Guild Wars 2

Update:

Poll is also on Reddit now! If you can, please support the cause :p
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2qxg61/vote_best_of_2014_fractals_and_dungeons_edition/

Link to poll: http://goo.gl/forms/9vUYcEjhDV

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Based on your 100 votes, I present you the finalists of our Best of 2014 in Fractals and Dungeons. Edit for clarification: the order of appearance in the list by no mean reflects the ranking in popularity. It was copy-pasta from the original list.

1. Best Solo Player of the Year:
- Purple Miku
- Sanderinoa
- Goku
- Sesshi
- Wethospu

2. Best Speedrun Group of the Year
- Snow Crow team 1: Jerem, Abe, Dennis, Tobi, Ghosti, Sam (SWD)
- Snow Crow team 2: Sam (French), Goku, Brandstorm, Yerissy, Arcolithe Zolt, Neo
- No Feedback/[LuPi]/[qT] - Deathly, Marcel (Hater), Louis, Candy, Toast, Kevin
- Intricacy [iV] - kitten Moa, Debby, Menno, Sesshi, doddbox, Ryorco Marm
- Death and Tax [DnT] - James, Dom, Winston, Vix, NoTrigger, Nike, Nessiah

3. Best Speedrun World Record [group-type, restricted]
- [rT]Aetherpath 15:48
- [SC]Arah p3 7:14
- [SC]CM p3 2:37
- [SC] SE p1 2:37
- [DnT]Arah p4 20:05

4. Dungeon Initiative of the Year
- DnT Invitational Dungeon Tournament (1 and 2)
- [KING] Fractal Tournament
- Gw2dungeons.com
- [Noob] Dungeon Mentors
- Gwscr.com

5. Best Visual Guide
- Obal’s Guardian Guides
- Frifox’s Guide to Mesploit
- [KING] Experienced Fractal Guide
- DEKeyz’s Elementalist Guide
- Particlar’s Elementalist Guide for Fractals

6. Best Written Guide
- Wethospu’s gw2dungeons.com
- DEKeyz’s [Guide] DPS Elementalist for PvE
- obal’s Guardian Guide
- Sanderinoa’s Mesmer Guide
- Element’s Warrior Guide

7. Community Member of the Year
- Lilith
- Swiftpaw
- Iris
- Nike
- Wethospu.

8. Most Fashionable Dungeon Runner of the Year
- Lilith
- Spoj
- Iris
- Wethospu
- Sandy

9. Best Comedy of the Year (it can be anything!)
- Tom’s rT’s Thug Lyfe
- Tom’s Condy Lyfe
- Dubble Lagged
- Brazil’s Condition Guardian Build
- Sam’s Justice Served

10. Epic Fail of the Year (In-game only)
Jerem’s No FB
[rT] vs. [FGS] Arah p3
[Noob] vs. Marolna
[KING] vs. [LAST]
Draglek’s No FB

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ INTERVIEW WITH OUR FINALISTS +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

WETHOSPU (nominated for 4 categories)

[Best Solo Player of the Year]

1. Can you talk a bit about yourself and how you became a solo player?
- First of all, I don’t really like people. But really, I wanted to do “the impossible”. People considered Lupicus incredibly hard and impossible to melee. When I realized his infection can be dodged I figured I could also learn to beat his other phases. Then I naturally expanded and soloed various dungeons. Nowadays soloing is pretty boring because it’s so mainstream.

2. How did you join [rT]?
- I was one of the founders. I don’t recall exact events but people wanted a speed run guild but for political reasons my [SOLO] guild wasn’t suitable so new one was made. I actually didn’t really participate, just sat on my kitten looking pretty like nowadays.

3. Some people refer to you as the God of Warriors. In your opinion, what makes you stand out from the rest of solo players?
- I was first so average solos I did were considered “impossible”. Nowadays there are better players with more patience, time and perhaps skill too.
What do you think is the definition of skilled play?
- In my opinion truly skilled playing is to use widely available resources and do something “impossible”. For that you need to know your class, the encounter and have necessary physical ability to execute it. In my opinion just copying some tactic and execution and spamming for better RNG/time is not very skilled because it’s one-dimensional.

