Since the patch that gave guaranteed silvers drop with good chance of Wondrous Bag, Kholer is fought much more often. Myself included.
That being said, I find it is totally acceptable that he is skipped for those who are only interested in tokens (and find that the 3 tokens he drops is not worth the trouble). The latest patch made Spider Queen compulsory but still allowed Troll/Kholer to be skipped. Yes, content is there but it doesn’t mean that everything have to be killed. You can’t expect everyone to run dungeons for the same reason as you.
Berserker armor and trinkets. Maybe Rabid if you are doing a condition build (although mesmer condition builds in dungeons is not strong imo). Soldier armor for a second set in case party is too squishy/bad.
Did you kill any oakhearts? I done TA F/F many times. Unless something was changed, there can be a maximum of 3 oakhearts in the vicinity. However if you kill any oakhearts, there will be replacements.
Then it depends what you value more: your time or the notion of how you think dungeons should be.
That’s a weak and cheap trash answer.
The game itself is optional, so let’s put that matter aside because it fails to acknowledge that there is a party involved in this relationship that has the power to change the situation.
It’s not the player, they can only choose to walk away; but ANet has the power to adapt their game in order to make it more appealing without going against any of their core game concepts.
I am beginning to find GW2 to be a very “dry” experience as a player. ANet has a bad habit of taking away or proscribing player choice within their game. Even when player choice is allowed to remain, it is in such a narrowly defined field that it matters little to the outcome.
The dungeons show this proscription in their design:
- oh, you want to skip the boring parts/non-rewarding parts? Why not, it’s all about playing your way!
Giving players a choice to bypass crappy content isn’t a great design feature, it’s a surrender to failure.
ANet, why are players wanting to skip content?
Lol it is not weak and cheap. It is a throwback to the time vs reward and/or risk vs reward balance. And I didn’t actually decide it that way. It is the state of the game as of now and I am saying as it is.
If you run dungeons enough, the exploratory and RP aspect of the dungeons dies down unless new content is added. Some will move on. Others who treats dungeons as an acceptable way to gain in-game wealth, the reward aspect of gameplay will come in. Even ppl who are bored with dungeons will do things like solo. But I digress for the solo part.
I have no fixed notion of how dungeons should be for most parts. The exploratory and RP aspect existed for me. But it died down after multiple runs. I know my point of the whole risk-and-time vs reward in which I’m comfortable with. So much so if ANet decides to make changes, the decision point will not change for me and I will adjust the way I run dungeons as such.
I am just saying you find your own decision point. If you still hold on to the notion of how dungeons should be for you, then it is your choice but at the same time you also need to weigh out what is important to you. And the problem that help blow this up is ppl forming parties with different expectations. In the end, you look to developers to change the way the game is that will impact others. The kicker is no one is stopping you from playing dungeons the way you want since the choice exists. You just want others to play the same way you do.
Since you have a notion of how dungeons should to you, find like-minded ppl to run dungeons like you want. You say it’s “almost-mandatory”, I say there is a choice.
But is a bad choice, because, as already stated thousands of times:
- trash mobs are not fun (they have loads of HP and damage, cheap CC), and fighting lots of them its dangerous, take too much time, and..what we get in return? Merch food.
Since I believe no human being has infinite time at his disposal, everyone of will try to get as much as he can from a given period. Efficiency matters.
So, if trash mobs had less HP, so they could be dispatched without loosing the pace and/or give us something in return them..we would have a choice:
- Quick and fun, but less profitable
- Not-so quick, equally fun, but more rewarding.
Right now the so called choices are:
- Boring, long and with no sensible gain (u get tokens only in completion, mobs drop kitten)
- Do the most efficient path, fighting the smaller number of mobs possible so we can get our tokens and GTHO.
If you like to clear the dungs, as they are now, yes its a choice, but a poor one imho..
Then it depends what you value more: your time or the notion of how you think dungeons should be.
