The Grove is totally gorgeous but it's the one city I cannot understand how to navigate after over 1000 hours in-game. The Black Citadel is intimidating but rational once you figure it out and exactly the kind of thing the Charr would build.
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Guild Wars 2 |OT2| Funding An MMO Entirely On Quaggan Backpacks
- Thread starter Teknopathetic
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Squall ASF
Member
Grove and Hoelbrak are a piece of cake to clear and don't take long at all. Divinity's Reach takes a bit getting around and Black Citadel can also take a little while, especially as a few poi's can be difficult to find if you don't notice the 'instance' doors. Rata Sum was a little confusing doing it the first time but I haven't been back there with my Mesmer yet, curious to see how much quicker I clear it this time. LA is easy.
What's odd is that the game has never given me a reason to go to the Asuran area with either character. I wonder why they don't have personal story missions that take you to the Metrica Province and or Rata Sum? I literally only went to those two locations to explore and zone clear, just odd that I could have completely ignored them as far as the story was concerned. There's no dungeon there either... Why Anet no love Asurans? haha
What's odd is that the game has never given me a reason to go to the Asuran area with either character. I wonder why they don't have personal story missions that take you to the Metrica Province and or Rata Sum? I literally only went to those two locations to explore and zone clear, just odd that I could have completely ignored them as far as the story was concerned. There's no dungeon there either... Why Anet no love Asurans? haha
Jest Chillin
Member
The Polymock Arena is in Rata Sum.. so there is content planned to be there, it just hasn't been implemented yet.
Squall ASF
Member
Again, the story doesn't take you there. It's odd. As a human, I go through the human, norn, and sylvari areas no matter what and you can make mission choices that take you to the Charr region. Asuran region is the one exception. Personal story seems like the perfect vehicle to take a player around the world so I'm just surprised.
Speaking of Asurans, I just found out that I would have received Pain Inverter if I made my Mesmer an Asuran, my Mes is now lvl 78...Fuuuuuuuuuuu Oh well, I envision Mes being my main and I want that to be human which is why I was boring and did another human. If I ever use another race, it's not going to be until they come out with more to entice me. Tengu or Largos? Sign me up!
Jest Chillin
Member
As an Asuran, I never had to go to the Norn or Charr areas. It was all Meguuma (Asuran/Sylvari) then Kryta then south though Steamspur into Orr. I never did most of the dungeons so I never ended up in Shiverspeak or further east except recently (for DE's).
Sent invite. Please check your guild interface when you have the chance.
Kos Luftar
Member
Cities need to get attacked by the different rivals (ie huge centaur horde attacking divinitys reach) and it would be a meta event where we have to clear out all the different districts.
They could make it so when it gets attacked you could repel but if you can't they will be wrecking havoc. No merchants or crafters.
Mini games are dumb. I'm playing the game to play the game I'm not coming in the game to play some dumb Pokemon game.
They could make it so when it gets attacked you could repel but if you can't they will be wrecking havoc. No merchants or crafters.
Mini games are dumb. I'm playing the game to play the game I'm not coming in the game to play some dumb Pokemon game.
Kos Luftar
Member
What server are you on?
Borlis Pass. We've been stuck fighting Anvil rock for 2 months now. And this was the second time we've had to be stuck with them for two months. Feels good to finally get away and hopefully don't get instabooted back down.
Kos Luftar
Member
Just transfer over to SBI. We are doing big tings in WvW we will hit t1 soon.
Don't start guild mission without me.
Don't start guild mission without me.
Can't, have too many friends here that don't want to leave.
Awesome thanks!
I wanted to share some info on the new encounters, and the broader philosophical design shifts implied by the recent revamp of the Ascalonian Catacombs, the first dungeon available to players in Guild Wars 2.
Some of the changes are more subtle than others, but in total the dungeon feels quite different. Many design cues were taken from Fractals, which tend to offer shorter complete times for any particular encounter, but with added complexity and mechanics that allow you to hone your skill over time. Thus the initial "learning" encounters may take considerably longer than the old-school AC; however, ultimately a well-coordinated team that knows each path will be able to run the dungeon markedly faster than before.
