Guild Wars 2

So, I joined a party for the new path in Twilight Arbor dungeon, knowing that it can be frustrating for some people, knowing that many parties in the past have been completely dissolved due to this frustration.

Well, I’m alone now, halfway through, and trying to figure out where the heck I went wrong.

Our party consisted of two warriors and two guardians…and me, a mesmer. Needless to say I felt a little out of place and useless compared to them.

We were doing fine up until the ooze bit. Then, all of a sudden, things got…oozy.

It seemed that there was some sort of language barrier between at least one of the players, so she had some difficulties understanding directions. The one other warrior didn’t seem as experienced as the other two. As for me…well, Mesmers have one pull and several bouncing attacks (not to mention bothersome clones), so after trying desperately to avoid killing the oozes (and failing), I decided to stand back and let the warriors and tanks take care of things. There were a couple of times when I seriously considered leaving the dungeon entirely, but I stuck with it, hoping that it would pay off. Eventually we finished.

Next up was the Sparki and Slick fight. Not too bad. For me, anyway. I’m sure all the wipes we had (around 3 or 4) attributed to the probably “pro” dungeoneers’ frustrations. But again, eventually we killed them.

Finally, we had to start killing off the machines generating the holo-pirates while contending with some manic steam bots. Apparently, this was the last straw for one of the guardians who just up and left after wiping.

Fine. That’s fine. We’ll just get another player.

We found a warrior, tried running in there again (one of the other players were kicked for…whatever reason in the process…and replaced with another mesmer). One of the generators in the room was already destroyed; the other was about half down. The first person (warrior, I think) went running into the mob of holograms like a maniac and promptly died shouting, “kill helo!!” I assume this was because a couple members of the group weren’t attacking the generators. I wouldn’t know. I was attacking it just fine. However, after he died, the warrior up and left us.

Again…eventually we destroyed the machine (minus that warrior).

But that’s when things started falling apart. First went the guardian…then went the warrior…Then I thought my fellow mesmer would stick around and finish the dungeon with me. Nope. After a rather wry “wow”, she (or he…whoever) up and left me as well. Understandable.

I guess.

So, now I’m left sitting here in the middle of a dungeon, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for new members. Think anyone will join me halfway through?

Heh. Yeah right. I’ll just try again later.

(Interesting morsel of information: after the warrior left, the party wasn’t disbanded. He was the group leader, by the way. It’s weird…but nice. Even though I’ll probably just give up, I’m bitterly glad we weren’t all kicked when he left.)

Its good to see so many players enjoying the new content…

Sigh. Hooray for the Random/Already Dying Story.

Keep in mind that this is not a criticism of the dungeon. It’s more of a vent about my frustrations with the community’s anti-completionist attitudes during difficult situations.

(I hope I worded it in such a way that it doesn’t insult anyone)

““kill helo!!” " was probably tellin you to kill the holograms which is how you destroy the generators and you guys didnt understand, he saw that and probably thought it would be a waste of time to continue.

clint.5681:

““kill helo!!” " was probably tellin you to kill the holograms which is how you destroy the generators and you guys didnt understand, he saw that and probably thought it would be a waste of time to continue.

You mean that typing “Guys, you kill the generators by killing the halos, please focus on halos, do not attack gens” was too much of an effort?

I finished this dungeon and we only had one guy rage quit on the oozes. Oddly once replaced, we did the oozes on the second try like a walk in the park.
My issue is that the mechanics are interesting and punishing yet ppl see fit to explain them in two word sentences: “kill halo”, “follow path”, “kite ooze” and then have the expectation that once this direction is given, you will immediately proceed to follow it flawlessly. How am I supposed to know how to kite the ooze if I had no time to see the spring? Where am I supposed to kite the ooze to if I did not get to see the end of the path yet?
And at the end of the day, part of the fun is to understand the mechanics. Sure, I will kite the bloody ooze but you need to first give me 2 mins to check the spring and then walk to the end of the path to see the end point.

I am absolutely in disagreement with your assessment that mesmers are “useless” next to warriors and guardians. On any other day I would have put on my “Elitist Tophat of Nerd Rage +20” and demand you L2P and so on, so forth… But that’s not the point of this topic.

