Guild Wars 2

So before the flamers start in about “zomg alpha is so easy l2p” at least hear me out. The inconsistencies between the paths with alpha not to mention the inability to get a teammate revive off on certain alpha fights is what makes it a broken fight. The inconsistencies I’m talking about are like path 1, his skills hurt yes but they’re easily avoidable except maybe the earth spike, but path 2 he not only spams the attacks instantly, stacks them on top of each other, but specifically targets people being revived and it’s impossible to revive people. While dodging the circles are all well and fine for classes with tons of vigor and endurance regen, it’s not ok for classes without access to that. So why the inconsistency between path 1 and 2? Why make it so much harder without any external mechanics to make up for it? Also, the “lowered alpha’s health to help balance the encounter” was not the answer to fix these fights. It did nothing to address the problem which is in the boss’s skills and mechanics, not his health pool and the length of the fight. Yse I agree with many people, alpha is fun, he’s not overly hard on some fights, but on others he’s not fun at all, nor is he viable for anyone but apparently you "leet"ers to do.

Alpha is really just an exercise in counting to 3.

I realize that you don’t want to her a “learn to play” answer, but it is a very real answer and you can’t ignore self-improvement. Like real-life, no gamer is perfect and there is always room to improve.

1. Do not dodge the fire aoe. Walk out of it.
2. For the ice aoe, count to 2 and dodge.
3. Rally off tendrils.
4. Focus crystal prisons and essences when they are active.
5. If you are out of endurance, use a defensive cooldown.
6. Teleports can break you out of the Prisons (Ele’s Lightning Flash).
7. Always stay mobile.

I know you don’t want to think this is a l2p issue, but it really is a l2p issue. If someone is dies, you messed up. To complete this fight you really do have to master the dodging mechanic. You should practice on an easier boss if you have an issue here. For example, the cave troll in AC. He has a large aoe attack that he uses often, but the majority of people seem to react to this by getting out of the aoe area. If you watch his animation and simply dodge as the attack goes off instead, you can stay at melee range.

It is easiest here if you stay at melee range and dodge as the attack goes off. Once you master this mechanic you have mastered this fight.

1. the fire rarely gets me, I know to walk out of it
2. the ice even if it hits you is rarely a down
3. the tendrils are not on every fight
4. again the crystals fights which you see in path 1 are not the problem, and yet again you’re ignoring what I posted. The problem is the skill frequency and the inability to rez allies
5. Must be nice to play a guardian or other class with strong defensive cooldowns, but not everyone has those
6. Yet again you’re repeating yourself, the prison fights are usually not the problem
7. obviously

Something on my list must be a problem if people are dieing. It is often too dangerous to rez an ally, so the answer is to not go down in the first place.

Toxyn.9608:

Something on my list must be a problem if people are dieing. It is often too dangerous to rez an ally, so the answer is to not go down in the first place.

It should be challenging to rez an ally in a boss fight, not impossible. That’s a bad design and should be fixed. Plain and simple. Back when zerg rezzing was still allowed this kind of mechanic was acceptable, but now it’s not appropriate at all.

Also somethign you people are missing is I did not say every alpha fight is broken. The majority of path 1 fights are pretty freaking easy. But it’s the inconsistency of the boss mechanics and spammable skills in other paths that’s the problem….I really shouldn’t have to keep repeating myself but it seems people don’t read entire posts….

I’ve played a lot of games in the past where it was all over if someone went down. I don’t think it’s broken if you lose when someone makes a mistake. You need to coordinate.

The main problem with Alpha is that all 5 members need not to mess up. If even just one member gets downed, it can cause a domino effect of others going down while trying to get him up. Alpha’s hp was never the problem. His hits are just very hard, and now with no wp rushing, his hits are a little too hard to be balanced for a group of random players playing random classes.

It is still, ultimately, a learn to play issue, but expecting all 5 members to play perfectly is kind of unreasonable. There needs to be a little more slack given.

Fight is fine and it’s still my favorite fight from the dungeons.

Alpha is fine. Just tell the person with Ice to go ranged and get the rest of the team to stack and dodge every 3 seconds when he does his attack. It’s a l2p problem instead of difficulty problem.

