Guild Wars 2

If anyone reads the topic title and chooses to respond without reading any further, they’ve already missed the point.

I don’t think I’ve ever labeled anything in this game as “difficult”. In fact, I’m often complaining about content being too easy. For example, prior to the recent dungeon patches I thought the difficulty of Ascalon Catacombs explorable mode was on par for the challenge level GW2 content. If you had a group that worked well it was pretty easy. But, if you didn’t, it could be annoying. Now, post-patch, I consider Ascalon explorable to be too easy no matter which group you wander into the depths with.

Caudecus’s Manor (story mode) is the second dungeon experience players will likely be exposed to and, in my opinion, it’s far too difficult (especially compared to Ascalon’s story mode). In fact, if the goal here is to enjoy a good story, I would say the difficulty level is causing it to miss the mark. I enjoyed adventuring with Rytlock and Eir through the catacombs. However, I had a difficult time following (much less enjoying) my assault on the manor with Logan and Zojja because I was spending too much time watching our party get slaughtered. In fact, I think Logan and Zojja spent most of our encounters dead, as they were being downed nearly every other battle.

Worse, our group consisted of three 80’s (Guardian, Elementalist, Warrior) and two ~65’s (Thief, Mesmer), so we were actually above the level 40 range of the dungeon. While we were, of course, level-scaled.. we all know how generous scaling can be (even with the recent attempts to correct that). That said, we had a lot of trouble with this dungeon and I can’t imagine a party of level 40’s doing this while still having any semblance of fun.

It was not a question of figuring the fights/mobs out or developing the right tactics. It was more a problem with the sheer number of mobs and the amount of damage they could individually do. I (the Guardian, wearing a set of soldier-based armor and large investment in the vitality and toughness trait lines) felt like I was being defended by tissue paper.

About a quarter way through the dungeon I started questioning whether or not characters were supposed to melee in this manor, because anything other than the mobility of ranged seemed like suicide. If the trash mobs weren’t taking a quarter to a third of my life off per hit, they were constantly knocking you back or down. It does not really matter if you have stability defense in your utility tray (I did) when several dogs are chain-pouncing you, or packs of humanoid mobs knocking you back with kicks every few seconds. At one point nearly everyone in my group synced the comment “can’t get up!”.

The damage itself just seemed off. In fact, on the very first fight (with the golem “boss”), I was taking a few hits from it and thinking he seemed pretty tame. Suddenly I (and all the other melee) were dead. One-shotted.. no visible warning that I saw, just full health to dead in the blink of an eye. Is that golem boss missing an animation? After recovering and approaching the golem again, the same lame situation repeated itself. For the life of me I could not tell how our deaths were happening.

I don’t know.. through a variety of moves and toggling abilities I’m able to “tank” the bosses in Ascalon Catacombs explorable mode with little difficulty. But the regular trash in Caudecus’s Manor story mode had me spending more time than not running for my life. Between their damage output, over zealous use of control abilities, and numbers, I just feel that the story mode of Caudecus’s Manor is poorly tuned in terms of difficulty.

I ran CM story with about 3 people – a level 80 guardian, level 62 ranger, and myself on a 55 elementalist. We ran it successfully with little problem, so I believe the issue actually is a matter of fighting correctly or getting the right tactics.

CM story consists primarily of lots of ambushes. Naturally, if you fight in an ambush, you’ll go down like a rock – The trick is to trigger the ambush, then use the various chokepoints as a retreating point, thus clustering mobs and mitigating their focus. With a guardian, placing a line of warding at a door while the rest of the group AoEs works wonderfully. immobilizations, cripples, etc.

Remember you’re fighting in a manor, it’s very easy to find narrow hallways or door ways where the enemy is forced to funnel close together. Since most of them are trash (I’m pretty sure the trash mobs used to be silvers, too!), contentrated AoE or DPS after funneling them will drop a large mark of them – Leaving only a few token mobs + the actual silvers. the token mobs can be wiped out indirectly as you focus on the silvers.

And every profession can manage cripple/immobilization/chill/etc. in some manner.

The next issue in CM is the riflemen. AC, and nothing else in the game up to that point, will prepare you for riflemen. It’s a trial by fire – literally. They can and will instantly drop you with a single shot, and they enjoy ambushing you. Reflection/negation skills are key here. After/as the trash is being dropped, call mark on a specific riflemen. prioritize them, and burst DPS them down.

