is cerus cm possible? [Merged]

[Jokuc.3478]

17 minutes ago, Fifth.8169 said:

Are you suggesting that content be reserved for the .0001% ?  That’s just rude. There is a reason people choose to play GW2 and it certainly not for the super high end bosses. I like to enjoy a good battle just as much as the next guy, but it should be accessible to all.

A challenge mode encounter is supposed to be challenging, content for players that want something extra. It's not meant to be "accessible to all" or even "accessible for most". Because reality is that most gw2 players barely even know the basics of their class and struggle on Boneskinner.

Assuming gw2 has ~50k daily concurrent players your 0.0001% claim literally means 5 people. In its current state, the dps check for Febe is so tough that I would estimate around 10 groups or max 100 different players have what it takes to beat it within a few months of trying. There's currently 10-15 different groups that have reached sub 40% already, and a lot of hardcore guilds haven't even gone at it yet. A 10% nerf and the stack reduction at the last phase as I suggested would open up for way more groups to beat it, definitely more than 500 players within a year. People said HTCM was too hard and would only be beaten by 5 groups or whatever when it came out too, but now there's like 5000 players that has beat it. Anyway, I think it's completely fair that the game has a few encounters than only a few thousand people will ever beat. It's not a completely different encounter from normal mode, which is perfectly accessible to all.

[Jokuc.3478]

30 minutes ago, maxwelgm.4315 said:

The original HP would probably take this to ~HTCM level by allowing groups with benchmark DPS to play a 3rd healer or other alternate strats which actually would make it more interesting for the long term, weekly clears. We don't need one-and-done mythic encounters in GW2 and I hope Anet recognizes that in the end.

What do you mean we don't need mythic encounters? That's exactly what players that enjoy hard content have been asking for for years. Nerfing this by 35% would in my opinion remove a lot of the excitement of the fight. If 60 million hp was removed it would eventually get farmed by playing a safer comp once people get comfortable with the mechanics cause the dps check isn't tight anymore. Yes it would still be tight for the average strike enjoyer, but for players that speed kill instanced content such as myself, we'd already know we have the dps so the thrill of a dps check is completely removed. Again, the current hp might be a bit too much, but 35% nerf is too big of a nerf if they want to preserve it as an encounter that tests guilds like SC.

Edited March 6 by Jokuc.3478

[AlCapwnd.7834]

On 2/28/2024 at 5:50 AM, Minna.7895 said:

There used to be a really good (and very easy/accessible) riflemech but some weren't happy peepos could easily do dps and at ranged (the outcry was horrendous to me because I actually enjoyed the easy pugging that came with it during that time) so the build got balanced/nerfed/destroyed over time. What I'm getting at: those types of builds were not wanted neither by anet nor some (maybe even most?) of the community, what I can't wrap my head around is why "builddesigners" apparently don't talk to "encounterdesigners".

I hardly PVE anymore. But Mechs sucked because when there were 8 of them, spamming skills, the visual effects (including the big mech itself) made it so you couldn't see the battlefield.

[Noro.2879]

1 hour ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

It might be a bit too tight with the hp or chaotic at the 10% phase, but please don't nerf it so much that it's not super difficult anymore.

Honestly, something like -10% hp and 2 empowered stacks per slam at the last 10% phase instead of 3 is the most you should do to keep it super high end but still beatable by more than 10 groups. And fix the empowered walls stealing boons from pets/clones bug.

Surely that would be enough to make the title possible without any gluttony changes right? hmm

[AlCapwnd.7834]

I am going to go aimlessly wonder in WvW. The true dead game mode.

 

You think raids are dead. LOLOLOLOLOOL

[Drag You Down.2615]

3 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, I have one more update on this: Like I mentioned last week, we've been watching this encounter closely, and we are going to make adjustments with the March 19 game update. 

Thank you for letting us know. I know there are many posts about the improvements and issues of the new strike CM. No matter what the adjustments will be, we are always happy to hear some notifications in advance.

