Guild Wars 2

I’m going to start by saying I’m disabled. I have issues with reflexes and depth perception. One of the reasons I like GW2 is that I can work around my disabilities and still play well. I managed everything storywise and LS up to HoT without any issues.

My problem now is.. since HoT, the artificial difficulty just keeps ramping up and up and up and I’m not enjoying the story chapters the way I used to. I barely had the reflexes to do the whole “run away with the egg” chapter. I only finished it because it glitched in my favor. The Mordremoth fight couldn’t be soloed and the visual effects gave me an incredible migraine. Then, in the middle of someone helping me finish it, it bugged out. I was lucky the other player knew how to work around the bug but that combined with the “One death, you start over” bullkitten ensured I only finished HoT once despite having several alts. I felt cheated, especially after the original fight against Zhiatan was adjusted to be able to be done solo. This was sold to me as a casual game, one I could relax playing. That was not relaxing or rewarding.

LSS3 has been a nightmare. It seems with every new chapter dropped, the end boss is a nightmare. The bloodstone magic parts gave me headaches and reeked of artificial difficulty. The ice beast was one giant “hey do you like being knocked down and constantly hit by falling stuff? It’s fun, right?”. Defending Aurene? Way too long but at least that was doable even if the mechanics were annoying. Training Aurene? The maze with the oozes was absolute rubbish and one giant stall tactic to make it seem ‘challenging’. And now I hear the finale of the newest chapter requires massive CC and I shouldn’t attempt it alone. This isn’t fun. It isn’t even challenging. It’s just annoying and frustrating. Challenging is figuring out how to sneak past White Mantle to sabotage their fort. Challenging is making sure each side defeats the Octovine at the same point so it doesn’t respawn and learning the mechanics at each gate. Challenging is learning the Tequatl fight. Exploring the world itself can be a challenge to learn how to get to each vista.

Challenging isn’t massive damage, knockback, painful visual effects, requiring massive CC, or artificial difficulty like immunity unless CCed, immunity unless bloodstone magic zapped, one death = try again from the start, or massive hordes of ememies.

I wish you would realize the one thing players have known for a long time – no one likes forced group content and annoying battles. People get their achieves and then they abandon the area/story chapter if it isn’t rewarding enough. Only reason AB survived so long was multi-map looting. I don’t feel defeating Mordremoth was worth the end rewards. Neither were any of the LS chapters. Why do them again? Why do them at all? Gating story behind annoying content is.. well.. annoying.

No I’m not asking for “Ez Mode”, I’m asking for something reasonable. I shouldn’t have to beg for a group to finish the LS, not when Zhaitan can now be soloed.

Aerlen.5326:

Challenging isn’t massive damage, knockback, painful visual effects, requiring massive CC, or artificial difficulty like immunity unless CCed, immunity unless bloodstone magic zapped, one death = try again from the start, or massive hordes of ememies.

So what exactly does challenging content mean to you? You’ve pretty much nixed everything that can be used to make challenging content there. Would you rather just having to press F to complete story?

No, I don’t want to “press F to win”. All of those are fake difficulty and artificial difficulty. They’re “Lets toss in this and it’ll seem harder!” but all it ends up being is frustrating. No one can dodge every attack, no one can compete with a camera that punishes you by not giving you a fair view, and no one likes fights that rely on RNG to win either. “I got lucky, it glitched and I won” isn’t difficulty either.

What happened to designs like the Marionette? Tequatl? Octovine? The Mordrem that required you keeping minions alive to break it’s shield (though that has a bug where Jory and Kasmeer glitch back to mission start and leave you to fight it alone – still not fixed to this day. Great job, Anet). Why did there have to be awful visual effects for the bloodstone thing and a million mobs on top of that? Why is knockback considered a good thing to toss in everywhere? Sorry but LS should be able to be soloed, that’s the whole point. It’s YOUR story.

I don’t see why they can’t put this kind of stuff behind challenge mode switches. That way everyone’s happy: hardmode types can beat their heads against the wall to their heart’s content and then brag that they did it on hardmode, while the folks who just want a bit of a puzzle and an exciting fight while they work through the content can do that.

They could create a “story mode” difficulty, theres plenty of games with it , can be created with solutions as simple as 1/2 damage received and x2 damage done.

THIS GAME has both story mode (in dungeons) and challenge switches. They just don’t use them all the time, and they absolutely could.

