Guild Wars 2

Euryon.9248:

Once you grasp the concept, you can do it without dying

That is simply false.

We figured out the concept and the mechanics after our first complete wipe. After that, we always got to the final phase (both walls and laser beam), and we knew exactly how they worked and exactly what we were supposed to do — and we wiped 12 more times over the course of 45 minutes. We always got to the final phase, and we never got remotely close to getting through that phase. All natural 80s (no uplevels), all in full exotic gear/food/buffs/etc.

This is all about pure luck and/or having a class that can run permastability. We didn’t have that, and we were constantly dying as soon as our temp stability ran out and the golems pulled us into their wall and wailed on us while we were stunned. 12 times, every single member.

That isn’t fun, there was nothing new to learn or adapt to, it was just a matter of not having the right class there or the luck to not always be targeted while stability was up. That was just utter frustration, and I will never attempt this dungeon again. I would rather spend 2 hours rolling through razor blades and plunging into jalapeno juice.

No. We did Frizz without a single death.
It’s not a matter of classes, because the only stability we had was 6 seconds from SYG.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but the reason your party wiped is because you’re bad (this always sounds harsher than it is supposed to, I mean no offense)
Nothing wrong with that, it depends on how much you play the game and depends on your MMO experience in general as well. But what you’re stating in your post is just completely false.

It’s not a matter of classes, because the only stability we had was 6 seconds from SYG.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but the reason your party wiped is because you’re bad (this always sounds harsher than it is supposed to, I mean no offense)
Nothing wrong with that, it depends on how much you play the game and depends on your MMO experience in general as well. But what you’re stating in your post is just completely false.

Sigh. Another This2Easy USuck L2PNoob post.

FYI I have over 1600 hours and have leveled all 8 classes to 80 and have spent enough time in game to equip them all in full exotics through various means,mostly just by playing the game and farming. I have completed numerous dungeons, and though many of the paths (SEP2, ACP2) are long, grindy, and difficult, none were less fun or more frustrating than this one.

I am not a bad player. This is a badly-designed dungeon.

Lost count of how many times my Guild+PUG group failed at Frizz last night – but we were getting sooo close. I think this is content that some people will get right away and others (like me) will have to take the time to learn. I’m OK with that. I’m just an average player and I expect some stuff to be hard for me. Based on some earlier posts I suspect that having a strong group is a must though. Once players start getting downed in the lab it puts too much pressure on the remaining players and cascade failure will probably follow.

Id be careful anet, because for every 1 person praising this dungeon there has been 10 people (by my guesstimate) left frustrated. If you keep on frustrating them……

edit: to make the math geeks happy

Ordin.9047:

Id be careful anet, because for every 1 person praising this dungeon there has been 10 people left frustrated. If you keep on frustrating them……

For every 1 statistically true number on forums there has been 1000 pulled out of someone’s kitten … There’s absolutely no way you could know how many like or dislike this dungeon.

I dont understand, we get easy content people B…. about it is too easy we get hard content then people B…. about that.
I myself really liked this dung, it was hard the two first time then it got more and more easy. Please Anet make more of this content. It was enjoyable not too get a dung done in 10 min

Euryon.9248:

It’s not a matter of classes, because the only stability we had was 6 seconds from SYG.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but the reason your party wiped is because you’re bad (this always sounds harsher than it is supposed to, I mean no offense)
Nothing wrong with that, it depends on how much you play the game and depends on your MMO experience in general as well. But what you’re stating in your post is just completely false.

Sigh. Another This2Easy USuck L2PNoob post.

FYI I have over 1600 hours and have leveled all 8 classes to 80 and have spent enough time in game to equip them all in full exotics through various means,mostly just by playing the game and farming. I have completed numerous dungeons, and though many of the paths (SEP2, ACP2) are long, grindy, and difficult, none were less fun or more frustrating than this one.

I am not a bad player. This is a badly-designed dungeon.

Anyone can achieve exotic gear and everyone can play this game for a long time. Those numbers mean nothing. Dungeons can be completed as well, even have a person stay afk or enter at the last boss.

By the above statement, i just wanted to say that it doesn’t matter how much you play, how many characters you level or what dungeons you completed. It doesn’t state your skill, just your dedication.

As for the dungeon itself and that encounter, i suggest you reconsider the “bad design” and look at how to improve. Pull/push can be avoided easily if you actually look at your target and see the animation. If you see the robot about to spin, move out of its melee range, simple as that. More so, cripple/immobilize it. If you see it about to pull, either dodge if you are close or use stability. You don’t need stability through the entire fight. You just need to know when to dodge and how to keep your distance when required.

Swiftness is a good way to keep moving. In phase 3, you need to jump on crates occasionally. A good advise is to all stay on the same side and try to burst the mobs and not let them hit the line – as it makes them invulnerable. Just kite and constantly move, dodge when required, jump on crates and you should be able to do it.