Meleeing in CM story is not only possible, it was how the guardian in my group, and myself as an elementalist, ran it. The mobs are many, but again, they’re trash level. They’re only a danger if you try to outlive them – Don’t. Just blow your DPS all over them, they drop like flies, and then their only advantage is forfeit.

As for the robot – Meleeing it hazardous. Not just because of it’s spinning fire move (which is moderately damaging), but because since you’re so close, you won’t really get much of a forewarning that it just launched absurdly hard hitting missiles. It has an animation for this (it’s the same animation the dredge mining machine in fractals has for bombs, if that helps), but if you happen to miss it, or you’re blinded by particle effects, or what have you, then you experience such baffling situations as “why is everyone’s HP gone?”

But there is an animation for it, so it can be dodged. The closer you are, the harder it is to dodge however, because you get drastically less time. A good party member can feedback/shield of the avenger or what not on it to negate that aspect entirely, though.

However, since the boss’ primary attacks revolve around very close range AoE, logic dictates that an intelligent person will either range it, or, get in for quick bursts, then retreat.

Mobs are not meant to be straight up tanked in Gw2. The time you spend “running for your life” is your survival mechanism – Unlike traditional games, you simply don’t have the staying power in most cases to flat out soak up damage. You have to alternate between blocks, heals, dodges, and kiting to succeed.

Also, no dungeon with Zojja is fun. One does not party with Zojja and expect to enjoy themselves.

Ayanavi.1904:

I ran CM story with about 3 people – a level 80 guardian, level 62 ranger, and myself on a 55 elementalist. We ran it successfully with little problem, so I believe the issue actually is a matter of fighting correctly or getting the right tactics.

I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to disagree. I’m not suggesting it’s not important to fight correctly or use proper tactics. It certainly is. And I’m not above asking “what needs to be done here?”and investigating the right ways to handle a situation.

It is not a question of being able to finish the dungeon. Whether you have two people or five, these dungeons can all be finished if you’re willing to put in the time, especially since the trash encounters do not respawn upon wiping (in other words, you can eventually win through attrition). The problem here is that this is the second dungeon in the game and it is night-and-day difference in difficulty from the dungeon before it. In fact, from what I’ve read, many people seem to think Caudecus’s Manor is one of the more difficult dungeons in the game, if not the most difficult. That’s a poor flow of progression if the intention is to increase difficulty gradually as you get higher in level.

As for the ambushes and patrols, they became obvious quickly. The only time they became a problem was when mob knockbacks were spammed and moved the team into areas they didn’t intend to be. Unfortunately, the knockbacks were spammed frequently.

Line of Warding (which I am well familiar with) lasts five seconds. That trash takes a lot longer to kill than five seconds, bunched up for AOEs or not. Perhaps the last time you were in this particular story-mode dungeon was before the ability was nerfed, when it lasted eight seconds? Also, please keep in mind that as of a few weeks ago (the Flame and Frost patch) leveled-down characters are not nearly as powerful as they used to be. So, if you’re not talking about a very recent run through this dungeon then you’re experiences are going to be different.

It’s odd that you mention the riflemen as they were one of the few things in the dungeon not giving us problems.

I stand by my statement of the trash not being melee friendly. When I can’t pull off a quick melee-channeled attack because standing still that long amounts to more damage than I have health, I see a problem.

As far as ‘tanking’, please note that I said “through a variety of moves and toggling abilities I’m able to “tank” the bosses in Ascalon Catacombs explorable mode with little difficulty”. The key words there being “a variety of moves and toggling abilities”. That means making ample uses of movement to an extent, dodges, blinds, blocks, etc. I’m not suggesting anyone can just sit there and soak everything up. However, there is a difference between what I’m describing and simply kiting while the rest of your team uses ranged attacks to wear down the mobs chasing you. No fight, in my opinion, should ever boil down to that “tactic” (which only succeeds because the AI is stupid enough to allow it).

The run I mentioned happened last thursday, so unless a change has happened since then…

From your post, all I can gather is there’s either a lack of coordination or DPS was slacking somewhere. between the three of us, none of which spec’d for damage, we had more than enough time to burst down most of the trash. I can’t imagine a full party not being able to do so. This was without use of attrition, we won on the first encounter.

