Domain Of Anguish

Even though I got wiped after 4 hrs in the city with an amazing group, I agree with Vahn Roi. Don't nerf DoA, builds will emerge soon. We had success with a very good balanced group. Pretty much anything will work if you are good enough, which appears to be the problem. Its hard, but if you are good with a good group, I can see it being doable in the near future. Urgoz and the Deep were this difficult in the first few days as well, so don't complain too much.

Well, I'm gonna break in and say this IS pretty retarded. Not that I mind the difficulty, I had a PUG this morning that cleared the first 6 groups in the City part with only one casualty. Difficulty = not an issue.

What IS retarded is the fact that nothing seems to work with any consistency. That PUG used a Warrior to tank, with a Bonder on him 24/7. 2 healers + that 1 bonder. GC, Winter, MoF. 2 Eles. Ok, so he tanks, Eles burn the crap outta them - gg.

Now, with a guild group, our guy was running an Obs Flesh tank. Half the time the mobs entirely ignored him and everybody else and went straight for the GC and Winter spirits (which are lvl whatever, I was running WS at 12). Result = spirits down, GG.

Builds tend to discriminate. I've been standing around trying to get in, and no-ones paid any attention. Just becoming elitist, with everyone wanting higher ranking LB's, or B/P's, SF Ele's etc

Harder for more casual players who aren't one of those classes, or who don't have an incredibly large variety of skills which enable them to play loads of different builds

There is the little mistake. You only need the effect of Serpent's Quickness when you're casting a spell.
As for the math at 16 Earth Magic and 9 Wilderness Survival.

OF - 21 seconds Duration (~25 seconds with Ench Mod) - Recharge 30 seconds(~23 under SQ)
SQ - 24 seconds Duration - Recharge 45 seconds

So as you can see, the OF recharge is slightly lower than the duration of SQ. So this basically means you go in, activate Serpent's Suickness and Obsidian Flesh (in this order). As soon as Obsidian Flesh runs out, immediately recast it (SQ is still active). After another second though, SQ will run out. No problem though, your Obsidian Flesh will last for another 25 seconds but SQ has only a 20 second recharge left. Yep, by the time you could cast OF again, SQ is ready to use again.

It's evident that there is a divide in opinion as to whether the difficulty should be toned down. Those that can do it wish for it to stay as it is, and those that can't wish for it to be changed.

So who should Anet cater to?

It's a harder question than one might think. There are considerably more average or inexperienced players than there are those of the calibre needed to handle DoA. Thus this update does nothing for those that can't handle the difficulty. However, those that can complete it are likely those most devoted to GW, those that were probably here a year and a half ago during the beta season. An easier mission update would have done nothing for them.

Personally, I'd like it if both parties could be satisfied somehow, but these are seemingly contradictory scenarios. If one party had to be favoured over the other, which would it be? For this, I'll use an analogy I saw on some other MMO by a dev, regarding as to whether unique weapons, that is, only 1 copy exists in the entire game, should be incorporated. He stated that such a choice would make 1 player happy, no more, no less. If two such copies existed, then 2 people would benefit, maybe a few more if it exchanged hands for large sums of money. The more copies of this item that were added, the more players that could feasibly hope to have one, and thus enjoy it. At some point there would be enough that a good number of players had this rare weapon, but few enough that it still possessed some value.

I do think that there should be something for the truly talented players of GW to test their mettle. Perhaps another update down the line that adds a single zone to the Domain of Anguish. An update of this size caters to a very select group of players, whereas a disproportionate amount of the playerbase experiences disappointment. I think we can all agree that we'd all like to have fun, to somehow enjoy this update.

do u need to finish all 4 quest in order to advance or u just need the gems?

@Feurin Longcastle
A good point.
The question though is, how much is enough then? We have the Fissure of Woe and the Underworld, an elite area dedicated to the not so good players. Everyone can cut it there while still being challenged. Next are the Factions Elite Missions, they took a bit of time to get used to but could be done by the slightly better players.

So up until the latest update we have a whole PVE Part of the game which is catered to low-medium skilled players. 4 Elite Areas which cater to the slightly better player and now we have the Domain of Anguish which actually requires better than average players.

Yes, to get some of the other rewards.

