droks running...fine thunderhead running....fine... but thirsty?!

i thought this is one of the hardest missions ever! i remember a couple months ago when tons of people couldnt even deal with the thought of the thirsty river mission.. and then i go there with my mesmer and see that poeple are running the mission now! the lunacy! amazing how lazy some people are now.

btw the runner was a necro/monk and was charging 5k each =l

i smell a new running spot....

How can you run thirsty river?
5k for a run? Seems like a rip off
I don't take runs on missions... I know I can do it for myself For free. That's why I bought Guild Wars.

Cheers!

They are a MM who just gets an army off of the first part, and slaughters the mission.

5k is a lot now. I got my necro through it for 2k, and was going to pay the 5k if the person failed.

Why have someone "run" you? Why not.

I have also paid 2 eles to do the mission so I could avoid PUG's and still cap WoH on my PvE monk.

Necros run it by taking 1-3 players and henchies. Players helping is optional as is taking any hench if the runees agree to die at the beginning. A minion army can easily clear the mission. Guilds also do the mission often - 2-3 people can easily run the mission. Just goes to show that teamwork is much more important than party size.

I was skeptical as well 4 or 5 months ago, but it's fairly commonplace now.

heh...I got that mission run on my ranger a while back when the only people running it was LSBRA. I ended up paying 25k (he ran 2 of us, that's 50k) At the time it was worth it because I was low level and needed to ascend.

The only thing that is wrong about running is that people that have never played the missions b4 are getting run through them, and if they're playing PvE that's pointless, because your playing for the story and the sense of advancement....

Now myself, I find it much faster to get my "new" characters ran thru the missions just for ease sake... usually theres a guildie on that can help me, but why waste lots of precious time, replaying the same missions... when Im gona come back and do the the bonuses anyway...

thats my defense on running...
and then theres T Keep that thins out alot of the nooblets from gettin into the real game that is beyond...

omg...i found someone who did it for tips. technically that means he/she did it for nothn. He/she was great. Shes been do thirsty for tips for almost a month now. She knows she can complete it but he/she still does it for tips. we got throught the mish so easily with her/him.

Running for Tips is sumthing that I am glad to do... Especially when I see someone spamming that they're running Santum Cay.... for like 3k...
I got right next to them and Spam running for tips...

I dont blame noobs for wanting to get run, eventhough its "taking the easy way out" who can blame them when people laugh at them and ridicule them for being noobs with no Droks armour... all they want is to be accpeted and they feel that getting new shiny armour will make ppl respect them... sigh

Its different now, because why spend time to fight and kill for hours on end when if u have the cash u can pay someone, or "tip" someone and get it done in a matter of minutes while u have a smoke and drink a beer...

We made the game the way it is... and the only people we can blame are ourselves for running people for money...

I agree with you 100%. I recently gave my friend my second account and I made him do every mission PvE wise and in return I bought him armor once he got to droks. Afterwards he told me he appreciated that. Alot of people don't pay attention to the story line and always try to skip scenes due to party pressure, I find the storyline to be well done and I always offer to watch them when i'm helping with earlier missions.

I would guess that most people play the game the first time through, missions cutscenes and such. Most of the time you won't have enough money to pay for runs on your first character.

Its the people that run for tips, or run guildies for free that cause the most trouble. It allows the people to be ran through without having to have the gold issues of your first character.

As for second third or 8th characters. Run them, run them and run them somemore.

I hate ppl that want to skip cutscenes... I find I am guilty of this sometimes, because I forget what it was like...
it's hard to be that guy who is keeping everyone waiting... the loss is ultimately the experience of the player that is doing for the story and misses out entirely...

I was playing recently with a friend... and I was helping him through T Keep... and we was wondering why the white mantle were bad... cuz he still thought they were allies... sigh,

You can not seriously put thirsty and keep up and say thirsty is harder, their both easy and do-able with henchies. Since when do people run this missions?

As for cut scenes, nobody wants to be the one guy watching it. So I always make sure I'm the last one to skip. Unless you are getting run, in which case you should skip them.

PvE in itself is pretty pointless. You repeat the same mission objectives 20 times and learn nothing of the pvp world through it. Gold is worthless, after drok armor materials are worthless, weapons from collectors are best on game so drops are worthless.

