Guild Wars 2

So I saw the new southsun content update, and was somewhat excited to jump in and see what new things there were to do.

This was my first trip to the area, and I arrived in my lvl80 thief. Two steps outside the initial outpost, I run into a lone monster. ‘no big deal’, I think, ’I’ll just pay attention and I’ll be fine’. Not so; two seconds sent me running with almost no health, I did very little damage to it, and in running away aggroed about three or four other monsters at least as powerful as the first. I immediately logged out and played something fun instead.

My overall issue with the difficulty has several parts:
1. One lone monster wandering the world (not veteran or champion) should be an easy battle for anyone. At any level. I understand keeping the combat interesting and fast paced, but come on…it’s simply not fun when you can’t kill one ‘standard’ mob. Southsun isn’t the only area I’m complaining about, it happens to me quite often in low-level areas as well thanks to dynamic level matching stuff. It seems very inconsistent too, where I can take down big, tough looking veterans in lvl 50 areas solo but have trouble taking on 3 or 4 bandits in Kessex without getting downed several times (I’m not the only one, I often rescue/get rescued by other players having a hard time as well).

2. Monsters spawn very quickly, leading to perhaps one of the things I hate most right now: Having a ‘zomg epic fight for my life’ battle to get into a small cave, and by the time I’ve harvested that node I now have to ‘zomg epic fight for my life’ my way back out. Even worse is half the baddies you’ve already killed respawning just as you land the finishing blow on the last enemy, and you’ve lost most of your health and all your escape/heal skills are on cooldown. Battles are pretty discouraging for me when they never end unless I die or manage to escape.

3. Monster groups are often too close together. With a game as mobile as this one, I am regularly forced to aggro extra groups of monsters. I’d personally rather see enemy mobs stick together more, and leave more space between them. Let me choose my battles. I’d like to be able to walk from here to there without constantly running from something.

Anyways, I have a lot more issues with GW2 and Anet on many other topics, but this is one of the main ones keeping me away at this point.

To be clear, I don’t expect or want to be able to solo the whole game. I’m fine with great rewards coming from epic battles where skill and time spent in the game are essential. I just don’t want that to be all the time, everywhere (Especially in the personal story quests…why would I want to try to find people to help me with my personal storyline?).

These are my experiences, with my opinions as to why I feel this way, so please don’t tell me I’m ‘wrong’. If you have information or advice that might help, however, I would like to hear it.

I agree. I try and play permadeath and most of the time I get to about level 20-35 before a monster 1-2 hits me down and I die. The game isn’t designed for solo play unfortunately…

Most of my fun is with my level 80 WvW guardian and if that toon dies I just respawn and continue as if nothing happened. There is little incentive to avoid death in this game.

I can solo any normal mob quite easily on Southsun. The one except would be if you happened to run into a reef drake. Reef drakes hit you with confusion and if you’re not paying attention you kill yourself by using skills.

The idea of end zone content is that you need to know how to tackle things, not just fight one creature, run away and give up.

I can solo Southsun (at least normal mobs and most vets) on my ranger, my guardian, my mesmer, my warrior, my engineer and I know people who solo it on thieves and eles.

Some people want every mob in the game to be a walk in the park, but there needs to be a couple of harder zones for people who want challenge.

Trying once and failing doesn’t mean a zone isn’t doable. It means you gave up before you learned how to do it.

Ok first things first.
I facetank 2-3 of those mobs in Southsun. Why? Because my armor allows me too and I’m necro, I have not really another choice. The trick is to know your enemy. Those Karka are sending 4-5 spikes in your direction that hit very (emphasize very) hard. But thats it then. Just dodge or whatever the first spike and afterwards they are just normal mobs. No problem for a thief I would assume, as you should be able to dodge all the time anyway.

As for the rest of the game. I dont intend to be arragont, far away from it as I had the same problems. But when you know your class and learn to play it skillfully, PvE gets realy realy easy. And as a thief you should be able to get away from pretty much any encounter with stealth. As necro its kill or get killed always.

The trick lies in using what you have. Different to other Games, the PvE beeds you to be smart, always. But when you get used to it, its going to be very easy. LvL 80 exotic also helps

Southsun cove is designed to be a difficult area.

I play this area as a level 80 thief. I agree it is hard however it is just about the level of difficulty it should be. A skilled player that is not a utter glass cannon should be able to take out a few regular mobs solo. Try not using full Berserk Gear and go Dagger Dagger. In addition to that the large Karka they are all veterans to the best of my knowledge. I would avoid them unless you are with someone. They hard vets due to the eggs they spawn. They are designed to be hard to fight.

