Guild Wars 2

I’m not going to go into all the details as that would take way too long. I’m just going to cover some highlights.

- First, it’s HotW p1 and thanks to Anet’s infinite wisdom and my work schedule, I haven’t been able to get a party for over a week.
- The LFG entry stated, “no quitters”. I acknowledge that the bulk of the blame now rest on my shoulders because I ignored that huge red flag.
- The first boss manages to hit me and ONLY me with at least 2 other people in melee range. Thank God I had a ridiculous healing spec for my guardian.
- We get to those stupid dog things. A ranger does her best Leeroy Jenkins impression and I, foolishly, run in behind her.
- On hindsight, she runs into melee range but continued to use a shortbow. I should have known how that was going to end.
- The ranger dies and, for the next 7 minutes, I’m barely staying alive while tanking 7 to 9 of these dogs. When I miss a crucial heal and finally die, I notice my party hanging back and spamming auto attacks. My grief was strangely alleviated as the mobs made short work of my team.
- When we finally respawned, I asked what was the plan. I was greeted with 4, “I dunno…” A smarter man would have quit then and there.
- Finally we get a gameplan. The leader targets a champion I run in, tanking like a madman. A minute goes by and I’m struggling to survive against the champion and 12 dogs now (yes, they multiplied) while my party seems mysteriously absent. When I finally succumb, I note my party, on the roof but this time only half of them are auto-attacking while the other half still ask what the plan is. Again, a smarter man would have quit.
- One of them finally decides to charge in and meet death one minute later. Another disconnects while the leader damages the totem before dying and the last runs around for 14 minutes, trying to lose aggro.
- We respawn and some are still wondering what the gameplan is. The leader takes down the totem and opens the way for us. We’re sill missing a teammate so, while waiting for her to come back, another decides to go afk and have a dinner break. Our last member goes afk and doesn’t even tell us. At this point I balk at Jonah’s patience but clearly I don’t have Solomon’s wisdom because I stay.
- The next 20 minutes has the leader and I taking care of all the dogs, mostly because we have nothing better to do than twiddle our thumbs.

I’m going to stop there for the sake of my sanity but this sort of thing goes on for 3 hours and only marginally gets better. When we finally beat the last boss, I get 1 gold and 40 tokens. Yes, 40 tokens. Somehow, some way, diminished returns has lasted over a week of resets and hit me with 40 tokens.

Have you ever been so mad that you don’t even know how to express it?

You got 40 tokens and 1g from a chest, and 20 tokens and 26s from another chest

And that is why I refuse to be in a party with a ranger in a PUG.

Which dogs are you referring to? The only ones I can think of are the ones before the first boss, which everyone just skips.

It appears no one in your group knew to stack behind the stairs :/
Doing so would have made quick work of those dogs.
(and I agree, a smarter man would have quit. A 15 min run should never take 3 hours).

Lol you spent 3 hours on hotw path 1? Wat.

Some observations (note that bosses primarily aggro the person doing the most damage)

1) ranger is blamed, like usual, by one of the commenters—five people in a party yet it’s always the rangers fault

1.1) shortbow does near melee weapon damage so really isn’t a bad choice when it pierces because—if the ranger was smart— she had sigil of strength / fortyfing bond which procs 25 might stack on pet when companion’s might is traited

2) healing spec guardian: you’re doing it wrong (as soon as I saw healing guardian who thinks boss cares about them, I knrw the ranger would die since the ranger will get all the aggro and indeed, later in the story, rangers dies)

3) ranger died because she was likely doing much more damage than anyone else, thus getting boss aggro and subsequently dying

4) no one blames the afk player

5) you probably weren’t killing the right totems on butcher or effectively kitig him—shortbow is the correct choice on that fight

6) stop blaming rangers and their pets for all of your failures

I… I don’t even… I would’ve quitted that path 2.5 hours ago. :|

NeoVaris.4806:

Which dogs are you referring to? The only ones I can think of are the ones before the first boss, which everyone just skips.

Afaik, those are the ones he was talking about, so maybe not everyone skips them. The hunter mobs sometimes spawn regular wolves, and there are silver and regular wolves at the side event no one ever does after killing the boss on the stairs and dropping through the floor.

