Guild Wars 2

I absolutely loathe underwater combat in this game because it’s riddled with problems like NPC invulnerability at random times during EVERY battle. Not some battles … EVERY BATTLE.

Add this to the list of things that need to be fixed sooner rather than later.

I also just found that I get perpetually stuck in combat while underwater with no apparent NPC aggro.

Underwater combat has become so infuriating that I don’t go into the water anymore unless I really need to. It’s now got to the point where it’s a 50/50 chance any mob will go invulnerable during combat. I tried searching this forum and could not find a fix of a workaround.

Is this bug going to be fixed once and for all? This is the kind of bug that may make people think twice about playing. Thankfully now that I stay out of the water I no longer feel that way.

Please take the time to fix this.

Agreed. This bug has made Frostgorge, with it’s many underwater events, a boring grind of non-event mobs. Coupled with the very shouty Kodan NPC who is constantly yelling about the poor survivors in the water, it’s a huge negative for the entire gameplay experience in the one non-Risen-all-the-time 80 zone.

Since your most recent patch I have had serious problems with enemies underwater becoming invulnerable in the middle of fights, promptly regenerating their health and continuing to attack me. It made the personal story mission “forewarned is forearmed” an absolute nightmare and has ruined the fun of underwater content for me.

This issue, where mobs randomly go invulnerable and return to their spawn point… some then heal, others don’t… has existed since game launch and I know other players have experienced it as well. I thought it was a bug with my guardian abilities or something but it happens for my elementalist as well.

It makes your underwater content quite frustrating sometimes, to be honest.

And now you’re releasing a new zone with lots of underwater stuff probably and I still see no mention of fixing this bug anywhere. I guess we just have to live with it and continue avoiding underwater content after we get the initial completion marks…

Just had this happen to me tonight with mobs attacking me but invulnerable to my attacks 90% of the time, of course I died in the process but eventually got the event done.

It seems to me to depend a lot on the monster type. Drakes in queensdale (whichever kind of drake that is) do it a lot, and there are other aquatics that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it happen for (barracuda for example).

I had it happen yesterday on land with a Jotun. He was one of the ones in Dredgehaunt that normally is sleeping in one of those half-huts.

I think it is really annoying, stupid, immersion breaking and just not fun.
+1.

Players, please refer to the TL;DR version at the bottom if you’d like and post in support of getting this issue, which has persisted far too long now, fixed. Thank you all in advance.

I know this poor horse hasn’t been beaten to death, many times over by now to be sure. I won’t belabor the issue with details I’m sure anyone familiar with the issue is keenly aware of. I just wanted to mention it to keep the topic fresh in your minds as the endless endeavor to fix bugs continues, at a way more than satisfactory rate I’d like to add, especially in comparison to any of your MMO competition (the quick and decisive response to the “Orb hacking” and server band-wagoning in WvW are perfect examples of this in my opinion).

Anyway, it’s just as annoying as ever and makes any under water fighting, quests, dynamic events, etc. just as miserable and off putting as it has since the very beginning. You guys developed the first broad market MMO to actually try to incorporate under water experiences as much a of part of the game as on land (relatively) , in my opinion at least. In the broad generic sense I’d say you met that goal and then some as well.

In all seriousness though this “invulnerability” bug pretty much completely wrecks all your efforts. Sadly all the effort and resources invested in this aspect of the game are mostly wasted so long as this bug persists. Especially being that, while one can mostly compensate through their game play tactics and strategy thorugh most of the content, once one hits Orr (or Frostgorge Sound and the like) especially, this bug becomes a huge and very noticeable impediment. A great deal of battles, time, reapir fees, etc. are caused directly by 1 or more mobs turning “invulnerable” for some (illegitimate and mysterious) reason, they return to their point of origin, heal fully, and most times immediately return and begin the attack again on the same player’s character who often still has a large HP deficit and abilities on various states of cooldown. The battle, and potential SP, DE, or whatever reward lost and cost solely by this “bug” which has remained intact, untouched, and causing the exact same issues it did on day 1 of the game to present.

