Guild Wars 2

It’s not faster when your random PUG swap to their ranged weapons, never dodge, don’t maintain protection, don’t use food/consumables, don’t cleanse conditions, don’t remove boons

In this topic:
People who don’t run pug fractals meet bad pugs, and insist they don’t run pug strats/exploits

You missed putting a versatile infusion on rings and backpiece.

Attuned Infused Rings have the following slots
- 1x Offensive/Defensive Infusion Slot (Put a +7 Versatile Infusion here)
- 2x Agony Infusion Slot

And then you can equip two rings.

Infused Backpiece have the following slots:
- 1x Offensive/Defensive Infusion Slot (Put a +7 Versatile Infusion here)
- 1x Agony Infusion Slot

Because of this, you missed adding 7×3 (for 2 rings and 1 back).
Instead of 7×11 = 77 via +7 Versatile Infusions, it should have been 7×14 = 98.
Which would leave you 52 for Agony Infusions on 5 slots (2×2 on rings, 1 on back).

11×2 and 10×3 is the cheapest combination to reach 150.

Besides being unable to remove it fast enough, does it help provide additional damage that helps push dps numbers up by a bit?

I’ll be happy if they revert back the original experience gained for completing other dungeons since they’re leaving CoF p1 farm alone.

(Tin foil hat on)
They are deliberately using dungeons to fragment the community.

Before:
Zerk vs play how I want
Skip/Stacking/Goat vs Skip/Stacking is an exploit
FGS#4 vs FGS#4 is an exploit

Now: CoF p1 farmers vs exploiters

Has anyone else experienced not getting a reward from the Proxemic Labs guild puzzle this week?

I did it on two different guilds, and both times I was not able to get any reward.
Some guild members got it, some guild members didn’t.

Is there information about what happened and how I can avoid the problem?
Thank you very much.

It’s not really wasted.

First, you need to extract the old +5 versatile infusion with the new infusion extractor (~25 silver from fractals NPC).

And then you need to buy the new +7 versatile infusions, which costs one +5 versatile infusion, and other currency.

The same thing happened to our guild.

We finished Proxemics Lab puzzle but not all of us got the personal rewards.
After reaching the end, there was no cheese. We also did not get the little chest pop up at the bottom left of the screen.

Some people linked some items, I guess they were able to get the guild rewards. But some of us didn’t.

I’m not sure which build you are running, but if you’re the only warrior in the party, it is best to switch to the Phalanx Strength build and use Greatsword so that you can generate might to provide offensive support for your party.

And if you are learning content in an unorganized group, it is good to have a ranged weapon on swap. If you ever need to recover HP, you can range for a bit to regain health before coming back to melee.

Can you still fight Vevina?

Pre-HOT expansion

If you’re interested in regular/pug runs:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Team:Team_-_Phalanx_Strength

Choose any class you like but if you’re pugging, ranger/engineer/necromancer are not popular with uncoordinated groups.

If you’re interested in speed runs:

Go to category and select solo/group/full group:

http://gw2dungeons.net/Records

Learned something new today, thanks!
Don’t know if the dungeon guides have this, but I hope this information is more accessible.

I’m not good with PVP, but my perception of the original was that OP is playing well while his teammates were being bad players.

Maybe I would’ve loved this more if it was on a different perspective, like if OP is dropping Icebows or removing defiant but all the team members want to do is to just stack tighter, zerk harder and kick the ranger.

gf left me cos of fractal leaderboard

I rarely report, but when I do, I probably test it as such: Assume I am playing with a friend, does said troll language/behavior make me feel embarrassed about the GW2 community?

If yes, then I submit it.

Most guides suggest that you use Rabid if you don’t have Sinister. They say the loss in damage is around 5% compared to Sinister.

And in case you will be encountering condi-immune bosses, you should consider switching to a power set because Dire does not have any power stat.

See here: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/96806-zerk-is-for-casuals-june-2015-ranger-builds/#entry2357891

I started playing the Condi ranger build for a few dungeon runs to familiarize myself with the rotations, the class, and condition builds in general. I wear Rabid on pieces lacking Sinister so I have lower direct damage. To not kitten my group even further, I figured I should swap gear for certain encounters. Maybe I can change traits on the fly too after I’m fully familiar of ranger traits/utilities.

Do you guys have a cheat sheet containing a list of condition immune or condition cleansing bosses/mobs for dungeons/fractals?

Thanks!

At this time, I’m on a mission to learn more about classes I don’t play often so that I am capable of switching to the most appropriate trait and utility setup for every encounter in PUG runs.

After reading more about how properly played necromancers are fine in suboptimal groups, I’ve been running dungeons with it together with a friend.

