Guild Wars 2

Just did all 3 paths of AC with an organized group of guildies while using teamspeak…near impossible, took about 4 hours for all 3 paths (And we skipped Kholer 2/3 times). Why?

Well let’s start off with the spider queen. The queen is fine, I can understand a difficult boss…but let’s be honest, the hatchlings can kill you in about half a second, without a chance to even heal. They were overpowered before this nerf, and now they seem even more overpowered, along with a harder boss…

Kholer…is he really even worth it?
So many groups skipped him to begin with…now he’s at least ten times harder, with the same dull rewards? I now see even less people wanting to take time to actually bother killing him.

Ghost Eater…
Ok, this one wasn’t too bad once we figured out what to do…but still takes way too long and too much effort for the output…especially with all of the many bugs path 2 includes… Also, now while she’s building traps, there’s 5 enemies instead of 4? Wow, I thought the 4 were already pretty tough when running with some PUGs…

Mr. Rumbly…
Are you kidding me? Took my group about an hour just to finally be able to kill him. It’s not that we didn’t know what we were doing…we saw that Grast put up a bubble and we’d all hide under it and try to do as much DPS as possible while we were under it. But what happens when Grast desides to run in and melee the boss like an idiot? He dies in two hits. What happens to us then when we have nothing to hide under? Instant party wipe. Our group even tried interrupting, but with his defiance, he can’t be. Do you really want a final boss to be put into the hands of an NPC that aggros and dies frequently? No matter how skilled of a group you have, if your group’s life depends on an NPC, and that NPC is garbage…well, good luck.

WTF FPS
WTF happened to my framerate!?!? I usually run this dungeon (and the rest of the game) at about 40fps, medium graphics. There were some parts now that I was getting 5-8 fps: Path 1 burrow, path 2 traps, path 3, before the final boss. Nothing like making a dungeon harder than turning your framerate to absolute crap.

Note that we were all level 80s in full exotic gear and good builds
Good luck to any level 35 group doing this dungeon now. It was hard enough for groups under 80 to be doing this dungeon, and now in most cases impossible. What is the required level…35? Then why make it that difficult? Sure, it’s a dungeon, but seriously do you not want people to be playing the dungeon? There’s a good medium between having every group being able to do the run easily and making it impossible. I say before this update this point was reached. Underleveled groups who didn’t have experience with the dungeon had a much more difficult time, but it was fairly easy for organized groups who knew what they were doing, and I think that’s a good balancing point. From most of the people I’ve heard from, they’re “never doing AC again” because the reward “isn’t worth the effort”.

Concluding that…
It seems to me that these “revamped” (more like nerfed) dungeons are not fun at all, not just AC. I’ve read other posts on these forums about other dungeons as well. They’re a waste of time. I could go to the Cursed Shore and do 2-3 events and get just as much of a reward as I can in one of these dungeon runs. After a full set, I got maybe 10 blues, 5 greens, a bunch of junk, and around 200 tears (and those are pretty generous numbers). Since I now have all professions level 80, dungeons were one of the few fun things to me to still keep me involved in playing. And as a college student, I don’t always have time to sit down and maybe spend and hour and a half on a single dungeon run.

Are you really trying to get people to stop doing dungeons?

Oh, and I forgot to add…since we were on teamspeak, we had a ton of coordination abilities. Good luck to PUGs who have to type everything when these new nerfs require this much coordination…especially the Ghost Eater..

The Eternal Grace.3157:

I could go to the Cursed Shore and do 2-3 events and get just as much of a reward as I can in one of these dungeon runs.

Don’t worry, the “revamp” to cursed shore is most likely incoming soon as well…

There are threads about this already, but I will say.. you’re doing it wrong if you find it that hard.

Our group even tried interrupting, but with his defiance, he can’t be

It was mentioned in a previous thread that this guy is a bit bugged right now in that regard. But generally speaking, when a mob has Unshakeable, you’re supposed to use cc to strip off stacks of Defiant in order to leave it open for an interrupt. The Defiant mechanic isn’t outright cc immunity.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Oh, and I forgot to add…since we were on teamspeak, we had a ton of coordination abilities. Good luck to PUGs who have to type everything when these new nerfs require this much coordination…especially the Ghost Eater..

Don’t worry, this is only the first day of the patch.

You will have to give it a day or two before the real flood of whining and cries of “elitists” come in when people start requiring lvl 80s only in AC dungeons.

