Guild Wars 2

My only character is a boonway cleric, and I typically play WvW roaming solo or in a small group making my party perma-swift and practically invincible, with full might and fury every 30 seconds.

But today I had the whole evening to play, not just half an hour before sleep but the whole evening; so I looked back at the times I was crafting this guardian running all dungeons with this small 7-man guild.
Facing subject alpha with mediocre green/yellow gear for the whole team which was up to level 70.
Dodge the fire, focus on the little turds, get up the downed and die constantly.
And we eventually succeeded. It was really fun. It was bullkitten hard.
So yeah, I thought about those times and I launched the magnificent LFG tool. Avoided the “full zerker, speedrun lvl80 only experienced rush” tags since I’ve already been in many of those teams which just skipped everything.

First thing I noticed with this party is they would all run straigt to the same corner, wait for the monsters to also pile up and roll their face on the keyboard.
“Oh well, I suppose subject alpha shall be different with those death rings and massive attacks”. Nope! All stack on a crate and do nothing.
“Well then, there’s no way we all pile up at the console part with all the golems exploding into rings of fire”. Nope! all piled up at the console killing the golems too fast for them to explode. Then everyone timed the console so it glitched and skipped the remaining waves at the same time.
“Screw this dungeon, I’m going AC. Hopefully at the pull-spin boss we’ll see some moves”. Skip? thankfully people were like “no, it’s quick and it’s a champion”. Allright, hooray.
Then guess what. Everyone stacked in that column fissure and fought standing still. WHAT!
“Fighting the graveling boss which shoots that deathray shout? People will DEFINITELY play around and dodge that beam”. LOLNOPE! Stack on another crack in the wall so attacks don’t hit.
Screw it. From now on the only dungeons I’ll be running will be story mode with noobs.
I also loved climbing up solo the tower of nightmares. It was a fun thing to do. But everyone else semt to only move in the choochoo train.
Just like in WvW. Who cares about defending a tower or a camp or hitting with a small squad? It’s just choochootrain everywhere! Even the symbol of swiftness is encouraging that style of play! MAN I’M kitten ED!

Am I the only one who hates the way gw2 is evolving?

Could your really not see, that 2 threads down from the top of a page, was another topic about this? Sigh….

It took me a while to write this, so no.
That’s some pretty good advice, Ethics. I’ve already decided to do that (and I’ll probably play a lot more spvp since you can now earn coin in there).
I just made this thread in the hopes the devs get some feedback and perhaps change a few things so stacking isn’t possible anymore. Perhaps something in the lines of introducing more slow and deadly attacks from bosses and some really deadly swarm of mobs, perhaps add boons like retaliation to them with high toughness / blocks / evades (this works magnificently to me in WvW) and more enviromental damage.

Do you understand why stacking is so common?

-spend less time in the dungeon and get the same rewards
or as I like to call it a “Win/Win”

Yes, I understand that and I hate that mindset.
It’s probably all the fault of the introduction of farming + ascended gear.
Game should be changed to avoid this situation. Stuff like laurels and achievement points is nice. But all this farming (and having people enforce farming in dungeons / wvw) sickens me.
Watching scarlet events fail all the time because people zerg around the commander tag also upsets me.

Pleurodesed.7625:

Yes, I understand that and I hate that mindset.
It’s probably all the fault of the introduction of farming + ascended gear.
Game should be changed to avoid this situation. Stuff like laurels and achievement points is nice. But all this farming (and having people enforce farming in dungeons / wvw) sickens me.
Watching scarlet events fail all the time because people zerg around the commander tag also upsets me.

Find a group of friends to full clear dungeons. Then you can do arah P1 in 3 hours like it was meant to be done….

You cannot change the game to avoid farming. If you remove the farms, people will congregate elsewhere to the next best farm, and if you nerf farming enough, prices for goods will just adjust as gold becomes harder to get and goods become less accessible. If you make paths ‘harder’ by making bosses and mobs ‘immune’ to stacking, you’ll simply increase the barrier to entry into those paths, and if those paths are sold, then they will be sold at higher prices (case in point, the recent Arah p2 change to Alphard). You cannot change the players by changing the game, you can only change the game.

