Dragon's End Meta is Garbage

[Mithrilos.8036]

3 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Would you please watch my video as well and tell me what's going wrong there?

It is exactly the type of squad you talk about. 1h prep. Removed from LFG (due to being full) ~50 minutes before pre events. 

What major mistakes were made here to warrant a failure and how can I avoid those with any degree of consistency? 

I told ya where the problem is, your team lost focus at some specific time, this is where you lost against the timer.

EDIT : you can clearly see the difference in DPS between the first time your team hit the tail, and the last time at the end of the video, people tend to predict defeat and leave or gave up instead of fighting 'til the very end.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Mithrilos.8036

[The Boz.2038]

9 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Again. Cleared it with 3 people without a problem. Extremely consistently. PUG, guildies, default 80 boost equipment. Yet I find it impossible to do DE consistently and need to resort to my raid guild.

What am I missing here? 

You consistently take two to three randoms off a random TD and do the mushroom queen? Or are they your friends?
If they're your friends, do you have, say, fourty more? 😛

[Erise.5614]

11 minutes ago, Mithrilos.8036 said:

I told ya where the problem is, your team lost focus at some specific time, this is where you lost against the timer.

This is wrong. Soo Won was at 63% / 62% when tail came up. You can see in the video that I was confused for a second too but neglecting tail burning through those few percent is the right call to minimize time wasted. And you can see by the end almost no one went tail. As the tails HP bar is basically full. 

Edit regarding your edit:

Quote

EDIT : you can clearly see the difference in DPS between the first time your team hit the tail, and the last time at the end of the video, people tend to predict defeat and leave or gave up instead of fighting 'til the very end.

You mean when there is 13% HP on Soo Won, Tail up and 30 seconds left?

No kitten they gave up. 30 seconds is hardly enough for a perfect tail clear^^

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Erise.5614]

Just now, The Boz.2038 said:

You consistently take two to three randoms off a random TD and do the mushroom queen? Or are they your friends?
If they're your friends, do you have, say, fourty more? 😛

I'm saying I have done it dozens of times without any issues. Frequently with just one or two people I know and maybe some pugs.

But these events are explicitly labeled as group content, intended for 5 - 10 players to beat. It is very easy to beat with less. Without special coordination, unusual gear setups or even proper builds. 

[Mithrilos.8036]

18 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

This is wrong. Soo Won was at 63% / 62% when tail came up. You can see in the video that I was confused for a second too but neglecting tail burning through those few percent is the right call to minimize time wasted. 

well I disagree. you split your force and let it finish the job, but by doing that they takes more time to finish it and join back up the other group. you lose more time by doing that than by finishing the tail fully with your whole package. remember that the head got a 90% dmg reduction when the tail is up.

 

EDIT: its the accumulation of smol mistakes or smol waste of times that stack up, this is what leads to defeat in this event. I'm not throwing you the stone, you asked for review, I'm telling you my oppinion.

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Mithrilos.8036

[vandrefalk.6823]

One thing I'm curious about though... and the "you" in question here are all the casuals who don't pay attention to mechanics.

 

IF you are willing to go to Dragon's End for nearly 2 hours to go through the meta preparation and then the final meta for another 40 - 60 minutes, WHY are you not willing to learn the mechanics and do what is needed to succeed.

With no rewards if the meta is failed, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth to have thrown away an hour on a failed attempt.

 

I'm not asking you to learn your class better even to change your build or increase your DPS from 4k to 10k, I'm only asking you pay attention to the fight.