I too dont mind the challange of beating this sadistic elite mission.... My beef is why is the new rit hero is hidden behind all of this... Storyline? Surely there is a way to make this hero useable before you beat the game otherwise what is the point..... YAY I have a rit hero..... boo I have no missions quests or use for it realy anymore. Pve unlock 6k balth faction.... pve unlock weeks of planing building buying skills looking for group to do qeusts getting your ass kicked repeatedly rethinking of a new build trying it again then most will just give up....... Somehow I think the pve'ers that will actully use this rit hero got the short end of the stick here. Move the rit hero to a masters quest somewhere in the relm that to me makes perfect sense.. Yes make it difficult but make it something the casual non elite player stands a chance of realy getting. The pvp'ers realy dont need or want a rit hero based on how few rit's you even see playing in hall of hero's anymore yet they can aquire one with just a few hrs of pvp faction earning... The pve'ers want a rit hero because its kewl and your collection of hero's is not compleate without it.. Yes the elite area is difficult but it is a ELITE area it should be difficult I can even live with the you need this character class and certain skill combo to beat it.... But to hide this much wanted hero behind all of this which I dare say MOST players will try and give up on is just simply lame... After all what If I wanted to goof around with a rit wepon spell spamer to support my assasin... lets think chances of my assasin being usuable for the "popular builds" for each elite area in this quest... slim and none and I suspect by the time these builds come to light several classes will have the same issues.

So want a rit hero for all your characters on your account.... chances are as it is now its just not gonna happen.



BTW I absolutely love the new elite area.... I just think its too damn hard just to get a single hero..... A hero that casual players want too.

Why, it could be worse? You people honestly either we work together or you give up. I’ve seen people doge bullets for god sakes (no not the Matrix); we all know we are smarter then any other computer control A.I. However I will end this with a Matrix quote “there is no spoon.”

do u need to finish all 4 quest in order to advance or u just need the gems?

Right now I'm going to side with the people who want DoA left alone. It's too early to tell anything about it. I was in a good PuG this morning and we cleared the Torc'qua city area. Yes we had a lot of deaths and some setbacks, but we did it. In fact we finished it with only 6 people (after losing one of our monks and our only nuker).

It's not impossible... it's just unlikely that you'll be successful unless you take your time and have a plan. Every time we went to take out a mob we had escape routes planned if the mob broke aggro from the tank and came for us. That kind of thinking pays dividends. However, it's rare in PvE because people get used to using the same build to roll through every part of the game.

DoA forces you to rethink your build (repeatedly). It's certainly a form of GW Darwinism and I appreciate that.

This is really frustrating because every caster I've been with doesn't understand aggro.

1. If you want to get Razah - the Ritualist hero - you need to get one of each gem

2. If you want to get to Mallyx and the final part of the elite mission, you need to kill the four bosses, most, if not all, of whom can only be reached by completing the 4 quests (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

You need to finish the quests, now stop double posting.

Yep, it was even a quite obvious one... Oh well, everyone makes them every once in a while

Oh, and the Domain of Anguish is broken. I'm not talking about difficiculty (I guess we're over the fact that the difficulty is just fine), I'm talking about reward. After you get Razah, you can only do quests that give you jack (unless you want to farm this place for at hundred hours for a tormented item). You'll never be able to farm this quick enough to make it worthwhile.

Screw the Domain of Anguish, I give up.

Isn't that the way of the world.

i wouldnt care how hard it was if it was fun...but simply put, it's really not fun. the environments are recycled, and there's really nothing imaginitive or ingenuitive about it.

I can't do the area but I don't want it changed. It's way too early to think about that; it's not clear whether it needs changing, and plenty of better players exist (than me) and they've been clammoring for a PvE challenge.

IMO: The way to make this a Win Win situation is..

Allow easy access to RT Hero - I believe a large percentage of people are here just to get RT hero. Casual players are happy. Hence take it out of DOA and move him somewhere else. Someone else stated that the fun of Heroes is training them up and gaming with them while you go thru missions. Having the RT at the very end sort of defeats that. Still everyone wants him just to have as an option.

For the more Hardcore players: Leave the area as is - allow it to be a real challenge. It's a good money sink this way. The Hardcore players get more unique items to sell or use and the standard bragging rights..

Now I play more than the casual player but for me the weapons/armor etc serves me no purpose. I just want my RT hero. The problem I have is that I went thru Nightfall completely with Henchies and Heroes and was surprized that I could no longer use Henchies. Now I'm forced to group. Makes it unappealing for me to go after RT hero. Outside of that - Farming chests are very easy.

Take Care...

It IS fun, in a masochistic kind of way. I'm actually enjoying this, but it would be better if people didn't leave the first time the group wiped. Not staying to help develop a better build FTL!

