Tangled Depths: What were they thinking?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
This is a story all about how…
the problem is that no matter what they release there will be a specific build and tons of guides showing you how to do the solo content with specific builds and it becomes trivial and meaningless to beat it
You can design solo/small group content that is challenging. I remember when WoW’s first xpac came out they introduced their first “heroic” mode 5-man dungeons and some of those were quite difficult until players started to out-gear the content via raiding 10/25-man content. We don’t have the gear issue here, though.
Tune it to be difficult enough and knowing the encounters isn’t enough. You need near-perfect execution to survive. That may not be a game everyone wants to play solo, though.
Tangled Depths: What were they thinking?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
As an example of the badness, I was trying to get to Ogre Camp to get the waypoint. I ended up in the waterway (not intentionally), and seeing a pool under the camp I figured I could just swim there. After swimming for 15 min, I got to a big pool under the camp. Loking for a way to the platform, I saw that it looked like I needed to jump along a series of crystals to the exit. Did that for another 5-10min. Then got the end and looked up to disver that I was in kitten with some tree branches leading up. Realizing that to even try to go up that would involve trying to walked along branches and make pixel precision jumps all the way up, something notorious for the “moves you so quickly to the side when you encounter a non-visible stop that you instantly fall off” issue, I left the map in disgust, having spent OVER HALF AN HOUR GETTING 0 LOOT TO GET TRAPPED IN A DEAD END. Not only is there a giant room that on the map screams “something is hear”, but the layout of the room continues to make you believe that something is there after you arrive for a significant period of time. That is just one example of the poor design that went into the map. A dead end should be obvious when you get there, not indicate by it’s design that if you just do X you will reach something that turns out to be another dead end.
Also, I am one of the people suffering from the random Code=7:11:3:191:101, which means my game will randomly decide to DC, then put me back at the start of the map when I reload, so the lack of WPs and navigability is a double insult to me. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Lost-connection/)
It’s just your unfamiliarity with the map. You can actually jump an updraft chain near the Order of Whispers camp waypoint, up into the great tree (this is the same way you access the nearby HP up high on the ledge) and literally glide right down into Ogre camp WP in a matter of seconds.
This is typical of TD. There are generally multiple paths to any particular point on the map. If it’s taking you more than a few minutes to get anywhere you probably aren’t taking the shortest route.
But that’s why it’s a true exploration challenge. The map is actually very well designed – provided you understand it! You can get around very quickly once you do.
I tried to contact you in game several weeks ago to ask if you’d like a hand navigating TD, but you didn’t respond. I assume you aren’t looking for help, but the offer stands. I’d be happy to show you around some time and explain some of the routes that might make your life easier.
Tangled Depths: What were they thinking?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
It’s your own mind-map that is important, the mini map is basically more or less useless in the beginning.
Tangled Depths is a true explorers map; Just get out there (with a friend) and wander and soon enough you’ll learn your way around. It’s a nice map to duo in, and is nice to have such a place.
I think Tangled Depths, more than any other map in the game, rewards effort.
That’s how I feel about it. I love the HoT maps, TD especially. The exploration challenge on this map was impressive.
You are and you aren’t (missing something). The HoT maps are a true exploration challenge. As others have said, the only way you’re going to learn your way around is by exploring. The maps are of limited use initially, and only become usable after you become at least somewhat familiar with the zone.
As for masteries, you really don’t need many of them for exploration. Jump mushrooms, gliding, updrafts, exalted markings, and Nuhoch wallows are all you really need to explore almost everything. And all of those cost 2 MPs or less.
A little advice:
Verdant Brink – Discover the routes into the canopy. Reaching objectives on the lower levels of the map is fairly straightforward, but the canopy objectives must be reached by one of a handful of paths (or during the boss meta via the choppers) and there is rarely a direct path. You will need updrafts and jump mushrooms to utilize these routes. Once you know these routes, the map becomes fairly simple to navigate.
AB – This one isn’t quite so complex as the others. The pathways around the map tend to be pretty straightforward. But you can’t use updrafts to get around as easily as you can in VB and there are gated areas and lots of tough enemies and group challenges.
TD – This map is a nightmare for many players as it’s by far the most complex. Updrafts are required to reach many objectives, but tend to be of fairly limited value in terms of getting around quickly. Wallows help the most on this map as they allow you to bypass the maze-like tunnels beneath and cut straight to where you want to go.
The map is almost completely useless in TD until you know your way around fairly well. Pay close attention to the up/down indicators as they will at least show you where you can transition from one level to another (ramps, stairs, caves, etc. are marked on the map). But try to have patience. Once you understand this map, you’ll realize that the maze hides a rather elegant design that is actually quite convenient to navigate (once you know how to get from one point to another!).
DS – This is another “group” map similar to AB. It isn’t terribly complex like TD, but there are powerful enemies everywhere and much of the map is gated behind large scale events. You can explore some of the map on your own if you’re decent at fighting, but it’s best to just join on for the event cycle on this map.
Hope it helps! If you’d like a hand with navigation, reaching HPs, etc. feel free to contact me in game. I’d be happy to run around the jungle with you and show you some tricks to getting around.
There is no half way to meet at.
So, if no compromise is possible, you are saying that people should argue to stop further Raid development and nerf current raids, instead of trying to find a solution that would leave Raiders with their content?
In case you missed it, that is exactly what some non-raiders on this forum want. They resent the fact that this content exists and that it wasn’t developed to their tastes. They want it gone.
Don’t try to make it seem like it’s the other side being unreasonable here. ANet introduced raids. Some players like them. Those players don’t need to “compromise” with anyone.
You go ahead and tell ANet what you want. So will the rest of us.
Can you link some threads were that is said?
I seen alot of people want a easier version with same rewards but taking longer time to aquire.
Say you cant get em as drops for example, but need to buy them for the raid currency that you get 25% of what normal raids give each week.
I’m not making an argument for or against these suggestions. I simply take issue with the implication (stated in plain words in the post I replied to) that players who enjoy raiding need to compromise with those who don’t. As if we’re guests in YOUR game? And you can’t tell me you haven’t seen that attitude expressed many times on this forum!
Perhaps what you ask for here is perfectly reasonable, but threatening raiders with “If you don’t support our position we’ll do whatever we can to see the content you enjoy removed from the game” is not. That’s all I was saying.
Personally, I have no problem with a story mode. But I was under the impression that the story will become available as part of future LS releases? If that’s true, I’m not sure there’s much to be gained from developing two versions of the same content just so that players who don’t want to raid can see the story…twice, apparently. But maybe that isn’t the case?
There is no half way to meet at.
So, if no compromise is possible, you are saying that people should argue to stop further Raid development and nerf current raids, instead of trying to find a solution that would leave Raiders with their content?
In case you missed it, that is exactly what some non-raiders on this forum want. They resent the fact that this content exists and that it wasn’t developed to their tastes. They want it gone.
Don’t try to make it seem like it’s the other side being unreasonable here. ANet introduced raids. Some players like them. Those players don’t need to “compromise” with anyone.
You go ahead and tell ANet what you want. So will the rest of us.
When I signed up for this game almost 6 months ago, I struggled to understand the concept of legendary weapons. Why would anyone put forth all that effort (not to mention the expense!) for a fancy skin? It doesn’t even offer a statistical advantage of any kind (My WoW-brain basically imploded when I heard this.)!
Fast-forward many many hours of GW2 play time and I’m getting close to completing my first legendary (Quip! See? It even matters enough to have a name!). Why would I put myself through this?
Well, it turns out that I met some good people here to go along with some pretty solid gameplay. At that point I found that I actually wanted a reason to continue spending time here. That is simultaneously why I get frustrated with the content drought, why I craft legendaries, and also, I think, why some people have a hard time leaving these games when they no longer enjoy them.
Of course I have the option of not playing if I can’t find a reason to play (i.e. lack of content). But I wouldn’t say that I don’t enjoy the game. I just find myself unmotivated to play it without a meaningful (to me) objective, if you see the distinction.
