Guild Wars 2

Liquid Storm.8097:

Challenge and getting wiped 50 times is not the same. Challenge is also not constantly running around and dodging OP opponents who can kill you in just a matter of seconds. On another note, I’ve already stated that there are 9 dungeons in the game. If YOU want “challenge”, go do harder ones like Arah or CoF, spend hours and hours trying to get through a boss and then post a bragging video on YouTube for all I care. But seeing as how every dungeon needs to be structured in such a way that you have to get wiped at least 10 times to get through on your first try is stupid, and if you’re defending that kind of approach, you’re being egoistic. Period.

Can someone describe a ‘challenging’ fight that cannot cause a wipe after a few fails?

I’m sure it exists but I’m having trouble imagining it. Perhaps old Kholer? He hasn’t changed much from the old though, just more variables and his spin isn’t quite as deadly.

Yeah and when you’ll learn everything there is to learn about AC and start spamming how easy it is, you’ll expect Anet to make it even harder. How is this not favouring elitism?

The difference being, there are mechanics in the fight not easily ignored. For instance, you can’t just put weakness on the spider queen and have her poison pools do practically nothing (or even without the weakness). Now you have to stay out of them. They aren’t easily ignored. It won’t ever be ‘easy’ in the sense that you’d be able to just stand there and beat on her until she’s dead like before. If she lays down those pools you’d better watch out. If she immobilizes you, not only are you stuck but likely taking heavy damage.

And I find it funny people think the new gravelings are tougher. They’re so much easier to kill and their knockback isn’t near-instant death like the Stalker’s knockdown used to be. Not only that but the AoE knockback is so telegraphed, new players can actually tell what hit them vs being chewed up by a Stalker that isn’t even facing you.

You think it’s head but really, it’s just different. You haven’t adjusted to the changes…oh, and the bosses actually pose a threat so…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But yeah, don’t just leave a party mid dungeon! Apart from the obvious issue that one player breaking the party can spoil everyone elses work, and how irritating that is, I just don’t understand your motivation.

If you have an irritation with the players in your party, I think it’s better to just leave silently than to make a big fuss about it. Why create drama? If it’s not pressing, no point bringing it up. Only if you initiated the instance should you be concerned with dropping. They can find some other person to fill in. If you have a problem with how someone jokes or pranks, why make a fuss about it and call them out on their fun? You can, but you’ll probably just sound like a kitten before you quit/get kicked.

A bunch of wannabe Inquest in here >_>

Liquid Storm.8097:

Oh no no no, you’re missing the point here. Uber awesome players like Leo and Maestro want ALL 9 dungeons to be “challenging” to the point where only 2 groups out of 10 can finish them. So much fun. You can’t beat AC? Well perhaps you should try another dungeon… before Anet makes those harder too.

Well what exactly do the ‘not Uber awesome players’ want?

Do they want to get a 10sec warning when to dodge? A slap on the wrist if they don’t?

Do they think they should be able to beat a path in 10min and the whole dungeon in less than an hour?

What experience exactly do you want? The only part I’m defending is dungeons should be challenging. Dungeons that aren’t should be looked at. Why should dungeons be easy or have a scale so newbies can hop in on the big guns and not be put on the spot?

If it’s challenging, why should they not be killed? If they aren’t downed and killed, does it ever pose a threat?

What exactly are you opposed to? Because I’m not sure why you’re focusing on me or on the ones defending the current implementation of the dungeons. It’s like you’re complaining dungeons shouldn’t be difficult or that how the instance is now is completely unfeasible to comprehend by a new player.

So my question to you guys is, how would you change things?

If you say ‘change it back to old AC’, then I guess I’m done here. Basically amounts to ‘the bosses shouldn’t pose a threat’.

IndigoSundown.5419:

That’s not an accurate representation of the old AC. Old AC became easy because people learned it, not because the mobs were not fighting. Nor could it be done mindlessly — well except maybe for Ghost Eater. Although I remember one run having to revive the same guardian several times in the Ghost Eater fight. Your message will come though clearer if you do not let your passion for dungeons get in the way of your objectivity.

AlietteFaye put’s it pretty well. The reason it’s ‘hard’ now is because it’s unfamiliar (bugs aside). It will get easier as we proceed to hammer though it again and again like before.

