Guild Wars 2

Practice makes perfect, but sometimes a dungeon fight goes poorly that a player makes a to make a vow to their holy diety never to return. I’m coming across this a lot when I attempt to form a party for TA exp. Though there appear to be a number of complaints about TA, and there have been several patches that have affected the dungeon since any of the guides/walkthroughs I’ve found have been posted. I’d like to focus entirely on the nightmare vine fight for this thread, specifically with regard to the following:

1) The range of the NMV’s was improved on a Dec 8 patch. I am assuming this is why the “safe” spot on ridge is no longer viable (when put to the test yesterday, it was thoroughly peppered with red circles). Is there another location that is preferrable for ranged users, or do all group members need to switch to melee?

2) The last guide I reviewed suggested that the lesser nmv’s spawn seceral times throughout the battle, when the greater nmv is @ certain levels of health. There is debate on whether to stop dps-ing the greater and kill the lessers as they appear or just continue to focus on the greater… thoughts?

3) Previous guides also classify this as a “high DPS needed” fight, and recommended that the ranged members draw the fire while a melee player stands at the base and goes nuts on the gr. nmv. This will allegedly allow the melee-er to remain untageted. Unfortunately, what I usually see is the ranged users go down in a blanket of red circles while the melee-er or -ers fail to kill the gr. nmv before the rest respawn. How high is high (stats for attack, crit%, or cond. dmg. x how many players) Are there what classes/skills/builds are most advantantageous? Are there certain rolls to be played by each member?

4) The volatile blossoms: firend or foe? We all know that the best way to res in these fights are to rally of the blossoms, but in the NMV area, they seem to cause a lot of down’s if not kept in check…

I’m really hoping for some helpful suggestions/successful strategies and not just the complaints, criticisms or insults that are so frequently encountered on these threads. If you feel the need to include the words “learn to play”, “learn to dodge” or otherwise imply that only idiots or inferrior players have any difficulty with this encounter, please start your own thread somewhere else.

I usually suggest that we all get in melee ranged during this fight, regardless of class. You don’t actually have to switch to melee weapons though. Even staff-wielding Elementalists are better of in melee range of these things if you ask me.

The safespot for ranging the wurms still exists, it’s slightly smaller and Anet parked a flower right on top of it so you can’t literally afk. Whoever the wurm AI is targeting (aka, whoever they’re spitting on) should go behind the ridge. This causes the wurms to keep trying to spit at that person but they can’t. Rest of party can melee Greater to their heart’s content or range them.

Condensed: Wurm aggro bearer LoS’s them on ridge, rest of party kills Greater. You don’t even need to range safespot if you don’t have the aggro and the wurms are LoS’d.

The first time I tried this fight once was with my staff elementalist, and on my party’s advice I ran to the very base of the greater nmv. The entire melee area, including spots directly under the g. nmv, was then carpeted with small red circles and we were all annihilated. I wasn’t sure whether this was some sort of technique failure, or perhaps a smaller nmv respawned behind me that I did not see. Has anyone else experienced this, and can explain it’s cause?

i could and still can solo this fight, it is entirely possible , and there is one small spot to afk the boss without suffering damage from the blossoms it took me a while to find but it is there. but dont bother trying it without being a warrior with extended longbow trait or a ranger it simply wont happen.

Did this recently for the first time in ages. Am I missing something? I just went up and hit it with my axe warrior style and disabled it with hammer every time it was about to use that stomp ability. Hardly any damage taken. I understand warrior is better than most classes for pve but it’s not like every class can’t dodge.

wickedgreen.4685:

The first time I tried this fight once was with my staff elementalist, and on my party’s advice I ran to the very base of the greater nmv. The entire melee area, including spots directly under the g. nmv, was then carpeted with small red circles and we were all annihilated. I wasn’t sure whether this was some sort of technique failure, or perhaps a smaller nmv respawned behind me that I did not see. Has anyone else experienced this, and can explain it’s cause?

your parties advice was correct BUT one minor flaw in it is that you must have a party member get to the safe spot and range them before you enter their mele range or attack them yourself for that matter , this seems to cause the vines to stay stuck on the person whom attacked them first and if that person is in the safe spot they will not attack anyone else , the one thing they do still do is use the AOE KD attack when people get within mele range you must evade this as 1/2 times it will knock you into blossoms

also its important to note i found that they share aggro as though anyones that have spawned already will act as one in terms of targets and aggro.hope this helps

Booler.6598:

i could and still can solo this fight, it is entirely possible , and there is one small spot to afk the boss without suffering damage from the blossoms it took me a while to find but it is there. but dont bother trying it without being a warrior with extended longbow trait or a ranger it simply wont happen.

Did I miss the OP’s point or are you just talking about soloing the boss for no reason?

On topic;

1) There are many safe spots for ranged players. Keep in mind that you don’t need to attack the boss for it to attack you. The 4 players in melee can easily do that. Remember too, that a mesmer using clones or a thief popping thieves guild can easily spoil the fun for your team.

2) The lesser vines are not a problem for the same reason that the greater one is: They will always attack the ranged player in the safe spot.

3) I would say no. The only run I actually bothered to time this dungeon was with a mesmer / thief / warrior / guardian / guardian setup, which can’t be considered extremely high DPS. For my group the encounter took roughly 1min 50 seconds from the time we entered the room to the Greater Vine being dead. For any decent composition this fight should not take longer than 3 minutes.

