New Halloween Quest Info

i hope the reward at the end of the chain is an EL transmogrifier tonic

Huh really.....

I guess I just took my friends' word for that, never tried it myself, didn't feel the need to run around outside as a candy man yet

Thanks guys ^_^

If it is an EL tonic, it won't be something already in the game.

Getting ready to do the quest on a few of my other characters. Might as well get it out of the way.

Oh what do you know. Error 7 right after I finish pits

That would be hilarious. People were paying 1000 ectos and up for a E-Trans just last week. IF, and this is a big IF that that is in fact the reward one can only predict that Wintersday we may all recieve E-Yuletides for rewards as well. I already sold all of mine for a nice profit so I'm good to go.

Woot well finished on 1 character finally Anet decided to be kind to me and I only froze up once for about 5 seconds with nothing around me

I went to Pits first and probably spent the most time there just being careful.

Definitely take candies and if you can an Essence.

Off to do the rest of my characters and I'm crossing my fingers that tomorrow the servers maybe a little more stable if they are going to make us fed ex around UW again.

I'm sad to see all of the new people to UW having such a hard time, but they really should embrace this opportunity and try not to get frustrated.

I remeber my days of learning UW and it cost me 1k each time i got confused and died. Yes it is a winding bastard child like most all of prophecies is, but Just look at some maps on wiki and take your time.

You will learn the safe areas where you can rest and regroup.

Most of all don't let this turn you away from the quests. Try and try again and just think, at least you didn't spend 1k to lag die from baddies in the chamber room.

Also, for anyone who doesnt know, you need to use absolutely no skills or worry about the behemouths. Just run right on by them they wont hurt you but an arrow or two here and there. At least they were nice enough to put fixed spawn points on those dudes so we dont have impassible routes like every day normal day in UW.

Lastly, absolutely do not try this from and American district right now. Japanese(as i posted earlier) gave me the most consistent run. Just find something unpopulated.

Did the 1st quest yesterday, it was ok. Very boring format and skills, but w/e, I figured I'd see whrere it's going. Did the 2nd today--won't be wasting any more time on this BS. An hour of wandering around, dodging everything since I can't kill anything with these worthless skills, only to be booted back to outpost after getting 6 of 7 reapers but unable to reach #7 on the whole other side of the map before being degen'd out. No self heal, no real offense, just run like a wuss and wander around a blackened map. I always knew I hated UW, but I always liked holiday quests. But wow, just awful, tedious, not fun crap. And I can't even just skip this misery and try tomorrow's quest. Nope, grind it out or don't particpate at all ever again. Well, I won't.

Anet, I'm very disappointed given how rare new pve content is. You got caught up in the cute, and forgot about the fun.

21 minutes on a second character, third run total, no problems.

Anyone who has problems with anything is not utilizing their skills properly.

5-6 tries failing at Pitts. Finally get it down and rubberband so that I get killed by an invisible Aataxe. I'm done trying.

+1. Ran it 5x earlier today and only got taken out once on a 30k+ lag spike in Planes heading towards Pools. The skills you get on the solo quest bar are hysterically imba and the UW itself was toned down to make it easier to run. Mountains and Pools are shadows of their normal selves with no Charged Blackness to molest your candy avatar.

Agreed. It gets much easier once you learn the path of the mobs. Just start with pits and work your way up. With a speed boost my last run took me roughly 25 minutes, and the only area of UW I have ever been in was Chaos Plains.

Today's quest reward *VERY* lacking. It would have been severely lacking with 50 ToTs and 20 tonics...

Took me 32 minutes to complete - but I'm not that familiar with UW layout yet. Died the first try, as I was trying to multi-task RL, and left the game unattended a couple times for 5-10 minutes at a time (not smart near roamers!). The degen area was definitely the hardest part, but using the ally AOE skill and then running to safe places (with at most 1-2 hexes) made it doable.

I also don't like this "run away like a sissy" questing. I'd like some attack skills, and some loot drops along the way (ala Kilroy Boxing or the CC snowman quest run Wintersday). That knock-down skill is almost completely worthless, and the slow one was only semi-worthwhile...

I lagged out long enough once that I got killed even after popping a Mad King. In Mountain, ffs. Skills flashing makes people unhappy, ANet. Ahem.

EDIT: Twice. Same BS in Pools. Cooked off Mad King to pass the big mob before the reaper, lagged out in them and 20 seconds later I go pop.

Okay, using an essence, a red rock and a blue rock candy, I got the time down to 13 minutes. Any challengers?

Ooooh I would, but I just finished the quest on my last character :S

Yeah I have 2 characters left, done it on 9. Got 15 twice, 14 twice and now 13 with the added essence and blue rock. Really skims the time spent in pools. Oh by the way I counted the time when the King started to talk, not after his talk.

Third character, fourth run total, 20 minutes.

After hitting up Mountains, Pools, and Plains, I just decided to see how sooper proz I could be by not even using Mad King's BEFRIEND EVERYONE HAX spell. I only had to use it once when I was on the bridge leaving Pits, and I was getting hexed to low health even though I was sure I had knocked/snared everything around me. I fired it off to save myself, and that was the last I needed it. The rest of the mobs could easily be KD'd one-by-one to safe passage.

