I got into Guild Wars’ first and only expansion, Eye of the North, when it was first released. I was pretty close to completing its storyline when guild drama occurred and I stopped playing. Darren announced during the recording of Shut Up We’re Talking #26 that he was playing and enjoying Guild Wars, and I realized I really missed that. I missed the old guild and alliance chat quite a bit, and that wasn’t coming back, but maybe I’d never given my new guild — one a few formed in the aftermath of the aforementioned guild drama — a proper chance.
I actually spotted Darren online one evening last week and helped him complete a quest and one of his missions on Istan (the “noob island” of the Nightfall campaign). Turns it was Assault on Breknur Harbor, a Master Difficulty quest! I’d always skipped all the Master Difficulty quests, because they’re extremely difficult without either a group of human players or perhaps two players each with a set of Heroes will full builds utilizing elite skills. Assault was fun, but it was certainly an unexpected workout on my monking ability. Darren and I also had monk Heroes which have super-human reactions but even then his Melonni hero was damage spiked at one point so quickly there was no time to react before she was dead. Forgot to get screen shots of all the action, though! Those are always so fun for future blackmail purposes… 
The next day, I figured I’d jump back into the Eye of the North. Previously, I’d worked up through the story up to the Heart of the Shiverpeaks dungeon. I had repeatedly taken a group of Heroes and Henchmen and worked my way through the dungeon but the boss, Cyndr the Mountain Heart, proved too difficult for the tactics (or perhaps the lack thereof?) I was using. I forget how many times I’d run that dungeon, both back then and this past week and every time, every tactic, every build change, Cyndr defeated us. Time for players. I first asked in our alliance chat, but not many people were playing at the time so I did one of the most foolish things a GW player can do: a PUG. Yes, I PUG constantly in other games with great success, but GW and WoW both have well-deserved reputations for some of the worst PUG experiences ever. This proved to be one of those times. Shortly after joining the group I was already getting a bad feeling about things just from the chat and build demands. Next came the realization that I was the only human monk player. After five months away from the game, I wasn’t confident in my timing to run around claiming to be some über monk. Not that I would ever do that anyway. I feel I’m ok but certainly not über at monking, but it’s rewarding and fun enough that the monk is always my main character in the game. One of the players did bring a hero monk, but that was it. Judging from their attitudes and build demands, I’d have thought these guys were experienced players and probably knew their way around the dungeon. Not. As soon as we entered one of the warriors took off in the wrong direction. During the first fight they spent more time making fun of which healing spells I used than fighting. Then the warriors ran into a cave of chromatic drakes, which are known to do spike damage. This cave could have been bypassed and was in the wrong direction still. Sure enough, the warrior was spiked in a single hit. He’d ran in before I could apply a protection spell to him. I haven’t seen such chaos in ages, and in short order I was out of energy. By the time it was over, all but one group member was dead, myself included. That was the first big battle and already the group had a -15% death penalty. Of course the entirety of the blame was laid upon my shoulders, go figure, and they spent several minutes announcing it. I haven’t rage-quit in quite some time, but I finally had enough abuse and called it a night.
Not to be put-off, I tried again the next day. I ended up in a pleasant group, no little e-peen waggling kids who couldn’t back up their words, and three monks, including myself. We made our way through the dungeon again, and when confronted with Cyndr again, everyone grabbed a powder keg to take down Cyndr’s carapace shell defense. Once we had his defense down, we were able to make quick work of him before he could regenerate the defense. No deaths!
Next, and I think final, dungeon in the story line: Destruction’s Depths!
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Nice work on completing ‘Heart of the Shiverpeaks’. I remember it took me three or four times to get it right. I later found out that you can defeat Cyndr with life stealing moves without needing to remove his shell. So you can just take two touch rangers and he’s dead in under 40 seconds. No powder keg running required. I later did this with two Ranger heroes, so I didn’t even need to pug
Anyway you wont have long to go before completing EotN. Enjoy
Thanks! It was a long time coming, and I’m glad I finally saw Cyndr beaten. I’d read about using touch rangers, and I do have a touch ranger hero build but haven’t really used it yet. I might give it a shot sometime though just to see how that approach works.
I’ve been working on Asuran reputation the past couple days, and completing a couple of the one- and two- level dungeons before I worry about getting a group for Destruction’s Depths.
