Guild Wars 2

I don’t enjoy the Molten Weapons Facility for the same reason that I dislike the several of the dungeons in this game.

The constant knockbacks/knockdowns.

It’s pretty widely accepted that allowing enemies to stun-lock-kill players is a bad idea, because there’s few things that will cause players to stop playing your game faster than the frustration that comes from being able to do nothing other than mash your keyboard while your character is killed.

So I don’t understand why the ArenaNet devs think it’s ok to have a group of enemies, or a boss, that constantly pulls/pushes, knocksdown/knocksback the entire party, repeatedly, locking out all of your abilities the entire time, until your character is dead. How is perma-knockdown death any different than perma-stun-lock death?

Challenge I understand, and in fact I kinda wish that the open world was a bit more challenging at times, but I don’t understand where the challenge lies in having all of your attacks and powers locked out while you’re knocked back and forth across the dungeon until you’re defeated.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability
Hug your friendly neighborhood guardian today.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Interrupt
Hug your friendly neighborhood control build players today.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dodge
Hugging your friendly keyboard probably won’t work.

And with all that said, if you get unlucky, I concur there is the off-chance that you do get caught in a chain of knockbacks and into a big ugly ring of fire, then hug your friendly teammates who will rez you before your downed state goes into death today.

I do understand that you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it. Perhaps it would help if I explained the exact situation.

In the Molten Weapons Facility there is an encounter with a Champion Ooze and large group of normal Oozes. They all have a PbAoE pull/yank/whatever you call it.

So the encounter went like this. One of the oozes pulls our entire team to it. Then, all of our powers are locked out for 2 seconds or so while our characters are going through the getting up animation. Then, right before our powers come off of lockdown, we get pulled to another ooze. We’re taking damage the entire time, of course. Then, right before our powers come off of lockdown, we get pulled to another ooze. This happened repeatedly until the entire team is dead.

So… can someone please explain to me how I’m supposed to interrupt or dodge roll or fire off “Stand Your Ground” when all of my character’s powers are locked out repeatedly until dead?

If there’s something that I’m missing here, please. Someone explain it to me. Without the “lrn 2 pla n00b” comments, if that’s possible. Because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.

Peregrine Falcon.5496:

I do understand that you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it. Perhaps it would help if I explained the exact situation.

In the Molten Weapons Facility there is an encounter with a Champion Ooze and large group of normal Oozes. They all have a PbAoE pull/yank/whatever you call it.

So the encounter went like this. One of the oozes pulls our entire team to it. Then, all of our powers are locked out for 2 seconds or so while our characters are going through the getting up animation. Then, right before our powers come off of lockdown, we get pulled to another ooze. We’re taking damage the entire time, of course. Then, right before our powers come off of lockdown, we get pulled to another ooze. This happened repeatedly until the entire team is dead.

So… can someone please explain to me how I’m supposed to interrupt or dodge roll or fire off “Stand Your Ground” when all of my character’s powers are locked out repeatedly until dead?

If there’s something that I’m missing here, please. Someone explain it to me. Without the “lrn 2 pla n00b” comments, if that’s possible. Because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.

Stability, reflections, blinds solution solved. Btw, never charge into the room (I’m assuming you are talking about the part with the drilling machine and caves with mithril ores). Always stand around the corner and lure the monsters out, stack and cleave with reflection skills. They die really quick.

In the case of the Oozes: If you play Thief, you can just teleport away, or roll for initiative. Playing Elementalist use teleport or Mist Form. Mesmer can use distortion. Guardian can use blocks etc etc.
Stunbreakers, stability and projectile reflects are your friends.=P

I play a Guardian. And no, we didn’t just rush blindly into the room. But when one of the oozes gets aggroed they’re all aggroed. And we kept getting pulled into the room. By the oozes. And then the cycle of constant pull/knockdown/power lockout/rinse/repeat begins.

Milennin.4825:

In the case of the Oozes: If you play Thief, you can just teleport away, or roll for initiative. Playing Elementalist use teleport or Mist Form. Mesmer can use distortion. Guardian can use blocks etc etc.
Stunbreakers, stability and projectile reflects are your friends.=P

Once again. How am I supposed to use any of those powers when all of my powers are continuously locked-out? How do you get those powers to work when every single power on your powerbar is showing that count-down?

So… has no one else experienced this? Is it possible that it was a bug?

It might have just been one case of unlucky timing. I’ve fought the Oozes in the large cave only once, and while they did pull everybody to them once and downed two of us, the rest managed to dodge back out and recover. I was on my Ranger at the time, and I think I activated Rampage as One after that, but it’s also likely that my extreme range with the Longbow also kept me safe. (My pet, however, wasn’t so fortunate. XD)

I actually agree with the OP in general.

