Guild Wars 2

After 1h of getting knocked around in the mystery cave by effects hitting miles outside the red circles, and effects that are way off the animations, by effects that thanks to server lag ignore dodge rolls, I have decided to skip this episode.

To bad the story gets destroyed by bad encounter design and proffesion imbalance I can only imagine how a guardian or warrior will laugh about this content but for proffesions without stability or invunerabilities this is just rng getting knocked from one aoe into the next and so on.

And on a final note stuff does not get more “epic” by doing it several times in the same encounter.

which class are you playing ? i solo it with my necro did the achiv no problem at all. you are just lagging i think.

It was pretty easy and fun with my warrior.

I believe every profession in the game have access to stability actually.

I did it with my glass cannon Elementalist and had no problems.

On ranger, i used Signet of the Wild and RaO for stability, and looked around to light up the bubbled fires when possible (Braham’s doing i think?), can’t remember for sure but they seemed to protect from the knockdowns.

Bazzoong.7145:

After 1h of getting knocked around in the mystery cave by effects hitting miles outside the red circles, and effects that are way off the animations, by effects that thanks to server lag ignore dodge rolls, I have decided to skip this episode.

To bad the story gets destroyed by bad encounter design and proffesion imbalance I can only imagine how a guardian or warrior will laugh about this content but for proffesions without stability or invunerabilities this is just rng getting knocked from one aoe into the next and so on.

And on a final note stuff does not get more “epic” by doing it several times in the same encounter.

I feel your pain. I’ve tried it again this morning and i’m still having no luck.

Sounds like you should contact your internet provider. I had none of the problems you listed, it sounds like you are suffering from some pretty bag lag.

I’m afraid I can’t agree with the OP. I found this encounter enjoyable and simple enough once I learned the timings of the attacks etc. Lag was not an issue for me and the aoe/attack circles all worked correctly. I ran it with a zerker ranger and didn’t even need to use the Rao stability. I just brought lightning reflexes and traited for increased endurance regeneration with stun breakers and it was a piece of cake. Make sure you stand on Kasmeers time warp when his head is trapped out of the ground and you’ll reduce his health to 25% in one round! I think this is very much a learn to play issue.

Great boss and great episode Anet – can’t wait for more!

I can somewhat relate. While i finished it on first pass, the “bulbs” in particular is the nightmare tower stalks cranked to 11.

Sometimes i could run right past them and they would not pop. Other times i could be nowhere near them and several would pop. And the brief AOE marker that showed up after they popped showed me nowhere near them.

The whole thing seemed like a lazy bullet hell event. RNG stacked upon RNG upon RNG…

But then this is a constant problem i have with ANet, a complete lack of consistency in tells etc.

Sometimes you need to react the moment the tell shows up, other times you need to do so when it goes away, yet others shows the tell after they are no longer useful, and then you have situations where there are no tells at all, or they are obscured by particle smog or camera angles because the map is made with little regard to the camera.

Its like they have us play 9 fights that play out the same and we build up muscle memory (vital for such a action focused game), and then they go and violate it all during the 10th fight.

Vamexu.7650:

IMake sure you stand on Kasmeers time warp when his head is trapped out of the ground and you’ll reduce his health to 25% in one round! I think this is very much a learn to play issue!

I had no idea there’s a time warp. Does she tell you at some point? I do know they tell you not to kill the little adds, which leads to the shadow turning off the fire…

I’m usually annoyed with gating the story with super hard encounters. Yes I made it myself, but a lot of people I know are suffering. It is pretty hard with lots of red circles and explosions and small space to maneuvre in, especially if you’re not 100% on top of your game or play a class who can’t cope as well.

On a related note, I’m pretty tired of the whole scenario where something convenient happens and I end up fighting alone. The role of my “underlings” is to be stuck outside the Omphalos chamber / Dragon vines during the fight, or like in the Glint’s lair, for Kasmeer her role was for some reason to be stuck on her butt on the floor the whole fight.

digiowl.9620:

I can somewhat relate. While i finished it on first pass, the “bulbs” in particular is the nightmare tower stalks cranked to 11.

Sometimes i could run right past them and they would not pop. Other times i could be nowhere near them and several would pop. And the brief AOE marker that showed up after they popped showed me nowhere near them.

