Guild Wars 2

So far the beta weekends have been a cool glimpse of the new profession mechanics and area, but often I find myself dying when exploring by myself to certain mobs. Some vets have even given me trouble when in the past vets have been no issue.

I’ll try to block, evade, or use specific skills when needed, like with the mordrem snipers, I tried to use berserkers new rage skill to deflect the arrows and such. But I always seem to be outpaced or caught by another mob.

Is this the general experience? Am I just playing horribly or is this Anets way of saying “Hey guys, let’s start using those toughness/vitality stats”. If so I don’t mind, it makes more things useful and ultimately fun. As much as I loved the condition damage update, Berserkers is still almost always the way to go, but it does make things like burning Guardian fun.

What is your experience with the new expansion mobs? Any tips to help me improve? I’m going to try another rune/armor set when I get home tonight to see if toughness even helps but it is kind of cool we have these mobs. Just hard to keep track of with all the special effects on the screen haha.

I think there are two factors in play here.

1: HoT needs to be more challenging then anything currently in game. Otherwise it would be a bad expansion. It also needs the new class, the specialisations and the new weapons (and the skills that come with it). With the beta, they want us to experience both elements. But the tricky part is that we play new builds and use new skills totally new to us, while facing the hardest type of mobs we have seen so far. That is not a good mix.
To fix this I really recommend to use a build you are used to (so nothing of the new stuff) when facing and judging the difficulty of the mobs.

My feedback to Arenanet is to release the new class and specialisations separate of HoT (earlier if possible). If we have a 2-3 week headstart with it, it means we can get used to the new builds and skills and learn how to incorporate it into our existing builds and rotations. It also gives you more room for balancing. It seems to work alright during betaweekends.

The second part of the story is that you seem to be right that zerker is more punished. I think that is perfectly ok. Zerker should always have to been a combo that gives you a high risk of dying and is not forgiving at all. the amount of power it gives is too easy to handle at the moment. Basically, with zerker, any hit you couldnt dodge should be potentially lethal.

I know from experience that high toughness doesn’t do much of anything in the new map. You can still get one shot with 3300 armor.

With my reaper (cavalier) and my rev (berzerker) I had no trouble at all.
With the daredevil I change from dps to condi and forgot about the staff and all my problems were gone.
I didn’t try other elite spec, but from my friends feedback it’s the same, no trouble at all. But there is some players that complain about mobs being too hard… And as I allready said on others thread, it’s just a L2P situation, once everyone will be use to new class, new AI and new map, it’ll be as easy as gw2vanilla for most of the players.

warherox.7943:

I know from experience that high toughness doesn’t do much of anything in the new map. You can still get one shot with 3300 armor.

Does this mean damage done to us by specific skills are based on percentage of max health, and not our armor/toughness rating? This would make Vitality and toughness useless

I’ve been running my main, Ranger w/ Full Ascended Gear, in the new zones. Since I know how to play this class at 110%, the new content is a cakewalk.

I’ve been testing the Elite Specs in the core content trying to get playstyles down. Must less frustrating trying out a new class/elite outside of VB.

Also, I think they tones down the difficulty of the mobs since the last BWE.

xadine.7069:

With my reaper (cavalier) and my rev (berzerker) I had no trouble at all.
With the daredevil I change from dps to condi and forgot about the staff and all my problems were gone.
I didn’t try other elite spec, but from my friends feedback it’s the same, no trouble at all. But there is some players that complain about mobs being too hard… And as I allready said on others thread, it’s just a L2P situation, once everyone will be use to new class, new AI and new map, it’ll be as easy as gw2vanilla for most of the players.

I’m not playing an elite spec (vanilla DPS guard) and I’m pretty well versed in what the new enemies can do. The content is still difficult to give me pause when encountering 3 or more normal enemies. I find myself taking extra caution around veterans, and avoiding champs like the plague unless there are other players around.

I don’t think the jungle will ever be as easy as vanilla GW2.

Seems to me an issue of “used full zerk, didn’t redpect glass cannon”

The mobs have learnable patterns, but overall tend to hit harder, so you have to pay more attention. These guys tend to hit like players do, only with easier to forecast tells, meaning, as you would against players, if you’re going to run full zerk you’re going to want to load more defensive stuff, bring backup, or just plain get better at situational awareness.

Toughness alone won’t save you from playing badly, but it will allow you to facetank the tail end of smokescale/sniper burst better and overall increase your EHP enough that your heal can let you take a a big hit>heal>nother big hit if you’re really failing your positioning or CC.

Overall I haven’t had a lot of problems with the new map, but it does seem intended to teach you “hey, defense is important”

Zerk runs well if you back it up with a more control/defense heavy spec, and dps specs tend to warrant a little extra tough/vit, but going full glass gear on a full glass spec is going to require some backup, or getting quite a bit better at the game.

Quarktastic.1027:

xadine.7069:

With my reaper (cavalier) and my rev (berzerker) I had no trouble at all.
With the daredevil I change from dps to condi and forgot about the staff and all my problems were gone.
I didn’t try other elite spec, but from my friends feedback it’s the same, no trouble at all. But there is some players that complain about mobs being too hard… And as I allready said on others thread, it’s just a L2P situation, once everyone will be use to new class, new AI and new map, it’ll be as easy as gw2vanilla for most of the players.

