Skill Capping nerfed?

I never noticed before, but now getting the skill you want is practically impossible if the boss spawns in a particular explorable, and nowhere else.

For example, I was trying to cap Spell Breaker for my monk. The boss spawns outside Rankor in Snake Dance, just a few steps to the left. So i get my henchmen together (I wasn't farming, so I brought 7 henchmen and got nearly no drops) and went out. First and second time the El boss spawns, no big deal. Next the Mes boss spawns, there was starting to be a massive increase in the amount of griffons and azures, and a decrease in arcanists, still thought nothing of it. 4th time, no boss.... I thought it was a fluke, so i map back and try again. 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, etc....no boss again. Bosses had completely stopped spawning, I even checked the rest of the map. Everyone was still giving normal drops, and more and more monsters were spawning, and being a zf with 2 monk back up...I was getting more and more drops, and ended up getting 2 rares per run toward the end. But no bosses.

After 3 hours of trying I finally gave up, hoping to try again tomorrow. I know this is the anti-farm code that I was hitting, but it was increasing the rate at which i killed things and giving me better drops, but just not spawning bosses. Is this some kind of nerf to only hurt pvp players and reward farmers? Or did I hit some major bug that wouldn't let bosses spawn and never let me get my skill?

I got spell breaker twice this week for two of my characters. It took about 5 to 10 tries per character to find the proper boss spawn. There was a boss there 95% of the time for me and for the most part the same mobs. Everything seems normal to me.

I too have been getting odd spawns in the shiverpeeks, while trying to get battle rage i spent best part of 40 mins going over the same 3 spawn points about 10 times, didn't get many drops though, Anet seems to have nerft the drops some melee mob and incressed the drops from ranged mobs to even it out.

I was getting most of my drops from griffons, but still, making bosses not spawn does not accomplish anything. (I had 7 guild mates try to do it a few times, after 3-5 times bosses stopped spawning anywhere on the map, and for a few of them, it got so spammed with monsters they could not survive)

I assume you mean the griffon boss in the lower left hand corner of the map ? I go Snake dance once a day usually and it's always been there to my knowledge.

The frozen forest area between copperhammer and iron mines has been the worst for me.
Not only is the area immediately east of copperhammer full of mobs, but around 4 or more different bosses can spawn there. I've spent an hour rezoning trying to get a boss to spawn.

It seems like just when I'd need a particular boss, he'd take forever to spawn. While playing my warrior, I could barely get the warrior boss to spawn (and back when the frozen forest was over-stocked with huge mobs, I'd often not be able to reach the boss). Then, when I play my monk, I'd get a string of consecutive warrior boss spawns, which I unfortunately don't need anymore. That place frustrates me to no end.

I needed well over ten attempts until the Monk boss spawned for me there, normally it was the Mesmer, sometimes the Ele and rarely none at all. Once I went up to the other spawn points and there were no monsters at all and the wrong boss. I think it's pure luck which boss spawns where - just try a lot until you've got it.

u need to fight raptorhawk

i always get that bastard when im trying to cap my ele skill >.<

I went to Snake Dance yesterday and saw that a couple files had to be downloaded. This has happened lately on a few maps. Was there an update they didn't advertise? Yes, it did seem like there were more monsters in Snake Dance this time around although I was there with people instead of henchmen or solo so I'm wondering if that had anything to do with it.

I don't see how you could label the un-advertised "update" as anti-farming especially when you got two rares and as you've described it, they've made the area more solo-friendly.

Anyway, was there an update that we weren't told about?

Would be funny if boss spawns are coded to show up different than your primary or secondary profession for the majority of the time.

If you were a E/mo, you'd only have 10% of Ele. or Mo. boss spawn. 90% chance of every other boss type.

I had the same problem with getting Spellbreaker too, took me 4-5 tries to get the right boss to spawn.

Same deal with getting Energy Drain {E}, east of Port Sledge, an easy run to boss, but took too many runs for the boss to spawn. And then when the mesmer boss did spawn, the other boss that had been showing up before, was also spawned on an ice floe near-by. Go figure.

