Guild Wars 2

active armor is armor that when hit explodes out reducing the severity of damage from something that could be devastating, Such as a tank, the armor will explod on impact from the rocket, saving the tank and destroying the rocket, which would otherwise destroy the tank.

OK I really hate these mobs that, oh wait you’ve attacked them and boom you take damage.

You attack you die, you don’t attack you die.

Really ANET. Like the tentacles coming out of the ground, the less then intelligent party members, the poison & slow mobs that put the debuff that does damage from moving or the one for using skills ( I can’t remember the names)

you have to make a attack reflect. Lets see as an engineer, Use a kit, grenade or flame thrower, I take damage from an attack, Use a weapon, take damage, be no where near them and they take damage from a turret, I take damage.

Please for the love of Kitten take what ever that is out of the game, Gone This feature is not in the MOB description, and was very much complained about on the skeletons in Halloween Mad Kings Maze Lair.

The only hope of winning is to do more damage to the creature before its reflected attack and it’s normal attacks kill you. If there is more then one, yeah your dead. No saving throw just dead, WP and repair.

I don’t mind some difficulty, but this feature is not fun, IF you want to put it in an expert mode dungeon, where it’s a choice to deal with fine. General play, it’s not fun, it is highly annoying. And based off the complaints from the Halloween event really not liked at all, by most, but the most masochistic.

Isn’t retaliation (the boon) pretty much that?

Retaliation? I can strip that right off.

It’s retaliation. And is it really necessary for the mobs to list every buff that they put on themselves?

here, for you:

• wolves: howl is AoE retal. the pounce attack hits hard.

• husks: lots of toughness, abuse condis. also careful with the shockwave, it immobilizes.

• thrashers: shoot from behind, don’t touch the goo if you wanna live

• siphoners (or whatever they’re called): stay off the red goo and range them.

• thrasher+siphoner: avoid the weird roots they send your way, they hurt a lot.

tada

I disagree with the OP: I think mobs should have really challenging mechanics, including stuff that punishes you for attacking, so that we have to learn to do something other than auto-attack.

I like them. Yeah they are hard. My only complaint is that they make other dragon minions look like cute furry animals. Mordrem hounds scare me way more than risen giants.

Wanderer.3248:

I like them. Yeah they are hard. My only complaint is that they make other dragon minions look like cute furry animals. Mordrem hounds scare me way more than risen giants.

well the risen are mostly just rotten people. and by rotten i mean beige.

this is… well… skeleton hellhound posessed by a plant (the flower mane looks silly though :P)

Use boon strip.

Punish effects such as Torment, Confusion and Retaliation only hurt when you ignore and blindly keep fighting.

This hurts mostly the lazy players that just randomly mash keys, and those that go around with beresrker builds and no survivability measures whatsoever.

Wanderer.3248:

I like them. Yeah they are hard. My only complaint is that they make other dragon minions look like cute furry animals. Mordrem hounds scare me way more than risen giants.

You can see skulls in icebrood. They are still alive in there, and most of their fleshy parts fell off because of frostbite. They are basically frozen skeletons.

can’t disagree with OP more………these new mordrem mobs are EXACTLY what PvE needs. Boon Stripping, CC, Condi Dmg, Condi Cleanse, Blocks, etc. are now worth doing.

so much more fun to fight now (and yes, you can still zerk if you are careful and pack a few skills/traits that do the above things).

Enemies that punish you for auto attacking and encourage active boon stripping? Like we needed more incentive to not play ranger…

pop ruby flask when gravicius casts molten shell

These new mobs seem to have more risk, which is good. They don’t seem to have more reward, which is bad. (By reward, I mean mob behavior which you can use to get an advantage)

Substance E.4852:

Enemies that punish you for auto attacking and encourage active boon stripping? Like we needed more incentive to not play ranger…

you have plenty of evades, conditions, cc, and Healing Spring…..you’ll be fine.

You have multiple choices:
1) Keep auto-attacking and die
2) Strip Retaliation boon and kill
3) Use condition damage instead of direct damage and kill
4) Use healing build and heal everyone, include youself and some newbies and don’t die!

