Guild Wars 2

is by far the worst content i have ever seen in my 30 years of playing video games.

The ET game on atari is actually better than this, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it and it is a complete negative play experience. Whoever designed this should be utterly embarrassed about how putrid and wretched of an encounter this is.

GoG.5102:

is by far the worst content i have ever seen in my 30 years of playing video games.

The ET game on atari is actually better than this, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it and it is a complete negative play experience. Whoever designed this should be utterly embarrassed about how putrid and wretched of an encounter this is.

Yea, there have been a bunch of threads about this fight.

In b4 “it was easy for me” replies.

It was easy for me!

Not really. It handed me my ass more times than I could count, pre-nerf.

And, I’m still too traumatized to go back and try again. I’ll get to it eventually.

I found it difficult myself, though I found it easier when I tuned down my field of view in the options section, since you’re confined to a small space.

GoG.5102:

The ET game on atari is actually better than this, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it and it is a complete negative play experience.

It is not really that bad as you say. Is it flawed? Yes, but there were a lot of things redeemable about the game, and there is no fatal flaw that I know of. There are people who found at least some enjoyment of it, and I really like the various ways different classes play the instance differently. I even like the riddles leading up to the final fight. That fight itself is… not the most pleasant experience, but everything leading up to it and after it is quite fun. Don’t let a single part of it ruin your entire enjoyment of it.

I know it doesn’t help much, but having helped a few people with it … it goes so much better with two than with one.

I agree. The way up to the fight was actually fine. The profession-specific quirks were definitely a nice touch, which I’d like to see again further down the road. If I had to characterise the Cadeceus fight itself, the first to adjectives coming to my mind would be “tedious” and “gimmicky/annoying.” Not as tedious as Hearts and Minds felt (even though the feeling of it might have influenced/warped the real time it takes to complete it), but the “enjoyment” of beating on an HP sponge or spending more time in breaking a breakbar was hardly different for me.

This was such a hassle, I was lucky to have a friend to do this with and I don’t think I will ever want to touch it again.

I hope they don’t want to do more things like that >_<

it was easy for me

but instead of complaining like a shotgun, how about you tell us the exact problem, and we can help you

It’s actually a very simple fight, but it’s meant to be distracting.

When the boss is shielded, the room is spammed with circles, but they do little damage and can be entirely avoided by simply standing in-between the rings or in the center. Shortly after the boss is shielded, the adds will spawn and you’ll know exactly when because the walls will stop spinning. You simply wait for the door to open, kill them while they’re walking into the room, then break the shield to continue.

Once you break the shield, the counter magic spam will begin. If you’re not fast enough, you can simply bind it to a key that won’t interfere, like F#, and spam it. Since he’ll focus his attacks on the NPCs, you can simply stand at this back while only having to dodge after his teleport, just in case he immediately opens with an attack. The small room doesn’t even matter, because there’s very little movement and the actual fight can be done entirely in the center.

Healix.5819:

It’s actually a very simple fight, but it’s meant to be distracting.

When the boss is shielded, the room is spammed with circles, but they do little damage and can be entirely avoided by simply standing in-between the rings or in the center. Shortly after the boss is shielded, the adds will spawn and you’ll know exactly when because the walls will stop spinning. You simply wait for the door to open, kill them while they’re walking into the room, then break the shield to continue.

Once you break the shield, the counter magic spam will begin. If you’re not fast enough, you can simply bind it to a key that won’t interfere, like F#, and spam it. Since he’ll focus his attacks on the NPCs, you can simply stand at this back while only having to dodge after his teleport, just in case he immediately opens with an attack. The small room doesn’t even matter, because there’s very little movement and the actual fight can be done entirely in the center.

Nice, concise summary. I will definitely be referencing it when I decide to go back in and finish it off.

Sarpan makes a good point. With your permission, Healix, I’m going to add it to the wiki walkthrough for this instance.

What was so hard about it? What class are you playing? You’re really just running in a circle pressing 1 and sometimes F. I missed like most of the counter magics too. One thing that may help is to always have Cadedcus selected so you don’t have to worry too much about missing.

I actually did die once in the instance, but it was to the fight upstairs before since I was on the phone while playing.

I never can understand why people bother with answers like “it was easy for me”. So what? If I say that I can’t sing, why would someone answer “singing is easy for me”? Some people are inherently better at things than others. The fact that you don’t find something difficult doesn’t mean anything to people who do find it difficult.

Djinn.9245:

I never can understand why people bother with answers like “it was easy for me”. So what? If I say that I can’t sing, why would someone answer “singing is easy for me”? Some people are inherently better at things than others. The fact that you don’t find something difficult doesn’t mean anything to people who do find it difficult.

Well, you don’t go around talking about how you can’t sing to people and how singing is the worst thing ever, do you?

Now, if you went to people and said. “Geez, I really hate singing because I’m really bad at it. Could you help me be not bad at it?” I think if someone said “singing is easy”, then they’d be quite the kitten.

I mean is the point of the topic to seek help, or to rant? There’s nothing wrong with doing either or both, but one of these goals generally leads to more productive things.

So yea, if someone is having trouble, they can give details like what class are they using, what part of the fight are they dying on, and what is killing them. Or methods tried. I would think that exhausting these things first would be more sensible then dragging out the rant hammer, but each to their own. And not to mention there’s already some useful information already here.

tl;dr the quality of the responses often depends on the quality of the query.

EDIT: Garbage spellcheck

Djinn.9245:

GoG.5102:

is by far the worst content i have ever seen in my 30 years of playing video games.

The ET game on atari is actually better than this, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it and it is a complete negative play experience. Whoever designed this should be utterly embarrassed about how putrid and wretched of an encounter this is.

Yea, there have been a bunch of threads about this fight.

In b4 “it was easy for me” replies.

