Guild Wars 2

I (and a friend) finally got to lvl 48 and started making our own “3 more, /join Ref” invites on gw2lfg.com.

And found that class rarely matters. It’s true that the fastest and safest way is 4 war + guard.

However, for pugs, the quality of players varies so much it’s not even worth asking for warriors. You will get warriors not using banners, or not co-ordinating them properly. You will get warriors using completely the wrong weapons in some places. Warriors that don’t know how to dodge.

We had war/guard/thief/ele/ranger once. We did not mind this setup (a lot of people will not like it because it’s “slow” or “paper”). We laughed (not in party chat, I would never get anal about stuff like this in game) at the ranger using speed (25% movement speed) signet constantly (literally all the time, even at Bloomhunger where you don’t really have to even move). But it turned out to be one of the fastest runs (definitely faster than a lot of 4war+guard runs) we have done. Despite the weird setup (and weird skills from a ranger).

What matters most of all is player ability and intelligence, and the willingness to listen to other party members.

ref.8196:

What matters most of all is player ability and intelligence, and the willingness to listen to other party members.

I agree. And that was really what this topic was all about. It is especially true for lower Fractals, but also for higher Fractals. Rangers do fine in Fractals, as do necromancers.

It’s this elitist attitude that poisons the community, just like it did in GW1.

I dont want the tells improved. Honestly wheres the fun in being told exactly when and what to dodge every single time. The tells are fine, just because lupi’s grub isnt a standard type of attack doesnt mean its poorly designed. Your dodging the debuff which spawns a grub after a few seconds with your invuln frames on a dodge, its not required so stop complaining about it.

Tells are good. They arent too hard to spot but they arent something you can learn in 2 seconds and lose concentration and still be fine. Mechanics are bad. We need better mechanics but with the same tells which reward players who spend the time learning how to play.

spoj.9672:

I dont want the tells improved. Honestly wheres the fun in being told exactly when to dodge every single attack.

Because then you can focus on actual strategy, and on adding real difficulty to the boss battles. That’s what I’m trying to get at here. What you’re experiencing now is artificial difficulty. It’s doing things by memory. Take away this simplistic memory game, and make the moves crystal clear, and you have room to add much better dynamic mechanics on top.

All of the boss battles fall into this dull tank and spank principle. Bosses hardly react to what players do, or force players to change their strategy during the battle. Players simply focus on learning every attack by heart. That is not what a good boss battle should be about. When you lose a boss fight, it should be due to bad strategy, not due to a move you didn’t see coming, or didn’t expect would be deadly.

If it’s deadly, it should look deadly. Surely we’ve all played games that followed this simple principle?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

spoj.9672:

I dont want the tells improved. Honestly wheres the fun in being told exactly when to dodge every single attack.

Because then you can focus on actual strategy, and on adding real difficulty to the boss battles. That’s what I’m trying to get at here. What you’re experiencing now is artificial difficulty. It’s doing things by memory. Take away this simplistic memory game, and make the moves crystal clear, and you have room to add much better dynamic mechanics on top.

All of the boss battles fall into this dull tank and spank principle. Bosses hardly react to what players do, or force players to change their strategy during the battle. Players simply focus on learning every attack by heart. That is not what a good boss battle should be about. When you lose a boss fight, it should be due to bad strategy, not due to a move you didn’t see coming, or didn’t expect would be deadly.

If it’s deadly, it should look deadly. Surely we’ve all played games that followed this simple principle?

I dont see why we cant just have better mechanics without making tells faceroll. True artificial difficulty is the scaling in fractals. “Oh, just give them more hp and more damage”. You cant avoid it because its just auto attacks on trash mobs. You have to negate with blinds, blocks, dps and interrupts.

spoj.9672:

I dont see why we cant just have better mechanics without making tells faceroll. True artificial difficulty is the scaling in fractals. “Oh, just give them more hp and more damage”. You cant avoid it because its just auto attacks on trash mobs. You have to negate with blinds, blocks, dps and interrupts.

