Guild Wars 2

Key words that someone is actually not serious at all about making scientific comparisons between classes: awesome, great, massive, huge, insane, etc…

When someone is serious about proving a point on class performance they typically bring two things to the discussion: numbers, and videos. The folks who so adamantly deny the reality of there being a tier 1 group of dungeon classes seem to never bring the latter. Odd.

zerotwo.4731:

Perhaps you I should find the video because I am being told its guaranteed. Depending on the type and from specific dungeons. Like a recipe.

Hahah oh no no, my sweet summer child. There is no guaranteed recipe for a precursor as of now. Anyone who tells you differently is having a laugh.

Mr. Johanson is being very careful here, indicating only that they “plan to do it” and “have started designing it”. That’s a far cry from beginnig to write code, which probably means not this year.

On the plus side, precursors from WvW chests should put some downward pressure on the TP. Congrats to everyone who sold at 600+ gold, they likely won’t trend up that high again.

Gift of Mastery, Fortune, and Twilight are sitting in the bank, along with 545 gold. Just about 15 gold to go and I can start putting up the buy order for Dusk. I’m running out of steam though, the CoF grind is killing me.

Edit: Oh great, the buy orders have risen from 560 yesterday to 565 today. I need some lucky drops to boost me up, kitten

You should also be able to sub one of those weapons with a Mystic Forge Stone if you have some sitting around, though you’ll receive a random weapon type as a result. If you’re not using the MF stones for anything else it’s a nice way to expand the available forge attempts.

haviz.1340:

Let me rephrase it. Do you think that veteran risen giant represents a valid sample of average mob and uses typical tools that players have to counter in so-called high end pve?

I think it’s fairly representative, especially for the purposes of doing a simple solo DPS check. It has enough health that won’t be put down by simply bursting, there are enough adds that you might need to manage health the longer you take to kill it, and there are the stomps that you need to either mitigate through stability, blind, interrupts or evasion . It’s not hard, especially if you are DPS-specced, but when you’re looking for a simple measure of theoretical DPS potential why wouldn’t it be sufficient?

haviz.1340:

Broadicea.8294:

Easier to find and get to solo, but any of those would work, too. Main point was to go do it rather than sitting on the forums yapping about what ifs. Do it, fraps it, show the world.

You missed the point.

That was not so much in response to the OP as it was to the discussion that featured this:

laokoko.7403:

Does anyone actually have a test to show it? I’m not saying you are wrong. I’m saying there’s no proof.

Is that just a solo thing for the champion dredge, cause I run SE 1/3 a lot and I never noticed that in a full group. But then again I do try to condition cleanse as soon as the fire rings are up. Is it something just undocumented like the poison multiplier for Malrona?

haviz.1340:

Broadicea.8294:

Just go kill a Veteran Risen Giant in Cursed Shore. It takes me much longer for any of my other 80s (all 8 classes, so I’ve tried everyone) as it does for my warrior, though admittedly I don’t have optimal skill rotations down on many of them.

Why veteran mob in open world when people moan about balance in dungeons? Why not elite risen elementalist or hunter? Maybe lupi?

Easier to find and get to solo, but any of those would work, too. Main point was to go do it rather than sitting on the forums yapping about what ifs. Do it, fraps it, show the world.

Just go kill a Veteran Risen Giant in Cursed Shore. It takes me much longer for any of my other 80s (all 8 classes, so I’ve tried everyone) as it does for my warrior, though admittedly I don’t have optimal skill rotations down on many of them.

A zerker warrior on the ground does 0 DPS while on the ground, but it’s quite possible that their average damage throughout the run is still higher than the engineer, necro or ranger’s, especially considering the average gear people have on those classes. Also, they wouldn’t be on the ground as much if they had a proper anchor relieving melee pressure. Just because you went down last doesn’t mean you’re the best player in the group, it means the enemies considered you a low priority.

It’s not supposed to be “impressive” when a football coach puts a speed burner on wide receiver, it’s just…the thing you do.

Hot Boy.7138:

In this game, high damage is meaningless in the grand scheme, except for one boss in the entire game. There’s no content that 5 glass canons can do that 5 bunkers can’t do. Just takes a little longer. And there are no enrage timers in this game on any of the fights. In WoW, your dps needs to be pushing a certain amount otherwise the boss enrages and wipes the whole group after a certain amount of time. As long as the boss dies, who cares?

