Guild Wars 2

I’ve been farming some Karka lately to see if they drop something nice and ofcourse for my monthly, I also participated in a various amount of events on Southsun Cove and to my opinion, the Karka deserve a nerf.
The “young” karka has a skill that shoots projectiles, I’m using full exotic light armor and I take about 1500 dmg every hit, and it shoots about 6~8 times in 2 seconds, so I lose almost all my HP if I don’t dodge in time, which is hard because this attack is unpredictable, I don’t believe I can win against 2 “young” Karka’s atm.
The Veteran Karka are more champion already, in the first event on Southsun, when we take over locations and activate WP’s, I notice that many, including myself, die while they’re just fighting one single Veteran Karka, sometimes I’m confused when I die, because I have no idea how I’ve died, it seems these Veteran Karka have some kind of super AoE.
The champion Karka seems to be the only balanced karka and are hardly any better than the veteran Karka, the only time I’ve seen him now is in the first event. He only hitted hard when he landed (There were aprox 10 people standing near his landing location, they all died).

There are other new mobs like the Reef Dragon who seem to be pretty skilled as well, compare the new mobs to some older mobs that also can be found on the island, like I did and come to the conclusion that they deserve a nerf.

I wondered how long it would take before I saw people complaining about this.

Just like any other mob in the game you need to know how to counter them. I don’t think their projectile is that unpredictable. You aggro them, you give them a second, then you dodge. This worked fine for me when I played through on Elementalist – I thought they’d rip me to pieces, but no. Count to 1 – dodge – dodge – nuke.

Many professions have reflect skills too. On Mesmer I was just sticking Feedback over them, or using Mimic (whichever was off cooldown) – they literally blow themselves up inside the Feedback bubble – it’s hilarious to see.

The Veteran Karka are powerful too, sure, but I don’t think overly so. The annoying thing is you need to kill ’em twice since they seem to have this magical 100% healing going on the first time their HP reaches 0.

A little, but not overly so.

Young karkas are easy, I can kill them without loosing any HP. If you cant dodge then stun. They only have time to fire their burst once.

Veterans are considerably harder than Orr veterans, but still easy to bring down with a 5 man team.

IMO that’s pretty much as it should be.

The difficulty is just fine. And for people wondering about the regening enemies – they lose their armored shell and get back to 100% health. After this they take a lot more damage.

It was quite a long fight in the top of the hive to kill the Karka Champion and Karka Veteran right next to eachother. :P

I think the only serious “watch out” I encountered were those young karkas — the “spit” move (or w/e) definitely takes a good chunk of health off even on a bunker-guardian. When I was in the area with the egg-event, I spent a good 20~ minutes (with a few others) constantly trying to survive 5-6+ at a time. It was very problematic, and I never felt “safe” down there, but ultimately, I’d have to say it’s refreshing compared to being annoyed by the crowd-control mechanics of Orr.

Running past Veteran Young Karkas. Not a good idea.

Run and dodge Young Karkas, Veteran Karkas, Champion Karkas. No worries!

Run past one or more Veteran Young Karka and you’re likely to be kissing the floor whilst they have their way with you. Have a stun breaker for knock downs? Great! Enjoy the next one flying towards you instantly.

Azure Prower.8701:

Running past

Azure Prower.8701:

Run and dodge

Azure Prower.8701:

Run past

All anyone cares about in this game is how well they can skip mobs and run through areas. It’ll be the same argument as all those about Orr. “Ahhh, they pull me back and stop me running”.

It’s best to take on the small mobs one at a time. You should be able to do that just fine. Any veterans or champs you should just stay away from lol. I don’t know why people are complaining about the normal mobs. They just hit harder they go down as easy as anything else. You just can’t face roll them get over it and Blind/Stun/CC/Heal them down.

