Talk:Ice Caves of Sorrow (mission)

Anyone have any experience with this mission? Elenia seems to have a tendency to just.. stand there. And then get killed by the pursuing Mursaat. This is.. pretty frustrating! Nunix 10:38, 19 Jun 2005 (EST)

Mr. Anonymous' edit wasn't wrong, but it merely cut out info on another way of doing the mission, even if it was more difficult (but probably the way you're intended to do it). --Fyren 14:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The easiest way to do this is just to run ahead and blow open the door next to the prison. Just stand at the opposite mouth of the cave and wait for the Mursaat to hover down the path and clear out everything but the White Mantel. They'll kill themselves along the path via Catapult fire. Afterward, you will only need to fight one White Mantel patrol and two Stone Summit patrols (the last of which contains a boss.)

While doing this mission, I am able to let level 5-19 players join the party. I actually led a party here once as a level 8 Elementalist. Despite the complaints by various members about my level at the start, no one in the party died :) Sagius Truthbarron 09:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Was messing around at the end of this mission and left the Stone Summit attacking the Deldrimor dwarves to their own devices for too long. They killed the three dwarven soldiers, but NOT the 3 scouts. The mission could still be completed normally (and the dead soldiers showed up alive in the outro). --221.84.170.134 09:43, 2 July 2006 (CDT)

Images
Is there any way to make the thumbnails of these images any larger? The thumbnail is far too small to discern any detail from the map, but the image is too large to be displayed on the page. - Roofle

Boo hoo
Is there any reason this should be in the mission description? I find it immature and pointless. --Nkuvu 16:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey! I put that Boo hoo!! It's crucial! It's.. It's essential.. You can't remove it!! :)
 * Seriously though, it was meant as a jab at the listless storyline that does not provoke any emottions other than yawning. :) She runs up to the Mursaat Eles, get zapped in 2 seconds.. And then they stop. I mean they could have made it a "little" more exciting.. right? :) Anyways. The boo hoo should go by all means. --Karlos 19:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure, but that's true of the whole storyline :-) --PKDawson 12:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Dwarven Battle stance
I think one of those warriors should be a hammer guy, it's one of the summit elites, and theres no point duplicating it! 00:39, 22 March 2006 (CST)


 * There are 2 warriors bosses and both have exactly the same skills in the same mission. I think your absolutely right Skuld. Bet its Stoneleaf. Wish I was off work to find out :P --Gares Redstorm 00:55, 22 March 2006 (CST)


 * Stoneleaf is axe, just checked. I think its an ANet mistake rather than a guildwiki one 06:59, 26 March 2006 (CST)

A few notes about the mission, I'll list them here to see if anyone can support/disprove them before editing the page itself. For starters, I have tried several times watching the first cinematic (the one where the Yaks take out the catapaults or whatever they are) and if the cinematic is not skipped the party gets a morale boost. Is there something I am not noticing? Has anyone else seen this? Second, I was playing the mission and the summit managed to take out everyone on the ship at the end as far as I could tell and we did not fail the mission (though we couldn't finish it either, due to evennia not following us to the end for some unknown reason, however usually if something like that causes you to fail, you fail immediately. There is also the other comment about this.) Third, when I was playing the mission, one of the Mursaat in the large group you follow got stuck on a chest in the middle of the path, possibly something on that should be included in the notes section. --Colonel Popcorn 21:51, 4 September 2006 (CDT)

Has there been some kind of change to the AI? I just went through it and the group of Mursaat at the end didn't attack any of the Summit. --Desme 04:33, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * I've seen that happen before randomly. I've never taken the time to figure out why though. BigAstro 10:36, 27 September 2006 (CDT)

Bonus
It is possible to do the bonus only with henchmen.


 * Theoretically, yes, but quickly taking out the Jades (or soloing them after they kill the henches) would be painful. -- Gordon Ecker 23:01, 20 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Actually, once you're infused it is pretty easy with hench (IMO). --Rainith 23:04, 20 October 2006 (CDT)


 * The Henchmen and not infused at this point... how is it pretty easy? please share. 166.66.108.117 09:22, 22 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I just did it with hench, they seem to be infused... (had 3 heroes with me, maybe that helps) --Sorcix 09:09, 25 November 2006 (CST)


 * They aren't infused. If Lina is in the party, Protective Spirit will reduce Spectral Agony to 48 damage - that might be where some of the confusion comes from...but, no, they're not infused.


