Guild Wars 2

Seriously who designed this boss? Who thought that giving him a constant stealth that eventually leads to guaranteed event fail because its physically impossible to kill him quick enough. We were “unfortunately lucky” and managed to get him to 1% but the he decides to stealth and cause the timer to run out.

Such a kittening disaster. BG

I assume you mean Gwyllion. If you have Nuhoch Stealth Detection, you’ll be able to see him. Usually, it’s best for only people who have it to go to that boss (or at least have them lead so that everyone knows where to run to when he stealths/teleports). If you have a group that can all see him and that all bring CC skills, he’s a fast and relatively easy kill.

Agreed with Rose. He can be tricky, but when a group pulls together and plays against the mechanics (stealth mastery, cc breakbar), then he goes down pretty smoothly

I would love to give a re-write to this boss, seriously. A full-area KO with exactly one counter isn’t really appropriate for open world (5-man or raids OK, though).

Add on that Stealth Detection is imbedded in a tree that players don’t open until knee deep in story (I rushed to Tangled Depths before the story did so I could open up the vendors), and it’s very inappropriate to have that mastery as a requirement for the fight.

It’s a shame, because I kinda like the overall feel of the fight, but the execution is utterly terrible for players who haven’t farmed a ton of points on an introductory map.

Rauderi.8706:

I would love to give a re-write to this boss, seriously. A full-area KO with exactly one counter isn’t really appropriate for open world (5-man or raids OK, though).

Add on that Stealth Detection is imbedded in a tree that players don’t open until knee deep in story (I rushed to Tangled Depths before the story did so I could open up the vendors), and it’s very inappropriate to have that mastery as a requirement for the fight.

It’s a shame, because I kinda like the overall feel of the fight, but the execution is utterly terrible for players who haven’t farmed a ton of points on an introductory map.

I agree with this. At this point, a lot of players have Stealth Detection, so the boss is doable. What I see, though, is that this boss is not done unless the map is seriously dedicated to getting all five. Since I’ve seen that exactly once since December with intermittent play in VB, I have to wonder whether huge swaths of players find this fight fun.

Perhaps the all-or-nothing counter is not a good idea. Without it, the fight is an exercise in rage-inducement. With stealth detection and CC, the fight becomes trivial. Thus, we have reasons to dislike the encounter at either end of the spectrum.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Rauderi.8706:

I would love to give a re-write to this boss, seriously. A full-area KO with exactly one counter isn’t really appropriate for open world (5-man or raids OK, though).

Add on that Stealth Detection is imbedded in a tree that players don’t open until knee deep in story (I rushed to Tangled Depths before the story did so I could open up the vendors), and it’s very inappropriate to have that mastery as a requirement for the fight.

It’s a shame, because I kinda like the overall feel of the fight, but the execution is utterly terrible for players who haven’t farmed a ton of points on an introductory map.

I agree with this. At this point, a lot of players have Stealth Detection, so the boss is doable. What I see, though, is that this boss is not done unless the map is seriously dedicated to getting all five. Since I’ve seen that exactly once since December with intermittent play in VB, I have to wonder whether huge swaths of players find this fight fun.

Perhaps the all-or-nothing counter is not a good idea. Without it, the fight is an exercise in rage-inducement. With stealth detection and CC, the fight becomes trivial. Thus, we have reasons to dislike the encounter at either end of the spectrum.

I’ve examined the VB boss structure in other threads, but Axemaster is by far the worst design for that zone. I’d been meaning to have a redesign thread for the boss somewhere just to get the ideas out, in the hopes that ANet will benevolently do some judicious backtracking on that boss’ design. Highlights of that post were:

• Ditch the full-zone KO for wide-area poison fields. Use Poison Mastery to survive the otherwise-lethal damage, but also allow players to fly out or hunker down somewhere safe if they don’t have it. (It’s still ridiculous that the insta-KO is more deadly while randomly flying by the island than being on it…)

…Actually, that’s about it. The Stealth Detection requirement rankles me because the teleport and hide-and-seek game he plays often makes him hard to find even if you have the mastery, but it becomes more of a stall tactic instead of an outright character death.

So yeah, that’s the one thing I’d change on Axemaster, if I could only change one thing.