Morpheus.6401:

I would like to see you (Leo G.4501) mindlessly beat the old Kholer, not dodging wires and spin,

I’ve seen guardians do it before. I think they used protection boon to do it. I’ve beaten old Kholer before solo but it wasn’t easy.

But right now? You can eat Kholer’s pull+spin without dying. Not only did they make his kill-shot weaker, they reduced his health. So if someone with protection and condition removal could eat his spin before, they can do it now much easier.

or mindlessly beat howler king not dodging his breath,

Dodging once is pretty easy. Especially if you were in melee, you could just dodge through him.

or mindlessly beat colossus not dodging breath and the stones,

And he did nothing while the rocks fell so hitting while moving…did you notice in that video, hitting while moving is standard fighting. Doing that just helps you survive longer so basically using standard fighting tactics to beat the boss’ signature attack.

Anyway, I’m not arguing about if the dungeon should be ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ but the bosses shouldn’t be as cake as they were. It’s a shame when the hardest part about AC isn’t any of the main bosses but were burrows and ghosts that gang up on you. If you can’t see that they just made the bosses the proper challenge they were suppose to be to begin with, then I don’t know what to tell you.

The bosses pose a real threat unlike before, when once you learned what they do, they were no threat at all.

And again, I have no problem with having tutorial mini-dungeons in this game. But not tutorial dungeons that also award end-game rewards. Why? Because people will then farm the kitten out of them and do nothing else (see: CoF). There’s lots of potential for mini-dungeons in this game and that’s where I feel the learning should be because those rewards can be controlled without stifling those seeking those end-game rewards. Basically, I think if you want to farm something there should be work involved. Doing easy kitten dungeons is hardly work.

You’re totally right!

I almost forgot to bring this up after the months that I played but this is rather annoying little visual issue.

It shows several things:
-Staff is very consistent with its animations.
-Scepter and Focus skills are…very inconsistent.
-They spent a lot of time with the dagger visuals.

Staff
When I say it’s consistent, I mean a lot of the animations are copied. For auto-attacks, Fire and Earth are the same with different particles while while water and air mirror each other with different particles. This is perfectly fine and the actual look is nice. Basically, you’re using both ‘hands’ to charge the spell, reaching for the staff for the spell and directing it with your hand. Nothing wrong with that and looks pretty striking IMO.

After that, I feel they got a bit lazy. The staff is a focusing tool but no longer do you reach for the staff to charge anything. I don’t have a problem not having the spells come from the staff, but only 1(!!!!) spell actually comes from the staff, Air #2 which is a pretty neat little animation but has a weak particle effect (a big solid and bright bolt, plz!).

Other issues:
-There’s no clear line of sight for these spells. Sometimes I could be trying to cast these on targets behind me and I can’t actually tell because the animation doesn’t indicate any particular direction.

Suggestions:
-Add some staff waving and ground pounding.
—Fire #5 = add staff pound at your feet before reaching to pull down meteors
—Water #3 = wave staff to summon the geyser
—Air #3 = sweep staff laterally to fan the air at the target
—Earth #5 = same as Air #3

Scepter and Focus
When I said these are inconsistent, it’s exactly like the OP says. Sometimes you cast with the correct hand and other times not, sometimes the scepter is there and sometimes it isn’t.

Suggestions:
-Redo some of the animations.
-Borrow from other scepter wielding professions.
-Use the 2-handed forward reaching animations more to make it more dynamic.

The reason Dagger looks pretty good is a lot of the animations use both hands or neither hands.

One reason why Scepter air auto looks the way it does is because the arc of lightning wasn’t there originally. It was just you reaching your hand/scepter out at a target and they buzzed with electricity. They added the arc of lightning visual later but didn’t update the animation. I wouldn’t be opposed to using the Mesmer scepter #3 floaty scepter animation for Air auto (minus the ‘whirl it around you before pointing’ part).

But yeah, if there isn’t already a topic like this, perhaps we need to focus on filling this thread up. If the devs can go back and change the look of the Air elementals when no one asked for it, don’t see why they couldn’t substitute in some animations if asked.

Morpheus.6401:

Leo G.4501:

Maestro.5376:

Morpheus.6401:

Seriously, this looks like more a paid advertisement LOL.

Oh it was great, oh it went so smooth, oh I made new friends.

The fact is, even though I still like to run AC it is immensely harder to find a group now.

