Guild Wars 2

I know there’s an upcoming patch the “size of an expansion” but I would like to know if we’ll ever get some real difficulty.

There’s something about overcoming insurmountable odds with friends and mates that creates a great memory and camaraderie.. something I haven’t felt too much in GW2.

There was a slight buildup to Lupicus, as I’d read so many rage posts about him before I fought him myself, but he turned out pretty easy… (killed by multiple professions solo)

Simin the same – Completed it with my buddy and 3 pugs from gw2lfg.com .. first time ever attempting it..

What I want to know is – Will we ever get some real difficulty? Content that is intense yet rewarding, and something not everyone will be able to finish? (That is based on real player/team skill, not DPS race or stupid Agony scaling)

I love dungeons.. I love playing with my team. But what else does someone like me have left to do? Is there anything on the horizon?

Most of this game is not difficult. There are annoyances, but no real difficulty. I am sure a ton of ppl will disagree with me but without the trinity, you cannot build proper fights.

George Steel.1804:

What I want to know is – Will we ever get some real difficulty? Content that is intense yet rewarding, and something not everyone will be able to finish?

If and/or When we do, it will subsequently be nerfed because the majority of the forum goers tend to really adore this “everyone needs to be able to finish things” mentality. It’s like… casual elitism. Or gaming socialism.

Some things. like Mad King’s Clock Tower, remains one of the big difficult content things, but it’s seasonal.

I’d love that kind of pass-or-fail, there is no coddling, content. But, we are somewhat in the minority – So it’ll be pretty amazing if we actually get something like that.

If random elements aren’t involved, it’s only a pattern you need to learn. Even the clocktower was a pattern. If you beat it once, you’ll need less tries to do it again and again and it wouldn’t take very long until you could complete it in a row.

Even if you had a trinity it would only be a matter of learning the pattern. The trinity, and more specifically the healer role, makes you rely on someone else, thus making the pattern a little harder to learn with time. In GW2 you can learn the fights with random groups and adapt more easily with another team set up (if you aren’t being carried), but in a game where you have a healer, the healer and the team mates need to learn each others playing style.

But in the end, once you can do it properly, you stop having difficulties with it.

Whatever they bring, it will be intense until you do it right and then you’ll find it trivial. If you played a platform game (Mario, Castlevania, etc) you probably encountered this : you stumble across a level you can’t beat and then, one day, after who knows how many tries you finally win. You try it again a few days later and surprise, you don’t fail as much. Depending on whether or not your team carried you during hard encounters in GW2, whether or not you and your team didn’t receive any tips on what and how to do it, you might have skipped the whole leaning part thus a chunk of the intensity you sought.

George Steel.1804:

I know there’s an upcoming patch the “size of an expansion” but I would like to know if we’ll ever get some real difficulty.

There’s something about overcoming insurmountable odds with friends and mates that creates a great memory and camaraderie.. something I haven’t felt too much in GW2.

There was a slight buildup to Lupicus, as I’d read so many rage posts about him before I fought him myself, but he turned out pretty easy… (killed by multiple professions solo)

Simin the same – Completed it with my buddy and 3 pugs from gw2lfg.com .. first time ever attempting it..

What I want to know is – Will we ever get some real difficulty? Content that is intense yet rewarding, and something not everyone will be able to finish? (That is based on real player/team skill, not DPS race or stupid Agony scaling)

I love dungeons.. I love playing with my team. But what else does someone like me have left to do? Is there anything on the horizon?

Doubt it. My reasoning behind this is if they implement something too difficult the casual players will complain that they can’t do it and it will eventually get nerfed

RedStar.4218:

Whatever they bring, it will be intense until you do it right and then you’ll find it trivial..

The problem with this statement is that there are very few fights that this applies to. I never watched videos prior to a fight and never needed more than 1 reset to figure it out.