That’s what I was missing when I first encountered the concept of legendary weapons. The quest for a legendary weapon isn’t just about the skin or the bragging rights. It provides the motivation to play the game.
A game can be great, but if it doesn’t offer something new and of interest to you, sooner or later it becomes a good game that you no longer play.
Do you really blame people for sticking around to complain about a game like that? It’s a shame, you know. Great game. Just wish I wanted to play it. If legendary crafting is anything, it’s a lengthy goal to pursue that fills that “motivation gap” nicely for players who are otherwise inclined to enjoy GW2. So it was for me, and I doubt this will be my last legendary.
I know this has been said a million times, but I’d like to see sigils/runes become salvage items.
What I meant that usually you get oneshotted by the veteran or higher zappers or whatever they are called and even worse when they’re accompanied by sentrys (little flies that make you take more damage and you cant kill them).
The veterans are not one-shotting you. The only ones that one-shot you are the champions and I believe the only one that can really do it is the champion version of the chak lobber when he does the attack where he rears back and smashes the ground, causing visible cracks. Just don’t be standing there!
Depends on the vet though. There are times when I wade into a drop of Chak with my 12k ele, pop OL, and imploded in less than a second. then look at the damage log and see something like ‘you hit yourself for 13k of lightning damage’… Lol…
I believe the shield provides retaliation against melee attacks while reflecting projectiles. Very dangerous for glass builds using ranged attacks, but you take far less damage from the retaliation if you swap to melee.
Also, I believe the shield is an area effect. I was fighting those 2 elite chak in the SCAR event cycle again last night. I dropped back to range because my heal was on CD, swapped to pistols, and fired off unload just as the blitzer’s model overlapped the shield and sure enough! It reflected it even though I wasn’t firing at the shielded target. So watch out for that as well.
They may not one-shot you, but you can still one-shot yourself! Or I guess for my thief it would be 8-shot from unload! LoL
wouldn’t be so bad except cc’ing them doesn’t work much of the time. I run a guard that has 2 big cc’s and a LB 5 skill that only works on 20% of bars it seems. still cant take down the sentrys without wasting 2 mins waiting for cc’s to recharge to use them again. Ive adjusted my tactics around it, but its still annoying as kitten to be sittin there idle waiting on CD’s to take out a target that’s not even hurting me…
You mean the little wasp-like creatures that shoot the blue lasers, making the chak immune to damage? Yeah, those guys are pretty obnoxious. I think it would be better if they just died to the first application of CC. They would still get in the way quite nicely without forcing you to walk away from so many fights.
That one hero challenge place of power in Tangled Depths where you had to swim through a tunnel under Rata Novus and climb some rocks into a secret lab. Seriously on the map it shows that it’s in some Chak Tunnels… I spent hours running around those tunnels before I had to youtube it and was like “wtf? How am I supposed to find that without youtubing it?”. Stuff like that really annoys me.
It’s all a matter of perspective. Now that you know where it is, it’s an easy HP to grab. That’s how TD is. It’s difficult to learn, but once you do it’s actually the most convenient map to navigate in the game.
That’s why I love it! It’s intricate, but even more than it first appears because underneath that convoluted surface is an elegant design that once you understand it allows you to get around quickly.
What I meant that usually you get oneshotted by the veteran or higher zappers or whatever they are called and even worse when they’re accompanied by sentrys (little flies that make you take more damage and you cant kill them).
You’re exaggerating. I play a thief with 13k health. A little while I ago I solo’d the two elite chak (one lobber, one zapper) in the SCAR camp event cycle in TD at the same time and had them both die at the same time, so I was fighting them both the entire time. You better believe I was stretching my health bar and utilizing my heals and evasion to do it!
The veterans are not one-shotting you. The only ones that one-shot you are the champions and I believe the only one that can really do it is the champion version of the chak lobber when he does the attack where he rears back and smashes the ground, causing visible cracks. Just don’t be standing there!
You just need to know what you’re doing. For instance, those big chak zappers will put up their shield and literally just sit there for the most part if you leave them alone. So if you’re under pressure from other targets, just use the time while the shield is up to clear the area. Keep an eye out for the odd zap attack which should be easy to spot from outside of the shield.
It’s the lobber that’s dangerous, because it has a couple of knockdowns and it never stops attacking you like the zapper does. So what I do is focus the zapper, forcing it to shield up. Then I focus the lobber, switching back to the zapper the moment the shield drops. The most dangerous point is when they’re both actively trying to kill you, because glass thief may not get one-shot, but two-shot is a distinct possibility when fighting two elites!
As long as you aren’t repeatedly eating their attacks, or getting caught with a stun inside some blue goo while your stun break is on cooldown, the damage should be manageable. It all comes down to knowing the mechanics and reacting accordingly.
I don’t think it ruined it. I definitely think it took 20 steps backwards, and has turned GW2 into a cookie cutter MMO right up there with SWTOR and WoW. It is of course better than those two games by a country mile, but that’s largely down to the remnant content for the base game. HoT adds lots to the mix, but most of it is lacklustre and often precipitates a feeling of “I’ve done this before, many, many times”. It certainly isn’t the quality I would expect of a studio that gave us one of the most acclaimed games of all time in Guild Wars, and it most certainly does not follow the mission statement given at the start of GW2s development.
The nature of the game changed dramatically with HoT, and now it’s all about farming and grinding. I don’t really feel like I have time to do anything else, any of the fun meandering I used to do when there was no pressure to perform. As much as people say “you don’t have to raid” or “you don’t have to do fractals”, Colin turned the end-game into a linear progression affair and added the stick to the carrot where there was no stick before. I don’t have to raid, but I’m made to feel like I should aim for it. I don’t have to do fractals, but I sort of do have to do them if I want to take part in any of the more meaningful content such as raiding. “Raiding is only for the elite players”; given the original statements, I thought GW2 specifically tried to avoid elitism by gating content behind farming and grinding? I thought the impetus was to deliver a game that offered a huge set of rides without any height restrictions? That’s what it was when it first came out. That’s what it isn’t now. Everything that ANet purported to being against when GW2 first came out has been implemented in one way, shape or form by HoT. That’s on him partly, and I can see why the got rid of him… erm… sorry… why he left of his own volition. That’s also on Mike, however, and the rest of the team, and they really need to sit down and ask themselves how they bring the game back to its original, unique vision for the MMO space.
HoT feels more like a swansong for the “old” style of MMOs I specifically came to GW2 to avoid. I hope they learn from their mistakes going forward. I think, personally, that Ascended gear and raided is the biggest insult to the original mission statement of the game right now, not because it exists but because it is gated so heavily by grinding, farming and hideous timelocks. Either add more content variety on the Ascended path – to dispossess it for it’s grindy nature – or shorten the time it takes to get Ascended gear. Also, the unreasonable demands placed on players by AP dictates is stupid as well. ANet has their work cut out for them. It’s not just about living world, Mike.
One thing I would say is that there’s always been a cynical edge to GW2, where I’ve often felt like ANet are specifically trying to get me to stay in game, are specifically implementing things like timelocks and other such unreasonable mechanics, just so I’ll stay in game/log on more often, increasing the chance I’ll buy things on the store. To ANet, I’ll make it abundantly clear now: I will buy stuff because I want to buy stuff, and the time gating, the constant attempts to monopolise my time will only result in me leaving the game. It’s really that simple for most people.
Maybe it is that simple for most people. I know that’s what people who dislike HoT tend to say, that GW2 was made for them and some of the changes brought by the expansion are a step away from that vision. They don’t seem to want to spend time with the new content.
For me, it’s the opposite. I want to spend a lot of time in the game. I love the HoT maps and events most of all, although raids are fun, too. Still, I’m the type of player that needs a goal to strive for. It’s sort of a distraction. While I enjoy the content, I still need a reason to be there. For now, crafting my first legendary is keeping me busy running around my favorite map (TD), completing events and farming materials.