4. Which solo of yours represents yourself the most? And why?
- I would say the first Lupicus (solo) because that truly shows what I’m interested of doing, “the impossible”.
What were the challenges? How did you find out the strategy to overcome it?
- Biggest challenge was to figure out which weapon sets to use. I literally tried every possible option multiple times. Ranged weapon was natural phase 1 and phase 2 but I got wrecked on phase 3. So what do I do? Do I try with ranged and try to get through phase 3 or switch to full melee and try to survive phase 1/2? I carefully considered my options and figured phase 1/2 are actually pretty simple so full melee should work.

5. Do you have any other solos in plans?
- I do have some interesting plans but those encounters are pretty hard to reach so I can’t really bother with it.

6. Do you play any other classes?
- I don’t play much nowadays so not really. But I have mesmer and thief ready!

7. If you can give one advice to beginners, what is it?
- Plan what you are doing. If you want to figure stuff on your own just go to the enemy and look what it does and when. Instead of immediately trying to beat it think for a minute how to counter it’s attacks. Alternatively you can use resources like youtube or gw2dungeons.net. If you want to become a known soloer don’t bother posting average stuff, get clean kills which show your superiority. Also edit your videos properly to keep them short.

WETHOSPU (continued)

[Best Dungeon Initiative and Written Guide]

1. What was your motivation to start gw2dungeons.net?
- Idea was to give support for dungeons so more people could experience them. To avoid the current dungeon situation.

2. How long did you spend on it? Can you describe the volume of work involved?
- I haven’t listed time spent so it’s hard to say but I would say it’s pretty close to 1000 hours for the whole project. I have done like 90-95% so roughly 900 hours. Lots of time has been spent to fix incorrect decisions.

3. Since when did it evolve from a personal written guide to a community initiative?
- I’m still waiting for that evolution. Excluding haviz, all community involvement has required a quite strong push from me. But I had literally personal guide about 6 months before gw2dungeons on incgamers fan site.

4. What kinds of help and contribution has it received so far?
- Kcen helped me initially to create the site, without his help it would look really crap. Haviz has been big help writing significant sections for the guide. Some other people have helped a bit with the content but we are looking at a couple of lines. Lots of people have helped with profession specific stuff. Dulfy saved the project with hosting when I was about to give up. Additionally one person has made a donation. DPS tool from frifox has been useful to get health values.

5. Please comment about its completion status. Any plans to expand it in the future?
- It’s far from complete. Lots of enemy and encounter data are missing. Lots of dungeons would need rewriting and updates. Unfortunately I didn’t get the support from community which I initially hoped to reach this goal. Also the dungeon content is so stale and easy that there is not that much use for the guide. Since developers abandoned dungeons I don’t have that much motivation to spend additional 1000 hours to get everything on top shape.

6. Who is the target audience of gw2dungeons.net? Do you get any feedback from them?
- Guide was meant for every player, from casual first timers to hardcore soloers. Encounter info gives people a general idea what to do while enemy data allows people to research encounters more thoroughly. I hardly get any feedback. I have tried to ask what people would like to see but I rarely get anything. But text bugs/mistakes get pointed out pretty fast.

7. Please comment about other candidates of Best Written Guides.
- At some point I planned to add similar guides for my site. So I’m really happy to see those guides since they mean less work for me. They have been linked from gw2dungeons so they extend my site. I have to say they have done great job with their guides but let’s not forget gw2dungeons also has class specific stuff

[Community member of the Year]

1. How do you describe yourself as a community member?
- Hard question. I do lots of stuff based on pure self interest and then post results as it’s not a big effort. I don’t really like interacting with individual persons because that seems a waste of time for me but I try to help people when possible. I like to work on bigger scale trying to help and improve whole thing.

