Guild Wars 2

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Wait… you’re using both thumbs to jump..? How?!?

He’s probably being dramatic, but I do actually make my mouse hand sore jumping because I squeeze my mouse too tight from the stress. Like that 3 minute long adventure in Tarir, I’ve never been able to finish it at all and wind up with a sore wrist. No idea how people can even finish it, let alone get gold or silver. I’m not whining and want it removed or anything, I just am unable to do it.

FrouFrou.4958:

It actually hurts when people say hurdur druid is not needed for raids. It’s my only toon (well, I gots level 80 necro but it’s not even geared up) so am I supposed to just.. Not do raids at all then?

Fluffball.8307:

And mah baby doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon according to the doctors so I’m tentatively planning on completing this for myself…

Ah, you are running minion master build irl? Gratsu! Soon the forums will be flooded and taken over by Fluffarmy!

Almost every group that has completed the entire wing has used a druid, or you can still run the regular damage rangers. I am just musing on whether after people get good at the encounters whether healing is QoL or would people rather just have more DPS. And I really hope I don’t wind up with that many minions!

SoftLight your posts are not contributing anything. The point of forums is to discuss things. You angrily yelling at people to do whatever they want is not why people come here.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@Fluffball
Druid is not a necessity but an improvement to raid sustain.
That’s the difference.

You still need a sustain of sort. Of course it can be Revenants, Engies and Eles – but it takes 3 people to do a thing that 1 could handle, while druid can buff 5 people’s DPS by 30%.
You can manage to beat a raid without a druid, but having one will help you bring it down much easier.

I’m sure it is easier, but is it worth it? For now you want a druid as your group does it for the first time, but do we always want a druid?

Even in PUG land I think it’s a clear “no”. Let’s see how much easier it makes it.

I don’t want to search through the SC and DnT and whoever comments because they’re scattered all over the web, but I understood that it is perhaps not even optimal to run healers? Is your thought on druid based around just wanting to play with a druid on the team, or would it make more sense to have healing from DPS engis and whatever else?

For the 3rd boss I think I can immediately find a bunch of comments saying a healing spot isn’t needed, and for the 1st even you said it wasn’t needed.

Again, I have no idea what I’m talking about, just trying to piece it together from 2nd hand info. And mah baby doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon according to the doctors so I’m tentatively planning on completing this for myself…

It’s been confirmed by several guilds (including turtledragon’s I thought?) that healing is not necessary for the entire first wing, so pure healing on a druid is likely a waste. Even in the DnT videos, watching the druid perspective was pretty cringe-worthy since she wasn’t doing much for the majority of the time. I haven’t read their breakdown of why they ran a druid at all in some instances, but since they had more than enough time to spare I’m guessing it was quality of life.

I’m sort of thinking DPS specs on other builds that can provide random healing, like viper engis are going to be the PUG comp.

I slapped some dungeon rabid armor on my berserker, and noticed the PvE damage even this bad gear does is completely off the charts. So I want to craft ascended condi armor. With no food, I’m currently sitting at 98% burn duration and 33% bleed duration. The question is, do you think I should go with full sinisters over vipers, since vipers will only affect the bleeds? Does full viper’kitten any important checkpoints on a sword warrior?

That’s my tentative plan, just want someone to tell me if I’m crazy or missing something before I blow a few hundred gold.

I have no real goal of where to use this, but maybe raids, maybe fractals, maybe even WvW roaming. I just have been enjoying the berserker and feel like gearing up an alt.

Danikat.8537:

I’ve always felt like condition duration was a bit pointless on a primarily condition build because you can often re-apply them faster than they run out.

That doesn’t make any sense. The goal is to not have 1 “stack” of condis up, it’s to have as many stacks as possible.

If you hit the 100% condi duration breakpoint, that literally doubles your condi damage. That’s huge.

Eldbrand Charging.8902:

GW1 when the Deep and Urgoz first opened, first couple of run’s took well over 12 hours with 12 players in well organized guild groups, a month later Pug’s did it in less than 4 hours.

I PUGed Urgoz in 24 minutes once. My HD crashed and I lost the screenie though.