I'm going to try and get a run done by not using it at all.

Also, for clarification, this third and fourth run of mine have so far been done without Consumables or any other special items or upgrades. The first two were assisted by Cupcakes so that I could understand what I was up against, as I've never been through the whole of the Underworld prior to tonight.

Screwed up first time, in pits, second time 14! GL hopefully tomorrows is a bit more challenging?

It's going to be tough to get through the bridge without using it. But you are correct that TAB-3 spam alone solves virtually any problem, and 2 will solve the problems that TAB-3 doesn't solve efficiently.

I view 4 as primarily a time saver and energy management.

I did this on my first try it was pretty easy it just took more time than the previous quest. I just used the 4th spell mostly and when it was about to run out i hid where the mobs didn't patrol so the cd could end. I also don't know why people say they are dying at the pits they patrol in 2's i think so I just tabbed through them with the 3rd spell. First try took me 24 mins. Probably not gonna do it on all characters though....

Yup. Fourth character, fifth run total. This time, I didn't use Mad King, and I also did most of the run wearing zero armor and equipped with only a Peppermint Spear and Shield. I later thought that the Aatxe weren't doing enough damage when one of them smacked me for ~156, so I took off the shield (8 armor, lol) and they started smacking me for ~256. I was hit by them three times after that, long enough in between to heal.

Total time was 24 minutes. Further clarification, my run times are being calculated with /age after the quest updates to tell me to return to the Steward.

My hardest spots were around the Aatxe, making sure to have them all knocked/snared away from me so that they wouldn't kill me. I actually rubberbanded in front of two of them on the stairs up to Vale, and I would have been a goner had I not knocked them, hit /stuck, ran around, and snared them fast enough.

Also, the Plains had a lot of degen that I couldn't really escape from, and with the large mobs, it's seemingly impossible to knock everything and keep track of it all, so I only did it against the melee ones. Everything else only hit ~50s or ~60s of damage, so it was bearable. At one point, I had to cower in a corner to recover some health, and I was lucky that one of the mobs was pathed to walk just outside of my position. I had a similar case in Pits, but Pits seemed remarkably easier with there only being groups of one to three to keep down.

Pools and Mountains were both easier than I expected, the Behemoths not hitting for much (~50s and 60s again) and the Dryder's always casting Meteor Shower or getting knocked before they could cast. Wastes would have been tough if the Coldfires actually came in large enough groups and walked close enough to my route that I had to deal with them, but I think I only knocked two Coldfires the whole run, and they weren't even the ones in front of the Elemental.

Conclusion: This second quest is about as stupid easy as the first if you know how to best use your snare and KD, and adding the friendship spell just turns it into a cakewalk. It's just longer and more frustrating since you have to go pretty much everywhere in the Underworld and face almost every kind of monster. The difficulty is not increased by much.

damn 13min i think is possible but super hard. i want to see proof!

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/4962/gw055.jpg

edit: ok on next run i triggered wastes reaper at 13min, and even made it to the ice henchmen at 13min. but it turned 14min before i could make it to the king. of course you can type age after wastes reaper finishes his dialogue and then take the screenshot at the king. 13min there.

I think a lot of us are forgetting this is a HOLIDAY QUEST, something that I always thought A-Net wanted everyone to be able to enjoy, and considering farming isn't really a fun task (more like work), the quests were most likely put in place to get a new refreshing way to enjoy it. Costume brawl is fun, but lets face it, it may not be fun if you aren't into PvP. The first quest seemed very babyish to me, but I personally had a lot more fun with it than I have with this one. I understand both sides of the argument, one side is happy for the challenge, and the other is bummed, because they lack the enjoyment. I for one think that it should be about enjoying the quests and then getting a decent reward. Not going out and running around for 30 minutes to get rubber-banded into a damned aataxe and have to restart. Easy way to have solved this is to just save the reapers you have spoken to instead of having to recruit them 15 times just to complete it. The quest maybe a little to long and difficult for players that can't play for hours on end and get it through. I also enjoy the challenge but I don't think people are being "babies" due to it's difficulty. Challenges should be found in DoA, not a holiday quest lol.

Died once in bone pits when I tried to push past one group who got a couple good degens on me.

Getting into the pits is easy, getting out is hard.

Overall a fun quest. Lengthy yes, but it's still so awesome to convert enemies and run through the UW unscathed.

took me 30 mins to do quest because i was doing it slowly and carefully

32 mins here, 2 tries, very nice quest, cant wait to see how the story unfolds, all i can say to anet is, MOAR NAO.

Which way do people run their <15mins runs? I do /age 20 minutes AFTER the kings dialog has finished (18min at last reaper) using 1 blue candy, running mnts->pits->plains->pools->lab->vale->wastes. Any better way it can be ran?
BTW, the candy shortens the run by less than 1.5 minutes, barely worth it.

I really don't feel like doing these quests but I feel like if I don't, I'll miss out on something really cool. Ugh.

