Guild Wars 2

so according to the patch notes:

Once inside the Tower of Nightmares, players will need to make their way up the tower, scaling three floors of horrifying dangers to reach the heart of the tower—a massive, noxious bloom pulsing with malevolent power. At the apex of the tower, players can enter the chamber protecting the tower’s heart and begin a story instance that can be completed solo or with a group of up to five players.

Upon defeating the challenges of the story instance, players can finish what the scouting team could not: inject Marjory’s antitoxin directly into the heart of the tower!
The story instance also has a repeatable mode so players can confront the challenges as many times as they like for additional rewards and accolades. Upon each completion, players will be able to inject another dose of antitoxin, weakening the tower that much more.

i was under the impression that the repeatable version would also have a solo version, but apparently, the solo instance is only available for the initial story mode, unless i’m bugged. i’ve noticed no difference between entering solo, or entering with a full group. the impact of course is mainly fighting the champ toxin jabba the hutt at the end.

i guess i’m either bacon deficient, or i need to learn better how to solo champs with adds and spores… :-/ yeah, i’m still learning how to play…

I found the Hybrid fight to be a fair challenge solo. I’ve solo’d it a few times as a Necro but I had a bunch of minions to take the heat off of me. I’ve also done it in groups and the difficulty seems to scale pretty evenly. It felt the same no matter how many players I had with me.

Unless they “fixed” it, the Hybrid itself does very very little damage until near the end when it does slightly more damage. When solo, I found that the additional mobs did not respawn or respawned very slowly when killed. I focused on killing them first and then went back to the boss once it was alone.

After awhile when the boss spawns a toxic tree in the middle, I be sure to kill it as constant degen is just annoying. I kill the adds and then refocus on the boss. Near the end it spawns a ton of toxic trees. I only clear enough to have a little kiting room, kill the adds, and then kill the boss. The boss seems to not move much at the end. Not sure if this is intentional or not.

All the instances are drastically more difficult if you bring people along, some scale to catastrophic levels (i.e. Champion Spider Queen with 3 people versus Veteran Toxic Spider). Just bring a little more sustain, destroy toxic flowers when they pop, and you’ll be fine.

I thought it was fairly easy.
What profession are you? Probably depends because I’m a main Mesmer and I used a standard phantasm build through each chamber and the last instance.

Soloed both as zerk staff ele and apothecary s/d ele.
Both without deaths in the whole instance (and got the achi).
A little challenging but not hard. Definately not Liadri hard.

Definitely keep trying to solo the final instance so you can actually inject the anti-toxin and go through the bramble door and get the diver achievement with the goggles on a branch outside there.

If you go through with a group, unless you ask them to hang around and wait for you to do the anti-toxin injection and then do the dive achievement, expect them all to exit the instance as soon as they get their reward as many are sure to already have the achievements by now. Unless you were the first one in and the instance is based on your connection, everyone else leaving will collapse the instance due to being tied to one of them and you will not be able to inject anti-toxin or go get the goggle achievement.

Beware of Griefers Abusing the Instance Lock

• It’s ridiculous. Players are even intentionally being first in and first out so other people cannot inject anti-toxin which raises the global anti-toxin levels. ArenaNet stated that the tower will be around until the anti-toxin bar is filled and it is only increased by players injecting anti-toxin. Farmers want this to stick around for a long time so they are actively preventing anti-toxin from getting injected to prolong the farming as long as they can.

• Then there are some who are doing it (collapsing the instance) intentionally to prevent others from getting the hybrid and dive achievements. They will build groups of players that need the hybrid and dive achievements and make sure they enter first. They will then instantly quit either right before the hybrid goes down if players needed the hybrid or right after he goes down and they get their reward so the players needing the dive achievement cannot get it due to being kicked from the instance.

It’s very sad. I don’t think anything can even be done about these griefers even if they are reported. Instances being tied to a player is intended. What can they even be reported for since there is no “Griefing” report option? Even then, how could it even be proven that they didn’t have to legitimately leave? It’s just a really bad idea for instances to be tied to a single player that many wish would be corrected.

I’m just warning you. Be very careful when going in with a group if you do not have the hybrid/dive/anti-toxin inject achievements and want them or are looking forward to injecting anti-toxin repeatedly.

I did it solo 3 times. It’s not only the initial version, you can solo the repeatable version too and yes, the fight is the same (though I think the champ as less HP).-

Did it solo 4 times in first day (achiev) and now do it daily just for fun

Solo will be better, you can better predict mobs movement. Personally, I find it is easier to melee the clockwork, then range the aetherblade, molten and hybrid.

