Crown Pavilion: Sparcus balancing?

[morfiend.9736]

Have yet to see a group get anywhere close to getting this event done in gold time. Usually it turns into beat a on Sparcus for 10 minutes, regardless of the size of the group. Not finding him balanced for this event. Anyone else feeling it needs balanced?

[Ayrilana.1396]

I’ve seen him being the first one ready for burn with everyone waiting on Baines

[SkyShroud.2865]

If the event (stats wise) has not changed since last time, then, the issue lies with the players than the event itself since the powercreep is obvious since vanilla days.

[Rhyse.8179]

Missed Gold by 30s last night; holdout was Wiggum.

 

Key to this event is to use small groups- 10ppl per boss, and DONT zerg to the next boss when you die. The scaling on these bosses is insane and bringing more people buffs them by far more then the extra DPS.

 

If it's unbalanced, it because the scaling is overtuned, not the individual bosses.

[Kalendraf.9521]

In the map I was in last night, the group on Sparcus easily had him down to under 10% health well in advance of the timer, but everyone had to wait on Baines which was still 30 to 40 percent. The bosses can be defeated in the time limit, but it takes coordination among everyone on the map to ensure there's a balanced number of players at the various bosses, and to also make sure each group has right types of builds and that they understand the key individual boss mechanics to allow each group to defeat their boss within that time.

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

> Missed Gold by 30s last night; holdout was Wiggum.

>

> Key to this event is to use small groups- 10ppl per boss, and DONT zerg to the next boss when you die. The scaling on these bosses is insane and bringing more people buffs them by far more then the extra DPS.

>

> If it's unbalanced, it because the scaling is overtuned, not the individual bosses.

 

It encourages using brains rather than just brawn. Everyone has to pull their weight too.

[Edgy McEdgelord.4790]

Sparcus only really needs a couple supports that can spam out stability for everyone dealing with this jumpy hyperactive fire charr. If you got that sorted out, he's one of the easier bosses in the pavilion, trust me.

[Kalendraf.9521]

I have noticed a distinct different between organized maps vs. unorganized ones. The organized maps usually have a commander dividing up the players in their squad into teams, or there are multiple commanders each leading a small group. In those maps, Sparcus is usually dealt with appropriately and doesn't end up as one of the bosses lagging far behind. By contrast, in the maps with no organization (few or no commanders, no team boss assignments, etc) Sparcus usually end up lagging far behind the others. One map I saw last night had 4 bosses down under 10% while Sparcus and one other (Baines, I think) still back around 70 to 90%. The two main options here are to either find an organized map via LFG, or try to take charge of an unorganized map and try to add enough coordination with other players.

[morfiend.9736]

> It encourages using brains rather than just brawn. Everyone has to pull their weight too.

 

this is exactly the type of thinking i had hoped a thread like this wouldnt devolve into. the "leet vs non-leet."

 

if anyone from anet happens to look upon this thread, try this instead for a real metric. look at how many times this encounter has been run during this event. note the successful completion percentage of gold vs the failure rate. if the completion percentage is extremely small compared to other group encounters, the encounter needs balanced. if not, then the people who have posted here are validated.

 

 

[Algreg.3629]

> @"morfiend.9736" said:

> It encourages using brains rather than just brawn. Everyone has to pull their weight too.

>

> this is exactly the type of thinking i had hoped a thread like this wouldnt devolve into. the "leet vs non-leet."

>

> if anyone from anet happens to look upon this thread, try this instead for a real metric. look at how many times this encounter has been run during this event. note the successful completion percentage of gold vs the failure rate. if the completion percentage is extremely small compared to other group encounters, the encounter needs balanced. if not, then the people who have posted here are validated.

>

>

 

haha, the implications of your reply... yeah, I agree to those, have been for a very long time.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> I’ve seen him being the first one ready for burn with everyone waiting on Baines

 

Yes, and so far I've seen every boss be last at some point. Each of the bosses has a quirk that some people just don't seem to get. Each can be scaled up if too many people converge on him. Pyro without reflects? ouch. With reflects? cakewalk. i notice that very few commanders take the time to explain what's going on, and that's something that we can do without waiting for ANet to reconsider balance.

 

With the "right" 3+ people in each group, each of the bosses can be killed well within the time limit.

 

I think people forgetting just how long it takes the community as a whole to respond to new cooperative events. This isn't something that happens quickly because not every plays every day, not everyone tries the meta multiple times, not everyone is as skilled as the players who write guides, and lots of people don't do any reading about the game (they just play it). Under those typically human conditions, it shouldn't surprise us that it takes a week or longer to figure it out (although that, too, is a typically human expectation).

 

tl;dr help the commander explain what needs to happen _before_ the blitz begins. Make sure you have a decent mix of core people on each group, DPS + support + control.