This shows a serious lack of understanding of the game mechanics and of what speedclear groups are trying to achieve. Look, anyone can complete a marathon, meaning that generally any human being can traverse 26 miles on foot. But it takes skill and practice to beat the marathon records. Yes, any random assortment of skill levels with a random assortment of classes can complete any PvE content in this game. But it takes certain classes with certain builds and skill to maximize damage in order to minimize time spent on the dungeon run. Not every group can do that, and you’re not a bad person if you can’t do it or don’t want to.

But there’s nothing wrong with people who can and do.

haviz.1340:

Broadicea.8294:

If it’s 30 minutes with a good, fast group, I and many others will treat it just like the Molten Facility (also ~30m on a speedy group): do it once for the achievements and then straight back to doing something more productive in game. Going off past trends, the rewards will be mostly crap with a couple ridiculously low RNG drops from the chest that aren’t worth wasting my time for when I could do 3-5 COF runs in the same timeframe.

Reading comprehension mate!

Hunt Down Canach
Join Kiel for a mission to capture the deadly, desperate Canach! In this all-new story dungeon, you’ll enter Canach’s Lair on a subterranean solo mission under the island. If you defeat the elusive sylvari you’ll unlock a challenging all-new group adventure!

Then we will have group setting. I’m filled with expectations.

I’m aware there is a solo mission to unlock. None of that changes my expectations: that it’ll have kittenty rewards and be less productive than other farmable dungeon runs. I know aggregating as much gold as possible isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but since I’m on the legendary chase it’s my current preoccupation. Stopping and smelling the roses is important, but after you’ve smelled them for 30 minutes there’s not much reason for me to sit there and keep sniffing.

dronzer.8392:

I just hope the dungeon doesn’t take hours to complete, to me 30mins is a good number, less is more and quality over quantity.

If it’s 30 minutes with a good, fast group, I and many others will treat it just like the Molten Facility (also ~30m on a speedy group): do it once for the achievements and then straight back to doing something more productive in game. Going off past trends, the rewards will be mostly crap with a couple ridiculously low RNG drops from the chest that aren’t worth wasting my time for when I could do 3-5 COF runs in the same timeframe.

Whining about groups that insist on LoS pulling mobs is a surefire mark of an awful player who thinks you should just mash 1 to win in every group. Considering it’s been the hallmark tactic of pretty much any game with aggro/leash mechanics since like, ever, I don’t see why people have such a hard time accepting it as a strategy.

Dub.1273:

We are not allowed to publish or even mentiom exploits or bugs in the forum. Not that it makes sense, but we could get banned for posting a video.

Good job Anet. Players post bugs from the game that hinder us: no action, maybe we’ll get around to fixing it before the sun blows up. Player posts a bug that slightly helps us: IRON FIST MODERATION TIME.

Sera.6539:

As someone who does story on all characters (currently have 9), I’d say it would be better to up the rewards. We don’t need people never doing them again (because then story parties would be even harder to obtain), we need people to do them with new players or people who want to do them again.

If Story mode gave you 60 tokens I’d probably run them on all my 3 mains. It could even just give you 60 on the first run with that character. As it stands now I only do SM if my guildies ask for it, and only out of a sense of obligation to them. It’s pathetically boring and unrewarding.

haviz.1340:

Few weeks back someone would have said same thing about your record. Don’t let it bother you, I don’t compete with your guild at all. I’m just saying it’s possible.

Like I said, it was achieved similiarly to the one speedkill of one of the boss in one of your video guide.

Are you perhaps talking about the ~10s TA Malrona kill due to the poison damage multiplier? That’s the only thing I can imagine you’re referring to from DnT’s videos. And I’m not sure that’s a bug, although it is weird as hell since there are no hints that it should work that way.

Personally if I had found some glitch to kill Lupi in 20 seconds I’d show folks with an explanation. Especially since you did bug report it, typically the best way to get Anet to actually fix something is to publicize it. Look at what happened with the necro “1/3rd HP in downed state” bug, people were trying to bring it to Anet for months but until there was incontrovertible video proof they basically blew it off.

