One-shot Mechanics

[Sephollos.4829]

I feel like this game has too many one-shot mechanics. I'm not talking so much about fractals, raids, etc, but more just in the open world! In fractals and raids, most of the fights have defined mechanics and telegraphed attacks. Some may be difficult to avoid or learn, but they're there.

 

I find that in a lot of the open world content, there are bosses or monsters that basically one-shot you constantly with no rhyme, reason, or warning. There are others that are nearly impossible to melee (go in, hit the boss 1 time if that, run away before he does his close-range aoe, repeat). A few examples that come to mind are the snipers in HoT maps that drop the lines on the ground - if you don't dodge in literally less than half a second, you're toast. There are also those cavalier monsters that constantly charge and knock you down without giving you a chance to fight back unless you have tons of stability skills. Most boss fights/legendary bounties I've been in in open-world content just consist of massive zergs of people running in, dying, and getting ressed to try again. Everyone wipes multiple times, but eventually the boss is overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Of course stacking vitality/toughness can help, but that's not typically a viable build for content in other areas of the game depending on class.

 

Does anyone else get frustrated by this? Am I just bad at doing the open world stuff? I don't mind the fact that the bosses are challenging - it's more that I think that one-shot skills should have "something" that gives players a chance to react, kind of like how it is in the raids/fractals. Instead, I'll just see my character get downed by seemingly nothing, sometimes even if I'm nowhere near the boss.

[Vavume.8065]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> Am I just bad at doing the open world stuff?

 

You could be better, sometimes it's not about reacting to mob telegraphs, it's about having knowledge of the mob you are fighting, and knowing when to dodge/block their big attacks. If everything was telegraphed this game would be far to easy, which arguably it already is.

[starlinvf.1358]

If you're running a glass build, which sounds like considering the post, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Enemies that hit hard will hit harder if you have no additional toughness.

 

If I don't wanna die, I'll just move out of the way. At what point does personal responsibility become a factor in this equation?

[zealex.9410]

You could be better. The snipers have an animation when they are about to do their ground aoe snipe and cevaliers dismount if you burst them bellow x%. Also u can have an open world build thats more tnky and still have the more optimised build for what ever other content u want. Armor sets are generally cheap.

[Imperadordf.2687]

It's about experience really. But having some stunbreaks, stability or insta-cast teleports can help.

[Sephollos.4829]

> @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> If you're running a glass build, which sounds like considering the post, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Enemies that hit hard will hit harder if you have no additional toughness.

>

> If I don't wanna die, I'll just move out of the way. At what point does personal responsibility become a factor in this equation?

 

I am - for my classes all of the top PvE/PvP builds are basically glass builds, and I didn't want to make another open-world set (mostly just because my inventory can't handle the space). I could move out of the way, but there's a balance: if I'm out of range, I'm not doing dps or helping in any way, but if I go into range I do some damage but die. For example, with the fire boss in the current event: what's been happening is I'll use my movement skill to lunge at him, then usually within 1-2 hits he will do a knockdown teleport, blow me into the lava and I'll die. I don't think I've been able to get more than 1-2 hits in a row off on him without him downing me. The best I've been able to do is autoattacking him with a ranged weapon, but I basically do horrible damage that way.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> > @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> > If you're running a glass build, which sounds like considering the post, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Enemies that hit hard will hit harder if you have no additional toughness.

> >

> > If I don't wanna die, I'll just move out of the way. At what point does personal responsibility become a factor in this equation?

>

> I am - for my classes all of the top PvE/PvP builds are basically glass builds, and I didn't want to make another open-world set (mostly just because my inventory can't handle the space).

 

You dont just equip the set and suddenly do top dps, theres multiple factors that allow you to do so, dealing with mechanics knowing rotation and not dying being some of them

 

> I could move out of the way, but there's a balance: if I'm out of range, I'm not doing dps or helping in any way, but if I go into range I do some damage but die. For example, with the fire boss in the current event: what's been happening is I'll use my movement skill to lunge at him, then usually within 1-2 hits he will do a knockdown teleport, blow me into the lava and I'll die.

 

Dont have to run out of range to deal avoid an attack side stepping and kitting is usually enough. Having all the weapons of your class of most of them is also useful, u dont have to quite spend as much as for an entire armor but the weapon skills can help you alot.

