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Forging Steel (Living Story)


misterman.1530

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So, been away for several months. So bear with me if this topic has already been brought up.

Thought I would catch up on the Living Story. Got up to Forging Steel - and was unpleasantly surprised I had to run a "strike mission" and couldn't just solo this story.

Is this for real? Or is there some other way to get through this without having to search for a group of people who know what they are doing?

It appeared that, even though I had been away, the 3-4 people with me had no concept of what to do. Got up to the Forgemaster and, I assume, you are supposed to use the tank and the grappling spear-thing. No one else seemed to know that though. Never got the thing down below 90%.

Do I have to do that? Or is there another way to finish that part of the LS?

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@"misterman.1530" said:So, been away for several months. So bear with me if this topic has already been brought up.

Thought I would catch up on the Living Story. Got up to Forging Steel - and was unpleasantly surprised I had to run a "strike mission" and couldn't just solo this story.

Is this for real? Or is there some other way to get through this without having to search for a group of people who know what they are doing?

It appeared that, even though I had been away, the 3-4 people with me had no concept of what to do. Got up to the Forgemaster and, I assume, you are supposed to use the tank and the grappling spear-thing. No one else seemed to know that though. Never got the thing down below 90%.

Do I have to do that? Or is there another way to finish that part of the LS?

You can do it solo mate just take longer then going in with more people. ( well if they are not good the scaleing will make it harder with more people to be fair.)If you do it solo you can break the bar with skill 3 in tank when the blue bar pop up.When broken use all skill 2 on the chest of the boss then spam skill 1 untill out of ammo get out and collect ammo destroy portals while the tank do its 3 laps rince and repeate

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If it helps at all this isn't strictly part of the story, it's kind of an interlude giving us more insight into the enemies we're facing via an interactive flashback. So if you strictly just want to do the solo story instances you could skip it and wait for the next actual episode, which will be later this month.

Alternatively if you're doing it with a group and you've worked out what to do but they don't seem to understand the solution is to tell them. Write exactly what you wrote here in map or squad chat in the game, so they can learn from your insight and you can all finish the mission.

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It's easy to do as a public squad these days, I've done it a lot of times and people seem to have figured out the harpoon and that you should use it on break bars. In surprised you encountered people that didn't know that. I haven't seen a problem getting a group either as it's worth doing for the 2+ gold and other loot you get.

It is solo able but just takes longer.

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I didn't want to do it either, but was able to get through it several times with pugs. Being a very casual player, it wasn't so bad. Heck, one time through I got lucky and was with a group who really knew what to do and we just cake-walked through the thing.

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@Pifil.5193 said:It's easy to do as a public squad these days, I've done it a lot of times and people seem to have figured out the harpoon and that you should use it on break bars. In surprised you encountered people that didn't know that. I haven't seen a problem getting a group either as it's worth doing for the 2+ gold and other loot you get.

It is solo able but just takes longer.

Yeah. I had a small Public group - there was only 3 of us. One left part way through the Forgemaster. No matter how many times I map chatted that you had to get into the tank and use skill 3, the other guy wouldn't do it. Took us, no lie, about 1/2 hour to kill the Forgemaster. So tedious.

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You can easily solo it. It's scaled for solo play if you enter it alone. Don't ever be scared if a story instance tells you 5 players recommended. Only Fractals, Raids and Dungeons require that, unless you really want to challenge yourself.

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@Blocki.4931 said:You can easily solo it. It's scaled for solo play if you enter it alone. Don't ever be scared if a story instance tells you 5 players recommended. Only Fractals, Raids and Dungeons require that, unless you really want to challenge yourself.

I had hoped, but skill 3 only brought the Forgemasters break bar down so far - it didn't fully break it. Or was I doing it wrong?

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@misterman.1530 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:You can easily solo it. It's scaled for solo play if you enter it alone. Don't ever be scared if a story instance tells you 5 players recommended. Only Fractals, Raids and Dungeons require that, unless you really want to challenge yourself.

I had hoped, but skill 3 only brought the Forgemasters break bar down so far - it didn't fully break it. Or was I doing it wrong?

How did you get past the door? That got me stuck the first time. You can hold down the button, it will perfectly break it. Or just spam it like a maniac like I do :D

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@Fjaeldmark.9043 said:

I had hoped, but skill 3 only brought the Forgemasters break bar down so far - it didn't fully break it. Or was I doing it wrong?

Hold down the key so that when it flips to the pull skill the game spams it as fast as possible. Does more than trying to mash the key yourself.

I did that, and the break bar went all the way down to ALMOST break entirely. There was still some blue showing. Every time.

In any event, it's done. Will never have to do it again (I don't do LSs on more than one character).

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Shame you won't do it again, as it's an easy method to acquire Gold, and even Black Lion Keys drop in it.There's almost always LFG listings in 'Strike Missions', and occasionally listing in Icebrood Saga/Fire and Steel.

Well, I had hoped so, but yesterday, and today, when I looked, there was nothing in the LFG for it. So...maybe at certain hours of the day, but not when I looked. Which has been the major reason I've never attempted any Strike Mission or Raid. I would like to, but have never had the opportunity.

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@Zaraki.5784 said:First timers can only do Public, not Squad (if I remember correctly).

I did my first run with friends in a squad. Everyone was doing it for the first time.

@misterman.1530 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:It's easy to do as a public squad these days, I've done it a lot of times and people seem to have figured out the harpoon and that you should use it on break bars. In surprised you encountered people that didn't know that. I haven't seen a problem getting a group either as it's worth doing for the 2+ gold and other loot you get.

It is solo able but just takes longer.

