Guild Wars 2

I found my last part of an armor which belong to the Crucible of Eternity Dungeon token exchange and thought I would do some research on it before embarking on that final journey.

To my horror, all guides and videos I look through made me rethink about even trying it.

Review from mmogames says:

“Possibly the most difficult Story Mode encounter in Guild Wars 2, the Crucible of Eternity is a long, perilous dungeon fraught with multiple difficult trash encounters – finishing with an almost impossible event followed by 3 consecutive boss battles. Come prepared, or don’t come at all.”

And video guides on youtube that I saw a full party of level 80s dying instantly at the first portion of the dungeon in less than 2mins after battle begins.

That kind of difficulty for a story mode?

This just doesn’t seem right isn’t it?

Is this dungeon still so hard?

Hard? No. Somewhat overtuned to the point of tediousness? Yes.
Subject Alpha is the only real issue due to not telegraphing his cone attack, but you get used to it.

That destroyer boss with the lasers on the other hand.. might as well prepare a bed in case you doze off from boredom.

I can’t speak for everyone in terms of difficulty. I feel it can be difficult at first, not having been in the dungeon previously, but once you learn the dungeon, it’s pretty easy. After a few runs, it becomes pretty tedious because alpha’s attacks repeat quite frequently. It’s pretty much the same AoE in the same interval. I like the theme of the dungeon more than the mechanics. The only fight I really enjoyed was the one with the guns in path 2.

The bomb golem event in path1 is in my opinion how you do a well balanced event without making it tedious, overly long or flooding it with overpowered mobs glares at the CoF path 2 event.

As for story mode – Me and 2 guildies got about 1/2 through it naked just the three of us. A team of 5 is doable.

As for Exp mode – Subject Alpha is something you learn over time, after a couple of runs you will realize when to dodge and when to not. Also to free players from crystals. And yes as Asagi stated the hacking event is tons of fun.

It’s only hard if you and your party doesn’t know how to dodge Alpha’s attacks.

Explorable mode – Repetitive, and a little difficult if you haven’t faced Subject Alpha before. Remember that only one player will be hit by the ice-spike attack which comes from the ground, even though circles appear on everyone. Only that person should bother dodging the attack (which is followed by an earth attack which is avoided by standing in place). This strategy doesn’t necessarily apply to all paths.

Story mode – Haven’t done it! Probably a lot easier.

Well first of all… the entire thing gets TEDIOUS quick. So it needs an overhaul IMO.

I’m still undecided on it being the hardest … And I’ve finished 3 paths of Arah so I DO have some frame of reference here. It’s not the most Quick-Thinking kind of hard since that one IMO goes to Seraph CM & Mursaat-Arah. …Even the toughest fight against Subject Alpha doesn’t require the level of resource management that Lupicus has even though I still guarantee it takes better timing & running skills to carry your team against Alpha than against Lupi. But it definitely seems to require quickest reflexes & the most specific class compositions/skills because most encounters are just so claustrophobic. 1 or 2 of the main fights in particular, allow for zero forgiveness.

The best advice I can give is to make sure your group is Melee-Capable and just Stack on him in the Submarine path assuming that still works. It never worked in the other 2 path but the last 2 fights against him on Submarine, that felt like the Easy Win to me… So if you have difficulty with that path then I’d say the others will never be in your reach unless you hire a team of pros to carry you through them. (or you glitch Alpha like I’ve seen a few unscrupulous puggers doing)

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PS: I agree the Bomb Golem events are fun & wish more of the dungeon was like that

I honestly think this is one of the easy dungeons, im not just saying that because op finds it hard i just honestly think its really easy. I can see where if you don’t know what your doing Alpha in path 2/3 would be a problem but really 2 war’s who know what their doing can Duo Alpha without problem. All War/guardian party’s destroy this dungeon.

The key is don’t run around trying to avoid the Aoe Attacks, just time it with a dodge. The timing never changes and if your not running around the aoe from each other’s attacks will get rid of the crystals.

From all three paths combined there’s only two things hard. In path 1 the hacking spot is a mess (not hard cuz you’ll die but cuz its a MESS) and Alpha in path 3. There’s a way to make p3’s Alpha pretty easy tho but not many ppl know this. Melee range him! if your whole team melee range his kitten he’s np but spamming from distance he’s annying with his 2nd earth attack. Arah is MUCH MUCH harder than CoE.