Guild Wars 2

Well some say it’s easy, actually, but what do you say?

The interesting thing is all the paths have some pretty harsh mechanics built in, like the need for stealth in path 3 that would otherwise force you into more time consuming or dangerous activities or the instant death if you can’t collect all the bombs fast enough.

If it’s easy, then why is it easy? What mechanics do you feel aren’t harsh enough or are being ignored?

I think, since AC was redesigned so the mechanics of its fights are harder to bypass, this would be a useful topic to perhaps anticipate future changes to this dungeon and others. Honestly, I hope they don’t make CoF ‘harder’ as it’s already decently tough if you can’t blow through its mechanics. If they made the mechanics of its bosses less ignorable, do you think that constitutes as the dungeon being harder?

It depends on what path you’re talking about…

Path 1 is incredibly easy and short. This is why people do speed runs of the dungeon in 6-10 minutes each.

The question encompasses every path.

I find path 1 to be the easiest in the game, with path 2 not far behind it. 3 still isn’t difficult, just more time consuming. The end boss is very easy, just.takes a while.

I personally found CoF story to be harder than exploreable.

Then answer the question of why you think that is. Could go a bit further and answer how you feel it should (or shouldn’t) be changed.

P1 is very short, even if you had a reason to kill all the trash. The bosses/events have boring, unremarkable mechanics that require no real thought to deal with. I think the Slaver summons effigy adds, but I dont remember actually seeing them or getting attacked by them. And the end Effigy does so little damage and the healing crystal mechanic is so weak that it becomes a snooze fest. It’s just a boring loot grind… everything in it can be solved by bringing more DPS to the table.

P3 is the opposite. Incredibly long and grueling for all the wrong reasons. Same boring mechanics, just amplified in difficulty and time. Nonstop waves of silver class enemies that reset your progress if you wipe. A trap hall that you better take your armor off for with its tiny window of opportunity to pass through and turrets at the end after youve burned all your dodges. A boring Drake sack of HP champion. An even MORE boring, even BIGGER sack of HP boss battle where he goes invulnerable every 15 – 20 seconds to cue up his telegraphed, easy to dodge attack. It’s ridiculous. No amount of teamwork or DPS can make this path anything but a long slog.

P2 is pretty ok IMO. Maggs and the end boss require at least some coordination and teamwork to get past while still being possible to brute force your way through… just not as easily as P1 is. I’ve been in P2 groups that just massacred the Magg event mobs and assassins wholesale and ones where someone needed to kite some of them around a bit while the assassins were picked off. I’ve had groups that coordinated on Vent to kill the shamans(?) in synch in the final room while the ghost was kited, and ones that could kill them so fast they just murdered them and attacked the stone almost with impunity.

P1 needs mechanics that cant be purely DPS’d through without consequence… or at least mechanics that reward teamwork and coordination. P3 needs… man… it just needs a LOT.

Path 1 is easy because:

First boss is a cakewalk for any party. He is easy to kill at range and his melee atacks aren’t too powerful until he’s near to die.
Tanky characters will kill it slower, but they are going to be downed slower too. High DPS characters can be beaten much faster, but they are also going to kitten him.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if anyone gets downed, because the boss is going to die just a few seconds later.

Then you just can run to the next event, skipping everything.
Acolyte part could be tricky if people wouldn’t have found multiple safe spots. Having them makes the event harmless.
Then you have the rolling fire stones, which is maybe the hardest part of the path for an unexperienced player.
After this there’s a second event whis is probably going to be a dejavu from the first boss. High damaging groups are going to destroy the stone so fast that there’s not going to be any risk for the people in jails. Tanky groups are going to destroy it slower, but since they are tanky, it’s gonna be a safe bet too.

Finally you get the effigy, which is tank & spank for though charcaters, and pretty easy for bursty ones. A bad full DPS player can have some troubles here if he gets paired with a tanky group which requires more time than usual, but even if he gets downed, ressing is far from a big issue here.

Path 2 is an average dungeon path IMHO. I think people find it easy just because it has been done nonstop since game launch.
I personally think that the “Defend Magg” event is the hardest of every encounter on COF, which would make path 2 the hardest of all three, but this is probably because my character is not damage focused and I usually get heavy pressure from those zergs of regular mobs while a more damage oriented char can probably demolish them before getting attacked.
In any case, mobs are so weak that you are probably going to rally anyway, so failing here is usually coused by some misspoted assassin.

Path 3 on the other side, feels really easy to me. Not as path 1 which is a joke, but maybe easier than path 2.
The torch part never was difficult. Now, with only 3 of them, it’s really easy and PUGs wouldn’t have any problem if the path just were as popular as the other two.
Same goes for the next bunch of regular mobs and the first boss, which is probably the easiest one of the whole dungeon.

And then comes the gauntlet which is the part where most complaints are aimed at.
Ironically, as a though character, I find this event easier than “defend Magg”. The mobs are thougher and hit harder, but their number is also more manageable for evading, blocking, CCig, kiting, etc.
I can see, however, the destroy them ASAP tactic which can do wonders in COF2 failing here. The major issue with this encounter is that doesn’t fit a full berserker oriented team as well as the other two paths do (which doesn’t mean it can be completed on zekers, just that requires higher defensive awareness).

The rest of the path is actually really easy.
Bomb part is a cakewalk, abolutely easier than the rolling stones on path 1. The problem here is again that people are not used to run this path, so many of them have not figured yet how to pass it.
Cheesing it requires only 2 things: swiftness and one gap opener (jump, blink, rush, …).
The only two characters that I think could have some problems here are engineers (I’m not sure about this, their jump skills just feel a little bit clunky and slow) and necromancers (that just need to find the timing for activating and triggering spectral walk).
There’s no problem with doing this naked because there’s a safe spot at the front end of the next room where you are going to leave combat automatically.

After this, you destroy some turrets, kill a champion drake that’s just tank & spank, and face the final boss which is pretty easy.; annoyingly slow to beat because of the invulnerable animations and melee unfriendly mechanics, but really easy to kite and kill at range.

Not sure about this but I would say that if a party can beat the gauntlet and doesn’t get stuck at torchers or bombs path 3 is faster than path 2, which I think includes more time sinks.

There are a lot of factors going on here but the fights in COF1 are generally quite easy and players don’t need to change many, skills, traits, or tactics for them. Straight dps can beat most enemies. Missed blocks and evades are not fatal, and even if they are there is usually an opportunity to get a downed player back up. Even if a couple of the players in the group have only solo PVE combat experience the rest of the group can carry them through.

COF is not hard at all. On any path.

It’s only hard if your team is utterly bad. (Far below average.)

kidding or serious ?

There is absolutely nothing difficult about CoF in any of the paths. At all.

This has to be a troll.

The only thing hard about CoF is the path 3 stupid path with the glowing orbs. I hate that freakin thing.

You didn’t read the OP, did you? I’m glad that EverythingXen and Vargamonth understand.

Good posts. I’ll reply with my take shortly.

There are a couple of sections in CoF that are difficult, but none of them are in Path 1. Certain parts can fail because of poor coordination (the Magg bomb section, the protect Magg from assassins section, the P3 torch lighting), some are just difficult and annoying Silver spam (looking at you P3), and the orb run in P3 is unforgiving if you don’t know it and a thief can’t sneak you through.

There are tough sections in CoF, to be sure. And I love CoF as a dungeon. But it certainly doesn’t deserve to be one of the higher level dungeons.