Guild Wars 2

From my experience FoTM 50 is easier in pug than FoTM 49. This is mainly because of the gear check. I believe players who are serious(AKA the tryhards) about FoTM will go out of their way to get 70AR which cost a lot of money and a long time to acquire. You will get better players in your group so the run will be better.

Pugging dungeons is like a box of chocolates, you never know what are you gonna get. Pugging FoTM 50, 50% of them run non meta builds but it is surprisingly smooth most of the time. FoTM 50 is definitely the number 1 choice for pugging in my books.

Chances are most of the new players who are getting kicked are not going on forums but instead just won’t touch dungeons ever again.

What I think can solve the problem is a dungeon reward option called “gold share.” Basically you get 5man reward split amongst the number of people in your party. This way when you decide to solo,2man,3man a dungeon to make it more difficult for yourselves you can get more gold reward,and you can enjoy all the boss mechanics in all its glory. And because this is an option you probably won’t want to join a LFG group with that option selected so it will not introduce party kicking situations.

Jerus.4350:

EcoRI.9273:

11.) Party members may not abuse trait swapping to refresh ability cooldowns. e.g. Mesmer Blink, Guardian Wall of Reflection in order to facilitate a second use of the skill prior to its natural cool down.

Thief Shadow Step can be replaced with a skill, no trait swapping required. Is ability cooldown manipulation without trait swapping allowed?

… Can you do this? If I shadow step but don’t use the teleport back I will teleport back when I change the skill. If I run out of range I’ll still teleport back just not all the way back.

With that, if there’s some trick to pulling it off and it’s not standard I would think that would fall under the same thing as say a double wall, you’re doing something to manipulate the ability. If you can just do it, like say Engi Turrets or Guard SotA, then I don’t see why it would be a problem.

again curious on the shadow step thing because I remember I used to be able to do it but then at some point it stopped working for me.

Yes you can do it and it is very very useful for coe laser. I just want official statement as this is on the ambiguous side of the rules.

11.) Party members may not abuse trait swapping to refresh ability cooldowns. e.g. Mesmer Blink, Guardian Wall of Reflection in order to facilitate a second use of the skill prior to its natural cool down.

Thief Shadow Step can be replaced with a skill, no trait swapping required. Is ability cooldown manipulation without trait swapping allowed?

Just some examples of the speed for [iQ] casual dungeon tour

http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/6143311 (se p3 5:56)
http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/6143241 (TA F 8:20)
http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/5950600 (cof p1 6:10)
http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/5950578 (ac p1 8:20)
http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/5950558 (arah p1 13:35)
http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/5950545 (cm p3 4:20)
http://www.twitch.tv/eco_r_i/c/5950467 (cm p2: 4:28)

Also as a side note most of the members in [FGS] for the first [DnT] 5man tournament were from [iQ].(Placed 4th in tournament)

uwsc in gw1 required these summoning stones for parties and very dedicated roles. These summoning stones are dropped upon completion of uw. Granted these summoning stones can be bought but overall it was not that bad. I mainly played pvp in gw1 so I didn’t really have time to get those stones so i bought like 150 of them from people, which then allowed me to join “good” pugs. I never knew speed clearing existed in gw1 so I can’t tell how much slower it was compared to an organized group. Again I was able to carry my own weight in uwsc as there were alot of videos on youtube to show what tera sins should do in a pug group. I wonder if anybody has required 250 pristine relics for their fotm pug groups :-\

Rising Dusk.2408:

I think the only kind of filters that make sense are objective filters, not things where people classify themselves. If they want to do that sort of thing, they can say it in the LFG text itself. The problem with subjective or self-assigned filters is that they can be falsified. A newer player can claim to be advanced and get into trouble in groups and result in the same bad experience for everyone as we have now. We want the system to be robust at keeping players playing with exactly who they want to play with.

The thing about filtering systems is that sometimes the things you don’t want just get through but what it does do is decrease that amount. I mean kitten even Heisenberg with his one hundred and one purifying steps(filtering) for making meth can only go so far. No matter how good a filtering system is, it does not guarantee 100% good experience. Imo all it has to do is to be able to good enough most of the time. I think the filter system will definitely eliminate a lot of toxic players for the beginner levels, which I feel is the most important aspect. If beginners are having a good time, there is a good chance of getting fresh blood into the dungeon community. As for advanced, that is where most of the toxic players will be imo. In league most bronze v think they are gold and that the reason they stay in bronze v is because of their teammates lol(bad skilled players thinking they are good and blaming others). and in League its called Elo Hell because of how toxic those people are.

