Guild Wars 2

Sigh, sometimes i can find people on lfgw2.com to do this dungeon but a lot of the time nobody wants to do it. I even ask people from my guild to do it and they’re like am tired going to bed lol. If people aren’t doing this Dungeon shouldn’t that tell AreaNet something isn’t quite right. It’s not any harder than Arah, i just don’t understand why people don’t like it. I need this dungeon for onyx cores and armor and i am getting no where. Does anyone have dislikes or likes about this dungeon?

That’s odd. Due to the demand of Onyx Cores/Lodestones, I find it is the dungeon most people want to run at the moment…

:S

People tend to run the dungeons they do for money or for tokens. AC, CoF, and CoE are run for both money and the fact that the armor sets you can get with their tokens have the more popular stats. SE is also run for the armor stats, as it is the only dungeon location for knight gear.

It is not that people don’t run TA much as it is not a good dungeon. People don’t run TA as it doesn’t provide them anything they want.

I think TA rocks and I farmed 2 full sets of gear from there using gw2lfg. I dont find TA particularly hard but it can challenge some groups. People run TA for the gear/skins or lodestones so it should still have plenty of traffic. The best time to run TA is just after dungeon reset.

TA can be pain to skip through which many people seem to prefer doing, it’s very easy for someone to get caught behind and then there’s a looooooooong run/wait from the only waypoint in the dungeon. If you’re not skipping stuff you’ve gotta rely on your group being able to combat the sometimes particularly hard mobs in there. I know I’d rather just skip with a group that’s low DPS for example because there are some enemies in there that will ground your party if they can’t take them down fast enough.

With that said, those are the reasons I don’t pug TA ever if I can help it. Premade parties work better here.

I used gw2lfg.com to run TA a bunch this weekend. Only one bad group in the bunch (leader ditched in the middle, kicking us out, then everyone else left).

TA has the best looking armor in my opinion, which is why I’m doing it.

Because TA sucks.

Flowers -> Slow down the whole thing essentially pointlessly. You will never be hit by them in a normal fight, they exist for no reason besides to be annoying, they dont challenge the player, they simply kitten you off.

Crazy knockdowns -> All the dogs, the wurms, the husks and the knights. The husks are actually fully capable of chain knocking you down, even if you pop a stunbreak during it. It’s hard/impossible to maintain stability for the entire duration of these fights, meaning that engaging a lot of enemies in melee can be more hassle than it’s worth (wurms excluded. Easiest to melee these guys)

Luck based combat -> This might need some explanation, but generally speaking no one likes losing. However, when you lose, generally you can console yourself in that you lost because you were not skilled enough, and thus just need to get better. For the spiders in TA it’s a completely different story. Combat has been taken out of your hands, if you get hit ONCE just once, it’s entirely possible to die right then and there, as they have a chance to petrify you (which has no cure). While you could theoretically avoid petrification by never being hit ever, it’s still a stupid system, that randomly punishes some players with death.

Bosses with strange and dumb mechanics -> Malronna takes a bunch of extra damage, but only if you allow her to poison you. In an organized group this means getting poisoned, dealing hella damage, then quickly removing it. In a PuG group this means lots of people committing suicide. Moreover if you do not rely on this extra damage, the fight takes absolutely ages. You also have the mesmer who goes invisible multiple times throughout the fight (becoming essentially immortal, which is probably the dumbest fight mechanic ever. Artificial length != good)

trash – So much trash. Most of it is skippable, but it can and will kill whole teams running through it. Also most of the trash is stupid (see: luck based combat, and flowers)

It’s one of the very few dungeons where almost everything in it feels badly designed. It can be done easily, it can be done quickly, even in a PuG, but lord almighty does it suck as a dungeon.

Zenyatoo.4059:

Crazy knockdowns -> All the dogs, the wurms, the husks and the knights. The husks are actually fully capable of chain knocking you down, even if you pop a stunbreak during it. It’s hard/impossible to maintain stability for the entire duration of these fights, meaning that engaging a lot of enemies in melee can be more hassle than it’s worth (wurms excluded. Easiest to melee these guys)

I wanted to address this specifically. When I go to TA on my guardian (and I usually bring mine if no one else brings one, else I’m on a ’zerker warrior or a thief) I find that maintaining stability through the trash is one of my #1 priorities. But… I can chain through Stand Your Ground + Virtue of Courage, pop Renewed focus, hit the virtue again, and then have SYG ready to go again… gives an extended period of stability. Combine that with GS#5 for mob controll, and someone who can toss out a little cripple, and the packs of wolves, hucks, knights and whatever become very easy to break down.