Stacking exists because it is efficient and is at a minimum something most players understand at a rudimentary level and can be brought to pub groups. Bad groups with bad players who don’t know anything about anything will still die horrible deaths to stacked bosses and mobs. You still have to know your evades, know when skills are valuable when, know what to expect, and so on.

And since you asked in the title, I’ll respond: I find stacking all mobs into one huge aoe killzone a hell of a lot more fun than having the group run around scattered while attacking in disarray.

Pleurodesed.7625:

Watching scarlet events fail all the time because people zerg around the commander tag also upsets me.

It upsets you that people in wvw don’t run the scarlet events that spawn in the little npc camps?… Pretty sure it upsets the other 99.99999999999999999999999% of the wvw population that a stupid pve living story event keeps popping up on the map.

All you do in wvw is stack also. Even small teams. You seem like you dont wvw, you are just new to the game in general.

Examples of WvW Stacking:

1. Fire Field (Even teams of 5 should have firefield) Blast blast blast, you must be in fire field to recieve the might, hence a stack.

2. Water Field on me, blast blast blast, must be in water, sometimes in a small geyser to recieve heals

3. Hammer train(Weather its 2 people or 20 people) must stay as tight as possible (stacked)

4. Lets say your team is defending a tower. Enemy has gate at 5 percent. Stack to the left hand side of the gate with your team and when they come in, bomb them in choke. You dont want people on top of the tower to give away that your inside..

Not sure how you play WvW but you probaly arent successful if you dont employ some of these tactics in WvW. So why is it ok there but not in pve?

Pleurodesed.7625:

M.
1. killing the golems too fast for them to explode.

2. Then everyone timed the console so it glitched

3. Stack on another crack in the wall so attacks don’t hit.

4. Am I the only one who hates the way gw2 is evolving?

1. They only survive one hit, sometimes two. it is virtually impossible to hit them and have them not die before exploding.

2. That word does not mean what you think it means

3. As the lone guy in party that constantly gets knocked back I can assure you the attacks do hit.

4. The only thing that evolves is the details. Core has been the same since launch. Less publicly known maybe.

RemiRome.8495:

1. They only survive one hit, sometimes two. it is virtually impossible to hit them and have them not die before exploding.

2. That word does not mean what you think it means

3. As the lone guy in party that constantly gets knocked back I can assure you the attacks do hit.

4. The only thing that evolves is the details. Core has been the same since launch. Less publicly known maybe.

1- That’s exactly what I meant to say.
2-A sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment. I believe that’s also what I meant to say
3- I can’t argue with that. But to my eyes the attacks had no effect compared to getting instantly downed before.
4- It’s more than just details. It’s the sudden transition from playing the game by having different tactics in different scenarios with dodging and whatnot to standing still as a response to everything and clicking buttons. Hell, reminds me of playing PWI with a macro holding F2 for LITERALLY 40 minutes and another one to drink a mana pot now and then which healed the tank as everyone had auto-attck on while I was alt-tabbed doing something else.

JJBigs, I’m afraid you’re wrong. All these scenarios apply only to zergs (10+ players) because of how the fields work.
If you do that with 5 players, you’ll end up with your team drowning in wells, mesmer fields and warrior AoE stuns. Even my condition-sucking machine can’t sustain that.
I’ve been playing this since the start of the pre-purchase betas (it’s like a year, isn’t it?). So believe me when I say I’m pretty experienced with this game.

Pleurodesed.7625:

2-A sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment. I believe that’s also what I meant to say

There is nothing glitchy, faulty or temporary malfunctioning going on. You are allowed to do more than 1 hack at the same time.

Pleurodesed.7625:

If you do that with 5 players, you’ll end up with your team drowning in wells, mesmer fields and warrior AoE stuns.

Maybe if you are only 5 players you shouldn’t jump into 30+ guildgroups?

edit: forum being wonky

Pleurodesed.7625:

2-A sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment. I believe that’s also what I meant to say

I believe that you are wrong. It’s not a glitch, it’s simply how that part works. The console requires activation 5 times. Doing it one time after another and making stuff unnecessarily hard or doing it once, then having 4 people do it at the same time making it simple is the same.

