Guild Wars 2

Majic.4801:

Ayrilana.1396:

Which I have and haven’t ran into an issue with. Every mobs doesn’t need to be made so that you can faceroll through otherwise we have what we had before the expansion. If you see mobs that apply conditions, equip utilities that cleanse. If you see mobs that do knock downs, daze, and the like, have stability at the ready. It doesn’t take much to prepare for what you’re about to fight unless having to do that in the first place is the real issue.

I haven’t seen any platypuses in my travels. Should I therefore conclude platypuses don’t exist?

The stun-locking occurs when dealing with multiple mobs that have disabling control effects. Several different types of HoT mobs have them, such as beetles, teragriffs, chaks, punishers, cavaliers/mounts, wyverns and the like. Mobs that don’t possess these abilities won’t cause the problem.

If you haven’t encountered the stun-locking issue, you can find such scenarios in any HoT map by fighting several enemies with such abilities at once. This can occur during dynamic events, especially upscaled events that take place in confined spaces, such as caves, ledges or platforms.

If you still don’t believe it possible, you can get a quick taste by running into a crowd of mobs with such abilities in the open world — such as beetles in the Verdant Brink, for example — though I don’t recommend doing so otherwise.

Having stability for such eventualities is nice for professions which have ready access to it, but even then, it’s easy to blow through all the stability possible very quickly, and the cooldowns tend to be long.

In protracted fights with lots of mobs, which are de rigeur in HoT events, it can become an issue, hence the comments to that effect which you are unsuccessfully attempting to refute.

Concluding players desire faceroll content because they don’t like stun-locking is as fallacious as concluding problems don’t exist because you are unaware of them. That’s straw-man bashing, which, though easier than confronting actual differing opinions, doesn’t convince anyone of anything, other than that straw-man bashing isn’t constructive.

Moreover, you will never convince the many players beside yourself who have been subjected to stun-locking that it never happens, and the very idea that they would believe you over their own in-game experiences is patently absurd.

If you don’t see a problem with stun-locking and haven’t experienced it yourself, that’s great, and I’m happy for you. But making false, condescending statements about other players when you apparently don’t understand what they’re talking about looks as silly as it sounds, so I advise against it.

I’m against nerfing because some players do not want to learn the mechanics of each mobs and how to get past them. This includes those that can stun players including when encountered in groups. You can quote off fallacies all that you’d like and accuse me of making false and condescending statements. I suppose I cannot disagree with you without being condescending. Makes sense.

I’ve participated in every meta event except for one of the lane events in TD and there’s not really an issue about being stun locked so long as you prepare for it. If you’re in an event with a group of people that scale it up, there should be group wide stability to make up for it. Mobs should not be nerfed because players do not want to do so. The wyverns flame attack causes burning damage that stacks. Multiple wyverns can stack them higher. Should burning damage be reduced because players do not want to carry cleanse?

Aside from stability and stun breaks, you can prevent the mobs from even using those attacks. Immobilize, knockdown, daze, and so on work pretty well. Do does walls that prevent mobs from crossing.

And when I say faceroll, I’m referring to bringing it down to the level of Tyria mobs which have very little mechanics. Everything the OP mentioned was due to a lack of understanding the mechanics.

Yeah my thinking too. If you go zerker you’ll be slapped around a lot XD

so what would work better thatn zerker gear. As a ranger, zerker is a big part of my armor

bjwhiteda.7645:

Yeah my thinking too. If you go zerker you’ll be slapped around a lot XD

so what would work better thatn zerker gear. As a ranger, zerker is a big part of my armor

Grab a couple of pieces of armor in Valkyrie and some rings in Cavalier.

I can empathize with u, OP. Some mobs don’t even provide challenge in a fair way, they’re artificially difficult, either dealing obscene damage regardless of armor + vitality, or constantly bombarding u with CC.

Frogs deal an insane amount of spike damage (out of line with the rest of the HoT mobs), they do need some downtuning. And shrooms are ridiculous with the amount of stuns they do, they’re more trouble than fun. Rolling devils is another foe that I have learned to avoid, they outpace most players, and could instant down u if you get caught up in their crossfire (and rolling devils often wander in pairs or more), too much risk for non-existent reward.

