Guild Wars 2

So to make this short. I lurk, but almost never, ever log in. This may be the first time I’ve logged into forums in the last 12 to 18 months. That’s how bad this change was.

At 33% chance to proc Confusing Combatant at even 100% crit rate you’re only applying it 1/3rd of the time AT BEST and I was OK with that. The initial thought of 100% confusion on crit seemed too strong and I rarely optimize/power game since I’m a fairly casual PvE player.

Instead of a unique trait we get some sort of bonus fury proc? On a Mesmer? We already have enough fury to last us forever without this new trait. It’s not only no longer unique, it’s flat out redundant and has pretty much killed my enthusiasm I had for these updates since it was bad enough that Chaotic Dampening and Chaotic Transference became mutually exclusive on the same trait line.

That’s how upsetting this change is. You made a lurker – who always felt the Mesmer boards were way, way too whiny – log in to complain about how sad this change to Confusing Combatants is. I really, finally felt like it was time to push for Ascended Rabid stat armor too…

Kirito.9207:

Interesting that they’re focusing on torment and not confusion for Mesmer with scepter.

Gotta say I was surprised at the lack of confusion on the AA as well. I’d be bummed out too if it weren’t for the fact that they at least paid attention to some of the bugs/balance issues this time around. Beggers cant be choosers.

I have been playing the Mesmer since launch. I have no other characters. I PvE only, save for occasionally dipping into WvW to complete a monthly or two (probably two, over 6 months ago). I run, for the most part, a clone/bleed-bunker build of 0/15/20/25/10 (Staff, Sword/Focus). I’m not huge on theory crafting, but I assume my damage was sub-optimal, but I felt my role came down to survival and support of which I was quite good at.

Now for the sake of build diversity everything I do takes about 20% longer (from kiting with Phase retreat to setting up defensive Phantasmal Wardens). This means I have fewer illusions up and therefore I have less reliable damage, damage reduction, healing, bleed stacks and boons. I am now FORCED to compensate by using a Signet, which eats one of my very precious support utility spells in an attempt to increase the health of my now also very precious array of illusions.

My build is not on a whole ruined. However, this is a dramatic change which I fear will inevitably lead to someone on a dungeon run saying I should, at this point, just play a shatter build or a greatsword build or a scepter build (well, ok, I realistically don’t think they’ll mention the scepter). All of which I find to be particularly boring builds despite what their merits are.

And while I am reading arguments from both sides here, I am finding it odd that for the sake of build diversity, my already debatable sub-optimal build (in terms of DPS at least) has to take such a significant hit. Perhaps I was playing “wrong” and this change is going to make me play “right”? Hard to say, but I feel pigeonholed more now than I did.

I run this 90% of times in dungeons. I’m full exo rabid gear/rune of undead. Secondary MH sword/Focus. I set up 3 clones and let them rain auto attacks with 33% crit chance to inflict a stack of bleeding (sharper images) and let them melt down the HP bar while I do other things (rez people, set up reflect, hit switches, kite etc).

For some bosses I do just end up standing there, but I think that can happen with any class to a certain degree due to some bosses being easily controlled or poorly designed.

deSade.9437:

Congratulations on your wall of text.
I tihink they’re aware of the countless bugs and crippling design issues that plague this dungeon, yet it’s nice to see a cohesive and constructive feedback, for once.
The biggest problem I see with HotW (which is, in my opinion, the best looking dungeon in the game) is the overuse of cheap mechanics to create an illusion of difficulty: mobs’ health, to be exact (as you said). This is what annoys me the most.
I see a saddening lack of any interesting or challenging mechanic; in return we get bosses that are nothing but big punching balls, with a million hp, and the only requirement to beat them is smashing 1 button til you’d love to rip your eyes off of boredom.

I too find this to be one of the best looking dungeons in the game. I don’t post often so the text wall got the better of me (and I didn’t have time to format it correctly before work). I like the term “illusion of difficulty”. It really hits the nail on the head.

