Tone down Canthan Bosses (warning--math and a minor rant inside)

During my time spent fighting in Cantha, I've been annoyed (and occasionally wiped) by the new abilities of bosses there. Whereas Tyrian bosses had hex and condition durations on them halved, Canthan bosses have (in my opinion) much stronger bonuses, namely the doubling of all damage they do and the halving of the activation time of all their skills.

I'll use a particularly difficult group of enemies in the Archipelagos containing the boss Snapjaw Windshell as an example. The four regular high-damage elementalists in the group make it difficult for its size, but the addition of a double-damage level 28 boss seems too much. Using the GuildWiki damage calculation page, I determined how much damage this boss could do with Aftershock, assuming 16 Earth Magic level (16 for main attributes seems to be common among most level 20+ Canthan monsters), and that I was being attacked. (A level 20, 60-AL Mesmer) If you follow the formulas, you get a total of 177 raw damage for Aftershock against a knocked-down foe, already quite high. Factoring in the boss' level advantage over my AL, the armor effect becomes 2^(84-60)/40 = 2^(24/40) = 2^(3/5), approximately 1.5. This puts the damage at a hefty 265.5. Assuming no other damage bonuses/negators are in effect, the boss' innate damage doubling sets the final damage at 531--enough to kill almost any caster instantly. Even without a knockdown, the damage is about 105 * 1.5 * 2, or 315, still enough to kill weakened foes or make the healer sweat. (This happens to match the ranegd area damage Dragon's Stomp could inflict)

This is just one example--already powerful spells in the hands of almost any Canthan boss become near-instant kills that unbalance battles. Spiking is already powerful enough when used by a coordinated team; one-man spiking , especially against multiple targets, is seriously overpowered. In addition, the halved casting time of these bosses makes disrupting their mighty spells much harder. (Aftershock clocks in at 3/8 of a second--difficult even for a computer, and impossible for a human)

I understand that ANet might have wanted to distinguish Canthan bosses from Tyrian ones with new abilities, but I think they made a mistake with doubled damage and halved casting times. A boss' high durability and level advantage (which already grants a damage bonus of just over 1.5) are already powerful; halved hex and condition duration made them excellent challenges and put them a step above normal enemies. Canthan bosses need an ability that makes them superior, but overblown damage and 16 Fast Casting for all skills regardless of profession are too much. It should be easy to give much more interesting and balanced bonuses, such as profession-specific ones. (IE additional Al for Warriors, more energy reserves for Elementalists, higher attack speed for Elementalists, etc.) Dual-profession bosses could also an interesting addition.

Anyway, any comments?

they are fine, they are not unbeatable.
thanks to these "overpowered" bosses, now i think strategies before running into them, like pulling the lesser monsters, or in case they are the same group, i kill the lesser mobs first, then get wiped out, run back to the boss, kill the remaining lessers, and then the boss.

Bosses in Factions:

• Deal double damage (yes its double damage)
• Have half skill casting time.
• Have 4 health regen

Don't change 'em ANET. This is teaching people the use of a good tank and ritualist.

They are not unbeatable in my opinion as well.

It just takes a bit more strategy and ensuring your charcater build is balanced to counteract/interrupt the most painful attacks and to include some sort of self healing to alleviate the pressure on the monks and/or ritualists.

Imho the new bosses are fine. Theyre hard indeed, and for strong bosses with high damage skills your most likely to get wiped out atleast once, but I still think its fun^_^
And there are still enough counters, in luxon territory taking the interupt henchman with you will own most bosses. As a dazed caster boss=gg.

EDIT: I dont think bosses have natural resitance vs conditions (not sure on the hexxes) as the daze from skullcrack lasts 10 seconds on them.

I wasn't aware they still had Natural Resistance... Anyway, players don't have the luxury of a smart group of human players all the time. If you aren't the right class, bosses like these can be nightmares with henchmen. I agree that while a good human group can probably take out any boss, but I'm sure you know how rare these can be, especially for just doing explorable areas. (Which was what I was doing, not a mission or anything) And don't try to deny that dual-profession bosses would be cool if done right.

I use henchmen all the time dude, just learn how to control them.

Anyway I'm not 100% sure on the natural resistance - I'll test it next chance I get.

Bosses in factions do NOT have natural resistance. Hexes last full duration on Canthan bosses - I capped 180 elites on my necro, I would know :P

The only problem I have with double damage is on elementalist bosses. On other classes it seems pretty balanced. A boss is supposed to be a tough opponent and when a warrior boss charges up to a target and takes off half its health in one swing, that's exactly what a boss is supposed to do. But when that dredge elementalist in Ferndale, whatever his name is, throws a fireball at a clump of 30-dp'd henches and drops 3 of them... that's just dumb.

Class-specific bonuses would be awesome, except don't give monks double healing, or they'd all turn into Willa the Unpleasant. :/

Edited my post, I guess natural resistance is Prophocies only. So the factions bosses aren't even that hard.

EDIT: Willa is easy! The problem most people have with her is the lack of: interrupts, disabling skills, or knockdowns. Bring an interrupt ranger, domination mesmer, disrupting chop warrior, echo nuker, or even a freakin smiting monk and you can beat her easy. Same goes with Magicbox and his backup healer.

Exactly. With higher-damage spells, even less DP is required for cheap instant-kills. Half health in one attack still seems a bit much, though... And yes, the problem is worst by far with Elementalists, who can then nuke multiple party members for hundreds of damage. I've noticed it with a few Ritualist bosses who use powerful Channeling spells, though. (Such as the one in Xaquang Skyway, Orosen, who can do well over 300 spike damage with channeled strike) They already get about 1.5x damage from their level advantage, which becomes 3x damage with the boss multiplier.