I’m sure there are plenty of players who organize groups for this dungeon. More so, in the hours played you must have encountered some good players. Form a group of people who play well together – it makes it easier. And of course, you can always make a LFG thread and ask for players who can survive the encounter.

Euryon.9248:

It’s not a matter of classes, because the only stability we had was 6 seconds from SYG.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but the reason your party wiped is because you’re bad (this always sounds harsher than it is supposed to, I mean no offense)
Nothing wrong with that, it depends on how much you play the game and depends on your MMO experience in general as well. But what you’re stating in your post is just completely false.

Sigh. Another This2Easy USuck L2PNoob post.

FYI I have over 1600 hours and have leveled all 8 classes to 80 and have spent enough time in game to equip them all in full exotics through various means,mostly just by playing the game and farming. I have completed numerous dungeons, and though many of the paths (SEP2, ACP2) are long, grindy, and difficult, none were less fun or more frustrating than this one.

I am not a bad player. This is a badly-designed dungeon.

I find this post totally paradoxical you accuse him of being elite and then go spew out this rap sheet of your awsomesauce like its supposed to impress people. I have played this game for a while, not since launch mind you and I got 9 chara’s of which only three are 80 and just my main has finished gear. does this make me suck. no cuz I went into this dngn with some friends on the release day found the dungeon to be real challenging and entertaining (few wipes here or there) but you know what we got the achievements by the end of the night and now we run it for monocles and still have fun. its not perfect but if I had a choice I would do this every day over cof p1 hands down. As the person you ridiculed stated your “bad” and I will raise him one L2P. just cuz this dungeon is not a zerk fest and involves spatial awareness and actual thought doesn’t make it a bad dungeon quite the opposite in fact. enjoy the challenge and grow a pair mate.

I’d also like to add my thanks to Anet for this challenging dungeon. I’ve completed it a couple of times now with my Mesmer (in full berserkers), and if it’s a taste of what future group content will look like then I’ll be very pleased. It’s good to have to go through my utilities and consider which will be best to bring to each fight (not just ’what’s my build’), to have to use my spatial awareness, to consider when to throw out specific boons, etc.

It’s also good that it is completely pug-able. Yes, some players prove themselves to be utter liabilities who just stand there and don’t engage with the fight mechanics, but there isn’t actually much in the way of group communication required. So long as everyone knows the mechanics and pays attention (the bosses very clearly telegraph their most damaging attacks), you can get through it. I think we’ll find more folk completing it more easily over the coming weeks, when we’ve all got a feel for the mechanics and the liabilities have (hopefully) given up.

I liked the dungeon very much. For me the cannon shower was the hardest at the last boss. We couldn’t do it (tried it several times). :‘(
I think that part is overkill. But that is just me…
Challenging content is always welcome. Enjoyed it and want more!
Can’t say anything about the loot, we never got there, but someone here said it’s nothing special… If that is the case than the rewards must be raised to match the difficulty. Maybe armor skins?

GJ ANet on this dungeon! Keep this up!

so many people saying new dungeon is hard, you guys are making me gona try pve for shure! Ç_Ç

I find this post totally paradoxical you accuse him of being elite and then go spew out this rap sheet of your awsomesauce like its supposed to impress people. I have played this game for a while, not since launch mind you and I got 9 chara’s of which only three are 80 and just my main has finished gear. does this make me suck. no cuz I went into this dngn with some friends on the release day found the dungeon to be real challenging and entertaining (few wipes here or there) but you know what we got the achievements by the end of the night and now we run it for monocles and still have fun. its not perfect but if I had a choice I would do this every day over cof p1 hands down. As the person you ridiculed stated your “bad” and I will raise him one L2P. just cuz this dungeon is not a zerk fest and involves spatial awareness and actual thought doesn’t make it a bad dungeon quite the opposite in fact. enjoy the challenge and grow a pair mate.

You might want to learn the meaning of the term “ridiculed”. I’m the one being ridiculed, yet you have the gall to try to paint me as the attacker. Your attacks are personal and insulting, and I have 2 very choice words for you.

AR is easy, the achievements make it hard. It draws focus from the players playing objective to other more selfish endeavors. However, on rare occasions, we do bring together players who get through the achievements through team play.

Difficulty I feel reflects reward you get in it. Drops and gold reward add up to a lot. Difficulty strongly correlates with squad you bring to the table. It can be done quickly 30mins prosquad but generally done in 45 min to 1 hour. Instead of saying its to easy or its to hard i think question should be is carrot large enough to make the bunnies hop. I personally think it is.

One thing i want to point out of dugion design is it reminds me of molten factory by order of events. Even though the combat is very unique you still.

mobs->Fight laboratory ->mobs->2 bosses at end

If u noticed when she was captured Mia implicated someone was going to kill her and she was screwed either way captured or escaped. With events when are we done fighting outpost and not main army’s of enemies. You would think if they are all around as same time it would cause some major problems. instead of popping up one at a time. Chaos breads chaos in a cascade.