As for fast spawns. You need to give the locations. Use the wiki and the map to help you. They are also likely on a fast re-spawn then they will be normally due to the number of players in the area. Orr is not currently like this.

As for the number of mobs close to one another. Try kiting in smaller circles.

squashedsquirrel.5408:

2. Monsters spawn very quickly, leading to perhaps one of the things I hate most right now: Having a ‘zomg epic fight for my life’ battle to get into a small cave, and by the time I’ve harvested that node I now have to ‘zomg epic fight for my life’ my way back out. Even worse is half the baddies you’ve already killed respawning just as you land the finishing blow on the last enemy, and you’ve lost most of your health and all your escape/heal skills are on cooldown. Battles are pretty discouraging for me when they never end unless I die or manage to escape.

New player here. Today morning, my Norn ranger (level 12) discovered a small camp of four level-appropriate enemies (one veteran and 3 normal) guarding a chest. Since I’m fresh to the game, I’m not yet accustomed enough to all the mechanics and thus I expected a tough battle. And it was one – but in the end, I stand victorious (after using every single cooldown).
However.
Before I managed to even click on the chest, the enemies all respawned, instantly aggroed and killed me before I realized what’s going on. I respawned on a waypoint and logged off.

This event is just the tip of an iceberg of what I am experiencing during my first days here. Other examples include killing a particular Jotun (at level 7) three times in a row (kill -> immediate respawn -> kill -> immediate respawn -> kill), going through Sons of Svanir cave (level 4) and after killing one enemy and fighting the next having the first one respawn in my back almost instantly, and pretty much every variation of what the OP is describing.

I thought this game is supposed to encourage exploring. Speaking for myself, I won’t ever again try to do something like I described in the first paragraph. Zerging in mass events and tagging enemies has much better risk/reward ratio, and certainly much less frustration. That said, I’m still enjoying the game enough to try and continue playing, it’s just another (rather big) straw on the camel’s back.

Oh, and I’ve searched the forums and found that “ridiculous respawns” shall be reported as bugs. But when every other encounter is like that, I cannot consider it a bug, I must consider it a feature.

Yeah, they should really have turned down the respawn clock once the initial rush of players leveled off. I’m sure everyone has run into the situations where you kill off the standard enemies and go after the veteran/champion only to have the standards respawn before it dies, and even if you clear the area you have about ten seconds to admire the view before you fight your way out all over again.

I’ve created and deleted a lot of alts, and started over from scratch more times than I can count. As a rule of thumb I’m awful at dodging and such, so if you have trouble avoiding attacks like me it helps to overlevel the content a bit.

I take a new toon into the starter area until level 5 or so, then go around to the five cities and get XP from the vistas and POIs there, craft a little, and go to another starter area where even downleveled to 2 or 3 I am still more powerful than a brand new toon. By the time I reach level 15 the toon has better armor weapons (masterwork greens at 14), two utility slots and access to a better selection of skills. And bonuses to stats from traits, runes and so on. Plus a bonus ability at 5 trait points. All of these really help you stay alive even when downleveled because they don’t go away completely.

If you’re having trouble keeping on your feet, try that. It’s not a guaranteed success, but I end up talking to the repair guy a lot less than when I was new to the game.

If you run into a broken respawn like that, Nym, note the area and report it as a bug. Anet has been doing a pretty good job at fixing those respawn spikes, but it still misses them from time to time.

The thing with dying all the time in normal PvE … that’s really a matter of learning your class better, and getting better at dodging, facing, etc; hate to tell you. After playing a Thief for 80+ levels I hardly even get hit playing another class, much less get downed or killed … I recommend practicing your dodges and skill interaction more. I’m not saying that to sound mean, or l337 or anything, but you will notice you don’t see nearly so many Thief players complaining about getting killed when they try other classes … and it’s because we really had to get good at dodging and facing to survive our first class.

Southsun is supposed to be hard, that was intentional. The Karka and Drakes are nasty customers and you’ve gotta keep on your toes soloing the island. (Drakes, I think, are worse than Karka most days) There are usually people running around the island whenever I’m on, seeing as it’s temp content, so it isn’t usually that hard to tag along with others for a bit.

Like GW1, just add an elite mode to dungeon with better drop rate.

beginner can play the normal game, and the hardcore players the elite mode

All this was existing in GW1.

And about the persistant world, the difficulty event should be dynamic. If there are plenty of player around the scene, just adjust the IA difficulty in HP and damage.

