Guild Wars 2

insanemaniac.2456:

hmm i go explosives (2/3)13, firearms 322, tools (1/2)(1/3)3, w/ “( / )” being optional and use bombs/rocket boots/throw mine

explosives and the endurance mod are absolutely not gutted and double dodging through a thing usually kills it so idk what yobculture is talking about unless he means in raids where the loss of explosive powder hits engi by about -10%. but in open world, gadgeteer and ammo systems give engi about +200% over last patch.

Condi engi master race.

But yeah, if you’re just playing casually or whatever it won’t really matter what you use, you’re still gonna kill all the things regardless unless you die.

Lady Lozza.9670:

Nightrous.6732:

…Beginer mode raids would be good for casuals to learn the mechanics and decide if raiding is something that interests them to skill up at. I have killed only one boss (to open raid masteries) but i would love casual raiding when the mood stikes me. Then i would maybe see the value of meta if i wanted to do intermediate mode raids.

This is the thing though, people in MMOs (not just GW2) lean on dps meters because of the general lack of feedback the game gives as to what is going wrong with group play. In solo instances it’s all you, in groups though it can be hard to tell where the issue is.

However the use of dps meters to kick someone who presumably has neither agreed to have their dps taken nor aware of what the meter was actually reading is problematic. For all the OP knows the group was after someone who was the top 0.1% because the rest of the group wasn’t quite up to scratch either. Here in lies the trouble. If Anet wants to allow the use of dps meters they really ought to build them into the game outright. Then allow switches in pugs that either the whole group gets the dps meter or no one does.

I agree with ANet needing to actually implement an official DPS meter into the game. The problem is the backlash it might cause, imo.

I’m gonna assume you are talking about PvE.

Why would you want something that gives Toughness or Vitality in PvE? If you’re going to gear for anything in PvE and you don’t need to keep aggro on a raid boss, damage will always be the way to go unless you’re trying to heal people.

It’s advantageous to either go full power or full condition because of how the stats work.

If you’re going to for a condition build, dual pistols work pretty well, but you can use pistol/shield if things really aren’t working for you. I’d advise Explosives 322, Firearms 112 and then Tools 312 which will give you good condition damage while also allowing you to use Toolkit instead of Bomb Kit or Flamethrower for the Gear Shield which is invaluable while soloing difficult content. Healing Turret should pretty much be on your bar at all times and you should use the Mortar Kit as it offers a variety of AoE combo fields which you can blast for various effects.

This build will also give you a good stepping stone to be able to get into higher tier PvE content since you’ll basically have the build down already. The only difference between the build I suggested and the meta build is the fact that DS is swapped out for the toolkit trait, and toolkit replaces flamethrower or bomb kit so you get more survivability.

IMO Engineer is pretty survivable already without any kind of tanky gear because all the blinds and stuff that we have, but if you need more tankiness I would suggest looking into getting the Elite spec and using a full zerker build. This will allow you to learn how to use the Hammer block/dodges effectively while also allowing you to be more tanky so that you’ll have more defensive skills.

Aomine.5012:

Haishao.6851:

sorudo.9054:

Feanor.2358:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

BurningHeavy.7268:

How? Explain how? Without dps meters community perception is all that would matter. There would be nothing but ele’s and buff kittenes. With DPS meters eles doing 8dps will get kicked because they are bad, while guardians doing 20k dps will be kept around, even tho their class isn’t meta at the current time. This does NOTHING but improve the game.

This does not improve the game, it improves your personal experience. Those are 2 very different things. You make it sound like a dps-meter is essential for raids, but it most certainly is not. Pay more attention to the screen instead of the overlay and you’ll find the less skilled players are easy to spot. This game never needed dps-meters and it certainly doesn’t need them now, definitely not one that shows other people’s dps and gear.

While you’re technically correct, I find dps meters to be tools of great value. Being able to spot problems in dps or buff coverage, or various other uptimes, can help optimize your play and your group. Just because a tool can be used for toxicity doesn’t mean it is only used for it. Nor does it mean they cause it. Toxicity originate in the players, not their tools. Take away one tool, they’ll find another. It’s just that simple.

but the tool does spur the toxicity more then without one, remove the tool and ppl need to experience a player more direct rather then relying on a tool to tell them what to do.

Remove the tool and people will kick you because you don’t have 25k+ AP

Those people who demand AP will do so before the group contents actually start, which waste you no time.

If a group kick you during the boss fight because they assume your role and expect the dps from it (like they assume you’re a dps spec but you emphasize abit on group buff and support), it’s much worse because it wastes your time already.

