Guild Wars 2

Heyh, based on my observation the biggest thing needed for the dungeon community is a general dungeon guide. There are actually quite many concepts which you have to learn to play effectively and I don’t think they are explained very well anywhere.

For pages I have considered this structure:

General page (done)

• What are dungeons and fractals?
• How to gear up / find info (game settings, basic combat)
• How to use lfg (+ sellers)
• Exploiting

Meta (done)

• What meta means and what is the current meta
• Why it works and how it’s used (active def vs. passive def)
• Brief description of professions’ strengths and weaknesses
• Links to gameplay/build guides

Combat (done)

• How to deal damage (melee, damage build, might, vuln, fury)
• Pulling
• Stacking
• Positioning and mobility

Active defense (done)

• Explain reflecting, absorption, dodge, evade, dodgejump, block, immunity, invulnerability, blind, control
• Strengths and weaknesses

Skipping (done)

• Why?
• How to (stacking stealth, swiftness, mobility, teleports, portal)

Combos (done)

• What are they? Overwriting fields?
• Important ones
• Links to stacking video guides

Others (done)

• Combat / out of combat
• NPC aggro
• Linecasting

Glossary (done)

• Terms like meta, zerk, ICD, stack and so on

Now you probably think that lots of those have already been done somewhere. That’s true. I’m going to link to other sources as much as possible to reduce my work and give credit to other people. Current resources:

• GW2 wiki: Descriptions for various stuff
• Finder’s combat guide: http://tinyurl.com/GW2combatguide
• Dungeon forum FAQ for various stuff
• Dulfy / DnT profession guides for professions
• Maybe that new combo guide on reddit (have to check it first)

If you have any ideas for what should be explained or how any resources please let me know.

Also it will be quite a challenge (at least for me) to keep the guide easy to follow and coherent with all resources around. So if you have any ideas how to organize different topics that would be appreciated.

It might be nice to explain how teleports and portals work, and how/where they are used to speed up dungeons. Also, general NPC mechanics, specifically how they teleport to the nearest player when the player they were following leaves or waypoints. Stuff like strafing back and forth to make ranged attacks miss, and which melee attacks can be sidestepped easily, or negated by walking through enemy models, etc.

This might be hard, but… animations for bosses, what they mean, how to deal with them.

E.g. Bloody Victoria periodically goes invisible and does XYZ when she reappears, which is bad enough to want to avoid. You can count to 2 when she vanishes and dodge.

Or.. when Kohler shoves his sword in the air, he’s about to pull you and hurt you. Dodge, or (I think) you can reflect the pull.

Wethospu.6437:

• how to use lfg properly

^ Most important topic to cover :P

Seriously though, you could also cover mob types so that readers know what slaying potions to use and what to expect from different mobs (e.g. oozes split, gravelings bleed etc.)

Also maybe also cover what defiant is, and how to strip it, as well as what is hard and what is soft CC.

covering defiant with the upcoming change kinda seems like a waste of time

Jerus.4350:

covering defiant with the upcoming change kinda seems like a waste of time

Right, completely forgot that, d’oh >.>

Maybe also put in a section that goes over the mechanics behind sigils (internal cooldowns, whether they’re stackable, how you lose bloodlust in between maps, etc.)

Does anyone know any good combo video guides? The one on reddit was quite dragged out and some others I have seen mention stuff like Whirling Axe.

I would like to have a brief video which tells “stack might like this”, “stack stealth like this” and “stack swiftness like this”.

Then it would show how to do with different professions.

Also would be nice to also have real examples.

Abe [SC] How to stack might on a Sc/F elementalist

Wethospu.6437:

Does anyone know any good combo video guides? The one on reddit was quite dragged out and some others I have seen mention stuff like Whirling Axe.

I would like to have a brief video which tells “stack might like this”, “stack stealth like this” and “stack swiftness like this”.

Then it would show how to do with different professions.

Also would be nice to also have real examples.

Well I could get real examples before encounters for you too if you want, but I made a video demonstrating how to maintain 25 might by prestacking a while ago and it shows most of the blasts available, so that might be of use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMz5pX9MsU

What about other professions? :P

I might be able to make an engineer stealth guide. (I’m not an expert on other classes or optimal might stacking rotations though.)

I really like Strife videos. He explains dungeon mechanics and some class mechanics.
Of course his stuff is outdated. Maybe you should make similar videos.