The fights are simple due to the lack of trinity. Sure, even with trinity you get used to the fights, but GW2 cannot have many of those fights because they have no trinity. Boring, uninteresting fights.

Trinity != interesting.

Trinity does not inherently create an interesting or difficult mechanic. It is a method of dealing with difficulty. Here’s what trinity does to distil an encounter down:

Step 1: The encounter deals a lot of damage, we need a sponge to absorb that damage
Step 2: The encounter deals more damage than the sponge can absorb, we need someone to heal the sponge
Step 3: Our sponge and healer aren’t very effective at killing the things dealing damage, someone go deal damage to fix that problem.

That’s not interesting, or challenging. It doesn’t allow you to do anything fundamentally that you can’t build in GW2.

In GW2, I have played characters that ‘tank’ an encounter, leashing mobs / bosses and absorbing damage while the party ressed or dealt damage. I’ve been a support bucket, pouring out boons and party wide heals, and I’ve been a fountain of DPS, chugging away at boss HP….

The notion that GW2 removes trinity is based on the notion that every profession has methods of executing in all of those roles…. not saying that you can’t play with those roles.

To get back to the OPs question: What would make an encounter more difficult?

I agree that with experience, things become farmable / repeatable with ease, and that isn’t experience with the dungeon over and over again… an experienced player in Dungeon X can quickly pick up the mechanics of Dungen Y and be successful.

What type of difficulty would be more rewarding?

The type of difficulty I am interested in is mechanics that both inhibit the player and boost the boss. There are literally countless ways this can be achieved, limited only by creativity.

The Fractal L10 changes are a good example of this, like Harpies gaining a knockback that can be avoided with smart ise of stability, reflection, etc. I just wish there were more kinds of these difficulty increases. Perhaps a Hard Mode for dungeons with greater rewards.

I’ll use one of my favorite bosses as an example, the Imbued Shaman. In tier 20-29 he could gain a stacking speed boost whenever a player is melee-hit by an add, allowing the Shaman to get to villagers quicker if adds are handled poorly. In tier 30-39 the surrounding lava could further submerge the island at every 25% health interval, making players adapt to a smaller battlefield.

I think the harpies just annoying. It’s easy for me on my elementalist (Blinding Flash, Swiring Winds, Gale, Magnetic Wave, Obsidian Flesh, Comet, Armor of Earth, Mist Form, Arcane Shield) but not every class has access to projectile absorb/reflect and stability.

Well here’s a fancy idea. Why doesn’t Anet make a “hard mode” version of all the dungeons for those seeking a great challenge..but wait…make the rewards all the same as normal difficult! Surely people would do it “just for the challenge,” no? This would make everyone happy, until the people who are “looking for the HARD stuff” complain that they aren’t getting rewarded enough.

I know, they should give the people who accomplish this little badges they can pin on themselves saying “I AM SPECIAL!”

I find that things people complain are extremely difficult are fairly easy. Before CoE all I heard about it was that Alpha was really difficult. Eventually I get into CoE and……. he’s a complete joke.

I think the issue if that there’s so many players who complain about easy stuff so that if they add anything that’s actually difficult then they’ll cry nonstop

Agree with justin
There are lot of ways to make things harder without asking anet…..

Go with subpar equip, avoid using AI exploit, use different BUILDS and less efficient weaponsets…

Its not difficulty what you are asking for…..

why artificially looking for hard mode?
want one? find two other people who think like you and run the same dungeon/fractal as a trio.
then as duo, then solo it.

why is there a post everyday of someone asking for harder content? yes we get it, you’re perfect, you’re a god of a player, we should all bow before your immense skill… (if there were a video of you soloing lupi, I’d consider this more than a ego-stroking trollthread)

if you really were that good, there are several ways to get hardmode without having to post on the forums trying to show off – all of which a decent player should be able to come up with himself..

