Guild Wars 2

So, do the peeps who completed the monthly achievement before the 28th get their 10 laurels or is it just restricted to the peeps who complete it after the patch?

Which server do you come from? I’ll try to see if I can’t get some of our bandwagoners over to your server.

Kain, don’t advance too quickly, we need you in T3 to bash us so that we can get back down to T4!

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups/#NA

A sentiment shared by every veteran Maguuma player.

Sicarine.3985:

This thread has sort of derailed on a tangent of semantics. What the OP is trying to point out is there may be an issue with elitism in CoF and the designers need to be made aware of this. Now argue this next point however you like, but I maintain that the demand for certain classes over others IS elitism. Look it up in a dictionary if you want.

Groups looking only for specific classes IS elitism. In a perfect world where all of these people interact with themselves and all other “casual players” interact with themselves, this does not change the fact that it STILL IS elitism.

By itself, this would not be a problem. But I (and if I understand correctly, the OP) see a trend that this elitism is escalating. People should not feel sidelined into a certain class. And it is an issue when I personally look for a PuG, while my guild is off doing other things, (just to get a dungeon run in for some extra gold), and all I see is “Warrior and Mesmers only NO NOOBS”.

That would be correct. If I remember correctly, the designers do not intend for GW2 to be a huge gear-fest where everyone must get everything with “ilevel XXX” before you are accepted in a group for any dungeon. Right now, this equipment linking remains with only CoF, and that isn’t so bad. There also isn’t an inspect gear option(which may, or may not be part of it).

About a month ago, when I popped by a few CoF farm groups, while I did see groups taking mostly warriors, a lot of them are good with 1 or 2 guardians/thieves, and none of them asked for any links, nor did I see any of them asking for full berserker gear. I took a 3 weeks break from CoF afterward to focus on other portions of the game, and when I came back, I was… slightly taken aback from what I saw, not at the gold farmers, but at the bar of elitism going even higher than what it was.

Any form of elitism is fine if its restricted to a minority, because that is how it is. But when I see it being a norm with everyone asking for 4 of a certain class for a particular dungeon for a common material goal such as money making, then it does worry me, because there is a clear class imbalance here in that one particular class is favored over the others, and that class directly impacts the economy in a certain way(exactly how, I don’t know, as I am not an economics expert).

The other issue is that, while there are definitely other methods to make better money out there which people may or may not be aware of, CoF P1 is very common.

Now, a future problem may be this. I am no analyst, and I definitely could be wrong but there is a probability that as time passes, more people would want to get their gold for their legendaries and what not, and there may be more people who stay off other dungeons and concentrate on only CoF. Thankfully, they are probably still a minority at the moment. But if it eventually gets to 30% of the entire GW2 population farming CoF P1 just for the cash, then I would think that is actually a pretty bad sign.

haviz.1340:

Harrason.1429:

-snip-

I’m gonna do self-facepalm here, bad link -.-. This one, 3 guardians/2 wars so a bit less dps than before, 9 minutes

I stand corrected then. However, while I now see that it could definitely use a slight difficulty boost, I believe that they should add more buildup events leading to the final boss, or to make it so that it actually takes more time to complete each event.

haviz.1340:

Harrason.1429:

To be honest, quite a lot of CoF P1 isn’t about killing, but actually skipping. Other then the first section in which you have to clear out the guards and the turrets, you are only required to actually kill the Acolytes during the rescue section, apart from the bosses. This is why CoF P1(and P2 to a reasonable extent as well as other dungeons with short times) can be ran so quickly. Rather than making it harder, a better solution would actually be creating more events that are not skip-able.

Not really, check this video from October. No skipping, killing everything, less than 7 minutes. Party composition? 2 wars/2 guards/1 thief, no mesmer. That path is just short.

