Guild Wars 2

I feel like Arenanet missed a massive opportunity here.

So I’m running AC Path 3 after the patch, and we get to the final boss. It turns out they got rid of the “Howling King” howl and buffed the kitten out of his tremor attack. It now is virtually impossible to dodge, and can down an entire party at once if you’re unlucky. Fair enough.

I started looking for ways to counteract this, and noticed that there was a really long and obvious cast animation for this attack. I thought to myself, “No way… Arenanet actually put in a fight where you have to interrupt the boss or else face certain death? Finally! Now it might take a bit of coordination to do this dungeon!” After a few struggles, our group managed to coordinate our ccs to interrupt the boss during his attack…

… but it went off anyway. Turns out this attack can’t actually be interrupted, even though the animation and the “Interrupt!” message would leave you to believe this. I find out later you’re supposed to stand in the NPC bubble which doesn’t seem to do anything half the time.

Why, Arenanet? Given, this fight is still better than whatever the hell you called a bossfight before this, but you have a very well-thought out interrupt mechanic in place! Why not make use of it? Have I just not found that one fight that requires it yet?

P.S. Kholer doesn’t count. (Or at least the old one, we skipped new kholer, so no idea what this one’s like.) If you’re paying any sort of attention, you can dodge his scorpion wire easily.

I am disappointed with another thing in this fight. This is another boss encounter which is a lot easier ranged than melee. I think boss knockdowns with every attack in melee range. I loved the fight before changes- dodge his melee attacks, go behind him when he is screaming, dps him while avoiding rocks. Both melee and ranged were viable. I don’t like the direction new dungeon content is heading to- making melee not worth the risk. It started with fractals and is seen in this change also.

Colossus Rumblus was always more ranged friendly because it allowed for more space to move around in (the density of AoE decreases as distance from the boss increases), but if what you’re saying it true it looks like AC Path 3 will be another path that nobody does.

I have no issue meleeing him. Took my group 2 tries, first time doing it since patch. Just make sure to stand inside Grasts circle during the rumbling attack.

Great job on the new AC Anet, my entire guild loves it.

edit: it worked everytime for us, we were just idiots laughing our butts off due to dumb deaths

GoZero.9708:

Colossus Rumblus was always more ranged friendly because it allowed for more space to move around in (the density of AoE decreases as distance from the boss increases), but if what you’re saying it true it looks like AC Path 3 will be another path that nobody does.

You can’t outrange it this time. At least not as a thief (we have a grand total of 1 attack that’s longer than 900 range)

I wouldn’t call it THAT hard, just annoying. Chain knockdowns, the tremor attack reminds me of Metrica province fire elemental, but without adds/burning. Come to think of it, the entire boss reminds me of that elemental.

We did beat it on our 2nd try, because the boss doesnt do much dmg outside of that 1 attack.

EDIT: Thank you for responding Arenanet, it’s nice to see that you’re giving multiple legitimate ways to handle a boss.

I’m not sure if this fight is bugged or not. It seems the rocks are falling too fast because if you get hit you’re basically guaranteed to die because another one is falling shortly after.

We wiped our 1st time, but the boss was still in combat when we got back and had 10% hp. When we engaged him and killed him he literally filled the entire area around himself (even though he was dead) with red circles that were still dropping rocks 10 seconds after he was dead and murdered us again.

Basically they’ve pushed this dungeon into being more ranged friendly because the spider boss is a death trap in melee range now.

The issue that my guild and I had with him was that he was casting his tremor attack way to fast. He would activate the tremor attack and we would be safe in the bubble, however soon after he would do it again and Warmaster did not have enough time to cast the bubble again. By the time the bubble was back up it was useless because the AoE was just falling through the bubble and killing us.

edit: By way to fast I mean he would cast it, then roughly 10 sec later he would cast it again.

Just did it today, didn’t bother interrupting as we were running a melee train of Guard/Warrior/Warrior/DaggerEle/Necro. The bubble was fully functional, the normal attacks were easily the most threatening, but the ancillary mechanic of having to pay attention to the NPC’s location was a welcomed change.

