Guild Wars 2

So, Arenanet recently made changes to CoF to make it impossible to do speed runs. Two of the changes were:

-Edited the map so we can’t jump over the gate to final boss
-Increased time Magg takes to detonate the door and made enemies in this event more difficult.

Sure, go ahead, change the map. I support that. But today a group of friends and myself went to do CoF, and were unable to complete the dungeon (thus gaining naught, thanks to your new reward system) because of the difficulty of defending Magg while he charges the explosive. We got absolutely smashed. We tried different tactics, but nothing worked. We tried kiting, killing, etc. but the mobs are just too strong.

I don’t even see how increasing the difficulty countered speed runs, all you had to do was get rid of that gate-jumping exploit.

The task is supposed to be hard, and it is. The Wiki suggests you kite mobs in circles. The method is do-able and just takes a couple tries… this is the only tough part of this run and the more you do it, the easier it gets. My thoughts to you.
1. Get a chat program and communicate better with your group.
2. Learn your buddies play styles and use builds that work well for the task
and if those dont help, join a guild that can help you.
Content is supposed to be hard, its the only end game you have.

They want dungeons to be hard for about 6 months. Once you do them enough they will be easy. Once theyre easy to everyone… theyll add more content.

Barthos.6245:

The task is supposed to be hard, and it is. The Wiki suggests you kite mobs in circles. The method is do-able and just takes a couple tries… this is the only tough part of this run and the more you do it, the easier it gets. My thoughts to you.
1. Get a chat program and communicate better with your group.
2. Learn your buddies play styles and use builds that work well for the task
and if those dont help, join a guild that can help you.
Content is supposed to be hard, its the only end game you have.

They want dungeons to be hard for about 6 months. Once you do them enough they will be easy. Once theyre easy to everyone… theyll add more content.

So what you’re telling me is that we should kite the mobs instead of actually “Defend” him like the event is supposedly designed as? Am I getting this right?

Its not hard, it can be done with one death maximum. Been there done that
Without using exploits of course.

The difference between your response and mine is that mine is substantiated by words you said, and yours is pure speculation. I commented on your attitude, not my thoughts about this thread. Anyway, I’ll not let this detract from the OP’s intent any further.

I just started running CoF last night and got my helmet, I log on today.
1. I can’t get into the dunegon with people and eventually they give up.
2. We get to “Defend Magg” and get massacred, all in exotic gear. We’re not bad players and still it’s just overwhelming. I’ve tried with 3 separate groups and we can’t get pass thekittendoor to the final area, spent a good 3 hours trying to get some tokens hoping for 60, when even that’s not guaranteed at the moment.

It’s a little sad. On my end it’s a bit sad too, I know it can be done but it just not fun dying so much to possibly get as low as what, 5 tokens?

[Edit]

Than if we do get past that part, after hours of deaths we still dont know if we’re going to get the correct amount of tokens we’re suppose to get, I’d say with us even knowing we have a chance to get as little as maybe 5 tokens, which means that we will be farming maybe longer than most, I’d say thats quite a bit of patience.

I’m more annoyed by the fact that I can get a group into the dungeon at once, we all have to relog multiple times and keep attempting to get into the same instance, that’s patience enough right there.

[Edited by the CC: Answer to a deleted post was deleted, too]

Most CoF farmers ive met call the exploits “Jumping puzzles”. They only ask for the dungeons to be easy. I have yet to meet a CoF Farmer who asks to increase the difficulty of the dungeon. Especially path 2.

Im not a CoF farmer but if I was going to suggest how to improve the path 2 dungeon, I would say without hesitating. Make it harder to complete the Devo Nest event. Its too easy, I can do it with my eyes closed. The 1st boss needs to become smarter, and perhaps do more types of attacks, perhaps summon more ads. Its too easy.

The fireball collecting thing seems fine, but its a bit buggy, and the obstacles put by Anet seem too easy to hop over. The mobs spawned during the obstacles and the fire turrets can be ignored and tanked.

The lava field was fixed yes, but it can still be easily jumped through by the whole team who just stand on a safe spot to lure mag to them and boom. Finished with the lava field event, not much of an event tbh.

The bomb room. Well this room is quite good as it is, its near a way point, it can be kited/killed depending on how the team wants to proceed.

