Guild Wars 2

First of all let me preface by saying my current complaint is with Shrubsplosives and Rock Dodger in Mystery Cave. I completed the Pact Assaulted ones with no trouble, as well as the smotherer smiter. I have not yet attempted the Arcana Obscura achievements, but based off of videos those look crazy for entirely different reasons.

Let’s get started with Shrubsplosives. Sometimes the vines that link two of the shrubs together is clipped into the ground, making it very hard to judge where you can safely detonate them. The knock up from the dragon is extremely infuriating, because stability has no effect on it. I’ve been happily lighting a fire while shrubs spawned behind me, then I see the orange underneath me so I pop Stand Your Ground, then I get knocked up into the air on top of a shrub. OK. Why is that a thing? I haven’t been able to tell a difference for when it’s going to be him clawing or popping his head out of the ground, so it seems like pure RNG.

Rock Dodger is equally frustrating. For one it is often hard to see the symbols on the ground due to the darkness and the way the fog or something works. Now after completing burn phase 1, this achievement just gets kittened. Dragonboy will light up the whole place with rocks. Great. Being a guard I have aegis. Nope, doesn’t block it. I also have the focus. Nope, shield skill doesn’t block them either. Your only chance is to find one square millimeter of ground that is not affected, or hope you have the endurance to dodge roll. This becomes a problem when entering burn phase 2 because dragonboy will cover the room twice with rocks. So if you use your dodge roll too close to entering the second burn phase, it is impossible to not be hit by a rock because you won’t be able to roll twice.

As a guardian, even in full berserker, my damage is balls. Because of how many rocks are falling in burn phase 2 in particular, I cannot melee with a greatsword or I will fail the achievement. So I have to use rod/focus or maybe sword for better DPS but one ability. Most times, it will end up having to go to a 3rd burn phase, which makes the likelihood of succeeding plummet.

I absolutely hate this boss, too. What a fantastic way to turn away players!

MindEraser.5739:

Let’s get started with Shrubsplosives. Sometimes the vines that link two of the shrubs together is clipped into the ground, making it very hard to judge where you can safely detonate them. The knock up from the dragon is extremely infuriating, because stability has no effect on it. I’ve been happily lighting a fire while shrubs spawned behind me, then I see the orange underneath me so I pop Stand Your Ground, then I get knocked up into the air on top of a shrub. OK. Why is that a thing? I haven’t been able to tell a difference for when it’s going to be him clawing or popping his head out of the ground, so it seems like pure RNG.

It’s not. Before the first burn phase, the bite (which cannot be stabbed through) comes right after the claws. After the first burn phase, it comes right after the first row of rocks. The shrubs are also always in the same pattern so you don’t have to guess where the line between them goes. Note that you don’t have to spend a dodge to avoid the claws if you have swiftness or speed/traveler runes (or another class with 25% passive speed boost). You can easily just run out of the circle.

Rock Dodger is equally frustrating. For one it is often hard to see the symbols on the ground due to the darkness and the way the fog or something works. Now after completing burn phase 1, this achievement just gets kittened. Dragonboy will light up the whole place with rocks. Great. Being a guard I have aegis. Nope, doesn’t block it. I also have the focus. Nope, shield skill doesn’t block them either. Your only chance is to find one square millimeter of ground that is not affected, or hope you have the endurance to dodge roll. This becomes a problem when entering burn phase 2 because dragonboy will cover the room twice with rocks. So if you use your dodge roll too close to entering the second burn phase, it is impossible to not be hit by a rock because you won’t be able to roll twice.

As a guardian, even in full berserker, my damage is balls. Because of how many rocks are falling in burn phase 2 in particular, I cannot melee with a greatsword or I will fail the achievement. So I have to use rod/focus or maybe sword for better DPS but one ability. Most times, it will end up having to go to a 3rd burn phase, which makes the likelihood of succeeding plummet.

This achievement I can relate to being a pain. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone. Get someone to lead you into the instance (so that he’s the owner, not you), stand at the edge of the area and you don’t even have to dodge once. Swap places with your mate and you’ll both be happy.