 * How is it pretty easy? Well, there are only a few smallish groups of Mursaat, say 3 maximum, and your party size is 8...Even if all use Spectral Agony right away, there are 5 left to take care of them. And Spectral Agony is not necessarily fatal anyways. Henchies actually do a pretty decent job killing Mursaat, for whatever reason...I've never once wiped trying to do the bonus, and that's been at least five times or more, always with full hench. Entropy 02:43, 27 November 2006 (CST)


 * Just to add one more comment, did this with 3 heroes and the rest henchmen, I'm not infused, no healer just Lina. No problem killing the Jade Armors or the Mursaat Eles. I suppose if you kill the fast enough the skill is no problem. --67.10.79.97 15:27, 17 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Spectral agony is only a single-target skill. Apart from spectral agony, a group of three mursaat is pretty pitiful.  Take on such a group with nothing infused and you can perhaps expect to take a couple deaths from spectral agony, but otherwise, kill them pretty fast.  To do the bonus with nothing infused and without taking any deaths could be pretty hard, but that's unnecessary.  If you're going with heroes, then the heroes are infused, which makes it that much easier.  Quizzical 09:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not the Mursaat that pose the biggest problem, it's the Jade armours and bows who inflict Spectral Agony with each hit Blue.rellik 10:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not the fact that a full party will survive 3-4 mursaat without infusion, A) it's pretty stupid to kill mursaat to start with B) The DP will stacks up especially with the non infused and C)most human parties only let you in if you're infused for bonus. Taking that all in, either infusion or evasion tactics are used or just doing moladune first. Flechette 10:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As far as spectral agony goes, jade and mursaat are equivalent, are they not? The reason to kill mursaat without waiting to be infused is to do the mission and bonus on your first run through, rather than breaking them into two separate attempts.  It's very easy with heroes (which are infused), and doable with henchmen, too.  A bit of death penalty when you're nearly done with the mission isn't much of an impediment, anyway.  Certainly, the bonus is easier if you're infused.  But it's not the guaranteed instant-wipe that the article currently makes it out to be.  Quizzical 10:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Obviously they're not equal, jade inflict it with each hit. If they were equal, I wouldn't have said that, would I? Blue.rellik 10:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well then, how did I do the bonus just yesterday with nothing infused? It was me and seven henchmen, with no heroes, pets, minions, or spirits.  I had no pieces of armor infused, and the character just yesterday had not been past this mission.  The group took two deaths against the group of three jade armors, and two against the group of three mursaat elementalists.  For the jade armors, it was the same character that died twice (Claude or Orion, I think), and it would be really weird if the jade just stood there attacking nothing and waiting for the group to rez that character.  I'll concede that I haven't checked to see if every single hit separately inflicts spectral agony, but they didn't seem to be using it any more than the mursaat.  Quizzical 19:59, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The mission is easy even without infusion if you've had exprience before, since many people play it with different characters, even the hardest of missions wouldn't hurt that much after a few times. Possibly the warning is over the top but it's more skewered to the less exprienced/no-NFers. imho, they have a bad habit of spreading agony which can be rather fatal to the unprepared who may very well fail to kill them fast and SA recharges relatively fast. Not everyone has NF, so the only possibility is to play with henchies and die rather fast since no one will have infused at ALL or play with humans and do it twice as said before. Flechette 00:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * To Quiz, Protective Spirit. Blue.rellik 03:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Everyone runs out of energy and it's a pain to keep it on every single party member. Flechette 03:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Lina has it sweetie Blue.rellik 03:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * But see, that's just the point. If I could go in recklessly and get the bonus uninfused, it can't be that hard.  As I said, it was me and seven henchmen.  To be more emphatic, I said no heroes.  Furthermore, I was unaware of the change in jade behavior in which they can only transmit spectral agony upon a successful hit.  And for the record, the claim that it is each successful hit is dead wrong; only some hits trigger it.  The two defensive skills I brought, critical agility and assassin's remedy, afforded me exactly no protection whatsoever against spectral agony.  And I still cleared the group of jade with only two deaths, and both deaths to the same character in quick succession (so only one death penalty), at that.


