Guild Wars 2

Awesome.6120:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I tried it with an engineer.

This means any class can do it btw.

It’s funny because it’s true.

TITAN.6871:

I would also like to know why the AI doesn’t help me get up from being downed…. I’m down, all the mobs are dead

How did you manage that? Normally you get up automatically when the mob that downed you dies.

CrossFire.8037:

Majority of the personal story is bad, simply because most of the missions are terrible.

I love my personal story and most of the missions are awesome, except for very few flaws. I almost shed some tears at the end of the Claw Island step because I was really immersed and could relate to my companions (even though the dragon fight before was kind of dull because the NPCs seemed to just stand there and do nothing, see http://i.imgur.com/Hzkqz.jpg – that really seems to be a general problem in many places).

Iruwen.3164:

I love my personal story and most of the missions are awesome, except for very few flaws. I almost shed some tears at the end of the Claw Island step because I was really immersed and could relate to my companions (even though the dragon fight before was kind of dull because the NPCs seemed to just stand there and do nothing, see http://i.imgur.com/Hzkqz.jpg – that really seems to be a general problem in many places).

I actually had the opposite problem. One time I needed to go afk right after starting that fight, so I stood out of range, came back a few minutes later and the NPCs had the dragon down to 5% health.

Iruwen.3164:

How did you manage that? Normally you get up automatically when the mob that downed you dies.

i was downed by dots after the fight ended.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I just checked “Dredging Up the Past” and Sieran wasn’t flagged to resurrect players. I’ve fixed that and it should go live in a future update—though I don’t have an ETA. Thanks!

Awesome! Nice to see you guys actually fix things I hope the AI is getting some tweaks

Ellisande.5218:

Copain.1926:

I’ll agree the AI needs a bit of work, but something people need to realize is that The lighter classes should be dieing more if you’re not playing them well. The whole concept is that the lower your armor class, the harder you have to play.

No that isn’t the idea at all. The idea is that the lower your armor is the more damage you are supposed to be doing under the theory that the more damage you are doing then the faster the mobs are dying so you will be exposed to fewer hits.

Only an idiot would give up armor in order to get nothing or less than nothing in return.

Who said a single thing about not getting anything? Your compensation is the fact that you have insane flexibility and utility. You don’t see a Warrior ressurecting all his allies and then turning around and giving them all haste. You don’t see a Guardian causing bleed to his enemies then knocking them back before crippling them and causing Vulnerability while having an insane amount of other things to do (such as heal, Create large AOEs, and so on).

I think it’d be ridiculous if you got just as much damage as you lost in armor and all the ridiculous spells the lighter armor classes have already on top of that. It’d be insanely bland to because they said they wanted to get away from the whole “Tank/Healer/DPS” thing, but your logic is only cloth users should DPS and you should bring a Guardian along to take the damage for them.

I’ne just been in WvW for the first time and I’ve been resurrected by an NPC guard. I didn’t even know they could do that (until Jeffrey mentioned it of course, but it never happened). Do they only start this when you’re dead or also when you’re downed? Because I never died in the story missions, but I’ve been downed several times I guess.

Copain.1926:

Ellisande.5218:

Copain.1926:

I’ll agree the AI needs a bit of work, but something people need to realize is that The lighter classes should be dieing more if you’re not playing them well. The whole concept is that the lower your armor class, the harder you have to play.

No that isn’t the idea at all. The idea is that the lower your armor is the more damage you are supposed to be doing under the theory that the more damage you are doing then the faster the mobs are dying so you will be exposed to fewer hits.

Only an idiot would give up armor in order to get nothing or less than nothing in return.

Who said a single thing about not getting anything? Your compensation is the fact that you have insane flexibility and utility. You don’t see a Warrior ressurecting all his allies and then turning around and giving them all haste. You don’t see a Guardian causing bleed to his enemies then knocking them back before crippling them and causing Vulnerability while having an insane amount of other things to do (such as heal, Create large AOEs, and so on).

I think it’d be ridiculous if you got just as much damage as you lost in armor and all the ridiculous spells the lighter armor classes have already on top of that. It’d be insanely bland to because they said they wanted to get away from the whole “Tank/Healer/DPS” thing, but your logic is only cloth users should DPS and you should bring a Guardian along to take the damage for them.

