Guild Wars 2

I’m reporting back to say that I have succeeded at completing this! First I changed the graphic settings to Best Performance, and similarly the sound. Being 80 in exotic armor with 80 food and potion may have improved my chances, but so did a single-minded focus to take out the Veterans in the Courtyard. My best suggestion is that once in the Courtyard, don’t target anything but one Veteran at a time, and kill the first one as fast as you can. The npcs will work with you that way.

Yeah, no. Pretty much undoable solo now. Target 1 vet in the cy, tag it, 15-20 things run at me. Meanwhile a steady stream of Pact forces run in 1… by 1… by 1., & die… & die… & die, w/o lifting a finger to fight as I’m standing right there.
If it’s meant to take a 5-man group, that’s fine – just label the quest [Group]. If it’s actually meant to be soloable, then stop bugging the kitten out of stuff. Geez.

I just finished this on my 60 Guardian equipped with level 39 yellows (with +40 power nourishment).

Maybe they fixed this (don’t remember if they were level 59 or 61), but it was doable. It was my first time doing the mission and it took me a while to realize the risen respawn endlessly until you kill the Veterans, but I could safely ignore the trash and go straight for the Veterans until they all died. Is it really that difficult? I can see why other classes with less healing and condition cleansers would have problems though.

I’m doing it right now, and no i cannot safely ignore the adds, if i do, then i end up with 5 or 6 on me and take me down fast. Dodging is quickly negated by their speed.

Very disappointed it’s still not fixed, especially since a new build went in today. It’s rather obvious that the buffing of Risen wasn’t thought out as clearly as it should have. Seems it was forgotten that they exist in more places than just Orr…

OK.. just tried it today after a few days and still got the same issue as many others are having… looking at the original post which dates 8 days back, why haven’t anyone tried to fix this issue or even bother to reply to it beside “we have no idea when it’ll be live”? Considering that it obviously keeps a number of people back from completing their story line, this should be quite an escalated issue. It’s extremley frustrating, and more so since support evidently consider this problem being of low priority.

Remove the stupid friggin acolytes I’ve completed this quest with no problems on 4 other characters, now all NPC’s die in like 10sec and I’m left trying to fight hundreds of mobs at once. Reducing their lvl won’t solve the problem. REMOVE THE ACOLYTES!

Until then I’m boycotting the personal story. Screw it. It’s not worth my time.

Also had a tough time as 71 Warrior GS/Bow. Took about 15+ attempts to get through to Dragon. Constant spawning of undead mobs, never less than 20 to 30 + three veterans up. Tried using siege weapon but this only reaches parts of the court yard, tactic not effective.

Finally was able to kite acolyte around the courtyard. When I got in trouble ran up stairs to kite the undead swarm. Finally found a stack of boxes to jump on where the swarm would not follow and was able to range the acolyte. Soon as it died all the swarming undead vanished / ran away.

Still think this is bugged! Once i killed the dragon the next phase is to talk with the three representatives from the factions standing around the courtyard. Then finally talk with Trahaerne. On my way to final stage out of no where acolyte veteran spawns with group of 5 undead. Wasn’t paying attention and died but was able to rez at checkpoint and complete.

Seriously, I cannot understand how somebody can design something as frustrating and anti-fun as this mission. Come on, infinite Risen respawn on a 10 second timer when you have to retake the courtyard, while the incredibly dumb Pact NPCs get oneshot by the even most basic risen. How on earth am I supposed to retake that pile of feces, when I automatically aggro every risen in the area as soon as I attempt to step on the circle, or to rezz one of the fallen Pact fools? How on earth am I supposed to even remotely enjoy that part of the story mission?

I absolutely don’t understand how somebody can design something as frustrating and anti-fun as this mission and leave it just like that.

I am an Engineer, 10 levels above the story’s requirements, got the best green gear for my level and this mission is still impossible to accomplish, because the risen have infinite respawn on a ridiculously low timer and are as tanky as veterans in the open world. Can somebody explain to me how to get this mission done?