At the moment Ravi is doing a general stealth stacking guide and Iris is doing some kind of a might stacking guide.

Stealth stacking is quite simple so I think Ravi’s video will cover it completely. But for might stacking there will probably be multiple videos. For example a general guide and several in-depth guides. But no idea what Iris is doing so we will see how this all works out.

For pages I have considered this structure:

General page

• What are dungeons and fractals?
• How to gear up / find info (game settings, basic combat)
• How to use lfg (+ sellers)
• Exploiting

Meta:

• What meta means and what is the current meta
• Why it works and how it’s used (active def vs. passive def)
• Brief description of professions’ strengths and weaknesses
• Links to gameplay/build guides

Combat

• How to deal damage (melee, damage build, might, vuln, fury)
• Pulling
• Stacking
• Positioning and mobility

Active defense:

• Explain reflecting, absorption, dodge, evade, dodgejump, block, immunity, invulnerability, blind, control
• Strengths and weaknesses

Skipping

• Why?
• How to (stacking stealth, swiftness, mobility, teleports, portal)

Combos

• What are they? Overwriting fields?
• Important ones
• Links to stacking video guides

Others

• Combat / out of combat
• NPC aggro
• Linecasting

Glossary

• Terms like meta, zerk, ICD, stack and so on

However there is one big question mark, NPC aggro. Could someone explain how it works? And any ideas which page to put it?

I would write the meta article for you with the four bullet points if you’d like.

That would be nice!

Also it’s just an overview so you don’t have to follow those points exactly.

Yo, just to modestly contribute here, allow me to humbly suggest looking at the Core Concept paragraph of the ele guide I wrote with Haviz:

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/#Section_1_Core_concepts

Most of what we wrote is applicable to the ele (and bits are outdated) but this can possibly inspire people to write more general guidelines.

Pardon me for linking some personal material instead of directly contributing, I would love to help, but all my writing energy must remain dedicated to my irl occupation for the moment.

First version for general, meta, skipping and glossary are up.

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/General

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/Meta

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/Skipping

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/Glossary

Any feedback is welcome.

Typo on the skipping page. Class Lementalist. :>

Only skimmed through. But it seems well structured.

Im not really sure who wrote the stuff for skipping on necro. But the utility choices dont make sense to me. What you want is spectral walk for swiftness or avoiding fall damage. Signet of locust for base movement speed if you think you are going to run out of swiftness. Well of Darkness for blinds (especially helpful on the large group of deadeyes and inquest at the last arah p2 skip). Well of Power for stunbreak and condi cleanse. And the elite should be plague form for high durability, pulsing stability and spammable blinds and cripple (only use when absolutely needed and if you know you are going to be put in combat anyway). Everything else for necro is correct though.

Explain pathing of mobs/npcs.

Eg which mobs can be patched any why/where -
Arah oozes / CM p1 (during the cave run)/Hotw p1/p3 (just after the door)- so they don’t met you at bloody Victoria.
- pathing is where you ensure a mob that would otherwise follow you after you trigger them to move stop when the group stops so they do not follow you infinitely.

This can be done in a number of ways – generally it is easiest to trigger the mobs by running past the movement trigger causing them to move and stealth (and stop) as a group. Remain stationary until the enemy mobs stop moving then you are free to continue moving and the mobs will not follow you any further. Failure to path mobs will result in them following you or teleporting to you randomly at a later point in the dungeon until you kill them.
(Someone can tidy up this – but I’m sure you get the idea – a video would help).

“Profession Roles Withing the Meta” has some strange symbols in place of an apostrophe in the first sentence "…and this is reflected in the individual profession’s perceived value in the community. "

A few terms/definitions you may wish to add to the glossary: fotm(fractals of the mist), pathing, stacking, blasting
as well as maybe common skill abbreviations that people ask for in pugs: fb (feedback), WoR (wall of reflection), SR (shadow refuge), disc*/str banner, WB (warbanner), fgj, things like that.

Not sure if you mean for the glossary to be full of general terms or only to refer to terms you used in other places on the site, but it’s something to consider.

Also, maybe add a “consumeables” section to the skipping tab? Just to briefly cover the common consumeables used in skipping, though it’s true that anet’s occasional patching of this sort of thing could affect the guide.

disc* banner. Never seen it abbreviated as disp.

spoj.9672:

disc* banner. Never seen it abbreviated as disp.

