Guild Wars 2

This is has been covered before but I think it needs to be covered again as ArenaNet may think they’ve fixed the issues with the fight. To be clear, it is better now. I played through it again and the fight is not as painfully bad. But it certainly isn’t good.
It isn’t clear to players they need to focus the adds down. There is no dialogue to cue players to target the adds rather than the boss and that they won’t just respawn. Thus, it is easy to ignore the adds until they become overwhelming and impossible to survive for more than a few seconds in the room.
The camera is bad. I know you’re excited to use “that room.” But if you wanted a complex and interesting fight you don’t put it in that room. Would the fractal team put a complex fight in a claustrophobic environment. Hell no! So why did you?
The AoE spam on the ground doesn’t make a fight good. There was a similar problem with the final boss fight in episode 3 (another bad fight). More AOE markers on the floor does not mean more fun.
The knockdowns are too long still. You will watch yourself be knocked down and then die to attacks this just simply isn’t fun.
Caudecus never actually phases. This fight is just the same mechanics over and over again. Further, the mechanics aren’t particularly new or exciting. You made interesting encounters at the end of episode 1 and 2. This was not.
It is to easy to come back and be one shot. You should not be one shot when going back through the portal. I was just watching a streamer play through this. She was consistently one shot or only survived a few seconds coming back through the portal. She was a mediocre player. Is a bad player just not expected to ever complete the fight?
More I just worry that the ArenaNet devs seemed so excited for this fight to be released. Any basic testing could have shown this to be true. The folks on the fractal team and raid team now how to make engaging encounters. If you’re on the Living World team, you ought to say hi to them once in a while. ArenaNet, the quality of the encounter design has been just bad in the last two episodes.
Revisit your process for creating these encounters. Revisit who is making them. Bring more testers in to play these encounters and give feedback. If you already have testers playing them, bring in new play testers. It’s hard yes. But it’s not interesting, fair, or fun.

Another Once and never again story quest

Players shouldn’t need to be instructed to focus the adds first. If they are having a difficult time then it should be obvious that they should kill them.

The camera can still be an issue although zooming in helps some as well as rotating the camera to a better angle.

The AoE effects are more manageable now and more consistent with that of previous story instances. He also does phase when you break his bar.

In no way can you be one-shot unless you have no armor on and very low base HP. Story instances should not be catered to bad players and of course what equates to a bad player is subjective.

Beware of the “get good” and “learn to play” comments.

Please increase the radius of the room and remove the barrels.

The latter often stop your dodge roll, you get stuck and thereby hit by the attack you were trying to dodge.

Due to the fact that the room doesn’t allow a good view on the situation (especially when you are close to the wall, where the bloodstone barrels are), you often end up downed when you actually did everything right (used the Special Skill in time, dodged in time etc.).

For certain professions that constantly need to switch weapon sets, transformations or skill sets such as the Revenant’s, this is an impossible (or at least majorly frustrating) task.

Come on guys, I one shifted this drunk on a MM Reaper (which as you know has zero stability).

So either I’m a way more skilled player than I thought, or you need to tweak your build/gear a bit.

I get how frustrating it is to have the game kitten slap you in the face all the time, hell that was me back in October 2015.

Rest assured I’ve got filthy casual credibility, I’m always lobbying for Story Mode Raids because I know I lack the skill to raid.

But Cauducus is not even the Vale Guardian which I have been dragged to a few times.

You know what was hard, Glints Lair in Season 2, that was rage quit hard.

Ayrilana.1396:

Players shouldn’t need to be instructed to focus the adds first. If they are having a difficult time then it should be obvious that they should kill them.

The camera can still be an issue although zooming in helps some as well as rotating the camera to a better angle.

The AoE effects are more manageable now and more consistent with that of previous story instances. He also does phase when you break his bar.

In no way can you be one-shot unless you have no armor on and very low base HP. Story instances should not be catered to bad players and of course what equates to a bad player is subjective.

Not me man I focused on Cauducus the whole time, I’d just use Reaper shroud for to top off my health, since they’d all be hammering on me.

