Guild Wars 2

Yes, dumb, because gravelings hit harder than champion mobs in other dungeons. How is that logical? I am a full exotic geared Norn Warrior and got two hit by ONE single graveling. Wtf? Also, neither my bow or two swords are able to hit the burrows most of the time. This is a clear BUG. And no, couldn’t report it, middle of trying it out with hundreds of zerging gravelings on us. We gave up after a dozen tries and a massive repair bill. There is NO fun in not being able to even hit the burrows ANet. Always getting MISS, OBSTRUCTED or OUT OF RANGE (when standing right in front of it). Only my bow’s aoe skills are able to hit them.
Please fix this. Doesn’t make sense that AC is 3 times harder than CoF! (And CoF is quite hard as it is, but at least doable with good coordination.
Thanks!

The misses on burrows are annoying. Regardless of that AC is still easy, so I guess you need to play better.

Instead of telling me to play better (you don’t even know me or how we tried this part so many times), tell me how YOU do it. If you want to help. I do CoF in under 30 minutes with a good team with barely any deaths, so I would say I know how to play quite well. It takes more than 3 mobs continuously hitting me in CoF to kill me. A single graveling in AC can kill me in two shots. Same gear setup. Is that ok for you?

As a master of the AC dungeon, I don’t feel your pain.

It isn’t that AC is 3 times harder than CoF, it is that CoF is 3x easier than CoF.

Burrows are bugged, sky to ground AoEs tend to rip them up though. Melee however can circumvent this issue by constantly strafing left and right to adjust for the moving hit box. Interesting fact, the smoothest runs I’ve ever had in all three AC paths were with a full on 5 heavy group.

Graveling Scavengers are the ones to look out for, they can keep you knocked down and basically take a dump on your chest if you don’t have stun breaks, blocks, stability and what not (you do it’s called Balanced Stance and Dolyak Signet). In the defend Hodgins event, the burrow in the left most corner are the ones that spawn scavengers, make sure that one goes down fast.

The only challenging path in CoF is path 3, 1 and 2 are faceroll. That being said, AC is one of the dungeons you can clear all 3 paths with a PuG easily and do it in a reasonable time frame despite the issue with burrows. If you think CoF is hard, then a lot of people will use that against you to judge your skill level and they have good reasons.

Also, if you’re getting two-shot as a heavy by a dungeon mob, then perhaps reevaluate your gearing choices, the worst thing to see in a dungeon is a Warrior who is squishier than the thief or elementalist. I regularly take people in their mid 40s or late 30s and they do fine, if they can do it, so can you.

TLDR: AC is easily do able by anyone, you’re just not used to the dungeon yet and should reevaluate a bit. After all, all those ghastly weapons people are wielding didn’t come from nothing, clearly the dungeon is impossible and they’re all hackers.

I’ve only tried this path once and my group gave up on this encounter because we couldn’t down the burrows in 8 seconds. It sucks.

ThunderStorm.3140:

Instead of telling me to play better (you don’t even know me or how we tried this part so many times), tell me how YOU do it. If you want to help. I do CoF in under 30 minutes with a good team with barely any deaths, so I would say I know how to play quite well. It takes more than 3 mobs continuously hitting me in CoF to kill me. A single graveling in AC can kill me in two shots. Same gear setup. Is that ok for you?

In short this is how I do it (assuming you mean the path 1 kill burrows thing):
- Get a stunbreaker
- Make sure the NPC doesn’t take damage
- Focus on the 2 west burrows and kill the breeder before moving on to the other burrows (not the only way, I’ve even seen PuGs doing it successfully without any real plan but it seemed easier that way)
I honestly can’t understand how you can die in 2 shots, especially as a warrior. When I went there for the first time none of us was 80 or geared and after a few wipes we figured it out eventually… Since then I’m not sure I ever died again in that part, even in PuG.

It’s easy, but you just have to do it in the right order. The additional burrows that spawn after killing one of the first burrows spawn stronger mobs. Nuke the west burrow, and then kill the one that spawns after that (south west). Then kill the one that spawns after that (north east). Then kill the other 1st burrow and finish it up. You will need 1 or 2 people protecting the guy while killing the 2nd burrow that spawns.

