WoC issue: Fix unreasonable Minister Cho's Estate spawns

The hard mode scavenger spawns in the Minister Cho's Estate explorable are completely unreasonable for an area of party size 4.

I'm not talking about the WoC quest taking place there, the one with the 3 peasants, but the scavengers that populate the area, even in hard mode, after you finish that quest in normal mode.

The area is swarming with groups of 6 scavengers, using PvX quality builds with many counters, much healing and protection, and quite a lot of damage. It's doable, to be sure, but it takes much time to cut through them, and the difficulty is much much higher than that of most elite areas, mostly because of the limited party size

That's pretty stupid to begin with, for a starter area, but the worst of it is, it completely wipes away the ability for people to play together if their professions don't form the basis of a decent party setup to deal with such enemies.

A few people in my guild, myself included, have started to try and get to 50/50 HoM on a secondary account, and we often play together again now, where we hadn't before on account of not playing much at all anymore. We hadn't started on vanquishing the small party size areas yet and thought we'd better go ahead and get it over with before doing the WoC hard mode quests.

As it stands, we were too late, we should've done so before doing any WoC quests it seems. If the spawns of Cho's place don't change, we'll get that vanquish done eventually, but each of us will have to do it alone with a completely optimized set of 3 heroes. This kind of nonsense has us not wanting to play again for the moment though, which can't be the point of new content.

Before posting derogatory responses to this, please take a moment and actually have a look at the MCE explorable on HM with scavenger spawns. And try to vanquish it with a party of 2 human rangers, one of whom isn't exactly an 'elite' player, no cons, and any 2 heroes you like.

Cause im trying to vanguish all of factions on my paragon I didn't take the quests. But the person im doing it with unfortunally did. I haven't seen minister's Cho estate but I found out when we did Shadow's passage. It was really late and wanted to do one final very small vanguish. It was filled with red dots but we made it at 59% DP.

Though I remember a simular discussion in the time of WiK what actually did the same to several area's. And I'm hoping when all parts of WoC are released, they revert area's back to normal (or atleast the same lvl and groupssize as it was before).

I do hope however that anet in the future will put a warning in the quests, wich you have to answer with yes that this will change the area even after you've done the quest.

/signed for this reason. PvX builds + hero IA decrease doesn't fit at all in such a place. Indeed, i just tried myself and it's clearly impossible, considering the spawns are quite random and they're patrolling quite much... Even on those quests , i ended up killing whole all since i couldn't avoid anything....

The main issue is that you have no choice and need to run THE build amongst all possibilites if you want to finish all areas now ... pretty sad

/signed.

Pre- WoC Vanquishing of Minister Cho's estate is/was about the right amount of challenge for vanquishing for Newb Island.

Vanquishing noob island is still endgame content in theory, so it should be about as hard as all the vanquishes in factions.
also, i dont get why people are complaining about it. when WoC finishes, it will probably go back to normal, just like with WiK. and if you were stupid enough to start content that alters spawns when your going for canthan vanquisher, you deserve it. it was obviously going to get harder

/sighed

The quest on it's own is hard enough in NM if you play with friends. But trying to vanquish it afterwards? Hell no. I'm on 32/33 on my vanquisher and I'm sure you can get which one I still need to do.

And it isn't. It's much harder than any other vanquish or anything at all, really, in the entire game.
Probably not. The whole idea of the WoC quests is to permanently change aspects of the game. Will Shiro come again after WoC and taint the new people on Minister Cho's Estate, creating the same old same old weak afflicted? It's called Winds of Change, not Winds of Same Old Same Old.


Harder was to be expected. Verging on the impossible unless you stick to a very limited and undesirable game plan is what we got.

I constantly bemoan the fact the game is just too damn easy now, hell I did most of Foundry with Koss and stuff for kicks (no cons)...

However, I tend to agree with the OP, Cho's is far too hard for anything but ideal setups (and even then no pushover in HM).

Naturally no one can expect just any old random group to be able to romp through a vanquish, if four warriors think they have some God given right to be able to vanquish it without healer, then tough titties! What the OP is saying is perfectly reasonable however, you should be able to successfully complete a HM vanquish with a fairly broad array of skills/classes, I dare anyone to diverge too far from what work there however

It comes as a shock to me, but I have to admit, I think the difficulty on this one in HM is a bridge too far for many players out there, and that comes down to the Devs not taking the wider player base into proper consideration when putting the mobs together.

