Guild Wars 2

I’m hoping to make a series of post in an attempt to provide more data and more feedback for the developers. Attempting to cover the encounters that some may have problems with. My goal is to mostly just to help.
At the end of the post I’ll draw up some conclusions on how to improve the dungeons. This post is design on my sole opinion and no one else’s. I chose Catacombs first because its the dungeon the everyone is the most familiar with. I will be making post based on explorer Mode in the future. If these post are treated with negativity by player or developers I will stop making them. Opinions are welcome to help improve this post. I admit I do not have the best of grammar.

My guild members and I usually use this sort of comp:
Profession / Spec / Weapons
Guardian / Survival CC Spec. / Hammer – Mace, Shield
Warrior / Tank – Survival / Hammer – Mace, Shield
Necromancer / Focused as Support Dps / Staff – Axe, Focus
Thief / Venom Dps Spec / 2x pistols – Sword, Pistol
Elementalist / Pure Dps / Staff – 2x Dagger
Subs:
Mesmer / Confusion Spec
Ranger / Condition Damage Dps
Engineer / Tank – Survival or support

If needed I can go into detail of builds, traits, etc.

Map:

First Room: Casket Room
Casket is a pretty simple room and is not very had to complete. The only problems I have come across is if have one idiot that runs ahead and opens every casket in the room (Not naming names). To open the gate you have to kill an Ascalonian Captain. This Captain is a pretty easy kite. He spawns by finding and opening the right Casket. Just take your time and open them one at a time

Conflict 1.
After killing him the gate opens and you on your way. You’ll go down a set of stairs where there are two Mobs and two spike traps (Pulling the chain in the back of the room disables them). After beating the two Mobs you go down a hall way where there is a Warrior, Elementalist and a Monk. This conflict a lot of groups seem to have a problem with since there are three mobs instead of two. The soundest strategy we found was isolating the monk away form the other two with our Guardian and immediately focusing the Elementalist. Isolating the monk ensures that it does not heal the Elementalist or the Warrior making them both easier to take down. Poison is also a great way to prevent the healing both the Warrior and Monk do.

Conflict 2.
The next fight you’ll encounter will be a warrior and two Archer’s position on the stairs leading to the spike trap room. This encounters pretty simple just kite the warrior back down the hallway where you just came from. This puts you out of sight from the archers. After the warriors finished the archers are pretty simple to take down.
The Spike Trap room is easy enough to get through just follow the left wall around the room and pull the chain, disabling the spike for the rest of the group to safely pass. The next thing you fight is an Ascalonian Captain Archer. The easiest way to beat this Captain is to just have your Dps’s stand behind the tanks so that the tanks are the ones getting knocked down instead of your damage dealers. After killing the Captain grab your pet rock (boulder) and continue. This Boulder is later used to gain access to the Ossuary Crypts via a pressure pad.

Ossuary Crypts: Easy
Ok so you opened the door with your pet rock. You can pretty much just run through the trap room.
After the trap room a graveling burrow will pop up in the corner. Just simply destroy it and the door will open, but watch out. Sometimes the random event troll spawns in Ossuary Crypts. The blue targets on the map indicate places that I know for sure where the Troll spawns. Keep in mind that the troll event is random and there is no way of knowing exactly where it will spawn.

Conflict 3.
After the opening the door in Ossuary Crypts there is a long hallway that leads to where you meet up with Eir Stegalkin. In this hallway there is another set of three mobs usually a Warrior, Mesmer and Elementalist. Have someone keep one of the mobs CC’ed preferably the Mesmer and focus the Elementalist. I say CC the Mesmer because of its shield it puts up that reflects projectiles making it harder on reanged dps.

Conflict 4.
After killing the mobs in the hallway you meet up with Eir and another Captain. This Captain is much like the very first Captain you encounter back in the Casket Room. Simply kite him and stay next to the wall so you don’t get knocked off into the ditch.

First Boss: The lieutenant
The Lieutenant is located in the middle of FoeFire’s Heart. This boss fight is pretty straight forward. Kill the weaker mobs first and the just use range to defeat him. Then gather your shinnies from the chest.
After beating him the easiest path to take is to go ahead to the western chambers. So that you can get a new waypoint in case you wipe. As long as you don’t agro the then mob on the stairs you’ll just have to fight two mobs.

