Guild Wars 2

Okay, here are some basic assumptions.

- You know or already explained to the allies what the stage is about
- You all have a grasp of your mechanics (no double-dodgers)
- You’re aren’t an impatient —-- :P

I have encountered far too many know-it-all’s who try to be the kitten leader and refuse to acknowledge the simpler methods, opting for more difficult solo methods.

Here are tips tips that can allow party members to function autonomously instead of waiting on more experienced players to do work.

1. DOUBLE OOZE ESCORT

i) Have everyone not luring swap to anti-projectile utilities:

• Wall of Reflection
• Feedback
• Smokescreen
  Knock-backs help too, but anti-projectile skills are the most effective.

ii) Tank the Lava Eles > Killing them
This minimizes the amount of new Eles respawning.

iii) TURN OFF YOUR AUTO-ATTACK
One misclick can AoE down the Ooze very easily if you’re melee, or just bring it down enough for a stray Lava ele to execute it when you’re luring.
- This has happened many times already for groups I’ve run with.

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2. WHEN CLEARING AETHER MOBS

i) Prioritize Steam Wacthers
These things summon ALL the reinforcement veterans if you leave them alone. Kill them fast.

ii) Prioritize Taskmasters 2nd
They’re mesmers in disguise who stack confusion. Very annoying

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3. SLICK AND SPARKI FIGHT

i) Always focus Slick first

• His oil AoEs are the key to the fight. They apply vicious DoT stacks and he’ll shoot 2 at a time if Sparki’s slain first.
  - An enraged Sparki is much more manageable compared to an enraged Slick.

ii) Do NOT use the plant in the corner for Ooze attraction
That thing is a fricking newbie trap. Coordinated teams can utilize it, but PUGs are better off kiting normally.

• The Ooze attraction debuff will apply onto up to 2 allies at any given time.
  Using the plant will make it more difficult to discern who the Ooze is following whether you have or do not have the buff.

Simply have everyone keep focused on who has the Ooze-debuff (including their self)

iii) When kiting the Ooze:

• Do not try to res people*
  The Ooze can instantly down most players, do not make yourself or downed players an easy target

• Kite back and forth when where are no oil AoE*
  This will minimize the amount of travel time when Slick puts down oil.
  - The Ooze’s attack has a long cast time, do not be afraid to run directly past it.

iv) When attacking Slick:

• Stay facing Slick
  I know thieves and some other professions have side/back-attack bonuses, but the benefit of staying together outweighs that.
  - Staying facing him will generally also put Sparki further away, minimizing your chance of being pulled by Sparki if you’re ranged

• Stay together with the other non-kiters
• Staying closer together will reduce the distance between oil AoEs put down by Slick. This makes the kiter’s job much easier.

v) As a reminder: Always be watching where the Ooze is going

• The Ooze-debuff can switch to you at any time. Don’t zone out on dealing DPS!

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Tips for Foreman Spur and Legendary Clockwork on the next post!

4. FOREMAN SPUR

i) Save your dodges for when he spins
If he decided to spin towards you, he is pretty relentless and you will often need any least 2 dodges or movement skills to get away with your life.

ii) Do not try to escape the air-ripple-circle
It’s a trap that ignores stability. Just focus on staying alive once caught inside.

iii) Stay alert when reviving downed allies
Spur has a habit of changing aggro to whoever’s doing the reviving. Nasty~

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5. LEGENDARY CLOCKWORK

In case you haven’t already figured it out: You must kill Holograms near the generators to damage them. Same goes for the Clockwork boss and its armor.

i) Turn off your auto-attack

• This is a little troublesome for those used to it, but it will make getting the holograms to the Boss alive much easier.

ii) Spread out and use Ranged Weapons when it has armor

• Going in Melee is just a stupid way of saying “HEY, PLEASE USE YOUR SLAM/MULTI-SLAM TO WIPE THE PARTY!” Don’t be an idiot.
• I heard there’s a way to prevent the multi-slam, but do you really want to experiement with a PUG?
• Leashing the Clockwork around with Ranged weapons makes bringing holos to it 10x easier.

iii) Kite the boss as well as the holo

• Whoever has aggro should be kiting towards the boss towards the Hologram.
• This minimizes the time between holo-explosions and keeps its armor down.
  - Ideally, the boss should always be closer to the center, not the edge, to minimize travel time.

iv) When kiting, avoid walking against the destroyed generators

• This is probably a bug, best to keep it in mind.
• Walking against them will block your pathing and cause your camera to shake in the most irritable way. It can easily get you killed if you’re kiting the boss or trying to dodge through spinning gears.

