Showing Posts For Elm.8169:
PuG’d it during a 40 daily today just before the reset. Did about two test runs to see how the mechanics changed, and another two actual runs to get her down. It wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t the end of the world like some people seem to be suggesting.
Bring slows/reflect/blocks and just kite her around the room. Electric Blast isn’t difficult to dodge (it’s slooow) and try to have someone with plenty of blocking options tank her or figure out a rotation for alternating reflect/block cooldowns.
Having said that, it is a pretty unforgiving fight if you end up going down. If Horrik happens to decide that he wants to fire on you when you are down, you are pretty much guaranteed to eat dirt.
(edited by Elm.8169)
As someone who hasn’t read any of the novels, can you shed a bit more light on the part about the heroes returning to fight her? Are there any more references to what happened there?
Uh, yeah, if your attacks aren’t landing, blind should be the first thing you check for. You may also have noticed a ‘miss’ pop up or a blind debuff on your status bar.
Now we can start paying guilds to go TO Blackgate/Jade Quarry/SOR and friendly fire all over their zergs!
If you are looking to play a supporty thief, I would suggest taking Venomous Strength (DA 10-pt trait) and some boon duration for permanent might boon on your party members.
As a related question, which classes do you think benefits the most from the Asuran size and telegraph? I guess the posts so far more or less established that the advantage is greatest on warriors and guardians.
I’d love to know the trait setup here :P
Looks like 10/0/30/0/30 from what I can tell.
For Deadly Arts, he took mug. You can also see poison on steal, which is the 5-pt minor trait for this. He also heals on steal.
For Shadow Arts, he took blind on stealth, condition removal, and heal while in stealth.
For Trickery, he took buff gain on steal (thrill of the crime), steal range (I think…), and daze on steal.
Fire sigil on one of the weapons.
Full Lyssa’s as you can see when he uses his Basilisk Venom and Withdraw.
Can’t comment on the gear set, but it’s definitely not full valk or soldier as you can see from his unbuffed health. Also little to no condition damage added. Maybe a mix of berserker’s with soldier’s, assassin’s, or valkyrie’s?
Anyways, that was extremely impressive and entertaining. It’s good to see quality videos coming out of SoS.
If OP’s still with us, is there anything specific about Lyssa that made you take it over other runes like Divinity, Traveler, or Scholar (I guess this one isn’t ideal for S/D)?
(edited by Elm.8169)
My suggestion is to add an option to highlight the items you search for in the inventory or to dim out all the items that do not fit your search query.
Right now, searching for an item in your bank or inventory gets rid of the default grid and lists the icons of the items that match your query. This usually works well enough unless I am trying to organize my inventory – for example, if I am trying to filter for all my exotic weapons/armors to place them next to each other, I have to look for them individually since entering ‘exotic’ in the search window gets rid of the grids.
I think implementing the blurring mechanism in the mystic forge to the inventory interface could help with this. If you select an item to place in the mystic forge, it blurs out every other item that cannot be flushed together. Maybe we could have the inventory blur out items that do not meet your search query.
Most classes just rotate their cooldown and spam whatever is ready for maximum efficiency. I have less than 2 hour played on my Warrior and can play him competitively.
GW2 does require some class knowledge and how certain builds and traits work. But EVERY MMO requires that. And most MMOs to a much greater extent than GW2.
And you see, even if you do know what your opponents next move will be, it often doesn’t change anything because your moves are so limited.
Fighting a Hammer Warrior? Cycle Cloak and Dagger + Backstab while avoiding stun-moves.
Fighting a Greatsword Warrior? Cycle Cloak and Dagger + Backstab while avoiding Bladetrail and 100 Blades.
Well, like I said, ‘avoiding stun moves and going CnD + Backstab’ is the playstyle where most of us decide to settle. We try Cnd + Backstab regardless of who we are fighting and content ourselves with dodging when we see something dangerous coming. Looking into hammer warriors, many of us repeatedly CnD + Backstab and dodge when we see the warrior jump or hold his hammer up vertically. Soon, we start having difficulty dodging because we keep eating the weakness from hammer 2 and cripple from hammer 3. We inevitably get chain stunned against decent warriors because we are now out of initiative or the CnD chain is so obvious or because we are revealed for 3-4 seconds after backstabbing. Then, we ShS out, run away, and rinse and repeat with the next person we see.
