What would you do?

I'm currently using a necro/war although I don't really use any of the war skills or attributes, should really have just stayed as necro but that is another thing.

I have been stuck at elona and thirsty river for some time now, both I have tried 20+ times with different henchies.

I started out wanting to complete the game on my own, with no running, no pug etc.. but since being stuck on these 2 missions I'm now getting bored with the game. I have started new characters and played around with them for a while. I have gone back to other areas with the main character to try and get some gold or decent drops.

I do get several requests to join guilds but as of yet I have not bothered for 2 reasons, I wanted to complete the game alone (it should provide me with some credibility?) and I only play Fri, Sat and Sun nights and did not think that a guild would want someone who did not eat, drink and sleep GW?

I'm now thinking differently, I do not want to be run through the missions but would rather have somone along to guide me through i.e. they don't rush in and sort it out while I sit around waiting for them to have done it all for me!

I see several people say that elona is easy enough and there is plenty of time! I get 2 crystals and at the most I have just started to head for the 3rd.

Even though I have had over 400+ hours I still consider myself a newb and no matter what skill list I go in with I just can't get the formula right. I no longer take in tom or stephan and I'm pretty reasonable at being able to pull from groups, but a little on the slow side.

So back to the question, what would you do?

Would you;

a) stay as I am and just keep trying
b) Join a friendly casual guild, if one exists for me?
c) pay a runner

Um, for the crystal missionn buy a runner for 1 k. For the one with multiple groups grab henchies and go pure MM.

You're going to have to accept the you cant finish every mission on your own. Why do you refuse to play with pugs ?

Join a guild where you feel you fit in. While some may have requirements for playing times, there are plenty of casual PvE guilds out there.

GW is best played when teaming with other people you know, even if just thru a guild. It makes the experience so much better.

I can't remember for sure if I beat both of those missions with my necromancer + henchies but I know I did for Elona. I had the advantage of being /monk so ran Succor on both Alesia and Lina to help keep them alive and provide extra energy and relied on high Soul Reaping to supply me with energy to operate.

Are you level 20? Did you complete the 15 attribute point quest in the desert? If not, do so for the added power.

While a PUG can be frustrating, if you're stuck on a mission and not in a guild then you might as well join one so you can move on.

By the way, the last 4 missions are even worse, there's never enough PUG monks around and it is just harder in general to get in a group.

If interested in a PvE guild, check us out:

Wizardry Players Guild [WPG]
Ethrin Starseeker or Ominor Blackstaff
Recruiting: http://vnboards.ign.com/guild_recrui...1800451/p1/?38
WPG forum: http://4guildwars.7.forumer.com

A few bad experiences with pugs

I do tell them prior to it all that I'm not used to playing in an organised group and that they would have to be patient.

Then when I get in, the first time I took any serious damage, none of them actually advised me to move away or showed me where I need to be for the next wave. When I died I got the string of noob and what am I doing in a game like this etc... I was probably playing games before half of them were born! They refused to resurrect me!

This sort of thing has happened several times.

Because I spent a lot of time levelling up in other areas, people assume that because I'm level 20, that I actually know what I am doing! Most of it is pure luck, some missions I have had like 1 hp at the end.

PUGS for me have been bad experiences that I want to avoid and I must also say I have some similar doubts about guilds, how do I know if they are tollerent enough?

The game is really very different when playing with the henchies who follow you around like puppies compared to individual players where teamwork is required to succeed.

PUGs are way too random, unpredictable and often frustrating for me as well and I avoid them as much as possible. Still, even with the guild we often end up with a mostly guild team + PUG(s) for some missions or quests. At least then there are some that you know will work with you, won't quit, will stand up for you, rez you, etc.

Join a guild, you'll be better off and the community you share with them leads to helping, mentoring, whatever you wish to call it. If you join one and decide it isn't right for you then you can quit it at any time. You as an invited member should never have to pay anything to join so all it would cost is some time.

Stay in the back, away from the enemy, run when the first person in your team dies.

Hahaha what.

That's such awful advice.

Seriously, though. Elona is easy. Easy enough that you CAN do it at level 10. With nothing but henches. And with Ascalon armor. Alesia, Lina, Stefan, Thom, and Claude are my usual group.

