Guild Wars 2

Hello, I finally made it to level 30 on my warrior and I’ve been hearing about these ‘’Ascalonian Catacombs’‘. It seems to be a whole different league and it all sounds very confusing. I just play the game by myself, should I even bother? I’ve been reading up on it and it sounds complicated, along with the different skills I need but I haven’t found any information about warrior builds for the catacombs.

Ascalonian Catacombs is one of many dungeons. You will get a notification about it at lvl30 but you can infact do it at any level.

It is the easiest dungeon out of all the dungeons (give or take a few exploits on some others) but level-wise and mastery-wise it’s the easiest and can be one of the most profitable.

Story mode is worthless because it takes too long for little reward, it’s only good to unlock explorable mode for your character.

Explorable Mode is an option you have avaible at +5lvls from the story mode lvl requirement. So in the case of AC it is a level 35 dungeon. You can only get into explorable mode if you or any person in your party has completed story mode.

Dungeons are done in groups of 5 people. You will see a lot of 80s do this dungeon just because it’s easier with better equipment.

When you complete story mode you get experience points amounting to about 70% of your exp bar.

When you complete explorable mode, you get experience points amounting to about 70% of your exp bar AND 60 tokens which can be traded from vendors in Lion’s Arch for some nifty items.

If you are a dungeon frequentor, you’ll be able to get enough tokens to buy a complete set of exotic armor. If you want to take the time to master AC EXP mode, which is in fact the easiest dungeon to run/fastest (in comparison to others, it’s still hard to do compared to regular PvE), then you’ll find yourself with a ‘free’ exotic set/weapons and gold/exp. It’s a good investment at any level above 35 (or whenever you think you can take it) because it levels you up super fast. Almost a level every run which takes about 30 min at most.

Dungeon Culture
1) LFG = Look for Group; LFM = Look for Member

2) Best places to get a group is in Lion’s Arch or in the Map of the Dungeon which in this case is Plains of Ashford.

3) Always keep a ranged weapon if you are melee; alternatively, always keep a melee weapon when ranged. But hands down, it’s always better to range in dungeons than melee—-unless it’s a dps type event.

4) PUGs = Pick up groups; since you play solo, that’s probably what you’ll have to do most of the time. Be prepared for bad and good groups. But AC exp is quite common enough so that the group you are in should know what to do. It’s just how nice they are about it. Some people will give orders and blame you for being incompetent and some will tell you what to do along the way.

5) If you die, use a waypoint to revive yourself. Waypoints in dungeons cost no money. The only exception is if the event or boss at hand is pretty much good as dead. Then your party can just revive you.

6) If you don’t know where to go; let your party know immediately. It’s best if your party knows you are new to the dungeon so that they can at least tell you what you should do. It’s better than getting lost and then being inefficient.

7) If someone is downed, res them immediately, but don’t risk your life for it. Ressing someone is a skill in itself in a dungeon, know when to res and when not to res but always do your best to get your teammate back up

8)Top right of your screen, there is a prompt to read about what to do. This is a good way to assess your current goals but keep in mind, dungeons are constantly ‘exploited’ or worked around by players and you’ll find that even though the top right may say Kill Lt. Kholer, your party may choose to skip this content due to it’s big time investment, for little reward, some may choose to fight if they prefer the reward.

9) Continuing off point 8, dungeons have optional stuff you can do and required stuff. If your party seems to run past a lot of mobs/bosses, it’s probably optional. A lot of parties like to skip content, so be prepared to be rushed sometimes.

10) glhf

For a build at 30. I think it’s best to invest in banners or shouts since it helps your group as a whole since at lvl30 you probably won’t be much of an asset to your team so the least you can do is buff them. Try banner skill reduction. GS is very good for damage dealing, but to stay safe and not get downed as often, try ranging with rifle or bow for now until you know the fights well enough to dodge when meleeing.

some tips i can think of:

1. put some stability/stunbreakers/condition removal on your skill bar.

2. watch out for scavengers’ leap attack. they knockdown and stun. if you are unable to break out, a quick painful death will ensue.

3. always take down breeders first. especially for the final boss fights for path 1/3. take them down so you don’t have to worry about them when you fight the boss.

4. for path 2, always target necromancers and rangers first. necros cast like 10982374 conditions. IN 1 CAST. try to prevent him getting it off. rangers deal very high damage, and they knockback like nobody’s business. that’s why those 2 are top priorities when you meet them.

5. when kohler raises his sword, DODGE. or aegis. or pop stability. it is a vacuum spell that sucks you in and knocks you down. he follows it up with a melee range AOE attack that will either kill you or sliver you. the vacuum spell has a cast time of about 2 seconds. dodging/aegis/stab any time in those 2 seconds will work. you do not have to time it exactly.