Its limited content to unlock runes, weapon mods, and some skills for pvp.

If you don't like pvp you don't have to play it but saying that getting run makes pve pointless is kind of silly when its pointless to begin with. How many times can you do the same mission in a different setting and feel like that was an achievment?

sry to say this, but when I bought GW I didnt even know that PvP existed... I bought it because I have a bunch of friends at work that kept telling me how awsome the game was...
I agree that playing the same missions over and over is pointless... how ever... would you argue that FF XII was pointless cuz there was no PvP I think not... its an Oniline Role Playing Game... which I think if your only playing PvP... getting the new chapter will really suck for you....

I disagree that PvE is pointless... and hey guess what... Im just starting into PvP now... and it is fun, but it's easier and more friendly to play PvE because at least I can play with PuG's and not get scrutinized because I dont know what im doing, ppl will teach me,

Unlike PvP where people seem to want to hold on to their knowledge for fear ppl will use it to beat them, but at the same time frown and call noob to the ppl who dont know... I know one thing , im not retarded... and if u explain something to me,i will understand it, but to kick me out of your group for asking questions... that makes PvP pointless for me, at least until I magically learn the ropes...

With your logic you could pretty much say that life is pointless.

Read more of his posts. I'm thinking his life just may be. Sad really.

I did thirsty for a fellow-guildmember and henches ( three guildies,rest henches ) and as minion master and it is indeed extremely easy to do if you have a minion master with you.

Having said that : I never,ever CHARGE people for doing a mission , so those of you paying necros to do this stunt : don't be folly , just assemble a team and invite a necro in the normal way

for necros wanting to do this ( as you are in desert, you'll most likely not have the verata skills,unless you captured them from Verata ) :
Necro/monk:

-blood of the master
-animate bone fiend
-animate bone horror
*optional* - animate bone minions
- Death swarm
-HEAL AREA
-resurrect/rebirth
- shadow strike/death nova ( death nova is used to make "bombs"out of your minions )

max out death magic (use a head scar pattern of death magic and slap on a superior rune of death magic )
get the collector truncheon in the desert and combine it with collector cesta in Maguuma Stade ( +10 energy, +1 death magic (20% chance ) ,costs 5 mossy mandibles,valued at about 100 gold ...compare with bortak death cesta : +12 energy,=1 Death magic ( 20 % chance ) ,cost approx. 100k +ecto )

you start of by killing the devourers and giants , hit death swarm to make it snappy , and immediately start making minions . During and AFTER each fight hit Blood of the master and once the minions are around you hit heal area .Skip ALL cut scenes . Once you're in the arena the minions will clean up nicely, if you use death nova , it will go even faster . Exploit each corpse making even more minions and keep hitting "heal area " .

The final boss- usually people leave him until end of mission - is the monk-boss . The minions will keep this guy so busy healing himself , the others have plenty of time to kill the priest at shrine .

That is the hole secret of mm's doing this .

where are the skills - only mentioning vendors here,some can be obtained from quests??


- blood of the master: Henge of denravi
- Animate bone fiend : capture from lord Timot in quest "reversing the skales " , vendor is in droknar's forge .I consider fiends to be crucial for any minion master.

- Animate bone minions , quest in Kryta , think that 's "undead hordes ", miight be wrong here though .

- Death Swarm : Ascalon

- Heal Area , quest from grazden the Protector,old ascalon ;vendor : Yak's bend.

- resurect , well, we all know that one

- Shadow strike ( mind you ; this is Blood magic ) : yak's bend

-Death Nova : amnoon oasis skills guy


put points into the following attributes to make it work:

-Death magic , as many as possible
-Healing prayers ( for heal area), in order for your minions to stay alive longer
-Soul reaping ( energy management ) , remainder -if possible put 8-9 points into this , if not : less . You'll probably have a steady energy increase with minions anyway .There are so many corpses at start of Thirsty river mision , you can even afford minions to die on you , plenty more before entering arena.

Obviously, when I helped my guildmember I had the added advantage of the verata skill : verata's sacrifice .You can capture this well before you reach copperhammer mines as well ( that's where the vendor for those is ) .In order for that you have to go to the hill where Verata is , this the same location as the one for the "Galrath quest" from Lion's Arch . Word of caution : NO-ONE in your party may have this quest active in quest-log , if even one person has it , verata will not be there .Verata has all verata skills : Verata's gaze,Verata's aura and Verata's sacrfice .

