Guild Wars 2

Hey folks, I was chatting with some friends in game and the idea came up to make a text or video guide to introduce newer players to the tactics and strategies that are used for optimizing dungeon runs. I’m talking starting from the most basic of the basics here, things like general combat positioning and dodging, LoS pulls, and so forth, into more advanced topics like maximizing damage through trait synergies, skill rotations, and team composition.

Think of it as a primer to get people up to speed so they can better understand the things that are going on if they were to watch dungeon speedrun videos. I’m only in the rough outline stages at this point, so I thought I’d solicit the forum for ideas on what topics would be best to cover in addition to the examples I mentioned above. All comments and ideas welcome!

Gear

• Magic Find gear should probably be avoided; many teammates will be annoyed if they see a Luck sigil beside your portrait

Weapons

• unless you’re a complete super pro, your “dungeon kit” should include a ranged weapon (it doesn’t need to be available on swap, but it should be ready-to-go in your inventory)
• if you’re a Guardian, you must have at least one melee weapon set. If your teammates are in melee combat but you’re fighting at range, then you’re probably doing something wrong.

Cleave

• it’s important to know which weapons cleave and which do not
• many enemy attacks also cleave – “stack here” can be a dangerous proposition

Projectile Reflection

• how it works (reflected projectiles immediately become “friendly” and will collide with the first available enemy – not necessarily the original source of the projectile)
• positioning (usually “closer to the enemy is better” – you see some new Guardians put up a Wall of Reflection halfway between the enemy and the team’s backline, which means that melee fighters won’t benefit from its protection)

Invulnerability frames.

• what they are
• which skills provide them
• how to use them in conjunction with dodges (to minimize damage taken)

Called Targets

• if you have a ranged weapon, always shoot at the called target
• if you’re melee, approach the called target and attack ONLY IF it’s safe to do so (e.g. target is Blind, target is covered by Projectile Reflection field, target is not standing inside a lethal AoE field)
• in general, you should use CC effects to move secondary enemies towards the called target, so that the team’s Cleave and AoE attacks will do more damage
• moving the called target is generally a bad idea (melee fighters will get upset if their big attacks suddenly miss); scattering enemies is usually a bad idea. Do so only when you need to interrupt an attack and have no other alternative

Food

• not mandatory for casual runs
• consider using it if the team wipes or fails a difficult combat encounter – the extra edge may be useful
• some items (tuning crystals, maintenance oils, Skale Venom, etc) can serve as a generic boost; you don’t need to carry the entire spectrum of Slayer potions

Minions and Summons

• sometimes undesirable (e.g. due to random targeting = Maw, or all-target attacks = Alpha, etc)
• try to dismiss/stow/shatter before running through an unfamiliar “skipping” or “puzzle” section for the first time
• minion-heavy builds may be undesirable in some dungeon paths due to unpredictable aggro effects. Consider respeccing if you want to run these paths regularly

all of this^

+ Two sets I always make sure to have on fresh 80’s before I enter a dungeon:

• Knights

• Zerkers

• (condi set for some classes/builds)

Start with knights, once comfortable change to zerkers. Keep knights for kitten times or if that’s just what you’re comfortable in. Try to avoid using PVT sets, they are good training wheels but they aren’t the best for your team and you don’t want to build a reliance on that set. Don’t run magic find. Magic find is for open world content where the only person you are hindering is yourself.

Guardians

Make sure to use your virtues. And as said above, melee is where you belong. Remember that along with your boons and projectile nullification you are a controller. You have ample ways to control mobs and make the run smoother.

• Greatsword (5) aoe pull mobs together. Pulling mobs together for the party’s aoe can make a huge difference to the amount of time it takes to kill mobs.
• Hammer – ring of warding (5). Prevent melee mobs from attacking/ charging.
• Staff – Line of warding. (5) Same deal as hammer ring.
• Shield – shield of absorption (5) Use this logically. Run behind mobs to bump enemies into aoes. Do not use it to scatter mobs out of aoe. This can be exploded for a heal to allies and is also another projectile stopper to be used in between SOA and WOR.
• Focus – Shield of Wrath (5). This is a blast finisher on cast. Try to use it inside combo fields, particularly water.