What kind of warrior did you roll? If youre a glass cannon thats fine as you can nuke down breeders/burrows effectively but it DOES require you to be lighter on your feet and aware of your situation more often. That could explain why youre dying so easily. Im not saying youre not dodging enough or clearing your conditions when you should but based on what youre saying it seems to be the case.

So whats your build? We can all give you general advise but the real meat is in your weapon/trait choices. If we know how you want to play, we can help you play that way.

Generally speaking strafing greatsword is great for burrows if you dont have a bow. Dolyak signet is great for making sure a stray scavenger doesnt knock you down en route to an objective. If they do, a stun breaker followed by that same signet (if its off CD) ensures youll get up and stay up.

If you play tanky like me, a helpful thing to do is use a mace/shield/hammer setup with Dolyak signet, endure pain, and a banner of defense to occupy a scavenger while your group brings down the breeder. You still have to be quick on your toes but you can take the hits long enough to have it mean something (provided your trait/rune choices allow you to do so).

Also, after you gather those 5 pieces for the torch and are granted access to the graveling tunnels;
After clearing that first mob you can just run through the tunnels and out to the other side into the boss room. The gravelings won’t follow you out. Just have someone put up a speed buff and go.

ThunderStorm.3140:

Yes, dumb, because gravelings hit harder than champion mobs in other dungeons. How is that logical? I am a full exotic geared Norn Warrior and got two hit by ONE single graveling. Wtf? Also, neither my bow or two swords are able to hit the burrows most of the time. This is a clear BUG. And no, couldn’t report it, middle of trying it out with hundreds of zerging gravelings on us. We gave up after a dozen tries and a massive repair bill. There is NO fun in not being able to even hit the burrows ANet. Always getting MISS, OBSTRUCTED or OUT OF RANGE (when standing right in front of it). Only my bow’s aoe skills are able to hit them.
Please fix this. Doesn’t make sense that AC is 3 times harder than CoF! (And CoF is quite hard as it is, but at least doable with good coordination.
Thanks!

AC isn’t hard by any means. I strictly pug AC daily and it’s cake regardless of path. It’s not possible for a Warrior in full exotic to get 2 shotted by a single graveling to my knowledge. I’ve never seen it happen and I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of AC runs with nothing but pugs. Path 1 is very easy, Path 3 is even easier, for me the hardest path in AC is path 2 but people do it because it’s easier to rez zerg with no strategy.

Number 1 thing that helps is stability. Some of the gravelings can pounce and knock you down and simply gnaw away at your health. It takes awhile to get back up from that knock down. If and when that happens pop a skill that gives you stability and you pop right back up and can get out of the way.

Number 2 as far as the mounds go, keep moving around it while striking. This tends to keep the “miss” issue from happening. AoE skills work good as well.

Number 3 if the Scepter part is your issue then you need to let someone else run it that has swiftness and stability abilities. It’s mad easy for me to solo grab all the pieces. I use my staff for swiftness and I skip the first piece, when I get close to the second piece I pop stability and another swiftness ability. Grab and run. 3rd piece I run and dodge and grab. 4th piece my stability is back up so I pop it and another swiftness skill. I grab the 5th piece is another dodge and grab. On my way back down the stairs since I skipped the first piece no mobs are there and they don’t spawn until I approach and grab the first piece, but I’m down the stairs before they’re out of the ground.

Number 4 if the issue you are having is with the mounds and protecting the NPC then it’s something that varies depending on party makeup. Most should be burning down mounds only leaving the one near the NPC untouched. One or two people should stick by the NPC and kite/protect him until it’s time to kill that mound near him. Then everyone should burn down the remaining mounds.

It’s extremely easy, the hard part is generally figuring out how to get your pug to sync well. Look at the classes you have, assign tasks accordingly and things should go smooth. If no heavy armor classes get 1 medium and 1 light armor class to protect NPC .

I thought this is one of the better made dungeons… with 1 straightforward path, 1 average, and 1 tough path.

The hard hitting mobs are not fast, it is the swarm that you have to watch out for.

Do it a few more times and you’ll feel AC is not ridiculous, the hard one, path 3 I shall just call it challenging.

And I like the idea of 2 fairly achievable paths, and 1 tougher path for those who like to test their limits. CoF is also in this category.

