Guild Wars 2

My post was more of a complaint about the latter than the former. I can run the skip just fine, but I still struggle a bit with the boss on my zerker ranger simply because I’m only doing roughly half of my potential damage.

They fixed this, yet my ranger’s pet still does zero damage to the boss at the end. Thanks Anet.

I’d rather just have token rewards be character-based again. I get why they’d make the gold reward account-wide, but now there’s just zero incentive to do a dungeon path more than once a day, which really sucks.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

I think this thread has gotten a little off topic.

Here’s my simple question: Would you support ranged weapons doing equal DPS to melee weapons if they, on average, had an equal level of risk?

I suppose I would agree with such a notion, however like I said I’d rather just have their original intention of melee simply being riskier than ranged combat. In order for this to actually work, however, Anet needs to address the issues that currently cripple the difficulty of PvE content in this game to begin with.

I like the idea that Anet claimed they wanted to run with, with a risk/reward ratio between melee and ranged damage. The problem is that things like stacking in corners and reflects completely trivialize any sort of need for such a system because you can effectively avoid damage altogether by taking advantage of poor AI mechanics.

purgatoryz.6038:

Relentliss.2170:

So basically they are just going to slowly strip away all our defenses till this is the worst class in the game. I am not really sure how one is supposed to mele with such low health or regen like we have withou dodging. GJ Anet

Try playing a thief. No aegis, no reflects, no stability (ds doesn’t count), only a few ways to get vigor and they are all being nerfed.

When you look at a guardian vs. a thief, of the two I’d expect the thief to be able to maintain near perma vigor. Dodging is literally all they have. I’d say vigorous precision needs a rework to slightly tone it down.

Wait, what? I play both a guardian and a thief, and I can say with complete certainty that it is MUCH easier to avoid damage with a thief. Every single weapon combo (with the exception of p/d, which, to compensate, features an immobilize, a cripple, a retreating shadowstep, and a stealth instead) available to thief features at least one skill that has either an evade or a blind, and they all have zero cooldown. Now add their utilities which grant them more evades, blinds, stealth, and unrivaled mobility, and you have a class that can be pretty hard to take down when utilized by a skilled player.

Now guardian, on the other hand, is apparently a class meant to be defensively oriented, in a game that discourages tanking and healing. I feel like that makes the issue here pretty self-explanatory, but if not then you can just refer to the many problems that others in this thread have already pointed out.

durend.6237:

Black Box.9312:

That’s correct; you have the right to choose who you want to play with. But you don’t have the right to tell someone else how they should play their game. If someone is rolling a shout heal warrior in PvE and you don’t like that because it’s not DPS heavy enough for you, that’s kittening terrific. Find someone else to play with and let them do their thing with a different group. It’s really not a difficult concept, but it seems to be elusive to many of the ‘elite’ in this game, which is quite sad.

deSade.9437:

Yet, they do.
They complain in whisper, then head to the forum and complain there.

That’s just the thing. I doubt many of the people you’re calling “elite” care what casuals do. When they do care is when a person (shout heal warrior to continue the example) joins a party that they clearly do not meet the advertised specifications for (max dps/speed run) and complain via whispers/forums for being kicked.

This becomes even worse when said person proceeds to try to defend their build as viable for that type of run. That is when their build is going to get torn apart by the “elite” players because that player is trying to prove their ability of joining the “elite” runs – something they don’t meet the qualifications for.

If instead they’d recognize that those players wanted nothing to do with their playstyle and made/joined groups advertised plainly as “path # any welcome” they would receive no criticism to their build/playstyle.

It’s not about telling people how to play the game, it’s about telling people how they want to play the game if they want to play with a select group of people.

Then block them and move on. Fighting fire with fire just makes everyone look childish.

In order to make dungeons more engaging, they have to make a combined effort to change both the enemy mechanics and the class balancing within PvE. Anet is (slowly) beginning to work toward the former, but they have been pretty adamantly against making any progress toward the latter, which, first and foremost, requires a split between PvE and PvP balancing.