 

> I don't think I've been able to get more than 1-2 hits in a row off on him without him downing me. The best I've been able to do is autoattacking him with a ranged weapon, but I basically do horrible damage that way.

 

What class?

 

[Diva.4706]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> I feel like this game has too many one-shot mechanics. I'm not talking so much about fractals, raids, etc, but more just in the open world! In fractals and raids, most of the fights have defined mechanics and telegraphed attacks. Some may be difficult to avoid or learn, but they're there.

>

> I find that in a lot of the open world content, there are bosses or monsters that basically one-shot you constantly with no rhyme, reason, or warning. There are others that are nearly impossible to melee (go in, hit the boss 1 time if that, run away before he does his close-range aoe, repeat). A few examples that come to mind are the snipers in HoT maps that drop the lines on the ground - if you don't dodge in literally less than half a second, you're toast. There are also those cavalier monsters that constantly charge and knock you down without giving you a chance to fight back unless you have tons of stability skills. Most boss fights/legendary bounties I've been in in open-world content just consist of massive zergs of people running in, dying, and getting ressed to try again. Everyone wipes multiple times, but eventually the boss is overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Of course stacking vitality/toughness can help, but that's not typically a viable build for content in other areas of the game depending on class.

>

> Does anyone else get frustrated by this? Am I just bad at doing the open world stuff? I don't mind the fact that the bosses are challenging - it's more that I think that one-shot skills should have "something" that gives players a chance to react, kind of like how it is in the raids/fractals. Instead, I'll just see my character get downed by seemingly nothing, sometimes even if I'm nowhere near the boss.

>

 

The constant knockdown state in this game is very annoying. It's as if ArenaNet can't design good mob AI, so they just have it knock you down every two seconds so you can't fight back. Oh well, I'm probably going back to a game with trinity system, I miss the old days.

[Ardid.7203]

Half a second is an eternity in most action games. I recommend you to never play fighting games.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> > @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> > If you're running a glass build, which sounds like considering the post, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Enemies that hit hard will hit harder if you have no additional toughness.

> >

> > If I don't wanna die, I'll just move out of the way. At what point does personal responsibility become a factor in this equation?

>

> I am - for my classes all of the top PvE/PvP builds are basically glass builds, and I didn't want to make another open-world set (mostly just because my inventory can't handle the space). I could move out of the way, but there's a balance: if I'm out of range, I'm not doing dps or helping in any way, but if I go into range I do some damage but die. For example, with the fire boss in the current event: what's been happening is I'll use my movement skill to lunge at him, then usually within 1-2 hits he will do a knockdown teleport, blow me into the lava and I'll die. I don't think I've been able to get more than 1-2 hits in a row off on him without him downing me. The best I've been able to do is autoattacking him with a ranged weapon, but I basically do horrible damage that way.

 

Sparcus _is_ badly designed, seeing as he has a fast mobility, and both melee and missile hate in a single package, in an environment that makes moving around hard. The other Blitz bosses are far better. One thing you should keep in mind when fighting him is that after he teleports, he puts up a lava wall. If you happen to use your movement skill to get to him, and you'll end up moving through that wall, you will either get downed immediately, or lose a big chunk of your hp. So, look first before you go after him.

 

You might also consider using a weapon that can attack at range without being reflectable. Your theoretical dps would drop, but your actual dps might rise, because you would not be going down (or just simply not attacking) that often.

[Lexi.1398]

Most things that one shot are champions or legendaries, most of which have ways to avoid that one shot if you understand combat mechanics enough (some a little more obvious than others - eg legendary ley anomalie avoiding the OHKO orange circles should really be an automatic response to that type of circle after a little while- all of such circles in game hurt. versus, say, the mordrem champion in iron marches - who's biggest kill is it's vine attack which covers a wide AoE for high damage. It can seem impossible to melee with that attack, but it is avoidable for both range and melee.)

 

Infact, there's huge visual tells and for some even sound tells (taste a thousand as- i mean axes!) for the sheer majority of one shot attacks. I could take the time to explain all of HoT's big boss OHKO mechanics, all of the legndary bounties big damage attacks, all of the world bosses etc but this would be a VERY long post. The point is: there's clues and big tells for everything. Poeple just 1. ignore commanders advice, 2. have potato pcs which don't load the effects, 3. expect to succeed by facerolling and pressing 1 only (or 4. just don't know/aren't told.)

