Thirsty River is NOT that hard.

I finished it on my 6th try with what was basically a 5-man team and without the morale boost from giants. Let me explain,


This was our party.

Lets just call person#3 Smith. As you can see, we don't have two monks (everyone and their grand mother is screaming 'WE NEED 2 MONK!!' in every party I join), we have 3 warriors (2, but we'll get to that later.), an Elementalist and a Mesmer. Despite what some people may think, its a very balanced party.

So why do you think I say that we have a 5-man team? Your answer: Smith. All he did was: rush into monster group, die, said "rezzzzzzzzz me", and when we're done with one of the tasks he takes the Hero and begins the next challenge without us. Even if we scream "STOP! GODDAMNIT! STOP!" He ignores us. So on top of having a useless warrior in our party, he litterally made it harder for us. Aggroing almost every mob in sight and rushing to first task right from the start (preventing us from getting the sand giant morale boost), Smith was a pain in the backside.

Now that we've cleared that up, here's how we did it;

The first test was a piece of cake, the only unnexpected problem we had with it was that the outer monster group took the central path instead of the left (forcing us to aggro the inner group too), Smith is dead by this point, by the way. Anyway, that done, we try to catch up with smith to keep him from screwing up (cost us some loot we didn't pick up) and enter the Second test.

The second test is where something went wrong, big time. We killed the first group (the left one) pretty easy, but then, not waiting for a clean 2:00, Smith aggroes the outer and inner groups of the right team. I think we killed off one of the groups before the timer hit 5:25 (35 seconds before ressurection) and before I ran into the shrine and started my own little frenzy at the priest. At exactly 5:57 I killed him, alone. But then I noticed that most of my party was dead (Only ones left alive were the Monk and the Elementalist) and that there was a forgotten swordsthing bashing me. I die. But the Monk managed to raise everyone and we killed the two remaining foes. (swordsthing and Illusionnist). Onto next challenge with the usual pursuit of Smith.

The third test was (despite what many people say) the easiest. All we had to do was to go from right to left and we were done. (The healer wasn't a problem, we just all started going crazy on the priest and he was dead in no time). From right to left means:



Like I said, its not so hard, I did it with a 5-man team, thank you can surely do it with a full party.

Thanks for reading,
-Drakharran.

"As you can see, we don't have two monks "

I may be blind, but I think you have three.

Why do people always ignore secondary monks? Okay, a W/Mo isn't going to be much help healing the party, but an E/Mo can potentially make a better monk than a primary Monk. I should know, I'm playing one. With 70 energy, I can keep spamming those heals a lot longer than most of the monks that I've played with.

I'll ask them sometimes why they stop healing halfway in the battle, and it's because they're out of energy.

Ofcourse, if someone plays an E/Mo and then doesn't put any points into healing, well, then they're just selfish. It's so easy in this game to switch skills around, I really don't understand why people feel the need to keep their smiting skills when they do a PUG for a mission.

Btw, why didn't you just leave Smith dead? I've done that before with an annoying player. Goes off, aggros a huge mob, dies, begs for rezz after we barely kill the mob, I warn him that if he does that crap again, I'll leave him dead. He goes off, charges into a mob, we just keep walking. He was cussing for quite awhile, but the ignore function is so useful
He left after about ten minutes when he really figured out I wasn't going to rezz him, and neither was anyone else.

Creston

Quote:

I did this mission with no monk in our group it was easy as long as you take one group at a time and at least 2 of the group can res

Nah, the secondary monks were pretty much focused on healing themselves. And we did leave Smith dead at the beggining of the third task. I thought he would still be useful as a meat shield at the end of the first mission and at the end of the second one, we just needed someone to hit on the two forgotten for a few seconds, he did exactly that.

But you fail to see the point of this thread, many people are complaining and getting to the point of whining about this mission, and they have full teams, Monks and all.

I saw your point... I beat Thirsty River first try (barely, but we did it). Elona Reach was the one I got hung up on for 30+ attempts.

It's not the mission itself that is hard in any way, really. It's the idiots that I seem to be a magnet for. I couldn't tell you how bad some of the groups I've had have been. Imagine a party with 5 smiths and 1 person that knows what he's doing, for the most part, and you'd have my experience with nearly every PUG I ever see! Oh.. And it only gets worse when I log on my smiter. Sure, I get 10 invites a second, but you think any of them are intelligent? How bout how many of them understand the concept of "smiter"?


As for Elona and Dunes... any idiot can hench those... I thought groups were supposed to be better than henchmen... I see I was sadly mistaken.

"But you fail to see the point of this thread, many people are complaining and getting to the point of whining about this mission, and they have full teams, Monks and all."

Oh no, I understood what you were getting at. I haven't gotten that far yet, so I can't make any arguments about that mission. I was just wondering if 2nd monks were being ignored for a reason

Btw, if every 2nd monk would just use Heal Other (which heals a frightening amount of health for 10 energy, instant cast, very fast recharge), I don't think any team would really ever have problems with dying?

