Guild Wars 2

Claw of Jormag

For those who do not know, The Claw of Jormag is a giant ice dragon that spawns in Frostgorge Sound, every few hours.
He is one of Jormag’s Lieutenants, and I feel he deserves an epic battle, and should be treated as such.
The spawning of CoJormag is as many of the world bosses, complete a few pre-events.
CoJormag has a few phases, first being break down his ice wall, and then spank his life down, spawning and ice wall, and repeat.
CoJormag doesn’t like how is walls fail, and decides to take off flying. At this point an NPC shoots him down with a cannon.
This starts his next phase, which is standing range and spanking his life down. You must be at range because getting to close causes you to loose health do to extreme cold.
During the whole fight, many mobs are spawned, so are giant ice shards, and such and such.

While this battle works, I see one huge flaw. It is ungodly boring. Not to mention, this is Jormag’s lieutenant.
If I chose a lieutenant, I’d choose one that could win a battle every once in a while.
With that being said, I propose my idea.

-A revamp of the entire Claw of Jormag battle, as well as other World Boss Battles (Tequalt the sunless, Shatterer, Shadow Behemoth, etc)

Pre-Events for CoJormag
Scenario~
You’re exploring Frostgorge Sound.
Sudden you hear a roar. You look in the sky and notice a Dragon of Ice flying around.
Interested, you watch, and notice a giant projectile fly by a nearby camp.
(At this point an orange circle would appear on your minimap on said camp)
You run there to check out whats going on.
You notice Icebrood pouring out of the Corrupted Ice Shard that fell from the sky.
You join your Koda friends and start vanquishing them.
(Ice could either melt, be attacked until broken, or flamethrowers could melt it, ending the event)
Upon finishing this event (which could spontaneously happen at random camps all over the map, perhaps only 1 happens, maybe 3, all random! We love RNG!)
^you hear a Koda talking about seeing a Dragon of Ice flying in the sky creating these manifestations. (You possibly noticed this yourself as well)

(Now I’m not sure if an escort event would be ideal, but I’m sure Anet could think of something…)
(Something needs to happen to give people about 3-5 minutes to get to his battle location -earthshake-)
After the camp is ‘safe’ a beacon is lit.
A Horn is also blown. The signal is made. (“Jormag’s” Presence is known map-wide)
Suddenly Patrol groups from each camp set out for a large battle. (These would be Escorting Events -if found ideal!)
During these events, you will see The Claw of Jormag flying above head.

-Now its not my place to really say how any of this goes, especially not the battle.
However, I’ll describe some of the mechanics I would like to see.
CoJormag Battle Ideas! (His NEW skill set)

Melee Skills
Aoe front claw attack. (hits targets on said claws side to mid front.
Tail whip/spin, causing a massive knock back.
Stamp, CoJormag balances on his back feet and stamps down crushing anyone and everything in melee range. (an instant downer in most cases!)

Ranged Skills
Shard Storms, giant aoe circles spawn all over (600~1800ft) causing some great damage for a few seconds. (players run closer, or farther, changing the scene of battle for a moment)
Dragon Breath, (1200ft range, anyone unlucky enough to be in his path, say hello to being frozen in an ice crystal and taking a good hit of damage)

General Skills
Ice Aura, Like the frost effect he has now, anyone within about 1000 range takes massive DoT (30-60seconds). (At this time giving players with more powerful range than melee damage a chance to prove themselves! (As range is a bit weaker than melee))
Fearful Scream, which as we know makes you feared. (He already does this)

Around the battle Zookas, and Cannons will still be placed.
Claw of Jormag would NOT have to move even with these changes! Which I’m 99% sure these events wouldnt be able to anyways, so thats a plus!

Rewards, We want Rewards!
Now.. You’ve got to be thinking.. Spending 15-30minutes on a dragon better give me some good loot at the end right!
You’re thinking, I want that big chest!!!

Here is what I’m thinking.
These below would count as events.
-Saving a Camp
-Escorting a patrol group from the camp
-Enduring the battle, and killing
-Remove chests, their kind of a stupid design, no offence….

Completing each of these events above should yeild 5-20silver, 500-3,000 karma, and between 50-100% EXP of your level for each event, depending on which obviously.

With those kinds of rewards no one loses!
(Don’t forget about the mobs you’ll fight in EVERY step. They have great loot tables too ya know!)

