Guild Wars 2 River of Souls Guide

Welcome to my guide for the Guild Wars 2 raid event, River of Souls (River), the second encounter in Hall of Chains (Wing 5). This is a detailed guide on the mechanics of the event including various strategies that cater to everyone from beginners to experienced raiders. If you’re brand new to raiding, I recommend reading my Path to Endgame guides first.

Know Before You Go

The River of Souls is a scripted encounter like Siege the Stronghold. The goal is to escort Desmina up the River of Souls so she can recover her energy and aid in the fight against Dhuum. Players will face various enemies and obstacles as they protect Grenth’s First Follower.

Recommendations

• Aegis: This is invaluable to prevent Desmina from taking damage from Hollowed Bombers.
• Movement speed increase: Much of the encounter is mobile, so having permanent Swiftness; signets that increase movement speed; and teleports, shadowsteps, and leaps is helpful.
• Portals: Mesmers or Thieves can make the event easier by bringing or .
• Stun Breaks: This can be helpful if you’re accidentally Stunned by Soulless Torrent.

General Mechanics

Desmina

Desmina will conjure a protective dome when you speak to her to begin the event. Players who stay inside the bubble will receive Desmina's Protection, a buff that negates passive environmental damage from the River of Souls. Players who venture outside the dome will receive Soul Siphon, a debuff that drains health every second. With two exceptions, Desmina will never stop walking up the River, impassive to most of its threats.

Desmina can be attacked and take damage from a couple of different sources during the event. This includes exploding bombers and the skeletal Spirit Horde. She is, however, impervious to other effects that would damage players. If she dies at any point, the encounter will fail.

Spatial Rifts

Swirling black and green rifts will spawn as Desmina advances up the River of Souls, usually off to either side, but sometimes in the middle. Each rift starts with 10 stacks of Rift Force, an effect that sucks players toward them. Desmina is immune to this effect.

You could fall from the River, resulting in death, or be pulled into other mechanics or out of Desmina's bubble. If you’re in danger, you can fight against the pull by running in the other direction or Dodging away.

Players can remove these stacks on a one-to-one basis by hitting them with direct damage (ticking conditions do not affect them). Quickness helps with this, along with flurry attacks such as ( Necromancer Axe 2), ( Holosmith Photon Forge), or ( Virtuoso Dagger 1). When you have stripped all stacks, they lose their gravitational pull. Stacks will regenerate over time.

Soulless Torrent

Players randomly receive small expanding AoEs. As the AoE expands, it will ‘drop’ like a mine. When the dark orange circle meets the outer yellow ring, the AoE will explode, dealing moderate damage and Stunning players for two seconds. These have no effect on Desmina.

If you have the AoE, move to the side or back of the bubble to drop it away from other players and then walk or Dodge out of it. You can also drop it on enemies, particularly enervators or skeletons.

Surging Souls

About halfway up the River of Souls, Surging Souls, like those in the Soulless Horror encounter, will spawn. They either move down with the current or from one side to the other. There will always be room to maneuver around each of these mini-segments. Unlike those on Soulless Horror, they will only Down a player instead of defeating them. Desmina is unaffected by these walls.

Fractured Spirit

If a player would be defeated on the River of Souls, they will be split from their spirit and get a second chance to survive. They will be given 30 seconds, tracked by the Mortal Coil effect, to collect pink orbs scattered along the River: these are souls. Claiming five souls, tracked by the Energy Threshold effect, will reunite the player with their body. They will also receive the Fractured Spirit debuff, indicating that should that player be defeated again, they won’t have the strength to harvest more souls and will instead die.

If there are multiple players in this state at the same time, they will be competing for souls, as each one disappears when collected. If this happens, it makes it more likely players have to stray far from Desmina's Protection while gathering and increases the risk they will go Down again and die permanently on the way back to her.

