Guild Wars 2

I plead for a reduction(nerf) in the fighting capacity of the creatures found there. The level of difficulty in killing them goes into the cant be bothered file.

The place is dead. No people go there except for mats farming.
I went there to kill some creatures.
Start with Reef Riders; Most should be able to solo 1 of them just. If you get 2 that attacks you then forget it no point cause your on your way to ruin.
Vets don’t even bother with and that goes same with all the creatures found on that island.
I like solo play as well as team play, though I find myself playing when no one is around at the time. So i do a lot of solo kills.
Maybe I’m mistaken but is this the way the island is suppose to be designed?
To keep this island a deserted one?

Signed:
disgruntled fan

I partially agree. I assume the monsters are tougher because they drop loot more abundantly (I get way more T6 mats in Southsun than I do in Orr or Frostgorge). With that said, the Young Karka machine gun thing needs to be toned down (right now I pretty much HAVE to run a weapon set with an interrupt. I get killed by that ability alone if I don’t have an interrupt or endurance, it’s a bit too much). The vet/champ Karka’s also need to have their damage reflect toned down.

NO! The difficulty Southsun Cove reminds me of what we saw in some of the early beta weekend events prior to the massive difficulty drop in BWE2/3[can’t remember which]. I love it, as do the majority of peoples I’ve talked to about it.
It’s not like they’re anywhere near impossible. Soloing a vet karka as an ele is very doable, though takes a bit of skill and patience.

What we need is more of a reason to go to Southsun Cove. The vets should give a bit better loot, the time spent vs reward is not really worth it. The mob variety is also lacking, though Karka are pretty dang cool. We need, amongst other things, more dynamic events.

A difficulty nerf is not the way to solve this.

Young Karka are easy to kill. Use your dodge-roll twice, and you’ll evade 90% of the shots.
Alternatively, strafe left and right rapidly at a medium range distance (about 600 in-game metres) and the enemies aiming AI will cause every single one of the shots to miss you completely (it’s something you have to practice, but works on every enemy skill that is not tracking, such as the giant boulders that wurms throw at you).

They only do about 1000 damage per hit; as long as you engage them one on one, I fail to see how even the squishiest of squishies could die to one unless you literally just stand there and facetank the enemy, in which case you might want to reconsider your choice of build. Or your choice of tactic. Or you choice of game.

The Reef Riders I haven’t fought as much. They seem tankier than the Karka’s, but their damage output is lower. I can literally just facetank them on my Carrion geared Engineer. But I can see how someone with no vitality or toughness could have trouble with them.
TBH though, you shouldn’t be playing PvE without one or both of those stats. Vitality is the most important stat in this game. Your DPS does not matter if you cannot stay on your feet long enough to kill your enemy.

The only thing I don’t like about the Veteran Karka’s is their knockdown ability. It has little to no telegraphy, and occurs extremely fast. I feel that these chain-knockdown strategies are a cheap attempt to to add “difficulty” to the game, when really all they add is frustration.

Ashes.6418:

Young Karka are easy to kill. Use your dodge-roll twice, and you’ll evade 90% of the shots.
Alternatively, strafe left and right rapidly at a medium range distance (about 600 in-game metres) and the enemies aiming AI will cause every single one of the shots to miss you completely (it’s something you have to practice, but works on every enemy skill that is not tracking, such as the giant boulders that wurms throw at you).

They only do about 1000 damage per hit; as long as you engage them one on one, I fail to see how even the squishiest of squishies could die to one unless you literally just stand there and facetank the enemy, in which case you might want to reconsider your choice of build. Or your choice of tactic. Or you choice of game.

The Reef Riders I haven’t fought as much. They seem tankier than the Karka’s, but their damage output is lower. I can literally just facetank them on my Carrion geared Engineer. But I can see how someone with no vitality or toughness could have trouble with them.
TBH though, you shouldn’t be playing PvE without one or both of those stats. Vitality is the most important stat in this game. Your DPS does not matter if you cannot stay on your feet long enough to kill your enemy.

The only thing I don’t like about the Veteran Karka’s is their knockdown ability. It has little to no telegraphy, and occurs extremely fast. I feel that these chain-knockdown strategies are a cheap attempt to to add “difficulty” to the game, when really all they add is frustration.

