Curse

kazjun · Sep 10, 2007, 01:07 AM // 01:07

Well, you could play a MM in the tourney if you wanted. Take a pet, let it get slaughtered, exploit corpse, raise pet, repeat. Why you would want to waste the time, well that's a different question. Doesn't mean you can't though.

The main difference to survival, is take some defense. I've seen plenty of people (especially ele's) run like 7 fire attack spells and a res. Take weakness, wards etc and giving your heroes insignia's and runes. They make a huge difference. All my ele's carry ward vs melee, it only takes two points in earth for a 10 sec ward, easy to get using junk points leftover. And MM insignia keeps your MM alive a long time. Also, apart from a sup death for your MM and maybe a sup fire for SF, there's not really much need for anything but minors. If you're running multiple sups, you're just asking to get spiked.

And make use of the titles. The norn title, combined with ursan form for example, takes you easily over 800 hp. And it covers your henches as well. And the asuran one, gives you a ton of extra energy. The ebon one will have you slaughtering charr quick as, and the deldrimor gives you like sup vamp weaps against the destroyers. Even at pretty low levels.

Anyway, with that, I've tanked whole mobs of stuff (sometimes I swear 50 guys just rush you), usually since I'm too lazy to pull or wait for patrol patterns. Course for most places I run two SF ele's and Olias as MM. Or a N/Rit splinter/mark of pain. So the more the merrier

SerenitySilverstar · Sep 10, 2007, 01:11 AM // 01:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by knoll

Know what creatures do and adjust to it. Simple.

Heck yeah. Undead = smiting damage. Destroyers = immunity to fire, more damage from cold. Eles need to have enchantments stripped. Learn ya monsters.

Burst Cancel · Sep 10, 2007, 01:49 AM // 01:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanok Odbrook

Not necessarily. Even using flagging/pulling techniques, there were times where I saw a monk hero with 10% morale boost go down in less than six hits. After that, the second monk hero couldn't keep up and wiped before the first one was rezzed. And then it was the full party wipe.

Prot Spirit guarantees 10 hits before death. Nevermind that with two monks, it takes severe, concentrated pressure, combined with enchantment removal, to actually take down any single target. In areas with strong enchantment hate, consider bringing ZB monks or Holy Haste healers for the cheap/fast spike heals. However, there are very few areas that feature enough enchantment removal to negate prot monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanok Odbrook

The same goes for PvE. I don't want to run a build or use skill sets that everyone else is using just to be able to play through dungeons or missions. I want to play the builds I have used through each of the three campaigns in the last 2 and half years because those are the ones I have had the most fun with, and enjoy playing. Of course not every possible choice is going to work, such as loading up a Warrior's Swordsmanship attribute, but using an Axe with Hammer Master skills. That's just common sense. However, upon building and learning to use a great Hammer Warrior, I shouldn't get to an area that basically says, "Sorry, all mobs here are Hammer Immune, you are now useless to your party, go try something else." To me, that's just a cop out on the creator's part. It should be up to them to make the area challenging, even to a Hammer Warrior and not just exclude them from all the fun.

As I stated above, GW allows you to pick your tools. Therefore, in order to be difficult, the game must, to some degree, force you to pick the better tools. This degree is largely what determines difficulty in GW PvE. Again, not all skills and combinations are equally good. Therefore, if an area can be beaten using sub-optimal skills, it must, by definition, be easy when using optimal skills. A large part of GW is considering what the enemy is using, and bringing skills to account for that. Even so, there is some variation. For instance, in dealing with boss elementalists you can succeed in two main ways: 1) interrupts or 2) damage reduction. The game doesn't force you to take one over the other, but it does require you to compensate for the enemy's overpowered damage in some way.

Basically, by asking for build diversity, you are asking for the game to be made easier. Given that a large number of players (at least, the ones that frequent forums) already find the game unacceptably easy, I don't see any reason to do that. Rather, those who are having trouble should either improve their level of play, or stick to areas that they can beat.

