Guild Wars 2

I think a lot of people don’t understand about what the patch did yesterday lol.

Ayrilana.1396:

Well people have about a week to do this and there’s no incentive to farm it so you will likely not have people trying to refine builds.

Yeah, but we’ll have plenty of people who did it solo pre-patch and tell us it’s ezmode, l2p. lol I think it’s do-able, but it’s not catered to your avereage gamer.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I think a lot of people don’t understand about what the patch did yesterday lol.

Nope. They have no clue. To me it now seems that the spawns are timed and not event based now. So regardless of how you careful you are, or how quickly you kill the plunders, and even if you’re soloing, you have a ridiculous number of enemies that have an obscenely large aggro radius and really really do not want to break aggro (going swimming doesn’t help and they will follow you around the rock now) at about 5-6 minutes in. T3 takes 7 minutes.

“Exploit early. Exploit often.”

that has been a recurring theme for newly released contents.
do it within that window before they realised they messed up somewhere

mobile storage.1294:

“Exploit early. Exploit often.”

that has been a recurring theme for newly released contents.
do it within that window before they realised they messed up somewhere

I think about half of the people who completed beforehand didn’t exploit. The patch did two things, it removed the exploit and buffed the instance. For all I know QA on Anet makes up numbers.

Excalibur.9748:

Topher.1684:

Excalibur.9748:

It’s not easy, i wasted some significant time trying to solo it yesterday. I don’t want to be too quick to say it’s impossible (at least for solo), but it might be.

I can’t tell if you are being serious or not…but when they say solo, what they mean is solo by the spawn points. They don’t kill anything but the plunderers.

I know….. I have guides posted on how to solo it on T4 with 2 different methods:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-for-candidate-trials-challenge/first#post2500525

They buffed it yesterday and NOW I think it’s very hard-impossible. Not sure if still possible to solo.

Just about everyone telling us how wonderfully ez it is hasn’t done it TODAY. To all of you: Go back, try and solo it and start with t3 and let us know if you can even complete that. For t3 you find yourself very overwhelmed with about 2 minutes left. Multiple plunderers 2 mortars, and the vets (with way too many hps) and trash mobs start to stack up on you. I soloed t4 two days ago and now I cannot get past t3.

To me what’s really sad about this is Anet’s inability to tell the difference between being clever/creative/thinking outside the box and an exploit. The appropriate way to do this would have been to reward people who focus on slowing down the plunderers, and killing them only when necessary (on their return) by slowing down the spawn rate (i.e., link mob spawns to the death of a plunderer). Tradeoff – fewer kills/less loot less possibility of a rare skin, etc. BUT you can finish it. Most players would be able to complete it on the bronze or silver level that way. Only a few would get gold completions. If you want players to keep coming back after the initial completion put a chest at the end with a chance to have a rare skin or something. But you don’t do what they did and turn it into a punishing grind.

What Anet needs to do is to test it themselves using a level 80 party of every different setup. If they find it too hard, then lower the difficulty. Just don’t throw something this difficult at us.

I had guides posted on how to do it the “exploit way” and the “non exploit way”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Guide-for-candidate-trials-challenge/first#post2500525

Neither of them work now because they added timed mobs (mobs that spawn after a certain period of time) which are closer and have bigger aggro ranges and don’t break aggro as easily

Just did the solo T4 on Thief for evon today.
I made a few mistakes so it was a close call in the end, but it should be possible with more margin.

http://www.twitch.tv/me_latency/b/436810892

I wonder if they changed it again, I didn’t see any timed mobs spawning in your stream just now. Gonna test when I get back home.

how am i supposed to do it as ranger? seriously…
i wont roll a stupid berserk warrior just for an t4 achivement !
ive tried with 2 people, 3 people, 4 people,… tanky grp, dmg… solo…. everything!
anet must hate rangers.

The timed spawns are horrible. You have to be lucky with your crits, otherwise you might miss a very important spawn and you might get too many mobs/pulls/plunderers..

Anyway I’m sure they only test this with warriors(because I don’t see them playing often with other classes). Shame for classes like Ranger, which is an forgotten class anyway.

