Achieving the perfect balance on tough bosses in explorable mode dungeons and fractals is never an easy task. ArenaNet’s Robert Hrouda has been adjusting one of the most difficult bosses in explorable mode Arah– the fourth (Seer) path’s Dwaynas High Priestess Simin fight– and is still making adjustments to the fight. This boss was often skipped by groups before the recent changes. Here is his latest update on the changes being made next:
Originally posted by Robert Hrouda (Source)
Hey folks, sorry about not having posted in here for a while! But update time!I took another look at Simin after the spark AI fix, and got more feedback concerning the difficulty. The sparks were a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t enough. I’m going to reduce her stealth healing this time around while I consider other possible changes. As it stands right now she has some nice mechanics with the tears and the spark running, which emphasizes the teamwork we like to see. However all that aside, her healing turns it from a fun mechanics fight to a more hard-nosed DPS check for even the most mechanically skilled groups.
Personally I would much rather see people having fun with mechanics than having meet a DPS check. Considering also there isn’t a visible meter to check your group DPS versus her healing, groups can spend hours doing this and reaching the same result, despite meeting the mechanical skill threshold.I will eventually change her stealth mechanic so she doesn’t heal during it and instead does something else (like an enrage moment where she is invulnerable), but for now I’ll just take her healing down a peg to reduce the DPS needed to overcome the fight, so people can enjoy the mechanics of it.
Keep reading to see a followup post.
He also had this to say later on in the thread, which helps clarify his stance on the changes being made:
Originally posted by Robert Hrouda (Source)
I agree that more difficulty would be better, but a DPS check really isn’t difficulty in my opinion. It’s a mechanic, sure, but after you learn all her mechanics its just down to raw numbers, and I don’t agree that is as fun as running sparks and using tears to cleanse people. Right now Simin just forces you to bring high DPS with you, which I’m not a fan of. Its a tough fight for the wrong reason, and her core mechanics should be more emphasized, not her health bar.
