Guild Wars 2

Me vs Liutenent Kholer, Warrior full melee, I was lagging a bit during the fight.

Aktarus.5612:

Nice vids.

Robert, can you please implement a casting bar under opponent life bar, to see exactly when we need to escape/interrupt ect ,like in GW1 ?

For exemple we cant see in fight khoeler animation casting move,because of all effects of skills and combos spamm message + damage ect. (Its not as clear as in GW1,most of the time we cannot see exactly what damage we do,receive ect.)

Thanks you.

Turn off post processing to enhance your vision!

I can think of ways all the classes I play could solo kholer. I can’t vouch for the ones I don’t play however. A thief could do it with nothing but 3 buttons, caltrops, dodge, range weapon of choice auto attack spam. Sure would take awhile but that right there just defeated kholer’s mechanic. To speed things up Id just drop 20+ stacks of bleed on him every time I topped off my initiative.

A defensive warrior can tank him straight up, even take his big hits head on, I do it all the time. Mesmer can solo anything that can be kited with clones. An engineer could keep him crippled and spam him with knock backs and grenades and actually probably kill him any number of ways. They are quite versatile.

Judging from what I do know I’m sure a good player could find ways to manage the feat with any class.

Spiky.8403:

Drew.1865:

Agreed if you melee kholer he’s going to pwn your face. I range him.

Here is video of me soloing Kohler with guardian, using hammer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ib0JnigqvE4

wow this actually looked just contrary what it should look like: you just spam 1 and keep your utilities on CD, this looks nothing like skilled gameplay to be honest. I will have to try this, but I’m kind of disappointed now. A boring rotation/CD-spam? I wonder if this is working as intended.

where is the skill in that?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Spiky.8403:

Drew.1865:

Agreed if you melee kholer he’s going to pwn your face. I range him.

Here is video of me soloing Kohler with guardian, using hammer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ib0JnigqvE4

wow this actually looked just contrary what it should look like: you just spam 1 and keep your utilities on CD, this looks nothing like skilled gameplay to be honest. I will have to try this, but I’m kind of disappointed now. A boring rotation/CD-spam? I wonder if this is working as intended.

where is the skill in that?

I’m going to be sad when they kill guardians altrustic healing build because of solo vids like this ruining it for the rest of us :\

Yeah the guardian killing Kholer seems bad. Clicking skills, no buffs, etc. If my laptop was better I’d run a recording program and make a video of me soloing stuff on my guardian that takes more skill to do. I was able to get pretty far in CM story mode but it does take forever.

Updated the original post to include solo kill videos for the Cave Troll and Kholer with his adds, including the general strategies for each fight.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Spiky.8403:

Drew.1865:

Agreed if you melee kholer he’s going to pwn your face. I range him.

Here is video of me soloing Kohler with guardian, using hammer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ib0JnigqvE4

wow this actually looked just contrary what it should look like: you just spam 1 and keep your utilities on CD, this looks nothing like skilled gameplay to be honest. I will have to try this, but I’m kind of disappointed now. A boring rotation/CD-spam? I wonder if this is working as intended.

where is the skill in that?

I dont think it should take skill to kill a level 35 opponent as a downleveled 80 in full exotic equip.

Malediktus.9250:

You are lvl 80 with max equip in a lvl 35 dungeon. Should I be impressed?

wow, the jelly is strong in this one. Haters gonna hate.

Malediktus.9250:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Spiky.8403:

Drew.1865:

Agreed if you melee kholer he’s going to pwn your face. I range him.

Here is video of me soloing Kohler with guardian, using hammer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ib0JnigqvE4

wow this actually looked just contrary what it should look like: you just spam 1 and keep your utilities on CD, this looks nothing like skilled gameplay to be honest. I will have to try this, but I’m kind of disappointed now. A boring rotation/CD-spam? I wonder if this is working as intended.

where is the skill in that?

I dont think it should take skill to kill a level 35 opponent as a downleveled 80 in full exotic equip.

Have you ever done it or are you just here to hate? If this is so easy and stuff then where is your video doing something you would consider impressive?

Nonlinear.9823:

Malediktus.9250:

You are lvl 80 with max equip in a lvl 35 dungeon. Should I be impressed?

wow, the jelly is strong in this one. Haters gonna hate.

