Guild Wars 2

Sesshi.2610:

HoT itself is even more ‘casual’ than it’s raids. I reached max mastery (161 at the time) in a week or so, reached fractal 100 2nd day (wouldve been 1st day but team wasnt there untill 7-8 hours after release) wont even talk about personal story since thats braindead afk content except migraine but i soloed that after a few tries.
About legendaries and making money? I made HOPE in a 1-2 months but that was mostly due to not wanting to do the boring and annoying collections which I just forced myself thru in a few days.
then what is left. open world? could you honestly look at the average open world player or someone that does it regularly and say they are any good? nope. TD was semi-challenging but after a few weeks ppl did it with 90%+ success rate and that was with ‘pugs’ on TS.

I still love gw2 to an extent and there are still ‘hardcore’ things to do, a lot less than before HoT and this ridiculous powercreep makes 5 man content completely faceroll and raids easy.

Then you just played like insane. I have friends online playing daily and still have not even mastery rank 40. If you rush through content that fast (and probably don’t do anything else in your life) then no game will satisfy you.

If you don’t get eyestrain playing GW2 with vanilla graphics settings (all on high etc.), skip this post. Folks who do might want to try ENBs.

For a few years I didn’t know why i just didn’t want to play GW2. I mean I love it. But I couldn’t play for as long as I wanted to because, somehow, my eyes just couldn’t quite take it.

Put it down for a year or so. Then got into Skyrim, and played for two months almost every day, racking up continuous hours of play (as I was taking a long holiday). I noticed no real eyestrain with or without ENBs. Switching again to GW2 just made the contrast greater.

While I’m not an eye expert, for me the reason appears to be similar to how a camera lens tries to continually auto-focus on a subject that is blurry. We just don’t hear any sound when our eyes do it. It seems my eyes were constantly fighting to focus on objects on the screen, and i didn’t even know it.

Until I also used an ENB in GW2 such as GEMFX (just Google search for it).

And if you want to have a much more eye-friendly GW2 gaming experience, install GEMFX, disable the GEMFX section, enable the SweetFX section and checkmark “LumaSharpen” and “ToneMap”. Then set GW2’s own postprocessing to “None”.

Your eyes will thank you and best of all, there is no performance hit.

Search in YouTube to learn how to install them. Bear in mind that ArenaNet is not obligated to entertain any support issues arising out of the use of 3rd party utilities, such as the aforementioned — but hey, my eyes are more important.

To ArenaNet. Maybe implementing a subset of SweetFX-like controls would benefit more users (like me). I’m also hearing from new-found friends in GW2 of their eyestrain issues ( and they also don’t know why ).

Why is this important?
Because regardless of how much you give (ie. daily rewards, achievement points etc. etc.), people now have a health reason why they cannot play or play for as long as they wanted to.

Like really, stare at this for 1 hour straight. Specifically, home in on the armor details. You know, like the kind of activity everyone does hours on end (ie. checking out other people’s armor). After a while, your eye and brain will grow tired of always having to (re)construct the details “in-brain” instead of just clearly seeing it on the screen.

(This screenshot is from the GW2 website itself btw.)

IndigoSundown.5419:

ANet never stated they wanted to “end” the berserker meta.

They kinda literally stated that you won’t be able to beat everything in raids with berserker gear.
I guess they were right, people also use sinister now :’)

It’s weird but now we have raids (and dungeons are dead) because of people crying about how PvE is all about the highest dps, gear other than full zerker (highest dps stats) not viable and that everything dies so quickly.

Now if raids were the solution to that problem (whether it was a problem or not) then why is this answer still highest dps gear/builds? And why is this ok now and why was this not ok when it was about dungeons?

In dungeons it was all the evil elitists forcing you to play their way to have a fast dungeon run, in raids it’s the game itself forcing you.

I’m not saying it’s good or bad and i don’t really care either way but that’s ironic.

Coulter.2315:

Astralporing.1957:

Coulter.2315:

Astralporing.1957:

As long as there are checks that must be passed to continue (which do not have to be dps-based. Gorse World Eater is a good example)

Are you under the assumption Gorse’s World Ender isn’t a timed DPS race? Because you’re wrong if you are and need to go back and think again.

