Battle at Lion's Arch, WTH

I did that battle last night with my Paragon and a bunch of pugs, it wasn't that hard.
What was the biggest threat was the horrible lag we had, but even that didn't help those puny white mantle and mursaat enough to defeat us.

Too bad the new weapons are pretty hidious, the only weapon that looks nice is the new staff. That was a big dissapointment for me personally.

But it was fun none the less.

I think the problem is everyone brings a MM. Once you get to the waves of Jade you have a pretty much useless character. Switch out your MM for something that will be effective the whole quest.

I was the ranger in your team. That went so smooth. I had a blast!

Just finished a group with my ranger, and it had a MM in it, no problems acutaly. There are so many bodies from npc's too when the last waves hit.
First time I did it was without a MM though, spirits are always usefull

just finished my ele.. they hardly seen the bridge xD calculated risk works like a ghetto spoil victor on the bosses.. think gonna keep that on my other chars I have to finish

the sos was on his/her game- I just pretty much sat back and mass condition.. probably could have gone with a full mesmer bar, drop meteor shower

haven't tried the splinter barrage yet but I dunno how it could be any better than a good sos.. the spirits put stretch marks on their mouths every time

I just finished with my Elementalist. A Mesmer in the group with Panic and a good MM/Curse is a must so is a good nuker & healing monk. The mission is freaking hard but find the right group like I did and it's fun. You have to act as a team not by yourself and know what role you have and don't try to be a hero and step out of it.

Oh and make sure the person that has Panic does have plenty of points added to the Domination Magic or the skill is pretty much a waste of space. I've seen a ton of people say the mission is going to be easy because they have Panic in their skill bar with Domination Magic set to 0, which makes the spell last 1 sec. The Meteor Shower I was casting (with the aid of Glyph of Sacrifice) would do a better job.

After two failed tries and wipes on perfected cloak groups I finally partied with imbagon and beat this quest. Our setup was me (caller with wards) + 3 discord heroes and imbagon with his panic mesmer hero.

Like usually in guild wars, deaths seem to come from bad positioning. Player should be taking full advantage of npc:s and fall back when shitloads of mursaat start pouring in. When you experience few deaths in the same time, I would suggest full party wipe for complete respawn with full energy and health. When you see last ele and monk boss with other mursaat you have won the quest since they don't seem to proceed further into keep but rather stay in the open area.

as you can see, many people including myself have done this even before all the pve skills with relative ease.

oop! looks like it's time to get better at da game!

Indeed, THK v9000. (I love/loved THK, even when I was bad at it.. Actually I was lucky to never be bad at it. But anyway, great mission format, though shame there weren't any "traps" or things set up like a traditional fort with battlements et all.)

I failed my first time H/Hing, (Panic, Minion bomber, SoS, SoGM, level 10s) and so I pugged it. (Panic, MM, SS + MoP, SoS, ImbaSin, and UA monk) It was pretty swell, people died twice and I popped some cons for them to undo DP. I think some guy brought an Armor too, and some summoning stones. Was a great time, loved it.

Interested in trying it on HM.

Just finished the quest a second time on my ele. No party wipes & most of the npc survived the battle. It isn't that hard. One person on my team has done 8 times, so it is possible to beat it.

I didn't have issues the first time at it either. It was a full PuG with no heros. Me on my SoS rit, two monks, a MM, a tank, an ele. A few of us died at one time or another but no party wipe. We pretty much kept the mobs contained just inside the gate. They didn't get any further than the stairs.

However, I did have a full conset with me and I popped those up right before the battle started. We all had DP erasing consumables too such as candy canes, shining blade rations, etc... All that probably heped a lot.

I thought it was really fun and very much enjoyed the challenge. Things in GW just haven't been challenging lately, and I think that many players have become complacent with the relative ease of HM stuff, and have forgotten what it's like to really do something difficult. Salute to Anet for making this a true battle and not something we can sleep walk through.

Can't wait to do it on my ranger and necro.

I've done this twice on my sin (MS/DB with SY) and on my war(100B) and the second time with Panic helped with all the balled up Jade and Mursaat. Though I completed it the first time with...an SoS, derv, myself on my sin, war, AotL MM with daze, and a good monk. But both times were fun imo.

I personally had difficulty with some of the other WiK quests (not the bounties) but mostly due to four inadequate henchmen.

I can understand if people have a lot of trouble with this quest, it does require a bit of preparation.

Having said that...

I

FREAKING

LOVED IT!!!

I've done it over 10 times, repeating it on my ranger and warrior without reward because it's so darn fun. Watching splinter/barrage blow up large groups is very satisfying. Seeing !! appear above entire mobs heads every few seconds because of Panic is hilarious. Tanking huge mobs with a Defy Pain warrior set up while my squishies blew them up in the background was very rewarding. Sniping mobs from up on the bluffs is hella cool, I'm really impressed the design team did such a great job of ensuring Lion's Arch looks like a city under siege and the Shining Blade made real battle preparations to reflect this.

