Guild Wars 2

tropenfrucht.8963:

I have to agree to the OP. Did path 1 yesterday for the first time since patch. Group (PUG) consisted of 2 80s and the rest 40 (me) – 56. Was a very smooth run.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t add any weight to the argument that a team of 35’s wouldn’t be able to do it as a team of 35’s

Having 2 80’s can help greatly. Especially if they’re one of the most desired classes (guardian, warr, mes)

I remember 2-3 months after game relesead how there were 90% posts about Lupicus being impossible, to hard, no fun, dungeons only for elitist, plz nerf lupicus he’s impossible to kill and 1 shot me! And similar to that – and than some Warrior (wich ID/Name I didn’t memorize sorry) put a video how he solo it

Well nothing change, just it’s AC now, not Lupi… wonder what it will be next

I did all explo ater release on recommended lvl. It was after relese so no one had a 80lvl exotic character or friends just our mains. We did AC explo on 35-40 compared to CM, AC was like a walk in the park. Many don’t remember untargettable burrows, or breeders wiping the party under 5 seconds 15 times in a row becouse no one saw the breeding animation… now the breeders are completly gone from burrows. And the last boss one hitting EVERYONE 360 degrees becouse the crone was bugged and 1 hitted players even on his tail or his back feet unless You did 2 dodges one after another or had some invournability (or just go way way range) You where dead.

It’s always eayier to find and exuse, than to find a solution.

I apologize for not having a video but we ran this the other day with our alts.

Lvl 66 was the highest in group, we wiped once on the trash before Ghost Eater but other than that it was a death free run. (Note: we skipped P3 and we are all very experienced dungeon runners)

nethykins.7986:

tropenfrucht.8963:

I have to agree to the OP. Did path 1 yesterday for the first time since patch. Group (PUG) consisted of 2 80s and the rest 40 (me) – 56. Was a very smooth run.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t add any weight to the argument that a team of 35’s wouldn’t be able to do it as a team of 35’s

Having 2 80’s can help greatly. Especially if they’re one of the most desired classes (guardian, warr, mes)

If I had found more 35’s I would have tried. Got kicked out of several groups because of my level of 40 as everyone thinks it’s too hard below lvl 80.
Btw. no mes, warr or guard in the team. 80’s were ranger and engi.

And I’m really not a good player, still learning how to play the necro. I’m doing AC for leveling and the armor with rampager stat. But with everyone thinking AC is that hard I hardly find groups.

Quam.7218:

It’s always eayier to find and exuse, than to find a solution.

sigh

If a scaled down 80 can do it with less trouble than a 35 – in a dungeon that should be catered for 35 (If they weren’t catered for 35’s then there’d be no point for level scaling to 35 at all), then what solution can a player make besides levelling to 80 and adding to cycle of end level players doing entry level dungeons.

nethykins.7986:

Quam.7218:

It’s always eayier to find and exuse, than to find a solution.

sigh

If a scaled down 80 can do it with less trouble than a 35 – in a dungeon that should be catered for 35 (If they weren’t catered for 35’s then there’d be no point for level scaling to 35 at all), then what solution can a player make besides levelling to 80 and adding to cycle of end level players doing entry level dungeons.

We’re making a video this weekend showing that it can be done with 35s

In the time you spent trying to gather 35s to do this run, I leveled my Guardian from 30 to 80 from AC, CM, and CoF =|.

I did ac p1 with a lvl 30. Any mob did hit me for 80% of my hp some 1 hit.
but one attack from me hitted for 2% of their hp. i felt like i just leeched trough the whole thing. And not surprisingly i died a lot. i was doing this with my guild. until you provide evidence on this i simply don’t believe you. its easy to see why everyone favor lvl 80s for this dungeon.
If you are going AC use a lvl 80 character or you’re going to be the weak link that don’t contribute at all.

This argument is crazy.

AC explorable is not meant for someone who has no idea what they’re doing. It is not free tokens for any level 35 player. It is meant to be hard content. The first dungeon is AC story, which is pretty much easy mode.

I don’t understand why people feel the need to allow every single person to complete everything. If someone can’t beat something, they come to the forums and call for a nerf. I can’t imagine gw2 players could complete any dungeon in gw1 that had actual difficulty.