Do you have down skill 5 yet, I admit I was downed half a dozen times but the passive from down skill 5 always brought me up.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Do you have down skill 5 yet, I admit I was downed half a dozen times but the passive from down skill 5 always brought me up.

It’s usefull, but not all powerful, I think you were mostly lucky that were people around whose health was low enough to die from the blast

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Beware of the “get good” and “learn to play” comments.

raids and fractals have a ‘learn to play’ curve. This was just chaos. the problem with this instance was mostly the fact that the stage was very small and a lot happened randomly, there wasn’t a pattern or a logic to it, it was just that, chaos. I got through just fine because I’m used to a little chaos, but I can see how this is considered difficult. Can you imagine a fight with vale guardian in such a small stage, but with all the red orbs, two green fields and several blue fields, all the while some adds constantly throw CC around. I don’t think that’s so much a learn to play issue as it’s getting lucky between all the chaos issue

For the constant stream of circles all over the floor, they’re not random. They spawn in the corners of a square around the boss and the edge of the room, rotating counter-clockwise every 2 seconds. Plenty of safe spots, or you can just play a game of follow the circle.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Come on guys, I one shifted this drunk on a MM Reaper (which as you know has zero stability).

(shroud #3)

Well I made it through on my mesmer last night after the changes (without any deaths, downed a couple of times) having changed weapon sets and utilities.

It’s still more luck than judgement as there is so much spam going on it’s easy to get bounced around and then stuck at a barrel and die to the attack, or die while channeling a skill or utility.

It would be useful to have a checkpoint in the mission so that once you reach the final boss the mission remembers when you re enter the mission from scratch if you have to change your build, rather than have to repeat the whole thing from the start.

As for following patterns of circles on the floor whilst everything else is going on, not really possible whilst dodging, rolling, grabbing shards avoiding spawns and trying not to be channeling a skill when he decides to hit you and you need to use the special skill..

I never got the chance to play the original version, but this one wasn’t even an effort – maybe the easiest “boss-fight” so far. I simply ran in circles in the room, didn’t even need to dodge, picked up the shards and threw at him, counter magic as soon as the icon lit up. Seriously, what was the big issue with this fight?

Was the previous one really that hard?

I realize there’s been a lot of discussion of this fight, but I would like to add another voice agreeing that this fight is still incredibly awkward:

camera issues: I play with my camera zoomed out and hate zoomed in/1st person views. With the room size so small, a zoomed out camera while kiting in circles makes for really awkward viewing. Yet, to zoom in and not bump into issues with the wall impairing your view, you lose sight of the incredibly large number of AOE spots on the ground you’re supposed to dodge. Either increasing the size of the room to permit easier kiting for those who don’t use 1st person angles or considerably reducing the number of AOE spots on the floor would be helpful.

spawn location: As is, people spawn in the center of the room right where the boss is fought and much AOE damage is occurring. If you die and reenter the room, it’s incredibly easy to get knocked down/killed almost immediately upon entering, particularly if you’ve died a number of times already and your armor is wrecked and/or you’re respawning with less than max morale. Perhaps spawning people on the perimeter of the room as opposed to the center of the room would make it less likely that people reentering the room are killed almost immediately upon entering.

Two other issues that seem to vary excessively based on the class played are issues with single-target DPS compared to AOE DPS classes, and classes that are more tanky and have greater self-heals versus those that are not. In a small room with the floor often mostly covered by AOE spots, a ST DPS class without self-heals is going to have a much rougher time doing this than a class that’s got more AOE DPS, a tankier class, or one that’s a combination of both. If the room size is increased to allow more maneuverability, it would greatly level the playing field and lessen the awkwardness for ST DPS/limited self-heal classes without necessarily making the fight “easier.” As it is, the space is too small to maneuver for ST DPS/limited self-heal classes without getting beat on constantly, and ST DPS to clear multiple mobs to move on to fighting the boss is not very realistic for those with limited self-heals.