I can take 2 Young Karka’s at once on my Warrior in full berserker gear (well, I guess not really full, I have Valk gems in my accessories). My Thief can only take on one, and even then I have to have full endurance or an interrupt. My issue with them more in terms of disparity of difficulty between professions, I guess. I just see no reason to even step foot in Southsun on my Thief when I can be killing things far more efficiently on my Warrior. Just because their attack is avoidable doesn’t really make it any less of a gimmick. I’d much rather see the initial attack nerfed but their other attacks increased, straighten out the damage so that it still requires skill but doesn’t feel so cheesy.

If you have reflection at all, the young karkas will take out more than half of their own health with their first attack.

I don’t bother going there because in terms of time spent, the benefits are minimal. That being said, I’m fast approaching the point where Apothecary armour is going to be something to think about seriously so I may have to go there to grind shells. I’m not looking forward to that.

TL;DR
The zone isn’t fun but if you want to get karka shells you have to endure it.

I made no mention of young Karka or young Reef Riders.
The motion is for the normal versions of these creatures.

The Skales/Barracuda’s in the water off the northern coast are actually a decent farm. They are extremely easy to kill, and drop t6 blood/scales at a good rate. But those are pretty much the only mobs worth the effort in the zone atm.

Scorpion.1286:

I made no mention of young Karka or young Reef Riders.
The motion is for the normal versions of these creatures.

Umm, admittedly I haven’t spent much time in the zone but I recall seeing Young Karka, Veteran Karka and Champion Karka; the latter two having some variations to them I think. So far as I’m aware there is no such thing as a “normal” Karka.

I Hope they dont nerf i actually find entertainment of groups getting rolled by 1 vet karka lol

1) it has been stated thousands of times that the real content of Southsun Cove will be added in the near futur. Stop beating a dead horse and just be patient -,-’

2) they should actually INCREASE the difficulty of that place to completely avoid the possibility to solo for even the most skilled player; of course not by just adding HP or damage output to mobs, but being creative (i.e traps, patrols, ambushes, natural occurrences ecc). It must represent a true challenge, and offer the best drops in games

I hate the place. I think creature attacks need to get toned down. The last time I was there was the day after the main event, and I had to respec my skills, just to last a little longer when attacking these insane amount of damage attack mobs.

An island filled with nothing but the same mobs,yeah great fun.This is why i don’t come there,no variety at all,fight 1 will be the same as fight 1000.

The Karkas don’t bother me. I got pretty enraged when I attacked a Reef Drake and instantly died. Then I ranged it and got killed instantly again. Was like WTF is dis I didn’t bother trying to fight one again, lol. Fricken things just an A hole. Perma aoe confusion knockdown and pull. :/

Im a guardian, I can solo a young karka with only losing 5% hp. I can face tank a Vet karka with only using hammer auto attack and AH (though a dodge now and again may be involved). I can tank 5 young karka at the same time and come out laughing.

The only thing dangerous about karkas are their 1 skill. Wall of Reflection = instant win.

They should have just made this into a dungeon level difficulty area. Its too boring as it is. Not much variety. Karkas are no challenge at all.

Mobs too difficult? god no. GW2 battle mechanics means you have to be a bit more proactive then to just click and attack like other MMO’s. Learn to play. You will live longer.

Well unless your a guardian and can just tank through just about everything in the game. Its understandable why we got the nerf bat so many times

I’d be ok with the difficulty if there was a good enough reason enough to go there that there were actually other players in the zone.

This is really the fault of two things: FotM and lack of DEs.

You can solo Southsun Cove as long as you tip toe around veterans. Now try Orr. I have no problem with the karka place.

KensaiZen.3740:

Im a guardian, I can solo a young karka with only losing 5% hp. I can face tank a Vet karka with only using hammer auto attack and AH (though a dodge now and again may be involved). I can tank 5 young karka at the same time and come out laughing.

The only thing dangerous about karkas are their 1 skill. Wall of Reflection = instant win.

They should have just made this into a dungeon level difficulty area. Its too boring as it is. Not much variety. Karkas are no challenge at all.

Mobs too difficult? god no. GW2 battle mechanics means you have to be a bit more proactive then to just click and attack like other MMO’s. Learn to play. You will live longer.

Well unless your a guardian and can just tank through just about everything in the game. Its understandable why we got the nerf bat so many times

So you are just the best of the best of the best, good for you to think like that. What about the squishy classes? A lot of Squishies feel the damage is to high for them. Get off your high horse. Just because you can waltz through the area, it doesn’t mean everybody can.