Sure it is doable, but I found it very hard going indeed with a good team. I suspect there are a great many players who simply will not be able to manage it, and will be disillusioned by the experience, and that is rather sad.

I am all for a tough challenge, but not one that might disenfranchise a large part of the player base.

You need to rethink this statement. ;p

I've not tried vanquishing Minister Cho's Estate after doing the quest yet, so I can't really comment.
But looking at the Scavanger bars on the wiki, this does look like it'll be more challenging than other vanquishes, but it really depends on the size of the enemy groups. 4 man groups should be fairly manageable, 6 would be much harder.

They are groups of 6, with a more or less random distribution of professions. Some combinations of 6 are practically unbreakable thanks to a ridiculous amount of damage mitigation and healing.

I've seen groups with 4 ringleaders, another group with 3 witches, that last one had 14 minions already up and running before we aggroed them.

Yeah, you get the same sort of thing in Haiju Lagoon too actually. I don't think it's quite as bad there (especially since max party size is 6) but those scavenger groups can be really brutal.

tbh I'd be more for adding some unique drops to these foes or some sorta vq reward for completing this as is than having it changed, but thats just me

Having payed a short trip to this place, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with the OP.
It seems odd to have groups for a Vanquish that are significantly harder than the groups faced in the Hard Mode quest. But since vanquishing is completely optional, they may choose to ignore it. Having to fight 6 of these guys is pretty steep when you only get 4 people.

I'd be willing to bet this was an oversight, but you never know. It seems likely though, given Haiju Lagoon and Zen Daijun have it the same way, only you're allowed 6 people to fight them and that makes it significantly easier.

/ambivalent

I found vanquishing Minister Cho's Estate (at least, the first few mobs; I didn't go for the full VQ) to be about as difficult as the original mission itself - in fact, borderline easier without Afflicted explosions to decimate minions. Once I identified which monsters were the healers / MMs / hard res, everything just fell into place. I did use aggro techniques as a matter of course, but then aggro techniques are already required in so many areas so ...

That said, I'm much more skilled than most people, so my experience may be extremely polarized.

Humble too.

I haven't played it at all, but the impression that I'm getting from this thread is that this area is too hard for what a vanquish is supposed to be. Just because it can be done (by Jeydra at least) does not mean that it's appropriate for a VQ.

Simplest solution is probably just to cut the mobs down to 3-4 monsters each.

Solo vqing minister cho just got a whole lot harder :/

Its not undoable hard or even annoying but bearably hard (-> Tracking the Corruption), but I don't really like the idea of vanquishes becoming significantly harder after doing quests in the first place. A flat level or mob size reduction would be good. After all, it doesn't make much sense for the mere scavengers to be fielding groups worthy of HM elite areas.

I dunno, I have done this one also in HM on my mesmer but the HM quest is just really annoying. After I did it, I actually was so sick of it, I can't be bothered to continue on in HM.

I just lost interest. The whole quests revolves and pulling properly and letting spirits handle the mob with the npc while the part stands back. It's tedious start to finish...not too hard, especially with cons. Why did we use cons at all? Well the last group has a risk of killing the peasant if you don't aggro right or have a bit of bad luck and the party wipes. So make sure your dp is gone, take a longer route to be safe and use some speed boost cons (celerity or cupcakes will do) and charge in for the last one.

Is it too hard? Not really, once you know the trick. Is it just annoying even when you know how to do it? Yes. I think so.

I see the point in making something harder to do, but then there is this thing about the actual changes that happen when you finish it all. Am I supposed to do this will all my characters individually? I don't think so. I have too many. Again too tedious. Even in NM it gets boring quickly because it's all very much very similar and if the skins I've seen on the forum for the new imperial weapons are going to be the ones, it's all for nothing anyways because I don't like em. So I stopped doing them anyways.

Oh well, it kept me busy for a couple of days.

This thread is not about the quest.

That's another thing right there. Lore-wise, this doesn't make sense at all. These guys are supposed to be scavengers? Oooooookay... Guys like these could conquer continents without breaking a sweat.


I want to stress that I don't have any problem with difficult content. The biggest problem I have with this is that it turns the game into a single player game. There isn't a single vanquish in the game that you can't do with a handful of random player professions, as long as you round out the team.