The last boss? The idea of the room is good, damage is good but the 2 problem I have with this room is. The Baelfire boss is too easy, his spirit doesnt do much. I can ignore him all I want, and it wont even make a noticeable difference in the fight. The giant thing in the center that everyone is attacking has too little life, or its too easy to take down.

Just a little comment from someone who doesnt farm CoF and knows nothing about the pain that CoF has caused its fan.

Been in plenty of excellent teams. None have been able to crack the new ‘kite room.’ There was a very good reason people avoided it with that exploit, and it wasn’t necessarily because of a few extra tokens.

@Arc – I respectfully suggest that your teams just aren’t as good as you think they are. Warrior here, did it with two friends and two pugs, neither of the pugs I would consider all that great, and it took us two tries. Lot of runbacks, but it’s definitely doable.

I’ve tried doing this run multipile times now. which the gate is still bugged andyu canet through so hopefullythat gets patched.

But I’ve tried this many times now with a few groups and none of us can get past it. we taketurns kiting and dieing. 1 at a tie\me until about 35% and then two ata time. by the time the timerhits 65% there’s so many enemiesonthe field it’s almost impossible to get even ten feet without getting downed and they go through us so fast wedontevenhave time to respawn andrun back before we’re all dead as well as magg. you end up spenging all your coin on repairing because ofthis just to give up in the end.
I’m not saying the enemies need to be made easier but maybe the amount that is spawned needs tobe reduced or we need to be able to train the amout of the room or the time magg takes to set the bomb needs to be reduced. The farthest I’ve ever made it since the patch is 75%. And to those that say I’m doing it wrong I’m not I even set up a fear skill to buy some time, charrzooka to knock them all back as a group. There just ends up being too many enemies to handle.

Auxilium.2487:

..seriously…^
Like you have the right to say anything, you have nothing to contribute to the thread except “assume” we’re not patient because we spend “hours” on one part of the game?

Than if we do get past that part, after hours of deaths we still dont know if we’re going to get the correct amount of tokens we’re suppose to get, I’d say with us even knowing we have a chance to get as little as maybe 5 tokens, which means that we will be farming maybe longer than most, I’d say thats quite a bit of patience.

I’m more annoyed by the fact that I can get a group into the dungeon at once, we all have to relog multiple times and keep attempting to get into the same instance, that’s patience enough right there.

The event is stupidily designed, yes. Is it impossible? not at all.

My team strategies let our guardian run 1st and everyone else outside. When the guardian die. Then another person will come in and try to survive as long as he can and goes on. If all party member in the cave the monster will wipe u guys out.

I do think it needs to be toned down a bit. In a PuG, it’s nearly impossible. Doing an all guild run all the time just isn’t an option for everyone.

@auxilium i got 2 tokens on my 2nd run in CoF …

I think my biggest issue (if what I was told is correct), is that the door buster is meant to be kited (yet they increase the time). I was told that the enemies become invulnerable at low HP, meaning you can’t fight them. You have to run around. This just creates a graveyard zerg to kite the mobs around.

i think we can just all agree that anet is bad at designing pve, and only good at pvp.

I was the only Thief in my group, but I can tell you, just having one Shadow Refuge helped A LOT. If you had two Thieves, I think it’d be cake walk.

Seks.6045:

@Arc – I respectfully suggest that your teams just aren’t as good as you think they are. Warrior here, did it with two friends and two pugs, neither of the pugs I would consider all that great, and it took us two tries. Lot of runbacks, but it’s definitely doable.

Runbacks = deaths? No event in any dungeon should be designed around (or require) dying and running back.

That being said, I did complete this in a pug tonight using the 3 in / 2 out method.

I agree with you completely Rellick. No event or dungeon should be built like this. I am not saying that it isn’t do-able, because it is, but it isn’t practical for a group of pugs to do this.

I think at one point in my last run I counted 15 mobs. That is 15 Silver Ring mobs. Doing anywhere from 2-8k damage per hit depending on the mob. If I were to get hit for each mob in there for 6k I would be taking 90k damage….8x more health than i have at level 75.

1. Kill enemies until more than 6 spawn at once.
2. Run around distracting the enemies until the time elapses. Drop heals on Magg if needed.

Swiftness, healing, stealth, aegis, snares, and protection will all help a lot. It really isn’t that hard.

A simplified argument if I may, the encounter is designed around failure: doubly hinted by the fact that the waypoint is extremely close by..
To reiterate: designed around failure.

