Guild Wars 2

Take longer to kill than the waste of time veterans and provide nothing more in terms of reward? Whats the point of these mobs in the open world? They were bad enough in dungeons.

Vargamonth.2047:

It makes total sense to me.
They allow events to correctly scale when there’s a lot of people around without spawning champions that would encourage zerging.

This^ . They wanted a tuff mob to provide challenge without it turning to champ farm

So, higher risk and less reward. Wonderful. :|

Why are people suddenly talking about this now they have always been in certain parts of the open world since the beginning of the game Example this guy has always been a silver/elite he just used to have the title veteran over his head.

maybe cuz there being used more frequently now. As for why , its prob to increase the difficulty curve and not making a champ farm, thus making champ even harder for there rewards.

Champ= 5+ players to take down
Elites =4-5 players
Vets =1-3 players

its almost the same notion of them having to turn off champ loot, in boss fight to keep ppl focused on the fight rather than the champ loot. (tech waddle, Shadow behemoth etc)

Infamous Darkness.3284:

Why are people suddenly talking about this now they have always been in certain parts of the open world since the beginning of the game Example this guy has always been a silver/elite he just used to have the title veteran over his head.

I think it’s because the patch notes make it sound like a new thing. Poor communication.

Silver mobs have always been around, and very common. Their names used to either not say anything special or say “Veteran”. This was confusing because the bronze mobs are also called “Veteran”. Essentially all they did was add the word “Elite” to the name of every silver mob.

Veron.8645:

Infamous Darkness.3284:

Why are people suddenly talking about this now they have always been in certain parts of the open world since the beginning of the game Example this guy has always been a silver/elite he just used to have the title veteran over his head.

I think it’s because the patch notes make it sound like a new thing. Poor communication.

Silver mobs have always been around, and very common. Their names used to either not say anything special or say “Veteran”. This was confusing because the bronze mobs are also called “Veteran”. Essentially all they did was add the word “Elite” to the name of every silver mob.

Pretty much this. Also, silver enemies counted as veterans for Daily Veteran Slayer and all that, just being stronger than veterans but not quite champions. Not sure if they still count now with the new rank.

bravoart.5308:

So, higher risk and less reward. Wonderful. :|

You just got sooo used to easy peasy champ trains that’s high reward and zero risk.

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Are the drop rates/loot tables the same as the normal veterans?

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Will naming the silver mobs with the prefix of “Elite” and affecting their contribution to the veteran dailies be changed and/or retroactive?

I would love to see the silver mobs from release and since to be renamed to have the “Elite” prefix – would make documenting them on the wiki easier, as well as identification in larger groups with regular foes since you wouldn’t have to select them to point them out. Especially if old events get scaled to include more of them.

Honestly, I love the growing addition of elite mobs in the open world. And if they get separated from veterans in the daily, well, that’s reason for more dailies! (“Kill 3 Elites” “Kill 1 <region> Elites” – scaling based off of Champions… and come to think of it, why no Legendary slaying daily/monthly?)

I can understand during events, as increasing numbers of enemies is not technically a good idea performance-wise, and just increasing the level of existing enemies won’t do, and adding champions would mean either farmings or people complaining about champions not dropping anything.

But there’s some that roam around solo. Killing them is pointless as the only thing they’ll drop if you are lucky is junk, and they are deadly to newbies. There should not be solo roamers until level >30 areas, after players have met them in a dungeon, and know that killing them is an utter pointless waste of time and they are best avoided.

And, of course, they all must get the “elite” prefix in their names. I’m still seeing some around without it.

Specially in dungeons. The only way to tell them apart in dungeons from normal enemies is size for a few of them, and nothing for the rest.

As it balances world difficulty scaling I am fine with elite enemies, though it would be nice if they dropped something extra, like a guaranteed minor loot bag or something, nothing too special.

MithranArkanere.8957:

But there’s some that roam around solo. Killing them is pointless as the only thing they’ll drop if you are lucky is junk, and they are deadly to newbies. There should not be solo roamers until level >30 areas, after players have met them in a dungeon, and know that killing them is an utter pointless waste of time and they are best avoided.

There are solo roaming veterans and champions. Even before champion loot bags, no one complained about these guys. I’d say the champions are even more of a threat to newbies – or at least are when you’re not in Queensdale, and certainly were before champ bags.

I wouldn’t mind the loot table for elites being raised, especially outside of dungeons, but overall I don’t think the “difficulty” of these mobs is worth complaining about. Maybe they’d have a guarantee white champ loot bag (never having a chance at the green or exotic versions… are there fine versions? I only get white green and orange text colors; if there’s blue then that could be the “high level/rare” drop for them). Cannot be the green version as then they’d be farmed too, I wouldn’t doubt. Though either case would be a big no for the dungeon variants.