Kain Francois.4328:

Alpha is fine. Just tell the person with Ice to go ranged and get the rest of the team to stack and dodge every 3 seconds when he does his attack. It’s a l2p problem instead of difficulty problem.

Why on earth would you have the person with ice go range? If he kittens up then everybody as to run over to pick him up. If he gets put in a crystal, everyone has to run over to break him out. That also means he has to deal with the earth spike line attack. The party has to dodge already, with or without the ice on them. People make this fight too complicated. If you stand in Alpha, you don’t have to worry about the dragon tooth or the earth lines spike. Just stay in melee and spam the rez key if somebody goes down. To make the fight even easier, push him into a wall/corner. After you do this just dodge forward into the wall, that way your party stays even closer together and so you don’t to run back to alpha.

Here is a video detailing this stuff by Wethospu!

Subject Alpha Abilities: All Paths:

• Stacking in Melee Range: Subject Alpha has no melee attacks at all, so there is no drawback to being in melee range, except for taking the Flame Burst damage on Paths 1 and Path 2. However, if you have any incidental Condition Removal, such as Light Field + Projectile Finishers going off, the Burning will not be an issue and players will only take about 1,500-2,000 damage per Flame Burst. The “Shatterstone” Teeth of Jormag will hurt players, and do moderate damage. However, this is all easy enough to self-heal and Revive through if all of you cannot Dodge it. It also allows you to kill all of the Crystal Prisons easily through incidental AoE or a quick target switch.

DungeonDaughter.7391:

The main problem with Alpha is that all 5 members need not to mess up. If even just one member gets downed, it can cause a domino effect of others going down while trying to get him up. Alpha’s hp was never the problem. His hits are just very hard, and now with no wp rushing, his hits are a little too hard to be balanced for a group of random players playing random classes.

It is still, ultimately, a learn to play issue, but expecting all 5 members to play perfectly is kind of unreasonable. There needs to be a little more slack given.

This inconsistency can be solved by having everybody melee. If someone does go down, you have 4 people right there reviving instantly.

In my opinion, it is the “strategies” such as all-in-melee that are preventing some people to learn how to play effectively. People should be learning how to properly avoid all attacks, not relying on everyone being nearby to pick them up.

Toxyn.9608:

In my opinion, it is the “strategies” such as all-in-melee that are preventing some people to learn how to play effectively. People should be learning how to properly avoid all attacks, not relying on everyone being nearby to pick them up.

Yes, and mistakes happen. If someone makes one mistake on the other side of the room, there is no way you are going to be able to pick them up. The melee “strategy” as you would say, does not prevent people from learning how to play properly. If you accumulate too much DP, the next time you go down you get defeated. You can’t pick someone up from defeated state very easily.

Melee is the superior “strategy” when it comes to Alpha. It offers the most DPS and it is the most forgiving.

Overall subject alpha is destroying too many members of my group. Path 1 is easy to compensate for as we can all stack together for it.

Path 3, will work fine with some effort for the first and second encounters:
Stand still with two concentric circles around you
Move when the outer circle is blinking.

Use pillars and help team-mates out of crystals when they get caught on encounter 2.

Encounter 3 is just… terrible.

We can’t engage him without someone getting caught in the crystal, and even if we release the person, everyone who can’t dodge properly is going to get taken out by the circle aoes all bunched up like that.

Or… when everyone is running to engage, and he crystalizes then immediately drops the circles. That person in the crystal is dead.

I spent one encounter where my pet and I were the only things being trapped in the crystal, and my party members would still die.

They have rare or exotic gear, and the ONLY thing they are running into trouble with appears to be the dodges.

If they get caught in a crystal, they are dead. There is no way out of it for them. When we group up to break the crystal, that person WILL die because they will get hit with the concentric circle aoe.

If we range from a distance, the damage we have to do does not leave enough time for that person to dodge/shield/heal.

There seem to be some skills that used to help get out of crystals… Summon Flesh Worm -> Necrotic Traversal for example… but that flesh worm is subject to being beat on by the aoe as well.

The damage being done by subject alpha is too high for your average guild of players to manage.

These are people that will make mistakes… who can’t complete jumping puzzles without falling, and who don’t know that getting that dodge off a split second before the effect hits them is what matters.

They dodged… they expect to avoid the attack. The timing and split-second response is not for them.

