First Impressions

[Sky]

They sure do, I notice it even at low levels.

Warriors should really get 4 weapon swap spots.

[Sjofn]

I've had mobs dodge on me "intelligently." I notice it a lot more on my elementalist and ranger than guardian or warrior, though. I did sort of assume it was just luck on the mob's part, though. 

[disKret]

Ascalonian Catacombs "Ralena and Vassar" boss - simple boss strategy (keep them separated) in GW2 where there is no tanks makes me cry. I have no idea who the f*** tested it before and approved for implementation.

[kildorn]

The trick on the Lovers is to spam boulders on them. Neither is immune to CC like most bosses.

For normal mobs: most mobs have "run out of AEs" code.

[Zetor]

Yep, mobs like to get out of AEs, though not to the (annoying) extent they did in GW1.

This, incidentally, makes damaging AEs extremely powerful as crowd control abilities against tough mobs (especially if combined with some sort of snare).

[kildorn]

It's also a bit buggy. They run out, then run back to melee you. This timing is wrong with things like the earth staff delayed nuke, where they run out of it's charge up time, then run back in for the explosion.

[disKret]

The trick on the Lovers is to spam boulders on them. Neither is immune to CC like most bosses.

5 heroes with dozens of weapons and magic skills and what-not must throw rocks at undeads to beat them. Brilliant.

[Ingmar]

Especially as all the crappy bar replacement weapons you pick up in the overworld do a very good job of training you that anything you pick up should automatically be dropped because it suuuuuucks.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I can recall only two replacement weapons that impressed me:
- the asura experimental hand cannon in - I think - Sparkfly Fen, where you have to zap risen with it for a renown heart. It has four different rapidfire elemental attacks that hit insanely hard, I was killing faster with it than my own (staff ele) skillset.
- the illusory dust in the underwater temple (level 73-ish personal story, I think everyone gets this) gives you a bubble, a heavy damage skill, a cc, a self buff and a pretty hard-hitting autoattack. All of these on short cooldowns, too.

From watching a video against the Claw of Jormag (dragon in shiverpeaks) world boss, the bazookas aren't too bad there either, but I'd stick to my staff (dohoho) to lay down combo fields and stuff anyway.

But yea, if you find a random shard of coral or rusted sword, chances are it's going to have like two abilities on the bar, and they are both going to suck (one of them may do some CC or something).

[Genev]

Heh, when i did Ralena and Vassar, our group didnt even bother keeping them apart and we killed them np....
But our setup was 2 guardians, an ele, a warrior and me, a ranger. Guardians are slightly op :p

[sachiel]

Dual axes is amazing for warriors.  Until the npcs get smart, something btw i freaking love.  Npc's that stop attacking when i use a block and retaliate move, that move out of the way when i use a stationary high damage move, that roll at the precise time when i use a high damage one hit move, that use knockdowns when i use a mobile high damage attack? fucking win.  And it's only the NPcs that make sense, like bandits, that play smart.

Either you're imagining this, or warriors get unfairly screwed on this. I've never noticed anything like this happening to my guardian at all. At most it's the usual sort of 'ranged monster tries to keep distance' and 'wussy monster runs at low health' kind of stuff.

I've used a rollback that leaves a trail of fire on the ground, trying to get NPC's to run through it.  Most of the humanoid ones will actually sidestep and avoid running through the fire.  They're not dumb.

[01101010]

Dual axes is amazing for warriors.  Until the npcs get smart, something btw i freaking love.  Npc's that stop attacking when i use a block and retaliate move, that move out of the way when i use a stationary high damage move, that roll at the precise time when i use a high damage one hit move, that use knockdowns when i use a mobile high damage attack? fucking win.  And it's only the NPcs that make sense, like bandits, that play smart.

Either you're imagining this, or warriors get unfairly screwed on this. I've never noticed anything like this happening to my guardian at all. At most it's the usual sort of 'ranged monster tries to keep distance' and 'wussy monster runs at low health' kind of stuff.

I've used a rollback that leaves a trail of fire on the ground, trying to get NPC's to run through it.  Most of the humanoid ones will actually sidestep and avoid running through the fire.  They're not dumb.

Yeah, mobs are reactionary. I dig that. They will move out of the fire, for the most part... sadly, they play better than some people.

[ajax34i]

Yeah, mobs are reactionary. I dig that. They will move out of the fire, for the most part... sadly, they play better than some people.

Do you think they accomplish it via AI commands to avoid specific spells, or via dynamic changes to the pathing node map?  Would be a cool concept if a fireball wipes out the nodes where it hits, making the NPCs rush to the nearest available node outside the area.

[Maledict]

All I know is that some mobs are dumb and will kill themselves inside a feedback bubble, other mobs are smarter and will move out of it as soon as  they take damage, and some mobs are so smart they move out as soon as it's cast to avoid any damage. There's clearly *some* form of AI going on under the hood which is a step above what we normally see.