No matter how many posts there are here saying how good the new AC is gw2lfg.com proves the opposite.

The decrease in LFG entries is not a demonstration of quality of the new AC, but more a demonstration of how resistant people are to change, especially a slight increase in difficulty.

I would say a ‘shift in difficulty’ instead. The bosses tend to have lower HP meaning you spend less time mindlessly beating on them but yeah, it’s harder to mindlessly beat on them too. It’s a give and take.

It’s a demonstration that most ppl didn’t like the changes. And I suppose we are playing to enjoy and have fun aren’t we? So Anet just took away something most ppl use to like and have fun.
Lousy job if you ask me.

Maybe if those people admit they just want to mindlessly beat on things that can’t fight back, perhaps. They’d still have to prove they deserve a reward for such actions though.

Maestro.5376:

Morpheus.6401:

Seriously, this looks like more a paid advertisement LOL.

Oh it was great, oh it went so smooth, oh I made new friends.

The fact is, even though I still like to run AC it is immensely harder to find a group now.

No matter how many posts there are here saying how good the new AC is gw2lfg.com proves the opposite.

The decrease in LFG entries is not a demonstration of quality of the new AC, but more a demonstration of how resistant people are to change, especially a slight increase in difficulty.

I would say a ‘shift in difficulty’ instead. The bosses tend to have lower HP meaning you spend less time mindlessly beating on them but yeah, it’s harder to mindlessly beat on them too. It’s a give and take.

It’s just fine.

Why not apply burning instead?

That is, if you’re relying on bleeds to do damage for you, why not burn too?

abelooi.9156:

Don’t kid yourself guys. In the context of dungeons as discussed here, Guild WARS 2 only need one thing – dps. Support build, healing build, all those nonsense has no place in a dungeon in gw2.

edited to add that, if you bring a support, healing or one of those nonsensical build into my team you’re getting kicked. no offence.

You forgot to add the detail “when everyone is strong in performance” i.e. they know how to dodge and when to dodge.

If you can’t do that near perfectly, you’re just dead weight…literally. Having a high DPS team that falls over dead the instance they get focused on is a dungeon team that won’t beat anything.

Red Falcon.8257:

Because Warrior’s power scales esponentially with gear and traits, Mesmer is more reliant on his weapon skills instead.

Not what I heard.

Mesmer’s phantasms, clones and shatters are quite lackluster without specific traits to improve them. In PvE, I know this is the case as leveling mesmer is a bit of a drag as your clones vanish quickly under fire and have no additional effect, phantasm damage is mediocre, and they all recharge a bit longer without 20% or more reduction in cooldown.

Basically, a mesmer is much stronger with traits.

Daecollo.9578:

Why would mending be a shout? That does not even make sense.

What? You don’t have magical bandages and stitches that sew you up and treat your wounds when you shout the word “MENDING!” to activate them?

CryxTryx.9208:

Hey I just want to thank the group that did the run and the people that supported them. I tried to post a thread from a new players perspective and I think I did it with the wrong intentions.

I think I actually expected to enlighten a few people as to how a new player actually feels doing these runs, I described my experiences and let people know that it might take a few wipes, but stick to it, and with a group going in with the right attitude and the right expectations you’ll do just fine and you’ll even have fun doing it! _.

For my trouble I was basically just called a liar and a troll, so thank you for going a step further and showing it being done. You may not be new players per se but some of you were new to your class, and you also did it with out a wipe.

I also want to make it known that I would love to be involved in a future run, or just a normal unfilmed run if any of you guys are doing it.

You see, I think my experience in guild wars has been great so far is because I was lucky enough in the groups that I did get that people will willing to teach and willing to rez and willing to wipe if need be.

I say lucky because the forums would have you believe that this doesn’t really exist in game. Well I would like to take out this element of ‘luck’ by actively surrounding myself with like minding people to play with.

So to Meastro, and to all those involved in this video, here is an open invitation from a GW2 noob, invite me on some runs and maybe even add some legitimacy to them that way by inviting a real noob!

I’m on the Tarnished Coast server, my highest character is a level 70 Mesmer named Rekuta. No obligation but I would be very excited to hear from any of you in game.

Added you. Feel free to add me. I’m on Tarnished Coast too.

Distaste.4801:

(although they did it in all masterworks if I read correctly which any new 35 is unlikely to have)

I’ll argue against this.

