This quest is more like a micro-mission: when you are ready you get zoned to an explorable area of the village. You have a minute to cast your preps skills before the gate opens. When you kill the last foe you have 30 seconds to pick up your treasure before getting zoned back to the village proper. That's often not enough time so don't hesitate to pick up some treasure between assault waves. If you see some gold or purple items don't hesitate to pick them up as the battle rages, as there is a fair chance you'll die and won't get the chance later.
You can complete the quest and when back in town abandon it; then you can get the quest again and do it again. The 'anti-farming' GW code will probably kick in (resulting in far less drops) if you do it too often in a row.
At first I thought this a good place for farming, but the treasure drops aren't that great. With a party of 8 I received an average gold payout of about 125 (each), plus perhaps another 60 in sold items; saveable items altogether of about 1 item and 3 weak inscriptions or insignias.
Strategy: I believe the key to beating this quest is fire nuking: the foes bunch up at the gate making all those AoE fire skills all the more useful. Another key is to keep the casters in the back safe. Lining up live players across the gate entrance may work, as might insuring there is always some sort of DoT skill (like Bed of Coals) running at the entrance; encouraging foes to retreat often. Another trick may be to post the casters way in the back, and releasing them only when a wave of foes have aggroed the Warriors and Paragon's at the gate. - OYE
To the guy who did it with a MM hero: Yes, well those of us who don't have Prophecies don't have access to a Necromancer that early. Shido 17:52, 8 December 2006 (CST)
- Further, being that they claim to be a level 13 Paragon primary, they've paid for/begged runs through the game to get to Lion's Arch to get Olias as a hero... why do people buy games that they don't want to actually play? BTW, this quest is not too difficult, if like any quest, well prepared for and approached carefully and strategically (I have done it with level 15 Monk, and heroes/henchies. I'm not the greatest player in the game so it can't really be "impossible")
- Eh, I found this to be extremely easy as a level 18 ele with level 18 heros. I just set my hero up as the SF build and I used the same basic skills without SF and pretty much destroyed anything that came through the gate with meteor showers, SF, Fire Storms, Rodogorts and all that good area fire stuff. Nobody died or even came close to death. All hench/heros. Not too difficult for eles anyways. :) I had my ele, hero ele, and hench eles plus koss and dunkoro and hench monk. Gandorf
- Well, I just made all heros Ele secondary and equipped Shockwave... With a dervish you can easily tank by using Stoneflesh Aura + Mystic reg. (unlocked at Great temple of B.) etc. 81.232.46.245 21:11, 19 January 2007 (CST)
With all the bodies and Soul Reaping going on, I find it hard to believe its good advise to recommend to Necros they bring along an Energy skills. Golly, MMs have so few energy problems as it is even in a sparce-body area; this mini-mission features foes deiing by the second, so what's the point? Oye 01:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Advise to bring condition removal is hopeless. Why waste time since they are just going to disease you again? Oye 01:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Glug Klugg
Glug Klugg is the Boss for this quest, appearing in the final group of the final wave.
//Yamagawa
How to solve it as lvl19 MM[]
As a Minion Master, this quest is ridiculously easy. I used a basic MM build with 12+1+2 in Death Magic and 11+1 in Soul Reaping. I had 11 points left which I didn't use, so I guess this may be do-able with a lvl18 MM, too. Sole minion skills were Shambling Horror and Bone Fiend, BotM to keep them healthy and Rotting Flesh / Deathly Swarm when the minions were doing well enough on their own.
Heroes were Tahlkora (16) and Dunkoro (18) both with the default gear and healing/favour maxed as far as possible and the remaining points put in Protection -- I'd wager any decent healer built would work, but I gave them both Mend Ailment and Purge Conditions to get rid of the Disease these pesky blighters cast whenever they get the chance. The third hero slot was filled by Acolyte Sousuke (18) as fire ele, though any nuker should work.
My first attempt was to run outside and kill the nearby group of skales to build up my army of the undead, but that attempt failed horribly as I was quickly overwhelmed by the flanking group of blighters and everything went downhill from there.
My second and final attempt was the opposite strategy: waiting inside the base right behind the two guards at the gate. This time the blighters waited for the first group to die before storming in, so I had enough time to get my meatshield up and running before the next waves hit. The important part is not to be dragged too far out by the minions which will just run at whatever attacks.
Every odd wave consists of low-level skales which are easily taken out by the minions and the ele's AoE damage (Fire Storm works just as well as anything else). If you have run low on minions and are facing one of the higher-level waves (13-15ish skales) or anything with blighters in it, be sure to cast Rotting Flesh and Deathly Swarm once or twice to speed up the initial deaths, then start casting minion spells as Soul Reaping kicks in.
