Guild Wars 2

Sparrowsong.4238:

My group was able to complete this yesterday by just using cc on the 1st bag guy we held him up for almost 1 minute. just leave the other spawns alone, each time you “release” the loot thief swim out a bit to un aggro any you may have picked up and remember NOT to kill any other npc. stand by the motars. we did it by the 5 loot thief since they only spawned on the one side. just stay by the motars on the left and lock that thief up!. don’t kill him! let him go at about 25% health and lock him up again when he returns. we did both phase 4 trials this way and it worked flawless.

The patch went in around reset time yesterday. From the strategy you used it sounds like that was pre-patch. Did you do it before or after daily reset?

tovadaun.6304:

Ah. sorry. I did not know that. I cannot find info on the exact ‘fix’ or when it was.
I apologize, and will re-edit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-July-23rd-2013/first#post2495876

Another hidden change they implemented is that more vets will spawn,and closer to the two rocks people like to camp behind. Good luck!

tovadaun.6304:

Posted.

:/ that video is 2 days old, the fix was implemented yesterday.

If someone could link the post- “fix” patch video here that would be swell – I’m having trouble finding it and I’m trying to help some guildies through it. :s

I’m sort of on the fence about the difficulty, because one of the big things we’ve been asking for in the living story is more challenging pve content…and this is definitely challenging. It also is content that rewards the use of cc and not just dps dps dps.

HOWEVER the big problem with this is the rewards – for how difficult it is, it should have a daily chest (rare item) associated with it minimum. Not a 0.0000001% chance at a skin that you could spend the same amount of time farming COF and just buy outright.

I’ve taken my necro through all the dungeons and through fractals in the past month or so – here’s what I’ve found that works:

Because of condition caps, unshakeable, and condi cleansing, condition damage is really lackluster in dungeons. If you really just want to make use of conditions, I recommend focusing condition duration (lyssa and mad king runes) and the rest direct damage. Up time on chill and blinds can at least be useful in trash runs.

I’m on the fence about blood magic, but the only reason I’m tempted to take it is for the well cd reduction. Well of suffering will give you much needed aoe dps (we have no melee cleave). In for clearing a group of trash, WoS -> warhorn 4 -> DS life transfer will go a long way. Well of Power is also very strong, especial in TA where all that poison application suddenly turns into a heap of boons on your team. Its almost manditory for GL for the one second stability, since plauge form has such a long cd. All our other skills are fairly uninspiring or situational, except for signet of undeath – you have to save it for just the right time, but uping three downed party members is an amazing feeling.

At the very least I would recommend taking 30 points in spite for Close to Death – those giant bags of HP will spend a long time at less than 50% health. Always bring a dagger mainhand because you will melee stack at some point in every dungeon. Staff is really only useful if you need 1200 range. As much as I know axe is a direct damage weapon, I find the 600 range a bit awkward and the scepter 3 skill will do decent direct damage with the number of conditions a group of 5 will pump out without really trying. The one time I do bring axe is for the grawl fractal – axe 2 + life transfer will rip through the final boss’s shield. I’d always recommend zerker trinkets, and for the armor playing around with the balance of surviablity/damage until you find whats comfortable for you.

They don’t want to separate PVP and PVE skills, but the deathshroud damage absorbtion needs to be an exception, for one simple reason – high end PVE revolves around one-shot mechanics, and burst is not a counter to it.

In PVP, at least you know the elemental who blew through your health in 2s can probably be killed in that same amount of time – you just have to burst them first. In PVE, you can’t “burst” bosses with your condition damage – you need to have some defense. Invunerability, blocks, blinks….anything. Currently our one psuedo-invuln has been taken away.

As long as they refuse to separate pvp and pve, they need to take responsibility for the effects the changes will have to both aspects of the game. The necromancer lacks survivablity because we have condi pressure? I’ll be sure to “burst” lupi down with my condi pressure before he has a chance to kill me next time. Counter pressure with condition damage doesn’t work in PVE, so either that needs to not be the focus of the class, or a split needs to be made.