Two more comments for story quests in general. Recent story instances are incredibly long. This isn’t a bad thing because, content-wise, more content makes for more interesting play. However, the longer instances run, the greater the odds that people have died a few times by the end of them, and the greater the odds for some people who have connection issues that they might DC and have to redo way too much. One easy solution for the first problem is to put a repair anvil or NPC in instances midway through the instances, especially right before the final bosses. This instance definitely could’ve used one. But, in terms of design, breaking up an instance or fixing it so that if you DC you come back to where you DCed from would be incredibly helpful. So, even if the resources aren’t available to enable people who’ve DCed to reenter the instance at the stage they DCed—something that would TRULY be appreciated—this instance could’ve been broken up into 3 parts – the caves, the manor, and the final fight. A DC and redoing one segment would be infinitely preferable to DCing and having to redo the whole thing.

Thanks for considering my comments.

Ok, I’m probably the sort of player who is having trouble with this. I’m not a terrible player, but not a great one either. I’m usually able to do most world bosses without dying much, but I’m known to get pasted to the floor in dungeons for not knowing the mechanics. But this Caudecus chapter is just really nasty, it’s worse than anything I did in Arah as part of my personal story, and worse than any dungeon mechanics I’ve had trouble with.

My main is a staff elementalist. It’s a build I put together for optimal open-world content and burning stuff down really fast – mostly in fire attunement. I didn’t really have any major problems in Lake Doric. It was all fun and interesting. I died during Jade Cannon stuff of course, and the random champion spawns and stuff, but it was all doable sorts of challenges. I have all Exotic Berserkers armor, except for an amulet which is ascended.

Caudecus chapter however kicked my butt repeatedly, from the word go. Right after Anise joins you and you get swarmed with White Mantle in the munitions room. They’d swarm me and kill me in under 5 seconds sometimes. Over time I learned to cope with this pack, and saw better success – but the mobs alone would kill me a couple times usually – that’s two pieces of damaged gear. Then the Veteran Jade Bow comes into that room – good grief, that was terrible. I started to learn to dodge some mechanics, but sometimes he’d focus me and ignore everything else for extended periods of time, and nothing I did kept me alive. My earth golem didn’t keep me alive, my invulnerability didn’t do it, adding my earth wall in addition to the shield didn’t do it. First time I tried him, he killed me a total of 5 times with 5 more damaged pieces of armor.

The torturer guy wasn’t a big deal. I think he killed me once the first time, after that things went fine and he wasn’t any trouble.

The carnival guys in the barn were fine. But then the carnival guys with the Veteran Hound come, and again – two or three deaths, and more damaged equipment. Dealing with a tough boss hound with a breakbar in addition to a powerful veteran sharpshooter type was too much. No matter what I did, the sharpshooter seemed to have it in for me.

Then you get Caudecus in the fireplace room. I died once, respawned from checkpoint, and realized I was half naked – yup, my armor was actually breaking. Realizing, I now didn’t have the benefits of the armor, I threw up my hands and teleported to my Guild Hall for repairs.

I tried the chapter a second time with slightly better, but still similar results – with all my gear damaged by the time I was thinking about Caudecus’ fight. Log out again, repair, try again.

Third time, I got to the barn by the time it was time for dinner and I had to log out, but the third run hadn’t gone any better.

Then I realized I have some of those Instant Armor Repair cannisters – a stack of five. I also heard someone in guild chat talk about how Caudecus is doable with Ele as long as you make use of Earth Attunement for toughness and Water when you need healing. So I entered a fourth time determined to try something different.

Using Earth as my main attunement on mini boss encounters made a significant difference. Using water for healing, and switching to Fire only when I just wanted to burn stuff down fast… It worked OK. But the Jade Bow as still impossible, the Hound was still nasty. I think I died about half as many times this time around…

Keep in mind, that’s still quite a lot of deaths – most of which I didn’t feel like I could do anything about. My gear was still beat up by Caudecus, and I used a precious repair cannister.

I did Caudecus and managed to actually kill him – but I still died so much that I had a full set of damaged armor by the end of the fight. I held off using the repair cannister, because I wanted to explore upstairs for more letters for the achievement before taking the portal downstairs.