[Lexi.1398]

Sparcus isnt so bad, in writing a guide to boss blitz gold i was pretty stumped with how to deal with him initially. The others have clear mechanics, and so does sparcus if you think about builds outside of the scope of PvE.

 

Sparcus and Baines usually lag behind in organised groups more often than other bosses from what i've personally seen, but that doesn't come from difficulty- rather people assuming they don't have to do anything special for the fight// _that they can leave other people to do the mechanics_ (or they aren't told the mechanics, but ive seen the commanders in said organised runs trying their darndest to get people on the turret for baines for example, lol).

 

Sparcus - the key is stun breaks and stability, neither of which PvEers value highly. Before the fight commander needs to get people to slot in/trait in as many stun breaks and stability (ESP group stablity -gestures to firebrand-) as they can. With that, sparcus is realy quite simple- most all he has is knockbacks for days, so you bring stun breaks and stability he doesn't bring much threat.

[Nightmare.1234]

I'm normally the commander that runs this boss because no one wants the stupid guy and his annoying floor is lava game he plays. he actually scales ok with 7 full dps specs on him. I try to get a class that spams stability out for this boss as most the deaths come from aoe knockback into lava that you can't see because of all the aoe skills on the floor.

[morfiend.9736]

we've got 10 days to go on the event and still not seeing groups that can handle a shot at gold. if anything the groups have gotten more disorganized and more of a zerg. i'll work one boss, hang out in the middle, sometimes afk for 10 minutes and still see a mass of people fighting bosses one at a time.

 

scaling vs time vs rewards are not worth it on this event.

[Shagaliscious.6281]

I've gotten gold during this event with an EVOS commander. Only 1 tag, 6 parties, about 7 per party. I was with the squad for 3 total runs, got silver the first run, gold the second, then silver again on the third run. It's tough, but doable. Like people have already said, the big issue is people scaling up bosses. When I got gold we had very good party comps. Nearly a boonshare in every party, healer in every party, and lots of DPS.

[morfiend.9736]

> @"Shagaliscious.6281" said:

> I've gotten gold during this event with an EVOS commander. Only 1 tag, 6 parties, about 7 per party. I was with the squad for 3 total runs, got silver the first run, gold the second, then silver again on the third run. It's tough, but doable. Like people have already said, the big issue is people scaling up bosses. When I got gold we had very good party comps. Nearly a boonshare in every party, healer in every party, and lots of DPS.

 

yes, this has already been reported by the 5 or so people here. if you have a perfectly organized group with people that dont zerg and listen to the zone it can be done. its also been noted the majority of experiences with this are not that nor are they even remotely possible to obtain given what is going on in the zones. as also been stated above, its easy enough for anet to look at the success rate of gold attempts vs the actual number of times this event has been run and see if the success percentage is lower than it should be. ie: should the event be adjusted.

 

but since you managed to do it once with the right people, playing in the right way, you feel its working as intended. i'd rather know what the actual success numbers are for gold runs vs fails. based on what i've seen in this event, its extremely low.

[Teratus.2859]

Gotten gold plenty of times.. my guess is your map isn't organized very well.

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

WRONG. There needs to be no rebalancing. Unfortunately for you the maps you are in don't understand what and how to do it. Zerging it is the absolute wrong answer.

 

PSA

 

Seperate the map into 6 equal groups. Have healers and boon sharers in each group. Learn the mechanics. Cc everytime you can. And above all NEVER help another group when you finished your boss. And if you feel the need to not play this way then dont complain or wonder why it takes so long to complete. It is not a balance issue. Its a player issue. Thank you and enjoy the adventure.

[Shagaliscious.6281]

> @"morfiend.9736" said:

> > @"Shagaliscious.6281" said:

> > I've gotten gold during this event with an EVOS commander. Only 1 tag, 6 parties, about 7 per party. I was with the squad for 3 total runs, got silver the first run, gold the second, then silver again on the third run. It's tough, but doable. Like people have already said, the big issue is people scaling up bosses. When I got gold we had very good party comps. Nearly a boonshare in every party, healer in every party, and lots of DPS.

>

> yes, this has already been reported by the 5 or so people here. if you have a perfectly organized group with people that dont zerg and listen to the zone it can be done. its also been noted the majority of experiences with this are not that nor are they even remotely possible to obtain given what is going on in the zones. as also been stated above, its easy enough for anet to look at the success rate of gold attempts vs the actual number of times this event has been run and see if the success percentage is lower than it should be. ie: should the event be adjusted.

>

> but since you managed to do it once with the right people, playing in the right way, you feel its working as intended. i'd rather know what the actual success numbers are for gold runs vs fails. based on what i've seen in this event, its extremely low.

 

Where did I say it's working as intended? You seem mad just because I said I have been with a group that got gold, and I even said we had really good party comps, I don't think my post made it sound like it was easy. I literally said "it's tough, but doable". The same can be said about raids and T4 fractals. Tough but doable.

