Guild Wars 2

World 2 Zone 2 is without a doubt, the most irritating, long winded and unpredictable zone to do on tribulation mode. Everything about it is simply evil, from the pixel perfect edge runs and non-stop badgering from mobs, to that awful series of pole jumps near the end.

It takes me <9 minutes to run any other zone (I haven’t done w2z3 yet mind), but w2z2 takes me 25 minutes a pop, and that’s running at full tilt. It’s just the mobs behaving so randomly and the dodgy physics when interacting with angular objects that cause random deaths.

W2z3 seems more technically challenging, but also more predictable. Please someone tell me it’s not as aggravating as zone 2.

I wouldn’t mind, but I need 11 more runs on z2 and a full 16 on z3 to get the full wizard weapon skin set…

kitten me why did I choose to do this?

W2Z3 is even more tilting this year than compared to last due to wonky ice physics.

They’re looking into that bug, but trust me….You’ll scream more profanities than you human thought possible once you get to the ice spike rooms.

Oddly i find w2z2 not all that bad, just requires a bit more precision and learning a few tricky jumps to trivialize it.

There are some spectacular ice fails possible even in z2. I take a path that reaches the final checkpoint before hitting the gong, and it requires you to launch onto the gong from the checkpoint to continue. Except once I forgot, and ended up back on the ground. I had to skid around the edge of the cliffs on ice to climb out. kitten the ice physics was terrible! I dropped 50 lives on those thing poles right before that; I kept slipping off them, or not having the bounce pads activate… All at random. Argh.

I for sure hands down thought W2Z2 was the worst of all of them. W2Z3 probably second hardest but nothing compared to Z2.

25min is great. Just find and do it at own pace

When i and others did the full marathons it was like 30-45min for the w2z2 and z3. You cant have perfect runs all time and consider mental breaks

The z3 usually takes 5min longer, but it was my personal favorite tho. Anyway i commend you on your courage to doing the marathon, i cheer you pass the test of manliness

wow! it took you 25 minutes? then what are you complaining about, some of us took two hours.. you should be celebrating, not complaining

w2z3 is impossible with the wonky ice physics, I ragequit at this room because it would send me flying at superspeed at random instead of moving normally. I just wanted the achievement but I’m so kittening done with it until they fix the ice physics or tone down that room.

Flumek.9043:

25min is great. Just find and do it at own pace

When i and others did the full marathons it was like 30-45min for the w2z2 and z3. You cant have perfect runs all time and consider mental breaks

The z3 usually takes 5min longer, but it was my personal favorite tho. Anyway i commend you on your courage to doing the marathon, i cheer you pass the test of manliness

Thanks I did look up some speedruns before hand to get an idea of what to do, my first run was an hour or so and 15 continue coins. Luckily the rewards make up for that. Im looking to get zone 2 done by next weekend so I can blast through zone 3 over Saturday. Fingers crossed!

sweetrules.8359:

w2z3 is impossible with the wonky ice physics, I ragequit at this room because it would send me flying at superspeed at random instead of moving normally. I just wanted the achievement but I’m so kittening done with it until they fix the ice physics or tone down that room.

That is a bug, that they’ve said they know about and are looking into on reddit.

Just pray it gets fixed before festival end.

Also, you can sort of work around it by never coming to a full stop on ice. If you do full stop and doubletap that’s when the bug is most likely to occur.

For some reason I don’t have many issues with w2z2, took me a while to learn, the first half is definitely the challenging part, but after that… it’s pretty much like normal mode.

For z3’s ice room I just follow the strategy of the dulfy guide. Works very well. From the second no cloud you can jump to the second part of the room, then slowly walk to no cloud 3, get hit, run to cloud 4, get hit, almost done.

Deihnyx.6318:

For some reason I don’t have many issues with w2z2, took me a while to learn, the first half is definitely the challenging part, but after that… it’s pretty much like normal mode.

For z3’s ice room I just follow the strategy of the dulfy guide. Works very well. From the second no cloud you can jump to the second part of the room, then slowly walk to no cloud 3, get hit, run to cloud 4, get hit, almost done.