PUGs are already clearing vale guardian, just a matter of time for the other 2.

That was very much my feeling for vale guardian, druids were a luxury. I’m interested in the next 2, apparently they keep getting harder.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

There’s not so much to be honest, but what there is of it you’ll need to do many many times.

I haven’t even tried many of the adventures. I don’t have half the more difficult mastery points. I have map completion on 1 character on 2 maps. I’ve only done one new JP. I’m a ranger main and don’t even have the electric wyvern.

There is a lot to do.

Raids are self-inflicted torture, open world HoT has so much to do I haven’t even done half of it after however many weeks. It’s not like casuals have nothing to do. And I don’t consider myself a casual.

Raids have been pretty consistently advertised as hardcore PvE. If anet backs down at this point, what hop is there for the future? Open world has WAAAAAAY more to do than raids.

Prophet.1584:

congrats on the baby! I’ve raised 2 and that’s enough lol

I watched that kill and i’m thinking I want to gear that way with exotics, i’d rather not craft a whole new set of ascended for raids.

Thanks.

I’m actually not sure which way I’m going with the equipment at all, because so many teams seem viable.

I have full ascended zerker on my ranger for obvious reasons, and full ascended cele for WvW purposes. I’ve been hoarding money wondering which way the raids go. I’m tenatively crafting sinister/viper ascended, but I have stockpiled a good 1200 gold to see which direction the meta rolls. I probably can’t do this with a guild group unless they’re all parents of newborns, so in 4ish months I’ll be pugging something with the best-in-slot gear and hoping not to get kicked.

I’m by no means an expert on this at all, but the setup I saw I liked the most was Brazil’s twitch kill of vale guardian. He had 9 DPSers and 1 full nomads druid. The druid worked as both tank and healer, which makes a ton of sense considering DPS specs typically cluster around a boss. Combined with sinister engis blasting waterfields on lightning circles, everything just made sense.

I have a baby fluffling due in like a day or so, so I’m not planning on getting good at raids for a very long time if ever due to obvious time constraints, but it’s fun to at least watch the progression. Can’t wait to see more people attempting the later bosses.

I haven’t touched my necro since I got her to level 80 because light armor on a charr looks awful. HoT finally gave me the finishes touches to make her look half-way decent, and I don’t mind playing her now!

Demon mask; tribal shoulders, gloves, and shoes; bladed chest; leyline pants.

From WPs video and hearsay, it seems like you really need more than just waterfields as you move on to the 2nd and 3rd bosses. Even if it is possible just by supporting each other, it’s probably just easier with a healer.

Aldath.1275:

I see DnT’s Rager Condi Build is based arround axe, but how effective is it?

It’s not, it’s based around torch. You use torch on quickdraw, just swapping to it on both weapon sets.

Tragic is right though, Brazil was hitting the vale guardian for 11k autoattacks (!!!) on his glass revenant when I watched him kill it. Power seems insane.

The video I posted literally directly above you doesn’t have a druid.

I also watched Brazil finish the first boss (tuned it right as he got it). His group used 9 DPS and 1 druid that was both healer and tank. I’m not sure how much that was needed though since everytime the party took damage the leader called for a stack and waterfield.

Tragic Positive.9356:

HoT content > Straight Condi (or hybrids)

I don’t agree with that. HoT open world encourages you to use both melee and ranged, and condi doesn’t really have a ranged option (SB, meh, bleeds). Also many of the enemies are extremely mobile and torch/traps are a lot less effective in that case.

Moogle.4908:

I heard that you can get more character slots for having the base game, is that true?

Not anymore, you had to preorder to get the bonus character slot.

This is super spoiler heavy, but it does “confirm” a healer is need for later on:

Also I hate reddit more than like, murder. Reddit is the worst thing that has ever happened to the internet and browsing it makes me want to kill babies. But whatever, good info.

Seems a little tactless by anet there. Everyone knows DnT had early access and I for one did not care about “world first”. This probably could have resolved better than by a forum post trashing their guild. Maybe just not invite them back if it was that big of a deal breaker…

90% of the first wing? You mean of the first boss? Vale guardian is not the raid wing, he’s the intro.

