Zawnius.6421

There is a difference between a nice meta-event forcing players to not be braindead and spam 1 all day, and a meta that clearly wasn't tested enough and has questionable tuning and design decisions. I've done pretty much all the challenging content in the game, I'm at a point where I know how this fight works, and it just feels frustrating. First, even though challenging content can be very nice, this isn't really the place to introduce a lot of challenge since content is locked behind its completion. End of Dragons was clearly designed for casual/newer players, this meta shouldn't be an exception. If the majority of players cannot complete content designed for the majority, then there is a problem. Second, coming back to the mechanics, it's a visual mess, it's pretty hard to get around, the boss has too few DPS windows and moves around too much. Plus, so far the best strategy is to cheese the crystal phase to buy some time, which isn't even enough in the end. Some guildies managed to clear it with massive coordination on Discord, but that should never be a requirement for consistently clearing an open-world meta event. For strikes, raids and standalone content designed to be challenging, where you have a set team and environment, that is another story. So yes, ANet should re-evaluate the boss fight, without nerfing it to the ground. Adding a few minutes to the timer could be an easy fix, but reviewing the mechanics a bit shouldn't hurt either.

Pretty much my feelings. Visual design is great, apart from Seitung Province being a bit too color-saturated. Though the actual events/hearts in the maps feel disconnected from the story, quite tedious for the hearts, and generally not worth the time. ANet should've followed player feedback and gone for HoT-style map content instead of the criticized PoF, but here we are. About the story, I like the general idea of the narrative, but not how it's told. Alchemy, the politics! They feel too forced into the content and out of place. A game isn't a stage for virtue signaling and propaganda, but again here we are. That, as well as the overuse of Asian stereotypes makes Canthan society feel like a too realistic, too modern, Westernized parody of Asia. At least the amazing soundtrack contrasts with that and shows some genuine research and appreciation for Korean culture. I generally enjoy the expansion and nostalgic throwback but feel like it falls short of being truly amazing, like ANet worked the Cantha hype a bit too much.