Slash Dot's Droknar's Forge Rushing Customer Guide

I request half the the payment at Snake's Dance and the other half at Droknar's when I run folks. Most of my rushing is for guild members but if we don't have a full group of folks I'll grab a few people from Beacon's and go.

If your rusher can make it to Snake's Dance they are going to finish the run. The most difficult of the zones is Lormar's. Dreadnaught you just send the party to die to the right and coast on in from there after they all get hexed and not you.

I'm a W/E so not the ideal rushing build. I probably die in Lormar's on average 1-2x per trip (I seem to be getting worse with age though my deaths now are contained to one spot somewhat early in the run...ice imps (mind freeze) + wurms (@#$@) + avicara (@#$#) = dead runner).

Sprint, Charge and Balanced Stance are the ones every Warrior rusher needs. The rest of the skills can differ but for a W/Mo I would suggest Smite Hex and Mend Ailment to deal with the ice imps, golems and the barbed traps the pinesouls leave around. Shields up can be handy in places but isn't absolutely vital. Some sort of healing is a good idea to heal up between mobs, Healing Signet is a good choice as you're going to have high tactics. And Endure Pain is very important since it allows you to complete the run even with high death penalty, which you'll probably get for a while.

awesome thanks for the advice. now to work on getting charge

Don't you mean +5 insightful

-Diomedes

I've done many, many, many runs but couldn't tell you the name of of all the zones on demand. I just have a lousy memory for names. Also, I think the hardest part of Snake Dance isn't the knockdown...it's the Arcanist that sometimes pops up 100 feet from the portal to Rankor.

I rushed my 3rd character for the armor, funny thing was we paid half at Rankor, after I paid I had to go to the bathroom, when I got finished we were in Draknor and the rusher guy was messaging me like crazy, I just apologized for not being there and paid,went about the business of finishing the missions and collecting skills for pvp.

He probably would have done. Unfortunately I've had more than a few people who have gone "afk" at Rankor or Draknor's Forge and not showed up again. He probably assumed that you were trying to scam him. Unfortunately if you really have to be away from the keyboard there you're going to get falsely accused. This is why I no longer take payment at Rankor, only at Snake Dance and at the end.

the arcanists only show up sometimes, and that can be solved with a rezone/death. simple.

Yea that sounds like quite a challenge

Yes, he only shows up sometimes. Yes, death + rezone will get rid of him...but my goal is always to get the run done without dying, and the arcanist is always a greater danger to that goal than any of the knockdown stuff, be it the trolls or the shadows.

my goal is to get the rush done as fast as possible. rezoning does that.

Agreed...the run is much easier without the Arcanist than with it (or at least if he's off to the side in a way you can run around him), and it's significantly better to have a 33% chance he'll be there than a 100% chance that he'll be there...but the damage has already been done if you're rezoning.

Anyway, we both seem to agree that he's dangerous enough to often be lethal, but the issue I have with your opinion is that you don't seem to think he's more dangerous than knockdowns whereas I do.

You have a 100% chance to encounter constant knockdown during Snake Dance. You can't rezone to avoid knockdown. You have a 33% chance to encounter the Arcanist. When you see the arcanist, you simply rezone and continue on. That is no danger to me. Knockdown is a much more persistent problem because it is unavoidable. I have no problem completing the run on 60% DP. I did it once just to test it out. The arcanist is only in one spot. Knockdown is on a HUGE stretch of the map.

If you can complete the zone, full of knockdown mobs with 60% DP but can't get past the Arcanist with 0 DP, I think we're on the same page whether you care to admit it or not.

I just had my monk run to the Forge as well. To answer somone's question upthread, I do not have my characters rushed thru all the zones and end up at the Desert Trials at level 3, or some other ridiculously low level. After I get my high-level armor, which for casters - my chosen professions - tops out at a pitiful AL60, I return to Beacon's Perch and pick up the storyline where I left off, but better dressed. If I was a warrior, I don't think I'd bother with Lornar's Pass to get to the armor. But it is absolutely invaluable for a caster.

Just wanted to share an awesome experience with you,

I'm on my 3rd character now, I've already had a lvl 20 monk and warrior. I wanted to start a mesmer for GvG and PvP. So, I decided to rush though as much as possible and try to get a forge run form beacon's at lvl 11. I'd gone through the normal way with both my other characters, so this thread really helped me choose a runner. I watched for all the signs you've posted on here, and asked the Tactics question as well.

I was pleased to get a rundown of all the runners attributes prompty from asking. Also, this particular runner didn't take cash up front, and accepted payment (lower than all the rest I might add, only 2k) at Rankor. After talking to him about it, he said that about 20% of his customers ditch out on him, but he didn't really mind, he was a nice guy.

