Guild Wars 2

I main a Thief. The last few updates have been very frustrating for me, because I’ve found it impossible to stay alive during the final boss battles. The damage just piles up way too fast with way too few options to clear it, and that’s even with Shadow Refuge on my bar. I imagine my Guardian would have an easier time surviving, he usually does, but all classes should have a reasonable chance at survival. Yeah, you can just reload a checkpoint and continue from where you left off, but rez-rushing boss finghts just isn’t a fun way to play them.

I think that the default boss fights need to be better balanced for solo players, of ALL classes, not just the tankier builds. They should be about following the mechanics of the fight, not about surviving massive burn stacks and two agroed opponents. If you want to do a “challenging” version, that’s fine too, but make it the optional challenge mote version, intended to be done with a full and balanced team, not the default “story mode” version of it.

I think this update was great overall, I just wish that it were better balanced for glassy characters (in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you).

The trick in LWS3 E4 is to stay in the air. Also, during the part were you need to break the anomalies, clear a small portion of the surroundings from destroyers.

Good luck.

I disagree. I thought that this boss fight was much better than the vanilla Head of the Snake. My daredevil used staff 5 to deal damage while avoiding taking damage and lept backwards to throw daggers and avoid the flames. If anything, I felt that the hounds went down a little too fast this time, but that is preferable to the first version of the boss fight from the last episode.

Ashantara.8731:

The trick in LWS3 E4 is to stay in the air. Also, during the part were you need to break the anomalies, clear a small portion of the surroundings from destroyers.

Good luck.

I think you meant E5 …..

Lol u can solo the last boss with pretty much any class, just change the traits a bit for some condi cleansing. I did it with zerk tempest and thief is super easier to solo everything, just trait invigorating precision and use vault to dodge attacks. Easy af.

Ashantara.8731:

The trick in LWS3 E4 is to stay in the air. Also, during the part were you need to break the anomalies, clear a small portion of the surroundings from destroyers.

Good luck.

I beat the episode, I’m not looking for advice, I’m just pointing out that I found the boss fight frustrating because of how quickly the two hellhounds could slaughter me. You can’t attack them from the air.

I will note that this mission would have been WAY more fun, across the board, if we’d had access to Bloodstone gliding powers. I mean if I could dodge roll and drop bombs on the enemies instead of just avoiding and fighting the hounds on foot? That would be a hoot!

zoomborg.9462:

Lol u can solo the last boss with pretty much any class, just change the traits a bit for some condi cleansing. I did it with zerk tempest and thief is super easier to solo everything, just trait invigorating precision and use vault to dodge attacks. Easy af.

Called it.

Akame.8736:

Ashantara.8731:

The trick in LWS3 E4 is to stay in the air. Also, during the part were you need to break the anomalies, clear a small portion of the surroundings from destroyers.

Good luck.

I think you meant E5 …..

Yes, of course. Sorry.

If you’re a glassy character, then maybe rethink your build/gear? There’s no such thing as a ‘glassy class’, only ‘glassy setups’. If you’re struggling to survive a fight, then swap out some gear to help, and change some traits

To draw a direct parallel, this is exactly like the early days of HoT where untrained elementalists wandered into the jungle with their happy-go-lucky zerk staff setup and were roflstomped (even if they were good players!). Glassy setups only work well in semi challenging content if:

a) The content is super duper easy and/or short enough to avoid mechanics (i.e. most open world enemies as a daredevil – seriously, the damage output of daredevil without any external buffing is immense!).
b) You know the content well and/or are simply a really good/experienced player and react well to any new threat and situation

This isn’t about ‘gitting gud’, it’s just about tweaking your build to adapt

If it makes you feel any better, I three manned challenge mote Mordy before and still died 3 times on the hound part of this fight. It is tough when you can’t get ooc in the air.

The Comfy Chair.7265:

If you’re a glassy character, then maybe rethink your build/gear? There’s no such thing as a ‘glassy class’, only ‘glassy setups’. If you’re struggling to survive a fight, then swap out some gear to help, and change some traits

I don’t have Legendary armor and don’t want to carry multiple sets around. And even so, I’ve played a fairly tanky Thief in the past, with mostly PVT gear, and even then I was super glassy compared to a Heavy class.

