Solo: Secondary Quests?

Admittedly I have only been playing for a couple of weeks. I have started out on Factions because I wanted to do a Assassin build. Why are some of the secondary quest next to impossible to finish solo? I am in Australia and its a waste of time trying to find a group, I have just spent an hour trying to find a group to complete all the lagoon side quest to no avail, so I have to rely on NPC. Some of the secondary quest like Captured Son, Unwelcome Guest etc are rediculouly hard to complete solo. Why is this part of the game design? Or, alternatively what am I going wrong. I'm a lvl 16 A/Rt and still having trouble even coming close to completing alot of the side quests. I like a challenge but its coming close to the point where I won't even bother to look for the secondary quests.

Which brings me to my next question: could they have made it any harder to actually find half of the secondary quest? Now I'm a big fan of exploring, but couldn't the game designers have made it just a wee bit easier to find some of the side quest, like I don't know, maybe have the quest giving NPC on the mini map a different colour. A little disapointed , but I've bought all of the expansions so I guess I'll perservere

Tell us:

* What skills do you use (along with attribute spread)
* What AI are you taking along

We can help you to fix that if that is problem. Your description of general strategy could help too.

The Captured Son is a difficult quest for new players, so given that you've not been playing long, it's understandable that you find it hard with henchies. You will find the game becomes easier and easier as you gain a better understanding of what other professions do, and how everything works, how to lure, and how to prioritise targets.

If you can't complete a quest, continue on with the main story, and then go back, when you feel more capable.

If by solo you mean you go alone without henchmen: you shouldn't, unless you use certain specific build for the job (although I don't know if you can make such build without leaving Shing Jea Island).

But if you're playing with henchmen already, try doing Captured Son by approaching the mobs ON THE BEACH from the east side. If that's still hard, try doing "Looking for Trouble" and you will have npcs following you to the next mission area. Don't go there immediately, just take the npcs with you and do the quests in the area.

If the above fail, leave the quests alone until you're level 20, get out of the island, get max armor, get some good skills, then come back and try again.

Hope this help. I've just brought my assassin out of Shing Jea with all the quests done last week (alone with hench all the way through), so I'd say it's totally doable.

That thing you say it's impossible. I've made all the quests, but the elite ones, Solo. Remember that you should be at level 13..17 in that area. If you are not, you skipped too much quests.

When making the captured song, you must know that you are facing a bunch of crimson skull composed of different parties.
Yo have to pull once a a time, with a long-range weapon like a staff, a simple bow or a long bow.

1. First clear the area around, leave no nagas or plants in a radius of 2 radars around Miki (the boss in the middle)
2. Carefully pull the enmies starting from the north and the south, so less nemies come.
3. Then go to the west and pull from there.
4. Now Miki's party should be the last one left. Go for it. It should be easier.

if your having trouble finding a group, i see tons of groups asking for that quest in American districts, try to change districts using the drop down box in the upper left hand corner, then go to an American dist, usually tons of people doing that one.

Exploring is a huge part of the PvE aspect of this game.

Maybe you would have more fun creating a PvP char then traversing the entire world with a PvE char.

Thanks for the help. My toon is a lvl 16 A/Rt. I'm trying to do all the primary and secondary quests as they come, in order to lvl up, as it seems you do not get alot of XP by just killing monsters.

Builds:

I have been trying to follow the PvE A/Rt builds set out in Guild wiki, however some of the skills can not be obtain on the island. My current build for solo:

I have been concentrating on getting all the AoD skills up and running, so death blossom and cruel was daoshen are my two big hitters for mobs. However, I'm having trouble working out how cruel was daoshen works. I have 13 points in DM, 5 points in CM and 10 points in CS.

Henchman: I'm taking them all ATM except assassin, espeically for the secondary quests.

General Strategy: While I'm starting to get good at drawing, I still think it needs alot of work TBH. However, I usually target monks/ritualiest/eles/mes/necs first with the teleport skill and hope the henchmen can handle any melee. I think this may be giving me trouble as the magic skill usuers are usually behind the melee monsters, so it ends up being a mess.

LFG: I'm in Australia, so I'm GMT+11, this means there are alot less people online, and its very hard to get a group going on week nights, more so than the week end. I probably would be better off doing primary quests week nights and secondary quests week ends.

As to to last post. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of dungeon traulling. I have been since D2. Exploring is one of my favourite aspects of RPG. However, it just seems that finding all the secondary quests would be a little easier if the game design made the quest giving NPC stand out a little better eg: different colour in mini map.

I would take your time and don't be in to much of hurry to get to the mainland.city missions eewww.

Captured son is difficult without a MM.

With a MM, it's quite fun.

Pulling is your friend.

Get yourself a bow...any crappy bow of any level will do (doesn't have to be max), but a Longbow is best. Park your henchman a little behind you with the flag, away from the mob you need to pull. Now, wait for breaks in the mob. They often stay in groups of 3 to 4 at that level, and uncluster sometimes, even if it looks like a huge mob. As soon as you see a few break off...get a bit closer and shoot the nearest target with the bow equiped.

