Guild Wars 2

Reward

• The gold reward doesn’t match the amount of time it takes an average party to clear a path. It needs to be increased to 1.5g to 2g per path.

Bugs

• Imprisonment Crystal summoned by Alpha, if destroyed too quickly it bugs and disables the targeted person for 15 seconds. If killed in 1s or slower, it will properly releases the imprisoned player after crystal is gone.
• If you break LoS to Alpha as he’s doing the Imprisonment Crystal animation, the player will get disabled for 15s yet the crystal will not appear. Without a crystal to break the player has no way to escape. When the bug happens, even a teleport won’t help you – you will still be disabled after using Blink/Shadowstep/etc which otherwise with a crystal present would break you out of the lock.
• Sometimes crystal doesn’t get summoned at all, permanently locking the player down. Player is released only after using an emote: VIDEO
• 1st Alpha will go invlun if player is by the gate: VIDEO
• If mesmer drops temporal curtain to pull 1st Alpha to the wall and someone knocks/pushes alpha toward the same wall before the curtain pull is activated, Alpha will trip mid-push and not move/fly the full intended distance.
• Sometimes when pulling 1st Alpha with the temporal curtain, he will instantly port back to the starting position after getting pulled.
• Last Alpha in p1/p3 – Spire sometimes gets stuck right by the glassy wall or the boxes in the middle and stops the Exp reward from showing up after the Gold reward chest is granted.

Anti-stacking

• If a mob is being LoS’d, have him avoid hugging the wall when chasing the aggro’d person. Instead, have the mob make an arch around the corner and engage when LoS is achieved.
• If a boss is forcibly positioned against a wall/corner with whatever push/pull skill was available, have it immediately walk at least 300 distance away from it.

Anti-exploit

• 1st Alpha – the spot at the end of the tunnel that when crossed spawns the boss and makes him attackable, make it trigger only after a certain path has been actually selected.

Subject Alpha

• If Alpha is receiving 30k DPS or more for at least 3 seconds, have Alpha quickly move/dodge away from the stack toward the middle of the room. 10 sec CD on the dodge.
• Apply 3s fear on everyone within 200 radius of a player about to be crystalized, right as he is being crystalized.
• Allow people to evade the crystalizion with a dodge but not with an evade from a weapon/bundle skill. Or, possible make crystal summon as transparent/vague purple goo and then 1s after summon it solidifies freezing whoever is in it for 15s, unless countered with stability/invuln.
• Make Alpha Essence move slower and instead of healing the boss once they reach him have them trigger another effect. Each Essence can apply a stack and at 25 Alpha can initiate an unblockable pbAoE stomp like the one Evolved Destroyer does (but with much less wind-up time). Also, Instead of applying the stacks when reaching the boss you can have the tendrils pick essence up and throw them at Alpha to avoid essence getting destroyed when everyone is stacked and applying massive AoE dmg around the boss.

Champion Icebrood Wolf

• The wolf has no leap animation if the leap skill is used point blank. Make him actually jump for the skill.

Anti-exploit

• Have each major event require the previous event to be completed.

Bugs

• Bjarl may get stuck on one of the floor tiles in the middle of the room resulting in his rush doing the animation but not actually moving him.
• Bjarl sometimes goes afk doesn’t initiate the rush skill on a targeted player.

Bjarl

• Allow him to throw his greatsword like warrior gs4 skill on people who range him.
• If someone successfully interrupts his thrust into ground that gives him the protective buff, make Bjarl become stunned for 5 or 10 second.
• Every CC applied to the boss adds a stack of xyz, when reaching 10 xyz stacks boss will gain stability and go berserk. When berserk he will throw his gs on a player that dealt the majority of those cc’s causing the gs to pin the player down to the ground. When Bjarl rushes to the pinned player he then rips the gs back out downing the player regardless of his defensive stats.

Subject Alpha

• Apply torment on people kiting from 900+ range every 15 sec. In path 2 people away from any danger and can simply RP walk out of the summoned dragons tooth. Need to increase difficulty for rangers to match p1 and p3.

Husk

• Prevent the bombs from instantly blowing up when tripping on a patch while being subverted. Give them animation of actually fumbling before blowing up.
• Lower the radius from which the patches can be cleaved.

