Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. So, I formed a fractal party with some casual guildies (the Tempest and I are somewhere in the middle between casual and hardcore) a while back so that we could all learn the ropes and then see how far we could get. Fast-forward to scale 76, and we’ve come to our first DPS check. At the Old Tom fight in Uncategorized, we ran out of batteries right about when he hit 75% HP. Needless to say, everyone panicked and some people got poisoned to death. I run sword/pistol Thief, so I was able to evade/blind-spam and sustain myself with signet of malice and invigorating precision until Old Tom finally went down. So, now’s as good a time as any to regroup and reconsider our approach. As you can see by the below party comp, we’re far from “meta.”

1) Mesmer (i.e., non-Chrono, GS camper, clone/phantasm build w/occasional shatters)
2) Reaper (Minionmancer, GS)
3) Druid (Healing Hybrid Build, LB & Staff)
4) Tempest (Auramancer, D/Wh)
5) Thief (DPS, S/P)

I’ll start with what’s out of the question: I won’t ask people to switch their professions (though our Tempest is willing to bring her staff Daredevil). That being said, how should we optimize?

1) Obviously, our Mesmer should be running Chrono for alacrity and quickness, and start using sword/x.

2) I’m at a loss here. At least he can facetank things? I mean, so can I, but maintain high DPS in the process.

3) I know that healers are unnecessary in anything but raids, so should our Druid just switch to Berserker gear and focus on DPS buffs? And start using a sword?

4) I don’t think a change is necessary. Or should she run Daredevil and focus on DPS to make up for the overal lack of it in the party?

5) I suppose I should run staff, too, but I kind of like my evade/blind spam.

Most of you are probably thinking I should just give up or take a long leap off of Cliffside. What I’ve tried so far is to bring professions that buff everyone’s DPS, like PS Warrior at first and then Herald. But at least two people in the party are always on the perimeter, so said buffs are kind of wasted. Not to mention, I found both Warrior/Berserker and Herald to be incredibly dull (no offense to those of you who enjoy those playstyles!). And I got sick of chasing people with my Herald to make sure they were within range of my buffs.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I think you should be mostly fine, here are some suggestions:
Let the druid go full healer, with sword/warhorn as his second set(buffing swiftness for the running sections), we have a healer in our usual group and it’s so op that we can actually completely ignore the poison at old Tom. Also good for learning in general → you have to stand near the boss to get healed, so you get used to melee
The Mesmer should switch to Chronomancer, but even if he can’t he should look into the supporting possibilities of his class, I mean Mesmer was used before too, so he definitely has options there. Just no greatsword camping, go melee, learning to invuln a group at the right time takes practice and is really cool if done right. Also reflection can make a world of difference in certain fractals.
Reaper should go a bit more dps (direct or condi), Tempest should too, maybe even change to staff? Depends if he likes that playstyle, some prefer fresh air, some staff.
You as a daredevil can use s/p for trash groups and maybe staff for bosses? As blind is useless against bosses and staff has evade too.

The goal is to have fun, so don’t fuss too much about meta and optimal, there are quit some ways to achieve the goal of T4 Fractals, with time and practice you will get more comfortable and tend to the faster options(more bersi/viper gear) naturally.

Gs camping mesmer isnt even a build…Its a meme.

Zephyr.5382:

Fast-forward to scale 76, and we’ve come to our first DPS check. At the Old Tom fight in Uncategorized, we ran out of batteries right about when he hit 75% HP.

As in Old tom had 75% of his health left when you ran out of batteries? If that is the case, then chances are every single one of you needs to learn your rotation and change your build. This would indicate that your dps was 4x lower than it needs to be to kill old Tom without just tanking poison (i.e. the normal strategy).

This website gives you the typical builds and includes videos of typical rotations:
http://qtfy.eu/builds/

I recommend each of you go to the test golem in the aerodrome and practice the rotations.
general comments: If you are unwilling to have anyone swap professions, then you are going have to find an alternative source of might and fury. Warrior running the Condi ps build is a typical source. I am going to gear my advice towards that end.

1.) Mesmer should run sword+shield and sword+focus. Mesmer can also help with fury uptime via signet of inspiration casts (and procs via illusionary inspiration). In order to maximize this I would probably run the domi-insp build, fortunately this is also going to produce lots of quickness and good alacrity. I’m by no means a chrono main though, so other builds may be better by situation. In the end, chrono isn’t going to be high dps, but rather provide large buffs.

