Guild Wars 2

OK here is my take.

I am one of the people that agree these boss fights are getting ridiculous and NOT FUN.

Now to those that completed it on the first try… YAY! go you. congrats. GG good job.

For those that, read this and are thinking I need to L2P. Go pet a kitten. I’ve been here since beta, I know how to play, I know how to dodge, and I can solo a fair amount of the champs with most of my chars. Granted it’s a lot of kiting, and running if I pick up an add. but I can do it.

Now some people would probably say well I’m not speced right, or not geared right. This is a personal story not a dungeon, not PvP, and NOT FotM. However I’ve speced, or armored as long as I have speced and wearing LVL gear should not matter for a personal story. Plain and simple. No more discussion.

Now if we are talking about the challenge nodes, sure gear and spec can be taken into account, after all it is CHALLENGE MODE, you’ve completed it and should have learned how.

But this thread IS NOT talking about challenge mode, it’s talking about Story mode.

Now I’m not saying these should not be difficult, but anything that causes someone to die more then 5 times in a personal story is a bit off for difficulty. I died 27 times yep I finished it naked. I didn’t rage quit, after the 3 death, because I dodge into what turned into the dragons AOE while I was in mid-air on my second dodge. I didn’t rage quit because the RNG hit me with 10 circles after being rooted by the leacher. Nor did I rage quit after being nocked off the platform to my death.

From what I saw this was intended to be a group fight, which would be fine if I was in a group. I wasn’t. I rarely group because, I have sporadic play schedule, play for limited times, and can be called away at anytime.

Personal Story events should always be designed for the solo player, yes even us “Bad” players, and scaled up for a group.

Heck I would even support, ANET adopting something that several of the Korean MMOs have which is a difficulty setting so those players that want it, can ramp up the instanced things like dungeons, and the like.

This way all these people that claim these instance events are way to easy, can have their INSANE mode, or whatever to make them happy, while leaving the general content alone for the casual, slow or “Bad” players.

And please for the Love of kittens everywhere, forget the idea that the wash rinse repeat thing is fun. It isn’t. Repeating get boss down %health, now get beat on by minions and dodge boss attacks, while waiting for boss to reset to the point where you can wail on it, it losing it’s appeal. 1 reset ok, 2 maybe, 6 that the bosses in this phase were is just a time sink, and not good game design.

It wasn’t too difficult and only died a few times. I was playing with my thief which tends to be pretty squishy. All my extra dodges were nice though!

As a Engineer, I find the fight easier with Turrets aiding you.

It is mostly due to the multiple enemies you have to fight while soloing the boss.

The turrets can help chip down the HP of those adds when you need time to move away from AoE or attack the boss while it is down.

I’m going to make a post that’s neither “it was way too hard.” nor “learnt o play newbs,” and just point out that while the fight was quite good, it could have been tightened up a bit.

I’m not sure if the mechanics of the fight had a time limited “burn phase” or whether it was designed so that the “burn phase” lasted only to a certain HP limit and then ended, but I had to go through about 5-6 total burn phases over the course of the fight. This, I feel, is too much, as by that point you know the mechanics and it’s just repetition and tedium. The Zelda games get it right, you want exactly three burn phases to a good boss fight, no less, because you want to test the player’s ability to learn the tactics, but no more, because if they can manage three then they’ve probably got it and beyond that you’re just wasting time. So just make it so that each phase ends when they get to 34% less HP than they had the last round.

This fight was pretty tricky when I first attempted it (died once, downed a bunch of times but managed to rally), but on my subsequent playthroughs, now that I knew what to expect it went a lot more smoothly.

The key thing seems to be whether or not you have a ranged weapon. Seriously, it’s SO much easier ranged than it is melee. You can position yourself in one of the more isolated corners of the chamber, and then slowly pick off the Tendrils and the Mordrem mobs one by one. Hustle over to the Dragon, burn him down to the next phase, repeat.

A quite fun, and during the first attempt even somewhat challenging fight. Rather repetitive, as I’d expect some more different phases towards the end, but still I had my fun and had the proper ‘final boss’ feeling.

