Guild Wars 2

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I love you Kirin. #NewSig4Ever

Pshaw, thanks, Lilith!

And deSade, I’ll look into maybe investing in some ascended pistols soon… but my thief is on a lower priority than my warrior, guardian and ele.

On another note, somehow managed to get the double legendary aura, and I dunno how! o_o; Sunrise plus Kamo-chan’s aura!

I’m pretty sure there is, but I thought it was an old outdated one from like ’12 when the game first came out.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Maybe if they capped crit chance / crit damage and gave power diminishing returns the game would be better, so the best dps would be a mix of cavaliers / valk / zerker / zealot instead. But i guess i ask too much.

And along with a cap to crit chance/crit damage and giving power diminishing returns, they could put diminishing returns on vit, toughness, healing power. Celestial new meta!

dutchiez.7502:

Yes, although actually it’s the grub summon animation.

Cool, thanks for the info!

dutchiez.7502:

I agree with 3 ele, 1 war, 1 ranger as demonstrated here

It would be interesting to talk about the highest DPS team in a scenario where you cannot use FGS (let’s not use blinks guys).

Dutchiez, in the video you posted (very impressive, btw), do you guys wait for that first kick to start your DPS cycle and have him “stuck in animation” for the swarm summon to bypass the invulnerable phase changes?

laharl.8435:

My thinking was 3 ele’s so everyone would have an fgs. Warrior would run OMM instead of FGJ.

When I ran with 3 ele’s, 1 war and 1 engi, when we weren’t using fgs the war and engi gave 25 vuln.

That’s a good point, I retract my previous post and endorse this.

xallever.1874:

So is there a point of diminishing return on more FGS?

When you run out of people that can wield them.

Thieves can provide vuln with Sundering Strikes, I do believe. I forget if it has ICD, but last I heard it doesn’t. If it does, then you could do an engi instead for vuln.

I’d probably do the 2ele 1war 1ranger 1thief. Give the ranger and thief the fgs.

Wow, I really like that second pic deSade!
And for Iris, I dig the armor, though the should pad spikes are huuuuge. o_o;
#OccupyFashion #WeAreThe13%

robertul.3679:

Maybe 3rd time is indeed the charm. Again, I said longbow is not a bad dps weapon. I never said it’s a good weapon to use in groups because of the already mentioned lack of buffs and ruining of stacks. Somebody said a longbow ranger does bad dps and I tried to refute that with some very crude math. I am aware of the slight skew with such a basic approach but factoring the vuln and other dps boosts is too much of a time waste.

Perhaps 3rd time is the charm.

In the end, it comes down to a mincing of words, then. To some people, having 25% less DPS than a person who has the same profession is bad DPS. To some it isn’t. And for others, having 10% less DPS than someone of the same profession is bad, and to some it isn’t.

Here’s the bottom line: If a longbow/bear ranger joined your dungeon and fought all bosses at max range, would you want to party again with that player? If you found that out of the last 5 rangers that joined your parties, 4 of them were bearbow rangers that did the exact same thing, would your propensity to invite more rangers stay the same or go down?

DigitalKirin.9714:

deSade.9437:

P.S. Seems like this thread needs more charr females. I plan on gifting mine some red SAB weapons.

I has charr female! I already posted one pic… but I’ll make a point of doing some dungeons with her and trying to take screenies when I remember. :P

I know I’ve already posted my charr before, but by request of deSade

I like watching for his right hand. It moves forward just before he kicks. Watching his right hand is also useful for his uppercut move in phase 2. For the uppercut, his right hand moves waaaay back, then bang!

Edit: Review some solo videos on Youtube. Watch for a kick, then replay those 5 seconds a few times over just so that you can pick out the tell without stressing yourself about dodging it. Then you can go back in game and test yourself out.

robertul.3679:

As I said I factored only weapon and skill modifier(+trait for lb).

Skewing data representation does not help your argument that longbow is a good weapon to use, even in a PUG situation – or perhaps especially in a PUG situation.

The situations should be represented as realistically as possible to provide a topical debate.

In this case, we’re discussing why Rangers aren’t as accepted into dungeon groups. This suggests multiple players, of whom will generally be sharing buffs. This does make group buffs pertinent and only basing your statement of “Longbow does good DPS” on stats sans any group modifiers is misleading.

robertul.3679:

The biggest issue is not the lack of buffs but it really screws the pulls by scattering thrash all over the place.

This is also a big factor, I agree, but it doesn’t allow us to ignore or pooh-pooh group buffs.

robertul.3679:

I wonder how many pugs actually stack might or give party-wide fury. Yes, some warrior may pop fgj once in a while but that’s pretty much it. I actually had some pug runs today with hurr durr warriors that used rifle and defense banner.