I don’t know how you all prioritize urgency in terms of a fixing schedule and I’m sure there is more urgent issues demanding your attention aside form this bug. It’s really ruining a large amount of PvE (and PvP to a much lesser extent as it relates to Quaggan control on the WvW map, but that’s nearly an entirely separate issue altogether that isn’t worth making a big deal of here for the purposes of this threads gist.) Considering these facts (among others) and the amount of time this “bug” has been allowed to negatively impact all underwater activity in game, I think it deserves a reasonably high spot on the “to be fixed list”. I certainly don’t think I’m the only one sick of this issue continuing for as long as it has either. After release I was fairly confidant it would be fixed PDQ and I wouldn’t be surprised if that sentiment was widely shared.

Anyhow, I just wanted to remind the Devs that this issue still persists and is just as annoying and ruining as many under water objectives as it did on day 1. Here’s hoping it gets due attention sooner rather than later. Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for squaring this annoyance away for us.

Players, please post in this thread to signify your support in hopes of this “bug” soon to be rectified. Thank you in advance as well for voicing your support here.

TL;DR:
The “invulnerability bug” that has been around from the very start (noticeable primarily under water but occuring all over the map as well) remains in game and untouched ruining any fun for the most part from under water activities of any kind and making them something to be avoided generally. While the issue, in and of it’s self, doesn’t appear to urgent on a “game breaking” level, we feel it ruins the enjoyment of a lot of, primarily, PvE content and the amount of time it’s been allowed to continue abated makes this a pressing issue that should be near the top of the “To be Fixed List”.

Primarily this thread is to convey the fact that the bug still very much exists and has only grown more frustrating. We, the player base, would like this to be fixed A.S.A.P and consider it’s fixing to be rather important. Thank you in advance for your attention in this matter.

I noticed this in Timberline killing krait to help the quaggan there. I would get a krait down a bit and it would move back (sometimes no more than a step or two), turning invulnerable. After about a dozen times, I gave up on it.

I have also noticed this in Lornar’s Pass with the “Defeat the Brimstone Imp & Summoned Imps” event that takes place in Highfirn Passage near the POI Rocklair and its scout. All the imps operate normally except for Brimestone himself. More often than not he is invulnerable. I almost managed to kill him once, but he managed to outlast me. Sometimes he is invulnerable for a handful of strikes, but most often is invulnerable during the entire fight.

I AGREE this BUG has gone on for far too long (as have other bugs)
ARENANET please prioritize BUG FIXES BEFORE NEW CONTENT

Hate when this happens to several mobs at once. Try to attack and it sits there being immune so i move onto another and that one is bugged too so i go to another and that one bugs out so i got to another and its fine but then the previous bugged ones come out of nowhere and attack me. Have had this happen on land as well and seems to be occuring way more often than it did at launch.

In Treacherous Depths in Mount Maelstrom the skill point NPC did this to me. When he was right in front of me after talking to him, he was invulnerable, then I finally got him down to nearly 15% health, and suddenly he turns invulnerable and starts regenerating health. I was still in his underwater room, and I was still attacking him! Considering that elementalists have the worst underwater skills in the game, add this bug and it really becomes a nightmare.

I can’t tell you how many other mobs underwater have done exactly the same sort of thing: “I don’t want to fight anymore, I’m invulnerable nyah, nyah and now that you are down HP, still in combat, and all your skills are on cool down, and now that I have regenerated all my health I’m coming back to kill you.”

It appears my topic has been merged with this one. I knew there had to be multiple posts on this already but I was hoping to refresh their memories with a new post. Anyhow, although this problem has occurred several times on land as well it’s the under water game that has been pretty well completely ruined for me, especially in Orr and Frostgorge. I avoid ANY under water gameplay like the plague as a result.

For as long as this issue has gone on now untouched with hardly a mention I’m starting to fear it’s just gonna slip into permanence here. Most of us I believe are not addressing this issue here to just “vent” frustration. We want it fixed. It affects too much of the game to just be a minor annoyance.