I get that pvp balance is “more important”, as in, imbalance will have more immediate negative consequences, but they are balancing with blinders on. They are advancing a class concept that is fundamentally broken in pve. They fill fractals and dungeons with one shot mechanics, give every other class the tools to deal with it, and then take away the ONE pseudo invulnerability we had. I honestly don’t understand what they think a necromancer is bringing to the table in high end pve, except leaching aegis and covering up useful combo fields with our wells as we try to make up for our lack of melee cleave. If they refuse to separate pvp and pve skills anymore then they do now, fine, but they can’t then go forward with a class concept that is so narrowly balanced for pvp and so utterly broken in pve.

Chryzo.8906:

where is my cookie ^^ ?

Just wanted to say thank you to you and everyone who provided feedback – I did finally get this path done on my mesmer, with another mesmer, a guardian and 2 necros. From the way the rest of the run went, it seemed to be a pretty high dps group, and we got through it by the skin of our teeth with chain reflects and melee.

In my quest for the DM title over the course of a week or so I’ve had the opportunity to compare this dungeon with most of the other explorable runs, and I can now say that I found this boss to be the most challenging thing I encountered, including all the arah paths. Whether you interpret that to mean all the other paths are too easy, or this one is too hard, seems a matter of opinion, but I will stand by the claim that it is disproportionately difficult, especially when compared to the two other TA paths. At the very least, the boss post reset is difficult in the same way the chanters get difficult in cliffside if you kill both on the first side – it’s not impossible, but it just seems unusually hard in the context of the rest of the run.

Many of you have probably already read Jonathan Sharp’s post regarding class balancing and specifically the issue of giving necros survivability. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9) His argument was that in the interest of class differentiation, the balance team has decided to give necros less survivablity and more raw condition damage, where as engis have more escapes and bunkering capabilities with less damage. From a pvp standpoint, I think that’s ok, ím not sure that’s the direction many wanted the class to go in, but it is a way to provide balance. He also discussed briefly the issue of separating pvp and pve skills, stating only what we’ve heard before – that it’s a lot of work on the development side and could be confusing for new players.

As a pve player, this post made my heart sink a little. Because the direction necros are being pushed into is “condi glass cannon”, which is a roll that serves NO purpose in pve. I don’t say this lightly. We all know conditions are broken – even in 5 man group, the condition caps will severely tax your dps. Direct damage is what matters, and the minimum survivability for your skill level. Already, the mechanic our class was built around (conditions) is something we should not build towards in pve. What pushes us even farther into irrelevance, though, is this insistence that we need to be “glassy”, without escapes or damage mitigation. In high level fractals, you NEED those skills to survive – even some trash mobs will one or two shot KO you. For me, DS absorption wasn’t about cliff diving (though I had fun with it) – its for those times you couldn’t find a crystal quick enough at maw, or the hunter pinned you for the 3rd time and the crusher is about to smash you into oblivion in arah path 3. As a light armor class in melee, you NEED something like that. Mesmers have blurred frenzy, eles have mist form, we have…what now? What are we good at that works well in end game pve?

This is not to QQ and say there is no possible way you could bring a necro into high level fractals – you can, absolutely. What I want to point out is that “condition damage” and “lack of any escape mechanism” do not fit into high level pve content. The further anet pushes our class in that direction, more difficult it will be balance necros for pve. I understand that the condi issue is bigger than the necro class, and will require a major overhaul, but the push towards glass without mobility or blocks or mitigation just puts it over the top for me. It’s a really unfortunate turn for us necros who want to run dungeons and fractals.

It’s not so much a bug as just an awkward effect. What’s happening is that after you initially load into world v world, you are getting waypointed to the starting zone. So you load into the wvw map like any other map with it placing you where you last we’re (loading screen one) then the game instantly tps you to your starting zone (loading screen 2).

