Well, I finally made it to the Crystal Desert. And boy what a time, what a challange and what fun I had getting here. I know that there is still quite a bit still left for me to do, but I'm having fun and glad to have finally made it this far! heh. There have been points that frustrated me to no end, mission's which could have been set out better IMO... but thats still just part of the fun of doing things.. heh
1. Bloodstone Fen
I have to say I expected this quest to be harder than it was. After doing The Wilds and hating it.. I entered this mission with great trepidation. And I wasn't dissapointed.. damned Maguuma Spiders! LOL I *hate* these damned things.. hehehe
I slowly made my way through the area till I got to the end, and boy was I sorta scared when I saw the number of enemy I'd have to face. I was expecting a wipe when they all came at me.. Course it turned out I didn't have to fight them all at once.. w00t! "this is easy!" I thought when I saw I could pick them off 2 at a time..
Then I dropped! pfft! Wasn't GW.. it was my dial-up connection dying on me.. I was ready to pull my hair out.. especially since at that point I only had 2 critters left to fight.. pfft! So re-connected to my ISP and re-did the mission... fully expecting to get to the end and not be able mto pick the critters off in small groups like I had b4. Was relieved when I managed to pick the critters off in small groups again.. and won!
whee.. must say it was a fun mission, easier than I thought... even with those damned spiders! LOL
2. Aurora Glade
I'd read up about this quest and read hpow people claimed it was close to impossible with henchies as you'd need multiple runner's to finish it.. so I entered this mission again with some trepidation. I was worried :P
I actually found the mission up to the portal to be a lot easier than I thought. Altho that 1 section where there a lot of critters lined up was a bit of trouble - the silly henchies managed to pull 2 or 3 groups all at once... but a strategic withdrawel saved the day (ie run like mad and hope the henchies follow.. LOL!). I then took that group nice and slowly and took them all out.
I actually didn't mind the spiders in this mission.. they were disposed of very quickly without any fear of anyone dying. Maybe I'm just starting to get better at fighting, timing my attacks and such.. and using cyclone axe better seems to help too..
Then I got to the hedge gate section.. and completely blew it.. I got the closest pedastal.. then went right... then decided to fight the mantle in the center.. and got swamped by the whole army,... and then died.. and then lost as the mantle attuned the portal.. pfft! blah.. s much for my superior playing abilities :P
So start again after doing some thinking .. got to the portal again, a lot easier this time since I knew exactly what I had to get through.. and this time I decided to use the spirnt method. Had forgone cyclone axe this time for Sprint.. and used that to go center, left, right, center.. and attuned the portal. Never fought at all this time.. was much easier knowing just what to do (didn't know it would work, assumed it would from my previous experience..).
Even with the missfired 1st time around.. must say that mission was fun, and gaain ended up a lot easier than I thought. And fully doable with henchies...
3. Riverside.
This mission gave me headaches. hreh. I tried it once, had no idea where i was going.. managed to sneak past group after group of white mantle.. till I got to a swampy area and got zapped by 3 smake phantons. pfft! I had noooo idea where I was going and failed.. heh
Second attempt.. I stil had no idea where the scepter was to be had.. but decided I'd not go into the swampy region again.. ha! So again skirted past the white mantle towers till I was close to the swamp region.. dashed up sand over a bridge and past a whole slew of undead and mantle who were fighting each other.. headed north... spotted a area with 2 towers and a bridge.. I'm like.. arrg.. no way.. so head north-west.. fight my way through some hill giants (and get a superior rune of divine favor.. wheee... pity I have no Monk/? chars :P) just to find ythats a dead end... blah!
So I still don't knpow where to go... so I backtrack soem and decide to follow the mountain edge... sneak past another watchtower and move on.. but get blocked by a whole armor of undead. I really didn't feel like taking them on (and likely dying.. LOL).. so went back down and back west to try another path I'd seen.. went up and found myself between a tower and another group.. snuck past the tower and headed north.. couldn't avoid a small group of mantle on the path so quickly dispatched them..
continued north (by this time I'd realized my target must be the castle with thew white light..).. followed the path up and then went east and south and entered the castle.. snuck past the mantle in the castle area to finally get to where you get the sceptor! w00t! I finally got to that point.. hehehe get the sceptor and see the cutscene.. and I'm like scared by the scene of the bozo's claiming they will hunt me... never did see them tho :P
take the new opened path through the gate.. deal with a few pityful undead in my way and then find myself behind that small undead army I'd seen b4. Still didn't fele like fighting them so went down another path... found myself behind the small group of mantle I'd seen when making my way to the castle.. so take them out.. and then follow the cleared path I'd made back to where I'd seen the bridge and the 2 towers.
