Sorrows Furnace hijacked by 5 man oro team!

Am I the only one who finds it frustrating that when I go to SF I can find noone interested in doing any of the actual SF quests!?!

Unless you're a healer/bonder/stance tank/SS/MM you're just out of luck.
That Oro guy is everyone's favorite! and no-one's even interested in doing the quest...

In short SF is for farming now....
Will any of my characters even complete their quests there - I don't know.

Nothing against farming but this place is ONLY for farming now it seems.
To me Anet's work on SF is completely wasted as everyone just follows the same route through SF and kills the bosses hoping for green drops.

Anyone else have the same problem?
Any ideas on how Anet could address this complete imbalance?

Find a guild to help you instead of relying on pugs. Most of them will ruin your day anyway.

Increasing the group forming functionality would help. For example, if I could put my name and skillset down on a list of people who would like to do the Tasca quest - but then go someplace else (like Random Arena) while waiting for a group of others looking to do the same.

I've also experienced problems getting groups for quests around Sorrows, going on for some time now. True enough most can be done with henchmen only but that's hardly the point of playing an online game. At least before the prevalence of the stupid keg/gear "trick" you could get people to help with orozar quest occasionally and it's that that bothers me most about the area, I rarely go there anymore because it's so monotonous and fake. To me this is the worst current problem. It's a pity as it used to be a fun area.

Well speaking as one of the evil farmers your talking about consider this.

Ive already done the quests, why else would i return if not for green farming.

(and purleeees dont say for the challenge, because its not really that challenging, esp as its so easy to do with 5 people).

highten the green drop rate, maybe.

Or give quests rewards other than a pointless 5k or whatever xp, its of no use.

Like i said for me and alot of other people theres no reason to go there again other than to help out guildees or to green farm. If im going there to green farm i wont go in a group larger than 5. Why, becuase even with 5 people your really lucky to get anything these days, forget about getting anything in an 8 man team.
And if im there with guildees to do missions, we wont take randoms anyway.

Dont take this as a whinge, as i think its ok as it is. But if you want to meet people there that are not just farming, those are some of the reasons why.

Welcome to three months ago?

Seriously, this is nothing new at all.

I finished the fist 2 quests with henchies... and I still have the final quest to do... but honestly I'm in no hurry... The problem is if they complete the quests. Then they don't have access to it for what way too many people do... farming... But I can't complain... I mean. on occasion I'll admit I do go down there with friends for some fun. and normally yield a green or two for our efforts... But in reality its more about the fun of this quest area... SF is fantastic. Nice strong bosses... lots of degen mobs... Good groups of priests healing mobs... its just fun.... And the greens that drop... well that's just a bonus to the area as far as I'm concerned... Its not as long as the new tombs... and its not as short and many quests or missions... and its not expensive like the underworld or fissure of woe is... so hey. its a win win situation... Work with it...

Like many said. Pugs... generally speaking are going down there for one thing and one thing only. Greens... They will s(rew you over in a heart beat for the item they want NOW... and if they don't get it they are normally gone... Is that fun? of course not... The trick is to get with friends and go do whatever you want. Heck recently we were just going back and doing fun missions in new ways... Just cause we can... The new Underworld from tombs was possibly one of the BEST new additions to the game from the PvP preview... and I know everyone I play with say they enjoy it immensely... I mean what is there not to like about a Bonus high level Mob area that has great drops, and great chests. And at the end of a long and concentrated effort normally yields a green item or two... This is wonderful fun... Not farming drudgery... its not easy... small teams can be done, but not as quickly... so that encourages a full team... and the best thing is many builds can do it given enough time and most importantly Patience. This is what EARNING green items should always have been like. So as they were truely a feat worth trying and repeating...

Great job Anet... Thanks again... for possibility the last great addon for the classic age of Guild Wars... Both SF and the New Tombs are Crowning achievements to the PvE part of the Prophecies chapter. I am looking forward to seeing what you have in store in the next chapter...