The bulbs come in duos, and are connected by a vine which acts as tripwire. If you cross that vine, they blow up. Their AoE however does not overlap, so running over the vine in the middle, will make them explode but not damage you. You have to do this to get one of the achievements, if I’m not mistaken.

This fight was quite alright, although I can imagine it’d be rather annoying if you have to wait for Braham’s blue bulbs as stability source. Just bring your own stability skill, speeds things up significantly.

I liked the fight.
Even though I felt like a ragdoll at times, till I adjusted my settings. Then it all went butterly smooth.

After realizing the pattern I was just annoyed by the light eating shadowlings. Pattened it out a bit for me.

My only gripe is more the story significance of the enemy.
Appearently he was the big baddy for season 2 and both times we faced him we took him (almost) down alone.
First we “scared” him away, then we burned him to the ground with divine fire.
As an antagonist I coudn`t take him seriously.

The fights however were fun and I am gratefull that they pulled back on the kitten vines. I know we got an plant dragon, but these get on my nerves

Traveller.7496:

Vamexu.7650:

IMake sure you stand on Kasmeers time warp when his head is trapped out of the ground and you’ll reduce his health to 25% in one round! I think this is very much a learn to play issue!

I had no idea there’s a time warp. Does she tell you at some point? I do know they tell you not to kill the little adds, which leads to the shadow turning off the fire…

I’m usually annoyed with gating the story with super hard encounters. Yes I made it myself, but a lot of people I know are suffering. It is pretty hard with lots of red circles and explosions and small space to maneuvre in, especially if you’re not 100% on top of your game or play a class who can’t cope as well.

On a related note, I’m pretty tired of the whole scenario where something convenient happens and I end up fighting alone. The role of my “underlings” is to be stuck outside the Omphalos chamber / Dragon vines during the fight, or like in the Glint’s lair, for Kasmeer her role was for some reason to be stuck on her butt on the floor the whole fight.

Hi Traveller, yeah she say’s something along the lines of “this should help” when the bosses head is forced out of the ground and the you see the time warp pop at a location adjacent to his head. Get inside the fire ring inside the timewarp and it’s game over for that champion!

Took me a ton of tries to get the rock dodger achievement. I’d get hit by the rocks during the divine fire part when I was no where near them. Same goes with the boulders the dragon hurls towards you. I stood in a “safe” spot between 4 circles…not in any AoE circle and still got hit.

I was frustrated with this fight for about 30 minutes of trying the final ring event until I finally, by accident, figured out how in the heck to finish it. Right after you run through the ring to get the fire, you hit the little shadow dudes (kill ’em in one swipe) and then run and light the fire. After I figured that out, the last part took me about a minute.

The getting knocked around kind of stunk, but speed and stability boosts helped a ton when timed right.

NoobOnSteroid.7192:

digiowl.9620:

I can somewhat relate. While i finished it on first pass, the “bulbs” in particular is the nightmare tower stalks cranked to 11.

Sometimes i could run right past them and they would not pop. Other times i could be nowhere near them and several would pop. And the brief AOE marker that showed up after they popped showed me nowhere near them.

The bulbs come in duos, and are connected by a vine which acts as tripwire. If you cross that vine, they blow up. Their AoE however does not overlap, so running over the vine in the middle, will make them explode but not damage you. You have to do this to get one of the achievements, if I’m not mistaken.

Makes me wonder what kind of graphics they test this on, as i never noticed any thread connection two of them. And i suspect i am not alone.

I found the fight fairly easy to work out. My only problem with it was having to do the same thing 3 times to kill it. Not to mention the slow speed of the fire being tossed in to the area. The fight was easy mechanics fun, but I think twice would have been enough.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I found the fight fairly easy to work out. My only problem with it was having to do the same thing 3 times to kill it. Not to mention the slow speed of the fire being tossed in to the area. The fight was easy mechanics fun, but I think twice would have been enough.

I did it in two passes. Bring more DPS. :p

I ran it on a thief with no stability. I did not get annoyed at all. I also look at my effect tooltips a lot more frequently then most people however so I understood what the game was trying to have me do sooner then a few might have.

i wasnt able to complete it yet. My biggest problem was being bounced around while within Braham’s bubble thats supposed to give stability. will be at it again after work.

