Best battle in Guild Wars 2? (spoilers)

[Fipmip.7219]

What, in your opinion, was the most exciting set piece so far through the entire game? I've always like GW2's ability to throw in an epic battle whenever appropriate.

 

When playing through the story for the first time about 4 years ago, i remember I finally perking up at the battle of claw island, in which the game actually delivered a big fight that I just expected to be another cop out 'everything happened offscreen while you did a special mission.' from there, we had the battle of fort trinity, then dragon's stand, that one instance where phlunt runs into the rata novus lab with a massive contingent of asura to fight balthazar's mercs, the gates of vabbi, the endless battle in the domain of kourna, the trapping of kralkatoric, and of course drizzlewood coast.

 

I tend to like more NPC - heavy events rather than player ones, for the simple reason of the action being much more readable on the screen. but events like the domain of istan and tequatl the sunless are still fun. I'd say my favourite battle currently has to be fighting in the trenches around lighthouse point and port cascadia during enemy sieges.

[Raknar.4735]

Probably the Battle on the Breachmaker for me. It was a Meta-event / boss battle during Scarlet‘s assault on LA.

It also had a great theme and was one of the first battles to introduce the "color system" (together with TT, which came out a bit earlier), that has been reused in many fights that came after it (VG, Ooze Pit in Grothmar etc.).

[vier.1327]

First kralkatoric figth, the one in thunderhead peek.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Playing bouncer during the Metal Legion rock concert?

[Randulf.7614]

Battle of LA and Scarlet is probably one of the most epic battles in the game. Two outstanding episodes where they allowed themselves the time to tell a proper two part story without trying to rush it all. The Breachmaker music still remains one of the best scores in the game. For everythign they got wrong with LS1 and LS in general, this they got right. It is a shame it can't be relived

 

 

There are plenty of other great fights though.

 

- Claw Island was an epic fight for its time

- Mouth of Mordremoth. Whilst Dragonstand is a waste of a map, it's culmination with an epic looking boss did at least pay off

- Kralkatorrik in Thunderhead clearly took some time for them to implement and it paid off.

- Marionette was prob the most impressive looking boss and the fight was quite something at the time.

- I love the Gerent fight

- Tequatl during the revamp days was an example of how to get a meta boss right. Whilst we've nailed it now, it took a good 2-3 weeks to get it done regularly and it was a tough fight. It felt like a fight with decent mechanics which related organically to the fight as well

 

If I was to counter that with what was perhaps underwhelming in terms of "big battles"

 

- Ancient Karka. The idea had the best and worst of what LS1 was about. Unfortunately only the worst shone through in implementation. It was probably more unplayable than Cyberpunk 2077 on a PS4

- Drakkar. I mean this is a pitiful fight. There is so much more they could have done with it if they allowed themselves the space and time to do it justice

- Dragonfall. The whole thing is fun and playable, but it needed something more than just putting a few holes in his weak points. Just feels a bit underhwleming

- Kourna. Utter disaster and probably one of the worst climatic battles in the GW franchise. The whole thing is just awful.

- Drizzlewood part two. First stage meta is fine, it's fun and the right length. Second stage extends things too far, dominates too much of the map and most players have given up by the time The Claw comes along making the boss a slog. There are some nice bits there, buit it's an uneven experience

- Zhaitan. Should have been so much more

[ugrakarma.9416]

By far Mouth of Mordremoth.

 

Is a very fairly balanced meta, also for the first time(i believe) they proper modeled a "big dragon" fight without rely just on tipical "fight his feet" fight.

 

I didnt played the LS1, and I suspect the weight of "nostalgia"on it.

 

 

[ugrakarma.9416]

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> - Kourna. Utter disaster and probably one of the worst climatic battles in the GW franchise. The whole thing is just awful.

 

i refuse to believe even that map exists.

[Randulf.7614]

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> I didnt played the LS1, and I suspect the weight of "nostalgia"on it.

 

Not in this case. The climax of LS1 was extremely well received at the time compared to the condemnation of most of the rest of the Season (to be fair, LS1 was getting better by the end and the end two episodes was them finally getting it right). Any good memories are absolutely accurate rather than rose tinted.

 

 

 

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > - Kourna. Utter disaster and probably one of the worst climatic battles in the GW franchise. The whole thing is just awful.