WTF are you on? I do that kitten on my Guardian all the time. The only thing that actually seperates a Guardian from a thief is ability to stealth/port and ability to frontload all weapon skills at once instead of having them be apportioned over time via reuse timers and maybe access to one or two better slows than the Guardian has. But neither class is really going to be doing multiple things at once, at least not if you want to do anything well because you won’t be geared for it. Every class to a certain extent is able to heal/dps/cc/tank but the truth is that no class excels at any of these and simply becomes better at doing Y than X or Z but only in so far as they have the stat allocations and skill allocations which were necessary to make them better. However they never stopped being able to do X or Z and given the very limited nature of the skill selections available and over reliance on forcing the players to passively use autoattacks it is actually impossible for any class to only do Y and not also do X and Z.

You are clearly misunderstanding the idea of balance that I was refering to. When I said balance I very clearly meant that the difference in armor needs to be balanced by a difference in damage such that both classes are able to surivive the same kitten and come out of combat with the same amount of hp afterwards. I never said that one class (oh no I didn’t use profession!) should be doing damage and should only be able to do damage and one class should be tanking and should only be able to tank. Any such inferences, deductions or interpretations about my position that you made were your own and quite incorrect.

When Anet said that they wanted to get away from the holy trinity then what they essentially said was that all the classes would ultimately have to become similar and leave their specializations behind because the game is no longer going to be able to provide for super squishiness or super tankiness. Thus every class will have to be self sufficient. And at its heart self sufficiency requires that every class is essentially the same in so far as every class needs to be able handle the same exact situations by itself. If self sufficiency was the only balancing test then you’d have some classes that were simply rocking the game and others that were just barely getting by because the only standard you’d need to meet would be whether or not the class could solo PvE content.

However there is also PvP and if we assume that the devs want to balance the game such that any time players of equal skill face each other in a 1 vs 1 then there is a 50% probability each will win then the test becomes not just whether a class can survive soloable PvE content but also whether the class is too strong or too weak compared the other classes (whether a player with this class will win < or > 50% of the time against another player of equal skill using a different class). That is why damage has to be balanced around armor. A class with lighter armor is giong to be taking more damage and will need to deal higher damage in order to compensate for the difference. Obviously this doesn’t require one class to deal 100% more damage, a 3% differential could be sufficient (taking into account that stats can do more to modify the damage a character takes or deals moe than the value of the armor on that characters armor class).

Ellisande.5218:

WTF are you on? I do that kitten on my Guardian all the time. The only thing that actually seperates a Guardian from a thief is ability to stealth/port and ability to frontload all weapon skills at once instead of having them be apportioned over time via reuse timers and maybe access to one or two better slows than the Guardian has.

On top of also having more evasion and stun moves, which means a LIGHTER ARMOR CLASS has MORE UTILITY than a HEAVIER ARMOR CLASS and can be MORE FLEXIBLE like I said?

But neither class is really going to be doing multiple things at once, at least not if you want to do anything well because you won’t be geared for it. Every class to a certain extent is able to heal/dps/cc/tank but the truth is that no class excels at any of these and simply becomes better at doing Y than X or Z but only in so far as they have the stat allocations and skill allocations which were necessary to make them better. However they never stopped being able to do X or Z and given the very limited nature of the skill selections available and over reliance on forcing the players to passively use autoattacks it is actually impossible for any class to only do Y and not also do X and Z.

Bunker Build Elementalist for quite awhile were able to be ridiculously hard to kill while having a large amount of CC (thanks to the elementalist base weapon spells), having a large amount of buffs (Again, weapon skills), And being able to heal. They didn’t give much up in any field and were strong in all fields.

Ellisande.5218:

You are clearly misunderstanding the idea of balance that I was refering to. When I said balance I very clearly meant that the difference in armor needs to be balanced by a difference in damage such that both classes are able to surivive the same kitten and come out of combat with the same amount of hp afterwards. I never said that one class (oh no I didn’t use profession!) should be doing damage and should only be able to do damage and one class should be tanking and should only be able to tank. Any such inferences, deductions or interpretations about my position that you made were your own and quite incorrect.

