Guild Wars 2

Going to make all CoE groups “Melee-only”. Why? Anyone with Alpha exp knows, if you res a person out of melee range, you might as well sign your death wish. 1 hit AOE, combined with crystals that freeze you = Melee only way to go.

CoF path1? You already know its Melee only with 1 mesmer

Fractals? You best believe it. Look on gw2lfg already, you see Perfer Guard/War or Heavy pls.

TA? You think im going to risk dying and being kicked for failing on a light armor? Sorry, heavy has more armor aka more chance to live.

WHY HEAVY THOUGH? Tanky Dps. All other classes must decide either support or DPS.Heavy classes can melee, do support and DPS at once. Overall balanced.

…

Well, good luck to you, then.

I still don’t get it. Heavy armour proffesions get 7% less damage than medium and 15% less than light armour proffessions. It certainly doesn’t make them invincible.

And the light armor professions have options to, I dunno heal that 15% damage up or straight up avoid the damage…. but hey your choice. Have fun with that.

its more due to if melee falls downed, i am 1 inch from them to pick them up. when i start kiting around the whole map for casters, im open to more damage and i just spend time running around like a headless chicken instead of dpsing

You don’t need heavies for Alpha. You just need to be close to him. Alpha doesn’t have any actual melee swings, and all of his damage is avoidable. It’s just easier when you’re in melee range.

haviz.1340:

I still don’t get it. Heavy armour proffesions get 7% less damage than medium and 15% less than light armour proffessions. It certainly doesn’t make them invincible.

True, but they did give the heavy classes the best dungeon kits out of all the other classes. Best skill set and traits are moreso the reason, it just happens to be that they’re heavy that makes it a bonus, but I’m sure you’re already aware of it and just wanted to nitpick his inaccurate reasoning for why he wants heavy only.

JJBigs.8456:

its more due to if melee falls downed, i am 1 inch from them to pick them up. when i start kiting around the whole map for casters, im open to more damage and i just spend time running around like a headless chicken instead of dpsing

Ranged can be at 0 range…… There are only a few weapons for classes that get penalized for being at that range like mesmer greatsword. Doesn’t matter if an elementalist is using a staff and is at 0 range or at 1200…. And said mesmer can and would normally switch to another weapon set for being in melee. But I’m sure you knew that too.

JJBigs.8456:

TA? You think im going to risk dying and being kicked for failing on a light armor? Sorry, heavy has more armor aka more chance to live.

I’ve actually done better in groups that brought along two conditions necros and a mesmer as opposed to four warriors and a guardian. If you’re dying so much there on a light class that your group is going to kick you for it? Well, learn where your dodge button is. Learn the safe spots. Rally off flowers. Run your stun breakers if your group wants to skip trash. Figure out which courtier in a mob to target first.

I’d rather run with a mixed group, ESPECIALLY a conditions necro, for TA than all warriors and guardians. Not everyone runs the same DPS build or shout build or can do their job with any ounce of coherence. Seems more to me like someone wants to be carried instead of working with his group to get the job done.

I think that this is a silly idea. What you’re describing is someone who doesn’t know how to dodge or stay alive. Just because someone is a light character doesn’t mean they’re going to die all the time. If you know the dungeon, you should be fine. I’ve run TA on light, medium, and heavy. My favorite one was actually my mesmer, with all the condi removal and stealth, it was so easy.
This is a very closed minded view, but best of luck to you. I think you’re going to lose a lot of the benefits that a mesmer or necro can bring to your group, not to mention the combo fields that eles put everywhere.

It pains me that pre patch on more than one occasion I was the last person alive at alpha kiting him until the team returns only to do it again on the same breath 5 mins later (glass cannon mes) . It’s not about taking people that can survive longer on their gear its having people that use skill and experience to conquer dungeons.

In addition to Raif.9507 said, most professions generally have melee options that might be better if traited properly*.