Pull things. Pull mobs away from each other. In this mission, once the timer starts, EVERY SINGLE MOB is a group of three. If you are fighting more than three at once, you are doing something wrong. Target the Sages first, always.

That 30 minute timer is a bit worrying, but it's more than enough time. Take your time. Be patient.

Yeah ok some ppl in PUGS can be annoying and or abusive but in general I find most ppl are ok. Its just the odd one who tends to speak out.
I suggest trying more PUGs and watch were other caster types are positioning themselves and stay close to them.
There are also Guilds around that concentrate on PVE, the only way to find if they are tollerent is to give them a try, no harm in that. If you dont like it then you can always leave.

All of the desert missions can be done with henchies, but first you have to know how to do the mission.

By joining a guild you not only have people to help with mission but also to give you advice and maybe even help pay for your Drok's armor when you get there.

If you look at the Guildwiki page for this mission, you'll notice that the example path given assumes that you will be returning along your previously cleared path once getting the last crystal.

The path that I usually walk will avoid walking EXACTLY along the return path to avoid the mob behind the opened gate at crystal 3, instead walking up to where the remains of the 3rd priest are, then cutting across the open pit. Once across this pit, you will not encounter any other mobs, because you've already cleared them.

You'll finish with 10 minutes to spare.

I think you are asking about how to play in team as much as anything. I love the team experience, and will give pointers. If someone is being stupid, I'll whisper to them. Don't give up on teams, just because you hit a couple of losers. A couple of pointers.
1 If new to teams, don't play weekdays 3-7pm. A lot of teenagers play then, and can be rude.
2 Stay back. If you are a caster, stay back with other casters. When you get close to the action, they will leave heavily armored warrion, and slice you up. If you get a baddie on you, run around a warrior. If you run to the right of warrior, and turn back to left, they will catch on warrior when following you. Tanks are made to do that, use them.
3 Have a defensive skill if you do get one on you as well as a self healing skill.
In pve, I really like to use AoE skills, because it causes the bad guys to scatter. By the way in case you haven't noticed, when they are running, they are not effectively attacking. And keep your self heal skill up, as well as any armor boosting skills you have. I don't know about others, I usually have 4 attack skills, 2 defensive skills, one self heal, and a res.
4 Remember, as a caster, stay out of heat of battle, stay at edge of aggro.

Hope this helps.

its possible to do every single mission with just henchies I've done it and know of other people who have done it. Though it is harder to do if you dont have a Mo secondary to res dead henchies.

There are many casual Guilds out there I would be hesitant to join any guild out there that just blindly recruited someone they havent even played with before.

I would say long term you migth want to find a guild but you dont need one to beat this mission.

I think not bringing stefen and thom is a bad idea for they are the best at tanking and can absorb the most damage though i can see where your coming from since you have no res (besides res sig) and if they die the healer henchies will try to use restore life to res which will just get the entire team killed.

Elona Reach is easy to do you just have to take the rigth path there are a lot of routes that are set up as noob traps and if you take the wrong way it will eat up your time or get your group killed.

Thirsty river is a easy to play map the only challnege is you need to either shutdown or just plain overpower the last monk boss/priest combo and you should be fine. Henchies dont bring any shutdown and lack the pure damage to really kill thet boss so its up to you.

I think all you really need is an experinced player to show you the ropes on how to beat these missions. If you want feel free to PM me and If i'm on im mroe than willing to help you with the mission.


PS How Did you beat auroa Glade with just henchies I find it very tough to fight and be able to run those crystals at the same time by myself I find it hard to do if i dont bring an almost pure running build.

If a Grawl falls in Talus, and theres no one but you to see it, do you get props?

Being able to say you beat the game through solo is a great feeling, but you don't get an emote when you do. In short, theres no way for you to "proove" that you did it, so no one but you will ever really care.

If its important for you to be able to say "I did this my way" then I suggest you avoid things like GWGuru for now. We're all of us chock full of helpful suggestions and eager to explain how we did it. Fact is, you can probably do a search and find someone who soloed both missions as a necro warrior, forget about just soloing it.