Maybe these are the story mode of dugions they will add latter.

Sorry i went off topic a bit

I feel troll’ed cuz the dungeon is maybe hard for the first time, but after thakittens just easy.

Definitely the best dungeon so far, hope they keep making them harder.

This game is made by amateurs regarding platform gaming. I haven’t seen worse jumping in any game. Hey, A-net, you should try to take lessons form Ratchet and Clank, Price of Persia, Tomb Rider and many others. Those are “jumping of things” not this crap that 3/4 parts of the character (Norn, Charr) stays out in the air next to the object. And these crates in this dungeon are one of the worst too.

I have to agree this dungeon is freaking awesome. It’s the first dungeon besides Arah that’s made me switch my utilities around to deal with everything that’s thrown at you. Excellent stuff.

Zagerus.8675:

I have to agree this dungeon is freaking awesome. It’s the first dungeon besides Arah that’s made me switch my utilities around to deal with everything that’s thrown at you. Excellent stuff.

Yup.. totally agree with this !

Loved it…

Our guild also liked this instance and had an enjoyable time. We don’t usually have 5th person and tend to 4 man most places that is possible. We entered the instance with an expectation not to make it past the first boss. After wiping a once at Fritz we figured the strategy of jumping on boxes and running in a counter clockwise direction while aoeing the golems. Don’t know if it’s a bug, but I’d sometimes let the golems pull me through the rays because I would take no damage.

As for the last boss we figured out we had to keep her in the red circles to remove her shield. The only part where 2 of us died was during the cannon barrage. We figured out that if someone died during the cannon barrage to just leave them there and rez them when the boss would pop again. My friend and I took turns with the rez and eventually we got the boss down.

The instance is very doable with group coordination. Our group make up was a gaurdian, bow warrior, mesmer, and staff ele. The only few things I would say is the ability to change the colors of circles (I’m color blind) and a way to tune down the animation effects alot. It feels like a technicolor seizure sometimes even with as pretty as everything is. Besides that fun instance and I hope it becomes a permanent addition for a fractal or it’s own beast.

Overall this dungeon is very well designed. It does have its hard parts but they are not impossible.

If you run the dungeon with no achievements in mind then you’ll have an easier time, but if you run it trying to get them, then yeah it does become more challenging.

And that’s what I like about it.

Hastur.6231:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Aluano.1826:

Agreed, the game needed more difficult content and this was pretty good.

The game has really difficult content in it already. You can access it from anywhere by clicking on the icon right next to Hints at the top of the screen. It looks like crossed swords. There is also slightly less challenging content available (depending on server) by pressing B and selecting which level of challenge you want.

Gw2 has PvE and PvP content, both should be challenging and fun. We here are praising ANet for a fantastic addition to PvE difficulty. I’m sure people are aware that PvP is a challenging experience .

You are wrong, PvE content is not challenging. It might be fun, but it’s not challenging. PvP is where you go if you want challenge. Step out of carebear land and into a place where the enemies think (some of them) and react to you instead of doing exactly what they are scripted for (badly scripted at that).

If you want to introduce “challenge” into PvE you don’t need gimmicky laser walls, or crazy camera angles. Spend a little more time on quality, script enemies to react as PvP players would and you will get your challenge.

Do you know how many carebears would cry if they did that though? It would be insane, so it will never happen.

It’s not a matter of classes, because the only stability we had was 6 seconds from SYG.

So wait, you admit you had at least 1 guardian with you (I main guard btw, bunker mostly), but then go on to criticize someone else? How about try that dungeon without any guardians, get a feel for what other classes go through. We (as a class) trivialize the “hard” parts without any skill. If you have a little skill (I don’t) then it’s even better.

oh ya thank you Anet, now I’m done playing your game it’ll this garbage is gone for good. Well done.

The new dungeon is not extremely hard…

Once you understand the mechanics You can do it without dying. The only thing I would change is shortening the canon phase at the last boss because that can drag on. It’s a nice difficulty, challenging but not too hard.

I did it as soon as it came out with a pug group. We talked through the mechanics. figured them out, tried different things and beat it without too much trouble.

I really hope they make more dungeons at this level of difficulty.
I hope they don’t listen to the complainers, just because you purchased a game does not mean that you are entitled to have every bit of content tailored to your skill level.

(On a side note, I’ve also noticed several people in this thread saying they understand the fights but then say something that blatantly gives away that they don’t fully understand them. )

Shathron.5790:

Shpongle.6025:

Here’s the thing. If it’s hard, I get tired and bored of it and I stop doing it.

If it’s easy, It’s fun to me and i can repeatedly do it for hours, days, months(like cofp1 farm).

