Guild Wars 2

Ratty.5176:

Nikaido.3457:

Kagato.5390:

Urg so much stupidity in this thread in support for an obvious flaw/glitched boss.

I’m suuuuuure it’s a glitch that the spiders are now aggroing and not letting you afk autoattack a boss like before. I’m suuuuure it was intended by anet for all of you to jump on the leaf and afk auto too.

Get real. What’s happening is that now you have to complete the fight the intended way, something pugs have never done because this boss was one of the most exploited, afkrange boss of the game until now. The groups “strategies” in pugs until now were all about either jumping on something on the map that allowed you to afkauto or to max range it and only kill the first pack while completely ignoring everything else in the room.

I totally agree, the real question now is not whether it should be returned to the way it was. It should be “Now you have to do it the intended way is it now a touch too harsh?” Ie do the spiders a) have too much health b) do too much damage.

I know it’s doable, and I do like the challenge it gives. But I do a lot of dungeons. Not everyone attempting it is as experienced.

I would like to see a third option (beetwen turn it back or leave the boss the way it is):
As the boss is atm, he’s perfect: he has a nice life point/difficulty ratio.
The problems are the spiders: if you can’t kill the tree on the first go, the team is pretty much buttkitten, because the room will climb on your face 99/100 times.
So… what about reducing the life points of the spiders (only in the boss zone), let’s say 30/40 %? This way, even if you wipe as a team, or you have to go ranged from the start (for instance when you have 3 rangers in the team) you have a solid hope to work your way to the tree, but at the same time, you still need teamwork to pull it right.
Y/N?

Nikaido.3457:

Kagato.5390:

Urg so much stupidity in this thread in support for an obvious flaw/glitched boss.

I’m suuuuuure it’s a glitch that the spiders are now aggroing and not letting you afk autoattack a boss like before. I’m suuuuure it was intended by anet for all of you to jump on the leaf and afk auto too.

Get real. What’s happening is that now you have to complete the fight the intended way, something pugs have never done because this boss was one of the most exploited, afkrange boss of the game until now. The groups “strategies” in pugs until now were all about either jumping on something on the map that allowed you to afkauto or to max range it and only kill the first pack while completely ignoring everything else in the room.

They only changed the aggro mechanism to reflect the way boss adds work in other dungeons. Can you ignore the adds from AC P1 boss, or kholer ? Can you ignore the grubs in the grawl shaman fractal ? the fact that you could do this fight while ignoring everything else in the room was the glitch. Not the current situation.

Humm? I don’t think you have never done this boss using the range method before.

Firstly, standing on a vine and ranging the the boss only work for TA Up path, only for certain class that have 1200 range and ArenaNet had fix it such that the mortars spawn closer now, you can no longer ignore them. Standing on the vine for TA F/U is a death sentence as there is no room for you to dodge and kite up there while ranging.

You are also wrong about only needing to kill the first pack. The boss keep summoning waves of spiders at various percentage of his health. Only at ~30% health will he stop summoning the spiders and the fight become relatively safe. (Only need to dodge when the boss slam his left fist and shakes)

This path have always been the hardest of all TA paths, one that I will only do with a pug if the group is competent in up and f/f path. If ArenaNet buff the difficulty of say Up path final boss, no one will complain much as that fight is just too easy. But to make an already hard boss fight harder.. I simply cannot comprehend the logic behind it and must assume its an unintended change.

Cymric.7368:

Humm? I don’t think you have never done this boss using the range method before.

Firstly, standing on a vine and ranging the the boss only work for TA Up path, only for certain class that have 1200 range and ArenaNet had fix it such that the mortars spawn closer now, you can no longer ignore them. Standing on the vine for TA F/U is a death sentence as there is no room for you to dodge and kite up there while ranging.

It worked, at least from Jan to March since I did it in pugs during this timeframe. There is a particular spot where the spiders couldn’t really hit you and you could go afk range. I can’t go back in time to fraps that (and this would get me another infarction) but it was perfectly possible to afk range the boss. A couple people could go down from some of the hits that did make it through but the group could just keep pressing F while afk ranging and the boss went down.

And.. what class does not have 1200 range ? Guardian scepter, warrior rifle, ranger longbow, staff ele, necro, greatsword mesmer they’re all 1200 range.
Oh, thieves aren’t 1200. I guess it might be a pain if you have a group filled with thieves.

