Count me in the crowd that loves GW2 graphics – especially those HoT maps! I just wish I could play it at better than 20 fps on lowest settings! But that’ll be my problem if and when a GW3 comes around! Go ahead and make it beautiful!
I run d/p primarily, but p/p for ranged backup. I agree with the others who say that p/p can’t feasibly be used as a primary weapon set. I’ll elaborate on that to say that the problem with p/p starts with a weak, single-target auto-attack. This forces you to produce damage by expending initiative (unlike staff, dagger, or sword which have stronger damage against more than one target), which is only available through unload.
In PvE, this produces very boring play – especially against bosses! Consider the other skills on the bar: a short, low damage cripple/immob in pistol 2, a low damage interrupt in pistol 4, and a melee range area blind. This is not a strong set to work with if you want to produce damage (you can produce some damage with pulmonary impacts on interrupt with pistol 4, but it produces less damage than pistol 3 and you can’t interrupt bosses!).
What p/p does well in PvE is allow you passable single-target burst from range when being at melee range simply isn’t feasible for whatever reason. And thieves are fantastic at kiting.
However, most players prefer the mobility provided by shortbow’s infiltrator’s arrow. There’s no better way to get around quickly, especially if you run unhindered combat for 100% swiftness uptime and long dodges paired with an endurance refill or two on your utility bar!
Shortbow doesn’t offer great damage either, but it does offer solid area effect and combo capability for area weakness. It’s a far more useful set than p/p, in my opinion. However, I believe unload spam in a short-term scenario is better single-target damage than shortbow and thief is still plenty fast (outside of PvP) just running daredevil with unhindered combat.
That’s the only reason I run p/p. I don’t particularly like the set as it really only does one thing (in PvE) and does it not-so-well. But as I try to stay in d/p as much as possible, I only need p/p to do one thing. I wish it did it better and gave me a more coherent skillset to work with, but I prefer it to shortbow for dropping back out of melee range and landing some quick damage.
Seriously I don’t care if HOT is too hard or just caters to the hardcore PVE’er elite. I’m ok with that. Let them have it. Its already done and its just going to tick off more of the community if its nerfed.
For me I find the map for HOT frustrating, and the mobs are the very least of the issues I have with it. However I’d like to see another avenue for recipes, sigils, insignia’s, and masteries made available for those of us who don’t find the content entertaining at all.
I think that’s fair and should actually be applied to all game modes and their reward tracks. In this way the game will truly cater to all play styles.
As a new player who admittedly doesn’t know all the angles yet, this seems reasonable. I suppose the devil is in the details, but it seems to me that PvP players should not be forced into excessive amounts of PvE content. I assume based on past experience with other games, that this is not an issue in reverse? That is, PvE players don’t need to participate in PvP for anything?
On the other hand, it seems to me a bit of a failure if players would rather ask for a workaround than participate in content. I’m referring not to the PvP players, but rather PvE players who simply don’t enjoy the new maps. I’d really like to continue discussing ways we can address this while keeping different preferences in mind.
I was wondering in another thread why we couldn’t have different instances of the same map, such that players could flag themselves as one type or another and they would enter different instances. PvE (standard) and PvE (light), or whatever you want to call it. Standard would play the way HoT currently plays. Light would simply have toned-down enemy attributes (less health, less damage, no more champions at hero points).
In theory, the issues with map density have nothing to do with a lack of available players and all to do with the design of the system itself. I wouldn’t think this would impact that issue, at least not directly. But perhaps this would require a great deal of resources and other solutions could get the job done more efficiently.
The challenging content is there. It’s not ANet’s fault that players want to put their own requirements on group creation. However, hitting on that subject for a moment you can see the circle that those hardcore players create:
- Hardcore players require more difficult content
- Such content is given to them
- Hardcore players look at finding the most efficient enemy melting compositions in order to do said content quick and easy while reaping the rewards.
- Rewards have been reaped and reaped over and over again
- Hardcore players complain that said content is too easy
- Hardcore players require more difficult content
And eventually…
- Difficulty requirements for content not met by developers
- Hardcore players eventually leave the game claiming they are bored
This is why catering to that small group of players while alienating the majority of your player base is a bad idea because in the end they’re only loyal so long as they can get their content requirements and they’re really only looking for a fix rather than long term play.
You’re generalizing and being very unreasonable. I took time to explain my point of view and extend what I felt were solid solutions and compromises that take into account that not all players enjoy the same things. I’m not an elitist, nor is it unreasonable for me to expect some development resources to focus on players like myself.
Further, if a disproportionate amount of resources were allocated to “hardcore” or difficult content (An assumption I have no way of verifying as I only started playing in 2016.), I don’t think that’s fair. I assume you’re correct when you say that the core playerbase are not old school MMO players like myself, but casual players. But you must realize that I wouldn’t be here if not for HoT, and your core playerbase can’t be as similar to you as you think because it isn’t only new players who like HoT.
I only devote time to one MMO at a time. For ANet, that’s one more paying customer and one less for the competition. You’re also correct that if they don’t develop some content aimed at players like me (complex and challenging maps, raids, etc.) then GW2 is not likely to maintain my interest. Clearly, you can understand my position.
So why not be reasonable? Is there no way we can target changes to HoT to address the issues of both casual and less-casual players while minimizing the perception of taking from one to give to the other?
Shall I try to get the ball rolling again? Here! Hold this olive branch!
As I suggested in my last post, I really wouldn’t mind if they found a way to scale the hero point challenges such that they are more accessible to solo players, yet still provide a battle for small groups (large groups seem to steamroll these challenges anyway, for the most part). This seems like an area that wouldn’t bother hardcore players too much, but addresses one of the chief complaints I’ve heard regarding HoT (I need 200-and-how many hero points to unlock my elite spec!? And I have to fight champion hero challenges to do it?).
What do you think? Can we be smart about this and stop trying to convince each other that the other is undeserving of resources? Because I’m pretty sure ANet has decided that we all deserve development time.
This is what I feel as well, its as thou they created a new game rather then continue the old one. From casual solo to hardcore group oriented.
You haven’t seen “hardcore” then. New maps are group oriented casual. If they are too hard for you – get better. Or play older maps, cuz they are easy and designed for solo play. Me, my guild, all my friends – we waited all this time for harder group oriented content. And now we are finally enjoying it!
Compared what the core game prepared me to while doing my personal story? yes, it’s hardcore. I would play older maps if I could get my elite specs from there, but I can’t because of the ridicule amount of HPs needed.
I agree the elitist minority is loving this expansion, the casual players not so much.
Don’t believe me check the HOT Metacritic review, a 3.9 says the majority is not as happy.
Hmm, I went to look at metacritic and it seems to be showing a 7.3 “user score” and an 81 “metascore”, vs. a 7.9 and a 90 score for the core game. So perhaps a little less well-received than the original game. Where did you find the 3.9 score?
New player perspective here: HoT is clearly more difficult than Orr and silver wastes.
I was doing great leveling up. Cleared all of the Orr maps without issue. Played around a bit in the silver wastes, and noticed a bit of a ramp up in difficulty there. But then I reached the verdant brink and sort of fell flat on my face. I was dying left and right!
It wasn’t until I got a little practice in, unlocked a few of the navigational masteries (gliding, updrafts, bouncy mushrooms, etc.) as well as my elite spec that I became comfortable with the place. Not that it takes very long to do that!
To give you a few examples: I don’t recall enemies in Orr that could stun you and then kill you if you don’t break the stun and move within about a second. It’s easy to do now that I know to expect it from bladedancers, but it’s a bit of a surprise when you walk into it the first time! Getting stunned previously was more of an inconvenience than an immediate danger in most cases.
Same deal with the shadow leapers. Orr didn’t have enemies that evade ranged attacks, leap/shadowstep away and go into stealth, and then blast you with arrows for all of your health if you don’t evade!
I’m not complaining. I love it! I’m totally comfortable in the jungle now, but if I let my guard down or make a mistake it still makes me pay for it. Knowing how to handle these enemies and having the tools to do so is still no protection against poor execution! This place will kill you in a second if you let it! Good stuff (if you like that sort of thing)!
I get enough excitement in my real world life. I don’t need the game I play to try and mimic real world stress and anxiety. I’m not trying to really feel as though I am walking into a jungle that could kill me at any moment. If people need to feel that rush then perhaps they should put the game down and live life a little more.
It’s ironic that you wish to change the game to your personal taste, when that appears to be the very complaint you’re lodging against others in this thread. It was you who claimed that the game is “giving you the finger” by presenting you with challenging content, wasn’kitten Would it not be doing exactly the same thing to players like myself who prefer HoT difficulty to the core game?
