Guild Wars 2

the karka are an interesting enemy, however I can’t quite follow their mechanics.

I am guessing that when their armor is on they are immune to cc as they gain stability if you get through defiant. However sometimes if I break their armor and then fear them they gain stability anyway? Is this a bug or are they supposed to just be immune to cc?

Otherwise I like fighting them. They’re well equipped for dealing with players which I think is nice, they supply a good challenge and are actually daunting.

The lost shore event was cool, going in and actually building the island. However the island itself is really quite small, I was kinda expecting it to be more along the lines of a full fledged zone’s worth of content.

Outside of events and enemies, the island is very aesthetically pleasing.Both the Island and the fractal instances are some of the most beautiful zones I’ve seen in guild wars.

Daunting says it all. When these “normal” mobs knock my health down by almost 8k points with their starting ranged attack that’s nuts! I’m a Warrior with 24k health so that’s a 1/3 drop in health off the bat. That’s bullkitten for a “normal” mob to do that much damage in one attack.

Huck, be happy you have a health pool of 24k health… My thief is lv80 and has 11.5k health (i know the glass cannon build). Certain types of mobs on the new map are plain kitten

Reef drake: You shadowstep to it and backstab, BAM you’re hit by an instant aoe for 9k health followed by a bite and you find yourself in downed state.

Young Karka: The only way to survive these annoying things are to toss a dagger with DD so that you can dodge the ranged spikes (5 of them for 2k damage each), and you have to dodge roll to avoid them, cause normal running out of their way isn’t possible as they move like tracer missiles. So if you find yourself with low endurance and get aggroed by 1 it’s hello downed time for a thief cause we have the lowest health pool in the game.

I found the karka similarly unforgiving. I’m a lvl 80 warrior with full exotic gear and exotic weapons, but if I pull more than one of these normal mobs, I’m toast. And even 1v1, I have to use BOTH my dodge rolls to avoid the initial burst. This doesn’t seem like something ANet intended (they have no qualms about requiring one well-timed dodge, but requiring two is like boss mechanics). Maybe the karka will calm down a bit after the event is over, and scaling returns to normal?

Well, Staff-wielding Elementalists like me have a little easier – with Magnetic Wave reflecting projectiles Karkas hurt themselves for about 50% HP. However, that means picking a moment to fight is important.
However, that doesn’t help when all all your commands are delayed for 1-20 seconds…

Lvl 80 thief, 12k health. Rare armor/weapons, not exotic yet. Not all pieces have upgrade slots filled. Capable of soloing young karka. Their main danger is the opening projectile attacks, which must be dodged, or reflected (dagger storm). After that, I usually manage to cloak and dagger a lot, and use tactical strike to daze them. Then I dodge, and cloak and dagger again. If they dodge a cloak and dagger, hit 3, and try again.

I am also traited to heal while stealthed, so that helps massively.

What is so “interesting” about an enemy that behaves just like any other, takes minutes of kiting to kill but now only just takes three hits to kill you?

The ranged attack from the young karka make my Ele cry. And I have a ton of vit/toughness. Still hits super hard. :/ Even with reflect and defensive shield, it still can be a pretty close fight if I am unlucky. Nevermind taking on more then one at a time though. lol

On the big dudes though (veterans), some aren’t so bad, actually easier then the young karka. But the ones with the group events..that barrel roll obliterates so many.

Those burrowing worms are terrible as well. Reef dragons can be quite dangerous too. Only thing I don’t have a issue with is the floating dudes (name escapes me atm).

The island is very pretty and someplace I’d like to spend time at. But just the general mobs are extremely dangerous as a solo’er so not sure if I will spend as much time there as I would like. :/

Overall though, I can’t complain too much. Its nice to have a bit of a challenge in a area as compared to the snoozefest of Cursed Shore (only thing hard here was just all the debuffs/snares) and Frostgorge.

Reef Drakes are much worse than Young Karka to me. That freaking instant AoE confusion field attack, man… not only does it apply confusion which in an of itself is deadly (especially for my Ranger who has but 1 condition clear and its my heal as well), but the attack does multiple ticks of relatively high damage as well, AND the drakes can stun / pull you so that you can’t escape the field.

I’ve pretty much decided I’m not fighting those things ever again unless I have to. And if I do, ranged all the way, melee is just way too dangerous.

Young Karka are tough, especially for normal enemies, but aside from that one projectile volley they don’t really have any other nasty tricks. Just straight up high health and damage.

