Guild Wars 2

No matter how I look at it, it really feels like the first boss of the wing 3 is a direct response to the complaints to get an easy mode in raids. They frankly cannot make it easier.

It’s the only boss that I know of that doesn’t have a timer, that pugs don’t even bother to food up and beat on first try and where you don’t really need any special build or group composition.

And, it becomes a bit boring after killing it a few times. This made me realize that I kind of like the stress that come with having an enrage timer.

it’s less about an enrage timer and more about the danger of wiping

Yeh, I think overall it’s a good way for non-raiders to start getting magnetite shards and the like, and potentially spark some interest into raiding when they realise they’ve already done 1/3rd of the chest encounters in a raid.

Agreed, I think it’s a very positive thing that the first encounter of W3 is so accessible. Hopefully new groups that beat the encounter will decide to continue on to KC, as I feel that he’s also a very accessible encounter.

Yea, I think the KC fight is also pretty accessible, even if it may not seem that way to people right now. It is a bit of a DPS check like Gorseval, but once you learn the mechanics, it’s actually a pretty easy fight.

The only downside is that this fight seems to encourage stacking of a single class (eles) even more than other raid wings, but that’s more of a balance issue than a raid encounter issue.

Uhhh I’m pretty sure the entirety of wing 3 is a response to requests for easier raids. KC and xera are two of the easiest boss fights in forsaken thicket.

Maybe KC will be changed so that tempest defense / impact doesn’t work and elementalists actually have to put some semblance of a rotation together…but I doubt it lol.

Dahkeus.8243:

The only downside is that this fight seems to encourage stacking of a single class (eles) even more than other raid wings, but that’s more of a balance issue than a raid encounter issue.

This is really just a function of the elementalist class, which is why eles are used in almost every fight. They deal the most damage, provide some utility with fire/water fields, have an amazing heal skill, deal their damage in an aoe, and deal their damage from range. Against large hitboxes they deal 25% more damage than the next highest build…which is the other elementalist build lol. Unless the class itself is changed, it’s going to take one of a few specific types of boss fights to make ele stacking not the best way to down a boss.

I think the new raid wing is too easy. It took our guild less than a week to basically reach farm status on it. It took several weeks for w1 and 2.
And the achievements are a joke. Wing 1 had the best achievements (because you actually had to do something actively, like never getting hit by a specific attack). Wing 2 was worse because it only had 3 special achievements with 2 of them being trivial. Wing 3 has not a single challenging achievement. And no title to earn.

Yeah, I have to agree that it’s a good thing they made that first encounter so easy as I know many players that couldn’t kill a raid boss yet.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Dahkeus.8243:

The only downside is that this fight seems to encourage stacking of a single class (eles) even more than other raid wings, but that’s more of a balance issue than a raid encounter issue.

This is really just a function of the elementalist class, which is why eles are used in almost every fight. They deal the most damage, provide some utility with fire/water fields, have an amazing heal skill, deal their damage in an aoe, and deal their damage from range. Against large hitboxes they deal 25% more damage than the next highest build…which is the other elementalist build lol. Unless the class itself is changed, it’s going to take one of a few specific types of boss fights to make ele stacking not the best way to down a boss.

the utility provided by fire fields is erased by the multitude of other field spam from whoever isnt an ele and the fact that everyone prefers to use professions that can stack might passively instead of blasting fire actively.

same goes for water. everyone just takes a healer instead of bothering to blast water.

Gudradain.3892:

No matter how I look at it, it really feels like the first boss of the wing 3 is a direct response to the complaints to get an easy mode in raids. They frankly cannot make it easier.

Nahh.

It’s all about participation levels. People could complain till they were blue in the face, if the numbers look good, nothing is gonna change.

I would bet that since W1, was new thing to GW2, they had a staggering number of people give it a try, in fact I would bet, that most, if not everyone that bought HOT tried to raid at least once, maybe a few times. With would have given Anet something like 30% of the player base doing raids, which is amazing! That is a smashing success!

But, as with all “difficult” content, many quickly learned they have no place doing it.

So, when the new shiny wore off, W2 came out, I would bet Anet saw the same numbers as other MMO’s with around 3 – 5 % of the players doing the raid.

Now, anyone in any business, especially the entertainment business, would know that it’s Hard to explain to a 85- 90% drop in activity to the Boss and Bean Counters.

So, it’s most likely that W3, is a move to try and make raids more attractive to the larger more casual demographic.. but don’t worry, it will fail and raids will remain special..