Simply to quickly summarise the mechanics of the final fight versus Soo-Won - and some of these are even general tips to ANY encounter in game (DEAD -> WAYPOINT, CC the Breakbar):

• IF YOU ARE DEAD, WAYPOINT to the Pact Airship Emergency Waypoint.
• You CC the breakbar of Soo-Won ALWAYS when it is up (i.e. the blue breakbar under her health bar when you've got her targeted)
• You kill the TAIL when it is possible to damage - if you wonder, look at the event on right-hand side when its health bar appears.
• ALWAYS kill Void Thornhearts - they shoot projectiles that interrupt players and is hurtful for doing DPS to Soo-Won.
• Phases:
  • At 80% and 40%, Soo-Won will spawn green circles. At 80% there are 10, at 40% there are 30. You are 50+ people on the platform, make sure ALL circles have one player in them.
    • IF you get transformed to a wisp - wait until you hit the bottom, then make your way back to the platform by leaping (space bar). Pick up "Wandering Memories" in the air to replenish your endurance.
    • When you get back to the platform, use skill 3 to become human again - you will gain a 2 minute damage buff.
  • At 60% and 20%, Soo-Won will spawn champions.
    • Get to the middle and kill every thrash mob and pick up the "Purified Void Magic" they leave when dead to fill the Dragonvoid bar
    • Then spam your special action key "Prismatic Spear" to get to the champions spawning.
    • At 60% - split the squad 2-ways on WEST and EAST platforms.
    • At 20% - split the squad 3-ways on NORTH-WEST, NORTH-EAST and SOUTH platforms.
    • CC the champions and DPS and kill at same time.

 

Out of all my failed runs, it is nearly ALWAYS failing mechanics that fail the event, not low DPS.

[Erise.5614]

26 minutes ago, Mithrilos.8036 said:

well I disagree. you split your force and let it finish the job, but by doing that they takes more time to finish it and join back up the other group. you lose more time by doing that than by finishing the tail fully with your whole package. remember that the head got a 90% dmg reduction when the tail is up.

 

EDIT: its the accumulation of smol mistakes or smol waste of times that stack up, this is what leads to defeat in this event. I'm not throwing you the stone, you asked for review, I'm telling you my oppinion.

 

Nothing is split is what I'm saying. Almost everyone sticks to the head as announced by the commander. Who is directly and correctly following Teapots guide. There's a very short window of confusion. But there's 48 seconds between tail being up and the next phase. ~24 seconds of which being taken up by 3 bites. (around 8 seconds of invulnerability per bite. Plus another Soo Won attack requiring leaving DPS area though I'm not counting that)

That means we pushed the phase within 24 seconds of available attack window. I doubt tail + 2% damage can be done in less than 24 seconds. And if it is possible I'd like a video example.

So even if a little messy, it was still the right choice, saving time in the end.

Yes, it's small mistakes here and there but I fail to see how this group made enough mistakes to warrant failure and would like explicit and good examples of time waste that can be avoided in my next run. I'll record that too and we get to see how that plays out. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Erise.5614]

18 minutes ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

One thing I'm curious about though... and the "you" in question here are all the casuals who don't pay attention to mechanics.

 

IF you are willing to go to Dragon's End for nearly 2 hours to go through the meta preparation and then the final meta for another 40 - 60 minutes, WHY are you not willing to learn the mechanics and do what is needed to succeed.

With no rewards if the meta is failed, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth to have thrown away an hour on a failed attempt.

 

I'm not asking you to learn your class better even to change your build or increase your DPS from 4k to 10k, I'm only asking you pay attention to the fight.

Simply to quickly summarise the mechanics of the final fight versus Soo-Won - and some of these are even general tips to ANY encounter in game (DEAD -> WAYPOINT, CC the Breakbar):

• IF YOU ARE DEAD, WAYPOINT to the Pact Airship Emergency Waypoint.
• You CC the breakbar of Soo-Won ALWAYS when it is up (i.e. the blue breakbar under her health bar when you've got her targeted)
• You kill the TAIL when it is possible to damage - if you wonder, look at the event on right-hand side when its health bar appears.
• ALWAYS kill Void Thornhearts - they shoot projectiles that interrupt players and is hurtful for doing DPS to Soo-Won.
• Phases:
  • At 80% and 40%, Soo-Won will spawn green circles. At 80% there are 10, at 40% there are 30. You are 50+ people on the platform, make sure ALL circles have one player in them.
    • IF you get transformed to a wisp - wait until you hit the bottom, then make your way back to the platform by leaping (space bar). Pick up "Wandering Memories" in the air to replenish your endurance.
    • When you get back to the platform, use skill 3 to become human again - you will gain a 2 minute damage buff.
  • At 60% and 20%, Soo-Won will spawn champions.
    • Get to the middle and kill every thrash mob and pick up the "Purified Void Magic" they leave when dead to fill the Dragonvoid bar
    • Then spam your special action key "Prismatic Spear" to get to the champions spawning.
    • At 60% - split the squad 2-ways on WEST and EAST platforms.
    • At 20% - split the squad 3-ways on NORTH-WEST, NORTH-EAST and SOUTH platforms.
    • CC the champions and DPS and kill at same time.