Closing Statement
Thank you for reading, and I hope this gives you an idea of what ‘I as a player’ would love to see/expect.
As well as, what our imaginations can bring to the table, as far as events go, and how ‘we the players’ want them.
-I’m not sure if this will get read by ANet, and I don’t even care. What I do care as that I open the eyes of even 1 other player to see how great these events can be, compared to what they are now.

Once again, thanks for your time.
Hardcore Trev (aka Brawls For Soup)

First of all, it isn’t wise to bump threads as it’s against the code of conduct and can get you in trouble.

Anyway, I think you might have misunderstood the mechanics of the second stage of the Claw’s battle. It isn’t just about “spanking” him from range, it’s about insuring that you can unleash an all out assault on the beast both from melee and range. You do this by weakening the Claw by having several golem self-destruct in his face. The whole point of the second stage is insuring that the group can get enough golem to the Claw so as to get him in a weaken state. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to position themselves so to constantly giving him damage at range. That needs to change imo.

Now onto your suggestion; I don’t see this working. First of all, Meta events can’t be moved around like that, as it seems you want it to take place at the very center f the map. Especially when the center of the map has a lot of water and cliffs. It would be a bit tricky to fight a giant ice dragon there. Secondly, how many cannons are there to take down the Claw while he’s in the air? From what I reading it seems like there would only be one cannon, which wouldn’t be fair if there were a large number of players present. Even if there were enough, I don’t think Guild Wars 2’s engine is capable of having mobs that are in the air be targetable.
We do have harpies and birds, I know, but they aren’t actually flying, in that their model’s are just floating (there’s a reason why they can’t follow you if you decide to jump off a ledge of something). I mean, they could have something in place that could simulate flight like having high, invisible, paths for the Claw to walk-fly. Maybe it’s possible, but I’m not saying that it certainly is.
Lastly, I do like your idea for having the Claw have a bit of an “invincible” mode for players that need a bit more time to actually get to the event area, though I think that has something to say about the Claw’s scaling and not about how slow other players are.

Overall, I don’t think the event itself needs to be completely revamped. Re-balancing yes, but not an overhaul.

Thank you for your input trigger.
Like I said my suggestion was just a scenario that seems really fun. My suggestion doesnt have to be taken literal, as you had taken it, which is completely fine.

I was just saying there is some potential into what I said, vrs. what is actually in the game.

Which sounds more fun (even if impossible?). I’d be shocked if you said whats in play.. As no one actually blows the golems up… I’ve done Claw of Jormag at least 30 times since launch..and I got to say, I didnt even know that was part of it haha. (Wow…)

As for the boss actually moving I did state its fine if they dont move, just give him more attacks to give challenge to the melee players. and give him a way to protect himself from melee users temporarily, to let the ranged players (whose dps is generally less) catch up on damage.

As for the preevent idea.. even without the cannon bit. Having a graphic of COJ flying around in the sky and spawning crystals over random camps, and having said camps be under attack from a corrupted shard of ice would be awesome (said ice be spawning broods until X amount of time passed, in which the shard would melt away, or be damaged). And maybe an escort event to earth shake, or something.. just something to let people know, camp events are done, time to track jormag down (players who are repeating this would already know where hes going to be).

And the new battle ideas.. would be good as even if the event is ‘always won’ at least you may actually die or something eventful would happen for once.

I do think the players should shoot COJ and not an NPC however.
Like.. the revamp could be as simple as.. when hes on land and spawning his ice walls, once they’re broken and people take a few swings at him he flies up and thats when people on cannons shoot him as he flies between the 2 mountains near by. and his hp swaps to a wing hp.

-what did you think about the rewards though?
Getting rid of the chests, and increasing a solid Silver reward, Karma Reward, and a nice EXP Reward. As well as possible a daily chest with that rare or exotic and maybe a laurel or something (if the boss seems tough enough!)
(For example; we failed COJ 3 times today, but the 4th attempt we finally got him!)
I’d love hearing that for once.

TriggerSad.2597:

Anyway, I think you might have misunderstood the mechanics of the second stage of the Claw’s battle. It isn’t just about "spanking" him from range, it’s about insuring that you can unleash an all out assault on the beast both from melee and range. You do this by weakening the Claw by having several golem self-destruct in his face. The whole point of the second stage is insuring that the group can get enough golem to the Claw so as to get him in a weaken state. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to position themselves so to constantly giving him damage at range. That needs to change imo.

Agreed. No one seems to care to do the second phase correctly. So much stacking on the ledge to spam range/charzooka and not actually contribute to anything useful. Honestly, I am pretty sure that helping the golems through to stun the Claw nets greater damage overall than just standing there on the right ledge and spamming 1.