Even every other existing party size 4 area can be easily vanquished with 2 random professions and 2 heroes chosen to complement them. This one... I wouldn't look forward to trying it with 2 rangers, which is how a guildie and I vanquished our way through the game years ago, with our main characters.

I know Chthon, but you have to accept that my experience is not going to be the same as that of most players ...

Anyway I would be very surprised if two turret Rangers + 2 spirit spammers cannot do this quest. It might take a while, but no reason it can't be done.

I am pretty sure that we did Minister Cho's Estate just fine. You just can't Speedclear through it like most players...in Zombiemode..are doing regularly in this game. Learn to take your time and plan some strategies before just rushing in and you will complete it no problem.

PS. Anet stop nerfing the quests/missions to make them easier..makes the challenge disappear

The game is obviously to hard for your enjoyment. Darn for HM to being Harder than Normal Mode, and that Winds of Change is something after completion of campaign.

Out of your 2 rangers. Was one of them a Signet of Spirits? and Let me guess the other Barrage?

Perhaps look at the conditions that a ranger could pump out and even interrupts. Blindness is very nice against pretty much all groups in Winds of Change. Perhaps have one ranger who can run throw dirt, and perhaps shadow step out while crippling or poising everything it just blinded, while popping off some arrows that interrupt a caster.

I bet you a hundred ectos I can do this using two Ranger heroes.

I'm sorry you're bad at this game

I have no interest in playing this immature 'mine is bigger than yours' game you seem so keen on.

My point was and still is that these new spawns are unreasonably difficult to vanquish. Not impossible, but difficult, unreasonably so for a party size 4 area.

Feel free to disagree or agree, I don't care. I also don't care what you can and cannot do.

In which case I more or less destroyed your argument, because I showed (well, without screenshots anyway) that the VQ can be done using two Ranger heroes, and your main problem with it was that you can't do it with two player Rangers (shows just how narrow your vision of Guild Wars is btw).

You could say the area is "unreasonably difficult to vanquish", but if we accept that we'd also have to say that "UW is unreasonably difficult to do 7H" or maybe "Gates of Morah is unreasonably difficult to do with 8 Ranger parties" and after nerfing everything we'll end up with "ANet is retarded, they made everything too easy".

You basically fall directly into the description I made earlier. You are bad at this game, yet instead of getting better you are choosing to complain. Well, ANet made this game with people like you in mind. Use cons pcons summoning stones DP removal and don't even think about complaining that you have to use them, because you're already choosing not to get better.

Regards.

I am willing to bet most people do realize there are other skills but see them as complete trash which many are due to pve skills and powercreep. Theres a clear reason why anet abandoned GW1 for GW2 and that is because of the overwhelming complexity of balancing so many skills as each campaign came out. Now when you have meta skills that players are using then give those skills to enemies throughout the game and then give them the ability to counter them, what is 90% of the player base that just wants to have a good time left with? This is PvE in a game after all.

Another thing to consider is this game was once PvP oriented. Over the years PvP has become more and more shunned by the live team and the game has now become PvE oriented. In the beginning PvE was just mobs using the same skills over and over but now after 5 years of killing the same mobs we now have new ones which don't carry the same skills the last spawn had before. Now players are exposed to something they are not used to while playing the other 99% of the game.

We are getting end game type content added to earlier parts of Guild Wars with very little regard to the limitations of those earlier parts.

WoC is after Factions Campaign. So it's not necessarily earlier part. There are people that also like to do puzzles, and accept challenges as that is fun to them. On the other hand some like to play Farmville.

As easily as it was given to enemies to counter the meta, it's also available to the players to do the same.

Just because everything doesn't die in 2seconds. While some thought may be needed, the tendency of complaining to get everything made easier overwhelms those who enjoy some difficulty without having to self handicap. Adaptation, not crutching is often times more pleasant.

But it seems that adaptation in video games is seemingly obsolete.

Things do die in 2 seconds... just not the enemy.

Having already vanquished this area long before WoC, I am quite curious to try it out. Not being "pressured" by the potential constant 32/33, it may entice for interesting builds.

Oh it does entice very interesting combinations. To myself, that's part of the fun figuring out those combo's to counter act against the foes and the awareness level of some of it.