I’ve more or less got it down now, but the encounter with the small assassin surrounded by spikes (after the mini boss) and the tribulation cloud / dart launcher / box puzzle always cost me a couple of lives. Also the first rocket has begun killing me every time for some reason. I’m 8/16 done now, still averaging 25 mins almost on the dot per run, looking forward to zone 3 har har.

So… I spent probably around 3 hours yesterday running W2Z2. I was doing it from scratch without any guides. Yet I founds it to be exceedingly enjoyable, even the monstrously frustrating parts. I hate ice physics so much, but I was totally alright with almost everything else. I was especially happy to skip the gong room altogether.

I expect to struggle through W2Z3 next weekend and finally finish my Tribulation Mode achievements with Tough Customer.

It stands to reason, though, that it would be so much longer, it’s so much longer in normal mode. The entire zone was always entirely too long cause Josh went completely nuts when he made World 2.

And then, here I am, forcing myself to complete World 2 Trib 16 times.

Also here’s a tip: you don’t need infinite coins. Just convert your plentiful bauble bubbles into continue coins until you have 250, and you’re set.

Abelisk.4527:

And then, here I am, forcing myself to complete World 2 Trib 16 times.

Also here’s a tip: you don’t need infinite coins. Just convert your plentiful bauble bubbles into continue coins until you have 250, and you’re set.

250 coins? Just how hard are you planning on dying? :P

I do agree though, at 10 baubles a pop continue coins cost you 2 baubles per death, the infinite continue coin is an absolute waste of money.

Learning Jump+Dodge method and the associated shortcuts will don wonders to your run time.

Without a doubt, I honestly feel tribulation mode in w2z2 and w2z3 will make anyone want to punch their screens out of pure blinding rage. Zone 2 took me almost 3 hours alone, and left my palms sweaty… I’ve seen guides for zone 3 (and they make it look so kitten easy), the map crazy long, and requires a LOT of precise jumps…

I could cry~

For no fathomable reason, I began dying at the end of zone 2 again, on those posts. I lost 48 lives bouncing off the edges, or having the jump pads not activate when landing on them, or having dodge jump execute a dodge but no jump. Then, miraculously, everything worked once again… I was a little perturbed.

I don’t think 2-2 is particularly harder than 2-3 for example.
The most idiotic thing about SAB in general and especially 2-2 because it makes high use of them, are trampolines / mushrooms. The problem with them is that the server makes you jump when he thinks you hit it. If you have a ping of 100-200 like me at some times (I even had 1000 due to some network issues recently), the jump is incredibly delayed, or sometimes doesn’t happen at all. The server even repositions you on the trampoline where it thinks you hit it (but you actually didn’t at all), making the far jumps near the end of 2-2 annoying as heck – you land on the ledge to get the jump easily, server puts you in the center, you miss your target.
I don’t know why that jump has to be done server-side anyway. The result is trampolines don’t work at all, erratically or too late.

I’ve never really had much a problem with the trampolines (guess it’s cause my pings are low), but you’re right, sometimes they offset a bit and position my character to the center when i land on the edge of it. And sometimes, they don’t even launch me when I jump on them… But, honestly it never bothered me much cause it’s pretty easy to get by.

I’m more annoyed by the spikes, only because some of them are positioned in such a a way that the only way to get around them is to jump towards the very edge (almost as if you’re floating in mid air) of a platform. This is silly honestly, I don’t mind all the spikes, but it sucks when you have to jump to avoid spikes and at the same time try not to fall out of the map :P.

Yeah, W2Z2 is long and quirky, but beats the alternative of no SAB. Lived through that withdrawal for years. Yikes! Good luck with W2Z3. Honestly, I want to pack a suitcase and move there because I love it so much. <3

I’m finally done with w2. 18 minutes was my fastest time and I never made it passed the trib cloud needle arena without dying. I think I will upload a video of my swearing. What an ordeal that was. Starting on the final zone tonight!

They fixed the ice in z3 which was really nice, but it was completable before via jumping backwards to not slide everywhere (but would bug out if moving forward/sideways so was really hard. Thanks for the fix arenanet!)

