Guild Wars 2

I’ve played most, if not all, MMOs. The dungeon run tonight in Ascalonian Catacombs was my friend and I’s first run through in this game.

I’m a guardian with full toughness/vit spec. I don’t do as much damage, but I can sure take the punishment. I’m aware of dodging the 2hander big hits. My friend and I are aware of how you play.

The dungeon run, was complete chaos. I had trouble seeing the bosses animations with all of the spell effects going on. At times I could see them clearly but when I couldn’t, I was punished with a long knock downs or confusions. Sometimes getting pummeled while I was down. My friend would sometimes be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get one shot. Regardless that he has a lot of toughness in his spec.

It seemed very lame and disappointing that the game uses cheap tactics. I’m all for a hard game if that is to be the case, but there needs to be a better way to see what the boss is doing. Maybe a queue from sound or possibly a larger area animation? The thin red circle also needs improved.

The synergy to the group also felt lacking. To give it a better expressive term, I would say that the boss fights are like controlled chaos; sometimes being full blown chaos. I don’t see this changing as it seems to be apart of the game design, but a little more control would go a long way.

Again, this was all presumed on a quick run with one guildy and 3 pugs. I’m sure it would be different with all 5 players in TS/Vent and cooperating together with classes that had a certain build etc. I just wanted to give my thoughts on my first run. The game is really fun and I hope it to remain so as I continue on in my adventure.

Have a good day my good sirs and madams.

The overall experience of dungeons can seem chaotic at times and this is often made worse if ran with PUGs.

Regarding you point about sound indicating an incoming move: on certain encounters this is already in place (not every encounter though) and would probably benefit alot of players if it were a common approach.

With some organisation and communication the whole dungeon experience improves massively, my guild run explorable dungeons on a regular basis and via the use of Ventrilo its turning out to be an enjoyable experience

Id suggest finding a regular group of friends or guild mates to run with, im sure you will find it far more pleasant once you do.

/Binit

I’ve runed only 4 story modes but so far I haven’t noticed anything in boss battles that I would realy classify as “cheap tricks”. Some bosses do require you to use specyfic tactics or take a while to figure out their attack patterns and how attacks get telegraphed, but I’d still call it a fair difficulty.

You can mess up pretty horribly (like I did yesterday running Sorrows Embrace, figuring out final bosses blid spots should be pretty obvious but It was a bit late so I still managed to die a few times too much) but there’s not really anything that’s uncouterable.

Still when you go with a pickup group it might be quite troublesome. Lots of encounters rely a lot on whole party actually paying attention and not dying in stupid ways. With random team and no teamspeak for coordination, setting for right tactics can be a bit of a pain. Still, everything so far seems doable, even though you might wipe two or three (or seven) times on the way there.

I think that a lot of complaints about dungeons come form the fact that their desine is verry different from what people are used to from different MMOs. You just can’t simply stay in place and beat on the boss hoping your support will keep you alive.

I agree with the OP, especially when he uses the term “cheap tactics” because that’s what they really are.

Simplistic, shallow mechanisms: mobs hit for a huge amount of damage, and they have huge HP pools. Other than that they do nothing special, really.

I LOVE difficult content. Like, really difficult. But difficult in terms that I must use my intelligence and careful strategic planning, along with a tight team work to overcome an obstacle. They way it is now – it’s just chaotic. That’s exactly what bothers me in WvWvW too, but that’s another topic entirely.

So make us think, make us plan, make us discover – we can take it, I promise.

AC story and AC explorable is fine. I’d say the same thing about the other dungeons but I haven’t done them yet. People just need to realize just because you have 5 people and you zone in doesn’t mean you should auto win. This ain’t WoW.

Raging Bull.5048:

I agree with the OP, especially when he uses the term “cheap tactics” because that’s what they really are.

Simplistic, shallow mechanisms: mobs hit for a huge amount of damage, and they have huge HP pools. Other than that they do nothing special, really.

I LOVE difficult content. Like, really difficult. But difficult in terms that I must use my intelligence and careful strategic planning, along with a tight team work to overcome an obstacle. They way it is now – it’s just chaotic. That’s exactly what bothers me in WvWvW too, but that’s another topic entirely.

So make us think, make us plan, make us discover – we can take it, I promise.

Maybe, somewhat, a little bit, agree.

Its not entirely chaotic. Yeah, for the very first fight you have where you never seen the boss, it can be, but you learn to adapt to it. I have 2 examples:

1) Lt. Koeller in AC Explore
Alot of players complain he is a ‘cheap tactic’ boss. And if you dont know what your facing, or how to read the boss, he is the first one new players are going to face and then get steamrolled on… and then complain

First time I faced him, I was in a pug, and this boss pretty much gave us 10+ deaths. We ended up zerging him sadly, but man, was it a waste of silver in repairs.

But I soon learned this boss. He hits hard, but even with my glass cannon build, he only does 1/3rd of your HP on regular hits.

You learn to read his wind-up for the harpoon throw, and by last night in my guild run, when we have seen him a couple times before, we learned to start rotating Aegis and reflections. Once you have this nailed down (you can also LoS him), he is an easy and quick fight.

But learning this was half the fun!

2) Ravaging Graveler, end boss in the Asura path in AC (if you can reach him)
Now this boss, our group never met him. To reach him, you have to pass that graveler burrows event where you protect the collectors (that event requires finesse!)

So, we never met him, and he wiped the floor with us.

But quickly enough, you start to read his pattern. And also, he doesnt run this pattern 100%, he actually switched it up a couple times on us, but basically he does this: He winds up his roar, then starts roaring. Boulders start raining down randomly from the ceiling, and you only have a second to get out of the circles where they are going to land.

Once he finishes this, he then will breath in for one final roar right after (not always though!), and anyone caught in a 180 degree frontal cone of him will be one shotted to a downed state. Took a few deaths for us to figure this out, but it was a blast finding out.

The other thing he does, and is not part of the roar, rocks falling, roar, blast, is that he will tunnel under the ground, choose a groupmember, and then make a beeline to him. As long as you dodge the moment he reaches you, you wont be one shotted to a downed state.

But learning these was alot of fun! And it did take a bit of thinking and planning as well =)

after playing in quite a few large events. The bosses need to be larger. When there are 4 Norns, countless magical abilities, and other spell effects. The small bosses get completely dwarfed and you have no idea where the boss is except somewhere in the pile of people.

I’m only level 56, this might not be an issue later on. I’m just making a point.