How about nerfing the crap out of the stupid risen and not make the summonner clowns veterans in the first place, so that people can finally get this pile of feces mission done without losing their minds?

If you want to have a look on how to not do things, just take this mission for future reference.

i didn’t notice a change in difficulty since i completed it twice earlier on other characters. no consumables, no downed state, no deaths, no kiting, no jumping nor terrain tricks

it was over in 20 minutes…

Just went through same hell. Had no problem until the courtyard, then it was nothing but continuously losing ground as the respawns far outlasted the NPCs. If I couldn’t get through it the first time, I’m not sure how I was ever going to get through it with broken armor and no NPCs to pull aggro, esp. when any dents I made in the previous attempt were wiped out upon rez.

Finally did get through with the help of 2 other players and focusing completely on the vets, but for most people I’d say this is almost undoable solo. None of my previous attempts with other alts were anywhere near this difficult.

Level 79 Engineer. Heal bomber spec, up to date Cleric gear. I get dropped FAST by some of this stuff. It’s almost like I have Confusion on me, but I don’t. When I try to run, I get pulled back half the time by krait. When I do get away, the few NPCs that are still alive stand around and do nothing to help.

The Acolytes summon something (Plague Carrier I guess, but the combat log says “Unknown using Explode”) that hits for 7,224 damage, slaps about six conditions on me, and destroys all my turrets, while I’m being swarmed by other things. And then the Acolyte walks away and fully heals itself. There are two of those things still in the courtyard and one is accompanied by a veteran captain.

Edit: and for reference, I have about 9k health while downleveled in that mission, rather than the 16k I have normally. A single 7k hit is not something to shrug off.

My sentiments exactly as posted by others above, once you hit the courtyard phase then there is something seriously out of line with regards difficulty when soloing (dont know about parties as not tried this way yet).
Died on starting the courtyard phase, restarted from last checkpoint, ran back all allies dead in areas that you could not rez anyway, all the risen had respawned (and maybe a few more) and could not get near anything without a mob stunning, crippling continously until you was dead again.
Quit after 6 deaths and will return with help to clear but until then not worth it.

I spent about 3 hours doing this on my Thief. All my armor broke until I was wearing my hat and some blue shoes I picked up while doing it. I very, VERY, VERY slowly ressed all the NPC’s to 99% (with Shadow Refuge) and then quickly got them all up to distract for a little bit. I then proceeded to, for an hour, kill one of the two Risen that were spawning more by kiting with a Shortbow and running around in circles. It took me 8 tries (I stopped getting the NPC’s because they did nothing but die instantly) and I managed to, very slowly, kill them off. The last mob was easy with the allied NPC’s up.

I actually did it with my mesmer. Got swarmed, died over and over again. But you guys can actually get past the courtyard by focusing on the two Veteran Acolytes in the middle (they really stands out in the crowd, so you can’t miss them). Don’t bother res the NPC or trying to thin the Risen line, just get those Acolytes down for good. After that all the Risen disappeared.

I also got one minor bug at the end, when I was talking with the three Orders representatives, a Veteran Risen Squire came out of nowhere and attacked, although I’ve checked and no Risen remains after the courtyard phase.

I am new to GW2 and failed hard when I hit the courtyard last night. I couldn’t believe how much more difficult this was compared to the rest of the storyline. Fighting with broken gear didn’t help things and starting the instance fresh with repaired gear just ended up with the same result at the courtyard. After spending way too much time at it, I finally gave up. I am relieved to learn that this is bugged and not supposed to be this difficult. It definitely takes the fun out of things. I may try some tips others have posted to see if that gets me through the never-ending mobs. I hope this gets fixed soon! though!