It’s a stupid boss. I remember the first time, I was not even near the fight and was downed (was only trying to explore)

The requirement of a rather deep mastery to fight him is also really bad. When people are getting the essentials like gliding, going for a deep mastery that only works in a few instances is beyond annoying. Along with mostly everything involving poison mastery, it’s a silly mechanic because the gameplay gets reduced you can or you can’t.

Yea I know you don’t have to fight him because he’s up there, but then again you kinda get dragged into this even if you don’t want to sometimes.

These days, I only fight him to help friends get the mastery involved (Sky Commander). And yes, he is easy to take down if you have the thing. It doesn’t make it any less stupid though.

Its just cheese.. Game cheese is never popular, why developers continue to make cheese like this and claim its challenge is beyond me..

Its just cheap, not worth bothering with imo.

Dante.1508:

Its just cheese.. Game cheese is never popular, why developers continue to make cheese like this and claim its challenge is beyond me..

Its just cheap, not worth bothering with imo.

You bring up something very important when it comes to game design, something anyone that’s been through game dev school in the past several years should know: the difference between difficulty and punishing.

It’s why these one-hit-KO bosses tick me off so much. For all the complaints about ‘zerker meta,’ the devs don’t help it one bit by having encounters were you might as well be full ‘zerk because the boss is going to one-shot you anyway, so keep the fight shorter by doing full burst. (I’m going to stop ranting there before the conversation goes off track.)

It also runs into the problem of cutting off players’ options for dealing with the encounter. The moment you’re marked, no matter where you are, you better hope the team smacks Axemaster with a CC, because otherwise you’re going down, full stop. And I’ve seen what happens when a group manages to survive the full-area KO. Some are lucky enough to be away from Axemaster and its minions and can rally. They’ll try to help others get up, but by the time the combatants are ready to get to the fight again, Axemaster is charging the area-KO ability again.
Which sort of highlights what I’ve been saying about ANet monsters in general, some of their cooldowns are simply too short to appropriately mitigate their combat effects.

If you have the nuhoch stealth mastery and you are 5-10 players it’s easy. He actually never can use his AoE down skill if he gets CC’d and that happens fast, if you are on a dedicated T4 map.

ProtoGunner.4953:

If you have the nuhoch stealth mastery and you are 5-10 players it’s easy. He actually never can use his AoE down skill if he gets CC’d and that happens fast, if you are on a dedicated T4 map.

Coordinated map is a wistful dream, in most cases. I can spam map chat begging for Axemaster help, and most people won’t even show up. The 3 or 4 who do get whacked almost immediately, give up, and don’t bother showing up anymore.

When that’s the result, it reeks of bad design to me.

Note that he doesn’t move randomly in stealth. He goes in a steady circle around his fight area, I think counterclockwise but won’t swear to that. People with stealth detection can see him immediately at the next station and charge over to beat down his defiance bar, at which point everyone can see him again and pour on the dps.

Rauderi.8706:

ProtoGunner.4953:

If you have the nuhoch stealth mastery and you are 5-10 players it’s easy. He actually never can use his AoE down skill if he gets CC’d and that happens fast, if you are on a dedicated T4 map.

Coordinated map is a wistful dream, in most cases. I can spam map chat begging for Axemaster help, and most people won’t even show up. The 3 or 4 who do get whacked almost immediately, give up, and don’t bother showing up anymore.

When that’s the result, it reeks of bad design to me.

Dude, ever heard of LFG-Tool? There are now even dedicated LFGs for the HOT maps… Usually always one huge train of players doing T4.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Rauderi.8706:

ProtoGunner.4953:

If you have the nuhoch stealth mastery and you are 5-10 players it’s easy. He actually never can use his AoE down skill if he gets CC’d and that happens fast, if you are on a dedicated T4 map.

Coordinated map is a wistful dream, in most cases. I can spam map chat begging for Axemaster help, and most people won’t even show up. The 3 or 4 who do get whacked almost immediately, give up, and don’t bother showing up anymore.

When that’s the result, it reeks of bad design to me.

Dude, ever heard of LFG-Tool? There are now even dedicated LFGs for the HOT maps… Usually always one huge train of players doing T4.

The convenient go-to excuse. Just like Triple Trouble, etc. Even following the LFGs, I have a hard time finding a willing group that will actually do the content on a consistent basis. Glad it works out for some people, but it doesn’t seem to be there when I’m on, so.. yeah.