If you can actually count the cooldowns for the ~10 and ~30 second stuns, you can take advantage of their ‘refractory periods’ to go on the offensive. If the warrior’s stuns are down, you can try to wail on him while dodging his third aa attack. If you have to go ham for whatever reason with his stuns up, you will eat the aa chain so you can save up endurance for the stun. If you are engaging on him with both of his stuns up, you may want to bide time for your signet of shadows or infiltrator’s signet to be up so you can avoid the second stun. If the warrior’s yielding a hammer, he’s probably invested deep into Defense trait line, and you probably wouldn’t go far trying to kite him with SB.
On the other hand, if all you know is that the warrior can stun you twice, you will allow the warrior to dictate the flow by letting him to bide his cooldowns freely and go on the offensive when he wants to. Again, it seems that many of us simply don’t bother with trying to acquaintance ourselves with enemy skills or cool downs to develop counter-plays but just settle with dodging when seeing something flashy.
Anyways, as a thief main with something like 70% of my game hours clocked on my thief, I can say that some of our play styles, mainly D/D, is fairly counter-intuitive to learning the other classes better or just improving in general. We can tunnel vision into hitting our CnD and positioning for backstab for some limited success in PvP. We don’t bother learning enemy moves outside their stuns and blocks since we are probably going to just try and dodge them until we can CnD again. We are rarely punished for gross misplays or general kittentiness since we can safely disengage to avoid dying.
can’t help feeling that GW2 has a really low skill-cap.
On the contrary, I think GW2 suffers from having a very difficult-to-reach skill cap.
Having PvP’d up to Cata, I have much respect for WoW PvP, but you typically went into fights knowing what to expect. If you jumped a frost mage, you would expect him to blink, ice block, or frost nova and start kiting. You would typically expect the frost mage to blink on ~15 sec cooldown, ice block twice in the fight, and summon clones once. You needed good reactions and judgments to adjust your cooldowns to counter whatever the mage was going to do to you. Mainly, there were important cool down spells for each class that were set in stone, easy to keep track of, and not typically encountered more than once in a fight.
In GW2, to be most efficient, you have to do alot of initiative/cooldown counting and guess works as to what the other guy’s traits and utilities are. If the guardian you are fighting did his spin just now, you are safe to melee him under blinding powder for about ten seconds. If you miscount it, you may eat alot of avoidable damage. If the spin comes back out earlier than 10 seconds, you can probably deduce that this guard is investing into Honor and would have some worthwhile boons to steal.
The thing is, to fully utilize this style in GW2, you are going to need some ridonculous amount of knowledge on all the classes. That’s weapon sets, skills, utilities, traits, and cooldowns on these things. That’s alot to expect from an average player. I think most people, including me in many cases, really don’t bother to go any further than recognizing what different spells look like.
Maybe this is an unfounded concern, but I have been slightly worried about the profitability of GW2. The gem store promotions seem to be getting somewhat more aggressive and some of the items (mainly the flame armors) seemed to have been released on a quick schedule. Whenever I see someone proudly declare that they have spent nothing on the gem store since the release (not that there is anything wrong with that), I really feel the gap in steady income for GW2 compared to other subscription-based MMOs.
I’d imagine the overhead for GW2 isn’t exactly low with the constant server expansions and the living story updates, and if we are even going to think about getting an expansion in the future, I feel like it would be good idea to create some incentive to spend money on the game.
Obviously, instating a blanket subscription fee policy is unthinkable as is doing the whole free player vs. subscriber benefit segregation.
So, I was thinking maybe if having an automatic monthly gem purchase subscription could be an option. This isn’t a very polished idea, but maybe we could have subscriptions where the subscribers automatically pay ~$15 and receive that much gems and a gem store perk. The sort of perk I was thinking about were maybe receiving few black lion keys, random skin reward, or small discount on gem store purchases every month. The idea is to encourage people who regularly spend $ on the store or those who are considering it to participate and help generate a steady stream of funds.