Defiance

• How this works
• Watch for when it’s down and allow for the correct CC measure to be applied. A good example is subject alpha, where the correct CC applied will allow for him to be feared/pulled or knocked back into a corner making him easier to fight.

Nothing wrong with guardians using scepter/focus and staff as their sets, its safer than melee, provides good group support and with the right build hits hard.

Be careful not to assume that your playstyle is the right way or the only way.

Cameirus.8407:

Nothing wrong with guardians using scepter/focus and staff as their sets, its safer than melee, provides good group support and with the right build hits hard.

Be careful not to assume that your playstyle is the right way or the only way.

Except that Hammer with the right build: is easy to play, brings great support, perma protection, and most importantly: really good damage.

I hit 10k damage on Hammer #2 the other day. My autoattacks hit for 4-5k and the 3rd one for 6-8k usually.

A guardian at range is a bad guardian, and I don’t need them on my teams.

My way might not be the only way to play a guardian, but it’s the most effective one.

For the OP, I wrote a small bit on how Line of Sighting works for my guild a while back, I’ll let you shamelessly copy it if you want:

Line of Sighting: what, how and why?

Line of sighting is an AI feature that is (ab)used by players that want to do stuff faster. It occurs when ranged foes do not have a line of sight, and their attacks are obstructed. As a reaction, they will move themselves the shortest possible distance in order for them to have a clear line of sight and be able to hit you. This means that if your entire party is standing right around a corner, all your casters will run in and stack on the corner. Melee foes obviously run in anyway. This has as a result that you have your entire mob a weaponswing away from you, stacked on top of each other when the technique is used properly. LoS’ing is also convenient on melee only mobs, since it balls them up and places them against a wall, which will prevent them from getting hit out of your melee range (if you’re melee’ing) by something like 100b, or just plain attacks.

There are couple of extra ways to abuse the feature even more. If you have a Guardian present in your team that is either equiping a Hammer or staff, he/she can use Ring or Line of Warding at your LoS location, causing the foes to stack up at the edge. If you’re fighting Whites/Silvers/Veterans, this will even knock them down. If the Ring/Line is timed right, your team will get an extra 2-4 seconds of care-free wailing on the foes before they are able to hit you back. Throw in an AoE blind if you have an ele with you, and some protection from your Guardian’s Hammer, and you’ll barely take any damage at all.

There are a bunch of places where this technique is incredibly useful:
Pretty much any dungeon has at least some spots

Fractals:
Dredge
Ascalon
Grawl
Maw (when farming)

Cameirus.8407:

Nothing wrong with guardians using scepter/focus and staff as their sets, its safer than melee, provides good group support and with the right build hits hard.

Be careful not to assume that your playstyle is the right way or the only way.

I want to quote OP here:

‘Hey folks, I was chatting with some friends in game and the idea came up to make a text or video guide to introduce newer players to the tactics and strategies that are used for optimizing dungeon runs’

What you are saying has no place here, as we are talking about optimization. You cannot optimize by running staff and scepter/focus as your weapon sets.

Cameirus.8407:

Nothing wrong with guardians using scepter/focus and staff as their sets, its safer than melee, provides good group support and with the right build hits hard.

Be careful not to assume that your playstyle is the right way or the only way.

This is to train newer players to not be such kitten so that overall PUG quality improves. A Guardian that stays at range is a worthless teammate. Staff can be nice in the swap slot as well as S/F, but they should never be the primary weapon (with maybe like, 3 exceptions in the entire game).

Everyone else: Great suggestions so far! Swiftpaw, I usually tell people the exact same thing, that if you rely on the training wheels of PVT armor it will make you a bad player, in that you’ll feel comfortable standing still and tanking everything an enemy has to give. Then if you do switch to Knight’s/Zerk, you’ll find yourself taking much more punishment than you should. Not to mention some attacks and AoEs should be avoided regardless even if they don’t hurt, such as the graveling champ in AC that gains evasion when he burrows.

