Guild Wars 2

If there is one thing I hated most about Aion it was the fact that dungeon content was never tested and often required exploits to beat. That soon became the format for every group fighting those encounters and was never addressed. (Stormwing, Dark Poeta pre-expansion, Abyssal Splinter, etc).

On to GW2… almost every group I have joined for Citadel of Fire, mainly route 2, has used some sort of game exploit to beat. Mainly seen in the events of getting Magg across the lava and Magg bombing the door. I thought that these were just over-tuned events… until the Dev who claims creation of the dungeon made some tweaks to it to be more his expectation. These tweaks being the removal of some exploits and making the events even harder…

My question would be… has any developer(s) actually ran this instance on route 2 and cleared it legit? I am sure with the perfect group composition, and I mean PERFECT, it would be do-able. But I have yet to get said group as a geared Thief. So let me explain the two exploitable events that I think are over-tuned.

Magg getting across the lava… Even as a geared DPS Thief with other geared folks we still cannot clear the mobs fast enough before respawn’s hit us. You have these mobs ranging for incredible damage, people expected to not be doing DPS because they have to put out fires with the frost, meanwhile we are killing 2-3 silvers. It just seems A BIT MUCH. Most groups just run across the lava and whoever dies spawns at zone-in Waypoint and Magg ports to the crystal. And quite honestly, I don’t blame people using this method because this event is ridiculous.

Magg blowing up the door. Seriously? I doubt any group has actually been able to keep up the pace of killing mobs for 2 minutes on this fight. The timers between spawns is TOO FAST for any group to kill 3 silver mobs in time before being swarmed by 3 more. It isn’t even challenging, it just seems impossible. And it’s not fun. Getting past this event for… 99.9% of groups is chain dieing for 2 minutes.

So that’s my 2C on this instance in particular. I haven’t had a chance to do other instances but I imagine there is equal frustration in them as well.

- Xerical

As far as I’m aware they have teams within the company that test all the fights the legit way though I assume some quick ‘patches’ might not have been as thoroughly tested.

That said if you don’t wish to do exploits try to find a group with a like-minded attitude of wanting to complete the content as intended perhaps in your guild or people you met along the way (A steady dungeon team).

I’ve done all 3 paths (before nerfs and/or after buffs) legitimately with a well coordinated group. They are doable but not easy. The main problem is that PuGs pick the easier way to go through content because otherwise there’s a larger chance of getting wiped repeatedly (because of it being a PuG). People simply don’t have the patience/time to put up with wipes in the process of learning.

You can’t expect explorables to be easy and doable right away by anyone in just any group setting. They are the raid equivelant difficulty in this game and require good teamwork. I think it’s great that they aren’t easy and I hope they fix all the bugs and exploits soon.

I don’t believe for an instant, these dungeons are tested by “regular” casual players. I’m sure the testers they have are top notch, but, the vast majority of the player base are not top notch.

This means the testers were unqualified to test these dungeons. You don’t test something from experts, you test something for the average “Joe or Mary” to see a market response.

As it is, only a very few exceptional players in our 120 plus roster of players have the exceptional qualities to beat these death traps.

Guild wars dungeons were fun, and balanced. The ones here are cruel, evil, pointless, and un fun.

As far as getting Magg across the lava, try getting your group to run accross (while extinguishing fires in the path ofc) and run up the little hill behind the magmacite to de-aggro the mobs. You can then clear your way back to Maggs corpse quite easily and get him to complete the encounter.

Now for the door event… here’s a video of my group getting it to 80% while naked

When you do it without a Mesmer i will be amazed. Now it just proves that the Mesmer is the best buffer in the game where everyone should be equal.

Stobor.8041:

When you do it without a Mesmer i will be amazed. Now it just proves that the Mesmer is the best buffer in the game where everyone should be equal.

Here ya go, same group, no mesmer, frapsed way earlier so people had less gear.

If this encounter is almost doable without armor, I’m fairly certain its doable with any group composition and non-perfect gear.

On the other hand, path 1 is just plain ridiculous. It’s possible to finish it in 20 minutes (give or take a few), even with PUG groups. And if that isn’t enough, there’s even an exploit. Before the last boss, people jump onto a torch and to the gate to get past an encounter which lasts for approximately 15 seconds. It’s the fight where you have to stay near those four little torches and kill a few trash mobs while one party member goes to the console.

I can’t believe people are actually willing to use an exploit like this one. And even more than that, I can’t believe I get “l2p, noob” when I refuse to use something as absurd.

So yes, I’ll agree that I’m finding it hard to believe that these dungeons are tested by devs. Some of the dungeon paths are near impossible, while others are way too easy (and exploitable, to make matters worse :facepalm:).

Well im amazed.

Kevin.2176:

Stobor.8041:

When you do it without a Mesmer i will be amazed. Now it just proves that the Mesmer is the best buffer in the game where everyone should be equal.

Here ya go, same group, no mesmer, frapsed way earlier so people had less gear.

If this encounter is almost doable without armor, I’m fairly certain its doable with any group composition and non-perfect gear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3szVor2tMU

I’m gonna disagree with the “almost any group” part. You’ve gotta have either WAY higher single target damage or good AoE damage plus someone that can do a pull like guardian or mesmer. Otherwise you end up running around too much to get to each of the ranged mobs and losing a lot of time needed to kill things.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

I don’t believe for an instant, these dungeons are tested by “regular” casual players. I’m sure the testers they have are top notch, but, the vast majority of the player base are not top notch.

This means the testers were unqualified to test these dungeons. You don’t test something from experts, you test something for the average “Joe or Mary” to see a market response.