 

My real question is why do you think events are supposed to be so easy that you should just be able to throw together a squad and get gold? Where's the challenge in that? Where's the sense of accomplishment for those that get gold?

[morfiend.9736]

> @"Shagaliscious.6281" said:

> > @"morfiend.9736" said:

> > > @"Shagaliscious.6281" said:

> Where did I say it's working as intended? You seem mad just because I said I have been with a group that got gold, and I even said we had really good party comps, I don't think my post made it sound like it was easy. I literally said "it's tough, but doable". The same can be said about raids and T4 fractals. Tough but doable.

 

yes, you have me figured out. angry and without sleep since the event started. i sit at my screen 24/7, banging away, hoping this is finally the time, the time i get those 2 extra bags of salvage worth 10 silver.

 

> My real question is why do you think events are supposed to be so easy that you should just be able to throw together a squad and get gold? Where's the challenge in that? Where's the sense of accomplishment for those that get gold?

 

as i said earlier in the thread. rather than counting the posts here from people claiming they've done it so anyone who plays like they do can. devs should look at how many times the event has been run and see what the success rate is for gold. if its substantially less than it should be, balance the event. if not, game on. no emotion in that, no opinion, just math.

 

 

[Saranos.9703]

I think the event shouldn't be changed but there does need to be some way the game lets more casual players know that zerging isn't a good idea. Even just an NPC saying 'split up and take them down all at once'. As it is some aspects (such as don't help out another group after you have finished your boss) are very counter-intuitive and you won't know unless you have a commander tell you or you research the event out of game.

 

GW encourages people to zerg and more casual players will naturally decide to do that because that is what the game has taught them. If there is only one tag on a map they will flock there. To complete this in a sensible amount of time you need a well organised squad. Compare that to say farming the Halloween Labyrinth.

 

I don't see any problem with the game giving players a hint as to how to complete the event so that the event is successful more often. This is a festival event casual players will flock to, not a raid.

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

Maybe something like the Tracked effect the vinewrath gives people. Kill one boss and you take double damage from others, kill two and you don't deal damage any more, with these effects lasting until the blitz ends or 10 minutes is up.

 

It would also help if they removed the individual event rewards so people wouldn't have an incentive to tag all the bosses for XP. Just have reward chest at the end give out xp and karma potions, with more for silver and gold, and even the people farming for XP will be on board.

[BlueMelody.6398]

Give Gold an actual significant benefit over silver (maybe a rare curio chest instead of just extra champ bags), make it worthwhile for people to care about getting gold, and see if fewer people don't just zerg to the nearest tag, get their daily boss kill done with, and then zerg to whatever bosses left are holding up their daily race.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"morfiend.9736" said:

> > It encourages using brains rather than just brawn. Everyone has to pull their weight too.

>

> this is exactly the type of thinking i had hoped a thread like this wouldnt devolve into. the "leet vs non-leet."

>

> if anyone from anet happens to look upon this thread, try this instead for a real metric. look at how many times this encounter has been run during this event. note the successful completion percentage of gold vs the failure rate. if the completion percentage is extremely small compared to other group encounters, the encounter needs balanced. if not, then the people who have posted here are validated.

>

>

 

Not really... Because your metric doesn't take into account player quality.

In the past, when classes were generally weaker (max Condi stacks of 25, no elites), semi-organized groups could get gold. Now if they didn't change the stats much, which doesn't really seem to have, but memories are fuzzy from years ago, then it means that it's simply the players that got used to the easy encounters and don't have the mental tools to tackle the encounters.

 

Your way of "measuring" it doesn't take into account player input and contribution. Just failure vs success rates, and that's not really a perfect metric.

 

You have to keep in mind that this festival originally came with Living World season 1, where everything was open world, and players were used to cooperate to complete those. Nowadays people just expect to hop into a meta boss and spam 1 and get carried by the few "try-hards" in the group.

That's why if you have a DPS meter, and join a bounty train or something of the like, you'll see the top 5 doing more than half the damage of the top 10 people, now if that's how it goes with the top 10, imagine the other 10-40 players in a open world Squad. There's people that will have so little contribution it would be negligible, and that's how we roll in GW2.

 

So yes, there is a problem of "leet vs non-leet", and that manifests in events such as the boss blitz, Serpent's Ire, etc. Then that carries over into Raids, Fractals, sPvp, etc But the funny thing is, is that the problem people (as in those that don't care to contribute, and come to the forums demanding for easier content instead of searching for personal improvement) will denounce the other party as toxic, while it's more the other way around.

 

 

 

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"BlueMelody.6398" said:

> Give Gold an actual significant benefit over silver (maybe a rare curio chest instead of just extra champ bags), make it worthwhile for people to care about getting gold, and see if fewer people don't just zerg to the nearest tag, get their daily boss kill done with, and then zerg to whatever bosses left are holding up their daily race.

 

The only thing that would accomplish is create more and angrier people.