Guild Wars 2

A Versatile Infusion of any stat allows you to place that in any infusion slot, regardless if the slot is defensive or offensive. However, they are also require more materials to make them.

For example: Precise Infusion versus Versatile Precise Infusion

The Precise Infusion requires more easily accessible Passion Fruits instead of Passion Flowers, 100 Claws instead of 250, 20 Coins instead of 50, and 50 Philo stones instead of 100. Economically speaking, if you focus on specific stats, you should create a slot-specific Infusion for one ring and a Versatile Infusion for the other ring.

That particular part of the Cliffside Fractal is quite annoying if the group wipes considering that adds upon adds spawn on top of each other; and if the seal on the Colossus’ right arm is the shielded one, it becomes a hassle to bumrush through the adds, through the tunnel, and to the vulnerable left arm seal so that you can return back for a second attempt.

In short, I agree all those adds should despawn and the right-arm seal should be unshielded like it was in the beginning if the party ends up wiping. That way, it’s much easier to start from scratch if there’s too much of a mess that has been made.

A ring can only have one infusion slot, either defensive or offensive, not both. However, it does stack with any built-in infusions, meaning you benefit from both the inherent +5 AR, plus any addition AR from the infusion slot.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Every time I hear about Spy Kits and Portal Guns, I cringe.

I’m in a similar boat when it comes to them as well. I know my guild’s “progression” Fractals group uses them extensively, especially during 30+ in which it becomes required for the Dredge fractal. With their wide-spread use, I’m willing to bet they’re going to get nerfed at some point, possibly by either lowering the duration or by introducing certain mobs that would use abilities to reveal stealthed players.

Speaking of the Dredge, lore-wise, they’re naturally blind and use sound for positional recognition; so even if you were to go stealth, how would they know that you can’t be seen? That has always boggled my mind whenever my guildmates used the spy kits in the Dredge Fractal.

Back to the original topic, I do agree that Path 3 in CoF was a pain in the butt. It seems to be designed for 5 glass cannons in mind due to the quick respawning adds during that part of the run. I did that path for the first time and it was a pain mostly because we had three in the group that ran support-centric builds. If anything, I would welcome any suitable change to that particular event that would benefit a variety of group compositions. Then that path would be more enjoyable to run.

Also keep in mind that the rings are Unique, meaning you can only equip only of that ring. However, you can equip two of the same ring if one ring is the non-infused version and the other is the infused version.

For example, I can equip a Crystalline Band and Red Ring of Death. But I cannot equip two non-infused Crystalline Bands. Strangely enough, I can equip a non-infused Crystalline Band and an infused Crystalline Band. I think the latter is an anomaly and would probably expect that to be “fixed” at some point.

In regards to obtaining Pristine Fractal Relics, you can get those in the daily chest after level 10.

Thanks for the information everyone! I guess it would depend on which Signets are used in the build, which unfortunately I don’t recall which signets were equipped (though it wasn’t the healing one because none of the signet icons were bluish colored).

With a little bit of research, I did notice Signet of Agility does provide some group support in removing conditions, similar to how the Warrior shout “Shake It Off!” works (at least according to the wiki’s discussion page) but with added Endurance regeneration. Though it is worded kind of funny thinking that it only affects the Thief and the amount of conditions removed is based on the surrounding allies. Which one is the intended effect? Who knows, but if it works like “Shake It Off!” then that’s a great signet to have when it comes to party support.

Signet of Shadows is quite nice as well since it provides AoE-Blind when activated. That means the mobs have a hard time hitting you and could work when avoiding certain attacks that could kill you or anyone else in one hit. I can live with that!

The other signets seem to be a bit more personal like doing extra damage, shadowstepping, and self-healing; but I guess the rest of the utility skills would tell me if you intend to go full-support or lean towards a more glass cannon-like build.

Maybe it was just a simple brain-fart in thinking “Oh snap! Signets! We got a baddie! Kick him!” I guess I’ll never know, but it’s great to have this sort of knowledge, especially for a profession that I have yet to level to 80 some day. Thanks again!

Last night, I was part of a CoF group where someone in the group was ragging on a Thief that had three signets equipped. The argument got ugly and the Thief ended up getting the boot soon after the event where you had to use Magg’s ice thrower gun. (It was mostly a guild run and the thief didn’t belong to the hosting guild) Part of that argument was that they were seen on the same view as Signet Warriors in that they provide almost no party support.

Now I have never played a Thief past level 5 so I wouldn’t have the extensive knowledge of how they worked and whether a Signet Thief should be viewed in a similar fashion to Signet Warriors. Honestly, I don’t care what build anybody goes with as long they known how to hold their own weight and cooperate with others, but I wasn’t the party leader so I didn’t had a say whether that thief should have gotten the boot or not.

Simply put: is a Signet Thief someone I should worry about in the long run? I already worry enough with Signet Warriors, but sometimes, I could be proven wrong in some groups.

That “ruins the community” statement doesn’t hold a lot of water here in Guild Wars 2 and that’s because many of the features in the game are global such as our friends list, the trading post, and even the overflow servers; whereas in most MMOs those kind of features are often bound to a specific server. The only exceptions we have GW2 would be that we can’t do dungeons cross-region (meaning mixed NA and EU players), and our friends have to be on the same server if we want to do WvW together instead of against each other. Aside from that, everything else is pretty wide open.