I like this “Story Mode” idea because that also keeps the difficulty setting for the players who love those sorts of things. 100% in favor of that, both sides get exactly what they want then. Despite what people love to think about anyone who isn’t 100% in favor of anything frustrating to complete, I want the hardcore players to have their hardcore content (like raids. I let them do their raids and I don’t complain a bit – that is their content). I just don’t want to be forced into their hardcore content to progress in the game. Especially if Anet can’t seem to create an epic fight without tons of artificial difficulty and poor design choices.

I mean.. if I want Darksouls, I will play Darksouls on my PS3. GW2 was sold to me with the premise of non-frustrating casual friendly gameplay, not “a dozen unfair mechanics, a camera that won’t co-operate, and you better have perfect reflexes and a million repair canisters”.

Too many of the mini-bosses in the storylines are bugged making progress a lottery as far as game-quitting-annoyance goes.

This weeks example: Maze in DryTop, you move around the maze being continuously snared and knocked back then at the mini-boss the 4 NPCs you collected run around you making no attempt to fight. The mini-boss fight lasts 5 to 10mins before you die with it on less than 10% health five times – playing a tough engineer. About 90 mins for pure hell – no problems at all with a guardian.

The visual effects on the last boss in the HoT storyline should have been removed long ago for H&S reasons. But no that ‘difficulty’ remains.

Gaile, I will give the fight a shot and see if the changes are helpful. I’m hearing from others that they did make a huge difference.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

THIS GAME has both story mode (in dungeons) and challenge switches. They just don’t use them all the time, and they absolutely could.

I agree completely. That ANet adjusted the final boss fight in LS3E4 was great, since I think everyone should be able to complete it and some people were having trouble. However, some people also enjoyed the challenge. In open world content it is not feasible to have difficulty settings, but personal story is the perfect place for it, and they already have the challenge mote system developed. I completely think it could be used much more often.

I would like to see every single personal story mission have optional challenge motes that make the content much more difficult and reward the player with achievement points and maybe in a few occasions, skins or titles.

Fay.2357:

Aerlen.5326:

Challenging isn’t massive damage, knockback, painful visual effects, requiring massive CC, or artificial difficulty like immunity unless CCed, immunity unless bloodstone magic zapped, one death = try again from the start, or massive hordes of ememies.

So what exactly does challenging content mean to you? You’ve pretty much nixed everything that can be used to make challenging content there. Would you rather just having to press F to complete story?

I would point out, Fay, that according to another post you made you Duo’d this fight.

fluidmonolith.3584:

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

THIS GAME has both story mode (in dungeons) and challenge switches. They just don’t use them all the time, and they absolutely could.

I agree completely. That ANet adjusted the final boss fight in LS3E4 was great, since I think everyone should be able to complete it and some people were having trouble. However, some people also enjoyed the challenge. In open world content it is not feasible to have difficulty settings, but personal story is the perfect place for it, and they already have the challenge mote system developed. I completely think it could be used much more often.

I would like to see every single personal story mission have optional challenge motes that make the content much more difficult and reward the player with achievement points and maybe in a few occasions, skins or titles.

I say no additional rewards other than bragging rights. Those who say they want challenging content should do the challenge without any additional reward. After all the challenge IS the reward right? Otherwise why ask for it? Oh, that’s right…so you can have exclusives. You don’t want challenging content, you just want shinnies other people can’t get.

I enjoy hard modes in games. However, I firmly believe doing something in hard mode should recieve NOTHING. I do hard mode for the challenge. If you need any other reason beyond the challenge, then you do not actually want the challenge you just want shinier loot that others cannot get. It really is that simple of a fact, if you crave a challenge you will do it without expecting more loot/achievements/etc, you would do it simply because you claim you want the challenge. If you need a carrot to do it, you don’t actually want it.

You took the words out of my mouth. When you want a challenge, the reward is supposed to be that you beat it – not a title or a skin. There are some console games I beat with self imposed challenges and the thrill of having done that is my actual reward, it’s a personal thing.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Aerlen — Please read the notes for our update this evening. I think you will be pleased. Thanks.

I don’t think any of the changes in the updates so far invalidates the points OP made. Maybe you (or someone else from ArenaNet) can address them?

I am still able to finish the LS3 story chapters, but I do agree with most of the points OP made. The difficulty of new story content did change a lot with HoT and I can’t say I like it too much.

I think this chapter would have been the best new content since HoT (including HoT!) was it not for Friend of the Forest (see another post why I think that). But the second part of the boss fight in the story is made artificiality hard (and rather uninteresting).

First off, I am a strictly casual player. I don’t do raids, I don’t PvP, wvw, or dungeons. PVE only. I run around solo most of the time doing ps, ls at my pace. That being said, I’ve soloed every end boss from ls2 to current. I don’t see what the complaint about everything be so difficult is. So what if you die now and then, learn from your mistake and do better next time.