Maybe the dungeon isn’t for them. Maybe they can’t do this because of lag, age, or just the inability to play “at that level”.

At which point it isn’t fun… much less rewarding,

If I have to choose between people that can run a dungeon, and friends that try to enjoy playing the game – it becomes a pretty simple choice.

We’d like it to be adjusted properly for your average player. Not your skilled player. Skilled players have PvP, fractals, and every new piece of content that comes out the moment it comes out.

We just want to enjoy a dungeon together…. any dungeon, any time, with anyone (PUG/Guildie/Newbie).

In all 3 paths he is demonstrably easy. I can solo it if I have to. He has a predictable and obvious pattern of attacks and rarely deviates from that 2 attack cycle, only to spawn claws or crystallise. You’re always 2 steps ahead.

The REAL problem is that he is boring, monotonous and uninteresting. 9 Subject Alpha fights across 3 paths. That’s just lazy.

@LiquidWolf Where does the nerfing end, though? If people expect nerfs to the few dungeon bosses that are difficult and / or challenging, what happens when they beat it all. They would be conditioned to ask for nerfs at that point. After beating all dungeon content, they would move into Fractals (logical next step). They would run into Imbued Shaman, wouldn’t be able to beat him, then ask for a nerf.

As far as content goes, the majority of it is already easy. It seems unskilled players want all content made easy, yet when skilled players want a little content to be challenging, they are called elitists.

I went into path 2 today for the first time. I have to say that fight was really hard. We do CoE because my husband wants the meteorologist legendary and needs the tokens. I have about a stack from running CoE with him and every group always runs the sub path. We wondered if we would ever see another path.. well today we did and did not complete the dungeon. We tried to do the dodge correctly -and could keep it up for a bit but never completed this fight.

Sure it is L2P and we need to get the mechanics, but how many groups are willing to die while you learn? Not many. Can you honestly say that you did not die after only 5 attempts? Maybe a few players can but for most- I would be willing to bet -need more than 5 trys on this boss to learn it but by that time your group is gone.

Probably will not attempt this path again because honestly I would rather just go through the sub path and know we will finish.

jazzllanna.1278:

I went into path 2 today for the first time. I have to say that fight was really hard. We do CoE because my husband wants the meteorologist legendary and needs the tokens. I have about a stack from running CoE with him and every group always runs the sub path. We wondered if we would ever see another path.. well today we did and did not complete the dungeon. We tried to do the dodge correctly -and could keep it up for a bit but never completed this fight.

Sure it is L2P and we need to get the mechanics, but how many groups are willing to die while you learn? Not many. Can you honestly say that you did not die after only 5 attempts? Maybe a few players can but for most- I would be willing to bet -need more than 5 trys on this boss to learn it but by that time your group is gone.

Probably will not attempt this path again because honestly I would rather just go through the sub path and know we will finish.

The trick to him is walking out of the tooth circle and saving your dodge for the double circle. Tab target him and focus on the floor the whole time and you can attack him by just having him targeted.

Seriously just practice it sometime and you’ll get the hang of it.

LiquidWolf.3879:

Overall subject alpha is destroying too many members of my group. Path 1 is easy to compensate for as we can all stack together for it.

Path 3, will work fine with some effort for the first and second encounters:
Stand still with two concentric circles around you
Move when the outer circle is blinking.

Use pillars and help team-mates out of crystals when they get caught on encounter 2.

Encounter 3 is just… terrible.

We can’t engage him without someone getting caught in the crystal, and even if we release the person, everyone who can’t dodge properly is going to get taken out by the circle aoes all bunched up like that.

Or… when everyone is running to engage, and he crystalizes then immediately drops the circles. That person in the crystal is dead.

I spent one encounter where my pet and I were the only things being trapped in the crystal, and my party members would still die.

They have rare or exotic gear, and the ONLY thing they are running into trouble with appears to be the dodges.

If they get caught in a crystal, they are dead. There is no way out of it for them. When we group up to break the crystal, that person WILL die because they will get hit with the concentric circle aoe.

If we range from a distance, the damage we have to do does not leave enough time for that person to dodge/shield/heal.

There seem to be some skills that used to help get out of crystals… Summon Flesh Worm -> Necrotic Traversal for example… but that flesh worm is subject to being beat on by the aoe as well.