Maybe its just because I went into it expecting them to be extra difficult, but I didn’t have that hard a time. They are definitely tough, but if I was careful, soloing them wasn’t a problem at all. Often had to make full use of traits and cooldowns, and even dodge now and then, but as long as soloing them is possible, I can’t complain.

edit: vets were another story. needed a little help for those, but think that’s as it should be. champs.. well, got one shotted by one of them and gave up, so no comment on the bosses, yet.

I say thanks A-net for giveing me some PVE world mobs that actually feel chalanging

The ones I have a problem with are the vet egg layers.

Uncleansable conditions? check

Super-long stun? check

Massive life bar? Double-check, you get to kill them twice!

Makes condition builds even MORE useless? check (transfers conditions)

stupid roll attack that takes forever and makes them invulnerable (and thus take even longer to kill)? Yup we have one of those too, check.

perma-stability? check, who needs the “control” arm of GW2’s trinity right?

Everything else seems fine so far but seriously those egg layer guys are pro-trolls.

Silentstorm.7531:

They just hit harder they go down as easy as anything else. You just can’t face roll them get over it and Blind/Stun/CC/Heal them down.

Well, facerolling is relative… Changed my Warrior build to mace/sheild, block to reflect.

Press 5 to win and 2 in case Karka has backup.

Insert maniacal laughter at your own discretion.

BurnedToast.3781:

The ones I have a problem with are the vet egg layers.

Uncleansable conditions? check

If you’re talking about the hatchling conditions, those are removable by dodge rolling which shakes all hatchlings currently attached to you.

It’s a level 80 exclusive zone (after this weekend). Please keep that in mind. I like the difficulty where it stands.
Also, you may be forgetting that party cap is 5.
Run with some mates a few times & watch what they do. Keep trying and I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

What? really? THANK YOU!

I did not know that, and it will make them significantly less annoying now that I do.

Exploring for the first time is always the best experience. Being in a zerg group made this happen. Being 50 and scaled up to 80, I found I still didn’t have the stats to be really sufficient. Had fun for the time running the events until the group dissipated.

Similar feeling with AC, being 50 using 35-40 gear and scaled down to 35 in comparison to a 80 scaled down to 35. They tip-toed through the tulips.

BurnedToast.3781:

The ones I have a problem with are the vet egg layers.

Makes condition builds even MORE useless? check (transfers conditions)

Condition damage is the only thing the vets are vulnerable to. They take full condition dmg but greatly reduced normal damage. Condition specs are the best for taking them down.

paelen.3821:

Exploring for the first time is always the best experience. Being in a zerg group made this happen. Being 50 and scaled up to 80, I found I still didn’t have the stats to be really sufficient. Had fun for the time running the events until the group dissipated.

Similar feeling with AC, being 50 using 35-40 gear and scaled down to 35 in comparison to a 80 scaled down to 35. They tip-toed through the tulips.

Except you don’t really tip-toeing through the tulips in the Cove even if you’re a level 80 with full toughness/vitality gears :P

ZudetGambeous.9573:

BurnedToast.3781:

The ones I have a problem with are the vet egg layers.

Makes condition builds even MORE useless? check (transfers conditions)

Condition damage is the only thing the vets are vulnerable to. They take full condition dmg but greatly reduced normal damage. Condition specs are the best for taking them down.

Hmmm, I was attacking them as a condition specced necro. Normally I can stack 12 – 15 bleeds + perma-poison, I couldn’t get more then 2 bleeds or so to stick to it and poison barely ticked at all. It just transferred it all off too fast, so I had to switch to axe despite having cond damage gear/traits because I was doing basically nothing as cond spec.

I guess they are not designed to be solo’d (though other vet mobs can be solo’ed just fine) but still, they drop conditions so fast. Axe did less damage, sure, but it didn’t seem to be THAT much less (hard to say for sure since I was “sidekicked” up to 80 from 52 so I don’t know how much I should have been doing).

Edit: I should mention this was just me and a random elementalist after the zerg had left, trying to do the escort lionguard patrol DE.