Other than that, I’m okay with the rest of the mobs. Smokescale have low hp, without their smoke field, they go down very swiftly, not an issue if you stay out of their smoke field.

Black Box.9312:

Majic.4801:

Ayrilana.1396:

Which I have and haven’t ran into an issue with. Every mobs doesn’t need to be made so that you can faceroll through otherwise we have what we had before the expansion. If you see mobs that apply conditions, equip utilities that cleanse. If you see mobs that do knock downs, daze, and the like, have stability at the ready. It doesn’t take much to prepare for what you’re about to fight unless having to do that in the first place is the real issue.

I haven’t seen any platypuses in my travels. Should I therefore conclude platypuses don’t exist?

The stun-locking occurs when dealing with multiple mobs that have disabling control effects. Several different types of HoT mobs have them, such as beetles, teragriffs, chaks, punishers, cavaliers/mounts, wyverns and the like. Mobs that don’t possess these abilities won’t cause the problem.

If you haven’t encountered the stun-locking issue, you can find such scenarios in any HoT map by fighting several enemies with such abilities at once. This can occur during dynamic events, especially upscaled events that take place in confined spaces, such as caves, ledges or platforms.

If you still don’t believe it possible, you can get a quick taste by running into a crowd of mobs with such abilities in the open world — such as beetles in the Verdant Brink, for example — though I don’t recommend doing so otherwise.

Having stability for such eventualities is nice for professions which have ready access to it, but even then, it’s easy to blow through all the stability possible very quickly, and the cooldowns tend to be long.

In protracted fights with lots of mobs, which are de rigeur in HoT events, it can become an issue, hence the comments to that effect which you are unsuccessfully attempting to refute.

Concluding players desire faceroll content because they don’t like stun-locking is as fallacious as concluding problems don’t exist because you are unaware of them. That’s straw-man bashing, which, though easier than confronting actual differing opinions, doesn’t convince anyone of anything, other than that straw-man bashing isn’t constructive.

Moreover, you will never convince the many players beside yourself who have been subjected to stun-locking that it never happens, and the very idea that they would believe you over their own in-game experiences is patently absurd.

If you don’t see a problem with stun-locking and haven’t experienced it yourself, that’s great, and I’m happy for you. But making false, condescending statements about other players when you apparently don’t understand what they’re talking about looks as silly as it sounds, so I advise against it.

The only time I could see this occurring is if you are trying to solo a group event, or maybe if you’re just trying to run past mobs without some sort of speed boost. In actual open world fights I have yet to encounter a problem where there are too many mobs for me to successfully avoid damage and CC.

It happens all the time.
In fact the other day I was thinking “Did anyone tell Anet it’s fun when they get
stun locked in PvP that they had to put this in open world PvE as well?”
Pretty much as soon as your stability is on cd and you are out of dodges
you will get stun locked by the CC spam.
Talking about multiple foes encounters here.
A few years back this would be a joke,but now mobs in HoT spam more
CC than they do damage.

And again,this is open world content we are talking about.
I can understand these mobs in Fractals or in Raids but not in the open world.
This is supposed to be played by players of all levels of skill.
I provide this feedback as one that kills pairs and triplets of Vets,and can solo even some of the Champs when I have the time and patience,but as soon as you got
5,6 ,7 mobs around you it gets fubar in a heartbeat.
Way too much CC,way too many conditions,relentless spam.

If players have to break their KBs to fight open world mobs,then what are Fractals
and Raids for?
That’s why you can never have really challenging open world mobs.
Imo,it’s as stupid and pointless as having easy Raids.

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

Probably not – though they are really simple unless, of course, you eat their swarm spike.

My most fun-place not to be is the camp SW of where you enter Verdant Brink at night. When the defense event kicks in you’ll have endless fun of one of the headbutting big dudes making their timed appearance and as many as two pocket raptor herds that can spawn right in the defense circle.

I was cleaning off the big guy when two herds practically spawned right next to me + the next wave of mordrem was being spawned in. Lucky me was doing solo defense on my mesmer so it was ok as soon as I blinked away – I guess most of my other chars would have required a trip from the waypoint in that situation …

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

I like these little xp piñatas.
Thunderclap -> hammer #3 -> hammer 4, results in up to 18 dead raptors (I love to pull these packs together)
and if something survives, FT #2 -> FT AA does the rest.

one of the few satisfying mobs they’ve implemented.
I also like to steamroll chak-herds.