To draw a direct parallel, this is exactly like the early days of HoT where untrained elementalists wandered into the jungle with their happy-go-lucky zerk staff setup and were roflstomped (even if they were good players!). Glassy setups only work well in semi challenging content if:

a) The content is super duper easy and/or short enough to avoid mechanics (i.e. most open world enemies as a daredevil – seriously, the damage output of daredevil without any external buffing is immense!).
b) You know the content well and/or are simply a really good/experienced player and react well to any new threat and situation

Yes, “a”. Let’s go for “a.” Mechanics should not be about “surviving them,” at least not in basic versions of the content. The mechanics should be things you need to do to advance the content, surviving it should be relatively simple. And as I said, they can always have “challenge mote” versions where survival is much more of an issue, and of course those achievements that are based on avoiding given mechanics. But if all you’re doing is trying to get through the story, survival really shouldn’t be a question.

I actually think this fight was pretty well tuned. There was enough space on the platform to move around, no walls messing with the camera, and only 2 enemies, no adds at all to worry about. Yes, the AoEs could stack up, but if you managed your space pretty well it was alright, and if you ever needed to you could always just hop off and glide for a bit, waiting for the AoEs to end.

I haven’t tried this boss fight yet, but if it is anything like the others I just can’t wait!

/sarcasm

OriOri.8724:

I actually think this fight was pretty well tuned. There was enough space on the platform to move around, no walls messing with the camera, and only 2 enemies, no adds at all to worry about. Yes, the AoEs could stack up, but if you managed your space pretty well it was alright, and if you ever needed to you could always just hop off and glide for a bit, waiting for the AoEs to end.

My first death was literally two seconds into the fight. The two dogs lunged at me and I was dead. Not really any time to react to that. It hadn’t occurred to me to just run away and glide for a bit, but I don’t think that should necessarily be part of the tactics of the fight, at least not on the default level. Again, if that’s a mechanic that they want for the “Challenge” version, great, but the default should not be the Challenge version.

Ohoni.6057:

I will note that this mission would have been WAY more fun, across the board, if we’d had access to Bloodstone gliding powers.

Seriously. And not just this fight, but other situations as well. The gliding skills are among the best things from this LS season, and it’s a shame to see them dropped like a hot potato after the first episode.

Well, I can see why they’d want to be a little careful with them. Most open world enemies and areas just aren’t balanced to handle bombing runs from 2500+ range, and Ride the Leyline would trivialize traversal in a lot of areas. It’s just that within the confined space of the final battle stage, I think the bloodstone powers would have been incredibly fun and useful, and the enemies inside could be balanced for that to be fair to both sides. I do hope that either way those abilities will be available from time to time in other parts of the game, even years down the road, but I never expect them to be “normalized” like regular gliding was.

Adding the gliding skills to the old maps would be a mess, definitely, but since those skills were introduced in Ep1, they could/should have built the LS maps around them at least IMO. Getting around quickly and easily is a good thing as far as I’m concerned, but then I’m the kind of player who’ll never not want mounts or at least a flat out of combat speed boost for all professions.

The new mastery is really fun, too. Mobility rocks.

just killed the boss. wasn’t so hard(died 3 times) but gokitten it sure as hell was annoying. I for love of it couldn’t kittening see where my mouse was going with all the kittening clutter on my screen while commanding ground targetted skill for Dwaynas sake! and gokitten the cameara made it abit hard in the air as well. still not as annoying as that cancerous caudecus. Theses bosses difficulty to me comes from the kittening design flaws itself. I guess I need a new mouse pointer Arrow on screen that makes kitten more clear so that i know what i’m point at right now.

I hope this doesn’t become a trend in where the movement settings and way u percieve the gamedon’t work properly with the endboss

Caudecus-kittenty camera movement
Balthazar-can’t see my kittening mouse Arrow
Living world episode 6 boss-some dumb glitch occurs, where u can’t see your own character.

watch it happpen.

thank dwayna that i cleared this boss.

Ohoni.6057:

OriOri.8724:

I actually think this fight was pretty well tuned. There was enough space on the platform to move around, no walls messing with the camera, and only 2 enemies, no adds at all to worry about. Yes, the AoEs could stack up, but if you managed your space pretty well it was alright, and if you ever needed to you could always just hop off and glide for a bit, waiting for the AoEs to end.

My first death was literally two seconds into the fight. The two dogs lunged at me and I was dead. Not really any time to react to that. It hadn’t occurred to me to just run away and glide for a bit, but I don’t think that should necessarily be part of the tactics of the fight, at least not on the default level. Again, if that’s a mechanic that they want for the “Challenge” version, great, but the default should not be the Challenge version.