Also, before this veers too far off-topic, I’d like to also add that stacking on its own is most definitely not an exploit. The ‘exploit’ involving stacking is when it’s used to push an enemy into a corner so that when they try to back away from the player they just run into the corner and don’t actually move anywhere.

If you’ve ever fought subject alpha without first pulling him into the corner, you’ll find that even upon stacking on him he will back away between attacks so that they will hit their intended target. I haven’t really tested the same on the queen spider, but my guess is that it would work in a similar fashion if all 5 players stacked on it out in the open.

Therefore, the stacking itself is hardly an issue. Like others have already stated, it’s simply a tactic used to avoid attacks that have a minimum range. But forcing the boss into a corner to render it unable to effectively move (and undoubtedly to make way for other things like FGS 4 into a corner) is most definitely an abuse of flawed game design.

durend.6237:

Black Box.9312:

Syn Sity.5826:

Exactly. Bosses in games shouldn’t have to conform to the way you like to play.

And neither should other players.

Juuuuuuuuuuust sayin’.

Actually, they do.

While we are free to play “how they want” we are just as free to play with “who we want”.

If player A wants to join a party advertised as “speed clear – max dps and experienced only” and that player is a shout heal warrior, they should not be surprised and have no right to complain if they find them self kicked as the party made it quite clear who they wanted to play with.

Same works in reverse if a party advertises as “full clear, no skips no stacking” anyone trying to force the party to do so shouldn’t be surprised or complain about if they are kicked.

That’s correct; you have the right to choose who you want to play with. But you don’t have the right to tell someone else how they should play their game. If someone is rolling a shout heal warrior in PvE and you don’t like that because it’s not DPS heavy enough for you, that’s kittening terrific. Find someone else to play with and let them do their thing with a different group. It’s really not a difficult concept, but it seems to be elusive to many of the ‘elite’ in this game, which is quite sad.

Syn Sity.5826:

Exactly. Bosses in games shouldn’t have to conform to the way you like to play.

And neither should other players.

Juuuuuuuuuuust sayin’.

Saulius.8430:

ranged(sitting 900-1200 away) players don’t get aoe boons (most utilities and aoe combos have small effect radius), cannot effectively revive or be revived, does less damage in general (with few exceptions)

so why would one choose to play ranged in coordinated small group(dungeons)?

its hilarious when 4 players got banner buffs, fury, 25stacks of might, and there is that one ranger standing 1500 away w/o any buffs, and later complains why no one wants him

Honestly, all this proves is that distance-based damage mechanics are incredibly dumb, which we’ve (or at least I have) known from the beginning. While I typically don’t have a problem with stacking in most cases, it just seems so contradictory of Anet to rave about this risk/reward setup between melee and ranged only to ruin it with bosses like the spider queen and subject alpha.

Long story short: Just more proof that Anet needs to get their dungeon design kitten together.

The dredge fractal is honestly the most poorly designed instance in this game IMO. It’s doable, but it’s ridiculously tedious and just a pain in the kitten in general. But it seems like all Anet is interested in doing is making it increasingly more annoying with each update they bring to it, so good luck convincing them to rework it completely.

In order to get the most out of spirit weapons, you need to trait 30/20/0/0/10. That leaves a grand total of 10 unspent trait points that you can use to either buff your damage or support. Those 10 points aren’t going to help you much when your spirit weapons are on cooldown.

Vargamonth.2047:

If we remain pidgeonholed and we also have to share our food, it’s going to be disgusting.

Pretty much this. Guardian is already getting stiff competition as a bunker support with the likes of shout heal/bunker regen warriors as it is; if they continue to open up their niche build to other classes it’s going to destroy the class entirely unless they grant it more versatility. Buffing sword damage by another 5% isn’t going to cut it when we have to sacrifice so much survivability for it only to still be unable to chase a fleeing enemy effectively anyway.

Honestly, bearbow isn’t even that bad when run by a competent player. I’ve done 5 man bearbow dungeon runs for the lolz and they’ve gone smoother than many pug runs I’ve done.

sorrychief.2563:

The weak die in Arah.

