Guild Wars 2

It’s either p2 or p1, since they can’t seem to fix the WP issues.

You can’t drop off Frost Spirit and call it a perfect all-around build. It’s like calling the Whopper the perfect burger, but without the patty.
You take away one the ranger’s strongest asset to the team and replace it with selfish signets. That’s why it ain’t a perfect all-around build.
A perfect all-around build, would be a build that offers good dps, with defensive and offensive buffs for the entire party, while being able to survive multiple hits. Ding-ding, i believe you are describing the meta guardian.

While this ain’t Anet’s finest hour. But this can still be done with non-zerkers and uplvls. They need to split up accordingly, wp when dead, dodge stuff and use a semi-decent build.

I do need to ask this though. The event had been out for days. Yet i still see ppl insisting on bringing condi setups. And as of last nite, uber bunker are out as well.
How much would it be to adapt to the situation?
A full set of rare zerk (or knight if you must) would cost at most 5g. Even ranging in rare zerk, you are doing more dmg than uber bunkers and condis. If you want the achieves and loot, start with yourself.

For those who believe zerkers are OP, it takes a bit more skill than you may think. Just ask all those dead zerkers under the Knight (though half of them are just tanks who don’t know the dodge button).

I don’t have much of a problem with surviving stacking, stacks like spider, i use S/P with SoM and caltrops. The thing is not to spam PW like crazy, i only use it when i have aggro and when she uses the web attack. BV can buy you that extra precious second if needed.

Against Kholer, well either he dies or i do, nothing can be done about it. Unless someone puts up timely reflects. I hate stacking on this guy with pugs, i prefer to fight him normally on pugs. While i do have the timing of his scorpion wire, i do bring RfI as a “Oh Kitten!”-button. Also i have it bound to E.

Alpha stacking is easy to dodge, i find bringing SoM, SoA and caltrops can deal with the burning and rock spikes. While saving your dodges only for the red circle.

I managed to solo him from about 50%, on my lvl 45 thief after everyone died. But yeah it is rather tough boss for the story mode of the very first dungeon. It should be removed from story mode.

It is Anet’s way of saying, go Cleric’s or Soldier’s! Anything else and you will be frozen for doing too much dmg. It’s the Anti-exploit program.

^^
It takes more skill to play a full zerk full melee warrior than a bearbow. That’s why those warriors faceplanted. If stacking near each other to share buffs and avoid the boss’ ranged attack is exploiting. Ranging the boss and avoiding his melee attacks is equally exploiting. I am not saying are bowbear, just trying to describe the bigger picture.

To: OP

The reason many pugs kick rangers are due to the infamous bearbow. A bear, a longbow, troll unguent, a bar full of signets, while running full cleric/soldier.
What does this ranger bring to the party? Nothing, he/she does not buff the party, does not receive any buffs (because too far away), does barely any dmg. They are even stubborn enough to stay with the longbow (heaven forbid) even if they end of in melee.

A well-built and well-played ranger is an huge boon to your group. He/she buffs the party, does atleast equal dps (if not slightly better) than a warrior.
Sadly, some pugs don’t even give you that benefit of the doubt. The best solution is just start your own group, that way you can play the way you want with the ppl you want.

^^ No, you are breaking the immersion by stacking. Real mages can’t be in melee range of any monsters, they stay at range and use powerful spells. These mages using a greatsword, it’s unheard of, it is blasphemy!

To the OP: No thanks, plus there are already guilds that do this. No need to make another thread about it.

@Fluffball

Most pugs rarely kick ppl, mostly because they don’t know or don’t care. I have joined “zerk only” groups many times, only to find a bunch pvt players. When i tell the leader about it after the run, he’d be totally surprised.
Unless someone is a total jerk or really really dragging the group down, they won’t kick anybody.

Rangers ain’t bad in dungeons, when built and played correctly. The issue with rangers in dungeons, is that many rangers just sit at 1500 range (even insisting on using the longbow on melee situations), do very little dmg, while not benefiting from group buffs. And if they ever bring some form of group buff, they are way too far away to affect the group.
Also they tend to allow the pet (bear most of the time) to randomly aggro stuff.
All of this, along with a seemingly random choice of traits and gear. This spawns the infamous Bearbow.

A properly built and played ranger is a great asset to your dungeon group. A fully buffed ranger does atleast equal dps as a warrior.

The video has more of a RP aspect than a real advice on builds. Everyone who plays the way they want, are already doing the things he said in the video. Sorry, i don’t really see why it is so revolutionary.

