Guild Wars 2

• Windows 7 64 bit
• 32 bit GW2 Client

Did not have any issues until the most recent patch.

Hi, I am posting here to follow up on bloodspill’s post in my search thread. So far, I am liking what I see, so I will try to contact one of you in-game as soon as I can. I’m typically on during the evenings 8PM EST or later. My only concern is the raid starting time, but I’ll just have to see if my schedule is compatible with the group’s before I commit.

If there is room, I also have a friend (plays Druid (ascended zealot) and Herald) who is also interested in joining. His criteria is similar to mine, but he has made it to 5% HP remaining on Vale Guardian.

Hello, raid recruiters!

I’m looking for a well-organized group of people to reliably raid with on a weekly basis (more specific criteria listed below). If you think that I would be a good fit for your static/raid group, please tell me more about your group in a post, link me to more details, send me a message, etc. Also, if you need more raid-related information from me, let me know. Thanks!

I’m looking for a raid static/guild group that:

• raids on weekends (my available times are below); max of 3 hours per raid day
• is semi-hardcore/mediumcore; focused on improving/progressing at a steady pace
• has a friendly, mature atmosphere
• often discusses strategies, builds, improvements, etc.
• assembles the squad in a timely manner around raid start time
• has great communication both in and out of game: scheduling, raid coordination, discussions, etc.; uses at least some kind of voice communication and some way to contact leader/members outside the game
• has a strong leader or has strong members to keep the group organized and ready to adapt to changes
• has members that are committed to better themselves and the team without causing stress to others

About Me

• NA Server: Stormbluff Isle
• Raid Availability: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 7 PM – 12 AM CST/CDT
• I main a Guardian (ascended zerk and zerk tank hybrid sets)
• I have all professions at lvl 80 with full trait/spec unlocks. If needed, I can pick up new equipment sets and learn a new build with some time. I feel I have a fair understanding of each profession other than my main.
• I’m very punctual. If I will be late or unable to attend raid, I will let you know as soon as I can.
• I am always striving to do my best for harder content. Please feel free to suggest improvements for me if you think I might be able to refine something.
• With previous statics groups, I have cleared all of GW1’s endgame content multiple times and have recent raiding experience in Final Fantasy XIV.
• I have Discord, TS, and Vent for voice communication. I prefer Discord for contacting me outside the game.
• I have made it to the last phase of Vale Guardian with some friends.
• I don’t really care if others do it, but I personally dislike being forced to engage in exploiting content because it ruins the fun of the game for me. (i.e. glitching the AI so that a boss does not function and can’t hit you)

This happened to me too, and I was able to reproduce it (logged out last night because I was too tired). During the updraft phase, he destroys that terrain. I happened to die during that phase a couple times, and my first try did not reset the arena. However, I tried to purposely die, and the arena terrain reset for me and allowed me to complete this story step.

The word “impossible” gets thrown around here a lot and exaggerates the fact that something is or became “difficult”. At the very least, see if someone else overcame this “impossible” task before making false, general claims.

People have already proven that they can complete this fractal at varying scales and are even offering advice. Some have even soloed it. Therefore, Mai Trin is not “impossible”, but rather, maybe she’s more difficult or tuned above your preference.

I don’t remember where this was stated, but I remember Anet not wanting that because it goes against their ideals of people playing together. They didn’t want it to be too easy to encourage public elitism.

If you really care about optimal runs, I’d suggest either forming/joining your own dungeon static group or dungeon guild. Otherwise, with random players, you’ll always have to “interview” new people and waste your own time because of people not reading.

Better yet — use Ctrl + shift + H to hide the UI.

….because getting a precursor isn’t the game to me. I don’t play the game mainly to possess an item that will cause me to stop playing the game after it is acquired. I play because I enjoy spending time with my gw2 friends.

At the very least, I don’t understand why each individual path couldn’t be listed as a separate achievement in the dungeon achievements tab like they do with individual living story achievements needed to complete the meta achievement.

