Guild Wars 2

With Guild Wars 2 celebrating its 2nd anniversary, I feel that it is high time that some quality of life improvements were made to Orr, and in particular, the Champion mobs found within the zones. Orr, especially Cursed Shore, is a location where a great many players spend a great deal of time, and are the natural “end game” zones that traditional MMO players naturally gravitate towards. Therefore, QOL improvements here will go a long way to helping retain players who hit the levelcap and begin running Orrian events.

My intention is to present an overview of the main Champion mobs in Orr, the issues I feel they have, and the possible solutions. In most cases the solutions are simple and exist in the game already.

A disclaimer before I begin: I am not writing this to complain about mobs being too hard. Some content, especially Champion mobs, should be challenging. However it must be challenging in the correct way. Guild Wars 2 combat is build around being able to see what the enemy is preparing to do and trying to avoid it. Large scale attacks that can one-shot players must be clearly visible, or players die without having any idea what killed them. This leaves players frustrated, as they feel there is no way for them to prevent their death occurring the next time they encounter this foe.

Champion Risen Corrupter

We’ll start with the worst. These mobs spawn during the Penitent Defense phase and Jorfast. They have an AOE pull and a point-blank AOE attack that they use in conjunction. The damage on the PBAOE is extremely high, enough to down and then defeat a player before they can react. I have been pulled to a Corrupter countless times and hammered the dodge key, and found myself in a downed state before my character stood and was able to dodge. Shortly after, I would be defeated.

What makes this an issue is not that a mob has a powerful AOE attack, but that it’s impossible to see when a Corrupter is about to use its pull attack. Due to the relatively small size of the mob, attack effects from players obscure any animation on the part of the Corrupter. They may have an indicator, but I’ve never seen it, with flames and explosions all but hiding the mob’s model.

This makes fighting Corrupters extremely frustrating, as evidenced by comments from players lying dead in a pile of other dead players, which tend to be along the lines of “wtf”, “what happened?” or “how am I supposed to counter THAT?”. Again: the issue is that players feel they have no way of stopping themselves from dying, and that’s what needs to change.

The solution thankfully is fairly easy. Some time ago Arena-net introduced ground telegraphs for mobs: large, red coloured areas that signal when a mob is about to use a powerful AOE attack. These were employed extensively in Dry Top and they would be perfect for solving the issue with Corrupters. Add a coloured circle to the AOE pull attack, so players can see when its going to occur, and the issue is solved.

Champion Risen Abomination

This mob is usually encountered at the end of the Plinx chain in Cursed Shore. Just like regular Abominations, it has large charge up attacks that hit very hard, enough to down most players in one hit in conjunction with its stacking damage buff. The only issue with this mob is that the range and radius of its attacks are far larger and wider than players would reasonably think. This is a similar issue to Asura in SPVP where players can be hit by animations that they think they’re far enough away from, because the animation isn’t touching their character model. The Abomination seems to hit in a 180 degree arc in front of it, which is far larger than the cone effect a player would expect from a large club hitting the ground.

The solution is simple once again: a coloured semi-circle, similar to the one used by Nochtli in Dry top. Apart from that, the mob has no issues, and provides a good level of challenge.

Champion Risen Megalodon

Usually encountered in southern Cursed Shore. It has an extremely powerful bite attack that usually downs players in one shot. The Megalodon’s main issue stems from its model. It’s simply a regular size Risen Shark made enormous, but its hitbox remains the same size as it originally was. This makes reading its attacks impossible; one moment its swimming in your direction, the next you’re swimming to the surface to revive. Players end up just dodging madly if the thing swims in their direction at all.

The solution here is a harder one, and I don’t know if it is possible. Certainly some kind of clearer indication of its attacks would be beneficial. If the model’kittenbox could fit its mesh, this might help (and would certainly help with the wonky animations that go off when its affected by CC). However this could well be not a simple fix, so I’m open to suggestions. As a side note, all shark mobs in general seem to suffer from very little indication that they are about to attack.

