The state of Serpent's Ire - The experience of a frustrated player

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

Alright, let me paint the picture. For a few months now I have been trying to finish the achievements for the Funerary armor set, which is a bit time consuming. Not the worst thing ever but it takes its time. All was going fine until the last step, which required me to finish Serpent's Ire to complete the Exaltation of the Guardians collection. That's where my progress came to a screeching halt.I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.I understand that PoF had this problem for a while now, all the way back to October or earlier. It's officialy 2019 and people still don't run this meta due to it being very hard to pull of with pubs and not giving good rewards for your effort - in short, not worth it.At this point I'm honestly debating whether or not the fashion is worth it, considering how many hours I've spent trying to finish one meta event and not once succeeding (and I can imagine that people share this sentiment, since this event is needed for other collections as well). I feel that it's about time for this to be adressed from the side of the developers.

[Ashantara.8731]

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.

Don't blame ANet, blame the players who have come this far (i.e., to play an expansion) and still don't know what CC means and when to use it.

Then again, you can blame ANet for not having any decent tutorials for the basic game mechanics in place.

[Blocki.4931]

Recently did this event and was able to duo one of the Zealots as a condi Berserker together with a Chronomancer, idk what build he was running. Was extremely comfortable too, while the rest of the people quickly killed and rotated around. It really is a bit blown out of proportions and highlights the lack of player skill when this is still a problem for many, when it's honestly just a problem of getting enough people that are worth their salt to even out those who are not.

Good luck in the future.

[Algreg.3629]

GW2 has the lowest skill playerbase I have ever witnessed in any online game and the one who can be bothered least with understanding game mechanics. In fact, Anet's marketing was exactly focused on drawing them in - though not in these words of cause :) Sometimes, some Dev gets carried away and, wanting to spice things up, forgets about that. Which creates problems like this one. GW2 needs to be mediocre to work as a product.

[gateless gate.8406]

@Algreg.3629 said:GW2 has the lowest skill playerbase I have ever witnessed in any online game and the one who can be bothered least with understanding game mechanics. In fact, Anet's marketing was exactly focused on drawing them in - though not in these words of cause :) Sometimes, some Dev gets carried away and, wanting to spice things up, forgets about that. Which creates problems like this one. GW2 needs to be mediocre to work as a product.

That's hilarious. Ever played some of the other popular MMOs? GW2 playerbase is actually not bad at all.

[Dora.2451]

TTS NA runs this (successfully) each week; see their calendar:

http://ttsgamers.com/event-calendar/

[Kiza.5630]

@"Algreg.3629" said:GW2 has the lowest skill playerbase I have ever witnessed in any online game and the one who can be bothered least with understanding game mechanics. In fact, Anet's marketing was exactly focused on drawing them in - though not in these words of cause :) Sometimes, some Dev gets carried away and, wanting to spice things up, forgets about that. Which creates problems like this one. GW2 needs to be mediocre to work as a product.

This is untrue in general. Sure you are more likely to encounter players that have absolutely no clue in open world, but I've done crazy things with many random players that looked like they could only 11111.

Serpents' Ire is a special case since it requires very specific things from players. And often players who do know what they are doing with their character dps wise but just don't know the event think "nah, never need CC anyway and this is open world stuff, just burn 'em down".

I've walked into a number of random metas over the last months and none of them succeeded. Some having full squads even. I've also given up organizing them via lfg myself since they started to fail almost every time. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Peeps think it will fail anyway and don't come anymore. Hence why it should be nerfed into oblivion. But that's only my opinion and I have the same about TT. ;)

Or well, you know, add a branded infusion to the loot table.

[Auburner.6945]

I would say the scaling on this event is a bit off. In Istan for example, you may have 100 players and still break Iberu's bar or 15 (did it as 15 a lot) and still also break the bar because the break bar scales in a good manner. Serpent's Ire, however, kind of lacks the scaling, and given the constant break bars all the time, good luck always having the perfect combination of CC and Damage, which makes classes like ele extremely useless in such meta, I am not playing raids so that I can't play my main. Also, the event scales for 50 players, yet each 10 separate to take care of 1 zealot, which means that a 50-players scaled event is tough for 10-players sub-groups. I only succeeded in this meta twice and both times were really close calls.

I love how hard it is but there are things to hold into account. First, not all classes have the same capabilities, so even I, as ele and know what cc means, I can't help in any way. Second, not all players know what cc even means, given the insta-break in Dragon's Stand. Third, not all players know the damaging rotation or something as near in damage, so that even if cc is well-known, the damage isn't enough.