Destroyer

• Increase his health to 1,000k
• Increase the time before shield re-engages by 5s.
• Instead of using the stomp skill (as rare as it may be), give destroyer a skill which will punt a random player into lava.

Champion Crab

• Lower the damage dealt by the lava font, or at least delay the damage dealt to 0.75 sec after the lava font actually appears.

frifox.5283:

Simply doing exactly what the red post asked for:

Something that would help is if you could gather a thread for each dungeon (perhaps you’ve all already created one per dungeon?), and list out the major changes that you feel the dungeons would need to make them better, in concise bullet points.

Separate thread for each dungeon helps separate the discussion of the said dungeons/suggestions. There are finite amount of dungeons so there is no risk of cluttering the subforum with 100’s of suggestion threads.

True. I just assumed that wanted one big “superthread” due to the linked one being a sticky.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

frifox.5283:

Simply doing exactly what the red post asked for:

Something that would help is if you could gather a thread for each dungeon (perhaps you’ve all already created one per dungeon?), and list out the major changes that you feel the dungeons would need to make them better, in concise bullet points.

Separate thread for each dungeon helps separate the discussion of the said dungeons/suggestions. There are finite amount of dungeons so there is no risk of cluttering the subforum with 100’s of suggestion threads.

True. I just assumed that wanted one big “superthread” due to the linked one being a sticky.

I made the other thread because it’s simpler to keep track of 1 bigger thread than 8 threads + general dungeon improvements.

I have a good feeling you’ll run out of char space for the suggestions with only 3 available posts. We learned that the hard way in the old mesmer bugs thread so the new one that I’m maintaining I reserved 8 posts, and are already using almost all of them.

How about linking to dungeon specific threads from the main one?

frifox.5283:

I have a good feeling you’ll run out of char space for the suggestions with only 3 available posts. We learned that the hard way in the old mesmer bugs thread so the new one that I’m maintaining I reserved 8 posts, and are already using almost all of them.

How about linking to dungeon specific threads from the main one?

I think that’s a fabulous idea.

considering how you have to deactivate the shields to attack the destroyer i dont think you should increas his health

the punting idea im ok with

Bjarl: If they can get him to stop being so fickle about his rush, then I’m all for your suggestions, but he’s the biggest troll and the most inconsistent boss I’ve come across. Getting rid of the CC locking that we can do to bypass his rush phases would be quite a headache as far as I’m concerned.

Destroyer: Why more HP? are you saying we should be forced to do at least 2 rounds? I’m not really opposed, but curious what your purpose is here.

Wolf: Absolutely agree

Crab: Again couldn’t agree more

Husk: Sounds fine, honestly I don’t think anything is wrong with the fight other than how few people have learned how to do it efficiently

Alpha: Interesting suggestions.

• 7s recharge evade/dodge just sounds unfun. Mainly the dodge part, if he’d just move away sure. But if he’s getting evade frames that just seems kinda lame to punish groups with higher DPS, I can’t help but feel that I may be better off going with lower DPS options for a few members of the group to prevent triggering (water attuenment for healing, defender phantasm, maybe take some more defensive traits?)
• The change in essences, how big of an attack would that be? One shot? If they’re being thrown in is it just going to be a timer then? Will walls/wardens get rid of the projectile essences? I don’t know just sounds a little wonky.
• Then kinda a question/request, the p1/p3 stomp seems to be a pretty subtle and hard to see animation, any tips frifox? if not could we have that taken a look at, just seems a pretty hard hit in melee range for such a hard to avoid attack. It’s probably timing wise not much different than Lupi, but Lupi is giant and I can clearly see his tell over all the effects, not so with the shorter Alpha.

No where near the expert Frifox is, but I have to say COE is my Favorite dungeon even with the alpha crystal bugs and what not.

Jerus.4350:

• Then kinda a question/request, the p1/p3 stomp seems to be a pretty subtle and hard to see animation, any tips frifox? if not could we have that taken a look at, just seems a pretty hard hit in melee range for such a hard to avoid attack. It’s probably timing wise not much different than Lupi, but Lupi is giant and I can clearly see his tell over all the effects, not so with the shorter Alpha.

