Guild Wars 2

Hiya,

I just got done trying to do one of the AC exploration paths with a group of guild friends. They had all done it before, it was only my second dungeon, though.

We spent one hour dying to the spider boss before finally getting it down.

We spent one hour dying/failing at the part where you have to keep the npc alive.

3 people in the group were level 80 and all of us were over the required level by a substantial margin.

This has been one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had gaming. The dungeon and mob design in these fights were so bad it goes beyond abysmal. I almost always try to give positive, constructive feedback but it’s nearing impossible for this. My friends told me the dungeon didn’t always use to be like it is now. Whatever you did, go back and do some more testing because it was just… awful.

I can’t attest to the skill of my friends- but they seem very competent. We were all on Mumble planning each encounter and reacting live to changes. I, personally, did hardcore raiding in World of Warcraft and was the raid leader of the best raiding guild on my (crappy) server for several years. The fact that after an two hours in this dungeon we were still wiping/failing every attempt is just embarrassing.

I logged into a forum account just to say this. Thanks for your time, and I hope that in the near future I’m much less disappointed with this game.

With the new AC, your experience will vary with each group.

I’ve done all the path of the new AC with pugs and my guild group a few times. They pretty much just buffed the spider boss and the trash in the dungeon. The end bosses are all pretty much easier now, except for p2 boss tending to be a bit buggy.

Like any “hard” content, the dungeons in GW2 are more easily done with the right tactics. There are video guides in the sticky, and in this thread there is a post by Ratty that outlines a tactic for the “protect Hodgins event.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/AC-Path-1-can-I-thin-the-gravelings/first#post1926064

Sounds like you did path one. Hodgins. That room ruins an otherwise fun dungeon. Ive probably done that path fifty times and it just doesnt get any better over time. It seems like either your group is going to succeed in there or not with very little middle ground. That is attempting it over and over again has rarely resulted in success. Too bad that room is such a choke point because the next room where you gather the rest of the pieces is really fun. The final boss is actually pretty fun to do legit too even though most pugs will glitch him.

I do think the new AC varies greatly depending on the team and tactics. I’ve done it several times with some guildies that isn’t my usual party members, as well as pugs and we wiped a few times at spider queen, and many times we killed her just barely, with myself and maybe one or two more party members alive. Kholer is usually skipped, and one guy said because it’s simply suicide to fight him without first having the Cave troll boss to duel with him and weaken both.

Recently though I ran the new AC with my regular group of people; guildies who i ran dungeons with since november. I hardly changed my style or tactics much. we killed spider queen without too much fuss, a few downs once in a while and thts it. We fought kholer and feel that he doesnt kill u as fast with his pull and spin attacks as he used to and we negated his minions quickly that it wasn’t even an issue. Defend Hodgins room proved a little tougher, the guardian who usually can solo tank to guard hodgins cant do it alone anymore, and after failing twice we did things a little different… so after 4-5 burrows done, 2 of us went for the last burrows while the rest helps defend hodgins.

Path 2 the ghostbusters part there were some issues to traps bugging out, but we didnt wipe and took ghost eater down after triggering traps 3 times.

So is the new AC too hard? A lot of people think so. And prior to my recent run, I am inclined to agree. But after that run, it does seem do-able. Problem is, of course, this is in a group of mostly people who ran with each other since November. We practically tailored our toon’s build to complement each other. As the first dungeon, a lvl 35 dungeon, is that REALLY the benchmark of teams required to run it? Well I’m sure different people will have different thoughts on that.

But again I stress- I was with a group of people who knew the strategy, and were very well geared. We even tried swapping out between a half dozen different class combos.

Like you said, this is the lowest level dungeon in the game, and the first one that people are likely to do (after story mode). Should it really be so hard that every group no matter how good wipes enough that it’s frustrating and not fun?

I understand the want for challenging content- I get that. But there’s a difference between a real challenge (follow the mechanics of the fight, don’t make mistakes) and one where it’s just a matter of having the right classes (which the dev team SWORE up and down wouldn’t be required for this game) and the right gear. I tailored my thief JUST for that fight, and we still couldn’t do it.

I have to say I’d prefer “hard” content be a real challenge rather than a number test.

I’d say that the spider queen fight now heavily emphasises on active defense, rather than passive mitigation. Watch your feet!

Also, for the burrows part, I agree that it is a killer, but if you have a guardian, ele or mesmer, your chance of success is higher. Of course, eles are almost practically the norm for this particular section… tsk.

We had a lvl 61 Ele and a lvl 80 guardian.

