Thunderhead Keep

Thunderhead Keep is a mission where a lot of experimentation has been dedicated. The many strategies of this mission include aggro'ing friendly NPCs into enemies and then running away to stick said NPCs, dragging groups of enemies into each other so you can run by them, gate glitching from the City into the Fort, and avoiding certain groups of enemies while killing others so you activate some triggers while delaying others.

All in all, this mission is probably one of the most intensive knowledge checks in the Prophecies Campaign, if not the entire game. Without understanding any one of the above concepts, you're going to have a difficult time solo'ing this mission. And for that reason, please excuse the length of this article, as there are many different ways to handle many of the same tasks within this mission.

Mission

Note: remember that you need all your armor pieces you will use against the Mursaats to be infused.
At the start of the mission, we immediately run into a challenge. Fortunately, it's at the start of the mission, and so it's possible to try it over and over again with very little time lost. Furthermore, you can do everything correctly and King Jalis will still lose his fight and you'll have to restart the mission.

King Jalis

When the mission starts, there's no time to waste because the patrols on the other side of the gate have already started to patrol. Immediately talk to King Jalis to open the gate and head towards the 3x Summit Giant Herders on the left. Aggro them sufficiently enough to where the 3x Summit Giant Herders and King Jalis' group will fight and then race off to the south, around a bend that leads into 3x Siege Ice Golems.
- It's important that we don't spend too much time dealing with these 3x Siege Ice Golems because when the fighting ends between the 3x Summit Giant Herders and King Jalis's group, we need to be far east of this location so King Jalis can't properly path to us and he'll instead gets stuck at his location.

Siege Ice Golems

These 3x Siege Ice Golem spawns are very inconsistent. Sometimes you can run by them without ever aggro'ing them. Most of the time you will aggro them though. Below are a few different methods to handle them:
- Continuously restart the mission until the 3x Siege Ice Golems spawn in a way where you can sneak by them without aggro'ing them.
- Aggro them from below in a way where they're LOS-blocked and kill them. When LOS-blocked, their damage is limited to just Deep Freeze and Rust, neither of which they will cast while the hex is already affecting you.
- Attempt to run by them while aggro'ing them. When doing this, don't move when you're affected by Deep Freeze. Save your IMS skill for when Deep Freeze is ending and then try and dodge the Water Tridents projectiles as you speed off unaffected by Deep Freeze. Once you're nearly away, you can start risk moving in Deep Freeze since their leash range is quite short.
  - Furthermore, these Siege Ice Golems attack at longbow range, so you might be able to position yourself outside of their casting range when Deep Freeze ends to ensure you can get away without it being cast on you again.

Running

Once you get past the 3x Siege Ice Golems, you'll have to run by two groups of Avicara. The group directly in the running path consists of 1x Avicara Wise & 3x Avicara Brave (if you time it well, you can avoid aggroing this group). Be wary of the Avicara Brave's Savage Slash if you're casting a running skill or a heal skill. The Avicara Braves move at a 22% increased movement speed.
You can rest and heal up without worrying about King Jalis following you as soon as you've reached the eastern-most section of this area and have to start heading north.
Continue to run past everything, including the Blessed Griffons, until you cross two wooden bridges.

Avicara vs. Stone Summit

The next two groups of Avicara are typically left alive so that we can pull Stone Summit enemies into them and cause them to fight each other. Because the two groups of Stone Summit each have 1x Siege Ice Golem in them, we're unable to run by them without getting hexed by Deep Freeze or knocked down by Water Trident and then further knocked down by the 4x Giant Summit Herder's Monster skill Giant Stomp.
It's best to start the run when the first patrol of Avicara, the one with a Avicara Wise, is as close as possible to you, since that'll create a further away anchor point and allow you to break their aggro easier. You can sometimes barely avoid aggroing this patrol by hugging the North wall, but it depends on the spawn.
While running through these two groups, you can head down the zig-zag ramp to the south-east of the second group of Avicara to break aggro. However, be careful not to get too close to the south-west, where we left King Jalis. Instead, try to hug the wall as far away from Jalis as you can while also still breaking aggro from the Avicara. If you do get too close to Jalis, he will find a path to you, and then attempt to cross the bridge — which will cause him to die and subsequently lead to a mission failure.

