Guild Wars 2

The Warrior would have been sweet with a main-hand torch.

It worked well

WonderfulCT.6278:

Maestro.5376:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

Because if you look at the first page of the Dungeon subform, 30% of the threads are about how the new AC is too hard and it’s impossible for a group of level 35 players to do now.

They don’t back up their claims with anything so you could have just ignored them.

I feel this did need to be done, and ignoring the “too hard” posts is not a good idea. I am seeing more "I heard AC is too hard, is it? " posts from new players being scared away by the forums. Standing at the gates of AC lately has also reflected how players feel and what they have read in these forums due to the lesser number of player base at location. A lot of groups I have been in have many players leave at the Spider Queen and the tactic this group utilized would help a lot of people out, most try to kill two gargoyle heads from the wall and jump down to face the full amount of mini spiders. I have also joined a lot of groups that were stuck at the spider when I joined until I brought condition removal to their feet. Thank you for making this video, as I said hopefully it will bring some numbers back. It would be awesome to be able to find a group around when I get my next alt up to 35.

Great work to your pug group, awesome job with the video too. Can we get a sticky on this? It would be a great guide vid for new and old players alike. Hopefully this will bring some people back to AC to give it another shot, it does get lonely standing at the gates waiting for players to come around.

Agree to disagree on the reward, no worries. And, yeah, that pug guild was pretty kitteny.

Kanako, his experiment was not about the build or profession of a character in anyway. He was testing community responsiveness towards helping a new to the instance/change of instance player. He really hasn’t been complaining that the game or instance were hard to him. He did mention that he was asked/told to get on an 80 or be kicked. He had originally tried to bring a lower level guardian that was built better for the instance in his opinion.

Croatoan, I am not mistaking what you are saying. I did run an ac path 2 tonight in about 15 minutes with a pug, 2 were 80, the rest weren’t, an by this I say I feel there is nothing wrong with the encounters outside of bugs. With the changes a lot of people were scared off for what ever reasons. I do not believe it is the fault of the instance or devs. That 95% that chose not to be helpful to lower levels or new players is community error, and I feel that there is a kitten poor community in this game compared to other MMO games that I have experienced. This is where it becomes harder for new and low levels to find grouping. I agree with you that none of us want to see the dungeon or any of them die out in attendance. If I understood the plans of the developers they will be revising more instances. One day it will hit CoF as well and then what will that 95% do, for now they post their dislikes towards AC and the farm community moves on to CoF, when it reaches there and if they don’t like it I believe we will see more rage quit posts than dislike and move to the next instance posts. I don’t feel that they need to up the reward to the dungeon for their changes, because once learned it doesn’t really take longer to do and loses difficulty just as it did at launch when people learned the encounters, other than the troll, most bosses actually deal less damage and have lowered health, but with more mechanics. The lesser mobs have had a small increase to bleed damage, which can be negated with condition removals, they added knockdown to graveling, but both graveling and scavengers deal less damage as a single and their knockdown can be negated through dodge or stability. They have removed Breeders form the burrow events and that lessens the amount of spawns. The boss for path 2 does take longer, even when they fix the stuck bug it will still be a longer fight than before the revision, though it is more fun and less mind numbing than it was before. Kholer has lowered health and damage, but now spawns adds that can’t be ignored. CR fight can be interrupted taking a lot of the stress of the crappy mechanics that the NPC has. Howler is a simple matter of running behind fire rings when the adds spawn so they have to run through it which instantly kills them, and when it gets tight like a ring vanishing stability, aegis and dodging negate the knockdown to help people stay up and move to another fire ring. The worst thing about the spider queen is if you get unlucky enough to get webbed and an aoe dropped under you at the same time, this is bad since break stuns aren’t doing anything to get you out. When a player does go down on the SQ it takes patient to wait out the aoe duration before player can get to them to revive and can become a when I can event in it’s own since the SQ can decide to drop another aoe.
The second run at AC I did tonight I got on my 80 Guardian and joined a group that was having trouble with the SQ, we got through that and moved on to the burrows, this was path 2 btw. I did what I could to explain two different methods to the fight and the group was improving, 3 of the members were guilded together (one of which was 80, and myself, all others well under), my self and one other pug, The last pug mentioned early on that he had not been in this path before, the others said nothing so I assumed they had a working knowledge though after a few attempts they were proving otherwise at the burrows, I was sticking it out and at one point they kicked the last pug member out without saying anything. After they kicked him they said to me, “We are getting another 80”. I whispered an apology to the kicked member and for the first time in a dungeon I left the group. The kicked member wasn’t doing worse than the rest, he just wasn’t in their guild or the one 80 pug, I actually felt he was improving at the encounter more than the others were, and that was BS kicking him like so.