Example:
Arah Completer (complete all Arah paths) 0/5
<Arah Story Name> 0/1
<Arah P1 Name> 0/1
<Arah P2 Name> 0/1
<Arah P3 Name> 0/1
<Arah p4 Name> 0/1

In GW1, completed missions, zones, and dungeons were marked clearly. Luckily, I have good memory, so I was able to easily recall which dungeon paths I had completed, but this is a game feature which I think needs to be tracked by the game and not some external source.

LordByron.8369:

Calae.1738:

Fractals don’t get harder the higher level you go. Agony is a gating system. You can dodge all agony attacks except for Jade Maw. Agony is a complete waste of space and time.

you can’t evade 15 mob focusing on you….
You need tactic…

Since the damage is higher as you advance fractals are actually harder the more you advance, until you get to the point everything oneshots you.

He said agony attacks not mob attacks. Regular mobs do not have agony attacks. (see bolded text above)

Anyways, I think agony and increased statistics (increased HP, bodies, and damage) are artificial difficulty. Sure, I’d have to change strategies a little bit, but really, it feels like same thing as you’re climbing the scale levels. I was expecting there to be different mechanics at higher thresholds (i.e. harpies gaining the knockback shot starting at scale 10), but everything was felt pretty much the same after scale 10.

coglin.1867:

Each stack of defiant is removed by a control effect. When the stacks are gone, they are no longer immune until they rebuff defiant. Caused by Unshakable. Sink, float and Basilisk venom are the only CC effect that ignore the effect, or the wiki says they ignore the defiant buff anyway.

Cripple and chill (which are snares) are not control effects, though.

Control effects: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Cripple and chill are conditions that hinder movement speed and do NOT disable skills like control effects.

My team usually hides behind melee pets and summons, so that they soak up most, if not all, of the damage. It’s just long enough for us to DPS Old Tom down before the fan runs out.

There’s also a join command you can use by typing /join <player name>.

Example: /join Player A

I just used all the conditions you gave me:

• Altruistic healing trait
• Disabled virtue of resolve
• Stand your ground
• Retreat
• Save Yourselves
• Empower

All of them healed me for 75 per boon.

Sometimes a bug like yours occurs because of some combination of variables. Can you provide details of your traits, equipment, runes, and sigils (and other things you think might affect it)? Maybe something is causing it to bug out.

Screenshot 1: retreat
Screenshot 2: save yourselves
Screenshot 3: stand your ground

^This advice is probably better for pugs.

I run with a static team, but, if you want to know, I run 15/25/0/20/10 full zerk equipment with soldier runes. My typical responsibilies (outside of DPS) include, but is not limited to, condi removal, consistent might stacking, reflects, minor vuln stack assistance, shielding against key single hit attacks (aegis), and countering incoming cc (stability).

I prefer to get my damage through % bonuses, and I consistently hit 5 digit numbers when I burst with GS or sword (due to team damage coordination). I use every guardian weapon except torch and mace (rarely shield) based on what the team profession comp and current situation calls for.

It’s probably not the most optimal setup, but I enjoy the all-rounder feel, and it works for my dungeon team, anyways.

Strange, I got mine from one battery phase, killing a mob (not just tagging) at each battery station (within the orange circles on the map). After that, I went back to my job of defending the turrets in the south from mobs and DPS’d Teq when it was near death.

Also from SBI.

I used knight’s gear for a while until I grasped the guardian better and learned my encounters well enough that I didn’t need the extra toughness to cover me. Gear with survivability is something you might want to use until you feel comfortable surviving without it.

I eventually learned that survivability in dungeons will come from your ability to dodge and using your skills and/or traits to reduce/negate damage. Because of that, survivability stats are unnecessary, and you can trade your survivability stats for more damage.

NoTrigger.8396:

radiance: justice is blind + blind exposure

^this

Especially when you’re up against a single boss, focus 4 will bounce between you and the boss repeatedly, blinding the boss multiple times, which, in turn, means a few stacks of vuln.

Focus is more useful for dungeons overall. Skill 5 helps you block damage against bosses, especially since most attack slow. On top of that, it works as a blast finisher, which can be used fo AoE heals (water field), might stacking (fire field), etc. Skill 4 gets pretty valuable as a way to stack vuln if traited.