My gear in that run was about 75% karma with 3 pieces obtained through the trading post, namely the boots, the bow and the sigil in the bow. Also, I only completed 2 areas as I lvled the character for the transmutation stones and then focused only on doing higher level hearts and skillpoint challenges.

You can’t see but the warrior still has 14k karma after buying gear upgrades from the vendors when I saw potential in the pieces. Sometimes I’d even waste karma on equipment that I never even used because I’d find something better. No dailies completed for the jugs or anything.

A character that is low level with minimal funds I would suggest using karma to get gear. There’s no reason not to.

AlietteFaye.7316:

LiquidLeopard.9823:

Well, for example, I forget which CoF path it was, but we had to keep the NPC alive while clearing a room of spawning mobs and killing assassins every 10% before getting to the boss. We had no problems dropping the assassins in time, but couldn’t survive the respawning mobs banging us around. We had 2 rangers which once dropping their longbow AoE were done for 30 something seconds on any AoE attack except for their drakes, 2 mesmers which once had blown their shatters were out of AoE, and a thief with only their spin 2 win. We were fine for the first 50% but slowly were losing to attrition of health and cooldowns not being available.

Why didn’t you just have your Rangers swap to Greatsword, Sword, or Axe? Or why didn’t they have the trait that makes their Arrows pierce?
Why didn’t your Thief swap to Shortbow or Sword?
Why didn’t your Mesmer swap to Sword or use CDs with Greatsword?
I really think that your team should have been thinking about the current encounter and using what fits accordingly. That part of the dungeon is extremely easy now, especially in comparison to what it was like before.

This. As a player of a profession, you’re being entrusted by your group to know more than the basics of your class. This usually means what and how your profession mechanics work, how your abilities work and the application of those skills and weapons.

In the situation you describe, and the point I was making earlier, having multiple weapons for the situation and being able to swap to them when your ‘build approach’ wouldn’t be optimal is exactly what you’re suppose to do.

As for the armor, SE has the coolest helm of all the dungeon armors and maybe it’s just my graphic settings, but the metallic pieces have a glossy sheen that few armors share. And it looks like thick metal too, not paper-thin sheets like CM armor or pretty much every other armor set (and light armor doesn’t really get any metal looking armor except SE).

Dunno how anyone sees it as ‘junk forged by blind smiths’ or whatever, unless by junk you mean solid. If nothing more, the SE sets have great boots while other sets either have forgettable boots or boots that chop off your toes so you can have claws for feet.

Every class can AoE (some better than others) and every class can support (in different ways). You say you need a Guardian for support and heals, why not a Necromancer to weaken the mobs into paste using conditions? Or a Mesmer who can remove, steal and magnify boons the team already has?

mantis.6459:

Playing a game just to “have fun” and pass the time is not my idea of a good game. I hated Mindsweeper and I hate Angry Birds today.

And here I thought this was the very definition of the term ‘game’. I mean, what other purpose to games have but to entertain you for a time until you have other pressing life matters to take care of?

But I do agree, if you don’t find something entertaining and fun, you’re wasting your time trying to waste your time with it. If you need to kill time and you hate minesweeper, you’re wasting your effort with playing it.

Personally, having ran all the dungeons many times, I find it entertaining to run them over and over for the challenge. There doesn’t need to be ‘progress’ (besides getting to the end of the dungeon), but variety and randomness to the encounters themselves would add to the entertainment value from my standpoint.

Oh, what if A-net sold you access to a special tab for gem store town clothes that expands as they make new offers? Then they could make double money off you

Well my Charr warrior looks awesome. Zero clipping.

Levistis.8356:

I am down for P3, I’m sure our group could complete it. Let’s try to do it this weekend, how would the others fair on that?

I’d enjoy that. Probably wouldn’t have a bunch of people (well, there never was a bunch) watching to see if we succeed, but P3 is presumed harder than 1 and I think P2 is now the ‘hardest’ so yeah, I’d be down for running the other paths. Shouldn’t take very long

Paavotar.3971:

Making the heal recharge 20% faster (20 sec cooldown) would already make this skill insanely good. It would be kinda over the top if you would increase the healing also and making it instant cast. If I recall right, healing power already increases the potential of this skill so I have to say no to the increased healing.

But otherwise, not a bad suggestion.

But Physical Training is a Grandmaster trait in Strength. How often do people dip that deep into Strength?