In some cases we make our own groups (LFM path X) or joining random groups. So far I have not yet been kicked so far but I’ve been avoiding parties with specific requirements (class, zerk, speedrun) despite running full ascended, berserker armor.

What I noticed however is there is some sort of tendency that the party took longer to form than usual. Only to notice that there is another post with more specific requirements along side ours.

I think I saw a similar post here about a bug when entering the Fractals portal but I don’t know for sure.

Are you trying to enter the Fractal of the Mists portal from the south area of Lion’s Arch while the rest of the party are already inside?

Instead of doing that, try going to a far-away waypoint inside Lion’s Arch and enter fractals from the menu that pops up. at the center (or lower left corner of your screen)

Alternatively, make your own group, state in your LFG post that you are new. You might get more patient members who will be more willing to help you out.

Thanks for the insights. I’ve been running fractals 50, sometimes lower and a few dungeons daily and I’m learning a lot so far, swapping traits/utilities depending on the encounter.

I’ll try using MoP as a ranged option if I can spare the skill slot. Often times I don’t because I usually load up on the following: reflect (if anything can be reflected), condition removal (if there are threatening conditions), stability (stability if I managed to catch it, stun break if I missed) and daze (to get rid of stacks for Icebow 5).

I’ve been using Greatsword as my ranged option for Mai Trin (I often act as bait for the ranged shot) and Imbued Shaman but I notice the lack of utility when I’m on it, for example I have to swap to use blurred frenzy, block on sword or reflect on focus. On those fights, I also use Imagined Burden to spam cripple on GS skills which seems to help manage the fight in case everyone is unreliable.

I’ll also consider MoP for mobs too. Most of the time I’ve only been using reflect (if needed), signet of midnight and mantra of distraction, but I’ll try to sneak MoP and see how it goes.

I’m not into WvW right now so I don’t really know. But looking at Metabattle, the WvW builds for Warrior recommend using Soldier’s gear for Armor. You can use AC tokens to buy Soldier’s armor.

For TA and CM, I think some classes use Rabid gear for WvW. There are other uses for those tokens (like salvaging/crafting) but they’re not specifically intended for your warrior.

I’m learning how to run as mesmer properly in dungeons (pug) and my rotation is mostly the same as pre-patch. Mostly auto-attacking, keeping phantasms up, using blurred frenzy to dodge, and using support skills when needed (reflect/remove conditions/share distortion/timewarp after fire field/shatter when phantasms will die or some other need, daze to remove defiant stacks).

Am I supposed to be spamming mantras instead of autoattacking? I recently saw one mesmer in my party spamming Mantra of Pain.

I wouldn’t recommend buying AC and CM items because they do not have Berserker Gear.

You seem to like running dungeons . My suggestion for you:

1. Run Citadel of Flame explorable paths
– Buy an exotic berserer greatsword using CoF tokens
– Buy exotic berserker armor after the greatsword

2. If you have spare gold
– Skip buying berserker armor with CoF currency and go buy Devona’s Armor set directly. It comes in exotic berserker stats and superior rune of strength

3. Buy an ascended berserker amulet from the laurel vendor

4. Buy ascended berserker trinkets using guild commendations

5. If you’re done with 1-4, get ascended berserker rings from fractals

If you’re out of dodges/heals, it’s time to swap to longbow and range for a bit. Once you recover, it’s time to go back and continue to melee.

You’re not in a speed run group where bosses die fast or you can spread out your cooldowns because you have lots of support (Ice Bow 5, Aegis, hits being spread around the group) across the entire fight duration.

If you’re the only one meleeing in the first place, getting downed with 2 melee weapons won’t impress anyone. But by carrying a range on swap, at least you have the option to burst in with melee, survive for a bit with your cooldowns, train yourself with melee combat, and still have something to fallback on in case of trouble.

Thank you very much for all the response. I also checked the 6 month old thread similar to this one and got additional information.

I have never considered running away (can’t do anything, “not stacking”, difficult to get ressed)
or stealth. I have different stacks of those items but I rarely use. And I almost never use them for easy paths.
I’ll try using them now to restore cooldowns when I’m in trouble.

As for Energy Sigil, I haven’t decided yet on a cost-effective spread of expensive sigils/ascended weapons
to reach meta builds for several characters so I couldn’t make my mind up if I should put it on an ascended focus
or an ascended dagger. For now I don’t have one, but I realize it’s a big help so I should look into getting one soon.

I also have the habit of rushing first, more than half the time doing the pulling, but I guess I’ll leave it for the others. I’m not yet used to having summon glyph elite so sometimes I only remember to summon
the earth elemental during the fight, but by then I guess it’s too late. I’ll be sure to do that before might/while waiting.

