Can’t skip trash – good, go to every other dungeon if you want to skip.
Gimmicky fights – will be ok once people know the tricks.
Big health bosses – not really, they all die fast when enough you use the tricks.
All sorted?
As paying customers we don’t like paying but this is just a convenience item. You can play without it and if it you think your money is best spent on this item then you have the option to spend it.
The short story for Twilight Assault was a preview/trailer and had no game lore as such. Preview material doesn’t need to be in game. The writing was pretty poor though. Captain Magnus was somewhere between a pirate and a management consultant. “Ah Jim lad, lets motivate our co-workers by breaking out the rum rations. If that doesn’t increase productivity we can make them walk the plank.”
Search back and you’ll find previous threads with exact answers.
The fractals are meant to be small scenes that are reflections of unknown memories within the mists. They could be anything. They could be nothing in particular. You bring your own interpretations of what you see. I think that’s fine and rather cool. The back story is that the Consortium tried an experimental portal and, even though it turned out to be dangerous, Dessa and her crew stayed inside to study it. The consortium lets people go inside to help Dessa, essentially by killing stuff for loot and glory. The fractal disturbances are generally unexplained.
If you can remember the TV show Quantum Leap then fractals are pretty similar. Each week the scientist would be in someone else’s body having to set something right, for no particular reason, and when all is done he jumps to somebody/somewhere else. It’s fun as long as you don’t worry too much about the science.
More than one person can get the ooze scent. I think the Norn speeds up when his friend dies so that’s when the oil fumes can really mount up.
At least it turned out that the preview story for Twilight Assault was nothing more than just a preview story. No harm was done in terms of the in game story, lore, or anything else.
This dungeon is hard without tactics and easy with tactics, I’m guessing. Many of the people who are saying it easy from the start are probably people who took advice from spoilers or watched preview videos. Even a little bit of information can make a lot of difference to how you see these fights.
Ok so you kill the S&S bosses without knowing any tactics, ignoring a key element of the fight that is probably dealing 75% of the damage to your group, and come to the forums and say it is too hard? If you have trouble killing the boss with perfect tactics and a sensible group then it is too hard. If you can kill the boss while ignoring tactics with a PuG then it might even be too easy.
We all want fights with tactics. The forums cry out for fights where people need to do things as a team to defeat a boss (rather than just dodge). Here we have a fight that will probably be easy for groups with tactics and impossible for some PuGs who come through first time without tactics. That’s harsh but ok, in the big scheme of things. Challenges can’t all be easy.
Try them all. There is no need to be scared of these dungeons.
SE1 is very fast but it has enough difficulty that bad groups can fail.
SE3 is of average length and difficulty. PuG groups skip a lot of mobs.
HOTW is generally of average difficulty but quite long. It’s not so much fun either.
“You have to realize that not everyone is an elite as you guys are, who can finish up the Foward Up path like if it is nothing. That path was full of bugs, unfair, uninspired and boring to many.”
There were two main bugs in Twilight Arbor. The Jungle worm and Nightmare tree were both not resetting after a wipe. The Nightmare tree was creating spiders on allies that could not dodge, such as ranger pets and spirits. It isn’t so bad that it needs writing off.
Arah is harder, that’s all. One of the dungeons has to be the hardest. Path 4 seems more difficult but only because there are no common knowledge tactics. It took players over 6 months to get some of the common knowledge tactics that allow CoE speedruns and until then it was seen as a hard dungeon.
“In as much as a cyclone is happy to wreck your house and family, a dragon is happy to wreck your house and family.”
Erm, no. Dragon minions are sadistic and enjoy butchering people, torturing them, defiling their religion, and so on. They are genuinely happy to do it in a way that a force of nature could never be.
The utilties are mainly for PVP. Until you get all your trait points you will probably need some extra defense from utilities so you could put in smokescreen and blinding powder or a signet.
The dialogue between Captain Magnus and that new Turma character is awful. It is shockingly unconvincing for a pirate captain. If is it that bad then it really shouldn’t be in the game. SAB has better dialogue. Any voice actor would probably ask for a rewrite.
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World event revamp = core game (GW2 wants MM for O open world events)
LFG tool = core game
Ascended weapons = core game
Changes to magic find = core game
Reasonable complaint but wrong timing.
Surely TA was ok on all paths except for the Nightmare tree? The Nightmare Tree should be revamped on all 3 paths as it a really dull fight on all of them, even discounting the TAFU snafu. It was graphically poor as well.
I too have no idea why a whole dungeon path would be removed. It would also break the three way story of the Vevina, Laurent, and whoever it was. Not the best story but there was at least a story.
Greatsword is good. Main hand axe isn’t so bad.
“Remember that channeling is bugged (intentionally or not) that it tracks their target even after they are stealthed.”