The damage these beasties do need to get toned down some.

drifter.8453:

KensaiZen.3740:

Im a guardian, I can solo a young karka with only losing 5% hp. I can face tank a Vet karka with only using hammer auto attack and AH (though a dodge now and again may be involved). I can tank 5 young karka at the same time and come out laughing.

The only thing dangerous about karkas are their 1 skill. Wall of Reflection = instant win.

They should have just made this into a dungeon level difficulty area. Its too boring as it is. Not much variety. Karkas are no challenge at all.

Mobs too difficult? god no. GW2 battle mechanics means you have to be a bit more proactive then to just click and attack like other MMO’s. Learn to play. You will live longer.

Well unless your a guardian and can just tank through just about everything in the game. Its understandable why we got the nerf bat so many times

So you are just the best of the best of the best, good for you to think like that. What about the squishy classes? A lot of Squishies feel the damage is to high for them. Get off your high horse. Just because you can waltz through the area, it doesn’t mean everybody can.

The damage these beasties do need to get toned down some.

As an elementalist and my friend mesmer we both were able to solo drakes and normal karka. Not veterans but normal ones. That zone is not that bad.

If they are going to look at nerfing something maybe see what can be done with the Reef Drakes. The confusion alone makes me run away from them more often then not, but I’m sure some will say how easymode they are.]

edit: as for the rest of the area it can be soloed by some classes and a complete pita for others, but I cannot see nerfing the entire area as the difficulty seems to make players form impromptu groups and afterall this is an MMO.

+1 to the reef drakes, even with 3 condition removers you have constant confusion, far more annoying than karka or reef riders

Hi everyone,

I’m gonna list some of my opinions and explain them and then let you decide what you agree with.

1) Southsun Cove was a solid step in the right direction -

When i say that I don’t mean the implementation, but the design and philosophy of the new monsters and mechanics in play.

2) Monsters such as Karka promote exploration of counterplay in a PvE setting – I read another forum poster that linked a penny arcade vid ( thanks – will add an edit and link after if i can find it).

The jist is that in order to create interesting and fun ways of playing for both a player using an ability and a player who has the ability used on them there needs to be some dynamic that builds on creative forms of play.

In a PvE setting the Karka provide us with different mechanics to fight against – like a previous poster mentioned – reflection is a great tool against karka. I would not have experimented with builds to incorporate this mechanic without the karka.

Sure they could have less HP or not deal as much damage – but then they become trivial monsters that don’t add anything to the setting. By adding a hard hitting but predictable ranged mechanic the player is given the opportunity to develop thier tactics vs similar monsters and players.

3) Decreasing the difficulty of an area is a bad move unless it is quite obviously too difficult despite a wide range of experimentation by the player base to overcome the problems.

Before making any assumptions about Southsun and its difficulty discuss the issue on forums like we’re doing right now.

We can discuss tactics for dealing with specific monsters or general strategies for moving through areas and so forth. If after all that we encounter elements that prove to be beyond the ability of most players then we can look at methods for reducing difficulty.

However that should be a last resort. Hard encounters provoke discussion and the sharing of ideas and that leads to innovative ways of combating situations.

If the player base can demonstrate that level of communication and development of ideas the developers will take note and be inspired to create more ingeneous and clever monsters for us to deal with. We no longer have an increase in monster HP and damage but interesting mechanics that work differently to the tried and boring ranged or melee mob situation.

Sure mistakes will come about – but playing around and sharing ideas will highlight those mistakes in development and make the developers better at their job.

If we just ask for nerfs to HP and damage the dev’s will get lazy with future mechanics for fear they will upset players unwilling to explore the options available to them – which leads to an ever decreasing level of choice in terms of build and equipment options in the future.

TL;DR -

— i probably went off on a tangent – basically – Mobs in southsun are fine – players with issues need to discuss them with other players to develop tactics and then share said tactics -

damage and HP nerfs on PvE monsters will lead to lazy player base not willing to experiment and will limit developers to creating more of the same rather than coming out with innovation through the insight of the player base’s exploration and development of the games mechanics and experimentation of tactics.

Edit:- Link to post that links counterplay vid –
Permalink

Boloth.6879

While it’s true hundred blades can be avoided that’s not what the OP is upset about.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play

You don’t need to dodge or interrupt to kill a young karka.
Just bring a skill that reflect projectiles. They have such a high attack that they’ll kill themselves.

It’s plain silly.

The creatures in the area are puzzling to me.
It’s as if they asked all players what are the things they enjoy less and what combat mechanics they dislike the most in enemies, and put them all together there.

