Guild Wars 2

Crothen.2687:

Twilight Arbor drops? Didint see that coming.
I just hope my explorable party members dont open EVERY pod that has a sylvari in it _

IIRC there are literally no pods in the explorables. So just run those :o

ChaosKirin.1328:

You and I are kindred. I just love jumping on top of things, too.

I explained it to my friends when they asked what I was doing.
“I am jumping where people never expected me to be able to jump to”

The roof of the trading post is intangible.

As someone who enjoys jumping on top of buildings I was sorely disappointed to discover that I could not land on the trading post building, and instead fell through it entirely (almost squishing a nearby skritt!)

I also cant believe that it is entirely comfortable for anyone inside the trading post when it rains.

A+ work with the bank though. Now that is one solid roof.

Dunno. but the ele ones are absolute trash

tornado – become slow moving, dealing less damage, losing access to 20 skills for 3 bad ones, and you are totally vulnerable while doing it.

fiery greatsword – summon a weapon, again losing 20 skills for 5, only 3 of which are useful, and still not worth using over all your others.

Glyph of elementals – summon an elemental. Either it dies before it hits anything, or it does kitten poor damage and takes about 4 hits before going down.

They’re not even situational. They’re just bad. Glyph is the only one i’d ever consider using in a serious setting just because it doesnt actually hamper me like the others do (no seriously, if the entire point of the ele is having access to 20 skills, why do 2 of my elites remove the only aspect of me that’s A. unique and B. the only part of me not vastly underpowered? )

tried with a PuG. First time no VOIP, we got 4/5 torches about 15 times then gave up.
Second time, new players, with VOIP, got 5/5 torches on our 3rd try.

Failed the defense event once on wave 4 (didnt see the smokelord until after it had killed about 3 of us)
Beat it next try no issues at all.

For the bombs.
1. take off armor
2. ele’s can use arcane shield and mist form, warriors can use endure pain, rangers can use the thing that makes their pet take the damage, and the other thing that makes pets immortal. Any sylvari can use take root (I believe thats a sylvari thing.) Other classes probably have some way to go immortal/invulnerable/block damage.
3. hug the wall
4. if you’ve got an ele with D/D he can impale the turrets
5. kill the easy trash
6. kill the easy boss
7. go kill final boss

full run took about an hour and 10 minutes. Probably my favorite CoF path if you can get a group on a VOIP for it.

lupicus is probably the best designed boss in the game right now.
Perfect the way he is. If there was to be any change to him at all, it would be a reduction of armor in the third phase as it can drag on a bit. But even then, it’s still pretty kitten perfect.

The only hard part of phase 2 is when he decides to “auto attack” you, and sends out a singular green trail at your face which likes to curve into me even when I dodge roll it :<

but if you havent messed up on phase 1, it only hits for 11k, which still isnt always enough to even kill my friend (who is full glass cannon ele)

I have also noticed this. Usually it happens to me after using ride the lightning. Luckily any skill that physically moves your character tends to unbug you. (so updraft for ele’s works)

wait. People were fighting the mesmer boss outside of her area? That’s what was causing the crash?

TeamRaveGreen.6917:

Weird… I knew about not having to complete story before doing Explore, but we’ve tried taking a lower level friend of ours into the lvl 40 instance, but it wouldn’t let him in. He was 30-something at the time.

ive brought a level 18 friend into HoTW before.

Youve got a few choices. The top ones are probably:

Force – flat 5% damage
Accuracy – 5% crit rate
Rage – on crit you get quickness for a short while. Internal cooldown of 45 seconds

Those 3 will work in almost every situation.
You also have choices such as:

Bloodlust – 10 power per kill up to 250 power. lose all stacks on down.

It really depends on what you’re going for. If you’re looking to pvp, I suggest accuracy or force. Effects are constant, and always up, they also do not rely on you never being downed. If you’re doing general PvE then bloodlust is more than fine, as 25 stacks comes easy, and going downed is hard. And imo in dungeons rage works quite well, as 45 seconds is enough that it’s generally procced at the start of fights with trash mobs, letting you use your strongest moves early on without fear of interruption, and still have it cooled down by the next group.

Ive done most explorable paths in blues and greens. Finished them too. With PuGs. And I was usually the last one alive in the room, kiting the boss until my team got back.

as far as dungeons go, being able to kite is generally better than your gear in terms of preventing damage. I wouldnt worry about full exotics until CoF+ Where it might actually matter for some paths (the extra DPS on say the superweapon is pretty vital. and in HoTW you will want to fall asleep unless you can DPS the bosses down in under 10 minutes. And well, Arah is just Arah.)

its not a PoI. It looks like a PoI, but it is not a PoI

@Llethander

kiting the boss is actually easier if you are the only person alive. As he will never be able to spawn spiders in a location you dont know about. And they will never die unless you are the one who kills them.