Was writing something here, but it got wiped as I tried to post it.
Long story short. I am generally against all whiners and so on, but after having seen this event yesturday for myself…
Lets make it quick. Sure we all would love to see an official tactics from Anet devs, on actual 75 level and actual gear, how to complete this event not resorting to cheap kiting (it is impossible anyway to do), and graveyard zerg. Show us the way how it meant to be done, Anet!

The problem I have with the new Magg defend is that it requires very specific kind of team to do reliably.

Either you need a very VERY high offense, which melts the enemies down or you need MANY guardians.

Or you need a team that can listen to the “Single Target command”. Press T and target the same target.

Edit:
Guardian isnt going to do much here, Id rather have a tone of rangers, necros and what not. Use consumables. Itll reduce your incoming damage, and increase your health + regen.

suggesting to go with some specific classes is stupid. If none of his friends have a guardian you want to tell him is impossible to do that part with defending Magg? Just stop giving advice which don’t apply to all.
The idea of that part is communication, i like the idea, it make use of all 5 in party… Is very simple, everyone in party just need some good timing on dodge and run in circle and use all defensive/survivability skills they have (every class have those kind of skills).
If you go with glass-cannon build there, you will fail again.
Till now, i finished first and second path, 3rd path we are still working on to finish. But we are not crying because if very hard, we look for solutions to finish it and i’m sure we will.

If people cry about 2nd path is hard, what about 3rd part? … just try to find solutions and change something in your group play style then you can see a difference.

“If people cry about 2nd path is hard, what about 3rd part? … just try to find solutions and change something in your group play style then you can see a difference.”

Yeah man, so what if a big chunk of the game is bugged or badly tuned! Just leave it that way!

vicwolf.7862:

DKP.4196:

If it can be overcome, its just another challenge set by Anet…vicwolf…you whine too much…-.-

Congratulations, you’re the first person on my block list.

Ok…? Am I meant to feel bad?

I got so many gold sellers on my block list I dont know which was my first^^

Caliga Meshima.4768:

Barthos.6245:

The task is supposed to be hard, and it is. The Wiki suggests you kite mobs in circles. The method is do-able and just takes a couple tries… this is the only tough part of this run and the more you do it, the easier it gets. My thoughts to you.
1. Get a chat program and communicate better with your group.
2. Learn your buddies play styles and use builds that work well for the task
and if those dont help, join a guild that can help you.
Content is supposed to be hard, its the only end game you have.

They want dungeons to be hard for about 6 months. Once you do them enough they will be easy. Once theyre easy to everyone… theyll add more content.

So what you’re telling me is that we should kite the mobs instead of actually “Defend” him like the event is supposedly designed as? Am I getting this right?

Technically, if you kite the mobs away from him you are defending him.
“Defend Magg while he plants the bomb to destroy the gate. Tip: just kite the mobs in circles; the mobs will disappear once the bomb is planted.”
thats on the actual GW2 WIKI http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Citadel_of_Flame

And for the record, i completed that dungeon being the only 80 in my group today on Maggs Path (option #2) all other players were between 77-79. Just takes coordination. Set up all your Survivability and snare weapons/skills and run like hell. Two in three out.

Barthos.6245:

Caliga Meshima.4768:

Barthos.6245:

The task is supposed to be hard, and it is. The Wiki suggests you kite mobs in circles. The method is do-able and just takes a couple tries… this is the only tough part of this run and the more you do it, the easier it gets. My thoughts to you.
1. Get a chat program and communicate better with your group.
2. Learn your buddies play styles and use builds that work well for the task
and if those dont help, join a guild that can help you.
Content is supposed to be hard, its the only end game you have.

They want dungeons to be hard for about 6 months. Once you do them enough they will be easy. Once theyre easy to everyone… theyll add more content.

So what you’re telling me is that we should kite the mobs instead of actually “Defend” him like the event is supposedly designed as? Am I getting this right?

Technically, if you kite the mobs away from him you are defending him.
“Defend Magg while he plants the bomb to destroy the gate. Tip: just kite the mobs in circles; the mobs will disappear once the bomb is planted.”
thats on the actual GW2 WIKI http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Citadel_of_Flame

And for the record, i completed that dungeon being the only 80 in my group today on Maggs Path (option #2) all other players were between 77-79. Just takes coordination. Set up all your Survivability and snare weapons/skills and run like hell. Two in three out.