• run a dungeon naked
• run a dungeon with less than 5 people (works in most paths, as your eminence should know)
• solo harder bosses (general pve or dungeon) or a complete dungeon path
• go kill a zerg in wvw
• play tpvp

and now lets wait for the usual: but I want hardmode without having to resort to handicapping myself
for that I can only say: grow up, you can get what you want without having to negatively impact other players, don’t ask to grief them just for your sake. the only thing I agree with is, if someone’s handycapping himself, he should get greater rewards (i.e. running dungeons with only 3 people should increase loot/money/tokens for everyone by at least 40%)

Handicapping is not real challenge, it is the same as just increasing the damage and health of everything. True challenge lies in new mechanics. Blizzard does this right in the form of Heroic-only boss abilities and phases, and ANet started doing this in Fractals L10.

Toxyn.9608:

Handicapping is not real challenge, it is the same as just increasing the damage and health of everything. True challenge lies in new mechanics. Blizzard does this right in the form of Heroic-only boss abilities and phases, and ANet started doing this in Fractals L10.

if you can eat two full hits of a boss in your normal gear, it means you have some space for error. removing this leeway is a challenge, as you can’t make any more errors compared to before. thus handicapping yourself is in fact a valid way to generate a higher challenge for yourself. you might prefer the challenge to take another form (new mechanics etc), but denying this is a challenge doesn’t help your argument.

I don’t claim it’s the only way, but at least it’s simple, forces you to play your best (as every error counts) and doesn’t impact other players/groups chosing to do it normally negatively.

additional modes for increased difficulty might be nice, but the time it takes to add more difficulty for a select few players (say < 5%, maybe even less?) could easily be spent on something that benefits the whole playerbase. especially if there already are simple ways to get more challenge for yourself without the devs having to invest time.

also, if you’re so hellbent on having a challenge.. why don’t you just start taking newby-pugs into arah or something?

Difficulty and Challenge are two different things.

Something can be just difficult, just challenging, or both difficult and challenging.

Difficulty is about something being hard to do. Handicapping falls into this category, as do straight-up dps checks, hps checks, etc. Large boss HP pools and 1-Hit attacks are also difficult. Difficulty requires a player to just do more of what they already know how to do (Damage, Healing, Avoiding).

Challenge is about problem solving. It forces the player to adapt and play differently than they are used to. Designers implement challenge via new mechanics (in combat) and puzzles (in PvE platforming).

Right now Guild Wars 2 has an adequate amount of difficulty (large boss hp pools, attacks that must be avoided, and Agony), but lacks challenge. There are quite a few challenging puzzles, but very few challenging bosses (Subject Alpha, Lupicus, Simin, and Imbued Shaman are in the right direction).

In what category is Turmaine (CM p2 boss) ?

Xaaz.8472:

The problem with this statement is that there are very few fights that this applies to. I never watched videos prior to a fight and never needed more than 1 reset to figure it out.

The fights are simple due to the lack of trinity. Sure, even with trinity you get used to the fights, but GW2 cannot have many of those fights because they have no trinity. Boring, uninteresting fights.

Then I don’t know, you (or your team if you are always with the same team) are gifted. When you see threads upon threads about encounters that don’t seem hard for you, then logic dictates that you are a better player for that encounter.
The trinity brings the problem of communication and relying more on your teammates playing their role correctly (GW2 has that too, but clearly not as much as a trinity based game).

As much as I would like this it’s probably never going to happen because of three main reasons:

A) Anet (and it seems, mmos in general) seem to avoid rewarding skill instead of patience
B) The portion of the community who actually strives for challenge and doesn’t find these things easy instead of just being a mindless farm drone is pretty small, and content designed for a small amount of players is not profitable
C) If it has any kind of reward people will try it and complain that content is being locked away. Hell, even if it has no reward this will still happen.

For now, we’ll just have to restrain ourselves to putting our own restraints on dungeons. 3-manning dungeons is much funner – it feels like how dungeons were designed to be, it’s less of a clusterkitten because everything you do is more important – except for the huge health bars.