It s easy to implement. The world detect if you participate an event ? ok so just adjust the application variables in consequence.

if they need help for implementation, i can help i m a senior engineer ^^

There is always a solution, but never the priority to do it… it was my “think of the day”

GW1 was a model of quality and intelligence… GW2 need a roll-back to survive, or it will be lost in the fast-food industry… may be they want that (NCSoft spirit vs ANet original spirit ? dunno…)

Oh look, do you see that? it’s Arena Net scaling back the mob difficulty! now you can solo the entire game without any stress, any worry and you don’t even need to look half the time.

L2P or don’t come to that zone, stop talking about it so we don’t get another nerfed, it’s already super easy.

Play in a group. You know, that’s how you play online games.

I am a casual player as well, only 1 level 80 on my account. This is the one of the most casual/solo friendly games on the market. Some content is designed to be harder than others and some will require you to work with other players if you want to complete it. Did you try and learn from your one and only experience in Southsun before you “immediately logged off?” If you play more difficult content and immediately run away after first contact how do you learn to adjust in order to deafeat your target? If solo face rolling a game is considered fun for you, stay in the easier content.

anzenketh.3759:

Southsun cove is designed to be a difficult area.

^ this

tcat.6725:

Did you try and learn from your one and only experience in Southsun before you “immediately logged off?”

Important question. First time I ran out of the camp in Southsun in this event I got my pretty backside handed to me because I just wasn’t prepared for the challenge type I’d be running into. So, I changed out some skills and weapons, went back out and tried again … second choice wasn’t much better, but I ran away and tried a third and that one worked pretty well. People gotta remember that part of the challenge in these games is figuring out what works best in some areas. I can glass cannon through a dozen Skelk at once, (that was fun) but that build won’t get me past a one ah those Southsun Drakes. (well, maybe one, but not much for than that)

I agree to some extent, for me in Southsun with my 80 ranger, I can solo pretty much everything minus the veterans. As stated earlier the reef drakes are a bit more tough. However if i accidentally agro two karka’s or something….i’m totally screwed. I still have some of the southern level 75-80 areas yet to explore, (farthest i’ve gotten down to is the first couple waypoints of straits of devistation) but so far every area i’ve explored i’ve been able to handle everything solo. Veterans I have to clear all the regular enemies first (pick em off from a far trying not to pull agro on anything else) then I can attack the veteran. But in some cases it just happens and I agro a veteran and a couple enemies. I like that the game is hard and challenging, I would maybe look to your build? If you aren’t very effective against enemies it could maybe be an issue with the build. I’ve literally spent hours googling through ranger builds and trying new things.

My gripe with the game that is sort of similar to your issue is when they drop a champion on a vista or something. I’ll use map chat to see if anyone wants to help….nothing. So great, i’ll just get that vista….never.

SSC was intentionally designed to be a bit more challenging than the rest of the world. I think it’s a good thing, especially since SSC isn’t required for any world completion & there are no hearts. It’s a land to kill stuff. I’m glad it’s a challenge.

Also, you want a SSC mob nerf after your very first encounter on your very first try…how about learn the mechanics? Karka young hit hard with their opener…unless you avoid/blocl/reflect it. Problem solved. You gotta be aware of your area. It’s meant to be a challenge.

Also, with the event going on right now, there are plenty of players in SSC to run with for extra support. So it’s a good way to safely learn the various mob mechanics.

GL

The respawn timers should definitely depend on the mobs.
It should take much longer for a veteran or a champion to respawn than a normal mob. Especially if it is in a crowded area.

But the rest I disagree with.

Having very difficult content is nessecary.

Just as an example, look at World of Warcraft. During the time where the PvE content required skill and teamwork the game got more and more subscribers.
But the exact moment Blizzard started to make it easy the game started to lose subscribers.
Over the past three years WoW has been bleeding subscribers. They’ve lost 4 million players since then, and it continues to go down.
People say that Vanilla, The Burning Crusade and to a certain extent Wrath of the Lich King were the prime times of WoW, and they are right. The numbers speak for themselves. Because back then the game felt rewarding, now it’s:" Give me my free epics or I quit".

And that should not happen to GWII.

I agree, the game in some parts: events, areas and dungeons is becoming to hard for the normal player to handle.

And the funny thing is, the “hardcore” crowd, who is usually the most vocal one, are the ones to blame for it.

Thanks to them, kraits are incredibly difficult to kill now, AC it’s to hard to do, and the temple events don’t even get done now.

So please, stop the whinning, because you’re ruining the game for us, the non-hardcore crowd.

felipe.6502:

And the funny thing is, the “hardcore” crowd, who is usually the most vocal one, are the ones to blame for it.