I do, brother… Players are deprived of the joys of a REAL dungeon crawl in a lot of these games. The days of exploring every room, secret door, hatch and wall panel thorough a labyrinthine environment with unexpected dangers around the corner are virtually gone… Good times…
Thats what all dungeons should be – really – about. Entering a dark place, exploring every crevice, finding some good loot, and leaving behind a big fat trail of corpses..
GW2 current design promotes, almost in a mandatory way, skipping.
Since you have a notion of how dungeons should to you, find like-minded ppl to run dungeons like you want. You say it’s “almost-mandatory”, I say there is a choice.
What happened to the days where groups actually cleared dungeons as they progressied through them?
So, does anyone understand where I am coming from concerning dungeons?
I do, brother… Players are deprived of the joys of a REAL dungeon crawl in a lot of these games. The days of exploring every room, secret door, hatch and wall panel thorough a labyrinthine environment with unexpected dangers around the corner are virtually gone…
Good times…
1st Time through dungeon – Sure! Naturally.
10th Time – I guess…
100th Time – errmmm…..
There will always be a way to optimize runs in terms of risk vs rewards and/or time vs rewards based on what changes are implemented. And someone else might get kitten off.
RNG based dungeon loot has already been implemented in terms of trinket recipes. And imo it was a bad idea in the same way precursors are handled. Bad idea as it is bad RNG. And this is coming someone who HAS successfully looted a recipe and made some profits off it.
So you edited your post to give 2 examples namely Dredge and Fyonna? Sure why not.
Dredge – The boss resets after a certain point. You are lumping LoS with that fact.
Fyonna – Killing her in the room is viable too. Just be more careful. A quick question: have you been in a Fyonna encounter where someone messed up and spawned 5+ recluse and stones?
You do any dungeons enough times, you get to see alot of tactics. You do dungeons more times you will see these tactics being done mutiple times. That is my point – Unless dungeons have self evolving mechanisms, tedium and boredom is inevitable.
Edit: Come to think of it, not even sure Fyonna is a LoS issue…. Maybe cautious play with some reflection going on in her sylvari form. shrugs
I am confused how this could be an issue. People are doing smart things in those regards, and none of it is any kind of bug.
Forcing your enemies (especially when there are greater numbers than your own) to funnel into specific locations to take advantage of terrain and their grouping is a pretty intelligent and classic move both in and out of game. The suggestion that it is an issue is fairly silly.
As for reflection, I don’t see why it would be an issue, but I suppose I also don’t care as much as someone suggesting the stacking could be an issue…
My viewpoint is, it trivialized the content. Say, in case of stacking it makes me think, “What is the point of having two different dungeon when we are doing the same thing on both?”
Sure it is the smart way, but when it is done too many times/everywhere, it just makes me bored(which is not the point of playing a game).
Since the fundamental objective in most encounters is the same – reduce hp to zero, you will get bored eventually even if you do not use these as you say… overused tactics.
I see some people say they should be able to play the game the way they want. And that is fine with me, but I think it is wrong to expect to be rewarded for minimal efforts.
As of now, the baseline requirements for all dungeons is to kill compulsory mobs, do events and kill bosses to reach completion and be rewarded as such. Anything you do above and beyond this and how you do it is up to you. If you kill trash, you will get the loot as opposed to someone who skips it. That is your additional reward.
If you run dungeons, CoE gives you MF armour/weapons for tokens. You will earn some silvers while doing it, and possibly some Charged cores/lodestones.
Create a group under the premise of “newcomers welcome”, “no exploits”, “no skipping”. Run dungeon.
You mean:
Create a group under the premise of “newcomers welcome”, “no exploits”, “no skipping”.
+lfg for about 1-4 hours; depending on dungeon.
Run dungeon.
The more detailed and demanding your requirements for your group, the longer you have to search/wait. If I wanna skip trash and put in alot of other requirements, it is gonna take longer to find groups too.