I play a lot of pve so I tend run direct damage, and I think necros could use a good ranged direct damage weapon. Scepter is already strong hybrid weapon, since 3 scales with power. Axe was clearly designed to be for direct damage, but it’s simply underpowered. The burst from scepter 3 is almost always better then the channel from 2 with the number of conditions a 5 man group will stack without even trying, and it’s less likely to be interrupted. Scepter gives you an aoe cripple, and axe gives you… Marginally better life gain? At 300 shorter range? I think it could use a bit of a buff, or maybe I’m just using it wrong.

I don’t think it would be too obtrusive if it was on the launcher, as part of the news feed. I’m not sure it needs to be anywhere in game though.

jwaz.1908:

rfdarko.4639:

….plus trying to dodge the trees attacks. If you have any specific tips on clearing the spiders (especially after reset) I’d love to hear them.

You know the Nightmare Tree itself on this path doesn’t do anything right? As in, its attacks are ignorable, the only attack the tree does that is important is when he shakes, which spawns the spiders.

The entire point of this fight is just to find a way to deal with the mobs of spiders, whether it be kiting and circling the tree in 1 direction, or face-tanking with reflection.

He ground slams and will root you in place, then will do a big aoe. Try it some time, after reset stand just in agro range, wait a moment, and you will be instantly downed. Before the spiders even get to you. Then have one of your party go in and watch what happens. A big root spike will come out of the ground. This is what makes kiting so tricky – not just avoiding the spiders but watching for ground slams so you don’t get rooted.

I meant the second. You could have a very challenging exploration experience, but for it too be fun your first time through with zero prior knowledge, it will end up being too easy your 5th 10th or 50th time through.

I agree though I would like to see the type of dungeon your describing – unfortunately i dont think the current rewards system could give the proper incentive for it. perhaps with the overhaul and the new champion daily chests, something like this would be possible.

Anubarak.3012:

cranked.3812:

Anubarak.3012:

You know you can still outrange him, don’t you?

What do you mean by this? You can’t range him at the entrance like groups used to do pre-patch.

You can….. You have to kill all spiders in the room, kill them, they will respawn, you kill them again, they will respawn again and so on….
after about 5 minutes the spiders will spawn behind the boss and you will be able to kill him in 1200 range (like prepatch) without pulling aggro of the spiders
I did it a few times with pugs.

Of course the fight will take 10 – 15 minutes with this method but it is better then nothing

Have you done this in the past month? Also what group did you have that you could take head on the entire room full of spiders on reset? I’ve pugged this at least 5 times in the past week, and after reset there was no way we could kill those spiders (there are at least 5 vets and god knows how many hatchling) , plus trying to dodge the trees attacks. If you have any specific tips on clearing the spiders (especially after reset) I’d love to hear them.

He’s not complaining that it’s too hard, he’s saying- look at the way you are expected to run the dungeon even your first time through. “Exploration” is not really a word that comes to mind. Going in with 0 knowledge of the dungeon in the hopes to have fun “exploring” is anything but that.

That said, the problem is with the term and not the dungeon. These “explorable” dungeons are designed to be grinded (just take a look at the number of runs it takes you to get even 2 pieces of armor, let alone a full set), and a dungeon that you could explore would be much to easy too be repeatable. “Experienced” mode would probably better inform new players what they should expect from the dungeon.

Shout out to a pair of db thieves in db borderlands this morning trolling a couple of us from yaks – necro and ranger. You guys are pretty good (and im god awful XD), but thanks for being nice when I brought out my surrender kite.

The intent with axe seems to be vuln stack, vuln stack, vuln stack, then burst with 2, rinse and repeat. The problem is lack of aoe damage, and that the 2 spike does not make up for the low damage of 1 even with the vulnerability stacking. The fact that we have 0 cleave weapons is a bit of a problem, dagger at least needs a cleave. In my mind, they could either give axe cleave/aoe, or they could give it 900 range and give it a little bit of a damage buff. I sort of like the latter option, because I tend to pair it with a focus in my power build as my mid-ranged swap, and the 900 range just feels a lot more like “mid range”. At 600 your just a few steps away from melee.

