Guild Wars 2

Do you find this to be true? Are bosses hard to beat, or do they just take forever to kill? The list of bosses I actually enjoy fighting because they are challenging without being “cheap” or more importantly, time sinks, is a short one. Some dungeons are worse than others in this regard, but in general, I’ve found little challenge other than trying to stave off tedium.

Today while doing Honor of the Waves (for the first time, even), we noticed how easy the bosses were, but the absolutely massive amounts of health they had. We took turns during a couple of them going to the bathroom and getting something to eat, leaving our characters to autoattack. Several of them took more than ten minutes to kill, simply because they had too much health and not enough sense.

To name a boss I do enjoy, I’ve always enjoyed the fight with Lieutenant Kholer. Well, after the first time fighting him and trying to figure out how we were dying in one hit. He has at least one move combo that can definitely kill you in a couple of seconds if you aren’t careful. His health is high enough for a boss but not high enough that you actually become aware of how long the fight is taking to complete.

I feel like this is a failing across many bosses in the game. They lack interesting skill sets and mechanics and supplement these failings by forcing you to attack them for five times the length of time you should. Agreements, disagreements?

i think this is an excellent point, but i do have to say that the particular example you’veh mentioned, i think, is the worst offender thus far (HotW xplo, that is). i’m still working on completing all the dungeon paths, and i’m roughly 1/3 done, so i’m no dungeon master. but i was quite literally falling asleep through the two paths of HotW we ran in like an hour. it’s fuzzy enough that i can’t cite exact bosses, but i felt threatened by very few of them (if i recall correctly there’s like a werewolf or something that’s kinda hard?).

if we compare it to, example, CoE xplo (very similarly levelled), they’re radically different experiences. i’m probably in the minority here who found Subject Alpha to be a nail-biting, action packed experience (I’d realllly like if he’d switch some mechanics around for each fight, though), but even the “trash” mobs had a nice variety. asuran gunners, golems of different varieties; they take different strategies and almost all of them can kill a fully geared level 80.

in path 3 of SE xplo, for example, after several harrowing encounters, you spend a solid 5-10 minutes beating the kitten out of two dredge champions that neither move nor hurt you. most of the time when people complain about dungeon difficulty, it’s the one shot bosses they’re hating on. but as far as i’m concerned if the boss can’t kill you in one or two hits it’s not trying. if the individual player is going to be challenged to not die, the boss has got to be able to seriously threaten any given player. if the team itself is to be threatened, the boss almost requires AoE death. let’s force some revives, add some danger. i definitely agree with your point and applaud your calm, troll-less manner in stating it. let’s explore the mediocre bosses, and how they can be fixed.

My first experience in Manor had given me the thought that dungeons are more an endgame content rather than something to explore in your path of leveling. When even the “trash mobs” can 2 hit kill you, it was too much for me to handle.
It is more than correct that dungeons have to be done with a proper group of friends, but I just thinks this will leave out some casual player.
Yes, still I have to learn to play more, and I am not a “pro”, but I think dungeon difficult needs to scale while you progress the game, to let PUGs at least to be able do the first ones. The fact you find some dungeon an easy cake, will support that the dungeons are not meant for unskilled or learning players. I were used to farm the Torment realm elite missions, in the good times you had to get a 8-players perfect team with everyone correctly skilled, to think to succeed, so I was shocked how difficult was do just the first dungeon with a pug. That experience alone let me made my mind to ignore dungeons in toto. Maybe when I reach cap, I’ll think again about them. So I agree on you that some dungeon may be easy for pros, and disagree on make casual players left out them.

I will agree that high HP/Defence is not difficult, it’s just annoying. I understand they want you to invest some time clearing dungeons, but jacking the HP of mobs, bosses especially, isn’t the way to do it. Boss mobs should be able to be downed in 1-2 minutes. Some fights take 10+ minutes, not because they’re difficult, just because the HP pool is so large it takes that long to beat them down. That’s not challenging, especially when there are no mechanics that really threaten you.

I agree, the Kholer fight is an example of a good use of the game’s mechanics with a reasonable amount of health. Valena? (Mesmer boss in TA) is another good example of a good use of mechanics. You either need a lot of condition removal, or you need to know when to stop attacking so you don’t kill your self via confusion. Sounds simple, and it is once you get it down.

Example of bad mechanics are stuff like the mobs on I think path 2 in HoTW. 2 mobs with almost identical abilities that take forever to kill and aren’t that challenging. Or the nightmare trees in TA. If you do it “wrong” your dead, but I don’t think standing in/near the door auto attacking and fending off a couple spiders is a good mechanic either. I’d say make it so you can’t stand in the door (lock the room or something) and tone down the amount of spiders that spawn.. That way you HAVE to fight them, but you don’t get swarmed to the point of stupidity. The other mechanics I hate more than anything are ones like the Gravling Scavengers. If you get knocked down you’re dead, with little to no chance of recovering unless someone revives you. There should at least be a chance to get out without having to pop stability or have someone else remove conditions.

