Guild Wars 2

Today, we were conquering the temple of balthazar. Before the patch, it was doable, but it was already hard sometimes. Especially when the risen nobles were pulled and they did all those fields.
Now nearly every risen spawning between coast and temple while protecting the npc can spawn damage fields. Some did before the patch, others can do that now as well. The NPCs are as stupid as before the patch, so guess what? They die very fast. Before the patch, you needed CC like elementalist in tornado form only for nobles. Now if you don’t have at least 2 or 3 elementalists or much more, it cannot be done. Seriously, that’s kinda joke. The mobs are hitting extremely hard and the more, they are onehitting full geared defensive characters if you get the aggro of all mobs at once. Before, you at least had the chance to get a heal skill already, now you are dead before realizing what happened.

On top of that, where you have to protect the npc’s while keeping moral: Nearly impossible now. The risen nobles are your least problem. All mobs spawn their damage field, and guess what? Dead npcs cannot be raised again, making any effort in that direction useless. I don’t even understand what you can do there. The mobs hit before spawning, so it cannot be cced or anything like that. The healing cannot be done, even with about 10 guardians not. It is really some kind of joke, because you cannot do anything against.

I don’t know the intention behind. Balthazar was challenging before, now it is impossible to be done at the moment. Before the patch, we already didn’t have it that easy, especially when coming near to the temple. Today, the first wave (!) of mobs cleared all the npcs out, so we lost the event.

The most and biggest issue is not only the mobs, but that Anet didn’t state that they improved the damage and overall ability of risens that strong in their patch notes. How should this be done? Using half of the whole server cleaning the temple or what?

Fields r bad. NPC AI is so silly that they just stand there on them. Make them dodge at least.

The issue with the Fields, appears to be an issue with Scripting.

• Wells lasting 30 seconds or more.
• Being cast instantly, or without any Cooldown on them.
• Dealing 1800 dmg per tick even to players with over 1800 Toughness.
• Completely eliminates individual build Variety and discriminates against multiple classes, IE: “No one should be doing this Event with us unless you’re an Ele or Guardian”, etc…

And of course yes…. that fact that there’s Nothing in the NPC Allies A.I. that makes them actively AVOID AoE’s even though that was a Core element of GW1’s AI.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hardmode#Differences_from_normal_mode

Foes in hard mode use a superior AI:

• Respond more quickly to area damage over time.
• Are more likely to fight for longer periods of time.
• Are less likely to ball around a single target if more targets are available.
• Are more likely to kite for long periods of time.
• Will not activate skills that increase attack speed with no other benefit.

…
As for ways to beat it…. b/c as I’ve seen first hand.. it IS possible…

• First and most obvious, Ele’s have several CC’s that can be a difference maker here. Anyone who has a level 80 Ele and enough extra skill points should probably consider switching to theirs for this regardless of what gear it has (b/c it’s only the CC’s you’re really needed for and Tornado especially)
• Anyone who’s a Norn should consider Wolf as your Elite. Not only do you have 3 CC’s on a quick recharge, you also have a powerful LifeSteal in case the Vet casts a well directly underneath you
• Rangers should start out behind where the Vet will spawn and pull it further back with Path of Scars and then get in front of it while swapping to Longbow to push it even FURTHER back.
• Guardian can wield a Hammer and then swap to a Shield Off-hand for multiple Knockbacks while summoning the wisdom Hammer. And then cast Sanctuary right at the Vet’s Feet once it’s up against a Wall or surrounded by other players on all sides.
• Necros? … I dunno what to tell you guys besides chaining Fears which you can’t technically do anyway b/c you only have about 2 of them easily accessible plus Wail (daze) and little else… You’re probably screwed on this one otherwise.
• Mesmers: This isn’t COF, think outside the Box. …maybe try throwing Veil in front of members of the Pact a second or two before the Plaguers spawn to buy everyone else an extra second or two… Spam Diversion like it was Gw1 Random Arenas, abuse Temporal Curtain like it was WvW. Polymorph doesn’t really last long enough but maybe it’s worth a try. Don’t bother with Feedback, it won’t stop Wells. Domination and Distraction might be enough though.
• War / Thief / Engie … obviously you guys are there to clear and kill. Stick to what you’re good at but consider switching Prof if your first attempts don’t work and the rest of the jokers around you aren’t CC’ing the Plaguers enough.