I’d suggest another way of looking at this.

What if the goal of the Living Story boss fights were not to make the fights challenging, but rather to make them INTERESTING?

If the fights were interesting, would anyone really care if they weren’t challenging?

I mean, it’s not like you can’t do other content in this game if you want a challenge.

Story needs to be detached from combat, that’s the long and the short of it. Put the story in cut scenes or r-click interactions and don’t attach ANY rewards to them. Add all the rewards to the combat instances and make those fights as “challenging” as you want.

Allow players to complete the story without ever entering a combat instance or to get all the rewards without ever seeing a scene from the story, as they prefer. Anyone who wants both can still do both, just as they have to do now, but everyone who only wants one or the other can also have what they want. Everyone’s happy! (Well, no-one’s ever happy but you get the idea…)

Fay.2357:

Aerlen.5326:

Challenging isn’t massive damage, knockback, painful visual effects, requiring massive CC, or artificial difficulty like immunity unless CCed, immunity unless bloodstone magic zapped, one death = try again from the start, or massive hordes of ememies.

So what exactly does challenging content mean to you? You’ve pretty much nixed everything that can be used to make challenging content there. Would you rather just having to press F to complete story?

I find the visuals extremely painful myself, even without disabilities adding to that. There are way too many visual effects in much of the newer content that bloat the screen and make it very difficult to focus on the important stuff. I enjoy high difficulty, but I hate visual overloads. It’s not getting easier to handle with age, trust me.

Okay, but apart from the visuals and back on topic: Perhaps ArenaNet should consider making two versions of story missions, one with lesser rewards, but easy to play through, for people who can’t handle the content or just play to enjoy the story (I happen to have such a RL friend who stopped playing with the release of HoT, because he is a casual player who doesn’t care about the challenge; and that’s sad, because I love the game and would be happy to be able to play with him on occasion).

I have Similar Disability issues as well and limited mobility thanks to a Accident while I was in the army. I joined an awesome guild with people who were willing to help with the hard stuff. it may be a a way to go for you as well.

Having played the last part of the story now, I can give more feedback.

Ouch.

I’m thankful for “The Whispers Way” because there was no chance of me even denting those Jade constructs. Sadly, Demmi obviously has never head of “The Gamer’s Way” – where if you aggro something, you run until you are out of it’s aggro range :p I snuck by them by chance because they were constantly out of sync and pattern and.. well.. both happened to have their backs turned in opposite corners when I ran through the middle. Didn’t like the RNG of that.

I had no other issues until Caudecus himself. The magic option is on the screen for such a tiny moment that anyone with reflex issues is going to miss it most of the time. I had to auto attack to make sure I was ready to smack it when it popped up and attacking with 1 over and over is kinda lame.

The other issue I had was the size of the room. That area is way too small for as many red circles that pop up and too small for a Veteran Jade Construct. I was ping ponged around like a rag doll once that thing showed and all of my deaths happened there, when Caudecus himself had next to no health left. The mechanics of fighting Caudecus are pretty good, that wasn’t too bad of a fight but the room is just too small for that much area damage. I can see why the Jade Bow would be way too much here, glad that was nerfed, but there’s still so much unnecessary difficulty here if you cannot tank hits.

So.. was it challenging? Yes. Was it interesting? Yes. Will I do it on my alts? No, who knows if I’ll have the luck to sneak past those Jade things again and while my Guardian can take explosions to the face like pro – my other toons can’t. I couldn’t even gather all the letters because for some reason, someone decided sticking Jades in manor rooms would be a great idea and I was beyond my tolerance for dealing with them. I just wanted to be done – I finished the story, I got my bloodstone crazed kitty, I was done.

Also – “So what if you die now and then, learn from your mistake and do better next time.” Basically “Git Gud”. Well, there’s only so gud that I can git before it’s beyond my ability. Compared to when I started GW2 in 2011, I’ve gotten really good but I’m at the top end of that now. I’m not going to get much better unless all these players spouting “git gud” would like to heal my reflexes and my vision. I don’t expect to win every time or even the first time, I like mechanics I have to figure out. What I don’t like are things that require me to be perfect or fail.

The armor and bow jades from the begining can be killed separately. Any decent build should be able to kill one of those with some patience and a little cover to hide.

Anyway.
I have adquired the habit of comparing every difficult encounter against the Windmane achievements from No Refuge.

I’ll give s3ep4 final fight a rating of 0.5 windmanes “Hard but perfectly doable”.

