Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

honestly, its a problem. you can try to look on the bright side, or say they shouldnt make promises, but really thats stupid. When something needs to be done, You should say you will do something, and then you should do it, and when you can’t you should explain to the best of your ability why not, and still work toward doing it.

Its really simple, i flake out sometimes too, but i dont try to pretend im not flaking out, or act as if by not making any promises, i still dont have a responsibility to do something. And hiding behind a lack of a schedule doesnt change that.

Emphasis on the bolded part. People tend to forget Anet’s lack of accountability with some of their statements and questionable game patches (or lack thereof), like the whole Fractured release fiasco (progression reset, no leaderboard, no compensation, etc.) followed by how they’ve treated the whole issue as if it has been “solved (see dev posts on this issue).”

John Smith.4610:

I very much don’t agree with several of the concepts you’ve posted here. Overall though, remember the medium and that “proof” is more to show evidence that a biased sample doesn’t necessarily represent the entirety of the population.

I don’t think replying with more jargon is helping your case John. Driving off people from their complaints by using “industry terms” to make them look like idiots isn’t solving their dissatisfaction, nor does it improve community relations (which is already bad considering ANET’s track record these past 2 years).

INSTEAD of relying on sophistry, why not release data to us so that we can analyze it (to those of us who have a background in statistics or economics)? You talk about biased samples, but in no way do you try to support your statement that inflation complaints are “biased samples/outliers.”

Ensign.2189:

From what I’ve seen the exotic tables just have the 75-79 exotics on them now; the rare tables are unchanged, and I’ll take in on faith that they haven’t messed with the precursor rate. This hasn’t really changed the value of forge output much – the rare that pop out are still 80s, you get more runes and sigils than you used to from the 75-79 exotics always having runes or sigils, and the value of a 75 exotic isn’t even lower than an 80; it’s really hard to buy up enough low level exotics that you’re short on levels not exotics.

There might be a real loss if the rate of named exotics has dropped, but I haven’t pulled enough data yet to test that conclusively.

Rares do give back 80s and such when it spews back a rare, but what if it upgrades itself to an exotic? I haven’t tested it yet, but doesn’t it have that trashy chance of getting something below 80 now?

Regarding the exotics, that is assuming that the weapons in question have good sigils, and some of us do throw in cheap underwater exotics + mystic forge stones to get precursors (thats how I got my incinerator).

To me, both these issues (2nd one being much more concrete) is lowering named weapons from dropping, and indirectly precursor drop rates since named weapons and precursors must be 80 to appear at the forge (this is why you can’t throw in exotics or rares that were underleveled before).

John N. Smith was probably telling the truth when they did not change precursor drop rates (0.80% from the forge when the four items meet the required levels), but there is sophistry involved when he left out the part where Anet made the level-RNG part of the MF precursor and named weapons more ludicrously difficult with this patch.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Safari.3021:

So, a dev said somewhere (i cant find it) or on a ready up, that the mystic forge woulkd be changed, improved to give better results for what you threw in.

I waited for the patch notes, and sure enough:

“Some Mystic Forge recipes have been updated to provide a wider range of results”

4x level 80 exotic hammers = 1 level 76 exotic hammer.

ehngfjngp;oewjspgojw[oj

It hasn’t changed – it is based on a random number generator – what do you expect?

It WAS changed; from experience and from the unupdated wiki (mystic forge before):

“Equipment:
Four pieces of equipment of the same quality can be combined in the forge. …In addition, the output equipment will be 5-12 levels higher than the average of the levels of the four piece of input equipment. There is also a roughly 20% chance of receiving a higher quality item. This has a chance of producing soul-bound equipment sold by Karma Merchants.”

The bolded part is where its changed; throwing in four lvl 80 exotics now gives equips LOWER than the average of those four pieces thrown into the toilet.

Please, can you not spread false information? If you are not trying out the equipment aspect of the “better” MF in this patch (as most of us posters here are doing), at least do the research.

KarateKid.5648:

I noticed the sharp dropoff, too; but I had this thing rattling around “… well, maybe they nerfed it and introduced new combinations we’ve not yet discovered…”

one can hope?

