Guild Wars 2

I agree ….if they took out the time limit it would make all of our lives easier….countless times i’ve come so close to getting the 8 orb achievement with liadri and I just run out of time -__-

On top of all that, there’s many instances of being killed by mortality aoe while standing on the far edge of a light circle.

Also in the rooms that can spawn a white circle at the VERY VERY edge of the room, you’re pretty much screwed by that due to how long it takes to get a vision into it. By the time they make it, there are 3 more. The rooms where the circle spawns closer to the center doesn’t have this problem.

I also hate how hitting f to pick it up and hitting 1 too quickly (not twice, just once) will throw it, not even where your cursor is currently placed.

The Visions do damage through invulnerability as well, tested on my mesmer and my warrior, I love having my damage interrupted by being downed and instantly up again due this mess up.

I really feel like this portion of the game wasn’t tested very well due to how many design flaws and straight up progress-blocking bugs there are when it comes to the gauntlet.

They probably made it timed so that people don’t take too long and other people have to wait. Although this wouldn’t be a problem if it was instanced. Also the camera issue wouldn’t be a problem either since we wouldn’t have to be in a small bubbled arena.

Ok, so I’m not saying you are wrong. I’ll just give you some tips how to deal with it.

1. Keep track of where the red circles will spawn. They have a pattern that doesnt change. Knowing where they will spawn on top of sort of seeing them was enough for me to do it without failing.

2. This is just tactics. You have plenty time to lure enemies onto them and then the rest away. And on top of that there’s a dozen mechanics that make it even easier, like knockback or shield stance.

3. Gotta go with the toughness there to neglect most of the damage if you can’t succeed. I used knights gear and completed it with plenty time left. Perhaps use a mango pie to keep some HP regen. If you want to, you can dodge every single auto attack to last to the second phase.

4. They spawn at certain pre-determined places. They have like 6 or so options of where they can spawn. And they always spawn at the same moment. So it’s sort of random, but still fairly predictable. As far as the ranged attacks, that is indeed super annoying so I would advise using aoe attacks for it.

5. Once you get to learn how to do everything as fast as possible, you should have plenty of time. I think I had a good minute left when I did the 8 orb achievement. And like I said, I didn’t have full damage spec.

What issue you haven’t really adressed here, in my opinion, is that in the second phase you can’t really melee her. So some classes that are weak with range have a real disadvantage. For instance, a necro is very short range which isn’t optimal.
Aside from that having a lot of condition removal really is helpful if you’re trying to get close to her.

i beat her with an infinite evasion condi thief, following a guide that was posted on the thief forums. the build is completely useless outside of the liadri scenario, but it works really well for it.

still, it took me two days of trying to beat her.

i think the only thing that could be improved is the camera, as it gets too close to you when you’re near a wall, which is a big issue when you need to be aware of the whole arena and the second portal spawns right next to a wall.

oh, and no waypoints on the gauntlet floor, WTF.

It’s kind of special when the main gimmick to increase difficulty in a boss fight is abusing an already hopeless camera system.

It more highlights how bad the camera is than anything else, something that is more than sufficiently pointed out simply by the railings on the floating walkway around the arena. Unless one is trying to look down at a fairly steep angle the camera goes mad getting caught on the railings.

Fimbulvetr Wraith.2379:

It’s kind of special when the main gimmick to increase difficulty in a boss fight is abusing an already hopeless camera system.

It more highlights how bad the camera is than anything else, something that is more than sufficiently pointed out simply by the railings on the floating walkway around the arena. Unless one is trying to look down at a fairly steep angle the camera goes mad getting caught on the railings.

I never had camera issues on my norn or human or asura. Could any of you perhaps provide a picture of these screw ups? Maybe I’m just used to switching my camera fast that I didn’t notice it

I think the main issue is the camera. It is too close up that we can see much. Anet please pull the camera back.

FateOmega.9601:

I think the main issue is the camera. It is too close up that we can see much. Anet please pull the camera back.

the problem isn’t pulling the camera back, is that the camera engine works in a way that there can’t be an object between the character and the camera, and it just so happens that those domes are, well, domes. so the camera gets caught in the domes and zooms in involuntarily.

of course, the problem being in the camera’s engine, aka its foundations, means that it would be especially hard for ANet to fix it the way people would want to (i imagine mario-level of camera quality, but then again nintendo doesn’t have to work with the massive amount of exceptions and individual cases that ANet does regarding camera, plus it’s far more vital to their game)

eekzie.5640:

Ok, so I’m not saying you are wrong. I’ll just give you some tips how to deal with it.

1. Keep track of where the red circles will spawn. They have a pattern that doesnt change. Knowing where they will spawn on top of sort of seeing them was enough for me to do it without failing.