[Tmon]

All I knowitsa tome mobs are dumb and will kill themselves inside a feedback bubble, other mobs are smarter and will move out of it as soonest hey take damage,and some mobs are so smart they move out as soon as its cast to avoid any damage. Theres clearly *some* form of AI going on under the hood which is a step above what we normally see.

While I was helping pound on an ogre boss I dropped a banner and he picked it up and started wacking me with it.  It took me a second to realize it was my banner he was using.  It was kind of a cool thing to see.

[01101010]

I see this mob adjusting to conditions during battle mostly on my guard. If I go mace/shield, I hammer the ground for the heal and minor DoT with ability 2 right after the first rotation of ability 1. Once that hits the ground, the humanoid mobs will back out of the ring. Likewise...and more to piss me off than anything, if I hit my mace ability that throws me into a defensive pose and on mob strike, counter strikes; that mob will stop attacking till it drops. Noticed this most with those Svanir mobs in Snowden and occasionally the ettens. You really have to hit that as soon as you see a swing, preloading it and the mobs might delay till the timer is up on it. Color me impressed.

[Segoris]

Dual axes is amazing for warriors.  Until the npcs get smart, something btw i freaking love.  Npc's that stop attacking when i use a block and retaliate move, that move out of the way when i use a stationary high damage move, that roll at the precise time when i use a high damage one hit move, that use knockdowns when i use a mobile high damage attack? fucking win.  And it's only the NPcs that make sense, like bandits, that play smart.

Either you're imagining this, or warriors get unfairly screwed on this. I've never noticed anything like this happening to my guardian at all. At most it's the usual sort of 'ranged monster tries to keep distance' and 'wussy monster runs at low health' kind of stuff.

Nope, warrior's aren't really screwed over, I think you'll notice it less on a guardian simply due to the nature of most guardian attacks. There aren't a lot of gtae or stationary moves which seem to be what mobs are smart enough to avoid.

The ones I've noticed mobs avoid are the scepter's smite skill and the underwater with the triden's pillar of light. I'm not sure about 1h sword's zealot's defense move though as I only really use that in pvp at times,  though it would work the same way as a warrior's 100 blades.

We have pbae moves with symbols, but for the most part I think they might be classified as buffs above everything else which causes the mobs to not move (just been my assumption).

[Sky]

Although it's annoying to have a mob stop attacking you when you have a reactionary/riposte, at least the mob stops attacking you (if you're regern health or waiting for CDs, etc). It's pretty awesome.

[01101010]

The ones I've noticed mobs avoid are the scepter's smite skill and the underwater with the triden's pillar of light. I'm not sure about 1h sword's zealot's defense move though as I only really use that in pvp at times,  though it would work the same way as a warrior's 100 blades.

Zealot's defense actually is a ranged ability. So the mob would have to side step, not just step back like they do with PBAoE.

[Segoris]

True, in my mind it's still a melee channeled effect since it's on a melee weapon, but yeah it is ranged.

[Ingmar]

Interesting, must be mostly just my build that has me not noticing these things. One thing though, I have a lot of things that grant me retaliation and I've never seen a mob stop attacking me because of it.

[Fordel]

I see this mob adjusting to conditions during battle mostly on my guard. If I go mace/shield, I hammer the ground for the heal and minor DoT with ability 2 right after the first rotation of ability 1. Once that hits the ground, the humanoid mobs will back out of the ring. Likewise...and more to piss me off than anything, if I hit my mace ability that throws me into a defensive pose and on mob strike, counter strikes; that mob will stop attacking till it drops. Noticed this most with those Svanir mobs in Snowden and occasionally the ettens. You really have to hit that as soon as you see a swing, preloading it and the mobs might delay till the timer is up on it. Color me impressed.

I play the exact same kind of Guardian and never noticed any of these behaviors. Mobs happily sit in my symbols and are easily blocked with skill 3. Don't confuse their incredibly slow auto attacks with them intelligently delaying. Like just walk up to a mob and let it beat on you, they'll attack you once every 3-4 seconds at best. It's entirely possible to even just dodge out of their auto attacks, because they are so telegraphed and slow.

I've been basically gathering up 2-6 mobs, dropping my symbol and counter attacking with 3, for a lot of AE damage. Toss in a shield swipe with 4 and a Stand your ground shout and it's good. I'm also using the block then heal skill and the burning on block trait.

[Segoris]

Interesting, must be mostly just my build that has me not noticing these things. One thing though, I have a lot of things that grant me retaliation and I've never seen a mob stop attacking me because of it.

That's why I think they don't avoid symbols since symbols are buffs even when they do damage or debuffs to a mob, and I'm guessing the AI isn't told to stop attacking as a result of players buffing themselves (even if it negatively effects a mob).

