Guild Wars 2

CHIPS.6018:

First boss: I am necro, how do I get stability without destroying my current build?

As a necro, you can get stability by using the elite skills “plague” or “lich form”. I do not recommend it though, unless the golems are almost dead, since it won’t last for long and it takes forever to recharge.
For the record, I completed the dungeon as a necromancer, but I didn’t make use of stability or vigor. I just dodged a lot.

For Frizz, as an Engineer I had no stability, I hugged the large laser as close to the middle as possible and kited the golems. When pulled, it wouldnt be enough to bring me into the next one, and I’d move back into position.

It really wasn’t that hard. Also helps to have your group not cc them.

i’m a casual player who has only done a few dungeon runs ever………..and i LOVE this dungeon.
the laser beam/laser wall portion is fantastic fun and not even that difficult…….and the end boss shield mechanic/ cannon AoE actually requires some utility and skillful movement.

Most fun i’ve had in any of the “event dungeons”, because it was challenging, but not in a “random 1-shot die” kinda way………skill always prevails, which is exactly how it should be.

if you want to faceroll through dungeons in your pure zerker gear/stats, there are already dungeons in this game for you.

PLEASE DO NOT NERF THIS. Anet got this on right.

i’m a casual player who has only done a few dungeon runs ever………..and i LOVE this dungeon.

Same here. I’ve run several dungeons and fractals here/there, and any I repeated were only for possible rewards. This one, however, I’ve run quite a few times already with pugs and it’s been a lot of fun. The rewards could be a bit better, but the fights (without past bugs) seem perfectly reasonable.

Its nice to have a dungeon that involves more than bringing a greatsword character in and hitting the spinning blade key of choice for that class.

No nerfs need apply.

Make more dungeons like this.

Yes, its a dance-dungeon (learn the steps to win), and people will have it down so well in a week that they will end up farming it in the amount of time it takes to run to the end and glitch-teleport past a few things (most likely…)…

But for now, its great.

I would say it needs a bit more balancing. The pull on the golums is fine but not on the 3rd phase. I think dodging both types of lasers while hoping you don’t get pulled in randomly INTO the lasers is a little much. Everything else about the fight is fine.
1st and 2nd phase. Pull is fine 3rd phase can do without.

The fight with Mai is okay. Somethings need to be looked at though. Like dodging out of Horeks blast radius just as Mai shadowsteps to you and can 1 K.O you seams a little odd. Aside from that part its fine. The cannon blasts are a little too much on the 2nd phase. They should only fire that many during a last phase of that fight. Aside fromt that really it’s a fine dungeon.

So not much nerfing. Just a little balancing more-or-less.

The dungeon isnt hard. Yes its a challenge but once you understand the mechanics, its not bad at all. Easier than many of the other dungeon paths and it was fun. The golums pulling can get annoying if a couple of party members are dead but no worse than the Harpy Fractal.

I did it the first time and finished it on my necro with 3 guildies and a pug, no voice server, 3 of us running it the first time, 2 had done it once before. Took us about 30-40 min to do. We wiped 2x at the lab and 2x at the final boss mainly due to 3 of us being new to it.

The dungeon was definitely too hard. My guildmates just got frustrated and gave up after several hours of trying. Once we figured out how to get through most of it, we unanimously agreed that it was not fun at all. Challenging yes, but not fun in the least.

Agreed that Frizz wasn’t so bad except for the golem pulls. Those should either be removed or reduced in frequency.

The last part with the cannons was just strange. Pulling the boss into the lightning targets seems to go against the mechanics of this game. If there were traditional tank skills for aggro and pulling this would not be so much of an issue but at the moment it’s awkward at best. The cannon barrage should either have fewer attacks or be much shorter in duration.

I agree that this makes the dungeon unpleasant for all but the most experienced or the players with the best, less laggy internet connections.

On an unrelated note I am surprised by how AMAZING the Aion 4.0 gunner is. Burst damage is fantastic and combat is smooth and responsive with a lot of control over your character. I’m so impressed with the way they nailed this class. Magical based gunners should be in every MMO so long as they play as well as they do in Aion. Honestly never thought I’d say that about a game I used to loathe. 4.0 has totally revitalized the game for me. This is tech/magic fusion at it’s best. It makes me mourn what could have been for GW2.

