Strike mission opinions, boneskinner (and the previous bosses)

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Aaralyna.3104 said:Haven't tried it yet @Ayrilana.1396 but it sounds kinda bad if mechanics can still be skipped I guess.

If you have a good healer, you can still skip the torch mechanic. Just saw it streamed again and they had to do that mechanic as they wiped fairly quickly when they skipped it.

Edit: That second group fell apart as the commander rage quit because people kept getting downed. Only one person was doing the torches.

[Michram.6853]

OK, the Boneskinner is actually quite challenging right now, try it out, it makes you use your brain actually \o/

[Randulf.7614]

Do you still get rewards if you have done it today?

[Randulf.7614]

Ha! party wiped in 20 seconds and half the squad left in annoyance. Prob didn't realise it had changed.More squad wipes, more rage quits. No one wants to do the mecahnics, just heal through itGonna be a fun night :)

edit

Well best run was 35%. In the end, it was just too much going on at too fast a pace for a public instance with people coming and going. The mechanics are good and right, just too unforgiving to keep on top of for what is designed for pugs to do every day.No issues for a normal raid boss or fractal instance. But a public, I think maybe a bit too much given the rewards aren't worth the effort although I reserve full judgement until after a few days. I wouldn't do that daily for sure. Not sure how many would. It was fun trying though, so I will give it that - reminded me of the old days of when I actually did raids and sussing things out in mmos and chipping away at it.

It is only day one though, so maybe after the weekend itll be smooth sailing. It is a cool fight.

[LadyKitty.6120]

It's now actually quite punishing with that aura damage (more brütal than typical raid enrages if torches go out) and getting gold is no joke anymore. Kitty still got it done with a very experienced group of raiders with enough dps for gold. But in short, you'll need 115k squad dps for gold reward and the dps uptime is surprisingly limited so it can be really difficult to get that gold reward unless squad seriously knows their stuff and just surviving requires peoples to do the mechanic and healers to provide good amount of healing.

[LucianDK.8615]

Sounds like it got overtuned. Noone will be doing it at this level of difficulty for such a paltry reward.

[Lottie.5370]

@LucianDK.8615 said:Sounds like it got overtuned. Noone will be doing it at this level of difficulty for such a paltry reward.

Yeah, except for all the people that are still doing it.

[Squigglez.1236]

Felt the need to comment on this. I did the broken version yesterday and breezed through it, so I agree that it was trash and needed fixing. Today I joined a group on a whim and we got destroyed. I've only did a handful of raid bosses so I'm not expert but I feel like this is a bit much. The rewards are trash for the effort it takes to kill now. People are doing it but I imagine it's because:

1. It's new and some people are trying to learn it, and many (like myself) don't know it was changed.
2. It's still the newest map so people may want the currency.
3. There's an achievement, I think, for killing all different strike bosses in the rotation.I'd like them to tune it between these, the boss should require mechanics to get people in the mindset of having a role to play, but the challenge and rewards need to be balanced. If it stays this hard with no better rewards nobody is going to do it. You'd be better off skipping this week and running the 2 easier ones. Hell, that's what people did with dungeons, running the 1-2 easy paths and the others rarely seeing the light of day, and those:
4. Only required 5 people.
5. Had almost no mechanics.
6. Required no real party comp.
7. Were relatively easy even on the "Hard" paths.
8. Had arguably better rewards (Gold, ecto from salvage, and occasionally a rune set you couldn't get anywhere else).Who's going to get a party of 10 people with healers, high dps, and maybe require quick/alac and other such buffs just to get a few blues and greens and crappy ingots that only let you unlock some weapon skins and can be acquired in the LS map.Maybe in a few days enough people will know it that it will become a non-issue but it still seems like it'll be restrictive and present the same issue as starting out raiding does.