Latency.3907:

Just did the solo T4 on Thief for evon today.
I made a few mistakes so it was a close call in the end, but it should be possible with more margin.

http://www.twitch.tv/me_latency/b/436810892

No offense, but very impressive with that low DPS!

MidnightX.6294:

how am i supposed to do it as ranger? seriously…
i wont roll a stupid berserk warrior just for an t4 achivement !
ive tried with 2 people, 3 people, 4 people,… tanky grp, dmg… solo…. everything!
anet must hate rangers.

ANet don’t hate Rangers, they hate everything that’s not Warrior or Guardian. Maybe Thief gets a lick of the favoritism lolly too, but if you play a class that’s not one of those, you better get the lube ready.

I agree what people has been saying, tier 3 and especially tier 4 have been made to difficult. I like a challenge but arenanet up the difficulty to much this time.

Also it really discourages people that were lucky enough to complete it before it was patch to want to come back and help others because of the difficulty now is so hard and not wanting have to go through it. One of the things I love about this game is it encouraging you to help each other, this new difficulty does not.

That was hard. I did it on my thief since I don’t have zerkers on any other char… failed somewhere 5 times total on both T3 and T4, those Veterans destroy me, and that stuff follows me all the way to the ends of the earth.

i dont mind fixing the bug. But also buffing this is just cruel.

It’s impossible now. Especially for my friend who has an ele. I havent seen any successful story with ele in this thread. Mostly warrior.

IT’S TOO HARD. FIX IT ANET.

Actually, I think the biggest tragedy to all this is that the last class change patch explicitly stated that they wanted to focus on build diversity and encouraging people to branch out.

Events like this work against that philosophy, IMHO, by pigeon-holing classes into doing only one spec to be successful.

All this for a fluff mini? Difficulty is not in line with reward and temporary content.

This is probably the worst experience I’ve had in this game so far; if you’re not a two-shotting warrior or thief, that just so happens to have berserker gear, have fun completing this achievement.

This probably would be easier if they did two things:

• Fix the aggro range. Getting aggro from over 2,000 away is ridiculous considering nothing else in the game has that long on an aggro range.

• Fix it so they leash properly. Nothing more annoying than to have five of them come at you from the loot and NEVER go back.

I had 2500 left with about 2 minutes remaining. One of them decided to aggro from clear across the map and brought everything else with it that did not want to leave. Needless to say I failed. Basically people will have to keep playing this over and over and hope RNG plays in their favor.

Oh yeah. After a wipe, two veteran grenadiers don’t despawn with the others forcing you to clear those before you can restart.

Lafiel.9372:

Right now, it’s easier to do it solo and with a thief or warrior than with a group.

Those are the only professions I don’t have – though maybe I should have considering those are the professions Izzy likes most. Not that I think Izzy has anything to do with this particular change.

I made a Picture below to demonstrate our Duo strat that seemed effective and easy.

Important notes: The first spawn at camp B is always at 5:30. The first spawn at the middle camp is always at 3:00. Once the first comes you have a rough idea when to expect the rest.

We were able to complete both last night within 6 attempts each. It’s luck based on how hard the adds want to be on you. We used Potion of bandit slaying(?) (+8%dmg -8%dmg) and food. Neither of us were on a “main” like toon so we lacked deep experience in combat but were able to pull this off.

This strat should work with any class that can range solo one plunderer in a duo group without leaving the treeline. (don’t ever go past the treeline Camp A or the rock Camp B or adds get out of hand fast.) This strat doesn’t rely on stealth.

Full Zerk Warrior (Axe/Mace Rifle)
Full Zerk Thief (Dagger x2, Pistols x2)

Here is a picture strat guide of exactly what to do: The strat relies on 2 people each killing their own mob everytime and killing the middle mob later on when it’s convenient 1-2 times.

