charity: Monks for Thunderhead.

Enery hour a Newbie dies in Thunderhead Keep.

Please spend some time to help theese poor kids, geting basic needs like infused armor (seen an uninfused monk killing the whole party in the end), basic equipment (seen a ranger with a fire wand) and monks that use comon sense.

"Monks for Thunderhead" helps noobs to come trough Thunderhead Keep serveral times a day, because they have unlocked everything and they know money and know rank are worthless and meaningless and even finding a decent group that can kill the simplest IWAY build takes iWAY too long.

Just listen to the all chat in Thunderhead Keep for 5 minutes to know THESE NOOBS NEED YOUR HELP!!! The Situation of Thunderhead Keep as a Noob trap has to stop, they pulled down each other long enough!
Just grab some "Paladins" and pull them out of this location to make it more noob free, everyone will thank you for this.
(And its damn challenging and funny most times)

"Owning Ollj" yesterdays groups, all succeded, ben a walk in the Park:

Oh yay.... pve. Sounds like tons of fun!

wait...so what do you wnat?

You could help more people by spamming Local with "Grab seven henchmen, stand next to Ironhammer". I can't say I approve of your suggestion, though. So you help the kind of person that can't get past Thunderhead Keep through PvE. When he's finished PvE, where's he going to go? PvP! Hooray, more Mending! Thanks, Ollj!

Anyone who gets stuck at THK for more than a week is either very unlucky, or very very poor by playing standards and deserves to be stomped on by boulder-bashing tundra giants until C2.

Helped my basketful of noobs through but the trauma makes it less worthwhile.

There comes a point where it should click that the person is doing something wrong. I recently went with a person who was on their (I think) 10th run and he got mad because I wasn't targeting Demetrios while the others were coming for us.

I mean, really :| If people actually paid attention to what they should be doing then they'd get by a lot faster.

(and as a sidenote, targeting Mursaat bosses while others are coming for you is the worst thing you can do. You'll get swamped with adds and won't be able to overcome the heavy fire on you)

Remember, Thunderhead is a big frikkin newb filter. Im sorry, but thats what it is.

Why would i want to bring complete newbs to the ring of fire? the titan quests? no thanks...

I think, the idea of "helping others", brought up by the OP is not meant like "make sure they keep alive", but actually to "teach" them some basic tactics.

On the other hand: if they haven't learned by the time they reach THK, it seems pretty hopeless.

problem is one person has the power to kill a whole team in there. happens a lot.
Im just compensating that one idiot most times, he keeops a lot of not so bad players in there.

And thunderhead keep fails as a noob filter, they are still in the tombs with IWAY without needing to solve this mission.

And "AI king babisitting missions" are damn hard because of the AI, too. Remember rurik from the second beta? this is pretty much the same.

And there IS a complete lack of monks.

tombs doesnt matter, cus you can be a first timer with a pvp character and no unlocks, going into tombs.

/signed on teaching ppl basic skills. Some just got lucky and managed to reach THK with only 7 skills on the skillbar ("Skills? I thought that when I got lvl20 I would get the rest" <-- true story)

I agree there's a lack of monks because most ppl (yes Wa/Mo, you know who I mean) still don't get why I need resting time to regen my mana. Or that I can't heal my party which is scattered allover the map AND keep an eye on DwarfBoy. Funny thing is that I once jokingly asked for 2k if ppl wanted me in their party, I got numerous offers (Gold Items, 3k+ and even an Ecto - I reclined all and joined a Mesmer/Necro Group).

The person teaching them the basic skill would have to be a monk: Pay head to my lessons or be ready to die!

I am working up a Monk slowly as my 4th and last character, and I look forward to being in this (heh heh) quite controlling situation. Believe me, I will aid in the instructions of these players. Already as Elem/Mo where I take a lot of healing spells with me, I simply refuse to heal/resurrect the party members who SHOUT to be resurrected, berate the healers for not healing enough, or charge ahead without waiting for the support to be ready. (One got me so angry I told her she might as well leave the group cuz I wouldn't rez her. Darn, Alesia Henchy was in our group and was not so strict as I was, though).

I mean, after playing this game through with 4 characters, things do get a bit dull after a while. But then there is a whole new aspect of the game to explore, which may never get boring: dealing with poor players and trying to train them into better (both regarding tactics and team play) players.