Jelly? I can solo it with less effort than that mesmer, but I dont make silly videos boasting about soloing a boss balanced for lvl 35s and not for lvl 80s in full exotic/ascended.

And honestly I rather do a whole path with a group than wasting time soloing a single boss during that period of time. Not to mention the wasted time and electricity for encoding and uploading the video.

Malediktus.9250:

Nonlinear.9823:

Malediktus.9250:

You are lvl 80 with max equip in a lvl 35 dungeon. Should I be impressed?

wow, the jelly is strong in this one. Haters gonna hate.

Jelly? I can solo it with less effort than that mesmer, but I dont make silly videos boasting about soloing a boss balanced for lvl 35s and not for lvl 80s in full exotic/ascended.

Sure you can, if you say so. Go do it and prove it to me, stranger on the Internet. But I guess I’ll just take your word for it since you have offered zero evidence (condescending words don’t count).

Kholer is so easy for everyone, that is why scrub PUGs do anything they can to avoid him and having to pay attention for 5 seconds in order to dodge his pull.

Nonlinear.9823:

Malediktus.9250:

Nonlinear.9823:

Malediktus.9250:

You are lvl 80 with max equip in a lvl 35 dungeon. Should I be impressed?

wow, the jelly is strong in this one. Haters gonna hate.

Jelly? I can solo it with less effort than that mesmer, but I dont make silly videos boasting about soloing a boss balanced for lvl 35s and not for lvl 80s in full exotic/ascended.

Sure you can, if you say so. Go do it and prove it to me, stranger on the Internet. But I guess I’ll just take your word for it since you have offered zero evidence (condescending words don’t count).

Why would I waste time to proof it to strangers on the internet if I earn nothing by doing so? I dont need anyones respect.

Malediktus.9250:

And honestly I rather do a whole path with a group than wasting time soloing a single boss during that period of time. Not to mention the wasted time and electricity for encoding and uploading the video.

LOL! What lame-o excuses. Kitten or get off the pot.

Nonlinear.9823:

Kholer is so easy for everyone, that is why scrub PUGs do anything they can to avoid him and having to pay attention for 5 seconds in order to dodge his pull.

I always forced pugs to do Kholer before he even dropped 10s, its a good check to see if the group is worth staying in or if one should leave right away.

Malediktus.9250:

Nonlinear.9823:

Malediktus.9250:

Nonlinear.9823:

Malediktus.9250:

You are lvl 80 with max equip in a lvl 35 dungeon. Should I be impressed?

wow, the jelly is strong in this one. Haters gonna hate.

Jelly? I can solo it with less effort than that mesmer, but I dont make silly videos boasting about soloing a boss balanced for lvl 35s and not for lvl 80s in full exotic/ascended.

Sure you can, if you say so. Go do it and prove it to me, stranger on the Internet. But I guess I’ll just take your word for it since you have offered zero evidence (condescending words don’t count).

Why would I waste time to proof it to strangers on the internet if I earn nothing by doing so? I dont need anyones respect.

For the same reason you wasted your time to come here and brag about how awesome you are while providing zero evidence to back up your claim instead providing banal excuses about the environment and how big stuff busy you are.

Go kittenolol somewhere else.

Malediktus.9250:

Nonlinear.9823:

Kholer is so easy for everyone, that is why scrub PUGs do anything they can to avoid him and having to pay attention for 5 seconds in order to dodge his pull.

I always forced pugs to do Kholer before he even dropped 10s, its a good check to see if the group is worth staying in or if one should leave right away.

Uh huh. Why should I believe a word you say, again? Show me a video of you soloing Kholer “in an impressive way” or you doing something else equally impressive or kitten and go away.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Spiky.8403:

Drew.1865:

Agreed if you melee kholer he’s going to pwn your face. I range him.

Here is video of me soloing Kohler with guardian, using hammer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ib0JnigqvE4

wow this actually looked just contrary what it should look like: you just spam 1 and keep your utilities on CD, this looks nothing like skilled gameplay to be honest. I will have to try this, but I’m kind of disappointed now. A boring rotation/CD-spam? I wonder if this is working as intended.

where is the skill in that?