 * I tried going back today on my ritualist, again with nothing infused and only henchmen (not heroes). Ritualists do match up better against jade than assassins do, but this time, my group took no deaths against the jade.  The mursaat elementalists behind them did kill one henchman once, but that was it.  One death is hardly an instant wipe, and the warning about the dangers of spectral agony needs to be toned way, way down.  Quizzical 06:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You're forgetting something, not everyone that plays GW PvE has a brain Blue.rellik 12:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It doesn't take much of a brain to charge in, attack, attack, attack, and hope the mobs die before you do. That's good enough to get you the bonus, though.  Quizzical 06:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Then you haven't pugged enough Blue.rellik 06:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Why take a PUG in an easy-mode mission where success with just henchmen (not heroes) is nearly automatic? If you're doing hard mode, presumably you're already infused yourself, and hopefully you have heroes.  That makes enough infused characters to make a group of three Mursaat or Jade quite easy.  Quizzical 07:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Because the first time everyone played this game, they always used Henchman and knew everything straight away? Blue.rellik 07:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't tried it, but flagging henchmen ahead to do whatever they want while the player stays out of combat entirely would probably work. Get a morale boost between the two fights and it would almost certainly work.  You seem to be arguing that PUGs are much worse than this, but that players should take them for the mission anyway.  I don't follow your logic.  Quizzical 07:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've tried this way back when I was terrible at PvE and I failed because I wasn't infused, once I was down then it was free season on the henchies. PUGS are worse because most of the time because their skill bars are worse than henchman ones while also being quite reckless (personal experience). You were lucky, if the impossible happened and the jade attacked multiple members of your team then you would be in quite a pickle to say the least Blue.rellik 07:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If something happens once, it might be luck. If it happens four times in a row, it probably isn't.  In a typical battle with just henchmen, no infused armor, and playing as a class that doesn't match up very well against them, the jade might manage to use spectral agony six or eight times on four or five different characters, resulting in about two deaths.  Lina has protective spirit, which can keep a character from being killed entirely.  Alesia has word of healing and heal other, either of which can keep a character from being killed by one shot of spectral agony.  Lina also has aegis, which partially prevents the jade from applying it at all.


 * And even that is assuming that the player can't himself bring something to blind the jade. Warriors, rangers, and elementalists with only Prophecies skills available earlier in the campaign all can.  Assassins, ritualists, and dervishes with only skills from their home campaign can likewise blind the jade.  A player monk or paragon can bring other skills to blunt the damage.  Mesmers and necromancers might have it a bit harder, so maybe they take two or three deaths from the jade instead of zero or one.  So what?


 * If you tried a long time ago, it was likely harder then. Go try now and see what happens.  And take a useless build yourself if you like, just to make things harder on yourself.  Quizzical 07:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Bug
''moved from talk:Game Updates

It may have been a one-time fluke, but when I did Ice Caves of Sorrow today the two huge groups of Mursaat Elmentalists only fought some of the Stone Summit groups, floating past the others. The pathing was also messed up, they didn't go quite far enough to suicide on the catapult impact site across the bridge, so I had to kill the last two uninfused with henchmen. Has anyone else experienced this bug? -- Gordon Ecker 23:18, 20 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I have run into the exact same thing. I had two that wouldn't suicide into the siege weapons and they ignored some of the dwarves. It happened a couple weeks ago, though. I did it again recently and didn't have that problem. --Wil 00:24, 21 October 2006 (CDT)


 * It _IS_ pretty easy.. Just did the mission with a 285 max HP Ele/Mes (2 SoCs) and all henchies, killed five groups of those Mursaat (Eles and Ws), let them walk ahead to finish bonus.. and finished the mission (2 survived). All without infuse etc.. Just using Aura of Restoration + Inferno + Aura of Restoration timely with Lina + Alesia healing made me survive each and every Spectral Agony attack on my non-infused life ;) -- IG: Ka Huna Kawaii, 2006-12-04

I just found another one. The first door in the tunnel on the bonus path wouldn't blow up no matter what so we couldn't get to Rornak and had to start the mission over. &mdash; Hyperion` // talk 17:37, 1 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Just tried it again and had the same problem. Anyone else have this problem? &mdash; Hyperion` // talk 14:20, 3 May 2007 (CDT)

Henchmen keep running off
Different groups of them keep splitting off, running down into the yak field by the lake and staying there, it's not funny! I was in the first cave and 4 of them ran out, down the hill and into the yak pen! Help!