For instance,

Mesmers: Main-Hand Sword
Elementalists: Dagger/Dagger
Necromancer: Dagger

Engineers: Bombs or Wrench
Ranger: Greatsword
Thief: Daggers or Swords

* = Note that I haven’t played every profession to 80 so whether that’s wholly true or not would depend solely on those who play those professions, and how skilled they are in playing them. Who knows! Maybe their ranged attacks are actually better in melee range than actual melee skills. In addition, I didn’t account for survivability as that would be mostly based on the skill of the player-- assuming: the player knows how to actually dodge out of stuff that could potentially one-shot them.

But the point is that there isn’t any dedicated-melee or dedicated-ranged profession. I do know, however, that I tend to switch to whatever weapon seems desireable for either melee or range.

With that said, I think restricting to melee-only is a pretty narrow way to look at your runs. Before joining a heavily active guild, I pugged a lot, and had some great all-melee groups and not-so-great all-melee groups. I also have had great groups where there were no heavy armor wearers and we did fine. When it comes to pugs, you definitely need some patience to deal with them.

I took you way too seriously in another post, now that I see this one, I guess I was thinking too much.

I guess i shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow I still am; even after almost 7.5 years of MMO gaming, I still can’t get it through my head how people can be so bad at video games.

A good thief destroys alpha better than any other class IMO.

Infiltrator’s Strike Yeeeeeeeeeeeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did fotm level 30 with 4 warriors two days ago and it was one of the ******* groups i got. Not because they were all noobs but because they were forced to use rifles if they don’t want to die which means no aoe and was a joke against fire shaman/urban battlefield/ice level. I was the only one balling up enemies and running shatter on mesmer and after multiple wipes the only thing i heard 2 of them saying is ‘if our mesmer was a warrior we would’ve steamrolled this’ lol yeah the whole team consists of warriors and its the mesmers fault….

@OP one word, clueless

Nuka Cola.8520:

I did fotm level 30 with 4 warriors two days ago and it was one of the ******* groups i got. Not because they were all noobs but because they were forced to use rifles if they don’t want to die which means no aoe and was a joke against fire shaman/urban battlefield/ice level. I was the only one balling up enemies and running shatter on mesmer and after multiple wipes the only thing i heard 2 of them saying is ‘if our mesmer was a warrior we would’ve steamrolled this’ lol yeah the whole team consists of warriors and its the mesmers fault….

Did it about a month back with 5 warriors, went hilariously smooth with us melee’ing a good bit of the fights. Everything just melted (this was lvl 26 or 30 fractal, cant remember)

people may need to change their spec/gear if they are having trouble staying alive and used to be happy dying over and over and wp zerging. I’ve seen plenty of bad guardians and warriors that die quicker than any caster

Always funny to see these kinds of posts. It’s invariably the scrubs that don’t know how to play that make them as well. In all my time doing CoE I don’t think I’ve seen a single person have to run back more than once per encounter with Subject Alpha, with the vast majority (80%+) with no deaths at all, maybe 1 or 2 downed. And in CoF it’s always the zerker warriors that die because they don’t have the brains to move from damage. In fractals I almost groan if I see more than 1 warrior, as I know this is going to be a run full of deaths. Gief a guardian, and the rest thieves/necros/eles and I’ll be a happy bunny.

So enjoy your heavy only groups, I’ll be doing much better with a more mixed group.

Show me a pug that shuns professions based on their armor class alone and I’ll show you a terrible group.

so you are telling me, those ‘heavy’ melee that i revive all the time with my melee ‘light’ are somehow better for the group? akward

On the otherhand, I would rather recruit a Ranger for CoE than another DPS warrior.

Ranger with drake pet and healing spring = tons of healing.

If you were to bring competent heavies, then sure that would probably work fine. But it seems your premise is that heavy armor = staying alive. Building your group on that premise is probably going to fail you hard. I have as much survivability on my warrior as I know how to get, but if I stand there thinking, “ZOMG INVINCIBLE” I die in about two seconds to spike damage. Have fun with that.

Have fun with that. I can solo Alpha on my Thief if I’m forced to by incompetent heavies spamming every cooldown and getting burned to death or missing dodges.

Just saying – heavy armor does not equal competence/skill/survivability. If you’re an idiot, you die. Simple as that.