I’m sorry you had such a rough time.

In the future, if you don’t want to make your own groups but find yourself in one of those rare situations where you’re probably in a better position to be coordinating the group; just go ahead and coordinate the group.

You’d be surprised how malleable and unofficial that position really is. So much so, it’s entirely possible to just sort of step-up to the plate and socially bruteforce your way into it. I don’t recommend actually going about it that way, because it’s kind of dodgy etiquette-wise and there’s really no need for that sort of duplicitousness when frank honesty gets you there in half the headache. It’s astounding how receptive people are to a chnaging of the guard if you just take the time to ask.

Just send the party starter a little /tell and let them know you have some experience with the place and you’d like to coordinate the group. Chances are if things are going that badly, the party leader may themselves be new to the place, new to the game, or isn’t really the leadership type and started a group because they just didn’t want to wait around for a path they needed.

Be polite, keep it tasteful, and you never have to suffer through hopeless leadership again.

You don’t really have to say you want to co-ordinate the group, what I do is go in to the dungeon and ask if everyone has done it before. If they have, then I play as normal until a wipe. If we get wiped and I know the content well enough then I’ll say something like “when we run back to point X, stack in position Y and then i’ll run forward and aggro the mobs” or something like that.

There are those moments when the party just plain sucks and I can’t be bothered though, lol.

I usually run this with guild mates and finish it within 20 mins. Or try at least to find ppl who know the dungeon. There are a few things to know and for shortcuts. It’s really no big challenge. Still there are pug groups who work. I mean that’s it, that’s the downside of a multiplayer game. If people don’t like it, they rather should play single player games.

No amount of ‘leadership’ is going to get 3-4 other players to stop afk-range-auto attacking. Rangers and to a lesser extent Thieves, Necros and Ele’s are notorious for doing this, at least Warriors charge in and get off a Berserker Hundred Blades before dying

You know what you could’ve done to make your 3 hour experience more pleasant?

Take control.

You’re the experienced one here. You knew what to do. You can be the leader to make the run smoother. Type down a brief plan and fast type orders around. Be someone worth following.

If you effectively take control, the ranger that leeroy jenkins toward death will know who the boss is. Instead of running in herself, she would run behind you. When the four other players don’t know what to do, you can either quit or take control.

All of these wipes could’ve been prevented if you typed down a plan.

Like a fine wine, this one had everything. Melee shortbow so Stronk, how could it fial???

I had a similar experience…. no idea how a 15 minute Path turned into 90 but I shouldn’t have been surprised at all by it since I joined them through LA recruitment on Crystal Desert (which was the final straw before I transferred to a better server). In a nutshell, I soloed the kitten thing for them … on Ranger… I really really wish I was making this up.

Crossplay.2067:

Have you ever been so mad that you don’t even know how to express it?

Have you tried Cactus?

Guys, I have pugged this dungeon before. Usually it takes a pug 30 minutes, which I find completely acceptable. I personally would prefer to play with my guildmates but they always do the dungeon while I’m either asleep or at work. Because of Anet’s changes, I’m the odd man out and pugging is my last recourse, save soloing it and that is just madness.

Above all else, I have never ran into a pug this bad before. Not even during pre-release when everyone was trying to figure out how to beat dungeons.

I have nothing against shortbow rangers. I have everything against shortbow rangers that auto attack IN MELEE RANGE! Granted, I’ve barely played a ranger so I don’t know how the mechanics work but I’m pretty sure their attacks don’t get stronger the closer they are so there was no point in being beside me.

I have a heal-spec guardian because I want a heal-spec guardian. I’m not playing to be the most proficient player ever. I play to have fun. I’m that one guy that stands IN FRONT of dragon champions and actively dodge their attacks because that’s more fun than standing on the side, auto-attacking and then complaining about how long and boring the fight is.

I’m finding it hard to feel sympathy for you when you weren’t even putting your 100% in on the dungeon run.

“Healing Guardian”, eh? In PvE? You know that such a low DPS spec is only asking to suffer in a dungeon with as bloated health pools as HOTW.

It sounds like you’re just as much to blame as everyone else. If you ask “What’s the plan?”, and you get four “I dunno”s, then you’re obviously playing with people new to the dungeon. I would say you should’ve given instruction, but it sounds like you were new as well. You should’ve taken control anyway, so at the very least everyone is on the same page.