2. What do you think the fractal and dungeon community consists of?
- Everyone who is interested of the content, regardless of the skill level or time spent. So not just the hardcore speedrunners but neither people who want a trinity so they could enjoy dungeons.

3. What do you think about our image? How should we improve it to better communicate with ANet developers and the public crowd?
- I would say the image is pretty bad because people don’t communicate “nice enough”. Yes, I know that idiotic comments are annoying when they appear weekly but lots of people just don’t understand. If you immediately get on their face they get really defensive and will never accept your ideas, instead they think we are elitist pricks and disappear to bad mouth us. Lots of people are sensitive.
Public events (like tournaments) have been very nice, without drama of course. I think more like these could help people see how dungeons work. Noob initiative has been nice too but I think a very casual “play with elitists” event would work wonders (or be a complete disaster).

NIKE (nominated for 2 categories)

Work In Progress

NIKE as representative for Death and Tax [DnT] (nominated for 5 categories)

Work In Progress

SNOW CROWS (nominated for 3 categories)

Work In Progress

Quantify [qT]

[Best Speed Run Group]

Work In Progress

PURPLE MIKU

[Best Solo Player of The Year]

1. Can you introduce yourself?
- I’m purpleishawt, playing on both ele and warrior. My ele here Ruby Miku, my warrior Purple Miku. I’ve streamed for roughly a year now. I started out being kind of a noob; I knew how to do the basic pug tactics and was competent enought to get by in any groups. But that wasn’t satisfying for me ever. After I began streaming, I didn’t try to attract viewers at all. It just sort of happened on its own. I was encouraged frequently to keep doing what I was doing and it pushed me to soloing. Especially after seeing really cool videos of it, like goku’s, I wanted that for myself. Seeing how much potential someone could have in the combat on this game made me want to try harder.

2. Did anyone show or guide you how to do a certain solo?
- Well, not really. I’ve had small/minor tips though. I remember struggling with when to whirwind to Lupi kick, somebody told me to change ground targeting in options which helped a lot. But for most part, I’ve learned through trial and error, or from watching other people do something and trying to do better myself.

3. Were you a soloer before or after joining [rT]?
- Oh long before. It was a great decision. I love it. I fit in quite well. Some of the most skilled players in the game are in [rT]. I remember when I first joined, I felt slightly inadequate to be around some famous players, but that eased up pretty quickly.

4. Which solo do you feel the most proud of?
- While I do remember feeling super satisfied with my first time ever soloing Lupicus, there was my first time full fotm 50 solo, and the Arah p4 solo. One of my best highlight was the last encounter on Cliffside level 30 with warrior. It’s hard to answer this question because I’ve done so many to pick from. But at the same time, I feel like they are mostly work in progress, because I know I can do better. So in a way, I don’t feel satisfied with any of them. That’s partly what drives me to keep going, I guess.

5. What makes you distinguished from other solo players?
- I think for me in particular is the fact that so much of what I do, I streamed it live. 99% of what you’ll find on youtube will be just highlighted recordings of the very best attempts out of many cookie cutter videos. While I do some of those myself, I think my live stream show the progress towards the goals instead of just the outcome. I think that’s helpful and entertaining for many. Aside from that, I’d say just determination and a lot of patience. Being dedicated to a goal and forcing myself to do something that I haven’t done before just so that I could tell myself and others that I can do it.

6. You started out as a warrior, now an elementalist. How do you feel about the transition?
- I still play warrior mostly. The way I feel about it is it’s just got the most comfortable combat skills to play with for soloing tough encounters. It does lack the necessary utility to do a lot of things like reflects, crowd control, teleports, etc. But when it comes to to direct hand-to-hand combat where you just need to go facefirst into an encounter, it’s ideal. It’s also extremely mobile. The unfortunate consequence is that most people have been under the illusion that it deals crazy damage. After many unjustifiable nerfs during the past year, its damage is pretty terrible compared to ele. It was always a lot worse, but now it’s just… ugh. Ele is quite painful to solo with at times, especially in any encounter that involves a lot of 1-shot RNG mechanics. But in anything that’s relatively easy and doesn’t require tons of kiting, ele is god.

