Guild Wars 2

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a pretty bad video game player. I’m CERTAINLY bad at Guild Wars 2. But I cannot imagine how one might complete the Personal Story quest Forging the Pact. I know people have beaten it (this is obvious since people have already been having major issues with level 70 and up Personal Stories), but it is absolutely impossible for me to complete on my Thief.

Let me start at the beginning. After talking to a bunch of people, my character’s mentor sets out to some ruins outside a fort to resue a research team. Aside from my character, there is only the mentor and a sword ’n board NPC. In my earliest attempts to get through the ruins, I tried slowly whittling down the Orr forces to progress. I quickly found out this was a mistake as each pull always brought AT LEAST FOUR enemies which would kill the mentor in seconds while the sword ’n board NPC did minimal damage and no “tanking” whatsoever (leaving all of the work up to me).

Well, no worries, right? Sure it takes forever, but I’ll EVENTUALLY get through this if I can play better, right? Well, no. My character takes mostly toughness/vitality/healing traits. His DPS is complete crap. And many would be amused by the utter horror that crossed my face when THE ENEMIES BEGAN RESPAWNING BEFORE I COULD EVEN CLEAR OUT TWO PULLS. Well, this sure made things interesting. So I did the only thing that was at all possible: I rushed to the research group and used stealth skills to drop aggro.

Little did I know that this is where the complete and utter frustration of difficulty would come in. I basically had to defend the researchers while waves of undead attacked me. Not any of the NPCs, ALL of them would attack ME. This was no small number either, it was easily ten at once. I suspect my stealthing skills didn’t properly reset the enemies I had been escaping from. Immediately upon my death, all of the researcher NPCs and the two NPCs initially escorting me were downed. Luckily, all the enemy NPCs went straight for the checkpoint where I would respawn. I was then forced to perform the incredibly cheesy tactic of dying and respawning in the same spot while whittling down the monsters. This took an hour and a half.

So after this, I’m given another major shock – I have to rescue MORE researchers. By now, I was ready to punch the next person to talk to me in real life out of the sheer frustration this has caused me. I hold back, swallow my soul or something and proceed to use the same tactic of stealthing and dodging to get to the second research team. I easily dispatch the one mob giving the team ire without taking any damage. This wasn’t because I was skilled or had incredible stats (indeed, ALL of my gear was broken from the earlier rescue of the first research team), but because the NPC group actually appeared somewhat capable for once. Unfortunately, after rescuing the team, they’re IMMEDIATELY warped to my dead mentor in the middle of endlessly respawning waves of enemies. I cannot resurrect a single NPC, the checkpoint is too far away for me to cheese kill the mobs this time, and my progress is very effectively stopped. This quest is two levels lower than my character.

My problem isn’t necessarily that I’m being punished for being an awful player that made awful choices in stats and trait spec. My problem is that ArenaNet seems to have utterly failed to grasp the concept of difficulty and a difficulty curve. The Personal Story before this one, Battle of Claw Island, is literally impossible to lose. I was barely on level for that particular Personal Story. The next quest, however, is impossible in spite of (or probably because of) me being two levels higher than the recommendation. I have no idea how the sidekicking system works in how it reverts stats to be appropriate for the level, but I suspect if I had done this quest on-level my character would be stronger. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, though, as either way there is no way I could have been prepared for the ridiculous difficulty of this quest with a RAMPING DOWN of difficulty with the previous quest.

Anyways, if anyone knows any good tips or cheesy tricks I can use to get past Forging the Pact, I would be VERY grateful. ALL of my friends quit playing this game already, despite me finding it so very good. Obviously, I’m not going to “quit the game” over this, but it’s definitely sapped my will to continue the Personal Story I was finding myself so invested in.

If you jump on the fallen wall next to you after the Agent goes stealthy and follow it up, you can bypass most of the undead on your way to the first checkpoint. Unlike the rest of the groups, some of the spawns in the big first group respawn. This lets you bypass that group if you are careful.

Edit: Also, I’ve found that the warping bug happens if your mentor dies at all anywhere near that first group area. Once you get him to the 2nd survivor checkpoint, he can die as much as needed as long as long as it is not in that undead mosh pit area.

Here’s a REALLY cheap but effective tactic:
Have Caltrops, Signet of Malice, Spider Venom and Dagger Storm.
Run into said groups and drop the caltrops, use dagger storm and use spider venom midstorm.

You’ll get unholy amounts of healing because every dagger hit bounces to nearby targets, meaning you’ll be close to impossible to kill for the 8 second duration while delivering an amazing AoE damage output. When Dagger Storm ends, use Leaping Death Blossom as much as possible, and evade away from the enemies while they bleed to death.

Leaping Death Blossom makes you evade, so you can safely use it.

Also, I highly recommend you backtrack to the last few Renown Hearts you have completed – the karma gear you can buy there will keep you geared for the quest, and gear matters a lot more than you’d think.

I hope this helps.