Disagree with OP greatly. I haven’t had this much fun fighting mobs since… ever. I still beat it all pretty handily, but on DD ele built for WvW and very robustly built. I will probably go back and redo this episode on characters with much different playstyles (zerk BS thief?) and see if it presents a bigger challenge, or is even viable.

If nothing else, this is probably the ‘right’ way to balance the current zerk meta – make sustain more important with enemies that pose actual threats in different ways. If anything this should encourage more build experimentation.

I personally enjoy the new mob mechanics. Its a step up from just standing there to kill things like with the other dragon minions.

Relshdan.6854:

can’t disagree with OP more………these new mordrem mobs are EXACTLY what PvE needs. Boon Stripping, CC, Condi Dmg, Condi Cleanse, Blocks, etc. are now worth doing.

so much more fun to fight now (and yes, you can still zerk if you are careful and pack a few skills/traits that do the above things).

Agreed. This was a nice way to encourage players to use something other than full-on direct damage. Now if they can work in some crowd control and support necessities (or close to necessities), we’ll finally have some real build diversity in PvE.

Edit: The only thing I wish they’d done differently is slowly introduce these new mobs – one at a time – through the Living Story so we’d get the chance to learn their strengths and weaknesses without all the chaos of giants zergs with blinding spell animations.

Emissary.3792:

Disagree with OP greatly. I haven’t had this much fun fighting mobs since… ever. I still beat it all pretty handily, but on DD ele built for WvW and very robustly built. I will probably go back and redo this episode on characters with much different playstyles (zerk BS thief?) and see if it presents a bigger challenge, or is even viable.

If nothing else, this is probably the ‘right’ way to balance the current zerk meta – make sustain more important with enemies that pose actual threats in different ways. If anything this should encourage more build experimentation.

playing it with full zerk 5/6/0/3/0 S/P-SB thief…very fun, but i’d be toast with out all the blinds.

darkace.8925:

Now if they can work in some crowd control and support necessities (or close to necessities), we’ll finally have some real build diversity in PvE..

i think CC from range is a really effective way to deal with the wolves (my hybrid warrior melts them with his LB…pindown shot in lvl 3 combustion shot…and watch it burn ). i imagine a SB or LB ranger could do something similar with muddy terrain.

but it could be really interesting if healing support was actually needed…though probably better for instanced content than open world…..but maybe something in open world where blasting waterfields was necessary for non-tank builds to survive

I don’t have a problem with Reflect/Retaliation mechanics, but I do wish the enemies had better tells than to just check their condition bar. Like Pyroxis would Retaliate whenever he grew giant sized, so you’d know to either hold off on damage or be prepped to heal back.

My main gripe is how these enemies drop no loot at all. At least keep the vendor trash and occasional T5 mats!

As for the actual combat, they’re a nice improvement but overall they feel a bit too lopsided: Most of the new mobs have one gimmick they spam over and over, and nothing else. I’d rather have mobs that use several abilities in moderation, thus allowing more strategic options (but each with reduced effectiveness)

And some of them are annoying/seem unfair for specific classes (Mesmer here):

-small vine roots have terrible animations. Maybe it’s a bug, but they often play their idle animation, while having evade frames, and end it with a massive burst attack out of the blue. Basically the wurm burrow-move, but with no animation whatsoever. Very bad if you’re (supposed to be) using active defenses.

-Inquest Assassins spam stealth. Not much of a threat, but I haven’t seen many people call this a positive aspect of PvP, so why add it here? (A tactical stealth->teleport would be okay, but these guys just stealth->attack->repeat)

-The Veteran Golem Type I gains retal with every hit from its spin attack. At least as a Mesmer there’s enough boon strip going around, but it’s still annoying when it goes after illusions. It’s very easy to beat with Greatsword 2-4-F1-111111111, but boring.

-Mordrem Threshers are very simple-mided. I still don’t know what “vulnerable from behind” is supposed to mean as they take damage just fine while facing me, and spend like 75% of their time spinning anyway (also bad for newbs, because you don’t want to be behind them while they’re spinning!)

