no, I haven't given up on this... I've just had one heck of a week or so... I've also decided that I want better hero selection, so I'm skipping the side quests for a moment, and only doing the primaries and missions. Mission: Gate of Pain Truly the big issue in this mission is being able to handle 2-3 dryders at once. The damage these casters (and the boss caster) can pump out, esp against a clumped group of heroes and hench is outright devastating. However, you also have groups of torments to address, so you gotta have some spiking firepower to overcome Call of Torment, one of Anet's more annoying ideas. So, I crafted my party as: Dunkoro (req'd): focused on cheap, effective group healing with Light of Deliverance, healing ribbon, and several others. This is predominately to overcome the silly area effect of -20hp per skill use. Vekk: Savannah Heat and other AoE nukage. Olias: Jagged Bones (optional), animate bone minions, blood of the master, death nova, signet of lost souls, eruption, maelstrom, glyph of lesser energy. Kihm, Mhenlo, Cynn, Herta. Olias is the key here, the minion bombs are good cheap shock troops, plus the ability to blind and shutdown packs of casters. When facing torments, call/focus fire on one foe at a time, with the eles (rain of terror) and monks (word of madness) going down first. These didn't give me a problem. Against the terrors, you have a couple options. If grouped, charge in and force olias to drop maelstrom; or flag the heroes back, and pull, but while coming back run around like a crazy chicken getting all of them to expend their deadly meteor showers on empty patches of ground, and then bring them to your squad. Regardless, keep moving around the battle as this will help spread out your heroes and hench, as they will move at different rates. Also keep calling targets. For the emmissaries, ignore the baddie, and kill all the dryders before going after him. Without their support, he's a chump, especially when Olias blinds him.

Mission: Gate of Madness Took Goren (Hundred Blades, Wild Blow, etc), Vekk (AoE fire), and Gwen (same build as taken in Ruins of Morah), Kihm, Mhenlo, Sogolon, Cynn. For all the early stuff, it's a matter of watching patrols, and fighting only when you can fight one mob at a time. When in the valley of the rifts, clear a wide path, and when close to a portal, target the wraiths first. And then there's Shiro and the Lich. There's all these tactics of pulling one, then the other, and whatnot.... I decided to ignore all that and the two bad guys, and just charged in and started taking shrines. 2-3 shrines in, the Lich was blocking my exit down the stairs, so I then killed him. Shiro was running around like a gnat, but really wasn't a problem. Once all 5 shrines were taken, and something like 5000 buffs, I then laid into Shiro. He took a little bit of time, but he fell without risk. Mission: Abaddon's Gate I remember my first introduction to this mission. I had just come through Gate of Madness with a PUG group that had done very well, and gotten masters on first try. I then spent the next 5hrs going through attempt after attempt and variation to get it to work. Every single time we crashed and burned. The next night, I tried to Hero Hench it, and breezed through. Why? the secret to this mission is coordination and a steady pace. Took Goren, Jin, and Morgahn, for steady melee damage, ints, and some healing help. Then Kihm, Mhenlo, Devona, and Kahmu. Give all the heroes rez sigs, since they will recharge very often. I also made an allowance on my skill bar to take lightbringer's gaze... a skill anyone would have at this point. Why? you'll see. So the pattern is to clear the area around one fist, then the other, and then the center. Prioritize any claws that pop up. Jin should take care of the deadly slashes from them. Reason to take the center last is so you;'re near Abaddon when he becomes vulnerable. Immediately pop him with LB gaze, and then just wand him or whatever. When gaze recharges, pop him again, and then run away off to one of the fist areas. With this timing, you'll be back at the fist area about the same time all the monsters spawn, and you can keep the pattern of fist, fist, center up without getting trapped in the middle. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. I did it in 12:42... Master's needs <20:00... I consider this a slow run. Grabbed quests for Master, Norgu, and Souske. Also grabbed my Book of Secrets and traded it in for a prize. :) Now I'm off to grab the heroes, clear up a lot of quests, and then take on the remaining missions to get Protector title.

Good reading. And by the way, congrats on finishing NF. :D

Various quests available now, from Master and and general 'game is over' levels Souske, Norgu, and Master quickly. Missions: Starter Island With L20 heroes... one just rolls through these..... Mission: Riholn Refuge Basically take any team build that survives Realm of Torment, and target the Drought first. Mission: Grand Court of Sebokan (take 2) Same tactic as before, just with a higher LB rank, done in 4:46 for masters. Notable Quest: Finding a Purpose This gains you the Rit hero Razah. Take a balanced RoT team, and pull the first groups. Have Gaze of Fury somewhere in your team to take out the 3 spirits along the way before talking to Razah, and the quest takes half as long.

You know, "Finding a Purpose" aptly describes Razah. Still not quite sure what to do with the Rit heroes. Have builds, but everyone else seems to do better in any particular role. Not intentionally trying to hijack, this message would not make sense any where else.

Update: I haven't given up on the concept, just on writing up all the guides. I've done the primaries in EotN up to and excluding Heart of Shiverpeaks, and then steam rolled Proph from Ascalon to LA. I'm now working on Factions, and have Sunjiang up next. So, I guess I'll change things up here.... post a quest/mission that has proven exceptionally hard to hero/hench, or much less get through at all.... and I'll come up with a way to tackle it.

Cantha 100% Complete
So I've now completely finished Cantha, meaning every quest, and every mission to masters. Some Notes: <*> For the most part, I took an extra healer, an AoE Fire Nuker, and a hearty MM (*not* a Minion Bomber) for heroes, then two healers, a ele and a war henchies, and just rolled through everything. <*> Doing quests in the Kurz/Lux areas with the priest bounty up makes it trivial to get the 10k faction for the quest. I got 2-3x the needed amount on each side. <*> For final showdown against Shiro, take the same heroes as Ruins of Morah, two wars, a monk, and an ele, and he'll die fast enough. <*> Eternal Grove is a massive coordination game, but basically amounts to planting a MM on each gate, have a hero healer to back up the side you're not on, then take the henchies out to kill turtles, while using Juggernauts to support the gates. For the afflicted, it's a matter of watching when the bosses come, and putting your strong side to them, with the weak side covered w/ MM+healer+2 Juggers. <*> Raisu Palace was surprisingly difficult. Eventually got through w/ heroes as Prot/Nuke/MM, and taking extra care to pull and flag to handle fewer groups at once, esp in places like the 'room after the bridge' where Mhenlo likes to get himself killed. Overall, it seemed like I was lacking firepower. Hmm. Might have tried going 2xBP + MM on next wave. Death Nova makes short change of Sliver Armor. And oh yea, the Mesmer Celestial Skill is lame.

Nicely done! :D

Prophecies missions and quests complete. (well, save for Sorrow's and the Titan quests) Only issues was having to do Dunes twice for mission and bonus, and then Dragon's Lair a second time, since I forgot to pack enough int's to overcome Glint (was a 20 min stalemate the first time), and those are fairly minor issues. I guess ol' Proph just doesn't stand up to modern heroes and builds.

I think I have the following I never did in this manner: - The quests in Realm of Torment, because they are just too annoying. - The two mission in Nightfall I didn't do as part of main walkthrough, mainly because I grew tired of Nightfall. - Most of the dungeons in EotN, largely because they are generally somewhat 'elite' areas, and often need specialized teams to complete. I could likely do many of them without too much trouble, but honestly grew tired of this project. Also, I had basically proven my point: Yes, you can beat the game in this manner.