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Eater of Souls fight is too difficult.


Bloodtau.4672

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It's predictable, that in almost everything new, people want it to be easier. Look, most people are done with this new story within a week, on a brand new expansion! That's a sign of way too easy to me. Nothing in the personal story was what I would call hard. Maybe a few retries on a few things, but I would hope for at least that!!Nice job ANet, on a fantastic expansion!

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@Kuulpb.5412 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:The eater of souls needs to be reworked, I got
super lucky
that I managed to beat him on the first try because my build had plenty of cc and I accidentally broke is defiance bar before he jumps (btw, breaking his breakbar right before/as he jumps prevents his health recovery entirely, he will not go into that suck everything in phase right after).

Like seriously, how is anyone supposed to figure it out on their own? That defiance bar
barely registers
on the UI.

maybe it's just me, but I saw the defiance bar easily, and when I noticed it I focused on it.

I should clarify i'm talking about the defiance bar when the eater of souls jumps, not when he's doing the health steal vortex. The health steal vortex is obvious, if short, however the one before he jumps barely registers because the skill takes less than a second to complete. I only started noticing it after i accidentally stunned him during the jump, because I knew to look out for it then. Otherwise it's nearly impossible to register.

@Norseman.4280 said:It's predictable, that in almost everything new, people want it to be easier. Look, most people are done with this new story within a week, on a brand new expansion! That's a sign of way too easy to me. Nothing in the personal story was what I would call hard. Maybe a few retries on a few things, but I would hope for at least that!!Nice job ANet, on a fantastic expansion!

For you, it's easy, for some, it can be unplayable as it is, and Path of Fire is much much much more than just it's personal story steps, much more, meaning that personal story steps can and should be made easier if there's a barrier many can't cross. This is one of those cases.

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@Boysenberry.1869 said:I cheesed it with my necro minions. They ran over and attacked it at beyond max range and it became confused and just kind of wondered around until it died.

I did this, too. >.> I was giving it one more try, thought I was gonna die, and ran away. Minions stayed engaged and he kinda just....randomly spun in place until the minions chipped him down. I know he's gonna be a pain on my other characters, though.

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Finally got this on my power reaper, yeah I know.. Basically what I did was DPS for a few seconds, then run away when I saw the circle. Then dodge, dodge.. The further away you are when he sucks on your soul or whatever it is the less he gets. Then run in DPS for a few seconds, then run as far away as you can again until he does the soul sucking thing, dodge when you can. Then run back and DPS. Wash and repeat and you can do it.

tl:dr

DPs at start. Then run away. Create distance so the soul thing doesn't work as well if you miss a dodge or two. Wash and repeat.

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@castlemanic.3198 said:

For you, it's easy, for some, it can be unplayable as it is, and Path of Fire is much much much more than just it's personal story steps, much more, meaning that personal story steps can and should be made easier if there's a barrier many can't cross. This is one of those cases.

I don't think it should not be made easier. It's already very easy and personal story fights serve as training. This is where you learn how the different game mechanics works so that you can then apply them in open world events and everywhere else in the game. This fight requires nothing more than dodging and/or canceling 1 skill with a crowd control while doing moderate amount of damage and keeping your health in check. If you fail at that you can take some distance to prevent him from leeching too much and try again.

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@Haishao.6851 said:I don't think it should not be made easier. It's already very easy and personal story fights serve as training. This is where you learn how the different game mechanics works so that you can then apply them in open world events and everywhere else in the game. This fight requires nothing more than dodging and/or canceling 1 skill with a crowd control while doing moderate amount of damage and keeping your health in check. If you fail at that you can take some distance to prevent him from leeching too much and try again.

Nowhere have I ever seen a fight with an enemy that has a crucial half a second break bar followed by a short breakbar and the ability to heal at least a quarter of it's health, in a fight where you can't open your inventory, have no ability to get a friend to aid you or able to leave and go back to prep for it in an efficient manner.

The final three boss fights in Hearts and Minds where if you're even downed the fight restarts and your allies cannot be rezzed either has NO content preparing for it, and NO content similar to it later on, and I doubt we'll ever come across a fight with those exact circumstances again, same with the eater of souls fight. There's very little in the way of traditional gameplay for that mission, and as a result should be adjusted properly to be easier and doable in an efficient manner. Slowing down that initial jump so that the break bar has two seconds to be broken instead of the half a second it is would make all the difference in the fight and would make it that much more manageable for people who can't do it as it is.

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This boss fight is actually extremely easy, you need only understand it's mechanics. My only gripe is that the model is pretty much a reused Mouth of Zhaitan.

