Guild Wars 2

I loved this chapter! Died twice on the boss, downed twice.
Great,

Lothrin.1285:

I’m with the OP here. I came out naked from the place twice.
Apparently, I’m just a bad player according the the elitists here. Dodging isn’t hard, having enough endurance to dodge every time it is needed is.

I’m confident you had as much, if not more, endurance as I did. I never lacked endurance, yet on neither of the characters I’ve beat the fight on I’ve had vigor or anything else to increase endurance gain.

However it is ofcourse perfectly plausible that you had to dodge more than some of us.. but then it boils down to poor positioning rather than the ability to dodge.
Got him on 3 characters so far, almost got downed once.

Maybe I got lucky, first time I did it I got downed once… First time I did in on challenge mode, got all three cheevos on my first attempted. (not really sure how the pod mechanics work) got podded once, then I moved to one of the far edges and I never got hit again…

Really the only thing that I felt like could have been a challenge was the first leeching thresh. Burn him down quickly and just stay out of circles. Don’t engage on the middle of the pad.

I died a LOT on this fight. The main issue is having to stop to cast spells (I was using staff on elementalist), so basically my attacks were restricted to the single fireball and lava pool, which has limited use since the vines love to move around.

I also didn’t realise you could jump to avoid the floor attack, so I always ended up using a dodge during that to evade it, which left me with less endurance for later dodges.

But crucially, the biggest problem comes from the adds. The dog is annoying enough since you’re already juggling with 3 vines firing red circles around you and a massive amount of AoE. You can run around to kite him, but you just run the risk of running into an AoE, or a vine.

The worst however is that vine spouting flower beast. Fight up close, and you’re going to be pummeled to death by the three other vines, fight at range and it unleashes those deadly smaller vines which are nearly impossible to avoid, even if you burn all your dodges.

But, crucially what annoyed me more was that the boss was only vulnerable for 5 seconds (I counted) between vines going down. So, unless I was standing at the right part of the area (close to where the dragon pops his head in) when the last vine died, I’d have to go back and slay all of them again.

Several times I was throwing up meteor storms on an invulnerable dragon. Infuriating.

Still, all in all it was an interesting fight at least. It’s good to see they’re being creative. I dread doing this fight on my tanky guardian though. I have next to no DPS, and my ranged is very limited.

Oh, I didnt know we could jump to dodge the “lava attack” o.o… I managed to do it with standards dodges without dying, but I guess being ranger kinda helps (range, access to many dodges and vigor, etc).

Lemuria.3195:

I died a LOT on this fight. The main issue is having to stop to cast spells (I was using staff on elementalist), so basically my attacks were restricted to the single fireball and lava pool, which has limited use since the vines love to move around.

I suggest using glyph of storms while in earth attunement. This will blind the baddies and allow you to do more long casts.

Lemuria.3195:

But crucially, the biggest problem comes from the adds. The dog is annoying enough since you’re already juggling with 3 vines firing red circles around you and a massive amount of AoE. You can run around to kite him, but you just run the risk of running into an AoE, or a vine.

Use lots of static fields, unsteady ground, and shockwave (as well as the previously mentioned glyph of storms) to keep them off you.

Lemuria.3195:

The worst however is that vine spouting flower beast. Fight up close, and you’re going to be pummeled to death by the three other vines, fight at range and it unleashes those deadly smaller vines which are nearly impossible to avoid, even if you burn all your dodges.

Yeah, the vine attack is lame because it ignores blind and forces you to dodge a lot. Best bet is to just constantly run around in circles when they’re up.

Lemuria.3195:

Still, all in all it was an interesting fight at least. It’s good to see they’re being creative. I dread doing this fight on my tanky guardian though. I have next to no DPS, and my ranged is very limited.

I did this on my cleric geared staff Ele with ease (never downed, never died). I killed the final boss after 4 rotations (have to make sure you’re in fire and with a meteor storm off cd when you kill the final vine).

I found it extremely easy to be honest... all mechanics are slow and highly telegraphed.

People on TS seemed to agree.

This was a real challenge! I died prob 15 times! Or even more, lol.
I was atleast naked (until I changed armor).
Loved this ending scene with all the world leaders!
Just hope that the Pale Tree wont die and hopefully she’ll survive this..

Eroiqua.5891:

That’s the first thing I thought as I read through the comments…how many of the elitists “l2p”-ers are on classes with access to vigor. Reminds me of the Mai Trin buff…“just block or reflect, noob”. Uh, yeah, I’m a Necro…

I’m a necro too, so what? You have Death Shroud. Make a good use of it.

I was a bit surprised by this fight actually, particularly the floor. You might be able to jump but it isn’t ‘obvious’ by any stretch of the imagination. Only a handful of attacks in the game can be avoided by jumping and it wouldn’t come naturally to players who haven’t seen the molten fractals. I didn’t really understand what the graphics represented and couldn’t see any color changes mentioned by posters above as hints to timing.

This meant the floor required a timed jump which I think is fine for dungeon runners, who need to time dodges, but is isn’t ok for casuals who may do nothing other than play personal story and living story. The two second timing on most dodges isn’t hidden in the game but it’s not described anywhere either and to my mind it is an exact knowledge of game mechanics that casuals shouldn’t need to know (and from my experiences in CoE I’m guessing they don’t know).

