Serpent's Ire feedback

TL;WR: Has anyone done this successfully? If yes, how many players? Any mechanic other than the obvious?

We were in the Domain of Vabbi hunting some bounties when Serpent's Ire came up, so why not do that one since nobody ever did it. Our ragtag crew of nobodies gathered via LFG, about 20, set out to conquer the brand.

Killing veterans was pretty easy, even though a few heroes were zapped by the lightning. Fun times! Then zealots started to spawn. While tracking them down was fun at first it became a bit tedious since you had no idea where to look for them. Maybe they should be marked on the map even without someone close. We found the last one only a few minutes before the time ran out. With 5 players they went down pretty fast. Probably 2 minutes to kill one. So we started to feel invincible!

I also found it quite hilarious that the evil djinns moved the protections bubbles around randomly which sometimes got unaware players killed by lightning.

With all zealots dead we rushed to the next event in the northern area where you had to fight all 5 of them. Only to hit a wall there. Obviously you need to spread out to all 5 and either break their bar often or kill them fast enough before the ritual completes.

It was impossible to break just one bar or kill one zealot. Even with heavy cc builds people brought to the fight. Moa signet didn't even put a dent into the bar, probably removed 5% or something. And so after 2 minutes or so our heroes met their inevitable end.

Is there something to this event we missed? If so it is not communicated well.

Right now it looks like the 5 zealots are scaled for all people in the area but there are only 1/5 of them fighting/breaking each of them. Short of bringing a giant zerg I didn't see an alternative. Which is kinda misleading since the events before that can be done perfectly fine with 15-20. So it feels like that either the event where you need to hunt down the 5 zealots needs a massive scaling up so that it needs a full squad already or the final event needs to be tuned down so that it works with the same amount of players as the one before.

I've tried 4 times I think. Failed each time at the second phase. From people that finished it with success I heard that it took them a while to prepare accordingly but the rewards were very dissapointing.

Finished this chain last night.

I dunno, we just had around 5-10 at each zealot, and i just told people "more CC" in /say and burnt them down with lots of condis. It might just need lots of soft CC stacked to stop the bar regenerating/keep it degenerating? I was playing scourge, so plonking fear with f4, and kd with touch 5 seemed to do a decent amount.

It probably helped we had a decent size zerg, that had cleared several bounties, including legendaries beforehand. So the zerg had plenty of confidence in itself - despite some QQers.

For the pair of branded after that - try not to kill the pet first as it gets revived. That being said - there's no sync requirement, so the kills can be staggered.

All I can suggest is: bring something that can share might, and/or bring lots of CC. There is always a need of both. Other dps boosting buffs like fury, banners, gotl wouldn't hurt either.

So you had close to 50 for the whole event? Then IMO the part before should be tuned upwards a lot so that you can't easily breeze through it with 15 ppl only to be totally destroyed at the 2nd event. Because if you bring an army to the pre-event it's just a boring 11111-zerg-fest.

All the other events and bounties are really fun with a smaller group (like 15 max) so I hope this one is brought in line. Or at least made consistent over the whole chain. I don't mind bringing an army to the hunt event if it's a challenge too. :)

Since this is labeled as feedback i'll give mine based on what i've seen.

1) Champion Zealots need to show their location on the UI when and where they spawn2) The Djinn protection spheres need to not run off3) The CC required to break bars needs to be reduced easily by 33% if not more4) Each phase of this meta should grant rewards5) Upon completion of this non-sense Branded Fury should cease in the area until the activity starts again.

@TexZero.7910 said:Since this is labeled as feedback i'll give mine based on what i've seen.

2) The Djinn protection spheres need to not run off

Still I find this part fun... in a sadistic kind of way. :)

5) Upon completion of this non-sense Branded Fury should cease in the area until the activity starts again.

This is actually a very nice idea and an incentive to do the event. Because right now it's rather hard to gather ppl for it. But I guess many are still busy with other things, so it's too early to tell.

@Kiza.5630 said:So you had close to 50 for the whole event? Then IMO the part before should be tuned upwards a lot so that you can't easily breeze through it with 15 ppl only to be totally destroyed at the 2nd event. Because if you bring an army to the pre-event it's just a boring 11111-zerg-fest.

All the other events and bounties are really fun with a smaller group (like 15 max) so I hope this one is brought in line. Or at least made consistent over the whole chain. I don't mind bringing an army to the hunt event if it's a challenge too. :)

ermm. Actually we started off at around 20, put up an lfg for the meta, and it filled within a couple of minutes.Though my view of players may be distorted as we had 2 tags up doing different zealots and many spread out killing vets and searching for the zealots.So being able to start with less, and fill up with LFG while the earlier stages are going on seems like a nice idea - in theory.

Also i thought the branded fury actually did disappear in the mirror of lyss during the final stage. I was disappointed when it returned immediately after they died.

What does concern me is the best loot is one time collection items. It could do with a bit more, considering it feels on the scale of the hot metas in later phases.

First ahead: The meta was/is fun, really feels challenging, but the rewards are not at all adequate.