It was easy for me.

No really, I went down 1-2 times, but didn’t have any much trouble. Just whack him down with your zerk or viper’s gear and avoid the fields.

30 years gamer – so you know the so called ‘Nintendo difficulty’? If so you should be better than this.

ArchonWing.9480:

Djinn.9245:

I never can understand why people bother with answers like “it was easy for me”. So what? If I say that I can’t sing, why would someone answer “singing is easy for me”? Some people are inherently better at things than others. The fact that you don’t find something difficult doesn’t mean anything to people who do find it difficult.

tl;dr the quality of the responses often depends on the quality of the query.

No, the quality of the response depends on the responder. And the OP is not a query so no response is even “necessary”. As it is, there are plenty of people who happen to agree with the OP. And most of those people aren’t asking for advice, they are expressing their opinion.

Many of us who agree with the OP have played GW2 straight through to this story (no level-ups). We have at least a fair approximation of how to play at this point. This isn’t a Dungeon or Raid where one would expect to have to “learn the dance”. This is the main storyline of the game in general PvE. That is my issue with pretty much ALL of the end-boss fights of the Stories.

I’m not sure why Anet decided to create their main story end fights in this way, but I will continue to express my dislike for it until they change or until I get fed up and quit.

Djinn.9245:

ArchonWing.9480:

Djinn.9245:

I never can understand why people bother with answers like “it was easy for me”. So what? If I say that I can’t sing, why would someone answer “singing is easy for me”? Some people are inherently better at things than others. The fact that you don’t find something difficult doesn’t mean anything to people who do find it difficult.

tl;dr the quality of the responses often depends on the quality of the query.

No, the quality of the response depends on the responder. And the OP is not a query so no response is even “necessary”. As it is, there are plenty of people who happen to agree with the OP. And most of those people aren’t asking for advice, they are expressing their opinion.

I hope you realize that really limits the scope of the discussion. If we just want to merely talk about “it was hard” [and possibly why] then the only other response will be “It isn’t” [and possibly why]. So that’s why people say stuff like that. What else is there to talk about?

Many of us who agree with the OP have played GW2 straight through to this story (no level-ups). We have at least a fair approximation of how to play at this point. This isn’t a Dungeon or Raid where one would expect to have to “learn the dance”. This is the main storyline of the game in general PvE. That is my issue with pretty much ALL of the end-boss fights of the Stories.

This is nowhere on the level of raids or dungeons, though. Personally, I thought the end of the chapter where you have to train Aurene was actually frustrating.

Or something like Hidden Arcana, where you are introduced to multiple new mechanics at once and have to utilize all of them in a risky manner where conventional damage is muted. I’m glad they never did that again.

The last 2 chapters have had fights that are very easy compared to the ones immediately before. Granted, this one is much harder than the one in a Crack in the Ice. If people managed to get to this far, then I’m rather confused. I mean really, and I have trouble killing the individual jade armors!

I barely play PvE and I was able to finish the Caudecus fight in full exotic berserker’s Ranger with Black Bear and Fern Hound with 3 Runes of Strength and 1 Sigil of Air on my Greatsword. I only died twice.

I don’t understand your issue.

Djinn.9245:

Many of us who agree with the OP have played GW2 straight through to this story (no level-ups). We have at least a fair approximation of how to play at this point. This isn’t a Dungeon or Raid where one would expect to have to “learn the dance”. This is the main storyline of the game in general PvE. That is my issue with pretty much ALL of the end-boss fights of the Stories.

I’m not sure why Anet decided to create their main story end fights in this way, but I will continue to express my dislike for it until they change or until I get fed up and quit.

1. I think you meant the auto-level up. If you got through the entire story on just a level 1 character somehow, I’d be impressed, especially as you’re pretty much guaranteed to be level 2 getting out of the intro instances.

2. There is still a bit of a dance to learn to complete the main story, as it’s different from a lot of the MMOs that were originally released. It might not be as complicated as the Dungeons or Raids, but there’s still tricks to learn.

I’m also currently replaying all of Heart of Thorns on my Guardian and I’m having a really hard time with it. I breezed through it on my Ranger (not even with the Druid specialization), but I’m really struggling now. Does that make me a worse player than I was before? I don’t think so. Is the content any more challenging? Doubtful, as a lot of the challenge was still in Act 1. No one’s complained about HoT story content (outside of Hearts and Minds) to the same degree any of the Living World chapters have. I think there’s something here more than just a challenging boss fight.

3. Are those really the only two options? Are you sure you will never learn to deal with the challenging but entirely doable end bosses in the LW chapters? Yes, Caudecus on day 1 was a bit too strong, but even then, lots of people were able to complete that instance the very same day. I recommend you learn to at least tolerate the way the end instances are designed, or perhaps you should save some time and quit now rather than keep up getting frustrated and frustrating us with these types of posts.

ArchonWing.9480:

This is nowhere on the level of raids or dungeons, though. Personally, I thought the end of the chapter where you have to train Aurene was actually frustrating.

Or something like Hidden Arcana, where you are introduced to multiple new mechanics at once and have to utilize all of them in a risky manner where conventional damage is muted. I’m glad they never did that again.

The last 2 chapters have had fights that are very easy compared to the ones immediately before. Granted, this one is much harder than the one in a Crack in the Ice. If people managed to get to this far, then I’m rather confused. I mean really, and I have trouble killing the individual jade armors!

Did you mean the end of S3E2, where you had to protect Aurene? Or the start of S3E3, where you go through Tarir and do various trials?

How is Hidden Arcana’s last instance different from how the end of S3E1 worked, where you are taught various mechanics tied to Counter Magic? I know a lot of people who have trouble with Justiciar Adrienne, and she’s not even the final battle of the instance. Is it really that different?

30 years gamer – so you know the so called ‘Nintendo difficulty’? If so you should be better than this.