If my eyes didn’t fail me, the party setup was as you mentioned. However, they did not kill everything. From 2:03, it was clear that they skipped the bonus bridge event, as well as the second set of mobs + turrets combo. While they did kill everything in the rescue event, it was not necessary, as the Acolytes will spawn again regardless of the mobs getting killed or otherwise, its just a respawn timer they had to wait for. Seeing as they have 2 guardians, it makes it pretty easy to gather all the mobs up and kill them, but a 4 GC warrior 1 mesmer combo wouldn’t be able to do so as far as i know.

As they activated the 4 braziers required to open the door, they will have to wait until the gate controller is smashed, as seen on the top right. While waiting, they have the option to kill the mobs, yes. But it is not required. You can just run around in circles while waiting. Finally, at the gate controller room, there’s actually 1 Godforged Hellstorm, and they skipped that as well, with the person being assigned to the controller only smashing the controller, getting his chest’s contents, and moving on afterward.

Apart from the rescue event where they actually kill the mobs which are optional apart from the acolytes, as well as the absence of a mesmer for a portal in the boulder portion, this is exactly the way CoF P1 farm runs are done.

Dee Jay.2460:

People will always strive for maximum efficiency.

In fact that is often the only reward you get.

People farmed Plinx over and over because he was the most efficient. People farm CoF because it’s the most efficient.

People ask for Guardians and Warriors to supplement their group because it is the most efficient.

You can’t really blame people for wanting to be efficient And I don’t think ANet can either.

Precisely. It is their nature to want to do it quick, and you can’t fault them for that. However, this particular dungeon path does stick out from the others. As it is, without much farming methods left available, people turn to CoF because they have to. That however does not mean that its not something that should be left alone. I think that its better for every dungeon to actually provide something that makes people say “Hey, you know, this dungeon is actually worth it.” rather than “Apart from AC all paths, we only have CoF P1 to farm, so I guess that’s how it is.”

I only hope that if they make any changes, they would do it carefully, because the economy will change, for better or for worse.

Phoenix.7845:

Harrason.1429:

Why is it necessary for people to show elitism?

Show elitism how exactly? Is having a warrior with full cof gear and zerker exotics elite?

Why do they want to do it as fast as possible?

If someone can do cof p1 in ~6 minutes why would he want to do it slower?

A base CoF 1 run would net 15+21 silver from bosses. Throw in 5s for the chests that appear. So you have around 40 silver per run at base.

Not true. With 30% more money cookie you get 13 silver from first boss, 10 silver from chest after acolyte event and 20 silver from last boss. Also you get ~2 bags which give ~3 silver and 2,6 silver for completing (at full DR). this gives about 52 silver per run and when selling trash it goes up to ~60 silver per run.

You are probably someone who farms CoF P1 regularly. Thanks for your opinion. Whether that is considered elitism or otherwise lies in each individual, and for the people are well familiar with the way CoF P1 farms are run, usually, they would have a high sense of expectations, not just of themselves, but of others, and it is treated as the norm, in part due to the environment you guys run in, it is not elitism. However, it probably is, to an average player.

As for the 6 min runs, you are absolutely right about that. It is not your fault precisely, as I’ve mentioned. This is content design, and ANet made it as such. It is ANet that allows you to run CoF in 6 minutes. You have done nothing wrong, and it is in your nature to want to run things efficiently.

haviz.1340:

Waiting till anet makes cof harder for average joe who doesn’t even know there’s a dodge button. Ah, the outcry will be soothing. Most of those “elitists” need stability at final boss, they should be kicked or bring more dps skills, afterall that’s what CoF1 is about.

To be honest, quite a lot of CoF P1 isn’t about killing, but actually skipping. Other then the first section in which you have to clear out the guards and the turrets, you are only required to actually kill the Acolytes during the rescue section, apart from the bosses. This is why CoF P1(and P2 to a reasonable extent as well as other dungeons with short times) can be ran so quickly. Rather than making it harder, a better solution would actually be creating more events that are not skip-able.