Arantheal.7396:

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

I like these little xp piñatas.
Thunderclap -> hammer #3 -> hammer 4, results in up to 18 dead raptors (I love to pull these packs together)
and if something survives, FT #2 -> FT AA does the rest.

one of the few satisfying mobs they’ve implemented.
I also like to steamroll chak-herds.

I believe these give 2 XP per kill?

Edit: Nah, just checked – more

If you’re not full zerk & actually pay attention, HoT is not hard.
I like the challenge, it’s about time something was challenging in this game.

Keira Wildflower.7304:

I’m curious to know if you actually tested the creatures in HoT? because, the fruits of your labor are screaming “I was never tested for real-in-game-testing”.

Smokescales: Just slap some power nerfs on these guys and they should be fine, but seriously, so much evading it is ridiculous.

Master Gwyllion: WTF are you thinking!? His mechanics don’t even make sense!! He instakills the whole group, and he takes a massive group to kill him apparently. I have yet to see a successful group yet. He needs a way to be dodged or something. He shouldn’t do 100k damage to go through deathshroud and full health in one hit. the smokescales don’t help. Needs a massive rework.

Any Enemy Frog dude: Shadowstepping is way too broken. Not too mention the amount of stabbings they do you cannot dodge. Let me tell you it sucks. You need to pull back on whatever super damage ideas you have. They instant drop on you and you only get 2 dodges.

Mordrem dissentors (I believe that is what they are called): They are in the instance that get’s you the guild hall. Outrun the fastest player and kills them in 3 hits no matter who they are. I wish I was joking. I don’t know why you guys are obsessed with killing players so much. anyone not a professional player gets wiped on the floor.

I’m begging you guys. Please fix these. These are the most obvious. Bugs exist and I understand that. Just please tone it down or give us buffs!! Please!!

You must be playing a different game than the one I’m playing. Because in the one I’m playing I see my guildies and myself dodge/block smokescales (you can also CC them before they go crazy) and then kill them quickly outside of their red circles. I see my friends/allies with stealth detection kill Master Gwyllion all the time and he doesn’t insta kill anyone. He insta downs players. Big difference. CC, reflects and stun breaks make quick work of the frog dudes. I’ve helped take two different guild halls and both groups (a 15 man and the other was 4 manned) never had issues with winning.

So the lesson here is in my game players have well rounded builds, know how to use them and have them oriented at dealing with the task/mobs at hand. In your game this is obviously not the case.

Aenaos.8160:

Black Box.9312:

Majic.4801:

Ayrilana.1396:

Which I have and haven’t ran into an issue with. Every mobs doesn’t need to be made so that you can faceroll through otherwise we have what we had before the expansion. If you see mobs that apply conditions, equip utilities that cleanse. If you see mobs that do knock downs, daze, and the like, have stability at the ready. It doesn’t take much to prepare for what you’re about to fight unless having to do that in the first place is the real issue.

I haven’t seen any platypuses in my travels. Should I therefore conclude platypuses don’t exist?

The stun-locking occurs when dealing with multiple mobs that have disabling control effects. Several different types of HoT mobs have them, such as beetles, teragriffs, chaks, punishers, cavaliers/mounts, wyverns and the like. Mobs that don’t possess these abilities won’t cause the problem.

If you haven’t encountered the stun-locking issue, you can find such scenarios in any HoT map by fighting several enemies with such abilities at once. This can occur during dynamic events, especially upscaled events that take place in confined spaces, such as caves, ledges or platforms.

If you still don’t believe it possible, you can get a quick taste by running into a crowd of mobs with such abilities in the open world — such as beetles in the Verdant Brink, for example — though I don’t recommend doing so otherwise.

Having stability for such eventualities is nice for professions which have ready access to it, but even then, it’s easy to blow through all the stability possible very quickly, and the cooldowns tend to be long.

In protracted fights with lots of mobs, which are de rigeur in HoT events, it can become an issue, hence the comments to that effect which you are unsuccessfully attempting to refute.