Vl Vl D · Sep 10, 2007, 02:43 AM // 02:43

I plAyed with my warrior and found it easy ,but when I took a caster into the game it got alot harder.I dont like how the tank hench runs off alowing all the monster to run past.

Vl Vl D · Sep 10, 2007, 02:43 AM // 02:43

oops dbl post ftl

blue.rellik · Sep 10, 2007, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Run Dual [skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill]

You will not regret it

crazybanshee · Sep 10, 2007, 03:23 AM // 03:23

I don't believe any GW quests, dungeons, or missions are too hard. I've hero/henchied the majority of them, all 3 campaigns +gwen, done all the gwen quests and dungeons with heros and henchies, and that includes getting legendary guardian and vanquisher. As much as I hate to sound rude, if you're having so much trouble that you can barely do anything, maybe you should go out with an experienced person who can show you what you're doing wrong. Because you obviously are.

Spazzer · Sep 10, 2007, 03:35 AM // 03:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanessa Dwager

polycrap had me cursing in every language I know.

Polymock is just 1v1 duels against AI. You practically have the same skillbars. :V If you're finding the rest of the game easier than Polymock, then your BUILDS are stronger than your skills as a player.

natuxatu · Sep 10, 2007, 04:08 AM // 04:08

Um yeah rage quitters ftl. I've said this before but I think (and I like the fact) that GWEN seems to be anit rage quit. Meaning dunegons and stuff.. there are those who will give up the first second they die. But because of the rez points.. those of us who continue to plow forward will mostliley succeed and thus be rewarded.

glountz · Sep 10, 2007, 06:12 AM // 06:12

For those claiming EoTN is not hard, indeed it is. People not having the three campaigns will have a lot of trouble finishing it. Remember that, one of the most prized Dungeon Boss finisher, Broad Head Arrow, is a FACTIONS elite. Zho uses it, but very randomly. Not having factions means a lot of trouble finishing any dungeon.
And even if you're not going dungeoning, only doing the main Quest, you will eventually face Cyndr the Mountain Hearth who is the most painful boss in the whole GWEN expansion, especially if you are alone with H/H.
No, GWEN is certainly not newbie friendly (but it wasn't designed to).
I clearly advise to unlock most skills of the game (i'm personnally UAX) through the whole campaign before playing EoTN. If you lack more than 50% of them you're screwed.

Floski · Sep 10, 2007, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Don't have factions for BHA? Bring the interupt henchy. She has it. Problem solved. Don't have LoD? Bring Mhenlo, he's got it. They give you all the tools you need to breeze through this game.

Cebe · Sep 10, 2007, 07:37 AM // 07:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stolen Souls

They can be very challenging, but certainly not impossible. They take much more thinking and strategy than the standard "Charrrrrrrge riiiight innnn!!!" tactic that seems to have become the norm.

Not strictly true. The best way we came up with for doing Frostmaw's Burrows was to let Pyre Fierceshot wammo charge right in and take the hit of the whole fruit when the wurms popped to to "surprise you". At least that way only one party member had 60% DP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stolen Souls

Powerstone of Courage FTW

Yep, people should never go into a dungeon without one.

In the few instances that we have been party-wiped and the mob has camped by the res shrine I let them have their fun, waited until we were all at 60%DP, then used a powerstone and after being ressed Ran far away. Regrouped. Slaughtered them with my new found 10% morale boost.

tmakinen · Sep 10, 2007, 09:00 AM // 09:00

Personally I've found normal mode GW:EN to be c-space easy in the sense that when you have 3 well configured heroes and a proper selection of 4 henches, the entire storyline can be wanded through without using any skills (with the exception of some animal form skills that are mandatory for the storyline). The only hiccup was Cyndr where I had to resign on the first round when I saw that the selection of heroes and henches just wasn't going to cut it because of insufficient DPS, so I made some better choices and flawlessed Cyndr the next time (didn't need any skills there either, just run the kegs while H+H took care of the rest). So, if you find the content too difficult, there's something fundamentally wrong with the team build. Most likely there is too much direct damage at the expense of passive defense, making the build fragile (the 'trinity' mentality discussed elsewhere as well).