There’s no skill needed to faceroll certain bosses as a Guardian. If their damage output is not high enough, you can just tank & spank them with the right build and gear (on Kholer, the pull & spin skill is the only attack you really need to avoid).
In fact, I would say that the Guardian in that video is somehow underperforming: There’s no need of “Stand Your Ground” and “Renewed Focus” for that combat, and other skills could have been chosen in order to boost the damage. There are also other options for defense/survability boosting, and there’s also room for some extra dodges at, for example, the poison attack, so the vid would still look somehow as a tank & spank even if Kholer would hit harder.

I’m with you on that’s absolutely not the most interesting vid to see; however, implying that this could not be working as intended could be, maybe, going too far.
Even if a boost on Kholer’s damage or a nerf on “Altruistic Healing” could still be manageable while demanding a slightly more skilled gameplay or, at least, a better resource management (with a scepter/focus second weapon set and the 3s Inmobilize signet instead of “Stand your Ground”, you get another Regeneration source and up to 7s of inmobilize plus 4s of blocking from time to time, resulting on a little less passive tanking and a better use of skills like SY! or Healing Signet), the passive tanking is something that will still be there most of the time.
Blocking/Aegis skills have pretty high CD and the endurance bar has its limits; adding to that the natural resistance to blinding (which is one of the best ways of active tanking Guardians have) and to CC (which gives little chances to skills like line and ring of warding) on bosses, Guardians hardly have another option but staying a good amount of time in close combat and mitigate the incoming damage through Protection, Altruistic Healing and Symbol Healing (where Hammer shines).

Other bosses, even Kholer itself up to some degree, can also be somehow “trivialized” by the usage of ranged weapons plus chilling and/or crippling skills (which are almost nonexistant for a Guardian), so I’m pretty sure that there are bosses out there that can be a pain in the kitten for a Guardian while being nothing but a cakewalk for other classes.
I would enjoy having a harder hitting Kholer, as I would enjoy giving some other bosses a good chunk of speed/mobility and/or some resistance to snaring effects, but I’m pretty sure that those changes, which i would see as game improvements, would not get the same reaction from the majority of the community :P

well I would like to see that guardian-survival needs clever usage of their profession-specific mechanics – else why are those there in the first place? The video shows not one usage of F2 or F3. Yes, there are still the passive effects of those, but I think making it possible to spam 1 skill and surviving such an encounter is not fun gameplay.

personally I would like to see the difference of a good and a bad player when I watch them play. I don’t care about which gear they wear.

this guardian didn’t rely on
-) active F2
-) active F3
-) skill 2-5
-) weapon-swap
-) blinds
…

just good regeneration (gear, traits) and perma-protection via autoattack

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

well I would like to see that guardian-survival needs clever usage of their profession-specific mechanics – else why are those there in the first place? The video shows not one usage of F2 or F3. Yes, there are still the passive effects of those, but I think making it possible to spam 1 skill and surviving such an encounter is not fun gameplay.

personally I would like to see the difference of a good and a bad player when I watch them play. I don’t care about which gear they wear.

this guardian didn’t rely on
-) active F2
-) active F3
-) skill 2-5
-) weapon-swap
-) blinds
…

just good regeneration (gear, traits) and perma-protection via autoattack

That’s true, he isn’t using neither F2 nor F3. He’s only using F1, and I honestly think he shouldn’t (unless he has the trait for doing more damage to burning targets).
F1 gives him 5s of burning on his next attack, while passive effect grants 1s every fifth attack. It recharges in 30 sec so, as long as he hits more than 25 times every 30 sec (with I think he does counting the symbol ticks), he deals more damage just without using it.
F2 is a heal that recharges in 60 sec and heal for less than 60 sec of it’s pasive effect by far.
F3 is a aegis on demand every 90 sec, while it’s passive effect gives aegis automatically every 40 sec.
The real benefit of the active effect on virtues is that is a party wide effect. For solo play, however, passive effect is stronger and, unless traiting in some specific way, you will only be using F2 in a hurry and F3 in order to avoid a specially nasty attack when out of endurance.
He could be activating both freely just before his elite, but since he uses it for the spin, the F3 block would be automatically lost, and the only advantage he would be getting for all of it would be a small, an in this case unneeded, healing

His second skill does a good amount of damage and gives area retaliation blasting the combo field of the autoattack, which is a little extra damage and procs altruisting healing for an extra tick of healing.
Since I use boon duration runes I use it once every two autoattack chains. The main reason for him for not using it so much it’s maybe than he can’t upkeep the protection boon all the time this way and if he gets hit in this timeframe, he gets hurt for more than he heals. I think he wouldn’t have any problem using it more frequently, but don’t think you would be seeing a differet battle: in this case is a little more than a DPS increase.