Thanks to them, kraits are incredibly difficult to kill now

This is an interesting kind of dilemma. For those of us what have been playing the game since Beta, the monsters were getting kinda stale and probably needed these buffs to keep us engaged and on our toes. But, for people what are just coming to the game, or those who are Super Casual (like only play a few times a month) this buff makes the game way harder. I don’t do dungeons much, so I know the dungeon buffs are going to stomp me into the ground whenever I go to try those out – but the dungeon crawling veterans are going to be saying “still not hard enough!”.

This isn’t even a “hardcore” vs “casual” argument – it’s an “experienced” vs “inexperienced” issue. Those of us what know our classes and the game well – just from having played it a long time – are going to have a much easier time than those what haven’t.

I’d like to take this moment ta tout an idea I offered during Beta – personal difficulty. This would be something you chose for your character, either at character creation or (much better) modified in the game, like they did in City of X. Here, what it would do, is give your character – and your character alone – a downbuff when she’s in the field. This would make fights much harder for her, while leaving them at the same difficulty levels for the people what aren’t experienced enough to handle the upgraded versions. Of course, this wouldn’t give the monsters you’re fighting more abilities – can’t see how they’d script that, unfortunately – and that’s where I’d really like to see difficulty raise instead of just HP/resistance/etc increase, but it’s something of a band-aid for open world. When going inta a dungeon they should ask if you wanna do it normal or in higher difficulty and let you choose right then and there – and scale monsters, with number of abilities even, since dungeons are instanced this would be easier – for the group.

If we can find a good compromise between the two (or three or four) schools of thought here, it would make the game more fun for everyone.

“casual” does not mean “amateur”. Nothing in this game needs to be made easier, things need to be made harder. If you are finding things in this game too hard or challenging, you need more practice and need to improve more.

Shiyo.3578:

“casual” does not mean “amateur”. Nothing in this game needs to be made easier, things need to be made harder. If you are finding things in this game too hard or challenging, you need more practice and need to improve more.

I can’t express how much I agree with this. Casual means lack of time, not lack of skill. Some of us have been MMOing for a LONG time, and could give a hardcore player a run for their money when it comes to gameplay skill.

I understand that the difficulty can be difficult for some people, but I would prefer that group not identify itself as all Casuals, since they may be only a small portion of them, and may even include hardcores.

Honestly i sometimes wonder of the PVE team got the message about the game mechanics, as they love to get up waves of mobs that belong more in a game offer mass amount of AOE control with long effect durations. But the game do not offer that, and the rest of the defensive skills are on long cooldowns are rarely effective against more than one mob. Resulting in the paradox that multiple “trash” mobs are more threatening than a single big mob, because the latter we can handle via dodges and interrupts.

digiowl.9620:

Honestly i sometimes wonder of the PVE team got the message about the game mechanics, as they love to get up waves of mobs that belong more in a game offer mass amount of AOE control with long effect durations. But the game do not offer that, and the rest of the defensive skills are on long cooldowns are rarely effective against more than one mob. Resulting in the paradox that multiple “trash” mobs are more threatening than a single big mob, because the latter we can handle via dodges and interrupts.

This is actually one of the things I like about the game. It’s why Harathi Hinterlands is one of my favorite zones. I don’t care about the big boss, because I don’t buy into it as much as the attacking army.

I mean if an army of undead or centaurs or anything attacked me, it should be more dangerous than one guy…maybe it’s me, but this is one of the things I like.

Vayne.8563:

digiowl.9620:

Honestly i sometimes wonder of the PVE team got the message about the game mechanics, as they love to get up waves of mobs that belong more in a game offer mass amount of AOE control with long effect durations. But the game do not offer that, and the rest of the defensive skills are on long cooldowns are rarely effective against more than one mob. Resulting in the paradox that multiple “trash” mobs are more threatening than a single big mob, because the latter we can handle via dodges and interrupts.

This is actually one of the things I like about the game. It’s why Harathi Hinterlands is one of my favorite zones. I don’t care about the big boss, because I don’t buy into it as much as the attacking army.

I mean if an army of undead or centaurs or anything attacked me, it should be more dangerous than one guy…maybe it’s me, but this is one of the things I like.

Agree with Vayne, it’s times when I am mobbed by enemies that I feel challenged as a character and have a feeling of accomplishment when coming out of the battle alive. It can really test your abilities as a player sometimes.

If southsun came as a shock maybe you should review how you play. It is not easy, I personally have a problem with vet level. Normal level I can take 2 or 3 at a time. I prefer one at a time. I absolutely hate the drakes but I still kill them. It is a learning experience use it as one.

Im a casual player and my suggestion to all other casual players who are finding parts of the game too hard is that next time you have 1 hour to play use 30 minutes of that time to read up on your class forum. The hardcore players have done all the work for us and found out how to make our classes work well. 30 minutes research, adjust your build and then see how much easier the game is. You do not have to play thousands of hours to be very good at GW2.

