Guild Wars 2

I spent 45 minutes and didn’t even get past the first champ, because I was the only one fighting with maybe 1-2 other people that got downed quickly.

Granted, I’m probably not the best player. But are we expected to solo the first champion, who has a pull, massive ranged damage that seems to be unreflectable, spawns tons of ads and has a damaging aoe around him? I think at most I got him to 25% then he spammed his ranged attack twice and I died because the animation is wonky with the actual projectile. Map chat was full of people talking and there were 2 commander tags, but they were all at the end of the zone, not the first champ.

Good luck if you wanna try it without one, I 5 maned it a few times, but after having to rez my fellows a few times, now I just wait for a zerg. Those won’t last with the loot in there, after most have their achievements they will just continue to farm whatever the “spot of the month” is instead.

If there is a Champion spawned, it’s because there were enough players around to spawn a champion. Unfortunately, they’ve probably died and long-gone somewhere else, which leaves the clean up crew to deal with the champ.

On one occasion, I was soloing around level 2 and came to the toxic wurm room. Because it was just me, the boss that spawned was a Veteran Toxic Wurm and not the champion. Now this is still a kitten tough fight, and I didn’t manage to kill him (kitten those wurm spawns.. but I was close!) so left it to the next group.

Any sizable number would have had an easy time of the Vet, which is just their luck I guess :-)

A few things that might help:

1. If you’re on a low pop server, try guesting to a high pop one. They still have just enough players at prime time to get those champ blocks cleared for you.

2. Level 2 and especially level 3 have some pretty brutal mobs and constant degen on level 3. It’s kind of cheap, but if you find yourself alone in densely packed hallway full of doom…you can run run run and when you’re low on health just log off. Then log back on and you’ll instantly be at 100% health and all mobs deaggrod. Be careful though, if you log off while downed you’ll log back on dead. This also might not work well if you have long loading times.

3. If you end up in an overflow that doesn’t have a zerg nearby to kill a champ, try relogging to get into a main server or another overflow that has the obstacle clear.

I played through the whole tower today helping a friend of mine out, we purposely avoided zergs, did as little running through as we could, and tried to play it as intended, and had very few problems. It was far slower going, but it was a lot of fun. Really, the first floor’s the toughest, IMO, the rest is just careful killing. Well, the 3rd floor got a little tough too.

yesterday we ran it as a group of 5 guild members.

we ran into trouble at the spider queen champ as we do not have enough dps to kill the cocoons before she heals herself on the cocoons.

after holding out for many minutes, backup arrived and we finally mopped her entrails on the floor.

Yeah, you’ll want more than 1 or 2 of you. 3’s a good number and can work, and you don’t have to be in a group, just stick together. However…

Hang about at the entrance area and watch/follow other players and their style. There’s two basic things to look out for: If they’re training past mobs, you definitely don’t want to hang about with them, but if they’re taking their time and killing most they come across, work with them and stay close for they’ll be good to follow/help.

Basic tip for survival; don’t rush. You don’t have to get to the top in one go.

As a thief I prefer to use a combination of lots of stealth, infiltrators arrow and a few traits to run past mostly everything, but I was stonewalled on the first level when I ran into a champion (like the OP). Also during the fight it got so crazy with all of the fields and adds that it got to a point where people were being downed and dying like crazy and me and my partner couldn’t even tell what we were getting killed by.

If you know what you’re doing and don’t rush, it’s quite possible with a handful of people…for the most part. Champions require more care and generally more people to deal with. I managed to two-man a lot of the tower with a guild mate (ranger/ele duo). It got tense, but we supported each other and were able to clear some of the events by ourselves (taking out portals, destroying those spider cocoon prison thingies, etc). But when we came across the champion spider queen or the champion wurm, my mate had to badge up as commander and gather a small zerg. It’s definitely easier if you manage to get through without active events blocking your path. And it’s important to know where it’s best to run and best to stand and fight. Some mobs don’t need killing, but others will just make it difficult if you try to avoid them. (And it helps to clear spider webs on the 2nd level instead of running into them…especially if you’re running and not fighting)

If you haven’t completed the tower several times, I’d say it’s best to latch on to a large group. But saying that, there are mined areas and large groups can often trigger them as you’re running past. That can get painful. But a zerg is a great support in the tower and sometimes waiting for a commander is the way to go.

This is not solo content. Find other people.
As much as I like to solo, sometimes a MMO just needs to be a MMO.

I’ve found everything in the tower quite doable with a decent 5-man crew. Sure, some fights are tough and people gotta know what to avoid and bring some support. A zerg isn’t required, but I don’t recommend going solo or 2-manning.

The tower is perfectly possible to solo provided that large amounts of people don’t spawn the champions then run off. If there aren’t large groups of people nearby, the champions will spawn as far more manageable veterans that can be soloed.

If they do, on the other hand, it gets very difficult to solo. However, 2 competent players are enough to do the entire thing without anyone else, including all the champions. I know because that’s how I did it.

Everytime that I have done this area I have started off with either just myself or a small group of 4 or 5 people who were not partied up with me or related from what I can tell. We struggled a bit with the first level, especially the mine room, but as we moved upwards our group kept growing and growing until we had a decent sized zerg by the time we reached the jungle wurm and from there we cleared our way from the top. And I’m not even on a huge server, IoJ, but I might also just be lucky with my timing as well.

