Guild Wars 2

OGDeadHead.8326:

Rose Solane.1027:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Rose Solane.1027:

I think the main problem with this fight is that it is not an interesting one.

Won’t argue against that.

Rose Solane.1027:

We think the fight is doable with 5 to 10 deaths. We are all very experienced players, some of us even complete raids (not my thing). I think we are amongst the better players in the game (top 10% I guess). I think a story instance where experienced players die 5 to 10 times is too difficult.

So you say you’re probably among the top 10% in this game, and yet you on average die 5-10 times in this encounter. I mean – really?

Yes Maybe I underestimate the level that players have.

I did the encounter once. I probably will not die as much if I did it again. But, why should I? As I said, it isn’t an interesting fight. And I don’t think that repeating a rather uninteresting fight just to learn from it is fun, or something I should do in the game.

One of the my guild mates did it as an elementalist. That made the fight easier (according to her) so I was surprised to hear that she also died a few times.

To be positive: This fight isn’t the worst boss fight in the history of GW2. I think it is amongst the better ones. I simply don’t like most boss fights much

I won’t argue against anything in your reply here. I will however argue against people complaining about this fight, saying it’s ‘ridiculously hard’. It’s not, in fact it’s very easy, but players in this game are so used to the very easy and forgiving gameplay in this game, that they will complain as soon as something semi-challenging shows up, that they will more or less demand that Anet should be dumbing down the content to suit their needs.

Everything i GW2 is easy. Coming from Vanguard (the best mmo noone ever heard of), this game is THE epitome of a casual mmo, if there ever was one.

I truly hope Anet will continue to push more challenging content even for solo players like myself, and not only cater to the category of players that wants everything handed to them on a silver platter.

It brings to mind flashbacks of the story missions from blade and soul. You’d have this story buildup to a big powerful boss fight… who you would then unceremoniously spank in 10 seconds with zero effort. You’d feel sorta cheated out of a fight. Anyone remember zhaitan? I’m glad they didn’t do that here.

I don’t want everything handed to me on a silver platter.

I’m not really even asking for another nerf to the Caudecus fight. I think you could argue for such a nerf and argue that Living Story isn’t really the place for those challenging fights you want. But I’m not the one asking for a nerf.

I’ve accepted that to a certain degree, I’m just not as skilled at the game. I died thirty times and the whole thing was incredibly discouraging and not-fun. But even that wouldn’t have made me come here and complain.

Part of it was also because I don’t have the Counter Magic skill – which is locked in Bloodstone Fen until I decide to do that content. Lack of that skill made the fight almost undoable. Try doing the fight without using Counter Magic and tell me how it goes. That’s also not what I was complaining about.

The only reason I complained about the fight was that all my armor broke after 5 minutes in the chandelier room due to all the times I’d died getting to Caudecus. Without gear or any of the stats that gear provides, you simply get one-shot – BY EVERYTHING.

The only complaint I have about this instance that I feel is worth voicing is asking that ArenaNet put a freaking ANVIL in the barn. The end.

If I’d had an anvil, I could have managed through Caudecus on my own and maybe even coped with at least half the fight mechanics. Without one, the fight was literally impossible for me.

I’m not some whining sissie who wants the game to be easier.

I played Eve Online for two years in a Wormhole PvP corporation preying on PvE carebear players for crying out loud.

I think Caudecus isn’t really that well designed, and that the fact that “Ancient Magic” mastery doesn’t unlock upon entering Lake Doric is a real oversight on the devs’ part. But really none of that would matter much if they’d just put an anvil in the barn.

@ Irensaga.6935 – just to be clear – I’m not pointing fingers at any specific person here, more the general sense that there have been numerous threads about this topic with players more or less demanding an easier encounter, beacuse of course it can’t be their own personal skill that needs to improve just ever so slightly. “If I can’t win this encounter in zerker gear, then it’s too hard!”

I hear your suggestions, and I agree with some of them, especially in regards to Counter Magic – imho Anet clearly failed to inform the playerbase what was needed for this fight, and the description/explanation of Counter Magic, or the lack therof, leaves a lot to wish for when it comes to explaining things to the playerbase.

OGDeadHead.8326:

imho Anet clearly failed to inform the playerbase what was needed for this fight, and the description/explanation of Counter Magic, or the lack therof, leaves a lot to wish for when it comes to explaining things to the playerbase.

Counter magic was explained and required in the first episode. That’s the problem. You end up missing the tutorials because you’re not actually required to play through them in order.