I can say you are looking for the wrong animation on Subject Alpha. Teeth of Mordremoth (the attack that is probably hitting very hard) is shown with Alpha raising its fist and slamming it into the ground. Don’t look for a foot stomp. Instead look for Alpha raising a fist, then either dodge or hope you aren’t about to get hit by that attack multiple times (reason why it does so much damage).

Delmain.5167:

Jerus.4350:

• Then kinda a question/request, the p1/p3 stomp seems to be a pretty subtle and hard to see animation, any tips frifox? if not could we have that taken a look at, just seems a pretty hard hit in melee range for such a hard to avoid attack. It’s probably timing wise not much different than Lupi, but Lupi is giant and I can clearly see his tell over all the effects, not so with the shorter Alpha.

I can say you are looking for the wrong animation on Subject Alpha. Teeth of Mordremoth (the attack that is probably hitting very hard) is shown with Alpha raising its fist and slamming it into the ground. Don’t look for a foot stomp. Instead look for Alpha raising a fist, then either dodge or hope you aren’t about to get hit by that attack multiple times (reason why it does so much damage).

Ahh, is it not the same as some of his other moves though? Doesn’t he do that for Dragons tooth one which is delayed in p1. Then in P3 you have the other attacks which are often followed by the attack in question. I think i was mistaking the fist into the ground for a stomp, I’ll have to watch for the fist in the future. TBH I’ve just recently been trying to master that guy, typically we just burn through him so quickly we survive, but I’m no longer ok with just finding ways to survive, I want to perfect it

it’s the one that shoots a series of red circles out that instantly hurt and grow in size as they get further away from him.

Appreciate the tip though, hopefully I’ll get it down.

Jerus.4350:

Destroyer: Why more HP? are you saying we should be forced to do at least 2 rounds? I’m not really opposed, but curious what your purpose is here.

People did it in one round before they nerfed his HP. Would still be possible.

The purpose is so you don’t 1round him with zero effort.

edit: note that he also suggested a timer increase.

OP, who uses condi builds in dungeons? zerker meta for life xD

Utomneian.9013:

OP, who uses condi builds in dungeons? zerker meta for life xD

This is my 2nd necro char, note the character name:
- http://i.imgur.com/uFJGCpv.jpg

:D

Jerus.4350:

Getting rid of the CC locking that we can do to bypass his rush phases would be quite a headache as far as I’m concerned.

I want it to be rewarding to properly land an interrupt that stops him from getting the protective buff (edited OP to reflect that). I want to discourage people chaining their CCs (especially ones from consumables) to perma stun the boss.

Arenzo.3298:

considering how you have to deactivate the shields to attack the destroyer i dont think you should increas his health

Jerus.4350:

Destroyer: Why more HP? are you saying we should be forced to do at least 2 rounds? I’m not really opposed, but curious what your purpose is here.

Originally the boss had much higher health and toughness. People complained that the boss took ages to kill, which is most likely because of the technique pugs used to kill the boss, so robert hrouda lowered his hp and made him squishier. That “old” way to kill the boss involved 3 people constantly firing the lasers and 2 dps specs staying down and killing the boss every time the shield went down. This process made the encounter drag out for like 10 mins or even longer and after the change the encounter went much faster, which people found acceptable. Once players became better the boss resulted in pretty much a joke we know now yet his hp/toughness wasn’t brought back up. (ps: i’m certain on the hp increase but the toughness was vague and I interpreted his words as it was toned down around the same time too)

The goal with my suggestion was to reward parties that fully spec’ed into dps both in gear, build, and their skill rotation. I love it when you see the shield blinking yet everyone stays in and commits to killing the boss knowing that any moment they will all be knocked back into lava and may die. That feeling when you kill the boss right before the shield turns back on is the reward. However, if you are lazy and just yolo kill him as a dps spec you should be able to easily do it in 2 shields. It’s sad when people don’t get to experience the mechanic of jumping the red platforms (or using the stairs if you’re lazy) to get back up to the laser cannons, which is why I chose 2 shields.