Your logic in itself says that the lighter armor classes should be doing more damage where as the heavier ones should be dealing less while tanking hits. You can’t say that and then say you aren’t saying it.

A “Small” difference or not, a difference is a difference that people who want to be efficient care about. There’s a reason CoF parties want Mesmers and Warriors right now, because you can farm super fast and clear the dungeon super fast with that group. That doesn’t mean an Ele can’t do it, it means that the Warrior is better at it so they take warriors only in the faster groups.

Damage is an impossibly bad thing to say “This class should do more for X reason” because then you’re making a lot of classes null and void in the more hard core people who play your game (Who are often the ones spending a good amount of money on it). You balance the more fragile class to have more flexibility and utility, not more damage. This is why you see the Warrior and the Guardian sticking to their few main roles of fighting (The Warrior doing damage and being tanky, the Guardian… guardian everyone) while you see other classes have more ways to achieve the same goal. Elementalist have a ton of variety in their spells that allow them to do just about anything, Mesmers have insane support spells and abilities to keep themselves and the group alive. This is because they’re the lightest armor class, not just because they’re their class.

I do that on my Guardian. What separates a Guardian from a thief is ability to stealth/port and ability to frontload all weapon skills at once instead of having them be apportioned over time via reuse timers and maybe access to one or two better slows than the Guardian has.

On top of also having more evasion and stun moves we all have the same ability to dodge attacks, which means a LIGHTER ARMOR CLASS has MORE UTILITY than a HEAVIER ARMOR CLASS and can be MORE FLEXIBLE like I said?
Bunker Build Elem for were hard to kill while having a large amount of CC & having a large amount of buffs (Again, weapon skills), And being able to heal. They didn’t give much up in any field and were strong in all fields.
that isn’t what they said on their class forum where the general consensus was that they gave up a lot in order to gain high survivability

When I said balance I clearly meant the difference in armor needs to be balanced by a difference in damage such that both classes are able to survive the same kitten and come out of combat with the same amount of hp afterwards. I never said that one class should be doing damage and should only be able to do damage and one class should be tanking and should only be able to tank.

Your logic says that the lighter armor classes should be doing more damage and heavier ones should be dealing less while tanking hits. You can’t say that and then say you aren’t saying it.
I’m not denying that my position is that light armor classes should be doing more damage. But you’re misconstruing “more damage” to mean “only damage.”
Damage is a bad thing to say “This class should do more for X reason” because then you’re making a lot of classes null and void. You balance the more fragile class to have more flexibility and utility, not more damage (your opinion). Elem have a ton of variety in their spells that allow them to do just about anything.

I addressed this, “(taking into account that stats can do more to modify the damage a character takes or deals more than the character’s armor class),” “every class will have to be selfsufficient. Selfsufficiency requires that every class is essentially the same in so far as every class needs to be able handle the same exact situations,” and, “given the very limited nature of the skill selections available and over reliance on forcing the players to passively use autoattacks it is impossible for any class to only do Y and not also do X and Z.”

No matter how much “utility” you think differentiates the classes (it isn’t nearly as expansive as you are trying to suggest because your skill choices are limited to 3 utility/healing/damage skills with large cooldowns), at some point you’re need to address the fact that this “utility” is finite and incomplete. An Elem is taking more damage and in order to survive does need to be able to deal more damage if they hope to bring those mobs down before going down themself. Of course each player can within the confines of the stat and skill systems differentiate their character by making it more focused on a certain area (more focused on CC, dots, damage reduction, damage dealing, etc) but that comes at the expense of making them weaker in other areas. This is a deviation from the base class and not substitution of the base class.

All classes can choose to select only healing skills if they wanted, or only CC skills but being able to make those choices cannot be thought of as meaning those choices are what balances your class against the other classes because a different player could choose contrarily. Assuming that all reasonable choices were meant to be functional within the first part of my test (capable of surviving solo PvE) then every class was balanced just as much around pure damage as around pure utility (pure just means your selection of those 3 utility skills). A quick perusal of the class forums seems to suggest that this inference has some validity. Thus the base class must be one that is not built around having or needing more utility to balance lower armor classes against higher armor classes but rather based around how quickly they need to kill mobs in order to survive.

