The Final Mission: is it worth the effort?

Looks like gathering a GOOD party for the final mission is going to be very hard. Just had my 3th attempt in 2 day. This time players seemed to know what they were doing, until about half way up the party leader (a tank who was leading very well) died for the 2nd time. He started a discussion about the order of healing and the healing spells to use (we were with 3 monks). After a short silence somone asked if we could go on, and than he sighed that this party had no chance to make it and that it would be a waste of another 45 minutes... And left.

The 2 parties before did not even make it past the 2nd bridge before players left after dying too much. Anyway, I spend 2 hours there and to my opinion its very hard to get to the finish without a lot of dying. If players leave everytime when they die too much... Hmm, I stop after 2 attempts after another to do something else. So it might take many days to complete this mission. For what? some xp and 1 skillpoint? The honor of beating the game?

The point is: I'm having no fun in doing missions like this. And when I look at the reactions no one else seems to have fun either. Everyone wants to complete them as quickly as they can to move on in the game. But since this is the final mission... Well, I just don't know. Somehow I feel I should complete it. But there are other spots in the game where I can have more fun. So I ask myself: Is it worth all the effort, maybe for many evenings without much fun, or should I just leave it and play somewhere else...

It's not too bad of a mission if people follow the target call so you can eliminate things quickly. Something that really seemed to help when I was in a group that went all the way through was having a ranger summon a spirit that turned all damage to cold damage. (This worked much better than the "normal" fire nukers trying to use cold spells)

Even without the spirit my monk was able to get to the portals with just hechmen, but henchmen always follow the target calling so maybe just try to get everyone to agree to that before the mission starts.

I guess I was lucky on the final mission. I finished it twice(using the same character), not to mention I did it in my first try. The funny thing is that in my very first completion, there are no primary monks, besides mhenlo. We had some minor tweaks here and there but we did get through. But like you said it's all about getting a good team and I'm very happy w/ my teammates for those times.

Is it worth the effort? YES. Just the elite skills alone worth the effort to at least get to the end of the mission. And if u finally get pass Rurik the mission is pretty much finished and really easy from this point. Plus you can't beat a game without beating the game right? I hope the expansion will only let ppl go to the new areas AFTER they beat the game.

I did it with this amazingly coordinated group.

W/E -- Hammer skills, earthshaker + aftershock (me)
E/N -- (Meteor shower, other fire skills)
Me/Mo -- Shutdown / Fast Rezer
Devona
Cynn
Little Thom
Lina
Mhenlo

The two other real players were guildies of mine. When I tried to get into a group of real people, they all would die. When I did it with my guildmates on vent + henchies it was easier than I had thought it was.

Oh, I'm sure it can be done. When I try 2 times a day one day it will succeed. Thing is that no one really seems to like the mission and for me I've much more fun playing to find out better builds and stuff. And I have to rely on PUG's. Maybe that makes the difference.

Finished this and bonus on my first try with henchies. I find henchies to be way more fun because I can take my time and 'snipe' enemies 1 by 1. I never died once (can't say the same for the henchies though, Devona got to 60% dp so I just used her as bait).

The 12 year olds that inhabit these missions just don't have the patience or the intelligence to complete them. Try it out once or twice with henchmen and see how it goes. You might find yourself really enjoying it.

The last mission is one of those missions that I never do without henchmen. The best thing to do with the last mission is to relax and go slow. If it gets boring, minimize Guild Wars and write a post about how the last mission in the game is easier with henchmen while your party is busy healing itself, and then go kill some more stuff.

Now, back to killing some more stuff.

Quote: If it gets boring, minimize Guild Wars and write a post about how the last mission in the game is easier with henchmen while your party is busy healing itself, and then go kill some more stuff. Hahahaha... so true. Henchies > all. Every mission of the game now that they're infused.

I joined a random group with my monk. We had one other monk. 3 warriors. A ranger. And two eles.
One warrior kept dying so much he had 60DP. The leader of the party decided to ghost us so we could complete the mission. The ranger just took off. Of course, our remaining competent warrior went AFK to eat dinner around the time we got to the portals.. So all I did was lead the hands and fists over one by one, and let them attack the AFK. I cast healing seed and we slowly killed everything there. We moved on to Rurik, and since the ghoster got teleported to us, we used him to tank. Rurik died quickly. The lich was pathetic.

