User:Quizzical/Prophecies Easy

The Great Northern Wall
Difficulty: *

Skip the cinematic where you find the Charr to get a head start, run along the path that puts you on, and don’t stop to fight.

Fort Ranik
Difficulty: *

Ruins of Surmia
Difficulty: **

In doing the bonus, attack the ember bearers immediately after they unlock the gate. If you wait, they’ll get to shamans which will heal them in combat and make the fight much harder.

Nolani Academy
Difficulty: **

If you do the bonus, it must be done before you release Rurik. Prince Rurik is aggressive to the point of being suicidal, so you’ll have to stay with him once he is released. Spawn and clear the devourers in the bonus area before attacking the ghosts so they don’t join in the middle of the battle.

Borlis Pass
Difficulty: *

The Frost Gate
Mission difficulty: ***

Bonus difficulty: ****

If you wish to do the bonus, first clear the area in front of the door that you break down with the ballista, including the boss. This triggers a cut scene, but that doesn’t matter. Next, go back and clear around the broken ballista. There are two groups of five stone summit at the broken ballista, each of which have two potent healers. Pin the henchmen back and pull one group far away from the other before doing any damage at all. If you damage them a little as you pull, the healers from the other group will move up to heal. If all four healers come, you’re not going to kill anything unless massively overleveled, so run away and try again.

At the end, using the lever mechanism will release some mobs, so kill them before going on to the next. You must survive for one minute after using the last one, so don’t rely on activating all three to trigger the end of the mission.

Gates of Kryta
Difficulty: ***

The smoke phantoms can be tough, but you can pick up the Orrian text and run. At the south end, there are multiple routes. Don’t go further south than you must or you’ll have to fight much higher level mobs. At the end, after the white mantle stops advancing, don’t just charge ahead. Pull remaining groups to the white mantle and they’ll kill them with superior numbers.

D'Alessio Seaboard
Difficulty: **

Skeleton sorcerers will keep melee characters permanently blinded in battle, so don’t rely too much on them. Interrupting their earthquake also helps immensely.

The bonus here is actually bugged. If the warrior boss spawns on Benji, he’ll be dead before you can reach him and there’s nothing you can do about it. Fortunately, it’s early in the mission, so you can restart. If a different boss spawns on Benji, he can survive indefinitely if the boss keeps him there, so clear the rest of the mobs first and then save him.

Divinity Coast
Mission difficulty: *

Bonus difficulty: **

Sometimes the chosen are in much greater danger than others, and you may have to rush in to save them. Healing them directly helps, and standing by them so that the eye will knockdown their attackers helps, too.

The Wilds
Difficulty: ***

There are several centaur roamer groups wandering long paths in the area after the first cut scene. Pull them carefully or you could get hit by additional groups.

Don’t be in too much of a hurry to advance down in the water at the end, as doing so often triggers the spawn of more spiders.

Bloodstone Fen
Mission difficulty: *

Bonus difficulty: ***

The big danger in the bonus is not so much that the mobs will wipe your group as that henchmen will kill a jungle guardian, causing the bonus to fail. Henchmen are very aggressive about coming to your aid when you are attacked ferrying seeds, and will attack and quickly kill a jungle guardian even if flagged two full aggro bubbles away. You may have to bring them to you to get them to resurrect you if you die, but can prevent them from attacking by reflagging them repeatedly as soon as you are alive.

Aurora Glade
Difficulty: ***

The way to do the crystal attuning area is to kill all the White Mantle in the area, so that they can no longer capture any thorn pedestals. Flag your group slightly in front of the northwest capture point, while one player is a runner. If alone with only heroes and henchmen, you're the runner; otherwise, pick one player to be the runner while the rest guard the capture point.

Pick up the crystal at your crystal spawn point and use it to attune the nearby capture point. Go back and pick up another crystal, then go to the northeast capture point and wait. When a group of White Mantle gets near taking the northwest capture point, use your crystal to attune the northeast, and run back to the northwest one. It is important that you wait until the enemy runner gets close to the northwest crystal, or he may use it to attune the northeast capture point instead, eliminating your advantage of not having to run nearly as far as he does.