On a side note. As long as you stay healing spec, you are doomed to sub par runs.

Healing specs are the worst thing for pve. Your contributing the same (maybe less) as the shortbow ranger your describing. Get better and dodging and learn to manage blocks and blinds while using the build below. You don’t need to tank hits when you can blind the kitten out of them and do 3x the damage.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83701-the-perfect-dps-guardian-build/

obal, if you read the last paragraph of his latest post you’d see that he’s not interested in playing a good build, he is choosing of his own accord to use bad gear.

And then complaining about his party for being bad.

Crossplay.2067:

I have a heal-spec guardian because I want a heal-spec guardian. I’m not playing to be the most proficient player ever. I play to have fun.

/thread

Someone’s been watching BEER’s videos.
Do yourself a favour and clad yourself in Berserker gear or at the very least Knights if you want anyone here to take you seriously.

I recently teamed up with two random other players, and we did HotW with only three people total. It was bloody hard work, and we did wipe a few times. But we did finish it eventually. So don’t give up on pugs, there are plenty of good players out there.

still not as bad as my 2 hr lvl 10 fractal run with 2 thieves and 2 necros

Ranger Short Bow doesn’t get weaker the closer you are. That’s Longbow’s autoattack. And please don’t complain about bad pugs when you’ve decided to use a terrible build and limited your experience and skill level by refusing to use a good build.

Ah this reminds me about the early gw2 days when nobody had a clue what they were doing. For some reason those are some of the most hilarious runs I have ever done xD. Although those random afk-ers tend to ruin the moment yes. All I can say is that you did the right thing by not leaving.. Although I would have kicked those afk-ers >.>

Yikes some people are quick to be sharp-tongued, but anyways…

Unlike other people, I actually do not care what kind of builds people run. You’re a healing specced guardian? Good for you. Do you know how to play it right and are able to utilize it skillfully?

If you answered yes to my second question, then I will take you as well as any other player on a dungeon run, hands down. Like I said, I don’t give a crap about what kinds of weapons or builds people use. If you are skilled, I will take you regardless. I will never take bad dps build players over good players with sub-par builds.

Everyone should run an efficient build except me. I play how I want. Those people who decide they want to play how they want? kitten them. They are awful and selfish and making the run take longer! But me? No.. See if it was just me playing how I wanted, there wouldn’t be a problem.. People are so inconsiderate these days. I am so mad now I don’t know how to express it. Somebody comfort me.

Glad to see the community progressing

Sugoi Travis.2651:

If you are skilled, I will take you regardless. I will never take bad dps build players over good players with sub-par builds.

Except that there is no such a thing as being skilled with bad builds and bad gear. Don’t take me wrong, I’m not saying “all zerkers are good”, as could be seen in the day of CoF farming there are ton of terrible zerkers who have a broken dodge key. What I’m saying is that not wearing zerker is an automatic mark of being bad. You can’t be a good player and willfully ignore decent build, ignore the game mechanics and decide that bad builds are good enough for you.

Using bad builds automatically puts you in the bad category, sorry. You’re basically leeching on whoever can output some sort of dps in the group.

Nikaido.3457:

Sugoi Travis.2651:

If you are skilled, I will take you regardless. I will never take bad dps build players over good players with sub-par builds.

Except that there is no such a thing as being skilled with bad builds and bad gear. Don’t take me wrong, I’m not saying “all zerkers are good”, as could be seen in the day of CoF farming there are ton of terrible zerkers who have a broken dodge key. What I’m saying is that not wearing zerker is an automatic mark of being bad. You can’t be a good player and willfully ignore decent build, ignore the game mechanics and decide that bad builds are good enough for you.

-BAM

- Nikaido Slap -

For some reason, people blame ranger in dungeons. I find bow ranger with pierce trait in hotw p1 is fun and powerful against final boss. Same as rifle warior with pierce.

For some reason, people talk about PUG like it’s a disease and bad. I say it’s all about communication. Many of these PUG know a lot of tricks and you never know what you can learn from them. It’s all random encounter of course, good or bad.