No. It's not really worth the effort. But after doing all the pain in the ass missions to get to it, you might as well see the end of the story, right?

... I wouldn't do it twice unless you needed an elite skill along the way or something.

I agree that the final "Fire" missions were not really fun. I don't know why, maybe the the oppressing surroundings, the henchmen that keep standing in the lava, my pet dieing every 5 seconds, the confused story-line, no new types of challenges (just a lot of monsters to kill) ...

Anyway, completing these missions was more a chore to be able to "complete" the game, than a fun experience.

I finished Thunderhead Keep after many many tries. That mission took all the winds out of my sails when i finally beat it. The remaining 3 missions now became a pure chore to do [whether they are easier/harder makes no diff] , as monk i captured the elites i wanted alreadyt [i.e. spellbreaker] and having to repeat the frustration of Thunderhead 3 more times just don't seem worth the effort. I rather go GRIND in UW or something. [ironic isn't it?] :P

As long as you can keep everyone from leaving, this mission can easily be grinded through by even bad groups as long as at least one player survives each encounter to resurrect the party. I like to help parties on this mission with my monk and I have gotten into a ton of bad parties. However despite people aggroing several mobs at once and dieing constantly, as long as I ran away at the right moments I just revived everyone and we always eventually won. As long as people stay, piece of cake.

hells precipice is doable with henchies. Im a W/E and I did it pretty easily. Just take it slow. Dont agro monsters. Pull and lure and kill 1 by 1 if possible. And as for just doing the mission, its so worth it. You get the feeling of self-admiration by finishing the game, theres good drops, AND theres a lot of nice elite skills located in this mission.

Indeed, the henchies attack what you call out so you can actually kill the burning titan, then the hulks, then hand/fists.
For some reason, real ppl dont listen to the way of the target even if you tell them beforehand....

The long cut-scene / end game is really good and hints about possible future plot point (no spoilers from me).

But it took 5 attempts of random pug's before I found a group that could get through it. The closing the titan gates is usually a good gage at your party, I personally think that's the hardest part and most of the groups will fail if you don't work togehter there. This mission you have to take it slow, any rushing will get you killed.

I did it with henchers only with both my r/e and e/mo. Was much easier with my r/e because of winter I would imagine. But when I did it with the ranger I didn't have a single ele skill in, the henches are more efficient than most live players. I imagine even more so with the supposed new AI (which I have some difficulty actually seeing) but some seem to think they are better.

So give the henes a chance, they are better than 80% of the people out there. Might not be the intent of the makers to have you hench all the time, but unless you are a monk primary most builds don't get a lot of action, and then you have to wait while the leaders spam "looking for monk" rather than taking two henches. And then you usually end up dying or have people quit on you. Henches neverquit, and they are nice meat shields for the most part.

i didn't find the final mission hard at all. i guess i was lucky with the pugs. Did it twice and finished it twice with the same necro but made different builds for testing on survivability in pve (this mission had tough monsters so i liked it). The second time was fun, we had a monk and just Lina the henchie. first the monk in the group disconnects or leaves, then after the leader dies he says there's no hope and leaves. I was thinking oh boy now it gets interesting! everyone started to play cautiously cause there's no real healer on board anymore and I always carry a longbow just in case so i could do some pulling. Finished the game without a dangerous moment at all! totally rocked them! too bad those two missed out on the finish.

wow, lucky you. i've tried it about 10 times now, and i've died each time. the first time i tried it, i got lucky with a beautiful and efficient group. the one problem was that we didn't kill the lich on the bloodstone. so, we all got killed by the hands and fists that were floating around.

bad luck, i guess. i never found such a group till my 7th group, where i lagged out right after we killed rurik. i felt like screaming....

Hell's Precipice was easy for me.
I did it with a full team of henchies. I find them so much more reliable than humans.