[Zetor]

The only mobs that seem to run out of my aoe (staff elementalist, so basically everything  ) are humanoid / undead casters... but not all of them do that, either. Since I have the increased AOE trait and some of my skills have large circles so that they can't hit me if they run outside it (radiation field) or have short durations (lava font/eruption), most don't bother. Also, mobs WILL run through my static field and eat the stun.

OTOH mobs like to clear out from radiation field if they can help it, and are pretty good at avoiding the fire trail from burning retreat.

[Venkman]

Centaurs don't seem to stand still for me and run out of my AOEs. Consistent or not for me though, it's cool to see this behavior at all in mob genocide games 

[KallDrexx]

FYI in tonight's updates

We'll add an option to stop queueing for your home world, for players who want to remain on an overflow server indefinitely without being asked.

[Tyrnan]

Centaurs don't seem to stand still for me and run out of my AOEs. Consistent or not for me though, it's cool to see this behavior at all in mob genocide games  

I've noticed on my Mesmer if I'm constantly running around dodging and casting skills the mobs are more likely to attack me. However, if I just stand still amongst the clones and auto-attack there's a good chance they'll go for the clones instead.

Edit: except Risen Thralls, those fuckers make a beeline for me no matter what I do!

[Ingmar]

Centaurs don't seem to stand still for me and run out of my AOEs. Consistent or not for me though, it's cool to see this behavior at all in mob genocide games 

The running out of AOE thing was actually in GW1. I'm not sure it really accomplished anything great other than discouraging you from putting AOE stuff on your bar, honestly.

[Zetor]

Yep, that's what I said a few posts above.

I'm getting close to the end of the personal story, and the level 70+ missions at least partially redeem the GW1-esque borefest that was level 60-70 (especially the 'rescue dudes from the cave' mission, ugh) mostly by having significantly less fights of the "neverending slog" variety. It probably also helps that I can't get enough of the Asura/Charr lieutenants bickering.

[Venkman]

FYI in tonight's updates

We'll add an option to stop queueing for your home world, for players who want to remain on an overflow server indefinitely without being asked.

BONUS!

The running out of AOE thing was actually in GW1. I'm not sure it really accomplished anything great other than discouraging you from putting AOE stuff on your bar, honestly.

Cool. Never saw that in GW1 but then didn't play it very long. When soloing here I'll do an AOE for a field/finisher and not for the damage, and for the most part, DDs and DoTs. In a DE the AOEs are fine mostly because the mobs are clumping or there's a field/finisher benefit.

[Crumbs]

Error 7 started for me yesterday    can't stay logged in for more than 30 seconds.  During that time there is horrible lag.  From what the forums say, it's not me, it's them, but this isn't happening to everyone so I'm just stuck for now.

[KallDrexx]

Error 7 started for me yesterday    can't stay logged in for more than 30 seconds.  During that time there is horrible lag.  From what the forums say, it's not me, it's them, but this isn't happening to everyone so I'm just stuck for now.

Have you tried going to a different zone?

[Crumbs]

I did.  At this point there are too many variables, it could be me or it could be them.  For example, netflix streaming worked fine from the same modem wirelessly, while the computer is hard wired.  Then I changed the network setting on the computer to wireless, no dice.  Late last night I changed the port on my router and the game worked fine, but my internet was choppy when I ran speed test.  Could be my comp, could be cable company, could be the game.   

[Kageru]

The Cattlepult is just  

To an extent it is somewhat nice to see event bosses which can't just be main-tanked. It always was sort of weird seeing a 20m tall giant pounding a human warrior and he could just stand there and take it. Having to dodge in and out of combat, and avoid specials, has a certain realism to it. Though the animations for the specials can be missed and give you a pretty short timer.

I'm also seeing a few more [group] events and champion mobs which do not scale down to become soloable. Though I'm not sure if the first is intentional or bad balancing. The second is definitely intended.

[Zetor]

In the later zones (Orr) there are no heart quests at all, the entire map is driven by dynamic event chains and gaining control of waypoints. The DEs are also much more coordination-heavy: for example in the Lyssa temple you need to hold three different areas at the same time, which will cause the boss in the center to become attackable. If you just run as a typical DE zerg from point to point, you'll lose control of the first one by the time you start capping the third. The boss was no slouch either, with phases that stunned you if you looked towards it while it was channeling a skill, tossing around various Mesmer Bullshit™, and stuff like that.

In the Grenth temple, one of the big DE chain bosses summons shades that stack a vulnerability debuff on players, and can only be hurt if you go into the netherworld via a portal (and if you do that, you'll start taking damage yourself). These aren't really huge mechanics when compared to existing raids in DIKUs, but still far beyond the DE bosses of the earlier zones that are just zerg zerg zerg.