I disagree with you OP.The dungeon doesn’t need nurfing.It’s double with enough practice and good composition.There must be SOME hard content in the game too.Can’t everything be handed to everyone for almost non-work.

I concurr.

It’s so ’’challenging’’ it’s not fun at all.

Major issue I have with the dungeon is that Aetherblade elementalist with the kitten scepter autoattack. I had 2 of them targetting me, no way to mitigate the damage and i just melted. Got revived by the team and melted yet again. There’s no way to counter them unless you can block or dodge constantly (or cc them constantly). Was wearing rabid gear too so i have a decent amount of toughness :/

Also the confusion damage and 25 stacks of might on the golems is a big no no. Hitting 11k on myself due to confusion damage just because I needed to heal, ended up killing myself by trying to heal -.-

On my first run we blazed through the dungeon with no problems, then the patch/hotfix came in and suddenly we’re dropping like flies.

Ok I tried it tonight and I got it done. The militia group have some useful skills and are willing to listen to my experience from yesterday.

Tips:

1) Against the first boss, use group Stability skills. Guardian and Mesmer got them.
2) Get the group used to jumping onto boxes, specially in phase 1 and 2. Just tell them its good practice.
3) Against the final boss, run around in very small circles around the girl. That way you can still avoid the majority of her attacks, while her guard will still her her.
4) At 77%, 52%, 27% health, get your group to stack on you. Prepare to run around clock wise in a large circle (the edge of the map) as soon as phase 2 starts. Repeat.

tried Yesterday again.
i still never failed it.

i still think it should be a SAB part and not a GW2 dungeon.
i could say that is almost more fun farming cof1….at least with a mesmer you have many stuff to do.

this isnt even fun. ive never even had the chance to finish the dungeon because the first boss is so ridiculously overpowered

AzureSeraph.1368:

this isnt even fun. ive never even had the chance to finish the dungeon because the first boss is so ridiculously overpowered

How the heck is frizz overpowered? Maybe if you are running on zerger gear but then again this dungeon was not made for zerger gear, seriously the boss dosen’t even do any damage after the first phase its just running around and dodging from the first part onwards.
I have now had every class expect engineers on my groups and we never failed to complete the dungeon expect the time when Kiel bugged in middle of the dungeon but rest of the times yes we did it.
and after the 5th run we have completed the 15min fight mark on the last boss several times. The very last bombardment phase is bit tedious but otherwise the fight is very enjoyable.
I just hope when they remake the rest of the current dungeons we get mob groups with these kind of synergies and interesting boss battles in those dungeons as well.

As a necro, I didn’t really have that much difficulty with the Frizz battle. Its just a matter of taking cover, using your utility skills right, and knowing when to climb on to the crates. Necromancers have it slightly easier even I would say, since our Spectral Wall and other fear skills allow us to easily rid ourselves of angry chasing golems.

GUYS, we finally got a dungeon that is not easy and actually require some team work and planning ! This is a VERY good step twards the right direction, and when we get content that is not boring and easy, you want to nerf it ?? THIS is what dungeons should be like in the game, dont nerf it, make more dungeons like this one !

I did AR, i’ve found nothing hard if you know what to look for. Maybe the problem is with you? I dont know, but dont nerf it pls

The dungeon is excellent: challenging, but with just enough room for error that you’re not instantly screwed.

My only problem is that the mechanics, yet again, favour parties with lots of guardians. Tanking Mai and Horrik to get her into the circles, mass condi removal, stability, general damage mitigation… I’ve done it a few times, and the times when I’ve had 2 or more guardians in my party have been far and away the smoothest and easiest. That’s not to say it’s impossible on other classes (I myself play staff ele), or even hard if you know what you’re doing; it just tends to favour guardians.

Svamp Mucklan.3267:

GUYS, we finally got a dungeon that is not easy and actually require some team work and planning ! This is a VERY good step twards the right direction, and when we get content that is not boring and easy, you want to nerf it ?? THIS is what dungeons should be like in the game, dont nerf it, make more dungeons like this one !

Not saying I don’t agree with you but not everyone asked for it, alot of players are still asking for nerfs to AC and other Dungeons.