 

Out of all my failed runs, it is nearly ALWAYS failing mechanics that fail the event, not low DPS.

I'm saying these kinds of comments are absolute strawman. Please watch my video of a failed run and point out where exactly these mistakes come up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFRto8jhnlQ

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Mithrilos.8036]

11 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Nothing is split is what I'm saying. Almost everyone sticks to the head as announced by the commander. Who is directly and correctly following Teapots guide. There's a very short window of confusion. But there's 48 seconds between tail being up and the next phase. ~24 seconds of which being taken up by 3 bites. (around 8 seconds of invulnerability per bite. Plus another Soo Won attack requiring leaving DPS area though I'm not counting that)

That means we pushed the phase within 24 seconds of available attack window. I doubt tail + 2% damage can be done in less than 24 seconds. And if it is possible I'd like a video example.

So even if a little messy, it was still the right choice, saving time in the end.

Yes, it's small mistakes here and there but I fail to see how this group made enough mistakes to warrant failure and would like explicit and good examples of time waste that can be avoided in my next run. I'll record that too and we get to see how that plays out. 

27:46 your team is killing the tail with the whole team in a few seconds, quite fast. 

29:20 the tail is here but nobody hits it.

[Erise.5614]

5 minutes ago, Mithrilos.8036 said:

27:46 your team is killing the tail with the whole team in a few seconds, quite fast. 

29:20 the tail is here but nobody hits it.

From tail up to 2% damage dealt took 58 seconds.

Only two bites (aka ~18 seconds of downtime). So there was more time to attack than during the end.

Tail up to tail dead was 30 seconds. 6 seconds more than we needed to burn through 2% hp just to kill the tail. Despite being a bit messy during the later example. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Mithrilos.8036]

5 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

From tail up to 2% damage dealt took 58 seconds.

Only two bites. So there was more time to attack than during the end.

Tail up to tail dead was 30 seconds. 6 seconds more than we needed to burn through 2% hp just to kill the tail. 

I don't understand your way of thinking things honestly.

I'm a simple man I see one thing, tail is up. if you don't kill the tail Soo Won get the dmg reduction.

At that moment your team missed an opportunity to strike the tail and delete the boon she has.

EDIT : for me, you just seems entitled that your run was perfect yet you still lost and is asking for justice.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Mithrilos.8036

[Geckoo.6018]

1 hour ago, Erise.5614 said:

Would you please watch my video as well and tell me what's going wrong there?

It is exactly the type of squad you talk about. 1h prep. Removed from LFG (due to being full) ~50 minutes before pre events. 

What major mistakes were made here to warrant a failure and how can I avoid those with any degree of consistency? 

The thing about filtering and requirements for squads or any player driven content is that you are just trying to better your odds, but you never have a 100% security that things will go as planned. Is just as you telling everyone what to do... you did your part there, but you can't play for them.

Even with that kind of squads i don't have a 100% success rate. The most harmful thing i've experienced was a fail with less than 5% left because a tail popped up and the squad got divided between tail and head... wich is kind of what happened to your group.

1 hour ago, Mithrilos.8036 said:

 

Its on your own right, but OW Meta shouldn't ask such level of preparation, its lurking too much toward Raids lvl, with all the respect due of course.

That was my point. It should never be required for an OW meta.