The dogs do not hit hard enough to down you in 1 hit, even if both of them land that hit at once. And even if they did, they didn’t lunge immediately after their models spawned in, you were given a second or two to react to them.

Ohoni.6057:

I think this update was great overall, I just wish that it were better balanced for glassy characters (in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you).

Sorry, but I disagree. I play full zerk ele, the fight was easy, git gud.

Now, for something “useful” consider the game and lore aspects of the fight. You’re facing the final boss in the episode. Which is (albeit weakened) a human god, no less. If it didn’t offer any challenge at all, it would feel utterly disappointing. “A moment, Commander, I heard you have a spare 5 minutes before lunch, do you mind if you kill a god for me”? “Yawn. Sure”. Get serious.

My problem with the fight, gliding in tight spaces is never fun. Add in the reflective lava that it takes a miracle to see the anomalies. Then in the last fight I couldn’t track my mouse and keep track of my view with all the clutter on the screen. I literally couldn’t find my mouse for most of it which is why after my glider failed to deploy and I died I was done. You had to fly around in a circle collect a orb for 5 fights in a row!? I was done with the gliding on the third barrier. It’s not interesting or fun. This was by far a terrible boss fight. On the last set I had already hit the machine 6 times. So in total I had to land scan then fly up get an orb all of this in a big round chamber 19 times before I was done. That is the most repetitive uninteresting thing I’ve ever played in a game. The only challenge seems to be how long can you maintain doing the same thing over and over. And over. And over. And over…..!

They finally gave us a slot for all the map materials, which was a huge bonus. The map wasn’t covered end to end with the same mob, love it. The story wasn’t terrible and I was actually having fun. Then there’s the return of the centaur camp but now with devourer’s. I actually killed a lot of bosses no problems. First defeat was the Destroyer Griffin we didn’t have nearly enough people to even put a dent in it, all good I can come back to it later. But the final fight was an utter slog.

I have a computer that can run max graphics and the reflective lava with all the clutter on the screen was too much for to make head or tails of. There is one point of interest I haven’t found and the last of the final fight and I’ll have completed the story and map. Finding the point of interest sounds more interesting than the boss fight which I see no incentive to ever do it again or to finish the story.

I so far like it better than Doric for running around, though the daily of jumping off the volcano is one of the poorest choices for a daily even worse than the Peach in Doric. Why would you do that on a daily basis given the context of the story?

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

My problem with the fight, gliding in tight spaces is never fun.

Ironic you say this in regard to what is literally the largest instance in the game. There are no “tight spaces” in this instance, especially not for gliding. If you wanted to, you could go fly over Primordus at any time during that fight. Not a good idea, granted, since doing so rapidly stacks burns on you if you get too close, but you absolutely can do so.

I managed to do this whole instance without dying, I think that is a first for me in a final mission of a LS chapter. The biggest hurdle for me was seeing my cursor to drop the bomb on the reviving dog in all the fiery mess. I went into the air at the drop of a hat once I realised the dogs do not regenerate health. Land, hurt them a bit, jump back up and float around a bit to heal, do it all over again. Also, a trick I WISH I had figured out during the fight (I figured it out after, while still in the instance to collect the excess energy for the achievement) the lean back move while gliding would have been great to use to line up the shots from the glider due to the thermals keeping you constantly rising, instead of falling like on all other maps.

I had the complete opposite first experience of the encounter than Ohoni.

I came in on my daredevil with the same exact spec and load out I use everywhere. Staff with pistol pistol. Signet of agility, long range shadow step thingy and signet of precision that refills endurance.

For easier ring of fire achievement I took thief spawn trap and thieves guild elite. They distract the hounds long enough since 4 PP Unloads is enough to down one.

I honestly was surprised to see how squishy they were. And that long dash dodge of daredevil made it a breeze to keep distance.

OriOri.8724:

Ohoni.6057:

OriOri.8724:

I actually think this fight was pretty well tuned. There was enough space on the platform to move around, no walls messing with the camera, and only 2 enemies, no adds at all to worry about. Yes, the AoEs could stack up, but if you managed your space pretty well it was alright, and if you ever needed to you could always just hop off and glide for a bit, waiting for the AoEs to end.

My first death was literally two seconds into the fight. The two dogs lunged at me and I was dead. Not really any time to react to that. It hadn’t occurred to me to just run away and glide for a bit, but I don’t think that should necessarily be part of the tactics of the fight, at least not on the default level. Again, if that’s a mechanic that they want for the “Challenge” version, great, but the default should not be the Challenge version.