95% or not, some of the people posted on this segment to say that they are willing to be helpful and that is something, it means not all people are self centered into the elitist mentality. Personally, I don’t get it that people only want to farm armor in a game where one set is ~ to the next as long as you get the stats you want. From there it becomes about skins or just the plain fun of doing dungeons, or well they are farming gold which makes more sense. It seems that people who want to farm dungeons quickly for what ever reason no longer really even find it fun, it becomes a job at that point. It is easy to avoid elitist grouping for me, for one I don’t use gw2lfg.com, I stand at the instance and ask on map, though I will admit, the numbers have lessened quite a bit at the gates in the last week, what once took a couple of minutes, is now taking at times up to 15 minutes. I don’t find anything wrong with the new revision other than some of the bugs that still need to be worked out, I do realize that a lot of people do, whether their reasons be difficulty or laziness of relearning what they once knew, or their tolerance to the bugs. And, the numbers at the gate reflect the annoyances people are having.

The Ghost Eater stuck bug is one that is reoccurring, they tried to patch it once on information that was given to them through the general public. What I see him getting stuck on is not the traps, though sometimes it happens when he is at a trap, but it also happens in the middle of the dance floor when he is not near a trap. I see it happening when he spawns his adds. It can be worked around for the time being by using pull or knock powers on him, if you can move him an inch he becomes free to move again. Hopefully they will get it fixed properly in time.

Croatoan, I get what you are saying that you haven’t gained the experience in the New AC to want to take lead and that you and the other new player weren’t informed by the players that lead. Don’t take this as a representative to all players or pug groups though. One clue popped up in the beginning that they were not going to be helpful, and that was when they demanded that you swap from your 39 to an 80 or be kicked.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

People think the new AC is harder?

I played it yesterday for the first time since the update, and also in months, and I found it shockingly easier with a pug group where not everyone was 80. In fact I’ve done it 11 more times since then and none of those groups have been full 80’s and I haven’t had a single moment where I’ve even considered it difficult, let alone MORE difficult.

I suppose it’s appropriate they made it easier given that its the lowest level dungeon.

It’s not really harder, they have lowered the health pool of a lot of enemy mobs, which makes things go faster, and helps players at or around the level of the instance quite a bit. Some of the lesser mobs, not elite, have had their bleed damage increased, so remove condition. Some of the lesser elite mobs, the graveling, have had a leap added to their rotation, with them, scavengers, and stalkers use stability skills and they can’t knock you down, alone their damage is not great, grouped up they can be overwhelming. The Breeders have been removed from burrow events which makes them much easier, the breeders would be like a walking burrow before constantly spawning more adds. If people still want to speed run/farm, path one is easy and quick. Path 2 is still easy and quick except the last boss is easy, but a little long. Path 3 is easy, though the last boss may take some coordination with interrupts since the NPC has bad timing with the bubble and no one can do anything about the NPC being stuck in a long melee swing, though support can keep him off his butt with stability, regen, protection, aegis. The bugs that still exist in AC are annoying, we’ll give them time. What is harder to some people is that some fights are more mechanical, though bugs aside that does not make them more difficult once the encounters are learned. The only thing I find to be longer is Ghost Eaters fight, and people not working together to lift/pull the adds into the traps only increase the time. People dying because they can not/will not/do not know how to adjust increases time. A lot of the time one player with a working knowledge can make all the difference if the group consists of decent or better players that chose to learn and work together. If people have a hard time, especially while a majority are still learning the instance, it come to either lack of knowledge on all 5, lack of leadership for those who have knowledge, lack of coordination (talk to each other, work things out), or they just plain don’t want to learn new things anymore.

I completely support this post, nice work. I do not kick players due to level as long as they are the level of the instance or more. I have played since launch and whether I always enjoy it or not I stay and help anyone new in my PuGs learn the fight, I have post and sub patch helped groups up to 2-3 hours in one path to help them out. I do have to admit that I mostly run the AC paths on my 80 because he is my guardian, it’s hard to step away from such a useful character, I mostly keep 2 stability and 1 condition removal as my utilities that can all be shared with my allies and I use this to try to help others as well as myself stay up and moving. He is not the only character I do take, just mostly. No other character I have is 80, and I do fine on them, though do not feel as useful to others purely due to the fact of losing those support skills. Any guardian can have the same utilities by 35, it’s pretty easy to reach. When I play my Ele my support comes in boons and staff heals, though that number 3 heal is kitten to try to land on someone who is running and dodging for their life, lol. Healing rain removes conditions, his utilities are more selfish survival stuff always including the Stone Armor for stability.