Champion Risen Tactition/Rotbeard/Champion Gladiator

There’s a couple of mobs across Orr that use this template for their attacks. Their biggest attack is spawning purple crystals that do massive AOE damage. These activate very shortly after an AOE circle goes down.

The only real issue that comes up is that the circles are too hard to see when there’s lots of players and spell effects in the area, as there commonly are, especially with Rotbeard. The solution is again simple: colour the red circles in, just like at the Mark II Golem world boss or the Inquest Light Bridge event in Dry Top. The crystals spawning very quickly after the AOE circles goes down isn’t an issue in my opinion; the mechanic rewards fast reflexes and can be overcome.

Champion Risen Knight

These gargoyle looking mobs show up during the attack on the Gates of Arah, and one of them wanders around in Malchor’s Leap in the south-west. No-one much bothers to kill that one, for good reason: he’s pretty kitten lethal and his block/reflect/evade abilities make him take a lot longer to kill. The mob’s most lethal attack is a line of AOE circles that hit quite hard, and if the mob runs into terrain and stops moving, they all stack in one spot, much like the FGS 4 skill.

One big issue here is that the actual damage radius of the AOE circles is bigger than the circles themselves. This leaves players who think they’ve moved out of the way non-plussed, wondering why they’re taking damage when they’re not inside the red circles. On top of that the mob’s animation for laying down the circles (rearing up then swooping down) is hard to see through player animations.

The solution is twofold: firstly, when using the line swoop attack, have the filled in line AOE marker used by the Colocal Queen in Dry Top. Secondly, widen the line so that it shows the actual area affected by the attack. This won’t address the issue with the mob taking a long time to kill, which could be addressed by adding more rewards to it, but that’s a topic for another thread.

Champion Risen Broodmother

Typically encountered near the R&D outpost. The issues it faces with its line attack are pretty much identical to the Risen Knight, and can be solved in the same way,. It does have a cone breath attack that hits fairly hard that could use a filled in AOE indicator.

Champion Risen Giant

Players usually see these mobs near Meddler’s Summit, during the event to take the Gates of Arah, and over near the Rally waypoint in Straits of Devastation. They have an AOE stomp, summon grubs and a roar attack which I still cannot figure out what it actually does.

There’s no issue with the giant’s attacks not being viable; given the size of the model, even with a whole zerg pounding away its attacks are very obvious. The issue here is that the Champion is way too easy. Living giants, like the one that terrorizes Nageling, are quite challenging to fight, so its puzzling that their Risen counterparts are such pushovers. Living giants have an AOE Fear, a very powerful single-target ranged attack with knockdown and a three-stage single target shockwave attack with knockdown. They’re one of the best designed mobs for GW2 combat, as all their attacks can be dodged and have clear indications that they are about to occur.

Just giving Risen Giants parity with their living counterparts would solve the issues and make them truly challenging. And as a side note, how about making them count towards Giant Slayer at the same time?

Champion Risen Gorilla

These guys only seem to show up during Jorfast (either when attacking or defending). They have a very powerful AOE stomp ability and can cause a great deal of damage quite quickly with ranged knockdowns and a powerful leap. Currently none of these attacks have AOE circles at all. Adding coloured in circles to these attacks would be a fine and simple change.

Champion (and Veteran) Risen Subjugators)

I’ve included Veteran Subjugators in here because of one event: the attack on the Temple of Balthazar. Currently this is the hardest Temple event in the game by far, and it all comes down to one mob: the Veteran Subjugator. Savvy commanders will instruct their players to move to the locations where these mobs spawn and keep them CCed as much as possible, because the AOE fields they lay down are absolutely deadly to the NPCs that must be escorted to the Temple.

The issue here is that if one of those fields is lain down, the Pact’s finest warriors stand around in it and very quickly expire, causing the event to fail. This is particularly frustrating given that players must then tediously push another of the Invasion events all the way to the Rally base before trying again.

There’s nothing wrong with an event being challenging. There is though an issue with an event being challenging for the wrong reasons. Players shouldn’t have to stare at NPCs and scream in frustration as they refuse to move out of the death circles killing them. Making the NPCs revivable would solve the issue, but make completing the event a cake-walk. This one doesn’t really have a simple solution; the event itself needs to be looked at and re-evaluated. Keep the challenge, just don’t eliminate player agency.