Maguuma is losing? Good news. Extremely good news.

However I don’t think we’ll be knocked out of T3 that quickly, we’ll need someone from T4 to move up for that since FA’s already slated for T2 next week, and I don’t have much hope for SBI the way it is right now. =/

Kid Taylor.5479:

First, I would like to contest the assumption that you can make 6-7 gold per run. The fastest recorded CoF 1 run is seven minutes, with a range of a seven minute low to a 9+ minute high for speed runs.

Let’s assume that you are able to do it at the fastest speed. A base CoF 1 run would net 15+21 silver from bosses. Throw in 5s for the chests that appear. So you have around 40 silver per run at base.

Assuming you run consecutively, you would be able to manage 8 runs in an hour, which will net you a profit of 40 * 8 + X where X is the silver from dungeon completion.

Now, if you run it consecutively, you might have noticed that the silver rewards for completion diminish after every run, from 26 > 21 > 13 and so on so forth. You are simply not able to reach 6-7 gold even if completion silver did not diminish. At most you would be able to earn half that amount, at max 4g, diminishing rapidly after first hour.

My question now is, is this an honest mistake? Or has there been something wrong with my calculations?

I do think there is something wrong with how people are requesting for 4x warriors and 1x mesmer, but what exactly is your point? That the existence of such groups negate the existence of other groups which farm CoF 1? There is high demand for such groups and yet there is nothing that prevents you from forming such a team. The only difference is roughly having a 7~9 minute run extended to a 12~15 minute run. Besides, CoF 1 will be changed in the next patch anyway.

There is nothing “competitive” about running dungeons, no speed clear scoreboards, no killboards at the end, no dps race. You are free to form your own groups as you see fit. Bearing this in mind, you are not losing out on anything at all. The only problem that may arise might be from 1) extremely extremely low takeup rates to farm path 1 without that specific composition (highly unlikely, and would have to be absymally low to justify a change) or 2) Prices of Omnomberry MF/Gold food goes up dramatically, speed running will be justified due to high cost (likely, since prices have been rising).

My entire point about this post is not to take an absolute stand and saying “You guys really need to change it ASAP, this sucks for me”, but to actually get ANet to know about the latest situation regarding CoF 1 if they haven’t and they should take action if they deem it fit.

On hindsight, I am also doing this to get feedback for ANet themselves, from the experienced dungeon runners to newbies and to gold farmers, in that sense, I’ve achieved my aim, at least from you.

Still, I am very interested in what you’ve said about CoF 1 being changed in the next patch. Could you please link it in this thread? That would be immensely helpful.

I understand that there’s a similar discussion thread going on with the OP listing his negative experience in a group resulting in a kick even though he was the one who posted in the LFG website.

I however, am not here to complain about my experiences, as people choose how to run their groups as they see fit. Rather, I am extremely concerned about the elitism surrounding this particular path out of every other dungeon out there, and that includes FotM. I am not talking about the token runs here, as they are perfectly fine, but the groups that utilize it for gold farming.

In extremely fast groups one would earn about 6 to 7g per hour, and that is not including possible exotics/rares and molten cores/lodestones. Depending on where people’s sights are, this is considered “the fastest gold/hr I’ve ever earned in my GW2 career” to “far from enough to afford me that precursor that i need”, and that is also what I would like to highlight on.

Why is it necessary for people to show elitism? Why do they want to do it as fast as possible? There may well be a reason, and most do it for the grind of a legendary. There are probably other reasons, but the core reward is not disputed, everyone does it for the gold.

Elitism happens in almost every MMO, and there is no way to get around it. However, ANet themselves made every class capable of support, damage control, damage dealing and healing. All for a reason. While there have been countless times where groups are asking for guardians for their sheer damage control utility, and mesmers for their unique abilities, asking for 4 warriors in a 5 man group calls for major alarms.