Urrahn the Hunter Skill Challenge is a classic example. I did enough damage to kill him probably 4 times over, but at a certain point he would go invulnerable and regain health, sometimes resetting completely so I had to start the conversation again. I never kited him miles, or hid behind rocks; in fact many times when he went invulnerable, I was within melee range.

Agreed.
While prolific underwater, it also occasionally happen on land too. Shattering any immersion that there otherwise would be.

I understand that its likely implemented so players dont drag enemeis to points where they can simply expliot a melee enemy thats unable to target them (though there are posibly more immersive ways that could of been handled).
It does however throw out the posibility of intelligent play style and using the terrain to give you tactical benefits (more a land issue than underwater). If you happen to be tactically minded in the way you play, this can stop you “playing your own way”.

I run into the invulnerability bug on land several times on a daily basis, I avoid as much under water content as possible due to the invulnerability bug. It is just horrendous under water. They should just remove invulnerability until they can fix it.

There is no reason to even have invulnerability, it is just stupid.

The combat is seriously broken, hard to consider playable in many situation. Constantly you get into a combat state permanently after the mob returns to its position fully healed, leaving you in half health permanently as well. Depends on your healing skill, it may take 3 cool downs to fully healed. That’s when you are lucky that no other mobs are around or respawn while your healing skill is on cool down. Sometimes you just die from condition damage while everything is on cool down.

Other MMOs consider you out of combat even condition damage still ticking on you, if your opponent is out of combat. For this game, this does not work, and there is no other way to heal except your only healing skill. They should work thoroughly on resolving this before adding anymore new content. You can have your health left on 50% for an hour if you don’t heal it. In combat permanently with nothing should be compensated with a short timer.

Happens to me all the time, especially when underwater and with veterans -.- I actually opened a thread about this a while back, but got no official reply.

I think it’s because of sucky pathing, a mob can’t find a path to get at you and anti-exploit code kicks in and makes them invulnerable.

Yeh, that is whole other bug I’d like to gripe about. First we need invulnerability to be either fixed or just totally removed from the game. I’ve also had plenty of instances where even after I’ve killed the monsters, I’d be stuck in combat for no reason. For my elementalist, it requires a relog for me to weapon swap as we cannot swap weapons while in combat for them.

I, too, have experienced this bug on countless enemies. Because it seems rampant and does not seem to be override-able, whenever I encounter it, I leave.

Really makes it difficult to complete things when the target you need becomes invulnerable mid-fight. I’ve died too many times to these things so that whenever I do encounter them now, I just go away and do something else.

Under water especially I find myself treading water stark still and just eating damage for fear of “bugging the mob” out. Of course this just isn’t a survivable notion when facing any kind of Vet. or “boss” or even a pack of several mobs underwater. Even sitting still there’s still a chance for “invulnerability” to occur though.

Result – Under Water combat avoided as much as possible. Game content avoided because of poor design / implementation, plain and simple.

Any news on a fix?

Corew.8932:

I think it’s because of sucky pathing, a mob can’t find a path to get at you and anti-exploit code kicks in and makes them invulnerable.

In many instances this is obvious and I think this may be the initial cause of it but I think it’s the implementation of the mechanic that’s making it foul up so many times and kitten us out of legitimately fought wins. More times than not (under water primarily as this is where the large majority of this bug’s occurrences are) the mob is but a few steps away with not a thing between myself and them. Just out of the blue, they turn swim back a few feet to the origination point, sit there for a few seconds, heal to full, turn and attack again like nothing happened again. And I just sit completely still the whole time watching this occur, unable to see anything that can even be misconstrued as something that could potentially spawn a pathing exploit and the mechanic to prevent it.

Seconded, Thirded, how many others now? Happening more and more often on land as well now.

ArenaNet? Any answer even? Or do you only reply to the threads reporting things you have fixed?

Suggestion: instead of this response to pathing exploits, how about just having the enemy move out of range? More realistic, and offers you the chance to chase it down and finish the job rather than be forced to watch it heal within melee range.