That’s okay buddy, you go full elitist and gimp yourself at the same time. I run CoE every day and I honestly fail more with the full CoF edgelord warriors who will probably swap to the next fotm class and suck at it too when the next balance patch hits than the people who actually know how to play their class.

I would also like to point out that this thread is from someone who finds kholer too hard. I am not at all surprised that the same people who can’t run AC after doing it many times (fool me once etc) are the same posting incredibly elitist and close-minded requests on gw2lfg.com for warriors only in difficult dungeons like CoE, and especially dungeons that aren’t cof 1.

I also won’t be surprised if we see a thread out of jjbigs in a day or two: “Crucible of Eternity is too hard; we died on alpha too many times because nobody knew how to dodge or play their class, please nerf.”

JJBigs.8456:

Going to make all CoE groups “Melee-only”. Why? Anyone with Alpha exp knows, if you res a person out of melee range, you might as well sign your death wish. 1 hit AOE, combined with crystals that freeze you = Melee only way to go.

No, there is no need… 0 need for that.
The 1 hit AoE can be dodge if you time it right.
Mesmers and Thiefs can get out of the cristals….
Even if you have a ranger hitting ranged, if he gets cristalized, just go there and break the crystal… Sure its more work but also possible.
Btw the boss jumps before casting the crystal prison, so its also dodgeble

JJBigs.8456:

CoF path1? You already know its Melee only with 1 mesmer

Well for the fastest speedrun? yes.
You can do that in under 12 min with any setup, i’m being generous on the 12 min mark… that’s the easiest path in the whole game…

JJBigs.8456:

Fractals? You best believe it. Look on gw2lfg already, you see Perfer Guard/War or Heavy pls.

You can do Fractal with any setup. ANY.
Now in truth a guardian do help alot.

JJBigs.8456:

TA? You think im going to risk dying and being kicked for failing on a light armor? Sorry, heavy has more armor aka more chance to live.

Its also possible, TA is not hard. You don’t need to be a warr to live through a run.

JJBigs.8456:

WHY HEAVY THOUGH? Tanky Dps. All other classes must decide either support or DPS.Heavy classes can melee, do support and DPS at once. Overall balanced.

Wrong. SO wrong.

Warriors and Guardians are baby mode in PvE, I agree in that regard.
Now saying that these are the only viable classes? please…

Also the only place in the game thats a DPS check, its arah path 4
I did it, with 1 warr, 1 ranger, 1 elem, 2 thiefs…

Your point is?

Two Guardians supporting Three Warriors will get you through most encounters for sure. The synergy between these two classes is just… the bees’ knees.

I’m sorry but this just goes to show how up them self’s some guards and warriors are, I’m a mesmer and I see these so called super guards and warriors go down time and time again on Volcano because they think a shield will protect them from everything and forget how the boss works, that’s if they even know what a shield is, believe me some don’t.

Not all heavy class players are great, I’ve done fractals at high levels with all ranged light/medium and in faster time than a mostly heavy group. Did one the other day with 3 mesmers (lots of alts and time warp, very fast fractals) but i wouldn’t go in a group looking for only mesmers :P

Point is every class has its own way of contributing to different situations. A balanced group of classes works just fine.

I don’t know the Subject Alpha encounter, so perhaps there the group is constrained to a very small area when fighting?

But what I do know is this: the entire trick to rezzing downed or even defeated teammates is this:

1. If you know or even suspect the boss has aggro on you, then move away from the downed/defeated person to body pull the boss away from that person too.

2. Meanwhile, if you know that the boss isn’t aggroed on you at the moment, run to the downed player and start rezzing.

3. When the boss notices you and obviously starts heading towards you because you’re rezzing, then dodge away from the downed player and now it’s your turn to body pull the boss away from the downed player.

Look: it’s incredibly simple to explain this mechanic to noobs. You don’t have to rez a player in one go. You can chip away at it 10- or 20- or 30 percent at a time. Boss finally notices you’re rezzing someone? STOP REZZING and move the kitten away from the downed person.