I guess we’re just 2 different people, and i believe there’s just as much people in my camp as there is in yours. Problem is that the content currently in the game caters a whole lot to the people that like things easy, i think they should try to balance that out more. This dungeon is a step in that direction.

The best solution would of course be a global difficulty setting, I’ve suggested implementing it as an extra-downscaling slider since downscaling is already in the game (hence should be fairly easy to implement). If people must have extra rewards for extra difficulty (I’m personally seeing the challenge as a reward in itself, but i know some people aren’t satisfied with that), then i guess a category of achievements with some titles would be ok. As long as it’s not rewarded with gear or aesthetics because then people will feel forced to do it.

A difficulty setting has been in games since the very beginning of gaming, and it has almost never granted any additional rewards, i don’t understand why MMOs frown upon the idea so much.

Fractals of the mists has that. Very challenging after lvl 30

+1

New dungeon is amazing, thanks A.net!

Fine dungeon, horrible boss mechanics. What a disappointment.

Shpongle.6025:

Shathron.5790:

Shpongle.6025:

Here’s the thing. If it’s hard, I get tired and bored of it and I stop doing it.

If it’s easy, It’s fun to me and i can repeatedly do it for hours, days, months(like cofp1 farm).

I guess we’re just 2 different people, and i believe there’s just as much people in my camp as there is in yours. Problem is that the content currently in the game caters a whole lot to the people that like things easy, i think they should try to balance that out more. This dungeon is a step in that direction.

The best solution would of course be a global difficulty setting, I’ve suggested implementing it as an extra-downscaling slider since downscaling is already in the game (hence should be fairly easy to implement). If people must have extra rewards for extra difficulty (I’m personally seeing the challenge as a reward in itself, but i know some people aren’t satisfied with that), then i guess a category of achievements with some titles would be ok. As long as it’s not rewarded with gear or aesthetics because then people will feel forced to do it.

A difficulty setting has been in games since the very beginning of gaming, and it has almost never granted any additional rewards, i don’t understand why MMOs frown upon the idea so much.

Fractals of the mists has that. Very challenging after lvl 30

No fractals is just 1 shot BS that encourgaes DPS> all. It’s not fun or engaging in the least. Plus you need to run the palce 30 times to even reach that level of difficulty. As much fun as Diablo 3.

I just tried the new dungeon for the first time last night with a few other first-timers and one person at least who did it before once, and first off let me say… we didnt finish it. We reached the last boss ( and in fact was almost at the end of that fight), tried a couple of times… no, scratch that… we tried a LOT of times, but we had to call it in the end because ppl had RL stuff to handle.

Where the group mostly died is at the last cannon phase when fighting Mai, and let me tell you after that she aims to punish ppl rez-ing others severely. Most of the time 2-3 of us would be downed in that last cannon phase leaving me(warrior) and another guardian usually left standing to try rez the rest, which is tricky.

Spent hours in there, and didnt finish so I’m just gonna say this….

This dungeon is just awesome! Seriously. Like my guardian friend told us, it really really does push you to further understand ur own character, and despite the loads of wiping, i found that im eager to keep trying. I got 12 achievements already for the mini, but really i dont care. i wanna try this again. and again.

it’s a shame that im seeing so few requests to run this dungeon, it was a bit hard getting groups for it (most ppl did it early, but i opted to do it on weekends) and not many want repeats. I dunno, there are dungeons that i swear im just fed up of doing despite not being as hard, but this one makes me feel like coming back for more. hoping to see more of this kind of stuff, really!

I finished the dungeon with a pug on the first try.

There are parts of the dungeon that annoy me, however that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.. One of the things I like is that enemy attack rate for several enemies was increased. This makes confusion and retaliation more viable; two things that were lacking on content before. Also, I like how a lot of the dungeon is designed based on reason, and not necessarily a “this is a puzzle for players to solve” kind of thing.

For example, Fizz. Now, the golems at the end of the fight are just ridiculous. They are constantly pulling you into lasers to kill you, they cause nasty confusion effects, and they are nigh invulnerable 90% of the time. Now, at first this seems like it is over the top. However, I am reminded of a youtube video I saw comparing Castlevania 1 and 2, and I remembered something that made me appreciate the encounter:

The boss was designed with the purpose of killing players in a way that makes sense to the boss.

Given an evil asura in a room with spinning death beams, of course the golems are going to try to pull people into them. Of course the golems are going to be powered by the same energy that is in the lab. The golems are meant to kill people that enter the lab. It is up to the players to figure out how to defeat such a death trap.

Though I do take an issue with how long their defensive shields are up. Mostly because, due to sheer luck, it punishes groups based on the least competent member of the group. The strategy, of course, is to run with the lasers to minimize buff time. However, some player who will undoubtedly get aggro somehow will stand on the boxes and not move until the wall has nearly killed them. The golems will stay in place while fighting this player, resulting in the golems getting defensive buffs for very long lengths of time, making the event nigh impossible to compete.

