Guild Wars 2

I’m curious about peoples thoughts on a situation, and if this is something that Arena Net does anything about.

So here is the situation, I’m doing fractals with a group and we make it to our third fractal. This happens to be the one where we need to break the seal. While we are there, I’m noticing that no one in my group is picking up the hammer other than myself. I tell people not to be scared of the hammer, which results in people telling me they don’t do the hammer part and that we are a team, so I have to do all the hammer parts.

Now, there were a few other times before this that I pointed out how to do a few parts, but after pointing out that expecting one person to do all the hammer parts isn’t really working as a team. Even before a fight, i noticed someone actually picked up the hammer, but they then just dropped it at my feet. I point out again about this not being a team and then I get kicked. This was like 1 hour in, as the group was rather slow.

Two of these people where in the same guild, and they might have been friends with another guy.

So I have 3 questions:

1) Is this something Arena Net will do something about? This wasn’t as simple as a kick by a guild, it was some back and forth talk which resulted in the kick. Though that talk was trying to get help from these guys.

2) What is your take on grouping and giving advice/telling people what to do? If I see people struggling, or we are not completing a part, i will often tell people how it is done. lately I’m finding people are getting defensive, or like the example above, they will kick you.

I will admit at times i will get angry and ask people what they are doing, or if they know what they are doing, but in general, I’m actually trying to legitimately help the team through (and have had several people than k me for doing so).

My thought atm, due to my resent kick, is that I should pretty much say nothing, and let people do as they wish, even if that is expecting me to do all the work (and without telling me they are expecting this).

So question 2 really is: Should I just sit back and not say anything in groups, or should I have seen early on that this was not a group I should have been in?

3) Am I just a jerk and need calm down?

In this case you lost the fractal when they kicked you. The others probably lost the fractal after another hour of failing. You might have been the lucky one.

Sometimes if you get a bad group you just get a bad group. I’m surprised people reset the cliffside as the first fractal since if you’re going to fail it sometime you might as well fail it first before any time is lost. If you get it right then it’s not so tough and becomes only a medium length fractal.

I agree with team partially. There should be no reason what so ever a zerker ele/thief/necro should be carrying the hammer. The heavy class/tanks should be the ones using the hammer and smashing deals, while the squishers DPS the chanters.

If you didnt have any heavys/tankys and they made you do it, well shoulda known bad group composition = problems.

You cant solo hammer as you get corruption stacks so they are really idiots if they expected you to solo the entire encounter. Id say its usually a group of 2-3 hammer who will side 2 side hammer with the rest as support/dps for yaal.

This isnt a reason to kick no, but remember Cliffside tends to bring out much rage in people, especialy if the both sides of the seals are popped.

JJBigs.8456:

I agree with team partially. There should be no reason what so ever a zerker ele/thief/necro should be carrying the hammer. The heavy class/tanks should be the ones using the hammer and smashing deals, while the squishers DPS the chanters.

If you didnt have any heavys/tankys and they made you do it, well shoulda known bad group composition = problems.

You cant solo hammer as you get corruption stacks so they are really idiots if they expected you to solo the entire encounter. Id say its usually a group of 2-3 hammer who will side 2 side hammer with the rest as support/dps for yaal.

This isnt a reason to kick no, but remember Cliffside tends to bring out much rage in people, especialy if the both sides of the seals are popped.

There is no reason zerker ele/thief/necro should be in there anyway, on higher level EVERYONE has to contribute, so everyone needs to take care of hammer. Zerker gear is for cof, not here, that is why everyone is whining about shaman boss, witch is not that hard with proper gear/utility.

Sovta.4719:

There is no reason zerker ele/thief/necro should be in there anyway, on higher level EVERYONE has to contribute, so everyone needs to take care of hammer. Zerker gear is for cof, not here, that is why everyone is whining about shaman boss, witch is not that hard with proper gear/utility.

I actually do Fractals regularly with zerker gear on my thief, and change out for p/v/t gear as the situation demands it. Zerker gear requires skill to play, most fractals require a brain to complete. If you can manage both, you can wear whatever gear you want as long as it’s not the reason you can’t do your job or holding your group back.