That's very charitable Ollj, but I think the best way to help newbies is not to not to powerlevel them through tough spots, it is to teach them the game basics, and how to beat missions/quest by themselves.

Like all missions, you can complete TK quite easily with henchmen. Yes, easily.

For TK, the trick is to stay out of the danger zone. As soon as the invasion starts, get the bonus, then stay *very* close to the king. Stay out of the aggro circle of incoming monsters. The invading monsters will kill one another, and you just have to kill the few groups that weren't intercepted by other monsters, and the final group of white mantles (who can be killed quite easily). It's a very easy way to complete the mission (almost looks like a bug since mursaat and white mantles fight one another). However, it's very long and very boring since you don't actually fight anything.

Idealist I am, I still have to say a cheer for Ollj. I find that sort of good will to be a bit few and far between in this game quite honestly. If it helps some players, its a great thing.

FrogDevourer that doestn work and that doesnt help the game at all.

That is a nice thought and some of these people should be helped. Then there is the other group that should never get past Thunderhead. You know the ones when you are the healing monk and ping your energy bar for a rest. This person keeps charging on so you say "Wait a sec for my energy to recharge". They usually reply with something like "Keep up and shut up noob".

Those people deserve to be stuck at Thunderhead. This way we don't have to deal with them at Perdition Rock and farther.

I guided my gf (playing a w/r) and another friend of mine (w/mo) as a ranger thru T'head Keep, no human monks or other humans in the party.

We failed twice and made it through on the 3rd, the failures came because not everyone fully understood the mission on the first go and because they ignore a Mursaat monk on the 2nd. 3rd went smooth as silk.

I know the mission, sure, but I'm no great player with mad skillz, T'head Keep isnt that hard, it just requires staying together and focus.

So how does this charity thing work?
We(two monks) get together and Thunderhead keep and holler:
''Will help teach ppl how to play/finnish missions properly and help them get through this mission'' ?

I'm all up for that!
But seriously how do we organise ourselves? Add each other to friend lists? Website/forum?

Yes: I agree thunderhead keep *is* a newb filter of some sort, but it doesn't help when a whole guild or more responsible friends finnish the mission for incompetent players who then get to the Ring of fire and destroy other ppl's fun. So it's better to do a preemptive strike and teach them those things instead of letting them succeed without learning anything.
------------------------------
Personnally I have never gotten a bad team in RoF, they where all pros of the 3 golden rules:

1-Stay together
2- Read what other ppl write! <==I can't stress this enough.
3-Rest &/or wait up for monks between battles.

These rules are unknown by a good 80% of population of 10-14 year old kids playing the game (and you can tell they are kids not teenages by their style of play).
-------------------------------------------

Ex of a 10 year old who's never learned playing basics:

Minooshka Katnikov casts Divine boon on Minooshka Katnikov.
Minooshka Katnikov is casting orison healing on Bob angryman.
Minooshka Katnikov: My energy is 22 of 43!
Minooshka Katnikov casts mend ailment on Bob angryman.
Minooshka Katnikov: My energy is 16 of 43!
Minooshka Katnikov casts orison healing on Bob angryman,
Minooshka Katnikov: My energy is 10 of 43!
Minooshka Katnikov casts reversal of fortunes on Bob angryman
Minooshka Katnikov: My energy is 4 of 43!
Bob Angryman is dead
Bob Angryman: Woah! Great healing you stupid Noob monk!
Minooshka Katnikov: Damned if you do Damned if you don't XP.

**Note this name is fictional but I have had a person do something similar **


You're pretty much screwed for everything you can possibly do with those ppl and it makes them that much more unpleasant to play with.

this might be the worst idea ever. Thunderhead Keep is a noob trap for a reason...if they can't figure out how to get through it they shouldn't be infected the outposts past TK. All you're going to do is push them through to the next mission where they'll get stuck and turn that outpost into a noob trap..

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

I've played with "pick up players" that didn't know how to focus fire, nor to pull monsters properly. After a couple of missions, I was happy to see they knew how to use their radar properly and to play as a group. I'm not a good teacher but when you no longer heal someone, he tends to listen to what you're preaching.

