Guild Wars 2

I just play how I want

Story mode isn’t hard, and it could probably be duoed by a solid team. There isn’t really any incentive to duoing over picking up a few more meat shields for the adventure. You should try to get group members who use their heads while playing, but that’s sometimes hard to do.

Go ahead and use potions. The increased damage output will help things go faster, and the increased incoming damage just reinforces the idea that you should learn which attacks to dodge.

The problem with it right now is that some parts of it can get bugged and make completion kind of difficult – a set of encounters suffer from the same type of bug as the fire elemental phase of the Fire Shaman open world event. Y’know, the resetting health bug.

I’m planning on doing some vet giant tests come next balance patch. I like having an idea of how much might/vuln/etc. a build can provide on its own anyway. I also have a small bit of data around featuring magecrusher.

But if you’re volunteering to be part of that CoE team, Broad… well I’ll see you later

Thank you Fenix! Excellent efforts. There is already a very thorough guide (granted, from a guardian perspective) at FotM level 48 in existence: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84006-guardian-video-guide-for-fractals-of-the-mist-shown-at-48/

I don’t RP, but Tarnished Coast has a wonderful RP community. You can guest to TC to participate if you don’t want to move servers. One source of RP event information is http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/.

In organized dungeoning groups, we push to get 100% crit chance because it translates to so much more damage. But we assume perma fury (20%), banner of discipline (8%), food (4-5%), and possibly ranger buffs or perception stacks if needed.

I would suspect that those who already posted touched on the important things: keeping crit chance high enough to reliably proc on-crit effects in a time-efficient manner, not gutting your gear choice for the sake of higher crit chance, and the fact that since crit damage and crit chance interact multiplicatively, you want to raise both.

One alternative rule of thumb for those aiming for high DPS is: if power > (2100/(crit_dmg+0.5) + precision – 822), invest in precision instead of power. It comes from those who are far better at playing Excel Wars 2 than I.

More numbers doesn’t necessarily mean bigger numbers But also the grenadier spec that I thought was popular depended on you being > 600 range (not melee) for highest dps.

For PvE:

• Warrior is probably the easiest class to learn the game on – you can dish out a lot of damage fast in melee (use axe/mace for your main weapons and swap out other weapons to get a feel for them) but have a large health pool to soak up hits that you don’t dodge or otherwise mitigate.
• Guardian is another good choice when learning because they have a lot of active defense skills such as tons of blinds (sword/focus), mob control (hammer, GS), temporary invulnerability, and some projectile absorption and reflection. But if you run out of active defense skills, you will probably die quickly.
• Thief can kill stuff stupid fast, but it is much less forgiving than the two heavy classes. Same goes for elementalist, though in min-max PvE settings it’s more likely to fall behind in pure DPS unless you’re really mindful. But both are really fun to play!
• Sword/warhorn ranger is another fun option, but very hard to master because of how awkward it is to fit dodges into your rotation.

With different weapon, armor, and traits, all five classes (maybe less so with ranger) can also do some serious damage in melee in WvW. All five classes also have viable specs in PvP, again, though ranger has some strong ranged builds as well.

Fast ground targeting just skips the green circle AoE targeting and large arrow pointing that you get for some skills such as engi grenades, most non-dagger elementalist skills, warrior greatsword whirlwind, etc. Playing with or without this is really personal preference and is more useful to some professions or in some situations than others.

There’s an option called “Disable Area of Effect Rings” on the first panel of the Options menu. DO NOT have that selected. It sounds like you might have it selected right now.

In a dungeoning group, a thief with an SB is more useful than a ranger with an SB, so I’d go with thief. Thief shortbow gives you a spammable blast finisher and easy shadowstep, but is overall low DPS. I tend to keep it very conveniently placed in my bags so I can swap it out with a sword+pistol. Ranger shortbow is just really low DPS and should just be used for the dodge out of melee if you need a breather – but longbow is a better ranged DPS option.

But my reasons don’t have anything to do with what best displays your flying unicorns. That’s really just personal preference.

In the Moletariat, champion loot bags drop you.