So, he gets all 5 of us there and low and behold one of them skips out on him. I told him I would pay him an extra plat on top for such a good run and being a nice guy overall. This was echoed by another member of the party, pretty much putting him back to what he would've made anyhow. I also told him I would post his name on here for all to see (with his permission) as an excellent runner.

If you are indeed looking for this service, I would HIGHLY reccomend:
Carna Detonas

Thanks to this thread, I took the plunge and had a nice experience yesterday with my first paid run to Droknars. The runner (w/mo) only asked for payment at the Forge itself. The run was magnificent; he was entertaining, showboated a bit and very skilled. Recommended

Runners name: Graka Ekerion

i had Graka run my W/mo - and your quite right, he is excellent. great fuin watching him taunt, dance and other such things at the monsters..as well as the rest of us arguing about who stayled alive at the portal to respawn the map.. most of us watned to watch him.. XD

I know a lot of people kick, scream and curse about running the Pass to Drofnar's, but I find it great fun to watch a professional runner work. Most of them take their "job" seriously. And, thanks to runners, I'm enjoying AL60 on my level 10 and 11 characters.

I had my second character be run to Droknar and the person that ran me asked to see if everyone had sufficient funds for the run, so that he didn't get scammed. That's pretty smart.

Also he wrote down everyone's name in case there was a disconnect, so that we didn't lose money and could go back to continue our run.

Sure, sure. The game designers are the idiots, not the people playing it.
At least you are aware on a subconcious level how what you are doing cheapens and goes against the spirit of the game.
Oh and the reason why the pass is there - is there any 24+ elite MOBs up in that area perhaps?
Friggin moron...jeez...

Bite me,
Talesin

Hey slash dot, do you mind posting what skills you use, and what your stats look like please?

thanks

You completely misread my post. What it says is that all of the arguments against Droknar's Forge Rushes say that it is wrong because it goes against what the developers intended, and the essence of my argument is that NO ONE can honestly tell what the developers wanted players to do in the game. It is ludicrous that anyone should be able to tell people how to play the game.
What I do does not cheapen OR go against the spirit of the game. I remember reading somewhere that Guild Wars is a game based on the skill of the player and not time played.
What I do is directly WITH what the developers intended when they build this game from the game up, a game that rewards skill and inventiveness rather than hundreds of hours of play. Personally, I am certainly being awarded by skill and inventiveness, and as far as the hundreds of hours of play, I am helping to reduce that playing time by doing so. Now, what you would have me do, I assume, is NOT to rush people through Droknar's Forge. This would simply INCREASE the amount of grind there is. Grind to get lower level armor more times before finally buying the Droknar's Forge armor, grind to level up slowly and face another episode of boring PvE yet again because we have to go through it three times or more to unlock skills for PvP.
I really appreciate the personal attack on my intelligence. It's completely unfounded and unncessary, especially when you didn't understand anything about what my post was trying to say, and certainly not the issue at hand. I'm sorry you are hell bent on stopping Droknar's Forge rushes, but my question is why? How do they impact your game play?

That pretty much sums it up. I haven't found a fast casting mass hex removal that can get rid of the Arcanist's slowdown. Even if I did, it can recast it so fast that it wouldn't work anyway. The only skill that would fit as a Monk would be:

Purge Signet - Signet - Removal
Remove all "Hexes" and "Conditions" from target ally. You lose 10 Energy for each Hex and each Condition removed.
cost: N/A
cast time: 3
recast time: 3

The three second cast MIGHT work, but I'll have to test it out.

Thank you for posting, it's nice to see positive feedback and congratulations on finding a Droknar's Forge Rusher without being scammed. Not so many people are so lucky on their first try.

Yeah, amazing what good info can lead you too.

As a noob, I agree....players who do not have an Ascension character should not be "rushed" or "run" anywhere. There is too much to learn in this game for that kind of thing to be going on.

You players that read this post, if you are new like me, please do this game the right way [go from beginning to end by doing ALL the missions]. I think the Dev's allowed for "rushing" to take place, but I do not think it was intended for new players. If all of us new players went the long way through the game the first time, I believe it will help us to be better players once we do get to Ascension.

of course, I am a noob.

please correct me if I am wrong....[Gardavil looks at the players with 1 million skill points thereabouts..]

First off, I don't understand how this post is benneficial, I believe the OP was trying to warn against scammers, where as now that all scammer tricks have been identified, scammers will change what they do to scam people. If they are scamming to begin with, they will probably lie about what skills they have and whatnot. Now for my quite flamable post.

