Messenger.7450

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > Defensive stats have been marginal at best and especially for encounter where you can avoid most of the damage anyway. You can still do over 10K DPS with defensive stats which is more than sufficient to complete the CM successfully. The issue is where you have players doing as much as a power DH that is just auto-attacking. That is one of the reasons that groups fail the timer because they do poor DPS. The other reason being failing mechanics which also impacts the first reason as well. I'm taking that "You can still do over 10K DPS with defensive stats" with a big grain of salt. How much defensive stats are we talking about? Whatever sacrifices you make of offensive stats to get defensive stats (and vice-versa) is pretty palpable in-game. In a raid comp, sure, you can do that because of all the shared bonuses others give out- but should LS DRM CMs be up to the level of raids? Is that something the game should demand of players? > You weren't paying attention to the fight and attacks then. I suggest watching a video. The attacks are predictable and avoidable. The cone attack may cause issues due to the attack pattern and its timer but circling around the boss generally would ensure you're moving outside of the attack before it lands. I'll keep that in mind as much as I remember the Destroyer of the Great Bridge's charge and tornadoes and your saying they're as bad as a counter-example to Snowden Drifts DRM. > I keep reiterating this throughout my post because the boss isn't that bad when it doesn't have boons. If the boss doesn't have boons then you kill it faster and it does less damage. Every single group that I was in that attempted it did it with the boss having boons almost the entire time. I did see your post with you noticing a difference but the issue is still with your DPS. I gathered from your posts that you were playing a ranged berserker which is a problem. In regard to the boons problem, I return your sentiment in the latter part of your response above: "Please don't conflate my issue with yours.", especially where I looked into boon stripping. As for my ranged Berserker, I'll stick to him since the issue I have with the fight are the dangers of fighting up close and the damage Ryland and the rest of the fight puts out- which fighting at range really helps mitigate- and that darned Elite Frost Legion Shaman. > This was another part of the post with me reiterating that a lot of the difficulty is due to the boss having boons including protection. This was me telling you to try it without the boss having any boons and nothing about you saying that its boons could be ignored. Why are you telling me? Look back on the previous parts of this discussion. You insisted on Ryland's 25 stacks of Might as being the trouble; I was the one who saw the Protection as the bigger problem. And I did the testing to find out that you can break his CC bar to avoid the Might, but he'll still give himself Protection anyway and keep it up. > It's an obvious statement which had to be made. Players have a tendency to blame everything but themselves for failures. Doesn't mean that in this case they're wrong. Again, is Snowden Drifts DRM CM failures really the fault of players? Or is it too hard on its own, especially compared to the other DRMs? > EDIT: Here's an example of very low DPS. I did a public instance of Metrica with two other players. During the first phase of the boss I noticed that it was taking forever so I stepped out of phase 2 and watched its HP. It took them over 5 min to complete the 2nd phase; their DPS was that low. There comes a point that if you're going to attempt a CM then you should be able to do decent DPS (over 10K) and capable of doing the mechanics most of the time. CM completion should not be another participation badge like how the first three and Doric are. As if getting any of the CMs done **IS** a participation badge. Your bad Metric Province DRM experience doesn't make the actual successes there or in any other DRM invalid. If you can tell when people in a CM have too low DPS, then you know the bar has been set high enough to warrant an achievement. And as per the reply before the above: if you can make the distinction between a group having enough or too little DPS to deserve succeeding in CM or not, then you should also be able to distinguish when a part of the game demands too much from them. > There is as the new ones have attacks which can down players quickly. The Snowden one was a step above the other three as it requires more personal responsibility on the individual player's part. It's not merely "a step above" so that it should be easily excused. Snowden Drift's fight is far more unforgiving. You can be downed in the other DRMs but it's not automatically a defeat. But Ryland's fight has Ryland, other hostiles, hostile damaging environmental effects all going around. There's that darned portal above the center throwing snowballs interrupting downed players trying to bandage themselves. And there's definitely no personal responsibility for a frequently occurring attack, fast and hard to dodge enemy ability that damns your CM attempt by sending you outside. > There's no data on the breakdown on who have done it in pugs. The point of my statement was to dispute you saying that it **can't** be done in pugs. Yeah, it has to be done by hiring a raid group to carry you. That's _SOOO_ great. > Wrong. Two out of the three times that I did it solo there was only ever one elite. The one time that I had two, there were no other mobs. I remember this because I specifically took the time to check and almost failed the timer because of it. I've got my Top Responder for Fields of Ruin achieve, plus the experience from doing them for story on my other toons, plus the failed CM attempts. Never did I see two Elites fail to spawn, and it even became an emphasized point in my runs to skip them. And always did I find a Vet Destroyer who always likes to hide in those alley stairs. > You're conflating good DPS and pure DPS builds. You can do good DPS (10K+) without a pure DPS build. With a raid group? With specific comps? > There are several attacks that the boss does and they're all predictable and avoidable. The primary set of attacks that down most players that I was grouped with is entirely predictable and well telegraphed. As if that's the only thing happening in the fight... > Just like the point above about this that I had addressed, this was about you making it out as if it cannot be done and not about the percentage of players who have and haven't been successful. Said by someone who also said "There's no data on the breakdown on who have done it in pugs." > The fact that they had attempted to fix it so the boss wouldn't get boons. The fact that they added a consumable during LS5 that provides CC and it'd be difficult to understand why they would intentionally make it so using it would remove the bar and still give the boss boons. Especially since using the consumable has no issues one other breakbars in the games so why would this one be singled out to be different? I thought that was fairly evident in my post. How is your point "evident" when they haven't fixed it so the consumable you mentioned **doesn't suffer from the exact same glitch**? **Why wasn't EMP vs Ryland's breakbar fixed at the same time as breaking Ryland's breakbar without it?** And it doesn't matter that for you (or for me, or for anyone else, or for all of us) that EMP _should_ work. What matters is that in practice- in actually playing the game NOW- it _doesn't_. > The post I responded to was about the breakbar. Actually, it was your post specifically about the EMP. Nowhere in your post was about the rest of the fight. For me, the issue was the break bar. Please don't conflate my issue with yours. An issue that you didn't make until later in the thread. The EMP bug (along with the original non-EMP breakbar bug) is just one of several problems with the Snowden Drifts DRM CM fight. All of them together indicate that this DRM is a bit half-baked and needs fixing. > And I've responded to both of your responses. Yeah, you keep insisting on a point that doesn't need to be made to me.

Kind of the opposite for me- I regret NOT getting my DPS Warrior into a Berserker spec sooner, and he's been around since launch. I pretty much see the new Elite specs as they enter the game and somehow just feel uninterested or say to myself "not my style". Did that since HoT without even bothering to try them out. Of my 4 toons, only 1 took an Elite spec as soon as it was available (Scourge, because my Necro was meant to be a tanky support anyway). But when I recently realized I needed to up my Warrior's DPS, I finally got around to checking out Berserker in detail- and what a difference in DPS it made.

> @"Cyninja.2954" said: > So let me get this strait, you did 40 test runs to see if exchanging 1 items stats from berserker to assassin was worth it? It was originally just 6 to see which worked better between Assassin's and Berserker's. Then I encountered the discrepancy in DPS results that's the topic of this thread, which is what led to all those extra tests to investigate which figures were correct, all the while I was still evaluating the tweaking of my build. > On a rifle warrior build. > Running sinister trinkets and berserker runes. > On a 3 signet build with not a single condition damage ability either on the rifle nor on your utilities. Arms trait line and Berserker spec means I do a lot of bleeds and burns in rapid succession. I was only testing rifle here just to see the power-based and crit-based damage of the build, but I also use a longbow, and I usually have Superior Sigil of Earth on both because of my high crit rate. > Okay. Hope you at least had fun. Hey, I learned stuff! :-) Like one single run versus the practice golem is not enough of a test to evaluate a build because of how results can vary. Gonna do at least 3 in the future as the need arises, probably more to be sure. > FYI: the benchmark for semi useful performance of builds with all boons bottoms out at 25k absolute minimum, 30k dps average and 35k+ dps for good builds. Should you require ideas or inspirations for builds, do feel free to check at least metabattle and read through some of the descriptions of the high ranked builds there. I'm not a raider. :-) I'm PvE who does WvW casually for dailies (but at least tries to contribute to his realm). And I'm not going to be happy following someone else's build, even if it means I'm sub-optimal compared to Metabattle's standards. Doing things your way may mean poorer performance, but winning without originality is a pretty empty experience for me. Doesn't mean I don't try to get my homebrews to at least work better- hence why I occasionally go to the Special Forces Training Area.