When the group doesn't want to improve nor to listen, well... it can still retry the same mission over and over. I think TK is a good choke point to learn PvE basics.

it needs to be back by Nolani if you ask me...but I agree. It's quite obvious it was put there for a reason. The mission can't be completed unless you know the game basics and that's it's purpose. I agree with your post about teaching people rather than pulling them through. I'd rather take the time to teach someone how to do something than pull them through the mission only to join a PUG in the next mission and blow it for everyone because they didn't know what they were doing.

I have occasionally taken my Monk back to TK to help folks out, since I absolutely detest that mission and wouldn't wish it on anyone, but all I'll do is show up and do my job. If the party is too stupid to make it through, it's no skin off my nose.

There is no such thing as noobs in this as it is only 4 months old and most of us started to play it at the same time.I did beta test it but it was different so in essence we are all noobs.

I think you might have missed the meetings back in 1988 when we coined this term....cuz obviously you have little understanding of it's meaning

the only tip i can give people on beating it is use henchmen for crying out loud!

Coined this term?
I think he's talking about the actual game guild wars.

I really think monks are mostly needed in Ring Of Fire missions. It keeps getting spammed up for monks. The Thunderhead keep people can do just fine without them.

Also for the defend quests, the ascalon kind of hurts without one.

You can still have good players in TK that end up not having their guild on at the time they are doing a mission, or their guildmates doing a different mission at the time, and they get stuck with a PUG. I did thunderhead with my guild, then went back and did it with a PUG to completely se the difference. WOW!!! my guild uses TS and is very organized in what we do, but the group i happened to get paired with in the PUG was very organized and everyone had a good gameplan going into it and followed each other and we were able to do it just fine (got bonus that time too), so i thought ok maybe that was a fluke. went back a 3rd time. yeah PUG was a fluke............

Though i don't like the threadstarter personally... this sounds like a lot of fun.
Be cursed solo-farming... it is time for charity (and thunderhead farming )

It's a noble charity, but one that is doomed to faild. Next week, we'll be seeing "Monks for RoF", "Monks for Abbadons Mouth", Monks for Hell's Precipice etc.

Frog Devourer is right about one thing though - Thunderhead IS henchable, and not as hard with henchies as people would make it out to be. I don't know about whether Mursaat & White Mantle would clash or if any groups would start slugging away at eachother, but the key is just staying in the middle, no matter what happens, and targetting the bosses last.

Whether or not it works, despite several unsuccessful PUG attempts, 2 tries with henchies, and I was through to Ember Light Camp - no door glitch, no catapaults, no moments of panic, and no stress.

Which is why this mission isnt all that hard with henches and some human players, the henches dont run around like headless chicken but stick relatively close to you and tend to attack your target.
Yes, they die a bit faster on average and their healing is so-so but especially Lina tends to do a whole lot better then most human monks.

Btw, I assume n00b in this thread means a bad player (rusher, suicidal caster etc) and not a newbie, the two newbies I took through yesterday did what most ppl who are new do, listen to someone who knows the way/mission.

Best advice and best help - use henchies. Really. I did it after 1st try with them, but with human players... The horror, it makes you wonder, wth is going on there - brainless AI can do it, yet supposedly smart people can't. I didn't believe it at first, when my friends were telling me that they have such big problems with this mission - but few random parties help understand why.

" don't know about whether Mursaat & White Mantle would clash "

I take it you didn't watch the plot much. Or you don't recall the mision where you first meet Mursaat, eh?

All areas of the game need some -good- teachers. The other day I picked up a monk that had 75 energy, a Mo/W, he had no energy regains at all and kept spamming Word of Healing, as if it were his only skill. I've had atleast two smiters using Healing Breeze and Firestorm. One E/mo "healer" that didn't even have Ether Renewal: and who knows how many so-called "Mending Tanks".

Maybe it's just a matter of people not wanting to learn or use their brains or even think at all when they are doing "recreation". Or, perhaps, they think that their analogy of everything is always correct.

Henchmen? In Thunderhead keep?

BAwaawaahahahahahahhah
I know some have done it, but seriously, if they have problems with their own teams , they'll have even more problems with Henchmen control.

Kawaii is right: the people who don't know how to play will do even worse with an all hench team.

However, THK is perfectly hencheable, I've done it with henchmen, although you need to keep close tabs on the king due to his unfortunate tendency to run off.

