Guild Wars 2

I’ve been able to do the Octovine in Auric Basin on a few occasions, but every time I’ve done so, the South Octovine is always having the most trouble.

Now, unlike many complaint threads regarding these events, I don’t want it any harder or easier. I feel this particular event is made more difficult than it has to be simply because it isn’t clear what your goal is.

Now, everyone hears the NPC saying that there’s a new bomb available, but that’s where the clarity of the event ends.

The bomb itself is very difficult to find. It can easily be mistaken for a triggerblossom (especially when wrapped in vines), which results in players wasting time and skills, hitting the wrong things, as well as looking around the area trying to figure out what the NPC is talking about.

Secondly, it’s not exactly clear what you need to do to make the bomb move where you want it. Some CC works (knockbacks, launches), others don’t (Fear, Exalted Armor).

Finally, the bomb is easy to lose track of, even when you’ve been watching it. Between Mordrem attacks, the bomb being confused for triggerblossoms, sporadic movements, and inability to be targeted (at least with action camera), even if you know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, it’s still easy to screw it up.

My suggestion: put an icon over the bomb that everyone can see. This will solve issues 1 and 3.

1. is trickier to solve, I would think. It would require tooltip updates or something under the bomb’s nameplate when you have it selected (hint: make this doable).

TLDR: This particular even fails often due to a lack of clarity on the objectives, not because of the mechanics.

Dont mistake the South lane being slower for it having trouble. I think it is just more time-consuming by design. If you see a different lane lagging behind south, you have problems.

You want your longbow Rangers at south spamming their knock back skill on their bows.

Speeds that lane right up.

Call for a target on it… voila. Icon on top.

I’ve experienced the opposite. Everyone views it as the troubling octovine so everyone goes there to make sure that goes down to the detriment of others

Recently the Tarir events i went to had most problems at west for some reason while south went perfectly fine and very fast.

I have one hell of a time selecting the thing. Just mad clicking every where. But I don’t really mind other than that, I think people pretty much have it down at this point.

Cale.5372:

Call for a target on it… voila. Icon on top.

Only for those in your party though.

nah, is player problem…
south is relative easy if ppl knows what they are doing but most people dont

Fluffball.8307:

I have one hell of a time selecting the thing. Just mad clicking every where. But I don’t really mind other than that, I think people pretty much have it down at this point.

Agreed. I think the fight is fine except for the inability to actually target the bomb.

What usually happens whenever I am there…
1. Bomb spawns
2. Mass of players and/or enemies around it.
3. I spend WAY too long clicking on everything but the bomb.
4. Someone manages to start knocking it down the lane.
5. It’s still in a sea of players/ mobs and I’m still trying to target it.
6. I finally get a target on it.
7. Someone knocks it into the octovine.
8. Repeat.

On the rare instances I do get a target on it I usually get trampled or pulled by mobs in the area and thus am unable to actually use my knockback on it.

Guardian Hammers or Elementalist Hammers are what must be knocking it back since you don’t need a target with those. I sure can’t select it and knock it back as a Ranger. I sort of just give up even trying and just focus on weeding out all the mobs whenever I’m at south instead of pushing the bomb.

It would also be nice if ANY attack could move the bomb at least slightly. I mean, obviously CCs should be the primary method, they should move it much further than a standard attack, but you should still be able to “chip” it a little using normal hits.

Imo it’s two things in south/west:

- Targeting the bomb is annoying
- Too many and too annoying enemy mobs

In another thread, someone said to click on the bomb at the bottom to get it targeted. That has been working for me, hope it helps some of you.

One other problem with the kicking is, that it sometimes just doesn’t work. On my mesmer the GS #5 skill sometimes doesn’t knock it at all or just a few meters. While sometimes I can see the bomb flying half the distance to the octovine.

Another problem is that you can “troll” the event. I’ve seen people kicking the bomb to the side of even backwards, maybe by accident.

Maybe the event should introduce another mechanic to the fight. An environmental weapon you can pick up which is used to drive the bomb forward. With this everyone can contribute to the fight even if they don’t have a knockback skill handy. Right now most of the fight consists of “press 5, wait 12 seconds, press 5…”.

Kiza.5630:

One other problem with the kicking is, that it sometimes just doesn’t work. On my mesmer the GS #5 skill sometimes doesn’t knock it at all or just a few meters. While sometimes I can see the bomb flying half the distance to the octovine.

It has an inertia type feature, you need to get it moving first, and then it picks up speed. You need a few people working on it, not just one person.

I agree that octovine mechanics are fine. It’s almost always accomplished with a full map. I also agree that they could make the NPCs explain the goal of the lane better. It’s a tweak that won’t hurt anyone.

Fluffball.8307:

It has an inertia type feature, you need to get it moving first, and then it picks up speed. You need a few people working on it, not just one person.

Oh, thanks! I didn’t know that. Probably not many do. But it explains a lot.

Everyone just seems to nuke the hell out of it and don’t question the “0” in the floating dmg numbers.

I just stick to west, probably the more fun side to do for me.

That bomb needs to be locked on a rail track .. can only go forward , can’t go backward.
So players only need to do knockback, push , lunches etc.. and the bomb will follow the track … or it can be just the actual paved little road .. but making this bomb able to move around in the entire room it’s an unnecessary difficulty .

i’ve seen it once completely on the right side of the room

Worst thing about west is that players don’t understand that if you enter the AOE left by another player-mushroom popping, then your transform is cancelled due to damage without you actually stripping any slime stacks!

Even though you can clearly see that no stacks were stripped, even with constant reminders in chat, you see the same players constantly kamikaze into another players AOE field.

The result of this is that often around < 50% of the players in the room are actually contributing at all. It would be nice if there was more guidance in game for this, but if players can’t even read chat then I don’t hold my hopes too high

Farming Flats.5370:

That bomb needs to be locked on a rail track .. can only go forward , can’t go backward.
So players only need to do knockback, push , lunches etc.. and the bomb will follow the track … or it can be just the actual paved little road .. but making this bomb able to move around in the entire room it’s an unnecessary difficulty .

i’ve seen it once completely on the right side of the room

Bomb hockey would be a pretty fun PVP mode.

The problem with this event is that unlike the other entrances, a few people who are new and don’t know what to do can mess it up for everybody else. Make sure you give explicit instructions over and over. A common mistake is people shooting at everything that moves and in the process hitting the triggers and detonating the bombs prematurely. I have to admit that I did this the first time I played south entrance. Nobody corrected me. I had to question other players in map chat to figure out what was going on.

Pushers push. Armor pulls trigger blossoms out of the way. If you aren’t doing one of these tasks you should probably leave and go to a different gate.

One complication is that there is an achievement that requires participating at all four entrances. So if you have to do this and you don’t have a good push skill, grab some armor and pull trigger blossoms to the side.