The other big gripe I had was that in the Mai Trin fight, her teleportation attack can’t be dodged. My necromancer was bulky enough, and my engineer could block it. But on my thief… oh boy did this hurt. I would dodge roll into the bullet, and every time even though the “invincible” text would pop up I would still lose 75% of my health on my condi thief (note: not glass cannon. I pity those who were) when I wakitten with the attack.

Otherwise the fight was fun. The biggest thing people seemed to miss about the fight is that it required teamwork. Most people just run around like a chicken with their head cut off, but doing that results in nothing happening. You have to pull Mai into the AoEs, and sometimes you have to sit back and face-tank her there for a moment to drop the shield.

Now, as for my class specific advice:

Necromancer: Marks can bypass the protection on the golems during the fizz fight. I believe epidemic can as well. Do not hesitate to use DS defensively to go through the lasers, or to use Dark Path to teleport past the lasers. The golems are a bit thick and move in predictable patterns, so it is productive to run around in circles laying marks if they chase you. For Mai Trin, get ready to take a few hits. Spectral Grasp is your go-to utility for this fight, since pulling Mai into the AoEs is a large priority, and chilling her helps out a bunch, too. Bring Signet of Undeath to revive the downed players quickly, and remember to keep your health and LF up, since necromancers lack the active defense needed to avoid the attack. I recommend bringing a staff here as well, since Putrid Mark’s AoE condition transfer can lay a whole lot of hurt on Mai.

Engineer: Do not make the mistake I did, and go tanky. Shield off-hand, tool kit, elixir S, Elixir U, ect, you can use any stat distribution you like, but have defense ready to use. I haven’t tested them extensively, but Elixir S can go right through the lasers with no problem (it is also a stun breaker). For Mai, I’d highly suggest being relegated to a defensive role. With Elixir S + Shield + Tool Kit, an engineer has the ability to face-tank Mai while invulnerable for a lengthy amount of time. The tool kit provides a magnet to pull Mai into the AoEs as well. Something I’d also recommend using is Elixir R, for it’s toolbelt rez. Even though it isn’t immediate, rezzes at range are priceless in this fight.

Thief: The important thing to do is pick your stunbreaker carefully. Shadowstep requires two clicks, Roll for Initiative will throw you into the lasers, infiltrator’s signet teleports you right on top of the golems, and Haste will burn endurance. The good news is, with a shortbow and with the use of steal and other shadow-stepping abilities, the thief can warp through the lasers like they were nothing, so you can engage at any angle. More good news is that caltrops goes right through their protective shield, so I’d recommend this even when not on a condition build. For the Mai fight, you’re going to end up taking a lot of damage. For defense I would recommend using Smoke Screen to block her devastating teleportation attack. For weapons, I’d recommend P/P, and for a very good reason: the thief is really good at pulling Mai into the AoEs. Just use Headshot to clear out all her stacks of defiant, and then scorpion wire to pull Mai into the AoEs. I’d also recommend Shadow Refuge on the downed, and also as a self-defense.

Ran it for the first time last night and had a blast! We had two people in the group that had run it before and helped explain the tricks beforehand, and we made it through without a wipe.

It seems like heavy party support is the way to go here. If you have any party rezzing skills, take them with, they’re a life saver. Bunker builds seem to work better as well, the flimsier builds appear to get one/two shotted really easily.

I like the dungeon too, even though I haven’t finished it yet (have gotten to about halfway through the last boss fight). I like that it’s complicated without feeling gimmicky, at least to me. I suppose the definition of ‘gimmick’ in a game context is somewhat subjective, so others may feel differently about that. I liked that the enemies felt entirely reasonable, even ‘normal’ to me, as opposed to having a metric kittenload (that’s a math term) of hitpoints for no readily apparent reason.

When I take a step back from my own personal likes and dislikes, though, I will say that I think this content would be more appropriate as part of the permanent game. I think content that’s part of a temporary event should be inclusive and accessible and this dungeon is not that. As somebody else in this thread eloquently stated, there are parts that are a bit too unforgiving; if somebody gets disconnected or has to AFK or simply gets tired and loses concentration, it’s going to be enough to doom many teams; perhaps not exceptionally strong teams, but many teams. I’d love to see at least some of the permanent dungeons go in this direction though. Perhaps not all, but at least a few. OTOH, perhaps introducing it as part of an event provides a way for ANET to gauge player reaction to the content before making a commitment to devoting more resources to creating similar, permanent content.

This dungeon is not bad (although I dont really like the mechanism of Frizz encounter (unlimited golem pull….. (believe me pulled 4 times in row in 5 s is ridiculous before died to laser >>> well my stability and break stun skill is on cd sadly)). But sadly it is bad for up-leveled character.

At least this dungeon show: berserker build: know your place.