I really enjoyed the visual impact of the boss, it was great to see this dragon back as it was one of my favourites from the start of the game and it felt like an utterly wasted dragon to just be in the initial introduction for character creation… So I am glad it is back.

The fight itself, I died a couple times, it wasn’t that I “didn’t know to dodge”, it is just unfortunate circumstances where I would be dodging one AOE and then 3 more would popup in the direction I was running and they hit me immediately, a series of events that would practically 1 shot me (The slimes were doing 5k a pop, so 3-4 of them I’d be dead). Then if you get too close to the vines they knock back and that stalls you for a couple seconds, meaning if AOE is shot at you when that happens, it is likely you will die.

I eventually noticed the pattern and it became easier, the problem I had is it was frustratingly, irritatingly repetitive. I got the head dragon to 50% when he repeated the cycle, then it felt like it was 30%…20%..10% 5%…2% when it kept repeating the cycle, by 5% I was annoyed to have to do all the same crap again and when he went back at 2% and I had to kill the 3 vines AGAIN!, I was not enjoying the fight one bit. It was tedious by then.

Overall, not a bad fight. I didn’t like that it was solo (no AI) (meant when I went down, I pretty much gave up n let myself die), though if friends was with me that would of solved that. I didn’t like the repetitive nature.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

but if i know that i am not good basketball player I dont go to world championship and I dont cry over it on forums that they should lower hoops to make it easier for me . I just realise that I can practice more to win or just understand it that it is not for me . Some people here think that if they bought game it means that they deserve everything what is inside , no it is not . Switch sport or dont expect reaching every reward , this thing is called life , sometimes it is brutal sorry

Analogy fails. It’s actually more like going to a super-mega-large gym built to appeal to all levels of skill and requesting that their hoops and courts are built accordingly.

I mean, if you think the living story quests are an analogy for the world championship, then LOL. They are more like a pick-up game or something. And quite frankly, if it was reversed and I was playing basketball instead of a video game, I’d probably be the guy with his head bent down in the corner in shame because I can’t play for kitten.

But you don’t want people to feel that way in a video game because people who feel that way don’t come back. That’s why you try not to put them in situations where they feel like a moron for not succeeding easily; which is not to say that you hand them victory, but you have to inspire them to desire to keep trying until they succeed and then make them feel like they’re an NBA all-star for pulling it off.

Tedious fights that look like the shell of a raid encounter gone wrong are not the way to go about it.

Evermore.5649:

I literally fail to understand how anyone could find this boss even remotely difficult. Let alone dying so many times that you run around naked.

BIG RED SHAPE UNDER YOU, telegraphed 2-3 seconds in advance. Don’t stand in it. Win.

Heck, the dragon barely has any hp either.

Unless you play with 2000ms and 5fps, I honestly don’t know how anyone could fail. If this makes me an “elitist” then so be it.
This boss fight is on the same difficulty level as crossing the street in real life. How are you people still alive?

Here’s my problem with it. I play Ele, and I’m not a dungeon crawler. I don’t have ascended armour (just trinkets from laurels), and frankly, I’m way off them. I just don’t get time to play much, and mostly what I’m doing at the moment is trying to play the story elements.

Do I expect to complete challenge mode at my level? Not really. That game mode? Pretty clearly not for me. Do I expect to cakewalk every boss in the PS? Again, nope. I get that it’s meant to be harder than roaming around the world.

My problem with the fight isn’t that I died, or that I got stuff wrong. It’s not even that I ended up running out in the buff. It’s the sheer frustration and boredom of a fight in which I can’t oneshot enemies, so spend a fair old time taking the tentacles down while dodging the boss attacks, only to get one-shotted myself and know that there’s no hope of reviving myself. So that’s more dead time while my downed bar ticks away, and then I’m gated on how much damage I can deal to the boss before it all starts again.

Is it super duper hard? Well, no. It’s a pattern which I need to get into the groove of. Is it fun? Also no. Because the challenge isn’t in me overcoming the mechanics. It’s in me pounding away at it six times over to stretch it out into something suitably lasting for a final fight. I would far rather the section where you have to rescue the dignitaries lasted longer, or that you had to attack the wings and disable it, or that heck, at least the enemies you faced in each cooldown period weren’t the same three vines, over and over. I’m dreading finishing it not because it’s hard, but because it’s boring. It drags out well past its welcome for “story mode”.