As far as getting in trouble for sharing it as a strategy, I think Anet would be totally in the wrong for coming down on you. It’s not like 20 versus 60 seconds makes or breaks the dungeon. Lupi isn’t the keystone of Arah runs. It’s the kittenty trash runs with no waypoints.

As Wukunlin said, in SE P1 it’s Inquest potions. You fight Inquest on the bridge up to the golem, the golem itself which is Inquest, the Nokk who is obviously Inquest, three more Inquest golems, then Tazza.

For P3 it’s all Dredge up until the Destroyer boss.

Fraps or it didn’t happen.

haviz.1340:

I have, but it’s private. Send me PM with your youtube account name and I’ll share it, though it’s distorted so you won’t know how exactly it was done.

Ever wonder why UFO videos are always so fuzzy?

Iehova.9518:

Didn’t you hear? Rob is now on the Dying Story team.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Canach’s lair. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sweet, can’t wait to finish that in 10 minutes and never go there again!

Wethospu.6437:

I was just criticized (I used Rush to increase singletarget DPS, apparently it’s not something you should do!) by a shout-heal Warrior relying mostly on Hammer auto-attack (his words: “I’m healer/interrupter”, magis armor).

On a group which already had a ridiculously low DPS. We kept dying when clearing Maw-level… And also, when I had killed one tentacle solo, the other one (which rest of the team were focusing) was at 50%. I don’t know what they were doing but I seriously hope my DPS wasn’t 66% of whole team.

A guildy of mine suggested what I think would be an awesome feature: at the end of every dungeon, a summary screen could pop up and display relevant stats for each party member: enemies killed, damage dealt, times downed, etc.

I think in PUGs like the one you mentioned a good warrior could easily be over 50% of the team’s damage.

Air.3154:

You can run cof p1 in an average of 8 minutes with a totally bs party.
You can run cof p1 in an average of 6 minutes with a totally tryhard party.

Find the difference.

Don’t be obtuse. I’m not going to get on LFG looking for a 4W1M group and do 1 run, 2 runs. I’m getting on to do an hour minimum. Maybe take a short break, then swap characters and do another hour minimum. Every day. For weeks on end. The time, and gold, adds up.

Also, if 6 minute runs is the way I want to play, who are you to tell me I’m not allowed to? There are plenty of people forming up mixed class groups to do COF, if you want one of those, go find one. Don’t try to intrude on my team and our gameplay just because you’re too lazy/selfish to do what’s needed to fit into a speedfarm group.

The best bet for fixing a lot of the crycry about COF groups would be if the LFG site had an entirely different section for speedfarms and casual groups.

SET.3275:

Omnomberry bar = +40% gold
gold infusion on ascended amulet = +20% gold
6 runes of scavenging = +15% gold (does the 4 war, 1 mes elitists allows this runes?)
banner (if someone have) = +5% gold
Flat gold:
1st boss drop 10s, 18s with all the boosts
last boss drop 16s, 28.8 with all the boosts
the chest before the flame balls drop 10s
Thats ~0.57 flat gold just from drop. No DR applies to it.

Most speedfarm groups would probably kick someone for wearing runes of scavenging. I would.

BREAKING NEWS: PRESIDENT LINCOLN HAS BEEN SHOT.

The answer has been evident for months. Warrior über alles.

I think in some games developers are hesitant to institute player-generated ideas from whole cloth, choosing instead to only nudge their core design decisions in popular directions such as “higher” (drop rate) or “less” (arrow cart damage).

This case however, is one where the devs basically have the perfect solution laying right in front of them, all they need to do is have the legal department contact tmakinen and sort out any possible intellectual property unpleasantness, then implement that solution just as it is.

+1. + all the 1s.

Sundar.1735:

I doubt a team of 4w1m would really be much faster than a random mix of experienced players. What’s the point in doing so many runs quickly anyway? Wouldn’t DR kick in after a few runs?

It’s the difference between 4 runs per Omnomberry Bar and 2-3. With the omnom up and a gilded infusion, you’re getting +60% silver from the slave driver and the effigy. A group getting closer to max efficiency (4W1M or 3T1W1M) will make about 1-2 gold more per hour than the fastest random assortment of classes, and far more if those players with the mixed classes aren’t close to the faster or highest skilled players.

