Guild Wars 2

Semi-Rage-Boredom-Dissapointment thread.

So I’ve done every path in TA many, many times with my Mesmer. She has full TA armour and a TA weapon. Never really had too many problems. This was with a full pug team of level 80’s.

I tried with a pug today, with players under level 80 (I was a 73 Guard) the others were ~65-75. Well, they wiped on the first set of hounds, which I should have taken as a sign, however they did the next Wurm without too much problem so I stuck with it.

Anyway we got to the first Nightmare Court group and it consisted of 2 Knights and 1 Sorcerer. I was running blocks, blinds and had the stability shout. Which meant I could last ~20 seconds in total before I was one shot by a Knight. Entire team wiped about 5 times at least before I quit. It was costing more in repairs than the dungeon would have rewarded me with for completion.

How is this supposed to be fair, or fun in any way shape or form? They do around 4k damage (at least) to me per hit and I’m wearing full knights gear. I have ~7k health in total so I either die in one shot if they knock me down, or two/three hits if they don’t.

Even if I dodge/block/stability/protection, I can only do that so much. Eventually they get a hit in and that’s game over. I have to wait until we all die so we can respawn and try again….and again….and again.

Maybe it was just a fail party (including myself) but this dungeon should be completable without having to resort to enemies which just insta-KO players.

Don’t really know what the point of this post is, not looking for advice. Which is the problem, we were playing well. The Knights are just OP.

Just hoping someone at Anet views this and decides to rebalance them. I don’t want them to be a cakewalk, but just less stupid would be great.

p.s. Yes I know you can just skip all the groups. I usually would, but that’s ignoring the problem that the Knights are just doing too much damage. People wouldn’t always skip so much content if the risk/reward wasn’t so utterly screwed up.

You should’ve seen it before they nerfed them and reduced the number of spawns.

Yea, was a fun time back then. Kinda funny making it all the way to Laurent then the group rage quitting when 4 knights keep 1 shotting the team.

The knights have only melee attacks so cripple, immobilize, and ranged damage will work. Traps can halt their initial rush. I think they are warrior types with great swords so they have high damage, some gap closers, but inflict no conditions.

Stooperdale.3560:

The knights have only melee attacks so cripple, immobilize, and ranged damage will work. Traps can halt their initial rush. I think they are warrior types with great swords so they have high damage, some gap closers, but inflict no conditions.

They are warriors with hammers… that’s a massive aoe leap that stuns, massive aoe cripple, aoe melee attack that knocks back, and I don’t know if they have the single target knockdown cause I’ve never seen someone out live more than 2 or 3 of their attacks.

If you still need help killing them, use ranged, aoe, cc, and burst. They have low hp and their main defensive tactic is to keep you cced or/and on the run. Spread out and be ready to dodge. It is generally advisable to have 1 person stand further ahead of everyone else. They need to be either stupid tanky, stupid amounts of invulns, or a really good dodger. I generally volunteer as thief and perma dodge their combo. Is hard to do it at first but gets easier the more you do it. You do this so they can have the enemy blow all their abilities on that one guy and keep the team safe.

Their combo is to lead in with the leap then use the massive aoe cripple to finish you off. After they blow this, they won’t attack for a little while so this is your time to unload on them.

I think its more of a problem of the environment you are fighting them. In free space you can focus them down, but that can be difficult if people are also being feared, poisoned, etc at the same time.

Irakaz.8964:

I think its more of a problem of the environment you are fighting them. In free space you can focus them down, but that can be difficult if people are also being feared, poisoned, etc at the same time.

don’t need to fight any of them except the few right before the tree boss (unless it’s story mode, don’t know about that, been months since I last did it). The rest you can run past and they are VERY easy to run past if you have a little know how. If you have a thief on your team you can stop and dance on each one and still get to the end safely. Thief might die trying to keep your troll butt safe but it is doable :P

Only issue I have with them is that their “well”-attack actually follows them while red circle stays still (converts boons and conditions, also does nice damage).

I dont think they hit that hard, but the real problem is they can stun-lock you to death. Each knight can knock you down twice in a row, so when you are about to get up, they knock you down again.
That’s almost instadeath depending on your gear (since dynamic level makes everyone lvl 55). I used to run full zerker thief, and the first knockdown was enough to make sure I’d need a hand to get up.

Irakaz.8964:

I think its more of a problem of the environment you are fighting them. In free space you can focus them down, but that can be difficult if people are also being feared, poisoned, etc at the same time.

That’s part of it, the first group you fight (FF route) is on a corner. However I pulled them down to a more open space and my party still got wiped instantly. Though I think they didn’t spread out and must have had zero CC…

I tried fighting them ranged, but they would just leap into melee range and pretty much insta-kill the entire party the moment my CC ended.