I’ve also done this dungeon with a Warrior + 4 rangers…. and we longbowed virtually the entire thing. I kept looking for good moments to haul out my greatsword, but asside from a few of the bosses, it was easier to just work with everyone else at extended range.

The KD mechanics in this dungeon are strong, but they can be worked with and mitigated. The fact that they’re melee range KD means if you can just keep them away from you (Rangers are good for some of that) you can avoid much of this mechanic (I know the leap from the knights is punishing…. but there’s usually only one or two of them to deal with at a time…. just make them a priority target.)

I will say this, I see groups have more trouble working to skip some sections than it would take to just kill down the trash, but that’s been my experience.

ionic.2106:

Sigh, sometimes i can find people on lfgw2.com to do this dungeon but a lot of the time nobody wants to do it. I even ask people from my guild to do it and they’re like am tired going to bed lol. If people aren’t doing this Dungeon shouldn’t that tell AreaNet something isn’t quite right. It’s not any harder than Arah, i just don’t understand why people don’t like it. I need this dungeon for onyx cores and armor and i am getting no where. Does anyone have dislikes or likes about this dungeon?

Because the armor stats are not very popular and the runs take longer than average and require a lot of skipping.

There are some teams that farm only onyx cores that don’t actually beat the dungeon, but those farming teams are rare.

Im doing TA for the armor and Im using a warrior. I like how the armor looks on a charr and I would switch to it when a group is low with conditions.

I actually like TA and I find it right in the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There’s some packs that suck, but with Stabilities loaded up you can clear through them fine. Vevina is really the only annoying boss.

Nothing can compare to the aggravation level of the Graveling Scavenger’s in AC that will chain knock you down and full life you from 100%.

I ran TA for a full armor set with my mesmer 2 months ago. Using gw2lfg (wake up Anet), I didn’t have much trouble running UU, FF, and sometimeskitten(fitting) each day.

Granted, I hated the blooms and dungeon, it was worth the look of the light armor on my mesmer. I got a few compliments in pugs and thats enough for me to make it worth it.

Since then, I’ve put my all in my guardian and with the slight nerf on the wurms at the first part of the dungeon, it’s not that hard running it with a guardian. Still not the easiest dungeon.

I actually enjoy this dungeon, I run it a lot for the tokens and because I genuinely have fun in there. Not-getting knocked down by the husks, without any stability/aegis, I just learned via dodging when they jump, staying back until they’re done jumping, then getting right back into it.

The dogs usually go down extremely fast in all 80 groups, and even relatively fast in a 55 group. I only had an issue with them knocking me down once, anyway, and that was because I was out of dodges.

Either way, I enjoy running this and if we have an awesome group, I’d be willing to skip mobs here and there. If we have a lower-than 80, or someone’s have some trouble, I prefer to kill the mobs as, in the long run, that will be faster than waiting on that one person to run all the way back, alone. (And likely get shafted by the knockdowns, blooms, etc…).

And this dungeon generally takes as long as all the other ones I do, and I like the challenging trash mobs (Knights, Wardens, Duelists, Sorcerers…). Keeps things interesting, IMO.

I also love sylvari, so I may be slightly biased.

You know, the more I think about TA, the more I think it’s one of the better designed dungeons in the game.

Oh, it could use more WPs, but Robert has already commented on that…..

TA gives us packs with mixes of mechanics: Knight + Cultist + Duelist…. makes you prioritize targets and work through the mechanics of the fight.

TA makes you develop situational awareness. Blooms are a hazzard on the course, you cannot insta-dodge without being aware of positioning and if you’re going to hit a bloom or not. You can also use blooms for a ready rally…. blooms are a good thing!

TA has some great boss fights…. the only boss that I dislike in TA is the third boss in Up/Up… the egg sacks around her are clearly meant to be a hazzard, but everyone just pulls her into the hall and fights her there… and as such, she feels lacking.

When you really start breaking TA down and looking at it, it has everything a dungeon should have:

1) Challenging boss fights.
2) Challenging trash that can be skipped or fought…. but skipping is not as faceroll easy as skipping trash in other dungeons, so skipping starts to take on a level of skill…. and both approaches feel more legitimate.
3) Non-combat mechanics: F/U and the springs
4) High value rewards: Onyx Lodestones / Cores

It’s a really, really good dungeon. I kind of wish more were like it