That said, Guild Wars is a communal game. Its built on the belief that one person learns, then tells others, who learn faster by being taught and so pass the knowledge on to still others. Don't think a Guild is obssessed with finding uber active players. But don't let them try to force you into things you don't want to either.

If you enjoy playing with someone, add them to your friends list. Keep playing with them when you see them, and hopefully they will include other people who also are in theri guild. If they in turn invite you to their guild, you'll be better able to accept and enjoy yourself, already having a taste for what a GOOD guild is all about:

playing a game with one another.

EDIT and TACTICAL SPOILER: Grab a tank (Stephen or Tom) and your rez sig. They take the majority of the agro from their reckless rushing, meaning that they also take the most damage. There are enough bosses to recharge your sig in both missions, so don't be stingy with it if they die. using Sig brings back your tank at full health, so its a good idea to "waste" 3 seconds restoring your team to full strength.

See? I couldn't resist.

You seem like you're giving an honest try at playing the game so if you just want to be done with that one mission msg me in game sometime...Saturday after 5pm(Hawai'i Time), Sunday, or Monday till about 12a.m. and I'll run you for free through Thirsty. Just make sure to remind me who you are/why I'm doing it...work makes me brain dead.

You can always come back with drok armor and kick thier scaley butts...frankly I found that mission a bit rough with just henches...not because of the enemies so much as the hences lack of brains...like the aforementioned need to rez during battle instead of healing. I think I repeated that mission with my first character 10+ times each time making it to the last 3 bosses before I broke down and looked for a pug...and then repeated it some more...

lol so true...weekends = bad too
I love having monday off now...I get to play while they are at school...muwhahahahahah

I can kind of understand where you're coming from, as I typically try to do things either by myself or with henchies. In a few cases, however, I broke down and got with a PUG, and learned a lot of things that I otherwise would probably have never known (such as patrol patterns, and the most efficient path through these patrols).

I don't recommend getting a run through the missions...to me, running is more of an option for people who've already made it through at least once and don't want to deal with the tedium again. If you've gone all this way following the straight and narrow, why suddenly change so close to the end?

I don't know if you have a Sup Death Magic Rune, but I recommend getting one and jacking your Death Magic up as high as it can go. Soul Reaping should be up there to...

As I've already had all of my Necromancer skills unlocked for me, I'm not sure what you're going in there with...but, ideally, you'll have Verata's Sacrifice and Blood of the Master at your disposal.

As far as any tactical advice, everybody on here seems to have covered it better than I could have. It's around this time that your secondary skill seems to really go on the backburner (12 high just doesn't cut it for certain things, but you'll be able to change your secondary if you want soon enough ).

Stay out of the fight, and summon minions/heal minions constantly. Keep moving, because the degen rate on minions increases over time and you'll lose them if you take too long. On the other hand, don't rush stupidly in. Keep an eye on patrols, identify when they're isolated, and strike.

As far as a guild goes, there are many out there, and that's really up to you. I wanted to start my own guild, and I wanted to make sure I knew a lot about the game before I started recruiting, so I was stuck with PuGs and the odd IRL friend.

And one last thought--idiots are out there. If you warned them ahead of time that you don't often party with people, and they still gave you a hard time, then RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO them. About as often as you get with total jackass groups like those, you'll get into a really experienced and intelligent PUG that teaches you a lot of the ins-and-outs of the mission.

Good luck

Heres a little help for your two missions --> http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/dosw...ild_wars_c.txt

400+ hours and you still dont know what you are doing??? interesting. Well, I hope you're able to find the mission walkthroughs in that link on your own...

i don't mean to flame, but the game is called GUILD wars

i got stuck on thirsty river to for about the same time but just wait a while keep trying with different teams and soon you will get a good one and it will go smoooooth

Thanks for the responses people. I will spend some time looking at a guild etc..

I have put som eof you on my friends list and keep a look out for you when online. I will try and link up with you when I can.

In regards to the "not wanting to flame" how come so many want to go "solo" if it is all about guilds?

I'm just going through a fine tune of my character, they were too much reliant on attacking which is not really their strength. Going more to the MM side and playing a more supportive role. Current set up was more about using curses and death.

I did go to elona last night, going for the 3rd crystal, got there picked it up and headed back the way I came in. Got surrounded and taken out! Read that it may be better to explore another route out. I now sort of, can do the second crytal, leaving me enough time to gor for the third, so getting better.