For what it’s worth, I’m not an “elitist.” My background is hardcore raiding (WoW), but I’ve always been turned off by the elitism. In fact, I took an entire expansion off of hardcore raiding after working with a particularly toxic guild environment in 40-man raids back in the early WoW days. Then I formed my own “casual” raiding guild in WotLK and managed to not only complete ICC and the Lich King encounter, but even progressed most of the way through heroic ICC – all with minimal drama and no elitism tolerated!
So, I do understand where you’re coming from and it’s not my intention to force you to play the game the way I think it should be played. I hope I can expect the same courtesy in return?
I do like the idea of making hero challenges more accessible to solo players. I also don’t think this should be a major issue for players who like the level of difficulty in HoT. Downgrade most of the champion hero challenges to solo encounters and make them scale to the number of players participating. Show up with an army and expect a big battle. Show up alone and you can still get it done. Would that not work for most players?
They seem to be able to scale encounters elsewhere – I noticed those legendary wyverns tend to be a lot easier if you show up with 4 or 5 players than if you show up with 50, for instance!
For events, I think it’s more an issue with getting players where they need to be when they need to be there. Even if you can comfortably solo most of the events in the chain, you can’t do all of the events simultaneously so you still need other players working on events elsewhere in the zone in order to receive decent rewards at the end. I’m too new to propose a solution to this issue, and I hear they have plans to address this in some way in an upcoming patch?
For getting from point A to point B, I’m rather rigid on heavy nerfs to the “trash” mobs in the jungle zones. What I wouldn’t mind seeing is a little targeted downgrade to the number and types of mobs in certain areas. I notice there are places where two veterans patrol side by side and camps where there is a very high density of dangerous enemies. If we thinned these out a bit in a few “problem” areas, I might be okay with that. But it would really bother me if they took away the danger of the jungle.
It’s too bad that this kind of gameplay stresses you out. Personally, I find it relaxing. I get home, have a beer, and sometimes I just lose myself fighting and flying around in the jungle with no particular purpose in mind. I just zone in and kill until there’s nothing left! To each their own! I hope there’s room for both of us.
Hello all,
I am a new player who started playing less than a month ago and I completed Druid Specialization by help of a friend I met in game.
I just want to mention that these HoT maps are like nothing I have seen before in gaming world.
Such complexity and beautiful design force me to think they are not man made.
I really liked it and can not stop the feeling to explore whole HoT maps up and down.
Thank you for creating such gorgeous jungles and extreme design.
there is a reason, why nobody has tried this design before in open world:
most other mmos appreciate their players, and want them to stay in game
I disagree. I never want to go back to “flat” map design. It’s true that they make it more difficult to get around initially (and this causes issues when combined with the group-style events and challenges), but I really can’t remember a game providing a sense of accomplishment simply for exploration. HoT manages that.
It also does a great job of pacing early progression in terms of navigation. When you first enter VB, you’re very limited in your ability to get around. But then you unlock gliding, and updrafts, and bouncing mushrooms and things really start to open up.
I hope they can find a way to make the events run more smoothly without abandoning these wonderful map designs.
no game benefits from alienating people who want a challenge. Not a single one.
Its odd, usually you find studios are bad because they love to release broken games or they are so greedy they have pay to win microtransactions. This studio is interesting, they are bad because they really dont have the first idea of what players generally want which is content that can challenge and a proper reward system.
They could have had the face plant on keyboard to win content for people who want it and the dark souls level content for the people that play regularly. They could have developed a reward system that didnt involve only getting useless gear. I wnder if this really was all colins doing
In fairness, my understanding is that this game created a niche for itself in the casual space. If I’m correct in that assumption, HoT appears to be a bit of a left turn. Perhaps ANet believes that some of the familiar tenets of MMOs actually can fit into this game and, if it works out, they can expand their audience.
However, to go full-blown down the path of other MMOs may be a mistake. As we see on these forums, this game is different from other MMOs in that (by intent!) a greater portion of its playerbase is casual.
I’m not advocating for core level difficulty across the board (I really do love the HoT maps and the level of difficulty there!). But I’d be very careful about changing too much too quickly in this game. There’s intent and then there are the consequences. We definitely don’t want to end up with a second-rate WoW clone. The market is full of those sorts of failed ventures.
Having said that, I am still not sure where I stand on “horizontal” progression. It’s such an odd idea coming from games like WoW. I can’t decide whether I’m going to be fine with it in the long run or if I’ll quickly reach a point where I lack the motivation to log in to this game. Only time will tell! I hope I end up liking it…these HoT maps are simply amazing!
New player perspective here: HoT is clearly more difficult than Orr and silver wastes.
I was doing great leveling up. Cleared all of the Orr maps without issue. Played around a bit in the silver wastes, and noticed a bit of a ramp up in difficulty there. But then I reached the verdant brink and sort of fell flat on my face. I was dying left and right!
It wasn’t until I got a little practice in, unlocked a few of the navigational masteries (gliding, updrafts, bouncy mushrooms, etc.) as well as my elite spec that I became comfortable with the place. Not that it takes very long to do that!
To give you a few examples: I don’t recall enemies in Orr that could stun you and then kill you if you don’t break the stun and move within about a second. It’s easy to do now that I know to expect it from bladedancers, but it’s a bit of a surprise when you walk into it the first time! Getting stunned previously was more of an inconvenience than an immediate danger in most cases.
Same deal with the shadow leapers. Orr didn’t have enemies that evade ranged attacks, leap/shadowstep away and go into stealth, and then blast you with arrows for all of your health if you don’t evade!
I’m not complaining. I love it! I’m totally comfortable in the jungle now, but if I let my guard down or make a mistake it still makes me pay for it. Knowing how to handle these enemies and having the tools to do so is still no protection against poor execution! This place will kill you in a second if you let it! Good stuff (if you like that sort of thing)!
The “entitlement” argument is ridiculous.
It’s actually not, because that’s exactly what you call people who don’t respect the rules and mechanics of the game that they think they should always win which leads them to believe it should be changed so they can win it.
Not sure if people realize this but … you don’t always win games, even ones you pay to get access to.
I don’t recall Anet EVER saying you won’t have to raid to get BiS gear.
I don’ recall ever seeing Idaho, which doesn’t change the fact that it exists.
OK let me rephrase then: Anet never said that to players.
Raids are dungeons/dungeons are raids; It’s just a label. You ALWAYS needed to do them to get BiS gear.
This is a falsehood. A complete fabrication. It would be accurate if you exchanged the word ALWAYS with NEVER. I really hope that claim represents ignorance of the facts on your part rather than intentional dishonesty.
Oh I get it … you’re one of those people that argue the details and miss the meaning. OK, that’s fair enough. You get BiS gear from doing ‘activities’, regardless of what you want to call them and Anet never gave anyone the impression you shouldn’t have to do these ‘activities’ to get BiS gear either. I could be more vague, but then you would just troll me because I’m being to vague /sigh.
Its not about minor details, or being vague, or even, “activities.” You claimed that getting BiS had ALWAYs required doing dungeons. That is a complete fabrication. It is the opposite of the truth of the matter.
Anet has stated that Raids are endgame. They have set raids up to be played post level 80. Anet stated that BiS would be earned by level 80, not post level 80. They have since changed that intention (understandably so even if not everyone likes the change), but it was very specifically indicated that BiS gear would not be earned doing post level 80 content. You may not have seen the articles where the statements were made, but that does not mean that they were not made.
I’m sure this has already been covered, but why does raid gear invalidate the promise that “BiS” gear would be earned by level 80 and not afterward? You can obtain gear with equal stats. I don’t see where they promised that all gear would be available prior to or upon reaching level 80. Simply that the gear you obtain after reaching level 80 will not have a statistical advantage. Is that not the case with legendary items?
Further, are there not legendary items available via sources other than raids? If ANet delivered a paid expansion that only made these items available via raiding then I agree that they should provide new legendary items for non-raiders. And why would anyone have a problem with that in a game like this?
But honestly, I am so confused by this thread. It seems simple, as an outsider (new player). With no statistical advantage to gear, it’s all down to fancy skins and bragging rights, right? So why can’t raiders have their fancy skins and bragging rights, and everyone else can have theirs, too? Are resources so short that we need to fight about skins? That gem store seems pretty full of them! What’s the deal? I really don’t get it!
-Staff does have a slighly higher dps than dagger mainhand. It also offer things like projectile reflection and a whirl finisher on AA.
Staff and dp both have a couple of good skills, but the undoubtly best ones are headshot and vault.