Ah I see, thank you for the clarification. I do not believe the OP was trying to dismiss those online posts – they are a welcome addition! I think that since lore is really not getting through to the players it seems like these posts are the main lore story telling strategy. With that in mind, the objection was that website content should not be the main avenue for giving juicy lore details. If that is not the case, then somewhere along the way the lore that is in game is getting lost, or is not as meaty as these journal entries.

In the wooden potatoes video he makes a recommendation that we have a living story tab that is similar to our personal story tab, which would track the narrative of the living story. Something like that could really help players see the full arc of the story – mail tends to get deleted, and even if I wanted to keep them all my mail would get full. In any case keep these website tidbits coming! They are neat

More important than DPS seems to be reflect uptime, which you had with guard and mes and I think that was the point. You can kite the spiders, but it is very, very tricky after reset. You can also condi clear / heal on the first run through if you can spike enough damage, though again it’s tricky to pull off and requires build coordination as well as strategy.

If the back items are tradable like the windcatcher pieces, I don’t have a problem with it. Just grind out a few gold if you really want it. If you happen to get lucky later, then sell it. Otherwise…..pure RNG for a strictly pvp mini game? No thanks.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We have more than one type of employee at the company. No matter how much the content designers can add to the world, there’s always going to be resources dedicated to building supplemental content for the web site. It’s not a matter of preference; the people who write those lore pieces are taking the time to contribute extra material to the release. I think the only other option would be for them to not do at all.

If lore content was being communicated in game, then players would see this content as actually supplementary. The problem that needs to be addressed is the lack of effective telling in the living world – such that these website extras are all that lore nerds have to cling too. If you are saying there is no possible way to improve the in game story telling for the temporary events, then that is very disappointing. Take a look at wooden potatoes latest video on the living story (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wwjqkE8Ncyg , staring at 16:30) he spends a big chunk of time talking about how lore is not effectively communicated. Is there really nothing that could be done to give us more and better communicated lore?

Chryzo.8906:

Actually we were three but that is kinda how we did it ^^. Though I agree, we would have had a less hard time if the wall fight resetted on wipe and cleaned all the spiders since on the first try we got the boss to like 20% before wiping

Thanks so much for posting that! The fact that you did it post wipe, and with a kiting method, is awesome. It’s going to be hard to convince my guildies to give it another go, but this will help a lot. I still think the post wipe is too punishing, but its heartening to see it accomplished!

Instead of complaining, why don’t we talk about what we would like see in an lfg tool? That way the devs can get some constructive feedback and it wont suck when it launches, which will just make people rage even harder.

After spending 2 hours on this with my guild and guild leader, i can say it may be possible the first run through, but if you wipe it is virtually impossible. We tried with 2 guards, a mes, a war, and a necro, and we could not get past 50%. Maybe we are just bad, but the difficulty of this post wipe boss was harder than anything in arah path 4 for us. Just like chanters, they need to adjust the post wipe reset, at least.

This is more of a suggestion that a bug- but I agree there should be a similar toggle option for LS info.

Didnt get screens, but I just did story events from the water temple in straights of devastation till the end. On every cut scene I got exactly the bloom effect above – everything blown out and glowy. I agree that it was somewhere around dragonbash / sky pirates.

AeroJavi.1687:

You guys need to learn to optimize, and stop doing several threads for the same topic:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/TA-Blooms/first#post2350535
or
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mobs-enemy-spawns-not-registering-dead/first#post2314969

1) both of those posts were about specific mobs, and while I can see its all a related issue it didn’t come up in my search.
2) I wanted to make the point that I believe this happens on every mob, just that you don’t notice when a mob has a decent amount of hp. It’s not just an issue with TA, though that’s one of the places it’s most obvious.

I’m not sure when I started noticing it, but definitely in the past 2 weeks or so the last hit on an enemy will not decrease the health bar. It’s not usually a big deal, but it gave me some trouble in TA with the vial blossoms – sine they were one hit kills, the hp bar did not move and I couldn’t tell which ones my teammates were taking out. Has anyone else noticed this, or has this always been in the game and I just never noticed?