Having said all this : I repeat : don't pay for this , invite a necro ,ask him to do it like this and you're set to do the mission "normally"

If your day was the same routine over and over it would be yes. Go watch Groundhog Day and you'll see what I mean.

I understand that, but any time you'd go in with a minion master - even in the "normal" way ,skipping the scenes is a requirement . By the time the cinematic is finished all minions will have died

as an afterthought : there's no "big " secret to this"run" that's why I posted such a lengthy description on how it can be done with a necro who doesn't have all attribute points yet and doesn't have the verata's sacrifice skill yet ( although I'd advise to go capture that prior to reaching the desert ) .

My thoughts on mission running:

It feeds itself, with people paying for a run through the mission if they can't make it themselves the following things happen:

1 - Non-practical builds will get through the game without adjustment

example:
3 wa/mo's, 1 monk, 1 ele and a ranger try lets say thirsty river. One of the wa/mo's insists on being a smiter (using smiting staff), 1 thinks he's kinda a protector (but uses a sword) and the third warrior doesn't like adrineline cuz you can't use it right away. The monk is a typical healing monk, the ele a typcial fire one, and the ranger hasn't found a way to do good dmg yet, but is also not interrupting or trapping.

Needless to say that this group will probably not make it, the dmg output is just way too low to be able to slice through this. However instead of modifying their build and trying again (which i tend to do, unless i've noticed that my part was going well), they decide to pay a runner. The result is that these non-practical builds now get the mission done, but at the next heavy fighting mission they will undoubtelly end up with the same problems.

2 - players who have not learnt how to cooperate will get by the mission.

Not being able to cooperate and work as a team works against you as much as the monsters will, those with no skill in this department won't learn better behaviour by running. It really bothers me if people cant attack the same target when you get to the dragons lair mission, pinging on the map and saying "all attack same target" when they are a warrior and should be calling targets with ctrl.

3 - players have a hard time forming a party.

If there was no running, the noobs would eventually have to adjust, or quit playing. If they adjust they will make it easier for those who just reached the mission to find parties to team up with.

And because of the running, the avarage time devoted to each mission is way less, this also reduces chances for others of finding a party, forcing them to be run to in some cases.

4 - not a bad thing as such, but skilled players get runs too, they just dont wanna bother with the hassle of a particular mission for the 4th time (or something). By their being run, they will not share their experience with other players and be in a party where everybody needs the mission, adding to point 3.

I have never had troubles with missions, just with some PUGs, however I am quite experienced and can spot a bad PUG real quick. I ussualy play with a mate of mine (who is somewhat less experienced in spotting bad PUGs, but he's learning real quick now he's in the final stages of the game), the two of us always have good builds for any given mission, or quickly adjust if we fail. But for new players this is alot more difficult....my conclusion is quite simple, running has no effect on the experienced player, but for the new player it will make the game much more difficult, their hard earned cash will go to paying runners instead of buying new armor, i remember my first char, and this is basically a poor mans game until you get a lvl 20 char in the latter part of the game.

So my advice for new players:
1 - If the party takes a long time killing stuff, look for a new party (and check your own build)

2 - If the leader is brining in loads and loads of warriors, don't bother warriors are not the damage dealers in the game unless it's a very good build with good items. Elementalists, Necro's and mesmer usually outdamage the warrior.

3 - If the party members insist on kicking the mesmer "cause he does no dmg" this is also a sign of less experience, as mesmers can make things alot easier with their interruot and hex capabilities.

4 - If your reading this, you know your way to the forum, look around for guides on how to form your own PUG, they greatly help

This will help greatly in the desert missions and beyond.

There is nothing wrong with paying a runner for Thirsty....

I can also say that it is an awesome site watching one of the LBS memebers (not me) that can solo this mission. Almost worth the admission to watch a W solo Thiristy

You have your opinion, I have mine. I'm also talking in general, not just thirsty.

If you'd like to give reasons for it being a good thing, maybe you can convince me, that one line however, does not.

Paying to watch it, lol, there are vids of ppl soloing stuff all over the place.

But I notice you are from a runners guild, so I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective.

