Showing Posts For Idocreating.7094:
I have a Rampager geared Nade engi running 30/30/0/10/0 (Perma Swiftness and Vigor but no HGH and Might stacking) and I can assure you she heavily outdamages my Tanky Healy Guardian that runs Power/Heal/Tough gear.
Think about it:
Prior to fighting NULL, you face Canach alone. Canach is basically a pushover there to teach players the importance and purpose of the mines. Anyone who isn’t a complete tool should enter the NULL encounter with knowledge of the mines, what they do and how to get the enemy to trigger them.
Boss has basic abilities to begin with which slowly ramp up. First we’re introduced to his immunity that has to be removed by mines, then the damaging balls come into play, then the healing turrets and finally his passive damage aura that functions as a soft enrage.
Each of these mechanics, including his ability to reset and detonate the mines are all telegraphed in the chatbox in yellow text. Attentive players can pick up on these cues and react accordingly, bad players are punished for not paying attention. Better still, almost every mechanics is properly explained in-game. No need to wiki!
Even the bundle component is done well in the fight. Unlike the vehicle-fights in World of Warcraft that drew much hatred from the playerbase, here the bundles are quick use or long use items. Yes, you can just sit in the Mine Detector bundle for most of the fight just happily disabling the mines, but the cooldowns on the mine disablers and the general safety you have with keeping a small set of mines disabled means it’s better just quickly grab them, use the disables and get right back into what you we’re doing before.
This is further encouraged in order to safely get around the room to the turrets as the electricity balls can show up at the most inopportune time and force a dodgeroll or a mine trigger. The balls are a good component too, though I suspectmany will disagree. Why? Because they are minor random component. This fight can never quite feel repetitive or dull as at any moment, an unlucky combo of ball movement, boss pushbacks and pulls can lead to a quick death without a dodge or stunbreaker.
So what makes this a good boss? Accountability. Every player needs to be on their toes in this fight, slacking can and will negatively affect the group and is very noticeable to other group members when it is done.
Huge McBigdumb the Warrior still hacking away at NULL while his shield is up and NULL is attacking him rather than moving him to a live mine? Accountable. Point blank refusing to use a mine detector at all? Accountable. Blowing the crucial mine re-arming Interupt and giving the boss a ton of defiant stacks? Accountable.
This boss is very easily understood by competent members of the playerbase but not necessarily beaten, there’s a good skillcap here and NULL’s charge can encourage the use of stunbreakers which will break up normal dps builds. Coupled with the soft enrage being a player damager rather than a flat buff to NULL, support and healing builds can shine in this fight which makes for a refreshing change from the mass dps norm we’ve been seeing
My main worry about this fight isn’t really the fight itself, it’s the Living Story component of it. First of all, this is a Living Story encounter which means as far as we know it’s TEMPORARY. No announced plans to add it as a Fractal, no plans leave it in place, just gone into the wind like the Molten Facility did (Off topic: Reduce that dungeon to the weapons test, a lil trash and the twins and you’ve got a solid Fractal). It’s rather saddening to see the developers finally get to grips with making good boss content and just letting it rot once the story is over, while I have to just run the same dull bosses over and over. Whoooo.
In conclusion, this game badly needs more content like this boss. Challenging encounters for those of us that have finished the current dungeon content and are masochistic enough to demand that you hurt us more. We want to be smacked down by clever mechanics and counterattacks that require more than just “Stand next to Shatterer’s leg and stab his toes”, we want to be beaten into the dirt in the complete knowledge that it was entirely preventable if we had not messed up.
And a boss composed entirely of bacon would be pretty dang cool too.
Friend is about to hit 80 and has settled on going for a build that emphasizes the “I don’t ever go down, throw heals all over the place and steal everyone conditions because they’re so yummy” aspects of the Guardian.
Just poking the Guardian forum for any builds that emphasize this playstyle and what kind of stats on gear he should be looking for? This build will be primarily for dungeons/fractals so I was hoping the gear could be acquired from running a dungeon, though Trading post and Karma vendors are fine too.
Acidic Elixirs should work as another incentive to throw your elixirs onto your allies in close range of an enemy. Make it grant a 10 second poison on your ally’s next attack.
Engi running Speedy Kits and the trait that grants Vigor when you have Swiftness, 30 in Tools for the 50% Endurance trait. Run some form of long range kit like grenades or elixir gun.
The best DPS spec is generally considered to be one using grenades. Once you hit 60 and can access the grenadier perk your throwing several grenades per second that all inflicts damage and vulnerability.
The only drawback is the carpal tunnel you develop.
Am quite torn on how to gear a fairly glass cannon grenade kit spec for 30/0/0/30/10.
I’ve got my Rune choices down now, but the base gear is what’s concerning me. With several conditions from certain grenade skills, i’m wondering where gearing for Condition Damage in slots where the Crit Damage is underbudget would be an overall damage increase or if it would be better to stick with pure Crit Damage gear.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18q7oe/not_all_slots_are_created_equal_dos_and_donts_of/