Something of a frustrating session this week in the Tuesday N00b Club, exposing one of my long time gripes about this otherwise very serviceable MMO, and the three of us came away from it all in various stages of Grumpy, I suspect. I know I did, and on the whole, I think we've started to hit that stage in the progression from start, to what passes for the 'finish' in an MMO, where the carefree frolicking of youth, becomes replaced with something altogether more gritty, challenging and serious.
We started out as enthusiastically as ever, romping through the necessary primary quests that serve to link one mission to the next in Nightfall, and things didn't start to go pear-shaped until we reached the bit where we are required to choose between two different NPCs to help, causing the storyline to briefly fork while we do so. We didn't consult to well beforehand, and one thing led to another, and myself and the Dervish picked one of them, while our Necromancer picked the other. Not such a problem, we think - we'll just do both. Travelling to the first mission (
Rilhon Refuge), we clicked on the mission starter NPC, only to be told that our Necromancer, who'd actually chosen the other one (
Pogahn Passage), couldn't come with us, and the thing just wouldn't start with them in the team.
Annoying, but our Necromancer is a bit of a Nightfall veteran, and has other eligible alts they could bring along instead. It did rather break the so-far uninterrupted pact we have going though, if only on a technicality - to have the same three characters work all the way through Nightfall, together. Pragmatism took over though, and we'd just have to meet on the other side, where the plot all rejoins again.
Trouble is, and I suspect this was our first major problem, the new alt is a Ritualist. Neither the Dervish or myself have any practical experience working with these, which led to a lot more suffering than would have otherwise happened, simply because this far in, we're used to the Necromancer. Ritualists, a class only available via the
Factions expansion, (which I don't have), seem to be a kind of fortification-building pet class. Using summoned, static spirits as deployable 'turrets', this makes for a much slower and more defensive-aggressive style. Mainly, as the evening progressed, I started to see that with a Ritualist, the tactics become very different all of a sudden, and require a much more considered approach; set up the 'fort' with various Spirits, park the Heroes, designate a puller, lure the enemies back to the fort and in range of the spirits, unpark the heroes so they can fight, and only
then, start wailing on the monsters.
All this is in marked contrast to our usual free-roaming rampaging style, and was very hard to adjust to without the months of practice we've had as a Mesmer - Dervish - Necromancer team. Not having our Necromancer there didn't help much either. The Necro is typically configured to be a Minion Master, a very effective build based around commanding an army of the undead, and the Bone Horror Legion was conspicuous by it's absence, leaving us a bit underpowered compared to normal working. Bad Necromancer! Ritualist...whatever...
Meanwhile, our Dervish seemed to also be having troubles, often getting wiped out the first time they'd charge into the clump of new monsters. My own transition from Paragon skills to Mesmer skills is leaving a bit of a support healing hole in our back row, and although I do regularly bring a healing Hero, those tend to just hang around near me, rather than where they're needed, up front. As we continued to attempt the mission, the Dervish gradually adjusted their own Hero selection, until toward the end, they had their own two personal healthcare professionals in attendance.
A somewhat questionable fascination with Fiery Swords had me wondering too. While our Dervish is in fact a Dervish/Warrior, and so is eligible for Sword Mastery skills and the like, many of the Dervishes skills need a scythe to get working. Plus the Scythe, traditional weapon of the Dervish class, although slow, does AOE attacks on up to two other adjacent targets at once, for free, so it seems a shame to pass that up. We need to find a flaming green-name Scythe-O-Doom for our misguided companion a.s.a.p, I think! Bad Dervish!
Not to say I'm completely without blame for the evening's hardship either, mind you. My transgressions came in the form of a skillbar built for 'play', rather than 'work', predominantly made up of the various Mesmer Inspiration skills mentioned previously, which allow me to temporarily borrow hotkey buttons from friends and enemies around me. All very amusing of course, but of very little tactical use, as these skills tend to be chosen at random, making planning a reliable tactic using them impossible, and of course, if they aren't Mesmer or Paragon skills, I won't have any attribute points to power them up to 'useful' with, reducing them to 20 second 'parlour tricks', clogging up my skillbar, in a situation where showing off is not helpful.
What I need to do, for this mission, and perhaps for the rest of the campaign, is to stop mucking about with the toys, and go in hard with a considered, focussed and most importantly, powerful, Domination-based 'assault skillbar'. Many of the same Inspiration skills I was playing about with, have Domination counterparts, but while a typical Inspiration skill will Interrupt the enemy caster, and then steal his spell, the same type of Domination spell will interrupt the enemy caster, and then hurt him terribly. I don't want their spells, I'm starting to see...I want their lives! And in order to be able to interrupt effectively, to be able to win the 'first to the draw' of the GuildWars spell casting system, I will also need to ramp up my Fast Casing attribute big-time. This attribute is unique to Primary Profession Mesmers, such as myself, and does exactly what it say on the tin - reduces my casting time for all spells - not so significant in a more normal MMO, like WoW, EQ2, etc, but absolutely crucial in GW.
It's blindingly obvious really. In EVE Online, I wouldn't put Medium Railguns on a ship that has a Ship Bonus of +5% Damage to Medium Projectiles. To do so would be to completely throw away the benefits of being in that ship, as opposed to any other. It's a similar thing here and if you're not using your GuildWars Primary Profession at full power, you may as well not be that primary at all - any would do. It is this that makes the Primary profession
more than the Secondary, rather than being a simple dual-class system. I'm a Secondary Paragon, but I'll never get Leadership points, rendering a great many Paragon skills useless to me. Time to focus on what I'm best at, and this means that I shall be finally completing the inevitable backslide to a single-profession character again - this time a Mesmer, massively specialised in Fast Casting and Domination Magic. I wish I could get the hang of dual-classing in GuildWars - so far it eludes me.
However, it's looking like a necessary step, to focus my power in my strengths, and transform myself into a terrifying dominatior of magic, rather then the whimsical dabbler of illusion and trickery I am at present. I really should know better by now, but in MMOs, diversification is always weakness. Focus 4TW, as they say. Bad Mesmer!
All these various personal shortcomings multiplied the essential difficulty of the waterworks mission, which is conducted under a global enemy damage buff, features some quite large clumps of difficult casters, and some staggeringly damaging rock monster things, and at the end, a boss that does this brutal AOE spell worthy of the finest WoW End-of-Instance Dragon. Never mind the Bonus objectives...just getting to the end caused us great difficulty. After the third unsuccessful attempt, tempers were short, and we decided to call it a night.
It wouldn't nearly be as bad if the whole wretched mission didn't completely reset every time the team wipes, requiring you to start over from scratch, rather than simply run unimpeded back through empty tunnels or corridors to where you all died. This makes each failed attempt take a very long time, and to be honest, if you haven't as least worked out where you went wrong and how to do it, by the third go, giving up for the night is probably the best bet, lest despondency cause you to do something foolish and permanent to your character or account. Saying all that though, GuildWars has absolutely no lasting penalty for failure; no equipment damage, no XP or gold loss, and even the stat penalty applied from dying vanishes when you next map-travel, or works off in a surprisingly short number of fights. I guess there needs to be
some penalty for failure, and in GuildWars case, it's time - "Bad players! Go back and start again!" I just wish it didn't take so damned
long to get to the bit where we're all suddenly killed each time.
Nightfall so far hasn't been painfully difficult or stubborn, but if this session is anything to go by, we're definitely going to have to roll up our sleeves and start taking the planning, tactics, builds and stats a bit more seriously than we have been, from here on in...