Well this sounds stupid, if I was in your situation I would probably have left myself as they clearly had no idea what they were doing. 3 or at least 2 people need to alternate the hammer, otherwise you won’t be able to complete it.

Seveleniumus.5973:

Well this sounds stupid, if I was in your situation I would probably have left myself as they clearly had no idea what they were doing. 3 or at least 2 people need to alternate the hammer, otherwise you won’t be able to complete it.

To be honest that was what kept me from getting to angry about my wasted time. Soon as we loaded that fractal I feared for the worst. I was thinking leaving would be the best bet, but I didn’t want to be that jerk who leaves when the going gets tough. I really should have just been that jerk…

It must have been painfully slow with one person carrying the hammer.

My take on the situation, since you asked:

1) ANet will not do something about this situation unless there’s more to it than you are reporting.

2) I do not like pugging; you never know what you’re going to get. In the event I do end up with one or more PuG’s in a group, I never comment other than to say hello, to say I don’t know a fight (if true) or unless requested for info; all communications I send are worded as politely as possible. If the group struggles, I might say, “We could try doing x, then y.” If I think the struggle is in vain, I’ll say, “Sorry, this has taken more time than I have, gtg. Sorry and good luck.”

3) Calming down never hurts, but since I’ve only heard your take on what happened, it’s impossible to say that you were, or were not, perceived as a jerk.

IndigoSundown.5419:

all communications I send are worded as politely as possible. If the group struggles, I might say, “We could try doing x, then y.” If I think the struggle is in vain, I’ll say, “Sorry, this has taken more time than I have, gtg. Sorry and good luck.”.

I think i will need to take this sort of approach from now on. Although my intent is to help a group get through the dungeon, I know I can be more aggressive about it than some people would like. On top of that, I need to just stop and realize I’m not going to be a fit for some groups. In this case I should have just parted ways. I don’t like to give up, and I often see things through no matter what.

Thank you for the comments. ultimately this thread wasn’t to whine about the kick, and I really wasn’t looking to get anything for it. (though i was originally a little ticked). I’m looking to grow as a player, teammate, and even a person, so thank you for your thoughts in this regard.

EDIT: I would like to note one thing. I am not claiming innocents with my actions in this group. Do I feel it was enough for a kick? No, but towards they end I did get a bit more pushy than some may have liked. I noted that and am looking to improve upon it. I just wanted to make that park clear so people don’t only look at the others I talked about being in the wrong.

I don’t run FotM much any more but Cliffside was my second most hated fractal (dredge fractal is always going to be first). The buggy kitten that goes on in that fractal amazes me. People dropping off cliffs with the hammer and the hammer won’t respawn. Multiple people being unable to res in the middle of the fractal despite the party being out of combat, the general unreliability of having people platform in a dungeon resulting in very hit or miss groups in terms of efficiency. The fractal was never worth the risk of it turning into a nightmare.

When joining a party you usually get a few red flags. The first is the lfg post if you use that site. If it has any specific requirements (all exotics, must be level 80, needs x amount agony resistance, must be experienced, speed run, no noobs, only warriors or guardians, must have story mode etc) I will try to ignore it unless I am desperate. These kinds of people are usually terrible at dungeons and need to rely on crutches like tanks, outgearing content or superior players than themselves to carry them through. Even if I am optimally geared running an optimal build with tonnes of experience and one of the most efficient classes I stay far away from them. They are usually bad experiences to group with.

The next red flag is if there are multiple people from the same server or in the same guild. That often causes me to have great caution. It only takes two people to vote kick (ArenaNet should change that to at least a majority – three) and people who are friends with each other will happily do so if one of their own takes issue with another party member. I’ve been with excellent guild groups that worked really well, but too many of them are jerks that abuse the vote kick. Bullies that run in packs.

Finally is the discourse in the party. I don’t need everyone to say hi or respond (although it’s generally a good sign) and I prefer not to have excessive discussions in a pug (I’m here to do a dungeon not join your book club) but when I see people making demands, criticising builds, complaining about someone’s profession or picking on someone for making mistakes (I’m not talking about helping someone out who doesn’t know how to do something, but giving someone hell about falling off the cliff with the hammer, getting downed too many times during a boss fight or failing something too many times). It’s fine to help people out (like explaining to stand in the bubbles during CoF path 1 if they clearly didn’t know how to do it) but a lot of people take it too far and lose their cool over trivial things, which becomes especially annoying when they don’t actual slow the group down much.

