Guild Wars 2

Hello Everyone,

This is just a brain dump from the raids that I participated in. Overall, I find that the raid was entertaining and challenging. It really made our groups think. I was running a Condi Necro with Rabid Stats.

What I liked
- The phasing on this first boss was beautiful. I enjoyed the initial part of the fight from avoiding the red orbs, standing in the blue laser thing, etc. It was hectic, but it kept you on your toes. One mess up, and you wipe. This is the kind of challenging that I enjoy.

- Phase 2 had an interesting concept. I do wish there was a way to change how you were attuned. Mainly because once your team wipes out one of the 3 guardians, you don’t want to get close to the others because they will deal increased dmg. Overall, this was a fun phase.

- Phase 3 is the phase that we never got past, and that is okay considering we spend a grand total of maybe 2 hours in the raid. The phase keeps you active, moving, and has spots where you have to burn down your CC before the boss burns you down. It was a very fun mechanic.

The Bad
- In previous posts, we were told that exotics would be alright for the raids. However, when I entered the raid, there was an ascended vendor there. This sets a precedent that ascended will most likely be required.

- During phase 2, we had difficulty keeping the 3 guardians in their zones. Once one died, one of the guardians (usually green) would stop attacking the team at his feet and make a beeline for the team that just killed a guardian. If this is by design, then I guess we will have to figure a way around it. It did seem a little clunky though.

- That enrage timer is tough. 8 minutes to complete the entire fight seems a little steep, but it may be necessary for all I know. Every time we wiped on phase 3 was because of the enrage timer. The lowest we got the boss was about 40% hp before he went nuts.

Overall, my final opinion is that I am impressed with the raid and am looking forward for more like this. However, I do fear for the people who do not have ascended gear. 5% isn’t a huge difference, but that 5% might be what makes or breaks that fight.

-Magnus

Just re-post what I had in the beta thread that got locked as we seemed to share some similar thoughts:

I got to finally run this with a pug this morning getting the boss down to around 25%. The fight is very well designed and will place emphasis on contribution from all 10 squad members. You don’t have time to keep rezzing ppl let alone allow defeated to occur. Standing in the blue circle and skills to quickly interrupt break bars is a must, can’t waste time on members getting teleported and losing dps, and you need proper splits for phase 2. I think that at least for this boss it will be pugged regularly at some point not long after release once enough folks have seen the fight.

Something that seemed buggy about the fight was phase 2 when the boss would split – for some reason the blue guy wanted to randomly run over to the green guy with no apparent pattern as to why even when he was getting full dps and nobody died or ran over that way. This probably only happened twice out of ten attempts, but seemed odd.

Lastly, I have to say my favorite thing about the whole fight was learning the NPC’s inside the raid instance do no damage at all to player pets (meaning they also can’t tank anything for any amount of time); whether that be Mesmer Clones, Necro pets, engi turrets, etc. That’d be great if that carried over to fractals/dungeons or at least all legendary mobs in the game. Thats a wonderful change especially for Mesmer and Ranger players. Kudos to Anet!

I thought the adds were boring. Yea they require different types of damage or control and offer a break bar but I would have liked to see them having something that needed interrupting at the same time. Or what if there were more than the 3 adds. Like say they added two more add colors and every week you never know which combination you’ll face. Each add could bring a unique mechanic to deal with so every week the way you handle fight mechanics changes. That would be more interesting than direct dmg, condis, boon strip, now break the break bar.

Edit: I don’t want to be all negative though, I loved the stacking mechanic and the control aspect.

I must say raids are very interesting feature implemented in this beta. Champions and their mechanics are done nicely, and except bugs with UI, squad and its chat that made raids unplayable at the beginning, it was very fun to play them in the last day of the beta, and feel that raids are what an endgame should be. Looking forward to play raids when expansion will be live. See you on the release.

Kuju.2153:

Lastly, I have to say my favorite thing about the whole fight was learning the NPC’s inside the raid instance do no damage at all to player pets (meaning they also can’t tank anything for any amount of time); whether that be Mesmer Clones, Necro pets, engi turrets, etc. That’d be great if that carried over to fractals/dungeons or at least all legendary mobs in the game. Thats a wonderful change especially for Mesmer and Ranger players. Kudos to Anet!