The game should've been harder in OW, meaning that 1,1,1 should inform players that you'll die. Even if there were no guides for CC and all that, trials would allow us, humans as always, to figure out what to be used and what's not. Since that's not the case, then guides should've existed; like bi-weekly or monthly guide to address an aspect in the game in a sort of a PvE instance. Else players need to shout out in the map but from Dragon Stamd and SI, I believe few only listen or there may also be a language barrier. Otherwise, since OW made 1,1,1 do the wonders and there are no guides, good luck with this event without a planned day and a specific time when an organized group exists, which means, those who have schedules will never get to finish the meta, which results in asking for a nerf and I can't oppose that.

Sure you can't blame the company for players not knowing basics but the reason why players don't is because the company never implemented ideas to fix this issue, which means by blaming players, you're also indirectly blaming the company you're defending.

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

@Auburner.6945 said:I would say the scaling on this event is a bit off. In Istan for example, you may have 100 players and still break Iberu's bar or 15 (did it as 15 a lot) and still also break the bar because the break bar scales in a good manner. Serpent's Ire, however, kind of lacks the scaling, and given the constant break bars all the time, good luck always having the perfect combination of CC and Damage, which makes classes like ele extremely useless in such meta, I am not playing raids so that I can't play my main. Also, the event scales for 50 players, yet each 10 separate to take care of 1 zealot, which means that a 50-players scaled event is tough for 10-players sub-groups. I only succeeded in this meta twice and both times were really close calls.

I love how hard it is but there are things to hold into account. First, not all classes have the same capabilities, so even I, as ele and know what cc means, I can't help in any way. Second, not all players know what cc even means, given the insta-break in Dragon's Stand. Third, not all players know the damaging rotation or something as near in damage, so that even if cc is well-known, the damage isn't enough.

Agreed, I certainly like a challenge when it comes to events and content in general. I'd like to consider myself a decent player at best, since I get how mechanics work and when to use certain skills.

As for Serpent's Ire I agree that some adjustement on the scaling and the rewards is in order, since finding people to do this with without lfg or a guild host is a nightmare to deal with. Taking into account that people still do HoT metas after so many years it's rather disheartening seeing everything but bounty trains being abandoned in PoF.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@Kiza.5630 said:

@"Algreg.3629" said:GW2 has the lowest skill playerbase I have ever witnessed in any online game and the one who can be bothered least with understanding game mechanics. In fact, Anet's marketing was exactly focused on drawing them in - though not in these words of cause :) Sometimes, some Dev gets carried away and, wanting to spice things up, forgets about that. Which creates problems like this one. GW2 needs to be mediocre to work as a product.

This is untrue in general. Sure you are more likely to encounter players that have absolutely no clue in open world, but I've done crazy things with many random players that looked like they could only 11111.

Serpents' Ire is a special case since it requires very specific things from players. And often players who do know what they are doing with their character dps wise but just don't know the event think "nah, never need CC anyway and this is open world stuff, just burn 'em down".

I've walked into a number of random metas over the last months and none of them succeeded. Some having full squads even. I've also given up organizing them via lfg myself since they started to fail almost every time. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Peeps think it will fail anyway and don't come anymore. Hence why it should be nerfed into oblivion. But that's only my opinion and I have the same about TT. ;)

Or well, you know, add a branded infusion to the loot table.

Also to say many has attitude of someone else will do mechs like cc

[Kiza.5630]

@"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

Also to say many has attitude of someone else will do mechs like cc

Yeah, that's a sad truth unfortunately.

But as others stated you can only bring so much CC and open world will always be a borderline useful combination of classes. Sometime I'm the only chrono, sometimes there are 10. Sometimes it's full of weavers, sometimes it's rangers (with bears!).