Caeledh.5437:

phys.7689:

at least try to come up with something fairly simple that will achieve the same effect.

I thought I did and posted it but it seems to have either gone unnoticed or been considered so dreadful as not bear commenting upon.

Make dungeons like the current dailies. Rather than each dungeon path being it’s own daily with it’s own reward, have the game randomly select a few dungeon paths each day and provide a bigger reward for properly completing those (eg. killing all mobs).

The reward / time for full completion could be perfectly equivalent to the current scheme.

If the game also disabled skipping cutscenes for the selected dailies that would fix the problem of newer players never being able to watch them (without aggravating the speedsters).

Everyone could still earn rewards at the same rate. Speed runs would still be possible but there’d be much, much less incentive to do them. You wouldn’t be (speed) running the same dungeons every day so it might feel less repetitive. Newer players should have an all round better experience.

In my opinion the root of the problem is there are very different types of players in guild wars 2 and some just don’t mesh well together no matter what. Some players like to kill all things and some want to skip all things. Your system is telling players to play how your system wants(aka how you want) which in my opinion is bad.

I would love to have at least these 2 filters:

1: state your level of expertise : beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
I would assume that the most toxic players would most likely be in advanced setting so new players will more likely get a friendlier experience. This also means that advanced players who are willing to teach beginners can change their level of expertise setting to help newbies(Noob mentors are a good example of this)

2: What classes you want in your party:
4 slots: default = any and you just select the class that you want
so example could be:
level of expertise: beginner;
slot 1: any
slot 2: any
slot 3: any
slot 4: any
level of expertise: advanced;
slot 1: ele
slot 2: ele
slot 3: war
slot 4: guard
You can only see groups in your level of expertise.
You can see the desired classes option in the LFG so you can get a sense of how well people know the meta and how loose they want their group comp to be then you can join the appropriate group. Of course if you are running necro as advanced you can only see groups with necro desired or any options so GL(troll face)

Now there is no guarantee that people will be running meta builds but if a person thinks they are advanced it is more likely they will be running meta builds

Maybe taunt just increases the hidden “threat” level used to calculate the enemies target by a crazy amount for x seconds.

If you guys remember the last FoTM tourney one of the guild went really far with the AH guardian. Personally If taunt is actually a viable source of CC that allows for the introduction of a tank, I can see a viable/fast meta coming out of it. You basically have 4 DPS that will never down and will probably require to dodge less. Vacuum dps rotation is legit and apparently highest dps ele trait is one where you must have full endurance and 100% hp.

Relevant for those that dorm in college: Remember how you have to fill out that roommate preference sheet? Well anyways I was brutally honest and said that I was a nerd and love video games, they paired me up with another dude who loved video games and he was a really good roommate. LFG needs a filtering system so you get the best possible teammates you can get. I mean kitten if I got stuck rooming with a pothead that listens to heavy metal all day I would’ve flipped the kitten out.
TL:DU zerker speed clearers and people who love to take their time are just too different and can’t mingle well, introduce a LFG system that resolves this like the stuff that are suggested from that FF XIV system or some other system that allows filtering.

I can see some uses of forcing the mobs into a LOS spot. The best example would probably be SE p3 clown car where you taunt all of the dredges into the low ceiling area so their bombs can’t hurt your team or you taunt and use icebow 4 at the same time for trash groups that you have to fight.

Here is what I suggest, have a “Beginner” check box in LFG that is always checked unless the player uncheck them. This option is autosaved so once you uncheck it will always be unchecked. This way we shift the blame in LFG where people can say, if you didn’t want to get kicked you shouldn’t have unchecked that beginner box.

insanemaniac.2456:

imo “extra stats” is precisely the wrong direction to take the rewards for any content, especially with an exponential price curve

I would agree too but the items are already in the game. A player can get +70extra offensive stats past the ascended gear level if they don’t mind spending over 1k gold.

I want to be able to buy 1power/1 AR infusions that can be combined to be more powerful stats(2^n-1). Considering that it cost me 1500g to get 12 +5power infusions for my thief. I basically have reached a point where I have nothing I want to buy now and a stats reward would be nice.

I have all of the fotm achievements and I got 99% of the them without knowing about them. I think the only one that I actually tried was the chicken one in ascalon and the crab one in jade maw.

I think the warden in TA is completely disabled, he just sits there. But this boss is still using 1 skill. So then the rules becomes ambiguous.