Syn Sity.5826:

“I tried out for my high school basketball team and I didn’t make it… ABOLISH SCHOOL SPORTS!” Please people, try to understand that not everyone wants to play casually and some people like highly coordinated, highly efficient teams with maximized potential. There are plenty of things for you to do in this game aside from joining our speed run groups so please stop acting like you’re being excluded from the entire game.

Also, they’re not excluded at all, they just want to act like they are because they refuse to bring the asked for classes/gear/build. There’s a sign on the gym wall that says “ATHLETIC SHOES REQUIRED” and these folks are throwing a tantrum because they’re not allowed to play in combat boots.

If the knowledge that DPS specs are the fastest way to clear a dungeon would spread out to everything outside of CoF all of the PUG dungeon groups would get better eventually. It’s frustrating going from CoF where people understand that bringing only the necessary utility, then maximizing damage minimizes the length of the run, to something like TA or AC where the PUG community for the most part believes “play whatever you want, there’s no difference in classes!”

The lessons you learn from CoF will make you better at the rest of the dungeons. That is, the core lesson should be “do as much damage as possible while surviving”.

Vayne.8563:

What about the training bounty. Those give plenty of influence, no?

3 days build time, 3000 influence gained, so approximately 1000 influence/day depending on how soon you activate and complete the bounty. IMO a smaller guild should have 1 or 2 of these being built constantly.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The 5% influence booster is only good if you have the items that give influence, like the ones from the BL chests or the letters of commendation. They’re also worth it if you’re converting gold into influence, because each of those purchases benefits from the influence booster.

Of course, make sure that your guild does enough stuff to also benefit from it.

Ahh I had forgotten about that, good point. So it’s an instant profit if you buy 2000 influence or more, and if you’re ever buying Drinks for the Week it’s a profit of 400 influence. Good to remember.

Yeah, the addition of the bounty training missions is a step in the right direction. I’d like to see Anet add some more sure-fire influence gaining upgrades for small (<20 person) guilds.

And as a minor addendum to my post, I just tested this with an older, inactive guild and it’s definitely rounding down per event. Queued up the 10% event boost and 5% influence boost together, ran 6 events by myself, and only came out with 12 influence gained rather than 14.

I’ve been taking a look at the cost of influence boosters (10% from events, 20% from dungeons, and 5% across the board) and wondering if my small guild is profiting from them or losing influence. Are my numbers here correct?

20% Dungeon influence boost – cost 200 influence.

With 1 or 2 guild members present, the guild receives 10 influence per dungeon path completed (per member? not sure if it awards 20 with 2 people present). With 3 or more present, the bonus is 100. So with the bonus active, the guild will gain 120 from a single dungeon path. With the bonus then accounting for 20 influence, the best case scenario is a group of 3 or more people doing more than 10 dungeon runs to end up in the black after activating this boost. If there are less than 3 members present, even more paths have to be completed as you’ll only receive 2 from the boost. If you trigger the boost and then only do 5 group runs, you’ve wasted 100 influence.

10% event influence boost – cost 200 influence

With 1 guild member present at an event, the influence gained is 2. I believe the bonus rounds down on a per-event basis, meaning you don’t get 2.1 influence, you only get 2. With 2 or more members present the bonus is 20, or 22 with the boost. Again, best case scenario for profiting influence from this is over 100 events done in 24 hours with 2 or more people in attendance.

5% influence boost – cost 100 influence

Again, I believe this rounds on a per-event basis, meaning it boost group dungeon runs by 10, group event runs by 1, single dungeon runs by 1 (rounds up from .5), and single events by 0. So even if you have tons of event credit, if they’re mostly done with 1 person in attendance you’re not gaining anything. Best case here is as above with the dungeon runs- 10 group dungeons will put you in the black.

Unless I’m totally missing something, it seems that all of these boosts are influence losers for smaller guilds that don’t meet those thresholds of dungeon/event participation.

Can’t fix this, have to make new PvE content in Southsun that’s completed in an hour.

Even if changes were made to extend the length to 10 minutes or so it’d still be the most farmed. Perhaps some people would move on to HoTW path 1 or CoE, but the trend for speed groups would still be 4W1M or MG3W. Fix the class imbalance and I think a lot fewer people would complain about speed groups.

