Two team co-op missions. Nice idea, horrible in practice

[Kieran Bloodfox]

I suggest that they disable henchies for missions like these. Or at least allow now more than 2 henchies per group. I think that would have helped a lot.

Worst idea ever.

As you can see if you read through this whole thread, most of us who did this on the first, second, or third try were 1 or two players and the rest of their party henchmen...

Using henchmen is not the problem at all. They are usually better than your average PUG is. At least they attack called targets, and heal anyone who's injured, and don't ragequit when they die due to their own stupidity intead of simply waiting to be raised to rejoin the fray....

The only issue I had at all with henchmen on this misison is that MY henchmen were trying to follow the OTHER group, which made it a bit challenging and/or annoying in certain parts. Once I realised there were two other players with me, and why my healer kept running ahead of me, my level of annoyance dissapated.

[Supermareo]

Managed to get through this on 5th try

1st try got through first two battles (mainly thanks to a tyrian MM) but lost out when togo made a mad dash off and nobody but myself followed

2nd and 3rd try got wiped out in first battle, i was last alive with no rez or heal

4th try got through to battle just before last but lost out when mheleno was toasted

5th try got through but thanks to team mates as i seemed to be main target of the bad guys and quickly got to 60DP

[Nemeon Lion]

i beat it on my 3rd try and i tell you this mission is one of my favourite.

the carnificine is just unbeleiveble!

tons and tons of mutilated mutants.

and the best: they kept going toward us like kamikazes.

by half the time of the mission, there was such a mountain of those aflicted that our MM took about 3 minutes to convert all of them in minions lol =P

[djxiii]

Doing the Foreign Quarter Co-op mission from the Canthan (international district) side we encountered a player on the other side who would start the mission with all henchies. Interestingly... he was the only healer in his party and just as we arrived to join parties he stopped healing Togo and the mission ended. It happened twice. Grief much? We jumped down to the local districts instead and matched up with another full party and kicked merry backside.

The funny thing is, the very first time I did that mission from the canthan side with my warrior and all hench, I met up with a 5 players + hench party and we dominated.

[Death Queen]

We did it with just 8 players the 2nd try. It's not hard if you know what you're doing and how to play your character and of course the rest of the team does as well. The team makeup is pretty important also. 2 Warriors 3 elementals and 3 monks (or ritualists). Whipped right thru it no problem.

Sorry guess Mesmers, Rangers and Assassins gonna have a rough go of it, but, oh well, they are just support classes and you must expect hard times if you try to go thru the game as just a support class. ;)

[Fioleta]

I've had good experiences on either side. From the local quarter, it was the first day and there were only a few people in the district. We all teamed up. It took us a couple tries. When we beat it the other team was a Korean and some henchies. We exhanged some ^_^s and powered our way through.

In the foreign quarter, it wasn't such a magical experience. The other team was all hench, and they died and didn't get resed in the first big fight, but our team managed to finish. So if it's possible to beat with just 8, the other team can't drag you down too much.

[Aurelia Dark]

I feel sorry for your distress, because I loved the whole thing. I believe it was on my third try I succeded, once I had joined up with a group (beforehand I had used henchies. Big mistake. ). The funny thing was, when our cavalry arrived, it was a team of, clearly adept, Koreans. After several translator jokes, we got on with it, and despite the language differences, it was still a great experience. We co-ordinated with ease, and in the end I believe we won on minute 21. :/

Still, I hope you'll give it another chance. When you get dealt the right hand, it's truly a brilliant experience.

I had something very similar happen, after my 3rd attempt failing because the other guy (using henches) had togo die after about 25 seconds
I then went with a pug, using my favourite "If I can't do it with this char then i'm just doomed" blood spammer build, we turned up to meet a bunch of koreans who were kicking some butt, and they appreciated the wells and battery that I was using on both teams casters

I hated it initially, but after that attempt I think it might well have been the most intense, yet totally fun mission I can remember

[Serendipity]

We did it with just 8 players the 2nd try. It's not hard if you know what you're doing and how to play your character and of course the rest of the team does as well. The team makeup is pretty important also. 2 Warriors 3 elementals and 3 monks (or ritualists). Whipped right thru it no problem.

Sorry guess Mesmers, Rangers and Assassins gonna have a rough go of it, but, oh well, they are just support classes and you must expect hard times if you try to go thru the game as just a support class. ;)

Rangers ---> use Edge of Extinction and enjoy the ride.

You must have some confidence in your team before using it :).

[Lytha]

I did this mission yesterday with my Tyrian Mesmer. She just had arrived in Cantha and I thought that I should just follow the primary quest.The cutscene looked like some sort of history telling. "Goodness, maybe I will learn some information about what's going on here," I thought. My assassin and my new monk are still on the Newbie Island (yeah, I am that much of a slow player), so I don't really have much of a clue of the plot.

Given no warning, I expected nothing special, grabbed some henchies and my standard skill gear for missions (thievery, echo*, empathy, wastrel's, powerspike, ether feast, rebirth), and entered.

Then the weirdness began. One minute until mission starts? I walked around a bit in the starting area during this minute and wondered what was going on. When the counter had started 0, the door infront of Mhenlo did not open instantly, so I panicked a bit and ran around some more. Thanks to that bit of panic, I did not really read much of what Mhenlo said.

Door opened, some friendly Am Fah Assassins dropped down on us ("Friendly? Maybe because I've got these 4 jade capes in my backpack from that other quest?") I walked some more, but Mhenlo seemed to pick up a fight with the assassins. Goodness. I killed the assassins and thought for a while that I just had seen some green dots, not triangles in that area ahead. I ignored this and continued.

Some more ambushes later, I arrived in that plaza area. There were indeed green dots. There was some mad fight, and a lot of the monsters were already dead. As I could only see henchies here, I thought that it was just a henchie team or something.

Cutscene.

"1 out of 2 members of your group want to skip this mission."

That was the point where I became quite a bit confused. It was my first time here, so I did not skip this cutscene and maybe that would upset the other guy (whoever it was, not in my team, I thought)?

More ambushes. I looked closely at all the green dots and henchies this time, and indeed, there was a human ritualist hidden among the crowd. Because of this search, I did not really pay much attention to more dialogues going on. Then some more monsters spawned at us and I was busy again. After this, I checked again, and yes, there was still another human.

So, I said "err, hi" to him, and he grinned back.

He seemed to know what was going on then, because he ran off into the right direction. I followed, fragged some more. The waves of monsters were sort of bigger than what I knew from Tyria... well, maybe we aggroed too many at the same time all over the place and you could also just fight the 3-4 mobs that spawn after each other instead of all at once.

Anyway, we won. He said "gj" and I grinned back. That was about the only interaction we've had.

Then came a cutscene and some really weird stuff was going on. I decided that my mesmer now has to wait until my assassin catches up with this point of the storyline, because I don't want to be spoilered.


First try and a win. (And still no clue about what was going on.)
And a very weird gaming experience, too. I love it.

[Empraim Wainwright]

Did it on my first try with an all hench team, the Cantha team was 4 players + hench.
38minutes, no deaths and a great moral bonus

I love this mission.
Coolest mission ever!