Brangoire is probably the only boss in this game that is easier to solo than it is to fight as a team.

you can do explorable without having done story mode, as long as the first person to enter the dungeon has done story mode.

For example lets say you have players 1,2,3,4 and 5.

Players 2 and 4 have finished story, but players 1,3 and 5 have not.
If players 1,3 and 5 try to enter first, they will only be given the story mode prompt. However if players 2 and 4 enter first, they can select explorable mode. This will then give the explorable mode prompt to player 1,3 and 5.

You can also enter a dungeon regardless of your level.

And yes, dungeon achievements are account wide. But they dont really do anything.

did the warden path with a PuG last night. Well, I say PuG, me and my guild leader found 3 people who were part of their own guild. According to them they do Arah quite often.

I think you just have to look. Dont expect to find a group right away, and to tell the truth, maybe you should search for a guild that advertises a desire to do dungeons.

honestly the dumbest thing about a pet is that stowing it isnt just a toggle. The pet comes back out when you enter combat.

Who the hell designed that? If I have stowed my pet, I dont want it coming back out until I am good and bloody ready.

Most problems with pet aggro/pet traps would be solved if you could safely stow your pet during fights.

Not a bug.
Confirmed by a dev as a monthly achievement thing that they’ll announce later in the month.

NdranC.5107:

This is slightly more complicated, but if you get used to it, you can turn the camera 180 degrees press “S” or walk backwards for less than a second and use updraft, then return your camera back to normal (all of this is done by holding right mouse button). I had a similar skill in another game (backwards blink) and i got used to do it that way, it’s pretty fast and doesn’t rely on having a mob available.

you can set a button to about face. I know I did that for X (because that’s what it was in gw1) it helps.

ive never had issues with fire 2, 5, or water 2. I think you guys might be doing something wrong :<

earth 3 is shenanigans though.

the only issue I saw on there was the cleansing wave change. As someone who routinely procs 2+ cleansing waves every 10 seconds I think that might be a little too much condition removal.

What arc said.

My general trick is to target something off in the distance, ride the lightning, roll through them, then press 5. If done right I’ve covered a large distance, dodged any attack they had, and now given myself swiftness to keep going.

Was the person moving around while invisible?

I know there’s a consumable that makes you stealthed for 10 seconds as long as you dont move. It may be functioning in WvWvW.

did path 3 with another PuG last night. With me as a level 40 ranger. Whose auto attacks couldnt hit the burrows unless I jumped ontop of them.

Still doable. When all else fails, divert all attention to defending 1 of the collectors (only 1 needs to survive) and then huddle around it, blocking gravelings from approaching.

sometimes events that bug out can be fixed by players with a little effort.

During the grenth event the keeper dude decided he hated the NPC dog nearby and started to shoot it, preventing him from moving on. Unfortunately the dog was inside the shielding, and thus couldnt die from the keeper. And as a friendly NPC we couldnt kill it via traditional means.

Solution? Drag a bunch of monsters onto the edge of the shield. The dog rushes out to attack them, and then died. Event then proceeded as normal.

It’s possible that those NPC’s of yours got killed in some fashion, and then revived, fixing whatever was the issue. That would have been my first try at de-bugging the event.

Front and back of my charr.
(gear used: Sorrows embrace helmet, chestpiece, mantle. Citadel of flame Legs [which is why my tail is on fire] gloves, and boots. All light armor as my charr is an ele.)

And while you cant really see it. Those boots are closed toe! Making them the only closed toe light charr boots ive ever found.

Now if only I could find a good industrial dagger skin besides incinerator…

Do the dailies (free 130% exp IIRC)
Do events if you can find them
Dungeons. Lots of dungeons. Each path is basically a level.

crafting nets you oodles of exp. Despite what most people say, I honestly found it better to craft early on. At least with 1 profession. That allows you to skip the parts before you get your traits and such, which is generally the most boring part of leveling.

Keep in mind that the sanctums are based on the color. So while you were green last time (and got emerald sanctum) you will need to travel to the borderlands of the red and blue worlds to get the achievement. (even if it’s your own world again)

have you done every starting city too?

if you have my only suggestion is to look over your map again. Because that’s quite a lot to be missing if you’ve 100%’d every zone.

Well they seem to be mystic forge shenanigans. So i’m going to slap
“it’s magic”
and
“A genie did it”

right over the top of this one.

gloves mang?

wear thick gloves → claws dont jab you.

