Guild Wars 2

I’m poking my head out into the forums, because I want you developers to know that I think you did a fantastic job on this dungeon – and why (after all, that’s the only way you’ll know I want more).

Background: started with a level 80 PUG, all blind players – just after the patch went live.

Ooze Gate: Really nice to see something that encourages party splitting, that’s fairly infrequent in this game. It took us a couple tries to figure out how to do it, but it wasn’t too hard and we got through in just a few minutes.

Slick and Sparki: Excellent duo. We had to wipe about five times before we realized what was killing us (the toxins created by Slick’s oil). Once we did, however, we were able to mop the floor with them. Really nice use of kiting mechanics and rewarding teamwork, mobility, and survival skills.

Holograms: Great design introducing them early and then using them for the rest of the dungeon. Took a second to figure out what to do with them in an easy situation (1 generator) and then the difficulty ramped up plenty once you learn what to do.

Clockheart: This is a REALLY good boss. He hits hard, doesn’t have too much HP, and has brutal but rewarding mechanics. We wiped no less than a dozen times on this boss; I was internally raging pretty hard by the end of it. But I realized how good it was once our party came together and actually succeeded. Super rewarding both for good teamwork and individual skill – being able to survive, kite, do damage, and pull (and be aware enough of when to push/pull/kill the holograms) are all equally beneficial in this fight.

Dungeon Overall: Fairly long. Took a group of blind players a bit over 3 hours to complete. Which is just fine – that number will get shorter as players get better at it (and I know we had to stop quite a few times due to a couple disconnects and swapping out 2 party members). It’s challenging but extremely fair; never once did I feel like the game was cheating me out of a victory (well, maybe once or twice when the hologram strikers decided to start walking away before reaching the Clockheart). The adds are challenging at times but populated with enough veteran/regular foes that you can both easily rally off of them and also just plow through the groups if your party is good enough.

The end was also very cool, a super calm easy moment to fight some weaker pirates and run around the dungeon and take a good long look at it while hunting treasure. It felt better than killing the boss and just warping back into Caledon, for sure.

So, here’s one player telling you that this was a FANTASTIC level 80 dungeon path, really great job on it – and I want to see more! (Oh, also, loved Caithe’s banter through the whole thing. It showed a really interesting side to her character.)

I agree with the topic creator. Standing ovation. Doing this with a blind party was a great experience.

stands up and claps

Great job on the path!

Thank you OP for pointing out all the awesome aspects of the new path so well!

Took me a few parties to complete. Ooze coordination being 1st major reason for player drops. The wipes caused by toxic stacks for the pair of bosses the 2nd. And last boss’ buffed mechanics causing wipes and lack successful of holo luring.

I felt there was too much use of luring the ai mechanic in the path, made awkward with various pet classes, compulsive kiters and folk who dps any red name.

Aajolea.8132:

I felt there was too much use of luring the ai mechanic in the path, made awkward with various pet classes, compulsive kiters and folk who dps any red name.

Good. Maybe it’ll teach those players how to do something different then, yeah? It’s about time the game rewarded something besides standing still and smacking the enemy.

my first party, a member got kitten on the ooze part leading to the end of the path. he started cussing and ended up leaving which was quite hilarious. my second party made it towards the end and beat the dungeon. this dungeon is great, it’s best to go with positive people or else i can assure you that someone will always be mad at some part of the dungeon. i’m super glad i was able to do this with great people, pug group mind you.

I’m a fan of the path, for sure. I think the fights are interesting and challenging without being impossible. I didn’t bring down the final boss because I had to run, and I found him to be the most difficult of the bunch. I didn’t like not getting tokens along the way, but that’s about it. High praise to the devs in charge of this.

Aajolea.8132:

Took me a few parties to complete. Ooze coordination being 1st major reason for player drops. The wipes caused by toxic stacks for the pair of bosses the 2nd. And last boss’ buffed mechanics causing wipes and lack successful of holo luring.

I felt there was too much use of luring the ai mechanic in the path, made awkward with various pet classes, compulsive kiters and folk who dps any red name.

You don’t have to do holo luring in the last boss fight. Instead of kiting the boss into the holograms, you could pull or knock the holograms to the boss and kill them.

I really did enjoy this path as well. It was nice to not rush past everything and the bosses took something other than stack in a corner and pew pew.

I too love it. The end boss is hard but not impossible. Yeah the knockbacks get annoying after a while, but well timed stability and dodging helps!

I will not miss FW/UP. I love the puzzles and mechanics and this is wonderful.

Thank you!

Walhalla.5473:

Aajolea.8132:

Took me a few parties to complete. Ooze coordination being 1st major reason for player drops. The wipes caused by toxic stacks for the pair of bosses the 2nd. And last boss’ buffed mechanics causing wipes and lack successful of holo luring.

I felt there was too much use of luring the ai mechanic in the path, made awkward with various pet classes, compulsive kiters and folk who dps any red name.

You don’t have to do holo luring in the last boss fight. Instead of kiting the boss into the holograms, you could pull or knock the holograms to the boss and kill them.

Indeed. When my team finally won we used a combination of me luring the holograms toward the boss, maneuvering around them and using Point Blank Shot to knock them into place, and if they were still not close enough after that our guardian would use the greatsword-pull to get them on top of the Clockheart. After a dozen wipes, we did that without a single down.

I’ll add my voice to the praise as well. While I’m glad there are mindless zerg paths in the game for those that want them, I think dungeons really shine when the group has to work together to get past obstacles. It gives a sense of teamwork and can pull a group (even of pugs) together. Did this dungeon four times last night just because I enjoy that aspect of the game so much.

More like this in the future, please.

Blaeys.3102:

I’ll add my voice to the praise as well.

So shall I.

Good job, ANET, you nailed it

Don’t let bad players (even casuals can learn this out) dissuade you from making more of this content. In fact, please make it so that this kind of content is the norm.

I agree with the OP, me and my guildies did the path last night. We went in completely cold turkey so we had to figure everything out. Man we wiped so many times lol. And we were raging so hard. But holy crap it felt so rewarding at the end to finally pull it all off. I’m really glad the boss fights had actual mechanics instead of just dps sponges. Don’t listen to the spoiled faceroll players that aren’t even taking the time to figure out a boss fight with a specific mechanic.

Kudos to the designers. A most excellent adventure.

I like how the difficulties come in the form of discovering the mechanics of each battle, and adapting your strategy to that…. instead of the “More HP & One Hit Kills” that we see in other areas of the game. Also, the “Stack and Smack” technique doesn’t work.

I also like how there’s very little in the way of “trash mobs” between the key encounters… it’s pretty much all key encounters. This keeps the pacing good, and doesn’t let it feel like a long grind.

Waypoints were plentiful, so you didn’t suffer a several minute run back to the action after a wipe. (I’m looking at you Arah….)

I like how coordination is needed, but not hideous enough to require voip or other pug unfriendly things.

If this is the standand you hold yourselves to for future updates, I will be extremely pleased.