[Linken.6345]

@"XDeathShadowX.2619" said:Felt the need to comment on this. I did the broken version yesterday and breezed through it, so I agree that it was trash and needed fixing. Today I joined a group on a whim and we got destroyed. I've only did a handful of raid bosses so I'm not expert but I feel like this is a bit much. The rewards are trash for the effort it takes to kill now. People are doing it but I imagine it's because:

1. It's new and some people are trying to learn it, and many (like myself) don't know it was changed.
2. It's still the newest map so people may want the currency.
3. There's an achievement, I think, for killing all different strike bosses in the rotation.I'd like them to tune it between these, the boss should require mechanics to get people in the mindset of having a role to play, but the challenge and rewards need to be balanced. If it stays this hard with no better rewards nobody is going to do it. You'd be better off skipping this week and running the 2 easier ones. Hell, that's what people did with dungeons, running the 1-2 easy paths and the others rarely seeing the light of day, and those:
4. Only required 5 people.
5. Had almost no mechanics.
6. Required no real party comp.
7. Were relatively easy even on the "Hard" paths.
8. Had arguably better rewards (Gold, ecto from salvage, and occasionally a rune set you couldn't get anywhere else).Who's going to get a party of 10 people with healers, high dps, and maybe require quick/alac and other such buffs just to get a few blues and greens and crappy ingots that only let you unlock some weapon skins and can be acquired in the LS map.Maybe in a few days enough people will know it that it will become a non-issue but it still seems like it'll be restrictive and present the same issue as starting out raiding does.

Well you can craft bags with the ingots aswell.

[Ayrilana.1396]

If you're absolutely hard set on beating it without executing the mechanics properly, you can still stack scourges. Two of them should be able to hard carry the group but more wouldn't hurt either since you're not going to get your blues/greens bonus loot by doing this anyway.

[Aaralyna.3104]

Did it today and on 1st try we had 1 healer and we were a bit allover the place coz use mechanic or not.... when most were downed we just gg. Then on retry we went 2 healer and just stacked like on old version and we got it down on gold. Ofc we now and then got downed shortly but we could use whisps to get up (and others ressing ofc). Difficulty wise I think its fine now. Rewards could be better but that goes for all strikes we have. On the Grothmar boss (with better rewards) I get the same loot as last boss really as I am not lucky with rng. I would like to see a strike missions currency where you can also buy those rare items with.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Wish at least the Boneskinner had better rewards. Since they upped the difficulty (via bug fix?) I need to give it a go finally.

[maxwelgm.4315]

Gotta agree with the overall sentiment here: in terms of development expenses, dungeons were certainly the most complex and intricate mode, while raids downgraded it a bit trying to maintain at least a semblance of lore, and strikes is flat out fast food with no consequence whatsoever to anything other than the duration of the timer. The fact that so many were released so fast with no mention of ever getting a new raid again makes this all reek of desperation (did the raid team disband without key members? are both fractals and raids going the way of dungeons? Why not even state anything about it?).

Anet wants to get content out fast, with as little effort as possible, on a budget, and Strikes seem to be just the mode for that, not dungeons, not raids, not fractals (predictions for if and when this forum is gonna be renamed to Strikes?). I guess an avid observer could have foreseen the logical conclusion of butchering dungeons in favor of fractals, and then streamlining it into a 10-man mode with optional lore and almost exclusively boss encounters. Players kind of got what they wanted, I guess? Strikes are faster than fractals, easier than raids, less elaborate than dungeons, just need to give 20g a boss now and we're set, lol! The only way this can be optimized further is if GW2 goes mobile, no sarcasm.