Hi my team has been practicing for the DnT trio tourney and we are unsure of some of the rules on the gw2dungeon speed clear. I don’t want to give away some strategies so I will be vague so I apologize in advance. So you know how if you wall Lupi, he will not perform some of his skills. Now there is another boss in this game where if you abuse positioning he will only use one of his skills. He is technically not disabled since he is using his skill but that spot basically makes him unable to use his deadly skills, is that considered safe spotting?

For SE p3, is ranging the clown car in the middle level considered safe spotting?

I think most people in fotm 50 know what they are doing but for the most part it is mainly because everyone’s strategy is different. A good example is snow blind fractal where I was playing thief and they wanted me to destroy the elemental source top instead of their ele or warrior. I personally thought it was stupid because

1: cluster bomb takes forever to kill the source and it is not a set and forget skill like the warrior F1 longbow burst. So if I am ever knocked down it will take much longer than expected(and a good wombo combo knockdown chain means GG.) Set and forget skills for source top is the way to go imo.
2: The veteran eles are more dangerous and it is better to allocate the thief to blind them.
3: I burn all my initiative trying to kill the source top and afterwards I am useless for 12secs.

Anyways maybe it worked for them when they had another thief but we wiped 3 times there.

I like the fact that FoTM rewards are very different from dungeon rewards. For a new player, FoTM rewards are amazing since they will give them bag slots, ascended trinkets and fractal skins. The problem is that veteran players already have most of these and getting rewarded with something we already have is almost the same as getting nothing. I think a cool reward could be the ability to get those +stat/ar infusions but make them account bound and make it so equipment pieces just feeds on them when we apply it so we don’t need to constantly MF them. For example let’s say my helm has a +1power, if I feed it 2 +1powers it becomes +2power, and if I feed it 4 +1powers it then becomes +3 and so forth.

I usually just do what I find is fun for the day if I am pugging, which is usually always cof p1 and then off to fractals.

I am missing
Greatsword, mace,axe,shield and the speargun

I consider myself pretty lucky since i got 2 fractal daggers(decided to make a thief after getting 2 daggers) and 3 swords before the wardrobe patch.

Also LF a fotm group!

what is this? CM Path 2: Using the barrel “safe spot” is disallowed.
and is the brie dome considered progress blocking?
SE p3 clown car, is hiding in the middle level where most of the aoes can’t hit you considered safe spotting?

spoj.9672:

Id definitely buy a perma hair stylist contract before i bothered with this.

You are gonna hate me but here goes: I have a perma hair kit

Taku.6352:

I guess you got them for your necro.

I don’t own a Necro :-D

hybrid.5027:

EcoRI.9273:

No more Gear Treadmill! So I got them power infusions!
http://imgur.com/bxQ4TI4

Welcome to the min/max club.

Thanks I wonder how many people people in this game has +70extra stats.

No more Gear Treadmill! So I got them power infusions!
http://imgur.com/bxQ4TI4

Personally I would not kick a player for being bad. I have sat in 3hour mai trin fights and I blame myself just as much as I blame the bad players. If you are a good player you should be able to carry and therefore bad players should be a non issue unless of course you are not really a good player and can not carry and in which case bad player complaining about a bad player is ironic.

I just want to add that I am 99% certain for AC p2, the method to prevent detha from bugging is to not aggro anything before triggering Detha to go into the circle event. You can guarantee this by killing the oozes/gravelings that got aggroed or by stealthing into the room.

The entire announcement was a 10/10 for me until i realized “wait they never said anything about raids/dungeons.” Usually I would think raids would be a major feature that is worth a mentioning. I just dont know…………

I speculate no new dungeons

Jerus.4350:

EcoRI.9273:

Jerus.4350:

Thaddeus.4891:

Jerus.4350:

If every guard brought Hallowed Grounds and Wall of reflection in SEp1 I’d be so happy, sure you can run it without but just saying, Hallowed Grounds is quite amazing, and while it may not be an always thing (good point) it is a major tool in the guard’s kitten nal.

The thief thing, my point is that you don’t need to waste that third utility. If you use it for something, you can swap the signets, then swap them back in before the fight wherever you can (including the third slot) and rotate things around.

You make a good point though, IF you were to stick with a single utility setup what you said is right, I just felt the need to point out the possibilities of other things. Sticking to one setup is pretty silly when you can get quite a bit extra out of your play by being a bit more flexible.

Ya switching utilities is really important. I tend to play with about 12 different utilities most professions.

For the thief thing, what do you try to bring in fight with your 2 signets? There is not much other stuff that is really that good. I like to keep smoke screen for the blind in some particular fight, otherwise I like SR as a OMG my friend is down button. Otherwise what would you bring as a third utility in a fight? Shadowstep in heavy condi fight but that’s rare, haste bring dps but it can be dangerous, skale venom give vulnerability but I most group we already have that max out. For me most of the time, smoke screen or shadow refuge seem the best 3rd utility in the fight even if its only just in case.

