Pestilent Golem: possibly the most boring boss ever?

[Skotlex.7580]

You know it, the final boss of the Domain of Kourma META, that punching bag with infinite HP which apparently does nothing beyond hitting players with a 1-hit-KO punch, and occasionally spawning large radiactive pools that kill within a second if you aren't fast enough to dodge out of it. It has millions of HP, and not even a break-bar phase. Worse yet, it has a few phases where it goes invulnerable, deleting all conditions applied, during which it seems to do nothing more than "push ups" (if this is related to the toxic pools mentioned earlier, the animation isn't really that great).

 

So.... is there any hope to spice up this encounter so it isn't so brain-dead boring?

 

What I would do is to change the invulnerability phase for a break-bar phase, during which the golem shoots multiple seeking missiles at players, which detonate on the impact ground, causing small pools that last just for a couple of seconds. By itself, each pool isn't a threat (as it may take away around half your life), but it's the missile barrage, and ensuing swarm of pools, which makes the encounter dangerous. It would encourage players to spread out (since it's stacking that will cause the toxic pools to overlap), it would be like mixing up the skills of the Legendary Anomaly from Bloodstone Fen with the Fire Golem's attack in the Sorrow's Embrace story mode.

 

Besides that, I would make the One-Punch-Man attack cleave, as it stands it isn't a danger when one player gets downed from it since it gets instant-ressed before the next attack. If said punches could down five people, then they would be more careful meleeing. To compensate (as I am sure just kiting it wouldn't make the encounter any better), it would be nice if the golem had some other attack to track down ranged opponents, like shooting single missles of the aforementioned phase (except these ones could last much longer, like 4~6 seconds), or setting down some turrets (to go with the theme of the map).

 

This may seem like such a silly request, but I feel like the META lacks a lot of the usual quality you'd expect from ANet events :X

[Hevoskuuri.3891]

The LS4E3 release was a bit rushed because of a crazy schedule; I believe Anet devs have said as much themselves. I like your suggestion, and as much as I'd like to see old(er) content revised and upgraded, I just don't think it's going to happen. Anet has their hands full with wrapping up the current season and launching off the next, so I wouldn't keep my hopes up.

 

Of course I could be wrong, and there might be a dev or two cooking something up between LS releases. I didn't expect beetle racing or any of the QoL updates we've had in the past year either.

[Ellegon Mcleod.5931]

> @"Skotlex.7580" said:

> Worse yet, it has a few phases where it goes invulnerable, deleting all conditions applied, during which it seems to do nothing more than "push ups" (if this is related to the toxic pools mentioned earlier, the animation isn't really that great).

>

Just feedback that during that phase he drops some nodes that if not quickly destroyed will generate the toxic pools.

The Toxic pools is why everyone goes close up and personal and thus sometimes ignores the pools.

 

[lokh.2695]

Kourna was half finished and will probably never be revisited. It was the most depressing release in the history of the game, and yes I was there when the new hot stuff was pressing F on countless streetsigns back in 2013/2014. The meta, the boss, the rewards, everything feels rushed and unfinished and I wish ANet would revisit it one day. But since the devs tend to "forget and move on" I doubt it will happen. My advice is, do in the map what you feel you have to then forget and move on, if the devs don't care why should you/we/anyone.

[hugo.4705]

The thing I saw is that Devs do return on previous maps but only for minor tweaks concerning foes density it seems. One of the most flagrant is Invariant Enclave in sandwept. Whereas at the beginning you could only see 3 inquest wandering around the middle, you now have around 12 of them with golems mark I/II + Infiltration cubes, the density highly increased making some karma farms: At the south, at the middle underground path, middle near supressor golems and finally magnetic lab. Some diffluorite have been added too. They also add/remove caches and hidden chests.

 

But, yes as said before, events or quests are never edited. (Apart during feature pack 2014 a bad idea.)