How to beat this boss with any profession, based on my experience:

  1. Do not use your CC to break his break bar right off the bat, just DPS him until he is about to leap. Save your CC, do not use it.
  2. Once the circle appears signaling his jump destination, move quickly away from it as once he lands, he will laser you (removing all boons) and pull you in. Stability is ineffective. Dodge away from him to avoid getting too close. Movement skills like Shadowstep, Blink, Lightning Reflexes can help too.
  3. As soon as he stops his laser, ready your CC and run at him full speed into attacking distance. Once he looks up he will begin to prepare to self-heal, CC him before the circle around him gets "fully charged" to prevent him from healing (the circle charges very fast so be aware). He will then be stunned as his entire break bar is broken and you can DPS him.
  4. Once he recovers he will run around some more for a little while, attacking you. Keep attacking him until he prepares to leap, and repeat the previous steps.
  5. His behaviors change a bit once he gets low, but overall it is very much the same rinse and repeat scenario. Just watch for that leap and you will do fine.

(I might be missing something here, it's been a few days since I've fought him. I think I covered it all though.)

I keep hearing about bugs with AI such as Mesmer clones and ranger pets healing him. I haven't done this boss with anything but Spellbreaker and Holosmith thus far, but I recommend maybe saving a low CD shatter for when he begins his tractor-beam-laser attack so you can clear all clones before he can pull them in. Keep your pet on passive or be ready to swap pets before they get munched on. I haven't tested this or anything but if there is nothing there for him to munch on it should not be a problem, I would think.

The fight can be kind of intense, but everything in this game should not be a walk in the park. Learn the mechanics and timing. I'm positive that every class and reasonable build can beat him. All you need is one CC on a decently low CD, at the very least.

Best of luck defeating the Soul Muncher.

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I don’t think it was too difficult I did it in one attempt with no issues, using Marauder gear, all of the Attacks from the boss have large tells allowing ample reaction time.> @castlemanic.3198 said:

@Haishao.6851 said:I don't think it should not be made easier. It's already very easy and personal story fights serve as training. This is where you learn how the different game mechanics works so that you can then apply them in open world events and everywhere else in the game. This fight requires nothing more than dodging and/or canceling 1 skill with a crowd control while doing moderate amount of damage and keeping your health in check. If you fail at that you can take some distance to prevent him from leeching too much and try again.

Nowhere have I ever seen a fight with an enemy that has a crucial half a second break bar followed by a short breakbar and the ability to heal at least a quarter of it's health, in a fight where you can't open your inventory, have no ability to get a friend to aid you or able to leave and go back to prep for it in an efficient manner.

The final three boss fights in Hearts and Minds where if you're even downed the fight restarts and your allies cannot be rezzed either has NO content preparing for it, and NO content similar to it later on, and I doubt we'll ever come across a fight with those exact circumstances again, same with the eater of souls fight. There's very little in the way of traditional gameplay for that mission, and as a result should be adjusted properly to be easier and doable in an efficient manner. Slowing down that initial jump so that the break bar has two seconds to be broken instead of the half a second it is would make all the difference in the fight and would make it that much more manageable for people who can't do it as it is.

You never fought Vinetooth Prime then, Eater Of Souls has similar mechanics toned extremely toned down and is easily soloable

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@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:You never fought Vinetooth Prime then, Eater Of Souls has similar mechanics toned extremely toned down and is easily soloable

Except Eater of Souls doesn't allow friends to help fight, nor does it allow you to use inventory and restock on item effects like food as a part of the story in that instance. There is nowhere else in the entire game that has both of those things occuring at the same time. You're forced to solo it because your friends turn into a useless sprite with limited capability.

The tuning of the initial jump to allow it to be more easily cced is all i'm asking for. That's not even a major rework of the fight's design, it still leaves the whole life steal vortex thing to happen if players mismanage their ccs, but having a better chance at stopping it from even happening allows more people through that story gate without drastically changing the fight.

A bunch of people forget that personal story is supposed to be tuned for a solo, unoptimized build used by a player who's not a pro at the game. Slight tunings like the one i'm suggesting don't drastically redesign the fight, they change it to be more manageable for those having a difficult time. There's plenty of open world experiences to help build up experience for more difficult fights, but this fight is literally impossible to have a friend help because of the design of the instance (not that relying on a friend should even be a considered alternative), so just slightly retuning the fight helps the vast majority of players who go through the story content. It's not even a small ask that the personal story of all things be made easier, why are people taking it like it's a demand for all enemies to be killed in one shot.