7. Do you have a word on which solo you are working on?
- One that I’m keeping secret because I want to be the first to do it But a few that I want right now: a 22 minute or under Arah p3 solo (war), a warrior Lupicus solo that’s close to or around 4:30 (ofc, berserker; ’cause screw condition builds). Maybe a sub 10 Mossman solo and possibly a 4:30 or under Bloomhunger solo (level 50). I want to solo the last encounter in Cliffside on level 50 still.

8. Any other profession do you want to try in the future?
- I’ve been asked that a lot. I leveled a thief up to like… 16 or so, but stopped caring pretty quickly. For guardian, absolutely nothing has ever appealed to me with that class aside from Sesshi’s new videos. Ranger/necro, absolutely not. They look pretty dreadful to solo with. Engineer, I’ve kinda been tempted to make one as an excuse to make the Predator legendary… and ‘cause of goating, but to play with it, meh. I’m all about full offense, maximum deepz and yoloing (warrior).

9. If you have to give ONE advice to the solo beginners, what will it be?
- Make sure you’re constantly learning while you play. And to elaborate, when you die/fail at something or do poorly, you need to know WHY it happened. Was it RNG? Did you lag? What caused _ to happen?

GOKU

Note: Goku is a French player so his input wasn’t as elaborate as other English speaking finalists. It is by no means that he is lacking in terms of talent, passion and inspiration.

[Best Solo Player of The Year]

1. How did you become a solo player?
- I enjoyed solo in Guild Wars 1 very much, so I tried to reproduce my work in Guild Wars 2. I started with easy dungeons like Ascalon Catacomb and then I pursued it in Arah.

2. Did you study the encounters by yourself? Have you every looked up for the existing guides for things like optimal builds and equipments as well?
- I was inspired by Wethospu for my first solo AC p1 but except his (solo) I have always learned everything by myself. Same for my equipments and builds, I did many tests to have the best build as possible. So, nope, I think I’ve never watched a single guide. (Anyways, my English was so bad at the beginning so they weren’t really helpful to me ^^)

3. Which classes do you use to solo mostly?
- My warrior. But I start to play my elementalist more frequently.

4. What do you think make your solo stand out from the rest?
- I think it’s how quickly I finish my dungeon run. To me, it is not important which dungeons to do. It is the speed and efficiency.
So what do you value the most in your solo? Impossible challenge, unconventional tactics or flawless execution?
- I would say unconventional tactics and (emphasized) flawless execution.

5. Which solo most represents you as the solo player?
- Probably my solo Arah p2 in 23 minutes. Arah p2 is my favorite path in the game so it’s why I wanted to have the fastest solo run of this dungeon. Thanks to Luca, I had to put a lot of effort to to improve my record. (Luca beat my 27-min and then 26-min, 25-min, to all of which I replied with my 23-min).
Dub has mentioned that you often get trolled by a 1- minute less record, how do you feel when beaten like that?
- Trolled by 1 sec. I was rather happy because it created a kind of competition between us and competition is really rare in this game.

6. What is your most proud achievement?
- My first world record on Lupicus solo a year ago (4:48). I started solo Lupi when many people already did it in 5-6 minutes and my personal best was only in 8-9 minutes by then. It took me 2 months to nail that down.

7. Speaking of fastest, your current elementalist Lupi solo is so incredible with godblessed RNG. What is your opinion about controlling RNG in this game?
- I knew that a sub 2-min was entirely possible and I worked hard to make it. I think GW2 is based on RNG. It is very annoying sometimes but we must deal with it, especially with solo.
So you believe in grinding for RNG?
- Of course ^^

8. Do you have any plans for the future solo?
- I’ll probably try to get a good time for Mossman and Bloomhunger, but I’m also looking for inspiration at the moment ^^

9. How did you end up in Snow Crows [SC]? How do you feel about speed run in group versus solo records?
- SC isn’t like Kr because I still have troubles speaking English but people there are very sympathetic and nice. I’m glad they left me a spot in the speed run records. My only goal in GW2 is to do Solo and Speed run records. I have fun doing these. Of course, self innovation is fundamental but the strategy is the most important part.