Thanks
Anet promised us we could play however we wanted. I want to go healway thief with only a mainhand pistol and out-DPS everyone else, but I can’t. Anet has broken its promise and my heart for the last time. Q.Q
1) Duplicating services exclusive to Lion’s Arch to other racial capitals
I’ve noticed that most players tend to crowd around Lion’s Arch and not so much in other capital cities. Although I’m not really opposed to the idea of having a central hub to conduct business, I think the population imbalance between LA and the other hubs is a bit on the heavy side. I thought maybe implementing some services – like dungeon token traders, the daily activity guy, the mystic forge, and fractal entrance to other racial capitals might stimulate more activities outside of Lion’s Arch. I don’t think it will be necessarily lore breaking either, as we already have portal mystic forges, so maybe it could be written off as something similar.
2) Creating 0 point achievements for the purpose of tracking daily resets
This is just a small qualify of life improvement I’d like to see. Something like a page of daily resets just to make it easier to find out whether you’ve done a specific world event/dungeon that day. So, if you did Shadow Behemoth after reset last night, when you check it the next afternoon, it would be lit up as a completed achievement without actually awarding any points. Perhaps we could have something similar for Guild Missions as well.
I was wondering if there has been an official source for some of the numbers like target golem armor value in the mists, weapon skill damage coefficients, and weapon skill attack speeds.
I’ve been thinking of theorycrafting numbers for different builds, but most of the numbers I need seemed to have been fan-deduced, and there are some inconsistencies depending on where I look.
Thanks
Why not just frontload the virtue recharge instead of giving the Guardian two seconds of immunity on the move? You know, so virtues recharge as soon as you activate the skill but have it retain the same CD?
Well, you’d want to run fire or air if you’re running a power build since they both scale with power. Torment scales off of condition damage, so it would have little utility if you’re geared and spec’d for direct damage.
Even for condition specs, you’d generally would want to avoid grabbing precision since we don’t really have many useful crit procs – not to mention you can’t crit on conditions, so the precision will mostly go to waste. Grabbing precision just to see more torment proc (8 sec duration 7 sec CD) means you’ll lose out on more useful stat like power/vit/toughness.
So, you left the group fully knowing it will kick everyone out. Then, you whispered the Guardian who kept dying and called him a kitten?
Yeah, you’re a scumbag.
Professions in GW2 are restricted to one armor class for no reason other than game balance, which is stupid and limits roleplaying, etc.
Can elementalists not train to be greatsword-wielding, armor-clad battlemages because the devs didn’t want to bother implementing the option...
Dat entitlement. If you like the lore so much, let’s start at the part where when your character dies, it stays dead.
What kind of gear set up do you run with?
Great fights and editing. Which class gives you the most trouble and which ones do you find to be the easiest to take down?
So, I understand different races have different comments in combat – like when a minion is summoned, a minion dies, etc.
I understand Necromancers have a good number of these comments, and I was wondering which ones you personally found to be the wittiest.
Any survivability gains would come at a very steep cost in damage.
Really can’t agree with this. At the least, it is a terrible idea to use Berserker or Valkyrie in head, chest, and leg slots. The stat you are giving up for that bit of +crit damage is just not very efficient. For helmet and legs, you are giving up 16 toughness for each +1% crit damage gain. For chest, it’s 14.4 toughness. Compared that to ascended trinkets and rings, which are closer to 7 toughness given up for each +1% crit damage.
To the OP, if you are planning on using ascended stuff, I would keep all of them as Berserkers. While exotic berserker backpack/ring/amulets/trinkets have pretty subpar ratio, their ascended counterparts offer the best trade-offs for that extra +% crit damage. Consider switching one or both of your weapons from Berserkers (which I assume you’re using) to Soldiers. Your shoulder/gloves/feet slots have a slightly better trade-off ratio than your weapons do.
Let’s say you are using all soldiers right now and slowly switching gears to berserkers while maintaining maximum stat effectiveness.
1) If you want more damage, the first items you will want to swap for berserkers will be your ascended backpack/rings/trinkets/amulet.