I think you are onto something here. Many encounters in this game feel like this. I couldn’t put my finger on it before, but it’s indeed “Nintendo difficulty”. That is where this homelike, warm feeling comes from. Balls/bullets coming at you from the enemy in different patterns and circles, that cannot be reflected. The red areas on the floor popping up in patterns that sometimes require trained movement, Spikes od Doom, vanishing or moving platforms, basically Jump ‘n’ Run game mechanics. One shot kills and insanely fast and deadly NPCs like the Legendary Bandit Executioner. Pocket Raptors or those little mosquitoes in Bitterfrost Frontier. Those sadistic additions that just add to your frustration.

The only thing missing is the harsh penalties for failing.

I’ll stop here, the devs use almost everything from these lists:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClassicVideoGameScrewYous

Honestly, I think there is no bullet point in those lists that does not apply to Guild Wars 2 on every level. Even Easy Mode Mockery:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EasyModeMockery

Remember this task in the lab where you had to disassemble the power generation blind? You had two options, read the manual or not. “Reading instructions is for chumps.”

Although I did start playing games with Nintendo and the other games of the 90’s, which just got harder and harder each level until you died, it is not what I expected from GW2 when I started 6 weeks ago. I often find the encounters a little bit too frustrating, without the “difficulty” adding more fun to the game. A boss that’s almost finished becoming invulnerable and healing up to 100% after a long fight…come on… It does teach you something important about grit and perseverance, but in military style.

But somehow, I guess the gamer part of my brain is hard-wired to this masochistic experience, and that’s why I enjoy the game in general. Thank you Nintendo!

ArchonWing.9480:

Djinn.9245:

ArchonWing.9480:

Djinn.9245:

I never can understand why people bother with answers like “it was easy for me”. So what? If I say that I can’t sing, why would someone answer “singing is easy for me”? Some people are inherently better at things than others. The fact that you don’t find something difficult doesn’t mean anything to people who do find it difficult.

tl;dr the quality of the responses often depends on the quality of the query.

No, the quality of the response depends on the responder. And the OP is not a query so no response is even “necessary”. As it is, there are plenty of people who happen to agree with the OP. And most of those people aren’t asking for advice, they are expressing their opinion.

I hope you realize that really limits the scope of the discussion. If we just want to merely talk about “it was hard” [and possibly why] then the only other response will be “It isn’t” [and possibly why]. So that’s why people say stuff like that. What else is there to talk about?

Many of us who agree with the OP have played GW2 straight through to this story (no level-ups). We have at least a fair approximation of how to play at this point. This isn’t a Dungeon or Raid where one would expect to have to “learn the dance”. This is the main storyline of the game in general PvE. That is my issue with pretty much ALL of the end-boss fights of the Stories.

This is nowhere on the level of raids or dungeons, though.

Nowhere did I say it was at the level of raids. However, I do participate in Dungeons (just did some Saturday) and I disagree that the end-bosses of the Stories aren’t similar to some Dungeon bosses. Of course Dungeons are meant to be 5-man content, but in terms of “the dance”, I see them as very similar.

ArchonWing.9480:

Personally, I thought the end of the chapter where you have to train Aurene was actually frustrating.

Or something like Hidden Arcana, where you are introduced to multiple new mechanics at once and have to utilize all of them in a risky manner where conventional damage is muted. I’m glad they never did that again.

The last 2 chapters have had fights that are very easy compared to the ones immediately before. Granted, this one is much harder than the one in a Crack in the Ice. If people managed to get to this far, then I’m rather confused. I mean really, and I have trouble killing the individual jade armors!

You can get this far by skipping the end fight of the previous episode and starting the new episode. That is what I have had to do for the vast majority of story episodes so far because of the end boss difficulty.

Faaris.8013:

30 years gamer – so you know the so called ‘Nintendo difficulty’? If so you should be better than this.

I think you are onto something here. Many encounters in this game feel like this. I couldn’t put my finger on it before, but it’s indeed “Nintendo difficulty”. That is where this homelike, warm feeling comes from. Balls/bullets coming at you from the enemy in different patterns and circles, that cannot be reflected. The red areas on the floor popping up in patterns that sometimes require trained movement, Spikes od Doom, vanishing or moving platforms, basically Jump ‘n’ Run game mechanics. One shot kills and insanely fast and deadly NPCs like the Legendary Bandit Executioner. Pocket Raptors or those little mosquitoes in Bitterfrost Frontier. Those sadistic additions that just add to your frustration.

The only thing missing is the harsh penalties for failing.

I’ll stop here, the devs use almost everything from these lists:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClassicVideoGameScrewYous

Honestly, I think there is no bullet point in those lists that does not apply to Guild Wars 2 on every level. Even Easy Mode Mockery:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EasyModeMockery

Remember this task in the lab where you had to disassemble the power generation blind? You had two options, read the manual or not. “Reading instructions is for chumps.”

Although I did start playing games with Nintendo and the other games of the 90’s, which just got harder and harder each level until you died, it is not what I expected from GW2 when I started 6 weeks ago. I often find the encounters a little bit too frustrating, without the “difficulty” adding more fun to the game. A boss that’s almost finished becoming invulnerable and healing up to 100% after a long fight…come on… It does teach you something important about grit and perseverance, but in military style.

But somehow, I guess the gamer part of my brain is hard-wired to this masochistic experience, and that’s why I enjoy the game in general. Thank you Nintendo!

I have also been a video gamer for most of my life, but I did not play the kind of game you refer to. I mostly played MUDs and RPGs. I was not “trained” to automatically find this type of thing fun and since I started playing GW2 to play an MMO, I did not expect to find this type of mechanic in the general PvE story. I know they often put this type of play in Raids in other MMOs, but I rarely raid exactly because of that.