There are many individual instances you can cite about how terrible one pug or another is, however, the question is, IN GENERAL what is overall better for delivering more damage per second.

If you have 4 party members who cannot provide even a minimal amount of fury or might, doesn’t it mean that it becomes even MORE important that you be able to do so? There aren’t that many classes that can easily provide fury. Warrior can. Elementalist can. Ranger can.

If you’re using longbow in a group situation and Nobody is providing group buff as a worst case scenario, you providing even 5-6 stacks of might and fury will make a bigger DPS difference for overall group DPS. And that makes a big difference.

robertul.3679:

Problem is rangers get all the hate while greatsword mesmers, staff/scepter/mace guardians and the above mentioned warriors get a free pass. Pugs are silly.

Absolutely true. There should be importance in understanding that there are poor weapon choices for other professions too. And yes, PUGs are silly.

I think that having unique rewards based on what instabilities are applied would be a good idea. So how about this as a suggestion:

Based on the instability you select for your fractal run, each fractal scenario will reward an “unstable essence” in the end chest after you defeat the boss. This unstable essence would have 2 modifiers. The first modifier would be where it came from, so you’d have something called a “Swampland’s Unstable Essence” or a “Dredge’s Unstable Essence”. The second modifier would be the Instability type, so you’d have a “Battleground’s Unstable Essence of Lethargy” if you did the Lethargic Instability.

Using the Mystic Forge, you’d combine 4 of these Unstable Essences to produce specific recipes or weapon/accessory components. If you needed a Recipe+Sword Hilt+Sword Blade+Fractal Inscription, that could potentially be 16 unstable essences to produce a fractal sword.

robertul.3679:

Stop saying longbow is bad dps. It’s not. Traited longbow hits for 992.25/s only factoring skill modifiers and weapon damage and the 5% damage trait. This is only the autoattack, without considering barrage. As a reference sword hits for 1055.55/s. Yes, longbow is just a bit lower auto.

There are other factors that have been mentioned, however. Group buffs affect damage greatly.

jrinc.6953:

that really sucks! but i understand what you are saying! but for someone like me i have to deal with all the drama that others has ruin the profession with… i will continue to argue my way into dungeons but it wont matter cause there will be more and more players to ruin it

Prejudice is inevitable, and maybe not always necessarily a bad thing. My main is a warrior. That brings with it certain prejudices as well, whether it’s the “noskill zerk sheep warrior” prejudice or the “Warriors are OP” prejudice or the “I’m glad to have a warrior because now this run will be easy” prejudice.

The questions comes down to this. What are YOU doing to break negative prejudices in people’s minds and promoting the positive prejudices in people’s minds?

Do you make people think to themselves, “I’m glad we managed to survive that dungeon even though we had that ranger” or do you make them think, “Wow, that ranger knew his stuff and that dungeon run was extremely smooth”?

jrinc.6953:

im just looking for the real reason behind the hate behind rangers as well! but if you played a ranger and understand the mechanic of it maybe you can come up with some ideas and builds to make it a good profession to run with.. and instead say its a profession not needed

The real reason? People hedge their bets. They don’t want to deal with the chance of getting a player who won’t pull their weight as equally as they feel they do in a party. You can consider this prejudice, because it is. However, you have to wonder where this prejudice came from – and it comes from past experiences. You getting kicked in the future is based off of other rangers’ performances in the past.

Rangers have a reputation. That reputation is that they contribute less in a party than many others. This comes from people choosing to play rangers as long-range characters. The problem with this has been stated several times in this thread. Can’t share buffs, loves to blindly move monsters out of position thus lowering overall group DPS, is out of range of helping fellow teammates up if they get downed.

But there’s plenty to work with. People have already listed off Frost Spirit and Spotter. Addititonally you have your pet’s F2 ability to add things like fury and might. I love using offhand warhorn for the might/fury/swiftness.

It comes down to your choices. Given all of the tools of your profession, what are you willing to do to make your team successful? If the extent of your willingness is “Stand at 1500 and hit 1 until mobs die” then you aren’t contributing as much as a ranger who decided, “Hey, I’m gonna give you guys 2 unique buffs, PLUS I’m gonna give you fury if nobody else can, PLUS I do really awesome DPS with my sword.”

jrinc.6953:

now its seems that you may be a great ranger but is it the build you wanted to play with or just the build to keep you in the dungeon and go with the flow.. common sense is the help the group.. or this is a build that someone else said to run?

