Hard Mode Needs Fixing

I think that vanquisher titles should be scaled, like cartographer titles (which are much easier). It might give more encouragement if people feel like they're making some progress, and they can still get recognition if one area proves too difficult.

Or maybe that wouldn't help at all...

I don't mind many of the buffs that the monsters got, as it just makes them easier to kill. However, I do have issues with the half cast/half recharge of some of the skills. For the most part it's not a big deal, but for some skills it makes them completely overpowered or (worst of all) just very very annoying.

Combine half cast rez and a group of awakened with, say, 4 cavaliers and an acolyte (it happens). If you're in wurms, this group is not difficult at all. It's just extremely annoying to deal with the never-ending rezzing.

Then there's my other favourite, kournans with their half recharge on skills like hex removal, condition removal, enchantment removal, interrupts...

Sure, I can defeat these groups. But it's still extremely frustrating. And that is what will drive people away from hard mode.

It's not hard mode. It's annoying mode.

well, just like b4 i said, ppl, or at least me and my friends wanna some more REWARD rather than just useless skills points and exp, i do play HM, and i play fast and got a group of ppl doing it(everyday same time meet in next mission, prolly 4 or 5 missions a day), it only took me almost 2 weeks to get the Legendary Guardian, but after all, i didnt get anything that worth to mention besides the Title, Zinger's point is that Anet might want to add more rewards for the mission and vanquish, otherwise ppl that who cant find a decent group will stuck at Ascalon, and never gonna finish it

QFT

Hard mode is almost as "unfun" as DoA. Just look at some of the responses people have posted for ways to beat certain areas. "Don't bring degen as its useless". Excuse me but why is Anet forcing our hands in what builds and skills we can bring. Granted a bad build is a bad build but completely eliminating a degen mesmer as an option is bogus. A degen mesmer is perfectly viable build except in HM because of the way Anet just increased the numbers and tweaked the rules in favor of the enemies. The skills are designed with a certain framework of rules in mind so that they are balanced and promote a variety of builds and tactics. However, HM has destroyed this as the skills do not fit well with the increase in levels, attributes, health, speed, etc.

Look back at the original prophecies game and you will note that there was no "insta kill" skill or creature in the game. This was done to encourage players to think of creative ways to deal with ones opponents. The fights were one of attrition where clever skill useage and tactics won the day and not pure raw damage. Players became experienced and over time became quite good at flat out stomping most of Tyria. Then came Factions and the over powered bosses introduced us to "insta kill". Annoying and unfun, at least it was only the bosses. Now with HM, virtually any group of casters can party wipe you in 2 seconds.

As other people have stated, well thought out skill sets for the enemies and better enemy composition would be far more challenging and interesting than the crap buffs that were done in HM.

As far as the rewards go I do find HM to be more rewarding but not greatly so. There is something wrong with spending 1500 for a lock pick and getting purple items or regular tomes. Would it be so difficult to give us the chance for some nice loot like maybe a couple of dyes, or a ruby, or a few candycanes. Elite Tomes and the passage scrolls are a step in the right direction but there needs to be more of this type of loot in those chests.

My only real complaint is that old enemies simply buffed with an elite and constant speed boosts (etc.) does not fun make. I find myself, for the most part, using the same tricks to complete things that I did before. The only really new challenge was to change my heroes skill bars and I'd hardly call that a challenge.

I believe Zinger meant Sisyphean. Like someone said, the story of Sisyphus, rolling a rock uphill just to have it roll back down.

I guess it's easier to just make up words when you don't really know what you're talking about.

QFT.

Hard Mode made me realize that Guild Wars PvE can never be challenging.

Well Hard mode is a little different. The areas with 4 and 6 party members are VERY challenging.

I agree that PS is needed and something other than SF nukers are important. I have been using Meloni as my tank with Myself as a SS necro using the spirit spammer build from DOA (Symbiosis gets Meloni up to about 1300 HP). Then I have another necro doing SV and Heal along with a prot monk...

Try the 4 party areas...that is fun and hard...

That is so true: You NEED a MM (and the heroes are great MM's. Actually, I now play curses with my necro, because Olias is a better MM than I.)

