Curse

MArcSinus · Jun 13, 2011, 01:18 AM // 01:18

What jeydra said.

I would also like to point out that IMO the main threat of those titans isn't the skill "Smash of the Titans" and their huge damage in general. Groups only tend to have 1 or 2 of these hard hitting guys and the skill can easily be negated/countered by prots, spirits, minions or interrupts. Player parties with good positioning should have even less problems with it.

The main threat lies in the builds of these guys. The level 40 Titan's Malice and Titan's Heart have builds which we would consider meta or close to meta builds. Panic and Healing Burst are probably the best skills in their respective attribute lines and the rest of their skills are also meta material, look em up. The Dark Titan and Icy Brute also have excellent builds. Rotting Titans are Discord Resto's and the Water and Earth Born titans also have a great collection of skills. In short, you're up against a whole army of meta builds with top notch elites as Panic, Healing Burst and Spiteful Spirit.

Since we have the disadvantage of being outnumbered most of the times, resorting to meta Spirit and Minion builds is a logical step to relieve pressure.
Simply put, below-par builds just aren't going to cut it against these guys. Fights against titans tend to last above average so good healing, energy management and damage prevention is essential.

Now we humans still have the advantage of course, we can exploit the (hero) AI because we know how it works, we have PvE skills, superior positioning and cons.

The overal conclusion: The missions are doable with good builds and good play, even easier with meta ones but they are not required. When playing with heroes you probably have a harder time because of Panic, but it's still very doable especially with meta builds.
Feel free to go up against these guys with every build you want, but don't wine because your fail with bad builds. It are challenging quests and using good/meta builds is the most logical thing to do.
Don't be stupid and combat meta stuff with meta stuff.

Chthon · Jun 13, 2011, 03:00 AM // 03:00

One more time: I'm not complaining that bad builds can't do it. I'm complaining that anything outside a very small set of builds can't do it. Half the classes in GW are worthless or next to worthless in these quests either because every worthwhile thing they bring to the table is totally countered or they use up a party space without bringing enough mitigation. Quests should not be designed so that entire classes are deadweight.

Kunder · Jun 13, 2011, 04:09 AM // 04:09

The problem is first and foremost that guild wars is horribly imbalanced and no attempt has been made to correct this. But for these quests specifically, the problem is made much worse because the areas are designed to only cater to imbalanced builds. The ridiculous armor levels alone make my head spin. I almost half expected enemies with Banish Enchantments to make an appearance at some point.

It feels like some lazy intern got put in charge and they took everything Anet did with WiK, decided "RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO that", then phoned it in the night before the update.

Xiaquin · Jun 13, 2011, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plutoman

If you want something difficult and challenging, then offer up ways to do it without modifying the AI, unless you're experienced in AI coding and want to go apply at ANet. As I see it, this is about the only method to do it. And it'll be challenging for most people, just as the DoA is challenging for most people.

It's called a nerf bat and it needs to crack heads. Working only one side of the equation (the "E" in PvE) doesn't address one addressable source of the problem: P

Vazze · Jun 13, 2011, 06:22 AM // 06:22

They are neither too easy, nor too difficult: they are the same as most harder HM content. If you go with the handful of wtfpwn skills that pve has, you win. Easily. In fact, they could raise the monster lvl from 42 to 84 and it wouldn't change a thing, you could still beat it with the usual OP crap and AI abuse. That IS the problem.

Plutoman · Jun 13, 2011, 07:42 AM // 07:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xiaquin

It's called a nerf bat and it needs to crack heads. Working only one side of the equation (the "E" in PvE) doesn't address one addressable source of the problem: P

Ah hah, but then you run into alienating a significant portion of the player base. See, you aren't the only person, and you aren't the only one with opinions. Just look at how many people complain about shadow form being nerfed, or other skills. It happens. Not everyone can be happy, but they are, for all intents and purposes, attempting to cater to the players that prefer easier content, while simultaneously providing harder content for others to play. It's a rather fine balance you don't seem to be aware of. Game balance is delicate, and player's opinions are significant - oftentimes, slight changes can set off reactions unforeseen among a player base.

What I'd like to see is a suggestion I saw - have quests that use skills from Codex. Only those skills allowed - including PvE skills (could have 3 randomly chosen PvE skills or etc). There's an interesting sort of mix-up. But it'd probably be hated and disliked by a fair portion of the player base, as it'd be actually difficult. And as said, game balance is delicate - you have to keep content hard, refreshing, and as less likely to become stale as possible, while still trying to keep it open to a lot of players to actually be able to complete - without affecting the other areas of content, too.