10. If you have to give ONE advice to the solo beginners, what will it be?
- I think the best to do is to learn with the video of solo players. It isn’t my style but you can learn the unwinding of the run, the strategy and the rotation of skills.

SANDY

[Best Solo Player of The Year]

1. Can you please introduce yourself?
- Sure, my name is Sander, Sanderinoa ingame mostly, Im a solo player mostly, and currently in charge of [rT], and mostly play mesmer. (Oh wow, nice punctuation… It’ horrible, mostly XD)

2. To my knowledge there aren’t many mesmer solo player. Do you think it is an underrated profession?
- There aren’t many mesmer players at all, honestly. It definitely used to be (underrated) but Jerem is doing a good job bringing it back into the regular runs. Mesmer have a lot of potential, but require a lot of work from the player to be brought to its full potential.

3. I’d like to say you pretty much have no competion as a mesmer solo player.
- I’m pretty much representing it, and I like to think that I’m doing a good job XD

So what do you think have made you distinguished from other solo players?
- Without trying to sound conceited, I’ve always found that my biggest advatage coming from two fronts. Firstly, I’m extremely stubborn, which makes me determined and allows me to put up with long fights. Secondly, I always look to fully understand the encounters I try to solo to the smallest detail, to take advantage of small gaps in their defenses.

Just that? Do you grind RNG for a favorable condition for your solo?
- Not really, being a mesmer is about manipulation. I refuse to accept RNG as a reasonable excuse for failing something. If I grind on something, it’s because I’m messing up, not the encounter.

4. Which solo most represents your skills?
- Hmm… I would either go for the new thaumanova fractal solo, as I believe it to show a lot of trickery and good illusion use. Or my most recent Grawl Shaman solo. As this has always been the encounter I’ve had a monopoly on, being a very pressuring encounter, which involves a lot of calm play and intricate details.

5. Being a mesmer, what do you find the most challenging in your solos?
- Surprisingly, dealing with large groups is a pain in the a**. We shine in single target DPS, but large groups without projectile attacks are hard to manage. As the dps is so low, I need to find a good balance between survivability and keeping damage up.

And what are advantages over other classes?
- Mesmers have a ridiculous amount of unique class mechanics, to be fair. If you put some effort into it and build towards a single goal, you’ll get really great results. Survivability is one, with active defense. Reflection another, Stealth another, Speed even. Single target damage, crowd control… I would say condition damage but kitten , I never use that anyways.

Does it sound a bit like jack of all trades without any real advantage?
- Well no, the mesmer is jack of all trades which can specialize very well with some effort, allowing me to deal with a large amount of situations. Classes like the warrior have simple restrictions because of their simplicity, making them incapable of soloing certain contents.

6. Can you give me examples of your solos where being a mesmer is a necessity?
- There would be three encounters that come to mind. The Cliffside Fractal, at the arm seals, where I can manage to keep my damage up while holding the hammer and diverting aggro. The thaumanova fractal subject 6, where I can focus on two opponents at once very easily, allowing me to down the subject and the oozes around him. Lastly, the volcanic fractal again where being multiple people helps take down the bubble so much.

7. Do you solo using other classes?
- I have a thief that people make fun of. I solo with it occasionally.

Will that make you a future famous thief soloer?
- Unlikely, as I am simply too in love with the mesmer class. Thief is an amazing class as well, the way it handles combat is really energetic and exciting. Sadly, it is limited to the three concepts of Stealth, Damage and Shadowstepping, most of the time.

8. Can you disclose your plan on the future solo?
- I plan to solo guild bounties while rT is still not doing guild missions. Nicely abusing my position.

9. What is your one tip to the solo beginners?
- My one tip would be to stand still and think well about the encounter and your class before attempting any solos. Basically, soloing is working against the odds of the game, if you find a brick wall on your path, see if you can make a sledgehammer from something, or find a weak spot. Don’t walk away from it.