And If simply knocking these Plaguers way way back from the Pact doesn’t stop them from summoning Wells directly on the Pact then that’s all the proof we’ll ever need that something got seriously bugged with this Event and that Anet’s got some ’splainin to do

.

The main problem IMHO is that so many random Pubbers are so pre-conditioned and hardwired at this point towards just throwing AOE’s at everything to solve every event, especially minion mobs b/c thats’ where most of your L00t drops come from in these events. But with this encounter, plus the VETERAN ACOLYTES up at the top of the hill… it’s really all about quickly targeting that 1 single Truly dangerous mob the instant it spawns, and then locking it down as best you can. Whenever multiple players do that, you stand a much better chance.

I just ran it through today. The difficulty was fine.

Also Necromancer is “THE BEST” class for the Balthazar Event. Put Marks down, Staff 1,2,3,4,5 right before the enemies spawn. When the enemies do spawn drop Spectral Wall in front of them to fear em away. Then drop Well of Suffering and Well of Darkness on the pact formation, go to Plague form and charge into the enemy casters, spamming the 2 ability to blind them.

no its difficulty is not fine, today I ran 5 failed tries, every single time the morale dropped from 90% to 0% in less than 5 seconds, it was utterly impossible to finish it when the morale drops that fast, fix it please

The Veteran Risen Subjugators seem to be the new problem.
On the central invasion path, we fought one en route, and one thing it does is spawn 5 or 6 rather large DoT wells that last for a large amount of time (mostly disappearing just when thing dies).
One thing is that they don’t necessarily cast it immediately, so prioritize finding the subjugators and taking them down first.

We were trying this last night with about 9 people on the Rally Waypoint escort and we found 2 times that they spawn at that I can think of.
The first time is when it spawns 2 at once, on I think the third wave, on the right side of the path. This is 2 waves before the noble swarm spawns behind the NPCs.
The second time was a singular one on a wave later than that, not quite up to the temple steps.

Once we prioritized finding and spiking down the Veteran Risen Subjugators first, we were actually doing pretty well. We ended up failing because of a combination of A. not being able to get more than 1 path to finish before the NPCs decided to start the even on their own, B. the NPCs getting pelted by the statue and some weaker DoT AoEs, and C. not noticing an acolyte/ravager group quickly enough.

One question: As far as I can tell, the paths all go to their next phase automatically without any real way to coordinate them. How does one get multiple paths to arrive before the NPCs decide to leave on their own? We managed to do it once, but not through any apparent specific action.

Aeros.2046:

I just ran it through today. The difficulty was fine.

Also Necromancer is “THE BEST” class for the Balthazar Event. Put Marks down, Staff 1,2,3,4,5 right before the enemies spawn. When the enemies do spawn drop Spectral Wall in front of them to fear em away. Then drop Well of Suffering and Well of Darkness on the pact formation, go to Plague form and charge into the enemy casters, spamming the 2 ability to blind them.

Could you please record video of this “working” as you claim it works?

I play Necro too, and there is no combination of traits that would suggest you’ve found some magical loophole in disrupting their Wells with this approach…(reapers being on a 40 sec recharge, etc) Please back up your claims Sir. I recognize that BP did indeed open this Temple, but I question what role, if any, you had in it.

You make them target you with the wells. You screen the outside perimeter of the pact and engage, you don’t stand in the middle of the pact. Most of the pact soldiers use ranged attacks themselves so they will engage from stand off distance while you close in tight on the enemy mobs. All of this is written on the wiki btw. And there is no loophole. I’ve actually found that this is the one PvE event that emulates a WvW zerg on zerg battle.

Use lines of warding and spectral wall
Mass effect AoE
Push through the enemy spawns
Blind and entangle the enemy
Use temporal curtain/Into the Void to pull the enemy together
Hammer warrior AoE Knockdown Spam
Blast finisher water fields on the pact soldiers
Stack Might fire field/blast on the veterans
Feedback retaliation

We just completed it with 100% pact Morale. What’s your Best?
I recorded a video myself but it didn’t save b/c apparently 32 bit OS doesn’t leave me enough room to record when GW2 is taking up the rest of the ram…. **** it… I’ll just record it in smaller pieces next time. (What I wouldn’t give for an in-game Demo recording system like Valve has!)

ilr.9675:

That’s not what I asked you…. Almost none of that stuff is a HARD control. Better yet try that on the Chan escort with 30+ people tagging along. I’ll gladly come guest and record it for you if you don’t know how.