As I have said many times, and will continue to say about GW2 bosses, I don’t know why the developers of a MMO that has SO much emphasis on Story want to discourage a subset of their players from actually experiencing that story by including higher difficulty content in the base game and STORY episodes instead of putting higher difficulty in Raids and Dungeons like other MMOs do.

Others can say that content isn’t difficult, or give tips, or offer to help, but some players either still can’t complete the content or don’t even want to try because they simply don’t enjoy high-difficulty play.

Djinn.9245:

As I have said many times, and will continue to say about GW2 bosses, I don’t know why the developers of a MMO that has SO much emphasis on Story want to discourage a subset of their players from actually experiencing that story by including higher difficulty content in the base game and STORY episodes instead of putting higher difficulty in Raids and Dungeons like other MMOs do.

Others can say that content isn’t difficult, or give tips, or offer to help, but some players either still can’t complete the content or don’t even want to try because they simply don’t enjoy high-difficulty play.

Why would they want to discourage their players by making the actual encounters drop dead boring?

I am not a good player. Being a linux user and forced to use wine with the fps drop this incurs does not make it better.

I could not do Mordremoth alone. I tried. Again and again and again. Too hard for me.

But Caudecus?

While it was hard and time consuming, I did it. Alone. With a not very robust ele (I tried tank-y ele in the past and that really does not work),

Was it too hard? Nope. Thanks to the fact that if you were killed, you could drop right back into the fight, the difficulty was manageable. Was it annoying at times? Sure it was. Did I rage? Oh yes, I did. But that is something I expect from a boss like Caudecus.I expect someone like him to have some powerful minions. I expect from a boss like him that he deals out a lot of punishment and that all the usual stuff just does not work this time. The fight was epic. Like it should be.

When I finally killed him, it felt so great. So awesome. Don’t make it easier. It was perfect.

Aerlen, if you can’t do a story instance alone, there are always players looking for some company. There is no shame to that. Btw, what is ‘artificial difficulty’?

When I first arrived in Orr, I had the rest of the map at 100%. I had a mix of rare and exotic gear and felt pretty tough. After a few minutes I was desperate. Then I learned. I got better gear and difficulty dropped a lot. Today the Orr maps are… relaxing even. Same with Verdant Brink or Bloodstone Fen. First couple of hours there were horribly painful, but I fought throught them. At the moment VB is pretty and BF a nice, easy way to collect unbound magic…

If the difficulty does not ramp up, you won’t get better. If you don’t get better, you achieved nothing. I like the fact that the same mordrem which scared me 12 weeks ago are now very managable – and at the same time Bitterfrost, LD and the Caudecus story pushed me to my limits.

And if you think lack of depht perception or slow reflexes are bad, try such maps and fights at 10fps (or triple trouble at 4 when there are lots of players…) that is MY reality.

So what I am saying is: there is no ‘artificial difficulty’. Just difficulty. And the difficulty has to increase or it will be very boring soon. Is it fun to stomp on all those lvl4 nightmare court courties in Caledon Forrest, when you are in all asc. gear? Sure. But not all the time.

Nobody forces you to play LS3 or HoT. If you want to you can stay in the Tyria maps. But don’t take away the increasing difficulty for those who enjoy new challenges.

Neve.3145:

Djinn.9245:

As I have said many times, and will continue to say about GW2 bosses, I don’t know why the developers of a MMO that has SO much emphasis on Story want to discourage a subset of their players from actually experiencing that story by including higher difficulty content in the base game and STORY episodes instead of putting higher difficulty in Raids and Dungeons like other MMOs do.

Others can say that content isn’t difficult, or give tips, or offer to help, but some players either still can’t complete the content or don’t even want to try because they simply don’t enjoy high-difficulty play.

Why would they want to discourage their players by making the actual encounters drop dead boring?

Because “drop dead boring” to you (and me, probably) is the same as “the brick wall learning curve” for others. Different skill levels and experience over time means different content has different amounts of challenge to people. (Also, differing ability means that some people probably cannot become good enough.)

Djinn, my strongest recommendation would be to look for others to join you in doing this fight. It’s much, much easier with two than it is with one. (Also, ditch the “berserker meta” for it, if you play to that.)

“If the difficulty does not ramp up, you won’t get better.”

That is saying “Git Gud”. How many times do I have to explain I cannot? I have vision and reflex issues. I’m in my 40’s, that isn’t going to improve. I’ve been playing almost since launch, I am much better now but exactly how good do you and Anet think I can get in a game that sells itself as CASUAL? I know my limits as a gamer. If I knew HOT would be a hot mess (lol), I’d have stayed away from GW2 entirely as it’s not disability friendly.