Please, if you can’t do something, take responsibility and admit that it’s you and not the game.

tom.7468:

I did ac p1 with a lvl 30. Any mob did hit me for 80% of my hp some 1 hit.
but one attack from me hitted for 2% of their hp. i felt like i just leeched trough the whole thing. And not surprisingly i died a lot. i was doing this with my guild. until you provide evidence on this i simply don’t believe you. its easy to see why everyone favor lvl 80s for this dungeon.
If you are going AC use a lvl 80 character or you’re going to be the weak link that don’t contribute at all.

Using a level 30 character is going to severely kitten you. A level difference of 5 between you and enemy mobs is going to ensure that almost every attack you make is a Glancing Blow, which does 50% damage in addition to the reduced damage you’d do to them with a level 30’s attack rating against a level 35’s armor. Use a level 35 character that’s properly geared, then come back and talk.

Maestro.5376:

tom.7468:

I did ac p1 with a lvl 30. Any mob did hit me for 80% of my hp some 1 hit.
but one attack from me hitted for 2% of their hp. i felt like i just leeched trough the whole thing. And not surprisingly i died a lot. i was doing this with my guild. until you provide evidence on this i simply don’t believe you. its easy to see why everyone favor lvl 80s for this dungeon.
If you are going AC use a lvl 80 character or you’re going to be the weak link that don’t contribute at all.

Using a level 30 character is going to severely kitten you. A level difference of 5 between you and enemy mobs is going to ensure that almost every attack you make is a Glancing Blow, which does 50% damage in addition to the reduced damage you’d do to them with a level 30’s attack rating against a level 35’s armor. Use a level 35 character that’s properly geared, then come back and talk.

(Just based on trait’s alone) You agree 5 levels difference will screw you, but you disagree that a 45 level difference doesn’t?

…….Wait, what?

Edit: Yeah, I know he talked about 2% attacks, aka – glancing blows, but since he’s not 7 levels higher than the mobs, so not all attacks will be glancing. And we have to remember that these mobs are highly tuned, while an attack from a mob 5 levels higher than you may not kill you in ~1-2 hits in general PvE, dungeon mobs will wreck havoc on even same-levelled opponents.

nethykins.7986:

(Just based on trait’s alone) You agree 5 levels difference will screw you, but you disagree that a 45 level difference doesn’t?

…….Wait, what?

he clearly explained why fighting higher lvl monsters then you is bad.
he never mentioned traits. it got almost nothing to do with them. except hp/armor, but who put points in them anyway?

i’d love to see… or maybe even make a video, where 2-3 35lvl toons complete ac. just to troll the nonbelievers

Saulius.8430:

nethykins.7986:

(Just based on trait’s alone) You agree 5 levels difference will screw you, but you disagree that a 45 level difference doesn’t?

…….Wait, what?

he clearly explained why fighting higher lvl monsters then you is bad.
he never mentioned traits. it got almost nothing to do with them. except hp/armor, but who put points in them anyway?

i’d love to see… or maybe even make a video, where 2-3 35lvl toons complete ac. just to troll the nonbelievers

I guess what I meant to say is “I can understand pointing out how difficult it is for a person at 30 compared to a 35, but can’t understand why you can’t relate any difficulty for someone at 35 being compared to an 80”…

Taking into consideration that post and the opening post.

Saulius.8430:

nethykins.7986:

(Just based on trait’s alone) You agree 5 levels difference will screw you, but you disagree that a 45 level difference doesn’t?

…….Wait, what?

he clearly explained why fighting higher lvl monsters then you is bad.
he never mentioned traits. it got almost nothing to do with them. except hp/armor, but who put points in them anyway?

i’d love to see… or maybe even make a video, where 2-3 35lvl toons complete ac. just to troll the nonbelievers

Do it yourself since it is so doable, funny how everyone always wants someone else to do it. Even if it is possible why would anyone go through the aggravation. I did not mind running it before but I doubt I will ever venture in there again.