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

Solid Gold.9310:

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

That’s because the difficulty can vary. If you run into champions other people have spawned and then abandoned, or if someone runs past you trailing lots of mobs who turn on you it will be very hard. But when it scales correctly a lot of players seem to be able to solo it. It’s all beyond your control really.

Solid Gold.9310:

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

It’s all anecdotal. We can only comment on our own experiences. I’ve tried solo with no luck. I’ve run with zergs with no problems. I’ve run with 5 other with no problems. Runners won’t stop to rez cuz it’ll kill them. Group fighters and zergers will rez. All I can comment on.

Solid Gold.9310:

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

There are a LOT of really terrible players in this game…

I’m stating as matter of fact: 2 people are enough to do the entire tower, with champions, without many issues provided both people know how to play decently. You can do it with more, but 2 are enough.

1 might be a bit too hard because some champions have mechanics that make soloing them quite difficult (for example, the spider wrapping you in the “cocoon” thing). 1 is doable if none of the “roadblock” champions spawn as champion (instead spawn as veterans), or if you’re lucky enough for all the aforementioned “roadblocks” to be open.

People claiming you need 5 or 10 people, or whatever, are just bad players that don’t know what they’re doing. Yes, the more decent players join in the easier it is (for the most part), but 2 are enough to do everything.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Solid Gold.9310:

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

There are a LOT of really terrible players in this game…

I’m stating as matter of fact: 2 people are enough to do the entire tower, with champions, without many issues provided both people know how to play decently. You can do it with more, but 2 are enough.

1 might be a bit too hard because some champions have mechanics that make soloing them quite difficult (for example, the spider wrapping you in the “cocoon” thing). 1 is doable if none of the “roadblock” champions spawn as champion (instead spawn as veterans), or if you’re lucky enough for all the aforementioned “roadblocks” to be open.

People claiming you need 5 or 10 people, or whatever, are just bad players that don’t know what they’re doing. Yes, the more decent players join in the easier it is (for the most part), but 2 are enough to do everything.

OK got that, two people are enough to do (Kill) all the champs, elites and trash mobs climbing the tower.

I’ll look forward to trying that tonight, but not much…………

Edit……….

Some video here would be good…………

Solid Gold.9310:

OK got that, two people are enough to do (Kill) all the champs, elites and trash mobs climbing the tower.

I’ll look forward to trying that tonight, but not much…………

Edit……….

Some video here would be good…………

Would love to, but my computer would roll over and die if I tried. I’m not exactly running on the best machine in the world.

This has been a problem with revolving door content. (or living story if you will) people hammer out the achievements and its dead in a week. Doesn’t matter how good you are You can’t get through the tower if there are too few players.

It was the same thing with the halloween instance. great fun the first week after that it was a royal pain in the behind. By the time my achievemets were done I never wanted to see those places again

I wonder. Is it a fundamental design flaw of a sandbox game? They do have to compensate for when the zerg is enormous. perhaps they can’t balance it for when it isn’t?

ProxyDamage.9826:

Solid Gold.9310:

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

There are a LOT of really terrible players in this game…

I’m stating as matter of fact: 2 people are enough to do the entire tower, with champions, without many issues provided both people know how to play decently. You can do it with more, but 2 are enough.

1 might be a bit too hard because some champions have mechanics that make soloing them quite difficult (for example, the spider wrapping you in the “cocoon” thing). 1 is doable if none of the “roadblock” champions spawn as champion (instead spawn as veterans), or if you’re lucky enough for all the aforementioned “roadblocks” to be open.

People claiming you need 5 or 10 people, or whatever, are just bad players that don’t know what they’re doing. Yes, the more decent players join in the easier it is (for the most part), but 2 are enough to do everything.

I agree, with such short lived content you are going to get a lot of people who just don’t know what to do. Really, skill is secondary to zerg size in this game. If you are in a group, stick tight and run with the large zerg = success. Frustrating when the place is empty.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Solid Gold.9310:

So much conflicting information here, “I ran it solo on my (Insert prof here) and didn’t die once”, “2 of us did it and killed all the champs”, get with the zerg, get a 5 man party and so on and on.

Just saying……………

There are a LOT of really terrible players in this game…

I’m stating as matter of fact: 2 people are enough to do the entire tower, with champions, without many issues provided both people know how to play decently. You can do it with more, but 2 are enough.

1 might be a bit too hard because some champions have mechanics that make soloing them quite difficult (for example, the spider wrapping you in the “cocoon” thing). 1 is doable if none of the “roadblock” champions spawn as champion (instead spawn as veterans), or if you’re lucky enough for all the aforementioned “roadblocks” to be open.

People claiming you need 5 or 10 people, or whatever, are just bad players that don’t know what they’re doing. Yes, the more decent players join in the easier it is (for the most part), but 2 are enough to do everything.

I can tell you from experience that it can be done with a small party (2 may be pushing it) but I agree with you in this regard.

However it is not the small party that is the problem. The problem lies in the guy running for his life because the trash ain’t worth the loot and aggros the entire floor upon you. Also if a zerg happens by a few minutes before you (less of a problem now) the vets and elites will easily overrun you too.

Open world generally consists of players doing whatever they like, therefore good player or bad, your small party has no control over them.