“And if you think lack of depht perception or slow reflexes are bad, try such maps and fights at 10fps (or triple trouble at 4 when there are lots of players…) that is MY reality.”

Been there, done that. Bought a better computer when I could. I still have severe ping issues at times due to my ISP. Try those fights at 10 FPS and 2,000 ping. Super not fun but not Anet’s fault at all.

“So what I am saying is: there is no ‘artificial difficulty’. Just difficulty. And the difficulty has to increase or it will be very boring soon.”

For you. It’s not for me. The standard difficulty of HOT maps is enough for me, HOT maps and LS4 maps push me to be my best and luckily, are populated by other players so we can do fun things like kill all the centaur in Lake Doric.

Living World is MEANT TO BE SOLOED. How many times do I have to say that? It is MEANT TO BE SOLOED. IT IS YOUR STORY. If it’s meant to be soloed, you can’t have huge difficulty ramps because most of GW2 is made up of casual and intermediate players. they already had to nerf this fight once and the nerfs made it so I could do it. I already said that elsewhere.

If YOU like ever increasing difficulty then beg Anet for an ‘extreme’ mode. I feel LW is hard enough as it is, the HOT story was so awful I never want to repeat it and this is coming from someone who has played through PS five times and will do it again. HOT is THAT bad. Mordemoth is THAT bugged. That is bad design.

As for “find someone to play with you” – I shouldn’t have to. LW is meant to be soloed. Do you know how hard it is to find people who want to do these pain in the kitten things? I was lucky to find someone to do Hearts and Minds with. People aren’t as eager to touch these stories any more and a group of randoms might kick you. If it’s group content then I’m sorry, Anet needs to make it a dungeon or something, not advertise it as “your story”. No one likes story gated behind brick wall difficulty and I don’t recall signing up for “Dark Souls”.

Aerlen.5326:

No one likes story gated behind brick wall difficulty and I don’t recall signing up for “Dark Souls”.

Fun fact, in the original beta, right out of the gate at level 2, enemies would kill you just as fast as the enemies in HoT. For example, a Moa would down you within the channel of their peck, or an ettin would simply smash you.

ArenaNet has always been for the gamers, unlike other MMOs which are balanced for the majority, aka the casuals. GW2 is essentially the Dark Souls of MMOs. GW1 was also very difficult if you simply jumped in. Obviously this is bad for business, as the higher they make that wall, the more players they’re going to lose, but do they care? Maybe they’ll blanket nerf old content with the next expansion, but even Orr is too challenging for some.

I always thought that GW2 was about community and working together – that is why there is enough loot for every player involved and you get xp for res-ing a downed player. That is the reason why ‘story’ episodes make it easy to squad up.

If you insist on solo-ing episodes even if you know they will be hard on you, than that is pretty much your own choice and your problem. When I couldn’t do Mordremoth, I asked a friend to help. I could have asked guildies, but they were busy farming

That said, I am in my 40s too. So… that argument does not fly and ‘better computer’ does not fly either. It really does not matter how much hardware I throw at it, as long as I am forced to use wine…

Don’t bother, ANet clearly doesn’t want anybody to play their game apart from MLG Pro eSports types. We’d all be better off if we just gave up and found a game that actually WANTS our money.

About difficulty and LS : did you try other build, other equipments ?
When I see an encounter who will be hard I change my build to make it easier.
(And they are really many build pegi 4 on every professions who are very compliant with reflex issues today.)

I mean ok, we all have differents issues, skills, hardware ect, but build & equipments adaptation are here to help everyone find his way.

The last boss fight was challenging because it was ridiculously reflex based. There isn’t really any strategy involved. I don’t think this is a good game mechanic at all.

I have to disagree with everything OP says. The ramp up in the mobs AI, and difficulty with HoT has saved this game. Because all the leveling zones where really easy but fine while leveling. But reaching 80 and getting more and more experienced. The game needed to get progressively more difficult, as the players got alot more skilled(and that happened REALLY fast, the combat is just that great and complex).

And as for you not liking group content. This is an MMORPG, GW2 has ALWAYS encouraged group play. it’s designed that way, to make you play with other ppl naturally. If you want solo content an RPG might suit you better. Because everyone I know, play this game because it naturally encourages ppl to play together, be it organised(fractals, raids, WvW, pvp) or just random ppl on the map(Events, world bosses etc.)

Ps. Sorry to hear about your disabilites. I suffer from some as well (visually), although that haven’t had any significant effect on my gameplay. But A-net can’t really cater to every ppls disabilites. Since it would pretty much change the game entirely, for a very small minority imo.