I’m not playing an elite spec (vanilla DPS guard) and I’m pretty well versed in what the new enemies can do. The content is still difficult to give me pause when encountering 3 or more normal enemies. I find myself taking extra caution around veterans, and avoiding champs like the plague unless there are other players around.

I don’t think the jungle will ever be as easy as vanilla GW2.

Personnaly I had no troubles at all fighting 3 mobs at the same time (reaper and rev). I even had to defend an area alone at night and I didn’t die. So I’m still looking for the “hard encounter” that everyone is talking about. Sure mobs are a bit stronger but nothing you can’t deal with it. Maybe mobs aren’t the problem and people should think again (gear, spec, “skill”). It is normal to die from time to time in a endgame map.

bullf frog are so slow you can avoid (no need to dodge) all of their attack, tallfrog are the most interesting mob to me. Modrems are too squishy or too slow depending wich one. Raptor are just fine, wyvern are so beautifull and yet so weak. And for the smokescale it took me several encounter to understand how to kill them, but again nothing that can’t be done by anyone. Shrooms are boring to fight but fine imo.

Tbh I really expect the next maps to have stronger mobs. But I guess I can keep dreaming.
And yes you are welcome to call me whatever you want if I ever come crying about mobs difficulty. Imo the new mobs only prove to a lot of players that be able to speedrun a dungeons doesn’t mean your good.

xadine.7069:

Quarktastic.1027:

xadine.7069:

With my reaper (cavalier) and my rev (berzerker) I had no trouble at all.
With the daredevil I change from dps to condi and forgot about the staff and all my problems were gone.
I didn’t try other elite spec, but from my friends feedback it’s the same, no trouble at all. But there is some players that complain about mobs being too hard… And as I allready said on others thread, it’s just a L2P situation, once everyone will be use to new class, new AI and new map, it’ll be as easy as gw2vanilla for most of the players.

I’m not playing an elite spec (vanilla DPS guard) and I’m pretty well versed in what the new enemies can do. The content is still difficult to give me pause when encountering 3 or more normal enemies. I find myself taking extra caution around veterans, and avoiding champs like the plague unless there are other players around.

I don’t think the jungle will ever be as easy as vanilla GW2.

Personnaly I had no troubles at all fighting 3 mobs at the same time (reaper and rev). I even had to defend an area alone at night and I didn’t die. So I’m still looking for the “hard encounter” that everyone is talking about. Sure mobs are a bit stronger but nothing you can’t deal with it. Maybe mobs aren’t the problem and people should think again (gear, spec, “skill”). It is normal to die from time to time in a endgame map.

bullf frog are so slow you can avoid (no need to dodge) all of their attack, tallfrog are the most interesting mob to me. Modrems are too squishy or too slow depending wich one. Raptor are just fine, wyvern are so beautifull and yet so weak. And for the smokescale it took me several encounter to understand how to kill them, but again nothing that can’t be done by anyone. Shrooms are boring to fight but fine imo.

Tbh I really expect the next maps to have stronger mobs. But I guess I can keep dreaming.
And yes you are welcome to call me whatever you want if I ever come crying about mobs difficulty. Imo the new mobs only prove to a lot of players that be able to speedrun a dungeons doesn’t mean your good.

This kind of reads like a personal attack. I’m not calling the new mobs “too hard” I’m just saying they’re more difficult than any of the other open world mobs. As for my initial statement, facing 3 mordrem snipers from 3 different directions with my reflects on CD makes me stop and think more than I would if I were about to jump into a pack of risen (read: not at all).

I guess my issue with the Mordrem snipers is I’ve seen them spam their snipe skill. I guess between projectile nullification with skills, evades, and terrain could take care of one or two, but any more and you run the risk of running into more mobs (not to mention patrols)

It also seems like a lot of elite specilizations/new class and new skills revolve around the new mobs and playstyle in HoT. Giving more reflects/blocks/evades. They still have a cooldown however.

Deflecting shot on guardian
Field of the Mists on Revenant
Shattering blow on warrior
Daredevil has 3 evades
Echo of Memory on Mesmer

I’m tempted to just go thief and spam Black powder…But something I’ve seen a lack of in this thread is helpful advice. I see people posting learn to play, but what could I do differently? I’m already timing my evades on big hitting skills, using terrain to block archers when I can, popping protection skills when needed, and still have problems keeping up. What am I missing?

How are you supposed to deal with three of those smoke-field creatures? Over and over I get into situation when all three of them attack at the same time, with overlapping fields and I can’t get out of them because something knocks me down for a couple seconds at which point it’s too late. I can’t attack, I can’t blink out on necro. Shroud runs out almost immediately…

My post wasn’t specifically against you.
Just a lot of players are complaining about how “hard” those mobs are suppose to be when you can also find a lot of players that complain about how easy they are.
So my guess is they are just fine the way they are right now. Even if I find they too easy, but I like it hard ^^ (maybe too hard?)

