Guild Wars 2

Sylvari Elementalist 48

I have been stuck on my personal quest at the level 28 step, Dead of Winter. I’m now level 48, and I’ve been going back to try to do that quest every few levels, hoping that one of these times I’ll at least come close. Alas, no.

When I get to what I’m assuming is the last room, there is a Veteran Risen Abomination and four smaller undead mooks. The mooks go down quite easily, but the big guy… he hits me twice and I go down. And for some reason he is always completely focused on me. I have three ghosts and a three other Sylvari with me, and he completely ignores them, and runs straight for me. If I go Wind form, I can keep ahead of him mostly, but it’s really just a long lesson in frustration, because the other six guys with me in the instance don’t do enough damage to get past his regeneration. And as soon as I take a couple of hits, and switch into Water attunement for a bit of healing, he can easily keep pace with me. ( And subsequently squishes me to paste. )

This is actually a situation that can be overcome with brains rather than brawn.

Remember that hallway full of traps you passed through on your way to the room with the abomination?

(Now, the fight AFTER the abomination… that one is tough. I had to kite and abuse the AI a fair bit to win that one as a squishy mage.)

I’m so glad someone else posted on this, I was waiting for the forums to open up to talk about the same thing. So far I’ve attempted it 5 or so times (not counting the double digit deaths each attempt) and the only way I’ve beaten him was by kitting him and taking 5 minutes to whittle him slowly down. (As a thief multiple level attempts most recent was at 33 I believe, and then only by abusing sneak attack on double pistols to bleed him dry.) But as said he seems to prioritize me and no one in my party until I drop, then half my party seems confused about reviving me.

The other problem I’ve had with this encounter, after you do the second trap gauntlet (when the ghosts join you, the spike traps on the floor) if you make it to the end the ghosts want to engage on the enemy right away, no chance to recuperate if you stepped on the last set of traps.

And then Mazdak… the only time I’ve seen him beat or heard of him being beat is by people kitting and spamming the ranged chain lightning.

SwashbucklerXX.4328:

This is actually a situation that can be overcome with brains rather than brawn.

Remember that hallway full of traps you passed through on your way to the room with the abomination?

(Now, the fight AFTER the abomination… that one is tough. I had to kite and abuse the AI a fair bit to win that one as a squishy mage.)

Have you actually tried doing it this way? The veteran might kill me in 2 hits but the traps will kill in 1. I don’t see where you will find the time to wait for the traps .

Khisanth.2948:

SwashbucklerXX.4328:

This is actually a situation that can be overcome with brains rather than brawn.

Remember that hallway full of traps you passed through on your way to the room with the abomination?

(Now, the fight AFTER the abomination… that one is tough. I had to kite and abuse the AI a fair bit to win that one as a squishy mage.)

Have you actually tried doing it this way? The veteran might kill me in 2 hits but the traps will kill in 1. I don’t see where you will find the time to wait for the traps .

I’m having the same problem. As an elementalist you don’t have any option but to run as the Veteran just goes for you and not the NCP’s or my elemental.

It’s possible to time the pull so you can run over when the traps aren’t active, but it’s much more difficult to time the traps correctly once the veteran is chasing/hitting you. So if you want to try the trap method, you need to be able to survive hits while you keep him on the trap.

I’d say try Staff in Earth (imob him over traps out of range) Signet of Air -> then switch to air, Lightning Surge -> Static Field -> Gust -> Signet of Earth -> Mist Form -> Lightning Surge → Signet of Air

Should be enough, but you will need to check if all the effects apply and modify your build accordingly.

Alternatively, the slower but safer way may be to equip signet of air and circle-strafe kite while blasting him.

Phaedrus.7159:

Alternatively, the slower but safer way may be to equip signet of air and circle-strafe kite while blasting him.

This is definitely good advice. Signet of Air was the only thing keeping me out of the big guys’ way and I’m not the most skilled player, so this should definitely help you. It also helps when you’re fighting Mazdak. He’s worse because all of your spells are replaced with lolsword skills.

When you get past the abomination and on to Mazdak, just spam the second skill on him, keep your distance and keep moving. The second skill is pretty much Air Attunements first spell, so you’ll end up taking out most, if not all, of his little rotten buddies while you’re focusing on him.

Good luck!

Phaedrus.7159:

Alternatively, the slower but safer way may be to equip signet of air and circle-strafe kite while blasting him.

