Thunderhead Keep frustration

I had managed to complete the mission (with bonus) last night with my ranger after 6 tries. It was the first time i used my ranger as a trapper and it was to good effect. Basically i just lay down as many traps i can on the doorway. I always look at where the majority of our group is, and trapped the doorway which is least guarded as most of the time when the group is fighting the enemy at 1 door, the other is often unguarded so it's my duty to make sure the enemies that manage to sneak thru the other door are crippled/blinded/bleeding/on fire and dying soon. they became slow moving and easy to pick off by the group once they are done with the enemies on the other door.

What i find is I had more success when doing the bonus, counting my other characters, all did bonus in this mission and succeeded. with my ranger, the prev 5 times that failed we didnt do the bonus. I seriously think that the bonus actually made the mission easier.

Well, I failed this mission several times before succeeding.

In my group we didn't light the torches, and one person stayed on each side manning the ballistae (one was a mesmer the other a necro [me]).

The other six people stayed inside the fort and ran between the two sides as the casters on the walls would call out if enemies were coming.

Once the final guy comes along everyone attacked the group of them and it was a happy ending for us.

iv also tried this around 15 times, still havnt beat it. i have tried splitting up to cover both gates and staying mid. when we split up, 1 person somehow gets killed and then domino effect. when we stay mid, we rush to one side, then the next and then i look and see the king with about 3 health and about 2 jade armors pounding the snot out of him. im guna try stayin by the king; it seems smartest after all this.

I refer you all to my most recent post "Thunderhead Keep Success".

best thing to do is use hecnhies and stay by King jalis the whole time. Only tricky part for this is actually getting to the fort, but it noly took my 3 tries with henchies.

Yeah, if you choose to have one group running back and forth between the two sides then you must have one person staying on the ballistae on each side to call out when more enemies are approaching (and to soften 'em up). Casters preferably since they can cast from above.

I think I know which two jades you're talking about; I was on the wall on my own when those two came (everyone else was defending the other side) but I delayed them long enough for backup to arrive...

The mission isn't bugged, it took me 3 attempts to complete it and here is what I learned:

1) Your group needs a good makup... I suggest 2 healers, 3 warriors, 2 nukers, and 1 necro.

The healers should compliment each other in terms of watching out for specific people, and the warriors provide good enuf melee to keep agro. The nukers help IMMENSLY (i know my spelling is off) in killing the numerous bosses. and the Necro is GREAT at draining life and raising additional melee fodder to assist the warriors.

Assuming you have a good group makeup, here is the MAIN TRICK in beating this mission:

Patience.

Plain and simple... there are soooo many places where roaming mobs intersect, waiting and watching their timing is critical in beating this mission. I was fortunate on my 3rd attempt to be in a group that did this, and I must say that the mission was very easy.

The other trick is to make sure that all healers have REBIRTH loaded. (you will see why at the end)

Done this a few times, and there is one key word which makes this mission possible, if not easy:
TEAMWORK.

I sailed through it with my Guild team (commuinicating over TS) and a PUG who talked through everything at the start, both times doing the bonus.

Our general strategy is to have rangers man the catapults, rather than elementalists, as they get pounded on heavily when creatures start to come though the gate. If they're good, they can take out several packs before they even reach the keep.

Everyone else stays in the centre - under no circumstances leave the keep, and pull all enemies back to the centre of the keep; that way if you have a fight on two fronts, which can occasionally happen if you dont kill things fast enough and are doing the bonus, you have one fight to deal with, not two. Also that way the rangers manning the catapult get LOS on the mobs, although watching for more incomming and usign the catapaults to get them first is more important.

Another key thing is to NOT agro things unil they enter the gate, if you attack ranged combatants such as mursart elementalists near jalis, they will use aoes and ranged on Jalis, thus putting him at risk.

Anyway, thats just how I've done it, have a couple of tanks, 2 rangers, as many healers as possible and 2 nukers

i finally did this mission last night. we used the catapults to kill off the initial groups, then fell back to protect the king when we saw that we're spreading out. hey that worked well. if you find that your group doesn't cooperate very well, guarding the king and staying up there is a good way to do this mission. the toughest part is to kill the mursaat necros and priests, but once you got pass them, you have enough confidence to finish it.

LoL, I was wondering if anyone was going to make a post about this.

I was unsuccessful on Thunderhead Keep 28 times. This mission requires excellent teamwork and patience. The one single factor that kept me failing more than anything else was teammates leaving for one reason or another. The mission would end, they would be frustrated, and leave. At that point you're at the mercy of 2 more folks who've never done it before.

It sucked, I was overjoyed however when I finally completed it. It was almost worth the 28 failures.



Sahn.

I have failed it a good 30 times (if not more). My ranger was the furthest ahead of all my characters. Now my monk has caught up and it's pissed me off so badly because my ranger is undoubtably my favourite. @#$%ing monk!

I have been in great groups, poor groups, groups that needed a slap on the wrist to listen... ALL FAILED.

Great groups just got overwhelmed somehow.
Crap groups got blown to hell as you would think.
The one group I tried 5 times with in one day was good for a while until I got one of my guildee's brother in the team because our token warrior (agro machine) had left. He didn't listen until I told him I was fed up with his constant refusal to follow command (and a little threat that if he continued to make chaos whenever I saw him that I would remove him from the guild ).
Still, the group failed after I made my character sit for a few minutes until I had everybody ready and willing to follow MY orders (as party leader).

All my groups have had fire Eles on the catapults, traps at the gate, and everyone in the middle ready to take on whichever group comes through whichever gate. We fought the second-last damn boss (which happened to be a monk) for 5 minutes after three people finally dropped (having attempted the mission several times that day) before we finally killed him. Then we were overwhelmed by the last group. It pissed me off so much.
I used to be one of the furthest ahead in my guild before this mission. Now several people have passed me. Never a good thing for the guild leader, to not be one of the furthest ahead.

Devs: NERF THIS GODDAMN MISSION, WE'RE SICK OF IT!

Risteron, get a good healer monk and do the mission by the staying with the king method. Juts have a live person healer & the rest henchmen. You can read my post about this on Thunderhead Keep Success, posted in this forum.

I know how frustrating this can be. Although it took me 17 tries the satisfaction of finally beating the mission made it almost, almost, worthwhile.