Zone 2 isn’t so bad but I have had one instance where a checkpoint bugged and made me fall through the floor into a glitched rock or something, so I had to start all over from the beginning because there was no way out.

After completing them the first time, they were a lot faster and easier after that. Doing it the first time took me like 3 hours (with a few breaks) but after that it’s only like 45mins. I saw one video where someone did it in 10mins but I’m not nearly that good lol.

nosleepdemon.1368:

I’m finally done with w2. 18 minutes was my fastest time and I never made it passed the trib cloud needle arena without dying. I think I will upload a video of my swearing. What an ordeal that was. Starting on the final zone tonight!

It’s possible if you know the order and can fake out the cloud to do its AoE attack out of the way.

Kako.1930:

They fixed the ice in z3 which was really nice, but it was completable before via jumping backwards to not slide everywhere (but would bug out if moving forward/sideways so was really hard. Thanks for the fix arenanet!)

Zone 2 isn’t so bad but I have had one instance where a checkpoint bugged and made me fall through the floor into a glitched rock or something, so I had to start all over from the beginning because there was no way out.

After completing them the first time, they were a lot faster and easier after that. Doing it the first time took me like 3 hours (with a few breaks) but after that it’s only like 45mins. I saw one video where someone did it in 10mins but I’m not nearly that good lol.

Use the shovel and keep digging until you get a rabbit. Let it kill you.

Ayrilana.1396:

nosleepdemon.1368:

I’m finally done with w2. 18 minutes was my fastest time and I never made it passed the trib cloud needle arena without dying. I think I will upload a video of my swearing. What an ordeal that was. Starting on the final zone tonight!

It’s possible if you know the order and can fake out the cloud to do its AoE attack out of the way.

I found its aggro to be very random, sometimes it would walk away after i moved behind a pillar, other times not. I saw a speed run where the cloud didnt immediately aggro upon bouncing up into the arena, I never managed to replicate that.

Ayrilana.1396:

Kako.1930:

They fixed the ice in z3 which was really nice, but it was completable before via jumping backwards to not slide everywhere (but would bug out if moving forward/sideways so was really hard. Thanks for the fix arenanet!)

Zone 2 isn’t so bad but I have had one instance where a checkpoint bugged and made me fall through the floor into a glitched rock or something, so I had to start all over from the beginning because there was no way out.

After completing them the first time, they were a lot faster and easier after that. Doing it the first time took me like 3 hours (with a few breaks) but after that it’s only like 45mins. I saw one video where someone did it in 10mins but I’m not nearly that good lol.

Use the shovel and keep digging until you get a rabbit. Let it kill you.

Omg, thank you! I did not know about this.

Edit: emoji fail.

nosleepdemon.1368:

Ayrilana.1396:

nosleepdemon.1368:

I’m finally done with w2. 18 minutes was my fastest time and I never made it passed the trib cloud needle arena without dying. I think I will upload a video of my swearing. What an ordeal that was. Starting on the final zone tonight!

It’s possible if you know the order and can fake out the cloud to do its AoE attack out of the way.

I found its aggro to be very random, sometimes it would walk away after i moved behind a pillar, other times not. I saw a speed run where the cloud didnt immediately aggro upon bouncing up into the arena, I never managed to replicate that.

It not aggroing at first is just one of several bugs that haven’t been fixed. Its attack pattern, however, is very predictable and telegraphed.

Update: You know, after doing world 2 zone 2 a couple times, I gotta admit it’s not so bad. I’ve gathered about 13 tokens now, and just need three more.

HOWEVER, I discovered a bug with the trampolines. They seem very glitchy when ever a player jumps on them, and sometimes won’t even launch a person into the air. Also, they have a weird behavior of moving players to the center before it launches them up, which seems like a server-sided mechanic. Anet devs should probably change the way they work…

Wuffy.9732:

Update: You know, after doing world 2 zone 2 a couple times, I gotta admit it’s not so bad. I’ve gathered about 13 tokens now, and just need three more.

HOWEVER, I discovered a bug with the trampolines. They seem very glitchy when ever a player jumps on them, and sometimes won’t even launch a person into the air. Also, they have a weird behavior of moving players to the center before it launches them up, which seems like a server-sided mechanic. Anet devs should probably change the way they work…

Happens with the checkpoints too.

