Curse

Sable Phoenix · Dec 04, 2006, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ozric

It's fine how it is. Doesn't seem to me to be any more difficult than UW.

You can't be serious. Are you serious? I hope you're not serious, because this is just ludicrous.

Looks like the Winter/Conflagration/Mantra of Frost is now the one and only for DoA. Good luck getting a group unless you fall into this mold.

Eclair · Dec 04, 2006, 07:49 PM // 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sable Phoenix

Looks like the Winter/Conflagration/Mantra of Frost is now the one and only for DoA. Good luck getting a group unless you fall into this mold.

What's wrong with Winter/Conflagration/Mantra of Frost?

Mantra of Frost is a core skill, every class can get that by switching to a mesmer secondary. It's one skill in your skillbar. You also only need 1 ranger or ranger secondary with Greater Conflagration/Winter. 1 out of 8 members of your party. Everyone else can be whatever the heck they want.

Not to mention, just because its one of the more prominent methods discovered so far doesn't mean more viable builds won't come out.

viper008 · Dec 04, 2006, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Another problem is people have time constraints and can't always spend 2-5 hours to complete a part of the quest. So party members drop out depending the class off the player more often than not determines how much further the can group go.

Kenagalaz · Dec 04, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

uhh, we beat 3 areas just fine without GC/Winter/MoF

Xpl0iter · Dec 04, 2006, 08:07 PM // 20:07

Here you go spikey

sccrjamie · Dec 04, 2006, 08:09 PM // 20:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bocjo Bassannn

After about 300 tries or so at the city mission I finaly got to see the gates of the city.... Pulled the first mob out and poof error 7 gg lost our heal monk 2 and half hrs of work... yes WORK down the drain. Failing a quest after several tries due to error7 ... yes we know your working to fix that simply isnt fun its insanely annoying... Every single group that I have been with that has done semi decently has had an error 7 ususally looseing a crucial person in our build resulting in us simply haveing to resign and start over again. This could be eased some by haveing a larger team size say 12 people then if your skilled you can afford to loose one tank because there is room for 2, you could even afford to loose a monk to error 7 if you set up correctly but as it is now. Looseing one player could mean no heals no tank no damage after several hrs of work.

Yea I was the heal monk...i know there will always be err 7 problems but this is ridiculous...we were doing fine and then poof bye bye

Kha · Dec 04, 2006, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sable Phoenix

Looks like the Winter/Conflagration/Mantra of Frost is now the one and only for DoA.

It's an easy build to mindlessly follow, so yes the masses love it. It provides damage reduction easily for the whole group and is effective. Not a bad build, don't get me wrong, but more used because of its easiness with its effectiveness. But the only? There are plenty of other builds out there that get the job done much more efficiently and even quicker, but they require more planning, skill knowledge, and non-elitism that certain professions don't belong in DoA. These things aren't generally common in PuGs.

I've done a ton of different builds for DoA already, most being MoF since it's the flavor of the moment and not many are willing to experiment with anything else, but in truth the best group I have been in was:

3 Eles
2 Monks
2 Assassins
1 Paragon

I was the boon/prot monk and I had unlimited energy. It was far superior to any MoF group I had been in so far. We didn't even need Meteor Shower or traps to kill things. The only problem is that not everyone has 4+ hours to spend on these quests, and finding a group that can is even harder than finding a group that is effective.

FrogDevourer · Dec 04, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by crimsonfilms

Let me bring my 2 fire eles, 2 stance tanks, 2 monks and 1 MM/1 SS and be done with it.

I don't care about the holy W/Mo/E trinity or about the mindnumbing predefined roles. TBH, my warrior beat Nightfall with *no* MM and *no* nuker. In most places I was using only one healer. Similarly I was using multiple copies of the new professions. So, I'm more than willing to adapt, and to improve. If you reread my post you'll see it's not yet another "who moved my cheese" post. I have legitimate grudges against the DoA, even if I acknowledge all the players who are spending countless hours grinding for gemstones.