Revolution.6301:

I’m just bringing up this issue because its clear they lied to us to the point where its almost laughable not one delevelper has commented on these kinds of threads. They ignore them and really really REALLY hope they go away like an annoying cold.

I think the devs are far too busy to be bothered responding to posters with ‘lololol’ in their first sentence. They’ve got bugs to fix, professions to balance and content to generate to take the time to clarify as you don’t even want clarification, you just want some apology, acknowledgement and attention.

You rot your own disposition for any reasonable person to ever want to approach you about something like this. It’s like approaching a raving drunk in a parking lot. How they react is unpredictable and everyone’d be better just avoiding the encounter.

Lipin.7529:

I’ve watched the video, thank you for taking the effort to put this up.

The sad fact is: The elementalist doesnt know how to play her class. Alot of DPS was wasted, elite skills not used, auto attacking, not switching stance.

Alot of the parts of the dungeons were ran with sub-effective strategies.

The video was a pain to watch because your party waits forever before you do anything.

The pros: The party cleared it and while they ran it under sub-effective conditions, it further proofs AC can be ran by ANYBODY.

Lol what about the Ranger? He was certain people would comment on his inability to play and control his pet…he was mentioning this often enough but apparently he did good. No one’s said a peep yet

Seemed the elementalist made some expert use of Vapor Form, IMO.

But what about that Warrior? Sword/Sword? And several times he was just standing around not doing anything for a few seconds. And he used that bow quite a lot…

Hobocop.1508:

It’s good that it’s a little rough around the edges. Proves that you don’t need to have perfect play in order to complete the dungeon.

Rough around the edges? That was a pretty smooth run, IMO. Perhaps you’re used to speedruns where everyone performs scripted tactics?

Several times we stopped, it was for external reasons like tuning the volume of a mic or discussing if skipping was an option.

Not that I’m trying to argue the run was perfect, but give us some credit.

It’s a very useful skill for a melee. Drop down the field before charging a mass group of enemies in dungeons or lay it on a boss you know has killer attacks.

In a recent run through AC, I had my Asura Warrior using Radiation Field. On Kholer, it makes his spin not all that dangerous.

My Warrior uses it with his condition build so he has decent condition damage/duration making his burns, bleeds, poisons, immobilizes, weakness and so on last for quite a time.

Pain Inverter is also a decent Asura skill. It’s not that useful in PvE but in WvW, you can pop this often enough to screw people that spam you in melee, possibly even killing themselves in the process. On a 30sec recharge and boon/condition duration extends the effects of this skill.

Anything is possible. Such behavior is affected by environment and personality and I’m sure, despite how many Charr you meet who are not, some have mild personalities. IMO, it’s probably one of the reasons people like Tybalt Leftpaw. Compared to other Charr, he’s funny, goofy and mild mannered.

Couldn’t tell you what boss is my favorite as it seems to change depending on my mood but a different question might be which bosses would win against who.

Actually kind of curious if the designers ever tried putting different dungeon bosses in the same instance to watch them duke it out for fun.

Have you tried joining the Inquest? Sounds like they solved that issue a good while ago thanks to Kudu’s lead.

Esplen.3940:

And that’s how our society will fall. We will weaken ourselves to better others? What good will come of that? Tell me, if there were to be a method to incorporate other races in our culture, do you not think it would have been done already?

Durmand Priory.

And when it comes to magic, wisdom is as important as intelligence especially considering the races of the past had more powerful magical technologies.

So yes, Durmand Priory.

Myrkkin.7921:

Levistis.8356:

@Myrkkin: We did this to prove the mass of people wrong, at least on the forums….

Huh… usually I’m pretty sympathetic to people who have trouble with a dungeon (like to offer help/suggestions to make it more fun). I generally and genuinely don’t understand the problems people have with AC though.

It’s because a troll throws bouncing lightning balls. Something had to give…

One simple reason:

Asura have extensive intelligence but lack wisdom.

To accept other races into their institutes would be wise as more minds and ways of thinking will advance knowledge in every aspect as well as learn new and unorthodox methods to approach problems. But if they were wise and intelligent they would be perfect. Their flaw is their inflated egos, their close-mindedness and lack of wisdom.

I’d expect those wishing to learn more of the Asura teachings join the Durmand Priory as they tend to house the wiser of the Asura race and are filled with open-minded scholars willing to learn and teach.