Both can be extremely dangerous when used right, both are mainly pvp skills.
In pvp you will just be autoattacking, and against large-sized enemies staff can also use weakening charges properly to get even more damage. d/p gets a little bit more beneficial, if you need more than just damage.
I am perfectly fine with d/p in pve, and I would not give up on my incinerator, in raids I get very close to the 27k dps im supposed to do, and Ive never liked minmaxing.Infiltrators arrow is:
-a huge boost in speed
-a shadowstep, making it superior to every other form of movement (can avoid attacks and obstacles, can exit dragons maw traps, can glitch through a lot of floors)
The bow itself is also not bad in combat.
Well, I’m glad to hear d/p is at least a viable option in most areas of the game. I really enjoy the playstyle and I find the abilities work well together. As far as my second weapon set, I run p/p but I don’t really like it for several reasons.
The pistol AA is painfully underpowered. It deals low damage to a single target and has no attack chain for additional effects. It forces you to burn initiative to produce any kind of damage with this set. Its only saving grace is the stealth burst, but this seems like it should do more damage since half its damage is condition based.
Pistol 2 is also underpowered. It does pitiful damage and a fairly pointless 1s immob and 3s invulnerability stack. An immob is quite welcome in a ranged set, but this one is practically useless.
Pistol 3 is the only decent ability in the set. It does damage. That’s it.
As noted previously, headshot is a great skill but not so great in this set. It works a lot better in d/p because dagger AA is so much stronger than pistol AA. This allows you to reserve initiative for interrupts without killing your damage output.
Black powder. Another great skill for d/p that seems rather pointless in the p/p set. What am I going to do with a melee area blind in a ranged kiting setup? Not much! And I still really REALLY need to use that initiative for damage!
D/p, on the other hand, our worst ability is heartseeker and you can still use that as a decent damage short-range gap closer, as a combo for stealth off of black powder, or even to move around more quickly (Although we have better ways of doing this, obviously!). AA, shadow shot, headshot, and black powder all see regular use and seem to fit well together in the d/p set.
I don’t know. Maybe I need to give the shortbow another chance. But honestly, it feels to me as if shortbow is mostly just used for infiltrator’s arrow and because the other thief weapon sets give no access to ranged area effects. It’s the same reason I don’t like the other weapon sets. Aside from d/p and staff, they all seem a little lost to me.
Hello all,
I am a new player who started playing less than a month ago and I completed Druid Specialization by help of a friend I met in game.
I just want to mention that these HoT maps are like nothing I have seen before in gaming world.
Such complexity and beautiful design force me to think they are not man made.
I really liked it and can not stop the feeling to explore whole HoT maps up and down.
Thank you for creating such gorgeous jungles and extreme design.
I knew I wasn’t the only player that got into GW2 recently, decided to pull the trigger on HoT, and was immediately floored by the quality of these maps! I think my girlfriend is tired of me saying “Come here. You gotta see this!” The layouts and the artwork are simply incredible. As you say, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
I’d gladly pay the $50 again for more content of this quality. But I get the feeling resources are stretched a bit thin. I wonder how long it will be before we see more?
Well, I just happened to recently calculate the base DPS values of the three main-hand weapons that thief can use.
Staff: 595 base DPS
Dagger: 582 base DPS + 3.57 poison TPS
Sword: 548 DPSIn a max might situation, the staff auto beats out the dagger auto only when you have 21,384 effective power. That is…. extremely hard to reach, so as far as autos go, you’ll want to stick with dagger.
However, the greatest strengths of the staff isn’kittens auto attack. The staff comes with several other strong skills:
Weakening Charge is much higher DPS than the auto attack, and attacks multiple targets. its hard to use, though.
Bound is an excellent evade skill which also does more damage than the auto attack. This makes staff the only weapon where the skill evade is a DPS gain.So really, dagger vs. staff depends on how active of a playstyle you want. D/P is good for passive and relaxed play, while the Staff is better for chaotic and aggressive play.
So I’m pretty new to GW2 and I’ve had a hard time loving a lot of the weapon sets for my thief. I run d/p with p/p (and I don’t really love p/p either). I can’t say I understand how to compare damage, especially since the defensive strategy when I’m on my own appears to be get in, kill something, and get away – if you even have time for that!
d/p seems perfect for that. I have multiple ways to close gaps, which basically means I never have to run up to an enemy. I just shadow shot, steal, or dodge my way to them. That gives me that much more time to take them out before other things catch up to me!
I don’t have infiltrator’s arrow, but I run UC with two endurance refills (one is my heal, the other provides precision and a condi clear) which gives me full uptime swiftness and lets me burn endurance to increase movement speed and/or escape quickly. I’m sure you could cover ground even more quickly with infiltrator’s arrow, so maybe SB is “required” for getting to points as quickly as possible in PvP?
Does the staff (or other weapon sets) really do that much more damage? Or is this advice geared for more static dps scenarios such as standing behind a boss teeing off for 20 seconds at a time? Also, is area effect damage that critical? Is that more of an organized PvE function? Honestly, area effects seem rather pointless at melee range for a thief. It’s not as if we can be the primary target and stand in one place tanking 3-5 enemies anyway!
But please, educate me. Help me to see the light on these other weapon sets! I love d/p. The playstyle is super fun! But I don’t want to lock myself into a style that doesn’t work outside of solo play! What are the pros and cons here?
If it matters, I run d/p p/p and a dd/da/cs build. Usually run channeled vigor, power and precision signets, bandit’s defense, and impact strike (although utilities are obviously situational, too!). It’s working out great in the jungle on my own, but what will I find lacking in group play?
Hey! Another new player that loves the thief class!
As it happens, I run d/p as my primary with p/p for range. I don’t like the shortbow either.
The main draw of d/p is shadow shot. It does high damage, applies blind, and shadowsteps to the target from range for only 4 initiative. But the weapon set also provides area pulse blind with black powder, which is more useful for a melee set than it is for p/p. And you can combo for stealth with heartseeker. Headshot is great for pulmonary impact procs, too. Your AA is quite strong, too.
Here’s the build I run for the moment. I’m still working on masteries in HoT, so this build is basically for handling whatever the jungle wants to throw at me. But I think the damage seems great, decent cc, endurance for days, fantastic mobility, full uptime fury and swiftness, and great self-healing, too!
… When you say lots of MMO, I thought you meant WoW/FF14/SWTOR, because those market leading games sure have dungeons that are way harder than GW2. Neither are Aion/Vindictus/BnS/etc
Not sure about STO/DCUO though. If their endgame is easier than GW2 story… well, perhaps GW2 is too hard for your liking (As is all those MMO up there). Different preferences I guess.
i raided in wow, back in BC/WOTLK, even tanked a 45 min baron run
that was the absolute limit of my gaming skills and patience back then
even if i still could do the same, i wont
they can sell me pixels, that i enjoy here&now
not pixels, that i have to dig out behind tons of other pixels
If Strat runs represent the limit of your ability (they bumped that one back down to 5-man content as it wasn’t really “raid” worthy!), then I can understand your frustration. But I also have a feeling there are some non-skill-related things you can do to make this easier on yourself.
I noticed that the most difficult parts (someone mentioned the fight with the dragon on claw island – good example!) tend to be those scenarios where you find yourself battling as part of an army against either a massive opponent or large group of enemies.
Your first inclination might be to rush in and take the lead – after all, this is YOUR personal story, right? Don’t. Let the NPCs do some of the work. In fact, in the claw island example I have a strong suspicion you could literally stand back and do hardly anything to contribute and still win! But if you rush in and try to solo the dragon, you’re dead meat!
My comfort level with combat mechanics is a good bit higher than yours, but I definitely died trying to “win” on claw island before I realized I could relax a little bit and be just one of hundreds on the battle field instead of the main event!
If that still isn’t enough, bring friends! In fact, if you’d like you can add me to your friends list and hit me up in game. I’ll run it with you. I’m new so I’ve only done the storyline once so far. I wouldn’t mind running through it again. In fact, I think I skipped a lot of it and need to go back and check it out.
I’m a little lost on what to do at cap in this game as well. So far I’ve been unlocking HoT masteries, but I just reached the point where I’ve unlocked all of the navigation and language skills (updrafts, bouncy mushrooms, ley lines, poison lore, talking to frogs, etc.). In order to get the rest which seem mostly about increasing loot rewards, I need to do a hefty amount of achievements to generate enough mastery points!
That’ll keep me busy for a bit. I’m also looking into crafting, which I haven’t tried yet, and other options for picking up ascended gear. I tried raiding, which was fun but requires a group – the pickup group I tried didn’t get very far and there’s little chance of progress if you can’t get the same people together to practice (at least, until enough of the general population knows the encounter!).