To avoid Detha bugging and not starting the event run all the way to the back of the room, and I mean all the way back, so she will teleport/spawn at you, this makes her leave the mobs alone if you really want to skip the mobs on the way in.

Ghost Eater is getting stuck in the middle of her mobs sometimes, I don’t think it has to do with the traps, I see it happen a lot when she is not near one. For now, until they fix it, most pull type and knock back powers will make it move and inch which will unstick it.

Path 3, I don’t think him not casting the bubble because he is in the middle of his long cast swing is a bug, he will cast it after still, which is too late, I believe it was just a poor judgment call to give him the Hammer at all, it would have really been good to give him something ranged with no castable auto attack like a scepter. They could have given him a Hammer that had a normal swing even. That would solve that. Also the boss knocks him down and he can’t cast it, use abilities that give stability to allies, support goes a long way in the fight of keeping him up. (not all professions have stability, or stability that is shareable with allies.) That boss’s seismic activity ability can be interrupted negating the need for the NPC bubble at all, for a list of abilities that interrupt look at a stability power, all crowd control it lists to protect you are considered interrupt on bosses. Stun, daze, knocks, fear, ect. I have still not tried my thief in AC since the changes, but before his Basilisk Venom worked to turn him into stone and interrupt.

I was considering the idea of pet dodge tonight in a dungeon, then found this forum, what kept running through my head was utility Pet Dodge, give them an endurance bar above their health on the pet bar, no real cool down but what like the players, if endurance then available. Though thinking on it more this would really be a must have utility and would not be as great losing a slot for it. So, now my thoughts lean towards same idea with the endurance bar, but give them another ability on the pet bar for dodge. Place it at F5. It should not be tied to the players dodge imo. I don’t want a smarter AI pet that does it on his own.

You pretty much have 3 choices, gw2lfg.com, guilded group, of go to Lion’s Arch overflow and start a group via map.

Crossplay pretty much has it for the adds, if you know your landscape there are places people can group line of sight to make them all come, then aoe them down, use condition removals, regen, protection, ect. to survive especially if your group is slow to kill them. The adds shouldn’t be a big deal unless you have no support and/or someone pulls the boss early, and that does happen a lot, use comunication, this is the fight that I more often than not discover who is new and just hasn’t bothered to tell anyone. the Queen, stay out of her red circle aoe’s, if one drops under you get out fast and use condition removal, the queens web can not be escaped by break stun, though stability before it may help. if you are caught in the web then red circles drop under you, use any defenses you may have, though you may just get downed, and condtion ticks on you while you are downed. If someone is down in the aoe, leave them be until it’s safe, have someone take the queen away to the other side of the room and get your people up when it’s safe.

Tungsten, support is weak stand alone, more people are bringing zerkers cause they read somewhere it’s the cool thing to do, most of these people are not panning out to know how to play those zerkers and sadly for me to admit, most of those zerkers are leveling as zerker build so not really a zerker, they seem more like Zer….., It’s terrible the only groups I have not been able to get through AC with were 4 Zerker levelers and myself what ever toon I’m on. Sure 4 Zerks and a Mesmer can speed farm CoF at 80 geared, but sadly even the leveling guides out there don’t focus around what kind of build would be useful in a dungeon at >40, 40-60, they all focus on 80. So a lot of people try to use optimal 80 builds at adept traits… when I level a character I consider 3 builds along the way, hell you get a repect when you by the book, why not. Support is a great thing when multiple players use some and can coordinate it, stand alone 1 person trying to be supportive while 4 try to be glass cannons and also don’t know the instance is for the birds. You are in a large guild so you may not have to deal with this.
It does suck for engies that they have so few weapon choices, a lot of people end up running with a shield plus their short range does make them a high threat so a lot of people become discouraged with the profession. 1 hit downs are usually certain boss abilities that can be avoided when someone is on top of things, I have seen so many people stand still on the Cave Trolls new stomp/shockwave ability. the stomp is easy to see, everyone is pretty much looking at the troll or their ui, there are no other adds unless he is kited to them, the shockwave travels kinda slowly and yet, 3 players downed again… how do I get in close to revive these idiots? It does not matter what profession you are against this ability, if everyone is a glass cannon, it’s dodge or die. I don’t feel it’s lazy on Arena Net like some other posts have mentioned out there, I feel it’s lazy on the player to say kitten Anet, I’m not gonna do this mechanic properly.