The hard part with real ppl. is, to make them do, what you want to do.

Sure, you can talk to them, you can explain the mission to them, you can advise, but non of that guarantees a sucessful mission, because no matter how careful you think you pick people: chances are, that they screw up anyway.

You have warriors rushing.
You have ele tanking.
You have rangers that don't take pets (though pets make excelent tanks)
You have mesmers that don't know how to play one.
You have monks who have no idea what HealingSeed is.
You have necros that come without well of blood etc.

That just doesn't happen with henchmen.

If you have all the time in the world, then sure, sooner or later, you'll find a nice combo of ppl. who can complete the mission. Maybe even smoother and faster then any hench-team.

I just find it annoying to wait 20 minutes for a team, only to find out, that they don't play as a team, even though they DID discuss strategy and all.

So maybe: hench are a cheap way to get a job done, but, if you know how to use them, they will get the job done better than most of the PUGs.

Not because of their AI, not because of their cunning strategic play, not because of the wise choice of spells and skills they're equipped with.

Simply because they know one thing, that is most vital for GW: team-spirit.

Am I the only one who laughed at this statement?

I don't know if i should laugh or moreover cry because of that Pet Comment. I'm not yet sure if her post is meant as sarcasm or if she really thinks what is stated there.

If so... ouch.

GOOD! That is called aggro control. The casters stay back until the warrior has all the aggro on him and THEN engange into the battle. Some folks really should have a look at their aggro circle on the minimap.



I really laughed about that one.

http://home.arcor.de/magicalforge/uw_reaper.jpg
An obsidian flesh geomancer will tank better than any warrior could ever tank. And before someone states the team had 3 monks. No. One of which was a smiter. One was a hybrid (me) and the other one was a pure protter.
The tank was.. tada... an El/Ra with an armor higher than any warrior. A higher AOE damage output than any warrior and something no warrior will really have without spreading thin. A really long time of spell immunity (Obsidian Flesh)


If i see a ranger subclass bringing a pet i ask him to leave it dead once it died. If that "excellent" tank is good for one thing, it is breaking aggro from the tank and luring the mobs to the casters.


Let's twist this one around. You have party member that thinkt hey know how to play a mesmer and constantly bitch and moan about the mesmer.



Though Healing Seed has its uses, it no longer shines thanks to the nerfhammer. Whereas it was a must before, it no longer is.



So what? Sometimes the arrogance of some folks really makes me wonder if there is any hope left for mankind. There are several more attribute lines for a necromancer (as for every other class). But go on, force every single necro into a blood necro with stupid wells and you'll never experience the true power of a curse necromancer. Spiteful comment... uhm... spirit anyone?

You call it "aggro control" when a warrior rushes ahead, before the team has regained energy, health etc.? That's what 'rushing' means
If so, ouch on you.

How come?

Not every ranger knows how to control his/her pet.
Not every squishy knows to step out of hostile EOAs

Can you rephrase that? I haven't got a clue, what you're getting at.

But it's still a good thing, isn't it?

Ah, so the curse necro is the new flavor?
Do you want to force every single necro into a curse necro now, because you think it's the latest thing?

I agree with a lot of what Ashley Twig wrote in her 2nd post above. Although Kampfleks points out some important exceptions, Ashley makes a good case in point for the majority of the cases.

I have seen Elementalists without earth magic and without obsidian flesh play like warriors. Not that they intended to tank, but they couldn't contain themselves and stay behind and out of the way (or even to move their butts out of the way when attacked). Result? Quickly dead elementalist.

I think a ranger with or without a pet is up to the ranger. The beast mastery is only one of the possible 7 skill lines (including 2nd profession) and takes up a lot of slots. But I don't think pets are bad to have. They attack who you target, and will therefore not aggro more than the team's warriors if the targetting is done correctly. Case in point: why don't the front line warriors keep targetting during a battle? Hold the CTRL key down, darn it! It makes it easier for us in the back line to know who to go after (targetting the first foe works fine, but then no one seems to target anymore afterwards).

Warriors do tend to rush to much. See it all the time. They seem to play their own game at their own pace, and all the monks and elementalists, etc. need to catch up. Here is another fine example of lack of team play: I go out with my ranger with trapping. Trapping is excellant! If used! So I go out to set a trap just close enough to reach the enemy with my longbow but not aggro them. The ideal situation is that the warriors stay back behind the trap, or rush-aggro-fall back behind the trap, so that the trap can actually be triggered and take effect. And what happens all the time? I set trap, warriors rush, warriors don't fall back, trap wasted!