[Drag You Down.2615]

59 minutes ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

A challenge mode encounter is supposed to be challenging, content for players that want something extra. It's not meant to be "accessible to all" or even "accessible for most". Because reality is that most gw2 players barely even know the basics of their class and struggle on Boneskinner.

Assuming gw2 has ~50k daily concurrent players your 0.0001% claim literally means 5 people. In its current state, the dps check for Febe is so tough that I would estimate around 10 groups or max 100 different players have what it takes to beat it within a few months of trying. There's currently 10-15 different groups that have reached sub 40% already, and a lot of hardcore guilds haven't even gone at it yet. A 10% nerf and the stack reduction at the last phase as I suggested would open up for way more groups to beat it, definitely more than 500 players within a year. People said HTCM was too hard and would only be beaten by 5 groups or whatever when it came out too, but now there's like 5000 players that has beat it. Anyway, I think it's completely fair that the game has a few encounters than only a few thousand people will ever beat. It's not a completely different encounter from normal mode, which is perfectly accessible to all.

I would agree with you, but having some opposite ideas.

I do agree that this needs to be exclusive to hardcore groups, but I would also encourage more people go into the hardcore content, without necessarily beating it. The problem is dps check, which makes people feel that it is impossible. I would actually halve its health to something like 70m or even lower, but making the combat even harder and complex.

It is skill designers' responsibility to deal with the power creep, the encounter should not be adjust to the power creep. If they lowered all dps and healing for 20 to 30%, you won't need TOFcm to having that high dps check anymore, since other encounters can also fulfill your needs. Let them draw a line, like the highest possible dps in PvE cannot pass 30k on golem.

[Vivve.3049]

4 hours ago, Fifth.8169 said:

Are you suggesting that content be reserved for the .0001% ?  That’s just rude. There is a reason people choose to play GW2 and it certainly not for the super high end bosses. I like to enjoy a good battle just as much as the next guy, but it should be accessible to all.

It is accessible for everyone. 

You have to create a squad, learn strategy, rotations, repeat until you'll get it.

That's called progression, so its not like there's someone keeping you out of the encounter.

But as soon as there's some time and work to invest into the encounter people go "oh no, cant kill it first try, thats a big no no, this challange is too challenging!!!!!!!!" 

 

 

[Cyninja.2954]

6 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, I have one more update on this: Like I mentioned last week, we've been watching this encounter closely, and we are going to make adjustments with the March 19 game update. 

Great to hear, the race has been interesting to follow. SC will hopefully get the kill soon. They were at 0.8% after all yesterday. Fingers crossed.

Will be interesting to see where you want to place the CM after.

I believe world first goes to China already, though I am unaware if they were using their infusions (China client has infusions going up to +18 per stat I believe) or not.

[xChris.8904]

5 hours ago, maxwelgm.4315 said:

Small adjustments already won't make people happy who wanted to have the same challenge as SC is having but won't make people give it a try who weren't interested before, so they might as well not change it if it's that small 🙂 There's always the easy solution which is to simply release the encounter which was the first intended at 106 million HP, nothing else changed. Keep in mind the title run is the "actual CM" and even SC doesn't seem excited to prog it at the current numbers.

People who want to have the same challenge as SC are already progressing it and have 2 weeks to keep going. If they cant kill it by then they just need to accept it. It is doable but the time investment is huge. If they make the hp 106 mil the fight will still need a progression static and a lot of effort and time to pull off. It is not just the dps check that makes it difficult, it is all the mechanics and the coordination needed. This fight is not made for the average player and it shouldnt be. It is good to have more difficult things in this game, HT CM was (and still is one) and i cant see anything negative to it

[Drag You Down.2615]

51 minutes ago, Vivve.3049 said:

It is accessible for everyone. 

