Guild Wars 2

Talking about TA Explorable. Story is alright.

I’m not saying TA is too hard, because it’s not. It’s just as easy as any dungeon. It’s just plain not fun. It sucks.

TA is full of mechanics that are frustrating. Either the tells aren’t good enough or the damage is too high or both. But the fact that you can kill blossoms to rally balances it out. However, balance doesn’t necessarily equate to fun. It’s not very interactive. Inevitably, people will go down regardless of what decisions they make. Being able to rally off blossoms doesn’t make that any less frustrating.

Another thing that’s frustrating is all the trash mobs are powerful but they don’t have tells like say the gravelings in AC. AC gravelings are how dungeon trash should be. In TA every single mob spams high damage, poison, and CC. You just kinda have to kite them and keep them away.

And of course, the waypoints. Wait, there are none. I don’t understand this design decision, but it certainly makes it even more frustrating. It gets worse when some groups want to skip the overpowered trash mobs, then somebody dies and has to run through them solo later. LOL. But hey, even if you do the dungeon as intended and fight everything, then people have to spend an enormous amount of time to run back if they die. Frustrating.

A few of the boss fights are so aggravating if played as intended, but everyone cheeses them and makes them boring. It’s lose-lose because you can cheese them, but also because doing them as intended isn’t fun. I would seriously recommend looking at the boss fights in TA and revamping them to be more interactive while patching the cheesing methods at the same time.

That’s all. I hope somebody reads this and makes TA a fun instance.

TA is still one of the, if not the fastest Dungeon (incl all 3 paths) where none of them take more than 30minutes…

Shakki.3219:

TA is still one of the, if not the fastest Dungeon (incl all 3 paths) where none of them take more than 30minutes…

Well this is not about how hard/easy or how fast it is. Read what I wrote please.

The dungeon is frustrating and badly designed.

Khristophoros.7194:

TA is full of mechanics that are frustrating. Either the tells aren’t good enough or the damage is too high or both. But the fact that you can kill blossoms to rally balances it out. However, balance doesn’t necessarily equate to fun. It’s not very interactive. Inevitably, people will go down regardless of what decisions they make. Being able to rally off blossoms doesn’t make that any less frustrating.

They improved blossoms really nicely. You should have seen them during first 2 months

Another thing that’s frustrating is all the trash mobs are powerful but they don’t have tells like say the gravelings in AC. AC gravelings are how dungeon trash should be. In TA every single mob spams high damage, poison, and CC. You just kinda have to kite them and keep them away.

Trash mobs give many cues when you should dodge. You don’t have to kite them at all. I’m in constant melee (on glass ele)

And of course, the waypoints. Wait, there are none. I don’t understand this design decision, but it certainly makes it even more frustrating. It gets worse when some groups want to skip the overpowered trash mobs, then somebody dies and has to run through them solo later. LOL. But hey, even if you do the dungeon as intended and fight everything, then people have to spend an enormous amount of time to run back if they die. Frustrating.

Lack of waypoints might be frustrating, I’ll agree here.

A few of the boss fights are so aggravating if played as intended, but everyone cheeses them and makes them boring. It’s lose-lose because you can cheese them, but also because doing them as intended isn’t fun. I would seriously recommend looking at the boss fights in TA and revamping them to be more interactive while patching the cheesing methods at the same time.

People cheese them because they wouldn’t be any more difficult (maybe except final bosses).

haviz.1340:

Trash mobs give many cues when you should dodge. You don’t have to kite them at all. I’m in constant melee (on glass ele)

Yeah, you have to dodge every time they do anything. Everything they do hurts a lot. I kite them because it’s the safest way to fight them. I’m not interested in people dying to dogs or courtiers.

haviz.1340:

People cheese them because they wouldn’t be any more difficult (maybe except final bosses).

Point was the fights aren’t fun when cheesed or when played as intended. They’re boring when cheesed, annoying when played as intended.

Khristophoros.7194:

Yeah, you have to dodge every time they do anything. Everything they do hurts a lot. I kite them because it’s the safest way to fight them. I’m not interested in people dying to dogs or courtiers.

You hardly have to dodge everything.

Shakki.3219:

TA is still one of the, if not the fastest Dungeon (incl all 3 paths) where none of them take more than 30minutes…

While this is very true I’ve also been in pug groups that took over an hour to run one path. So of course mileage will vary.