Hillaan.6904:

Do it yourself since it is so doable, funny how everyone always wants someone else to do it. Even if it is possible why would anyone go through the aggravation. I did not mind running it before but I doubt I will ever venture in there again.

well i got to admit this. i’m too lazy to make 35lvl toon

The new ac is a big joke i am the only one person lived on spider Queen and solo it i left the party after that

Maestro.5376:

tom.7468:

I did ac p1 with a lvl 30. Any mob did hit me for 80% of my hp some 1 hit.
but one attack from me hitted for 2% of their hp. i felt like i just leeched trough the whole thing. And not surprisingly i died a lot. i was doing this with my guild. until you provide evidence on this i simply don’t believe you. its easy to see why everyone favor lvl 80s for this dungeon.
If you are going AC use a lvl 80 character or you’re going to be the weak link that don’t contribute at all.

Using a level 30 character is going to severely kitten you. A level difference of 5 between you and enemy mobs is going to ensure that almost every attack you make is a Glancing Blow, which does 50% damage in addition to the reduced damage you’d do to them with a level 30’s attack rating against a level 35’s armor. Use a level 35 character that’s properly geared, then come back and talk.

I don’t think i go there with any character not level 80 again. i just wanted to try and see how well i did. And yea i guess this 5 levels make a big difference.

OP is right. ……………………………

This entire argument is pointless.
@ OP: there’s a REALLY simple way to prove your point:

Get a group of all 35-40s. Attempt first with all blue gear. If you can do it, CONGRATS post the freaking video.

If you can’t, go on to green. IF you can do it, eh kind of congrats. Post the freaking video.

If you can’t, then yeah, imagining a PUG group with any gear higher than green at lvl 35-40 when they’re not alts (whole point of this thread) cannot do AC exp if you experienced people can’t even do it.

Until then, the community has a right to question what you’ve said. Everything you’ve said might be true, but until I see video proof it’s all laughable to me.

Yes AC is ridiculously easy with 80s. Seriously with 2 80’s AC exp becomes a joke IF you have a bug free run.

So prove to us that it’s do-able with 35s. I’ll wait for the video like everyone else is. Prove to me you can do it with full blue or some greens with an all 35 team and I’ll believe you

@silk we’re pretty past that. He said he’s doing it this Sunday.

We’re still interested in the twitch/streaming link if you have it yet. Remember, no editing when you post on youtube =)

Even if he does succeed, is he going to represent the entire argument about playing dungeons in the recommended level range?

I encourage anyone in the lvl 35 range to try this out as well. Instead of waiting for the OP alone to provide evidence while bashing him throughout the thread, how about we make some anecdotal evidence of our own? Whatever what side you are on, this is an argument that cannot be won by one member and his/her party.

WindFall.1479:

Even if he does succeed, is he going to represent the entire argument about playing dungeons in the recommended level range?

This is something that everyone in the lvl 35 range can do. Instead of waiting for the OP alone to provide evidence while bashing him throughout the thread, how about we make some anecdotal evidence of our own? Whatever what side you are on, this is an argument that cannot be won by one member and his/her party.

Because anecdotal evidence can be made up or adjusted based on sub-conscious or conscious bias.

The video won’t really do much in my opinion on what AC dungeon should be or how hard it is, but it will at least back up his original claim ‘AC can be done by an experienced group of level 35 players’.

Although he didn’t specify what path, so I hope he is planning on doing all paths.

When it comes to me, it was never about whether it was doable or not with low levels. It was more about the quality of player you got.

Low level players are likely leveling their characters between dungeons (duh) and often do not use updated gear. This does not mean they have to use rares, although it helps. They should be using greens at least.

They are also missing all of the valuable stat points and traits that come from being higher level. In WvW, would you want a group of lv1 players or a group of lv80 players? The thing is that not a lot of us have the time nor wish to spend the time pulling someone through a dungeon.

Yes, level does not signify skill. A group of SKILLED players can complete the dungeon. I have no doubt about it. It will just be a struggle compared to if they were lv80. Being higher leveled gives you more flexibility for error and skill level. You have a better chance of pulling an unskilled lv80 through a dungeon vs an unskilled lv35.

People will blindly kick low levels because it’s difficult to determine whether they are skilled and can pull their own weight. You can go by achievement points but it’s easy to artificially inflate those numbers. Also, from my experience, most low levels are horrible and die often. This DOES NOT mean I am saying that all of them are.