I look for things like this when I join groups and if I see too many of them or they become too excessive I know that my time is better spend elsewhere. Yesterday I joined a FotM group for the first time in several months. It was for level 18 and the post said “must have 15+ agony resist, no noobs”. I didn’t see too many posts and I wanted to get it done before reset so I joined the group. They were already inside (two people from the same guild had been rolling to get the most efficient fractal – swamp) and were complaining about how long it took to get a fifth. I mentioned their post can turn some people off because of the requirements and they then complained about a “noob” they had yesterday in a level 20 fractal with 0 agony resistance. I continued with the wisp part while they criticised the other guy in the party (there were still four of us) because he failed the first wisp wrong. A big red flag, the text “…” popped up in chat. We succeeded on the second run and a fifth joined us. We downed Bloomhunger and went on to Cliffside. This is where it all changed. The first thing one of the two guilded guys said was “I’ll give you all a fair warning now, if you kill both of the Acolytes during the final seal encounter before the boss you earn yourself a free kick from the party.”. As soon as I saw that (and I agree with his strategy but his whole attitude from the post, to criticising the guy who failed at the first wisp run to outright threatening the group makes me sick and it’s not how I want to spend my game time) I told him that he and his friend are jerks and I promptly left the group. I joined another group and easily beat the content without any party requirements and without threatening the group. I might have saved some time in that first group, but I certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed it.

At the end of the game puging is a delicate thing. I have no problem receiving or giving advice, as long as it’s not condescending. You need to learn how to recognise the warning signs in a party for when you find yourself with jerks. Two person kicks need to go. Come to terms with the fact that sometimes you are better off cutting your losses and starting over rather than continuing through with a bunch of jerks.

Shiren.9532:

When joining a party you usually get a few red flags. The first is the lfg post if you use that site. If it has any specific requirements (all exotics, must be level 80, needs x amount agony resistance, must be experienced, speed run, no noobs, only warriors or guardians, must have story mode etc) I will try to ignore it unless I am desperate. These kinds of people are usually terrible at dungeons and need to rely on crutches like tanks, outgearing content or superior players than themselves to carry them through. Even if I am optimally geared running an optimal build with tonnes of experience and one of the most efficient classes I stay far away from them. They are usually bad experiences to group with.

I am one of those people who runs a geared group of 4, we are all in voice com and we want 1 more to go, usually at fotm 40+. We are not a charity. We do not carry anyone, and we do not expect to be carried. We run the most optimal builds and gear sets and have geared alts on hand if the situation requires. We advertise for geared only, and we gear check. This is usually to avoid magic finders, we aren’t all that selective past that, just be in exotics.

I am rather tired of all this talk about ‘oh you’re just elitist scumbags.’ or ’
Oh you’re just bad and need compensation.’

No. We spent the time to make sure we are at our best gear wise and performance wise, and it’s only fair we expect the same of whoever we take.

If we cannot find that geared 5th, we just 4 man it with little issue, it just takes longer.

to OP-

Thing about pugging with anyone, be it guild team or randoms.. it’s a mixed bag, you never know what you’re getting. Many times I jump into a group and its freaking awful, and I usually start with a helpful tip…if it’s ignored I don’t bother saying anything else. Many people don’t see a helpful tip as helpful, no matter how subtle or polite you try to be about it, and they will react as if they have been criticized. It’s best to just go with it. If they are bad to the point of wasting your time, just leave.

Other times I get groups that are kitten awesome, although they are few and far between when it comes to pugs. Most times you can expect to get acceptable teams, either with average players all round, or bad players mixed with enough good players to pull through. Just gotta take the good with the bad sometimes. I always try to be the best player to make whatever pug I join as smooth as I can and will switch to differing classes and gear setups dependant on the team’s class makeup, dps and survivability.

Part of the reason a team is good or bad is also up to you, so always do your best.

Shiren.9532:

Come to terms with the fact that sometimes you are better off cutting your losses and starting over rather than continuing through with a bunch of jerks.