It’s why I’m a bit curious to hear what the intent was for the dungeons. Without posting the whole quote, you and I both noted that AC is run frequently due to it’s speed and decent pay out in comparison to HotW’s longer run times that don’t always have a superior pay out.

Thanks for the response.

I play a level 80 Mesmer on the Northern Shiver Peaks server. I’ve run the story and at least 1 explore path for every dungeon except for Arah’s explore mode. I have one full set of armor and several weapons from HotW and I still collect tokens.

Honor of the Waves is my favorite dungeon for many reasons, but is probably one of the most poorly designed dungeons in the game (from a mechanical standpoint). HotW has my favorite light armor skin and stat arrays for armor/weapons so I’ve learned the paths well and have seen their exploits and bugs first hand (though the exploits were covered in another thread) and the ease at which certain encounters and areas can fall apart and become boring or un-fun.

One of the largest issues to me is the lack of physical boundaries on the map itself. I’ve personally seen the Path 2 boss use his charge attack to slam through the walls or ceiling of his enclosure and then reset: regaining most or all of his HP (which forces another issue: the amount of HP bosses have, but we’ll get to that). As a Mesmer I’ve also ended up between maps and in various terrain features. I’ve come to expect that given my class of choice having a proclivity for such predicaments, but more often than not, when this happens in game, it happens in HotW. Perhaps it is due to the architecture of the ice terrain or how they were constructed (textures, skins etc) that creates this poor structural integrity, but it’s all too easy to get stuck between walls and paths.

This leads to the occasional boss reset or inability to participate in a combat encounter/boss fight. The other day I ended up inside a wall during Path 3’s final boss. I was unable to charge back out or use Way Points and all of my attacks were obstructed. This means the boss was taking 1/5th less damage, which adds a considerable amount of time to defeat the boss. After a few minutes I was able to be considered out of combat so I could WP back to the start. After a minute or two of running all the way back to the Path 3 boss, I was disheartened to see that almost no progress had been made on his health bar and took a further 15 minutes to kill the boss. While this was an example of a poorer dungeon run, it only fairs slightly differently than an efficient or optimal dungeon run, which manages to shave off a few minutes at each combat encounter. Either way, most bosses and champion here feel like a slog and a good number of them are less threatening than other enemies.

Take the veteran Icebrood Wolves or Icebrood Claymore waves that happen throughout each path. I’ve seen and been in parties that wipe against these waves more than every boss in every path combined. There large amount of HP and extreme damage output causes them to be a much greater threat than most bosses (who usually require a simple dodge to escape their AOE attack). This leads to the very common practice of skipping the first group of Icebrood Wolves in Path 1 (just before the first boss of that path) and for the need to attempt to pull just 1 or 2 away from any group (which isn’t always easy depending on party makeup) or risk getting his by a freight train of wolves or claymores.

Though these vicious non-boss enemies aren’t the only group of creatures to get ditched for the sake of having HotW take less time. In each path there is at least one group of enemies or a champion that gets commonly skipped. The amount of time it takes to kill the group or champion far outweighs the rewards for actually defeating them. Most players on dungeon runs are looking to spend the least amount of time for the highest reward (which is why everyone says “LFG AC 15min run” and no one does HotW). I’m truthfully not sure what the intent is. Were dungeons supposed to be quick, cash-grabs like AC or slow and plodding like HotW? HotW stands as quite a time sink for more or less similar rewards as other dungeons.

**I’d also like to note that I’m not going to comment on the fact that HotW has the most water based combat of any dungeon. All of the issues I’ve encountered in this dungeon are going to happen on land or in water. Those bosses are still going to feel like a slog. There will be large groups of enemies that you will bypass because the time you put into them just isn’t worth the reward. Personally I don’t mind water combat itself, but in HotW I find it very boring.

TL;DR- I know every dungeon has their fair amount of problems, exploits and glitches. This thread is not meant to take away your exploits (they’re gonna get those eventually & you’ll find new ones). It’s to draw attention to the developers that such an amazing creative effort is kind of being wasted due to incorrect balance, unpopular design features (intended or unintended) and bugs. I think players are missing out on a really cool environment (not to mention it’s hard to get a group going for this dungeon).