This proved fortunate, because just as I cleared all the rooms…. my computer DC-ed.

I stared in disbelief at the crummy thing for a minute, then head-desked, and decided I was done early with this game for the evening. That was Friday – yesterday – evening. It’s past 1PM on a Saturday and I still can’t stomach the idea of going back to the game right now.

I’m thinking of playing World of Tanks today instead. That’s how much this experience sucked.

Again, I don’t claim to be a great player. Obviously I’m not one. But I think I am solidly in the middle of the demographic that Arena Net expects to solo this chapter.

And I’m suggesting that this instance has some problems. It’s not fun to play at all – that’s for sure.

And go ahead and ask me how fun it was for Caudecus to whip out a pistol without warning and knock me halfway across the room into one of the Mesmer fields 6 times in the same fight for pretty much instant death.

I dont know where people have the issue here, the special action key was easy enough to react to. But I can understand the increased reaction time anyway. Only issue I had was the Jade Wall/Bow. Due to lack of cc at times.

Dont really understand why people want their hand held. Its the “final boss” so extra hand holding just feels weird. True the room could be bit wider but it’s not small to the extent that you don’t have room to dodge the attacks.

The mobs are fine, especially now that they removed one of the Jade thingies.

More so than that if you are always screaming for nerfs when you encounter bit harder content, just shows that you are not willing to adapt or learn. For example someone mentioned the mobs spawning, after few wipes you’d think you’d learn to kill the adds first and then focus back on caudecus.

TLDR. End fight is fine, learning curve is curve not a straight line, learn to adapt, less qq more pew pew,

I didn’t find the mechanics themselves overly difficult, even playing solo. My biggest frustration with the fight was that it took place in such a small, claustrophobic room where I felt like I was fighting with the camera as much as the boss himself. Having my situational awareness and visual range restricted in that way didn’t make the fight feel more challenging — it just felt frustrating. Sort of like making a marathon “more challenging” by tying the runners’ shoe laces together.

A fight in a confined space should be designed as a simple tank-n-spank. The Caudecus fight should have taken place in a larger area. Even if our movement space was restricted, there should have been a wider perimeter so we could zoom and pan the camera around more easily.

I’m not screaming for anything. I’m telling you how it was.

So you didn’t have a problem? Congratulations.

Here’s the REALITY for me.

I’m down to 4 repair cannisters. I don’t have any more of those. I don’t have budget to pay for more of those. And once I’m out of those, that’s pretty much it for me.

You really think I give two straws whether you “didn’t have any issues?”

This isn’t the Nightmare Fractale, or group content, or raid content or any of that other end-game elite skill stuff people do in this game. It’s personal-story kind of stuff. Stuff Arena Net wants all the the players to be able to put down with a little effort. Not just special players like you, who either played a tanky enough class, or were just really skilled, or had lots of gemstore stuff to help out, or all ascended gear, or all the elite builds memorized or whatever it was that made you special enough to “not have any problems.”

And I had all these problems WITHOUT any adds in the room besides Caudecus himself. I don’t think the point of solo living world content is to provide an elite challenge.

It’s to provide a fun event for all the players who paid for the expansion. The end.

If it’s failing to hit that goal in favor of being challenging, then it’s failing in its game design purpose.

And I wouldn’t really care about any of this if ArenaNet just put a freaking anvil in the barn.

Do that, and I wouldn’t have any real complaints worth saying on this forum at all.

Irensaga.6935:

And I had all these problems WITHOUT any adds in the room besides Caudecus himself. I don’t think the point of solo living world content is to provide an elite challenge.
It’s to provide a fun event for all the players who paid for the expansion. The end.
Do that, and I wouldn’t have any real complaints worth saying on this forum at all.

I imagine this was aimed at me, I’m not saying everyone should be super pro hardcore player. It’s just that what’s the point of having end boss fight if you can kill it easily like any regular mob. Kind of what happened with killing Zhaitan, really lackluster boss fight and no one was happy. I’ve had harder time killing champions than killing Zhaitan. So much logic right?