Concluding players desire faceroll content because they don’t like stun-locking is as fallacious as concluding problems don’t exist because you are unaware of them. That’s straw-man bashing, which, though easier than confronting actual differing opinions, doesn’t convince anyone of anything, other than that straw-man bashing isn’t constructive.

Moreover, you will never convince the many players beside yourself who have been subjected to stun-locking that it never happens, and the very idea that they would believe you over their own in-game experiences is patently absurd.

If you don’t see a problem with stun-locking and haven’t experienced it yourself, that’s great, and I’m happy for you. But making false, condescending statements about other players when you apparently don’t understand what they’re talking about looks as silly as it sounds, so I advise against it.

The only time I could see this occurring is if you are trying to solo a group event, or maybe if you’re just trying to run past mobs without some sort of speed boost. In actual open world fights I have yet to encounter a problem where there are too many mobs for me to successfully avoid damage and CC.

It happens all the time.
In fact the other day I was thinking “Did anyone tell Anet it’s fun when they get
stun locked in PvP that they had to put this in open world PvE as well?”
Pretty much as soon as your stability is on cd and you are out of dodges
you will get stun locked by the CC spam.
Talking about multiple foes encounters here.
A few years back this would be a joke,but now mobs in HoT spam more
CC than they do damage.

And again,this is open world content we are talking about.
I can understand these mobs in Fractals or in Raids but not in the open world.
This is supposed to be played by players of all levels of skill.
I provide this feedback as one that kills pairs and triplets of Vets,and can solo even some of the Champs when I have the time and patience,but as soon as you got
5,6 ,7 mobs around you it gets fubar in a heartbeat.
Way too much CC,way too many conditions,relentless spam.

If players have to break their KBs to fight open world mobs,then what are Fractals
and Raids for?
That’s why you can never have really challenging open world mobs.
Imo,it’s as stupid and pointless as having easy Raids.

They’re level 80 zones. If they’re not challenging you to make the most of your build, then what’s the point? If you want easy content, go make a new character and learn how to play the game the right way. I’m sick of people crying nerf just because they’re too lazy to pay attention and actually learn how to play skillfully.

I used to believe the same thing as OP on the Mordrem Snipers and Energy Shadowleapers, then I got this.

It’s absolutely night and day. NIGHT AND DAY difference. Sure, you still have one shots from time to time but you know it’s coming and can actually react. All the HoT zones are way too balanced around having this ability. I now know how ANet testing was conducted.

Understandably, once you get the hang of them, I don’t think the mobs are really too hard per say. I think that many of them are just unimaginatively boring when they just spam a mass of knock downs or a single condition on you. Not all classes have the same level of access to stability or condi cleanse.

I see a lot of PvE players crying for having to slot some stun breakers and gap closers for the first time ever in GW2.

Tom Gore.4035:

I see a lot of PvE players crying for having to slot some stun breakers and gap closers for the first time ever in GW2.

Do you? What i see is 2 stunbreakers and 3 cleanses being not enough way too often.

There’s only one thing that really bugs me… ^^
These rolling devils… or whatever they’re called in English.
While you can simply dodge through them on a zerker thief and run for your life you’re DEAD if you’re on a zerker ele and just forget to throw a meteor into them before your run through. That’d be fine so far…

But as a class that does not have 25 percent movement speed under standard circumstances they’re really getting annoying. Sometimes I really feel trolled. Can’t kill them fast enough on my engi, can’t even run away (not even WITH the 25 percent spec) The only thing that really helps is getting 33 percent movementspeed from gadget, equipping a flamethrower and run for your life.

I mean as a Zerker you have them dead soon enough, but on condi or not to mention on supportive gear like cleric’s… no way. I used to die my way through AB on my rev in asc clerikittenil I was fed up and threw the whole gear into the forge. Now I wear soldier’s – I survive, they die. So I just forget about trying to be a supporter. I won’t get 2 or 3 sets of armor per character either. Too bad I can’t exchange the jewelry and my backpiece but well… even exotics work better than asc cleric’s… O.o

And now that my gliding is maxed out I try to avoid running around on the floor if I don’t intend to fight if I can… :P

The other mobs… well they’re tough, but beatable, or at least you can run ^.^

Astralporing.1957:

Tom Gore.4035:

I see a lot of PvE players crying for having to slot some stun breakers and gap closers for the first time ever in GW2.