The way i see it this is a snowball effect that is more related to community perception about the event than it is about how hard the event is. Tweaks and tunning are also needed but it is more important to widen up the success rate for more types of squads, not by making it easier, but by making it interesting and worth doing even if it fails so that players mix up more and pay less attention to other players, their roles, buffs or DPS.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Geckoo.6018

[Mahou.3924]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

People love to die and not respawn in metas. They've been doing it for a decade now. They're told not to at every step in every meta, yet they still do it. 

 

Way to be overly snarky and hostile in all of your replies. Maybe git gudders like you need to behave like that to feel good at the end of the day.

[Erise.5614]

13 minutes ago, Mithrilos.8036 said:

I don't understand your way of thinking things honestly.

I'm a simple man I see one thing, tail is up. if you don't kill the tail Soo Won get the dmg reduction.

At that moment your team missed an opportunity to strike the tail and delete the boon she has.

EDIT : for me, you just seems entitled that your run was perfect yet you still lost and is asking for justice.

No. It wasn't perfect. Plenty of mistakes, plenty of time wasted. But your example is actually one where we saved time. 

It's the recommended strategy by guides such as the one by MightyTeapot (timestamp included). 

And follows the logic of minimizing time waste. The second you push Soo Won in the next phase, any secondary mechanics like the tail are irrelevant. So you have to judge whether to spend time killing the tail or to deal damage through the debuff. Because dealing reduced damage may still be more damage dealt faster than first doing the tail.

Our squad needed about 30 seconds to kill a tail. Assuming we can attack the entire time.

We did push Soo Won into the next phase in 24 seconds of being able to attack Soo Won or the Tail. So the call our commander made was actually correct. They saved time by ignoring the tail. They understood the meta on a more advanced level than you portray it here and had us get ahead with a faster outcome.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Mithrilos.8036]

7 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

No. It wasn't perfect. Plenty of mistakes, plenty of time wasted. But your example is actually one where we saved time. 

It's the recommended strategy by guides such as the one by MightyTeapot (timestamp included). 

And follows the logic of minimizing time waste. The second you push Soo Won in the next phase, any secondary mechanics like the tail are irrelevant. So you have to judge whether to spend time killing the tail or to deal damage through the debuff. Because dealing reduced damage may still be more damage dealt faster than first doing the tail.

Our squad needed about 30 seconds to kill a tail. Assuming we can attack the entire time.

We did push Soo Won into the next phase in 24 seconds of being able to attack Soo Won or the Tail. So the call our commander made was actually correct. They saved time by ignoring the tail. They understood the meta on a more advanced level than you portray it here and had us get ahead with a faster outcome.

If what you say is correct, then it join what we have been saying the whole time since the begining of this thread. This meta is Raid lvl and it shouldn't, again we are turning in circle. But I don't see what Anet should do.

More scripted actions will turn the event into a potato fest, and nobody wants that.

More time and everyone will be able to do the even easily ( defeat seem to always happen on the verge of 10%-20% ), and nobody wants that for an end game meta

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Mithrilos.8036

[Erise.5614]

11 minutes ago, Geckoo.6018 said:

The thing about filtering and requirements for squads or any player driven content is that you are just trying to better your odds, but you never have a 100% security that things will go as planned. Is just as you telling everyone what to do... you did your part there, but you can't play for them.

Even with that kind of squads i don't have a 100% success rate. The most harmful thing i've experienced was a fail with less than 5% left because a tail popped up and the squad got divided between tail and head... wich is kind of what happened to your group.

I mean. I can start recording all my runs. But as I said. Playing exactly like this I'm 4 for 18. 

One success with my raid guild. One success with a different hardcore community. One success where I was on a map that was taken over by a raid guild. And one genuine PUG run that succeeded at 2am. Which means I have a 6% success rate with PUGs. 

How is that fine?

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

Just now, Mithrilos.8036 said:

This meta is Raid lvl and it shouldn't, again we are turning in circle. But I don't see what Anet should do.

Maybe, just maybe near the level of Xunlai Strike, but nowhere near Raid level. 

[Mithrilos.8036]

4 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Maybe, just maybe near the level of Xunlai Strike, but nowhere near Raid level. 

Never done any strikes so I don't know what level is that.

I'm not a raider, but I tried those and Fractals, so I took it as exemple.