Basically this.

One just needs to think for himself and act accordingly.

So you either just leave if you don’t like the party or stick with it no matter what. No point blaming others. It’s all in your hands.

I have 3 80’s past fotm lvl 10, one at 40+ another at 30+ and the last one at 26+. I run some with my guild but I still do a lot of PUG groups and most of them are fairly competent enough to get through without much issue, so I honestly don’t know why people complain about PUGS so much.

I’ve done so many of fotm dungeons that I know them front to back and when I see someone not doing something they should be doing I just keep it simple and say things like “Stack here” or “this way” or “pull to hallway”; 99% of the people listen.

Mosen.9526:

Sovta.4719:

There is no reason zerker ele/thief/necro should be in there anyway, on higher level EVERYONE has to contribute, so everyone needs to take care of hammer. Zerker gear is for cof, not here, that is why everyone is whining about shaman boss, witch is not that hard with proper gear/utility.

I actually do Fractals regularly with zerker gear on my thief, and change out for p/v/t gear as the situation demands it. Zerker gear requires skill to play, most fractals require a brain to complete. If you can manage both, you can wear whatever gear you want as long as it’s not the reason you can’t do your job or holding your group back.

It’s ok what you do, but to be honest, how many zerker players have soldier gear as backup? They just want to see shiny numbers.

How would a p\v\t gear help against maw kill beam, agony on 50+ or against a stack of gazillion cultists in cliffside? It won’t.
Block and dodge don’t scale on toughness or vitality.

Isslair.4908:

How would a p\v\t gear help against maw kill beam, agony on 50+ or against a stack of gazillion cultists in cliffside? It won’t.
Block and dodge don’t scale on toughness or vitality.

And how will zerker gear help against burning from ads in shaman, or against gazillion cultist/dredge/krait?

Guardians are essential in grawl fractal.
With cultists you need to know the right strategy – ’tis all.

I’m not saying that everyone should be running in zerk gear, but if one can evade damage he’ll survive as a glass cannon too. Saying that you need p/v/t for it is kinda short-sighted.

Isslair.4908:

Guardians are essential in grawl fractal.
With cultists you need to know the right strategy – ’tis all.

I’m not saying that everyone should be running in zerk gear, but if one can evade damage he’ll survive as a glass cannon too. Saying that you need p/v/t for it is kinda short-sighted.

I’m not saying you need p/v/t just that is good as backup, but i’m talking for higher levels, for lower you can run naked.

My favourites are guys who fill the party chat with “WTF” “what are you doing?” “What”.

Also Swiftpaw, you kind of strike me as an elitist scumbag, and there is a very good reason you’re having to 4 man FotM. Any 5th member who sees the other four are from the same guild is an idiot to stay. Sorry but, four regular players who are chatting over ts3, things aren’t looking too good for the 5th…
Find a 5th guildie and stop tormenting PuG’ers.

Dolan.3071:

My favourites are guys who fill the party chat with “WTF” “what are you doing?” “What”.

Also Swiftpaw, you kind of strike me as an elitist scumbag, and there is a very good reason you’re having to 4 man FotM. Any 5th member who sees the other four are from the same guild is an idiot to stay. Sorry but, four regular players who are chatting over ts3, things aren’t looking too good for the 5th…
Find a 5th guildie and stop tormenting PuG’ers.

It’s almost as if you didnt read what I just said :/

*sigh *

We don’t even need a 5th. And we dont ‘have to’ 4 man fotm or any dungeon for that matter. We choose to. We ask for a geared, after about 10 mins if no-one joins we just 4 man it. We don’t appreciate magic find leechers in dungeons and would rather just 4 man. At the end we will put an ad up for someone in need or get a friend to join in the 5th slot and get the reward.

Usually though, we get our geared 5th and we are on our way no problems. I’m not going to call you a ‘scumbag’ but you’re certainly someone I wouldn’t add because you lack respect for those who wish to give the dungeon their best, and expect that from those who knowingly join a geared team.