Actually, last night I was doing a mission with a PUG (the one where you have to kill Justiciar Hablicion at the end), one lvl 20 guy left, then two dropped quickly saying "we don't want to finish". That left me E/mo 18, one lvl 18 E/N and one 19 W/? to finish the mission. Needless to say, while it was slow going, we did it without ever really getting in danger of dying.

It's sad that so many people have no clue what they're doing, and just WON'T LISTEN to someone trying to give them advice. If I go into a mission first time and somewhere is there giving me advice, I'M WRITING THAT STUFF DOWN!

If anyone ever wants to help me get through that annoying timed mission btw, I would be more than glad for any help. Shauna Wolfsclaw is (one) of my characters, and the only one in danger of getting close to ascension by now

Creston

I've done Thirsty Rivers and Dunes with hench, got both on first try. I'm a Ranger/Monk, so getting in group isn't easy.

Key for thirsty river is mend ailment+interrupt+some backup healing, unblind your warriors so they can actually kill, Alesia is okay at healing, but she doesn't unblind at all. Then there is timing, with hench, there is no urge in the group to rush forward. Lastly being a Ranger, bring savage shot, distracting shot, interrupt the priest so they won't heal. Once the final priest is down, the battle is won

Dunes is just easy one in comparison.

yep mission isnt that bad
its having to party with complete idiots that have no idea how to work in a team

Oh yes.

First time I tryed it we failed but we keep going and managed to get a grasp of how to do it and we became better and better at it, I am sure that if we had time for trying one or two more times we could have done it.

What pisses me off is the groups that try, fail and simply fall part with everyone leaving the group ... it takes some time to understand how other people work and just because we failed at first does not mean we will not get it at a second or third time.

I finaly done River with a group at first try but from what I seen we all done at least some parts of it and knew how it worked, it was a good team that worked and nobody go nuts, we run into some deaths but overall we did not panic.

Funny thing, we also got the bonus and we were not even trying.

I find the ascension missions really tough but also easy, if you end up with a good group its going to be fine and relative easy but it only takes a idiot to screw it up (like SMith), worst is the mission after ascension since there are a lot of idiots that run it to get elite skills and log off after they got then ... at least they sould keep in the group until its over since we carried then across it so they could get their elite.

You know, people farm thirsty river. You're right, it's not hard at all.

you are all almost lvl 20 why??? this of course would make it easy not that it was ever that hard.

You should've intentionally all died, then kicked him out and started over. Rather, than letting him use you as a crutch. I know, it's that bastard thing to do, but really, the later missions will be better off for it.

As for secondary monks being not counted as monks, it's because only Elementalist can even come close to matching the healing power of Divine Favor, which is required to be a team healer.

I can made all but Priest+Monk Boss with just 4 henchmans (not enough damage/disruption to kill two healers in short time). But it should be possible to kill them too with the right professions.

You're right, it isn't hard. Any decent party with a good damage output can breeze past the mobs + priests, and all you need is a little knockdown/interruption for the monk boss.

Any mission is not that hard provided you have ppl who will listen and someone who knows how to get through the mission. The problem for many rangers is that they have more trouble getting into a group than say warriors or monks. Doing Thirsty River with henchies is a lot harder partly because of their lower level(less hitpoints) and poor AI - they will do stupid things like stand in a chaos storm.

However, this mission is harder than all the missions before, most of which can easily be done with henchies.

I did Elona and Dunes with henches, and was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about. But Thirsty is a real challange, at least compared to most other missions. Still, I got through it on the second try with the first PUG I tried, after getting a lot of henchmen killed.

What was hilarious was the shock of two of the people in the group. They were practically hysterical with relief. One of them had been trying for days. The other for 6 hours straight. They each said the same thing you have all said. People are idiots.

Malestrom > monk boss of any kind.

I thought getting TO Thirsty was harder than the mission itself. I beat the mission on the first try.

Of the three, Elona seemed the toughest, to me. Dunes was the easiest.

Its not that hard unless you are with dummies that have to destroy every single red dot in sight.

You can even go hydra hunting as long its no more that 2 at the time but I rather sneak pass then.

I ascended yesterday, (Yes, Thirsty River was my first 'phase') and I still have nightmares about getting to Dunes of Despair. At the end, I just said 'Screw it' and ran to it.

I have to agree that Thirsty River is not hard. It just requires teamwork. The problem is, most people don't understand what teamwork is and believe the tactics they used in presearing and old ascalon apply to later missions.

I did this mission about 4 times with real people... lost every time.

Then i did it with all henchies and beat it on the first try. Go figure.

yeah I really agree thats its not too tough a mission. I tried it first with henchies but failed on the last part because I had forgotten to bring a rez signet and all 5 henchman died on the 2nd last boss and I had to try the last group solo. I then passed it with the first pickup group that I advertised for.

We had a;
lvl20 W/R (me & damage focused),
lvl20 W/Mo (possible smiting),
lvl20 Mo/Me,
lvl19 Me/E,
lvl 20 E/N, and a
lvl 17 W/E.

The primary elementalist quit after our first fight apparently dissatisfied with our groups effort. The W/N was a bit of a rusher and didn't really listen to our team plans, and the Mesmer too was also a bit of a free spirit and tended to wander ahead and not focus on the same target. We weren't really very organised but our Monk, W/Mo and myself seemed to be able to focus together.