And there are definitely a lot of mesmers who don't know how to play mesmer. I don't know how to play mine! And the reason is that there are so many different skills, and so many combinations that they should be equipped and used with, and there are only 8 skill slots (7 if you insist on taking res sig with you). And each combination is optimal for a certain kind of enemy and situation. So no wonder its difficult to get it right. But the worst kind of Me is probably the one that ignores all skills except those direct damagers.

This is turning into another personal thing again. But well. Yes. it IS aggro control. And if the casters are constantly out of energy they are doing something very wrong with their profession. Every caster class has powerful ways of controlling or re-gaining energy. And if the primary class doesn't help int his, take the secondary.
This is the typical Orion Syndrome. Fire off all of your spells at the very first target you see. Bam, there goes a firestorm/meteors shower huffing and puffing into thin air because the target is allready dead and you've just lost 15/25 energy. It is quite sad seeing most elementalits go moo about their energy. And when it reaches a point the elementalist has more severe energy problems than a single monk in hells precipice... well. Guess what, it's a bad caster.
You don't seem to understand that a person rushing ahead of the team gathers the aggro to have them focus on him/her. And once he did that, the monk will heal much more efficiently. The AOE Spells will hit a lot harder and the ranger can just snipe away. This is basically almost every time ruined by casters who get personal with the mobs and then blame the warrior for gathering the aggro.
Sure there are exceptions when a tank simply is a relative of leeroy. But we're not talking about extremes, but about normal every day situations.

See, a single E/R rushing into the mobs was good enough to clear the whole Underworld with. But well huh, i guess aggro control is just too noob now isn't it? O_o

/edit:
To prove my point:
If you're still in the european realm i'll invite you to come along onto a trip down into the fissure or the underworld. The only rules are, you don't bring your pet and you listen to what the teamleader says.

Did you ever have a look at the Geomancer Skills?
An elementalist starts with 60 AL. Woopdidoo. He then casts Armor of Earth which equals into another 60 AL at higher ranks. 120 AL. On top of that the E/R can nearly constantly keep Obsidian Flesh running (Serpents Quickness... there is only a down time of Obsidian Flesh for 8 seconds). Obsidian Flesh gives spell immunity and adds another 20 AL... WOOO... 140 AL. Want to go totally moo? Bring Armor of Mist. +~30 AL if you dual specced a bit . Want to go insane? Bring wards.

Want to be invincible? Have a single monk cast lifebond and life barrier on you and not only will you never take more than 1 damage, you're also a running battery for the monk if he is smart enough to bring essence bond and balthazars Spirit too.
(In case you don't know it... essence bond on the tank, life bond too, balthazar on the monk. The Life bond will transfer 0 damage yet still trigger energy)
On top of that... dwaynas Kiss will be a full heal on you due to all your enchantments.


Pets DO break aggro. No matter how good the ranger controls it. The problem about pets is, they start running with a delay. So either:

- the Ranger is firing his bow first so the pet starts running. Very bad for the "squishys" because the mob he attacked will most likely ignore the pet as he sees a squishy little ranger. And as most rangers simply stand near the casters... woo, there goes the action.

- Or wait until the tank has the aggro and then attack. Pet will run and sometimes mobs break aggro and go for easy targets. There is the pet, and once it catches the pet halfways... the mob will see the casters and go for a little fun.


Sure hun, i will do that.
Don't tell others how to play their class and which skills to bring. As simple as that. Let them play their way. If they want to be that IW Mesmer. Why not? Let him have his/her fun. The game is easy enough to make up for a multitude of very bad players on your team. Though this is simply no reason to bully others into different attributes, yet even classes.


It is not a good thing, it is a mediocre thing. One of those you bring when you've got a free skillslot. It has its uses, once again, yes it has. But it simply is NO longer THE monk skill like some said it to be.


Don't twist my words. That is just downright lame. I never said that the curse necro is the next flavor. I simply stated that there is more to a necromancer than the bloodline you are so obsessed about with (your "well" comment). And the typical Spiter was just an example.