For people who already enjoyed dungeons, it's a win-win. For people who didn't enjoy dungeons before, it's a great reason to try again- but the most important thing you need both for your enjoyment and success when learning the paths is a patient group.
This will not be a set of dungeon guides for the new paths- those already exist- but general info and strategy about them, as well as predictions of where dungeons will go from here.
First of all, let me start by pointing out a clear and complete shift in the purpose and intent of the two modes of running a dungeon, story and explorable, exemplified by this redesign.
- Story Modes should and will be easy. That's really all there is to it. If you haven't done AC Story since the Feb. patch, I encourage you to do so for the novelty. A group of 80s will absolutely devastate every single encounter. The Lovers have been neutered. Nente is quite likely to die before his pets. Adelbern, far from the res-rush-requiring tyrant of old, is barely a threat to defeat a single party member. It's just easy as all hell.
Story mode dungeons will be meant to be completable by any 5 players, including a PUG composed wholly of people who have never done the dungeon. It can certainly be argued that this is how it should have been since launch. I was of the mindset that the original AC Story forced me to dramatically improve my core skill very early on in my gameplay experience, and I was thankful for this, but I know that the tradeoff was that many newbies got completely turned off by the idea of dungeons for good. This is a step to counter that.
The silver gained from each boss was lessened, but still quite notable especially if you have a Raspberry Peach bar. The gilded infusion/boosters/etc would stretch it even further. A good group can absolutely blast through it. I wouldn't mind attempting a speedrun for this with some guildies out of curiousity. The end-of-dungeon silver reward has DR, but none of the silver drops do. It might well be a viable way to farm a ton of cash very rapidly. Of course, the tradeoff is the lack of tokens- and the fact that some players participate in dungeons for the challenge.
There is one exception to the easy-easy-easy nature of the new AC Story: the gods of random chance may decide to spawn the Cave Troll. This is the same new Cave Troll from AC explorable. New groups are meant to encounter him Kool-Aid Man style, quickly realize he is out of their league, and wipe or run away. He is an absolute beast, and the very definition of an "optional boss." A high silver reward (~15s) with a tough fight to win; no path, least of all Story, requires you to do so.
- Explorable Mode, especially that of the lower level dungeons and especially AC, will be designed to teach players advanced mechanics and force them to apply what they've learned to succeed. Thus, playing dungeons as intended will make you better at the game, and this is always how it should have worked.
I want to take a brief aside here and discuss why many explorable paths did not/do not accomplish this goal:
-From Day 1, res-rushing was universally adopted as an aspect of dungeon-running. Every path, every encounter, every dungeon involved "the run back" to the boss. Just keep it alive til someone makes it back, wear down its HP bar little by little and repeat as many times as necessary until the boss dies. This did not teach you anything except to bring Swiftness into every dungeon. It circumvented the need to learn what any encounter was about in favor of a simple (and super boring) war of attrition. Obviously, res-rushing was removed before this patch, but its impact is fully realized in the new AC.
-Very high HP pools on many bosses that did not have interesting-enough mechanics to warrant the longer fights. This encouraged teams to find the least risky, easiest approach to an encounter because having to repeat it if you wiped would take so long. This is no longer a good idea. Coordinating beforehand and facing the challenge head-on is crucial for both succeeding and not getting crazily frustrated. Note: there are encounters where you can still stack up on a safe spot and take no damage, or abuse an enemy's pathing, or whatever, but it won't save you nearly as much time as it would have before (if any), and it'll still be just as boring.
Learn the encounters as intended and you'll have more fun- doing so is even "speedrun friendly," I promise. Every enemy in the new AC has had its HP dramatically lowered. Some appear to have had their health pools cut in half!
So how does it all work?