Tachenon.5270:

Evermore.5649:

I literally fail to understand how anyone could find this boss even remotely difficult. Let alone dying so many times that you run around naked.

BIG RED SHAPE UNDER YOU, telegraphed 2-3 seconds in advance. Don’t stand in it. Win.

Heck, the dragon barely has any hp either.

Unless you play with 2000ms and 5fps, I honestly don’t know how anyone could fail. If this makes me an “elitist” then so be it.
This boss fight is on the same difficulty level as crossing the street in real life. How are you people still alive?

I know, right! It’s like playing guitar – why is it so hard for some people to play the guitar solo in ‘Highway Star’ by Deep Purple? Or do the Travis picking/banjo roll stuff in ‘Never Going Back Again’ by Fleetwood Mac? It’s just moving your fingers around. Nothing to it! Easy as falling off a log. Come on, people! Step it up already.

And writing – I hear people all the time saying, “Oh, I wish I could write!” And I say to them, I say, "Well, gee, why don’t ya grab a pencil and some paper and have at it! " It’s not hard. Anybody can write! You just put words on a piece of paper! Voila! “It was the best of times, it was a dark and stormy night of the lepus!” See? I just wrote something. That’s all there is to it. Now where’s my big fat paycheck and 7-season multi-million dollar deal with HBO?

And that acting business – hah! “Oh, I would love to be an actor! But I just can’t act!” Bah! You’re just pretending to be somebody else. That’s something little kids and people at job interviews do all the time. Nothing to it. Anybody who says they can’t act – is acting! Because it’s that easy!

And ‘pro’ sports wannabes – don’t get me started. “Oh, if only I was good at basketball, baseball, football, soccer, golf, water polo, whatever…” Get real. There’s nothing to be ‘good’ at. It’s just people running around knocking balls of various shapes and sizes back and forth. Again, it’s something little kids do – little kids! – for fun!

Seriously! How do some people even manage to breathe? If I didn’t know better I’d think maybe some people are just not as good at some things as others, and for some reason some of those who are good at some things, like, oh, I don’t know, video games, like to crow about how good they are on video game forums in some inexplicable attempt at making others feel bad about themselves for not being as good.

Or something. Now excuse me while I go put my left foot in, take my left foot out, put my left foot in and shake it all about.

Well, you have completely missed the point and decided to wrap it in a sarcastic rant-trip, but that’s ok, it was a nice read.

Anyway, just to address your… errr… critique:

To be able to play a guitar to that high standard requires years of learning and an excellent muscle memory, plus a million genetic traits that simply make some people better at playing musical instruments. Talent, I think it’s called.

Creative writing, acting and being a professional sport player, again, require a unique mix of talent and years of training. No wonder if you want to do any of your four example fields at a ‘professional’ level, you have to devote your whole life to it.
You couldn’t have picked worse examples.

The general combat play system of Guild Wars 2 on the other hand is incredibly BINARY. It operates on a basic “IF-THEN” level, from the first moment of the game up till now. It’s a lot less complex than many other MMOs out there, and the essence of the game can be mastered in a matter of hours.

The entire game is about dodging / moving out of red circles. The. Whole. Game.
That, and strafing.

Now, since we’re talking about the Living Story, which is only available to lvl80 characters, one would assume that the players got to this point somehow. They managed to get to lvl80 AND managed to get this far in the LS.

So I ask again: what EXACTLY was the difficult part in the dragon boss fight? What caused some people to die so many times all their gear broke?
This boss has absolutely no added difficulty, it operates with the exact same gameplay rules as literally EVERYTHING ELSE up to this point.

I see some people in this thread complain about having to dodge too much, so classes with access to Vigor have it much easier.
I just want to point out that you don’t even need to dodge at all during the whole boss fight, unless you get unlucky once or twice and/or position yourself badly.
So maybe it’s due to people not understanding the fight in general? Regardless, it’s not the fight itself that’s difficult.