For me, I find that I learn more about my community the best when I’m actually in the group and knocking each others heads when it comes to finding the best strategy to overcome the content. Sure there are those who want to be a bit more selective when finding group members, but for me, I like surprises and like to see what kind of crazy people I end up with in my party. If I end up in a group full of Engineers (or a full group of any profession for that matter), then I’ll stick around just to get the feeling for it. It might actually be interesting.

Over time, I tend to find some consistencies amongst certain players so at the very moment party chat triggers one of my warning flags, I would eventually stick around for what could be a very interesting run to say the least.

Honestly, I have never heard of the “122” strat before, and I have ran CoF paths 1 and 2 almost everyday for the past three weeks with my semi-static group (meaning we would bring a pug or two to fill in).

I do, however, heard of the 3-2 strat for the room where Magg sets up the Kaboomium. Usually involves a lot of kiting, but we usually just muscle through it and kill everything. If your party is geared to the teeth in full exotics, you should be able to kill off the spawns with almost no issues. Almost always, we generally have a Guardian use their pull ability to bunch them up so that it’s easier for multi-target abilities to hit them— I guess that explains one way to muscle through it.

As far as “speed runs” go, I’d say that the line between speed running and exploiting can be a bit fuzzy; and I know my friends often have different views when it comes to it. It usually boils down to determining if there is some kind of reward to be made for doing so. Almost always, there isn’t so pugs will try to find a way to skip them. Before ending up in my static group, I’ve done a lot of pugging and it’s amazing the kind of creativity they have when it comes to “breaking” the system. It blows my mind sometimes.

@yandere.9176

Actually, when I thought of that idea, I was thinking that Magic Find gear itself should be removed from the game and replaced with another percentage-based stat, like Boon/Condition Duration. However, Magic Find consumables could still be used.

Although, if it does end up that way, there should also be other ways of obtaining temporary Magic Find buffs. It’s something I need to think about more, but I do think that Magic Find should be changed in a way so that it benefits the party as a whole.

Magic Find can be interesting, but I think anyone can agree that it only benefits the person that uses it and no their party members.

I posted in the Community Voice thread about an idea with Magic Find so I’ll make it short here: I think Magic Find should be an environmental effect in dungeons and it should go up by a certain percentage whenever you kill a Veteran, Champion, or Legendary mob. It could also carry over if you decide to do another path of the same dungeon. For example, you accumulate 50% Magic Find from AC path 1. That same Magic Find buff will carry over if you do path 2 or 3, but if you do a different dungeon like CM, TA, or whatever, then the buff will reset.

I suppose that’s good to know in regards to upgrading a non-infused into an infused version.

How about crafting the quivers or books? Do they still need 250 of a T6 material to make them?

I don’t know where you got the “most people” statistic (maybe most people in your guild ), but I don’t know a lot of people who don’t use the top row numbers for their abilities, at least in the previous guilds I’ve been in which ranged from very casual to moderately hardcore. For me, I tend to transition between using the Numpad and the buttons on my Razer Naga.

As far as this event goes, just write down your binds somewhere, reset your binds for the event, then when you’re done, you can rebind your keys. A little cumbersome, but if you want those achievements so badly, might as well.

I read that line as just skill #1 being nerfed by 30%, but is it just base damage or overall damage? This patch is taking forever to download so it might be a while for me to figure out, but I do admit that Grenades were pretty OP to begin with. Not only damage was pretty high, but it was also super-effective as an AoE as each grenade was treated individually as far as the 5-mob limit is concerned (meaning that grenades in general had the capability of hitting more than 5 mobs). I wouldn’t be surprised that it had to be nerfed.

On the other hand, I do welcome the Flash and Poison grenade damage. Except in special situations where I would have to save a certain grenade for certain situations, I tend to toss every grenade as it goes off cooldown. Depending on the situation, it might make up for the lost DPS on skill 1. I guess I’ll just have to test it when the patch finally loads up.

In regards to these Relics, do these only drop once per day regardless of tier level; or could I do my 10’s daily, 20’s daily, and so on and get a relic per tier (and maybe per character)?

As much as I like to have a PTR, I’m pretty sure there are some things that ArenaNet would like to keep within themselves and private testers, as opposed to letting it loose to open testers. With that regard, the testers themselves would have to be extremely trustworthy not to leak out any information to the general public to minimize the chances of the finer details being leaked thus creating some kind of unwanted chaos should it involve certain parts of the game. In most cases, the tester would have to some prior experience in testing other games and/or sign some form of Non-Disclosure Agreement. Unfortunately, open testers aren’t always great in keeping secrets, which might be what’s preventing a PTR from being launched at this time.

On the other hand, I’m sure the PTR could be used for focus-testing of content for a given weekend (like the Beta Weekend events months before the game launched), while the private testers could test whatever seems appropriate whenever they please.

Well, in that case, the Improved LFG tool could also mention travel costs, if any for automatic porting. Besides, if Anet was that desperate in regulating the economy, they could have also instated a travel cost in using the Asura Gate in the Heart of the Mists that goes to Lion’s Arch.