Oh that’s one more thing – if we do get a “hard mode” it won’t actually be hard at all, everything will just be normal mobs with 200 times the HP because anet seem to think that taking longer on something = harder. No. It’s not hard, and it’s not fun.

The answer is no. Increasing difficulty would cause loss of bad players, that are majority of any (mmo) game. Thats why the good games never survives long.

Writetyper.1985:

As much as I would like this it’s probably never going to happen because of three main reasons:

A) Anet (and it seems, mmos in general) seem to avoid rewarding skill instead of patience

i agree with this

B) The portion of the community who actually strives for challenge and doesn’t find these things easy instead of just being a mindless farm drone is pretty small, and content designed for a small amount of players is not profitable

See your point A)
I look videos of high lvl fotm and play only dungeons….

Well the difficulty seems to find the proper AI exploits (not game exploit).
Most things are extremely hard until you find it and extremely easy afterwards……

A different form of patience not of skill….

And actually i prefer playing interesting stories than having to watch youtube to complete a dungeon.

Same false difficulty of dark souls game that becomes too easy as you just learn how to play.

Unfortunately the game would require a complex AI to give what could be considered a good challenge but i don t know any mmorpg with such thing…

C) If it has any kind of reward people will try it and complain that content is being locked away. Hell, even if it has no reward this will still happen.

Reward is completing the same dungeon in 1 hour rather than in 2….you get 2X income…

Reward are also aesthetic items with no stats on them (like fotm).

If you want to get better skills of other players or access to dungeon reserved only for 1% of community, well i think you are being a little selfish…

You don t need better stats if you are TRULY more skilled than other players.

For now, we’ll just have to restrain ourselves to putting our own restraints on dungeons. 3-manning dungeons is much funner – it feels like how dungeons were designed to be, it’s less of a clusterkitten because everything you do is more important – except for the huge health bars.

wellcome to videogames since 1980
Took some time to understand how the fun is playing and not getting the reward……

Are you using a class build found on the internet and dungeon strategies found on the internet? The game is designed to be appropriate for players who do not take builds from the internet and do not read dungeon strategies on forums.

If you want difficulty then try fractals. They become progressively more difficult until you reach your own level of impossibility. PvP also makes the game as difficult as players want to make it.

Stooperdale.3560:

Are you using a class build found on the internet and dungeon strategies found on the internet? The game is designed to be appropriate for players who do not take builds from the internet and do not read dungeon strategies on forums.

If you want difficulty then try fractals. They become progressively more difficult until you reach your own level of impossibility. PvP also makes the game as difficult as players want to make it.

Honestly, no to the entire first paragraph.

Fractals indeed get more difficult as the levels increase, but they stop becoming more challenging after L10. PvP is always a good source of challenge, but is not an answer to PvE.

I’d like to add Champ Grawl Shaman at FoTM 30+

Beating that encounter without a guardian, thief, or mesmer feels truly rewarding.

Great topic finally some kind of feedback and suggestion rather than a complaint.

As for a solution: i don’t know if you are familiar with the Battlenet in Warcraft 3 but if you are then you probably heard the name “impossible bosses” or “101 rounds”.

I’d suggest something like that in he game! Those battles had a great system behind them, were exceptionally good programmed and just had awesome mechanics. I’d love something like that implemented!

The one and very special thing about them: You mess up and you are dead. No mercy no kindness. An unforgiving game desgin that was simply stunning. Required skill and tactic as well as knowing all those boss paterns. I loved it

don’t really agree with your definition of challenge and difficulty but even agreeing there are a few points you seem to ignore:
your definition of challenge only works the first few times something occurs. afterwards it’s routine and thus no longer a challenge but at best difficult. this would mean, to keep you challenged, the devs would constantly have to improve the mechanics of existing bosses, just for your sake.

and even then, proposals (like undermanning a dungeon group, as someone from kaineng you should’ve thought about that already) STILL would be a challenge for the first few times.

real challenge after your definition will not last, except as already mentioned pvp or an AI which can keep challenging you. as for the latter.. yeah, sure.. while we’re at it, why not let ANet solve the other big problems of programming like sorting with less effort than O(log n)? or inventing a way to generate unlimited clean energy?