[hugo.4705]

They don't return to previous released content + don't care about map/graphic issues like ghost collision (collision for an invisible block) but yeah they should really redo some events, they should take more time to polish things in the future instead of letting things unfinished. No-mounts areas and walls have the only goal of hiding to players unfinished contents, assume, let us see those unfinished beauties! (Speaking of cerebro as example)

[Skotlex.7580]

Wish ANet could afford to have a small team for quality fixes of already released content. I can think up of many events that could use some tuning up (I think the most egregious would be how badly core Tyria events scale, to the point it causes a negative experience when trying to get a daily there).

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Ellegon Mcleod.5931" said:

> > @"Skotlex.7580" said:

> > Worse yet, it has a few phases where it goes invulnerable, deleting all conditions applied, during which it seems to do nothing more than "push ups" (if this is related to the toxic pools mentioned earlier, the animation isn't really that great).

> >

> Just feedback that during that phase he drops some nodes that if not quickly destroyed will generate the toxic pools.

> The Toxic pools is why everyone goes close up and personal and thus sometimes ignores the pools.

>

 

Except the other day one of those pools spawned overlapping the boss, thus murdering over half of the group. XD

 

Now I know. Except it's generally not needed as a mechanic... if the nodes would spawn where players are instead of randomly then that would already make the mechanic relevant to counter. :o

[Orion Templar.4589]

I really like Domain of Kourna and agree that it's a shame it likely won't be revisited. With the three approaches into Gandara it seems evident they originally planned for the meta to involve more coordination - possibly a three-pronged attack. Even leaving it alone with just the one lane like it is now, at the very least the golem boss should be tweaked. Your ideas were good, but even if they weren't implemented I'd say remove his invulnerable phases and cut his health in half. The fight is simply just too long and too repetitive.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I'd be fine if it had half the health, only phased once. It's just a long, long fight without any special keys or infusions or other rewards that makes it worth doing. There's not much value in inscribed shards after completing the relevant collections.

 

Similarly, why 11 plague experiments? Surely 5-6 to destroy gives people sufficient time to arrive late to the meta and still get credit.

 

Or, if as the OP suggests, ANet spices up the fight, then they should spice up the rewards too.

[hugo.4705]

All metas are just the same in every ls4: beat some ennemies, defend/capture a location and at the end earn 6 chests: enjoy.

No challenge, no rewards.

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Similarly, why 11 plague experiments? Surely 5-6 to destroy gives people sufficient time to arrive late to the meta and still get credit.

 

Or they could greatly reduce the health of the props. In my life I've never faced such a tough table. o_o

 

There were times when late at night we've killed the pilot with 2 minutes remaining, it wasn't enough time to finish off the experiments with just the six of us. :( If the experiments had less life, then spreading out would have allowed us time to manage.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

LS maps are often used for little experiments. Some features make it into later content, while other things are just a one-time-test just to see whether the engine is capable of processing it without trouble. It is also a nice field test for all kinds of npc and event mechanics, loot & drop simulations, as well as minor tests with economic decisions. We just look on the patchnotes and behave like a good test subject.

 

I fought the golem in question a couple of times and believe that they tested a new version of event-scaling. The boss has a standard HP pool and gets a fixed amount of static HP per player participating in the event. That is nothing new, we had this before. However I think the fixed HP stacks are calucalted for full-dps characters only. So every non-dps player entering the fight just upscales the HP pool of the golem a lot more than he can actually deal damage. That is why some groups almost take an eternity to kill it and sometimes even fail. Not enough dps to balance out that drastical HP increase. To make the test less obvious, they made the standard HP pool of the golem already ridiculously high, so the stacks do not take such a great impact (in smaller groups).

 

While the scaling was definitely horrible in this situation, the data was imo re-used in the following LS episodes. The Death-Branded Shatterer uses a similar scaling scheme, but that is a little more realistic. Too large groups still struggle with it, but the scaling appears to be more balanced. I also think the Wrathbringer of Thunderhead Keep (meta) uses the resulting data from the test in Kourna. Although I think it is probably the most balanced version at the moment. Maybe it does no longer use a static value for the HP stacking, maybe it just uses a lower value.