That’s what I’ve had the most success with, but not nearly enough. The room just isn’t big enough to kite him long enough to kill him.

I’m not sure the trap hallway would work very well. I suppose I could try teleporting to the other side with him on my tail. He is fully affected by the traps?

Khisanth.2948:

SwashbucklerXX.4328:

This is actually a situation that can be overcome with brains rather than brawn.

Remember that hallway full of traps you passed through on your way to the room with the abomination?

(Now, the fight AFTER the abomination… that one is tough. I had to kite and abuse the AI a fair bit to win that one as a squishy mage.)

Have you actually tried doing it this way? The veteran might kill me in 2 hits but the traps will kill in 1. I don’t see where you will find the time to wait for the traps .

Yes, that’s how I killed the abomination with my elementalist. It was dicey, but I pulled it off. I assume the traps were meant as a way to kill the abom because they de-activate after that battle.

That’s not to say I don’t think the mission needs some adjusting. In general, it would be nice if your NPC companions were more useful and pulled more aggro in the story missions. I know the player is supposed to be the hero, but surely the great heroes Caithe and Traherne have learned to do more than auto-attack, haven’t they?

My suggestion is… use staff and remember to change attunments while running around. You should be able to keep him from hiting you by using the slow attacks, stun, pushback and roll. This give you like lots of ways to not only slow the mob… But also for you to avoid damage.

All i know is that i died 2-3 times on the fight after that one but you can still do it with alot of running around and CC.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I’ve reduced the difficulty of both the abomination and Mazdak; it’s still important to use the lightning attack on the sword to thin down his bodyguards (since it can chain to all of them) but it should be a lot easier now. We’re on a slower update schedule now, so it won’t hit the live servers until the Monday update. (9/17)

Again, thanks for the specific info, it really helps me to quickly look at and adjust these issues.

Uh … what sword? -_-

Pretty sure he meant staff, since that’s what they’d all been discussing in the thread

The air attunement/lightning attack on the staff will hit multiple foes helping to thin down the adds.

Wow, thank you very much! I just read this thread and I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one with difficulties (honestly, I just thought it was my lack of skills), and even more glad to see it fixed!

And yes, he meant sword, more specifically Caladbolg.

One other thing about the traps, I can’t use mist form to get over them, even though it says that you’re invulnerable in the description. Bug or intended?

Linnea.5146:

And yes, he meant sword, more specifically Caladbolg.

That much could be guessed but I was just making sure that it wasn’t like the previous mission’s(Bramble Walls) missing golems.

Edit:
Finally got through that after wasting some more gold. Mazdak himself was killed on the first try but that is only because of Jeffrey’s hint. This brings up a new issue. You don’t get a chance to look at the sword’s skillbar before the fight starts. At the very least it would have been better to switch to the sword as soon as the door is opened rather than after you have already aggroed Mazdak. “Here is a completely alien skillbar now go fight that boss.” is not a great way to do things. Even better would be switching to the sword BEFORE the doors are opened that way you can practice the skills on the spiders.

So what changed in the end? Swapped vitality/condition damage shoulder and chest for precision/toughness. Ate an artisan tuning crystal(4% of toughness and 2% of vitaility added to condition damage). Ate a white cake(+3% burn duration) which only adds about half a second of burn to Flame Burst but I also have a 30% chance to burn on crit. The gear change also added around 4% crit chance. Replaced Armor of Earth for Signet of Air as suggested above. Replaced Final Shielding with Renewing Stamina because if something can kill you in 2 hits Final Shielding is completely useless.

The crystal and cake made it feel a bit like cheating but I’ve stop caring, this is just to get things out of the way so I can get the POI later on. The biggest issue for me is still the high cost of experimenting with solutions but that is not specific to this one mission. I would really prefer not to have to check any outside source for these things.

I’ve been stuck on this for so long, over 10 tries. Once you wipe on him it’s impossible to come back without resetting the instance. The AI is completely brain dead, it’s atrocious. He always goes after you, is extremely fast and can’t be snared; knocks you down and that’s about it. I guess I’m lucky because it takes him 3 hits to kill me. Glad they’re implementing a fix

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I’ve reduced the difficulty of both the abomination and Mazdak; it’s still important to use the lightning attack on the sword to thin down his bodyguards (since it can chain to all of them) but it should be a lot easier now. We’re on a slower update schedule now, so it won’t hit the live servers until the Monday update. (9/17)

Again, thanks for the specific info, it really helps me to quickly look at and adjust these issues.