You are also wrong about only needing to kill the first pack. The boss keep summoning waves of spiders at various percentage of his health. Only at ~30% health will he stop summoning the spiders and the fight become relatively safe. (Only need to dodge when the boss slam his left fist and shakes)

It was possible to avoid aggroing the groups that were behind/far away and only aggro the groups in front of the tree. That’s what I meant, and it was clearly not intended for these group to just stand afk while you hit the tree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFSlvYcONg4
Can see how many spiders close to 14min mark are just afk chilling while the party is max ranging the tree.

I’m sure you are going to say that it was intended for these mob to just chill out. Right.

Just like it was intended for Kholer’s adds to be separated from the boss and leash out.. oh wait, they made it so that you can’t do that anymore.
Just learned today that they did the same thing to the boss right before the destroyer in SE path 3. Can’t get rid of his dredges.

Anet keeps doing the same thing to every single dungeon (prevent you from bypassing the boss mechanics and their adds) but people here seem to think somehow that it’s a glitch when it happens to TA F/U.
It’s not a glitch, they don’t want to let you to abuse the easily exploited game mechanics.

Nikaido.3457:

And.. what class does not have 1200 range ? Guardian scepter, warrior rifle, ranger longbow, staff ele, necro, greatsword mesmer they’re all 1200 range.
Oh, thieves aren’t 1200. I guess it might be a pain if you have a group filled with thieves.

Bows get range from the elevation. I know because my LBow can out range my rifle without the (broken) lbow range trait.

Still bugged, needs fix. ty

Hagger.6854:

Still bugged, needs fix. ty

Omg npcs with aggro? So bugged.

Nikaido.3457:

Kagato.5390:

Urg so much stupidity in this thread in support for an obvious flaw/glitched boss.

I’m suuuuuure it’s a glitch that the spiders are now aggroing and not letting you afk autoattack a boss like before. I’m suuuuure it was intended by anet for all of you to jump on the leaf and afk auto too.

Get real. What’s happening is that now you have to complete the fight the intended way, something pugs have never done because this boss was one of the most exploited, afkrange boss of the game until now. The groups “strategies” in pugs until now were all about either jumping on something on the map that allowed you to afkauto or to max range it and only kill the first pack while completely ignoring everything else in the room.

They only changed the aggro mechanism to reflect the way boss adds work in other dungeons. Can you ignore the adds from AC P1 boss, or kholer ? Can you ignore the grubs in the grawl shaman fractal ? the fact that you could do this fight while ignoring everything else in the room was the glitch. Not the current situation.

Fixing exploits is wonderful. So why haven’t they fixed the 50 other ones exploited in the other dungeons yet?

This fight was clearly intended to be either solo’d by an engi or mesmer or by a group with mass amounts of reflect/condition cures. That’s what Anet is clearly telling us.

Which is fine. PUGs don’t seem to mind sitting on their butts while one person does all the work for 23 minutes anyways.

I really would like to see a of video done with this using reflections on classes that aren’t guard or mes. That’s a genuine and not a sarcastic request. Or, a video that shows this supposed kiting technique – because my only experience with the boss is 3 second after the spiders spawn your pretty much dead to the poison cloud, no matter where your standing or dodge rolling. If it’s possible but just difficult, that’s actually fine. Most pug groups I run are willing to listen and try tactics. I’m just not sure that the reflect uptime with ele/thief/engi is going to be enough(without 3 warriors dpsing like crazy) and the kiting I can’t even imagine.

rfdarko.4639:

I really would like to see a of video done with this using reflections on classes that aren’t guard or mes. That’s a genuine and not a sarcastic request. Or, a video that shows this supposed kiting technique – because my only experience with the boss is 3 second after the spiders spawn your pretty much dead to the poison cloud, no matter where your standing or dodge rolling. If it’s possible but just difficult, that’s actually fine. Most pug groups I run are willing to listen and try tactics. I’m just not sure that the reflect uptime with ele/thief/engi is going to be enough(without 3 warriors dpsing like crazy) and the kiting I can’t even imagine.

I think with engi/ele/theif ou should have enough uptime no?