Third skill is a inmovilize. He could be using it just after the spin, gaining 2 sec of CD recharge, but since he actually doesn’t need this, he wouldn’t be gaining anything but a innecesarily longer combat.

Fourth skill is a launch and Five skill is a 5s ring that enemies can’t cross. Both behave as CC skills, so are affected by defiant stacks, and their only purpose would be gaining a few secs of CD recharging.

He is actually using the best weapon available. It gives perma-prot, and procs altruistic and symbol healing more than any other, while doing an acceptable DPS.
The only weapons that could outDPS the Hammer are:
- The greatsword, which i think he could be using during SY! upkeep (since it gives prot) without a significative health loss with a sigil of leeching.
- The 1H sword, paired with a focus (he will lose a lot of HP if he attempts to use a torch), and under the same circunstances that the GS (10 sec once every 50 sec).

Blinds are only effective on bosses 10% of the times. Relying on blinds for defensive purposes works wonders for veterans, but it’s actually a mistake when fighting bosses.
It’s ok as a free effect of certain skills, but skills/traits focused just on doing that are a waste.

As I said before, Hammer passive tanking (which is just autoattacking) is usually the best way for a Guardian to survive (against a boss and in solo-play) and what he would be doing most of the time.
A weapon swap for defensive purposes is possible, but with inmobilize and block skills having high CDs, it will be only from time to time.
If Kholer would hit harder, maybe by a 20%, i think it would still be doable and more interesting to see (but never as skill demanding as with other classes). Higher damages could make the boss just undoable for a guardian, who has almost zero kiting capabilities, while still being doable for those other classes.

Aden Celeste.3650:

I have already defeated Kholer with my ranger, and it was the most impressive fight I have ever had. However, I NEVER though of making a video for it. Why? Because immediately we will get nerfed and the bosses will be improved somehow.

I’m on the same sentiment. While I can understand the dev’s response, sometimes, it falls into a gray area as to what counts as an “exploit” or “good gameplay”.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Iruwen.3164:

You’d better be careful with such statements, this can easily result in an excrement storm considering the latest mesmer “bugfixes”.

True enough. I don’t do skill balancing, I do content work, so I can’t speak for the system designers who do that stuff. But having shown this off to them and made them aware of it, they just saw it as good play, not about an OP skill. So I don’t think there are any nerfs coming to mesmers due to this video, or to warriors about the Lupicus video.

Cool, now do you mind to ask to who designed every other class to overpower/make our skills able to do the exact same kind of performance dodging properly etc?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Spiky.8403:

Drew.1865:

Agreed if you melee kholer he’s going to pwn your face. I range him.

Here is video of me soloing Kohler with guardian, using hammer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ib0JnigqvE4

wow this actually looked just contrary what it should look like: you just spam 1 and keep your utilities on CD, this looks nothing like skilled gameplay to be honest. I will have to try this, but I’m kind of disappointed now. A boring rotation/CD-spam? I wonder if this is working as intended.

where is the skill in that?

Not sure why are you basically calling me kitten for my play-style, so I decided to bring some light to this topic. I could maybe use Hold the Line instead of Stand yyour ground, but I wanted to have another skill breaking stun, just in case. Yes I am spamming only 1 and 2 skills with hammer on boss, do you want to know why?
3rd step of 1st skill gives me protection, regeneration from symbol and as a bonus damage to boss. When I needed to heal up a bit, I simply did not use 2nd skill and rather went for another symbol with skill 1. If you wondering why I did not use 3-5 skills, then you probably knows absolutely nothing about hammer and guardian and I wont lose time explaining.

Won’t quote your next post, but I will reply. I though not using F2/F3 is kinda obvious, why would I lose permanent regeneration for one little instant heal every ~60 seconds? I used only F1 as it has small CD and every boon heals me. In this fight every HP was good.

Wondering why I used my shouts everytime CD was over? Should I just let them lay there and die because it’s not cool using shouts? I would suggest you to go and try it yourself, you will see that you will fight for every single hp.