“Please try to explain why, in simple terms, the reason that a lower level raid option would harm it?”
Please see my previous post. I’m not the one you’re replying to, but if you don’t see the potential harm, I submit that you are lacking perspective.
Having said that, I am willing to entertain the possibility that GW2 raiding is not “hardcore” and perhaps the problems associated with attempting bleeding edge raid content in other games are not so severe. Under that assumption, perhaps it could work?
Even so, I’d advise caution. This is uncharted territory for GW2. I don’t think it would be wise to jump right into the same mistakes WoW made.
Btw, one thing I wanted to stress, because I think some people missed it in the OP, is that even if it becomes horrifically unbalanced (and I don’t think there’s any reason it would be), it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
I mean, worst case scenario, one of the vanguard groups figures out some crazy exploity strategy that works in easy mode, allowing them to clear the entire raid in like ten minutes. Boom, boom, boom. Way less than intended.
Well so what?
It would still be subject to the weekly lock-outs, so they could only get any reward from it once per week, and that reward would be less than the hard mode version. They could earn the same rewards by half completing the hard mode bosses a few times and wiping. And since failure would not be rewarded in easy mode, the one-time victory prize is all they could get from it until next week. And of course even if they do manage this feat, they’d still want to go on to complete the hard mode version each week, since they would then get the larger reward from doing that.
I mean it’s not ideal, and I’m certain they could do better than that, but even if they screw up, the price of failure is negligible to the game as a whole. So what’s the harm?
I’ve been reading your walls of text, bud. Why don’t you go read mine? I explained the harm from the perspective of a raid leader and guild master. It’s not something you would understand if you’ve never done progression raiding.
When they talk about burnout, they’re referring to progression raiding. This is the phase of raiding where you haven’t yet completed the content and raid nights consist of repeated failures with only incremental progress and little or no reward to show for it.
How easy do you really think it is to keep players showing up for that each week? And what do you suppose the impact on an already demoralized raid is when a critical player leaves and has to be replaced with someone who hasn’t put in any time practicing with the group?
That’s the true challenge of raiding and why it requires so much time. These guys who talk about how you only need an hour or two each week to raid are talking about farm content. Progression requires much more time and managing the logistics is the biggest challenge.
That’s why LFR was such a big problem over in WoW. By the time new recruits reached the new recruit stage, they had already done several iterations of the same content on easy mode. Not only does this not prepare them for the current tier, it forms unrealistic expectations (I’ve done this before! This should be EASY!) and when those expectations aren’t met, it causes undue stress on top of the stress inherent to progression raiding. Unfortunately, that translates into higher turnover rates – the death of many a raiding guild!
So, again, I agree with the goal of making content accessible to GW2’s core player base. I just think you’re lacking perspective when you say that adding the GW2 equivalent of LFR will have no impact on the players raiding was intended for.
Actually I was here the whole time,
And you dragged GW2 over to your raiding mentality instead of leaving it alone and letting it remain a non-raiding game.
but glad to see “an eye for an eye” philosophy is still popular.. For a perceived wrong as well, just out of spite. Classy.
You want to talk about perceived wrongs? You percieve LFR as having been responsible for damage to the WoW raiding community that was never its fault. Everything that has happened to the raiding community in that game is the fault of the raiding community, and nobody else.
While technically true, it’s an irrelevant point. The impact of making any change is what it is, no matter the intent. LFR WAS responsible for damage to the WoW raiding community. It doesn’t matter that they did it to themselves. Raiding has its problems to begin with and LFR made them worse.
That’s why I said that while I agree with the overall sentiment (making content accessible to casual players), I can’t agree with this specific solution. At least, not without some serious thought going into how we can avoid devaluing this content for those who it was intended for.
I have never raided but this clearly proves what a joke raiding is in this game. At least in WoW it takes months to beat raids even for top guilds. Even then I don’t understand why anyone would take pride in raids. Anyone can beat the scripted static content with enough practice. Give me truly hard content with dynamic and opponents with brains and you got me interested.
Scripted content does not equate to easy content.
As I recall, the heroic mode Lich King 25-man went months before a sponsored guild full of professional e-sports gamers finally beat it. And you know what? They even had the benefit of a raid-wide buff to both damage and health that Blizzard implemented over time to make the encounter more accessible (it started at 5% and I think increased by 5% each month until it hit 30%). I want to say the world first only occurred after the buff was at 10%!
World firsts aside, that level of difficulty is not required to produce a sense of accomplishment. It’s the effort you put in that determines that. If you beat a raid the first night, it cheapens the experience. If you hit the progression wall and spend weeks on an encounter, finally succeeding is that much sweeter.
There’s been some recent discussion about making raids more convenient and approachable to players that currently feel alienated by the existing raids, either due to difficulty level above their skill, or inconvenience in forming and coordinating a group for them. Many people enjoy the raids in their current form, so I don’t believe the existing raids should be changed in any way, but I do think having alternative options would be a positive change.
An easy mode version of the raid would allow lower skilled/geared/un-meta players to experience the content without needing to be carried, and would allow those that don’t have the time or interest to spend forming a “meta” party and struggling through the content to just pop in, move through the raid in about the same time as a normal dungeon, and then get on to other activities.
For those that enjoy the hard mode raids, they would remain exactly as they are, and would remain by far the best way to earn the raid-centric rewards, so there would be no temptation for those who can do the hard mode raid to “just do the easy mode instead.” It would be like a trained surgeon deciding to just flip burgers instead. Of course, potentially raiders could run both, and since there is a weekly cutoff to how much raiding you can do, running both versions would give you slightly more max gains than just running hard mode currently does.
So here’s how I see it working:
1. Selecting the version. This shouldn’t take much developer work to implement. They already have plenty of methods of “choose what you want to do,” and I’m not sure which would be easiest to slot into the existing raids, but one of them must be a fairly trivial addition. They could use the vanilla dungeon “talk to an NPC to select path,” or the Fractals “on entering choose the path you want from a UI,” or the story mission “challenge mote” element, whatever is most convenient. This would activate the easy mode version (hard mode should probably remain default).2. Designing the easy mode content. The actual mechanics and enemies would be identical to hard mode. No need for new animations, mechanics, anything. Everything you’d need to do in hard mode, you’d need to do in easy mode too. The only difference would be in the consequences of failure.
Effects that deal enough damage to OHKO almost any player, such as failing a lightning drop in Vale Guardian or wading into the poison on Slothazor, would instead just be normal damage, threatening, but not auto-wiping. You wouldn’t want to “stand in the fire,” but it wouldn’t be the end of the world either. This would encourage players to do the mechanics right, but would rarely lead to a party wipe if they screw it up from time to time. This would basically just be a numbers tweak, changing these effects from being “enough damage to wipe most players,” to “about half that or less.”
Enemy HP would also be toned down slightly, so that you wouldn’t need constant prime DPS in order to kill the boss within the timer, again, just taking an existing number and making it a slightly smaller number.
Breakbars would also likely need to be tuned down a bit, to require less coordination. Certain unique mechanics might also need to be more forgiving, like how with Slothazor’s white mushrooms, if you miss one then you don’t get another for a while, instead make it so that two spawn at a time, with the second being in a less advantageous position. Messing one up would be a set-back, but not likely to lead to a wipe.
The intended balance is that the hard mode raid should be comparable in difficulty and chance of failure to an average vanilla dungeon, or at worst a low-level Fractal.
3. Rewards. The easy mode raids would have a weekly lockout just like the hard mode, ideally not a shared one so that people could do both. Anything that drops from the hard mode could drop from easy mode, but at a much lower rate, perhaps 10-20% of the existing rates, meaning that on average an easy mode raider would need to complete the raid around 5-10 more times to get any drop reward than on hard mode (and keeping in mind that hard mode raiders could be doing both, giving them a bonus roll for the rare loot each week).
Current Spirit Vale bosses award 10, 14, and 18 shards respectively, 8 shards for the combat content in the maps, and up to 6 shards per failed attempt. My recommendation is that the easy mode versions would offer at least 3, 5, and 7 shards respectively, none for the non-boss portions, and none for a failed attempt. Ideally it would be a few more than that, up to 50% of the existing reward, but this would be enough. And again, players willing and able to do the hard mode could get these on top of their existing rewards.
4. If they want, as a further incentive for players to at least attempt the hard mode, they could make it so that you have to at least attempt the Vale Guardian on hard mode, say, ten times, in order to unlock the easy mode. Pretty much any group of players would be capable of that, and players would be able to get an idea of how it’s meant to work before deciding that easy mode is the only option for them.
