I’ve noticed some of the Aetherblade Thugs in the Attack of LA instance deal some serious damage (especially when they scale up), but as you’ll see in the screenshot, this is a bit TOO much. Players don’t even get a warning, they’re just instantly downed – whenever the Elite Aetherblade Thug uses ‘battle standard’ (if you have a 50 or so player blob I think it is).
And before you ask, I had over 19k health, 2900+ armor, some ascended armor, exotics, and level 80, so no matter what you do or have as gear, it is no match for this Aetherblade, and I see it time and time again… groups of players being instantly downed by this guy.
Is this truly working as intended? Because to me, it seems just a TAD overpowered >_<
I’ve noticed some of the Aetherblade Thugs in the Attack of LA instance deal some serious damage (especially when they scale up), but as you’ll see in the screenshot, this is a bit TOO much. Players don’t even get a warning, they’re just instantly downed – whenever the Elite Aetherblade Thug uses ‘battle standard’ (if you have a 50 or so player blob I think it is).
And before you ask, I had over 19k health, 2900+ armor, some ascended armor, exotics, and level 80, so no matter what you do or have as gear, it is no match for this Aetherblade, and I see it time and time again… groups of players being instantly downed by this guy.
Is this truly working as intended? Because to me, it seems just a TAD overpowered >_<
Collect more children’s drawings, so that one day you may stand on even level as such a mighty adversary.
I’ve been downed by these guys and also close to being downed in just 1 hit. I have some 3200+ toughness and about 25k hp. It can come as a real shock and a BOOM when it happens. Not sure if it’s working as intended or not but yeah it’s deadly. I guess I’m just posting to say that you CAN avoid death but you have to have a lot of HP and be almost at full HP when the attack comes.
Since when did this business of being a hero become being a business?
Its the end of a 1-2-3 attack chain and has a telegraph from Ebonhawke to DR.
You are not supposed to tank that damage.
Battle Standard isn’t part of an auto-attack chain, it’s the Warrior Elite skill, dropping the Warbanner from the sky. There is still a lengthy telegraph on it, complete with a special sound effect, so it shouldn’t be taking players by surprise.
The only issue here is that the thug is level 84, and in the zerg these players are running with they can’t keep track of the distinctive animation and sound effect. The moral of this story is “don’t zerg in Lion’s Arch”. The upscaled armies of Scarlet are no laughing matter, and if you insist on forming overly large groups, then you have to be prepared to be downed if you’re unable to spot telegraphed attacks like Battle Standard coming.
Its the end of a 1-2-3 attack chain and has a telegraph from Ebonhawke to DR.
You are not supposed to tank that damage.
Battle Standard isn’t part of an auto-attack chain, it’s the Warrior Elite skill, dropping the Warbanner from the sky. There is still a lengthy telegraph on it, complete with a special sound effect, so it shouldn’t be taking players by surprise.
The only issue here is that the thug is level 84, and in the zerg these players are running with they can’t keep track of the distinctive animation and sound effect. The moral of this story is “don’t zerg in Lion’s Arch”. The upscaled armies of Scarlet are no laughing matter, and if you insist on forming overly large groups, then you have to be prepared to be downed if you’re unable to spot telegraphed attacks like Battle Standard coming.
I see it happen in the attacks BEFORE people get in to LA, can’t really avoid those zergs….
Since when did this business of being a hero become being a business?
I’m surprised it’s taken as long as it has for this topic to surface.
It has surfaced, sunk and surfaced again.
The general issue is that while telegraphed spike attacks work in PVE while facing down 1-2 enemies, they quickly become an annoyance when models overlap and covered in particle FX.
Its the end of a 1-2-3 attack chain and has a telegraph from Ebonhawke to DR.
You are not supposed to tank that damage.
Battle Standard isn’t part of an auto-attack chain, it’s the Warrior Elite skill, dropping the Warbanner from the sky. There is still a lengthy telegraph on it, complete with a special sound effect, so it shouldn’t be taking players by surprise.
The only issue here is that the thug is level 84, and in the zerg these players are running with they can’t keep track of the distinctive animation and sound effect. The moral of this story is “don’t zerg in Lion’s Arch”. The upscaled armies of Scarlet are no laughing matter, and if you insist on forming overly large groups, then you have to be prepared to be downed if you’re unable to spot telegraphed attacks like Battle Standard coming.
That’s the thing though. I never have any gw2 sound on because I find it clunky and annoying (I usually have music on iTunes going instead) so I wouldn’t have heard any sound effects. I thought there could have been some animation before the banner ko’ed multiple players too, however, like you say, being in a huge Zerg, you never really see their animations in time (I know I don’t!) because of the shear amount of people around you.
It’s quite frustrating because no matter how many times I dodge for heals and all the other heals I get using guardian, I still get downed by them frequently.