Though, I did get the monk boss to show up the beginning of the Thunderhead mission and capped the elite there, and all the other times it was at the end. Pissed off the other monk who forgot to bring the signet of capture the first try.

You know, I wondered the same thing about spellbreaker. I hit the boss spawn point literally 20-30 times and never got anything but (a) no boss (b) featherclaw.

Finally I got ticked off and cleared all of snake dance only to find.... no raptorhawk.

At that point I just continued to rezone and hit the first spawn point and on the 5th try he finally showed up.

I have no idea if it's some sort of nerf concerning zoning or not, but for whatever reason, he seems to be a tough boss to find.

-Diomedes

The biggest pain for me was also in Snake Dance, but much deeper in the zone. I needed Punishing Shot for my ranger... my last Elite. I could not for the life of me get the boss to spawn. Not only that, but his spawn points are DEEP in the zone, with the first one nearly 2/3rds of the way up. I walked the entire length of Snake Dance 5 times before that SOB showed up... and that's not a leisurely stroll in the park. Easily my most frustrating GW experience so far. :P

Uhm you know they rotate (most of) the boss spawns in the zone yes?

No, they don't. If they did, you wouldn't get the same boss spawning 5 or 6 times in a row in a spot that has 4 possible bosses.

hmmm...i never noticed more monsters were in snake dance...anyways i captured spell breaker in about 3 runs on my e/mo, so i thought nothing of it.

but i really do think the boss spawning system is messed up, cuz i've mad about 50 runs into perdition rock for elemental attunement, but never got it finally i decided to waste 3000 faction on it yesterday after hours of aggrivation

They do spawn in diffrent "set" spots on the map and sometimes they don't show up.

Check these maps out
http://guildwars.gameamp.com/game_map/viewGameMaps
(change the category to elite)

It's just the joys of random chance.

For the 8 or so skills I've had real difficulty capturing, I've already gotten all of them for 3 professions, all but 2 for 1 profession, and about 25% each of the remaining 2 professions.

The breezekeeper bosses gave me trouble for all three elites they have though. Not that I didn't expect it, with 3 bosses to share 2 spawns, one of which is a lot farther in. =\

That boss has always been a hit/miss spwn - he was there my first time with my 1st ele/mo but hasn't been there since when I've gone with other groups needing it. (roughly 10times).
Every other boss in Snake Dance, Perdition Rock, Ring of Fire etc etc. Has always spawned...in my experience.

They do rotate since the boss spawn additions a long time ago, meaning that if your particular boss isn't in the spot you're looking at, chances are, he is at another spawn spot on the map. Unless you thoroughly explored every nook and cranny of the map, you're most likely missing something.

So, if you're running into snake dance, turning sharp left, and not finding the boss there, then I would suggest actually venturing into the rest of the map to look for him.

Here are some very useful maps, thanks to Xennon:

http://www.xennon.co.uk/eliteskills/

I've noticed heavy rotations outside copperhead, went for the ranger boss, first time showed up fairly close to entry, but I left the cap sig in my other pants. Next time, diff boss, kept looking and found the ranger in a totally different area. Noticed all the bosses were in different areas that others were in before. Couple more times out of curiousity... they do seem to randomly rotate.

Nevermind, I misunderstood what was meant by "rotation." I thought he meant there is a set pattern of different bosses that spawn in succession.
Yeah, there's usually a bunch of bosses that spawn at one location, but it's totally random,there seems to be no pattern to it (other than the annoying "spawn the boss you don't need" thing that happens so often).

go with a group that needs one of each, that way something useful HAS to spawn.

I tried again tonight, and got featherclaw 10-15 times(okay so not just him, just various bosses i dont need), then the complete removal of bosses again. (the first 3 times my boss was not anywhere on the map, and after that i got lazy because really....who wants to clear snake dance 4 times in a row?)

They don't "rotate" in the sense that there is a set order or all the possible bosses in the map can appear in one location. There can be one location that will spawn 3 possible bosses, although the map has 6 bosses in total. They randomly select from a set of bosses (sometimes the set is all the possible bosses in the particular map).