But whose fault is it that said player decides to not take the content seriously enough to actually find the proper builds? His/hers, or the group that they join?

Just play whatever you feel like. All classes are fairly useful nowadays, with Warrior, Mesmer and Ranger probably taking the top 3 spots.

sorudo.9054:

Haishao.6851:

sorudo.9054:

Feanor.2358:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

BurningHeavy.7268:

How? Explain how? Without dps meters community perception is all that would matter. There would be nothing but ele’s and buff kittenes. With DPS meters eles doing 8dps will get kicked because they are bad, while guardians doing 20k dps will be kept around, even tho their class isn’t meta at the current time. This does NOTHING but improve the game.

This does not improve the game, it improves your personal experience. Those are 2 very different things. You make it sound like a dps-meter is essential for raids, but it most certainly is not. Pay more attention to the screen instead of the overlay and you’ll find the less skilled players are easy to spot. This game never needed dps-meters and it certainly doesn’t need them now, definitely not one that shows other people’s dps and gear.

While you’re technically correct, I find dps meters to be tools of great value. Being able to spot problems in dps or buff coverage, or various other uptimes, can help optimize your play and your group. Just because a tool can be used for toxicity doesn’t mean it is only used for it. Nor does it mean they cause it. Toxicity originate in the players, not their tools. Take away one tool, they’ll find another. It’s just that simple.

but the tool does spur the toxicity more then without one, remove the tool and ppl need to experience a player more direct rather then relying on a tool to tell them what to do.

Remove the tool and people will kick you because you don’t have 25k+ AP

they already do, ppl think AP ir IL actually matters and a spit on ppl who do.

I haven’t seen anyone do that in raids in fractals in the past year and a half or so (or dungeons, since raids released and everyone forgot about them).

Tongku.5326:

Makuragee.3058:

So today I have been kicked out of a fractal party cause my dps was not maked out, they confirm using dps meter. So now people can use dps meter? So arenanet you change your mind? Can I ask a refund of my entire account cause I clearly remember back a couple year ago dps meter was illegal and thats was one of the reason I started playing this game. To avoid kittens players. If I recall the user agreement speak of this? Did anet change the user agreement without notice or I miss something?

the game is trying to become more WoW clone like I guess. complete with add-ons, 2nd jobs (raiding job after you come home from work), toxicity, hamster wheel gear tiers etc. etc.

I would really like the CEO of A-Net to come and comment on the general game direction, specifically the degredation of its original vision and how it was marketed and sold.

A normal raiding “full clear” group can clear all 13 bosses in about 3 hours, so I’m not sure what you mean by saying that raids are a second job.

Also, what proof do you have that we will have “hamster wheel gear tiers”?

Bombs 322, Firearms 312 and Tools 112.

Spam nades/bombkit at things and they will die fast. Rifle 3 and 5 has good burst, too.

Rocket Boots makes you go faster. You can swap Bomb Kit for EG to use the 4 backwards and then swap back to Bomb Kit for faster travelling. Toy Axe + superspeed is really strong, too.

Other than that I’m not too sure what to say. The thing is, ANet recently gutted Engineer’s Explosives line and killed off our Endurance modifier which leaves us with less options.

Aomine.5012:

Yobculture.5786:

The moment raids were implemented into the game, of course it was going to be inevitable. I use my DPS meter all the time to judge how well I’m doing against other people on a particular encounter.

It also shows buff uptimes so I can maybe suggest things to people to help them get better. Please do not think that DPS meters mean the end of GW2 is coming, it’s just that we need reliable metrics to be able to do raids properly and monitor what is going right/wrong in a particular raid group.

(PSA the people who kicked you are idiots, most of the people I know aren’t like that. Still, it helps to have an idea of what your DPS rotation should be if you’re going to play T4 fractals – which is what I’m going to assume you got kicked from if they kicked you for “low DPS”.).

It’d be funny if my Druid get kicked because of people like you to use dps meter and judge my dps base on it, despite me providing permanent protection/ dps buff/ heal/ regen/ fury / might to the whole party .

Not everyone use dps meter for good intention, like improving yourself.
They use it to look down on other purely base on their dps.

If you’re playing Druid I am basing my expectations of you based on how much GoTL you’re upkeeping. DPS will always be secondary to me on a Condition Druid. I don’t care how much DPS you deal, you’re playing a Druid. I don’t know anyone who kicks a Druid for low DPS. If someone did kick you for low DPS as a druid, they’re bad and need to acknowledge that.