Irregardless of level, you also have players that are too lazy to bother to search the wiki or check out the numerous guides on how to do dungeons. If its that much of an inconvenience for them to do that why should they be upset when players that did do that don’t want to be inconvenienced?

Ethics.4519:

WindFall.1479:

Even if he does succeed, is he going to represent the entire argument about playing dungeons in the recommended level range?

This is something that everyone in the lvl 35 range can do. Instead of waiting for the OP alone to provide evidence while bashing him throughout the thread, how about we make some anecdotal evidence of our own? Whatever what side you are on, this is an argument that cannot be won by one member and his/her party.

Because anecdotal evidence can be made up or adjusted based on sub-conscious or conscious bias.

The video won’t really do much in my opinion on what AC dungeon should be or how hard it is, but it will at least back up his original claim ‘AC can be done by an experienced group of level 35 players’.

Although he didn’t specify what path, so I hope he is planning on doing all paths.

I agree with you about what anecdotal evidence can be, but that’s why anecdotes should be played in numbers. I’m not going to expect the majority of people with video capture equipment to use it for this one thread. This is why I’m asking everyone to try it, including myself, and talk about the experiences afterwards. That kind of evidence is meant to be used not only with a grain of salt, but to also find patterns should any of them arise.

Those who disagree with OP should do the same to support their position. Right now, the number of personal attacks and armchair theories is going nowhere.

The problem is lying at reference level. If the current one was the original AC dungeon referenced to the beta’s dungeons, then no one would complain. Now Anet is changing the mechanics (hence the difficulty of adaptation) relative to the one before, they will have their earful.

They should hire those in academies: Never raise the current standard higher than the previous standard, so no child be left behind. Or lower the standard …

WindFall.1479:

Those who disagree with OP should do the same to support their position. Right now, the number of personal attacks and armchair theories is going nowhere.

It’s much easier to prove something is possible, than it isn’t possible. To prove it isn’t possible would require everybody in the world to try it with every different combination. To prove it is possible would require one group to do it.

Plus, it is his claim, it is his responsibility to prove that his claim is true, not our responsibility to prove it is false.

I agree that the attacks got a little out of hand, me included, so I apologize OP. With that being said, he does have a little elitist tone and can be misconstrued as “you guys suck, I can do it, why can’t you?” without actually doing it…. yet (maybe)

I tried doing AC EM @ 35 when the game came out and it was like going through hell. I vowed to not do any dungeons until I hit 80.

I hit 80, AC become faceroll easy.

Ethics.4519:

Although he didn’t specify what path, so I hope he is planning on doing all paths.

Probably not viable. Just completing a single path may result in a level, two runs definitely would.

Ethics.4519:

WindFall.1479:

Even if he does succeed, is he going to represent the entire argument about playing dungeons in the recommended level range?

This is something that everyone in the lvl 35 range can do. Instead of waiting for the OP alone to provide evidence while bashing him throughout the thread, how about we make some anecdotal evidence of our own? Whatever what side you are on, this is an argument that cannot be won by one member and his/her party.

Because anecdotal evidence can be made up or adjusted based on sub-conscious or conscious bias.

The video won’t really do much in my opinion on what AC dungeon should be or how hard it is, but it will at least back up his original claim ‘AC can be done by an experienced group of level 35 players’.

Although he didn’t specify what path, so I hope he is planning on doing all paths.

We’re starting with P1, and if people want we can do P2 and P3 as well, but by then we’ll probably have gained a level or two. Hope you don’t mind 36 and 37 people. It’s basically the same anyways.

Doable? sure, I’ll buy that.

In the same time as a bunch of geared lvl 80’s? No.

Well we just did an alt run with my guildies, the highest one was 47 and I was 33 at the beginning of the run, apart from a few deaths on the spider on the first path, we breezed through the dungeon.

We usually run in full beserker gear with our mains so downscaled to 30, we loose most of our damage stats and it doesn’t make much difference with the alts.
Just dodge when you need to dodge and everything goes down eventually.
It was just longer, not terribly harder.

Funny thing is that we didn’t know about the fire thing or Grast’s bubble on the last bosses of paths 1 and 3 before coming with the alts, had to use them this time.