Because by this time, it’s no doubt that enough players have already been jaded by W1, that they won’t even bother with W3 no matter how easy they made it, much like they did not even try to do W2.

Yes Stihl, I agree, I wonder why anet didnt start with this wing (or an easier) first.

insanemaniac.2456:

Dinosaurs.8674:

Dahkeus.8243:

The only downside is that this fight seems to encourage stacking of a single class (eles) even more than other raid wings, but that’s more of a balance issue than a raid encounter issue.

This is really just a function of the elementalist class, which is why eles are used in almost every fight. They deal the most damage, provide some utility with fire/water fields, have an amazing heal skill, deal their damage in an aoe, and deal their damage from range. Against large hitboxes they deal 25% more damage than the next highest build…which is the other elementalist build lol. Unless the class itself is changed, it’s going to take one of a few specific types of boss fights to make ele stacking not the best way to down a boss.

the utility provided by fire fields is erased by the multitude of other field spam from whoever isnt an ele and the fact that everyone prefers to use professions that can stack might passively instead of blasting fire actively.

same goes for water. everyone just takes a healer instead of bothering to blast water.

Fire fields are going to be up most of the time if you have 3+ eles spamming lava font. Also, they are one of the three fields that provide a DPS increase for whirl and projectile finishers, so having one up constantly is useful even if you aren’t blasting.

And yeah blasting water is probably not happening, but ele also just has decent healing skills, regardless of fields. Overload water means that your DPS class can also become an emergency healer, and there are a few other healing skills as well depending on weapon set.

The point is that ele provides top tier DPS and has so much else going for it that it’s extremely difficult to make fights where stacking eles is not a good strategy. Currently the only fights where taking 3+ eles isn’t good are Matthias and VG. Against Matthias fresh air ele stacking would be the meta if necros didn’t completely destroy him with condi manipulation, and against VG you need condi damage for the split phase. Even so, two eles on those fights isn’t uncommon at all. Every other fight you could take 4 eles and it would be a good comp.

It isn’t a problem with the design of the raids, it’s a result of the fact that the classes weren’t designed with raids in mind. Even ignoring what else the classes do, skills like lava font, epidemic, and to a lesser extent meteor shower are ridiculously hard to design around when it comes to making every class desirable in a raid. Can you imagine how much harder gors/xera would be if those skills didn’t exist? You would actually have to try to clear orbs and bloodstone shards. You might actually have trouble with adds against sloth and xera if they didn’t die in a couple seconds to a single skill with a 13 second cooldown which could then be used again to put 25 stacks of every damaging condition on the boss. Assuming they didn’t accidentally get killed by lava font/meteor shower anyway, since those are top tier damage skills for both aoe and single target with 1200 range.

Dinosaurs.8674:

insanemaniac.2456:

Dinosaurs.8674:

Dahkeus.8243:

The only downside is that this fight seems to encourage stacking of a single class (eles) even more than other raid wings, but that’s more of a balance issue than a raid encounter issue.

This is really just a function of the elementalist class, which is why eles are used in almost every fight. They deal the most damage, provide some utility with fire/water fields, have an amazing heal skill, deal their damage in an aoe, and deal their damage from range. Against large hitboxes they deal 25% more damage than the next highest build…which is the other elementalist build lol. Unless the class itself is changed, it’s going to take one of a few specific types of boss fights to make ele stacking not the best way to down a boss.

the utility provided by fire fields is erased by the multitude of other field spam from whoever isnt an ele and the fact that everyone prefers to use professions that can stack might passively instead of blasting fire actively.

same goes for water. everyone just takes a healer instead of bothering to blast water.

Fire fields are going to be up most of the time if you have 3+ eles spamming lava font. Also, they are one of the three fields that provide a DPS increase for whirl and projectile finishers, so having one up constantly is useful even if you aren’t blasting.

And yeah blasting water is probably not happening, but ele also just has decent healing skills, regardless of fields. Overload water means that your DPS class can also become an emergency healer, and there are a few other healing skills as well depending on weapon set.

The point is that ele provides top tier DPS and has so much else going for it that it’s extremely difficult to make fights where stacking eles is not a good strategy. Currently the only fights where taking 3+ eles isn’t good are Matthias and VG. Against Matthias fresh air ele stacking would be the meta if necros didn’t completely destroy him with condi manipulation, and against VG you need condi damage for the split phase. Even so, two eles on those fights isn’t uncommon at all. Every other fight you could take 4 eles and it would be a good comp.