Do you? What i see is 2 stunbreakers and 3 cleanses being not enough way too often.

Don’t fight 4-5 mobs at once and learn to dodge too?

I have no problems on the 5 classes I’ve now played HoT with (Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, Thief and Ranger). Sure, I’ve died my fair share, but if I hadn’t what would be the point?

People wanted more challenging content and Anet has been listening. Now you will have to actually learn to play the game instead of mouseclicking through borefests.

kuscheldrow.6415:

There’s only one thing that really bugs me… ^^
These rolling devils… or whatever they’re called in English.
While you can simply dodge through them on a zerker thief and run for your life you’re DEAD if you’re on a zerker ele and just forget to throw a meteor into them before your run through. That’d be fine so far…

But as a class that does not have 25 percent movement speed under standard circumstances they’re really getting annoying. Sometimes I really feel trolled. Can’t kill them fast enough on my engi, can’t even run away (not even WITH the 25 percent spec) The only thing that really helps is getting 33 percent movementspeed from gadget, equipping a flamethrower and run for your life.

I mean as a Zerker you have them dead soon enough, but on condi or not to mention on supportive gear like cleric’s… no way. I used to die my way through AB on my rev in asc clerikittenil I was fed up and threw the whole gear into the forge. Now I wear soldier’s – I survive, they die. So I just forget about trying to be a supporter. I won’t get 2 or 3 sets of armor per character either. Too bad I can’t exchange the jewelry and my backpiece but well… even exotics work better than asc cleric’s… O.o

And now that my gliding is maxed out I try to avoid running around on the floor if I don’t intend to fight if I can… :P

The other mobs… well they’re tough, but beatable, or at least you can run ^.^

Funny. My condi grenadier probably had the least trouble of all my characters with the rolling devils, maybe save for the ever-untouchable bearbow ranger.

Tom Gore.4035:

Astralporing.1957:

Tom Gore.4035:

I see a lot of PvE players crying for having to slot some stun breakers and gap closers for the first time ever in GW2.

Do you? What i see is 2 stunbreakers and 3 cleanses being not enough way too often.

Don’t fight 4-5 mobs at once and learn to dodge too?

I have no problems on the 5 classes I’ve now played HoT with (Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, Thief and Ranger). Sure, I’ve died my fair share, but if I hadn’t what would be the point?

People wanted more challenging content and Anet has been listening. Now you will have to actually learn to play the game instead of mouseclicking through borefests.

Which – in Auric Basin – means: Don’t play! Seems a bit of a silly advice …

What people do not get is that sometimes the maps are empty because some people started to fill another map via taxis. If you didn’t get the taxis or that map is full … you’re on your own with maybe 5 – 10 people spread all over the map. And EVERY event will spawn a couple of opponents + the guys that live there if there is no event.

This will sooner or later put you in exactly the situation you advise to avoid which means: Either play with a group (so you do not have 4 – 10 guys focusing on you and you alone) or don’t play at all – while at the same time saying that HoT is fine and, of course, soloable (which means people usually just did the story and never tried to do events on empty maps).

From my point of view some smart scaling is badly needed. The camp defense for example of the camp SW of where you enter Verdant Brink – not the one up on the ledge but the one a bit further down. When you solo it you get a rather large spawn of Mordrem creatures + 1 or even 2 raptor groups that can re-spawn right in the event circle + 1 or even 2 of the veteran big guys that run from right to left and are more or less immune to immobilzes and suchlike.

Is it doable … depends a bit on the class but my power or condi necro do fine – right up to the point where one of the big dudes respawn and you have those nice mordrem mounts, get knocked down and lie in the center of 2 or 3 sniper lines which means … death.

From my point of view: Content is too hard for solo players in some regions (bad mix of monsters = too much cc for many classes) = not a challenge but frustrating.

Same content is laughably easy if you’re 2 or 3 players and the cc is spread to different people.