It all gonna depend what you value more. Have a tighter grip of the expectations of the group. Or have a bigger variance on it and shorter waiting time.
Loot downscaling happens in other dungeons too. Being upcaled to 80 is already an incentive in itself.
ummm.. I don’t understand that. why?
What’s there not to understand? As a previous poster mention, you just want your cake and eat it too. The game just does not allow it, in terms of both loot and leveling. I am saying FotM is not the only dungeon that have loot downscaling. Other dungeons downscale your loot too.
great. now would you mind answering my question? why is it an incentive to be upscaled? what do I gain from being upscaled?
ummmmm… because other dungeons don’t upscale you to level 80?
and? if I can just keep doing normal pve completing maps or wvw then that’s still a far better reward far easier achieved. aka more xp, loot. not like I care that much, just saying. upscaling in itself doesn’t get me nowhere.
If you didn’t get upscaled to 80, your stats will remain at lvl27 for a lvl 80 dungeon. You don’t see being upscaled to 80 is an incentive? It’s okay. I do
Not opposed to that idea, it’s being proactive, that could be a way to mitigate some of the things that perturb me, but not all.
This is to align the expectations of the party. It takes a little effort but it can potential save a lot of negativity so it is worth it. This coming from someone who run dungeons often and mainly skips trash. Remind the party of the circumstances in which the dungeon is run beforehand. Naturally that will also be the advice I’m giving for those who do not skip trash.
My only hesitation is that getting groups has already been difficult depending on the time and the dungeon so forth. On Crystal Desert, AC is rather popular, and I think CM would be the 2nd most popular -but of late there’s not always players queuing outside for them. (although Saturday night seemed to be an exception.)
CM is actually not popular. And it affects ppl who kills trash and skips trash. Dungeons are server independent and server diversity is actually better for dungeons with contested gates.
It is up to you to weigh the risk of creating a party under your own expectations and getting into a dungeon that is not popular.
Not opposed to that idea, it’s being proactive, that could be a way to mitigate some of the things that perturb me, but not all.
This is to align the expectations of the party. It takes a little effort but it can potential save a lot of negativity so it is worth it. This coming from someone who run dungeons often and mainly skips trash. Remind the party of the circumstances in which the dungeon is run beforehand. Naturally that will also be the advice I’m giving for those who do not skip trash.
Loot downscaling happens in other dungeons too. Being upcaled to 80 is already an incentive in itself.
ummm.. I don’t understand that. why?
What’s there not to understand? As a previous poster mention, you just want your cake and eat it too. The game just does not allow it, in terms of both loot and leveling. I am saying FotM is not the only dungeon that have loot downscaling. Other dungeons downscale your loot too.
great. now would you mind answering my question? why is it an incentive to be upscaled? what do I gain from being upscaled?
ummmmm… because other dungeons don’t upscale you to level 80?
Loot downscaling happens in other dungeons too. Being upcaled to 80 is already an incentive in itself.
ummm.. I don’t understand that. why?
What’s there not to understand? As a previous poster mention, you just want your cake and eat it too. The game just does not allow it, in terms of both loot and leveling. I am saying FotM is not the only dungeon that have loot downscaling. Other dungeons downscale your loot too.
Initial waves of spiders are unavoidable. You can kill 3 of the spiderlings in front of the boss before the cutscene starts. If someone accidentally aggro more spiders, the boss spits will spawn additional spiders. Spits can spawn spiderlings or recluse and the composition is random.
When boss plants his right hand into the ground and shakes violently, spits will happen. Actual attack will happen about a sec after visual cue. Spits can be absorbed by skills like Shield of Avenger or Sanctuary but can’t be reflected.
I have done melee and ranged before. The entire party should melee or range together. Melee is basically burst it down asap. For range, if no one accidentally aggro more spiders by AoE or stray shots, the spits will stop spawning spiders and all efforts can be concentrated on the boss.
