Guild Wars 2

I’m genuinely curious, is it really that hard?

It’s not hard, it’s just unfamiliar and takes a bit longer to do than path 1 or 2. Not to mention the last boss goes invulnerable something like every 10 seconds so doing damage to him is a very slow process.

I’m guessing that the running puzzle puts people off. At the end of the run it’s easy for pugs to get themselves killed by some igniters and turrets. At the start of the run it’s easy for the pug to kill the group by standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I just dislike the first part with the torches. It’s hard to coordinate a team to get it done properly.

Every time I’ve tried, it was broken. Every group does p1, then maybe p2. The few that progress to p3, I don’t know, has just come up broken every time for me so I don’t bother any longer.

It’s just a big pain in the kitten It’s little bit better now, but, if you’re just in it for the tokens or the reward, it’s much more efficient to do P1 or P2.

To illustrate… On the first part, it used to be that you had to light 5 torches almost simultaneously by channeling them (with 5 second difference or something). Incidentally, some of these torches had mobs spawning nearby it, and any damage from the mob would interrupt you. So, after clearing out the mobs, if some people in the group took too long to get into position, you’d have to deal with the mobs respawning. It’s little better now, since there are only three torches.

Then, there’s a part where you need to cap a point with a bunch of fire legion guys spawning on top of you. It’s sort of like the part on P2 before the last boss, but the mobs are much tougher, and you can wipe here if your group isn’t too competent.

Then, there’s the gauntlet. Low mobility classes can have hard time getting through here and just hold up the group for awhile.

Lastly, the final boss takes way longer to down than P1 and P2 bosses combined.

I don’t mind running P3 for fun, but the time investment and the potential hold-up makes it just really unattractive for anyone who just might want a quick run for gold and whatnot.

because:
torches take teamwork/coordination
its amazing how long it takes players to get past the bomb run
final boss is annoying (not hard; just annoying)
takes longer than p1/2

It’s braind dead easy to run P1 and 2, not to mention finding a group for the first 2 is easier than every other dungeon in the game. When it’s so easy to get the exact same reward from p1 and 2 from p3, but p3 is harder in so many ways, why would anyone bother doing it? If you want to get the dungeon armour faster, it’d be easy to run multiple runes of p1 than trying to do p3.

i only cleared it one time for title, 2 days ago.
torches are way better than the swamp fractal, window is like 7 seconds so its pretty easy for every average team.
the part when you defend the camp can be tough with a squishy comp but still possible if you know how to handle those events.
the “orbs” part can be tough too at the first time but mesmers can use portal. dodge and skills like blink helps, not sure about distortion. the party leader, a guardian, wrote a rotation for the other guard but i cant remember and he had to use my portal anyway.
last boss is stupid, not hard at all but its really a long fight… i see the duration from the time warp uses and i think i popped it 3 times (one after few seconds of fight).
i would say i see them as arah p3 and p4.

Shiren.9532:

why would anyone bother doing it?

I try to recruit a group of newbies and run it every evening, simply because I like it and I can help people to check it off for the sake of completion/curiosity/whatever. It’s a well-designed dungeon[sup]1[/sup] - a good mixture of puzzle and combat elements, and it puts a huge emphasis on group coordination, communication, and planning[sup]2[/sup]. Every player needs to bring their “A” game for the major fight, almost all of the professions mechanics have some special usefulness at some stage (e.g. engineer turrets during the torch section, guardian wards at the bridge, mesmer clones at the final boss, stealth effects for the bomb tunnel), the combat rewards teamwork and class mastery moreso than path-specific fight strategies, and there are relatively few “screw you” instakill moments. Everyone can contribute, and CoF P3 doesn’t punish people too harshly simply for being new (as opposed to, say, Subject Alpha).

Mostly, though, I enjoy witnessing the reactions of new players. People express a real sense of accomplishment (and/or relief) upon beating the wave-fight after a few attempts. Sometimes I’ll explain the bomb run and drop a portal for the group to use, only to find that a few players have impetuously followed me, eager to beat the puzzle fairly rather than bypass it. And, of course, you can see some hilarious stuff in chat whenever someone gets immobilized and then launched into lava by the Tribune.

1. The time-vs-money ratio is lousy, but the actual intrinsic gameplay content is good. The Drake needs a buff and the Tribune needs an HP reduction, but those are minor quibbles.
2. Admittedly, the “planning” part would would diminish if the dungeon was more popular, since players would simply adopt standard archetypes/roles and expect everyone else to do likewise.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

its amazing how long it takes players to get past the bomb run

You’ll be surprise to see how long it takes some players to get past the flaming boulders on P1. I take any that join my party but it annoys me when they can’t get past that part after the 10+ times, lol. Problem with running with inexperienced PUGs vs experienced players, saves alot of time.

Himei.5379:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

its amazing how long it takes players to get past the bomb run

You’ll be surprise to see how long it takes some players to get past the flaming boulders on P1. I take any that join my party but it annoys me when they can’t get past that part after the 10+ times, lol. Problem with running with inexperienced PUGs vs experienced players, saves alot of time.

no… no i wouldnt…
half of my p1 runs have a mesmer anyway (i pretty much exclusively PuG)
i would guess… maybe 1 in 10 runs i wait at the end and either the orb (thing) or flames disappear, thats not too bad compared with something like alpha

edit
that alpha mention just made me chuckle
… just did a p2 run (like ten minutes ago); wiped at alpha fight 2, redid it; ended up duoing it with a guardian (because the other three died), the three died again whilst running past the husks (i have absolutely no idea how), so we (the guard and I) had to duo the evolved husk (went surprisingly fast without people aggroing each others golems and trailing them all over the room), had to wait for two of the three that died to un-afk, wp, and run back; they died again at alpha leaving me and the guard to duo it again

Khyber.2693:

I’m genuinely curious, is it really that hard?

No, it’s not hard but it’s a lousy dungeon design by Anet as they did the same way with Arah p3 & p4 or other dungeons.

Guess which one people want to do when they choose between the shortest path with minimum numbers of obstacles and the longest path with maximum number of obstacles and rewards are basically the same?

Who would be in the right mind doing p3 over & over while they can do the same in p1 said in 10min?

Himei.5379:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

its amazing how long it takes players to get past the bomb run

You’ll be surprise to see how long it takes some players to get past the flaming boulders on P1. I take any that join my party but it annoys me when they can’t get past that part after the 10+ times, lol. Problem with running with inexperienced PUGs vs experienced players, saves alot of time.

That doesn’t seem very surprising with the way the boulders get out of sync when people mess up which means it becomes more and more difficult with every failed attempt.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

It’s not hard, it’s just unfamiliar and takes a bit longer to do than path 1 or 2. Not to mention the last boss goes invulnerable something like every 10 seconds so doing damage to him is a very slow process.

Yeah I’d like to have a reason for this invul time, it’s terribly annoying and unnecessary.

I like P3, but the path requires more coordination and a solid team, much more so than P1/P2, so I don’t PUG it often.

• Initial torch room is easier with voice chat, I find it too bothersome to coordinate over text chat.
• Bomb tunnel can take a long time if people can’t cross it successfully
• The ‘defend point against waves’ part requires a stronger team than P1/P2 stuff does
• Boss fight can drag on for a while, because of the periodic invincibility and people getting flung into lava

Attempted this with a group. NEVER AGAIN. we got stuck at the levers… gave up straight away hahahaha.