I rarely post on those forums, but for once I think I shall give a (I hope) honest feedback and opinion about the Gauntlet.
I have initially avoided the Gauntlet like the plague because I’ve heard of the eccessive punishment it inflicted on players, in a game already quite full of gold sinks: queues, armor breaks, token espenses, the cost of waypointing back, the time necessary to return to the arenas. Not to forget the fact that the whole gauntlet is, once again, temporary. In all honesty, those things kinda made me avoid it.
Yet, spending so much time in the pavilion made me wonder about it, so I slowly moved through the different tiers, which to be honest I found very easy. Somehow ridiculously so, with a couple of exceptions (The pirate crew in particular). In all of this, I always excluded the possibility of doing Liadri, especially because I’ve heard so many terrible things about her.
Then of course the moment arrived. Surprised, I started doing her and immediately noticed that she appeared to me incredibly fair, even though she requires an appropriate amount of trial and error. I started doing her again and again, never hoping in luck or miracles but trying to learn as much as possible from every try, especially considering how big the punishment was: how much time it took to grab and throw a cristal; how big the hitbox of the vision of mortality was; how big the aggro radius of the visions was; the correct timing of the red circles, so that in case of emergency I could use my invincibility frames to avoid the attack itself (making the “search the empty spot” more of an added layer rather than the only possibility); learned the correct positioning, accustoming myself to the problems of the arena (yes, problems like the obstructed and the camera may not be fair, but crying about it wouldn’t have given me any minipet or victory without finding a solution) and so on. Basically, I applied learning strategies that work well in Dark Souls (Please, forgive me for using that game as an example, but I am nowhere comparing the gameplays of those two games and I’ve played it far too much), since Liadri gave me a very Ornstein/Smough kind of feeling (Another fight that seems almost impossible / based on luck to those that do not know the nuances of it).
I went in denial a couple of times, I tried blaming the game, I tried using the “It’s all luck” card. But in the end I knew it was just my fault (the fact that people out there can do Liadri consistently pretty much deny any possible argument that she is entirely luck-based) and so I continued doing her again and again and again, every time getting better or knowing something more. And yes, in the meantime I was having incredible fun (even though I did hate having to walk back all the way). And then, a couple of days ago, I finally managed to down her and now I am a proud owner of that minipet. And I did not do her with raw damage, zerk power or something else: I am a 0/10/0/30/30 ele specced in condition removal in knight’s gear and after going in timeout a couple of times I decided that my best strategy was stacking might in melee (yes, while avoiding the red circles of death). And I like to think it was skill that made me win, not luck (I did have to rally with an orb at a point though because in the middle of the phase 2 I couldn’t waste time fighting rifts and things escalated at a certain point).
In the end, I think Anet did something really good with the gauntlet: they tried to express the hidden potential of a fighting engine that, up to now, was kinda relegated to zergs and giant chain of champions and, for the most part, succeded at it. Indeed, bugs are everywhere and the whole thing requires a bit of polish, but for the majority works well. And yes, I do believe that it’s fair for the game to only reward people that where constant enough and patient to learn.
In general, the gauntlet itself is the single most promising thing I’ve seen in this game in a very long time and I can see Anet using it to test how players react to those things and how themselves can create this kind of content.
I have been incredibly harsh of Anet in the first year, but I believe things are improving at an incredible steady peace. Keep up the good work developers, for I had a lot of fun those days. And for those people that really want to beat Liadri and think it’s impossible, just try again, learn more and never surrender.