RashanDale.3609:

the only thing you really have to dodge is the glowing-ground-stomp and when youre targetted for that plant-cocoon-prison. everything else you can avoid just by running.

You do not have to dodge the glowing-ground , just jump.
And another dodge saved. ^^

Greetings.

My friend and I always do instances together. We also did the World Summit.

Both our main characters are staff elementalists. We did all the DR Pt. 2 achievements.
He has full berserker’s armor (don’t know what stats he has on his accessories or backpack) and I have 3 pieces of Berserkers and 3 pieces of Assassin’s armour. So technically we’re also very squishy. :P Also our weapons are berserker’s. And we did the Challenge Mode without dying even once. We got downed a couple of times, but that’s it. The only trouble I had was the Can’t Knock Me Down achievements where I just couldn’t always dodge (let alone jump) at the right time due to my having 9-11 FPS at most during the fight (even dodging Subject Alpha’s countless circles was easier to me). But, there’s a way around it by using blocking skills (I used Obsidian Flesh, Mist Form and Arcane Shield for that sole achievement, which means switching to Scepter/Dagger :P).

Also, what I’m saying isn’t that it’s so easy everyone should solo it with berserker’s gear. far from that, especially since skills differ from player to player, but not only that, the issue might also be computer lag, body reaction time and so on. What I’m saying is, that it should at least be more or less easily doable with two people. So you don’t have to search for a whole group even if you think you’re not skillful enough (like me).

So if anyone wants to give up because they just can’t manage to defeat the Dragon, don’t. Just try asking a friend to help you first, or try searching for one player first who would be willing enough to assist you. Don’t just give up. ^^

digiowl.9620:

And i would be fine with the FPSish pace, if the controls matched!

Give me Tera or Neverwinter style controls and i would be perfectly fine. Hell, dodging glowing sections of ground is what Neverwinter PVE consists off.

Bit having a mouse that operates independently of the camera for targeting reasons ends up for me at least to be very close to a test of patting my head and rubbing my stomach in the middle of a dodgeball match.

And that is why i had a spit take when Jon Peters outright stated that they didn’t go for a Neverwinter scheme because they felt it made the game too action focused. kitten it, it is already action focused! the moment dodge was made the primary survival method, it became Devil May Cry with a awkward control scheme!

It is very strange, isn’t _ it? (Had to put that underscore in to avoid the filter on normal words. Apparently “isnt” and “it” are too close together…)

In some ways, I feel like the dodge system in this game is like the pillar of its FPS-ness. In other MMOs I have played, there is no reactive “dodge” ability, so you are forced to rely on either moving your toon quickly (e.g. running) or just using your intellect to handle the right mechanics at the right time.

Which is really the draw of an MMO for me… the strategic planning and knowledge that helps you overcome the challenges set before you. FPS games are appealing to me in their own way, but I ultimately prefer MMOs because they have always been more about winning through strategy than winning through “athletic ability,” so to speak.

I just hope that MMOs using FPS-like mechanics is not going to become a trend that overwhelms the traditional version of the genre. I can get by without too many scars on watered-down MMO-style-FPS (I just have to put in some effort to pay attention), but I am mediocre at actual FPS games.

Stooperdale.3560:

“this fight (and every other boss fight so far this season) remains, IMO, unnecessarily tedious and repetitive. More a test of patience and endurance, in the end, than skill.”

It seems like you have reached a certain amount of wisdom without realizing that all computer games offer the same thing. Once you know when to press the buttons all you do is repetitively press them at the right times. Congratulations. If you want faster reflex skills you can try first person shooters. If you want more thought then play a strategy game. If you want unpredictability then play PvP.

Something clicked for me when you mentioned FPS. That’s what this GW2 combat is most like (that is, these boss fights – I’m not confident in saying that all GW2 combat is FPS-like). MMOs have traditionally been about strategic, turn-based combat (albeit at a faster pace than tabletop games) but the pace of these fights and the breadth of their mechanics makes the challenge less about intellect and more about reflexes.

