Finally did the boneskinner strike mission last night, just my experience.

[Zexanima.7851]

Nothing revelational here, just my experience. I'll start by saying I play PvE casually. I mostly do PvP/WvW with the occasional fractal with the guild. I went into this having no idea what it was or what to expect. I was on spellbreaker as that's just what I've been playing in PvP lately (with a PvE build of course, full ascended zerker gear with scholar). All I knew is I needed it for the achievement to get that sweet back-piece. I joined a pug group in LFG that were mostly new players. The first few runs were rough and we had a couple people give up on us and leave. We ended up changing the LFG message to reflect that it was more a "learning" run to avoid these impatient people just trying to get through it as fast as possible. Eventually we got a solid group together that stuck with it and didn't give up first wipe. It took maybe two hours total from the first time the group formed until we finally beat it and I had a blast despite the few salty people we got in our group at the start.

How did we finally beat it? I swapped from my spellbreaker to my harrier firebrand and we got a total of three healers and just healed through the mechanics. While overall I enjoyed the experience this...irks me. What is the point of even having mechanics if it's easier to just ignore them and out heal everything? I really didn't want to play healer but was forced into it if I wanted to succeed. I would have rather had to do mechanics like lighting torches and killing wisps to win rather than just switch professions and heal-heal-heal. We tried to do it with the mechanics first with two healers no less and it was just too punishing. Lighting the torches spread us out too much and same with focusing the wisps. We had to stay relatively stacked to stay alive and the solution instead of "practice and get good at the mechanics" was to "just switch professions, heal, ignore mechanics". I enjoyed finally beating him but this kind of sucked some of the fun out of it for me. Maybe we could have beat it by doing the mechanics eventually but out-healing was just such a better strategy I don't even see the point of the mechanics in the first place.To me it seems like doing the mechanics should be the easier option while out healing the damage should be the tougher option.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@"Zexanima.7851" said:Nothing revelational here, just my experience. I'll start by saying I play PvE casually. I mostly do PvP/WvW with the occasional fractal with the guild. I went into this having no idea what it was or what to expect. I was on spellbreaker as that's just what I've been playing in PvP lately (with a PvE build of course, full ascended zerker gear with scholar). All I knew is I needed it for the achievement to get that sweet back-piece. I joined a pug group in LFG that were mostly new players. The first few runs were rough and we had a couple people give up on us and leave. We ended up changing the LFG message to reflect that it was more a "learning" run to avoid these impatient people just trying to get through it as fast as possible. Eventually we got a solid group together that stuck with it and didn't give up first wipe. It took maybe two hours total from the first time the group formed until we finally beat it and I had a blast despite the few salty people we got in our group at the start.

How did we finally beat it? I swapped from my spellbreaker to my harrier firebrand and we got a total of three healers and just healed through the mechanics. While overall I enjoyed the experience this...irks me. What is the point of even having mechanics if it's easier to just ignore them and out heal everything? I really didn't want to play healer but was forced into it if I wanted to succeed. I would have rather had to do mechanics like lighting torches and killing wisps to win rather than just switch professions and heal-heal-heal. We tried to do it with the mechanics first with two healers no less and it was just too punishing. Lighting the torches spread us out too much and same with focusing the wisps. We had to stay relatively stacked to stay alive and the solution instead of "practice and get good at the mechanics" was to "just switch professions, heal, ignore mechanics". I enjoyed finally beating him but this kind of sucked some of the fun out of it for me. Maybe we could have beat it by doing the mechanics eventually but out-healing was just such a better strategy I don't even see the point of the mechanics in the first place.To me it seems like doing the mechanics should be the easier option while out healing the damage should be the tougher option.

Stacking healers is an option for those who wanna just kill it, for those who wanna have a fast kill with gold chest it gets alot easier when you lower the amount of healers. But i get your point, it feels kinda cheesy to just ignore all the mechanics and out heal.

[Zexanima.7851]

@"Jayden Reese.9542" said:So you wasted 2 hours to do exactly what the 6 other threads told you and had to make a thread saying exactly what the others did. Skilled players and speed runners are good enough to have no issue. The rest of us stack heals. These are meant to teach raid mechanics over time starting easy and add difficulty and mechanics to get more players interested. At some point you either get better or optimize your builds or you hit a wall. The next batch of strike missions should get even harder and probably will eliminate the stack heals option. The rewards aren't enough to suffer thru after you get achieve.