Never needed any consumables either.

Pwny Ride · Sep 10, 2007, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

For those claiming EoTN is not hard, indeed it is. People not having the three campaigns will have a lot of trouble finishing it. Remember that, one of the most prized Dungeon Boss finisher, Broad Head Arrow, is a FACTIONS elite. Zho uses it, but very randomly. Not having factions means a lot of trouble finishing any dungeon.
And even if you're not going dungeoning, only doing the main Quest, you will eventually face Cyndr the Mountain Hearth who is the most painful boss in the whole GWEN expansion, especially if you are alone with H/H.
No, GWEN is certainly not newbie friendly (but it wasn't designed to).
I clearly advise to unlock most skills of the game (i'm personnally UAX) through the whole campaign before playing EoTN. If you lack more than 50% of them you're screwed.

You make it sound like Broad Head Arrow is the only elite that has any use in GW:EN. I finished GW:EN and Zho did very little in the way of boss killing. She helped when it came to monks (i bring frustration, her dazed does work well), but when a backfire does the job faster...

Totally agree, Cyndr was a complete pain in the ass the first time round, second time after reading his attack patterns and watching the pyroclasm recharge, i psychic distracted his attacks, leaving him totally useless (yes, this does work, despite people claiming that you can not disable boss skills.)
Not to mention bringing my own personal prot spirit, which is nearly fool-proof.

No you arent screwed if you dont have factions. Sure some of the skills there can make it easier, but the core skills still manage to do the job the best. For example, Maelstrom which is core, completely shatters destroyers. This is core, let alone water magic, which i dare say is one of the most unfavoured elementalist magic lines in PvE. And this spell is as core as you can get. Of course this is only one example, there are more, but i really cant be bothered listing them all

-Loki- · Sep 10, 2007, 09:42 AM // 09:42

The only part that's given me difficulty is Shards of Orr.

Vanessa Dwager · Sep 10, 2007, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spazzer

Polymock is just 1v1 duels against AI. You practically have the same skillbars. :V If you're finding the rest of the game easier than Polymock, then your BUILDS are stronger than your skills as a player.

I made all my builds from scratch and I have no problem running them. My problem is when someone throws me their build and says "Run it".

So I guess my player "Skills" are in my builds. Tactical planning over tactical fighting.

Hanok Odbrook · Sep 10, 2007, 10:33 AM // 10:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

In the few instances that we have been party-wiped and the mob has camped by the res shrine I let them have their fun, waited until we were all at 60%DP, then used a powerstone and after being ressed Ran far away. Regrouped. Slaughtered them with my new found 10% morale boost.

But why should we have a need for the powerstone? Why should we have the need to have a morale boost every 25 kills? To me, that's just the designer taking the easy way out in truly making a challenging area for a player. The appeal for me for the original CRPG's (and why I still play them today) like Wizardry and Eye of the Beholder that each new level was slightly harder than the previous one, but just by using the proper tactics, I didn't have to worry about getting slaughtered around every corner, because the games were truly balanced, and each level properly prepared you for the ultimate meeting with the endgame boss. Sure I lost a couple of characters when playing for the very first time, but afterwards, never died again. And I never felt I had any less fun or less of a challenge by not dying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

The only hiccup was Cyndr where I had to resign on the first round when I saw that the selection of heroes and henches just wasn't going to cut it because of insufficient DPS, so I made some better choices and flawlessed Cyndr the next time (didn't need any skills there either, just run the kegs while H+H took care of the rest). So, if you find the content too difficult, there's something fundamentally wrong with the team build. Most likely there is too much direct damage at the expense of passive defense, making the build fragile (the 'trinity' mentality discussed elsewhere as well).