I wouldn’t worry too much about Destruction Depths, the last few missions are very quick to complete, so if you muck them up, you only lose a few minutes of time. Are you trying to get the Asuran glasses for your char? The fastest way to level your rep is to hand in your hero handbook. A fully completed book yields 20K rep. That should get you to rank 5 Asuran in no time. So my advice would be to complete EotN, hand in your hero handbook to the Asuran guy, obtain rank 5, get your glasses/armour. Good luck.
I was actually shooting for the Asuran armor. I’ve been playing GW since beta and I have never bothered to obtain any of the elite armor sets, so… Not sure about the glasses. Female monks look kinda hot with them, kinda that “librarian who’s a dirty girl” vibe but some of the males with glasses look a bit… uh… effeminate. We’ll see…
The Hero Handbook is nearly done, only two more slots, one of which is DD so that should go quick.
Then to choose a good Healing or Protection staff (currently using The Wingshielder, took forever to get that now I’m not sure I like its looks) and elite armors for my Heroes… gah!
If I had to use my Droknar’s key all over again for my monk, I would select the healing staff. It comes with +30 health and +20% to enchantments, HCT & HSR of healing prayers. Previously I would say that an enchant mod on a healing staff would be a waste of time, but with the new EotN skills like ‘Spotless Mind’ and ‘Spotless Soul’ its well worth it. ‘Word of Heal’ monks are the best monks in PvP and PvE (depends on the other monk), so healing is definitely the way to go atm.
Your right about the “librarian who’s a dirty girl” look that the female monks get from the glasses. They look so hot!! I run a female monk wearing white Droknar’s Armour. Haven’t got the glasses, but its on the list.
I made a mistake in my previous post, the heroes handbook is worth 40K rep, not 20k.
My old (still have it) healing staff had a +17% (I think?) enchant duration. I normally use mostly enchants in my normal build, with Word of Healing being the only non-enchant direct heal.
I did complete Destruction’s Depths tonight, with a Hero/Henchmen team and being very careful. Took a few attempts to put the right group together but got it done. I just finished doing some Asuran quests to get the “Pain Inverter” skill to use on the Great Destroyer. I saw guys doing runs for only 1k but… it’s my first time, I want to savor a true victory rather than getting to the end and taking the cheap route.
Also spent time in the Norn Fighting Tournament but damn I suck at that. I want Kahmu unlocked, first and foremost, then the Black Moa Chick too. I’ve never really done the 55 Monk thing, but I have a couple types of 55 monk builds saved and I get killed fairly quickly. If I manage to last awhile, so far the best I’ve done is get the opponent down to less than 50% health then they seem to hang out there. Wiki suggests the 55 monk but I seem to always get someone with degen or who can out-heal the paltry damage I’m doing.
I’d love to get into PvP someday, but don’t know if I should do it with the monk or just make a PvP-only character and try to do damage.
Duuude!!! PvP in Guild Wars is where it’s at! The game was designed for PvP with some PvE thrown in. There is no way you can expect to be good at it straight out. It took me months to get the hang of it. It’s all about having the right build. Here’s the template code for the Monk build I run in PvP:
OwcT0Yo+RSjoB0fICECkloBSgBA
Here is the equipment template code:
Pk5hnumwlSaEkJVRqAhkJ90IjkJBLbikJ7RZgkJBrthkJNB
The trick is knowing when to use Dark Escape and CoP. Just make sure you always keep Vigorous Spirit on yourself. Use Return when you are getting thumped in melee.
For winning the Norn Fighting Tournament I used a 55 monk with Spoil Victor and Life Siphon. Here is the template code for it:
OwQVQ4m5wHCHSFqNoeAkw6bfYX0mEA
The import thing is to interrupt his bear form. The last two skills are utility slots. You can take whatever you like in their place.
I just posted the Monk PvP build and details on how to run it on my blog:
http://word-of-shadow.blogspot.com/2008/06/monk-build-woh-ninja.html
Hope this helps
Hmmm… I’ve been a Monk/Necro since launch… I suppose I could look into the whole changing secondary professions thing. Although, seriously, I need more storage space if I’ll be accumulating PvP-only gear!
I did try a couple RA matches and was dead very quickly. Those guys are just scary. The only enjoyable PvP I’ve had was an AB match with the Guildcast alliance. That was a lot of fun, and no one ever explained why, but healers are not targeted in AB so I actually got to heal, play along and just have fun instead of spending most of the match staring at my corpse.
I’ll definitely take a look at that 55 template though, the ones I’ve tried just weren’t cutting it. Although I hear 55’s are pretty much dead against a degen anyway, and that was most of the problem yesterday.