Guild Wars 2

decided I want to master with path and do it once or twice per day atleast. Im aware, its not too popular… is that why the skins are so rare? or do they just really never drop?

hard path + never drop

done it quite few times, never got any nor saw anyone get it

Unskippable cut scenes don’t help its popularity.

By the way, you don’t get the bonus reward (40 tokens + gold) the second time you do it each day.

Poor reward for time spent -> few people go -> no common knowledge tactics -> slower runs -> poor reward for time spent.

People complained that the other living story dungeons were taken out of the game but they would have suffered exactly the same fate.

The Aetherblade Retreat was cut from the same cloth, I agree, but I think the Molten Facility was just right in terms of length, difficulty and rewards. If the Jetpack continued to drop from the dungeon, and it was the only source of Azurite/Sentinel gear, I’m sure there would continue to be lots of people doing it.

The main problem is that ANet has been making things harder+longer (see SAB World 2 for another example), but they can’t up the rewards too much for fear of unbalancing the economy. As a result, players only do the new content enough to get their achievements, then never go back. (You can see this issue in the Tower of Nightmares too. It was built for zerg content, but once the zerg moves on, it’s excessively difficult for smaller groups or solo players to do, and so the place is largely abandoned.) They need to make future content easier, not harder, and more accessible again for the wider player base.

Zaxares.5419:

As a result, players only do the new content enough to get their achievements, then never go back.

Could not agree more.

Zaxares.5419:

(You can see this issue in the Tower of Nightmares too. It was built for zerg content, but once the zerg moves on, it’s excessively difficult for smaller groups or solo players to do, and so the place is largely abandoned.) They need to make future content easier, not harder, and more accessible again for the wider player base.

I hope they don’t make future content easier, but keep it in line with the rest of the game. People stopped coming to the tower for several reasons, one of them was DEFINITELY scaling, but this was an issue with the Halloween zerg content as well, and it isn’t just one thing, otherwise people would have given up on Scarlet farming on the first day.

People keep showing up for dragons, golems, and other world events because they are on timers and give good rewards, they clear temples with as few as 4 people regularly for 30 dragonite, and even spool up to ad hoc events like the Champ Trains simply by asking in map. Each of these has things that people like and don’t like, but they are still accessible.

The issues with the nightmare tower are an amalgamation of factors, all of which are circumvented in these other events (even the improvised ones) to one degree or another, but the worse part of the tower is simply that it is frustrating and boring simultaneously.

The TA Aether path doesn’t seem frustrating or boring to me, it is just long, and can drag a bit, and not just because of cut-scenes that can’t be skipped, but also the fact you have to clear most of the mobs, 2 puzzles that punish any lack of coordination, boss mechanics that are less friendly than most dungeons, etc. But it’s not frustrating once you beat it a few times, and it’s never boring for me at least.

It doesn’t make it less fun for me, but it is less rewarding than the same amount of time in Arah, or CoE, or higher level fractals at this point.

Well i love this instance. Done it 5 times in the past 2 days, full runs, and i seriously hope Anet put more long and challenging Instances like this one in the game. Otherwise it’s a faceroll and people will get bored really soon.

As example, a player left because he died twice. Seriously? When “not dying” was a standard to play videogames? If you die is because you did something wrong. Do it right and you will not only survive, you will also learn how to play better.

Elrey.5472:

Well i love this instance. Done it 5 times in the past 2 days, full runs, and i seriously hope Anet put more long and challenging Instances like this one in the game. Otherwise it’s a faceroll and people will get bored really soon.

As example, a player left because he died twice. Seriously? When “not dying” was a standard to play videogames? If you die is because you did something wrong. Do it right and you will not only survive, you will also learn how to play better.

Azure.8670:

I learned how to play full zerk d/d ele in dungeons and survive and it made me way better with all my other classes. People love easy content, dont know why. My main problem is the rewards man…. I have the WORST luck.. ugh

Yeah well i can agree on that.
I already got all the achievements inside TA aetherblade and my new pet… so now why to come back? I actually did yesterday a run with all achievements for a group of 4 newbies just for fun. (awesome group, btw. They were listening and it all went smooth. They even said comments like “i never had this fun since i am lvl 80”).