We had 50-60 players on us, split up on the 5 bosses and gave people instructions to change all their utility skills to CC. Went almost smooth then and we did it.

This meta has potential to be done regularly, it's challenging group content, but currently the rewards are not good enough to motivate people to do it multiple times.

The meta is very doable if you spend time organising it before it starts. But the rewards are basically non existant other than an one time collection item.

@Fryggenbart.3907 said:This meta has potential to be done regularly, it's challenging group content, but currently the rewards are not good enough to motivate people to do it multiple times.

What rewards make the metas in HoT so much more repeatable, than the ones in PoF? (never done this one, so just curious)

@Shadowresli.3782 said:

@Fryggenbart.3907 said:This meta has potential to be done regularly, it's challenging group content, but currently the rewards are not good enough to motivate people to do it multiple times.

1st: gold (in form on salvage/sellable items)2nd: currency you need to craft/buy legendary weapons/armour3rd: unique auras/skins4rthish: they are more fun,(for me) more mechanics, not only "kill this, kill that"

@Shadowresli.3782 said:

@Fryggenbart.3907 said:This meta has potential to be done regularly, it's challenging group content, but currently the rewards are not good enough to motivate people to do it multiple times.

Consider, for example, that Octovine in Auric Basin gives players 27 loot chests to open, on top of the meta event progress rewards and multiple event completion rewards. It's an event of similar scale, and similar difficulty, but Serpent's Ire's rewards don't only just feel lacking, they are.

@Shadowresli.3782 said:

@Fryggenbart.3907 said:This meta has potential to be done regularly, it's challenging group content, but currently the rewards are not good enough to motivate people to do it multiple times.

to rearrange your question slightly:what makes the pof meta event less repeatable:one time collection drop item.Which in of itself is fine. However the rest of the loot is mediocre and hardly worth the effort required ( both individually, and finding a group both large, and skilled enough to complete the event chain).

If you want 50 people to do this over anything else in the game, offer more than just a collection item for exotic gloves. Or nerf the whol;e event so 5 people can do it in 15 minutes. The scale of this for the reward is ridiculous.

I had luck to complete this event today. I have to say it wasn't very interesting, mechanics were meh and loot even worse. I unlocked my collection item and I am not going to bother with this event ever again.

Thing is... more and more people "complete" PoF every day. Those who stay behind will most likely never complete this meta unless anet introduces some rewards to it or tunes it down significantly.

What collection is this for?

I did it a while back:

1. The champion zealots need to appear on the map when they spawn, there's no need to make you play hide-and-seek in the entire brand
2. The scaling on the second phase is nightmarishly bad, we only barely managed to win in time and the zealot I was fighting had a break bar that was almost impossible to break
3. The rewards are ruthlessly mediocre.

@Ubi.4136 said:What collection is this for?

You need it for the Funerary Glove collection.

I did it once just for the collectionAll you have to do is bring full cc abilities and you are done

@JVJD.4912 said:I did it once just for the collectionAll you have to do is bring full cc abilities and you are done

You mean you can solo it?

Tried it once. Failed by a few pixels of health of the last crystal exploding zealot. The whole thing was excruciatingly annoying. As is the whole of the Domain of Vabbi, incidentally, so it fits right in.

@sigur.9453 said:

@Shadowresli.3782 said:

@Fryggenbart.3907 said:This meta has potential to be done regularly, it's challenging group content, but currently the rewards are not good enough to motivate people to do it multiple times.

3 may be true for PoF as well but with low drop rates and low success rate it is possible nobody had gotten one yet.

The part where you search for the champions are pretty ... meh. Did I miss all the posts rantly and raving about all the fun of running around searching for guild bounties? That part basically takes the worst part of guild bounties and makes it worse.

They don't necessarily have to be marked but there should be some mechanics to the search beyond luck and having a massive enough group to have a decent coverage of the area.

Gonna have to get into the boat on this one. I did the Serpents' Ire meta once (completed it) and I don't see myself doing it again. It has nothing to do with rewards and everything to do with how it's structured and where it's located. Granted, this probably boils down to personal preference but I'm not a fan of the "Fury of the Brand" effect. I've only done map completion in Vabbi with two characters and I'm not going to do it again because of that effect. Same for the meta.

Don't get me wrong. I really WANT to do it again. I like the concept. I just ain't a fan of how it was executed and its location with the effect I mentioned.

So, to update the initial feedback a bit. I've done it a few times now (means: 4) with totally random players gathered via LFG. Phase 2 does indeed work fine if the squad is full and you can distribute 10 players to each zealot and you constantly beg everyone to equip CC.

Phase 3 on the other hand can be done with a completely disorganized zerg again. So it's really only part 2 that sticks out that much. If it is toned down a bit I think more people will play it. Personally I don't really care for rewards, I'm even fine with the way it is, but maybe a fancy dragon chest at the end won't hurt to bring players there.

i have done sucessful in first try, but the last 2 phases is heavy dependent on CC..... i think my luck is that ppl roam doing PoF achievments is already used to this type of meta. i gathered ppl like 30 mins before, 50/50 man zerg. i was the commander, but the real ones leading the zerg was some experienced guys giving instructions on chat.