Despite the fact that Potshot and I have been devoting most of our gaming time to Project: Gorgon, we have not left Guild Wars Reforged fully by the wayside. I am pretty sure there will be a post at some point to compare the two, which are different in so many ways.
Guild Wars Reforged
But the group has been aimed at GW for two months now and we try not to inflict too much whiplash on the crew, so we went back to Tyria where we last left off having arrived at Nolani Academy after having discovered missions.
That put us out in the Diessa Lowlands where, the week before, where we spent the week before running some quests and getting to the settlement at Grendich Courthouse, during which we ran into many of the same problems I stumbled across in my attempt to get there solo.
The Bridge of Trouble remains trouble
Henchmen can be more difficult to control, but they are more consistent in how they do things than we were. Still, we knocked out a couple of quests and made it once we refined out group a bit. Basically it came down to our group, which was a warrior/ranger, a monk/enchanter, and a ranger/necro dumping the DPS henchman we had been dragging along for a monk henchman.
Our lineup
It turns out more healing to keep us alive is better than more DPS.
At Nolani Academy we had a new mission ahead of us, but decided to jump back to Grendich Courthouse to go do a quest as a warm up.
We had a mission to go slay Garfazz Bloodfang which was not too far away. How hard could it be?
Well, old Garfazz is surrounded by several roaming groups of Charr and, while you can pull one group easily enough, their ranged members hand back in the area close enough to the paths of the other groups such that adds can start piling on pretty fast.
We held our own for a while and nearly got them all down… but the healers were both down by then and then the pets and soon I was there alone tanking and using my self-heal and it did not end well for us. We wiped and ended up back at the revive spot just outside of Grendich Courthouse.
Before I could say anything, somebody on our team said, “Let me reset the debuff!” and went back into town. That was followed by a loud groan by me as, even with the debuff, we only had a couple mobs left to kill. It would have been a walk over for us.
But, going back into town removed our debuff and reset the zone. When we went back out again all the mobs had been restored. So we headed back and, in attempting to scout the right was to pull a group managed a proximity aggro and it was on again. This time we got down to just me and Garfazz before I went down. Another wipe. But nobody moved on revive until we started heading back to finish him off. Op success. The quest guide on the wiki says that one can pull just Garfazz if you approach from the correct vector. Or you can half ass brute force the whole thing like we did I guess.
That done and turned in we decided, on very little evidence, that we were ready for the next mission. It was off to Nolani Academy where we ventured out with the same composition. The mission, which put us with Prince Rurik again, gave us the following goals:
- Return Prince Rurik South of the Wall to Safety
- Sneak out and ambush the Charr forces besieging the academy.
- Return to the Nolani Academy to rendezvous with the prince.
- Defend Prince Rurik on the way back to the capital city of Rin.
I figured this was not going to be too tough as I had done this with an alt and three henchmen previously, so had at least learned a bit of the “how to” aspect of the mission. I had done a lot of that learning the hard way. I think I spent 45 minutes wandering around before I got to the point of ambushing the Charr.
But I had found the bonus mission and stumbled through that to the point that I knew where to find it and what to do. And, once you go out the back gate and start following the path… once again GW keeps you practically on rails for a route… finding the bonus quest isn’t too hard. You end up going left at one of the very few choices of path and end up at the guy.
The guy!
Watchman Pramas took the Tome of the Fallen and found out it was cursed and awoke the dead and could we please put it back for him?
Sure thing. It will be super easy, barely an inconvenience… or so I thought. I mean, I had managed this once already on my own. Sure, you have to carry the damn thing, but you can drop it then pick it back up if you need to fight.
We had to wander around a bit to get back on the path that took us to the wall and then down onto the plain before the academy, where you can go one way to ambush the Charr and another was for tome returns.
I had no real memories about how I got the tome returned, just that there was a place in a pit where you had to click on a thing and the quest would update. So we went down the stairs and through the front door, where the dead were waiting.
I remember fighting some of the dead when I did this, but mostly just avoiding them. However, they are marked in red and are semi-aggro… some come get you, others won’t. But I didn’t mention any of this because it was only just coming back to me when Holden opened fire on the dead.
Whatever I did before I don’t think that was it. That seemed to rile up the dead and they came from all over at us and we were swamped and wiped.
We then learned that when you wipe on a mission you end up back in town and have to start over. Well, we knew where we were going. I told Holden he would be the one carrying the tome this time. That would keep him from shooting things.
So we ran down the path again, found Pramas, Holden picked up the tome, and then we headed back down the path we had just traveled.
The thing is, we had picked up some Ascalonian NPCs who were keen to follow and fight along side us. So when we got down the stairs to the first set of dead our NPCs immediately went into action, attacked the dead, which got the rest to swarm us and… boom, we were back in town again.