Dawdler.8521, LuRkEr.9462, Khisanth.2948: Thank you for pointing out that the differences are actually pretty small. I've continued doing tests over and over and over, including switching my build back to the older version and going through a whole new slew of them. I see your points because doing a lot of tests showed quite a variation in results. I did a total of 40 tests to evaluate my build, and then to figure this inconsistency out. I organized it on a spreadsheet and took averages. Etc. It turns out my Old build was actually the stronger one. The reason it initially looked like New beat Old in Test 1 and 2 yet lost to Old in Test 3 was because when I did Old's Test 1 and Test 2 (only done once per test for Old), I actually got low results. This made New Build look better except in Test 3. The variation in results I found showed that it can go either pretty high and pretty low. So mystery solved. The big lesson I get here is that you can't just go 1 round with the golem if you want to accurately measure your build's DPS even if it gives you 5 data points per go. You can get extreme results that skews how you view the whole thing. Better to go at least 3, or maybe even more.

Original test that weirded me out. DPS/Damage/Time Old Build: Test 1 (no consumables): 5099/200300/39, 5001/400086/80, 5022/604439/120, 4935/800296/162, 5014/1000249/199; average DPS 5014.2 Test 2 (w/ Spicy Moa Wings and Tin of Fruitcake): 6037/204285/34, 5595/406837/73, 5183/602526/116, 5205/800934/154, 5350/1008515/189; average DPS 5474 Test 3 (consumables + all boons): 9870/203316/21, 9347/400799/43, 9292/600661/65, 8986/801203/89, 9290/1001843/108; average DPS 9357 New Build: Test 1 (no consumables): 5831/200827/34, 5454/408832/75, 5072/600071/118, 5033/801702/159, 5145/1003135/195; average DPS 5307 Test 2 (w/ Spicy Moa Wings and Tin of Fruitcake): 6083/204143/34, 5595/400829/72, 5539/601134/109, 5512/801641/145, 5401/1000473/185; average DPS 5626 Test 3 (consumables + all boons): 8953/204850/23, 8869/401236/45, 9336/601605/64, 9025/800239/89, 9400/1002394/107; average DPS 9116.6 I really don't get how New Build beats Old in Tests 1 and 2, but loses in 3 when it's got tons of boons for doing more damage. I started testing New build over and over since I got these results. These seems to be quite a variation in results, but when I took the average of all the DPS results, they match what you see above. I've got 10 Spirit Shards to change my Rifle back from Berserker's to Assassin's so I can do more tests using Old Build.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > Difficult to point out specifics without knowing what the two builds were. Old build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKVAQlRwcYUsKWJWUX/tKA-zxgYhgO2RB57HEeJUgTwkHkwoCUV2A-e New build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKVAQlRwcYUsKWJWUX/tKA-zxgYhoAdsD57HEeJUgTwkHkwoCUV2A-e The only change was the stats of the weapon. Clarifications: 1. I only tested Rifle in all my tests. 2. No infusions or Sigils applied yet to focus on the change of weapon stats. 3. Opening sequence of skills are: Signet of Rage, Rifle 2, Rifle 3, Signet of Fury, Berserk, Gun Flame, Blood Reckoning, Wild Blow, Gun Flame, then I go nuts.

> @"Noah Salazar.5430" said: > prob one build was for open word, and your old one was for raid setting > > what's that mean? > > your new build genereting more self boons/vulanbirity causing more dmg, while in raid someone providing it to you, so you do more dmg by other skills while 25might and etc Actually they're both almost the same (open world) build. Minor changes only. Which is why I'm mystified about what's happening.

> @"Khisanth.2948" said: > try it without alacrity Did as you suggested. DPS went down, so it's not Alacrity causing the anomaly. Will post results below.