It sounds like that’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t interest you. The time requirements are more of a barrier to further play than a goal that keeps you interested. I see this a lot. There are at least two types of players in that sense, and HoT did a good job catering to the side that wasn’t satisfied with the core game. The April patch then did a better job of bringing that content to the mainstream.
Here’s to striking a better balance moving forward! I can appreciate your position, but pre-HoT GW2 probably wouldn’t have interested me. In a perfect world, GW2 would provide content for both of us. So that’s what I hope to see in the time ahead.
I’m a fairly new player, and I have zero experience of what GW2 was like before HoT dropped. That might be why my opinion of HoT is very, very high.
I’ll echo what others have already said: HoT events (I’ve only run Silverwastes, VB, and Auric Basin events so far) actually work extremely well with a small number of coordinated people who know their characters and have some situational awareness. The few times I’ve had anything less than a full T4 VB clear were actually due to a huge zerg pack uselessly following a mentor tag around, instead of reaching all the right outposts.
As for the vertical layering of the maps, I love it (said no one ever, right?). A big part of this is the game I abandoned in favor of GW2. That game – it pains me to even mention its name, so great is my disappointment – was built on an alpha version of the Hero Engine. Suffice it to say that said engine cannot even handle underwater environments. So being able to literally feel lost in a jungle makes a ton of sense to me, and it’s light years away from the game I left. A “jungle” there consists of a fairly thinly wooded map, all one layer, with just some hills and pathing obstacles here and there.
Overall, I feel like ANet’s team puts a ton more craftsmanship into map design than the few other games I’ve run. The cities actually look like places where people actually live and work, rather than being a laggy repository for a few useful vendors. The vendor NPCs at forward bases actually come under attack instead of being oddly invincible from enemies 5 feet away, and players meaningfully participate in the taking and defense of outposts from the enemy. I have yet to even hear of anything so dynamic and involving anywhere else.
Again, I’m pretty new to all this. I just wanted to put in my 2 cents, as someone who came to GW2 from another (and in my experience far inferior) mmo environment. Core game & HoT are pretty awesome to me.
I also lack the pre-HoT perspective and came over from that other game. My experience has been exactly the same. HoT map design is incredible! I consider it a big step up from the earlier map design in this game and in that other game as well.
Players may be more likely to purchase both skins and transmutation charges if instead of allowing you to select a different skin, the transmutation charge unlocked the skin in the wardrobe. In other words, the system works more or less the same as it does now, but once you use a transmutation charge on a skin, you can swap back to that skin at will (on that character).
My line of thought is that this would encourage players to purchase more skins as they are able to freely swap between them. However, as a result they would require more transmutation charges to unlock more skins.
The question is whether these factors would balance out and result in equal or greater revenue. I can only guess at the nature of the transmutation charge market.
If the lion’s share consists of casual (once every now and then) purchases based on the perception of a poor value to cost ratio (e.g. players kittenpond to the cost of transmutation charges by engaging in the market only rarely), then I would expect such players to purchase more skins and more transmutation charges.
However, if the transmutation charge market is driven primarily by a smaller group of players who use and purchase transmutation charges frequently, then it may result in a loss of revenue as these players would be less likely to purchase more skins than they already do and would purchase fewer transmutation charges.
For me it’s a toss-up between Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths. I enjoy both maps for their complexity, event cycle, and it’s fun to farm and collect loot in these zones as they just seem to be splitting at the seams with it.
I also enjoy Auric Basin, but I don’t enjoy the event cycle or the boss meta as much as in the other two.
Dragon’s Stand just isn’t my cup of tea. The massive zerg is exhausting and I think I prefer spending more of my time in smaller groups as I typically do through most of the event cycle in the other maps.
Core Tyria is beautiful and there’s plenty to enjoy about it, but I have a strong preference for the HoT style maps.
You seem to be pushing a more passive/reactive defensive model. I’m not sure that’s a good fit here. Certainly for my thief, survival is based almost entirely upon active avoidance. I suppose I could go tankier, but that really isn’t why I play thief.
I’m going to give this suggestion a thumbs down. Offensive stats are favored because this is an action MMO. A large part of your defense is active by design, which reduces the efficacy of passive defenses while tending to favor quicker kills to reduce damage taken.
I’ll second Vayne’s advice. I don’t recall ever seeing a dialogue indicating that you can interact with the updrafts, but I tried this event 4 times before I tried using the interact keybind. That seemed to work flawlessly. The fight itself was rather lengthy, but seemed easy enough if I could get past the stupid updraft part!
I’d just like to say that HoT was a £30 expansion for the game, most DLC of this price point would add the following:
- more than 5 hours of content
- added features that aren’t walled behind 20+ hours of grindHoT added neither. The story is a lost cause, and would take far too much work and money for ANet to fix, but the hero points would be one tweak of one number to fix the problem and stop gating the content behind unreasonably hard to solo content, which no-one who has done it before will join a group to complete, because there’s no incentive to. This would be solved if one of the following were true:
- there would be enough hero points in central Tyria to complete the elite specialization for a character
or
-the hero challenges in Heart of Thorns areas would be possible for most players to do without a groupEDIT: Grammar
You can complete more than 20 HPs in HoT without ever having to ask for help, join a group, or solo a champion. That should be just about what you need to complete your elite spec.
Depending upon your skill level, you can complete a lot of the champion hero challenges solo as well.
Also, I dispute your comments on players not helping with hero challenges. First, there has been an obvious resurgence in interest in HoT since the April patch. There are tons of established players new to HoT buying the expansion when they wouldn’t at launch. There are also tons of players like myself who go out of their way to help.
Seriously! I actually zone into VB and TD quite frequently to ask if anyone needs help with hero challenges. I also make the offer on the forums quite often and have seen several others who do so as well. And when I’m in VB, I often hear calls for help and see other players respond.
It’s far from the ghost town you’re making it out to be.
First, I would listen to the zerk crowd on here, but only as a reference. These folks tend to speak from experiences, and those tend to move in groups where zerk defensive woes are negated. Yes, you can solo HoT content in full zerk, but is 3-4 seconds less of killing time worth the countless times of being downed? I solo’ed every class through HoT, each one on Zerk/scholar. Some of them were painful, then i swapped out a couple of pieces of zerk for other stats/runes on some of them (like ele) and my enjoyment skyrocketed.
That being said, as a reaper (my main), you should be able to go full zerk with scholar as its a bit more forgiving on a reaper. But don’t be afraid to swap out a few pieces if it helps (you can always swap the zerk pieces back in when you become more comfortable). I usually run around with full zerk/scholar, with blood (2-3-1), spite (1-1-2) and reaper (2-3-3). utilties are rise (for extra toughness/aggro), SoS, and Well of Suff (fleshy for elite, mainly for break bars). What’s nice about this build is, you can hot-swap out Spite for Death (1-1-1) and solo any champ if you need the extra toughness. The death swap is also useful if you run into situations where condi removal is needed, as the minions remove condis with a hit.
I switch utils and weapons out depending on what i’m fighting, my preference is to drop ‘rise’ for WoC. Generally run around with dagger/WH and GS, although when solo champs i sometimes drop GS for staff if i need to kite/make distance.
Biggest thing for reaper when soloing champs: break the breakbar asap and keep it broken on champs. Fleshy, wh 4, DS 3-5, staff 5, etc. as a reaper, a champ should not ever have a full breakbar…
Not exactly. I think what you’re overlooking is the fact that dead enemies deal no damage and no enemy deals damage at a consistent rate. In particular if you don’t match your cooldowns to your specific needs, you may inadvertently decrease your chances of survival by swapping out damage for survival stats.
For example, maybe you find an enemy tricky because it has some sort of nasty stun attack that frequently ends up getting you killed. So you add a stun break to your bar (Good idea!). But if your stun break has a 30 second cooldown and the attack you’re trying to avoid has a 15 second cooldown, you may be in for some trouble if you can’t finish the enemy off in time!
Also, consider that you don’t always fight enemies one at a time. Each enemy you take down leads to faster/easier kills against the remaining enemies and less damage mitigated. You’re forced to avoid/block fewer attacks with each enemy removed from the fight, which translates into more damage and quicker kills on remaining targets and less opportunity for things to go wrong.