If there was a trade-off of more recipes but worse RNG drops in the toilet, then I think some of us MIGHT consider the mystic toilet becoming “a better experience.” But so far, no news on new recipes in game, in forum, or in the wiki…

“…This is just a stepping stone to further changes that will make the Mystic Forge a much better experience in the future. Please note: the rate of precursors will not be affected.” -John “Nerfer” Smith

Isn’t the bolded part blatantly a lie? the mere fact were getting non-lvl80 exotics now seems to suggest that the chance of getting precursors has been lowered by adding a level RNG to the mystic toilet recipe.

In fact, doesn’t this change seem to be contributing to the ridiculously large inflation seen in precursors right now (along with the champ train nerf and wardrobe legendary reskinning function)?

Sergoros.4398:

For me, she is more like unrefined diamond, that lost its chance to shine. Anet killed her with bad writing. But, as I said, there is still a possibility of redemption. Her Ghost might shine a little. It would be Redemption on both sides. In game and in writing.

I respectfully disagree. The LS has been milled out from start till end that Scarlet, as well as the whole story behind her, was going to improve as the story progressed (this rhetoric has been going on since Aetherpath until the Epilogue).

But to be frank, her character’s development got progressively worse as more of the LS was released, to the point that the last arc (i.e. the grand finale arc) probably introduced numerous plotholes which made Scarlet’s character even messier and more narratively illogical than before.

Scarlet has been in “redeem” mode for quite some time now. And the failure to “fix” her for at least 8 months after her debut has paved the way to a huge poop mountain of bad writing that needs to be corrected. If they failed to improve their writing from start till end, what makes one think that they can make her look better in some small scale plot-hole filler?

Konrad Knox.5162:

Yunigen.2897:

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.)

Oh, I’m not talking about all games. I’ve played amazing story games, especially single player. (Witcher is by far my favourite). I’m only talking about GW2.

I agree that their writing is silly and should be better. It’s just that their resources are being spent keeping the game running. It’s a free to play MMO. Limited income, limited staff. I say redesign the game, integrate pvp into real map, make all the settlements capturable by guilds, not just NPCs, charge a subscription fee monthly, and hire a real writer team.

I agree with you that the writing has to be better, but somehow I just cannot believe that maintaining the game (i.e. income problems) is an excuse that Anet can use for milling out the poor story of the LS.

They’ve gone out of their way to hire reputable voice actors for the LS (Tara Strong, Troy Baker, Rachel Robinson, Sumalee Montano, etc.) to add substance to the narration, but being unable to hire more or better writers who have worked with the series (e.g. Jeff Grubb) seems to indicate poor allocation of resources in the development of the LS narration.

Calys Teneb.7015:

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.).

999 did not have a strong narrative. It has great puzzles and gameplay, but the narrative was extremely weak. And this can be supported with the fact that the iOS port of the game that included NONE of the puzzles but ALL of the narrative was an unmitigated failure.

The same could be said for Bioshock and Eternal Darkness. The narrative was the weakest part of the game, but was supplemented by unique or compelling gameplay that made it tolerable.

Perhaps 999 was a bad example; the sensibility of the story was bended, and perhaps beyond the tolerable level of a graphic novel. However, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting for a japanese graphic novel game, considering the multitude of cliched “save the world” archetypes being milled out by the game devs of j. graphic novels (I’m looking at you Type Moon). Still, at least it’s narration is far better than GW2’s LS, given how the short stories, in game dialogues, cutscenes, etc. do not even mesh together properly (Scarlet’s character suffering from this issue the most).

As for Bioshock and ED, they at LEAST made a somewhat engaging and coherent story given the limitations within their genre; you want a really bad narrative in an FPS game? Try Doom 3. Having compelling gameplay + an interesting and sensical story is what put some of these guys on the spotlight, and NOT just their unique/good gameplay (e.g. insanity bar), otherwise they would have been praised the same way Doom 3 would have been (eerie, good looking, but reliant on “BOO!” scare tactics to be part of the FPS survival-horror genre).