On my ranger I had to use both bow weapons swapping and go though most of both hot bars twice, use a pet the prot and heals to finally get down …. one of the young ones.

Also the zone is trapped. I have never falling into more trap spots that I could not get out of. Big frustration factor.

There’s not much reason to kill the mobs there as it is, drop table seems off.

i like the difficulty level, if this was another orr or even worse, frostgorge, then this would be nothing new for endgame 80 players with not much left to challenge

The young karkas are extremely easy to deal with, as mentioned into another thread, every profession has a way to deal with it. like as any good player should we plan and reconfig skills for whatever situations we face. Even a simple block/interrupt will deal with its cd

Also its projectile attack is pretty predictable, most will open up with that attack, with a long wind up, esp if ur standing at ranged. Also its range is less than most of our long range weapons. just staying outside 900 range (i heard is its range) is enough to dodge its initial attack.

The first time i did take a lot of hits and left with 1000 healt or something but thats because i was running around and it hit me from behind since i didn’t know it had a nice long range attack lol

Feedback just blows it up. mesmer sword makes u invulnerable and reflect projectiles if traited. My ranger longbow also has the knock back which interrupts and you can finish it off easily before it does it again. greatsword has the block/interrupt. other classes have damage mitigation or shield/protection, same stuff, to help u out.

but a simple double dodge will keep u clear of most of that projectile chain

the veteran karka have double life, which is nice. because it makes the map harder lol if this was another easy map, i think there will be even more complaints. Go in with friends if you can’t solo it. but for solo players this is a nice challenge. you need all ur dungeon experience developed skills. Comparatively i dont think it is harder than what you would hv to do in a tough dungeon run.

question though: do we need to care about those hatchlings? other than dodge when they latch on? i can’t tell if they actually affect me in the heat of the combat, if i should just focus on the vet

However i was never one shot by a veteran karka.. .but the champion karka that was a dungeon boss by itself haha. i didn’t know what hit me i was just down in one shot like 17k damage while i was running lol

But perhaps we need some sort of better animations with those big guys, to shows they are about to hit hard aoe or whatever.

My only problem with the area is that EVERY SINGLE MOB has 3X more HP than any of the other area’s 80’s.It makes combat frustrating and unnecessary long.Its bloody obvious that Anet intended the area to be for people with full ascended armor.

Riselight.3695:

The “young” karka has a skill that shoots projectiles, I’m using full exotic light armor and I take about 1500 dmg every hit, and it shoots about 6~8 times in 2 seconds, so I lose almost all my HP if I don’t dodge in time, which is hard because this attack is unpredictable, I don’t believe I can win against 2 “young” Karka’s atm.
The Veteran Karka are more champion already, in the first event on Southsun, when we take over locations and activate WP’s, I notice that many, including myself, die while they’re just fighting one single Veteran Karka, sometimes I’m confused when I die, because I have no idea how I’ve died, it seems these Veteran Karka have some kind of super AoE.

The Young Karka will squat down before they do the ranged attack. They always do the ranged attack the instant someone aggros, so the first wave is very predictable. If you have any reflect abilities, use them, they die very quickly from their own hits (which is 5, not 6-8).

Veteran Karkas have also telegraphed attacks. There is one where it jumps up and lands, with a knockdown and damage effect. It hits TWICE, so you need to dodge TWICE. This is probably the one you are confused about.

Windwalker.2047:

My only problem with the area is that EVERY SINGLE MOB has 3X more HP than any of the other area’s 80’s.It makes combat frustrating and unnecessary long.Its bloody obvious that Anet intended the area to be for people with full ascended armor.

The only different about Ascended pieces (there are only ring and back pieces for now, I believe), other than slightly better stats over exotics, is the infusion slot to help you combat the agony mechanic, which only exists in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon for now (that I know of… someone please correct me if I’m wrong).

