Another Serpents' Ire Thread

So, I realise it's been said a hundred times and will be said a hundred times, but this event as it is is not OK. This event fails way too many times. Unlike most people though, I don't think the issue is with the reward or it requiring too much CC for the Breakbars in Phase 2. After failing the event numerous times with Squads numbering over 35 people (sometimes capped at 50) I think it's time I wrote my opinion on this.

Phase 1 is really simple and rare to see the event fail here when people are actually doing it. ~10 people is enough for this part. There isn't really anything to be said here except for maybe the part where if ~30 people start hitting a Zealot is scales up into the clouds and the fight with it can take up to 5 minutes sometimes, when with 4 people it's down in 2-2,5 minutes. I'll get to my thought on the reason for this later on.

Phase 2 is where almost every Squad fails. The for this is probably two things. Firstly, for an Open World content it requires way too much organisation. The level that is needed is probably on par with Raids. The reason I say this is that if people bring too much CC that isn't part of their general build, they lose damage output. If they bring too much damage they won't be able to break the CC bar. On either end of the spectrum your event will fail. In the videos I saw where people actually finish Phase 2, they have 1 group of people fully focusing on damage and the other 4 groups full of CC to keep the Zealots stunned as much as possible. Which could work... if people were on the level of gear/skill required to execute this.And here comes the second reason... The gear difference compared to launch. The people who did this event at launch and around that time already moved on to farming Living World episodes, that means the people left are either new players, sometimes people who want to the meta for some reason and people who play a lot more casually. Get an average of skill and gear from the whole group and boom! We have a squad with a much lower damage and CC capability than what the event was designed for. This also affects Phase 1 for a lesser extent.

Phase 3... to be honest, I never saw Phase 3... I never got there. But I feel like once I get into a group that passes Phase 2, it will be a piece of cake.

tldr: The part of the community that the event was tailored towards already passed on to other content and the people who are left and want to do it for achievements and such don't have the required skill/gear to complete is. This combined with the level of organisation needed makes the event excessively hard.

How it can be solved?Just two things. During Phase 2 make the timer for the detonation more forgiving and the scaling the the HP and the Breakbar slightly lower. These two should fix the issues with the meta event and might even draw back players who already passed it.

I just played Serpent's Ire for possibly the first time since I purchased PoF when it launched.

And holy crap it's just awful. The first part can be ok with an organized group searching, but the second phase is just absurd. The Breakbars are massive, and the health on the branded zealots is ridiculous. For the amount of effort required, I doubt the rewards will be worth it. This meta needs some serious retuning, because it's all sorts of wrong.

I logged onto Vabbi map yesterday, got by luck a Meta map (not full) and did it with a single comm. First try after weeks. Sure the difficulty could be lowered but the biggest problem comes from ppl not using CC.

I want the meta-event to mostly stay the way it is. You could ease off the cc-part a bit, but else it's fine. It's actually quite refreshing to have a meta-event where you have to use your brain a bit, thus can't doing it totally brain-afk like most other meta-events. Some difficulty-diversity in OW-content isn't just fine, it's actually a good and very much needed thing.

Did it for the 1st time the other day working on the backpack collection. I happened to be in the zone doing something else when I noticed it was starting and the tag was giving out directions in map chat, so I joined.

It was fairly easy I thought, BUT it WAS a decent group, and the tag was giving good directions. Got all the APs, and items for 1st time kill. Keep your eyes open. A lot of people are running this regularly now. People that know HOW to run it.

It’s fairly easy if you zerg it and have teams of like five players for the others whose sole purpose is to CC until the zerg comes.

@Cregath.7628 said:Phase 2 is where almost every Squad fails. The for this is probably two things. Firstly, for an Open World content it requires way too much organisation. The level that is needed is probably on par with Raids. The reason I say this is that if people bring too much CC that isn't part of their general build, they lose damage output. If they bring too much damage they won't be able to break the CC bar.

Be assured: Just because some open world stuff requires a modicum of thinking, it isn't on par with raids. Not even close. Also, the CC/damage trade-off is nowhere as bad as you describe it. The main problem is probably the one typical for almost all open world content, people who (as usual) have no clue what they are doing.

Nevertheless, I agree with the conclusion that phase 2 requirements should be adjusted, i.e. nerfed through the ground. The risk/effort-reward ratio of Serpent's Ire is a bad joke compared to other map metas like AB, TD or whatever else.

I just did this event again for the golem collection (hopefully for the last time) it went well with three squads at least one of which (mine) was completely full.

In all it took 40 minutes from start to end. With the mediocre rewards for the time spent it just isn't worth the effort.

Serpent Ire is about attention check. The failing part is pretty much DPS golem + cc check. Pray thats there not too many people AFK auto attack joining the event.

Really the event is not all that hard, and far easier to organise than the Evolved Jungle Wurm event. But the rewards are not worth it at all since the event takes a long time and does not seem to have any unique drops in the loot table.Most meta events have unique drops, but this one seems to have absolutly nothing worth regulary doing it.

Anet really just needs to add some unique rewards to it. Maybe a branded infusion, Mini branded hydra and priest, maybe an ascended weapon set with branded influence (similar to the tequatl asc weapons). And then people would play this event all day.