They may also use tools with much thicker pommels, giving their hands more stretch (at the cost of slightly less grip)

Just got this. Dunno how many, but I had tinkerer. And ive probably transmuted like 20 more things

EDIT:
just got 5 more points for hobby tinkerer for transmuting more items. I assume it’s designed to be like agent of entropy, in that it’s infinite. Just not showing on the list

EDIT times 2 combob:
it appears to be giving it to me every 10 transmutes, either ill get 6 achievement points (2,2,2) or 5 in 1 achievement.

assuming you dont want to just use the wiki link and want some hints.

there’s a set sequence of numbers you have to input (they’re co-ordinates for the teleporter)

There’s a couple of recording devices in the area that have portmatt saying the start of the co-ordinates (IIRC one of them is him going “45.23- who left this thing on!?” or something similar to that)

Break one of the lanterns nearby, the drone will swim over to repair it. Then on the left console you have 3 screens (top middle bottom) each screen has 2 options on it, these change the co-ordinates, you have to fiddle with them to get the right ones.

There are 3 main foods I use.

peach (or mango if you want them) pies.

pros: they give hp and hp regen. Both of these are fantastic for explorables. Having the extra hp to take hits, or the regen to counter poisons/bleeds comes in handy all the time

Truffle steak (not the upgraded varient. The one that’s just "Plate of truffle steak)

pros: 100 power and 70 precision? That’s some nice DPS boost. Ive used these on CoF path 1, and boy does it help when you need to go for that burn. The ugpraded version gives 200 power for 30 seconds on kill. Which may or may not be better for you, but imo has way less uptime and usefulness in dungeons

Fire salsa

Pros: 100% downed hp and 20% more damage while downed is crucial in certain fights where damage is nearly unavoidable. For example, the subject alpha fights in CoE. (not teleporter) I have yet to master dodging the earth spikes if alpha has his back to the wall. This means if im unlucky, I can be losing all 17k of my hp in a matter of seconds. Having double downed health and damage lets me find and rally off of undead tendrils that much easier.

additional:
peach tart/omnomberry bar

pros: gold and magic find
cons: not actually very helpful when it comes to finishing the dungeon

Did this last night.
had no problems.

I have no idea what could be causing it. Are you keeping leurant alive the entire fight maybe?

Auturgist.8256:

Zenyatoo.4059:

I dont think you really understood the point of my post.
Perhaps some reading comprehension might help?
Im saying the dungeons are easily doable, even with PuGs. Whether you find it fun with PuGs is mostly subjective. And there are still a lot of issues with dungeons. But right now difficulty is really not a concern. (with the exception of maybe 1-2 things)

No, I understood the point of your post. But this thread is about dungeon design overall, not just difficulty. And since the point of the game is to have fun, when that goal is missed, for ANY reason, it might be worth considering that something needs to be fixed. And both of us had admitted so far in this thread that we’ve gone into dungeons and not had fun.

thats why at the start of my post I explicitly stated that I was responding to the specific points of posts about difficulty.

Reading
comprehension

Me and my guild leader got 3 randoms together. We made them go on vent.

It took us 3 tries (2 of which were more false starts than anything) after that it was a pretty cake dungeon (we failed once on the defending the area, but that was because we didnt notice the smokelord until after it had 3 of us for 9k)

Now, I had previously tried this with 4 randoms and no vent. We were still able to get 4/5 torches about 70% of the time (but never fully succeeded) so yes it’s still probably possible without vent. But much harder

tl;dr
yes. Especially with vent
possibly even without it.

there are 15 patrols as far as I am aware.

If you hang out near the waypoint right after the asuran gate you can kill them much easier (more room to kite, can constantly and easily respawn as needed)

it’s a little bad TBH. I would prefer it if a patrol came by every time you killed a barrier, rather than just 15 patrols with 1 minute intervals.

@ prophet you needed to use the pendants, not the amulets.

It’s more like when you have a specific buff/condition on you that a boss that put there, but you cant read it for the life of you (literally) because it teleports around.

Stuff like Bees, living lightning, fiery fury ETC, are all hard to see what they’re actually doing to you.

180 for gloves and boots.
210 for helmet
300 for pants
330 for chestpiece

I think mantles are 180 as well. But I dont remember it off the top of my head.

Weapons are between 300-390 I think.

This was pretty lame yeah. My group did the same thing.

I decided to just keep hitting the wurms in melee range anyway.

Things way less underwater bro, NP.