TL:DR version – Bosses that EFFECTIVELY make use of game mechanics are good. bosses that have HP for the sake of making the fight longer or kill you (not just down you) with no chance of escape from one mistake are bad.

Agreed. Time does not equal difficulty.

On a side note, for any player who wishes to improve their gaming skill, I can greatly recommend Crucible of Eternity (explorable). Once you can get through that without getting killed, you’re well on your way to mastering the game.

Agree on this as well, Anet should try to implement some nice mechanics instead of just putting in a normal mob with extra Health.

Just like you mentioned Lieutenant Kholer is a really well made boss, he move around, got some fun attacks and you need to think on this boss, you can’t just rush in the first time you play him, stand beside him and spam 1.

What I found so boring is that their is no moments where you feel like “Yes we finnaly got this boss down” Except for the first time my group took down Lieutenant Kholer and the giant Arah boss (Don’t know the name)

One of the worse examples on totally uninspiring bosses is the Guardian in CM path 2; She just stand there spamming a AOE attack, using her spirit GS and from time to time use the Retaliation boon, which force the group to stop attacking, it’s so lame and dull.

It doesn’t even require much to make an interesting boss fight, just make the boss able to run after players, give them more than 1 attack.

Another example of a boss that just surprised me of how little thought were given in the creation of it. It’s the first boss in one of the arah paths (think it’s the fourth) it’s an axe wielding warrior, whit a devastating spinning attack. First time my group where there we tried to figure out a good strategy, we checked his animations to learn his attacks etc etc, just to find out he only have 1 attack, and we could just use range weapons and kite him around.
They could fix that boss so easily by giving him a pull/leap, make him dodge from time to time and the experience would be much better.

It surprises me how some bosses seem very well done, while other are just cheap.

Agreed. I spent a lot of time doing HotW to get my set and after all those runs i still need to get some weapons. All the mobs and specially the bosses have tons of HP that eventually it gets SUPER boring. I want to hear what the devs have to say about that.

HotW (Easy Dungeon/Mobs with tons of HP/BORING).

I agree that some bosses are a bit boring (although i think that the butcher in HotW is ok even though her hp is horendous just cos she does a huge amount of dmg) but the story mode bosses are kinda cool and they definately do have some great mechanics going on.

Like recently I finished a couple of story mode dungeons and there were some great mechanical bosses in them, Kudu in SE explore was very challanging with the differant golums and strats required as was the final boss (less challanging more just fun) same with COF the boss that uses diferant wepons was kinda cool as was balefire. Also in CoF that huge effigy (still in story) that had that red ring of death around him was coolish.

personally i think that some paths need to be ajusted cos like in SE explore after doing path 2 once i am never going through it again, every frecon mob had so much hp and like having a legendary boss that can heal but does no dmg is just stupid (first boss of SE exp path 2) overall though I do find most dungeons to be alot of fun just because each encounter is actualy challanging, I really like the idea of there being minimal trash mobs and even so they actually have a bit of danger to them

like i think that generally the bosses themselves are quite well done it just needs a bit more phasing but I think it is a bit much to ask that every boss be memorable and unique cos yea most dungeons i have been in have had a memorable boss or two (though some more than others) obviously there needs to be tweaks (HotW is guilty of this while i dont mind it, only memorable boss in the whole dungeon was the guy in the seers room on story mode) but yea im ok with huge hp just tweak teh fight accordingly (though as previously stated HotW lvl hp is probs not ok as is SE path 2 bosses)

Are you doing it with 4 axe/gsword warriors and a support guardian? I feel like the “time to kill” for every mob uses this set up as the standard, and nothing else comes close to that damage.

I think dungeons are the weakest aspect of this game right now, imho. You can argue if they’re level-up content or lvl 80 content. The fact I get a letter to say “hey visit this dungeon” at various levels makes me believe they’re not just end-game content.

AC is the first, and my favorite dungeon. I don’t waste any time in CM and I used to like TA – but I’m really hating it now.

Dungeons don’t seem to do anything but suck up time. The rewards are not that awesome. They also employ mechanics that just seem pointless – they don’t add to fun or provide any unique challenge … they just annoy.

I’m finding it really hard to get people to group with me and go into a dungeon. I think this is because they’re simply not that fun or rewarding. I rather do world events – you get better xp, and it’s more fun.

My experiences so far have been that they are time sinks, provide crap loot, have mobs with overly bloated hp pools…especially the bosses. i did only for the experience since i absolutely have to get a feel of every part of the game /sarcasm.

they are for masochists only imo…

even slavers exile/realm of torment HM was more fun..