Guild Wars 2

Hey all, is it just me or does this game involve no strategy other than kitting and running back to the boss everytime you die?

I just attempted to do “sorrows embrace” in story mode with a group consisting of two level 80 players and 3 level 60+ players and when we got up to the Asura boss who teleports up to a safe place and lets lose 3 robots, and personally I my self was very disappointed with what unravelled. There was no apparent strategy in fighting the boss other than shooting it for as long as you can, dodging as much damage as you can and then simply running back from the far away waypoint when you die (and we died allot because there was no way to avoid damage).
Basically a mind-numbingly stupid strategy on a boss fight which apparently had very little thought put into its creation.

As far as we could figure out (even with the help of the net) there was not much that we could do to actually succeed in completing the “challenge”, or as I put it, the stupidly hard boss fight, with emphasis on stupid.

Almost all the encounters, and most world champions to boot, are badly tuned, and if you ever speak up about it, players will scream “L2P” at you, because no one’s learned anything from D3 Inferno mode, or playing actual challenging games like Dark Souls.

Its bloody stupid is what it is! I’ve really only done the Fire Elemental ‘boss’ fight but the lack of interesting mechanics is really disappointing! All the boss does is stand(?) there as a swirling fire spamming Embers that in turn spam Dragon’s Teeth. All any amount of players can do is run in, damage, die, respawn; rinse and repeat!

This is one very near game breaking problem for me.
I was hoping things got better as I levelled, but apparently not

Actually SE Storymode Kudu is one of the boss that you can fight strategically.
His golem (and even Kudu himself) are really susceptible to projectile reflection. So set your skill accordingly (with condition healing) and they are not so hard.

Just because corpse rushing is viable does not mean it is the only strategy. People just does not bother finding other way.

Cleru.8609:

Actually SE Storymode Kudu is one of the boss that you can fight strategically.
His golem (and even Kudu himself) are really susceptible to projectile reflection. So set your skill accordingly (with condition healing) and they are not so hard.

Just because corpse rushing is viable does not mean it is the only strategy. People just does not bother finding other way.

I’m pretty sure the golems have some pretty ridiculous PBAoE moves too. Kudu himself isn’t much of an issue.

SeanNorm.1328:

Its bloody stupid is what it is! I’ve really only done the Fire Elemental ‘boss’ fight but the lack of interesting mechanics is really disappointing! All the boss does is stand(?) there as a swirling fire spamming Embers that in turn spam Dragon’s Teeth. All any amount of players can do is run in, damage, die, respawn; rinse and repeat!

This is one very near game breaking problem for me.
I was hoping things got better as I levelled, but apparently not

Of course, the group that was there was focusing down those embers as soon as they spawned, right? Because that’s where most of the damage is coming from. But let me guess, they were pretty much ignored in favor of rushing in and getting a few hit on the boss before getting defeated. That’s how pretty how it works every time.

That fight requires a ridiculously simple mechanic to complete, yet most people are incapable of grasping it. It’s no wonder that dungeon fights seem so tough.

Spoiler. Without the “trinity”, and everyone being able to heal a little and damage a lot, there is no easy way to make a boss challenging because every character reacts teh same. You cant target the vulnerabilities of certain classes because all classes can help compensate. Everyone is on equal ground. Sure, there are bosses that specialize in dealing big damage, or doing a lot of CC, or condition damage, but what +80% of all mini-boss, champion, and boss fights has been is just “incredibly high health enemy that hits mediocrely hard” and all you have to is out heal his blows or just run around while you regen.

Cleru.8609:

Actually SE Storymode Kudu is one of the boss that you can fight strategically.
His golem (and even Kudu himself) are really susceptible to projectile reflection. So set your skill accordingly (with condition healing) and they are not so hard.

Just because corpse rushing is viable does not mean it is the only strategy. People just does not bother finding other way.

Every projectile enemy is vulnerable to projectile reflection. That doesnt really make it an interesting boss. That just means that as long as everyone has a skill that does it, you have a much easier time at winning. The boss fights in this game so far are flat. They arent bad, just not interesting. There is usually an easy trick, or no trick at all to beating them.

When going up against most bosses, it honestly just feels like everyone of them are almost the same, and its all just one big smash up where you run in and bash the boss and avoid damage.. No tactics to follow, nothing interesting at all!!!!