I can agree with the people saying it wasn’t good or challenging fight. It was tedious, for me at least. Put some deeps/cc on the boss, see special action key, use it, continue, break bar, kill mobs, rinse and repeat.

And the reason people are getting smashed around the room is cause of not using the special action key.

But if this is just an issue of you running out of repair canisters and want repair anvil in the instance, then I don’t know if asking for a nerf is the right thing to do.

edit, Just now saw what you wrote. Sorry to hear that you had such awful experience with the instance. If you need help or anything of the sort feel free to ask me.

Thanks Weli.

I think that would be all I’d really be “screaming for.” Put an anvil in the barn, and I wouldn’t have anything worth coming onto the forum and complaining about. I’d just suck it up and plough through it.

The fact that your NPC allies are so effective makes the thing doable, even if all you do is die repeatedly. It’s really armor damage that makes the event unplayable for players who aren’t very good, and really frustrating for casuals like me who don’t suck necessarily, but aren’t the most skillful players out there.

For now, I’m trying to leverage use of the different elemental attunements to make my Ele more survivable – which probably isn’t a bad learning experience.

I guess that would be the most important change they could make to the instance right now. Put an anvil in the barn.

Also, what’s this “special action key?”

I saw something flashing above my skill bar – but it was so fast, I didn’t even get a look at it. I don’t even know what key that would be. It seems like it was pretty hard to hit, whatever it was.

Keep in mind I only bought HoT in November 2016, and this is the first living world expansion I’ve actually activated and played. I haven’t played Ember Bay or Crack in the Ice. So I have no basis for comparison with those episodes.

That might be a relevant issue. Do you have the Counter Magic mastery unlocked? If not, that would explain why both the toned-down Caudecus fight and the jades are so nasty. :o

If it’s working, it should flash up above your action bar, roughly above the fifth weapon skill. By default, the hotkey to activate it when it flashes up is the ‘-’ key. But it’s tied to a mastery and the first LS episode is written so that it really is pretty much assumed that you’ll have it before you need it – I honestly don’t know what happens when it gets triggered but you don’t have the mastery. :o

I talked to one of the Seraph who talked about this new downed-state skill mastery. But I can’t find it on my masteries tab. So it never got trained. Instead I have a HoT mastery actively training and some pact skill for the rest of the maps.

I don’t know where it is.

It’s in the Ancient Magics mastery window. The first one, Counter magic.

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

My mother killed the post nerf boss without dying once. It ain’t hard, and it ain’t “elite content”

Haishao.6851:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

It sounds like Irensaga doesn’t have either… and it requires visiting Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay to unlock it at all.

This sounds like a bit of an oversight on ArenaNet’s part: if they’re going to keep episodes locked behind a gemwall, it should be possible to pick it up at any arbitrary point and get the mastery you absolutely have to have, in this case being Counter Magic. It seems that they might have realised this with Episode 2, since visiting Ember Bay will unlock it, but they’ve neglected to consider that regarding Episode 4 (I don’t recall Counter Magic coming up in Episode 3, although I may have forgotten something). Visiting Lake Doric really should unlock the track if Ember Bay does. This should probably be brought to ArenaNet’s more direct attention so they can make Counter Magic at least more generally available.

Relating to the present problem: Irensaga, when precisely did you get HoT? Episode 3 released on November 21, so if you played before that, you should have access to Episode 2, which has Ember Bay. From the tooltip you’re getting, going there should allow you to unlock the mastery, which is all but required to survive here.

This is possibly the worst designed fight so far in GW2. It makes me worried about upcoming content.

Small room, lots of AOE, adds with a lot of HP….

Please no more small room fights.

Haishao.6851:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

Naw, I was just confused. The special ability – counter magics is also under Ancient Magic masteries – so I can’t get that either.

Looks like I have to either blow a couple more repair canisters, or just give up on Head of the Snake for now and go work on Bloodstone Fen.

Except that I think you really need your glider masteries working to use that map well… so I’m probably off to Auric Basin instead.

I’ve only played this fight after the nerf, so I don’t know how terrible it must have been before.

