<spoilers> Is the LW 4 Ep 2 boss bugged or just poor design?

[Takoyakii.2146]

I think it's clear enough on what to do unless you sleepwalking through the whole instance.

 

Complete this on my deadeye and doesn't have any problem . Unless your boss is bugged or you do something really wrong. It shouldn't took too long to kill this boss.

[DeadTreeJig.6714]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"Amaya Bloodstorm.9174" said:

> > What is the point of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on your play style just to be forced to throw it out the window and rely on a tedious boss-specific mechanic to fight? Devs have put SO much effort into allowing player to customize their characters, and then reduce every boss fight to kite, dodge, execute forced mechanic. It sucks.

>

> What’s the point of boss encounters if you can just burn them down and ignore mechanics because of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on their play style?

 

I think his point was with the boss' mechanic there was really only one way to play. It's not about plowing through boss fights, it's about using each characters unique skills to take the boss down. The mechanic was too ridged, it left no room for imaginative play. In brief, it was insanely boring.

[Kalarchis.8635]

When people say this was easy and so many did in under 3 minutes, I really have to wonder if they got the same version of the boss I did.

 

This was another repeat of Caudecus and Scruffy for me. I understand the mechanics. I can deal damage. But there's a hundred different aoes going off at once every four seconds and _I just can't._ I don't have that many dodges. I can't focus on twelve different things at the same time. Maybe I'm getting old. I dodge one aoe and then the boss knocks me down with an area attack that goes off too quickly for me to get to the safe zone and immediately hits me with down-to-1-hp-laser-beam and then as I'm healing the adds do thier mega-x-cut-aoes that cover the entire screen at the same time that the boss drops six aoes in a ring _and_ shoots projectiles and there's stuff falling from the sky? That all happens in about six seconds and seconds later it all happens again. I'm yelling at my screen and all I want is to look at the new map.

 

I don't know why I have to keep saying this ANet. Your game should never, _never_ have me yelling at my screen. I don't understand how you keep putting out bosses like this. Does no one playtest them?

 

I was going to run around the new map and actually enjoy the game for a while. Was even considering those branded mounts! Now I'm so frustrated I turned the game off and walked away. I haven't played in months because of this exact nonsense last episode. Now I don't know when I'll boot up again. If this is what it's going to be like moving forward, I don't know why I should.

 

EDIT - Reading other responses I think I also must have gotten a bugged fight. At 25% I had ley-energy stacks that never depleted (stuck at 2 and actually went up to 3 then back to 2 when channeling.) Even with the damage buff from npcs and vuln stacks my attacks were doing next to nothing to it. 25%-10% (when core finally came out) took like 10 minutes. Here's hoping it was just bugged.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

> @"mochriademia.5713" said:

> It was easy to figure out, I had no problem staying on my feet and I would have enjoyed soloing it, but it was definitely bugged for me. Finally managed to get through it after about an hour, but the core wouldn’t pop out after using the ley energy (fully stacked) 90% of the time, so I just kept taking out golems and collecting ley energy to use over and over again with 0 effect. And the shields were still showing 75% damage protection when there was only one shield left. Some of the little golems were getting stuck outside of the dome, too. Like I said, I finally managed to get through it, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t working as intended for me. I’m not one to get easily frustrated with a boss fight—I enjoy using the different mechanics and figuring out the rhythm. The ley energy stack also got weird (like someone else mentioned) so the stack stopped getting depleted and was stuck at 3. No need to nerf, just make sure it works properly for everyone.

 

I thought that was normal! Geez. No wonder. Yeah . . . may be a case of bugged for more than a few of us.

 

Thank you for posting this.

[Tashigi.3159]

I agree that story based bosses should be easier, since it's more directed at the casual player base.

That said, I found these mechanics easy to pick up. I didn't realize people were having issues until I started reading here and asking players. But I do raid a lot, so it probably just clicked faster.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"DeadTreeJig.6714" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > @"Amaya Bloodstorm.9174" said:

> > > What is the point of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on your play style just to be forced to throw it out the window and rely on a tedious boss-specific mechanic to fight? Devs have put SO much effort into allowing player to customize their characters, and then reduce every boss fight to kite, dodge, execute forced mechanic. It sucks.

> >

> > What’s the point of boss encounters if you can just burn them down and ignore mechanics because of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on their play style?