Going back to GW2, it should have at least had tolerable levels in the delivery of LS story, given how they’ve placed a hiatus in many of the core issues of the game for over a year now. And yet, the “Story” portion of the Living Story pretty much just went down the drain, and was kept “living” by the eye-candy produced by the Anet’s art department. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it’s ironic that GW2 started to mirror the FF13 trilogy more and more as the LS content was being milled out over the last year.

Konrad Knox.5162:

Yunigen.2897:

CharrGirl.7896:

Well, are you really that surprised? They did announce a “small feature patch”, – nothing major. If you were expecting a big update, blame yourself for not informing yourself. :P

And yet a few days back we had a few posters defending the horrendous LS narration by quoting the patch with the epilogue:

Ayrilana.1396:

Wait until the epilogue in two weeks.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s like reading a book, and complaining before you finish the last couple of chapters. Have patience my friend. If the final part of the LS doesn’t satisfy you in two weeks, then complain.

Vol.7601:

Are you guys impatient or what? You really want a patch that tells the whole story and makes the next few years of GW2 irrelevant?

It’s like asking a patch for Season 2 to reveal all the spoilers.

Have patience, geez.

Wait for the epilogue, then complain.

I find it funny how criticism against the terrible, terrible delivery of the LS has always been defended by a dialogue of postponement (i.e. a “payoff” in a later patch will deliver more and better narrative).

Scarlet’s nonsensical character was defended by a dev during Aetherpath through this manner. The lack of plot development in the last LS arc was also defended using the same tactic. Now with the release of the Epilogue, we have some individuals defending the lack of answers by saying “don’t worry, we’ll get `some` of those answers in season 2.”

When it comes to writing stories, if it starts bad, it’s gonna continue being bad. Never once have I read or written a story that sucked all the way until the last chapter, and then suddenly was awesome enough to justify everything. Either the whole story sucked and needed to be trashed, or the whole thing was awesome and gave pride to the author. No epilogue will ever correct poor character depth, awkward dialogue, and atmosphere breaking random behavior.

But on the other hand, let’s all agree not to take GW2 story too seriously, it’s not like we’re reading a book. This is more of a children’s school theatre play – light, humorous, full of catchy jokes, with a little inkling of sadness to make the adults think about it. Take it for what it is. Nobody really goes to watch school threatre for the plot. They go to watch it to see their kids act on stage. Same here. We watch it to play the game and do missions.

I agree with you that poor writing is often seen early on in literature; timing is always important in literature, but the way that the LS has been consistently bad but defended (till the very end) using this argument has left me questioning as to how literate some of the playerbase are.

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.).

Given how GW2 is an MMORPG and is thus closer to the RPG genre, GW2 SHOULD have at least told a sensical, coherent story in the LS, considering other games have worked with harder genres to deliver their plots. It is disgraceful when one sees an MMORPG/RPG game fail to even tell a coherent (albeit cliched) story given how others have worked with greater restrictions due to their genre. The poor development and delivery of plot and characters reminds me of the FF13 trilogy, a game despite being an RPG, had one of the worst storylines in FF history.

CharrGirl.7896:

Well, are you really that surprised? They did announce a “small feature patch”, – nothing major. If you were expecting a big update, blame yourself for not informing yourself. :P

And yet a few days back we had a few posters defending the horrendous LS narration by quoting the patch with the epilogue:

Ayrilana.1396:

Wait until the epilogue in two weeks.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s like reading a book, and complaining before you finish the last couple of chapters. Have patience my friend. If the final part of the LS doesn’t satisfy you in two weeks, then complain.

Vol.7601:

Are you guys impatient or what? You really want a patch that tells the whole story and makes the next few years of GW2 irrelevant?

It’s like asking a patch for Season 2 to reveal all the spoilers.

Have patience, geez.

Wait for the epilogue, then complain.

I find it funny how criticism against the terrible, terrible delivery of the LS has always been defended by a dialogue of postponement (i.e. a “payoff” in a later patch will deliver more and better narrative).

Scarlet’s nonsensical character was defended by a dev during Aetherpath through this manner. The lack of plot development in the last LS arc was also defended using the same tactic. Now with the release of the Epilogue, we have some individuals defending the lack of answers by saying “don’t worry, we’ll get `some` of those answers in season 2.”