I find it funny people dislike the look of the armor yet like everyone thinks this is just the bees knees:
http://www.gw2armor.com/human/male/cof/heavy/front.jpg

The SE armor has some pretty nice looking pieces, namely the gloves, boots and pants. The light armor chest is a great chance of pace as well, re-enforced metal banded breastplate for light armor? The metallic sheen of the pieces can work as nice accents to other cloth armor pieces too.

But kitten fiery graphics on your armor are apparently ‘awesome’ despite SE armor having some pieces for that to? Sometimes I wonder if the community has any sense of style at all

Electro.4173:

Also, the Greatsword charge animation where you run on 3 legs while holding the sword in the 4th is awesome.

Granted.

But to fulfill that, my Charr Warrior is a banner warrior and he does the 3-legged run when using its charge.

And yes, I believe the animations are different across different professions to a degree.

Maestro.5376:

Regarding the comments on Story Mode tokens, this is what Robert Hrouda had to say on the issue:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We had them in story before launch, but what we found is that we couldn’t strike a balance between the amount we give for completing story mode, and the difficult difference. Our feedback was that rather than face the challenge of Explorable dungeons, high skill groups would just afk faceroll the much easier story mode content for the guaranteed smaller token amount. We tried several things, but couldn’t strike the balance, so we removed tokens from story mode as a reward and put them into explorable mode only as a reward.

I think a better solution would be to implement Rare Armor distribution from the Rare Armor Token set directly, and stop when the entire set had been awarded. This prevents people from spamming story mode for tokens, but also gives tangible rewards to players who enjoy Story Mode.

Besides that, perhaps the dungeon story modes could grant Influence for your guild, a moderate amount for replaying it with a bonus amount for playing through on a run that isn’t a re-run (so it’d have to be a 1st time run for someone in the group).

Since there’s more stuff to buy with influence (Guild Missions!) they could possibly adjust its distribution to favor Story Modes and a little less for other events to make this an attractive venue.

nethykins.7986:

@Mourningcry. I think you should note that effort AND other player’s cooperation are the gatekeepers.

Let’s not forget, you may have the effort but if no-one is willing to help you do a run and be willing to stand by you through the aforementioned wipes, retries, and struggles then there is no chance for you. As I’ve said before, even with evidence that 35+’s can achieve a run, the stigma still remains that “if you’re low levelled, you’re not much of a benefit to the group”

That’s always a factor that people leave out. Cooperation from other players. With kicking from parties, all 4warrior+1mes teams, and 80’s only “fast runs”, you’ll have less and less time to experience the dungeon at the required level. Now we’ve established that 35’s can do it, we have to establish whether or not the community will change it’s stance and if those extra traits create that big of a gap between allowing or pushing away a low leveller.

People talking about redoing the story mode probably have never asked someone in the last 24 hours if they want to do storymode. I joined a guild that said they were pve friendly and liked doing runs with lowbies….I wanted to test my necro in the AC environment and NO-one would want to join me…so I ended up not doing it until I reached ~60.
Again, this is all about player perception and cooperation. How the hell are you going to do a story-mode when so few people want to join and do one too? How do you gain experience?

It’s always that catch 22. People will hardly let you join so you can gain experience, but in order to gain experience you need to have people let you join them.

Very true words. I agree wholeheartedly and hope there’s something that can be done to sway regular perceptions.

Ursan.7846:

I’m actually shocked no one’s brought up one of the fundamental beauty of GW2’s combat system yet. In which skill, knowledge, and experience are far greater indicators of success than gear, numbers, or stats. This video (And the naked AC run) really drives home the fact. Thanks.

That reminds me…seeing that video they truly were at a disadvantage being at lvl 80 and basically being double penalty’ed from downscaling and having no armor. I’m curious how they’d fair with the new dungeon changes on a naked run.

Compared to what we did, their success was much more unlikely…and yet probably more people expected lvl 35s to fail more. Very curious.

I’m glad someone besides me finally acknowledges this!

I’ve said, over and over, Charr using swords (mostly Greatswords) looks rather goofy. The way they swing it just doesn’t look strong, savage or well trained.

