Duel of the Houses

Greetings, all. I sent an email to ANet and they suggested I post here (so that they may see everyone's opinion as a whole), so here goes:

On the Duel of the Houses, I am not sure what was "bugged" before the May 8th update, as it was never bugged for me. it seemed balanced, and was a decent low-time quest for those of us who do not have much time to play GW but needed to build up some faction.

Now the may 8th update breaks the quest -- okay no big deal because they fixed it within 24 hours. Wow, thank you, developers -- quick work there. That's a good thing. However, here is the issue i am having, and I would like to know if anyone else is having the same issue . . .

A "duel", per-say, is a duel -- it should be a quick fight because it's, well, a duel. However there are many things that now give the player a HUGE disadvantage in this quest. First off, obviously AI mobs know who's who in your party, but you have NO way of knowing who's who in their party. They are all called the same name. Why not title them "House "x" Monk" or something so that we can at least have SOME sort of strategy in targeting.

Also - now they have unlimited res signets? I know they are unlimited because I just died 12 times in a row trying to take down the Elementalist house -- every time i took out at LEAST 2 or 3 of their members, yet EVERY time I died and went back, ALL of them were re-spawned. This hardly seems like a "duel". I mean, you die and die and die just to keep coming back to wave after wave of re-spawned houses.

Also, on the Elementalist house, I think that's a bit on the strong side there. I have never won a duel (even before the patch) against that house no matter what combination of henchies I use. if you try to take out the Ele's (a whole LOT of Ele's), the Monks heal them up and you cant do it. if you try to take out the monks first (proper strategy, really), then the Ele's nuke you to death. And, of course, now with Res signets, against that house there will ALWAYS be monks.

I just spent an hour and a half against that one house -- the monks never went down, because they were ALWAYS re-ressed whenever I returned.

I really think that quest needs to go back the way it was before the patch and possible have tags added on for their proper titles (monk, etc) so we can actually know wtf we are targeting.

Since ANet showed interest in their return email to me as to what others might think, it'd be awesome if I could know here what others think about this quest and the changes that they made to it. I, for one, will never do this quest again -- and it is sad because i have only a short time between college and work on weekdays, and this was my "Faction Work" for an hour or so since it was the ONLY quest that you could accomplish in that amount of time for faction with any beneficial advancement to your character.

if they were trying to make this quest "more balanced", i believe they had exactly the opposite effect.

I don't see a problem with the lack of tags or professions in the name. Just cycle through until you find one of the monks then take him down!

Now the case of the unlimited Res Signets - fix that! Full health and energy with 6s cast time for no energy - repeatable! No way can you counter that if you have a balanced party. Unless each player conditions/degens until all creatures in the mob are around 1/4 health then spike them for mass death! And hope you take all of them down at one time!

The problem with "cycling through" is that it takes way too much time and yer dead before you find a monk! I assume you are talking aboue "Tab" to just cycle targets, but you basically have to do that until you get lucky enough to see a target that happens to be casting a heal at the time, but with either Henchies OR a real player team, no one is coordianted while you are doing that and thus what would be the fair point int hat? The NPC's know who your players are (obviously, since my monks get taken down fairly quickly).

I mentioned this in game and someone said to just "drag the nearby monsters into the crowd and let them do the work". not sure what that person was smoking, because thwe devs have the monsters programmed not to go into that area (tried it -- unlike whoever that was that said "they did it" when they probably had no clue what quest i was even talking about). The monsters will only follow you so far and so will the NPC's. They absolutely will not merge at all. The game devs covered all the bases on this quest.

So I still say at least return it to where it was before -- at least it was an even fight then . . .

Observe what staves they are using.
The Monk's staves are white coloured.

Aye, but still hard as heck to target in combat with all the fireworks going off. i do know about the staves thing, but when they are all clumped together (and they usually are), you usually need the text (using the CTRL key holding down) to see and target them, and then it is a game of chance and luck that you actually select a Monk.

Frozen soil works good for them now... Just FYI Works on both sides for Dual and Criminal Arena. both repeatable quests...

if you have a vamp weapon, the monks will cast on you to heal you. at least they used to. while they are still friendly.

Thanks, Sami -- I usually have no issue at all picking out the first monk immediately while the duel master is yakking his trap. It's during the battle finding more monks that is a pain . . . .

HT -- What's "Frozen Soil"? A skill?

Frozen soil is a ranger spirit skill. It doesn't allow anyone to be resurrected after they die for as long as the spirit is alive. I love that skill. LOL

Oh wow. I'll have to look that one up. must be an Elite (i have not done any caps for my ranger yet). That would come in great use here, though i still wish the devs would at least title the mobs for easier targeting. It apears, however that i am the only one that has any issues with this quest, so i moved on to doing another quest for faction.

Frozen Soil is not an elite.

Where might one take part on this "Deul of the Houses" seems intresting

Outside of . . . oh bloody heck i forget the town name, but the zone is the Thicket. Someone help me out here with the town name, but I can say go out the north Entrance there, talk to the Duel Master (there's three exits from the town - you definately want the north one).

I switched nack to monking for a bit, so never looked up that spell. I just cap'd healing light tonight for the Monk and absolutely love that skill.

Brauer Academy. The over towards Saint Anjeka's Shrine.

Frozen soil is a standard buyable Spirit Skill I think I found it ona cap someplace near divinity coast too at one time. And I think I just realized that its part of Chapter 1 guys. Its not considered Core in Factions. Hummm interesting... But as mentioned, this really helps prevent the NPCs from Resing each other like crazy. Target any NPC with a wand first, then warriors, then rangers... This strategy works for several repeatable quests on both sides... I'm trying to find it but I'm not sure... isn't there a Rit Spirit that prevents Res as well? Seems weird for that option not to be in Factions at all...

Rust is good with eles...

AND wow ther is nothing for it in Factions alone. whoa. ok that is one definate advantage of being able to go to Lions Arch to get skills then...

Wel all of my characters are Tyrians, so that puts me in luck :-)

frozen soil is one of my favourite ranger spirits. Oo
good to see some quality skills not to be declared core content...