The rest of the group kills the mobs that escort the enemy runner, but should let the runner pass through unimpeded. Killing the runner makes another White Mantle become a new runner--and he's often standing right next to the crystal spawn point, reducing the amount of time you have.

The runner in your group can join the fight for a bit, but shouldn't wait too long before attuning the northwest capture point again. It is imperative that you reclaim it before the White Mantle reclaim the northeast capture point, though this gives you quite a bit of time. Your runner can also join in the fight for a while after attuning the northwest capture point, but must leave to get a crystal and head back to the northeast capture point before the White Mantle runner makes it back to the northwest one.

The enemy runner has to run perhaps 2-3 times as far as you do, so you have a lot of time, but not an infinite amount of time. Run speed skills can help a bit, but aren't necessary. Be aware that switching weapons or using some warping skills can cause you to drop (and hence destroy) your crystal. If in doubt, test them while holding a crystal earlier in the mission.

Henchmen are plenty strong enough to handle all of the fighting on their own, but not quite smart enough. You may have to reflag them to move lightly armored ones out of Searing Heat (as you'd have to do throughout the mission if it's necessary here). You may also need to flag them ahead and call a target to get them to kill White Mantle Abbots that tend to stay back and heal.

White Mantle do not respawn, so after killing several groups, the runner will eventually come alone. When that happens, kill him and you can attune the crystals at your leisure. If you're doing the bonus, the Demagogue will be all alone at this point, and hence an easy kill.

Riverside Province
Difficulty: **

This takes lots of careful pulling if you want to do the bonus. The rangers in the towers can be hard to hit due to line of sight issues, so don’t count on killing them quickly. Save them for after the rest of the mobs around the tower have been pulled away and killed.

Sanctum Cay
Mission difficulty: ***

Bonus difficulty: **

Mission and bonus in one run: ****** (six stars)

If you want to do the bonus, you must talk to the ghost before talking to Vizier Khilbron. When you get to the end, ignore the vizier and run take the ghost to the bonus. You’ll fail the mission, but the bonus still counts.

For the mission, you must hold off an onslaught of white mantle and keep the vizier alive for three minutes. If you don’t have enough damage or if the monk boss spawns, the white mantle may slowly accumulate. At the three minute mark when the boat is ready, just hop in and you’ll complete the mission.

If you don’t jump into the boat at the three minute mark, more white mantle keep coming, and you can still fail the mission. At the six minute mark, ten white mantle come at once. This is impractical to do as a level 15 with henchmen, which is the reason for the six star difficulty rating. A group of level 20 players and heroes could probably handle it.

Dunes of Despair
Mission difficulty: ****

Bonus difficulty: **

Mission and bonus in one run: ****** (six stars)

Seven groups of mobs come from various gates, with the same pattern every time, and a boss in the last group. Four siege wurms will show up at the gates at fixed times. I’ve heard that the wurms have since been nerfed, but when I did it, if you didn’t kill any wurms, they’d blast away and kill the ghostly hero, and there wasn’t much that could be done to save him.

The strategy is to kill the first four groups of mobs that come as fast as you possibly can, and then kill the first wurm that spawns, then return to the ghostly hero to kill the remaining three groups of mobs. Bring either armor ignoring skills, interrupts, or enchantment removal to handle the forgotten arcanists’ kinetic armor, which can slow you down otherwise. Don’t go too far south when fighting. The second wurm to spawn is out of range of the ghostly hero, so you can stay out of its range as well without worrying about the ghostly hero dying.

Siege wurms have about 1000 HP, 160 armor, natural resistance, and natural regeneration. Armor ignoring skills help immensely. A domination mesmer with wastrel’s worry or an assassin with moebius strike and death blossom can quickly destroy a wurm.

To do the bonus, bring a warping skill like necrotic traversal. I’m not sure if shadow step skills will work. Keep the ghostly hero away from his throne. Instead, go to the far south up at the top of the wall and run around to make jade scarabs spawn down below. Kill them and warp to the corpse of one, on the other side of the wall. Flag the henchmen where they are, and run back to the north of the enclosed area of the end fight, following the east side. Unflag the henchmen and they’ll run to you, on your side of the wall. With the group reunited, you can continue south to do the bonus.

