Guild Wars 2

how about the loot from zone clearing as well? I have cleared the 3 Zones in Orr and i get exotics that i can’t use. As a warrior I use heavy but most of my gear I end up getting is light or medium or weapons not for my class. I only play one Character atm, so spending quite a bit of time clearing a zone and getting stuff I can’t use is a big disappointment.

Also transmutation stones, why @ lvl 80 do we not get more of the fine transmutation stones as a lot/most of gear at that lvl can’t be transmuted with the regular stones(yes i know their are the ones you can buy on the tp, but i shouldn’t have to spend money (in-game or rl) to keep a skin i spent hours to get.)

Well just two comments for this boss….

The boss itself has a rather BS mechanic of pulling you in and doing that blade attack before you can escape from being pulled in the first place. I’ve tried dodging while he’s telegraphing the move and it only works sometimes (sometimes as in i’ll be mid-dodge and still get pulled in yet other times I’ll dodge at the same instance and not be pulled in). I’ve tried interrupting him from doing the blade attack via fear which doesn’t always work (fear usually bypasses the unshakable stacks bosses have).

There’s also the Rangers, which in general have the auto-locking bow attacks that always apply poison and cripple? Why does this game, that promotes dodging, positioning and strafing, have an auto-lock attack feature? I can understand it’s possible need in PvP-type situations, but not PvE. They also have a lot of health for being archers…. they must hit up the Ascalonian Gym buried further in the ruins.

Nadeen.6371:

And you think Kholer is hard. If Kholer is hard then what is Subject Alpha?

I know; he is just plain ridiculous. I thank god that I have Blink on me. I can easily escape from those crystals.

last time i shadowstepped out of a crystal, my character remained frozen, but in a different place.

i guess thieves can’t escape our crystaline fate ;_;

@Bruno – Dodge and LOS are key, but I agree sometimes it can bug out. You need to dodge just before he throws. Too early he’ll get you, if you dodge after the projectile is in the air, he’ll usually get you as well. LOS has limited success as well as I’ve been pulled through walls on occasion, but I think it may be timing on that as well.

Only 100% surefire way to not get caught is stability. If you have a utility/trait with a fairly short cooldown that can give you stability, then it’s a joke.

The guild groups (I very rarely pug) I run with have never skipped Kholer and probably never will. It is a fun fight, but, more importantly, its a great place to “train” people new to the explorable dungeon experience. The mechanics are simple enough to easily learn but still require some dexterity and practice to master.

Learning to watch a boss and anticipate big attacks prepares you for the more challenging (and more complex) fights you experience in later dungeons. The Kholer fight does that really well in the lowest level of explorable dungeon raiding.

And, to Bruno and others regarding dodge above – timing dodge is tricky and requires precision. I prefer to use a block or immunity skill to avoid the pull in. They are more reliable and usually last longer than a straight dodge (I also like saving dodge for when he leaps at me).

Our guild thieves are also getting really good at using smoke screen (i think that is what they use) – which gives the entire group a curtain to “hide” behind when he tries to pull us in – and our guardians are helpful with the AOE stability. It’s amazing what a difference teamwork makes on a fight like Kholer.

I’m really confused about some posts in this topic. Why do people think that Kholer takes “A lot of communication”?? This boss is timing a dodge, with a huge windup.

If this SIMPLE mechanic is so challenging to the community as a whole, I’m really scared for how easy content is going to get. I can literally sit there and tank him the entire time, while standing still, then do a backwards roll and leap right back in after his pull. No communication or real skill required!

I’m not saying I DISLIKE the boss, I think it’s a good measure to weed out the bad players. But I would personally like to see MORE original and challenging mechanics added to dungeons instead of huge health pools and zergs of mobs.

Kholer is probably the funnest boss in any dungeon, IMO. He’s not hard. Just kite him away from the monks, dodge and you’re good.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s not an exploit to skip Kholer. He’s a bonus boss that unlocks a central waypoint, drops loot, and also gives a chest.

People skip him because:
A) He’s hard if you don’t know what you are doing, and don’t communicate enough.
2) Our changes to our token rewards moved the tokens out of his unlocked chest, so people don’t feel they have to fight him to maximize gains
III) Our dropped loot is abysmal, so you’re not finding anything of value.

Solutions:
A) He’s supposed to be hard, it’s explorable mode. We should aspire all our bosses across all difficulties to be of similar difficulty.
2 and III) We are currently re-working and changing our loot for dungeons. I had previously hoped that it would be in for the next patch, but it requires a lot of tuning and testing, so it might take another patch.