Feel free to contact me in game as well if you want. I pretty regularly run dungeons with a group of friends and we often have room for 1 or 2 to fill the party. If you want to learn how to enjoy dungeons we enjoy teaching new people who listen to advice.

killcannon.2576:

Agree with Vayne, it’s times when I am mobbed by enemies that I feel challenged as a character and have a feeling of accomplishment when coming out of the battle alive. It can really test your abilities as a player sometimes.

I agree, like I said 12 Skelk at the same time going D/D Thief – it was an intense fight – I’m totally bragging.

And that is where I usually feel most awesome, when I am taking out hordes of monsters by myself. I mean, sure, taking down the occasional Champion alone is cool, but I know that’s mostly a fight of attrition.

I agree with the OP. I didn’t bother to read the thread because I just know there are a bunch of people telling the OP that he’s wrong and this game is actually too easy. But what it comes down to is personal experience and mine is the same as the OP.

I haven’t played the game in about 6 weeks. At the end of Flame & Frost I was very discouraged that I couldn’t see the end of the event because I didn’t want to deal with soloing the instances. I did the one instance to rescue the girl with 2 friends who are both very good players. It was still very difficult. They had already done the other instance.

Add to that the difficulty of the personal story and the environmental stuff as in the OP and I just am not motivated to login. Its really a shame, because I think this game has a lot of potential.

Jack of Tears.9458:

killcannon.2576:

Agree with Vayne, it’s times when I am mobbed by enemies that I feel challenged as a character and have a feeling of accomplishment when coming out of the battle alive. It can really test your abilities as a player sometimes.

I agree, like I said 12 Skelk at the same time going D/D Thief – it was an intense fight – I’m totally bragging.

Shelk are ok, as they can’t stun lock you once all your stun breaks are on cooldown. So there at least you have a fighting chance, or potentially a escape if you find you are in over your head. But drakes, risen, or anything else that spams stuns, pulls, knockdowns or similar are just lazy game design. Especially when aggro-ing one also aggro anything similar within earshot.

squashedsquirrel.5408:

I immediately logged out and played something fun instead.

You give up so fast. You didn’t even try a new strategy. You just threw in the towel and gave up after the first encounter.

Shiyo.3578:

“casual” does not mean “amateur”. Nothing in this game needs to be made easier, things need to be made harder. If you are finding things in this game too hard or challenging, you need more practice and need to improve more.

But most of the “amateurs” (not saying n word) are hiding behind casual label, i can bet most of them are playing way more then me.

I understand man. Sometimes it’s difficult for engineers too because our PVE damage is way off balance in this game. It takes us three times the number of attacks than most classes to finish off a mob even in the level 50 zones even when we’re doing all the right things.

You are playing one of the weakest classes for survival and even tho they did increase the hitpoints of thieves briefly, just like the Turrets and the pets, this class needs some defense help.

I would personally ignore all the leetist comments and just focus on finding out in your class forum the best defensive yet acceptional DPS role you can use in PVE for the time being that’s if you still desire to play.

I’m having a hard time logging in personally with the problems of lacking rewards and PVE imbalance.

You can be an experienced casual. Like I said, I prolly suck at dungeons, but I like seeing some of the new monster buffs (I’m usually very good in PvE) and I’m really good at underwater combat. But I still only play a couple times a week, for a few hours at a time. That’s what I’m saying – newbie play vs experienced play aren’t the same as Casual vs Hardcore. I can see why the new people might be complaining, but the casuals what have been here for months shouldn’t be having problems with the open world monster buffs unless they’re just really not trying.

Sovta.4719:

Shiyo.3578:

“casual” does not mean “amateur”. Nothing in this game needs to be made easier, things need to be made harder. If you are finding things in this game too hard or challenging, you need more practice and need to improve more.

But most of the “amateurs” (not saying n word) are hiding behind casual label, i can bet most of them are playing way more then me.

I guess there are two kinds of casual. The first kind is the one that have only so many hours they can spend on the game. The second is the kind that may spend hours at a time logged in but often use the game as a glorified chatroom, idling in LA and elsewhere.

I’m very much a casual player (I’ve been playing since launch and got my first level 80 in April) and I can manage Southsun.

I hate the phrase ‘learn to play’ but in this case it is kind of accurate. Southsun is not only a level 80 area, it was one added shortly after launch to try and give a challenge to the people who had done everything else in a few months.

A lot of the enemies use attacks or mechanics that can be devastating if you’re not prepared for them but are relatively easy to avoid once you know them. The Veteran Karka for example will roll over you and can easily down multiple players at once. But if you see them coming (or about to start) and dodge you’re fine. One well-timed button press is the difference between life and death.

