Possible bug: keep dc'ing on 1st mission in pof on elementalist

Title says it all. I've tried the 1st mission of pof several times now on my ele (about 8) and each time he gets dc'ed near the fire extinguisher part. (more or less) Which is very frustrating b/c its a long level and have to keep restarting from the beginning. (then do the heart, then the raptor/spiders, etc)

Now why i think its a possible bug I've done it on every other character so far with no problems. Zero disconnects on my thief, guardian, and rev. I thought maybe it was time of day or my connection but i switched to my guardian and did it no problems. Tried again on my ele and dc'ed again at the same basic spot. Maybe balthazar doesn't like me using fire spec idk. If they could fix this or break it up into stages like part 1 ends after the flame hounds die that would be great.

I have a msi gaming laptop, comcast, and 25mb internet speed so I don't think the problem is on my end. Especially since it seems localized to my elementalist toon. (he's lv boosted so maybe that's a possible lead?)

It might be connected.. but i cant get any of the Crystal Desert maps to work today. It takes ages to load into them and then it DC's after 1-2 min's of standing there with chat and skills not working. takes 3-4 tries of loading in and DCing to just get out of the map and back to core Tyria or Meguma jungle, both of which are working fine.

This bug has been here since release. At release my Necromancer would disconnect in that exact spot. It took 4 tries to get through and then it just randomly worked. I brought a Guardian and Elementalist through with no issues before running into the same disconnect problem on my Engineer. I think it's random and kind of comes in waves. The only solution I have is to just keep redoing it until it completes. (until Anet fixes it).

Since I've ran this mission multiple times I've found a few ways to try to speed it up. If you have a Griffon (not sure if glider can get far enough) you can immediately jump off the airship and fly to the pyramid to get the story going. You can immediately run/fly past the Herald after she turns her shield on and run to the next combat area (village). None of this ever broke the instance for me and had no effect on whether or not the disconnect would occur at the extinguisher part.