Xenomortis · Jun 13, 2011, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

One more time: I'm not complaining that bad builds can't do it. I'm complaining that anything outside a very small set of builds can't do it. Half the classes in GW are worthless or next to worthless in these quests either because every worthwhile thing they bring to the table is totally countered or they use up a party space without bringing enough mitigation. Quests should not be designed so that entire classes are deadweight.

In the 8 man quest, only the Ranger is of really limited worth (nothing new there).
In the 6 man quests I'd be much more reluctant to take a Paragon.
The problem only really arises in the 4 man quests where you need to really consider the strengths and weakness of what you bring.

Jeydra · Jun 13, 2011, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Show me a screenshot of these quests beat with no Prot Spirit, Prot Bond, Shelter, or SY! on any of the bars.

The only quest I didn't have done when I saw your post was The Titan Quest ...

Mission kinda sucked because of the 4-man restriction (ew, so much less flexibility) as well as the Tar around the bosses (makes it hard to pull). But whatever, it's doable. In the 8-man missions, you have a lot more leeway and I am certain you can run every non-melee profession. Actually I believe you can run every profession, you're just less effective etc.

One can argue that spirits are overpowered in PvE, and that would be spot on. But take away spirits and doing this mission really will be impossible (or close to it, at least) with heroes. Not only that, such a change will significantly alter the power balance of PvE as a whole. A lot of players will be affected and a lot will complain. Is it for the better if spirits are nerfed? I have no opinion. Just be aware of the consequences of what you wish for.

MArcSinus · Jun 13, 2011, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

One more time: I'm not complaining that bad builds can't do it. I'm complaining that anything outside a very small set of builds can't do it. Half the classes in GW are worthless or next to worthless in these quests either because every worthwhile thing they bring to the table is totally countered or they use up a party space without bringing enough mitigation. Quests should not be designed so that entire classes are deadweight.

I'm a bit tired of repeating myself, but once again: this is nothing new.
Meta builds have been around for ages and each class has a proper build they can run in this mission. The game balance simply doesn't favor certain classes true, but this has absolutely nothing to do with these quests *sigh*
These are some of the hardest quests so it's only logical to use meta builds, what else did you expect, that you can beat these quests with every build?
Wouldn't be much of a challenge then would it. You get the picture?

Kunder · Jun 13, 2011, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The only quest I didn't have done when I saw your post was The Titan Quest ...

Mission kinda sucked because of the 4-man restriction (ew, so much less flexibility) as well as the Tar around the bosses (makes it hard to pull). But whatever, it's doable. In the 8-man missions, you have a lot more leeway and I am certain you can run every non-melee profession. Actually I believe you can run every profession, you're just less effective etc.

One can argue that spirits are overpowered in PvE, and that would be spot on. But take away spirits and doing this mission really will be impossible (or close to it, at least) with heroes. Not only that, such a change will significantly alter the power balance of PvE as a whole. A lot of players will be affected and a lot will complain. Is it for the better if spirits are nerfed? I have no opinion. Just be aware of the consequences of what you wish for.

Pretty sure that spirits/minions are implicitly out of the question too, considering they are if anything more imba than the prots already mentioned. Try it again with a physical party.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MArcSinus

I'm a bit tired of repeating myself, but once again: this is nothing new.
Meta builds have been around for ages and each class has a proper build they can run in this mission. The game balance simply doesn't favor certain classes true, but this has absolutely nothing to do with these quests *sigh*

lolno, it has a lot to do with these quests. WiK is proof that you can make hard mobs without screwing over certain classes unnecessarily. The enemies here aren't just strong, they are specifically countering everything but mesmers/spirits/minions/SY to the point where everything else can't be run.

Quote:

These are some of the hardest quests so it's only logical to use meta builds, what else did you expect, that you can beat these quests with every build?
Wouldn't be much of a challenge then would it. You get the picture?

It is not logical that a quest is specifically designed for only 2 or 3 classes in the game.

Jeydra · Jun 13, 2011, 03:29 PM // 15:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

lolno, it has a lot to do with these quests. WiK is proof that you can make hard mobs without screwing over certain classes unnecessarily. The enemies here aren't just strong, they are specifically countering everything but mesmers/spirits/minions/SY to the point where everything else can't be run.

Don't forget that WiK is actually easy. Sure it's harder than the average VQ, but it's still c-spaceable material. The Titan missions are not. Therefore we can agree that the Titan missions are harder, no? So even though certain builds and professions are heavily disadvantaged, the missions have achieved their purpose. Like I said, can you design a mission that's hard but not impossible? Even after nerfs to spirits / minions, if you so desire?