> @"Tony.8659" said: > While I did pay a raid group for the help to pass snowden 2 more times, I didn't just sit there, I was fighting with them as well just as hard and what was funny was I didn't die on the first run second run died only once. This DRM is not even close to the other ones. The other ones I passed 5x each took a few times but it was done. This one belongs somewhere else, not fun to try over and over with pugs, so if this is the case again in March and May then I will pay to pass certain ones and not be bothered with trying with pugs it's a waste of time. I have so many mystic coins and gold not doing anything so it's best to use it for something worthwhile to me :D Oh and I'm still giving all negative feedback on the survery I can't wait. Agree with you. The other ones aren't that hard to do, or at least as hard as Snowden Drift's. It's so different, and as LS content it should **not** require raid level expertise to be done with Challenge Mode on.

> @"Ragi.7291" said: > Compared to the other CMs, this is the only one that has a fairly tight timer when you finish it you have between a few seconds and 3 minutes left. > The other CM's usually you have between 10 and 15 minutes after finishing it , which doesn't make it a challenge. I think it's less of a timer thing than how the Ryland fight plays out, with its bugs and difficult mechanics. > 1. If the goal of DRMs is to be able to do history missions together and repeatable like a daily newspaper without pressure the Snowden CM is too hard for that goal. > 2. If the goal is to be challenging like the CM fractals, then everything else except Snowden is too simple in CM. I figure it's more #1 than #2, since it's Living Story content. > * **On Snowden DRM** > I would drastically reduce the breakbar of the 3 invoked champions from the snowden portals. Not all of them have a breakbar. The one who spawns at the entrance to Owl's Lodge (maces, applies several conditions at once) never does. The ones I remember who do are the Elite Shaman and the Elite Bladestorm. Also, re: the Elite Frost Legion Shaman: I did a run with EMP equipped. I didn't use it on Ryland but I saved the EMPs for the Elite Frost Legion Shaman in hopes of killing him quicker to avoid his send-you-out-of-the-fight attack. IIRC, his CC bar takes more than 1 EMP to break it. It's a tough CC bar, compared to Ryland's. > I will remove the CC on the ice picks that come out of the ground because in the murmur of jormag (strike mission) those who don't CC. **YES. THIS.** Multiples of them spawn, they're small, scattered, and easy to get caught by, and the damage of those ice picks is HUGE.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"Messenger.7450" said: > > Of course there's a difference, in the same way that there's a difference between a guy who gets one-shot and the guy who goes down in two. The other guy has a bit more margin for error. > > But in the context of Snowden Drifts DRM CM, the practical difference is not much- yet the difference in stats between pure DPS and slightly-less DPS-centric may be great enough to doom a player's or group's attempt at succeeding in the timed challenge. > > So someone in full defensive gear has a bit more margin of error. What's your point? At first your seem to downplay the difference and now you're seemingly trying to do the opposite. > You don't need pure DPS builds to succeed at that CM. They certainly help but they're far from a requirement. The point is that being in defensive gear will cut down your DPS so you won't make the timed challenge and yet may not be enough to protect you from all the damage in the Ryland fight. On the same note, even if your investment in defensive stats is only a little, it may be enough of a DPS downgrade to make you lose the challenge. > > The difference being that that the Destroyer of the Great Bridge's fire tornadoes are still far easier to evade and do far less damage than the damage in Ryland's fight. The question remains of why the others- while challenging enough- can be more readily accomplished, while Snowden's remains frustratingly difficult. > > Far less damage, yes. Easier to avoid, not really. As I stated before, the attacks are predictable and well telegraphed. LOL. Agree to disagree, especially where they weren't really a problem in my experience. > The issue with Snowden was the boons which made the boss do significantly more damage. Without boons, the boss isn't that bad. I've stated this several times so I suggest that you try it and see what I mean. The CMs have been gradually stepping up in difficulty which is a good thing. When did I disagree with you on this? In fact, I was the one who brought up bringing in Superior Sigil of Absorption and Superior Sigil of Nullification. I was also the person who discovered that even if you break Ryland's breakbar without the EMP, he still keeps giving himself Protection, thus I recommend that whether players choose to break his CC bar or skip it, they should better bring boon removal anyway. > > Nevertheless, it's an additional highly disruptive mechanic that help push Snowden's difficulty