Note: Enjoyed this fight and I’m glad to have attempted it post patch at intended difficulty. Having to strategize, plan, and execute a GW2 encounter was nice . It is the most remotely challenging thing that’s been released in gw2 to date. ( Excluding Clock Tower)

I’m very desperate…I think I won’t get T4 for ellen/evon

I tried it solo, with 2,3,4 and with a full group,…

I tried it with my guardian, with my full berserk warrior, with my thiev, with my necro

….I wasted this hole day only to find out that I won’t get this achievement….I am really upset that I didn’t finish this kitten thing before the patch ò.ó

I’m very desperate…I think I won’t get T4 for ellen/evon :-(
I tried it solo, with 2,3,4 and with a full group,…
I tried it with my guardian, with my full berserk warrior, with my thiev, with my necro
….I wasted this hole day only to find out that I won’t get this achievement….I am really upset that I didn’t finish this kitten thing before the patch ò.ó

taek.9386:

Remz.9083:

Alright. So far this is the only way todo it.. Although if you make a mistake, you’re dead.

I’ve done this as a guardian berserker build, using my scepter mostly.

Thanks to this guy for showing me a good way to solo it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCj0Tsj1AI

Used this tactic and its legit, worked well with my thief

To bad that vid is pre-patch, just like every other successful video in this thread. I completed T4 a dozen times before patch – solo, duo and trio. I’ve completed it once solo after, with a ton of luck and class actually capable of it. This content is not possible for all classes in its current state.

So after having read that a lot of people were having trouble with this since the bug fix, I decided to give it a shot and see if it was doable with anything other than a Warrior or some other 2-shot class, so I decided to go with my Ranger.

For some perspective, he’s in full zerker gear with Ranger runes, 2 ascended rings, an ascended amulet, and an ascended quiver. For my weapons I took a zerker sword and a zerker horn (they’re socketed with default sigils from the CoF vendor because I haven’t had the time to fix them, so for all intents and purposes they’re yellow) and a rare level 80 longbow with no sigil in it.

Traits were 20/25/0/25/0
The most important thing here, for me, was having Eagle Eye in the Marksmanship tree.

Utility skills were Quickening Zephyr, Frost Spirit (traited in Nature Magic with the IV trait), and a third utility of your choice. I used Grasping Vines, which is a Sylvari racial, but I also found Lightning Reflexes was a good fit as it helped you get away from sticky situations.

Anyways, the fight begins in t4 and you should be standing towards the back where the grenadiers spawn to the right of the central spawn. Immediately, the first plunderer will spawn on the left and will be the sole spawn for about 2 minutes or so. A good strategy I found was to push her back into the water. This forces her to swim back to the spawn and then running forward, usually giving you enough time to kill the mob before it even gets out of the water.

At around the ~5:30 minute mark, the right mob begins to spawn. He is difficult to hit because he is so far ahead from the rest of the spawns. Barrage was fantastic here and constantly being on the look out for him spawning is a must. If you have to choose between the spawn on the far left or the right spawn, always go for the right one as they have a tendency to leave your range sooner AND also like to go for the near treasure, which can devastate you later on.

Keep this up as the middle spawns come in and you should win.

However, I understand wherein the frustration lies: the veterans spawning near to you. This was a tricky bit of business and it’s a mixture of both anticipation and luck. Learning when the mobs spawn is fundamental to you beating this, almost as much as keeping up with the plunderers.

The key thing to remember here is to never engage the veterans: always run away and let them reset. They have a tendency for running towards the treasure in the center and staying there. The water is a good escape and so is just running further back along the island. However, this becomes tricky with the plunderers so weigh your options: if you’re still at 2,000 treasure don’t be afraid to lose 500 or 1,000, but if you’re down to your last 1,000 with two active plunderers, it may be time for a reset or try and kill the plunderers before retreating.

All in all it took me several attempts to get this down, with the biggest thing being the veteran mob spawns. Be on the look out for those and be cautious. While you can, for the most part, ignore a grenadier since their attacks are easy enough to sidestep, if you have any other mob type on you it can get hairy.

Either way, it’s definitely doable without just a Warrior but it is difficult and will probably take people many attempts. That said, hit hard enough and be vigilant enough and you’ll come out of it just fine – I finished it with 1,500 treasure left and no plunderers up when the clock hit 0:00.

