People are still refusing to fight Viscount

[Danikat.8537]

For what it's worth I've never watched videos to find out how to beat the Viscount or Ascent to Madness. I know what to do because I was told by other players who either figured it out or were told by people who figured it out. So now I tell other people. To me that's part of playing an multiplayer game, players help each other.

[ZDragon.3046]

for what its worth it only takes 1 or 2 players out of the whole bunch to shut down his whole mechanic (firebrands and mesmers especially) as both have domes that can reflect ever single one of his projectiles. In the case of firebrand the dome can be used multiple times at the cost of giving up your own dps to place the dome every few seconds from your tome.

As far as why people skip him. He is generally not worth it. Out of most bosses in the lab. he takes the most time and in the time it takes a group to fight him you could get 2x -3x the rewards just doing another lap around him in less time than it takes to kill him. At least last i checked. If the zerg is large i imagine his hp still scales pretty heavily which would make zerg runs even longer despite the decreased hp. People pretty much mainly run lab for the loot. So long as you can get more loot rewards by lapping around him over fighting him people wont bother fighting him.

Its not that its too hard it just takes longer and feels like more of a chore when people just want to farm. its not worth stopping farming progress in most cases.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Mewcifer.5198" said:The patch notes mentioned reducing his health and increasing rewards but people are still refusing to fight him, saying that the fight isn't worth doing even as a once a day.I know this is incredibly minor, but I wish they would do more to make him considered worthwhile to do.they could always lower the loot from everything else in the lab.

seriously though... why is it of concern to you? Join/start an "all doors" squad.... there are plenty.

It's not that much of a concern. Hence why I said "I know this is incredibly minor". I feel it is worth talking about, but it isn't like I am stressing about it.Sure the "all doors/bosses" squads are out there, although it seems like more than half the squads don't specify if they will be skipping bosses or not in lfg. But that's not really the topic here. The point is discussing whether or not Viscount has rewards that match the effort and/or time.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Turkeyspit.3965" said:I didn't know that, and " it looks like something the boss is creating players think they should avoid it" is exactly why I avoid it. Boss isn't a problem for me as I just dodge his attacks (helps that I'm on a DD).After so many years like... 1 out of 10 in the zerg knows, lol. The viscount is like the easiest boss ever, stand in the candy, CC, pummel until dead. Yet people drop like flies every time. Random fully equipped groups that knows the mechanics should be able to bring him down fairly quickly and effortless. But as there is a conflict with farm trains running less gear, I can understand the skip as well.

[Menadena.7482]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Mewcifer.5198 said:Also, almost everyone I talked to about why they skip him mention people needing to bring reflects to the fight. So maybe make it more clear to people that standing in the candy goop will protect you from his candy corn projectiles?

How many years have this been around and people STILL haven't learned its mechanics?

As for rewards .... it is probably still inferior to just farming the rest of the mobs in the lab. You could probably increase its reward by 10x and that will maybe break even.

I am not there to farm so I usually don't mind fighting it.

That being said ...

@Strider Pj.2193 said:People consistently have no clue about fighting the viscount. Mainly because you can’t just spam skills and no brain it.

Too many people in this game just randomly hit skills off cooldown with no idea about mechanics that make it easy....

It’s also why the majority of the player base hates raids. And Higher level fractals.

I would suggest getting multiple members of your guild to do it. 5-10 would be more than enough.

Just watch out for Steve lol.

They COULD do that easily if only they just stayed in front of me(or at least closer) instead of trying to range it from as far away as possible. If they were actually staying close to it I would be healing, blocking, reflecting, cleansing conditions from them so they could just 1111 they way through and it also avoids pulling in other mobs.

Did a viscount + steve fight yesterday. Wasn't all that bad.

@Danikat.8537 said:(Although I'm also still encountering people who think only rangers have knock back skills, so I think a lot of players just don't understand even their own mechanics.)

That is a bit more situational. It is possible to tell if something was knockback/pushed/launched/etc. based on the animation of the mob that was hit.

Try viscount, Steve, and the skeleton next door. When I lead I have learned to always run ahead in that corner and open the skeleton so people will be forced into that event. If not some idiot will do it in the middle of the viscount battle.

The veteran skeleton? O_o

I am not seeing any reason to be concerned about that one.

Yes, by itself it is easy but with the other 2 it is just annoying. Either nobody has time to kill it so it picks off people or it splits the group three ways.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Dawdler.8521 said:I can understand the skip as well.

I don't 'know', but I suspect the skip has little to do with difficulty; even if the players aren't dropping, the boss still takes a bit of time to whittle down, especially some players are built for minimum damage with maximum mobility.

[Ashantara.8731]

They should add a chance for Invisible Slippers (or another crazy rare item) to the Viscount's reward chest - then no one would skip that boss anymore. ;)

[Reynarth.4819]

I honestly don't know if it's worth to kill him now after changes in rewards, but I just like to do it, just for sake of it. It would be great though if they added some rare drop from him, like candy corn weapons, infusion, anything.

[Trinnitty.8256]

Its hard to stop a train :)

[mindcircus.1506]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:. The point is discussing whether or not Viscount has rewards that match the effort and/or time.

The point is that's a personal choice.

[MedievalThings.5417]

The rewards are almost not worth the time. You also have to deal with the fact that even if you know the mechanics, the fight is extremely buggy. Stand on the pad to not take damage or get knocked back, oh look, you did and both still happened. Tons of groups still do it, there are just better ways to spend your time.