I agree that the Break Bars need to be nerfed slightly. I've done the event many times, both in well organized groups and lesser organized groups. The bars were just too much.

There is a guild that runs this on NA, TTS. Here is their schedule https://ttsgamers.com/event-calendar/

Honestly anyone with a commander tag can organise this. Does not require any of those strange guilds

1. Post lfg ~20min before the Meta starts
2. Sort people into 5 subgroups of 10 people each
3. Instruct people that only CC and DPS matter in the 2nd phase
4. Set squad markers and assign each subgroup to a squad marker (make sure to post it on the squad message, so any new person entering the squad reads it)
5. Profit

The only downside of this event is the long duration vs low and boring rewards

It's not the event that's too hard.. it's the fact that zergwars doesn't promote thought and so when it gets to Phase 2 players just go full Rambo without understanding what a break bar is and how you deal with it. Add to that large portions of the zerg stand and auto attack 11111 then sit there waiting for ressing instead of WP'ing and getting back to the fight.Large sale meta meta events, though a grand idea have always promoted lazy gameplay.. then again considering the time put into completing the meta and the paltry rewards from being so disenchanting it's no wonder this particular event has lost its shine pretty quickly.

That said I was in a reasonably unorganised Ire earlier and it went pretty smoothly aside from the fact no matter how many times you /say.. kill the big bad zealot first not the pet.. they still don't listen. But hey it was completed with about 7mins to spare so no biggy.

TTS does it differently in that they form four subgroups with five people each who are set up to spam CC at their bosses. There’s a zerg group with everyone else who then goes boss to boss killing each one and absorbing the subsquad into the zerg.

It’s worked fairly well for them and seems to have a low chance of failing. I did it last Saturday with them and none bar never went below 50%.

http://forums.ttsgamers.com/topic/2989-serpents-ire-guide/

I mean sure, there are probably multiple ways to do it. It would be suprising if there is only 1 working strategy

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:TTS does it differently in that they form four subgroups with five people each who are set up to spam CC at their bosses. There’s a zerg group with everyone else who then goes boss to boss killing each one and absorbing the subsquad into the zerg.

It’s worked fairly well for them and seems to have a low chance of failing. I did it last Saturday with them and none bar never went below 50%.

http://forums.ttsgamers.com/topic/2989-serpents-ire-guide/

I did the event that way 2 days ago. What surprised me most was how much easier it seemed to break the defiance bar with just a handful of people. It was a run with 2 organizers and just randoms to fill out the squad. The 5 zealots didn't get anywhere near to detonating and the final 2 champions died with 9 minutes to spare. It went so smoothly, I was tempted to think the event has been nerfed. Still not worth it though with regard to reward.

Guess you guys were lucky then or something. Good for you.

Ahaha...Firstly, the dififculty is nowhere near that needed for raids. If you think any event that requires more than just hitting something is too hard for open world you must have not done any of the HoT metas.Secondly, people defintiely do not need meta builds and high skill to pull this off, they just need to have their ccs prepared and the resulting damage nerf people experience is nothing in the bigger picture. Open world events aren't designed for meta builds, they're designed assuming you know what cc is, can use the dodge button, can read info under the enemies bars. Sure people with full dps gear can kill things quicker, but nothing is impossible for even full soldiers and full healer stats gears- even in HoT (eg a group of 10 in full soldiers can kill chak gerent just fine), and even this event.

The biggest issue i've found is this: people don't cc. One mesmer (cus thats what i main) can only do so much for this large scale meta. Lots of commanders don't even explain what cc is & that it breaks bars, and tonnes of people just straight up ignore commanders anyway lol.

That said, i agree. I think it EITHER should be nerfed in some way - increase timer on second phase, decrease break bar, one or the other or some combination of both.OR increase rewards - no one would do HoT metas if we didn't need amalgamated gemstones, people would swarm to serpents ire if it gave something valuable and it is not a hard event at all if people have a commander worth their salt, if there was a motivation for good commanders/anyone that doesn't need funery collection, this meta would always have at least one successful map.

I think the event is fine as is. If phase 2 is nerfed every Zerg will steam roll this event every time just like everything else in this game.

Finally we have an open world event that has a chance at failure due to a tough mechanic.

So, I see some people who overestimate raids. They aren't that hard and you don't need a meta build for them (though it helps). I've played Meta maps in HoT and, even when HoT initially came out without all the nerfs (because they got nerfed you know) and they never failed this much.As for those saying that the event is "just fine", be honest here: How often do you actually go out of your way to do it? Thought so.

@ionix.9054 said:I think the event is fine as is. If phase 2 is nerfed every Zerg will steam roll this event every time just like everything else in this game.

Finally we have an open world event that has a chance at failure due to a tough mechanic.

You mean like tripple wurm that only get done with like 2-3 organized guilds that we had for ages?Serpent ire meta is kinda of a crap way to insert difficulty since they take a crap ton of cc to mow down or a big enough zerg only no coordiantion needed.Would be fun to see if all the 5 adds had to be take down within 20 seconds or so instead.