Edit: OP, if you want a more steal-centric build, you can go 10/30/0/0/30 in full zerk, still does pretty good dps compared to the meta build.

I am dissapointed with your noob build of using GS AA, change it to Axe AA NAO!

Edit: And BS should be a non-channeled 100HB, with cleave ofc.

Zerk guardians offer more than tanky ones in PVE. Your most powerful support abilities are unaffected by tough/vit/healing power.

A zerker guard has tons of blocks, blinds, reflects and invul in addition to your dodges. Survival shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Since the defensive stats don’t make you a better support. Blinds, blocks (most are shared to your group as well) and reflects helps your group. The meta zerk build also has +boon duration for prot and more importantly, stability. And finally, a full buffed guard does alot of dps, i believe just under eles and thieves.

But if this is your first foray into pve, i suggest you use the meta build with zerk trinkets but with knight’s armor instead. Afterwards when you are used to is, you can change out to full zerk.

Delete the water and the entire game is gone. As i understand, anet made a world of water and built the land on top of it.

Also, anet has allowed skipping, soloing and dungeon selling since GW1. Next time please use one of the existing threads before creating another one.

I prefer hammers and chainsaws

@ SoliSnake

You don’t hear me QQ about it, because i AVOID the lfg when doing Arah. So stop protecting ppl who are doing this crap. He takes legit half-way runs to destroy both glitchers and legit runs alike.
Who gave them the right to be an Internet White Knight?

Personally i am not a big fan of LS and i haven’t touched it for a while. But how many LS updates had new content for WvW? How many for dungeons?

Those casual PvE’ers who complain about it, can completely avoid it. If they want the achieves, they have to work for it. I hated world events and yet i grinded them in order to get my dragonite ore.

In a MMO, one cannot appease everyone, it’s a no-brainer. But the vast majority of LS (so far) was designed to please the casuals, so please stop complaining of 1 single update and earn your achieves if you so desire it.

I’d rather they blew up the Black Citadel instead, then the only good deed Scarlet will ever do (aside from blowing up the Black Citadel), is planting false evidence that the Blood Legion is in league with Scarlet, while the Ash Legion had been conspiring with the Flame Legion all this time. Since this is a civil war, the Pact had been prohibited to intervene by the Imperators.

My thief of Ascalonian decent will watch with delight from the walls of Ebonhawke as the charr slowly killed themselves (along with Scarlet).

Don’t want to bust your party but “not dying first” does not mean you are doing great.

For example, i can go full zerk and go range, pack up escape skills, run at the slightest sign of danger and never ever die. I highly doubt anyone would ever call me a good player.

Going zerk is more exciting since every hit counts. Support comes in the form of your utilities and weapons, so you can dps and support. There is no “all-around” build. Your low condi dmg eats into someone else who is specialized in condi (which is still not good to use anyway).
The additional toughness and vitality won’t make a real difference, even is you fully stack it, some bosses will still 1-shot you. So you have 3 addition stats that doesn’t make much of a difference in a pinch.

I am not flaming you nor am i going to convince you to go zerk. But the build you are describing seems pretty bad. Also it is possible you find zerk boring because you are downed or dead for stretches of time?

And playing since headstart is no way of telling how good you are, i know some ppl who had been bearbows since headstart and still defending it.

Yarrr! My 2nd thief wears pirate armor because she ain’t no landlubber!

I join everything from casual to zerk only pugs and from my experience, they are very similar, zerk groups can go either way, so does casual ones. But once in a while, when all the stars align, i get a glorious group who knows the content and run zerk gear.

A pug’s life :P

Would be cool if we could just transmute any skin on the armor we can wear. That make a lot of interesting and cool combinations.

I joined someone else group, so i didn’t feel like hijacking it. Plus sometimes it is fun, since it adds spice to the dungeons with elements of unknown quality and quantity.

If you need someone to help with dungeons, i would gladly help you with them. I could show you how to do every dungeon except TA Aether, which i had only done once.

Many “Zerker Only” groups don’t even know what “Zerker Only” means.
I have seen cleric staff spammers, shout warriors, bearbows and condi necros in “Zerker Only”. When I comment about it after the run,the party leader would be completely bamboozeled, because he thought player X was zerker.

The ascended weapons and armor are already ugly enough, making them glow is just Anet telling us that fine transmutation stones are a must.

Patch Notes:
-Ascended Weapons and Armor now glow brightly, the color of the glow is random.
-Fine Transmutation stones are now on sale.