The dogs do not hit hard enough to down you in 1 hit, even if both of them land that hit at once. And even if they did, they didn’t lunge immediately after their models spawned in, you were given a second or two to react to them.

I wasn’t streaming, so I’m unclear how you know what happened in my game. Are you bugging my house? Or are you assuming that what happened in your game happened the same way in mind? Either would be wrong.

Feanor.2358:

Now, for something “useful” consider the game and lore aspects of the fight. You’re facing the final boss in the episode. Which is (albeit weakened) a human god, no less. If it didn’t offer any challenge at all, it would feel utterly disappointing. “A moment, Commander, I heard you have a spare 5 minutes before lunch, do you mind if you kill a god for me”? “Yawn. Sure”. Get serious.

I don’t believe progressing the story should be particularly difficult. It should be an interesting fight, it should have mechanics you have to do to complete the encounter, but surviving the encounter should not be particularly difficult. Again, that’s the role for Challenge modes to play. Basically players should be able to beat the story version first try, regardless of build (aside from straw man builds). If players want a real challenge, one that requires multiple attempts and strategy, then that is why they have challenge motes.

aleron.1438:

I had the complete opposite first experience of the encounter than Ohoni.

I came in on my daredevil with the same exact spec and load out I use everywhere. Staff with pistol pistol. Signet of agility, long range shadow step thingy and signet of precision that refills endurance.

For easier ring of fire achievement I took thief spawn trap and thieves guild elite. They distract the hounds long enough since 4 PP Unloads is enough to down one.

I honestly was surprised to see how squishy they were. And that long dash dodge of daredevil made it a breeze to keep distance.

Having pistols equipped might have helped. I had Shortbow, and it was not doing much to them.

Djinn.9245:

I haven’t tried this boss fight yet, but if it is anything like the others I just can’t wait!

/sarcasm

Bring AoE, dunk the dogs, fly up, use double whammy orb on dogs, repeat x3.

you win.

The dogs hit for the same amount regardless of who is logged in…. You’re acting as if Anet went in and coded this so that dogs would hit you harder than they hit other people.

You’re over exaggerating on how hard this fight is. Its fine if you have trouble with it, but don’t exaggerate so much man. Try to actually learn the fight and what the dogs do.

The final instance was considerably easier than the final instance from episode 4. Each boss went down in about 10 seconds at most if you focused one. I did it with glass armor so I don’t see a thief will have much issue with the same gear.

OriOri.8724:

The dogs hit for the same amount regardless of who is logged in…. You’re acting as if Anet went in and coded this so that dogs would hit you harder than they hit other people.

I’m not presuming to say how they coded it, all I’m telling you is the results, which was that I was downed within seconds of the encounter starting, and with very little opportunity to do anything about it. That is what happened to me, and whether or not it happened to you is irrelevant to the conversation.

You’re over exaggerating on how hard this fight is. Its fine if you have trouble with it, but don’t exaggerate so much man. Try to actually learn the fight and what the dogs do.

That’s exactly my point, that shouldn’t be necessary. You should not have to “learn” this fight, this is a fight that you should be able to beat on the first try, no deaths, regardless of skill level or build type. The only difference skill should make is in how long the fight lasts.

Now if there is a Challenge version, then THAT version can involve “learning the fight,” practicing building towards it, that sort of thing, but that shouldn’t be the role of the basic story version. It should not be there for Dark Soul types to get their “challenge” fix, it should be there to be an interesting encounter to further the story for players of all types, with the more challenging version being purely optional.

That’s not fun for a lot of people. Most people don’t want stupidly easy fights where you just go hitting 1 and you win.

Played same build (d/p) thief of Ep4 and Ep5. Ep4 before the fix was unplayable but this fight was pretty easy compared to Ep4 disaster. I’d dare to say i was maybe a bit too easy considering the enemy(ies) we fight this time. Got killed2-3 times because I wasn’t really paying much attention and was rushing when I didn’t have condi clear ready. But overall pretty easy.
If you’re thiefing, then just pull out shortbow and do it the cheesy way. Takes a bit more time but you are at the safe distance and less chance to get loaded up with condi.

there it is doesnt matter if its a god, a plane, a mursaat or lord Faren himself we should be able to kill it with just 1 finger and no need to ever move lul

OriOri.8724:

That’s not fun for a lot of people. Most people don’t want stupidly easy fights where you just go hitting 1 and you win.