So – tune it down if there is only one player but crank it up when there’s 3+ and things will be fine. Maybe make non-vet creatures a bit tamer and spawn vets only with 3 or more players but then buff the vets a tad more …

As it is … it still is a breeze with some classes (my mesmer always shouts for them to bring on more) and a nightmare for others – especially non burst condi builds that have to build up damage and have to avoid 14 (yes, that camp offers as much as 14 enemies with a fresh respawn – including said 2 raptor groups than can spawn right at your heels and attack 1 second later) enemies for much longer than a zerker class does .

This entire thing is full of LoL and white knights mixed in with people with legitimate concerns

People wanted harder content which is true myself included however people wanted Underworld, FoW, Sorrow, Depths, that place in Torment, or the dungeons in EOTN. What we got is a big old middle finger to new people and casual players and that isn’t right. You didn’t have to march through the Underworld in GW1 to make it to the final boss. So why in GW2 are they making people march through this type of content on there way to this expacs final boss.

There is only one rational conclusion and that will be the inevitable nerf to the maps all because Anet didn’t want to make side maps off the beaten path for end game farming. Speaking of which there are no post campaign maps like the Underworld at all. These maps are a mix and unbalanced as people complain about certain mobs and rightfully so because these mobs don’t line up with the difficulty and power of the mobs around them. You go from killing some mushroom who doesn’t know how to put up a fight to get sniped by snipers, mobed by raptors, and chased down by smoke scales. The difficulty in the mobs just isn’t’ balanced.

Furthermore this so called expac forces you to return to the core so while some people say it’s best not to use Zerk I don’t see the point in changing you can survive in Zerk and only 4 maps in the game isn’t enough since people literally have to farm old content for mastery points and slightly altered achieves.

More or less forcing the entire community to march through these games version of harder pve content was doomed from the very start. It should of been an optional high yield map like the underworld in gw2 instead of a mandatory blanket placed on everyone of every skill level.

People ANET dont stand back again with nerfs. Dont listen to this threads.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I don’t mind foes that have a lot of blocks or evades, but I would like to see more/better counter skills come back into the game for dealing with such things. Things like ‘rigor mortis’ or ‘defile defenses’. Rigor (and similar skills) nullified evasion, defile actually punished the foe for using a block (not precisely the same as just making your skills unblockable). It added just a tad bit more to the game play, imo, and I’d kind of like to see it come back.

Both of those would also add a whole new element to PvP that is missing.

You can dodge, evade, block, teleport/shadowstep and run. You also have two trait lines give you passive defensive and healing. AoE are your best friend if the mobs charge toward your PC. My rev survive the jungle well even with rampage rare armor.

There are a lot of “unfriendly” design choices being made here. HoT has so much put into hard interrupts and evades but, punishes reflects and blinds. Snipers are a perfect example of this bs. I’d swear there’s something with condi stacking on some of the mobs too. But, it’s probably the condi duration nerf that’s killing my condi builds.

Oh, editing to add that the DS meta event is completely designed around a Zerker 1111111 approach. Basically the HoT mobs are zerker themselves.

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

Nope. I hate them, too.

There could be a lot less of them and it wouldn’t bother me a bit.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

Nope. I hate them, too.

There could be a lot less of them and it wouldn’t bother me a bit.

The one group of Mobs I don’t mind. I literally jump into the middle of 5 or 10 of them and hit 2 buttons and they die.

1. Snipers
2. Pocket Raptors
3. Smokescales
4. Frogs
5. Rolling Devils

All these mobs are unmanageable in numbers. My only thought on these mobs is that they can use their over-powered skills a lot more than we can use ours. The eva on the Smokescale is extremely annoying, but I can kill one, maybe even 2 by myself. But that’s no guarantee.

In the Story, like second chapter, they put in like 4 or 5 snipers and it’s impossible to fight that. I died so many times and kept coming back. But, basically, I had to let most of the npcs fight the snipers.

As a returning player.. I gotta say I was in for a super rude awakening entering HoT maps.

I had a mish mash of gear, in some cases it was zerker, others had hybrid setups. I still got owned despite doding because of the spammed cc’s and long waits of mob immunities/evades and just general swarming.