Also not sure how I’m ‘tormenting’ pugs by asking them to ping their gear before we start. Usually they do without a problem, we get the run done fast and they often times friend us and ask for runs in the future. Having them ping means we don’t have any issues once we enter. We know exactly what the pug is running from the get go, and if we don’t like it, we kick him before we enter. This way I’m not wasting their time, and they are not wasting ours.

I afford a very high level of tolerance to pugs because I feel (personally) that it is my team and that I am responsible for the most part, for how the run goes. If they ping their set and it’s fine, we enter and they kitten up, make a mistake or have not done something before, I am happy to forgive them and explain what needs doing. Not only this, but often times I invite them onto my TS or vent. Usually they don’t want to join but that’s fine, we just like to socialize. If the opposite happens, if I or one of my friends makes a mistake, I apologize to the pug. I afford them the same respect I would want.

I honestly do not think this is scumbag behaviour.

Oh and we aren’t in the same guild either
The groups consists of me, my boyfriend, and two of my good friends. They are all in different guilds.

The amount of assumptions in that post was too kitten high!

swiftpaw.6397:

Dolan.3071:

My favourites are guys who fill the party chat with “WTF” “what are you doing?” “What”.

Also Swiftpaw, you kind of strike me as an elitist scumbag, and there is a very good reason you’re having to 4 man FotM. Any 5th member who sees the other four are from the same guild is an idiot to stay. Sorry but, four regular players who are chatting over ts3, things aren’t looking too good for the 5th…
Find a 5th guildie and stop tormenting PuG’ers.

It’s almost as if you didnt read what I just said :/

*sigh *

We don’t even need a 5th. And we dont ‘have to’ 4 man fotm or any dungeon for that matter. We choose to. We ask for a geared, after about 10 mins if no-one joins we just 4 man it. We don’t appreciate magic find leechers in dungeons and would rather just 4 man. At the end we will put an ad up for someone in need or get a friend to join in the 5th slot and get the reward.

Usually though, we get our geared 5th and we are on our way no problems. I’m not going to call you a ‘scumbag’ but you’re certainly someone I wouldn’t add because you lack respect for those who wish to give the dungeon their best, and expect that from those who knowingly join a geared team.

Also not sure how I’m ‘tormenting’ pugs by asking them to ping their gear before we start. Usually they do without a problem, we get the run done fast and they often times friend us and ask for runs in the future. Having them ping means we don’t have any issues once we enter. We know exactly what the pug is running from the get go, and if we don’t like it, we kick him before we enter. This way I’m not wasting their time, and they are not wasting ours.

I afford a very high level of tolerance to pugs because I feel (personally) that it is my team and that I am responsible for the most part, for how the run goes. If they ping their set and it’s fine, we enter and they kitten up, make a mistake or have not done something before, I am happy to forgive them and explain what needs doing. Not only this, but often times I invite them onto my TS or vent. Usually they don’t want to join but that’s fine, we just like to socialize. If the opposite happens, if I or one of my friends makes a mistake, I apologize to the pug. I afford them the same respect I would want.

I honestly do not think this is scumbag behaviour.

Oh and we aren’t in the same guild either
The groups consists of me, my boyfriend, and two of my good friends. They are all in different guilds.

The amount of assumptions in that post was too kitten high!

Well saved. However as someone who used to have a MF set to take advantage of CoF drones, it takes nothing to ping your regular gear and keep wearing MF.

Dolan.3071:

Well saved. However as someone who used to have a MF set to take advantage of CoF drones, it takes nothing to ping your regular gear and keep wearing MF.

I can usually tell as it’s a 4 man team of people I’m always playing with, if someone isn’t pulling their weight. We know how long things should take. We’ve seen it all.. People who ping their arah set then wear a set of MF rares once in, we have seen people who even go to the trouble of having two sets of COF gear, one magic find and one zerkers. Etc.

Usually it’s easy to tell because they are wearing a different skin, in the case of the people with identical skin sets it’s usually down to when the sigil of luck pops up, when they are continuously dieing or when we see them solo dpsing a mob and it’s rotten.

Of course it’s harder to find out, but in most cases we do.

This doesn’t happen often though because I find people who are running magic find either aren’t smart enough to use the same skins for both sets or have enough brains to know that when someone’s gear checking it’s a good idea to avoid that group or do the right thing and take the correct gear.