Klonex.4562:

Rikimaru.7890:

Who wrote this plot? I had seen people act more logically in Disney films.

be grateful that there wasn’t any singing every 3 – 5 minutes

Considering on how senseless and illogical the personal storyline (partly) and the LS (as a whole) were, I wouldn’t mind some catchy musical and dance choreography to accompany the cutscenes.

“Clawr Island – We Must Band Together” by Trahearne
“Invasion – Die, Die, Die.” Scarlet Briar

tmakinen.1048:

Bad scaling

And this is the big one. The combination of requiring a zone full of players and tuning an event to “a bit above average player” (as acknowledged on these forums), with the current server/overflow mechanic, is stunningly bad design. I know that the devs want to provide “epic content” but what they are still not acknowledging that it doesn’t matter how epic content is if you can’t access it! There’s nothing epic in the fact that I have yet to see the big holograph fight even once because people fail the assault knights with 100% consistency.

This issue needs to be emphasized more. It has been an ongoing problem which has snowballed to disastrous proportions because it has been constantly ignored; During Teq Rising, the devs completely ignored the numerous thread complaints/pleas against Teq’s poor scaling.

The only comment they made was that they were disappointed with how fast some servers managed to kill Teq instead of spending months trying to defeat it (really? that’s the only disappointment that you find with this world boss remake??).

Then months after Teq, we got Marionette and 3-Wurm, where complaints/pleas came again and the response this time was “were now looking into this scaling issue” as if it were a problem that was relatively new.

And then we got Knights, where the proverbial finally hit the fan because this problem has been left to persist, was ignored, and not acknowledged for the longest of time. I hope that Anet seriously, seriously learns from the crapstorm felt during this LS and not ignore issues for months on end; stopping problems while they’re minute is better than pretending that they are non-existent.

Guys, can we please go back to discussing as to why these two characters are dislikable/bland? Before statements like “If only Jory were a man” or “I hate LGBT content being milled out more than heterosexual content” were made, this thread was civil with its discussion, as what the OP wanted it to be.

I think the reason why many dislike these two characters is not because their character designs are bad; in fact they are quite unique characters in the gaming industry which proudly tries to break away from the bigotry seen in other media (phobia on LGBT, Asian stereotyping, etc.)

HOWEVER, these two characters have one of the worst form of character development seen amongst the LS characters (2nd only to Taimi and Scarlet). The reasons behind “why” and “who” they are largely unknown/full of plotholes due to rushed writing (unsurprisingly since they came later than Rox and Braham).

For example, why do they constantly participate in the recent LS events? At Dragon Bash and Aetherpath, at least they were paid to investigate and such, but when ToN, Marrionette, etc. the “why” they were there was just abandoned.

They either simply were there (heroes just for the sake of being heroes with nonsensical/bad reasons such as being asked by " The Great and Gorgeous Mesmer Collective," which were never mentioned in the past) or joined in to help your character as friends. With at least Rox and Braham, you got real and mentioned reasons as to why they were in certain events (asked by Ritlock to represent him during QP, trying to join Ritlock’s warband, making his legend, getting back for what happened in Cragstead, etc.).

The “who” aspect also suffers heavily; the romance between Jory and Kas was only rushed in the last few LS updates and makes the whole relationship seem forced or shoehorned.

TLDR
Jory and Kasmeer’s character designs are good, but their development is extremely weak due to their later introduction to the LS as well as the nature of LS overall.

EDIT:
After reading all the past posts before mine, majority of them are questioning Jory&Kas’s development, which probably is the primary reason why these two characters are “unliked.”

Peetee.9406:

Here’s the problem,

All the speed runners, min/maxers, and zerker heavy onlys have chased the casual player base away from the dungeons.

Another problem with dungeons and party-based content in general is the fact that Anet has done a poor job in scaling such content for sizes smaller than 5 people, as well as promoting an “exact number of friends required” rationale to content.

Although players such as myself can PUG for that last two members in a party, it’s very disruptive that such content requires EXACTLY five members, no more, no less.

What if I have six friends who want to try out a new dungeon? Will one be left out in the dust? Or, as is often the case, what if I only have friends fewer than 5 at that time? Do we have to risk dealing with elitists or foul-mouthed PUGs?