Idk what you're on about. As I said I went into this blind not having read these "6 other threads" that were suppose to have told me a thing. I didn't switch heals until someone agreed I should, I offered early on in the run to switch. I think you're just knee jerk reacting like I'm here to cry about "strike missions are too hard" but I'm not? My ONLY complaint was that I don't see the point of having mechanics if it's just easier to stack healers and ignore them. It would have been much more enjoyable I think if the mechanics were do or die because they were easy enough to do.

[Zexanima.7851]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:So you wasted 2 hours to do exactly what the 6 other threads told you and had to make a thread saying exactly what the others did. Skilled players and speed runners are good enough to have no issue. The rest of us stack heals. These are meant to teach raid mechanics over time starting easy and add difficulty and mechanics to get more players interested. At some point you either get better or optimize your builds or you hit a wall. The next batch of strike missions should get even harder and probably will eliminate the stack heals option. The rewards aren't enough to suffer thru after you get achieve.

Idk what you're on about. As I said I went into this blind not having read these "6 other threads" that were suppose to have told me a thing. I didn't switch heals until someone agreed I should, I offered early on in the run to switch. I think you're just knee jerk reacting like I'm here to cry about "strike missions are too hard" but I'm not? My ONLY complaint was that I don't see the point of having mechanics if it's just easier to stack healers and ignore them. It would have been much more enjoyable I think if the mechanics were do or die because they were easy enough to do.

Besides my first sentence I said nothing insulting or about crying and if saying there are threads already and you added nothing new upsets you oh well. You can't just lol join raids and Boneskinner/ future strike missions blind or any class/build group makeup and expect to be carried or coast thru it. Day one sure everyone is learning. If the healing option wasn't there you would've wasted more time and most likely failed and more players would have already abandoned this content so I'm glad atm you can cheese it or you could never go with rando pugs. It's progression content which will force us to get better play diff classes when needed and coordinate. Not join blind and be rewarded with 1 1 1 1 spam.

Starting off with something insulting is not going to create a good conversation. You could have just omitted that first sentence but you didn't, oh well. You point out another gripe of mine though. Why are they "forcing" players into harder content? If they wanted to play harder content, they would, but they don't want to play the game that way. Having these mini-raids or whatever strike missions are suppose to be are just going to grind two different groups of the player base against each other to both's frustration. Slipping these into a mostly solo-able PvE achievement isn't easing these people into the raid scene, it's throwing them into a lake when they have no interest in swimming. I personally didn't mind doing the strike missions because I'm fine taking it slow and I have several full ascended raid builds I can switch between. There were a lot of people in my group though that were just there to get the achievement and only had one build or one character. I enjoyed the strike mission myself for what it was but hiding it in what is a mostly solo-able achievement was just dumb. I still think they could have done away with being able to heal cheese it if it was really meant to teach players more raid specific stuff. There are fractals with harder mechanics that I've gotten through with new players.

[Zexanima.7851]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:So you wasted 2 hours to do exactly what the 6 other threads told you and had to make a thread saying exactly what the others did. Skilled players and speed runners are good enough to have no issue. The rest of us stack heals. These are meant to teach raid mechanics over time starting easy and add difficulty and mechanics to get more players interested. At some point you either get better or optimize your builds or you hit a wall. The next batch of strike missions should get even harder and probably will eliminate the stack heals option. The rewards aren't enough to suffer thru after you get achieve.

Idk what you're on about. As I said I went into this blind not having read these "6 other threads" that were suppose to have told me a thing. I didn't switch heals until someone agreed I should, I offered early on in the run to switch. I think you're just knee jerk reacting like I'm here to cry about "strike missions are too hard" but I'm not? My ONLY complaint was that I don't see the point of having mechanics if it's just easier to stack healers and ignore them. It would have been much more enjoyable I think if the mechanics were do or die because they were easy enough to do.

Besides my first sentence I said nothing insulting or about crying and if saying there are threads already and you added nothing new upsets you oh well. You can't just lol join raids and Boneskinner/ future strike missions blind or any class/build group makeup and expect to be carried or coast thru it. Day one sure everyone is learning. If the healing option wasn't there you would've wasted more time and most likely failed and more players would have already abandoned this content so I'm glad atm you can cheese it or you could never go with rando pugs. It's progression content which will force us to get better play diff classes when needed and coordinate. Not join blind and be rewarded with 1 1 1 1 spam.