[Lucentfir.7430]

It's really weird on one hand I love and enjoy that the Boneskinner is deadly now compared to its first time out. On the other hand the idea behind it's mechanic with torch lighting became largely ignored/not worth doing in the various runs I've been in. Basically encouraging the group to stack healers to out heal the DPS and get downs up quicker(pugs). And the ideas of stirke missions were about being stepping stones to raids and teaching people mechanics/doing them.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@"Lucentfir.7430" said:It's really weird on one hand I love and enjoy that the Boneskinner is deadly now compared to its first time out. On the other hand the idea behind it's mechanic with torch lighting became largely ignored/not worth doing in the various runs I've been in. Basically encouraging the group to stack healers to out heal the DPS and get downs up quicker(pugs). And the ideas of stirke missions were about being stepping stones to raids and teaching people mechanics/doing them.

But for many raids that strategy works aswell. At vale guardian we even call it mechanic instead of cheese (overheal). You can raid with optimal group to get smooth and fast kills or you can cheese stuff with 3 healers or even with 3 healers and harrier chrono(s). This wont work against all bosses but it works against many.

Many raid bosses has way too much time before the enrage so you dont even hit the enrage timer with 3 healers and even if you do, many bosses have a soft enrage that just adds some extra damage or stuff like that. Not all of them are like gorseval or largos where enrage means insta death.

IMO this shows pretty well that raids are not actually that hard, its the optimized squad compositions that are hard for newer players. And if your goal is just get a raid kills instead of getting "pro" there is always room for little cheese.

[Metasynaptic.1093]

If you are using 3 healers in a raid, something is wrong

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@Metasynaptic.1093 said:If you are using 3 healers in a raid, something is wrong

For most bosses there is something wrong even with 2 healers but that was not my point.Point was that content is not hard, but it feels hard when inexperienced players are trying exp strats.

[Randulf.7614]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:

@"Metasynaptic.1093" said:If you are using 3 healers in a raid, something is wrong

For most bosses there is something wrong even with 2 healers but that was not my point.Point was that content is not hard, but it feels hard when inexperienced players are trying exp strats.

No the content is hard, until you are good enough to beat it. That's the same with anything that is hard or challenging.

If you find it easy, that doesn't change whether the content is hard or not, it is a reflection of the greater skill or you, the team and the combined. You are simply a better player.

And that is ultimately what normal instanced content is about.

I'm still on the fence about Boneskinner since whilst I find it incredibly difficult and one of the hardest fights I've encountered in the game, I also really enjoyed the trying and part of me wants the satisfaction of beating it. The main issues revolve around it not being rewarding (why would I want the effort of repeating it?) and it not being complimentary to a public join system. You need a cohesive and usually a specific group make up - you can't just bung 10 randoms and expect to do it. Which kinda defeats the idea behind public strike missions which are designed to be completed by any group composition.

All I do know is that it has brought the worst out in the community on both sides of the coin. People are being labelled "elitist", "toxic jerks", "useless noobs", idiots who refuse to get gud". It's a little unavoidable, but it certainly isn't the deign intention to segregate attitudes so severely. I think they even stated somewhere (guild chat maybe?) that's what they wanted to use Strike Missions to help avoid and reduce.

I can live with it staying the difficulty if they incentivise repeat play better, but it's not been a good reflection on the community so far

[Lucentfir.7430]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:

@"Lucentfir.7430" said:It's really weird on one hand I love and enjoy that the Boneskinner is deadly now compared to its first time out. On the other hand the idea behind it's mechanic with torch lighting became largely ignored/not worth doing in the various runs I've been in. Basically encouraging the group to stack healers to out heal the DPS and get downs up quicker(pugs). And the ideas of stirke missions were about being stepping stones to raids and teaching people mechanics/doing them.

But for many raids that strategy works aswell. At vale guardian we even call it mechanic instead of cheese (overheal). You can raid with optimal group to get smooth and fast kills or you can cheese stuff with 3 healers or even with 3 healers and harrier chrono(s). This wont work against all bosses but it works against many.

Many raid bosses has way too much time before the enrage so you dont even hit the enrage timer with 3 healers and even if you do, many bosses have a soft enrage that just adds some extra damage or stuff like that. Not all of them are like gorseval or largos where enrage means insta death.