Which is fine, depending on your preferences, but I can easily see how the traditional MMO crowd (particularly the ones who just “play for fun”) would get incredibly frustrated.

I have to chime in here and say my peace.

This fight isn’t so much difficult as once again, like Rytlock Ritual one, terribly annoying. Soooo over done with condi dmg, K.D’s, AoE’s that cover the entire room, giving u no time at all to recover and allow your skills and endurance to recharge. The camera plays awful in there as well, which only adds more annoyance to the whole encounter.

Dodge, Dodge, Dodge, until your eyes bleed. I came out of there feeling dizzy and with a king size headache from all the craziness. That was not fun, maybe some people thrive on insanity, but the sheer chaos of these fights is making me ill.

I realise this is dragon stuff and shouldn’t be “easy” but omg, i dread to think what the actual Modremoth encounter is gonna be like. Be prepared for ultimate insanity if it continues like this.

I don’t play games to drive me insane, I play games for fun and these fights are not fun for me and by the looks of it, not for many others.

What was especially annoying in this fight, was when u finally got a chance to hit the boss, you didn’t know where he’s gonna pop out and i often found myself on the opposite side of the room and was lucky to hit him once b4 he would vanish, resetting the whole cycle over again. Prolonging the fight in this way, until became so boring that i hated the thought of having to do it on my alts, isn’t a way to go.

IMO, a fight like this would be much more interesting and more enjoyable if a person is at least given bit of room to breathe and absorb what is going on. I would really like for the devs to ease up a bit on these mechanics or at least pace them out a bit better, instead of non-stop intense chaos a player has to deal with, especially in these solo instances.

Up until this final fight though, the rest was ok, although the bit in DR gets tedious after u do it a couple of times, it takes way too long.

But to be honest, for some time now, I’m becoming estranged with this game, where I feel that I don’t know it any more. I’ve been playing since head start and gw1 b4 that and this game is becoming an alien specimen to me as it progresses through it’s life. Not really sure how long I’m gonna stay interested if it continues along this path. I mean I love all the maps and the artwork, I like the combat system, the exploration and many other little things, which make me log on daily basis, but those things are becoming less and less of a draw now. I so desperately want to see gw2 play out, but the fight mechanics are becoming way too weird and crazy for my taste.

Some of you are being rude. Just because you can do it with ease, doesn’t mean everyone else can. Some players are also new to the game, due to GW2 being on sale a couple months back. They might have their traits locked behind the new trait system too, or bad gear. Some players are probably coming back to the game from a long break. Others might have ailments or disabilities. There are many reasons, but people shouldn’t dismiss other people’s complaints with “L2P”. That’s just being condescending.

Story content shouldn’t be a testbed for difficult encounters either. It should ease the players for more difficult content that happens afterwards, such as the achievements.

Randulf.7614:

It is interesting how MMO’s have moved on in general. In GW1, it was expected players would need to attempt story missions a few times to get through. They weren’t necs outright super hard, but some were pretty tough and required changing builds etc.

Nowadays, we expect to get through first go, and I include myself in this as well. I wonder what or when it changed. I’ve noticed the same trend in other MMO’s too.

It is kind of interesting because in single-player games, I’m totally cool with long and difficult boss fights (in fact, I kind of expect it because that’s all there is, is the single-player experience). But when it comes to story-mode single-player fights in an MMO, I just want to slack off and enjoy myself.

I think for me, it’s a difference in focus; in an MMO, there are numerous ways to get a challenge and many of them involve doing content alongside other players, so I expect the solo stuff to be stupid easy. But in a single-player game, boss fights are often the challenge, so I obviously want them to be difficult or else I’d quickly run out of game to play.

Draknar.5748:

For the OP who died 25 times, I have a feeling he/she didn’t change anything about their build, their skills, potions/food, etc. They went in with their normal every day build and kept dying, then re-trying, then dying again. After the 2nd or 3rd death I personally would have stopped and thought about how else I could approach the fight. If there are foods that would help, potions that might help, maybe some traits/utility skills that would be better in that fight.