2. This is just tactics. You have plenty time to lure enemies onto them and then the rest away. And on top of that there’s a dozen mechanics that make it even easier, like knockback or shield stance.

3. Gotta go with the toughness there to neglect most of the damage if you can’t succeed. I used knights gear and completed it with plenty time left. Perhaps use a mango pie to keep some HP regen. If you want to, you can dodge every single auto attack to last to the second phase.

4. They spawn at certain pre-determined places. They have like 6 or so options of where they can spawn. And they always spawn at the same moment. So it’s sort of random, but still fairly predictable. As far as the ranged attacks, that is indeed super annoying so I would advise using aoe attacks for it.

5. Once you get to learn how to do everything as fast as possible, you should have plenty of time. I think I had a good minute left when I did the 8 orb achievement. And like I said, I didn’t have full damage spec.

What issue you haven’t really adressed here, in my opinion, is that in the second phase you can’t really melee her. So some classes that are weak with range have a real disadvantage. For instance, a necro is very short range which isn’t optimal.
Aside from that having a lot of condition removal really is helpful if you’re trying to get close to her.

Can’t melee her my kitten . Warriors and guardians can perfectly melee her, even mesmers.

The real flaw of this fight is the stupid time limit and the application of weakness heavily favoring specs that can spike her down before she wears you out of endurance with weakness application.

A class like the warrior can completely negate all of her mechanics. He can berserker stance to be immune to weakness. He can endure pain to negate vissions while spiking her or a shadowfall. He has frenzy to deal over 60% of her HP in it.

In fact I expect the warrior to be the easiest class to do 8 robs achievement with because you can just do the orbs while kiting with a rifle or longbow and as soon as you finish the orbs you can spike her down.

It is such a joke.

1: Perhaps the one legitimate gripe is the camera angles and the aoe circles. While I’ve never had a problem with either, some friends of mine have pointed it out and I can see how standing on the edge can cause the camera to be less than a agreeable. Same applies to the AoE circles, I can see how the mesh flooring can obscure them, but I’ve never had much of a problem.

2: You don’t need to pull the Visions of Mortality, kiting them is easy and with a bit of practice you can run in between them and pick up the orbs without a problem.

3: I completed this fight on my main, an Elementalist, with one of the lowest (if not the lowest?) base HP pools in the game. You don’t need a massive HP pool, you don’t need to stack healing, and you don’t need to stack toughness. You just need to get used to the fight to the point that you can keep her at a distance while kiting around the room.

4: Simply put, always make sure to register your surroundings. Don’t tunnel vision on just the boss and you can see a rift pop up. They take about 5 seconds after forming to pull you in anyway, giving you more than enough time to kill them in 1-3 hits. Heck, an alternate strategy involves always keeping a rift up so you can kill it to rally. Either way works.

5: The time limit is based on how familiar you are with the fight. Again, if you keep trying it and become more familiar with the mechanics, the time limit will become negligible. By no means do you need to go zerker (and I would highly suggest against it).

@Jaydo: If a circle spawns at the edge of the room, stand over it and wait for a clone to approach you. Right when it’s about to it, dodge backwards to avoid the explosion and still get an orb. Also, a circle spawning in the corner shouldn’t have a big impact on the time limit. If you ran out of time due to this, it was probably due to a multitude of other factors.
Also, I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say invulnerability skills won’t stop the clone explosions. Arcane Shield and Mist Form on my ele absorb their explosions, as well as the AoE, without a problem. My guardian can block these as well.

A lot of other “gimmicks” are simply a result of people not paying attention to the fight mechanics. For instance, I see a lot of people complaining about the “randomness” of her AoE in phase 2 when in reality it’s anything but random. It goes in a repeating pattern. Not only that, but just like the AoE of Subject Alpha in CoE, if you learn the timing, you can dodge right through the AoE without standing in a safe zone.

More than anything, I hope Anet DOES NOT dumb this fight down at all. Fixing camera angles and making the red circles more visible are legitimate concerns, but everything else is just a matter of fighting Liadri over and over until you get better. And perhaps some people, even after trying everything, still can’t beat her. I honestly think that’s fine and perfectly acceptable. It proves to a spoon-fed generation that you can’t always win at every single challenge you come across.

tl;dr Just keep trying until you familiarize yourself with the mechanics and beat her.

We all (most of us know) that the AoE has a pattern. As I said this is the most insignificant part of the fight. That’s not what the issue is here so continuously bashing the information that the AoE has a pattern is pointless.

I’ve memorized her beginning pattern completely. I run to the first whirpool before it shows up, I get the visions in, run to the next, dodge where I need to. The patterns are very easy to memorize, as I said that isn’t the problem.