As players make choices about what to positively and negatively choose they deviate from the base class becoming more tanky, healy, more or less utility, doing more or less damage than their peers playing the same class. The fact that a player chooses to focus on CCs doesn’t necessarily imply that the base class was balanced around CCs in comparison to a class with more armor because a player of the same class could ditch CCs entirely and only take the damage utility skills and still be just as successful.

Um back to the original topic, another story is pretty bad. In Convincing the Faithful, the stupid frog I have as a buddy literally, and I mean absolutely without question, does NOTHING. He stands around the entire time. Meanwhile, before every fight, all I hear him babble about is how “WE” should clear the next group out of the way of the procession. I don’t mind being the focus of my story, but I really hate it when these NPC’s act like they are helping but clearly do not.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

As I’ve mentioned before, I play all of the story steps with an equal level character (not downscaled) and haven’t run into any consistent issues, but if there are specific steps that are too difficult, I can look at adjusting them.

Really.

I just tried The Ringmaster part of the Human “Missed Oppurtunity” background.
U telling u had no problems with an equal lvl char doing this alone?! WOW.

I tried it with a lvl30 downscaled mesmer.
The wiki suggests taking down The Ringmaster first cos he will hypnotize spectators, who will then attack u to.
So i did attack the Ringmaster first, he didnt go down fast.
At some point i noticed Logan and all the Seraph soldiers were down, and all the spectators were hypnotized.
Meaning; i now was supposed to defeat the Ringmaster, 3 of his henchmen AND close to 10 hypnotized spectators, ALONE.

Really….

Had to run around alot to break aggro from all of them.
I tried pulling 1 hypnotized spectator, but then they ALL came at me.
So i was WTF, and gave up.

So really…..

Surely i must be doing something very wrong then.
Or this story part needs serious fixing (making it easier).

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Quizotic.2815:

as my original post says, the summoning mobs seem to summon to many and/or are so close together that they all pull at once, ending in me getting slaughtered. i had one dredge suit that had 7 dredge summoned in that mission (dredge assult, in the norn personal story) i can normaly dodge 1 or 2 of them but the rest just knock me down. and garrentee that i get no hits in before im downed.

Thanks, that’s extremely useful info. The dredge suits can summon up to 5 minions, but you also have a half-dozen Vigil soldiers with you. If you’re running in and aggroing all 5 minions and the suit, you probably need to slow down. I just completed this without getting hit at all during the suit attack by letting the Vigil wade in, then I picked off the suits at a distance. (I tried it with an engineer.) Most of the NPCs did get killed during the fight, but they can rezz each other, so the entire group was back up for the cave exploration step.

This suggests that what beat the mission was superior intel. You knew what was coming going in, so you could tailor your approach to fit your character and your surroundings. Players rarely know what they get into, and may very well overlook elements and options that are in your face obvious for someone that has run the scenario multiple times.

I recall having a odd istuation doing my first character. I was supposed to recruit two sylvari hiding out in the swamp south of Lion’s Arch. And in the process i was to take on a risen witch or something. Ok i have a bunch of NPCs with me and a wave of risen coming, and another, and another, and another. Only on second or third full reset of the mission did i decide that the waves were clearly infinite and i should bypass the whole fight.

In a sense it reminds me of the old issue with point and click adventure games. Unless the game was designed with expert care, sooner or later you would run into a section where you would “pixel hunt” (pass the mouse back and forth across the screen, hoping it would highlight some object that was blending in with the background) or resort to trying each inventory item with every other item to see if there was a combo you overlooked. This because what the designer thought would be deductible or noticeable, was to the player pure randomness thanks to different perspectives.

I know what you mean Ybrahim, I’m a games designer with 30 years of game playing experience, and I design levels for a living, yet I was dying all the time in the level 70 to 80 story missions even with the recommended gear, most of the time relying on the NPCs to fight for me while I stood out of harms way.