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@Seera.5916 said:Correct me if I'm wrong:

  1. It's the first instance where we are locked out of our own inventory. Which means we can't access our bank. We can't reapply boosters. We can't use our repair canisters. We can't buy a more defensive set of gear if we've been zerker so long we've gotten rid of the non-zerker gear in our inventory. The only players that were able to change gear/weapons alongside traits and skills were those who happened to carry different stated sets in their inventory since we weren't locked out of the Equipment tab in the Hero panel. We had only 7 tries to kill the boss before the lack of repair canisters would start punishing us. Especially if we didn't have a spare set of gear in our inventory. There's no warning on this or anything.
  2. It's already after a long fight with Balthazar for those of us who aren't the best at the game. This makes quitting and coming back a harder pill to swallow than if there was a check point where players could leave and come back to the story at a later time. I likely would have quit and come back after the second failure on Eater of Souls due to a lack of time issue if it had not been that I had already invested at least 1.25 hours into the mission.
  3. It's the first fight where those besides the instance starter can't really help. So players who have an L2P issue who would normally group up, find that that isn't as helpful here.
  4. I don't recall many bosses who do their big attacks back to back in the same order every time. If any. Recognizing that this boss does that may not be obvious for everyone. Especially for those who just use numbers to get past mechanics. This gets even less likely of an instance players would find if they don't do Dungeons, Fractals, or Raids on a regular basis.

I think there wouldn't be as much of a backlash if there had been a check point between the Balthazar fight and the Realm of the Dead portion. Where players could leave and come back after reformulating a strategy or just cooling off.

A checkpoint, maybe. But many people here are asking to nerf the fight. And that's a definite no.

It is not because some people haven't assimilated some fight mechanics that everything needs to be nerfed to suit their needs. It's the second expansion, about time to get some challenging content.I don't see why because this is story, everything should be stupidly easy.

Also, you can still change your traits, there's a minimum you can do.

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@Egg Shennn.6240 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:These A> @Egg Shennn.6240 said:

@Korval.3751 said:

@Avelione.6075 said:I HATE bosses that require very SPECIFIC approach : /that's very characteristic to Asian games. Blah. I want to fight, not solve a puzzle while my char. almost gets killed zillion times :/ And now, I have to do this nasty story part 3rd time! I wish I could just switch to the Soul Eater fight, not fight Balthazar and have all these idiotic conversations again. It made a great impression on me the 1st time, but it's just pissing me off now...I use my Guardian for the story, since I'm kinda the best with him, but kitten. Try not to use boons with a guardian.... I prepared for Balthazar for the 2nd approach and it went quick, but then there is no way to change my build for the soul eater! What kind of an idea is that?!?!?!

That's literally the point of the fight. It requires forethought ahead of the fight. Before you enter the story, you need to think ahead past the fight with Balt to the fight with the Eater. I changed my Guardian spec from Firebrand to Dragonhunter and changed my utilities and elites to speed and CC-related stuff. Then I just circled Joko's cage. The fight was much easier the second time around.

TL;DR this is NOT a melee fight. It's a ranged fight with a strong mix of speed and CC. All classes have these abilities. You will not be able to faceroll this boss, so don't try.

How exactly are you supposed to "think ahead to the fight with the Eater" when you've never gotten there before? Psychic?Of course, once people have done it and posted how the fight is and what the best tactics are, you could prepare for it specifically, but if you're playing your story like a lot of people you have no idea what the fight will entail until you're there and see. Can't prepare for something when you don't know what is needed beforehand...

You are NOT supposed to defeat a boss first try!It's a boss, it requires some L2P, there's nothing wrong with thinking of a strategy, failing, and redoing it better.

I can't believe most people here never played a old school RPG, or any game with decent challenge for that matter....

Don't quote me in your jabbering. I replied to the person saying to think ahead. You can't "think ahead" before you've encountered the bloody foe and have no idea what his mechanics are. Think ahead and bring these specific skills and do this specific strategy without knowing what's needed?

The point is, it's a drawn out process to get to the Eater, so I'm sure it was a major pain for people that failed and had to go back through all the blah blah blah. I killed him the first time, but the build I had wouldn't do it well, and as I said, ended up catching him and let minions slowly kill him, which wasn't much fun, but more fun than dying and redoing all the crap before just to get back to him.

I meant precisely what I typed by "think ahead." It literally means don't spec and gear up for the Balthazar fight. Do that for the Eater of Souls fight. That's the one that requires forethought not facerolling.

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@castlemanic.3198 said:The eater of souls needs to be reworked, I got super lucky that I managed to beat him on the first try because my build had plenty of cc and I accidentally broke is defiance bar before he jumps (btw, breaking his breakbar right before/as he jumps prevents his health recovery entirely, he will not go into that suck everything in phase right after).