Also, I’m kind of baffled that the riflemen didn’t give you an issue. Everyone has their problems, I suppose.

I personally can’t agree that CM is too difficult, though. My guild farms CM for money, because it’s a low enough level that some of our lowbies can get in on it for XP. As long as we have some form of control and projectile negation, it’s literally a cakewalk – Granted, it took a little bit of practice post-patch since the “invulnerable when exploiting” bug seems to be finicky about what counts as exploiting.

“Frost. Frost why are you invincible. Frost I am standing in front of you. you are hitting me with your ice thrower. Why can’t I hurt you.”

So because of personal experience with CM, both Explorable and Story Mode, I can’t really agree that CM is too hard.

However, it may be a larger step up from AC, depending on your experience there. I actually find AC to be worse than CM. Scavengers knocking you down and omnoming your HP to nothing, never ending graveling floods, rapid races to burst down burrows before you’re overwhelmed, etc. Comparatively, I’d really rather just run CM where all I had to worry about was some projectiles.

But that’s speaking from the point of view of someone whose run it a great deal. When just starting, I can agree that CM is something of a rude awakening – Especially the hound packs towards the end. Too hard? I don’t really think so. But a large step up and disproportionate escalation? probably. TA is easier, SE is easier, most of CoF is easier, etc.

It’s difficulty level isn’t so astronomically high it needs to be fixed, but I can agree that it doesn’t really follow the linear line of difficulty progression. Or maybe the other dungeons just need to be made harder to bring them in line with the AC → CM step up.

Over all though, dungeon difficulty tends to vary wildly, based on experience and preference. While you’re saying CM story is too difficult, and others believe it to be very hard, for me and my guild it’s pretty easy and casually farmed. On the other hand, you may go on to find TA to be very easy -I personally hate TA, and consider it stupidly annoying to run because of the hammer wardens and rapidly respawning poison plants.

So if it’s not a problem with coordination/tactics, then I’d say it’s a preference issue – Others may agree with you, and others, like myself, may find CM to simply be laughably easy.

I completed this with an Engineer and guild group all of us in the 40s, two weeks into launch, no guides or anything else. Its only gotten easier.

Just did this on a late Sunday run just to see how the Mansion was post-nerf. I’ve completed the Story mode four times so far across my five months of play. My last run consisted of my level 80 Guardian, a level 80 Hunter, a level 80 Elementalist, level 46 Thief and a level 65 Necromancer. It was also pretty much a PUG group with zero voice communication.

CM Story is pretty much hit and miss in terms of difficulty. It’s basically the first dungeon – excluding AC Explorable – that teaches you two important mechanics:

1 – There’s a time to melee, and there’s a time to stay at ranged.
You unlock weapon swap at level 7 and 8/10 people assume they can be headstrong and go full melee or full range; ask them to diversify and they whine like a 5-year old denied her ice cream.

Fights such as the first golem boss and the Champion Lieutenant immediately after can be fought in melee range, but you’ll always find it easier to just stay at a distance, using the fountain to block missiles and furniture to impede enemy movement.

2 – Identifying the most dangerous enemies and defeating them quickly
At the fourth encounter of the dungeon, you’ll be faced with a number of Silver-ranked Bandits, ranging from Cutpurses to Riflemen, even including a Saboteur. The intention for this fight is to recognise how significant the threat level of each individual mob and single them out.

In this case, you’ll likely start the encounter in the narrow confines of the stair case. While this makes sense in most cases, being able to gather the mobs up for AOE damage and all, the Saboteur is the monkey wrench in your perfect plan. If your group is able to recognise this and respond appropriately, this fight is very manageable.

In fact, I think Logan and Zojja spent most of our encounters dead

This is a known and grudgingly accepted fact. Destiny’s Edge may talk a big game, but they fall over all the same when being focused by every single enemy in sight.

“That’s for ‘commandeering’ my lollipop, big meanie Logan!”

I (the Guardian, wearing a set of soldier-based armor and large investment in the vitality and toughness trait lines) felt like I was being defended by tissue paper.

First of all, as a level 80, you’re downscaled to the stats of a level 40 in the dungeon. So in truth you’re no better than a level 40 with extra shiny gear.