=HT=Ingram

if u need the oro quest just go in a 5man farm team as they will get the quest completed anyway. just change ur build to fit what is needed

Put more in next time okay?

It's a sound plan, but unless it's a full quest team going to do Oro, Ele's, Rangers, and Mesmers are out of the mix. The thread starter is right in that Stance Wars, SS and MM Necros, Healers, and Bonders, have it best in SF right now simply because if it's not for doing Oro and FA quests, then it is for going for those valuable greens that many people want (Drago's Sundering Flat Bow, Brohn's Staff, Razorstone, Malinon's Shield, etc.).

If you have a ranger, or a nuker, or a mesmer that can interrupt, your best bet, right now, is the new Tombs, as rangers seem to have it best there.

lol I know.... sorry...

I'm in somewhat the same boat with my Elementalist. Partially because, well, she's an Elementalist. Partially because I've not been able to successfully hench the Priest Alkar part of the intial four-part quest (came close; henched the previous three).

I've no problems with folks farming, but its pretty difficult to find a group for quests most everyone has already done. I wound up in that boat when I took a few months off(line). I have a similar problem trying to find groups for the three titan quests, which are more or less impossible to hench near as I can tell (me and my three level 3 henchbots versus level 24 charr).

1. PUGs are a pain to do Orozar with. Kill the Priest? Kill the Taskmasters? Protect Orozar? Don't lower the bridge yet? How many average players would bother to listen? It takes only one person to screw up the quest.

2. I still don't get why people insist on farming Orozar, as it was nerfed long before people called it "oro farming". I used to farm it, but mainly I went with groups doing the quest and finished the quest while killing all the bosses, which took a bit more time but netted quite a bit more in terms of experience and gold. There were others too that did that, the quest/farm runs.

3. It's just new groups thinking all you do is hit up a few bosses then botch the quest, which is pointless as you miss some of the better bosses. The drop rate is already abysmally low now, and it doesn't help if you only kill 4 out of 10 bosses. Rezoning back and re-entering Sorrow's Furnace isn't that much faster than just doing the mission.

4. Like others have said, a guild or group of friends would help you best. I'd take henchies before trying with any of the current groups. Hell, even the PUGs before "oro farming" were better than the groups farming it now.

Not true. I'm currently taking a SS Necro in, and have had many a team say "oh sure, we'll finish the quest," only to have them all ditch when they've farmed what they wanted.

Which wouldn't be a problem if henchies' AI was slightly more than useless in this quest.

Thanks for all the suggestions - I did do a quest successfully today with my guild (Alkar's one - where you split up).

It was fun.

Yes I realise that this is not a new problem but I still think that it's a problem.

One suggestion is since there are 4 missions - adjust the drop/xp rate between them to keep them all playing and make this known.
I know this makes it dynamic but it would encourage everyone to play the other missions and actually vary things a bit.

Again I have nothing against farming but when 100% of people are doing it in that area whats the point of actually having any quests.
I'm not looking forward to bringing my ele there - I suspect she will be the only ele in the district.

Does that mean I can interest you in a Bortaks Bone staff for 90K?

The main (or at least original) reason is that the boss, Bortak Bonesetter, is only spawned during that quest.

Oh, I know. Bortak Bonesmelter: 4/5, or 80% chance of spawning during the actual quest in battle. He could be one of the two bosses during the first quest, or one of two bosses in the second quest. Other choices during the quests are Rago Kindlerock, Graygore Boulderbeard, Korvald Willcrusher, and Malinon Threshammer. Bosses that spawn in set locations during Orozar are Tanzit Razorstone, Drago Stoneherder, Brohn Stoneheart, Villnar Painforge, Galigord Stonestrike, and Vokur Grimshackles.

What I don't get, however, is that a lot of "oro farming" groups don't attempt the quest, or they screw it up so badly it's obvious they have no clue how to do it. Plus nowadays drops are down to near nil and green prices have fallen drastically, so what anyone's getting out of it I don't know.