What makes me think on this: You don’t need to be mad awesome to success, you just need to learn in the right way and be prepared for challenges. This group knew we couldn’t go blind and did wait 1 minute for explanation before each boss.

Now the problem with GW2 is that most players want experienced people for groups and will not wait 1 freaking minute. I mean, someone tried to kick me out of a dungeon this evening because i was afk on the phone 90 seconds (inside dungeon but the group didn’t still killed any enemy, so we didn’t exactly started).

Until people realize that 1 minute is worth to wait, most of the community is doomed.
To counterattack that, i will still do TA aether path daily with groups of players and make them have as much fun as possible. We can beat the zergers!

P.S. Anet, please add some kind of reward on this. As example, if someone in your group completes more than 5 achievement in that dungeon, give the other players 5 achievement points. This would encourage to people to keep bringing new people to dungeons and help them achieve the goals of challenges. That would completely break down the rush runs and would be awesome

Ya this is good, also re-occuring achivements. Reset 3/10 hardest achivements after 1-2 months and dont delete the points, but make it achiveable again to give incentive to go do the paths and extra stuff

This is definitely one of the harder dungeon paths if not the hardest in terms of individual and group play. Most of GW2’s cooperative PvE is pretty vanilla and doesn’t offer much of a challenge, so it doesn’t surprise me at all when people develop an aversion to it.

However, coming from some of the better wow-eq-ish clone games that offer very challenging and interesting cooperative PvE content(read: instances), I applaud anet’s effort at addressing the problem and at least offering some appeasement to players who want to experience this type of thing. We could probably use a little more of it and I hope anet is not deterred by players who complain about it because it’s too hard for them.

As for the skins, I’m not sure they’re dropping anymore.. I saw quite a few and even landed a dagger myself during the few weeks it was a main release. After that, nothing.

Its not that its too hard. Its that noone wants to sit through a heavily timegated dungeon with stupid puzzle sections and unskippable cutscenes.

spoj.9672:

Its not that its too hard. Its that noone wants to sit through a heavily timegated dungeon with stupid puzzle sections and unskippable cutscenes.

I would disagree, I think a lot of players find it too difficult. I’ve heard story after story about how players reached x section and couldn’t get any farther with the group they were in. I’ve actually had a few pugs who couldn’t get the job done and there’s even a recent thread in this forum concerning the ooze walking section. You and I may not find it too difficult but plenty of other players do.

I actually like the boss mechanics in this path because there’s a little more to them than your average dungeon path. It’s about a 45 minute path if all goes as intended, which is comparable to the longer Arah paths(with absurd amounts of skipping of course) and thus acceptable length if you’re willing to do the latter. If you take the approach that every dungeon path needs to be like CoF path 1, I think the version of GW2 you want to play is vastly different from the version I want to play. There’s also no reason we can’t have variety.

I can assure you everyone I play with just avoids it because of the unskippable cutscenes, stupid puzzle mechanics and poor reward for time. Not because its too hard.

spoj.9672:

I can assure you everyone I play with just avoids it because of the unskippable cutscenes, stupid puzzle mechanics and poor reward for time. Not because its too hard.

Pretty much this. Even the end chests they hyped up, are pretty stupid.

Yeah with better reward / the possibility to skip cutscene / less npc dialog, more people would run it

spoj.9672:

I can assure you everyone I play with just avoids it because of the unskippable cutscenes, stupid puzzle mechanics and poor reward for time. Not because its too hard.

We’ve had entirely different experiences.. I suppose none of you bothered to read the other recent aether path thread.

I want to know what you mean by “stupid” puzzle mechanics, btw. I want to know because GW2 has some of the dullest instances I have ever played in any commercial MMORPG of this grade. I could go through each dungeon path if you like.. basically a lot of attrition style fights where the bosses have a negligible mechanic and a lot of health. This particular path is actually a bit more interesting than the rest. Is it that you prefer paths that are predictably a romp, a la CoF p1 and most other dungeon paths in the game for that matter? You want a 15 minute exercise in muscle memory that amply rewards your time with fake currency?

It’s true that the rewards could be better, particularly for the aetherchests. They’re pretty much on par with an arah path, though.