And so i'm assuming you mean that runners are very skilled and ultimately, the best players in the game? Especially considering that runners can now be found in every town in the game! Now perhaps, runners at Droknar's are skilled, (at running) because I have spent my time in lornar's, snake dance, and the drift, and know that it is quite difficult to fight everymob, and not suffer some dp. And I agree the original intent of the game was to incourage skill and inventiveness, rather than hours played, but how can YOU state that running was the intent of having Lornar's Pass? To allow low level characters to recieve high end content, without having to do anything? Even if they have beat the game 2/3 times, unless your playing the same class setup each time, then the game experience is going to be entirely different each time. And having the good armor and going back to do all the missions is not going to improve the fun factor, it's going to make it less enjoyable, because their will be no challenge.

Perhaps if you spent some time outside of Droknar rushing... you would notice that the high end content of the game is now overrun with people who have NO idea how to play the game, but they think that because they have the high end armor (which IS against the original game concepts, which as you stated, skill and inventiveness has more influence on the final outcome than equipment), they can compete with the rest of us, or even work with the rest of us, going out to capture elites or in pvp.

Now I understand that many of these low level chars, are being run by people who have beat the game, but again, each class setup is a completely different style, so how can someone who is excellent at a monk, assume that they are good at playing a necro, or a warrior. And then because new players get to beakon's perch and see everyone trying to get to droknars, most assume that that is what they should be doing as well, so then you get truly new players, into droknars, and the people who actually continue to play the game within the true order of things (and I can say the TRUE order, because it is) are stuck trying to teach all these new players the game.

Those of us that want an end to Droknar's rushing, are affected whether you like it or not, and while you don't think our reasons are worth a damn, we don't think your reasons are either, especially if you charge. If you want to spend your time rushing people around, thats your business, but no one should be making a profit off of this. The economy is already screwed up, rushing is not making it any better. It's just unballancing it even more.

And as for those that Have beat the game multiple times and are bored with it, make PVP characters, that is what they are for. So you can have different char's without having to go through the rpg again. I believe the droknar's armor should be a reward for those that have put in the "extra" time and effort of completing the game, not for those who want the quick and easy way. If you don't have the skills for a pvp char, then switch your secondaries, and unlock them! Or play some pvp, (or perhaps you rush, because you can't pvp) and unlock skills that way. If you don't go through the missions, I don't think you deserve the highend armor for that char!

I did the entire game 2x the "right" way before I had a character rushed through Lornar's.

That's why many major fansites and the Guild Wars login screen post Anti-scamming notifications, huh?

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=16137
http://www.gwonline.net/page.php?p=141

Using my guide, people learn how to not take money up front and at earliest, at Snake Dance. Watching someone run from Snake Dance, anyone can tell whether or not they're worth the money. Scammers definitely do NOT benefit from this guide.The game experience will be different each time yes, but for most experienced players, they learn MUCH faster in PvP than they do in PvE. I know that a person who has only had ONE character on level 20 and has PvP'ed a LOT in HoH is going to know MUCH more than a person who has ascended 3 characters without PvPing, given equal time spent doing both. In PvE you play against mind-numbing AI that is the same for every single mission and level. Wow, the mobs are on level 24 now instead of 12, yet they're still extremely easy. The only thing that makes end level explorable areas and missions hard is that they take a long time. With missions you have to be patient and simply take on small groups one by one. With explorable areas you can do that or simply rack up a lot of DP and beat them with time. Either way, you learn NOTHING from doing that. I have learned more about EVERY character class from playing ONE character class in PvP than I EVER did playing the RP side. The only thing that I use RP for is to make money, and unlock skills for PvP. The only reason that Droknar's Forge rushes exist is because there is a lot of grind to get skills unlocked.
Is it my fault that people don't know how to play the game? My entire contention is that PvE teaches you very little about how to play the game. There were people in Hell's Precipice who didn't know how to attack called targets LONG before the rushing boom began. High end armor won't help someone who's clueless as to how to play the game, but it sure will help people who know what they're doing.
My first character to get to level 20 was a W/N. Let's say for the sake of argument that I had started out as a Me/E. I have never ascended either a Mesmer or an Elementalist, yet I play both in PvP. I still know more about playing a Mesmer than I would have if that had been my first character. You greatly overestimate how much PvE teaches you. If PvE taught you THAT much, there wouldn't be a problem with idiots, would there? PvE is simply filler.