I only use the shield for a rare situation where I need to push isolated mobs into a ball (i.e. a far cat golem at the end of uncategorized fractal; ball all 4 for AoE kill). I barely need the heal it provides, and skill 4 is pretty meh.

I’ve been able to jump from it normally from the nearby green slope.

You need to get a bit of a tiny running start and jump afterwards. In Dulfy’s video guide, I noticed she ran a little before making the jump.

Wouldn’t Guild Wars 2 discussion have been a better forum, since this falls into the category of general Guild Wars 2 topics?

I did a 26 a few days ago and got 9 rares on the first fractal. I thought the loot table was broken, so after doing fotm twice over the next two days, it seems things went back to normal. Darn :P

I haven’t had a guild since I stopped playing GW1, so that I could try something different. For me, it’s a bit more convenient and peaceful without the rules, the random drama, or realizing that you don’t interact with a large portion of a large guild because it’s hard to get to know so many people at once. I still have my network of friends from GW1 and met some new ones while playing GW2, so at this point, I feel like being in a guild is more of submitting yourself to an unnecessary label. Most of my friends aren’t in the same guild, and we play together often, so I have the convenience of grouping with people I know on a daily basis without the need of being in a guild. I was able to get dungeon master and improve my 5-man PvE group strategies with my friends.

I don’t have anything against guilds, but it’s something that I’ve enjoyed the game without. My daily activities are pretty much solo, but as soon as one of my friends requests my help for a dungeon or a group activity, I’m in for the ride.

Zindrix.1750:

I always sigh when I see these complaints/threads.

I cannot stress the importance of joining like minded groups on gw2lfg.com. Please use the icons for a speed run or completion run, or write in the field what type of run it is. Completionists are always going to kitten about the speed runners, and the speed runners are just going to find a new group because it’s easier.

Not sure if you read the post, but it’s about an exploit where you jump over the gate, not the usual skipping past mobs, which is why skipping is in quotes.

No. Attacks, in this case, refer to direct damage. The example given on that quote you mentioned is a symbol, which is an AoE that pulses direct damage. These are a series of attacks that connect.

Aleth.9630:

Lightrayne.7829:

It’s just some of those skills where it isn’t clearly stated but you can see for yourself that the effect of line and ring is technically a knock down.

No, technically, they’re knock backs, not knockdowns. It’s coded so if you enter or leave their fields, they knock you back in varying angles to prevent that. If they were knockdowns, you could freely enter/exit them like you can with Static Field.

If it was a knockback, you’d be pushed at a farther distance like with skills such as the elementalist’s gust or the guardian’s shield of absorption. Knockdowns disable for a longer period of time compared to a knockdown’s brief disable. There’s a significant difference. Try getting hit with a push versus getting hit by a line/ring of warding.

The reason you are getting pushed back slightly is just because of the way that line/ring of warding works — you’re not supposed to be able to cross it (as stated in the description) unless you have something like stability. Static field has no such description — it only stuns foes in an attempt to cross and doesn’t say foes cannot cross it.

It’s just like the personal story where each character has their own “experience” with the story. Unless your goal is to host those instances on a specific character, you don’t HAVE to do those on your alts to do explorable modes. However, I definitely would like an account-wide check for the ability to host explorable dungeons.

The gw2 wiki has notes on these kind of things just in case something seems off.

Line of warding: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Line_of_warding
Ring of warding: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ring_of_Warding

It’s just some of those skills where it isn’t clearly stated but you can see for yourself that the effect of line and ring is technically a knock down. For example, an elementalist’s meteor shower doesn’t state it in the tooltip, but casting the spell roots you in place. The devs have stated that they will clean up tooltips, but pretty much every experienced guardian player knows that ring and line of warding is a knockdown effect.

For now, don’t trust the tooltips 100%. Use the skill for yourself and see what it does. One of the devs’ goals is to provide as much counter play as possible, and stability and teleports/shadowsteps are examples of counters to abilities like ring/line of warding.

Good etiquette is difficult to expect from PuGs sometimes. There’s a number of other issues besides this one. At the very least, people should be joining the dungeon group only if they’re ready to participate. Sometimes, I’ve had people without the dungeon zone map, spending 10 or more minutes trying to run across zone maps.