Your average zerk pug (1 proper zerk, 3 zerk geared but bad builds, and 1 phiw casual) party pulls off about 30k DPS on the destroyer. With my suggested 5s longer shield downtime that will be 600k dmg in the first shield and then 1,500k after the 2nd one with commitment. Currently the Destroyer is 626k HP and I suggest increasing his HP to 1,000k. This means your average dps pug party will kill the boss in 2 shields with no problems. Proper organized zerk parties currently kill him in 11 to 14 seconds which is about 50k dps from the first hit. With my suggested 5s increase before shield engages (25s of total possible dps time), such party should land 1,250k dmg before being knocked into lava. This will allow people who put the time to setup their party comps for dps to still kill him in one shield with no change. 1,000k dmg in 25s is 40k dps which is very realistic for any decent zerk party comp. Even a mesmer can pull off 200k in 25sec so he won’t be weighing down the party, even without a timewarp.

Jerus.4350:

Alpha: Interesting suggestions.

• 7s recharge evade/dodge just sounds unfun. Mainly the dodge part, if he’d just move away sure. But if he’s getting evade frames that just seems kinda lame to punish groups with higher DPS, I can’t help but feel that I may be better off going with lower DPS options for a few members of the group to prevent triggering (water attuenment for healing, defender phantasm, maybe take some more defensive traits?)

It doesn’t have to be exactly 7s cd (can be 15s) or even give alpha evades but I did want Alpha to emulate how actual player would react to getting burned down too fast, which is dodge out or use some kind of defensive skill. Currently I fall asleep when fighting alpha – that is how faceroll he is. The goal with my suggestions was to eliminate the stack, smack, fall-asleep encounter as it is now. Alpha is 963k HP. Let’s take the last one as an example where he doesn’t escape and is killed 100% to 0% (1st one is only 480k hp). At 30k dps (typical zerk party) the encounter lasts right around 30 seconds (15s in case of 1st alpha). I figured having alpha dodge a few times throughout the encounter was quite reasonable.

Jerus.4350:

• The change in essences, how big of an attack would that be? One shot? If they’re being thrown in is it just going to be a timer then? Will walls/wardens get rid of the projectile essences? I don’t know just sounds a little wonky.

I just didn’t like the current essence mechanic which more or less were an artificial HP buff to Alpha since you rarely actually kill the essence even with proper dps parties. The attack I had in mind would be a ~350 radius stomp (or leap, if players are ranging) that would stun or knock down everyone within that radius for like 3 to 4 seconds unless avoided with stability/block/dodge. Being stunned for that long probably will result in you eating at least one ice aoe or a dragon tooth, giving people an incentive to actually deal with the mechanic.

The attack from Alpha doesn’t have to be a stomp/leap as that may be difficult to code since there are 5 players and leap is single player targeted. The skill can behave like the necro axe 3, Unholy Feast, which is aoe “chomp” but instead of the chomp have alpha drop an ice comet on people’s heads to stun them.

Also, the reason for the tendrils actually throwing the crawling essence at alpha was to give those tendrils an actual use as well as giving control players something to do. Currently the tendrils are ignored because they only hurt zerks (small pbAoE dmg when they hit a glass cannon) and even then they don’t pose a thread because zerks stack up and tendrils are usually summoned not close enough to actually reach the players and those that do are melted with cleave. People will have few new options – go kill the tendrils (which are summoned once per 60 sec or so), kill the crawling essence (2 or 3 hits to kill), or simply give control chars an actual purpose where they can block/reflect the projectiles thrown at Alpha. If there is nobody to reflect/block then the stun/knockdown can be avoid with stability/aegis. I really hate it that current Alpha is more or less a dumb DPS race with occasional properly timed dodge and nothing else. I’m all in for giving support/control players something useful to do without making the encounter mechanics too annoying on the phiw’s.

Jerus.4350:

• Then kinda a question/request, the p1/p3 stomp seems to be a pretty subtle and hard to see animation, any tips frifox? if not could we have that taken a look at, just seems a pretty hard hit in melee range for such a hard to avoid attack. It’s probably timing wise not much different than Lupi, but Lupi is giant and I can clearly see his tell over all the effects, not so with the shorter Alpha.