Just one minor notice: The time between the waves is not enough to collect all the loot, neither is the 30-second warning after the last wave. Don't bother picking up the loot before the last wave hits or you won't have enough time to patch up your minions in between. As this is actually a mini-mission, though, you get the usual "Unclaimed Items" dialogue once you have been returned to the outpost.
I'm more of a casual gamer (e.g. I never attempted farming) and my character's gear was pretty average, so I'm sure this is not particularly exceptional. This should prove it's quite possible to beat the mission solo with three heroes (i.e. 4 people total), though. --91.0.68.137 23:49, 30 December 2006 (CST)
- Did the quest again yesterday with an alliance member who needed help, i helpen on this quest before for some loot (not very rewarding though). Brought 2 MM (olias and that whisper guy) with the "tainted flesh" elite skill, this will help against the Disease, since you won't get it but everyone who attacks will get it. And then a monk with some party heal skills (LoD) and you won't even see the health drop :) (although my lv 14 alliance member had some trouble but didn't died). This quest is easy with 1 MM but even more fun with 2 (altough the health sacrafice is higher with double the minnions, its no problem with the monk) [OT]
Fire Nuking[]
Had Talhkora stay back as a super bonder (bond=barrior-watchful spirit) and took an MM and fire nuker. Toon's job was to keep Healing Breeze up on everybody. This was pretty easy. I could not help but notice that the MMs tend to force the battle further out as time goes on; I also noticed the relative chaotic nature of the melee since the MMs engage the foes all over the place. Replaced the MM with another fire nuker and it make it somewhat easier. I believe its because this setup encourages the foes to bunch up even more making the fire nuking all that more effective. Oye 01:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Possible with 2 heros[]
I kind of like this quest, since it was the first really challenging quest for my very first Guild Wars character and I dispaired of it at the time. I didn't knew much about efficient skills and builds and failed many times. Months later, I returned with my second character, a Necro, and tried of course as Minion Master. I was surprised how ridiculously easy it was, so I looked how many heros were really needed. When I reached lvl 20, I came up with a team of only 2 heros: Dunkoro as healing monk, Akolyth Sousuke as SF fire elementalist, and myself as Minion Master with 16 Death Magic.
My strategy was easy: take your place between the two commoners just behind the gate and attack when the first skale wave comes in. Never leave this place. If done right, the minions act as tanks and canon fodder, so you and your heros don't get attacked or diseased very much. I produced only minions (4 minion skills) and used Deathly Swarm.
Then I started to rush people - and failed. The additional healing required was too much for Dunkoro, so I ordered the guests to stay behind. And so it did work. Much fun, I must say... I don't know if it is an efficient farming location compared to others, but for a 6 minute run it is quite ok, if you want a change to all the other boring farming runs. Silmar Alech 01:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Disease[]
I disagree with the text about Disease mitigation. I don't see the sense in spending skills and energy trying to remove disease when its going to get reapplied right away. No, I think its best just to accept that you are going to be diseased most of the time with that slow drain in health. LLandale 17:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Offensive spirit spammer[]
I tried the quest many different ways, but I found the easiest way was to take Dunkoro, drop all of his healing spells, and switch him to m/rit. The skills I brought for him were Bloodsong, Signet of Spirits, Pain, Shadowsong, Anguish, Armor of Unfeeling, Boon of Creation and Resurection. Basically I had my henchmen and other heroes hide behind Dunkoro's wall of spirits which I would manually cast to set up a good wall. The sprits basically just soloed the waves other than a little help from the henchmen. The bonus to this is it is easier to avoid the disease and puts less strain on healers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.152.183.7 (contribs) .
Bug or design?[]
I did this quest with 2 player characters (both level 14, but 1 was idle) and 6 H/H. As we killed skale I noticed the waves were not counting down (6 of 6 remaining). The boss showed up and we killed him. Nothing seemed to happen after that, so I went around grabbing loot. After that, 6 more waves appeared and these were the ones counted for the objective. Strangely, these final waves were much smaller and easier to handle than the waves leading up to the boss.
Come to think of it, it's possible that each of the post-boss waves were supposed to be part of the main attack, but did not spawn or engage until I moved closer to the gate. The way I played this quest was to initially support the two level 15 NPCs at the gate, after the second wave they were dead so I fell back to the commoners for the third wave. Then they died so I backed off a little more, towards the original spawn point, for the next waves. Perhaps if you take position far away from the gate, it will delay some of the skale groups. 76.253.0.17 08:55, 23 April 2012 (UTC)