Hopefully this helps some of you (especially we Rangers, who have been castigated for pretty much existing) get the achievements.

I’m just glad i solo’d this content as soon as it came out. How can they go from the Molten Facility dungeon and Aetherblade retreat dungeon to these crappy candidate trials? It just seems lazy, adding mobs with more health points doesn’t make good and fun content.

When the Molten Facility dungeon and Aetherblade retreat dungeon was temporary i was constantly running them. Why? Because they were fun. I have done these T4 trials just for the achievements and i will never step foot in them again.

Thank you for the thoughtful write-up. While it will undoubtedly be helpful to some, it still does not speak to the premise of this discussion; that is, the content is poorly designed. So, poorly designed, in fact, that RNG is more important than skill or spec.

I don’t think the dev team sat at the table and came up with this specifically. From a high level evaluation, it looks like they wanted a horde mode type experience where you are supposed to be near the NPC, fighting off waves, and stopping the runners. They also, after weeks of abuse about things being too easy, wanted to ensure it was a challenge.

A noble goal, but good intentions being what they are, something was lost. This is clear when every strategy isn’t “stand your ground”, but rather “stay as far away as you can and hope you can pick off the runners”. Add to that, avoiding mortars by staying behind them. In fact, I would wager that the QA team caught onto that little strategy and that is why the aggro radius is so obscene. They want us to engage. They want us to fight. What they have done instead is stack the odds so heavily against you though that there is no incentive to try that. For the sake of analogy, and not politics, think of this, conceptually, as a “Laffer Curve” of risk vs. reward.

So, here we are. Players doing everything they can to circumvent the content instead of engaging with it. There is probably no greater hurt to a dev then to see their content ignored. If they want to change that, then they need to re-evaluate.

laharl.8435:

To bad that vid is pre-patch, just like every other successful video in this thread. I completed T4 a dozen times before patch – solo, duo and trio. I’ve completed it once solo after, with a ton of luck and class actually capable of it. This content is not possible for all classes in its current state.

my video was today post patch.
its doable but not easy? but its an achievement soo..

http://www.twitch.tv/me_latency/b/436810892

I’m pretty frustrated with this, and liked many others have tried with various alts who are decently geared and it seems it’s going to be sheer luck over skill in getting this.

Latency.3907:

laharl.8435:

To bad that vid is pre-patch, just like every other successful video in this thread. I completed T4 a dozen times before patch – solo, duo and trio. I’ve completed it once solo after, with a ton of luck and class actually capable of it. This content is not possible for all classes in its current state.

my video was today post patch.
its doable but not easy? but its an achievement soo..

http://www.twitch.tv/me_latency/b/436810892

Yours was the one video I couldn’t watch because my phone wouldn’t play it from that site. My apologies for saying they’re all pre-patch and grats for beating it post-patch.

As I said, I defeated it numerous times already, once post patch, I’m not worried about the achievement. But people who didn’t get to play it before patch are getting a totally different experience. I tried to help a friend get it for 2 hours last night and it was a very frustrating experience after having done so many times before.

This needs to be balanced to be played as intended. I’ve yet to hear of a team actually defending the ground, playing it like horde mode and being successful.

I made a Picture below to demonstrate our Duo strat that seemed effective and easy.

Important notes: The first spawn at camp B is always at 5:30. The first spawn at the middle camp is always at 3:00. Once the first comes you have a rough idea when to expect the rest.

We were able to complete both last night within 6 attempts each. It’s luck based on how hard the adds want to be on you. We used Potion of bandit slaying(?) (+8%dmg -8%dmg) and food. Neither of us were on a “main” like toon so we lacked deep experience in combat but were able to pull this off.

This strat should work with any class that can range solo one plunderer in a duo group without leaving the treeline. (don’t ever go past the treeline Camp A or the rock Camp B or adds get out of hand fast.) This strat doesn’t rely on stealth.

Full Zerk Warrior (Axe/Mace Rifle)
Full Zerk Thief (Dagger x2, Pistols x2)

Here is a picture strat guide of exactly what to do: The strat relies on 2 people each killing their own mob everytime and killing the middle mob later on when it’s convenient 1-2 times.