If it’s a true bot program it would have a loot ticking, right? Isn’t that what the bots were about in other games, run circles killing and looting? I know my loot and interact hotkey are the same key. Seems that would be the way they make it use the portal.

Agreeing with DeathPanel here. Also sometimes someone needs to be kicked because they DC/log and don’t come back. Along with the logging system and majority vote there should be a “reason box” added when someone initiates the vote, it might save someone in the case of 2 guildies trying to kick to sell a spot whil the other 2 members didn’t agree that the 5th deserved a kick. It would probably not help save a pugger in someones 4 man guild group, however teamed with the log system it would help determine the offense from all sides for the support/gw2 team and help with their decisions.

update 3/1 Ghost Eater

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Jabiacas Horologium.4976

He is still getting stuck, not on the traps, but when he spawns his adds, he will just stand still after summoning them. Pull abilities do break it.

about 19 hours ago

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I’ve not been through at exactly 35, but had a group, 40-60 last night, path 2, it was fine most knew the fights already, just use the right utilities for the situation. the only thing that really took time was Ghost Eater, one the first try everyone died, second everyone worked much better together and it went faster than the first effort.

The troll in ac has a one hit killer on glass cannons, it’s a shockwave after his stomp, I sort of found it funny, I was helping a group through story mode yesterday and watched the same people stand still with no visual effort at all to do anything but be killed.
Assuming dodge or die is just lazy, we have the option for line of sight and a good load of boons, protection for one, retaliation, people who play a guardian can actually guard things….with aegis.

Name Description
Aegis Block the next attack.
Fury 20% critical chance increase. Stacks in duration.
Might X damage per attack increase. Stacks intensity.
Protection 33% damage reduction. Stacks in duration.
Regeneration Regenerates X health per second. Stacks in duration.
Retaliation Reflects incoming damage back to its source each time they hit you. Stacks in duration.
Stability Cannot be knocked down, pushed back, launched, stunned, dazed, floated, sunk, or feared.
Swiftness 33% movement speed increase. Stacks in duration.
Vigor Faster endurance regeneration. Stacks in duration.

This list from wiki doesn’t have profession related stuff like projectile reflectors or blockers or even the plain block ability.

I’ll agree things become a cluster kitten when a boss/mob is surrounded by a lot of stuff characters and/or glowing/blooming abilities, and even the combo field hearts get in the way, that is a simple fix though, the developers could raise the hearts higher or give a designated box that can be moved where we want on the screen, the effects of bloom can be turned down in your options if you really have a problem seeing through it, but another solution for that developers could do is add a boss ability icon box, that can also be moved, some games have this system and it is helpful, but then it also takes away from watching the fight like we should to watching a box.

He is still getting stuck, not on the traps, but when he spawns his adds, he will just stand still after summoning them. Pull abilities do break it.

what happens if you just ignore the invite/join and they get tired of trying and stop their queue to join you?

I have been seeing this in Ac since the patch, it’s prolly intentional. However, they don’t seem to reset anymore if you pull them into the hall between them and the Necro boss before, that hall has pressure switches for the door, you can separate them, someone kites one into the hall and shuts the door trapping one away from the other. We did this today with all of us in the hall by accident, someone picked up the boulder on the pressure plate nearest their room, and we trapped the female, killed her, opened the door and went to kill the male. Or 1 in the hall with her and the other 4 in the main arena to kill him first, either way.

dennie.9237:

So, guys, anyone completed AC with group of 35 lvls?

I wish I had a 35 to try, sadly I am out of character slots and am budgeted from buying a new slot just yet, I do have an available 44 ranger and am willing to try him though will admit his lack of stability will be scary. I have completed path 1 with a full group well under 80, the closest was 75, my ele was 60, the lowest in the group was in the area of 45ish. I do not see why a group of 35’s couldn’t do it with the right comp and utilities, and people should be able to get the right utilities by this point if they pick and chose carefully. There are new mechanics to learn for all, but new level 35s had to learn the old mechanics before, and coming from someone who has given 2-3 hours of time to newbs in AC multiple times, I can tell you that they had problems comprehending even when everything was explained in detail with the old stuff. Some bugs and lag issues are causing more problems than the mechanics right now for many. The one thing that does bother me about the revamped instance is that not all professions have a stability utility, and this has lead to me playing my 80 guardian more often than the characters I want to level because of the fact that he has 2 stability moves that effect allies as well, so I am trying to help out where some professions lack. I am running with Stand Your Ground, Hallowed Ground, and Purging Flames (to remove conditions for all in the ring).