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Please pass this on to whatever team can look into this, but elite mobs and kill credit are misbehaving in the open world.

Basically they seem to take more hits than a champ to tag kill credit and for that, unless I’m in a party, I often ignore them.

In dungeons of course they are fine because you have to be in the group that damaged them.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

[…]Even before champion loot bags, no one complained about these guys.[…]

Well, maybe not about veterans, since they have decent drops considering their difficulty, but people did complain about champions giving such bad rewards for the time they take to kill that nobody bothered with them.

They first addressed that with a guaranteed fine drop. But that was obviously not enough. And so they ended up coming up with the champion bags, which are now too much, to the point they should give champions ‘node flags’ so people start trying to find more champions instead killing the same ones in an endless loop.

MithranArkanere.8957:

And so they ended up coming up with the champion bags, which are now too much, to the point they should give champions ‘node flags’ so people start trying to find more champions instead killing the same ones in an endless loop.

Loot is already slow enough for people who don’t play 24/7 – please don’t force your perspective on what loot should be on everyone else.

I hope you change the veteran slaying dailies to compensate for transforming all these veterans into elites.

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

As a person who has run up to a Vet and gotten pounded, thank you.

I soloed an elite krait just fine with my mesmer, just had to be sure no other enemies distracted me :P

MithranArkanere.8957:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

[…]Even before champion loot bags, no one complained about these guys.[…]

Well, maybe not about veterans, since they have decent drops considering their difficulty, but people did complain about champions giving such bad rewards for the time they take to kill that nobody bothered with them.

They first addressed that with a guaranteed fine drop. But that was obviously not enough. And so they ended up coming up with the champion bags, which are now too much, to the point they should give champions ‘node flags’ so people start trying to find more champions instead killing the same ones in an endless loop.

I was referring to the fact that champions existed in low level areas with regards to the complaints on champions, actually.

Champion loot complaints were on a whole – about champions from Queensdale to champions in Cursed Shore. It had nothing to do with location. The point I was countering of you was about how they’re – and I quote – “deadly to newbies” and that they “should not be solo roamers until level >30 areas.” If you go by that argument, then we must remove all those non-event champions – of which there’s probably about 3-5 or so per >lvl30 zone – from said >lvl30 zones. And that, I would argue, is a bad move. So if we keep champions in newbie zones, why remove elites? Especially since these particular elites will likely go away when the LS moves on.

If these elites are “deadly to newbies” then so too are the solo-roaming champions that have existed, uncomplained about in their existence, in newbie areas since release.

Treise.6958:

I soloed an elite krait just fine with my mesmer, just had to be sure no other enemies distracted me :P

Even with a normal mob, I solo’d an elite fine. Then a second one aggroed me… think I killed five foes back to back or 2 at a time (3 regs, 2 elites) at that time. I downed twice, but I was able to survive nonetheless.

Konig already made what I would have suggested. Give Elites a Loot Bag equivalent to the non-Exotic loot bag variant of what would drop from Champions. For instance, killing a Champion in Queensdale can net you an Exotic loot bag or a white loot bag. Killing an Elite in Queensdale would always give you a white loot bag. (IIRC, lower tier loot bags always contain some coin, a green item, and a small amount of basic or fine crafting materials.)

This would make Elites a good target for players looking to pad out their crafting materials, while also giving small groups of players a better challenge without necessarily throwing a Champion at them.

bravoart.5308:

So, higher risk and less reward. Wonderful. :|

Sounds like you have gotten way to used to the champ farming trains, which have zero risk in them. Before champs got their loot bag drop upgrade when Queen’s Jubilee came out, farmers considers normal mobs to be valuable (in high level zones) and champs to be worthless. Now it is to exact opposite, farmers call champs the only thing valuable and normal enemies to be worthless. Really just greed, greed, and more greed.

Using Elite mobs more in the open world is a great thing to do. It adds a real level of challenge to stuff for small groups of people.

In my opinion their loot should be better than the veteran’s and worse than the champion’s one. Otherwise people are just going to leave them be, because they are just an irritating presence on the battlefield.

So we´ll see more Elite in game because Vets are to easy for full ascended players?

Is this the start of the powercreep?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I wouldn’t mind the loot table for elites being raised, especially outside of dungeons, but overall I don’t think the “difficulty” of these mobs is worth complaining about. Maybe they’d have a guarantee white champ loot bag (never having a chance at the green or exotic versions… are there fine versions? I only get white green and orange text colors; if there’s blue then that could be the “high level/rare” drop for them). Cannot be the green version as then they’d be farmed too, I wouldn’t doubt. Though either case would be a big no for the dungeon variants.