—

And that’s that!

If you take the time to drop these tips to people before each fight, you’ll find your PUGs wiping half as often, if not not-at-all!

Good tips, but many people do it slightly differently.

2 Oozes: Turning off auto-attack is the best thing here really, I do it every time and it helps immensely. I’m not sure how well blind works, but use it as long as it’s not in risk of damaging the ooze.

Sparki and Slick: Maybe it is better for pugs to kill slick first, considering coordination with Ooze might be harder without voice chat. But if you’re low on dps Sparki is easier to kill first, but you have to be very vary of the oil.

Clockheart: If 2 people have pulls, keep boss in one spot and damage him. Melee range, dodge when he does his attacks and revive allies if fallen. 1 should start pulling hologram as far as possible, then the 2nd puller takes it last of the way to the boss. If you have fears, DON’T use them, same with knockdowns and other things that pushes mob away. If you are coordinated though, and know what you are doing, you can knock, fear, push, hologram towards the boss. But only if it’s needed.

Edit: I know this topic is meant for pugs. But you can coordinate pulling etc if people do know what they are doing.

Clockheart can be really easy if you can use pulls, pushbacks can also work. We had a warrior pushing holopirates with his Rifle 5, and I used my ele staff 3 to push holos to the boss.
The easiest way is propably to use thiefs or necros target pull.

In all my 5 runs, killing Sparki first was easier. I’ve done with pugs and guildies.

Slicki has more hp so it takes more time. In that time, you are being hit by both slicki and sparki. That is more dangerous, especially when Sparki hit very hard, pulls u away and lights up the oil.

We just stack on Sparki and kill him first with one person luring ooze around. After sparki dies, Slicki is a joke. He doesnt hit hard. We also stack on him with one person luring ooze. I have never seen the oil poison gets to more than 5 stacks.

I’ve always done it with Sparki out first. Key is whoever is the ooze person(s), at the moment, to be aware of that and move it to the oil spots.

DreamOfACure.4382:

5. LEGENDARY CLOCKWORK

ii) Spread out and use Ranged Weapons when it has armor

• Going in Melee is just a stupid way of saying “HEY, PLEASE USE YOUR SLAM/MULTI-SLAM TO WIPE THE PARTY!” Don’t be an idiot.
• I heard there’s a way to prevent the multi-slam, but do you really want to experiement with a PUG?

you should melee clockheart.

even caithe will tell you to melee him.

if he raises his hand, just dodge.

for multispam, use protection stability aegis dodge invul block etc.

ranging him is asking him to wipe your party with the gear grinds.

get rid of the invul with holo kill near him.

if he does his aoe spam ~3 times, floor will become electrical and thats when you have to survive.

so it is important to kill holo to stop the whole floor from becoming electrical.

A note on Clock heart, he will only do the multi slam if he hits 30 stacks of his buff, he is also takes no damage while his stacks are building. Once you destroy the holopirate next to him his stacks don’t just disappear but start to count down, during this time you can damage him, so, the later you stop the stacks from building, with the holopirate, the longer you have before stacks begin building again.

On the electric floor puzzle, if you have a Guardian, they can use blocks to help prevent getting the negative charge debuff, making getting to each platform and kiting the bolopiratw to the door much easier.

NTDK.4897:

In all my 5 runs, killing Sparki first was easier. I’ve done with pugs and guildies.

I’ve seen this a lot in further readings of the forum.
Focusing either Sparki or Slick seems to both have pros and cons, which I feel ANet deserves credit for pulling off.

I still feel it’s better to do Slick first in PUGs because focusing Sparki first presumes everyone can dodge Slick’s oil AoE efficiently until Sparki’s dead, which is rarely the case.

Zackie.8923:

you should melee clockheart.

These tips are for PUGs, who aren’t sure if the party members are playing optimally.
Tips you can tell and everyone can follow easily without knowing all of Clockwork’s cues and animations.

Additionally, going melee means everyone sucks at pulling clones which are often across the room, and Clockwork will invariably end up on the edge of the room which increases the travel time between holo-explosions.