I wont deny the bosses in aetherpath are more interesting. But standing on panels with electric floors and kiting oozes is just tedious and boring.

spoj.9672:

I wont deny the bosses in aetherpath are more interesting. But standing on panels with electric floors and kiting oozes is just tedious and boring.

If you’re coordinated enough, you only have to kite the two oozes once. The electric floor puzzles take no time at all if everyone knows what they should be doing. People don’t do it because of the numerous reasons. They decided it’s not worth the effort when you may or may not get a group that’s capable of doing it in a reasonable time.

I personally would like to hear from DnT or rT (i know you’re from them) if they routinely run it and what their impressions and average times are. This is of course ignoring the time hating from the cutscenes which I agree are annoying.

Noone runs it in rT afaik. And yes i know those two puzzles are easy and relatively fast. They are still stupid and unfun though. Also the lack of being able to skip mobs and cutscenes is a turn off for trying to speedrun.

My english is not perfect, i’m spanish, sorry about typos.

spoj.9672:

Its not that its too hard. Its that noone wants to sit through a heavily timegated dungeon with stupid puzzle sections and unskippable cutscenes.

I completely disagree with you.

Today i will run TA Aether for the 20th consecutive day leading a PUG. That will make my 32th run and only 1 time we did not finished it because the instance leader disconnected and it kicked us out.
That means that i spent 3 hours or more, daily, doing that run (some days even twice, like yesterday) and i’m in the perfect position to give you some feedback.

Notice the bold info:
- I’ve been in there with already 150 different players (I am starting to keep a list with data such as nicknames, proffessions and if they finished or left).
- Around the 30% of them left because they died. Not because it was long, not because we were waiting in a cutscene, they left right after they died.
- The 70% of the players never gives up, they would try and die even 10 times on the same boss until they finally figured out how to time the mechanics and special attacks of the bosses. When that happens, they don’t die anymore.
- The 80% of succeding players say that wants to repeat, we even hang out speaking about 10 minutes after instance is over (yeah, also optional event is over) just because we liked it and we like to comment about what happened or how to improve.
- A 30% of the players added me as a friend after telling them that i go daily and they can join if they want, a real proof of how this dungeon creates a bound and teamwork.
- You don’t need a special group, any group can suceed. I have done it without guardian, i have done it with 5 warriors, i have done it without warriors, i had 3 rangers once, i had mesmers, 3 engineers at same time, necromancers… only it takes is skill and patience, because TA Aether is NOT a dps race, it’s a place where you can control the battleground. If you control what happens around, you can be alive even 3 hours in any of the bosses.
- The mechanics are hard, the people die, the enemies hit hard. Nevertheless a 75% of the players think the fights are fun. (Someone told me yesterday that even if we were dying in clockheart, it was really fun to fight him for 15 minutes, rezzing, duo kiting, just staying alive as it was another mini-game instead of a final boss fight).

So now let me tell you what happens. The people that leaves, the people that wants an easy and FAST run, they will hate it, of course… and then i hate them. It’s not personal, it’s just my own choice of what it means “fun”. For me, skipping enemies, skipping the drama in a dungeon and skipping parts of it removes the inmerssion and the very reason of why i’m there.

There are some people that plays a game because they want rewards, and so many others plays for fun. I’m a fun guy, i don’t want rewards, i would even pay to go to TA Aether and get 0 items.

If you skip some part of the dungeon, you are just telling me that you are there because you want to get to the end as soon as possible and get the rewards. Really? aren’t you there because you need to help Caithe to stop the big machine that Scarlet is creating? aren’t you there to have fun? Getting rewards it’s worthless if you realize that GW2 is a virtual game, a world where anything that you are doing worths nothing when you log out and get back to the real world. Why do you play then? rewards, brag rights, fun? Again this is only my personal opinnion, but i’d choose “fun” over virtual rewards.

Honestly, Spoj, i don’t know the people that you asked for to get that feedback, but i’m gonna go to do TA Aether in 10 minutes with 2 players from different previous TA Aether runs. They learned, they liked it and they want to have fun. Hate is not a word there.

