Recently my friend and I were walking through Sparkfly Fen on your way south when the event for Tequatl the Sunless started. My first reaction was that of great joy. I had never been around for his spawn before, but I had seen clips of it from before the betas. My friend and I both had the same thought process when his colossal form landed: “I can’t do anything to something THAT big, I better run to artillery.” We both ran for the various trebuchets and cannons, attempting to man and fire them, and when we were attacked, defend them from the Risen. But, just a little while into the fight, we were being overrun, yet there were plenty of players there fighting. I saw that nearly everyone had just run in to use their standard skills, so I walked in and attacked. My friend and I were both astounded to discover that we were both able to do a standard amount of damage to him, and more over, it was far more effective to cast skills on him than use artillery. Okay, but then what was the dragon doing the whole time? He would stomp around, make some poison fields; he would roar, fear players away from him; But, everyone could take it. There were just so many players swarmed together attacking, that Tequatl couldn’t do anything but die, and he did in just a minute or so of everyone spamming their skills.
This is a huge flaw. Not only do I think players auto attacks should do a pathetic amount of damage to a monster this large (I was about as big as one of his toes), but he should be able to crush anyone who tries. A fight against a lieutenant of an elder dragon should be comparable to that of assaulting a fortress in WvW: You can’t do anything without siege weapons. Fighting Tequatl should be a fight centered around using and protecting artillery so you can kill him. Yeah, you CAN go up to fight him, but doing something like that sounds like it should be suicide, and it should be.
The event is truly epic, it looks great, and all of the potential for a good battle is there. But if players don’t have to use it, further more it is better not to use it, then the entire event loses its feel, and the big event turns into a skill spam.