Guild Wars 2

i used to be a AC runer.. after the patch, i never run again. i think AC dungeon become a joke. a beginner level dungeon its. harder then a highest level dungeon (arah).

i rather spend time on arah then AC.
in my view:
1. arah weapon look better then AC
2. AC armor doesn’t look good at all..
3. AC dungeon can’t used to level character any more..

i know people will run AC because they need for craft Legendary weapon… any other reason you guys run AC for?

Calling AC harder than ARAH is a huge far cry. In it’s current state, the reason why not as many people run the new AC is because they haven’t adapted to the changes. What it did do was create a certain type of teamwork required that people shy away from. If people learn the mechanics properly, the dungeon is actually very easy.

Remember, armour and weapon aesthetics are purely subjective. For example I personally like the AC weapons over the ARAH weapons due to the look I was after for my character.

Also, people ran AC to level quickly because it was a dungeon that required very little team work and can easily be carried by Higher level players.

by saying ARAH its easier then AC, i am not saying the whole dungeon. i only point out the easier part. the easier part in AC its part1 and the easier part in ARAH its part 3….
i ran AC and ARAH both over hundred times. i used to try team up with different people.
compare last boss, the last boss on arah its such a joke. even lupicus its much harder.

yes on AC weapon its only my purely subjective. but what about armor, anyone will saying AC armor looks good?

i am not sure you are on player point of view or developer point of view…
AC its 35 level dungeon. it is the starting dungeon.. should be fit for the most dungeon beginner dungeon.
but how many player can use 35 level character to finish the dungeon. if its the recommend using 80 level character, why it defined its 35 level dungeon?

AC is still easy, many pugs are just too used to the mmo face tank n spank (really stupid) mechanic.

Arah p3 is still harder than AC and requires a little more preparation.

You can use a level 35 character here, proven by a team with masterwork gear and 35 alts.

I leveled all my alts in AC starting @ 35, leveled 3 alts to 80 in AC post-patch, and no i was not carried.

Many pugs in AC are just bad players or new players

AC is harder, I’ll grant you that.
But it is still doable.
You don’t need to be as good at dodging and the game in general in AC compared to – say – CoE. (especially if you skip Kohler and the Troll).

Sure; compared to old AC, the stupid amounts of Knockdown are kitten The spiderlings being crazy tough (why aren’t they rally fodder?) and a few other minor tweaks they made to AC didn’t really make it harder so much as annoying.

I have done it a couple times post patch, (used to run it daily pre-patch) and still need to run it a couple more times (it is still the easiest way to get PVT). Certainly don’t run it with my guildies anymore. They weren’t interested in learning how to avoid 5+ knockdowns in a row (who can blame them).

Edit: like to add; I only run it with the odd pug now. My friends have gone off AC completely.

PS. and no; we weren’t into just the face-tank and spank. We used to always kill Kohler in our runs (which is basically an anti-facetank boss – in that you have to actually dodge every now and then rather than facetank). They dont like neo AC cause of the knockdown.

A minor note regarding Spiderlings: If you see a guardian put up reflection in front of them, dont go in front of the reflection, hit them with melee if they are close enough or switch to range a little – stay behind the wall of reflection =P

I still run AC quite frequently because I like the dungeon. Yeah, I don’t do it for the tokens, or even the cash reward necessarily (although it’s nice), or the drops. It’s the dungeon with the best atmosphere, length-wise it’s just fine. Difficulty has been brought up a little, but is still very do-able in most PUGs. Although I will agree that going in with a PUG consisting of non-80’s is going to be tough at points.

I actually find it rather fun to run, and I also find the weapons in particular to be well worth collecting. (I’d actually call them my favourite in the game). The armour is lacking, to be sure, but I don’t mind the looks of the medium set too much.

That said, I do think it could definitely use some tweaks. The mechanics don’t necessarily need to be toned down, but they should be more clear given the dungeon likely being the first explorable that a lot of players experience. Things like a demonstration of how traps can be turned off and/or having the helper NPCs call out vague instructions like they do for the world bosses could go a long way to making the dungeon both more fun and more instructional.