As for the actual topic, nothing wrong with stacking imo. You DPS stuff much faster because you’re cleaving, rezes are easier and so on, it’s simply pure efficiency. I mean, I myself wouldn’t find dragging a fight for x minutes longer “fun”.

We don’t. We just make the enemy zerg run in circles behind us while capping just as much as them so our zerg takes their fortifications. Thank permaswiftness, leaps and their absolute lack of skill.
I’m only criticizing the dull playstyle. WvW would be a lot more interesting if commander tags disappeared.

And about doing multiple hacks; if you say so, I won’t argue it with you. I only narrated how I felt during the dungeon run.

I’m also not trying to say “those who stack are unskilled” here. I’m only pointing out how dull that is and how it absolutely turned my old epic experience into “yeahyeah, just sit here and mash buttons”.

For an epic experience that changes and forces new tactics try out Fractal of the Mists. You can access it from Lions Arch and it will scale your level to 80 if needed. Once you get to level 31 you get new instabilities they change how you play the game. I think this could be the old epic experience you are looking for GL

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistlock_Instability

The funny part is cleric has never been viable anywhere , unless you build for a pure retaliation build and even then , a boon steal class can destroy you .

As many other people said and will continue to say . Make your own group . No stacking , cleric guardian only , killing everything and roleplaying .

Ethics.4519:

WvW and PvE are drastically different. A pure PvEr new to WvW will get destoryed in his full zerk, not understanding large group play mentality. Just has a WvWer may get destroyed in his cleric/boon sharing gear not understanding one-shot mechanics in PvE.

As a typical PvE’er, I’m not experiencing this. As most WvW’ers are probably zerglings, you can handle them pretty much like PvE silver trash. LoS, CC and AoE perfectly work, noone ever suspects.

Dub.1273:

Ethics.4519:

WvW and PvE are drastically different. A pure PvEr new to WvW will get destoryed in his full zerk, not understanding large group play mentality. Just has a WvWer may get destroyed in his cleric/boon sharing gear not understanding one-shot mechanics in PvE.

As a typical PvE’er, I’m not experiencing this. As most WvW’ers are probably zerglings, you can handle them pretty much like PvE silver trash. LoS, CC and AoE perfectly work, noone ever suspects.

You have to remember who the majority playerbase is for GW2 =).

On a more serious note, You probably aren’t running the same PvE build that you do WvW. I mainly meant taking a great WvW build into PvE is hurting as much as taking a dps meta pve build into wvw. I just added more stuff to make myself sound smart. Sometimes it doesn’t work (all the times).

Yes , I definitely want to play the Mistlock Instability. The problem is having to farm for agony resistance when I still haven’t been able to get my hands on the new crafed ascended equipment. It’s far from happening.

And believe me, the cleric build is insanely good. My current build is borderline OP.
Permanent retaliation, permanent swiftness. Leap. Block causes burning. Each shout cleansing 2 conditions. Glass cannons are guaranteed death to me. I’m probably the best support class to my team due to boon duration, healing, CC, condition sucking and superb mobility.
And everything that surpasses me ends in a draw. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been chased to spawn by large groups without dying.
And the climax to this all is spvp. Such great support has made me turn the tides just by volunteering to the other team.

Do TA Aether path. People only stack once because is suicide there… and i actually don’t because hate stacking also.

Ethics.4519:

Dub.1273:

Ethics.4519:

WvW and PvE are drastically different. A pure PvEr new to WvW will get destoryed in his full zerk, not understanding large group play mentality. Just has a WvWer may get destroyed in his cleric/boon sharing gear not understanding one-shot mechanics in PvE.

As a typical PvE’er, I’m not experiencing this. As most WvW’ers are probably zerglings, you can handle them pretty much like PvE silver trash. LoS, CC and AoE perfectly work, noone ever suspects.

You have to remember who the majority playerbase is for GW2 =).

On a more serious note, You probably aren’t running the same PvE build that you do WvW. I mainly meant taking a great WvW build into PvE is hurting as much as taking a dps meta pve build into wvw. I just added more stuff to make myself sound smart. Sometimes it doesn’t work (all the times).