Speaking of it, if anyone wants to do it today on EU: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/au6luy/serpents_ire_eu/

Might be able to join as well. So anyone who wants to do the collection, try it. And: always assume you are the only player using CC. ;)

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

Speaking of it, if anyone wants to do it today on EU: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/au6luy/serpents_ire_eu/

Might be able to join as well. So anyone who wants to do the collection, try it. And: always assume you are the only player using CC. ;)

Well count me in, worst case scenario I'll fail again. Wouldn't be the first time. :p

[RubberDougie.2750]

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:Alright, let me paint the picture. For a few months now I have been trying to finish the achievements for the Funerary armor set, which is a bit time consuming. Not the worst thing ever but it takes its time. All was going fine until the last step, which required me to finish Serpent's Ire to complete the Exaltation of the Guardians collection. That's where my progress came to a screeching halt.I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.I understand that PoF had this problem for a while now, all the way back to October or earlier. It's officialy 2019 and people still don't run this meta due to it being very hard to pull of with pubs and not giving good rewards for your effort - in short, not worth it.At this point I'm honestly debating whether or not the fashion is worth it, considering how many hours I've spent trying to finish one meta event and not once succeeding (and I can imagine that people share this sentiment, since this event is needed for other collections as well). I feel that it's about time for this to be adressed from the side of the developers.

Link us your build. The common denominator for failure is you. Let us see your CCs

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

@RubberDougie.2750 said:

@"DragonBiscuit.2478" said:Alright, let me paint the picture. For a few months now I have been trying to finish the achievements for the Funerary armor set, which is a bit time consuming. Not the worst thing ever but it takes its time. All was going fine until the last step, which required me to finish Serpent's Ire to complete the Exaltation of the Guardians collection. That's where my progress came to a screeching halt.I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.I understand that PoF had this problem for a while now, all the way back to October or earlier. It's officialy 2019 and people still don't run this meta due to it being very hard to pull of with pubs and not giving good rewards for your effort - in short, not worth it.At this point I'm honestly debating whether or not the fashion is worth it, considering how many hours I've spent trying to finish one meta event and not once succeeding (and I can imagine that people share this sentiment, since this event is needed for other collections as well). I feel that it's about time for this to be adressed from the side of the developers.

Link us your build. The common denominator for failure is you. Let us see your CCs

I severly doubt that the fault falls sorely on my build but sure, I'll humor you.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIfhG2JJNQTvYpNgrNA7NYpbwmeADgAAVHYEUo07pD1kKA-jxwGABss/AAnEAyfCAAA-e

[Naxos.2503]

The fact is : it is a hard, unrewarding and messy event, which is to be completed in a map that constantly attacks you, on maps that players tend to not go back to once they're done. Odds are stacked against it.

[Khisanth.2948]

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:

@RubberDougie.2750 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:Alright, let me paint the picture. For a few months now I have been trying to finish the achievements for the Funerary armor set, which is a bit time consuming. Not the worst thing ever but it takes its time. All was going fine until the last step, which required me to finish Serpent's Ire to complete the Exaltation of the Guardians collection. That's where my progress came to a screeching halt.I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.I understand that PoF had this problem for a while now, all the way back to October or earlier. It's officialy 2019 and people still don't run this meta due to it being very hard to pull of with pubs and not giving good rewards for your effort - in short, not worth it.At this point I'm honestly debating whether or not the fashion is worth it, considering how many hours I've spent trying to finish one meta event and not once succeeding (and I can imagine that people share this sentiment, since this event is needed for other collections as well). I feel that it's about time for this to be adressed from the side of the developers.

Link us your build. The common denominator for failure is you. Let us see your CCs

I severly doubt that the fault falls sorely on my build but sure, I'll humor you.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIfhG2JJNQTvYpNgrNA7NYpbwmeADgAAVHYEUo07pD1kKA-jxwGABss/AAnEAyfCAAA-e

It would not be solely on you but if enough people at the event thought the same and brought such a build it will add up.

That build has around 17 breakbar damage per second which is not a lot but that doesn't matter since you can simply bring a stack of boulders/spikey fruits/other CC bundles https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Purchasable_bundles With the bundles it would be around 50-100 breakbar damage per second which is quite a bit more.

As for the build it is okay(maybe ...) for the hunting phase but not for the bomb phase which is usually where the event fails. You have a bunch of things that interacts with reviving but the fights are in the brand which removes downed state and for fully dead it is better to WP and head back especially since everyone present has a mount.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:

@RubberDougie.2750 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:Alright, let me paint the picture. For a few months now I have been trying to finish the achievements for the Funerary armor set, which is a bit time consuming. Not the worst thing ever but it takes its time. All was going fine until the last step, which required me to finish Serpent's Ire to complete the Exaltation of the Guardians collection. That's where my progress came to a screeching halt.I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.I understand that PoF had this problem for a while now, all the way back to October or earlier. It's officialy 2019 and people still don't run this meta due to it being very hard to pull of with pubs and not giving good rewards for your effort - in short, not worth it.At this point I'm honestly debating whether or not the fashion is worth it, considering how many hours I've spent trying to finish one meta event and not once succeeding (and I can imagine that people share this sentiment, since this event is needed for other collections as well). I feel that it's about time for this to be adressed from the side of the developers.