The DoA should be beatable with a consistent mix of all professions, and it should not rely on cheap gimmicks (read: you can't win unless you have skill X+Y+Z, or unless you have role Y filled). That's precisely the main design flaw of the DoA. With such a show of brute monster force, the winning cookie-cutter build will likely use only half the existing professions. Worse, these professions will be confined into specific and boring roles (examples from the past: ranger = barrage or trapper, mesmers unwelcome in SF). As for the others, they picked the wrong profession and they are invited to start over NF with a profession useful in DoA.

I won't even mention the 3 to 5 hours needed to complete a single quest. It's great to see super-long content such as UW domination for the true hardcore players, but it would be even better to have something more accessible for the average player who does not have so much spare time. Reality check: in their current form, the "elite" missions are just a WoW dungeon.

One of the great features of Sorrow's Furnace was that even the dumbest player could enter and explore it and do easy quests. Decent or average players could do all quests (including Final Assault) with a minimum of thinking, and excellent players could farm everything in smaller groups. Whatever your profession, and whatever the role you wanted to play, you could find your way into SF, even if hardcore farmers took a bigger and well-deserved share of the loot with cookie cutter tricks.

With DoA-like elite missions you are drastically limited. Again, it's not a probem of difficulty, it's a problem of options and different game content for different players. That's why I still love SF after all these months, and I think DoA is sloppy game design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

Your list is "DO NOT DO THAT" list for DoA.

No, my list was a non-exhaustive list the environmental+skill tricks used to prevent players from using a natural strategy. Ex: one environmental effect punishes all players for attacking or using skills (it's bad for spellcasters, but *offensive* energy-based W/A/R are junk in the city). Another environmental effect punishes players for kiting which is a very basic strategy. In short, the main engine behind the DoA difficulty is to prevent players from playing (remove their energy, damage them if they try to mitigate damage...). As a result, players are more or less forced to exploit poor AI flaws instead of playing the game (see Mysterial's post).

Kaane · Dec 04, 2006, 08:19 PM // 20:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sable Phoenix

You can't be serious. Are you serious? I hope you're not serious, because this is just ludicrous.

Looks like the Winter/Conflagration/Mantra of Frost is now the one and only for DoA. Good luck getting a group unless you fall into this mold.

Oh really?

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10085949
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10085823
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10085279
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10085135

GG, better luck next post

Avoc · Dec 04, 2006, 08:20 PM // 20:20

And in a few weeks, Anet nerfs mantra of frost.

Ozric · Dec 04, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sable Phoenix

You can't be serious. Are you serious? I hope you're not serious, because this is just ludicrous.

Looks like the Winter/Conflagration/Mantra of Frost is now the one and only for DoA. Good luck getting a group unless you fall into this mold.

Sure I'm serious! How much can those Aataxes hit your Ele for hmm? The Ele's in this place don't hit for that much more, and the meleers for for alot less I think.

The MoF build is an easy damage mitigation tool, but other builds will come out. I stepped in one round as an Obsi Flesh tanker on my Ele and did ok for my part, but I prefer to kill stuff.

Mitigate the damage being done to yourself one way or another and kill the monks. The mobs fold up pretty soon after that.

Sofonisba · Dec 04, 2006, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Since I have not actually completed any quests (read: walked in the door and got pwned, stumbled out to farm LB and think about what I'm doing with my life), are they like SF, UW and FoW quests, where they are repeatable with the same reward (chest at the end, etc)?

NeHoMaR · Dec 04, 2006, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kalidon

My only relief is that a monk will surely fit in ANY cookie cutter build ever

I started a Monk (1 year ago) for that reason.

Eclair · Dec 04, 2006, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

The DoA should be beatable with a consistent mix of all professions, and it should not rely on cheap gimmicks (read: you can't win unless you have skill X+Y+Z, or unless you have role Y filled). That's precisely the main design flaw of the DoA. With such a show of brute monster force, the winning cookie-cutter build will likely use only half the existing professions. Worse, these professions will be confined into specific and boring roles (examples from the past: ranger = barrage or trapper, mesmers unwelcome in SF). As for the others, they picked the wrong profession and they are invited to start over NF with a profession useful in DoA.