I’m fine with how tough the mobs are. I always thought there was too much of a difference between quest mobs and dungeon mobs. And if you’re gonna close that gap, it’s better to make normal mobs tougher instead of dungeon mobs easier.

This always happens with ArenaNet: people complain about difficulty at first.

I applaud this new zone. But I had not seen a single drop off the Karka besides crab meat, if they drop anything at all, and most of them do not drop a single thing. I my’s well go back to the Cursed Shore Risen, and farm them again.

That said I hope this loot table changes some. we now have to work towards ascending gear, and I am not sure if this is how the zone will stay just for the free trial weekend event, because if the new zone stays this way, I am sure the zone will be desolate do to the poor drop rates on trash and needing a group just to navigate the zone.

We got that same problem in Orr right now but atleast they drop things more often, even if it is trash most of the time, it is still something. Bottom line as it stands right now the Karka have no reason to farm them. 1v1 is almost impossible to do with out burning all your cooldowns, and make you run and repair constanly. What fun is not getting any drops, and constantly wasting coin to repair?

Me and a guildmate, level 65 Thief and level 66 Warrior, didn’t have much trouble with the Karka as a Duo. We avoided the Veterans, most of the time, unless there was at least one or two other players around, but we got caught a few times and squeaked by most of the time.

The only Mobs we found over powered were the Reef Drakes, (I think that’s what they were called). Non-vets, they would rip us to shreds in about 5 seconds every time we tried to take one on. I think they really need a looking at. I’m guessing someone stuck an extra zero at the end of their damage numbers!

Karka threat level is debatable perhaps.

In my opinion, there are a few key points however that are kitten near inexcusably stupid.

1. Reef Drake Confusion
14-15 seconds AND on my engineer it fires off doing damage even if I Dodge Roll (bug perhaps, due to having the drop bomb ability). I want that number to sink int. 14 seconds plus of Confusion application, per unit. I don’t care how much condition clearing you have, you cannot outlast that nor can you clear it after each attack sufficiently. There is a reason players cannot get a number that large and there is no way in hell that should ever have gone live.

2. Hatchlings
Don’t count as ‘kills’ for the purpose of triggering sigils or abilities. They are legitimate targets, although fragile, and absolutely mandate being dealt with as they rush you in a hoard. I see absolutely no valid reason to exclude them from the kill trigger for things like Superior Sigil of Stamina, for instance, or any other Sigil/trait that triggers on kills. Those abilities should be the natural counters for such waves of face huggers.

Couple this with the general thickness and toughness of the mobs in the area and their lethality and utterly unjustifiable spawn rate?

This zone was not ready for release. Period.

Riselight.3695:

The “young” karka has a skill that shoots projectiles, I’m using full exotic light armor and I take about 1500 dmg every hit, and it shoots about 6~8 times in 2 seconds, so I lose almost all my HP if I don’t dodge in time, which is hard because this attack is unpredictable, I don’t believe I can win against 2 “young” Karka’s atm.

I just don’t get it. I see people running around getting destroyed by these mobs when they only have one big attack, and it’s extremely obvious when they’re going to fire it. Even if you get hit with the first couple of shots, you’re still alive and now you’ve had more than enough time to dodge roll the rest. There’s also abilities that some classes have to avoid these, and if you have reflect the Karka literally kills itself almost instantly.

But hey, lets all go to the forums and request that they be nerfed because no one can just dodge roll once per fight. It’s gotta all be boring faceroll content.

Sarie.1630:

Azure Prower.8701:

Running past

Azure Prower.8701:

Run and dodge

Azure Prower.8701:

Run past

All anyone cares about in this game is how well they can skip mobs and run through areas. It’ll be the same argument as all those about Orr. “Ahhh, they pull me back and stop me running”.

Except in Orr I can kill 5-6 at once, here if I get 2 on me it’s most likely gg.