Just remove that stupid special button thingie that doesn’t add anything of value to the gameplay, and that’s all.

This game is an MMORPG. If there is a content that requires finding another player to play with – it’s normal even for the story missions. Nothing wrong with that, it’s not a singleplayer game. I’m happy when group content is encouraged.

Olveyn.2894:

This game is an MMORPG. If there is a content that requires finding another player to play with – it’s normal even for the story missions. Nothing wrong with that, it’s not a singleplayer game. I’m happy when group content is encouraged.

Well it is called a personal story. And only the creator of the instant is even acknowledged by the NPCs. The other players don’t exist for the NPCs. So it is more or less solo content. I do it with my friends together. But we all think they need to make it easier for solo player or start to change from the " your character is the only Hero beside the NPCs" story to a “you are part of a large group and you all do your part” story telling way.

Also I want to see them remembering the fact we have different races. The hate the PC gives Caithe is ok if you are no Sylvari but if you play Sylvari it is not ok.

But this is the problem with the Story in the game over all. It is planed as Solo story.

Ardid.7203:

Just remove that stupid special button thingie that doesn’t add anything of value to the gameplay, and that’s all.

They added the special action button first for raids, then with the first level of Ancient Magics mastery. I kind of like being able to use it for different enemies (although Jade constructs are still a pain), and if you don’t like the key it is bound to, it’s quite easy to change it to another one. The initial battle did require reactions that were far too short to be practical, but that got tuned down after the day one fix.

Rognik.2579:

Ardid.7203:

Just remove that stupid special button thingie that doesn’t add anything of value to the gameplay, and that’s all.

They added the special action button first for raids, then with the first level of Ancient Magics mastery. I kind of like being able to use it for different enemies (although Jade constructs are still a pain), and if you don’t like the key it is bound to, it’s quite easy to change it to another one. The initial battle did require reactions that were far too short to be practical, but that got tuned down after the day one fix.

I extremely dislike this! For those who use a gaming mouse, adding a 5th profession skill and now the “special action”, it goes beyond the 20 buttons of most gaming mice. Poor designing…

Theonord.6359:

This is an MMORPG, GW2 has ALWAYS encouraged group play. it’s designed that way, to make you play with other ppl naturally.

The PERSONAL story and the Living Story are told with a single player in mind. That is why your character is THE Commander and if you have a party playing an Episode, the NPCs only address ONE player character.

So, I disagree.

tobascodagama.2961:

Don’t bother, ANet clearly doesn’t want anybody to play their game apart from MLG Pro eSports types. We’d all be better off if we just gave up and found a game that actually WANTS our money.

What are you even talking about?

I played through a lot of HoT on most of the 9 classes even solo and the Expansion isn’t hard.
For the most part there are mechanics you should have learned already on the way to Lvl 80.
Here’s an idea: Maybe A-Net should make the core game harder again so people actually learn something while leveling, game is a joke since the new player experience dumbed everything down further.

LouWolfskin.3492:

tobascodagama.2961:

Don’t bother, ANet clearly doesn’t want anybody to play their game apart from MLG Pro eSports types. We’d all be better off if we just gave up and found a game that actually WANTS our money.

What are you even talking about?

I played through a lot of HoT on most of the 9 classes even solo and the Expansion isn’t hard.
For the most part there are mechanics you should have learned already on the way to Lvl 80.
Here’s an idea: Maybe A-Net should make the core game harder again so people actually learn something while leveling, game is a joke since the new player experience dumbed everything down further.

I’ll make this simple, go to Bloodstone Fen face the same mobs meant for the same level of player with the same skill sets. If they aren’t as difficult then there’s your answer…

Each of the mobs in Doric are actually breaking game mechanics. Mesmers greatsword ranged attack is no longer reflectable. So unless you have a block or dodge up there is no way to viably avoid a confusion or their autotarget AOE they do every other attack. Knights AOE hits multiple times, which means it works against all one time mitigation abilities. Also this attack is used every four to five seconds, meaning you won’t have dodge back before they do it the third time. Cleric has a full life heal that even if you interrupt it they will use it within the next two seconds, so if you open up with tons of damage but fail to kill them outright they get their full health and still have long blocks that reflect any ranged attack. And don’t forget their leap in attack that is non uninterruptible. The elemental has a knockback that is used often with a large AOE, and their fireball does a sizable amount damage (possibly the highest damage attack of all the White Mantle mobs) and applies burning. So if you total up three of any mix of the mobs together, unless your a necro you’ll lack the ability to mitigate conditions, heal large chunks of lost life, and do high damage. So far my necro has taken all of them to task with minimal effort. Every other class has long drawn out fights. It has little to do with skill, they are one trick ponies breaking game mechanics to create artificial difficulty.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Mesmers greatsword ranged attack is no longer reflectable.