Found a rich ori node
mined it once
then it stopped being mineable
:(

My review of CoE

6/10 needs work
1. who the hell thought it was a good idea making every path the same besides 1-2 bosses? Fire them. Part of the fun of an explorable is each path should be unique.

2. who the hell thought it was a good idea to make you fight the same boss right down to the name in every explorable 3 times? Fire them too. If you wanted to use a similar boss per path, have him actually be changed by something we do in the path. And possibly give him differing attacks based on it. For example, in sub path, make us end up freezing him or something, exposed to icebrood, I dont know. Then in the second and third fights he uses teeth of jormag. That would make sense.

3. the unique bosses are all actually pretty good. The destroyer could use a little tweaking. But each boss has separate mechanics, as well as making you use the environment. A+ boss fights. (maybe B- for destroyer because it feels tedious, but I can ignore that)

4. the laser trap is pretty cool. Im always a big fan of things that are unique compared to other dungeons. Making us do it multiple times to 100% the dungeon isnt as cool. Also as a note, maybe make the lasers not damage armor. Everyone just rolls nude anyway.

I’m honestly of the opinion that Alpha is the worst part of CoE, both in design choice, and mechanics (compared to other bosses in the dungeon. He is still leagues ahead of other bosses in terms of mechanics/strategy, but he could really use some work imo) This is only aggravated more by the fact that you have to fight him 9 times to finish the dungeon, and many more if you want to get the armor.

Work on making subject alpha feel more unique each fight and i’d rank CoE as one of, if not my top dungeon experience.

There are a lot of people discussing this who havent set foot inside the dungeons that were changed. So please dont talk about them. :/

The change to the effigy was needed simply because the best way to deal with him was to ignore his mechanic entirely. The nerf as far as I know, should be to the crystals, which will encourage teams to actually follow the mechanic. Now, the previous strategy may still work, but it did require a very specific party makeup, which means if Anet was successful with this patch, people wont feel the incentive to do it anymore.

As for CoE the problem was really that it took too long compared to how much fun you got out of it. Fighting the same boss for 20 minutes is generally not fun times. Especially when you have to fight that boss 3 times. Per path. For 9 times in total if you want to 100% the dungeon. More if you want the gear. Alpha is still one of the harder fights in the game, he’s simply not longer tedious. The difference in skill between taking 10 minutes or 20 minutes to kill him is negligible, especially if you’re zerging it like most PuGs do.

rekina.6078:

ZaneStriker.2836:

I agree buddy. It’s a crap skill and the only reason anyone was ever using it was because you could exploit it’s brokenness.

I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been fixed, but with the long cast time, weak damage and a crappy blind there’s really no reason to be using it.

Does it have long casting time?! Let me check that I’m logging in…. didn’t know the skill takes long time to cast.

It’s longer than every non channeled spell IIRC.

Sialor.7396:

FelixTheFox.8590:

Male Asura, however, do not end their names with vowels.

Actually they do:
Jonno, Kudu or Zu are guys.

Kudu is mocked for his name. That’s where the tidbit about vowel endings comes from. Rytlock asks zojja “isnt kudu a girls name?” then you can speak with Zojja and ask her yourself to which she replies “Asuran names ending with vowels are traditionally female. I think his parents hated him”

Auturgist.8256:

Zenyatoo.4059:

I have pugged every explorable path in all the other dungeons.

We got through them.

Usually in under 2 hours.

Now, most of that really wasnt fun, and there are a horde of problems with dungeons. But the difficulty right now really isnt one of them.

I dont think you really understood the point of my post.
Perhaps some reading comprehension might help?
Im saying the dungeons are easily doable, even with PuGs. Whether you find it fun with PuGs is mostly subjective. And there are still a lot of issues with dungeons. But right now difficulty is really not a concern. (with the exception of maybe 1-2 things)

Yeah, I’m right there with you, now that I think about it. It’s perfectly fine to spend 1-2 hours doing something in game THAT ISN’T FUN over and over again. I also like hammering my own hand to my desk and watching Jersey Shore…

(Just kidding! I’m not really masochistic.)

D/D has a similar one

3 fire, roll backwards through it (evasive arcana)
4 fire
switch to earth
4 earth, 5 earth The timing is tight, but you can stack about 12 might with it. More if you use arcane wave in there.

BlackToof.8710:

Umm you mean the door to the instance?
You need to escort a guy called Razen from Liberation Hold to the gates and fight for control of the bridge to open the door.

This isn’t a bug…

Although how to get him to start, I’m unsure, although I’m never usually waiting for more than 5 minutes.

aspenwoods is bugged right now. He’s on the bridge, and it says we hold the bridge, but there’s no event and it wont let us in. (yes we own the castrum too)