But boy, is it bad. It’s not about the challenge, but uneffective game design. The player is literally being spammed with 2 or 3 AoE circles, a special skill button prop and boss projectiles every single second, all of them which have visibility issues.

When you turn the camera to the boss, you can not see the ground, and you’ll die.
When you are busy avoiding the aoe circles, you may not see the special skill proc, or you may not use it in time, and you’ll die.
When you focus your attention to the small skill prop icon, chances are, an AoE ground skill will catch you instead, and you’ll die.
Sometimes you can’t even use the special skill because your character us at the middle of another animation, and then you’ll die.
And even when you successfully manage to avoid all circles and use your the special skill, the boss will throw a random projectile at you, and you’ll die.
You can extend your survival by blindinly dodging all the invisible damage, but once you’re left with no endurance and no block skills, you’ll die.
And no matter how successfully you pull off your plays, you’ll have to repeat that feat 5 seconds after, or you’ll die.

It was possibly one of the worst – if not the worst – encounter I’ve ever played in GW2.

Were there even any mechanics to learn? Because the battle does not give you time (nor visibility) to learn them. I know that it gradually gets more difficult (with the added NPCs over time), but that means little when the base mechanics are a pure mess. Sometimes it’s even impossible to avoid the circles because there are so many of them that you’ll only have half a second window to position yourself at a tiny safe spot, fight the camera, use a special skill AND avoid a projectile. It’s absurd.

Look, Anet, I like your intention of making this encounter hard. It’s fitting for an important story boss to be challenging, as it makes players respect him more as a villain. But this battle is challenging in the worst possible playable way: it’s incomprehensible.

This fight does not merely needs a nerf. It needs a redesign. The room must be bigger, because the mechanics are at odds with the camera. The main mechanics must be more gradual (and more visible), or else the player will not know why things are happening, making him unable to learn them and improve his playstyle. And the boss shouldn’t spam three or four things at the player at once, and so often, because that’s just pure chaos. it literally degenerates the fight into a “waste all your defensive CDs to damage him before you die”.

Amaimon.7823:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Do you have down skill 5 yet, I admit I was downed half a dozen times but the passive from down skill 5 always brought me up.

It’s usefull, but not all powerful, I think you were mostly lucky that were people around whose health was low enough to die from the blast

you’re not suppose to actually use the blast, use its passive for the health leech.

i have a dream, that i can find the creator of this boss sometimes
thats the worst thing gw2 ever have

DiogoSilva.7089:

Sometimes you can’t even use the special skill because your character us at the middle of another animation, and then you’ll die.

Maybe it’s just me, but from what I’ve observed, using the special skill against Caudecus’ charge appears to be instant activation.

Darknicrofia.2604:

you’re not suppose to actually use the blast, use its passive for the health leech.

Gotta admit, I didn’t know there WAS one. Will have to look into that. I think it’s still useful to use the blast if there’s an enemy on low health, though: giving Spectral Agony to adds is often an effective way to get back on your feet.

draxynnic.3719:

Haishao.6851:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

It sounds like Irensaga doesn’t have either… and it requires visiting Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay to unlock it at all.

This sounds like a bit of an oversight on ArenaNet’s part: if they’re going to keep episodes locked behind a gemwall, it should be possible to pick it up at any arbitrary point and get the mastery you absolutely have to have, in this case being Counter Magic. It seems that they might have realised this with Episode 2, since visiting Ember Bay will unlock it, but they’ve neglected to consider that regarding Episode 4 (I don’t recall Counter Magic coming up in Episode 3, although I may have forgotten something). Visiting Lake Doric really should unlock the track if Ember Bay does. This should probably be brought to ArenaNet’s more direct attention so they can make Counter Magic at least more generally available.

Relating to the present problem: Irensaga, when precisely did you get HoT? Episode 3 released on November 21, so if you played before that, you should have access to Episode 2, which has Ember Bay. From the tooltip you’re getting, going there should allow you to unlock the mastery, which is all but required to survive here.

I purchased HoT November of 2016 (maybe October). Before that I’d been free-to-play for all of 2016.