I’m not saying that berserker gear is a survivability upgrade for all players and classes. But I don’t think it’s as simple as stacking toughness and vitality. I think it’s true to some extent for any player: the best defense is a strong offense!
The question is: How does one solo HoT?
And the answer is: Overall . . . you can’t. It’s not hard. In some cases, it’s impossible. But, by all means, please post a video showing you soling the assault on Tarir or taking on all three towers in Dragon Stand to solo the Mouth of Mordy.
Otherwise, please take that ’It’s hard only because you think it’s hard’ nonsense somewhere else. Heart of Thorns is built on the concept of massive zergs working together to accomplish certain tasks in all four zones. To tell anyone it’s not hard to solo is not only misleading, but an outright lie.
As I said before, some content can be done solo. But, with the laxing of the population, some content will be much harder or impossible.
Nova asked for our honest opinions and observations. He didn’t ask for a rah, rah, rah with pom-poms. Your opinions may differ, but I keep in mind I have facts to back mine up.
No, you’re not soloing some of the content in Heart of Thorns without the zerg.
No one is.
No. You’re taking a far too literal interpretation of what other players are saying.
When someone asks how to “solo” HoT, I imagine most players read: “How can I zone into the HoT maps on my own and make progress on objectives without getting killed constantly?”
That seems to be the question myself and others are answering here, not “How can I solo the assault on Tarir?” So, can I solo most of the HPs including champions? Yes, I can. Can I solo most of the events (outside of DS, which is really the only map that is a full on zerg!)? Yes, I can. And can I navigate the HoT world freely without feeling like I’m running for my life? Also a yes.
By that definition, I consider HoT a great place for solo players. And I think the expectation that the entire event cycle from start to finish should be solo content is ridiculous. Nobody expects that! So what are we even talking about now?
I hated them at first. But nothing fuels my hatred as much as the Mushrooms. By far the deadliest mobs in all of Heart of Thorns. At least if you pull more than 2 of them.
Definitely the mushrooms. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve died to a couple of these chain knocking me off a cliff.
Always have a reliable stun break on your bar in the jungle! And when it comes to mushrooms, remember that most of their mechanics are significantly easier to avoid from range.
You’re playing reaper, right? I don’t have the most experience with the class, but here’s my advice:
- Use “Rise!” for -50% damage taken and as a decoy to distract enemies.
- Use reaper shroud to escape when the going gets rough or to avoid damage when your heal is on cooldown.
- Even if you player reaper with greatsword, carry a ranged set and learn when to use it.
Don’t be afraid to take on group challenges. If you can hang in there for a bit, usually other players will happen along and lend a hand. Or you can just hit “Rise!”, shroud up, and walk away if things are going downhill and no help is evident.
Unfortunately, beyond that I think it comes down to learning the finer points, which takes practice you say you don’t have the time to put in. There’s really not any good way around that. The jungle enemies are designed to punish you if you don’t pay attention and counter their moves. Until you know what they can do, their attack pattern, and how to counter it, you’re going to have a tough time.
So, have patience. You aren’t alone. When I first started out in the jungle I was completely unprepared and ended up dying repeatedly just on my way to the next WP. Now I play on my glass thief and absolutely dominate all the things that used to force me to run away (or die!). It’s really a dramatic shift and I think you can get there, too!
If you’d like assistance some time, feel free to contact me in game. I’m always glad to lend a hand in the jungle and we might be able to figure out some strategies that will make your life easier.
Purchased HoT, but can't upgrade [resolved]
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
Update:
Thanks again for the advice. I’m sure it would have worked. But it turns out that while I was at work today, GW2 support went ahead and set up HoT on the specified account for me. Nice!
The confusion came about because I purchased HoT, then clicked the link provided. I didn’t see where it indicated that if I were upgrading an existing account I would need to log in and go to the “My account” link to do so. I figured “Oh, here’s a link to register my purchase…” So maybe there’s an opportunity to make that process a little more clear at the point of sale?
Anyway, thanks again to the GW2 community and GW2 tech support for a painless resolution on this issue. Idiot-proofing it for me was a nice touch I didn’t expect! LoL
Purchased HoT, but can't upgrade [resolved]
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
Thanks, guys! I’ll take a look and see if I can’t get that to work. I figured there was something obvious I was missing.
Purchased HoT, but can't upgrade [resolved]
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
I ran into an issue last night. I purchased the HoT upgrade from buy.guildwars2.com, clicked the registration link, filled in the blanks for the account I wanted to upgrade, and it kicked back a message indicating “We were unable to register an account using the information provided. Please check your information and try again.”
I copy/pasted the serial code and it had the correct number of characters. What other circumstances would cause this issue?
I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong. I also tried the “redeem code” button in the gem store, but that didn’t work either. What can I do to get what I paid for here? This is pretty frustrating.
I hated them at first. But nothing fuels my hatred as much as the Mushrooms. By far the deadliest mobs in all of Heart of Thorns. At least if you pull more than 2 of them.
I actually kind of like pocket raptors now. I almost feel guilty when I vault and one shot them all.
The sharpshooter mordrem and shadowleaper frogs are also quite annoying. I think there has probably been more deaths to sharpshooter ground lazer of doom than to any other mob in this expansion. (Outside of raid bosses.)
Try p/p. Pistol 3 makes short work of mushrooms from a safe distance. Most of the non-veterans take just a single burst before they go down and you never have to get anywhere near them.
I must be doing it wrong. My thief only has about 13k health and I have no issues. I thought I was supposed to die instantly? I’m below the 16k threshold!
There are probably some finer points to fighting these guys that you are missing. For instance, you claim that it’s nearly impossible to see the electricity attack from veteran chak zappers when it’s really a pretty obvious tell. They raise their tail and it begins to glow with lightning just before the attack fires. Watch for it and it’s very easy to dodge/block.
Also, be aware that you can remove their reflect shield by breaking their bar with CC. And they don’t actually do very much attacking while the shield is up, so you could take that time to clear out any additional enemies present.
While GW2 is different from other MMOs, I find the common thread between them is that they require secondary objectives to add replay value to the content they offer. In WoW, it was the gear treadmill. We don’t have a gear treadmill here, but legendary items serve a similar purpose. They give players a goal to work toward that requires a significant amount of time and participation in game content.
In my opinion, GW2 needs to put more thought into providing these types of objectives, but instead they seem to be moving away from that in favor of providing more content. More content is great! Don’t get me wrong. But if we don’t have these secondary objectives to go along with it, we’ll likely find ourselves asking “What’s next?” within weeks of the next release.
Legendaries are great, too. I’m working toward my first one now, and so far it’s done a great job of giving me a reason to log in. But I can’t imagine these are attractive to everyone. I suppose others go for easier collections and achievements? But ultimately I think GW2 needs to come up with more and different incentives that provide the same sort of motivation to log in and play.
I think any MMO is worth the price if you put time into it. GW2 is a smaller game than WoW and their expansion doesn’t add up in terms of sheer volume of content. However, the graphics here are superior, the combat system is more action-oriented, and there is no monthly subscription.
As far as the expansion content goes, you gain new trait lines for every class, a new class, raids, and four maps like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
I am struggling because I have found that each Mastery XP bar fills at an agonizingly slow pace, even with things like Celebration Booster being active on my toon. Even when I try out a world boss or an event chain for a Daily, the XP I earn barely puts a notch into it. Therefore, I am wondering what things I could do to fill it up faster (this is in regards to both HoT and core Tyria Masteries). I am only Mastery level 5, and I do still have the rest of the Living World story in HoT to continue (recently finished the Verdant Brink part).
Note: I don’t have the time, especially on week days to do lots of dungeons, I haven’t explored the next 3-4 HoT maps, so I can’t yet engage in events there, and I really loathe PvP and WvW. Guess I am wondering how far up in Mastery level the HoT story would take me, if I was to do just that (though then there are story-important Masteries that are locked until I can get the XP for them).