I managed to solo it with my engi once (granted, it was story mode, but still…)

My thief, on the other hand, too squishy to get past the Aetherblades.

well, sounds to me like “laugh at me” is the more appropriate thread title… perhaps my bacon deficiency is affecting my play in game. i was running a bow ranger, and the problem i was having, now that i think about it, is that i wasn’t paying attention to the perimeter spores, and i was running right into them , killing myself in the process. i’ll try again later.

thanks all!

Sounds like you need Ninja Burger!

http://foodbeast.com/2013/10/11/burger-king-japans-new-ninja-burger-comes-with-a-huge-hulking-slab-of-bacon/

Good luck, I haven’t been up there yet so I don’t know.

Does it really depend on how many players are injecting antitoxin? I always thought bar progresses by a fixed amount each day – like with all the other events in the past.

Is there a dev post on this so we can be sure?

I mean what if it isn’t finished in 2 weeks… they can’t bring the next event then. And I’m sure they already have plans. Would be a bad idea to make it dependent on how many players to stuff there.

Also is it per server then(detecting which server is home server of the player that started the instance)? Or total count(like with the support badges for Ellen Kiel and Even Gnashblade back then).

I found it to be more difficult in a group than solo. I am not the best player I will admit and die during the run, so it is not easy for me either way. The final fight against the hybrid is way easier than the first 2 rooms. The molten room is the easiest just killing the portals.

Yeah. Solo is okay. I played engineer 20/0/30/20/0 with traited bombs(increased radius, increased damage, healing bombs) + elixirs(cd reducing).

Used elixir to convert boons to conditions(good against immobilize and bleeeding and stuff but the last Aetherblade with every auto attack confusion spam was still annoying).

+ Rifle. Rifle has CC. Good ol’ Bomb has CC. Nice in fights with more than 1 mob so you can keep them away a bit from you. Also you can run in circles and bombs easily hit especially with bigger radius from trait.

Molten with portals you can kill 2 mobs + vet, then portal so they won’t spawn all same time. Then easy to clear the room. Don’t know if they respawn while portal still is up but then only the 3 from the one portal that is up should respawn(then you might try damage portal until almost destroyded, kill the mobs and then fast kill the portal). So no more then 2 + 1 vet.

Aetherblade confusion guy was most annoying cause he just spams it. Like every auto attack 2 stacks confusion. Even condition cleanse not helping that much. Safed elite supply crate for him for additional heals(do other waves before him without elite).

Last boss is easy. Only kill adds first they are annoying. Don’t think they respawn often. Most of the time only after he changes form every 25 percent. Toxic stalk in the mid not even a problem with traited elixirs and alot fast heal and bandages from elite.

I’ve 5- and 3-manned the Hybrid and the encounter feels very similar in regards to how quickly the encounter progresses. That is to say the boss’ health scales well with the number of players present. I’m not sure how well it scales solo, however; there could be a minimum health/armor.

StinVec.3621:

Beware of Griefers Abusing the Instance Lock

• It’s ridiculous. Players are even intentionally being first in and first out so other people cannot inject anti-toxin which raises the global anti-toxin levels. ArenaNet stated that the tower will be around until the anti-toxin bar is filled and it is only increased by players injecting anti-toxin. Farmers want this to stick around for a long time so they are actively preventing anti-toxin from getting injected to prolong the farming as long as they can.

I’d find it hilarious if anti-toxin injections really don’t contribute to the progress bar and it has a set rate that it automatically progresses.

Ayrilana.1396:

StinVec.3621:

Beware of Griefers Abusing the Instance Lock

• It’s ridiculous. Players are even intentionally being first in and first out so other people cannot inject anti-toxin which raises the global anti-toxin levels. ArenaNet stated that the tower will be around until the anti-toxin bar is filled and it is only increased by players injecting anti-toxin. Farmers want this to stick around for a long time so they are actively preventing anti-toxin from getting injected to prolong the farming as long as they can.

I’d find it hilarious if anti-toxin injections really don’t contribute to the progress bar and it has a set rate that it automatically progresses.

Imo that is my opinion also, same thing with the kiel votes.

This game looks like a fork from the previous one(due certain evolution restrictions i’ve noticed ), so im not imaging the game with that capacity!

deepwinter.9015:

I’ve 5- and 3-manned the Hybrid and the encounter feels very similar in regards to how quickly the encounter progresses. That is to say the boss’ health scales well with the number of players present. I’m not sure how well it scales solo, however; there could be a minimum health/armor.