Mmm I didnt mind most of the changes barring two…
LAGGY AS HELL.
Spider queen hits harder but its hp is lowered significantly. The only issue is that its aoe field lingers for too long making it more of a ranged fight which is somewhat stupid. But didnt mind it hitting harder.

Kholer is absolutely fine. Wasnt ever a hard fight to begin with. And it isnt particularly difficult now. Maybe if it spawns a necro it might be a tad frustrating. It by no means is 10x more difficult. its not evne 2x more difficult. Pretty much the same.

TROLLS. This fight is 10x more annoying. Constant fear spamming, melee inflicts daze. Its aoe has an aftershock requiring you to dodge twice now which is rather excessive. Didnt need the change in troll tbh.

The final bosses i didnt mind. My group is fairly organized though. They certainly were tough but it was the lag making it 100x worse than it shouldve been.
Note: that did take a while to defeat with some wipes but it was only our first attempt.

Spider Queen: Needed to be buffed, she was already a cakewalk. The hatchlings are easy, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Most of our group just jump down and go crazy to get free Bloodlust/Accuracy stacks.

Kholer: What? He’s EASIER than he was. His spin attack seems to last for less time and do less damage, and the ghosts he spawns during the fight are easy too.

Ghost Eater: Again, the trap setting is hardly something to whine about. It’s a fairly active battle, but it’s not in any way hard. The boss himself was a barrel of fun for us.

Rumblus: Defiant stacks – get rid of them. It’s also not too difficult to keep his attention on the group and away from Grast – NPCs are almost never a priority for mobs.

FPS: Yeah, experienced this too, mostly on the spike traps. That’s a serious pain.

Despite all I’ve said, I do agree that the changes are going to hit home with lower-level groups. If the equipment you get throughout playing the game beforehand would be up to par, running it at 35 wouldn’t be so bad. When you get almost nothing but whites or blues, however, good luck with that.

I just want my FPS back please!

I found the new paths very very fun, and hope they revamp all dungeons to be like this.

I’m sure the other ones will be harder too, being AC is the beginning of dungeoning in GW2.

Note that we were all level 80s in full exotic gear and good builds

So was my group and we cleared the “new” AC in slightly over an hour. You’re doing it wrong.

Nikaido.3457:

A good, focused group will easily deal with this new content, but not a PUG. As soon as the game was patched I started a P1 run that went very smoothly, no wipe at the boss, done on first try.

A ragtag team of drunks hastily recruited from guildchat does not “good, focused” group make.

What gets me is this is suppose to be “designed” for level 30 to 40 players as their first dungeon. They should make it easy with less rewards IMO that way newish players would play it and experiences players wouldn’t farm it. The flat token gain to all dungeons and same stats for multiple dungeons doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would you run Arah when you can run CoF, same token count earned, same armor stats…

I guess there is always the cosmetics but really?

I’m sure I’m the minority here but why not have the exotics earned for the level appropriate dungeons be for that level AC level 40 exotics with 50 tokens per piece?

I just hate the one size fits all in difficulty (somewhat), stats from armor/weapons, and the fact that PUGS are less likely to be successful running most (not all) of the dungeons.

MikeT.9428:

the fact that PUGS are less likely to be successful running most (not all) of the dungeons.

You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing. Remember, Colin considers explorables the “hard mode”.

Iehova.9518:

MikeT.9428:

the fact that PUGS are less likely to be successful running most (not all) of the dungeons.

You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing. Remember, Colin considers explorables the “hard mode”.

Yes that’s my opinion. You clearly have your own. I’m just saying explorer for AC shouldn’t be the same difficulty and rewards as dungeons that are suppose to be designed for level 80’s. This is suppose to be a level 35 explorer dungeon.

This is an MMO and I understand they completely revolve around the power leveler crowd. Get as much as fast as you can whether that be money, levels, legendaries…whatever floats your boat. Only focusing on this crowd gives the other half of their population less reason to play a good portion of the game.

Why not have a choice when you are prompted to enter the dungeon. Do you want explorer path 1 tier 1 which is designed for dungeon focused groups and has the rewards and difficulty set for that group. Have tier 2 and 3 for teams that have lesser rewards and difficulty but more PUG friendly.

I only play PUGs which means I have only really tried AC and COF explorer. I realize unless I’m willing to dedicate more time and effort into the game I will never be part of the dungeon farming regulars. I may never see the other explorer paths for the rest of the dungeons because of this.

