Thirsty River (mission)

Primary
Defeat the 6 opposing teams.

Reward:
 * 1000 XP
 * 1 Skill Point

Bonus
Cleanse the area before King Khimaar's spirit is driven away.

Reward:
 * 1000 XP

Strategies
Each opposing team is varied in number, but will have 1 leader (or boss) and 1 priest.

Form a team with a completely dedicated healer, a secondary healer, two elementalists with meteor and other high damage spells, and a few warrior types that can keep themselves and others alive a bit longer.

From the start, get the Sand Giant immediately at your west, he should be alone, bring him back and kill him. Sand Giants use necromancy spells and giant stomp, but aren't much of a burden on their own. Each defeated giant will give you a 2% morale boost. There are 5 out here, however, you really only need to kill 4 for the full bonus, since one of them is out of the way through a bunch of devourers. Instead, you can gain the maximum of 10 after killing the leader of the first team you'll need to defeat, which won't be very hard.

Continue on the obvious path forward, mostly south towards a passage over a wrecked ship. A few devourers should be in your way to the next giant. Continue along the path over the ship and you'll fight another set of devourers, and soon make your way into an oasis of sorts. Pull the devourers out and then engage the Sand Giant on the ledge, and the fourth which should be just further along the pathway, and you'll be ready to begin the mission.

Talk to the Ghostly hero to activate it, and a timer will appear, and begin counting up. Don't feel pressured, but move fast. Focus on the first group of two or three mobs, mostly enchanteds. They should go down before 45 seconds has passed, then move quickly on to the illusions or arcanists outside of the bosses quarters. Try not to fight with the Boss at the same time, but it won't matter much if you do. You need to be at the Boss and Priest alone at least by 1:30, at which time everyone should hit the priest as hard as possible. Meteors, knockdowns and such are good; he isn't strong, but can keep himself healed if not properly dealt with. If alive at the 2:00 mark, the priest will resurrect all of the downed enemies in his group, so it is critical to finsh him off before this. The team boss is random, tends to have alot of Health but doesn't inflict much damage. Kill him and any remaining members of the group at your leisure and move on to the next fight.

Before moving too far along this path, talk to the Ghostly Hero and have him remain back. From here, you can defeat the enemy groups without starting the timer, and could potentially have all your enemies down before it begins. I suggest the right side (aka northern) as you get a heightened range and should be able to down both groups before the timer starts. Time the ghostly hero to be at the door as the first southern group is moving away, since it will take a few seconds for the doors to actually open, and you can immediately engage the priest and the boss. Teams wanting a bit more challenge can kill that other patrol at the door and try to kill the priest of the cleared team, then the group and priest of the 2nd team before the first 2:00 has passed.

After the first boss and priest is dead, you'll probably easily be at 45 seconds, don't press your luck and go running off to try and kill mobs in 1:15, this is how groups die here. Get a fresh 2 minutes to go on, at least 1:50 as I've seen parties draw this awfully close to respawn, which can mean disaster with two enemy groups so near. You can also attack the northern group, by sticking to the wall and avoiding the closer group, then rush the priest and go on your way to the last challenge.

You guessed it, 3 groups at once. Hold back once again, and try to kill the right, or nothern, groups first before heading in, others will be useless to get. Move in, go to that area quickly, you should be able to avoid the patrol and get the priest before having to fight the rest, but you will want to eliminate them.

The bonus here is I think defeating all three teams in like 5:00, but, unless you are with a group whos purpose is to do that rather than ascend, don't try, even moving very quick can still take you over this. From here, you already have the tactics for beating the next two teams, just defeat one then the next, making sure to get a fresh start of 2:00 for each fight.

A little side note which some teams fail to realize, if you are worried about being unable to finsih off the priest before he revives his fallen comrades, retreat. The revived patrols will move out and you can start again. Running in and trying to throw everything at the priest only to be caught in that respawn is a sure way to fail, which means restarting the entire mission, as opposed to just that boss.