2) If you want more damage on top of that, you will then want to swap your shoulder/gloves/feet to berserkers. (12 stats per 1% crit) This is a fairly happy medium and a good place to stop.
3) If you still want more, switch your weapons to Berserkers. (12.8 stats per 1% crit) You’re not maximizing your stats here, but that extra precision and crit damage is nice.
4) If you go up another step, swap your chest to berserkers. (14.4 stats per 1% crit)
5) If you’re going full glass-cannon, then you will change your helmet and legs to berserkers. (16 stats per 1% crit)
On a similar note, there’s a pretty good theorycrafting post on the first page: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief.
I thought you were being unnecessarily rough from the OP, but, after reading your follow-up, I think you were more or less justified. All the times someone wanted to swap to an alt in my dungeons, they would first ask about it, and we would figure out a good time to do it. I think it would make my blood boil to see someone switching to an alt in middle of a boss fight without saying anything and just sitting at the entrance.
Asking before switching also keeps it more organized – people who are currently doing it will know what to expect. At the least, it would prevent multiple players from switching to their alt and messing up the dungeon run in the process.
Uh… Wow, good question. The clean version looks awesome.
Use gw2lfg.com. It’s pretty much a LFG board.
Go post where someone actually cares. Why are you preaching to thief players.
Dont spam the skill.
Glad i could help you, please enjoy the rest of your day.
That’s not the point.
The point is that I can spam the skill and get good results, so there is no point into using it properly.
The game should encourage players to get better and get skilled to win, not spamming. Am I right?
I didn’t know target dummies had boons.
You will do terrible damage in PvE, and anyone worthwhile will just deny your larcenous strike in PvP.
Oh noes, y’all! A weapon set without a teleport or an escape? Whatever will we do?
Try not to lose sleep over it.
Simple, Charr make about as much sense as orc rogues in warcraft, big and bulky doesn’t make quick and sneaky.
You know what’s really good at sneaking around? Lions and other felines.
Not my people run dungeons in
Tell your people to go run some dungeons.
Those silly grandmas. Just because you have no mobility in real life doesn’t mean can get away with that in PvP.
Well, you can’t report people for wanting level 80s in the group. No.
Seeing this is your third alt, I’m guessing you made this post to just vent about getting kicked. If you run dungeons often enough on your alts, you should know better than anyone that kicking alts is not a common practice.
Anyways, I’ve run into one like that few days ago trying to run AC exp with my Guardian alt – just some guy complaining incessantly about my refusal to bring in my main and ended up leaving after a wipe. Most people I’ve seen really don’t care which character you’re on, and they will also freely switch out between their alts and mains.
S/P can handle it with most specs well long as you have a decent source of restoring initiative and manage to stack them well. Some people prefer Blinding Powder, but I usually just stick with Pistol Whip.
You will want Signet of Malice and Caltrops for sure. Dagger Storm will speed it up quite a bit as well.
So, go throw something at one and pull them into a corner. Lay down your Caltrops and either spam Pistol Whip or laydown Blinding Powder. Again, I prefer Pistol Whip personally since it can proc Signet of Malice so many times, and the veteran camp boss guy will knock you down less often. When your initiative is going to run out, lay down Blinding Powder (or don’t) and use your Dagger Storm. All the mobs except the bossman should be dead in 10-15 seconds.
But is there a way to deactivate the traps BEFORE your party does a suicide run to the other side? Is there any way to avoid casualties? I’d really like to know. Because maybe we’ve simply misunderstood the mechanics all this time… or maybe it was just really badly designed.
Try communicating with your party members, maybe. Tell them to stay back so you can go in and deactivate it yourself.
And how is deactivating traps a cheesy strats ?
Oh I don’t know, maybe the devs put the traps and the three mobs there so we’d actually have to fight the mobs while dealing with the trap? Having a single thief/ele run to a certain point to deactivate the traps without killing the mobs completely trivializes the gauntlet. That was probably intended to save the groups some trouble running back after a wipe. I might buy it if there was an object you had to activate to disable the traps or something but having the traps mysteriously disappear when someone gets to a certain point sounds like it wasn’t meant to happen during the fight.