It isn’t bugged. That is a feature. The channeled skill still has to have a valid target and needs to be triggered when the thief is out of stealth. That leaves the channeled skill weaker than an instant skill that deals all the damage immediately without the possibility of an interrupt.
It should all have been written already so the protest is a bit late. However if you look at this positively then perhaps instead of it being awful it could :-
- be fun to play
- add extra permanent content
- improve the story of the living story
- make Scarlet more interesting
- reduce the chance of us seeing the dredge fractal
How good would that be?
Is it desirable for Signet of Shadows and Assassin’s Signet to start auto-attacks? This is how they work now but it seems strange to me. Perhaps other thieves appreciate this and can say why.
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I think you will run into some mechanics problems. At the moment all the dual skills have some unusual properties, possibly tied into the animations.
You are right. These are very simple tasks. They are not good game content. They are very cheap to design. They pad out the releases. However some people enjoy them and if the designers can add simple content that some people enjoy then they should probably add it to the game. It’s only temporary and if players don’t enjoy it they don’t have to do it. They really, really, do not have to do it.
There is a big let down for any player that starts one of the achievements and then realizes it is just another scavenger hunt. That’s life though?
Game content isn’t so difficult to make. Repeatable end game content is very difficult to make properly and this is where the problem lies. You can play the game fine but when you repeat it more and more the cracks begin to show. The longer you wait for solutions the more disappointing it gets. It’s the same for all MMOs.
Pets, spirits, turrets, etc. can’t dodge the spider spawning attacks and that can cause problems but yes, the PUG solution should just be to dodge the attack when the animation comes. Nothing new there.
Where’s the list btw?
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You are taking relativism too far until there is no moral basis for any judgement. If a woman thinks that killing her (evil) infant children by burning them slowly in oil is a good act then fine, it’s a good act because she thinks it is. No! We have two possible moral standpoints we can use to judge the actions of the Elder Dragons: our own personal morals and the morals of our characters as told in the story lines. In either case, the actions of the dragon minions are shown to be evil and the Honor of the Waves is a specific example.
Even if the dragons consider mortal races to be evil it doesn’t excuse their own evil acts. Go through the Honor of the Waves story dungeon again and follow the story. The actions of the minions and servants of Jormag are not justifiable by any measure. They not only want to defeat the Kodan but also butcher, corrupt, pillage, defile, and torture. They enjoy performing those evil acts. No justification for those acts is shown in the story. If we disbelieve how the dragon minions are shown in game then we have no basis for any discussion of their game lore whatsoever.
Assassin’s Reward is healing on top of regen. You get healed for using any weapon skills so it fits all play styles and builds. You don’t have to sacrifice offence for heals. You presumably get it even if your skill is interrupted. You have 10 initiative for heals before it relies on sustained initiative recovery.
The first comparison should be with Shadow Rejuvenation by the way. Neither seems impressive.
I think there are two questions here. Are the elder dragons we have seen evil? Are elder dragons necessarily evil?
For what we see in game the Elder Dragons are evil. They construct evil minions, recruit evil servants, and command them to persuade evil actions. This is shown for Zaitan everywhere, for Jormag on Honor of the Waves, and for Kralk in some personal stories.
I don’t think there is clear evidence that all Elder Dragons will be evil. However the known and recorded Elder Dragons have been devourers and this may be an innate part of their nature. They may all be greedy, avaricious, and jealous. Since they can devour or corrupt almost everything, perhaps nothing is worthy is respect. Any Elder Dragon that is not evil might have to limit its own devouring nature.
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It is probably just bad play. It is more likely to be careless rangers than any other class since they couldn’t care less where the mobs is. There are any number of other unlikely causes though. Thieves can steal a knockback skill and they can’t steal again until they discharge it. Some summoned mobs have knockback such as the golems from the CoE armor set.
Warriors have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Stand
Rangers have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shared_Anguish
Rangers have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hide_in_Plain_Sight
Guardians have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliatory_Subconscious
Mesmers have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Anguish
Engineers have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protection_Injection
Engineers have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Autodefense_Bomb_Dispenser
Necromances have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper's_Protection
Elementalists have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tempest_Defense
Thieves have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hard_to_Catch
Some of these traits are clearly better value than others.
A group farming champions is fine as it is group content. Multiple groups farming single group content (champions) for faster rewards is a problem in the game design and even though it is popular it will eventually need a solution.
I’ve a feeling that the designers have some things they want to do with fractals but we’ll have to wait for the next fractals to arrive before we see any changes. I’d agree that all those currencies should be used in some way in crafting or barter exchanges by the time ascended armor crafting is released.
There would never be a peace. There would only ever be a cease fire. It’s also unlikely that any ruler would surrender their land to dragon corruption, or a dragon respect the boundaries of any nation.
I know where the OP is coming from. Even once you’ve made an ascended weapon you’re gloomy just thinking that you should make another. I suppose it is all a state of mind and if you know something more fun to do in game then you should just do it. If you’ve nothing you want to do and grinding ascended isn’t going to pass the time then don’t log on until there’s something new.
