Guild Wars 2

Ok guys. Here’s the deal. I’ve been playing for a year now.

I was here for the last queens gauntlet. I just. can. not. kill. those pirates. I spent so many tickets and tried so many builds. I’m a casual player and I spent so many gauntlet tickets. I rage quit the gauntlet and never got the chance to kill liadri. All because of those pirates. I even threw away all the gauntlet tickets. (Bad idea, I know. Especially now that gauntlet tickets are ridiculous to get. But that’s another thread)

Here’s the problem. My only lvl 80 is an elementalist. I have a mesmer that is 60 something. I’m sure my only chance to do this is with my elementalist.

DON’T tell me to look what people did last time. I read/watched a lot about those. Nothing worked. I don’t know what to do.

Ok ok. I’m being difficult. How about you TRY the suggestions from last queen’s gauntlet BEFORE telling me to do it.

If I remember correctly:
If I killed kited them while damaging them. I would eventually win, but time out and fall down.
If I did all damage damage damage, I would die from aoes and not enough healing.

Well. Let’s see what you folks got for me. Please help!

Sounds like you’ve tried the whole gamut of strategies and none worked out so far.
Would it be possible to upload a video of the gauntlet fight so we could critique it?

My squishy friend tried to do them and he failed a lot of times, switched to a warrior and facerolled them. The only difference is outlasting the damage by either killing them quicker or being tankier. Have you tried a Fiery GS build to burst down Stitches and the captain and then using lightning hammer on the other 2 ?

I have a lvl 80 ele and thats what i used in orr pve(pre risen nerf) and i could take a beating, i did the gauntlet with a necro though, but if i had to use ele for that fight i would go with what i said. Good luck man.

I managed to kill them with my mesmer, so I can’t really give any suggestions on how to do it with an elementalist, but I found that keeping Stiches for last actually helped a lot. She has a huge AoE heal every ten seconds or so, but when she dies they all gain regeneration every second, which is actually a far bigger pain to deal with when you can’t sustain DPS due to constant running/dodging.

I went Captain → First Mate → Gunner → Stitches. Captain first because I wanted to stop his buffing, first mate second because the melee was annoying and I could handle the poison, and gunner third… well, simply because I wanted to leave Stitches for last. Definitely don’t kill gunner first though, he gives them all pistols on death; just bear with his AoEs until you get the first two down.

Sobat.8650:

Sounds like you’ve tried the whole gamut of strategies and none worked out so far.
Would it be possible to upload a video of the gauntlet fight so we could critique it?

I will put up a video from fraps after trying new suggestions. Anet’s tweaks helped a little…

KiteoHatto.7018:

My squishy friend tried to do them and he failed a lot of times, switched to a warrior and facerolled them. The only difference is outlasting the damage by either killing them quicker or being tankier. Have you tried a Fiery GS build to burst down Stitches and the captain and then using lightning hammer on the other 2 ?

I have a lvl 80 ele and thats what i used in orr pve(pre risen nerf) and i could take a beating, i did the gauntlet with a necro though, but if i had to use ele for that fight i would go with what i said. Good luck man.

Ok. I googled Firey GS build and got strange searches.

Could you place it here for me to see?:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

I don’t know what the risen nerf it. But I haven’t tried a fiery greatsword build.
I did try a build that involved using only the lightning hammer and being in water element to heal myself. (I can’t remember the build name). It was successful for damage since it crit a lot. But I still couldn’t kill them.

If you give me the info, I will try it at least 10 times.

Pandaman.4758:

I managed to kill them with my mesmer, so I can’t really give any suggestions on how to do it with an elementalist, but I found that keeping Stiches for last actually helped a lot. She has a huge AoE heal every ten seconds or so, but when she dies they all gain regeneration every second, which is actually a far bigger pain to deal with when you can’t sustain DPS due to constant running/dodging.

I went Captain -> First Mate -> Gunner -> Stitches. Captain first because I wanted to stop his buffing, first mate second because the melee was annoying and I could handle the poison, and gunner third… well, simply because I wanted to leave Stitches for last. Definitely don’t kill gunner first though, he gives them all pistols on death; just bear with his AoEs until you get the first two down.

Yea. A lot of the suggestions were kill stitches first or last. I tried both ways and I tended to get get further if I left stitches last. And I agree about the Gunner.

Do you think my lvl 60+ mesmer can do it?

This is pretty much the same as i use, i just dont go full zerk on trinkets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Lc5jE-ocQ

Edit: i gave you the wrong link, my bad. I put in the right, updated one.

