Hard Mode: Balanced?

Charr aren't that bad in hard mode. You just have to understand how to face them. Charr are high physical offense with moderate caster support. Their monks are a bit weak and their elementalists have long casts.

To beat them you need two key items, block based passive defense and interrupts. Use aegis, defensive anthem, wards, shields up and interrupts and they won't be so bad. Also knocking down the monk tends to lead to a rapid demise.

As for the ooze pit, this is a caster heavy area with strong AoE. For the love of god do not ball up! The ooze's weakness, they ball up. Throw AoE right back in their face. Rodgort's Invocation, barrage, splinter weapon, and dervish attacks are prime examples. Earthbound Oozes then shimmering oozes.

For the charr after dropping their priest/prophet, make sure to interrupt the Ressurection Chant from the dominator if you haven't already killed it. I find my physical heavy group tends to have issues on occasions with the charr, as a result of the Aegis on the flameshielders and the Faintheartedness from the reapers.

Well This is HM. I have been out vanquishing Sacnoth Valley Wardowns and everywhere else in Gwen. I have had very little problems killing groups. Go for there monk first and the rest fall easy.

Plus with the ursan blessing you only need one skill on a few ppl and it makes it alot easier.

Ozze Pit yep wiped few times had cc but that is a fun dungeon even if they wipe you quick.

Well, it just seems like Hardmode turned every area into a dungeon, as far as needing a tank goes. Unfortunately, I cannot supply this because I use a Necro (and heroes are stupid). Which reminds me, where is my "do not move" button?! :]

I was facing Duncan today and I had a toucher vamp me 38 times in a row.
Simple math:

38 Touches @ ~ 1.3 seconds each
38 x 1.3 = ~ 50 Seconds Touch Time
50 Seconds x 1.3 Energy Regen = 65 Energy Recharged
38 Touches @ 15 Energy Each = 570 Energy
570 Energy - 65 Energy Recharged = 505 Energy Burned in a Row
Wow.

I would really like to test anuerism on these guys just to see if thier energy pool is really that high.

Hell, even at 10 pips of energy regen, that toucher still burned 405 Energy.

The point being: I enjoy a challenge, but I hate it when the rules are bent in their favor. Honestly, they already have a 50% buff, now they have infinite energy? I'm going to go test some stuff.

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Well, I wouldn't have a problem with this, except for the fact that I used to solo farm the Scar Eater with Wither and Malaise. He would use about 5 spells and be drained of energy, making the kill easy.

Hey Kaida, on your observation of the touchers in Duncan, dont forget they could probably be R/N with a high ammount of expertise, to have a rough idea of how much expertise they could have, see the touch skill they use on you, check how much damage, check on wiki how much does a player require to do that much damage, now go in HM and see how much damage it does now, compare how much attribute it requires and see how many points it was raised.

also, i noticed that if you can use a skill (like lets say the ebon vanguard assasin support or a spirit) when it dies, you can see that "you give" energy to your own Necros, i "think" you can use this to see if they have Soul reaping (but not really sure), if they do have, then they are cheating because they have Expertise and Soul reaping

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and they also gain 20+?e with soul reaping.....

and dam jotun spam opposive gaze 15e -__-

but even they have infintie energy still easy to kill ^^

<legendary master of north 1,006 1 more dun in exile

lol kaida, i know what you mean. i play necro with heroes in HM in attempt to vanquish and do quests/dungeons/missions, and it is a nightmare. they ball up on me all day long, allowing all forms of aoe to destroy my team, and don't always go on the targets i ping. i switch targets quickly to shut down others, and they follow those targets too, where they shouldn't be. so my attempts to pressure go totally out the window ._.

therefore, bringing a ward against harm/melee/elements is a must. they love wards a lot. sometimes they even move out of them, because they like kiting so much now, and they get themselves killed. and then when i WANT them to move, they do not, so i try flagging them, but that seems to be of little help. so i started bringing a communing rit with vitals, shelter, shadowsong, etc. this is starting to fix things!

as for the energy crisis:

i read somewhere (or at least came to the conclusion) a while back that most monsters get "endless energy," especially bosses and higher level/elite types of monsters. i believe certain ones do, but others do not (as sympathetic/ancestors visage work against smites and adrenaline types).

even if you e-deny a monk who does not have a tendency to wand you or hit you with melee, for example, it is like they just keep getting to cast, so even spells like e-surge/e-burn/sympathetic/etc seem to be useless. the builds humans are able to come up with are far superior than what the monsters can dish out, (as they always have the same build, whereas humans have the ability to change team builds) so this is probably why they are incredibly overpowered. and then when you come across 2 monks, they heal each other endlessly. unless you sneak attack one somehow. hopefully the one that does not get resurrected.

it is expected that we use all humans, and these monsters become fairly insignificant when you can split the group on 2 different monsters. like pressure one a lot, then switch to the other, and for some reason it seems to break down and die.

and when you are dealing with creatures that heal practically the entire life bar in 1 spell, remember they have significantly higher divine favor, higher life, higher attributes, etc, etc, so they don't really need a lot of energy to back them up. so if it takes you 5 min to get its life bar down to nothing and uses heal area, and fills it up, it will be a very short time for that energy meter to hit full, and a very long time for your party to get it back where it was.

and same for eles. most of the time they use aura of restoration, glyphs of lesser energy, according to spell-type attunements, etc. but as long as they cannot wipe your party in 1 hit, they will keep going down, unlike monks.

it is sort of an endless cycle of aggravation, and it is probably best to use as many forms of shutdown as possible on your team (diversion/PD, enchant removal, interrupts, broad head arrow, pain inverter, anti-melee etc). those things seem really insignificant, but they help in the long run.

depending on the zone, you won't get a perfect build to annihilate everything easily every time, that is why this is supposed to be "a challenge."

though i do not agree with how overpowered some stuff is, it makes me think a lot about the builds i am using, and the fact that i need specific builds for specific zones, not the same build to play thru the entire game.

now---if more people started up/joined HM dungeon/quest/vanquishing groups, this would be less of a problem. hint, hint.
people know how to spread out, and you can tell certain players to pressure 1 thing while another thing is dying, then gang up on something else, etc etc.

Hard mode is hard?

How horribly unfair

I doubt it was tested very thoroughly and i expect 2 or 3 more. I think they only made hard mode so soon because so many people were whining (as usual) that it was not there and therefore they did not test it a whole lot. Of course i could be totally wrong as i'm pretty sure Anet usually tests there things fairly well.

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