Zenon.4328:

After thinking about it, I realize the achievements is actually confusing people, including me, on what is more important regarding the trials.

The trials’ event reward (bronze, silver, gold) is based on how many Aetherblades are killed and more you kill, the more loot you get, even if you fail.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the most valuable prize from the trials are the Aetherblade weapon skins right? So the real goal when doing the trials should be just kill everything you see, so you can get more loot, for more chance at getting the skins.

Some of us just want to complete the kitten achievement and then never do the content again.

guys i did tier 4 but it didnt give me achivement? iwas done tier 3 before. may i do tier 3 again before go tier 4?

Warrior can solo tier 4. You just have to play the RNG with how the mobs act. If they remain in the middle then reset.

Its soloable yes, did it with maxed out zerk warrior. If your rotation is right, its not much of a deal.

It surprises me that no one has started running a T4 achievement service for gold so far. I might have to start doing it myself.

There’s a video ‘guide’ on a thread here. 3man party.
Every one of them has a Legendary, and Ascended quality gear.
They state they wiped 4x just in the making of the video, T2.
That’s complete bullkitten.
So if someone who doesn’t have ‘Veteran’ status in the game (i.e. Time long enough to have fully decked in Ascended with LEGENDARY weapons….
This cannot be done wo the exploits.
Yes, ANet
FIX THIS.

Agreed. Way too hard for the reward at hand.

I was able to complete T4 with a lot of time and effort without exploits… but it REALLY sucked. It certainly isn’t something I’d play for fun.

It seems like their new content is geared towards the “I killed Lupercus in 10 seconds” crowd you sometimes see make bragging threads on Reddit. What ever happened to content being balanced around the common player?

The lesson learned here (which is the same lesson for every new content release) is to always always ALWAYS do your achievements the first day content is released, because it will always eventually get “fixed” for increased difficulty.

tovadaun.6304:

have fully decked in Ascended with LEGENDARY weapons….

Legendary weapon’s have the same stats as exotic, doesn’t affect anything. Ascended gear is only a small boost and 3 of the pieces are obtainable without time gate. “Veteran Status” has no effect on this instance. Also any Legendary from pre February by my standards is a 90% chance at being a credit card legendary.

This is easily done in 4-5 attempts by any average player. By average I mean can manage to put on some thoughtful utilities and use them fairly responsively and have the ability to move their character as their mind intends it to for the most part. Ability below that I don’t think can access a lot of the content this game has to offer. I posted how to do it, people just keep complaining. Demanding every single instance involve smashing your keys and having an achievement toaster pop up seems pretty sad.

If we’re supposed to thug it out in the center or not it’s irrelevant as the strat it involves now is more interesting the most of gw2’s content and isn’t terribly hard. Zerking isn’t a social class IRL that you are only born into. It’s something easily achievable with a small amount of time and 4 silver to respec.

done both of t4s at last. i get a exotic hammer for it.

warrior full berserker.
traits 30/10/0/0/30
weapons: gs(sigil fire)hammer(sigil of perception)
foods:powerfull potion of outlaw slayingbowls of curry butternut squash soup
skills:mending bull’s charge endure pain signet of rage

tactic: first of you need luck sometimes strikers spawn so close you. so none cant it when this happen. if you get spawn go then.

first i used foods. and get hammer for stack perception so i started from t3 and get 15-20 stack.

then i started t4.
i use bowls at left side kill first one with hammer make stack to 25.
at 5:30 i killed left one leave right one. i killed him when he returned. (if you are lucky, he goes to close one, its easier to kill)
always save bulls charge for right side or mid. dont use it for left one always use bolas for them. also save signet for right or they close to spawn points. sometimes you must change weapons. hammer 4. 5. save you sometimes and use 3. skill if you dont kill pluggers. it cripples them and you get time for it.
i use water for run all time at two sides. jump water and dive use evade for fast escape.
at 3:00 i killed mid one fast then go right one after it.

if you come 2:00 without loss you can start sacrifice 1-2 treasure if they are risky to kill. because if you wait mobs go far abit so at this time.

this was the most hard experience in gw2 for me. sorry arena.net i got it. but it was not fun also. i did t4 before. and it didnt count you must do tier 3 again but you didnt any information there.

its your mistake i dont need to look dulfy for it.

with this event i started to hate you much arena.

thanks for read.