As I said I will explore a guild, at the moment I may just go with them on missions I have already completed and see how we gel together.

I have been going back to other areas and trying to build up some gold to try and assist me later for high level purchases. Not doing too good on the gold collecting, have about 6plat. I was spending money on chest keys but have just stopped dong that as I was only getting crap from the chest that did not even pay for the key.

I have picked up a couple of Kepkhet's Refuge staffs and recently a sup vigor rune. Not used the rune yet, I was holding off until I get the higher level armor first, as I understand it there is no guarantee that I would be able to salvage it off my old armor?

Thanks once again to those who have offered their services or for me to take a look at their guild. I will be looking over the next few weeks to get this sorted.

Yeah, when salvaging runes out of your own armor, it is not a guarantee. Seems to be around 50% from what I can tell.

Which timezone are you in?

I am quite happy to help people out without them feeling they have to join my guild, or indeed ever contact me again if they don't want to and I am sure there are plenty of others who would do the same. Much easier for one of us to volunteer if we are awake at the same time as you though

If you are a GMT-friendly player, feel free to give me a shout and I'll happily try to help (hopefully without ruining it for you).

As for all the dozens of people who will tell you those missions are easy- ignore them. That is only true when you know them well and it is easy to forget how hard they were the first time.

Yeah, I think about 50% on the rune salvage sounds about right...

Just to let you know, after you're done with the trio of quests (elona reach, dunes of despair, and thirsty river), you'll have two more missions before you get to Drok's Forge (one of them takes about 3 mins max). Drok's Forge is where you can pick up the equivalent of the best armor in the game.

After you've Ascended, you can go to the Temple of Ages, and enter into the Underworld, or Fissure of Woe...and you will also have access to Sorrow's Forge, which is past Drok's. As a matter of fact, as soon as you're done fighting the Doppelganger (the 3 min fight I talked about), you'll go to Dragon's Lair...if you take the exit out of there (without going in), you'll find yourself at the Tombs.

All of these places are relevant to you because these are the places where you can finally make real money--via obsidian shards (FoW), ectos (UW and the Tombs), and green items (Tombs and Sorrow's Forge). So it probably isn't necessary for you to hold back on a big rune purchase--I bought a Superior Death Rune today for 3.5k or so...and the extra level on minions really helps.

Again, good luck


PS: if the Doppelganger fight takes more than three minutes, I'm sorry--I haven't fought him with my necro yet, it may be different than it was with my ele

agh...more of this crap

"Which timezone are you in?" Is that a leading question? ;p

I am on GMT, live in the UK, usually online Fri and Sat 21:30 onwards and Sun 20:30 hours onwards.

I do get on the odd time in the week when I get chance, but I tend to use the limited time to do small runs to build up my gold. I don't think that half hour is enough time to spend learning to play with others?

Only going through to where I am now with henchies, does cause problems when joining pugs etc.. they see a level 20 character and automatically assume you know what you are doing! I may have survived to where I am but I know the limitations of the henchies when I take them out. That is completely different to working as a team! Henchies to me are just a bunch of minions that feed on gold.

Teamwork is a whole new stratergy for me and even though I have told people in the past that I am new to playing as a team they still get pretty upset when I die, out comes the abusive language and childish behaviour.

The main thing I will be looking to do in the next couple of weeks is arranging sessions with people that have offered their help via this thread and PM. The idea is to go on a few trips out with them and see how we go, I will also look for what sort of help they offer in other ways, forums and buying, selling or swap shops for equipment etc..

I don't know what to expect, someone asked if I wanted to join their guild this weekend, when I asked what did I need to do, they said all I had to do was pay 1p for joining! I told them I was not that bothered!

Do I pay for joining a guild? I was not so much bothered about paying, it was more that I did not have to do anything else! At the very least I would expect a guild to invite me to go out on a mission or explore outside in a semi profitable area, just to make sure I'm suitable to them. I would have thought it works both ways, they may like me but I may not like the way they do things or the expected online time they require etc.. and they may not like me! (don't know why they wouldn't, I'm just a yorkshire man born and inbred!)