In WvW …

“Oh it’s just two invaders. We can take them.”
-2 seconds later, the rest of the zerg finally renders.-
“Oh crap. There goes our supply camp.”

Mr eX.3420:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

In general, Rising Dusk, I would not expect difficult combat challenges in combat updates. The reception of including such content with the Halloween update was very poor.

I’m confused by this comment. Did you mean to say Lost Shores? I was under the impression that Mad King’s Labyrinth (somewhat challenging PvE) and the Halloween dynamic events were very popular. The Mad King Thorn mini-dungeon was fun, but not difficult.

The thing about those events were that if your character was not level 80, you were side-kicked up to level 80, similar to how WvW works for low level characters. Though, the Mad King’s dungeon also introduced some elitism amongst folks who requested that only 80’s joined in on the dungeon. I fear that could happen for Toypocalypse … but I’m the wait-and-see type when it comes to it.

I would imagine Anthony’s examples would include the parts that involved some low level players running around higher level zones just so they could obtain their Mad King’s books. Sure you could probably have your friends or guildies to help you on that, but if you attempted to do that solo, it was a pain in the butt!

I thought about the auto-warp to dungeons part and to be honest, I don’t think it would matter if that part was included in the LFG or not. Unlike other MMOs where you would have to travel by boat, airship, griffon, or whatever means of mass-transportation, in GW2, your primary means of travel are by foot and by teleportation. And if you’re one of those crazy people who insist in traveling from Lion’s Arch to the front door of a said dungeon on foot … well, let’s hope your party members have lots of patience.

If anything, you’re only saving at the most 10 seconds when it comes to having the LFG system warping you from Lion’s Arch to the front door of the dungeon compared to actually having you warp there yourself.

Hard Mode in the open world could be tricky to implement because of a variety of factors. For one, how can one tell if one player has activated hard mode while those surrounding that player do not? If anything, the hard mode-enabled player could be carried around by those who do not have hard mode enabled.

Then again, I suppose you could make Hard Mode-only overflow servers for each zone. It might work that way. The surrounding events would have to be harder and mostly zerg-proof.

Hard Mode in dungeon content might be easier to implement since those areas are mostly controlled in a certain segments of the world. In that case, I would imagine that Hard Mode version of those dungeons might award Ascended gear instead of Exotics. It could work that way.

In regards to screenshot 3, is that a spot that requires you to use Blink? Also, I noticed you were level 16 in that shot while all other shots show you as level 80. That and it was taken from a previous build since the sPvP icon is missing from the top left corner. If so, then it might be possible that the functionality of Blink may have changed at some point.

This looks like fun! I think I might give this a shot! Good luck to all the participants!

Lore-wise, it sort of makes sense to have no names show up and here’s why—

In the battlefield, you don’t know your enemy’s name except who they represent based on their uniforms. Here’s a picture of some military servicemen:

http://www.newcombat.net/images/misc/iraqjoes.jpg

Notice that they don’t have blue names above their heads. If anything, their name tags would be on a small dog tag either around their neck or on their boot, but you wouldn’t know their true names from a distance because those tags are very small and usually concealed. The only way you could identify them is their uniform, which only tells you what they represent, which is the US military in that example picture. In WvW, your enemy is identified by their team colors and if they happen to be a Commander or not. If they belong to a guild, their guild logo could be displayed on their backpack or shirt.

I suppose you’re wondering then about the display of names in sPvP. Unlike WvW, sPvP represents arena-based combat. In arenas, chances are that there’s a silent announcer that has probably introduced the names of your opponents to the audience of The Mists. In a way, it’s more like combative sports, like MMA, Boxing, and Wrestling (even the fake ones on Monday night). All you’re missing is your chest-pumping entrance theme music. In my opinion, the real grudge matches amongst rivals happen in sPvP, not in WvW.

On the other hand, I do think a name could be shown for certain players who have displayed their seasoned status on the battlefield over a certain period of time. That would be the only reason I could think of why a well-known name would be shown in WvW. Sort of like …. “I am Commander Puntt, Asuran Warrior extraordinaire, and experienced punter of many Norns and Charr! I have destroyed many keeps, beheaded many commanders, pillaged various supply camp, and blew up any siege golem that has crossed my path! My name has been very well established throughout all of the Mists and everyone trembles in fear when they even mention name of the Asura that has demolished large zergs, single-handed!” … or something like that.

Other than that, if you haven’t really established yourself in WvW, then you’re probably just another Invader.

Divinity can be great for flexibility in roles, but when it comes to min/maxing, you should look into runes that helps specialized in your desired role in the field. Though the Divinity runes provide a little bit of everything, some of those stats might not actually make sense for certain builds (at least in the point of view of a min/maxer).

I know one of my sets had runes that focused specifically on Might duration and with the right synergy amongst teammates and Boon Duration food buffs, I could maintain a 20+ stack for quite some time! It was awesome!

Of course, your mileage may vary. You might not be comfortable in playing glass cannon or other specialized builds, but I find that I could sacrifice a little bit of defense and run closer to a glass cannon build if I become more familiar with the content. It’s great for what it does and content gets cleared in a timely fashion.

Instead of a Dervish, what I could see is a profession that plays and feels like a Dervish, but has different sources of power depending on race (or a source of power that is friendly to all races). Since M.O.X.. was mechanically a “Dervish” as far as its abilities go, I could imagine Dervish 2.0 would be called the “Golemancer”. This is also considering that anyone can operate siege golems in WvW, not just the Asura.