So ya.. this quest makes me hate the game. Really seriously frustrating. Over an hour spent on just the courtyard phase and no sign of completing it in sight. It’s extremely disheartening.

i don’t remember it being this hard when i did it months back with another character (ranger)… although i remember dying even then. but just now i’ve died over 10 times at the courtyard part… and had to restart at the check point. It seems completely impossible with my elementalist..

i’m level 73, but being downleveled to 59. The endless mobs and apparently useless NPCs … i feel like its impossible to beat this solo /unless/ maybe you are a pet-class (like necro or ranger), because then maybe your pets “make up for” the useless NPCs, and take some of the aggro off you long enough that you have a chance to get one of those veterans down.

Minus that.. i guess you need to hope you have friends :\

So… moments after i say that i pass the courtyard… by accident.

(after reading some posts here) … what i did was this, it should work if you are range.

1. Target the veterans.. you do /not/ have to kill them.. target them.. hit them and get them to chase you.

2. Have them chase you “up” the steps.. to where those trebuchet (catapult?) things are that you helped fix in the step just before you are suppose to take the courtyard. So you’re basically pulling the veterans OUT of the ‘circle/ring’…

3. Once the veterans chase you up the steps… you jump /down/ and into the courtyard. So long as the veterans are /not/ in the courtyard the “progress” meter on “capturing the courtyard” will start to go up.

If the veterans come back down the steps, so they are once again in the “ring” of the courtyard, just run up the steps again… so they’ll chase you out of the courtyard a second time.

If you’re lucky the “invulnerable” npcs near the weapons on the stone wall will actually catch aggro from the veterans and the veterans will stupidly attack these npcs while you can safely jump back in the courtyard and watch the progress meter go up.

Killing the veterans is not important. … once the courtyard is captured they will disappear. and you can fight the dragon, which is a piece of cake, after the courtyard scene.

Edit: its possible that being a elementalist helped me in outrunning the little spawns of the Acolytes, since eles can do swiftness a bunch of times when attuned to air. But.. i think other classes should be able to manage by exploiting the routing paths that npc-enemies take.

Edit 2: Apparently the un-defeated veterans will appear in the courtyard with your ‘friendly-npcs’ during their ‘party’ where they celebrate defeating the dragon. (as seen in the attached picture. My quest line says i need to check in with my ally friends, after we defeated the dragon… but….! those veterans i didn’t really defeat are still there :P

Avoid them! as they will attack you, and the friendly npcs won’t help at all anymore (nor will the friendly-npcs die or get attacked by the veterans). It was easy enough for me to avoid the veterans and get to my ‘green star’ objectives and finish the instance though.

I finally completed this, mostly by luck – and thanks to those who posted before me. As 61 necro, on my second attempt.
The courtyard IS a problem. The solution DOES seem to be related to getting at the Acolytes…..luring them out of the courtyard, and probably killing them….not sure on the last point. I killed 2 of them by luring them out, running up the ramp, and jumping over the side, then circling back. The last one I lured out and the courtyard scene ended.
I’m not sure how you’re supposed to kill the dragon….it seemed to take care of itself.
Back to that last Acolyte…..he was still in the courtyard after the scene ended….just wandering around. No NPCs seemed to notice. He only noticed me when I attacked….but then he nearly killed me. I totally agree with all the comments about this quest…maybe some tweaking or some better instructions given by the NPCs.

I’m very frustrated with this part of the storyline right now. I’ve spent over an hour trying to whittle down the undead in the courtyard, all my allies are dead and continue to die when revived, undead continue to spawn no matter how many I kill, to no avail. I know it’s not a level issue, I’m a lvl 61 ranger scaled down to level 57 for this part, and my race/profession has plenty of revive options that should help, but just aren’t enough. The earlier parts of the story were fine! Challenging, and doable, but the courtyard has me stuck and very irritated that I spent all this time on it.

I’m glad to know it’s not just me, though I wish I had known sooner not to waste my time.

Please, someone fix the infinite stream of undead! Just moving the creatures down a level won’t help, the NPCs need to be able to hold their own too, so I’m not swarmed by a group of over 30 undead when I even step a foot inside the control area.

Thank you in advance!