Yes, but you have to admit that it is very unfriendly for the rest 99.9999% people. Don't forget, this game is not designed for professionals from the very beginning, this is a commercial mmorpg. The content can be difficult, but it must be interesting and attractive to most people. Again, I am not saying that it should not be challenging, not at all. But overusing DPS check is against the interest of most PvE players, and it is the most LAZY and BORING way of increasing difficulty.

This is the real reason why people criticized COcm. It's actually not because it is easy, since it requires high dps than most encounters already. It is because there is no interesting mechanics. You just do rotations and rotations and rotations, no actual use of brain or some surprising situations. Pure lack of creativity.

[NovaanVerdiano.6174]

8 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, I have one more update on this: Like I mentioned last week, we've been watching this encounter closely, and we are going to make adjustments with the March 19 game update. 

Hi Rubi, thanks for the update.

I'm not sure if something like this is possible, especially with a roughly two week time window, but perhaps consider adding another difficulty mote to the fight? That way, the encounter can be preserved in its current form as an even harder difficulty (it wouldn't even need much in the way of rewards imo, perhaps a golden Embodiment of Sin title?) with whatever you're targeting for the nerfs being the normal CM. In general I think it is time for us to have another difficulty setting to allow a more granular approach to difficulty instead of adding extra challenge behind titles (which you can still do!) - Even more so if we will continue to get two Strike CMs per year.

[Salt Mode.3780]

5 hours ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

A challenge mode encounter is supposed to be challenging, content for players that want something extra. It's not meant to be "accessible to all" or even "accessible for most". Because reality is that most gw2 players barely even know the basics of their class and struggle on Boneskinner.

Assuming gw2 has ~50k daily concurrent players your 0.0001% claim literally means 5 people. In its current state, the dps check for Febe is so tough that I would estimate around 10 groups or max 100 different players have what it takes to beat it within a few months of trying. There's currently 10-15 different groups that have reached sub 40% already, and a lot of hardcore guilds haven't even gone at it yet. A 10% nerf and the stack reduction at the last phase as I suggested would open up for way more groups to beat it, definitely more than 500 players within a year. People said HTCM was too hard and would only be beaten by 5 groups or whatever when it came out too, but now there's like 5000 players that has beat it. Anyway, I think it's completely fair that the game has a few encounters than only a few thousand people will ever beat. It's not a completely different encounter from normal mode, which is perfectly accessible to all.

5000 players is that excluding the ones that bought their clears? Some groups can carry 2 at a time where as even more insane ones can carry 4 at a time. Regardless almost 2 years later that number is quite abysmal again HTCM level of difficulty is nowhere near the current Cerus CM. Again, HTCM is more mechanical whereas Cerus CM difficulty comes from HP bloat that requires peak DPS checks. The problem with this fight is the comp that it requires. If a fight is so inflexible that it requires 6 cVirts (again the only class that can maintain dps uptime on boss while piercing through malice, not to mention portals distort and feedback) scourge (high barrier uptime + scourge portal) and 2 revs that in itself is already bad design and a failed instance fight. 

Edited March 6 by Salt Mode.3780

[maxwelgm.4315]

17 minutes ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

5000 players is that excluding the ones that bought their clears? Some groups can carry 2 at a time where as even more insane ones can carry 4 at a time. Regardless almost 2 years later that number is quite abysmal again HTCM level of difficulty is nowhere near the current Cerus CM. Again, HTCM is more mechanical whereas Cerus CM difficulty comes from HP bloat that requires peak DPS checks. The problem with this fight is the comp that it requires. If a fight is so inflexible that it requires 6 cVirts (again the only class that can maintain dps uptime on boss while piercing through malice, not to mention portals distort and feedback) scourge (high barrier uptime + scourge portal) and 2 revs that in itself is already bad design and a failed instance fight. 

People will just keep responding to you "people are not optimizing because it's a "race" and so CVirts are safer to go with, of course they'd just choose the safest strat", failing to realize what the meaning of "optimizing" is...