I’m on zone 3 now, it’s longer but easier, and brings a more varied and interesting series of challenges. I like that the areas are connected largely by jump puzzles instead of jumping rocks and spike trap runs. With that said, my first, two hour run, ended in failure when I lost my last life on the final stage of the wizard and moto glitched me outside of talking range in the continue room. You had one job moto. One god kitten ed job.

Ohh boy, the pain and suffering is over!!

However, I want to point out once more that Zone-2 is slightly-buggy, and an overall long mess. I did it first 16 times just to get it out of the way. Zone-3 is a lot more fun, and I loved killing the Storm Wizard solo in trib mode >:).

It’s worth it in the end, so go for it and get it over with. Still 10 days left until festival ends (I finished in about 6 days). Oh and the infinite continue coin is definitely worth it if you want to get through everything faster.

Congrats! I’m 8/16 runs through zone 3 and it’s a lot easier than zone 2. Everything about that zone is simply better – pacing, variety, colour scheme, monster placement and behaviour… The only downer is the screwed up ice physics but that hasn’t killed me often. However the rams can go burn in hell, them and their walk on / walk off pressure plates. My current best time is just under 21 minutes.

Thanks~ Dude those rams are absolute evil, and it’s so hard to see where they land cause it’s darker…

The ice parts are also a pain, but slow and steady got me through most of it.

Twice I forgot to look if they were coming and I lost my last heart. Lol. The bouncing ram puzzle is most annoying though, jeebus. It’s so tempting to rage and start hitting the buttons at random, then you get hit by a ram and lose yet another precious heart. Even so, this is probably my favourite zone. There is a huge variety of challenges and very few insta spike traps.

I keep getting stuck at the checkpoint after the first octopus….

Seriously give us a way to kill ourselves. At least do that… so many bugs in the most annoying zone is really frustrating…

Deihnyx.6318:

I keep getting stuck at the checkpoint after the first octopus….

Seriously give us a way to kill ourselves. At least do that… so many bugs in the most annoying zone is really frustrating…

Use the shovel.
Dig up a rabbit.
Let it kill you.

I hate W2Z2 aesthetically and mechanically. It feels like the longest of them all and I just shake my head every time I get to the dojo areas thinking “this is so unnecessary”. My most hated part of it all is probably once you get to the start of the 2nd octopus – if you die you have to make the trip all the way back and hope you don’t land what feels like a millimetre off-point else RIP spike traps galore.

Anyway, only 5 more runs of W2 trib mode then I never have to touch it again.

W2Z3 on the other hand I only find frustrating at the start because there’s a lot of BS jumps where you have to jump and land around a corner so it’s all about positioning. After that the rest is pretty much a breeze if you know the route… oh… except for the ridiculous trib cloud guarding that stretch you have to make it through with the gushing winds. I would rather do ice room a hundred times than that.

Ayrilana.1396:

Deihnyx.6318:

I keep getting stuck at the checkpoint after the first octopus….

Seriously give us a way to kill ourselves. At least do that… so many bugs in the most annoying zone is really frustrating…

Use the shovel.
Dig up a rabbit.
Let it kill you.

It only works if you’re stuck on the ground. That’s not always the case sadly.
It also happens at the very end where you can get stuck in the bell.

nosleepdemon.1368:

Congrats! I’m 8/16 runs through zone 3 and it’s a lot easier than zone 2. Everything about that zone is simply better – pacing, variety, colour scheme, monster placement and behaviour… The only downer is the screwed up ice physics but that hasn’t killed me often. However the rams can go burn in hell, them and their walk on / walk off pressure plates. My current best time is just under 21 minutes.

