Guild Wars 2

So I just experienced another “boss” that has a 1-shot-kill/down ability, yet the warning before the skill is used is non-existent or very subtle. The mob was “Champion Krait Witch”. I’m sure this is going to be a consistent thing that I’ll be seeing since it is also a problem with the Fire Elemental boss.

There’s a point where boss mechanics are based on skill and not luck of positioning or luck of not getting targeted. The way some of these boss mechanics work don’t even allow the player to use skill and yet just get 1-shot kill/down leaving the player asking, “wait… wha? wtf just happened?” The warning for a 1-shot ability is so subtle or non-existent that a player has no clue that a skill like that is being used next.

I come from Tera and played WoW, if a big/massive damage ability is being used, normally you have some animation indicator, some particle effect showing something is about to happen, or dialogue in the chat to show the boss is about to do something. But none of these indicators are in the game.

The problem with the fire ele is not the embers or the embers aoe that erupts from the ground. It’s the fire that falls from the sky that come from the fire ele itself. That fire only shows the aoe red circle .5secs before the fire hits the ground, so the fire is already falling to the ground before the aoe indicator even appears, leaving the player with no chance of avoiding this ability, then on top of that it stuns, does a major dot damage before the player can even get back up and try to move out of the aoe.

These mechanics with little to no warning cause a problem with making the boss mechanics revolve around luck rather than skill, leaving the player frustrated and not making the event itself fun. There’s a difference between challenging/skill oriented/fun, and impossible/luck based/frustrating.

So A.net please look into this, the player needs warning and if we miss the warning (reasonable warning) that’s our fault, but giving little to no warning is not allowing the player to intervene with their own skill and situational awareness to overcome the mechanics. The rest of the game is fun, lets apply that same concept to the boss mechanics, leave them challenging, but make them fun, not lucky, impossible and frustrating.

All I an say is that, as long as the enemy is no more than 5 levels over yours, no attack should deal more than 33% HP damage, with the exception of those slow charging skills you are REALLY supposed to dodge.

MithranArkanere.8957:

All I an say is that, as long as the enemy is no more than 5 levels over yours, no attack should deal more than 33% HP damage, with the exception of those slow charging skills you are REALLY supposed to dodge.

you understand that my point about all this is that there is little or no warning to those “slow charge” skills you are referring to.

Just to clarify I’m referring to the fire elementals rain of fire ability, not the embers erupt ability, those are two different skills in this fight.

If you go to the fire elemental when he is up and just die and observe the mechanics and whats going on in the area and take notice at the abilities and the aoe rings, you’ll see some of the stuff I’m talking about here.

There is no reasonable amount of time for someone to react to a slow skill attack in this specific event that I can see (other than the obvious aoe rings; which on some mobs aren’t hard to avoid, because they are setup in a way to give a good amount of warning) but in this case with the Fire Ele or the other champion when they use their 1 shot abilities, there is very little or no warning.

In the fire ele’s case you see the aoe, but even if you double tap to dodge out of the way the flame that’s pummeling down to that spot already hits you before you can get it off and even if you’re lucky enough to avoid that, you have the occasion to jump into another one of those same aoe’s right in the spot your dodge lands, which ends up killing you anyways. This ability I’m referring to is far from slow, so I’m not entirely sure what you are referring to as a slow skill ability since there is no sign that I’m seeing from the boss that indicates they are charging up to use their 1-shot kill ability.

Also another note about the fire ele fight, I noticed that the rings are smaller than the actual aoe damage radius, so even if you are with your character fully outside of the ring, you still get hit by the damage, so I’m just bringing this to the attention of the developers so they can figure out if its an issue with the hit box on the characters or if it is indeed a mis-calculation with the visual red ring and the actual damage radius for the ability.

In the case of the champion veteran mob, there is no aoe circle warning you a one shot skill is coming up, not even an animation that indicates such a move is about to happen, it just happens during combat and you find yourself downed, not even realizing what just happened.

btw I’m level 60 so for the fire ele you get bumped down to 15 and for the other champion veteran mob I believe it was around 20. So I’m not sure where you get the info that a slow skill ability shouldn’t be taking more than 33% of a players life if they are well above the level range for the fight. Unless for that fight it takes more than 33% when you get hit by it.

Yeah, the Fire Ele boss is ridiculous. It seems the only way to defeat it is to go in with a ton of people and expect to re-spawn multiple times while the people who are alive at the time beat it down.

One shot kills with little or no warning is a cheap way to make the boss hard. But it also makes it not fun.

There are several bosses with one-shot skills and I really don’t know how to evade those attacks. I’ve never seen a warning.

ice elementals r similar to this

This issue is exacerbated by two things: zoom and effects.
With large bosses, such as the Fire Elemental, the animation won’t be visible to a player in the fight, since the limited zoom level prevents seeing the boss. If you stand back behind the bridge and out of range you can easily see the animations and learn when to dodge, but as soon as you get close you can’t maintain a reasonable camera angle and see the boss at the same time.
Also, the spell effects from players can totally obscure the boss. It’s impossible to see the animations when enough players use enough abilities that there’s just a big white glow.

SAI Peregrinus.8410:

This issue is exacerbated by two things: zoom and effects.
With large bosses, such as the Fire Elemental, the animation won’t be visible to a player in the fight, since the limited zoom level prevents seeing the boss. If you stand back behind the bridge and out of range you can easily see the animations and learn when to dodge, but as soon as you get close you can’t maintain a reasonable camera angle and see the boss at the same time.
Also, the spell effects from players can totally obscure the boss. It’s impossible to see the animations when enough players use enough abilities that there’s just a big white glow.

That does pose a problem then. That would leave the only option for A.net would be to make these visuals more prominent or use a different system to alert the player.

I think what could possibly be looked into is audio cues as to special attacks, say as an example an Troll is about to unleash a mighty slash he would roar as he starts to charge it.