The problem about leavers and people that doesn’t want to repeat that is and will always be the same: Impatient people with bad attitude and selfish reasons to go into a dungeon. TA Aether encourages teamwork and patiencie, if they can’t deal with that then it’s good for me when they leave.

Have a good day. I’ll have a report with more data from this dungeon by january

Im talking from experienced players perspective as i dont rate pugs as good measure of difficulty seeing as pugs fail at the most faceroll content.

Those pugs eventually become experienced players. Right now i am with 4 of experienced ones, although i expected only 2 of them and it’s going smooth and fun.

Actually, Elrey, a friend and I are interested in running TA to grab all the achievements, but we heard so many horror tales from that instance we haven’t even tried yet.

We would love to team up with you and step foot inside of the Aetherpath. Can you toss me your in-game name so I can say hello later on?

Ran it with Elrey. Yup, it’s a toughie, but he knows what he is doing. Considering it was the first time for a friend and I it went smooth. About an hour and a half, I came out with but two achievements to do (speak with Caithe, of all things, and the electric ground because Elrey said to wait and I went ahead and moved -_-).

I found the dungeon interesting but for a pug it would be nerve wracking. Without his, and his friends, experience I can see how that path would a killer. A lot of puzzles without any warning or clue on how to pass them. If, with a good group who knew (mostly) what to do it took an hour and a half, then for newbies….

Kanto.1659:

Ran it with Elrey. Yup, it’s a toughie, but he knows what he is doing. Considering it was the first time for a friend and I it went smooth. About an hour and a half, I came out with but two achievements to do (speak with Caithe, of all things, and the electric ground because Elrey said to wait and I went ahead and moved -_-).

I found the dungeon interesting but for a pug it would be nerve wracking. Without his, and his friends, experience I can see how that path would a killer. A lot of puzzles without any warning or clue on how to pass them. If, with a good group who knew (mostly) what to do it took an hour and a half, then for newbies….

Too much to explain on a first run, but easy and fun to go if you know what to do and no explanation is needed. It can go fast and is fun.
(Clockheart wipes <3 + electricity room, we could make it in 1 hour haha).

You two did perfect, awesome people.

Elrey.5472:

My english is not perfect, i’m spanish, sorry about typos.

spoj.9672:

Its not that its too hard. Its that noone wants to sit through a heavily timegated dungeon with stupid puzzle sections and unskippable cutscenes.

I completely disagree with you.

Today i will run TA Aether for the 20th consecutive day leading a PUG. That will make my 32th run and only 1 time we did not finished it because the instance leader disconnected and it kicked us out.
That means that i spent 3 hours or more, daily, doing that run (some days even twice, like yesterday) and i’m in the perfect position to give you some feedback.

… words …

The problem about leavers and people that doesn’t want to repeat that is and will always be the same: Impatient people with bad attitude and selfish reasons to go into a dungeon. TA Aether encourages teamwork and patiencie, if they can’t deal with that then it’s good for me when they leave.

Have a good day. I’ll have a report with more data from this dungeon by january

You are the type of pug I enjoy the most, there to work out the problems, find solutions, and not blame others. I run this path when I have time because it’s fun, and as much of a challenge as it is in some groups, the feeling of accomplishment is proportional.

Cheers.

TA aether path is actually one of the coolest dungeons in the game . It is fairly hard , its not just a corner stack fest and the boss fights are fun. The rewards are solid as well

Idk, I did it on release day with a guild group, very casual guild at that. Took about an hour due to learning the stuff, and the bosses other than the final melted pretty quick due to most of the party being glass cannon zerkers. I never went back because the mechanics were fun to learn once, but it just takes too long for it to be added to my dungeon rotation. I almost exclusively pug (due to being in casual/teaching guild, I teach our guild newbies how to run stuff a couple times a day too) and while I’ve found some real bad groups I’ve never had the degree of bad luck some people complain about. Perhaps its because I’ve been sticking to running the well known stuff, make sure everybody in the group knows the path, and main 2 reflect classes (mesmer and guardian).

In general aether path isn’t rewarding enough for the time investment, and the path I’ve heard is mostly being run by really bad pugs instead of dungeon farmers who can do it in their sleep. Also I’m getting really sick of all the aether/scarlet content in general. It better be leading to something actually interesting involving the main story line, or open up some of those blank spots on the map pretty kitten soon.