Ultimately, I think this system would be more than fair to those who enjoy the existing raids, while opening the content up to a much larger portion of the playerbase as something they could reasonably do on a regular basis. I also believe that my proposal would require very minimal time for the developers, as most of the elements required are already existing in other parts of the game, ready to import, or simple number tweaks in a database, or at most a few timing changes on timed procs like mushroom spawns. Even the balance testing would not have to be terribly rigorous, since the hard part was in making sure that the hard mode was tuned against top-tier players. Just making it “easier” has much more room for error, and if they mess it up there is much less harm in just tweaking it again later.
So, does that work? Any issues that I haven’t considered or should we implement this sucker?
It sounds good in theory. In practice, however, there are unintended consequences.
They did this over in WoW and it turned out to be a terrible idea, in my opinion. The problem is that each tier of difficulty essentially becomes “training” for the next tier in much the same way that players expect random pickups to prove they’ve completed the content and know what they’re doing in the current scenario. The result: burnout.
As a former raid leader and guild master from WoW, I can tell you that burnout is the death of all raiding guilds. Everyone puts in the time (so much time!). Then, for whatever reason, you lose a core raider to burnout, to other guilds, to internal conflict, to life, or what have you.
You find a replacement, but usually end up having to carry them as they learn to work within a system that has been fine-tuned with hours upon hours of practice. That’s obviously bad for morale, particularly if the change results in the raid having to take a step backward in progress. The danger of losing players to burnout increases.
When WoW made the decision to essentially force us through several iterations of the same content with varying levels of difficulty, it exacerbated the problem. Now you have to vault the psychological wall of running easy mode versions of the same content and only then reaching what we call the “progression” stage, where the danger of burnout is highest.
You simply don’t have to deal with any of this in casual 5-man content. If a player drops group, you and 9-39 other players didn’t invest hours of effort with that player, so it’s really not as big a deal. You also don’t have to worry about your progress resetting every time that happens or the resulting cascade of players leaving (I’ve seen plenty of solid raiding guilds go out this way! Even “best on server” guilds!).
I know. It’s ridiculous. But that’s what raiding is. If you’re the raid leader, it feels much more like an obligation than a game. You have so many people relying on you, investing their time to accomplish a shared goal. You can’t let them down!
I’m not an elitist. That whole aspect of raiding is something I never tolerated well. I’m simply attempting to illustrate the difference between casual and hardcore content. I realize they don’t play well together, and I wish there were a way around it. But I’m not convinced that attempting to blend the two in this way is wise.
I think your complaint is valid. If I knew of a way to make it work, I think everyone should be able to enjoy raiding. The encounters really can be a lot of fun, and there’s nothing quite like the sense of accomplishment you get when you put in the time with your guild and after days or even weeks of failure you finally succeed!
I just can’t agree with this particular solution. I think it has a real chance of ruining raid content for the very people it was intended for.
I’ve noticed the theme with heart quests is they simply are not present on end-level zones. Southsun Cove was a bit pointless and unoccupied besides the Queen of course and Orr is home to those who enjoy the champ trains/t6 mat farming. Anet did a fantastic job with HoT by keeping people preoccupied constantly while in the new zones.
It is fantastic to see someone who actually appreciates what they brought with the new expansion, after all… Anet wasn’t even sure if they were going to work on one.
In case there aren’t enough of these, count me as another player (completely new to GW2) who has been really impressed with the quality of content in HoT. The events are fun and rewarding, even if there are some issues with accessibility (i.e. getting into active maps and not getting ported out of them at inconvenient times!). The map design in terms of both layout and artwork is simply incredible – you really couldn’t have designed a better introduction to gliding than the Verdant Brink!
I don’t think you can do this currently, but it might be nice if we could hover. Create a small, personal updraft that isn’t strong enough to elevate your glider, but will hold it in place indefinitely.
And if that already exists, then disregard. I just haven’t seen it yet!
Forgive my ignorance, but I’m still having difficulty wrapping my head around the “horizontal” gearing at cap in this game. Where I come from (WoW), there is a HUGE difference between the stats on open world and small group content “rare” items. So when I hear raiders jealously guarding what are essentially cosmetic upgrades, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Again, I may be missing something, but here’s a thought: Why can’t we just introduce HoT legendary items that require a lot of time/gold, but no raiding/dungeon requirements?
Am I correct in assuming that the stats on the gear aren’t the issue? Only access to that gear matters? Raiders would like some items to show for their accomplishments. Non-raiders want the same. And since there’s no conflict in this game over the actual stats, why can’t they both have their own sets?
probably because very few people will actually raid, if legendary armor isn’t exclusive.
people then ask isn’t the rewards having fun raiding?
me response is something like yes they do at first but once they repeat the same thing over and over again, it is a grind. The raids would be deserted once beaten unless there is incentive to go back to grind for legendary armor.
I think many people play gw2 because they don’t need to raid though. so you never know if anet might change their decision latter.
Okay. I’m confused. The only difference between legendary item X and legendary item Y is the skin it uses, correct? And the only difference between either of those items and ascended item Z is a legendary designation, right? So literally the only thing special about these items is their appearance and the accomplishment of earning them (i.e. bragging rights!). Am I still on track here?
So why can’t you keep legendary item X locked behind raid content, and let non-raiders have their legendary item Y with its own skin? Item X is still exclusive. You still need to complete the raid. And neither item provides a significant mechanical advantage over the other (or even ascended gear).
Is there some other detail I’m missing here that would make this problematic?
Someone mentioned the dull-ness of heart quests with the original gw2, well now it is the metas that are dull now, you do the meta in vb then move to a new area to do the meta there then o td for even more meta then ds for, you guessed it, more meta.
Their problem is they are not bringing out mixed open world content. At least with heart quests there was more than just killing stuff you could do to finish a quest. In hot you have to first find a full map, if not, you are screwed, then you need to hope you do not dc during the meta and then that the people know what to do. Then rinse and repeat.
The adventures on the other hand are a work of genius, some are a little tough but I really enjoy them, they are different and fun and I hope they add more of the adventure stuff in
To each their own. The heart quests are too similar to WoW quests for me. I much prefer events. But it seems to me there is no reason we can’t have both. Why couldn’t they have some sort of solo quest system that contributes to the overall story of the zone, but without timers and coordinated group events?
It may seem incompatible, but it might work with another idea I’ve seen floating around: What if we had two sets of each HoT map: 1 focused on events, another with more forgiving mechanics and old-world style heart quests.
Players who don’t appreciate HoT-style events can play it their way, exploring these beautiful maps and completing mostly solo content.
Players who like HoT the way it is can have it their way. And (hopefully) there won’t be so much overlap between these two types of players such that we end up in conflict.
Just a thought. I’m sure this would require a lot of work!
Forgive my ignorance, but I’m still having difficulty wrapping my head around the “horizontal” gearing at cap in this game. Where I come from (WoW), there is a HUGE difference between the stats on open world and small group content “rare” items. So when I hear raiders jealously guarding what are essentially cosmetic upgrades, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Again, I may be missing something, but here’s a thought: Why can’t we just introduce HoT legendary items that require a lot of time/gold, but no raiding/dungeon requirements?
Am I correct in assuming that the stats on the gear aren’t the issue? Only access to that gear matters? Raiders would like some items to show for their accomplishments. Non-raiders want the same. And since there’s no conflict in this game over the actual stats, why can’t they both have their own sets?
Disclaimer: I am not advocating for massive nerfs btw. Just some minor tweaks, here and there.
To be honest, this. I’ve gotten used to the increased threat of the enemies, and for the most part, they no longer bother me. There are some enemies that need to be re-tooled in some way or another, but, I’ve become content with enemy design overall.
A fair question the creature design team needs to ask is “If this showed up in PvP, how many salty tears and angry forum posts would it produce?” And then design according from there.As such, I’m kinda eeeehhhh on saying HoT needs to be nerfed. The Hero Point Champs need to disappear or scale appropriately starting with 1 player. Access to certain exploration and Adventures needs to increase. Meta events need some drastic availability changes.
But monsters nerfed? A few, yes, but the rest are in a good spot.
I agree. And it may be that much of the problem could be solved without really taking too much away from those who like the jungle just the way it is.
You bring up hero point challenges. Given that many of these are simple communes and there’s no shortage of powerful enemies outside of hero challenges, would it bother the hardcore crowd to see these become more like core Tyria hero challenges?
I can’t be certain, but I expect HC/MP collection are a big deal for the explorer types among us, while the event runners probably couldn’t care less. This could be an area where we can improve the quality of life for one group without killing it for the other.