Ah, power ups – a venerable tradition, reaching back through long decades of happy fun times to the very salad days of video gaming. Ingest this shroom – grow big! Drink this potion – breathe fire! Endless variation, endless fun. I’ve never been a fan, however, of Power Ups in an MMO. Here’s a dramatic presentation detailing the reasons:

NPC: You defeated that Terrible Monster!
PC: Nay, ’twas not I defeated the beast. ’Twas that most scrumptious blackberry cobbler I had for lunch!
Crowd of grateful NPCs (chanting): Cobbler! Cobbler! Cobbler!

**

NPC1: Never have I seen such courage! You defeated that Terrible Monster, single-handedly!
PC: Yesh, I did. Cuz I’m aweshome. And cur… crage… brave! Hey! That blue moa over there… is pink!
NPC2: I saw this hero drink a potion beforehand.
PC: Lol, wut.
NPC1: Here’s the bottle! Only half-empty! Hark! It has a label: Old Croak Red-Blue Blended Hylek Whiskey.
PC: Gimme dat! (drinks) Ah! Shmoooth. Got any more turrble monshters needsh shlayng… shla… killin?

**

NPC: Hey, hero! Gonna fight that Terrible Monster?
PC: Yes. Yes, I am.
NPC: You don’t seem very confident.
PC: Alas, I have not yet attained unto Gears of Ascension, and am therefore potentially at a disadvantage. Still, it must be done.
NPC: What if I told you I have some things here that will make you (glances around) better… stronger… faster. Eh?
PC: I don’t have 6 million gold.
NPC: L2TP. Anyway, it’s just a few harmless potions and food items. Here, you can have a taste – free!
PC: Well… okay. Oh. OH! I feel like I have TIGER BLOOD! Like I’m WINNING! Lemme at ’em! Ahhhrrr!

**

Nowhere was it more obvious than the ‘Inspirations’ in City of Heroes.

Hero: I can’t defeat this Villain! He’s hopped up on Purples and Reds!
NPC: You have no choice! You must take these Hero’s Little Helpers! Yellows and Blues, for accuracy and endurance! Here, take these Oranges, too! Now get out there and clobber that villain!
Hero: The colors… so strong… so pretty…

**

Picard: Metaphor!

**

Ahem.

Power ups (and platforming!) and hokey pokey boss fights – for an innovative modern day MMO like GW2, these things sure feel awfully… old. Odd, too, that they chose to embrace these particular video gaming conventions while turning away from more traditionally MMO-centric traditions as the so-called Holy Trinity (and – brace for it – mounts!). But I digress.

Back to the primary topic: with or without power ups, this fight (and every other boss fight so far this season) remains, IMO, unnecessarily tedious and repetitive. More a test of patience and endurance, in the end, than skill. Surely one verse of the hokey pokey should suffice – two, if they absolutely must – but why must we carry on and on and on and on repeating the same dance moves over and over and over and over? Does the repetitive repetition make it more fun? Does it make it more EPIC?

Well. Maybe so, for some among us. But for me, no.

I say they should do these things so that those who desire the utmost in MMO challenge can set the parameters of each boss fight to the utmost if they so desire, and spend days or even weeks dodging and dancing and redoing all the steps over and over bravely and epically to their heart’s content, while the rest of us can choose a simple straight up knock down drag out version of the fight without all the nanner nanner repeato gimmicks (and red circles) and thereby just get on with it.

TL;DR – if I want to do boring and repetitive chores, I’ll go mow the lawn. After having some pie. For more energy. For dodging whatever the neighbors and/or passersby have seen fit to toss into my yard, which, in the past, has included such things as broken horseshoes, cell phones, and dirty diapers.

It’s pretty much the same fight that they have used over and over again in the LS. Kill the junk that “Re-energizes” the “Boss”, do damage in the short time that “Boss” is vulnerable.

It’s more than a little tedious and repetitive. EZ to do if you are patient, but an enormous time sink for very little gain.

Hard to believe that anyone actually found this to be enjoyable.

I learned from the first three episode: be ranged. I spent the entire fight being glad I didn’t do the latest episode with my condi thief.