Single World Ender? By itself, it isn’t. The dps race is due to the overall timer, and limited number of updrafts.

You do realise you need to phase him twice to cut it off right? Its literally a wipe mechanic on a timer requiring DPS to clear it (have you even fought him?)

…and you are the one saying nomads are bad because they can ignore boss mechanics.

Coulter.2315:

Mortifer.2946:

Well, I’m not saying I’m playing nomad, lol…but I don’t agree… 10 guardians in nomad would be fightining VG for so long that they would actually create more opportunity to a fail. On Gorseval they would wipe, and on Sabetha the same….your understanding of the idea of difficulty is faulty.

But if you remove the timer you then need to increase the damage of all mechanics (nomads guardians could just all ignore the green circle on VG for example), which means you’re now trying to balance against both heavy defense comps AND heavy offense comps.

Some damage can be releged to be either armor-ignoring or damaging not a flat value, but percentage of hps (or both). Partywipe mechanics need no balance whatsoever, unless they can be skipped (…gorse phasing you mentioned above), but then it’s more likely it will be dps-specced players that will do the skipping. Not nomads.

Coulter.2315:

As I have said MANY times the timer is there for balance, it forces you to play within a time bracket and lets the devs balance around comps that manage there (remove the timer and you need to have burn phases that aren’t trivial for DPS makeups and damage mechanics that aren’t trivial for tank comps – they will fail at one of these at least).

So, you’re basically agreeing it’s there because it is a crutch used so devs don’t need to think of nontrivial and actually difficult mechanics.

Coulter.2315:

The timer is part of development and balance for the encounter AND actually influences the fun you have (if you’re squishy you need to pay attention) AND human attention span is only so good so you need to balance around that too (its actually good for a boss to wipe the group after so long doing it – imagine limitless fights where the hardest boss is found to be beatable with a 45min tank group comp, would just be awful).

Why? It would only be awful if that tank group didn’t need to put any effort. If the effort they put was comparable to a dps group (albeit likely a different one), i see no problem.

Coulter.2315:

I really hope you understand why the timer is important now.

Yeah. Important to cover for lazy work, or to unnecessarily enforce narrow meta. Neither of which is a good thing. Not really important otherwise.

Mortifer.2946:

BloodyNine, I don’t know if that is dunny or sad.

We found it to be both!

Mortifer.2946:

I will tell you what other people keep repeating to me:
Raids are supposed to be cleared only by the best players. If you can’t do it, you are just not good enough and you should play fractals instead. Also, any tools like improved lfg, easy mode, or practise mode would completely negate what raids are about.

….with their comments about “bucket of tears” I think the raid dev team shares this ideology with them.

One thing I found funny is that I don’t think the raid team is as connected with their content as you think.

One of the members of my guild got into a raid a couple weeks ago with one of the lead raid developers. Guy had an Anet tag and everything. He was the worst player in the raid. He got swatted out of the air on Gorse multiple times flying back to the platform. His response “wow, that is annoying, how long has it been doing that?” The guy was constantly being downed. It was obvious to everyone in group that he had little to no experience actually doing the raid. This was one of the guys in charge of developing this stuff!

Currently once a group/players clear the raid for a week the instance becomes barren with no choice for practice. And people who haven’t done the raid are now facing exclusion and lack of experience to catch up. Also there are no way to redo the raid other than having someone who haven’t finished raid to open the instance and for groups who haven’t cleared having to wipe over and over just to get more hours in.

Basically I’m proposing a practice instance that gives no reward and only spawns bosses for practice. Bosses will respawn after being so groups can practice and try different comp. Groups who cleared the raid for the week will be able to practice more without having to find someone who haven’t done it and groups that are stuck on bosses can practice after they have cleared it.

The practice instance should include adrenaline mushroom, the rift, and a console per boss to respawn the encounter. This will allow those who started out to catch up and give guilds/groups instances that they can practice at will. This would also separate those who wish to catch up versus those who only complain without putting effort since people can record/stream their performance in practice instance to prove themselves.