and resulting frustration too far. > > A boss getting boons if people don't CC isn't new. It's a penalty for not breaking the breakbar. A boss having a breakbar that really has no meaning is a waste. The breakbar for the Field of Ruin one being a good example as I didn't see any penalty for ignoring it. I don't know why this is your response to me, especially when the "additional highly disruptive mechanic" I was talking about is the ability of the Elite Shaman to kick you out of the fight, and not Ryland's boons. > > This is relevant since we're comparing Snowden Drifts DRM with others, especially where you say Snowden's isn't so bad as to need change by citing how Gendarren's, Fields of Ruin's, and Thunderhead's supposedly are just as bad and frustrating to players. > > If both Gendarren's and Snowden's have this mechanic but the latter throws in this additional effect where it makes the fight more difficult yet doesn't make sense, then all the more need for the Snowden DRM to be reviewed by ANet. > Again, the main issue is that the Snowden boss has boons which makes his attacks significantly more damaging. Try the boss fight without it having boons. As above, this a nonsensical retort since I never said you could ignore Ryland's boons. In fact, as stated, it's his Protection and his Elite shaman I despise. > Doing actual DPS and not failing mechanics is important as well. Self-evident statement is self-evident. > > The "Not as many" from you I'll take as additional confirmation of Snowden's being an outlier. The "more than you were letting on" indicates to me that the other DRM CMs remain challenging enough to count as an achievement, and thus be fair. > > Let's say you have three fractals with each gradually stepping up in difficulty. The third one, being the more difficult, would not be an outlier. The DRMs have been stepping up in difficulty, and the Snowden one is far from being an outlier when considering the bug with the boons. Disagree. There's not much- if any- step up in difficulty between the new and old ones, with the exception of Snowden Drift's. > > And yet not too hard that a PUG can't get it done, and can be done consistently enough to give someone a Top Responder achievement. > People have said they've done it in pugs. Yeah, how many? Compared to the others? > > Two Elite destroyers always spawn in that part of the DRM, but you can skip the both for timer purposes. Clearing all the others will still let you move on to the boss. > Two don't spawn all the time. When I did it solo, I could skip one elite at most. When I tried to skip both, and all other mobs were defeated, I had to go back and kill one of them wasting time. Wrong. They always spawn in CM (also in normal), in the exact same places: one to the east of the Hawke Heart, one to the south. **And you can skip both.** The reason that you were missing one was because one of the Veterans spawns up the stairs in the northwest quadrant of the ring around the Hawk Heart, apart from the rest who usually spawn in the ring itself. He's easy to miss. > > This is where we disagree. You blame other people for failed attempts at getting Snowden Drifts CM done. But is it really other people? Or is it that the Snowden Drifts DRM itself with all challenges turned on is too hard? > > It's a combination of the bugged boon thing and the players themselves doing poor DPS and failing the mechanics. You say above that pure DPS builds isn't a requirement for Snowden Drifts, and yet blame people doing poor DPS? For that matter, you also kept saying "don't die", which is apparent and a difficult thing to do given all the damage Ryland's fight throws out in so many ways. > > We have 6 other DRMs to compare it with. Those others' CMs provide challenges for players to overcome- but they are overcome. > > And each of those DRMs have varying degrees of difficulty with Snowden being the more difficult. Snowden has been beaten by solo and grouped players. Again, by how many? Compared to the others? Is that rate within reasonable bounds given most players of GW2? And whatever design philosophy ANet has for the difficulty of achievements in-game? It has to walk a fine line between "not easy" and "not super hard". Snowden Drifts veers enough into the latter. > > At the same time, we know there are technical problems with Snowden Drifts. There was the bug that cause Ryland to automatically get all his boons and NOT get stunned when his breakbar is broken. That EMPing him still causes this to happen despite the patch makes raises the question if this was meant to discourage the use of EMP in the DRM, but such is not consistent with other DRMs that don't penalize EMP. > > The attempted fix implies this was not intended nor does it make sense for a consumable added in IBS to be discouraged. How does it imply it was not intended? I've pointed out that breaking the CC bar without use of the EMP _does_ work as per the recent patch, stopping Ryland from getting that boatload of boons. At the same time, using an EMP to do so still gives Ryland all the boons without stunning him. If one is fixed but the other isn't, at