The other Thresher type, Husks and Dust Mites all feel too simple. The Thresher forces ranged attacks as opposed to encouraging them. The Husks are big “condi here!” signs but with no depth, if you aren’t running a condi build you can only sit there and twiddle your thumbs while they slowly die. The Dust Mites would make a nice encounter mechanic, with 1-3 chasing you while you fight other enemies, but instead you face them alone or get swarmed by them, leading to chain-blinds and no real threat once you run out of melee range and attack/cleanse once.

cheshirefox.7026:

skipping directly past scarlet and keeping on the subject of elder dragons.. to be quite honest, i’m hoping mordremoth is dead already.. Dead, you heard me.. i’m not interested in more little shop of horrors poison spamming or whatever this dragon rising is supposed to captivate us with.. aside from lion’s arch, does it even have anything to do with mainland tyria

i wrote that like, a month or two ago.. i’m obviously not very invested in where they’re taking this game and i found the unlisted retal to be lazy and trolltastic.. my computer has no trouble running the graphics and i didn’t notice the ground roots until i was halfway through this release.. i’m not proud to say i went through the entire release without getting downed once {though i did on replay}.. arena net does a good job of mixing up their own mechanics, but anyone not fully invested in this chapter {like me} is going to find it a bit frustrating {or boring}.. i’m also running ascended armor and people who aren’t are probably going to have a hard time.. {although there are plenty of absolutely broken builds in this game and arena net Did give us ‘AntiToxin Spray;’ yeah, remember that? go unlock it}.. props to the baseless ranger complaining in this thread, that was just my laugh of the day.. and the person who apparently has no understanding of what retaliation is but i’m assuming wanted to just flaunt the term active armor around.. i also get the notion someone pitched about these mobs being compared to other corrupted.. they’re basically a tier up past nightmare court though, and we did get to zhaitans upper level mobs but his danger came from the ability to amass an army..

i guess my stance on the matter is i have to agree with the people who are ok with the mobs.. i have to admit arena did an ok job with them.. the season has potential.. if the player base is having trouble, the mordrem are only in instances for the most part.. so there’s plenty of time to approach them better, let guildies help.. i dunno

Substance E.4852:

Enemies that punish you for auto attacking and encourage active boon stripping? Like we needed more incentive to not play ranger…

the retal only pops if you don’t interrupt their (very obviously animated) howl. and rangers have tons of interrupts: longbow, shortbow, greatsword, axe offhand, canines (wolf is on-demand, but probably not fast enough unless you use quickness), and probably more.

I really like these new mobs because they require you to actually think about your positioning and the way you need to go about attacking them. Sure, took a little bit to get used to and gosh the flanking from those wolves hurt if you get caught out of position, but it requires more skill to take them on than just button mashing and zerk gear.

Taking on the boss in the last mission was fun! I was actually using Into the Void, Phantasmal Wave and Mind Stab for more than just pretty effects! My only gripe is one that was mentioned earlier. Harder mobs need better loot otherwise I’m just going to avoid them in the future as they’re not worth the time it takes to kill them.

These new mobs are great, they punish “dumb” playstyle that so far was rewarded, until now if you took too long to kill you could take more damage so full glass builds was the meta, now if you blindly burst the new mobs you’ll get punished so a more defensive and/or hybrid builds are rewarded.

Bring boon removal, bring better healing, bring condition damage, bring interrupts, all that makes the fight easier.

i’ve already gotten good loot from drytop mobs and i’ve spent very little time there.. most of the mordrem are in instances so far, people would farm story journal.. it’s almost a certainty they’ll be in open world and killable for loot soon

Theres the obvious buff potion missing that boosts our damage agaisnt mordrem and lets us receive lesser damage from mordrem, which will surely get implemented somewhen in the future, like ANet also added that anti-scarlet army potion later and not from the begin on if i remember right.

However, from all of the mordrem minions I think just only 2 could need a nerf, while the rest could need a slight buff.