Clearly Dungeons are not a priority anymore. I know that, I accept that. I do them anyway with friends because I love them. I like the rewards (mostly) and I like that they’re collections to work for. With the introduction of gliding into Central Tyria I think that even for no other reason than to make dungeons a little more exciting again for the people who still play them, coming out with glider skins for each of the core dungeons would be nifty. Something else to work for and spend tokens on when everything else is boring and done to death. Just my $0.02 that no one asked for lol.

Tattered AC wings that glow at night. Nice plant gliders with flowers from TA. Dark bones and sinew from Arah. Burning lava from CoF. It would be really rather awesome to earn things like that.

They we’re always viable. People were just incredibly ignorant and thinking: "if this “pro-group” killed the bosses with this group set up, we don’t want classes that they didn’t use!"

Bringing guardian to raids actually makes it more comfortable. Healer can’t heal you because he just used his burst heal skills? Guardian can help. Revenant can’t keep up the protection? Guardian can help. Crap I’ll die if I get hit by the next attack. Guardian is here with a bit of aegis!

People just think that guardian is not useful because other classes can also do what they do. But what they forget is that guardian is really good in filling the gaps when someone screws something up, while doing good dps.

It needs to be reworked. HoT is done.

I got S2 for Christmas, but, frankly, Scarlet? Steam Creatures? The Tower of Nightmares? Wha? S1 contains vital info. I’m lost. I have the backstory, I read summaries, but it just isn’t the same as playing through it.

The plot holes! OoooOOOoo!

Also, with F2P, there are new players, and new players don’t know what happening in ways of the world story. It’s wrong to continue the story without filling in the gaps.

I do agree that the nerfs pretty much discourage stacking revs…now you stack DDs instead…the irony

Besides that, now its a perfectly good time to run a DH instead of 2 heralds.

Our chrono group usually looks something like Herald, DH, Chrono, PS war, x.

With X being whatever is available.

1-2 heralds are probably optimal right now however with 1 being a near must.

Are heralds more important to a raid team than DH? For sure, just like druids and chronos are.

Take home message is: Do you need to stack heralds and kick DHs like before? No!

Ehh imo DH > herald. 50% boon duration is unnecessary to keep buffs up, druid can provide fury combined with guardian and chrono boon copying and assassin’s presence is such a minor boost that DHs personal dps makes up for it. All these variables of standing still, cripple, quickness, druid, etc etc is very easily achieved at sabetha, no-draft gors and the first 2 phazes of VG.

My group actually runs guardian on purpose to tank VG, and occasionally on sabetha as well. Most people like to talk about how high a class’ DPS (both personal and group) is and use that to gauge its value during an encounter. But what guardian gives is reliability. They give permanent protection and a little bit of healing, and their rotation is super easy. If your group is super good and everyone can stay up and keep up max dps anyway then guardian is a waste. But if you’re like 90% of groups and you have even a couple people that go down once or twice a fight and force people to res them, then there’s a decent chance you will gain DPS with a guardian, because their personal DPS isn’t even that bad to begin with.

And if we meet the dps check anyway, I would much rather run a fight that is 20-30 seconds longer where I have protection the entire time. Because while there is definitely merit to using high dps to shorten the fight, it’s nice to not have to continually res two of my four eles because they keep going down and are in disbelief of the BS boss mechanics even though the other two eles haven’t gone down at all.

Honestly OP I doubt you will get taken in raids anyway because it’s in everyone’s mind that guardian sucks. Furthermore I don’t think there is any merit to taking more than one guardian in any of the current raid encounters. But I would still say you should make that armor+weapon set because you can use them for a warrior and rev as well. Heavy zerker armor is essentially armor for 3 classes.

Mortifer.2946:

Thorwyn.8469:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Amicable Pugs.4503:

Hammer guard is 23k+ while losing nothing from using protection.

Jeez wow, is it really? Is the build on Metabattle accurate for rotation or is there any other stipulation on hitting that number? It just feels so much higher than I’m used to seeing even fully buffed in fractals.