Are you afraid that the boss fights would be too easy, if the deadly moves were painfully obvious?

swiftpaw.6397:

Gotta listen to King Brazil, he speaks truths.

And meanwhile none of you dare to actually address any of the arguments that I made.

Here’s the thing. You can make the attacks on a boss blatantly obvious, and still create a challenging boss battle. Good tells, and clear sounds, do not have to get in the way of difficulty.

Case in point:

Probably one of the best designed boss battles I’ve seen in a long time. You can see every single attack that this guy does coming. His attacks do exactly what you’d expect, and they hit exactly in the radius that you would expect. No matter how far you are away from this boss, you can still see and hear what he’s about to do. And the camera doesn’t go wonky either.

But don’t believe for a second that it is an easy boss battle.

but if an undead giant dog without fur is trying to kill you, why would he purposefully let you know what he’s about to do and how to avoid it? XDD

i know, i know, it’s a game.. i’ll get back to my IRL now.

kidding aside, does everyone wants bosses they can beat on the first go? without getting hit? i think gw2 does pretty good with tells, or boss fights in general (save the open world giant PvE bosses when you have 100 people around). you see a move incoming, you dodge. sometimes you may not see a move coming, so you learn the pattern that the boss attacks in, or conditions that the bosses will use certain attacks (PLENTY of those). red circle? DODGE! o wait, what? i still died? because the attack has a delay from when the red circle appears. so you note and learned and the next time, you’ll be able to handle that encounter.

aaaaaaand.. if particle effects ARE getting in the way. well, lucky you, they’re getting toned down come tuesday. : ))

daily pug story time:

bunched up a hoard of dredge in the corner before the cannons.
-mesmer GS 5’s them away
-necro feared some more away
-engi BOB blew the rest away

so that’s why anet improved my hammer symbol size

Wukunlin.8461:

daily pug story time:

bunched up a hoard of dredge in the corner before the cannons.
-mesmer GS 5’s them away
-necro feared some more away
-engi BOB blew the rest away

so that’s why anet improved my hammer symbol size

lol, +1ed. please keep pugging and posting about it, I love reading your trip reports

Wukunlin.8461:

daily pug story time:

bunched up a hoard of dredge in the corner before the cannons.
-mesmer GS 5’s them away
-necro feared some more away
-engi BOB blew the rest away

so that’s why anet improved my hammer symbol size

I love reading these stories before bed ^-^ Now I can sleep tonight ensured that pugs know how to play with larger symbols in mind.

seriously I’m too scared to pug in the 40s

i’m just getting more serious into Fractals with my Guard. i’ll be sure to bring my shield and hit 5 whenever it’s up. ; ))

I think Lupicus summon could have more visible effect on target. The green cloud on target is quite difficulty to see if you are focused on Lupicus. Lots of people think that Grubs just randomly appear.

Wukunlin.8461:

seriously I’m too scared to pug in the 40s

Funny, I think people become more competent the higher the fractal levels. I’d much rather do a fractal 48 daily than a lv1-20. People just cause me physical pain with simple mechanics like getting a boss under the oil.

recently i have issues changing weapons <.<
So if happens that a GS mesmer push mobs away with illusinary wave coild be due to lag (or whatever it is) preventing them to switch weapon correctly while summoning iWarden :/

Happened to me a couple time.

And considering current fotm reward situation:

Experienced players already got their skins and quit.
Everyone has 45 AR

So at 48 you find players that should be at 10 max.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This picture reminds us once again that you shouldn’t judge people based on their class. Several minutes earlier this guardian told us in Lion’s Arch that he didn’t want to team up with 2 light armors and a ranger for Fractals level 20.

We managed to convince him to give it a try anyway, but he predicted that we’d find out in no time that it doesn’t work.