For me personally the difficulty is fine but I can see why some people are having a lot of trouble. Players can always bring a friend along to help them though.

Stooperdale.3560:

I was a bit surprised by this fight actually, particularly the floor. You might be able to jump but it isn’t ‘obvious’ by any stretch of the imagination. Only a handful of attacks in the game can be avoided by jumping and it wouldn’t come naturally to players who haven’t seen the molten fractals. I didn’t really understand what the graphics represented and couldn’t see any color changes mentioned by posters above as hints to timing.

This meant the floor required a timed jump which I think is fine for dungeon runners, who need to time dodges, but is isn’t ok for casuals who may do nothing other than play personal story and living story. The two second timing on most dodges isn’t hidden in the game but it’s not described anywhere either and to my mind it is an exact knowledge of game mechanics that casuals shouldn’t need to know (and from my experiences in CoE I’m guessing they don’t know).

For me personally the difficulty is fine but I can see why some people are having a lot of trouble. Players can always bring a friend along to help them though.

To be fair, the full floor attack can also be dodged(or blurred if you’re a mesmer) so theres ample countermeasures to avoid being hit, I also disagree with you regarding the “2 second timing not being required to know.. casual or not, if you want to beat an encounter then you should be expected to learn how it works.”

I’m running an ele and couldn’t figure how what the important things were in the final boss encounter—————attack the boss?? and let the minions alone? or kill the minions then concentrate on the boss?? Every time I tried AoE’ing the boss, it just “miraculously” immediately moved to another site, BEFORE my AoE action commenced—————-so I dropped my spells on air!!

My advice in this boss fight is dont go full zerker build.

I had the same problem as the OP until i realized im too squishy, quickly just switched to my wvw build, sure its way slower than using full berserker but it makes the boss really really easy to kill.

Just use any build that has a bit of defensive traits/gear/skills.

Mathog.3157:

Eroiqua.5891:

That’s the first thing I thought as I read through the comments…how many of the elitists “l2p”-ers are on classes with access to vigor. Reminds me of the Mai Trin buff…“just block or reflect, noob”. Uh, yeah, I’m a Necro…

I’m a necro too, so what? You have Death Shroud. Make a good use of it.

Necro player here as well. I played a sceptre/War horn + Staff life siphon build that went mostly into spite for Close to Death and soul reaping for Near to Death. Scepter and Staff helped keep the pressure on while not having to deal with the knockback from the vines. Deathshroud when I wanted to just facetank dragon aoe. Lichform to burst down the dragon. Necros have a good number of tools to help them despite not having access to vigor or reflects. Heck, sometimes I just eat condition punches so I can lolnope™ them back to the vines. I personally don’t think the boss is too hard. I think if someone is having trouble with the boss, they should A) ask for help in the forums because plenty of people want to help, B ) Learn the fight yourself with practice and improve, or C) party up with someone else and see how much easier it is with support. If none of those seem like reasonable options, then by all means, ask to lower the difficulty. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to complain without exhausting your options first.

Well it WAS painfully tedious and boring.

That boss fight felt just right – epic enough, not a walk in the park like Zhaitan pew-pew or Shatterer AFK-zerg, but doable on first try with enough attention but without preparation. I died once because I misstepped into a concentration of poison AoEs and was actually displeased that the fight didn’t reset – the game is very graceful here.

I see a lot of the usual ‘learn to play’ nonsense… and I’m sorry guys, but it IS nonsense.
So cool, you’ve played 3000 hours, have excellent gear and tried all possible combinations of traits etc. on your character and can switch builds without even thinking about it. I dare say a lot if not most players are not like that. And for those who are not like that, the fight can get VERY frustrating indeed.

My main is a ranged DPS ranger in full berserker ascended. I’ve player her over 1400 hours and I am completely and totally familiar with her abilities. She only died twice and can probably do better.

After doing the final mission on the ranger, I did the arc on my other 80s. They are all in exotics with decent runes etc. But I don’t play them nearly as much, they are at 200 or so hours each. Their builds are probably not optimal, but they’re not horrible either. The guardian and necromancer managed to solo it, with enough deaths to destroy (not damage, destroy) half their armor. The mesmer… just ouch. Gave up and asked for help. Still working on the warrior.

I’d say my non-mains are a fair approach to what a casual player or newer 80 enters the encounter with. And for many, it will be an excercise in frustration. Which is, if you think about it, a VERY bad thing. This is a personal story arc, content all players should be able to enjoy. In stead, it’s making people unhappy with the game (just repeating what I hear in my guild). And sure, you can group…. but seriously, if you want to actually read NPC responses and see the ones that are unique to your race, that’s not exactly optimal.

I realize that there are people who really want a challenge… but I don’t think this is the way to go about it. Not all players are created equal, and fun and challenging for one can be /ragequit for another.

The best system I’ve seen to date was City of Heroes (sadly gone now), where you could actually pick a difficulty level for instanced missions, and set (multiple) specific challenges, with more loot and cash as a reward.

Broom.2561:

I see a lot of the usual ‘learn to play’ nonsense… and I’m sorry guys, but it IS nonsense.
So cool, you’ve played 3000 hours, have excellent gear and tried all possible combinations of traits etc. on your character and can switch builds without even thinking about it. I dare say a lot if not most players are not like that. And for those who are not like that, the fight can get VERY frustrating indeed.