Personally, i am indifferent about the value of ascended weapons. After finishing mine, i don’t really like i accomplished something awesome. Just the trauma of dragonite farming.

I think it’s connected, you make a less than optimal build, post it on your signature and you expect me to believe you will not defend your own build?

And then you want newbies to learn on their own and vets stay with vets. Try to see the connection here. You sound like someone who brings a less than optimal build and want the newbies to stay away from your group. It’s like a cleric’s guardian calling himself elite.

Those who did the dungeon first shared their knowledge, either via youtube, guides, forums etc. I just share mine in-game, if and when they are willing to listen. I don’t see a problem at all, it builds community.

You vigorously defend your build, while saying others are followers. Have it occurred to you that you invested all that condi for burn alone? Whilst other classes not only has burning, but also bleeds, poison and/or torment? So this your way of saying, you want to be different because you have a different less than optimal build?

You argue of separating bad players from good and yet you bring a less than optimal build. Where do you stand? What if i am the number 1 dungeon runner in GW2, can i run cleric’s on my guard and camp staff #1?

Nowadays some in the dungeon forums are White Knights of Justice. They sweep down from their mighty castles to destroy elitists or anyone who wants to be efficient, in order to protect bads.
So yeah, i won’t try to find out if it’s sarcasm or not. I will just reply on what ppl write and be done with it.

I think Caithe did a nasty boo boo with Almorra Soulkeeper, Burrison the Blue, a Rainbow Jellyfish and a Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash. Afterwards, she left the poor baby in a dumpster during her stay in Rata Sum.
Scarlet can blame all her angst and insanity on her mommie’s nasty little soirée.

On a more serious note…no idea what the real secret is.

@ Ethics.

How about i bring a class just to annoy you for the sake of annoying you in a dungeon? Bringing a naked GS mesmer to KB everything you just pulled into a nice ball. Or spam LB #4 on my bearbow, knock everything about of your blind fields, force you to chase them. Bring a masterwork AH clerics guardian, aggro everything and pull them to the group? I am going to make your CoF P1 a 2 hour run, just for the sake of proving how bad i can be when i choose to.
Ignore all your pleas to stop and listen, we will see who kicks who.

It’s not telling other how to play, it’s giving advice on not to do the wrong thing.

The OP does dungeons and fractals, so PVT is out of the question. If he wants to WvW, PVT is fine. Guardian support comes in the form of boons, WoR and SoTA, which can be done completely fine in zerker (while also bringing dps).

If you go clerics, trying to heal your party is like trying to use a mini hand pump on a ship with a dozen holes. Because on parties that take that much dmg, the healing you pump out won’t make a difference. The opposite applies as well, on parties that dodge/block/evade all that dmg, your healing is not needed and the dps is woeful.

My suggestion is just start with Knight’s armor with zerk trinkets and weapons. You still have great survival and bring decent dps. As a guard you have a great number of dmg mitigation, you can slowly make your transition to full zerker.

I don’t think to dis-incentive vet/newbie grouping together is a good idea.
Forcing them to learn on their own, most will wipe, quit and qq on the forums. It’s not like we don’t have enough of those posts. Most of us are willing to teach, as long as they want to listen and learn. But it doesn’t mean i want to do it 24/7.

A bit off-topic, you want the newbies to stay away from your veteran groups, so they learn on their own. Yet you advocate a burn build for guardians?

Zerk gear is even more effective here, bosses hit like wet noodle and have less HP. They melt so fast in zerk groups, sometimes bosses don’t even have the chance to use their entire kitten nal.

Slaying potions are currently (or maybe since launch) bugged.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Slaying-Potions-the-double-edged-sword

I agree, meleeing this boss is the easiest (like pretty much every boss out there), i personally don’t think the spin attack hits that hard. The first time i fought him, it was on my glass thief and i can still take 2 hits before getting downed.
It is ofc easier if he chases someone else when he spins, but every boss in new TA hits like a wet noodle in melee. Coupled with the lower HP, those bosses are easily destroyed in melee.

^^ I agree. Do it and see for yourself.

Guardian support comes in the form of boons, WoR and SoTA. A zerker guard can do all those. Tome of Courage #5 heals everyone in range for 100% with 0 in healing power. DPS is also a form of support in gw2, so it is always important.

The dungeon rewards are all skewed. SE p2 rewards the same as CoF p1, that alone says it all.

Also SE p3 takes much less than 45min, in a pug setting. Arah p1 and p2 can all be done in about 30min, with pugs. P3 even less.