>

> I think his point was with the boss' mechanic there was really only one way to play. It's not about plowing through boss fights, it's about using each characters unique skills to take the boss down. The mechanic was too ridged, it left no room for imaginative play. In brief, it was insanely boring.

 

It’s no different than any other boss with the mechanic included. The mechanic is just something extra that you have to do. Class specific skills (isn’t that technically all of them?) could be used towards the fight whether or not there were mechanics involved.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

No mechanics is the way like personal story no breakbars small health pools easy but very rewarding story

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

I must have gotten a bugged fight too, as well as the guildie who started whispering to me in the middle of it. Together we figured out the mechanics but at the very end I had the endlessly renewing ley energy to throw and the final add with the crossed swords didn’t appear. I eventually managed to kill the boss. I finished before the guildie who was having even more problems than me and it took me some time to do it.

[Aurelian Omenkind.2470]

A long, difficult to understand boss fight after a string of uninterruptible story instances is just bad design. Dev team: please understand there are plenty of players who want a 5-15 minute diversion, not an hour long quest when exploring brand new content.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Aurelian Omenkind.2470" said:

> A long, difficult to understand boss fight after a string of uninterruptible story instances is just bad design. Dev team: please understand there are plenty of players who want a 5-15 minute diversion, not an hour long quest when exploring brand new content.

 

You can do one story instance at a time. What they did is really no different than having three story instances spread across PoF maps that you had to hop around to.

 

Mechanics for the boss fight were taught before it and you had the buff on the boss indicating what to do.

[Aurelian Omenkind.2470]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> You can do one story instance at a time. What they did is really no different than having three story instances spread across PoF maps that you had to hop around to.

>

> Mechanics for the boss fight were taught before it and you had the buff on the boss indicating what to do.

 

I would’ve preferred not being injected directly into the next story step either way. As for the boss mechanics, I guess I didn’t make the connection. I understood the use of the special drop, but It didn’t seem to work all the time. And being heavily targeted with little time to recover from a dodge roll or evade skill to try to retarget the adds and pick up their drops seemed ridiculous. My ranger couldn’t get off a Barrage without getting downed. And yes, I should be able to use that skill.

[Fundor.2098]

Posted this in a topic concerning Lonai, but it goes here aswell.

 

>I actually liked the idea of the fight, as well as the the golem boss fight in the charr village, but i gotta admit the devs have been overdoing with the constant AoE damage fest that's nowadays _everywhere_. The fight mechanics are fun, but they kinda lose their point when you get downed 30 times in a fight by AoE damage fields everywhere all the time just to be healed by NPCs all over again. The fights are getting harder and harder to solo without getting downed constanly. I don't even mind it that much myself, as everything is after all doable, but I've got some friends who actually don't even dare to do story instances alone anymore, as they feel too discouraged to do so. And _that_ is bugging me. (Stupid of me, right? But I can't help it.) That's mostly because I try to tell them it's all soloable and they should just try first before complaining they can't do it alone, when after having done the fight myself even I have to admit I see where they're coming from. I just can't help thinking the point shoudn't be getting ressed by NPCs until the boss is done, but instead you should be able to defeat the boss with well timed dodges, heals, blocks and dancing, instead of having to use them all the time until you've run out AoE-free room to dance to, you've got no endurance left and all the blocking, dodging and healing skills are on cooldown.

>It has felt a bit overdone even in group content lately, where you can't even keep track of where all the damage is coming from anymore.

 

>However, the mechanics were fun and the story was well done. It was a pleasure to meet Lonai after all this time, even if it was sad to see the condition she was in.

 

[Rauderi.8706]

> @"Jahroots.6791" said:

> It's a pretty tedious fight to do solo.

>

> Too many forced mechanics in-between me and the boss. Actually, you don't even really fight the boss. You fight the adds. It's lame.

 

And yet, the boss had no problems dropping high damage aoes *right on my face*. No dodge, no warning, just blam.

Also, no real risk, as dying just stalls you for a few seconds while the impervious NPCs rez you.

And even with the fight mechanics, it decided that, in the last 35% of its health, to utterly ignore the pewpew beam, so I had to laboriously chip away at it for the last chunk of the fight.

...At this point, I just expect disappointment from combat encounters in this game.