This would surely be an exploit if it weren’t the only practical way to do the bonus. Apparently the bonus was made massively harder by AI changes with the release of Nightfall. Doing the bonus without warping through the wall, even without the mission, takes a group of players (not henchmen) with specialized builds to kill keep the ghostly hero alive and kill the bonus mobs fast.

As for doing the bonus and mission in the same run, forget about it. It’s impossible with just henchmen. It’s probably not possible with just players either, unless either you use some quasi-exploit or the mission difficulty has been heavily nerfed.

Thirsty River
Difficulty: *****

If an enemy priest is alive, he’ll resurrect his entire group every two minutes. The “group” actually consists of three separate groups of 2-3 mobs each, which can be pulled separately. It often helps to start damaging a group about 15 seconds before a two minute mark, spreading around damage to ensure that nothing dies in time to get resurrected, and then killing the mobs shortly after a two minute mark.

About thirty seconds before mobs are resurrected, drop what you’re doing and focus all fire on the enemy priest. If the priest is dead, his group doesn’t get resurrected, even if some are still alive at the two minute increment. If it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the priest dead, run away before the mobs resurrect and you can try again. If you get caught in the respawns, you’re likely to wipe.

Henchmen have all sorts of trouble with line of sight when trying to attack the enemy priest. You’ll have to use the flag a lot, as they tend to be content to stand there shooting a wall, which is highly ineffective when DPS matters.

After defeating the first team, the next room has two teams. Be careful not to aggro mobs from both teams at once. Even if you can kill them, wasting time on one group won’t let you get to the other’s priest quickly enough. Instead, wait until about the 1:55 mark to attack the nearer group, while keeping yourself and your henchmen way from the north group. That buys you a little extra time to clear the group.

The third area has three teams. King Khimaar is a potent elementalist, so it’s fine to rush in and save him, as he’ll help you clear most of the warrior boss’s group in a hurry.

The monk boss is the hard one. If you take the time to wear down the monk boss before going for the priest, you’ll get caught in respawns. If you don’t, the monk boss heals the enemy priest. Both the boss and the priest use Aegis, and they use word of healing on each other. There is also an extra ranger with the boss group, and the ranger will blind melee attackers with throw dirt.

Allow yourself a lot of time to wear down the enemy priest. You want to kill several members of the monk’s group immediately after the two minute increment that would have resurrected them. Unless you’ve got tons of DPS, you’ll need to interfere with the monks’ healing and protecting each other. Interrupting their skills, especially aegis, will help. Anti-healing skills such as scourge healing, tainted flesh, or even backfire, can also make a huge difference.

Elona Reach
Difficulty: ****

After the cut scene, what remains is about a 25 minute mission with a 30 minute hard time limit. Don’t dawdle, but don’t rush, either. Clear plenty of room to avoid roamers, and be aware that picking up crystal shards will release several additional groups of mobs to scatter around a considerable area. As such, you’ll have to clear on the way to the crystals, and clear some more on the way back.

The location of the monk boss can vary, but it’s a major pain to wear it down. If it is near groups that are released upon picking up a crystal shard, there may be healers back there out of reach that will heal the monk boss as well. If that happens, you may just have to grab the crystal and run away to avoid running out of time.

Do be aware that you can use the splinter mines to your advantage. If you pick one up, turn, and run directly away, you can avoid its blast. When you drop it, it will then damage enemy mobs, and not your party.

Augury Rock
Difficulty: **

Pick your build mainly based on what you want the doppleganger to use against you. AI has faster reflexes than you, but is often willing to use suicide skills (e.g., frenzy) or slow casting but useless nature rituals or spirits that give you time to get a huge head start. You can also cast enchantments before starting the battle, so as not to waste time casting them in battle. Particular strategies to win vary by class and are detailed on the wiki.

Dragon's Lair
Mission difficulty: *

Bonus difficulty: **

Glint is only hard if you’re not prepared. Bring skill interrupts (not spell interrupts) for crystal hibernation, and wild blow (Little Thom has it) for jagged crystal skin.