Raids, by their nature, aren’t content for everyone. If you (want to) raid, it’s expected for you to have at least a modicum of common sense and finesse with regards to your class so you’re not just sat there auto-attacking. Before DPS meters were introduced people would just kick all the non-meta classes because we didn’t know what was going on, but now that we can tell who’s doing most of the legwork we can get an accurate picture of who’s being deadweight and who isn’t.

Yes it’s ridiculous that people judge others on their DPS in fractals, but if you’re doing 100cm or maybe even 99cm it’s a good metric of who’s doing what.

Also, yes, there might be an increase in toxicity, but quite frankly those people who are toxic now were toxic before and won’t stop being toxic. The final solution (lol) to this would be to just stop joining those types of groups altogether so you can stop feeling insecure. In my opinion, the pros greatly outweigh the cons and we can now start making decisions backed by statistics and numbers instead of just screwing around until something happens.

Guardian isn’t that bad. It’s certainly a bit more than just pressing 1, but it’s also (one of) the top DPS class(es).

The moment raids were implemented into the game, of course it was going to be inevitable. I use my DPS meter all the time to judge how well I’m doing against other people on a particular encounter.

It also shows buff uptimes so I can maybe suggest things to people to help them get better. Please do not think that DPS meters mean the end of GW2 is coming, it’s just that we need reliable metrics to be able to do raids properly and monitor what is going right/wrong in a particular raid group.

(PSA the people who kicked you are idiots, most of the people I know aren’t like that. Still, it helps to have an idea of what your DPS rotation should be if you’re going to play T4 fractals – which is what I’m going to assume you got kicked from if they kicked you for “low DPS”.).

felincyriac.5981:

power builds still suck, power temp got destroyed. So yea it’s still mostly condi.

DH sucks, you say?

Hmm

PvE wise, if you want to do high level fractals or raids then no.

Anything else is OK pretty much as long as you follow the meta

The current state of Ranger/Druid (PvE-wise) is not that bad at the moment, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

Just because ANet screwed you guys over before doesn’t mean they are still doing it.

1 – Holosmith
2 – Everything else

Das about it

“Forsaken Thicket” is just the name of the overall raid that the 4 currently in-game raid wings are in. What you are actually looking for is “Spirit Vale” (wing 1), “Salvation Pass” (wing 2), “Stronghold of the Faithful” (wing 3) and “Bastion of the Penitent” (wing 4).

If you want to prepare yourself for raids, you can find builds + benchmarks and rotations at http://qtfy.eu

You should take the time to learn the rotations especially because most if not all PUG groups will expect you to have a reasonable amount of DPS so you aren’t just deadweight. There’s multiple guides on YouTube for each of the bosses, feel free to familiarise yourself with them because especially if you’re new to raiding, a lot of people will be wary of the fact that you’re less experienced and will want to know that you’re at least familiar with the boss’ phases.

Also, learn your class’ role. For example, Warrior is normally PS ((Phalanx Strength) Note that with the 08/08/2017 update making Condition DPS Warrior able to do 35k realistic if performed correctly, Warrior doesn’t have to be just condi PS or power PS anymore), Druid is normally a healer, Mesmer/Chronomancer is normally the tank (though it’s 1 tank and 1 other chrono to provide more quickness/alacrity to the other subgroup), and so on and so forth. Also know that you should have 2 subgroups. Each should have one Chronomancer, one healer (normally Druid), one (condi/power) PS, and two DPS classes, but you can fit this according to your needs if you really have to.

Last thing I want to say is if you’re not having luck finding pugs, try to make a training group or find a training group that will take you. Normally there are people in those groups who can re-direct you to either raid training guilds or guilds that do raid training. Failing that, you can look on Reddit’s /r/guildrecruitment to try and find a static or raid training guild.

Hope this has helped you somewhat.

voidvector.2780:

It will be in flux, likely until sometime after expansion launches.

• Engineer has moved out of trash because of condi meta and they have condi buff aura.
• Necromancer still considered “trash” in most encounters, but utilized to some degree in fights with adds (e.g. Overseer) as they can epi bounce.
• Revenant has been overshadowed by other classes in both support and DPS. I would say they are in “trash” tier past year.
• Thief is in balance tier past few month with their DPS.

Condi thief does 35k realistic benchmark (according to new videos, if you do the rotation correctly) now, so they are pretty solid dps I’d say.

1) Pretty useful now. T4 fractals it’s good to have a healer, but especially in 99cm, 100cm and raids healers are basically mandatory. Druids are the best class for healing.

Also, yes, the difference is very noticeable. People tend to drop very fast without one in high level fractals.

2) In raids you might see a chrono with a little more toughness for the purposes of boss tanking, but otherwise basically yes. That’s the one thing that will never change in gw2 unless anet make serious changes to the combat system.