 

While we can someone mitigate 2 for some people, 1 and 3 are impossible to stop in some people, and 4 is a matter of chance on commanders (if one exists) / observation.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> I feel like this game has too many one-shot mechanics. I'm not talking so much about fractals, raids, etc, but more just in the open world! In fractals and raids, most of the fights have defined mechanics and telegraphed attacks. Some may be difficult to avoid or learn, but they're there.

>

> I find that in a lot of the open world content, there are bosses or monsters that basically one-shot you constantly with no rhyme, reason, or warning. There are others that are nearly impossible to melee (go in, hit the boss 1 time if that, run away before he does his close-range aoe, repeat). A few examples that come to mind are the snipers in HoT maps that drop the lines on the ground - if you don't dodge in literally less than half a second, you're toast. There are also those cavalier monsters that constantly charge and knock you down without giving you a chance to fight back unless you have tons of stability skills. Most boss fights/legendary bounties I've been in in open-world content just consist of massive zergs of people running in, dying, and getting ressed to try again. Everyone wipes multiple times, but eventually the boss is overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Of course stacking vitality/toughness can help, but that's not typically a viable build for content in other areas of the game depending on class.

>

> Does anyone else get frustrated by this? Am I just bad at doing the open world stuff? I don't mind the fact that the bosses are challenging - it's more that I think that one-shot skills should have "something" that gives players a chance to react, kind of like how it is in the raids/fractals. Instead, I'll just see my character get downed by seemingly nothing, sometimes even if I'm nowhere near the boss.

 

I understand the frustration, but yes, this is very much a "learn to play" issue. There are actually very few "1-shot" mechanics in open world and none of your examples contain one. Further, the examples you provide have very obvious telegraphs. You just need to learn to watch for these telegraphs and learn the best strategies for dealing with them.

 

For example, the mordrem sniper. That line of fire does not come out of nowhere. The sniper will kneel in place while taking aim, then continue to rotate in place to maintain its aim before firing the line. It's an attack that is easily defeated by lateral motion and should be very easy to spot as well. But honestly, mordrem snipers have so little health that your best bet is to simply kill them before they can even attack!

 

Or how about those mordrem cavaliers? That charge doesn't come out of nowhere either. Before they charge they will screech at you, applying torment in the line of the charge. At this point you know it's coming and you can simply sidestep it, or dodge, or use stability, or block, etc. But you're really better off interrupting them so they can't charge and then bursting them down before they can try again. Who wants to chase stupid lizards all over the jungle, right?

 

Even those champions and legendary bosses can be done solo (well, most of them anyway!) if you know what you're doing. Bosses scale to have a great deal more health with more players present, but since this game doesn't have healers and tanks the bosses don't really hit any harder than any particular class can handle. Here's an example of a Legendary boss solo you've probably encountered in zerg form before:

 

 

 

 

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> I feel like this game has too many one-shot mechanics. I'm not talking so much about fractals, raids, etc, but more just in the open world! In fractals and raids, most of the fights have defined mechanics and telegraphed attacks. Some may be difficult to avoid or learn, but they're there.

>

> I find that in a lot of the open world content, there are bosses or monsters that basically one-shot you constantly with no rhyme, reason, or warning. There are others that are nearly impossible to melee (go in, hit the boss 1 time if that, run away before he does his close-range aoe, repeat). A few examples that come to mind are the snipers in HoT maps that drop the lines on the ground - if you don't dodge in literally less than half a second, you're toast. There are also those cavalier monsters that constantly charge and knock you down without giving you a chance to fight back unless you have tons of stability skills. Most boss fights/legendary bounties I've been in in open-world content just consist of massive zergs of people running in, dying, and getting ressed to try again. Everyone wipes multiple times, but eventually the boss is overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Of course stacking vitality/toughness can help, but that's not typically a viable build for content in other areas of the game depending on class.

 

Those are actually poor examples. The snipers are probably one of the better balanced mobs. They have 2 dodges, a stun break, a knockback, a charged attack and a channeled attack that deals high damage but they have relatively low HP.

 

As for the cavaliers, they are indeed annoying but that charge is triggered by being at ranged so sticking to melee is one way to avoid it. The biggest problem with it is the fact that it has no cooldown at all so it can end up re-triggering itself in an infinite loop. Also the fact that it can decide to aggro on some random thing even if you are the only player around and decide to charge toward that thing instead.