My main is a ranged DPS ranger in full berserker ascended. I’ve player her over 1400 hours and I am completely and totally familiar with her abilities. She only died twice and can probably do better.

After doing the final mission on the ranger, I did the arc on my other 80s. They are all in exotics with decent runes etc. But I don’t play them nearly as much, they are at 200 or so hours each. Their builds are probably not optimal, but they’re not horrible either. The guardian and necromancer managed to solo it, with enough deaths to destroy (not damage, destroy) half their armor. The mesmer… just ouch. Gave up and asked for help. Still working on the warrior.

I’d say my non-mains are a fair approach to what a casual player or newer 80 enters the encounter with. And for many, it will be an excercise in frustration. Which is, if you think about it, a VERY bad thing. This is a personal story arc, content all players should be able to enjoy. In stead, it’s making people unhappy with the game (just repeating what I hear in my guild). And sure, you can group…. but seriously, if you want to actually read NPC responses and see the ones that are unique to your race, that’s not exactly optimal.

I realize that there are people who really want a challenge… but I don’t think this is the way to go about it. Not all players are created equal, and fun and challenging for one can be /ragequit for another.

The best system I’ve seen to date was City of Heroes (sadly gone now), where you could actually pick a difficulty level for instanced missions, and set (multiple) specific challenges, with more loot and cash as a reward.

What if I tell you that it is lvl80 content and you are supposed to know your character,profession and basic game mechanics like dodge . If this fight would be on personal story level 20 I would agree that it is OP but here NO . We need more fights like this where you have to show that you can use your brain . Such a cruel world , you have to try few times to understand fight mechanic instead of standing in one spot pressing 1111111

It is interesting how MMO’s have moved on in general. In GW1, it was expected players would need to attempt story missions a few times to get through. They weren’t necs outright super hard, but some were pretty tough and required changing builds etc.

Nowadays, we expect to get through first go, and I include myself in this as well. I wonder what or when it changed. I’ve noticed the same trend in other MMO’s too.

Broom.2561:

This is a personal story arc, content all players should be able to enjoy.

Who said that?

Fighting an elder dragon champion one on one and protecting the mother of a whole race is no easy task. Dying there even for a forged hero is not unnatural; succeeding, on the other hand…

Lothrin.1285:

I’m with the OP here. I came out naked from the place twice.
Apparently, I’m just a bad player according the the elitists here. Dodging isn’t hard, having enough endurance to dodge every time it is needed is.

It’s really about saving your dodges until you absolutely need to use them. That in itself is part of the dodging skill. If you dodge every single time you see a red circle, you will run out of dodges. Sometimes you can actually just run/step out of the circles and save that dodge. Use a skill with a speed boost so you can run out of some of them, use a skill with a block or an invuln if you have them. Take a look at your other possibly less used utility skills, perhaps there are some that would aid you.

Also remember food. There are foods that boost your endurance regen by large amounts. It was almost a requirement for the Liadri fight.

It’s more of a problem-solving exercise than a dodging exercise quite honestly.

For the OP who died 25 times, I have a feeling he/she didn’t change anything about their build, their skills, potions/food, etc. They went in with their normal every day build and kept dying, then re-trying, then dying again. After the 2nd or 3rd death I personally would have stopped and thought about how else I could approach the fight. If there are foods that would help, potions that might help, maybe some traits/utility skills that would be better in that fight.

Pheppo.9286:

I died only once, because i dodged from the cliff xD

I did this too! Total facepalm.

Fortunately I was only downed and my pet was able to get me back up.

I found most of the AOE could be avoided without dodging. I just strafed most of the enemies down.

Broom.2561:

I see a lot of the usual ‘learn to play’ nonsense… and I’m sorry guys, but it IS nonsense.
So cool, you’ve played 3000 hours, have excellent gear and tried all possible combinations of traits etc. on your character and can switch builds without even thinking about it. I dare say a lot if not most players are not like that. And for those who are not like that, the fight can get VERY frustrating indeed.

What if I told you I’ve used the same build since the game was in beta with the exception of having to switch around 2 traits as Anet changed their posiiton in the trait tree in combination with the feature patch.
And what if I further told you that my mesmer who I main but only have 1000h on a is still wearing a mix of masterwork/rare/exotic gear because I’ve found no incentive to gear it up at all as there is simply nothing it cant do.

If you really struggle with the encounter, I’ve only got 1 suggestion for you: Get sigil of energy and dodge your heart out.

Broom.2561:

My main is a ranged DPS ranger in full berserker ascended. I’ve player her over 1400 hours and I am completely and totally familiar with her abilities. She only died twice and can probably do better.

You can always do better. Until you avoid everything.

