Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure what happened to Caudecus’ Manor, but I think the devs must’ve been offended by this thing with people speedrunning it.

Why?

I’m just going to list the encounters that I saw; was running it with a four-person party.

1: Prototype Golem: Not so bad. Took most of the party down several times, but nobody died and eventually victory was won.

2: Door Guard: Wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t spam Thousand Edges or whatever, with a ludicrously gigantic hitbox (as in, I’m halfway across the room, he’s looking in a completely different direction, and I’m having to watch this from Downedcam because he killed me from that distance).

Now, both of these were single, strong bosses. We did, admittedly, go rushing into them without a whole lot of thought, and so they could probably have been made easier with more strategy, so maybe the only issue is with the Door Guard being able to hit from across the room and spam Thousand Edges nonstop.

The next couple encounters were the ones that have some serious issues. Like, “I’m pretty sure the devs are offended about this speedrunning business” kind of issues.

3: Separatist Sergeants, Snipers and Fighters: Okay, so there’s three snipers/sergeants. Whatever. They hit hard. Go fig, they’re snipers. If they hit for nothing, I’d think they were bugged/the victims of poor design decisions. The fighters, though? I don’t even know how many fighters there were. Too many to count, though if I went back through my combat log and counted how many times Interrupted popped up within the space of ten seconds, I could maybe make a guess. Achieved party-wipe enough times to damage every single piece of at least one party member’s armor.

Problem with this one: Too many people with too many interrupts. Reduce the number of enemies, the frequency of their interrupts, maybe their damage/hp, and it might be an okay encounter. Loot acquired post-battle not kitten worth it.

4: Separatist kitten This kitten Gang: Bombers, Fighters, Snipers. I’m not even sure where to begin on the problems here. I guess I’ll start with the bombers, with their ability to hurl knockdown-and-burning attacks that deal ludicrous AoE damage to begin with. And then move on to the fighters, who make a second appearance on this list of problems – only now, they’re worse. They heal when you’re not actively in combat with them, so you can’t even chip them down. They have a movement speed buff that lets them get in and ruin your day (literally – this awful dungeon has put me in a foul mood and burnt me out on the game itself for at least today, and I love this game). They also have too much HP, too much damage – you know what? It’ll be easier to give an example.

Party member 1 and myself were fighting a single Separatist Fighter. Both of us are Asura. 1 is a hammer-wielding Guardian, I’m a gun-and-shield Engineer. 1 manages to bait the Fighter into coming alone, and then summons a golem; I follow suit, as soon as I arrive from the last waypoint.

Fighter still kills us both. Fighter is still at 50%+ HP.

I quit after that, so I could attempt to just not be frustrated for a bit before work. 1 did, too, due to repair bills. I unequipped all my gear between 3 and 4 to avoid that.

TL;DR version: I don’t know what happened, but somebody needs to tone this dungeon down.

Yep noticed same thing I refuse to run CM story. Its not even super hard, its a lot longer with the extra mobs, but it has more cheesy ways to get insta gibbed and CCed. Especially all the interrupts and knockdowns. So annoying, get chain knocked down and killed. Nothing more frustrating.

I agree 110% with the OP.

/agreed.

I might, MIGHT be able to live with thekitten difficulty if we had our silver rewards back to where they were for every dungeon.

I’m actually NOT that familiar with engineer, but you should know (as in I’m informing you I’m not making an accusatory statement) that having a shield out makes enemies more likely to want to eat you alive.

Hammer guardian has an area warding skill, a nice knockback, aoe retaliation self combination with 1combo skill 3 and his second skill etc, not saying they’d stop the cheesey instagib or anything, but HE’S A GUARDIAN, he has bubbles that ward areas (sanctuary), he has a anti ranged consecration shield-wall, a second potential bubble with interrupt and knockback. He has virtues which offer passive AND active aoe party effects like healing, aegis, and if traited might and burning.

Please, give us more clear details of how you tried to get past the issues. Because whilst I do want to think this is down to bad conveyance etc and just minor tweakable oversights from A-net, it SOUNDS like you were trying to hammer square pegs into round holes, when you clearly had the combined weapons of a large superpower military and COULD have blown a square into a opening the size of alaska, but forgot how to operate door handles and thus couldn’t get into the armory.

Its still fun. Ran it with my warrior after the buff, i think i was about 46. Took us to the packs of roaming dogs till we realised that there was random champions everywhere.
Was still easily doable once we started to play a bit smarter and stopped just trying to do damage.
Didn’t really take much longer than normal, turned out to be a bit more fun.

Hellkaiser.6025:

Please, give us more clear details of how you tried to get past the issues. Because whilst I do want to think this is down to bad conveyance etc and just minor tweakable oversights from A-net, it SOUNDS like you were trying to hammer square pegs into round holes, when you clearly had the combined weapons of a large superpower military and COULD have blown a square into a opening the size of alaska, but forgot how to operate door handles and thus couldn’t get into the armory.