Thank you very much. I look forward to being able to complete it early next week. ( Though honestly, I will try again before then with some of the advice given here. )

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I’ve reduced the difficulty of both the abomination and Mazdak; it’s still important to use the lightning attack on the sword to thin down his bodyguards (since it can chain to all of them) but it should be a lot easier now. We’re on a slower update schedule now, so it won’t hit the live servers until the Monday update. (9/17)

Again, thanks for the specific info, it really helps me to quickly look at and adjust these issues.

Can you be a bit more specific? Simply nerfing both of them doesn’t seem like the right answer.

God, I’m glad it’s not just me. I’ve tried this so many times I’ve just given up and left the personal story languishing at that lvl 30 mission, and I’m now lvl 41 (Mesmer)! Good to hear it’s being tweaked. Here’s to the 17th, when I can continue my personal story

Man, I remember that fight on my mesmer. I just ran around kiting for 45 minutes complaining in voice chat how it was stupid. Glad to hear it’s being fixed a bit.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Khisanth.2948:

Can you be a bit more specific? Simply nerfing both of them doesn’t seem like the right answer.

I’d rather not get into specifics, since I don’t want to reveal everything behind the curtain. : ) But I reduced Mazdak’s health, reduced the health regen on the abomination, and removed a couple of the extra spawns.

I hope this isn’t coming across the wrong way but while I appreciate the fact that something has been done it feels like it’s the wrong thing. The problem seems more mob AI related than mob stat related. After my final fight with the abomination it occurred to me that the ‘glued to me’ behavior seems to be triggered by or very close to when all the other risen with it has been killed.

I can’t try this anymore but if someone else is doing this right now could you try leaving one of the weaker undeads alive until the abomination is dead?

The ability to replay Personal Stories would be nice.
I am definitely not a big fan of the PS right now but it would be nice if I can go back and redo all of them after you guys have ironed out all the kinks.

What you needed to do was kill minions as fast as possible, then blind and/or stun boss and quickly kill him (he can easily 2-hits-kill you).

Dunno if it’s because I’m a Mesmer, but I simply do NO DAMAGE AT ALL to the **** abomination. Have tried greatsword and staff, melee weapons are suicidal.
Hope the monday it’s doable once it’s fixed.

I’m on a mesmer. I gave up on this quest after much death when I was level 29 (I actually thought it was bugged or something, hahahaha). I went back to try again tonight – I’m now level 38 and my gear is pretty good, so I can survive longer. But, I still can’t do this quest!!! I’m struggling with the mesmer a bit, I’ll admit, but I haven’t had anywhere near this much trouble with any of the other quests. I was thinking that I had to change all of my skills and weapons or something, and try a different style of play…
I tried the hallway twice. The first time, I never even made it to a ‘safe spot’. The second time, I was doing okay, but then he started pounding on me, and kiting in that hallway isn’t really a good idea.
Anyway, after a couple rounds of broken gear and not much significant progress again tonight, I found this thread. I’ll give it another try after the patch.

Note to the OP and several other posters – it makes no difference coming back in a few levels – as soon as you enter the instance, you are ‘levelled down’ to 28 (look in the bottom left corner of your screen).

Like I said you will need a skill that blind or stun him. Let Lowerth tank it and keep up the stun or blind and you should be fine. But remember if you still have minions running around it going to a hard fight. Since you are a Mesmer use staff and alway pop up your chaos armor to blind it. Use phantasmal warlock to up your dps. Your chaos wind and chaos storm will cause weakness and vulnerability so it can’t hit you that hard.

Dedlite.4791:

Note to the OP and several other posters – it makes no difference coming back in a few levels – as soon as you enter the instance, you are ‘levelled down’ to 28 (look in the bottom left corner of your screen).

That is not true. If you come back later you can have more trait choices and elite skill choices.

Just wanted to chime in and say this quest has been killing me too! I’m a level 32 ranger now and I’m sure I’m not the most effective player, but this one is near impossible. I made it past the abomination a couple of times (after multiple deaths each time) by luring him into the hallway both times. There’s a safe spot between the sets of traps. But Mazdak himself I can barely touch. I was seriously wondering if I’d have to give up on the character. I’ll be looking forward to trying it on Monday.