Our first Fractal is the swamp, we all do fine. Guess who is the first player to go down at Mossman? In fact, throughout the whole run our squishy players did really well. Our ranger hardly went down, our other necro a few times, and I hardly went down at all. The guardian was eating the dirt quite a lot throughout the whole run. It really all boils down to player skill. And no doubt some classes are better than others. There is an imbalance, make no mistake. And don’t get me wrong, this particular player wasn’t a bad guy. He finished the run with us, and we didn’t hear anything out of him after the first Fractal. So I’m not posting this to come down on the guy. But this attitude has got to stop. Just play together and have fun.

Do you realize that most boss aggro is dependent upon who has the most toughness+armor? So with a group of light armored players – the guardian has to eat most of the aggro. So, he’s going to go down more.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This picture reminds us once again that you shouldn’t judge people based on their class. Several minutes earlier this guardian told us in Lion’s Arch that he didn’t want to team up with 2 light armors and a ranger for Fractals level 20.

We managed to convince him to give it a try anyway, but he predicted that we’d find out in no time that it doesn’t work.

Our first Fractal is the swamp, we all do fine. Guess who is the first player to go down at Mossman? In fact, throughout the whole run our squishy players did really well. Our ranger hardly went down, our other necro a few times, and I hardly went down at all. The guardian was eating the dirt quite a lot throughout the whole run. It really all boils down to player skill. And no doubt some classes are better than others. There is an imbalance, make no mistake. And don’t get me wrong, this particular player wasn’t a bad guy. He finished the run with us, and we didn’t hear anything out of him after the first Fractal. So I’m not posting this to come down on the guy. But this attitude has got to stop. Just play together and have fun.

Do you realize that most boss aggro is dependent upon who has the most toughness+armor? So with a group of light armored players – the guardian has to eat most of the aggro. So, he’s going to go down more.

No, that’s not true. Boss aggro mainly deals with who is doing the most damage to the boss. It’s definitely more noticeable on Thief when you want to stay behind a boss and it wants to aggro to you for doing the most damage. The idea of the “Anchor Guardian” is a myth and nothing more.

Guardian should have been using shelter and the focus block in that fight anyway….

Thedenofsin.7340:

Do you realize that most boss aggro is dependent upon who has the most toughness+armor? So with a group of light armored players – the guardian has to eat most of the aggro. So, he’s going to go down more.

There’s various factors that determine aggro. Damage, toughness and proximity all affect it.

During that particular pug, we had both me as a necro, the guardian, and the warrior taking turns with drawing aggro. So no, the guardian was not taking more aggro than the others. It was pretty evenly split.

But again, this wasn’t really about the skills of the guardian. He wasn’t all that bad. It was about that initial attitude. Which is weird, cause it is only Fractal level 20, which is a walk in the park anyway.

It’s kind of similar to people trying to stun-lock the Cliffside boss in Fractal level 10. Which got me angry. “Just kill him, it’s only level 10!” But people seem so stuck in this mindset of copying the behavior of top players, that they seem to forget how to play it normally.

Zenith.7301:

Wukunlin.8461:

seriously I’m too scared to pug in the 40s

Funny, I think people become more competent the higher the fractal levels. I’d much rather do a fractal 48 daily than a lv1-20. People just cause me physical pain with simple mechanics like getting a boss under the oil.

well, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this, I guess I will give it a shot sometime when I have a whole night I can potentially waste.

Zenith.7301:

Funny, I think people become more competent the higher the fractal levels. I’d much rather do a fractal 48 daily than a lv1-20. People just cause me physical pain with simple mechanics like getting a boss under the oil.

Recently I tried, keyword tried, to pug 48s. People are as brainless as those at lvl 20.

Pugging at 48 is easier then pugging at low levels. I have yet to fail at a 48 run.

zerotwo.4731:

Pugging at 48 is easier then pugging at low levels. I have yet to fail at a 48 run.

It’s not about completing but about using a brain.

zerotwo.4731:

Pugging at 48 is easier then pugging at low levels. I have yet to fail at a 48 run.