Broom.2561:

After doing the final mission on the ranger, I did the arc on my other 80s. They are all in exotics with decent runes etc. But I don’t play them nearly as much, they are at 200 or so hours each. Their builds are probably not optimal, but they’re not horrible either. The guardian and necromancer managed to solo it, with enough deaths to destroy (not damage, destroy) half their armor. The mesmer… just ouch. Gave up and asked for help. Still working on the warrior.
I’d say my non-mains are a fair approach to what a casual player or newer 80 enters the encounter with. And for many, it will be an excercise in frustration. Which is, if you think about it, a VERY bad thing. This is a personal story arc, content all players should be able to enjoy. In stead, it’s making people unhappy with the game (just repeating what I hear in my guild). And sure, you can group…. but seriously, if you want to actually read NPC responses and see the ones that are unique to your race, that’s not exactly optimal.

So simply put: You don’t know your profession, you don’t know what your skills do and because of that you struggled with beating the content, therefor there mus be something wrong with the content.. Nah, thats just not how it works.

Broom.2561:

I realize that there are people who really want a challenge… but I don’t think this is the way to go about it. Not all players are created equal, and fun and challenging for one can be /ragequit for another.

I’d say this is precisely the way to go about it, this is just liadri all over again, people who don’t want to adapt or learn the mechanics expect to be handed rewards for free and quite frankly, they don’t deserve it. Instead of learning how the fight works, they go on the forums and complain about it being too hard, but it obviously isn’t. They then complain about how a specific profession can’t beat it.. All professions can beat it.
Then they narrow it down to their particular build not being able to beat it and guess what? Adapt. Change your build. You can beat it if you actually put some effort into it and get out of that godawful “durrhurrdurr autoattacking for 10 minutes is fun!” mindset.

Just curious, for the people that did struggle with this boss. (I did it with a naked level 1 elementalist with no weapons equipped while cooking dinner~sarcasm~) if you could skip the story part and have a third button to restart the boss so you get fully repaired and they go back to full health. Would you be more willing to run multiple attempts at the difficulty of the boss?

TL:DR – Is seeing the story over and over make you less incline to work on a boss due to the time sink sitting there.

Stooperdale.3560:

I was a bit surprised by this fight actually, particularly the floor. You might be able to jump but it isn’t ‘obvious’ by any stretch of the imagination.

The fight with Notchli uses the same mechanic.

I think there are a few things that make this fight go more smoothly:

Knowing the mechanics – they have been used in dry top, so if you spent much time there you would have seen them.

Knowing the Mordrem. They aren’t so hard if you have practiced fighting them.

Having the right build. Some healing and condition removal is essential. You can’t expect to glass cannon this fight, unless you are perfect at dodging and avoiding AOE.

Also, not falling off cliffs helps…

I learned from the first three episode: be ranged. I spent the entire fight being glad I didn’t do the latest episode with my condi thief.

Broom.2561:

I see a lot of the usual ’learn to play’ nonsense... and I’m sorry guys, but it IS nonsense.
So cool, you’ve played 3000 hours, have excellent gear and tried all possible combinations of traits etc. on your character and can switch builds without even thinking about it. I dare say a lot if not most players are not like that. And for those who are not like that, the fight can get VERY frustrating indeed.

Which is good, this is lvl 80 only content aimed at people who should already be familiar with their characters, traits, abilities and how to press a key to dodge or jump.

You can’t ask them for less zerging and more engaging content while complaining every time they put something that requires a bit more than pressing 1 and going AFK, that’s the only nonsense here.

It’s like freaking Liandri all over again, but this time you don’t even have a point since the fight itself is not even mildly challenging.

It’s pretty much the same fight that they have used over and over again in the LS. Kill the junk that “Re-energizes” the “Boss”, do damage in the short time that “Boss” is vulnerable.

It’s more than a little tedious and repetitive. EZ to do if you are patient, but an enormous time sink for very little gain.

Hard to believe that anyone actually found this to be enjoyable.

Pandaman.4758:

I learned from the first three episode: be ranged. I spent the entire fight being glad I didn’t do the latest episode with my condi thief.

Well I tried this fight melee only. I died a lot. When I was naked I thought is seems I did something wrong, I switched to ranged, looked for a kind of safe spot and finished it naked without dying again. I like this fight and how you have to learn/understand it.

Greetings.

P.S. Has anyone done damage directly to the boss with pure melee?

Zok.4956:

Pandaman.4758:

I learned from the first three episode: be ranged. I spent the entire fight being glad I didn’t do the latest episode with my condi thief.

Well I tried this fight melee only. I died a lot. When I was naked I thought is seems I did something wrong, I switched to ranged, looked for a kind of safe spot and finished it naked without dying again. I like this fight and how you have to learn/understand it.

Greetings.

P.S. Has anyone done damage directly to the boss with pure melee?

Yes. GS Guardian. Used Staff on the plants, switched to GS when “Dragon” was vulnerable. I got impatient as the staff damage was taking too long.

Draknar.5748:

For the OP who died 25 times, I have a feeling he/she didn’t change anything about their build, their skills, potions/food, etc. They went in with their normal every day build and kept dying, then re-trying, then dying again. After the 2nd or 3rd death I personally would have stopped and thought about how else I could approach the fight. If there are foods that would help, potions that might help, maybe some traits/utility skills that would be better in that fight.

Ah, power ups – a venerable tradition, reaching back through long decades of happy fun times to the very salad days of video gaming. Ingest this shroom – grow big! Drink this potion – breathe fire! Endless variation, endless fun. I’ve never been a fan, however, of Power Ups in an MMO. Here’s a dramatic presentation detailing the reasons:

NPC: You defeated that Terrible Monster!
PC: Nay, ’twas not I defeated the beast. ’Twas that most scrumptious blackberry cobbler I had for lunch!
Crowd of grateful NPCs (chanting): Cobbler! Cobbler! Cobbler!

