Guild Wars 2

For example how many times would it take for me to run HOTW for a full dungeon set?
The point is dungeons in this game seem much harder than most of the MMOs I’ve played. When I tried doing CM some of the silver mobs were 1 or 2 shotting us in explore mode and the dungeon may have been bugged.

At the part where you place powder kegs at the gate, the mobs there respawn without end. For every one mob we killed another spawns and kept putting the kegs back, and there was more than 10 of them picking kegs and instaspawning vs 5 of us. Is it a bug or is there a serious way around this? we were at this maybe for over an hour.

From what I see in GW2 the explore dungeons are supposed to be very difficult but very rewarding but I am a little worried it may be neither.

First: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_armor_sets
I can’t guess how many times you’d have to run HoTW, but I’ll explain why below.

You will need 1,200 tokens for a full exotic set. You get 15 per explorable path clear per day plus 5 from each chest. So let’s say you only do one explorable clear a day and get 3 chests from that. So 30 tokens a day. You’ll have enough tokens for the full exotic set from that dungeon in 40 days. Cut down that time frame by doing two paths a day (giving you 60 tokens a day and purchase in 20 days). If you repeat a path you’ve already completed today the end reward is reduced to 5 tokens from 15 tokens currently.

Before we move on first let’s take a deep break and remove any preconceptions we have from other MMOs about “dungeon gear.” Now, let’s talk about what GW2 has done/tried to do from my perspective.

That gear you’re seeing is there to be a skin more than anything else. Yes, it does indeed have stats on it. If you want to look like that; farm here basically. It’s not meant to be your “first level 80 armor set” so to speak. Those stats might be available somewhere else (crafting/karma vendor/WvW). I’m not saying those aren’t without their own respective grinds, but there are different ways to get those stats.

Example: The stats I want are on the WvW vendor, but the look I want is on the Twilight Arbor vendor. So I’m going to be WvW-ing to get my stats… and then Twilight Arbor exploring to get my look. I farmed the mats to get a crafted set made. That’s my “starter set”. I’m working on the WvW badges to get the stats I want. Working on the TA dungeon to get the look I want. Additionally, Sorrow’s Embrace gear has the same stats as WvW… but I’m already farming one dungeon and want to vary my playstyle =P

From what I know, each day, each explorable path will give you 15 badges for completing it and 5 per chest opened along the way. Each explorable path has a certain number of bosses/events that trigger chest spawns. Some paths are “quicker” than others because people have gotten used to certain mechanics that exist down those paths. If you repeat a path you’ve already done that day the final reward is only 5 tokens.

This gear isn’t meant to be something you get overnight. It’s something for you to work toward for your character. The dungeons aren’t “easy” nor are they “hard.” Each fight/event/puzzle has a way that your class easily counters it. You can’t pigeon hole yourself into never equipping a ranged weapon/melee weapon. Most people just want to run in there and down everything immediately. Adaptability will unlock most explorables secrets.

If you have people who know how to play their own classes in synergy with your own, the dungeon experience is not nearly as painful as other people try to make it out to be. They do require coordination and communication. Some of them I find myself questioning if a PUG group could accomplish without voip communication (some explorables require you to basically do a countdown and attack/trigger something at the same time as everyone else in the group on different sides of the room within a limited time frame).

Vanity is truly the name of this game. Having a look that is hard for other people to obtain and wonder how on earth you were able to accomplish this momentous feat is what GW2 is about in my view.

Don’t even get me started on the requirements of crafting legendary weapons. The stats of legendary weapons are the EXACT same as exotic weapons, but they have unique skins that also allegedly change the colors and animations of your characters skills. I know plenty of people that dropped money on Legendary skins in some MOBAs just to look different. The same appeal is here.

I haven’t done explore CM yet so someone else will have to chime in on your other question. I hope this helps though! o.o

Explorable Dungeon sets are supposed to be difficult long-term goals, but with a decent communicating team it’s really doable. Some bosses in Arah explorable for instance are extremely complex and are not puggable by any means. Yes it’s true, you won’t be able to spam a few rotations while your tank and healers do all the hard work. You need to have the required personal skill.

Did you do that gate part with a pug/bad team setup? Had no problem with some heavy AoE damage and guardian utility shields and really focusing on the kegs. Survivability is key sometimes.

Don’t want to sound rude but there are way harder bosses and to be found in other dungeons. That route in CM is pretty easy in comparison. Don’t get frustrated by it, just set a goal for yourself to beat it the next time with a better team and perhaps a different setup. Once you figure out the proper tactics it’s a cakewalk.

As for your question: It takes about 20 runs to get 1 chest piece which is a lot and could probably be lowered a bit. But once you put a dungeon on farm mode you can consistently finish a route in 30-45 minutes (unless it’s Arah). For a hardcore player that really isn’t that bad. Just think of the prestige of wearing a full set.

Sardoni.8361:

(…)
You will need 1,200 tokens for a full exotic set.
(…)

Here I see both a rare and an exotic set ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs_armor ). It is not clear to me, but doesn’t the rare costs a lot less and has the same skin as the exotic? That would significantly reduce the number of dungeon-runs needed for just the skin of the armour.
Or is there some caveat that I am not aware of?

Plunder.8195:

Sardoni.8361:

(…)
You will need 1,200 tokens for a full exotic set.
(…)

Here I see both a rare and an exotic set ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs_armor ). It is not clear to me, but doesn’t the rare costs a lot less and has the same skin as the exotic? That would significantly reduce the number of dungeon-runs needed for just the skin of the armour.
Or is there some caveat that I am not aware of?

The rare skins are generic cloth skins. All the of “rare” skins are the same across all of the vendors. If you go to the vendor(s) in Lion Arch’s near the WvW/Mists portals in Fort Marriner you’ll see a row of merchants. Each of those merchants has one of the dungeon set(s). There are two tabs for you to look at. You can also right click the gear there and preview it on your character.

The exotic skins are what is pictured at the bottom of your link. That is also the gear that requires ~1,200 tokens. The rare gear is just a generic armor set. All of the rare gear on all of the armor vendors have the same generic look. They also tend to be in the level range of the story mode encounter. Example: AC is level 30 and the rares are level 35. The exotics are level 60 in that vendor.

In theory (if you liked) you could run AC Explore when you hit level 30 and nothing but that to level and potentially get your exotic set before level 60 (why you would do that… is beyond me but I won’t judge). I’ll admit it might be rather unlikely, but who knows! I’m sure it’s possible though =) Other than that most of us will use that exotic gear to skin our level 80 gear. So we’re not getting it for the stats, but the skins.

tl;dr: The pictured armor in the link you posted is the expensive/exotic set. The rare armor has no unique skin/look.

Did that make sense?

mmmm,
somehow no word of this in the wiki… I guess I will take a look at this when I am in-game.

It would make me sad if you were right… but I would be triple impressed when I see someone in the AC-unique armour! (/kneel)

I really do hope that tokens will become account bound rather than character bound.