And this is exactly what I am talking about. First, GW doesn't really prepare you for upcoming challenges. A pyro works great in the colder regions, but pop on down into the Drakkar Dungeon and face a Fire oriented boss - your pyro is now useless. I want a system that allows us to continue to use the pyro effectively as long as your party is using proper tactics, and can use skill and attack combinations to bring out the effectiveness of a pyro even when it's fire against fire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

As I stated above, GW allows you to pick your tools. Therefore, in order to be difficult, the game must, to some degree, force you to pick the better tools. This degree is largely what determines difficulty in GW PvE. Again, not all skills and combinations are equally good. Therefore, if an area can be beaten using sub-optimal skills, it must, by definition, be easy when using optimal skills. A large part of GW is considering what the enemy is using, and bringing skills to account for that. Even so, there is some variation. For instance, in dealing with boss elementalists you can succeed in two main ways: 1) interrupts or 2) damage reduction. The game doesn't force you to take one over the other, but it does require you to compensate for the enemy's overpowered damage in some way.

Basically, by asking for build diversity, you are asking for the game to be made easier. Given that a large number of players (at least, the ones that frequent forums) already find the game unacceptably easy, I don't see any reason to do that. Rather, those who are having trouble should either improve their level of play, or stick to areas that they can beat.

Build diversity doesn't necessarily mean an easier game. Whenever a subject like this comes up, take a look at the responses. The vast majority sit in two camps - one agrees that many parts of the game are simply overpowered and frustrating to the normal, casual player. The other camp finds all areas of the game far too easy. Only a small minority actually find a decent challange throughout. I had the exact same experience with Factions. Once leaving the island, I though the entire mainland was way too overpowered, and the leap of difficulty from Shing Jea to Kaineng was too large to properly prepare a newer player for the challenge. However, once Heroes came about, I basically breezed through the entire campaign with my D/A. That tells me something is wrong here. The way to fix this dicotemy is to remove the dependance of making higher level mobs tougher by giving them higher Offensive capabilities, and using larger numbers to artificially increase the difficulty level of the area.

As you say above, the current system forces you into making certain selections as you reach the higher levels of the game. Using the David and Goliath example, in GW David would never be able to defeat Goliath. The only way to bring Goliath down would be with another Cyclops who has a larger club, and perhaps some form of shield to help ward off some of Goliath's damage dealing. It's really too late to adjust GW's combat with a major overhaul, but what I am looking for in GW2 is a way to give David a shot at Goliath without making him a pushover for another cyclops. We need to take away the reliance of Goliath's ability to do 500+ damage with each blow, and make him a tougher defensive character. This way, in a new combat system, even a weaker party has a chance to bring him down as long as they work together as a team and use the good tactics.

We already have bits and pieces of the total system I would like to see in place - the natural abilities of Bosses such as their Health regeneration and reduced hex/condition time. These are great defensive capabilites that are far too underpowered in my opinion, and variations should be used for every monster in the game. Monster specific skills - I am glad to see more of these in EotN, but still would like to see more reliance on these skills rather than mobs using common skills. Naturally, bosses would still need to carry elites for us to cap unless another system was implemented for their acquisition. The various Blessings and Title enhancements are also part of this new system I would like to have, but let's make more of them dependant on the tactics and skill choices of each party member.

Let's take a Warrior and an Assassin as examples. Assassin's have built in skill chains as a part of their profession - the Lead, Off Hand, and Dual Attacks. Warrior's can equate this chain by say using Hammer Bash with Crushing Blow, or beginner's sword skills Sever Artery, Gash, and Final Thrust. Nice attack chains using your primary profession and attribute, and able to a nice moderate amount of damage/degen. This would the the base for the new system. Now, Let's say we have the good ole W/Mo. Let's give him Bane Sig or Sig of Judgement with Crushing Blow. Now we have someone making use of his secondary prof and combining it with his primary prof skills. There should be a little extra bonus for this in damage for this chain. The same for the Assassin - instead of using a typical skill chain, he makes a chain of attacks using both is prime and secondary profession skills - he gets a bonus or a buff for being more creative with his attacks.

Now let's say that Warrior uses Sig of Judgement against a foe, then follows up with Crushing Blow, then a teammate of his comes in with a skill that is usable against a foe with Deep Wound. Not only does the Warrior make use of both his professions, but he has essentially set up a possible new chain of attacks for a second character - this should offer even bigger bonuses for the characters and party.