Slow unrewarding combat all over the area.

So people just go there to gather materials, avoiding as many creatures as possible, unles they go for the exclusive drops like karka shells.

My problem with the area: Too much kitten cripples.
Also, I never farmed them, but I went there for the event, and killed a few here and there, but all I got were trophies worth 2c. Maybe a white here and there, worth 35c.
Lol, even Queensdale seems to be a better place if looking for loot.
And there’s not enough mob variety…

Have to agree with the OP on this. There is a balance that makes challenge fun and it is not to be found in Southsun Cove. I’m on a high pop server—I had to transfer after the patch because my server went dead in the open world—and, I only run into a couple people here and there when I go. In reality I have no desire to go as it’s not fun. Throughout the game I could solo most DE’s. In Southsun forget about a vet with adds. There needs to be difficulty curve as you level but the game shouldn’t feel as though its a different game at 80 when you are in good gear and know how to play your profession.

The retaliation on karkas needs to be removed, otherwise the area is doable (I think the face hugging crabs are a bit much but that’s because I’m a thief).

its fine as is, nice to have a zone, you need a few ppl to run around in.

I don’t mind the difficulty per se, but I would agree that since the drops are crap and the zone seems to have no real purpose now that the event is over that it’s not worth the time required.

It also sucks that the Karka’s don’t count towards the shelled creatures killed.

Another “no reason to be here” area with miniscule rewards and harder than needed mobs given this. The only reason I use it is to lower the cost of way points with the free transport to/from LA.

KokoroPixie.3786:

It also sucks that the Karka’s don’t count towards the shelled creatures killed.

maybe because when you kill them they have already shed it?

Blacksarevok.8104:

I partially agree. I assume the monsters are tougher because they drop loot more abundantly (I get way more T6 mats in Southsun than I do in Orr or Frostgorge). With that said, the Young Karka machine gun thing needs to be toned down (right now I pretty much HAVE to run a weapon set with an interrupt. I get killed by that ability alone if I don’t have an interrupt or endurance, it’s a bit too much). The vet/champ Karka’s also need to have their damage reflect toned down.

That’s funny because i get 0 i haven’t seen a shell since the event not 1. and I have mf armor food luck boon that gets me to about 226%. Glad you’re one of the 5% of players that are getting drops tho.

Completely agree with OP tho, they do entirely too much damage.

I was thinking, keep the difficulty where its at because it could be a pretty decent bot deterrent. And seeing as its more difficult to bot, buff the drops for real players.

My only qualm about the are is not the difficulty, but that it seems like a barren, unfinished beta map (no offense to developers if you read this.) It looks and feels incomplete. Compare to ANY other map, and you’ll notice the difference right away. I assume they will “complete” this map eventually and add others, though.

I do’nt find young Karka as difficult, but surely annoying. A lone one is no threat, but if 3 fire at you nearly at the same time, you may be in trouble if you didn’t dodge/reflect their projectiles. The Veterans are not really hard with a Guardian, unless there’s young Karka around, which are the main threat. Well, the worse monster is not the big Veterans, but the Young Karka Veterans, as their projectiles hit for substantially more. The baby Karka bomb attack is also more of a nuisance, unless you are bombed en masse and ran out of stamina.

I don’t see many people on the map, and I don’t see the appeal to be there, anyway. I also missed the event since I had some relatives visiting over that period (no big deal, real life is above GW2.)

I would recommend the “Orr approach” with this map: party up with people no matter your class (even non-squishy ones) so that the experience is much more fun. Soloing those critters isn’t necessarily uber hard, but can be tedious solo. And since the area seems so barren, the only draw possible in it seems to be not the “fun” aspect, but the farming of Karka shells and other high-end mats for those so inclined. Try to group up even with another player to lessen the annoyance factor. :P

In subject, I don’t wish this map to be toned down that much, but rather to be made much more interesting (“complete”) than its current state-it’s a waste of space for just a weekend event (I am almost sure they should be able to “finish it up” in the future, though.)

Star Ace.5207:

I would recommend the “Orr approach” with this map: party up with people no matter your class (even non-squishy ones) so that the experience is much more fun. Soloing those critters isn’t necessarily uber hard, but can be tedious solo. And since the area seems so barren, the only draw possible in it seems to be not the “fun” aspect, but the farming of Karka shells and other high-end mats for those so inclined. Try to group up even with another player to lessen the annoyance factor. :P

I’ve tried this multiple times. There just aren’t enough people on the map to get a good party going and every time I bring a guild member I bore them to tears because there aren’t many entertaining events and killing karkas seems to yield less than a 10% chance to even drop anything aside from [nothing] and [crab meat trophy].