I play with a pair of friends but often find myself running alone…

The issues I see people post about in this thread made sense to me, I understand why they’re frustrated. Now, for my gear.. I’m in questing junk, I don’t have full exotics. I don’t have a mass of gold and cannot buy ascended. 8 gold doesn’t go very far and this game seems really difficult to make gold, without using your wallet and I’m alright with this. Just means more effort for me to make money to buy gear.

My biggest grievance was, my two friends had a bunch of masteries.. I had nothing. I couldn’t do half of what they did, or go where they went and often lagged behind unable to take a second to breathe because I was constantly being mauled by mobs. Yep, I’m one of those people who don’t really like the mastery thing much at ALL. That said, you only need to farm them once.. I guess, but it’s still really crude and takes away from just jumping into the game and joining your friends like you used to be able to do.

I find that as I get more masteries.. the gameplay is starting to improve, albeit painfully slow. I don’t know HOW on earth some people have over 100+ so bloody fast. Perhaps massive guilds grouping up in raid formation and just smashing content, I can understand that. Good for them I suppose but sucks for me.. again I can live with that, while I curse and cuss under my breath at feeling blocked from all sorts of things my friends can explore but I am stuck waiting.

I feel that as someone else pointed out, much of the gear has 4 stat types on it compared to the old 3 stat choices we’ve had prior to expansion. Their post was one of the rare non-braggy aggressive posts that was actually mature and nice to read. So that puts my mind at ease, I play a guardian most of the time and I love him, but my hp pool is pathetically low and I just explode, guess I gotta get some Knight’s or Soldier’s to mix in my gear lists.

It’s painful as heck if you also did not have 100% map prior as you can’t expand your elite spec, which I can deal with , but the play change from having it filled out is VERY noticeable (which I think is the point, right? )

I been fairly afraid to comment or post on the forums seeing so much hostility and I don’t doubt people will tear me to shreds.. but I may as well be brand new to the game again with what all has changed since I joined years ago. If I feel frustrated and somewhat put off as a ’what’s the point in exploring the new content if I don’t have people to do it with or can’t follow where they go?’ then you can bet your butt that others are feeling the same and just don’t comment.

I’ve seen what happened to games that went ‘hardcore only’ they became deader then dead REAL quick.

Open world is where many casual players spent most of their time and now I see that coming to a close for many.. and I’m stubborn, I’ll keep trudging through it because I’d really like to complete it. I just worry most about maps emptying out and population just not being there and my being behind other people.. just how much of my game experience will this ruin as others just won’t want to be bothered helping with the challenges or metas anymore?

I apologize for my windy, rambling post. I have a massive headache and have been feeling under the weather. If I made sense? Awesome! If I didn’t make much, please accept my deepest apologies ><;

Fengzhou.9853:

As a returning player.. I gotta say I was in for a super rude awakening entering HoT maps.

I had a mish mash of gear, in some cases it was zerker, others had hybrid setups. I still got owned despite doding because of the spammed cc’s and long waits of mob immunities/evades and just general swarming.

I play with a pair of friends but often find myself running alone…

The issues I see people post about in this thread made sense to me, I understand why they’re frustrated. Now, for my gear.. I’m in questing junk, I don’t have full exotics. I don’t have a mass of gold and cannot buy ascended. 8 gold doesn’t go very far and this game seems really difficult to make gold, without using your wallet and I’m alright with this. Just means more effort for me to make money to buy gear.

So why are you going for the newest and most challenging content in the game when you obviously have skipped pretty much everything that came before?

Maybe finish your Personal Story first?

Then maybe play through Season 2 of the Living Story?

After that maybe go for HoT content?

That’s how it’s supposed to be played, not popping 50 Tomes of Knowledge and going to battle with rares, greens and blues.

I’m sorry that you seem to struggle, but Guild Wars has always been about prep and planning. You can’t expect to just stomp everything!! Or the forums would be awash with complaints of how easy it was!!

Learn and adapt… If you want easy, put the effort in and make the best of your gear/toon etc and you’ll find some mobs aren’t so tough! Some just need a group, it is an MMO after all

CC is the answer of most problems here. I think you can prevent Gwyllion to insta down most players by CC him before he can use this skill. But we never managed to do it. He still dies all the time with full map.

I have the stealth skill, but I still wonder what exactly does make the difference to have the debuff to insta down you and what not? I don’t have it all the time.