I “got hooked” on GW2 because of the PvE play / stories. I tried my best so far to get through the stories despite this type of gameplay but I still can’t reconcile it with the rest of core Tyria PvE.

Rognik.2579:

ArchonWing.9480:

This is nowhere on the level of raids or dungeons, though. Personally, I thought the end of the chapter where you have to train Aurene was actually frustrating.

Or something like Hidden Arcana, where you are introduced to multiple new mechanics at once and have to utilize all of them in a risky manner where conventional damage is muted. I’m glad they never did that again.

The last 2 chapters have had fights that are very easy compared to the ones immediately before. Granted, this one is much harder than the one in a Crack in the Ice. If people managed to get to this far, then I’m rather confused. I mean really, and I have trouble killing the individual jade armors!

Did you mean the end of S3E2, where you had to protect Aurene? Or the start of S3E3, where you go through Tarir and do various trials?

How is Hidden Arcana’s last instance different from how the end of S3E1 worked, where you are taught various mechanics tied to Counter Magic? I know a lot of people who have trouble with Justiciar Adrienne, and she’s not even the final battle of the instance. Is it really that different?

Because there were several, like steal aspects, stand in the circles, and stuff I can’t even remember. I recall it being rather unforgiving as well. And I don’t really recall those mechanics being used again elsewhere. They were both quite difficult. I even had trouble with the you + aurene fights that required a combo. But because that fight was relatively forgiving, and you can’t finish the instance without learning the mechanic, the game effectively makes you learn it before you can advance.

Counter Magic comes down to pressing the button at the right time, it’s pretty intuitive, and you don’t really need to understand it. By the time you get to the end of episode 1 of season 3, I think the answer is pretty obvious.

By episode 4, there is really no excuse to be like “wut” when the button comes up. I mean, I guess if you played them out of order there would be difficulty but the story makes you do events in Lake Doric where this issue will come across. So there really is no surprises.

I mean, when you enter Lake Doric, there’s literally a champion at the front door where you can toss bloodstone shards at it to weaken it. Coincidentally Caduceus has a similar mechanic. And this was a thing in Bloodstone Fen too. So, indeed, I have a really hard time criticizing the mechanics of this boss. Heck, I found the riddles to be more of a pain.

So that’s where I have trouble understanding the situation. He doesn’t have that anything that novel, nor are there really any instant death moves that you must avoid. I really can’t chalk it up to anything but player error if it doesn’t go right.

Djinn.9245:

Nowhere did I say it was at the level of raids. However, I do participate in Dungeons (just did some Saturday) and I disagree that the end-bosses of the Stories aren’t similar to some Dungeon bosses. Of course Dungeons are meant to be 5-man content, but in terms of “the dance”, I see them as very similar.

ArchonWing.9480:

Personally, I thought the end of the chapter where you have to train Aurene was actually frustrating.

Or something like Hidden Arcana, where you are introduced to multiple new mechanics at once and have to utilize all of them in a risky manner where conventional damage is muted. I’m glad they never did that again.

The last 2 chapters have had fights that are very easy compared to the ones immediately before. Granted, this one is much harder than the one in a Crack in the Ice. If people managed to get to this far, then I’m rather confused. I mean really, and I have trouble killing the individual jade armors!

You can get this far by skipping the end fight of the previous episode and starting the new episode. That is what I have had to do for the vast majority of story episodes so far because of the end boss difficulty.

When I meant level, I meant in terms of learning curve and complexity. And the amount of dungeons I’ve done this year: 0. The amount of fractals: 0, the amount of raids: 1

I simply don’t like those things because they often have mechanics specific to the instance of which you have to learn on the fly. So I thought this stuff here is pretty tame by any comparison.

And you could definitely skip parts of the story, the rewards aren’t that great. I still think it’d be better just to take some time to deal with it; it may make later chapters easier to do.

ArchonWing.9480:

I still think it’d be better just to take some time to deal with it; it may make later chapters easier to do.

One reason I don’t understand Anet’s decision to make Episode End fights challenging (as perceived by me) is that they made this wonderful story and I would think that they would want ALL of their players to be able to participate in / enjoy it. I have limited play time. I do not choose to spend that time doing a fight over and over.

This isn’t a Dungeon, Fractal, or Raid that gives you nice loot (to varying degrees) which would justify making it a challenge. I’m not looking for loot, I just want my character to participate in the story.

Djinn.9245:

ArchonWing.9480:

I still think it’d be better just to take some time to deal with it; it may make later chapters easier to do.

One reason I don’t understand Anet’s decision to make Episode End fights challenging (as perceived by me) is that they made this wonderful story and I would think that they would want ALL of their players to be able to participate in / enjoy it. I have limited play time. I do not choose to spend that time doing a fight over and over.

This isn’t a Dungeon, Fractal, or Raid that gives you nice loot (to varying degrees) which would justify making it a challenge. I’m not looking for loot, I just want my character to participate in the story.

Well one main reason for them to make it a bit harder is because we are past level 80 and the game is gonna be 5 years old this year. We are no more in the levelling purpose and the encounters need to be tuned for exotic and need to account for the fact that we have elite specs now. Besides we are playing an action based combat system. If the post level 80 experience provides the same experience as the levelling experience then I would personally call it poor and and badly implemented design. What you personally find hard now could be called easy for other (and no you don’t need to go into raiding to find easy). I will agree though that the very first iteration of Caudescus fights in lake Doric was a bit too much high tuned.

Djinn.9245:

What you personally find hard now could be called easy for other (and no you don’t need to go into raiding to find easy).

Personally, I would like to have a choice. A difficulty level for the story bosses that I can select. There is already the idea of it implemented, with the achievements. They could have designed it so you only pass “The Sky Is Falling” if you “complete the instance without being damaged by falling bloodstone shards or their explosions.” They chose to not do that but let you succeed even if you get hit a few times. For those who decide to challenge themselves, they implemented the achievement. And those achievements provide Mastery Points, which are otherwise quite hard to get in Tyria.