The ones who say HoT is easy are the ones who are actually playing with others. HoT is solable to a point, I know as i did all the maps (minus the Meta and Champs) on my Mesmer and Necro alone. And its not easy, takes a long time, but it IS interesting…the first few times you do it.
to the comments ‘Why play an MMO solo’, because solo play is fun too. And there isnt always a group availble, so sometimes you have to resort to playing alone. Does this mean all content needs to be solable? no. But there is a lot of content that needs to be toned down, specifically areas that have 20+ Mobs where it just doesn’t make sense to have that kinda setup.
But I think the main issue with HoT, its not like the Classic core of the game at all. Just about every aspect of HoT is completely different. Its like a whole other type of game.
Admittedly, I’m very new and have only played thief to 80 so far. It may be that this class has a particular advantage over most classes with regard to survivability, but it sure didn’t seem that way to me initially. The forums also seem to be in agreement that berserker thief is a “glass cannon” with among the poorest survivability.
But after unlocking my elite spec and some of the masteries (glider masteries, bouncing mushrooms, etc.) and going through an evolution of build tweaks, sigil/rune combinations, adding a backup weapon set, and just practicing different approaches to fighting the various enemies of the jungle I’ve become very hard to kill and I can clear many of the objectives solo or comfortably hold out killing enemies indefinitely until other players arrive to speed things along. Veterans usually aren’t a problem, even in groups and even some champions I can either beat myself or start fighting them and other players show up before I can finish them off.
I just figure if the least survivable class can survive and even thrive enough to roam freely and comfortably, start most events by themselves, and benefit from other players rather than requiring them for basic survival, then most classes probably have a way to do the same.
But then again, this could be a matter of perspective. Maybe what’s “comfortable” to me isn’t so much for you. I’m not sure what can be done about that (but I’m certain you have some ideas!). Ultimately, every player is going to want what works out best for them. For me, HoT is perfect so far. I ran smack into that wall, took a step back, and then vaulted over it using this game’s excellent combat and trait system. I could scarcely be more pleased with these maps and the overall experience so far. I think I’m hooked!
I wish everyone could be so fortunate in their experience without it seeming like one person’s enjoyment comes at the expense of another’s. What can ya do?
I started about 2 1/2 months ago, leveled a thief to 80, and had what I expect is a pretty typical transition into HoT: I died. A LOT! Fast forward a few weeks and I’m able to handle pretty much anything the jungle throws at me.
My goal here is to share what worked for me so that other new players may benefit. Also, if any established players would like to offer alternative perspectives, critique my build/explanation, etc. Please feel free!
D/P primary, with P/P for ranged backup
DD/DA/Tr
Full berserker, pack runes, sigils of air/draining
Heal: Channeled Vigor
Utility 1: Signet of Agility
Utility 2: Bandit’s Defense
Utility 3: Assassin’s Signet
Elite: Impact Strike
(Situational: Dagger Storm for area effect damage and projectile reflect.)
Strengths: Extensive use of interrupts to prevent incoming damage, strong burst damage, excellent mobility and evasion.
Weaknesses: No area effect damage, low health, low armor.
Basic Strategy: Use shadow shot to shadowstep to targets and apply blind and begin your auto-attack chain. Use head shot as needed to score interrupts. You can also interrupt with steal, bandit’s defense, and impact strike. Scoring an interrupt applies torment with pressure striking, pulmonary impact with impacting disruption, as well as stealing life with sigil of draining. It’s a lot of damage and will take enemies down fast!
If you can time your interrupts well, you should be able to shadowstep in, burst down most non-veteran enemies in just a few seconds while taking little/no damage in return, and dodge/shadowstep away to avoid other enemies/projectiles closing on you.
On the defensive side, you have three large endurance refills (steal, channeled vigor, signet of agility) plus smaller refills on physical skill and auto-attack usage. Running unhindered combat you can dodge endlessly, cover ground faster than any enemy you encounter, and you can only be locked down with stuns/knockdowns – and you have a short cooldown stun break plus block (bandit’s defense) to counter those!
For healing, channeled vigor is extremely powerful and has a rather short cooldown, mug is a great heal on demand as well, your successful evades heal you, and if you can unlock sigils of draining even your interrupts will heal you!
Example scenario: A coztic shadowleaper and coztic bladedancer in close proximity.
This was a no-win situation when I first reached the jungle, but this build gives me all the tools I need to win that fight handily!
Begin by either shadow shot on the bladedancer (shadowleapers evade ranged attacks) or simply dodge into melee range to engage the shadow leaper. Use impacting strike to score a 2 second daze on the leaper that will prevent it from using skills (and you will likely score an interrupt as well!). You can attempt to follow up the attack chain for this skill. If you succeed, the shadow leaper should be dead. But if you didn’t shadow shot the blade dancer first, it will probably try to stun you and rip your face off. Use bandit’s defense to break stun, use the counter after you block to finish the leaper and then either go for an interrupt or apply blind with shadow shot and take the bladedancer down (although dodging away and swapping to p/p will take them down almost as quickly and with less risk!).
If they evade away from you, start dodging to avoid the powerful arrow attacks they will send flying at you. But keep in mind that you want to close distance with shadow leapers in the process (shadow shot is unreliable as a gap closer on leapers) and create distance between you and the blade dancer.
If you slip up and they take you down to low health, dodge away, refill your health and endurance with channeled vigor, and shadowstep back into the fray! You can do it again to cover the heal cooldown with the block from bandit’s defense and the refill from signet of agility, too! Basically, you can do this all day long and only die if they take your health down before you can react!
Plan B: You can dodge up to about 8 times continuously with this build and unhindered combat is a long dodge. Run away and live to fight another day! Nothing can catch you!
Apologies for the lengthy post! I hope some of it helps. And I look forward to hearing other strategies that work for running around solo as a thief in open world HoT!
I hear a lot of complaints about the solo-unfriendliness of HoT. Specifically, many players prefer to be able to explore maps without having to fight for their lives every step of the way. I really don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation, given the decided focus on accessibility for players who are not “hardcore”.
On the other hand, it’s clear that casual and hardcore do not mesh well together in the same content. Why couldn’t we have different instances of the same content with one tuned for casual exploration and the other existing more or less as it does now?
This has a few advantages over the current situation. Not only does it give players the opportunity to enjoy these excellent maps on their own terms, it separates out a lot of the conflict. For instance, players who are actively participating in events would probably prefer to be on a map with other players who are also participating in events.
There would be some details to work out. Obviously, risk vs. reward is important. But as most of the loot and experience is locked up in event rewards anyway, I feel this would work itself out. Playing on the “casual exploration” instance of an HoT map would offer far less potential for loot and experience simply because there are no events.
It’s probably the best solution I’ve heard for keeping casual and hardcore players happy, and it wouldn’t be a permanent decision the way choosing a PvP or PvE server in WoW is. You can move freely between instances.
I like it! Now…what do you suppose are the potential pitfalls of this plan? Would it be feasible in terms of resources? What other approaches to consider?
Last reply, @Avarice.
You have me confused with someone else. I have completed this fight. As I said originally, I merely chimed in to confirm the apparent bug others have experienced but you, apparently, have not. As evidence: You are only able to activate the updrafts by jumping off of another object and gliding through them. I was also able to reproduce this. However, I was also able to hit my interact keybind while standing in/near or running through the updrafts to activate them. This worked every single time I attempted it, without fail. However, I noticed that there was no interact icon to indicate that this was possible (I expect that’s why you went through the trouble of jumping and gliding rather than simply walking up to them and interacting).
So, to sum up: There appears to be some variance in how these updrafts function. Given that, it’s likely there is some sort of bug in play here. Your premise that I am whining because I can’t complete the fight is ridiculous because I have completed it, easily.
Assuming that everyone is able to activate these updrafts via the interact keybind as I was, all we really need is to place an interact icon on the updrafts as they do with virtually every other interactable object in the game. That would be my suggestion on this one, to avoid confusion and frustration in what should otherwise be an enjoyable, albeit rather easy boss.
Love,
“Barbra”
The fight has clear bugs in it that have never been fixed the issue is they are inconsistent, your experience is not that of everyone.
Alright big guy, you’re all talk. Let’s see some actual proof behind what you are claiming. This ongoing “bug” that has prevented the OP from completing this within the span of months.
I am a skeptic. Question everything. There is a fine line between unable to complete a mechanic and an actual glitch with the mechanic. Seems like the majority of the community does not have this issue. What is causing it for specific people? When I say specific I mean a tiny miniature portion of the community that is claiming “bug.”