Even with LFG, it doesn’t excuse bad design. Two completely separate concepts.

Every time I’ve done a VB meta we’ve killed all 5 bosses including this guy. He’s not that hard. Annoying yes, but no worse than the other 4 bosses with their own quirks.

Got in a lucky T4 map. Axemaster downed!

…Never doing it again.

Said it before in another thread, but this isn’t how players should be looking at your content, ANet.

Rauderi.8706:

Got in a lucky T4 map. Axemaster downed!

…Never doing it again.

Said it before in another thread, but this isn’t how players should be looking at your content, ANet.

Just bow to the system and don’t act like a young revolutionist who is rejecting the system. It is how it is and if you wanna kill some bosses on a regular basis you need to organize. Finding a group in LFG isn’t a big deal.

If you are expecting the that the whole open world has to be accessible for everyone – single or group, party, squad then this is your opinion. They offer enough content for everyone. Why not a few bosses.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Rauderi.8706:

Got in a lucky T4 map. Axemaster downed!

…Never doing it again.

Said it before in another thread, but this isn’t how players should be looking at your content, ANet.

Just bow to the system and don’t act like a young revolutionist who is rejecting the system. It is how it is and if you wanna kill some bosses on a regular basis you need to organize. Finding a group in LFG isn’t a big deal.

If you are expecting the that the whole open world has to be accessible for everyone – single or group, party, squad then this is your opinion. They offer enough content for everyone. Why not a few bosses.

Rolling over for bad game design is how we get to accept messes like Heart of Thorns in the first place. (Or WoW’s later expansions…)

I don’t mind needing a group for world bosses. If people are actually going to do them. The only reason Axemaster gets done is because, sometimes, an organized team goes looking for a T4 victory.
That would mean something if T4 gave anything decent in comparison to other tiers. There is very little incentive for most maps to break off their Matriarch fetish to do anything else.

The “group” and “LFG” chants are a little old, honestly. It’s not some magical way to suddenly make people appear, and the other consequence is waiting. Not to drag out the desiccated corpsemummy that is the Manifesto, but we’re not supposed to wait to have fun anymore, right? Sticking around for a few minutes (<5?) while a group forms is okay, but if that group never forms, that’s wasted time. I’ve done enough of that for Triple Trouble (which is more content I’m not doing again). For the time I could be investing, Silverwastes or Auric Basin or Shatterer/Tequatl offer me much more ready and rewarding experiences.

Rauderi.8706:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Rauderi.8706:

Got in a lucky T4 map. Axemaster downed!

…Never doing it again.

Said it before in another thread, but this isn’t how players should be looking at your content, ANet.

Just bow to the system and don’t act like a young revolutionist who is rejecting the system. It is how it is and if you wanna kill some bosses on a regular basis you need to organize. Finding a group in LFG isn’t a big deal.

If you are expecting the that the whole open world has to be accessible for everyone – single or group, party, squad then this is your opinion. They offer enough content for everyone. Why not a few bosses.

Rolling over for bad game design is how we get to accept messes like Heart of Thorns in the first place. (Or WoW’s later expansions…)

I don’t mind needing a group for world bosses. If people are actually going to do them. The only reason Axemaster gets done is because, sometimes, an organized team goes looking for a T4 victory.
That would mean something if T4 gave anything decent in comparison to other tiers. There is very little incentive for most maps to break off their Matriarch fetish to do anything else.

The “group” and “LFG” chants are a little old, honestly. It’s not some magical way to suddenly make people appear, and the other consequence is waiting. Not to drag out the desiccated corpsemummy that is the Manifesto, but we’re not supposed to wait to have fun anymore, right? Sticking around for a few minutes (<5?) while a group forms is okay, but if that group never forms, that’s wasted time. I’ve done enough of that for Triple Trouble (which is more content I’m not doing again). For the time I could be investing, Silverwastes or Auric Basin or Shatterer/Tequatl offer me much more ready and rewarding experiences.

The manifesto is a 6 year old remnant of eager times when they didn’t structure the whole game…. people should understand this.

You are right that the system as it is now, isn’t ideal, but you have to accept it. They hardly won’t/can’t change it. But I think they learned from it (at least they told that in several posts) and we can expect maps and their events with less instance hopping.