Guild Wars 2

I hope you are still reading this thread, Robert, because I have some good feedback for the changes in the new dungeon from what I’ve currently tried to achieve.

I only made it as far as the lava walk portion of this dungeon line due to the frustration of trying to walk an AI across a lavafield that he prefers to stand in more than walk on the rocks with the people who are supposed to be assisting him.

The AI of Magg during this portion of the event does not fit correctly to the task at hand. You are trying to get across this portion of lava as fast as possible judging by the speed at which the mobs respawn, and the fire patches re-igniting. You simply cannot stand still long or you will be fighting over the same hot fire for eternity. So one would assume you would just need to be sure to clear the mobs in the path quickly and move forward as safely and as quickly as possible. This is an impossibility with the AI currently coded into him. Magg has an aggro radius of a dragon and will shoot mobs way beyond the mob aggro radius. He need to be configured to fire only when fired upon and nothing else.

On to suggestion two: Previous bugs in this area prevent a correction upon a simple mistake (more than likely caused by point 1 in my rant). If you die to one of the fire patches, the fire continues to damage your ‘Health bar’/‘Rez bar’ even when dead. Magg died in a fire patch and the only 2 people with extinguishers died. I survived long enough to get a warrior back up but Magg is stuck now in the middle of a fire patch. Even if we could survive 1 at a time long enough to rez him, it is an impossibility due to his health burning faster than we can apply resurrection. The only way to get around this is to walk way back to the start to have him revive himself (half the time you hear his death cry constantly because he cannot break free from his own dumb AI to teleport back and reset.

We’ve gotten him to the magmacite, beyond all mobs aggro to have him die. We ressurect him to get him on his feet and he aggros the two slimes at the start of the lava field.

Problem 3: When you die, the nearest waypoint at this point is the start of the zone. The waypoint above the ‘bomb maze’ from the previous phase should activate, not after the lava field.

It is ridiculous at this point to even think that the next part of this dungeon is an impossible survival. Rather than upping the duration of the phase for planting the bomb, it merely should have been configured so it is possible to run the intended way. If, and a big if here, we were originally intended to kill these waves upon waves of mobs with thousands of HP. How are we intended to do the same impossible feat with twice the duration, and twice the mobs? You don’t solve a problem of people running mobs around forever and bypassing your combat, you perform a change that forces them to fight. “Well, Steve, they just run around the mobs until the event ends…” “We’ll just multiply it all! Two times the mobs and two times the duration!” To me that makes me want to attempt to kite 2x as long not try and fight my assailants.

Another part of the game that reminds me of this impossible feat is on the flying boat during Arah story. There is a limit to on the DPS a group can put out, especially if you want to build survival to live through a hit.

Anyway….Besides the problems with the dungeon and bugs, I figured I would suggest something that should have been done in the first place in my opinion and that is each dungeon path should be rated on difficulty. Path 1 should be easy, path 2 should be medium, and 3 should be difficult. Throw in path 4 for insane for good measure. Each path should reward based on difficulty. 1 nets 10 marks, 2 nets 15, 3 gives 20, and 4 gives 30 if you can manage it. Make chests have chances to drop dyes only available in that respective story arc, gear with models only found in that chest from that mob. The possibilities you have at your disposal is pretty high up there.

edit: I wanted to emphasize the point that increasing difficulty should not necessarily increase the frustration caused by the zone. Adding more bugs does not increase difficulty, it merely adds frustration and leads to less fun for the player. Difficulty can be overcome with skill and practice, There is no practice for bugs and impossibility.

I understand the Dev’s had to make a change fast because it was pretty game breaking, but halting the process in its tracks and making things impossible is the wrong step to take.

I hope this post finds its way to the right people and I hope they give some good feedback.

Thank you for your time and I await your feedback.

—Doomfael

I don’t think people who spam truly understand that there are a multitude of situations that can arise at any given moment. How does everyone always assume there is a 1v1 fight at all times? I rarely get a person locked to myself without a reinforcement or 5 showing up randomly. I usually save a bit so I can C&D and gtfo.

If you jump in and spam Heartseeker because its ‘The best ability at the time and .5 seconds later it is still the same’ you are either lazy or don’t understand the options in full.

Many skills are dependent upon the class you are playing against as well as their current hp, distance from you, how many others are around said target, and how much burst you are really looking to do (Don’t tell me burst is always priority because you will never fully burst a guardian down in 1 pool of initiative), blah blah blah. Its obvious that a lot of people have this 1v1 mentality and ‘Theory crafting’ BS, but that is seldom the case in SPvP or WvW. You may kill 1 or 2 people here and there just running in and spamming heartseeker before you inevitably go down because you cant escape, but that is not a good use of your skills and you can be more efficient.

My combo usually when fighting heavier classes is to use more death blossom due to conditions doing unmitigated damage. I tend to focus more on keeping ~6-9 stacks of bleed on and using more of a hit and run style to keep invisible and stacking some vulnerability, where as my lighter fights tend to have more focus on heartseeker and just more movement. I still use cloak and dagger on everything because I feel stealth adds a bit of confusion to the fights and helps a ton in group situations when people keep losing targeting on you.

The key is though that it is rare ever that I have a chance to effectively spam 1 skill. Exceptions to this ‘no spamming’ rule are primarily that I am super low HP and have a few initiative, I’ll try and get as much out as possible before my imminent certain death or if there are a large pack of close together enemies I will leap through a few times with Death Blossom to try and front load as much damage as possible. This second instance, I usually plan an escape route by swapping to shortbow and getting out.

The fact is that Death Blossom is for group packs and condition stacking and Heartseeker is for targets (with the recent notes) below 50% hp. You have to get targets to below 50% before it is effective in the slightest which warrants use of other skills 50% of the time. Anything at a distance will need to use something that leaps you or snares your target. Anything with high armor/hp will need some working over with other skills until it hits that 50% point.

TL:DR; Heartseeker is only good on targets <50% hp and gets better <25%. Death Blossom is better for stacking potential damage and unmitigated damage, and stealth has utility to keep you alive. You need to save initiative for those ‘Oh crap’ situations. If you don’t use these all when they are supposed to be used, you are missing out.