You seem to miss the point. These areas were designed to train players to work with others for higher end content. Now we have mobs that are far stronger than 90% of the end game mobs occupying starter areas with a party limit of 4.

Challenges should present themselves in end game content and not reappear in starter areas. Niche player bases should have harder content in Niche areas such as a dungeon. Content 100% of the player base has been waiting for should not stop them dead in their tracks less than half way through just because 10% want a challenge.

Hardly, with rotating skill bars people now have to spend hours trying to figure out what works and even then they can run into a mob with a certain skill setup that may make them max out dp or cause them to abandon their VQ, thus wasting their leisure time. Not everyone is an unemployed pothead with that much time to spare.

Rotating skill bars such as the ones scavengers and the white mantle have should be in the elite areas of the game to deal with the speed clear problem. I'm talking about FoW, UW, Deep, Urgoz, DoA and EotN dungeons.

Same exact thing can be said to that niche player base complaining about how easy the content is that they have been burning through over and over for months. Now those elitists have content that puts a brick wall in front of the casual player along with purple weapons. Doesn't seem that overwhelming to me.

I find it funny that people are asking mommy anet to handicap them when they cant get the juice themselves.

This is wrong, adaption is not becoming obsolete but more efficient. This can be seen in GW2 where you can change skills at the press of a button by weapon swapping.

I expect that they literally copy-pastad spawns from haiju lagoon, i.e. designed to challenge in a 6-man area. Pure oversight.

Why then is this post here and you defending it?

Going to have to agree with this.

I havent actually done these quests or vqs yet. However, I had been working on the canthan VQ title before WoC came out. By the time it was released, I had finished all but haiju lagoon (and that short trail on shing jea). Figuring that WoC would only affect the city, I started it when it first came out. I know its a 6 man areas, so its not as in as bad a shape as cho's estate. But still, I guess I'm going to wait for WoC to conclude before I attempt completing my title.

/signed

MCE was difficult before WoC. It took patience and planning.
Making it harder is unnecessary and cruel. Also, I thought the thinking of the WoC quests was to make life safer for the inhabitants, not harder. Doesn't it kinda take the fun out the quests if all you are doing is making the game harder?

Example, you cleanse an area. You should have fewer overall foes for a VQ, but the enemies should be stronger and PvX quality builds.

Doesn't that thinking seem right?

Jeydra, would you care to share the builds/tactics you would use to vanquish this? Because I'm 32/33 for Canthan Vanquisher, and the farthest I've gotten into this is about 120 foes when i ran into a group with two Witches with Word of Healing, a Chaplain with Life Sheath, and a Ringleader that had Signet of Return. I was able to get one Witch down, but by then, my minion wall was just about gone and the Witch was ressed right away. I was 60'ed out soon after that, since without a minion wall to absorb some of the damage and the partywide dp, my heroes couldn't get rolling again.

I think the area would be much more balanced if scavenger groups were reduced to 4 per group. With the PvX quality skill bars, the ridiculous armor/attributes and pets/minions the area is still going to be challenging, but not impossible.

This isn't the right place to discuss it, but: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/p...t10447337.html

Use the SoS, the SoGM and the MB (with Rend Enchantments. Set up a spirit wall (they're always available) for every mob, then AP spike the Monks down. Worst case scenario, do long pulls.

Decided to try it for giggles and laughs, bad idea on my part

During my attempt there were mobs that had 2+ healers, which I was not able to take down without PI spamming with FS support to lock down the entire mob(AP was utter trash here). There's also the issue that these mobs are located quite close to one another (where monks of different mobs will join the fray if you don't pull from long distances with a bow).

While not impossible, it's quite frustrating to be put in a 4v6 situation where the other players are running decent builds. It would be nice to add some incentive (in the form of commendations from a vanquish quest) or simply reducing the size of the mobs to four.

/signed

Honestly, for a vanquish, it's ridiculous. I love the challenge, and I'll enjoy completing it, but I don't think it should be a requirement for those VQ titles, because it's much, much more difficult than any other vanquish.

This is more of an elite area type thing. If elite areas had these types of mobs, they would actually be elite.

/signed

2,000 hours on my to-be-gwamm and I can't possibly do these areas after WoC.

I noticed it's the Zaishen vanquish quest for the day. I wonder how many people are going to cash in their 50 copper.