Essentially, the game would be rewarding a great working party just as it does now, but even a weaker party would still stand a chance when using proper tactics and skill chains - it would just take longer for them to take down their foe than the party who makes multiple and multi-character chains of attack. So let's take an end-dungeon boss, and reduce his devastating offensive capabilities, but really buff up defensive and inherent abilities, making him damn near impossible to kill. Without using attack chains or buffs, or what have you, it should be a stale mate between the party and the boss, niether one having the advantage nor being able to kill the other. However, the weaker party comes in using individual chains of attacks, dealing slightly more damage and giving themselves slightly more defensive buffs. They keep this up, and in the long run end up taking down the boss. Now bring in that powered up party - even with high damaging skills, they don't have an advantage over this boss unless they begin to work together to set up chains of attack among themselves. The first chain would eliminate the boss' natural healing ability, the second chain would eliminate a defensive spell, the next chain would take a major chunk of health from the boss, and so on and so forth. Not only would this party be getting bigger rewards, it would make combat a lot more than just call target and afk until the battle is won. The party would have to continue to make great skill chains to counter the boss' defensive capabilities.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

freekedoutfish · Sep 10, 2007, 11:04 AM // 11:04

If your honestly suggesting that GWEN is harder then factions or nightfall, you are doing something very, very wrong!

I've been henching most of GWEN for a week now and even during the preview even it was a walk in the park. Even most of the dungeons and quests are pretty easy and they havent took any special tactics.

Ive generally used the same AI team for all of the expansion!

Myself and another SF hero, 3 monks an MM and 2 warriors. It seems to work and I've never had any huge issues with anything.

Nightfall's ROT was the only real difficult area in all 3 campaigns. Most other places are a piss take in terms of ease! You just have to re-adjut to what creature does what and take out healers and nukers first and then pick off the rest.

GWEN and the other campaigns really arent that hard.

the_jos · Sep 10, 2007, 11:29 AM // 11:29

Quote:

First, GW doesn't really prepare you for upcoming challenges. A pyro works great in the colder regions, but pop on down into the Drakkar Dungeon and face a Fire oriented boss - your pyro is now useless. I want a system that allows us to continue to use the pyro effectively as long as your party is using proper tactics, and can use skill and attack combinations to bring out the effectiveness of a pyro even when it's fire against fire.

When you fail, just look at why you failed.

I consider taking a certain profession a strategic decision and the skills a tactical one.
Running a pyro is part of tactics.
Switching to ice or air is part of of the same tactics.

I do understand your argument on combinations but there is no need.
You now know a pyro is not good against that type of enemy.
As are pyro's against a lot of enemies.
On the most used build, SF, it's the combination of SF and MS that does the trick. Both have reduced effectiveness against high armor enemies but MS keeps them shut down so you can SF away.
Armor ignoring damage has always been better but is less spammable most of the time. It's for a reason that SS is considered one of the most powerfull PvE skills.

If one choice does not work out, try an other.

My strategic choice in EotN was running high armor builds (W/P/R) with physical damage and damage buffs like GftE and FTW (caster myself).
This failed a couple of times requiring me to adjust their skills (tactical).
I had to use an alternative team build once or twice (strategics).

People who cannot adapt to these kinds of decisions fill fail and find the game difficult.
However, each campaign learned that some skills are more effective than others and some missions required alternative strategies.
It only seems that people have forgotten that with the introduction of cookie-cutter builds.

Mindtrust · Sep 10, 2007, 11:34 AM // 11:34

I get quite mad when i see all of theese people posting, that you're crap, and don't know how to play.
Most of the game is very doable with almost any build, except for the end dugeon bosses. They have made me upset quit many times, you sweep through the cave and then get stuck for 30min at the end boss with 60% dp.
But if you try to bring a few Protective Spirits (2-3) and 2 people with interupts it makes the end dungeon bosses much easier.

Hope it helps!

Good luck