Jerus.4350:

Ahh, is it not the same as some of his other moves though? Doesn’t he do that for Dragons tooth one which is delayed in p1. Then in P3 you have the other attacks which are often followed by the attack in question. I think i was mistaking the fist into the ground for a stomp, I’ll have to watch for the fist in the future. TBH I’ve just recently been trying to master that guy, typically we just burn through him so quickly we survive, but I’m no longer ok with just finding ways to survive, I want to perfect it

it’s the one that shoots a series of red circles out that instantly hurt and grow in size as they get further away from him.

The attack you’re describing is the Teeth of Mordremoth. The attack has very little time between the animation and it actually dealing damage when you are in melee, at range the delay is like 1s or 1.5s before you are hit. Dodging the teeth from animation tells is definitely doable but requires good reaction time and you actually paying attention to the boss. If you want to practice, pick p1, grab a ranged weapon, and go in solo. Start at 1,200 and move up closer once you can dodge the teeth reliably. Eventually you’ll get to a point where you can react to the tell in melee and avoid the dmg altogether. Personally, I just rely on knowing the pattern to alpha’s attacks and dodging in advance or, when I’m too lazy to remember the pattern just dodging as soon as I see him twerk his left arm. If you want, you can see this vid of me doing alpha in melee, it may help you see the attack animation better:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azu6QyF5zmY

Really appreciate the clarification/tips Frifox, your dedication to perfecting that dungeon is impressive to say the least.

Very much like the ideas now that you’ve explained them further.

The video does help a lot. And looks like it was the animation I thought it was just that I never really get to see his feet (too many people and things) so I thought it was a stomp with his arm getting into it, but it’s just kinda a fist pump.

But if I get it right, basically every 2 seconds it’s either Dragons Tooth at range, Flame, or the Teeth of Mordremoth. Is that right?

frifox.5283:

Bugs:

Agreed that these need fixings, but we all know they wont be getting them :/

Anti-stacking/walling:

This would be an excellent solution to the stacking problem, altho I think this isnt CoE-specific, might want to post this in the general bug/suggestion section. Would love to see this implemented

Anti-exploit

Totally agreed! Every dungeon needs this, might wanna post this in the general as well

Subject Alpha

• Lower the condi cleansing from p1/p3 Alpha to one stack per cleanse – all stacks cleansed every 5 sec makes condi builds practically useless in this dungeon.
• Make Alpha Essence move slower and instead of healing the boss once they reach him have them trigger another effect. Each Essence can apply a stack and at 25 Alpha can initiate an unblockable pbAoE stomp like the one Evolved Destroyer does (but with much less wind-up time). Also, Instead of applying the stacks when reaching the boss you can have the tendrils pick essence up and throw them at Alpha to avoid essence getting destroyed when everyone is stacked and applying massive AoE dmg around the boss.
• If Alpha is receiving 30k DPS or more for at least 3 seconds, have Alpha dodge away from the stack (away from a wall). 7 sec CD on the dodge.
• Apply 3s fear on everyone within 200 radius of a player about to be crystalized, right as he is being crystalized.
• Allow people to evade the crystalizion with a dodge but not with an evade from a weapon/bundle skill. Or, possible make crystal summon transparent/vague and 1s after summon it solidifies freezing whoever is in it for 15s, unless countered with stability/invuln.
• Apply torment on people kiting from 900+ range every 15 sec.

I love how the condi cleansing is working right now, as it encourages the use of direct damage. If only other bosses/dungeons had this kind of mechanics as well, we would finally see some variation. Right now this just cheers on the zerker-meta, which we dont really need.
Not sure how I feel about the alpha essence idea, so I’m not gonna make any comments on this one.
30k DPS dodge, hell yes! But again, would be nice to have it applied on all enemies/bosses, should be generic AI. General section?
Fear on crystal, sure why not. Everything to prevent stacking is OK with me.
Again, not sure what to think about the crystal suggestion.
Torment on 900+ range, why actually?

Destroyer

• Double his HP or at least increase it to match the other bosses in the dungeon.
• Increase the time before shield re-engages by 5s.
• Instead of using the stomp skill (as rare as it may be), give destroyer a skill which will punt a random player into lava.

