Caudecus's Manor Difficulty
Well, kudos for at least finishing CM. When I started running dungeons, I tried to read written guides and maybe watch a video on YouTube or two. I can’t think of a YouTube channel off the top of my head that has Story Modes on it, so maybe Wethospu’s written guides would help better.
All the dungeons get easier after you’ve ran them again and again, and since GW2 dungeons focus more on dodging/knowing the situations and attacks rather than straight up face-taking, it’ll take some getting used to until you’re proficient.
[LFG]
Awesome link, ty! I will definitely spend a while reading over these guides.
Once upon a time (i.e., at launch), CM story was a cakewalk in comparison to AC story. AC story difficulty was toned down quite a bit sometime between launch and this March, whereas CM was not touched. CM story is still easy compared to explorables, though.
The issue you were running into was probably caused by two factors: the group was inexperienced in this dungeon and dungeons in general; and/or the group did not utilize all of the mechanics given to their professions to mitigate damage.
Defense in GW2 is largely based on take-no-damage skills such as dodge, block, invulnerability and reflection. Dogs in CM do knockdown, but are not very dangerous if players use stability to counter the knockdown.
Once players know which attacks are dangerous and how to counter, there are still two issues: does each player have the twitch reflexes to use the proper counter with the correct timing, and does the group have the DPS to kill the mobs before they run out of ways to counter, because oftentimes the mobs’ dangerous moves recharge faster than the players’ counters.
If players — especially those used to playing DPS — are looking for a relaxed dungeon experience such as can be had in WoW clone MMO’s, they are in for a shock. However, with a good group, the GW2 dungeons can be done quite readily — after players have gotten past the learning curves in the dungeon and with regard to their class.
Actually CM story was buffed in difficulty to slow down the people who were speed running it for levels. They added a few new champion mobs you cant skip and which deal pretty ridiculous damage for a level 40 player to deal with.
The issue with the dogs was the chain fear and the fear lasted about 10 seconds each. The issue with the champions was that they knocked down constantly, but I switched for my stability shout which did help a good amount. To be honest, I came from WoW (7 yrs) and the dungeons are radically different, but they are enjoyable though, I still love AC story, not trying the explore paths until 80 though.
Actually CM story was buffed in difficulty to slow down the people who were speed running it for levels. They added a few new champion mobs you cant skip and which deal pretty ridiculous damage for a level 40 player to deal with.
Thx Nike. I hadn’t run it since last September, and I guess mt memory is at fault. It didn’t seem different in the recent cakewalk run I did, and I blamed the nightmare run on the phenomenon called Three Thieves Downed. Come to think of it, I don’t remember the dogs having fear back when.
(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
Actually CM story was buffed in difficulty to slow down the people who were speed running it for levels. They added a few new champion mobs you cant skip and which deal pretty ridiculous damage for a level 40 player to deal with.
I just ran CM recently. One comment I made in the run is “Champ AGAIN!?” It’s like every room has one.
CM story is still easy compared to explorables, though.
I don’t know about that… I mean compare the Hounds and also the Basement dwellers with huge spike Knockdowns…. to say, the Buttler Path where all you gotta do is just basically kill the Thug first and pretty much faceroll everything else in it (except for the Rocket Turret hallways but even n00bs who never played TF2 can figure that one out). MOST newer players, especially near the 40-50 level range are not going to have any ways of dealing with KD and Fear spam. Then go ahead an compare it to COF1 for even more laughs…
CM story definitely still has some places where you need smart pulling (just like GW1 missions did!…which is AWESOME!!). CM’s explorables by comparison, I think it’s only the Asuran Inventor path where you need smart pulling and coordination sometimes? Some people say Seraph path is the hardest but I did it with a PuG who really broke it down into it’s bare mechanics and it was EASY. A lot easier than when I did it with my casual guild last winter.
And no, saying that Pulling is fun or that there is an art to it doesn’t make me a Bad.
It’s NOT an exploit of the AI either. So don’t even start. Many times it was intended.
(edited by ilr.9675)
So I hit level 42 last night and decided to do Caudecus’s Manor Story mode on my guardian last night. All I can say is Wow! I went greatsword for dps and staff for support as I read that while leveling the staff can help in dungeons for supporting your group. The first boss, the golem kept killing our party until we learned that the fire AOE will kill you unless you move out. The second boss, samething, stay out of the whirlwind AOE or it will kill you. The rest of the dungeon the bosses weren’t really an issue, it was more of the fact that you had a champion that had a gold ring and then you had 3-5 silver ringed mobs that you had to kill. I’m not sure if it was a DPS issue or just not knowing what to kill first but the first 2 bosses I was just running around ressing people and healing / shouting and then I was dps’ing the rest of the time on the packs of mobs. We wiped probably 15-20 times and we finally got through it but it left a bad taste in my mouth because of the sheer difficulty that seemed to increase from AC story. Yes the ghosts hit like trucks but they were manageable whereas the champion + silver spawns in CM story just seemed so hard every pull. I did enjoy the dungeon overall but I just wasn’t sure exactly what we were doing wrong that seemed so punishing. Our group composition was 2 guardians, 1 mesmer, 1 ranger, and 1 thief. The first guardian ran sword and board the whole time while I switched between GS / Staff. Any ideas as to what to do differently if I want to run this again in the future??
Also there were no 80’s and this was a complete pug, no guildies, no mumble/vent.
I see your problem. If you don’t realize to get out of the red circles that enemies drop on you, you won’t last long in any dungeon.
Just to let you know, on those 2 bosses, there are no red circles. But thank you
Just to let you know, on those 2 bosses, there are no red circles. But thank you
OK, I didn’t particularly remember that, but either way staying out of AOE is a given.