**

NPC1: Never have I seen such courage! You defeated that Terrible Monster, single-handedly!
PC: Yesh, I did. Cuz I’m aweshome. And cur… crage… brave! Hey! That blue moa over there… is pink!
NPC2: I saw this hero drink a potion beforehand.
PC: Lol, wut.
NPC1: Here’s the bottle! Only half-empty! Hark! It has a label: Old Croak Red-Blue Blended Hylek Whiskey.
PC: Gimme dat! (drinks) Ah! Shmoooth. Got any more turrble monshters needsh shlayng… shla… killin?

**

NPC: Hey, hero! Gonna fight that Terrible Monster?
PC: Yes. Yes, I am.
NPC: You don’t seem very confident.
PC: Alas, I have not yet attained unto Gears of Ascension, and am therefore potentially at a disadvantage. Still, it must be done.
NPC: What if I told you I have some things here that will make you (glances around) better… stronger… faster. Eh?
PC: I don’t have 6 million gold.
NPC: L2TP. Anyway, it’s just a few harmless potions and food items. Here, you can have a taste – free!
PC: Well… okay. Oh. OH! I feel like I have TIGER BLOOD! Like I’m WINNING! Lemme at ’em! Ahhhrrr!

**

Nowhere was it more obvious than the ‘Inspirations’ in City of Heroes.

Hero: I can’t defeat this Villain! He’s hopped up on Purples and Reds!
NPC: You have no choice! You must take these Hero’s Little Helpers! Yellows and Blues, for accuracy and endurance! Here, take these Oranges, too! Now get out there and clobber that villain!
Hero: The colors… so strong… so pretty…

**

Picard: Metaphor!

**

Ahem.

Power ups (and platforming!) and hokey pokey boss fights – for an innovative modern day MMO like GW2, these things sure feel awfully… old. Odd, too, that they chose to embrace these particular video gaming conventions while turning away from more traditionally MMO-centric traditions as the so-called Holy Trinity (and – brace for it – mounts!). But I digress.

Back to the primary topic: with or without power ups, this fight (and every other boss fight so far this season) remains, IMO, unnecessarily tedious and repetitive. More a test of patience and endurance, in the end, than skill. Surely one verse of the hokey pokey should suffice – two, if they absolutely must – but why must we carry on and on and on and on repeating the same dance moves over and over and over and over? Does the repetitive repetition make it more fun? Does it make it more EPIC?

Well. Maybe so, for some among us. But for me, no.

I say they should do these things so that those who desire the utmost in MMO challenge can set the parameters of each boss fight to the utmost if they so desire, and spend days or even weeks dodging and dancing and redoing all the steps over and over bravely and epically to their heart’s content, while the rest of us can choose a simple straight up knock down drag out version of the fight without all the nanner nanner repeato gimmicks (and red circles) and thereby just get on with it.

TL;DR – if I want to do boring and repetitive chores, I’ll go mow the lawn. After having some pie. For more energy. For dodging whatever the neighbors and/or passersby have seen fit to toss into my yard, which, in the past, has included such things as broken horseshoes, cell phones, and dirty diapers.

did anyone figure out how to destroy the healing seeds in challenge mode? i didn’t. i had to outdps the healing of the seeds and i died 2 times, eventually killed the boss on the first try and got achievement. i needed to be fast though. i think destroying the healing seeds would be easier but reading their shield buff didnt teach me anything. i couldn’t damage them. good thing it’s over.

PS. ANet, please add MORE challenging achievements. these aren’t challenging at all. I want hard achievements with UNIQUE rewards like a title for a really hard accomplishment.

Dinoslaw.3842:

You should feel bad ‘cause you’re bad. Sry, fight was not even challenging – highly telegraphed, tendris are easy to kill from range, nothing hits bigger than 1/7 hp.

Died once – because I dodged off platform.

This, except I dodged off the platform twice.
Sad life.

Other than that, AOE was entertaining, but not difficult. Subject Alpha was harder.

I’m actually glad to see some people had difficulty though. being able to down someone’s armor off of them that has gotten to level 80 without being completely discouraged means that the stage devs are doing it right. I even died, although that was due to the grove being WEIRD. Why is that HOLE there!?

for people who haven’t learned not to stand in circles, that is.

Sublimatio.6981:

did anyone figure out how to destroy the healing seeds in challenge mode? i didn’t. i had to outdps the healing of the seeds and i died 2 times, eventually killed the boss on the first try and got achievement. i needed to be fast though. i think destroying the healing seeds would be easier but reading their shield buff didnt teach me anything. i couldn’t damage them. good thing it’s over.

PS. ANet, please add MORE challenging achievements. these aren’t challenging at all. I want hard achievements with UNIQUE rewards like a title for a really hard accomplishment.

you need dna buff , then you can destroy it .

Tachenon.5270:

TL;DR – if I want to do boring and repetitive chores, I’ll go mow the lawn. After having some pie. For more energy. For dodging whatever the neighbors and/or passersby have seen fit to toss into my yard, which, in the past, has included such things as broken horseshoes, cell phones, and dirty diapers.