There are plenty of groups on LFG by the way that aren’t “LF 1 ZERK WARR $$$$FARM GROUP PING GEAR$$$$” so if you don’t have a warrior or have one without optimal gear there are still plenty of groups for you. You can always make one of your own with a listing like “LF farm group, no zerk warriors needed, join and have a good time!” and your group would fill up in a matter of minutes. If that’s the kind of group you’d rather roll with, more power to ya. But don’t hate on those of us who would rather pick and choose who we take, and then are also picky about what utility skills you run, because we’re aiming for <7 minutes/run.

Phira proved that M/W/T/T/T is viable in speed runs, and can get close to the fastest times.
Strife proved that M/W/W/W/W is currently the fastest time.

/end

I’d like to see bosses have phases where they dramatically increase toughness- being resistant to direct damage- or drastically increased vulnerability to condition damage. Perhaps also more instances of melee punishment as well.

I’m not sure it would actually change optimal group comp at all, but it’d be a start.

Ayrilana.1396:

snip

Thanks for finally addressing some concrete examples, but all of your distinctions between exploit/non exploit seem rather arbitrary, which is my point. How can you honestly say that using an invuln skill to walk through the TA bubbles is an exploit, meaning a bannable offense? Especially considering how glitchy that part is when you use the portals (sometimes getting downed anyway, even though you did it the “right” way), how could you not think it’s a normal progression of thought to say “hmm, if I get close to those bubbles I get downed. I wonder if I can use Renewed Focus to get through? [pops RF, walks through] Ah hah!” I mean, what about using invuln skills to escape the bubbles in Lupicus phase 3? It’s the exact same principle, should everyone who’s ever used invuln for the bubbles be banned? Ridiculous.

randomfightfan.4091:

timecookie.8570:

Problem with thieves is they don’t buff team.

Can see you’ve never played thief. Probably jaded from seeing bad thieves too.

Still waiting on that video…

I think most folks, myself included, would be really excited to see someone speedclear GL without the warrior/mesmer team that’s now holding the record. But instead of actually seeing documented proof it can be done, all we see is a couple people spouting off on the forums with “nah man it’s totally possible you just need to L2P thief”.

Fraps or it didn’t happen.

I really miss the dungeon books from GW1. All of the books, really. As it is now there are a few dungeons that I’ll run over and over again for the monetary reward or for the chest drops, and other than those few I did them once on my way to the DM title and won’t ever bother with them again.

A book that you could complete over and over and turn in for something like a ton of karma and gold would be nice and would reinvigorate the dungeon-running community. Of course, then it would also give the elite speedclear groups yet another reward over and above the rest of the general population that refuses to play the min/max metagame. I’ll leave that to the reader to decide if that’s good or bad.

Fraps or it didn’t happen

Until Ayrilana finally stops avoiding the multitude of specific examples I provided and explains why those aren’t exploits, why the berserker stack was, and how players are supposed to know the difference, it’s safe to assume they are just trolling.

Ayrilana.1396:

Exploits are often unintentional by the devs. You chose to take advantage of it. Just think back to the snowflake exploit last Christmas. You act like any mistake in programming that the devs make is acceptable to take advantage of. It’s not. Sometime in the future, with that mindset, you will eventually be banned. I caution others to not follow his mistake.

I pretty much agree with all that, except that you’re misrepresenting my argument, which is that it’s difficult for the players to be able to tell the difference between a programming error and an intended way to bypass some other mechanic. You still haven’t answered how players are supposed to know what’s acceptable and what’s not. Here are some more examples I can think of where I see simple use of an available mechanic to do something easier, whereas your logic would call these exploits. Can you weigh in on them, and how players should be able to tell the difference between viable strategy and exploit?

-AC, any path: skirting around the outside of Kohler’s platform to avoid the boss fight.
-SE path 1: pulling the 3 golems individually into the large tunnel to avoid fighting them together. Later on, pulling Tezza into the main room so you can fight her without fighting the Champion beside her.
-SE path 3: walking up the pipe after the first barricade, bypassing the group of bombers (so totally unnecessary but a lot of PUGs do it).
-TA F/U path: using invuln skills to walk into the bubbles where the Archers are, so you don’t have to deal with the glitchy teleporter
-TA Up: utilizing the poison damage multiplier to kill Malrona in seconds. Later, pulling Fyonna into the hallway so you don’t hatch any of the eggs.
-CoF Path 1: utilizing the safe spots in the Acolyte room to drop aggro from the enemies.