Well, between my years of multiplayer games, I have to say that this isn’t something unique to GW2, or goodness forbid, new. Hell, I admit that I have dumped particularly frustrating groups before, even in GW2. It really boils down to an individual’s threshold of patience. It just so happens that some people have none.

Chin up. It may or may not be entirely your fault, but have some, well, patience. The dungeon has been out for less than a week, so people are still stumbling through it. The content is permanent, so there’s always an opportunity to come back once the hysteria has died down.

Many people are too impatient to lead and teach the encounters to newer players. They instead give terrible directiosn, grow impatient too quickly, then rage quit or kick players. It is unfortunate and it’s terrible for the community.

Last I checked, mesmer sword moves don’t bounce. Did you try changing to a different weaponset to suit the situation?

I’ll tell you what you probably did wrong.

Oozes – if you are somehow killing the oozes or other things by accident, that suggests you don’t have control over or a good understanding of your weapons and attacks.

One, pick a weapon that doesn’t produce clones or bounces, such as greatsword, and be sure to position yourself such that your attack in a line doesn’t cross an ooze. If you do produce clones and want them gone without doing too much harm to mobs, a possible option is to use F4 Distortion to explode them without doing damage, or maybe F3 Diversion to merely daze them.

Two, turning off autoattack (ctrl+right click your first skill) may help, or learn to detarget swiftly by clicking anywhere on your screen that isn’t a target, or bind a key to holster your weapon quickly.

You could also have contributed by volunteering to lead the oozes instead as that does not require any attacking, just collecting the plant pheremone on you, then moving around the path slowly to guide the ooze instead of standing there letting other people do all the work – which would immediately mark you as more inexperienced than others.

For the holograms, the mechanics are such that they need to be killed near the generator to produce an electrical discharge which damages the generator.

That warrior rushing in was hoping that everyone knew to stack behind the generator, line-of-sighting the hologram mobs, so that they will all come running towards you and killed there swiftly, exploding the generator in short order.

If the party fails to stack and instead backs off, leading hologram mobs away, it takes ages longer as it is fairly useless to just autoattack the very heavily-shielded generator – you barely do double digit damage. I suspect your party’s failure to stack caused his death and subsequent ragequit.

I’ll also tell you that your teammates failed to communicate just as terribly. Two words do not an explanation of mechanics make. A little more clarity of explanation would probably have gotten your party moving to address the encounters with better strategies.

First and very obvious issue is that you did not adjust your character for the content. If you have bouncing attacks, you must be using Staff. Staff is obviously the absolute worst weapon for the Ooze bit (I have a Mesmer, so I am familiar with the mechanics). Any other weapon would have been better. Greatsword would have been fantastic (for the AoE push). Sword would have also been a good choice, but you need to position yourself so your cleave does not hit the Ooze. Sword/Focus and Greatsword would have given you two control skills for pulling/pushing the mobs off the ooze and would have made this a very easy puzzle.

The first boss is challenging, especially if you do not know what to do. The Ooze room teaches you an important mechanic that it vital to success against that boss. You need to use the pheromone (one of the players has it) to draw the ooze to the puddles the same way you drew it to the doors. If the pheromone-player does not do this, the party is screwed.

The Generators are actually really, really easy. It seems the party did not work together. If the party splits up and each does their own thing, this section is probably nearly impossible. If you work together, pull holograms to generators, then focus your attacks… really quick and easy. Best if everyone goes melee in these sections, or only uses ranged to pull then switch to melee in the stack.

As Jeromai said, communication seems the issue. Last group I did this with, I stopped before each battle and made sure everyone in the party understood the mechanics and knew the plan of attack. It takes a couple of minutes, but saves many more in wasted time.

Didn’t ANet say around beta, they were adding in VOIP, mumble or something else into the game, so that you could talk to each other/pugs?
I find dungeons even with people who know the fights, can be frustrating as hell without some sort of VOIP, and Im a fast typer….

Mesmers are gods for this path. We have the most reflects and contol effects. These are needed for the oozes, the generators, and the last boss. So.. mesmers are very very very very far from useless.

Tips for Mesmers:

1) Don’t use Deceptive Evasion. Clone on dodge is terrible for dungeons anyways.
2) Go Melee (sword/focus + sword/sword or sword/pistol) Greatsword blows.
3) Traited Focus, Feedback, Null Field are your friends.