I think the changes to the dungeon were good except the hodgkins room, that part is the reason I quit doing path 1 completely. Path 2 is really fun now and path 3 isnt so bad, but the end bosses on both of those paths are still pretty buggy. If you can live around the bugs those are the ony paths you should ever do in that dungeon, don’t waste your time on path 1, because that’s exactly what it is,a waste of time. You’ll thank me after you run p2. Ghost Eater is one of my favorite bosses now

Maybe your friends just aren’t as competent as you think they are. It isn’t one of the simplest dungeons, but the pubbie groups I join tend to manage just fine the majority of the time. Usually without wipes.The only real occasional hangup is the ghost eater room, which I admit is often a bit much for a group of random people, especially with the bugs.

You’re acting like everyone just wipes all day all the time in AC and that isn’t even remotely true. If you get a few people who know what they’re doing it is an absolute breeze even without any communication or planning at all.

Path 1 is so incredibly easy… after few month of not beeing in AC my last run was a 7 minute duo with wrong traits.

AC is easy, but cm on most of us the first time we do AC exp say his same words

The spider boss is so easy. I think it was last week when I joined some random pug with people around lvl 40 and they all got wiped on the spider. It had about half health left so I just finished it on my own. It was funny to see their reactions. I’m a lvl 80 guardian.

The burrow part can be tricky with random people, but if you just work together it’s not that hard. We got it on the second try with the same pug, and they were not experienced. I just told them what to do, they understood it 100% and we just did it. We didn’t even have elementalists to summon ice bows.

For a long time I didn’t want do to new AC, mostly because of the posts on this forum. But this last weekend I was forced to get 180 (3 runs) because I wanted a piece of armor.

From what I have seen, AC is not hard, it’s only when people try to glitch or speed run that they fail and cause all kinds of cluster kittens. Just run it as intended and it will be fine. The spider queen is easy, kill adds, kill fire traps, queen spawns, kill few adds, keep out of red circles, stun break. DPS down low health Queen. easy.

your party is probably full of bad players who only know traditional (lame) mmo facetank and spank.

spider queen is simple > avoid aoe pools > avoid being in front of her

movement and positioning is important.

Spider boss is so easy, maybe you need to look into your builds?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pymBXNnH150

Tower Guard.5263:

For a long time I didn’t want do to new AC, mostly because of the posts on this forum. But this last weekend I was forced to get 180 (3 runs) because I wanted a piece of armor.

From what I have seen, AC is not hard, it’s only when people try to glitch or speed run that they fail and cause all kinds of cluster kittens. Just run it as intended and it will be fine. The spider queen is easy, kill adds, kill fire traps, queen spawns, kill few adds, keep out of red circles, stun break. DPS down low health Queen. easy.

Stun break? O_o
I don’t remember getting stunned, just a lot of immobolize.

Wiping repeatedly at the Champion Spider for “competent” players is impossible. I swear I could solo that thing, and there are videos out there showing an Engineer solo it, or a full lv 35 party running the whole dungeon.

Your raiding days are over, this is a new game and you have to adapt.

Can.9234:

Try to be organized then. Harder dungeons more than welcome to me.

Hard does not mean fun. Making dungeons hard is easy.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Like any “hard” content, the dungeons in GW2 are more easily done with the right tactics. There are video guides in the sticky, and in this thread there is a post by Ratty that outlines a tactic for the “protect Hodgins event.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/AC-Path-1-can-I-thin-the-gravelings/first#post1926064

Honest question, do you think there is a tactic for the spider queen? I haven’t done AC much since the patch and I personally don’t find her difficult now (I won’t melee or hope for a living pet though) but I’ve noticed a lot more people dieing on it. Aside from staying out of her red circles (dungeon running 101) and bringing a ranged weapon is there a tactic to this fight?

I think a lot of the disparity between people who want more “challenging” content and people who struggle is actually a build wars issue. They made all weapons have the first five preset skills so it was harder to make a bad build, but compare the average build to the cookie cutters and it’s clear that there are still bad builds (but more importantly, some builds which begin to trivialise content which is otherwise challenging).

Having condition removal helps. The spider queen cycles between cast the poison circles and immobilize. If you’re watching her then you can dodge right when she shoots the poison at you and avoid being in the circle most of the time. This is assuming that you’re ranged and all are spread out. A lot of the time people do not spread out and the circles overlap making it almost instant death.

If you have the DPS then all stack and attack her. When she’s about to use her attack just dodge through her. You can still dodge within the first second of being hit with immobilize.

If she can be solo’d then surely a group can take her. Expect her to throw a poison circle at you and plan where you want it to be. This is how a lot of us can solo her.

If you want to avoid the mass spiders then here’s how. Attack the first group that are already there and pull them to the stiarcase. DON’T go to the far side of the room yet. DON’T kill the ones on the upper platform where she spawns. Once these are are gone have one person go to the far side of the room to spawn the second group. Kill these without killing the ones on the upper platform.