I only got HoT in November 2016. The way it worked out, when Chapter 3 released, I still hadn’t even completed Auric Basin on the HoT storyline, let alone Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay.

I logged into Lake Doric out of order because I wanted to try being a part of the big party, if you know what I mean. I figured it would be nice to try the map when there were tons of players actually there, since the achievements seem to be harder when less people are on the map.

That’s why I arrived at Lake Doric without some needed skills.

I tend to agree with the OP. I applaud the developer’s intentions with this one, but it’s a bit too much crazy. The room is too small to have so much happening, you could have a fight in ti, just one with fewer adds to deal with and fewer AoE circles, something where you can mostly stay in place or move around as you see fit, rather than constantly having to react to changing circumstances. One or the other, “both” doesn’t work.

And yes, adds are an issue. If adds keep spawning in a boss fight, I assume they are infinite, and the important thing is to kill the boss ASAP. Either these enemies should be infinite spawning, but also ultimately fairly weak (and NO snipers!), or they need to be cued better, like maybe he calls out “wave one!” “Second Wave!” etc. That gives the impression that there will be a point of no more waves.

And this is an issue I hadplaying as a Thief, but I spent about half of both Cadecus fights on the ground. I’d get rapidly downed by his Blurred Frenzy, and then couldn’t usually get back up. Occasionally Canach would try to heal me, but Anise was a jerk and Demi never helped either. Plus lots of AoE and stuns. I wish there were better options to get back up, or ideally not to get downed in the first place. Mostly I’d just end up countering his teleport, hitting him a few times, and then running away because his own counterattack was much more effective than mine.

I just finished the final battle on my Revenant, and I had my butt handed to me. I am well experienced, and have been able to solo all the other boss/story encounters in the game. I have the new downed skill, and am using the counter magic every time it pops. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this fight, but the first time soloing it.

I read the patch notes, and they said they replaced the Jade Bow with a Carnival Worker… nope. I was fighting a Jade Armor and Caudecus at the same time.

Can we address this bug?? I had to use a valuable repair canister to get through the final fight (and I completely agree, an anvil should be available in the instance if it’s going to be this rough intentionally).

UnfairOphelia.9763:

I just finished the final battle on my Revenant, and I had my butt handed to me. I am well experienced, and have been able to solo all the other boss/story encounters in the game. I have the new downed skill, and am using the counter magic every time it pops. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this fight, but the first time soloing it.

I read the patch notes, and they said they replaced the Jade Bow with a Carnival Worker… nope. I was fighting a Jade Armor and Caudecus at the same time.

Can we address this bug?? I had to use a valuable repair canister to get through the final fight (and I completely agree, an anvil should be available in the instance if it’s going to be this rough intentionally).

Well .Jade armor isn’t jade bow. Their attack is slow and a lot more obvious than bow. So they doesn’t put him out.

Try this fight after the fix. It’s a lot better now.

Ohoni.6057:

And yes, adds are an issue. If adds keep spawning in a boss fight, I assume they are infinite, and the important thing is to kill the boss ASAP. Either these enemies should be infinite spawning, but also ultimately fairly weak (and NO snipers!), or they need to be cued better, like maybe he calls out “wave one!” “Second Wave!” etc. That gives the impression that there will be a point of no more waves.

The adds spawn on a timer. You can tell when they’re going to spawn because the walls stop spinning.

The fight is actually incredibly simple. When the boss is shielded, he doesn’t actually attack, but the circles will be all over the floor. Those circles do minimal damage, so they’re really just to distract you. The trick is, use the bloodstone to break his shield, but don’t actually break it. Wait for the adds to spawn so you can safely kill them, then break his shield.

For his attack phase, dodge through him when he teleports to you, which should avoid his melee. His melee attacks are like a very small AoE however, so don’t hug him. He’ll occasionally throw a bloodstone chunk afterwards, which seems to favor ranged targets. Don’t stand too close the NPCs, because that chunk will explode for high damage.

Irensaga.6935:

I only got HoT in November 2016. The way it worked out, when Chapter 3 released, I still hadn’t even completed Auric Basin on the HoT storyline, let alone Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay.

I logged into Lake Doric out of order because I wanted to try being a part of the big party, if you know what I mean. I figured it would be nice to try the map when there were tons of players actually there, since the achievements seem to be harder when less people are on the map.

That’s why I arrived at Lake Doric without some needed skills.