Yep, that’s about the numbers I got as well.

If you get the chance to be fully buffed: Banners+EA+Spotter+GotL+25 might+fury+quickness+frost spirit+rev ferocity+seaweed salad (I think I got all now), you might even reach 25k.

And yeah, as “Amicable Pugs”(why does your nickname have to be kitten?!?) said, you basically cant really do something wrong. Just auto attack and you’ll reach that high numbers.

That’s great to hear Thor
Now I will be a little noobish and ask, if it is still viable to have guard with this build in squad even without this optimal composition you just listed. And actually, how exactly should look the composition of the squad (squad group in which the DH is) to achieve these numbers?

Yeah sure it is, but I have to say, you might run into some kind of issues.

VG for example, you need 4ppl for the green AoE circle, preferably ranged dps classes so you wont lose out dmg. You might be able to equip a LB if you have to do it, but you will notice the dps loss.

Gorseval should be kinda fine. The large symbols and his hitbox will keep your modifier. Together to this, you do have Aegis, so you dont need to dodge the knockback attack, you can just block it.

And last but not least, Sabetha, that fight is perfekt. You can just stand there and swing your hammer. :p The Aegis there helps to block the cannon, as well as timed bombs and in case you got a nec there as well, you are helping him with healing his minions.

But yeah, Im not saying, that guardian is the best way to go. But if you want to play it and you enjoy playing it, it is by far not the worst option you can take.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Amicable Pugs.4503:

Hammer guard is 23k+ while losing nothing from using protection.

Jeez wow, is it really? Is the build on Metabattle accurate for rotation or is there any other stipulation on hitting that number? It just feels so much higher than I’m used to seeing even fully buffed in fractals.

Yep, that’s about the numbers I got as well.

If you get the chance to be fully buffed: Banners+EA+Spotter+GotL+25 might+fury+quickness+frost spirit+rev ferocity+seaweed salad (I think I got all now), you might even reach 25k.

And yeah, as “Amicable Pugs”(why does your nickname have to be kitten?!?) said, you basically cant really do something wrong. Just auto attack and you’ll reach that high numbers.

you dont “need” a tag
use a marker
the new squad markers are excellent

Rising Dusk.2408:

Jeez wow, is it really? Is the build on Metabattle accurate for rotation or is there any other stipulation on hitting that number? It just feels so much higher than I’m used to seeing even fully buffed in fractals.

Yes it is accurate, just keep on autoatacking and place your traps on cd. Easy.

Considering that fresh air eles drop lightning fields every 6 secs, I don’t think a light field will really matter.

Mortifer.2946:

Okay, so your answer is no, 3rd in damage is not good enough for PUGs. Okay thank you. Back to ignoring raids then.

Sorry but I have to ask, why not just make a revenant and give that a try? If you have ascended gear you can freely swap it between a rev and a guard, and who knows, you might enjoy playing revenant in raids and have more fun than playing a guard.

There’s no need to lock yourself out of content just because your preferred class is unpopular in the current patch.

Mortifer.2946:

Guys you are pretty cranky if somebody touches your stuff….sorry for being a poor guardian wanting to have fun with you.

We are not cranky. And my main is guardian so if it was in a good place I would be very happy.

It just come from nowhere and it surprise us. Pre 26th patch the dps of the guardin in theory was about 16-17k with Hammer a little tiny bit below GS/Lb at least for the first 30sec. And it was theorical max dps in a vaccum. So for all we know, the dps of a guardian in raid would be around 14-15k. At least that the kind of numbers I had. If you compare that to the 20k in raid for profession like Tempest, Reaper and Daredevil, it’s come as a surprise that someone like Thor are saying that Guardian Hammer now is the 3rd best dps.

It’s easy to proove. Just make a video at gorseval or sabetha with a Guardian using Jaxnx. If he have around 19k dps, then we’ll believe him.