This was really hard for me last year when I only had ranger, this year I can kill them all with like 1:30 left on the clock just spamming attack skills with minion master necro.

First nonconstructive comment: I used the year in between to level a couple more characters to 80. This paid off in a massive way when it comes to the gauntlet. Without my necro and thief, I’m not sure I would have finally made it to the end. I also had a guardian waiting in the wings, and warrior. Lots of fights are easier for certain classes. Something to think about for next year.

Ele is one class I didn’t level (and wouldn’t have brought in to the gauntlet even if I had), so no profession specific advice. The person who said kill Stitches last is dead on. Kill her last. Her special ability is “healing” but it’s nothing compared to the constant regen they all get when she dies. Second to last is the annoying first mate, for his evade skill. He dodges half your attacks, and after you kill him all remaining will also dodge half your attacks. (At least that’s how it feels to me.) The other two, I don’t think it matters. I kill the Captain first because I think he does more damage.

Did you try setting your traits to give more healing, damage, toughness, whatever it is you’re missing? I understand if that’s a tough question. Last year I finally beat them when the announcer was doing her obnoxious countdown, after being downed at least once, so I had damage dealing and damage taking issues. It’s probably going to come down to your traits.

The most important thing ist, regardless with which class you are playing, ist to kill the Pirates in the right Order.

1) Stiches You have always to kill first the Healer of the Pirates as he heals all the others too strong as to ignore him for too long
2) Captain Barnicus
3) Master Gunner Adil
4) First Mate Gaets

Each time you kill one, the other remaining ones get healed to full health and they get a buff from the one you killed.
Stiches gives the remaining ones Regeneration
The Captain lets the remaining onces dodge once an attack.
the Master Gunner gives the remeining Ones Pistols to attack with.
The Firt Mate gives the remaining ones Poison Attacks.

As an Ele, you have the AoE Advantage, Eles have alot of Skilsl with that they can damage all enemies at the same time actively as like passively through burning and bleeding
I can say it only out of my experience of the fight as a Thief, but its important really to focus on Stiches first and to kill him as quickly as you can..
After Stiches is dead, the remaining rest as I listed it up would be just the optimal way.
But its basically after Stiches regardless, which one you kill next.

Naturally use Buff Food and Oils to boost your Critical Hit Rate or Cristalls for Condition Damage if yo arer more of a Condition Ele.

Eles have easy access to Cripple and Chill, so you can easily kite your foes around and if they get too near, you can launch them away with RTL and Updraft.
The Regen of Stiches Kill is half as annoying as the much stronger direct heals of Stiches.
When your burnings and bleedings together are working, they can be easily strong enough as a counter to the constant Regegeneration, especially when using a Condition Build.

FGS is definetely better here, than Summons as it gives you more mobility and gives you great DPS to quickly focus on one target and you can use it 2x
So use the first one to get rid quickly of your first pirate and the second for the next one, its just a matter of good timing here when to use the 2 FGS.
They are best used at the start of the battle and after you have killed a foe and the others get healed. Dont use both FGS on just the same foe. You should be able to kill Stiches just with 1 FGS to use the other FGS then mainly on an other target that you want to bring down quickly liek the Captain or the Master Gunner if you find that ranged pirate maybe too annoying.

Also – don’t forget, the events is still long enough up, startet on 20th, just a week ago nearly, and lasts for 4 weeks, so you have still 3 weeks to maybe level up quickly an other class to 80 and try it with something different.
With the help of exp booster stuff, crafting, dungeons, exploring, personal story with guild mates and events you should get easily in time another max level character of an other class, if you have too much problems with them

I suggest you to do it with a thief, because Stealth is a real live saver for all of the battles there, especialyl when you trait it to cure your conditions and your health and as thief your are also very good in quickly killing single targets so that you can focus on one after another, you can dodge far more often than all other classes with the right buff food and trait on (+90% Endurance Regen)
If you want to AoE, Shortbow is a great choice for some nice AoE Bursts and causes also bleedings to work against the Regen from the Stiches Kill plus you can lay on top of that aoe poison, what reduces the power of the regeneration by 33%… and causes even more damage per second to counter the regeneration.

the Gauntlet is the perfect example of what Build Wars 2 is all about: guessing the right build to counter a certain mechanic.
Pirates encounter is "multiple opponents (so no “single target”) that will power up if killed one after the other".
Solution: gather them in a single spot and nuke ‘em’ all at the same moment.

what I did for my Elementalist:
- use full fire trait lines, full water trait lines + bolt to the heart)
- dual dagger
- utilities: arcane wave, arcane blast, lightning flash
- I didn’t use any consumable

strategy: just nuke keeping them stacked, then teleport away switch to water and heal, and get back into action until they are all dead.

note: those mob are pretty dumb and won’t interrupt any of your super-long and boringly telegraphed channeling skills, so feel free to build enough Might stacks and then unleash as many Churning Earths you want on them. Two CE + two fire fields/arcane wave and the match was done.