Interestingly, Anet has tried to introduce scaling to such instanced content in past LS (SAB, tower of nightmare chambers/final boss, Scarlet’s Playhouse, Cutthroat Politics, etc.), and they seem more successful than those that do not (Canach’s Lair exp. mode, Aetherpath, etc.).

Unscaled LS instances were largely abandoned after they were completed, with the exception of MF, whose limited-time loot outweighed the inconvenience of partying up with 5 people.

Rewards clearly play a role in the longevity of instanced content, but the problem of having to deal with elitism just because dungeons require a “full” 5 man party has done it’s fair share of damage, otherwise the numerous threads of the past asking for henchmen or heroes would not have existed to begin with.

TLDR
Anet needs to keep improving and introducing instances which scale to party sizes smaller than five, since the “5 man it or leave it” concept largely deters soloers, casuals, and people with only a few close friends from participating at such content.

It would actually be easy for them to do at 49 or 50; 50 is a gear check instability (and devs can generate any of the grindy gear that they would need), and 49 is very easy since it only measures your party’s ability to stack where and when.

Ask them to do a Dredge livestream at 41, and let’s see how long that’ll last. While were at it, let’s make them do Grawl 43; I’m willing to bet they’ll ragequit once they hit the boss with that instability

Locuz.2651:

Yunigen.2897:

As a regular solo q player, I can definitely say that the queue times are quite horrendous right now; it takes roughly about a 1-5 minutes to have a game start during the first 1-4 hours after daily reset, and then it goes downhill after that…

For example, it usually takes a minimum of 30 minutes to find a solo q tourny when queuing 13 hours after daily reset.

This might be a bit of a US thing due to the timing of the reset to be honest. For me its like this 16.00 – 0.00 are regular hours with short queuetimes (1-5 minutes). 1.00 at night the daily resets for us, so it basicly prolongues peak/busy hours.

During the limited number of soloqueue games i played (150ish in total) ive never seen a queuetime of more then 10 minutes. Ever. And i play till deep in the night even on working days at times.

I dont play in the morning tho.

I take it that your EU then? That might explain differences in queue times. However, it is without a doubt that solo q wait time gets progressively worse (reaching that 30 minute wait eventually) here in NA.

I’ve soloqued countless times, being part of the leaderboards as well as earning 4 of the champion class associated titles through solo q (or structured “hotjoin” when they abolished tourny tickets) and team q (before tickets were abolished), and ever since I’ve participated in structured PVP it has always been the case that these wait times have been a bane for me and some of my friends/guildmates who do spvp.

It has arguably gotten “better” ever since hotjoin/tourny tickets were abolished since one does not have to waste time anymore forming teams to play tourny, but it’s still pretty wretched when you hit that 10-30 minute (or worse, according to some of my guildmates who’ve seen longer wait periods than what I’ve seen) waiting time when you go past 4 hour daily reset here in NA.

Maybe I’ll make a screenshot of a long wait period later.

Bump.5471:

I’d mainly be playing to Soloq pvp not sure what queue times are like etc

As a regular solo q player, I can definitely say that the queue times are quite horrendous right now; it takes roughly about a 1-5 minutes to have a game start during the first 1-4 hours after daily reset, and then it goes downhill after that…

For example, it usually takes a minimum of 30 minutes to find a solo q tourny when queuing 13 hours after daily reset.

The upside of GW2 pvp is that it requires no grind to participate (although this is the complete opposite in the game’s pve aspect right now); you can create a character, finish the first personal story (extremely fast), then enter the sPVP area without having to gear yourself up.

However, like what some of the previous posters have mentioned, GW2’s sPVP is heavily monotonous and lacks build diversity in the current meta; Conquest mode is the only format available, and only about 1-2 working builds per class exists in competitive PVP (solo q or team q) at any given time/class “balancing” patches.

I’d highly recommend trying the PVP yourself through a trial version of the game first (if such a thing is available). You never know whether or not you’d enjoy the experience despite the obvious issues that sPVP currently has.

Zenyatoo.4059:

Ive had this trigger on me several times. It froze me if I remember correctly.