I believe that the dungeon is doable with 35’s. They would probably be alts, though. 35’s who’ve never done an explorable, on the other hand, are going to struggle, and most likely give up.

epic fail. epic fail.

to the OP, Yes I agree that experienced players that are below lvl 80 can go through this smoothly.

It took my static group 15-25 minutes longer per (With kholer and troll) run vs the average 80pug zergfest.

of things to note.

1. Gravelings won’t death tackle you now (Thank god, i hate slotting all break frees)
2. Path 2 end fight took the longest.
3. Low level groups who want a speedy run aren’t meant to take on kholer/troll they both add ALOT on the timer killing them individually.

To those who say its impossible, its not only the group’s skill level but YOURS, get better, learn the fight mechanics, gear appropriately.

You don’t walk into a Advanced Physics class and immediately pwn the exams with a pink ink pen to fill a scantron. You study, practice, and bring the appropriate writing items for the material to get a good rating .

Same goes for dungeons, no study, no practice. Dead weight, pulls team down, then fails because you’re the weakest link. If you have no time to learn it, watch youtube videos of the AC runs, its basically your cheatsheet.

Brangien.7462:

to the OP, Yes I agree that experienced players that are below lvl 80 can go through this smoothly.

It took my static group 15-25 minutes longer per (With kholer and troll) run vs the average 80pug zergfest.

of things to note.

1. Gravelings won’t death tackle you now (Thank god, i hate slotting all break frees)
2. Path 2 end fight took the longest.
3. Low level groups who want a speedy run aren’t meant to take on kholer/troll they both add ALOT on the timer killing them individually.

To those who say its impossible, its not only the group’s skill level but YOURS, get better, learn the fight mechanics, gear appropriately.

You don’t walk into a Advanced Physics class and immediately pwn the exams with a pink ink pen to fill a scantron. You study, practice, and bring the appropriate writing items for the material to get a good rating .

Same goes for dungeons, no study, no practice. Dead weight, pulls team down, then fails because you’re the weakest link. If you have no time to learn it, watch youtube videos of the AC runs, its basically your cheatsheet.

You’re missing the entire point, most of the people are not talking about experienced players. This is the ENTRY level dungeon, nothing in the game prior to this dungeon prepares you for the dungeon. You’re preaching about studying, practicing, etc but this is the entry dungeon…there is none of that before the dungeon. Unless of course you want new players to wipe 20 times per path trying to learn it and quit the game. This is not a raid where you need to study strats and watch videos, it is an entry level dungeon. AC needs to be tuned to be friendly towards new players and currently it is anything but.

If we go to your physics example, you don’t walk in the door and get your final exam on day 1. You get taught lessons by your professor, homework to re-enforce those lessons, projects for applying your knowledge, and quizzes to help gauge what you are lacking in. AC is currently a final exam on day 1. You don’t know anything, you were never taught any of this, and the only thing that awaits you is failure and a large bill.

Does no one remember first leveling up when no one knew AC? It was a TERRIBLE experience. You certainly couldn’t pug it and expect anything less than a giant repair bill. I know my one friend didn’t do any dungeons after that purely because it was traumatizing and the rewards weren’t worth risking the repair bill/waste of time. New players should be slowly introduced into these dungeon mechanics instead of pushed off a cliff.

Reminder!* I was talking about new level 35’s. Not an experienced player that has hit 80 done AC before and is now working on an alt.

ArenaNet needs to make a decision about dungeons. Either they are going to be very hard but rewarding(piece of good loot each run) or they are going to be easy but you need to run them a lot. Currently they are hard but also not rewarding, that is what drives people away from dungeons. I know it’s the reason I don’t do more dungeons. You don’t have much fun in dungeons, they take up a good chunk of time and you certainly don’t get rewarded well enough for them. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make people run a dungeon dozens of times to get a set of armor is masochistic.

Distaste.4801:

ArenaNet needs to make a decision about dungeons. Either they are going to be very hard but rewarding(piece of good loot each run) or they are going to be easy but you need to run them a lot. Currently they are hard but also not rewarding, that is what drives people away from dungeons. I know it’s the reason I don’t do more dungeons. You don’t have much fun in dungeons, they take up a good chunk of time and you certainly don’t get rewarded well enough for them. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make people run a dungeon dozens of times to get a set of armor is masochistic.