Guess there is always COF path 1 for now a PUG friendly route for another month maybe.

I found all 3 paths last night with my guild to be alot of fun. I enjoyed the new final bosses, strats and how they changed them, hoping for more of these changes in dungeons to come. I think most are just mad they can’t run quick 20 min runs anymore, though to be honest once you get use to the new mechanics it won’t take more then 20-30 mins each path.

Iehova.9518:

Note that we were all level 80s in full exotic gear and good builds

So was my group and we cleared the “new” AC in slightly over an hour. You’re doing it wrong.

My team cleared each path within probably about an hour. Are you saying you cleared all 3 paths in just over an hour? I’m not saying it’s THAT difficult. I’m talking from a level 35 standpoint (like the dungeon’s meant to be). If I we would have all been 35 with horrible armor and weapons, I doubt this would have been possible.

Are you saying you cleared all 3 paths in just over an hour?

Yes. Everything went sanic fast except for figuring out Ghost Eater.

I posted this point on another thread…

Endemonadia.8593:

I thought it should be possible for levelling characters to enter these dungeons… if dungeons r nowe being tuned to lev80s then please make the anouncement and change the entry level to lev80 so low levels dont waste their time even trying..

Do they really think that a team of lev35s can get through this dungeon?

Can someone please Fraps a full team of lev35s running AC please… itll be one of the funniest vids on youtube

yes, I’d like to see too a group of lvl35 players doing AC Exp right now

A group of lvl 35 people in mixed blue and green gear without any meaningfull gear upgrades, since that’s what most players at that level are wearing. Also make the group 2 rangers, 2 condi necros and an engi for extra proof.

^video this and I believe that the chances were for the better.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Oh, and I forgot to add…since we were on teamspeak, we had a ton of coordination abilities. Good luck to PUGs who have to type everything when these new nerfs require this much coordination…especially the Ghost Eater..

Yup tried PUGing Ghost Eater last night. Got him donw to about a third, then we couldn’t seem to get the shield removed (even though we were moving him to traps, which appeared to be full, both visually and according to thing in corner of screen), and then he kept regening life somehow.
Definitely agree with OP. AC is no where near fun, if anything they went further away from fun then its previous state. I hate to see what they do to the other dungeons if they are still going to “revamp” them.

Endemonadia.8593:

Do they really think that a team of lev35s can get through this dungeon?

Can someone please Fraps a full team of lev35s running AC please… itll be one of the funniest vids on youtube

It’ll be funny, but it will also be very short due to the mass amount of rage quits that’ll happen.

skullmount.1758:

Yup tried PUGing Ghost Eater last night. Got him donw to about a third, then we couldn’t seem to get the shield removed (even though we were moving him to traps, which appeared to be full, both visually and according to thing in corner of screen), and then he kept regening life somehow.

We saw something like this, spent over an hour and a half fighting this one boss. We only had one total party kill in that time, but we were never able to figure out why sometimes his shield would drop and other times it wouldn’t for many minutes on end. We weren’t sure if it was bugged or we were doing something wrong.

ArenaNet likes to find different words to use instead of “nerf”. They always have, even since GW1. For example, the short bow “graphical fix” was a nerf for the Ranger. Now, the “revamping” is really “nerfing”.

Everything has less health. It might be scary because it’s different, but I guarantee that these AC changes made it far easier than before.

I agree that these pointless changes ruined AC. though, I feel that kholer is way too easy now. the adds he spawns die quick and kholer seems to do no damage to us. it was always easy, but now it feels too easy, while everything else in the dungeon feels too hard. hatchlings seem to have more hp now. every kitten gravelings does leaping attack/knockdown attack. fps goes to single digits at a few places. it’s quite a mess. maybe Anet just wants to drive traffic away from everybody’s favorite dungeon for some reason. can’t see how any group that has level 35-45 players will pass this dungeon now. the only things in this dungeon that needed such drastic work were the bugs on path 2. bravo glorious developer, you did nothing about that. that is all folks, have a nice day.

Been running the dungeon today on my level 35. Overall it’s still very doable, but

I feel that Path 3 boss may be too hard, as it stands.

Path 2 boss seems to get stuck and just won’t move. I’m led to believe this is due to defiance. because if I run in with my Guardian and pop all my CCs it seems to get him moving again.

The Spikes part give severe lag, I’ve also seen the same at the end where 2 Breeders were spawning lots of mobs. Everything started stuttering.