My life for a boss that had more than 7 attacks as well as 1-3 mechanics that would force a fail state if you didn’t attention.

No, I fully realize that challenge is limited to a fresh experience and is diminished after it has been overcome. That is what is so great about challenge compared to difficulty. After a team learns how to overcome a challenge it should be faster and easier the next time you face it together. In other mmos this is called “farm status”. ANet’s recent change to the Destroyer boss in CoE is aimed at this philosophy.

The problem is that the majority of bosses in the game are not challenging even from the start. Koeler is a good boss that I neglected to mention above. He is more challenging than he is difficult.

ANet would not have to keep updating bosses, that would be silly. The main reward for overcoming a challenge with your team is the virtual accomplishment you feel together and it gives bosses a nostalgic memory. Right now there are very few bosses that are memorable and even fewer that gave a sense of accomplishment after being killed.

Edit: Going to be honest, I have no idea what you meant by the Kaineng thing.

I do not believe making a dungeon artifically harder on myself by
-taking off my gear
-running with less people
-using no trait points

Makes the fights in GW2 any better. Like some mentioned, yes, fractals were a step in the right direction. But there are just so many fights in this game (talking about explorable dungeons, pretty much strictly) that are just mindless fights with no real mechanics (I dont consider dodging out of an AoE circle a mechanic).

The problem however is simply the lack of content dungeon wise. I’ve finished every path, transmuted over skins dozens of times, but there’s nothing else to be gained. I do like certain fights in dungeons, and that’s why I’ll run them again from time to time – but repetitiveness sets in.

To me it’s just a bit saddening to see ANet cater so hard to people who are bad. Yeah, I said it.. bad. Hardcore doesn’t have anything to do with it, I know people on my friends list who play 3-4x more than me and I still outplay them 10 times out of 10.

It would even improve the metagame as a whole. Just keep in mind, when something challenging appears on the horizon and people are failing or not good enough to complete it, they are now motivated to play better as an individual and a party member.

The skilled players want some help here. We want some dungeons that are engaging, challenging, difficult, and fun. The thing is, I believe they can release this type of content. Hell, I know they can.

The real question is, will they? Or will the priorities of pleasing the masses and maximizing gem-shop revenue take front and center?

See, the main issue with most dungeons is that many of the boss/enemy encounters are very poorly designed. The difficulty that is present in this game is more cheap then anything else, like giving bosses stupidly high health pools and one-shot kills that are incredibly hard to spot. Now I don’t mind a challenge if it’s well-designed, but what Anet calls “challenging,” is what most would call “stupid and frustrating.” And honestly, if you managed to do everything in this game then I would suggest you give yourself a pat on the back and move on instead of clamoring for the rest of the community to become more frustrated with more of Anet’s “difficulty.”

Justin.7163:

See, the main issue with most dungeons is that many of the boss/enemy encounters are very poorly designed. The difficulty that is present in this game is more cheap then anything else, like giving bosses stupidly high health pools and one-shot kills that are incredibly hard to spot. Now I don’t mind a challenge if it’s well-designed, but what Anet calls “challenging,” is what most would call “stupid and frustrating.” And honestly, if you managed to do everything in this game then I would suggest you give yourself a pat on the back and move on instead of clamoring for the rest of the community to become more frustrated with more of Anet’s “difficulty.”

Precisely.. which is why I want to see well designed challenging encounters. I have no will to make the community “more frustrated with ANet’s difficulty”. However, you must understand something. Even if ANet was to create well designed challenging encounters, some of the community would still be frustrated, because some would simply not be up to the challenge. The hope however is that we will get that well designed, yet challenging content. I’m fine with some of it being easy and catering to everyone, but the skilled people want a challenge, too.