• If possible, make sure there is at least one person for each acolyte. Sometimes people tend to pick their acolyte at random, and you’ll have something awkward like three people attacking one acolyte, which is likely to get some people killed.
• When retreating, make use of survivability skills (block or invulnerability), gap closers (forward leaps, teleports, etc.), snares/immobilizes, and swiftness on the way to a safe spot. If you want specific skills, please provide more information on your profession.
• Stability and stunbreakers are particularly useful here because some of the mobs will crowd control you.
• Learn the abilities of the mobs in the room — particularly, the hellstorm, the smokelord, and the blademasters. The hellstorm follows you with repeated flamethrower shots and will sometimes pull you; they can be countered momentarily with any form of crowd control if you need to get away. The smokelord has some harmful projectiles and throws down lava fonts that launch you when it explodes; avoid standing near a lava font. The hellstorms will stun you; you can easily break out of it with stun breaks if needed. These 3 are the common ones that will give you trouble, but be on the lookout for other mobs that may give you a hard time.
• Sometimes, it’s okay to down before your acolyte dies (if you need to). Have your allies kill your acolyte (or any possible low HP target, for that matter) for an easy rally.
• This section should be done in 3 waves (need to kill 10 acolytes): 1st wave has four, 2nd wave has four, and last wave has two. This assumes that your party kills the acolytes at roughly the same time. There’s about a 30 second delay in between each wave, so don’t move out too soon if you don’t have to.

I feel that you can distinguish a “skilled” or “dedicated” player by how much they know about the game or how well they perform in various game activities. Achievement points, titles, and aesthetics can be misleading. You have no way of determining their method of acquisition. Did they play for it or did they pay for/rely on the services of other players?

You need to be 2+ because you don’t get the daily chest until your first even numbered scale.

Taking DR out of the equation, you get 60 tokens as an initial clear reward for the day, and you get 20 tokens as a repeat clear reward for the day. These are the base rewards before DR kicks in. Assuming there was no DR, completing the same path on the same character repeatedly would yield tokens like this: 60 (initial clear reward), 20 (repeat reward), 20 (repeat reward), 20 (repeat reward), 20 (repeat reward), and so on…

The amounts of 60 and 20 are the maximum amount of tokens you can get depending on whether your clear of a particular path on a single character is the initial clear for the day (60 token reward) or a repeat clear for the day (20 token reward). If you clear dungeon paths in quick succession (account-based), your maximum reward will be reduced.

This DR system was introduced as a safety net until they figure out a better system for rewards. This was put in place to discourage the exploiters (who are STILL finding more ways to exploit the game today) who find unintended uses of the dungeon to gain tokens significantly faster than clearing the dungeon normally. Some people have found ways to jump over walls or do multiple paths simultaneously in the past to cheat their way to the tokens.

If you have alts, you can legitimately avoid being hit too hard by DR and getting full token rewards by alternating paths. For example, I do CoF p1 and p2 on one character, then do p1 and p2 again on a different character, netting a minimum of 240 (60 per run) tokens.

It seems some people still can’t grasp the concept of constructive criticism. Seriously, if you have nothing constructive to say, stay off the forums. I’m not sure why it’s hard to say you disliked the content, providing some reasons and some suggestions to improve the content.

Heal Skill
Pick up signet of resolve. It’s a great general heal.

Utility Skills
For open world PvE, pick your flavor. If you plan to do dungeons sooner than later, go for all the shouts, wall of reflection, and shield of the avenger to start with. These will be your general party skills.

Elite Skills
Get renewed focus first as a survivability skill. The other elites have more niche uses, which you’ll probably figure out later, but renewed focus is a decent general elite to have for now.

So THAT’s what’s causing those weird party bugs. I’ve had a good share of those last week, and I had one party that I was pretty much forced to leave because we couldn’t start the instance with half of us not being able to see the party UI.

I figured it was because he would rearm them according to what is stated in the yellow text. It took me a few tries to come to that conclusion.