Though I like AR as a level 80 Dungeon (I think it should be permanent with explorer modes ) I still think there is a small nerf that needs to be done and it’s the bombardment time.

Olvendred.3027:

The dungeon is excellent: challenging, but with just enough room for error that you’re not instantly screwed.

My only problem is that the mechanics, yet again, favour parties with lots of guardians. Tanking Mai and Horrik to get her into the circles, mass condi removal, stability, general damage mitigation… I’ve done it a few times, and the times when I’ve had 2 or more guardians in my party have been far and away the smoothest and easiest. That’s not to say it’s impossible on other classes (I myself play staff ele), or even hard if you know what you’re doing; it just tends to favour guardians.

Well, sometimes it seems like everything in this game favors guardians, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because guardians are one of the strongest professions in the game, especially in a group setting. But that’s also what they’re built for, so it makes sense that they make group content easier.

On another note, after reading most of this thread, I think a lot of the problem is not the dungeon (because the mechanics aren’t hard to learn, “dodge this, jump here, cleanse that, etc.” is not hard to memorize, though those jumps on the lasers can be a bit hard if you’re a short-legged asura like I play ^_~) but people not knowing how to adapt their profession to the situation. We get used to using the same skills over and over again. I know I have my standard utility bar, and there’s very little variation on which skills I use for the most part. But if you know your profession inside and out, you’ll be able to trouble-shoot when unfamiliar challenges come along. Heck, I forgot to bring condition clearing on my engi when I did this dungeon, which explains why I died a couple of times. I hadn’t used it in so long I totally forgot I even had it.

So, if you haven’t switched weapons and utility skills on your profession since level 30, now might be a good time to go back and re-acquaint yourself with your other weapons and skills. You might find something useful in there.

PokerTuna.6170:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Explain what brain cells are required to avoid the random canon fire. It’s RANDOM and sometimes you CANNOT avoid it. How is that a test of skiill?

It’s not random and you can avoid it. But maybe my guardian angel is looking after me since I completed this dungeon 6 times so far – ONLY PUGS – and I didn’t die a single time from cannons.

+ how the fudge can you not avoid it? After the red circle appears you have like 1-2 seconds before you get hit…

Seriously people, what is wrong with you. Go play Sims or whatever ><

I’ve done kitten encounters like this many times in the past in games like WoW. Once you learn the dance you’re good to go. Here, though there’s an element of RNG to the cannons.

One circle is easy. Two is easy. When 4 or more appear, and they all overlap you need to dodge roll out. Sometimes you have to double dodge roll. Then you’re out of dodges for a while. If that happens again, you’re in trouble or down.
Also, the red circles on the ground are misleading in that the aoe damage extends slightly beyond the circles.

LOL I can’t believe this thread.

OMG Anet content is too easy we need harder dungeons.

OMG Anet content is too hard we need easier dungeons.

WTF is wrong with you people! This dungeon is the CORRECT amount of difficulty. If you were expecting to finish it on your first attempt, then you were expecting it to be easy. I like the fact I wiped 10x on an encounter. I like the fact that my group had to learn and try new things to finish the dungeon. I like all of that. If you cannot complete it because you are terribad, then you don’t get the achievement points. Namely because you didn’t achieve anything.

Draknar.5748:

LOL I can’t believe this thread.

OMG Anet content is too easy we need harder dungeons.

OMG Anet content is too hard we need easier dungeons.

WTF is wrong with you people! This dungeon is the CORRECT amount of difficulty. .

No it isn’t.

I’ve 1 shot Frizz with pugs and defeated the last boss after 1 wipe because the pugs couldn’t run out of red circles.

If I’d make a dungeon most GW2 players would start crying after the first pull.

Ya it’s too hard, nerf it ANET.

It’s difficult, but I like it. Once you learn the tactics, it should become a lot easier.

My only complaint is the AoE circles on the final boss. I can hardly see them most of the time. I think it is mainly due to the color of the floor. But it is really hard to avoid something you can not see.

Worse than the Lupi circles and his attacks hitting outside of them.

We didn’t get to kill the last boss, and we tried for several times. Trust me, I’m an Engineer. But I don’t mind. Finally some really challenging stuff in the game that can be done with a lot of practice and learning your profession. If you really want a nerfed version for new players, than an easy version should be added into the game and let this one unchanged. I wan’t to try it several more times until I get it done.