(edited by Elm.8169)
But how do you get past the tunnel with the ranged bandits, and all the spikes coming from the ground? Suppose you are playing a class that doesn’t have access to deflection or blocking? Those spikes instantly down you, and the enemies do a lot of damage. There’s no way to shut down the trap, and you can’t pull the enemies, not even with pull-skills. Running isn’t fast enough, the enemies and the spikes get you before you reach the other side. Some ranged attacks hit them, but they do far more damage than you. But they are out of range of ground targeted attacks.
Honestly, what is the intended strategy for this bit? I’ve completed it myself through trial and error, teleporting and speed boosts, but that was pretty dodgy every time I did it. (Plus I had to hide behind the door opening once I got to the other side, just so they wouldn’t instantly kill me) Is there something I’m missing here?
Unless they patched this out, the traps deactivate when you aggro the next group that comes after the three at the end of the hallway. I usually run with a thief, so I would SB and Steal or something to the guys at the end of the hallway, run over and shoot at the next group of mobs and then stealth back.
I ran CM again for the first time in a long time yesterday, and it looked like alot of the cheesy strats have been fixed. It’s entirely possible this one had been changed as well.
It’s just a big pain in the kitten It’s little bit better now, but, if you’re just in it for the tokens or the reward, it’s much more efficient to do P1 or P2.
To illustrate… On the first part, it used to be that you had to light 5 torches almost simultaneously by channeling them (with 5 second difference or something). Incidentally, some of these torches had mobs spawning nearby it, and any damage from the mob would interrupt you. So, after clearing out the mobs, if some people in the group took too long to get into position, you’d have to deal with the mobs respawning. It’s little better now, since there are only three torches.
Then, there’s a part where you need to cap a point with a bunch of fire legion guys spawning on top of you. It’s sort of like the part on P2 before the last boss, but the mobs are much tougher, and you can wipe here if your group isn’t too competent.
Then, there’s the gauntlet. Low mobility classes can have hard time getting through here and just hold up the group for awhile.
Lastly, the final boss takes way longer to down than P1 and P2 bosses combined.
I don’t mind running P3 for fun, but the time investment and the potential hold-up makes it just really unattractive for anyone who just might want a quick run for gold and whatnot.
When something is formatted that way – ‘Damage (9x): 198,’ it means all nine hits add up to 198 damage. Unload skill tooltip is formatted in an unusual way.
Thieves use a sub-branch of the Denial School called “Shadow Arts.” It’s derived from Canthan practices.
…and I was hoping it was something coming from superhuman discipline or something. Do you have a source where I could read more up on it?
Thieves have a very special sort of magic, and it involves a dagger in the back of the neck. We like to call it “backstabbing” but I’ve been assured by the Displaced Assassins Guild of Cantha that is too derogatory a word for it, and I need to find another name for it….
Cool story, but it absolutely does nothing to answer the question.
People still portal bomb? I haven’t seen a successful portal bomb in weeks. They are rare in tier 1 now unless you want to wipe.
It’s used all the time in T1.
The booty-hurt is strong in this one.
I’d like to preface this by telling you how very sorry I am that your mentors were taken so early. I truly am. That said, this theory doesn’t mean much to me. I know full well that Tybalt is still alive.
The Battle for Claw Island was a maelstrom of chaos and death. Everywhere I saw young Lionguards falling victim to the wickedness of the Risen. All seemed hopeless, and there was nothing to do but flee for our lives. Reaching the gates, a wave of Risen beasts assailed us, but the brave Lightbringer Tybalt Leftpaw shut himself inside the fortress with the beasts, buying us the time to escape.
There I stood, horrified, trapped beyond the gates of Claw Island fortress with an impassable barrier between me and the monstrous Risen, but also between me and my dear friend. On the mini map, a small skull and crossbones taunted me from the courtyard, marking the spot where his body had fallen. The only epitaph that my partner would ever receive.
But what do we say to the god of death?