Link us your build. The common denominator for failure is you. Let us see your CCs

I severly doubt that the fault falls sorely on my build but sure, I'll humor you.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIfhG2JJNQTvYpNgrNA7NYpbwmeADgAAVHYEUo07pD1kKA-jxwGABss/AAnEAyfCAAA-e

That build is utterly terrible. You're running the lowest CCPS spec in the game, while equipped to do healing against a group of enemies that don't fight back. If those are the utilities you bring to phase 2, then you've effectively been dead weight.

Awhile ago I did some calculations on how much hard CC each class can output with a dedicated build. The post is old, so balance updates have changed some things, and also I was wrong on how much alacrity helps, but nonetheless it provides a really good metric for how good each class can be at doing hard CC.

Back when I used to host regularly, only a very small percentage of players would actually follow my directions. They'd fight me on it, too. I've had plenty of people tell me that Chronomancers have the best CC because of Signet of Humility, and they just can't understand that the super-long cooldown makes it utterly terrible for long term CC. This is what we mean when we say that the average player is pretty bad at the game.

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.

Don't blame ANet, blame the players who have come this far (i.e., to play an expansion) and still don't know what CC means and when to use it.

Then again, you

can

blame ANet for not having any decent tutorials for the basic game mechanics in place.

Did they change the reward? Because often there were not enough players, because there is no reward.And for that you can blame anet.

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:

@RubberDougie.2750 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:Alright, let me paint the picture. For a few months now I have been trying to finish the achievements for the Funerary armor set, which is a bit time consuming. Not the worst thing ever but it takes its time. All was going fine until the last step, which required me to finish Serpent's Ire to complete the Exaltation of the Guardians collection. That's where my progress came to a screeching halt.I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.I understand that PoF had this problem for a while now, all the way back to October or earlier. It's officialy 2019 and people still don't run this meta due to it being very hard to pull of with pubs and not giving good rewards for your effort - in short, not worth it.At this point I'm honestly debating whether or not the fashion is worth it, considering how many hours I've spent trying to finish one meta event and not once succeeding (and I can imagine that people share this sentiment, since this event is needed for other collections as well). I feel that it's about time for this to be adressed from the side of the developers.

Link us your build. The common denominator for failure is you. Let us see your CCs

I severly doubt that the fault falls sorely on my build but sure, I'll humor you.

gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIfhG2JJNQTvYpNgrNA7NYpbwmeADgAAVHYEUo07pD1kKA-jxwGABss/AAnEAyfCAAA-e

That build is utterly terrible. You're running the lowest CCPS spec in the game, while equipped to do healing against a group of enemies that don't fight back. If those are the utilities you bring to phase 2, then you've effectively been dead weight.

I find it a bit unfair to call it utterly terrible, considering that I've used this build for most of my game time till now and hasn't failed me. Not sure if I could've speced with something else, and I'm not above advice to improve, but this is what I use during most of my running around in open world.

Incidentally I runned Serpent's Ire last night, talked it out with my group's lieutenant and the rest of the subgroup and we decided that this utility was fine (if you disagree then please tell me what you would've done different). We managed to go all the way to phase 3 and clear the event last night after monthes of trying on my part in unorganised groups. To say that I'm happy would be an understatement.

I'm not saying that this build is the best thing ever but it works for me. Since it's out there already any feedback is appreciated.

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.

Don't blame ANet, blame the players who have come this far (i.e., to play an expansion) and still don't know what CC means and when to use it.

Then again, you

can

blame ANet for not having any decent tutorials for the basic game mechanics in place.

Did they change the reward? Because often there were not enough players, because there is no reward.And for that you can blame anet.

Current rewards according to the GW2 wiki:Chest of the Bazaar Raider (once a day per character)Intact Mosaic (0-1)Chest of the Desert Specialist (0-1)Recipe: The Twins' Grieving Insignia (0-1)Elegy Mosaics

[Kiza.5630]

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:

I find it a bit unfair to call it utterly terrible, considering that I've used this build for most of my game time till now and hasn't failed me. Not sure if I could've speced with something else, and I'm not above advice to improve, but this is what I use during most of my running around in open world.