Especially outside of dungeons? Everyone skips in dungeons because elites drop junk. There are like 2-3 weekly threads complaining about skipping in dungeon subforum and the reason is that it is a complete waste of time not to skip elites.

I think what may add a bit of spice to all this, is if Anet introduced a completely new solo roaming Rare Elites that may appear randomly in any given map.

These Rare Elites would have special loot and a rainbow kinda flaming ring around their portrait to distinguish them from others. These Rare Elites would be more dangerous than a typical champ and could be part of say a daily hunt or something like that. They would roam a particular area of the map and spawn maybe once every 45 min to an hour or something like that if they’ve been killed, if not they keep roaming the area till they have been dealt with. If a solo player comes across them, they could call him out or simply run lol.

Well obviously the loot should be better from elites. IMO the elite mobs where badly missing before. Veterans are too easy, period. A single player can solo WvW camps and that’s still more veterans than seen in pretty much any 20 player upscaled PvE event. It never made any sense because they barely upped the challenge.

At least the elite mobs seem to be considerably tougher, to the point where they can actually down a few players. Still too few of them though. If we assume 30 mobs against 30 players, there should be like 10 elites and 20 veterans. Not 1 elite, 2 veterans and 27 trash like now.

Elites need Elite rewards.

MithranArkanere.8957:

And so they ended up coming up with the champion bags, which are now too much, to the point they should give champions ‘node flags’ so people start trying to find more champions instead killing the same ones in an endless loop.

The loot on champs currently is just fine. What I believe should be done is change their spawn pattern with a large enough random element to derail the champ trains.

Elites feel like champions that don’t give champion loot.

Hmmm… If I were to tinfoil hat I would wonder whether elite’s were needed because Ascended gear made everyone stronger. I wonder if there’s a word for that?

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Update the loot, too, please. Greater difficulty should mean greater reward. Do not give them loot boxes/bags. I want my account-wide magic find to actually mean something, please.

biggs.4702:

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Update the loot, too, please. Greater difficulty should mean greater reward. Do not give them loot boxes/bags. I want my account-wide magic find to actually mean something, please.

^ Can’t really add anything more to this except that it should happen BEFORE all the other species of Elite make it into the game. Kill two birds with one stone so that when they are introduced it’s looked at as a QoL thing by the community and not whiners saying, “Oh great! More of these dudes to kill and their random garbage drops!”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

[… ]

There’s champions in the story before they have entered dungeons, and I’m yet to find a low level champion that isn’t soloable by a character under level 30, I leveled 15 characters and killed all champion in all starting areas. And their attacks in those areas are not strong enough that they don’t have time to turn tail and look for help if things get nasty. Not even the Barradin’s Vault. Those take half your health in one hit at most. Horace is the heaviest hitter, with that nasty Flamestrike of his that is practically unavoidable. The place can give trouble to newbies not because of the champions, but because of the ceiling collapses.

These roaming elites are giving trouble to fully geared level 80, and have several one-hit-kill attacks able to take down a Sentinel warrior at full health. Imagine newbies that are level 15 and have started playing just a few days ago. They can’t have time to think twice and run away if they are downed in one hit and defeated the next one.

Either the solo roamers get toned down in low level areas like champions, or they should not appear until players have more tools to deal with them, namely more stun breakers, blocks, crowd control and condition removers, much like barely any creature can knock down in those areas.

Iason Evan.3806:

biggs.4702:

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Update the loot, too, please. Greater difficulty should mean greater reward. Do not give them loot boxes/bags. I want my account-wide magic find to actually mean something, please.

^ Can’t really add anything more to this except that it should happen BEFORE all the other species of Elite make it into the game. Kill two birds with one stone so that when they are introduced it’s looked at as a QoL thing by the community and not whiners saying, “Oh great! More of these dudes to kill and their random garbage drops!”

This. Or at least, a materials bag + a piece of masterwork gear being very likely at base; with MF actually allowing us to roll higher on the gear.

Mastruq.2463:

MithranArkanere.8957:

And so they ended up coming up with the champion bags, which are now too much, to the point they should give champions ‘node flags’ so people start trying to find more champions instead killing the same ones in an endless loop.

The loot on champs currently is just fine. What I believe should be done is change their spawn pattern with a large enough random element to derail the champ trains.