3) Technically yes, but I don’t see why you would. Just wait for xpac release for the new Necro elite spec and see what you think, if you’re tired of Druid. Also, don’t play Ele healer, just play Druid. You won’t have to make another set of gear just to play a second healing class.

4) Druid or Scourge, though I think Druid will win out because of damage buffs unless Barrier is completely necessary for some encounters or Scourge brings better buffs than Druid.

Payne.1250:

I agree with OP, all my support to you man

Fractals are slowly becoming some kittenty daily elitist meeting, i ran away from raids because of this, now the cancer is slowly spreading

Be really careful for the next fractals anet, fractals were never supposed to become what they’re becoming.

kitten raids and kitten shattered observatory

Normal 100 is pretty easy once you get used to it, what are you talking about?

You can use pretty much any of them except Revenant reliably in pugs if you’re using meta builds.

The most common to see however are Warriors, Rangers (druid specced), Mesmers and Elementalists, or Condition Rangers for bosses that are better with it, though it’ll get a hard nerf because of food so I don’t know how it’s going to be affected.

Some people still cry when you take necromancers into raids, but if you have the LI and good dps I don’t see why not unless you’re going to constantly epi the slubling.

edit: Elementalists aren’t great anymore, go with Dragonhunter for power DPS. Condition thieves are great now for condition DPS.

Astralporing.1957:

Erzian.5218:

Or you just do it in normal mode which is super easy once you have understood about 5 (special action key, catching the ball, pushing orbs at the last boss and evading a couple of highly telegraphed skills) mechanics in total?

I heard pretty much the same about every single raid encounter: “it’s really easy, once you understand the mechanics”. Somehow it doesn’t work like that in reality however.

They meant to say it’s easy once you’ve played the content for a time so you can familiarise yourself with the mechanics.

Daerian.6523:

Kusumura.8642:

^
They’re going to play for an hour before running back to Elementalist, Thief or Necro.

Well, Elementalist is piano class too ;D

Only in PvP/WvW.

In PvE it’s easy comparatively. Still more difficult than most classes, but nowhere near Engineer difficult.

Xaretic.2318:

I have had a support ticket in since last week but no response…Does it usually take this long?

Not sure, but I’ve had a support ticket for an achievement reward I destroyed and couldn’t get back take about 3-4 days.

If you’re a new player you should probably just take the time to level to 80 again. It doesn’t take too long and you might pick up some new tricks along the way.

If it’s not soulbound you should be able to use it on other characters.

Your shared inventory is a different inventory from your character’s actual inventory so I’d wager that it shouldn’t get deleted.

I play multiple classes (druid, dh, engineer, a bit of cps), but I’m only really excited for the Holosmith.

Learn to play the piano.

narcx.3570:

Bittno Markus.6712:

I hope that you don’t mind if I hijack your topic for a question.
When I want to go into raiding with a Guardian, is it even possible to get into pugs with it since it seems that it isn’t exactly “meta” and everyone is fixated on it.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the meta, everything’s going to change big time with the balance patch on Tuesday and even more with the xpac…

But as other’s said, in the current meta, Guardians do good vs large hit boxes… But, that doesn’t really make them desirable. People might begrudgingly bring you as DPS to some of those encounters if LFG is super dead, but you’re definitely not in demand. Most pug commanders would rather even take a condi ranger over a DH—even on large hit boxes—because it’s going to be a much more reliable choice.

But, like I said, I’d wait till the balance patch hits before going crazy gearing another class. Even then, don’t take it to heart if guardian’s are still undesirable—if you really want to start raiding, you need to have more than one class anyways… A lot of pug groups won’t even take you if you’re not multi-class these days.

In my experience, DH seems to be a solid choice given that condition food is getting nerfed heavily in the balance patch 08/08. I’ve joined most groups as a DH just fine. In fact, in less experienced groups I would actually take a DH any day over an Elementalist because the rotation is easier, therefore it’s (in my opinion) statistically a safer option because they’re less likely to screw up.

The only actually serious problem you might encounter is in Wing 4 because you’ll have to stay ranged at Deimos most of the time if you’re using the mid strategy, and (this is more of an observation than a real opinion) I’ve found that from personal experience condition seems to work better in Wing 4.

Ramoth.9064:

Holy crap this topic is still going?

I guess it is, since a vocal minority of the playerbase still want to cry and whine about how difficult raids are

Raids are not the entirety of GW2.

Just stay in full magi and play a healer druid until you can afford ascended Viper gear, which is used in the Condition Ranger and Condition Druid builds.