Swirling winds
Traited magnetic Aura
Wall of relfection/smokescreen (engi)
Smokescreen
Dagger storm (if you can stack in it IDK)
Magnetic wave
Magnetic Shield (if you can stack in it)

That should be at least 70-80% uptime on reflects. Should be enough for a 1-2min fight no?

No. It’s not a 1 or 2 min fight with pugs, even with everyone in melee – with a thief, a ranger, and an engine it’s very unlikely you’ll have enough dps. I’m not convinced of it in theory. I’ll try it next time Pug it, but I’d like to see even an organized group try this with a thief/ele/ranger/war/necro team. Please, show me. I’m willing to admit I’m a horrible scrub if you do. Might even send you cookies

rfdarko.4639:

No. It’s not a 1 or 2 min fight with pugs, even with everyone in melee – with a thief, a ranger, and an engine it’s very unlikely you’ll have enough dps. I’m not convinced of it in theory. I’ll try it next time Pug it, but I’d like to see even an organized group try this with a thief/ele/ranger/war/necro team. Please, show me. I’m willing to admit I’m a horrible scrub if you do. Might even send you cookies

Just gear check your pugs, make sure they are running power as main stat before entering. You’ll be surprised by the amount of people running crap MF and think they can slip by unnoticed. As long as you can maintain good power damage and reflect up time it should be fine. PVT or zerkers will work. It may not be as quick as with full wars team + guard and mes but I think it would still work.

To be fair to all the people not raging or telling me to just l2p, I’ll give it a shot. Still dubious, but I’ll make sure to give it my best and use all the advice here, and see if it really can be done.

swiftpaw.6397:

rfdarko.4639:

No. It’s not a 1 or 2 min fight with pugs, even with everyone in melee – with a thief, a ranger, and an engine it’s very unlikely you’ll have enough dps. I’m not convinced of it in theory. I’ll try it next time Pug it, but I’d like to see even an organized group try this with a thief/ele/ranger/war/necro team. Please, show me. I’m willing to admit I’m a horrible scrub if you do. Might even send you cookies

Just gear check your pugs, make sure they are running power as main stat before entering. You’ll be surprised by the amount of people running crap MF and think they can slip by unnoticed. As long as you can maintain good power damage and reflect up time it should be fine. PVT or zerkers will work. It may not be as quick as with full wars team + guard and mes but I think it would still work.

Remember this boss can’t be critted :P

In addition to that impacting your stat choices, should probably ditch ur on crit effects.

Nikaido.3457:

Bright.9160:

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe how bad some of the playerbase of this game is. I mean, I complain about some things in the game, but at least I don’t complain about fights being too hard when I didn’t even kittening change my skills or traits to accommodate for it.

This is why I’m even contributing to this thread with my rants, and why we can’t have nice things : TA has already been nerfed to the ground and people here are asking for more nerf rather than more mechanics. TA used to be far more entertaining before they nerfed things like the knight/Leurent fight. Anet should stop listening to people who aren’t willing to learn how to play their class properly. If all the complaining came only from people who played in weird, bizarre group set up like 5 warriors or 5 rangers I could almost understand it (I still wouldn’t see why you wouldn’t strive for more balance in a party). But when even people who had TWO guardians and one mesmer complain this crosses the line. If you find this fight barely doable with two guard and one mes you should stop running explorable dungeons.

THIS.
Fwd-fwd was one of my favourite paths ever because of the final fight. It was kittening stimulating.

They need to make spiders reset on death. This crap is worse than wiping on cultists in fractals if that’s possible.

Ok, thank you anet for wipping my message due to your site not working as usual.

In the end, we did it with a warrior and elem last night. We were running in 2 different directions and buffing each other / healing / crippling / chilling every time we crossed.

We tried a bunch of tacticts with reflects, without, switching toons to see what felt best and all.

I’d agree with Japperwock, spiders need to reset on wipe, but I would also like anet to find a solution so we can see the animation of that boss in a more friendly way. Maybe a mini window over the map or something. Because when you are running, it is really a pain to keep the camera on the boss to check for the immobilization animation, which is really the only spell you gotta avoid. And still launch spell for crippling / chilling the spiders.

I can upload the video of how we did it if you want.

Chryzo.8906:

I can upload the video of how we did it if you want.