Minions

Spirit Horde

About halfway up the River of Souls, skeletons in Dhuum’s Spirit Horde will spawn en masse. Though they be but little, they are fierce. These minions will run up to Desmina or players and slash them with their axes, dealing surprisingly high damage. You can damage or cleave them, but the best way to handle them is to drop the Soulless Torrent AoEs on them, as this will do a lot of damage, if not kill them outright, and Stun them, causing them to fall behind.

Hollowed Bombers

Hollowed bombers usually spawn two at a time and run toward Desmina. When they get close enough, she will stop moving and they will start channeling an explosion. Their defiance bar will unlock, enabling you to CC them and interrupt their attack. You will still have to kill them even if you break their bar.

If they explode, they will die but deal a lot of damage to Desmina and any players standing in their AoE. You can prevent this damage by giving her Aegis before the explosion occurs.

Enervators

Enervators will channel a blue beam at Desmina that deals damage to her, disrupts her shield, and prevents her from being healed. She will also stop moving if this occurs, allowing the Spirit Horde to catch up and attack her. These enemies will inhibit progress and are more likely than any other mechanic to make the event fail.

The Soulless Torrent AoEs do 25% of an enervator’s health in one hit and interrupt their beam briefly. This is more of a respite to heal Desmina and get her protection back for a moment since they will channel it again as soon as the Stun wears off.

Strategies

There are two strategies to handle the event. This first is the ‘intended’ way, but the second is generally safer and more likely to result in success.

Stick with Desmina

For this strategy, you stay with Desmina the entire time and deal with mechanics as they pop up. A few people should still run ahead and try to do as much damage to the enervators before they can leave Desmina vulnerable for too long.

Forge a Path

This strategy seeks to deal with the biggest threat, the enervators, ahead of time, while leaving a couple of players with Desmina to keep her safe. 

The majority of the squad will mount up on Jackals and start running up the River of Souls before the event starts. For this group, I recommend two or three healers, a boon support, and three or four bursty DPSers.

Any healer will work, but Druids are at a disadvantage. It will be hard for them to sustain health while not in , and if they go Down, they’ll lose all their astral force, making it likely they’ll keep going Down trying to get it back. They can, however, bring , which has a great application in absorbing the River of Souls’ passive damage. Tempests with their saving throw, , and raw healing output are perfect for the job.

To get to the first enervator, players can use the sand leap three times and then dismount using Pounce. Any player with the Bolster Allies mastery will stack Barrier, leaving everyone with a health bar and a half to start. They will then run ahead, killing enervators as they go. Once they kill the last one at the top of the River, they will head back down to regroup with the others. As they run down, they can kill any Spirit Horde or bombers they might encounter on the way.

Two or three players will stay at the bottom of the River with Desmina. For this group, I recommend a Heal Firebrand or Chronomancer and a DPS or Heal Scrapper. One of them will talk to her to start the escort, spawning the enervators, when everyone else is in position. This smaller group will protect Desmina as she advances.

The Heal Firebrand can give her Aegis before the bombers explode or heal her if their attack gets through. The Chronomancer will take (and possibly ) to give her Aegis, as well as a scepter to help take out the rifts. The DPS will take out the rifts with their ranged attacks and try to CC the second bomber. The Scrapper will give Desmina Superspeed.

If you aren’t giving Desmina Aegis, you’ll need to always interrupt at least one bomber and heal her up after the second one explodes.

Portal

Your squad can use a portal with either strategy. A Mesmer or Thief will place it after the second enervator which stands in the middle of the River of Souls, and then use movement abilities (e.g. + or (Shortbow 5) and ) to quickly advance up. They will put the exit down about as far away as they can. Everyone else will wait there, using healers to sustain themselves.

If this is used in the first strategy, it’s to skip ahead to the enervators and try to make it safer at the end when things get hectic. Players should be careful about leaving Desmina alone for too long, as the Spirit Horde will still be attacking her.

This is less useful in the second strategy, but can still be used to skip the first long section of Surging Souls if desired.

When your squad, or what’s left of it, reaches the platform at the end of the River of Souls with Desmina, a little worse for wear, you will complete the event.