Champion Risen Wraiths

These mobs show up during the battle to take Jorfasts if enough players are around (and thanks to Megaservers, there usually are), and during Grenth. Their most feared attack is a large AOE life-drain that seems to have no limit on the number of players it affects.

I consider Champion Wraiths to be one of the best designed PvE mobs in the game. The animation when the Wraith uses its life drain attack is very obvious, as it rises up off the ground into the air. This makes it visible even through spell effects, and players also see red orbs being sucked out of them. Players can either try to stop the damage through brute force, by hitting the Wraith with enough interrupts to burn through its Defiant stacks, or they can move out of the affected area.

I don’t personally think the Wraith needs any adjustments; they’re a mob that rewards smart play and punishes poor play. Continuing to wail on it while its life draining will just get you killed, whilst organized interrupts or moving outside its AOE will defeat it. About the only time I’ve seen an issue come up is when two of them spawned at Jorfasts and wiped the entire zerg because there weren’t enough interrupts to burn through both stacks of defiant. But the zerg could have been better organized.

Eye of Zhaitan

Encountered during the Gates of Arah, the Royal Tombs and in the King’s Passage in Malchor’s Leap, Eyes of Zhaitan are quite potent foes with powerful attacks. Like the Wraith, I don’t see them as having any particular issues; they’re very difficult to solo, and their attacks are fairly obvious.

Those are my thoughts. I’ve probably missed a few mobs here and there, but I’m sure others will fill that in. Once again I must stress that this is not about making mobs easy; it’s about communicating to players the information needed to avoid their attacks. This helps make better players of us all and reduces frustration caused by attacks that seem to have no counter.

I dont hang out in Orr much, im not even particularly concerned with the mechanics on these bosses. But I LOVE your post. So nicely analyzed and laid out. Seriously dude, nice job. Also: the pull on the Risen Corruptor IS friekin’ Kitten. Thought is was just me…

Yup, I can’t say I disagree with anything you’ve said. Well put together! I hope ANet takes the time to read it in full and act on your suggestions.

What about chicken!?

The problem is because making the mob’s attack easier to see will not solve anything,because usually they are covered in skill particles

Sorean.5379:

The problem is because making the mob’s attack easier to see will not solve anything,because usually they are covered in skill particles

As I pointed out, the solution in most cases has nothing to do with making the attack animation itself more obvious, but with adding filled in ground circles to the attacks to make them more visible, just like in Dry Top.

Excellent post.
I wouldn’t mind the Abominations so much if it weren’t for their unstoppable knockback skill: why does it have to hit twice? You can’t really dodge or avoid getting hit after the first knockback, which is what most of the times enables this mob to one-shot you. It’s really annoying and frustrating.

+1 for great justice

Nice thread. I concur with most of what you’ve typed. In addition:

Champion Risen Abomination

Its charge attack also hits targets that are as much as 600 range from its model as the charge is executed. It’s counter-intuitive to be that far away from a charging creature and still get hit. If it’s supposed to be some kind of mystical effect or a shockwave, then there should be a field tell for it.

Champion Risen Giant

I’m of two minds with regard to your comments on this one. Most of my fights with this mob were in very small groups, and the grubs — which generate most of the encounter’s damage — are an issue. In a zerg, such as with mega-server, the grubs don’t last long enough to matter due to AoE proliferation. I’m not opposed to similar mechanics to the Nageling Giant, but frankly player numbers like I see in mega-server CS would trivialize that fight, also.

I’ll add my wish that Anet consider the suggestions in this thread.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Champion Risen Giant

I’m of two minds with regard to your comments on this one. Most of my fights with this mob were in very small groups, and the grubs — which generate most of the encounter’s damage — are an issue. In a zerg, such as with mega-server, the grubs don’t last long enough to matter due to AoE proliferation. I’m not opposed to similar mechanics to the Nageling Giant, but frankly player numbers like I see in mega-server CS would trivialize that fight, also.