1. You have been through the game with more than 2 toons and u dont want to play every area.

2. You want to save money by not buying every armor upgrade from a-droks.

3. You want to skip the PuGs that are filled with horrible players and you can't hench the area.

4. When you have more than enough money to afford anything why not run certain parts.

5. Being an LBS runner I can tell you that most of the people I run are not skipping over anything they have not already done the hard way more than one time or they wouldn't be able to pay the price we charge.


I am sure there are more reasons....like filling up my storage with money but I am a little tired now.

As far as paying to watch it....point me to a video of someone soloing thirsty that is not from LBS and you might have a point. If you have never seen it then you might think it is impossible. Paying for it is just like paying for a movie in my opinion. It is entertaining and every once in awhile it changes your perspective on the impossible.

The defense of "I've done this before I can just skip it" is getting stale. Yes, you've done it before, but were you the same profession using the same skills? Use the storyline to understand the basics of a profession, understand what skills compliment each other.

I don't care what anyone says, you run through the game and get power leveled you're not going to know how to play that character. You don't know how to use algebra if you can't do basic addition.

I had my monk ran through the game and power lvled and then ascended. And all it will ever do is be a 55 monk. I do not see why i should go through the entire game learning all the different monk skills when i have no intrest in doing anything other than farm.

Same with my minion master i have no intention of doing anything other than being a minion master. I have learnt how to use one and i have not played through the game with it.

Fair enough mate.... we can aggree to disaggree then, but now I at least know your arguments and I can identify those reasons, it's just not who i am and how I play.

OK some I do agree that a run is fine to have, but a mission?? whay would you finish the game make a new char and just run the missions? is it to hard? so dont play it, is it boaring? find a way to do it with lots of fun or just ask guild members, whay would u make a char and just run all missions?? I realy dont get it. running to droknar is ok with me if u dont want to pay more for the armour.
Whats the fun of running the game? to do what? are there bad players you dont like to get in a team with, the game is over run with them deal with it. I have nothing against ppl that do the running, hey they have found a way to earn cash and its better then farming, but what happend to the old fashion xploring or just go with a team and see what the mission realy has, like hidden places or so?? I know that there are lots of ppl that only do the base line of a mission and not clear the map on that mission, I think this is more fun this way.
Making a monk only for farming?? whay not do all missions, get all skills and then have 2 armours 1 for farming and 1 for mission if needed?? now u have only a farming monk.
And for ppl that disaggree with me, this is just my opinion about it

have fun all.

God knows that I do agree with you.... You certainly are right in that sense... I just can't justify playin the high amount of hours considering I can't commit that much in a week...

I can commit about 6-7 hours a week... on a good one, due to responsibilities in my life... I don't feel that I should be forced to repeat the same missions over and over... sucking the limited hours out of my gaming life ... i hope u understand where i am comming from

I'm gonna have to disagree with this one. If you are even somewhat experienced, most builds for PvE are quite easy to figure out and use. So after making 2-3 characters and playing through the entire game with them, you probably know how most builds work. This is where people start making characters just for farming or stuff like that. So what's the point of gaining expierience in missions? Surely no one uses a farming build to do missions Mostly people just get run so they can get to the later part of the game faster to make money. You know the old saying, "time is money"

Btw, as a runner, I can also testify to the fact that most new players dont get runs.

all right heres my opinion on this-
all you guys are talking about how people after theyre 4 or 6 chars just start making chars to make money.. ive played through the game 4 times and i still play through the missions. sure i get ran to droks then i go back and do them. this way i keep a little extra gold, get to know people better, lvl my char more. also i think the missions are boring people out is that no one watches the cutscenes anymore. all people do now in missions is kill kill and kill.

It probably depends on what extreme you go from that gave me the angle that I go from. My first character was a warrior, my second a monk. One runs first into combat and beats the snot out of anything that comes in its way. The other sits in the backlines and needs to stare blankly at those red bars in the corner of the screen.

In that sense... I doubt you would be a very good monk if you jump into the harder missions not knowing how manage energy and such. Go through the same as an ele then a necro... well, you're generally doing the same thing with some exceptions. It's probably easier to make that transition when you're already used to one form of playstyle.