Yes, Yes and Yes. Lava hurts a lot tho, so let players at least have a chance of returning without a guaranteed death.

Bjarl

• Allow him to throw his greatsword like warrior gs4 skill on people who range him.
• If someone successfully interrupts his thrust into ground that gives him the protective buff, make Bjarl become stunned for 5 or 10 second.
• Every CC applied to the boss adds a stack of xyz, when reaching 10 xyz stacks boss will gain stability and go berserk. When berserk he will throw his gs on a player that dealt the majority of those cc’s causing the gs to pin the player down to the ground. When Bjarl rushes to the pinned player he then rips the gs back out downing the player regardless of his defensive stats.

GS4 sounds reasonable, so why not.
5 sec stun sounds like a lot. I think the casting time of the buff should be a slightly bit longer, to make interrupting easier (might just be me being to slow :p), but thats it. Youre already rewarded by not having him have the buff, so I’d scrap the stun.
The stacks mechanic sounds like a lot of work, and really difficult to implement, just to make him a bit harder. I don’t know..

Husk

• Prevent the bombs from instantly blowing up when tripping on a patch while being subverted. Give them animation of actually fumbling before blowing up.
• Lower the radius from which the patches can be cleaved.

I think the blowing up is fine. They are “unstable” after all.
Lowered radius, yes please.

Champion Icebrood Wolf

• The wolf has no leap animation if the leap skill is used point blank. Make him actually jump for the skill.

Im actually fine with the no-animation, it counters stacking. Spread your party and this one is a breeze.

Dungeon

• The gold reward doesn’t match the amount of time it takes an average party to clear a path. It needs to be increased.

Indeed they might need a little buff. 1.5g is fine for me, its not that hard of a dungeon (yet?).
Just my opinion. I liked this post tho, would like to see you make posts like this on more dungeons

Jerus.4350:

Really appreciate the clarification/tips Frifox, your dedication to perfecting that dungeon is impressive to say the least.

Very much like the ideas now that you’ve explained them further.

The video does help a lot. And looks like it was the animation I thought it was just that I never really get to see his feet (too many people and things) so I thought it was a stomp with his arm getting into it, but it’s just kinda a fist pump.

But if I get it right, basically every 2 seconds it’s either Dragons Tooth at range, Flame, or the Teeth of Mordremoth. Is that right?

You are on the right track. If you watch the video closely you will notice Subject Alpha alternates between his 2 attacks, Teeth of Primordius (the Dragons Tooth and Flame attack) and Teeth of Mordremoth. Mind you I don’t like the first Subject Alpha fight because it doesn’t really show what happens when he starts using his other skills. When the other skills become involved, it becomes slightly more confusing, but it’s basically the same attack chain, just with the 2 attacks occasional being replaced with one of the other skills (tendril summon and Crystal Prison). As a final note, I can’t help but think of this when I see Alpha use the Mordremoth attack: “Subject Alpha SMASH!”

With the incoming FGS nerfing would be “stacking” still a big issue? Los tacttitcs would be still used to make advantage of cleaving so i’m not sure why force it still.
Apart from that, great job, keep going with the ideas.

There is merit to some of the things in this list but, to my mind, CoE is in a good state compared to the other dungeons. CoE is the dungeon I’d least like to see tampered with.

Subject Alpha doesn’t need any buffs. He can kill inexperienced groups often enough that they quit the dungeon in rage. Experienced players have to accept that perfect tactics and perfect dodges will often make bosses easy.

Stooperdale.3560:

There is merit to some of the things in this list but, to my mind, CoE is in a good state compared to the other dungeons. CoE is the dungeon I’d least like to see tampered with.

Subject Alpha doesn’t need any buffs. He can kill inexperienced groups often enough that they quit the dungeon in rage. Experienced players have to accept that perfect tactics and perfect dodges will often make bosses easy.

Agreed 100%. Not sure what these changes would accomplish. CoE is mostly in a good place IMO, especially Subject Alpha.

Keep in mind ArenaNET is not making a game for speedclear groups. You can’t suggest things that 99% of players would hate. A lot of people stay out of Arah because it’s too hard for them. If you make CoE way harder than it currently is, it would only get played by a few people.