Solo feels a lot easier than doing it with 2 but I am not sure how good the game is about the scaling. We had 2 in the instance but 3 people in the party. If it scales based on party size instead of the actual number of people inside then that might have been an issue.

I don’t recall any mention of how scaling works in those situations.

As a warrior I had a hard time moving around the tower in full zerker gear but once I slapped on my PVT gear and adjusted my weapons and skills accordingly I had no trouble wandering about and doing all instances solo. For the instances including the final boss I wore full zerker and used rifle and great-sword. Hybrid boss was easy. Just circle around staying outside the spore AOE. Once the ranger spawns run in and chop it to bits along with the snake that conveniently rushes in to rez it. Move out of the AEO rinse and repeat. Ignore all spores. Focus on the boss and DPS it to kingdom come. I found it enjoyable and quite amusing but short. It took me just one evening to complete all achievements.

I solo Hybrid as D/D – SB half zerk thief and it is satisfying challenge.

As a staff ele the molten fellas almost got me a few times but once I got to the final boss it was more manageable.

I thought it was a lot of fun. I know people love to come on the forums and brag about how easy everything is, but difficulty is not directly proportional to fun for everyone.

Solo, I never got to the final boss… I wiped trying to clear the mobs after I’d got rid of the portals (I didn’t realise you could scoot through the door and on….DOH!) my guardian was traited for defence to survive the tower and just took too long to do real damage.
Might have another go but as I’ve finished the meta I might just go elsewhere…….

Hammer guardian here (gear is mostly knight), I found the last boss rather easy to solo. I went down twice getting to him (thank the pale tree that kasmeer resurrects you), but no problems to fight him at all, actually I think only twice I got lower than 50% hp. Of course, it helps that the hammer does nice AoE damage so I was always maneuvering the boss so that I was hitting him and something else (the flower when it showed up, adds and so on)

Full berserker warrior 30/25/0/0/15 here, no problems what-so ever soloing the “explorable” version, the only thing that could be dangerous would be the portals part, but Arenanet conveniently put mob spawns well away from them, so I could just destroy them with a long bow with ease and then make a run for it into the next room , piece of cake the hybrid boss, even though the occasional assassin spamming terror was a piece of kitten that had to be taken down occasionally.

lol, I got wiped at portals until I realise it is not necessary to engage the mob. For first two portals, I position myself slowly within the range of my pistols, while staying as far away from mobs without aggro them. For last portal, I run ard the chamber to lure them back to the entry cave. The mobs will hang ard the mouth of the entry cave, while I stealth myself past them and took out the last portal at the other side of chamber.

Haven’t found it to be any challange. Kill the adds, lure boss out of AoE zone, kill. He does barely any damage, is vunerable to CC. Bread and butter, done him solo/group with Power ranger/power necro in no time and no effort. waiting for something requiring tbrain

Did it on a lvl 37 thief with lvl 14 gear ;| only died once….

If you cant solo the champ at the end you need to change your build. Its way too easy. Im happy that they release content for every one to enjoy, but since its an MMO they really need the balls to release content that forces you to play in a group. Im getting sick and tiered of content that can be completed solo in an hour.

I

As far as I can tell they designed the final instance to be a moderately challenging instance if done solo.. and for scaling, essentially did a blanket multiply mob health by number of players… a poor excuse for scaling.

- First duo’ed the instance on my guard… was shocked by how bland the instance was, auto attack for a few minutes.. done.
- Helped guildies through the instance, up to parties of 5… same thing…
- solo’ed the instance (yesterday?) on my necro and found that i took some damage from boss, not sure if from bug fix, and finished it, and found it almost fun.

Biggest issue with this encounter is that I wish they took a instance designed for a full group to complete, and scaled downwards, as opposed to taking an instance designed for 1 person… and “scaling upwards”.

Aeolus.3615:

Ayrilana.1396:

StinVec.3621:

Beware of Griefers Abusing the Instance Lock

• It’s ridiculous. Players are even intentionally being first in and first out so other people cannot inject anti-toxin which raises the global anti-toxin levels. ArenaNet stated that the tower will be around until the anti-toxin bar is filled and it is only increased by players injecting anti-toxin. Farmers want this to stick around for a long time so they are actively preventing anti-toxin from getting injected to prolong the farming as long as they can.

I’d find it hilarious if anti-toxin injections really don’t contribute to the progress bar and it has a set rate that it automatically progresses.