The endlessly kiting grawl healers are still annoying, though; when you encounter two of them with a monk boss, all of them kiting and spamming Word of Healing at eachother, you better pray you brought a domination mesmer or two.

Got my ranger as far as the Southern Shiverpeaks with PUGs alone, then basically gave up from not being able to get groups together. The interest died quickly.

But something is wrong when I couldn't finish D'Alessio Seaboard after trying it with at least a dozen different groups, and missions like Sanctum, Aurora, Thirsty and Glint were knocked out in one shot.

Seaboard imo is the hardest one in Tyria, i tried over 15 times with diff builds with 4 real ppl and 2 heros, turns out that wards against ele and ward of stabillity and echo backfire FTW.

If you all are having trouble with the grawls in hm, just stop playing HM now... seriously... the *only* thing more pathetic than the grawls are the stupid stone elementals. There's only one thing that would slow down a halfway decent team of 4 in old ascalon (even if 3 are heroes), and thats the monk plants. Fortunately the Charr are at least halfway fun to fight.

Edit: now if the stone elementals standard attack actually worked with their ONLY skill [skill]Dwarven Battle Stance[/skill] and caused interrupts they might be less stupid, but Anet kinda forgot to test that one...

As said before by others, hard mode needs better rewards, the monsters should have a secondary profession, and a set of skill bars randomly loaded for various monsters on the map, would make hard mode great. Although I don't realy have a problem with it personaly, the 50% boost should be reduced some, especialy if the above mentioned changed are implemented.

On another note - has anyone else noticed that all the boss's that do not have elites in normal, also are lacking of them in hard? This should also be changed - It would provide more capture locations (not a big deal with the tome release), as well as increasing their power apropriatly.

Everyone hits 60%DP = forced back to outpost = total and utter trash.

Let's just say you're out vanquishing and you're killing the last enemy, but you're the last one alive with say, 47%DP. You get the enemy down to 1/4th his life or less and then he kills you. Yep, that last measly little enemy you had to kill to Vanquish the entire area just killed you, so now you have to start all over.

Sorry but not only is that crap, it's inexcusable. In a mission you should be forced to restart if your team wipes. In a zone/instance you should never be forced to restart for any such reason.

definitely agree with everyone in this thread.

also still love killing Ice Golems (easy in Normal and Hard Mode), and they still drop their pre-searing "Icy Lodestones" valued at 3g.. lol.

yup, just met the same situation yesterday while vanquishing vabbin area. there is a monk boss(forgot name but he is bird-_-), he has group of 8 ranger and warrior togather, and he was the last group that i need to kill.and my party at 30% some DP, 1st try failed, then i go again, failed again(u cant kill em cuz the boss is using his amazing machien-gun Healing Touch, even i have 3 ss on 3 diff target), unluckly, i didnt buy anymore Four Leaf Clover, luckly, we have favor, paid bout 750g to get rid off my 20% DP, go again! and yes, failed again, 4th time after i died, Return to Outpost plz , that was 2 hours of wasting time, GG....

Normal tomes need to be banned from hard mode chests.

Seriously.

Agreed; why did you put yourself in that situation? Totally dumb.
Considering players are buying them for 1k each, getting a white tome makes me much much much much happier than getting a purple item.

Actually, I didn't put myself in that situation but I was certain there have been/will be people who encounter that situation. So my "situation" was a fabrication of my mind. :P

At this time I'm just doing HM missions in Cantha and Elona (already got Tyria complete).

As Tarun has stated, it's a bunch of crap to give the players no option but to return to an outpost.

Even if my entire team has 60% dp but we still want to try we should have the ability to do so.

Gaile said the reasoning for that is to prevent the party the frustration of trying to kill the Enemy mob at 60% DP.

Because seriously, can you kill a decent-sized mob in HM at DP?

I'm thinking it's probably because the gods are getting tired of rezzing you over and over, and in HM, at 60%, it's going to happen a lot more frequently than in NM. So, in a show of good will and frustration, they kindly teleport you to the last town you were in as if to say "Here, now think about why that happened, and change your damn skills!"