Starting off with something insulting is not going to create a good conversation. You could have just omitted that first sentence but you didn't, oh well. You point out another gripe of mine though. Why are they "forcing" players into harder content? If they wanted to play harder content, they would, but they don't want to play the game that way. Having these mini-raids or whatever strike missions are suppose to be are just going to grind two different groups of the player base against each other to both's frustration. Slipping these into a mostly solo-able PvE achievement isn't easing these people into the raid scene, it's throwing them into a lake when they have no interest in swimming. I personally didn't mind doing the strike missions because I'm fine taking it slow and I have several full ascended raid builds I can switch between. There were a lot of people in my group though that were just there to get the achievement and only had one build or one character. I enjoyed the strike mission myself for what it was but hiding it in what is a mostly solo-able achievement was just dumb. I still think they could have done away with being able to heal cheese it if it was really meant to teach players more raid specific stuff. There are fractals with harder mechanics that I've gotten through with new players.

To me my first sentence wasn't insulting but society nowadays kinda sensitive oh well. You are not forced to do anything at any point. They are trying to slowly increase the difficulty so you are not overwhelmed like if a new player started raids. Progression is not locked behind these like FF14 where these difficult encounters are in the story and you can't progress to new maps and even expansions w/o doing them all. You lose out on 10 ap. Yeah separation will occur at some point as they keep getting harder and once you can't do it you can stop/get better or hope for carry if 10 ap are important to you.

You said yourself your first sentence was insulting, then you say it wasn't. When adults, like children, are rude to me I call them out. I don't let them get away with it or they never learn it's not acceptable. Also, what is wrong with being sensitive? That's just an excuse bratty people use to make it look like it's the other person's fault they have bad manners. My point is they group this achievement in with a bunch of others that are doable solo, not that it's blocking you from progressing completely. They could have broken it out into it's own allowing people to get the completion without having to participate in content they don't want to. They may not be hard forcing player into doing it, but they are shoving them at it. It's like going to play a bit of golf but then you find out you can't play the last hole unless you have 10 people of a certain skill level with you.

[Aaron Forestman.4758]

The mechanics on this one are somewhat difficult and possible to heal through, but that's where this strike mission is at as a stepping stone. As long as a mechanic doesn't fully kill you for ignoring it, it'll always be possible to heal more to ignore it. As this is the toughest strike mission out right now, it nicely prepares people to take the leap into raids with something like Vale Guardian, where healing to avoid doing mechanics is the standard strategy.

So Boneskinner allows for two different kinds of practice: pressure on the healers to get them better, or individual mechanic pressure to encourage personal survivability and quick mechanic use. Both are valuable.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

If healers trivializing the mechanics becomes the normal , then its okIf ppl feel competent , they can bring no-healers to speed up the proccess (they can lie in the floor multiply times , till they learn the mechanic)Time = money :)Or more likekly , time =get the Gold Chest , rather than the Silver

The mentality with the current Raids (temponary rest in peace) is almost similar ....But we didnt see in the Devs Blogs stating that the bosses have a 10 min ''Enrage timer'' , be weary ...
but more DPS if you want/can survive = Good for your wallet

Something feels familiar like 2016 ...

Now ''corrupting'' dps addons and implanting a raids that the last boss , get more ''toughter'' as you ''take your time'' and an arena from ''Light and Shadow'' LoL video is i want from christmass

[Rodrick.1942]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:So you wasted 2 hours to do exactly what the 6 other threads told you and had to make a thread saying exactly what the others did. Skilled players and speed runners are good enough to have no issue. The rest of us stack heals. These are meant to teach raid mechanics over time starting easy and add difficulty and mechanics to get more players interested. At some point you either get better or optimize your builds or you hit a wall. The next batch of strike missions should get even harder and probably will eliminate the stack heals option. The rewards aren't enough to suffer thru after you get achieve.

Idk what you're on about. As I said I went into this blind not having read these "6 other threads" that were suppose to have told me a thing. I didn't switch heals until someone agreed I should, I offered early on in the run to switch. I think you're just knee jerk reacting like I'm here to cry about "strike missions are too hard" but I'm not? My ONLY complaint was that I don't see the point of having mechanics if it's just easier to stack healers and ignore them. It would have been much more enjoyable I think if the mechanics were do or die because they were easy enough to do.

Besides my first sentence I said nothing insulting or about crying and if saying there are threads already and you added nothing new upsets you oh well. You can't just lol join raids and Boneskinner/ future strike missions blind or any class/build group makeup and expect to be carried or coast thru it. Day one sure everyone is learning. If the healing option wasn't there you would've wasted more time and most likely failed and more players would have already abandoned this content so I'm glad atm you can cheese it or you could never go with rando pugs. It's progression content which will force us to get better play diff classes when needed and coordinate. Not join blind and be rewarded with 1 1 1 1 spam.