The Titan missions aren't nothing but Mesmers / spirits / minions either btw, I bet I could've done the 8-man missions with physicals. 4-man, no. 8-man, yes.

Chthon · Jun 13, 2011, 03:30 PM // 15:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The only quest I didn't have done when I saw your post was The Titan Quest ...

{picture}

Mission kinda sucked because of the 4-man restriction (ew, so much less flexibility) as well as the Tar around the bosses (makes it hard to pull). But whatever, it's doable. In the 8-man missions, you have a lot more leeway and I am certain you can run every non-melee profession. Actually I believe you can run every profession, you're just less effective etc.

One can argue that spirits are overpowered in PvE, and that would be spot on. But take away spirits and doing this mission really will be impossible (or close to it, at least) with heroes. Not only that, such a change will significantly alter the power balance of PvE as a whole. A lot of players will be affected and a lot will complain. Is it for the better if spirits are nerfed? I have no opinion. Just be aware of the consequences of what you wish for.

1. That's impressive. I didn't think it could be done.

2. My original statement still stands, just amended to include spirits. You as much as say so yourself.

3. I still want to these these done with something other than a casterway.

4. I entirely agree with Kunder's last post.

Kunder · Jun 13, 2011, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Don't forget that WiK is actually easy. Sure it's harder than the average VQ, but it's still c-spaceable material. The Titan missions are not. Therefore we can agree that the Titan missions are harder, no? So even though certain builds and professions are heavily disadvantaged, the missions have achieved their purpose. Like I said, can you design a mission that's hard but not impossible? Even after nerfs to spirits / minions, if you so desire?

WiK HM is only marginally easier than the Titan Quests unless you run builds that the enemies in TQs are designed to hard counter. Original (pre-nerf) BFLA HM was harder than any TQ and it was harder in a good, non-cheap way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

The Titan missions aren't nothing but Mesmers / spirits / minions either btw, I bet I could've done the 8-man missions with physicals. 4-man, no. 8-man, yes.

This I would like to see.

Jeydra · Jun 13, 2011, 04:07 PM // 16:07

WiK HM is easy c-space material with standard builds. I'm serious. It's not difficult at all.

I can't repeat the original 8-man missions, but I don't see what's so difficult about simply using something like MM + SoS + SoGM + 2x ED + N/Rt Resto + 1 Paragon + player GDW. How hard can it be? At most it'll just be careful pulling, nothing more.

Killed u man · Jun 13, 2011, 04:07 PM // 16:07

That was also one of the easiest quests. I also would like to see how long it took you having to place down your spirit wall each time and waiting for minions to get in range.

But again, the Titan Source, from my experience, was the easiest quest. The Charr, while troublessome when their group-setup is right, don't pose much of a problem 95% of the time because, again, AI is so shit and so easily abusable.

As long as you take it slow (With your build that shouldn't be a problem) and abuse the flaws of enemy AI, you could beat TTS with relatively crap bars. One thing I have actually found is that the AI is change for the worse: You can pull charr to a certain limit (which is really close to where they are) and if you take 1 step beyond that, they immediatly turn around, even if you're at 1 HP.

Essentially, you could run a spike build (Like yours) and just lure every charr group to the edge of their aggro and just spike them out one by one, taking few to no damage whatsoever. This is true for every group up untill the Titan Boss group, but once you kill the Charr Shaman, they haven't got a dedicated healer, so you can lure them to the edge of their aggro, spike one out, and the new Titans that spawn will stay around that area, whereas the rest of the group will just run back to their spawn.

In other words:

These Titan quests (all of them) aren't hard. You gotta know what to abuse and how. You don't have to be skilled (You call me bad, yet I steamrolled through all these quests with no effort, aside from TLDD and that was solely cuz Rurik's group is so terribly scaled), you don't need to have an extensive understanding of GW and it's mechanics, you simply do not have to be good at GW to beat these quests.

You need to know what builds to run and how to abuse shitty AI. All the people who claim these quests were "hard" (read: challenging, bringing something new to GW) simply don't know what builds are effective nor how to abuse obvious AI flaws.

If you run paragon and ranger heroes without any form of gimmick-abuse, and you just run into every group hoping to just steamroll them, you're obviously going to wipe. That, again, does not make these quests hard, it means you haven't mastered some of GW's most basic "mechanics" yet. (AI abuse and gimmick builds)

Kunder · Jun 13, 2011, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

That was also one of the easiest quests. I also would like to see how long it took you having to place down your spirit wall each time and waiting for minions to get in range.

