This is my first time posting on the boards so please bear with me. I ran AC for the first time since the patch tonight with 2 level 80s, and 3 level 50’ishs. We first encountered the Spider Queen and were caught with our pants down and wiped immediately. After a few more tries we quickly figured out how to avoid her Root, Poison and Cone AE insta death and managed to kill her after our 5th wipe. Thinking this might just be tough but doable we trudged onwards to Lt Kohler and OH MY GOODNESS he is just rediculous now. This is how my fight went with him:
Got hit by Scorpion Wire→Popped a Stun Breaker and rolled to safety→Stunned by Ascalonian Warrior→(Kohler is charging yet anothing Scorpion Wire right after the last one)→Popped a Stun Breaker→Feared by an Ascalonian Necromancer→Caught in the second scorpion wire→Dead
I by no means think of myself as the best player or the worst. If I pop two utility skills to break out of stun and I still die because I didn’t manage to dodge once 5 seconds earlier which would have meant I had 1 more stun breaker to avoid that second PBAE is just frustrating. There is 0 forgiviness in this fight now.
So, after 2 hours of fighting Lt Kohler and a lot of luck we managed to have 1 Warrior left standing who delivered the finishing blow. Tired, frustrated but eager to finish the dungeon we trudged onto the next part of Path 2. After getting Detha to the hall where you need to lure the gravelings into the spike traps she stopped and stared at us all cute with her kitten eyes (I didn’t swear, she does have kitten eyes being a Charr
. We gasped as we realized she was bugged and would not trigger the next step of the quest. Almost 3 hours wasted at this point is just gut wrenching. Defeated we disbanded and will not run AC again in it’s current buggy and impossible state.
Not even the Ghostbusters could finish AC without somekind of heroic montage first.
I understand that AC Explorable was easy for experienced level 80s in exotics (Not so much for level 35s). That being said, it was still challenging for a group of random folks to meetup outside the dungeon and venture forth into a ghost filled catacombs. 1 or 2 people that knew what they were doing could carry the party through the adventure AND it didn’t matter if you played with 5 Warriors or 5 Elementalists, you could still finish the dungeon. Guild Wars 2 is a game I fell in love with because random or friend felt the same to me. Play what you want with whoever you want and the game is just awesome. Not all my friends/guildies are level 80, so we can’t just simply play another dungeon. Now it’s progressing to turn randoms away in favour of premade guild groups of specific classes who are all level 80.
Whatever happened to the Hard Mode and Normal Mode mechanic introduced in Guild Wars? People cried the game was too easy, and their prayers were answered WITHOUT impacting the casual core or new players. It would make most sense to port this mechanic to GW2 and give everyone the best of both worlds. I don’t want to hear “Go play Story Mode, it’s easier” as it yields no dungeon currency.
I really hope this is temporary and there is a way to satisfy both hardcore and casual gamer and return Guild Wars 2 back to “Play what you want, with whoever you want”. Until then, the ghosts of Ascalonian Catacombs are truly dead to me.