So I do have Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of this season banked in my Story Journal and available to start whenever I want to. I think that’s Season 3 right? Season 2 chapters (like Scarlet’s War) are before my time, and locked behind a gemstore paywall.

So, if I want to be optimized for Caudecus, essentially, I have to get counter magic – which is in either Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen, not sure which. I’ve heard Bloodstone Fen for sure. But from what I’ve seen of reviews of that map, gliding is a huge part of it, and it looks like it would be a pain to run without my extended gliding mastery unlocked – which I don’t have yet.

So I’d have to go to Auric Basin or something to grind out the gliding mastery, so I can go to Bloodstone Fen and get my Ancient Magic mastery unlocked, so I can properly kill Caudecus in Lake Doric.

Or I can just blow through my limited supply of Repair Cannisters and get Caudecus over with now.

Decisions…

I can see this becoming an issue in the future, after Season 3 is over, when a new player, for whatever reason, decides to unlock some old chapters by paying gems for them and purchases Head of the Snake without purchasing the one for Bloodstone Fen. He or she will probably run into the same problem I’ve run into if ArenaNet doesn’t do something about it.

In my opinion it’s now fine after the tune. It wasn’t that bad the first time before the nerf, got downed once, and now after the nerf there was no problems at all.

And no, I’m not some pro player, in fact I’m quite bad, won’t even do pvp, raids or high level fractals because I’m not good enough for those.

This shouldn’t be much of an issue anymore to people who can handle the maps and story this far.

OGDeadHead.8326:

I never got the chance to play the original version, but this one wasn’t even an effort – maybe the easiest “boss-fight” so far. I simply ran in circles in the room, didn’t even need to dodge, picked up the shards and threw at him, counter magic as soon as the icon lit up. Seriously, what was the big issue with this fight?

So you had your pet or minions deal the damage while you were simply running in circles? Nice, but what about professions that don’t have pets nor minions (or not even decent ranged damage skills)?

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao.6851:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

Naw, I was just confused. The special ability – counter magics is also under Ancient Magic masteries – so I can’t get that either.

Looks like I have to either blow a couple more repair canisters, or just give up on Head of the Snake for now and go work on Bloodstone Fen.

Except that I think you really need your glider masteries working to use that map well… so I’m probably off to Auric Basin instead.

Or you can ask for help. If you’re on a US server, I’d be happy to run it with you.

Vayne.8563:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao.6851:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

Naw, I was just confused. The special ability – counter magics is also under Ancient Magic masteries – so I can’t get that either.

Looks like I have to either blow a couple more repair canisters, or just give up on Head of the Snake for now and go work on Bloodstone Fen.

Except that I think you really need your glider masteries working to use that map well… so I’m probably off to Auric Basin instead.

Or you can ask for help. If you’re on a US server, I’d be happy to run it with you.

Can you bring grouped people into the instance with you?

Ashantara.8731:

OGDeadHead.8326:

I never got the chance to play the original version, but this one wasn’t even an effort – maybe the easiest “boss-fight” so far. I simply ran in circles in the room, didn’t even need to dodge, picked up the shards and threw at him, counter magic as soon as the icon lit up. Seriously, what was the big issue with this fight?

So you had your pet or minions deal the damage while you were simply running in circles? Nice, but what about professions that don’t have pets nor minions (or not even decent ranged damage skills)?

Ranger here, so yes, I had my pet on him the entire time, and used my staff for personal damage, so, not high. Will give the encounter another shot with pet on passive to see how things go then.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Ashantara.8731:

So you had your pet or minions deal the damage while you were simply running in circles? Nice, but what about professions that don’t have pets nor minions (or not even decent ranged damage skills)?

Ranger here, so yes, I had my pet on him the entire time, and used my staff for personal damage, so, not high. Will give the encounter another shot with pet on passive to see how things go then.

See? That makes all the difference in the world. As I stated before, I found it easy to master on my Ranger as well, but I am having major trouble with this fight on my Revenant.

So please, people, refrain from “It was one of the easiest boss fights!” posts when you don’t have the comparisson.

Weli.4568:

what’s the point of having end boss fight if you can kill it easily like any regular mob.