My team does this in Fractals all the time and we routinely get even fully defeated players back into the fight with NO problem and NO multiple downs.

Here’s how it goes:

“downed”
“I’ll get him” (other 3 keep pew-pewing on boss)
“he’s on me now” (dodges away)
“I’ll get him” (other three keep pew-pewing)
“he’s on me now” (dodges away)
“I’ll get him”….. and so on.
“I’m up” (all 5 on boss now)

@shaktiboi i agree it’s pretty simple play, like you I can rez players easy, even easier if using spykits, guess some people just aren’t as good as they think they are :P

Lost count of how many times I’ve run into melee range and tanked a boss or used spykit standing on the boss to revive these great heavies :P

As a thief who usually wants to melee, on Subject Alpha, I find I survive more easily just being as far away as possible from everyone else. Short bow DPS, dodge the ground AoE, walk out of the other ranged attacks (plenty of time) and Steal out of Crystal Imprisonment.

Funny, I’m also the one who usually requires the less babysitting in that encounter. The only times I die is when someone else runs to me and makes it so I have no where to run to or dodge to or when I simply fall asleep because the pattern to the encounter is way to easy.

BlackestKnight.1278:

As a thief who usually wants to melee, on Subject Alpha, I find I survive more easily just being as far away as possible from everyone else. Short bow DPS, dodge the ground AoE, walk out of the other ranged attacks (plenty of time) and Steal out of Crystal Imprisonment.

Funny, I’m also the one who usually requires the less babysitting in that encounter. The only times I die is when someone else runs to me and makes it so I have no where to run to or dodge to or when I simply fall asleep because the pattern to the encounter is way to easy.

I do the exact opposite on both paths where he uses the fire AoE. I run right up to him with S/D and keep cleansing and regenerating, only dodging/using FS when he does his ground AoE and I’m not close enough. I keep Infiltrator’s Strike up to port out whenever he tries to put me in a crystal, with Shadowstep and Steal on backup. If I didn’t fall asleep in the dull, unchanging pattern, I’d probably be inclined to run it solo from 100% HP one day to prove people wrong when they cry about how “hard” he is.

On path 3, where he uses ice and earth, I don’t even need to be awake to do that.

Put it this way: If you have access to teleport skills (or you just learn how to dodge the crystal every single time without failure), Subject Alpha should be a cakewalk, only impeded by your ability to remain awake.

shaktiboi.5194:

I don’t know the Subject Alpha encounter, so perhaps there the group is constrained to a very small area when fighting?

No the problem with the alpha fight is about every 5 – 10 seconds he will put a circle around every player regardless of where they standing , and if your anything less than tanky it will generally one shot you . if you are in mele range of this boss he will not use his aoe circles on you only another couple making people downing in mele range of you/boss easy to pickup , anything else is suicidal at least

Booler.6598:

shaktiboi.5194:

I don’t know the Subject Alpha encounter, so perhaps there the group is constrained to a very small area when fighting?

No the problem with the alpha fight is about every 5 – 10 seconds he will put a circle around every player regardless of where they standing , and if your anything less than tanky it will generally one shot you . if you are in mele range of this boss he will not use his aoe circles on you only another couple making people downing in mele range of you/boss easy to pickup , anything else is suicidal at least

Alternatively, everybody can casually walk out of the circles and keep on hitting the boss with whatever they like. That kinda works too.

From my POV at CoE is: I can take whatever class wish to join if (and after yesterday only if) the guy will be able to dodge SAs attacks. I don’t care if he uses ranged weapon or not, all I want him to do is to stay close to SA so he could be helped without hassle (and he could help others without hassle).

So the lesson I learned is: Observe how people in group do in first two or three encounters (in case of SA, 1st fight with him), leave if they have no clue / don’t listen.
Above is based on my terrible PUG experience yesterday. Silent group which didn’t uderstood that being spread all over the SAs room basically means that u’re asking for wipe (if I didn’t need other guy to get me out of prison when it happens, I would probably try to solo SA and dont give a funk about rest of group). Not to say it was 1st time I saw someone consistently tried to walk out from circles instead of dodging them (didn’t work most of time)

DancingPenguins.9875:

Booler.6598:

shaktiboi.5194:

I don’t know the Subject Alpha encounter, so perhaps there the group is constrained to a very small area when fighting?