Next, as a level 80 Guardian, you all so many tools to counteract 80% of the threat within Caudecus’ Manor. Learn to use them.

One-shotted.. no visible warning that I saw, just full health to dead in the blink of an eye.

There is visible warning. Just be a little less ignorant and put two and two together. Yes, I admit that attack, for its lethality, ought to be a little more prominent, but when you notice that you always die when it fires its laser…

I just feel that the story mode of Caudecus’s Manor is poorly tuned in terms of difficulty.

Disagree. Difficulty, post-patch, is fine. I had my fair share of wipes running it in a group of 40s in September, true. As mentioned, it’s only gotten easier.

CM is a joke. I did story mode as soon as I hit 40 and was incredibly disappointed. After getting my kitten kicked in AC story I expected it to be just as hard if not harder. The first boss was kind of annoying, after that it was a complete joke.

Ojimaru.8970:

Just did this on a late Sunday run just to see how the Mansion was post-nerf.

Just to be clear, there were no listed nerfs to this dungeon in the patch notes (beyond players losing the ability to use waypoints to revive during combat in all dungeons).

Ojimaru.8970:

First of all, as a level 80, you’re downscaled to the stats of a level 40 in the dungeon. So in truth you’re no better than a level 40 with extra shiny gear.

This is actually not correct. A level 80 player in exotic gear downscaled to 40 is much more more powerful than a true level 40 character. This has always been the case (and problem, in my opinion), and while the latest patch thankfully took steps to reduce the difference, there is still a very significant one in terms of power.

Ojimaru.8970:

Next, as a level 80 Guardian, you all so many tools to counteract 80% of the threat within Caudecus’ Manor. Learn to use them.

Please explain, in step by step detail, the tools you would use to counteract 4 to 6 CM mobs focusing on you for the handful of minutes the team requires to kill them. Besides standing in the back and letting someone else get massacred in your place, I mean.

Ojimaru.8970:

There is visible warning. Just be a little less ignorant and put two and two together. Yes, I admit that attack, for its lethality, ought to be a little more prominent, but when you notice that you always die when it fires its laser…

I’m going to assume the tummy-laser attack is what killed me since it is the only attack of his I don’t recall seeing. I had to watch a video of the golem battle to get a look at it, so I will say this:

1) If you are in melee range and the beam is striking you, it’s about a meter long and likely obscured by your character model (assuming you’re not playing someone small).

2) The rather miniscule and not particularly impressive looking shaft of light effect is blue, like half of my guardian’s abilities that are firing off during a fight. The sound effect is rather non distinct and fairly quiet.

Put the two together and you have something that can leave a team scratching their heads wondering what just hit them. I find it odd that the most damaging attack that boss has is also its least advertised, while the fairly tame spinning flame jets and the fist launch can be seen coming a mile away.

I knew when making this thread I would get this type or reaction. People on these forums are ever eager to disprove any and every claim, but I stand by my statement. Like I said, I have never complained about any of the content in the game, except to complain that it is too easy. I quietly roll my eyes whenever someone else claims other dungeons are too difficult, so I know the deal. But CM seems, to me, overly hard for its level.

I finished the dungeon.. the run did not take very long at all, and I really have no reason (or desire now, which is part of the problem in my opinion) to ever run it again. Tweak it or don’t, in the end it doesn’t impact me, I just felt obligated to comment on my experience. I never said it was impossible, I just said the level of difficulty is out of line for where it sits in the chain, and the result is not particularly fun. Really, I would rather solo a number of bosses in AC explorable than do another run with a group through CM story (and I’m comparing the two because they are close to the same level, 35-40).

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

CM is a joke. I did story mode as soon as I hit 40 and was incredibly disappointed. After getting my kitten kicked in AC story I expected it to be just as hard if not harder. The first boss was kind of annoying, after that it was a complete joke.

See, my experience has been completely different. AC story was, to me, extremely easy. And I felt the first boss in CM story was the easiest thing there (other than its death laser that I apparently missed in the volley of special effects). Avoid that and its damage is tame enough to solo it.

The first time I did CM story was on my elementalist, early 40s, about a month after the game came out. I couldn’t believe how quickly the dungeon was over, especially after running AC story.