What they wanted to tell you is that, in the specific event that Serpents' Ire is, builds that bring virtually no CC are useless. Sure it may bring damage to the table and heal ppl. But in case of this event: no CC = no dmg and since none are taking dmg in phase 2 = heal is useless. Minimal self heal every class brings is enough there. Bottom line: if everyone in the group would do that, the event will never succeed.

Also it doesn't matter much that you need heal for phase 3 because if you die, you can just change builds at the waypoint again. Phase 3 cannot fail, at least I have never seen it fail. Even if we killed Pekt multiple times.

[DragonBiscuit.2478]

@Kiza.5630 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:

I find it a bit unfair to call it utterly terrible, considering that I've used this build for most of my game time till now and hasn't failed me. Not sure if I could've speced with something else, and I'm not above advice to improve, but this is what I use during most of my running around in open world.

What they wanted to tell you is that, in the specific event that Serpents' Ire is, builds that bring virtually no CC are useless. Sure it may bring damage to the table and heal ppl. But in case of this event: no CC = no dmg and since none are taking dmg in phase 2 = heal is useless. Minimal self heal every class brings is enough there. Bottom line: if everyone in the group would do that, the event will never succeed.

Also it doesn't matter much that you need heal for phase 3 because if you die, you can just change builds at the waypoint again. Phase 3 cannot fail, at least I have never seen it fail. Even if we killed Pekt multiple times.

Fair enough, and I do agree that heal on phase 2 is not needed, I get that. What I'm confused about is what I could've done differently in this particular case. I have six skills that deal CC, Flesh Golem being on a higher cooldown so I can understand that it's not as reliable.

[Kiza.5630]

@"DragonBiscuit.2478" said:

Fair enough, and I do agree that heal on phase 2 is not needed, I get that. What I'm confused about is what I could've done differently in this particular case. I have six skills that deal CC, Flesh Golem being on a higher cooldown so I can understand that it's not as reliable.

I don't know necro very well so I will leave it to others before giving you bad advices. :3 Maybe ask in the profession forum for cc heavy ideas. Or see the link Blood Red Arachnid.2493 added in their post.

If I go to that event I put every single CC I can find on mesmer on my bar. And there are quite a lot of you take build into account as well. Also picking up conjured ele weapons can contribute CC.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/ConjureBow, Hammer and Shield (rarely see that one) bring CC. It's always kinda sad seeing someone pick up the frost bow, use #4 on it and then throw it away. D:

I did this event a lot during the early PoF days. On many days it almost worked on autopilot. I dunno really what changed. Apart from less ppl doing it. Probably too many copy&pasting high dmg meta builds that don't have any CC and/or not really knowing how the build works.

[Wubbbi.8172]

I have just randomly done this event 1 week ago (just came across a big group with a commander) and I successfully got the achivement on my first try ever doing it.Maybe I am lucky, maybe it is because I play on EU? I don't know but I didn't even notice until then, that there was an achivement behind it. It was just a random encounter for me. Never tought about the meta. As I said, I completly randomly walked across it while doing other stuff.

Of course that does not mean that it is always the case but I don't see a huge issue here on my perspective. Use the LFG, look for a nice group and a good commander. I really had no strugge to finish the event.

And as many people said: This is not Arenanets fault, it is the players fault. I am glad that there is acutally hard (to complete) content in the open world. I wish there would be more!

Greetings

[phs.6089]

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:

@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@DragonBiscuit.2478 said:I've tried this event numerous times over the past few monthes, having done it twice today with more organised groups from LFG and via a host from a guild. Not once have I seen past phase 2 of the event.

Don't blame ANet, blame the players who have come this far (i.e., to play an expansion) and still don't know what CC means and when to use it.

Then again, you

can

blame ANet for not having any decent tutorials for the basic game mechanics in place.

Did they change the reward? Because often there were not enough players, because there is no reward.And for that you can blame anet.

Current rewards according to the GW2 wiki:Chest of the Bazaar Raider (once a day per character)Intact Mosaic (0-1)Chest of the Desert Specialist (0-1)Recipe: The Twins' Grieving Insignia (0-1)Elegy Mosaics

True they did change it but it's not gonna bring players.Not everyone needs elegy mosaics and none whatsoever wants that griving insignia.yes you can chose Intact Mosaic from Chest of the Bazaar Raider but it's very poor replacement for amalgamated gemstone.