Icebrood Saga MP grind is painfully tedious

[JackassTheX.6351]

Mastery leveling is one reason I keep coming back to this game - there is such a multitude of ways to get XP that I can do literally anything in a given Living World map and I'm slowly working towards something. In previous LW releases, getting the masteries seemed fairly straightforward and the quests were a lot more interesting. I have 11 unspent Central Tyria points, 9 unspent HoT points and 10 unspent PoF points and I don't remember grinding hours and hours away for any of them.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm really burning out on grinding for the last 3 Mastery Points that I need to max out the Icebrood mastery track. All the other Living World episodes had a LOT more MPs that were obtainable through quests, exploration or some kind of skill/coop based activities. Looking at the wiki page and using my API key, the only two I have left that are sort of skill-based are the "Dodge the things in Dragonstorm meta" ones and even those are tedious as hell since I actually have to go out of my way to ACTIVELY IGNORE THE FIGHT to work on them. The other options are all total slogs. 5000 Charr Commendations for a legion. Defeat the CW boss 10 times. Do the Dragonstorm Meta 10 times. Do the Citadel meta 10 times. Do the Bjora Marches East meta 15 (!!!) times. Do 30 Dragon Response missions. Complete 17 No Quarter achievements, I have 10, 6 are story instance skill-based, the final is more grind. Either that or I just throw money at the problem and get Volcanic Stormcaller armaments.

 

I know this is an MMO and a timesink almost by definition, but hours and hours of work for one mastery point just to get to max level... the effect and reward in relation to time spent is abysmal, and the fun wears off very, very quickly. Anyone else feel this way?

Edited May 28, 2021 by JackassTheX.6351

[Avengedeath.4671]

I got so tired of doing the meta in drizzlewood for my mastery points, I haven’t been back to the map since. So yes, I agree, it is very grindy. You will get responses on here saying it’s not grindy at all though. Different perspectives. Lots of repetition in gw2 though. Do this 10 times,  do this other 20 times. I saw one achievement where they had to do an event 100 times. LOL

[QuirkyDM.2351]

Those last points took me a while, too. I would pop into Drizzlewood just to see if there was a decent meta up to get the Citadel easy enough. I worked through the commendation tracks since it was great loot, and once I did, getting No Quarter Mastery was simple.

Since you only have three left, from your list I would recommend these ones to keep the pain minimal:

- Doing 10 Dragon Strike missions- just make it a daily thing and then it's the same as doing Tequatl or Ley-Line anomaly. Annoying, maybe, but pretty much guaranteed to succeed without any real effort. Just make sure to leave the final break bar event early because hitting the special key on the last crystal is what gets you the achievement progress.

- I didn't do Skritt Hot, but dodging Jormag's frost breath is super easy and you can get multiple credits from a single breath. It takes you away from the fight for all of 4 seconds and there's a huge warning it's coming with the giant rectangle on the ground, so you can stay focused on Ryland most of the time. It took me all of the 3 missions to get this by just looking for the huge rectangle and then spamming dodge once the frost breath hit.

- The third one is a crap shoot, though. You can try Skritt Hot, or just focus all your commendations into one legion and plug away. I enjoyed focusing on special missions to keep the area more interesting instead of just constantly working the meta. That made it more quest based/objective focused for me.

 

Hope you get it worked out without burning out.

 

Jay

[Wintermute.5408]

It's not that it's grindy - IMHO it simply lacks the points. Points for HOT and POF masteries are abundant, so you can pick and choose what's interesting/not too horrible to do. With IBS, you better grind those metas, or... you better grind those metas. Not that I mind - the real horror for me will be the boss challenges.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Wintermute.5408

[Obtena.7952]

I'm hoping the IBS MP's are just an 'experiment' to test the threshold of what players will and will not tolerate for getting MP's. Frankly, I'm also looking at another 9 MP's to obtain ... and I'm not thrilled by the prospect. Most likely, I will never get them because they mean nothing outside of IBS. 

[mindcircus.1506]

I enjoyed the restoration of a feeling of progression.

Masteries from S3 onward became a meaningless exercise of something I maxed immediately because I had an excess of points. Worst case scenario was an hour or so grabbing unbound/volatile magic to level the mastery.

 

IBS brought back a small feeling of goals and choices.

This game needs more of both.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I have 6 extra Icebrood Saga Mastery Points, and the Six Gods know I'm about as casual as they come. 

Dragonstorm only takes 20 minutes or so, and like another said, the frost breath one is pretty easy; just dodge in that big rectangle.  I completed it in about 3 or 4 Dragonstorms.  Skritt Hot, I only have 1, so probably never going to get that one.  I have all the other Dragonstorm ones just from doing it once a day.  Also received the Ascended Greatsword from the rewards. 