I have to admit, when I went in last night and played around in the DoA my first impression was "Oh my god, this is totally stupid." due to the uber enemies and the hilarious debuffs in each area. Thinking back, though, it's not the difficulty that bothers me (because as many have said, it's all optional). What does bother me is another point that people have brought up: You are _forced_ to do the DoA quests, farm in the DoA or pay the outragious gem prices if you want Razah. Now, if Razah were something amazing... like say a variable profession hero... I could understand it requiring an unbelievable challenge to get him. But as it is... he's a ritualist. Not bad, but not anything amazing or critically useful.
I'm with the others who've suggested that they keep the DoA the way it is in terms of difficulty, but move Razah to a Masters difficulty quest outside of the DoA. He's just not special or useful enough to require going through the DoA or paying the huge prices of gems (which aren't inflated, IMO, since it's so hard to get them).
At this point, I have no intention of getting Razah because I don't feel like driving myself insane trying.

Well I hope that at least they tune down the one hit killing masacres after some time, when they give out another elite area, once the masochists are done with the place so at least 50% of the players can get Razah without paying tribute in 10kk+ectos.

I also feel the PvE side has gotten the shaft on Razah. I wouldn’t have a problem if a quest was added him in the Realm of Torment.

Yes DoA should be nerfed, either max party size as stated on page 123 of the NF manual. Or leave party size as is and nerf the unbalanced monster skill “Enraged” and that’s about it.

My biggest problem with the place so far is that it's so damn ugly.

Why does every high end pve area in the game has to be so dark that you have no visibility.

This area is simply not fun.

And really it doesn't matter if fow or whatever other area is considered to be easier seeing as these have other prerequisites as well, like favor, owning a city not to mention that these are considered to be from another chapter as well.

Is it really that difficult to make these areas fun and entertaining, stop with the bs about calling them elite areas seeing as there is no such thing as elite or skilled just experienced and time invested. Not to mention that if you are really intent on proving your 1337 skills go and do some pvp but leave pve there as a relaxation not some frustrating crap. Factions was the first dissapointment, and i really thought that they had learned their lesson with it, but it really seems like they didn't with the release of this piece of junk. Oh well time to move on to other games and let the 1337 people pay anets bills seeing as they moved completely away from their premise of a fun game for the casual player...

Oh and yes this area is possible, it is just timeintensive, frustrating beyond belief and so build specific that it ain't funny anymore. The days that i have more then 3 hours to spend behind a pc are beyond me, not like you can save your advancement like in other games that are as non casual friendly... Not to mention 3 monks on a group of 8 is redicolous... its already tough enough to find one...

Couldn't they have just implimented an area similar to sf... where you can still go to with henchies and heroes and still do well and get some good stuff out of it... Instead of making us have to 3 man stuff to get some decent drops from bosses or mobs... Or heck make these bosses consistently drop keys which you can then use to open chests that are then conventiently placed in their proximity (which would either drop purple, gold or greens), that way people can actually get stuff by playing the game and actually have fun while getting this stuff instead of not getting any green drops during the entire game. Who cares if their items aren't worth jack if they can quest for it themselves... eeing as for most pve-ers the self acquisition of these items is the point, not the value of it.

What I find funny is that this area would have been a BIT more viable if all those Paragon skills hadn't been shafted. So yeah, PvP side got what they wanted, PvE side can now cry since it's getting a bit hard to actually survive in DoA without some of those skills.

(If you don't get what I mean, think Energizing Finale... overpowered wherever you use it, would MAYBE be just enough in the City part of DoA to effectively spam some skill.)

No spoon? It's why you got spoon feed as baby so gtfo

Am i the only one missing endgame content that can be beaten with a decent PUG consisting of friends with different abilities?
I rather enjoy balanced groups in Fissure, Underworld or Sorrow's Furnace than an area unforgiving for mistakes.

Lots of people feel that the area is too hard, yet I have simpley been PUGing it and each time I learn a little something and make it a little farther. UW was never nerfed and FoW was never nerfed and after three or four months it was well documented and any one who can read could clear it. The hardcore went 1st and distrubed the knowledge to the communitiy where even the most causel player now knows his way to forge and has a spider to be proud of. I say let it stand. Leave Razah where ever the heck he is at, because he is a quest reward, and challange without reward is ultimately unfair.

As a community we will beat this area just like the others, patience and persistance will win the day.

OMG Marry me. I love you.

It is not correct. Primary reqirement is SPECIAL BUILDS. I have only my dervish at this area, so no chances to get to any group. No henches here as well.

This update sucks!!!
A-Net should allow henches for the characters which are not welcome to PUG. We still want to get rit hero.

Anet, don't know if you're monitoring this, but as of 5pm EST on December 2, the Guardian of Whispers in the Chantry of Secrets said:

The area behind these doors is not yet ready for public access.