It could never be reflected. If you were able to, it was a bug. Their basic attack is Spatial Surge with added confusion.

Personally, I find their invulnerability the most annoying, which is there to prevent you from killing them instantly after killing their clone.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

So unless you have a block or dodge up there is no way to viably avoid a confusion or their autotarget AOE they do every other attack.

New to Lake Doric, Mesmers use a multiplied version of Mind Stab, except theirs does very little damage to account for the multiplication.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Knights AOE hits multiple times, which means it works against all one time mitigation abilities.

Simply step through them or move out of the AoE. As shown by the orange marked area, that attack actually shoots out in multiple directions. If you’re standing in between two parts, you’re going to get hit twice.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

And don’t forget their leap in attack that is non uninterruptible.

You can interrupt a cleric’s leap if you expect it. But yes, they’re the most annoying.

If you can keep them from getting within range to attack, they won’t actually do anything. They initiate with a leap to melee range, then block.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

The elemental has a knockback that is used often with a large AOE, and their fireball does a sizable amount damage (possibly the highest damage attack of all the White Mantle mobs) and applies burning.

Elementalist only do their AoE knockback in melee range, which has a slow cast time. Their fireball should be changed to the actual elementalist’s fireball, which would make them a joke since it’s slow and not homing.

The necromancers actually deal the most damage, especially when their bouncing axe hits you multiple times.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Every other class has long drawn out fights.

Zerk it.

You both forgot to mention that the mesmers can steal buffs with their mindstab version.
Each hit, one buff from each person hit.

I haven’t found the White Mantle Necros difficult. They are easily pinned and don’t avoid any mechanics I’m aware of. The axe hits twice with necros normally.

I admit the mesmers are the most annoying as there is a long pause between them being revealed after their clone is killed. Why is Spatial Serge not supposed to be reflectable? It doesn’t mention that in the description you linked. My engineer used to be able to reflect the attack with his bubble before. I get the AOE wouldn’t be effected but the ranged attack?

I’ve had a gyro explode while the cleric is leaping in and it doesn’t do damage or knock him away. The Hammer 4 with my Guardian actually misses even when the mob is attacking in close range with leap in. Guardian shield 5 doesn’t interrupt their attack and knock them away. Given how many times I’ve tried this it fails to be interrupted. Even with mace 2 on the guardian they still have time to block before the strike. Even Longbow 4 on my ranger has failed to interrupt the attack. Even the charge of my elite skill minion on my necro has failed to interrupt the attack. I have used these same abilities to interrupt the Knight.

Though I had the weirdest bug/glitch with a knight. The AOE template stayed out and the Knight teleported back to the center and finished the AOE attack even after being knocked away?

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Why is Spatial Serge not supposed to be reflectable?

Reflect is for projectiles. Spatial Surge is a beam.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I’ve had a gyro explode while the cleric is leaping in and it doesn’t do damage or knock him away.

Lag? As an elementalist, I’ve been able to interrupt it with gust, static field and unstable ground during their leap animation.

Healix.5819:

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Why is Spatial Serge not supposed to be reflectable?

Reflect is for projectiles. Spatial Surge is a beam.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I’ve had a gyro explode while the cleric is leaping in and it doesn’t do damage or knock him away.

Lag? As an elementalist, I’ve been able to interrupt it with gust, static field and unstable ground during their leap animation.

Lag may have an effect, but given that I do these against practically any other mob including the same in Bloodstone Fen. It doesn’t add up to it happening reliably only in Doric.

As for the mesmer only explanation I seem to find is it’s actually a special attack or considered an unblockable attack. Makes sense for a player mez or one that creates clones. Here it just seems like their picking the most difficult mobs/attacks that most minimize mitigation, upping their health and damage, and then saying there that’s more difficult. Sure one or two attacks are fine like the Chaos Storm in Orr, but not every other attack then it’s just a cluster of crap.

What is the point of the Jade even being here? I’ve done the story and it still doesn’t explain why the Jade are working with the White Mantle especially given their story of hating anything and everything. The champion Bow is beyond difficult, it can reliably down a player every ranged attack string. Even the construct in Ember Bay isn’t that over the top and it’s a Legendary. It’s more difficult than the Bloodstone Wyvern in Verdant Brink another legendary. Even with my necro dying several times there is a relatively close waypoint and repair. That small ledge and it’s flame hurt, but when your blindsided by a electric wyvern avoiding it well you’re just screwed.