Even with a random spawn pattern, people would just check them all and then gather at the next one that spawned. And spawn times should not be reduced, because people have different schedules. A player that has just 2 hours may miss most world bossesas they take 2 hours to reset. That’s bad. Now that they give rewards only once a day their reset times could be reduced. Players should be able to log in and do what thy want to do without sitting around waiting.

Meanwhile, all the other champions all over the world are not fought, and solo players wanting to make events that have champions such as the ones in Brisban wildlands will have a much harder time. I can’t count how many times I’ve pinged on many maps “Champion here!” and nobody appeared, which didn’t happen before this fad of farming in Queensdale and Frostgorge so much.

The solution to that is the same that has been used successfully before: node flags.
Kill a champion 1-3 times, depending on champion difficulty, and they will no longer drop anything for you until their flag resets. For some it may be a whole day, for others it may be less. As it’s based on the player, one killing the champion doesn’t mean others can’t kill it.
But once they have exhausted the champions in a map, a zerg will have to put a waypoint to another map in chat, and they go there start their run there.

But while they have moved to a different map, new people will enter this map. And they’ll be able to create another zerg and clean this map, then move to a different one, which may or may not be the same map as the first zerg.

This would create several smaller zergs roaming across several maps and killing several champions instead just two massive ones in two maps over and over.
Those who have difficulty with a champion will have higher chances to get help as zergs would spread more the more champions they want to kill.

Right now it may be a bit different because of the spores and people hunting infected creatures, but once the spores are gone, it’ll probably go back to what it was, unless champions get ‘flags’ like world bosses, dungeons, jumping puzzles and nodes do.
If they didn’t people would still be repeating CoF 1, the same 2-5 world bosses again and again, and doing the Southsun puzzle over and over, and mining the same node again and again.
In a game with such a big map to explore, sitting around all the time in the same spot just doesn’t make any sense. And that’s why you have all those flags on stuff that gives guaranteed rewards, and why champions should not be an exception.

And, well, roaming elites shouldn’t be an exception either if they also get a guaranteed reward.
But elites in events spawn when there’s a lot of people, so those should still drop nothing to prevent farming the event instead aiming for success. And those in dungeons are there just to slow down players, and they’ll get farmed if they dropped ‘elite bags’, so those shouldn’t get them either, at least no unless the rewards for killing them are not awarded until the end of the dungeon or event in some sort of ‘bonus’ for kills, so people don’t enter the dungeon or join the event without the intention of success it and instead go kill elites.

MatthewMedina.5419:

This change has actually been needed since launch. As noted, we’ve already been using these difficulty mobs in content, though in a more limited way. That was due primarily to the fact that both species ended up being named “Veteran”, but one was solo-friendly, the other was not, and all it did was cause confusion. There will be more updates in the future to bring the rest of the species at this difficulty level in line with this change.

Be sure to mention something like this in the update notes: there’s a big difference among introducing a new level of difficulty, renaming an existing difficulty level, and rescaling events to include a different ratio of difficulty levels.

I read the update notes thoroughly and I, too, believed that Elites were newly added to the game, rather than being simple renames.

haviz.1340:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I wouldn’t mind the loot table for elites being raised, especially outside of dungeons, but overall I don’t think the “difficulty” of these mobs is worth complaining about. Maybe they’d have a guarantee white champ loot bag (never having a chance at the green or exotic versions… are there fine versions? I only get white green and orange text colors; if there’s blue then that could be the “high level/rare” drop for them). Cannot be the green version as then they’d be farmed too, I wouldn’t doubt. Though either case would be a big no for the dungeon variants.

Especially outside of dungeons? Everyone skips in dungeons because elites drop junk. There are like 2-3 weekly threads complaining about skipping in dungeon subforum and the reason is that it is a complete waste of time not to skip elites.

The issue with giving elites in dungeons good loot is that dungeons usually have nothing but elites, champions, and legendaries in them. The latter two serving as mini-bosses and bosses.

How many enemies are in dungeons? By upping the elite reward, you’re practically multiplying the dungeon rewards exponentially and dungeon running becomes insanely profitable (more so than now that is).

Unless dungeon mobs get nerfed to high-leveled Veterans mixed in with Elites, I don’t want to see elites in dungeons having that great of an increase in rewards. Even a small increase can have dramatic effects when you take in the number of elites you kill.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

[… ]

There’s champions in the story before they have entered dungeons, and I’m yet to find a low level champion that isn’t soloable by a character under level 30, I leveled 15 characters and killed all champion in all starting areas. And their attacks in those areas are not strong enough that they don’t have time to turn tail and look for help if things get nasty. Not even the Barradin’s Vault. Those take half your health in one hit at most. Horace is the heaviest hitter, with that nasty Flamestrike of his that is practically unavoidable. The place can give trouble to newbies not because of the champions, but because of the ceiling collapses.