For my money (and I would actually pay money, or at least gems, for it, although I think it should be provided for free) there should be fully non-combat versions of just the story for all “Personal Story” and “Living Story” instances. It’s not because I can’t do the fights – I already did this final boss, first time, pre-nerf. It’s because I am not interested in the fighting I’m interested in the non-combat interactions.

Just make a fully non-combat version of the same content each time – as-is but with mobs removed and fights replaced with cut scenes. Remove all the rewards, none of which are of any use or interest anyway. Let players choose whether and when to do the fights or just watch and listen to the dialog and cut-scenes.

As it is I do each episode once and once only on a single character on one of my three accounts then I’m done. In fact, of late, I then go and play other MMOs instead. If I could take my other characters through a non-combat version, however, I’d go through it several times because I want to see how/if the dialog differs for different races/classes/genders. Not enough to do the fights twice though.

Tiny Doom.4380:

For my money (and I would actually pay money, or at least gems, for it, although I think it should be provided for free) there should be fully non-combat versions of just the story for all “Personal Story” and “Living Story” instances. It’s not because I can’t do the fights – I already did this final boss, first time, pre-nerf. It’s because I am not interested in the fighting I’m interested in the non-combat interactions.

Just make a fully non-combat version of the same content each time – as-is but with mobs removed and fights replaced with cut scenes. Remove all the rewards, none of which are of any use or interest anyway. Let players choose whether and when to do the fights or just watch and listen to the dialog and cut-scenes.

As it is I do each episode once and once only on a single character on one of my three accounts then I’m done. In fact, of late, I then go and play other MMOs instead. If I could take my other characters through a non-combat version, however, I’d go through it several times because I want to see how/if the dialog differs for different races/classes/genders. Not enough to do the fights twice though.

Now, that is one horrible idea. If you are this little interested in the game, I suggest you stop playing? Asking the devs to make several versions for people who are too lazy/not interested as much is quite impertinent IMO.

Ashantara.8731:

So please, people, refrain from “It was one of the easiest boss fights!” posts when you don’t have the comparisson.

I compare with other boss fights I’ve been in, what’s your problem? It’s the truth for me. But I’ll head back there now with pet on passive to get a better feel for how other classes finds this fight (which will put my ranger at an even bigger disadvantage, since I’ll be dealing incredibly low damage without my pet).

I’ll report back.

Redid this fight again on my ranger, this time with my pet on passive during the whole encounter.
While the fight of course took longer since ranger damage without pet is absolutely horrid, it was still the very same tactic – run around in circles, grab the shards and throw them at him, attack in between, and COUNTER THAT MAGIC.
As soon as the jade add shows up, keep following the same tactic, but take out the jade.

There are lots of aoe rings in this fight. Know what? Simply run over them, they are more or less harmless. Keep a stunbreak skill if you happen to miss one counter magic.

Practice on your straferunning technique. Heck, this is an encounter where you don’t even have to dodge, at least not when fighting from range.

So I stand by my first statement – this is one of the easier boss fights. Perhaps you don’t even have to run around in circles like i did, will give it a go in melee range next to see how that goes.

Tiny Doom.4380:

Just make a fully non-combat version of the same content each time – as-is but with mobs removed and fights replaced with cut scenes. Remove all the rewards, none of which are of any use or interest anyway. Let players choose whether and when to do the fights or just watch and listen to the dialog and cut-scenes.

That’ll never happen, as it’d be a waste of resources to create and maintain. Also, that’s what videos are for.

The only thing ArenaNet may eventually do is add an easy mode, where for example you get stronger for continuously dying, or a simple 90% damage reduction up front. They wouldn’t even need to disable the rewards or achievements, considering they already allow groups to trivialize it.

Going melee (sword & dagger) is also very much doable in this encounter (and a lot faster than my previous tactic). Evading thief build shouldn’t have much problem in this fight I guess.

I think many players get overwhelmed by the numerous aoe circles, and focus too much on them – simply don’t.

Don’t run a too glassy build here if you’re not 100% comfortable with it, and you should all be good to go really.