Before I get into each of the new boss fights, let me go over the encounters that are consistent for each path. But rather than organize it in the order you run into them, I'll organize them based on the mechanics taught.
Dodging
Let's just be honest: you can make it to level 35 without ever learning to dodge. In fact, it's rather simple to play GW2 at the lower levels as though it were a more traditional MMO, especially the classes with more survivability, and then run up against a brick wall when content starts demanding well-timed dodges.
But make no mistake: dodging is crucial in GW2, for every class. Learning to time your dodges is an important part of getting good at dungeons, and AC is now designed to teach you this in stages.
Let's get some key facts about dodging out of the way:
-Dodging makes you completely invincible during the animation. You do not have to dodge out of any AoE circle or away from a big attack, you just have to time it properly. You can in fact dodge forward through an enemy's attack giving you time to strike before they even turn around to face you (amazing for dagger thieves, clone-heavy mesmers, and more).
-Vigor is often regarded as the most useless boon. But more frequent access to dodges is almost universally good for the entire party. If one member fails a dodge or is out of endurance but another succeeds, the second player can revive the first and keep the fight alive. Also, weigh the merit of Vigor against traits that enable you to have extra effects on dodge. Example: for Mesmers with Deceptive Evasion, Vigor is essentially a boosted clone production rate.
-As long as the effects of a channel have begun, you can dodge to cancel the rest of the channel without canceling the skill (it may have a reduced duration or fewer projectiles, depending on the skill in question). This is a key part of advanced combat. You don't have to wait for an animation to finish- if an attack is coming at you, dodge!
In ascending order of difficulty, the following encounters demand timed dodging:
- The new Graveling Stalkers are designed completely for this purpose. They are unnotable except for one attack: they burrow underground and show a red AoE circle, pick a target and rush at it, then pop out of the ground. If you're in the AoE when it's about to pop up, you need to dodge, or the Stalker will go all Shadowcat on your ass and be invulnerable for a good 5 seconds. Thus, if everybody dodges, you'll know it because it will be damageable the whole fight.
- Lieutenant Kholer, as always, has his multi-hit scorpion wire skill. The timing on this attack is pretty easy to learn. If you mistime it, he pulls you in and then spins for massive damage. The crucial thing is to watch Kholer the whole fight. It's more valuable during this fight to dodge that move successfully than it is to do DPS, to res others, or anything else. Kholer himself is little threat besides that one attack. He has adds now, and Necromancers can ruin your day- but more on that below.
- The Cave Troll has a new attack. Following the old "jump up and SLAM" AoE attack, ground tremors with HUGE range and damage and knockback will shoot toward you. This can be easily and completely dodged, but the timing is hard to master. You do not want to dodge as soon as the Troll hits the ground, but a second or two after.
Area-of-Effect
Yes, red circles bad. But there is more to AoE skills than merely spotting the circle and then getting out of it before you take too much damage.
- The AoE of the new Spider Queen is incredibly deadly. It will down anyone in a few seconds, and if you're caught near the center of it without a ready dodge you have no hope of making it out. So what's the deal?
If you pay attention to the attack, you can see that the green shots that will become the AoE are fired and hit the ground well before the AoE circle appears. The point of impact will become the center of the wide red circle. Thus, you can dodge away from the AoE completely before the circle is even visible just by paying attention.
Also, the hyper-deadly AoE is a cue to try engaging the Queen in melee range. If the target she has aggro on is in melee range, she simply won't use that attack at all. She has a stunning web attack that hits melee range and can be countered by a stun break (more below), but is mostly pitiful at fighting you if you get up close and personal.
- During Kholer's fight, the green AoE poison field is a surefire tell that a Necromancer is present. Because the fight is in a fairly enclosed space, a few of these fields can bring the fight down in a hurry. If you spot one, look for the Necro and focus fire immediately- then return to dispatching Kholer.
As a player, crowd control effects (Daze, Fear, Float, Knockdown, Launch (Blowout), Pull, Push (Knockback), Sink, Stun) are incredibly satisfying to use on mobs and incredibly frustrating to have used on you.