Failed once because i had MoP on me and forgot about it, so FoC slapped me.

Did it a second time, 21 mins, just ran thru again at 16..jolly good fun

Well, messed up the first time in the bone pits, so decided to try it again...this time I got to the reaper...i was so happy...until I found out I had to make my way out of the pit and back to the King. Of course, I died. This just isn't worth doing imo Why couldn't they have made it so you could zone areas using the reapers like you do in normal UW??? Sigh

in the end this person sums it up the best for me. as i wasnt the only one unable to this quest. 5 or more people in my allaince couldnt do it even with cons/maps. when i first heard about the quest i got excited thinking it would either be like the easy chain quests/or the 4 repeatable quest from wintersday. these quest are turning more and more into a solo doa feel.

like someone in my allaince said if it a "full" bar of halloween skills and we could use groups it would have been way fun. gw and this event is supposed to be relaxing and fun not stress worth and shouting at the computer. If the end prize is some kind of rare thing i can only hope they their will be enough people getting it the us people that are looked down at for not finising/doing quests can buy it.

In the end i can say thank you for the thought for giving us quests. but for shame to making it so stressful that some cant do it.

I just managed to do it with two essences of celerity. The best part was that as soon as the Mad King's Influence recharges, the effect wears off and you can insta-charm them again. The extra speed definitely helps.


I cannot say I enjoyed this quest. In fact, I had given up on it. But after reading some guru threads I figured I'd give it one more chance. I bought two celerities just to be safe, and I needed them both. (I had to wait out my father's brilliant plan of lagging the hell out of me by downloading a windows update. Gogo failtubes.)

The celerities definitely help. I didn't use any candies, but I think this quest is far too difficult for most, and FAR too stressful. I'm glad it's over, but I'm not doing it again and I hope that a-net either changes this quest (Self heal would be nice. Give me mending, please! That's all I ask.), change the spawns or do something similar.


God, I hope there is no more of THIS. I want to fight something, not run around and flee like a pansy.

LOL, ~6k worth of consumables to cut 7 minutes off the time?

I guess this nets 125 ToTs/35 tonics per hour, *ALMOST* as much as you'd get farming.

(Doesn't include the ~20 gold unid, ~20k vendor trash/tomes/scrolls/ink/matls, chest/[un]lucky titles - OR the -30k consumable cost!!!)

had 16 with just bday cake

and actually i dont know how anyone finds pits hard. I admit that it may be the only place where you have to activate 4, but then if you did that (under bridge) it's just kd everyone.

Horribly boring quest. Died in the pits once, tried again and managed the pits alright but rubberbanded on the way to the 6th reaper and got shredded by 2 aatxes I thought I'd ran past. Can't stomach the idea of having another go at it right now. This quest has no entertainment value whatsoever and takes far too long.

I also agree that this quest of the Reapers was a bit much for the casual player. Seemed more geared to those who do UWSC than to the majority of the GW Community. After one lag death after finishing Pits, Plains and Pools, I needed a break from the rage I was feeling, tried twice more, died to Pits degen deaths, but after much screaming and profanity at the screen, finally the 4th time I succeded. I know the UW pretty well, even tho I dont UWSC, and even I found this to be a challenge. I feel sorry for those who dont go there often or have never been. I can imagine most of them have thrown their comps right out the window. I know a few in my Alliance raged and some who didnt even bother to try because they knew they would fail and didnt want to waste the time. But, even tho i have wanted a challenge from this game for some time and now got it, I think many wont be able to finish this quest line now, and for a holiday quest chain, you went over the top Anet. Next time, add a self heal at least or hex remover if you want more to have fun with this. You had an opportunity to show many new UW players what is down there and I think you might have put many off from ever going again.

Kudos for coming up with an interesting quest line, and kudos for making me work at it. Just next time, dont make it a holiday chain so casual players can have fun too.

Didn't mind the difficulty... failed once in Pits 'cause I didn't remember where the Reaper was. 24 minutes was the time. Not terrible, not great.

I'm not too upset by the difficulty of the quest once you get it figured out, but I do hope that the next quests are less "run around" based and more "go here, get lots of lore" based.

I didn't care for today's quest. I don't mind challenging quests, but to my way of thinking, these holiday quests should be more about fun than frustration. It took me several tries to get through on my 1st character, partly because I'm not too familiar with the UW, and partly because the pits area was a pain.

Ahh well, I got through it on 2 characters, may do a couple more tomorrow.

Kinda cooll how those doors are cracking open little by little. And some of the dialog is pretty good.

P.S. For those saying "I want to kill stuff" because the quests are boring: The story behind the quests is how to deal with the problem that too much killing going on in the UW is causing. Why would these quests have elements that add to the problem you're trying to help resolve?

I just hope from now one we stay out of Bone Pits. >_>

I've tried four times to get past there already, I've died each time because I can't target fast enough to knockdown the second golem thing in a pair before I get that hex that last forever and a day that gives you -8 regeneration.

I'll try again tomorrow when I'm less frustrated with it. :/

tab is your friend when switching to the second golem in a group