The issues here are the bad cameras, the gang banged shadows, avoiding her attack, orbs that spawn out of your view when you’re in the middle of some 4 shadows… but most of all the time.

I easily get to her 2nd phase fine, there are the times that the amount of combined bad luck get me killed though.

And yes, there is luck involved. For example I was avoiding her AoE while guiding her shadow, that’s when the second orb spawns. I quickly looked through the room and saw the orb was on the opposite side of the room.

I quickly tried running to it before it would pull me but there wasn’t enough time, it pulled me into an AoE which I managed to become invulnerable in time to survive it. But then as the invulnerability went away and the AoE vanished, a shadow spawned and exploded right there and then.

There are patterns, but luck is still a factor.

Also the visions move soooo slow that getting one to reach some of the whirlpools is painful, horrible, and dangerous without a pull. I honestly think this would be easier if the visions moved faster, amazingly easier.

Either way, in the end the issue is the time. Every single time when I get close to killing her, the time screws me up.

They should remove the time limit and make the camera zoom out like you can on lupi to see the whole field.

That would solve most of the issues with the encounter.

The camera is what kills me in the fight. I have to watch the ground for nigh invisible AoEs, watch the corners and my rear for encroaching shadows, watch Liadri as she attacks, and watch for orbs that will pull me into one of the two above instant death mechanics.

But at least I get a great view of the back of my toon’s head when I enter the arena. It’s not like that is fake difficulty or anything.

Time limit, bad camera, lack of evades… These are what kill me, oh ya and auto attacks that deal 2k damage a hit. Several times get her under 50% with conditions only to die horribly due to a fall.

Otaur.9268:

Several times get her under 50% with conditions only to die horribly due to a fall.

What are you? Bunker engi? Lol.

Katran.9186:

Otaur.9268:

Several times get her under 50% with conditions only to die horribly due to a fall.

What are you? Bunker engi? Lol.

I have tried this on Elementalist about 35x and on Necro several times as well.

Otaur.9268:

Katran.9186:

Otaur.9268:

Several times get her under 50% with conditions only to die horribly due to a fall.

What are you? Bunker engi? Lol.

I have tried this on Elementalist about 35x and on Necro several times as well.

Necro is a bad-bad idea. Lack of evades. Necro can only pray for luck with orbs, pulling him outta shadow fall and giving rally.
Elementalist is much better but he can’t be thin. Best tactics with Liandri – staying at one clear spot. 1 shadow fall – miss, 2 – evade. So you don’t need to rush in circles like crazy and don’t lose damage.

Katran.9186:

Otaur.9268:

Katran.9186:

Otaur.9268:

Several times get her under 50% with conditions only to die horribly due to a fall.

What are you? Bunker engi? Lol.

I have tried this on Elementalist about 35x and on Necro several times as well.

Necro is a bad-bad idea. Lack of evades. Necro can only pray for luck with orbs, pulling him outta shadow fall and giving rally.
Elementalist is much better but he can’t be thin. Best tactics with Liandri – staying at one clear spot. 1 shadow fall – miss, 2 – evade. So you don’t need to rush in circles like crazy and don’t lose damage.

Necro is not that bad. Your damage with condi set is huge so you’ll kill her fast while kiting her. Use endurance regen food and use well of power so weakness and the other conditions she applies get turned into vigor and stuff. Use signet of the locust or spectral walk for movement speed.

You have consume conditions and condi transfer to easily keep yourself cleansed from her conditions and your condi damage cannot be body blocked as it’s not projectiles.

Stay around the center so you can easily get to the safe spaces.

Everything is much better than ranger.

Necro is my main so I was determined to do it with my necro. After 40 attempts of getting her down to around 25% HP and failing due to time limit I gave up with the necro.

It’s really unfair the current situation with necros and survivability. We have no skill to give us aegis, none for vigor. We have no invulnerabilities or blocks, and our only insta kill negate was the DS which no longer does that.

Decided to give it a go with my mesmer, but since the tickets are soulbound I couldn’t do much with it. Did some 10 tries, got her to a sliver of her health at one point and just messed up due to pressure.

It’s absurd how easier it is with the mesmer though.

Delryn.7235:

Necro is my main so I was determined to do it with my necro. After 40 attempts of getting her down to around 25% HP and failing due to time limit I gave up with the necro.

It’s really unfair the current situation with necros and survivability. We have no skill to give us aegis, none for vigor. We have no invulnerabilities or blocks, and our only insta kill negate was the DS which no longer does that.

Decided to give it a go with my mesmer, but since the tickets are soulbound I couldn’t do much with it. Did some 10 tries, got her to a sliver of her health at one point and just messed up due to pressure.

It’s absurd how easier it is with the mesmer though.