If you do this with a group the enemies got around 150k hp so make sure you have enough dps.

If someone could link the post- “fix” patch video here that would be swell – I’m having trouble finding it and I’m trying to help some guildies through it. :s

I’m sort of on the fence about the difficulty, because one of the big things we’ve been asking for in the living story is more challenging pve content…and this is definitely challenging. It also is content that rewards the use of cc and not just dps dps dps.

HOWEVER the big problem with this is the rewards – for how difficult it is, it should have a daily chest (rare item) associated with it minimum. Not a 0.0000001% chance at a skin that you could spend the same amount of time farming COF and just buy outright.

Nvm. Video was old news, and it was 2days old and the ‘fix’ was yesterday.
Edited.
I am not a complete Noob. I know how my skills work. I know I am not the most damage intensive profession in the game, but these are touted at being completed by everyone – solo.
I can kite for centuries. I can take LOTS of hits.
I cannot burn one of these S.O.B.s down fast enough before they get away. Period.

And on your cheap shot of
any average player…
no matter how light or veiled insults are, they’re unbecoming. Anyone with any integrity would know that. (see how I did that? feel good to you?)
Before you start trashing others, no matter how lightly, maybe you should ask some questions /before/ turning into an elitist snob.

Stego.3148:

• snip snip snip *

You attempts to marginalize and brow beat people are cute, but ultimately don’t address the premise of the concerns. That is to say that the content is poorly designed from the outset. Whatever strat or spec or gear snags you the win is a cheat with a respect to the design. It is obvious the devs wanted this to be a take and hold horde-like event. No amount of team composition or cooperation can overcome this. What we are doing now is having to game the design.

Furthermore, this fundamentally flies in the face of the intent of patches and dev comments the last few weeks where the emphasis has been on making more diverse builds more viable. All these candidate trials have done is fly directly in the face of that as people where full zerker gear and go full direct damage in the hopes of tackling the event.

Four silver? Try nearly 50 from the repairs and 300 to buy gear just to do this.

tovadaun.6304:

Posted.

:/ that video is 2 days old, the fix was implemented yesterday.

Ah. sorry. I did not know that. I cannot find info on the exact ‘fix’ or when it was.
I apologize, and will re-edit.

digitalruse.9085:

Stego.3148:

• snip snip snip *

Four silver? Try nearly 50 from the repairs and 300 to buy gear just to do this.

I found it to be one of the more challenging and interesting fights in gw2 to date. It definitely takes more thought then most things. Perhaps the earlier tiers seem to be fine to thug but I don’t think you can say it is intended to be a stand in the middle and win fight. In fact the difficulty when you do the strats seem very intended and planed.

Yea it costs 4 silver to respec.

Spec should just be arbitrary hexagons arranged in an order that visually appeal to you the most of all possible arrangements of hexagons. Is that so? And should in no way effect your performance or be used in any many of thought or planning.

Really the whole game is already geared towards soldiers, and cleric. There’s no penalty for specing invincible full Defense anywhere except arah P4 at least the old version besides taking slightly longer to clear things. This is not true for zerking however because depending on skill level you could be penalized very hard in a lot of dungeons and content for it. (It’s a debate obviously, some people claim the entire game can be zerked others can’t handle any content in zerk. From my own experience the damage is not sustainable in some dungeons or situations in zerking without ideal group comp.)

My group was able to complete this yesterday by just using cc on the 1st bag guy we held him up for almost 1 minute. just leave the other spawns alone, each time you “release” the loot thief swim out a bit to un aggro any you may have picked up and remember NOT to kill any other npc. stand by the motars. we did it by the 5 loot thief since they only spawned on the one side. just stay by the motars on the left and lock that thief up!. don’t kill him! let him go at about 25% health and lock him up again when he returns. we did both phase 4 trials this way and it worked flawless.