Yeah, that was a typo, thanks

Fixed issues and extended glossary. I will start working on Active Defense now.

So can someone explain how NPC aggro specifically works?

-Note CM p2 guide makes no mention of Marius.

kitten just chain stunned me through blinds.

Combat, Defense and Other pages are in pretty good shape now. I don’t know all professions that well so can people help me write up short combat notes for missing professions?

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/Combat

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/Defense

http://gw2dungeons.net/dev/Other

Any on-topic feedback appreciated.

My Thief Combat opinion: hide in shadows for thief is terrible 90% of the time, signet of malice and withdraw are the best heals. Malice being that you don’t need to cast your heal and it is good at maintaining your scholar buff provided that your guardian is good at aegis chains. Practiced tolerance on thief is useless and a waste, might as well get critical haste where you get free double/wild strike in your first backstab rotation.

Fixed those.

Anyways, do someone know how stack limits exactly work? With 25 might, do new might replace the oldest stacks? With duration stacking like stealth or swiftness, are extra stacks ignored while you are capped?

Might is always new stacks replaces old regardless of duration. Not sure exactly how the duration stacking works.

Wethospu.6437:

Fixed those.

Anyways, do someone know how stack limits exactly work? With 25 might, do new might replace the oldest stacks? With duration stacking like stealth or swiftness, are extra stacks ignored while you are capped?

I never see more than 13 s of stealth with blasting alone so I guess extra stacks ignored.

Edit for clarification.

14s of stealth: http://imgur.com/BprwBya

19s of stealth: http://imgur.com/2UKwiV3

I choose to believe in Tobi. So yeah, blasting is capped :p

Each blast contributes to 2 sec of stealth, not affected by Meld with Shadow (except for Blinding Powder). Stealth decays so fast that 6 consecutive blasts (Cluster Bomb) will only result in 8 sec of stealth and 13-14 sec with Blinding Powder. So it requires multiple sources of blast to have higher stealth up time.

I think the stealth duration from blasting is capped at 15 sec, additional blasts at 15,14 and 13 sec get ignored. At 12 sec you get another 3 sec.
By blasting stealth and then using SR, Blinding Powder or Hide in shadows you can get over this cap.

Also swiftness is capped (around 1:30 min). But by using Spring rolls or sth. like that you can get over it.

Dunno how it works for stuff like Chaos Armor or Frost Aura.

Stealth blasts are 3 sec not 2 sec.

So all in all, if you are capped you won’t get affected by new stacks.

Normally you can reach up to 15 s because 3 * 5 = 15.

With trait “Meld with Shadows” you can reach up to 20 s because 4 * 5 = 20.

I am pretty sure you can only blast up to 13seconds of stealth.
I think what Zui showed was traited meld in shadow SR with blinding powder for the 19sec img.
and just a meld in shadow SR for the 14sec img.

I have also tried blasting a smokescreen then SR or blasting smoke while in SR, it never got above 12s or 15s depending on meld in shadow trait.
Meld in shadow does not affect blasted stealth.

It’s 5 stacks as a cap, there is no known timer cap.

If you have 5 Engi’s all do “toss elixir S” you’ll get 5sX5 for theoretically 25s, in my tests it seemed we would get 24s and quickly tick over to 23s in less than a second. So we had time “lost” somewhere. But yeah, you can stack quite high.

Curious, how does SR work? Does it just strait tick on the 5 stacks of stealth? or does it just keep you stealthed while in it, then at the end place a large stack of stealth on top?

And as Iris pointed out, you lose time while blasting, esp if you let a thief blast all of them in smoke screen. So the idea of 5X meld with shadows being 20s is a bit unreasonable unless you have 5 thieves all tossing a blast in at the same time. And with that, as I mentioned on Elixir S it seems you often lose a second for no real reason.

Meld in Shadows doesn’t affect blasting stealth.

Each blast is 3 sec of stealth, but stealth counts to 0. So techinically, the first blast would always appear as 2 sec. 5 blasts yield 15 sec of duration and will appears 14 s on the tooltip.

Traited Blinding Powder will add an extra 4 sec on top
=.="

Iris Ng.9845:

Meld in Shadows doesn’t affect blasting stealth.

Really? thought it did /shrug

Jerus.4350:

It’s 5 stacks as a cap, there is no known timer cap.