[ZenDrake.8316]

7 hours ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

It might be a bit too tight with the hp or chaotic at the 10% phase, but please don't nerf it so much that it's not super difficult anymore.

It would still be impossible to clear for a vast majority of the raiding/strike CM playerbase. Having challenging content is fine, but when you get a whopping 2 (in words: TWO!!!) encounters per year, it's just not good to have one laughable easy one like Dagda and one brutal grindfest like Cerus. We need a middleground, OR more content.

EDIT: By middle ground I mean something on the level of KO CM (but please not another "you better play virtuoso here" encounter, so don't copy that from KO), which has some coordination challenges, roles and a certain level of overall difficulty. OLC CM is also nice, but could be a bit more punishing in some areas.

Edited March 6 by ZenDrake.8316

[NovaanVerdiano.6174]

1 hour ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

5000 players is that excluding the ones that bought their clears? Some groups can carry 2 at a time where as even more insane ones can carry 4 at a time. Regardless almost 2 years later that number is quite abysmal again HTCM level of difficulty is nowhere near the current Cerus CM. Again, HTCM is more mechanical whereas Cerus CM difficulty comes from HP bloat that requires peak DPS checks. The problem with this fight is the comp that it requires. If a fight is so inflexible that it requires 6 cVirts (again the only class that can maintain dps uptime on boss while piercing through malice, not to mention portals distort and feedback) scourge (high barrier uptime + scourge portal) and 2 revs that in itself is already bad design and a failed instance fight. 

If you think that Cerus CM is only difficult due to "HP bloat", you completely fail to understand the encounter as a whole and why things need to not keel over immediately.

I'll agree that it is too tightly tuned right now for most players and needlessly restricts comps, but having a tight DPS check isn't inherently bad and actually quite important for this encounter specifically thanks to the 10% soft enrage and the whole idea behind empowered stacks.

[rotten.9753]

3 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I believe world first goes to China already, though I am unaware if they were using their infusions (China client has infusions going up to +18 per stat I believe) or not.

Didn't they kill it bugged? With the semi deactivated mote.

[rotten.9753]

6 hours ago, AlCapwnd.7834 said:

I hardly PVE anymore. But Mechs sucked because when there were 8 of them, spamming skills, the visual effects (including the big mech itself) made it so you couldn't see the battlefield.

Now we have 6 virts spamming skills in such a flashy way that you still can't see the battlefield 🙂 All that while doing 42k and having a kittenload of utility from core mesmer.

[Jokuc.3478]

3 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

5000 players is that excluding the ones that bought their clears? Some groups can carry 2 at a time where as even more insane ones can carry 4 at a time. Regardless almost 2 years later that number is quite abysmal again HTCM level of difficulty is nowhere near the current Cerus CM. Again, HTCM is more mechanical whereas Cerus CM difficulty comes from HP bloat that requires peak DPS checks. The problem with this fight is the comp that it requires. If a fight is so inflexible that it requires 6 cVirts (again the only class that can maintain dps uptime on boss while piercing through malice, not to mention portals distort and feedback) scourge (high barrier uptime + scourge portal) and 2 revs that in itself is already bad design and a failed instance fight. 

