Guild Wars 2

At this point I’ve done all paths for CoE a couple times and I thought I’d give some feedback for my favorite dungeon.

Subject Alpha
- Very engaging; dodging his AoEs is make-or-break, and consequently the fights are pretty intense. Dodging is easy once you have run it enough, but still requires your attention.
- Despite having a lot of different attacks, only 2 are ultimately notable. Circles that kill you and imprisonment crystals. As a result, fights 2 and 3 feel largely the same. Silly suggestion: Give him a short-duration stealth for the third fight; the inquest spared no expense.
- Given that you fight him 3 times, he has a little more health than he needs to. I’d say reduce it by 15%.
- Sometimes gets stuck and won’t do anything, allowing for a really easy fight
-A lot of classes have a way to escape Imp Crystal or tank it; Not sure if any lack one or the other, but if there are some odd classes out, the health of the crystal should be reduced since the most efficient way right now to deal with it is blink and company

Champion Crab Destroyer
- This is easily skippable and most groups seem to want to. As a result, I’ve been unable to even fight him. I’d block progress until it’s dead unless bypassing it is intended.

Evolved Destroyer
- Boring fight for many reasons. Any 1200 range weapon can safely damage him from the stairs so there is little incentive to go onto the permanently dragon’s toothed platforms. Meanwhile, there is little pressure to the safe players besides occasionally dodging a dragon’s tooth, and furthermore you have to laser down his shields a lot. It’s mainly just tedious.
- Suggestions: Longer shield-down state, remove/slow the rate of the constant dragon’s toothing on the levitating platforms, spawn other destroyers above to pressure the players on the lasers/stairs and promote use of the platforms

Bjarl
- Gets stuck a lot
- Doesn’t really pose a threat since he doesn’t really have any tricks up his sleeve besides his shield
- Still fairly fun

Various Creatures [threatening the inquest in the shield]
- This fight is hilarious. The knockdown is over-the-top. Love it!

Security Golems [while deactivating the system via console]
- Same as above.

Overall I love the dungeon. A lot of the bosses get stuck a lot. Most of the enemies are sufficiently difficult to keep you attentive but not overwhelmed and Subject Alpha is the best boss I’ve yet faced.

One thing I was a little disappointed with is that the ‘evolved’ nature of the bosses (destroyer, husk, alpha) was not really fleshed out. When I think of mad scientists like the inquest forcibly evolving things, I imagine them getting wings, super-speed, invisibility, maybe even speech. It’s kind of weird that their alpha experiment is “controls undead” and “is an elementalist made of slugs” and that their evolved destroyer is a wimp that puts up a shield and also is an elementalist.

But I digress. Great dungeon!

My review of CoE

6/10 needs work
1. who the hell thought it was a good idea making every path the same besides 1-2 bosses? Fire them. Part of the fun of an explorable is each path should be unique.

2. who the hell thought it was a good idea to make you fight the same boss right down to the name in every explorable 3 times? Fire them too. If you wanted to use a similar boss per path, have him actually be changed by something we do in the path. And possibly give him differing attacks based on it. For example, in sub path, make us end up freezing him or something, exposed to icebrood, I dont know. Then in the second and third fights he uses teeth of jormag. That would make sense.

3. the unique bosses are all actually pretty good. The destroyer could use a little tweaking. But each boss has separate mechanics, as well as making you use the environment. A+ boss fights. (maybe B- for destroyer because it feels tedious, but I can ignore that)

4. the laser trap is pretty cool. Im always a big fan of things that are unique compared to other dungeons. Making us do it multiple times to 100% the dungeon isnt as cool. Also as a note, maybe make the lasers not damage armor. Everyone just rolls nude anyway.

I’m honestly of the opinion that Alpha is the worst part of CoE, both in design choice, and mechanics (compared to other bosses in the dungeon. He is still leagues ahead of other bosses in terms of mechanics/strategy, but he could really use some work imo) This is only aggravated more by the fact that you have to fight him 9 times to finish the dungeon, and many more if you want to get the armor.

Work on making subject alpha feel more unique each fight and i’d rank CoE as one of, if not my top dungeon experience.

I also enjoyed the laser trap a lot. I kind of wish each path had it’s own unique pattern or something, but eh. It’s one of the things in CoE I look forward to.

