Guild Wars 2

Possible spoilers.

So after doing these paths the first time, does anyone actually repeat them?

Underwater combat is awful. AWFUL. Yes it is better than the underwater combat in other games, but that’s like saying that getting a broken arm is better than a broken leg.

Why is the final boss in both paths underwater? In path three there is at least a small platform you can stand on to range him down, but considering the horrendous damage that all classes do underwater (barring grenade Engineers) and the high amounts of health on both bosses, these fights are simply tedious, and not engaging at all, especially when enemy mobs are doing their full complement of moves and damage suitable for an Explorable Mode.

At least the path 2 boss is somewhat interesting with how hard me can melee, but the trash leading up to him is excessive, and with his extremely high HP, the fight was more tedious than difficult, because again, underwater combat is terrible. In fact, tedious is the perfect word to describe these last two bosses. Not difficult, or exciting, or engaging, but slightly annoying, and extremely tedious.

Please consider either reducing the trash in both underwater paths, decreasing mob health by 1/3 if not 1/2, or best of all, increasing player damage underwaater by 2 to 3 times, in all areas of PVE. At one point our Elementalist was laughing at the 43 damage crits he was seeing, in a level 80 instance. Not dot tics, autoattack crits.

My only thought whenever I do any type of underwater combat in this game as it stands now is “When is this going to be over?” The underwater stuff could be fun, but player damage is so low that most underwater fights boil down to spamming your 1-5 in that order and waiting for the enemy to fall over 4 minutes later. In short, boring.

I can safely say that with these paths in their current state, I will not be doing them again. I know you guys want to believe your underwater combat is amazing Anet. Trust me, it isn’t. If this instance had been available for testing during beta I can guarantee you’d have heard an earfull from me at that time, instead of after launch.

If possible I try to avoid path 2 and 3, but if I have a fun team I occasionally do them… they are boring, yes. I don’t remember path 3 so well, but path 2 is just bad.
The first bit is quite ok. After that you get to fight two massive HP tanks that each have only 1 ability each and barely scratch you at all. After that you get an ok boss with 2 adds with too much HP. Then comes the worst part… the underwater part that just takes ages to get through, because mobs have 1000000x HP, and there’s lots of them. Finally you get to the boss, which is a pushover, but with 10000000x more HP than the trash you fought earlier.

Underwater combat is ok for simple PvE stuff like exploring and a few events, but in dungeons it’s just horrible.

I do all the paths equally, since I want my gear as fast as possible. Most people aren’t used to underwater combat, but I wouldn’t say that every class sucks.

Warriors do fine damage for instance. My Mesmer damage sucks, but you do the damage through your phantoms, especially underwater. The ranged autoattack puts boons on allies, which is its main thing. Underwater melee with the Mesmer (spear) is kind of pointless) So maybe its a matter of reading your underwater skills properly and using them to their advantage (not always damage).

Health is too much on many bosses. If fights become boring that’s a good sign of it.

Also I don’t like the ability of the boss of path 2. It’s not clear enough when he starts his “spear charge”. Would be nice if there was a small animation, other than putting the spear in front of him and starting to damage. That’s hard to see in between all the spell effects and gets people alot, especially the melee ones.

Having finally achieved my goal of decking out my guardian with full HOTW gear, i have to say the HOTW exp mode is not hard……Its just very very boring…..

I feel that every boss in this instance has around 50% more health than he needs, and it just quickly turns into a dull boring kitefest. Keep the boss at range, kite, kite, kite, kite, don’t step in red circles. Yawn, rinse/repeat. With a undergeared group (not even full masterwork) these boss fights can drag on for a solid 20-30 minutes. This is not an exaggeration, I have timed it.

Underwater combat is pretty annoying period. Ditto for a dungeon. The plunderer can be the most annoying boss to fight in this instance because he likes to chase players who are down, not to mention he likes to swim around in circles, constantly getting “obscured” by the pylons in his area. Its not as bad a problem with zealot, but can definatly be a pain.

My biggest recommendation for taking on this dungeon: music. Mute the game, play some music, and you can get through it. Hell i remember one zealot run where the boss bugged out under a pylon and everyone just auto attacked him down, most of us went afk. I know cause i asked in chat “how many people are afk”

No one answered……..

People get the acheezement.

And never come back unless you do Butchers path.

Supadrumma.6914:

I feel that every boss in this instance has around 50% more health than he needs, and it just quickly turns into a dull boring kitefest. Keep the boss at range, kite, kite, kite, kite, don’t step in red circles. Yawn, rinse/repeat. With a undergeared group (not even full masterwork) these boss fights can drag on for a solid 20-30 minutes. This is not an exaggeration, I have timed it.

Aside from Andal the Vandal and the last on-land boss in P3, that’s about right- Insofar as boring. They still have too much health.

The Dude.6942:

Warriors do fine damage for instance. My Mesmer damage sucks, but you do the damage through your phantoms, especially underwater. The ranged autoattack puts boons on allies, which is its main thing. Underwater melee with the Mesmer (spear) is kind of pointless) So maybe its a matter of reading your underwater skills properly and using them to their advantage (not always damage).

I play a Warrior main, and no, they don’t do fine damage. Their damage is better than everyone else’s, but it’s all relative. Everyone’s damage underwater is too low.

As far as skill usage goes, that sounds great and all, but it’s not engaging. Take the last boss in path 2. His spear charge decimates melee, so everyone goes ranged and basically rotates their snares/immobilizes/weigh downs and ranges him to death. Ccling through 1-5 (like I said above). Not threatening or difficult, just boring. Add to this the reduced damage underwater and it’s now boring and long.

Ultimately it all boils down to damage and/or mob health. The fights are boring to begin with, couple that with length and it just feels like busy work. The two “tanks” or whatever (I think in path 2) are another good example. Two boring, non-threatening mobs in a row with a boatload of health.

The best part is path 1 is such a joke by contrast that I actully think chain farming path 1 would be faster tokens than doing 2 or 3, even with DR. When we finished Path 1 we were surprised it was over so quickly (took less than 20 minutes first time doing it).

Just a quick question Darsha, did your group ignore the totems or destroy them?

Me and my friends haven’t noticed any concievable difference in how long it takes to kill him with the totems up or down, seeing as you’re taking dps off of the boss to kill totems.

@Supa

Sometimes people want to and others don’t care. I never really see a ton of difference personally. The only thing everyone agrees on is to ignore the regen totem.

@Supa
Ignored them. We sat him on top of the regen totem so it died to AOE and cleaves on its own, but we never focused them at all.