Raids are not for everyone. Anet tried to warn you, but people insisted they would rock out in their soldiers gear necro.

Lucky.9421:

Aradox.6140:

We managed to kill the first Boss with 3 Viper Engis, 3 Revenants, 2 Chronomancer,1 Druid and 1 Berserker.
Everyone was using Berserker gear except the Engineers, that used Viper Equipment.

Meta confirmed

Honestly… sounds pretty good!

You don’t get an hour, you get 8 minutes. And it’s not straight DPS, you have to deal with multiple different mechanics and the adds.

Staying alive is easy in any game mode, even PvP. It’s being useful that is hard.

Dungeons are literally impossible to fail, and can even be solo’d. Raids aren’t for everyone.

adormtil.1605:

Detail why do you need condi or power damage does he gets enraged if you do not kill him after a certain time?

Yes, does 200% extra damage. You need almost everyone to be in glass to get anywhere close to killing him. In addition, he has an add that is immune to power damage.

And that’s just the first boss, there are several more after!

You didn’t list what you liked about playing the professions. Any profession can play pvp, dungeons and raids, so you haven’t narrowed it down at all.

You can take each profession for a spin at level 80 in PvP. Make a level 2, play like 10 games with them and see if you like the playstyle.

Guardian/dragonhunter is pretty easy to play and desired in all game modes, maybe give that a whirl.

I’d guess he misspelled them on purpose to get the name.

Nobody rages at glorious hero armor.

Anet’s in a truly rough spot. They can’t give us engaging content without kittening off the PvE base.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

I got to last boss. It’s at least 3x as hard as during Beta (wich we already failed him with a tiny amount).

The vale guardian? That’s not the last boss, that’s the first boss. There are a bunch more after him.

In core Tyria you can literally stand in front of any enemy in full glass gear, and do nothing but hit autoattack to win. No healing, no dodging, nothing. That’s not casual, that’s a bad game. That barely even qualifies as a game.

Dahkeus.8243:

I think a lot of people are unhappy with the zerker/sinister/viper meta since it’s generally a strategy of making everyone in the group min/max their DPS since in other MMOs, there’s a need for players to min/max defense and healing.

However, until we see some damage that really taxes healers and “tanks”, building an ideal raid group is more of a question of min/maxing DPS while maintaining just enough healing and “tanking”.

The argument that has been brought up for years is killing the glass meta is bad for the game.

• A bunch of random damage that can’t be avoided with skill, so force people to passively absorb it with PVT? People are always going to run the glassiest possible spec. If you can get by with 91.25% zerk and the rest valks gear or something, that’s what people are going to run.
• Massive damage? Might as well run zerk and take active defenses/dodge.

I much prefer to use a block at the right time than to wear PVT and just sit there autoattacking.

Zerker = glass. A lot of people are referring to vipers and sinister as “zerker”.

TurtleDragon.3108:

There is a kitten ton of damage on the boss and its hard to heal with full clerics gear and staff camping.

A lot of it is avoidable though.

Which boss? How far did you make it? The first boss doesn’t put out that much damage other than via the big mechanics and a healer isn’t needed, but I haven’t seen the later bosses.

Haven’t seen more than the first boss, but it seems like DPS is a needed a hell of a lot more than healing. Probly regular condi ranger over any sort of druid.

Edit: Actually nevermind I can’t say that, I know DnT has said you’ll need different comps for each boss, so healing may be important in some cases.

People used to think dungeons were hard, too.

You’re a lunatic if you think d/d ele wasn’t the undisputed king of PvP for longer than any other build I can think of. Maybe spirit ranger had a longer run.

Oh he deleted his post, nevermind.

Why would they take an awkward skill and make it even more awkward??

Top 5 from any era, and lasted a reasonable amount of time (not just instantly nerfed after a week.) Ready go.

I’ll get everyone started, #1 is obviously d/d ele, now you can pick the other 4.

The general population and Anet themselves don’t understand why the glass meta will never change, though. The feeling I’m getting from the community is “haha, now my tank will shine in raids and the zerkers will be laying on the ground.” I actually saw a guy on the ranger forum suggestion nomads would ever be a thing.