I have a guardian (AH) and mesmer (Phantasm/Glamor) running dungeons fairly often.
With guardian, ranged options are limited but melee is strong. You can go melee in dungeons in most cases. With AH, I run shouts mainly with some consecrations (WoR) and spreading boons keeps my HP high and my group stacked with boons. Runes of Soldier keeps conditions off my party. I use just about every weapon except for sword and torch in different situations.
With mesmer, you offer very unique utility. Portal is one of the most unique group utility you can offer. Timewarp is one the most powerful group buff in the game. Signet of Domination is also very interesting to use. Feedback, Mass Inv… the list goes on. Mesmer also got strong boon stripping with Mind Stab(both sword and GS) and Null Field.
The 2 for me are played very differently. A guardian can take alot of punishment, to an extent so that your party members don’t have to. A mesmer (in particular TW and SoD) can be treated like a party performance multiplier. Both have good survivability in different ways (guardian endures while mesmer escapes). Depends on my mood. But I play my mesmer more often as I find its more interesting.
Ah, my team saw the skulls above me and my illusions, but I didn’t. We were using TS3, which helped.
That said, I do play the tallest sized Male Norn available (I have epic clones. They often draw enemy attention in WvW.) But I’ve run Maw many times, including on this character. So, I don’t think I missed the skulls at all, but it sounds like your party member may have been bugged.
Actually that party member was downed pretty close to the blocks. I’m inclined to think that he missed the skull due to restricted camera angles. Just offering perspectives as someone who also uses a mesmer (human) for Fotm amongst others and who also done Maw many times.
Recently I was in a party where a member complained that he got no skull and was downed. Thing is, I saw the skull above him.
I might be stating the obvious but character model can affect the skull “appearance”. Bigger models (I would think norn and charr) will have a bigger looking skull that is positioned higher. And the skull will not readjust based on camera angle so you might miss it if you are zoomed in.
I think that Sorrow Embrace path 1 and 3 will suit you OP. When I feel like running SE, I run those 2 paths together and they will take an average 40 mins in total with a PUG.
And short and easy can have overlaps but they can mean different things. Eg. HotW underwater boss battles are easy due to simple mechanics but often take a long time due to high boss hp coupled with low dmg potential of most classes when underwater.
I didn’t forget. I was comparing PVT vs Zerker. Specifically that constructs can’t crit so extra precision is not needed. I have no intentions of comparing condition builds since I am well aware that condition dmg do not work on constructs.
In path up how do you avoid the 1 ht kill he does? Sans leaf not sure how to do it. I remember we used to just stand in the corridor and then when the Aoe circles came dodge ack twice, but last time I did path up and didn’t use the branch he just 1 hit us in the corridor. Animation to look for?
The tell for the attack is when the tree raises his right arm slowly and smashes it to the ground. There is no red circle for this and it randomly hits a target. It will hit more if targets are stacked.
You can dodge just as the arm comes down. Alternatively you can apply blind to the boss as long as the blind duration covers the attack. Or just use a block skill.
Avoid bounce attacks like Winds of Chaos and Trick Shot too.
The initial waves of spiders are unavoidable. But if you accidentally aggro’ed additional spiders, the Tree will spawn more adds via egg spits.
Alternatively if you are in a team with strong melee dps, you can get the entire team to melee dps down the tree ideally with some reflection skills. Basically kill the tree before it kills you.
Fear is not in the same definition as the other conditions like bleeds. Just look at Stability and notice what it prevents. Shake it off breaks stun due to the property of being a stunbreaker and not because it removes 1 condition.
But hey, if Null Field break stuns I wouldn’t mind at all
For burrows, it doesn’t matter if you in full zerk or not. You can be in full PVT gear and it will still work out the same. Since construct can’t crit, precision and crit dmg is not needed. You will however, kill the gravelings that spawn faster.