The problem with the karka and reef drakes is that some classes can spec/ swap skills to deal with them whilst others can’t; necros have no reflect skills that i know of so they have to pop into DS, hope it lasts long enough to survive the attack and still have to deal with the mob at full HP when they drop DS. Maybe a ground-targetted well of darkness would last long enough…but we might as well forget reef drakes with their 3K dot, pull and knockdown, unless you want to wait 1 min between each mob^^ (well of power lasts 5 secs and is prob the ‘best’ thing we have against reef drakes).

I don’t know, i hung around after the event to see what the mobs were like but died a little too readily for my liking (more so against drakes). The idea of having to re-spec ur char just to be able to survive a map seems harsh.

The young ones are not that bad. I have a defense/support traited warrior and with the reflection on Shield Stance and Counterblow the karkas practically do the work for me while I regen ~500 per second from their other attacks. I actually like fighting them. =)

The red drakes are very annoying because they stack tons of Confusion. I get some condition removal and remove the Confusion and if stacks too high.

The veterans I don’t even bother. I don’t have a lot of damage because of my soldier/cleric gear and by the time I get to their second life the adds around have respawned and I have to run away if I don’t want to get zerged.

Caedmon.6798:

An island filled with nothing but the same mobs,yeah great fun.This is why i don’t come there,no variety at all,fight 1 will be the same as fight 1000.

Yep. Booooooring.

Of course Orr is just a bunch of risen, but at least there’s some variety to the feel of the place.

I can sum up my feelings on these mobs in 7 words: Reward should be equal to the Risk.

Fine, make em hit as hard as you want. If I go to the trouble of killing the thing though don’t hand me some worthless grey doodad. If you’re going out to farm up Vials of Powerful Blood or something like that, common sense would seem to dictate that you wanna go find and kill the biggest, baddest, hardest hitting, level 80 mobs in Tyria. Currently you may get a high-end mat to drop once in a blue moon out there but likely you were just dodging, ducking, dipping, diving and… um… dodging for some grey “trophy” piece of carp worth 2 copper.

If it’s gonna hit like a train, at least let it be a train carrying something worth the trouble.

Mayam.8976:

I can sum up my feelings on these mobs in 7 words: Reward should be equal to the Risk. …snip

I agree completely. I heard that the big one actually dropped precursors although I was unable to attend I thought that even the little ones would drop something worth my time. I just spent 45 minutes there and I got 1 blue and 0 Powerful blood, I did get a BL chest though.. woohoo. I couldn’t see any point in farming longer as I see the neighbor just painted the garage and I’m sure the watching it drying will amuse me more.

I find it really depends on the class….
My Elementalist is in full exotic gear, and while I can solo the karka on her, I feel much more comfortable in a group. Conversely, I have my Ranger in full kitten Gear, about 2K less HP (yellow and green MF) and she has little to no trouble with them.

I think karka shells are the only good reason to go there

Please add more events there! And hearts in your future zones too.

Yeah, and vistas. I was surprised that there was no vistas in the new zone.

This is the only map, you can’t solo! The respawns are just way way too fast!!

Well the mob difficulty are too high. Plus there’s not much to do there except maybe harvest ancient wood/orichalcum nodes and kill Karka for monthlies. It’s a pretty boring map atm. But Anet mentioned they will be adding more stuff involving South Cove in future updates.

People go to Southsun Cove??? I’m shocked.

I actually really like the difficulty level the cove is currently at, I just don’t like that there isn’t much to actually do. So I’m just waiting on those future updates and hoping they don’t nerf me or the enemies.

My engineer in exotics had little trouble with this zone. The drakes who spam daze or confusion stink. Can’t remember which. The zone in general is not fun. The valleys and maze to get anywhere are terrible. A shame this game is fun to me up till Orr areas and this zone.

Karkas are indeed tougher than others mobs but at no point I said to myself that they needed to be weakened.

I prefer playing to hitting a punching-bag and it’s really what I was looking for when I subscribed to GW2.

Though I have to agree on the Drakes applying 5 stacks of confusion for 10 sec or something because confusion is twice stronger in PvE world than it is in sPvP (dunno about WvW).