TA mechanics are like most of the dungeons. The mobs have simple mechanics. The events aren’t too elaborate. But the dungeon is so accessible I dont know how you can put it down. If TA has any flaw its that so much of the content can and normally is attempted to be skipped. Skipping inevitably leads to one or two of the group dying sometimes repeatedly so…… guess what skipping resulted sometimes in taking a lot longer than just killing the mobs. And those mobs aren’t that hard to kill.

I see TA as an opportunity to get gear that I want vs. trying to find a group that can do Arah. I have no issue with it. Its a nice dungeon. Adding another WP inside would be nice though. Having a group have to wait 8 minutes for someone to run back from a death seems a bit much.

Before this becomes yet another skipping thread, let me just repeat the possible solution of declaring how the dungeon is being run during the group forming stage. Problem solved. And if whoever can’t handle the skipping of mobs, pls give a heads up to the rest that you aren’t confident before the mob. Waiting till you are lying dead at the feet of a court knight is probably too late.

Having said that, TA Exp is fine. I pug alot and this is one of the dungeons I can say that all three paths are pretty balanced. To each his/her own, but I do a full clear TA almost everyday and it rarely takes more than 2 hrs.

TA is easy, you guys just need to practice more.

Demonstration from a friend of mine ^^

my favourite part is where he exploits line of sight on the first boss, dunno if thats still possible since that vid is from Oct. on a more serious note i only have a few pet peeves that make TA frustrating at times.

the 1st boss is a pita, hard enough to dodge the 10 bloody aoes he sends at you, the 500 blossoms in the room make dodging it more harder then it should be, sure they rally you up but you havent got much room for mistakes here.

court knights, wtf? ok 1 in a trash pack is acceptable (i saw two once which was odd), but the ones near the end on that path with leurent seriously, who is killing all 3 and the boss at the same time? this fight seems stupidly overpowered and screams “pull us all and focus on one while the rest tether back” and i hate that. i like being able to kill every pack of mobs w/o ppl dieing or doing some ridiculous cheese method.

can we add a waypoint before the kitten bee/water puzzle thing bloody hell.

Me and my guild promised ourselves never to go back to TA ever again. And I have completed it, several times in fact, with ease. But it is not fun. It is such an annoying place. Even now that the blossoms are less annoying, unless they redesign the whole dungeon, I’m never going in there ever again.

The only problem with TA is the three Knights that accompany Leurent.

If it wasn’t for pulling them separately it would just be a mad race to kill one, then hope someone in your groups survives, or failing that, have your whole team run back there.

Worst part is that pulling was obviously not intended seeing as they often break away and regenerate health. I can’t for the life of me understand what the reasoning was behind these mobs. Difficulty is fine, but when it is so completely out of tune with the rest of the dungeon, it just becomes laughable.

Gab Superstar.4059:

The only problem with TA is the three Knights that accompany Leurent.

If it wasn’t for pulling them separately it would just be a mad race to kill one, then hope someone in your groups survives, or failing that, have your whole team run back there.

Worst part is that pulling was obviously not intended seeing as they often break away and regenerate health. I can’t for the life of me understand what the reasoning was behind these mobs. Difficulty is fine, but when it is so completely out of tune with the rest of the dungeon, it just becomes laughable.

Yeah this is possibly the most glaring design flaw in the dungeon. It’s one of the big reasons why the dungeon feels broken and not working as intended.

But there are plenty of other examples where the optimal way to play is clearly not how it was designed, like half the boss fights have ways to circumvent the mechanics of the fight.

Have to admit I liked the solo video. If I had to guess I’d say he spent at least 90 minutes doing that maybe longer?

Since he skipped the mobs he could I’m wondering why he just let the 3 reindeer at final boss loose. Why not stick em on the vines or up on that leaf?

Kumakichi.2583:

Have to admit I liked the solo video. If I had to guess I’d say he spent at least 90 minutes doing that maybe longer?

Since he skipped the mobs he could I’m wondering why he just let the 3 reindeer at final boss loose. Why not stick em on the vines or up on that leaf?

Probably 4x that time. He spent 90 min alone on the three knights with Leurent.

Never had an issue with TA. Here’s a great and simple strategy that always works; dog pile. You have 5 people, just target and take down each enemy one at a time with all. They’ll die quick and move on. Always take on adds before champion/legendary boss.

Gab Superstar.4059:

The only problem with TA is the three Knights that accompany Leurent.

If it wasn’t for pulling them separately it would just be a mad race to kill one, then hope someone in your groups survives, or failing that, have your whole team run back there.