I suppose this new profession could work in that it could either be a pet-centric profession like the Necromancer in that Golemancer can summon assorted golems to assist in the battlefield; or the Golemancer could be the golem itself and start wrecking having like they’re the freakin’ Terminator. I think I would enjoy being the latter than the former.

Culwenimos.1594:

Ari Kagura.9182:

It’s an interesting idea provided that it’s not abused. You can knock off enemy players in PvP so why not the monsters in PvE? I think it would make sense.

The key point here is that in PvP, the enemies are players. So everything one player can do, could be done back. The behaviour of a player who gets knocked off a cliff by another player is to retreat a bit and heal before returning to the fight (avoiding the edge this time) or go elsewhere. A monster however will attempt to reach you by walking only, and won’t heal. It can even be predictably manouvred to the same spot to be pushed off again, allowing the player to repeat, until it dies.

Simple-minded monsters would be assumed, but if I’m not mistaken, some monsters could be smarter, such as humanoids. If I could recall, some of the Nightmare Court hammer warriors in Twilight Arbor have Healing Signet equipped. They could heal up using that, find ways to reach you and then continue to bash your face in from a different position. The AI could be a bit more adaptive to their surroundings to prevent themselves from falling to their doom again.

Catcrafter.3917:

Divinity is more for jack of all trades builds, while ruby’s are more for glass cannon builds.
Also why use Ruby orbs when you can use Ruby Jewels?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exquisite_Ruby_Jewel

As that page mentions: “Can be used only on accessories, amulets, and rings.” For all other pieces of armor, there are Orbs.

Some Warriors have “For Great Justice!” on auto-cast, which is perfectly normal.

To put a skill on auto-cast, simply CTRL+Right Click on any ability on your bar. That also means you can no longer use #1 as an auto-attack and have to keep mashing that button just to use it. In addition, you can only allow one skill to be set as an auto-cast ability.

It’s an interesting idea provided that it’s not abused. You can knock off enemy players in PvP so why not the monsters in PvE? I think it would make sense.

With that said, certain enemies could be introduced that might have some kind of “fall resistance” to minimizes the chances of it dying from falling damage. If they manage to survive the fall, some of these monsters could also have the capability of climbing back up terrain or just simply flying back up if they have wings. I’m actually kind of surprised that with an action-oriented combat system, the monsters don’t know how to jump and climb.

As far as loot is concerned, the looting system could be changed to that similar to WvW in that a bag is spawned upon death of that monster, or just have the loot go straight in the player’s inventory.

And to minimize abuse for loot … well, there’s that controversial feature called “Diminishing Returns”.

If you put four tridents in there, you’re going to get another trident., regardless of the kind of prestige it carries. Instead, the best experiment would be three tridents and something else.

However, I would expect that to more likely just turn into any ordinary exotic. If you have the money, go nuts and experiment!

“RNG”

I believe there can be a place for randomness but it should not be used to determine the statistical progression of individual character. Meaning, it shouldn’t be used to determine what kind of Ascended upgrade I would acquire at the end of the day. That’s what the Token System is for. However, I do agree that RNG could be used for ultra-rare skins, provided that they don’t give a statistical advantage over the highest-stat gear. I guess they could be faux-Legendary in that it takes a lot of time (or luck) to obtain them but like real Legendaries, they provide no statistical benefit. Going back to my suggestion about Magic Find, maybe obtaining one might be easier if one starts at the low end and builds their buff on their way to the top.

In addition, RNG should be used for the following:

• Determine what alternate paths (or Fractals for FotM) will be encountered in that dungeon: Pretty simple. In Fractals, we’re basically given 3 random ones out a possible eight, with the Solid Ocean fractal as the fourth one at the end of each even numbered difficulty scale. Perhaps this could be expanded to other dungeons by having an NPC change their mind and say “Nope! No easy path for you!” From personal experience, I have found that if a given path was not advertised upon the building of the group, one person will pick a path while the remaining four will follow. With that kind of psychology involved, what if the NPC made the first choice? In addition, if the path chosen is not the one the NPC wants to do, certain elements of that path could be different. Maybe the NPC would play a bit more recklessly and give the party a hard time. Congratulations! The Reincarnation of Killroy Stoneskin has joined your party!

• Determine what Boss(es) or Event(s) will be fought in a specific path: In most of Fractals, certain bosses are randomly spawned like either Dredge Gundam Mobile Suit or Legendary Ice Elemental for the Underground Facility Fractal, and The Bloomhunger or The Mossman for the Swamp.

Expanding that— Let’s say the Gate of Madness was remade to be a Fractal. In levels 1~9, RNG would determine whether you would fight The Undead Lich or Shiro Tagachi at the very end; but in levels 10~19, you might fight them both back-to-back with RNG determining which one will be fought first; and in 20+ both bosses will have to be fought simultaneously! In addition, RNG would determine which random environmental effects from one of the six shrines may be activated, which may require you to further evaluate your strategies against the monsters in said Fractal. If you’re extreme enough to be around level 50~60, ALL shrines would be active and the encounter might be balls-to-the-walls crazy!