Edit:
I took the suggestion of some of the other posters, and was able to complete “control” of the courtyard by luring the Veteran Acolyte outside the red ring. The remainder of the story went smoothly, except for after I had defeated the dragon and it was time to check in with the leaders of all the groups. The Veteran and other undead were still alive (I hadn’t killed him in the quest, just led him outside the circle), and as soon as I got near the people I was supposed to be talking to, he began spawning undead again. None of the NPCs were targeted or attacked (which might have been helpful) and I died twice before I was able to out-run/ not aggro any of the undead. I went to talk to Traherne, the last part of the quest, and the undead found me again, leaving me dead when the cutscene ended. I’m pretty confident I would not have been able to defeat the Vet or any of the undead he spawned, as they were all level 61…even just one was enough to defeat me with all of my armor broken.

Hope some of this helps.

:o I just whistled through it on an lvl 60 elementalist. I got downed once, but got out of combat and healed.

Yeah, focus on the veterans in the courtyard, ignore everything else.

Tried this mission today and failed hard at the courtyard. Eventually gave up in frustration. Was cake on my first two characters but now it’s unbalanced beyond belief. No use in even trying to whittle down the risen numbers since they just respawn anyway. I won’t even mention how useless our soldiers are.

You need to use a little tactical nous. Target the Veterans from range, or stay highly mobile, but either way ensure that ALL your damage goes to them.

I just completed this quest line. I had the same issues others were facing above until I

I have another problem.. I have tried this mission 3 times already. Every time Agent Zott sticks in the middle of his way to the lighthouse. The party walks into the spot where the fight with risen should happen, but it doesn’t. Later some risen appear but after their death Zott remains on his place forever…
UPD. Mission un-stuck by itself while I was writing it. Any way the delay was quite long (10 minutes or so).

Tried it tonight for an hour. The Vets are L61 and all Vet npc mobs are L61. When trying to kill the Vet, you get totally jumped on by at least 10 and no way to keep away from them and fight the vet. Just got a big repair bill out of it. Have done this two other times with no problem. As others have said, “Frustrated”

Well, since creating this topic I have completed that mission 3 times on 3 different characters. Two of those times were done with the help of a fully geared 80 warrior. However I have also completed it solo with a 59 engineer. The trick to doing it is to focus fire the two 61 veteran acolytes as soon as you’re done taking back the siege placements. You have to do it while the courtyard is filled with friendly npcs who can occupy most of the minions. Find the acolytes and kill them as fast as you can, as soon as they go down, every minion they summoned will disappear with them, with both of them gone, you will have very few risen left to deal with. You’ll still have to deal with two 61 veterans and a 62 veteran, but they can be easily kited.

This is the only way you can get past this part of the story.

There must be a bug in this mission that makes the allies in the courtyard not show up or something because I just did this mission again a couple of days ago and it was just as cake as it had always been. The screen someone posted showing the huge swarm of risen looks almost completely devoid of allies compared to what I’ve always seen when I play it.

When I failed it with my 79 engineer, there were a bunch of allies that had kind of stopped on the docks, and a few others that died in the courtyard itself.

I had actually managed to kill everything in the courtyard except two acolytes and one veteran captain, and after several tries I still couldn’t finish off a single, isolated acolyte and the fresh hordes it spawned when I aggroed it. Probably a ranged build could have done it, but I didn’t want to retrain and regear for this one mission when I haven’t had trouble anywhere else with that build.

Having the same problem here, I get stuck right at the “capture the courtyard” objective. That courtyard is impossible, the NPC allies are practically useless and die like sheep to the slaughter, and the vets are 2 levels higher than the quest requirement. Are you kidding me? They seriously expect me to go Rambo on them or something? Basically this leaves my lvl 59 Engineer fighting at least 3 vets and a few dozen adds practically alone (and it’s like my mere presence in the courtyard practially aggros half the enemies in the area). Yea I’m good but I’m not friggin Chuck Norris. Is this some kind of sick joke? Or is there something I’m missing? Couldn’t they at least give me some friendly advice? This is ridiculous, what a joke.