[Kulgin.9512]

The boss is definitely bugged. In order to kill him in under 3 minutes you need to be able to spawn his shield and use ley energy to extract the core - which when you kill it, it removes the bulk of his health. The boss' shield is not getting spawned. File bug reports in game for this as well.

[DeadTreeJig.6714]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"DeadTreeJig.6714" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > @"Amaya Bloodstorm.9174" said:

> > > > What is the point of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on your play style just to be forced to throw it out the window and rely on a tedious boss-specific mechanic to fight? Devs have put SO much effort into allowing player to customize their characters, and then reduce every boss fight to kite, dodge, execute forced mechanic. It sucks.

> > >

> > > What’s the point of boss encounters if you can just burn them down and ignore mechanics because of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on their play style?

> >

> > I think his point was with the boss' mechanic there was really only one way to play. It's not about plowing through boss fights, it's about using each characters unique skills to take the boss down. The mechanic was too ridged, it left no room for imaginative play. In brief, it was insanely boring.

>

> It’s no different than any other boss with the mechanic included. The mechanic is just something extra that you have to do. Class specific skills (isn’t that technically all of them?) could be used towards the fight whether or not there were mechanics involved.

 

You missed my point, but it really doesn't matter does it. :)

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

Every single living story episode since the beginning of GW2 has followed the EXACT same pattern. They give you mechanics during the episode that have to be used on the boss and yet somehow... here we are at season four, episode two, and people still apparently need Arenanet to call them up on the phone, explain exactly what to do to them, and then send pictures and a video, because figuring out that you have to hit the boss with four electric blasts to remove the clear as day FOUR stacks of buff he has, EXACTLY like they had to do to reach said boss in the first place by doing the EXACT same thing to the golems blocking the path there, is too difficult. So in short, to answer your question; No the boss isn't bugged and no it isn't poorly designed. You just need to put a minute amount of effort into it.

[sweetrules.8359]

After reading all of this, I have to start with one thing,

Dear players who actually got the achievement and only focus on claiming the fight was easy, good for you, you're either trolls, very lucky it didn't bug, or were in a full group.

Now that that painful truth is out of the way, let's get onto the point. The fight is not challenging, it is not fun. It is an aoe spam fest while you tediously clear mobs spread out as much as possible to make it even more tedious. Now, you have those cores? channel all of them separately to slowly shred the golems shield? Good, okay, now chase the bouncy core around and hope you do enough damage to speed up this painfully, unnecessarily tedious fight. Rinse and repeat, and hopefully you only go down a couple times since your endurance doesn't regen fast enough to dodge every second for the whole fight. And channel skills? Ha, downed to aoe that does anywhere from half to 90% of your life for absolutely no reason considering the next high damage attack is about to hit you already. But don't worry, they just wanted to down you for a good laugh because bam, your new npc friends can ress you every time. Why this is necessary? Well because that's how they designed it silly. To waste time flat on your back instead of actually enjoying the story and playing the game, because who would ever want to do that, am I right? No one plays games to enjoy them nowadays, just to say they beat it and everyone who struggles is clearly bad and shouldn't complain.

 

Oh, and all of this gets even worse because there are so many things that could bug.

 

Now, I apologize for the high levels of snark, but some of the people commenting on this thread need a harsh wake-up call, because they've clearly forgotten what games are for. And what story modes are for. It is about having fun. Story modes are about having fun at a fair level of challenge while enjoying the story, usually in a time-efficient manner. because not everyone has hours to spend beating on a boss designed for a group in a story mode instance which should be solo-able without inane tediousness.

 

I've raided, I do t4 fractals, I play WvW, I've even pvped, and want to know something I've learned? Not every game mode will satisfy everyone. Not every game mode needs to be super-challenging. If you want a challenge in a pve environment? Guess what, they've got raids and fractals, which, do still receive new content. There are also open world events that can be rather challenging in group play. maybe challenge yourself or a small group of friends to take on a really tough open-world boss with far less than the suggested amount of players. But, a story mode instance should be enjoyable and solo-able. Possibly with a challenge mote for players looking to make it a bit more exciting if they want some serious action in their story instances. However, tediousness does not equal challenge. it equals time wasted a majority of the time. Because a tedious task, can eventually be completed regardless of difficulty. This boss fight, is just that, a tedious task. No matter how you go about it, you will, eventually, finish it if you start it.