I’d love that

rfdarko.4639:

I really would like to see a of video done with this using reflections on classes that aren’t guard or mes. That’s a genuine and not a sarcastic request. Or, a video that shows this supposed kiting technique – because my only experience with the boss is 3 second after the spiders spawn your pretty much dead to the poison cloud, no matter where your standing or dodge rolling. If it’s possible but just difficult, that’s actually fine. Most pug groups I run are willing to listen and try tactics. I’m just not sure that the reflect uptime with ele/thief/engi is going to be enough(without 3 warriors dpsing like crazy) and the kiting I can’t even imagine.

I don’t have a video of my mesmer solo but I do have a video of an engineer soloing it:

All you need for mesmer is a mantra build. I run something like:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdRl4zioHVzqGaNJipC92pHQnztckKoalUgbXIA-jwxAYLioRKSEJLAJviox2GKiGruGT5SEVLEgo1A-e

Just have to keep an eye on your endurance. Every dodge creates a clone which wastes one round of spider poison. You throw two clones at the tree with GS and nullfield out of the root. You can also feedback the pack of mobs following you if you get in a sticky situation. Really easy to do…only caveat is that you need to round up the spiders initially which can be a little annoying.

After spending 2 hours on this with my guild and guild leader, i can say it may be possible the first run through, but if you wipe it is virtually impossible. We tried with 2 guards, a mes, a war, and a necro, and we could not get past 50%. Maybe we are just bad, but the difficulty of this post wipe boss was harder than anything in arah path 4 for us. Just like chanters, they need to adjust the post wipe reset, at least.

Actually we were three but that is kinda how we did it ^^. Though I agree, we would have had a less hard time if the wall fight resetted on wipe and cleaned all the spiders since on the first try we got the boss to like 20% before wiping

Chryzo.8906:

Actually we were three but that is kinda how we did it ^^. Though I agree, we would have had a less hard time if the wall fight resetted on wipe and cleaned all the spiders since on the first try we got the boss to like 20% before wiping

Thanks so much for posting that! The fact that you did it post wipe, and with a kiting method, is awesome. It’s going to be hard to convince my guildies to give it another go, but this will help a lot. I still think the post wipe is too punishing, but its heartening to see it accomplished!

where is my cookie ^^ ?

No Cookie for you!

the amount of effort and precision to do this path
would be quicker to go F/F and U/U instead to farm tokens
since both offer the same reward as this path

just look how many lfg there is for TA for F/U in gw2lfg then we know of unpopular this path is

Maybe anet dungeon beta testers need another check with other paths compared to this path?

swiftpaw.6397:

Mander.6924:

swiftpaw.6397:

Uhm, they make another character?

So not having the time to level 5 different characters (guardian, mesmer, necro, elementalist, thief) is a reason good enough to kick someone?
XD

Well technically you can just pick one and lvl it. An ele or a war or a guard or whatever. Not hard with crafting, not to mention all the free booster hand outs. Sitting on the same poor class and expecting other people to deal with it because you cant be bothered to make another one isn’t the answer. The real issue, and the one you really should be getting mad at is Arena Net for making the classes the way they are. It really isn’t fair that some classes provide more for a group than others. But that’s what happens when they are too lazy to split pve and pvp skills and sit in denial. Kicking someone for thier class I find isn’t a really valid reason, but at the same time, I have seen enough shortbow auto attack bear pet rangers to understand why.

Well, of course, people are blaming Anet. Did you think people were blaming you?

You actually bring up a great point here about class balance that most people complaining about this path are missing. Anet doesn’t have good balance because they are stubbornly trying to balance pve and pvp at the same time, yet at the same time, they create/edit dungeon content to make it so you really pretty much need the “right” classes. I thought I remember them saying in the past that they wouldn’t create content that wouldn’t really be doable by all classes, and yes I am too lazy to look that up I just vaguely remember that.

Also, LOL on the shortbow autoattack bear pet rangers. I agree, I am not one to kick because of class or level, but sometimes……

Actually the path end boss is still beatable with the ancient range/dodge/spider-kill tactic.
Contrary to my expectation we just did it this way, though it took a kitten long time and was painfully hard.

Yet I do agree with the many complaints about this encounter’s balance, since we only could do it because our class composition/character’s setup were in favour of this strategy and we had 5 very coordinated player on TS. This fight in its current state simply is no fun for the majority of players, so fix it to be fun for most players again.