A bug? My stupid pet was dying all the time.

It was buggy and not available for most of BWE3, but in the end they got the first raid up. I managed to get in a group and test it out. It actually was pretty fun and I think with some tweaking raids will work out pretty well in GW2.

This first raid is meant to be our beginner raid, and it shows. You got a progression of 3 enemies to take down, one at a time (unless you wander too close and pull the next one in line). Each has a “trick” to taking them down (one required condition damage, one needed boons stripped, etc). My group wiped only a couple times before we got our groove and the first 3 champs went down fairly easy. There definitely are roles in GW2 raids, but they are not the typical tank/heal/DPS of other games. Once people know their roles it takes very little coordination during a fight if the group works well. And it was kinda fun figuring out ways I could do my job better.

Then was the last boss, who combined aspects of the previous 3, and had some tricks of its own. We wiped several times here before we got the first stage down. Then there’s a second stage where the boss splits into the 3 previous ones… again, wiped several times before we got the hang of stage 2. Then stage 3 goes absolutely nuts! The boss recombines into one, sections of the floor glow, and the boss is tossing out mini bombs like it was making popcorn without a lid on the pot. Unfortunately, we had to give up on stage 3 as it was getting late and people were being responsible and needed sleep. Still wasn’t sure if it was good or bad to be on the glowing floor section by the time we broke up. Hehe.

Another plus, the people I raided with were pretty nice. It was all a PUG, and we all seemed to understand that this was just a Beta, we shouldn’t expect everything to work perfectly, and we were there to have fun. Overall, a good experience for 2 hours in brand new content.

I don’t know if we hit the enrage timer, but looking at posts above I think it’s likely we did (was that the popcorn bombs?). If so, then I DO think that the timer needs to be extended. I know raids are supposed to be challenging, but our first raid should be a bit on the forgiving side so people don’t get too frustrated.

In the end, I think this first raid will provide good training for later raids. Though it is small and will become repetitive once people have each part figured out (I figure an experienced group familiar with the raid may be able to complete it in under 30 minutes, maybe as short as 20). Hopefully ANet has plans that will make later raids more interesting.

MashMash.1645:

Kuju.2153:

Lastly, I have to say my favorite thing about the whole fight was learning the NPC’s inside the raid instance do no damage at all to player pets (meaning they also can’t tank anything for any amount of time); whether that be Mesmer Clones, Necro pets, engi turrets, etc. That’d be great if that carried over to fractals/dungeons or at least all legendary mobs in the game. Thats a wonderful change especially for Mesmer and Ranger players. Kudos to Anet!

A bug? My stupid pet was dying all the time.

Hmm, my Flesh Golem never died (or took damage) until I did, and I was hearing from the Mesmer in my group his clones were never being hit, so he could utilize shatters properly with the Chronomancer trait. It could be buggy as I was only in there for about 10ish attempts.

I have absolutely no previous raid experience as GW2 is my only MMO. I was fortunate to find a more casual party that was willing to just try it out. We went from “killing ourselves on the bug zapper barrier” to consistently getting to phase two. I’ve never had so much fun getting my face repeatedly smashed in. Hopefully I’ll see beyond this battle someday.

That orange field sure keeps things interesting.

Kuju.2153:

MashMash.1645:

Kuju.2153:

Lastly, I have to say my favorite thing about the whole fight was learning the NPC’s inside the raid instance do no damage at all to player pets (meaning they also can’t tank anything for any amount of time); whether that be Mesmer Clones, Necro pets, engi turrets, etc. That’d be great if that carried over to fractals/dungeons or at least all legendary mobs in the game. Thats a wonderful change especially for Mesmer and Ranger players. Kudos to Anet!

A bug? My stupid pet was dying all the time.

Hmm, my Flesh Golem never died (or took damage) until I did, and I was hearing from the Mesmer in my group his clones were never being hit, so he could utilize shatters properly with the Chronomancer trait. It could be buggy as I was only in there for about 10ish attempts.