As it is, only a very few exceptional players in our 120 plus roster of players have the exceptional qualities to beat these death traps.

Guild wars dungeons were fun, and balanced. The ones here are cruel, evil, pointless, and un fun.

Disillude yourself. Noone test nothing, we players on live are the testers. When a patch appears barely stable, is throw out as official. If the patch will mess up groups no more able to join an istance together, or objects disappear from your inventory etc, well, amen, your fault you was online during the bugged patch days

The “standard” way of doing the Magg door explodium thingy appears to be to work-around the seemingly impossible battle by sending people into the room to stay alive as long as possible.

It works like this: Have two people enter the room and run around trying to last as long as possible. The other three people wait at the entrance to the room, and when one of those inside dies, the next person enters. This keeps the event going while the dead guy runs back. Rinse & repeat.

vicwolf.7862:

I’d like to see you post a video of you DPSing the whole event Kevin because you kitten can’t. The last guy to post a video here of his group trying ended up kiting most of the spawns past the 80 second mark.

vicwolf.7862:

Try it again with a group of 75s Kevin.2176

vicwolf.7862:

I’m gonna disagree with the “almost any group” part. You’ve gotta have either WAY higher single target damage or good AoE damage plus someone that can do a pull like guardian or mesmer. Otherwise you end up running around too much to get to each of the ranged mobs and losing a lot of time needed to kill things.

I like how you went from “you can’t do it period, show me a video” to “you did it at level 80, do it with a bunch of level 75s” to now “you can do it, but only with very specific group composition”. Whats next? do this encounter with only 2 skills and my arm tied behind my back?

The things you listed are pretty much covered in some aspect by one class or another, either in very good single target damage or melee AoE cleave. Majority of the classes has some sort of push back, and guardians are not that hard to find period. Considering the actual difficulty of this encounter I’m going to flat out and say its doable with any five intelligent players playing any professions.

This game’s current PvE content is laughable in comparison to many other games (its fun for sure, but not very difficult). I’m honestly surprised you are still arguing about the difficulty of this encounter. I guess its always easier to blame outside factors than attributing to poor play.

Every content not zergable like wvw or DE , is “impossible” , " doable just with x and y" and all the rest of useless whine you read on this forum. Be used, L2P is a myth, noone listen even when you explain them what to do.

Kevin.2176:

vicwolf.7862:

I’d like to see you post a video of you DPSing the whole event Kevin because you kitten can’t. The last guy to post a video here of his group trying ended up kiting most of the spawns past the 80 second mark.

vicwolf.7862:

Try it again with a group of 75s Kevin.2176

vicwolf.7862:

I’m gonna disagree with the “almost any group” part. You’ve gotta have either WAY higher single target damage or good AoE damage plus someone that can do a pull like guardian or mesmer. Otherwise you end up running around too much to get to each of the ranged mobs and losing a lot of time needed to kill things.

I like how you went from “you can’t do it period, show me a video” to “you did it at level 80, do it with a bunch of level 75s” to now “you can do it, but only with very specific group composition”. Whats next? do this encounter with only 2 skills and my arm tied behind my back?

The things you listed are pretty much covered in some aspect by one class or another, either in very good single target damage or melee AoE cleave. Majority of the classes has some sort of push back, and guardians are not that hard to find period. Considering the actual difficulty of this encounter I’m going to flat out and say its doable with any five intelligent players playing any professions.

This game’s current PvE content is laughable in comparison to many other games (its fun for sure, but not very difficult). I’m honestly surprised you are still arguing about the difficulty of this encounter. I guess its always easier to blame outside factors than attributing to poor play.

Yeah, I spent some more time trying with a dedicated group setup to clear it with dps and was pleasantly surprised to find it possible but also found that without top notch (at least rare quality all around) and the previously mentioned abilities to gather up mobs we always ended up kiting past the 50% mark.

So while I’ll eat my hat for the assertion that it wasn’t possible (on the condition that it wasn’t stealth changed over the past couple patches) I’m still maintaining that it is overtuned and should be more on level with the door events in CoE.

@vicwolf.7862 what level are you and what is your group setup?

Xerical.9472:

On to GW2… almost every group I have joined for Citadel of Fire, mainly route 2, has used some sort of game exploit to beat. Mainly seen in the events of getting Magg across the lava and Magg bombing the door.

The first time I did CoF path 2, it was with a PUG. Yes, we had Teamspeak to coordinate but remember, explorables are supposed to be for well prepared, well coordinated groups. While we were coordinated, we were not prepared.

Noone in the group had ever done it.

The lava crossing took us quite some time. We finally figured out that Magg will stop and “fight” by throwing cotton balls at anything within a certain reach. We cleared the path, walked ahead, rezzed him… and after quite some time, we’d done it.

So yes, the fight is absolutely doable the way it’s meant to be. I don’t know if I want the exploit for that fight fixed. It was a hassle doing it the way it’s supposed to be done. At the moment, I don’t think that many groups do it the hard way. If they take that rock away, I hope they reduce the range at which Maggs engages in throwing cotton balls so you can actually get him ovet there.

@Joxy.6879
80s all around, best group I found was 3 warrior 2 guardians with at least 1 warrior going banner regen support. I’ve had similar levels of success with 2 warriors 1 guardian and 2 ranged AoE classes (ranger or engi) and several permutations thereof. The key imo for most reliable clearing through dps is to have someone that can pull the mobs together for AoE burning.

Alternatively you can run with very high single target dps and kill priority targets that way but it’s hit or miss. The only thing I’ve seen that makes it impossible to clear everything is if your group tries kiting AT ALL. If you’re losing any dps time you’re going to either end up gy zerging, kiting the rest of the event, or failing.