That is with a very solid and experienced team, you can go through 2 paths without any death. With an average team or with newbies, a couple of deaths will be expected in the “achievable” paths.

Paths 1 + 3 are definitely doable, but I’ve failed at both because we lose too much time destroying the burrows because of the miss/obstructed/out of range bugs and we get overwhelmed and/or the NPCs get killed. Speccing a group specifically to work around bugged hitboxes seems ridiculous, so I’m just not gonna do these paths till the burrows are fixed.

Well its not even about bugged hotboxes really. AoE just nukes em down in a pinch. Again, if thats not an option circle strafing works fine. Theyre out of whack, but not to the point where you cant do it.

Path 1 burrow fight?

2 players guard Hodgins. Do NOT kill nearest burrow. Kill all others till your left with nearest. Kill in order then. Make sure people focus fire and burn burrows. Two players can easily defend hodgins for quite awhile.

I guarded hodgins as a 80 warrior tanky stated with a lvl 36 mesmer backing me up (as I felt he would live longer going one on one vs them rather than DPSing burrows).

Path 3 I have still yet to do. With a group of 60’s – 80’s best we got was 80%. This was the first time in that path though.

Protip: If you have a Guardian in the group, have them bring Tome of Courage for the defend Hodgins event. I use it all the time to top Hodgins off and make it a lot easier. Yes, the full heal can heal him too.

Oreoz.2573:

Well its not even about bugged hotboxes really. AoE just nukes em down in a pinch. Again, if thats not an option circle strafing works fine. Theyre out of whack, but not to the point where you cant do it.

As I said, I’m not going to spec to work around a bug.

@Mr eX

And as I and others pointed out moving while attacking is a simple fix until they do fix the bug. It’s a non issue if you aren’t standing in one spot…

Don’t argue with people for the sake of arguing lol.

Lol, it’s weird that this thread just came up. Last night I had the best dungeon party EVER! The party consisted of 2x warriors, a guardian, an elementalist (me), and a necro.

Most of them being new too! We literally cleared path 1, no deaths during the “protect hodgins while he stands there acting like he is doing something”. And cleared the dungeon within 30 minutes. It was completely smooth as butter! No fails. We didn’t skip any bosses at all. So we killed Kholer and the Spider Queen. Both of which went down like a sack of potatoes, much faster than any group I have ever been in.

Honestly, not sure how it all worked together but it was a match made in Heaven to be honest.

ThunderStorm.3140:

Instead of telling me to play better (you don’t even know me or how we tried this part so many times), tell me how YOU do it. If you want to help.

I do very much want to help.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Explorable-Mode-Video-Guides-Wiping-is-Overrated/

That’s a link to my guide thread, which includes a 45 minute in-depth video guide to Ascalonian Catacombs explorable. Take a look, and if you still have questions, I’d be happy to answer them.

Other posters have already covered the most likely cause of being being “twoshot” by “some gravelings” (Graveling Scavengers’ pounce-and-chew; slot stability) and missing burrows (this is definitely a bug that should be fixed, but keeping your character moving will fix the problem 90% of the time).

It’d help to know exactly where your party is breaking down and having trouble progressing, though.

Edit: I accidentally a word

Hodgins path is the fastest for my guild, followed by Tsark (if the boss goes smoothly) and then Detha (because the turrets take forever).

It’s all about knowing the encounters bud. There are some good resources to figuring out how and in what order to down the burrows.

AoEs work but not consistently, being as they top out at a certainly number of targets and with the number of gravelings that spawn from the burrows an AoE attack may very well not ever even hit the burrow (one of the problems we had).

Moving while attacking in melee helps…if you find that sweet spot you can actually hit from quickly and if you get lucky and don’t have it immediately start going “obstructed” “miss” “out of range” after you get a few hits in. Which also happens. Frequently.

We also had issues with Scavengers performing their facechomp attack while immobilized far outside of melee range of the person they were attacking, and stability not working against them…

Yeah, I’ll just stick with Path 2 myself until those hitbox issues get fixed. If the cave troll doesn’t spawn we can clear it in under a half hour usually.

If you really want EZ mode on burrows, bring an ele and ask them to use the ice bow. #4 ability has a 20 sec CD and does about 2/3rds or more damage to the burrows as well as royally demolishing the adds that spawn. Since casting ice bow also puts another on the ground you can trade off the #4 ability every 10 seconds on burrows while the other 2 finish killing it.