 

Note: This is only a theory of mine. I just try to figure out why this golem appears to be so different. There is no physical data to back up my theory.

[Quarktastic.1027]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veteran_Malevolent_Memory

This is the most boring boss ever. I'm really glad Anet decided to never reuse that fragility mechanic.

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Quarktastic.1027" said:

> This is the most boring boss ever. I'm really glad Anet decided to never reuse that fragility mechanic.

 

I was totally not thinking of instance bosses when I wrote the title. XD Those surely had a few extremely annoying mechanics in the game's history... fortunately they tend to be a "once, never again" sort of experience.

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

> @"Quarktastic.1027" said:

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veteran_Malevolent_Memory

> This is the most boring boss ever. I'm really glad Anet decided to never reuse that fragility mechanic.

 

inb4 that's all we fight in Episode 6/LWS5

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"Skotlex.7580" said:

> You know it, the final boss of the Domain of Kourma META, that punching bag with infinite HP which apparently does nothing beyond hitting players with a 1-hit-KO punch, and occasionally spawning large radiactive pools that kill within a second if you aren't fast enough to dodge out of it. It has millions of HP, and not even a break-bar phase. Worse yet, it has a few phases where it goes invulnerable, deleting all conditions applied, during which it seems to do nothing more than "push ups" (if this is related to the toxic pools mentioned earlier, the animation isn't really that great).

>

> So.... is there any hope to spice up this encounter so it isn't so brain-dead boring?

>

> What I would do is to change the invulnerability phase for a break-bar phase, during which the golem shoots multiple seeking missiles at players, which detonate on the impact ground, causing small pools that last just for a couple of seconds. By itself, each pool isn't a threat (as it may take away around half your life), but it's the missile barrage, and ensuing swarm of pools, which makes the encounter dangerous. It would encourage players to spread out (since it's stacking that will cause the toxic pools to overlap), it would be like mixing up the skills of the Legendary Anomaly from Bloodstone Fen with the Fire Golem's attack in the Sorrow's Embrace story mode.

>

> Besides that, I would make the One-Punch-Man attack cleave, as it stands it isn't a danger when one player gets downed from it since it gets instant-ressed before the next attack. If said punches could down five people, then they would be more careful meleeing. To compensate (as I am sure just kiting it wouldn't make the encounter any better), it would be nice if the golem had some other attack to track down ranged opponents, like shooting single missles of the aforementioned phase (except these ones could last much longer, like 4~6 seconds), or setting down some turrets (to go with the theme of the map).

>

> This may seem like such a silly request, but I feel like the META lacks a lot of the usual quality you'd expect from ANet events :X

 

Not that a break bar phase would help. people on maps are autopiloting zombies that just mash 1. Pub maps almost never succeed at break bars. Too many "new" players or more likely, just people who don't care and just want to be carried. You have to cuss them out and be rude to them just to get them to pay attention to chat and then the map goes against you for being "mean"

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"lokh.2695" said:

> Kourna was half finished and will probably never be revisited. It was the most depressing release in the history of the game

 

I disagree. The story missions, especially the final one, with its excellent cutscenes and mechanics, were great fun to play. The map had a few highlights as well.

 

The meta, however, is a joke indeed.

[hugo.4705]

Overall E3 was really really bad, apart some spots of the map which are interesting, quests are for 3/4 uninspired, same for events, killing joko was also a joke. One of the worst release, don't see what happened to every team after the release of the beautiful episode 2.

 

The quality of that episode isn't reached again, ep3 and 5 are almost same, 4 is better due to beautiful environments.

[kharmin.7683]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> Not that a break bar phase would help. people on maps are autopiloting zombies that just mash 1. Pub maps almost never succeed at break bars. Too many "new" players or more likely, just people who don't care and just want to be carried. You have to cuss them out and be rude to them just to get them to pay attention to chat and then the map goes against you for being "mean"

Having the ability to insta-boost to 80 for a new player really speaks to this as such a player never plays through content that would (hopefully) teach these things. I blame ANet and the instant gratification crowd.