Seeing an actual army take on Lion's Arch makes me feel like the WiK really was significant. Normally I hate when the game resorts to "greater difficulty = bigger numbers" but this was the final show down, it had to be a big fight and it really felt that way.

Zinn and Blimm were ultimately a disappointment, but I don't care about that because the NPCs and their builds are so cool (especially the Ebon Falcons which I am liking the actual character development more and more - even if it is a little cliché) so having them all fight with me at the same time was pretty awesome. The fact that they auto res and the party can res as well is what really prevents this mission from sucking ultimately.

I also liked that although the mission does kind of limit you to AoE builds and certain builds are noticeably more effective (splinter barrage or panic) no class was excluded from being valuable (possibly sins, I haven't done it with one but I don't see them benefiting a lot from the large mobs, they can be intense). I even think there is room for a decent amount of variation in strategies each class can perform here without a huge loss in efficiency. My one big issue with this mission is the henchmen are level 10. You either bring someone else or suffer with useless henchies. They are more of a burden than helpful. I don't see why it's so difficult for the Live Team to make them level 20 for WiK content.

I just want to say kudos to the design team for making a truely fun and exciting mission. It didn't get tedious and I felt like I was accomplishing something as I did this. I also felt like my team was working together, between panic, buffs, spirit walls, minion walls and clever positioning (the defensive nature of the mission adds a lot to it's enjoyableness) actually being rewarding. Good work guys, this was a fitting climax to the WiK and didn't disappoint in it's large scale of action and significance.

The rewards aren't too bad either (I have a thing for greens and I liked these ones, even the ones with odd stats - greens named after allies are cool).

NM H+H - probably impossible with the two lvl-10 hench.
NM full players/heroes - Fun. Not precisely challenging, but you are likely to wipe on sheer numbers here and there.
HM H+H - probably impossible, at least for most classes.
HM full players/heroes - probably doable once we get a better grasp on how the monster AI interacts with the map.

Biggest issue for HM is that the allied NPCs fold pretty much instantly against any HM mob.

Now, for the $64,000 question: Can you get a party of 8 from ToA in to LAK?

When was THK hard? Someone remind me of that.

And @ OP, I'm pretty sure Anet didn't intend on players to be attempting this seriously with h/h. It's a very fun mission, and all the AoE tank n spank skills work perfectly here.

Ineptitude, Panic, Icy Veins, Rising Bile, Putrid Bile, Putrid Explosion, Spiteful Spirit, etc. Are super OP here in these mega-mobs.

I managed to complete BLA using henchies and heroes. It was hell. I've been trying to solo it since the mission was released. I figured that if I had done the others by myself then I could probably manage to figure out a way to do this one too.

I didn't have cons or summoning stones. The builds I used are quite laughable (aka bad) but somehow I managed to push through. Panic and Meteor shower really helped out a lot. Positioning is everything on this map. Use the hills/walls/etc to your advantage.

Anyway, PUG it. Don't drive yourself insane trying to hench/hero alone.

I think the best place to choke the mob into a massive ball is the first set of stairs; placing spirits down there or having an ES war lock them while you blow them up. Works perfectly.

Me and a friend did it...me a a sin...him as a crappy healer...and some heros we threw together on the spot...in hindsight a panic mes woulda just roflstomped...but it's really not that bad...we got through and he really is a bad healer...and he was our only one

I just did it with a pug, we made it after 2 wipes, but we didnt do consumables and had a great time, i think this may go down as one of the most exciting battles in the whole of guild wars.

If I could do any one thing to improve on the battle I would have gotten Dwayna or Kormir to actually do something to help out (Dwayna because Salma reckons she helped and thus the Seraph are named in her honour, Kormir because she needs to good PR after being a cow in Nightfall).

I would also have given Princess Salma some kind of kick ass battle cry that affects all allied NPCs on the map. Just so players think about her and and think, "Hell yeah she is a kick ass Queen and someone I really enjoyed fighting with, someone with the power to rule the throne." Again, I think she needs the PR, it feels like other people did all the work for her. I want her to really help out, but directly taking part in the battle would have risked her dieing and making everyone hate her.

Panic is just .. lovely, insane, whatever do you want to call it.
On my mesmer I was running PI and Gwen Panic. Seeing those "!!" dancing on your screen, it`s just ... oh my!

Took another go through on my mesmer with a PUG. Couple things of note:

1. Splinter from a SoS rit @ 16channel + a barrage ranger cleans up big time.
2. The front gate itself can be used as a choke point to ball mobs.

How's that work? I'd think Panic would put PI in serious danger of missing often.

Forcing players to use a strategy that isn't the same old.

Why not instead of WTF THIS MOB IS TOO BIG make a boss that requires an intricate and interesting strategy to beat? That'd be fun eh?

But I haven't gotten this far on any of my characters yet. I'm just posting off of what other people have said. I'm skeptical about the difficulty level.

I do love the people that get upset this easy because the mission is set up where they can't go it alone with only Heros/Hentchmen. Forcing them to group up with other players and actually making them think during the mission. I also love the people who are crying about this because Discordway can't be used do to the huge mobs.