IMO this shows pretty well that raids are not actually that hard, its the optimized squad compositions that are hard for newer players. And if your goal is just get a raid kills instead of getting "pro" there is always room for little cheese.

That's not my point though. Why have mechanics and try to teach people about them if people are going to ignore and cheese them. When i expect mechanics I expect things like CM 100 where failing mechanics are punishing, like dropping the ball, or not killing the anomaly in time, not facing away and moving out of the AoE strip downing fear. Raid wise things like dealing with Mathias' sacrifice mechanic. The Boneskinner fight is supposed to be designed around keeping torches lit, yet forgoes that entirely because it's not worth doing it, and if you're trying to do it, it's normally bad to do because you're out of the healing stack and taking heaps of damage and going down often. I honestly think the way it should be is, keeping torches lit= extra damage to the Boneskinner and reducing the range and damage of its aura, but every unlit torch reduces damage it takes, and makes its aura stronger, and reduces incoming healing to players.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Lucentfir.7430 said:Why have mechanics and try to teach people about them if people are going to ignore and cheese them.

Because it's hard to cheese mechanics in a public mission where everyone can join with whatever terrible build they use with no consideration for group composition. And this is normal. What Strike Missions need is a much more punishing version (by more punishing I mean can't be cheesed primarily) for pre-made squads to fight in. While at it, the public version difficulty can be altered a bit so it's actually true public content. Right now the Boneskinner fight is too easy for experienced pre-made groups as they can cheese it easily, why it's probably too hard for random public groups, that can't cheese it, failing to appeal to both types of players.

Edit: By pre-made I mean squad where players have multiple character ready and are willing and able to swap. Not every player has a healer ready to go and you can't expect in 10 random people to find 3 or 4 healers. Or ANY healer for that matter.

[Fueki.4753]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Lucentfir.7430 said:Why have mechanics and try to teach people about them if people are going to ignore and cheese them.

Because it's hard to cheese mechanics in a public mission where everyone can join with whatever terrible build they use with no consideration for group composition. And this is normal. What Strike Missions need is a much more punishing version (by more punishing I mean can't be cheesed primarily) for pre-made squads to fight in. While at it, the public version difficulty can be altered a bit so it's actually true public content. Right now the Boneskinner fight is too easy for experienced pre-made groups as they can cheese it easily, why it's probably too hard for random public groups, that can't cheese it, failing to appeal to both types of players.

Edit: By pre-made I mean squad where players have multiple character ready and are willing and able to swap. Not every player has a healer ready to go and you can't expect in 10 random people to find 3 or 4 healers. Or ANY healer for that matter.

Or just put it in as a challenge mode, rather than forcing premade squads into it.After all, public Strike Missions can bug out, stop counting players and thus prevent playing the Strike Mission.In case of such a bug, people need to make a squad outside.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Fueki.4753 said:Or just put it in as a challenge mode, rather than forcing premade squads into it.After all, public Strike Missions can bug out, stop counting players and thus prevent playing the Strike Mission.In case of such a bug, people need to make a squad outside.

That can work too although Arenanet seems allergic to challenge modes recently

[Fueki.4753]

@maddoctor.2738 said:That can work too although Arenanet seems allergic to challenge modes recently

I found it weird that Arenanet had put in some at all.They seemed to be allergic to difficulty options since days 1.

[borgs.6103]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:That can work too although Arenanet seems allergic to challenge modes recently

I found it weird that Arenanet had put in some at all.They seemed to be allergic to difficulty options since days 1.

Nah. Orr maps were hard. Granted people in the early days of the game have at best rare gears.HoT maps and metas were pretty challenging at release too.

But then again, they nerfed the maps' difficulty after a few months so there could be some truth to that.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Honestly, the biggest difficulty about Bonesrskinner was people doing proper DPS rotations and assigned roles actually doing their jobs. Sometimes it feels like the community's been neutered on that front.