Anyway, I think next time I’ll just go with a more experienced party so it wont be a problem for me personally. (Since we can just skip them)

However the point still stands, that for a group of first timers, who arn’t lvl 80 with max traits and full exotic gear, they just get obliterated.

HELLruler.4820:

I dont think they hit that hard, but the real problem is they can stun-lock you to death.

Would just like to say, they do. I was KO-d in 2 hits as a guardian with full knight’s gear.

Its not really a good idea to skip either as they have high chase duration and they still kill the stragglers, which cause everyone to go back to save you and they die, etc. Its not good either way, fight or skip someone is going to die and have many repairs.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Its not really a good idea to skip either as they have high chase duration and they still kill the stragglers, which cause everyone to go back to save you and they die, etc. Its not good either way, fight or skip someone is going to die and have many repairs.

you only say this because of either 1. you don’t know how to run in this dungeon or 2. been with too many people who don’t know how to run this dungeon. Skipping past the trash is ALWAYS good, faster, easier, and guaranteed no repairs but only if you’re with people who actually know how to run. When I do guild runs here, it doesn’t matter the path. Everyone is going to run past and everyone is going to live. Someone might have a hic-up but by the time the rest of us get to the boss he/she’ll res themselves and make it to the end no problem.

randomfightfan.4091:

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Its not really a good idea to skip either as they have high chase duration and they still kill the stragglers, which cause everyone to go back to save you and they die, etc. Its not good either way, fight or skip someone is going to die and have many repairs.

you only say this because of either 1. you don’t know how to run in this dungeon or 2. been with too many people who don’t know how to run this dungeon. Skipping past the trash is ALWAYS good, faster, easier, and guaranteed no repairs but only if you’re with people who actually know how to run. When I do guild runs here, it doesn’t matter the path. Everyone is going to run past and everyone is going to live. Someone might have a hic-up but by the time the rest of us get to the boss he/she’ll res themselves and make it to the end no problem.

That’s fine if you’re running with people you know can run it no bother,but that is always a gamble with Pugs,where a lot of the time it will simply be less of a hassle to kill them first.

Gelltor.3015:

That’s fine if you’re running with people you know can run it no bother,but that is always a gamble with Pugs,where a lot of the time it will simply be less of a hassle to kill them first.

very true, I just posted with the assumption in mind that the guys knew what they were doing. Guess I should be more open minded

DeathPanel.8362:

You should’ve seen it before they nerfed them and reduced the number of spawns.

It was much harder and fun pre-nerf! I farmed up 2 full sets of TA armor (one for stats and one for skins) all pug’d. Thats a lot of TA. But whenever there was a sub 80 in the group you really felt it.

p.s tried many times to help newcomers learn about TA but overall I was surprised how many didn’t care what I was typing OR just didn’t have the time to bother.

HELLruler.4820:

I dont think they hit that hard, but the real problem is they can stun-lock you to death. Each knight can knock you down twice in a row, so when you are about to get up, they knock you down again.

The second attack I think you are referring doesn’t do knockdown. But it does have good cone range and cripples.

Stunbreaker after the intial leap knockdown move and dodge immediately after. Afaik there are no court knight variants with deviant so they are still susceptible to focused cc.

Knights and Hounds are OP. Overall, silver mobs are OP.

I think they’re made like that to prevent groups from trying to skip…but groups do that anyways. Everything knocks back, ya know? And that poison!

mosspit.8936:

—
Afaik there are no court knight variants with deviant so they are still susceptible to focused cc.

Except that one Champion. Probably no one knows it even exists.

I don’t feel they hit too hard they just punish you (severely) for making mistakes.

Pretty much all melee mobs can be kited around with range. Also having increased speed or snares helps. It’s also good to have stun breakers and time your dodges.

If your party has a lot of trouble with them just pull mobs away to separate them and deal with them all individually.

They are a lot more tame than they used to be.

The trick is to STOP FACE TANKING. This is very prevalent among guardians to face tank and survive on the merit of class attributes alone. You need to learn how to use your aegis/stun break and dodge. Since you aren’t 80 yet, you have no access to content that require a lot of dodging so you aren’t fully experienced with how guardian mitigation works beyond the tutorial content.

Wethospu.6437:

mosspit.8936:

—
Afaik there are no court knight variants with deviant so they are still susceptible to focused cc.

Except that one Champion. Probably no one knows it even exists.

And where can I find such a champion court knight? With the same moveset? Otherwise I believe we are referring to different things.

Edit: Ah yes that court knight on F/F path before the bridge. Must have slipped my mind.

You already admit that you’re in a noob PUG team and you’re not playing at best set of gears. So what are you complaining about? You should have done enough to know that it is not that the dungeon is hard but your team is just bad.

OP,

I’m going to give you the ultimate secret to easy mode mesmer.