If that could change, this fight would be more interesting. It’s already the only meta event other than the Megadestroyer and the Orrian temples that involves more than stacking in a spot and attacking.

Like, honestly, for a thread about revamping world bosses, I think you’d have been better served starting with the Shatterer or Tequatl, of the dragons.

synk.6907:

TriggerSad.2597:

Anyway, I think you might have misunderstood the mechanics of the second stage of the Claw’s battle. It isn’t just about “spanking” him from range, it’s about insuring that you can unleash an all out assault on the beast both from melee and range. You do this by weakening the Claw by having several golem self-destruct in his face. The whole point of the second stage is insuring that the group can get enough golem to the Claw so as to get him in a weaken state. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to position themselves so to constantly giving him damage at range. That needs to change imo.

Agreed. No one seems to care to do the second phase correctly. So much stacking on the ledge to spam range/charzooka and not actually contribute to anything useful. Honestly, I am pretty sure that helping the golems through to stun the Claw nets greater damage overall than just standing there on the right ledge and spamming 1.

If that could change, this fight would be more interesting. It’s already the only meta event other than the Megadestroyer and the Orrian temples that involves more than stacking in a spot and attacking.

Like, honestly, for a thread about revamping world bosses, I think you’d have been better served starting with the Shatterer or Tequatl, of the dragons.

You’re honestly right.
I just got done killing Claw of Jormag and was thinking of how lame it was and a bunch of ideas popped in my head based on him. lol.. I will give Anet the fact that that battle is definitely the best they’ve done as far as these boss battles go..
But I feel they could go so much farther with them.

I edited my above posts, and will continue to do so until I am content with their outcome, as they approach more and more viable solutions, rather than big dreams.

-added jormag to be stationary
-removed cannon in camps idea
-tweaked many parts, mostly shortened.

Please take a look, and again thank you for your feedback and time.
Even feedback that IS NOT support is still lovely feedback.
Again thank you!

Unfortunately, just as you say, most of the world bosses are really boring, effortless to take down, are being spammed all the time, and on top of that give out crappy rewards. There’s a lot of ways they can be improved, at the moment they are just not epic, their cooldowns need to be longer and their windows winder, I do not want to see Claw of Jormag appear 10 times each and every single day.

I think these battles would be much much more exciting if these world bosses would only appear once a week or so, but last much much longer so people would have a decent time frame to attend, these battles should take hours, but would reward exotics instead of the junk we now get at a steady pace.

Also as you said, these bosses need to be able to win once in a while, at the moment all of these “epic” battles are completely one-sided and boring and predictable because there is no way the players can fail the encounter, they just show up, attack for a few minutes (sometimes even seconds) and grab their vendor trash. Shadow Behemoth in particular doesn’t really do anything, he doesn’t even have a single worthy attack to throw at us, I have never ever seen anyone get downed on him, he just appears and sits there until we kill him, great fun.

+1 to you sir

It’s a sad truth that many boss fights are made for casual players. I see alot of peole dying even at the current Jormag battle. I do however support more dynamic battles.
The one that needs the most fixing is The Shatterer. You can just stand next to him and he can’t touch you.

they are boring. Having to spend 25 minutes wanding someone doesn’t make it a difficult boss, unfortunately thats how most bosses in gw2 work. They are great looking with good skills and mechanics, just not much movement

esme.6391:

they are boring. Having to spend 25 minutes wanding someone doesn’t make it a difficult boss, unfortunately thats how most bosses in gw2 work. They are great looking with good skills and mechanics, just not much movement

World bosses*

Dungeons are a different matter.

I definitely goofed when I chose jormag to pick on. He was their best boss LOL.

But I agree.. I find all too often that ArenaNet makes bosses with Higher HP than Higher Challenge. I’m not sure what their goal is.

I’d rather have a battle make me sweat from so much focus and only last 40seconds, Rather than a grueling 5 minute skill 1 skill 2 spam fest.

Again; I dont think they meta events can move, and honestly if they just had more skills they wouldnt have to. (ie; slapping us with their claws and what not)

My opinion on Shadow Behemoth is this… He is in a starting zone.. I’m pretty sure he is suppose to be easy.. But I heard in map chat he was starting, and headed there when I was level 7. Needless to say even I did not die. I didnt even get event credit lol. But I didnt die!

He has floating claws, make us have to attack his face, with a chance he could bite nearby player and his claws could swipe far back players.
^Those 2 things would make the battle tons more exciting.