Advert, excellent list. Reflections should probably be covered in their own topic since they’re so important and a large reason why the Tier 1 trinity actually exists.

Yeah I mean the point of this would be how to elevate the game of most PUGs, so if we were going to teach them a way to do things, we should teach them the best way. If you don’t understand what we mean by “best way”, then congrats! This guide is for you!

One thing that I would add would be with respect to downed players – get them up as fast as safely possible.

If downed, calling out a target on a low hp trash mob resulting in a rally can be faster then getting healed.

Also, pet classes should be aware of their pets so as not to cause unwanted pulls or triggers.

Cameirus.8407:

Actually I play hammer….but whatever.

Never claimed it was optimal, but for people to be so shortsighted to think that scepter cannot be viable just speaks of complete lack of knowledge. Its a very good weapon for pve and can be perfectly viable.

The guide is for “newer players” aparantly, not jaded eltitists with myopic view on class and spec. If it was just put in a requirement to be a warrior and have done with it and thats whats optimal.

What would you prefer a new player using a scepter, contributing to the party in both decent dps and utility, or a new player using a hammer and getting downed very 10secs due to being in melee range? There is such a thing as incremental improvemetn and not just jumping in at the deepend, all that does is cause people to drown and I suspect people like yourselves just votekick at any perceived imperfection…..thats not a group for new players, and thats what the OP said the post was for.

And it is elitist to think your way of playign is the only way, I’ve looked at some of the other posts the OP has made….they can be summed up as “I am a god at this game, all inferior people should look up to me”.

No one here has ever stated that melee is the only way to play guardian. It is however, the most efficient. Therefore, that is what will be recommended here, as the aim of the guide is to make people better players. Even you yourself are running a hammer.

Take your aggressive rants elsewhere. No one cares about your personal issues with the OP. If we want to talk about looking at people’s posts, I had a look at yours and it’s the typical carebear crap I expected. ‘oh noes gear inspection is evil!’, calling anyone who doesn’t agree with you an ‘elitist’ and acting like you are this superior human being of open mindedness. Anyone who doesn’t agree with you is just ‘ignorant and arrogant.’ and so on. You pick fights and lash out at people because you think it makes you look like you’re a champion of the poor people who are marginalized by the ‘evil elitists’ who are simply stating the more efficient way to get things done.

You want to fight people, do it in whispers, not in a guide for people who actually want to learn and be good players.

As OP has stated ‘If you don’t understand what we mean by “best way”, then congrats! This guide is for you!’

And yeh, i would prefer he uses the hammer because then he’s actually learning .

Nikaido.3457:

GW2 has the worst community because everything can be achieved even if you play terribly bad, with the lowest dps possible, at range, with 5 staff guardians using full PVT gear and turn a 15 minutes run into a 1 hour long run. This game needs a mechanic akin to “enrage” timers. In MMO with enrage timers if you don’t perform the boss will wipe the group. It exists precisely because you shouldn’t be able to complete content just sitting on the bunkiest build spamming your autoattack and heal at range.

Every single end boss in this game should have it seeing how this community tends to perform.

What GW1 had was more drastic : wipes. If your entire team dies, you are kicked from the instance. That was during release of course, then Anet became soft and allowed players to revive until everyone got 60% Death Penalty and then kick them. But then they introduced items that removed DP from yourself and then from everyone…making some runs last more than 3 hours :/

Another thing in GW2 that is not helping the players is that it’s sometime hard to realize how bad you are. And by “bad” I don’t mean dying from time to time, it can happen. I mean using useless or at least not great weapons/skills, awful positioning and either dodging too much or wondering how you dodge in this game…And when those players who are kind of bad find a good team, they think that everything is fine : monsters are going down, people aren’t dying (too much) but what they don’t know is that the run could be better…

I don’t mean that everyone should be a berserker warrior. Play what fits your playstyle…but honestly, how does using a scepter as a guardian fits any kind of playing style ?
This isn’t a jab at Cameirus. But these days, most guardians I end up with use their scepter with a shield (blowing all monsters away of course) and sometime use their staff…What the hell is up with that ? If you want to play support, bring a hammer and some shouts, but stop throwing blue bubbles at monsters.
Or a Warrior using a riffle all the time : why play a warrior to use a riffle ? I’m sure the engineer can fill your needs.