Imo that is my opinion also, same thing with the kiel votes.

This game looks like a fork from the previous one(due certain evolution restrictions i’ve noticed ), so im not imaging the game with that capacity!

From the Release notes:

• “The Tower of Nightmares content will be available until the tower’s heart is destroyed. Watch the progress as more antitoxin is injected!”
• “The Antitoxin Injected indicator is a representation of the amount of antitoxin that has been pumped into the heart of the tower by the heroes of Tyria and will update periodically.”

It would seem to be dependent on players injecting anti-toxin game-wide. If nobody injects anti-toxin then it should not increase. Unless Anet, you know, increases it artificially to ensure the content actually can come to an end and player injections do absolutely nothing to the anti-toxin indicator. I don’t know if I believe they are doing that, but I’m sure they have a contingency plan in place on how to handle a game-wide lack of players injecting anti-toxin to ensure the content can can be concluded before the next update.

It definitely favors defensive builds. I soloed the no death achieve my first try, didn’t even get downed. (as a bunker/regen GS ranger.) The aetherblade laser does so little damage I would forget I had gotten hit by it if it was not for the launch. Not trying to brag, just saying that this is one of the few patches recently that isn’t a DPS race and is lots of fun for people like me. Running through level 3 has become second nature to me to the point where I start just running backwards through it reviving people. Figure I can help people out while looking for keys.

Best thing I can tell you is to apply regen whenever you can, and condi removal is a must (confuse is the true killer here.)

Forgotten Legend.9281:

so according to the patch notes:

Once inside the Tower of Nightmares, players will need to make their way up the tower, scaling three floors of horrifying dangers to reach the heart of the tower—a massive, noxious bloom pulsing with malevolent power. At the apex of the tower, players can enter the chamber protecting the tower’s heart and begin a story instance that can be completed solo or with a group of up to five players.

Upon defeating the challenges of the story instance, players can finish what the scouting team could not: inject Marjory’s antitoxin directly into the heart of the tower!
The story instance also has a repeatable mode so players can confront the challenges as many times as they like for additional rewards and accolades. Upon each completion, players will be able to inject another dose of antitoxin, weakening the tower that much more.

i was under the impression that the repeatable version would also have a solo version, but apparently, the solo instance is only available for the initial story mode, unless i’m bugged. i’ve noticed no difference between entering solo, or entering with a full group. the impact of course is mainly fighting the champ toxin jabba the hutt at the end.

i guess i’m either bacon deficient, or i need to learn better how to solo champs with adds and spores… :-/ yeah, i’m still learning how to play…

Take out the adds and avoid the red circles. The only really tricky bit is learning when to kite the big slug and when to go in for melee, and when to block or dodge. Having a defensive weapon set plus a ranged weapon set is a good idea. I don’t recommend just standing there for the whole fight.

The only differences between the story and repeatable versions that I could notice were a bit more health, and random phases after the first initial recovery instead 4 fixed phases.

It’s nothing like an unforgiving challenge, but you still can’t do it with your eyes closed. Don’t pay attention to your health, where you are and what the enemies are doing, and you are down. It’s was “OK” difficulty.

Well, looks like its health won’t reset. So it’s slightly easier than “OK”, as you don’t really need to do the entire fight in one go and can just tear down his HP at the cost of armor breaking and /deaths raking.

I would have liked if a couple of personal story bosses were a bit like that. You could hardly call those champions.

Solo’d without dying as a condition/toughness ranger. Took a good few attempts and finding the right weapon and skill combos to use on each encounter but you can do it. But forcing users into experimenting with builds to overcome challenging content is exactly what I want to see.

Scepter+Dagger/staff conditionmancer with condition/toughness/vitality armor weapons and condition/toughness/piercing rings etc.

I had no problems to solo the last instance (did it three times solo). Groupwise though, it wasn’t hard either, just the first room being a bit dangerous.

Personally I didn’t find any need to adjust my tactics much on the boss. The only difference being avoiding toxic spores. The npcs were bugged too so they weren’t even with me.

Blackwolfe.5649:

Scepter+Dagger/staff conditionmancer with condition/toughness/vitality armor weapons and condition/toughness/piercing rings etc.

I had no problems to solo the last instance (did it three times solo). Groupwise though, it wasn’t hard either, just the first room being a bit dangerous.

Personally I didn’t find any need to adjust my tactics much on the boss. The only difference being avoiding toxic spores. The npcs were bugged too so they weren’t even with me.