Notice my class, with lowest hp and armor in game full zerk make it through easily.

???

Man, that P3 skip must have been so hard with that obsidian flesh and mist form.

Honestly, the best piece of advice I can give you is to find a guild that is willing to help you learn dungeons. Preferably one that is patient with newcomers and will help guide you without telling you directly how to play.

The problem with this nerf is that thief lacks reliable stun break utilities. Shadowstep is good but has a 50 second cooldown. RFI is good but has a 60 second cooldown. Haste is a terrible stunbreak because it takes away your endurance and leaves you helpless against that warrior HB, on top of the 60 second cooldown. Infiltrator’s Signet is decent at best, but is hardly a desirable skill for a sword thief that has a targeted teleport already and again, in most situations you’ll want to get AWAY from the enemy upon breaking a stun.

Point being, in order to justify this kind of nerf they need to give thieves more reliable access to stun breakers and/or stability to compensate.

Syn Sity.5826:

Fupakiller.6102:

VitalSuit.1980:

Getting real tired of running into warriors using 5 signets. 3 signets is about as far as I would say you can go (healing signet, signet of rage, xx signet unless every utility is possibly taken (2 banners) then I would say you can have 4 signets but for the love of god ALWAYS bring For Great Justice.
Also running into less and less warriors actually using banners.

Not everyone who plays games are as serious as you are. Some people just like to play however they want. " Getting real tired of running into warriors using 5 sigs" rofl. You may have a problem if this is what gets you “REAL TIRED”..
Kittn off man, get over yourself.. seriously. The same goes for everyone else who complains how other people play ,,,, wait for it,,,, wait for it,,,, IT IS A GAME!

If all you care about is playing how you want because “it’s just a game” then go play a single player console game. If you don’t give a kitten about being a member of a team, don’t play in a kittening team.

You seem quite upset.

I have a stacking sigil on both my staff and my focus, depending on what build I’m currently running. They both seem to work quite well for me.

Fror.2163:

I personally wouldn’t blame the guardian too hard for the only reason that when I’m at Maw, I usually play Sword/Focus+Scepter/Focus. I keep the Sc/F for when I want to relax a bit on the last phase (because, hey, this is the 4th fractal and well… pugs). And when I’m Sw/F, I sometimes happen to swap weapons by mistake, rarely but still… it happens. I’d like to mention that if you have retaliation up (stand your ground, for instance) and play with projectiles on the colossi (typically the Sw 3 burst, but also Sc 1), you actually deal more damage to (one of) the colossi than with Sw auto-attack (based on experience, not numbers). But this is purely situational. On the other hand, if the guy played Sc/F for the whole phase, yes, that was stupidity.

The third attack in the sword chain also gets reflected, just FYI. Use GS for the colossi instead.

The “who cares” just makes this SO perfect.

InB4 this gets misconstrued into a pro/anti-leashing debate thread.

EDIT: Okay fine, I’ll give a legitimate answer as well. No, I don’t think it would be more fun because with the current way the AI works, it would just slow things down because people would just find more ways to LoS and stack them by pulling them to specific points on the map.

What I’d rather have is a more reactive AI that actually is balanced on a more equal playing field to the players; one that is less tanky but actually dodges and uses similar mechanics to what we as the players use. But I have no idea how easy or difficult that would be to program, and even with that aside I doubt Anet would take the effort to make such changes considering how long it takes them to fix simple bugs in dungeons.

Agony.3542:

It is just sad that the missing split between pvp and pve oriented stuff leads to these kinds of nerfs/downsides on classes.
Why are conditions so weak in PvE? Well take a look at what they do in PvP.
Why are thiefs so squishy and have so little ways to mitigate damage? Well look at their burst potential and perma stealth builds in WvW.

Now if only the balance team could get their heads out of their kitten long enough to acknowledge this. :/

I’m curious; I haven’t seen any mention of them changing sundering strikes. Care to fill me in through explanation or a link detailing such a change?

hybrid.5027:

Black Box.9312:

hybrid.5027:

Why are you using Thrill of the crime?