You'd have to make the greens chance drops at the end of the quest, a la Tombs right now. Otherwise you still have all the groups farming and not enough doing the quest. Most farmers don't care about XP but it is a draw for the average player looking for more skill points.

Haven't been there in a long time (other than to buy greens) because I got sick of finding groups when everyone was only in it for the farming side of things. Guess I won't be in that area for quite a bit longer by the sounds of things.

I agree go with guildies, friends or find another guild. Once a week we (being my guild) get together and go to UW, FOW and even SF to do the quests and have fun. If we get drops all the better, but the purpose is not to farm it. We dont just make a 5 man group. If we cant fill the team out with all guilds we invite a friend(s). Even on the offnights some of us will get together and do one of the quest then we will farm the area not as much for the drops but for the xp and to test different builds.

not suprised. All people want to do is get rich.

so sad.

I think maybe someplaces like SF should have a minimum party size.
say 8 max & 8 min so people wont b so fussy as to who they pick and so every party has a 1 in 8 chance of getting that greenie. that way u could just take anyone and would b so much easier finding a team.

This is why I wish green items were never introduced to the game. It basically ruins the fun of Sorrows Furnace for those classes deemed 'unsuitable' for your 5-man oro team.

As a perfectionist I want to complete the Orozar Quest and I can't even get a group together most of the time because people are so bent on farming. My last three groups I managed to piece together:

Group 1 - full of players who apparenty don't know what they are doing.
Group 2 - refuses to go after all bosses in the Footprint despite my asking them if it's ok if we do this before we exit war camp. I know most of players consider those drops basically worthless but hey I recently started to play there and I want my share of green drops - junk or not. I wasn't expecting to go after all bosses in the Furance itself - I know it'd take forever but bosses in Footprint doesn't take that long.
Group 3 - Two players joined and then sabotaged the group by talking to Killroy and refusing to talk to him again to release him so we can talk to Orozar and the other one charged into a group of summit dwarves and everybody else got slaugthered trying to save him. The 'charger' then left and I whispered him why did he leave and he said he did that charging on purpose, laughing.

That's one great idea!

If green items were never introduced into the game via SF (at least originally) then SF would be a ghost town. Once you've finished the quests, there isn't a reason to go back if there wasn't "phat lewt" to be gained. It's not part of the storyline quests, and simply doing the quests for xp isn't quite compelling enough for most people.

farming SF or oro isnt even worth the time imo
the old greens arent worth much and the time spent to finish and not get nothing ...
not worth it

I just made it to the Deldrimor War Camp for the first time and finished three of the Sorrow's Furnace quests. I only have the Orozar one yet to do. I keep seeing people use this as a farming technique (as discussed right here in this thread) but have no interest in the farming aspect right now.

Say I complete this quest tonight, will I be able to do it again in the hopes of getting decent loot in the future? The reason I ask is that I've noticed that even though I've completed the other quests, the other quest starting NPCs (i.e. Kilroy Stoneskin) are still out in the instanced zone so I imagine I could theoretically do those quests again. Is there a point at which I will no longer be able to start the Orozar quest after completing it?

I disagree. People would still farm it for items and possible rare drops.

B.Son - yes you can do those quests again and again.

All of PvE is basically farming.

Well, yeah. Sorrow's Furnace is the southern Shiverpeaks' agicultural center. Well of course it is, it's the place that green items drop. Hardly anyone there to do the quests? Obviously, the quests aren't required and give relatively small experience awards. There's no point to go to Sorrow's Furnace unless you want to farm green items.

And ArenaNet knows it. One could conclude that they built Sorrow's Furnace for short term replayabilty and "coolness" and long term farmability. In this respect it is successful. When it first came out, it was totally cool to go killing dwarves. These days, it's only cool to go killing dwarves if you're there to farm.