Kurr.4179:

Stooperdale.3560:

There is merit to some of the things in this list but, to my mind, CoE is in a good state compared to the other dungeons. CoE is the dungeon I’d least like to see tampered with.

Subject Alpha doesn’t need any buffs. He can kill inexperienced groups often enough that they quit the dungeon in rage. Experienced players have to accept that perfect tactics and perfect dodges will often make bosses easy.

Agreed 100%. Not sure what these changes would accomplish. CoE is mostly in a good place IMO, especially Subject Alpha.

Keep in mind ArenaNET is not making a game for speedclear groups. You can’t suggest things that 99% of players would hate. A lot of people stay out of Arah because it’s too hard for them. If you make CoE way harder than it currently is, it would only get played by a few people.

The suggestions would promote control/support roles vs just pure damage. I think that’s something many people have been requesting isn’kitten

Something that I feel really needs to be addressed for this dungeon is how it works with megaservers. Quite often I’ll zone into mount maelstrom to find the event up, ok no biggy. Do the event, do a path, zone out… and the event is back up because we’re in a new megaserver. Ok, do the event again, do a path, zone out… GDI another server where I need to do the event AGAIN!

Could we please get the lock on this dungeon removed, or somehow link ourselves to a certain megaserver so we don’t continually come out and have to redo the event? I don’t mind doing it once for the 3 paths, but 3 times for 3 paths is just… ugh.

I think the greatest irony of Subject Alpha is that his mechanics (or at least the ones that remain similar through each path) promotes the stacking, DD zerker focus that speedrunners love and everyone else loves to hate on. The cleanse as the OP mentions makes condi builds unquestionably inferior to direct damage, the easiest way to deal with crystalization is having everyone stand close together with cleaving weapons, and the fact that when he AoEs, he has one for every player that all hit at the same time, honestly makes not stacking and doing synchronized dodges a bad idea; pretty much every attempt I’ve done on any Alpha fight where we don’t stack falls apart because people are dodging out of their AoE only to run into someone else’s just as it hits.

Then again, a bit of that is because none of the old dungeons explorables/fractals have had the danger zone circles for them updated to the new solids, which is really bad for Alpha, as I know he has at least one AoE that has a safe spot right in the middle of it, but to the untrained eye, it looks like you’ve been targets by two different sized AoEs.

My anti-stack suggestion for Alpha is that, when he does that AoE everyone trick of his, instead of targeting everyone to hit at once, he does it one or two players at a time ,with at least enough spacing that you can’t dodge them all with two dodge. That alone would pretty much kill stacking with him, unless you plan to bring a thief or two every run to pop Signet of Agility to keep up with the synchronized dodging, and honestly, I can’t really argue with any plan that involves bringing a profession in for their support/utility capabilities.

Increase All COE path rewards to 1.5 or 2g.

I’m not sure that we need to start that anti-stacking debate again… Else I’m fine with what is listed.

I don’t mind stacking. What I do mind is the whole dungeon being 99% stack & smack regardless of how much skill is required to survive. It is much more fun when you actually can move around in the middle of the room while still being in arms reach to the enemy and allies.

This is why I enjoy the Mark T-B34RC3, Destroyer, and the Husk encounter much more than all of the Alpha fights combined.

Please make Agent Spire walk faster when she enters the console room. The one where she tells you to watch her “push a button. Or maybe pull a lever”. It used to make me laugh, now I’m thinking that she’s doing that to spite us.

Lytalm.5673:

I’m not sure that we need to start that anti-stacking debate again… Else I’m fine with what is listed.

I think I came across a bit too extreme, and I’m not sure if I really like my idea anymore…

I’m also okay with stacking as a strategy, what it is that bugs me about the subject alpha fights is how stacking is a must- from massive AoEs with weird, hard-to-see mechanics to attacks that get more powerful the farther you are away from him to the crystals and essences that show up in the second and third fight, all of that makes standing all together right next to him not only optimal- it’s practically necessary.

Another, less serious suggestion:

For the Husk fight, instead of the Unstable bomb golems having the regular mark 1 model, have them have the cat golem model.

‘Cause if there is another activity in this game (that doesn’t involve a commander tag) that is more like cat herding, I haven’t played it yet :P