Basically we used the same tactic for all 6 groups. We'd spend the 1st minute cleaning up the outside spellcasters and as many tanks as we could. Then our W/Mo and I would rush the priest while our W/N, Me/E ignored most of our target calls and instead sat outside with the remaining enemy tanks. Our monk basically had to focus on babysitting those two but did manage to assist us with healing too.

even with only 2 warriors attacking the priests without any support we were able to take them out quickly every time. In fact we beat the infamous dual priest combination so quickly that it wasn't until the mission finished that I realised that we had even run into them.

if we could do it without problems with a team of 3 + 2 independent rushers (good for drawing fire though) and 1 quiter then it really shouldn't be too hard for any decently organised team to pass. I suspect most teams break down and get in trouble by trying to be too fancy while killing the priests and not focusing enough on just maxing damage.

Actually having a few concentrate on the priest is a good idea since it keeps the boss and the remainsof the mobs away from those players, the priest is not hard.

What gets people killed is the "timer panic", going after the priest as fast as possible and run pass the boss and the mobs because of the 2 minute timer.

All the ascension missions are easy. All you need is an acertive, knowledgable leader. I had a team of 6 year0olds who somehow knew nothing about the game, but since I pretty much knew what to do, we finished it first try.

The hardest part, I always find, is the last boss/priest. Because it's a Monk. Mainly though...if the elementalists of the world would tag along maelstrom things would be a lot easier there...

For those who don't know what maelstrom does...it prevents monsters from castings spells within a certain range. So, with that kind of spell on a monk...no healing happens...and his defense sucks...

Usually I just hench it because I'd rather not risk getting in a party filled with...colorful personalities

Quote:

I did it with 3 warriors, 1 monk, 1 ele, 1 necro. All lvl20+
No one said it was hard.

Can i just say all valid points, and yes elona's is very hard, especially when you party up with some gung ho idiots...

After about 20+ attempts, with various party members rushing in getting killed, getting me killed by not skipping the cut scenes(which i find very annoying)

Anyhoo's back to the topic, believe it or not i solo'd elona reach, just using the sprint skill, someone told me it was easy, believe me it's not but after about 10+ attempts it was amazed it worked...

Oh, thirst river was the easiest once i found a varied team it becam quite easy, it was just draw enemies a few at a time and kill heal and kill some more

Quote:

Sounds like you all have better online luck than me.

I have failed Elona 27 times and River 23 times - and seem no closer to getting them either.

Also have 3 Bonus missions on top of those to do (Before and After Henge) and bonus for Dunes.

All I can say is this. Unless my luck changes soon, I'm going to Quit GW. Afterall, games are supposed to fun - and I'm NOT having fun any anymore.

Quote:

I finished both Dunes of Despair and Thirsty River with henchies, and plan on finishing Elona Reach the same way now. Dunes of Despair is not too hard and I did that on the first try. Thirsty took me 3 or 4 tries. After failing Thirsty the first time with henchies, I tried to join a group but no one wanted me. I am a lv. 20 mesmer and thus can rip through the priests, so it was confusing that I could not find a group. I got tired of waiting around and so I grabbed the henchmen and planned my strategy. (for the record I took the fighter, brawler, healer, archer, and mage for this one)

The general strategy of course is to take out each group, one at a time, moving towards the priest. The timer is really the key to everything. At exactly the 2 minute marks, if the enemy priest is still alive then their entire team gets resurrected. So when there is about 30 seconds left until any two minute mark, you need to make a decision. At this point you will either rush the priest or you retreat. If there is more than one group left to fight between you and the priest, it's time to retreat, wait for the team to resurrect, and start from scratch. It's worth it because you do NOT want to be inside the shrine when the enemy team resurrects, as that usually means mission over (especially with henchies). When you decide to rush, make sure you call the priest as the target - the henchmen will listen. Again, I am a mesmer so it only takes me about 10 seconds to take out the priest. So I can wait a little closer to the two minute mark, but plan accordingly here.

If you find you aren't having enough time to take out the groups, there's a trick to give yourself a little extra time to work with. Instead of fighting immediately when you get to a group, wait around until the next 2 minute mark. So once you get to about 1:50, then you start your attack. The first resurrection point will pass while you are fighting with no enemies dead yet. 10 seconds may not seem like a lot, but think about it - you don't usually start fighting until the first 10-15 seconds have already passed on the timer. So this actually gives you an extra 20-25 seconds to work with. But keep in mind, if you do it this way it will be harder to get the bonus.

Hopefully this helps a few people who are frustrated.

To all those people who have failed the missions many, many times.... Can your Guild not help you through the missions ? Assuming you are in one, that is.

I did the test various times took like a day or so(24hours, didnt count the tries). Theres idiots and theres a good player. You can see them all. But I think you should make contact with these good players. Maybe they can help you when they have finished the mission. So make contacts with these people. I am sure if they know how you are playing, but if you are playing right they'll help. And find a good guild, it helps.

Have fun. Dont stress too much. I am a necro so I am not in the favourite class either.

Quote: