What is up with the Aetherblade Path in Twilight Arbor??

[ekisJohann.1508]

Hi All.So what I want to know is why the Aetherblade Path in the Twilight Arbor Dungeon seems to more difficult than lets say Crucible or Arah? I have only completed that once since it's near impossible to get both oozes at the gate at the same time. Can the developers please look into this?? It's not fun, especially when after you explain the mechanics to other players, you get stuck there for 30mins and more. Let me tell you now I have played this dungeon with many many different players, some very very experienced players who have the same complaint I do. Also I have tried many different strategies, only one worked that one time, and this was after 45+ minutes of playtime. It seems kind of stupid to get both oozes there at the same time, why not let it just get there one time each and that's that?? Anyways thanks for everyone's input in advance and I really look forward to a developer replying - that is if they dare. I have reported numerous bugs with my game that is yet to be replied to, never-mind the idea of having it fixed. For example if I click on the Watch List Button in the H Panel or in the right hand corner of my screen, my game freezes. Somehow I think this post is useless - If they can't fix that bug then how will they change the mechanics of a dungeon, right?? Anyways looking forward to your replies. Peace, Love and Unity <3

[Crystal Black.8190]

The loss part is the worst thing in existence across all dungeons and I hate it too.My go to strategy is for a person to pull all elementals in the room to the gate and wait there while blocking and outhealing their damage. Then two players pull the oozes to the gate. If the oozes are close to the gate the other players kill the elementals. The 2 players can now lead the oozes to the gate before the elementals respawn. It lets you do this part of the dungeon within a few tries. Don't forget to leave the room and reset it if necessary, instead of continuing with a messed up room.

[Icetea.3204]

While it's not the most interesting part of the dungeon it certainly isn't difficult. I'm such bully.the way I usually do it in pugs is telling them to kill the first ooze spawn, kill the elementals and let me deal with the oozes. You can take both and pull the remaining one through the fire at the end. Tell your group to take some reflects or play renegade with the ventari bubble. If you have a group that's capable of reading the party chat (which Tbf is probably the hardest part in dungeons) it's really easy to do.

[ekisJohann.1508]

@Icetea.3204 said:If you have a group that's capable of reading the party chat (which Tbf is probably the hardest part in dungeons) it's really easy to do.

That's true Ice, as 3 out 4 usually gets it but there's always that ONE player that doesn't seem to comprehend.

[Cuks.8241]

Hp pool of oozes is really low. I wouldn't mind if they increased it, it is not like it is hard to do it, just annoying.

[fatihso.7258]

@ekisJohann.1508 said:Hi All.So what I want to know is why the Aetherblade Path in the Twilight Arbor Dungeon seems to more difficult than lets say Crucible or Arah? I have only completed that once since it's near impossible to get both oozes at the gate at the same time. Can the developers please look into this?? It's not fun, especially when after you explain the mechanics to other players, you get stuck there for 30mins and more. Now I know the more experienced players will probably post some unnecessary remarks about how it's not difficult and learn to play (you know, the usual online bullying that goes on in GW) but let me tell you now I have played this dungeon with many many different players, some very very experienced players who have the same complaint I do. Also I have tried many different strategies, only one worked that one time, and this was after 45+ minutes of playtime. It seems kind of stupid to get both oozes there at the same time, why not let it just get there one time each and that's that?? Anyways thanks for everyone's input in advance and I really look forward to a developer replying - that is if they dare. I have reported numerous bugs with my game that is yet to be replied to, never-mind the idea of having it fixed. For example if I click on the Watch List Button in the H Panel or in the right hand corner of my screen, my game freezes. Somehow I think this post is useless - If they can't fix that bug then how will they change the mechanics of a dungeon, right?? Anyways looking forward to your replies. Peace, Love and Unity <3

Ooze is a joke with firebrand. Get 7 pages from trait and solo it to gate with only f3 tome 3rd skill. Nothing else, simple as that. No need to know guardian for this. Just create one and swap for task.

[Katary.7096]

It's not bullying, it's simply stating the truth.

[ekisJohann.1508]

@"Katary.7096" said:

It's not bullying, it's simply stating the truth.

Katary I never said people that reply are bullies. Unfortunately some people are bullies and like to say mean thing to others because they forget they are speaking to real people on the game. Thanx a Googolplex for that Youtube link, and kudos to the person who did that, I would LOVE to run that path with her / him. I posted this question to you guys because I got absolutely and utterly frustrated today after trying it for umpteenth time and not succeeding. All replies are welcome, and no, so far nobody has been rude about. We all know that only 95% of the GW is really nice, the other 5% is either trolls or bullies. But once again, thank you for taking the time to link the video, much appreciated <3

[Jojo.6140]

You can solo this with a revenant. Just pull both oozes at once and keep ventari tablet up during the way to the gate.

[Kichwas.7152]

I hate to be that player too... but yeah... don't nerf this.

SOMETHING in this game should require team play and coordination.

After spending the last several years playing other MMOs, its a bit maddening how much of a zerg fest all the fight mechanics are in this one. I'm rather used to mechanics that involve having 8-20 people all learn 16-40 different things they need to be doing all simultaneously without errors in timing or you start the entire fight over again...

I'm not even that good at it. I've got less than ideal ranking in FFXIV savage, barely into elite dungeons in ESO, and started dead last in my last raid group in WoW - but worked my way up to their top DPS before Blizzard took a stance against Hong Kong and democracy and canceled everything from that company.

I have done this place once since coming back to this game and it was insanely hard but, oddly, I can't remember this fight at all - which implies it was one of the parts we breezed through, or it's being described differently than I recall it.

That noted - nothing in there was even have as difficult as the average leveling dungeon in FFXIV. The only difference is that in FFXIV if someone says to CC this, stay out of that, run over that and trigger that, carry the debuff on you out of the group, bring the buff on you into the group, and kill those two at the same time - the entire group is hyper trained to go along with it and WORK TOGETHER...

• It's... not "online bullying" to ask people to work as a team in a team based game...

[Astralporing.1957]

@Kichwas.7152 said:I hate to be that player too... but yeah... don't nerf this.

SOMETHING in this game should require team play and coordination.The main problem in this part of the dungeon is not about (not) doing mechanics correctly. It's about the whole room being based on mechanics that don't work well. The whole room is about aggro manipulation. In a game where at this point in history there were no mechanics for manipulating aggro (they introduced fixate mechanics only with first raids, much much later). The pheromone mechanics works very badly and is not dependable at all - and manipulating aggro of elementals is even worse.Yes, the room can be done, and it's not even all that hard once you learn a few tricks, but it doesn't change the fact that the mechanics of that part are plain broken.

[Linken.6345]

This path is probabely whey anet decided not to add anymore dungeons to be fair, its the first and only path they released.

[ekisJohann.1508]

@"Kichwas.7152" said:

That noted - nothing in there was even have as difficult as the average leveling dungeon in FFXIV. The only difference is that in FFXIV if someone says to CC this, stay out of that, run over that and trigger that, carry the debuff on you out of the group, bring the buff on you into the group, and kill those two at the same time - the entire group is hyper trained to go along with it and WORK TOGETHER...

Gosh Kichwas, how I wish I could play with you. The problem is when you ask everyone " Do you know the mechanics?" everybody says yes, but when you get to certain points in the game (lets put Twilight aside for a second) you realize that only one or two people actually know what they are doing. This is frustrating to say the very least. To then have to start over, looking for a new group or simply kick those players and wait for new ones to join, can sometimes take too much time and completely put you off from doing that mission. How I wish to find a group that just knows what is going on, sounds too good to be true.

And to make myself perfectly clear - I don't mind people speaking their minds and giving their opinions. When I spoke about online bullying I was referring to the trolls that tells you things like "stfu or leave the group" or "learn to play Noob". The people that hides behind their computers while they try "run" the group with absolutely no regard for other players. If I wasn't such a decent person I would gladly type their account names here for all to see. My block list has quite a few trolls that tried to talk to me like a dog, and when I see them in open world needing help I just smile and wave. Giving your opinion or giving advice is not bullying, in fact, it is very helpful. Already 3 people made a comment here that I am going try on my next Twilight adventure and if anybody else wishes to contribute in a positive manner, please do so.

So no, you are wrong - You are not that player. Your feedback was positive and friendly and I thank you a Googolplex for taking time to reply to my post!

Peace, Love and Unity to all my fellow Guildies <3

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

To avoid responses about 'bullying', you might consider removing this from the OP:

"Now I know the more experienced players will probably post some unnecessary remarks about how it's not difficult and learn to play (you know, the usual online bullying..."

Good luck.

[ekisJohann.1508]

You are right Inculpatus, I instigated the thing I wanted to avoid. Thank you <3

[Tiilimon.6094]

I usually just grab all the elementals and tank them in the bend of the right path, while another player takes both oozes through left and through the flame at the end.

Imo, this dungeon is the best one and I would like to see more content like it, without cutscenes though.

[kharmin.7683]

@ekisJohann.1508 said:If I wasn't such a decent person I would gladly type their account names here for all to see.Yeah, maybe don't do that because it's against the CoC on the forums, too. ;)

[Astralporing.1957]

@Linken.6345 said:This path is probabely whey anet decided not to add anymore dungeons to be fair, its the first and only path they released.Yes. Their fault, though. They made a path that was significantly more difficult that all dungeons so far (with the possible excption of Arah), and tried to experiment with mechanics that were highly problematic (my whole comment about aggro can be applied to half of the encounters there). They also made that path underwhelming reward-wise. And then they were suprised that people didn't like it...

[Tiilimon.6094]

I seem to hold the aggros just fine with a lot of tougness in my gear and making sure to get the first hit on everything, what exactly do you guys feel is wrong with how aggro behaves?

Are you running out to evasion range perhaps and the mobs move back to their spawn positions?

The reward is also pretty good imo, potential 12g~ in around 15 minutes or so.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Tiilimon.6094 said:I seem to hold the aggros just fine with a lot of tougness in my gear and making sure to get the first hit on everything, what exactly do you guys feel is wrong with how aggro behaves?Toughness helps. but is not the only factor. There's a lot of elements that influence aggro in that game, some of those being random.

Are you running out to evasion range perhaps and the mobs move back to their spawn positions?The usual problem is elemental<->ooze interaction. First, pheromone is not an aggro mechanic. It just causes the ooze to follow after the person with the pheromone. ooze is completely free to aggro on anything, including other players, or elementals, though. And aggro on ooze can often override pheromone mechanic.Second, Elemental aggro is a bit clunky. Yes, if you attacked the elemental, it generally keeps the aggro (and having high toughness helps). But if a nearby ooze were to aggro on elemental, in most cases ele will switch (and oozes die very fast). Sometimes eles (and oozes) also reaggro on nearby players when some of passive effects trigger. And i don't think i need mention that you'd better not be a minionmancer or mesmer. Or a ranger (at least we have soulbeasts now, but we didn't have those then). Or have any rune that spawns pets (like quite popular at some time among the average playerbase runes of Golemancer or Ogre)

As i mentioned above, those things can be worked around, and the whole room is not very hard once you learn some tricks, but for people doing it for the first time it can be a serious nightmare.

...and that's only this room. There's also such fun cases as aggro getting wonky on the holo mob in the electric floor room, for example (where you need to get it across the whole room, but it likes to aggro on the person on the closest pressure plate - and you can't get the aggro away, because it dies after two hits)

The reward is also pretty good imo, potential 12g~ in around 15 minutes or so.First, most players even now won't be able to do it in 15 mins. When it released, for many players it took an hour or so - yes, even when you already knew the path (my first attempt with friends took us 3 hours actually). Second, the rewards were reworked relatively recently, they were worse before (for example, the unique skin drops had an extremely low drop rate - i have seen my first drop of those only after the rework).The dungeon at the time it released was considered to be highly unrewarding even among top players that were able to do it fast.

[Linken.6345]

Wait they changed the drops so you can actualy get the skins now?

[Tiilimon.6094]

Electro room is quite easy as well if the person you want aggro on places some aoe field where the hologram spawns and nobody else attacks it, never have any aggro problems if I launch a mortar poison field at the corner while standing on the platform next to the door controls, then I just step down when its close enough.

I agree that ap can be horrible if done with people who arent familiar with this games mechanics, but the same goes for almost any other place.

You can spend hours even in AC if noobing around.

[Tiilimon.6094]

Also, rewards have been the same for atleast 5 years.

I wouldn't call any such changes recent, as they were done way before Hot launched.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Linken.6345 said:Wait they changed the drops so you can actualy get the skins now?Yes, you can, they are very common drops now (and as a result their value of course plummeted down).

@Tiilimon.6094 said:Also, rewards have been the same for atleast 5 years.

I wouldn't call any such changes recent, as they were done way before Hot launched.I'm quite sure the rework for that path was done after dungeons got axed, but i may be remembering things wrongly. It has been a while, after all.Still, the main point was that the rewards now are not as they were initially. Originally that path wasn't really any more rewarding than any of the other two Twilight Arbor paths. Sure, there was a chance for a very valuable drop, but it was way too low to include it in the risk/reward calculation.

[mercury ranique.2170]

I do not think it is our place to say something is hard or easy. Often it is a matter of learn to play. More important is to explain why this is out of parr (atleast with the other two paths in TA).

There once was a path forward/up. But it was very simular to the other two paths and it was uninteresting and boring. way before fractals where introduced when we only had dungeons, this was introduced as part of living world season 1 and it replaced forward/up.

So given the time it was introduced it should be of a difficulty more difficult then Arah (or atleast on par). In this it is pretty succesfull. It isn't in reward and not many people play it this often.

Not saying it isn't hard, but like Arah and also project alpha in CoE it has elements that take some time to master.