After 2hrs and 45min…. Such an epic finale.

….I jumped in the lava a few minutes later to see how much damage it does. Quite a bit.

Let me start by saying I don’t post on the forums very much, but do read. I only play one character, a Mesmer named Chuck Mindbender on the Northern Shiverpeaks server. I’ve invested some 400 hours in this game as that one character. If ArenaNet said tomorrow they were removing the Mesmer from the game (hypothetically) I can sleep soundly at night knowing that for $65 I got 400 hours, or more, entertainment out of this game and if I don’t play it again that’s fine. I’ve spent more for less. We all have.

I thought this event was really quite awesome. Did it have some issues? Yes, it did. I’ll get to those in a moment. However, for something that was entirely free and added onto the game after an already great run for my money, I’m very impressed with the content. Also, I happened to be lucky (and did my best to arrange my schedule) so that I could participate in the events all 3 days (some were cut very close). I don’t expect this to be achievable for me for many, if any future one-time events, but for this weekend it was. I’m (mostly) a grown-up. I can accept that in the future, cool stuff will be given out and I won’t get it.

I truly had a great time fighting off sea monsters with my server. It was a delight.

That being said, I can’t imagine anyone getting through this weekend without at least one or two disconnects. Sometimes at extreme moments. I missed almost all of Phase 2 due to a disconnect and appearing on an another overflow server. This was not unique to anyone. I hope ArenaNet looks into it seriously. but it is showing the game has a healthy population after half of it claimed to quit because of Halloween and the other half quit because of Ascended gear (so how we can lose a 3rd half because The Lost Shores is mathematically impossible).

I would like it if AreaNet could maybe structure the timing differently for people in EU and Oceanic servers. However, if it was between that an no one-time world events, I’d rather keep the events (and time it so it landed on Sunday instead of Monday in some countries).

As far as gear goes. Don’t change anything. You’ve made the trek to Legendary’s much easier with this patch. People who couldn’t do the event or did and didn’t get a precursor item are angry because they aren’t “first”. Over time it’ll even out as more champions and one-time events are created and more precursors drop.

Lastly, I love the Fractals of the Mist dungeon (though anyone who’s run it with me knows I fail at platforming so hard), but the entrance being IN Lion’s Arch is annoying and definitely added to the server lag of Phase 1 and 2 (many people were LFG or talking about FotM during those phases). I hope future dungeon content like this is located elsewhere (we joked that it would give people a reason to actually go to places like Rata Sum post-100%).

TL;DR- There were a few technical issues, but not as many overall issues as people’s self-entitlement would have you believe on these forums. ArenaNet shouldn’t cave in to “No More Events!” threads, but could stand to learn some things. ArenaNet should maybe have an event/super-dungeon be somewhere other than Lion’s Arch to avoid super-influxes (at least at the same exact time).

*Note- I did not get a precursor. I got 2 Exotics (1g each), 2 Rares (20s each). I’m a Mesmer so you KNOW I didn’t get ANY loot/exp from enemies during the actual event (I got 1 vile of Potent Blood in Phase 3….).

**Also I missed a lot of the Halloween stuff because of real life/preparing for the worst storm that hit my state in like ever. People have things I don’t. I’m totally OK with that. ArenaNet owes me nothing. I’m glad my house didn’t wash away during Sandy. Some people’s did. Just saying: Prospective.

For what it’s worth, I’ve more or less been running an attrition build for my entire career. I focused on Chaos (Toughness) tree and built for condition damage. It’s worked fine for me in PvE. Though it’s not for everyone, you’ll do damage and you’ll survive, but by nature of being attrition isn’t the fastest way to win. It’s simple though and can be rewarding when you solo a champion. The only weakness are enemies in mass groups and the inability to do anything in a zerg at high levels (your damage over time will never factor in for you getting a kill/exp/loot).