Once you've positioned yourself between the Avicara and the Stone Summit that are located on the bridge, wait for the Stone Summit groups to separate. Depending on the 3x Avicara Fierce spawns, you can hug the nearby wall to LOS-block them from hitting you as you head back into them. Then, use a longbow/flatbow to pull the group on the bridge towards you.
- The best time to pull the Stone Summit group is when the patrolling Avicara, the ones with a Avicara Wise, are closest to you. This means you won't run into them when pulling the two groups into each other.
- Keep your distance from the Stone Summit group after pulling to avoid the Siege Ice Golem's Deep Freeze.
- You'll want to be wary of using an IMS here too soon since you'll break the aggro you just acquired. Once the Stone Summit are in the Avicara Fierce's aggro, you can break off the aggro and run back from the way we came.
- The patrolling group of Avicara should automatically join the fight without any intervention on your part. You can just run past this patrolling group of Avicara and let the groups fight it out. The Avicara Wise's Ineptitude should always ensure that the Avicara win the fight.
With the first group of Stone Summit defeated, repeat the process a second time. Be wary of any corpse aggro when going back in for a second attempt. You can then either kill the boss yourself, or bring it to the Avicara as you did with the two groups.
Now that all the Stone Summit are dead, you can move on up the ramp and into the City. Be wary when you turn the corner to go up the ramp since this is the closest you'll get to King Jalis. If you don't hug this corner when you turn it, you might get too close to Jalis, he will find a path to you, and then attempt to cross the bridge — which will cause him to die and subsequently lead to a mission failure.

The City

Just after the ramp is a group of 2x Summit Giant Herders and 2x Stone Summit Ranger. These can be slipped by or killed. Killing them is quite simple since the edge of their leash range put the Stone Summit Rangers on the wrong side of the hill top, effectively LOS-blocking them. Just remember when killing the Summit Giant Herders to hug the corner, otherwise you might get too close to Jalis, he will find a path to you, and then attempt to cross the bridge — which will cause him to die and subsequently lead to a mission failure.
- Be careful not to extend their leash range. Otherwise, you'll have no place to run to since you can't cross the bridge and behind you is Avicara.

Before moving into the City, there is a group of Stone Summit patrolling within the city to the north east. It consists of 2x Summit Giant Herders, 2x Stone Summit Rangers, & 1x Dolyak Master.
- Aggro this patrol from beneath and kill the 1x Dolyak Master, the 2x Stone Summit Rangers, and ONLY ONE of the Summit Giant Herders.
  - If you kill both the Summit Giant Herders, you'll have to gate glitch later with a patrol of 1x Dolyak Rider & 3x Stone Summit Carvers instead of just this 1x Summit Giant Herder.
As we enter into the City, keep an eye on the patrols on west side since they can sandwich you if you're not careful. The next four groups to kill consist of 2x Enslaved Frost Giants & 2x Stone Summit Rangers. All four of these groups can be LOS-blocked:
- The first group can be LOS-blocked using the side of the gate.
- The second group can be LOS-blocked from underneath them, in front of the stairs of the house.
- The third group is found by going north in the City, avoiding the patrols, and then east. You'll find them on top of a wall. You can LOS-block this group using a nook to the right of the first pillar. The patrols won't catch aggro on you from here.
  - While you're in this location, you can aggro a patrolling group inside the fort consisting of 3x Stone Summit Gnashers & 1x Summit Giant Herder. Wait to kill the group of Giants/Rangers until that group gets close, and then they'll create a Bone Fiend from the corpses, which you can cast on, thereby aggro'ing the entire group. You likely won't be able to kill the Stone Summit Herder from this location, but that's not a problem as we'll kill it by itself later.
  - Alternative, you can just barely cast on this group from below to aggro them at the very end of their patrol path.
- The fourth and final group can be LOS-blocked from the gate where we gate glitch.

Gate Glitching

Navigate south from the nook in the wall, to where we had previously killed the group with a Dolyak Master. Continue to follow the bend east and then north again, avoiding the remaining Summit Giant Herder (and keeping him alive).
Kill the group of 2x Enslaved Frost Giant and 2x Stone Summit rangers if you haven't already.
Aggro the remaining 1x Summit Giant Herder when it's as close to the gate as it patrol allows.
- Use the Summit Giant Herder to gate glitch through this gate.
- Unequip your primary weapon when getting into melee with Summit Giant Herders. They won't use Devastating Hammer if you're only wielding a shield.
- You may have to extend the leash range to get it to reach the gate.
- Be wary of the nook on the south side of the gate.
  - If you get stuck in this nook, the only way out will be to kill the Summit Giant Herder. This means you'll then have to use a patrol of 1x Dolyak Riders & 3x Stone Summit Carver for the gate glitch, which is a lot more incoming damage.