Hmm, I’m actually using my PvE builds in WvW, except on my thief who I don’t take into PvE. 30/25/0/0/15 warrior, necro, 25/25/10/10/0 ele or 30/30/0/0/10 condition necro. They’re all working out quite good, even in outnumbered situations or EBJP arena.
Well, the “who is gw2’s main playerbase”-question comes in here, I guess.
And I definitely agree the other way round, using PvP (WvW) builds in PvE is just bad.
I just wonder how easy WvW would get if using a proper PvP build. Probably not as good as PvE build, though, since every second a fight lasts, chances of being zerged down increase.

Im sorry but if you are talking about spvp this build is not viable whatsoever or even roaming . Arenanet recently buffed DPS guardians and it became crazy , blocks-mobility-teleport-huge dps- great condi cleanse. Those are the guardians I struggle with . Their burst is incredibly high while having a great survability .

Note gw2 is a game with no dedicated support roles which causes all classes to go damage builds with support utilities in both PvE and PvP. Wasting 70% of your stats in boon duration and healing will only harm your team. And do you really think healing helps ? Poison and its already reduced by 33% , interupt and you are left with your terrible damage.

Im not an experienced guardian , in fact mine is only lvl 13 and i have played around 20 solo q’s with him and the most succeful games I had were with a damage oriented build while giving my allies boos and CC support..

Btw you said glass cannons are death to your build ? I would like to duel you with my warrior . He is knight\zerk and I destroy everything in wvw. NA server , Ill be online in 3-4 hours if u want.

Seriously man , guardian is such a powerful class but often poorly used by the players.
Anyway back to the topic , maybe you will find killing the "normal way " fun once but then you will get bored because of the lack of organisation . I suggest to play how you want through all the dungeons and if you are still interested change build to support your party the most aka full zerker with defensive utilities .

And for pvp , plz try knight\zerk meditation build and thank me later.

Pleurodesed.7625:

“Well then, there’s no way we all pile up at the console part with all the golems exploding into rings of fire”. Nope! all piled up at the console killing the golems too fast for them to explode.

And how do you think you’re supposed to do this part? Let the golems explode so that you never finish the action?

Pleurodesed.7625:

Then everyone timed the console so it glitched and skipped the remaining waves at the same time.

It didn’t glitch. It was designed this way. And I’m pretty confident Anet intended for this part to be done this way. They could EASILY have not let you pass unless all golems are dead — but they didn’t.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Pleurodesed.7625:

“Well then, there’s no way we all pile up at the console part with all the golems exploding into rings of fire”. Nope! all piled up at the console killing the golems too fast for them to explode.

And how do you think you’re supposed to do this part? Let the golems explode so that you never finish the action?

Pleurodesed.7625:

Then everyone timed the console so it glitched and skipped the remaining waves at the same time.

It didn’t glitch. It was designed this way. And I’m pretty confident Anet intended for this part to be done this way. They could EASILY have not let you pass unless all golems are dead — but they didn’t.

We did this part with one person channeling in stealth, 3 people distracting the main golem army and me (the 5th person) interrupting (!) the few golems that came close enough to start their bomb skill animation.

It was great fun!

I believe that this game could be a lot more fun if the most efficient way was something else than stacking. Different approaches, sometimes kiting & conditions would be more efficient, at other times healing & boon removal could be the key to success…

The TA aether path is a step forward, but so long…

The Lost Witch.7601:

I believe that this game could be a lot more fun if the most efficient way was something else than stacking. Different approaches, sometimes kiting & conditions would be more efficient, at other times healing & boon removal could be the key to success…

The TA aether path is a step forward, but so long…

TA aether path is the standard stack and smash as everything else though.

It’s not quite there yet, but it is a small step forward.

The ooze puzzle is much more CC and less DPS focused than the other dungeons for example.

When the game first came out, I used to have to solo alpha, because my team would constantly die fighting him. This was back when you could revive at any time, so people would just run back and corpse rush alpha to death. Fighting alpha in this was was extremely inefficient, and a single path of coe took upwards of 1.5 hours. It was very frustrating for players, and many of them swore to never attempt the path again. The few of us that didn’t die constantly ended up playing together more often, and we started developing tactics for the boss.