FYI, if you like to try and replicate this:
1 Warrior, heavy onn support
1 Guardian, full bunker/support/healgear
3 BÄMBÄMBÄM Elementalists

Elementalists were range-damaging Boss whenever feasible, otherwise help out bombing spider spawnlings sneaking up to the group
Warrior and Guardian were blocking/reflecting crushing spiders in melee whole time and popping group support/heals/walls/bubbles/signs you know it.

Even though I really enjoyed this fight with this tactic in this select group, i think the boss i no fun in general.. totally overtuned.
The other known working strategy with the Melee-Refelct-Chain-Balling is rather a turnoff of another example that mechanic skipping is more fun than playing the actual over-tuned boss-fight mechanic.
Needs to be retuned.

A few days ago we did this path and we came to the boss, our 3 mesmers and 1 guardian were all dead on the floor while a Warrior soloed the tree by running around it with a rifle. It took half an hour, but he got it, and barely took any damage.

I thought I will repost my answer about how to do this dungeon now. Earlier this boss was really easy, but June ? patch made it one of toughest fights if you don’t know the right tactics. I have done it last Sunday using tactics from that video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5drmLuDu9Gs . Just forward to 11:30 and check their tactics. This is by far the safest and most efficient way to complete it right now. It should take you about 40 seconds to kill the boss with the best party setup. You need two guardians with skills: spirit shield of the avenger+sanctuary+wall of reflection+tome of wrath and trait: spirit weapon last 50% longer. While first guardian uses shields, 2nd uses tome of wrath and 4 skill to give haste and staff skill to give might. We used 3 berserk warriors, but I think you can still use any 3 pure berserk classes, but 2 guardians+3 warriors is probably best way to beat it. Just make sure you use food buffs, banners, traits to give you power. Focus on power because tree is invulnerable to critical hits, so use soldier or valkyrie or berserker armor. Guardians will provide enough defence from projectiles you can easily survive with pure berserk. Also communicate who is using their shield first and once first guardian will run out from defence shields make sure 2nd guardian will use their ones.
It might be possible to do it with one guardian and 4 berserker(power) classes using the same tactics but it leaves no room for error. Hope it helps, and lets hope Anet fix it, because for sure it is bugged.

Kagato.5390:

Get real. What’s happening is that now you have to complete the fight the intended way

If the numbers of spiders that spawn now was intended it should have taken far less than 10 months for them to fix the boss to make it spawn the correct amount. The tree never used to chuck out 6 silvers and countless, countless small spiders every 30 seconds of combat

This boss seems to be far harder than anything in Arah right now, unless you’re able to solo it, not that it matters any more. Everyone who matters has their Dungeon Master title, right?

Chryzo.8906:

where is my cookie ^^ ?

Just wanted to say thank you to you and everyone who provided feedback – I did finally get this path done on my mesmer, with another mesmer, a guardian and 2 necros. From the way the rest of the run went, it seemed to be a pretty high dps group, and we got through it by the skin of our teeth with chain reflects and melee.

In my quest for the DM title over the course of a week or so I’ve had the opportunity to compare this dungeon with most of the other explorable runs, and I can now say that I found this boss to be the most challenging thing I encountered, including all the arah paths. Whether you interpret that to mean all the other paths are too easy, or this one is too hard, seems a matter of opinion, but I will stand by the claim that it is disproportionately difficult, especially when compared to the two other TA paths. At the very least, the boss post reset is difficult in the same way the chanters get difficult in cliffside if you kill both on the first side – it’s not impossible, but it just seems unusually hard in the context of the rest of the run.

Sarie.1630:

Kagato.5390:

Get real. What’s happening is that now you have to complete the fight the intended way

If the numbers of spiders that spawn now was intended it should have taken far less than 10 months for them to fix the boss to make it spawn the correct amount. The tree never used to chuck out 6 silvers and countless, countless small spiders every 30 seconds of combat

This boss seems to be far harder than anything in Arah right now, unless you’re able to solo it, not that it matters any more. Everyone who matters has their Dungeon Master title, right?

You’re quoting the wrong person. >_>

Kagato.5390:

Urg so much stupidity in this thread in support for an obvious flaw/glitched boss.

I can solo this on my mesmer. Takes 23 minutes, but I can still solo it. Does that mean it’s a fair boss? Hell no.

why is it unfair? because you can’t just run in with any pug, and auto attack it to death in melee range?