Flanking strikes is getting moved to master tier, so I figured I might as well get used to it now.

I wasn’t expecting a reasonable answer

Well to be fair, I switched between FS and TotC depending on whether or not fury was readily available to my group, but now it seems like I won’t have that sort of luxury anymore.

hybrid.5027:

Why are you using Thrill of the crime?

Flanking strikes is getting moved to master tier, so I figured I might as well get used to it now.

My thief has boon stealing, blind fields, blast finishers, a pull, projectile block, party might, fury, and swiftness; and multiple dazes and stuns, all in addition to a heavy damage output. Saying that thief lacks utility outside of stealth just means that you don’t have enough knowledge of the class to know otherwise.

As for your other argument, nobody is going to learn how to properly gear a ranger or necro by rerolling to a guardian or warrior. Sure, it might be a little rough starting out, but telling them to play another class isn’t going to help that at all.

I’d like to expand on the above to say that it’s important to make use of your virtues in general.

In dungeons you should always have Justice on cooldown, especially on bosses, because the combined burn will put ~100% burn uptime on your target, which helps boost the damage of any condition-dependent damage modifiers for your party as well as doing some decent damage itself. Resolve is a good heal that can really help your team out in a pinch, and Courage is really great for blocking large attacks that may do heavy damage or CC your team. The radius for your virtue actives is a whopping 1200, which means that they can be really effective means of supporting your team no matter where you’re all located at any given time.

Another thing that many people rely on guardians for is team stability. Now with mesmer AoE mantras this isn’t quite as much of a big deal, but many people will still rely on the guardian to use SYG and HG in the proper situations so that they don’t have to worry about CC in key places like the harpy fractal.

Finally, it’s important to make proper use of condition removal. Whether you decide to run PoV shouts, cond removal with VoR, or even just the use of GS 4+2, it’s important to make use of cond cleansing in the proper situations, particularly with enemies that stack conditions such as bleed very quickly.

Really the best way to learn how to play a guardian is to just try out different stats, traits, and utilities and find what works best through experience, but hopefully knowing some of these tips will help you get off to a better start and help you improve.

viciouspike.8624:

Thieves bring amazing DPS if you think they are too squishy you don’t know how to dodge.

This. Also ranger has one of the best reflect skills in the game and can deal plenty of damage outside of 1h sword if played properly. And a properly equipped power necro can stack vuln really well and do some pretty good damage alongside it.

So basically, long story short, you can excel with any class when played properly. The problem isn’t the classes themselves, but rather the number of effective builds available to them, which, for many of them, is very few.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

runeblade.7514:

I would like to see stacking gone.

The best way to do it is to have the dungeon team to play some sPvP. See what is the behavior of players when they react to stacking.

Funny you say this. I have been WvWing a lot lately to get the meta achievement done. There have been many occasions when me and my friends are being chased by a larger group, and we run around a corner and the “mobs” LOS to us and we obliterate them with AOE. You would think that real people with intelligence would be immune to stupid pve tactics, but they aren’t.

Funny you use a zerg WvW example to try to counter a point made in reference to sPvP.

Ethics.4519:

Black Box.9312:

Dub.1273:

Someone using a good build who doesn’t know how to play is still doing much better than someone using a trash build who doesn’t know how to play.

A dead zerker deals infinitely less DPS than a live player with a suboptimal build.

A dead zerker deals 100% less DPS than a live player.

However this might not matter. Using completely made-up numbers (Not saying it’s accurate, just trying to get my point across) I would rather play with a 400dps toon that is alive for 95% of the fight, rather than 100dps toon that is alive for 100% of the fight.

Your math is off. 100/1 = 100. 100/0 = undefined, which, theoretically, can be defined as infinity.

That aside, however, how many pugs do you find that run full zerker and only die at the very end of the fight, as opposed to the beginning? Moreover, how many of those pugs are more willing to learn the game when they’re dying over and over again as opposed to just getting frustrated and not playing altogether?

The problem with people who think that everyone should play their way because they ‘did the math’ is that they fail to incorporate the human element into their figures.