(And I even want to say that as Ranger you should melee because more damage, but if you play a ranger, it’s probably because you want to shoot some arrows, so I’m letting this one slip).

RedStar.4218:

What GW1 had was more drastic : wipes. If your entire team dies, you are kicked from the instance. That was during release of course, then Anet became soft and allowed players to revive until everyone got 60% Death Penalty and then kick them. But then they introduced items that removed DP from yourself and then from everyone…making some runs last more than 3 hours :/

What the hell are you talking about?

When you wiped in either: story missions, UW/FoW/DoA/Deep/Urgoz and challenge missions, you got kicked out of the instance. That has always been the case.

When you wiped in an explorable area or an EotN dungeon you got revived at your closest activated Resurrection shrine.

If you wiped in HM in an explorable area with a party of 60% DP, THEN you’d get kicked back to the closest town.

Not to mention, DP removal was added LONG before HM or vanquishing was introduced. So your entire argument there is kind of dumb.

The 3 campaigns : wipe = kick
EotN : wipe = ressurect

DP removal might have been added as soon as during the first wintersday, but it become extremely more common when HM and getting kicked for having 60% DP was added…

The entire arugment was that with time Anet decided to slowly give people more chance than “one screw up”.

Why go for “optimal” if the “guide” is for new players……you go for optimal when content it challenging….which takes time to get to.

you dont ask people to become experts at the start. you lead them in with incremental learning and step by step progress.

Jumping in at the deep end before you can swim leads to people drowning, not magically learning to swim on the spot. But thats what you seam to expect….

The simple fact remains that you dont have to use a hammer to be effective, or a GS. if you want to run Scepter/focus, it can work well, and will suit some people’s playstyle.

You seam to be falling into what I consider a fallacy of thinking theorycrafting optimal builds translates into actual gameplay performance. It does not, esp in a game like GW2 where you have no metric to work out actual dps, dmg done, healing, or anythign else, and where reactions and dodges are important and cant be modelled.

You think a player may be better in a hammer build, they may not. Dont assume scepter focus is suboptimal for everyone.

I agree with alot of what the other points of the OP were. But having pre-conceived notions of what a correct build is, is just counter productive to my mind, you are prejuding playing performance on your own preconceived notions, which may nto be correct, no matter what you think.

I get this feeling that it doesn’t matter what I post, you’ll just report it which is pretty immature at this point.

Here’s the thing. If you think s/f staff is such a great idea, then make a post about it. Go make your own thread and share it with everyone, instead of undermining someone else’s on the grounds of ‘oh he’s an elitst!’ and ‘you cant really know! You all make assumptions!’

There’s no preconceived notions, you yourself aren’t even running the build which is testament to it being less effective than the hammer you are using. I have run countless builds, including s/f and staff myself. I don’t theory craft, I actually go on ahead and test it in the dungeon. It is not an optimal build and it in turns garners a reliance on staying at range. For the record I have over 3k hours played and I spend all my times in dungeons from AC to arah to fotm 48 dailies, I do it all and I test everything available to me.

swiftpaw.6397:

I get this feeling that it doesn’t matter what I post, you’ll just report it which is pretty immature at this point.

Here’s the thing. If you think s/f staff is such a great idea, then make a post about it. Go make your own thread and share it with everyone, instead of undermining someone else’s on the grounds of ‘oh he’s an elitst!’ and ‘you cant really know! You all make assumptions!’

There’s no preconceived notions, you yourself aren’t even running the build which is testament to it being less effective than the hammer you are using. I have run countless builds, including s/f and staff myself. I don’t theory craft, I actually go on ahead and test it in the dungeon. It is not an optimal build and it in turns garners a reliance on staying at range. For the record I have over 3k hours played and I spend all my times in dungeons from AC to arah to fotm 48 dailies, I do it all and I test everything available to me.