Rewards are poor, I agree. I would like to see that as they update their dungeon’s difficulty, that rewards are increased appropriately. I have no real motivation to enter dungeons any more as I have my legendary and have all the gear sets and tokens I will ever need for all my alts.

I would propose new skins- each dungeon chest with a chance to drop unique skins, or drop a special token to be traded for more kitten looking skins. This game sure lacks skin variety and I think that’d be a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

Distaste.4801:

I know it’s the reason I don’t do more dungeons. You don’t have much fun in dungeons, they take up a good chunk of time and you certainly don’t get rewarded well enough for them. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make people run a dungeon dozens of times to get a set of armor is masochistic.

To be honest, all other games out there have much more punishing mechanics in play to keep players from acquiring gear. At least in GW2, when you complete an explorable, you KNOW you’ll eventually get whatever piece of gear you want. Other games, you can just watch the party dice rolls award that new chestpiece you really wanted to someone who doesn’t even need it and is just going to sell it. To that end, GW2 is actually fairly lenient; they’ve even upped the token rewards from 30 to 60.

If anything, the ~1g you get from running a dungeon should be enough of a reward in and of itself, since with that you can easily go buy yourself some new gear.

But in all honesty, I run dungeons for content, not rewards, so don’t take it from me. I ran headlong into CoE when I knew there was nothing I needed in there, just because I’d heard nightmares about Subject Alpha when the dungeon was still new.

swiftpaw.6397:

Doable? sure, I’ll buy that.

In the same time as a bunch of geared lvl 80’s? No.

^Sometimes I don’t want to spend ten minutes explaining a dungeon to a new set of players. Maybe I’m in a hurry. That’s why I posted for experienced only. I wish people would realize that.

I’ve had a heck of a time trying to gear my alt through AC. Every group seems to have so many newbies no matter what I say in my post. It gets very frustrating.

Pics or it didn’t happen

Protip: Cultural tier 1 gear is lv 35, yellow and has great stats for your first dungeon run.

There’s no reason to not be in yellows by 35 other than being unable to afford it.

Lionguard weapons at 40 for karma, pirate jumping puzzle weapons… there’s lots of vendors that have stuff fo you to level up in assuming you don’t spend all your cash/karma on junk.

There’s a lot of ways for you to stay out of blue gear problem being that most players don’t know this stuff exists.

bravoart.5308:

Protip: Cultural tier 1 gear is lv 35, yellow and has great stats for your first dungeon run.

There’s no reason to not be in yellows by 35 other than being unable to afford it.

Lionguard weapons at 40 for karma, pirate jumping puzzle weapons… there’s lots of vendors that have stuff fo you to level up in assuming you don’t spend all your cash/karma on junk.

There’s a lot of ways for you to stay out of blue gear problem being that most players don’t know this stuff exists.

Tbh I think that masterwork gear is more reasonable till 80. Why would anyone want to waste currency on rare gear that’ll just be out leveled in a few hours? Considering how much coin things cost post 80, I would advise against wasting coin pre 80 and skip the <80 rares all together.

Maestro.5376:

…
To be honest, all other games out there have much more punishing mechanics in play to keep players from acquiring gear. At least in GW2, when you complete an explorable, you KNOW you’ll eventually get whatever piece of gear you want. Other games, you can just watch the party dice rolls award that new chestpiece you really wanted to someone who doesn’t even need it and is just going to sell it. To that end, GW2 is actually fairly lenient; they’ve even upped the token rewards from 30 to 60.

If anything, the ~1g you get from running a dungeon should be enough of a reward in and of itself, since with that you can easily go buy yourself some new gear.

But in all honesty, I run dungeons for content, not rewards, so don’t take it from me. I ran headlong into CoE when I knew there was nothing I needed in there, just because I’d heard nightmares about Subject Alpha when the dungeon was still new.