Lothrin.1285:

I’m with the OP here. I came out naked from the place twice.
Apparently, I’m just a bad player according the the elitists here. Dodging isn’t hard, having enough endurance to dodge every time it is needed is.

It’s really about saving your dodges until you absolutely need to use them. That in itself is part of the dodging skill. If you dodge every single time you see a red circle, you will run out of dodges. Sometimes you can actually just run/step out of the circles and save that dodge. Use a skill with a speed boost so you can run out of some of them, use a skill with a block or an invuln if you have them. Take a look at your other possibly less used utility skills, perhaps there are some that would aid you.

Also remember food. There are foods that boost your endurance regen by large amounts. It was almost a requirement for the Liadri fight.

It’s more of a problem-solving exercise than a dodging exercise quite honestly.

For the OP who died 25 times, I have a feeling he/she didn’t change anything about their build, their skills, potions/food, etc. They went in with their normal every day build and kept dying, then re-trying, then dying again. After the 2nd or 3rd death I personally would have stopped and thought about how else I could approach the fight. If there are foods that would help, potions that might help, maybe some traits/utility skills that would be better in that fight.

I see a lot of the usual ‘learn to play’ nonsense… and I’m sorry guys, but it IS nonsense.
So cool, you’ve played 3000 hours, have excellent gear and tried all possible combinations of traits etc. on your character and can switch builds without even thinking about it. I dare say a lot if not most players are not like that. And for those who are not like that, the fight can get VERY frustrating indeed.

My main is a ranged DPS ranger in full berserker ascended. I’ve player her over 1400 hours and I am completely and totally familiar with her abilities. She only died twice and can probably do better.

After doing the final mission on the ranger, I did the arc on my other 80s. They are all in exotics with decent runes etc. But I don’t play them nearly as much, they are at 200 or so hours each. Their builds are probably not optimal, but they’re not horrible either. The guardian and necromancer managed to solo it, with enough deaths to destroy (not damage, destroy) half their armor. The mesmer… just ouch. Gave up and asked for help. Still working on the warrior.

I’d say my non-mains are a fair approach to what a casual player or newer 80 enters the encounter with. And for many, it will be an excercise in frustration. Which is, if you think about it, a VERY bad thing. This is a personal story arc, content all players should be able to enjoy. In stead, it’s making people unhappy with the game (just repeating what I hear in my guild). And sure, you can group…. but seriously, if you want to actually read NPC responses and see the ones that are unique to your race, that’s not exactly optimal.

I realize that there are people who really want a challenge… but I don’t think this is the way to go about it. Not all players are created equal, and fun and challenging for one can be /ragequit for another.

The best system I’ve seen to date was City of Heroes (sadly gone now), where you could actually pick a difficulty level for instanced missions, and set (multiple) specific challenges, with more loot and cash as a reward.

Mathog.3157:

Eroiqua.5891:

That’s the first thing I thought as I read through the comments…how many of the elitists “l2p”-ers are on classes with access to vigor. Reminds me of the Mai Trin buff…“just block or reflect, noob”. Uh, yeah, I’m a Necro…

I’m a necro too, so what? You have Death Shroud. Make a good use of it.

Necro player here as well. I played a sceptre/War horn + Staff life siphon build that went mostly into spite for Close to Death and soul reaping for Near to Death. Scepter and Staff helped keep the pressure on while not having to deal with the knockback from the vines. Deathshroud when I wanted to just facetank dragon aoe. Lichform to burst down the dragon. Necros have a good number of tools to help them despite not having access to vigor or reflects. Heck, sometimes I just eat condition punches so I can lolnope™ them back to the vines. I personally don’t think the boss is too hard. I think if someone is having trouble with the boss, they should A) ask for help in the forums because plenty of people want to help, B ) Learn the fight yourself with practice and improve, or C) party up with someone else and see how much easier it is with support. If none of those seem like reasonable options, then by all means, ask to lower the difficulty. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to complain without exhausting your options first.

Well it WAS painfully tedious and boring.

My advice in this boss fight is dont go full zerker build.

I had the same problem as the OP until i realized im too squishy, quickly just switched to my wvw build, sure its way slower than using full berserker but it makes the boss really really easy to kill.