I’ll add my wish that Anet consider the suggestions in this thread.

Giving the Risen Giants parity with regular ones wouldn’t stop a zerg demolishing them; you’re completely correct there. However it would make a fight with them far more dynamic and, I believe more importantly, it helps instruct players in the GW2 combat system. Living Giants are a great example of GW2 combat mechanics and if you don’t dodge their attacks, you spend most of the fight on your back. That’s annoying, so you try and learn when to time your dodges. And even though its level 80, it’s never too late to remind players of when to dodge.

It’s also a simple change for Anet that would increase the difficulty of the mob. Simple changes have more chances of getting through.

Ideally, I’d love to see sweeping changes to end-game champions that made them scale properly with zergs, just like the Risen Wraith currently does, and rewards increasing the more players join in. Currently events reward more players showing up with more mob spawns and Champions showing up. Single champions should be no different, provided the challenge also scales. The more players show up, the more abilities a champion mob should get. That’s really a discussion for another thread though, and unlike the changes I’ve proposed in here, these are complex changes that would require a great deal of programming and work.

I find it adequate that these mobs 1-hit everyone in zerker clothing without any warning.

My exo soldier warrior survives even 2 hits of them.

You’ve chosen max damage at high risk. The risk hits you from time to time.

Dayra.7405:

I find it adequate that these mobs 1-hit everyone in zerker clothing without any warning.

My exo soldier warrior survives even 2 hits of them.

You’ve chosen max damage at high risk. The risk hits you from time to time.

Firstly, this post was not intended to discuss the relative difficulty of the mobs. I threw in the bit about the giant because he has no real issues, but could use a buff.

Secondly, the posts’ intention was to draw attention to some QOL changes that would make fighting these champions a less frustrating experience by clearly showing their attacks, which is a foundation of the GW2 combat system. This would also serve to help instruct players in reading mob attacks and knowing when to dodge, a fundamental part of the combat system.

Thirdly, there’s nothing wrong with a mob hitting hard. I made that very clear in my post. You must however give the player some feedback on why they died. As I pointed out, the Risen Corrupter currently gives players no feedback, but simply kills them. This is not just the full zerker types you mention. I run a full ascended Celestial build with 30 points in water on my Elementalist, and as I said, I’m downed before my character actually stands up. Without a tell as to when a mob will use such a damaging move, players become frustrated because they feel they have no way of avoiding such attacks in future. This was a major issue in Grenth after the Megaservers came out, where players would walk into Grenth in progress and simply fall over dead. Not even the combat log told them why this happened (they got 25 stacks of corruption almost instantly thanks to Megaserver scaling, and 25 used to kill you). Anet has since fixed that thankfully, and as I said, some minor quality of life improvements would go a long way to making fighting Orrian champions a less frustrating and more instructive experience.

Galen.9042:

You must however give the player some feedback on why they died.

Ok, your right. Whenever this happend ANet should write into the battle-log: “You got 1-hitted, because your lousy armor wasn’t able to reduce the damage below your lousy amount of life. To avoid such situations in the future, increase your Toughness and vitality.”

Excellent analysis, I hope Anet takes it on board and implements all your recommendations.

Excellent post! But I have to agree about the chicken, got anything on that one? You so much as look at it funny and it will do some attack that just guts you. I never know when that attack is coming -.-

Galen.9042:

Champion Risen Megalodon

Remove it from the game.

Undead sharks should not be a thing, let alone -gigantic- ones.

Fixed.

I agree with OP on these changes.

Great post. I agree with pretty much everything said.

I will add that I think two features would alleviate some of these issues – sliders to reduce/eliminate particle effects – and the option to turn on cast timer bars for big attacks. Those, combined with better ground indicators (as you mention) would go a long way to making the fights more interesting.

I didn’t get through all of the OPs post.

Some ground telegraphs for some of the bosses might not be a bad idea.

Another option for certain boss attacks might also be an icon over your character’s head, something akin to maw’s mechanic.

Different things work for different people. I know when there are a lot of people and effects, I still sometimes miss some of the new (very bright) ground targeting warnings.