I’m guessing overlooked bosses in dungeons before the patch didn’t get the champ bags (as in, the bags were added to the loot table, but which enemies get that loot table wasn’t adjusted). Does the magecrusher in Arah P3 drop a bag, or was he also missed?

obal.3218:

Wukunlin.8461:

niiiiice.

btw, if mesmer used feedback when it is spewing out bombs wouldn’t that prevented you guys from dying? WoR still reflect bombs last time I killed powersuit (doesn’t do damage but still protects people from getting bombed)

It doesn’t do damage so we just went for the extra 4% damage of another mantra. You can usually just walk out of circles and melee through it. We got trolled the one time though at the very end where no circle was drawn. Maybe bloomhunger tactics apply .

Just for clarification, the punch is what killed us in the video, not a bomb – but we did have some unexpected encounters with bombs in the practice runs. And if a bomb lands on the ice pillar in the middle of the room, it won’t have an accurate AoE circle if it has one at all.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Post-Patch-Dungeon-Gold-Rewards-Complete/first

Efficiency is all about skill. If you’re still learning dungeons, AC 1/3, SE 1/3, CoF 1/2, and HotW 1 are still your best bets – especially AC. If you and your party can count to 3, CoE can be profitable, as well. If you’re comfortable with challenges, then go with Arah.

I know TC has a bunch of super large guilds that do all sorts of things, including WvW, dungeons, missions, etc. I’m not familiar enough with them to recommend a particular one to you, but you could go to www.tcgw2.com and check out the guild recruitment section.

I think it might have to do with the NPC not being near enough to the first boss (especially if the NPC dies on the run), but I’ve not yet actually encountered this bug.

Danireathorn.2814:

The first link at 36 seconds when that war dodges away for no reason, ahahahahahahahahahahhaha

Zerk warrs always have a reason to dodge: stick and move.

Broadicea.8294:

look at that scrub mesmer not even shattering once. disgusting, ugh.

At least you weren’t that warr who started beating on it before it was superheated or eviscerated late.

I wonder if this kind of transaction will pop up more often now that we can get full gold and tokens from a dungeon only once per day.

Let’s say a group of people who are used to dungeoning with each other complete their full circuit. What can they do next? Farm the queen’s loot carousel? Idle in LA? How about complete a path again, but at the end, have everyone but the instance owner drop and sell the 4 slots. Instance owner solos last boss, customers get tokens, the group of 5 who did most of the work get some gold and the loot along the way.

It’s likely that people will run out of dungeons to do for full rewards this weekend anyway…

Based on my experience on my ele:

• Focus earth 4 is not a guaranteed reflect for the AoE projectiles since the area of reflect is so small. You’ll reflect the projectile aimed right under your feet, but the one just over 50 units away from you will hit you with splash damage. I haven’t had much luck using this one to save myself from the P3 AoE barrage, but I may be activating it too late. Works fine against the single-target projectiles.
• Focus earth 5 will protect you from all damage, I think. I don’t think I’ve tried it during the P3 single-target life steal, but it has protected me from damage from all of his other attacks.
• Focus air 4 (Swirling Winds) absorbs the projectiles. It will also absorb AoE projectiles, even if you are at his feet – just make sure to hit it when you see the hug. Hitting it when you see the AoE rings means you’re casting it too late. And it’s larger than a Mesmer’s feedback, so don’t use both on the same attack or else you make your party very sad. I have not tested it against the P3 AoE barrage.
• Staff earth 3, like Focus earth 4, has a small area of effect so you’ll likely be hit by splash damage from AoE projectiles. Maybe it will work if you’re lucky, but I’m not that lucky. Works fine against the single-target projectiles.

Great idea, but you’re missing a few important logistical items:

• EU/NA?
• Time of day of dungeon runs?
• Preferred professions?

SkyChef.5432:

aophts.9862:

I can’t believe people can solo legendary monsters, and a undead type with all the condition attacks and life steal. How the hell do i get good enough to do this??

:(

PS: btw, nice video, ty.

Take a lot of dedication. And nut.

Do you mean balls of steel or insanity? Maybe both?

aophts, having run dungeons with you, I can tell you are a lot better than you think you are and you just need to learn the content better by practicing it. Pick a guardian build, stick with it, and just keep running dungeons. If you find yourself dying over and over in a fight, go consult Weth’s text guides to help you spot the tells for the attacks you are having trouble mitigating. If you’re shaky on your memory of a path, review a video guide.