Thanks!
You may want to check out the “adventures” in HoT. These are minigames that I personally dislike, but getting gold in an adventure is worth 2 mastery points and a boatload of experience. If you end up liking them, you can make significant progress toward your masteries just going around and completing adventures.
Or, you know, dodge. Which is a defensive tool everyone has access to, and is exactly why they gave those abilities to the HoT maps cooldows which roughly align with the amount of time required to recharge enough endurance to dodge again.
If you’re taking half of your Hp from a smokescale, you either weren’t paying attention and aggro’d it while fighting something else, you are just plain wasting your best defensive tool for non-defensive reasons, or you’re deliberately pulling more mobs than your build is designed to handle solo.
I don’t entirely agree. With HoT in general, there’s some lazy and overpowered mob designs. Not to say that dodge isn’t effective, but when it takes roughly 10 seconds to get a dodge back, and their autoattacks are every 3 seconds, you’d best finish that fight in 8 seconds, or you’re going to get slapped.
With the specific case of smokescales, even dodging does not prevent the damage, because the skill lasts longer than the duration of a dodge. So you either eat some of the damage, or you blow your available dodges preventing it. They’re not the only critter to do something like that, either.
Which is where Toughness/Vitality and defense skills come into play, of course. Blocks, positioning, Aegis and whatnot can mitigate anticipated damage. HoT was designed to shake up the full-zerk meta, and it certainly does that. If your skills are top notch, you can keep full damage specs and still come out with just a few scratches. Everyone else is going to have to deal with a few dings and actually using their healing skills more often. (Now if only ANet could make healing power worth it…)
Again, you think you understand smokescale mechanics but you don’t and that’s why you’re having trouble. Their damaging attack only deals damage at very close range. They will teleport to you more than once, but your options are not limited to dodging. You can block it. You can CC them. The only thing you can’t do is stand there and eat the damage.
On my thief I can dodge. I can block and counter with bandit’s defense. I can CC with impact strike and more. But I can’t stand there, soak the damage, and expect to survive. You see?
Edit: Sorry, think I mixed up two people in this thread. I see you’re advocating different tactics, not pointing out how impossible they are to counter. My mistake!
(edited by AliamRationem.5172)
Stop trying to narrowly define “casual” to support your own agenda. I don’t know how casual I am, but I would identify my guild’s approach to raiding as casual:
Once per week, if enough players show up. Comp is volunteer-based. If nobody wants to perform a critical role and we don’t think it’s worth making the attempt, we skip raiding for that week. Nobody trash-talks anybody. Nobody takes it seriously. We’ve downed only one boss, but anyone is welcome to go and raid with another guild if they’d like to progress more quickly. It’s no big deal.
How is that not casual raiding by your own definition?
that’s the problem with your approach. You can come in and not get past the first boss over 9 months. How many guys that come with you actually come back? I know that guilds are less important now that you have the ability to chat with all of the ones that you’re in at once, but how many people actually spend time with you guys, instead of with the guilds that can actually clear content? Or even better, how many of those that cleared the first boss with you went somewhere else to actually learn it and came back to carry the rest of the team?
With no set team all I can call it is goofing around.
I didn’t say we don’t have a set raid team. It’s mostly the same people every week. For instance, I raid most weeks. But sometimes I show up and the group is full. No big deal. I’ll raid next week. Or I can raid with another guild. Last night we were short a couple of people, so we didn’t raid.
I also didn’t say we’d been working on it for 9 months (I’ve only even played this game for 4 months now!). It’s only been a few weeks since our first VG kill and we’re getting close on gorseval and starting to branch out into the other wings.
You can define for yourself what you’re willing to put up with. Personally, I don’t think it’s a very “casual” approach to expect to clear raids quickly and easily. I don’t mind taking my time. And it seems to me all of the complaints regarding elitism are easily solved by forming a group that isn’t full of elitists.
You know what, I’ll go agree to the idea that maybe from time to time there is this bunch of casual friends, guildies, whatever, that get together, maybe drink a bit and think they are gonna be all star raiders for the night, it’s this fun little dream for them, and they go in and fail miserably at it, but they had their laughs, they had a good time, and might some day try that again, All good!
Here is a heads up, That is not enjoying challenging content, that is called “Goofing Around” because they are not in fact doing anything to raise up to the challenge of the content, master it, and overcome it, Which is exactly what makes them casuals to begin with.
Stop trying to make Casuals out to be something they are not.
Stop trying to narrowly define “casual” to support your own agenda. I don’t know how casual I am, but I would identify my guild’s approach to raiding as casual:
Once per week, if enough players show up. Comp is volunteer-based. If nobody wants to perform a critical role and we don’t think it’s worth making the attempt, we skip raiding for that week. Nobody trash-talks anybody. Nobody takes it seriously. We’ve downed only one boss, but anyone is welcome to go and raid with another guild if they’d like to progress more quickly. It’s no big deal.
How is that not casual raiding by your own definition?
You just did what I said a Casual would do, you approach content in a non-serious manner, with no intent or drive to master or overcome it. That is what goofing around with raids is, you’re playing with it, as opposed to playing it.
But again, casual is not a “Guild” thing, it’s an individual thing. It’s how an individual approaches the game, and their personal mindset. You could have the most Chillax guild out there, and have still have members that are super hardcore, among the ranks.
Also, Just because the Raid Schedule, and attitude for that guild run is marketed as "Not Serious’ does not mean that the people showing up are not hardcore players, some of them could be very hardcore, very driven to have optimal builds, and be the best they can be at this game.
You see there is a massive difference between Hardcore and Elitist. Hardcore players can be very sociable even easy going as far as dealing with other people go, in fact a Hardcore player could be chill with your casual guild run, because they enjoy the social moment of hanging with you all, I’ve done that more then I care to admit. I used to be very hardcore, but, I still had my social friends, many of which did not share my drive to overcome the game, and I’d down shift when I played with them, teach them a trick or two, and realize that this was just for goofing around, but my build was top tier optimal, and had already spent a lot of time mastering the moves to the encounter, and I already had a real raid night lined up, in fact, I was not expecting to ever win with my casual friends. It was just the way it was, in fact, often enough, I’d feel bad if we won, because it would mean I was going to be on timer for my real raid night, and then I needed to buy bypasses from the store, or play an alt. Which was why I always had two healers, LOL.
Anyway. Look, not sure what your goal is with this. So, gonna stop.
We are not “goofing around” or doing first-timer runs on drinking nights. We raided <1 night per week, ~2 hours per session for several weeks to master VG and we now beat him every time we raid. We’re getting close to beating Gorseval and we’re working on the new wing as well. We progress slowly because we don’t raid often and we aren’t pushing it.
However you wish define us, we’re hardly “hardcore” and we enjoy the new raids. We don’t consider them beyond our ability to master and we’re willing to take our time. I’d say it’s a success as far as casual raiding goes.
Its not necessarily melee unfriendly, its unfriendly to some classes due to game play design. I play melee rev, sword and staff. I have little to no problems and can solo majority of hero points. GL doing the same with thief. Its even easier on ranger, and not due to range, but due to having a large pool punching bag that mobs keep attacking and you can switch every 15 secs.
Generally classes with high sustain ability do well in HoT. Classes that do not, do not do well in HoT.
But thief does have high sustain. Daredevil has the ability to disengage at will, avoiding all damage in the process. Run invigorating precision in the crit strikes line and go glass. You will heal far more with this trait than any dedicated healing skill we have available. If your heal is on cooldown and you take a damage spike, disengage by dodging away with unhindered combat. If you stay on the move, you should be able to avoid damage indefinitely against most enemies – even champions. Re-engage at melee range when you have your heal ready to cover you in case you make a mistake.
The rest comes down to timing and dealing properly with the mechanics. The better job you do with this, the less often you will have to disengage, the faster enemies will die, and the fewer opportunities for you to make a mistake.