What do you think about learning the encounters from existing reference materials?
- Youtube videos and class guides are always a good source. But what I enjoy about the game is that there are lots of things which have not been uncovered yet. This is why I would always recommend going to the encounter yourself, or with a friend, and try everything you may think could result in something interesting. There is nothing like your own hands on experience.

SESSHI

[Best Solo Player of The Year]

1. Can you tell us about yourself ? How did you become a solo player?
- I’m Sesshi, started playing games when I was around 12. I played GW1 as well but wasn’t really into it. Started playing GW2 from beta. I came back to the game a year ago or so, when I decided to play warrior and have seen people soloing stuff like Lupicus. I tried and got it under a day or so but it seems kinda boring. Then I did full paths, mostly Arah p3 solo and p4 duo. Then I decided to do a mossman solo. And that’s kinda how it started

2. So which class do you use to solo?
- Warrior mostly. But I did some on guardian as well.

3. What do you think have distinguished you from other talented solo players?
- I mostly try different stuff from others. Like certain fractal bosses that no one really does. My favorite boss to solo is Mai Trin. For few reasons, it’s the most solo friendly boss in the game, imo. When you can solo a boss faster than an organized group, it’s kinda funny Just because of the mechanics (like her shield buff) sometimes groups struggle for minutes to get the stacks off. Also what I like most about Mai Trin is max meleeing, which I didn’t really see others do much.

4. Which solo of yours do you find the most challenging? And why?
- I think fractal bosses are way more challenging to solo than dungeon ones. I only could name 2 with same level of difficulty: Svanirgandir and Huntsman. But yea, fractal bosses have higher damage and health as well. For example, if you could compare Mossman to Lupicus. At Lupi, you could just relax below his skirt (or whatever XD) while you don’t hit by projectiles. At Mossman, you kinda have to be on edge the entire fight.

What does it take to get a smooth Mossman solo?
- Most important thing there imo is reaction time. Since he has pretty fast and frequent attacks and when he’s in stealth you have to run around and side strafe to not get hit by hix axe throw. Unless you are going for a fast one, you intentionally get hit so he goes out of stealth.

Many comment that your solos are not only skillful but there is also a refinement.
- Yeah, I kinda go for a fun to watch video most of the time ^^

5. So which solo most represents you?
- The no UI Mossman solo. Its first 1-3 minutes, I’d say.

That one is incredible. Do you know by heart all the Cooldown?
- No, but only the weapon skills. In before you call me weirdo (xD) but I try to play by intuition. As something which people would call ‘a higher self’ (roughly translated), so I just kinda space out and let it do the job. I don’t really think of anything in the process. If that makes sense? :o

6. What is your point of view in RNG? Some would curse their RNG and not bother pursue a perfect solo
- Oh yea definitely xD But since I mostly went for a smooth-ish and interesting solo, it didn’t bother me much. It’s more interesting to me how one would encounter it.

7. Do you ever strive for a fastest record in a most difficult challenge?
- Yeah. I had that for my Mai Trin one, Archdiviner with Guardian, and now for the Moss one. I did a 9:15 yesterday but I’m going for a sub 8-minute next. It’s pretty cool and really different as well. ‘Cause like the first time I did Mossman, I was kinda scared of it. *Now I’m just scared of not getting it fast enough* ._.

8. So you have solo’d with both guard and warrior. Do you have plans for other classes as well?
- I don’t think so. I used to main thief before “Fractured”.

Why the preference?
- Warrior is just the best class XD I feel the most connected to it. The rotations and skills itself are very smooth. You could say that warrior is a really easy and boring class but I think there is more depth to it than people think. For example, I’m trying new rotations at the moment for Mossman that you wouldn’t even try to use in a normal situation.