Yeah. I had a small Public group - there was only 3 of us. One left part way through the Forgemaster. No matter how many times I map chatted that you had to get into the tank and use skill 3, the other guy wouldn't do it. Took us, no lie, about 1/2 hour to kill the Forgemaster. So tedious.

With 3 people in the instance you only need 2 people in the tank. I know this because ... actually even with 4 people in the instance you only need 2 people in the tank to break the bar because that is how it went on my first run.

@misterman.1530 said:

I had hoped, but skill 3 only brought the Forgemasters break bar down so far - it didn't fully break it. Or was I doing it wrong?

Hold down the key so that when it flips to the pull skill the game spams it as fast as possible. Does more than trying to mash the key yourself.

I did that, and the break bar went all the way down to ALMOST break entirely. There was still some blue showing. Every time.

So out of 3 people you were the only one who actually did things correctly?

and this is why I prefer to run it solo. It might take longer but at least I know what the duration will be and there is none of the frustration. Also makes it much more leisurely to complete the other achievements at the same time. It would be a bit rude for me to loiter around picking up cannons to shoot if I was doing it with other people.

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@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Zaraki.5784 said:First timers can only do Public, not Squad (if I remember correctly).

I did my first run with friends in a squad. Everyone was doing it for the first time.

@Pifil.5193 said:It's easy to do as a public squad these days, I've done it a lot of times and people seem to have figured out the harpoon and that you should use it on break bars. In surprised you encountered people that didn't know that. I haven't seen a problem getting a group either as it's worth doing for the 2+ gold and other loot you get.

It is solo able but just takes longer.

Yeah. I had a small Public group - there was only 3 of us. One left part way through the Forgemaster. No matter how many times I map chatted that you had to get into the tank and use skill 3, the other guy wouldn't do it. Took us, no lie, about 1/2 hour to kill the Forgemaster. So tedious.

With 3 people in the instance you only need 2 people in the tank. I know this because ... actually even with 4 people in the instance you only need 2 people in the tank to break the bar because that is how it went on my first run.

I had hoped, but skill 3 only brought the Forgemasters break bar down so far - it didn't fully break it. Or was I doing it wrong?

Hold down the key so that when it flips to the pull skill the game spams it as fast as possible. Does more than trying to mash the key yourself.

I did that, and the break bar went all the way down to ALMOST break entirely. There was still some blue showing. Every time.

So out of 3 people you were the only one who actually did things correctly?

and this is why I prefer to run it solo. It might take longer but at least I know what the duration will be and there is none of the frustration. Also makes it much more leisurely to complete the other achievements at the same time. It would be a bit rude for me to loiter around picking up cannons to shoot if I was doing it with other people.

Public instances are super chill and everyone usually does their own thing. Sometimes players go MIA only to show up at a sniper event 5 minutes later (after all the actual sniping has been done by that one guy in your party who actually likes jumping puzzles).

No reason to feel guilty about it - everyone does it.

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@Westenev.5289 said:Public instances are super chill and everyone usually does their own thing. Sometimes players go MIA only to show up at a sniper event 5 minutes later (after all the actual sniping has been done by that one guy in your party who actually likes jumping puzzles).

No reason to feel guilty about it - everyone does it.

Perhaps not but soloing it works just as well and proceeds more predictably. Apparently for Heavy Rival if you kill some stuff too fast it doesn't count which is another thing to worry about in a group.

The main benefit of a group is actually for all those damned collection events which doesn't seem to scale at all and Nicabar moves around too much which makes throwing the ingredients less reliable.

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  • 10 months later...

Wanted to rez this thread and add viewpoints from a year later.

I'm catching up on the story and I just soloed this mission since there was no one around when I went into the public instance - I'm guessing the majority of players have finished with this mission and moved on so returning or new players will be mostly solo-ing it. At least it has been balanced to be solo-able if you're willing to put up with a mission that ends up being incredibly tedious doing it alone. This mission is clearly intended to be entertaining for a group, making it balanced to be solo-able is not the same as making it enjoyable to solo.

It's disheartening because the story missions have been doing so well just prior to this one. There had been fairly decent pacing in Bjora Marches with pretty reasonable tasks. Things that you could do at your own pace with friends or solo, no missions making you to stay in the game for an overly long period of time or else lose all progress and have to start all over again. No frustrating content that got in the way of just enjoying the story. Then this sucker punches you.

I had no idea how long this mission would turn out to be. By the time I was halfway through I was more than ready to quit and maybe ask friends if they'd be willing to run it (just for the company through this overly long mission not because of the difficulty) but then I would have had to start it all over again so I kept at it until I completed it. I'm not sure which would have been the right choice.

I really think the right choice is not putting any missions like this as obstacles to the story ever again. This is reminiscent of the old 5-person Zhaitan final mission. In this case you don't have to have a group to do it, but kittens help you if you don't.

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@DoctorOverlord.8620 said:I really think the right choice is not putting any missions like this as obstacles to the story ever again.

Bad news for you; Forged Steel is trivial compared with some of the recent group content required for the story :)And it can be a lot more frustrating with larger numbers in the squad, especially if they don't understand the mechanic for the boss fight and simply scale the numbers of adds.

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@costepj.5120 said:

@DoctorOverlord.8620 said:I really think the right choice is not putting any missions like this as obstacles to the story ever again.

Bad news for you; Forged Steel is trivial compared with some of the recent group content required for the story :)And it can be a lot more frustrating with larger numbers in the squad, especially if they don't understand the mechanic for the boss fight and simply scale the numbers of adds.

I think they are talking about the length here. Forging Steel is the longest story instance in the game, because technically it's not a story instance at all.

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