Once you get it down, berserker daredevil can be extremely fast, powerful, and difficult to kill in open world HoT. That includes soloing hero point champions like the arrowhead, mushroom king, chak, and vinetooth in AB or event chains with legendary bosses like Jaka Itzel and Faren’s Flyer in VB.
My problem in HOT is the unavoidable attacks. For example when you engage onto a smokescale, it goes untargetable and teles to you, taking off half your health. Nothing you can do, be you melee or ranged, to avoid this. The Ogotl are similar in that they can go invis and hit you for large chunks of health while still invis and thus you can’t really avoid it. Your only hope against them is blocks or reflects, which makes it required to have at least one of those slotted in HOT maps even if they aren’t normally a part of your rotation.
Or, you know, dodge. Which is a defensive tool everyone has access to, and is exactly why they gave those abilities to the HoT maps cooldows which roughly align with the amount of time required to recharge enough endurance to dodge again.
If you’re taking half of your Hp from a smokescale, you either weren’t paying attention and aggro’d it while fighting something else, you are just plain wasting your best defensive tool for non-defensive reasons, or you’re deliberately pulling more mobs than your build is designed to handle solo.
To be fair, there are events where multiple smokescales appear, and they can aggro onto the same target courtesy of ANet aggro mechanics, which seem to be either not or at least poorly understood by most players. The proper thing to do as a player when that happens is to ask what one did to get so much hate.
What I believe to be the source of so much HoT hate from players results from a perfect storm which seems to happen way to often.
- Most of the events seem to be designed for multiple players. There’s nothing wrong with this, as long as there are multiple players.
- Megaserver was designed with the intent that there would be a much greater likelihood there would be multiple players.
- Players following the path of least resistance tend to stack certain maps, leaving other copies short on players, essentially subverting the intent of megaserver design.
- A lot of players just engage with content when they see it. They have the expectation, fostered by core, that this is a viable approach. In HoT, the skill threshold to get away with this is higher (much higher if mob numbers are great enough).
All of which results in situations where players can get overwhelmed by mob numbers. I see it every time I go into HoT unless I take advantage of the taxi workaround.
That seems a much more honest appraisal of the issue. While I personally enjoy the combat in HoT and have progressed immensely to the point where things I once thought impossible (like effortlessly taking down a veteran smokescale along with a pack of pocket raptors on my glass thief when either enemy by itself would have destroyed me my first day in the jungle!) are now routine, I realize that not everyone has my level of patience and the learning curve is what it is for the individual.
The good news is that the April patch appears to have addressed some of the concern, as evidenced (anecdotally) by a strong showing of returning players learning their way around the jungle and a decidedly more positive shift in the attitude regarding HoT on the forums. Whether or not they ultimately like what they return to is a question that remains to be answered.
I’m hoping so, as HoT is exactly the sort of open world content I’m interested in and I’m enjoying the raids as well. I hope they can make further tweaks to systems such as the megaserver and maps to aid players in navigation and completing objectives.
You know what, I’ll go agree to the idea that maybe from time to time there is this bunch of casual friends, guildies, whatever, that get together, maybe drink a bit and think they are gonna be all star raiders for the night, it’s this fun little dream for them, and they go in and fail miserably at it, but they had their laughs, they had a good time, and might some day try that again, All good!
Here is a heads up, That is not enjoying challenging content, that is called “Goofing Around” because they are not in fact doing anything to raise up to the challenge of the content, master it, and overcome it, Which is exactly what makes them casuals to begin with.
Stop trying to make Casuals out to be something they are not.
Stop trying to narrowly define “casual” to support your own agenda. I don’t know how casual I am, but I would identify my guild’s approach to raiding as casual:
Once per week, if enough players show up. Comp is volunteer-based. If nobody wants to perform a critical role and we don’t think it’s worth making the attempt, we skip raiding for that week. Nobody trash-talks anybody. Nobody takes it seriously. We’ve downed only one boss, but anyone is welcome to go and raid with another guild if they’d like to progress more quickly. It’s no big deal.
How is that not casual raiding by your own definition?
Ok, I guess there’s too many posts now that no one bothers read any replies so just ignore this thread. I know I’m not going to repeat myself over and over again when you can’t be bothered to read.
I do map completion on every class. People been complaing about thief forever.
The reality is if mob is easy, just pistol whip them. If mob is hard just stealth through them. Hero point and big events don’t really matter because you can’t solo them anyway. And weather you hit hit for low damage or high don’t matter anyway because you get credit either way.
Here’s the issue with your suggestion: Even if someone is playing a Thief, maybe they don’t prefer the pistol nor stealth. I for one find the pistol in any combination to be clunky and I’ve never used it. I also tend to dislike using stealth, as I am really bored with that thief cliche. I use the weapons and skills that I like, and would rather not be told “no, you must have these specific weapon combos and these specific skills in order to simply survive this map”. That then defeats the purpose of the “play how you want” mantra of GW2. And this is me speaking as a pure PvE’r, no experience in PvP or WvW at all (no interest in them).
Except that isn’t true. Having access to only a melee weapon set is an unnecessary handicap, but it isn’t impossible. You’ll likely die to things that a more versatile playstyle can roll over without issue. That’s all.
Nobody is saying you must use a specific weapon set. I’ve done well on my daredevil with d/p, p/p, and staff. I know most thieves prefer to run shortbow, and s/p is about as similar to d/p as a weapon set can get, so I’m sure that works, too. I’ve even heard of d/d condi builds doing well in open world HoT. So I think everything works.
Traits are the same way. I personally find it difficult to give up daredevil, but I could certainly adjust my other trait lines. I typically run DD/CS/DA, but DD/Tr/DA is good, too. And I know some thieves that run open world using DD with acro.
So do it your way. Like everyone else, you will probably have to make some adjustments you wouldn’t have had to make outside of HoT. So what? That doesn’t mean you’re locked into a specific build.
I think when my Thief does eventually hit 80, I may use Staff and Shortbow. Hopefully it will be viable for HoT. Don’t know much about Daredevil Staff, but it sure is an interesting idea for my toon. Using D/D for PvE so far, though, since it works well enough for exploration and Personal Story stuff.
Oh don’t worry. Staff is more than viable. All of your attacks hit 3-5 targets and hit HARD! You have access to weakness, blind, limited projectile reflect, as well as a 600 range gap closer with partial evade coverage that also hits like a truck against 5 targets. Pair it with a ranged weapon (I use p/p) and you’ll be a killing machine in open world HoT!
My problem in HOT is the unavoidable attacks. For example when you engage onto a smokescale, it goes untargetable and teles to you, taking off half your health. Nothing you can do, be you melee or ranged, to avoid this. The Ogotl are similar in that they can go invis and hit you for large chunks of health while still invis and thus you can’t really avoid it. Your only hope against them is blocks or reflects, which makes it required to have at least one of those slotted in HOT maps even if they aren’t normally a part of your rotation.
Your difficulties are due to misunderstanding the way the mechanics work.
The smokescale teleport attack doesn’t work the way you think it does. It is not instant damage, but a series of rapid hits that occur only at very close range. The proper response to anticipate the move and block/evade most of the damage. The moment the smokescale teleports to you, dodge away. It will teleport again. Dodge away. After a few seconds the assault will end.
The smokescale’s next move is to drop a red circle on the ground. Attacks will miss while the smokescale is inside the circle (Note: Attacks will also miss when the smokescale is just outside the circle, too!). The move is to get out of the circle and force the smokescale to follow.
Smokescales have very low health. Once you’ve countered their moves you can take them down almost instantly (in fact, if you have a move that reliably hits for 10K plus you can just 1-shot them right off the bat).
For the stealth frogs, until you have the mastery unlocked you can’t see them. However, you can observe what they do when they reveal themselves.
One attack is an arrow volley, which you’ve seen unstealthed frogs and mordrem snipers use. They remain stationary and slowly rotate toward their target. Once they lock on, they fire in that direction a moment later. If you continuously move, the arrows will either miss or you may take one or two hits on the edge of the cone if you happen to be fairly close by.