Thrashers and Hounds needs nerfs, Husks and Siphoners needs buffs

The retaliation from the Hounds is way too powerful, same as like the goo attack from the thrashers, which creates way too fast insane stacks of torment and other conditions plus they are immune from frontal attacks.

Thrashers should get slightly reduced maximum Health andtheir should shoulddeal so fast torment stacks.
Houlds need just a slight nerf to their Retaliation and their attack speed. Compared to the other dragon minions these 2 feel way more powerful, than all other dragon minioons in the game.
If you’d let fight a thrasher/mordrem hound against any icebrood, destroyer ect. these mininos would easily win over them, especialyl the thrasher with its insane condition spam and the damage immunity from frontal attacks, whats something no other creathe in PvE has had so far and was just introduced first with the Marionette Fight Bosses on the platform and then moved over to those earth hound veterans in Edge of the Mist, but those thrashers are now the first regular PvE creature with this damage mitigation ability of being immune to frontal attacks.

Husk could get a bit more immunity against damage
And Siphoners could get be buffed by becoming able to summon vine creatures, they are necromantic creatures, in plant style, wouldnt it fit to them, if they could create more vines as their “minions”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I disagree with the OP: I think mobs should have really challenging mechanics, including stuff that punishes you for attacking, so that we have to learn to do something other than auto-attack.

Is there another way to kill mobs besides attacking them?
I guess I could try to talk them to death, or play some Justin Bieber on my Super Boom Box, but other than that…

So you want less intelligent fight and more afk fights? That make no sense. I remember when the southsun event first came out and everyone was dieing to Kraka until then learned about their mechanics. If you can not remove the retaliation stop attacking.

As if every class would have it so easy to perma remove boons Ulion …
Very smart answer, is very smart.
If every class would have it so easy to just remove boons, whenever needed, I guess, there wouldn’t be any issue with those new dragon minions at all.

Life could be so simple, if all problems could be so easily solved, by ignoring, that a solution couldn’t be useable for everybody at any given time.

Nobody is saying here, that they want to see the mordrem gettign nerfed to afk fights.
Especially not me, if you mean me with that comment, otherwise i wouldn’t also suggest that half of the other minions should get buffed for the nerfs on the other half to balance those changes a bit out.

The wolves howl you can interrupt, even if they get a short burst off, it significantly reduces retaliation. Husk you can condi and avoid, they are pretty slow and shockwave thing takes forever to get off, giving you tons of time to evade. I found Salma annoying at first, but once i learned the mobs, it was pretty much a cake walk.

im guessing you’re talking about that veteran mark 1 golem that gave permanent and constantly reapplying retal and protection to himself and things around him.

but those wolves are annoying to, but luckily theres no champ version as of now.

If you guys are talking the Vet Golem MkI, that retaliation does not get stripped when you do boon stripping.

I fought him enough times with each profession and found that my builds with insanely high healing were able to take him down without even going down. That would be my Healing Necromancer and my Guardian.

My Terrormancer has boon corruption and stripping and it still had retaliation through out the whole fight. I believe I reported it as a bug since it wasn’t listed on its bar.

Orpheal.8263:

As if every class would have it so easy to perma remove boons Ulion …
Very smart answer, is very smart.
If every class would have it so easy to just remove boons, whenever needed, I guess, there wouldn’t be any issue with those new dragon minions at all.

Life could be so simple, if all problems could be so easily solved, by ignoring, that a solution couldn’t be useable for everybody at any given time.

Nobody is saying here, that they want to see the mordrem gettign nerfed to afk fights.
Especially not me, if you mean me with that comment, otherwise i wouldn’t also suggest that half of the other minions should get buffed for the nerfs on the other half to balance those changes a bit out.

you don’t need to boon strip the wolves. you can just interrupt them. and while “only” half the classes can boon strip, all of them have interrupts available.

and even then, you can always work on a burst build that deals large amounts of damage without attacking too many times (i.e. backstab over pistol whip). surely you can take 600 damage from retal without dying?