Yes you can only have one +damage sigil active. You can only have one bloodlust type rune active. Some critical effects share the same timer. So mix them up.
So now we have five stages. In each stage a number of events need completing for progress rather than a set number of kills. The drilling machines have been boosted with a lot more mobs. This all should be better in theory but however …..
The drilling machines are still ‘out of range’ more often than not, whatever range you are actually firing from. It seems typical for the developers to make content more difficult immediately (add hundreds more mobs) while ignoring genuine bugs (can’t hit the lousy thing) just to infuriate players. All the mobs summoned by the drilling machine carry no loot and this makes these events into utterly unrewarding murderfests.
The overall invasion rewards are less than for player effort than roaming in a zerg elsewhere killing champions (group mobs) for purses. This will have to be fixed at some stage since it means he invasions are always failing with insufficient player numbers. I also expect there are a distinct shortage of players at invasions because they are all started at graveyard times on the Euro servers.
The scaling of the aetherblade spawns means that a group of 3-5 players can clear an aetherblade landing and the captain faster than a zerg of 30-50 players. This should give incentive to players to split up and clear 10 captains and progress the invasion. However players still get much more loot from clearing one captain slowly in the zerg so that is what the commanders always organize players to do.
I’ve yet to see an invasion succeed since the last revamp. I doubt I will see an invasion succeed any time soon either until rewards for groups fighting group content are properly balanced (for time spent) against zergs fighting group content. This is a serious design issue in the game and until it is fixed commanders will continually expose this game flaw by organizing players into zergs for group content. Reducing the aetherblade zerg rewards will not solve this alone since players will just relocate to other content that does still reward zerg play.
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The primary obstacle to most players completing this fight is the access as they join disorganized overflows or find insufficient people in the home server zone. If the developer’s intent was to restrict completion of this event to well led guilds with the organization to control a zone (or overflow) then access should have been been primarily designed with that intent as well.
They have already punished us by adding extra mobs after restarting. Their solution for fractal design problems does seem to be to always punish players for using unintended features of that design (not exploits) rather than fixing the problems. Anyone with half a brain can see that this just makes the game less fun for players, so presumably the designers don’t think we play this game for fun.
A solution to the choice of first fractal would be to put a jade maw style gateway always as the first fractal rather than the last. There’s nothing to stop full loot being awarded at the end of the run regardless of which fractal is the last.
Pistol/dagger is perfect for kiting a small number of mobs and has a stealth option from cloak and dagger. That’s about it. Shortbow has better aoe damage, a repeatable and versatile evade/retreat, a poison field, a blast finisher, better tagging in zergs, a shadowstep, and can be fired behind you when kiting. It’s way ahead of the ranger shortbow for utility and can support many different play styles. You wouldn’t want to run pistol/dagger with a signet of malice, for example.
It’s all a perception problem. You don’t have to do a single bit of the living story ever. You can always jump into living story if you like what’s currently on offer. It doesn’t matter if you miss some achievements or dailies. This really is a case of looking at a 3/4 full cup and saying it is almost empty.
It would be great but if they can make better sky battles they should fix Zaitan first.
I think there was a time when TAFU did continually kill people who couldn’t dodge, but didn’t drop 100 spiders onto ranger pets, and did reset to a sensible state. I guess we’d like to go back to that.
Another TAFU thread for THE LIST.
That would get you started ok and you can see what you need after that. Don’t bother with the soldiers yet.
I thought dragonite would be hard to collect but I’ve changed my play style to do a few more world events and temples and it’s actually come faster than the empyreal. If you do some gathering in cursed shore you eventually come across a run of temple events.
The statue of Dwayna has a better story than Scarlet. I don’t think the Eyes of Zaitan looked as good they should but they also had a better story.
Don’t put exploit positions on the forum. Bad things happen.
Classes are balanced well enough that a good player in one class is better than a poor player in another class. Any class can complete dungeons and fractals even in pick up groups.
Some classes are stronger than others generally in PvE. Some classes have a place in dps speed clearing teams and some do not. It needs some rebalancing at the moment but it’s not desparately bad.
“Which utilitys do you guys recomend for each fractal? For example the Dredge one, or the Grawl (this is just examples, I would like to know for all)”
I use a stealth set up for the first part of the dredge fractal and the bomb doors. I use a signet of malice, caltrops, daggerstorm set up for killing dredge generally. I use a kiting and revival set up with withdraw, shadow refuge, and basilisk venom for the end boss, with maybe even a trap for the mining suit. No trait settings can support all those skills equally well.
The problem with Canach coming back is that so few people saw much of him in the first place. The reason those few people want him back is that he was a protagonist in a the living story, with his own motives, rather than just being another stereotyped defender of all that is good.