Yep, my biggest issue is all the particle effects from other players combined with the sometimes poor framerates I get on account of my cracker jack computer. I think the best qol improvement that could be made is for Anet to finally allow us to change how much or little of other peoples particle effects we see. I doubt highly though that anything will be done about this particular issue because Anet has already addressed it once supposedly.

Per the corrupter: You knew the risks when you rolled zerker.

Also, run a stun break, it’s amazing!

Dayra.7405:

Galen.9042:

You must however give the player some feedback on why they died.

Ok, your right. Whenever this happend ANet should write into the battle-log: “You got 1-hitted, because your lousy armor wasn’t able to reduce the damage below your lousy amount of life. To avoid such situations in the future, increase your Toughness and vitality.”

Or, more appropriately: “You have max stats and armor. You were one-shot, because we could. Ha ha. Nana-nana booboo.”

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Galen.9042:

Champion Risen Megalodon

Remove it from the game.

Undead sharks should not be a thing, let alone -gigantic- ones.

Fixed.

But undead sharks with frickin’ laser beams, those should be a thing!

oop didn’t read closely enough, see Darya beat me.

1shotting pure DPSers isn’t a “QOL” change, it’s core balance. Player perceptions of balance are skewed already, let’s not make it worse by making the intended disadvantages of pure zerkers not exist.

There’s not much wrong with the Champion Risen Knight, except the amount of damage that overlapping AoE circles do. It’s actually one of the easiest champions of the lot to solo due to the slow and predictable attacks, and is kiteable if you need to heal.

The Abomination in the worst with a group on certain scales, since it gets 25 stacks almost instantly when fighting a group and they don’t reset. While the “punishes you for getting hit more each time” mechanic is okay (those risen berkserkers in Arah have it), the Abomination is just on constant 1shot mode. It would be better if they debuffed the player to take 50/100/150/200/250% more damage from their hits each time but since this game doesn’t really have debuffs that idea is pretty much impossible.

Dayra.7405:

Galen.9042:

You must however give the player some feedback on why they died.

Ok, your right. Whenever this happend ANet should write into the battle-log: “You got 1-hitted, because your lousy armor wasn’t able to reduce the damage below your lousy amount of life. To avoid such situations in the future, increase your Toughness and vitality.”

The issue is that his rush attack touch people even if they are far away from it.
It’s an issue with the “collision box” of the attack and has absolutely nothing to do with whether it one shot people or not.
It obviously have nothing to do with what armor people are wearing so please stop trying to derail the thread.

Windsagio.1340:

oop didn’t read closely enough, see Darya beat me.

1shotting pure DPSers isn’t a “QOL” change, it’s core balance. Player perceptions of balance are skewed already, let’s not make it worse by making the intended disadvantages of pure zerkers not exist.

I have said over and over again that it is not the damage of the mob that is the issue. The damage of the mob is completely fine. There’s nothing wrong with Champion mobs having high damage moves that can one shot a player. No-where in my post on Corrupters, or anywhere else for that matter, did I advocate for the damage on these abilities being reduced.

What I am advocating for is for ground targeted circles to be added to these attacks so show when they are about to occur. Every Champion mob in Dry Top with large scale damaging AOE attacks uses exactly that mechanic, and it would be a QOL change to place that on other champions in the game.

Please stop trying to turn this into a gear stat argument. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with gear. The GW2 combat system is fundamentally based around avoiding clearly shown attacks. That’s true for every facet of the game, from SPvP to Dungeons to Open World.

@Galen, given that the shot is a ‘conditional’ 1 hit (the condition being having at least some toughness/vitality), and it’s essentially avoidable if you run a stunbreak, I think the “worst issue!” thing is pretty far off base.

It would be a minor improvement to add the new Solid Circles to make that attack more visible, but the solid circles seem to represent unblockable attacks, which the Corrupter pull is not. An old-style ring marker would be pretty kitten impossible to see (as others in this thread have mentioned as a problem).