No matter how brutal anet makes the meta, people will take the most DPS possible. If they want to add tiny ticks of unavoidable damage, people will run valks with assassins or something.

So many anti-meta people think raids are what they’ve been waiting for when I really feel it’s the total opposite. People who oppose the meta will probably not be able to finish raids at all whereas they can do dungeons with really slow times and no down states.

I think people are going to be furious because everyone is excited for raids. If they’re as hard as they’re made out to be, you’re going to have millions of people who want to do them who can’t.

I’ve seen a lot of posts along the lines of “haha zerker elitists will be lying in the dust while my ascended soldier’s gear causes us to succeed.”

What say you? Biggest cry-cry in the history of GW2 when only organized guild groups can complete them after multiple tries? Or farm-mode after gw2dungeons.net publishes the strategy? Place your bets now.

The quicker dungeon paths are reasonable money. I don’t make LFG dungeon groups, but if I see one I often join. It’s not insane money like it used to be but that doesn’t mean it’s not a bunch of free cash. If you have 15 minutes, why not earn half a gold plus drops?

You can play around with graphic options on the f11 menu. There quite obviously isn’t an option “make the GH floor less shiney” in the game.

There are also some legal 3rd party downloads like gemFX or whatever to further tweak graphics, if you’re super dedicated to this idea.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Plot Twist…. you can’t get into any active maps because the expansion flopped.

Brink usually has a low-medium population most of the time.

Auric Basin has a decent population….. but I’ve never seen the meta event succeed there.

Imho the best map out of the entire “expansion” is Tangled Depths…. and I’ve pushed the map to the Gerent about thirty times now…. and I have still yet to see it succeed.
Even when all the preparations are complete, and everyone taxis people in…. One of the lanes always fails.

You’re completely delusional. Or missing out. I’m not sure which. AB and VB are on farm mode at this point, they almost never fail. DS is effectively impossible to fail.

holodoc.5748:

Switch from zerker armor to PVT. Most people will probably say it’s stupid but I tell you, just try it out. You will gain a huge amount of vitality and toughness but your primary attribute, power, will still remain pretty high. What you lose on precision and ferocity you’ll compensate by using maintenance oil (adds precision based on toughness and vitality which you’ll have plenty with PVT) and ruby orbs or some offensive runes like Scholar. Additionally use “For Great Justice”, Signet of Fury (adds to precision), Signet of Might (adds to power) and Signet of Rage (useful for swiftness and fury). Always trait for “Warrior’s sprint” and use a greatsword which will allow you to escape mobs which use immobilize and do huge damage with traits from the Strength line.

In any case just try it. PVT will greatly increase your survivability while still allowing you to trait for great damage. You can also consider Knight’s armor which works even greater with maintenance oil however PVT is actually a better choice imho for HoT soloing on warrior.

That also literally makes you a worse player. It may make it more enjoyable in the shortrun, but next time you come up against a challenge, like in raids, you may very well fail because of the PVT decision.

LughLongArm.5460:

Fluffball.8307:

I can’t remember a time when SS didn’t trigger based on party members’ condi stat. I guess if everyone remembers it, it must have been like that a long time ago, but in recent memory it’s been based on individual stats. All of GW2 works like that, water fields, regen, guardian burns, frostbows, etc. All based on the “user”.

No sure about the others but regen ticks are calculated by the source healing power.

Ah you are right. It’s the fernhound that doesn’t work like that. This isn’t the first time nor the last time I’ll mess that up.

I’m 100% sure about the waterfield, frostbow, and guardian burns. Unless something has changed..

The funny thing is you can see this in some high profile streamers pretty consistently. The best PvP players tend to be incredibly hostile and blameful when they mess up.

It’s one of the reasons for my man-crush on ROM, he is IMO the best PvPer in the world and yet almost inexplicably remains humble. Phanta is another good example. It’s little wonder those are the 2 best teams in the world.

Also next time you have an interview, mention this phenomena, I landed a pretty high-end job once when they asked me if I was “good” at a particular skill.