2.) Minionmancer/gs as in power reaper or condi reaper? You can find guides for condi reaper on the website i linked above. But if you friend insists on running a power build, you can consult brazil’s videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-b5ogp9rdo

3.) So berserker druid. An outdated build when it comes to raids, but it should be fine for fractals. Just make sure they are bringing glyph of empowerment. the spotter trait, frost spirit, and going into CA frequently to maintain high grace of the land buffs. Because your group is going to be struggling to get fury and might, I would probably recommend sword+warhorn instead of longbow. Warhorn has good fury uptime, and sword has good dps.

4.) auramancer as in running water-air-tempest? That’s really overkill when you already have druid for healing. Additionally, your ele could be extremely useful by bringing the fire trait line. Because you are choosing to not bring a warrior (or even a rev), it would probably be best your ele help provide might and fury to the group. This can be done very well with the scepter/warhorn build. The main thing is to make sure your ele blasts fire fields when possible. Ele has several blasts on this build (scepter 2 and scepter 3 in fire attunement for starters). Unfortunately ele only has 1 fire field that you will be using (warhorn 5). Additionally, you could bring the healing skill arcane Brilliance as another blast finisher. These blast finishers synergize with a trait in the fire line that makes all fire field blasts also produce fury. Also fire worhorn 5 can help with boons.

5.) For single target boss fights, I recommend you use staff and daredevil. For trash mobs S/P is god tier carry mode (keep mobs perma blinded with pistol 5). But for bosses, staff is going to do more damage (you still have evades on staff too). If your not running daredevil because you don’t have it unlocked, you can use the dagger/dagger build (practice the rotation, don’t just auto attack) given on qt’s website.

Don’t panic. Your party comp is fine — tour team needs to work on its existing synergies and “footwork.” My “casual” team doesn’t ever insist on anyone bringing a particular build (at worst, we might ‘strongly’ recommend a skill or three or a weapon swap).

• If everyone sticks close to Tom, a druid can keep them all alive throughout poison phases, indefinitely. (I’m not very good at druid & I’ve managed it from about 50%; I could probably go longer, if people stay in range).
• Your reaper can drop a gummy worm Flesh Wurm next to Tom (not on top of him). People can stand behind it, since it blocks the projectile poison (not all of his attacks, tho). Also keeps them close for the druid (see above).
• You should have plenty of defiance breaks, so Tom should be stunned frequently, lowering his DPS, increasing yours.
• Thief blinds are also useful.

In other words, without making a single composition change, you guys can finish the fight with health to spare.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

• Your reaper can drop a gummy worm Flesh Wurm next to Tom (not on top of him). People can stand behind it, since it blocks the projectile poison (not all of his attacks, tho). Also keeps them close for the druid (see above).

Just to expand on this, any minion does this job. Necro pets, the druid pet, mesmer illusions … having a lot of them, as your party should, makes Old Tom easymode. Having many of them is also nice for the level with Social, since a single worm isn’t that helpful then.

Apart from that point, most things have already been said. Your mesmer should probably run something useful (i.e. sword+x, or scepter+x if the boss is a pain for melee), a full healer druid is quite helpful in rather poorly organised fractal groups, and as a thief you should really think about going staff daredevil. You’ll still have blinds (#4) and a metric ton of evades you can only dream of with any other build.

CptAurellian.9537:

Just to expand on this, any minion does this job. Necro pets, the druid pet, mesmer illusions … having a lot of them, as your party should, makes Old Tom easymode.

Good point. I emphasized the gummy worm because its fixed position makes it easier for novices to, ahem, get behind the idea. Rocky The elementalist’s earth elementals (from glyphs of elementals) are also effective tanks.

CptAurellian.9537:

Having many of them is also nice for the level with Social, since a single worm isn’t that helpful then.

I think how many you ‘need’ depends on the group. More is helpful, although it generally leads to a drop in DPS relative to the group’s potential (then again, preventing people from needing a rez + needing constant healing is a huge DPS boost).

So, sure, OP, get your group to pop a few ‘pets’ so that everyone can use them to block. If you have someone that tends to stay put, they can choose the worm; those that are more nimble can dance behind the various illusions or other pets.

Thanks for all the great suggestions! We’ll be incorporating them into our runs from now on.