But this content is not being played! I have swapped maps several times in a small space of time and still lost events, because the maps are empty!
Do I feel like this expansion should be able to be played solo? Yes, I do!
So do I. ANet advertised this game as possible to mostly solo, especially open world PvE. HoT should stay with that general design. I think it mostly does that if people are willing to adjust their play just a bit.
Do we not remember that Anet changed Zhaitan so it could be done solo?! If your argument is ‘This is end game content, you’re supposed to be grouped up’ why did they change it? Because MANY of us would at least like that option to be able to do it alone. Why didn’t Anet learn that some people don’t have guilds or want to use LFG tool.
And as for ‘many of us have soloed HoT and didn’t have a problem’ honestly, I’m happy for you, but this post was about the many of us who don’t feel the same way, and that’s not balanced.
I consider myself to be a mediocre player at best. At best. I am an old-ish player with a bum left hand. I am pretty oblivious to the nuances of what enemies are doing and have poor reaction time. I am clumsy. Yet I have done the personal story (which unlike some players I actually like quite a bit) on over a dozen toons. I did all of them solo except for one Zhaitan fight on one of my mesmers which I did with a buddy who was running his herald. Some of the toons weren’t geared very well, though all were in at least exotic armor with at least rare weapons. I feel confident that almost any player, certainly the vast majority no matter how limited in ability, can do this content. It is absolutely possible to spam/click skills and still get through it. In the Mordremoth fight in particular, dodging is not even very important. ANet’s event/mob scaling is deserving of some criticism as it seems like they could do a better job on it in a lot of areas, but it just doesn’t seem reasonable to expect them to design all content around the ability of 10-15% of the player base that might struggle with it. Especially since those players do have the option to group up. Aiming at the vast majority is about as balanced as they can get it. Like you, I prefer to do most content solo without using the LFG tool. But even so, I understand that in an MMO it is reasonable to expect that some content might require grouping. For me, that often means just not doing some content, or not doing it often. I don’t do dungeons or fractals often because I don’t like grouping up for long periods of time with people depending on me, even if they are guildies.
In the case you mentioned, two players spending over two hours on Hearts and Minds should be an indicator that changes need to be made not to game design, but to player gear, builds, or play. Or all three. It should take 30-45 minutes to do that instance. Here are some general thoughts that may be of help with this fight and in general, if not to you personally then maybe to somebody:
1) Movement – This cannot be stressed enough, not only for this instance, but for the game in general. This game’s combat is designed to be active. Players should be moving constantly. This can be a hard adjustment for some of us who played GW1 where you could not move and use skills simultaneously, but it is an important adjustment. Specifically in Hearts and Minds, it is important to move so you stay out of the worst of the enemy attacks. It is probably the most important thing a player can do in this instance. When facing Eir, you only have to move enough to stay off the orange streaks from her bow while you kill Garm. When she is dazed and vulnerable after Garm dies you should use a stun or knockdown or other interrupt/crowd control skill to break her bar (which isn’t necessarily visible if I recall correctly) and then can just stand still and blast her with as much damage as possible. But when she is active and you are killing Garm, you have to move to stay off the orange streaks. When she does her big attack, just run until she finishes it. Hitting the speed boost mushrooms is a huge help too. Similar for facing Canach. You should use ranged attacks against him and just strafe at a distance while moving through the speed boost mushrooms to go faster. You’ll just need stun/knockdown/crowd control skills to break his blue bar. The Caithe fight can be hard. I would avoid her. Mordy is actually easier than the others. It can be slower, but he can be beaten by doing nothing more than circle strafing and auto attacks. Constantly circling around him while attacking keeps him from hitting with the knockdown and other bad stuff. When he goes invulnerable, just kill the adds like any veteran mobs in the game and go back to circle strafing him. The flight part can be difficult. Some players have encountered bugs in getting off the ground. Try not to jump when running through the updrafts. If that doesn’t work, try hitting the function (F) key. Some say that works. If you die and get sent back to the beginning of the Mordy fight, don’t despair. Try again. I have died a few times on the third flight portion. It is annoying, but really doesn’t take long to get him back down and try the flight part again, because…
2) Damage – Many players when struggling with content try more defense oriented gear. This seems intuitive, but the opposite actually can be the case. It is often better to have less defense and more damage because enemies die before they get a chance to do bad things to the player. At the very least, players need to be able to do enough damage. For a direct damage build, this generally requires gear with at least power as the primary characteristic. Even soldier’s gear with power, vitality, and toughness will result in more damage than using something without power. Ideally, try to add as much gear as possible with precision and ferocity too. Everything should be at least exotic level 80 for HoT content. If cost is an issue, you can get exotic soldier armor for karma from vendors in Orr. You want at least exotic with power as a primary stat. For weapons as well. Ascended is obviously better and a goal should be to work toward at least ascended weapons and trinkets, preferably berserker. But even if not ascended, berserker exotic trinkets with soldier armor will work well for the personal story. This assumes power builds. Condition damage builds can work in HoT too, though slower. But with those, you can constantly apply conditions and still be able to do damage while moving and avoiding damage. For condi builds, choose armor with condition damage as primary stat. I think Rabid is available for karma from temple vendors in Orr.