Did it again last month on my lvl 41 thief, got my butt kicked a few times (though still didn’t think it was terrible, it’s a dungeon, it’s supposed to be a challenge if you’re at the level). I think CM is all about group comp. and how experienced the players are. Looking forward to trying it again post-nerf to see how it goes.

Is this a troll post? CM story was incredibly easy. As others have already said, I did it right when I hit 40, with a bunch of other recent 40s, soon after game came out. After getting pwned by Ralena and Vassar in AC story for hours, the 30 minute walk in the park that was CM story was a total joke…

ZBeeblebrox.4928:

Is this a troll post? CM story was incredibly easy. As others have already said, I did it right when I hit 40, with a bunch of other recent 40s, soon after game came out. After getting pwned by Ralena and Vassar in AC story for hours, the 30 minute walk in the park that was CM story was a total joke…

Honestly not a troll post. I have no problems with any of the paths of Caudecus Manor explorable mode. I think the difficulty in CM explorable is fine. I didn’t have a problem with the Lovers’ Crypt. They print the necessary information right under the mob’s portrait: “stronger when close together” (or something to that effect), so it was just a matter of separating them. At any rate, from what the patch notes say, this encounter was made even easier in the latest update.

However, we’re specifically talking about a story-mode dungeon here which is, really, supposed to be more about telling a story and less about leaving a bad taste in players mouths. CM story is, in my opinion, easily as difficult as CM explorable. It’s (again, to me) far too much of a difference in terms of difficulty from Ascalon Catacombs (any mode) for a story mode dungeon. Thus, as far as progression goes, I think it’s out of line with the rest.

I recently ran this as well.

We died a few times but I felt like it was mostly due to having very little room to maneuver. The quarters were very very tight inside the mansion and when we got jumped there wasn’t a good place to go to try to kite or regroup.

Otherwise we did it just fine, a few wipes here and there but nothing I don’t expect from a dungeon run.

If you get a good group where people work together this dungeon is not too bad. The new waypoint thing makes it a bit more annoying than it used to be, but it’s not impossible.

That said it is the dungeon I enjoy the least.

I went on a run yesterday with an incomplete guild party (we had to find two randoms from another guild) and it was horrible. The people we brought in had their own strategy and way of doing things and it wasn’t until the final encounters that they started to fit with us and we worked together as a team.

Please remove the kick skill that all the human npcs have though. For serious that ish gets super old super fast. It’s bad enough dealing with the pull skills in Orr let alone dealing with the kick skills in CM, when the regular separatists in ascalon don’t even have that skill?

I’ve done CM Story mode in duo as a level 80 elementalist with another 80 elementalist. I personally find CM story to be one of the easiest dungeons in the game. There are no mobs which require any specific tactics, perhaps only some that need an order of killing to make it easier.

Burno.8431:

I’ve done CM Story mode in duo as a level 80 elementalist with another 80 elementalist. I personally find CM story to be one of the easiest dungeons in the game. There are no mobs which require any specific tactics, perhaps only some that need an order of killing to make it easier.

It’s actually possible to use specific builds and take advantage of leashing (which I feel is a ridiculous flaw in any dungeon) to solo CM story.

But that was never the point. It was never a question of whether or not it could be beaten, it’s a question of whether it’s fun versus annoying, whether its difficulty fits well with other story-mode dungeons. I don’t feel that it does.

And good luck with expecting a new group of 40’s to exploit the mechanics that way. There’s a difference between someone experienced entering the dungeon alone or with a smaller team and the intention of proving it can be done versus a group of random and inexperienced players who are just showing up because it’s the next chapter of the Destiny’s Edge storyline.

I believe challenging content should be reserved more for explorable modes, and that story modes were more focused on telling a story. Not necessarily a walk in the park but not leaving the player hating the dungeon either (otherwise, how does that encourage them to try the explorable modes later?). I thought that was the intention, at least. That’s why I’m fine with CS explorable, but not so much with CS story (which seems to be easily just as difficult, if not more so, than CS explorable).

“Oh it’s the easiest dungeon ever (if you have the tactics memorized and assemble the right classes beforehand)”

Yeah, no. This is a story mode dungeon that’s harder than 90% of the explorables I’ve run. My guild still avoids it like the plague, while farming nearly everything else. Is it beatable? Certainly. Is it fun? Hell no.

I think it’s good that it’s difficult. It helps set expectations for what you can expect from future dungeons.