Like seriously, how is anyone supposed to figure it out on their own? That defiance bar barely registers on the UI.

That's not super lucky. That's actually how you're supposed to defeat the boss.

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@faceurfears.1472 said:If there are any Rangers out there, please tell me how you took this boss down! I have tried twice and can't come close to getting him low in health. It's been very frustrating for me. I am a solo player and I am not some ultimate gamer. So any advice would be much appreciated :)

I don't play Ranger but AFAIK they have plenty of CC abilities, plus a run buff, plus a pet, plus a longbow. Use all of that to your advantage. The goal is to chip away at its health without letting it get close to you and drain your health. If it does, you have dodge rolls and enough stamina for back-to-back pairs. That's enough to prevent it from stealing health (e.g. it can't drain an evading target). Lastly, interrupt its healing ability as it will attempt to heal back to 100%. So it's super important you stop it. If successful the boss will be stunned for a few seconds. That's when you wallop on it, but remember to do it from a distance and don't get greedy. Time it, and you should be victorious! Also, I recommend run around Joko's cage. It creates a nice buffer against the boss bee-lining you. Also, if you can do ground damage or traps I highly recommend that, especially those that do damage and slow like caltrops.

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@faceurfears.1472 said:If there are any Rangers out there, please tell me how you took this boss down! I have tried twice and can't come close to getting him low in health. It's been very frustrating for me. I am a solo player and I am not some ultimate gamer. So any advice would be much appreciated :)

Spec as beastmaster and stay in BM the whole fight.

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I would agree with the OP for the following reasons:1) game was a face roll up to that point2) No indication you were going to fight a major boss. You were supposed to call taimi.3) The fight is at the end of a long mission and hard counters some builds.4) YOU CAN'T CHANGE YOUR BUILD OR EVEN WEAPONS SET. EVEN IF YOU DIE AND ARE NOT IN COMBAT. -- correction you can't if you equip weapons by double clicking in inventory, but you can through hero panel.

If this was the level of difficulty of all the missions up to this point I have no issue with it. However this was a total outlier. Either make everything leading up to it harder, alter the mechanic so it isn't extremely difficult for some builds and easy for others, or let people change their comp when they realize what they specked isn't going to work.

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@Egg Shennn.6240 said:

@Korval.3751 said:

@Avelione.6075 said:I HATE bosses that require very SPECIFIC approach : /that's very characteristic to Asian games. Blah. I want to fight, not solve a puzzle while my char. almost gets killed zillion times :/ And now, I have to do this nasty story part 3rd time! I wish I could just switch to the Soul Eater fight, not fight Balthazar and have all these idiotic conversations again. It made a great impression on me the 1st time, but it's just pissing me off now...I use my Guardian for the story, since I'm kinda the best with him, but kitten. Try not to use boons with a guardian.... I prepared for Balthazar for the 2nd approach and it went quick, but then there is no way to change my build for the soul eater! What kind of an idea is that?!?!?!

That's literally the point of the fight. It requires forethought ahead of the fight. Before you enter the story, you need to think ahead past the fight with Balt to the fight with the Eater. I changed my Guardian spec from Firebrand to Dragonhunter and changed my utilities and elites to speed and CC-related stuff. Then I just circled Joko's cage. The fight was much easier the second time around.

TL;DR this is NOT a melee fight. It's a ranged fight with a strong mix of speed and CC. All classes have these abilities. You will not be able to faceroll this boss, so don't try.

How exactly are you supposed to "think ahead to the fight with the Eater" when you've never gotten there before? Psychic?Of course, once people have done it and posted how the fight is and what the best tactics are, you could prepare for it specifically, but if you're playing your story like a lot of people you have no idea what the fight will entail until you're there and see. Can't prepare for something when you don't know what is needed beforehand...

Once you see his life drain for the first time you can adapt your strategy. Maybe if the boss is healing back to full you need to use your brain and find out why. It's not rocket science

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@Korval.3751 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:The eater of souls needs to be reworked, I got
super lucky
that I managed to beat him on the first try because my build had plenty of cc and I accidentally broke is defiance bar before he jumps (btw, breaking his breakbar right before/as he jumps prevents his health recovery entirely, he will not go into that suck everything in phase right after).

Like seriously, how is anyone supposed to figure it out on their own? That defiance bar
barely registers
on the UI.

That's not super lucky. That's actually how you're supposed to defeat the boss.