Well , I finish this achivement pretty easily with my engi .

Gimmick of this boss is easy enough to deal with.

I’m not done with achivement though

My problem with the plant explosions was that sometimes the boss seems to detonate them himself. There’s nothing you can do, I was far away from the AoE and I lost the credit for the achievement. If you’re meant to detonate them yourself, sure, but how can you prevent the boss from failing you automatically?

Thief has no stability, and lemme tell you one thing, the knockdown spam was just over the top. I dodged (succesfully) tons of them (i’m not new at this game), but that doesn’t matter. Either thief runs out of end (i guess i could trait for more) BUT, you need stability to NOT GET KNOCKED DOWN ON THE LIGHT UP CHANNEL PART. Cause the aoe circling knockdown circles travel faster then the 6 sec channel time, you always get hit by a knockdown no matter what.

Another HUGE ISSUE: of all my attempt to kill the ‘ghostly fire removing’-creature, I only ever succeeded once. EVery single other time he just passed tru my equipped fire without being hurt at all, removing all my crazy hard effort as a thief to light up 3 walls. That is serious bullkitten. Unless i’m missing something, the ghost creature is cheatingly overpowered.

I don’t like this at all. Or rather, I did fine through the first half, getting him to 50%. I can’t do the second part.

I’m a staff elementalist. I don’t understand why the entire thing can’t be like the first half, and save all that level of fighting for the achievements? I’d just like to experience the story without this level of frustration.

Does anyone have any tips for the 2nd half? As a staff elementalist?

Takoyakii.2146:

Gimmick of this boss is easy enough to deal with.

Which is?

GussJr.1643:

I was frustrated with this fight for about 30 minutes of trying the final ring event until I finally, by accident, figured out how in the heck to finish it. Right after you run through the ring to get the fire, you hit the little shadow dudes (kill ’em in one swipe) and then run and light the fire. After I figured that out, the last part took me about a minute.

The getting knocked around kind of stunk, but speed and stability boosts helped a ton when timed right.

Didn’t see this, I’ll try this then.

cafard.8953:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I found the fight fairly easy to work out. My only problem with it was having to do the same thing 3 times to kill it. Not to mention the slow speed of the fire being tossed in to the area. The fight was easy mechanics fun, but I think twice would have been enough.

I did it in two passes. Bring more DPS. :p

Ahh ok. I did stand in the wrong place during the start of the second phase, so that might have had something to do with it.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

words

You can daggerstorm then cancel for stability or go into the blue shield bubble Braham spawns for stability and protection (these are normally near the channel locations). To kill the shadows you need to have the divine fire buff on yourself before you hit them to kill them.

Would anyone be willing to group with me and help me do this? Or I can pay you and watch, or something? Honestly, this just isn’t fun.

the 2nd half of this fight is so crappppyy for solo characters, take out the shadow creatures sheesh, its not even playable, spent an hour for nothing, max dp,no armor, way to go to make people rage …

Does Braham’s bubble even do anything? It didn’t protect me or give me any stability. Is it supposed to?

I definately wouldn’t try this encounter again without bringing a character that has easier access to stability. If you don’t have access to lots of stability, you will get your rear handed to you.

I didn’t see any of these ‘tripwires’ with my settings either. I’ll have to look a little closer later.

I did it on my thief, no stability, plenty of dodge. Braham’s bubble did stop some of the attacks; mostly I gritted my teeth, made sure I was healed, and kept channeling until I made it without interruption. The shadow beasties were no problem at all once these forums told me I could hit them if on Fire. Shortbow one shot them with ease, then on to the next fire lighting.

My alts that I am keeping caught up with LS so I have achieve options are a guardian and a mesmer; stability will be a nice bonus on them.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Does Braham’s bubble even do anything? It didn’t protect me or give me any stability. Is it supposed to?

it claims to, but didnt seem to help me much. I check buffs and such when figureing out an encounter. I enter his bubble, I see stability and protection ticking away. I figure, good, as long as I get in a bubble I should be able to channel unless I get downed. Well, that didnt happen. His stability worked about 25% of the time for me.