I’m not running it no, I’d seen others talk about it.

I’m not “undermining” anyone…no more than you are undermining people by disagreeing with them…..I am allowed to have an opinion different to yours.

I make no assumptions, thats kind of the point, you do by stating one build is categorically better than another. It may not be optimal for you, which is fine, but it may well be better for someone else. Playstyle>theorycrafting in almost every situation.

Oh and at the risk of getting moderated again……I assumed you are reporting my posts in as you put it “an immature” way thats why any post even with a totally reasonable tone gets deleted.

Anyway, lets just agree to disagree and leave it there.

You should talk about condition builds. And how they are arent as effective as direct damage. Having multiple people running condition builds is awful due to bleeding cap and so on.

spoj.9672:

You should talk about condition builds. And how they are arent as effective as direct damage. Having multiple people running condition builds is awful due to bleeding cap and so on.

Good point, I’m also a little iffy on this subject because when it comes to ranger ( yes it’s pretty awful vs other claseses in dungeons), but when it comes to using one in a dungeon, I run full zerker on it, but many a time I have been told that condi will yield better dps. Let’s just say, If the ranger is the sole provider of its condi’s in a dungeon, would it be doing better dps than it would straight up zerker? Atm I’ve sided with the outright DPS on this class. Not sure how this would work on a Necro, will he too, get better dps in zerker or condi spec, if he is the sole provider?

Nikaido.3457:

swiftpaw.6397:

Not sure how this would work on a Necro, will he too, get better dps in zerker or condi spec, if he is the sole provider?

Necro definitively have higher dps in full zerker with dagger main hand. It’s just that their dps is mostly single target (like thieves), with just a few decent AoE in the form of wells, if they use dagger.

Ah yes i see. That’s my problem I wrangle with because lets say it’s Fotm 40+. There’s alot of trash mobs with silly HP bars and they are generally clumped together, eg. ascalon, dredge etc. In this case, would the lesser damage of staff/condi actually result in more damage because it’s aoe vs single target? Atm I’m trying to pin down the right build for my bf’s necro in there but I don’t actually play it myself and he’s one of those ‘i don’t really care’ kinda guys.

swiftpaw.6397:

spoj.9672:

You should talk about condition builds. And how they are arent as effective as direct damage. Having multiple people running condition builds is awful due to bleeding cap and so on.

Good point, I’m also a little iffy on this subject because when it comes to ranger ( yes it’s pretty awful vs other claseses in dungeons), but when it comes to using one in a dungeon, I run full zerker on it, but many a time I have been told that condi will yield better dps. Let’s just say, If the ranger is the sole provider of its condi’s in a dungeon, would it be doing better dps than it would straight up zerker? Atm I’ve sided with the outright DPS on this class. Not sure how this would work on a Necro, will he too, get better dps in zerker or condi spec, if he is the sole provider?

Lots of people claim the necro’s hybrid builds yields the best damage. I personally disagree. Ive always found beserker to do much more damage and there is no issue of my condition damage being overwritten by teammates.

Also with a beserker build you can do some very nice burst aoe. Well bombs + axe #3 + DS life transfer. Can also use staff marks on a power build for fairly decent direct damage. You can also boost well damage per tick by placing them and then immediately going into lich form, boosts your power and crit chance by a pretty massive amount. Which makes your well damage pretty much double.

Nikaido.3457:

swiftpaw.6397:

Ah yes i see. That’s my problem I wrangle with because lets say it’s Fotm 40+. There’s alot of trash mobs with silly HP bars and they are generally clumped together, eg. ascalon, dredge etc. In this case, would the lesser damage of staff/condi actually result in more damage because it’s aoe vs single target? Atm I’m trying to pin down the right build for my bf’s necro in there but I don’t actually play it myself and he’s one of those ‘i don’t really care’ kinda guys.