I’ve not failed one, but I’ve had one take almost 3 hours

haviz.1340:

zerotwo.4731:

Pugging at 48 is easier then pugging at low levels. I have yet to fail at a 48 run.

It’s not about completing but about using a brain.

Umm, what? At higher levels it requires your brain to complete them. Not sure where your going with your response. Those that fail fall out of coordination or need to watch a few more videos to get the tactics down. Lets be honest, a good player re skills depending on the fractal they get. At higher levels it is very rare not to see another player reset skills. That is a good indication the run will be successful.

zerotwo.4731:

haviz.1340:

zerotwo.4731:

Pugging at 48 is easier then pugging at low levels. I have yet to fail at a 48 run.

It’s not about completing but about using a brain.

Umm, what? At higher levels it requires your brain to complete them. Not sure where your going with your response. Those that fail fall out of coordination or need to watch a few more videos to get the tactics down. Lets be honest, a good player re skills depending on the fractal they get. At higher levels it is very rare not to see another player reset skills. That is a good indication the run will be successful.

I wish there were no Rabid-wearing Longbow / Brown Bear Rangers in Fractal 48, but unfortunately, I’ve seen them there more than once.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This picture reminds us once again that you shouldn’t judge people based on their class. Several minutes earlier this guardian told us in Lion’s Arch that he didn’t want to team up with 2 light armors and a ranger for Fractals level 20.

We managed to convince him to give it a try anyway, but he predicted that we’d find out in no time that it doesn’t work.

Our first Fractal is the swamp, we all do fine. Guess who is the first player to go down at Mossman? In fact, throughout the whole run our squishy players did really well. Our ranger hardly went down, our other necro a few times, and I hardly went down at all. The guardian was eating the dirt quite a lot throughout the whole run. It really all boils down to player skill. And no doubt some classes are better than others. There is an imbalance, make no mistake. And don’t get me wrong, this particular player wasn’t a bad guy. He finished the run with us, and we didn’t hear anything out of him after the first Fractal. So I’m not posting this to come down on the guy. But this attitude has got to stop. Just play together and have fun.

Do you realize that most boss aggro is dependent upon who has the most toughness+armor? So with a group of light armored players – the guardian has to eat most of the aggro. So, he’s going to go down more.

No, that’s not true. Boss aggro mainly deals with who is doing the most damage to the boss. It’s definitely more noticeable on Thief when you want to stay behind a boss and it wants to aggro to you for doing the most damage. The idea of the “Anchor Guardian” is a myth and nothing more.

For trash though, they certainly seem to target my guardian over others. In the dredge fractal after killing the champ, all those lil moles spawning from the carrier tended to target me, the only guardian. I probably had the most armor, even with using full zerk armor, I had 30 in valor. I noticed that after being downed repeatedly, none of my other party members seemed to be taking damage. I started running away around the tank, and lo and behold, just about every dredge followed me. So proximity was not enough to dissuade those moles from deaggroing. Of course, the rest of the party got kitten ed that all the dredge were chasing me as I tried my best to survive and made me stand still. Having one wall of reflection was not enough. After downing 3 times in rapid succession and getting a defeat, the rest of the party were downed and subsequently defeated in no time, suggesting to me that they must’ve had no armor in their builds. Before trying again, I swapped all of my zerk gear for knight gear, and my greatsword for a hammer, bringing my armor from 2600 to 3200 or so. At fractal scaling 38 this was enough to make those trash attacks that downed me after taking hits for a few seconds to barely even causing my health to dip. Might’ve just been the protection and AH procs for using hammer. Anyway point being, the “anchor guardian” is a thing, just not for bosses.

Xhyros.1340:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This picture reminds us once again that you shouldn’t judge people based on their class. Several minutes earlier this guardian told us in Lion’s Arch that he didn’t want to team up with 2 light armors and a ranger for Fractals level 20.

We managed to convince him to give it a try anyway, but he predicted that we’d find out in no time that it doesn’t work.