And how many deaths did you end up having from it? 3-4?

Also, via the dev who made the thing, you ARE NOT supposed to kite them. That is explicitly why he doubled the length of the defend.

So you want to be able to do speend runs instead of the objective and your complaining about that??

Since when was skipping half the content part of playing a game?

I never did CoF before they patched it. I got to 80 and started playing catch up. Got the story mode done yesterday. Decided to see what the fuss was over the exp mode today.

If there was suppose to be a patch to fix jumping past that door, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t work. After they destroyed that whatever it was inside and came back out to start the dreaded ‘defend’ event we ended up running around and dying until the timer ran out. Then of course the door opens and the last boss dies instantly.

1) Patch that defend event to be doable without running around the room like mad.
2) Block thatkittendoor.

A couple of things, i have done chamber a few times, its not impossible, but the only way i could find to do it is to burst down the first smokelord (when we could do it) and then kite them around, it works but require some luck and a few try, what i cant believe that the better method is to suicide yourself a ffew times i norder to give magg the time he need, its really worked as intended? Rather than nerf it i would remake the chamber in some way, keep it challenging but give it a sense.
On the other hand i keep find escorting magg in the lava field frustating, every time he run in random direction instead of follow the team

Paulus magintie.7432:

So you want to be able to do speend runs instead of the objective and your complaining about that??

Since when was skipping half the content part of playing a game?

Where did you get the idea that he wanted to skip anything?

I don’t even have one exotic piece (Thief here) and I was able to do CoF Pre Buff and got to 95% progression on the bomb room (Post Buff)due to a stupid mistake.

Also did CM Explorable fully.

The problem with dungeons is simple:

The trash is generally the only problem in dungeons. Hell , If I’m a hero why should I have to be painfully dying to trash just to get by it and then get a boss that your car can kill just by standing on keys??

It’s badly designed, sorry it just is , I won’t accept any input here and you can’t talk me out of that opinion.

My concept of fun fights is the ones that involve fun mechanics. Dungeons in GW2 , as far as I’ve been experiencing people spend most time trying to evade trash cause they hit so f***** hard it’s not even fun. I wouldn’t have a problem if as a group of trash (6-7) mobs would do tons of damage combined. Thing is we have to deal with 3-4 silvers at minimum that all have the ability to nearly one shot you.

I’m sorry, but the concept of a dungeon to me isn’t running from mobs all the time just to get to a boss that hits less than any of these mobs alone . (unless he bugs)

Arah – Bosses are so patethic it’s not even funny
CM – Get by the bridge to avoid 10+ trash only to fall into a room that has riflemen that look like they’re wielding sniper rifles (the range on that is pretty neat)
CoF – I’m not even going to comment on the Bomb Room, like I mentioned I think we could have done it with a few more tries but wahts the fun in running all the time?? We have 2 melees so they can barely get close to any mob to even attempt killing him.

Bottom line:
Are dungeons Impossible? NO
Are dungeons difficult? YES
Are dungeons badly designed because they don’t provide any fun factor? YES (don’t even want to mention the last story quest)

As a programmer I don’t understand how dungeons get tested, seriously.

ANet, please don’t make me quit this game (which I love, I think it’s very well built on certain aspects) on the premise that we won’ have acceptable and decently designed content any time soon, kinda like …. SWTOR (yes it still hurts how bad raids were there).

Focus the smokelord at the start and then kite in pairs.

Did it pretty easily with a pug group earlier. Didn’t seem that hard.

Ran with a pug group, I personally died once during the defend and never left the room. It really isn’t that hard with some competent players and readily available survival skills. Yeah you have to basically kite them around, but it gets the job done and in the end that’s all that really matters. I’ve tried with pre-made groups to burn through those adds but there really is just no way to do it.

Kiting is doing it wrong, Pirate. This isn’t a thread for discussing workarounds for dealing with a badly balanced encounter, it’s for getting the encounter balanced in the first kitten place.

SmugGnat.7408:

Ran with a pug group, I personally died once during the defend and never left the room. It really isn’t that hard with some competent players and readily available survival skills. Yeah you have to basically kite them around, but it gets the job done and in the end that’s all that really matters. I’ve tried with pre-made groups to burn through those adds but there really is just no way to do it.