The answer probably lies in the level of dps of your group. My typical fotm group burns the trash so quickly that having only one (and not more) character that is mostly single target wouldn’t be a detriment you’d do more dps focusing on the veterans/stronger mobs of the pack with strong hitting daggers than trying to put conditions on mob that are dying in exactly 2 seconds (and you can still summon wells from time to time). Most dredge mob don’t live long enough for conditions to become comparable to direct damage.

If your group can’t burn down most of these mob quickly, you’d probably gain dps from having an AoE condi necro build versus a zerker necro.

Yeh it’s a tough call since we usually pug and it’s a mixed bag heh. I personally ( dont tell him T_T ) think his Dps is pretty kitten awful atm vs other classes lol. He’s running condi wells from what I gather. When we go with my regular motley crew we burn stuff down fast so I think I will recommend he runs the zerker/single target as you have suggested, and he can go ahead and do condis in the pugs or something. For every other dungeon I have him take his zerk warrior, but for fotm he has to take the necro as it’s his only AR/ high fotm lvl character, so gotta make the most of it

swiftpaw.6397:

Nikaido.3457:

swiftpaw.6397:

Ah yes i see. That’s my problem I wrangle with because lets say it’s Fotm 40+. There’s alot of trash mobs with silly HP bars and they are generally clumped together, eg. ascalon, dredge etc. In this case, would the lesser damage of staff/condi actually result in more damage because it’s aoe vs single target? Atm I’m trying to pin down the right build for my bf’s necro in there but I don’t actually play it myself and he’s one of those ‘i don’t really care’ kinda guys.

The answer probably lies in the level of dps of your group. My typical fotm group burns the trash so quickly that having only one (and not more) character that is mostly single target wouldn’t be a detriment you’d do more dps focusing on the veterans/stronger mobs of the pack with strong hitting daggers than trying to put conditions on mob that are dying in exactly 2 seconds (and you can still summon wells from time to time). Most dredge mob don’t live long enough for conditions to become comparable to direct damage.

If your group can’t burn down most of these mob quickly, you’d probably gain dps from having an AoE condi necro build versus a zerker necro.

Yeh it’s a tough call since we usually pug and it’s a mixed bag heh. I personally ( dont tell him T_T ) think his Dps is pretty kitten awful atm lol. He’s running condi wells from what I gather. When we go with my regular motley crew we burn stuff down fast so I think I will recommend he runs the zerker/single target as you have suggested, and he can go ahead and do condis in the pugs or something. For every other dungeon I have him take his zerk warrior, but for fotm he has to take the necro as it’s his only AR/ high fotm lvl character, so gotta make the most of it

If hes using wells then he should be going beserker anyway. Wells dont have any condition damage component. Necro has strong single target dps as Nikaido said. But they can also be good at aoe burst with the combo i described above. Ive used it on the golems before the lasers on coe and it generally results in us killing them faster. Because it hits most of them whereas the warriors are only cleaving 3 targets at once. Still for overall dps in a dungeon your better off taking a warrior.

spoj.9672:

swiftpaw.6397:

Nikaido.3457:

swiftpaw.6397:

Ah yes i see. That’s my problem I wrangle with because lets say it’s Fotm 40+. There’s alot of trash mobs with silly HP bars and they are generally clumped together, eg. ascalon, dredge etc. In this case, would the lesser damage of staff/condi actually result in more damage because it’s aoe vs single target? Atm I’m trying to pin down the right build for my bf’s necro in there but I don’t actually play it myself and he’s one of those ‘i don’t really care’ kinda guys.

The answer probably lies in the level of dps of your group. My typical fotm group burns the trash so quickly that having only one (and not more) character that is mostly single target wouldn’t be a detriment you’d do more dps focusing on the veterans/stronger mobs of the pack with strong hitting daggers than trying to put conditions on mob that are dying in exactly 2 seconds (and you can still summon wells from time to time). Most dredge mob don’t live long enough for conditions to become comparable to direct damage.

If your group can’t burn down most of these mob quickly, you’d probably gain dps from having an AoE condi necro build versus a zerker necro.