Relshdan.6854:

but it could be really interesting if healing support was actually needed…though probably better for instanced content than open world…..but maybe something in open world where blasting waterfields was necessary for non-tank builds to survive

I’m still dreaming of the day I can load up my cleric gear and Aquatic Benevolence in PvE and not feel like a horrible leech. Why should it only be instanced content where that’s needed?

EDIT: To be very clear, it’s not needed in instanced content now. I’m saying make it needed for both, not JUST instanced content.

Rainshine.5493:

Relshdan.6854:

but it could be really interesting if healing support was actually needed…though probably better for instanced content than open world…..but maybe something in open world where blasting waterfields was necessary for non-tank builds to survive

I’m still dreaming of the day I can load up my cleric gear and Aquatic Benevolence in PvE and not feel like a horrible leech. Why should it only be instanced content where that’s needed?

EDIT: To be very clear, it’s not needed in instanced content now. I’m saying make it needed for both, not JUST instanced content.

only said that because i know how hard it is to organize open world groups and classes laying their garbage fields over what would be needed….i would love it in open world as well(in a vacuum where players cared about what fields they were laying down).

Orpheal.8263:

As if every class would have it so easy to perma remove boons Ulion …
Very smart answer, is very smart.

I foresee the price of sigils of nullification rising…

cheshirefox.7026:

unlisted retal to be lazy and trolltastic..
props to the baseless ranger complaining in this thread, that was just my laugh of the day.. and the person who apparently has no understanding of what retaliation is but i’m assuming wanted to just flaunt the term active armor around..

OK so here someone else noticed that the hound Do not list they retal, and they do not show a buff for it either. ( unless it was patched in the patch today)

as for the ranger comment, actually I’m playing a engineer currently. And you are correct I did not know what retal was. Because even though I have played since beta, I have never used it or even played one of the 2 primary classes (guardian/ mesmer ) that have it available. And I’m pretty sure that I’ve only encountered it in the “wild” previously in the most recent Halloween event. as I don’t PvP or WvW ( I suck at them and don’t do them)

I will admit the biggest problem I’ve had is the Salma instance, so their might have been some bugs at play, but yes I have encountered in there hounds that have retal without howling, unless they did it off screen, and then they were holding on to it for over 15 seconds, and retaliated against condition damage. I’ve been retal after I stopped “flame throwering” from the burning damage so :/

And while I’m not a good player I do know how to deal with punishment debuffs, and even reflects if I can see the buff on the buff bar and can go “Oh hey that’s what is going on, I need to not do this”… I’m not a complete idiot just a partial one. :P

The big thing for me with Salma was miss the circles (duh) and bring condi clear for when I messed up. I wasn’t really specced properly but woulda been much easier with more condi clear. I wasn’t using a big hard hitter class (lightning whip on an ele) and retal wasn’t crippling. I also was NOT specced into heals on water attune so.

I’m not sold on Kas’s safety field. I did much better ignoring it and just being evasive.

Ben K.6238:

Use boon strip.

And if you’re not playing a thief, mesmer, necromancer, or… I think engineers can strip boons with their mines… what do you do?

Additionally, there are a few cases of mobs that seem to be able to reapply nasty boons at least as fast as you can strip them if you’re not a sword/dagger thief or a sword mesmer.

Now, I’m not saying I agree with the OP here, but as the game currently stands ‘use boon strip’ is not always a viable option for a solo player. Unless everyone uses sigils of nullification, and they have an internal cooldown and don’t always trigger when you want them to. On the other hand, because every enemy in a Season 2 instance doesn’t count for triggering traits, sigils, and so on, there’s no point to bringing bloodlust and the like instead…

draxynnic.3719:

Ben K.6238:

Use boon strip.

And if you’re not playing a thief, mesmer, necromancer, or… I think engineers can strip boons with their mines… what do you do?

BrunoBRS.5178:

you don’t need to boon strip the wolves. you can just interrupt them. and while “only” half the classes can boon strip, all of them have interrupts available.

and even then, you can always work on a burst build that deals large amounts of damage without attacking too many times (i.e. backstab over pistol whip). surely you can take 600 damage from retal without dying?