My group was just trying it and even with decent Guardian healing, I have to claim it impossible. Maybe it broke in the latest build, but Grast dies at about 50% and does not reliably put up his shield. When he does, it doesn’t reliably block the AoE damage.

My group and I didn’t understand the rockfall mechanic until I read this thread. We didn’t notice Grast’s mechanic at first because he was dead in a corner after being beat up so easily from Rumblus. After you revive him away from Rumblus, he just starts charging at Rumblus without a care in the world. My team was finally able to complete this path after we decided to aggro Rumblus before Grast. For a fight that is made more comfortable with the assistance of an NPC, the NPC does not know how to keep himself out of a bad situation. If something is done to remedy the flaws of the rockfall sequence of this fight mentioned above, I think this fight would be as interesting as it was intended.

Just tried to run this about a half dozen ways with a decent group and after being wiped several times (literally “Rocks Fall; everyone dies”) we noticed the following issues:

1. Grast’s shield is unpredictable, we observed multiple instances of rocks falling through or it failing to activate at all. Also, one hilarious instance where it seemed to go out of sync (i.e. the shield would fall right as soon as the rocks started. )

2. Grast agros Colossus Rumblus immediately upon being revived at 50% health. This makes it very very difficult to keep him up considering the necessity of the shield.

3. As stated above, the intention seems to have been to interrupt the mob before it sets off the falling rocks, but the interrupt doesn’t seem to have an effect. Even when you knock the mob back or down.

Anyone else tried to kill Rumblus now? Anet screwed the pooch on that one. Should not be that hard to take down Rumblus. The seismic rocks are to OP. I am on Coordinated vent guild with guardians and wars and etc…..Rumblus is broken ANET FIX HIM

Stand near warmaster grast. He throws up a shield when the rocks start falling.

No, he’s not. Perhaps you didn’t notice the gigantic shield that the Warmaster puts up so that you can stand in it to not get hit by rocks. But of course, “co-ordinated”.

Dude warmaster grast dies in one hit from rumblus. Have you even done it yet? What can you do for the NPC when he is perma knockdown? Why should we have to depend on npc?

Edit: Just tried sticking with grast……guess what …he just got destroyed by Rumblus in a millisecond. But Of course “Just stand under gigantic shield”

It surprises me that a dev who supposedly mains a ranger (and knows how ridiculous pet survivability and the game’s AI is) would subject everyone to relying on NPC AI and survivability. Maybe it’s like revenge for how crap the pet is during encounters like this?

Exactly Shiren. I could understand this if warmaster could live. Even then do we want to dpend on NPC?

Both path 1 and path 3 involve the NPC quite a bit, imo this is a nice thing.
Keeping the warmaster alive shouldn’t be a problem at all.

We did this with a level 60-80 not geared, and not all that experienced team. Yes, it took us 2 wipes to learn it, but once we knew what to do, it was a blast.

I’d recommend you to use ranged weapons as much as possible, as his knockdown doesn’t reach to the other side of the bubble (hint!), if you can recognize his knockdowns good, then with you “guardians” team, use some knockback to interupt it.

Also, you can interupt his howl that causes the seismic activity, just an example strategy: on guardian use hammer, then ring of warding, followed by banish, this will interupt his howl, and keep him in close range.

I like the changes to paths 1&2 boss fights. They’re more interesting.

But path 3 being entirely dependent on an NPC is just horribad. I’m the hero, not the AI. Then add in how bad the AI actually is, and it’s just not a fun fight unless you get lucky enough that Grast doesn’t go kamikaze.

As for the rest of the dungeon…

I was happy to see graveling scavengers are no longer certain death once you ran out of stun breakers. I’m not at all happy that practically every mob in the dungeon now spams knockback/down. I like actually playing my character, not watching it flop around like a rag doll (and fyi: I run two stun breakers and am very good at dodging…and still got permaknocked a few times).

There should be a big rule painted on the wall of every game development building:

Do not take away a player’s ability to play the game without very good reason.

This applies to cc spamming mobs, cutscenes that force your character to do stupid things, etc.

salameri.3768:

Dude warmaster grast dies in one hit from rumblus. Have you even done it yet? What can you do for the NPC when he is perma knockdown? Why should we have to depend on npc?