best we have no indication either way (they missed fixing the other bug), at worst it's working as intended given how they're similar issues. > > One of the adds in Ryland's fight can banish players to outside long enough for him to reset and get all his health back, and he's spawned twice during the fight. > > "During the fight" meaning inbetween the boss phases with the portals. Adds don't spawn when you're fighting the boss. It's potentially another bug. It doesn't matter if it's inbetween the Ryland phases. The same challenge timer is still running. Getting kicked out and having to run back in to fight a fully reset Elite takes up more of a player's time, worse if said Shaman does it again. > > It is more difficult to avoid the scattered high damage attacks in Ryland's fight than with any other DRM's boss, and yet the consequences of failing to do so are worse. > > Not really. There's always a safe spot inside the boss or right next to it. A very small and precise spot, unlike the safe zones in other fights. > > You yourself said you're waiting another two weeks for a fix. > > The fix being with the breakbar and not the CM itself. This isn't just about the breakbar but the entire Ryland fight itself. > > Agree to disagree, my position is that the Snowden Drifts DRM needs to be re-examined and tweaked to match the other DRMs. The other DRM CMs provide an adequate enough challenge IMHO to be worth their achievements, but Snowden Drifts DRM goes too far in difficulty. > > It's a gradual step up from the others. It doesn't need to be tweaked simply because it's the more difficult out of all of them. As I said before, try doing the boss without it having boons. I already answered this boon thing above.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > You state players with fragile builds will have to do it for the entire fight and then state that those with high toughness will also be easily downed. You appear to imply that there's a difference between the two in the first part but contradict yourself in the second. Of course there's a difference, in the same way that there's a difference between a guy who gets one-shot and the guy who goes down in two. The other guy has a bit more margin for error. But in the context of Snowden Drifts DRM CM, the practical difference is not much- yet the difference in stats between pure DPS and slightly-less DPS-centric may be great enough to doom a player's or group's attempt at succeeding in the timed challenge. > You have three seconds to react to the multiple circle AoE attacks by moving to the save spot next to the boss. If you're standing inside the boss, you can just ignore the circles altogether. You have two seconds to be ready and execute your dodge for the expanding circle attack. The cone attack occurs faster so you have about a second to react but you can simply circle strafe the boss and potentially not even need to dodge in the first place. That attack is only really damaging because the boss has boons. > Funny enough is that players still constantly get shot up into the air by those tornadoes so I find it surprising that you claim that they move slow enough to avoid and yet you cannot react quickly enough for the Snowden boss attacks. > The attacks are predictable. You have three rounds of the multiple AoE circle attack followed by an immediate expanding circle attack. This combo occurs every 30 seconds. The expanding circle attack and cone attack have a cool down but I haven't paid enough attention to their timing. The difference being that that the Destroyer of the Great Bridge's fire tornadoes are still far easier to evade and do far less damage than the damage in Ryland's fight. The question remains of why the others- while challenging enough- can be more readily accomplished, while Snowden's remains frustratingly difficult. > Then don't die? Again, easier said than done. > It could be a bug as people claim it only happens when you get toss to far up into the air. I dunno. As far as I'm aware, that attack is single target but I haven't paid much attention to it to confirm that. Nevertheless, it's an additional highly disruptive mechanic that help push Snowden's difficulty and resulting frustration too far. > I never said anything about the tornadoes not tossing players up in the air and taking them out of the fight. I don't see why you chose to include this and assume that I didn't know that attack as well. This is relevant since we're comparing Snowden Drifts DRM with others, especially where you say Snowden's isn't so bad as to need change by citing how Gendarren's, Fields of Ruin's, and Thunderhead's supposedly are just as bad and frustrating to players. If both Gendarren's and Snowden's have this mechanic but the latter throws in this additional effect where it makes the fight more difficult yet doesn't make sense, then all the more need for the Snowden DRM to be reviewed by ANet. > Not as many as Snowden but certainly more than you were letting on in your post. The "Not as many" from you I'll take as additional confirmation of Snowden's being an outlier. The "more than you were letting