Nudists Save Tyria

[Zed-F]

It doesn't count as challenging if we don't have to spend more than 3 weeks at it. All those problems were because we made a few errors in initial build selection and execution, more than because the mission itself was particularly tough.

As far as bonus next time around... Courin is getting up to go to work next week at 3:30 on the day after Nudists, same as this week. I think she would prefer to get more than 3hrs sleep next time around, and I think I would prefer it too. So how's about we skip the bonus?

[FoxBat]

I think our build problems were more than just tiny. The two SHers I had originally would cause serious scatter problems elsewhere in the mission, but I don't think Wyrm's MS alone could have taken out those far towers either. (And I have no idea how he was killing things in proph.) Maybe if we had forced pour courin onto a glimmering mark ele. Regardless, water under the bridge, we don't have to fight any more towers...

The one slightly tricky spot in the next mission would be the room with the final 6 seals. My thought is both SF eles bring armor of earth, so we can have one stand behind us to get mursaat attention while the other is being pummeled by ether seals. A ward of stability seems like a smart investment here.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Wyrm's MS alone

*resists urge to mutilate Fox*

The big problem we had with the meteor showers vs. the towers was that they would be interrupted by Mind Shock half the time. If you remember, when all the fire spells went off, we took the towers out rather quickly, even when we didn't have the bows plinking away. when the showers weren't going off, things took a bit longer. Back in Prophecies, Meteor Shower under GoE was the only offensive spell we had. Everyone else would wand/shoot arrows/swing weapons at it while a monk stood out of the range of the tower and ran in to heal when he could. Never once did I ever suggest that nudists try to tackle the towers with MS alone.

[FoxBat]

Never once did I ever suggest that nudists try to tackle the towers with MS alone.

Now that makes a ton more sense (bad reading maybe)- but it's not really feasible for those attacking those two towers from the front due to line of sight. The whole idea behind dual SH was to achieve just that. Although, a plan to instead safely pull out all the enemies might have been more productive. (That's what we ended up doing anyway, minus a billion deaths.)

[Courin]

Well, Zed and I recently finished up Prophecies on our Monk/Mesmer toddlers. Hmm, guess I should say they were adolescents? Anyhow, we did this mission AFTER the upgrade andher are my thoughts. Regarding the bonus, Leah was significantly improved. The patrols should be manageable with proper pulling and using the terrain, so I think the bonus should be doable.

However, I am worried about how long it will take us to get to the point where we can even consider the bonus (i.e. how long will it take us to kill the first set of bosses?)

So I propose we plan to do the bonus, but if it takes a long time to get past the first boss set, we keep our options open.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Don't forget that at some point during that mission we'll have to fight the monk boss again, and there's a chance we'll have to do so with another mursaat monk nearby, which could really increase the amount of time we spend there. We're definitely going to need more caster hate in general for that mission.

The only part I'm really worried about is the end where Mursaat guardians appear in (potentially) the middle of the party. We're probably going to need Broad Head for any eles that appear since Thunderclap will deal 372 damage to an unprotected character. Combine that with Spectral Agony hitting multiple people at once and you've got a recipe for a wipe.

[FoxBat]

Apparantly the guardians spawn on a strict schedule based on the ether seals you destroy. Since they can potentially appear in the middle of the party, I'm inclined to play it slow/safe and destroy one seal at a time. That is, nuke seal, nuke seal guards, pull back and hang out for the guardians. Exactly 3 will spawn every time, 2 behind the seals and 1 behind our party, and the seem to appear in 30 second intervals.

Starting to play with some ideas here

[Seijin]

Just a heads up, I probably won't be able to make it to nudists on Tuesday (I probably won't be on much this entier week actually) due to a bunch of school crap falling into my lap for this next week. :thumbsdow :trade:

[FoxBat]

Just remembering people playing with lyssa's aura and offering of blood, I wanted to point out that the buffed energy drain is really good- worth 3 pips at 10.

[FoxBat]

So yes, although it took AGES and was harder than we bargained for, with people constantly hitting 60 DP, we did manage to complete this mission and the bonus, with a little help from our AB friends Lev and Rad. Trying to go in the front door proved too difficult as a monk was out of reach healing the bosses, but we were able to pull the monk and everything else from the back route. Alot of spellcasters were a non-issue thanks to having three interrupters on the team, although the monk + ele boss combo at the final seal before the bloodstone area was very rough. Even though we had broadhead arrow, daze was only half duration, and the ele boss kept randomly killing enough people to prevent us from taking the monk down. Wyrm's winning strategy was ultimately to have our two rangers predictively d-shot orison of healing by counting down since its last use, instead of trying in vain to reflex a 1s cast with a longbow. Meanwhile my mesmer at least interrupted chain lightning on the ele boss to reduce the damage pressure, while spamming Wastrel's Worry on the monk boss. Although half our party ended up dying including a monk, we finally pulled the monk boss down with us, which let us quickly turn the ele into chopped liver. (I did mention how much wastrel's loves proph bosses yes?)

For the final mission it would be nice if we could rope our original players into a session- Drasca is almost? back?, and KoP is still hanging around. Their original "nudist" characters might need some rushing to get there (I also have chars that need the mish- heck I could rush drasca's monk for him ), but as mentioned before any character is welcome, and infusion is no longer an issue.

Generally it should be less challenging (and therefore less build-specific) without any spectral agony, but there's still big fire and lightning damage to worry about, as well as strip enchantment on the necro titans which removes 2 now. I have this as a general build idea, which boils down to Ward Against Harm + Greater Conflagration for our team-wide protection. That gives everyone in a ward 60 armor against near everything in the mission, and it can be further abused with mantra of flame. Between the enchant strips and hopefully having 8 human players, we should be doing this mission without the aid of a bonder anyway. Of course, it also helps that titans are vulnerable to cold damage!