The absolute worst part about every dungeon I’ve been in is that I constantly feel like a rag-doll being tossed around, knocked down, and in some cases insta-killed.

Aside from a few enemy spawns such at the Oozes mentioned above, I find that this dungeon uses very little of these mechanics. The end boss fight uses them, but for the most part it doesn’t feel all that bad because most of the time you can recover.

In general I wish ANet would stop locking up players. Orr is a super annoying example of how frustrating and stupid it can be to constantly be knocked around. Forcing players to have to resort to one or two builds just to survive makes things uninspired and boring.

All n’ all though, MF is the only dungeon I’ve done multiple times and not felt like rage quitting.

Peregrine Falcon.5496:

I do understand that you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it. Perhaps it would help if I explained the exact situation.

In the Molten Weapons Facility there is an encounter with a Champion Ooze and large group of normal Oozes. They all have a PbAoE pull/yank/whatever you call it.

I missed one last item that can be helpful, and that is a stun break. I found this helpful for champion trolls and the enraged berserker who do try to stunlock you.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun_break

I apologize for the snark too, as the OP came across as not understanding parts of GW2 that can prevent stunlocks.

Now specifically for the Champion Ooze, now that you’ve mentioned what your problem is in particular, this is what I found extremely helpful:

(And trust me, I died many times in one pull and instant hit squish to figure this out.)

Do not fight the oozes in the tunnel. In fact, don’t fight anything in that room in the tunnel. If you’re ranged or in a smaller group than 5, take a turn to the left and run into the space in the hall that was kindly provided there. That gives you more range and space to run around and kite with.

Guardians can use Wall of Reflection to reflect the ooze projectiles that will pull you. This does especially crazy damage onto the oozes if you reflect the four prong triangular attack they shoot. Traiting for Master of Consecrations can improve how long it stays up and how fast it recharges if you want it up more.

Spirit shield will absorb projectiles. Pop it and let it pulse when wall of reflection isn’t up, that will shield a good amount of the pain as well.

If you aren’t in a boon heavy melee group that can just charge in, pop stability and buffs and wail away on the oozes, then fight them at long range where you can see them shoot their pulling projectiles and run away/dodge from those.

If you’re fighting in melee, try to time Stand Your Ground to when you see the big red circle appear around the ooze as it’s going to pull in, jump up and smack right down.

Peregrine Falcon.5496:

I play a Guardian. And no, we didn’t just rush blindly into the room. But when one of the oozes gets aggroed they’re all aggroed. And we kept getting pulled into the room. By the oozes. And then the cycle of constant pull/knockdown/power lockout/rinse/repeat begins.

Milennin.4825:

In the case of the Oozes: If you play Thief, you can just teleport away, or roll for initiative. Playing Elementalist use teleport or Mist Form. Mesmer can use distortion. Guardian can use blocks etc etc.
Stunbreakers, stability and projectile reflects are your friends.=P

Once again. How am I supposed to use any of those powers when all of my powers are continuously locked-out? How do you get those powers to work when every single power on your powerbar is showing that count-down?

So… has no one else experienced this? Is it possible that it was a bug?

Guardian is the one class that makes the MF extremely easy. The shout stand your ground is a stun breaker and does not get locked out when you get knocked down. You should be able to group up all 3 oozes, hit stand your ground and survive for at least a few seconds, use wall of reflection, and smash the oozes. If you need extra protection time from the oozes you can use santuary or shield of the avenger. Once you are able to do that, the rest of your party can sit behind your walls and aoe/melee away. Like I said earlier, the oozes die really quick after that.

BTW, I’m really curious to what lvl and gear you are using to not be able to face tank the oozes.

hyman.7526:

BTW, I’m really curious to what lvl and gear you are using to not be able to face tank the oozes.

You’re right that “Stand your Ground” doesn’t get locked out by most knockdowns, but it did get locked out, repeatedly, by the pull/knockdown from the Oozes in MF.

My character is a level 80 Guardian with exotic Knight’s Draconic armor, exotic weapons (Greatsword, Mace/Focus), and some ascended trinkets.

And I’m not exactly a n00b either. I’ve played a bunch of MMO’s over the last 10 years, and I’ve played a lot of GW2, including WvW, and spent a bit of time on the wiki learning the numbers and the mechanics over the last couple of months.

This is why I was so confused about the encounter with the oozes, which I actually found to be far more difficult than the battle with the two bosses at the end of MF. And why I wasn’t sure if it was something we were doing wrong or if we encountered a bug.

Given that we have so few options to mitigate knockback/down in this game, perhaps some people can understand my frustration with the multitude of chain knockback/down’s that appear in many of the dungeons.