Yea it is crazy. I tried super hard with my necro but his mobility is so bad and there are no evades/blocks/invulnerability so I would die super quickly. However, once I switched to guardian (I am not an experienced guardian. I leveled it up to 80, half of it with crafting, just for the Queen’s Gauntlet because I knew it would be terrible for a necro), it was a lot easier and I could get her HP down a lot more because I could block/invuln the giant AoEs when I run out of dodges (with about 4 different skills, I might add. That’s an extra 4 AoEs I can run through and by the time 2 of them are used, my dodges regenerated already too)

However, I made a big mistake. Should’ve made a Warrior instead of a Guardian.

Nope for me it’s the bombs. I can’t pick up or throw orbs of light on the move and theres always a bomb guarding my orb of light which disappears if not picked up fast enough, plus there’s a match time limit.

I just found out what my problem was. My toons moving too fast because of warrior’s sprint so it messed up the bomb’s. I’m gonna work with my rifle tell phase 2.

Took me 41 tries.
Condition builds work well for this match since you’re spending so much time avoiding the aoe and walking bombs, but you also need to be able to keep up perma vigor or something similar for dodges.

As for me, the things that I find the most discouraging about the arena are
1. Queue- this one is the worst in populated maps since it’s really limiting your attempts
2.Environmental effects from the area affect you. I find this kind of ridiculous since you match is supposed to be isolated from whatever else is going on. Not only does culling and lag from a zerg below have effects of on some players, but effects like heat exhaustion are also hindering you in a tough fight.
3. You’re basically paying for each attempt, + repair and waypoint. This is kind of reasonable as a gold sink and to prevent people from endlessly trying it unless they have a hope of winning, but I still feel kind of iffy on this.

As for the fight itself, I don’t think it should be made easier. If the time limit was removed, it’d be easy to indefinitely kite her until she dies on a bulkier character, so that definitely needs to stay.
For the claw autoattack try continuously straffing left and right as you do anything to avoid a decent amount more of the claws.
Pay attention for the rifts so you can destroy them right away (unless you plan to use it for a rally, but I wouldn’t risk it). An aoe will take care of it easily if your ranged attacks aren’t hitting it.
The gangbang thing shouldn’t really start happening until after 4 or so whirlpools, so just make sure to hit her with the first three orbs.

Since you can’t easily stop to attack her, and with that time limit on your head there are two better ways of going about this.

Either use a mesmer, since they’re able to send illusions in to deal damage as they run. Or conditions, since you’re able to put some conditions then run away while she gets damaged.

However even though necros are great at conditions it’s all for nothing if they can’t stay alive.

After some attempts and once I gave up doing it on my necro and just decided to go for a mesmer, I managed to beat her.

It’s not impossible, however the fact it’s not impossible doesn’t make it either reasonable nor a well designed battle.

I still think the way it’s working is all sorts of wrong.

Difficulty does not equal challenge, and while a challenge requires some difficulty that is not to say that just having raw difficulty makes something challenging; it makes it frustrating.

This whole battle goes wrong right in the start, you have absolutely no way of knowing how she fights or how to kill her without first either looking it up online or dozens of trial and error just to learn how to fight her.

A well designed, well thought out and good challenge should let you use the available tools and information to figure out how to overcome it.
Instead this has no information within the challenge itself and it rips off half of the available tools a player can use since most builds and some classes either can’t beat her or are on the fine line between possible and impossible.

On top of all that the actual mechanics of the fight don’t add to the challenge, it adds to frustration.

You have various sources of 1 hit KOs without knowing they’re 1 hit KOs. You have an invulnerable enemy with no info on how to beat her, and an array of “stuff” such as the orbs and whirlpools which you will have no idea what they do when you go in to fight her.

Overall this was a shallow attempt at challenge which ended up being nothing but a bulk of raw and misdirected difficulty which became nothing but frustrating.

My issues with this fight were:
-The camera. Oh my God, the camera. Seriously, 2/3 of the fight was getting the camera under control, in the end. Did I mention the camera?
-The somewhat random Rifts (Orbs) – they can seriously screw you over if they form at just the wrong time, you don’t notice them, and get pulled. This is a bit too luck-based, but would be solved if the camera wasn’t such an issue
-Lag from outside events. Makes this harder than needed, and is certainly not intended difficulty.

Everything else, while being really cheap game design (how many 1HKOs? Oh, players want to dodge, let’s give them Weakness – on every autoattack), isn’t that much of an issue once you know about them. In the final run (number 70-ish, I think), I didn’t run out of dodges at all, that’s without vigor and endurance regen (on an ele). But the abovementioned issues made it oh-so-frustrating to do. ANet, whatever you do, don’t design boss encounters that screw our camera up again, please.