Edit: Just tried sticking with grast……guess what …he just got destroyed by Rumblus in a millisecond. But Of course “Just stand under gigantic shield”

Bad luck for you, then. We did absolutely NOTHING to keep Grast alive the first time we did it. Note, the first time. We had no idea of the new mechanics or anything, it was literally our first test run after the patch. He seemed to keep himself alive just fine. However, now that it’s clear what’s required, it’s a breeze to keep Rumblus’ attention on group members so Grast doesn’t get caught off-guard. NPCs are almost always at the bottom of aggro tables.

If you can’t be bothered to do that, then just spam all your CC to get rid of Defiant and interrupt him when he goes to use the attack. Hardly complex. CC exists for a reason.

Ok that’s easy to keep rumblus from aggro on Warmaster but how does he stay alive when he is always running right up on rumblus’s grill? Also, there are players that like depending on npc for shelter? And Guardians being forced to use certain abilities and weapons for a certain path and boss. Admit it….they screwed up Rumblus. sorry.

Edit: As stated by community manager up there ^^^^^^ you cannot CC him before he does his seismic attack. Anet messed it up. Hopefully a fix is inc.

Here’s one problem with Rumblus and Grast at the end of the fight:

- Rumblus just started the ceiling to fall and dies
- Grast goes into dialogue mode since Rumblus died
- Ceiling still falls, kills Grast in 1-2 hits (who completely ignored the fact the ceiling was falling, still talking his scripted dialogue), and the ceiling downs 2 of the party members as everyone thought it was over—but there was nowhere to run for cover anyway

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hmm, that seems like a bug. It was intended that you could interrupt the howl that caused the rocks to fall. I’ll send that over to our QA and get it verified.

Can you please work with the design team on adding some kind of debuff or visual cue for when mobs are easily interrupted? Players have a very poor understanding of the Unshakable/Defiant system in the first place, and unexplained exceptions to the rules only make this problem worse.

I recently wrote a lengthy blog post about how Defiant works that was frontpaged on /r/guildwars2 over the weekend without my personal involvement. Clearly, the community is hungry for more information on how to effectively crowd control bosses.
http://maleficincantations.com/2013/02/21/defying-explanation/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/195cxl/defying_explanation_how_defiant_and_unshakeable/

Mr eX.3420:

Can you please work with the design team on adding some kind of debuff or visual cue for when mobs are easily interrupted? Players have a very poor understanding of the Unshakable/Defiant system in the first place, and unexplained exceptions to the rules only make this problem worse.

All they would need to do is fix the “Interrupt!” message to only display if you actually interrupted something, and not if it gets blocked by a stack of defiant.

My group (first time for us all since patch) got wiped in our first couple attempts because we didn’t notice the bubble that the NPC put up. Once we knew, we took him down no problem. I was on my Ele running D/D, so being in close range didn’t pose that much of a problem.

As for possible bugs of when he doesn’t put up the protective bubble, I noticed that happened once during the fight when we knew to pay to attention to the NPC. It happened because it looked like the NPC got knocked down right before Rumblus started doing the cave ins, so the NPC was on his face and couldn’t cast the shield.

Did they fix the 270 degree cone 1 shot howl?

I can also verify the issue the OP, and others, report. My group was not able to interrupt the rock fall attack. We spent quite a bit of time experimenting to see if we could find a safe zone in the room, but could not. The rocks fall even in the corridor that you come down to enter the room. We eventually succeeded using what is apparently the intended method of huddling under Grast’s shield when the rocks fall.

I’ll add that I’m somewhat perversely pleased that there may be a bug involved here. I’m very much not a fan of “there is only one solution and the ‘challenge’ is to find it.” Apparently there are supposed to be at least two, based on Mr. Hrouda’s reply. I’d be even more pleased if the scenario allowed for players to come up with multiple creative solutions or use a variety of tactics to defeat it. And maybe they will. Could be that team composition makes a difference, or that there are simply solutions we didn’t think of. I really hope so. Otherwise, that’s going to be a pretty dull encounter once you’ve mastered “the trick.”

