'll reset after 90 days, which is something at least.

Official ladder is up

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...er/default.php

I'm 9th for the Daily! Beat that! (And [SMS] is 1st. Ho-hum.)

...but still, there's not much reward for doing the challenge missions...

No wonder i was the one who opened the first district at Zos Shivros Channel

Until they add some decent rewards, no1 will play them. And thats for sure

Anet is also lacking the rewards part in PvE. Removing all replayability and destroying their own game. Sad.

I agree that for these ladders to have meaning they would have to be coupled with half-decent in-game rewards also, which there is not. As it stands, with the rewards remaining the same, I don't think this is much of an improvement.

Also don't agree with them removing the all-time best scores, which in my view just provides less reason than there previously was to try to get a best score.

Must agree to the reward part. I think Anet is smart enough to know this is needed too (I hope it is just that they don't know what is most efficient to give).

They wouldn't want to give same rewards as to HA/GvG/etc, or PvP might start to look "less rewarding".

Although personally I wouldn't mind a similar reward at all =P

Defintely see a reward upgrade comming for these though. A good start.

The best reward for this type of challenge is...e-peen.

Have a green-text message state the current daily high-score when the character logs in (sorta like the HoH announcements). That'll stur up intrest.