Then they shouldn’t play it that way. If it’s not fun with a lot of people, then don’t bring a lot of people. Story mode is meant to be soloed. If they don’t enjoy not dying, then they should play with a Challenge mote active that would result in a tougher fight, one better suited for multiple players. Going into the story version solo should not be tuned for a group full of skilled players.

And like I said, I’m not talking about a fight where you just go in and hit once and win. NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THAT. The fight would still take time, it would still have mechanics, you would still need to complete those mechanics, the only difference is that you would have a very, very low chance of ever getting downed in the process of completing those mechanics. Think of it like a race. The race may not be easy, and it may take a weaker runner longer to complete than a stronger runner, but the changes of getting killed during the race is fairly low, and that doesn’t mean that the race is effortless or has no meaning.

martin.1653:

Played same build (d/p) thief of Ep4 and Ep5. Ep4 before the fix was unplayable but this fight was pretty easy compared to Ep4 disaster. I’d dare to say i was maybe a bit too easy considering the enemy(ies) we fight this time.

“in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you.”

zealex.9410:

there it is doesnt matter if its a god, a plane, a mursaat or lord Faren himself we should be able to kill it with just 1 finger and no need to ever move lul

If it’s something that’s placed in the single player story campaign, then yes, it should be an encounter for players of all skill levels, classes, and builds. This is not raiding, and should not be held to any sort of standard of challenge.

kitten that. There’s zero fun if there is no danger to you. But that is exactly what you are asking for.

A lot of people didn’t have any trouble at all with this fight, its not a hard fight. But its sounding more and more like you entered it with the wrong mentality, and then threw a fit when it didn’t match what you wanted it to be.

its a problem with your class/build,
it seems that every episode glasscannon thieves come to the forum to say it is too hard,
i do all of my PVE on necro and have never had to retry anything,
not mordremoth, not caudecus, not hounds.

if they nerfed the fights then anyone who isn’t a thief would be complaining that it is way too faceroll.

i’m sure thieves must have atleast one build that lets you do it as easily as the rest of us.

A fight against such a being should absolutely carry the risk of failure, Anet have known since the failure in the Zhaitan instance, that players want more challenging content in story mode where it is appropriate (eg fighting Mordy, fighting this guy etc).

Video games need to carry some risk of failure and it is not possible to design one encounter for all skills and builds – I don’t think any company could achieve such a lofty ambition given the sheer range of skill levels and builds imaginable.

That doesn’t mean we need a repeat of Caudecus at initial release, but bosses like this, Shadow of the Dragon and Mordy need to carry some risk of failure in order to learn and improve ourselves, but also to do justice to the very thing we were fighting. Having a low chance of being downed destroys the integrity of the boss and by association the story and the game.

This particular fight is well tuned mechanically, but where the improvements lie are in the clarity department – Taimi’s instructions are often confusing and the UI instructions are at times conflicting with what she says. The other problem being the targeting reticle is difficult to see amongst the flames. But, as a fight, this worked really well.

Ohoni.6057:

OriOri.8724:

That’s not fun for a lot of people. Most people don’t want stupidly easy fights where you just go hitting 1 and you win.

Then they shouldn’t play it that way. If it’s not fun with a lot of people, then don’t bring a lot of people. Story mode is meant to be soloed. If they don’t enjoy not dying, then they should play with a Challenge mote active that would result in a tougher fight, one better suited for multiple players. Going into the story version solo should not be tuned for a group full of skilled players.

And like I said, I’m not talking about a fight where you just go in and hit once and win. NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THAT. The fight would still take time, it would still have mechanics, you would still need to complete those mechanics, the only difference is that you would have a very, very low chance of ever getting downed in the process of completing those mechanics. Think of it like a race. The race may not be easy, and it may take a weaker runner longer to complete than a stronger runner, but the changes of getting killed during the race is fairly low, and that doesn’t mean that the race is effortless or has no meaning.

martin.1653:

Played same build (d/p) thief of Ep4 and Ep5. Ep4 before the fix was unplayable but this fight was pretty easy compared to Ep4 disaster. I’d dare to say i was maybe a bit too easy considering the enemy(ies) we fight this time.

“in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you.”

zealex.9410:

there it is doesnt matter if its a god, a plane, a mursaat or lord Faren himself we should be able to kill it with just 1 finger and no need to ever move lul

If it’s something that’s placed in the single player story campaign, then yes, it should be an encounter for players of all skill levels, classes, and builds. This is not raiding, and should not be held to any sort of standard of challenge.