Ewon.5903:

1) Is this something Arena Net will do something about? This wasn’t as simple as a kick by a guild, it was some back and forth talk which resulted in the kick. Though that talk was trying to get help from these guys.

2) What is your take on grouping and giving advice/telling people what to do? If I see people struggling, or we are not completing a part, i will often tell people how it is done. lately I’m finding people are getting defensive, or like the example above, they will kick you.

Should I just sit back and not say anything in groups, or should I have seen early on that this was not a group I should have been in?

3) Am I just a jerk and need calm down?

1) If you’re referring to grief kicks, the best thing you can do is take a screenshot if you see more than one person in the same guild and then report them if they do something like that. Chances are ANet only takes action if they receive a significant number of reports to take notice.

2) If someone is legitimately asking for advice on something when doing low level fractals, or if you’re trying to suggest something to make sure things run a bit smoother, then there’s nothing wrong with that. More often than not, though, you’re going to run into people that think they’re hot kitten and will just do whatever they want. That’s usually when they end up face first in the dirt.

At this point in the game I usually just take enjoyment out of watching people make stupid mistakes and then complain about what happened like the brats they are. It sometimes gets especially amusing on the Harpy fractal and you’re watching them get knocked off repeatedly. Even had one person complaining about jump puzzles in general in the game. Probably someone who played too much WoW.

3) If anything, you seemed to have been the only non-idiotic person in that group. I would of told them all to go eff themselves and bailed a lot sooner.

swiftpaw.6397:

Dolan.3071:

Well saved. However as someone who used to have a MF set to take advantage of CoF drones, it takes nothing to ping your regular gear and keep wearing MF.

I can usually tell as it’s a 4 man team of people I’m always playing with, if someone isn’t pulling their weight. We know how long things should take. We’ve seen it all.. People who ping their arah set then wear a set of MF rares once in, we have seen people who even go to the trouble of having two sets of COF gear, one magic find and one zerkers. Etc.

Usually it’s easy to tell because they are wearing a different skin, in the case of the people with identical skin sets it’s usually down to when the sigil of luck pops up, when they are continuously dieing or when we see them solo dpsing a mob and it’s rotten.

Of course it’s harder to find out, but in most cases we do.

This doesn’t happen often though because I find people who are running magic find either aren’t smart enough to use the same skins for both sets or have enough brains to know that when someone’s gear checking it’s a good idea to avoid that group or do the right thing and take the correct gear.

Yea I had identical skins haha, it actually didn’t end too badly in CoF1 (I wouldn’t try it in anything else.) Mobs are always getting focused so your own damage isn’t too obvious, I would ask before hand that my MF sigil was okay to use. Surprisingly people blamed the Mesmer for the slightly longer runs (which was probably a whole minute or two longer considering how easy CoF1 is, and I was reaping in significantly more than them.) When people would start catching on I’d just leave and find a new group, simple stuff. I kitted out my alts and now I have no need for that set, and has since been salvaged.

Anyone wearing full Zerker in a fotm beyond 26 is going to spend more time downed than anything else unless they’re a mesmer or a very good thief.

Folk.2093:

Anyone wearing full Zerker in a fotm beyond 26 is going to spend more time downed than anything else unless they’re a mesmer or a very good thief.

Not entirely true :P

Not only me but a few people I have grouped with over time have run zerkers even into the 40’s. It takes alot more attention and it sure helps to have a good guardian, but it can be done and when done well it sure makes the run go faster.

Nikaido, the best people play Berserkers, but unfortunately, so do the worst. Taking on a zerker is a gamble, you can either save a few minutes, or cost you a lot more. Also, judging your own success from what sounds like a very organised group (ts3 perhaps) compared to a ragtag team of PuG’ers is unfair. Get matched up with a bad team and it doesn’t matter how good you are you will be wishing you weren’t wearing Berserker’s.

If I found a regular guild group to roll with I’d probably slip into Zerkers more often, but as it stands a Berserker NEEDS support from his team (to maintain worthwhile damage at least.) Support which you should never expect to receive in a PuG.