I don’t know why I just laughed so hard

The main problem with trying to make this dungeon take longer is that it’s an artificial extension. This is a VERY SHORT DUNGEON. Trying to keep people from speed running something that is so short by making it harder doesn’t make sense. The Dungeon is short, so letting people run it fast only makes sense.

I couldnt agree more, Hounds with stacking fears? thats a 10 second fear. All the baby dogs have pounces? thats another insta kill. the fighters now 2 shot everyone.

Look, im all for upping difficulty on things that are easy as, but this is story mode. For a game thats ment to be casual friendly and fun for all its gone too far up the chain, its going to be awhile before im gong to be able to get my guild to go in there again.

I like a challenge, but it just became a frustrating experience.

Reynfall.1547:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Please, give us more clear details of how you tried to get past the issues. Because whilst I do want to think this is down to bad conveyance etc and just minor tweakable oversights from A-net, it SOUNDS like you were trying to hammer square pegs into round holes, when you clearly had the combined weapons of a large superpower military and COULD have blown a square into a opening the size of alaska, but forgot how to operate door handles and thus couldn’t get into the armory.

I don’t know why I just laughed so hard

:P

Bit of a snarky comment yes but it’s a strong enough analogy for a few reasons:

1: they HAVE the tools, heck they have the entire collective tools between just 3 classes that would make mcguyver cream his pants.

2: they have 2 of a class which if even half built away from anything but “hurhur dps :B”and even if they ARE built that way, have three… not one, not two but THREE easily keybindable (for his or her pleasure) cooldowns inherently via virtues, but are sort of ok’ish if you think about it when not triggered, if you’re alone. Which is a biiiit of a hint to use them in group play, have you SEEN the healing on even an unspecced heal virtue from a level 40 guardian? it’skittenbetter than their mace combo and a lot safer thats for sure, if you trait them they reduce their cooldowns and effectiveness and lets you access targettable consecrations, consecrations being a nifty barrier bubble that heals those inside it, a wall that REFLECTS even those insane sniper shots from mobs, or aoe fire fields which either burn enemies and cure conditions in their radius, or grant stability….

If that wasn’t enough “retreat” alone offers up one free hit negated every 90 seconds standard and swiftness, on top of the virtue which is a panic button on steroids.

I could go on, but ultimately there’s the tip of the iceberg in terms of “the combined firepower of a small superpower” and we can throw in “the triage of the red cross” part of the analogy

3: and now we come to the “forgot how to open the armory door” now this is NOT actually an insult, it wasn’t intended to be that serious it’s a light hearted comment although a bit sarcy and glib. The mentality that even I was stuck in was that of WoW, I hadn’t played wow in ages, but I still had the mentality, that and a weird expectation of sorts that anything would work in a dungeon and they’d all be fairly forgiving.
Bursting things down in a rotation, getting to a miniboss which requires a manual to explain which part of it the food goes in and which part the fire and poop comes out and all the while a lot ofkittenplayers, would literally stand IN said mechanics rather than read 2 sentences or a quick explanation of mechanics.
Thus you’d have the dps refusing to stop and move for fear that their dps numbers would go down, until the healer goes oom, and then the moderately damaging repeated damage that’s avoidable stacks up suddenly.

And what comes next???

“wtf, healer??? omg!!?”

or should you ask them to do something other than damage?

“Tanks job to interrupt, I’m just here to dps”

and so, these players became more commonplace and, by inherent design a slowly building bad attitude set in, and a belief that throwing enough obscene damage at a problem will make it go away. And should anything go wrong, it was the “daddy tanks” fault for not babysitting you as you blew your cooldowns like ah hyperactive kid who’s just had too much fanta, or that if they get a boo boo, that the mommy healer will kiss it better so they could run back into the same injury inducing predicament.

In GW2, the answer to that issue is that they have too much hp to burst down, even the trash and so it’s redundant, but because of the mentality that is hard to break (I was trapped with it til recently believe me I’m no better than anyone else) they only see damage as what they want to do, damage as what they want to stack and asking them to do anything else, and they see it as a burden they don’t want, not as something that shouldn’t be lumped to one person and should be shared thus eliminating it in a way.

And so the arsenal is there, all painstakingly customised and lethal, gleaming with custom paintjobs and kicka** motifs on their stocks and hilts, but all they can think to do is look at the door which is labelled “pull” and push and pull it towards them and not realise it’s a sliding door which needs a different approach, to be pulled to the side.

As for stacking fears, there are abilities that grant “stability” which is Immunity to fear, sleep etc (basically all cc) there are Removals of said conditions via traits, skill that can be used during CC like blinding powder etc and all you have to do to utilise them is slap em on your bar instead of that toughness signet that you think is helping you survive….