Sword/Pistol – Clone on Dodge – Clone utility skills (Mirror Images and Decoy) – Illusion health signet

That’s it.

Even though you’re holding a sword, you don’t want to melee. You want to stand back and cast your Duelist Phantasms and let them do damage for you. But, you do want main hand sword because sword clones CHARGE THE ENEMY.

Enemies have a strong tendency to aggro stuff that gets into melee. Your clones will do that. If you give them some extra health, they’ll occupy enemies non-stop. Clone on dodge requires enough points that you’ll end up with Sharper Image by default, so those suicidal charging clones will be stacking a few bleeds each. Oh, and sword clones also stack vulnerability.

While they’re doing that, you’re happily in the back of the group taking pot shots with your trick shot pistol and spamming duelists. Duelists stay way back which is good because while they have solid DPS, they are uberdelicate. They’ll also be adding more bleeds, and they’ll get bonus damage since your clones which are tanking for them are stacking vuln, as I said. You’re also free to rez your teammates as your DPS personal DPS is negligible.

Oh, you can use your sword to make yourself invuln if something does take a swipe at you. It also has a short-range clone skill which works surprisingly well as a leap if you practice with it. Sword leap-clone, wait a moment or two for clone to charge in, then his the button again to swap with that clone, invuln sword attack, dodge back leaving another clone between you and the bad guy.

Or, if you want, you can stick with the just the duelists thing. Leaves you free to rez your teammates too since its your duelists, not you, providing your dps

Akimbo.4835:

Anyway we got to the first Nightmare Court group and it consisted of 2 Knights and 1 Sorcerer. I was running blocks, blinds and had the stability shout. Which meant I could last ~20 seconds in total before I was one shot by a Knight. Entire team wiped about 5 times at least before I quit. It was costing more in repairs than the dungeon would have rewarded me with for completion.

[…]

Even if I dodge/block/stability/protection, I can only do that so much. Eventually they get a hit in and that’s game over. I have to wait until we all die so we can respawn and try again….and again….and again.

Actually, going based off this, I assume you were running “Retreat!”, clearly had ‘Stand Your Ground!", so I’m going to gues your third was “Hold The Line!”?

Guardians are fantastic for this dungeon. This is generally what I run when I use mine in TA: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mccM0V9cmRlNomRlNo0axGaMomqMRo You absolutely need to carry a staff with you for this dungeon. You will want a hammer, for the 5+4 combo and keeping your group safe, melee attackers safer. Knights always lead in with their leap, so time your dodge backwards. They will always drop an aoe immediately after, so you can hammer away at it if you feel comfortable/safe enough to do so. If not, you stay in staff until you think you need to switch.

If you’re going to be staying in melee range a lot, and you run an AH style build, Hallowed Ground pulses do heal you as well as reapplying stability for yourself and any of your melee attackers. As soon as that consecration is over, you rely on SYG until it’s up again. If you can, you can try to use Staff 5 to try and wall off the knights and block their initiation, and you’ll wanna mash 4 whenever it’s off cooldown and you’re certain you won’t be stunned. REMEMBER YOUR DODGE KEY. IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.

You cannot just run into 2 knights and a sorceror to face tank them and expect to win. TA is full of things that will kill a fully knight’s geared guardian if it so much as looked at you funny. You need to learn position, timing, and circumstances that will permit you to do what you want to do.

For 2 knights and a sorceror, or in any group that gets a sorceror, you want to focus down the sorc first. It’s the Nightmare Court equivalent of a wells necro, a class which can directly counter a guardian easily. The amount of aoe it drops as well as being a ranged pain in the kitten will down most groups before the knights can even really pose a major threat. Your focus order generally is Sorceror>Knight>Duelist>Cultist>Archer (just like in AC 2, the necromancers are always first because of mass aoe). If you have a thief, mesmer, or necro, you can solo pull the mobs (no particular order in this case), which are easy and should NOT be wiping your group on their own.

TA can be difficult, yes, but it forces you to pay attention to what you’re doing and what your group is doing. Skipping is not advised unless you know for sure your group can do it successfully, as on some classes it’s harder or players are just dumb. However, a thief can make this easier for your group to accomplish.

So to sum- Staff/Hammer +SoJ/HG/SYG/ToC. You can swap HG for WoR or HTL as you see fit, and if you don’t want the signet, you can instead swap that for one of the above mentioned spells. You’ll definitely want your healing signet for condition removal and a personal oh kitten button, and your tome is better overall for group survivability, though ToW isn’t too terrible if you feel you’re better off increasing groupwide deeps (hint: you probably aren’t).

Hope this helped You can whisper me in game if you like.

Keep them slowed and stay at range. They will still try to leap to you at max distance, but when they do, they’ll go half as far due to being slowed. As long as you stay at range, they should never hit you.

Alternatively, you can simply spam blind them. Certain classes/skills can manage this.