Rewards

I seem to like the rewards so far: a good amount of Karma (including those from the Bags of Wonderous Goods), Coin, and Tokens.

The Token System is brilliant and should stay. However, I think more stuff should come from it, like exclusive crafting recipes that require rare materials that must be obtained from that particular dungeon possibly from the monsters there or as nodes in obscure parts of the dungeon. My second most favorite activity in most MMOS is crafting, and there should be something out there that distinguishes one Master Crafter from another Master Crafter. Therefore, there is less reliance on the Mystic Forge and more reliance on the player. Crafting recipes purchased with dungeon tokens would be an interesting start. I suppose this is something you should talk with the Crafting Team in regards to this.

In addition, Lodestones would be nice to have. That’s basically a challenge in itself in trying to obtain. It would be nice if I could trade in some tokens for a Lodestone or a Bag of Tier 6 Materials.

Closing Words

Overall, the dungeons should be interesting, challenging, rewarding, and (in some cases) unique. If I choose to do the same explorable path back-to-back, those two seperate runs should feel moderately different either with different boss mechanics or just simply a different boss all together. In other words, the same path should somewhat feel like two different runs.

Magic Find

This one is a bit more controversial when it comes to dungeons but I think we can all agree that Magic Find only benefits the person that is utilizing it and not their party members. Though I fear that Magic Find is here to stay, I think there should be a way to make it more “party-friendly”. Dungeons, after all, should be designed to be a great source of wealth like in many MMOs, but since it usually requires a group to complete them, each member of the group should somehow benefit from Magic Find.

For the original eight dungeons, I suggest that killing mobs that are of Champion (gold ring), Legendary (purple ring), or Ascended (enlarged portrait) rank would give everyone in the party a certain percentage of Magic Find. This means that bosses are less likely to be skipped and might even encourage some groups to kill all the champions in that explorable path, even ones that the average party would skip over. Likewise, there could even be a repeatable Vanquisher -style achievement tied to killing all the Champions in a given path.

For Fractals, that dungeon-wide Magic Find buff would be earned at the end of each Fractal and could extend to progressing difficulty levels if the same party has been retained. Meaning: if a party has completed levels 1 to 5 in one sitting, they would have accumalated around 85% Magic Find (5% x 17 Fractals), while a new party that starts at level 5 has no Magic Find. This might encourage some groups to start at lower levels just to build up their Magic Find stat for a much higher chance of obtaining better loot in higher difficulty levels. With that said, the build-up should also scale. Maybe levels 1~9 would increase Magic Find by 5% after each Fractal is complete, while Fractals completed in the 10~19 bracket would increase it by 10%, and so on. If a group is crazy enough to start at level 1 and make it all the way to level 30 in one sitting, they would accumulate up to 1090% Magic Find! I don’t know many groups who have the time to do that, but it might be interesting to see how far a dedicated “static” would go before they eventually go insane. This is also assuming that the party doesn’t fall apart due to random disconnects.

Lastly, should there be someone that has to leave the party in the middle of the run, the remaining members would retain their Magic Find accumulated buff but the replacement would have to start at zero Magic Find. The only time when the Magic Find buff should reset back to zero is when all three explorable paths have been completed for that day, when the entire party has disbanded, or when Diminishing Returns have reset.

Guild Cohesion

My guild is starting to run into situations where we would have more than five people that want to run something but we end up splitting up the roster and filling it in with randoms. There really should be some kind of content that would allow more than 5 people to participate in it. This would actually give a reason for guilds of moderate size to exist in PvE content (but PUGs could also access it for players who prefer to remain guildless). In basic terms: a Raid Dungeon.

However, it can also be flexible in a sense that instead of requiring a maximum number (eg. 10 or 25), the Raid’s difficulty should also scale based on how many members are in the Squad with the difficulty dynamically shifting if certain members have to leave in the middle of the Raid. The content itself, however, should be tuned for a minimum of 10 players, but like most dungeons, it should have a party cap.

With that said, there should be two kinds of Commanders: one designed for WvW and one designed for PvE Raids. The current Commander Book should be way tons cheaper but only work for Raids, while a different kind of Commander Book used for WvW should be purchased using WvW tokens and/or accomplish certain WvW-related achievements. I’m sure this part could be discussed with the team that handles WvW content— I don’t want to stray too far away from the main subject, which is dungeons.

Likewise, Raid encounters would have to be unique and interesting to prevent it from being a zerg-fest due to having a large amount of people in the Squad.

[continued]

What a great discussion! Here are some of the points I’d like to bring up.

Story Mode

These should be soloable with AI henchmen-like party members, or at least much easily accessable with a much lower learning curve. Like in Guild Wars 1, the player can choose which henchmen they can bring with them. After all, most people who do Story Mode are probably just getting their feet wet in doing dungeons; or probably just in it for the Lore instead of the Challenge. Once they have a feel for dungeons, then they could find player-controlled party members to assist them in Explorable Modes.

Improved LFG

Whether this is going to be a full-fledged Dungeon Finder or an LFG Tool with many more features, it obviously has to be better than what we have. I think a suitable compromise is the Party Search feature that was in Guild Wars 1, but extended to work in across different zones and through different overflows. There could also be filters to restrict searches to specific dungeons so that finding a suitable party doesn’t have to feel like a chore.

