Guild Wars 2

Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of guardians using this utility for some reason, especially in Orr farms where the cure condition aspect isn’t really beneficial.

It’s been widely tested that the damage you do to a mob will make you eligible for loot.

Unfortunately, the damage done by this skill does not make you eligible. Any other weapon skill does, but not this utility.

In fact, the trait that burns foes among activation of Virtue of Justice also does not give you loot either, so we can infer that any damage done through burning does not affect you reaching the loot threshold in anyway.

I have tested this before, but feel free to try it yourself – Round up about 5 mobs, but do not attack them with any weapon skill. Activate purging flames around them and see if any loot drops.

edit: now confirmed as FALSE

Purging Flames gives a fire field for combos, plus an aoe fire damage that can be utilized for the Fiery Wrath trait. I use it soley for those sometimes and not necessarily for the condi removal.

Interesting finding though. Would be interesting to see if others get the same results. Do Ele’s have the same problem with their fire skills?

Can’t confirm your observation. Just tested it in Queensdale: Gathered some hostile low level enemies around me, used Purging Flames twice (nothing else) and got some loot.

In my experience it’s not enough to just tag something, you need to do a certain low % of their hp as damage or maybe have been in battle with it more than 1-2 sec or whatever… like when you arrive really late at a champ, get 3 hits in and get no loot. I have seen the same on all types of mobs so I just assumed it is something like that.

I have no idea if Purging flames is special though…

Sebbl.2806:

Can’t confirm your observation. Just tested it in Queensdale: Gathered some hostile low level enemies around me, used Purging Flames twice (nothing else) and got some loot.

Last time I tried this was 3 months ago – I’ll try it later today.

Also make sure retaliation wasn’t a factor.

I believe this is correct based on my own testing as well but that’s a long time ago. Still I find myself flipping between it and Smite Condition. I feel that jumping into a temple event calls for Purging and trash farming is more suited to Smite Condition. Any good farming setup will have a high frequency AOE damage skill for tagging anyways and shouldn’t use Purge in this manner.

Vol.7601:

Sebbl.2806:

Can’t confirm your observation. Just tested it in Queensdale: Gathered some hostile low level enemies around me, used Purging Flames twice (nothing else) and got some loot.

Last time I tried this was 3 months ago – I’ll try it later today.

Also make sure retaliation wasn’t a factor.

I’m pretty positive I eliminated all sources of damage except Purging Flames, but to be absolutely sure, I just tested it again:
- No traits (resetted)
- No weapons equipped
- No runes with damaging effects
- No food/buffs except the virtues and Signet of Judgement and Signet of Mercy
- Purging Flames as the only damage source

And I still got loot from lvl 4 bandits in Queensdale.

Sebbl.2806:

Vol.7601:

Sebbl.2806:

Can’t confirm your observation. Just tested it in Queensdale: Gathered some hostile low level enemies around me, used Purging Flames twice (nothing else) and got some loot.

Last time I tried this was 3 months ago – I’ll try it later today.

Also make sure retaliation wasn’t a factor.

I’m pretty positive I eliminated all sources of damage except Purging Flames, but to be absolutely sure, I just tested it again:
- No traits (resetted)
- No weapons equipped
- No runes with damaging effects
- No food/buffs except the virtues and Signet of Judgement and Signet of Mercy
- Purging Flames as the only damage source

And I still got loot from lvl 4 bandits in Queensdale.

I just tested it today and you are correct. Maybe something changed the last time I checked it (back when we could farm shelt/pen)

Irrelevant thread is irrelevant!

Maybe you got loot because you were the only person to damage the mob. Try it with someone else while you’re not in a party. You only use Purging Flames while the other person kills the mob like normal

That doesn’t really prove anything though, because it’s well known that if you don’t contribute enough damage to a monster to fully tag it, you won’t get anything from it when you’re out zerging events. That’s not unique to PF.

It proves that Purging Flames would tag or not. If you’re zerg farming and you’re not in a full party you’re doing it wrong anyway, so doing enough damage to tag shouldn’t be a problem

Yeah originally when I tried this back when we had shelt/pen farm, I used Staff 3, Judge’s Intervention and Purging Flames to tag 3 waves at the same time. I think the main reason why I didn’t get any loot was because Purging Flames contributed very little DPS compared to the rest of the players.

Solo’ing mobs with just purging flames will give you loot since you have no competition for loot.

But using it in a zerg will not contribute enough at all.

Vol.7601:

Yeah originally when I tried this back when we had shelt/pen farm, I used Staff 3, Judge’s Intervention and Purging Flames to tag 3 waves at the same time. I think the main reason why I didn’t get any loot was because Purging Flames contributed very little DPS compared to the rest of the players.

Solo’ing mobs with just purging flames will give you loot since you have no competition for loot.

But using it in a zerg will not contribute enough at all.

Oh how I truly miss the old Shelt/Pen train….

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Vol.7601:

Yeah originally when I tried this back when we had shelt/pen farm, I used Staff 3, Judge’s Intervention and Purging Flames to tag 3 waves at the same time. I think the main reason why I didn’t get any loot was because Purging Flames contributed very little DPS compared to the rest of the players.

Solo’ing mobs with just purging flames will give you loot since you have no competition for loot.

But using it in a zerg will not contribute enough at all.

Oh how I truly miss the old Shelt/Pen train….

I miss the old old pen farm where all the waves funnelled into one spot.

Or when pen capture event was bugged and you had an unlimited event spawning mobs

Those were the days.

I miss when people actually thought of Cursed Shore as more than just temples.

Melfice.5091:

It proves that Purging Flames would tag or not. If you’re zerg farming and you’re not in a full party you’re doing it wrong anyway, so doing enough damage to tag shouldn’t be a problem

No, what it proves is that Purging Flames is basically just like almost every other Guardian ability aside from our burst skills: You can’t just hit it once and expect it to tag. Same with Autoattacking, single Symbols, Smite Condition, and so on. Very few things will successfully tag in one shot during a busy zerg.