Once these are gone then you can kill the ones on the upper platform to spawn the spider queen and the last wave of spiders. Have a guardian or mesmer (if you have one) pull all of the spiders to a single location so you can AoE/cleave them quickly. Everyone must kill these first before fighting the spider queen.

Obviously you should destroy the fire turrets and I’m sure you can use your best judgement when to do this.

Shiren.9532:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Like any “hard” content, the dungeons in GW2 are more easily done with the right tactics. There are video guides in the sticky, and in this thread there is a post by Ratty that outlines a tactic for the “protect Hodgins event.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/AC-Path-1-can-I-thin-the-gravelings/first#post1926064

Honest question, do you think there is a tactic for the spider queen? I haven’t done AC much since the patch and I personally don’t find her difficult now (I won’t melee or hope for a living pet though) but I’ve noticed a lot more people dieing on it. Aside from staying out of her red circles (dungeon running 101) and bringing a ranged weapon is there a tactic to this fight?

I think a lot of the disparity between people who want more “challenging” content and people who struggle is actually a build wars issue. They made all weapons have the first five preset skills so it was harder to make a bad build, but compare the average build to the cookie cutters and it’s clear that there are still bad builds (but more importantly, some builds which begin to trivialise content which is otherwise challenging).

Tactics for spider? Only in terms of learning the tell for the immobilize, the patterns of the circles and staying away from the spit cone.

I’m not sure that any one factor can account for all or most of the disparity you refer to. Build issues certainly contribute to this disparity. Some people choose their builds because they find them fun. Those choices usually work fine in the open world, but may not in dungeons.

I also think that expectations play a part. People coming from other MMO’s are used to dungeons that are easy, requiring little beyond skill use for everyone but the tank, who has some small positioning responsibility. There’s a kind of game culture shock at having to move and think for yourself.

Then there’s timing. Some dangerous mob attacks are easy to negate (Kholer, once you learn the timing and if you don’t get distracted), some are not. Not everyone has the same twitch reflexes. There’s also system issues. I recently got a bigger monitor, and the extremely minor difference in rendering times (with the same settings) meant that my timing for getting an evasion proc (like, for the dodge daily) was affected. Some of the discrepancy may boil down to borderline systems making people a fraction late, and with some hits, that’s all it takes.

Also, there’s assumptions. People think, well I’ll just play better next time, and don’t think about what happened and what they can change to give themselves a better chance. I’ve seen groups go right back into an encounter they wiped on and do the exact same things while expecting a different result. Sometimes they get lucky, and this reinforces the behavior.

Walls of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Swirling Winds, Condition Clensing, Smoke fields all work really well against the small spiders, which a lot of the time I find is what wipes parties. Once you have the Giant Spider on it’s own, a decent player can more or less solo the thing, it’s just a case of dodging the immobolize and keeping out of red circles.

My Guild stayed away from AC for a looong time after the patch. We heard so many bad things about it we decided it wasn’t worth the time anymore. Pre-patch we ran sometimes all three paths every night including killing kohler and the troll for more money.

We recently tried it out because one of our guys needed tokens for his legendary. The spider Queen wiped us the first time as we had not seen her new attacks before, but after that it’s really not bad. Reflects for the little spiders really help a lot – always kill them first before focusing the Queen. We quickly noticed that yes, they made boss changes, however the creatures health pools have been reduced, for the trash and the bosses – so it kind of balances out.

Kohler got easier – any group that skips him is lame. Yes he has adds, but he still has the same old very easy to dodge charge-up skill, he does less damage, has less health, and the adds die from AoE within seconds.

For Path 1 defending Hodgins and the burrows, IMO the most PUG friendly method would be for someone tanky or someone good with movement/evades to toy with the gravelings at the mound by the entrance while the other 4 take out the two mounds on the left. Then the group should take the long way around (staying away from Hodgins) on their return to the center/right side of the room to help the solo player with the three mounds in the center/right. At this point, with one mound left, Hodgins should still have full health. At any point if he does start taking damage, one person just needs to go over and smack the graveling(s) to steal aggro and kite away. Then all that is left is the mound in the top left corner. Either all can go, or some stay behind to kite away from Hodgins while 1 to 3 people go take care of the last mound. Pretty easy. A lot of times due to the graveling KD, picking someone up off the floor can be suicide. At that point there should only be at most two mounds left, better to try finishing without them. The end boss of Path 1 can be made pretty trivial if you aggro him when he is in the top right (or back) corner of the room. Most of the adds that come from the tunnels will suicide in the fire rings. Ones that don’t can be kited into them, or use pushes, pulls, etc. The boss dies pretty fast.