This is why I use Axes instead. They actually look very brutal and their spins look fast and balanced compared to other races using axes spinning like ballerinas.

nethykins.7986:

- Troll is basically supercharged. My group had trouble killing him because he always arrives at the worst locations, (while being ganked by kholer and his minions or set of archers just before Nente etc). I have no idea why they changed his “melee range attack” to a bouncing projectile that hits like a truck.

Other criticisms aside, this is probably the part of the dungeon that rather irks me. It’s a troll. Why is it throwing bouncing lightning balls!? All in all, he’s not that hard to defeat but it gets more trickier since kiting is ineffective. The fear is cool, the shockwaves alright but why is he flinging lightning!?!

kitten broken forums…

Oranisagu.3706:

Leo G.4501:

wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini-dungeon
Don’t need tutorial dungeons. Just make more mini-dungeons across the levels. Make those tutorial-esque for newer dungeon runners.

+1, that was one of the first good ideas I’ve read in this thread. if they’d have increasing difficulty it would be perfect to introduce new players to harder content.

just did font of rhand yesterday with a few random people (chest even dropped a lvl 39 rare, for my then 35 mesmer – meaning it might be just the same as a dragon chest, which also guarantees a rare of lvl 39 or higher). those minidungeons are very fun and good for newer players. I’d love to see more of them, if they get harder in difficulty they’d even be able to bridge the gap in difficulty up to dungeons.

On that idea, I think chest for such events should be kind of like the personal story chests that let you choose the rewards. Not choose exactly what you want, but it will randomly give you a choice of 3 different loots of the same quality (choose a medium armor, heavy armor or light armor piece, or randomly 3 different weapons) as that gives you a higher chance of getting something you can use.

…or they can just weigh drops better by your class…that might be asking too much.

Liquid Storm.8097:

Having said that, you have proved nothing.

I’d like to believe we proved that lvl 35s can clear trash and clean up these bosses just as good as downleveled 80s. I don’t think we ever hit a brick wall that stopped us.

Before, people had the misconception that a full lvl 35 team took a tremendous amount of time and were hugely squishy compared to fully tricked-out lvl 80s and that the amount of difficulty in doing the dungeon on the level was out of balanced. All this was proven false.

Shiren.9532:

The Spider Queen is in many ways harder than Malrona from TA, a level 55 dungeon – her AoEs now hit for a lot of damage

I’m kitten sure Spider Queen is harder than Malrona. The only difference is SQ has much less (relative) HP as she can be beaten in a few minutes while Malrona is practically a sack of HP.

I’d say you should expect updates to this boss and a lot of others in TA.

(which is going to hurt low levels more than tankier high levels, especially with only three stat gear and no traits)

I’ve started to refute this. I’ve posted some comparison shots of various builds of my Warriors compared with a lvl 35. Likely, a ‘tankier high level’ character will do less damage than an equivalently equipped lvl 35 mostly due to the gap in stats created by level. If you’re specc’ed to be tanky, that means you’re not specc’ed to do damage (or nearly as much damage) and dynamic level scaling will create a gap that puts you below a lvl 35 unless you have gear and traits to overcome the gap. This is shown in the warrior I used mainly specc’ed for offense being decently behind a full exotic geared lvl 80 in damage but still having greater HP, toughness, armor and healing without gear dedicated for those.

As for the rest of your feedback, I share the same sentiments. But don’t disregard the other changes made. The HP of many of those bosses was reduced, sometimes very drastically. Some of their attacks were severely weakened or simply do next to no damage. Of course these exchanges likely made them more dangerous, I suppose it’s up to the consensus to decide what they like better; bosses with crazy over-the-top attacks that can kill you but don’t take long to take down, or boring and easily avoided attacks but the boss is a huge sack of HP?

There are many suggestions I have for dungeons, among some is introducing more randomness and variety to the encounters such as swapping a boss’ primary skills from instance to instance so you’re never quite sure what it will throw at you in your run, but another suggestion outside of adding or fixing dungeons is this:

wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini-dungeon

Don’t need tutorial dungeons. Just make more mini-dungeons across the levels. Make those tutorial-esque for newer dungeon runners.

digiowl.9620:

And then run around in circles for 30+ seconds as bursting that one mob aggroed 2-3 others nearby and your big burst is on recharge.

Well Dragon’s Tooth recharges in 6 seconds, Shatterstone in 2 and Phoenix/Arcane Blast in 20 (if nothing is traited). Also, with my build, the attunements recharge in 11 sec and this is only fire and water attunement. There’s still earth and air as well as other utility skills.

