Adventure Log: Dungeons, Dragons, and Seals

Another week has gone by in Guild Wars 2, and I’m still racking up new experiences each day.

Claw of Jormag event in GW2
Claw of Jormag unleashes a mighty roar, sending a shockwave right at me.

Dragons

I knew about Tequatl in Sparkfly, but I had no idea that Claw of Jormag was in the Norn 70-80 zone.  You might be wondering what either of those things are, and with good reason too.  Nothing in the game sends you to them — you just happen across them.  They are really big dragon events every three hours that require a large group of players to complete.  If you participate well enough, a chest at the end gives about 7 items your level.

The dragons look amazing.  Check out that screenshot I took as Claw of Jormag roared, sending all of us running.  The goals during Claw of Jormag are to take out the ice elementals, break the wall, damage him, repeat until he flies a third time and it shot down, then destroy the ice spikes so that the golems can reach him and make him  vulnerable.  It’s an intense event, but the best PvE you’ll find in GW2.

Dungeons

I did Ascalonian Catacombs and a few other exploration modes this week.  Yesterday’s blog post sums up my feelings on them, but in a nutshell they’re like in WoW when your tank dies and everyone either runs around dying or you race to kill them before they kill you, and kite as much as possible.  Don’t get me wrong, some of the fights are good fun.  I think it’s simply an issue of the dungeon being over-tuned.

I really like how you get to choose which path to go in these dungeons.  In the beginning the NPC will basically say “Here’s what’s going on in this place.  How do you want to help?” Then your group votes on what to do and you’re on your way.  If ArenaNet can adjust them a bit, I see these are being very fun adventures to go on between WvW and events.

Seals

A bit of an inside joke.  The other night, when the week-long fight first began, we had an amazing guild WvW event where we took a tower and fully upgraded it.  Our server was then deadlocked against the other two unable to progress due to a heavily fortified front line.  We gathered a group of 6 of us and decided to go on a covert strike deep in the heart of their territory.  To get there we had to sum at the bottom of the lake and up a river.  A few of us being Asura, I dubbed out team “Asuran Seal Team 6”.

For many, many hours after that our group of 6 was able to secure camps behind enemy lines, set up siege weapons, and take on 5-7x our numbers.  That’s no exaggeration.  We took a supply camp and quickly set up 3 ballista and 2 arrow carts.  They would flood in and be slaughtered.  At times we hid in corn fields or up on hills and ambushed.  We kept this up just long enough for our server to break through the front lines and take over the map.  It was the best WvW experience I’ve had in GW2 yet.

So for those of you wondering how to beat the zerg, how to find that DAOC 8-man experience, it’s doable if you think outside the box.

  • As far as these large group events are concerned my biggest 2 bits of advice are tag everything with AoE and wear all magic find gear then enjoy your farming experience!

  • Had a blast last night, my bud and I were playing the role of Treb operator and spotter. I’d pop up on the front lines and hide, giving him “a lil to the left, and up more” so he could place his more accurately.

  • I haven’t really been following GW2 because Pandaria is soon, and I’ve actually really been enjoying WoW again lately. But my wife and a few friends are really interested in GW2 and now I’m reading your blog and watching videos everywhere of the game, and it looks great.

    But I have to ask, do you think it’ll just be another 3 monther? I’m starting to get wary of new MMOs, because everytime I get interested and buy one most of the people I play with disappear after a few months and I’m left on my own or I get bored myself and disappear.

    I’m really interested in GW2, but I really don’t want to repeat what happened with SWTOR. =/

  • To be quite honest, it may be a three-monther but not because it lacks in design. The lacking in GW2 is content. Right now there is probably three months of ‘stuff’ to do: Explore, collect, WvW, PvE. Leveling was just so quick that it rushed people to the point of doing it all so fast.

  • I honestly doubt you will find anything but a “three monther”, Keen – you just are burned out with the genre in my opinion.

    W3 alone is much better than anything ever offered in DAoC or WAR. I find it quite ironic actually that people who were asking for DAoC2 for ages are now spitting on this game – when they finally got their wish fulfilled 200% or better.

    Smaller organized groups making sense and making a difference? Check. Capturing keeps for your GUILD making a difference for your guild? Check. All realms having the same classes, therefore no bullshit imbalances like you had in DAoC? Check.

    This is just the proof that all the DAoC nostalgics were actually full of it.