Dr Anthrax.4723:

Spoiler. Without the “trinity”, and everyone being able to heal a little and damage a lot, there is no easy way to make a boss challenging because every character reacts teh same. You cant target the vulnerabilities of certain classes because all classes can help compensate. Everyone is on equal ground. Sure, there are bosses that specialize in dealing big damage, or doing a lot of CC, or condition damage, but what +80% of all mini-boss, champion, and boss fights has been is just “incredibly high health enemy that hits mediocrely hard” and all you have to is out heal his blows or just run around while you regen.

What about almost every decent single player game in existence? They never had a trinity yet they can create some interesting and difficult bosses.

Esorono, this isn’t a single player game.

It’s not a single player game, but neither are Contra, Halo, Kirby Super Star, Joe & Mac, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Turtles in Time, Metal Slug, etc, yet they manage to have interesting encounters without a trinity?

Notorious Dog.1043:

dodging as much damage as you can and then simply running back from the far away waypoint when you die (and we died allot because there was no way to avoid damage).

this is the funniest thing i read today =D let me answer your question: yes, it is you (and many other probably), and yes there is a LOT of strategy required to complete dungeons without dying so many times =P

GW2 dungeons are not your standard cakewalks that people are used to doing. this is the endgame content youre clamoring for. try doing the dungeon without dying, lol.

Dr Anthrax.4723:

Spoiler. Without the “trinity”, and everyone being able to heal a little and damage a lot, there is no easy way to make a boss challenging because every character reacts teh same.

absolutely wrong. healing a little and damaging a lot does very little for you.

mitigation people. mitigation. combo fields is where it’s at =P healing is meant to top you up in between the mobs’ nukes and your damage avoidance CD’s like Virtue of Courage, Wall of Reflection, distortion, etc.

RebelYell.7132:

Almost all the encounters, and most world champions to boot, are badly tuned, and if you ever speak up about it, players will scream “L2P” at you, because no one’s learned anything from D3 Inferno mode, or playing actual challenging games like Dark Souls.

Dark Souls now that was a good challenge. I struggled on the first area but then when I understood the game mechanics it became pure fun and I never liked Survival Horror games.

And I agree a lot of the encounters are very badly tuned. My first bad impression on the encounters came from the elemental boss in the Asure area. I was surrounded by players, turrets, clones, phantasms, pets, looking for a place to stay without anyone around me so I could move out of the attacks that could one shot. Most of the times there was no place to run to because multiple areas around me were also targeted.

While the L2P factor does play a significant role it becomes somewhat irrelevant because many times there’s simply no way to avoid death due to a horrible mechanic.

the boss fights are Horribly balanced. some people think that it’s actually “challenging”.( like Anet and some players) GW2 bosses are the definition of “Artificial Difficulty”. they’re tuned to make the fight last longer.they pack the bosses with tons of health and outrages amount of damage.boss fight mechanics here boil down to dodging attack and hitting boss for 5mins or more(Tazza,spider boss in TA exp ect.). or bosses being so easy.

these"hardcore" players need to play games like Demon’s Souls and Monster Hunter. because that’s what Anet took some stuff from.Anet needs to remember you can only dodge twice.throwing you mobs and that do AoEs or 1 hit shots is not challenging.

games like Dark Souls and monster Hunter reward you by doing the the boss fight correct. if you hit the boss in the right place,he goes down fast.bosses have 1 hit kill moves. that are obvious when they’re about to cast/do it.

really good example is the boss fight in AC explore mode. the path with the lizards.first boss has a one hit kill move. fight is fairly simple and still challenging.he can wipe the whole group if everyone is not careful.

also bosses in these other games are rewarding. they challenge you to cut off their tail/different parts before killing them. you get a better reward for doing so.

The “no trinity” is going to take the gaming world by storm, its so epic.

/sarcasm off

there is more strategy, but since i haven’t done that boss yet, i can’t comment either way. however, i do have to say this:

rome wasn’t built in a day.

if you want an example, look at WoW. everyone totes it as having the best PVE content for an MMO. then, go back to vanilla and look at the early raid content they pushed out (which didn’t release until several months into its vanilla life-cycle): most of it was absurdly simple. the only interesting fights in vanilla WoW were in AQ40/Naxx and select bosses in MC/BWL (and the end bosses of both). the rest were either simple or boring. PvE in WoW didn’t get good, honestly, until TBC released.

the system that ANet is using is untested as far as MMOs go. give them time to sort out the wrinkles and tweak/tune things appropriately. letting them know your thoughts (constructively) will help them.