For Guild Wars 2, there is now the long-awaited third raid wing called “Fortress of the Faithful.” This completes the great raid story that began in the Spirit Vale. We got to preview the raid with the developers from Arenanet and made it to the first boss.
“Oh no, Glenna!” was a phrase often heard during our playtest of the “Fortress of the Faithful,” the new raid instance in Guild Wars 2. Because the aforementioned Glenna is a rather headstrong Asura scientist that we must painstakingly escort through a whole course of dangers. And if the poor little woman gets targeted by an enemy again, there is usually a lot of excitement in the chat, because if Glenna dies, we have to restart the whole raid.
Against the White Mantle!
But let’s start from the beginning. The Fortress of the Faithful is the third wing of the great raid story in Guild Wars 2. This began with the first wing “Spirit Vale” and from there our heroes followed clues to the second raid, the “Pass of Salvation.” There, we were made aware of the machinations of the “White Mantle,” a secret rogue organization that already caused us problems in Guild Wars 1.
But now that we know where the Mantle bearers are, we can attack them. However, the colossal fortress is not easy to crack, and therefore we need the Asura expert Glenna. A very challenging section follows, where the raid splits into two groups: One team must protect Glenna while the other players sneak through toxic fungal caves and take out towers on the wall from there.
MOBA Power in GW2!
We were in the Glenna escort team and here the gameplay was somewhat reminiscent of a MOBA like LoL or Heroes of the Storm. Because waves of relatively tough enemies keep appearing, charging towards us with fervor.
In addition, there are mines lying around everywhere that can take us out permanently if we don’t defuse them in time. The worst, however, is the Warg, a particularly nasty giant dog that has a special vendetta against Glenna and keeps appearing at shorter and shorter intervals. His subtitle under the name explicitly says “Really wants to kill Glenna!”
If the Warg catches Glenna and we don’t take him down immediately, that’s it for the little Asura. Fortunately, we can command Glenna a bit ourselves, but anyone who isn’t careful quickly has the death of the little scientist on their hands, ruining the entire raid!
However, if we do our job right, Glenna takes out obstacles in the caves of the second team, who then take care of the towers for us. Otherwise, those would make our lives hell. Overall, a very successful gameplay, in our opinion.
Mesmer and Stone Statues
After escorting Glenna for over an hour and failing epically several times, we finally came to the first mini-boss, a mesmer named McLeod. However, after the strains we endured with Glenna and the cursed Warg, the illusionist was not a big challenge for our reunited raid.
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This would have been rather the stone giant that would have waited next in the courtyard of the actual fortress. By the way, the beast is also seen in the teaser for the raid. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to fight this opponent as well. However, considering how elaborate the raid had been so far, the boss would surely have been a nice challenge.
But enough of our first experiences. What do you think of the raids in Guild Wars 2? Let us know in the comments!
