Guild Wars 2

Today… I took a group of people into Path 1 of CoE.

This is, far and wide, the easier of the paths to do. Simple stack up, use your debuff removals, and beat on him.

Some reason… it was atrocious. None of my party could stay alive, Debuffs, heals, nothing.

They knew to get to his back and avoid the cone, but for some reason they couldn’t keep themselves up.

We didn’t get past the first encounter of subject alpha because too many people were just… too slow to respond.

He’d turn to face someone to do the rock-cone-aoe, and they would respond just a little too late. Close or far.

He’d set everyone on fire when they would get close, and they couldn’t remove it because they’d already used it, or perhaps they just took a little too long to click it, and got hit by something else.

This is Path 1, submarine… I’ve done this all the time to guarantee at least one set of tokens from CoE for anyone that has done dungeons.

Necro
Hunter
Hunter
Mesmer
Mesmer

This particular group couldn’t do it. One of them had completed path 2 with me yesterday, and even complained that one was easier, because it didn’t have cone aoe.

I can take these people through CoF, HotW, SE, and even Arah. They might die a few times and wipe to a particular boss… but they complete it.

Many of the people I play with go into Arah with us for the first time and don’t seem to have this problem. Last time we went to Arah, four of us were there for the first time, and only spent 30 minutes on the Giant Wolf boss before beating him and completing the dungeon.

I really think Subject Alpha isn’t balanced like the rest of the bosses in CoE, nor in any other dungeon in the game. He is tuned just too high.

I can literally stay alive five minutes after everyone else in my party is dead… showing them how to dodge, and explaining how the fight works… and they do get it… they see it.

But they just can’t do it.

Compared to AC/Arah/HotW… dungeons they are fine with doing for the first time and getting through it… this is just too tough.

Today, we got through Path 2 with a bit of wiping and frustration on the final alpha fight

Me (Necro)
Hunter
3 Mesmers

What made most of Path 2 easy was teaching the mesmers how to escape the crystals using Blink.

Once they had that, and if Subject Alpha swapped targets for the crystal… easy up till the final fight.

Fight 3 with him was a chore. For the most part it was keeping people moving and avoiding damage that was the hardest part.

Being a healer with high vitality, I could hold him and survive a lot longer to give my team time to revive, and heal up when things would go bad:

Get his attention, pull him back into the teleporter chamber, and dodge until he crystallizes me. Pop my Flesh Wurm to break out of the crystal and keep dodging until everyone is back up or he crystalizes me again.

If he crystalizes a second time and my wurm isn’t ready, I pop into Plague form so I have 46K hp. I can absorb anything he throws at me, and usually break the crystal. He will usually try to crystalize me again while in plague form, but for some reason I don’t get stuck in the crystal… I can just walk out while I’m still a plague.

I hold onto my shadow/necro transform in case anything goes wrong… it will usually get me through most issues.

So typically I can hold him for 3 crystal prisons while the group revives and heals. If they need to, they can walk far enough away from him to break combat and regen as needed. At which point we commence beating on him again outside the teleporter chamber.

I can do it without all the shenanigans with the right group, yes… it is easy for me. But I don’t want to right group, I want any group at any time.

I want to grab anyone and everyone and go through this dungeon. Yes I want them to learn to play better, but the other dungeons do this without being so punishing. People wipe for being dumb, but many of the people I play with can get through ALL of the other dungeons with less hassle than what Subject Alpha gives.

Path 2 was difficult for them, and Path 3 doesn’t really provide the space to move around in the same fashion. It becomes a slog for them.

Each class does seem to have some skill to break the crystals. It does work… once they use a skill they’ve never used before and are told which ones to try. It isn’t always easy to do, either… My Flesh Wurm is subject to an AOE or random attack. But the only reason I know to use it is an obscure post from someone else in some random forum. When the two other stun-breaks don’t work, most people don’t automatically think to try the third… if they even bother to THINK about using a stun lock at all.

My concern is there is less room for error with Subject Alpha when compared to other dungeons, and nothing makes it easy to figure out which skills are going to be needed. That is a problem for many of the people I try to take through the dungeon. They are human, and not always going to be on top of their game, much less think about doing things they’ve never tried before.

Lag spike, mis-dodge, and a misclick they die. In other dungeons this just isn’t the case. I’m finding the Subject Alpha in path 2 and 3 to be too punishing for what you get as rewards and what you need to do.

He either uses his abilities too quickly, or he is hitting too hard. I do agree some of his animations/attacks could be changed to be more telling. I’d be willing to see that happen first and see if things get better.

Too many others seem to have more problems than I with this boss, and in my experience it just isn’t balanced enough if this dungeon is meant to be on par with the rest of the dungeons.

Overall subject alpha is destroying too many members of my group. Path 1 is easy to compensate for as we can all stack together for it.

Path 3, will work fine with some effort for the first and second encounters:
Stand still with two concentric circles around you
Move when the outer circle is blinking.

Use pillars and help team-mates out of crystals when they get caught on encounter 2.

Encounter 3 is just… terrible.

We can’t engage him without someone getting caught in the crystal, and even if we release the person, everyone who can’t dodge properly is going to get taken out by the circle aoes all bunched up like that.

Or… when everyone is running to engage, and he crystalizes then immediately drops the circles. That person in the crystal is dead.

I spent one encounter where my pet and I were the only things being trapped in the crystal, and my party members would still die.

They have rare or exotic gear, and the ONLY thing they are running into trouble with appears to be the dodges.

If they get caught in a crystal, they are dead. There is no way out of it for them. When we group up to break the crystal, that person WILL die because they will get hit with the concentric circle aoe.

If we range from a distance, the damage we have to do does not leave enough time for that person to dodge/shield/heal.

There seem to be some skills that used to help get out of crystals… Summon Flesh Worm -> Necrotic Traversal for example… but that flesh worm is subject to being beat on by the aoe as well.

The damage being done by subject alpha is too high for your average guild of players to manage.

These are people that will make mistakes… who can’t complete jumping puzzles without falling, and who don’t know that getting that dodge off a split second before the effect hits them is what matters.

They dodged… they expect to avoid the attack. The timing and split-second response is not for them.

Maybe the dungeon isn’t for them. Maybe they can’t do this because of lag, age, or just the inability to play “at that level”.

At which point it isn’t fun… much less rewarding,

If I have to choose between people that can run a dungeon, and friends that try to enjoy playing the game – it becomes a pretty simple choice.

We’d like it to be adjusted properly for your average player. Not your skilled player. Skilled players have PvP, fractals, and every new piece of content that comes out the moment it comes out.

We just want to enjoy a dungeon together…. any dungeon, any time, with anyone (PUG/Guildie/Newbie).

Fractal Mists
Computer halted and needed to reboot.

Can’t rejoin party in the dungeon. PLEASE fix dungeon issues. I’m in the party, and should just be able to join them.