on" indicates to me that the other DRM CMs remain challenging enough to count as an achievement, and thus be fair. > Thunderhead Peaks does provide that except a large number of groups don't CC the boss regardless. DPS is also a major issue when clearing the destroyers and on the boss itself. And yet not too hard that a PUG can't get it done, and can be done consistently enough to give someone a Top Responder achievement. > Yes, the Field of Ruin boss isn't hard. The issue is that players lack DPS which makes clearing the destroyers and the boss fight itself take too long. You can skip one elite but if there's a second one then you have to kill it. At least this was my experience solo. Two Elite destroyers always spawn in that part of the DRM, but you can skip the both for timer purposes. Clearing all the others will still let you move on to the boss. > Make sure the vets are all killed first then as they have lower health. Ignoring them and the continuing on with the boss fight is your group's own fault for choosing to make things more difficult. > Snowden is a problem because of DPS and players failing the mechanics (as well as the boss having boons). The attacks are not being dished out in the matter that you're claiming. Watch the videos of the attacks or pay attention to them when you're doing the DRM. There is somewhat of a pattern. Snowden is a step up from the others and something players need to learn to adapt to. They should watch videos and see just how spaced out those attacks really are and how much time they have to react. Or they can do that entirely in game by doing the DRM over and over. This is where we disagree. You blame other people for failed attempts at getting Snowden Drifts CM done. But is it really other people? Or is it that the Snowden Drifts DRM itself with all challenges turned on is too hard? We have 6 other DRMs to compare it with. Those others' CMs provide challenges for players to overcome- but they are overcome. At the same time, we know there are technical problems with Snowden Drifts. There was the bug that cause Ryland to automatically get all his boons and NOT get stunned when his breakbar is broken. That EMPing him still causes this to happen despite the patch makes raises the question if this was meant to discourage the use of EMP in the DRM, but such is not consistent with other DRMs that don't penalize EMP. One of the adds in Ryland's fight can banish players to outside long enough for him to reset and get all his health back, and he's spawned twice during the fight. It is more difficult to avoid the scattered high damage attacks in Ryland's fight than with any other DRM's boss, and yet the consequences of failing to do so are worse. You yourself said you're waiting another two weeks for a fix. Agree to disagree, my position is that the Snowden Drifts DRM needs to be re-examined and tweaked to match the other DRMs. The other DRM CMs provide an adequate enough challenge IMHO to be worth their achievements, but Snowden Drifts DRM goes too far in difficulty.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > You don't really need defense for that fight other than dodging the two attacks and walking around the other. If players are circled around the boss then technically some of them wouldn't need to dodge one of the attacks and even move. There's really not all that much else going on in the fight. Just watch the videos of it. You don't need a pure DPS build but you do need to do reasonable DPS along with everyone else in your group as well. I see people average 6-7K DPS which is essentially me standing on the boss with my number 1 skill pressed down. The "perfect defense" I mentioned _IS_ dodging and moving, as in perfectly dodging and moving throughout the entire fight. The point being that players with more fragile builds will have to do it constantly for the entire duration of Ryland's fight to have a chance at succeeding. At the same time, even toons with high toughness can easily by downed by Ryland's attacks. > The Gendarran one comes close. The reason the attacks deal so much damage is because he has boons. Assuming the breakbar was fixed, I'm hearing mixed reports, then it's a failure by your group to break it. It's also helpful to have boon removal whether through your class' abilities or with the sigils. There are no adds during the fight, as those occur inbetween the phases, so I don't see where you're getting that. The Gendarran boss' attacks have a clear, predictable pattern: he does a charge followed by his four-direction tornadoes which move slow enough to be avoided even by melee fighters, and don't really stop ranged attackers. But Ryland's attacks are scattered all over the place. Ryland's breakbar was fixed based on my own experiment (see above), but only for non-EMP CC. As for adds, the portal phases spawn not just Elites but also Vets. It's quite possible to kill the Elites to start a new Ryland fight phase without killing the Vets. With all challenges turned on, the Vets are at least a pain, at most the killing blow to down you and get you to fail. > The WP is fairly close. It takes less than 10 seconds to get back into the fight. 