Did it today for the first time and wanted to see what people thought about this. For me, it’s quite difficult and the rewards are pitiful, which explains why few people run this path.

Zaxares.5419:

The main problem is that ANet has been making things harder+longer (see SAB World 2 for another example), but they can’t up the rewards too much for fear of unbalancing the economy.

In what way would giving good rewards unbalance the economy? How does a cool account bound weapon affect the economy?

No, economy balance is not the problem. The problem is that anet wants you to do whatever you do in game 1.000 times if you want any kind of reward (besides fun, of course). If you play just for fun you sort of don’t care about the rewards. If you play for rewards, pay for it $/&· cause you will have to sweat blood to get your stupid electronic rewards.

Some aspects of this game have been developed not with love, but with so much hatred tpwards the gamers!

It is true though. One dungeon run should be one token and one token should be one piece of armor/weapon. Instead we need to run all three paths in one day to afford one piece of armor. For a game who touted non grinding this is a contradiction.

As it is I much prefer the gem store approach since I can just buy the skins that I find cool instead of running the same instance over and over with the hope that what I want will drop. Even then I am thankful I won’t have to fight with my group over the drops a la WoW and pretty much any other game out there.

I personally don’t enjoy the mechanics. The cut scenes are also an issue (this is something I run into with the new fractals and it makes ones like the Molten Facility much more annoying than they need to be).

Having said that the reward model they went with for the Aetherised weapons is the wrong one imo. The drop rate is incredibly low so I expect not to get one. At that point I look at the dungeon and I think, "I could spend a longer time in Aether path for the same token reward or I could do F or U paths instead). I don’t really factor in the new weapons as a reason to do the dungeon because I honestly don’t expect to get one. So why bother worker harder, in content I enjoy less, that takes longer all for the same reward?

I’m just sad we lost the Vevina fight from the game to get this mess of a dungeon.

Poor Vevina…. I loved that fight <\3

I wish Elrey was on NA servers because i have tried this dungeon a few times with pugs and have yet to make it through. It is a wall for me that is ensuring that I NEVER get my “Dungeon Master” title or the satisfaction of having completed this dungeon path.
The last attempt I made with a pug group; we did pretty good until the clockwork and then we wiped repeatedly(granted because some party members insisted on dragging strikers to clockwork instead of clockwork to strikers) but after 2+ hours and 12+ wipes at clockwork, i had to leave out of frustration and exhaustion. I tried to be nice about it as i left and told them good luck with the run, but i had reached my limit. I fear that I may never finish this path.

Captain Herbalife.2581:

I wish Elrey was on NA servers because i have tried this dungeon a few times with pugs and have yet to make it through. It is a wall for me that is ensuring that I NEVER get my “Dungeon Master” title or the satisfaction of having completed this dungeon path.
The last attempt I made with a pug group; we did pretty good until the clockwork and then we wiped repeatedly(granted because some party members insisted on dragging strikers to clockwork instead of clockwork to strikers) but after 2+ hours and 12+ wipes at clockwork, i had to leave out of frustration and exhaustion. I tried to be nice about it as i left and told them good luck with the run, but i had reached my limit. I fear that I may never finish this path.

I’ve been there before, some players are just stubborn trying the same not-working strategy. In thoses cases (after several wipes) what I do is to try to fight not pushing myself, just random ranging the boss slowly until they die. Then, when all my team-mates are dead, i just Solo Clockheart and never bothering in rezzing while fighting.

All that you need to solo it is a ranged weapon and condition removal, no speed buff or any other special skill. Timing is a kitten, though, and if you miss to stop a tier 30… well, pray to be a warrior with endure pain or a necro to enter shadow mode (is that the name?), because otherwise it’ll hurt. Alternatively you can time the tier 30 kittens and dodge them. I always dodge 3 of them: dodge, dodge, whirlwind (i’m a warrior).

Is not the best solution, but if the group is really that bad, consider to solo it, sadly some people just never learn, not even after 10 wipes.

