Guild Wars 2

So I considered putting this in the living story section, but the event it pertains to isn’t technically part of the LS.

I was doing Plan of Attack on my guard where Rytlock sends you off to find pieces of a crown. The first one requires doing an event in SW Diessa Plateau where you help a charr set up a pair of giant glowing balls.

At the end of it, a vet ascalonian captain spawns, and this is the part that confuses me… The combat. The captain had a block or a knockback that he used all the time. I must have been doing something wrong, surely?

I was in no danger of dying, but the fight dragged on forever because I was always being thrown into the dirt. I literally had time to stand up, maybe swing if I was lucky, and then get knocked down again, over and over and over. If I dodged away, the captain ran at me and used another attack, which also had a knockback. I tried waiting until he stopped blocking and then attacking, but the same thing happened anyway.

I mean, I was in combat. I couldn’t pull out a ranged weapon or slot stability. The game wasn’t seriously expecting me to run away until I lost agro and then respec my bar, was it? I don’t get it. The designers can’t have intended the fight to be so stupid.

I ended up killing him slowly despite being tossed about by a ragdoll, but I can’t shake the feeling I did it wrong. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any hints in his health bar text. This seems to happen a lot. Is it me? Is there something really obvious I’m just not seeing?

Or is the design of that fight really just that stupid?

Is it this one?

Event:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defend_Rhell_Crankmane_while_he_sets_up_his_ghost_control_machines

Veteran:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veteran_Ascalonian_Captain

I have never had any problems with this event and never ever thought about the boss.
According to Wiki he does not have a block skill and only one knockdown and one Knockback. Maby he was bugged?

This I am going to say is only my opinion but going without a slotted Stability or atleast a stunbreak is ‘doing something wrong’.

That’s the one. He definitely has a block, because he goes into a crouching stance with his shield up. If I hit it – knockdown. If I wait – knockback. It’s cooldown is about the same as the knockdown animation, so 1v1 it’s up all the time.

Obviously if I do that fight again, I’ll slot stability or range, but it seems wrong to expect me know this beforehand. This isn’t a dungeon boss. Having to flee and potentially fail an event just to respec my slots seems very poor mechanics. I was really hoping there would be some trick to the fight that I just couldn’t see, because being permanently flat on my face is not fun gameplay.

Recent LS fights have been absolutely excellent too. This felt out of place.

I am familiar with this one, having leveled a bunch of characters. I had never had the least problem with it until the very last time I did it. My experience this last time was exactly as the OP described. The block/knockdown seemed to be active for an inordinately large portion of the time. The fight went on for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time. I finally finished…but I can’t say that it was fun or interesting. Just long.