When I first went to Southsun I was dying A LOT. It didn’t help that this was back during Lost Shores when I was playing an up-levelled 40-something, but mostly it was because I didn’t know what I was doing and wasn’t prepared for the area. At the time I almost never dodged because I didn’t know how to time it properly.

When I hit 80 (and stopped playing Super Adventure Box) Southsun was one of the areas I went to first and I had a much easier time with it. The enemies were the same, my level and gear didn’t make a huge difference, the main thing which had changed was my understanding of my profession and the game mechanics in general.

As someone else said it’s entirely possible to be both experienced and casual. If anything this game makes it easier because so much depends on the player rather than how much time you’ve spend grinding for gear or maxing out impossibly long levelling/skill chains.

Djinn.9245:

I agree with the OP. I didn’t bother to read the thread because I just know there are a bunch of people telling the OP that he’s wrong and this game is actually too easy. But what it comes down to is personal experience and mine is the same as the OP.

I haven’t played the game in about 6 weeks. At the end of Flame & Frost I was very discouraged that I couldn’t see the end of the event because I didn’t want to deal with soloing the instances. I did the one instance to rescue the girl with 2 friends who are both very good players. It was still very difficult. They had already done the other instance.

Add to that the difficulty of the personal story and the environmental stuff as in the OP and I just am not motivated to login. Its really a shame, because I think this game has a lot of potential.

If you dont have the common courtesy to read our opinions why should we give two kittens about yours? Most posts in the thread have been helpfully offering advice, which you would have realized if you weren’t downright rude.

You dont have to be non casual to play southsun, my casual friends havnt had any problems, same with all 1000 people in the guild.

Just learn to dodge and mitigate damage.

Southsun can be a rude shock on your first visit, but like any other area, the key is to observe your enemies, then adapt your approach to win. The three most tricky foes in Southsun are:

1. Karka.

Young Karka have a dangerous spit attack that they like to use right off the bat. Reflection skills can turn this attack right back upon them (with satisfying effects), but failing that, you can also use block skills, pets/minions to tank the damage, or just dodge once or twice to mitigate it.

Veteran Karka are tough beasties that are difficult to solo. They are unique in that they possess TWO health bars. During the first, you can see their carapace getting melted off as you deal damage to them. You need to deplete their second health bar before they are killed. You can solo them with the right builds, but usually it’s better to avoid them unless you’re in a group. Note that there are also 2 different types of Veteran Karka, egg layers and spitters. Egg layers spawn lots of Karka Hatchlings that suicide you to death; AoE damage is crucial to destroy the eggs before they hatch. The spitters vomit poisonous acid everywhere and have a dangerous rolling attack that can down players in a single hit if you have low health/armor. In both cases, Veteran Karkas are best dealt with at range.

2. Reef Drakes.

These nasty creatures use Confusion. Lots and lots of it. Nearly every single one of their skills will apply one stack of Confusion, and it can rapidly stack up. Their most dangerous skill is called “Retreat”, where the Reef Drake backpedals a short distance, leaving an AoE circle on the ground which inflicts raw damage AND a stack of Confusion each second. Staying in this circle is almost certain death, so dodge out of it as soon as you see it. Unfortunately, they also have a screech attack which pulls you to the Drake and then stuns you for 2 seconds. If they pull you into their Retreat field, you’re almost certain to go down.

For these reasons, engage Reef Drakes at range, and don’t try fighting more than one at the same time. Having clones/pets/minions to help distract the Reef Drake will help immensely.

3. Reef Riders

I only mention these guys because they have abnormally high amounts of health compared to other Southsun monsters. As such, taking on two or three of them at once can be extremely dangerous unless your damage output is high. They also steal boons on their attacks, so ease off on any boon-granting skills unless you like seeing a Reef Rider with your Fury, Retaliation and 10 stacks of Might. (They only steal one boon at a time though.)

tigirius.9014:

I understand man. Sometimes it’s difficult for engineers too because our PVE damage is way off balance in this game. It takes us three times the number of attacks than most classes to finish off a mob even in the level 50 zones even when we’re doing all the right things.

You are playing one of the weakest classes for survival and even tho they did increase the hitpoints of thieves briefly, just like the Turrets and the pets, this class needs some defense help.

I would personally ignore all the leetist comments and just focus on finding out in your class forum the best defensive yet acceptional DPS role you can use in PVE for the time being that’s if you still desire to play.

I’m having a hard time logging in personally with the problems of lacking rewards and PVE imbalance.