 

Of course that is only in the 1v1 case and normal level mobs(as opposed to veteran/elite/champion). Once you have more than one around any semblance of good design is thrown out the window. It is a very odd thing. Despite the fact that event scaling has been in the game since launch none of the devs who implement events seem to be aware of this fact. It's one of those things that leads you to wonder if the devs play the game at all or maybe the creation tools simply suck. I am leaning a bit more towards the tools sucking. Mostly because prior to release they said that mobs would scale in more interesting ways instead of just increasing their damage and HP which is exactly we ended up with. It seems like ANet never figured out how to implement "interesting scaling".

 

If you want bad in any scenario try the Mordant Crescent Intimidators' dash attack. High damage, also a knockback and 0 cast time. There are some other enemies that can basically down you with just a twitch or less.

 

However nothing compares to the Awakened Abomination and it's Double-Edged Stance skill. Not only does it "Damages and Bleeds Attackers", it is also a CC when it is triggered. Out of all its skills that is also the one that has the least amount of tell because of course you shouldn't be able to tell when an enemy is about to use its most dangerous attack, you should only see the less dangerous ones(-_-). I haven't done much research on this next part but of the times I've checked the damage done by that skill, on my *heavy* armor character I get hit for 10k per strike but on the light armor character it was 7k. I am not sure why higher defense results in taking higher damage.

 

>

> Does anyone else get frustrated by this? Am I just bad at doing the open world stuff? I don't mind the fact that the bosses are challenging - it's more that I think that one-shot skills should have "something" that gives players a chance to react, kind of like how it is in the raids/fractals. Instead, I'll just see my character get downed by seemingly nothing, sometimes even if I'm nowhere near the boss.

 

I don't love the game enough to be frustrated. It is only enough to be disappointed. Disappointed about what the game could be. Disappointed that nobody seems to care enough to apply that final bit of polish to various things. Most disappointing is that those stuff aren't outright bad but just a slight tweak would have made it better. Like the thing with the cavalier. Just put a 5s CD on it. That would be enough to break the looping situation.

 

Can't say I've really experienced the randomly downed issue though. Closest is while doing Boss Blitz and I see to be getting damage from nowhere. No AoEs, I am not hitting anything with retal nor do I see any projectiles flying at me.

[Blocki.4931]

You bring up the snipers, but they have quite an obvious animation for that skill. They kneel down, aim into a direction and then shoot it 3 seconds later. Most of these issues come from animations that you may or may not notice depending on how much visual clutter there is.

[Sephollos.4829]

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> You bring up the snipers, but they have quite an obvious animation for that skill. They kneel down, aim into a direction and then shoot it 3 seconds later. Most of these issues come from animations that you may or may not notice depending on how much visual clutter there is.

 

It's definitely easy to see if there's one of them, but if there are 2-4 of them in an area, which is pretty typical, it can be near-impossible to keep track of all of them. Especially if you're focusing on another monster and don't notice that there's two snipers mixed in with all the other monsters/players. I don't have a problem with them if I see them and focus them, but if there's one hiding in a group of monsters I'm dead before I know what hit me.

[Tails.9372]

I'd say the main problem in OW PvM is the scaling. Let's say a 50 man squad is taking on a boss (the Claw of Jormag for example), while most people are busy fighting the boss there are also some veterans / elites spawning and now the game is doing something very, very stupid. It asumes that every mob is fighing the entire squad and scales them up accordingly even tho they're realisticly ony fighing 1-3 players at a time. This has to stop, sometimes it feels like I'm fighting a champion when it's only a veteran.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

True one shot mechanics are pretty rare, actually. What most people think of as a one-shot is really an instant-down. There's a difference, since you can recover quickly from being downed. Especially with an upscaled champion in the overworld.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> I'd say the main problem in OW PvM is the scaling. Let's say a 50 man squad is taking on a boss (the Claw of Jormag for example), while most people are busy fighting the boss there are also some veterans / elites spawning and now the game is doing something very, very stupid. It asumes that every mob is fighing the entire squad and scales them up accordingly even tho they're realisticly ony fighing 1-3 players at a time. This has to stop, sometimes it feels like I'm fighting a champion when it's only a veteran.

 

Things get really stupid when you get to lv83 veterans. Can't remember if I've ever seen higher than 83 but the level differences also ends up giving them multiplicative increases for both offense and defense.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > You bring up the snipers, but they have quite an obvious animation for that skill. They kneel down, aim into a direction and then shoot it 3 seconds later. Most of these issues come from animations that you may or may not notice depending on how much visual clutter there is.