You died once and how many times did you team die? More than once I’ll bet. And no, “getting past it” isn’t all that matters, getting it tuned properly is all that kitten matters.

For your trouble with the kiting area – one way i get my teams to do it is organize ourselves into teams of 2, and if there’s a guard or warrior, they are a team on their own. The two players in team one are assigned personal substitutes from team 2, so when they go down they call it and their team 2 substitue runs in. when team 2 has whiped, the guard/war goes in. by that point the players from team 1 should almost be ready to go back in, and they will as soon as the guardian/war is down. it can fail, things go wrong, but a couple tries at it and it allways works in the end, that’s running with PuG’s.
But the dungeon system as it is is very unrewarding to me… i get less than half the tokens i’m meant to be getting so there’s no incentive to put up with some of the bs bosses like pathway 1’s shard guy.

vicwolf.7862:

Kiting is doing it wrong, Pirate. This isn’t a thread for discussing workarounds for dealing with a badly balanced encounter, it’s for getting the encounter balanced in the first kitten place.

yeah it shouldn’t require some abstract strategy when it’s clearly intended to be a survival activity, only, the survival element is rediculously unbalanced. The tedious wait for the solutions to be patched in :/

Me and my group die at most 1-2 times in that event (and our defense/support warrior usually don’t die) but without wipes, we do it on the first try.
Our typical group is:
1 elementalist (Me) 20 Fire /0 Air /20 Earth /20 Water /10 Arcana with a Staff
1 ranger (with traps and bow traits line, with a bit of vitality trait line)
1 warrior (defense/support trait lines)
1 thief (don’t know the build)
1 free member of our guild, usually another ranger with spirits

But I AGREE that the mobs in that event absolutely need to be TUNED DOWN a little, at least make them level 75 (if I’m not wrong they are 77 elite mobs)

so to make things short… all i see here is changes that makes the game more time consumable then before? and if ppl will goo 3 of each class and rendom2 then it’s almost a fail run?
what if i want to enjoy gear that looks really good and cant stay 3-4 hours a day on explorer runs only?
this is kinda making the not “high end gamer with pro guild members” to stay out of the game and not be able or have the motivation to even do dungeons explorer at all.
even now i see many of my friends that where playing 6-10 hours a day (and not speed farming) not getting near the explorer mode because they can get 1 or 2 paths next to doing 3 dungeons in explorer mode with all paths.
dont get me wrong, i like challenge and i think i know very well how to play my class and i can kitt the hell out of bosses and bla bla bla… but doing path 2 in 2 hours…. ok… trying to do path 1 and stay 3 more hours on the last boss and not getting anything coz the guild group got rage quit? naaa… that’s not fun… some ppl just cant afford those hours to play 1 dungeon only.

Our group. Guardian/necro/ele/thief/war(or mes) usually blow every CD imaginable on the first 2 to 3 packs and try to keep killing until someone goes down. We don’t bother rezzing him and just let him die. We then start to kite and the person running back just waits outside the room til there is only 1 person left alive inside. So, we always have 2 kiting and up to 3 waiting. Sometimes we get by with only 1 or 2 deaths total, and sometimes we each die 1 or 2 times. Probably not the way it was intended to be done but it works for us and i don’t feel its an unfair way to do it since we are eating the deaths.

Managed to get to 90% once… so its possible I guess.

But its honestly just ridiculous.

It’s definitely a tough area.

if u think magg’s run is tough, try route 1

Thieves make any defend event very easy.. just bring aoe stealth its cake.

The thing is with this part of the mission is the enemies spawn way to quickly to keep up with. I mean yesterday I tried this mission with 3 different groups, we would all do amazingly fine and were well co-ordinated up until the point where we had to defend Magg.

One group we got up to 70ish% (and this was the best of the night) of setup time before the enemies overwhelmed us, and it was during the 30% mark that we inevitably resorted to kiting because taking them on directly was too difficult due to how many spawned.

And we tried, we really tried, we did a bunch of times to fight them and not kite them as intended, but it just proved too much, even with different attack plans, it wasn’t enough.

But with that said, I don’t think the enemies should be nerfed per se, but the mechanic of how they spawn should be spaced out a bit more evenly, so there is a bit of breathing room for us to take them all (or most of them) out.

Thats my 2 cents in anyway