Path 1 and 3 I will still do them. Path 2 for me was tedious due to the weird NPC and boss behavior where they will get stuck doing nothing and FPS drop at the flooded temple. We had to stun Ghost Eater whilst removing defiant stacks in order to trick him into start moving/attacking again. If path 2 was cleaned up and bug fixed, I will definitely start playing it again since the changes ARE in fact refreshing.
I think they want to avoid ppl complaining that reflections are too OP. If feedback worked on its ground stomp projectiles, the fight would be a complete joke. It is interesting that they included daze, cripple, bleed, knockdown, fear and weakness to its attacks (i think it did confusion at some point, could be wrong) when previously it was just predominately bleeds.
When i fought Troll earlier, there were times i got stuck to the ground and cant move. No i wasnt under daze, knockdown or fear. My condition bar was clear. I could only resume movement after i use a positional change skill like blink. Is this intended?
My issue is that the current way of acquiring ascended items is SO disjointed. Another different currency in a span of a month to get BiS items. I also find it hilarious that the place (FotM) where you need ascended items the most due to agony res is NOT the place where you can get the needed items (amulets and earrings).
1. Twilight
2. No completed Gifts
3. I have the precursor, more than 90 Oynx Lodestones, 77 clovers and about 1/3 of the t6 mats. Really taking it easy after I got my precursor. Going to get more badges after I am done with the lodestones.
Well tbh i have experienced some situations where the party disbanded literally less than a second after I got the chest. If I wasn’t the instance owner, leaving the party within the instance will also return me back to the overworld without affecting the rest of the party (unless there are only 2 left in the party). A shortcut of sorts.
I believe that some impatient instance owners do this without the knowledge that they will cause others to lose their loot (although I also believe there are intentional trolls out there). So if you are the instance owner, do not be in such a hurry to leave the party.
It is just common courtesy to ask. I do it not only for Fotm but normal dungeons too. Potentially be useful to avoid negativity due to misunderstanding and different expectations.
It is true the gifts can be broken down into smaller parts and gotten gradually. There is some progress over time.
Precursors on the other as mentioned is a lump sum purchase (from TP). I don’t think its a problem that most ppl can’t save up the money for it. It is more towards most of the time when percursors jump in prices, they jump for a lot (maybe 50-ish). With the other parts, jump in prices is still within means of ingame gold earning (besides the TP ofc). And since there can be progress over time for the gifts, the jump in prices for gift parts for prgress already made is safe from price hikes.
So Why is there alot of talk about OMFG YOUR USEING MF GEAR? GTFO!
just seems as if for people playing a Social Based game … your not being very Social or Friendly.
Hyperbole aside, it the mechanics of MF itself which is for personal gains within, as you termed it, a social based game. Social based implies cooperation and helping one another, which MF does not contribute.
I have never kicked anyone with MF gear. But I do wonder how much better they can perform (they generally play keepaway due the way stat conbination in MF gear are) with other gear, and how much more efficient they will be if they were MFing DEs in CS where mobs have way less HP.
Dungeons were made to gain personal rewards – notice how in this game, you don’t ROLL on the loot! That is a proof of my statement.
So by sacrificing your personal gains, you are working against the general design.
I encourage people in my party to use MF gear and food. If they can get an extra Exotic or Rare during our dungeon run, than the party was even more successful than anticipated.
Remember, during every dungeon, you can have an unlimited tries to complete it, but you can only get one chance on a loot drop.
Personal gains yes. However, those gain assuming similar MF amounts is more or less homogenous. 10-15 silvers drops from bosses, 26 silvers from completion and tokens. Everyone who completes it get the about the same amount. The party run dungeons TOGETHER to achieve completion for individuals.
Chest is unaffected by MF. And for Traveler and Explorer stats, MF is the major stat so you will definitely miss out on significant survivability or offence.
Pls go ahead and encourage and form your own MF parties. Or get carried and keep finding ways to justify how it’s okay