[Linken.6345]

14 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

I have 6 extra Icebrood Saga Mastery Points, and the Six Gods know I'm about as casual as they come. 

Dragonstorm only takes 20 minutes or so, and like another said, the frost breath one is pretty easy; just dodge in that big rectangle.  I completed it in about 3 or 4 Dragonstorms.  Skritt Hot, I only have 1, so probably never going to get that one.  I have all the other Dragonstorm ones just from doing it once a day.  Also received the Ascended Greatsword from the rewards. 

Skritt hot just dodge around alot when the wave of small aoe circles come towards you mate, will get 2-3 atleast each time.

Instead of running to the big aoes and most likely miss them.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Which wave of small AoEs?  I've no idea.  And, as I don't need the Mastery Point, it's rather 'pointless'....pun intended.  🤣

[JackassTheX.6351]

Quote

On 5/28/2021 at 8:27 PM, mindcircus.1506 said:

I enjoyed the restoration of a feeling of progression.

Masteries from S3 onward became a meaningless exercise of something I maxed immediately because I had an excess of points. Worst case scenario was an hour or so grabbing unbound/volatile magic to level the mastery.

 

IBS brought back a small feeling of goals and choices.

This game needs more of both.

 

To me, grinding a meta over and over again is the opposite of the "feeling of progression". We got goals, choices, I'm not so sure (as far as the MPs are concerned). I do agree that S3 and S4 masteries were a case of insta-maxing and I'm guilty of doing it. But this is not the solution.

That said, the reason I had so much mastery points leftover from HoT and PoF was that I enjoyed getting the mastery points by doing the things that were tied to them. Here I'm forced to sit at my PC every other hour (no, I can't solo a meta meant for 35 people in private) or loop around Drizzlewood for hours on end to get to max.

I managed to get a Charr Commendation mastery (I didn't know you can buy a couple of HUNDRED commendations daily) and Skritt Hot and tbh it's easier than Cooler than Cool because Jormag's attack shows up a total of around 5 times during the meta and sometimes you get 4-5 dodges, sometimes 1. I wouldn't be surprised if I get "complete the Dragonstorm meta 10 times" before I manage to get Cooler than Cool. Again, tedious, tedious, tedious. My "working towards a goal" is waiting around for something to spawn or activate.

 

On 5/28/2021 at 7:44 PM, Wintermute.5408 said:

It's not that it's grindy - IMHO it simply lacks the points. Points for HOT and POF masteries are abundant, so you can pick and choose what's interesting/not too horrible to do. With IBS, you better grind those metas, or... you better grind those metas. Not that I mind - the real horror for me will be the boss challenges.

I agree. Some more points tied to experiencing various aspects of the game and not tied to mindless repetition would be nice.

[mindcircus.1506]

8 minutes ago, JackassTheX.6351 said:

To me, grinding a meta over and over again is the opposite of the "feeling of progression". We got goals, choices, I'm not so sure (as far as the MPs are concerned). I do agree that S3 and S4 masteries were a case of insta-maxing and I'm guilty of doing it. But this is not the solution.

I never had to grind a meta over and over to max my IBS masteries.

 

The only thing I "grinded" in IBS were:

Drizzlewood. I did that by choice because I wanted the otter.

Strikes. I did that by choice because I wanted the cape.

 

There were enough achievements in IBS that I never had to do any of the ones I felt were a grind just to max my masteries.

[LucianDK.8615]

Drizzlewood was enjoyable to do, and it had a lot of easy masteries. I had enough points to get the final mastery when Dragonstorm rolled in.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

8 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Which wave of small AoEs?  I've no idea.  And, as I don't need the Mastery Point, it's rather 'pointless'....pun intended.  🤣

When Primordus spits out those lava rocks, a small orange AoE circle appears. Run to it before the rock gets there and dodge.  I got the MP by hanging out in front of Primordus during the kill champions part of the fight, and I got them pretty quickly.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

23 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

I never had to grind a meta over and over to max my IBS masteries.

 

The only thing I "grinded" in IBS were:

Drizzlewood. I did that by choice because I wanted the otter.

Strikes. I did that by choice because I wanted the cape.

 

There were enough achievements in IBS that I never had to do any of the ones I felt were a grind just to max my masteries.

I grinded Drizz for the otter too.  The rest of the time after I finished the story, I went back to Grothmar to fill up my IBS XP bar, the events there are fun and fast and there are still people there so you're not by yourself.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Kaliwenda.3428
typo

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

14 minutes ago, Kaliwenda.3428 said:

When Primordus spits out those lava rocks, a small orange AoE circle appears. Run to it before the rock gets there and dodge.  I got the MP by hanging out in front of Primordus during the kill champions part of the fight, and I got them pretty quickly.

That's a 'wave'? 