The Heretics

As soon as the gate glitch is done, you can scoot forward to break aggro of the Summit Giant Herder. Be careful not to scoot too far forward though, otherwise you'll trigger a group inside the fort to run towards you.
Once the trigger is activated, a group of 3x Stone Summit Heretics & 1x Summit Giant Herder will race towards you. Immediately, run down into the pit to your left and hug the western-most corner. As soon as the Heretics run by, you can relocate to the western-most overhang, just above the nook. Also hug the western-most corner in this location to avoid the Heretic patrol.
- There will be 1x Summit Giant Herder around from the previous Gnasher group. You can safely kill it from this overhang location.
- Since these Heretics and the following group are some of, if not the most, dangerous groups in the mission, I tend to skip this first group. While keeping an eye on the second patrol up the hill, slip out of this location when the first patrol returns to the gate we glitched through.
- The goal when fighting the second group of Stone Summit Heretics is to LOS-block their wand damage. Once the 1x Summit Giant Herder in the group is dead, the DPS will only consist of degen. There are two locations used to LOS-Block this group:
  1. Behind the torch just to the left
  2. On the corner where you can first see into the fort
- Note that the Heretics have Shatter enchantment, but don't use it if your HP is between 30 and 70%.

Clearing out the Fort

Killing the following groups will start the spawning of the bosses:

Once the heretics have been defeated, skip the next two groups that consist of 3x Stone Summit Gnashers & 1x Summit Giant Herder. To make this section of running easier, you can kill the Summit Giant Herder in the first group. Run immediately downstairs and hug the wall to get to the other side of the Stone Summit Elementalists Boss, Dagnar Stonepate.
Position yourself on the western-most stairs and use the corner pillar to LOS-block Dagnar Stonepate while you kill him.
Head upstairs and kill the group of 3x Stone Summit Gnashers & 1x Summit Giant Herder at the top of the fort.
Use the West ballista to kill the Giants outside the fort. Try to not kill any wild bear at the same time as it could be useful later.
Kill the group of 1x Dolyak Master and 1x Stone Summit Heretic. You can use the pillar at the base of the stairs up to them to LOS block their wand damage.
Kill the other group of 3x Stone Summit Gnashers & 1x Summit Giant Herder at the top of the fort.
The last two remaining groups consist of 3x Stone Summit Heretics & 1x Summit Giant Herder. There are many ways to aggro these, but the most important considerations are to only aggro one group at a time and to LOS-block the Heretic's wand damage.
- For the western group, you can use a longbow/flatbow and pull them to the same pillar we killed Dagnar from. This spot is at the edge of their leash range, meaning you can break away from the group if needed, even with Crippling Anguish. This spot is also too far away from the other group of Heretics to allow an accidental double pull.
- For the eastern group, you can pull them at the top of the stairs where the 1x Dolyak Rider and 1x Stone Summit Heretic was located. There is a pole with two flags on it that works well with keeping all the Heretics LOS blocked.

Stone Summit Boss

If you've cleared everything in the fort, except the first two groups of 3x Stone Summit Gnashers & 1x Summit Giant Herders, then you've seen King Jalis talk in "Team" chat. This means that waves of enemies will approach each gate. We're going to completely ignore the east gate and solely focus all our attention on the west gate.
- If you're worried you might need a melee creature at the gate for later to gate glitch back in, you can let a Herder alive in the first group that approach the Fort from the West side. A wild bear can also be used if there is one.
After a brief amount of time, the Stone Summit Boss should appear. Once you kill it and its whole group, you'll get another message in "Team" chat from King Jalis.

Mursaat Boss

After killing the Stone Summit Boss, and receiving the message from King Jalis, pairs of Mursaats will start to pile up at the closed gate.
Eventually a Mursaat Boss and another caster Mursaat will appear and both will need to be killed.
- To keep better track of which Mursaat was in the Mursaat Boss's group, it might help to kill the Mursaats at the gate while you wait.
- You'll know when you've triggered the final wave when you see, yet again, King Jalis say something in "Team" chat.