There’s not much point in making exotic Viper gear seeing as how expensive it is to make exotic armor from scratch already.

EDIT: Also no, you should just use longbow with sword and warhorn. Staff is only really for mobility and healing other people.

castlemanic.3198:

They should prioritise an easy mode over a hard mode because raids are very difficult at the moment, especially for more casual players who don’t have a group.

I agree with the rest of your post but this particular point that you made stuck out to me because in my opinion I’m pretty much obliged to disagree. Raids overall are not that difficult, it’s just the part of raiding that involves finding a group. Whether you’re going to find raids easy or difficult will actually depend largely on how good you already are at the game – to which I say yes, casual players might find it more difficult to grasp raid mechanics, but for seasoned raiders from other MMOs or people who are of a high skill calibre (compared to the average Joe in the game) the raids in GW2 should be a cakewalk.

My guild does dungeon tours more or less every other day if not daily, so there is still quite obviously a demograhic for it.

I can’t speak for my guildies but seeing as most of the paths are soloable in their current form anyway, I don’t see a lot of reason why they should put resources into re-working dungeons that could be spent elsewhere.

No (with the exception of condi mes, though it’s a situational build) unless mesmer gets buffed

feelsbadman

You can solo Mai Trin with the meta build afaik.

Orpheus.7891:

people actually just auto attack and not use abilities? Why do people do that?

GW2 is a casual MMO

i think that’s a self-explanatory chain of reasoning

for pve, full zerker and scholar runes is the most efficient option if you’re not going to lazily just auto-attack everything to death and actually use the class as intended

scepter/torch (or focus, depending) and greatsword are the best options DPS wise pretty much. nothing else comes close in PvE if you play these 2 weapon sets to their maximum potential in an open world scenario, have fun

The thing is almost all of the paths can be soloed or duoed. Just look on Youtube.

no, too much possibility for hacking

Mace on engineer because I made a Moot for it because of elite specs leak

In my opinion – no, no, and no.

Why fix what isn’t broken? (that is, the current state of healers at the moment)

Just do some PvP or WvW and you’ll acquire them quite quickly.

Getting transmutation charges is really (in my opinion) only a problem for people who just log in to do dailies then log back out again.

Female.

Male asuras all look ugly.

Lots of spicy dips

suicidalspectre.8106:

Linking skills is a silly thing. Yes we can heal a bit. Yes we can give aegis periodically. Our dps is fair. However our party buff (aegis) is so easily stripped that it’s almost silly to bring extra skills for it. Especially when most people just heal through any damage taken these days. I’m only saying that the class as a whole should drop some of the silly pointless stuff and stop to trying to be a dps main and instead have more class bonuses, traits and buffs based on guarding. Why bring a guardian over a warrior who brings better buffs? Guardian just feels like a mushy homogenous mess.

So, I initially decided to just write “no” and I main DH (Guardian) and I have this to say. What do you mean when you talk about “why bring a guardian over a warrior (in a DPS slot)?”

Because Guardian has better DPS overall if you aren’t in a drunken stupor or stoned out of your skull?
Because Guardian’s elite spec on F3 basically has infinite blocks for about 5 seconds which is godly for some encounters like Slothasor? (mesmer has F4 but it sure helps a lot)
Because you don’t need more than 1 PS warrior per subgroup for might?
Because banners reach all of your 5-man subgroup in a raid therefore you don’t need more than 1 warrior per subgroup?

Look, the point is if you want to make a healer just play a Druid. Sure “Guardian” is not an all-healing, all-tanking machine but, get this: It’s not supposed to be. The system being based around active damage mitigation means the current system already works for what we have. Guardian doesn’t need buffing or tweaking. It’s literally a lazy man’s ele with less blasts and no combo fields and already really good defensive utility, just like a Guardian should. . Sure you used to have to be able to spam Aegis in F50 pre-HOT days, but nowadays if your team mates are dying all the time the problem is not that Guard is a weak class and needs tweaking, it’s that they are underperforming and need to stop slacking.

(ps: your suggestions would also make DH extremely overpowered)

I think it’s just to appeal to people who are into cat/neko grills, don’t sweat it too much.

Easier raids LUL

I’m surprised this thread is still going.

I’m personally indifferent on the penalty box and I would have to say I lean towards disliking it because it’s frustrating on the occasion that I do die, but I don’t feel like it’s worth spending developer resources on just to re-do the whole instance so this one “problem” can be fixed.

I would have to agree with some of your gripes about the UI in FF14, but the content is much meatier albeit with a completely trashy grind to max level.