I see the individual orange circles now and then, but would not call them a 'wave'.   Nor can I, usually, get anywhere near them in time.  (I have 1/25, but like I said, I don't need the superfluous Mastery Point; can't spend it, so...)

Edited May 29, 2021 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[Kaliwenda.3428]

10 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

That's a 'wave'? 

I see the individual orange circles now and then, but would not call them a 'wave'.   Nor can I, usually, get anywhere near them in time.  (I have 1/25, but like I said, I don't need the superfluous Mastery Point; can't spend it, so...)

I wouldn't call it a wave, no...more like a blip...to get there I stand practically in front of Primordus, away from the main fight...stand right in the middle and you have a better chance of getting to one.  I use "strength of the pack" on my ranger to get the speed boost.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

That's why I questioned the advice given about 'waves'. 

[Linken.6345]

2 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

That's a 'wave'? 

I see the individual orange circles now and then, but would not call them a 'wave'.   Nor can I, usually, get anywhere near them in time.  (I have 1/25, but like I said, I don't need the superfluous Mastery Point; can't spend it, so...)

He do another attack aswell you see 5-6 flame lines with explosions inside those are small aoes you can dodge.

[JackassTheX.6351]

13 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

I never had to grind a meta over and over to max my IBS masteries.

 

The only thing I "grinded" in IBS were:

Drizzlewood. I did that by choice because I wanted the otter.

Strikes. I did that by choice because I wanted the cape.

 

There were enough achievements in IBS that I never had to do any of the ones I felt were a grind just to max my masteries.

 

You chose to grind a meta for a different purpose (the wiki states that to max out the otter achievement you need to do at least 27 metas) and I assume eventually you got enough Charr Commendations to max out one or more legions, hence getting enough MPs. I only wanted to get max mastery level and I hit a point where the only options for that last point were various forms of mindless grinding away at one thing or another.

 

My thought process for maxing out masteries was "ok let's check out what's there to do for MPs" and usually I was like "alright, an interesting quest" or "oh, ok, that requires some skill" or "I'm going to need help with this from my guild/pugs" (which is the point of MMOs if you ask me) but this time I was like "ok I'm one point short, what is there to do... grind Charr Comms, ok... grind meta completions, ok... grind Strike Missions or DRMs... ok... what...".

 

Thankfully I found the Quaestor sells daily batches of 125 or 250 comms for common mats so I just bought those a few days in a row and I got the last Mastery Point. So at least there's sort of a way around it.

[mindcircus.1506]

1 hour ago, JackassTheX.6351 said:

 

Thankfully I found the Quaestor sells daily batches of 125 or 250 comms for common mats so I just bought those a few days in a row and I got the last Mastery Point. So at least there's sort of a way around it.

If you can buy your way around it, whats the complaint?

[Tyncale.1629]

Agreed, compared to HoT and PoF and earlier LW seasons, the Mastery Points to be had in the Icebrood Saga are far and few in between. I complained a long time ago about this, but off course I had to suck it up. Which I did. I made it but have zero to spare. 

 

People are going to call me out on this but one of the reasons is that a few of those MP's are behind semi-elitist content like Strikes and DRM's that require challenges.  I mean, it's all doable, make your own group, join a Guild and such, but it is definately a different approach to MP's then in the LW seasons and expansions before. I hope it is not a trend. 

[JackassTheX.6351]

2 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

If you can buy your way around it, whats the complaint?

 

The complaint is that acquiring enough MPs to max out the level is relegated to highly repetitive content in this release. In previous releases, there were enough MPs outside such content that you could do other things and still achieve the same goal.

That's one of the main reasons I like GW2 - it really doubled down on the "many roads to the same path" approach. Want to have Ascended Gear? You can buy it, craft it, get it from map currencies, hell you can even get it from playing PvP. Want to have money? Farm metas, play the TP game, git gud and Raid, so many options. Want to max out Mastery level? In LWS4 you had a ton of options from start to finish and here it seems like the closer to the end you get the more you're forced into a grind for... something.

The Icebrood Saga MPs are it's own entity and a lot of people had PoF and HoT MPs left over from the expansions. The IBS wasn't tied to an expansion, so it's understandable it has less MPs. That said, in IBS, there are 75 MPs total and 63 needed to max out. 14 of those points are tied to repetitive actions that can't be done at any time (like the dodging ones in Dragonstorm and, well, Dragonstorm itself), 3 of them are collector achievements. I don't mind using MPs as a B-incentive for really tough or expensive things like collections, but when your options are slowly reduced from "hey here's a bunch of stuff you can do to advance your character's level" to "well, you've done everything else, now please do this meta or this mini Raid 10 times", I don't find that a healthy direction.

Just to be clear, I just sucked it up and got to the end since it's been a slow week and I had extra time, but I really don't like this way of playing the game and I hope, like the person above said, that it's not a trend.