A guard is not a must, but its better. This due to bunker guard can mitigate damage better than a bunker warrior. Self healing, almost unlimited condition removal, stability, boon for heal (party based boon and condition removal), symbol for heal, pulling condition from teammate are the one which make guardian preferable.
A warrior can have a good performance too (due to their damage, natural HP (you don’t need to invest more vitality for warrior, but power and precision >>> make damage higher), but they will need a lot of supports from teammate which will never happen in majority of run.

I am amused that people actually think AR is hard. In reality, it is actually a fairly easy dungeon compared to something like a Cataclysm WoW heroic.

The trash is basically super easy, stack and kill. The first boss is fairly trivial as long as everyone makes sure to stack up when killing the first golem so that everyone gets on the same side of the rotating walls (greatly improves focus fire, and reduces the risk of golems walking or pulling through walls). The final boss is simply trivial if everyone brings a few defensive utilities and/or AoE buffs/heals so that you can keep everyone near the boss to remove the stacks from the boss more easily. (the only annoying part is when you get into a bad group where several people manage to get themselves killed on the cannon phases)

AR Its easy like………………… ok 2 hours per solo run. Its hard when i can do dung solo? Maybe for ppl from l2 its hard….. for WOW oopl its easy like hell

Aluano.1826:

Agreed, the game needed more difficult content and this was pretty good.

Flame and frost above all^^

Best, and most enjoying dungeon by far imo. This new AR is just a baby trying to fill shoes much bigger than it. Hopefully they learn from this dungeon and don’t make temporary achievements that are completely against team play (and more reasonable achievements).

Waste of 2 hours for me. I have more important things to do with my time than to run around getting beat up by a boss I can’t damage. Lord forbid I try and help a downed team mate. It can be tough without dieing 20 + times to get through it. You seem to have thrown away many of the game play that made GW 1 so enjoyable and more respectful of my time. Hard is one thing but banging my head against a wall is another.

Lots of mixed reviews but my experience after finishing 30 minutes ago for my first run
- Heard about kiel bugging out at jp part from guildie so I stayed on the ground, had no buggy issues
- Pugged with 4 other randoms
- Party wipe 4 times at Frizz
- Party wipe once at mai because 1 guy killed horrik 3 times and he didn’t respawn (so mai couldn’t be made vulernable)

Overall, I thought it was by far the best executed dungeon you guys have put out. I was able to fully pug this first time with some perseverance. Others have mentioned, but I really liked that
a) You could get downed from mobs. The mob groups were much more about what I imagine an ‘spvp’ 5v5 against bots to be like (hammer war with kds, grenediar for aoes,etc).
b) Boss fights were way more about strategy than anything else. Bring stability for mid-boss and condi-dropping for mai and you are good. Was much more about party communication and chatting to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Definitely should have started running this sooner

Made it through this dungeon with a warrior (me) and an engineer (leader of NoWo) didnt even wipe at the last boss counter.

All in all this dungeon is a win but could definitely be harder!

BRING ON THE PAIN!?!

No challenge is too much for the two of us — Northern Wolves

This was a rather easy straight forward run on opening day. (like always puggin it) Get in a pug, listen to how others sound by what they say/type/ how they say it-determine if you are in a “seemingly” decent/experienced, teamwork, fun group of players vs. Juvenile, big headed, pricky fail ones(get out quick!). For me it was it was easy. Good group, failed attempts but got up n tried again. No QQ’ing, Everyone kept their heads, (knowledge of previous dungeons/ JP puzzles helped to figure out this AR dungeon with no guide)1 run, finished. done. Went back later with friends/ guild mates to finish achievements. Easy Peasy

Odiex.5971:

Waste of 2 hours for me. I have more important things to do with my time than to run around getting beat up by a boss I can’t damage. Lord forbid I try and help a downed team mate. It can be tough without dieing 20 + times to get through it. You seem to have thrown away many of the game play that made GW 1 so enjoyable and more respectful of my time. Hard is one thing but banging my head against a wall is another.

Boss taking no damage because you are not doing it right! (by now i hope you know this)gotta remove those stacks.
Dulfy.net has nice strat guide to explain this. But ultimately if you choose to stay in a dungeon on one fight for a long amount of time, i hope its because you are enjoying yourself. If not, get out and go look up the fight to see why it wasn’t working for you. You don’t have to waste your time getting frustrated. The game is meant to be enjoyable- if you think its not, don’t play it. simple.

I’ve got no real problem with the difficulty of the dungeon at all, but there were some areas of the dungeon which were poorly executed, and its general implementation really brought out a few major flaws in the dungeon gameplay GW2 ar large.

As for problems in the specific execution of this dungeon, my first attempt at it was with a ranger. Of course, rangers are never great for dungeons, but this one is particularly hostile to them. You could run a bear and a blue moa, keep them on Avoid Combat, and just spam their F2 skills and they’re still dead weight at best, a distraction at worst. Considering this is THE class mechanic of one of the game’s core professions, which the developers have been absolutely unwilling to remove or overhaul, I think that completely ignoring them just because it’s inconvenient to design dungeons around pet AI is sloppy, and I hate it.

