Talk:Mustering a Response

A Little Advice
When leaving Beetletun to escort Livia, Blimm, and Zinn, it'd be a good idea to take along a ally-affecting IMS skill or two - such as "Incoming!", "Fall Back!", and/or "Charge!". An SoS spirit spam Ritualist is also an asset - any spirits will delay the large groups which spawn and chase you. jimbo321 talk  08:15, July 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * I used imcoming+fall back at the last part of the quest and it rly worked well, i didn't have to fight at all Pryon 12:17, July 9, 2010 (UTC)
 * And definitely stay with Livia and the Asura, since they won't stay with you. Prince Leroy (Rurik) didn't have anything on those three...  Shadowlance 00:18, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Completed on the first attempt and only used two skills. "Signet of Spirits" whenever possible to slow down the advancing mobs and "Fall Back!" for the speed buff (which was on one of my hero's skill bars) &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.10.61.204 (contribs).


 * Don't even need a speed buff, really, although I'm sure it's useful. I had my spirit-spam build on, so I just kept dropping spirits every ten steps or so to distract the Mantle (and flagged a hero to stay behind when I was out of spirits).  Didn't have to fight anything, and only lost 3 Ascalonians in the second part (at the point where the Peacekeepers ambush you from the side).  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 00:53, July 13, 2010 (UTC)

Walkthrough
I didn't feel like my original version needed much cleaning up. I tried to leave it intentionally open ended so that players could make their own decisions. I kind of agreed with something I saw on a different talk page suggesting to not give players everything, but to instead let them make their own decisions or figure out how they wanted to go about it.

I figured the easiest way to do this was to tell players what was required of them so they could decide how best to go about accomplishing this themselves. An example was that I felt that party-wide speed boosting skills would be good enough instead of just saying take "Charge!" and "Fall Back!" and you'll be fine such as stated in the official wiki page.

I'm not going to get into a revert war or anything but I figured I should state my case for why I dislike some of the changes.&rarr; Qelsi710  15:10, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

The trick
I hope we can agree that the hard part of the mission is running through North Kryta Province. You take whatever speed boosts or mob slowing skills to slow down the mobs behind you, of course. But then at the one big curve, a bunch of mobs spawn in front of you. Problem, no? Especially if they decide to go after Livia, Zinn, or Blimm.

The way around this is, when you get to that part of the mission, start it from Lion's Arch, not through the gate from Nebo Terrace. Bring a dervish hero with Avatar of Balthazar, and disable it on the skillbar. While running to Captain Greywind and crew, flag that hero south of the road in the area where the mobs spawn in front of you. Manually use Avatar of Balthazar when you're starting to get close, to make sure it's up when it's needed. When the mobs appear, flag the dervish hero right into (or through) them to draw them away from the path and let your entourage pass by unmolested. Quizzical 19:05, August 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * I like this trick.


 * I worry that it requires a skill not necessarily available during the War in Kryta, i.e. those organizing the muster might not have Avatar of Balthazar (since owning NF isn't a pre-req). Could we generalize the advice?


 * As it turns out, with lots of speed boosts, I didn't have any trouble with the mobs spawning (almost) in front unless one of the NPCs got stuck on a corner. Those cases were helped by having low-HP distractions that blocked or were more attractive to the mobs than the toons we wanted to protect (e.g. spirits, minions; I didn't try lower-HP heroes, but mebbe that would work, too).


 * Having multiple players affects the mechanics of NPCs getting stuck. So, to prevent that from being an issue, I think it is better to have most players lead and have a single player lead from behind to redirect the stragglers. (I haven't tested that proposition, since it requires someone else being as anal committed as I am to testing.) &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 22:10, August 15, 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't have any speed boosts, wasn't expecting the forward ambush at all, and still had no problems completing this. My trick, as a spirit-spammer, was to drop spirits strategically and flagging heroes as sacrifices - enemy AI will prioritize a stationary target over a moving one.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 00:17, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ishmael, you said you lost three Ascalonians, yet you claim to have had no trouble. If you lost three settlers but still completed the mission, then you got lucky.  If Livia, Zinn, or Blimm had been targeted first, you'd have failed and had to retry.  Yes, it takes some luck to beat the mission, as if Livia, Zinn, or Blimm decides to stop and try to solo the oncoming hordes, you're toast.  But you'd rather need less luck than more.
 * Is this trick doable without Avatar of Balthazar? Sure.  You want a durable hero that you won't have to micromanage much.  Dervishes have some long-lasting pre-cast healing buffs, and with Avatar of Balthazar, you're pushing ~120 armor, and the speed boost is nice, too.  But really, any highly durable hero will work here.  All that you have to do in the heat of running away is flag the hero into/through the mobs.  Rather than scrambling through the mobs that spawn in front of you and hoping that they don't randomly target one of your key NPCs, you can keep them off of your escortees entirely. Quizzical 05:36, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Note that the settlers do not move at increased speed; the three essentials do. This makes the settlers a much higher priority since they dodge less. --Vipermagi 12:16, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've not had problems with the settlers (yes, IRL I would worry about losing 3, but in-game, I'm happy to sacrifice them so that at least 2-3 are near the front of our conga train). It's always one of the Asurans who gets stuck on a corner, slows down (or stops entirely) relative to the front of the line, and risks a repeat. As mentioned, that seems to be mitigated by a second player bringing up the rear. Buying time with a flagged hero is helpful, but it doesn't solve the fundamental pathing problem. (And even if the settlers don't move at a faster rate, it seems to me they reach their destination sooner &mdash; they are less likely to wander slightly off-course since the lead player can always be just far enough ahead. Of course, I haven't measured either rate, so this might be wishful thinking.) &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 16:35, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * You have a way to control the movement of the NPC allies? If so, that's surely an important trick to know, too.  I haven't found one.  They seem to ignore me and run along their predetermined path.
 * And yes, the settlers do get speed boosts. With a 33% speed boost on my group essentially the whole time, everyone in the caravan runs close enough to the same speed to not be distinguishable.  Quizzical 18:18, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Eh, sorry, I don't have a reliable trick to control them. This method requires 2+ players and all humans must share a common instinct of how to proceed; I doubt it would work with a PUG or even most of my otherwise capable guildies. The best I hope for: that their Brownian motion towards our destination is only less unhelpful than usual. The theory is: NPCs tend to or at least should follow the nearest player. Keep the lead player slightly closer than the caboose player; if an NPC is getting stuck, the caboose closes in and steps outside the idea path, to draw the NPC away from the barrier. If you know the likely sticky points, you can do this proactively. Still, any benefit might be entirely due to my imagination. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:20, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * The first time I tried this, I tried cutting across the field where the road curves wide. The NPCs didn't follow me, but ran their own route, resulting in quest failure.  Quizzical 21:28, August 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a different trick (and I wish it had worked). The technique I describe is something that seems to help to avoid Togo/Mhenlo failure in Viz Square etc. (There's a lot more time to try out variations there.) So, we used it in Mustering for getting them unstuck from the NKP trail (there's at least two points where the Asurans seem to get caught). Might be they didn't care at all and were unsticking themselves, but things ran more smoothly w/an intelligent caboose. And we believed that we were in more control than Lady Luck. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:53, August 16, 2010 (UTC)