Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Drakkar - How Would You Improve the Fight?


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 58
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Two major things limiting DPS:

  • The need for almost constant movement and healing. IMHO at least one of Drakkar's abilities needs removed to give us some space.
  • The constant need to retarget and restart attacks. Seriously, Drakkar is almost the size of an Asura's ego. TARGETING SHOULD NOT BE LOST ON SOMETHING THAT BIG JUST BECAUSE HE MOVED HIS CLAWS FOR A MOMENT.

Between those two things, it's pretty much impossible to run any sort of normal DPS rotation. Mash stuff off cooldown and pray is pretty much all you can do, while trying to stay alive through the sensory overload.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't light up the whole area with blue light during the last 25%, it obscures the visual cues for Drakkar's attacks.Allow using mismatched essence blasts as having multiple essence blasts available often leads to having the wrong kind of mob selected for the skill that decides to present itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's hitboxes are a bit messy.They tend to keep vanishing frequently during the fight when it's legs move around.

Since I play with piercing arrows this becomes a very annoying problem as I have to manually keep re-targeting the farthest leg during the fight or watch my damage output suffer significantly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All this is based on the premise that all periods of the day is full of players or have organized groups, which, unfortunately, is not the case. See, I've been active in Bjora Marches since launching during 8-12h, joining in all Drakkar's meta possible for the achievements and, most of the time, the groups fail or succeed with just a few seconds left (one of them had beaten Drakkar having literally one second left).

The reasons? Well, since the west side opened, instead of an increase in population, I noticed a drastic decreasing. Not in the sense of lacking players, there are players all around doing their stuff but just a handful of them take part of Drakkar's meta, unlike Icebrood's that used to have medium to big groups almost constantly. Reasons vary, but I could bet it's the extremely grinding achievements. Because of this, experienced commanders don't bother "raising their banners" (assuming one can switch tag on/off — I don't know, I still can't buy mine <_<) and those who do, aren't experienced, they're just players who bought the tag to be pinpointed on the map.

Also, within this 8-12h period I've been playing, there's a vast amount of players who seem to not care about harder content and yet they still join in. As much as it hurts me because my main is a Reaper, I see a lot of Reapers playing Bjora Marches, but as much as I could notice in the heat of battle all them going full of minions. Don't take me wrong, minions do have their usefulness, but people don't understand ANet is slowly trying to bring the difficulty/complexity of Raids to PvE's bosses, maybe even in an attempt to incentivize players to do Raids themselves and, as such, minions' builds simply don't work due to their relatively low DPS. And therefore several metas I've been in failed, in a row (and this time is not my fault XD).

In another topic, regarding improvements in loot with ascended items, much like in this one there were a lot of suggestions to increase difficulty. I was one of the supporters of that myself, although I think it should be just a slight change (otherwise we would have another Legendary Boneskinner that only closed groups can/want to do). However, now, I would reconsider because the majority of players are not ready for Drakkar's current state, much less if it becomes harder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So we have a group of players who claims the fight to be too difficult. But on the other hand is another group who claims the fight to be too easy.Conclusion: balanced?

I am fine with increasing the loot and making certain phases more engaging. The pre-event can be a little difficult with smaller scales. It would be also nice to have two different timers, one for the pre and one for the real fight.

Complaining about the necessity of moving while fighting a boss is a bit meh. There is no challenge in stacking up in a single spot and launching your rotations.

The only thing that bothers me about the fight: After 7+ years, we are still hitting paws.

But even in the current state, I would give the Drakkar encounter a solid 8/10. Well done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Randulf.7614 said:

@BlackBullWings.2734 said:well it's confirmed by stream guys, drakkar is getting mechanical updates along with its ascended boreal weapon drop chances.Thank you arenanet <3

Good news. Any further details from the stream about it?

we had some screenshots shown by the devs of the new ascended boreal weapons.they have a yellow glow and gold trim on certain parts.Also, they said the update would come on the 11th of february

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@BlackBullWings.2734 said:

@BlackBullWings.2734 said:well it's confirmed by stream guys, drakkar is getting mechanical updates along with its ascended boreal weapon drop chances.Thank you arenanet <3

Good news. Any further details from the stream about it?