[Astralporing.1957]

11 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Maybe, just maybe near the level of Xunlai Strike, but nowhere near Raid level. 

Well, that strike is around Cairn/MO level, and those are Raid bosses, so...

Edited March 31, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Wintermute.5408]

8 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Maybe, just maybe near the level of Xunlai Strike, but nowhere near Raid level. 

EOD strikes are pretty much defined by not having an enrage timer. You can lose half your squad as corpses/potatoes, and still look at clearing the strike. The meta is much closer to raids in that regard. 

[Erise.5614]

35 minutes ago, Mithrilos.8036 said:

If what you say is correct, then it join what we have been saying the whole time since the begining of this thread. This meta is Raid lvl and it shouldn't, again we are turning in circle. But I don't see what Anet should do.

More scripted actions will turn the event into a potato fest, and nobody wants that.

More time and everyone will be able to do the even easily ( has defeat seem to always happen on the verge of 10%-20% ), and nobody wants that for an end game meta

 

Tweak tails. High DPS groups encounter maybe 1 or 2 in their runs as they burn through the HP bar too quickly. Slower groups have DPS phases longer and encounter more tails as a result. Meaning the run snowballs more quickly towards failure due to not having enough DPS to skip that.

Bites are still a problem. 8 if I counted correctly in my run. Which is over a minute of invulnerability. Same as above. The longer the fight, the less you get to attack the boss. 

Only one CC phase was without tail being up. And that phase was interrupted by a tail. 

The amount of ads is excessive during the last phase. Have lots of epi and it's a joke. Do not have tons of that one specific skill in your party and you need to make an extremely hard decision between spending time when it gets really close to clear ads. Or hope there's enough stability. Or hope you deal more damage still despite them.

The fight has a lot of factors that means if you have high DPS you skip these mechanics. They are just irrelevant. But if your group has low DPS you are punished by a huge degree with mechanics that cost you even more time. 

In my humble opinion. Everything that affects DPS uptime duration (mostly bites, tails) should be deterministic. Not necessarily for when they happen. But how often they happen needs to be static. E.g. at the beginning of the fight the game shuffles in 2 tails into the HP bar at random times. E.g. at 74% and at 8%. There's gonna be 5 bites during the fight and every team will encounter exactly 5.

That way the DPS difference and RNG luck will be less impactful without taking away from the fight or nerfing any obvious metric (e.g. time or HP). 

As a first step that could do a lot of good and actually help players and especially commanders plan out what to do. Not sure if that's enough but it would go a long way towards making the experience more similar between different groups of players. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Sobx.1758]

12 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Because it doesn't.

Yes, it clearly does tell you what impacts damage.

Quote

I mean, you know that Power "increases attack". How? The game does not tell you. Condition Damage increases condition damage. Again, by how? The game does not reveal that. At least with Precision and Ferocity you have additional stats (critical chance and Critical Damage) that indirectly show their effect. For the most part however, you won;t have any idea what the impact of most stats is. You know it only in a very, very general way - which is a problem when the time comes to compare different traits that each seem to be offensive, but in a different way. How much power is a direct buff to damage worth? How much power is a cooldown reduction for a certain group of skills, or a specific weapon worth? What is the impact of a reduction on weapon switch cooldown? What is the impact of (not so) incidental conditions on a power build? Power dps stats on a condition build?

Hint: remember, the game does not tell you what the damage calculation is. It does not tell you how big (or small) a trait or stat change might be. It does not tell you a lot of things that are important for making the right decisions about your builds.

What an incredibly hot take you've just came up with here. Are you really trying to pretend that the players don't know how do increase their damage because they don't know the exact damage equasion? 🙄 You're avoiding the fact that they can see the damage increase/change after simply hovering over the skill. And... are you pretending that cd reduction is somehow too complicated to understand? Which part of it exactly? Finally, what you've done here is suggest that the players that would bother using actual ingame equasion to calcualate their damage in order to make any change in regards of their damage... at the same time somehow can't bothered with getting that equasion from gw2 wiki.