Confessor Dorian

This boss takes a long time to appear. Between killing the Mursaat Boss and waiting for Confessor Dorian's group is a good time to take a rest.
Everyone in Confessor Dorian's group needs to be killed.
There are two methods for handling this:
1. Let Confessor Dorian show up and then kill his group through the closed gates.
2. Let Confessor Dorian show up and then kill the two groups we skipped earlier with 3x Stone Summit Gnashers & 1x Summit Giant Herders to open the gates.
  - You'll be provided 3x Lvl 17 Smoke Phantoms at this gate if you open the doors.
  - These Smoke Phantoms are not infused, and so the Mursaats should be cleared before doing this if you want to make use of them.
  - The warriors in Dorian's group won't run far away from the gate if the gate is open.
  - Be wary when playing on the edge of this group's leash range as they can just about reach King Jalis.

Bonus

Bonus route is the same than above for the part up to the fort, but significantly different (and harder) after. You need to defend the fort with the gates open and the King reachable by the enemies, and thus need a build that allows you to survive the waves of Mursaats and kill them before being overwhelmed.

Some resources that can be helpful are:
Candy’s video explaining THK and the difference between soloing THK with and without bonus.
nightquist’s Google doc with all the timer and description of spawns.

Clearing out the Fort

(after the Heretics groups)

Kill the first group of 3 Gnashers + 1 Herder.
Kill the Gnashers in the second group of 3 Gnashers + 1 Herder (south of the east gate), keep the Herder ALIVE.
Kill Dagnar.
Use the West ballista to kill the Giants outside the fort, try to not kill any wild bear at the same time as it could be useful later.
You will need to kill one of the groups shown in a red circle here LAST. Usually the chosen group is one of the 3 Gnashers + 1 Herder groups at the top of the fort because it can be killed from outside the fort. Evaluate which of these two 3 Gnashers + 1 Herder group seems to be at cast-range outside of the fort (usually, it’s the west one).
Kill everything besides the Herder you left alive earlier and the 3 Gnashers in the group you’re going to kill from outside (kill the Herder in this group).
Glitch outside the fort using the Herder you left alive, then immediately kill it. After having made sure you glitched outside, you can get back at melee range and let the Herder hit you through the door at melee to make sure he does not run away.
Kill the 2 groups of Jades (each group has 2 W + 1 R) that stand next to the Mursaat spawn (North of the Fort).
Kill the 3 Gnashers you left alive from outside the Fort. If they are out of reach, glitch back into the fort using a wild bear (if there is one) to kill the Gnashers. If none of these is possible, you must restart the mission. WARNING: Once this step is done, the cutscene will play and events will unfold rapidly, so be ready.

After the cutscene

Immediately use the torches to light up the beacons, usually east then west (there is one torch next to each beacon so don’t bring the torch from one beacon to the other one as it slows you down). Lightning the beacons will make the Bonus Jades (2 groups of 3 Jades) to siege the fort.
Your next two goals are 1-to not kill the Bonus Jades (since they are hostile to all the other enemies, will help you defending the fort, and don’t go up to the King) and 2-to kill the Stone Summit Boss and his group while being as close as possible from the Mursaat Spawn – where you killed the 2 x 3 Jades earlier – (be at least outside the fort at the west gate). There are different ways to handle this:
- Wait for the Bonus Jades to be inside the fort, then go outside the fort from the West Gate without aggroing the Bonus Jades (or break them immediately with an IMS if you did), and then handle the boss while being LOS’d from the giants yourself (for example at this location).
- Alternatively, you can kill the Giants in the boss’s group with the ballista — but you might sometimes aggro the Bonus Jades, which you don’t want (or you’re gonna need to break them with an IMS and avoid that they randomly get to the King) — and then kill the boss with the method above or below.
- Or you can let the Bonus Jades kill the boss and his group for you, which they should be able to. In this case, stay in compass range from the Bonus Jades, otherwise they will not fight.
- None of the technics above has proven to be better and it depends on too many things (your build, what profession the boss is, how the Bonus Jades randomly move in the fort, at what speed you lit up the beacon…) to give a proper advice.
Note that as long the Stone Summit boss is alive, the next step will not trigger so this could be your last opportunity to rest (for example if you are LOS’d from the boss) before the next steps. Next steps will last for at least 15 mins, require all your concentration and abilities, and are the hardest part of the mission.