we had some screenshots shown by the devs of the new ascended boreal weapons.they have a yellow glow and gold trim on certain parts.Also, they said the update would come on the 11th of february

I meant the mechanics which is main interest. The rewards are irrelevant to me since the chance of a drop will likely be so remote I wont see one anyway

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am just going to copy/paste this from another comment of mine made on a different topic, but it's about how I imagined and would love to see the fight. Ironically, it was actually a dream I had so you can imagine how much I was hyped for this release, as Drakkar literally haunted me with its appearance in GW1 and the creepiness all around it:

I had a dream a couple of months before the Patch came out...that we'd fight Drakkar on a frozen lake, where ice would crack and he'd hunt the players from the water. We'd all fall into the lake after it cracked and we'd have time limit to then climb on the floating ice to avoid some mechanics from him (being eaten or frozen to death while in the water), where at some point he'd come and destroy the frozen isles (Mordremoth style, like when he eats isles), then dive back inside. If you fall into the water, you'd slowly start freezing, so you had to climb back up on the floating ice isles again.

I'd really love to see this, but I guess it's too late now...I'm really not happy with the current fight we got.

  1. It doesn't give Drakkar the justice he deserves.
  2. It just...feels cluttered, hard to see, 'tight' and kinda claustrophobic.
  3. Visual noise is insane.
  4. Feels like Tequatl 2.0 just worse. The only good part is transition. Tired of smashing World Boss toes/claws.

I had hoped we'd fight him on an open lake where he'd pop out of it and have phases where we burn him/attack him, phases where he destroys floating ice on which we stand, phases where we attack him underwater...Start of the fight could be just us standing on this icy lake and waiting for him, with him just swimming underneath us, seeing his silhouette..then he'd smash the ice and attack us.Man...this fight could've been so much cooler and better :(

To add also:What happened to his model? Why is he not an underwater creature? What happened to his fins? Why does he have claws?Someone described him as a hairy crocodile and I can't help but laugh and approve...Drakkar's model should've stayed true to the GW1 concept, just tweaked a bit further...Model from GW1:

I kept imagining, even back in GW1, scene where he'd eventually wake up...crack the ice and pop out. Drakkar was my favorite GW1 mystery. I'd often just go to that lake and look at that slumbering monster, just stare at it...with a lot of fear and imagining how awesome and scary it would be had he come to life....and then we had that mystery, creepiness and iconic boss/creature get completely ruined in GW2...I can't even describe the depths of my sadness.I guess my expectations were too high...I really expected they'd stay true to GW1 model and just update it to modern graphics with slight tweaks...no, instead we really got a whole new creature that has nothing to do with Drakkar we met in GW1...and a cluttered and eye-sore fight :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Drakkar Fight punishes some builds, and favors others.After a few times now, I can more clearly answer what I do not like about the fight:

  • Clutter. Some AoE on the floor is so extreme that I cannot even shoot once, but am constantly dodging. The 1 skill on the deadeye - which has huge DPS on a glass Berserker build - has a cast time which is so long, that something will hit you while casting it.
  • Repeating mechanics: Specially the fearing and the blowing away... so often that stun breaks cannot deal with that. You'd need a max of 5 seconds cooldown on them
  • Targeting is a nightmare, you constantly loose target and the fact you can accidentally target things below the floor has not been solved (it's been years)
  • With 10 minutes to go in that fight, I can predict with 99% surtenty if it's gonna be a fail. Bad design. There's no point in continuing the fight if you know that far ahead if it's gonna fail.
  • Scaling is absurd
  • As I said before: Too much copy/paste
  • I also completely agree on the location. It's horrible
  • What's with the ring around this arena that harms you, even exiting a portal after killing a champ? (Even dodgeing through the gate, it still takes away 30% of my health. Why?!?!)
  • Why has the "in combat after fail" not been fixed yet? Seriously?

Why is this fight designed with a surten class or build in mind? This is NOT a Raid. A Glass deadeye or Minion Power Reaper should have a place in this fight. It's Open World PVE, which - in it's very nature - means anyone should be able to join right there and then.

I should not have to think. Ow meta starts, let me switch characters. That is PURE NONSENCE.