I’m just a few runs in, but holy cow! 21 minutes! I must be missing a shortcut somewhere. I mean I know I have room for improvement, but I didn’t get caught up for very long on any particular part and it took me 48 minutes last night! Zone 2 took about the same. Am I missing something? Or do you just never fail at anything in there at this point? LoL

Rant:

I had the same experience last year and I figured it was because I was running it the first time. But no, I’m certain now that W2Z2 is just poorly constructed compared to the other zones. There is a sense of humor in tribulation mode where you have mindgames stacked on mindgames, is that patch of grass free from spikes? Is it it going to kill you? Is that bauble just bait? Sometimes the devs made sure to lull you into a false sense of security only to capitalize on that for a setup for a trap further down the road. And that’s what really made me fall in love with Tribulation mode, because the inside gags, the humor and the “Ahahaha, you FELL for that one?” factor just feels encouraging. You can really appreciate the work that went into the level design there.

But W2Z2 is just plain flat out tedious. It doesn’t have any gags at all, it’s just pure spikes everywhere in random positions, it feels arbitrary and as such it doesn’t really entice you to go any further. I stopped playing this today because I just felt so sad that the potential for that zone was just so squandered. Of course, it has THAT ONE SERIOUSLY HILARIOUS GAG which made me laugh so hard last year that I literally fell off my chair, but that’s not enough to save the player experience.

I really hope for next year that the devs take a long hard look at z2 and make it fun to play instead of just stupid-hard. Also, another reason why z2 is such a downer is that it’s blocking players from possibly the most epic experience in GW2: Scaling Storm Top with Dusks soundtrack in the background.

Edit:

With all this said, I would urge all players to grind through Z2 at least once, because you won’t reget it once you get to play that final level, it truly is awesome beyond words.

AliamRationem.5172:

nosleepdemon.1368:

Congrats! I’m 8/16 runs through zone 3 and it’s a lot easier than zone 2. Everything about that zone is simply better – pacing, variety, colour scheme, monster placement and behaviour… The only downer is the screwed up ice physics but that hasn’t killed me often. However the rams can go burn in hell, them and their walk on / walk off pressure plates. My current best time is just under 21 minutes.

I’m just a few runs in, but holy cow! 21 minutes! I must be missing a shortcut somewhere. I mean I know I have room for improvement, but I didn’t get caught up for very long on any particular part and it took me 48 minutes last night! Zone 2 took about the same. Am I missing something? Or do you just never fail at anything in there at this point? LoL

I almost always fluff up the start, especially at the ledge where you have to jump and turn. I feel like low latency has a lot to do with success; sometimes I go for ten minutes on one ledge repeating what seems like the same motions until miraculously, I make the jump. The poles in z2 were the worst for this: I dropped 50 lives one run, and only one run, on them. It was weird! Z3 has the same tendency for this, and last night I could not make that first jump for love nor money. I also have, on video, random moments where my character slows right before a jump for no reason – no aggro, no bumps to get snagged on, nothing.

I think that perhaps my running these zones at a moderate pace (speed runners have sub 15 minute videos up for z3) is as much down to being proficient at jump puzzles as it does with plain, dumb luck/server/latency mechanics.

I do have a few tips that might help though, so here they are. I imagine most people are aware of them but just in case:

1. Ensure you have five hearts!

1. Carrying the balloon passed the trib cloud spike section means you can’t premptively shoot the barrels. However the balloon is a necessity because the vertical jump puzzle has a tendency to kill you. Therefore, to consistently survive the barrels, run up to them and execute a dodge roll at the last moment. Your invulerability frames usually keep you alive.

1. Ice movement bugs out when you are touching a non icey surface like a wall, in these cases, jumping while moving slowly can help.

1. In the spike room, you can jump onto the first two no clouds from the ledge to the right. Also, the doors are on a timer that alternates between a short and long pause. After reaching the midway point on the left by the second no cloud, wait. When you see the second door on the left, and last door on the right open, it’s time to execute the final part of the room.

1. The climb before the yeti can be executed quickly by moving straight up the hill and spacing your jumps as far apart as possible. You will hit a sweet spot where you lose very little momentum per jump. You can also use the bugged out physics to push up the walls, which keeps you moving fast.

1. The yeti can be killed in one go by dodging its first two attacks, circle strafing the third (if it comes) and cancelling any further knock down with stow. You will need plenty of hp and a bit of luck.

1. The wizard is a jerk. Don’t feel bad for killing him.