Please show me that person and explain how exactly that works, where literally calculating the exact damage any small change would make is something they would be willing to do, but easly taking that equasion from gw2 wiki is just too much.

Hint: they hover over their skills, make a change to the build and hover over their skills again. So incredibly complicated, better provide people with equasions and I'm sure they'll start doing all the math on their napkins. Right. Except anyone who wants to go that far in order to make any change to their build is already easly capable of doing so.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Mithrilos.8036]

1 minute ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What an incredibly hot take you've just came up with here.Are you really trying to pretend that the players don't know how do increase their damage because they don't know the exact damage equasion? 🙄 You're avoiding the fact that they can see the damage increase/change after simply hovering over the skill. And... are you pretending that cd reduction is somehow too complicated to understand? Which part of it exactly? Finally, what you've done here is suggest that the players that would bother using actual ingame equasion to calcualate their damage in order to make any change in regards of their damage... at the same time somehow can't bothered with getting that equasion from gw2 wiki.

Please show me that person and explain how exactly that works, where literally calculating the exact damage any small change would make is something they're willing to do, but easly taking that equasion from gw2 wiki is just too much.

Hint: they hover over their skills, make a change to the build and hover over their skills again. So incredibly complicated, better provide people with equasions and I'm sure they'll start doing all the math on their napkins. Right.

On that part you are right 🤗 I don't want to start doing math to get a viable build.

And I do exactly what you said : with time and experience I know some threshold stats for being low-medium-high

just by trying news gears and looking at skill and witnessing in game damages.

[Erise.5614]

15 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What an incredibly hot take you've just came up with here. Are you really trying to pretend that the players don't know how do increase their damage because they don't know the exact damage equasion? 🙄 You're avoiding the fact that they can see the damage increase/change after simply hovering over the skill. And... are you pretending that cd reduction is somehow too complicated to understand? Which part of it exactly? Finally, what you've done here is suggest that the players that would bother using actual ingame equasion to calcualate their damage in order to make any change in regards of their damage... at the same time somehow can't bothered with getting that equasion from gw2 wiki.

Please show me that person and explain how exactly that works, where literally calculating the exact damage any small change would make is something they would be willing to do, but easly taking that equasion from gw2 wiki is just too much.

Hint: they hover over their skills, make a change to the build and hover over their skills again. So incredibly complicated, better provide people with equasions and I'm sure they'll start doing all the math on their napkins. Right.

It's not about calculating damage to the single digit. Once again you misrepresent and (intentionally?) misunderstand the point.

It's about understanding the impact of different attributes and changes. Which doesn't even need the explicit formula. But some training for players to get a solid grasp on what different things do and how they impact their gameplay experience. 

What you describe with hovering is one part of several layers of obfuscation GW2 applies to the damage system.

Another is trait systems not being reflected in that display. Damage numbers not being applied directly and several layers of multiplicative modifiers. 

Getting a solid grasp on all of that is non obvious. 
The fact that guild wars only indirectly displays the results means it's hard to understand what is really happening. Indirect by either having to hover skills after every modification (though that they would change based on gear is not obvious either. Plenty of games display raw skill damage instead). Or by having to actually go into combat, write down the number, change your equipment, find another enemy and go into combat again. Record that result. And so one and so forth. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Tachenon.5270]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Story mode finale. You're describing the story mode finale. Go play that if you want super power chocolate eggplant smoothie buffs.

 

Ya know, I don't think I've ever actually tried eggplant. Could be I'm missing out on something really good. That certainly proved to be the case with guacamole salsa. Slap some of that on some steamed veggies with a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese and woo hoo! Anyway, fractals, strikes, raids, dungeons -- go play those if you want terpischorean DPS/CC checks and perfectly synchronized choreographic battles. Isn't that what they're there for? Let the, ah, less coordinated have their big fun epic open world piñata party sock hops. That way you don't have the John Travoltas and Elaine Beneses stepping on each others toes, like what we got with DE. Which is more likely to be remembered as an Epic Confusion than an Epic Conclusion.

Hmm. Wonder if the name 'Dances With Dragons' has been taken...