If you want a challenge without the investment of a dungeon, go find an open world vet or champ and learn how to solo it while taking as few hits as possible. One good starter challenge are the giants in Nageling (Diessa) and in a cave in the eastern side of Harathi Hinterlands.

obal.3218:

Cymric.7368:

I had been meleeing him on both my guardian and my mesmer and I have a question about his AoE in p2. On my mesmer, my feedback will go off perfectly protecting the whole group from damage. However, when my guardian use shield of absorption, damage still seems to get through even when the shield is up. I can see my shield bubble up, but my health still drops while I am inside.

I am not sure what the problem is, wrong timing? Faster/slower? Or should I not use shield and double dodge instead?

SoA is a bad option for the reasons Chryzo. It is a very unreliable skill. You could use sword/shield + sword/focus for sheild #5. If you use shield #5 when he does the hugging animation before the red circles appear it will protect you and all inside your dome. You can also double dodge with focus #5 up or use renewed focus for safer options. I used that set up on my first melee solo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EygYNOxzjTA

I think Cymric is talking about shield #5. I’ve also noticed it not working as well as I hope on the rare occasions that I take my guard to Arah. My guess is either poor timing, maybe a nervous press of another key that interrupts the shield, or that random bit of splash damage from projectiles that land just outside of the dome. Of course the Shield of the Avenger utility is a bad idea here, something nearby has to take damage for it to activate… and I’m not taking one for the team in order for SotA to wake up.

And great job, Obal!

obal.3218:

Anubarak.3012:

obal.3218:

Imbued shaman
You can entangle the boss and pretty much solo the bubble off with warhorn 4 and long bow 2.

Every skill in the game just remove one stack of the shield… are you sure about this information?

I told the others in the group to not go for it and it was going down so it seemed like it was working. I guess they didn’t listen . I tried it again and it doesn’t. I updated the OP.

Sorries. I was probably going for the lava eles and the shaman was in the way.

haviz.1340:

mike.7685:

You still did not clarify anything. Give me a specific statement or situation that was posed as false or misleading.

He wrote that ranger is able to basically solo shaman bubble with lb2 and wh4, since those skills hit multiple times. That’s a false statement because every skill removes just one stack, no matter how many times it hits. That makes long channeled skills like lb2 not only bad but even detrimental. I’ve seen players claiming to be good using a5 on warrior just to get rid of the stacks while there was no grub nearby. Seeing something like this should move your hand towards your forehead.

I thought I was seeing 1HB only remove one stack for the duration of the channel instead of one per hit, good to know I wasn’t imagining things. Now I have to pay extra close attention to frostbow and meteor storm next time I’m in there with my ele.

From the blogpost…

At 500, crafters will be able to craft ascended weapons and armor. Once you reach 500, a new tier of crafting materials will be available to you; this new tier of materials will be made by combining lower tier materials. This tier is time-constrained, so each item can only be made once per day in order to help give high-level crafters their own economy of items to build and sell that retain their value and rarity.

This new tier of crafting material, along with the new guaranteed material rewards mentioned earlier and some other materials we’ll introduce will be used to craft ascended weapons, armor, and more. These weapons and armor will also be able to be found as rare drops from locations in the world. Ascended weapons and armor will remain account-bound like other ascended gear.

Maybe I’m just reading it wrong, but it looks like mixed messages to me. Craftable ascended items with the ability to buy and sell them, but ascended account-bound weapons and armor? At least you can farm events/dungeons with the hope that you’ll get lucky? Yay for RNG dependence for BIS gear – or old-fasioned grinding. That sounds familiar…

Well, when combined with:

We want to remove the choice players are currently being forced to make on their gear: “Do I go with better stats, or better loot?” This isn’t in the spirit of cooperation that Guild Wars 2 is all about. As such, we’ll be removing magic find entirely as an item stat and turning it into account stat that improved the odds of rare drops for all your characters.

… I forsee the death of the omnom bar.

