Steve too strong in Labyrinth?

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

I decided to resist the urge to thank y'all for campaigning for my characters to be buffed.

[Teratus.2859]

@DeanBB.4268 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"ErikTheTyrant.4527" said:Steve is not strong enough if you ask me. I think squads should have to run and hide from him, instead of fight him.

Unfortunately that would make farming the lab extremely tedious, plus it would deprive us of a boss bag.

Perhaps Arenanet wishes there to be more to the Lab than just farming?

I don't think so, im pretty sure the whole map exists purely as a farming map.But I wouldn't mind if they made more enhancements to it.. make it bigger and add more stuff in there, it does get a little dull some years when it's just the same.Steve getting a nice buff has made messing with him more interesting and challenging though, i've really enjoyed my scraps with him this year. ^^

I agree that Steve is good as-is. Keep the challenge, keep the "oh-no" moments.

Yeah definitely, I hope they don't buff him any more though he's more than enough to deal with right now and I really don't want him to get too strong that I can't tank him or solo him anymore that would suck hard as it's something I do look forward to every year.With other people running low gear farming sets etc in the lab Steve is plenty a handful for most people.. sometimes entire groups >.< so he really doesn't need more buffing.If anything i'd say the veteran doors are probably the one thing i'd upgrade now.. scale them up to champs when groups fight them or something and throw more door events in there or random enemy zerg events or something to keep things interesting ^^

[Donutdude.9582]

I love training Steve onto Viscount squads. Always gets a chuckle <3

[Teratus.2859]

@Donutdude.9582 said:I love training Steve onto Viscount squads. Always gets a chuckle <3

I take it when kids come to your house trick or treating you're the kind of person who says Trick :P

Steve did that on my group the other day too, wasted them in seconds lol

[blp.3489]

Since Steve just insta-killed me I took the opportunity to check the combat log. He hit me with 18,261 on his first attack, including the torment and bleeding. With another 2,118 spirit scream immediately after that.

[Donutdude.9582]

@Teratus.2859 said:I take it when kids come to your house trick or treating you're the kind of person who says Trick :P

Steve did that on my group the other day too, wasted them in seconds lol

C'mon. It is fun :)

[Trinnitty.8256]

If only all bosses in the lab had better loot. Drop like 100 ToT bags each or something.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@aspirine.6852 said:Doesnt matter he does a lot of damage, just seems he has way too much health. Not a health sponge, but a whole group of sponges.

Yea lol.

I took him on again today with just a couple of random people (about 5 total including me) and I asked them to stay at range and let me tank the aggro.It worked out well, nobody got downed after they stopped going in melee and Steve spent the whole fight trying and failing to kill me so it was an easy kill for us.

That's the best i've got for any reliable no deaths tactic on how to kill him.Find someone who can tank him and everyone else play it safe and stay out face meets chainsaw range >.<

You don't need other people to be ranged.

You just need whoever has aggro to not stupidly spin it around constantly turning its chainsaw attack into a 360 AoE instead of a fairly narrow cone. Narrow enough that you can avoid getting hit just by standing to the side while ressing.

[Teratus.2859]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@aspirine.6852 said:Doesnt matter he does a lot of damage, just seems he has way too much health. Not a health sponge, but a whole group of sponges.

Yea lol.

I took him on again today with just a couple of random people (about 5 total including me) and I asked them to stay at range and let me tank the aggro.It worked out well, nobody got downed after they stopped going in melee and Steve spent the whole fight trying and failing to kill me so it was an easy kill for us.

That's the best i've got for any reliable no deaths tactic on how to kill him.Find someone who can tank him and everyone else play it safe and stay out face meets chainsaw range >.<

You don't need other people to be ranged.

You just need whoever has aggro to not stupidly spin it around constantly turning its chainsaw attack into a 360 AoE instead of a fairly narrow cone. Narrow enough that you can avoid getting hit just by standing to the side while ressing.

Nah he tends to do that all on his own.When others get too close he may randomly swap target to them causing the spin, seen that happen many times which isn't anything I did nor could prevent from happening.Also seen a lot of players just wander right in front of him and get one shot as well lol

The way I see it is if you know something can down you in one shot then just don't try and melee it, it's not worth the risk unless you know you can dodge it's attacks.The Lab Horrors attacks have huge tells though and are very very easy to see coming, it's surprising how many people he downs when you consider that.People be trying to Gohan him or something I dunno lolMaybe I should get me a green Sylvari named Piccolo and just yell DOOODDDGGEEEE!!! at them XD

[Sir Alric.5078]

Yeah, Steve hits like a truck this year. But i think it's fine this way, there should be some challenge. The mindless farming gets boring after a while.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

@Ubi.4136 said:The problem with Steve is two-fold. There are new people that think melee is a good choice, and veterans who have put on minimal dps gear or no accessories so that more people can tag the mobs. What you end up with is a squad of people who keep getting downed and have low dps.

I feel like the solution is to go hybrid DPS/heals/support so the group does pretty low damage but has high sustain.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

@Sir Alymer.3406 said:

@Ubi.4136 said:The problem with Steve is two-fold. There are new people that think melee is a good choice, and veterans who have put on minimal dps gear or no accessories so that more people can tag the mobs. What you end up with is a squad of people who keep getting downed and have low dps.

I feel like the solution is to go hybrid DPS/heals/support so the group does pretty low damage but has high sustain.