Nice post, it’s awesome to see others realize the importance of using support to keep Grast alive. I would like to point out the changes to the burrow event in paths 1 and 3, the breeders were removed, making it a somewhat easier fight since there will be less mobs, and the gravelings now have a knock/leap ability adding to their difficulty however more use for stability, also the small mobs have a bleed that does a considerable amount of damage making condition removals a must for any group short on heals. Your chosen group comp should have a pretty easy time at AC.

The devs have been notified of the lag issues and are looking into it.

I have not used GW2LFG.com, nor will I. I don’t like the idea of using a 3rd party site to find groups for a game. I stand out side of the instance or in Lion’s Arch (where cross server groups can be made) in search of a group, or start one myself using map chat. I am guessing that on that site people place posts for what they are looking for, I have seen a lot of complaints here about lfg posts for 80 only on that site, and have seen far less of it standing at the instance on my server, Borlis Pass. Not to say there aren’t people looking for speed runs at the instances, but they are usually clear about it and can be avoided. Most of the time I get grouped within a matter of minutes. I have not been kicked from a group, even if I am the only one under 80 (except once for FotM level 1, I joined a group at 58 thinking that the scaling up to 80 mattered, was kicked before the instance started when I confirmed that I did not have an 80 at the time, that was understandable). In the other instances, if I am at level to under 80, I pull my weight with support, control, and reviving if my dps is not comparable to the others in my group. The instances are very doable at level with the entire group if everyone learns what and when to do. The mentality of the instances being for 80 only is a player based monster, and only feeds the later posts that the instances are too easy when 80 groups can breeze through it since they are geared, traited, and experienced at it. The player base was a lot more fun to deal with at launch when everyone was learning and leveling IMO.

I like that pic. “What?” I love that she doesn’t get the clue that everyone is kitten at her A.D.D.

I have seen this on Tzark at the collectors/burrows event too, though it does always seem to kitten you off more at Detha and the final encounter/room.

So it’s too easy to be fun for someone who can solo, I’m guessing an 80. Bosses have less health making shorter fights, making it more level and gear appropriate for people at 35+ who do less dps than a geared and traited 80.

I would rather have new level 80 dungeons, don’t adjust existing leveling content for 80s or eventually people will not be able to level anymore characters, not that dungeons are the only way to level, but for me it is most of what I have seen after the level 30 story mode starts on all my characters. I am not against the revamp, I feel they nerfed the mob health but made the mechanics more punishing, which means lower level characters are not punished as much for having no exotic gear when it comes to dpsing the mobs, it doesn’t take as long to kill things. However, the fights are more punishing to professions that build for damage only and are not topped out characters. It seems more support is needed for all, probably harder on the young’ens, stability for knockdowns, condition removals, heals, protection, (haven’t tried yet, maybe projectile blocks work against the spider poisons?) The first ac I did after the patch was path 1, there were no 80s in the group, we were ranged 45-75, we got through it once we learned each fight. It was challenging, which made it fun. The next time I went through with an 80 in an all 80 group, it was stupid easy almost boring, path 1 and 3.

There is really no point to it in the existing dungeons, especially the ones available under 80, which is most. They would have to make a hard mode, level 80, version of the currents to even make it relevant, or add it to gear under 80. I would rather see new dungeons all together for level 80 only if it were to even be a possibility .

I haven’t done it yet on a toon at 35, but have been in a group where we ranged 45-75. It was doable though tough to relearn the new mechanics, best I can say about paths one and 3 is any stability and condition removal support is very helpful, I have not been in path 2 yet. I think we can expect them to be “revamping” more dungeons, i wouldn’t be surprised if CoF comes next due to it’s popularity and ease.

I haven’t tried C.R. on my thief yet, before the patch Basilisk Venom not only interrupted him but froze him for a brief time, I’ll have to try that tomorrow. Since the rocks can no longer be out ranged, this leaves dealing with the NPC’s bubble, he is a melee kitten who thinks he’s a tank, but his health and toughness are weak. Stick around the NPC , heal him, use stability utilities around him so he isn’t knocked down all the time, and protection, defend the kitten out of him so you can use his bubble. Since it is being reported that C.R. is not able to be interrupted and if your group can not defend the NPC, take him up two flights on the stair way that leads to the hidden leap of faith puzzle, the rocks don’t fall there. Don’t get too used to it though, expect the stairs to get a fix at the same time as the boss interrupt bug. It’s funny, I have read a post about support no longer being needed, this fight and NPC are an excellent place for it. If you can out threat the NPC then you will be able to forget the need to heal him some but stability will still play a large role, you don’t want him knocked down when you need him to cast his bubble.