Of course, as has been mentioned a few times in this thread already, it’s inconvenient to design dungeons around rangers because the teams who designed the living story dungeons have mostly resorted to creating “puzzles” out of the environment to simulate difficulty (with regards to the Molten Weapon Facility, and this fight), in part, I’m sure, because of the core issue that the AI feels really simple in this game, and I can’t think of a single boss fight in which the bosses priorities and actions were designed with players in mind.

This isn’t a bad approach – it’s certainly fun at first – but I think that’s why F&F and AR would be underwhelming as permanent content, and yet they seem challenging and dynamic for the few weeks that we get them. Once you memorize the static dungeon mechanics, the dungeon gets easier. If you do it enough times in a row, it gets easy, which is why there is a large section of the playerbase that has completed few, if any explorable dungeons, and yet there is a disproportionately large number of people who like to moisten their house hippoes by signing on to these forums and claiming that all the dungeons in the whole game are easy, and shouting “L2P” at everyone else.

Hopefully we get content in the future that’s difficult based on dynamic characteristics, instead of static ones. And hopefully that content is permanent, because I might never complete it – but I’d feel much better to have it there as my pie in the sky.

Sorry for the huge post. Rant out.

Most of the L2P stuff in this chain is just dumb and obnoxious. So if you got a L2P reply to this post . . . go pound sand.
Completed this twice so far (plus one group just walked away when we couldn’t get past Frizz) and wipes stack up as: 1 on final boss, 30+ so far on Frizz. Hard is fine, but the golems on stage 3 in the Frizz encounter are ridiculous. Continuous ongoing invulnerability with about one in 10 shots damaging them, might stacks and auto-attack pummeling, pulls/pushes, stuns from them and the environment. Hey, Anet why stop there! Why not make them invisible! Or have them lay down traps! Or summon more golems! Anet this doesn’t qualify as challenging, its just silly. Any designer can keep throwing krap on top of more krap but its important to know when to STOP. Get rid of any one of those or simply make them less OP (hey, here’s a thought how about a serious cool down on the invulnerability or the pulls!) and most of the complaints about how tough this dungeon is would go away AND (now this is the important part so pay attention) – lots and lots more people might enjoy it.
You’ve made a dungeon that’s anti-zerker. I get it. We all get it. But you simply took it one step too far and made an anti-zerker dungeon that REQUIRES the group basically consist of a limited number of classes to get through a mid-way boss: Guardian, Mesmer, Ranger. Tone that encounter down and its a solid dungeon. As it is, its a complete once and walk way never to return unless (like me) you’re somewhat mentally unbalanced and willing to spend ridculous amounts of time chasing tiny achievements.

AR’s difficulty is perfect. It’s totally viable going max DPS, but man does it make your life miserable, especially if your team isn’t prepared to support you.

I sincerely hope ANet recognises the fact that the amount of complaints will always outnumber the number of praises regardless of circumstances.

Keep up the good work.

generalraccoon.3857:

I just tried the new dungeon for the first time last night with a few other first-timers and one person at least who did it before once, and first off let me say… we didnt finish it. We reached the last boss ( and in fact was almost at the end of that fight), tried a couple of times… no, scratch that… we tried a LOT of times, but we had to call it in the end because ppl had RL stuff to handle.

Where the group mostly died is at the last cannon phase when fighting Mai, and let me tell you after that she aims to punish ppl rez-ing others severely. Most of the time 2-3 of us would be downed in that last cannon phase leaving me(warrior) and another guardian usually left standing to try rez the rest, which is tricky.

Spent hours in there, and didnt finish so I’m just gonna say this….

This dungeon is just awesome! Seriously. Like my guardian friend told us, it really really does push you to further understand ur own character, and despite the loads of wiping, i found that im eager to keep trying. I got 12 achievements already for the mini, but really i dont care. i wanna try this again. and again.

it’s a shame that im seeing so few requests to run this dungeon, it was a bit hard getting groups for it (most ppl did it early, but i opted to do it on weekends) and not many want repeats. I dunno, there are dungeons that i swear im just fed up of doing despite not being as hard, but this one makes me feel like coming back for more. hoping to see more of this kind of stuff, really!

Odiex.5971:

Waste of 2 hours for me. I have more important things to do with my time than to run around getting beat up by a boss I can’t damage. Lord forbid I try and help a downed team mate. It can be tough without dieing 20 + times to get through it. You seem to have thrown away many of the game play that made GW 1 so enjoyable and more respectful of my time. Hard is one thing but banging my head against a wall is another.

If you want to res people on the bosses in here you really need to bring res skills. Either that or some sort of imunity (Signet ranger invulrabity works!) because otehrwise you are just going to get yourself killed!
And let me say that’s a good thing. I’ve NEVER used a res skill up until this dungeon.

