Pooka's Thirsty River Team(Tyria), Spoilers for the mission

I was initially trying to "Farm" Thirsty River.

I put together a team using me and Heroes in order to check if the Golden Eggs were dropping no matter what was killed. Obviously, a player could park his heroes and MM and not kill the priest, and then reap the rewards an hour later with dozens of Golden eggs. Trick was, I didn't want to lose as many of those drops to the Heroes and Henchmen, and opted to bring just me, Jin, Margie, and Master of Whispers.

I learned pretty quick that no matter how many times they were "ressurected" they were the same creatures and therefore would only have one drop and no more afterwards. Not wanting to waste the mission, I attempted to finish the mission using just four players, just to see if I could do it.

I could. I did. Mission and Bonus. With just four people.

I let this fact rest for a little bit and decided to figure out what else my team could do and what missions would be possible. I would be pleasantly surprised. After the initial shock wore off, I decided I could help people with the mission now, and actually guarantee the mission and the bonus. I am really very satisfied with the result, and after a day of helping folks for tips, I made 32k. I told people I only ask for what they felt they could tip me with, and that if gold was too much I would accept sugar since I was going for sweet tooth. One guy gave me 9k!

Every run through the mission took around 20 minutes, sometimes less, usually more. I would tell folks that if I would be back in about half an hour when my party was full.

I helped Warriors who couldn't find groups, a level 17 Earth Ele, a level 4 ranger, two people from the same guild, and a total of 16 folks through all the runs. One person capped the necromancer and mesmer elites, then right after capping said "whoa lagg" and disconnected, I assume disconnected because there was no "re-attempt" and obviously the player would have tried it. It's his own fault, though. I was going to finish the mission anyway, and the person who was left over gave me 500 gold and three chocolate bunnies. I was happy to receive them, as I knew I was showing these players that the mission could be done with a good team and not an exploit. I had connection trouble during some runs, but we always finished within the half hour.

I started telling folks I only had a couple runs left in me and then the Warrior Runners started showing up asking for 5k per person. Granted, they have perfected a build and a play style to finish the mission solo, but I don't like their tactics. No pun intended. While I was offering to run for tips of gold and/or sugar, the other runners started saying "I'm not a scammer and I won't try to bull(poopoo) you like the other guy!" when, well, I was the other guy.

Then something odd happened.

Folks actually came to my defense, saying I had been running people from their guilds (Word had gotten out of a monk and his heroes "soloing" the mission for two people at a time). And I had been wearing the "Kind of a Big Deal" title the whole time while doing it, which someone named Ahur-something pointed out that I had to know what I was doing to get the title. Restored my faith in humanity for a little while.

Now that I know the build works, and that it really does help show people HOW to do something rather than just doing it for them and they never learn anything, I'm going to post the builds and offer some changes/suggestions for players wanting to give them a shot.

Acolyte Jin and Margrid The Sly had the same build:
Disrupting Lunge, Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Predator's Pounce, Heal As One, Throw Dirt, Charm Animal, Ressurection Chant(Set to OFF).

Master of Whispers (Olias works too!):
Shambling Horror, Vampiric Horror, Flesh Golem, Bone Horror, Blood Of The Master, Signet of Lost Souls, Healing Circle, Consume Corpse(Set to OFF, or replace with Deathly Swarm for minor AoE)

Nobody else necessary.

However, all my heroes have 500 health, Margrid has 30 energy thankies to a +5 energy recurve bow, and Master of whispers has a hale staff of death mastery and a total of 46 energy.

Because I'm going into the mission with the intentions that the two people coming along might be going for survivor and try not to get killed, I planned on not having a full party. To make up for a lack of players, both Jin and Margie has pets to replace Tanks, and Whispers has Minions which cause Bleeding and Flesh Golem as another tank. Because of these factors, we have more than enough people.

The majority of the deadly damage comes from the Forgotten Arcanists and Cursebearers, which have Elemental damage spike potential. Jin and Margie has 110 armor against elements, making them perfect choices. They used Throw Dirt on the warrior and ranger goons, and could prevent the bosses from doing much damage while focusing on other targets. Being able to target the Spellcasters and set the pets on the boss made things go much faster, likewise having four damage dealers on the Enemy Priest means the priest drops in just under 30 seconds.

Despite the "nerf" to soulreaping, Whispers was doing a fantastic job of maintaining 10 minions. The Jagged Horrors made the mission much more possible being able to induce a condition that could not be removed and preventing the Bosses from regenerating their health as much. He never actually used Consume Corpse, which is what prompts me to say replace it with some good damage spell. He should use it early on only, and sparingly later on. Now that the Minion skills cost less, I can take off the items I have on other Necro Heroes, I used to keep them at around 80 energy, which sucked for regen but Soulreaping made up for it. I think ANET changed Soulreaping and the minion skills on purpose for this reason. They are easier to maintain. Because of the Aoe Arcanists and the Forgotten Bows using Throw dirt, I decided not to bring Bone Fiends, as they cluster in tastey little targets to get hit all at once.

Lastly was my monking build, which might be the dealbreaker for some. See, hero monks tend to burn out on energy terribly quickly. I am able to pull off this team build because I am the monk, and most of the time I don't waste time healing the piddly damage players take and wait for their health to warrant the mor efficient spells like Word of Healing.

My build is as follows:

Word of Healing, Healing Touch, Healing Whisper, Dismiss Condition, Extinguish, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Heal Party, Ressurection Chant.

Now, although the skills are useful, I feel like their could be streamlined to do more damage. Healing Whisper is like Word of Healing for what it does, but can be used more often in a pinch. I had it in there in place of Signet of Devotion, and I'm beginning to think Signets are a good idea because of the "spell" requirements of Savage Shot and Chaos Storm. Additionally, I rarely ran out of energy, but bringing a signet or two might mean taking out Glyph of Lesser Energy. It's not bad despite the switch to Energy Storage attribute line, but not as useful in this mission. I could also see bringing some sort of AoE effect or damage-dealer to help cope with enemy clusters.

Sometimes I would attack the next boss within 20 seconds of them being ressurected on purpose. The extra bodies mean more minions and the enemies were trapped in a smaller space where damage can affect several at once. This makes me think an Elementalist could replace a ranger, making it possible for a player with Margrid, Sousake, and Olias able to "run" the mission if they themselves can do healing, or swap out the heroes.

Potential changes for the mission Thirsty River:

Ranger: Melandru's Assault, Otyugh's Cry
Many of the creatures in the later part of the mission use Enchantments. Since AoE could make things go smoother, Assault combined with Otyugh's Cry creates a fierce tanking Pet whose attacks can't be blocked.
Substitute: Predator's Pounce and Disrupting Lunge

Necromancer: Deathly Swarm.
Cold damage is strong against the creatures of the desert, and giving Master something to do when he doesn't have minions is just more efficient no matter how you look at it. This extra damage can mean victory in a stalemate.
Substitute: Consume Corpse

I am That Pooka! Remember my name! http://www.theamazonbasin.com/gw/forums/index.php?showtopic=7892