My point was just that most of players run a build/spec that they don’t master and wich isn’t their own to begin with. And I believe most players that find the new mobs too hard need to take time and find their own way not some metabuild that they don’t even really understand. Once they have done this “work” they will roam in VB like they do on SW.

PS: what’s weird is that mordrem snipers and smokescales that everyone seems to fear are the easiest to kill on my reaper. 2 AA on mordrem and they are dead (RS2 to reach them while destroying their projectiles). And smokescales wellI just start with RS lt them go crazy then move back and GS4 > GS3 > GS2 and dead, vet still alive but alone he’s not a problem. Vines are much more trouble to me and they are not new at all^^.

The mobs are a bit trickier than in vanilla gw2 but as Xadine says they will get easier when we are used to the new builds etc.
The mobs don’t seem to be as lethal as they were in the last beta. I think the balance is about right as it is now.
I like the fact that I can’t just run in and kill as I do in SW/Cursed Shore.
Finally got to do some gliding and I love it! I did expect this region to be like Dry Top, I am no fan of Dry Top. However I like what I have seen so far

The mobs are all great…. with the exception of those lizards that drop a field that makes you miss them.
You can kill them on your own if there are just 1 or 2 if you move a lot. But in groups they can lock them selfs into permanent evade mode, and these maps don’t give you a lot of space to move around.

warherox.7943:

I know from experience that high toughness doesn’t do much of anything in the new map. You can still get one shot with 3300 armor.

Not from veterans and below you can’t. Been running a combination of Settler’s/Apothecary gear on my Tempest for support/condi and have had no such issues.

If you miss a dodge/block on a champ or maybe even an elite then yea, your going to get hammered hard and deservedly so. Those you shouldn’t be able to solo and there should be people around to pick you up so you can work on your timing and make the next dodge/block.

Running full zerk and by yourself will be tough as it should be. We need to take a bite out of the zerker meta and this is a step in the right direction.

seems the new mobs need to be controlled to be able to kill 2+ of them at a time. I run a mesmer interrupt build that seems to just face roll through normal mobs and most vets. Champs are a different story since you cant stun them.

I like the new content, the only classes I have issues with is ele, thief, and warrior due to cooldown issues. But thats totally L2P here.

I do think they need to tone down a few mobs here and there that seem to ‘rampage’ (1 hit doing 40% of your health forcing you to dodge+heal). But over all, this is going to be a learning experience for most of us.

I am sure Anet will adjust the content when its live and people whine about ‘I cant do this, i quit’… just like Teq lol

so enjoy truely challenging content while its there.

Bandit.8279:

warherox.7943:

I know from experience that high toughness doesn’t do much of anything in the new map. You can still get one shot with 3300 armor.

Running full zerk and by yourself will be tough as it should be. We need to take a bite out of the zerker meta and this is a step in the right direction.

No, it won’t. People will learn the animations and as usual will time everyone will be back to running zerker.

In fact my reaper in full zerker took on the entire frog village of full veteran frogs by himself.

The only time I was in danger of death was with 3 veteran frogs. Well of suffering+well of corruption+signet of power, fully offensive traitlines and gear just melted the frogs.

My berk revenant can probably do the same.

Zenith.7301:

Bandit.8279:

warherox.7943:

I know from experience that high toughness doesn’t do much of anything in the new map. You can still get one shot with 3300 armor.

Running full zerk and by yourself will be tough as it should be. We need to take a bite out of the zerker meta and this is a step in the right direction.

No, it won’t. People will learn the animations and as usual will time everyone will be back to running zerker.

In fact my reaper in full zerker took on the entire frog village of full veteran frogs by himself.

The only time I was in danger of death was with 3 veteran frogs. Well of suffering+well of corruption+signet of power, fully offensive traitlines and gear just melted the frogs.

My berk revenant can probably do the same.

I found my glass Reaper to be OP and overly easy to play in pve. Everything just melted and that extra life bar is the ultimate oh-kitten button. My glass Daredevil was a different experience in melee and the learning curve to the newest profession in the Revenant gets a lot of players killed as I’ve witnessed first hand.

Sure, some of us will be able to run zerker comfortably eventually but I think it will thin the zerker herd a bit.

Revenant is even more durable than the reaper with smart usage of the glint heal, unrelenting assault, and the facet actives.

Daredevil is not bad either if you take sword+pistol and smoke screen (for some reason people think elite specs should be using the new weapons). Basically I can permablind anything and destroy the projectiles from the archers.

The only class I felt squishy on was mesmer because mesmer damage is garbage so im a squishy zerker with no lasting DPS besides a shatter burst.

Guardian and Tempest were other candidates but a regular D/F ele can run zerker fine with arcane shield, warhorn is just a weak weapon and overloads are not worth it at all.

On the reaper, I had no problems whatsoever. On tempest with celestial armor, forget about it. I can’t imagine playing a tempest in the new maps. Glassy melee support is honestly the last thing I ever would’ve asked for on the Elementalist.

Well considering one sniper charged shot can deplete your entire reaper shroud in one hit, I can only imagine what happens to an elementalist.

The sniper adds seem a tad overtuned, as are the stalkers. The rest are fine.