FYI: One of the 3 siege items is a very powerful cannon you can use to clear the courtyard while never having anything attack you at all. It’s VERY simple, however the instance does not direct you to this cannon at all.

What the kitten is this quest? It’s NOT fun. kitten, I actually liked the story up until this point. 47 minutes of wasting time. Please, I’m trying to like this game. Maybe I’m a masochist or something.
NPCs casually stroll to the courtyard. Veterans have too much health. The Vet at the courtyard nonstop spawns minions and completely heals if you die.
In before I get banned for content detrimental to the community.

I tried the quest again last night and i’m please to report i beat the living kitten out of the already dead undead. so i’m guessing one of three things happened.

1) the bug is fixed (but probably not cuz the the guy on top posted three hours ago saying there’s still a problem)

2) i became a much better player (might be slightly possible as i have trained in mob control with centaurs during this time figuring out the best ways to focus on one kill and literally blow away any minions that manage to catch me after speed boon using exploding pushback turrets, bought new equipment, and went into the courtyard with the only intent on killing the veterans then and there)

3) the bug randomly happens (which means when you realize you can’t win, stop trying and load up the quest from scratch rather than reviving endlessly and breaking all your equipment), because i do vaguely remember that there was one or two minions that were level 59…

and after i finished off the dragon and was at the debriefing, there was this one veteran that suddenly jumped out at me, probably missed him in the fight?

when you have to clear it, take out the vets that you can. You can take at a few at the start when all of the NPCs are still up. I had two left over after most NPCs had died, I died a few times trying to pull them but i got both of them and the whole mob up in the wall fighting an unkillable Lionguard. I got the NPCs up in the courtyard and we took out the lone mobs in the courtyard easily. I had a real hard time with it too, but pulling the vets on the wall works.

qianqiaoni.9827:

is there any success story of a LV60 ele running solo through this mission … or any one who can share some experience on solo this one ??

I did it at 59 as a ele, kill as many vets as you can before most of your NPCs are dead. If there are any left pull them up on the wall and they will get stuck on the unkillable lionguard, make sure the vet summoners get stuck on it. When you have them stuck you can rez NPCs and clear out the rest of the lone mobs.

Fix this bullkitten. Its supposed to be the highlight of your PVE experience.

This was pretty hilarious, in a bad way. At 65 the mobs in the courtyard wiped all my NPCs and I couldn’t down the Veterans before being assist-trained by a dozen or more normal mobs – I kept trying until my armour broke entirely.

So I upgraded all my gear to solid greens w/medallions and a rare weapon, and I was just able to drop the Veterans in time solo. It was bloody close though and nightmarish. Similar pains with the Krait summoner missions, but again got them done – with more deaths than seemed fair.

I wouldn’t mind replayable “Hard Mode” story stuff, but it should be intentional, not accidental!

Keirion.9105:

FYI: One of the 3 siege items is a very powerful cannon you can use to clear the courtyard while never having anything attack you at all. It’s VERY simple, however the instance does not direct you to this cannon at all.

Thanks, the cannon made the mission WAY easier to take out the veterans.

Hilarious, i could have sworn nothing was there (except some risen) last time i did the mission.

I’m adamant that there IS a bug, and it’s in Doern Vasquez. I’m not going to repeat what everyone else has said, but just summarise: 4th character through it and 2 sessions of 1 hours of torture. However, in both attempts, I noticed that after dying, the NPC’s would all die, except Wassisface and the whispers guys. They would walk back to the ship instead, happily ignoring the fighting. In the second session, after having been chased around by 20 frenzied risen for an hour, he suddenly came back for no apparent reason. The summoned minions started chasing the whispers soldiers instead. I could rez the NPCs again and pop-pop-pop the mission was successful. Is there a box of donuts on that ship that they need to finish or something? It really felt as if he was the key to this thing.

Just wanted to chime in to say that I had the same difficulties (and frustrations) others are experiencing. (59th level Guardian)

Even though it seems that there are workarounds, something doesn’t seem quite right. Each time I tried it I had different issues.