&mdash; Skuld 10:49, 7 January 2007 (CST)
 * That IS funny you know....Tried hanging them by their ankles or whipping them yet? &mdash;[[Image:BlastedtSigleft.jpg]]Blastedt[[Image:BlastedtSigright.jpg]]&mdash; 10:50, 7 January 2007 (CST)
 * They're searching for the fabled yak gold hoard! &mdash; Skuld 14:54, 7 January 2007 (CST)


 * Known bug, happened to me several times too. I almost had to restart because of it, they wouldn't even obey the movement flag. Not sure how to fix, other than going to cutscene. Entropy 15:30, 7 January 2007 (CST)


 * Just back track down there and fiddle around with them a bit. Two of my henchmen got out when I flagged them, and the third needed a little more detailed instructions, but it wasn't at all difficult to get them out. mikkel 18:24, 5 February 2007 (CST)

Handling the Mursaat
Running with a PUG last night, one of the group, a ranger/something, announced that hse was infused & would be agging Mursaat. We sighed and went along with it, and in the process I discovered that my standard wipe-out-the-casters mesmer build was extremely effective against them, and did not seem to entail any risk to me. Most interesting. The party eventually wiped though, for the usual dysfunctional PUG reasons. --Jawn Sno 11:52, 27 February 2007 (CST)

Saidra
Just for a laugh I thought I would save Saidra and I did... But once she reached the cave she just disappeared instead of standing there forever... Someone wanna confirm that there has been a possible update stopping her from standing around forever?
 * I think this is what happened to me while doing the mission last night. I was surprised to see that Evennia was still alive after the cutscene, but when she entered the cave she died and she disappeared off the party window. Chris Burnham 11:57, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * The same now happens with Brechnar Ironhammer in the Ring of Fire mission. Nhnowell 21:17, 27 June 2007 (CDT)

Saidra doesn't even enter the cave for me, she just vanishes wherever she just happens to be standing. Regardless, it needs to be changed. Born to Mes 02:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed to reflect her disappearance. Now there's going to be a UFO conspiracy or something.  Oh well. Born to Mes 02:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

New Bug?
I just did this mission with a new character I made last week, and while I have done this missions more times than I could even begin to remember after playing for two years and having so very many characters across my accounts, I've never had this happen before today. I wasn't infused, but since I had the Henchmen and a Hero with me I went ahead and took out the Mursaat and blew open the door leading up to the cage where Rornak Stonesledge is held... but when I got there, the cage was empty. Rornak Stonesledge was nowhere to be seen, but I blew the door open anyway. Nothing. So I figured maybe they changed it so that you have to go to the end and talk to Hamdor Grandaxe before Rornak Stonesledge will spawn, seemed unlikely but I gave it a try, and when I got to Hamdor Grandaxe he said to bring him news of Rornak Stonesledge so I headed back to find that the cage where Rornak Stonesledge is supposed to be, was still empty. Basically I wasted my time trying to do the bonus with an uninfused character since Rornak Stonesledge never spawned. I haven't had time to go back in and try again to see if this is an 'all-the-time' bug or just some random fluke. Anyone else have this issue happe to them or can go and test it out? ~ J.Kougar   19:41, 17 August 2007 (CDT)

I just had same BUG :S Enar 14:01, 24 September 2007 (CDT)


 * Someone updated the bonus section to indicate the cause of a missing Rornak -- the White Mantle Zealots must of gotten to him. --DaveBaggins 00:20, Oct 15 2007 (CST)