1. There are no groups that sell htcm for 4 players at a time lol, a 6 man kill was completed once after numerous hours of grind, it's not something you do for a sell run. I know because 1. I sell htcm and 2. the 6 man was completed by members of my guild. Can you carry 4 players that are somewhat new to the encounter if they follow experienced player? Yes, but they still have to execute the mechanics themselves. There are servers dedicated to running htcm which requires log verification to get roles, here we find over 1400 unique players that has killed it, and there's plenty of players who killed it but only use their own discords. If one assumes half of the players with the title have bought it that's still over 2500 players. 2500 is a substantial amount for such an encounter in a game like gw2 where most are very casual. Recently we had a progression event over the weekend in the Void Longue discord and saw hundreds of new players join in to learn about the encounter. There is definitely a demand for this type of content.
2. Yes, Cerus' biggest obstacle is the dps check, but again my point was that people thought ht was too hard for more than 5 groups but it proved to be false once people actually figured out efficient strategies, they just had to put in a lot of time. It will be similar to Febe. You put time into getting comfortable with doing the mechanics efficiently so that you can have higher dps uptime. You put time into practicing your rotation so that you can do more damage. Just like players were able to practice doing mechanics in htcm they can practice doing more dmg in febe cm. Again, I do think that the current hp will be too much if anet wants more than 10 groups to beat it, but 10-15% nerf would most likely have more of an impact that you think.
3. This I kind of agree with though. It does indeed heavily favor cvirt just like many bosses which is a bummer, but that's not so much of an issue with the temple of febe specifically but rather cvirt and the gw2's encounter design in general. They would have to change something such that there is a downside to playing a class with 100% dps uptime at long range because if they only nerf the health pool it's not like people would suddenly start playing non-ranged classes. You'd still play the most efficient option, and the only thing that would change is that the encounter got easier. Also people haven't really tried that many different comps, but as for 2 Heralds that you mention it's not like this is some requirement to beat it. You'd probably be just fine replacing those with Chonomancers.

[Salt Mode.3780]

5 hours ago, NovaanVerdiano.6174 said:

If you think that Cerus CM is only difficult due to "HP bloat", you completely fail to understand the encounter as a whole and why things need to not keel over immediately.

I'll agree that it is too tightly tuned right now for most players and needlessly restricts comps, but having a tight DPS check isn't inherently bad and actually quite important for this encounter specifically thanks to the 10% soft enrage and the whole idea behind empowered stacks.

With a lower HP threshold mechanics can be skipped or you can phase the boss before a certain mechanic happens, this is very obvious with HTCM let alone a title run where it requires all of them to be empowered. Many of whatever they are doing were speculated in normal mode in how things would be done, in fact in normal mode no one really bothered to understand why you had to pick up the orbs and how that affected the boss, so whatever strat was developed isn't new knowledge to those who dedicate themselves to understand mechanics in normal mode that could translate to CM mode, for example certain locations that made malice walk a bit longer to buy more time, in fact there are 2 spots for it not just one. 

2 hours ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

1. There are no groups that sell htcm for 4 players at a time lol, a 6 man kill was completed once after numerous hours of grind, it's not something you do for a sell run. I know because 1. I sell htcm and 2. the 6 man was completed by members of my guild. Can you carry 4 players that are somewhat new to the encounter if they follow experienced player? Yes, but they still have to execute the mechanics themselves. There are servers dedicated to running htcm which requires log verification to get roles, here we find over 1400 unique players that has killed it, and there's plenty of players who killed it but only use their own discords. If one assumes half of the players with the title have bought it that's still over 2500 players. 2500 is a substantial amount for such an encounter in a game like gw2 where most are very casual. Recently we had a progression event over the weekend in the Void Longue discord and saw hundreds of new players join in to learn about the encounter. There is definitely a demand for this type of content.
2. Yes, Cerus' biggest obstacle is the dps check, but again my point was that people thought ht was too hard for more than 5 groups but it proved to be false once people actually figured out efficient strategies, they just had to put in a lot of time. It will be similar to Febe. You put time into getting comfortable with doing the mechanics efficiently so that you can have higher dps uptime. You put time into practicing your rotation so that you can do more damage. Just like players were able to practice doing mechanics in htcm they can practice doing more dmg in febe cm. Again, I do think that the current hp will be too much if anet wants more than 10 groups to beat it, but 10-15% nerf would most likely have more of an impact that you think.
3. This I kind of agree with though. It does indeed heavily favor cvirt just like many bosses which is a bummer, but that's not so much of an issue with the temple of febe specifically but rather cvirt and the gw2's encounter design in general. They would have to change something such that there is a downside to playing a class with 100% dps uptime at long range because if they only nerf the health pool it's not like people would suddenly start playing non-ranged classes. You'd still play the most efficient option, and the only thing that would change is that the encounter got easier. Also people haven't really tried that many different comps, but as for 2 Heralds that you mention it's not like this is some requirement to beat it. You'd probably be just fine replacing those with Chonomancers.

