My level 21 Sylvari thief is stuck in the personal story. I'm not new to MMOs but I think I'm missing something here.

The mission is where you and Caithe accompany the Harbinger down the river to find where he was born. Once the cut scene is over I get wiped out in 10 seconds and there is no way to recover. If I try to come back down the river Caithe is down and I end up taking on 4 Nightmare Court underwater and getting my ass handed to me.

Am I missing something about how I should be tackling these? I'm being downleveled just to run this (its a level 16 story).

Some of the storyline stuff is overbearing. (I think i remember doing poorly in that story as well.) If you keep having trouble I recommend calling in a friend to help. I had to do that for a few unblalanced storyline quests. Also, make sure your armor and weapons are up to snuff.

I cheesed the fight and was able to get past it easy on my fifth try or so. By not triggering the cut scene until I was out of the water and up on the rock above the pod none of the Nightmare Court could target me but I could burn them all down with a shortbow.