Yeh it’s a tough call since we usually pug and it’s a mixed bag heh. I personally ( dont tell him T_T ) think his Dps is pretty kitten awful atm lol. He’s running condi wells from what I gather. When we go with my regular motley crew we burn stuff down fast so I think I will recommend he runs the zerker/single target as you have suggested, and he can go ahead and do condis in the pugs or something. For every other dungeon I have him take his zerk warrior, but for fotm he has to take the necro as it’s his only AR/ high fotm lvl character, so gotta make the most of it

If hes using wells then he should be going beserker anyway. Wells dont have any condition damage component. Necro has strong single target dps as Nikaido said. But they can also be good at aoe burst with the combo i described above. Ive used it on the golems before the lasers on coe and it generally results in us killing them faster. Because it hits most of them whereas the warriors are only cleaving 3 targets at once. Still for overall dps in a dungeon your better off taking a warrior.

oops sorry im getting wells and marks mixed up, he’s running marks from the staff!

Tell people why you stack at certain points. For example, in AC, it’s become fashionable to stack in that tiny little space between the stairs and a wall before the Spider Queen. You stack there for two reasons:

• It pulls all of the spiderlings directly to you in melee range, instead of letting them bombard your group at range from all directions.
• The spider queen will not use her most dangerous attack (Poison pools) if you are all in melee. (If she did use it, stacking would probably kill you all nigh instantly)

As well, for Colossus Rumblus, one of the more popular stack-tactics is because it’s a blind spot in its most dangerous attack (the collapsing roof) and prevents the knockback on his melee cleaving attack from throwing you into greater danger.

As it is, I just see people yelling ‘stack here’ and for a new player it makes no sense, and screws up your camera so you can’t see what’s going on very well.

Softspoken.2410:

• The spider queen will not use her most dangerous attack (Poison pools) if you are all in melee. (If she did use it, stacking would probably kill you all nigh instantly)

Are you sure about this one ?
We never stack on that spot, but we all fight in melee, and she likes to throw her poison pools at us. Even if there’s only one survivor in melee, she might do it sometime >.>

RedStar.4218:

Softspoken.2410:

• The spider queen will not use her most dangerous attack (Poison pools) if you are all in melee. (If she did use it, stacking would probably kill you all nigh instantly)

Are you sure about this one ?
We never stack on that spot, but we all fight in melee, and she likes to throw her poison pools at us. Even if there’s only one survivor in melee, she might do it sometime >.>

The best strategy is to all stand at range and lure out her poison attack and then all go in melee and facetank her. The problem with the stack spot is that sometimes, she might still use her poison attack there, and because there is no where to retreat, you’re all pretty much screwed.

Killing the spiderlings there is a good strategy, but she’s safer to fight in the open, imo. At least if you use what I proposed as a strategy.

RedStar.4218:

Softspoken.2410:

• The spider queen will not use her most dangerous attack (Poison pools) if you are all in melee. (If she did use it, stacking would probably kill you all nigh instantly)

Are you sure about this one ?
We never stack on that spot, but we all fight in melee, and she likes to throw her poison pools at us. Even if there’s only one survivor in melee, she might do it sometime >.>

I’m talking extreme melee, as in everyone is directly on top and in front of her. It may not be the melee restriction that does it, (Sneaky LoS issue maybe?) but I know that stacking there for some reason prevents the usage of poison pool. I say this because if she did / could use it there, it would wipe every group that tried to stack, every time.

Edit: I’ve had her use the poison attack once out of about eight clears, and that time people spread out and she may have gotten knockback / pulled away from the group further into that back-alley, giving her enough distance to use it. (I can’t see much of anything when we stack, cramped angles and the camera being what they are, so I’m not entirely certain) The group wiped nigh-instantly, as you might expect. We cleared her on the second try just fine.

All in all I am more in favour of clearing the room of spiderlings as quickly as possible, then fighting her openly, since I don’t find her that threatening in a large, open room either. The fight is also more engaging that way, in my opinion. But I mostly PUG, and generally insisting that you fight a boss the normal way in a PUG hasn’t gone over well for me.