The Blood Witch
I don’t despise underwater combat as much as some people seem to, but yes, I definitely feel there is room for improvement there.
They need to make more utility skills underwater for one. Elementalists having underwater summons, for example, would help both in weapon and elemental summons, e.g. a fire harpoon, or electric spear.
To the main topic, though…I actually enjoy this event, it’s just unfortunate that there aren’t many people that want to do it, and as it’s a group event, I can’t do it solo.
I imagine people don’t want to do it because:
1) It’s a one-shot fest where so many people die instantly and repeatedly that it gets irritating.
2) There is zero reward (apart from the exp) for doing it.
Found pottering around on Desolation (EU).
lunawisp was my peacebringer on City of Heroes – she lives on in memory as my gaming id.
lunawisp was my peacebringer on City of Heroes – she lives on in memory as my gaming id.
I actually enjoyed doing this during launch. Having you and 30 other people fighting the blood witch and being surrounded by smaller mobs made it a worthwhile fight. I didn’t really care that we didn’t get a reward, I was just glad that I had a fun time doing it with a lot of people.
In my experience, you need about 8 – 10 people before the Blood Witch event becomes fun. That number allows you to have 4 people attacking the Witch at all times, 2 taking care of the smaller mobs that respawn around you, and 2 people to revive the last 2 players who have been invariably downed by the Blood Witch. XD
Like most group events, it’s a terrible slog of a fight and the rewards are terrible (you don’t even get a chest!). Being underwater is just the icing on the cake.
yup, this is probably the most unbalanced DE I’ve seen since game’s launch to this very moment. If it would reward players properly, it would be crowded…
Is this the underwater one inside a cave or whatever? I find if you’ve got somebody with a high crit build with crit healing food to tank her from a distance, it’s not nearly as bad as having five or six people swimming around like mad. I remember having a ton of trouble with this on-level, but with the build I run now, a mesmer friend and I managed to duo it. He was a few levels below though, so he only did some damage, couldn’t really afford to get hit. Still, you’re right though. The risk-time-reward ratio just doesn’t cut it.
NO ONE does bloodwitch on my server. It’s a total ghost town, since it’s underwater (barf) and she’s tough as nails. The poor quaggans on my server suffer terribly.
It was even tough to find people to do this event before the lower level areas lost their population density. One of the main obstacles back then was finding the entrance to the cave. The boss icon on the map causes a lot of confusion as to where the cave entrance is, so even if someone wants to wander in there it’s a bit of a search through waters with veteran krait in them.
It’s a similar problem to other group events that never get done. For instance, there’s that on boss on the south side of Fireheart Rise in that little fort that I’ve never seen killed, and the only reason to go near the champion karka in Southsun Cove is to ninja-mine the orichalcum vein (which they nerfed to not be rich anymore).
Best you can do is just make a shoutout in map chat. There’s been some cases where I’ve been able to scrounge up a handful of people to handle a group event that would otherwise be ignored.
I’m sure the devs have an idea about reinventing that bounty hunt system or whatever it was from GW1 so that bosses like the Bloodwitch get some attention, although I’m equally sure it’s a “blue sky” item at the moment.
I’m divided when it comes to underwater combat. While Ireally like the concept and artwork and some of the execution, I feel that for some classes the skill choices for the weapons don’t mesh together very well and for all classes the damage they do underwater is simply too small so that the fights drag on way too long.
And as already mentioned whenever you start fighting one enemy you always finish fighting 16 which thankfully enough is a lot easier to manage underwater because the enemies hit for less damage, have less annoying abilities (if they even have any), and usually aren’t ranged. So if you were fighting 16 mobs on land you’d probably be dead but underwater you can handle it no problem, it just takes forever.
And as already mentioned whenever you start fighting one enemy you always finish fighting 16 which thankfully enough is a lot easier to manage underwater because the enemies hit for less damage, have less annoying abilities (if they even have any), and usually aren’t ranged. So if you were fighting 16 mobs on land you’d probably be dead but underwater you can handle it no problem, it just takes forever.
I see I’m not the only one who figured that out. XD Sometimes if I’m having trouble with the enemies on land (i.e. hylek), I lure them into water nearby and massacre them when they can’t use their annoying poison/stomp/breath abilities. You’d think that fighting an amphibious enemy would be harder in the water!
I love the whole underwater combat its really immersive well not the combat itself but just the whole underwater bit is great imo ITS ALOT BETTER than most if not all the other mmos out there.