People may wish to stay competitive in this field, and hardcore people who have not played warriors yet but would want to farm for their legendaries would call their classes into question. “I love my class, but when it comes to gold farming, its just not good enough. I need a good class, and that’s a warrior”. What may result is what a lot of people dread the most coming into GW2 from other MMOs such as the “most famous MMORPG that you shall not name in this forum”.

This elitism is not the players’ fault, as this is something they discovered, and something that they do as the game made it so. Therefore, their reactions and the actions they do in regards to recruiting for their dungeons groups and the actual dungeon runs are absolutely valid, from the point of a gamer. The question is, ArenaNet, what would happen if this remains the way it is in the long run?

Yes, in light of the methods used to gain perma-fury which I wasn’t aware of, I decided to take out Signet of Might for FGJ permanently. I also took out Dolyak Signet as well(I was unaware that it gives only 90 toughness but rather, a static percentage of damage reduction until after I made my changes in accordance to Jiaz’s post) for a spare utility slot as my gear’s toughness and vitality already made up a huge chunk of my armor and tank that Dolyak hardly does anything.

Kaz, I’ve just looked your points over and I agree that its worth pursuing. In light of my build utilizing the 20% CD reduction for a perma fury(Signet of Rage with 48s CD) combo with FGJ, the normally useless active healing from Healing Signet suddenly becomes a lot more inviting. While it doesn’t heal as much as Healing Surge(which it shouldn’t be) on Stage 3, it almost stands equal with Stage 2 Adrenaline. With 16 seconds, its not that long for it to recharge as well. You can also utilize it for a passive regen heal or an active burst healing over slightly more than 1/2 the duration of Healing Surge with slightly less than half its amount, with the rest getting made up by the Healing Signet once you are in the clear. Considering there’s not a lot of situations where you would be spamming Healing Surge full time as well.

Thanks for your feedback guys. I’ve looked into Jiaz’s thread and tested out the FGJ and Signet of Rage combo and it worked out pretty well, fury was almost 100% uptime. I will probably make this change.

For the other suggestions such as healing and banners, I tend to leave it on a case-by-case basis, switching when I have to, but I would usually keep what I have otherwise.

Keep the suggestions coming, I would love to see what others have in mind.

Max Power, Precision Traits, mostly Vitality and Toughness gear.

Build is :

Strength – 30
Great Fortitude – 5% of power is given as a bonus to vitality.
Berserker’s Power – Increased damage based on how much adrenaline you have built. Stage 1 – 3%, Stage 2 – 7%, Stage 3 – 12%.
Slashing Power – Greatsword and spear damage is increased by 10%.

Arms – 30
Deep Strike – +40 Precision for each unused signet.
Rending Strikes – 33% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits.
Forceful Greatsword – Gain might on a critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skills recharges 20% faster.

Discipline – 10
Heightened Focus – Gain a 2% critical hit chance for 1 stage of adrenaline, 5% for 2 stages, 9% for 3 stages.

Now, apparently I’ve got some feedback from certain individuals that rolling 5 signets is “terribad”. While I am aware that this is not at all beneficial to group support(for instance 3 warriors stacking FGJ would have much better buffs), nor is its damage comparable to a full berserker build warrior, it has always served me well as a good solo damage/tank hybrid, albeit with very bad utility that could easily be swapped with 1 or 2 signets for a mild precision drop when necessary.

In a way, I would actually like to ask the majority of the warriors(or at least people who know what they are talking about) to try and justify these minority of individuals and their opinions on this.

For the record, my stats are sitting on the following(including self bonuses) -
2253 Power
1752 Precision
1436 Toughness
1619 Vitality

3353 Attack
44% Crit Chance(53% at Stage 3 Adrenaline)
2647 Armor
25402 Health
+15% Critical Damage

I am perfectly happy and satisfied with my current build as it is, so unless you give me really good reasons as to why its bad, I am not going to change my build(not that you guys care anyway I suppose).

