Guild Wars 2

The attacks are fine, learn them and they’re all easy to dodge…but holy hell the crystals…

Crystals can’t be dodged and freeze you in place unable to do ANYTHING. Your team is busy running around in circles dodging the SPAMMABLE AOE 1 shots that he casts so you can’t break out, then he casts said AOE’s on you, killing you while you’re frozen. So srsly anet, make these crystals dodgeable, or cut their health into 1/4.

Literally the only broken thing about this boss is the crystals……. why can’t we dodge them, why do we get a 1/2 second animation as a warning to them, why do they have so much health……Fix it, this isn’t a mechanic to be learned, it’s an unavoidable….srsly, 100% unavoidable death. Fix it.

IF you are an elementalist, you can use the lightning teleport in order to shimmy out of it… Not sure if its a bug. May also work with other skills that teleport.

I actually have not wiped once on CoE at all. Alpha is a long fight and keeps me on my toes avoiding his aoe, timing my rolls and evading crystals etc. Very decent boss imo.
Not a single one of his spells 1-hit me either.
I am a necro (only 18k hp) and personally I laugh at crystals because I can DS and fear him in crystal, but not one of the people i’ve ran the dungeon with had any problems either…
Crystal can be destroyed in seconds, if someone gets downed, go next to the player and press F + kill the tendrils for rally. If you actually die then what you wanna do is …run back.

I actually do not see the problem.

Nothing to fix.

It’s not supposed to be dodged. It’s supposed to be a mechanic where your group needs to burst it down before losing that party member.

I can dodge it quite ok if I focus enough. In my opinion what they should do is remove free out-of-jail cards from some classes.

Yeah, you can dodge if you see him hop up. It’s extremely quick though. Lots of classes have get out of jail free cards though in teleport form (or if you know a spike is coming you can use whatever invulnerability you have).

also stability gives crystals the middle finger. and usually your group should be able to burst it down before you get aoe’d.

Literally ran CoE exp for the first time tonight, path 1 and 2 (We dodged the door). Killed alpha the 3 times on each path. Got downed once.

Learn the timing on his AOE, theres a PBAOE and a distant “Dragon Fang” style AOE. And the AOE timing is so far apart that you always have a dodge up for the PBAOE.

As for the crystals, ball up on the boss so no one has to run out and chase people in crytals. That way people with AOE dps (i.e. Wars with GS, etc) can hit the boss and the crystal.

Yes it’s more like an undodgeable attack. You have to rely on you group to help you break the crystal, this is where teamwork comes to play.

Not quite. As a Thief I can use Shadowstep or Steal to get out of the crystals. Mesmers also have something up their sleeve, ‘cos we had one in party that could easily get out. I think that skills that displace you can help quite a lot. Maybe Engineer’s Rocket Boots ? I’m not sure on other professions as I haven’t had much experience with them, but yeah, crystals are not that much big of a deal.

I wouldn’t say it’s so much a problem with crystals than it is your group. The thing with SA is team work. I’m still working out how to actually more effectively deal with him in the teleport path but for sub and front door, you and your team need to be on top of him at all times and trust in them that they don’t mistime their dodge/waste endurance when he does his AoE attacks and get downed/die as a result. Stay within reach of each other to not waste time to get people back up and out of crystals and there shouldn’t be a problem, imo.

Mesmers have blink(utility) and phase retreat(staff) to get out of the crystals.

You either need a good team that destroys crystals as soon as they appear, or bring something to get out of em yourself.

Frenzy is quite good to get out of them fast on Warrior. Though relogging might be even more faster.

Like a previous post stated as a thief, steal, shadowstep and even Infiltrator’s signet helps get out of the crystals, some of the other professions have teleporting skills too.
Best thing to do is either ask if team will break crystals or not, if they do then you are fine if they don’t, try to spec a bit more in vitality so you can take a few extra hits while in the cristal. (I always carry an extra set of armor with toughness and vitality, it doesn’t have to be exotic, greens will be fine)
Another useful thing I found was having a speed buff of sorts on at all times, as a thief I find Signet of Shadows quite useful for Alpha (almost never use it, just keep it for the passive) to get out of the AoEs in time without wasting too many dodges (even if I have the return endurance trait on anyway, but that’s because I still suck at dodging :P)
Another good thing is to keep the thralls and/or tendrils on low health without killing them so people that get downed can 2 hit them and rally, and as a bonus it’s actually faster to kill a tendril with two people than ressing someone from downed state

My group and I finally did all three CoE paths today. For alpha, it’s easier to stand next to/on top of each other within melee range of the boss, assuming your group knows how to dodge alpha’s attacks. With everyone next to each other, any nearby allied AoE helps break the crystal quickly without having to run around finding people. You’ll also spend more time damaging alpha rather than running an obstacle course to help your teammates.

I feel like the crystal is a problem as well, classes that have a teleport being able to get out makes alot of sense, but classes that can’t get trapped in that thing and it is guaranteed death, especially since your whole party isn’t going to want to stop dps’ing alpha to dps the crystal. As often as everyone dies in those fights, it simply isn’t more efficient to save the one person trapped in the crystal by pulling dps off alpha rather than continue and try to end that torturous boss fight faster. I do wish the person trapped in the crystal could at least attack it from the inside.

Alpha is probably one of the easiest bosses in this game. Just stack on him and roll from his AOE after a sec delay. If you are all bunched up, your party members aoes from killing alpha will instantly shatter you out.

Um, if you’re in a crystal then his big AoE spam won’t hurt you. His other attacks will, but not the big spike AoE. This boss is not broken IMO, he’s fine just the way he is. Sure he was hard as hell the first few times I went though CoE and he still gets me every now and then. But if you have a good team with solid dps and who knows how to handle him, then it’s simple. The group I was just in a few minutes ago did the front door path in about 45 minutes, zero deaths (for me anyways) and the two other melee against Alpha.

If he’s giving you a hard time then you’re doing something wrong. Either not doding his AoE or not getting within melee range to fight him (this goes for ranged as well). Staying in melee range make the fight simple because he wont’ be casting his dragon tooth spell at you. Also, it’s really easy for the melee to splash damage you out of a crystal if you’re right next to the boss. As a warrior, I’m not going to run to a ranged and try to dps him out of a crystal or rez him because he can’t dodge or follow directions. Besides, rezing someone in that fight is risky.