I would probably choose an easy mode for the bosses in the first run and get less rewards just to proceed with the story. Whenever I reach the last part of a chapter, I check the Internet to estimate how much time I will need. I did not do that before the end of the Personal Story and told my wife “I should be done soon.” several times for more than 2 hours. Since then I skipped a few boss fights and went on to the next chapter, to do the bosses on weekends. I’m at the Caudecus part now and haven’t fought Mordremoth yet. I will do it this Easter weekend and Caudecus too.

I simply don’t have as much time to play as I had a couple of years ago, and if you play a little bit after work, a long, exhausting boss fight is not what I’m looking forward to.

Do I spoil my fun by learning about the fights beforehand? Maybe, but that depends on the meaning of fun here. Usually, I like to jump into cold water and learn by mistakes, but in this game, there is simply confusing stuff. When Aurene and me had to lead the injured soldiers to a save place, I tried to defend them from the attacking mobs. That is what you usually do in this game, you fight wave after wave until it’s done or you fall asleep. In this case, I learned that I was supposed to interact with the people so they start moving. But before I learned that, they were all dead and I still fought wave after wave of mobs. At this point, succeeding was a major PITA because I had to resurrect each of them and lead them to the save area, while “encouraging” Aurene a couple of times because she was down. One simple misunderstanding made this experience terrible. Had I read about the mechanics before, it would have spared me the pain.

btw, I don’t think I’m a terrible or stupid player, I am soloing all story parts and bosses with my thief. If this happened to me, I’m sure it happened to others. Trial and error is not a good option if you only have a few seconds of survival time in a fight with Mordremoth because you have no clue what you are supposed to do.

Faaris.8013:

Personally, I would like to have a choice. A difficulty level for the story bosses that I can select. There is already the idea of it implemented, with the achievements. They could have designed it so you only pass “The Sky Is Falling” if you “complete the instance without being damaged by falling bloodstone shards or their explosions.” They chose to not do that but let you succeed even if you get hit a few times. For those who decide to challenge themselves, they implemented the achievement. And those achievements provide Mastery Points, which are otherwise quite hard to get in Tyria.

I haven’t noticed that leeway personally. My achievement qualification symbol always disappeared as soon as I got hit by falling shards or the exploding AoE, but maybe I had been hit beforehand without noticing it.

Otherwise: I thought that many fights – or lead ups to to it – were more annoying than “hard.” The “Protect Aurene” of E2 for example was simply hectic or messy, especially or maybe only if you want specific achievements (her shield above 50%). I always thought her shield needed to drop to a certain % before a large-is mob wave and as result Lazarus appeared (instead of that you needed to kill a certain amount of Veteran mobs).

Or the Vigilant achievement at the beginning of E3. Dulfy suggests to destroy the Portals and enemies before speaking to the wounded soldiers for an easier times, yet somehow the spawning mobs manage to defeat at least one NPC before I could destroy one Portal.
Episode 3 the last part where you travel with Braham and Rox through the dungeon: The final battle is not too bad (I had bad luck and got hit by his ice attack just before it died, disqualifying me for one achievement), but getting mobbed by Veteran, Elite and normal mobs on your way to it was somehow frustrating at times. Lously player skills on my part or not.

This fight was pretty awful. Not too difficult, as compared to the average dungeon or fractal, but it was pretty unpleasant. The room was a bit too small and I struggled more with the camera than anything else.

Overall though, I really don’t like this design direction for boss fights where they just throw a whole bunch of kitten at you simultaneously to make things ‘challenging’. This seems to have started with raids and is slowly creeping into fractals and now even story content. Not really digging it, tbh. All the visual clutter really detracts from the design of the boss and environment (both of which were top notch).

Going to requote this:

Healix.5819:

It’s actually a very simple fight, but it’s meant to be distracting.

When the boss is shielded, the room is spammed with circles, but they do little damage and can be entirely avoided by simply standing in-between the rings or in the center. Shortly after the boss is shielded, the adds will spawn and you’ll know exactly when because the walls will stop spinning. You simply wait for the door to open, kill them while they’re walking into the room, then break the shield to continue.

Once you break the shield, the counter magic spam will begin. If you’re not fast enough, you can simply bind it to a key that won’t interfere, like F#, and spam it. Since he’ll focus his attacks on the NPCs, you can simply stand at this back while only having to dodge after his teleport, just in case he immediately opens with an attack. The small room doesn’t even matter, because there’s very little movement and the actual fight can be done entirely in the center.

Because it summs up the fight perfectly. The entire fight is ment to be a distraction on your senses. The wierd stairs which teleport you back and forth, the flashy circles, the bright colors getting thrown at you. You’re fighting a mesmer, gather your senses and focus on whats important.

Most of the attacks are not lethal, it’s important to focus on the 1-2 that are. The fight does require a higher than normal amount of movement and positioning than previous fights in the story but that can be attributed to the fact that you are killing off a major character. Do we really want this to be a “keep pressing 1 and afk” situation?

I’m really sick and tired of people taking the complaints regarding one of the toughest story boss fights (that’s why there are these threads and why they nerfed it) and going to the opposite extreme “why does everyone want it to be a faceroll?” Who, in any of these threads, said that their solution to the fact that they find it too difficult is for Anet to make it a faceroll? Can no one who says this type of thing imagine that there is an entire scale of difficulty between the two extremes? I laugh every time I see one of those comments.