>

> It's definitely easy to see if there's one of them, but if there are 2-4 of them in an area, which is pretty typical, it can be near-impossible to keep track of all of them. Especially if you're focusing on another monster and don't notice that there's two snipers mixed in with all the other monsters/players. I don't have a problem with them if I see them and focus them, but if there's one hiding in a group of monsters I'm dead before I know what hit me.

 

You don't need to see the aiming animation in order to avoid the attack as it will always fire in a straight line toward your current position. Lateral movement ensures that your current position is always changing, making it difficult for the sniper line to land and impossible for it to strike multiple times if it does.

 

What you call a "1-shot" likely occurs when you're standing in place. The initial strike from the sniper line lands almost immediately as the line is drawn. So quickly in fact that it will often hit you even if you are moving. But if you're caught standing in place, you will take an additional strike before you can move out of it. And if you're a little slow at reacting, you might even end up dead from 3 or more strikes before you can move out of the line!

 

So, stay in motion when there are snipers present. You may still take damage from the sniper line, but it will only ever be one hit as opposed to 2 or more. Prioritize killing the snipers as they have extremely low health and can be dealt with quickly if you focus them.

 

 

 

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"Sephollos.4829" said:

> > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > You bring up the snipers, but they have quite an obvious animation for that skill. They kneel down, aim into a direction and then shoot it 3 seconds later. Most of these issues come from animations that you may or may not notice depending on how much visual clutter there is.

> >

> > It's definitely easy to see if there's one of them, but if there are 2-4 of them in an area, which is pretty typical, it can be near-impossible to keep track of all of them. Especially if you're focusing on another monster and don't notice that there's two snipers mixed in with all the other monsters/players. I don't have a problem with them if I see them and focus them, but if there's one hiding in a group of monsters I'm dead before I know what hit me.

>

> You don't need to see the aiming animation in order to avoid the attack as it will always fire in a straight line toward your current position. Lateral movement ensures that your current position is always changing, making it difficult for the sniper line to land and impossible for it to strike multiple times if it does.

>

> What you call a "1-shot" likely occurs when you're standing in place. The initial strike from the sniper line lands almost immediately as the line is drawn. So quickly in fact that it will often hit you even if you are moving. But if you're caught standing in place, you will take an additional strike before you can move out of it. And if you're a little slow at reacting, you might even end up dead from 3 or more strikes before you can move out of the line!

>

> So, stay in motion when there are snipers present. You may still take damage from the sniper line, but it will only ever be one hit as opposed to 2 or more. Prioritize killing the snipers as they have extremely low health and can be dealt with quickly if you focus them.

>

>

>

 

That reminds me. There are some mobs with AoE attacks where the attacks hit before the AoEs show up ...

[Biff.5312]

All I can say is that I don't have that problem. Maybe I'm quicker to react. Maybe the ways my self-designed builds differ from 'the meta' make me more survivable. I'm not sure. But, I don't think I ever get one-shotted except by a boss in an event fight.

[Biff.5312]

>

> That reminds me. There are some mobs with AoE attacks where the attacks hit before the AoEs show up ...

 

There are also some aoe indicators that aren't large enough. Many times I've dodged outside of the orange circle and still been hit. I think the effect is actually slightly larger than the graphic.

[Jski.6180]

Any thing that hits over 10k is a problem in a pvp format. Its ok in pve this is where skill spliting should be taking places for ALL skills and the back and forwarded of un split needs to stop.

[Rauderi.8706]

On the one hand, Heart of Thorns is notably a kick in the teeth. You'll figure it out as you learn the fights.

 

On the other hand, the devs do seem to have some obnoxious fetishes for one-hit KOs and disable-CC. It's frustrating because they're nigh constant, Stability is a joke in context, and Toughness is an even bigger joke because it seldom buys you another hit.

[Scar.1793]

The mordrem snipers are easy to dodge there’s a target a above your head and you simply need to keep moving or dodge once the trail appears. Even if it hits you once if you are aware you should know you need to move the... out. Cavaliers can be awful be a lil burst and off you go.

 

My main concerns is for open world bosses. You can’t melee. Their aoe or whatever just pops out and you die/are in downstate. A lot of times there’s no warning or anything it just comes off like that. And everyone just go ranged...yay!