These roaming elites are giving trouble to fully geared level 80, and have several one-hit-kill attacks able to take down a Sentinel warrior at full health. Imagine newbies that are level 15 and have started playing just a few days ago. They can’t have time to think twice and run away if they are downed in one hit and defeated the next one.

Either the solo roamers get toned down in low level areas like champions, or they should not appear until players have more tools to deal with them, namely more stun breakers, blocks, crowd control and condition removers, much like barely any creature can knock down in those areas.

All PS foes can be soloed. Those champions are made especially weak because they’re in solo content. Champions in the open world are different – if you’re tackling it at the zone’s level than you can’t solo – or can with a lot of time and kiting.

Your comment seems kind of contradictory though – “their attacks in those areas are not strong enough that they don’t have time to turn tail and look for help if things get nasty” which you immediately followed with “Those take half your health in one hit at most” (ergo, 2 hits you’re dead).

The odd thing is that elites are weaker than champions, yet you say champions are too easy… but elites are too hard? Maybe you’re just that good of a player when it comes to champs, but you underestimate elites. Because if you can solo champs (something I can’t do even on my best profession with a character that’s at the zone’s level – e.g., without a high level that has traits and rares+ equipment).

Elites are by far definitely solo’able, despite your earlier claim. Champions are if you know what you’re doing and you have a good build – though certainly not all champions (or so I would suspect at least). But outside of the personal story, champions aren’t meant to be solo’able. So if you have no qualm with champions, but you are with elites, I think you need to rethink what the purpose of the two ranks are and argue for something other than “remove elites, but keep champions.” Sounds to me more like all you care about is less difficulty for more rewards – or at least the more rewards part.

Hmm, good point there about dungeons, Konig. I agree that they’d need to either nerf most elites in dungeons to Veterans (not something I’d complain about), or make it so that Elites only drop non-Exotic loot bags on occasion (which I don’t agree with, given Elite difficulty. If anything it’d just encourage people to skip Elites and tackle Champions).

Elites don’t give enough to make it worth fighting them; making them worth fighting would make dungeons into farm bonanzas given how many elites are currently in them.

Maybe adjust the speed bump spawns to have an elite as the boss; 3-5 vets as guards; and some regulars for flavor and rallies. That would help make the spawns not a complete waste of time to kill but still keep completion as the preferred method.

Or; have an optional mission in each dungeon to kill elites for some sort of decent reward that is only given out upon dungeon completion. Maybe an extra bonus to tokens and gold; with a chance at a random rare/exotic roll that uses MF.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

How many enemies are in dungeons? By upping the elite reward, you’re practically multiplying the dungeon rewards exponentially and dungeon running becomes insanely profitable (more so than now that is).

Unless dungeon mobs get nerfed to high-leveled Veterans mixed in with Elites, I don’t want to see elites in dungeons having that great of an increase in rewards. Even a small increase can have dramatic effects when you take in the number of elites you kill.

Maybe dungeons should be more profitable than running in open world and pressing 1. I don’t see anything wrong with rewarding people for their effort.

If dungeons weren’t so easy to run (CoF p 1 & 2, all of AC, etc. etc.) then I’d probably agree with you. But if you can finish a dungeon in less than 15 minutes and get ~2-5g (varying on drop qualities) a run as is… I don’t think they need to be more profitable.

Not unless Anet wants an economy where it’s extremely easy for anyone to get lots and lots of gold.

Won’t those Elites be treated the same as champions were before, FINALLY (after 6 months of players complaining), they dropped good loot.

Players will just run/dodge/avoid those elites because the loot they drop is not worth the time/effort.

It seems to me Anet just repeating the mistake they made with champions…

Also, this is a stealth rise in foes we face to balance out players increased stats from ascended gear. Its why gear grind is ultimately a waste of time/futile effort because the foes you face just grow in power too. So althrough your characters stats increase, your characters are not in reality anymore powerful.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If dungeons weren’t so easy to run (CoF p 1 & 2, all of AC, etc. etc.) then I’d probably agree with you. But if you can finish a dungeon in less than 15 minutes and get ~2-5g (varying on drop qualities) a run as is… I don’t think they need to be more profitable.

Not unless Anet wants an economy where it’s extremely easy for anyone to get lots and lots of gold.

You can do them in 15 minutes but you won’t have many drops. And doing harder dungeons (arah) in 15 minutes requires more than pressing 1, thus should be rewarded proportionally.

I would like to see a video of a dungeon run with only autoattacking and alt-tabbing.