The other attack is the close range stun, followed by insta-jib. They have to get into melee range to hit you with this attack, but their movement speed is slower in stealth. Stay moving and they won’t be able to catch you.
Once they reveal themselves, the frogs are much like the smokescales. They have low health and you should be able to take them down quickly.
Many enemies in the jungle work this way. You need to understand the mechanics, the timing, the animations. Once you get that down these guys are fodder.
Smokescales fall into the general issue with HOT which is that yes, you can dodge a bit, but the number of dodges needed to actually negate the incoming damage/status effects is greater than even the daredevil has available. If the attacks are dodgeable but you need 5 dodges to actually avoid the attack cycle, then the attacks are effectively undodgeable and all you are doing is a bit of mitigation. Even throwing in extra dodges from weapons and skills, it’s too much. And that’s ignoring the tendency of some of the enemies to which this applies to come in packs or to be near enough to each other that you tend to accidentally aggro the next one while dodging the attacks of the first or to take so long to deal with one that the one you already killed respawns behind you and instantly aggros (looking at you again Ogotl).
I agree. I really wish that dodging could be tweaked, because only two dodges until stamina replenishes is completely unrealistic in a lot of situations, especially for classes that don’t have as many dodging skills as others. It makes me laugh a bit when people suggest “Hey, just dodge, noob”, when it boils down to the question of “Yeah, but how am I supposed to dodge that often?”.
You have other abilities besides dodge. Take a look at your available utilities. I play a daredevil, so dodging comes easy. But even with endless dodging, adding bandit’s defense (stun break + block) to my bar was a real life-saver for me. All classes have multiple ways to avoid damage as well as replenish health. Dig through your toolkit. The answer is there.
Ok, I guess there’s too many posts now that no one bothers read any replies so just ignore this thread. I know I’m not going to repeat myself over and over again when you can’t be bothered to read.
I do map completion on every class. People been complaing about thief forever.
The reality is if mob is easy, just pistol whip them. If mob is hard just stealth through them. Hero point and big events don’t really matter because you can’t solo them anyway. And weather you hit hit for low damage or high don’t matter anyway because you get credit either way.
Here’s the issue with your suggestion: Even if someone is playing a Thief, maybe they don’t prefer the pistol nor stealth. I for one find the pistol in any combination to be clunky and I’ve never used it. I also tend to dislike using stealth, as I am really bored with that thief cliche. I use the weapons and skills that I like, and would rather not be told “no, you must have these specific weapon combos and these specific skills in order to simply survive this map”. That then defeats the purpose of the “play how you want” mantra of GW2. And this is me speaking as a pure PvE’r, no experience in PvP or WvW at all (no interest in them).
Except that isn’t true. Having access to only a melee weapon set is an unnecessary handicap, but it isn’t impossible. You’ll likely die to things that a more versatile playstyle can roll over without issue. That’s all.
Nobody is saying you must use a specific weapon set. I’ve done well on my daredevil with d/p, p/p, and staff. I know most thieves prefer to run shortbow, and s/p is about as similar to d/p as a weapon set can get, so I’m sure that works, too. I’ve even heard of d/d condi builds doing well in open world HoT. So I think everything works.
Traits are the same way. I personally find it difficult to give up daredevil, but I could certainly adjust my other trait lines. I typically run DD/CS/DA, but DD/Tr/DA is good, too. And I know some thieves that run open world using DD with acro.
So do it your way. Like everyone else, you will probably have to make some adjustments you wouldn’t have had to make outside of HoT. So what? That doesn’t mean you’re locked into a specific build.
I agree with everything the OP says.
I also think that Anet isn’t blind – and, like the OP states, the future is looking hopeful.
This game has changed in the last six months – and not in a positive way. Some people love raiding – and that is good. But they have let that passion overshadow some problems – from a big picture perspective – that raiding brought to the game.
Are those problems insurmountable? Of course not. Are they new or unique to GW2? Of course not. Anet will adapt. I personally believe that will come in the form of variable difficulty raids/rewards, but they may come up with some more creative solution.
What a lot of people need to realize is that, just because you don’t see this issue in game, doesn’t mean it isn’t there for many others. There are going to have to be some compromises – plain and simple. Accept that and help – through civil discourse and trying to be a part of the conversation rather than continually trying to shut the conversation down (the “this is the way it is. live with it” approach).
It is not elitist to require a person being invited to a group with 9 other players to understand the encounters and make some adjustment to their build to fulfill a specific role.
I don’t condone being nasty to other players due to poor performance in a game. But I think it’s ridiculous that a person who refuses to take the time to start from scratch and practice the encounters and/or refuses to gear/trait appropriately for the content can demand to be carried along by other players who have done these things.
It’s an unreasonable demand and when you don’t get what you want, you label others “elitist” for being annoyed with you. Again, I’m not saying they’re justified. If it were me, I’d politely explain to you that this group has practiced the encounter for some time, that we have a spot open and we’re happy to bring along an inexperienced player, but we need you to fulfill certain requirements on various bosses. You’re unlikely to find that opportunity, however, and imposing upon others is likely to elicit a negative response from players less charitable than myself.
Again, just form your own beginner’s raid group. Set agreed upon rules to dictate the style of play. In other words, if some players who express interest consider themselves to be of a higher skill level than the group and are unlikely to tolerate extended periods of failure in the learning phase of each boss, they might be better off in another group. That isn’t you being “elitist”. It’s ensuring a good fit for the benefit of all involved.
Like I said before, the way my guild does it we leave group comp up to volunteers. Maybe we need condi. Anyone got a condi build they want to bring along? Need a chronomancer? Okay, who has a mesmer? Nobody is forced to play anything they don’t want to play. We just don’t raid that week or go after a different boss that we can meet the requirements for. Better luck next week. No big deal.
That’s my group. You can make your group whatever you want it to be. Just start getting some players of like mind together and get started.
If I remember correctly, there was a great outcry from a portion of the community, who felt “forced” to melee Everything so I think HoT was actually designed to give greater balance such that the risk/reward ratio for melee and ranged would be more balanced.
So… I Think the OP is on to something here, and the answer would be that it was a very vocal set of players who convinced Anet that it was indeed a good idea to shift the balance a Little in favor of ranged.
That said, it’s still not that hard to melee most of HoT, including but not limited to Mama Vywern. D/D thief (not even Daredevil, and not even zerk) works great on mama!
Mission accomplished, I think. In the core game I basically went 100% melee. In HoT I enjoy weapon swapping and using the right tool for the job. Many enemies, champions in particular, I’m swapping in and out throughout the encounter as needed. I think it’s great, personally. I’m still able to play primarily melee, but I’m so much more versatile for actually having need of a ranged set in combat.
My problem in HOT is the unavoidable attacks. For example when you engage onto a smokescale, it goes untargetable and teles to you, taking off half your health. Nothing you can do, be you melee or ranged, to avoid this. The Ogotl are similar in that they can go invis and hit you for large chunks of health while still invis and thus you can’t really avoid it. Your only hope against them is blocks or reflects, which makes it required to have at least one of those slotted in HOT maps even if they aren’t normally a part of your rotation.
Your difficulties are due to misunderstanding the way the mechanics work.
The smokescale teleport attack doesn’t work the way you think it does. It is not instant damage, but a series of rapid hits that occur only at very close range. The proper response to anticipate the move and block/evade most of the damage. The moment the smokescale teleports to you, dodge away. It will teleport again. Dodge away. After a few seconds the assault will end.
The smokescale’s next move is to drop a red circle on the ground. Attacks will miss while the smokescale is inside the circle (Note: Attacks will also miss when the smokescale is just outside the circle, too!). The move is to get out of the circle and force the smokescale to follow.
Smokescales have very low health. Once you’ve countered their moves you can take them down almost instantly (in fact, if you have a move that reliably hits for 10K plus you can just 1-shot them right off the bat).
For the stealth frogs, until you have the mastery unlocked you can’t see them. However, you can observe what they do when they reveal themselves.