Have you seen the party makeups of the people who have beaten some of the quests? Pretty much every profession has been in one of the parties or more. Not to mention, only some of them use the winter + greater conflagaration +mof core. People have used both dervishes and assassins to substitute as tanks (dervish and assassin also can do some funny things while tanking too). I posted earlier a list of all the professions and so far what I've seen works with them. Most of the classes have quite a few different options, and that's just what I've seen. I'm sure there are a lot of other groups using very different builds. One group I've heard uses frenzy warriors against the touch necros because the life stealing skills do not double against frenzy. (They're also bonded and protted against normal damage). MoF doesn't not exclude any professions, since every profession can change to a mesmer secondary without really hampering their build. If they're too reliant on their secondary, they can opt not to use MoF and just stay in the very back, and get protted before casting their spells. Mesmers are extremely useful here, as their spiritual pain + mistrust is great at doing AoE armor ignoring damage, and provide damage mitigation through disruption. The rest of their skillbar is free to provide whatever utility the situation requires.

Quote:

I won't even mention the 3 to 5 hours needed to complete a single quest. It's great to see super-long content such as UW domination for the true hardcore players, but it would be even better to have something more accessible for the average player who does not have so much spare time. Reality check: in their current form, the "elite" missions are just a WoW dungeon.

This I'd agree with to some extent. 3-5 hours is a long time for most players. Maybe they should add shorter quests with lesser rewards for those without too much free time, but still want to get a taste of conquering at least a part of DoA. Otherwise, I think there needs to be a truly hard area.

Bocjo Bassannn · Dec 04, 2006, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by sccrjamie

Yea I was the heal monk...i know there will always be err 7 problems but this is ridiculous...we were doing fine and then poof bye bye

May I say you rock I would group with anyone on that team again anytime. Sucks so bad that you errored out we would I suspect come very close if not finished city. Most amazing battery I have ever seen with us on that team as well ect.... ect.... Kudo's to all of ya!!

I still think the area needs an increase in player size just for the saftey net of loosing one important "gear from the "clock". This might apease everyone increasing the team size... Those that want it harder simply dont fill your team up, those that dont fill it up... This way the difficulty is controllable somewhat for everyone.. I honestly dont think it would be intensely easy with 12 people but with 8 people every last skill and every last character is NEEDED at the very top of there game to compleate these areas.

So I ask that anet seriously consider at least increaseing the team size in this area to 10 or 12 players. This would make this area alot more apealing for a larger portion of your players. It would speed up the time that it takes to compleate the mission for a team of this size makeing error 7s less of a big deal, allowing people to controll how difficult they wish the area to be for themselves.... I dont know about you guys but to me this is a win win fix.

lyra_song · Dec 04, 2006, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avoc

And in a few weeks, Anet nerfs mantra of frost.

Mantra of Frost isn't imbalanced in PvP. So there will be no nerf.

It's being used properly in pve, albeit gimmicky, its hardly an exploit and hardly an abuse.

Bankai · Dec 04, 2006, 09:56 PM // 21:56

I am still waiting for the first Winter+GC+MoF groups to pop up in HA/GvG.

Kakumei · Dec 04, 2006, 10:10 PM // 22:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bankai

I am still waiting for the first Winter+GC+MoF groups to pop up in HA/GvG.

People tried that AGES ago. It doesn't work because Conflag is too hard to keep up reliably.

Bankai · Dec 04, 2006, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Yeah I know. The combo sucks in my opinion. I'm just waiting for it to appear since it works in DoA.

lishi · Dec 04, 2006, 10:55 PM // 22:55

NEW UPDATE

If a party of AI enter in the area of effect of a GC and a winter they will assign a caster to kill it with one shot of their overpowered wand attack.

Gg =)