Haha funny post, power-ups do exist in the form of pills and syringes in the real world. I’m sure that’s where the concept stemmed. Steroids, narcotics, uppers, etc. A magical potion you can shoot into your butt cheek or thigh that increases power, endurance, and focus. We just drink the stuff in GW2.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

Sublimatio.6981:

did anyone figure out how to destroy the healing seeds in challenge mode? i didn’t. i had to outdps the healing of the seeds and i died 2 times, eventually killed the boss on the first try and got achievement. i needed to be fast though. i think destroying the healing seeds would be easier but reading their shield buff didnt teach me anything. i couldn’t damage them. good thing it’s over.

PS. ANet, please add MORE challenging achievements. these aren’t challenging at all. I want hard achievements with UNIQUE rewards like a title for a really hard accomplishment.

you need dna buff , then you can destroy it .

and how do you get it?

Dinoslaw.3842:

You should feel bad ‘cause you’re bad. Sry, fight was not even challenging – highly telegraphed, tendris are easy to kill from range, nothing hits bigger than 1/7 hp.

Died once – because I dodged off platform.

I meleed it, (I am by no means a good player haha) and died twice. I’m living proof it’s possible to melee I guess.

Randulf.7614:

It is interesting how MMO’s have moved on in general. In GW1, it was expected players would need to attempt story missions a few times to get through. They weren’t necs outright super hard, but some were pretty tough and required changing builds etc.

Nowadays, we expect to get through first go, and I include myself in this as well. I wonder what or when it changed. I’ve noticed the same trend in other MMO’s too.

It is kind of interesting because in single-player games, I’m totally cool with long and difficult boss fights (in fact, I kind of expect it because that’s all there is, is the single-player experience). But when it comes to story-mode single-player fights in an MMO, I just want to slack off and enjoy myself.

I think for me, it’s a difference in focus; in an MMO, there are numerous ways to get a challenge and many of them involve doing content alongside other players, so I expect the solo stuff to be stupid easy. But in a single-player game, boss fights are often the challenge, so I obviously want them to be difficult or else I’d quickly run out of game to play.

Some of you are being rude. Just because you can do it with ease, doesn’t mean everyone else can. Some players are also new to the game, due to GW2 being on sale a couple months back. They might have their traits locked behind the new trait system too, or bad gear. Some players are probably coming back to the game from a long break. Others might have ailments or disabilities. There are many reasons, but people shouldn’t dismiss other people’s complaints with “L2P”. That’s just being condescending.

Story content shouldn’t be a testbed for difficult encounters either. It should ease the players for more difficult content that happens afterwards, such as the achievements.

God forbid we have a somewhat challenging encounter. You can group and faceroll it if it’s so kitten hard, but dont ask’em to make it easier like the rest of the game where you can stand anywhere pressing 1
I hope Anet makes some more like this.

I have to chime in here and say my peace.

This fight isn’t so much difficult as once again, like Rytlock Ritual one, terribly annoying. Soooo over done with condi dmg, K.D’s, AoE’s that cover the entire room, giving u no time at all to recover and allow your skills and endurance to recharge. The camera plays awful in there as well, which only adds more annoyance to the whole encounter.

Dodge, Dodge, Dodge, until your eyes bleed. I came out of there feeling dizzy and with a king size headache from all the craziness. That was not fun, maybe some people thrive on insanity, but the sheer chaos of these fights is making me ill.

I realise this is dragon stuff and shouldn’t be “easy” but omg, i dread to think what the actual Modremoth encounter is gonna be like. Be prepared for ultimate insanity if it continues like this.

I don’t play games to drive me insane, I play games for fun and these fights are not fun for me and by the looks of it, not for many others.

What was especially annoying in this fight, was when u finally got a chance to hit the boss, you didn’t know where he’s gonna pop out and i often found myself on the opposite side of the room and was lucky to hit him once b4 he would vanish, resetting the whole cycle over again. Prolonging the fight in this way, until became so boring that i hated the thought of having to do it on my alts, isn’t a way to go.

IMO, a fight like this would be much more interesting and more enjoyable if a person is at least given bit of room to breathe and absorb what is going on. I would really like for the devs to ease up a bit on these mechanics or at least pace them out a bit better, instead of non-stop intense chaos a player has to deal with, especially in these solo instances.

Up until this final fight though, the rest was ok, although the bit in DR gets tedious after u do it a couple of times, it takes way too long.

But to be honest, for some time now, I’m becoming estranged with this game, where I feel that I don’t know it any more. I’ve been playing since head start and gw1 b4 that and this game is becoming an alien specimen to me as it progresses through it’s life. Not really sure how long I’m gonna stay interested if it continues along this path. I mean I love all the maps and the artwork, I like the combat system, the exploration and many other little things, which make me log on daily basis, but those things are becoming less and less of a draw now. I so desperately want to see gw2 play out, but the fight mechanics are becoming way too weird and crazy for my taste.