9. Do you have any plans for future solos?
- Yeah I have a few ideas. No secret really xD Problem is I have really high ping at the moment so I can’t start stuff yet. But on the list is: sub 8-min Mossman, Bloomhunger, no UI Uncategorized (fractal) Champions, full Urban Battleground fractal, full Molten fractal (not the endboss one), naked no UI, no damage taken Mai Trin (pretty crazy but idk xD). Oh and Archdiviner fast kill on warrior. Maybe the last Archdiviner as well :p

10. Can you give one advice to solo beginners?
- Best advice I could give is record yourself like no matter what. Watching your back and you are gonna improve. I guarantee it. I still improve quite a lot if I just watch an attempt of mine back. It worked really well for me. Like you do mistakes and you don’t necessarily realize it in the heat of the moment. For starters, I recommend going out of Arah and doing other stuffs :d

BORDY, LOREK, ZELYHN and BADARKA [rT]

[Best Speed Run Record] Twilight Arbor Aetherpath 15:48

1. What was your motivation to make this speed run record?
Lorek: Bordy’s incessant nagging, srsly
Badarka: +1 for that answer xD Was ust Bordy’s nagging
Bordy: Everyone told me Aetherpath is hard and takes two hours.

2. What were the challenges? What could have gone wrong?
Lorek: The RNG was the worst by far though, and trying to be consistent in such a long run with that many variables. The main culprits were Foreman Spur, Slick and Sparki, and the Ooze Puzzle, but the generators at the end had the potential to be headache fuel. Also the pull after Foreman where we actually screwed up a bit
Badarka: To be honest, I did Up, Forward and Aetherpath as records and the worst thing on all three are kitteng unskippable cutscenes.
Bordy: I think that the length of a dungeon was a challeng as if we did any mistake or got bad rng at the end we would need to restart everything. For once, sometimes banish didn’t hit Sparki into wall, fearing Foreman Spur was also tricky. Oh and generators are just so annoying and boring. I don’t even want to mention 2-minute long Caithe’s dialogue and unskippable cutscenes.

3. How did you come up with the strategy?
Bordy: I came up with most tactics when doing daily runs. Then we (the record team) practiced some new stuff and ideas changing the original strategy. As this dungeon is rather long, the record run is a result of a mix – we wanted to be sure some parts of it will go smooth but we were eager to choose more risky tactics in RNG based stuff just to get better time as everyone in [rT] would do.
Lorek: The strats were almost all Bordy’s.
Bordy: I think I did but Tmo had some great ideas, too.

4. What is your most proud achievement in this record?
Lorek: I guess getting every part just right when so many things could have gone wrong.
Bordy: I’m really proud of the Foreman Spur fight. RNG involved for that kind of pull is just too much sometimes. I think that spot was the best for Fiery Great Sword (FGS) back then.

5. Is it possible to have faster TAA records now without FGS?
Lorek: Yes, it is!
Bordy: Only if [rT] comes back.

6. Which parts of your strategy do you think can be applied to a casual fast run or even a pug run?
Bordy: All the trash pulls. Killing Sparki first.

How’s about the Ooze puzzle? Do you have a sure way to eliminate its fail?
Bordy: Yup. Kill the oozes, run to the end of the paths pulling all the elementals. Kill elementals there, new ooze should spawn already and you can easily guide them to the end. In the record, Tmo put Knight armor to get more toughness and just aggroes all of the elementals, blinding them. The rest defends the ooze as usual. Puzzle is not really hard. Our first RNG kitten was Slick and Sparki. We called them the f**ker and kitteng norn for reference. And that unskippable cutscene.

7. In your opinion, what make your TAA record stand out from the other records?
Bordy: In my PoV, I zoomed for Lorek’s charr boobs at Caithe’s dialogue. (Jokes aside) Well, this is one of the longest dungeons in game now for inexperienced teams, and it has various difficult fights. Bosses have unique skills and sometimes it was rather hard to use FGS effectively as in other dungeons
Lorek: It was pretty much uncharted territory back then.
Zelyhn: That depends on N**e!

What’s about it compared to the current Ice Bow meta?
Bordy: Isn’t it even easier now? No need to pull anything XD But the damage is lower so bosses have chance to actually use their skills.