Scizzor.8137:

Mesmers are gods for this path. We have the most reflects and contol effects. These are needed for the oozes, the generators, and the last boss. So.. mesmers are very very very very far from useless.

Sounds more like a job for an engineer. :P

Thanks for all the tips, and thanks for not raging against me (though I could’ve done without any veiled criticism—if you have something to say, just say it and stop beating around the bush).

The biggest problem was that I was new to the dungeon, as I have already mentioned, and, therefore, was not prepared. I usually carry multiple weapon sets, but I just recently got impatient with my money and sold most of them, so I was woefully unprepared for any switches.

As for knowing my class…Well, I know it, but the only weapons I had weren’t suited for some of the content (‘cause I sold ’em :d) which would be why I said I was a bit useless. (It would have probably been best to emphasize bouncy, cloney mesmers were a bit useless instead of lumping them all together.) I don’t particularly mind being told to “L2P [your class]”, but I would like to clear up that it was more me being unprepared for a new dungeon than being a total noob at mesmer.

That’s kind of understandable, right? I just wished we had the chance to finish. Hopefully my next attempt will be completed successfully (with a variety of weapon sets, of course, now that I know that they’re absolutely essential).

The first time I cleared the dungeon with a pug we were stuck on Slick and Sparki for easily an hour (factor in that we were openly experimenting with different tactics to see what was and wasn’t viable).

When we finally had a strategy figured out that we were sure would work and that we could effectively teach other people, the party kept wiping due to one warrior that refused to follow instruction. He would get ooze aggro, ignore it, and run all over the room, so oil pools were scattered and unmanagable. He thought what he was doing the right thing and rage quit when everyone else told him to stop and listen. We had someone else come in, from LFG tool, that did listen, and we beat it on the first try.

One player with a bad attitude can have a huge negative effect on the party. In my experience, pug issues come down to…

1. Failure to stick to a plan
2. Failure to communicate
3. Failure to adapt
4. Refusal to follow
5. Lack of patience

More often than not, the people rage quitting were contributing to the problem. I would rather have four new people with me that can stick together and are capable than one Prima donna that is going to do his own thing and have an attitude about it.

If you are having a really hard time puggin, hit me up in game and ill try to get people into guild groups. No armor check, min AP or specific profession required. We have gotten pretty efficient.

Did the TA Aether Path for the first time last night. And the group made it through with out a single death(beyond Down), and we were able to clear MOST of the post Path Achievements :-)

Group was

Guard
Mes
Thief
Eng
Ele

In all reality, best group experience in GW2 in a long while. There was no group chat, no one ‘waiting for someone to engage’, and no ‘follow the leader’. Everyone worked like a well oiled machine, unnaturally.

The Path itself isn’t to bad. Just lots of stunning (getting tired of the stun lock theme I’m seeing). A couple cool cut scenes, 35mins to get through the bosses. And easy loot.

Silver.3284:

clint.5681:

““kill helo!!” " was probably tellin you to kill the holograms which is how you destroy the generators and you guys didnt understand, he saw that and probably thought it would be a waste of time to continue.

You mean that typing “Guys, you kill the generators by killing the holos, please focus on halos, do not attack gens” was too much of an effort?

I finished this dungeon and we only had one guy rage quit on the oozes. Oddly once replaced, we did the oozes on the second try like a walk in the park.
My issue is that the mechanics are interesting and punishing yet ppl see fit to explain them in two word sentences: “kill holo”, “follow path”, “kite ooze” and then have the expectation that once this direction is given, you will immediately proceed to follow it flawlessly. How am I supposed to know how to kite the ooze if I had no time to see the spring? Where am I supposed to kite the ooze to if I did not get to see the end of the path yet?
And at the end of the day, part of the fun is to understand the mechanics. Sure, I will kite the bloody ooze but you need to first give me 2 mins to check the spring and then walk to the end of the path to see the end point.

Holograms, or holos*
:)

To the OP. I don’t see anything about how the other players where holding up their end of the bargain on this run. It reads like you’re blaming yourself for all the challenges that the group was having and I would encourage you not to do that. Sounds to me like the entire group was not really getting the job done.

Hey, at least you know the instance for the most part and it looks like other Mesmers are offering up some sound advice. Take it, improve, and kick butt next time you’re in there.