Nikaido.3457:

I don’t get where you got this idea that I ran in full organized groups. I wish I had such a group, but I don’t. Sometimes I’ll get a full group of people I know, but more often than not, I’m just running with either one or two buddies for high lvl fotm, the guild I currently belong to has no high lvl fotm runners except for one guy, the guardian with whom I ran all my 40+ with.

I also don’t see any boss fight in fotm where being a tank warrior would be more beneficial and a zerk war an actual detriment. The times when I had a truly bad pug gruop I found myself wishing to level my guardian faster in higher fotm, rather than thinking of getting tank gear. Things like reflection, well timed aegis and so on help the group a lot more than anything you could ever think of doing on a tank warrior sorry. Just 1 good guardian is enough to literally trivialize something like the grawl boss at lvl 48.

Not tank, god yuck what a waste of a Warrior, I prefer the term “balanced” :P

But that’s just it, in lieu of a (good) Guardian/someone to reflect projectiles, every now and then I’m going to have to eat a hit. I’d like to say I’m a dodging master and will never get hit even without those defences up, that just simply isn’t the case. In runs without Guardians I really need to switch on and in most cases, sacrifice DPS and utilities that I wouldn’t have to if one were present. E.g giving myself stability and using the Shield to deal with the harpy mobs in the Raving Asura Fractal.

I just have berserker gear.

There are always at least 2 people in my pug groups that are scared of the hammer. Most of the time it’s either me (guardian) or my guild fractal partner (a berserker mesmer) taking turns with the hammer. When I used to have my elementalist in fotm, she was also carrying the hammer a lot. I used to ask the heavies to assist but I stopped after a while because I always got crickets in return. I’d rather alternate with the hammer rather than have someone with low health pick it up, or someone not listening to “drop it” in chat and downing themselves.

All that aside, Cliffside is still one of my favourites!

Nikaido.3457:

Folk.2093:

Anyone wearing full Zerker in a fotm beyond 26 is going to spend more time downed than anything else unless they’re a mesmer or a very good thief.

This is again, a learn to play issue. You’re probably one of these who have yet to start using line of sight at 30/40+ and turning every run into a teaching run. Even against the strongly hitting crowds from ascalon, as long as you use the right line of sight spots, pull them into your party stack + NPC you burn through these so quickly that even if you went down once you rally almost instantly.

My last 38 daily (I’m not running much FOTM these days) we had to kick two kitten for reasons unrelated to gear during cliffside, the two people who came and replaced them were kited in full berserker, so our group make up was like this : 2 zerk war, 1 zerk elementalist, 1 knight guardian, 1 mesmer (didn’t know about his gear), and the run actually ended on a much smoother note with the zerkers. The cultist died almost as soon as they were pulled into our stack through LOS.

But yeah, keep spreading that myth. I’ve found that most of the better players I’ve grouped with at higher levels were zerkers, the exception made of guardians who intentionally wear Knight to take some aggro and damage for the group.

The type of player who suffer from your misconception is certainly not the type of player I want in my party since the belief that you can’t go zerk beyond 26 is obviously associated to the fact that you can’t handle doing it right without some crutch.

Please… get over yourself. 1000+ fractals later on four toons tells me otherwise. I mostly play my guard and keep the melee zerker noobs alive or at least try my best too and it has nothing to do with me being on a zerker but everything to do with seeing zerkers drop like rocks on anything past fotm 26. They’re an anchor and get everyone else killed who tries to ress them when they screw up in those tight situations.

I could care less if you want to group with me, I guarantee I’m 10 times better than you in fractals and carrying a lot of players like yourself.

rozcinana.7249:

There are always at least 2 people in my pug groups that are scared of the hammer.

Well, I don’t like to take hammer on my warrior because if I do it, then those p\v\t guys will have to spend ages killing cultists. I just can help charge up the hammer faster with mah axe.

Isslair.4908:

rozcinana.7249:

There are always at least 2 people in my pug groups that are scared of the hammer.

Well, I don’t like to take hammer on my warrior because if I do it, then those p\v\t guys will have to spend ages killing cultists. I just can help charge up the hammer faster with mah axe.

See, that’s good information to know! Unfortunately in my past experiences in Cliffside, no one is willing to provide a reason as to why they won’t take the hammer. I literally got no response when I used to bother asking.