Here’s something I’ve learned doing the personal stories: always ignore the NPC’s advice. Most especially always ignore them when they say some form of “Hury up!” or “Protect Me!”. Those are both indicators that they’re about to agro half the map or do some other form of strategic suicide, such as fighting in a mortar field.
When I first started doing personal stories, I trusted the NPCs (ie devs) to not ruin the story. This was a mistake. Actually “following the story” from the NPCs will often make it MUCH harder or even impossible to complete. Instead, employ classic meta-gaming: chase the goal, ignore the story. This will make every personal story quest pretty easy to solo as any class.
Every time the NPCs say to rush into things, that’s the wrong thing to do. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a story quest where it’s not safe to let the NPCs die, too. I’ve done all of them except Charr and don’t recall one where a dead NPC wasn’t either a good thing or at least not a bad thing from a gaming standpoint. They’re worse than ranger pets with how they charge all over agro’ing everything.
BTW, you don’t have to totally ignore the stories — just don’t take what they say as useful or even remotely applicable to completing the game side of the quest. It is safe take as much time as you like to watch the cut-scenes, pause for story review, game-prep, or even extended AFK in the gaps between battles. Don’t let NPCs rush you into things you’re not ready to do.