I do fine on my engineer….one of my four mains. Not so much in dungeons, but farming with the bomb kit is a cinch. Self heal, blind, burn,…it’s just awesome. Everything dies around me and I’m still standing.

Southsun Cove is labeled a level 80 area, and it definitely is harder than the other level 80 areas, making it pretty difficult by open world standards. While I can just jump into mobs at cursed shore, I would not want to do that here. It’s mostly those stupid confuse that gives so much trouble. Otherwise, it’s not too bad beyond event scaling. I do like how you can’t be so reckless all the time.

tigirius.9014:

I understand man. Sometimes it’s difficult for engineers too because our PVE damage is way off balance in this game. It takes us three times the number of attacks than most classes to finish off a mob even in the level 50 zones even when we’re doing all the right things.

You are playing one of the weakest classes for survival and even tho they did increase the hitpoints of thieves briefly, just like the Turrets and the pets, this class needs some defense help.

I would personally ignore all the leetist comments and just focus on finding out in your class forum the best defensive yet acceptional DPS role you can use in PVE for the time being that’s if you still desire to play.

I’m having a hard time logging in personally with the problems of lacking rewards and PVE imbalance.

I don’t know what you are talking about- I have an Engineer as my second main and I did all the Southsun stuff with her- it was great fun.

@OP: Southsun can be a bit of a shock at first- kind of like Orr was at the start.
It is an 80lvl map that serves to improve your playstyle and strategy once you are already max level.
Many people seem to think that once they hit 80 that is it but because GW2 is more based on player skill and less on gear – level 80 was really just the beginning of the journey for me.
Southsun gets easier as you adapt to the mob mechanics.
Sure you have insane respawns- this is pretty much all over not just in SS- as you become more familiar with what you can do and not do- even that becomes quite manageable.
I love exploring and I have yet to find a cave or cranny on any map I cannot run into and explore solo on any of my characters.

i feel that the problem is just a l2p issue.
when i started to play back inoctober i had the same issue, then adapted the paystile, the build and soon and the problem disapeared.
then i started running dungeons and first ac run was a wipefest, as b4, the 5 run was no more issue.
same for coe, first run was a fail after 3 hours, died milion times at lasers, or at aphas.
then started running it daily.
well then ther’s arah lol and lupicus lol, same as b4.
simin is a bit different ut not so much, just try, fail retry and refail, then eventually succede.
now, about southsun, with a thief, is one of the worst case scenario! as a thief ur very squishy (i have one), and f as i assume u run d/d and a ranged weap, u must have noticed already that thief biggest limit is that most of he skills are signnnnnnnnnnnle target.
not only you can’t facetank 3 mobs, coz u die, but can’t even hit them at same time.
now this implies that you cannot kite around agroing 100 of mobs meanwhile.
then ofc dependson your bild, if is a burst build then you usually rely on single target, and avoid large Group fight. you usuall rely on backstab and with karka is had to do it since u have fewclue on what is back lol.
i do agree that thief is the less desireable class for solo play along with staf ele and probably engi.
also, thief have very few condition removal, but stealt as a payback.
this makes thief a non beginner class imho.
i knw that as a casual ur unlikely to cap another profession, but i strogly suggest that, and also suggest to pick up an heavy armor one, like guardian if you like tanky playstile, or wrrior if you wanna do great dps wile not exploding every sinle time.
i know is rude, but class selection is actually the difficulty selcton everybody is asking for, same content don with a guardian or a glas cannon thief is like two differen planets.
an i’m not saying that warr is a must be choice, is simply easyer!

as first char i chose a silvary ele, deleted at lvl10 bcause was unplayable for me.
rolled a char warr, wich is now my main, and still enjoying it.
then i rolled a thief, a little asura, and quite enjoyed levling even if was a pain.
after that i leveled an ele and was awsom.
i simply l2p!

Shiyo.3578:

“casual” does not mean “amateur”. Nothing in this game needs to be made easier, things need to be made harder. If you are finding things in this game too hard or challenging, you need more practice and need to improve more.

I fully agree!

digiowl.9620:

Jack of Tears.9458:

killcannon.2576:

Agree with Vayne, it’s times when I am mobbed by enemies that I feel challenged as a character and have a feeling of accomplishment when coming out of the battle alive. It can really test your abilities as a player sometimes.

I agree, like I said 12 Skelk at the same time going D/D Thief – it was an intense fight – I’m totally bragging.

Shelk are ok, as they can’t stun lock you once all your stun breaks are on cooldown. So there at least you have a fighting chance, or potentially a escape if you find you are in over your head. But drakes, risen, or anything else that spams stuns, pulls, knockdowns or similar are just lazy game design. Especially when aggro-ing one also aggro anything similar within earshot.