Stood there contemplating how to get past them for a few minutes. Tried to devise several battle plans to take the towers out... but in the end couldn't see a way without risking death... and taken too long to get where I was now to have to re-start the mission.. so waited till I had a clear path and just ran (no speed skills tho) past the matle to the boss.. dropped the sceptor and attacked the boss... thankfully the henchies are nice and smart and attack the boss too.. he goes down.. I grab the scptor and make my way to the bridge..
got the cutscene.. with damned matle hitting my while the speakers were talking. Oh wells.. was a tad annoying, but I made it! I had done riverside .. on my 2nd attempt.. and done it and only faught like 3 groups of white mantle the whole time.. I'd sneaked past.. and gotten through the last part and avoided the nasty undead. heh! I was happy.. and had a ball doing it. I was fun
4. Santum Clay
Now I'd heard this mission was a buggar because of the last section where you need to defend the vizier. I'd read up about ppl who claimed they needed a speed buff to get toi the vizier in time to save him.. so I foolishly swapped self-heal for Sprint... bad move
Started the mission.. and worked my way through the paths killing everything I could find. got to the water section with a bridge... I successfully engaged only 1 group.. thats when the stupid henchies triggered a second group.. and then the fight was on.
And I have to say I'm extremely peeved off at whoever designed Alesia's AI. Because for whatever reason she refused to heal me at all. I was actually because targeted by the enemy.. not aleisa or claude like useual.. I had poison, bleeding, etc on me and was being hit and loosing health fast.. and couldn't do anything about it as I had foolishly taken no self-healing with me... Alesia the whole time was atatcking or healing stefan & thom the few times they actually took damage. Needless to say I died...
Just to watch alesia stand by my corpse and attack the enemy for a few minutes.. she only rezzed me when the last enemy was dead. I gotta admit, that AI on her was really wacked imo.. a healer who wouldn't heal. *shrugs* oh wells..
I decided to play on even with the DP.. wasn't too far in so could have re-started.. but didn't fell like it. I wanted the challange of doing it with a dp.. hehe.. so continued on, slowly killing enemies as they got ahead of me.. and slowly whittling my DP down.
Till I got to where those evil, evil dev's put a big swamp lake and some nasty critters... took down 1 of the bone dragons there (the one on the left) after seperating the hellhounds that were with it.. so there I was with 1 dragon to my right and ahead of me a boss with some other critters.. 9I'm sure you know exactly what boss/area this is)..
So studied it for a bit and then ran across.. used Sprint to get across quickly.. went straight for the boss.. managed to kill him eventually.. then finished off the rest.. Claude & Stefan had died in the meantime.. so rezzed them (thankfully Alesia was actually healing me through that fight.. hehe).. then raced back to where I'd dropped the sceptor and moved on..
Finally got to where the Vizier was.. watched the cutscene (and wished I hadn't..).. the was running after the undead... but the stupid henchies refused to follow. I went back and ran into and through and around them.. tried ctrl-targ'ing and they never moved... I was soo peeveded off I nearly considered re-starting the mission...
Decided to do one thing just to see.. went along the path where the undead were.. found they had all died (I was actually down to 3% DP by this time.. heh).. aggro'ed the mantle and then slowly lead them back to the henchmen. It was a slow process of staying just ahead of them to draw them that way... eventually got them to where I wanted.. and the henchmen finally started moving! I had my henchmen back.. w00t!
Killed the mantle quickly and went back to where I was meant to go.. avoided 1 big group of mantle headed towards where I had been.. and got to the beach/dock area.. which I'd read was hard and needed speed buffs to get to the vizier in time..
Just to see the vizer standing salone and 2 groups of matle far to either side of the dock.. once he started his summoning.. 1 group of mantle detached from one side.. I engaged and started killing them.. at that time another group from the other side entered the fray.
In the end I never used print and managed, with the henchies, to hold off the mantle easily enough just going left-right and blocking/aggro'ing the mantle on me sand killing them.. maybe I got lucky and only got small groups.. or maybe they have changed it... but it was a whole lot easier than I thought it would be.
Throughout the mission I'd only used Sprint to get through the swamp water faster. thats it. should have brought self-healing... oh wells.
my biggish issue then was the lame storyline. I have to admit I was very dissapointed in the final cutscene where the vizer talks about what you can do next. nothing is said about how or why you need to ascend or what that involves or what it will do.. just "you need to ascend".. end of story.. I do think they could have tried to elaborate a bit more about that whole aspect.
but in the end.. it doesn't matter. I had a huge ball of fun getting to the desert. I found some missions to be quite a bit harder than others, and found some aspects o be annoying and/or frustrating.. but in the end I'm having fun. I'll get ascended one of these days/weeks/months and finish the PvE side of the game with this character.. but I'm having a ball getting there.
