Guild Wars 2

Aha! Gotcha! Before you scream baby felines, hear me out:

So far, in dungeons we seem to have certain areas of our playing ability tested:
- General combat (this is everywhere)
- Survival (think dredge fractal)
- Puzzle/Jumping (almost every dungeon)

But actual running/skipping seems like a biproduct of trash mob design. Running mobs can actually be kind of fun. Think GW1 with people doing Lornar’s Pass. There’s a certain thrill to it. If the game can test your abilities for using the relevant skills in combat (i.e. build making) why shouldn’t it test you to switch up your skills to do some impromptu running.

The closest examples of this is the dolphin event in the underwater fractal, but this event relieves you of your regular skills and seems to pull you out of the experience of running with your own character. The rolling fire boulders in the volcanic fractal doesn’t count: the balls roll in some fixed pattern.

I think P3 Arah, after the Crusher/Hunter boss, that valley that people like to skip, is a good setting for a running event. Of course there are issues where thieves can simply trivialize one of these events by going into stealth, but I’m sure there are ways around that.

Think Lornar’s Pass of GW1! Fun stuff!

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

Whoofe.7643:

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

Well, what I mean is, running segments could be a fun. But I see what you mean.

Whoofe.7643:

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

I freaking hate that! I haven’t been able to do P1 because of it. I can’t imagine that’s working as intended.

Running segments?
Oh yeah, I think there’s a couple places designed that way, where mobs exist to exert pressure and spawn infinitely. I think if you try and bring Scholar Magg across the Lava honestly, it’s the same deal.

Truthfully, I don’t really feel like I’m putting anything of myself out there when I run through stuff, designed to be tackled that way or not. I just slot the relevant skills available to my class and use them in the same obvious ways every single time. It’s a pretty stagnant meta, and I’ve never really felt I had much room to differentiate myself from my peers. It will probably always be that way so long as combat slowdown exists and keeps making skills that help you avoid combat in the first place such far and away superior options.

At least with fixed skills ala’ the dolphin event, they’ve got room to force some variety on me.

Whoofe.7643:

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

That is less of a running segment and more of a ‘how high is your DPS?’ segment.

Khisanth.2948:

Whoofe.7643:

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

That is less of a running segment and more of a ‘how high is your DPS?’ segment.

Is that how its supposed to work? If so, our DPS was too low, fine, but it felt like we were getting clobbered and, speaking for myself and my guildies, we always do fine in dungeons.

Whoofe.7643:

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

Not really. It’s just very hard. And most people seem to think that you need warriors for this kind of thing, but strategy can make up for warriors. Here’s how I did it with a warrior, two engis, a necro, and an ele:

Me and the two engi’s would stack vuln on a single inquest using engi vuln stacking, Cyclone Axe and On My Mark, as well as whatever other conditions we could also do. When we got to 25 stacks, the necro would spread it to the other inquest using Epidemic. Meanwhile the engis and ele would stack might using fire fields alongside my use of FGJ. This way we were able to burn down each wave incredibly quickly, with me doing warrior damage, the engi’s doing decent boosted damage using bomb kit and the ele doing his ele thing. Most of the inquest were focused on me (P/v/t gear) because of toughness agro, but the necro had to use the blinding well when we got low here and there. Group heals from ele and necro also worked really well here.

Once we got to the bot the necro used spectral grasp (surprised it worked) to pull the bot away from the inquest (That way the new waves don’t stop behind the door). We’d each burn down a stack of defiant and then when it was about to do the spin of kittenery I’d interrupt it by switching to hammer. Whenever a new wave came we’d ignore the bot for a bit and focus on them using the same strategy, until they wiped . I’m surprised at how easily it went using such a team setup once we got the co-ordination together. You just have to spend a while getting a game plan together and use (gasp) teamwork.

I’d be very disappointed if they nerf this path. I’m currently very disappointed that someone’s found an exploit. Does dungeon master mean anything anymore? Should it be renamed to exploit master?