Level Scaling in Fractals

The scaling used in Fractals really fractures guilds with members who may not be all on at the same time to complete them. It’s interesting but also very segregated. Instead, have guild groups or mutual friends (as opposed to random people) bring in their peers from lower levels to participate in higher levels. That way, a guild doesn’t feel torn apart because a few guildmates were left behind because they were not available for progression. That way, there’s always a feeling that a guildmate is always looking out for you.

Boss Dynamics

In the beginning, people complained that bosses were too hard. After a while, I bet you some of these same people complain that these bosses are too easy once they have learned a trick or two about them. As far as boss mechanics go, you really can’t stop people from learning. Instead, I would say make the boss more interesting. Out of all the bosses I have seen, I would say Giganticus Lupicus is the most interesting, followed by Subject Alpha, the Legendary Searing Effigy, then the Iron Forgeman (the latter is mostly because of the Lore than the boss mechanics). The Ghost Eater could be interesting if the three cannons around them were actually required for the fight.

Explorable Mode End-Bosses (and some mid-bosses) should have shifting or random dynamics. Giganticus is a great example in that there are three phases to the fight with different ways of getting through each of them. However, what if the boss was a bit more … random? What if there was a chance that Giganticus’ three phases were swapped around for each visit to Arah? As in one night, you would do 1-2-3, then next visit would be 3-1-2, and then a third time would be 2-1-3? By sticking Phase 1 in the middle or end, players would no longer utilize the accepted “safe spot” that they would use to get to the next phase; but instead expand their strategies to the very basic idea instead of the very specific.

Subject Alpha is somewhat like that but with abilities fixed to whatever path you choose. However, what if there was a random Subject Bravo or Subject Charlie that did a totally different set of abilities?

Also regarding Kohler and the Cave Troll— depending on which boss dies first should both bosses spawn within close proximity, the rest of the dungeon could either be full of Ascalonian Ghosts or smaller Troll minions. If the party becomes creative enough to skip the event, then the rest of the dungeon could have a mix of ghosts, trolls, and gravelings thus making the dungeon harder than it has to be. Then again, maybe better rewards could be given to compensate.

Trash Mobs

A lot of PUGs I have participated in have a tendency to skip anything and everything that is deemed skippable using whatever means necessary, even resorting to glitches and exploits. Most glitches revolve around using the terrain since most mobs still live in the times of Guild Wars 1 when nobody learned how to jump. So a simple suggestion would simply be to teach the mobs how to jump. That could solve a lot of things.

In addition, the mobs in dungeons should not break aggro, or should have an considerably large leash range. In this case, the key rule is: if you aggro it, you kill it!

At the same time, most if not all the mobs in the original eight dungeons have more health than they should have. The mobs in Fractals is a pretty good step in the right direction as far as the trash goes. However, should there be a Veteran or Champion in the way, give us a reason to not skip them. Perhaps they need to be killed in order to open a gate, or if we choose to skip them, the end-boss might be harder to kill and drops better loot. Or what if killing certain Champions gave the party a zone-wide Magic Find buff, which leads to my next point?

[continued]

It’s an interesting article. I agree on some points, but also would like to note on some of them.

1) I find that the best cohesion amongst guild members are usually within smaller guilds. Almost always, these smaller guilds are generally more tight-knit and close to each other while larger guilds (at least ones with almost no prior pre-GW2 foundation) have very little cohesion and were probably zerg-invited.

My best suggestion is to research on a guild and find the one that’s right for you. If that guild advertising on Lion’s Arch has a website, take some time to visit it and see what they’re all about, their rules and policies, and why they came to exist. If they also use social networking services like Facebook, visit their community page and see how active they are.

In addition, join a guild that also has an active Guild Leader. My first guild in GW2 was pretty great and average sized. Not too big but not too small. Almost everyone was representing and had guild-sponsored events every other week. Then the Guild Leader vanished and the active members in it no longer represent the guild.

Because you can join multiple guilds in GW2, you might also want to research on their representation policies. In fact, I’d say you should put this as one of your high-priority things to look for when it comes to shopping for a guild. For example, in my current guild, the guild leader only requires you to represent if you’re doing content with other guild members (eg. a guild run through dungeons). I think it’s a suitable compromise as opposed to the totalitarian-like view of having members always representing said guild and no one else’s.

My personal opinion on representation: I think it works great if you belong in guilds that specialize in different aspects of the game, like a separate guild for PvE, another for sPvP, another for WvW, and one for simply RP provided that there is little overlap. There are even “LFG” guilds that exist solely to help people find people for certain dungeons. I know some of my guildmates belong in other guilds and represent them when they do content with their guildmates. I’m perfectly fine with it as long they represent our guild when we do content together. With that said, it’s one of the few reasons why I don’t like guilds that invite en masse when spamming in Lion’s Arch. I guess I’m so used to going through “initiations” or being “interviewed” before accepting an invite for one.

2) The dungeon finder is a totally different subject from guilds. A key point made in that article is that the writer of the article is not worried that it might “ruin” the community. Honestly, there’s isn’t much community to ruin in GW2. Let me explain: First of all, whenever I hear about this remark, I think “which community is this schmuck talking about”? Honestly, when I used dungeon finders in previous MMOs, I thought my community outlook was more widened but only to be limited with a server-based friends list. Fortunately in GW2, our Friends List isn’t server bound, meaning I could have friends from many different servers.