Just use any build that has a bit of defensive traits/gear/skills.

I was a bit surprised by this fight actually, particularly the floor. You might be able to jump but it isn’t ‘obvious’ by any stretch of the imagination. Only a handful of attacks in the game can be avoided by jumping and it wouldn’t come naturally to players who haven’t seen the molten fractals. I didn’t really understand what the graphics represented and couldn’t see any color changes mentioned by posters above as hints to timing.

This meant the floor required a timed jump which I think is fine for dungeon runners, who need to time dodges, but is isn’t ok for casuals who may do nothing other than play personal story and living story. The two second timing on most dodges isn’t hidden in the game but it’s not described anywhere either and to my mind it is an exact knowledge of game mechanics that casuals shouldn’t need to know (and from my experiences in CoE I’m guessing they don’t know).

For me personally the difficulty is fine but I can see why some people are having a lot of trouble. Players can always bring a friend along to help them though.

This was a real challenge! I died prob 15 times! Or even more, lol.
I was atleast naked (until I changed armor).
Loved this ending scene with all the world leaders!
Just hope that the Pale Tree wont die and hopefully she’ll survive this..

Lemuria.3195:

I died a LOT on this fight. The main issue is having to stop to cast spells (I was using staff on elementalist), so basically my attacks were restricted to the single fireball and lava pool, which has limited use since the vines love to move around.

I suggest using glyph of storms while in earth attunement. This will blind the baddies and allow you to do more long casts.

Lemuria.3195:

But crucially, the biggest problem comes from the adds. The dog is annoying enough since you’re already juggling with 3 vines firing red circles around you and a massive amount of AoE. You can run around to kite him, but you just run the risk of running into an AoE, or a vine.

Use lots of static fields, unsteady ground, and shockwave (as well as the previously mentioned glyph of storms) to keep them off you.

Lemuria.3195:

The worst however is that vine spouting flower beast. Fight up close, and you’re going to be pummeled to death by the three other vines, fight at range and it unleashes those deadly smaller vines which are nearly impossible to avoid, even if you burn all your dodges.

Yeah, the vine attack is lame because it ignores blind and forces you to dodge a lot. Best bet is to just constantly run around in circles when they’re up.

Lemuria.3195:

Still, all in all it was an interesting fight at least. It’s good to see they’re being creative. I dread doing this fight on my tanky guardian though. I have next to no DPS, and my ranged is very limited.

I did this on my cleric geared staff Ele with ease (never downed, never died). I killed the final boss after 4 rotations (have to make sure you’re in fire and with a meteor storm off cd when you kill the final vine).

Oh, I didnt know we could jump to dodge the “lava attack” o.o… I managed to do it with standards dodges without dying, but I guess being ranger kinda helps (range, access to many dodges and vigor, etc).

I died a LOT on this fight. The main issue is having to stop to cast spells (I was using staff on elementalist), so basically my attacks were restricted to the single fireball and lava pool, which has limited use since the vines love to move around.

I also didn’t realise you could jump to avoid the floor attack, so I always ended up using a dodge during that to evade it, which left me with less endurance for later dodges.

But crucially, the biggest problem comes from the adds. The dog is annoying enough since you’re already juggling with 3 vines firing red circles around you and a massive amount of AoE. You can run around to kite him, but you just run the risk of running into an AoE, or a vine.

The worst however is that vine spouting flower beast. Fight up close, and you’re going to be pummeled to death by the three other vines, fight at range and it unleashes those deadly smaller vines which are nearly impossible to avoid, even if you burn all your dodges.

But, crucially what annoyed me more was that the boss was only vulnerable for 5 seconds (I counted) between vines going down. So, unless I was standing at the right part of the area (close to where the dragon pops his head in) when the last vine died, I’d have to go back and slay all of them again.

Several times I was throwing up meteor storms on an invulnerable dragon. Infuriating.

Still, all in all it was an interesting fight at least. It’s good to see they’re being creative. I dread doing this fight on my tanky guardian though. I have next to no DPS, and my ranged is very limited.