@naruku: Yes, because I’m playing poorly. Clearly I’m just really bad at the game. Clearly I’m not trying all sorts of builds and stat distributions trying to find an optimal one that makes boss fights not take a ridiculous amount of time.
No, I don’t think the difference in playing skill. That highlander that 5shots the boss is not necessarily playing with more or less skill, that highlander is just playing a better class. But sure, let’s just ignore that and then proceed to write off my experience with the game as ‘lack of player skill’ because you have no personal experience with the class.
This is the reality Naruku: My class’s damage output is garbage for at least three circles. This is with a +5 level-relevant bow and a stat spread tailored to damage (I have tried all of a 1:1 STR/Dex, a full strength build, a build that added in a bit of spirit for skill casting, a crit-focused build, and so on). This is not with just a bad spread and weapon, and chugging potions will not save this archetype. My skills only do the damage of around 12 autoattacks or so, and in a fight where I need several hundred, if not a thousand or more, 12 is not a lot, and definitely gives the impression that it is not cost-efficient damage, given how resource-intensive it is.
Lastly, I could accept the game being designed in a way to force you to group up and play with others if this was either side material or if this was endgame content. I cannot accept the main questline being designed in a way to force you to seek out others to fight the uninteresting meat sponges with, especially at level 60. It’s like in Ragnarok Online, all the actual bosses were beatable solo (quite easily in fact) except for the MVPs, which were definitely party-orientated, and that was fine because MVPs were all endgame content.
@teddywuggles: I had a fun encounter with the restrain attack totems yesterday as an archer with kneeling shot. If you’re in kneeling shot and totems spawn around you, not only can you not attack, you can’t get out of kneeling shot to move out of their range. You become functionally incapacitated until the silence wears off, and while I feel like that’s an oversight, god damn is it bad design.