I understand and get that Anet wants them to be powerful, but at this rate, their battle standard skill deals more damage than most WvW champions WITH the righteous indignation buff :-/ I just think it’s a little overboard. I feel their battle standard skill should deal more like 3000-7000 damage, not 19k ++, because when they’re up scaled and you have multiple enemies hitting you, along with an elite aether blade thug or two that’s almost a guaranteed knockout, it isn’t very fair when you don’t stand a chance at all :-/
They can’t, they made such a big deal about their “active combat” during their pre-launch marketing…
The funny thing is, you would never hear me complain about Demons Souls or Dark Souls: Two games that are said to be impossibly hard, and have plenty one-hit kills (but well telegraphed). But it is GW2 of all things, whose one-hit kills are just unfair, and come out of nowhere every single time. That is a bad sign Anet, when you out-one-hit-kill Demons Souls.
They can’t, they made such a big deal about their “active combat” during their pre-launch marketing…
The funny thing is, you would never hear me complain about Demons Souls or Dark Souls: Two games that are said to be impossibly hard, and have plenty one-hit kills (but well telegraphed). But it is GW2 of all things, whose one-hit kills are just unfair, and come out of nowhere every single time. That is a bad sign Anet, when you out-one-hit-kill Demons Souls.
Poor design, plain and simple. I wonder if this kind of thing exists in that other MMO.
Yet people continue to be surprised (or just unhappy) that Zerker remains as meta.
And it will continue, since all defensive stats were intentionally made to scale pitifully.
Hehe depends on what you do in the game but yea more or less true but anyway I go Cleric with my guardian and I get totaly wasted by spams of 25 might stacked attacks from enemies, I don’t complain since I know how to survive but poor thiefs and other build that are made for DPS. Just becouse Zerker is some kind of meta and everybody uses it and everyone else works against it does not mean no one is allowed to have zerker gear iether. But in LA Zergs it is impossible to read all the attacks enemies does and there is so many attacks that your evades won’t last that long.
But this is how a zerg works:
Alive – stack for buffs and dodge for survival.
Downed – Kill an enemie that is about to die asap or hope to be rezzed.
Dead – Waypoint (Don’t lie and wait for a rez if the battle is ongoing).
IMO in Zergs like LA there are no good players, there is just Luck.
But the fights like Marionette bosses 1-5 is planning and strategy to the fullest.
You aint getting any penalty for being downed so you are not dead until you are dead.
Member of Alpha Swedish Gaming Community – http://www.alphas.se/
Guild Leader of Alpha Sgc [ASGC]
(…)I had over 19k health, 2900+ armor, some ascended armor, exotics, and level 80, so no matter what you do or have as gear, it is no match for this Aetherblade(…)
I have over 30K HP on my Warrior and don’t even let me start on how much I can regen a second.
So about “no matter what you do”, no, you’re doing it wrong.
I don’t blame you specifically, just the zerker culture in GW2, people go up against a stand still golem for hours and hours trying to find a way to squeeze a little bit more damage, and then when they go around one shoting mobs they actually get convinced they’re that great.
Before you ask, I can solo those guys.
And to use another one of your lines, I see time and time again people complaining about how there’s no challenge and how much they like a challenge, so there you have it, some challenge. Also, you can easily dodge the guy, you get animation and sound effects warning.
I hope this thread of non-dodgers (or dual eye-patch wielders) is not the target audience.
Have you seen what combat is like? It’s a massive spam fest with aoe’s everywhere. And then suddenly one Aetherblade in that giant zerg manages to hit you with what might be a ranged attack, and instantly kills you. How is anyone supposed to dodge that?
Just last night I noticed a massive blob of dead players above the LA entrance. I went there to see what was up. I dodged all the aoe’s being flung my way, only to get insta-killed by this guy in the screenshot.
12k damage, over half my hitpoints, instantly gone with a RANGED attack. And I was wearing full toughness gear. I pack more armor than a guardian for crying out loud. And still I get hit for over half my hitpoints with a ranged attack that I couldn’t possibly see coming?
They can’t, they made such a big deal about their “active combat” during their pre-launch marketing…
The funny thing is, you would never hear me complain about Demons Souls or Dark Souls: Two games that are said to be impossibly hard, and have plenty one-hit kills (but well telegraphed). But it is GW2 of all things, whose one-hit kills are just unfair, and come out of nowhere every single time. That is a bad sign Anet, when you out-one-hit-kill Demons Souls.
IIRC, those games are primarily designed to be offline/single player games.
That allows for quite different pacing and player approach.
Yet people continue to be surprised (or just unhappy) that Zerker remains as meta.
And it will continue, since all defensive stats were intentionally made to scale pitifully.
More like they were balanced for SPVP, where they can at times be overpowered and ANet is on a constant hunt for ways to break the bunker meta.
Thing is that mobs do not follow the character progression. They are instead built to force players to use active defenses. As such they have a attack pattern of 2-3 one second attacks that barely hurt, followed by a spike attack that will take a good chunk of health if not dodged, blocked, or otherwise avoided.
Sure, this works when soloed or in small groups (Tho you don’t need many mobs before it becomes a annoyance more than a challenge, especially when said mobs also spam control effects. In part because the camera make proper situational awareness a pain unless you pretend to be in a tornado). But in zergs the tells that are supposed to warn the player that something big is coming is simply swamped by all the ongoing FX and animations.