Broadicea.8294:

Mirta.5029:

that’s very elitist of you.
Players can wear and spec however they want. If you don’t want any vitality/ toughness wearing people in your runs, do not take them, however I know people that do much better in that gear than in full damage gear and I think that they have a right to buy that gear and not be shamed for it.

It’s not “elitist” to try to educate people on why trash builds/gear are trash compared to what’s actually good. Big problem in this game is that there’s no hard comparisons between builds so everyone runs around thinking they’re awesome just because they see a few white numbers popping up that of course are larger at 80 than they were at 50.

I don’t get why so many bad players in this game take it so personally when they’re told their favorite class/build is total garbage compared to what’s actually good. It’s not a personal attack, so just suck it up and blame the game and developers for not having a better way for you to know how crappy things are in relation to the best of the best builds. It’s ridiculously easy to re-roll as a better class and build.

While I enjoy optimal performance, wouldn’t the optimal gear only make sense for people that actually know how to use it? Zerker gear is quite useless for people that just down repeatedly, unable to dodge or mitigate damage as needed, and it’s a huge loss of DPS.

I’ve had a situation where I had a team in all zerker gear, and two warriors kept downing frequently at easy parts in CoF p2. It seemed like they didn’t know how to dodge or negate/mitigate damage. One of them said, “I don’t think I’m specced to run with this team”. The other made a comment hoping healers are coming next expansion…. Honestly, with their mentality, I’d think they deserved soldier’s gear to keep them alive. These guys quit the party after rushing in headfirst and dying at the smokelords before warden in CoF p2. How does going full zerk help this scenario? Wouldn’t you agree people should be using gear that helps their current experience level?

It is possible to lure the crusher the old way, but it’s really not worth the effort when you can just learn to kill them in their spawn point.

If you really wanted to pull the crusher to the door, you would have to clear the initial room before the door. Then, you’d have to lure the door mobs to die somewhere far from the door without leashing them. It was an interesting experiment, but it’s definitely not worth the effort.

I had a situation the other day where a warrior got downed and yelled at us for not reviving him. In the current situation, anyone that would have gone near him would have downed too. He rage quit, called us noobs, and left the group. lol

Anyways, I agree with OP. The downed state is part of the game. I only get mad at downed people if they are being impatient and can’t analyze the situation, so they start screaming at other people because they’re not being revived. I actually get a kick out of reviving people in the toughest situations (more so in PvP).

As far as I understand, you have a chance at a precursor wherever you can loot/obtain a lvl 80 exotic weapon (since that’s what a precursor is).

When tossing in 4 exotic lvl 80 weapons of the same type into the forge, your result pool is basically all lvl 80 exotic weapons of that type.

Rainie.7154:

Well ty for the tip and I sure will use that to for me and my pug advantage. But no we was still in phase 1 I run Arah everyday so I do know the up and end abt Lupi at phase 2 i only melee if we have a well known mesmer player. Phase 3 for sure its 100% melee. But again thx again.

Ah, I see. In phase 1, for the melee strategy, it’s typically best to stay next to Lupi and dodge his kick and grub summon (IF you know the tells). Even if the locusts down you, at least your teammates “should” be able to pick you up quickly, since you’re next to them in melee. Also, at melee, your team’s cleave attacks should thin down the locusts quickly.

I’ll agree that it’s best to range Lupi if you have not yet learned the tells (safe grub kill and you won’t get hit by every attack), so I guess, in this scenario, the kicker is at fault if he didn’t even specify he wanted the melee strategy in his LFG ad or something. He’s playing with a PuG, so he needs to make that clear to anyone he invites, otherwise he’s wasting your time and his own time.

Anyways, this isn’t the type of scepter behavior some of us are arguing against. You clearly acknowledge the importance of melee compared to the people that purposely choose to be ignorant. Heck, even I sceptered Lupicus when I was first learning his tells, but now, meleeing him is pretty easy (I use GS with sword/shield on switch).

That happens to me when maintenance is running while we’re playing the game. Was this happening during a normal day?

It’s almost the exact same trait setup as mine (i have 10 in virtues for the reflection uptime for dungeons). I’d switch two-handed mastery for empowering might if you want more AH heal and a bit of extra team might if you’re doing dungeons (since you aimed for a high crit rate).