Then you’re probably not looking at the right skill hitting you; Frostmark chills foes. What probably hit you was Ice Wurm Venom Trap.

I’ve tested it again to be sure, and I’m sure it’s almost completely broken. I did find that BARELY works, and only if a foe leaps on it (heavygunner skill 3) or you knockback/launch a foe on the mark. Placing the mark on the feet of a foe, or them simply walking over it does not trigger it (as regular marks do).

It’s kind of frustrating to see that this skill is still broken/unusable even after a whole year has passed…. I remember that in Wintersday 2012, the skill was basically locked for necro participants.

To see it unlocked this year got my hopes up that they the devs finally fixed it, but so far all it does is place a really tiny mark that does not trigger when enemies walk over it or stand on it (if you cast it on their feet). The only time it triggers is when someone dodge rolls over it, which renders it useless nevertheless since your enemy will evade the mark’s attack.

NTDK.4897:

For this achivement, does everyone in party need to go into the secret room?

Also. the last time we did that, it spawned a champ not vet. Impossible to kill in time to save the lionguards.

Nope, you only need one person to go inside the secret room to get above and beyond achievement. It might have spawned a champ because all five or so of you entered the room at the same time.

Be sure that 2 ppl go to the lionguards asap, 2 kill the officers and emp the ships, while the last person goes to the room and opens the suggestion box.

The Above and beyond achievement only needs the clockwork dead and the door reopened, and does not need people to even enter the room once its finished; to illustrate, 2 of my partymates when directly to open the 5 chests for the group after killing the aetherblade mobs attacking the lionguards to make sure we had sufficient time to get the achievement.

Kaellok.8143:

Hmm, might worth doing. I already got 10/17 in one run. Presumably the rest are pretty hard to get.

Personally, I felt that “Above and Beyond” is the only legitimately difficult achieve to get; it requires some form of communication before fighting the clockheart, and requires people you can trust to do the post achieves (or at least ones that won’t lie that they’re experienced runners like yourself, if you advertised as such, when your partying with pugs).

“Grounded” is technically hard, but easily solved if you have alts like engies, eles, or guardians which can put invulnerability on themselves (3 secs is enough) to avoid getting shocked.

“Who’s in Charge Here?” is “difficult” because it seems very buggy right now; took me 4 tries to get it, and so far people haven’t laid down hard conditions (if there are any) in getting this achieve.

Kaellok.8143:

Hopefully this isn’t too off topic, but what is the reward for completing all the TA achievements (17/17)? Wondering if it’s worth bashing my skull against a brick wall to do it. :P

Mini clockheart; personally when I got this pet I felt it was nowhere near as good as mini liadri… It has no special effects (like Liadri’s mouse over death shroud), looks like gravel (easily blends with the ground and hence hardly noticeable), and cannot enter water.

I THINK the only thing special about it over the mini oakheart is that it makes a rare grunt animation, but I could have been imagining things when I used it.

Got it a couple of hours ago; my group did it under certain conditions:
1. One partymate completely died at the boss fight. We revived him before we killed the boss.
2. kill about 3/4 of the vets, plus the squid, plus the silver mobs moving at the out edge, before engaging boss.
3. when we engaged the boss, we pulled about 8 vets, which we all killed before killing the boss at the famous pipe area (so its not location exclusive).
4. we OOCed before killing the rest of the mobs (1/2 of the original size; all vets, all in the left side of the room), after which we got the achieve.

Aliatis.7836:

brunobyof.3541:

Just saw a video of this acheevo:
Guys aggroed some of the mobs at the front row then some at the right side of the boss. When there were about 8-10 left, they aggroed everything and killed all but 1 grenadier, which was targeted not to be killed. When boss was down, they killed that grenadier and got the achievement! Nobody died but they were downed though. They didn’t disengage as well.
Hope this helps

My group used this very same strategy (coronaas’ one) in our third attempt. And with “same”, I mean same since I’ve followed the video. But we didn’t get the achievement.

I want to also point out that another video shows the group clearly disengaging from combat, before attacking the remaining aetherblades (but unlike coronaas’ they were still about 3/4’s their original size): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu4IFww7FsU

I’m not really convinced that going OOC before killing the remaining mobs is the cause for not getting achievement, despite what its description says.