Hmm
Has anyone had the prison cell door bug happen to them 3 times in a row? Not the actual prison cell door, but the door that leads to that area. 3 missions in a row and I couldn't get the thing to budge. And people wonder why I hardly PvE.... -- Mah sa  18:06, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Keep in mind that there are two separate side doors on that side of the mountain. I made the same mistake -- tried three times to blow the first set of doors, but they wouldn't bulge.  I went further into the cave and stumbled upon the second set of doors, which I was able to blow with kegs.--DaveBaggins 00:20, Oct 15 2007 (CST)

Spectral Agony section
I'm not sure that a discussion of Spectral Agony really deserves its own section, but I'm not sure where else to put it. It doesn't really belong in the primary section, as to beat the mission, all you really need to know about it is to avoid Mursaat and Jade. Putting it in the bonus section also seemed awkward, as nearly all of the Mursaat and Jade in the mission are irrelevant to the bonus. Putting it as a subsection of either the primary or bonus sections didn't seem right, as if it's at the end of the section, it comes after discussion assuming the player has already read it. Put it at the start of a section and we'd need another header under primary or bonus to basically say, okay, now we really are going to talk about the primary or bonus. Quizzical 07:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Meh, probably not but still. --[[Image:Warwick sig.JPG]] Warwick (Talk)/(Contr. ) 19:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

NU, NUU, BUG!
So i got all the way to the part with the mursaat. then the mission glitched up baaaaadly. the catapult animations were happening constantly and the screen shook like i was being hit with them, but neither i nor the mursaat took catapult damage. then, to top it off, they floated past the last group of stone summit, the one at the base of the hill, with the dolyak rider, and just kinda floated around. the hill wasnt actually being catapulted so they didnt die. they didnt even turn around to engage me. so i was stuck with 12 mursaat and a healer, while i was uninfused. I managed to pull about half the mursaat to my heroes and kill them off while retreating, but evennia eventually decided to leeroy and got spectral'd. what a load of BS, i hate this mission, and having to do it moar than once is blowful. (GW-Kiron 16:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC))
 * That is the weirdest glitch ever. That really sucks that you have to do it again. --[[Image:Hellbringer newer sig.jpg]]t a l k 16:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also happened to me. It seems that the engineers operating the catapults die without anything attacking them. I realized it when I got in many places a morale boost as if I had killed an engineer, even in the cataputs that are unreachable because of the distance. Have tried to redo it another 3 times but all the times got that awful bug. I'm starting to get bored of anet's bugs, Vizunah, Wilds, Dunes... Too many bugged missions ¬¬ Lhoj 16:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also happened to me, same situation as detailed above... 24.12.41.148 02:35, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Same thing as above happened to me today. Makes it tough to finish even with infused armor as you have to fight all the mursaat at the end or run ahead of them and get your kills in super fast.  Evenia makes it near impossible with a hero/hench group as she only follows you. so the only way to fight them is to stand off and flag/hero pull which sucks since you become useless firepower and makes directing the fight harder.Razamatraz 2:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hostage?
"Since Evennia follows the first person to talk to her until that person talks to her again, it is possible for someone to essentially hold her hostage. By staying away from the boat at the end, the person Evennia follows can demand money to let the group finish the mission, or even just lead her back into the siege fire to be spiteful."

I don't think hostage-taking and mission-ruining should be something we encourage, let alone describe how to do. I'm deleting this immediately. 68.50.167.100 20:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Catapult "bug"
Sometimes a few mursaat get though but that is on a rare occasion and I've never seen the catapults hit themselves. I think this bug needs checking, I'll get around to it later if no-one does it first. Ezekiel  [Talk]  04:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[image:Catapult_Bug_Before_Death.jpg|500px]][[image:Catapult_Bug_After_Death.jpg|500px]] Ought to prove well enough. GW-Anon 07:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Huh, how odd. I wonder when that started happening. Ezekiel  [Talk]  00:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * On Iron Mines of Moladune, when I was doing this on my monk to get the bonus, I noticed I randomly got a morale boost running past the ballistae. Then when rescuing the blade scout, I saw on of them White Mantle Engineer seemingly kill itself with its own ballistae and I got a free morale boost. Rather odd indeed~ TwilightRhapsody 08:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)