The tone of the complaint about the Corrupter ends up with a strong feel of ‘he pulls me in and then 1 shots me!’ While it happening is frustrating, there are multiple player skill and player decisions solutions to deal with that-

— if you break the knockdown, it’s an almost guaranteed escape (last I did it)
— if you have enough health or toughness to eat a pulse and have 50% energy, it’s a fairly safe escape.
— If you have a ton of toughness/vit you don’t even need to evade out.

The abo strikes being outside of it’s swing animation (a trait shared with Mai Trin, btw) is an issue, if a minor one. The corruptor is some actual difficulty that makes the encounter more interesting.

EDITED: I said unevadable up above, I meant unblockable

I have to agree with shadow puppet. Although the “red rings of death” as I call them would be a nice add in, I think a lot of the need for those could be mitigated entirely if we were able to turn off, or minimize partical effects. I have a screen shot of modjir? (the centuar boss) with so many effects it’s crazy. I’ll post it when I get home later. But it’s so bad you can’t see ANYTHING but a giant mess. If this was able to be reduced or removed, it wouldn’t be so bad.

And what happens when he uses the attack again, and you don’t see it for all of the crap on the screen? And the third time? I’ve been in that fight with a Soldiered out Necro (with armor over 3500 and health ~30K. The move gets repeated every few seconds. Cooldowns, not so fast. There is no amount of protection that can allow you to repeatedly survive those pulls if you cannot see to avoid them in the first place.

I’m not sure about the ground circles being only for unavoidable attacks. While that may be the case, why does it have to be that way?

When ANet designed the game, they stated they wanted players to see and react to what is on screen. Then, they provided a game in which what’s on screen is a massive particle blur that many players can’t see through and some find to be a massive eyesore. Honestly, I’d prefer being able to filter out the blur so I can see the pull tell over more colors on the ground, but I’d take what I can get at this point, since ANet seems either unable or unwilling to let me control how much gunk I see.

IndigoSundown.5419:

And what happens when he uses the attack again, and you don’t see it for all of the crap on the screen? And the third time? I’ve been in that fight with a Soldiered out Necro (with armor over 3500 and health ~30K. The move gets repeated every few seconds. Cooldowns, not so fast. There is no amount of protection that can allow you to repeatedly survive those pulls if you cannot see to avoid them in the first place.

I’m not sure about the ground circles being only for unavoidable attacks. While that may be the case, why does it have to be that way?

When ANet designed the game, they stated they wanted players to see and react to what is on screen. Then, they provided a game in which what’s on screen is a massive particle blur that many players can’t see through and some find to be a massive eyesore. Honestly, I’d prefer being able to filter out the blur so I can see the pull tell over more colors on the ground, but I’d take what I can get at this point, since ANet seems either unable or unwilling to let me control how much gunk I see.

I have not had that issue, dunno. I’m prone to reject the idea that it’s all that unescapable, it doesn’t match my experience (although I also am willing to move out of range when appropriate).

About the display, the problem is that in many cases, it won’t be visible even if there are rings. If you’re fighting him solo, there are tells to read, and anyways an 80 elite SHOULD be hard. If you’re in a big group, if he pulls you in, you know you can’t deal with another grab attack, and it’s too crowded to read his animation tell, move to max range for a bit.

~~~

I care about this because if feels like people are treating the inability to just faceroll rargh a max level champ as a quality of life issue.

I love the ones that lock into perma lifesteal until they get interrupted. I cant even imagine how a champ would be with defiant stacks.

Eulolia.2467:

The Abomination in the worst with a group on certain scales, since it gets 25 stacks almost instantly when fighting a group and they don’t reset.

While you might not see it very often in group fights, the stacks can indeed reset. If the Abomination doesn’t hit any players for around 20-30 seconds, it will stagger and enter a stunned animation, which resets all of its Frenzy charges to 0. Most of the time when it gets to 25 stacks it’s going to be moving and hitting so fast that it’ll be impossible to reset the stacks, but it is a mechanic that exists. You see it far more often when fighting in small groups or solo, as it’ll get stunned even when it has no stacks to lose, and that self-stun is the only way it can be stunned at all.