Now for the really bad news, not spoiling the story but the last mission in your story is a 5 man dungeon. What’s worst, and I don’t know if it’s because I tried this on a ranger. I couldn’t even get to the last mission, the brambles on the way there killed me outright everytime, even when not under attack, and plenty of healing boosts.

I see it in every MMO, really good game up until the last level then they expect people to join huge groups, if you are in a huge group, yes the game is fun, but gives the middle finger to anyone who wants to play alone. While MMO’s are for massive multiplayer online experiences, I like to play Solo most of the time, only reason I play an MMO is to speak to other players or show off the gear I get, I rarely join huge raids because of elitist snobs. I’m looking to create a game in the future that will allow players to truly solo in an MMO and get rid of the motion that you MUST team. My colleagues in games design all say well play Single player games, but unlike them I like MMO’s. I have done my fair share of huge battles over the years, but I am getting older and want to go solo sometimes, my reflexes aren’t what they used to be and being in a large team kinda scares me, because most of the time they want perfection.

For the record I am in a guild, but they keep running off to play new games. I try to tell them that Guild Wars 2 has the better graphics than most pay to play games, but do they listen? Do they heck.

I want to see the designers of this game give a level of difficulty for Solo missions, and the option to solo or group for the last one. Possibly give a better reward for group play. Most of the time I get to level 80, then start a new character, because level 80 stuff is usually rubbish unless your Guild is massive and you don’t mind asking others to help you.

lol… only one of these I ever died in was when 2 of the Boomers (exploding Risen) spawned completely at random right next to me. …Oh and I think that Mining suit for the Norn origin got me too simply b/c Mining suits that constantly spawn 2 extra minions every 30 seconds is just plain game-breaking versus a level ~25 character. You don’t fight any Veteran Suits of that variety in the open world until the very end of Dredhaunt Cliffs which is what, level 55?? By then most of us have all Rares and multiple Elites to pick from.

I’m not bragging, This is purely for feedback: I didn’t die once in the so called ‘End game’ Pact missions. …though, I only did these missions for the first time this past week, yet I’ve already done every Dungeon explorable path that offers a real challenge by now, so my perspective is probably really badly skewed and biased at this point… (full Exotics set too).

Funny how I just came across this thread. Two days ago my best friend says he was considering buying the game and asked if I was still enjoying it. I told him I loved it EXCEPT for ONE thing: I get rushed a lot during personal stories and die before I can do much. Much like what many people have said earlier in this thread: I feel I die way too much during my personal stories and it is taking away from my enjoyment of them. At first I thought it was just because I am a newbish or I can go long periods without playing the game and am rusty. Glad to know I am not the only one.

I think NPCs are not necessary. Most of them die in seconds. Which is pointless to have them. On my ele, my personal NPC is my Stone Golem. I don’t even bother to rez anyone, since they will go down just as fast.

On my Ranger, during the white mantle arc when we were called by a mysterious man to meet in Divinity’s Reach in front of the Queen’s room, it was an ambushed by the white mantle. It was like, yeah, here we go again…. then out of the sudden, an NPC shout is heard and 2 NPCs came running to assist (Salia and Mehid of the Exemplars).
I was shocked. NPCs aren’t suppose to be like this (although this one is scripted). But these two NPCs are one of few that I met that all NPCs should be like.

Other Notable NPCs….
AC – Detha
Molten Factory – Braham & Rox
Vigil – Warmaster Forgal Kernsson (yes, best Storyline NPC partner)

Wethospu.6437:

I actually liked Claw Island because there was so many enemies. :/ (like use stun-breaker?)
Any chance getting hardmode-version for story?

Not every class has stun breakers… try doing Claw island with Ele, Mesmer, Necro even Thief.., yea its not fun..

It basically shows how unbalanced classes are in PvE.