Really you are comparing this fight to a raid encounter ? We are playing a game in which all classes to some extent can dodge, block, blind targets, become invulnerable or passively get boons. We can also rally on death and we now have a fifth down skill added with lake Doric update. You really believe this boss fight is still too high tuned after all the benefits we can proc as a player ?

First thing’s first, it is entirely possibly to get leaped on a die at the very start. This requires a few things to happen though. First you have to fail to dodge the animation and considering the dog leaping animation has been in the game since release, and always hits hard, you have to be pretty bad to not dodge it at the start. The second thing that has to happen is both leaps have to crit you and since mobs have base crit chance, unlike players, it means each one has to roll on the 5% chance. Therefore to get the double crit, it will only happen once every 400 pulls. You just got unlucky.

Now that that is out of the way, the fight was really easy and I just killed the dogs in ~8 seconds each, 25 might is a glorious thing. The hardest part of this entire instance was finding the final excess energy. Probably took me 20 minutes just for that last one.

OriOri.8724:

kitten that. There’s zero fun if there is no danger to you. But that is exactly what you are asking for.

That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. If that’s how you feel, then you should activate the challenge mote, and that should provide you with the sort of experience that you want from the game. But the experience that you want is not the same experience that everyone wants, and either of us trying to insist on the other player playing how we want to play would be misguided.

Liewec.2896:

its a problem with your class/build,
it seems that every episode glasscannon thieves come to the forum to say it is too hard,
i do all of my PVE on necro and have never had to retry anything,
not mordremoth, not caudecus, not hounds.

Which is exactly my point. Glass cannon Thieves are a part of this game. It is something that ANet allows players to build, and in fact, in many cases Thieves are chastised if they aren’t Glass Cannons. Try to enter raiding with a PVT Thief, for example. It is frowned upon. So if glass cannon Thieves are a supported element of this game, then for something like story content, ANet needs to design and balance it to accommodate that build. The ONLY way that this would not be necessary is if all players could stat-swap at will, and all a glass cannon Thief would need to do is tap a few menus and swap from a glassy Thief to a tanky Thief, like in PvP, but that is not the current state of the game, and that is not the players’ fault.

i do all of my PVE on necro and have never had to retry anything,
not mordremoth, not caudecus, not hounds.

I’m shocked! You have only two lifebars and a ton of condi-mitigation and haven’t had any problems? Good for you!

if they nerfed the fights then anyone who isn’t a thief would be complaining that it is way too faceroll.

Better that they beat it and complain that it’s too faceroll than that anyone die constantly.

Randulf.7614:

A fight against such a being should absolutely carry the risk of failure, Anet have known since the failure in the Zhaitan instance, that players want more challenging content in story mode where it is appropriate (eg fighting Mordy, fighting this guy etc).

The flaw with Zhaitan wasn’t that it lacked a potential for failure, it was that it was BORING. It lacked interesting things to do. There doesn’t have to be a risk of death or failure to make a fight interesting, there just have to be various encounter situations that don’t wear out their welcome. I would argue that they could have done the Zhaitan fight exactly as they did, but make one really interesting boss fight on the airship deck, and shorten the amount of time spent using the guns so that it wrapped up more quickly, and players would have really enjoyed it (of course there are those other players who would feel shorted with anything less than stabbing Zhaitan to death with their swords).

Video games need to carry some risk of failure and it is not possible to design one encounter for all skills and builds – I don’t think any company could achieve such a lofty ambition given the sheer range of skill levels and builds imaginable.

Then for a story mode, you design it for the lowest possible common denominator, and then the challenge mode is tuned for more ideal conditions.

This particular fight is well tuned mechanically, but where the improvements lie are in the clarity department – Taimi’s instructions are often confusing and the UI instructions are at times conflicting with what she says. The other problem being the targeting reticle is difficult to see amongst the flames. But, as a fight, this worked really well.

I had zero issues with Taimi’s instructions or the airborn segments, it was all an issue with the hellhounds and the damage they could pile up.

flog.3485:

Really you are comparing this fight to a raid encounter ?

No.

We are playing a game in which all classes to some extent can dodge, block, blind targets, become invulnerable or passively get boons.