Alpha has a few abilities
1. cone aoe rock spike (paths 1 and 3). The best way to deal with this was to be inside alpha’s character model, as it either negated or reduced the amount of times you would be hit by the attack.
2. dragon’s tooth (paths 1 and 2). Alpha applies burning in an aoe around him, and drops a dragon’s tooth on all player entities a certain distance away from him. It’s easy enough to walk out of the dragon’s tooth, but it’s also easy to avoid spawning them by fighting him at close range. This does require you to clear the burning.
3. Ice AOE (paths 2 and 3). Alpha creates a circle on each player entity that deals damage and applies bleed after a short amount of time. If you are in the exact center of this circle, it won’t deal damage to you. When this attack spawns, you will be in the exact center, but if you move at all the attack will hit you. The circles are also quite large, so it’s very easy to be standing on the overlap of a circle spawned on an ally. The best solution for this attack is to dodge it.
4. Alpha’s fingers (2nd and 3rd encounters, all paths). Alpha spawns tentacle things that deal high damage at close range. The best way to deal with these is to avoid standing close to them and to attack them with AOE’s while downing alpha. As a side, these can be killed to rally off of when you are downed.
5. Crystal Prison (2nd and 3rd encounters, all paths). Alpha locks one player into a crystal cage. This attack can actually be dodged. The problem with that is that you only have a limited number of dodges, and if you use one to avoid a crystal you will probably go down to the ice aoe. If you have a teleport, you can use it to escape the prison. It will also break on its own after a certain amount of time. The best way, though, is to have your allies break it for you. The easiest way to do that is if everyone is cleaving in melee. The prison will be gone almost as soon as it spawns.
6. Essence heal (3rd encounter, all paths). Alpha spawns essences that quickly move to him and heal him. If you manage to kill them, they won’t heal him, though this is almost impossible. It can sometimes be done if everyone is doing crazy high damage, but otherwise it’s just a mechanic to stop people from being able to solo the path.

And so, the best way to deal with almost all of his abilities is to be attacking him in melee range. This also has the benefit of group sharing buffs and condi cleanses. Also, if you go down and you’re at range, alpha will finish you before your allies can get to you. But if you’re all in melee, then 4 of your allies can res you immediately, and get you back up before his next attack. As an added benefit, melee damage is higher so he dies more quickly.

So after a while, it became apparent that the best way to fight alpha was for everyone to get up in his face. But he’s a pretty scary guy, and it’s hard to convince pugs to do this for their own safety. People are also not perfect with motor controls, so they would sometimes break stack and die, and there’s nothing you can really do to help someone who goes down outside of melee range on alpha. And I’ve been typing this out for a little over ten minutes, I can’t really communicate all this information in the middle of a dungeon every time I’m in a group with someone new.

That’s where the beauty of stacking comes in. You can tell someone to stack in a corner and dodge into it. They won’t break stack, and they’ll be in melee range, and you can keep them alive and clear the path. They don’t even have to know why what they’re doing is optimal, which would take forever to explain and practice, and they can focus on learning one thing at a time, like dodging his ice AOE.

There’s a lot going on with the alpha fight, too much to explain to an inexperienced player in the middle of the run, but all that info can be communicated by having them stack. That’s why people do it. The fact that you thought nothing was going on is evidence that this technique, which was developed over months, is effective.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Pleurodesed.7625:

“Well then, there’s no way we all pile up at the console part with all the golems exploding into rings of fire”. Nope! all piled up at the console killing the golems too fast for them to explode.

And how do you think you’re supposed to do this part? Let the golems explode so that you never finish the action?

Pleurodesed.7625:

Then everyone timed the console so it glitched and skipped the remaining waves at the same time.

It didn’t glitch. It was designed this way. And I’m pretty confident Anet intended for this part to be done this way. They could EASILY have not let you pass unless all golems are dead — but they didn’t.

We did this part with one person channeling in stealth, 3 people distracting the main golem army and me (the 5th person) interrupting (!) the few golems that came close enough to start their bomb skill animation.

It was great fun!

Interesting. (I’m still pretty sure you’re intended to destroy the mini-golems .. that’s why they’re build with super low health.)