1st Time) Pathing on Allies worked but “Clear the Courtyard” section was impossible. Fairly quickly it was tons of reds to just a few greens. Packs of really fast mobs killing me in no time and overwhelming my allies. Not possible to revive them, I’d die too fast. I had a phone call and hung out in safety at the gate. After about 30+ min on the phone somehow (I wouldn’t have thought possible), the endless entry of new npcs finally whittled them down and I was able to succeed. As an experiment, I exited and tried again.
2nd Time) Pathing problems with the ally with the device to go into the tower (would not move) casued me to have to exit and restart.
3rd Time) Pathing with one of my gold allies kept him from moving with me but I was able to succeed by securing all the points on the wall and immediately making a beeline for one of those crazy acolytes that summon. As others have said they are the key. Was able to bring the first one down since all my allies were still up and move onto the next. Once they were gone as others have said, it seems to be do-able. Still, this could be yet another variation of a “buggy” mission and perhaps next time it would have not worked.

There’s no possible way this mission works as intended, since I just spent the last 30+ minutes fighting in the courtyard and constantly killing zombies and getting nowhere.
Reviving didn’t help. Restarting at a checkpoint if I died actually set me back farther.
The zombies are immune to cripple once they frenzy, despite at least one person here saying how he kited them.
I see people saying to kite the veterans out of the courtyard, which I had been attempting before posting here, but they reset and heal themselves fairly quickly once you get them out of the courtyard. Kiting the zombies in circles works to a point, but given that the frenzy and remove all crippling effects, hit for a ton of damage, are too numerous for dodge to really help with, and respawn as fast or faster than you can kill them… yeah. I could kite and kill quite a few even though cripple wasn’t working, but after half an hour and realizing that I was actually worse off than when I started the event, there didn’t seem to be a point to doing it anymore.
Killing the veterans before the NPC’s die may be possible, but considering something killed almost all of them in one swoop when the fight started that doesn’t seem likely. Pulling some out from the group didn’t work, either, since they shout for help and others charge from a fair distance away (they either reset or bring friends). If I started to revive someone, they’d make a beeline at me from across the courtyard, distance didn’t matter.
If this is how it’s supposed to be, well, forget it. I’ll go play something that’s more fun than slamming my privates in a door.

I was fighting some Risen elsewhere last night and noticed that the huge damage and pile of conditions (including confusion, which is deadly if you land a big hit right afterwards) happened then too. I wonder if something changed with Plaguebearers in regards to downleveling, or it was always this way.

Uhhh… Ditto on everything everybody has said about this part of the storyline to date. If this won’t be fixed soon, can you make antacids and blood pressure meds available in the gem store?

I was stuck on this as well, then I read this thread and someone mentioned to use the turret to take out the veterans in the courtyard.

Worked like a charm! Thank you!!

Yea this was a pain in the butt for me too. Died so many times in the courtyard. Even with Ranger pet-swapping & QZ rezzing I was able to get about 1-2 NPCs rezzed before I was focused and had to kite away. And then the NPCs would drop almost instantly. They were no help. Took me forever, but somehow I was eventually able to win, getting lucky and rezzing enough NPCs to keep the never-ending risen off me long enough to rez more NPCs and eventually down the Vets.

Indeed, the turret seems to be the answer- I’ve tried the Courtyard unsuccessfully several times before, and can state that it was almost too easy with the turret.

I didn’t go into the courtyard until all veterans were downed from afar. I targeted the turret on all veteran mobs while my NPCs stayed close by.

Happy questing!

digiowl.9620:

Hilarious, i could have sworn nothing was there (except some risen) last time i did the mission.

Based on the picture that looks like the Sonic Harmonizer which means you have to be a Priory member and picked that particular route.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retribution#Walkthrough Covers the different things you can do depending on the previous choices.

TIL, also means i could have saved myself a whole lot of pain on my engineer as i picked the two charr…

I am starting to think that this mission, and a few others, have a serious issue with discoverability of options.