I am curious if this is intended behavior, as in some of the attacks ignore stability, or if I was getting some kind of bug.

Not sure if stability helps but my usual lighting attempt goes like …

1) run over to the divine fire
2) kill the shadow
3) run back over the divine fire
4) run over to the gear press F
5) get knocked over
6) press F again
7) finish lightning

I did it with ele, guardian, ranger and engi so far and none of the fights were hard.
I also see no problems as damage out of aoe fields, lagging, bugging, … or short, any design problems with this boss.

That Guy.5704:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Does Braham’s bubble even do anything? It didn’t protect me or give me any stability. Is it supposed to?

it claims to, but didnt seem to help me much. I check buffs and such when figureing out an encounter. I enter his bubble, I see stability and protection ticking away. I figure, good, as long as I get in a bubble I should be able to channel unless I get downed. Well, that didnt happen. His stability worked about 25% of the time for me.

I am curious if this is intended behavior, as in some of the attacks ignore stability, or if I was getting some kind of bug.

Far as I can tell, the Dragon has 2 key attacks that it can use to interrupt you from lighting the fires. The claw swipes (come in pairs of 2), and the attack where it pops its head out of the ground.

The claw swipes are a normal knockdown. Stability stops those perfectly fine.

The head attack, on the other hand, is… weird. Far as I can tell, it doesn’t actually knock you down or even knock you back. What it does seem to do, however, is toss you into the air. Which puts you out of range of the fire prompt, effectively interrupting your channel. And since its not really a knockback or anything, just basically forcing you up into the air for a bit, stability does absolutely nothing to stop it from doing so.

The twin claw attacks were the most common attack the dragon would try to use on me when I was doing my runs, so stability worked most of the time for me (though not all the time). However, I’m not sure if its RNG that determines which attacks the dragon uses, and if so, I suppose its possible for RNG to make it use the head attack repeatedly and make it seem like stability isn’t doing anything.

EDIT: Actually, after finishing up the achievements for this instance I’ll go ahead and correct myself. The bite / head attack DOES knock you down (on the second hit, after throwing you into the air) if you don’t have stability. I just didn’t think it did because I must have had stability every time I got hit by it. Not that it makes too much difference either way, knockdown or no it does screw up your channel no matter if you have stability or not anyway.

There was pretty bad lag outside the instance yesterday evening, but once I got in it was smooth. I finished it on first try. Now to get the achievements…

A few tips:

- Dragon attacks don’t need to be dodged, they can be easily outrun, not wasting dodges or other defensive resources. A 25% movespeed signet/trait is more than enough to feel confortable.
With a 25% speed increase you can easily get out of claw attack AoEs (they have some dust animation floating over them) even if you were standing still before the orange circle appeared. Bite attacks (no dust animation) are a bit faster, so if you were standing still your reaction time might not be enough to avoid them just by running and a dodge roll could be useful.

- Each pair of bombs is connected by plant wires at ground level. Passing over those wires detonate the bombs, which have not enough range to reach the middle part of the wire.
If bombs are bothering you, consider getting rid of some (or all) of them, forcing detonation by crossing the wire at its middle part.

- In order to kill the shadow things you just need to have the flame buff on yourself. (they’ll be oneshoted by any of your attacks and you’ll lost the buff). Bring some ranged attack and kill them while you’re on top or close to the buff source so you can recharge it asap.

- This is probably the most important part: dragon attacks follow a FIXED PATTERN, which consists on CLAW-CLAW-ROCKS-BITE.
The rock attack is slow enough to allow a full charge of a flamewall and doesn’t cc if it happens to hit you (just deals a bit of damage and inflicts a small cripple). If you don’t have stability and don’t want to rely on Braham bubbles, all you need to do is start channeling right after the second claw attack.
Position yourself near a channeling spot (but far enough so it doesn’t get covered by the AoE) right before the second claw attacks and move/dodge out of the orange circle (towards the spot, obviously) when it appears. You might want a dodge roll to easily avoid any bite damage when the channel ends.
IF bombs spawned or naturally exploded during the pattern, then there will be an additional rock attack right after the bite which can also be used for safe channeling.