There is no such thing as “real difficulty” when referring to PvE.

Judge Banks.9018:

My life for a boss that had more than 7 attacks as well as 1-3 mechanics that would force a fail state if you didn’t attention.

this so much. especially the ones with a million HP. they should have a FULL 10 skills like the player does.

George – the challenge you are looking for is the “new challenge feeling” the shiver down your spine as you see something completely new both in what the effect does and what you have to do to counter it.

I’m not hardcore like you are – I’d prefer static AI and optimizing the team build to perfection to the point where we can do AC P1-3 in 35 mins.

But I recognize the gaming high you crave. I play TF2 pubbies for the same high, but I don’t get much lasting enjoyment from it these days.

Anywho what would be awsome is a random boss skin and class with random boss mechanics attached – take the best boss mechnics from each and every boss (alphas AoE , Jormags 5 second fear, FL hieros 5 second knockback into lava, kohlers pull aoe condi) and randomize it. So a risen asuran brute can have 1 major ability such as the FL hieros 5 second invuln knockback but at the same time have 5 minor abilities such as clock for 10 secs and regen, flame blast, mass daze, and knock down on hit.

Think of the possibilities, with only 3 utilities and 1 elite to cover all possible situations you would need all 5 party members to overlap and cover the entire spectrem.

Wouldn’t that be exciting? You CAN’T predict what move the boss will use next unless it used it before, and you would get a brand new boss EVERY time (save for random similar bosses due to statistical anomalies).

They could call this “Dungeon unknown” and put it in southsun or something.

And yes I’m 100% serious about this dungeon mode – it would allow teams to increase their teamwork synergy for elite speedruns ect, at the same time as letting hardcore players get their new boss high.

Nope. Reason 1. As we can see from posts above the gw2 community at this point consists mostly of blind and frankly quite kitten scrub fanboys, to who gw2 is the second coming of an mmo and everything related to it is perfect, arenanet are gods and if you dare say anything bad about the game you are a heretic. This kind of community is the most toxic to the game by far, which is why it’s foolish to expect the game to evolve in the right direction.
Reason 2. I think it is clearl to anyone who isn’t a blind fanboy that the benefits of (if there a any real ones) removing the trinity didn’t even came close to outweighting the negatives it brought, one of which is oversimplified pve encounters, that consist mostly of “dodge stuff”. There is a reason trinity existed and continue to exist in mmos for 10+ years.
Not saying that you can’t build proper interesting and challenging encounters without trinity, but frankly from what I’ve seen so far arenanet lacks both creativity and experience to do it, they just really bited more then they can chew.

Toxyn.9608:

Difficulty and Challenge are two different things.

Something can be just difficult, just challenging, or both difficult and challenging.

Difficulty is about something being hard to do. Handicapping falls into this category, as do straight-up dps checks, hps checks, etc. Large boss HP pools and 1-Hit attacks are also difficult. Difficulty requires a player to just do more of what they already know how to do (Damage, Healing, Avoiding).

Challenge is about problem solving. It forces the player to adapt and play differently than they are used to. Designers implement challenge via new mechanics (in combat) and puzzles (in PvE platforming).

Right now Guild Wars 2 has an adequate amount of difficulty (large boss hp pools, attacks that must be avoided, and Agony), but lacks challenge. There are quite a few challenging puzzles, but very few challenging bosses (Subject Alpha, Lupicus, Simin, and Imbued Shaman are in the right direction).