8. What do you think are the most important aspects of a speed run record in general?
Bordy: Well, in TAA, use of guardian In general, take risks.
Lorek: Getting along with your team
Zelyhn: Patience, and the will to screw beep.
Bordy: And practice.
Lorek: And of course, perserverance.
Zelyhn: Being EU.
Bordy: And me constantly moaning that we should do TAA records.
Lorek: Oh Bordy, I grew to like TAA because of you :p

9. Bordy: Also I’d like to add that we did TAA as there was nothing to do. That was challenging. We did Arah to death it got boring and every other dungeon kitten or CM is kitten enough, so the only choice for record was TAA. Also all dungeons are over 2 years old. So TAA felt really fresh.
The only hope is that Anet will face the truth about open living whatever world s**ks and dungeons are the only content.

10. Are we confident that we’ll see a new TAA record soon?
Lorek: NOTHING OFF THE TABLE. Hue.

11. Any comments on [rT] epic fail in Arah p3?
Bordy: Wasn’t there
Zelyhn: Wasn’t really rT.

more reserved space needed

more reserved space needed

more reserved space needed

more reserved space needed

Petition to change the name of this to VideoGamerMike 2014 Awards, or Nemesis 2014 Awards

Why? ; – ;

/15stacksofconfusion

We have the Oscars and the Emmys right?

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

We have the Oscars and the Emmys right?

So now we have the Mikeys and the Nemies?

Edit because 10 min FC: I choose the Mikeys. There should be a category for “Most Hilariously Pigheaded PHIW”.

Lindbur.2537:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

We have the Oscars and the Emmys right?

So now we have the Mikeys and the Nemies?

Rofl, choose whichever you like)

Mikeys +1, hahaha

I dont think I was ever presented with such a hard decision my whole life:

Mikeys or Nemmys?

God kitten it

Poll is out. Wish me luck this time.

http://goo.gl/forms/9vUYcEjhDV

Voted!

I can’t vote. There’s no way I choose something in cathegories 2, 3 and 5.

Would be nice if we could avoid answering some of the questions from 1 to 6. They are marked as obligatory, therefore not everyone will be capable of submitting their answers at the end.
Liking the “Best of 2014” poll initiative, just giving my two cents.

My apologies for my english.

I’ll change the settings. You may want to re-do your poll as you wish.

@Dub: stop being picky :p

Thank you very much, just re-did the poll :-)

We got some negative nannies on reddit so please upvote everything as much as you can.

These interviews are so lame it kinda makes me sad I even play games like this. ;/

Lunar Sunset.8742:

These interviews are so lame it kinda makes me sad I even play games like this. ;/

How about you take it upon yourself to land a hand instead of mindlessly criticising?
Iris did all this by herself and we all appreciate it . If there is something you would like to improve then act. Otherwise please spare us your disrespectful words.

The only lame thing is that Nike got nominated for two categories <3

Iris Ng.9845:

SANDY

[Best Solo Player of The Year]

1. Can you please introduce yourself?
- Sure, my name is Sander, Sanderinoa ingame mostly, Im a solo player mostly, and currently in charge of [rT], and mostly play mesmer. (Oh wow, nice punctuation… It’ horrible, mostly XD)

You still have much to learn, my young padawan :p

Also, since not many people know the back story behind the attachment on your interview I shall tell you all: Sandy almost entirely soloed Lupicus as a dolyak.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Iris Ng.9845:

SANDY

[Best Solo Player of The Year]

1. Can you please introduce yourself?
- Sure, my name is Sander, Sanderinoa ingame mostly, Im a solo player mostly, and currently in charge of [rT], and mostly play mesmer. (Oh wow, nice punctuation… It’ horrible, mostly XD)

You still have much to learn, my young padawan :p

Also, since not many people know the back story behind the attachment on your interview I shall tell you all: Sandy almost entirely soloed Lupicus as a dolyak.

Oh Dolyak, mostly.