To me my first sentence wasn't insulting but society nowadays kinda sensitive oh well.

So you actually know it's not a good start, and you know it might piss someone off.

Why you start off this shits in the first place ?

Being a skilled player doesn't means you are allowed to throw your perfect shits out of mouth.

[Dante.1763]

@Killthehealersffs.8940 said:If healers trivializing the mechanics becomes the normal , then its okIf ppl feel competent , they can bring no-healers to speed up the proccess (they can lie in the floor multiply times , till they learn the mechanic)Time = money :)Or more likekly , time =get the Gold Chest , rather than the Silver

The mentality with the current Raids (temponary rest in peace) is almost similar ....But we didnt see in the Devs Blogs stating that the bosses have a 10 min ''Enrage timer'' , be weary ...

but more DPS if you want/can survive = Good for your wallet

Something feels familiar like 2016 ...

Now ''corrupting'' dps addons and implanting a raids that the last boss , get more ''toughter'' as you ''take your time'' and an arena from ''Light and Shadow'' LoL video is i want from christmass

i would literally rather have an enrage timer than lose rewards :/

[Juan.6124]

@Zexanima.7851 said:

How did we finally beat it? I swapped from my spellbreaker to my harrier firebrand and we got a total of three healers and just healed through the mechanics. While overall I enjoyed the experience this...irks me. What is the point of even having mechanics if it's easier to just ignore them and out heal everything?

It's a major design flaw of this fight that doing the mechanic is actually more punishing than ignoring it.

[Eramonster.2718]

@DirtyDan.4759 said:It's a major design flaw of this fight that doing the mechanic is actually more punishing than ignoring it.Glad I'm not the only one agreeing to this. Feel the mechanics are made in a rush with no after thoughts.

Players are not encouraged to do the torches. The heals & boons in game ain't designed to heal like other games; most if not all requires stacking or be in range with no proper targeting. Players will only be singled out to be targeted by the Aberrations while doing torches (plus torches get destroyed even while its lit and gets harder to keep up; 2 torches goes off instead of 1 at a time as the boss HP lowers). If thats not convincing enough, having player(s) away from the boss encourages it to cast grasp/aoe zones.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@Eramonster.2718 said:

@DirtyDan.4759 said:It's a major design flaw of this fight that doing the mechanic is actually more punishing than ignoring it.Glad I'm not the only one agreeing to this. Feel the mechanics are made in a rush with no after thoughts.

Players are not encouraged to do the torches. The heals & boons in game ain't designed to heal like other games; most if not all requires stacking or be in range with no proper targeting. Players will only be singled out to be targeted by the Aberrations while doing torches (plus torches get destroyed even while its lit and gets harder to keep up; 2 torches goes off instead of 1 at a time as the boss HP lowers). If thats not convincing enough, having player(s) away from the boss encourages it to cast grasp/aoe zones.

I agree with this aswell. Skipping mechanics should be harder BUT faster.

[Solitude.2097]

Go on with the Strike Mission (1 event boss) .Let the 4-5 healers meta settle up (encourage it at every Blog or in Reddit).Create Strike Mission with the Raid(Wing) 1 bosses (but different appereance > its their Lieutenants) , dont nerf either its dps or hp or mechanics .Say in the public that you have nerfed it in the ground (so the normal Raids are still prestigious in their Minds)At the of the 2 months drought , releases the Whole Raids , (tell them that the difficulty is based around 4-5 healers) so old and new can remember the Past and have some fun with their friends(no Raid rewards , let them go in Training raids or use the l33t LFG)(do not in any part , say its competive or chalenging or its has a 10 min boss Enrage timer>open lie about it , tell them it was bug that killed them )

Skip raid 6+7 which is most hardcores . Like Twilight Arbor dungeon 80 lvl path (last updates on dungeons>most hardcore as ppl wished-and every1 avoided it) , it doesnt exist .

After the 7 months the Strike Missions / old Raids Memoir evolve into Raichu.Raichu replaces Raid number 8 , they get Raid Currency.Raichu checks your account . If you have a healer then the system will give you 15% more rewards as incentive to reroll, so 4-5 healers are in raid)Whoever wants to kill faster the boss/get more rewards , should form their own Raid party , or do CM (hardmode)Or create time leaderboard modes , and the 3 first each week get rewards

After 1,5 year if ppl are crying about ''real Raids'' : then make a blog saying that its the same practice , but different mentality.

edit: Or you can go with the WoW route where the hardmode is offered first to ppl , and the ''easiest'' after 2 months (between that timeframe , release single coughtcought easy bosses on strike missions)