Note - There is no RNG with Liadri
The fight itself is, albeit subjectively, very hard. I don’t doubt that a highly skilled player, the sort that beats her in under 10 attempts, could cope with even a worst case scenario. But that’s the thing, there certainly are random factors involved that can make the fight easier or harder for those of us that struggled with her.
In phase one her claws seem to use some pretty whacky hitbox mechanics (Im surprised I haven’t seen this mentioned) and visually are either aimed dead on your current location or are arced slightly ahead of you. The actual collision can occur/miss in spite of what the visuals would indicate. Since evading or mitigating all of these isnt really possible they can sometimes leave you with very little hp remaining once you enter p2.
Assuming you aren’t constantly panning your camera around the arena every five seconds having an orb appear outside your field of vision and pull you into a double whammy aoe+apparition will end the fight for you in pretty short order. Yes they always spawn at the same time interval but its pretty hard to focus on that during phase two which is very hectic.
Not sure if her attacks follow a set pattern but she definitely at the start of phase two sometimes does her leap attack immediately, and sometimes, without moving, begins doing her whirlwind attack. If she’s doing the later you can shave close to 1/4 of her hp off before p2 effectively even starts. I’d call this luck.
I guess its really just a matter of perspective. To me though, saying that skill can mitigate bad luck doesn’t mean something isn’t luck based.
(In spite of all that I actually enjoyed this content very much, by the way. Beating her after god knows how many attempts was probably one of my most satisfying gw2 moments)
The combination of the orbs’ random (albeit in a set of coordinates) spawn location, the lack of a clear situational awareness due to the issues with the camera and the problems with the orbs themselves (the “obstructed” one, to be clear) make the rng an important part of the fight. Thus some luck is actually needed.
(and i’ve beaten her; but i still consider the fight badly done and terribly tested).
Got a question for the devs…did you intend to allow people to be grouped while in the gauntlet to allow targeting? I would think this would be an exploit since this is a solo fight.
really? having someone tag stuff for you is an exploit?
might as well say asking for a couple guardians to empower you is exploiting.
It’s a solo “dungeon” meant for…you guessed it, being solo. You should not be able to use party functions in there. Empower does not follow you into the dome.
this fight requires very little skill and a lot of luck, is it luck that you can double tap W? no! is it luck that her 1 hit aoe is de synced and lagged so the animation is 2 seconds behind the actual attack? by your definition no.
is it luck that the orbs just happen to spawn right beside you? by your definition no.
is it luck that her insta kill adds spawn out of your line of sight because your camera is in your stomach, and you get killed? by your definition no.
is it luck that the light circles just happen to spawn in the right places the entire fight doing add control so you don’t have to? by your definition no.
is it luck that literally all of the second phase she’s always behind the instakill adds? by your definition no.
is it luck that you just happen to have an orb spawn when your out of endurance and it saves you? by your definition no.
is it luck that, that same orb has a “obstructed” when you use your downed attack on it and you die because of some broken mechanic? thats not technically luck.
It sounds like you haven’t even done the fight, with how poorly you understand the mechanics.
I think the bigger issue is that, even the parts that aren’t based on luck aren’t necessarily based on skill either. It’s not a fight you can go into and adapt to, it’s a fight you more or less need to memorize by trying (or watching) multiple times (which I consider strategy, not skill). It’s fair to ask if that is the type of encounter we as players want more of; I personally think it’d be more interesting if it was punishing but still something someone could adapt to within a single try if they were particularly good, and I don’t think one-shot mechanics allow that (nor does the time limit). Granted, that may be way more effort than the designers are able to put in to balance, so it is what it is.
[TAS] – The Asuran Squad
Devona’s Rest
Strategy is linked to skill, because you need the latter to pull it off. So far, I’m unable to focus on all aspects of the fight, so I always lose. I know what I need to do, and it’s easy to plan accordingly when you watch from above and outside. But in the middle of battle, I gotta pull, kite, dodge, all while paying attention to the tell mechanics.
At this point, what I would call “luck” is getting my act together so that I can fight Liadri the way I know I should be.
I’ve found if you go to the same arena it seems like the orbs always spawn in the same place.
Once I learned the fight, the only thing that seemed random was sometimes I had a clone spawn like right on me, but there could be a pattern to where her clones spawn that I was just too busy to notice.
There is some RNG: sometimes you get hit with more cripples than other times, however if you plan for the worst, it shouldn’t bad. You don’t even need zerkers gear to beat it, I did it in PTV
Mesmer – FURY
Rank 55 – Bunker Engi, Top 300
The orbs are not luck. They have one of the largest, most obvious start up animations in the game. You have about three seconds of a huge pulsing purple cloud, and then another two to three seconds of the orb just sitting there before it does anything. If you are kiting Liandri in a circle and looking in towards the center of the dome so you can see her, the aoe, and the clones, then its literally impossible to not see their warm-up animation.
You are in a circle, meaning the furthest the orb could possibly spawn is the diameter of the dome, which seems to be right around 1200 units since I can scorpion wire from one end to the other. And that is with the orb directly opposite your location. Normally it will be closer. Within 600 to 900 range.
If 5 seconds is too short of a time to close a 900 unit gap and hit a target as you run by, then you are not losing because of the orb or luck or chance. You are losing because you aren’t reacting fast enough or not properly managing resources and endurance.
Dragonbrand
The orbs do not spawn in the same pattern when using the same arena. This is one thing I paid very close attention to. They may spawn in certain locations, but there is no guaranteed way to know which of those locations the next orb will spawn.
That said, the start-up time on the orb after it appears until it launches the pull is such that you should be able to handle its presence no matter where you are in the arena. I think the only serious issue with these objects is that they come up “Obstructed” when attacked with certain ranged weaponry, which is a pretty serious flaw and should be corrected. This fight needs to be more class-impartial than it currently is.
I believe the orbs being obstructed are made like that on purpose. It forces you to get close enough to melee, or cast an AOE type attack. But for me, the orbs are not the issue. It’s being able to focus on the timing of the 1-hit AOE that drops in a pattern.
If you’re unskilled, and an orb just happens to spawn next to you, consider that luck. Otherwise, as I said in the title, there’s no RNG in this fight.
Even if the orbs are RNG and we are not fast enough to get out of the way of the aoe, downed skills can destroy them, so we can rez from the downed state.
Sometimes you get only “obstructed” from downed state.
either way liadri needs a nerf
either way liadri needs a nerf
No way.
In her current state, she’s not nearly as hard as people are making her out to be. Most of the “omg impossible!” posts were pretty quick knee-jerk reactions from the very first day of the event. After that, those posts have been steadily dwindling and I figure that by the end of the event the Liadri mini will be completely commonplace.
I believe the orbs being obstructed are made like that on purpose. It forces you to get close enough to melee, or cast an AOE type attack. But for me, the orbs are not the issue. It’s being able to focus on the timing of the 1-hit AOE that drops in a pattern.
If you’re unskilled, and an orb just happens to spawn next to you, consider that luck. Otherwise, as I said in the title, there’s no RNG in this fight.
I very much doubt it, as this bug has been in the game related to structures and other objects forever. Plus there are other ranged weapons that have no issues hitting them at 900+ units. Necro Scepter for example can instantly swat them with the 1 skill.
The fight doesn’t need “nerfed” in the sense that it needs to be made easier, but the design needs iterated upon more. The dome was a bad idea, the floor was a bad idea, and the fight wasn’t made class-neutral enough. Movement skills and invulnerability are too influential on this fight.