I could go on but you get the idea.

randomfightfan.4091:

Cause all thieves are junk and should be kicked from all parties anywhere…

I implied nothing of the sort? You seem to be having some trouble following the conversation. DanH posted in response to the OP saying he wished 3 thieves and 2 rangers could do “that”, “that” presumably being a 46 second GL kill. You replied to Dan saying “bet 3 thieves and 2 mesmers could”. I’m telling you I’d take that bet, because you’re wrong.

Now if you’re trying to backtrack and say “well they could achieve a very fast kill”, I wouldn’t dispute that, because that’s probably true. But that’s not what you originally stated.

randomfightfan.4091:

Broadicea.8294:

randomfightfan.4091:

DanH.5879:

i wish 3 thieves and 2 rangers could do that….

Bet 3 thieves and 2 mesmers could. All you need is massive melee dps and those projectile reflections.

Are there rainbows? In this alternate reality you inhabit, I mean.

Thief has very similar single target dps as warrior. Drop ambush trap and thieves guild in at the start of phase 2 and they won’t die if he does his aoe. You now have significantly higher dps than warrior. You MAY need 1 warrior just to drop discipline banner and fire field but that’s it.

Don’t hate if you don’t know what a class can do.

I’m well aware of what thieves can do in laboratory settings. I guess that video of a 2 mes/3 thief speedkill will be along any minute now, right?

Aaaaany minute now…

randomfightfan.4091:

DanH.5879:

i wish 3 thieves and 2 rangers could do that….

Bet 3 thieves and 2 mesmers could. All you need is massive melee dps and those projectile reflections.

Are there rainbows? In this alternate reality you inhabit, I mean.

Ruruuiye.8912:

Vargamonth.2047:

People that is having issues with dungeons (not on the first try, that issues are expected for a large amount of players) should probably try a more defensive gear/trait setup until they feel confortable enough to give up some survivality and start increasing their damage output.

Here’s another problem. Conflicting information. The first suggestion someone sees when trying to find information about dungeon gear online is to go full zerker. We have a situation in GW2 where taking advice from hardcores – the main transmitters of knowledge – actually hurts your chances of success.

That advice is essentially correct, though it should be tempered with “as much defensive gear (Knight’s IMO) as you need to survive, the rest berserker. As you improve in skill and learn the proper dodging mechanics, you can slowly drop defensive gear for offensive.” If the general playerbase would take that info to heart, PUG dungeon runs would improve dramatically.

Ayrilana.1396:

You should take damage because you’re at the impact point. The fact that you don’t, and continue to stand there, is an exploit.

#17
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/

And if the devs had programmed the fight correctly, you would take damage. But they didn’t, so we didn’t. Hardly our fault.

Ayrilana.1396:

The destroyer boss can still attack you. It’s been stated several times that doing something that negates damage while you can still attack is an exploit. Stacking on the berserker negating all damage from his stomps. It is an exploit. It’s no different than standing on the stairs in AC or some of the other exploits in Arah.

But you were only avoiding the stomps, couldn’t the berserker still attack you with regular attacks? And what of the rest of the questions in my previous post, such as pulling Fyonna?

Ayrilana.1396:

I also want to add that glitches/exploits do not count as mechanics. A lot of people used an exploit to avoid damage from the berserker’s stomps. Yes, stacking under him so you take no damage is an exploit. It’s not like it was that difficult to do it the legit way.

Avoiding the rings using a stack was pretty obviously an unintended mechanic, but calling it an exploit is going a bit far. Anet considers exploits bannable offenses, would you really be ok with banning people who used it? Also, how are players to know that one method for avoiding a boss’s mechanic is allowed and one is not? For example, I doubt you’d say using ranged attacks on the destroyer boss in CoE path 3 is an exploit, but it’s a safe and easy (though tedious and long) way to kill the boss, thereby bypassing the entire dragon’s tooth/fire shield mechanic. How are players supposed to know the difference? Is going into TA Up and killing Fyonna in the hallway so you don’t have to deal with the eggs hatching an exploit? Why not?

Stop dying, then the changes to rez mechanics aren’t an issue.