Captain Herbalife.2581:

I wish Elrey was on NA servers because i have tried this dungeon a few times with pugs and have yet to make it through. It is a wall for me that is ensuring that I NEVER get my “Dungeon Master” title or the satisfaction of having completed this dungeon path.
The last attempt I made with a pug group; we did pretty good until the clockwork and then we wiped repeatedly(granted because some party members insisted on dragging strikers to clockwork instead of clockwork to strikers) but after 2+ hours and 12+ wipes at clockwork, i had to leave out of frustration and exhaustion. I tried to be nice about it as i left and told them good luck with the run, but i had reached my limit. I fear that I may never finish this path.

It’s actually better to pull the strikers. If people try to pull the boss the. They’ll likely cause it to use its ranged attack and people will die. You just need one person to hit a striker once and then stack on the boss. The striker will then come within range of the boss.

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s actually better to pull the strikers. If people try to pull the boss the. They’ll likely cause it to use its ranged attack and people will die. You just need one person to hit a striker once and then stack on the boss. The striker will then come within range of the boss.

Yes and No, It’s only better sometimes.
The holograms got a 2000 range of action, that means that if they do 1 step more than that, they reset no matter what and run back to their original position, making you lose your only chance to stop the buff. If the boss is in a corner and the hologram is in the opposite one, you can’t move the hologram that far away, you need to actually move the boss there.

Well we normally don’t fight him in a corner. With pug groups, it’s just easier to pull them as it only requires one person to know what they’re doing while the others mash the #1 key. When trying to pull him to a striker, you run the risk of him throwing out those gears that will quickly down someone or he does an attack that causes him to stop moving and wastes time. I think you only have about 15 seconds to explode a striker on him once you see the stacks start increasing.

Ayrilana.1396:

Well we normally don’t fight him in a corner. With pug groups, it’s just easier to pull them as it only requires one person to know what they’re doing while the others mash the #1 key. When trying to pull him to a striker, you run the risk of him throwing out those gears that will quickly down someone or he does an attack that causes him to stop moving and wastes time. I think you only have about 15 seconds to explode a striker on him once you see the stacks start increasing.

Smashing boss while buffed is useless, since he’s inmune to all damage, he also cleans all conditions when he gets buffed. And you have 30 seconds, not 15, the buff tiers up from 1 to 30, one per second. Finally, the cogs that he throws are always throw with a “growl” sound and to where any ranged target is. So… you always know when and where will they drop, and you can easily move 2 meters and never get hit.

Other problems of smashing skills without knowing boss skills can be:
-Not knowing that he’ll create a big frontal 180º AoE 1200 range attack when he puts an arm up for 3 seconds. This one also builds up 3 tiers of Torment on you, so… if you are getting torment is like a timer to dodge: 1…2…3.. dodge! and the AoE is no problem at all, but you need condition clean for it or say bye to 5k health over time.
-He can melee grab someone and throw it into the electricity in the center of the room, depends on the position, since the grab will always throw you right to the opposite side side of the monster from where you are.

More random info: You can see when he’ll get buffed 5 seconds ahead of it, since a red line (area) will appear at 1000 range around the boss, that’s part of the boss animation with 2 arms up that tells you: hey, stop dps, i’m getting buffed and now i’m inmune to damage. This one inmobilize everyone if it’s not dodged and it has 360º to hit all around.

And you’re assuming a higher skill level than what you’ll find in most pugs that do that path. If they all had that skill level then they would not be having issues. Just look at what has been stated in this thread. This is why I suggested having one person lure the striker as opposed to luring the boss.

Ayrilana.1396:

And you’re assuming a higher skill level than what you’ll find in most pugs that do that path. If they all had that skill level then they would not be having issues. Just look at what has been stated in this thread. This is why I suggested having one person lure the striker as opposed to luring the boss.

It’s exactly the point on doing the ooze room, it’s a test about teamwork. Don’t do the puzzle all by yourself, never, let the pug players agreed on an strategy and do it. That way you’ll create a bound on communication, that’s the point on TA Aether. If you try to just do it yourself and never tell them how the fights work (for example, clockheart), they will never be able to suceed if there isn’t an experienced player in the group to lead them.