If you’d like I can give you a tour of this “bug” and show you what you need to do to avoid this mechanic… Oh oops I mean “bug.”
Notice how this thread got so many hits prior to the necro. It must of been a huuuuge deal. In fact, take notice on how it’s not even posted in the right forums.
Settle down, Francis.
The updrafts work by interact keybind or by gliding through them. Apparently, you were able to get them to work another way. Why does it seem plausible to you that others would fabricate this issue?
Let’s think about this. The fight is dead easy. You are clearly prompted when to use the updrafts if their sudden appearance on the platform weren’t enough of a signal. The updraft mechanics are very familiar at this point. And you claim that running (jumping?) through the updrafts is sufficient to activate them.
I guess my question is: How did we manage to mess up this complicated maneuver of simply running right into the updraft that’s right next you? If it works so well, those of us who can’t seem to activate the updrafts must be failing to see them. kitten my eyes! I just can’t tell if the updraft is right here or 10 paces to my left…and now I’m dead!
I don’t understand how you think that’s more plausible than taking another person at their word. Why would we make this up? Am I making excuses for my inability to run straight into an object in plain sight? Doesn’t that seem kind of…dumb?
Woah! That was a lot of technical info there, ShadowCatz! Thanks! But I have a hard time believing I wouldn’t see playable framerates on better graphics settings if I were running the game off of a decent, dedicated GPU. It just isn’t in the cards for me at the moment, and I will always prioritize performance over appearance (especially when I’m already at the point where the framerate starts to show a good bit of chop!).
No big deal. The game still looks better than anything else I’ve seen. WAY better than WoW, certainly! And I had to play that on lowest settings, too. I even reached 100% exploration in VB the other day, but still find myself going back just to bounce around the jungle fighting off enemies and completing events. The place is just too cool!
You have to hit your interact keybind or jump off of a raised object and glide into them. Standing in them doesn’t appear to work.
You don’t have to stand in them. You have to WALK in them. No keys, no jumping, no dodging, nothing else. Just walk through the updraft and you fly.
So when that time comes for the updraft part just RUN in the updraft and you will be flown up quickly. I guess it works in a similar way to the jump platforms (like those at Shatterer for example) where if you touch them walking very slowly you won’t be launched.
I can’t rule out that your experience differed from my own, but I did this fight just the other day and it absolutely did not work at all by standing in, running, or jumping through the updrafts. The only way it worked was to either find a raised object to jump and glide from (there are a few points in the platform where you can do this) or activate via interact keybind (but the updraft does not display an interact dialogue to indicate that this is the case!).
I’m not sure why there seems to be so much variance with the updrafts, but I promise you I beat my head against the wall several times trying to run through, jump through, or stand in those updrafts and they never once activated. Once I figured out it was an interact they worked flawlessly on command by using the interact keybind.
The most annoying thing about this fight is that the mechanics are so weak this is the only way you can die! It’s like really? You had to throw this buggy, pointless gimmick in? I would have preferred a shorter, more challenging fight or at least more challenge with checkpoints. Either way would have worked.
Also, how do you walk vs. run? I seem to move at the same speed (aside from movement speed buffs like swiftness) all the time?
You have to hit your interact keybind or jump off of a raised object and glide into them. Standing in them doesn’t appear to work.
You just need access to a combo blast. Drop that lightning road skill and blast on it for swiftness.
so wait a minute people are leaving because the graphgics are superb and u don’t get as good fps on a laptop due to alswome graphics? what makes me wantr to buy it are the graphics better in HoT? I play on a powerful desktop 290x x2 aint bought the expansion yet was hoping for it to come down in price or go on sale
I wish I had a nice system to play on. But running the game off of a core i3 mobile integrated GPU I can’t really do better than 20-30 FPS even on “best performance” settings. It’s a shame because even so the new maps are amazingly beautiful and detailed. Definitely a step up from the old world maps, but be prepared for the convoluted layouts (hope you like exploring!) and difficult enemies! It was quite a surprise when I first entered the verdant brink (Oh! Wow! How beautiful…and I’m dead!)!
I’m new and probably don’t know all the tricks, but I did play around with revenant a bit. As I recall, they have a lightning combo field in dwarf stance that you can combo swiftness off of. And I believe the cooldown is short enough for full uptime (or very close to it).
During FFXIV maintenance I attempted to do this fight again, and this time it bugs out on the FIRST PHASE which don’t let me updraft and the shield is useless, when they yell either shield yourself or take flight, and they all stand in that dome? It literally does nothing lol I still take the aoe damage.
It’s been like over a month since I last played and it’s still bugged, even more so now, this happened on both attempts before I alt+f4’d
I feel like I should update this every month for pure comedic value
You are probably still doing it wrong. And you will always fail it every time you get back because you are doing it wrong. I’ve done the fight on 6 characters and never had a problem with gliding, you just walk in the updraft, no space, no F. Just run into it and bam you fly, it’s that simple.
I just wanted to chime in and say that I recently ran this encounter for the first time and I had the same problem with the updrafts. Contrary to what you’re saying, walking into, standing in, or jumping through the updrafts did not work. I also saw no dialogue box to indicate that I could hit a key to interact as you find with nearly every other clickable object in the game.
What I discovered is that you do have to hit your interact keybind to activate the updrafts. Don’t ask me why your experience differs, but I attempted this fight 4 or 5 times and once I figured out that it had an interact I had no problems.
Just saying there’s something funny going on with the updrafts on the mordremoth fight. It can’t work both ways unless there’s some kind of bug, and if nothing else the updrafts should have the same dialogue box that shows for any other object you can interact with by keybind.
As another new player who recently reached the jungle, I have a different take on HoT. I will admit that at times I felt a little lost, and a bit frustrated trying to navigate from one point to another (particularly for timed events!). On the other hand, it’s difficult to look at the jungle maps and not appreciate what they did with them. The artwork is incredible, the layouts complex, and it makes exploring them an amazing (albeit sometimes frustrating!) experience. Plus how cool is gliding in an environment like that?
For me, I’ll take the good with the bad on this one. A+ map design! The “Verdant Brink” gets my vote for best map of all time in an MMO! More please! I don’t even care if I have to pay for it.
On difficulty, there’s no denying that HoT is a big step up from the original content. I think if you’re a new player, it’s likely that the original content will not have prepared you for it. That’s unfortunate, as many players will experience unnecessary frustration as a result of their expectations suddenly being shattered as they slam into that wall.
Still, I think this combat system is just too good to exist in a game with a “do whatever feels good” mentality. Old world content has that feel. It rarely forces you to reconsider your strategy to accomplish a goal. You can more or less do whatever you like and be assured of success.
HoT is different. You have to pay attention to enemy attacks and develop strategies to deal with them. Rolling your face across the keyboard to initiate attacks at random isn’t going to cut it here. But as I dove into the mechanics of the game I found that it has a very diverse toolkit that, at least for my thief, allowed me to develop fun and effective strategies to survive and thrive in the jungle.
I’m still running around in my wet paper bag berserker gear with 12k health, but no longer having any trouble surviving!
I’m new to GW2, just reached HoT a couple of weeks ago on my first 80 (a thief). I think I know what you mean on “having no business being there.” Moving from the areas around Orr to the Verdant Brink was quite a step up in difficulty. I was slaughtering everything in sight, then all of a sudden I’m dying left and right!
I figured it out by making some changes. Specifically, two areas:
1) You need a ranged weapon set in HoT, whether you like it or not. I can’t see any way around this. Certain enemies are simply a lot more dangerous at close range, while being quite easy to kite. But then again, you are a guardian and I’m a thief. Maybe you have some way around that? I couldn’t find one for my class.
2) Trading hits is a bad bet. I could get away with it and come out ahead in Tyria. Not in HoT. The name of the game in HoT is dealing damage while avoiding incoming damage. For my thief, that means relying heavily on evasion and interrupts to prevent damage.
I run DD/DA/Tr with d/p, p/p. So I have mug and impacting disruption. That’s my favorite move because I can interrupt to prevent damage while dealing two unblockable hits for solid damage in return. I pair that up with near-limitless endurance and basically never stop moving in combat.
I know that won’t necessarily translate into anything you can use directly as a guardian, but it’s just an example of how you need to look at HoT (as far as I can tell!). You can’t trade hits routinely. You need to adopt the mindset that damage is to be avoided and think about how you can accomplish that goal while simultaneously eliminating threats quickly.
I don’t know guardian or I’d offer more specific advice. But that’s a new player’s perspective on how to handle HoT!