The damage being done by subject alpha is too high for your average guild of players to manage.

These are people that will make mistakes… who can’t complete jumping puzzles without falling, and who don’t know that getting that dodge off a split second before the effect hits them is what matters.

They dodged… they expect to avoid the attack. The timing and split-second response is not for them.

Maybe the dungeon isn’t for them. Maybe they can’t do this because of lag, age, or just the inability to play “at that level”.

At which point it isn’t fun… much less rewarding,

If I have to choose between people that can run a dungeon, and friends that try to enjoy playing the game – it becomes a pretty simple choice.

We’d like it to be adjusted properly for your average player. Not your skilled player. Skilled players have PvP, fractals, and every new piece of content that comes out the moment it comes out.

We just want to enjoy a dungeon together…. any dungeon, any time, with anyone (PUG/Guildie/Newbie).

Your request to have the majority of the game tailored to noobs/pugs is silly. Why would I want to run fractals all day? The biggest joke is that you claim there is even a PvP scene. The Alpha fight is already mind numbingly boring. The fight can be broken down like this:

Step 1: DPS
Step 2: See Red Circles
Step 3: Count to 2
Step 4: Dodge
Step 5: Repeat

Just watch a video of how its supposed to be done. If you’re still dying from the AoE effect, just re-calibrate your count. If you die before your dodge, your count is too slow. If you die after, your count is too fast. The solution to the crystals is to have everybody use melee cleave weapons.

People need to stop QQing… seriously.

What I think is problematic is in Path 3 he spams the earth attack a bit too quickly.

It can really tax your natural endurance regen.

As usual there is an attitude on these forums along the lines of “There’s a tactic on a forum for a fight, therefore it’s easy and nobody should complain.” These dungeon fights should be possible to complete by groups that learn tactics by exploring the dungeon, not exploring forums. The alpha fights are fast paced and players need to be alert for dangers, which is good, but this does make it more difficult for players to learn from animations and deduce tactics when they are frantically struggling to survive.

Not all of us look to forums for strategies. How do you think the strategies are made in the first place? Many players tackle gaming the old fashioned way:

1. Attempt
2. Fail
3. Analyze mistakes
4. Repeat steps 1-3 as needed
5. Kill

My biggest complaint about Subject Alpha is that the ring of spikes attack has an animation too similar to the ice spike one. If that particular attack used a different animation (one that was earth themed and played only in the outer torus, for example,) the fight could clearly teach the shape of that attack. As it is, both the in-game animations and the UI (why does ice spike have two AoE circles at all?) make the issue too difficult for a player to pick up on in the middle of a fight.

Once you know what you’re looking for / at, it is easy, I agree. But the fight doesn’t teach you anything because all the tells are nigh-identical, so it can be very hard for a player to figure it out as they go along.

Edit: And then tonight I tried to dodge the earth rings via the stacking method and we all got ruined because I can’t place a charr character properly apparently, but I can beat the jumping puzzle pretty much first try??? IDEK what’s going on with me and CoE anymore.

Agreed, it is horrible. I always get really hungry against Alpha because I can’t afk-auto-attack in corner and go to make sandwiches.
They should add lanterns like in Arah P3 so everyone has a chance to do it.

the fight is bad, very bad.

it is impossible to finish it “the proper” way, the only way that works is stack all party members on the boss (preferably in corner) and zerg him fast before he can activate his abilities many times.

this way he goes down quickly.

I think his ridiculous AOE attacks should be toned down, either on damage or on frequency.
and on other hand he should get hard melee strike with knockback that will not allow the centered zerging…

Lalangamena.3694:

it is impossible to finish it “the proper” way, the only way that works is stack all party members on the boss (preferably in corner) and zerg him fast before he can activate his abilities many times.

Wait, what?

Lalangamena.3694:

the fight is bad, very bad.

it is impossible to finish it “the proper” way, the only way that works is stack all party members on the boss (preferably in corner) and zerg him fast before he can activate his abilities many times.

this way he goes down quickly.

I think his ridiculous AOE attacks should be toned down, either on damage or on frequency.
and on other hand he should get hard melee strike with knockback that will not allow the centered zerging…

There’s nothing “ridiculous” about it. He follows the EXACT SAME CYCLE OF ATTACKS, EVERY SINGLE TIME. It’s ALWAYS one after the other. He is the most predictable boss in the entire game. I know what he’s going to do before I’ve even entered the room.