Haste if I feel safe with it. Smokescreen for projectile defense. Roll for Initiative if i think I might really need it (I bring it on Abom for example, in case someone screws up defiance), Shadowstep for some fights (I bring it on Lupi), and then if nothing else at least Initiative Signet, might as well get the extra 1 per 10s, I can always swap it right back to my stealth stuff after the fight.

smokescreen is also worth 6 initiatives/30secs, heart seeker backstab only 3initiatives! it can be 9ini if you time it perfectly

I was always curious on this, is it a dps increase at higher health? HS certainly doesn’t pack that big of a punch at higher healths.

Usually i do
CnD backstab, auto chain.
if(RnGesus == Good)
{ //if the initiative is at 11 after the auto chain i will put this extra rotation in
CnD backstab, auto chain
}
Steal CnD backstab, auto chain,
smokescreen Heartseeker backstab auto.
Most of the time the enemy is below 50% when i use my smokescreen

Jerus.4350:

Thaddeus.4891:

Jerus.4350:

If every guard brought Hallowed Grounds and Wall of reflection in SEp1 I’d be so happy, sure you can run it without but just saying, Hallowed Grounds is quite amazing, and while it may not be an always thing (good point) it is a major tool in the guard’s kitten nal.

The thief thing, my point is that you don’t need to waste that third utility. If you use it for something, you can swap the signets, then swap them back in before the fight wherever you can (including the third slot) and rotate things around.

You make a good point though, IF you were to stick with a single utility setup what you said is right, I just felt the need to point out the possibilities of other things. Sticking to one setup is pretty silly when you can get quite a bit extra out of your play by being a bit more flexible.

Ya switching utilities is really important. I tend to play with about 12 different utilities most professions.

For the thief thing, what do you try to bring in fight with your 2 signets? There is not much other stuff that is really that good. I like to keep smoke screen for the blind in some particular fight, otherwise I like SR as a OMG my friend is down button. Otherwise what would you bring as a third utility in a fight? Shadowstep in heavy condi fight but that’s rare, haste bring dps but it can be dangerous, skale venom give vulnerability but I most group we already have that max out. For me most of the time, smoke screen or shadow refuge seem the best 3rd utility in the fight even if its only just in case.

Haste if I feel safe with it. Smokescreen for projectile defense. Roll for Initiative if i think I might really need it (I bring it on Abom for example, in case someone screws up defiance), Shadowstep for some fights (I bring it on Lupi), and then if nothing else at least Initiative Signet, might as well get the extra 1 per 10s, I can always swap it right back to my stealth stuff after the fight.

smokescreen is also worth 6 initiatives/30secs, heart seeker backstab only 3initiatives! it can be 9ini if you time it perfectly

After reading the OP’s post I am going to assume that he meant what a player want their ideal dungeon group to look like instead of what is optimal right now. UWSC in GW1 is my favorite dungeon of all times. The dungeon strategy that most pugs used involved 4 people soloing different areas of the map and a group of 4 doing another set of tasks. I think this can also translate really well in guild wars 2. AC story can be done using split tactics but the problem is the rewards sucks and it is pretty short. With the “expansion” announced I hope the designers can incorporate more split tactics into the new dungeons. Anways I want my ideal dungeon group to be one where there are 1 or 2 soloers and a group or 3-4 that does the main events of the dungeon. I think this way condition builds for the soloer can be viable in speed run dungeon groups.

If not then the most ideal comp atm imo
1war
1guard/mes
2eles
1thief
4iceblows/2glyph of storm for INSANE burst, good vuln,max might, stealth, perma fury, kitten ton of blast finishers, aegis, reflects, and battle standard incase you mess up

PUGs are just random, there are very good pugs, very friendly pugs, very bad pugs, very rude pugs. OP, you just got unlucky. I don’t expect this type of behavior to ever change. There are too many different kinds of people playing this game. From racists to the friendliest person in the world. You can’t expect having an angel behind that computer monitor every time. But what you can do is join a friendly guild that does dungeon runs and other things that fits your needs.

http://www.reddit.com/r/GuildRecruitment

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/lookingfor

Or go to Lions Arch in game and ask if a dungeon guild or a more casual pvx guild is recruiting

i have video of mister H in action about a year back!

http://www.twitch.tv/diabiosx/c/3444060

Playing thief in a pug group is stupid, 99% of the time no one blasts stealth or is blasting stealth incorrectly(I swear a good percentage of people can’t aim into the smoke fields). There is always this one guy who doesn’t know all the stealth spots and just runs ahead thus negating the reason to stealth since everything will be pulled to the next fight spot. This even happens in semi organized groups where there are people who are experienced in dungeon runs and are actually in dungeon running guilds. Play warrior if you dont wanna get kicked, its hardto blame anything on the warrior.