If you want to solo it, the rocks that pop off the ground come in a criss-cross pattern so there is four quadrants on the area where they never pop. For the large rock throwing templates your best bet is to evade them. Bring vigor or sigils of energy for more dodging. It takes quite a while for the rocks to come down after the template appears on the ground, so don’t dodge too early. Finally, be careful of the red circles in the burn phase.

Guardian is probably one of the most frustrating classes to do this achievement because of no access to good ranged DPS. I did this ok with my warrior and had absolutely no problem at all with my LB ranger.

Keep trying. The feeling when you finish it will be much more rewarding than completing some “content” you could do blindfolded.

The “popping his head out” attack has a smaller orange AoE circle, the claw attack is much larger.

That, too. It’s also a lot shorter warning, so you cannot just run out of the circle, but have to dodge it.

Scepter #2 wrecks the dragon since its a large unmoving target that will happily eat every hit from the attack. You shouldn’t be having any trouble damaging it using Scepter (which I assume is what you mean by “rod”, though if you mean Staff then that I could see being a problem, staff has lousy single-target damage output) especially if you’re ’zerker. My half Cleric / half Zerker Guard did it no problem.

Heck, you should probably just use Scepter for the entire battle, really. The vines are easily killed by Scepter #2 for the same reason the dragon is, and killing the shades that put out the fires during the 2nd ring phase is also much easier with a ranged weapon since you don’t have to chase them down, but can rather stand in the holy fire, kill them, then get the fire buff back immediately so you can make your next section of the ring. The faster you can get the ring done, the less you have to worry about the lines of rocks ruining the achieve (which IMO is the hardest part, since they don’t have any AoE indicator at all).

And using a ranged weapon comes with the added bonus of letting you focus more on positioning, making it easier to dodge the rocks. I tended to stick near the edges during the 2nd vine phase, since it seems easier to dodge the mass of rocks at that point.

If you’re having trouble seeing the AoE rings, you might try turning down your graphics settings. That can remove some of the effects in the air as well as just generally reducing latency, which means more time to react and less stuff to obstruct your view.

As for the dragon bite attack knocking you into shrubs… you can always just stand perfectly still and take the hit to avoid that. If you aren’t moving it’ll just throw you straight up, so no fear of hitting a shrub or anything.

Electro.4173:

As for the dragon bite attack knocking you into shrubs… you can always just stand perfectly still and take the hit to avoid that. If you aren’t moving it’ll just throw you straight up, so no fear of hitting a shrub or anything.

I’ve been wondering why people had problem with this.
I haven’t thought about people getting hit while moving. I’ve never bothered to avoid the attack, just take the hit and continue with lighting the fire. Never had any of the problems people mentioned or have to pay attention to things like attack pattern.

I loved the final battle! I teamed with friends and it made it so much easier to do the achievements!

First (story mode) : 5-man team, cleared it without problems (would have soloed it either way if we didn’t go through episodes 4 to 8 in one go with friends).
Second (achievements mode) : 3-man team, cleared 2 achievements on 3 (Rock dodger failed for everyone)
Third (achievements mode) : 2-man team, I dodged rocks in a corner while the other lit the fires, got my achievement
Fourth (achievements mode) : 2-man team, I lit the fire while the other dodged the rocks in a corner (he failed but I had to go, we will retry another time)

It took me 3 runs to get all my achievements without dying. Challenging? Kind of yes. Hard? No. I want more of fights like this. It was interesting and fun. If you can’t do it, get a friend to help you out by taking the aggro and just dodge everything in a corner.

Note: Elementalist is really easy, grab Frost Bow for DPS, Mist Form for INVULNERABILITY and Arcane Shield to NEGATE damage for a short while. You can withstand and avoid most that way. Grab an Energy Sigil for more dodges on attunement swap. You can also add that Meat food that gives +40% endurance regeneration if you need.

If you can’t do it, don’t make it boring and easy for us. It took me 1 hour and half for the Challenge mote at the end of Episode 7. Did I curse on it? Yes! Did I want it easier? Probably not. Why? Because it’s challenging! We do love some challenge in the game!

The rock dodger one took many tries for me solo. I played through the story 3 times for the head armor boxes. Once with ele, once with guard, and once with ranger. After that I chose to do the achievements on ranger. Best damage thanks to the attack speed of longbow. Guard scepter 2 uses ground targeting which isn’t ideal. It still took many tries. Finally I just started playing very very conservatively, that is, I would stand on a fire spot until I saw a rock line because the rock lines never go into the fire spots. Then quickly run out and get the buff.