I agree with the OP. The Dungeon is hard, but that’s good.

I was really surprised by the Molten Facility dungeon. It was the first dungeon I did and no one in my group had done it before, but we finished it the first time and I had very little trouble on later runs with other groups.

This is much more what I expected from dungeons. Both being harder than normal open-world content and having specific mechanics to the boss fights that you have to follow instead of just fighting as normal as if they’re a regular enemy with a bit more health.

I’ve only done it twice and both were a struggle. I doubt I’ll get the achievements for avoiding attacks or finishing the boss fight in under 15 minutes. But IMO that’s good. I’m still new to dungeons and I’ll freely admit I’m not the best player, I also haven’t put much time into this dungeon so if I was able to get the achievements they wouldn’t be achievements – they’d just be another check box to confirm you’d played the game during an event.

Only change I’d make is maybe making them titles, or better yet having a title for getting all the Sky Pirates achievements, so people who do get them can show it off. I usually wear Distinction in Applied Jumping because it’s one of the few (other than HoM titles) that I feel like I really earned (and because I enjoyed getting it) and I feel like that’s what titles should be for – displaying the achievements that actually are achievements, the ones you need to go out of your way to get instead of building up gradually though easy and repetitive tasks.

Arrow.4619:

Hard is fine, but the golems on stage 3 in the Frizz encounter are ridiculous. Continuous ongoing invulnerability with about one in 10 shots damaging them, might stacks and auto-attack pummeling, pulls/pushes, stuns from them and the environment.

Also known as the “kite the golems continuously through the lasers to trigger their special abilities” strategy. A highly popular tactic among groups competing for the most wipes in a row title.

Personally I prefer the “have everyone on the same side and kill the last two golems without dying” strategy although it sucks if you want to wipe.

I agree that this dungeon is actually quite challenging with some raid-like mechanics involved for the last fight. For once, my party actually had to coordinate their use of CC abilities and tactically drain out her Defiant stacks so that we could ensure Mai stays in the electrical field long enough. I think it works quite well.

However, I have yet to beat this dungeon in full zerker gear. I ended doing half zerker half soldier for this one, but I said to myself that I’ll eventually figure out the mechanics without the “training wheel” stats. If anything, I would say Mai’s teleport shot is kind of tricky to avoid, if not impossible. What really misleads people would be her pointing direction— she almost never teleports in the direction she is pointing. In most cases, she tends to teleport to the party member furthest away from her. Since I’m usually 1200~1500 range, I’m usually the one she teleports to. This seems kind of weird, but I think this fight might favor melee zerkers with ranged wearing defensive gear.

Then the cannons would be the next part if can’t keep up with the flow. Since I’m an Engineer, I don’t have any “speed signets” that help. Instead, I had to retrait for Speedy Kits and maintain swiftness with rhythmic use of kit switching and use Elixir B. Our group has found that it’s much easier to avoid the cannons if the party bunches up and runs laps around the area as a group.

Back to the beginning, the laser room is actually fun. My first run through it, we wiped for about 30 minutes, but then again, I’ve also tagged along with people who don’t run dungeons much so it made sense that they struggled more than they should. At the end, we eventually figured it out. As for the achievement related to this one, I have yet to get this one because the reason I botch up is mostly a different way that usually screws me on the lasers.

One of the things that bothers me is the rewards: I get that there is a chance to get a cool monocle, but I do wish there was more unique items in that loot table besides an item that makes you look civilized. Perhaps pieces of the Sky Pirate weapons and armor set, for those who like to actually like to work for their rewards than pay up at the Gem Store. If anything, I’d say there should be a guarantee that I get one of many unique items in that particular loot table in addition to assorted world drops. So far, the only thing worth mentioning I got from that chest was 100 Dragon Coffers … which I guess explains why Dragon Coffers are now less than 1 silver on the trading post.

Lastly, the 15 minute time limit achievement sort of bothers me, mostly because you only get one shot at it. This might be the first time in which a timed-based dungeon achievement would require a full instance reset if you botched it one time instead of wiping and trying again. If I still had my old mentality in achieving this feat, I would have said, “We’re late. Wipe it and try again.” Then again, this sort of brings back some of the timed-based bonus objectives from GW1 Factions, perhaps in a very unforgiving way.

Overall, I’d say it’s a great dungeon that’s actually challenging with fun boss mechanics. However, I still think the rewards could be a bit better.

I made the 15 mintue time limit with a pug last night. And we were mostly a condition based group! I brough my Healing/Condi necro, Converted and sent back a LOT of her bleeds, We had a few deaths, but we also had a theif who brought a stealth so we were able to res them back up quickly! We missed quite a few blue cricles as well! At the end we made it with 45 secconds left on the timer.
I’ve heard so many say you need zerker for that but I gotta say conditions worked wonders!