3) Gear – In addition to the armor and trinkets mentioned, every weapon should be at least exotic level 80 and equipped with a sigil, preferably a damage-oriented one. All armor should have runes. For power builds, you will want to use runes with power stats. They don’t have to be expensive either. Something like runes of the privateer are cheap and add a good bit of power. If condition-oriented, there are lots of cheap condition damage runes. Overall, you want your power stat to be as high as possible, at least 2000, preferably 2400 or higher. Crit chance and crit damage are added pluses and make a huge difference in damage.
4) Traits/specializations – This does not necessarily matter as much as it used to when the trait lines also affected stats like power, but is still important. Choose traits that add damage, preferably the ones with damage modifiers like added 10% damage when health below x% or under certain circumstances like enemy has a condition. Alternatively, you can focus your armor, trinkets, runes, and sigils on power/damage, and select trait lines that help with defense or survival. For example, the warrior traits that apply defensive stances as you drop below certain health thresholds can help survivability while still doing decent damage.
5) Food – Players should always use food and utility boosts. Not only can they add a lot of damage but they help with experience gain to get masteries faster. Masteries make a lot of difference in HoT. There are no potions specifically for Mordrem like in HoT, but you can get some of the cheaper sharpening stones as utility boosts. Even a 1% boost of some kind if helpful. Power based food is cheap. If you have a decent crit chance, food that steals life on crit can help keep you alive while attacking.
For specific content like Hearts and Minds it might be worth watching a few youtube videos. It can be hard to tell how players are geared and even what they are doing, but you can see how they move. Check out metabattle.com for some build ideas. Those aren’t a requirement but give ideas for a good starting place and can be adapted to suit your play.
Something else many seem to overlook in open world PvE is just plain old land speed. I pretty much never go anywhere in PvE without either skills that permanently give swiftness or a utility skill equipped that gives a full time 25% speed boost. With no speed boost, everywhere you go in the game, enemies will attack you and slow you down or even kill you. With speed boosts, you can run by practically anything and everything in the game to get to what you specifically want to do. A sigil of speed on a weapon should not be dismissed either. With one of those, after killing 2-3 enemies you will have a minute or so of swiftness to quickly get to the next enemy. A big fight can result in over 3 minutes of swiftness.
Lastly, if you need someone to group with to help with content and don’t want to use LFG, feel free to message me. I don’t do a lot of chat because I type poorly. I am definitely no great player so no guarantee of success, but I do not mind repeating content or helping. The journey is as important as the goal in most things. Sometimes even failure can be fun. Lots of people in game find repeating content with other people to be fun or just like helping folks. Obviously having done Hearts and Minds a dozen or more times means I sure don’t mind doing that. Aside from that, asking for just about anything in map chat results in help. There are always a few jerks in any human endeavor, but despite what some people say here, the GW2 community is pretty good.