Djinn.9245:

I’m really sick and tired of people taking the complaints regarding one of the toughest story boss fights (that’s why there are these threads and why they nerfed it) and going to the opposite extreme “why does everyone want it to be a faceroll?” Who, in any of these threads, said that their solution to the fact that they find it too difficult is for Anet to make it a faceroll? Can no one who says this type of thing imagine that there is an entire scale of difficulty between the two extremes? I laugh every time I see one of those comments.

Because all difficulty is relative. Toughest story boss fights means little when every other boss fight was “stand there and half afk press 1”. When people finished the Zhaitan fight most were rightfully disapointed with how patheticly easy it is, there was absolutely 0 sense of immersion or accomplishment.

There is almost 0 difficult or engaging story boss fights. Now you could argue that story in general should be easy, which is a valid complaint. I’d simply argue that I feel different on that matter when key story characters die (because bar any wierd story twists, they only get to die once).

In this case, if one analyses the fight and actually tries to figure out how hard it should be to an average gamer, it comes up fine.

Is it as easy as most open world content? No.

Is it as difficult as most dungeons? Slighty more difficult.

Is it as difficult as most fractals? No.

Is it on a difficulty scale as most raid content? Absolutely no.

It compares to some of the easier Queens Gauntlet fights, just that there is a lot more confusing stuff happening.

tl;dr: The fight is easy enough if one actually takes the time to understand it and doesn’t just run in braindead half afk. Making it simpler would not do one of the main villain besides dragon justice.

Cyninja.2954:

Djinn.9245:

I’m really sick and tired of people taking the complaints regarding one of the toughest story boss fights (that’s why there are these threads and why they nerfed it) and going to the opposite extreme “why does everyone want it to be a faceroll?” Who, in any of these threads, said that their solution to the fact that they find it too difficult is for Anet to make it a faceroll? Can no one who says this type of thing imagine that there is an entire scale of difficulty between the two extremes? I laugh every time I see one of those comments.

Toughest story boss fights means little when every other boss fight was “stand there and half afk press 1”.

For everyone? How do you know that?

Cyninja.2954:

When people finished the Zhaitan fight most were rightfully disapointed with how patheticly easy it is, there was absolutely 0 sense of immersion or accomplishment.

What people? Zhaitan also initially had threads like this…

Djinn.9245:

Cyninja.2954:

Djinn.9245:

I’m really sick and tired of people taking the complaints regarding one of the toughest story boss fights (that’s why there are these threads and why they nerfed it) and going to the opposite extreme “why does everyone want it to be a faceroll?” Who, in any of these threads, said that their solution to the fact that they find it too difficult is for Anet to make it a faceroll? Can no one who says this type of thing imagine that there is an entire scale of difficulty between the two extremes? I laugh every time I see one of those comments.

Toughest story boss fights means little when every other boss fight was “stand there and half afk press 1”.

For everyone? How do you know that?

Cyninja.2954:

When people finished the Zhaitan fight most were rightfully disapointed with how patheticly easy it is, there was absolutely 0 sense of immersion or accomplishment.

What people? Zhaitan also initially had threads like this…

Zhaitan used to require a party to do it though, a person’s impression of the difficulty will likely depend on what version they did.

Djinn.9245:

Cyninja.2954:

Djinn.9245:

I’m really sick and tired of people taking the complaints regarding one of the toughest story boss fights (that’s why there are these threads and why they nerfed it) and going to the opposite extreme “why does everyone want it to be a faceroll?” Who, in any of these threads, said that their solution to the fact that they find it too difficult is for Anet to make it a faceroll? Can no one who says this type of thing imagine that there is an entire scale of difficulty between the two extremes? I laugh every time I see one of those comments.

Toughest story boss fights means little when every other boss fight was “stand there and half afk press 1”.

For everyone? How do you know that?

Cyninja.2954:

When people finished the Zhaitan fight most were rightfully disapointed with how patheticly easy it is, there was absolutely 0 sense of immersion or accomplishment.

What people? Zhaitan also initially had threads like this…

Due to way different reasons. The requirement for a party was the main one.

The actual Zhaitan fight was literally stand there and press 2 on a turret and doable solo since people finished vanilla Arah story solo.

Please do tell which story boss fights are challenging besides Season 2 Episode 8, HoT Mordremoth and now Cadeceus? All of which were key moments and fights.

the only hard part of this fight is dealing with the fact you get a better version of the mask you’d get from doing a lot of achievements. All that effort and then i get a bearded version five minutes later ),:
btw stand outside of his fields and spam f & 1 so you get his shield down quickly. Focus entirely on any minions he makes when they appear.

Mahou.3924:

Faaris.8013:

Personally, I would like to have a choice. A difficulty level for the story bosses that I can select. There is already the idea of it implemented, with the achievements. They could have designed it so you only pass “The Sky Is Falling” if you “complete the instance without being damaged by falling bloodstone shards or their explosions.” They chose to not do that but let you succeed even if you get hit a few times. For those who decide to challenge themselves, they implemented the achievement. And those achievements provide Mastery Points, which are otherwise quite hard to get in Tyria.

I haven’t noticed that leeway personally. My achievement qualification symbol always disappeared as soon as I got hit by falling shards or the exploding AoE, but maybe I had been hit beforehand without noticing it.

Sorry, bad wording on my part. I mean, you succeed in the story as long as you kill the last boss, no matter if you got hit or downed or if you died. They could have made it much harder

So I finished all remaining bosses last weekend and started the Head of the Snake. Had to retry Mordremoth 4 times. It was basically luck in the last try that I dropped close to an air vent when he hit me with a stone, so I could get up again. It’s true that the fights are easy if you know what to do, it’s the learning what to do that’s frustrating, and that luck is involved. One unlucky fall in the flying parts and you have to start over. I didn’t even use any food or nourishment, if you know the drill, you can fight him naked.

