Lacking Intelligence?

what the hell. Recently I haven't seen any intelligent people in game who are willing to sacrifice their ego for a decent win in a mission. All people are doing these days are just running into a mob and hoping that they can come out as a hero. From my personal experience, I have a hard time dieing if the rest of my team cooperates. I dont know if its the same for everyone else. I always happen to be the last guy alive, and when I try to run out from the horde of monsters that are attacking me to come and res them later, The whole team just leaves the game...its pissing me off beyond belief. So if anyone is at thirsty river right n o w please leave your SN, A time u will be willing/able to do the mission.
Thank you.
- Live smart And Win Hard.
The Knight Of Morion
Knights Of The Rineland

I played in a superb group this afternoon, that totally owned Thunderhead Keep, which I've been struggling to do all week with various other players. Yeah, yeah, I know.

They are out there and as far as I can tell, there are plenty of them.

It's just worth making the effort to find the decent players.

and then there's henchies.

Thirsty River is completely "hench-able". It's the easiest ascension mission. Just make sure you only aggro one "team" at a time, kill off some peons BEFORE going straight for the priest, and bring some knockdown/disruption to deal with the monk boss. Easy win.

Bollocks. It's not the easiest ascension mission. Easiest is really Dunes of Despair, followed by Elona. Thirsty river, while not difficult, ranks above Dunes and Elona in difficulty.

I would say Elona is only easier than Thirsty because it can be run. If you have to fight your way through, I would put them both on roughly equal footing.

Rico

I say that killing the doppleganger is the easiest mission. Don't know what you all are talking about.

Take a good mesmer along for the ride for Thirsty River and the mission will be a breeze.

All I needed was about 20 seconds alone with the priest, even for the team with the monk boss.

Reason you haven't seen any intelligent people:

Like me, they've realised 99% of PUGS are morons and refuse to go for PUGS now. I stick to real life friends, guildies and henchies. PUG NEVER AGAIN *shudders at thought*

Which one of the two is easiest or hardest depends on whether you know how to play them, particularly Elona Reach. I tried this for a laugh with just henchies several times, to see how various strategies and pathways work out, and it can be really tough or really easy. Its a matter of knowing where to go and when to lure. As for "Elona reach is easy because it can be run" is a bunch of sissy crap. Running the mission should not even be considered as a possible strategy, because we are all here to play the game, not cheat our way through it. The only running that would be acceptable in Elona (which I myself have used) is the very last sprint with the second crystal if the entire team gets into trouble. But just running to get both crystals is not playing the game.

Yes, it is indeed hard to find intelligent players. I play a lot these days with PUG groups because I just want to be entertained. People going in two directions spontaneously and then aggro'ing more than one mob. Rangers entering missions with no spell/skill interrupting shots. Mesmers entering missions with no spell/skill disrupting spells (I actually experienced this recently, it absolutely amazed me). Rangers not doing the luring for a group. Warriors and other fighters rushing forwards to attack, perhaps without waiting for E's and Mo's and Me's to regenerate, and then not pulling backwards to draw the first enemy mob from possible other enemy mobs. And, oh, there is the general lack of patience that a group of human players always seem to have. A lot of tougher areas in the game can only be played successfully with a lot of luring and slowly clearing out the way.

Yes, playing with PUG groups is amusing.

I think Thirsty River can actually be one of the hardest of the 3 before the doppel. Like coolsti said it's how well you know the mission, but in Thirsty River it can be going smooth, but one tiny hiccup and you are restarting the mission.

OP -- If you are having trouble with one of the ascension missions, but still want to play with people, take some henchies and do a few practice runs. After you get the lay of the land down and a feel for the mop spawn, then get with a PUG. At that point your knowledge will prove invaluable to the group. This is especially true since it's likely most of them have been run through the game and have no idea what they're doing.

Look at your avitar, of course you think that.

This is one of the most valuable tips one can get in this game: Play the missions alone with henchies a few times before "doing them for real". Why not? It doesn't cost anything but time. You usually also find a lot of nice drops along the way (my best and most often drops were found during the Wilds and Thirsty River missions). When you do this, play the missions first with henchies only, you have all the time in the world to learn the mission, and see what tactics, what skills are needed to best beat the mission. If you instead go out on a new mission with a group that has done it before, chances are you will find yourself being rushed through from point A to point B, etc., and you won't have any idea what is going on.

(BTW, I find capturing elites in the higher level missions is much easier and less problematic when doing it after completing the mission and with only henchies).

How fun.. Thread called Lacking Intelligence? and me reading your name as Knight of Moron..

Henches>People.

Hench stupidity is predictable.

Wins the thread.

Thirsty river always gives me excelent drops... and plenty of bosses to cap skills. so I love to do it over and over again... and there are ALWAYS plenty of people trying to do this mission, over and over.

The mission is not the easiest by far... yes, there are people who WILL find it easy.. but when you dont have much of a guild or friends online to help, it can be very hard to get a good team together, one that understands the meaning of teamwork.

I went through the whole game with henchies.. so the second time around I wanted to do it with random teams of people. I found it so much more fun... yea, people are idiots sometimes... but I learn to tollerate it, im not so desperate anymore because and so dont get angry when people do n00b things, I usually just laff now. ... if I REALLY wanted to I know I can do it with hench, or guild..

When i came to TR the second time around, yes.. i took many many goes, but I found lots of gold items.. and when finally there was a team who managed to do it.. everyone was SO happy... brought a smile to my face

My advice.. relax, once you do manage TR.. its not long after this mission when you've pretty much completed the game ... so try enjoy the game.. if it takes longer to do one mission.. so what, there is plenty of time. no rush.

You are just trolling around... it says: Knight of MorIon

There are other roles for a mesmer to play besides interruption. Interruption's just the most common one, the one everybody expects.

easy - > guildmates / friends
normal -> henchies
hard -> pug

look for the "patient adventurer" (tm) groups...
90% of my pugs are a success and the few bad apples leave the group before we even start to go outside: pugs can be a pain - but if you do it right they are a blast. ( communication and the right advertising for the group is essential - no blind invites, invite-self crap; talking to partymembers, ... )

about the desertmissions: dunes is laughable easy if you dont go for the bonus, rivers just needs fast targetting and a few interupts or backfire, elona goes the same way - target and be patient.

But it is one of the most common. And for the higher level missions, in particular the Ring of Fire missions, it is extremely useful. In the second mission, playing as my air elementalist, I was in two parties that failed the mission because we couldn't kill the necro and monk boss pair. Nobody had any disrupting skills. I would expect every Mesmer that reaches this point to have realized the worth of packing at least one, maybe two spell/skill disruptors.

rangers make excellent interupters as well

abbandons mouth on my monk : we took 40 minutes to kill the aura of faith mursaat monk boss. (we did plenty of dmg but if you cant interupt squad you need to do insane amounts of dmg,... luckily we timed the dmg into a spike and got him down after a while)
abbandons mouth on my ranger : we took 5~8 minutes to spank his sorry butt.

interupts for the win! (i love to have rangers and mesmers with me)

You don't need interrupts for that.

Diversion for the win!

Yet another rant about PuGs. Sigh... Search button for the win.