My best is a 100% morale completion of course, but really its all luck of the draw how “good” you do. I do the temple alot though, and did write the walkthrough on the GW2 Wiki. Its not really something you can figure out just by watching someone do it. It has to be done over, and over again to nail down. Figuring out which spawns spawn where, how they spawn too, because some of them are proximity, others are event oriented on when the last enemies of a previous spawn are killed.

That’s all the nitty gritty though. Best advice I can give you is never try and do it with just 1 invasion. Get 2 in at the least, or all 3 if you can. You will find its far simpler that way.

What server are you on, I can go guest and unlock the temple right now

you’re not in Riders, so I’m not buying the emoticon
…just tell me what time you usually run, no guesting needed
This’ll give me extra opportunities to record the spawn locations too…

PS: why the hell are we losing to Ebay now??

For me, the difficulty of this event is just too much for a DE. It would be perfectly OK as a part of an instanced raid, because then you can expect a co-ordinated group with every member knowing exactly what to do.

But this is a DE, its supposed to be open to everyone, which means you are expecting random people to show up who has no clue how the DE functions and have never done it before, and thus have no idea what to expect and has no clue what they’re doing. You can also expect people to show up and not listen to what the commanders say, and you can’t just ‘kick’ those people out of your party.

So, the difficulty of this needs to account for that, or this event needs to be removed from the open world and rescaled to be added as instanced content for a party of 10-15 with a new list of rewards.

ilr.9675:

you’re not in Riders, so I’m not buying the emoticon
…just tell me what time you usually run, no guesting needed
This’ll give me extra opportunities to record the spawn locations too…

PS: why the hell are we losing to Ebay now??

If you are on Borlis, then you should know when we do Balthazar. Every Sunday. Refer to the threads on our forum.

Today was a try. We couldn’t even stand a chance in the south, as there were 3 champs spawning and did devastating damage to both the group and of course the transport.

And to all those people babbling about it being easy: Show some proof, I won’t believe you otherwise.

Alrighty. With absolutely no prior planning I am going to unlock Balthazar on Borlis Pass. You are all welcome to guest the server to watch. EDIT and then yaks bend takes our keep. Sorry, never mind.

{{deleted}}

This was all a big misunderstanding folks, nothing to see here.
personal Issues resolved, but the Cause of it remains…

I actually run it 4 times a week. Sunday is the only time I actually advertise ahead of time. Too many people gets in the way of the loot I also do it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday. Usually.

Okay I made one major mis-calc here with Necro… Spectral Grasp. It’s a 30 sec Knockdown as well as a Spectral skill which with the right Trait, helps you constantly charge Shroud back up and the Shroud fear is 20 seconds. Together that’s a bit better than a 40 second mark or atleast a good compliment (Pulls seems to be ATLEAST as important with this as KB’s are due to how too much Knockback will cause the Pact AI to mess up and run ahead). I’m also wondering if Lich Form any good or if Fleshy is better just b/c it doesn’t lock you out of your Utils…

Whatever you guys have suggested, its still an awful lot of failures we have gone through the balthazar event, or even grenth for that fact. Anet needs to know and appreciate the time spent and work we have done in the pre-event which could take from 20 to 40 mins. When the real event started, the morale instantly dropped when those aoes are in full swing and the npcs are just stupid to dive straight into it… and it failed…. plenty of times….. and I mean PLENTY OF TIMES!!!!

All the hard work and time simply vanished in an instant, and thats the huge disappointment that really crushed our desire to retry it for weeks or even months to come. Cheers anet, I wish you guys are reading this and take serious consideration on this matter. We don’t need another specific class such as ele to become the key in solving the Veterans issue, we don’t need the new ‘trinity’ gameplay in this game! I hope you guys can understand what I am trying to say here.

