My best fissure group ever...

I was happy then suprised then in pain..
There we were 3 warriors 2 ele's (including myself) 2 monks and 1 necro.
We were bashing our way through the shadow army, they were nothing.
First quest done. Then we stop to rest and regen....the 1 warrior just ups and runs off.
Suddenly he dies, he ran into the skeletons.He leaves and a few people get pissed. No biggy we think 1 less rusher/idiot to deal with.

Then our caller/guide to the forgemaster error7's out in a fight against the ole' skullies. We won the fight and kept moving foward.

Out of the blue one our monks just leaves. Noone knew what was going on.
Then the both warriors and the other monk logout, leaving me there with an ele and necro.
We got OWNED by skeleton berserkers.

But hey thats the farthest I've ever been in FoW.
So even though I havent made it to the Forgemaster for the 23rd time I'm still happy

i made it two the Forgemaster master first time, but i tend to think two many warroirs can be a bad thing there, 4 warroirs + SS + mark of pain + same target + no common sense = u lose half you team and that was my worest run ever, didn't make it past the first patrol!!!

and to get to the Forgemaster all you realy have to do is complete the first mission then near the entrance lead the shadows into the skeletons, only probs you get no drops but its funny as hell to watch

Really? You only need to do the 1 quest? THOSE BLOODY LIARS!
We went after some banshee quest, them telling us we need to finish 3 quest before we can get to the forgemaster.

Man its so hard to find a good team on the euro server when it comes to UW/FoW.

I don't remember the last time my groups didn't complete opening the Forgemaster's shop. Our typical group takes 2 warriors, 2-3 monks, 1 necro battery, and 1-2 nukers... no rigid make-up, so long as the group members have a decent combat-IQ or know how to take instructions

Some hints:
1) Have a competent tank puller who knows how to swap the sword with a long bow for iso-pulls.

2) take the back route behind the first structure. This avoids unexpected add-on mobs

3) clear all wandering shadow and skeleton patrols along your route - pre-emptive strikes work well

4) clear the plateau camp before taking the Unholy Text quest. Once your main tank has the book, he can easily hold agro thereafter.

And you wonder why you didn't finish... for all the hype, groups of this type (especially post-patch) actually do extremely poorly in my experience. I have never found any PvE mission that calls for 3 warriors. 2 is more sensible (swap him for a barrage ranger or another monk) For that matter, you can normally get by with just 1 warrior (or even none!) if you play smart.

Rico

I know the feeling about playing on the Euro servers too, but luckily I've got to know a few players and we work well together and normally get 4 or 5 hours in the FoW before getting fed up.

I agree with Rico, 2 warriors is more than enough (1 will do if he/she knows how to take and hold aggro), and a barrage ranger with judges insight and interupts is a lot more useful than a 3rd warrior (up to 260 damage per shot v the skellies for a start), a mesmer is very handy too for interupting and spreading conditions.

To get the forgemaster you need 2 quests realistically, and 4 quests if you want to buy armour/sell stuff to him - Tower at the start and clear the temple of war get the forgemaster to appear then defend the temple of war and restore the temple of war give access to his stuff. You don't need to do the wailing lord and banshee's quests but they are fun and good for drops.

My guild used to do FoW a bit. We would run 2 monks, 1 War, and 5 eles. Echo-nuking a chain of 4 meteor showers x5 = gg on large mobs.

We haven't dont it since the AoE patch, but I'd expect it to be about the same now.

2 wars... one is your aggro king one back up by the monks til aggro is secured on the prime war...

FOUR barrage rangers with some traps/interrupts ( the new AOE spell of choice for barrage rangers raining 47 damage per hit makes quick work

2 monks one prot boon one pure heal

swap ONE war out for a nasty stripping mezmer in the back field ready to take out the monks. if your so inclined.. generally though a r/mez with strip enchant/backfire does a decent job.


Ive stoped joining groups with an ele in it due to the all too common " oh no AOE on me" and bam first group gets fire stormed.

now everthing scatters and you get your monks covered in aggro...

echoing meteor shower used to be the thing for most groups ... now it kills off your party ..

I play mainly an Earth ele but I can easily switch to the other elements.
I use alot of wards, but would Ward Against Harm( Elite Water) be more effective.

Hmm I wonder if an Air Spiker would work. I'll try that when we have favour and if we don't Im gonna try and look for the Ward Against Harm. I know its in the Frozen Forest....somewhere.

Clear the mob of 3 Shadow Rangers, a Shadow Monk, a pop-up Shadow Beast and two Skeleton Impalers to spawn the three eternals by the tent. Take the Eternal Weaponmaster (that his name can never remember) quest, clear the temple of war which consists of about 30+ enemies. Then you take the quest Defend the Temple of War, then Restore the Temple of War.

Funny to watch prehaps, but why are you spending 1000 gold to stand around and get no experience or drops?

My best ever FoW group consisted of the following:

Warrior (me)
Warrior
Ele
Ele
Ranger
Monk
Monk
Monk

It might have been slightly different. Anyway, we did pretty much every quest there was (apart from the ones given after the first one is completed), bar one at the end where we'd had a few people leave because it was so late.

Guess who most of the other players were - my fellow guilders

I also defend the monks somewhat. I have Cystal Wave on me always with Obsidian Flame if the enemy's health is low.

I got 2 gold Staves on that run and 2 obsidian shards. So it was ok.