See the difference between your strategies and mines? You lead players to a succesfull run that can be done as long as someone knows how to counter-attack some specific mechanics to avoid the wipe. It requires an experienced player and 4 randoms following. Instead, I build an army of 4 players that knows exactly where to go, why to do any skill or how to succeed in different ways, since they eat up each piece of information about enemy skills. The next time they go there, they can lead it with no problems at all.

After you leave, your groups might not be able to complete the dungeon if there isn’t someone leading them efficiently. Because they don’t know what happens in the unexpected cases (as example, if you don’t tell them, they wouldn’t know that whirlwind always chases the player most far away in the Foreman Spur, and if they 5 try to melee and nobody noticed that you were at range on purpose just to “capture” all whirlwinds and unaffect the group, then they would wipe). My groups would learn how to lead it, each 4 of them, and how to deal with all enemy skills.

Sorry, man, it wasn’t my intention to take you down, but there’s way too many problems about giving players a tour instead of teaching them everything involved in the fight. A partial strategy like yours (as much as it works) it can be useless once something unexpected happens. This is just a personal advice that i’ve been using in MMOs for the last 5 years: Always prepare for the unexpected, specially in pugs.

P.S. Every pug player can become a pro as long as you give him a chance or two and explain them what is wrong. Assuming that they’re not skilled it’s the best way to destroy all teamwork required. Being skilled is not something that you born with it, it’s something that you learn and improve over time, so… help them to improve.

Elrey.5472:

Ayrilana.1396:

And you’re assuming a higher skill level than what you’ll find in most pugs that do that path. If they all had that skill level then they would not be having issues. Just look at what has been stated in this thread. This is why I suggested having one person lure the striker as opposed to luring the boss.

It’s exactly the point on doing the ooze room, it’s a test about teamwork. Don’t do the puzzle all by yourself, never, let the pug players agreed on an strategy and do it. That way you’ll create a bound on communication, that’s the point on TA Aether. If you try to just do it yourself and never tell them how the fights work (for example, clockheart), they will never be able to suceed if there isn’t an experienced player in the group to lead them.

See the difference between your strategies and mines? You lead players to a succesfull run that can be done as long as someone knows how to counter-attack some specific mechanics to avoid the wipe. It requires an experienced player and 4 randoms following. Instead, I build an army of 4 players that knows exactly where to go, why to do any skill or how to succeed in different ways, since they eat up each piece of information about enemy skills. The next time they go there, they can lead it with no problems at all.

After you leave, your groups might not be able to complete the dungeon if there isn’t someone leading them efficiently. Because they don’t know what happens in the unexpected cases (as example, if you don’t tell them, they wouldn’t know that whirlwind always chases the player most far away in the Foreman Spur, and if they 5 try to melee and nobody noticed that you were at range on purpose just to “capture” all whirlwinds and unaffect the group, then they would wipe). My groups would learn how to lead it, each 4 of them, and how to deal with all enemy skills.

Sorry, man, it wasn’t my intention to take you down, but there’s way too many problems about giving players a tour instead of teaching them everything involved in the fight. A partial strategy like yours (as much as it works) it can be useless once something unexpected happens. This is just a personal advice that i’ve been using in MMOs for the last 5 years: Always prepare for the unexpected, specially in pugs.

P.S. Every pug player can become a pro as long as you give him a chance or two and explain them what is wrong. Assuming that they’re not skilled it’s the best way to destroy all teamwork required. Being skilled is not something that you born with it, it’s something that you learn and improve over time, so… help them to improve.

Strawman argument. I was referring to just the last boss where pulling the strikers was easier and more pug friendly. You’re also making the assumption that it wouldn’t be announced that one person would pull the strikers.

Ayrilana.1396:

Strawman argument. I was referring to just the last boss where pulling the strikers was easier and more pug friendly. You’re also making the assumption that it wouldn’t be announced that one person would pull the strikers.

I was actually having in mind that you announce who would pull strikers, but what happens if something goes wrong? I’ll give you an unexpected scenario.

-Player 1 needs to pull striker. He runs away from boss to do it, then boss inmobilize him at 20 meters with his immobilize skill to buff himself, then a cog drops on the player. He is not fast enough to remove conditions, use stability or dodge the cog, so he dies.
-Player 2 tries to do his job, but now you are slow in the timer and boss gets to tier 30, wich makes the big attack and electrifies a corner of the room, the kittens attack will probably kill 4 of them except you because you know what will happen if he gets to tier 30 and would use endure pain or dodge some of the hits to survive.