My grouped used the stairs for Colussus tonight because the rocks did not fall there, we did not go up past the broken steps though it was easy enough at the second flight. Howler is not too bad once everyone, who can, uses stability utilities and condition drops, then kite the adds through the rings of fire that kill them instantly.

Gaining and Losing Aggro

For a neutral (yellow outlined) NPC the player must attack first to gain its attention. The aggro table of a hostile NPC changes dynamically depending on a number of factors, in order of importance [citation needed] :

closest target to them
who is dealing damage
top damage dealers
who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor
others (see Tanking tactics below)

As a consequence, to lose aggro, the player moves to be further from the NPC than other players or allies and ceases all attacks. A typically effective Guild Wars 2 technique to lose aggro is to roll away (dodge) from the hostile NPC. This is based on the fact that the distance travelled away from the hostile NPC by rolling is greater than the distance a player could run in the same amount of time. Lastly, a jump seems slower than a run – jumping away from the NPC will not help on a flat surface.

NPCs that cannot target a player nor find a path to a position where they can target the player will quickly cancel all aggro towards this player. This means that either jumping out of reach of a melee foe (NPCs cannot jump) or switching between land and water (against strictly aquatic or terrestrial NPCs):

is effective in breaking aggro;
is not effective in killing it safely, especially if there is no other ally to keep the NPC in combat mode.

Indeed, a NPC who loses aggro towards everything usually turns invulnerable for a short while, long enough to regenerate entirely, and proceeds slowly to its spawning area. However, once at full health, most of the time it becomes available again to attack even if it is still moving.
[edit] Tanking

Although Guild Wars 2 does not allow players to become unkillable tanks like in other MMOs (mainly because of the lack of effective long-term healing), keeping the aggro of a NPC while kiting, blocking or otherwise dodging his attacks remains a valid strategy, if a difficult one, especially against melee foes. However, keep in mind that different NPCs use different aggro mechanics, and that a tactic that is useful against some NPCs can utterly fail against another.

One tactic that involves manipulating the aggro table is called kiting. This usually means to generate a large amount of threat for a hostile NPC and then run, avoiding the NPC’s attacks so that other party members may kill the NPC without taking any damage.
Another tactic involves reviving fallen allies in turns to draw a NPC accross the battlefield, while the other players attack it. Highly challenging enemies such as Champions and event bosses indeed value reviving to the point of sometimes ignoring any other factor, while stopping reviving will draw their attention to the more classical threat sources.

Go to the gw2 wiki and look up ‘aggro’. Sounds like the others in your group are either long ranged glass cannons or they know how to manage their aggro which dumps it on the only person that doesn’t know how to do leap frog dumps to manage their own. Are you using toughness, shields, are you the closest person to the mobs most of the time?

Twilight Arbor story mode starts at 50, explorer is 55

Was getting loads of lag tonight too, AC path 2.

Nice post and offer Mosen, good to see some people who want to be helpful to others. Sucks people have to troll your offer like they are personally offended, but what can you do.

agreed, it is a horrible mechanic.

The dungeons are easy once learned, different people learn at different rates. If they create Hard Modes to the dungeons, people will learn it until it becomes easy, while those new to them will find it hard. Though hard modes may be a solution to the “80 elitest attitude” in the existing dungeon by giving people new options to progress, of course it would need to grant larger amounts of currencies and/or drop more useable armor to give it a draw or people will still want to do their 15 minute explorer runs. Also more level 80 only dungeons would be nice as well, not styled like FotM please. Fractals is a neat idea, but only for one dungeon, would be less interesting if there were ever to be too many of them. I have only done fractals once with a guild group to see what it was like, we were all level 11 and did the first two that popped up. The game needs more level 80 dungeons and maps that can not be accessed by low levels scaling to it. The launch was great, the games still feel like a success, it’s time for some end game content other than repeating the leveling content. Class balance for dungeons so all could be publicly viable. For real, why can’t conditions work on objects, at least burning….

Not necessary. If you are new to the dungeon it really helps to use ranged weapons no matter what profession you are until you learn the fights and how to manage your aggro. (look at the wiki for aggro mechanics) Once you get things figured out, use what weapons and trait builds you feel comfortable with.