But again, the Titan Source, from my experience, was the easiest quest. The Charr, while troublessome when their group-setup is right, don't pose much of a problem 95% of the time because, again, AI is so shit and so easily abusable.

As long as you take it slow (With your build that shouldn't be a problem) and abuse the flaws of enemy AI, you could beat TTS without relatively crap bars. One thing I have actually found is that the AI is change for the worse: You can pull charr to a certain limit (which is really close to where they are) and if you take 1 step beyond that, they immediatly turn around, even if you're at 1 HP.

Essentially, you could run a spike build (Like yours) and just lure every charr group to the edge of their aggro and just spike them out one by one, taking few to no damage whatsoever. This is true for every group up untill the Titan Boss group, but once you kill the Charr Shaman, they haven't got a dedicated healer, so you can lure them to the edge of their aggro, spike one out, and the new Titans that spawn will stay around that area, whereas the rest of the group will just run back to their spawn.

In other words:

These Titan quests (all of them) aren't hard. You gotta know what to abuse and how. You don't have to be skilled (You call me bad, yet I steamrolled through all these quests with no effort, aside from TLDD and that was solely cuz Rurik's group is so terribly scaled), you don't need to have an extensive understanding of GW and it's mechanics, you simply do not have to be good at GW to beat these quests.

You need to know what builds to run and how to abuse shitty AI. All the people who claim these quests were "hard" (read: challenging, bringing something new to GW) simply don't know what builds are effective nor how to abuse obvious AI flaws.

If you run paragon and ranger heroes without any form of gimmick-abuse, and you just run into every group hoping to just steamroll them, you're obviously going to wipe. That, again, does not make these quests hard, it means you haven't mastered some of GW's most basic "mechanics" yet. (AI abuse and gimmick builds)

Do you honestly not realize how enormously retarded that is? If the developers seriously think that is how the game is meant to be played then I will be at Bellevue Washington next week to go on a shooting spree. Grats, you have exploited the same bug that everyone has known out since their first pre searing character. I suppose lvl 200 enemies would still be balanced as long as their AI let you shit on them through exploits like that.

Poorly designed AI does not excuse poorly designed encounters.

Lishy · Jun 13, 2011, 04:37 PM // 16:37

I think the biggest problem with ArenaNet's design team is they sometimes throw missions at you that in theory sound "cool", that they call "challenging", but they do not thoroughly plan out the tactics and strategies needed to actually beat the quests, nor' balance around any ideas of that sort.

The War in Kryta's "Battle for Lion's Arch" is a prime example to this sort of lacking of polished design, where it seems absolutely no effort was put into the designs of mobs, but rather how "cool" they seemed. Supposedly you are meant to move behind NPCs as the enemies are "pushing you back", but that was only in theory and did not work at all ingame. Furthermore, what was the "superbuff" you got at only the very end of the mission? Infusion? You've got to be kidding me! If you weren't already infused, you would be dead! What a difference that makes, right? Then don't get me started how they threw Spectral Agony enemies at you without a means of Infusal for those that haven't played through Prophecies yet.

ArenaNet must think more thoroughly what they actually intend players to do in order to win, and not just rushing it to the deadline simply because the Test Krewe was able to clear it a few times.

Just because you can beat it, doesn't necessarily mean the design is good. As a GW player, I will say that if this mentality continues in GW2, I will be very disappointed.

There is a big line between challenge, and unfair frustration.

FoxBat · Jun 13, 2011, 05:20 PM // 17:20

I do think the old "eles do 400 damage unless you prot spirit/shelter/SY" is getting pretty old. If these skills aren't going to be adjusted then "difficult" AI needs to work around them rather than playing into them. A large number of small damage packets for instance, or of the unpreventable kind akin to dhuum skeletons. BFLA was closer to this with its sheer number of foes and a lot of them with DoTs.

Xenomortis · Jun 13, 2011, 05:23 PM // 17:23

A larger number of smaller packets simply moves the emphasis to different Prots (Spirit Bond and SoA), although I would consider this an improvement due to the nature of those skills.
Damage that ignores all forms of protection is absurd though; the Skeletons of Dhuum are most inelegant solutions (and don't really solve anything).

Lishy · Jun 13, 2011, 05:28 PM // 17:28

I think the problem with high level elementalists such as those in these quests are the damage formulas of GW themselves:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Damage_calculation

It allows damage to be multiplied too high.

Unfortunately, there are too many balance risks in changing the formula.