Question here: Who gets the reward for the rT vs FGS? rT or FGS? or Both?

RagNoRawk.3625:

I don’t necessarily agree that “Stealth >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> blind” because they serve completely different purposes. Stealth is very useful for skipping mobs. Blinds are very useful for completely mitigating most damage for your entire party from pretty much everything except bosses and dredge. Two separate mechanics with separate functions, both extremely powerful, both hard-carry through dungeons.

I always feel the need to point out to a new thief asking for help the power of blinds specifically because a lot of people watching thief videos or speed clears don’t always see all of the mechanics going into it and one of these commonly missed is blinds. When a team does a stealth run, it’s obvious, but a new player might not realize the importance of a smokescreen or a black powder during a trash fight. Blinds might not directly speed up a dungeon run but if pressing 5 with your pistol out as you and your team burst down the mobs stops a pug from going down it saves you the time that you would have spent rezzing them. It also allows your team to dps with out stopping to dodge in most situations.

I am absolutely not downplaying the importance of learning when and how to stealth. It is a function most people will expect you to know and perform at the right time with out being told. At the same time, people expect you to drop a blind on trash because its literally the easiest thing ever and mitigates most damage even after the black powder “nerf”.

Honestly for dungeons atm there really is no reason to blind as a thief. If you are blinding trash, chances are you could’ve skip those trash mobs using stealth or they melt in 1second that it is not even worth blinding.(Of course you can find some exceptions to this statement but its probably 90% of the time true).

FOTM blind is important.

Watch videos on how to stealth every path.
Stealth >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> blind. Why? because stealth speeds up the dungeon where as blind does not.
Once you learn all the stealth parts, make sure to tell your teammates to follow you. I swear to god there are bad players out there who think they are good and can not follow the thief and as a result gets people killed or severely delay the dungeon and then they go on to blame the thief. The most common one is the way aggro works while stealthed, and this applies mainly to CM and arah p1. You want the mobs to stop before moving on or they will just continue to follow you. Most players don’t understand follow the thief concept and will just run ahead and never consider why the thief is stopping at the spot to path the mobs.
My favorite is the players who don’t consider that every thief stealths differently, and as a result runs ahead of the thief thinking they are pro and kitten and then misses the stealth and gets themselves killed or worse; survives and pulls all the mobs to the group.

Which class is the most efficient at killing the thing on top? As a thief I run out of initiative with clusterbomb b4 I can even kill it.

szygum.2607:

Why this thread is still alive?

well apparently ice bow 4 trick is allowing for anti stacking strats to be viable now.

Wow that max range icebow 4 dodge trick is pretty hard to aim but pretty satisfying when it lands :-D

As a casual player who does not speed run, please correct me if I am wrong but if you can pull a boss against a wall in less than a second you should still do it because ice bow and glyph of storms will have their area attacks concentrated to only half a circle,effectively increases the rng chance of more damage.(the strikes can’t target the wall spots)

My thoughts on the tourney and getting more people to participate:
I think there is two thing stopping casual groups from participating.
1: They think they will not make it far in the tourney.
2: They won’t get rewarded. The previous tourney, I think as long as you make it past the first round each member gets 10 gold.

I think there should be rules to make casual teams feel like they have a shot at winning. Maybe someone here can think of a great one.
Here is my suggestion(probably not the best)
32 paths are simply too much to practice for a casual team. What if the first round only has AC/CoF/SE(most pugs run them) as choices to randomly pick from? And since only 2 sets get streamed, it shouldn’t feel repetitive for the viewers. This way pugs can practice the kitten out of AC/CoF/SE and feel like they did good.

PS: ban story, TAA and arah path 4 since they annoying as hell to practice.

I just want to add to the last few comments. It is actually very difficult to get 4 other people who are dedicated to do these types of events. Having participated in 2 prior, we usually always had 1-2 people not being able to show up for practice. Having people not willing to show up really demotivates every one else in the group and as time goes on more people get demotivated to practice with the feeling of “why should I sacrifice my free time when this guy said he would make it for practice and ends up ditching us and shows up when he pleases.”

TL:DR very hard to get a group together to do these types of events.