 

But, because modes exist for people seeking challenges, there should be modes for people just looking for a relaxing story experience, and they should be allowed that. You have your challenge modes, let them have their story instances. I know I enjoy a good story form time to time where I can just relax, sit back, and wipe out whatever gets in my way while focusing more on what is going on rather than being forced to focus on endless waves of mobs or tedious mechanics. I also enjoy the occasional challenge of raiding. I understand the need and desire for both. But many people in this thread clearly do not. So, I ask that you please refrain from insulting casual players anymore for no reason other than to inflate your egos, because the majority of the posts against toning down or fixing this fight, were just people gloating.

[Warscythes.9307]

Man imagine the QQ there will be if GW2 do the same thing as FFXIV and force you to do group content in order to progress the story.

 

I think ultimately the issue is not the boss is difficult. It is that the players have a very different level of skill or build pattern. In other MMO no matter how much you change your talents; the power difference is always going to be within that level of range. Here you have players try to do the content with some of the worst builds possible such as building tank when they should be going dps or picking damage utilities when they need speedboost or evades.

 

There should be a baseline of skill involved in story 100%. I guess we just have a different definition of where that line is. I doubt too many people want to just read a visual novel and auto attack these hugely important lore powerful characters to death(Zhaitan etc, I think many people agree it was an incredibly disappointing fight); of course it also shouldn't be raid tier but the story bosses are nowhere near this. People still move camera with keyboards or click their skills. Do you really want to balance around that?

 

I think the solution is simply help the players to improve or close the gap a bit. Better tutorial on how to play or dodge or combo or make builds will be nice as some sort of a solution to the core issue. However that will probably never happen as it takes too long. So maybe considering recommending a standard build for doing stories and balance with the standard build in mind. So you wouldn't have people going to fights with soldier or nomad gear and take 30 minutes to kill a boss when it takes a zerker build 5 minutes; Or at worst try implementing a stacking hp/damage buff upon death up to a certain point instead of constant revives because that feels pretty cheap as there is no urgency at all.

[Ceridwen.6703]

> @"Warscythes.9307" said:

> Man imagine the QQ there will be if GW2 do the same thing as FFXIV and force you to do group content in order to progress the story.

>

As someone on a GW2 break and playing FFXIV right now, I can say I was initially fed up with that; I've never really liked forced group content in order to progress. Now, it turns out I enjoy it; I announce my newness to anything I've not done before with others, but I research it beforehand too. I've yet to meet horrible people in any group content, and I'm having fun and feeling I can actually play effectively. However, I do think FFXIV's mechanics (as DPS anyway) are typically easier and combat, even with AoE, is something of a less frantic affair than GW2. It's better for me, because I'm really not physically capable of long fights in GW2 anymore, plus with all the flashy visuals that have been increased over time, it's hard on my eyes and epilepsy (FFXIV doesn't seem to have the same light frequency in its flashier moments, so it really doesn't affect me in the same way). I'm going to get around to doing the new content in GW2 all the same, I just will wait until my husband feels like playing it too and we'll go in together, and I won't fuss over achievements like I used to.

 

I hope everyone who's run into issues with the new content does manage to get through if they haven't already, and you hopefully have some fun doing it too. :)

 

 

[Faaris.8013]

> @"Amaya Bloodstorm.9174" said:

> What is the point of gearing up, choosing elite specializations, setting skills and attributes to maximize fight efficiency based on your play style just to be forced to throw it out the window and rely on a tedious boss-specific mechanic to fight?

 

Maybe they do this to allow even new and under-geared players to proceed with the story. If you have bad gear, only use auto-attack and yet have to learn your class, you can still kill the boss if you follow the guidelines because the main damage comes from the special key mechanics.

 

> @"Takoyakii.2146" said:

> I think it's clear enough on what to do unless you sleepwalking through the whole instance.