I smell a game designer. I couldn’t agree more. Another way to put it is that most content in this game requires skill, but not logic. If you are a quick and talented player, you can beat everything in this game. However, tactics and intelligence is rarely rewarded.

ok, I probably misunderstood you. yes, there are absolutely stupid bosses which need to be improved to provide challenge (the first few times) but become easier after you know what to do. the list you mentioned is a bit small. I find all AC bosses (kohler, troll, and howler/rumblus/eater, except the stupid spider queen) pretty good in this regard, though they could profit from a bit more variation. same goes for fractal bosses. TA is one of the really bad examples imho (though I haven’t tried it since the patch)
my main gripe with this is: if you get a group that knows ac in and out, its such an easy dungeon. maybe to easy for the rewards you get (don’t even start with cof1, thats insane, I know). whereas with the ‘stupid’ bosses like in coe (I count alpha to the stupid ones – he has some great mechanics, but especially in path 2 its just spam the whole ground and everybody has to dodge, not even challenge, just boring and unforgiving when you have lag) they are always difficult to a certain extent as they rely on high health, forcing you to spend time with them.

more interesting bossfights (and less gigantic healthbars) would certainly profit everyone. but increasing the difficulty would only split the playerbase further. every dungeon should be puggable, if the players are decent. I really liked the 5 torches in cof3 – a pug could do it easily if every player was doing his part and was able to read and follow instructions, no matter the gear or traits, unlike apparently simin, which is just a dps check.

ps: the kaineng thing: at the start of guild wars 2, they had very few wvwvw players on their server and thus always were undermanned – there have been some rather entertaining posts from some kaineng players about this state (few against zergs etc).. but maybe the reference no longer applies ;-)

RedStar.4218:

In what category is Turmaine (CM p2 boss)

Annoying.

i would suggest dungeon: Extreme mode. here, is exactly like exploration, except that better rewards, but mobs/boss have +25% hp, +25% dmg, and do/cast skills 25% faster
you gain 33% more tokens, or +25% and some karma, whatever…

Run a dungeon with Five Engineers. There’s your difficulty increase without all the suggestions to run naked or without traits. We can jack of all trades every roll but at a somewhat lacking, what is perceived as “poor” performance rate.

It is doable by the way. Also, it would help increase the almost barren Engineer population.

As an aside, if you are posting this as a Guardian you should definitely try out a Arah without one (would force you to play as one of your alts or something).

The amount of group support a well-played Guardian brings turns every dungeon and fractal in this game into a face-roll.

Decklan.7540:

As an aside, if you are posting this as a Guardian you should definitely try out a Arah without one (would force you to play as one of your alts or something).

The amount of group support a well-played Guardian brings turns every dungeon and fractal in this game into a face-roll.

i second and third that , go fotm with 5 thieves or 5 rangers ^^

DanH.5879:

Decklan.7540:

As an aside, if you are posting this as a Guardian you should definitely try out a Arah without one (would force you to play as one of your alts or something).

The amount of group support a well-played Guardian brings turns every dungeon and fractal in this game into a face-roll.

i second and third that , go fotm with 5 thieves or 5 rangers ^^

Yesterday i did TA <== (Easy dungeon) with 2 D/D ele and 3 necro ____

tell me again its easy….i perfectly know how effortless is for guardians/wars to kill the nightmare vines…….

Or again high lvl fotm bonfire in snow stage…..everything just oneshots you there….
If you want challenge go for challenging classes rather than asking content exclusive to your.

Decklan.7540:

Run a dungeon with Five Engineers. There’s your difficulty increase without all the suggestions to run naked or without traits. We can jack of all trades every roll but at a somewhat lacking, what is perceived as “poor” performance rate.

It is doable by the way. Also, it would help increase the almost barren Engineer population.

Handicapping yourself doesn’t change anything in the dungeon. The only thing it changes is how long you need to whack on a boss. Might as well triple all mob health bars in a dungeon and call it hard mode. That’s not challenging, it’s just annoying.
What people want is a real hard mode that requires skill from every player and knowledge of the dungeon mechanics
See CoF p3 before the patch. The torches part was completely doable, however it required communication and good timing. EVERY party member needed to be able to carry his own weight. Now you can just faceroll through it while waiting for the other two members of your group to stop afk’ing.