Of course, the OP is obviously talking about adult Karka, which… don’t really seem that bad. They’re relatively dangerous and resillient as heck, but since you’ll probably always be fighting them in groups of players (I sure as heck wouldn’t try one solo at least, it would take ages even if you didn’t end up dead), it makes them a lot less dangerous I think. Not that they’re pansies or anything, they’re good enemies and sufficiently tough. But as a whole, I fear Reef Drakes the most.

Grump – that’s why glass cannon builds outside of PvP are a bad idea in GW2. I have no problems with soloing karka on my ele, even with young vets (regular vets take just too long thus being less forgiving) – eles have the same hp pool as thieves, but less basic armor.

Meleeing the young ones with mace autoattack on the guardian, hit monthly achievement this evening without any hassle.

I personal love the Karka mobs, it’s neat how the vets lose parts of their shell each time you get their health down. Yeah, there pretty tough since the hit like a truck. But there still a pretty neat mob to fight.
As for the baby ones, when they jump on you, you can just Dodge roll a couple times to get them off.
I do agree though that for normal mobs the young Karka are pretty tough, especially when they start shooting and criting you when they attack.
Helps a bit though as ranger using the Lb when I fight the vets.( meaning shooting from range.)

Shooopa.5632:

What is so “interesting” about an enemy that behaves just like any other, takes minutes of kiting to kill but now only just takes three hits to kill you?

Rather than all of the enemies having to play by your rules from the get go, you need to fight the karka on their terms before you can have your way. Most of all it’s the adult veterans I find interesting. (I find the rest of the mobs in the area extremely easy to deal with).
-ranged multi target attack that roots in place
-“lob” ranged attack that leaves poison AOE
-barrel roll that MUST be dodged or you lose a chunk of your health

All of these are easy to avoid individually however work together with surprising synergy.

Challenging enemies are needed to keeps things interesting, and npcs wont have human AI so they have to overpower them a bit. Surely beats the usual stand there press 1-2-4-target dead all the time.

P.S. Glass cannon builds should know what they are getting into and adjust instead of complaining. Might not be each of you but so many players build glass cannon for max dps and then demand on the forums the game be changed to suit the needs of their build.

Personally I don’t like the way the veteran Karka “regen” their health after the armor is down.
Simple having 2 bars, one for armor, one for health, would be a whole heap more fun than taking it down to zero then starting over again.

Hit the young karkas with a range attack, dodge roll to the side when he shoots the crystals, move in and kill it.

I don’t like the vet karka mechanic, where you have to kill them twice basically, windle down their hp breaking off their armor, get exp for that kill, and then have to fight em all over again, and it’s easier, but if you’re completing against others, less time and chance to get your tag in, so harder to get tag on the part that would actually leave a corpse and give loot.

I love the barrel role of the vet Karka’s,your eyes widen when you see a path of dead players fall before you.

If they could at least bump up the loot from them i’d be fine with it. Right now i just don’t think they are worth the effort for what you get in the end.

The only major problem I have with Karka is the health refill after loosing the carapace, understandable that they can keep fighting after, but in my eyes the healing is a design flaw.

It would be better if they had double the health and lost the carapace after the halfway point, or at a push should have had a second blue health bar above the first as an armour indicator.

No one likes seeing monsters health magically shoot up, it is disheartening. My suggestions are only visual, as it would take the same amount of effort and time, but psychologically it would feel like you are making more progress in the fight.

Hey thieves: Leaping Death Blossom and Roll for Initiative are also evades. Stealthing and then backstabbing helps a lot, too: Blinding powder, standard heal, or dagger #5. I find Thieve’s Guild a better elite skill for dealing karka than Dagger Storm. Your mileage may vary.

drkn.3429:

Meleeing the young ones with mace autoattack on the guardian, hit monthly achievement this evening without any hassle.

MajorMelchett.6042:

If they could at least bump up the loot from them i’d be fine with it. Right now i just don’t think they are worth the effort for what you get in the end.

Pssshh, guardians so OP… xD

Guardians just have to learn their attacks and use the right abilities, and it’s not too difficult.

Soloing Veteran Karka reminds me of soloing Ovoliths in TERA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XkibMimRU4&t=1m47s

I love Veteran Karka, I wish GW2 had more large, agile, and dangerous mobs. Everything’s gravy if you dodge the rolls, and have stun breaks.