Here’s something that might help against the Vet Subjugators (who cast the Wells)

• Make sure everyone who shares their Aggro, IS IN MELEE RANGE AT ALL TIMES

Video Proof here of their AI never casting Wells on Melee range: c0rUMPDWm7k
You can Test his AI yourselves by going to that point in Malchor’s

It’s a nightmare just now, just tried it with 2 pacts, loads of players, and failed on the first slope, moral just went from hero to zero in 1 second.

Tried it before that with 1 pact and a few players (Enough), same thing moral hero to zero in the blink of an eye.

I used to enjoy doing it, including the failures, but now it’s just plain stupid.

Two Veteran Risen Subjugators, more than 15 unidentified wells.

Luckily, the Pact got past the hill with our zerg, while some stayed behind to take down the Subjugators. This is just a sloppy AI, and it’s been like this for nearly a month now.

Where it goes wrong is: The npc u have to protect, they have far to less vitality and/or toughness to mitigate the damage output of these mobs.

If these were buffed it would be still hard, but doable

Yvilthi.5413:

Where it goes wrong is: The npc u have to protect, they have far to less vitality and/or toughness to mitigate the damage output of these mobs.

If these were buffed it would be still hard, but doable

I don’t mind it hard, I don’t like it stupid……

Do they test this stuff ?

Geekfox.4267:

Two Veteran Risen Subjugators, more than 15 unidentified wells.

Luckily, the Pact got past the hill with our zerg, while some stayed behind to take down the Subjugators. This is just a sloppy AI, and it’s been like this for nearly a month now.

LOL! … nice cap… that beats any of the #‘s in the videos I’ve captured so far.

I’d pay real money to see these things all invade Queensdale for just one afternoon.
Scaled down in level of course, but still, the shock effect would be priceless.

The scaling of the pact escort event is just way off.

I did or tried the event a couple of times a day during the last few days and it gets way easier the more ppl you have.

Scaled for a few ppl (10-20) there is still the constant spawn of the 2 risen subjugators each wave, while there is relatively few non veteran trash. so what happens is that you can’t CC the subjugators long enough or focus them down fast enough before the trash mobs are dead and the pact members start running through the wells towards the subjugators, dieing on the way.

On the other hand, when doing it with 50-60 ppl or even more, the subjugators aren’t the real problem any more:
- there are tons of non veteran trash spawning which do little harm to the pact members and keep them busy
- there are still “just” 2 subjugators each wave, which can be cc’ed the whole time or focused down quickly enough
- the wells which are spawned by the subjugators seem to have a target limit. so once you are just enoguh ppl, the players can take the dmg instead of the npcs.
- only problem with a larger zerg is the one trash noble spawn shortly before the stairs.

Overall, I have the opinion, that doing this event now as it is, is close to impossible with a few ppl, even if those consist of two well coordinated groups.

1st wave always has exactly 1 Subjugator, and 1 Corruptor. …the corruptor can be mostly ignored and used for “Pact bait” to keep them busy while the Sub is yanke further away

2nd wave never has a Subjugator in it…. ever.

3rd wave always seems to have TWO subjugators and and I’ve been dying constantly to them lately simply b/c it seems that the 2nd one further up the hill cast wells directly on me just b/c I engaged the first Subjugator…. That’s some really annoying AI behavior, there’s no way in hell their AI should just spawn automatically linked like that. ….But yeah, this is easily the WORST wave if you have a bunch of idiots who do nothing but Nuke everything blindly instead of following the Advice clearly typed up in MapChat for them.

5th Wave is those Nobles you mentioned… a single spirit Ranger or MM Nec with a non-Zerker build can easily tie up the entire spawn just by setting up on those stone slabs they spawn at.

7th Wave is on the Switch back… there’s no Subjugator in it.

8th Wave is in the same exact location and although the Subjugator typically spawns far to the East where the Temple’s “up-slope” starts… there’s a chance that it can spawn either right in the middle of the Pact (which is instant GG…), or slightly down the hill North of the pact which is salvageable but only if your main CC players you’re counting on the most have super quick targeting/reflexes and a lunge to get in melee with them b/c 1 lousy second is about all the time you get there.

… After that… it really comes down to how big your Zerg is. If it’s big enough, then they can just swarm the final steps and “eat” all of the Shrine Fire-Rain along with most of the Plague Carrier explosions so that the pact takes no damage at all.