Guild Wars 2

as a front, i’ve done enough CoE to make my eyes bleed. I’ve gotten two full sets of armor in it and am ready to vote alpha as candidate of choice for the 2016 election.

first off. path 1.
save the inquest they said. it’ll be fun they said.
I may have just missed it, but I don’t see any reason to save him. I don’t know if he’s supposed to buff you or what. But make it meaningful if you save him.

Also. this goes with path 3 as well. alpha’s earth wave skill has almost NO tell as opposed to his earth ring/dragon tooth/ice spike. it’s just directional and slaps whoever alpha happens to be mean mugging at the time. really. my computer may not be the greatest but the only tell I’m seeing that I need to move is the timing from the last dragon tooth (path1) or rock ring/ice spike (path 3)

This next one concerns all 3 paths.
the HotW totem robot of boringness and 5 minutes of afk. but that’s not even my problem with him. he really needs a “singles people out” tag like the boss in TA, because he does just that. he picks one person, tosses flame lines, electricity rings. and EXCLUSIVELY this grape~flavored beam of purplicious stunning death lazor at you. if he throws the electricity ring at you, and you try to dodge the purple death lazor, as soon as you get out of the ring, it stuns you. grape flavored death ensues as you can no longer dodge his follow up shot. This is just plain old bad fight design. what makes it more aggravating is when you’re down/defeated, he all but ignores your allies. if you revive, he just focuses you down and sits there taking it up the butt from your team.

Finally, the two banes of path 3.
I understand the need for a difficult path. I don’t understand a champion destroyer crab with a need to toss lava fonts without warning that 1shots your glass cannons and chop your tank’s hp in half.

also. why have such a ridiculously gimmicky boss fight as the evolved destroyer. I know there’s places you can stand and LoS the boss while being in range while the lasers take out his shield. but with how fast his shield regenerates, I see this fight as just complete dungeon time buffering/wasting in an already consistently long dungeon.

I think that covers all my bases, if anyone has any additions, throw them below
/rant

For path 1, when you save them it means you have access to the unexploded bomb. One of your party members can then use the bomb on alpha to take ~50% of his health.

For path 3 the earth wave is a avoided through positioning and as you said, the tell is the previous attack. My group never gets hit by it, because 4 of use stack melee. He always uses earth wave right after earth ring, meaning when earth ring activates you walk up to his body and never get hit by it.

The 5th person we use as bait who gets the ice ring instead of the earth ring knows when to use their dodge or if they are far enough away they can avoid it by constantly strafing or not being directly behind the other 4 members in melee range. I regularly do alpha without ever getting hit.

I agree that destroyer is tedious and not hard other then taking 10 minutes to kill, and the golem should at least give a chest…

1) Saving the inquest gives you the option to overload the shield generator and instantly take away half of Alpha’s HP. It depends if you want another fight in exchange for shortening Alpha’s stay or just gib Alpha from 100%.

2) It DOES have a tell. It’s fairly short but it exists. I know that because I dodge it all the time. He raises his arm in a fairly obvious manner before slamming it down and causing the spikes to draw out. Dodge as his arm comes down. Easy. If you don’t want to do that, stack right up next to him and the spikes won’t even touch you (they start a little ahead of him).

3) If the targeted player keeps moving, they don’t have this issue. The electricity ring won’t activate unless it directly hits the player it’s targeting, so get out of the way by dodging, boosting yourself with leaps, whatever. Also, the purple charge is extremely obvious, and it’s not a laser. It’s a 3-step projectile blast. Get some distance and strafe/dodge them as they come out. Half the time they just sail past you without a need to dodge if you’re moving from a distance, and you should never get killed by them anyway (even my squishy Thief can take 2 of the 3 hits without going down).

4) Agreed with the Evolved Destroyer. It’s just boring.

alpha’s earth wave actually has a point blank aoe component to it, it can’t be stacked or deadzoned. there’s one little aoe about the size of a person’s target ring on the ground right in front of him. someone’s always going to take the hit, it’s just WHO that’s important. as this game has a somewhat sketchy definition of aggro, the best plan is just to spread out around him in melee range.

Strifey.7215:

For path 1, when you save them it means you have access to the unexploded bomb. One of your party members can then use the bomb on alpha to take ~50% of his health.

Oh my god, I had no idea…

And in regards to the Evolved Destroyer, that one is just dumb time waster for me. It’s just always two rifle warriors jumping down to the safe spot then taking quick shots at him until he’s dead. Quite a boring way to end a particularly interesting run.

I also had no idea about the bomb, nobody has any comment about the champion destroyer crab? arguably the second most skipped champion in CoE, right after the champ icebrood wolf?

ALSO. path 2. the SLOW response times of the bomb golems to the subjugation laser. most of the time I wind up using rifle butt to kick them at the boss rather than bother with subjugation at all.

I’ve done the destroyer very quickly with a good team. The laser people jumped down to shoot it also, and the boss fell very quickly, maybe only 7 laser volleys.

Herosandwich.6203:

alpha’s earth wave actually has a point blank aoe component to it, it can’t be stacked or deadzoned. there’s one little aoe about the size of a person’s target ring on the ground right in front of him. someone’s always going to take the hit, it’s just WHO that’s important. as this game has a somewhat sketchy definition of aggro, the best plan is just to spread out around him in melee range.

Uh, yes it can.

Assuming you mean the cone shaped attack of earth spikes, the first ring appears in front of Alpha by like a foot. Which means anyone standing directly on him will take zero damage from the cone-attack.

Everyone should have melee assist checked off in their options anyway.

My points of concern:

1. Simply unfair that crystal doesn’t phase certain classes because they can escape or whatever. All it takes is coordination, sure, but that’s not something you’ll always find in a pug run.

2. Evolved Destroyer is pure tedium. No challenge whatsoever. I think simply switching the sides the platforms are on could help with this. By that I mean take the side with ONE laser and match it with the ONE platform path. And take the side with TWO lasers and match it with the TWO platform paths. Don’t really understand why this isn’t the case already.