I honestly avoid the water as much as possible because of this as well and would like to see this addressed and fixed. I’ll also second and third a voice that bugs should be addressed before new content or eventually we’ll end up with these things simply staying in the game for good.

I can name a few bugs in GW 1 that stayed in-game and were never fixed and players were forced to live with them. " Obstructed " but wait we’re standing on the same bridge and I can hit them with a sword but not a bow ?

Very annoying bug. Last night I did a part of my personal story where I had to allow myself (and an NPC) to be imprisoned by Krait, escape, fight my way to the top of the Krait tower, release the NPC, then go down to the bottom of the lake to fight a water monster and retrieve an artifact. Guess what, with the NPC dead, all my skills on cooldown and my health low the water monster decides he wants to go invulnerable and heals up, effectively giving me the middle finger.

Just a supportive bump in a vain attempt to get someone’s attention. This bug is so prevalent in water combat that either a) a dev MUST have experienced this and know it exists but have so much other buggy code to fix they can’t get to it or b) the devs don’t play water content. Unfortunately it seems it’s a). But I’m sure glad these patches lately are implemented for 1-bug fixes! xD

it doesn’t just suck for us, the players, but it also makes me feel bad for whoever put all their time and effort into creating all the underwater zones, assets, enemies, everything. whoever was working on this at ArenaNet, almost completely wasted their time, because the majority of players still hate underwater combat… if not because of other reasons, definitely because of this bug.
they had such high hopes for underwater during development, but it seems this project failed.

Rune Jairusion.4610:

Just a supportive bump in a vain attempt to get someone’s attention. This bug is so prevalent in water combat that either a) a dev MUST have experienced this and know it exists but have so much other buggy code to fix they can’t get to it or b) the devs don’t play water content. Unfortunately it seems it’s a). But I’m sure glad these patches lately are implemented for 1-bug fixes! xD

there are sooo many bugs in the game it’s not even funny anymore (the actually entertainig animantion bugs from betas they had to get rid of, though). some of them since launch, but the worst part about it is, that they introduce a whole lot of new bugs all the time

:( indeed

More support for fixing this bug!!

I was in Frostgorge reviving one of the castaways. There were no mobs around. Partway through the revive, an Icebrood Norn (name may not be correct) swims up and starts beating on me. I have to stop the revive process because he dignificanyly knocked me down in health and I start attacking him. After approximately 1 hit, he turns invulnerable and swims off. I said screw this and left.

Yesterday, I had Risen kiting my thief. They’d run off, start to heal up after becoming invulnerable, and then head right back at me, running in a circle. They were also stacked so that I couldn’t tell how many were there – there were 4 when I started, 2 when I finally died. She also had it happen with centaurs in Kessex.

The issue has become increasingly prevalent. I didn’t personally run into it until the last three weeks or so. A lot of the krait quests have become virtually impossible to do.

Tonight I was doing my daily achievements in Frostgorge and ran into this bug 3 times in one hour. Two were under water, one was on land. I must say, of all the nasty bugs in this game, this one must be one of the worst.

I have a workaround for all of you. Invulnerability seems to be triggered by two factors: either being on a piece of terrain that the enemy cannot reach (and therefore cannot hurt you) or when it is pulled a significant distance from its spawn.

Invulnerability auto-triggers all the time when I jump on a big rock or something that the enemy can’t reach (not underwater). This seems to be designed to prevent players from pulling high level monsters to favorable terrain and then killing them from where the player cannot be hurt.

When underwater, monsters trigger invulnerability in two cases. The most common is when the enemy is far from its spawn (especially in terms of the vertical z-axis). If you engage enemies at or near their spawns (preferably at the same height as the enemy), you can avoid triggering invulnerability.

If you engage enemies near the spawns/don’t go to places npcs can’t reach (they can’t jump), invulnerability will rarely/never trigger. It’s all about the terrain you engage them in. If some of you are doubtful, I’ve only had an enemy go “invulnerable” once during the last twenty hours of gameplay. This includes a fair amount of time spent underwater.