It's like IWAY and Touch Rangers, they root out all the bad PvEers.

The stronger bosses in Cantha is very enjoyable imo. In Tyria, everything was so docile and strait forward that the defense of a party was limited to a heal monk or two. Now in Cantha, the significantly increased DPS is perfect for encouraging the use of new builds, especially in terms of damage prevention. Now putting a ward on that ele, bringing a full prot monk, or the obvious ritualist is a necessity rather than a luxury.

As for it being to much for henchies, that is simply not the case. As with any group, you have to design your build to fit that group. You can't always be a warrior with 7 attack skills and mending... Personally, I often play with henchies because they are better than the average player (playing with henchies often I almost have 180 elites on my monk and I am well on my way to the skill hunter and survivor titles on my ranger).

What kind of Mesmer were you playing that you didn't bring any sort of interrupts?

I enjoy Factions personally. There have been many challenges that really made me change my way that I play the game. Sometimes you just get stuck in an area and you really have to think about what you can do to change your build so that you can get past that certain mob.

The ONE boss I'd really have to complain about here, is Argo. But its not him, its also the fact that Boreas Seabed has THE WORST henchmen choices in all of Guild Wars. I had no trouble with Boreas as a MM, even as an axe warrior I went through fine, but when I made it there with my Assassin, I found that the henchmen there didn't work well with what I needed to do. Often I would find that Argo's group would take out 4-5 of my hench in mere seconds.

Even if I do get past Argo, by the time I got to the main boss guy, I was either too busy being dead to interrupt his skills or watching him kill off all my DPed hench.

I don't think any of the bosses need to be toned down. I'd rather have some challenge still left in the game. I just think they need to think a little better about the bosses skillset with their innate abilites. Argo's Meteor....ouchies...

I HAVE to agree with removing the double damage on the Elementalist bosses. It's just stupid how I can get hit wit a 238 dmg Lightning Orb and go from full health to half health and being attacked by all the enemy party.
Save missions, I do everything with henchmen... so add in how Tai and protector henchman don't have a friken clue (he's getting spiked.... Signet of Devotion!) and I'm left cursing everything under the sun as my henchmen party runs around aimlessly.
Sure Talon will manage to fell half of them before he finally goes down... but I'd rather not eat dirt every time I run into an elementalist boss.

The interrupt ranger henchie works wonders and you should bring some interrupts as well, it's not that hard - PVE is easy enough. /notsigned

I get the feeling that the bosses (and random eles) are what Shelter and Union are for.

I did have interrupts, but like I said, anything with a casting time of less than two seconds is for all intents and purposes impossible to interrupt, and it's not a guarantee even with two seconds. The only reliable way to have a chance at interrupting most bosses' skills would be something like dazing or Spinal Shivers; as a Me/Mo, I had access to neither.

My warrior has an easy time interrupting spells with a casting time of a second with just distracting blow, if you're a mesmer and you can't interurpt spells with a casting time of a second then that's kinda of sad.

QFT. I interrupt Orison 99% of the time on my mesmer. On WoH it gets kinda hard though. Anything below that I have to precast and it's a tossup if I get it.

I'm sorry, but if you can't press a button within two seconds, then there is something seriously wrong o.o

Possible reasons why you miss two second interrupts?
1 - Your reaction time is really, really slow.
2 - You only have one interrupt, and it was used previously and is now recharging.
3 - You aren't paying attention to interrupts at all
4 - Your reaction time is really, really slow.
5 - You're a monk in disguise.

I actually have absolutely no problems interrupting two second spells. One second? Well, that can cause a bit of a problem at times, seeing that interrupts can take time to cast and what not. Still not that much of a problem though. Fractions of a second? Well, that would need interrupt spamming.

I'm guessing he meant two seconds, which later become 1 second casts on bosses which are still easy enough. Any spell with less than a second cast on a boss though, that's pretty hard to interrupt with other than guessing it.

The only one Boss that pissed me off was a Ritualist in noobie island, it's defending a Chest or god knows what and it whiped me, my party, and like 4 extra henchies that you pick up in a quest. I killed him in the 6th-7th try and ended up with 60DP. That one was a bit too much, but any other than that seems fine to me.

The ritualist in newb land is tough. I had to take the (at the time) lvl 20 hench from that one city (forget the name) to beat it. They since lowered the lvl of those hench so I dont know how it is now.


Shelter and Union work great against those bosses though.

That's right; 2-second+ spells are easy. I can interrupt one-second spells some of the time, but more often I'm too late. And I agree; that Ritualist boss in Haiju Lagoon is another example of how overpowed the 2x damage can be. (His Spirit Rift nearly gave me a heart attack when I was my Survivor Rit in progress)

I agree with the OP on that specific boss, he's crazy but ele mobs are pretty crazy in general in the game - they do insane damage unless you have elmental resistance.

oh and I also agree with the noob-island boss, but at least the mobs around him are easy enough.

Protective spirit > High damage elemental spells/skills.

Arcane conundrum > Boss' cast time for spells.

Mayhaps ANet wanted the bosses to be uber spikers because that increases the value of having a ritualist in the party. Prot spells are great, but the spirits are proactive, which helps a lot when you can't predict who these bosses will hit.

But then, they also decrease the value of Assassins. And I don't think one particular skill should be virtually required for anything. (See my next topic for another example)