It is super lucky because I discovered it by accident. I was getting really frustrated up until that point, because i was too busy trying to dodge roll out of the way during his swirling vortex of life steal to be able to effectively cc him during that period, and finding out i could cc him before he even does the jump with it's half a second breakbar does, in fact, mean I was lucky to discover that method.

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@castlemanic.3198 said:

@Korval.3751 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:The eater of souls needs to be reworked, I got
super lucky
that I managed to beat him on the first try because my build had plenty of cc and I accidentally broke is defiance bar before he jumps (btw, breaking his breakbar right before/as he jumps prevents his health recovery entirely, he will not go into that suck everything in phase right after).

Like seriously, how is anyone supposed to figure it out on their own? That defiance bar
barely registers
on the UI.

That's not super lucky. That's actually how you're supposed to defeat the boss.

It is super lucky because I discovered it
by accident
. I was getting really frustrated up until that point, because i was too busy trying to dodge roll out of the way during his swirling vortex of life steal to be able to effectively cc him during that period, and finding out i could cc him before he even does the jump with it's half a second breakbar does, in fact, mean I was lucky to discover that method.

Please look at quite a decent number of posts in this thread. Many people have given strategies that work.Also even if you miss the cc window, you can simply run away, and he won't heal. The description under his health bar also give clues. It can't possible be "luck" for everyone who figured it out.

It's a L2P issue. You figured it out and that's great, but there's no reason to nerf it because some players can't figure it out first try. It doesn't mean they're less good or anything, simply that easy content for the sake of easy content only serves a category of people who want to faceroll everything without effort. A boss is a boss and in most games a boss isn't meant to be defeated with simplicity.

There's also some people who consider the vanilla campaign/hot boring merely for the fact that it is too easy and offers no challenge, so it basically becomes a series of talk, fight, move, talk fight move, repeat. It is a bit unfair to -systematically- nerf everything for the category of players who like easy and leave out players who like thinking of efficient ways to win a fight. It's not like it was a nearly impossible fight. If they can take time to ask for nerf, they have time to look at strategies or even just ask a guildy.

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@Deihnyx.6318 said:Please look at quite a decent number of posts in this thread. Many people have given strategies that work.

It's a L2P issue. You figured it out and that's great, but there's no reason to nerf it because some players can't figure it out first try. It doesn't mean they're less good or anything, simply that easy content for the sake of easy content only serves a category of people who try to faceroll everything without effort. A boss is a boss and in most games a boss isn't meant to be defeated with simplicity.

There's also some people who consider the vanilla campaign/hot boring merely for the fact that it is too easy and offers no challenge, so it basically becomes a series of talk, fight, move, talk fight move, repeat. It is a bit unfair to -systematically- nerf everything for the category of players who like easy and leave out players who like thinking of efficient ways to win a fight.

Those strategies work for people who look at the forums, the vast majority of players don't look at the forums or reddit, and that is where the issue lies. People who don't look at the forums, don't look up guides and just play the game.

Is it really so important that the personal story, of all things in this game, the purely soloable content of the game, not be nerfed to accommodate the vast majority of the playerbase?

Like, this is the thing that baffles me about the people complaining about those asking for nerfs, this isn't open world content, this isn't legendary bounties or metas, we're talking about some of the only soloable content in the game and asking it to become soloable for all people.

How is that such a divisive ask that soloable content be made soloable to all players?

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The content IS soloable for everyone. Just gotta learn how to do it.

This is GW style stuff right here. If you think this one solo story instance is bad, I strongly recommend not playing GW1. Learning from your failures is part of getting better at the game, and I'm glad ANet has taken some steps over the years to encourage their player base to become more skilled. Yeah, it's frustrating sometimes, but the great thing about learning is that it opens up new horizons for your experience.

I remember back when GW2 launched, and doing dungeons with undergeared, level-appropriate groups, before specializations, when people hadn't even unlocked their elite skills, etc. What the experience taught me was that 1) Dying was a natural part of the game experience, and 2) You needed to be flexible in your approach to solving problems. Now, at level 80 that all kinda fell apart, but those lessons stuck with me, so I've resisted all the calls to go pure Zerk, etc., because I learned early on that having survivability through traits and gear made the game MUCH more palatable, and really made it quite easy, but that you also can't go too tanky if you're doing solo content because it takes FOREVER.

People just need to learn the game better, swap some stuff around, and find something works. If you're failing at a fight like this, it's possible you've been carried by some meta build that suddenly doesn't work anymore, or by a tanky build that lives through most content, but has numbed you to specific content that requires timelier counters. But GW has always been, since GW1, about being adaptable and flexible, so you just gotta adapt. Hopefully, you'll get past it, because the story really only gets better after this instance. :P

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