Also, it’s kind of cruel how your “team” acts. Whenever they say “we have your back”, I know I’m in trouble. They don’t even have a spot under the shield for you in that fight. It’s like you are going to the club with friends but they put you into the trunk, despite having a free seat in the car. In real life, that means you need new friends. Queen Jennah is more kitten and helpful. I really think this could have been solved better. Obviously the designers want you to use the air vents to elevate the difficulty level (pun intended), but they didn’t find a good reason for you to do so other than “because you can and should”. They could have punished the rest of the team by downing them for the pitiful attempt to use a shield instead of going airborne. Then, after the air phase, they could have got out of the downed state. But that would mean they try to use a shield again afterwards, knowing better ^^

Anyway, looking forward to meet Caudecus this time. I’m getting used to having the camera view set from top, totally ignoring what else is going on, going through my rotation, only watching the floor.

Faaris.8013:

So I finished all remaining bosses last weekend and started the Head of the Snake. Had to retry Mordremoth 4 times. It was basically luck in the last try that I dropped close to an air vent when he hit me with a stone, so I could get up again. It’s true that the fights are easy if you know what to do, it’s the learning what to do that’s frustrating, and that luck is involved. One unlucky fall in the flying parts and you have to start over. I didn’t even use any food or nourishment, if you know the drill, you can fight him naked.

I honestly believe they wanted to make the Mordremoth fight as memorable as possible and did go a bit overboad with the mechanics. The actual fight is not that hard, but the bugs, the time it takes to retry the fight and so many other minor anoyances just make the story step tedious. It’s a bit like the new desert WvW map, so many amazing things but for its actual purpose totally overdesigned.

One big beef I actually have with story instances is the fact that any disconnect will reset your progress thus effectively putting a hardcap on how long instanced story content should be.

Good luck on Cadeceus to you.

And after all this complaining nobody has even stated the class they play….

For Cadaceus: Completed with Power Ranger with throw-away gear, GS + LB. 1 or 2 deaths, many downed states. Overall impression: The NPCs felt more useful than I, except for breaking the breakbar.
Next victim: Power Dragon Hunter, Sword/Focus + Longbow (I know that Scepter would be better but LB “feels” nicer). I should probably be not so lazy this time and invest in some decent cost-efficient runes because I swap very often between characters. But I don’t feel “confident” in playing my DH

As for Modremoth: Completed with same Ranger as Condi Druid and Condi Reaper. Felt slow and tedious, even though the fight had nice ideas with the Blighted battles + turning his illusions against him.
Next in line whenever I feel like dragging my feet through it: Power DD + Berserker (with an alternative cheap Rabid condi set).

For DH, you don’t have to pick between scepter and LB; just use them both. scepter+focus + longbow.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT7dn8cCFdilCBWdCEEhF9hSO9X/6vKASyxN7C7wQE-w

(equipment is w/e; I didn’t bother including it,) I use this for pretty much all open world/story content though I use Greatsword in place of either set if I want to race past a map. I usually don’t do dungeons/raids/fractals and don’t really care about dps races.

If it doesn’t work:
Take “indomitable courage” trait in virtues
Take Shelter over the heal trap.
In the last fight specifically, you can take “Bane Signet” or “Signet of Judgement” over test of faith.

As always, I recommend this cheap and effective food: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scoop_of_Mintberry_Swirl_Ice_Cream

Haven’t really tried it on ranger, but I can’t imagine it being too bad; I can always go for a run though,

And I will admit: Some parts are looongggg which is pain for those on bad connection.

I only have my thief Herleve at level 80, and she’s using double pistols. Yes yes, I know Dagger/Pistol gives more dps, but I love P/P, so I’m not changing it for a little more damage. So far I managed to solo all story content with her, so that’s fine.

I think it doesn’t matter much which class you use, you should be able to play your story with any of them. And this thread is not about creating a decent build or about people failing because they don’t dodge. If you made it to Mordremoth or Caudecus, you already have a grasp of the boss encounters.

Well, everything does matter when you can’t do it.

Obviously if you are good enough, you can do it with anything blindfolded. Then, your choices aren’t relevant. But since every class (and even weapon set) plays differently, some people might have a hard time than others.

But even to the more basic of details, in your case say, you can range the boss.

If the difference from success and failure is just another utility skill or nice to have trait, I think it’d be less painful. As for having a decent enough grasp on the encounters, that may not be the case given the very existence of this thread.

Though my main point is just to show it’s possible to actually take both weapons instead of being forced to deal with one or the other. And a ranged weapon is just easier when you’re not familiar with the fight.

ArchonWing.9480:

And after all this complaining nobody has even stated the class they play….

I was wondering about classes too; I found Caudecus much easier on my engi, using flamethrower and juggernaut for almost permanent stability (had to remember to grab the flamethrower again after throwing shards.)

I had a harder time on other classes, but I’ve seen so many videos of people breezing through on all different classes. Also, if you kill his minions, the npcs in there with you will help break his bar.

It was a hard fight and I died a few times, but I didn’t think it was too hard, since you could get back in to the room easily without him even regaining health.

I get much more annoyed when there are serious bugs as there were in the final HoT fight, or in that stupid silverwaste labyrinth fight. But I’ve read that both of those were fixed recently.

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

ArchonWing.9480:

And after all this complaining nobody has even stated the class they play….

I was wondering about classes too; I found Caudecus much easier on my engi, using flamethrower and juggernaut for almost permanent stability (had to remember to grab the flamethrower again after throwing shards.)

I had a harder time on other classes, but I’ve seen so many videos of people breezing through on all different classes. Also, if you kill his minions, the npcs in there with you will help break his bar.

It was a hard fight and I died a few times, but I didn’t think it was too hard, since you could get back in to the room easily without him even regaining health.

I get much more annoyed when there are serious bugs as there were in the final HoT fight, or in that stupid silverwaste labyrinth fight. But I’ve read that both of those were fixed recently.

