Guild Wars PvE Accomplishments
The Golden Shields vs. The Deep
By Syll
(Screen Shots by Sir Bob and The Drifting Soul)
Well, our run on the Deep didn't end in us slaying Kanaxai, but given that it was our first attempt, I'm still willing to call it a resounding success. We made it almost 7/12ths of the way through, and I think if we ever attempt it again, we can give Kanaxai a golden shield to the face.
The first try: We started off getting into our rooms and beginning to make our way through. All three active groups did admirably. (That's the first time I've ever seen all three make it successfully.) Room 1 quickly slaughtered their enemies (courtesy the devastating efficiency of Thun Da's Spiteful Spirit work), and we promptly began to deal with the rather nasty room 2 mobs. When we came out, Raltar and Bob's rooms were already beating the stuffing out of the Aspect of Pain. Of course, despite success, Laat err=7'd, and we decided to start over, after making a rather hilarious chest run. >.>
The real try: Raltar's group had a bad start, which isn't exactly unexpected, given the rather odd dimensions of room 3 and the tendency for failure if the enemies have a bad spawn. Fortunately, both rooms 1 and 4 quickly rushed through, kicking the asses of their aspects and the beasts in room 2, and came back to rescue the remaining teams.
We then headed into room 3, and had a slightly rocky time getting the leviathan body parts to attack the tanks. The casters, however, did a wonderful job even with leviathans swarming about. We then made it to room 4, having Laat and Thun Da sacrifice themselves through the door, and finally hit a tough spot.
Room 4 was the only real spot that I felt we truly got devastated by. The elemental damage of the Outcast Spellhands was hellish for the tanks, my foolish self in particular. >.< We managed to get through after someone pointed out the rather obvious strategy of nuking over the walls. My sincerest apologies for not even considering that initially. Next time, I suggest Bob and Mordred do a synchronized nuking over the wall to slay the right side outcast group, which should make our lives much easier.
We finally made it to room 5, and performed much better. We pulled the enemies, killed them, then made the rush to room 6 with only one casualty. Good stuff. Room 6 was also a resounding success, with only one death from our ugly buddy, The Leviathan. (The PUG Laat, Gene, and I practiced in saw about 5 deaths from that sucker, so applaud yourselves guys.)
Room 7 would spell our doom, but not before some serious ass-kicking ensued. We took down all the oni, including the one hilariously massive mob that chased after me when I did a bad pull. Sorry about that guys, but at least it was a laugh. Even despite the nasty scorpion wire effect, we managed to kill all but 3 mobs and the aspect. Unfortunately, Thun Da got disconnected, Draky had to leave, and the constant teleportations eventually became too much for us to handle. Next time around, we'll definitely want to bring in Ward of Stability, which should allow us to do that room with at least some ease.
Of course, the highlight of the evening came after that, when Raltar did the most manly thing we had seen. He rushed the Leviathan for a grape chest, pics included in Soul's topic(below). Raltar, you deserved a req 8 15^50 Vertebreaker for that, Anet owes you big time.
On the note of the grape chest, I have a little idea I'd like to bounce off everyone. I was thinking we could all pitch in 1/12th the cost of a Deep Jade Key (a measly 125 gold per person.) to create a sweep key. Basically, if anyone opened up a grape chest, we could effectively refund them another key, and sell the grape to a merchant to help cover the cost of another sweep key. It'll remove the chance of anyone getting shortchanged by the stupid grape chests.
All in all, we kicked ass, and I hope we can get around to doing the Deep again sometime. (Bob has quite wonderfully parked Diver in the Deep, so we can get free ferries from him.)
The Golden Shields vs. The Deep Part II
By Raltar
Its been awhile and its long past time this document was updated. Syll promised to do it once we finally made a successful run on the Deep but he no longer plays Guild Wars and has since left the Golden Shields. Despite that, we finally got around to scheduling another run on the deep. While setting up for it we discovered that Laat needed something from one of Syll's characters and Laat logged onto his account to retrieve it (with Syll's premission of course). While Laat was logged into Syll's account Thunda convinced Laat to trade all of Syll's armor for a holiday hat which was customized for Thunda. So if Syll ever reinstalls Guild Wars and logs back into his account he will discover all his armor is safely locked up in Thunda's storage box. I consider this a particularly entertaining form of poetic justice.
At any rate, our first re-attempt to conquer the Deep did not go so well due to the failure of several people who signed up to go to arrive on time. We were really counting on Victor's bear mode but apparently he was under attack by Robots at the time and unable to reach his computer (I personally blame this on Nimm's Robotics Club but Victor has refused to comment). Disillusioned without Victor's bear mode to guide us, we decided to fill in the remaining slots on our team with a random pick up group in the deep. The PUG insisted on teaching us a bizzare trick called "444" where you can manage to bring three teams of four into the first rooms rather than four teams of three.
Despite using this trick, our run with the PUG went badly. The Monk who insisted on the 444 trick got himself and his team of four killed in their room right off the bat. Then while laying on the floor dead he used his time to complain that the other teams (who didn't die) weren't doing a good job. Later at the start of room three the PUG insisted again on rushing into the room to shut off the fire flowers rather than killing the enemies in the room first. We lost two of our tanks from the PUG to this absurd tactic before the creatures in the room became so riled up that they all poured out of the room and assaulted our group. With only one tank (me) to hold back the tide of death we were quickly overrun and cast out of the Deep. The whiny monk and his PUG promptly rage quit from our team to start their own which I can only assume went just as badly if they continued to use the same bad attitude and tactics.
We decided to give it another try without them and luckily for us another guild member signed on just then to help us out (Sadly it wasn't Victor's Bear Mode, but oh well). Rather than getting another bad PUG we decided to take heroes with us instead as we could atleast count on them not to whine nearly as much. This worked much better. Despite the worst spawn I've ever seen in my room, some superb monking from Ewie and careful pulling on my part got us past it and we cleared that room in no time. Thunda was in the room next door and his team had worked just as quickly as ours had. Our two teams managed to clear most of the enemies from the next area and then went back to rescue the last team which had gotten stuck in their room. Once we were all back as a single unit we easily used our previous experience with the Deep to plow through all the way to room five without any real difficulty. Room five was tricky but noone had to leave or got error sevened this time, so we eventually made it through. All of the following rooms proved to be even easier than the early rooms had been.
All that remained was the final showdown with Kanaxai in the last room. Laat knew the trick to defeating him however and we easily overpowered him.
Sadly, none of us got any good loot on this run but the satisfaction of knowing we had finished what we started so long ago was reward enough.
Oh, we also got this fancy Trophy for the Hall of Monuments.
The Golden Shields vs. Everything Else
By Raltar
(Screen shots by many people)
After we finished the deep something amazing happened. Someone spoke up and asked "So, what are we doing next week?" And we all just sort of looked at each other. Nobody had given it much thought. But now that the question was asked, why NOT just schedule another event for the sime time and place again next week? So we did. And as a result we carried on with weekly Guild Wars activities for several months until we completed ALL the high end PvE areas in the game.
Fissure of Woe
Underworld
Sorrow's Furnace
Urgoz's Warren
Domain of Anguish
After doing all the areas, we took this screenshot of most of the people who had participated in the PvE areas in front of the trophies we had earned.
From left to right: Raltar, Lord Ragnarok, King of Jasonia, Laat, Evanguard, Ewie and Thunda. The Trophies in the back are for Fissure of Woe, Urgoz's Warren, Sorrow's Furnace, The Deep and Underworld. The hall itself belongs to Laat, who has several levels of the title completion track which can be seen in the background near the top of the image.