 

That put a smile in my face because that's exactly what I did. I mostly ignore the chatter in the story because the game tells you what to do anyway, there is no option to completely fail, and the "lore" doesn't excite me at all. When I came to the puzzle, I was like "meh, my brain doesn't feel like doing puzzles right now", so I just went from console to console and clicked randomly (mostly) and had it done in under a minute I think. Did the same with other puzzles like that one where you free Livia/Kerida from the trap in LW S3. Often I find myself looking for clues in the top right of the UI because I didn't listen to dialogue (or was getting a fresh coffee while they explain stuff), and that usually tells me what to do. After all, this game is created for kids as well, so all the riddles and puzzles cannot be that hard. I still have no idea how to "Send an energy signal to Blish." or who Blish is (one objective in the last boss fight of The Charge). But apparently, it doesn't matter because I successfully finished the story without that knowledge.

 

> @"Kalarchis.8635" said:

> I haven't played in months because of this exact nonsense last episode.

 

So you have not played the game for months, and you are surprised that you struggle? Maybe you should keep playing to keep your skills fresh and be up to date with changes.

 

> @"sevenDEADLY.5281" said:

> No the boss isn't bugged and no it isn't poorly designed.

 

I would not say that so quickly. My golem fight wasn't bugged, but I got a bugged Commander Lonai later on. She was stuck at 1% health and there was nothing I could do because she wouldn't take any damage nor drop that item that you can damage. I tried a lot of things for some time, throwing ley items into the sand shades, into the circle she sometimes spawns, into the circle after luring her into the circle, standing in the circle (dying), nothing worked. I checked a video and saw how it was supposed to work and was sure my fight is bugged. I let myself be killed (not easy with Mr Stupid trying to res you all the time), left the instance and entered it again. I was right in the same battle luckily, Anet got that one right after all (no need to go through the other events). That fight was no problem and I finished the story. Same thing happened to two of my guild mates.

 

What I'm saying is, that your and my golem golem fight was not bugged doesn't mean it wasn't bugged for others.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

> @"sevenDEADLY.5281" said:

> Every single living story episode since the beginning of GW2 has followed the EXACT same pattern. They give you mechanics during the episode that have to be used on the boss and yet somehow... here we are at season four, episode two, and people still apparently need Arenanet to call them up on the phone, explain exactly what to do to them, and then send pictures and a video, because figuring out that you have to hit the boss with four electric blasts to remove the clear as day FOUR stacks of buff he has, EXACTLY like they had to do to reach said boss in the first place by doing the EXACT same thing to the golems blocking the path there, is too difficult. So in short, to answer your question; No the boss isn't bugged and no it isn't poorly designed. You just need to put a minute amount of effort into it.

 

So you’re saying the endlessly resetting ley energy blasts and the core not spawning I had at the last stage was intended?

[EdgarMTanaka.7291]

Either people complain that the game is just go zerker and it is so easy. Or they complain that it is to hard an the mechanic is dumb.

 

In my opinion this boss was pretty nice, I like the mechanic and in my opinion you do fight the boss, you destroy it's shield and then you can damage it and from about 30 40% you fight the boss without the shield.

For me I died and gott rezzed 3 times before I figured out the mechanic but when I did, the boss was a pushover and with a good strategy I could finish it in under 3 min.

 

Sounds like alot of people wants everything served on a silver plate in front of them and when that happens they complain that there is almost no content.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

PSA: During the first 50%, there is a nice range where none of the boss's attacks hit in close, about 600 range and lower. I discovered this by accident when the boss kept firing past me. You still have the occasional lasers from the power drones, but those are easy to sidestep. This is a great place to figure out what exactly you re supposed to do, as you're almost perfectly safe.

 

This encounter does not throw you into the deep end and expect you to swim.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

I don't know if it was lag, a bug, or weird design, but the first orange circle caused by the bouncy ball attacks _always_ coincided with the damage, making the orange circle completely pointless. No, worse than pointless, because it tempted me to waste dodges and blocks until I wizened up to what was happening.

[Healix.5819]

> @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:

> So you’re saying the endlessly resetting ley energy blasts and the core not spawning I had at the last stage was intended?

 

During the last ~25%, the boss is meant to go into attack mode and no longer be shielded. For DPS builds, you should be able to take down the core to ~33% the first time, which begins the final phase. When this phase starts, the Charr grant you power, increasing your damage by 100%. You now attack the boss normally and once you take down it down to ~5%, the core pops out for a final time, which destroys the boss when defeated.

 

The mechanic of the ley energy is to remove the shields, but if there isn't any, it causes 25 stacks of vulnerability, then refunds the used charge. If it wasn't shielded, yes, it was intended.