And just to be clear. I’m talking about dps at the end of the fight. Peak dps isn’t the same thing. For exemple. Most of the time a Reaper will do around 19k average dps at Gorseval, but peak dps will be around 25k. I consider the average dps for the whole fight to be more important than the peak dps, but maybe that’s me.

Yes, hammer guard is 3rd best dps.
No, revenant isn’t better if you want protection.
Revenant kittens up his rotation hard by focusing on protection and thanks to the marvelous balance team it barely reaches 20k dps after patch.
Hammer guard is 23k+ while losing nothing from using protection.
Currently only reason to bring a revenant is to throw him in a 3rd sub group with mesmer at VG. Everywhere else it’s useless in raids.
Also Feel My Wrath helps mesmer keep up perma quickness easier so the 50% boon duration stops being a must.
Even without Feel My Wrath you can keep perma quickness but it just makes it easier.
So bottom line is, if you don’t care about a minor dps loss and want perma protection and bit more healing then get a hammer guard.
You won’t even notice the difference in an average group, you’ll maybe notice it if you try to do no updraft gorseval but it won’t cause it to fail, others doing bad rotation will most likely be the reason you’ll fail.

I believe the meta classification was clarified recently to mean the things you’re most likely to see/use if you choose a particular class. This doesn’t necessarily mean these are the best builds for the raid, but more like “If you must bring a Guardian, have it run this.” In this context, I don’t really see anything wrong with the build; I think it is likely the best a Guardian can offer currently.

I’m sure there will be some pugs that bring you in, but this will likely be in spite of you playing a guardian rather than because of it.

I mean, I doubt that this is as high DPS as it says it is (everyone claims their build does amazing DPS), but even if it is, you’ll still be overwriting all the fire fields with your light fields. Not only does this hinder might stacking, but it also means that projectile and whirl finishers won’t apply burning, so it will hinder the DPS of others.

Honestly, I think that even if a group wanted 100% protection, they’d be better off with a revenant.

Sorry Guardians. =/

Serious.6940:

Actually raids are inaccessible because they are too tough. If your squad is anything less than the absolute best players you are going to hit that 8 minute time limit. Not having a proper team that play together regularly, or even not having every player on voice comms, just makes that much worse.

Raids were not designed for pugs typing into the chat box. They were not designed for the average GW2 player. They were designed for the top few percent.

To make raids more accessible anet need to nurf it.

Had a spare hour last night and decided to do a quick VG kill. My regular group couldn’t form so I posted on LFG. Killed VG and did the events leading up to Gorsy with only 4 deaths of which only 2 were legitimate (the other 2 were dc’s/Leroy Jenkins). Only about 5-6 in the group were from a guild; the other 4-5 were pulled from LFG (myself included).

On Friday, I PUG’d a teaching group where half the team had 0 hours in raid time. Even with brand new noobs to the instance we got to the final phase within the hour.

So, to your claim that Raids are only for the few top percent? I would have to call that a stretch. Though I will agree the average player may not be up to the call since it requires just a tad bit more of self-motivation and commitment than what most are willing to put in.

They aren’t going to add a LFR tool. They will very likely revamp the LFG tool and make it so that you can list raid squads and make it so that there’s an LFG section for raids. I wouldn’t expect this before the second raid patch later in Q1, but since changing the LFG is a high-risk/high-effort development item it could land even later.

Nothing dumb about realising the fact that this elite spec too made its core class obsolete.
What reason is there to not go DH? Burn-hybrid and AH-shout build?

Serious.6940:

Actually raids are inaccessible because they are too tough. If your squad is anything less than the absolute best players you are going to hit that 8 minute time limit. Not having a proper team that play together regularly, or even not having every player on voice comms, just makes that much worse.

Raids were not designed for pugs typing into the chat box. They were not designed for the average GW2 player. They were designed for the top few percent.

To make raids more accessible anet need to nurf it.

Well I saw plenty of pugs succeed at the raid. Of course raid will never be and shouldn’t accessible to all players. But it should remove as much obstacle as possible to form a group so that player that failed at doing the raid is because they are not good enough, not because they don’t have a guild doing raid or 9 other friends doing raid.