Ignoring Traehearne’s pleas for us to escape to the ships I jumped at the doors, seeking a way to scale the walls. It was futile, and I knew that, but to surrender would condemn Tybalt Leftpaw to a final, awful grave. Turning into the brush I ran around the fortress, weaving my way through trees and bushes and swimming through the murky, dead infested harbor of the island until, at last, I found what I sought. The dry beach awaited me on the north end of the island, and there, I saw the bestial dragon that had driven us from any chance we had at victory. Traehearne followed behind me, still carrying our wounded ally, still requesting that we take our leave. But no one would be left behind today.
Mustering my courage, I ran between the dragon’s legs, sprinting full tilt into the courtyard where Tybalt had fallen. The dragon’s breath consumed me, filled me with a sense of dread the likes I had never felt, and I was compelled to flee. Fortunately, my wayward legs carried me directly into the courtyard, away from the dragon’s wrath. Unfortunately, they guided me into a horde of Risen mongrels. I took up arms, fighting for my very life. Many times I found myself on the ground, but each time I rallied myself and rejoined the fight. Traehearne proved useless, but he had his arms full carrying our ally, whom he had brought for some unknowable reason. I fought my way to Tybalt’s body, the crowd of Risen that had battered him to the ground standing at the gates, most likely attempting to break through. I took my chance as their backs were turned.
A trap, most likely. As I knelt to revive my fallen friend, the Risen turned and attacked. There were over a dozen of them, many more than there had appeared to be, as though the creatures had somehow been standing in the same place, obscuring each other. They fell upon Traehearne and I, forcing us to fall back until they gave up the chase. We managed to dispatch only two of the powerful foes, and many more remained. Guerilla tactics became necessary, and we would run forward to draw out a few of the Risen guards, killing one or two when we could and falling back before the others could retaliate. It took nearly a full half hour, but finally the last of the Risen fell dead at my feet.
I rushed to Tybalt’s side. At last, the time had come to revive my friend. Working quickly, I mended his terrible wounds and helped him to his feet. He would not move from his spot. He did not even have anything to say to me, as though he were never meant to say anything more at all. He simply stood there, staring grimly at the mass of Risen behind us. I knew what had to be done. I cut a path back through the Risen, the same tactics necessary to avoid being overrun by the Horde. Soon, however, there was a clear path between Tybalt and the bay, through which we could escape. Still, however, he did not move. He stayed in place, certainly not wanting the others to see him.
There are few ways to leave the Order of Whispers. Perhaps Tybalt wished for a simpler life. Perhaps he merely did not want the others to know that he had survived his hero’s sacrifice, and indeed, the others spoke of him from that day on as though he had fallen. But I knew, and certainly Traehearne knew as well, though he never once told a soul. Somewhere, on some faraway beach, an appletini in one hand and a smile on his face, Tybalt Leftpaw sits staring at the sea, basking in freedom, remembering the days we fought together. Oftentimes I think of him, and I’m sure he thinks of me. Even though no words were shared, I know he was grateful. Some stories, even the simplest ones, simply can’t end sooner than they’re meant to.
So what do we say to the god of death?
An apple a day keeps Grenth away.
I think you may want to spend less time on this game.
Doing this has become my new favorite thing in GW2. Try switching out Signet of Shadows for Caltrops too sometimes for some entertainment.
If you want quick gold and chance at items, there’s always AC and CoF. If you have some time to kill and want to get slapped around for a bit, there’s Arah. Don’t do it if you don’t like it.
Just bring plenty of AoE. I’ve pugged this path about a dozen times since the patch without any issue, so I don’t really know what to tell you. I’ve done everything from heavy plate comp to 5 squishies including three thieves, and we usually just steamroll through it. Just laying down snares + aoe and kiting them around?
AFAIK, Sigil of Air has 1.1 skill coefficient while Sigil of Fire has 1.0. Sigil of Fire is also an AOE, however.
Interesting video. Any thoughts on doing one with bows as well? Also, ignore that one poster. Seriously, stop addressing him. We have videos worth talking about and the first dozen posts are about him raising some stupid arguments.
How about SoR NA going to BG? That could work too, yah?
Wall of Text hits you for 6000 damages.
Spelling hits you for 3000 damages.
Suggestion of Replacing Graphics with Red Circles hits you for 9000 damages.
Officer down.
Officer down.