Although I’m not doing many dungeon runs, I’ve been pugging on Elementalist a lot more recently. Often just on easy instances but I find it very difficult to finish SE1 alive on my Elementalist.

More often than not, I die before Tazza does (with 50-10% remaining health).

Assuming the group cleaves properly and kills the clones, and I can dodge/move out of the ground AoE with red circles. Tazza just seems to focus all attacks on me.

Maybe Tazza’s beam is same as Mesmer GS so I fight very close for it to deal less damage[?]. I don’t watch for the other tells (besides the ground AoE), I just dodge or use other blocks/invulnerability on some kind of rhythm when available, and heal.

- I use Inquest Potion, Life Steal food.
- I use Dagger/Focus for invulnerability, and so that I won’t need Lightning Hammer because I seem to down often
- 6/6/0/0/2 or 4/6/2/0/2 for the endurance traits, 2 on earth for extra toughness if we have fury.
- Glyph for a bigger heal (is signet better?)
- Arcane Blast, Ice Bow (to use 5 just in case I get lucky and the team don’t play too much with defiance. And 4,3, although I’m not sure if 4 is worth it because she is small)
- Arcane Shield (to take 3 more hits)
- Full berserker gear

Are there any particular tricks I should be doing?

Does the class loot bias implemented in the feature patch affect chest drops?
For example, in world boss events chests (chest icon that pops up at the lower right part of the screen, and the boss chest), jumping puzzle chests, dungeon chests, etc.

Thanks!

I joined last week and it was fun! I learned a lot of new terms like doom timer and (another thing I forgot but it was awesome when I heard it), among other things I learned to keep my Arah run up-to-date.

Although it’s hard because of my play times, I’m looking into getting some more practice on my thief during the weekdays. But if there are free spots on Saturday not better served for new people, I’d love to run again with you guys, thanks!

Thanks for doing this!

If the spots for Saturday morning are not completely filled by newcomers, I would like to join the Arah Tour on my Thief (any path) and Guardian (P4).

I know how to play thief but I am not too experienced with it, and it’ll be my first time running as Thief in Arah. If there are no more spots for Thief/Guardian, I can bring other classes.

Also, I want to learn how these teaching runs go down because I’m not very effective when helping out friends get DM title. I can’t seem to get them to like running it.

Thanks for the insight!

I’ve always thought that regardless however other players in the group are built, EA and might are straight damage boosts. But yeah, all those damage are wasted with low multipliers/vuln, bad rotations, dying, etc.

Unfortunately, I can’t play elementalist as good as my warrior but I suppose that just means I need to play more.

Is that caveat for EA builds apply to Phalanx Strength builds when pugging?

If my group is not might stacking, my go to build is Phalanx Strength (if there is another warrior and EA is not present).

I run the Phalanx Strength build with Fast Hands (0/5/0/6/3)
Unless I’m being lazy and I’ll just camp GS (0/6/0/6/2 or 4/4/0/6/0 [?])

Both the guides below probably have if not very similar, the exact same recommendations:

http://dulfy.net/2014/06/28/gw2-comprehensive-warrior-pve-guide-by-element/

or

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83915-axemace-dps-build-for-dungeons-and-fractals-041514/
(URL is misleading, it’s GS build too)

frifox.5283:

Odd, I had clarification in parenthesis but forum code stripped it out. The GS was used to interrupt the dragon tooth summon. It will interrupt regardless of how many stacks of defiance the boss has.

Thanks for the clarification. I don’t understood the defiance and interrupt mechanic on bosses clearly.

It’s probably the wrong topic to discuss but is this a special attribute on Mesmer GS or does any other interrupt from utility/focus pull/other class skill could’ve been used in that particular situation (other than Guard should apply Aegis)?

I didn’t watch all the videos except the CoE P3 destroyer, but for that, it’s only for bursting with the phantasm right?

People might get the wrong idea and camp GS to max DPS.

I think Anet said something about how the dungeon opener is implemented similar to owners of story instances. If the instance owner leaves, then it kicks everyone out.

I ran a dungeon path once, instance owner left the instance before everyone actually got the rewards (the one that pops up after the NPCs talk). I didn’t bother running the path again that day.

This bug happened to my party last week and I’ve stayed away from Fractals because of it.
How prevalent is this bug and are there ways to avoid this from happening while the issue hasn’t been fixed/recognized by Anet yet?

I remember reading here some quirks about Kholer’s spin still going through even though you’ve put down reflects.
Usually it’s not a problem because even though he gets a spin off, defeating Kholer is still possible in most of my runs but I’d like to know more about how to prevent it.