Conflict 5.
After entering the western chambers you’ll be greeted with three Archers. This conflict is a lot easier if you have a way to reflecting projectiles back at your enemies. If you don’t just spread out and attack with range.

Boss 2: Master Ranger Nente
Nente has really no special moves to avoid. Spread out and burst him down Have one tank on the platform with him and one tank on the ring with your dps. When Fang or Shadow spawns immediately kill them. Over all easy boss that doesn’t have a lot of damage to worry about.

To Kasha:
The reason you want to go to Kasha first instead of the lovers is so that you get a waypoint closer to the lovers. The easiest way to get to Kasha is to go straight from Western Chambers to the Eastern Chambers then head upwards. Along the way you fight a couple of mobs in sets of two. There’s also another graveling burrow in the northern part of eastern chambers.

Boss 3: Kasha Black Blackblood.
Kasha is a necromancer that drops marks everywhere. These marks are easy to avoid just run a clockwise or counter clockwise motion around her. When her health reaches a certain point she will summon some flesh golems around her that protect her from all damage I think? Kill the flesh golems and continue killing her.
In the south part of the room where you fought Kasha the door that opens via pressure plate. That leads to the lover’s crypt.

Boss fight 4: Relena and Vassar
This boss fight to me is the hardest one. Before going into the fight you will need to decide witch Boss you want to focus first.
Vassar main ability is to summon some additional mobs. Though they are weak they can get annoying in higher number
Relena is the main damage of the encounter. She lays down some fields spells that can kill anyone who stands in them for too long. She also fires a high damage bolt of energy.
Unlike most Bosses these too are completely vulnerable to CC once separated. The easiest way to separate them is to spread out around the room since the almost never target the same person and usually split up pretty quickly.
This fight is the sole reason why you need to tanks. Once they are separated each of your tanks pick a target. One on Relena and one on Vassar. The tanks are to make sure they don’t get back together. Two guardians with hammers are by far the best at doing this. Even if your tank lacks in CC they can just spam boulders at them. Once the tanks have them separated have the rest of your group start working on the one you deemed as the easiest to take out first.
Once they are defeated teleport back to the western chambers waypoint. For an easy path to the final boss.

Final Boss: King Adelbern
Adelbern is pretty easy bosses to fight just keeps your distance and avoid his aoe attacks. At this point everyone should be using ranged weapons. The only significant ability you need to worry about is his pull. If you are far enough away from him he will not pull you on top of him. Majority of deaths in this fight are when people get to close to him.

Possible improvements.
Mobs:
I personally would not change any of the mobs though the Ascalonian Captains Could use some more abilities since they are pretty easy to kite. Like a single target pull or a dash of some sort.

Nente:
Nente needs a little bit more damage behind his attacks. More can be done with Fang and Shadow as weal. Looking at the area where you fight Nente. You could have Shadow or Fang charge around the ring slowly to knock people into the pit. This would give the pit more for a presence in the boss fight as well as adding more of a danger in avoiding the wolves. The fall into the pit doesn’t by itself do enough damage to kill someone, but it would give use to the spiral stair case in the back a use and make Shadow and Fang have a more great effect in the fight then just killing them when they are spawned. This would also keep people moving.

Kasha:
I do like Kasha fight although it’s a little to stationary. It’s hard to pick at this boss. The only real thing I could say to do is when she summons the flesh golems have them move or walk around her. With a slight knock back or knock down. Also have her summon the golems more than once in the fight. Gradually increasing their moving speed each time they are summoned. Doing this would make the fight seem less stationary while also making the flesh golems a little harder to hit. Not saying do anything drastic.

The lovers:
I love this fight. It is hard and challenging for all skill levels and groups. The only thigh I think could be done is having them teleport or run to each other at certain point in their health more often. That would draw more emphasis on separating them. And after you kill one of them add more abilities to the one left.

King Adelbern:
Adelbern’s fight is the final boss fight. At time I always picture him walking over to the sword stuck in the ground and picking it up. Foefire’s Heart is a circular room with a lot of columns surrounded by a big ditch of water that is never really used. I would say it would not hurt having an aoe knockback that pushed people into this ditch. Of course there should have a big visual que for when he uses this ability like him teleporting to the center of the room. This ability would not be hard to dodge just simple run behind the columns for a shield. Adelbern is the final boss of the dungeon he should show that he has power like all final bosses should.

I acknowledge the improvements being pretty big and I do not expect them to be in the game. They are just thoughts on how to improve the Catacombs.