Is personal story really that hard for thief? I played thief as my 2nd character and I’ve solo all of my personal story past claw island. I don’t know how hard it is for ele, mesmer, or necro, but for a thief both mission for claw island were really easy for me using a thief. he clearing the ccourtyard part was simple and easy with thief, I use duel dagger to do it. Skill 4 for duel dagger their foes the trick really well when fighting mobs. In my opinion the personal story isn’t hard for me, am able to solo them with me thief with only dying twice at max, which is rarely. =P

SiegHawk.7981:

Is personal story really that hard for thief? I played thief as my 2nd character and I’ve solo all of my personal story past claw island. I don’t know how hard it is for ele, mesmer, or necro, but for a thief both mission for claw island were really easy for me using a thief. he clearing the ccourtyard part was simple and easy with thief, I use duel dagger to do it. Skill 4 for duel dagger their foes the trick really well when fighting mobs. In my opinion the personal story isn’t hard for me, am able to solo them with me thief with only dying twice at max, which is rarely. =P

Believe me, I had a hard time in Claw Island using my Ele…. And I was already level 80 with full exotics. Yes, I use all attunements…… and also ran, dodge and everything…

It’s important to disassociate lore from game mechanics, else you will come across as overly pedantic.
If realism is what you’re looking for, a fantasy based MMO is not what you should be playing.
/thread

SirDrygan.1823:

SiegHawk.7981:

Is personal story really that hard for thief? I played thief as my 2nd character and I’ve solo all of my personal story past claw island. I don’t know how hard it is for ele, mesmer, or necro, but for a thief both mission for claw island were really easy for me using a thief. he clearing the ccourtyard part was simple and easy with thief, I use duel dagger to do it. Skill 4 for duel dagger their foes the trick really well when fighting mobs. In my opinion the personal story isn’t hard for me, am able to solo them with me thief with only dying twice at max, which is rarely. =P

Believe me, I had a hard time in Claw Island using my Ele…. And I was already level 80 with full exotics. Yes, I use all attunements…… and also ran, dodge and everything…

I was level 54 when I did claw island and was still wearing level 45 rare medium armor(thief). Did the claw island 3 times, one solo which I die 2 times, and the other 2 time I helpedy friends with it and it was easier since I just use them as bait since they keep on dying anyways :P but its pretty easy if you use ele I think, I’d suggest staff and spam fire. It should do the trick not sure but if you really need help msg or ask help. Not really hard in my opinion though but just run around and let em chase you.

Close to hitting 80 on my Thief and went back to do the Personal Story missions 58+ I missed – most likely because I had already jumped onto the Trahearne Hate Club :P

The person/team that designed and/or tested the Dhzudin Stormbreaker fight are, in my honest opinion, cruel and unforgiving creatures of the night that live to steal candy from children and relentlessly poke helpless old ladies attempting to cross the street. The sheer amount of aoe crowd control available to this one boss is sickening, the extent to which actual damaging abilities were ignored in favour of providing such an arsenal of control is horrifying and, of all the despicable ideas not yet put in action by the Grinch, the decision to support this boss with allies whose sole purpose is to stun and stun again to appease their petty master…

I can’t actually think of a worse fight in a videogame. Really. They even made Trahearne invincible so if you were out of line of sight of the boss it could keep chaining its tiny lightning bolts at you. Trahearne is going to get the spray bottle if this kind of unhelpful behaviour continues.

I have a Norn Necromancer. I did almost all my personal stories at the level it asked for, and normally did them without any problem.

The only one I did need help from my pals was the one where we defend the fort against the undead dragon, after which your mentor… you know. I don’t remember the name of that quest.

Check your equipment and try not to charge against every enemy at the same time. :P

I just reached the mission “Through the looking glass” with my necromancer (Bullrag lvl 74) and i find it a little ridiculous that once i get passed a certain spot, if i happen to die the guys re-spawn with what seems to be every 60 seconds. so if all my guys are up where i died, im then stuck back in an earlier section unable to get back . also if i do happen to get back to where i was, there are then so many guys that it takes me too long to kill them so eventually they just start spawning while im still in a fight, resulting in a never ending amount on enemies in an fight that is impossible to win.

Shaking off the Chains needs a look the Krait Priestess’ AOE that Stacks confusion covers the Whole platform you have to fight her on that and she has over 9000 health regen

I agree with the OP. Its so depressing that I stopped doing personal stories.