Once the Stone Summit Boss and his group is dead

The King says the line “The Mantle followed you!”. Run up to the Mursaat spawns and deal with the 2 groups that are coming: 2 (W or R) + 1 R + 1 E without aggroing the White Mantles that run to the fort.
You are gonna need to deal with Mursaat spawns as they come. Below are some tips:
- You can use nightquist’s Google doc to know when the next Mursaat group spawns and what it is composed of.
- You can LOS the enemies by placing behind the hill as seen here.
- Prioritize the enemies that are the biggest threat. It depends on your build, but usually monks, mesmers, eles then warriors are the first you want to kill.
- If you have cleared all the enemies before the next spawn arrives, you can go down and pull the next group up to you to buy some time before the next spawns.
- If possible, kill the Mursaat boss or its add LAST, once there is no new spawn, because killing it triggers wave 3.
- If ever you are about to die or can’t kill the enemies, you can run back to the fort and hope that you + the Bonus Jades are gonna be enough to defend the King. This is very unlikely but still better than dying or giving up.
Once Dorian and his group spawn, finish the Mursaats you’re fighting and fight Dorian OR bring the Mursaats away to finish them and let Dorian’s group pass (if needed you can alternatively break the remaining Mursaats and let them go inside the fort and get killed by the Bonus Jades).

Dorian

Warning: as soon as you get close from the fort, the White Mantle and the Bonus Jades will fight each other. Bonus Jades should win easily, which will trigger the next waves of White Mantles: but your target is Dorian and you don’t need to deal with the waves of White Mantle since they should be handled by the Bonus Jades.
Dorian’s group will first go to the east gate, then run back to the west gate before entering the fort. To deal with it, you can:
- Let them get killed by the Bonus Jades
- Fight them outside the fort (possible to fight them at leash range)
- A combination of the two
Once the whole Dorian’s group is dead, get to the King and talk to him. DO NOT bring any enemy on the King (either kill them or break aggro with an IMS). You don’t need to kill the remaining Bonus Jades or White Mantle.

Useful Knowledge and miscellaneous

Shade's original documentation: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Shade_the#Thunderhead_Keep_Archive
It can happen that the 3x Siege golems and the 1 Siege Golem + 3 or 4 Herders next to them get their AI disabled while you're out of range, then get killed by unglitched King.
If the King get unglitched and survives, it is possible to glitch him back on other enemies or with a TP skill like Shadow of Haste.
Bonus Jades can be used to kill a boss if needed (none of the mursaats or jades is infused).
Mursaat Monks don't use Aura of Faith if you don't attack.
There are some dwarves next to where the Bonus Jades initially are. They do not fight, can be killed by the enemies, and don't need to survive (even for bonus completion).
You can gate glitch outside of the fort and back in as needed (if there are enemies/wild bears available)
Regarding the bonus, depending on how the Bonus Jades move inside the Fort, it is possible that it fails even though you closely followed the procedure written above.
You might want to try another strat to get the bonus done. Below are some tactics that have been attempted and do NOT work
- Glitching the very first gate with AoTL and go clear the fort (the King is tp'd by the cutscene even though you haven't talk to him at the beginning of the mission; and the changes it does to his AI do not help).
- Triggering the cutscene after having triggered the waves (for bonus).
- Defending the fort by staying inside (makes everything harder with almost no benefit).
- Pulling the King away from his spot with a minion or an enemy.
- Pulling all the patrols up to the fort to defend the fort (they do defend but are way to weak to make a significant difference; just as a side note, the way to achieve that was to glitch the Stone Summit boss on the allied dwarves). Waves of enemies are hostile to all the other enemies in the mission, including dwarves and Avicaras.
- Of note, you need to have talked to the King at the beginning for the waves to trigger.

page revision: 85, last edited: 07 Feb 2026 14:50

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Guild Wars Solo Wiki

Mission

King Jalis

Siege Ice Golems

Running

Avicara vs. Stone Summit

The City

Gate Glitching

The Heretics

Clearing out the Fort

Stone Summit Boss

Mursaat Boss

Confessor Dorian

Bonus

Clearing out the Fort

After the cutscene

Once the Stone Summit Boss and his group is dead

Dorian

Useful Knowledge and miscellaneous

Video links