Also, don’t let this discourage you – if it’s any comfort at all, I can confirm for you that it’s a tough part, and I was having trouble through it as well, and I consider myself to be fairly good.

rmcg.8317:

First of all, I recently had trouble with this quest too, but you are greatly overstating the difficulty in your post. The main trick is to be careful about pulling in the beginning! It is possible to pull only 2 or three enemies at a time but you have to be very careful. For the wave part you must try to keep the enemies on the ramp up and not let them reach the area above where the checkpoint is. The enemies wont actually attack you much during the wave part until you start attacking them, so let the npcs tank them for a little while if need be and then blow cooldowns and quickly burn them down (aoe is good at this part, but only if you can guarantee killing all of them fast otherwise they will quickly mob you). After the part where you fight the waves the quest becomes easy as you gain more and more npcs. The checkpoint being right on top of where the enemies camp at the wave part is pretty frustrating, however, and should be changed. With the checkpoint being where it currently is a wipe during that part of the instance basically means that you have to start over or be spawn camped forever.

It certainly isn’t possible to pull only one or two at a time for me. My character’s mentor uses an AOE attack as his auto attack. It’s not only common for him to pull four or more NPCs in the beginning, but he’s also VERY likely to pull ANOTHER four with his attack. The mobs all go for him first, of course, and he dies in about thirty seconds (I did a second run and counted). Also, I think you missed the part where the enemies respawn. I don’t have much DPS gear or stats. The entire place is respawned by the time I down the second or third pack.

A couple of other instances of incredulity that I forgot to mention but instantly came flooding back to my memory as soon as I started a second attempt:

-When my mentor dies, he resets. Completely. He quits following my character and just stays at the entrance to the ruins, effectively lowering the number of NPCs helping me in the beginning to one.
-Enemies reset at will. Using dodge skills and moving while fighting is an EXTREMELY bad idea as the enemies would run away, get their health set back to full, while I would be stuck at one third of my health. There’s no “skill” in this, I just had to stand and hope for the best while using all of my highest DPS abilities.

I would love to be able to try the wave part again, but the second I reconfirmed that enemies respawning was a feature of this quest in my second run, I immediately quit. There’s no way I’m going to do this Personal Story alone, I’m going to need help from fellow Blackgaters that don’t mind helping out an awful player. I can’t even imagine how bad I would be at dungeons, considering how hard I’m finding one of the “easy” parts of Guild Wars 2. Thanks a lot for the tips though, I definitely appreciate it.

Make sure your gear is up-to-par with your current level. Being something like 72 with level 52 gear in a level 70 mission, for instance, would not exactly help you out much.

If you have trouble finding gear, you can always get white gear from weapon/armor NPC’s (although it’ll be kinda bad for what you could get from drops but it would definitely be better than low level armor), you could check Renown Heart NPC’s ( or karma merchants if you play in the final three areas of Orr. ), or you could even use the auction house.

If i recall the mission you are talking about correctly, the undead respawn fairly quickly. Best tactic is the old “cut-and-run” technique where you kill what is in your way and move on to the next wave avoiding the unnecessary groups. You’ll start having trouble with your current setup because you won’t be able to kill off every group before they respawn due to your lack of damage.’

You also state how dodge rolling is a “bad idea” as it can cause the enemies to reset. This is only half true. Enemies will follow you up to a set distance from where you aggro them. If you reach their pull limit and you dodge roll away or get too far, they stop chasing you. Try dodge rolling through your target and ending up behind them to avoid this ( if you didn’t know, you can dodge roll in each direction by pressing the move key + dodge key ).

ShinraGuardian.8053:

Make sure your gear is up-to-par with your current level. Being something like 72 with level 52 gear in a level 70 mission, for instance, would not exactly help you out much.

If you have trouble finding gear, you can always get white gear from weapon/armor NPC’s (although it’ll be kinda bad for what you could get from drops but it would definitely be better than low level armor), you could check Renown Heart NPC’s ( or karma merchants if you play in the final three areas of Orr. ), or you could even use the auction house.

If i recall the mission you are talking about correctly, the undead respawn fairly quickly. Best tactic is the old “cut-and-run” technique where you kill what is in your way and move on to the next wave avoiding the unnecessary groups. You’ll start having trouble with your current setup because you won’t be able to kill off every group before they respawn due to your lack of damage.’

You also state how dodge rolling is a “bad idea” as it can cause the enemies to reset. This is only half true. Enemies will follow you up to a set distance from where you aggro them. If you reach their pull limit and you dodge roll away or get too far, they stop chasing you. Try dodge rolling through your target and ending up behind them to avoid this ( if you didn’t know, you can dodge roll in each direction by pressing the move key + dodge key ).

I check Kharma vendors, but they rarely have things suited for my character (i.e., they have focii, torches, greatswords, and general crap most of the time). I always pick up anything I find that’s better when I can, but I’m also a penny pincher since I know Kharma is how you get endgame gear.

I get the cut-and-run strategy, but they respawn too fast for my terribly slow play. Again, my main issue isn’t so much I’m punished for being terrible more than it is that I was never punished for being so terrible before. I’ll probably try that Spider Venom/Dagger Storm/Leaping Death Blossom strategy at some point, though.