I haven’t even gotten into the the most over the top difficult area in the whole map. I don’t even have to name it and anyone who’s been there instantly knows which one it is.

They really need to update other player classes with more accessible mitigation. Take for instance my Guardian vs my Necro. My Guardian has a couple active skills that can mitigate conditions and a few traits that can mitigate these. Yet my necro can take one though I recommend two traits and focus the rest on damage and mitigate the conditions without me wasting skill slots, CC (let’s be honest minions are the best form of open world crowd control, you don’t need to do anything they just do it on their own), and sacrificing damage. It’s not even a comparison the amount of damage I can wield against large groups or single target yet laugh off damage (with the two traits) and conditions.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

As for the mesmer only explanation I seem to find is it’s actually a special attack or considered an unblockable attack. Makes sense for a player mez or one that creates clones. Here it just seems like their picking the most difficult mobs/attacks that most minimize mitigation, upping their health and damage, and then saying there that’s more difficult. Sure one or two attacks are fine like the Chaos Storm in Orr, but not every other attack then it’s just a cluster of crap.

Beam is also found on staff auto for druid too. They are many attacks like necro scepter
that are ranged and not a projectile and have the very same mitigation ways than the beam.

The problem is that with “one attack per minute”, there is no pressure to go defensive and on glass canon the mobs are too squishy to even vaguely threaten a player. So you have to up the mob hp to prevent them from being 2-shot and its damage output to make him a bit threatening. And yeah it adds difficulty, but it’s good difficulty because i’m not bored to death when fighting mobs.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

What is the point of the Jade even being here? I’ve done the story and it still doesn’t explain why the Jade are working with the White Mantle especially given their story of hating anything and everything.

Basic lore : jade constructs were made by mursaats, the White Mantle gods, centuries ago and were left to abandon when the race went near extinction. White Mantle only managed to reactivate them due to the increase of magic following Mordremoth’s death.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

The champion Bow is beyond difficult, it can reliably down a player every ranged attack string.

If you juste circle around him, you are safe.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Even the construct in Ember Bay isn’t that over the top and it’s a Legendary. It’s more difficult than the Bloodstone Wyvern in Verdant Brink another legendary. Even with my necro dying several times there is a relatively close waypoint and repair. That small ledge and it’s flame hurt, but when your blindsided by a electric wyvern avoiding it well you’re just screwed.

Different bosses having different difficulties i don’t see any problems here.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I haven’t even gotten into the the most over the top difficult area in the whole map. I don’t even have to name it and anyone who’s been there instantly knows which one it is.

If you mean the pack of veteran/elite spirits, you aren’t supposed to solo them. You can solo one or two at the same time, maybe more but i didn’t bother to try hard.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

They really need to update other player classes with more accessible mitigation. Take for instance my Guardian vs my Necro. My Guardian has a couple active skills that can mitigate conditions and a few traits that can mitigate these. Yet my necro can take one though I recommend two traits and focus the rest on damage and mitigate the conditions without me wasting skill slots, CC (let’s be honest minions are the best form of open world crowd control, you don’t need to do anything they just do it on their own), and sacrificing damage. It’s not even a comparison the amount of damage I can wield against large groups or single target yet laugh off damage (with the two traits) and conditions.

Necro can be very tanky with its high hp pool and the huge amount of lifesteal. Each classes soak up damage in a different way, don’t expect to play your necro as you play a guardian.

ich.7086

My necro isn’t just tanky, he’s tanky in berserker gear. Hands down my necros can take on most mobs in PVE with minimal effort. My point was that their condition mitigation is far superior to other classes that are supposed to be tanky since they don’t have to actively monitor it. My minions remove conditions and spread them to my enemies all on their own. Yet I’m geared for damage. It’s not even a comparison if I use any other class in PVE, weakest has to be elemental. They have little to no damage mitigation and can’t swap weapons so reflect mobs get free reign against them if they are carrying a staff. No what I meant by other classes need more passive mitigation is that it’s the difference between a toon being able to handle current material vs one that is constantly dying to it.

I love my Mesmer to death. Quite literally. He dies every time a HoT/LSS3 mob sneezes at him.

I do feel that mobs in HotS are overtuned, and deal dramatically more damage than in core Tyria. I don’t have this problem on my Elementalist or Necromancer, since they have more passive defenses (whereas the Mesmer only has active ones).

I can’t really say whether it’s a skill issue or a design issue. I do feel like I have to monitor every single move as a Mesmer in open world PvE and personal stories, or risk dying – whereas my Necromancer and Elementalist have much more forgiving gameplay.