It isn’t a problem with the design of the raids, it’s a result of the fact that the classes weren’t designed with raids in mind. Skills like lava font and epidemic are ridiculously hard to design around when it comes to making every class desirable in a raid. The flexibility provided by eles having 4 skill sets with vastly different themes can’t help either.

my point is that bringing an ele because of its field types isnt a good justification any more. it used to be a good justification. but HoT made it not matter and fields have been marginalized and people dont care.

its not bad to use combos, but its not necessary in any raiding experience. because they either give nominal dps increases or an effect you dont care about or someone else can (passively) do it faster and or with less effort than anyone trying to use a combo.

Wing 3 is probably the best designed raid wing as far as pacing and the feeling of progression goes.

That said, i kinda hope that in the downtime between this wing and the next raid they have some free time to adjust wing 1/2 to match and then continue on with wing 3’s ramp up philosophy for the next raid.

insanemaniac.2456:

Dinosaurs.8674:

insanemaniac.2456:

Dinosaurs.8674:

Dahkeus.8243:

The only downside is that this fight seems to encourage stacking of a single class (eles) even more than other raid wings, but that’s more of a balance issue than a raid encounter issue.

This is really just a function of the elementalist class, which is why eles are used in almost every fight. They deal the most damage, provide some utility with fire/water fields, have an amazing heal skill, deal their damage in an aoe, and deal their damage from range. Against large hitboxes they deal 25% more damage than the next highest build…which is the other elementalist build lol. Unless the class itself is changed, it’s going to take one of a few specific types of boss fights to make ele stacking not the best way to down a boss.

the utility provided by fire fields is erased by the multitude of other field spam from whoever isnt an ele and the fact that everyone prefers to use professions that can stack might passively instead of blasting fire actively.

same goes for water. everyone just takes a healer instead of bothering to blast water.

Fire fields are going to be up most of the time if you have 3+ eles spamming lava font. Also, they are one of the three fields that provide a DPS increase for whirl and projectile finishers, so having one up constantly is useful even if you aren’t blasting.

And yeah blasting water is probably not happening, but ele also just has decent healing skills, regardless of fields. Overload water means that your DPS class can also become an emergency healer, and there are a few other healing skills as well depending on weapon set.

The point is that ele provides top tier DPS and has so much else going for it that it’s extremely difficult to make fights where stacking eles is not a good strategy. Currently the only fights where taking 3+ eles isn’t good are Matthias and VG. Against Matthias fresh air ele stacking would be the meta if necros didn’t completely destroy him with condi manipulation, and against VG you need condi damage for the split phase. Even so, two eles on those fights isn’t uncommon at all. Every other fight you could take 4 eles and it would be a good comp.

It isn’t a problem with the design of the raids, it’s a result of the fact that the classes weren’t designed with raids in mind. Skills like lava font and epidemic are ridiculously hard to design around when it comes to making every class desirable in a raid. The flexibility provided by eles having 4 skill sets with vastly different themes can’t help either.

my point is that bringing an ele because of its field types isnt a good justification any more. it used to be a good justification. but HoT made it not matter and fields have been marginalized and people dont care.

its not bad to use combos, but its not necessary in any raiding experience. because they either give nominal dps increases or an effect you dont care about or someone else can (passively) do it faster and or with less effort than anyone trying to use a combo.

Yea, in the meta with PS wars, fire fields really don’t matter, but they’re a nice perk. Even if eles dropped light fields, they’d still be the best PvE class in the game due to clear top tier DPS with ranged and AoE capabilities.

Aye, the new wing is very “accessible” and boring because of it. KC is easier than VG and the 2 “events” are literally only fun the very first time you do it. This is especially true for the maze. I sadly wasn’t there for progression week so basically it was just follow the commander and tadaa we reach the end. Feels like a lot of wasted resources. That leaves Xera as the only real boss in this wing.

All in all not what I was expecting of the final wing of the raid with the real endboss of the whole thing. Especially since it was originally said when raids were announced ascended would’ve at least been necessary for the last encounter. I expected harsher DPS checks and more involved mechanics, not a boss that’s by all accounts easier than sabetha.

The hardest part of the Xera fight is the gliding part. If the fights fails its usually because some (or an essential person) people fall down while gliding.

Accessibility is surely not a problem for raid wing 3.