Ascalonian Catacombs

Story—The Lovers: Reduced health for both bosses and damage from Ralena.
Story—Coffin Intro: Additional coffins cannot be interacted with once the boss shows up.
Story—Ranger: Damage has been reduced for the trap skill.
Story: Some enemy group compositions have been altered.
Story—Adelbern: Reduced damage and modified his melee attack.
Explorable—Detha’s Chain: Decreased the recharge time for cannons in the final event and modified their attacks.
Explorable—Detha’s Chain: Adjusted the respawn rate of the groups at the “Defend Detha and her traps” event.

The dungeon was just nerfed last patch at the same time they dropped waypoint reviving while in combat. Also, if you have a thief alive while everyone else is dead, they can stealth to drop combat, this lets everyone release, then the thief can re-aggro the mob/boss and stealth juggle or kite until everyone gets back to keep the target from fully reseting, just one way around the waypoint block. It’s quite fun to do on a low level thief while all the 80s in your group that said “This is gonna be bad, we have a level 35 thief” (QQ) have to run back.

DeathPanel.8362:

Jabiacas Horologium.4976:

Explorers are not just for 80s. I’ll admit it doesn’t hurt to have the extra traits and slot skills. If a character’s level is higher than the effective level of a dungeon, the character will be scaled down to the appropriate effective level of the dungeon. Yes you still have the advantage of trait and utilities, but your stats are dropped.

The thing is most lvl 80s nowadays have full exotics with maybe even runes and sigils, and even when scaled down they still have a huge advantage over say a lvl 45 scaled down to whatever the lvl of the dungeon is.

There’s also the lack of class skills if you are too low lvl as well as stats from traits. A lvl 45 will most likely not have their elite or their final build skills all learned and will have far less stats from traits compared to a lvl 80 even when both have their stats scaled down.

Then finally it comes down to experience. Most people with enough experience knows not to bring a low lvl into an exp dungeon unless they are swapping in before the boss or if it’s a very easy exp path.(CM not classified as very easy in my book) So the only times I see people that are low lvl in exp paths it’s because they don’t know better.

Yes, there are advantages, I did agree, though I did not list all of them. However, the fact stands that the dungeons are not all and only 80 content. What I see it coming down to in the end is a learning curve, one that is very possible. People don’t just bring low levels (also known as doing a dungeon at level) because they do not know better. A lot of people bring them because it is fun, and they may enjoy a challenge, while others do not and want it to be free give aways. This promotes the 80 only elitest attitude, I suppose that is fine for people who are scared of the content, and short on patients. After all the vendors sell 2 levels of gear, at level and 80. Do what you want, but while people call out in map for level 80s only, I am gonna be calling out for anyone who wants to play, willing to help learn if needed.

The point of coming here was to answer a question. Explorable dungeons for 80’s only? the answer flat out is NO.

Explorers are not just for 80s. I’ll admit it doesn’t hurt to have the extra traits and slot skills. If a character’s level is higher than the effective level of a dungeon, the character will be scaled down to the appropriate effective level of the dungeon. Yes you still have the advantage of trait and utilities, but your stats are dropped. I think there are too many people with the mentality as it is that they are designed for 80. Hence all the elitest group forming. They are tough for anyone to learn the fights. Even the trash mobs have mechanics to learn and work around. We all are faced with the trouble to overcome: when to use stability, aegis, protection, projectile blocks, crowd controls, dodge (probably the most important ability for survival). Sometimes it is not optimal to revive someone who has 3 mobs on them with knock downs with the normal run-up and revive ability without taking further precautions, I love my Thief for this since he can stealth and revive, even that can go wrong if I am stealthed and reviving and someone not stealthed pulls mobs over and tries to help and that set of mobs had aoe splash that will hurt my chances to survive while I revive someone. I really enjoy doing the dungeons at level with friends or pugs. I try to help anyone new learn what they can with the encounters. Stay out of the fire and bring the right set up to each fight and things get easier, that takes time to learn. I have been in plenty explorers where I was the only one at level, most to all others 80 and I spend more time reviving them than I get to fighting. Heh, you know, I wouldn’t mind seeing 80s carry me rather than the other way around!

frans.8092:

None of the workarounds these actually work, weaponswap is on a 10 second cooldown. caltrops even longer. Mobs should simply not reset in 2 seconds, timer could easily be set to 5 or even 10 seconds.

