Guild Wars 2

I just finished the new dungeon path. Overall, I think it is pretty decent and BY NO MEANS too hard. Quite on the contrary, even. Do not listen to people who consider something light like this hard, please, Arenanet.

The dungeon is nicely structered and everything looks really good visually. I like the fact that there is much more open space, too. Therefore, people have less room for LoS’ing group of mobs (it is possible in many places for sure though). I also like the addition of puzzles and other tasks, so a dungeon does not feel like a corridor full of mobs and then a final boss.

Unfortunately, we get a feeling of unlocking one room after another which is very artificial and the dungeon is horribly linear. In my opinion, it does not make any sense to break the bad linearity AFTER the final boss is killed. Moreover, additional events and bonus quests shouldn’t be exclusive for after the last boss, too. There should always be optional and of course rewarding bonus missions in the progress of a dungeon, not only after it.

While I generally like the way trash mobs are handled in this dungeon, they still have issues: Many of them neither give loot nor count towards stacking sigils which is very annoying. Due to this, there are even less reasons to kill them despite you are forced to do so. But Anet definitely learned in this regard as the mobs mostly have lower health pools and the aetherblades don’t stun you all day anymore.

The bosses. Yeah, the bosses are fine I guess. The only boss in this dungeon which I think is absolutely horrible, boring and shallow is that guy in the middle of a huge free space which yo have to clean from a million aetherblades beforehand. The only interesting thing is that wave thing we now from MF, but even that seemed to do anything. That boss is way too easy, too. In order to illustrate my biggest issue with this dungeon, let’s look at the very first puzzle where we have to pull 2 oozes at the same time:

The event isn’t that hard and works very well. You are done and everything’s fine. Bam, the next boss, Slick and Spark, AGAIN requires you to kite an ooze. I like this boss so it isn’t that annoying, but the kiting won’t end as you have to kite the very last boss through a huge room, too. And that was a little bit too much in my opinion. Kite, kite, kite, nothing else than kiting something to some sort of thing. Even the electro field puzzle right before the boss again involves kiting a holo to the door. It’s just too much.

Yes, you might say that it’s a good thing when Guild Wars 2 finally requires you to move in a fight, and it is. But it shouldn’t evolve around kiting only. Make us do other things, too.

It also makes many random guys think that range is a good idea in this dungeon which isn’t as everything can be meleed for a rather quick kill easily.

I guess you have been conditioned to just stand still and AFK dps bosses in dungeons?

This kiting is a mechanic – deal with it.

There are a dozen other paths in the game that don’t require kiting and you can just GS warrior zerk it down. This path requires movement and coordination throughout and it’s a welcome change. Even the other two paths don’t require kiting considering a majority of the bosses are static or can be melee facerolled.

I suggest you read my post again.

I like it in the most cases, but I clearly stated why it is too much in this dungeon.

I agree with Spur being too shallow/boring/easy and with the optional events, but I don’t really consider them as great issues.

I disagree with kiting being too much. Anyone decent at it should not even see it as a hassle, as it comes naturally.

I wish we could skip the cinematics and the necessity to open every chest to complete the event. It should be enough to only find them. That’s my only major complaint.

I’m not sure I understand this. The boss with all the aetherblades around him is definitely the easiest in the dungeon, and kind of a faceroll, but for the rest, it seems like you’re complaining about two things: that one person (only one person!) has to kite an ooze around in the Slick/Sparki fight, and that you have to kite holos. Actually, you don’t have to kite holos; you just have to move them around, and that’s easier with pulls than kiting, though of course kiting works, too. And yeah, one person has to kite an ooze around for Slick/Sparki, but it’s just one person, and that person changes. I guess if you really don’t like kiting, that’s a problem. But otherwise I’m not seeing how kiting is the primary mechanic in this dungeon or anything.

I like that they gated the encounters/stuff so that I won’t have to deal with OMG SPEED RUN FASTER YOU kitten when I want to go at a steady pass and not skip every single trash mob.

That they use stuff more than once in a dungeon is actually good old gamedesign.

You kite the ooze before the ooze bossfight so you understand the mechanik.
- with the buff he follows me and he hits like a truck

So when the bossfight starts you do not need to get this explained because you already know this

The same with the holographs. The first easy encounters are just there so you understand the mechanic before the final bossfight.
They did the same thing in the other 2 living story dungeons.

I like that. Without great explaining or textboxes or videos. You understand the mechanic yourself, when you encounter them the first time you have always time to figure it out.

Not sure why you were kiting in the final fight though. We just pulled holographs to the boss or the boss to the holographs.

I got to the ooze-elemental door nonsense and then graciously dropped from party. I got the only TA skin I will ever want months ago and don’t care about scarlet or anything related to the sky pirates. Patches like this make me glad Anet updates so regularly because if I am not interested I only have a few days until something worthwhile gets teased and then released.

Just to be clear, it wasn’t expressly difficult but I hate these stupid gimmicks that require very specific strategies and more communication than a pick up group can manage over ingame chat.

Solo.9027:

I got to the ooze-elemental door nonsense and then graciously dropped from party. I got the only TA skin I will ever want months ago and don’t care about scarlet or anything related to the sky pirates. Patches like this make me glad Anet updates so regularly because if I am not interested I only have a few days until something worthwhile gets teased and then released.

Just to be clear, it wasn’t expressly difficult but I hate these stupid gimmicks that require very specific strategies and more communication than a pick up group can manage over ingame chat.

It seems you’re just not skilled enough to do the dungeon or don’t want to even dedicate the time to understand the mechanics and explain it to the rest of the party.

This dungeon isn’t even hard. I really wonder how you’d deal with Arah P4.

Vol.5241:

Solo.9027:

I got to the ooze-elemental door nonsense and then graciously dropped from party. I got the only TA skin I will ever want months ago and don’t care about scarlet or anything related to the sky pirates. Patches like this make me glad Anet updates so regularly because if I am not interested I only have a few days until something worthwhile gets teased and then released.

Just to be clear, it wasn’t expressly difficult but I hate these stupid gimmicks that require very specific strategies and more communication than a pick up group can manage over ingame chat.

It seems you’re just not skilled enough to do the dungeon or don’t want to even dedicate the time to understand the mechanics and explain it to the rest of the party.

This dungeon isn’t even hard. I really wonder how you’d deal with Arah P4.

Ive never even tried p4 because I only pug this game. I’ve done p1-3 enough to make its gift and a whole arah set if thats enough to qualify my opinion in your book…

I’ve done this new path with pugs only and we had no probs with it.