Guild Wars 2

Having finally hit 30 last night (ya I am still lowbie), I noticed some people trying to get a group together for Ascalonian Catacombs. I was really working towards getting 30 so I could try it out. Some thoughts:

- Holy cow, no group finder? We were all running between different maps shouting for group members for the dungeon, and it took about 90 min to find 5 people to do it. After playing other games I guess I am spoiled but this was frustrating. Reminds me of sitting in town in Lineage 2 for 2 hours trying to get a group together. Not so great.

- After we got in the dungeon we have a waypoint and repair anvil, and get to watch a nice movie. These features were all great. I was worried about having to run back from town after dying, but this way was quite convenient.

- As we started engaging the mobs we realize they are much harder than expected (I think for 4 of us it was our first ever dungeon in gw2), but actually we did fine. Killed stuff, rez’d people when needed and got tripped up a few times with what we were supposed to do next. Some of the traps got us, but just the first time.

- The first boss (lieutenant guy) was not bad, even with the army of ads in the beginning. The adds didn’t have nearly as much health as the normal monsters in the dungeon. Kind of confused, seems like the normal monsters should have had a little bit lower health in a range similar to the boss adds. Boss himself was cake.

- Then we got a ‘bonus’ event of a troll. (At least that is what it said). Ohh boy, a troll, and a bridge, just what we wanted. >_> So of course we try first to fight him on the bridge, and get stomped since there is no place to aviod his AOE. So we try to move him to where the boss fight was. He rubberbands back to his spawn and regens all his health. After a 10 minute fight. Everyone is pretty kitten demoralized. We try again. Even near the bridge that he seemed to spawn on, he rubberbands and full heals. I fear some members of the group may have started slashing their wrists at this point. I suggest we take him forward into the room on the other side of the bridge. We go in there to fight him and 2 archers run over (The high health, take everything we have to just focus on them kind), and the trolls and the archers curb stomp us. 2 people are pretty much fed up, 1 person says F this and logs out. Me and the other guy realize there is no way to refill the group now, so are forced to stop.

So, first lowbie dungeon on story mode (this is easier than explore right?), after 3 hours we cant even make it to the second boss. I am not saying the monsters were too hard or too easy, but it is sad that we couldn’t get through it.

TLDR: I’m not saying every dungeon should be easy, but it would be nice if at least the first one introduced some of the concepts in a way that didn’t make half the group ragequit.

For the first Dungeon, AC can be a turn off. It get’s easier in Explore (Paths 1 & 2) but in order to get Explore you gotta clear the dungeon first. The absolute worst part of AC Story is the Lovers Crypt. It’s pretty much get lucky with a group who has ran it before or at least as an idea of what to do as the rest of the dungeon is cakewalk after that. So you can do AC Story at 30, quest/story till 35 and to AC Explore. Or you can level until 40 where you get Caudecus Manor which has a much more manageable Story Mode.

The only dungeon I’ve done is AC in story mode. We finished it, but there were some long frustration-filled segments. Lovers was our bane.

I agree with the OP. It would be nice if the level 30 dungeon story eased you into dungeons a bit. It was quite a shock after the world of hearts and events and even world bosses. It makes sense for explorable mode to be tough; it makes sense for later dungeons to be tough. I’d like to see this one start easier in story mode, building up to hard, then let the explorable versions equal the challenge of later dungeons.

So you had no problem getting to the troll and then you couldn’t beat the troll. That’s kind of strange, considering that it’s a very easy boss, albeit with too much hp. If I recall correctly he only has melee attacks (melee aoe?) so he shouldn’t be harder than the miniboss at the start. In any case, a bonus event is just that – a bonus event. You don’t have to do it. Not sure how you managed to spend 3h on that.

You can refill the group, not sure how you realized that you couldn’t.

It’s unfortunate but this is an exception. Most groups have no problem completing story mode afaik.

I agree that the first dungeon players do should be fairly easy. Then again AC IS easy, except for the Lovers.

Wahaha.7938:

You can refill the group, not sure how you realized that you couldn’t.

He/She probably meant that it would take too long.

Yes AC sucks. Whoever decided that AC should be the intro dungeon and CM (At least Pre-Patch) should follow it needs to rethink that a bit

Here’s a tip on how to make this dungeon REALLY easy, throw the boulders at bosses xD

I had a brilliant idea after the fight against the lovers, which was to bring the rocks along with us… it made all the mob pulls hilariously fun, as we all took turns stoning with our respective rocks.

We even formed a stoning circle against adelburn although there was a mechanic in place to prevent us from chain stunning him

That said, the dungeons are definitely difficult… but they’re still fun, they just have a harsh learning curve.

Pro tip, change your build and utilities to have CC and support. Ask your mates to do the same.

aleiro.8521:

Pro tip, change your build and utilities to have CC and support. Ask your mates to do the same.

this….and make sure you not pure glass cannon build and ensure your gear is appropriate to your lvl.

Honestly, if your group had four first-timers in it, I wouldn’t expect a successful run. Dungeons are meant to be harder than all other content, and if your party composition and trait/utility skill setup has any obvious weaknesses (e.g. poor CC, no condition removal, etc.) then you will probably fail unless your group is very experienced.

AC in particular has one of the hardest story modes, unless you resort to mass rock throwing (which is a painfully slow way to go about it). Study each foe carefully; figure out which moves you should dodge; decide which moves you should interrupt; and decide with your group which foes you should focus down first. Coordinate combo fields and finishers (look those up in the wiki if you don’t know what I’m talking about) with your group to inflict the best conditions possible or buff/heal your party appropriately.

Keep at it, learn as much you can, and as you run dungeons, build up a friends list of the friendlier and more competent people you meet along the way.

BTW, the cave troll is a random bonus event, a bit unlucky on your first try there ><