Just think when you by mistake aggro to many things at once leading to you having 3 groups on you and how that becomes tough to get threw. Now just think of a group made up of 10 enemies and you aggro 3 or more groups made up of the same number of them at once. That's just one wave in this mission and other waves made up of the same amount won't wait around they will keep coming and it keeps getting tougher.

"Forcing" is such a strong word! But yes, A-Net has continued their pattern of encouraging multi-player parties with this quest. I think it's going to be the norm for anything else they add along the way.

Huh? I didn't know you could not do it with h/h - and here I finished it twice that way. Silly me.

Although the second time I did "lend" Gwen from one account to the other.

Back when the game was new, there wasn't a lot of good skills back then and you HAD to play with other people and it was indeed a challenge to do it.

Nah, I did it with those and no consumables after some tries.

Not really since you start the quest inside Lions Arch Keep.

I had no trouble with this quest at all, OP is a nublet

Well splinter barrage does so much damage on the balled groups. Fast reload times of splinter aswell as barrage is great.
I also brought fav. winds because I positioned right next to the group of archers.
Somebody in the group thought fav winds was not much use because it's not very strong but they didn't even get close.

I must say had a lot less lag yesterday, friday was just unplayable but saturday was great.

alesia was pr0 soul raeping battery
i managed with garbage builds:



I abandoned the quest after finishing because it's fun to repeat (and maybe someone will come up with a solo/duo build that will farm so many mobs).

Managed to capture this while I just finished it with my sin (3rd time on my account)



Guess someone has funny ideas when the LT is MIA

Sidenote:
I have 10 classes/toons that can do this BfLA mish & some of them are not wanted/welcomed in PUG so I 'borrow' my 2nd account Gwen to have 4 heroes instead of the 2 level 10 lousy henchman. (Yes, Gwen/Norgu with PANIC is way better than any of the 2 henchman)





Above are heroes' builts I used for the mish with my sin. Got wiped a few times at the last 2 or 3 Jade groups.
Didn't use any BU except 1 summon stone, some honeycombs & some bd cupcakes

aoe adjusted sabway+splinter+cyclone axe=lol. you all blow at this game if you can't beat it first try without cons. kk thx.

I had fun with BLA. Im glad some people got lucky with H/H. But I used a PUG 10 times(for each profession) and won 10 times.I even went a few more times to help guildies. I failed with H/H, I got close but wiped bad at the end. Honeslty, I'm glad I failed with H/H because I got to play with some really good PUGS this time around. I hope we get more battles like this.

If your still having trouble with pugs, its probably your team setup. All you should really need is one good healer, barrage/splinter, one tank, and caster spike. Once I even went with a DoA DwG set up with imba and one monk, it worked well, but it needs an imba. The hardest part is finding a real healer after that your good. I also liked the fact that every profession could be used here. Here is what I used and saw being used effectively(that means we won) in PUGs:

Warrior
Defy Pain/SY!- works great
Hundred Blades
Ursan- yes I lol'd too

Ranger
Barrage/Splinter- use conjure if your SoS has splinter to put on you

Monk
UA/seed- works well, bring air of superiority to recharge seed of life
HB/seed
Echo RoJ

Necromancer
AotL MM- imo not necessary, and can over aggro
Echo SS- very effective

Mesmer
Panic- effective damage mitigation, not necessary

Elementalist
Searing Flames
Echo Savannah Heat
ER Infuser- if you cant find a monk

Assassin
Crit Barrage- have Rt put splinter on you if possible

Ritualist
SoS- of course
Soul Twisting- go communing and have SoS go all channeling
DwG

Paragon
Imbagon

Dervish
Avatar of Balthazar/SY!-tank, earth prayers help

This is NOT a definitive list, just some observations that worked for me.

I was a simple SoS mobile spirits type of build and my heroes were



I never really used that ele before so he had no runes of any kind (and apparently I forgot to change him to guarding as well).

Used ele and blood henchmen.

SoS on my char(s) bar, Sabway heroes, Alesia en Claude flagged away for support + Popping a conset once mursaat come pooring in.

H/H'd it just fine.

Took a couple of initial tries to figure out the best flagging spots, but it's new content afterall.

I was in a nice PUG, but the panic mesmer wasn't even trying. I think he was just letting people run it for him. I've seen him use panic once after I was asking him why the hell I wasn't seeing the things you posted just now.

Last night I PUGGED and that Panic mesmer owned them all.

I did it yesterday with a guildie and we both agreed that it were the most fun we have had in along time, hopefully w vs w is going to be something like this in gw2.
We took a panic mesmer, resto SS necro, MM necro, healing monk (can't remember what he exactly were) and a roj monk (us selves being splinter barrage and SoS necro) some of the heroes died a couple of times, but we didn't have any problems at all.

I liked doing this quest, first time I finished was hero/hench.
2nd time with a friend and 4 heroes.

With 4 heroes it was a laugh, with the hench it was a little bit troublesome, but getting them in the chokepoint at the stairs made it a lot easier.

Lots of thanks Perfected Shadow i made it with slightly modified builds