BrunoBRS.5178:

here, for you:

• wolves: howl is AoE retal. the pounce attack hits hard.

Correction, the pounce attack hits hard from behind or the sides, keep it in front of you and it does significantly less damage.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Substance E.4852:

Enemies that punish you for auto attacking and encourage active boon stripping? Like we needed more incentive to not play ranger…

the retal only pops if you don’t interrupt their (very obviously animated) howl. and rangers have tons of interrupts: longbow, shortbow, greatsword, axe offhand, canines (wolf is on-demand, but probably not fast enough unless you use quickness), and probably more.

Not true, even if I interrupt the howl they still get the buff 9/10 times. I played through with pistol whip thief and most of the time trying to interrupt it just didnt work. With other mobs the timing on interrupts is very generous, I find, but those dogs? Nope nope nope.

munkiman.3068:

The wolves howl you can interrupt, even if they get a short burst off, it significantly reduces retaliation.

Oh, I see. I didn’t notice the difference in duration, because I was just bursting them down anyway. For me this made no difference whatsoever, one stack of retal vs 5 stacks is irrelevant. Trying to interrupt the howl really is entirely pointless. I was kind of hoping it was just bugged but obviously not.

Lalocat.6793:

Oh, I see. I didn’t notice the difference in duration, because I was just bursting them down anyway. For me this made no difference whatsoever, one stack of retal vs 5 stacks is irrelevant. Trying to interrupt the howl really is entirely pointless. I was kind of hoping it was just bugged but obviously not.

Pretty much my thinking while going through the episode was that ANet has a passive-aggressive “we will make you go zerker!” agenda going in their design.

Every mob seemed designed to be frustrating unless you built specifically for maximum burst DPS.

BrunoBRS.5178:

here, for you:

• wolves: howl is AoE retal. the pounce attack hits hard.

• husks: lots of toughness, abuse condis. also careful with the shockwave, it immobilizes.

• thrashers: shoot from behind, don’t touch the goo if you wanna live

• siphoners (or whatever they’re called): stay off the red goo and range them.

• thrasher+siphoner: avoid the weird roots they send your way, they hurt a lot.

tada

Updating it abit:

Mordrem Wolves: Kill them quickly before they spread retaliation on nearby Mordrem, or have boon removal/manipulation ready to destroy the boon. Since the wolves are faster than any other mob, including players with Swiftness, it’s also good to snare and even stun them.

Mordrem Husks: Your common Anti-zerker mobs. Same as Partially Digested Husks, Conditions. CC is also optional, since these mobs don’t have much of a threatening attack. Getting immobilized by them is near instant death tho, if other Mordrems are present.

Mordrem Vile Trashers: Same as has been told, would be wise to have CC available too. Would suggest to have condition removal and support player to ensure you don’t die on the enormous amount of DoT…

Mordrem Leeching Trashers: Stun them when they root into the ground, to stop their AoE attack. In general, CC is very useful against these, since it can also prevent them from healing nearby mobs.

Hopefully the difficulty scale up now spawns more variety instead of higher ranks (Veteran, Elite, Champion), as these unique mobs will become overpowered with the current rank system (“x10 HP and DMG”)…

digiowl.9620:

Pretty much my thinking while going through the episode was that ANet has a passive-aggressive “we will make you go zerker!” agenda going in their design.

Every mob seemed designed to be frustrating unless you built specifically for maximum burst DPS.

No, these mobs are all anti-zerker. The variety ANet was afraid of adding into the game.

If you’re afraid of fighting these mobs in group events, then you’re abit out of luck…

Other thought tho, I really hope ANet updates the existing mobs too to have the variety instead of increased rank (Veteran-Elite-Champion and same mobs, on Group events!