Our first Fractal is the swamp, we all do fine. Guess who is the first player to go down at Mossman? In fact, throughout the whole run our squishy players did really well. Our ranger hardly went down, our other necro a few times, and I hardly went down at all. The guardian was eating the dirt quite a lot throughout the whole run. It really all boils down to player skill. And no doubt some classes are better than others. There is an imbalance, make no mistake. And don’t get me wrong, this particular player wasn’t a bad guy. He finished the run with us, and we didn’t hear anything out of him after the first Fractal. So I’m not posting this to come down on the guy. But this attitude has got to stop. Just play together and have fun.

Do you realize that most boss aggro is dependent upon who has the most toughness+armor? So with a group of light armored players – the guardian has to eat most of the aggro. So, he’s going to go down more.

No, that’s not true. Boss aggro mainly deals with who is doing the most damage to the boss. It’s definitely more noticeable on Thief when you want to stay behind a boss and it wants to aggro to you for doing the most damage. The idea of the “Anchor Guardian” is a myth and nothing more.

For trash though, they certainly seem to target my guardian over others. In the dredge fractal after killing the champ, all those lil moles spawning from the carrier tended to target me, the only guardian. I probably had the most armor, even with using full zerk armor, I had 30 in valor. I noticed that after being downed repeatedly, none of my other party members seemed to be taking damage. I started running away around the tank, and lo and behold, just about every dredge followed me. So proximity was not enough to dissuade those moles from deaggroing. Of course, the rest of the party got kitten ed that all the dredge were chasing me as I tried my best to survive and made me stand still. Having one wall of reflection was not enough. After downing 3 times in rapid succession and getting a defeat, the rest of the party were downed and subsequently defeated in no time, suggesting to me that they must’ve had no armor in their builds. Before trying again, I swapped all of my zerk gear for knight gear, and my greatsword for a hammer, bringing my armor from 2600 to 3200 or so. At fractal scaling 38 this was enough to make those trash attacks that downed me after taking hits for a few seconds to barely even causing my health to dip. Might’ve just been the protection and AH procs for using hammer. Anyway point being, the “anchor guardian” is a thing, just not for bosses.

It could also have to do with you doing more damage than your team, you attacking first, or any number of other things Anet won’t tell us about.

zerotwo.4731:

Umm, what? At higher levels it requires your brain to complete them. Not sure where your going with your response. Those that fail fall out of coordination or need to watch a few more videos to get the tactics down. Lets be honest, a good player re skills depending on the fractal they get. At higher levels it is very rare not to see another player reset skills. That is a good indication the run will be successful.

Higher levels require only a bit more brain than lower ones. I’ll admit though, I’m not used to run with pugs but in 5 runs this is what I noticed:

This is only the things I recall at the moment. Overall problem is that people watch on youtube how teams with optimal composition are able to facetank more freely than other team compositions allow them to and they try to copy it with miserable effect because they don’t pay attention to details, like cc’s, proper rotations, etc. It leads to completely brainless gameplay where they don’t think how else you could do it in case of failure or vastly different team composition.

Did you just list all my virtues?

Wethospu.6437:

Did you just list all my virtues?

Only facetanking.

haviz.1340:

Wethospu.6437:

Did you just list all my virtues?

Only facetanking.

You forgot to add he tends to range harpies making them invulnerable.

@haviz

wait, last time I tried using WoR and SoA on 1st archdiviner they went straight through? that was months ago though.

Also, about ranging mossman in pugs, I simply don’t trust other guardians to properly cycle through aegis with me. hell, only about 1 in 5 pug guardians I see use WoR or SoA against mossman

Yeah WoR hasnt been working on Arch diviner for me for about a month.

haviz.1340:

zerotwo.4731:

Umm, what? At higher levels it requires your brain to complete them. Not sure where your going with your response. Those that fail fall out of coordination or need to watch a few more videos to get the tactics down. Lets be honest, a good player re skills depending on the fractal they get. At higher levels it is very rare not to see another player reset skills. That is a good indication the run will be successful.