In you liked doing the fight that way… you might also enjoy kiting the gravelings in AC — Colossus Rumbulus path — instead of destroying burrows as they appear (the part where Tzark is making you into ghosts).

Arkimedes.8730:

snip

You mislabeled the earth aoe as ice aoe and didn’t describe the ice aoe at all.

Sounds like you got some great pug runs, try your luck at the pug roulette again, who knows?

Being primary WvW. When I swapped and did (still do) PvE for dungeon skins. I can tell you I was in your boat. However, 9 billion dungeons later all the dancing around and doing “neat” stuff gets boring. I just want to rush through it and get my tokens and get back with my life. For many other the dungeon is just a grind for whatever else they need, they do it so they can do other things or just pve more.

Also stop using Clerics, PvT, or cond gear in PvE. They all work, but “tank” gear promotes less active playing. I could do PvT banner regen warrior and eat almost ever bosses attack, but it’s going to take me like 9 years to kill a boss.

I just made this thread in the hopes the devs get some feedback and perhaps change a few things so stacking isn’t possible anymore.

Well, I don’t know if you’re going to get that, exactly.

But, if it helps:
There’s some word of god on the Edge of the Mists forum about acknowledging people’s general zerging tendencies and hoping certain features of the map will help combat it. Strictly speaking Zerging isn’t Stacking, but I can’t imagine why any anti-clumping discourse wouldn’t also ring true for it too. So, they seem to know clumping up is a problem, and they’re trying to see what can fix it.

Sorry, I couldn’t seem to find more information more directly related.
And I know that doesn’t really help with making a person’s day-to-day dungeon experience any less cringeworthy. But it’s nice to know their attitude is (probably) in the right place.

Even though stacking helps avoid loads of attacks and makes reflects/boon sharing a lot easier? as well as the enemies being easily accessible too. Not to mention line of sight. Personally if i’m running with guildies or sometimes even pugs i will go non stack a boss dodge rolling around the floor. E.g in coe p1 i might screw up alpha because its fun using dodgerolls + blinding blade with perma vigor to avoid all the attacks even the spikes and firey hand of doom. You can also do it in AC. Basically stacking is very important and it helps a lot. for things like FGS especially (fiery great sword)

Subject Alpha is as easy from range than from melee.
The problem with the lack of trinity on certain bosses is that from range most of your dps will be lost.

Since the lack of trinity and the PvP balance, bosses have bazillions HP and superspeed….with each of their Attacks oneshotting even tanky builds (you can evade them losing dps).

And that would be cool if they didn t put HP regen on top of that…(last Alpha) just to be sure anything but zerker will have a bad time….

That result in the difference between a 20 second fight and a 20 min fight….and its totally unreasonable if you add the fact that melee has even less risk.

Finally the added grinding require people to be efficient to get the gold they need ….. (500+ golds for an ascended light armorset to play fractal 50 for ex).

Starting removing each dps check in the game would be a good start but seems instead they add more and more…(thaumanova reactor…. -.-).

Funny to see one or two of these threads every week.

Also funny that this ‘action oriented, dynamic fight system’ became a stack fest damaging foes and ‘hard’ bosses clear them out. I am sure this wasn’t intended by Anet and it’s funny how their system gets kittened up.

It’s more fun than spending 5 times as long to finish fights in a dungeon that you’ve already done 1000 times.

I understand the complaint. Those fights and the chaos of not knowing what to do were a great fun. But that doesn’t last much for most people.

BUT if you still wanna run dungeons “the old way” you can post a LFG no stacking/skipping.
Dungeon experience would be better for everyone if people ran with like-minded people instead of joining any party.

Here some fixes:
-increase rewards greatly, add ascended drop chances significantly
-make dungeons harder
-don’t allow stacking, add interesting new mechanics to bosses

Anet created stacking when they eliminated the ability to spawn while players were in combat. Forcing quick kills and rezzing.

Stacking is older than WP rushing.

StackWars2

notabot.3497:

Stacking is older than WP rushing.

Then they certainly help promote stacking don’t they.

zerotwo.4731:

notabot.3497:

Stacking is older than WP rushing.

Then they certainly help promote stacking don’t they.