Also worth to note that in the burn phase you can range the dragon from outside the fire ring and be 100% safe.

Learn how to dodge. The boss can be easily meleed during the burn phase. Just stand right at the edge of the head a whack the crap out of it. Rock dodger is not easy. It requires skill and some luck. It took me about 30 attempts to complete by my self.

OmniPotentes.4817:

Learn how to dodge. The boss can be easily meleed during the burn phase. Just stand right at the edge of the head a whack the crap out of it. Rock dodger is not easy. It requires skill and some luck. It took me about 30 attempts to complete by my self.

Yeah my advice about standing far away was meant exactly to prevent having to try Rock Dodger 30 times

Do it with a buddy. You get killed by the vines at the start, and have your buddy detonate all the shrubs and defeat the dragon. Rock Dodger and Shrubplosives done. The Anet way.

dietzero.3514:

Do it with a buddy. You get killed by the vines at the start, and have your buddy detonate all the shrubs and defeat the dragon. Rock Dodger and Shrubplosives done. The Anet way.

kitten . That’s a new level of devious. I didn’t even think of that. Genius!

OmniPotentes.4817:

Learn how to dodge. The boss can be easily meleed during the burn phase. Just stand right at the edge of the head a whack the crap out of it. Rock dodger is not easy. It requires skill and some luck. It took me about 30 attempts to complete by my self.

Hmm … some luck. I was doing that with a friend. He got hit by a rock right before the cutscene.

That is bullkitten about been more rewarding than completing some “content”. It is suppossed to be entertainment. The whole “battle” takes far too long and say if you get killed in stage 3 you have to go through all that “content” all over again. What so you get a warm fuzzy feeling? I tell you what, p**ing in a wetsuit gives you the same feeling for lot less hassle. NCSoft has yet again dropped big flaming pile of horses**t on players, should known they do it after all the kitten they heaped on players in gw and then dropped it like a steaming pile of s**t. As for doing it with a buddy, yeah stand around forever waiting for players to help. Seen so many race past and “ehlp” or they let you die so they can complete….

Stage 3? O_o
There should only be two parts to that fight.

Tom Gore.4035:

dietzero.3514:

Do it with a buddy. You get killed by the vines at the start, and have your buddy detonate all the shrubs and defeat the dragon. Rock Dodger and Shrubplosives done. The Anet way.

kitten . That’s a new level of devious. I didn’t even think of that. Genius!

They do need to be a bit competent though, as they will have to solo the full party version of the instance instead.

Lazaar.9123:

Tom Gore.4035:

dietzero.3514:

Do it with a buddy. You get killed by the vines at the start, and have your buddy detonate all the shrubs and defeat the dragon. Rock Dodger and Shrubplosives done. The Anet way.

kitten . That’s a new level of devious. I didn’t even think of that. Genius!

They do need to be a bit competent though, as they will have to solo the full party version of the instance instead.

With two people there is barely any difference.

Blocks and Aegis etc. works very well incase of mistakes. Guardian gives quite a bit of room for error in that fight.

Brightneon.8175:

That is bullkitten about been more rewarding than completing some “content”. It is suppossed to be entertainment. The whole “battle” takes far too long and say if you get killed in stage 3 you have to go through all that “content” all over again. What so you get a warm fuzzy feeling? I tell you what, p**ing in a wetsuit gives you the same feeling for lot less hassle. NCSoft has yet again dropped big flaming pile of horses**t on players, should known they do it after all the kitten they heaped on players in gw and then dropped it like a steaming pile of s**t. As for doing it with a buddy, yeah stand around forever waiting for players to help. Seen so many race past and “ehlp” or they let you die so they can complete….

I guess you’re new to this video gaming stuff? I wonder how you would have fared in the age of three lives and no save/load to beat the entire game.

I’m sorry but catering to people like you, who think they should be able to beat any content in any game with the first or second try is the reason why there is never enough content in most games anymore.

Mystery Cave achievements are tough. They are among the very few in the whole game that could even be classified as “achievements”. They’re also optional unless you think you really need the luminescent set. In which case you should be ready to put some effort into something you really want.