I understand they reset at certain distances, but these particular mobs seem to reset VERY easily. As in, they reset if I bring the first group TO the door. The one allied NPC I get doesn’t care and chases them down anyways, keeping us both in combat and effectively ending us. I know about the dodging with move + v, but it resets my target and (I’m sure you’ve probably noticed this by how dumb I am from my posts) I’m way too slow to retarget and finish off anything. It’s also a HUGE problem that the mentor dying is worse than a game over screen. At least with a game over screen, I KNOW I’m going to have to restart. When the mentor dies even once, I get punished for trying to progress through the quest, wasting my time and frustrating me more. I have no idea if this is a bug or intended, but I’m assuming it’s in some way intended. When other allied NPCs died on me, they did something similar, but this is the only time it’s become a game over scenario. Everyone’s tips have inspired me to try more, though, so I’m giving it a few extra shots before quitting entirely on the Personal Story. Again, thanks for the tips, they’re all GREATLY appreciated.

Truhan.8912:

Try my tactic, it works wonders in these personal stories. There’s always a huge amount of groups that seem impossible to kill, but Caltrops, Spider Venom, Healing Signet and Dagger Storm does the trick!

Best way to get good gear is to craft it.

Raf

Truhan.8912:

It certainly isn’t possible to pull only one or two at a time for me. My character’s mentor uses an AOE attack as his auto attack. It’s not only common for him to pull four or more NPCs in the beginning, but he’s also VERY likely to pull ANOTHER four with his attack. The mobs all go for him first, of course, and he dies in about thirty seconds (I did a second run and counted). Also, I think you missed the part where the enemies respawn. I don’t have much DPS gear or stats. The entire place is respawned by the time I down the second or third pack.

A couple of other instances of incredulity that I forgot to mention but instantly came flooding back to my memory as soon as I started a second attempt:

-When my mentor dies, he resets. Completely. He quits following my character and just stays at the entrance to the ruins, effectively lowering the number of NPCs helping me in the beginning to one.
-Enemies reset at will. Using dodge skills and moving while fighting is an EXTREMELY bad idea as the enemies would run away, get their health set back to full, while I would be stuck at one third of my health. There’s no “skill” in this, I just had to stand and hope for the best while using all of my highest DPS abilities.

I would love to be able to try the wave part again, but the second I reconfirmed that enemies respawning was a feature of this quest in my second run, I immediately quit. There’s no way I’m going to do this Personal Story alone, I’m going to need help from fellow Blackgaters that don’t mind helping out an awful player. I can’t even imagine how bad I would be at dungeons, considering how hard I’m finding one of the “easy” parts of Guild Wars 2. Thanks a lot for the tips though, I definitely appreciate it.

Even though the mentor uses an AOE attack, as long as you keep holding aggro and keep undead moving towards you, he will follow because they will run out of range of his PBAOE. But like I said earlier, you can use the giant fallen wall next to you to completely bypass the respawning groups in the middle. You will still have to watch for the stragglers wandering into aggro range if you hang around the other side too long though.

Let’s say you just got out of the cutscene and the agent just snuck away. To your right, there’s a huge fallen wall that you can easily run up. So you run up west along the wall and south along the not-narrow cliff. Pop out of the bushes and you’ll be right next to the intersection on the OTHER side of the undead horde. The only undead that respawn on their own is the giant horde in the middle of the open area. The ones with the hylek and the other undead only spawn in relation to the current status of the quest, from what I could tell. It is possible to circle around the large group and deal with the undead up the ramp without aggroing the large clearing groups. It’s also a lot easier if you kill off the hylek group first.

I finally completed this quest last night, and doing this helped in keeping the mentor alive long enough to keep his corpse away from the buggy area.

Ho hum? I had thought the area you wanted me to go to was the east, as there was an opening from the east that was close to the first objective to search for survivors. I found the real shortcut you were talking about, thanks. The run still, unfortunately, ended in disaster. I couldn’t keep enough of the monsters on me and the mentor’s attack was ranged. He also happened to be standing in an area where THREE PATROLS showed up in addition to spawns from meeting the quest objective. The mentor died as I was trying to finish the last two mobs (though it was either him or my character at that point, and I’m too frustrated to take more repair costs at this point).

Well, this time I tried that Caltrops/Dagger Storm/Spider Venom/Death Blossom strategy along with spending half my Kharma on new gear. This worked extremely well until my mentor stopped following me, despite not having died, after achieving the first objective. I am now almost certain ArenaNet has created some kind of special AI for allied NPCs. I am going to call this in-house AI “A-Hole AI.” Before anyone gets on my case, the A stands for ArenaNet and the Hole is representative of the intelligence of these NPCs. Congratulations, ArenaNet. You have broken me. And I didn’t even have to try a dungeon for you to achieve that. Guess I’m going to be grinding zones for the rest of my levels.

Otherwise, still a great, fun game.