I also used juggernaut. That definitely makes things easier and these fights are annoying for kit using engineers.

Weirdly enough this last chapter made me use thumper turret a lot and made earlier fights easier because of how it breaks bars and gets the minons off you. I almost never use turrets period. They also attack the tutret a lot, but of course not every class can make extra targets like that.

To Op, I do feel your pain, but to say its the worst ever is going overboard.

Being successful or not in any content can be depend on all kind of things. I’m not talking about gaming skills, but profesion, build, weapons.

I’m a terrible gamer. Heck I don’t dodge, I use my mouse to activate skills, yet I beat this without dying.

I have to be honest, my build and profession was probably a lucky choice for this. I did go down a few times, but I either healed myself or my pet did it. Yes I ’m a ranger.

A druid to be exact. I use a staff. I attack from a distance and keep my pet healthy.

To be honest, it was one of my easier end story fights.

ArchonWing.9480:

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

ArchonWing.9480:

And after all this complaining nobody has even stated the class they play….

I was wondering about classes too; I found Caudecus much easier on my engi, using flamethrower and juggernaut for almost permanent stability (had to remember to grab the flamethrower again after throwing shards.)

I had a harder time on other classes, but I’ve seen so many videos of people breezing through on all different classes. Also, if you kill his minions, the npcs in there with you will help break his bar.

It was a hard fight and I died a few times, but I didn’t think it was too hard, since you could get back in to the room easily without him even regaining health.

I get much more annoyed when there are serious bugs as there were in the final HoT fight, or in that stupid silverwaste labyrinth fight. But I’ve read that both of those were fixed recently.

I also used juggernaut. That definitely makes things easier and these fights are annoying for kit using engineers.

Weirdly enough this last chapter made me use thumper turret a lot and made earlier fights easier because of how it breaks bars and gets the minons off you. I almost never use turrets period. They also attack the tutret a lot, but of course not every class can make extra targets like that.

I think most classes can make extra targets one way or another, though what they give up in that utility slot may not be worth it. I wonder if ogre pet whistle works in LS instances. Has anyone tried it?

Most cancerous boss fight I’ve ever come across. And I’ve played dark souls 1 and 2. And not from a difficult standpoint. I have no qualms from a difficulty point of view but I absolutely hate it from a design point of view.

>The room is small as kitten. the kittening camera worked against me god knows how many kittening times.

>constant mobs+ aoe every in that crowded room is insane

How the kitten do u cram such an powerfull boss+mobs in such small room to the point that even the kittening camera doesn’t know what to do? it’s like a kittening troll boss. It’s not kittening hard it’s simply poor design.

I maby could take the crowded room+mobs+aoe but atleast make it so that the kittening camera works properly. THE kittenING CAMERA, JESUS kittenING CHRIST! The kittening camera!!

after dieng like 11 times on my pve build. I went wvw build and destroyed that kittening troll boss easily. I by god hope that I never come across such an troll boss.

ArchonWing.9480:

For DH, you don’t have to pick between scepter and LB; just use them both. scepter+focus + longbow.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT7dn8cCFdilCBWdCEEhF9hSO9X/6vKASyxN7C7wQE-w

(equipment is w/e; I didn’t bother including it,) I use this for pretty much all open world/story content though I use Greatsword in place of either set if I want to race past a map. I usually don’t do dungeons/raids/fractals and don’t really care about dps races.

If it doesn’t work:
Take “indomitable courage” trait in virtues
Take Shelter over the heal trap.
In the last fight specifically, you can take “Bane Signet” or “Signet of Judgement” over test of faith.

As always, I recommend this cheap and effective food: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scoop_of_Mintberry_Swirl_Ice_Cream

Haven’t really tried it on ranger, but I can’t imagine it being too bad; I can always go for a run though,

And I will admit: Some parts are looongggg which is pain for those on bad connection.

Thanks for the advice. It had helped when I beat Cadeceus yesterday.
Ironically (or not?), I died more on the way to the boss and during the first fight with him than in the last battle (where I was “only” downed a few times). I’m not really surprised, though, as the Jade Armor + Bow are a MAJOR pita. Strangely, I don’t remember them being that difficult on the Ring of Fire island, or I mistook it during the time on my Reaper on Ring of Fire island.

Mahou.3924:

ArchonWing.9480:

For DH, you don’t have to pick between scepter and LB; just use them both. scepter+focus + longbow.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT7dn8cCFdilCBWdCEEhF9hSO9X/6vKASyxN7C7wQE-w

(equipment is w/e; I didn’t bother including it,) I use this for pretty much all open world/story content though I use Greatsword in place of either set if I want to race past a map. I usually don’t do dungeons/raids/fractals and don’t really care about dps races.

If it doesn’t work:
Take “indomitable courage” trait in virtues
Take Shelter over the heal trap.
In the last fight specifically, you can take “Bane Signet” or “Signet of Judgement” over test of faith.

As always, I recommend this cheap and effective food: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scoop_of_Mintberry_Swirl_Ice_Cream

Haven’t really tried it on ranger, but I can’t imagine it being too bad; I can always go for a run though,

And I will admit: Some parts are looongggg which is pain for those on bad connection.

Thanks for the advice. It had helped when I beat Cadeceus yesterday.
Ironically (or not?), I died more on the way to the boss and during the first fight with him than in the last battle (where I was “only” downed a few times). I’m not really surprised, though, as the Jade Armor + Bow are a MAJOR pita. Strangely, I don’t remember them being that difficult on the Ring of Fire island, or I mistook it during the time on my Reaper on Ring of Fire island.

Actually I found the Jade armors more frustrating to fight than the actual bosses, so that doesn’t surprise me.

I had to get thumper turret on my scrapper to break bars more effectively.

But good to see you did well, so it may prove I’m not just blowing hot air. Usually.