Stun breaks are utility skills that allow you to instantly get out of any of these effects, typically with some bonuses. They can turn a disadvantageous situation or even certain death into an opportunity.
- The web attack of the Spider Queen is a cone in fairly close range that will hold you in place. If she traps you over one of the AoE fields, you're going down- but, if you have a stun break, you can keep the fight alive.
- Graveling Scavengers no longer have their HP-erasing nomnomnom atack, but Stalkers + Scavengers can chain knockdowns in a way that can be devastating to newbies. A stun break can get you off the ground.
Finally,
The Bosses
My favorite thing about the redesign is that the bosses now match up much more closely with what they're supposed to be. The Howling King howls and raises an army. The Ghost Eater-go figure-eats ghosts. When Colossus rumbles, it's not just an occasional annoying attack- it defines the fight. In my opinion, they are now in ascending order of difficulty.
- The Howling King fight has two things to pay attention to. A big giant mega death laser howl attack, which stuns and does confusion, and rings of fire on the ground. Ostensibly Hodgins is casting these AoE circles with the flaming scepter, but apparently they'll continue if he dies. We can just assume the flaming scepters are sentient and really want you to win, I guess. So, HK will summon silver adds that are pointless to try and fight. But, if they run into any of the fire rings they die instantly. The rings do burning to you too, but otherwise, kite any enemies you can into them.
The thing is, he's ridiculously squishy. Don't be afraid of him. Just pay attention to the above two things and kick the shit out of him. If you have some Time Warp in your party, he'll go down hard.
This fight is intended to introduce you to neutral environmental mechanics that may come into play in future boss fights. The rings burn you, but they also insta-kill adds. Don't be surprised to see a fight with a similar mechanic at some point, but you have to kill enough enemies in this way before the fight will progress, rather than just spiking down the boss.
[*]The Ghost Eater fight is now the most interesting of the three, and requires the most full-team coordination. It's also my favorite, because once you get good at it, it feels unlike any other fight in the game in a satisfying way.
Once the traps are built by Detha, everyone should pick up a Proton Pack- I mean, anti-spectral essence gun, or something. The Ghost Eater is in a spectral form, immune to damage. If you hit her, she'll shoot off little ghost oozes. Levitate and pull three oozes into a trap and it will load, ready for the Ghost Eater to spring- after which she'll become vulnerable to massive damage.
Typically, the way this is shown to teams just learning it is to designate one person the levitator, who will call and levitate an ooze with 1, while all the other players pull with 2. This works, and keeps things simple, but players trying it this way may notice that it feels a little awkward, that the cooldowns on the gun don't really seem to match up with doing it smoothly.
That's because it's actually intended for multiple players to levitate, but only one at a time, while the rest pull, to keep up Maximum Ooze Hangtime.
Let me spell out an example scenario for you, since you're reading this:
Players A and B will be levitators.
Players C, D, and E will be pullers.
Player A calls a target on an ooze and levitates it (1). C, D, and E will all pull it toward a trap (2). B does nothing at first.
When the levitation beam from A is about to run out, B levitates the ooze. If you time it right, it won't even touch the ground. Then, C, D, E and A will pull the ooze. It's likely to have reached the trap by now, but if not, repeat the sequence.
If an ooze is on the ground inside the white circle around a trap, your only job is to levitate it. This will instantly trap it and is always a good idea for any player who spots one to do.
Once a trap is loaded with three ghosts, you can pull GE into it and there will be a big flash. Everyone should then drop the guns, and wack the crap out of her. When she turns back into a ghost, stop attacking immediately- if too many of those oozes fly out, she eats them (yum) and heals.
One additional layer of strategy is that you can handle the loading of the traps in any order you want to. I like to pull two ghosts into each one before springing any of them. Then you can chain-spring them for very little downtime.
Don't cross the streams!