I have 5 80s and they are all equipped w/ exoctic gears from dungeons and plenty of spare tokens of every possible dungeons and I still run dungeons every nights. Why? Because I don’t know how good I’m when I’m in the company of competent players which always is the case of the dungeon guilds I am belonged. As a matter of fact, I could just sit there eating my dinner and watched my party finishing the dungeon w/o me most of the time. Isn’t that nice?
Only when I lead a party of newbies (who doesn’t even know shield of guardian isn’t necessarily a physical shield, or ele stuck in 1 weapon attunement and so on..) into a dungeon, then I know how good I’m. And that’s my challenge.

That being said, I really don’t know how good people are when they said they are experienced. Maybe they are really good. Maybe they are carried by other competent players in their party w/o knowing it. Like me.

And the other side of the spectrum, when the going gets tough, the “tough” quits going but asking to lower the difficulty. And excuses, and excuses … which is good because excuses make people feel better.

Essence Snow.3194:

bravoart.5308:

Protip: Cultural tier 1 gear is lv 35, yellow and has great stats for your first dungeon run.

There’s no reason to not be in yellows by 35 other than being unable to afford it.

Lionguard weapons at 40 for karma, pirate jumping puzzle weapons… there’s lots of vendors that have stuff fo you to level up in assuming you don’t spend all your cash/karma on junk.

There’s a lot of ways for you to stay out of blue gear problem being that most players don’t know this stuff exists.

Tbh I think that masterwork gear is more reasonable till 80. Why would anyone want to waste currency on rare gear that’ll just be out leveled in a few hours? Considering how much coin things cost post 80, I would advise against wasting coin pre 80 and skip the <80 rares all together.

I’ve found that using Rares is usually more efficient if you’re levelling a crafting profession/don’t want to regear every 5 levels. When you hit 35, your Rare gear will last you until 50, and then until 65, etc etc. So you really only have to regear every 15 levels or so.

So out of curiosity…is there a video up for this yet? :P

silklash.6154:

So out of curiosity…is there a video up for this yet? :P

Somebody doesn’t read the topics on the first page of the Dungeon Subforum :P.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/AC-Ex-35-Run-Video-and-Impressions/first#post1611262

There’s the thread.

Brangien.7462:

1. Gravelings won’t death tackle you now (Thank god, i hate slotting all break frees)

Just curious, but did you ever happen to play City of Heroes?

When people say it’s no longer a level 35 dungeon, they aren’t saying it’s not doable by experience level 35 players, they are saying it’s a terrible first dungeon in the game. The learning curve was already very steep before and the addition of harder hitting bosses, less forgiving mechanics. The Spider Queen is in many ways harder than Malrona from TA, a level 55 dungeon – her AoEs now hit for a lot of damage (which is going to hurt low levels more than tankier high levels, especially with only three stat gear and no traits) and they also last a very long time, making more of the terrain inaccessible and if you get downed in one you are dead (one of the biggest mistakes I think they frequently make in dungeon design – downed = defeated in many powerful AoE fields). Ghost Eater has a similair AoE problem (without swiftness or a full endurance bar, many characters will be downed by his frequent chain AoE vomit attack. Not only does it fire very quickly one after the other (often resulting in multiple AoEs on top of each other and hitting you more than once should you not have movement speed or evade it) but they CC you and do a lot of damage, not to mention remain behind for an excessively long period of time. It’s unnecessary for it to be that unforgiving, especially in a level 35 dungeon. The Ghost Eater fight itself is a very long one depending on how well your party does with the ooze guns (on top of his still unpolished and buggy nature). It continues the ridiculous dungeon design which promotes DPS over everything else, if you can DPS it down with cookie cutter classes, the encounter is MUCH easier, if you have lower DPS characters (which will be the case regardless of classes for a level 35 party) this encounter is much harder and you have to perform the frustrating ooze gun technique multiple times. Bosses like Kholer, who are commonly skipped, are very dangerous but also very forgiving of mistakes and promote team work and skilled dungeon play.

Newer players (whether it be to dungeons entirely or simply new to playing a class at level 35) are not given chances to forgive mistakes made. If you are having trouble figuring out how to play your class in a group setting (or at all) this dungeon isn’t going to give you many opportunities to recover from your mistakes (unlike Kholer who uses game mechanics consistent throughout every facet of the game and has multiple methods of recovery from mistakes for parties working together).