I do feel that the spider queen is probably a little too strong now. Just a slight reduction in the size and/or damage of the AOE pools would be great.

I also would love to see the random ghost spawns (Kholer and Ghost Easter trap set up stage) be made static. There’s too large a difference in difficulty between getting a multi Elementalist, Necro and Ranger spawn than there is getting Warriors or Monks. I’m not saying the groups should be easy, but they should be constant for better balancing.

AC is fine, p1 is still easy as hell, p2 has a fun boss mechanic and if p3 npc doesn’t bug out is faceroll aswell. Spider/troll are a bit nastier and not a faceroll tank&spank anymore, stalker is annoying as hell, but on the other hand Kholer is easier and pretty much everything else is left unchanged.

Polle.6908:

Calling AC harder than ARAH is a huge far cry. In it’s current state, the reason why not as many people run the new AC is because they haven’t adapted to the changes. What it did do was create a certain type of teamwork required that people shy away from. If people learn the mechanics properly, the dungeon is actually very easy.

Remember, armour and weapon aesthetics are purely subjective. For example I personally like the AC weapons over the ARAH weapons due to the look I was after for my character.

Also, people ran AC to level quickly because it was a dungeon that required very little team work and can easily be carried by Higher level players.

Everything you said sounds acceptable for an entry level dungeon.

And I don’t know about Arah, but I’ve run Crucible and Citadel of Flame both on Story and Exp… These are endgame experiences. I ran into a snag on Crucible, but otherwise I enjoyed everything they had to offer without too much trouble. They stayed challenging without becoming unfair.

I think I’d rather run solo in WvWvW than play AC-Exp, though.

And I hate WvWvW with a group, to be honest.

I ran AC before the patch and I still run it. Leveling my warrior I started running AC (after patch) with lvl 35 and did all three paths once every day since. It takes 2 or 3 runs till you know what to do, then it’s just as easy. With a good group I do all 3 paths together in little more than an hour (skipping kholer and mobs).
So to sum it up: Yes it’s a little (!) harder then before the patch but all those people complaining about it being too hard should seriously learn how to play the game or go back to Super Mario or Call of Duty.

I don’t run AC any more because CoF is more profitable for my time ever since they added the bags of wondrous goods to dungeons.

I still try it with a PUG every once in awhile, since I want PVT armor on a couple of characters, but then after getting bounced around by gravelings for awhile I remember why I don’t do it more often. Almost none of my friends/guildmates will join me (mind you, we don’t have enough after two left because of high dungeon difficulty to make up a full team any more). With an Engineer main with virtually no access to stability, I’m not sure what I can do to avoid attacks from half a dozen gravelings at once.

Just because it is level 35 for explorable does not mean it has to be incredibly easy. Neither does it being the first dungeon mean it had to be incredibly easy. This dungeon teaches you the mechanics that you will need in the other dungeons. It’s not at all difficult once you know the mechanics and how to play your class. Working as a team helps too.

The issue is just learning a few new mechanics since we were all used to the old methods. Once you get them down and have a group that works together, the rest is cake.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Things like a demonstration of how traps can be turned off

Just want to touch on this very specific point, but the game already does this in AC story mode within the first 10 or so minutes of the run. There’s a reason why story mode is a prerequisite to being able to start the explorable instance on a character, though I guess newer players just skip that part and piggyback on others who have already completed story mode because they hear that the rewards in story mode are crap and it isn’t worth doing.

Because I can run an Arah P3 with 3 newbies (with proper explanation in dungeon) faster than an all 80s AC party. The number of people wanting to skip Kholer (he’s so easy, just learn to kitten dodge)/rage quitting is hilarious. Besides, SE, CoE and HoTW all paths are fun dungeons that do not require my guard to waste all utility skills on stability and break stuns all the time.

Hobocop.1508:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Things like a demonstration of how traps can be turned off

Just want to touch on this very specific point, but the game already does this in AC story mode within the first 10 or so minutes of the run. There’s a reason why story mode is a prerequisite to being able to start the explorable instance on a character, though I guess newer players just skip that part and piggyback on others who have already completed story mode because they hear that the rewards in story mode are crap and it isn’t worth doing.