This is what I do, I farm labyrinth with a healer firebrand build that has high defense stats too.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Sir Alymer.3406 said:

@Ubi.4136 said:The problem with Steve is two-fold. There are new people that think melee is a good choice, and veterans who have put on minimal dps gear or no accessories so that more people can tag the mobs. What you end up with is a squad of people who keep getting downed and have low dps.

I feel like the solution is to go hybrid DPS/heals/support so the group does pretty low damage but has high sustain.

That works ... assuming you don't have people who just walks into attacks anyway.

[Wolfb.7025]

@Cuks.8241 said:I think he's perfect as it is. It's supposed to be a scary labyrinth, Steve is scary.Not scary, more like annoying, ohko machine

Not that the downed state on open world pve matters anyways, you get resue'd in two or three seconds.

[Valor Singus.7049]

@DeanBB.4268 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"ErikTheTyrant.4527" said:Steve is not strong enough if you ask me. I think squads should have to run and hide from him, instead of fight him.

Unfortunately that would make farming the lab extremely tedious, plus it would deprive us of a boss bag.

Perhaps Arenanet wishes there to be more to the Lab than just farming?

I agree that Steve is good as-is. Keep the challenge, keep the "oh-no" moments.

If that's the case, they should at least add something to the Labyrinth options to lock him back up for if/when a train isn't running. I was in there trying to get the Halloween dailies done and he made it so all you could do was farm, as the only safe zone was the center. There were also maybe three or four people in the map, not nearly enough to put him down without a lot of heavy coordination.

Try to tag a door for Shut and Locked? You get either a swarm of minions or a vet...and Steve!Try to carve a pumpkin? Get carved up by Steve instead!Try to join the race? Don't forget to check that rearview mirror, because Steve is right behind you!

Sure, he's got the huge bubble so he's fairly easy to track, but considering the respawn rates and time it takes him to circle, that mean mostly holing up in the center courtyard farming the mobs there until you get a brief window to duck into the outer ring while hoping no accidentally aggroes him into you. Personally I'd suggest one of two things:1) Put a timer on him that pauses when he's actively fighting someone (if possible) but which otherwise runs down when he's just patrolling. That way the maps that want to fight him can grind away, while those who don't can play hide and go seek.OR2) Set it up so you can pay the Lunatic Court to send him home for a certain amount of gold.Then tie either one to resetting his door so he's ready to come out and play once there are enough people to keep him entertained. Admittedly, I think the first option would work better, but I'm not not a programmer.

[Naxos.2503]

We managed to chip away 15% of his hp with 3 players (though that took many deaths). It's definitely more challenging without extra people. I'm pretty sure you can still do alright as a minion master necromancer, or a group of 5 with a healer

[Fuchslein.8639]

New Lab-meta. Only Minion Master with Healer. Like in the old fractal-days. GG :D

[Goettel.4389]

Leave Steve alone!

[Balsa.3951]

here is what I do when i tag up

I tell ppl ignore him and keep running, the little annoyance he give is outnumbered by the number of bags I farmhe only has 1 chainsaw insta down attack which can be danced around

[Teratus.2859]

@Valor Singus.7049 said:1) Put a timer on him that pauses when he's actively fighting someone (if possible) but which otherwise runs down when he's just patrolling. That way the maps that want to fight him can grind away, while those who don't can play hide and go seek.

I'm actually all for this one.

I think it would be pretty cool if he had a timer like that, say 20 mins or something and once it expires he retreats.I would add to it that there should be a map wide message pop up that says Steve has returned to the abyss with X new souls.Aside from being an obvious heads up to players that he's de-spawned it would also be a fun little gimmick to see how many players he killed while he was running around ^^Thematically it would be a fun fit for the Labyrinth, they could even add some silly little hidden achievement when you've been killed by him or something.

@Naxos.2503 said:We managed to chip away 15% of his hp with 3 players (though that took many deaths). It's definitely more challenging without extra people. I'm pretty sure you can still do alright as a minion master necromancer, or a group of 5 with a healer

Minion Master is what I take him on with but you need to be very tanky and have a ton of self sustain and CC.. and even with all that, it's still a long and tough fight but you can beat him even alone.. just takes a good while.

[Chichimec.9364]

Hehe, this morning I joined a lab group billed as mob doors only, ignoring the big bosses. The zerg ran that way for a while and I was doing well with my shortbow daredevil. Then the original commander had to leave and a different commander took over. Without telling anyone, the second commander started opening every door and sought out fights with the big bosses. When people asked why the heck he was doing that, he insisted it was far more efficient to farm the lab that way. Problem was that a number of people left the squad at that point and the dps of those who remained was so low that we were barely able to take down Steve and the other big bosses after looonnnggg battles. The new commander started yelling at people about their dps and I finally gave up on that squad, heading off to join another. The moral of this story I guess is that people come into the lab with certain expectations of how they want to play. A good commander understands that and communicates the playstyle the group will be using clearly so people can decide for themselves if they want to play that way or not. Demanding that a whole group change their playstyle to fit what you want to do does not make for good leadership. It just makes a mess. :)

Oh, and my ToT bag intake didn't go up under the new commander, it went way down because it was taking us so long to beat the big bosses.

[Hesione.9412]

Is there some way that this can be turned off, or only triggered when there are at least N number of people in the map?

Because it's frustrating to die again, and again, and again as a group when there's only 4-5 of you.

So a big disadvantage of trying to find those LFG groups with few people, entering those LFG squads, is that the LH is too strong for too few players. Breakbar sure, but my hard breakbar is every 90 seconds