MasterGeese.4756:

Mr eX.3420:

Can you please work with the design team on adding some kind of debuff or visual cue for when mobs are easily interrupted? Players have a very poor understanding of the Unshakable/Defiant system in the first place, and unexplained exceptions to the rules only make this problem worse.

All they would need to do is fix the “Interrupt!” message to only display if you actually interrupted something, and not if it gets blocked by a stack of defiant.

That would help, but there are foes that can be interrupted when they have Defiant, such as the two Underground Facility Fractal end bosses and Graveling Scavengers. The UI doesn’t communicate this to the player in any way. Apparently Colossus Rumblus is one such boss as well.

Mr eX.3420:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hmm, that seems like a bug. It was intended that you could interrupt the howl that caused the rocks to fall. I’ll send that over to our QA and get it verified.

Can you please work with the design team on adding some kind of debuff or visual cue for when mobs are easily interrupted? Players have a very poor understanding of the Unshakable/Defiant system in the first place, and unexplained exceptions to the rules only make this problem worse.

I recently wrote a lengthy blog post about how Defiant works that was frontpaged on /r/guildwars2 over the weekend without my personal involvement. Clearly, the community is hungry for more information on how to effectively crowd control bosses.
http://maleficincantations.com/2013/02/21/defying-explanation/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/195cxl/defying_explanation_how_defiant_and_unshakeable/

That is a fantastic blog post. Thank you for that. One question though. In GW1, a skill that was easily interruptible would be interrupted by any successful attack. Your blog post implies that you still must use a CC skill to interrupt an easily interruptible action. Am I reading that right? So if Colossus is indeed intended to be easily interruptible, my Concussion Shot (Daze) should have worked, but none of my other shortbow skills (no CC) would have. Is that correct?

Thanks!

Unfortunately the answer is yes and no. The Dredge Powersuit/Ice Elemental’s healing skills can be interrupted by any attack so long as they are Superheated. This is the only boss skill/encounter I personally know of that works like this (I don’t claim to know everything.) Other skills such as Champion Graveling Scavengers’ leap knockdown can be interrupted through Defiant, but only with a CC. Colossus (when he is working correctly) falls into the latter category.

Awesome. Thanks again.

Mr eX.3420:

(I don’t claim to know everything.)

Well then, you, sir, have no business posting on an internet forum!

Great blog post, though.

protip, keep Warmaster Grast alive and stand near him. Voilá, you can happily keep facerolling.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hmm, that seems like a bug. It was intended that you could interrupt the howl that caused the rocks to fall. I’ll send that over to our QA and get it verified.

I can confirm. Last night when I ran this my group attempted to CC him to prevent the ability and despite it saying interrupt you can not.

Also, after we wiped and reset we had to heal Grast. Imediately upon reviving him he would Leroy Jenkins into the fight with 50% HP and promptly die about 50% of the way into the fight at which point we would wipe again. When we actually did finish this it was the one time we some how got him back up to 100% HP.

I think another great mechanic that could be in this fight is giving the players an item they can activate the generates a shield to protect the group. Relying on an NPC is kind of lame.

Finally, it was hard for our group to tell but some of us felt the arch way in the ruins in the room provided a safe spot. Is this intended?

Crush, that would be awesome – make it so you can talk to grast for a 1 time use shield bundle which he sits on the sidelines to make for you instead of charging into fight the boss.

If such a change is made – this is how it will affect us:

The team has 100% control of when the shield goes up, has to interact with a NPC to get the shield ability, has to place the shield correctly so the party doesn’t die or the NPC outdoes die.

Thought I’d share the safe spot I found in the room, makes him even easier than the previous incarnation. Enjoy.
http://youtu.be/1qi2DPa7m30

There’s a (most certainly not intended) safe spot in which the falling rocks simply won’t hit anyone.

In the upper part of the boss room, right before reaching the area in which he’s walking around and where there used to be some gravelings to kill, people used to run inside a smaller room (like a hole in the wall) to reset aggro from them. If you pull the boss all the way up there and into that same room, just climb the rocks on the ground and stay above the ground level, his rumbling AoE simply won’t fall in there (at the very least, the red circles won’t pass the entrance).