No one should ever go afk untold in a dungeon. If they know in the next coming 30 min or so they might have to go afk sometime, they should not join a dungeon or party play since they would waste people’s time waiting/dying for you. Unless they told people ahead and others are ok with it.

If people are decent/care/concern/team work with others, none of the bad stuff would happen and party play would be much fun. Bad things happen only because people get selfish, don’t communicate, bad temper, no patience, and all the nagtive things that a game is opposed to.

My bad dungeon experience lately was someone host a game and swap char wanting to level up alt when boss was about to die and we all got kicked after 30 min play XD.

I was kicked when the end boss for HOTW’s life reaches down to 25% left because I went in too early while everyone waited for this guy that die along the way. I didnt even put a kitten.en. hand on the boss. This guy or girl named kaylie kicked me for that kitten . I’m not made for losing a gold and champ box I just wish they have penalties for kicking people out like that.

Also if anyone of u would like to do dungeons add me and message me when u see me online. I usually do dungeons everyday, why? Because u get your golds, champ box and tokens all in one setting, sometimes u even get your dailies too. Oh and u get karmas too. I’m currently sitting at 2 million karmas. Saving them for future contents.

IVIUIEI.9631:

Also if anyone of u would like to do dungeons add me and message me when u see me online. I usually do dungeons everyday, why? Because u get your golds, champ box and tokens all in one setting, sometimes u even get your dailies too. Oh and u get karmas too. I’m currently sitting at 2 million karmas. Saving them for future contents.

what is this i dont even

Crossplay.2067:

Thank God I had a ridiculous healing spec for my guardian.
- The next 20 minutes has the leader and I taking care of all the dogs, mostly because we have nothing better to do than twiddle our thumbs.

Crossplay.2067:

I have a heal-spec guardian because I want a heal-spec guardian.

http://youtu.be/-sRyEteX1Ag

colesy.8490:

obal, if you read the last paragraph of his latest post you’d see that he’s not interested in playing a good build, he is choosing of his own accord to use bad gear.

And then complaining about his party for being bad.

Mine as well try

obal.3218:

Crossplay.2067:

Thank God I had a ridiculous healing spec for my guardian.
- The next 20 minutes has the leader and I taking care of all the dogs, mostly because we have nothing better to do than twiddle our thumbs.

Crossplay.2067:

I have a heal-spec guardian because I want a heal-spec guardian.

http://youtu.be/-sRyEteX1Ag

colesy.8490:

obal, if you read the last paragraph of his latest post you’d see that he’s not interested in playing a good build, he is choosing of his own accord to use bad gear.

And then complaining about his party for being bad.

Mine as well try

I’d say that’s GG.

ITT bads calling each other bad.

I bet you’re all going to feel dumb when healspec guardian becomes the new meta.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

ITT bads calling each other bad.

I bet you’re all going to feel dumb when healspec guardian becomes the new meta.

I cannot.. I cant even…

Brazil should give you an invite to our mumble, I wanna hear sexy Asian voice :P

obal.3218:

Crossplay.2067:

Thank God I had a ridiculous healing spec for my guardian.
- The next 20 minutes has the leader and I taking care of all the dogs, mostly because we have nothing better to do than twiddle our thumbs.

Crossplay.2067:

I have a heal-spec guardian because I want a heal-spec guardian.

http://youtu.be/-sRyEteX1Ag

but… but…. you can’t do damage while you’re dead!! oh wai-

swiftpaw.6397:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

ITT bads calling each other bad.

I bet you’re all going to feel dumb when healspec guardian becomes the new meta.

I cannot.. I cant even…

Brazil should give you an invite to our mumble, I wanna hear sexy Asian voice :P

You want to cheat on Coffeemug?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

ITT bads calling each other bad.

I bet you’re all going to feel dumb when healspec guardian becomes the new meta.

no
no
nooooooooooooooooo

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

swiftpaw.6397:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

ITT bads calling each other bad.

I bet you’re all going to feel dumb when healspec guardian becomes the new meta.

I cannot.. I cant even…

Brazil should give you an invite to our mumble, I wanna hear sexy Asian voice :P

You want to cheat on Coffeemug?