Blind is a big part of my character’s defense. The dogs were immune to Blind. My defensive options were dodge, iframes, and run away. It’s also fairly unlikely to rally when downed by those dogs, even if one of them is fairly near death at the time. It’s actually faster to just teleport into a flame patch and retry from checkpoint.

You really believe this boss fight is still too high tuned after all the benefits we can proc as a player ?

Yes, that’s the entire point of this thread. Did you not understand that?

Azoqu.8917:

. Therefore to get the double crit, it will only happen once every 400 pulls. You just got unlucky.

Fair enough, then all they need to do is remove that extremely unlucky chance.

The hardest part of this entire instance was finding the final excess energy. Probably took me 20 minutes just for that last one.

Took me only a few minutes, I must be super awesome. Git gud.

you main a thief and you could do this fight? I mean pp/ staff and ddevil sound like the untilamte kiter for the end boss i cant possibly see a way that you can fail it. Regardless il pull a number out of my kitten and say that they shouldnt ruin the enjoyment of a fight for alot of ppl because the 5% cant do it.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t believe progressing the story should be particularly difficult. It should be an interesting fight, it should have mechanics you have to do to complete the encounter, but surviving the encounter should not be particularly difficult. Again, that’s the role for Challenge modes to play. Basically players should be able to beat the story version first try, regardless of build (aside from straw man builds). If players want a real challenge, one that requires multiple attempts and strategy, then that is why they have challenge motes.

What you overlook is “players” are different. You cannot possibly balance a fight so it is interesting for everyone without being challenging to someone. You’ll always end up either overtuning it for players of low skill, undertuning it for players of high skill or, most likely, both.

That someone found surviving the fight hard doesn’t mean the fight is too hard and needs to be rebalanced. I completed the encounters on my first try, being downed once and dying 0 times. On a build as glassy as you can get in the game. It doesn’t mean the fight is too easy either. You need to look at hard statistical data to be able to draw conclusions like that. Now, if statistic say a large percentage of the players die more than anticipated, that is a reason to rebalance. We, as players, don’t have access to this, however.

Ohoni.6057:

flog.3485:

Really you are comparing this fight to a raid encounter ?

No.

We are playing a game in which all classes to some extent can dodge, block, blind targets, become invulnerable or passively get boons.

Blind is a big part of my character’s defense. The dogs were immune to Blind. My defensive options were dodge, iframes, and run away. It’s also fairly unlikely to rally when downed by those dogs, even if one of them is fairly near death at the time. It’s actually faster to just teleport into a flame patch and retry from checkpoint.

You really believe this boss fight is still too high tuned after all the benefits we can proc as a player ?

Yes, that’s the entire point of this thread. Did you not understand that?

Azoqu.8917:

. Therefore to get the double crit, it will only happen once every 400 pulls. You just got unlucky.

Fair enough, then all they need to do is remove that extremely unlucky chance.

The hardest part of this entire instance was finding the final excess energy. Probably took me 20 minutes just for that last one.

Took me only a few minutes, I must be super awesome. Git gud.

If you are having a hard time playing melee, why not go double-pistols ? I personally didn’t go melee because I figured it would be too hard for me to escape both the hounds attacks and the aoe fire fields. I went full ranged weapons and everything was alright. It was so alright that I didn’t have to equip condi cleanses. Edit: spellcheck

Ohoni.6057:

That’s exactly my point, that shouldn’t be necessary. You should not have to “learn” this fight, this is a fight that you should be able to beat on the first try, no deaths, regardless of skill level or build type. The only difference skill should make is in how long the fight lasts.

Wow, what? Since when should the boss fight be a mindless affair where you shouldn’t have to think about what you do and should be an easy win without much effort on your part? Your personal perception and desire that a fight should be an easy win has no bearing on what it actually is or in reality should be. An easy win fight on any end boss would be incredibly boring and come with very little satisfaction at all. I’m genuinely struggling to grasp your idea that it should be an easy win with almost no chance of being downed without thinking you’re simply trolling.

I find it difficult to understand how you were one-shotted on thief by the hounds or had zero time to react, especially if like you say, you were using shortbow and therefore should have had some distance. I also did this fight on DD thief in full zerk and those lunges from the hounds were not so quick that I couldn’t dodge them every single time. This isn’t even “git gud”, but maybe you need to pay more attention to what’s going on in the fight.

Going into the story version solo should not be tuned for a group full of skilled players.

Er… it’s not? You have completely misunderstood what was said to you. All of the LS3 content can be done solo. When he said “a lot of people”, he didn’t mean people grouping up….