my reply:
I agree here, 10 sec may be a little long, even for 5 sec thief would need a longer stealth than most in this game allow, but it does make since. I am not even seeing 2 sec as is unless they are in the middle of a maintain. Some one punches you in the face at the bar and vanishes, you gonna sit back down right away like nothing happened, or you gonna look for the S.O.B.? It would be cool if they were spending 3 sec scouting for you at least before giving up. As is, I have 4-5 ways to stealth on my build/weapon selection, you can literally Yo-Yo an enemy to death, hit-stealth-hit-stealth-ect. (as long as you re-hit fast enough so their health does not fully reset) taking no damage because the NPC just really wants to sit back down. The first video I watched of the beta was of a thief, in the video it was stated stealth causes a problem with resetting mobs in pve situations which can limit use of stealth. In a lot of games rogue types use stealth as a means to get away, to increase damage of your next attack, open certain stun abilities, and other general tactics. I don’t see the problem being the stealth but more so the intelligence of the mobs. Here’s an example that maybe even makes me look bad: Last night I took 4 friends into AC story, they are all new to the game and it was their first dungeon experience and I was helping them learn the fights. On the Captain with 15 ghosts we killed the 15 and my friends all died with just me left up, I stealthed which reset the boss long enough for them to release exploiting against the new No-Res-Rush policy, I hit the boss fast enough that he did not fully reset his health, then I continued to hit-stealth over and over until everyone was back taking a portion of the bosses health and keeping him generally in combat. Honestly, this should have either been a full wipe, or a full reset if I just stealth and run. Though if the boss had a program to keep looking for 3 sec. for me, this would not have been possible because he would have stayed in combat while scouting. The way I feel it should go: In a group situation give the boss a 50-50 chance to scout me, or reset aggro elsewhere, in solo situations 100% chance to scout keeping the NPC in combat. Now, I am not saying that his scouting should always be completely aggressive with full blown out AoE fire, just give them the 3 seconds of looking around scratching their head, or checking under rocks, or what ever. Maybe if an AoE is on their play list, give them somewhere between 5-20% chance to use it in their scouting.

This is not a rework directly to Thief or other stealthers as much as it is a rework to NPC for PvE

frans.8092:

None of the workarounds these actually work, weaponswap is on a 10 second cooldown. caltrops even longer. Mobs should simply not reset in 2 seconds, timer could easily be set to 5 or even 10 seconds.

I agree here, 10 sec may be a little long, even for 5 sec thief would need a longer stealth than most in this game allow, but it does make since. I am not even seeing 2 sec as is unless they are in the middle of a maintain. Some one punches you in the face at the bar and vanishes, you gonna sit back down right away like nothing happened, or you gonna look for the S.O.B.? It would be cool if they were spending 3 sec scouting for you at least before giving up. As is, I have 4-5 ways to stealth on my build/weapon selection, you can literally Yo-Yo an enemy to death, hit-stealth-hit-stealth-ect. (as long as you re-hit fast enough so their health does not fully reset) taking no damage because the NPC just really wants to sit back down. The first video I watched of the beta was of a thief, in the video it was stated stealth causes a problem with resetting mobs in pve situations which can limit use of stealth. In a lot of games rogue types use stealth as a means to get away, to increase damage of your next attack, open certain stun abilities, and other general tactics. I don’t see the problem being the stealth but more so the intelligence of the mobs. Here’s an example that maybe even makes me look bad: Last night I took 4 friends into AC story, they are all new to the game and it was their first dungeon experience and I was helping them learn the fights. On the Captain with 15 ghosts we killed the 15 and my friends all died with just me left up, I stealthed which reset the boss long enough for them to release exploiting against the new No-Res-Rush policy, I hit the boss fast enough that he did not fully reset his health, then I continued to hit-stealth over and over until everyone was back taking a portion of the bosses health and keeping him generally in combat. Honestly, this should have either been a full wipe, or a full reset if I just stealth and run. Though if the boss had a program to keep looking for 3 sec. for me, this would not have been possible because he would have stayed in combat while scouting. The way I feel it should go: In a group situation give the boss a 50-50 chance to scout me, or reset aggro elsewhere, in solo situations 100% chance to scout keeping the NPC in combat. Now, I am not saying that his scouting should always be completely aggressive with full blown out AoE fire, just give them the 3 seconds of looking around scratching their head, or checking under rocks, or what ever. Maybe if an AoE is on their play list, give them somewhere between 5-20% chance to use it in their scouting.

The fire rate could be slower than a Rangers with the short bow due to the ricochet, it’s hits 3 targets, where a Rangers short bow does not. Many classes have the ability to use the same weapon, but have their personal tactics (powers) do not mimic each other. Though if you want to compare the auto attack to something fitting you should look towards the Rangers Axe since it has the same ricochet effect.