You misunderstand my intent. I’ve read a lot of discussions along these lines. The trouble I’m having as a new player is getting established players into conversation about the mechanics of this game (beyond complaining about balance issues). Hence the request.
I’m not asking you to tell me what I like or give me a build I can follow. I’m trying to get a conversation going wherein I can learn about playstyles, pros and cons, etc. from players who know what they’re doing. I can only learn so much from previous conversations because they only asked the questions they wanted to ask.
But I get it. Ain’t nobody got time for that. It’s cool. I’ll play the game, or not. I’ll find what I’m looking for, or not.
So, I don’t have any specific questions. More of a request: Sell me on your class!
So far I’ve enjoyed leveling thief the most (made it to 80). But when I looked on the forums, a lot of players of the class seem to lament the standing of the class in group content across the board. I heard “no group utility”, “weak defense”, “weak offense”, “no reason to bring a thief.”
As a new player, it’s hard to sort through that information because I haven’t experienced much group content (just a few fractals in the 15-30 range, which seemed easy enough but how do I know how much I was contributing to that?). All I know so far is that running d/p primary (p/p backup) in the open world and especially in the jungle has been a blast!
So I guess what I’m saying is, I can find plenty of reasons NOT to play a class when I read the forums. How about providing me some good reasons I want to play a class?
Thanks!
I love my thief but I’ll give it to you straight. This class is the bottom of the barrel, the scum between your toes and the last person picked in a pick up basketball game. This class just out right sucks. There is nothing good this class gives you. In PvP you hit like a wet noodle and your as tough as wet paper. You’ll be flamed for even thinking about picking this class in PvP. In PvE, it gets worse, no one wants you for raids. You provide no utility at all to other players and your still as tough as wet tissue paper.
I mained thief since day 1 and it’s sad that this class is utter crap. Good luck and Godspeed.
I’m also a new player and thief appealed to me enough that it was my first character to 80. So it’s definitely disappointing to hear from established players that, even after a bit of buffing, the class is still bottom of the barrel in PvE and PvP. I hope there’s more to this story!
At least for now I’m working mostly on solo content it hasn’t been a problem. The class is fun and I don’t feel like I have much trouble just running around in the jungle doing events and completing mastery/hero point challenges. But according to this, I don’t have much to look forward to when I’m ready for group content.
Forgot to mention runes. I use pack runes for the extra boons (pairs nicely with thrill of the crime for excellent boon uptime), power, and precision. Sigils I am currently trying out air/fire for extra burst. I’m making a bit of a guess that on paper I probably get way more out of something like that power stacking sigil. But in practice, I don’t get to stand there teeing off on most enemies at melee range where I do my best damage.
When facing multiple enemies, I seem to survive best by using shadow shot/steal to close range, use the blind/weakness to cover some momentary AA and, if it’s safe to do so, attempt to land an interrupt (order of operations depends on the target, of course). Against most non-veteran+ targets, landing that interrupt usually translates into a quick kill with little or no damage in return.
As a bonus, the mordrem frequently carry that club or whatever it is that launches. This is one of my favorite items to steal in the jungle because you can chain it for more or less unanswered damage – and lots of it! It’s also an interrupt that can proc pulmonary impact. So you can do things like shadow shot – club – steal – club – shadow shot, with AA inbetween according to the speed of your opponent. That’s potentially a ton of damage if some of those interrupts land. And you had them interrupted, knocked down, or flying through the air for the entire fight!
In any event, the goal is to try to get in and drop the target with a quick burst, then get out of range (or onto the next target). Standing in one place for too long seems to be a good way to get dead in HoT! Wherever possible, use abilities that allow you to take the offensive, but make it difficult for the target to damage you back!
Alright. That’s all I got. If you guys are feeling expressive, feel free to critique/offer alternatives to what I’ve said here. I’m a new player, so I have a lot to learn and I’d appreciate the help! It’s a lot to figure out and I’m mostly going it solo so far! Does it show?
I’m a new player, so there may be some holes in my advice, but I recently had to come up with a solution when I reached level 80 on my first character (a thief, of course!). The HoT monsters were just a heck of a lot stronger than most of the monsters leveling up.
Right now I’m feeling pretty comfortable. I won’t say I don’t die at all, but I am very new still and I run full berserker gear (no added vitality/toughness). My build is DD/DA/Tr, running d/p primarily with p/p for ranged backup. I may be missing something, but I can’t find a strategy that works well 100% of the time at close range as a thief – some enemies you just need to maintain distance!
For utilities I run the physical heal that restores endurance, signets of power and precision (precision is extra nice because its active also restores endurance!), and bandit’s defense. Elite skill is usually dagger storm. It dishes out a lot of hits and reflects projectiles. And if you run D/P and P/P sets, you have virtually no other area effect – just a bit of cleave from dagger AA. I also use sigil of fire for a little extra area damage.
With this setup I have virtually limitless endurance, both in and out of combat. With unhindered combat only stuns can stop me, and bandit’s defense is an excellent counter since it’s a short cooldown stun break that gives you plenty of block time to ensure you can escape to a safe distance. I also have full uptime swiftness and can zoom around the open world burning excesss endurance for even better movement speed.
I also rely heavily on interrupts to proc pulmonary impacts. This seems to be a great offensive/defensive strategy since it deals solid damage while preventing damage in return. Lets me eat those nasty shadowleapers and bladedancers up as they just like to spam those specials at me and end up taking lots of damage to the face while dealing none in return! D/P and P/P both have pistol 4 for interrupts on demand, and steal with DA/Tr build is only a 20s cooldown for another great interrupt (as well as stolen items which can interrupt).
You might give it a try. It’s been working nicely for me. But I expect there are plenty of other angles.
1. EXPLORE: Verdant Brink
2. META: Verdant Brink
3. REWARDS: N/A
4. STORY: Verdant Brink
5. VISUALS: Verdant Brink
6. MAP CURRENCY: N/A
7. ENEMY DESIGN: Tangled Depths
8. FAVORITE: Verdant Brink
In fairness, I haven’t done enough exploring in Dragon’s Stand yet. And I like all the zones so far. They’re all works of art. But entering the Verdant Brink for the first time and the story that explains the incredible landscape…just fantastic! The events all fit in and add to the feel. And what better introduction to glider mechanics?
I’m going to go ahead and agree with the others who singled out the chak for enemy design. These guys are just a lot of fun. I can’t really explain why. But honestly, it’s a close call because I’ve had a blast with the mordrem and those frog people, too. The frog people probably keep me on my toes the most (that bladedancer/shadowleaper combo is nasty!), but dodging sniper fire and charging raptor mounts with the mordrem can be fun, too!
Most of all I just enjoy the overall map design. It’s convoluted, difficult to navigate, and the enemies can be a handful. But these maps feel alive. They’re so intricate. Coming from WoW, where maps are mostly just 2D planes with features on top of them, the HoT maps are a beautiful thing. I’m sure once that new map smell wears off I’ll be eating these words, but that just means I’ll be ready to shell out cash for more of the same quality! That is the idea, isn’kitten
I was really frustrated by this fight. I may have missed it, but I didn’t notice the typical dialogue box indicating that you must “Interact.” with the updrafts on the platform. I found the mechanics of the fight otherwise to be too easy, which seems necessary because the fight is so drawn out and doesn’t feature checkpoints. If they were bleeding-edge difficult, we’d all be throwing our computers out the window in frustration!
The story itself is very cool as usual. I enjoyed the whole thing! But I would have preferred a shorter, more challenging fight. Or perhaps a lengthy, challenging fight with checkpoints between phases. And I apologize if I somehow missed that “Interact” box, but once I figured out that I had to click the interact keybind to activate the updrafts this fight was trivial.
Probably more of a noob thing. I’ll bet most of you figured that out right away!
I’m a brand new player myself, just hit the level cap for the first time in the past couple of weeks. Coming over from WoW, I found the HoT maps refreshing. For starters, the artwork is absolutely breathtaking. But more than that, the layouts are impressive especially when you work in the glider mechanics.
The combat system is nothing new for established players, but I’ve been really impressed by it. The developers made some very smart choices that they didn’t make over in WoW, and I think it’s really working for this game. I appreciate the way they restrict your available skills to 5 weapon and 5 utility skills. It forces choices and the results (barring balance issues) is a very diverse system that allows players to create many different playstyles within each class. I love it!
All in all, fighting in the jungle feels fast, exciting, challenging, and fun. I’ll admit there has also been a nice dose of frustration during the learning process, but I can’t really complain. The quality of content is as good as anything I’ve ever seen.
Now let’s just work on getting out more of it, huh? I beat Mordremoth and was like: Really? That’s it? MOAR STORY! LoL