No it doesn’t need a nerf.

Everything doesn’t need to be dumbed down. It’s quit possible and several threads have already been posted to try and guide players.

The only thing that needs a change is how long it takes

Calae.1738:

Draknar.5748:

LOL I can’t believe this thread.

OMG Anet content is too easy we need harder dungeons.

OMG Anet content is too hard we need easier dungeons.

WTF is wrong with you people! This dungeon is the CORRECT amount of difficulty. .

No it isn’t.

I’ve 1 shot Frizz with pugs and defeated the last boss after 1 wipe because the pugs couldn’t run out of red circles.

If I’d make a dungeon most GW2 players would start crying after the first pull.

Then I’d suggest you go play some other game. GW2 isn’t for you.

VitalSuit.1980:

Major issue I have with the dungeon is that Aetherblade elementalist with the kitten scepter autoattack. I had 2 of them targetting me, no way to mitigate the damage and i just melted. Got revived by the team and melted yet again. There’s no way to counter them unless you can block or dodge constantly (or cc them constantly). Was wearing rabid gear too so i have a decent amount of toughness :/

The only thing that was hurting me on any of the toons I’ve brought was getting pulled into the laser fields by the golems.

Looks like I need to bring stability:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

But my thief got good at avoiding last night somehow – despite us never making it past the laser room. Not enough of us were able to stay up though near the end I was usually one of the ones to last longer (granted we had two leave and replaced them, so this was more due to 2 who were fresh to it).

What scepter elementalists? I did notice that the very first pull of the dungeon, right after you come up out of the water – they hit pretty hard. But all of the other trash pulls in the dungeon are… trash pulls…

And that first one might just be from not yet being ‘in dungeon frame of mind’.

Its not just toughness one needs on things like this, but also condition removal. Granted my lowest toughness 80 I think is around 2400. Most are above that. And they all slot for condition removal.

Confusion statcks… frustrating but the least of my troubles. I just switched to running until the confusion wore off. It usually only got me 1 to 2 times when first applied and before I could get auto-attack to stop hitting that golem…

Teevell.1684:

I think a lot of the problem is
…
people not knowing how to adapt their profession to the situation. We get used to using the same skills over and over again. I know I have my standard utility bar, and there’s very little variation on which skills I use for the most part.

So, if you haven’t switched weapons and utility skills on your profession since level 30, now might be a good time to go back and re-acquaint yourself with your other weapons and skills. You might find something useful in there.

This.

In my first night we had 3 guardians. The other two flat out refused to try a weapon swap. So we had me, and two faceplanted greatsword guardians. I was using the scepter – a weapon which one of the guardians had even tried to claim was not a ranged weapon… ( O.o ??? But it gets better, the other guardian not only agreed with him, but also noted, when told to then try staff, that that weapon only works in a straight line so can’t be used while circle kiting)

In my run last night with my thief, while we never made it past Fritz, I noticed my survivability got a LOT better on my thief when I gave up my usual precision and power signets and put in a bunch of traps. I kept my movement speed utility, that I usually drop in dungeons (usually only use it for soloing open world or groups in WvW). So I was slowing them down and speeding me up – and that meant I had much more control over what was happening to my character.

Dungeons like this: don’t go with a cookie cutter build. If you fail n an attempt, swap up your action bar for the next try. What I did is not necessarily THE ONE TRUE THIEF OPTION… its just what I did. People should keep swapping their utilities and weapons around to get what works for them and their group.

I don’t want it nerved, but now it seems buffed.
was doing great before but some things seem to happen way more often.
shadow step seemed to have a minimum range so staying close made sure it was not happening that often now she does it all the time and with more damage also.

lol
just give all player 200g + item plus exp for survivor + item to summon pumkin infinity

GfC.9175:

lol
just give all player 200g + item plus exp for survivor + item to summon pumkin infinity

many stupid2 ppl only want nerf not work for pumkin infinitys
this repeat every day ~_~
realy annoying
please do something

Treeline.3865:

PolishSausage.1279:

For those people complaining about being “one-shot,” try replacing some of your zerker gear

You do not get one-shot in zerker gear. Sincerely the all, and I mean ALL zerker ranger. Base toughness. Base vitality. Did the dungeon thrice now, all pugs.