Is your priority “Help the team the best you can with the tool given by your profession” or is it “I play how I want, even if it means sacrificing the team”?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I’d like to know what you think. Is this a good system? Does it add to the Fractal experience? Would you rather have 30 new Instabilities or 1 new Fractal? Which ones do you like/dislike?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Next is the difficulty/progression question. Personally I’ve always felt that the difficulty scaling in Fractals is a bit redundant. After all, once the creatures have started to one-shot you, does it continue to matter that they keep hitting harder? I know this has been commented on, but I’d like to hear some thoughts on alternatives.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Finally I have sort of a meta-question which is: what place, if any, does random have in the Fractals? While it’s easy to dismiss it because of the drawbacks, I think it’s important to talk about the drawbacks of not having it (or having another system) would be. Assume we solve re-rolling and make Dredge more reasonable, does random fractal selection add or detract from your satisfaction of playing in the Fractals?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Was it more interesting at one time than it is now? Can we compare that with Instabilities, which are very predictable?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Imagine if we completely strip random out everything possible and conjure a system where you complete specific sets of combinations of fractal/instability/difficulty to build specific items. Does that entice you or sound like a big grind?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thanks in advance for reading and I look forward to continuing the discussion.

Cries Of Sorrow.5864:

They use it because it’s off cooldown 8D

Right?! Ugh! It’s just… mrrphgh!

Normally I’m a fairly relaxed team member when it comes to pugging people. What really irks me about rangers that join my group is that on countless occasions, they’ll use Point Blank Shot on a set of mobs that have been perfectly grouped.

Why do they do that? Seriously. I once asked and the reply was, “Because it was off cooldown.”

Okay, I understand and I’m willing to accept you not doing the best you possibly could do, but when you start trolling me by pushing mobs around and forcing me to be less effective, I’m much more accepting of seeing someone vote-kick a ranger.

Edit: So yes, your title is very accurate. Rangers have no respect in dungeons.

I would love the vigil swords if they were a tad bit thinner, but they’re a decent choice.

deSade.9437:

P.S. Seems like this thread needs more charr females. I plan on gifting mine some red SAB weapons.

I has charr female! I already posted one pic… but I’ll make a point of doing some dungeons with her and trying to take screenies when I remember. :P

Sounds good – I think the concern was that mobility skills like Withdraw have the chance of moving you backwards into a hole. Do you feel it’s still worth the risk?

Hi all, quick question:

Friend of mine was running thief in fractals the other day and wanted some tips of what utilities to run for Thaumnova Boss. What would you guys run? Also, what heal and elite as well?

Pic #3 is a really good shot, MastaNeenja!

RSLongK.8961:

My Necro: Morgana
Need some shoulder advice.

None. Looks perfect as is.

kgptzac.8419:

Do NPC enemies not have a chance dropping tokens or something good?

Only the boss/miniboss encounters have a chance to drop wondrous bags which contain 3 dungeon tokens.

Proposal Overview
Increase the overlap of shorter fractal scenarios appearing in the later stages.

Goal of Proposal
The goal of the proposal is to increase the chances of seeing some of the short fractals that are almost never seen as well as reducing the chances of getting the undesired “Longest path”. (Swamp->Cliffside->Dredge) Currently, seeing Cliffside in the second scenario actually increases the chances of seeing Dredge as the 3rd scenario. Adding more candidates to the 3rd slot will reduce the chances of this happening.

Proposal Functionality
Have Swamp, Underwater, Uncategorized(Harpy), and Urban Battleground all have the chance to appear as either the first or second Fractal. Additionally, have Molten Furnace, and Snowblind have a chance to appear as either the second or third Fractal. Finally, change Cliffside to only have the chance to appear as the third Fractal.

Associated Risks
The shortest runs may become Swamp->Underwater->Snowblind or Molten Facility.

Tierce.5370:

I had the same question as Miaire, and tried searching for a video but couldn’t find much. Is the path basically the same as the one this thief takes?

Pretty much. Just run on the very edges of the rocks to avoid the fire. I haven’t tried it using the GS5 SwordHorn 2&4 with Defiant Stance, but that sounds pretty solid, too.

I run this using 30/25/0/0/15. I don’t use the extinguisher. (I prefer doing the run while Magg is examining the calcified rock.)

Usually only need SiO, but Berserker Stance would be fine. The most important thing is to learn the path. Run along the edges so you don’t touch the fire. Jumping also helps a bit as sometimes it makes the elementals fire over your head.

CC Danicia.1394:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Danicia, I’m hoping to see one of your characters in a dungeon looking fashionable too sometime soon!

Much like IRL, I am not fashionable AT ALL and look pretty dorky.