If you have 5 Engi’s all do “toss elixir S” you’ll get 5sX5 for theoretically 25s, in my tests it seemed we would get 24s and quickly tick over to 23s in less than a second. So we had time “lost” somewhere. But yeah, you can stack quite high.

Curious, how does SR work? Does it just strait tick on the 5 stacks of stealth? or does it just keep you stealthed while in it, then at the end place a large stack of stealth on top?

And as Iris pointed out, you lose time while blasting, esp if you let a thief blast all of them in smoke screen. So the idea of 5X meld with shadows being 20s is a bit unreasonable unless you have 5 thieves all tossing a blast in at the same time. And with that, as I mentioned on Elixir S it seems you often lose a second for no real reason.

The second that seems “lost” is due to how the game counts stealth to 0th second before you get revealed. In that case, a duration of 5 seconds would start counting from 4th to 0th.

Iris Ng.9845:

Jerus.4350:

It’s 5 stacks as a cap, there is no known timer cap.

If you have 5 Engi’s all do “toss elixir S” you’ll get 5sX5 for theoretically 25s, in my tests it seemed we would get 24s and quickly tick over to 23s in less than a second. So we had time “lost” somewhere. But yeah, you can stack quite high.

Curious, how does SR work? Does it just strait tick on the 5 stacks of stealth? or does it just keep you stealthed while in it, then at the end place a large stack of stealth on top?

And as Iris pointed out, you lose time while blasting, esp if you let a thief blast all of them in smoke screen. So the idea of 5X meld with shadows being 20s is a bit unreasonable unless you have 5 thieves all tossing a blast in at the same time. And with that, as I mentioned on Elixir S it seems you often lose a second for no real reason.

The second that seems “lost” is due to how the game counts stealth to 0th second before you get revealed. In that case, a duration of 5 seconds would start counting from 4th to 0th.

Awesome, yeah that makes sense, thanks.

Jerus.4350:

Iris Ng.9845:

Meld in Shadows doesn’t affect blasting stealth.

Really? thought it did /shrug

You were technically still correct though. Thief has two blasts and only one of them is “throwable”.

As long as not in combat, Engineer can freely equip kits, use their skills and swap the kit out? Without cooldown?

Yes, you can also use your toolbelt skills freely without any recharge on the utility skills.

Wethospu.6437:

As long as not in combat, Engineer can freely equip kits, use their skills and swap the kit out? Without cooldown?

Yes, thre is a might stacking rotation of something like:
Healing turret→Big Ol Bomb → Napalm → Detonate HT → Flame Blast → Swap Bombkit for THumper Turret and use Toolbelt skill → Swap EG and Acid Bomb → Swap in Shield and use the 4 skill blast → FT and Flame BLast again.

You get 7 blasts in and can swap back into your rifle nade/eg/ft setup and only things with cooldowns will be napalm and Acid Bomb.

First version for combo guide: http://gw2dungeons.net/Combos

Not that it’s super useful but engis actually have access to static field trough elixir X if you get tornado. Ofc it’s RNG and long CD but its’ there. :>

First version for combat guide: http://gw2dungeons.net/Combat

I have been bit busy so the whole thing is bit rushed. Hopefully people can verify profession specific stuff. Anyways, I will release this on reddit tomorrow for feedback and another attempt at boost lottery submissions.

Wethospu.6437:

First version for combat guide: http://gw2dungeons.net/Combat

I have been bit busy so the whole thing is bit rushed. Hopefully people can verify profession specific stuff. Anyways, I will release this on reddit tomorrow for feedback and another attempt at boost lottery submissions.

Very nice.

Just 2 things I’d add being the professions I play the most.

First, for Engi you mention Elixir R, it’s nice 2 more dodges can be great(not to mention the toss). However, depending on the situation Toolkit may be a better option with the 3s block on a 20s reuse (3s block will dead with double dodge attacks for instance Lupi’s stuff, or undodgeable like say Mai Trin shot) and, prybar ain’t bad.

And, One thing I always like telling new guards which I didn’t see in either of the guides linked is the reflect rotation. Not many people seem to realize just how long you can keep it going. WoR -> at 22s reuse on WoR pop the shield -> as shield goes down you’ll have WoR coming off recharge for a pretty complete coverage for 44s (12s WoR -> 20s Shield -> 12s WoR) Just something I think is a great help knowing exactly how to time it for full coverage.

Great guide though