Difficulty

Is it just me, or is this game a lot harder than Prophecies? If this was a pure expansion, then it might be acceptable, but what about for people that have never played this game? There are areas not even that far into the game that are really tough. I'm seeing threads on multiple sites of people complaining about the difficulty level. Right now I'm enjoying fighting the Dredge. There is one group of 10 of them, along with a boss and 3 healers, that I just cannot pass. I actually ended up abandoning the quest that I had to pass them for.

Actually the missions in Factions are easy.. I have yet to fail one with PUG's my 2nd time through, often getting 3/2 sword bonuses.

Whats funny is ther are a few explorable areas where you have to get through keeping NPC's alive to the other side which are much harder than the story mission. Namely in the kurzick forest areas.. Think they can add more Warden's there? I had to fight seriously like 300 of them to just run to the next zone.

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The actual story line missions no, i think they are if anything, easier. But apparently the elite missions are supposed to emensly hard. I've never gotten to do one, but i've heard how hard they are. Some one posted a thread with some pics from inside the missions somewhere areound here.

It all depends on the group you are playing with. You can play an echo nuker (for knockdown, not damage...) with a guild group and NOT have mobs scatter with coordination of snares. Any logical build is viable if your team is coordinated (in PvE).

It definitely starts tough, the first mission where you co-op with another group and fight hordes of afflicted and then the mission from the temple to save vizu seemed pretty difficult. Besides those every other mission Ive made it through with 1 try with henchies (unless you need a PuG to carry mission objects).

Personally I'd prefer it all tough, if you want a game where you just steam roll everything in your path and spend hours after hours hacking and slashing stick to wow or diablo 2. When a mission is tough, you look at your build, you consider your tactics, and the tougher it is the sweeter the feeling when you finally get through that mission.

I suppose it is a bit more unforgiving than chapter 1, in that if you do not use tactics you will die very quickly. However, if you use good tactics, the game is a breeze.

Faster learning curve for new players, at least.

I finished the storyline with my monk last night. I have to say that i enjoyed the missions more in Kantha. Usually they tend to be shorter; some can be finished in less than 20 minutes w/ a good team. Much nicer than some of the fire island and southern shivers that can last for an hour or more depending on the group.

Only thing that really does for me is that Conjure Nightmare (I'm thinking afflicted mesmers here).

Playing a necro (for example) and having to aggro to get the henches in I'll often end up with poison and nightmare for a good old -10, then any amount of damage on top, I've frequently been dropped before the henches have even engaged.

I suspect there's a trick I'm missing but the warrior henches who might take that punishment and survive just don't seem to want to get involved until I attack something.

Currently I'm running through with a ranger guildy. That works good. Put an arrow into the mobs from range gets the henchies all excited. By the time the afflicted assassin shadow steps in, he has reckless speed and spiteful spirit on him (what a combo ) and drops like a stone, which leaves a nice blood well to stand in whilst echoing SS around the rest of the mobs.

Of course I could use minions too to take the hits. That does actually work pretty good, but with recent changes, one actually has to work at keeping them alive, and I'm lazy

control+shift+space to get the henchies to charge in and get aggro. Works great for me, fun to see the healers not being able to heal devona in time :P

Control and shift and space. Truly there are no limits to the wonders of modern technology.

Let me just tattoo that on the inside of my eyelids for future reference.

Only thing I find harder is the monsters suddenly learned how to spike, and it hurts.

Well, I'm at the third mission in the game (Vizunah square) I'm already lvl 20, I would
say this is very lop-sided, in the first ch. you had probably 8 or 9 missions under your
belt before you hit lvl 20, and so you learned how to use your skills better by then.
I see lots of lvl 10's in the square, and when get grouped with them they just drop like flies.
I wish they made it so you had to be a certain lvl before going to certain areas,
it just kills me when I see ppl bragging how they beat the game in 3 days and they
are at lvl 15 or something, sorry to say but my excitement for this new chapter
is fading very fast, and it feels like we are being herded to PvP land.

its not hard, you just need to take ur time and control aggro.. really, the hardest missions to me were those i thought i CANT do with hench and had to be in a PUG..

people make it hard..


as for the fading chapter, its not the difficulty, its the lack of ANY sense in this whole chapter...really, youd think anet wouldve done something that would make more sense than ch1 did, well, no, its worse... the whole story is soo dumb, it actually hurts

I stated this once before... The difficulty is way out of whack.
I think the hardest part of the entire game is the Undercity (and yes I've beaten factions already).

Once you get out of the city, things get so easy.

Also, I find assassins are more pvp-oriented, so if you're an assassin and finding it too hard, that's why. I beat factions with my assassin, then went to my prized warrior. I tore through everything as though I was fighting in Kryta.

Don't just blame your team, if you find your team is no good, toss them and get hench, otherwise it may be your pulling abilities.

As for the Dredg "shove" boss in Ferndale, I don't think I ever beat him without dying once, so what I do is I leave him alone and try to take out as many non-bosses as I can before I die, so I'm left with the boss and only a couple of Dredg when I res. He definately does need to be toned down though, you shouldnt have to die just to pass.

There are only 2 missions in the game (according to my skill level) that are unhenchable, and I'm sure there are people out there who DID do it with hench, but I just don't see how.

-Eternal Grove (you need splitability, but I've heard people hench it)
-Unwaking Waters (you need to be able to carry 2 res orbs or the -10 degen will ruin your whole party in seconds, of course, if you're ina hench team, you can't do that, especially if you're a melee player.

I hench'd every mission and quest up until Eternal Grove. It's not really that hard.

Well the hardest area to me is some of these areas in the Kurzick forest. Even if you study patrols and control aggro, often times there is multiple groups that will criss cross each others paths in a fairly short period of time. So it's not all that unusual to get stuck fighting 8 Dredge and 15 Wardens, and sometimes they like to throw in a few Oni to make things interesting.

It seems that the enemies are just smarter, and more balanced. They will interrupt you every chance they get. They heal each other more effectively it seems. I do think the difficult is above Prophecies. Is that bad? For veterans, probably not. But im talking about this being a standalone game, and the fact that there is a lot of new people that have never played GW before. So looking at it that way, I do think the difficulty is a little too high in some areas.

You can't be overpowered. It's all level 20, so you actually need player skill.

Huzzah!