If anything, he needs more attacks to make it actually challenging. Really, god forbid a game having challenging content.

As for being “impossible” to finish the “proper” way, whatever that is, that’s entirely a L2P issue.

A boss that has 2 attacks, 1 cc, and a percent triggered heal.

There’s a reason why people farm CoE.

Lalangamena.3694:

the fight is bad, very bad.

it is impossible to finish it “the proper” way, the only way that works is stack all party members on the boss (preferably in corner) and zerg him fast before he can activate his abilities many times.

this way he goes down quickly.

I think his ridiculous AOE attacks should be toned down, either on damage or on frequency.
and on other hand he should get hard melee strike with knockback that will not allow the centered zerging…

Er no. It is not impossible to do it without stacking, it’s just MUCH faster and easier to stack and melee then kite around with ranged weapons and hope nobody screws up too badly.

I’ve done it plenty of times kiting and focusing people that get crystalled before I knew how to stack.

Like the above posters said, this is a serious L2P issue and nothing to do with the mechanics of the dungeon. I’ve seen plenty of glass cannon zerker warriors handle alpha just fine.

This also isn’t just a L2P the encounter properly, but also L2P your character properly. There are enough traits out there that stimulate endurance regeneration – it’s called Vigor and if you know there’s going to be a lot of dodging involved, then trait appropriately. Heck there’s even food I think.

Also, unless you’re a fast and good learner and understand what is going on in a dungeon, I don’t think ANet designed these dungeons to be conquered with only one visit – not that it isn’t possible if you add preparing for the dungeon properly.

So take your time, prepare accordingly, improve your play-style and get ready to battle

I’ve been rushing through the posts rather than reading everything but all i can say is:

Rezzing is not broken, you are able to. Whenever i see someone going down i dodge towards him rezz him and simply block alphas attacks with my utilitys (i’m an ele so mistform + arcane shield). Perfectly possible just use something to block.

As for alpha himself: sadly i wasn’t able to solo him due to his stupid crystals (my utilitys just are on cd after some time) i was able to duo him perfectly well. Focus crystals and learn how to dodge the aoe.

It’s not hard at all. I don’t want to be rude but please don’t make posts suggesting that it arenanet should make somethings easier. Many players are struggeling already with the fact that the content is too easy. By creating such posts anet could think that they actually should make things easier and that would be a bad thing for the community overall on a larger timescale.

i dont think the poster is asking for tips. hes pointing out the current mechanics and the problems with them. ofc its “Do-able” And its why he posted dont post l2p, similar to giving him baby guide of tips. He knows what to do, hes saying the way to implement and do all that stuff is not proper

JJBigs.8456:

i dont think the poster is asking for tips. hes pointing out the current mechanics and the problems with them. ofc its “Do-able” And its why he posted dont post l2p, similar to giving him baby guide of tips. He knows what to do, hes saying the way to implement and do all that stuff is not proper

When someone say things like, “it is impossible to do this!” on a boss that PUGs down with ease quite regularly, how do you not expect someone to say it is a L2P issue?

Bullwinkel.7839:

…The fight can be broken down like this:

Step 1: DPS
Step 2: See Red Circles
Step 3: Count to 2
Step 4: Dodge
Step 5: Repeat

This is exactly that I tell everyone. I do mess up time to time, but 90% of the time it works. I would add, use the dodge key, not double tap directions.

Well the thing is that…if everyone in the party knows how to dodge…and complaining about not enough endurance—>get food, there is no need to rez anyone since they won’t get hit. Stacking the boss makes it so easy but ranged is still doable. I will admit however that his Teeth of Mordemouth is harder to deal with when in ranged, but that’s one of the reasons why I stack.

They could revert his HP nerf and I’d still continue to play all 3 paths every day.

Ill add 1 thing. Dodge towards Alpha. Limits dragon teeth.

JJBigs.8456:

i dont think the poster is asking for tips. hes pointing out the current mechanics and the problems with them. ofc its “Do-able” And its why he posted dont post l2p, similar to giving him baby guide of tips. He knows what to do, hes saying the way to implement and do all that stuff is not proper

The OP may not realise this, but since dodging – learning how & when – is such a prevalent part of the GW2 method of playing, he is basically talking about other players needing to L2P then.