4) There are a couple of safe spots next the Greater Vine where blossoms will not hit you, and his knock back is easily prevented through the use of blind / aegis / stability. You really should not have trouble with blossoms on this fight.

im simply high lightening the fact that this fight can be made simpler , vs the points that he outlined

My guild runs TA regularly without any trouble, so I’ll outline our strategy for you:

In our experience, the nightmare vines prioritize ranged targets over melee ones. Their melee AoE stomp attack is both weak and easy to dodge, while their scatter-shot ranged attack is devastating. My general advice is that players with relatively little dodging and endurance regeneration options (especially guardians, necromancers) should melee vines whenever possible. Players with high endurance regeneration (or just outstanding dodging skills) should spread out, play at maximum possible attack range, and dodge as necessary. The key point here is that the ranged players are basically the tanks that draw aggro in the fight, while the melee ones should be doing as much damage as possible.

Now, about the fight itself, our guardian, necro, and thief always melee; mesmer rotates in and out of melee range depending on the situation; ranger plays at 1500 range using the longbow. At the beginning, only one vine spawns, which we burn down within a few seconds. Once one vine is down, two more spawn, at which point our ranger and mesmer tag both (the vines now target them with the ranged attack) while the melees move in, clear blossoms (guardian staff and necro DS are great for this) and melee them down one at a time. Once a vine goes down, an additional spawns, and the group splits accordingly.

After the 5th nightmare vine is killed, the champion vine spawns. The key here is that BEFORE the champion vine spawns, we attempt to damage the 5th and 6th regular nightmare vines evenly, with the goal of killing them both simultaneously. That way, when the champion vine spawns, it ends up being the only vine in the room.

When the champion vine reaches 75% hp, one additional nightmare vine spawns, which our ranger tags. In addition, our thief breaks off and helps kill it. At 50% hp, another vine spawns, which again is tagged by our ranger, and again our thief (and occasionally our necro) switches over and kills it.

Once the two extra vines are down, we focus down the champion as quickly as possible. Two final vines spawn at 25%, but at this point our mesmer uses time warp, which allows us to burst down the champion immediately. Between the time warp quickness and the occasional dodge, we have no trouble ignoring the last two vines.

I’ve never bothered to time the fight, but it’s pretty quick if the ranged players spread out and everyone knows how to deal with vile blossoms.

I don’t understand why people run away from the most simple tactic.

2-3 dudes focus on the champ, the rest clear trash and focus boss when there are no trash.

That’s how I teach my PUG party to do TA, no wipes, hardly any deaths, done in around 5 to 8 min.

If that is too much time for hardcore community, feel free to get everyone to spike the boss and hope that your party can dodge and stuff.

Writetyper.1985:

Did this recently for the first time in ages. Am I missing something? I just went up and hit it with my axe warrior style and disabled it with hammer every time it was about to use that stomp ability. Hardly any damage taken. I understand warrior is better than most classes for pve but it’s not like every class can’t dodge.

Try it as a Necro or Elementalist at range. This fight is easy as pie for us Warriors, but it is hell on your ranged squishies!

ive only ran TA as my warr/ranger (enough for two full sets though),
with my warr i go up and melee them; side step the red dots and dodge/whirlwind/shield stance the aoe knockdowns
as my ranger (knight armour with ruby orbs, beserker everything else) i go max range (>1500) which gives me plenty of time to dodge any circles under my feet/i can focus on managing my pet more (though i have to destroy the blossoms inbetween me and whatever i told my pet to attack)

NMVs are easy unless you have a super low dps party
worst thing about TA (imo) are the knights

Zileve.2089:

The safespot for ranging the wurms still exists, it’s slightly smaller and Anet parked a flower right on top of it so you can’t literally afk. Whoever the wurm AI is targeting (aka, whoever they’re spitting on) should go behind the ridge. This causes the wurms to keep trying to spit at that person but they can’t. Rest of party can melee Greater to their heart’s content or range them.

Condensed: Wurm aggro bearer LoS’s them on ridge, rest of party kills Greater. You don’t even need to range safespot if you don’t have the aggro and the wurms are LoS’d.

Pretty much this. In my experience, it is easier for ranged to grab aggro of the vines. When ranging the boss at the spot, be careful of fellow teammates who go on the ledge to deal dmg. Chances are they will get some aggro and invite a pepper of spits that will probably hit you. When melee’ing, be careful of teammates, who were originally ranging vines, that come to join in melee.

Zileve.2089:

Condensed: Wurm aggro bearer LoS’s them on ridge, rest of party kills Greater. You don’t even need to range safespot if you don’t have the aggro and the wurms are LoS’d.

^^ this. But this only does anybody any good if they actually understand the wurm fight. After 70+ runs in TA with PUG’s I can honestly say only 3-4 people knew how the wurm boss worked. But if you know it then it saves your group a little hassle.

True. PUG’ing is a different matter, but then, isn’t it always? I usually Gw2LFG my TA runs, probably up to 200+ runs of that kitten dungeon. But hey, I love it.

With PUG"s it’s just a matter of praying the aggro is on me so I can range safespot while team murders Greater. And oddly enough, that’s what happens.