If you’re using a ranged weapon:

• there’s no swap time
• you’re already closer to the clone
• the clockwork is already walking toward the clone via aggro

Expecting everyone to know all the cues and animations is the most irritatingly elitist thing a player can do. Don’t be that guy.

Nicely presented. I’ve only run the place once, late last night with a skilled guild group, one of whom had done it before and was an able leader on Mumble. So this wasn’t a PuG — but I think I can add a possible tip for Clockheart.

We were having problems with him because the hologram kept showing up on the far side of the chamber. He ended up backed into or even stuck in a corner. We decided to give up on the mechanics and just fight him there, letting the stacks build and using dodge and stability to get past the slams, then focusing all out on him. This started when he was around 50% and worked pretty darn well.

So if the PuG has issues while the fight is mobile, try the above. You don’t need to assume people know the animations, just tell them what they are. Besides, if you are using this as a backup plan, they’ve had a chance to see the animations and now you can say “when he does x, y is about to happen” and they’ll know what you mean by x.

Verow.6904:

Clockheart can be really easy if you can use pulls, pushbacks can also work. We had a warrior pushing holopirates with his Rifle 5, and I used my ele staff 3 to push holos to the boss.
The easiest way is propably to use thiefs or necros target pull.

Yes, Clockheart seems almost designed for thieves. They have mobility and a long range pull coupled with strong single target damage.

The burn from enraged Sparki is actually pretty annoying if your group is glassy I find.

On the other hand, the oil patches don’t really do damage to the party (the ticks are from the environmental effects). This means that if you have the entire party stack up in a tight ball and kite the ooze INSIDE the puddles, no one will get any damage. Very easy to do and you can do it even before Sparki’s dead (tho you’ll get burnt if the puddle has set alight).

In every PUG i’ve played in, killing sparki first was the best tactic. Killing slick requires more coordination DPS and experience. You nearly always wipe once killing slick first.

My advice: if you PUG, and you don’t want to wipe, kill sparki first. DPS sparki to the ground, and the rest will be a piece of cake.

DreamOfACure.4382:

NTDK.4897:

In all my 5 runs, killing Sparki first was easier. I’ve done with pugs and guildies.

I’ve seen this a lot in further readings of the forum.
Focusing either Sparki or Slick seems to both have pros and cons, which I feel ANet deserves credit for pulling off.

I still feel it’s better to do Slick first in PUGs because focusing Sparki first presumes everyone can dodge Slick’s oil AoE efficiently until Sparki’s dead, which is rarely the case.

Zackie.8923:

you should melee clockheart.

These tips are for PUGs, who aren’t sure if the party members are playing optimally.
Tips you can tell and everyone can follow easily without knowing all of Clockwork’s cues and animations.

Additionally, going melee means everyone sucks at pulling clones which are often across the room, and Clockwork will invariably end up on the edge of the room which increases the travel time between holo-explosions.

If you’re using a ranged weapon:

• there’s no swap time
• you’re already closer to the clone
• the clockwork is already walking toward the clone via aggro

Expecting everyone to know all the cues and animations is the most irritatingly elitist thing a player can do. Don’t be that guy.

i am a pug

it is still better to all go melee on clockheart.

ranging him is worse because if you down on a geargrind, chances are you are dead.

if you can dodge his geargrind, then you can dodge his aoe slam.

even caithe tells you to melee him. so is caithe an elitist?

if you really have problem killing slick & sparki, try lure them away from each other.

we had sparki lured to the pillar on the left, by the door to the next room. shouldn’t be hard to move him if you use the pillar for LOS, and avoid his aoe with pillar blocking.

and slick to the flower to the right, so you can apply your buff if needed.

you can kill either who you feel comfortable, since slick’s oil poison won’t reach sparki group, and sparkie’s aoe won’t reach slick group (and sparki group, if they use the pillar).

DreamOfACure.4382:

I have encountered far too many know-it-all’s who try to be the kitten leader and refuse to acknowledge the simpler methods, opting for more difficult solo methods.

Tried the solo method as an engineer…not very successful (saw a ranger do it once).

DreamOfACure.4382:

i) Have everyone not luring swap to anti-projectile utilities:

• Wall of Reflection
• Feedback
• Smokescreen

Totally agree! [Toss Elixir U] literally saved one of our group attempts (first toss is usually always Wall of Reflection).

Awesome tips. May the noobgod inspire noobs to find this of their own accord, learn these tips, and be a useful part of the pug.