I don’t recall much of what the Guardian had, but I had a full rack of Elixirs (Thought it’d be better for party support. Works better when I can use them without getting congalined across the room, I imagine). I do recall that neither I nor the Guardian in the example with the single enemy outdoing us both had any idea what the dungeon was going to involve (otherwise, I would never have suggested it in the first place, honestly), so we probably weren’t traited particularly well for it.

Having a single mook enemy of lower level (Guardian was level 43, I was level 50, not that it matters all that much with the deleveling) out-damage and out-last both us and our golems simultaneously beating on them, though – sure, maybe turrets would’ve dealt a bit more damage, but I have difficulty believing that we could possibly have made that something not stupid. Anything we could’ve done would’ve just been a time-buying tactic, when the enemy has that much health, damage and speed. I even used Elixir X to try to fight one enemy, and still found myself drastically outmatched.

The other members of the group were also a Guardian (all I know about their build is that they were using Tome of Courage and a Greatsword) and a Mesmer (Signet of Undeath and I have no idea what weapon). Not a whole lot of anything any of us did accomplished anything – we tried targeting the Separatist Bomber in the last encounter, he responded by hurling bombs when we got goonswarmed and couldn’t get to him. Our retort was, of course, “Oh god ow.” and death. Ours, specifically.

I don’t remember any roaming packs of dogs, though. Probably a good thing.

Goodbloke.6892:

I couldnt agree more, Hounds with stacking fears? thats a 10 second fear. All the baby dogs have pounces? thats another insta kill. the fighters now 2 shot everyone.

Look, im all for upping difficulty on things that are easy as, but this is story mode. For a game thats ment to be casual friendly and fun for all its gone too far up the chain, its going to be awhile before im gong to be able to get my guild to go in there again.

I like a challenge, but it just became a frustrating experience.

Spot on, mate.

It’s still fairly easy with a skillful party. Yes, takes a bit more time than before and the rewards make doing it many times in a row meaningless, but it’s doable.

Only thing I can agree on, is the Door Guard range, which is ridiculous. Playing dual-dagger necro, I tend to move in-and-out of melee range, according to mob behavior and standing (from my point of view) sufficiently far from the mob, I still get hit.

Regarding separatists, focus fire works like a charm. Take out bombers first and you’re set. Hounds? Focus on silver rings, AoE the tiny ones.

Comparing AC and CM, CM definitely needed that buff.

except that they went overboard on ‘fixing’ it. It was too easy before, but now it’s just ludicrous. Instead of throwing more absurdly hard hitting, cc’ing, high hp trash at it, they could have made the bosses more challenging. I quit too because dying to stupid trash packs because they were juggling me (and hey I’m a guardian, I know how to play one, and was still getting juggled, go figure) and killing my teammates then me with little we could do after all my stabilities were on cd.

Unless you think story mode should also be only for organized groups with vent (then ANet should say so), this is a kneejerk too far.

The experience described sounds similar to my first failed run. But then we replaced two quitters and tried again.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/CM-My-first-dungeon-and-bankruptcy-from-repairs

The results may surprise you.

I agree with 50%.
The foes indeed have SUPER HP/DMG output, wich is annoying. Not cause its hard, but cause u cant USE your skills effectivelly.
If can actually COMBO your skills to find a good way to fight some foes that FUN.
If no matter what u do, u die the same way, its boring. It says “no matter if ur smart or dumb, strong or weak” u will beat this situation once u have died sometimes.

The dream dungeon is combination of HARD/STRATEGY.
Its super-hard, but if ur group is smart u can make your way. Cause beating stronger mobs with INTELLIGENCE is REWARD for putting effort in your build.

Peace

I actually finished CM story mode with pugs, one of which was level 22 and thus permanently down and not participating. 4 people against all those things, and we pulled through just fine, because everything is kiteable and focussable. The only thing that annoyed me alot was the pack hounds chain fearing us, get hit by one and you’re feared forever.

I love/hate reading something and thinking, “Man, as a Guardian, I could drop 3 consecrations and if everyone stood in them we’d be immune to CC and a lot of damage for awhile.” And I’m 1 person. Add 4 more people who can do things, and I feel like we should never die.

Pounces that knock you down? – Hallowed Ground (Probably use “Stand Your Ground!” moreso though, hehe)
10s fear? – Purging Flames
Ranged snipers and projectiles? – Wall of Reflection

I’m actually traited for Shouts and Consecrations because of how awesome they are.
/flex

Oh – And a passive that gets rid of a condition once every 10s is always nice. Also a trait that does that too…but those 2 are just for me :P

CM Story was a faceroll easy dungeon when I did it at 40.

Several were faceroll easy post patch, and at the beginning…
It’s that tough balance of getting the right difficulty, length, challenge, etc. And it will take time.