Now, run back to your party, who should be about an agro bubble away or a litle more, making sure the bad guys follow (a run skill will more than likely break agro than keep them following so don't use one). Hopefully you'll only get one group following (a good tip to remember is that the further you run, the more likely it is that groups will drop off as they follow).

Once you have the mob you wish to kill, equip your daggers using the weapon set buttons, and target the priority target. Unflag your henchies so they don't bundle together too much. Make sure you CALL the target you wish to get first by hitting ctrl and spacebar on the target. That way, the henchies will attack what YOU are. That's important, cos you want the monk or rit down as quick as possible. From then on select each target in turn and call them for your henchies to follow.

Rinse and repeat with each section of the large mob. It'll hopefully make life a little easier

Yeah the Australian servers are pretty bad. I'm not sure if you guys can come to American Districts or not but they are plenty full with people looking for those quests.

Well, when mentioning only two skills it is hard to judge you build ... but Item spells are generally not good idea for meele classes. Besides, when you have blossom (good skill), daoshen is little redundant. Not to mention that daoshen is very costly.

What it supspect is that your attack chain is taking too long to recharge so it is less efective than it could be.

your attribute points are quite high for your level ... maybe you are using major/superior runes? That can make you a lot easier to get killed. And when you are dead henchies lack your leadership and will not focus fire.

There is nothing wrong with henchies you are taking, but you dont have much choice i guess.

As others told you, pulling is the key, get bow or wand/staff and try to pull small groups, use flag constrolls of make henchies stand a bit back and lure enemy grous to them to avoid aggro problems. Also, don't forget to call targets (ctrl+space) so that henchies focus fire on target - they can dispatch things quickly.

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You could also roll PvP-only character and farm 1k faction in zaishen challenge (select easy oposing team like illusionary weaponsry mesmers.) and unlock skills you are missing - then you will be able to get them from shin jea trainers then.

Well going on the little information you've given, 10 points in Critical Strikes is good...a lot of new Assassins I meet overlook Critical Strikes. 13 points in Dagger Mastery, that's ok. I do, however, agree with zwei2stein, it looks like you might have used some major/sup runes. Be sure to check the Health Loss on the runes...there is a reason why people don't use more than one at a time, generally, and if you're low level, you could consider only using Minor runes for the time being.

5 points in Channeling Magic is useless. Leave Cruel was Daoshen alone. If you want to play Assassin...just play Assassin. FYI, Cruel was Daoshen is an Item Spell...it works by casting it and holding the ashes until you're ready to drop them. When you drop them they deal damage to foes near you, but honestly, you'd be much better off just pouncing on foes with your daggers.

Yes, Death Blossom does hit pretty hard and it's AoE makes it great for PvE. It sounds like you could do with some help with your build, incorporating survival skills etc.., and would suggest you use the Assassin Forum to post your current build and ask for help improving it.

Good, Assassin AI sucks...generally speaking.

One problem is that outside of a few hard quests that few use PUGS, even at the height of PUG usage. The hench are just usually so superior (with regards to completing the quests) to humans that they were mostly used. Not only did they tend to be better in terms of not leaving when their quest was completed (of course, theirs always had to be done first, those people just wanted your help without having to "pay" for it in any way whatsoever) but there are so many quests it is hard to find someone doing the one(s) you are currently doing.

For the most part expect your first character to have a time trying to play with other humans you don't know during it's youth. During this time period you should mostly be looking for a decent guild/alliance. Once you have that then you can usually get humans to play with as (assuming you are in a decent one) many just like to play and will do things with their supposed friends. Of course, this also means that *you* need to talk with any people you group with and had fun with trying to get in their guild, while obviously begging to get into their guild isn't going to help mentioning that you are new and looking for one wouldn't hurt too much .

This game is old enough that most decent players are playing the way the like and that is going to pretty much be guild mates or the AI - few are going to rely on PUG's even for those that are *really* hard to H/H. In any case most of the decent players are not going to be PUG'ing - that's not to say PUGs will always suck or that they are useless (that is how long term decent guilds recruit and many good AI players like to goof off with people from time to time) but they will tend to be mostly in the missions and the later/harder quests.

There are no Australian servers. We connect by default to Europe.

We can jump between Euro, Asia, America and International districts, and i concur, USA servers are usually the busiest.

Factions is both the easiest and the toughest campaign to start your GW life. There are a few quests like A Captured Son and Vizunah Square that have lead more than a few of my friends to give up on the game before giving it a chance.

I'd suggest starting out in Nightfall and get used to the concept of Heroes. They're infinitely better than Henchmen and will get you through the more difficult sections of the game with relative ease, or at least a degree of predictability and comfort.

Don't give up yet. I'm in Brisbane and have been playing for close to 3 years now. In the evenings there are usually plenty of people in both Euro and USA districts. Finding someone to group with is another story, it's often better to Hero and Hench your way through the game. Or join a guild, most people are more than happy to lend a guildie a hand.

Thks for all the tips I've headed over to the Sin sub-forum and will be rerolling in Nightfall and then working my way backwards through Factions , Propheses and EOTN.