This is pretty much my story, only I just got HOT about a month ago. This was also my first boss fight in GW2. Nice place to start, eh?

I’m grateful to the community for info on this fight, especially the utility of Counter Magic, which I did go and get. I haven’t done the fight again yet, but think I can finish it this time. Also taking a repair canister with me as well.

+1 on the Anvil.

Reading through the replies and II want to further clarify my perspective in this boss. Honestly the biggest problem is that the room is too small. The camera goes crazy too often and the AOE spam on the ground is annoying.

One thing that Anet should change now is they should add a repair anvil. I understand that at this point they don’t have the resources to go back and make further changes to the boss. By adding a repair anvil in the instance they will make it so players stuck on this boss aren’t forever stuck and unable to pass the story step.

To make the feedback more constructive I would suggest you offer fights you have enjoyed in the past and offer why.

Season 2 E8: Final Shadow of the Dragon fight:
Exciting escalation of conflict multiple phases that gives a nice pacing to the fight. Great variety to the fight because of the varying phases. Clear and easy ways to mitigate mechanics but at the same time it can be quite punishing if you don’t the required mechanics.

Season 3 E2: Final Instance
An exciting fight in terms of story. It was really great the way the mobs almost overwhelm you and Lazarus saves you. The fight with the Destroyer boss wasn’t overly complex but enjoyable with clear telegraphs and plenty of space to move around.

Heart of Thorns: Faolin Chase Sequence
Cool skills that you are taught how to use as the sequence begins. Decently challenging and you will fail plenty before learning the patterns.

Offer various other encounters or instances you’ve enjoyed in the game and why.

The meat of my problem with this fight wasn’t the difficulty. I run T4 fractals and I’m always excited to see Nightmare come up even though it presents a distinct challenge. Nightmare feels intuitive and fair. This encounter did not.

FWIW, if you are actually finding this fight difficult, kill the adds that spawn in when the room stops spinning before breaking his bubble. He doesn’t do much while in the bubble, and this way you only have to fight him alone when you break it.

It may go slower as a result, but you may find it more manageable if he’s giving you trouble. But perhaps y’all are already doing that and are still having a rough go of it. If that’s the case, give yourself some space from him - he does some decent damage in melee range. Reflects can help, too.

Those of you without the mastery, yeah, go get that Not going to have a good time without it.

kdaddy.5431:

OMG im sorry was there actual mechanics to the fight?

Wow reading some of the comments im like ohhhhhh.

I took my asura trap ranger threw the story literally 15 minutes ago and all i did was throw shards to break the bar and dropped traps on him.

I saw other people running around and turrets on the wall but completely ignored all of them.

This for me was probably one of the easiest fights in the game. I feel kind of silly not exploring the potential mechanics of the fight.

Wow, I’m so impressed by you!

Anet should go back and study their design of the final boss fight of season 2. IMO the Shadow of the Dragon was the best designed story boss fight they’ve ever made. It had a great arena, great balance of difficulty, great story, NPC allies actually help via mehanics, great conveyance of mechanics, etc.

There were some other good ones in season 2, but that one is the most well-designed overall IMO. Season 3 on the other hand doesn’t even come close. In fact I can’t think of any season 3 bosses that come close to season 2.

Irensaga.6935:

I don’t think he actually read the comments. He just wanted a chance to brag about being better at the game.

At least it’s better than the people that brag about how bad they are at the game.

The final fight wasn’t quite as bad as people made it out to be. Yes, the first time I ran it, I died several times (a rarity for me on end bosses), but I managed to finish it in part by switching armors I had going into the fight. I agree the room was far too cramped for the fight in which AOEs appeared constantly at the edge of the room. They did tone it down after the patch, and it was much more bearable.

One thing that I think might be the problem (just a guess) is that some people are going into the fight full melee. After running Ascalon Catacombs once, I realized it was a wise idea to always bring at least one ranged weapon. Swapping from a ranged weapon to a melee weapon also allows for surprise close encounters to be more manageable.

Rognik.2579:

The final fight wasn’t quite as bad as people made it out to be. Yes, the first time I ran it, I died several times (a rarity for me on end bosses), but I managed to finish it in part by switching armors I had going into the fight. I agree the room was far too cramped for the fight in which AOEs appeared constantly at the edge of the room. They did tone it down after the patch, and it was much more bearable.

One thing that I think might be the problem (just a guess) is that some people are going into the fight full melee. After running Ascalon Catacombs once, I realized it was a wise idea to always bring at least one ranged weapon. Swapping from a ranged weapon to a melee weapon also allows for surprise close encounters to be more manageable.