Definitely check out the ele forum. Daphoenix’s guide is particularly good if you can stand reading all of it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-7-15-13/first

I know this is a silly question, but is the ring level 80? Orbs and exquisite jewels can only be used in level 80 gear. I found this out the hard way when I found a level 78 medium armor zerker exotic, put it on my thief, and then tried to slot a ruby orb in it. Didn’t go so well.

SkyChef.5432:

PVT is cool only after playing berzerker all the time. You can afford dancing around, making mistake here & there and let your friends doing all the hard works, and rez them at the right time. And last one standing too. Just don’t let they know you wear PVT so transmute all your gears to CoF gears. Ugly but safe.

And make sure you keep your matching CoF zerker set with scholars runes in the bag to ping.

Broadicea.8294:

THAT’S why I’m always faceplanting in our fractal runs, you guys all switched to PVT and didn’t tell me

Ohhh snap! He got wise to our shenanigans. Quick everyone, to CoF!

Back to the original topic… I had a shout heal hammer warr, and she was great for facetanking stuff in the old AC while my guildmates shot from a safe distance away. When we started attempting HotW P1, though, I noticed a huge difference in how well an AH guard could hold Ginva’s aggro (Ginva would stick on the guard for the whole battle) compared to the shout heal warr (couldn’t be less interested). Of course the shout heal warr was more effective at saving said guildmates when they continued shooting while Ginva was reflecting projectiles…

Dolan.3071:

I legitimately have not seem a shout heal warrior in over a year, maybe I’m just lucky. However the pure ranged Guards, Thieves and Rangers are at least one in each PuG. Alternately I have a soft spot for staff Ele’s

Every time I see a staff ele, I die a little inside. And then I remember that I, too, was once a staff ele before I reached enlightenment. And then I pray they accidentally pick up my spare lightning hammer … even though it never happens because they’re at max range or didn’t dodge.

foxtrot.6902:

ooo awesome thanks DEKeyztoChaos

So, if I have x2 Vassar’s Bands (rings) I could infuse one and be able to wear both? So this entire thing wont be a complete waste? I’ve done some fractals but looks like I’ll need to do a bit more lol.

Thanks for the heads up!

Correct. But vials are a random drop at any fractal reward level, globs at reward level 10+, and shards at reward level 20+. That means you’ll be doing a lot of fractals – and potentially get rings and pristine relics to purchase even more rings.

And if you can’t get your spark runtimes down (or if she seems to be stealthing at 50% repeatedly), have one or two low dps members of your party start running for sparks when Simin is visible, and your high dps members of the group shouldn’t wander off when she is invisible. In fact, your high dps people should still keep doing their rotation in the general area where she stealthed, since I don’t think she’s invulnerable while she’s stealthed (don’t have enough evidence to say that with 100% certainty – can anyone else confirm?) and she doesn’t usually move while stealthed. Did this with multiple groups, including one with two AH knights or soldiers guardians, a support mes, a necro, and my warr – and the four of them were all first timers.

Not hard, not a DPS check, just requires coordination and communication.

If you do fractals, you can infuse the ring in the mystic forge. You can then wear one normal ring and one infused ring (since they count as separate items), or infuse it and give it to an alt. To infuse a ring, you need the ring + 5 vials of condensed mist essence + 3 globs of coagulated mist essence + 1 shard of crystallized mist essence.

Accessories currently can’t be infused, so if you buy a duplicate accessory you’re kinda stuck.

Search bar is currently bugged. No ETA on fix.

With the current in-game ascended gear, here’s what I’d suggest:

Backpiece: offensive infusion (but it doesn’t really matter)
Amulet: utility infusion
Ring 1: offensive infusion
Ring 2: defensive infusion
Accessory 1: offensive infusion
Accessory 2: defensive infusion

As for what you put in the infusion slots, gold find is a popular one for the utility slot, and the general +5 AR infusion is good for the offensive and defensive slots if you run lots of fractals. If you don’t run fractals, then don’t bother with AR. The +5 attribute infusions just aren’t worth it.