I think there the instance actually has a story mode and explorable mode and the NPCs only appear in story. There is no way to choose though so that is just guessing from other people’s comments. I have noticed in the repeat runs that the Nightmare Court NPCs you encounter in the first room doesn’t talk about why the krait are working with them but I remember them walking about that the first time I did the instance. Same with the Oratoss and Nightmare Court talking in the last room.

Is there any confirmation that there are meant to be NPCs in the repeat?? If it’s a bug it’s fine/better how it is.

cassius.5809:

Is there any confirmation that there are meant to be NPCs in the repeat?? If it’s a bug it’s fine/better how it is.

There’s one npc in the repeat. Npc spawns in every hallway after you completed one of those small chambers or whatever you want to call that. You can repair your armor there but if you don’t do that, then that NPC will help at the end with the boss. If you repaired your armor that npc vanishes and you’ll be alone. Is there a conformation from the devs about that? Nope but running that instance more than once a day on different characters etc, with always having that ONE npc there is enough conformation for me

Solo it seemed easier on “explo” mode the second time and all other times that followed, but maybe it was just knowing what to expect.

OP is bow ranger and having trouble? O.o Bow ranger is great, can hang out right on the edge of the room and avoid all AoE. The hybrid will chase you but it moves incredibly slowly and most everything else will go for the pet. I have mostly zerk gear (with two settlers rings). Almost died once the first time I tried it, since then it’s been clear sailing.

I also did it in a group once, just for the heck of it when I got a random invite. It didn’t seem easier or harder. Pretty much the same.

I really like this update tbh. Solo content is my favourite and I’ve done the chambers enough to run into diminishing returns on some of them with like 11 karma rewarded from quests. It seems random so I can’t pick a version I haven’t done so many times to avoid this. The only part I don’t like is the difficulty in getting through level 3 alone with all the CC, constant tox damage, etc. And I got a mini from the chest. The best drop I’ve ever gotten in the game, and it looks so cool too.

hmm, I have run the expl mode 3x solo and not once have I seen a friendly NPC. Once after I heard people saying there is a NPC that helps I went looking and Marjory was in the first area, as soon as I approached her she vanished. After that none.

slurpey.6014:

cassius.5809:

Is there any confirmation that there are meant to be NPCs in the repeat?? If it’s a bug it’s fine/better how it is.

There’s one npc in the repeat. Npc spawns in every hallway after you completed one of those small chambers or whatever you want to call that. You can repair your armor there but if you don’t do that, then that NPC will help at the end with the boss. If you repaired your armor that npc vanishes and you’ll be alone. Is there a conformation from the devs about that? Nope but running that instance more than once a day on different characters etc, with always having that ONE npc there is enough conformation for me

Ok, since you said you were using a bow ranger. When I did the instance with a group that had a guardian or warrior, I stayed back away from red circles and used my long bow. That was effective. However, the times that there was no heavy armor with us and no one melee at all, I switched to great sword for the last boss.

I can’t say how that will work for you, I’ve not done it solo. The smallest was a duo with a necro friend.

I’ve found the final instance to be very easy soloable with my guardian, the toxic adds spawned alongside the Toxic Hybrid were more of a threat to me than the Toxic Hybrid itself.
Been soloing it once or twice everyday since the update went live with no problems.

Tbh the boss is easy compared to bosses of other games, whereas this boss was supposed to be challenging…
Casual games promoting casual players to play casual never gonna make them better, for the win. Hope they will continue playing other mmorpg’s with pve that actually makes sense and figure out GW2 pve is easy as hell.

I was able to solo it a few times for the achievements (did two great full group runs too). As a berserker thief it was definitely challenging to keep my health up, but I just kept switching between D/D & Shortbow, and used all of my utilities to break stun, move out of circles, steal in for attacks, etc. Had a lot of fun doing it too.

it’s much easier when you solo it. try it it’s really fun.
http://www.twitch.tv/sakraycore/c/3254058

main differences you’ll notice is mobs have significantly less HP so you can kill them faster.

I did it solo on a thief with dd/shortbow and beserker/valk gear mix. I died once on the molten mobs, because I got careless. The last boss took a bit of patience and stealth play. I actually used ambush as a utility to take the mobs attention so I could dps freely a bit. Had to use both ranged and melee and dance around the whole time, time dodges, stealth, etc. But in the end, success!

Ok I was starting to think it was a big deal that I soloed this with my mesmer on my first go without dying, I guess not.