Me and 2 guildies (2 paladin and an arty) level 10-11 up against brother nezzera or what ever the hell his name is. None of us has a proper dr breaker weapon for that level range on our half assed geared out tr's. Epic battle lasts at least 25 minutes the three of us have thrown every tactic in the book, used our clickiues and cookies and worn our festival icy holy maces of pg down to a nub.

No one has said anything for 5 minutes we are so intent on the battle. Nezzera has us on the ropes exhausted and 200 cs pots consumed. He thinks we are going to give up, and finally I half yell into vent ..."this is bullshit" and I call in my gold seal buddy Toad. He starts dropping firewalls under my direction and the frantic battle continues I'm breathing heavy feeling winded until Toad goes down so I call in another guy a cleric and he drops a Rez and goes about throwing cure spells as he sees fit. Meanwhile I flag down yet another golden savior of a sorc Azgarath or something and we burninate the whole fucking area five  more minutes of frantic fighting, I'm standing up in my seat yelling at the monitor and finally Nezzera dies. Hi fives all around, we crack a beer and and have smoke and revel in our hard earned 39k exp.

Some may call it pay to win, but I say that was the best spent 60 turbine points to date. It was a lot more fun winning that fight with gold seal hirelings after spending such a long time of attrition in that end fight than it would have been to simply recall because we exhausted all our resources and saw no way to complete the quest as it stood due to the awful scaling with out an arcane or divine. I have done that fight probably more than 70 times successfully but this was the most fun it ever was.

I recently learned how to use a hireling do the swim in elite Crucible on a character that can't do the swim.  I had to have that cleric hireling raise me about 6 times, but I made it through eventually and I got the crest.

I love getting my ass kicked in a quest and still getting a completion.  It's so much more satisfying than sleepwalking through a quest to a pile of free XP even if it does take longer.

Did the Arty not have flame turret for religious reasons?

Epoch wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 10:09am:

Only on casual. 

Epoch wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 10:09am:


I can do it on Normal or Hard, but I can't make it through the whole thing without getting double-plinked by the spikes at least once.  And on Elite, 2 hits is enough to kill most of the time.

I remember running through VoN 3 for the first time when that series first came out.  We took a group of 6 people who had never done it before.  It took us 3 hours, but it was the most fun I think I've ever had in game.  I had to rip my headphones off at the geyser jump and scream at my computer.  Big Daddy was in the other room relaying everything I said.  I think I even made up some new words that day.  Good times.

Nice work, J$!  I actually think Toad is an awesome hireling!  I used him for quite a few runs on Gawnaderp.

JDollar wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 7:56am:


I hear ya.  It's fun to dance on the edge of a wipe, and I hate to lose.  If spending a few TP helps me figure out a way to keep going, I do it.  My guild consists of 3 people, and we 3-man most quests, so sometimes we have to be creative.  That doesn't mean I'm dropping tons of cash on spirit cakes, but sometimes a pot or a gold seal saves the day.

QuantumFX wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 4:04pm:


indeed, bloody hirelings have some shit gear even if they are goldseal

Fun stuff J$ - I like the holy hell we did it runs best of all

JDollar wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 4:13pm:


D’oh!  For some reason it sounded like the Cleric was a PuG.

Aeolwind wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 7:00pm:


For that being the first time I've ever done it on Elite with a no-Evasion character and not having done it at all in over a year, I'm pretty pleased with getting through at all.

Hafeal wrote on Feb 14^th, 2012 at 9:12pm:


Are you using the valve, that opens the secret room, to slow the water in that area before swimming through it?

Pots and a swim item.  That way you can go really fast!