One attack is an arrow volley, which you’ve seen unstealthed frogs and mordrem snipers use. They remain stationary and slowly rotate toward their target. Once they lock on, they fire in that direction a moment later. If you continuously move, the arrows will either miss or you may take one or two hits on the edge of the cone if you happen to be fairly close by.
The other attack is the close range stun, followed by insta-jib. They have to get into melee range to hit you with this attack, but their movement speed is slower in stealth. Stay moving and they won’t be able to catch you.
Once they reveal themselves, the frogs are much like the smokescales. They have low health and you should be able to take them down quickly.
Many enemies in the jungle work this way. You need to understand the mechanics, the timing, the animations. Once you get that down these guys are fodder.
maybe what he refer to is the need to get a group to be able to do the new content like meta event and raiding. sometime it is harder to get people depending on the time zone. some people at the time they play there is not enough people to do big group things. in game some people told me that they add a hard time doing some stuff in hot in the time zone they play there is not enough people to do those things. sometime it takes them 3 week or a month to finally get enough people to do it. that is the problem with meta event or game content that require lots of people. and yes what he said is true that the game said that you could do stuff on your own and participate with out the need to join a party in questing or pve content.
also some for the raids will not take every one they want specific build gears etc… so there is two side to the story. that could also be view as egoistical. what is the more egoistical not wanting to be force to join a group that force you to play the game like they want you to? or not taking people in your party because of your own preference or specific(gear, weapon, build, traits etc..) ? that was also happening in dungeon and in fractal before so it is not something new. people make division out of their own choice. and they think it will help them achieve their goal or that their way is the only way or the best way. if you never got kick in dungeon or in fractal. because some people are impatient they all died and you are the last one trying to finish the end boss and they kick you out with out saying a word. and you ask them what happen and they say to you, you waste our time we do not have all day to wait for you to kill the boss. when they have all die. example: fractal thermanova reactor end boss.
that is probably the kind of problem that makes him not like to have content to force him to be in group to achieve the content.
playing in group can be very fun but some other time not fun at all when some people enforce their rule on other by acting bad and doing stuff to other that they would not like being done to them self.
You are not forced to participate in raid content, nor are you forced to participate in groups that would exclude you. It’s unreasonable to expect a group of experienced players to carry you along.
You claim to be the majority. So find other players of like mind – players who want to raid, but feel there is a barrier to getting started – and start your own raid from scratch. You can learn as you go. Nobody will judge you. You simply have to have the patience to take it at whatever pace your group is capable of.
My guild has only completed 1 boss so far. We raid once per week if enough people show up. Our raiders volunteer to cover required roles. Nobody is ever forced to play a role they don’t wish to play. If we can’t get the right comp, we just don’t raid that week. No big deal.
If that doesn’t sound enjoyable, then go do something else. That’s certainly not a new concept in GW2.
Ok so the answer to “content is pretty badly designed for melee characters” is “Use ranged, faceroll with a group or abuse terrain so they can’t reach you at all”.
You people crack me up. Do you not realize that such “advice” only proves my point? I can switch to my shortbow and solo every enemy given enough time, however, I shouldn’t HAVE to. Why have melee in the game at all if that’s the only way to do things?
Anyway, I got my answer so I’ll just play my Necromancer instead and pick my nose while playing.
You aren’t playing a “melee” class. You’re playing a GW2 class. ALL GW2 classes are both melee and ranged. That’s why you are able to swap weapons in combat. The design isn’t the problem. Your expectations are.
Daredevil dominates in the jungle. It is among the most powerful and most straightforward playstyles out there for open world. You’re just trying to force a “melee only” playstyle on the class. I know because I did exactly the same thing and found it a distinctly frustrating experience.
I gather that you’re an experienced player and you know what you’re doing, but this just sounds so familiar to my initial experience that I had to comment. If you’d like, I’m always down to run around the jungle. Maybe we can compare playstyles or something. I leave it up to you. Feel free to contact me in game if you like.
I’ll have to take your word for it that LFR saved WoW raiding. As I said, I absolutely hated LFR and I was not alone in that.
I’m not a “hardcore” raider, but I used to be. I can only imagine what raid leaders in WoW have to put up with as far as turnover rates since LFR. It was always the death of guilds: burnout. Now by the time players begin progression raiding, they’ve already completed all of the bosses multiple times on easier modes. Hitting the wall at that point is a motivation killer.
But I suppose if you never intended to engage in challenging raids, it wouldn’t bother you to stop at the lower tiers. So perhaps it makes sense from your perspective. Like I said, I enjoy the current raid tier even while my guild is progressing very slowly. But I seriously doubt I would bother with it if I had already run through it on several tiers of easy mode.
You also provide no answer to my points regarding resource allocation (more raid tiers = more resources locked up in raids) and elitism. LFR didn’t address those problems, but made them worse. Of course, resource allocation isn’t a huge issue over in WoW. Blizzard has plenty to go around. But here it’s a different story. I think what we’d up with is a solution that makes everyone miserable. But I could be wrong.
Bringing raids into the game changed the community and how people interact with one another – and not for the better.
A lot of people are waiting to see what they do next – whether they continue to develop content that divides the population or they get back to the inclusion and community that made this the best MMO – and among the best video games – ever.
For many, the direction they go with future raid design will determine whether or not this is the right game for the communities they have built. I know that sounds alarmist – and that is on purpose. The further down the road of us and them (or “hardcore and casual” or “raider and non raider”) they go, the worse this will get.
The exclusionary nature of raids has split the PVE community – and many guilds – in ways that simply are not good for the long term enjoyment of this game (or at least the game many of us bought 4 years ago).
I’m not saying the game will die – just that it is no longer being developed for the same audience that made the game a success – and that is sad.
There’s no exclusion going on in my guild. If you want to raid, you can raid. We aren’t progressing quickly (only VG down so far!), but nobody cares. If we have enough people who want to raid, then that’s what we do. Casual raiding at its best. Find yourself a casual guild that raids. Problem solved.
If you have no interest in raids and simply can’t abide development toward areas of the game that don’t interest you, then please remember that this isn’t YOUR game. It’s OUR game. And a lot of us appreciate the addition of raids.
Having said that, I think we could be on the same side here. Ultimately, what I’d like to see is development toward areas of the game I personally have interest in, as well as areas that aren’t my cup of tea. Why? Because this game would be pretty lonely if I had to play it by myself!
This “us vs. them” mentality gets us nowhere.
I think we probably are on the same side here. I think raids can be an ongoing part of the game – but they need to be developed with a broader audience in mind. No other successful MMO incorporates raiding with such a limited scope. They understand that a range of difficulties or entry points is needed to properly give PVE players the raiding experience.
I also think you may have taken the “us vs them” comment incorrectly. What I’m saying is that we – both in the game and on these forums – are already seeing this happen. Just look at this very thread. You have someone – just a few posts before yours – saying that players looking for a casual experience should “play a different game.” That is the “us vs them” attitude and atmosphere that raiding in its current form has brought to GW2.
Compare that to the atmosphere in the months after the game’s launch – and for most of the game’s life, and I don’t think you can say that raiding – in its current form – has been good for the game.
I’m not sure I agree. Not because I can only tolerate gameplay suited to my particular tastes, but because I’ve seen other MMOs ruin raiding with multiple difficulty levels (WoW).
Creating additional difficulty tiers will not cure these issues, but intensify them. Rewards will still be locked behind higher tiers of difficulty and friction over skill/experience/gear requirements will still exist along with the perception of elitism. This would also exacerbate the issue of raid development vs. development in other areas, as creating additional difficulty tiers will greatly increase development resource requirements for raids.
Raid content for all sounds great, but what you end up with is a system where all players want the rewards, but are now forced to grind through multiple tiers of the same raid rather than just the one tier.
I suppose if there were some way to prevent that, I could get on board. But I think it was an absolute disaster over in WoW.
Edit: To put it another way: What’s worse than progression raiding? Progression raiding after you’ve already beaten all the bosses on easy mode!
(edited by AliamRationem.5172)