You’re trying to exaggerate, aren’t you?

The OP even mentioned Warrior. I happen to like warrior. Rifle? Probably not the best weapon you want to use if you don’t want to press 1, 3 and F1 most of the time. Longbow has skills, 6 of them, that you want to be using. It’s a very engaging and fun weapon but not great for single target damage. Rifle is much better at this.

@Oranisagu: Definitely can’t argue with that preference. If all my dungeon runs were like the last one I had (described in another post, AC path 3) then yeah, I’d probably just solo the darn stuff as by then I’d have to get that good to finish anything >_>

plasmacutter.2709:

I think you’re approaching combat wrong.

When facing non-elite mobs, I will typically make it a contest of how much damage I can avoid while killing my foe.

This is what I try to do.

If you don’t like spamming 1 skill, try a class that discourages it such as elementalist, mesmer or engineer. On those professions (well, I don’t have an engineer) I have a different game: chain-burst. What skills land nearly at once to blow up foes before they notice. Yeah, you can sit there and press 1 and the mob will eventually die…or I can time Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Shatter Stone and Arcane Blast to burst them…that’s definitely not just spamming 1…more like 2, F1, 2, 3, 7…

Oranisagu.3706:

have you ever stopped to consider how a noob gets to become experienced? there has to be some kind of progression of difficulty to allow them to learn new content.

This is one reason when I group with newer players, I don’t always come out and tell them how the fight runs.

IMO, someone learns better if given the opportunity to learn and just telling them ‘dodge this and this, don’t stand in that, etc’ isn’t quite learning. This is probably because my best method of learning is getting my hands dirty and doing it for myself, seeing the big attacks, maybe even dying to them on multiple occasions. I know lots of other people learn things differently, but no one can dispute that video games are meant to be learned through trial and error, people just get accustomed to looking up guides now that they are so readily available online.

But handing you boulders to juggle the bosses or bosses so easy a group can kill them before they get a second round of attack in isn’t doing new players a favor. This is why dungeon runners sucked for so long, because they always fell back on things like waypoint rezzing to tide them over for their lack of adaptability. Leading new players by the hand through simple fights is no better at preparing them for tougher content so again, this leaves me asking what you’re actually advocating?

right now, we have easy mode pve and then suddenly the very first dungeon a huge step up.

Open world can be challenging! You just have to venture through areas above your level. If things become easy at your level, try facing mobs with new and stronger attacks and see how you fair. If you can manage that, I don’t see why you couldn’t learn the ins and outs of a dungeon the very same way.

trying to show off how good you are by completing a dungeon with a group of experienced players in order to prove everyone how bad they are for failing does amount to elitism in my book. but we might interpret the term differently.

This probably isn’t aimed at me. But I’m not doing this. My purpose was to gauge the level of adequacy of a lvl 35 in masterwork to a lvl 80 in exotics running the same lvl 35 content and I have to say…it’s about the same.

maybe, instead of only picking experienced players and telling everyone how easy AC really is, you could try introducing new players into dungeons like I did and see for yourself how miserably they fail, without any chance to practice in a less harsh environment. I don’t even know what to tell them anymore apart from: well, you could try pvp, helps a bit learning your class better.

That you feel taking someone inexperienced shouldn’t be difficult is probably where your opinion truly differs from mine. The way I got good at some dungeons was…to try and fail and try again. In the past, that’s how you get good at any video game. You try, you fail, you learn patterns and then try again. Whether this is miserable or fun and challenging comes to if you actually learn and get better.

I may sound old for saying, but back in my retro-gaming days, there are nary a tutorial for your platforming, action or RPGs and if you didn’t have the manual, it was trial and error. I bet Ninja Gaiden would have been so awesome if it started you out in Ninja Training Academy like in Naruto
/sarcasm

Brangien.7462:

1. Gravelings won’t death tackle you now (Thank god, i hate slotting all break frees)

Just curious, but did you ever happen to play City of Heroes?

Chaosky.5276:

(Why can’t we just get a decent long range single-target oriented option?)

I’m still holding hope that A-net will proliferate the Longbow to Elementalist for that option

Everyone wants Greatswords on everything but frankly, I hate the way mesmer wields it. It’d be hard to screw up an elemental longbow that shoots flaming/ice/lightning/rock arrows