Dub.1273:

Someone using a good build who doesn’t know how to play is still doing much better than someone using a trash build who doesn’t know how to play.

A dead zerker deals infinitely less DPS than a live player with a suboptimal build.

CptAurellian.9537:

Black Box.9312:

InfinitySoul.9240:

EDIT: Build is 10 30 0 10 20, zerk armour and trinkets.

There’s your problem right there. Rather than taking the time to learn the class for yourself, you just dove headfirst into a build that someone told you to run without knowing how to properly utilize it.

And how is the stuff he has problems with dependent of the build?

Except ofc that Brazil’s build is one of the best regarding group support etc.

The build itself is fine; it’s the fact that it’s a terrible build for people that don’t have experience playing guardian.

InfinitySoul.9240:

EDIT: Build is 10 30 0 10 20, zerk armour and trinkets.

There’s your problem right there. Rather than taking the time to learn the class for yourself, you just dove headfirst into a build that someone told you to run without knowing how to properly utilize it.

I feel like an incredibly simple fix to the symbol debacle would just be to add a symbol skill to one of the guardian’s offhand weapons. Looking at mesmer as an example, phantasm traits can be effective in any mesmer build because every weapon set has a phantasm skill. Guardian traits seem to imply that symbols are just as big of a class mechanic for them as phantasms are for mesmers, so how about we just have the currently awful shield 4 skill replaced with a symbol that will allow access to symbols for builds that rely on sword and scepter for damage?

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Black Box.9312:

obal.3218:

Emanuel.9781:

Alright, alright. It’s settled. In the next few days, you’re going to see a real “play how you want” lupicus kill. Actually, i’m not sure if it’ll be possible to kill him in that setup.

Time will tell.

The point was to get a clean run on both play how you want build and a zerker meta build to compare times.

Honestly, that’s all it really comes down to. Time. Everything else is based on the player, not the build. I care much more about efficiency than about speed, which, despite what people seem to think, are actually two different things.

Which run was more efficient after you watched both?

He just admitted that they were purposefully trying to play bad and were using builds they aren’t comfortable running with. If you think that’s a fair comparison, I really hope you don’t hold any sort of political influence.

obal.3218:

Emanuel.9781:

Alright, alright. It’s settled. In the next few days, you’re going to see a real “play how you want” lupicus kill. Actually, i’m not sure if it’ll be possible to kill him in that setup.

Time will tell.

The point was to get a clean run on both play how you want build and a zerker meta build to compare times.

Honestly, that’s all it really comes down to. Time. Everything else is based on the player, not the build. I care much more about efficiency than about speed, which, despite what people seem to think, are actually two different things.

LoS/stacking and projectile reflection both trivialize PvE content so much. You’d think Anet would want to do something to discourage the former at least and maybe rebalance the latter, but I guess living story takes precedence over any of that.

I went with a group of buddies and did a 5 man bearbow run of CoF P1 and arah P3 earlier today for the lulz. It… Actually went pretty smoothly. The CoF run took maybe 10 minutes, and the only hitch we encountered in arah was at lupi because 4 of us had never fought lupi before on a ranger. But after a couple of tries even that was done rather easily.

That being said though, we were an organized group of 5. Pugs will be pugs, and they really can’t be trusted with much of anything.

Ethics.4519:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Hot Boy.7138:

I play melee 100% of the time, but I force anyone else to melee. Every fight in arah can be done as melee or ranged. Everyone has their preference and has to deal with the risks of each. If someone who prefers to range, died while ranged, they would have probably played worse as melee cause it’s not their preference. Let people play the way they want.

I honestly hate when someone who doesn’t melee ever, follow me into melee range just because they see me doing it, and die repeatedly cause of it. And I hate when someone tells me to range cause they don’t think melee is possible, cause they can’t do it. Just let people play the way they want and deal with the risks of their decision. Then again, I’m also someone who doesn’t get mad if someone dies or if the group wipes, and I don’t see it as any more of a waste of time, than actually playing the game is.

+1 i agree with you!