QFT!!

I personally hate spending two-thirds of my time in game on my backside because I only have two dodges and all my stunbreaks are still on cooldown while my enemies constantly spam their knockdown/stun/knockback attacks. I am not sure who convinced the developers that instant-death attacks made while you have no control over your character were “fun” mechanics, but I personally have to disagree with that assessment. I don’t mind dying and I expect to die at times when I have over-aggroed or made a mistake, but to die to mechanics simply because they can spam them more often than I can counter or respond to them is simply not fun for me. I at least want a fighting chance and not simply have to watch my character lie on his back and get chain knocked around while his health melts away, or better yet, get pulled into a stunlock and get pummeled for twice what his health is in less than a second.

These mechanics are almost as much fun as walking into a dungeon back in the days of pencil and paper Dungeons and Dragons and having the Dungeon Master announce that a trap has insta-killed the entire party with no save. Makes for a VERY short and not-at-all fun game.

Thanks.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

I am not sure who convinced the developers that instant-death attacks made while you have no control over your character were “fun” mechanics, but I personally have to disagree with that assessment. I don’t mind dying and I expect to die at times when I have over-aggroed or made a mistake, but to die to mechanics simply because they can spam them more often than I can counter or respond to them is simply not fun for me. I at least want a fighting chance
Thanks.

Yeah, that does reek, because chances are in the time it takes you to get up another mob has run by and uses it’s stun on you – then they just tag team you back and forth until you die. No chance, no excitement, just a frustrating sense of dread. Level 80 should be hard, but 50% or more of the fights shouldn’t be insta deaths if you make one mistake.

It may not even be your fault, thanks to this being a open world event.

Bouncing and piercing projectiles, never mind the veteran young karka stampede (ouch!), can really ruin your day from out of nowhere.

And here may be the key. As you get to the higher zones, the game virtually expect you to have laser focus on a single mob. This so you can avoid or interrupt that split second action. But at the same time the game is throwing multiple mobs with devastating actions at you, with no internal synchronization between them.

This then makes people resort to kiting as a cure-all, and that to me cheapens the game.

@ OP

I just wanted to throw in my ten-penneth for you…I consider myself as an amatuer at these games rather than a ‘casual’, as I play a lot (/age tells me I have played an average of 2-3hrs per day since launch, I consider this a lot for a hobby), but I don’t have the time to dedicate to get ‘really good’ (i.e. find everything easy).

I can tell you that, what I have found in playing GW2 more than any other game I have played, is I have had to learn how to adapt my playstyle to different environments. Just because I found a build that allowed my Engi to rofl-stomp one area did not mean I could expect to do the same in all others. I potentially had to:
A). change my skills set-up
B). change my traits set-up
C). adapt my play style
D). re-gear myself in line with the above changes

Sometimes I had to do this on the fly, sometimes I had to plan ahead before leaving LA. But when I learnt to do all of these things properly on my Engi, I found I could solo mostly all pve content outside of Dungeons and Champs.
Now I can get through most content on my Engi without so many changes (if any) anymore, but my alts, well they still have some lessons for me to learn!

Now for experienced players, this all comes quite naturally, but I see a lot of ‘casual’ players who struggle with certain content because they have not adapted to it or the changing battle dynamics as they move through Tyria. My advice for anyone who is struggling with a bit of content is not ‘learn to play’ (that is both insulting and very often innaccurate), but rather – examine your options. With any given class there are usually 2-3 different ways to handle any piece of content (IMO before anyone demands proof). some will make the content easier, some will make it faster, and others can be used to give yourself more of a challenge. More powerful attacks does not always mean quicker win, play around with your set up, try different combinations of gear/traits/skills…I assure you, you will find a way around your objective.

Finally, just because you want to solo something doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help in the form of advice. Lots of people willing to help with things like gear/skill/traits set up and tactics if you ask.

Hope you enjoy finding all the different ways to melt content moving forward.

NB. written only from my own experience and opinion.

Heh, adaptation is a double edged sword.

On my engineer i had elixir gun as the #9 utility for oh so long, but recently moved it to the #7 to save on finger movement when i wanted to use its toolbelt skill alongside the med kit one.

This however broke my muscle memory such that when i wanted to switch to elixir gun i often used whatever i had in #9, or ended up with the elixir gun when i was going for #7.

A martial artists would call it kata. Basically actions repeated until you can do them with barely a thought. Having the same layout over time helps reduce reaction time as you do not have to think about what you are doing so much.

My main grip is the Reef Drake. That instant AoE drop gets me EVERY time. Takes half of my health in the split second that I’m in it. Terrible.