Fortunately many of us are dorky here, so you’re in good company. And I assure you that dorky can be fashionably awesome.

Submitted for your approval, Lilith-

Genevieve Talbot – Warrior (My main)
Genevieve – Thief
Kierce Wolfheart – Guardian
Anjelica Giovanni – Elementalist
Aquila Caedicius – Necro
Amber Angelsong – Mesmer

Can solo on warrior, too. Just jump over the ground attack, circle past poison, and don’t get eaten

It gets a bit more challenging if people run by tagging it and it upscales.

Nat.4029:

But I did hop into AC after a long break from the game and wondered why people were hiding behind the pillar at the stairs near the Spider Queen.

Good news. There are people who want to do what you do, and they’ve even made a thread so they can find each other easier. You should join them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Players-Against-Stacking-Skipping-Stuff/first

potasium.2946:

in my opinion its really not a lvl 30 dungeon.

Well there you have it. It just comes down to this. It’s your opinion that it’s too hard.

The reality is that there are groups of people sub lvl 80 that have completed this. Learn the tactics to the fight and you too can beat this.

Sounds rough.

Strange foreboding… like this thread’s going to have a major Pokemon Snap arc to it.

You need to PM Colin this. It encapsulates the fractal experience perfectly.

Great read. 10/10.

Zelu.1692:

If you do dungeons for in-game rewards and not for funzies, the current (poor) dungeon design encourages you to stack and/or LoS bosses and to skip mobs. As most people run dungeons for the tokens and gold, they want to get through it as fast as possible.

There’s a misconception here. You think that fun is mutually exclusive from fast. This is not true. Some people have fun when they beat record times. (Personal or public.) Additionally, some people actually have Fun when they have a smooth run where everyone stays alive and the mobs all die quickly.

Zelu.1692:

Those who think they are good players for doing speed clears in Zerk gear fool themselves. I bet they’d have no chance in a proper tact-based PVE instance (thinking a proper Raid or dungeons like in TSW NM mode or WoW).

Another misconception. Many people here do what they do because they’re pragmatic and are usually good at what they do.

Personally for myself, I didn’t play TSW or WoW, I came from FFXI. I played main tank or main healer for my dynamis guild depending on what was needed. The choice to use zerk gear merely states “I’m willing to focus on dealing the most amount of damage and rely on player skill and tactics to mitigate damage.” I think Nikaido mentioned this when he said – and I’m paraphrasing here, “Traits and utilities determine the playstyle, your gear simply determines where you are on the spectrum of how much damage you’re comfortable receiving and dealing.”

Zelu.1692:

For those players who enjoy a bit of RP and doing instances slow and fun for the lore and beautiful aesthetics of GW2 at least can go to [PASS] or LFG for similarly-minded people. Not a bad thing and nothing to make fun of.

Zel

So long as people live and let live. The problem is that you can see the snide jabs that people make about players that skip/stack or run the meta. If a person goes and does this, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that the flames would escalate.

So before you say “don’t make fun of people who don’t stack/skip” stop and reread your posts and reword anything that smacks of talking down to others or saying that they’re unskilled. If you want respect, give it first.

As useful as that would be, I’d bet people using this tool would be banned well before any gold bots in Cursed Shore.

Bloodstone dust, Empyreal Fragments… x10,000.

yayuuu.9420:

Stacking in one picture (pro paint skillz)

It’s actually a good idea to use a combination of 2x pebbles and 2x nuggets or 1 and 3, or 4 nuggets. Alternatively, you can use 3x pebbles and 1x lump. (Best idea is to find the cheapest combination of these… note that pebbles can be somewhat expensive because of silver doubloon MFing.)

The problem with using 4x pebbles is they need to get promoted to the “nugget” (lvl 20) category first, then it’s a random chance of either a nugget, the marks, or the silver doubloon.

Dub.1273:

Myself starting an instance, three (probably all?) of us having extreme lagspikes.

Lesson learnt? Nope, same just happened again.

I think ANet’s been the subject of like a DDoS attack the last week or so.

Now, I shall break you.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Seems like things have taken a more reasonable turn. Anyway, I started organizing a few runs so far. Found some more interested players. Also started up a secondary guild (as in one that is not meant to be anyone’s main guild and which does not have representation requirements). It’s basically a specialized extra list of friends and contacts. Anyone who is interested is welcome.

Hey just curious Duke, what’s your stance on people using non Meta builds? You cool with people using cleric guard, shout heal war, etc.?

That was awesome. Love the commentary as well, Swiftpaw!

Varies, but usually late night PST (I have a 2nd job that I work in the evenings).