Make mega destroyer the chest boss for the map. Golem has one of the worst cases of “press one go afk” syndrome of any of the world bosses. And mega destroyer is actually linked to a dragon, like claw and tq.

They are meant to be group events, thus the group tag. The idea is to have a few of them around the map so solo leveler are encouraged to hit up map chat and group with people. I just recently did world completion so I can say with certainty there are only 2 spots that a champ is actually blocking, but you only need one other person to kite the boss while the other runs in. So, theres no real need to do these events. There are plenty of vets around the map if your looking for a solo challenge, (which is what a scaled back version of these events would be) and many are hiding a little loot chest.

I sympathize with you on the fact that there aren’t many people outside of lions arch if there’s no world boss around. I’ve had good luck guesting on to TC or other heavy pop severs when a want a stroll around on a low level alt.

If you’ve done AC path 2 nothing in COE should phase you, so long as you can count to two and dodge. After HOTW and COF it’s probably the next easiest dungeon.

For fractals, you need to buy agony resist. Agony is a condition fractal bosses will put on you that will dish out insane damage. You need asended trinkets which you can buy with laurels or fractal tokens. Those have an “infusion” slot rather then the normal upgrade slot. Then you need to buy a versatile infusion, which gives you +5 AR. The higher you go in fractals, the more agony resist you will need.

Chryzo.8906:

I can upload the video of how we did it if you want.

I’d love that

To be fair to all the people not raging or telling me to just l2p, I’ll give it a shot. Still dubious, but I’ll make sure to give it my best and use all the advice here, and see if it really can be done.

No. It’s not a 1 or 2 min fight with pugs, even with everyone in melee – with a thief, a ranger, and an engine it’s very unlikely you’ll have enough dps. I’m not convinced of it in theory. I’ll try it next time Pug it, but I’d like to see even an organized group try this with a thief/ele/ranger/war/necro team. Please, show me. I’m willing to admit I’m a horrible scrub if you do. Might even send you cookies

It’s doable with the stats and abilities of level 35 toons, but if you and your wife are just hiting 35 on your first characters you may find it very difficult. It takes many people till their first level 80 to really get use to the combat in gw2. Explorerable mode dungeons oftentimes have one or two shot mechanics and require team coordination, and if you are still learning the game it can be overwhelming. You might not need to wait all the way till level cap, but at least wait until you are very comfortable with your class and confident in your own skill, so you can focus on the mechanics of the dungeon.

For leveling, I wouldn’t recommend repeating AC over and over unless you really enjoy it. If you are out in the world doing dynamic events and hearts and such, you should jump up 10 levels very quickly and be ready for the next dungeon. (Caudicus’s Manor)

Guardian is an excellent choice for running dungeons if you want to focus on support. There is no true tanking but you can be what is called the “anchor”. A higher toughness score (it is believed at least) will make you draw more aggro, and if you are geared with more defensive stats you will be able to take a hit or two. Understand it’s different then wow- you won’t be taking many hits, you will be taking the one or two that slip through. Projectile reflection is useful in every dungeon, and almost required in a few. No dungeon boss to my knowledge steals boons, so shouts are also very strong. In AC specifically you will want stability to deal with gravelings. Lastly, always make sure to bring a ranged weapon.

I really would like to see a of video done with this using reflections on classes that aren’t guard or mes. That’s a genuine and not a sarcastic request. Or, a video that shows this supposed kiting technique – because my only experience with the boss is 3 second after the spiders spawn your pretty much dead to the poison cloud, no matter where your standing or dodge rolling. If it’s possible but just difficult, that’s actually fine. Most pug groups I run are willing to listen and try tactics. I’m just not sure that the reflect uptime with ele/thief/engi is going to be enough(without 3 warriors dpsing like crazy) and the kiting I can’t even imagine.

It may not be a matter of taste and decency, but particle effect saturation. I play a necro and I already get frustrated sometimes when my own spells prevent me from seeing what’s going on (I’m looking at you, warhorn 5). don’t really want blood and guts on top of that.