 

[LONGA.1652]

He is just a DPS golem on a place where people don't maximize there DPS or just AFK auto attack.

And double up with following event destroying the strongest Lab equipment .

[Skotlex.7580]

It's strange that people would think kourma is fine with it's lack of mechanics due to new players being the one doing the events here.

 

Even if that were true, what about every single map and boss mechanics that came before? Players should have encountered enough difficulties previously... it's sort of insulting to state that kourma is fine after all the more complex content that came before.

 

if anything, it makes a lot more sense to believe the team in charge run out of resources so they couldn't get the meta working on the level of quality they originally envisioned.

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > Not that a break bar phase would help. people on maps are autopiloting zombies that just mash 1. Pub maps almost never succeed at break bars. Too many "new" players or more likely, just people who don't care and just want to be carried. You have to cuss them out and be rude to them just to get them to pay attention to chat and then the map goes against you for being "mean"

> Having the ability to insta-boost to 80 for a new player really speaks to this as such a player never plays through content that would (hopefully) teach these things. I blame ANet and the instant gratification crowd.

>

 

The type of player I'm talking about never learns anything unless you force them to. That's why I've asked anet for the new player tutorial to contain a break bar section and probably a dodging section and you can't get out into the rest of the game until you can pass those two sections. I don't give a rip how many people think it's "too hard" and give up, that means they won't infest meta events and fail them for others.

[perilisk.1874]

> @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> The type of player I'm talking about never learns anything unless you force them to. That's why I've asked anet for the new player tutorial to contain a break bar section and probably a dodging section and you can't get out into the rest of the game until you can pass those two sections. I don't give a rip how many people think it's "too hard" and give up, that means they won't infest meta events and fail them for others.

 

Don't forget that not all professions have equal access to CC, that scaling above 5 tends to require more CC per player, and that soft CC scales much more poorly than hard CC.

 

If you could keep all soft CCs up permanently (including fear and taunt, which is a little questionable), it would do about 333 bar damage per second (considering regen as well). For a typical bar scaled up for 100 players, it takes 17,700 damage to break it. IOW, you can break the bar once every 53 seconds using max soft CC.

 

If the boss pops a bar and you've got 6 seconds to break it before he uses his super attack... well, hope you have some warriors or thieves or mesmers around. No amount of git gud or tutorials is going to make a Necro useful in this scenario.

 

 

[Devildoc.6721]

> @"perilisk.1874" said:

> > @"Devildoc.6721" said:

> > The type of player I'm talking about never learns anything unless you force them to. That's why I've asked anet for the new player tutorial to contain a break bar section and probably a dodging section and you can't get out into the rest of the game until you can pass those two sections. I don't give a rip how many people think it's "too hard" and give up, that means they won't infest meta events and fail them for others.

>

> Don't forget that not all professions have equal access to CC, that scaling above 5 tends to require more CC per player, and that soft CC scales much more poorly than hard CC.

>

> If you could keep all soft CCs up permanently (including fear and taunt, which is a little questionable), it would do about 333 bar damage per second (considering regen as well). For a typical bar scaled up for 100 players, it takes 17,700 damage to break it. IOW, you can break the bar once every 53 seconds using max soft CC.

>

> If the boss pops a bar and you've got 6 seconds to break it before he uses his super attack... well, hope you have some warriors or thieves or mesmers around. No amount of git gud or tutorials is going to make a Necro useful in this scenario.

>

>

 

Necro can have quite a bit of CC actually, Reaper has GS pull, the blind field as a soft pulsing CC, swap to x/warhorn and wail of doom, jump into shroud and use your fear, the deep freeze stun on 5, 2 is another blind for another soft CC, slot flesh golem and order him to charge, you do have options... one of your sand shade skills as scourge is also a fear, offhand torch #5 is a knockdown. It's not people not having access to CC, it's people who just simply don't care or are extremely incompetent and don't use what they have. They also fail at any mechanic you put into a boss fight, just laying on the ground dead asking people to res them.