If it is possible to 6 man clear the fight it means the extra 4 slot can be used as carry slot, the point wasn't to highlight that but the fact that HTCM was more mechanic based then a heavy dps check like Febe CM.

Again HB bloat is very much a thing again unlike HTCM I'm pretty sure if the boss's hp wasn't so bloated at it's current state many of the 10% mechanics can be skipped this is very obvious with HTCM where mechanics won't go off so long as you phased it.

Again mechanics wise cVirts are the only ones that can cleave through malice and maintain uptime on boss as they are the only class that can pierce and high condi uptime. Now if epidemic was not nerf I'm pretty sure it is doable with other condi classes however that is not the case. You are also forgetting that cVirts are able to distort as a oh crap button which is why in KO CM cVirts stacked their AoEs because it can be mitigated with distort allowing more space for people to handle their aoes. 

People defending that this isn't hp bloat is hilarious to me when Cerus CM is the first boss to have near triple hp compared to other CM bosses.

Edited March 6 by Salt Mode.3780

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

19 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, I have one more update on this: Like I mentioned last week, we've been watching this encounter closely, and we are going to make adjustments with the March 19 game update. 

I'm back with one more update!

Temple of Febe CM is one of the most difficult pieces of content we've ever released in GW2 and a lot of us here at ArenaNet have been watching the race for world first for the past week. To give you a little more information on what's next: We want to make this CM more widely accessible but also keep the current difficulty level available to those who want it. When we make this adjustment on March 19, we're going to keep the current version permanently available as an option in the Temple of Febe CM.

To celebrate those who successfully clear the current version, anyone who does so—before or after March 19—will be awarded the title Legendary Conqueror of Cerus. This title will be added in the March 19 game update and players who earned it beforehand will receive it retroactively when that update is live. 

[Naxx.6203]

11 minutes ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I'm back with one more update!

Temple of Febe CM is one of the most difficult pieces of content we've ever released in GW2 and a lot of us here at ArenaNet have been watching the race for world first for the past week. To give you a little more information on what's next: We want to make this CM more widely accessible but also keep the current difficulty level available to those who want it. When we make this adjustment on March 19, we're going to keep the current version permanently available as an option in the Temple of Febe CM.

To celebrate those who successfully clear the current version, anyone who does so—before or after March 19—will be awarded the title Legendary Conqueror of Cerus. This title will be added in the March 19 game update and players who earned it beforehand will receive it retroactively when that update is live. 

That's actually sooo amazing!

[Melvin.3295]

Thank you for this decision, I am very glad you guys made this choice! keep this up

[ZEUStiger.3590]

Amazing. More unobtainable achievements, now not just in PvP, but in PvE too. Exactly what this game needed.

[TreeDude.7480]

14 minutes ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I'm back with one more update!

Temple of Febe CM is one of the most difficult pieces of content we've ever released in GW2 and a lot of us here at ArenaNet have been watching the race for world first for the past week. To give you a little more information on what's next: We want to make this CM more widely accessible but also keep the current difficulty level available to those who want it. When we make this adjustment on March 19, we're going to keep the current version permanently available as an option in the Temple of Febe CM.

To celebrate those who successfully clear the current version, anyone who does so—before or after March 19—will be awarded the title Legendary Conqueror of Cerus. This title will be added in the March 19 game update and players who earned it beforehand will receive it retroactively when that update is live. 

This is amazing. I'd love if we got something like this for current strikes/raids. Imagine having a race like this every few months as you update existing content. I know that is probably cope, but I want it bad.