It's a small thing but, assuming this will be a permanent addition to the game and is not a weekend only thing this should be corrected. And yes, I did go in with a character that had beaten abaddon. I was able to zone in, just saying the dialogue should be changed.

Tried the mission a few times and am looking forward to coming up with something that'll consistently beat those guys. Thank you Anet. Finally a challenging area where we are required to rethink our skill bar.

Everyone saying "ZOMG THISS IS HARD. U SUK ANET" really needs to calm down. We asked for a hard end game area for nightfall and anet has definitely given us one. It is obviously possible, there are screens on this thread to prove it, so stop hating and change your build.

That said, I would like to see the party size increased to 12. It would make the quests much more doable but also, with 8 it is very difficult for low demand professions (assassin, ritualist, dervish) to find a good group as the required members make up too much of the team. I have a monk, ele, warrior, and necro end game, but the sheer volume of dervishes lfg means many people will just give up. Also, in my opinion these quests are more difficult then the Deep or Urgoz's Warren, which are 12.

If you have Factions, I think a invinci-dervish with Shadow form + Extend Enchantments could function far better as a tank than a warrior.

well - the city torc'qua part of quest is doable with 1 tank, 2 ele, 1 blood nec, 3 monks(1 bonding) , and a ranger - winter, GC, symbiosis, 2 ints, Lb gaze and mantra of frost(mez secondary).

was fortunate to be in a well organized group as well. Pulling is key here, our war was pulling and did an outstanding job.

also was fortunate to get a "green" spear - Turep's Spear 15^50 zealous hlth + 30

I'm sure there are better builds, but this worked well. The lvl of player in my group was great as well - I consider myself to have been the low man on the totem so to speak and learned a great deal not only about my chars class but other as well.

Anyway - hope ppl enjoy, I now see why Mallyzx the unyielding quest is 4 parts. Each part is like a high end mission.

In time the amount of time spent on this will deminish I'm sure as more ppl gain exp with it.

ign - Huntress Velasca

Am i the only one missing endgame content that can be beaten with a decent PUG consisting of friends with different abilities?
I rather enjoy balanced groups in Fissure, Underworld or Sorrow's Furnace than an area unforgiving for mistakes.

QFT!

Will you marry me?
The 3 monk thing I don't quite agree on though, as I am used to 3monks backlines from 8v8 HA.

No you're not!
Tombs was the last endgame area I actually happened to like.
GWN was the best chapter until I experienced master's quests in RoT. Then I just thought "god, has ANet resorted to THIS type of quests for challenge? If I wanted to do something like this, I would play WoW. Difference is, in WoW you can actually get better gear in order to better stand up to the challenge."

And I bet when those builds from the "1337" players come out, it will all be cookiecutters, and it is the only concievable way for players who don't play 7 hours per day to beat this area.
This is the difference between this and Tombs, eg. Tombs was challenging. It had strong monsters (though not nearly as overpowered as the DoA ones), required good pulling, and all the jazz.
Yet it could be beaten by a balanced build. It didn't matter what excact classes you went with, as long as thought was put into the individual builds, and the build as a whole. The only classes we really kinda were required to have were some kinda tank, 2 monks of any type, preferably a nuker, and an interrupt range for the Siege Wurms.
Rest were up for grabs for whoever wanted to join.
I assure you, semi-casual player friendliness like this is NEVER gonna be a reality in DoA as it stands.

_Zexion

I agree, no one wants me as a dervish and when I do get a group its a bad group made up of "reject" classes.

Well finished the city and here is the boss dead, we got a green from one of the bosses im not sure wich one but i didnt get it, everyone got a primeval armor at the death of the lord, i update Sousuke's armor and it looks nice, i posted it on wiki. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Acolyte..._Armor_Gallery

now on to the rest after a short brake.

To continue the theme... Marry me!!

This is exactly it. Let the casual players who just want to enjoy the game get the hero so they have a nice complete set. If I could just have the hero I could leave that...joke...and get on with playing through the normal game.

I fail to see the word "Elite" anywhere in this description. If any of you people insulting others because they find this area completely missing the fun aspect could point that out, I'd be grateful.

The thing is this... The MISSION is an Elite Mission. The "compromise" that most people are wondering about can be gained by lowering the difficulty of the Explorable Areas just a tad (Mob Density? Special Monster Skills?) and keeping the Elite Mission, which is no doubt probably the hardest PvE challenge they've ever created if you compare it to the mere "explorable areas" the same.

It wouldn't hurt to tone the outlying areas down a notch. I'm not talking about making it a cakewalk, but give non-specialized builds and PuG's a chance.