Is projectile blocking ok? I’ve been running as Engineer recently and Elixir U gives randomly gives wall or smoke screen.

Is the position of the wall ok? Assuming everybody is stacking, I drop it directly on the stack spot.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

So you’re comparing a 180 cd to a 240 cd that does half damage (?) and can’t be shared with a second person? I HOPE this one won’t be meta for sure.

No need for sharing if all 5 are zerkerburgerbears

I ran CM with a couple of friends that are very into WvW the other night. During the fight with Victoria, they all linked the Stealth Disruptor Trap item. I told them it probably wouldn’t work and two of them said they don’t have supply.

I feel they now know that I’m just a WvW rally bait

At level 30, if you want to experience running a dungeon path now, post an in-game LFG and run Ascalonian Catacombs Story mode.

I’m not sure if it’s just me but I usually run dungeons with friends and fill 1-2 people with random people in pugs but after running 1 or a few paths with them, that’s it. I don’t contact them anymore. But maybe you can make friends.

Does plugging those steam vents actually do anything?
I get OCD and plug them but I don’t notice if there’s any difference.

It’s similar to how they are describing it in the game bugs forum.
I’m looking for ways to workaround this issue so that I can continue to run fractals with at least a way to avoid it from happening.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Cliffside-Fractal-Hammer-Bug-1

I’m trying to find more posts/discussion about permanently losing the hammer in Cliffside Fractal but only 1 or 2 posts seem to come up.

Is there a way to prevent the bug about losing the hammer in Cliffside Fractal aside?

Yesterday I ran Fractals and got Cliffside as 3rd Fractal. After defeating Archdiviner, my friend restarted the game because of sound issues so the remaining 4 of us decided to climb up. While smashing seals, we just noticed that we couldn’t find the hammer anymore.

We all tried full wiping but the hammer won’t show up.
While everyone is dead, we are able to see the hammer on the pedestal but the moment any 1 person chooses to revive, it disappears.
I asked everyone to leave party (I opened), to see if I can get it solo, but same case, it also disappears when I revive.

Is there a way to avoid this scenario aside from not playing Fractals till it is fixed?

EDIT: Just realized I could check Game Bugs board.

Thanks everyone! I wasn’t looking at the big picture and wasn’t considering that her stopping is somehow a tell itself.

Thank you very much for the pulling tips. Hopefully I get stacking groups so that I can have 2 or 3 shots to practice.

Is there an early tell for the Pistol Spin?
I can see her duck but I’m usually too late to react.

How about a new feature, locked LFG posts.

Then you can write the password on the description:
self-join, password is bowbear

Tom Yzf.5872:

She glows when she charges up for her Venom Spray. Icebow 5 has a lond windup, so ppl usually time the attack to hit her once she LOS, but if you don’t have ele, you can wait for that glow to interrupt it. Non-projectile interrupts like fear or mesmer mantra works best since the little spiders sometimes body block.

If the Spider Queen has defiance, can you still interrupt her Venom Spray? Or is it a one time thing till her defiance get whittled down again?

Also, is there a trick to safely killing the low level spiders inside the room to make the Spider Queen appear and pulling her to the LOS spot? I run around with Staff on Guard, but I end up having to pop Condition Removal and Heal just to make it back safely. If there is FGS, I pick it up , use #4 and then #3 to dodge with it. Else, I just pop remaining dodges/skills, trying desperately to stay alive.

Jerus.4350:

^^ Take that guy up on it, really

And one thing I learned that REALLY helped was to watch his Head movement for the kick tell rather than the feet. He does a small hitch right before the kick, but before that he’ll nod his head down

I can’t solo him yet, but I feel I can not be a drag on a group now. (Solo I’ve gotten about half way through phase2… eventually).

Thanks for this! I get really embarrassed whenever I get hit by the kick. Often times I just base it on rhythm and dodge to avoid kicks but it’s usually just me rolling away. I’ll try to watch for this.

Thanks for the response. I haven’t done AH guard in so long but I do keep my Knights gear around.
I’ll try again and see if I can fight him toe-to-toe as AH guard.

Do you know the tell for this AA/pull attack? I’ll try to block it instead of dodging to preserve my position.

How do you melee Ginva the Butcher, the HotW Path 1 end boss effectively?

I find it difficult to melee him properly because I have a hard time getting into max melee range and I get damaged from his regular attacks that I have to range to recover.

If I dodge, I’d risk losing max melee range position.
If I decide to get hit by his attacks, I’d eventually run out of blocks or health despite having on crit HP regen food.

For getting into max melee range, he moves a lot in PUGS that I will lose my position risk getting hit by whirling axes if he starts it.

Thanks for the advice!