Ya im primarily thinking of eles when i say AoE. Lol theyre not neccessary of course, but recceommended.

And ya, ice bow kills. Lol

I’m surprised people find path 2 to be the hardest. My regular group finds it to be the fastest and most profitable path in AC, just put on your man pants and mow everything down in ~20 minutes.

AC is one of the easiest dungeons in the game. Citadel path 1 and HotW path 1 are the only ones that are consistently faster and easier (I guess Citadel 2 is easy too, but we avoid it because having to stop while Magg’s AI bugs out is infuriating).

Ensign.2189:

I’m surprised people find path 2 to be the hardest. My regular group finds it to be the fastest and most profitable path in AC, just put on your man pants and mow everything down in ~20 minutes.

I agree. Path 2 is the one my groups start with and then we go 1 and 3.

AC is the easiest dungeon in the game, you have a bad build if you get 2 shot in exotics…

All paths under 20 min and this was with a PUG, can get 15 min with static groups:
Here is path 1, others are in the channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVEhY7Tnddo

Ensign.2189:

I’m surprised people find path 2 to be the hardest. My regular group finds it to be the fastest and most profitable path in AC, just put on your man pants and mow everything down in ~20 minutes.

AC is one of the easiest dungeons in the game. Citadel path 1 and HotW path 1 are the only ones that are consistently faster and easier (I guess Citadel 2 is easy too, but we avoid it because having to stop while Magg’s AI bugs out is infuriating).

Not hardest, just longest for us. We sprint through all the graveling events without wipes in the other paths, but defending the cannons has a static time completion even if you do it perfectly.

Ender.3508:

Ensign.2189:

I’m surprised people find path 2 to be the hardest. My regular group finds it to be the fastest and most profitable path in AC, just put on your man pants and mow everything down in ~20 minutes.

AC is one of the easiest dungeons in the game. Citadel path 1 and HotW path 1 are the only ones that are consistently faster and easier (I guess Citadel 2 is easy too, but we avoid it because having to stop while Magg’s AI bugs out is infuriating).

Not hardest, just longest for us. We sprint through all the graveling events without wipes in the other paths, but defending the cannons has a static time completion even if you do it perfectly.

Actually popped in to make the same reply lol. It’s not that it’s the hardest path, they are all pretty easy. Path 2 is just the most time consuming.

• 1 player to take aggro from middle burrow, 4 to burst burrows
• burst down two burrows on the west and southwest side (you can just aggro breeder and wear him down with AoE’s while killing the burrows, no need to stop)
• kill the burrow next to the middle one on the east side, grab any hatchlings with you and kill them with AoE
• cleanup of any remaining bigger gravelings
• destroy middle burrow
• burst down burrow on east corner from range and use CC on scavengers, otherwise ignore them
• rush to north-west corner and kill the last burrow
• mobs disappear and profit

If you still have problems with it, give me a whisper ingame and maybe we can get you a spot in one of our runs, so you can see how we do it. None of the AC runs are hard/impossible, as a fellow dps warrior, I can do flawless runs there, so shouldn’t be an issue for us as a class. Just know your limits.

Path 1 is only dumb when the NPC glitches and doesn’t get the 2nd scepter and makes you reset the dungeon. Other than that its the stupid burrows bug which should be fixed; I mean it’s 1 month post launch already get that stuff fixed. Also you need a stun break on every person in your team or they will get dropped instantly by leaps. However I do feel your pain there because they will leap from offscreen and you can’t see that they’re coming and I think this issue should be addressed.

Mr eX.3420, I laughed good when you said respec. It’s not respecing to know the instance and execute it as it should be. You should keep moving even if you could always hit the burrows while standing still. It’s about keeping the mobs that keep poring out busy chasing you while you kill the the burrow and them via AoE. Learn your weapons and their skills and bring what’s needed. Even if this “bug” didn’t exist, I’d still tell you to circle the burrow using skills that hit more than one target (love the greatsword for this) while swapping to your bow for it’s AoEs (nom might stacking). Once that one room is done, you can go back to whatever weapons you prefer for other trash. Bringing more than one weapon isn’t respecing, it’s being prepared.