This is patch day, once ppl find the right tactics for this new path, it might (or not) be done in 20min or so. 2g for a 20min path is pretty good. Just remember when ppl used to complain that the new AC was impossible.

Simin is not a hard fight. Last saturday i led a group of 3 first timers, who didn’t even read nor watched any guides. The new guys were 1 giver’s guardian, 1 zerk necro and 1 ranger. Rounding them out was me on a glass thief and another ranger. Did it in some 20min or so.
Plus considering the group setup, we did it in about 2 hours.

DM was never hard to get in the first place. It’s just a great sounding title that in reality has far less prestige than it sounds. When i first got it, i ran around with it for a week or so, then never displayed it again.

Story mode groups welcomes everyone. But Explore mode groups does not. Please for the sake of the Six, read the descriptions before joining a group for explore modes.

That said, all explore modes can be done at the min req lvl. You are a disadvantage (should say extra disadvantaged due to lack of traits) for the group if you are not wearing the appropriate gear lvl, aka the dungeon’s lvl’s rare.
But a lvl 80 or 2 in the group, can make things go swiftly.

So it can be done, but let me rephrase the importance of reading the lfg msg first.

Yeah, i prefer the join button to be more of a petition to join the party thing. Other than that, i don’t have much qualms with it.

I believe the OP means “The unviable survival club”. Because with power as main stat, zerkers does as much dmg as soldier’s gear. Or more if the soldier’s wearer is using a tanky build.
I do admit with all the lag, dodging is quite diffecult for me during Tequatl. Zerkers are best used as turrets defenders.

All classes have comparable dps, if you have the right build and play said build right. Pugs and your own group are a bit outdated in that department.
But if you plan to bring a tanky ranger or a Cleric guardian, don’t expect mercy from anyone. Because you are only slowing the whole group down.

AC is very easy with pugs and i have been pugging p1 and p3 almost everyday since the patch. So i am not sure you are trolling or not.

You have fun while making the run more difficult for the other 4. Having fun while running in to solo Alpha and die. In the end, you were having fun making that dungeon 3 hours long for the rest.
You should not have joined a teaching group in the first place. Make your own and troll the heck out of your own group, since if they kicked you the dungeon will be closed.

Everyone has their own idea of fun. While i am sure some of the posters here are good players. “Doing fine” can have different meanings. Let me explain things from my PoV.

I only do dungeons, no wvw, no pvp and when my static group isn’t online, i pug. I am sure a lot of those rangers do “fine” while being at max range with LB. They never get downed, they don’t receive buffs (too far away), have 3 unused signets and dead pets. Despite this, i don’t kick players being bad, but for being kitten. So you can be DM and doing “fine” in all content.
Sure every profession has those, but rangers so far i have seen, are the biggest culprits.

Lets compare a ranger to a warrior. The warrior has a lower skill ceiling, thus an average warrior will do much more for the party than an average ranger. Many rangers stick to range and do pitiful dmg. The average warrior will still do more damage despite being downed a few times.
In a game where dps is king, bringing a LB slinging range-only ranger is a handicap.

So to the OP, if you want to have fun, go ahead and have fun. But just know that you will be stigmatized by some dungeon-runners. Depending on your playstyle/build/gear, you can be branded as a baddie or a good ranger.

In dungeons, the pets are pretty much useless. Many bosses can (and they will) one-shot them, the unresponsiveness is just an added bonus. If i can get a copper for each time the pet stays in the red circle while i recall it, it’d be able to buy a precursor.
Swapping pets can do some good, but plenty of bosses does big attacks more frequently than 20sec.

I am a melee ranger with sword/dagger and already have to deal with the rooting of this set. Last thing i want to do is babysit a pet with AI from the early 90’s with clumsy controls.

Guardian support comes in the form of boons, reflects, line/circle of warding. All which can be done as a zerker. Knights is a good middle set between PVT and zerker for learning the ropes. Since you are already running the dungeons (and thus learning the encounters), it’s just cheaper and faster to get zerker from the get go.
If you do insist on PVT, you are better off buying them with karma from the Orr temples.

You can have it turned off! Only for a modest price of 800gems per character!!

There is no point in posting this in forums, devs don’t visit here often. The only answer to take screenshots when the dungeon starts and report them if kicked.

Don’t get me wrong but Dungeon Master =/= skill. Too many had been carried through dungeons and/or paid for Arah paths, so DM title is not a very prestigious thing.