- If you’re going solo for the rock-dodger achievement, the previous tactic might not be the best since you’ll channeling right before the rock attack, which could randomly (afaik) start right on top on you.
Stability channel during claw attacks is probably the best approach if you have access to the boon.
Remember that claws will happen after the bite (which goes through stability) only if bombs have not spawned or naturally exploded during the previous pattern cycle. Otherwise, there will be an additional rock attack right after the bite that might trigger on top of you, so watch for it before you start the channel.

lordkrall.7241:

I believe every profession in the game have access to stability actually.

Thief doesn’t. We have one elite skill which only lasts a few seconds on a long 90s cooldown.

Still doable without stability. The trouble I had was with shades smothering the flames. Didn’t realize I had to kill the shades. Did it as a group to get past it though.

Rashy.4165:

Thief doesn’t. We have one elite skill which only lasts a few seconds on a long 90s cooldown.

Still doable without stability. The trouble I had was with shades smothering the flames. Didn’t realize I had to kill the shades. Did it as a group to get past it though.

Ergo they have access to stability.

Thieves also have a rather massive advantage with the easy access to stealth

Vargamonth.2047:

~Snip~

- This is probably the most important part: dragon attacks follow a FIXED PATTERN, which consists on CLAW-CLAW-ROCKS-BITE.
~Snip~

Cutting out everything else because this statement is categorically incorrect, you might have thought you saw a fixed pattern during your run, but I can guarantee you it’s not in a fixed patter such as you have described. I personally have tried twice, and have seen the dragon attacks go right from a SINGLE CLAW attack to a BITE or even completely IGNORE the claw and rock attack and go straight to a BITE. The entire setup is RNG, I have had up to 8 sets of bushes in an instance, that’s 16 bush bombs crammed into that little circle…to go along with the Dragon attacks and having the Divine Fire right on top of a Bush bomb. So I’m calling completely random on all of the attacks, as in they set it up to place and do what ever the RNG comes up with.

I’ve done this fight with my condi ranger without the use of stability and my zerker staff ele with arcane blocks and mist form (long cooldowns) and the only real issues I had was trying to get the achievements done as I simply didn’t have enough blocks and dodges most of the time and got the achievements done by pure luck rather than skill.

A simple hint, if you’re going for the achievements, do so in a party and do not be party instance leader (especially with a squishy zerker staff ele) the dragon claws and face-smash only attacks the party instance leader so it makes your life significantly more difficult if you’re trying to avoid rocks and bombs.

Zaklex.6308:

Vargamonth.2047:

~Snip~

- This is probably the most important part: dragon attacks follow a FIXED PATTERN, which consists on CLAW-CLAW-ROCKS-BITE.
~Snip~

Cutting out everything else because this statement is categorically incorrect, you might have thought you saw a fixed pattern during your run, but I can guarantee you it’s not in a fixed patter such as you have described. I personally have tried twice, and have seen the dragon attacks go right from a SINGLE CLAW attack to a BITE or even completely IGNORE the claw and rock attack and go straight to a BITE. The entire setup is RNG, I have had up to 8 sets of bushes in an instance, that’s 16 bush bombs crammed into that little circle…to go along with the Dragon attacks and having the Divine Fire right on top of a Bush bomb. So I’m calling completely random on all of the attacks, as in they set it up to place and do what ever the RNG comes up with.

I replayed the mission before posting to check if the pattern was correct and worked for me the whole time.
Where you in a group or maybe doing something that many classes do not have acces to like using stealth?

I just finished it last night with no problems (loved the fight BTW), and while I was using a guardian, I never used any skill that gave me stability (my own fault, I had changed skills beforehand and forgot to put them back before the fight), and really had no problems once I got the general idea of the fight.

Mines were the biggest problem for me. They work in pairs, and have a tendril connecting two of them, which sometimes isn’t easy to see. If you step on that tendril, it’ll explode for a lot of damage and knock you down so you’ll most likely get attacked by the dragon as well before you manage to get up. Just check where the tendrils are, and avoid them, and if you’re inside a circle from the dragon that you can’t evade, move away from the nearest tendril so you’re not knocked into one of them. Dodging trough the tendrils have been a hit or miss affair for me, sometimes I’d roll right trough it, other times it would still get me, so I changed to just walk around them. If a divine fire is thrown on top of too close to a tendril, I just waited for the next one.