- The Colossus Rumblus fight is now all about learning the Defiant/Unshakable mechanic. This makes me very happy, because understanding it can completely change boss encounters, but literally nothing in the game before has forced you to pay attention to it. For most players, it probably just seemed like every once and a while a crowd control skill would apply to a boss, with no rhyme or reason to it at all.
Bosses will have this icon with a number of stacks(Defiant), next to this icon:
(Unshakable)
Using any crowd control skill (Daze, Fear, Float, Knockdown, Launch (Blowout), Pull, Push (Knockback), Sink, or Stun) will remove one stack of Defiant. When the boss is down to just the silver Unshakable icon, the next crowd control effect will apply and interrupt the boss. The Defiant stacks may not appear until first CCing the boss one time.
Before the fight with Colossus, have your whole team equip all of the interrupt utility skills that you have. Bear any weapon skills in mind that do it too. Stay near Warmaster Grast, and strip off a few stacks of Defiant while doing damage. Get him down to just 1 or 2 at all times if possible. When Colossus does his rumble attack that causes the rocks to fall from the ceiling, you NEED to interrupt it. Every so often, Grast will put up a big sanctuary bubble that will keep the rocks from hitting you as a freebie, but he won't do it often enough to protect you the entire fight. You need to get the feel for taking off the Defiant stacks and interrupting the boss, or you'll wipe!
Besides that attack, Colossus can inflict a number of conditions at melee range- however, like his siblings he doesn't have all that much HP.
What Does All This Mean?
We know that dungeon overhauls of this nature are coming to every dungeon in the game. Expect every Story Mode to get easier, and every Explorable Mode to feel harder the first time you try it.
In my opinion, the next two dungeons, CM and TA, wiil also be "teaching dungeons" to some extent, and offer opportunities to learn certain mechanics in controlled ways. I think that SE will be something of a transition dungeon. And then I expect the final four to be really, really challenging and expect you to have an advanced level of skill from the get-go. This may indeed keep players unwilling to invest the time to learn the dungeons from having access to that dungeon's gear, making them more into prestige items as they were once planned. The net effect will be that they are just better and more fulfilling to run.
With repeated assurances that the "loot issue" in dungeons is a known commodity, I think you could see a real resurgence in their completion by lots of players. Not that they're not still being done at an alarming rate right now...
...but hopefully there will be a more even distribution across the different runs and paths.
On a totally unrelated note, while I actually think CoF Path 1 is a pretty cool run already, independent of how easy it is, I do think it would be hilarious to watch the fallout if it became the hardest of the 3.
Watching all of these SimCity implosion threads (which has proven to be much more entertaining than the game, probably) makes one really appreciate how awesome a job ArenaNet did with GW2. Overflow Servers, lack of downtime, a really smooth launch (TP and guild stuff notwithstanding)... it could have been a real clusterfuck, but they clearly know what they're doing.
/PRetro
/PRetro
Psychoward
Banned
Did I miss the event? I thought it was Saturday 5 pm est?
The main one (a tier 3 bounty) is tomorrow (at 4 though, not 5). We just did a quick Tier 1 today.
Psychoward
Banned
Ah, although I won't be able to get in if I haven't completed Tier 1 or 2 right?
Nope, you'll be fine. The only requirement is that you must be able to guest to sbi.
Edit:
I maybe answered that weirdly, so here it is a bit clearer:
You DON'T need to have done 1 or 2.
Kos Luftar
Member
Chaos-guardian squad lead by the intelligent Engineer to down groups of 10-15. It was awesome!!
theosi
Member
Reading this thread is making me want to get back into the game! Seems like they've added a ton of improvements since I last played, which was probably around X-mas. Is there a chance of a GAF guild invite? I'd love to actually play with other people this time around and would especially like to check out the whole guild mission thing! ID is culgan.6870 is possible thanks!
thanks!Reading this thread is making me want to get back into the game! Seems like they've added a ton of improvements since I last played, which was probably around X-mas. Is there a chance of a GAF guild invite? I'd love to actually play with other people this time around and would especially like to check out the whole guild mission thing! ID is culgan.6870 is possible
Invite sent, welcome to GAFGuild.