Weren’t we just here?
Back into the mission. This time for sure! I dug deep into my memory and could visualize how I went to the tome return point… and it wasn’t down those stairs. So we ran the route again, picked up our stray Ascalonians, spoke to Pramas, then headed to the dead. This time I went to the right of the stairs, over a hill, through some of the usual wildlife, to what seemed to be the perimeter of the dead.
I could see where I had to go. It wasn’t too far. So, in hopes of not aggroing literally everything yet again, I told everybody to stay where they were and I would just run the tome back trying to avoid dying.
I forgot to tell out monk henchman to stay behind… I know how to do that, but just didn’t consider it… so she tagged along. But everybody else, including our trigger happy followers, stayed behind.
The dead were not best pleased with me and some began to attack me… but only a few. I ran to the pit, down the steps, clicked on the tome return dingus, got an update… and the dead kept on hitting me.
Almost to the tome return slot
I did a self buff and a heal, but the monk was down and so was I soon enough.
And then, as I am laying there dead, the quest finally finishes, I get the sword and shield thing, the dead disappear, and the NPC you speak to after returning the tome… I did click on him just before I died… tells you everything is fine now.
Oh, now the spirits are at peace? Why not 15 seconds ago old man?
Fortunately my plan had mostly worked. While I and the NPC monk were down, Holden and Zbignew were still up and Zbignew, being a monk, was able to revive me and our downed henchman.
I still don’t know how I did it the first time. There is probably a “right way” to do it, but there is also my way I guess.
That done, things went considerably more smoothly from that point forward.
Surprising the Charr and relieving the siege of Nolani Academy was quick. There are a bunch of Charr out there, but they are mostly in discreet groups. Plus we picked up some more Ascalonian stragglers to act as cannon fodder for us.
Having lifted the siege, Prince Rurik was keen to go, racing ahead back to the wall where he badgered the guard on the gate to let us through. The king had left strict orders to allow nobody through, but it is tough to argue with Prince Rurik and his flaming sword… though, as we saw in a later cut scene, the king seems to hand out such swords like they were on sale at Walmart. He and his whole royal guard have the same sword.
The guard lets us through, asking the Prince to please let the king know he did this under duress. Then we’re off with Rurik, who is keen to get to a giant horn that, for some reason, faces the city it is supposed to protect… I don’t know… the mouth piece for which was a plot point at the end of the previous mission.
So we get there and cut scene to Rurik blowing the horn and all the Charr with sudden comic looks of surprise on their faces or some such.
The mouth piece in place, we find that Rurik just blows
I don’t know. I am not up on the horn lore or why the city of Rin had it installed… or why they built the wall behind the city… but Rin itself was not looking good.
After that it was just keeping Prince Rurik alive and killing one named Charr to finish the mission. I knew this because, when I did it solo I ended up looking up the mission because I felt like I was getting nowhere just schlepping a stupid tome round and saw the suggestion that you just kill the named Charr to keep Rurik from getting into trouble.
The problem was there were a few named Charr and I couldn’t remember the name so we ran about smiting anything with a name. It worked out in the end because eventually you end up at the right one. Bonfaaz Burntfur is the right one, btw.
Once he is down it is the mission reward screen.
Shield and double swords for us!
Then it is time for more cut scenes.
Prince Rurik was very happy with us. Then his father, the king showed up… somehow from the other side of Rin I think… with his whole royal guard… which would have been handy during the fighting… and was also happy about the liberation or Rin, promising a plethora of public works projects to rebuild the place.
Prince Rurik however was not on board with that plan, pointing out that the Charr had been pushed back for the moment but that Rin was still, you know, on the wrong side of the freaking wall.
Rurik’s plan was to abandon Ascalon and go hide in Kryta to rebuild until they have they strength to defeat the Charr for good.
The King was not best pleased by this plan and clearly had his “not best pleased” face on when he heard it.
Either that or this all just woke him up from a nap…
Anyway, he disowns Rurik right then and there and Rurik calls for those who will go to Kryta to follow him. We’re on Team Rurik it seems, so we lined up and follow him.
Then the mission ends and we were dropped into Yak’s Bend, a settlement up in the mountains with snow about and dwarves running around. A nice change from the overly seared and mostly ruined regions around Ascalon. It is a fine place… to be from.
Yak’s Bend is not the starting point for the next mission, but my alt has already been to the next mission site, so I know it is around there somewhere.
Next time out I think we’ll be doing some quests, gearing up, and maybe experimenting with skills… and henchmen. One thing Yak’s Bend gave us immediately is two more slots in our party and a few more henchmen to choose from. We can have another melee up there with me!
So figuring all that out is on the agenda.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 