Result: Probably a wipe due to unexpected issue. Just because someone didn’t know the boss could immobilize and didn’t equipped a condition removal skill.

P.S. What does it means strawman? i’m honestly lost there, since english is not my native languaje.

Elrey.5472:

Ayrilana.1396:

Strawman argument. I was referring to just the last boss where pulling the strikers was easier and more pug friendly. You’re also making the assumption that it wouldn’t be announced that one person would pull the strikers.

I was actually having in mind that you announce who would pull strikers, but what happens if something goes wrong? I’ll give you an unexpected scenario.

-Player 1 needs to pull striker. He runs away from boss to do it, then boss inmobilize him at 20 meters with his immobilize skill to buff himself, then a cog drops on the player. He is not fast enough to remove conditions, use stability or dodge the cog, so he dies.
-Player 2 tries to do his job, but now you are slow in the timer and boss gets to tier 30, wich makes the big attack and electrifies a corner of the room, the kittens attack will probably kill 4 of them except you because you know what will happen if he gets to tier 30 and would use endure pain or dodge some of the hits to survive.

Result: Probably a wipe due to unexpected issue. Just because someone didn’t know the boss could immobilize and didn’t equipped a condition removal skill.

P.S. What does it means strawman? i’m honestly lost there, since english is not my native languaje.

Well not having condition removal is poor planning but I have never been immobilized when I pull the striker. I’m pretty sure the range of that attack doesn’t go out far enough for the boss to throw a gear at you.

What if everyone pulls decides to pull the boss. The boss then grabs a player and throw them behind it landing in an electrical field. The boss then immobilizes the other players and casts the gears on them. How about if the players are too far away from the boss when pulling him and then gear gears thrown at them?

There are risks with every strategy. I just found pulling the strikers to be easier as too much coordination is required for everyone to pull him at the same time. If one person isn’t paying attention, the group has the potential of wiping. I also believe the boss moves a little slow compared to strikers so you don’t have much room for error. I usually had up to 3 attempts with the strikers before the boss did its large attack.

A strawman argument is where an argument is exaggerated to make it easier to dispute. This is how I took it when you took my argument that it’s easier to pull the striker as you only rely on one person and then applied it to the entire path. I was just talking about the boss, not the entire path. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t intentional.

I do both; one person pulls the striker towards the boss, the others slowly move the boss towards the striker. The problem with the Clockheart is that he frequently gets hung up on attacking one player or throwing gears if too many players get too far away from him, so to avoid him spawning more gears than necessary, the Clockheart doesn’t move very much. It’s fairly easy to pull the striker towards the boss if only one person aggroed him; once you’re close enough, use Push/Pull skills to get him next to the boss and kill him.

After having done the run a few times with Elrey I have to ay his way works well. There is no need to design one person for the Strikers if all know what they are meant to do. This means if the Striker is closer to any of those in the team and the boss enters buff phase they will try to lure it to the boss.

What i have seen that works is not kiting the boss to the Striker or kiting the Striker to the boss but both. Those who have boss agro are moving towards the Striker, those who are nearest to the Striker are moving towards the boss (pretty fragile things, Strikers, I remember trying to knock them back to make them move and it would kill them).

In the end we need to narrow it down. If someone in the party is being a spaz, either because they don’t understand English or don’t have the coordination, then leave them dead so they will not interfere because it’s one of those cases where one person can wipe the team instead of just dying when they mess up.

Run it with Elrey today, we had 3 random pugs – there was a lot of stuff to explain, and we got wiped when some ppl stopped listening, but we were able to finish and I got almost all achievements there. Thanks alot for the run!

I’ve read Elrey’s guide and I did a couple runs with pugs (horrible, all of them, we never got past oozes) and with guildies (no rage quitters, but after gazillion wipes at the last boss we just gave up – all but 1 person in the party had to work the next day), but I still needed some directions even though I had a general idea about the place.

I’d like to do it more often, I think it’ll be much easier after several consecutive runs, I wish more ppl would do it on regular basis.