Admittedly, for actual mechanics, the fight at its core isn’t that hard. Run in circle, grab bloodstones, hammer Caudecus with weapon of choice until survival is untenable for one’s skill/range. Shield comes back up, repeat.
It’s what gets added to the fight that makes it unbearable. If the word Jade is anywhere on the field, the fight goes to pot in a very frustrating manner, merely because of hideous design that somehow things constant disable-hammering is “fun” for a player.
(It isn’t.)

Xenon.4537:

Anet should go back and study their design of the final boss fight of season 2. IMO the Shadow of the Dragon was the best designed story boss fight they’ve ever made. It had a great arena, great balance of difficulty, great story, NPC allies actually help via mehanics, great conveyance of mechanics, etc.

There were some other good ones in season 2, but that one is the most well-designed overall IMO. Season 3 on the other hand doesn’t even come close. In fact I can’t think of any season 3 bosses that come close to season 2.

FWIW, I found the dragon attacking the pale tree much harder to complete than this fight. I also liked this one better, though perhaps that is just coincidence. The lead-in especially felt less … pasted on.

Now, I’m not saying this fight is great, or the dragon fight is bad, or anything, just … each person is different: what some people find easy, others find very hard, and vice-versa.

So, yeah. It’s definitely a thing, but we should all try and remember that what we like is not universal.

Just completed my first encounter with Caudecus yesterday with my main, full berserker fresh air tempest with scholar runes, about as squishy as you can get. The fight is not as bad as I have read in the forums. Got downed twice but no deaths. I even brought all my instant repair canisters in anticipation of repeated deaths but fortunately I did not need them. As I was moderately zoomed in, I did not encounter any camera issues. I only found the constant need to press the “counter magic” button to be irritating.

What they need to fix is where you respawn if you die. If you even have slight latency issues, getting back into the fight is borderline impossible at times. Mostly due in part because it spawns you in a separate room, that you then need to jump into a portal and then go through a loading screen before you’re in the room. I cannot count the number of times I’ve been knocked down and insta-killed by Caudecus because I have no time to react whatsoever and am still staring at a loading screen.

My suggestion is to make it so that you enter the adjacent spinning room instead when you load in, then just run into the room and have the door close behind you so you’re able to join the fight proper again and aware.

I strongly dislike the whole ‘special action’ key and I think the last thing this game needed was another reflex mechanic. Not to mention that the default key binding is in an incredibly awkward place.

The instances are getting way too long. This is just a personal preference I guess.

The last fight was just awful as an elementalist. I would have happily chosen a tankier build except I don’t have different armor and weapon stat sets for every possible scenario. It didn’t even take terribly long but it just wasn’t fun at all.

The Great Al.2546:

I strongly dislike the whole ‘special action’ key and I think the last thing this game needed was another reflex mechanic. Not to mention that the default key binding is in an incredibly awkward place.

The instances are getting way too long. This is just a personal preference I guess.

…but everyone always loves quicktime events, especially game reviewers! (seriously, though, I kind of agree, and kind of don’t. wish it used the same “interact” button as everything else though.

The instance length thing is definitely personal preference.

Yeah this fight is absolutely horrific. I’ve played it twice now with a melee and ranged character and it’s so annoying. The room makes it impossible to see anything with the camera angles, there’s so much bad crap going on from that kitten jade agony buff to all the knockbacks tossing you across the room making it even more difficult to see anything, trying to get his shield down while avoiding being blown up by the mini-bloodstones, the stuns, etc. I’m done, I was going to play it on my other alts but twice was two times too many imo.

It is still a horrible fight of attrition. And the more I think about why the fight was designed to be like that the more I am convinced the encounter designer deliberately designed this fight to not be fun.

There is absolutely NOTHING well designed in this fight.

Just did this fight yesterday with my very squishy zerker Ele.
It wasn’t ‘hard’… and I enjoyed everything leading up to Caudecus. The NPCs were actually useful!

However, the final part was very frustrating. Firstly that stupid room. The first thing I noticed was that my camera went absolutely insane. The room was so cramped I could not see anything going on. There was so much aoe spam… the only thing I focused on was running around the room, not what the boss was doing. It was just far too cramped.