To illustrate: Played on my reaper (No not minions but again, that should be irrelevant for PvE) never went downPlayed on my Glass Deadeye, went down 28 (yes twenty-eight) times... Has nothing to do with my skill, everything with the sheer amount of damage. Even when maxed dodge and evade, even when not even bothering with Drakkar himself but purely surviving, it's still hard, it's too hard for PvE.

This exactly shows, in my oppinion, why this fight is OP. Yes I know a lot want harder fights... Then ask for a Drakkar Raid or Strike Mission. But don't punish the average PvE player.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reduce the HP slightly lower so that you have more than 5 seconds left in order to beat it.Increase Drakkar and the mobs damage as well as add some more CC's to promote some movement around the map.Add more conditions like cripple, torment, bleeding.Make it so that some healers will be useful and punish mindless zerker spammers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Coming back to this after a few more runs of Drakkar and it's starting to show some flaws.

From what I understand the phases move according to health % at these intervals; 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% and it seems to have difficulty scaling according to the size of the group of players fighting him. Of the last 3 Drakkar fights I was in, 2 failed from low dps/too much HP (possibly), and the 3rd that I was just attempting bugged out on us and ended right at the beginning (which I reported).After the 2nd minion appears (40% mark), there are sometimes way too many minions spawning on the field and it seems to be pointless at times since 90% of the players focus on Drakkar and the minions are just sort of hanging around. By the 3rd minion phase (20%) it's even more hectic and they mostly get in the way rather than posing a threat.

Using melee up close on Drakkar is nearly impossible without taking significant damage from his feet unless you get in a good spot to avoid the stomping damage, or you wait for his "stun phases" after the 80% mark in the 2nd half of the arena. I brought this up in map chat, however instead of other players discussing creative ways to fight Drakkar, I was met with toxic responses (as usual). The toxic players try to be smart and are quick to dump on any content Anet launches in this game - I'm rather tired of this to be honest, and it makes it difficult for me to enjoy the game or have active discussions on how to improve the game.

Drakkar's scaling should be considered for a rework, and his health needs some kind of nerf so smaller groups could still have a chance at beating him if they do it correctly. He spends too much time moving around inside the walls, and I think this is where we lose a lot of time that could be spent trying to get his health down before time runs out.

Drakkar has potential that's for sure, and I can't wait to see what they implement in the future.

@Blur.3465 I think they scaled down his size because he was too big.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@lare.5129 said:Drakkar is very ok. Nice sound also!!!But may be it should easy,because in non prime time after some time it will be very hot challenge.Yes, now when we have hype and best dps players come it is fun, but let see in future also please!!I have strong feeling that roleplay players from our guilds can to much pressure on that world boss.

So will believe it will be nerfed after half year for players who want complete achiv but not start story for some life reason.

I think about this a lot. Almost every open world event they add seems easy on release day because you have a hundred players with you, but the events all seem to be scaled much better once the zerg moves on to the next map.

I did the blizzard meta yesterday and it was actually really fun with most people distracted by shiny West Bjora. At first I thought the meta would fail because I was the only one building bonfires. But I advertised in map chat and a few people came and we got everything built. Then we took a beating in the blizzard because we had to spread out too thin. More players trickled in but we only had the two of us at the North Shrine and we lost it (put up a good fight, but we got swarmed once like 4 Mist portals were up, we couldn't spare anyone to go close them). Then a commander tag rolled in and we had just enough to hold West and South, even though the mobs kept getting in the circle and contesting, so it was a bit nerve-wracking.

Long story short, we ended up taking out the Construct with only seconds to spare. I've never had that much fun doing the blizzard meta before, it was really awesome.

So I make it a rule not to judge meta-events too harshly until a new map comes out and the zerg moves on. I'll wait and see how Drakkar feels when we don't have 100 people to fight it every cycle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Randulf.7614 said:

@BlackBullWings.2734 said:well it's confirmed by stream guys, drakkar is getting mechanical updates along with its ascended boreal weapon drop chances.Thank you arenanet <3

Good news. Any further details from the stream about it?

we had some screenshots shown by the devs of the new ascended boreal weapons.they have a yellow glow and gold trim on certain parts.Also, they said the update would come on the 11th of february

I meant the mechanics which is main interest. The rewards are irrelevant to me since the chance of a drop will likely be so remote I wont see one anyway

no mechanics announced

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel that the meta timer should be changed, the escort should be its separate timer and event with the actual Drakkar fights with its own timer.