>

> i refuse to believe even that map exists.

 

Praise Joko forever!

[Wolfb.7025]

The battle against Zafirah on LWS4 EP4. The Deadeye Priestess.

 

You can clearly feel the danger of having a Deadeye hunting for your head.

You can easily feel intimidated by her constant threats, together with her laser sight aiming at you through the battle.

You can understand her grudge against the commander for having killed her god, Balthazar.

You can experience her grief for having lost any motivation to keep living, after she literally lost what she dedicated her life for.

[Excursion.9752]

The fight that sticks out in my mind the most is the [Twisted Marionette](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Twisted_Marionette). This should have been a permanent feature in Lornar's Pass. It could have been another world boss.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

wvw fights.

[DeanBB.4268]

Day 1. Got taken out by a deer. I shall never forget. * *shudders* *

[vier.1327]

I have just remembered; Mordemoth mind, the potato moster.

 

Not by the gameplay, the mechanic is terrible, but the music was amazing and seeing Sieran again was amazing.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I wasn't around for the original Nightmare Tower, but in fractals I've found Ensolyss of the Endless Torment to be one of my favorite fights. I always wanted a boss that incorporated bullet-hell into its design. Ensolyss is a fine example of a powerful boss that doesn't revolve around the tank-and-spank design that most MMOs use.

 

For sheer visual presentation, though, the winner is the Mouth of Mordremoth.

[Hannelore.8153]

Legacy content: Twisted Marionette.

Open World: All of Dragon's Stand, Dragonfall and Drizzlewood Coast. I love OW raids.

Story Mode: Modremoth, Kralkatorrik (both All or Nothing & Heart to Heart).

Dungeon: Zhaita- nevermind, just kidding. There's no really good dungeon fights, I think. I like Kudu in CoE Story.

Fractal: Amala from Twilight Oasis.

World Boss: Any of the dragon fights, but mostly Tequatl. Not Death Branded Shatterer though--too noisey and I'm autistic.

World Vs World: Almost always Lowlands (green keep) on EBG. Red is okay, blue is meh.

 

> @"Excursion.9752" said:

> The fight that sticks out in my mind the most is the [Twisted Marionette](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Twisted_Marionette). This should have been a permanent feature in Lornar's Pass. It could have been another world boss.

I don't have a link to the post, but the devs have said (about a year ago) we'll see the TM again at some point. Whether that comes true or not, who knows, but when I asked if they'd bring the music back they did for HoT.

 

The encounter was too large-scale for Fractals, but Strikes and DRMs can handle more players.

[The Subterfuge Of Dwayna.8]

Open World : Heart of Thorns just after it's release

 

Story Mode : Silence !! * Stay ...*

 

Dungeon : Not a fan of current dungeons.

 

Fractals : Palawa Joko, Thorin & Kai, Captain Mai Thrin

 

World Boss : Jormag (Snowing) Tequalt (My first Precursor drop)

 

World vs World : Playing Scourge with 3k Toughness on an empty server will still get you instantly killed vs 2 / 3 mediocre players because the damage scales on GPU driver.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

Qadim 1 was pretty epic when it came.

[DebraKadabra.5278]

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> - Zhaitan. Should have been so much more

THANK YOU. The build up to Zhaitan was, in my opinion, really good. It gave scope to the fact that this was going to be huge. The final fight on the other hand... you literally press 1 to win. Even in the days when you needed a full party to complete Victory or Death (I'll get back to this in a moment), it was way too anticlimactic to play through a two hour instance just to spam 1. Really disappointing.

 

Now, back to the full party thing. They've nerfed VoD so hard that it's almost laughable. The final chapter of core personal story is story mode for what was at the time the hardest dungeon in the game. The last part of personal story SHOULD be difficult. It was literally the culmination of too many innocent deaths leading up to something that really showed the player how high the stakes were. Yes, you had to party up with folks to get credit, but in my experience the random groups I went in with weren't in the least bit toxic because we were all there for the same thing - kill an undead elder dragon. It's almost embarrassing how flabby that content is now after people complained that "it's personal story, it should be soloable wah wah wah".

 

As for fights I really enjoyed, both Kralkatorrik fights were as epic as the Zhaitan fight should have been. The final Kralk fight still gives me goosebumps. Good stuff.