Okay… I felt like being punished, so I tried it again on my lvl 42 mesmer. I had just changed my traits, so thought I’d see if there was a difference. It was still not easy, but doable.
I used all of my skills that remove boons from the foe, kited him until he was about 2/3 health (most of that from illusion damage, not me). Problem is, if my illusions die, his health pops right back up, and it’s hard to spawn more illusions on the run. So, in the end, I got him to 2/3 health and brought him into the hallway where the spikes finished him off about half a second before I died. I picked a safe corner and popped a healing seed beside me and just kept removing boons. It wasn’t pretty, and it’s far from proper.
Oh, and also, I had ‘restarted’ after dying there, so all of the minions were already dead.

Then Mazdak. LOL. I brought his minions back to the previous room and killed them. Then revived my party (they were fortunately close to the door). Then we went after Mazdak. At first I thought, this is easy, until at about 30% the undead came out. Then my party died, and I died. I came back in and killed the adds, and died reviving my party. But I did get them revived on the next try, while being hit beside a healing seed. I really couldn’t do much damage without my party… the sword wasn’t so great. Anyway, the good news is, after that he’s easy because he doesn’t spawn adds a second time.

Khisanth.2948:

Dedlite.4791:

Note to the OP and several other posters – it makes no difference coming back in a few levels – as soon as you enter the instance, you are ‘levelled down’ to 28 (look in the bottom left corner of your screen).

That is not true. If you come back later you can have more trait choices and elite skill choices.

Yes, you’re right on that point. But your HP and AP are scaled down to a level 28 point, even if you’re at lvl 40 when entering the instance. That the point I was trying to make – there are plenty of people who assume that at level 40 they will walk this quest.

Shaar.5418:

Anyway, the good news is, after that he’s easy because he doesn’t spawn adds a second time.

Sorry to tell you but yes, he ,does. 3 times.

Did they something change in the forum? I can’t reply properly.
Anyway, You way he spawns adds 3 times? There were 3 in the room initially, then 3 more immediately, then three more when his health was low and that was it. 9 altogether. If you mean there should have been more, I don’t know what to say. I interrupted the spawn? My quest was bugged? It varies?

Dedlite.4791:

Shaar.5418:

Anyway, the good news is, after that he’s easy because he doesn’t spawn adds a second time.

Sorry to tell you but yes, he ,does. 3 times.

Oh, and now the forum is working.

Hooray! Made it through on the first try this time! Of course, that probably means that now it’s a bit TOO easy, but after all the grief it gave me I’m not complaining. Now I’m off to catch up on the other quests I leveled past while I was waiting. Thank you for listening!

I did this earlier today. Probably ever-so slightly easy, but I also recognise that it would have been a lot harder with an Elementalist (I did it with a Ranger). Seems a good compromise for balance to me!

I had to bring a friend (guardian) with me – this was before the recent update – we still died a couple of times before making it – we were both overleveled (yeah, I know you level down, but still helps a bit). So really glad you made changes to this.

And I appreciate the fact the the devs need feedback to tweak these issues. There will always be the “this is too easy, just l2p, learn to dodge, learn your class” etc. But if a large number of ppl are really having issues with a specific quest, we need to remember to post on these forums, that’s the only way to let Anet know.

On a side note, I just hope they will allow those who help others out on storylines to get some sort of reward – it’s my understanding that right now you get nada, not even karma. That kind of throws a wet blanket on the dynamic team feeling GW2 is creating.

I’ve been stuck in here for hours. I’ve tried it multiple times, exiting & re-entering but for some reason I cannot light the Ancestor’s bone to light the torches to move on. Is this bugged? I’m on Ferguson’s Crossing. This is rather annoying lol

edit: none of the torches allow me to interact with them when i have the Ancestor’s bone.

I almost flew through it now without any problems at all (squishy ele), the fix sure helped there. Finally I can continue with my storyline!

final edit: after hours of attempting & re-entering I was finally able to interact with the torches & complete the quest. No clue why it took so many attempts & was so buggy. For whatever reason the dialog with Lowerth wasn’t switching at the gate/door to trigger the torches to be available. Rather annoying.

Uerrgh, dead of winter. That leg was absolutely ridiculous. Don’t fret. there are plenty more vet abominations in Orr.

I’am also having a problem using the torchs/ while the leg is in my hand, no activation on that right side wall.