At the end I want to say that I did not make this video to show something so cool amazing extra or don’t know what else. I did it to show people that cannot do it, it is possible the way I did. I expected criticism, constructive criticism, but what you did is just talking something you have no clue about.

Now do it with his adds, as the fight was intended. =D

Hearte.6852:

Now do it with his adds, as the fight was intended. =D

Killing Kholer with adds as a Guardian is probably impossible or extremely dependant on racials and/or the kind of adds he gets.
The class just has not the tools needed to keep Kholer at bay while he dispatchs the adds.
Mesmer is much more skill demanding for some battles a Guardian can easily dispatch, but its solo-play capabilities are also far beyond the simpler mechanics a Guardian has.

It may be impossible, but try doing it on a Friday before WvW reset, with Bowls of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew, which is generally the best dungeon food, IMO.

@Spiky: you misunderstood my post, it wasn’t my intention to attack you personally. The thing I don’t like is that guardians are designed that they play most effectively in certain situations when doing most of the things you did. I respect you for finding a way to solo Kholer as a guardian, I really do! I played a Altruistic guardian myself and I know about the things you explained to me.

I just would prefer if a guardian would be better if he actually uses all his tools. Of coures you did the right thing when not using F2 and F3, what I wanted to say: It would be more fun if the guardian would have profession-skills which, when used the right way, give you an advantage. Not having to use those skills… so the less you do, the more effective you are, seems just shallow to me.

As an example of fun gameplay: in order to play a very effective bunker-build with the elementalist, you have to use nearly all of your tools available. Swap around in attunements constantly in order to combine your skills in a way that it’s like doing a combo. Take a look at this for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZODCzAPgw&feature=g-user-u

Marcus Greythorne: I got your point. Maybe it was just a bad idea to make that video. It was never about pushing my guardian to his limits, hell I haven’t even used any buffs or food. I simply tried it my way and it worked. That elementalist maybe used as many skills as possible, but at the end, it took him longer to kill Kholer than me And I cannot say he would be fighting for his life. Sure, it might looks better, but sometimes less is more

Aktarus.5612:

Robert, can you please implement a casting bar under opponent life bar, to see exactly when we need to escape/interrupt ect ,like in GW1 ?

That’s an “ugly” solution, IMO. I know GW2 already makes players “look at the UI instead of looking at the game” in several places (ex., the range indicators and CD indicators which are at the bottom of the screen while the enemies are generally very near the top, due to the weird GW2 camera ), but I think the same thing could be achieved in a more elegant way. For example:

• Better sound cues. Makes bosses say something before casting their signature attacks. Just a laugh or a scream or whatever (which wouldn’t require translation) should be enough to let players know what they’re about to cast, even when the boss is hidden behind a forest of explosions and pets.

• Animate the boss portrait. Make his eyes flash a second before throwing the harpoons, make him glow when he has projectile reflection, etc.. This still makes players look at a part of the UI but at least it’s a part that represents the actual enemy (and is near the top of the screen, where the enemy will generally be), not just a coloured rectangle.

Kholer is actually one of the most well-designed bosses in the game, IMO, and his harpoon “tell” can be seen even through a lot of spell effects (not through large pets and elementals, though). Some other bosses are much harder to see.

P.S. – A bug I’ve had with Kholer in the last couple of weeks is that, when he throws harpoons at players on the stairs, even if the player dodges or shields, he sometimes gets thrown to the ceiling and then dies from the fall. Funny but kind of annoying.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Not having to use those skills… so the less you do, the more effective you are, seems just shallow to me.

The same thing happens with elementalists and warriors, for example. If you’re using a healing signet the trick is to play in such a way that you never have to activate it. Just because you’re not pressing that key doesn’t mean you’re “not using those skills”. You’re just adapting your play style to the passive effect of those skills instead of using its active effect.

Dante.1508:

Now do it at proper level 35 with level 35 equips and i’ll be impressed.

Or you could do it yourself ever and then talk about how unimpressed you are.

Congratz mate.Very entertaining videos

Drew.1865:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Sad that people can’t share an accomplishment without elitists or trolls tearing them apart.

Well done OP, good luck with kholer.

It just proves how bad the panda Pokemon expansion is because we all know where these dps meter watching ,eating popcorn during a raid while watching everyone else do the work players come from :-)

Everyone’s elite when they have macros and add ons.

hahahaha made me grin… Fair comment