Well, I do kind of agree. My lvl 80 Thief in full Tough/Vit exotics has some trouble BUT what you have to remember is to keep moving. This is not a game where you can soak up damage. It is definitely possible to solo as long as you keep moving and try to stay behind it.

Use your evades/blinds/dazes and the like to keep their damage low and i find them to be quite easy. Too bad my pets on my ranger can’t just easily avoid them lol.

I do like to use pets with knockdowns in there though. Makes the little ones without stability a little easier.

My only problem with the monsters is that half of them get Retaliation with 75% uptime and it’s ridiculous.

It’s totally FUN to only be able to lay down poison fields with shortbow (as a Power-focused build) because otherwise I’m going to be killing myself, right guys?

I’d love it if there were some way to remove it from them without being one of two classes, but I haven’t been able to figure out anything (and even if there IS a way, it’s a rather large burden-of-knowledge point).

(This post refers mostly to Veteran and Champion Karka; young Karka are annoying but you can deal with them)

Not having much of a problem with Southsun mobs on my Engineer now that I’ve got the hang of the new mechanics. (Some of them were pretty challenging solo before I figured out how to take them on.)

The drop tables are a tad disappointing for a level 80 zone, but I’m sure that will be addressed at some point after the weekend event.

I have three gripes:

1. The Reef Riders have waaaayyy too much health. Since they have little else going for them this just makes them an annoying and time-consuming roadblock.

2. Some spots have MOBs that are way too densely packed. The valleys below Owain’s Refuge where there are multiple patrols of 2-3 fast-respawning young karka are a perfect example.

3. The drakes spamming confusion are extraordinarily annoying. Not only do they routinely insta-kill entire groups of Lionguard for events they require a completely different build than karkas so when they overlap with karkas you basically have no choice but to go around them unless you’re in a group.

I feel like there’s a huge difference in difficulty in spots on the islands. I can run right over any individual MOB, even 2 or 3 at a time most of the time, but then in some spots it’s like you just suddenly walked into the middle of a group event without any warning because of the way they’re packed in.

Black Regent.5897:

1. The Reef Riders have waaaayyy too much health. Since they have little else going for them this just makes them an annoying and time-consuming roadblock.

They’re fairly nasty if you’re running a build that depends on boons. I just about got killed by the first couple I took on, as they stole Might, Fury, Retaliation, Swiftness and Protection in rapid succession and happily used them to beat the heck out of me.

Lesson learned, don’t use boons while fighting Reef Riders.

not op they are if your not lvl 80 though and have the lvl 80 gear but im doin fine for a scaled lvl 40 untill i get pullmed by more than 2

squishy Elementalist (14k hp) soloing Veteran Karka: I don’t think I will do this again, it tooks me nearly 17 minutes for the whole fight (14 to destroy the shell, the rest for sending it to Underworld) and – more important – I got NOTHING as loot.
IMHO they are more Champions than Veterans, so I wonder why A.Net called ‘em Veterans, that’s greatly misleading.

Not sure about the rest but the young karkas shouldnt be a problem for any class as I see it. Once you realise the spear shooting they do is aimed in a general direction and not specifically the player, you should be getting hit by 1 of them at maximum. Its like fighting a mob with siege attacks. Every class should have a skill or weapon that can attack from out of aggro range. Once you have attacked them they are going to use their long ranged spear move. So dodge. Or use an ability that moves your character or makes you immune to projectiles or all damage. You’ll be hit by maybe 1 spear if you dodged and 0 if you used one of the many abilities. After the spears they dont hit very hard and I’ve never seen them live long enough to work out how long before they shoot another set of spears.

It’s funny how the final Ancient Karka battle was easier than fighting 2 / 3 veteran Karka. Many people died only because of the strange green poison stuff the vet karka can throw at you

The normal critters are all fine — you just have to learn how to fight them. Some of the veterans are essentially champions. They’re hard. And there are a lot of them.