Oh, I see what you mean. It only got damaged when I was being damaged? I have to admit I wasn’t looking that closely. I’m so used to it just getting nuked -_- That’s possible I guess. Hopefully we get another chance before launch and I can test that.

Tregarde.6031:

Hopefully ANet has plans that will make later raids more interesting.

Completely agree. I am expecting raids that are more than just cheesy enrage timers and DPS checks though. This fight felt so familiar – mainly because I’ve seen it many times before in other games.

They can surely do much better.

I really enjoyed the challenge this brought to the game. I also, despite everyone’s worries, had no issues in exotic sinister gear on my revnant. (Ascended trinkets because… laurels—not counting the merchant at start). I doubt, with proper capability, you need any more than exotics. Not going to stop me from making ascended eventually, but it is not a hindrance either… I still managed to pull some aggro and out-survive others on numerous occasions.

The pug was fun and we cycled through quite a few folks before we had a group that made it to the third phase. However, each time we did, there was only about 3min left on the timer. It was super fun and I totally was late to work because of it but… oh well I think a little longer would help but that could just be a perception thing… that with a bit better play we can beat it.

I also enjoyed the little story aspects you get if you explored the area. I mentioned it in the other thread but there was a guy just to the right down the steps from the entrance, under a tree… you get to search his pockets haha. Then the island to the left had another NPC that gave you some info and the island to the right was filled with infinite-spawning pocket raptors you could kill while waiting for others to get into the area…

So far raiding has been a great experience. Finally some proof that a working group scenario with tanks supports and condi as well as direct dd’s is required to beat the content.
Honestly Great Job! Looking at the trailer future raid encounters will also look more like actual bosses instead of blue men group xD.

MashMash.1645:

Kuju.2153:

Lastly, I have to say my favorite thing about the whole fight was learning the NPC’s inside the raid instance do no damage at all to player pets (meaning they also can’t tank anything for any amount of time); whether that be Mesmer Clones, Necro pets, engi turrets, etc. That’d be great if that carried over to fractals/dungeons or at least all legendary mobs in the game. Thats a wonderful change especially for Mesmer and Ranger players. Kudos to Anet!

A bug? My stupid pet was dying all the time.

This was the question I was wondering about since I didn’t get a chance to raid during the BWE. Anyone go on a ranger or druid and if so, what happened to your pet? O_O

Zalavaaris.5329:

I thought the adds were boring. Yea they require different types of damage or control and offer a break bar but I would have liked to see them having something that needed interrupting at the same time. Or what if there were more than the 3 adds. Like say they added two more add colors and every week you never know which combination you’ll face. Each add could bring a unique mechanic to deal with so every week the way you handle fight mechanics changes. That would be more interesting than direct dmg, condis, boon strip, now break the break bar.

Edit: I don’t want to be all negative though, I loved the stacking mechanic and the control aspect.

I believe the point of the adds is to gradually teach you the mechanics of the upcoming fight, so you can learn to handle all of the boss mechanics before having to deal with all of them at once.

I personally think this concept is beautiful, and I hope it continues in raid content.

Raids were perfect for me, whoever had a hard time aren’t getting the mechanics or how to play the encounter. The enrage timer is a great thing, its not challenging if you can do it with any group or they increase the timer anymore then it is. You just don’t have enough DPS, pure serker isn’t a thing and other roles are needed.

Lome.8239:

Zalavaaris.5329:

I thought the adds were boring. Yea they require different types of damage or control and offer a break bar but I would have liked to see them having something that needed interrupting at the same time. Or what if there were more than the 3 adds. Like say they added two more add colors and every week you never know which combination you’ll face. Each add could bring a unique mechanic to deal with so every week the way you handle fight mechanics changes. That would be more interesting than direct dmg, condis, boon strip, now break the break bar.

Edit: I don’t want to be all negative though, I loved the stacking mechanic and the control aspect.

I believe the point of the adds is to gradually teach you the mechanics of the upcoming fight, so you can learn to handle all of the boss mechanics before having to deal with all of them at once.

I personally think this concept is beautiful, and I hope it continues in raid content.

You’re thinking of the trash and yea good trash teaches boss mechanics. I’m talking about when the boss phases during the actual encounter.