SiegHawk.7981:

Is personal story really that hard for thief? I played thief as my 2nd character and I’ve solo all of my personal story past claw island. I don’t know how hard it is for ele, mesmer, or necro, but for a thief both mission for claw island were really easy for me using a thief. he clearing the ccourtyard part was simple and easy with thief, I use duel dagger to do it. Skill 4 for duel dagger their foes the trick really well when fighting mobs. In my opinion the personal story isn’t hard for me, am able to solo them with me thief with only dying twice at max, which is rarely. =P

Elementalist is a rough experience for the personal story, at least for me, I’ve yet to finish it – lack of motivation as it’s just frustrating going into the personal story knowing that I’m going to die at least once due to the encounter mechanics, the NPC’s are mostly useless and when they die you get what seems like an entire army of mobs jumping you – the Mesmer is has a similar issue until you hit mid 40-50’s when you can start to unlock the classes true potential, until then it’s a struggle.

the OP is completely right, there isn’t just one quest that is causing the issue, it feels like the story quests are built on a generic difficulty which is all fine, but the problem lays with that not all classes are the same in terms of damage and durability, especially with the zone downscale that makes any attempts to over level completely redundant.

@dronzer.8392
hmm i think elementalist is stronger in fighting mindless mob, in terms on compareing to thief, you guys can handle groups of mobs easily where as a thief we are more of 1v1 or 2v1 type. I know the NPC are useless thats why you put them to good use, like how i use them for meat shields only, thats the only useful thing they re useful for. You should be able to take out the mobs before the npc dies or take most of them out. Just got to use the running tactics let em chase you and spamthos AOE.

I started my personal story when I first started the game. Since I died so often, I simply did everything else instead of continuing it. Now that I’ve got several level 80s, I’m finally going back to the story and found them to still be incredibly difficult at times, even with my full augmentation of gear, traits and skills.

Basically, your only hope of living through your personal story is to go ranged and kite like a NASCAR driver.

quote for OP : if u sacrificed NOTHING, u gained NOTHING!

Just got to the “Dead of winter” story and just can’t finish it as an elementalist.

Seraki.2753:

I agree with the OP. Its so depressing that I stopped doing personal stories.

I agree with the OP as well but I’m a stubborn kitten and I still intend to complete the story on my second level 80 just so I can see the lore and alternate storyline.

I’m doing the PS with my level 80 because I only do the personal story when my character is at least 10-20 level higher than the required level. Even with a level 80, you get scaled down so the PS missions are still barely tolerable. I thought doing it with a level 80 might allow me to actually relax and enjoy the story and it appears I was wrong. I’m not faceplanting as much but the fights are still incredibly irritating when all I want to do is see the story. The loot and rewards are useless for my level 80 so why is my character getting scaled back?

I can’t understand is why ArenaNet makes content that difficult for the personal story but doesn’t offer difficulty settings. They do it in the dungeons with Story and Explorer modes, why the kitten didn’t they do the same with the PS.

Some people just want to relax and see the story, some people just view the PS as another way to get loot. Both can be satisfied by offered a difficulty setting that lets some people easily go through the story with less rewards, and others to go through more annoying content but increased rewards.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

I just checked “Dredging Up the Past” and Sieran wasn’t flagged to resurrect players. I’ve fixed that and it should go live in a future update—though I don’t have an ETA. Thanks!

I don’t know if things have changed since 5 months ago but you might want to double-check every NPC in every mission. I’ve been playing since launch and the ONLY time I have ever witnessed an NPC actually rezzing anyone has been Ellen Kiel in the Aetherblade Retreat. Of course, NPCs tend to suicide and spend so much time on the ground that they may simply not have the chance to actually do anything useful.

TBH, I can’t believe there are NPCs who are not flagged to help players by rezzing them. Why would actually aiding players ever not be a priority for a designer?

The Storyline quests appear to be not that well balanced across differant classes.
Im now on my 3rd character (a mesmer) doing the storyline , and Im only L20, but Im having a much harder time surviving than I did with an Engineer and a Necro.
Even with the Engineer, the quests were extremley hard , but survivable.
Because Im on my 3rd char, Ive got much better gear than previously , but its still continuous death.
The other problem is the NPCs in the storyline who are supposed to be on your side.
They do so little damage, and are so fragile that I wonder what the point of them even is .
How can you tell how much damage , or how much health an NPC has?