In GW1 we had guys pulling entire areas into a tight little ball allowing the group to single rotation spike the entire pile. The dungeon “exploits” in this game are mild in comparison.

Simply put, the current dungeon mechanics are too shallow and unrewarding to be considered ‘fun’ to many people, so they just use whatever methods are at their disposal to get in and get out. There’s no reason to stick around for the ride when you’re going to reach the same destination regardless of how much time it takes.

I picked up Guild Wars 2 within the first week or two of its release, and back then, I used to play with a group of 5 friends. we ran a number of dungeons as the designers had initially intended for them to be run (without stacking, utilizing tactics, and learning to work together). I LOVED the dungeons. Sure, they sometimes took awhile to complete, and we died frequently, but there was this amazing satisfaction following every completed dungeon.

After a 4-6 month hiatus from the game (maybe even longer!), I decided to try my hand at the LFG system for the first time. I stayed away from any that demanded experienced players, despite being lvl 80, because I knew I was rusty on the game mechanics. The first and second group I joined ran into a corner just before engaging the Spider Queen while saying one word: “Stack.” I requested some clarification (not having heard of this before), but never received any response. I was promptly booted from two groups following two wipes (I was using dodge maneuvers to get away from the boss, wondering why they had chosen such a tight area to engage her in). The third group just booted me when I asked them what “stack” meant. I FINALLY decided to ask my guildmates for a hand, and they promptly took me on a run, while inadvertantly teaching me the meaning of stacking. The run was quick, efficient, and entirely unfulfilling.

Here’s what I have concluded:

Stacking is just DULL. It takes all the fun out of the game, and doesn’t help me to figure out how I can best alter my character, equipment, or playstyle for both PvE and WvW. There’s nothing fun about running a dungeon when it’s about standing in a corner. I completely agree with the original poster on this point.

I DO, however, see the benefits in stacking, if your sole goal is to run as many dungeons as fast as possible. Hell, I’d easily do it again, if I’m just trying to farm the dungeon for something in particular.

Since my typical goal is to have fun with the game, and I enjoy a good challenge, I’d much rather not engage in stacking. The only real frustration, as I experienced it, was in the attitudes given by other gamers. I think I’ll try advertising a “no stacking” dungeon run in the next night or two, and see how things go.

chasewystone.2918:

we ran a number of dungeons as the designers had initially intended for them to be run (without stacking, utilizing tactics, and learning to work together). I LOVED the dungeons. Sure, they sometimes took awhile to complete, and we died frequently, but there was this amazing satisfaction following every completed dungeon.

You make a lot of assumptions about what the designers did and did not intend that I do not think are safe assumptions. It’s fine if you don’t enjoy stacking or LoSing because you can make your own groups and have fun that way, but it’s certainly not fine to divine that you know what was intended or not insofar as the game’s design. It is easy for designers to build fight arenas and enemy mobs where stacking is not possible, and indeed they have done so in many cases. That they haven’t elsewhere suggests that perhaps the choice being the players’ was the intent.

@chasewystone

1) You’ve based your conclusion on a single encounter.
2) You’ve generalized the entire dungeon based on a single mini boss – the dungeon itself is not “all about standing in a corner”.
3) Please go do HOTW p1 and stack ’n smack for the last boss. Also TA up the second to last boss. Also mossman. Also imbued shaman. Also archdiviner. Send me those videos and tell me again about “just standing in a corner”.

Please do more then a single dungeon before making sweeping generalizations about endgame pve.

Stacking is not about fun. Neither are dungeons. Dungeons are about fast and easy runs and so is stacking.

I wasn’t making any assumptions or generalizations regarding other dungeons. I was just explaining my personal experience with the one dungeon I did stack in. I’m also not saying that stacking is horrible or anything of the sort. It’s not my preferred playstyle, is all.

And I didn’t make assumptions regarding dungeon design. I enjoy watching and reading up on video games, as a whole, and happened across a video interview between IGN and Kevin Miller regarding dungeons (published Aug 2012). It was a specific interview done while showing off Twilight Arbor.

And I do have fun running dungeons. To each their own… but I think it’s important to understand that everyone enjoys different things about any MMO.