Another key point to consider is that this game is 3 months old whereas when the dungeon finder was released in WoW, that game was 5 years old. I could see where the “breaks the community” argument could work as far as the age of the game goes. In addition, since many of WoW’s features were server-bound, I’m lead to believe that those communities were also bound to a certain server; and often times the dungeon ethics of one server may clash with the ethics of another server (eg. Rolling Need on loot regardless of who could use it). Fortunately, everyone gets a little bit of something in dungeons so you don’t have to worry about that greedy odd-ball in the group that probably rolled Need in previous MMOs. The trade-off is that same person probably has heavy amounts of Magic Find, but that’s another topic all together.

Next is server pride. In GW2, server pride only makes sense in WvW, whereas all other parts of the game are universal, including our friends list— and with guesting coming up in the future, the community cohesion would only be better.

Lastly, another topic touched in that point is communication. As long dungeons remain challenging and the group composition is mostly dynamic, then there will always be communication amongst party members. Sure, you’ll have a few sour bossy types, but I’ve seen them in just about every MMO I have played. If you somehow joined a “quiet” group, consider your party members. Do they all belong to the same guild? Maybe they’re doing their communication on a VoIP server, like Teamspeak or Ventrilo.

I would note any T6 mats … unfortunately, I got none from those salvages I’m afraid, but I’ll be sure to make note of them next time around. Thanks for the reminder.

Also: Just salvaged more stuff … some level 78 rare stuff.

Edit 0244 EST: Even more stuff salvaged! However, I also have a theory— I find that I tend to get 2’s and 3’s from generically named weapons (eg. “Trident”, “Shield”, etc) from FotM than I do with weapons of descriptive names (eg. “Carrion Shield of Air”). Either there’s some kind of link, or I just happen to have some kind of lucky streak.

I added my information in the data entry form:

Out of 8 level 70 Flame Legion Masks, only 3 Ectos were salvaged using the Mystic Salvage Kit (the 250 charge one).

It might be interesting. My small guild ran into the situation for the first time where more than 5 people wanted to run dungeons with each other at the same time. It was quite a dilemma that involved one person being left out … and it usually sucks to be the one that got left out.

A 10-man raid would be nice, though I think there should be some flexibility. For instance, a dungeon that would up- or down-scale itself depending on how many people are in it. It could work in a similar way how the scaling for Dynamic Events work. Each encounter that takes place in that dungeon would become more interesting with more people, but if guild members have to leave mid-way through the dungeon, the dungeon could scale down a bit.

Also, since there is no tank or healer, there might be quirks and gimmicks to compensate. For example, let’s say there’s a raid version of Ascalonian Catacombs. Where most 5-man groups generally don’t use the cannons during the Ghost Eater encounter, the fight could be tuned so that three people must be on the cannons at all times when fighting the raid version.

I’m guessing the party system is not distinguishing the difference between a Kick and a Leave.

Although, I also think your example might be a little extreme— are you saying ALL party members left as opposed to maybe one or two people simply rage-quitting? If all party members quit, maybe that run was not meant to be and might be best to start from the beginning.

Then again, you might have the desire to continue where you left off … in that case, what if one of your other party members want to continue at the same spot as well? Perhaps they should have stayed with you while you attempt to find replacements for the folks who left you.

For the intents and purposes of that anti-grief feature, it could very well be “working as intended”.

I can’t speak for Elementalists since I don’t play one, but as an Engineer, what if the kit was designed to be placed where the alternate weapon would go for other professions instead of occupying a Utility Skill slot? That means that extra Utility Skill slot is opened for other things like another Elixir, Turret, or other miscellaneous gadget.

That would mean:

• PROS: Engineers would get two additional skills: the utility skill that was freed up, and the toolbelt ability that went with it.
• CONS: Engineers would be limited to only one weapon-replacing kit.
• Also: May cause certain balancing issues since a new ability has been introduced.

I suppose that would require quite a bit of testing and possibly figuring out how the toolbelt ability associated with that kit would be integrated with this suggested change. A bigger toolbelt with an “F5” ability? Considering most keyboards I’ve used usually have gaps between F4 and F5, and F8 and F9, it might feel a bit uncomfortable. I suppose TAB would be a suitable shortcut key to activate the toolbelt skill for that weapon kit.

Since we have one that takes place in the Jade Sea, how about one that also takes place in Echovald Forest? Maybe some kind of remnant of Urgoz could be there.

Another Fractal could also take place in the Crystal Desert and maybe involve the use of The Lonely Vigil . I found that landmark interesting and wonder if there’s some lore attached to it on why it was built.

Lastly, I’d like to see a rather strange Fractal where in the dystopian future, the Inquest takes over and harnesses the powers of the Norn animal spirits and Human gods. However, there would be a surprise that the current leader of the Inquest during that time happens to be non-Asuran. May I suggest a very diabolical female Norn in light Inquest armor?

Hello Robert,

I sent you a PM of a terrain exploit that I have experienced in my recent dungeon run. It has the details of how to perform it.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Frosty.8491:

We did this again today and ran into the same issue of no adds spawning.