Braham will place from time to time a small bubble in one of the fire points, use it. while you’re inside the bubble you’ll get stability and regeneration. Still sometimes the dragon attack interrupted the channeling, but hitting F again right away usually meant I’d get it the second time around.

As soon as you light up a fire on the second part, a small shade will appear and move towards it to extinguish, and a divine fire will be thrown in as well. Take it and attack the shade, it’ll die in one or two attacks. My fight took longer than it should have because I kept lighting up the fires and not noticing the shades (kept thinking I was supposed to fire them up quick before they were extinguished), and once I did notice them it took me a few tries before I noticed they were invulnerable unless I had the divine fire.

Bring a ranged weapon, even if your build is entirely melee focused, bringing a ranged weapon as your secondary weapon (or kit if engineer) will make the fight much easier, specially the second part where there might be mines and tendrils between you and the shade.

locoman.1974:

Mines were the biggest problem for me. They work in pairs, and have a tendril connecting two of them, which sometimes isn’t easy to see. If you step on that tendril, it’ll explode for a lot of damage and knock you down so you’ll most likely get attacked by the dragon as well before you manage to get up. Just check where the tendrils are, and avoid them, and if you’re inside a circle from the dragon that you can’t evade, move away from the nearest tendril so you’re not knocked into one of them. Dodging trough the tendrils have been a hit or miss affair for me, sometimes I’d roll right trough it, other times it would still get me, so I changed to just walk around them. If a divine fire is thrown on top of too close to a tendril, I just waited for the next one.

You don’t need to dodge through anything, if you walk through the middle of the tendrils connecting 2 bombs (right in the middle) it’ll blow up both and you’ll receive no damage.

Casuals these days…
I liked the fight. It was challenging, but to an extent. Nothing trully hardcore, but still very much engaging and interesting. Only thing that I would change is how small the number of follower quotes there are. “HEY BAWWS!”.

Here’s what I thought about this encounter/event:

1. Cutscenes during a fight – Bullkitten. It kills immersion. You can always have the mob move around or do w/e it is doing in the cutscene w/o taking controls away from the player.

2. Mechanics – Mediocre. Dodge, dodge and dodge some more. I enjoyed the fight mechanics and tactics in Glint’s dungeon a LOT more than I did this one.

3. Environment – Poor. The arena is way too small for my taste. It was kind of a bummer when you are confined in a small circular arena moments after you found yourself in a huge expansive arena that looked more like a set up for a 300 man raid.

I did not like the finale. The whole season kinda went downhill after the first episode of LS season 2.

I used my elementalist for the Pale Tree Dragon fight, I used Arcane Shield like nobodies business.

I also used my staff and elemental Storm skill to combine meteor shower and Lightning storm for max damage. You need to spam dodge and powerful strikes on the vines and just keep doing it until they die.

Also dodge like your life depends on it, my armour got completely destroyed during the fight but luckily I had a repair canister on hand (Only 2 was completely destroyed).

Was a pain in the backside but coming out on top was satisfying.

I did this on my Mesmer with Sc/P and GS, in PVT (2200 power) and as long as you understand what is going to hit there are really no issues.

You do not need to bring stability, just make sure that either the Dragons head is not going to come up out of the ground or you are in a white bubble that grants stability for when the dragon is going to fist slam you, and you can channel through it. Sometimes you will get double AOE circles in the same place, just move to the outter most edge but with in range of the channel. that worked for me every time.

I did not ever notice a timewarp though. I think it was either in a very bad place or the graphic for it glitched. I noticed that the ‘Light effects’ were very glitchy when those ‘bombs’ would spawn. Once second its there, then the next Gone.

the most annoying part was dealing with the 1 hit wonders (the shadow guys that take down the fire walls). It took me a couple mins to figure out how to kill them. after all you do not need the light to kill the shadow tenticals. So, I assumed (at first) the same was for the shadow beats dudes.

All in all, good fight. I did not like how it ended though. Walking over to do a ground slam on the dragons face. Feels inadequate for the damage this dragon did to Tree Town. I kinda wanted to explode the dragon into many pieces then make a Mord salad.