And although I have the workaround, I sorta disapprove of the whole “invulnerability” mechanic. Although it’s designed to prevent players from using the terrain against the enemy and pulling, it really diminishes the choices you have in engaging the enemy. Who cares if the npc can’t hit back? I feel pretty accomplished when I think of something clever, like using terrain to my advantage. It sorta takes the fun out of things when you don’t have options like that.

Kazi, in my case, the mob came to me. I never moved at all. It came over to me while I was attempting to revive a castaway. I did damage and it turned invulnerable and left. I never had this bug until the last few weeks.

kazi.6438:

I have a workaround for all of you. Invulnerability seems to be triggered by two factors: either being on a piece of terrain that the enemy cannot reach (and therefore cannot hurt you) or when it is pulled a significant distance from its spawn.

Invulnerability auto-triggers all the time when I jump on a big rock or something that the enemy can’t reach (not underwater). This seems to be designed to prevent players from pulling high level monsters to favorable terrain and then killing them from where the player cannot be hurt.

When underwater, monsters trigger invulnerability in two cases. The most common is when the enemy is far from its spawn (especially in terms of the vertical z-axis). If you engage enemies at or near their spawns (preferably at the same height as the enemy), you can avoid triggering invulnerability.

If you engage enemies near the spawns/don’t go to places npcs can’t reach (they can’t jump), invulnerability will rarely/never trigger. It’s all about the terrain you engage them in. If some of you are doubtful, I’ve only had an enemy go “invulnerable” once during the last twenty hours of gameplay. This includes a fair amount of time spent underwater.

Glad to hear that you don’t experience this issue. I however also noticed increase in “invulnerable” stuff after last couple of patches for no apparent reason. I haven’t had this much trouble leveling my ranger, who I did use to pull enemies for significant distances. Now leveling a guardian, who beside dancing in circles pretty much fights in place, I get the invulnerable mobs much much more than I used to. Not just underwater. Veteran mobs on the dry land go invul pretty often as well. I suspect there is some kind of glitch with CCs (knockback and pull in particular) that is causing mobs to think they cannot reach me or something.
In any case this is very real issue. That stuff you describe is correct in a sense that this is how things should work, but there is definitely something going on beyond that.

Trollhammer, oddly enough, my ranger also didn’t run into this while leveling, and she even took the option where she had to kill the krait in Maelstrom. My guardian, however, started running into it recently, in cases where I know my ranger didn’t have issues.

My thief pulls some distance, but not nearly as far as my ranger since pistols don’t have the range of a bow. Even if she is running into a leash issue (which seems unlikely since they will fight for awhile at that spot before turning invulnerable and running off), it hardly seems fair since we don’t turn invulnerable when we run from a fight.

seems I must have amazing luck.

Bug rarely happens for me anymore and didn’t happen that often to begin with. Makes me wonder if there is some variables that are causing it.

I’m running into this constantly – it makes parts of Ascalonian Catacombs unplayable (protecting the Priory researcher from the Gravelings is REALLY hard when the gravelings only attack him and are invincible to all your attacks), as well as a ton of underwater play (I’m pretty sure every single underwater skill challenge I’ve tried in the past couple days has gone invulnerable on me).

Note, this is all at melee range with a thief. I thought it might be some of my dodge skills, but invulnerability seems to happen regardless, albeit slightly less frequently if I avoid dodging. Which kinda negates the point of playing a thief in the first place…

This happens to me frequently underwater, and to date is the most annoying bug I encounter. It almost seems to happen more frequently to mobs closer to the surface, but it could just be totally random. This single thing really makes me groan when I have to complete an objective underwater. I really don’t like having to kill something 2+ times. I have had this happen to me on land as well, but it’s not nearly as often.

If Anet didn’t care more about making their game exploit proof then fun, they would remove all npc invulnerability until they fixed this.

I can confirm this happening quite often on my Guardian, on trident skills 3 and 4 are almost guaranteed to trigger Invulnerable (more than one time on the same mob). Tested this in Kessex with the Kraits around the witches lair. The spear skills do not seem to trigger it as often. I can provide video if you wish.
However, it very seldom happens on my ranger or ele.

Fix this plz!!!