Solo content can be left untouched.
Having old super easy content annoys me…

FrostSpectre.4198:

Mordrem Vile Trashers: Same as has been told, would be wise to have CC available too. Would suggest to have condition removal and support player to ensure you don’t die on the enormous amount of DoT…

Just stay at range and out of the goop. CC doesn’t help much because they just start spinning again within seconds (unless you can chain CC)

FrostSpectre.4198:

Mordrem Leeching Trashers: Stun them when they root into the ground, to stop their AoE attack. In general, CC is very useful against these, since it can also prevent them from healing nearby mobs.

The large AoE field isn’t stopped once they cast it, you have to interrupt them before the annoying red cloud spawns. I think the same goes for the vine spikes. CC isn’t more useful than against any other mob that actually does something.

FrostSpectre.4198:

No, these mobs are all anti-zerker. The variety ANet was afraid of adding into the game.

Not exactly. Running pure dps stats still is the best general approach, but each mob gimps a specific option that increases dps:

Hounds mess up multi-hit attacks and AoE, which is very imbalanced regarding different classes (ele has almost no non-AoE attacks, engi too but most attacks multi-hit on top of that!…) And AI builds can avoid the retal with spammable minions while others have to eat it themselves. (note warriors don’t even have non-viable minion builds)

Husks are anti-direct-damage, which is terrible for solo content, because it’s straight-up forcing you into a different stat set without really changing your tactic/playstyle. Make sure you have bleed-on-crit traits and they don’t really bother you, even in zerk gear. Good design for group content though, e.g. Triple Trouble.

Vines are supposed to be anti-burst I guess, but as I said they are animated horribly and become a random annoyance. Once there’s something to be aware of these will be good to reward situational awareness.

Vile Thrashers are anti-melee, but again I think some of their mechanics just aren’t working (I can stand there and GS1 lazer them down, doesn’t matter which way either of us are facing…)

The leeching thrashers are a major annoyance, and so far I haven’t found a better solution than staying away from them until everything else is dead. They’re pretty much carbon copies of Veteran Risen Subjugators though, with an added “don’t melee while the ground glows red”. Engineers will probably have a field day with the thrashers with their combination of long-range AoE and CC.

Overall these mobs should be fun to face with a group, but I really hate their design for solo play because each forces a specific counter on you, there’s no alternative tactic to most of their gimmicks and I doubt all classes can play around them equally well. For example guardian blinds and single-hit blocks are next to worthless because the things that actually kill you aren’t single big hits (unless you get flanked by hounds), while mesmers have AI, boonstrip, instant-cast CC, time-based damage negation, decent bleed-on-crit, a ranged weapon, decent condi clear and a clutch teleport all in a single build. And that’s without runes or sigils. (that build is GS+Sw-Focus/Pistol, 0/3/0/2/0+X with the healing mantra, daze mantra, null field and blink in case you don’t believe me)

Of course all of them (except those dumb vines) are way better than existing mobs which either do nothing or rely on even cheaper gimmicks (hello there, dredge!), now just bring their loot up to par with these brainless punching bags!

Hey there had to post this. In my experience (I play a 40604 minion necro) This has been one of the BEST combat experiences ive met in this game so far. Despite the fact that I simply enjoy my current playstyle more than most other people seem to even I get frustrated when it trivializes a fight. However these mobs are actually pretty well suited to fighting me. They have the aoe/condis/retalion to actualy kill my pets during the course of the fight.

Most fights end with my blood fiend and flesh golem being dead. I actually use the combo fields from there deaths to blast aoe weakness so I can survive inbetween there uptimes (cause everyone who pvps knows how vulnerable an mm is once his pets die).

Its been a long time since an npc has actually made me CARE about how I fought it. Its returned me to my old Control and Kill style of play where the necros body acts as a cc/debilitator/occasional nuker while the pets act as secondary control and long term damage/utility (with boon stripping on certain fights).

Id love to see more content like this that actually encourages me to worry about my survivability. Honestly it reminds me of when I play a MM necro in pvp and im assisting with the mid fight. Hectic, Complicated, slightly worrisome.

I like the new Mordrem mobs, they’re more fun to fight than most other types. I think the Husks could be buffed to be more dangerous…