Just because A resulting in B is true, does not mean B being present means A as well.

Just being in zerker gear won’t get you one-shot in and of itself.
BUT, you cannot get one-shot unless you are in zerker gear in any content in GW2.

If someone does get one-shot… they need to lose the zerker gear.

Since most of the other Living Story stuff was soloable I think they should give that achievements for free or put them into a solo dungeon. I usually don’t do 5 player dungeons… and I don’t want to be forced to do this dungeon to get the achievement.

And now don’t say “stop whining”. I only post this because I read the other thread about Obsidian Sanctum and had to laugh… apparently it is okay to post like this “hey it is to hard/I don’t like it – nerf it for me”

… where 1 guy wants it to be nerfed cause he does not like WvW… so it is okay if I want the dungeon nerft cause I don’t want to do dungeons. ;-)

Figures. Best dungeon released since launch and scrubs are asking for it to be nerfed on account of them being terrible.

Don’t even think about touching this dungeon, A.Net. In fact, build on it to bring us more challenging content in the future!

Kichwas.7152:

you cannot get one-shot unless you are in zerker gear in any content in GW2.

Try going up against any of the legendary defenders in wvw, and see how well your statement holds water.

The dungeon is tedious. Not challenging.

This dungeons is not hard, in fact mobs are very easy if you compare them with other dungeons. BUT is somehow bad-designed. Not in gameplay, but in social interaction, I mean: I’ve tried this dungeon several times and almost everytime my team is killed at Frizz. I think this zone is challenging, but when you usually are the last alive and you know you must die in order to repeat it (and possibly, die again) you feel punished for something you have done right. If I could get out of the room without being killed (or disconnecting) it would be fairer imho. But I cannot, so I leave the team after 3-4 attempts after losing an hour and some coins.

It’s difficult to find a good team for that zone (even with known people, because is challenging) in order to play it at any time. PUGs here aren’t a valid option unless you want to waste your time and your gold.

My biggest problem with it is that it’s part of the living story, and if you can’t manage to get through this dungeon then the living story has died. It would make more sense to have an easier version to tell everyone the story and then the current harder version with extra acheivements for the players you want something more challenging.

Like a couple of people who have posted above, I have very little experience with the GW2 dungeons, but as a casual player/dungeon novice I do want to say that I enjoyed Aetherblade Retreat a lot, and no, I don’t think it needs nerfing. I completed it with a pug group earlier this evening, and it was a challenging but fun experience. We wiped a few times – I think once during Fizz and a couple times during the bombardment phase of the Mai/Horrik battle – but the fact the whole team stuck at it and we managed to complete it made it all the more rewarding. I’m not really bothered about missing a few of the achievements, as that wasn’t my motivation for doing it: I’ve loved this whole chapter of the Living Story, and I wanted to run this dungeon to experience everything it has to offer.

And now that I have completed it, I might just have found the motivation I needed to finally get around to running the other dungeons.

We just completed a guild dungeon event with 30 people running the dungeon at the same time. It makes for a very chaotic Mumble channel, but it was ton of mostly-fun.

After seeing the dungeon for myself and listening to my guildies in Mumble, I’d recommend 3 changes:

Improve the box models in Frizz’s encounter. Right now, it’s not really clear whether you’re standing on top of the boxes or not.

Choose a darker texture for the floor in the final boss encounter. From many viewpoints, it is very difficult to see those red rings on the floor. A darker texture would improve contrast, and make them easier to see.

Make the final boss fight shorter. Ye gods, is that thing is tedious.

Celeras.4980:

Figures. Best dungeon released since launch and scrubs are asking for it to be nerfed on account of them being terrible.

Don’t even think about touching this dungeon, A.Net. In fact, build on it to bring us more challenging content in the future!

QFT

signahead.7281:

3 changes:

Improve the box models in Frizz’s encounter. Right now, it’s not really clear whether you’re standing on top of the boxes or not.

Choose a darker texture for the floor in the final boss encounter. From many viewpoints, it is very difficult to see those red rings on the floor. A darker texture would improve contrast, and make them easier to see.

Make the final boss fight shorter. Ye gods, is that thing is tedious.