The 5-man team is laid back, really relaxing, and a decent way to spend time. You might get a Razorstone or one of the Bortak items, so that's pretty cool, because they sell well. Even if you don't, the tanned hides, iron, wood and dust that you take out of the place makes it a relatively profitable use of your time. You can go for a quick Oro run while you're waiting on your guild to get together for the event that's starting in a half hour; you can go for a quick Oro run when you have to leave for work soon and don't have a lot of time to dally in the game.

Rangers, mesmers, elementalists, I know that you're not part of the "cool crowd" for this run. Sorry about that. Go play somewhere else or log a different toon and come back. Or if you like, your guild can set up an Oro run and sub out a ranger as your stance tank or a me/n, me/e or an e/* for the SS nuker slot and you can go. PUGs won't take you, it's just how it is. It's like saying "Hi, I'm Michael Jordan. Can I play for your baseball team?" Sorry, wrong outpost. Deal with it. Take heart in the fact that the warriors are all here because they're laughed out of Tombs by all the rangers,

SF is farmarific, fun, and really laid back. I can go for a challenge somewhere else, the 5-man oro run is my relax time, and it's still relatively profitable.

Though I've been farming sf for a while I just got my new ranger there. Got into Alkar and kilroy quest groups virtually straight away. Took a little longer on the enslavement one so I took a full group of henchies and completed. Orozar I did the next day in a full quest group.

Never had any problems apart from a bit of a wait looking for the right group. For orozar I started the group myself and it filled up very quickly.

thats the bad thing about pugs in warcamp. always ss or nuker. why do they stick with such a useless build? . theres no interupt, they run out of energy and they can only take one group at the same time. pick up a ranger with EoE and symb . give the tank a spellbreaker and a SoJ und let him run into the hordes . u never se a faster way of farming. 1 dies, the rest dies too, regardless if they attack or just passing by. only drawback is oro himself. hes a dwarf too :/, so give him some enchants and he will survive .
and u need only 4 people(tank,ranger,smite/heal,prot) for it and have a free spot for guildie who needs the quest

Or Final Assault

The success and efficency of dozens and dozens and DOZENS of successful runs each day with the standard build doesn't really scream "useless" you know...Spinal Shivers is all the interrupt that they needEssence Bond, soul reaping, and Balthazar's Spirit says that no, they never run out of energyRight on then, enjoy the run and have fun creating your own build. That's good fun right there, and nobody will begrudge you your right to try something different. Well, I won't, at least. The average PUG, however, is looking for a specific build because they want a fast "normal" run the way they expect it. There's no room for creativity in cookie cutter farming PUGs. So go with your guildies and mix it up and enjoy! But don't be all sad and depressed when you get abruptly kicked from a farming PUG for not conforming to the PUG's expectations. Start your own party if you want creativity.

Its fun to go into SF but most of the pug groups out there is doing it for greens. You would rarely see pug groups going in there for questing. And with the decrease in green drops, the price is going down every week or so.

As for those saying SS, MM, or nukers are useless. It take time and pratices (or a look in the builds forum) to find the build that work well in SF.

Still, i'm going into SF for farming purpose since i'm low on golds and there usually good chance to get some greens.

OP - in the same boat.

About to beat the game and will have titans and SF quests (and I do want to beat the quests) stuff left unfinished and all I see is farming groups or WTB / WTS spams.

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. I haven't been there in a few months, went back to get some greens for new characters I've brought up...I figured it'd be nothing but professionals there.

Boy was I wrong. Seems the cool thing to do now is skip more than half the bosses, as, and I'm quoting as close as I can the ppl in the group "Vokurs stuff isn't worth anything anyways, lets just skip him"...as I have about 40 Fiends 2 steps from him ready to rain down on him, and happen to want Vokurs gear.

That and they don't see to want to clear the area around behind the bridge, before doing the first part of the quest. Makes it a real pain trying to do the quest as it was meant to be done IMO. I guess they're going for speed over safety and thoroughness.

Agree!