It’s not a fun feeling watching the boss timer going down with you unable to do anything but watch Joradottir walk and talk.

I actually like the fight itself, it’s pretty cool watching him jump out of the ice and then tracking his shadow to see where he goes next. I’m looking forward to the 11th changes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fought Drakkar earlier since last night had the "disappearing act" glitch lol. The group I went with was large enough to get the DPS necessary to beat him in a decent time. However, the 1st minion didn't spawn properly at 60% because it seemed as if Drakkar's stomp mechanic overrode what it was suppose to do. We still won, but it was actually better not having 3 minions to fight. Saved us a lot of time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find the first part of meta okay: the progress through tunnels and fighting mist portals incursions. After, it's not that awesome. There is too much copy-pasta of mechanics, long and boring because it's the same thing during 40%:-1 break ice projecting shards-2 stomp with feet shockwaves-3 ice cone attack-4 freezing 85% of arena

The fight is unbalanced, the raven gate part is interesting but the champions are killed in two seconds, no special mechanics, not even legendary, it should at least occupy us 2-3 minutes for each, no need to make the hp of drakkar that high if this is to see only the four mechanics listed above.

Second thing, what is the role of those kodans and vigil standing stupidly in previous cavern? They must go with us in last room, and so another mechanic: stop drakkar influencing the troops! Put svanir totems along that! Make us fight the corrupted troops!

Shield is easy, after preventing drakkar to destroy shield, it can spawn champions disallowing us to access the raven gate. Use the shrines foes! The tornadoes, undying boneskinners, fallens!

A phase can be added where Drakkar is moving under the ground popping out sometimes while spawning kind of geysers instead of putting it during gate... just remove no-gate buff and make the area deadly/ inflicting conditions during gate phase.

It's just meh because it's just a big hp boss that do only 4 big things, it's way far bellow tequalt or shatter. Even claw of Jormag is more creative. Dunno see the map, use corrupted ice shard? Fog or snow storm?I'm not a lot against the location, but having it outside could allow more mechanic possibilities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

did another Drakkar today, barely made it. It is becoming boring very very fast. 30min of spamming all your dps skills, nervously watching the timer is massively not-fun. It is boring. Really really boring. And if you fail, after over 30min? Well, you just wasted a good chunk of your allocated play time for a total disaster of an event. The loot is also underwhelming to the max for such a long event.

Tequatl, Shatterer, Claw are fun. Branded Shatterer is fun too. Drakkar is not. Shatterer because it is rather quick (and branded because there is a lot of stuff going on), Teq, because you actually have to look at your feet during the first phase and the second and third are over quickly, Claw because you can go in on a healing build and still be usefull.

All three/four put down damage, downing and killing players all the time, but all three are not tedious.

Drakkar is. Really, this thing needs a total makeover. Lowering its HP to make it 20min of boredom instead of 30min of boredom would be a good start. But please do not end there.

Auric Basin meta, Chak Gherent - they also take time. But they are not boring AND they feel kind of rewarding. Drakkar does not feel rewarding. Drakker feels 'you wasted 35 minutes of your 2h play time on this for nothing'.

Pull it, remake it, anet. This mess really hurts the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

guys, have you ever imagined if Anet built a mechanic never seen in gw2? I mean, imagine if they offered a type of combat in which the entire population would divide and attack Drakkar at two different points? Thus, half the population would attack the boss under water and the other half on the ground out of water. Since water combat is not as highly valued in gw2 (yet), I think it would be creative and more interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@lummuss.6850 said:guys, have you ever imagined if Anet built a mechanic never seen in gw2? I mean, imagine if they offered a type of combat in which the entire population would divide and attack Drakkar at two different points? Thus, half the population would attack the boss under water and the other half on the ground out of water. Since water combat is not as highly valued in gw2 (yet), I think it would be creative and more interesting.

pretty much think its to late for that.

I do think they need to nerf its HP so its not so -Boring-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...