Some people claim (including a fellow partymate I had as well) that they wiped (but not individually dying) or dced during the boss fight, but still getting the achievement afterwards.

From asking around to those who have already gotten the achievement, I’ve reached some kind of working “conditions” on the achievement:

1. individually dying causes failure if boss is killed EDIT: confirmed by dulfy herself that partial party deaths still gives the achievement

2. wiping or going in and out of the dungeon seems to “reset” the chance of getting the achievement again

3. given how wiping or reentering the dungeon doesn’t stop people from getting the achievement, not disengaging/OOCing from the boss is not a condition for getting the achievement, despite what its description says.

4. you do not need to be engaged with the “remaining” mobs before the boss dies.

I’ll hopefully test my conditions later and report whether or not they are true or false.

brunobyof.3541:

One thing you guys might be missing is that you CANNOT disengage. That means you cannot kill boss then disengage and then engage the remaining mobs.
I didn’t get it yet though, but i’m trying next time doing the following:
Kill 3 first rows, then aggro boss. When he is at somewhat 10% of his life, aggro 1 or 2 of his remaining crew, then kill boss without disengaging adds, then aggro the rest of them if they are not aggroed already and finally kill them all.

People cannot be dead when boss is down nor when u kill all mobs. Dont Get OOC also.

Thats my suggestion.

I don’t think that disengaging or engaging the remaining mobs seems to be the solution.

Another video showing the attainment of the achieve clearly shows them engaging some of the mobs (along with boss), killing all mobs that accompanied boss, killed the boss, disengaged, then killed the remaining mobs not aggroed (about 3/4 of them still):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu4IFww7FsU

To say the least, this achievement is perplexing… people report that you can wipe, not disengage, leave only one, etc… I wish we got SOME sort of official reply on the status of this achievement, or at least clearer instructions to how to get it; its description is just too vague.

So after 24 tries, I’ve managed to to get this extra Liadri achievement using a necro. I just want to share some tricks to other players if they choose to use a necro to accomplish this achievement.

1. Gear and Food
To start off, I initially used PTV gear + ds crit build to kill Liadri without the achievement. However, after awhile I realized that timing out was the biggest problem in not killing her via condition build. Some people have argued that throwing light orbs against her makes her more “vulnerable” to direct damage, but it seems insubstantial since it neither lasts long (to the point where it runs out after about 30s and doesn’t help tally how many orbs you’ve already thrown at her) nor does it seem to have that much of an effect against her (seems equal to 1 stack of vulnerability).

As such, I used Settler gear to remain alive while dealing substantial damage to the point where I had extra time (I ended the fight at exactly the time when the announcer says “not much time left,” which is still some time away from the end of the enrage timer given the extra workload of this achievement) when I finished the fight. Settler seemed to be the best from my experience because Healing Power and Toughness are actually far more useful than Vitality against Liadri; having a high HP pool is useless since you’ll most likely go down due to the pull orbs, and having your life getting cut down due to the down state renders the extra Vitality you placed useless. Keeping high Toughness and HP however makes sure you can recover after going down once or twice.

If Settler gear is out of your reach, try picking a stat combination with CD and two other defensive stats (healing, toughness, or vit if it comes to it). Avoid Valkyrie or Rampager stats since survival is far more important in this fight than dps if you’re running a CD build.

As for food, use Orrian truffle stew and tuning crystals to boost both endurance for dodge and CD.

2. Traits, Weapons and Skills
To summarize the traits used, it was basically a cond removal build with heavy CD boosting traits and signet mastery (see image for full allocation used).

Use staff, scepter/dagger for weapons, and run consume conditions, plague, spite, and locust signets for utility skills; you want as much cond removal for this achievement since the battle will drag longer than if you were just trying to kill her. For elite, use Take Root if you’re a sylvari. Otherwise, you might be stuck with Lich Form, which doesn’t really combine well with a condition build and doesn’t help in your survival once lich #5 skill is used up.

3. Tactics
-Rapidly strafe (press ADADADA quickly) during the first phase. Her AI during her first phase seems very similar to the grawl fractal boss, and this method seems to allow you to avoid her necrotic grasp attacks without actually dodging.