What if I cleared the explorable areas all the way to Sanctum Can and ascended only having done five missions? Am I not playing with the TRUE order?
I really don't see how rushing is unbalancing the economy. If this game didn't have so much grind, Droknar's Forge rushes would NOT be profitable.
Make PvP characters with WHAT skills? Switch secondaries and buy skill points with WHAT skill points? If you want to play multiple characters and multiple builds, you won't have enough skill points to buy the skills you need. Characters wouldn't need to be rushed if this wasn't the case. Playing PvP to unlock skill points is woefully slow in unlocking skills comparatively to rushing a character to level 20. The point isn't that we want to have an advantage over other players in a cooperative PvE environment, we just want to have our skills so we can PvP.

Wheel doesn't get it Reiden.
We both tried to tell him; I bluntly and you politely.
I'll make sure to watch for his future posts regarding the swarms of clueless skill-less players in the high end game so I can send him my personal congratulations.

Wheel, who do you think is enabling these morons for the rest of us to suffer?
That's right! YOU.

I know you're not asking me, but I have a fairly simple answer: The game has been out for a while now, running is extremely prominant, and ArenaNet's not done anything to stop it. And it'd be real easy. Put a couple ice imps and/or Arcanists in key places and it'd get rid of 90% of the running.

I'm a fan of Lornar's Pass. I do, however, think it's currently way too easy. It's only worth a couple plat to get down there and this means that it's a perfectly valid option for first run characters.

If the run were made a lot more difficult so instead of 1 runner, you needed 3 runners...and maybe throw in some required fighting, they that'd jump the price way up to where first run characters can't afford it and have to play the game the way the game was meant to be played.

And, in fact, I suspect (and hope) ArenaNet will do just this. Lets face it...the spam in Beacons Perch is pretty bad because there's just so many runners out there, and there's so many runners specifically because it's so easy. Make it more difficult, cut down on spam, prevent first run characters from bypassing so much of the game...everybody wins.

Hey All

I have a 17th lvl E/Mo pyro and I am definately interested in being rushed. My in game name is Isis Snowflame and I would love for any of the experienced rushers to take me. Please send me a msg with how much $$$ youd like and a good time to get together. Thank You

Isis

When I was actively rushing, I was charging 8k per player. That is something that a person on their first run character who has not gotten through ascension can normally afford, especially in addition to Droknar's Forge armor. Other players now, however are charging 5k, 4k, 3k, 2k, even lower. Charging these low prices it is easy to see how players are at areas past Droknar's not having beaten the game yet, but you can't blame that entirely on Droknar's Forge rushers. I have seen plenty of people who are on level 20 WITH Droknar's Forge armor that are complete idiots at this game. As I have said before, I could have a level 1 character with a profession I have PvP'ed with before, and I am going to be better than someone who just got to level 20 for the first time with a chracter with the same profession. PvE does not teach you to be a good player because there is no challenge in it! If you are mad at there being low level characteres later on in the game, blame the developers for not making the missions harder, not me for rushing to Droknar's Forge.

Hey there! May i ask how you can solo through lornar's pass? the wurms usually get me when i try too, or the different hexes slowing me down ><

It's quite ironic that you completely contradict yourself on one hand you say no one knows what the devs intended, YET you seem to playing as they intended.

I think there is nothing wrong with rushing through, provided you are actually doing the rushing, I'm not sure they intended people to pay others to merely zone them through... until I hear other wise I'm not going to assume this. If ya wanna rush go ahead, but I'd like to hear from low level people whio have don it without hiring someone to merely rez someone at the zones.

Man lower level arenas totally suck now because of this stuff. People with max armor and elites? Might as well make weapons have zero requirement to while were at it.

There's a key difference. I am not telling anyone how to play the game. I am making a small inferrence into the developers intent simply by process of induction. The developers set out to create a game with little grind, which they have said in multiple press releases, referenceable from guildwars.com. Rushes have a direct correlation to reducing that grind, and are in no way an exploit of the game, which would be much more likely to be the ultimate intent in creating a grindless game. I do not have to prove the developer's intent to say that people doing Droknar's Forge rushes should be allowed to happen. The burden of proof is on the accusor(s), people who say that play should be RESTRICTED because it goes in the face of the developer's intent. There's a key difference, essentially it boils down metaphorically to innocent until proven guilty.

It's kinda stupid when you see sub level 10s with maxed out stuff and elites. There is a reason for requirements, so really low levels dont have all this uber stuff so quickly. I thought this game wasn't about having the best items either? Well this matters big time in the lower level arenas, people with max armor and elites usually do a whole lot better. I remember in Diablo2 when unique items didn't have level requirements. A level 1 barbarian could wear a 200+ chest plate. That's pretty stupid. There is a reason for reqs, so it doesn't completely break the balance.

i would not have any problem not letting people with higher level armor go into the ascalon arena. i'm not fond of the low level pvp arena anyway, but i understand that a lot of people enjoy it and i understand that it does upset the balance.