My first Elite Mission (what a joy!)

I'm sure many may think this belongs in the Canthan section, but I think it applies to all players who feel that their Guild Wars experience is getting stale. Last night I did my first ever elite mission; The Deep in Hard Mode, and what an experience it was.

I don't think I've had that much fun in any of the Guild Wars games for ages, and it came at a time when all I did was chat in-game, chest run and the odd bit of FoW. I was surprised by how much team interaction it enforces, and how core dynamics of mmo games are re-introduced, mainly the sense that every player in the group has an important role, and one quitter ruins everything. There was no messing about or immaturity, everyone worked together well and got the job done, and at the end of it we were rewarded (inscribable Zodiac Longbow, Kanaxai's Axe and 4 Jade).

This has opened up another avenue in the Guild Wars universe for me to explore, and I'll definately be doing The Deep again, as well as the other elite missions. I guess my main point is, if you are one of those players who has completed every mission, and finds the game/s stale, try an elite mission, because I guarantee it will breathe new life into something you believed had lost its appeal.

I would, but I can very rarely dedicate the sheer amount of time required to do one without having to constantly break off and go do other things

While the elite missions can be great fun, it all depends on the party your with.

If you join a pug than chances are about 50-50 that you will wipe or have quiters or complainers and the fun factor will quickly vanish.

If you are in a guild or alliance that does Hard Mode Elite zones then your one of the lucky ones and should enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

QFT

LF Elite Hard Mode Guild

Yeah... The pugs are generally competent players, but greed and human stupidity leaves man a group grinding to a halt.

there was this one time a group of 12 highly skilled players made a team, for the deep, but then one of their warriors quit. They let me join, and when I did, I was amazed at their sheer teamwork. We downed kanaxai in like 35-40 minutes (can't remember), using essence of clerity to quickly aggro everything in sight.

Congrats to the OP. I miss the old PUG days myself. Note these are PUGs that at the time pretty much worked well together and got the given thing done, not the current PUGs. Did the better part of five Factions Protectors that way, along with a lot of Prophecies and had a blast. Something about an all-human group that works well together that cant be beat (for me).

I am having a lot of fun currently playing HM 2+6 with a friend/guildie. In the future though may occasionally seek something like this out in the hopes of finding play like that again. Kind of rare these days, outside maybe of a full guild team.

Something similar happened to me the first time I did The Deep - I got into a pug, and although I was new and at least one other person was new, the team leader was really great and helpful, and we managed to do the whole thing and kill Kanaxai without any difficulty. It was a ton of fun, for all the reasons you mentioned.

I kept at it for a while, and discovered that really great pugs like that are the exception rather than the rule. But knowing what a good one is like, and that it's possible to find them, has helped me put up with the many other groups that can't make it past the first room.

From a Dervish point of view (which i guess applies to assassins, rits and mesmers too..), that's alot easier said than done.

The ONLY elite mission i could get into would be DoA as OF tank (but even then they take a War..) or use Ursan. But Ursan is so boring -.-

Deep is really good elite mission which is really fun despite env effects and similar stuff, especially when compared to its sister mission, urgoz.

I <3 playing there as paragon.

Even if you like the Deep more then Urgoz,
the point is ... there is some fun for you in store.

two points being mentioned that limit you possibilities there:

1. needs (full) concentration for a longer period of time (something between 1-3 hours... prepare for the worst)
2. needs 8 ~ 12 skilled players that are dedicated to the task

I had horrible pugs as well there which in the end felt like wasting huge amounts of my time. And I had those "zomg - I joined a guild group" with teamspeak groups that were awesome to run with ...

In the end you need a guild in guild wars.

The deep is fun. I'm in a guild which lives in the deep and we have some players which make it look like pre searing. When everyone knows what they are doing and it all comes together ts great.

I agree, the Deep is what got me hooked on the game. The officers and guild leaders in our alliance all met doing the Deep together and we've all become pretty good friends because of it. We like to experiment and have taken Paragons, Dervishes, Rits and Mesmers along (SS Mesmer is amazingly good) and every time we do it is lots of fun (sometimes hilariously bad -- which in retrospect is good).

I'm glad that you had a good time and were lucky to find a good PuG. The whole mission depends on good tanks, good monks and good nukers. I hope that when you eventually get in a PuG that just fails miserably it doesn't taint the experience for you.