Pfft no, I want to matchmake Coffeemug with Guanglai. Would make a nice couple

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

ITT bads calling each other bad.

I bet you’re all going to feel dumb when healspec guardian becomes the new meta.

that’s it, I’m out… nice thread but this is too much

Bad communication makes for bad group experiences. The more you are willing to lead, or follow smartly, the better your group experiences can be.

Maybe check out the below link for some ideas on healing builds that do a bit more damage. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84424-the-new-guardian-anchor-build/

Llyren.3904:

Maybe check out the below link for some ideas on healing builds that do a bit more damage. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84424-the-new-guardian-anchor-build/

That’s a terrible build, though.

Next time, either quit when it becomes obvious that the group is braindead or step up and become the group’s brain. If you’ve run this path before, then you should know it’s possible (and not even very difficult) to skip the dogs, so tell them to do that, don’t ask “what’s the plan?” like you didn’t already know what to do.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Llyren.3904:

Maybe check out the below link for some ideas on healing builds that do a bit more damage. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84424-the-new-guardian-anchor-build/

That’s a terrible build, though.

Go ahead, link him a better build for his stated purpose, being a healy supporty guardian.

Several of the builds linked in the post use mostly Berserker gear, a few use all. I’m not looking that heavily into them though. They may all be terrible

swiftpaw.6397:

Nikaido.3457:

Sugoi Travis.2651:

If you are skilled, I will take you regardless. I will never take bad dps build players over good players with sub-par builds.

Except that there is no such a thing as being skilled with bad builds and bad gear. Don’t take me wrong, I’m not saying “all zerkers are good”, as could be seen in the day of CoF farming there are ton of terrible zerkers who have a broken dodge key. What I’m saying is that not wearing zerker is an automatic mark of being bad. You can’t be a good player and willfully ignore decent build, ignore the game mechanics and decide that bad builds are good enough for you.

-BAM

- Nikaido Slap -

@ swiftpaw – Was I supposed to feel that I got put in my place? If so, then I must have missed that part.

On-topic – I don’t know what world you come from, but I don’t believe in the idea that if you’re not wearing zerker, then you’re automatically bad. That reeks of zerker elitism right there and shows an awfully warped mindset, no offense. I don’t think I clarified myself enough with my previous post, so I’ll make it crystal clear for you.

I welcome good zerkers into my party. I also welcome good non-zerkers into my party. I do not discriminate on the basis of the kind of armor a player is wearing. However, I will not party with a person who decides to haphazardly throw trait points around and not attempt to synergize their traits with their equipment. I also will not party with a person who does not take the time to learn boss mechanics. Where are you getting these ideas from anyways?

Lastly, I absolutely refuse to party with zerker elitists. I don’t want to hear “omg this run is taking 2 minutes longer than it should QQQQQQQQ” or “i finished this boss with a full zerker party faster than this POS party.” Believe me; those are some examples of responses I’ve seen and these idiots were kicked immediately and are on my block list. Judging a player purely by his/her armor is a childish thing to do.

(Seriously…this is a game. A freaking game. Let people play the way they want and if they don’t like zerker for whatever reason, why call them out and claim they’re automatically bad? Lol…)

Sugoi Travis.2651:

swiftpaw.6397:

Nikaido.3457:

Sugoi Travis.2651:

If you are skilled, I will take you regardless. I will never take bad dps build players over good players with sub-par builds.

Except that there is no such a thing as being skilled with bad builds and bad gear. Don’t take me wrong, I’m not saying “all zerkers are good”, as could be seen in the day of CoF farming there are ton of terrible zerkers who have a broken dodge key. What I’m saying is that not wearing zerker is an automatic mark of being bad. You can’t be a good player and willfully ignore decent build, ignore the game mechanics and decide that bad builds are good enough for you.

-BAM

- Nikaido Slap -

@ swiftpaw – Was I supposed to feel that I got put in my place? If so, then I must have missed that part.

No, why would you think that?

(Seriously…this is a game. A freaking game. Let people play the way they want and if they don’t like zerker for whatever reason, why call them out and claim they’re automatically bad? Lol…)

Deep breaths.

From now on when I pug I’m going to start the instance and pop quiz everyone of them with “Play How You Want to Play: Y/N?”

guess which ones get the boot