I was counting on it being a close fight(albeit still with us losing) with Yaks this week, and I thought IoJ would actually come out strong(I didn’t know about the situation in these two servers, apologies).

Imagine my surprise when Maguuma is winning by a mile. This has never quite happened before since I joined Maguuma about a month ago, and frankly, the situation is worrying. As some of the Mag regulars have said, we don’t want the zerg transfers here, because when that happens, people start to do weird, stupid things.

Last week, one of the commanders(who may well be reading this) came calling for help containing BP because a lot of us went over to help out with DR borderlands which we had some trouble in, and he was really taken aback by the actions of two of them.

Apparently, while we were gone, there were 2 guys who wanted to get the NE tower, and the commander complied as the other points were under Mag control. They started PvD-ing the tower with 4 people, and when that was done and over with, these 2 players went in to get the PoI, and said “Thanks guys, I am done.” and logged off, leaving the other 2(including the commander) behind, without even killing the tower lord. What followed was a few good-willed BP defenders who finally responded to the crosses(after actually dealing with the NW tower if i remember correctly), and that was the end of that particular group.

I hope things really stabilize once paid transfers come in, as I enjoy playing with all the guilds that make Mag what it is, and I would hate to see even just one of them transferring due to the “bads” or just wanting to get out of the zergs.

When I first transferred to Maguuma back in mid-December or so, that’s when I really started to check the rankings, and its really unfortunate that both BP and DH have been fighting these uphill matches against the rotating T4 servers, and in fact I think the guys in DH, being up there in T4-T5 area for quite some time, are getting really sick of it, looking at their poor track record for the last couple of weeks.

But that aside, while most of the time we pretty much zerg both DR and BP, I’ve seen many things that DR’s capable of(they are actually really good at securing their garrison as well as defending it for hours when they need to, and I’ve seen them done a few things that only organized groups with good commanders can do). As for BP, they did a really FINE job holding east keep of DR BL at the beginning of this matchup.
Hope to see more of 3 colors in EB, in fact both of you guys set off our alarms a lot when we see DR taking Rogue’s and BP taking Golanta. Really hoping to see either of you pull off a stealth golem zerg on our lowlands keep sometime this week, it’ll be really fun. =D

Next week, it’ll probably be Ebay vs DR vs Kain. Ebay will probably be the victor, but I’ll like to see how DR will go up against Kain, since DR has been owning Kain for weeks in T8 before ET dropped down there, and both servers have been winning by large margins on their way up(though Kain had a much wider margin, probably due to the asians).

As for Mag, I really hope to see it go the way just like when DB moved up to T4 with us and yaks when it was a really close fight.

Kyskythyn.6471:

Still waiting on pics from the Maguuma festivities at DR’s spawn in Maguuma BL last night. Very smart of you guys to make the alpha golem to carry your drinks.

I was actually there with you guys at your spawn in our BL. It was very entertaining, the DR guys who joined in with us and the thief from [PRO] who kept trying to kill us, but overall it was all in good fun, and I had a good laugh when a few more of your guys came in and started wiping us before stripping naked and humping one of our best commanders(guy likes to run around naked all the time, so don’t mind him). Unfortunately, I never took any screenshots, so I can’t help you there. =/

P.S. HAIL GREAT LORD FLAME RAM FOREVAR.

I was really hoping to see more of the new toy, so overall, that was bad.

Unless it happens to be a bug and there’s supposed to be more of it, in which case I hope it gets fixed soon.

Once upon a time, ET was apparently among one of the top dogs of WvW. Well, I wasn’t playing then so I had no idea.

But right now, I think this really confirms it, ET’s rock bottom, totally. At least we have a reasonable matchup somewhat, but I think a lot of ET would agree that it was better when we are matched up with HoD. Still, Looking at how DR’s facerolling the rest, I guess the best possible matchup would be ET vs HoD vs SF.