My mesmer's so close to done! Stat and build-wise I has everything I want, I just need one weapon skin that I need to progress my ele to obtain
Thanks a lot guys, I'm out next week but if you're around this weekend or next one we should run it!
theMrCravens
Member
Nice job guild.
Freaking luck on that one.
Didn't expect Tricksy to one shot like that though. ;_;
Freaking luck on that one.
Didn't expect Tricksy to one shot like that though. ;_;
Psychoward
Banned
Another week, another T3 done. It should never be that close again, my hands were shaking for a solid 20 minutes lol. GAFGuild the best.
Jest Chillin
Member
So it was roughly the same list this week as last week for the Bounties?
Squall ASF
Member
Hawkian,
You need to apply that extreme attention to detail on whether Phantasmal Haste is a worthwhile trait, or if I should use those 15 trait points elsewhere ;P
I'm struggling to tell if there's much of a difference thus far and the site shows it's only a bit over a second, maybe 1.5 seconds faster with the phantasms I use, but people in LA map chat swear it works well for phantasm builds. I'll be testing it more for sure when I play again but any input you might have would be appreciated. Though now that I think about it, you're a shatter build so you probably haven't tried it, eh? Nuts.
You need to apply that extreme attention to detail on whether Phantasmal Haste is a worthwhile trait, or if I should use those 15 trait points elsewhere ;P
I'm struggling to tell if there's much of a difference thus far and the site shows it's only a bit over a second, maybe 1.5 seconds faster with the phantasms I use, but people in LA map chat swear it works well for phantasm builds. I'll be testing it more for sure when I play again but any input you might have would be appreciated. Though now that I think about it, you're a shatter build so you probably haven't tried it, eh? Nuts.
Actually I don't have any pure shatter builds, and I do use it on my Control and my new Damage build, but I'm debating its usefulness as well.
Basically, if three or more of the skills most important to your build are the from the following list:
- Phantasmal Berserker
- Phantasmal Defender
- Phantasmal Duelist
- Phantasmal Mage
- Phantasmal Warden
- Phantasmal Warlock
1 to 1.5 seconds less between attacks might not seem like much in testing, but often times your goal will be keeping phantasms up merely long enough to get two attacks off rather than one. It can have a big effect on your total DPS, but again, relying on more than one of the above skills for a lot of your damage is crucial to making it worthwhile.
Accidentally joined the vigil with my ele (how?!) so now I'm spending some time with my Charrdian to get to join the Priory.
I like him a lot, a lot of the guardian skills have great "oomph." I don't think Greatsword is for me, cool as it is. I want Binding Blades on every weapon, though.
I think Guardians' class mechanic is just kind of lacking. I can't wait to trait them to make do something neat when activated (is such a thing even possible)?
I want to try some realllllly reallly unusual Guardian build. What are the least popular options?
I can tell I'm going to have a support build that barely even worries about doing any damage centered around staff.
edit: Ah, I forgot I loved hammer in the BWE. This is satisfying. Also, I can see some advanced stuff with being able to pop the virtues during a channel.
I like him a lot, a lot of the guardian skills have great "oomph." I don't think Greatsword is for me, cool as it is. I want Binding Blades on every weapon, though.
I think Guardians' class mechanic is just kind of lacking. I can't wait to trait them to make do something neat when activated (is such a thing even possible)?
I want to try some realllllly reallly unusual Guardian build. What are the least popular options?
I can tell I'm going to have a support build that barely even worries about doing any damage centered around staff.
edit: Ah, I forgot I loved hammer in the BWE. This is satisfying. Also, I can see some advanced stuff with being able to pop the virtues during a channel.
irfaanator
Banned
The traits do add effects to the guardian virtues. Either they apply boons or they can apply condition depending on which line you go into
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