Guild Wars 2

Well, I finally beat Liadri.

After more than 200 tries, I finally beat her. Yeps, you read that right – 200 tries. I tried different builds, different classes, but I eventually got her on my thief.

I think 200 tries gives me something of a special perspective on her, so I wanted to post some suggestions and thoughts about Liadri and the Gaunlet.

First, where’s the lore? A boss this mean needs more backstory. I’d actually like to see all the Gaunlet bosses in the Living Story.

I like this kind of fight. It’s not an easy fight, in my opinion, but it can be learned. I had a real feeling of accomplishment at the end of it. Thanks for that, ArenaNet.

However, there are a number of issues with the fight. (I’ll try to keep this short. After 200 fights, I think I could write a dissertation on this.):

- The mechanism for picking up the orbs and tossing them is very clumsy, so it feels a bit gimmicky, since it seems specifically designed to get you killed.

- Some arenas are better than others. This can be a serious disadvantage. In one arena, for instance, the second swirling pool spawns right against the wall.

- The Gaunlet needs its own instance away from the Boss Blitz. Lag kills. One arena gets danger circles from one of the Blitz bosses. Also, in some cases you might tab target to an enemy below the arena (Much less of an issue once you learn to target Liadri at the beginning of the fight.).

- Even with Free Camera, the camera still will zoom on you if you’re against the wall and the camera is positioned behind you.

While all classes seem to be able to do this fight, I would say it does seem to favor warriors and maybe guardians. I had to add toughness to get through this. How ’bout a fight that seems to favor clothies, for once?

Also, I think this fight stressed the limits of my current system. I have a 3 year old rig. It was better than average when I bought it, but it’s on the low end, at best, now. My crappy DSL doesn’t help either.

In this fight, timing is critical, especially in phase one. You’ll realize soon enough if you have skill lag or equipment lag. You’ll know if you have a crappy net connection or your frame rate sucks or your gear blows. My keyboard seems to blow. So, umm, thank you, ArenaNet for making me realize my rig sucks, I guess.

Thanks for the mini. It’s awesome. I’m still a bit on the fence about this, though. It’s great to have a fight that you can learn and tests the limits of your skill, but I spent the last month working SOLO on this fight. Not exactly in the spirit of MMOs. It seems a bit off to award such a special mini when there’s nothing equivalent in the MMO parts of the game. Is there a special mini for PvP teams? A special mini of crack dungeon crews?

Finally, thanks for making such an awesome game, ArenaNet.

It’s not so much heavies that have it easier at Liadri (although their increased toughness/sustain makes it easier to get through the first phase, I agree.) Rather, the Liadri fight favours condition users. A condi Necro, for example, can slaughter Liadri so, so easily by dropping conditions behind them and just running in small circles near the center of the map.

first off, congrats on beating Liadri OP, you’ve earned it, I just hope I can do the same before Tuesday.

Second, I agree with just about everything you said, especially the lag issue cuz I just logged off the game after I failed three times, in a row, to beat her due to lag and D/C.

Zaxares.5419:

It’s not so much heavies that have it easier at Liadri (although their increased toughness/sustain makes it easier to get through the first phase, I agree.) Rather, the Liadri fight favours condition users. A condi Necro, for example, can slaughter Liadri so, so easily by dropping conditions behind them and just running in small circles near the center of the map.

I also agree with this. The timer is not a big deal at all on Liadri – you have to just stay alive while applying DoTs on the second phase. Condition users have a big advantage because they can just apply DoTs to her and then focus on dodging the Shadowfall/Clones instead of having to constantly target her and direct damage.

-sigh- Im not going to explain again how condition skills need to hit your foe as much as Direct damage skills. This is not that topic.

What i agree with is that the gauntlet needs its own instance. Having it take place above zerg content is quite a poor design choice.
Toughness and constant small-scale healing to counter the skills that get through is a must (it just so happens once again that warriors with healing signet have both without actually building for it), which is good i suppose, and goes against the constant zerker meta somewhat.

Camera is still an issue, but a much smaller one this year. At this point though i consider it minor inconvenience not entirely worth of priority.

The orange telegraphs are what made this fight much easier. Easier as in now at least we could make out the danger zones. Main reason i managed to beat her i think. The second main reason is getting better at the game in a year i guess :P

Would indeed be nice to see these fellas in the Living World. They are far more awesome battle-wise than Destiny’s Edge 1 or 2. Some personality would suit them good.

lakdav.3694:

-sigh- Im not going to explain again how condition skills need to hit your foe as much as Direct damage skills. This is not that topic.

Teach me oh master. 8 orb liadri on thief, keep dodging and apply caltrops. Profit. But I guess being a condescending kitten is more entertaining than actually posting something substantive.

My problem with it is mainly the luck factor. Hard fights That you have to learn are great. But you can have a round going fine then suddenly a cosmic rift yoinks you into a shadowfall just before it hits.

Or camera angle buggers up and suddenly a vision grabs you. But for me it’s not worthy of raging. Just an “Oh well”.

i found stealth theif to be the easiest to beat liadri on (got 7 orb liadri with mine, but could barely get 5 orbs on rare occasion with anyone else) i originally beat liadri with my warrior though, using rifle. she is fairly easy once you get the groove down. i can do part 1 as anyone and only take a small handful of her projectiles nearly 100% of the time. part 2 is all about being in the right distance from the center to easily keep your distance from liadri, while still begin close to the center so you can outrun the shadowfall drops. doing those 2 things, you can work the rest of the strategy for any class.
i totally agree on the arenas issue. certain arenas give unfair advantages to either side. its as if they centered the arenas in the code off center from the actual arena. there is infact a strategy to easily farm a boss with 4 gambits because in a specific arena, you start off directly against the wall and out of aggro range giving you time and positioning to blow them up.

I agree with the OP on many points.

I, too, have done over 200 attempts on Liadri, but unfortunately, I just wasn’t able to finish her off.

Having an older computer (which is around 8 years old now) makes it that much harder when you have to add lag into the mix. I know at least half of the attempts I made on Liadri resulted in death that I had no control over, simply because of the lag monster.

I appreciate the complexity and required learning of this fight as much as anyone else, but I just wish I had known earlier some arenas gave inherent disadvantages and I wish that I could have fought Liadri away from all the action of the boss blitz.

I do hope that if we get another shot at the gauntlet in the future, ANET will take into account the concerns in this thread to ease some of the frustrations myself and others have had to endure.

For any curious, my best attempt put Liadri around 10-20% health with time to spare. Death to lag. So regardless of the age of my computer, I know I could have beaten her. =(