I can’t stand Alpha. Many pugs are afraid of him, and he really isn’t very varied at all. Add on top the fact that he has a stupid amount of health, and you have to fight him three times in every single path, and it just gets tedious. The first time I fought him, I thought, “Hey, this is kind of amusing! Circles of doom everywhere! But dear lord he has got a ton of HP.” Then we had to fight him again, and he was basically the same plus crystals, which were kind of nifty but sometimes frustrating if he decided he really, really didn’t like you. I didn’t notice anything different the third time I fought him that run.

Then I ran a different path, and had to fight pretty much the same thing another three times. And then again for the last path.

My goal is around 2100 CoE tokens for my weapons sets for my Warrior alone, and I’m not looking forward to fighting Alpha over and over. It just seems tedious to me fighting him three times in one path, and this is what I’m looking forward to least, aside from maybe the Evolved Destroyer.

That fight is an absolute snoozefest. Fire ze cannons, jump down, DPS the boss, run up, fire ze cannons, etc. I’m honestly surprised by the design, and I have no idea what the heck the thought process was behind it. For starters, you’re supposed to be escaping from a collapsing structure. So you ought to be feeling some kind of sense of urgency, right? Then all of a sudden, you get plopped in this boss fight where the boss simply sits in the middle of an island taking a snooze and does absolutely nothing until something actually gets close, and when that actually happens nobody even cares because the boss itself isn’t a threat. A more personal gripe is that visually, the lasers are pretty wimpy and generally unsatisfying to use, but meh.

Bjarl is meh. The fight is really easy. You really don’t have to think much at all, just another health sponge. The fact that he gets stuck a lot doesn’t help, either.

I actually enjoyed the Evolved Husk fight. It felt fairly unique.

Alpha is a very easy and tedious boss once you figure out his pattern, my best tip would be never stand close to any1 or your gonna get swarmed by red circles , if you do that spam dodge and you might evade it.

I’ve run this dungeon plenty of time (maybe to many) on every path including story, and I have to say this is maybe the best dungeon I’ve run. Some things I’ve liked and disliked are:
*balance of mobs, not overwhelming but you can’t sleep though them either.
*Defence field, wondrous but different patterns would be cool. Keep it interesting.
*The Fire evolved husk could use some flare. Pretty much sleep though him. The rest of the bosses are pretty much okay.

Then there is good old Alpha. To me he’s fun. I’ve managed to dodge all of his attacks at least twice now, just got the timing to dodge crystals down, and I’m happy to say that my survival time while fighting him in any stage is about 5-10 minutes or longer if he’s not focusing me. I have used melee and ranged on him and granted I’ve died more in melee than ranged, it is possible.

I agree with the previous posters, this is a poorly designed dungeon. Alpha would be interesting if at the 3 different stages you fight him, there is a different mechanic/strategy for taking him down for each different fight. As with most of the dungeons’ bosses, these are AOE dodging. I did have some delight when fighting the evolved husk, and having to use the rifles to move the golems in place and blow the husk up. That was new and fun. My biggest problem for this dungeon and any others, is that they take way too long to get through. Maybe it was just my groups but in my opinion a 5-man dungeon should take 1-2 hours tops, 2 hours being if your group is struggling. I ran the 2nd path last night and we were in there for 4 hours as we came upon the last round of Alpha. I really hope Anet addresses a lot of the concerns with the dungeons in a coming patch. Once I hit 80, I was excited to be running dungeons to get one of the set of gear, now I’m upset and annoyed with the dungeon mechanics, lots of tedious AOE dodging bosses, there is not enough uniqueness to them to keep interest. And without keeping my interest, I’m sure there are others as well, end game is not fun, and I can see a quick migration to other games once players hit 80 and have the experiences I have had.

Agree with above posters, one of the best dungeons I’ve run in general, in many MMOs.

You can see this in the comments of the people hating the dungeon, too. This dungeon is one of the few proper ones because it punishes mistakes.

Just look at the people that dislike it. Similar comments you saw in WoW when heroics were difficult. Most of them seem to think Alpha is impossible to dodge or too hard, for example, which is simply untrue. The problem is their WoW-mentality of not moving, not dodging, and not paying attention to the fight.

they like it better but because they have no choice

And here you sound like a crack addict. You realize that you don’t HAVE to play games, right? If they aren’t fun, then don’t.