-Use ds to soak up direct damage. If you find yourself receiving a little too much damage in either phase due to Liadri’s non-one-shot attacks, feel free to use your ds like a sponge; the only skills you’ll be using form it are 3 and 5 anyway, and that doesn’t consume a lot of lifeforce/time in deathshroud anyway.

-Unload your conditions at the start of Phase 2. Be sure to give her hell at the start of Phase 2; throw in spite, staff 2 3 5, ds 3 5. doing so sends Liadri to about half-life easy, giving you enough time to actually run around and kite the visions instead of strafe hitting Liadri and risking yourself from getting hit from the aoe’s.

-Dodge her crippling attack, remove cripple. It’s essential that your fast enough to run away from the aoe, so make sure to use plague signet, consume cond, staff 4, or dagger 4 the moment you get the cripple and weakness duo she does when she melees you.

-Use scepter 2 to break pull orbs. despite its 900 range limit, it’s your best bet for breaking the pull orbs if you notice them. Marks tend to be unreliable at destroying the orbs since Liadri’s Visions need to be close by for the Marks to be able to hit the pull orbs while necrotic grasp is so utterly slow that you’ll get pulled first before it hits the orb.

-Kite and dodge carefully, care less for dps. Numerous times I ended up killing her accidentally even before finishing the 6th or 7th orb. As I said earlier, necro condition build have the advantage of having some extra time before the enrage timer ends, so use this advantage to run towards light orbs (rather than strafe-hitting towards an available light orb). The speed from running instead of strafing is key in avoiding her aoe without dodging, as well as getting the time needed for you to throw the light orb at her before either the visions or Liadri’s aoe get a chance at one-shoting you.

I hope this helps! Please point out/ask questions if I’ve left some important part of the achievement guide unmentioned in this post.

Just as a quick aside, but these exploding kraits don’t even make sense in terms of enemy background.

I’ve seen Risen Kraits summon these exploding buggers in there alive versions (they were normal krait Damoss’ I believe). It’s a minor thing the devs should consider (since they seem to put flavor and “entertainment” hand in hand at times) changing if they plan to rework the crazy burst of these explosions.

Yujin.1785:

I was wrong about him. He’s telling the truth about his fractal level. Doesn’t mean that I agree with the whole statement that the player base is the problem.

Nor does it prove that rising the fotm levels was made easier being an engineer; in fact, I know it would have been faster if he rose the fotm ranks using a war or guard based from my own experience in having alts which i switch out of to my main (a necro) in order to claim the dailies.

And again, it begs the question as to why the devs are playing around with engies in fotm and not wars or guards. Let me guess, purely coincidental preference, while using inappropriately the weak and totally crap flame and thumper turrets in fotm right?

Honestly, it’s tiring to constantly see L2P or victim blaming regarding class balance, especially when there’s so much mounting evidence pointing out that certain classes, especially the engineer and necro, are underpowered in most fields of the game (like pve dungeons).

We have a body of anectdotal evidence that people are unsatisfied with the group utility of these classes (both in game and groups formed in lfg), especially when entering harder dungeons of the game. Moreover, there is analysis which points out the illogical reasoning as to why these classes have worse traits, worse weapon skills than the heavies like warriors (e.g. compare the bleeding traits of the necro, engie and warrior), even though the warrior has superior hp and armor over the two just for the sake of the flavoring of the class (i.e. heavy armored dudes gotta be tougher).

Whats more, there’s at least some evidence of acceptance by the devs that engies are really bad in pve, considering I’ve partied about 3 weeks ago with a dev in a “lower” fractal (lvl 38; she did not join us for the higher lvls, probably because 99% trick is an exploit), where she was constantly testing worthless utilities of the engie such as the thumper turret (see attachment).

Ironically, most of us at that particular run were running our underdog classes just for the heck of it, even though I could have switched out to my warrior or whatnot to speed things up.

I forgot the get a screenshot as well, but I’ve seen a necro asuran dev running around spvp as well, testing the glitchy bull poop minions. However, thats unrelated to the pve weaknesses of these classes.