I, for one, always try to respect and play accordingly to the intended mechanics of any boss fight but, as it is, it’s too buggy and simply impossible to accomplish – especially with PUGs – making this a feasible alternative until it gets properly fixed.

I haven’t tried C.R. on my thief yet, before the patch Basilisk Venom not only interrupted him but froze him for a brief time, I’ll have to try that tomorrow. Since the rocks can no longer be out ranged, this leaves dealing with the NPC’s bubble, he is a melee kitten who thinks he’s a tank, but his health and toughness are weak. Stick around the NPC , heal him, use stability utilities around him so he isn’t knocked down all the time, and protection, defend the kitten out of him so you can use his bubble. Since it is being reported that C.R. is not able to be interrupted and if your group can not defend the NPC, take him up two flights on the stair way that leads to the hidden leap of faith puzzle, the rocks don’t fall there. Don’t get too used to it though, expect the stairs to get a fix at the same time as the boss interrupt bug. It’s funny, I have read a post about support no longer being needed, this fight and NPC are an excellent place for it. If you can out threat the NPC then you will be able to forget the need to heal him some but stability will still play a large role, you don’t want him knocked down when you need him to cast his bubble.

We tried this fight 6 or 7 times I think. Grast’s bubble either didn’t work completely (rocks were just falling through it) or Rumblus got into melee with us (naturally, we were all standing on one relatively small spot) and pushed us out under the falling doom with each attack while killing the NPC with death. We were not amused.

I really like the new fight, but Grast needs some help.

1. You basically get one good shot at Rumblus when Grast is at full health. If he dies it is extremely frustrating to make another attempt. He runs full bore back at CR with half health ready or not… after the party has likely used a good bit of their defensive cooldowns to stay alive long enough to rez him.

2. Consistently Grast would NOT use his shield when CR would use his rock attack. I’d see CR wind up his attack and instead of shielding Grast would be using his sloooooooow wind up hammer attack. Then the whole party, including Grast, gets knocked down and wiped. This caused a vast majority of our failed attempts.

i would love to see a very good run on youtube. any links anyone ?

Just ran this after the patch that “fixed” interrupting the howling king. Interrupt message shows, but he still rocks still fall. Used both “Technobabble” daze and guardian pull.

On the other hand, I like all the other changes. Kholer has kept his mechanics but is easier with a pug that can’t dodge, and the Ghost Eater is the most fun i’ve had in AC.

Yes, we couldn’t interrupt the rocks tonight too. And our Grast didn’t cast his bubble and died a lot of times. It was painful and we give up.

We wiped 6 times tonight and gave up.

Grast continues to use his hammer attack well after colossus rumblus has started his rock fall. The rocks then end up knocking back and interrupting Grast causing our group to wipe.

The only thing I don’t like about this is that you have to rely on an NPC to survive. Why not do it like the cliffside fractal where u get a weapon that has to be used instead? I loved that. Maybe 1 person could pick up a shield or something that has to be used wisely to succeed. I’d be OK with that. NPC’s are always the problem in all dungeons and it’s just really really frustrating to have to rely on them to get through, when they are almost always the reason you fail in the first place.

Ok so I prefer 100 times run into a fotm for which i have not enough AR to survive than this p3 AC that is obviously the worst change I ever seen in this game. What the poit of having red circle to dodge them if ALL the floor around is red just make plain stupid and npc has no stability so without guardian its impossible. Thanks I spent plenty silver to repair my armor to a completely broken boss.

I like the idea of needing to protect the NPC, but Grast needs to be updated to use the hammer skill 100% of the time. I don’t mind keeping him alive and I don’t mind paying the price if he dies, but I do mind when he dies due to him not using his own move when he’s supposed to. It’s really dumb that an entire team can be do everything right just to get wiped due to poor programming and quality control.

If anet doesnt want to improves warhmaster at least they should make him range or put an eternal stability on him, so he will not be interrumpted by colossus rumbus knockbacks, in that way it will be less dumb the way you died because of some silly knockback on the NPC.

Yeah, this current Rumblus mechanic is a very good way to teach a noob to never set foot in a GW2 Dungeon again.
It almost convinced me.