Another compilation of acronyms, made by Falunel.7645:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Abbreviations-Terms-Acronyms-2/first#post2061148

Lots of weapons are useful in higher level fractals. Staff for a quick buff before a battle, hammer for protection, sword for blinds, etc, etc. As far as higher level fractal guardian play, you should take a look at Obal’s guide with builds and video tutorials:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Video-Guide-for-Fractals-Shown-at-48/first#post2322682

Are you on an EU or NA server?

He won’t aggro until you get pretty close (<600 range, not sure exactly because by the time we’re that close someone’s thrown an axe or GS at him) or until you start shooting him. So on your initial encounter or after he resets, you can still get ready in the room – or if you have dead teammates that don’t want to run, you can rez them as long as they’re away from Lupi. His leash range is the only thing that’s a little ridiculous, and his Locusts Swarms are even worse and will follow you around the pillar.

Some guilds will look at achievements points to determine who to clear out – if you haven’t earned any AP in a month or so, that means you’ve probably not logged in for a while.

If you don’t want a warrior but still want to be seen as DPS in a dungeon group, go with a DPS guard (such as the build at http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83701-the-perfect-dps-guardian-build/) or a might-stacking ele (such as http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83561-hamartias-sd-elementalist-build-dps-might-stacking/). The guard is more PUG-friendly as a might-stacking ele is most beneficial in groups that will be close together when fighting stuff (i.e. everyone pretty much meleeing) and is going to go down fast if focused.

Both, when skillfully played, are welcomed in most dungeoning groups – except for CoF speedfarm runs hosted by closed-minded individuals. DPS thieves are also accepted but don’t have as good multiple target damage. And mesmers are still welcome for a lot of runs, but aren’t expected to bring DPS – they’re around for feedback, timewarp, and the occasional portal.

Ele staff DPS, even when traited, is underwhelming and does not bring a lot of offensive group utility except when clearing out hordes of mobs. Even then, LOSing them and then whacking them with a lightning hammer or fiery greatsword is more effective.

SkyChef.5432:

And skin drops at fotm level 40s has been improved from 1.1% to 1.15%, a whopping 50% drop increased in the fractional part. Fractal goers now reportedly are also 50% happier.

You cited numbers, so you must be lying.

And 50% of 0 is still 0.

laharl.8435:

Dead, or just really bored. Celestial stats….blah. Skins for achievements, eh fine. Permanent account bonuses for achievements….now I’m an achievement kitten and should’ve been whoring this whole time. Guess I’ll at least be busy doing all Living Story content, doing all jp’s, mini dungeons, goggles etc instead of dungeons now.

Since I’ve been an AP kitten from the start, I will laugh at you as I enjoy my marginally better magic find that really won’t make much of a difference at all in drops! And I wonder how many of hours of CoF I’d have to farm in order to see even one gold more of earnings from that extra gold find.

But in all seriousness, they fixed the ele skill Flame Wall. That alone makes my day.

Sounds like you’re trying to farm CoF, not run a dungeon for enjoyment. Why do you want to torture yourself like that?

While I don’t know the first thing about rangers, elementalists actually have a great variety of good dungeoning builds out there, and Hamartia and Neko have great guides to a few of them:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83561-hamartias-sd-elementalist-build-dps-might-stacking/
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84013-nekos-comprehensive-guide-to-the-dungeon-elementalist/

If you don’t want to run full zerk with ruby orbs or runes of the scholar, either PVT+celestial (or zerk) trinkets or a knights (pants, helm and chest)+zerk (everything else, including trinkets) set – either with boon duration runes – are reasonable options that may be better in PUG settings.

Attribute points from gear (and traits) are also downscaled, but a downscaled level 80 character in exotics will still usually have it easier in a lower level dungeon than a typical at-dungeon-level character.

I’ll agree, fast dungeoning is all about zerker gear. But I know lots of people don’t want to play that way or can’t stay alive in zerker gear. I think talking about these non-optimal options would be an excellent addition to your guide – it would take a few minutes to explain them, but then you can also note why the are suboptimal (assuming that the player is staying alive). But I’d like to reiterate that you’re doing an excellent job already and I’m totally recommending your guide to others interested in playing an ele. It’s those basic things that we forget to explain since we have many hours on our eles that I would like to see in the guide.

