Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,

I’m a first time poster here, but I’ve been an avid reader on the forums for quite some time. Just never had anything to comment on, that is until now.

It’s my understanding that Arena Net and its fellow employees and forum moderators seem to be open to a majority of discussions regarding their instanced dungeons, so long as its painted in the right hue and delivered in a constructive manor. So stick with me as I try to describe my experiences with one in particular: Twilight Arbor. Which my static as run Reasons behind such a post is for the simple fact that some aspects of the instance are being abused in a negative way. I also find some parts and fight mechanics a bit arbitrary, out of date if you will. I do love some of the design choices, wile some leave me in wonder. It’s not a complete list of boss mechanics, just the few I find severe and odd/buggy.

I fully expect to get flamed for this, if you must, you must. I only ask that you do so in regards to the forum guidelines, as well as offer up something constructive to add. Should you not like anything I have to say. So… Here goes.

TA starts the same up until you decide which leg of direction you want to go: forward or up. All paths of the instance are exactly the same until you decide your first direction:

This means:
- You fight the same pack of wolves at the start. Which are often pulled outside of the corridor to avoid poison from the blossoms that line the hallways. After those are down you continue down the path and greet a patrolling husk, followed by three more husks who stand stationary behind it, beyond these you travel further and fight the first first champion trigger, the nightmare vine. Why mention this? Because it’s repetitive and boring. Its the same sequence of events right at the start played on repeat for all three paths. And it seems to be a rather popular way to start a dungeon when comparing it to the way Crucible of Eternity/Sorrow’s Embrace also start out.
- Nightmare Vine(s) – I love this fight. Love it. It has the right amount of difficulty and it really tests a players skill on being elusive, and attentiveness. I only wish the encounter was more of something to look forward to. I’m going to guess that it was ment for players to actually defeat the smaller spawns that occur throughout the fight. If infact that is the case, let me say that it is far too easy to just ignore them all together and just focus the champion down. The blossoms added here are a nice effect (easy to rally off of should anyone be downed/provide annoyance to close combat) Completing all three paths tends to leave players just wanting to dredge though this fight as quickly as possible, and understandably so, considering you’ll be doing it over, and over, and over.

(——————> Wall of TXT reached it’s limit for this post, cont. below —-———>)

The Up Path:
- You ascend up a small corridor, fighting two elite silver spiders, before reaching the first boss room of Malrona. Your approach to the other side of the room triggers trap spawns of a couple silvers and few dozen lesser minion spiders. Upon your final approach of the room 5 Undergroth Webbers spawn (silver) which prove to be more challenging then Malrona herself. Fighting the boss seems a bit anticlimactic when compared to what you’ve just defeated. She is too easily melted by anyone with enough sense to kite her, wile avoiding her telegraphed poison spray and poison gas.
Continuing up the path you will discover more trap spiders that descend upon you wile you navigate the poison blossoms (assuming your group decides to actually fight their way to the next boss; most opt to just runspeed/stealth/train past them, which I am not in favor of personally. Its literally possible to train the entire way from Malrona’s room, right to Fyonna’s chamber. Why is this possible?) The large spawns of spiders at the very end of the path right before Fyonna’s room are easily leashable just by approaching the entrance to her chamber.
- Fyonna – It’s possible, with the current fight mechanics, to pull her outside of her spawning chamber, thus avoiding all of her eggs/adds (only having to deal with the minor 3 adds that combust to poison the group), skipping her egg sac’s entirely. If you choose to fight her this way, you only have to be cautious of bursting the egg sacs when your gracefully crossing the room after just defeating her OUTSIDE of it, skipping a portion of the fight entirely.
- Continuing up the path towards the final boss is basically mindless. As you can just use runspeed/stealth to avoid all of it. Just before the Twilight Tree, you encounter a champion warden and a lesser silver mob, which I don’t have anything to comment on really.
- Twilight Tree Up Path – Fighting at the entrance with a weapon of 1.2k range places you just outside the turret’s range, and prevents the boss from being reset. Party’s typically AFK auto attack it to death. I can’t hardly expect that this is what was intended. This is essentially the same in FU path, as the root spikes have no effect from that distance, as well as allowing you to place your party safely out of range of any spider adds that you might otherwise have to deal with if you say.. entered the room.

FF Path:
- Twilight Tree (Mesmer) – Its possible to glitch this boss, simply by engaging the Tree, then running to a safe distance wile is summons its maximum amount of clones and fighting off the NPC until she is killed. Then the party usually sets group stealth/runspeed weapons/skills and simply runs to the opposite side of the room where they then engage the tree from the other side, free from any opposition from he clones. Since the death of the NPC triggers a hate reset on the clones, you only need to just get past them to avoid them entirely. This clearly isn’t working as intended.

These are just some things I’ve noticed, possibly many more that I have yet to experience. Figured I’d bring it to light before it became a wide spread practice in TA. I do enjoy the challenge that dungeons bring to this game, but a lot is lacking in terms of fundamental Mob AI. Things seem to easily defeated with a simple gimmick or glitch.