Rumblus is a bizarre boss. It’s somewhat trivial when Grast triggers his bubble properly and you stand in it. It’s nearly impossible if he doesn’t and your party isn’t good at synchronising interrupts. Defiant is one of the least pug friendly mechanics in the game and while it may be intended to prevent these kinds of skills from trivialising boss encounters, particularly in open world PvE, it is another element of dungeon design which favours voice chat over proper understanding of dungeon mechanics and class skills. With an organised party that uses voice chat or has worked out in advance of an encounter to not spam CC mindlessly, this kind of mechanic works well, unfortunately it’s similair to the Jelly Fish and Dredge fractal boss, one idiot, just one bad player can kitten it up for everyone. To me, when it’s possible for four out of five people to do everything right but a single bad player can do one trivial action (or just make one trivial mistake) that completely screws over the rest of the party, that just feels bad to me (somehow I always go off on rants about what I dislike about the new AC design mechanics whenever I discuss AC). Again, a level 35 organised party can complete this encounter, but it will be somewhat luck based (on what Grast does – hint for the devs – most of the issues in PvE, whether it be stalling/progression bugs, classes unhappy with their pets or almost mandatory mechanics during dungeons not triggering – they tend to involve and NPC ally – the hint is stop using NPC allies for anything other than story exposition).

The changes to this dungeon made it far less forgiving of mistakes or less than perfect play. It rewards high DPS teams (which level 35s won’t be) and it also rewards increased survivability (whether it be from traits and stats allowing you to take more hits, fill endurance faster or additional methods of escaping). A lot of the changes moved the dungeon away from a good learning dungeon that many people already found difficult and closer to high end dungeons which should be reserved for more elite experienced players.

I’m confused. I was always under the impression from the very start since the game has been in beta that story mode was the beginner run to get people used to how dungeons worked and to learn how to play in an organized group environment, and explorables were always reserved for more experienced players.

Shiren.9532:

-Snip-

While I do agree with your comments on Grast (And I believe Robert has stated that changes to him are incoming), I would like to politely direct you to the video posted in my other thread showcasing us doing AC Ex P1 at lvl 35 with Masterwork gear. I don’t believe our DPS is subpar, and we were using all Vigorous gear (Power/Vitality). With a few comparisons that Leo G did, we found out that statwise, we weren’t all that much different from downscaled lvl 80s. I hope our video gives some clarification to the issue.

I believe dungeons are suppose to be unforgiving when you’re learning them. That’s what makes the feeling so rewarding when you complete a task in there. A lot of other MMOs also utilize this “punishment-for-sense-of-achievement” system; many dungeons will have weeks, even months, before the first world clear of it happens.

Shiren.9532:

The Spider Queen is in many ways harder than Malrona from TA, a level 55 dungeon – her AoEs now hit for a lot of damage

I’m kitten sure Spider Queen is harder than Malrona. The only difference is SQ has much less (relative) HP as she can be beaten in a few minutes while Malrona is practically a sack of HP.

I’d say you should expect updates to this boss and a lot of others in TA.

(which is going to hurt low levels more than tankier high levels, especially with only three stat gear and no traits)

I’ve started to refute this. I’ve posted some comparison shots of various builds of my Warriors compared with a lvl 35. Likely, a ‘tankier high level’ character will do less damage than an equivalently equipped lvl 35 mostly due to the gap in stats created by level. If you’re specc’ed to be tanky, that means you’re not specc’ed to do damage (or nearly as much damage) and dynamic level scaling will create a gap that puts you below a lvl 35 unless you have gear and traits to overcome the gap. This is shown in the warrior I used mainly specc’ed for offense being decently behind a full exotic geared lvl 80 in damage but still having greater HP, toughness, armor and healing without gear dedicated for those.

As for the rest of your feedback, I share the same sentiments. But don’t disregard the other changes made. The HP of many of those bosses was reduced, sometimes very drastically. Some of their attacks were severely weakened or simply do next to no damage. Of course these exchanges likely made them more dangerous, I suppose it’s up to the consensus to decide what they like better; bosses with crazy over-the-top attacks that can kill you but don’t take long to take down, or boring and easily avoided attacks but the boss is a huge sack of HP?