Bosses are fine. I went straight zerker “glassy” thief through content. I wont say “get gud” since people find it offensive, but most people that find it offensive are usually too stubborn to take the time to practice mechanics or switch builds or just generally improve. Great content, I hope ArenaNet keeps this pace going. edit: staff thief. I feel like I should add that thief has plenty of traits that heal it by attacking so maybe read into them. I know I’m being rude, but I dont like people who complain at the presence of a slight challenge one bit.

nsochoa.6589:

I feel like I should add that thief has plenty of traits that heal it by attacking so maybe read into them. I know I’m being rude, but I dont like people who complain at the presence of a slight challenge one bit.

I think some people don’t know about the traits/skills/food that heal thieves when they attack, but google is there to help. It’s when you run out of targets and have a condition that dodging cannot cure when you get into trouble.

I did it with my thief with double pistols, because…why not. The hounds didn’t even get to me, or I didn’t notice because one Unload almost fills up my health bar. With the Thieves Guild’s help, a hound was done before I recharged initiative after the fourth Unload. Stupid me tried to kill them only from the air though for the first 5 minutes because I thought they only get damaged by the special skill. That’s what we learned on the way down, right?

Only thing that sucks with thief are one-shot kills, but in this fight, there were none of those.

Feanor.2358:

What you overlook is “players” are different. You cannot possibly balance a fight so it is interesting for everyone without being challenging to someone.

Exactly, which is why that should never be your goal. You can never make the fight “interesting for everyone,” period. So what you should do is make the default fight completable by everyone, and then for players that wouldn’t find that terribly interesting, you offer optional challenge mote versions that are more challenging.

I completed the encounters on my first try, being downed once and dying 0 times.

“in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you”

flog.3485:

If you are having a hard time playing melee, why not go double-pistols ?

Because I didn’t know I would be fighting dogs until they were mauling me. Again, if this were my second playthrough, I might do it differently. But that’s what challenge motes are for, additional challenge for those that seek it out. The story mode is not something you should have to “prepare for,” it should be “come as you are.”

Static.9841:

Your personal perception and desire that a fight should be an easy win has no bearing on what it actually is or in reality should be. An easy win fight on any end boss would be incredibly boring and come with very little satisfaction at all.

Ironic. It would be boring and unsatisfying for you, you’re the one that is applying your own personal perception onto the situation. So for you, there should be a challenge mote version, and if a difficult fight is necessary for you to enjoy it, then you can play that version instead. That way everyone is happy.

I find it difficult to understand how you were one-shotted on thief by the hounds or had zero time to react, especially if like you say, you were using shortbow and therefore should have had some distance

I was using staff, I weapon swapped after dying a couple times.

I also did this fight on DD thief in full zerk and those lunges from the hounds were not so quick that I couldn’t dodge them every single time.

“in before “I play a Thief and I did fine, git gub”, not useful, thank you”

zealex.9410:

Are you the guy that found the tutorial too hard and struggled with its dificulty?

You didn’t? I haven’t met anyone who played the original tutorials without being downed their first time through. Those bosses hit like a truck if you aren’t used to dodging and their tells.

Ohoni.6057:

You didn’t? I haven’t met anyone who played the original tutorials without being downed their first time through. Those bosses hit like a truck if you aren’t used to dodging and their tells.

Let me be the first person you met!

I always remember it as a more intense fight than it actually is mind you..

Ohoni.6057:

OriOri.8724:

kitten that. There’s zero fun if there is no danger to you. But that is exactly what you are asking for.

That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. If that’s how you feel, then you should activate the challenge mote, and that should provide you with the sort of experience that you want from the game. But the experience that you want is not the same experience that everyone wants, and either of us trying to insist on the other player playing how we want to play would be misguided.

Take your own advice. The experience you want is not what everyone else wants.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, players have been asking for content that actually offers a challenge. You are in the vast minority where you want fights that never, ever pose danger to your character.

People died during the tutorials? You can AFK at the bosses and never die.

Ohoni.6057:

Exactly, which is why that should never be your goal. You can never make the fight “interesting for everyone,” period. So what you should do is make the default fight completable by everyone, and then for players that wouldn’t find that terribly interesting, you offer optional challenge mote versions that are more challenging.

And the effect is you bore 95% of your players to death and they never bother repeating it. Nonsense. What your goal should be is to make it interesting for as large part of your playerbase as possible. Which I think they have.