Further, the AI everywhere in GW2 seems to target those being revived unless it finds a bigger threat elsewhere. If other players in his group are having to be revived often, they do simply need to L2P better.

At one time or another we are all inspecting the dirt at Subject Alpha’s feet until we learned to dodge

Alpha is a skill check. He can be soloed. It’s an L2P issue, I can’t put it in any other words.

PS: Mobs tend to aggro allies with a shield, and allies reviving even more. An ally with a shield reviving is asking for trouble and better be prepared for it.

PPS: Alpha’s health being lowered was a godsend to making the fight faster, and letting the better players possibly carry bad players through it when they die more easily and more quickly.

CoE is a clinic in proper dodge skill. If you are dying to Alpha, you need to learn to dodge better — this means timing and conserving dodges.

When you do this path with players that have a good grasp on the dodge mechanic and endurance management, it’s pathetically easy.

jazzllanna.1278:

I went into path 2 today for the first time. I have to say that fight was really hard. We do CoE because my husband wants the meteorologist legendary and needs the tokens. I have about a stack from running CoE with him and every group always runs the sub path. We wondered if we would ever see another path.. well today we did and did not complete the dungeon. We tried to do the dodge correctly -and could keep it up for a bit but never completed this fight.

Sure it is L2P and we need to get the mechanics, but how many groups are willing to die while you learn? Not many. Can you honestly say that you did not die after only 5 attempts? Maybe a few players can but for most- I would be willing to bet -need more than 5 trys on this boss to learn it but by that time your group is gone.

Probably will not attempt this path again because honestly I would rather just go through the sub path and know we will finish.

My group is willing to take newcomers & work with you to learn it. I’ll asbury, it isn’t an ready fight to learn but, once you have, it’s not that hard. Stereo learning curve, punishing failures, but once over the top it’s downhill from there.

Look me up in game. We’ll take you.

Ok I will add you then because it would be nice to see other paths but very discouraged from anything but the sub path atm lol. I only run it when my husband is off so it would be 2 of us :p If he didn’t need the tokens I would not go back to this on lol.

Eliyahu.1467:

CoE is a clinic in proper dodge skill. If you are dying to Alpha, you need to learn to dodge better — this means timing and conserving dodges.

When you do this path with players that have a good grasp on the dodge mechanic and endurance management, it’s pathetically easy.

I agree, the only thing really wrong with this dungeon is that 3 in 1 crap with mesmers and theives porting through doors. That is what really ruins my experience.

Bacon.2360:

Eliyahu.1467:

CoE is a clinic in proper dodge skill. If you are dying to Alpha, you need to learn to dodge better — this means timing and conserving dodges.

When you do this path with players that have a good grasp on the dodge mechanic and endurance management, it’s pathetically easy.

I agree, the only thing really wrong with this dungeon is that 3 in 1 crap with mesmers and theives porting through doors. That is what really ruins my experience.

I agree. I have the DM title, but didn’t feel like a master when I entered a group that decided to do “3-in-1” and stay in melee againt Alpha while against a wall. I play much better doing things legit and staying mobile during a boss. I’m not opposed to skipping mobs, but I am opposed to glitches / cheesy gameplay.

I agree. Alpha in path 1 is broken. He is just too easy. Please fix fast. I find no pleasure in completing this path as it’s impossible to fail.

LFk.1408:

Alpha is really just an exercise in counting to 3.

Exactly this.

When Alpha starts throwing down loads of aoe circles that overlap each other you just count to three and dodge once.

I think the people who are complaining about a lack of endurance are dodging to many times trying to get completely out of the aoe circles. You just need to dodge once. Then either run back in or use a leap. Don’t dodge back into him as you’ll run out of endurance.

Alternatively if you’ve got an ability like the Mesmers sword 2 attack you can just go invulnerable.

Toxyn.9608:

I agree. I have the DM title, but didn’t feel like a master when I entered a group that decided to do “3-in-1” and stay in melee againt Alpha while against a wall. I play much better doing things legit and staying mobile during a boss. I’m not opposed to skipping mobs, but I am opposed to glitches / cheesy gameplay.

Didn’t they remove the 3-in-1 feature already?