6. the howling king is not called the howling king for nothing. his breath is terrible and will practically one shot you. the AOE cone isn’t very wide, but it’s deceptively LONG. just don’t stand anywhere in front of him. if you are wondering if his AOE will hit you, it probably will. if you know what you’re doing, just melee him. it’s actually easier because his normal attacks suck. when he breathes in to do his howl attack, just dodge forward. it should put you behind him. feel free to poke his bum with sharp sticks when that happens.

7. dodge ghost eater’s burrow attack. it 1shots the more squishy people. other than that, he’s cake.

8. rumblus is irritating. he has 2 dangerous attacks. one is where he rains lots of little rocks in a large area in front of him. this causes many many many overlapping red circles. do not get hit. they knockdown and stun, making you unable to dodge the other falling rocks. if you get hit by these, you will probably go down. his second dangerous attack is his breath attack. remember the howling king? this guy’s breath is the opposite. the aoe is short, but WIDE. like i mean WIDE WIDE WIDE. if you’re at his arm, and he does his breath attack, you will probably get hit and die. it’s extremely irritating. it’s like it hits a semi-circle (or maybe more) around him. he likes to use this in combo with his burrow attack. he will burrow to you, erupt from the ground, knocking you down and stunning you, then go all howly on your bum. stability/stunbreak is top priority in this fight. be prepared for frustration when you meet him (last boss of p3). you will probably go down in this fight more times than the other 2 paths put together.

Oh wow thank guys, this is very informative. I’ve been looking into tank builds for warrior but none of them really list what kind of armor I should be using. Is it Toughness and Vitality armors?

tanking doesn’t work in this game. even if you can take 100 hits to go down, it doesn’t matter if the mobs just decide not to hit you and focus on the glass party member instead.

the game rewards well-rounded chars rather than single focus types.

warriors naturally come with high vit. knights gear (power/prec/toughness) provide a good boost to your survivability and also gives you more damage. 6x soldier runes will help with your health/armor and also gives you party wide condition removal with your shouts.

i think full knights is a good starting point in terms of gear. then tweak for your taste to match your playstyle.

I’m just level 31

BlankHearts.8216:

I’m just level 31

No offence, but then you shouldn’t be thinking about running AC yet

If you do decide to go for your first runs, be sure to let the others know that you’re going for the first time so they can remind you what to look out for. If possible use Voice-over-IP (Vent / TS).

Consider waiting until level 45 or 50 with full rare equipment before giving it a shot. It’ll be more enjoyable for both you and your group

Either way good luck with it!

It’s pretty much been said, but always stick the group. And I mean the main bulk of people not the one idiot who goes charging off into the middle of the mob, cause that guy is usually me, but I can take it, followers not so much. Also a tank works great in this dungeon, if everything goes to hell you want at least one guy still standing to res. Really unlucky one time, the boss’s almighty scream downed ALL of us, then it proceeded to drop rocks, preventing any sort of self heal. I figured “screw it” and vengeanced up, landing the Warbanner on 3 allies… My death was not in vain haha. Warrior ftw.

If its your first time, try running it with your guild and/or level 80’s.

There’s a huge difference between a natural 35 and a scaled down lvl 80 in ac ex (in terms of damage/survivability) Running it with a high level group will make it go much smoother and it will be easier to learn the mechanics.

If you go in with a group that is all low levels, you will probably find it difficult, especially if you have zero dungeon experience (ie: everyone running solo builds, not understanding boss mechanics, or how important dodging and resing allys is, etc)

BlankHearts.8216:

Oh wow thank guys, this is very informative. I’ve been looking into tank builds for warrior but none of them really list what kind of armor I should be using. Is it Toughness and Vitality armors?

I use Power/Vit/Tough on everything. Also the most challenging parts of AC are destroy burrow events. Burrows are immune to conditions and critical hits, so with a maxed out power stat just bust out the GS and you’ve become the best burrow ravager there. Also whilst not necessary to use a tank it is much easier to use one during the chain challenge on path 2 (luring everything onto the traps) and protecting hodgins from gravelings in path 1 (again also valuable as far as destroying the burrows go in that challenge.)

Best part about AC dungeon is you can buy pow/vit/tough armor from it with enough tokens.

If it’s your first time in a dungeon, this is where you’ll get introduced to elite/silver mobs (either name describes them well enough). They’re generally a mix between veterans (bronze) and champions (gold), and you’ll have to fight them in numbers at times. Some teams will use call target for everyone to focus attacks on to bring them down quicker, this is usually indicated by a character vocally saying something (human males will probably say “Attack my target” and the text window at the bottom left will indicate it too, along with the target in question receiving a red reticle.