Worst part is that pulling was obviously not intended seeing as they often break away and regenerate health. I can’t for the life of me understand what the reasoning was behind these mobs. Difficulty is fine, but when it is so completely out of tune with the rest of the dungeon, it just becomes laughable.

In one group I did TA with we had 2 elemental, 2 necros, and a Guardian. Most of these guys were experienced TA runners and I was one of the Elementals which has only run TA in story. We had so much AOE damage that we just killed everything in our path. When we hit the 3 Knights we took out all 3 at the same time. We had actually killed them before we realized we had 3 knights. Once it was over we were like OMG did we just take out 3 knights at once. That is awesome.

TA is a perfect example of the mantra “You shall not skip.”. The lacking of WP is also annoying. Combining with skipping mobs → needless deaths.

SkyChef.5432:

TA is a perfect example of the mantra “You shall not skip.”. The lacking of WP is also annoying. Combining with skipping mobs -> needless deaths.

I’ve been in a group once that skipped almost everything in TA fine, sadly I was the one who was bad at it since I hadn’t done that before. There’s some stuff in there that any group can skip, though, like the archers at the end of the gauntlet for the Up path.

I agree, though – TA could be a lot more fun for the amount of pure annoyance it has in it. It’s basically tunnels of trash mobs separated by some very easy boss fights (excluding the vines, since almost all pugs have issues with those.)

Golgathoth.3967:

SkyChef.5432:

TA is a perfect example of the mantra “You shall not skip.”. The lacking of WP is also annoying. Combining with skipping mobs -> needless deaths.

I agree, though – TA could be a lot more fun for the amount of pure annoyance it has in it. It’s basically tunnels of trash mobs separated by some very easy boss fights (excluding the vines, since almost all pugs have issues with those.)

Melrona is pretty bad for Pugs aswell,due to most people seeming not to know about the Instant aggro you get for revives

Yeah this dungeon is certainly garbage. The first boss is terrible, the whole forward up path is ridiculous and the first spider boss in the up path is stupid. All the end boss strategies being used are bugs, and most groups skip 90% of mobs.

I actually like the Deadly Blossoms.

Or as I like to call them Insta-Rally Blossoms.

Malrona – Mostly alternates between breath and spit attack. The spit is actually projectiles and can be nullified using anti-projectile skills. Better yet use reflects like feedback and wall of reflection to return good damage. Or just dodge which is also easy.

Your fun in TA also depends on your class also. If your having to run back then you just need to work on not dying.

My guildmates and I just completed TA forward forward for the first time. It took us 3 hours to figure out how to do the dungeon with no outside help and for the most part with just 4 people. We concluded post run that the hammer knight courtier is overtuned compared to every other mob in the dungeon – their damage is way out of whack with anything else even leurent (a boss) and the nightmare tree (the end boss!) – this does not seem like it should be the case, why does this basic trash mob have such a high damage and control output compared to all his cohorts and very little in the way of a tell when he is about to land on your face. The other thing that was interesting to note was we went back after the tree was dead and tried the champion knight again, he had killed us multiple times on the way through and we eventually skipped him and moved on, he dropped nothing which was a massive let down and definitely put him on the not worth even bothering with list, what;s the point of multiple deaths and dealing with a huge damage/control boss when there is no reward. The major source of frustration in this dungeon however is the lack of WP, this is a secondary punishment on top of dying and repair cost – why this was decided on I will never know.

Court Knights’ “signature move” is the leap knockdown + ground stomp combo. The former has a small aoe which does hard knockdown + dmg when it connects. The latter is a medium aoe atk with good dmg and cripples.

I find stunbreakers useful. If you happen to get knockdowned, pop your stunbreaker and dodge immediately after to evade the ground stomp. Just be prepared, the leap attack has a 8-10secs cd from my experience.

lol wait till you get to arah, and TA is not frustrating at all, you just need a mesmer, a guardian, a warrior, and another dps, and u just kill and clean everything. compared to arah it’s a cakewalk

btw, if anyone is up for arah path 4, hit me up, it’s he last one i haven’t done yet

Golgathoth.3967:

SkyChef.5432:

TA is a perfect example of the mantra “You shall not skip.”. The lacking of WP is also annoying. Combining with skipping mobs -> needless deaths.

I’ve been in a group once that skipped almost everything in TA fine…

Stuff is skippable in TA. Some players have a horrible time trying to make it past trash mobs that the group is trying to skip.

Not pug friendly is a term for TA