Throwing bloodstone shards was fine! What I found strange was that I would avoid all the aoes, activate my special action button in time and then dodge roll Caudecus’s bizarre teleport attack. But then I’d find myself taking large amounts of random damage inexplicably. It just felt really weird…

It just didn’t feel like a ‘neat’ boss fight. It just felt a bit mashed together with lots of random elements crammed into a tiny room. Poor design I think.

I’m a casual player playing Guild Wars since 2006, as casual that had not yet played this instance until today and took me like an hour and could make it only because I had repair kits with me.

First blame is on me, I didnt expect it to be so difficult so just got into the room without any strategy and just killing as it comes, not cleaning but when I realised it was too much trying to.

Then the JadeArmor appeared and it was death after death, sometimes just on entering as I was pushed to a corner, knocked for a few seconds and died while knocked. Yes, lack of skills some may say, not good game design I say.

I tried adding some stability, but it’s just a waste of time and skills, it’s not possible to have stability for that long, and even when you do, the damage you get from the foes is so high it’s just better to run than to try to use your melee DPS. I use a warrior by the way.

Another reason of my deaths was that special magic skill I had not yet placed into a quick access button and was killing me before I could push the button (clicking with the mouse while running in circles didn’t allow me to do it quick enough), so I set a quick access to it and tried to pay attention.

That sorted, still the jade was impossible, its just too strong, knocks, there’s also other knocks, sometimes you feel like a ping pong ball going from one side of the room to the other. All I could do was run fleeing the jade while trying to hit it time to time only to realize that it also gets invulnerable at times… great.

I ended up changing my zerk armor to my tank one (lucky me I have one), plus regen food, plus regen traits, plus regen sigil. I could handle the damage now as long as I paid attention to that special magic and pushed the button quickly, but still mostly was running away from the jade.

Sometimes that wasn’t enough, as on using the special magic blocker also reduced the bar on Caudecus and would end up with the two of them released… it feels like a storm of knockouts falling upon you and nowhere to cover.

I understand they want to make things a little bit harder and I actually like it, I also understand that they wanted something a bit more epic, but as other times in the past, their way to increase difficulty consists on adding a super-foe level 80.000 or adding a rain of knockouts. And to be honest that’s no fun at all.

To my taste the Jade should be replaced by something else, even if tough at least something not knocking you like there’s no tomorrow. Its just abusing the knocks in the game to make something annoying. And just to make sure you can’t escape: small room. Maybe this would have been different with an ele, as I could just cast areas behind me while running (and heal with water), but with the warrior I have very few areas I can set behind me.

Also, it’s very confusing to know whats going on in the room, as you just run and run to survive but your allies are also attacking sometimes Caudecus has lost a quaerter of it’s life without you knowing how or the jade has been replaced by an elemental you didn’t see coming. So things happen that you don’t even see due to you running for your life and the camera showing little more than what’s just next to you.

Please so that you don’t do more stances like this again Arena Net, please, do not abuse the knocks, we want to enjoy playing, we want some sort of strategy and challenging fight, but knocks and knocks and more knocks isn’t fun.

And to make my point a bit clearer, I’m casual player but been playing for years, I know my main and usually go zerk everywhere without dying, Im a mid-level pvp player and have been in pvp and gvg guilds in the past, even won hoh sometimes in old GW1. So while a bit rusty as Ive played very little the last 8 months still know my way in the game. If it was difficult for me, I dont want to imagine my nephew who just got into the game 2 weeks ago…

As tips for those who are stuck:

1 – You need the skill against that special magic, it takes like 90% of your HP if not.
2 – Go tanky, your allies will kill while you survive.
3 – Try to clean before you release Caudecus if possible (sometimes you can’t choose as blocking that magic also reduces his barrier bar)
4 – Avoid confronting the jade directly, if you can hit while running do so, if not, be patient and wait for your allies to kill him while you only try to attack when your HP is full and have enough stamina to dodge at least once.
5 – Try to build up some attack, like good DPS skills for when Caudecus is free, so you make the most of it, but again, keeping alive is more important, the npcs also do some damage.
6 – When Caudecus is released and you block the special magic, he immediately knocks you down, try to be ready for it with some dodge or stability (theres some traits that can help).

Even there, I didn’t enjoy that fight, I didnt even fight, running and surviving isn’t the same fighting hard, and that’s mostly what I did. The rest of the dungeon was fine though.

Just got stuck in last fight behind the pillar because my team mate went into the room first. If you are in a group, make sure you all go into the final room together or the fight will be bugged. Even if your teammates win, you won’t be able to leave the room.