No the problem with the alpha fight is about every 5 – 10 seconds he will put a circle around every player regardless of where they standing , and if your anything less than tanky it will generally one shot you . if you are in mele range of this boss he will not use his aoe circles on you only another couple making people downing in mele range of you/boss easy to pickup , anything else is suicidal at least

Alternatively, everybody can casually walk out of the circles and keep on hitting the boss with whatever they like. That kinda works too.

Yea, only problem of this approach is, if you fail once u get downed. Some else who is not close to you have to run to you to ress you. In the time he needs to reach you, you already have another AoE above you so u’re probably dead (or if he insist on ressing ya, he gets downed too). Same goes for prisons, if group is spread, everyone just wastes so much precious time to run to prison and then smash it (sure, range specced characters can break it from distance, but you don’t meet many ranged specced toons.

Above said can be negated if everyone stays in close range of SA doing whatever they usually do. AoEs / Cleaves break prisons fast. No prob ressing, because everbody is in ress range.

pEEtrs.4320:

DancingPenguins.9875:

Booler.6598:

shaktiboi.5194:

I don’t know the Subject Alpha encounter, so perhaps there the group is constrained to a very small area when fighting?

No the problem with the alpha fight is about every 5 – 10 seconds he will put a circle around every player regardless of where they standing , and if your anything less than tanky it will generally one shot you . if you are in mele range of this boss he will not use his aoe circles on you only another couple making people downing in mele range of you/boss easy to pickup , anything else is suicidal at least

Alternatively, everybody can casually walk out of the circles and keep on hitting the boss with whatever they like. That kinda works too.

Yea, only problem of this approach is, if you fail once u get downed. Some else who is not close to you have to run to you to ress you. In the time he needs to reach you, you already have another AoE above you so u’re probably dead (or if he insist on ressing ya, he gets downed too). Same goes for prisons, if group is spread, everyone just wastes so much precious time to run to prison and then smash it (sure, range specced characters can break it from distance, but you don’t meet many ranged specced toons.

Above said can be negated if everyone stays in close range of SA doing whatever they usually do. AoEs / Cleaves break prisons fast. No prob ressing, because everbody is in ress range.

It’s a huge fiery thing hanging above you for a few seconds, it’s not hard to move out of. Subject Alpha is not a hard fight in any possible definition of the word, whether you do it ranged or melee.

Vayra.3290:

pEEtrs.4320:

DancingPenguins.9875:

Booler.6598:

shaktiboi.5194:

I don’t know the Subject Alpha encounter, so perhaps there the group is constrained to a very small area when fighting?

No the problem with the alpha fight is about every 5 – 10 seconds he will put a circle around every player regardless of where they standing , and if your anything less than tanky it will generally one shot you . if you are in mele range of this boss he will not use his aoe circles on you only another couple making people downing in mele range of you/boss easy to pickup , anything else is suicidal at least

Alternatively, everybody can casually walk out of the circles and keep on hitting the boss with whatever they like. That kinda works too.

Yea, only problem of this approach is, if you fail once u get downed. Some else who is not close to you have to run to you to ress you. In the time he needs to reach you, you already have another AoE above you so u’re probably dead (or if he insist on ressing ya, he gets downed too). Same goes for prisons, if group is spread, everyone just wastes so much precious time to run to prison and then smash it (sure, range specced characters can break it from distance, but you don’t meet many ranged specced toons.

Above said can be negated if everyone stays in close range of SA doing whatever they usually do. AoEs / Cleaves break prisons fast. No prob ressing, because everbody is in ress range.

It’s a huge fiery thing hanging above you for a few seconds, it’s not hard to move out of. Subject Alpha is not a hard fight in any possible definition of the word, whether you do it ranged or melee.