Ice Caves of Sorrow
Difficulty: **

Other than doing the bonus, keep away from the mursaat. Even if you’re infused, the henchmen aren’t, and it can kill them in a hurry. Stay behind the pack of 12 mursaat at the end. Stay far enough back to not aggro them, but close enough to keep them on radar so they’ll be killed by the stone summit ice ships. Sometimes they don’t all get killed, but if it’s down to just one or two, you can finish them off yourself.

I assume that the player is infused for the bonus difficulty rating. If not, it’s still doable, but you’ll probably take some deaths. Go well ahead of the henchmen to draw fire and get the mursaat to burn their spectral agony on you, and then bring the henchmen in to focus fire on the mursaat one at a time.

Iron Mines of Moladune
Difficulty: *

Stay away from the mursaat until you get infused at the seer. This will infuse the henchmen, too, at which point the mursaat aren’t very tough.

Thunderhead Keep
Difficulty: **

Keep mobs away from Jalis Ironhammer at the end, as he’s a little too anxious to jump into the fight, and he isn’t infused. If it takes a while to wear down a boss in the end fight, that’s all right, as mobs stop spawning a little after the boss comes until you kill the boss.

If you want to do the bonus, you have to go light the beacons immediately after the cut scene. If you dawdle, it will be too late. You may wish to scope out the region to be familiar with where exactly to run for the quickest path.

Ring of Fire
Difficulty: **

Pull mobs well away from the ether seals before killing them, so that non-melee classes can be out of range of the mursaat tower effect. Vizier Khilbron suggests that you go the long way around, instead of through the heavily guarded mursaat fort. Either he’s an idiot or he’s trying to get you killed (or maybe both). The long way around is much harder.

Abaddon's Mouth
Difficulty: **

If you want to do the bonus, you’ll have to clear the path ahead of time. Leah Stone walks a fixed path (detailed on the wiki), but it’s not the most direct route.

There are a couple roamer groups that wander by just across the lava pit that you wade through for the bonus route. You may wish to pull a group into (or through) the lava pit to be safe.

The mursaat monk boss can be take a long time to kill if you‘re not built to counter it. It sometimes helps to flag henchmen to higher ground to get a bit of extra damage, which can add up to a lot of extra damage over the several minutes that it takes to wear down the boss.

Hell's Precipice
Difficulty: ****

This mission has no enemy monks whatsoever. None of the mobs have anything beyond meager self-healing capabilities, so you don’t need much DPS to beat out the healing. Indeed, high DPS won’t do much for you, as titans breaking apart into other titans upon death leads to very long battles that still require a lot of healing and defense.

Defense wins here. Ward against melee, ward against harm, well of blood, well of power, well of darkness, recuperation, life, and other such defensive skills help immensely. If you’re bringing heroes or players rather than just henchmen, if you can bring all of the skills listed above and at least two monks, the mission will be a cakewalk. You don’t need all of them, of course; just bring as many defensive skills as you can.

Don’t bring a minion master. The minions will be destroyed by titans very quickly, and you’ll need the corpses for well spells.

Sparks of the titans use Rodgort’s invocation, which is a pretty nasty area fire spell. Three of them using it at once can nearly wipe a group if precautions are not taken. A water elementalist with ward against harm will give you massive armor against fire and let you essentially laugh at the sparks. Failing that, interrupting some of them helps immensely.

Kill titans that don’t break into other titans first. Sparks are the top priority for their high damage output, but hands and fists should also be dispatched promptly. If not, three burning titans or risen ashen hulks are manageable, but six hands and fists running around at once can be trouble.

Fairly early in the mission, you’ll come across a huge mass of titans. Wait a bit and a boss will come say something which gets blocked by the game’s filter, and most of the titans will get out of your way.

Later in the mission, a number of titans will spawn from a lava pool. This isn’t an endless supply, as they stop after two bosses spawn. Wait for this and kill these mobs before trying to clear the portals.

When fighting the lich, don’t aggro the two titans on the far side. If you have to kill the lich more than once, when he rezzes, so do all dead titans. Two titans and the lich is easy if you promptly kill the titans first, but four titans and the lich is a little harder.