Obviously you could not do this in PvP, let alone using this nearly useless build, but for this encounter it worked perfectly.

They’d have to die at exactly the same moment, since they heal full when one of them dies.

Golden Dragon.1785:

Do you think my lvl 60+ mesmer can do it?

Oof, I don’t know. I haven’t leveled a character to 80 after the patch, so I don’t know how big a difference that shift in traits impacts difficulty. I was running a condi build mesmer (normally zerk, but my alt build has more vitality) and I think the torment from the grandmaster trait helped burn down the captain and first mate a lot given how much chasing they did.

I beat them fairly easily with my hybrid condi/MM build. Standard 4/0/6/4/0 build, Scepter/Focus+Staff as weapons. (I never even swapped to Staff though.)

My kill order was Stitches→Gunner→First Mate→Captain. The regen Stitches gives the others after death is negligible when you can spam Poison like no tomorrow. Gunner’s ability is pretty useless, and the First Mate’s poison doesn’t do much once the Captain is the only one left. I leave the Captain for last because the random dodges he gives the others is really, really annoying.

I killed them in the following order: Stitches, Captain, Master Gunner, First Mate

As weapon set I used D/F since there are lots of projectiles you can block/reflect this way (2 of the crew members are ranged) and you can also pop invulnerability (Earth 5) in case you need a breather to heal back up.

Regarding gear and traits: I would recommend Zerker or something close to it like Celestial with Zerker/Valk trinkets. Fresh Air or any variant of that build should work just fine for nuking them all. Actually everything that deals enough DMG works.

I wouldn’t lock myself out of my weapon skills and try to nuke them with Lightning Hammer though. This might work good when the opponents are standing close to each other and can be perma blinded (like e.g. in dungeons), but in this fight the enemies are quite mobile and won’t stand there to face tank your auto hit. You could use FGS though, since it has lots of free evades with the 3rd skill.

Actually I did this on my Mesmer with fair ease. Used GS/Staff build with 6/0/4/0/4 build. Switched fairly often during the fight to take advantage of the staff. The order does not seem particularly fixed cuz’ mine was Captain → First Mate → Gunner – > Stitches. Worked perfectly fine.

Pull em together and burn them down. I did it on first go but overhyped myself a lot for it with ‘kill order’ and all that extraneous information. I BB them with my guard and just burned them down. I had been targeting the healer but ended up killing 2 other ones before him on accident. Just keep constant pressure on them. They’ve got low health and will just keep dropping.

I haven’t paid attention to the buffs the pirates give, the other people are giving good advice on that. In terms of building your char make sure you have some toughness because they put out a lot of damage. Use regeneration and protection to kite them and survive. Since all the pirates get healed every time you kill one you don’t need to do aoe damage, you only need to CC and blind in aoe. If you can do that you won’t have trouble staying alive. For example on my condi engineer I have blind on pistol, bombs, and grenades, I also have 120 health regen and 2850 toughness, this combo let’s me easily survive and kill the pirates.

Ok guys. Here’s what happened. Good news and Bad news.

Bad News:
I raged. I really did. Again nothing worked. Thank you for the suggestions. None worked for me.

Good News:
I used the festival tokens from all my gaming so far to buy tomes of knowledge. I got as many levels on my mesmer as I could. Got my mesmer to level 78. Then I crafted/discovered recipes to make it to level 80.

With my level 80 mesmer, I bought zerkers/runes/weapons. After about 10 tries I beat the pirates. Considering that I have no idea how to play a max level mesmer and winging it, I surprised myself.

So this topic is closed.

Conclusion:
Don’t fight the gauntlet pirates with an elementalist. Level another class to do it. The End.

Worst case scenario ask for players to stack all the buffs you can get before going into the arena dome. Like 25 might, 30+sec swiftness, regen… So you have a great burst dps start.

Also, while the others remaining get healed back to full health upon a kill, the conditions already on them don’t get cleansed so remain for the full duration. This makes it super easy on my necro with epidemic. Now I never played condo on my ele so I’ve no clue if going condi for that fight would help you or not.

On my ele (staff zerk), I just cheezed it with fgs 4 through and 3 back on same line.