Raziel.4216:

God forbid we have a somewhat challenging encounter. You can group and faceroll it if it’s so kitten hard, but dont ask’em to make it easier like the rest of the game where you can stand anywhere pressing 1
I hope Anet makes some more like this.

sometime ago I read post that somebody doesnt like to party with others and this person expects solo versions of dungs

Tiger Ashante.1792:

This fight isn’t so much difficult as once again, like Rytlock Ritual one, terribly annoying. Soooo over done with condi dmg, K.D’s, AoE’s that cover the entire room, giving u no time at all to recover and allow your skills and endurance to recharge. The camera plays awful in there as well, which only adds more annoyance to the whole encounter.

First: The Rytlock fight is easy as hell if youre not aiming for the “avoid all knockdown attacks” achievement.
And Condi damage? what? a little bit of bleed and a lot of poison. thats it. not really damaging at all.

Dodge, Dodge, Dodge, until your eyes bleed. I came out of there feeling dizzy and with a king size headache from all the craziness. That was not fun, maybe some people thrive on insanity, but the sheer chaos of these fights is making me ill.

the only thing you really have to dodge is the glowing-ground-stomp and when youre targetted for that plant-cocoon-prison. everything else you can avoid just by running.
I just finished this on challenge mode as a necro and had enough dodges to avoid stuff just fine.

maybe it’s a little bit much the first time, but when you try the mission a second time and are used to all the things going on there, it’s a lot easier (at least thats how it is for me with these living story missions)

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

sometime ago I read post that somebody doesnt like to party with others and this person expects solo versions of dungs

why do these people buy a MMO to begin with?

Tiger Ashante.1792:

I have to chime in here and say my peace.

This fight isn’t so much difficult as once again, like Rytlock Ritual one, terribly annoying. Soooo over done with condi dmg, K.D’s, AoE’s that cover the entire room, giving u no time at all to recover and allow your skills and endurance to recharge. The camera plays awful in there as well, which only adds more annoyance to the whole encounter.

Wat? There’s almost no condi-dmg. There’s almost no CC and for the CC which is there you can use stability. There’s ONE AoE that actually covers the entire room and you can jump to evade it – you don’t even have to waste endurance. It’s a boss fight, you shouldn’t have a chance to recover – resource management is the key, don’t waste your cooldowns.
Can agree with the camera though.

“this fight (and every other boss fight so far this season) remains, IMO, unnecessarily tedious and repetitive. More a test of patience and endurance, in the end, than skill.”

It seems like you have reached a certain amount of wisdom without realizing that all computer games offer the same thing. Once you know when to press the buttons all you do is repetitively press them at the right times. Congratulations. If you want faster reflex skills you can try first person shooters. If you want more thought then play a strategy game. If you want unpredictability then play PvP.

Tiger maybe it will shock you but dragon burst phase is always in the same window , all phases are the same 3 tendrills . you can even melee them just take some reflections or smoke screen and enjoy bursting it in 7 seconds, most classes can take passive boosts to run faster or weapon with swiftness , avoiding aoe easy mode you keep running out of aoe if you see that you cant do this dodge . If you really have problem with this fight and die 20 times maybe you should stop gaming and try reading books or watching movies becasue this is not for you . I hope that one day all world bosses will be rebuilded and svanir for example will drop few aoe strips where full zerkers go insta down and tanks lose 50% of health (111111 afk event always fun)

rashan I have no idea rly they dont like playing with other players , gameplay is too difficult . I really have no idea what they wont and why they bought it .

Stooperdale.3560:

“this fight (and every other boss fight so far this season) remains, IMO, unnecessarily tedious and repetitive. More a test of patience and endurance, in the end, than skill.”

It seems like you have reached a certain amount of wisdom without realizing that all computer games offer the same thing. Once you know when to press the buttons all you do is repetitively press them at the right times. Congratulations. If you want faster reflex skills you can try first person shooters. If you want more thought then play a strategy game. If you want unpredictability then play PvP.

Something clicked for me when you mentioned FPS. That’s what this GW2 combat is most like (that is, these boss fights – I’m not confident in saying that all GW2 combat is FPS-like). MMOs have traditionally been about strategic, turn-based combat (albeit at a faster pace than tabletop games) but the pace of these fights and the breadth of their mechanics makes the challenge less about intellect and more about reflexes.

Which is fine, depending on your preferences, but I can easily see how the traditional MMO crowd (particularly the ones who just “play for fun”) would get incredibly frustrated.

Labjax.2465:

Stooperdale.3560:

“this fight (and every other boss fight so far this season) remains, IMO, unnecessarily tedious and repetitive. More a test of patience and endurance, in the end, than skill.”

It seems like you have reached a certain amount of wisdom without realizing that all computer games offer the same thing. Once you know when to press the buttons all you do is repetitively press them at the right times. Congratulations. If you want faster reflex skills you can try first person shooters. If you want more thought then play a strategy game. If you want unpredictability then play PvP.

Something clicked for me when you mentioned FPS. That’s what this GW2 combat is most like (that is, these boss fights – I’m not confident in saying that all GW2 combat is FPS-like). MMOs have traditionally been about strategic, turn-based combat (albeit at a faster pace than tabletop games) but the pace of these fights and the breadth of their mechanics makes the challenge less about intellect and more about reflexes.

Which is fine, depending on your preferences, but I can easily see how the traditional MMO crowd (particularly the ones who just “play for fun”) would get incredibly frustrated.