Use AC as a template. People love AC because every champion mob gives 5 silver and the final boss gives 15 silver along side the end of the dungeon reward. Remove the silver bonuses from these mobs and have every boss drop 5 silver instead.

Then the “bonus” bonuses need to have a significant reward. As it stands each bonus boss is really more of a penalty boss. They get in the way and slow your run down. If they gave karma, money, and tokens people would be more encouraged to do them.

Warskull.3096:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s not an exploit to skip Kholer. He’s a bonus boss that unlocks a central waypoint, drops loot, and also gives a chest.

People skip him because:
A) He’s hard if you don’t know what you are doing, and don’t communicate enough.
2) Our changes to our token rewards moved the tokens out of his unlocked chest, so people don’t feel they have to fight him to maximize gains
III) Our dropped loot is abysmal, so you’re not finding anything of value.

Solutions:
A) He’s supposed to be hard, it’s explorable mode. We should aspire all our bosses across all difficulties to be of similar difficulty.
2 and III) We are currently re-working and changing our loot for dungeons. I had previously hoped that it would be in for the next patch, but it requires a lot of tuning and testing, so it might take another patch.

Use AC as a template. People love AC because every champion mob gives 5 silver and the final boss gives 15 silver along side the end of the dungeon reward. Remove the silver bonuses from these mobs and have every boss drop 5 silver instead.

Then the “bonus” bonuses need to have a significant reward. As it stands each bonus boss is really more of a penalty boss. They get in the way and slow your run down. If they gave karma, money, and tokens people would be more encouraged to do them.

I don’t mean to be rude, but Robert Hrouda addresses all of your points in the post you quoted. oO

Svarty.8019:

I don’t mean to be rude, but Robert Hrouda addresses all of your points in the post you quoted. oO

The problem is that if they do something as simple as adding tokens to chests, it won’t completely work. You have the bonus bosses who don’t drop chests. You have bosses in crucible and CM that don’t give chests. A hard rule where every boss class enemy drops 5 silver would go a long way.

uh they need to add good loot and money to champion/boss mobs across the entire guild wars 2 game. that will handle dungeon crap as well as everything else(like champion giants which there are ONLY two to kill hundreds of times for the giant slayer achievement and no one does them anymore since they’re not worth the time spent).

stop the breadcrumbs and band aids crap. make tough mobs drop good loot, end of story. “chests” don’t mean jack kitten when half the mobs in dungeons don’t drop one.

I’d also like to point out that the Lt.’s special move is a projectile. This means that anything that blocks/reflects projectiles can be used to block or evade it. Mesmer Feedback, is a nice one that protects everyone in the group, even those that are bad dodgers.

Phantasmal berserker can also block them, at least on one side (if lucky can get 2 out between his special attacks).

As a mesmer, the biggest danger in this fight is his normal attacks

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s not an exploit to skip Kholer. He’s a bonus boss that unlocks a central waypoint, drops loot, and also gives a chest.

Except when he doesn’t. Several times now I’ve killed Kholer (and I mean actually killed him, not let the troll do 100% of the work) and got no chest, no waypoint, and still get a prompt saying “Kill Lt. Kholer” (showing his HP bar at 0).

Seems to happen more when people go to his platform through the left side (rather than walking to the main staircase), but that may have been just a coincidence.

Not sure if it’s related to Kholer himself or one of this adds. In a couple of boss fights (ex., last boss in CM story), one of the adds often disappears mid-fight and that makes the encounter impossible to complete. How about making boss event completion depend on killing, you know, the actual boss?

^ I have been having the same problem as Account.9832. It’s like they REALLY want us to skip Kholer. Now there is no waypoint OR chest. So I’m not sure I will even know when this gets fixed because I just always skip him now. Why bother kill a boss if there is zero reward?

gogoapoxy.1425:

I’d also like to point out that the Lt.’s special move is a projectile. This means that anything that blocks/reflects projectiles can be used to block or evade it. Mesmer Feedback, is a nice one that protects everyone in the group, even those that are bad dodgers.

Phantasmal berserker can also block them, at least on one side (if lucky can get 2 out between his special attacks).

As a mesmer, the biggest danger in this fight is his normal attacks

OH! thanks for the info! Now I have another way of dodging is attack.

Also, as some of you might’ve noticed, you can easily dodge his pull as you don’t have to dodge as the line is thrown (more often than not, if you do this, your dodge is late and you still get pulled). What I do is I dodge just even while he’s “charging” or just as his charge is up. so what happens is I’ve already dodged, as he throws the projectile, and it says “evaded” on my char. =P