I still am hesitant on completely dismissing boon duration because if I’m providing a reliable 20+ stacks of might, that means the warrs can run, say, another banner instead of FGJ. Then again, this is when I’m running in an organized group and the guard knows when I want my fire fields – a luxury you may not get in PUGs. On the other hand, if you have two might/fury stacking eles in the party, then undoubtedly ruby orbs/ scholar’s runes are better because you waste so much might.

Having run quite a few level 48 fractals myself, having a PTV set in the bag is nice for those moments when you will take some extra damage – such as for standing on the switches in the dredge fractal. Yes, otherwise I use zerker’s armor.

Staff I’ll use for the dredge fractal boss (because you just want to ranged kite it), sometimes for Urban Battleground boss and Grawl boss (depending on the guardians – staff fire 5 is great for the bubble+adds, and ice 4 is good for slowing down the boss when in the bubble), and at Jade Maw to help keep myself up through the agony. Yes, it is a situational weapon, but still one worth having and spending some time addressing. I’d even be happy to help contribute material on it since I’ve spent quite a bit of time with the weapon (before Hamartia and Kitsune opened my eyes to the wonders of might stacking).

Keep up the great work!

Wow, excellent guide so far! I have a few questions and nit-picky suggestions if you’d like to make your guide address less DPS-focused builds and playstyles.

Any plans on putting in the signet-aura build or a condition build? How about the 0/10/0/30/30 overkill support staff build? Similarly, what about alternative gearing options such as the frequently used boon duration rune set of sup monk/sup water/maj water? Or a Soldiers (or Clerics, or Knights/Zerkers mix) set in situations where survivability is an issue such as in the dredge fractal (or when you’re learning to dodge)? Also, have any consumable suggestions?

How about situation-specific strategies such as the proper use of frost bow or earth shield? Or the use of Glyph of Storms in earth attunement for the blinds? Or the usefulness of timing Fiery Great Sword 3 (the whirl) for the dodge?

Staff does have a lot to offer in defensive support in the way of lots of combo fields and a few key cc skills such as Frozen Ground, Static Discharge, Static Field, and Shockwave. And let’s not forget Magnetic Aura! Fireball, while slow, is a decent auto attack for something you can use at over 1200 range. Also, have you looked into which auto attack is best on the scepter? I don’t mean that eles should ever sit in one attunement and just auto attack, but it’s still good information to know.

Anet! I need a LoJack trait for my conjures now. The rangers keep on stealing them >.>

I understand that this would help sloppy PUGs that want to leech of others’ builds, leading to less pain for the overall group, but if you don’t plan to play with the group, then trait accordingly.

Eles, for example, can get might for every fire spell cast. With boon duration gear and Fire XII, you can keep up approximately 15 stacks of might on yourself at 1200 range, and you never have to swap attunements. Rangers, sure, may get 5-6 stacks on themselves at max range, but their pets (which tend to stray closer to melee) can get 15-20 with Skirmishing V (Companion’s Might) and a few other traits. Engis also have their might stacking HGH build. And let’s not forget about the Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Strength.

It doesn’t even take an elitist group to plan beforehand to get some might on your characters – my ele’s opening S/D rotation maybe requires someone to stand within 300 range of me (in melee) for maybe 5 – 10 seconds to get an easy 15 stacks of might (lasting about 20-30 seconds) and minute of fury. Then run to 1200 range and pewpew away.

My bad, skipped that line when reading. Must drink moar caffeine!

Looks like the one at www.gw2db.com is up to date trait-wise, though the equipment selection part is rather limited.

I haven’t had issues with ITM being slow… maybe try a different browser? Or I’ve just been lucky. Give it a week or two and I’m sure other calculators will get sorted out.

Guardian. Great class to learn the game on and has great builds for PvE, WvW, and PvP.

If you don’t like how it plays, try a thief. Then elementalist, mesmer, or engineer (requires very active play), or a warrior or necro (less active, but still attentive gameplay is rewarded).

Night + <insert mob type here> Slaying also works if you’re REALLY trying to min/max for a particular dungeon (CoF >.>).

… but then again, I forget to bring pots from my bank half the time and I don’t want to be carrying around that many extra weapons anyway.