And i would be fine with the FPSish pace, if the controls matched!

Give me Tera or Neverwinter style controls and i would be perfectly fine. Hell, dodging glowing sections of ground is what Neverwinter PVE consists off.

Bit having a mouse that operates independently of the camera for targeting reasons ends up for me at least to be very close to a test of patting my head and rubbing my stomach in the middle of a dodgeball match.

And that is why i had a spit take when Jon Peters outright stated that they didn’t go for a Neverwinter scheme because they felt it made the game too action focused. kitten it, it is already action focused! the moment dodge was made the primary survival method, it became Devil May Cry with a awkward control scheme!

Seriously, there is nothing wrong with this bossfight.
It is perfectly doable on every prof.
I did it, and many others did as well.
I am really sorry, but if you manage to die a bazillion times here, it really is a learn to play issue.
This fight is nowhere close to Liadri was in terms of difficulty.
Every class has their own tricks for this encounter.
The massive dragon aoe can also be blocked by aegis, warrior shield, mesmer sword offhand, engineer shield/gearshield, etc.
elementalist can simply equip a focus and call it a day.
the dragonhead appears at the exact same spot every single time…
Honestly, if you are willing to learn and think, you can do this.
Look at that weaponset you never really use, give that odd utility skill a second chance, try that niche trait..
I may be wrong, but I see a lot of crying from people that refuse to learn, adapt, or even dodge, and then accuse others of being elitist when this gets pointed out to them.

Hell, if you can’t do it in zerkergear, go tanky.
It’s not like you lose a lot of damage here, both the bossphases and tendrils have pretty low health.

Here, I will give you a headstart.

guardian: focus #5 , retreat, renewed focus, shelter…gazillion blocks. add your favorite stunbreaker and perhaps a reflect wall and you are golden.

warrior: shield #5 for OSHT moments, shake it off, healing signet ( or healstance trolling by healing to full by standing in the AoE ), endure pain, perhaps balanced stance for unlucky moments. having longbow secondary helps. tendrils hate the F1 burst.

mesmer: sword/sword set. sword #2 evades, sword #4 blocks, shatter f4 ( be brave and trait illusionary persona for on-demand invuln ), signet that recharges shatters, and good ol’ feedback.

elementalist: love your focus. love your conjured weapons ( frostbow&FGS trolling ). bring arcane shield and mistform for your OSHT times. ether renewal heal to laugh away those conditions ( if anything gets through focus air #4 and earth #4/#5)

engineer: grenades. 1500 range grenades. hit everyone. never get hit. offhand shield for reflect lolz and the block on shield #5 when you have no dodges and aoe hits you. gearshield for another block. invuln elixir for more OSHT. supply drop because..it’s supply drop.

necro: well of power + consume conditions ignores any condi anything can throw on you. smack your own conditions on the tendrils, then time epidemic well so suddenly 3 tendrils have all your delicious bleeds. well of corruption is optional if the mordrem wolf causes you so much pain. dodge/jump/deathshroud dragon vomit/aoe.

ranger: shortbow is cute with a nice evade. be pro and melee the vines with sword/dagger. you have three evades on that set. sword #3 and dagger #4 evade aoe, sword #2 gets you out of there if it gets truly nasty. healing spring to counter condi, lightning reflexes for more dodging and vigor..last skill is optional. if you are very bad, and are sylvari, use the racial that spawns the seed turrets, 3 sec invuln is sexy, and DPS is not that important on the big evil salad.

thief: pistolwhip the kitten out of everyone while evading stuff & healing with signet of malice?
daggerstorm + smokescreen versus projectiles?
signet of agility for anti condi/extra dodges?

And those are just weapon skills, you have all these awesome things called “traits” to help you out even further.

digiowl.9620:

And i would be fine with the FPSish pace, if the controls matched!

Give me Tera or Neverwinter style controls and i would be perfectly fine. Hell, dodging glowing sections of ground is what Neverwinter PVE consists off.

Bit having a mouse that operates independently of the camera for targeting reasons ends up for me at least to be very close to a test of patting my head and rubbing my stomach in the middle of a dodgeball match.

And that is why i had a spit take when Jon Peters outright stated that they didn’t go for a Neverwinter scheme because they felt it made the game too action focused. kitten it, it is already action focused! the moment dodge was made the primary survival method, it became Devil May Cry with a awkward control scheme!

It is very strange, isn’t _ it? (Had to put that underscore in to avoid the filter on normal words. Apparently “isnt” and “it” are too close together…)

In some ways, I feel like the dodge system in this game is like the pillar of its FPS-ness. In other MMOs I have played, there is no reactive “dodge” ability, so you are forced to rely on either moving your toon quickly (e.g. running) or just using your intellect to handle the right mechanics at the right time.

Which is really the draw of an MMO for me… the strategic planning and knowledge that helps you overcome the challenges set before you. FPS games are appealing to me in their own way, but I ultimately prefer MMOs because they have always been more about winning through strategy than winning through “athletic ability,” so to speak.

I just hope that MMOs using FPS-like mechanics is not going to become a trend that overwhelms the traditional version of the genre. I can get by without too many scars on watered-down MMO-style-FPS (I just have to put in some effort to pay attention), but I am mediocre at actual FPS games.