We figured out that it was the Necro trait “Vampiric” (steal health on hit) that was doing the damage to the steal, instead of the condi like we originally thought.

Yes apparently any lifesteal does dmg to the seal. But after a while the hits stop connecting. Also, some of us have no lifesteal, like guardians. If this isn’t fixed in a few days I’m gonna have to get some spare weapons with lifesteal sigils on them.

I have yet to verify if this works, but a guildie told me you could also use life-stealing food, like an Omnomberry Ghost, to help damage the seal. I’m not sure how it could work considering that the life-steal procs off your crits instead of normal damage (and you generally can’t crit on most objects) but it might be worth a shot.

You can transfer between worlds, but when you do ALL of your characters are transferred instead of choosing which character goes in which world. Fortunately, transfers are free at this time but have a 7 day cooldown. If you want to do WvW or outdoor events with your friend, you and your friend should discuss which world would be right for the both of you before starting out.

Well … all I can say is:

If you want top-end stuff that can produce big freakin’ numbers, prepare to pay up! I know I did for my runes on one of my other 80’s. Sure it was expensive, but it was worth it! My damage was insane and content was cleared on a timely manner (assuming nobody died of course).

For instance, I know T6 Blood is like 24 silver a piece, and you need around 60~90 bloods (or 14~22 gold) for a complete set of Berserker’s if you intend to craft them instead of doing dungeons. Doing big damage is popular everywhere, so there’s always a demand for it. It’s like that in just about every MMO I have played. I remember farming my butt off in WoW for the money to buy the epic crystals I needed for stuff like Mongoose back in the day when those crystals were still expensive a piece, but in the end, it was worth it! I also played on a moderately low-to-medium pop server so there were times when the supply wasn’t always there. Fortunately in GW2, the trading post is cross-server so there’s always a supply of something … even if it’s a short supply.

The prices may be a “sick joke” for those who have little money to spare, but if there’s people out there that can bust their butts for T3 Culture, Commander Books, multiple Legendaries, and so on that costs a lot of money and/or time, then that 24g for a set Eagle runes is just a simple fraction of their expenses. In other words, either work for it or settle with other alternatives … or just quit playing if it bothers you too much.

Besides, doing sick DPS is nice but from my experience with PUGs, they don’t do great DPS if their back is on the ground. Not saying that you’re a bad player, but I’m just going by personal experience when it came to my groups and people showing off their “leet” DPS but end up going on downed state on occasion. This is also considering that most encounters in GW2 require a certain degree of movement which obviously stunts the flow of damage. Then again, maybe you belong to a static group of people that may have a crap ton of raiding experience (including server-firsts) from previous MMOs and the idea of PUGs may not apply to you. I don’t know that since you don’t mention it, but I figured I’d bring it up.

I’ve been growing to like CoE, despite having to beat up Subject Alpha many more times than any average boss. Funny I say that but I have a hard time trying to associate myself with playing an Asuran character. As with the dungeon, I do like the technological sci-fi feeling to it and wouldn’t mind doing more Asuran-themed dungeons, like the Uncategorized Fractal, which is another one of my favorites.

Second on my list would be Sorrow’s Embrace, especially Story Mode with the Iron Forgeman. I remember fighting the Iron Forgeman in GW1 and I thought that was quite a challenge, especially since in Hard Mode— pretty intense stuff! Though the fight in GW2 was dumbed down a bit, it’s still a fun fight.

Another nice alternative are the Golemancer runes, which I run for a few of my Engineer builds. It’s similar to Eagle (but favoring Critical Damage instead of Precision), but you get a Golem instead of a damage boost. The Golem is a nice tank and usually has twice the HP that I normally have. However, you either have to be extremely lucky with dumping runes in the Mystic Forge, or run CoE until you basically developed a platonic relationship with Subject Alpha.

As far as the other two runes are concerned, the Scholar runes are craftable as mentioned by Clark Skinner. However, it’s dependent on the market for Charged Lodestones.

So I’m not the only one with problems trying to jump … great to know!

Oddly, I had a hard time trying to make the jump from second platform to the third in the Jade Maw Fractal. At first I thought it might have been a measure put in to prevent people from skipping the trash in that said Fractal, but after killing the trash mobs, jumping was still jacked up.

The workaround seemed to have worked for my group recently in difficulty 10. I’m not sure what others done to kill themselves during the final boss but what we’ve done is stood on the braziers and burned ourselves to death. Since then, the rest of the fight has worked as intended. EDIT NOTE: This is AFTER stunning the boss at 75%.

With that said, I think the added Fanatic adds at the end was a bit of surprise. I don’t ever recall them. Then again, I’ve always been in groups that wanted to AoE the seal before the patch. It’s quite refreshing to do this encounter somewhat legitimately.

Just some things to consider: the Archdiviner’s HP will regen a little after being stunned at 0%. This is normal! The reason behind this is that in the event of a wipe (in this case, a purposeful wipe for the purpose of the workaround instead of a wipe caused by odd mishaps), the party can still stun the boss, steal the hammer, and destroy the seal using the hammer.

I noticed that some of the UI windows have subtle black line borders as well as the typical translucent elements, but nothing significant I have noticed at the moment. I guess we should wait until the patch notes go up.