I don’t WvW much, but a lot of guardians I’ve talked to say to go soldiers for this type of AH setup when doing WvW because dodging can be a lot tougher, since you’re fighting other players and not AI.

I don’t understand why you won’t play a profession you like just because of how many others play it. Maybe it’s a habit that comes from other MMOs. For example, if there’s too many healers in other MMOs there’s no point in starting a party as you pretty much can’t do anything but heal each other. The old tank-healer-DPS trinity doesn’t exist in GW2, and any party comp can clear any content. I’ve ran with many multi-guardian teams just fine for dungeons.

With many guardians on your team, your team’s boons won’t overwrite each other, but instead, they stack together. Some of the advantages to having a multiple guardian team is that it has high durability, high anti-projectile uptime, high boon uptime, and easy access to condition removal.

TLDR: GW2 is a game where you can enjoy playing your favorite profession and not be selfish like in some other MMOs. The experience varies based on the type of people you play with, but you can choose your groups.

Rainie.7154:

Speaking of ranged LoL I was recently kick from a party facing Lupi. I had scepter/torch. The idiot that kick me out told me the guardian suppose to melee Lupi. Then ofc I was in CS. The fact of the matter is sometime us guardian need to range we cant always melee. Dnt get me wrong I love melee but there comes a time you cant always do that.

You might have been in phase 2 where melee stacking makes the fight much easier (more difficult if ranged). If you fight ranged, Lupi invulns and teleports too much, which severely reduces team DPS. When Lupi does his projectiles spray, if you’re all melee stacking, it’s all directed underneath him so that the mesmer can reflect them and protect the team. If you range, it sprays everywhere and it makes it more difficult to avoid getting downed. Also, when melee stacking, you as the guardian can use aegis to help the team block Lupi’s melee swipe (launches team in several directions).

During phase 3, if you stay melee, you can use wall of reflection to block his forward multi shot attack when it happens. If you stay ranged when he’s not doing any of his special attacks, he hurls a more damaging ranged auto attack. If you stay melee, he sticks to his special attacks (of course, you have to run away temporarily from the lift attack).

Lupi IS one of those bosses that is easy to melee once you learn how to avoid/negate all the relevant special attacks. I did range him when I was new to Arah, but I learned that ranging makes it more difficult for a team that wants to do the melee strategy. I just thought I’d make it clear why he requested you to melee stack. Anyways, this post is arguing against players who use scepter as a PRIMARY weapon in situations where it’s clearly inferior (such as fighting a group of mobs). In your case, you were probably using it as a recovery method or you didn’t understand the encounter as much (I’m just guessing here) rather than a primary weapon.

Mine is traited to give 3 stacks of might, blind, 3 stacks of vuln, and of course, its default stuff.

I guess number 6 would be my best description because with the traits above, I can make a choice of which ability I need for the opportunity:

• When something needs to be bursted down
• During a time warp to increase team DPS
• Negating a specific harmful one-hit attack from a mob
• When burning is needed (i.e. tar elemental in Arah P1 or boosting an ally’s damage via condition count)

My traited VoJ is rarely kept passive in team play as its active is way more valuable with the traits.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, CC is primarily useful on trash in dungeons. Aren’t those the mobs so many dungeon groups seem to want to skip past?

There’s some dungeons that feature mobs that you cannot skip, but if you die to it, it’s a shame. One common example is the three hellstorms at the beginning of CoF path 2. I’ve seen so many guardians afraid to melee that group when guardians have some of the best control tools to help the party (typically PuG teams without the optimal DPS setup) DPS that group faster than running around like headless chickens because of the flamethrower. One GS pull and a swap to hammer for ring of warding, and you have a good few seconds to AoE/cleave that group down. Stopping a hellstorm’s flamethrower for a few seconds with a disable is huge damage reduction for your frontliners.

I wish the defiant stacks were timer-based instead of stack based or something. It needs to be something where you are rewarded (and not completely trivialized) because you learned how to time a disable just right.

For now, I’ll get my control kicks from positioning unavoidable trash mobs for my group.