Good to know. Thanks for pointing that out.

And yes, I personally didn’t bother with Story Mode myself. I enjoy AC but want the Tokens so it’s never been a particular goal of mine to do Story. Also, as rare as AC EXP groups are to find, AC Story groups are even rarer so even if one wants to do Story they’re more likely to be waiting around sitting on their hands and will often just do EXP (or give up altogether) anyway.

I’ve seen a lot of people on gw2lfg trying to do story. It probably just depends on the time of day you’re looking.

Yeah, it’s really easy to find a group doing story. Plus it only takes like 30 minutes to complete anyway.

I suspect the story groups are most prevalent when “dungeon story” is part of dailies.

Also “really easy to find a group” is timezone dependant. Whereas there are no issues getting CoF p1 exp group; and AC exp used to be just as easy (regardless of timezone).

Rewards in story MUST be bumped up. This is IMO without question.

I got glitched into/through walls so much during the part where you clear the room of those annoying things that knock you down…

AC is as easy as it ever has been – it just takes longer, now. I can still run P1 and P3 in less than 15mins, each, depending on the party, and less if we skip Kholer and the troll. I also still use it to level alts, so I’m not entirely sure where you’re coming from on this…

I think there’s one thing everyone can agree on, though: P2 is just plain stupid. Between the glitchy NPCs and the horrendous gimmick of a boss fight, I’ll probably never opt to play it again.

Faranox.4217:

I got glitched into/through walls so much during the part where you clear the room of those annoying things that knock you down…

That’s not the cause of the patch, nor is the cause of the mobs. It’s always been like that, and it happens when you’re standing on the hitbox of the graveling mound when it surfaces/disappears.

Very annoying bug, though.

I’ve leveled 4 character in AC since the patch. Starting when they were level 35, these include Guard, Necro, Elementalist and Ranger.

The Dungeon is fine for low level characters as long as they have decent gear, Masterwork +. Most of the fights are technique based, so don’t suffer much from lack of stats.

In fact in some ways it’s more friendly to lower level players, mobs have lower HP. The Burrows in path 3 seem to have more gap between them, leading to me finding that I get gaps to regroup a bit between them. You don’t have to clear the pit on Path 1 and 3. Gravelings despawn on the Spike Traps as soon as you complete etc.

The only fight I feel has got harder I feel is the Spider. Which can be a bit of a pain. But, as long as people don’t run in and pull every mini-spider on top of you it’s not too bad, it has much less HP than before and can easily be solo’d by one competant player. Having a Guardian with Wall of Reflection for the mini-spiders also helps.

But overall. I like the changes. Having successfully run the dungeon on 4 level 35s, in pugs and with other low level toons in the party.

Kozai.8269:

I still try it with a PUG every once in awhile, since I want PVT armor on a couple of characters, but then after getting bounced around by gravelings for awhile I remember why I don’t do it more often. Almost none of my friends/guildmates will join me (mind you, we don’t have enough after two left because of high dungeon difficulty to make up a full team any more). With an Engineer main with virtually no access to stability, I’m not sure what I can do to avoid attacks from half a dozen gravelings at once.

Elixir S is a really good way to avoid the problem, even works when you are knocked down, so is a great Oh kitten button. I run Speedy Kits, so swapping kits means I can have permanent Swiftness (I also use a trait so I get Vigor on kit swapping), this means you are moving faster than the Gravelings, all you need to do is watch for the ramp up for a pounce, they give off a noticeable crouching animation and dodge the pounce, by the time they cooldown and can pounce again you will be miles away. I combine this with blind grenades so they miss with their pounce and ice grenades so they definitely can’t catch up with me.

Engineers have all the necessary tools to get through these bits you just need to practice getting the timing right.

It’s even possible to collect all the parts of the fire scepter with an Engineer. But it does involve a bit of cunning foot work to do.

(You can also hang slightly behind a Guard/Elementalist and run through after they have been pounced by the graveling as there is a fairly long cooldown on the pounce)

I got my gift the other day and I’ll not go back to this dungeon till they fix it. Since the changes it is just a glitchy mess and it irritates me everytime I go in there.