[whoeverxwins.1279]

I didn't realize the goop was a good thing, only found out by accident on my ranger yesterday. Realized I took far less damage doing melee on him than staying back (plus I could soulbeast heal people better that way, as well as Search and Rescue rez). Only one our guild was skipping for a bit was the lich, but even that wasn't bad when we all stacked in the mausoleum. Steve is still the worst, but fun.

[Donari.5237]

The key thing about the goop that hasn't been directly stated here is that while yes, it does immunize you to his corn missile barrage, it gives you stacks. I think it's at 10 stacks that you get a bad effect. So you need to keep one eye on your buffs and start leaving the goop at 7 or 8 stacks.

[Mewcifer.5198]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Mewcifer.5198 said:. The point is discussing whether or not Viscount has rewards that match the effort and/or time.

The point is that's a personal choice.

Whether or not Viscount has appropriate rewards is a choice? Did you mean to say opinion?

[crepuscular.9047]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:Lfg is full of no bosses or all doors. Chose accordingly. Even if you efficiently kill viscount you most likely would of got more bags killing trash mobs. The thing I'm surprised is I don't see no mounts often. That is the worst when you got 5 or 6 dudes on them and 2 can easily kill a pack of 6 mobs before you can tag 2 of them.

Anet can alway troll the community by not spawning the mob doors if a boss doors arent closed :lol:

[Khisanth.2948]

@Ashantara.8731 said:They should add a chance for Invisible Slippers (or another crazy rare item) to the Viscount's reward chest - then no one would skip that boss anymore. ;)

It should drop an Candy Coated Infusion

[Menadena.7482]

@whoeverxwins.1279 said:I didn't realize the goop was a good thing, only found out by accident on my ranger yesterday. Realized I took far less damage doing melee on him than staying back (plus I could soulbeast heal people better that way, as well as Search and Rescue rez). Only one our guild was skipping for a bit was the lich, but even that wasn't bad when we all stacked in the mausoleum. Steve is still the worst, but fun.

Unless they changed it you can not stand in the goop forever though.

[Menadena.7482]

@Donari.5237 said:The key thing about the goop that hasn't been directly stated here is that while yes, it does immunize you to his corn missile barrage, it gives you stacks. I think it's at 10 stacks that you get a bad effect. So you need to keep one eye on your buffs and start leaving the goop at 7 or 8 stacks.

That sounds right. I seem to remember 10.

[thepenmonster.3621]

@"Vyrulisse.1246" said:

A lot of that is due to this game being absolute GARBAGE at letting players know just what the heck is going on with mechanics and attacks.

This is the correct answer and veteran players should stop yelling, "Git Gud Nuubs!"

[Ashantara.8731]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:They should add a chance for Invisible Slippers (or another crazy rare item) to the Viscount's reward chest - then no one would skip that boss anymore. ;)

It should drop an Candy Coated Infusion

Noooo, not another ugly skin changer, please (and by skin I don't mean that of your equipment). I want something decent and sparkly for a change. Most infusions have effects that are too drastic for me.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Ubi.4136 said:The rewards are almost not worth the time. You also have to deal with the fact that even if you know the mechanics, the fight is extremely buggy. Stand on the pad to not take damage or get knocked back, oh look, you did and both still happened. Tons of groups still do it, there are just better ways to spend your time.

It’s not buggy as you likely failed the mechanic and hit 10 stacks.

[SexyMofo.8923]

Until he rewards 30 ToT bags, he’s not worth it.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"cNd.1096" said:Anyone know how much they increased reward for killing him?

So much that i haven't seen any real diference.

It's not like the boss is hard. It's just with any decent sized group its hp scales so much killing him takes a lot of time. In that time, just killing normal mobs (to not speak about doing normal door events) would give far, far better rewards.

That is even more true in the farm groups that ask the participants to remove their trinkets to help whole group with tagging, as that makes the overall dps on boss to plummet to near ground levels.

[Jimbru.6014]

Let's get the Anet complaint out of the way: any attack capable of one-shotting the majority of players is cheap design. "We couldn't think of any other way to make this challenging, so here's a massive AOE that can wipe your entire group."

Now, with that said...

I haven't noticed groups avoiding Viscount as much this year. Tips for all the boss fights...

-- CC at every opportunity. If you can, time your CC to stop their big attacks.-- Remember to stand in Vic's goop.-- Load your team AOE helping skills and stack up. I am using my flamethrower scrapper as my lab farmer this year; his AOE defenses from gyros and tool belt are visibly helpful in keeping people up, and Function Gyro reviving entire groups of people at once is huge. Use whatever skills your favored class has the same way.-- The Lich's Retaliation kills more players than his own damage. Watch out for it and get rid of it.-- Fighting Steve and another boss at the same time gets exciting in a bad way. Viscount and Lich will patiently wait for you behind their doors, so if Steve is up, best to get him out of the way first since he's a loose cannon.-- Which brings up another point: the ONLY person opening doors should be the group leader, so you don't start fights before people are ready. Seen way too many gung ho bookahs opening the boss doors when they shouldn't.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Best to do things like this with a guild, you can literally do it with three people if one's a healer, albeit a bit slowly. As for Lich, that can be done with only five, just bring a healer and have everyone equip boon strips or corruptions and you're good to go.