I guess I can't argue against someone's way of playing, afterall Anet doesn't exaclty support farming and that's all I do.

i can solo this run with my warrior, necromancer, and monk

Yeah people run it, there's even a thread in Services for it:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=87765

And since there seems to be alot of anti-runner sentiment out here, Fansite Friday # 59: http://www.guildwars.com/community/f...-friday59.html

This thread's topic is kinda stupid. How is running Thirsty River any different from any of the other runs that have been around for, oh, say, since the freaking game came out?

I mean, if you're just gonna make another generic "OMG RUNNING SUCKS! WTF PLAY THE GAME!" thread, let's at least be honest about it.

the key to running thirsty is that the different "legions" fight each other if you get them in the same aggro. so get the "soldiers" together and you get a few minutes of free-hacking to take down the priest and hero.
it makes the mission infinitly easier, and allows it to not only be run but solo'd (without henches, if needs be).

People who get run, particularly who get missions run for them are wimps! There, I said it. Its my opinion. No respect for you. If you don't have the time to play the game, or if you don't have the time or patience to learn how to do the mission or to find a decent group to do it with, then you shouldn't be logging on in the first place. Play the game, don't run it, you will feel happier about it afterwards.

I think I'll run it and be happier, kthnx.

A lot of people forget that this is a RPG. I am roleplaying a character that has a lot of help.

And yes, I don't have time to listen to Rurik babble about this glory days and his antics. If you jokers are going to bash runners, are you also going to bash unlocking skills through faction? I unlocked all my ele, necro, and mes skills that way with out ever making those characters.
zomg nub play teh game to do quest to unlock skills noob frek u learn teh charcters n skilz tht way

[who can blame them when people laugh at them and ridicule them for being noobs with no Droks armour.]

Yeah and those people laughing at them are usually the RUNNERS! Nice scam, laugh at noobies so they will run the content and scamming runners get paid.

I'm still all for locking that south door of Beacons Perch. That will at least make the run to Droks a longggggggg one and take a lot more time and plat than the player thinks it's worth.

Everyone shouldn't be level 20 playing nothing but the high zones. That's why there is content for "EACH" character you play. You should have to work through the content just like DIABLO or DIABLO II and there should be level limits on who you can group with. That'll stop the running.

[[If you jokers are going to bash runners, are you also going to bash unlocking skills through faction? I unlocked all my ele, necro, and mes skills that way with out ever making those characters.
zomg nub play teh game to do quest to unlock skills noob frek u learn teh charcters n skilz tht way]]

As far as PVP this is a seperate game and issue altogether since you CAN make a level 20 the very first day. I don't even think there should be any faction. You should have access to all the skills and all the weapons and all the upgrades from the start, PVP is about SKILL and INTELLIGENCE, not about your equipment (or it shouldn't be, because of the way they are doing it, it forces players to work to catch up to the other competitive guilds). At least it's a lot better now in that the game doesn't force you to play the PVE game, but, if you are going to play the PVE game then you should play it by PVE standards, building up your character and equipment over time, not in a few hours of play and/or run to Droks so you can come back to newbie arenas and cause grief.

There are four basic reasons for running, to cause grief or get to some solo build someone has discovered and they want to copy the template and solo UW/FOW. The next being able to compete in the GW's with a PVE built up character, though this is really silly since it's the longgggg way of doing this when one could just use a premade and get all the skills and upgrades they want by just gaining faction points. And the last building a "RUNNER for $$" character so they can get plat the easy way instead of farming for it.

I've also recently been informed that RUNNERS for $$ are from many of these EBAY farm houses, what yah gonna do about that now GAILE?? Yall wanna stop EBAYers, so, you need to stop these RUNNERS for $$ as well. They are a LARGE portion of the ebay sweatshops now since you been concentrating on bots moreso than looking at the whole.

Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've read here. Who is your "informer"? Unless yu have high paying clientelle, there are so many runners it's hard to make a lot of gold. All you have to do is sit in any of the popular run portals and see how many run for tips, or rediculously small amounts.

Closing Beacons to Droks won't stop anything. All you have to do is run to Sanctum, do the mission, and then the 3 desert missions. Those 4 are extremely easy. It takes very little effort to beat the dopple at level 10 or so. Dragons Lair is another easy mission to complete. Boom, you're at Droks. But you just paid me 150K to get there instead of 5K for the run from Beacons.

Hmm, maybe you actually had a good idea after all. Or not.