I sure wouldn’t play WoW if GW2 wasn’t there just because it’s a MMO. I’d only play games that are fun.

That you and your friends are not and instead “have no choice” to play WoW is saying a lot about you and your friends.

Conclusion: Very well desinged dungeon. I hope this one is used as a template for more dungeons. The only changes needed are a change for the Destroyer boss, and slightly harder trash in some parts. Each part should have some unique trash mobs that are advanced in some way. Maybe eben randomly (for example make a pool of 10 abilities, and it randomly picks two of those, including really, really evil ones)

Result would be a literally perfect dungeon.

Zefiris.8297:

Agree with above posters, one of the best dungeons I’ve run in general, in many MMOs.

You can see this in the comments of the people hating the dungeon, too. This dungeon is one of the few proper ones because it punishes mistakes.

Just look at the people that dislike it. Similar comments you saw in WoW when heroics were difficult. Most of them seem to think Alpha is impossible to dodge or too hard, for example, which is simply untrue. The problem is their WoW-mentality of not moving, not dodging, and not paying attention to the fight.

they like it better but because they have no choice

And here you sound like a crack addict. You realize that you don’t HAVE to play games, right? If they aren’t fun, then don’t.

I sure wouldn’t play WoW if GW2 wasn’t there just because it’s a MMO. I’d only play games that are fun.

That you and your friends are not and instead “have no choice” to play WoW is saying a lot about you and your friends.

Conclusion: Very well desinged dungeon. I hope this one is used as a template for more dungeons. The only changes needed are a change for the Destroyer boss, and slightly harder trash in some parts. Each part should have some unique trash mobs that are advanced in some way. Maybe eben randomly (for example make a pool of 10 abilities, and it randomly picks two of those, including really, really evil ones)

Result would be a literally perfect dungeon.

God I hope they never make another dungeon like this.
I dont understand how you can consider fighting a massive tub of hp 9 times a fun dungeon. I seriously dont. Maybe if it was a fun fight. But its honestly not. Once youve dodged his abilities for over 2 minutes you know everything there is to know about them. And the prospect of needing to fight him 60 more times is daunting if not downright sickening.

I also like CoE a lot, one of my favourites.
The only thing really bad about it is the Evolved Destroyer boss on path 3… feels very unfinished. Makes me not want to run path 3, because that one boss fight is extremely boring.

swerth.9864:

My biggest problem for this dungeon and any others, is that they take way too long to get through. Maybe it was just my groups but in my opinion a 5-man dungeon should take 1-2 hours tops, 2 hours being if your group is struggling. I ran the 2nd path last night and we were in there for 4 hours as we came upon the last round of Alpha

Umm, if it took you 4 hours to get through the Teleporter path, you and your group seriously need to step back and look at what you’re doing wrong. I regularly lead CoE first timers on runs that take less than an hour, as long as they listen a little. There’s a group that can run the Submarine path in well under 20 minutes. I’d understand it a little bit more if it was the Front Door path, because Alpha is a bit more annoying and impatient groups can easily make taking down the Evolved Destroyer take much, much longer than need be, but either way a 4 hour long CoE run is at the fault of the players.

I do think the fact that the paths are so similar and the fact that you have to fight Alpha 3 times each path does make it feel really tedious, but it’s really not all that long of a dungeon.

Subject alpha. worst boss ever. its not so much the Aoe spam, the annoying crystals, but the astronomical HP pool. The only reason I didn’t rage was because I was with a guild team and it would seem like bad manners. never doing COE ever again.

I don’t know about his massive HP’s. He just doesn’t hold a candle to HoTW. Those quaggans seem to have more HP than SA. Only did Teleporter/Sub path so if you mean front door I have no clue on that.

Another shocker is that the robot took us the same amount of time to kill as 2nd form Subject alpha. 0_o.

Final fight is I think 7 minutes from the video.

With less deaths that 2nd fight could probably cut down a good minute. Now the fact that hes the ONLY real “boss”. Thats the real problem.

there is just NO way the people who made this dungeon actually play this dungeon. this is one of those cases, i imagine, that it looks good on paper but that’s actually the farthest thing from the truth.