10 seconds is a big DPS loss in a boss fight with a timer. > It's an annoying attack and not one you normally see in the game if ever. I'm not sure if there's a way to avoid it. More to the point: should it even be there? I wonder if it's a bug. You don't see that with the Gendarren boss; his tornadoes will toss you into the air for fall damage and take you out of the fight for a few seconds. The Elite Shamans send you out of the building long enough to put both you and them out of combat; you can race back in on your mount but he's already reset and gotten back all his health. And sending you outdoors by throwing you up with blizzard-tornado doesn't even make sense. > People have issues with Thunderhead Peak due to poor DPS and not breaking the breakbar. People have issues with Fields of Ruin because of poor DPS. Groups that I were in failed quite regularly which prompted me to just solo the later than take part in the pug roulette. But how many compared to Snowden? Tony above says he has all the Top Dragon Responder except Snowden. Same with me. Thunderhead Peaks gives players the right tool to break the CC bar in the instance itself, and it doesn't "prohibit" the use of EMPs. Fields of Ruin's boss isn't hard; his case is more about clearing the Destroyers ringing the center of the instance quickly enough so you have time to fight the boss (TIP: skip the Elite mobs; there are enough Vets and ordinary Destroyers to count). Snowden Drifts DRM CM is overwhelmingly the most problematic. It's the most different of the DRM boss fights because of so many small highly scattered AOEs and attacks being thrown out. It downs and defeats players too easily compared to the others. Even if you compare how things fail with the other DRMs, they don't fail as bad as how people fail in Snowden.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"Tony.8659" said: > > Problem is we really can't attack head on, Ryland keeps throwing stuff all over. Timer is counting down and still waiting to attack how about Anet reduce that. > > It’s really not that bad to deal with. The multiple circle AoE’s can be avoided by walking to the safe spot which is fairly close if you’re in melee range of the boss. The expanding circle attack can be dodged right before it completes. For the cone attack, you can just dodge it. That's easier said than done. Even if you know what to look out for, there's so much happening so quickly in this fight. And even if you're supposed to get the fight done quickly anyway- requiring a pure DPS 'Zerker stat-style build- you need to keep up a perfect defense for too long for anyone with pure DPS stats. > There are other AP that you can do if it’s too difficult for you. The thing is that Snowden Drifts DRM makes **a huge leap in difficulty** compared to all the others that came before it. None of the others' boss fights has you trying to watch out for so many things at the same time. Also, much of Ryland's fight deals a lot of hard-to-avoid damage to squishies, like the KD-followed-by-an-ice-spike. That's telegraphed, but you're also trying to avoid Ryland himself and any other Frost Legion/Icebrood. And if (or when) you get downed, the ice attacks being thrown from the center will target you and put your Bandage into cooldown. It's range is pretty wide, so any downed players who aren't helped by their team is going to have to WP and run in... ... which is another annoying thing because when you use the WP, **you're always spawned facing away** from the Owl Lodge! It's disorienting even if you know and expect it, and it slows you down even further. And there's also my beef with the Elite Shaman's Ability to send you outside the building. Really, I <3 you ANet and I <3 this game, but that is just kitten poop. From what I see, almost no one has any problems with getting Top Dragon Responder done with the DRMS- except for Snowden Drifts'. It's one thing for achievements to require work and skill and be of a certain difficulty, but Snowden Drifts DRM CM goes too far with everything it has.

I switched my DPS' build to specifically break Ryland's bar. The good news is that the current patch's _Fixed a bug that caused the champion boss of the Snowden Drifts Dragon Response Mission to be interrupted but not stunned when its defiance bar was depleted._ does indeed work, even if EMPing Ryland punishes players by immediately giving Ryland all those boons. The bad news is something I observed both when I EMPed Ryland and when I broke his bar without an EMP: he gets Protection. - If you EMP him, he gets Protection among all the other boons. - If you break his bar without an EMP, he doesn't get that huge slew of boons, but he will give himself Protection a short time later. - If you strip Ryland of his boons, he will give himself Protection a short time later, just like above. Boon stripping remains vital if you want to succeed, if just to get rid of Ryland's pesky Protection. You can break his bar with or without an EMP, or just let him channel and get his boons- you're going to need to remove that 33% damage reduction regardless.