Alright, I though you were talking about the ice thing. I don’t count the fire one as dangerous nor the earth one
Problematic is the ice AoE and my reply is aimed at that AoE, it’s much easier to do it if every just stay close to each other, not to mention that AoE are in one place instead of around whole room. Unfortunately quite lot of people just isn’t able to do the dodges (still bothers my mind how hard it can be to count one-two in your head and press dodge on three).

It’s not even a one-hit-k.o. unless you are a full glass cannon or wearing greens. I can tank three of the things in my fully equipped Knight’s gear and that’s not even with protection up. 3 Classes out of 8 can move out of one incoming AoE when downed. Mesmer can distortion-ress or cast illusion of life ( which is instant ), ranger thieves and warriors can quickness-ress. Guardians can block with focus and f3 + retreat allows them and the downed guy to soak up two hits without taking any dmg. And people shouldn’t be going down often in the first place. Alpha’s quite easy once you learn his move set.

And even if the fight is better done meleeing, which can be argued, what’s the problem with that? Many other fights are better fought from far away.

In the end…WHY? Becaus u are unlucky or ur getting bad groups or ur unskilled urself…There is no difference between all plates and all clothes.As a fact it is possible to run TA (up,up path) within 25 min in a full cloth party…trust me.Also I play a necro…And I am clothie squishy and stuff w/e u say but i would never trade of my cc for any warr in any party.ESP 31 sec OF BLIND.So get ur tactics up and quit whining lol

Zara.9524:

In the end…WHY? Becaus u are unlucky or ur getting bad groups or ur unskilled urself…There is no difference between all plates and all clothes.As a fact it is possible to run TA (up,up path) within 25 min in a full cloth party…trust me.Also I play a necro…And I am clothie squishy and stuff w/e u say but i would never trade of my cc for any warr in any party.ESP 31 sec OF BLIND.So get ur tactics up and quit whining lol

There is a difference, the heavy’s have better Dungeon kits for the fastest, most efficient, cleanest runs possible. It’s sad but it’s true.

Warriors put out the most DPS.
Guardians have stability, blocks, heals, reflects, stacking mobs.

When you learn to do clean and fast dungeons, you’ll realize that Guardians/Warriors are in every single efficient party. The only other class that has ease with stacking mobs are with mesmers (which 90% of the ones i run with in pugs dont even know they have a pull that stacks mobs). The only other way for every class to stack mobs properly is through LOS’ing or very careful management of knockbacks.

Dungeon Class Tier (for fastest, efficient, clean/smooth runs):
1st Tier – Warrior / Guardian / Mesmer
2nd Tier – Thief, Engi, Ele
3rd Tier – Ranger, Necro

Not to keen on warriors in my groups, too many glass cannon warriors fail at dodging while meleeing.

- guardian

Folk.2093:

Not to keen on warriors in my groups, too many glass cannon warriors fail at dodging while meleeing.

- guardian

I agree, but once you’ve learned encounters and able to dodge, they will be at the top of the dungeon food chain

- guardian/warrior/mesmer/necro/engineer/ele/ranger (all have over 100 hours played each)

There is a difference, the heavy’s have better Dungeon kits for the fastest, most efficient, cleanest runs possible. It’s sad but it’s true.

Warriors put out the most DPS.
Guardians have stability, blocks, heals, reflects, stacking mobs.

When you learn to do clean and fast dungeons, you’ll realize that Guardians/Warriors are in every single efficient party. The only other class that has ease with stacking mobs are with mesmers (which 90% of the ones i run with in pugs dont even know they have a pull that stacks mobs). The only other way for every class to stack mobs properly is through LOS’ing or very careful management of knockbacks.

Dungeon Class Tier (for fastest, efficient, clean/smooth runs):
1st Tier – Warrior / Guardian / Mesmer
2nd Tier – Thief, Engi, Ele
3rd Tier – Ranger, Necro[/quote]

This is what people prefer…So many times i see it fail. 5 heavy classes are nothing than unskilled attempt of carry me please im a whiner.

Reread my post, then reread it again, then reread the heading before the tier list. That list is for the most experienced, fastest clear times, and people who already have mastered the encounters.