Sometimes one person in range can wipe the party. AC spider queen, CoE Alpha, Etc.

But I get what you are saying.

That’s one thing that I don’t get. Anet talked about how ranged combat is supposed to be the ‘safe’ alternative, and yet they design these bosses that so strongly discourage it. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Writetyper.1985:

he’s fun m8

i would like to retain a mere scrap of fun to hang onto for dear life in this little game

please don’t take my kholer away from me, I’ll solo him if I have to

Let’s just 2 man him, like, all the time. Forever. Just the two of us.

Aden Celeste.3650:

Fixes for dungeons are not exactly a priority in this game. At least thats what I can deduce from the lack of updates to existing dungeons.

Syn Sity.5826:

Black Box.9312:

I think the only thing that makes me more sad than people who skip Kholer are people who have to stack and LoS him.

These groups don’t “have to” pull and los him. They do it because it’s faster. The idea of doing something slower just for the hell of it is what’s sad to me. Not because you actually waste time by doing so, but because if you are not striving to do things as well as they can be done then what’s the point. Most people don’t enjoy just doing things, they want to be good at them and do them efficiently, which in this case entails stacking up, stacking might, los’ing and killing him as fast as possible.

Are you really trying to suggest that stacking and LoS’ing is more skillful than fighting him in the designated fight space?

Because it’s not.

I think the only thing that makes me more sad than people who skip Kholer are people who have to stack and LoS him.

1. Prioritizing content updates (Please polish the current content before giving new stuff, and limit the ‘temporary’ aspect of living story to the story part.)

2. Class and stat balancing, particularly in PvE with conditions and healing as well as aforementioned role diversity in general.

3. Better incorporation of game mechanics. By this I essentially mean making more boss fights and dungeon encounters that require more use of dodge, positioning, and other mechanics both existing and new that will make them require more than just sheer stacking and zerker DPS to kill.

Ethics.4519:

lunyboy.8672:

If people are coming here because they are frustrated, upset, or having real problems, and the first thing people do is start trolling them, it isn’t because there are so many bad players (as certain posters allege in-between bans), it’s because the good players are too busy patting each other on the back for trolling to help the community.

You seem to miss the point. When somebody really has a question or is seeking help, this forum is more than helpful.

When they come in here because they are ‘frustrated, upset, or having real problems’ then of course they get trolled. They aren’t trying to find advice or seek help, they are coming in here to vent, whine, and moan.

How you ask for help makes all the difference. We shouldn’t have to act nice and friendly to everybody. Just because they feel like they are entitled to something, doesn’t mean we have to oblige.

Then don’t say anything at all. It doesn’t matter how justified such behavior may feel, because it’s going to tarnish your reputation regardless.

deSade.9437:

Ohhhh, ohhhh, those guys on the forums are mean to me! They told me my build is bad!!! I hate it! They’re rude so it means I’m right and they’re wrong!!!! I’m huuuuuuuuurt in the feeeeeelings.
What about uh… not taking the internet seriously? No? Well, go ahead and keep getting cathurt, then, what can I say. I’d also like to remind you: NEVER question yourself.
This is the way to go! Keep at it!

I’m not suggesting that they’re in the right for acting that way, but at the same time so many people here wonder why they encounter such conflict so often, but they refuse to look at themselves as a potential source of the problem.

Bright.9160:

lunyboy.8672:

Syn Sity.5826:

As I (and many others on this subforum) have said over and over, if you want to run a useless build in your own groups that’s fine. Just don’t join speedrun groups and DON’T go around preaching about how good the build is just because you don’t care about being optimal. Nothing frustrates me more than someone saying “I don’t care about optimizing I just like to have fun and bla bla, but my build still works REALLY well with my own playstyle and I do very well in dungeons”.

snip

Maybe it’s not what you say, but how you say it.

Who is setting this adversarial tone around here, anyway?

Truth doesn’t become less true just because you don’t like the tone.

The longer it takes for you to realize this, the longer you’ll run a crappy build.

Maybe not, but a negative tone is far more likely to lead to an adversarial approach to your advice.