I think these suggestions make a lot of sense. The problem with “red” circles for color blind folks has not been addressed very well. If you cannot see the color “Red,” at least make the circles pulsate in some manner that indicates they are a “red” zone.

Pandalishus.8426:

Aberrant.6749:

I had no problem pugging this dung.

Huhuh. You said dung.

Definitely got around the profanity filter.

marnick.4305:

Skill up. This dungeon isn’t easy but it’s not impossible either.

Cannon phase is long though. Makes it more hard because of endurance than skill.

From what I can tell, running a marathon around and around the room takes no skill what so ever. Why this was setup this way is beyond me.

aspirine.6852:

Undean.9704:

I will agree that the bosses can take a long time to kill…. when you are the only one alive in your party.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC6E_VyfrYo

hahah kitten , that ranger owned every complainer here. Very nice to see that a ranger did this.

It would be interesting to know where he was located and what build he was running to accomplish this feat. Amazing ranger in my opinion. I run a ranger but have no where near the skill setup to do this. And, yes, I am not that skilled a player, but I can admire one.

4 things I find horribly wrong with this dungeon.

-If you want the achievement to gun the ship down, you need dps. Too many bosses are just “max your dps to win”. It’s no wonder cof p1 can be done in 6 minutes.

-Mai Trin’s pistol shot animation doesn’t line up with the effect. It is really hard to dodge something that hits you before it is even there. Tried dodging before, moments b4 I think its going to arrive, and right when it happens. Nothing. Another dungeon that wants heavy armor apparently because you get smashed by it otherwise. Walls work but you’re then asking for a loss in dps so you prolly won’t get very far for the achievment(gaurd isn’t that great at dps, focus ele loses dps, pretty much leaves thief who is very squishy).

-Not at all rewarding. A majority of the achievments are from the dungeon, all leading up to a mini. Why…

-Boss has stages. Normally I’m all for this however these arn’t evolving stages. They are just a problem you have to avoid to get through the fight. It’s not some new stage, its just the same thing as before. Run and avoid the same cannon fire. Even when they talk at the phase they say the same message. Its way to boring to even want to soak in.

I like the shield idea, a lot, and I enjoy the first phase. I DO NOT like fights that just repeat themselves until you get to the finish. Different phases, dodge should be doable against really hard hits (there is a visual, it just doesn’t line up with the dmg. More of a bug I’d hope than intended) and they should be rewarding. A skin is the usual reward and it works. Some want it, others don’t but atleast it’s something you can show off. A mini is like background music, simply overlap it with something more interesting.

The dungeon is quite easy, if you’re not trying to achieve anything but the boss kill. Frizz is simple, the little minions along the way are very easy, its just the last fight. First group was all pugs and took a few tries but we managed. Most of us weren’t focused on the rewards as much as just getting it done with. Coming back and trying to do them is just a waste of time feels like..

pistol shots not lining up with the animation could just be lag. Hard to say but I havn’t been able to consistantly dodge it even when paying very close attention for it.

1. First of all, the descriptions of the achievements must be clearer.
I can’t convince people that they must stick around Mai so she gets hit by the AoE and loses her shields, because they don’t want to be anywhere near that AoE for the achievement.

2. Golems must lose the pulls, or at least have a warning or better animation and warning sounds so you can dodge, or at least some sort of projectile you can see and dodge to avoid the jump. Being pulled by surprise, then the golem doing the pull the animation, when you know for sure you are not having high ping is infuriating. How can you avoid something if you can’t see it comming? It’s freaking instant and invisible!

3. Give the beams visual warnings on where they are going to appear.
The last times I did it, they suddenly popped with no warning right on my location. Make the beam projectos appear first, and flicker a few times before release the beams.
Again, you can’t avoid what you can’t see. Being hit before seeing the actual beam visual effect is not fun.

3. Make sphere AoEs CILINDERS, or at least make AoE circles a projection of the widest section of the sphere AoEs, or move the spheres low enough to the AoE circle represents the actual width of the AoE sphere.
Most sphere AoEs do not touch the ground on the middle. But the AoE circle represents the intersection between the sphere and the ground. So when it doesn’t touch with the ground on the middle, the AoE actually hits OUTSIDE the circle. This means you’ll get hit clearly outside the circle if close enough to it.
AoE circles are LIYING to us.