Higher levels require only a bit more brain than lower ones. I’ll admit though, I’m not used to run with pugs but in 5 runs this is what I noticed:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Cliffside Fractal:

• not using projectile defenses against 1st archdiviner
• not picking hammer when it’s needed
• using projectile defenses against chanters
• using projectiles against 2nd archdiviner in his 2nd phase before/after nova.

Swampland Fractal:

• using range weapons with 2 guardians and mesmer in team (all 4 members)
• not rallying on wolves
• not using projectile defenses against mossman

Underground Facility Fractal:

• not using projectile defenses against dredges
• crippling/chilling/immoblizing last bosses
• not using knockbacks/launches when he starts to heal and he lacks debuff
• trying to rez people under fire of 50 dredges
• not using cc on dredges

Urban Battlegrounds Fractal:

• balling up just to get flame burst
• not cc’ing mobs after los’ing them
• not going melee in 1st phase of Ashyn encounter

Volcanic Fractal:

• dpsing boss when at least 1 party member has low hp/is downed
• destroying bubble as fast as possible
• running through other people after getting hit with an arrow

Uncategorized Fractal:

• using range weapons for harpies
• not using every possible projectile defenses
• killing golems in wrong orders
• facetanking baron

Overall:

• bad skills choice
• wrong skills usage
• facetanking

This is only the things I recall at the moment. Overall problem is that people watch on youtube how teams with optimal composition are able to facetank more freely than other team compositions allow them to and they try to copy it with miserable effect because they don’t pay attention to details, like cc’s, proper rotations, etc. It leads to completely brainless gameplay where they don’t think how else you could do it in case of failure or vastly different team composition.

Well tbh I stopped doing 48 before they introduced ascended amulets/earrings.

In 48 before amulets and accessories, one of the strict stipulations was if you showed a trend of getting hit by agony instead of consistently dodging agony attacks without needing to rely on the crutch of AR, you were quickly kicked.

Maybe the quality of people has deteriorated a lot since then as more AR is achievable and thus people aren’t forced to pay attention in fights anymore.

I’ve only pugged to 38. I have yet to see a pug that doesn’t facetank dredge powersuit’s agony attack

I think the spin attack (ring of warding) has 2 components and you can only reflect/absorb one of them. Despite that, you can still reflect or negate some portion of the damage.

haviz.1340:

I think the spin attack (ring of warding) has 2 components and you can only reflect/absorb one of them. Despite that, you can still reflect or negate some portion of the damage.

Invisible frontal cone and visible projectiles.

Konu.1826:

Invisible frontal cone and visible projectiles.

Just like bloomhunger.

Lies, it’s an AoE on primary target.

Wethospu.6437:

Lies, it’s an AoE on primary target.

I guess you got me there.

Wukunlin.8461:

I’ve only pugged to 38. I have yet to see a pug that doesn’t facetank dredge powersuit’s agony attack

It seems like many people forget that double dodging through the ground pounds makes it really easy to avoid the agony, and the dredge’s powersuit melee even though it has no agony hits hard but has a huge delay that you can walk out of.

People are more afraid of meleeing the dredge suit when the ice elemental can actually be more obnoxious if you get chilled/cc’d right before he does a fist smash agony into the ground or drops the spikes, or you get kncked back by the adds as the icicle explosions are about to go off.

I’d definitely rather an inexperienced PVT Guardian who falls over here and there as opposed to a Longbow/Shortbow Ranger, who has experience standing in Healing Springs and stuff.

Zacchaeed.2834:

I’d definitely rather an inexperienced PVT Guardian who falls over here and there as opposed to a Longbow/Shortbow Ranger, who has experience standing in Healing Springs and stuff.

And sadly they think melee rangers are in the wrong. Just some days ago I heard a bear-longbow ranger with 5k points (yay jp) “Ololol melee ranger sux u gonna die”.
Btw the guardian and ranger are both considered inexperienced.