Not that there aren’t others ways to make money, but CoF p1 is better then anything else to such a high degree that it feels like the only thing. A typical end game daily ritual is to semi afk world bosses, do the dailies that can’t be done in CoF, run CoF till bored, and maybe run little wvw if your into that sort of thing.

From your question though it sounds like your asking what things rather then what activities are profitable, and the answer is basically nothing. Anything of value has too low a drop rate to be farmed reliably, due to DR and now the increased time between DE’s in cursed shore. No open world farming means people go to dungeons, and people pick the easiest dungeon because they all are equally rewarding.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Rata-Sum-Idea-Incubation-Lab/first

Those are pretty good, but I’m talking actually bear chested with an accessory, or maybe one strap. Pit fighter comes the closest, but it’s not quite there. T3 human light armor looks like a bathing suit, so I want the same for my norn

Maybe I’m the only one, but i wanna show off my norn’s chest the same way human females get to. Can we have a male armor chestpiece that’s like, just a neckless or something? None of this one boob hanging out strap nonsense, I’m talking full man mode bear chest. I’d be the first and only armor I get for my zerk war – a fair representation of the armor I’m wearing.

Not sure if it’s a bug but “working as intended” seems a stretch. There’s a method you can use where you keep one chanter alive on the first side, but the path is very punishing if you mess that up, disproportionately to the rest of the fractal imo. Could do with some balancing.

Seems to be an issue with particle effect filters interacting with the glove’s particle effects. It happens when I enter spectral walk as well.

The Sixteenth.2561:

tl;dr

We just did it with 3 war and 2 necro, you go behind the big guy and then 2 necro overheal the spider damage and cure poison while the 2 war kills spider and occasionally chop the tree and one war stays on the tree, it was not that slow.
We are doing it every day now to increase speed as we did to arah p4 BS simin dps check. Because if it’s long and not rewarding, we farm it with only necro and war until it’s fast, then we go sPvP.

I’d love to see a video of this – not because I doubt you but because as a necro I’d like to see how I can be credit to team on this fight. It sounds like your method is to beat the dps check, with just enough healing and condi clear to get the wars through til the end. Not sure that would work without 3 wars, but I’m glad to see another method.

This needs a priority hot fix. It interferes with world completion and guild treks. In fact, it needs to be reverted until a solution can be found. A few people swimming around where they aren’t suppose to is no where near the problem this is.

Broadicea.8294:

rfdarko.4639:

It’s not a coordinated group, it’s a very specific set of classes. You need a guard or mes. To me, there’s a world of difference in that. If it was a matter of traiting, correct stat allocation, skill and weapon selection, and effective communication, that would be one thing. But none of that matters if you do not have reflections. if a group of 5 different classes does not have the means to deal with the mechanic, something is wrong.

This sense of entitlement to being able to complete anything in the game with any class with any gear and any build is unique to the GW2 community.

You have 5 character slots. Use them.

You did not read what I said. I did not say any gear, any build, or any class. I specifically said I wouldn’t mind retraiting, regearing, switching weapons, changing up tactics, etc. But my friends and I literally cannot do this dungeon together because we chose the wrong class. It’s not challenging, it is simply impossible unless one of us rerolls the “right” class. How is that in anyway a good thing? When 6 out of 8 classes do not have the means to defet the boss, regardless of spec or weapon set?

It’s not a coordinated group, it’s a very specific set of classes. You need a guard or mes. To me, there’s a world of difference in that. If it was a matter of traiting, correct stat allocation, skill and weapon selection, and effective communication, that would be one thing. But none of that matters if you do not have reflections. if a group of 5 different classes does not have the means to deal with the mechanic, something is wrong.

This is not QQ, this is not sarcasm, this is a really question – how can this boss be done without a guardian or mesmer?

My group was an ele, a necro, a ranger, a warrior, and a thief. Every part up until that point was fine, but even with everyone melee dpsing the boss we would die too fast to the massive amounts of spiders. We had no access to chain reflects, so what should we have done?

Confirmed bug, no eta on a fix :/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Risen-Squire-Bug-Permanent-cripple/first#post2285993