AcidicVision.5498:

One player with a bad attitude can have a huge negative effect on the party. In my experience, pug issues come down to…

1. Failure to stick to a plan
2. Failure to communicate
3. Failure to adapt
4. Refusal to follow
5. Lack of patience

More often than not, the people rage quitting were contributing to the problem. I would rather have four new people with me that can stick together and are capable than one Prima donna that is going to do his own thing and have an attitude about it.
.

Ill say this is very true. Besides what he said this path is a pugbuster for the unexperienced. You should always try to atleast read a guide or watch a quick youtube video if your unexpereinced with a dungeon path. That might seem like a lot to do for some people but it can save you and those around you alot of trouble and time.

After you read up on how to do the dungeon you can either
1. lead the next group yourself
2. join an expereinced group and just do your part to get it done.

Ive watched youtube before paths plenty of times and joined parties looking for experienced people and have never had a problem since i knew exactly what to do and my team was none the wiser that it was my first time running it.

clint.5681:

Ill say this is very true. Besides what he said this path is a pugbuster for the unexperienced. You should always try to atleast read a guide or watch a quick youtube video if your unexpereinced with a dungeon path. That might seem like a lot to do for some people but it can save you and those around you alot of trouble and time.

After you read up on how to do the dungeon you can either
1. lead the next group yourself
2. join an expereinced group and just do your part to get it done.

This is one of the reasons I love this dungeon path, it is not just a “simple” attack and kill path (not to mention having to deal with people screaming to skip every group of enemies that you can, since its not possible). This is a MMO game, you work together with other people to achieve the goals. If you are unable to work together with other people because you don’t want to for whatever reason, then this dungeon path is not for you. This dungeon path requires THINKING.

Sad story OP. But here are few things that can help you in the next run when you go:

- You now know the mechanics
- Ask politely if your team knows the mechanincs
- Explain briefly like: “Guys, we have to kite to oozes to the gears without them dying. You can get the ooze-kiting buff from these plants (mark them). Try it out now!”
- If you get to a new part (like the electro-floor puzzle) whch even you haven’t seen before, say something like: “Guys, this isn’t working, there must be a pattern, let’s observe for a while”

That’s my 2 cents. It was working for me. Hope you have more luck next time.

Oh, and on a sidenote: Mesmers are very useful (I main a mesmer). Use focus pull, GS push, Feedback, Null field, #3 shatter skill, the stun sigil.

I don’t get everyone’s issue with this dungeon. I did it with 2 Guards, 1 Thief, 1 Ele and 1 Engi about 10 minutes after the patch went in. Set up a group with 1 guildie (rest were pug) and waltzed in. We had no issues up to the oozes. Figured out the oozes after failing for about 5 minutes. We ended up pulling all of the eles in the room and kiting them around as best we could while oozes were led across [it’s important to not let the ooze waste time by trying to attack you by the way].

After that was Sparki and Slick which we figured out after about 1-2 minutes. We actually had the elementalist going AFK randomly so we were 1 short. Killed Sparki first. Slick was a cake-walk and wasn’t really shooting out that much oil (or the person kiting was doing an excellent job and I didn’t notice).

The Foreman was a pain because we weren’t quite sure how to get the achievement (and we didn’t). We wiped once on him because we were just trying to get his mechanics down. After that one wipe he was an easy kill (albeit annoying).

Clockheart was the biggest pain b/c people weren’t listening. Two people ended up leaving (I recall we kicked one because he went AFK and another had to leave for irl stuff). We grabbed two guildies and killed Clockheart easily [well…it was painful, but it only took about 3-4 minutes].

It wasn’t really that big of a deal. I wouldn’t mind doing the dungeon again, but I suppose I can see where the lack of communication can be a problem. However, just b/c you are in a PUG doesn’t mean you will fail. Make sure everyone speaks your language and does actually respond while also making sure the group set-up is feasible. 1 Guard + 4 Neccros for instance is not a good idea. 2 Guards, 2 Warr’s and 1 whatever is pretty good as long as the guards (for this instance) have support along with the Warr’s. This isn’t an all-out DPS instance until you get passed Sparki and Slick. It’s almost like a puzzle-type dungeon which is perfect. I think every dungeon should be similar, but they should have better rewards than they currently have.

Speed-runs, etc. make dungeons seem craptacular IMO.