Guild Wars 2

Power-Toughness-Boon Duration would be really really OP in zerg wars.

Anyhow, I really like to see a new dungeon based on the new mobs in Dry Top. They have interesting anti-stacking mechanics.

From what I have seen, your build fares better on point during team fight than off point and when getting focused. The might stacking is what stands out the most and you may have a bit of disadvantage by having to fight relatively close to your allies and enemies. However, Arcane Brilliance heals a lot if it hits 3 or more targets and a good burst heal when blasting the water field.

Your first problem is not the condi cleanse. It’s to disengage when the fight isn’t in your favor. As you’re more experienced in mesmer, I think Lightning Flash works better for you than Cleansing Flame.

Secondly, I think you overestimate how tanky you are. You clearly want a bit of everything, doing damage (traited for Piercing Shards, use of Arcane Skills), support (stack might, heal allies – Aquatic Benevolence) and… tank? (elemental shielding, even though you only have limited access to Frost Aura via blasting the Ice elemental and your ice field). However, you are heavily dependent on thieves for Vuln as you don’t generate Vuln by your own. Your might starts to drop the moment you get focused or busy healing and you lack a quick burst when your thief friend successfully landed vuln on your enemy.

Well, imo, Piercing Shards doesn’t do much for you. I would pick Cantrip Mastery, as the longer the fight, the better the support role becomes.

I really like CM, as the bonus of grinding for the ascended assassin accessory. Whenever I pug with my mesmer, I always feel that she has to work extra hard to carry people with all sort of reflect, stealth and stability. Her DPS is usually underappreciated by the almost ignorant pug even though the fight is usually long enough for her to put down all three phantasms infinitely.

Then enters my thief. She starts practicing solo the bomb part in p1 and all the stealth/skipping part. I notice how my normal pug runs have become significantly longer. My thief once was in a group with three mesmers and she was the only one to put down smoke screen. My guilty pleasure is I can alway stealth myself and disengage whenever the pug decides to do something stupid, like fighting Wahlen and his minions in the open room, or pull the whole chamber of bandits prior to the last boss. I let them die and return to res the aftermath. Am I allowed to hope they will learn something?

I choose Chaos Triden over Kraitkin. I’m so inferior now

Dub.1273:

Sanderinoa.8065:

Dub.1273:

Sanderinoa.8065:

Iris Ng.9845:

Great. No me. I hate you.

sulk in a corner

XD sorry you’re too new

As rT former that doesn’t go for me. :c

Lorek’s challenge is way too easy, if you think about it. He could possibly consider haviz a friend.

I wanted to put you in, dub but I cant go giving people lagg as a reward. I think we can agree that it would have been the only suitable thing.

Thinking about,

Sanderinoa.8065:

This is why, after playing the game thoroughly since beta, I thought it was time to do a small tribute to those who have influenced me and the guild rT.

creating the guild & organizing most of our early state records doesn’t possibly count?

:-(

Can’t compare it to lag tho.

Edit: There’s also lack of hono(u)rable mention of Wethospu. I’d say he had a pretty great influence too, forming [SOLO], which together with a few other members happened to be the core or [rT] roughly one year and three months ago.

In Sandy’s defense, I’ll give my lovely self to you as the reward and Sandy was the one who first introduced me to you and [rT] after all.

Oh shjt.

13. Volcano fractals

Erm, for this one, I prefer D/F simply out of my stubborness/defiance as a friend of mine once told me: “You died a lot, pick a staff and keep yourself alive at range.” <- rage

Well, to be honest, using a focus at the Grawl Shaman boss is certainly easier to rez people and protect your group against the lava minions.

As for the trash mob at the beginning part, just abuse all your blind and burst skills.

Great. No me. I hate you.

sulk in a corner

6. Cliffside

• Situations: boss leaps around, has deadly projectile attack and minions hits haaaaarrrddd.
• After Burning Speed is nerfed, D/F just loses its lustre to me. Using staff here is completely do-able. You need to use blind on trash mobs the whole time, lightning hammer plus sandstorm is recommended. For the boss fight, be careful not to spam auto attack/ Deep Freeze on him while his protection icon is on. I would always keep Arcane Shield to tank hit while casting Meteor Shower. Lightning Flash is a must during the skip/run.

7. Underground Facility (Dredge)
I would stick to x/F until the last boss or the second to last boss. Having a projectile block just makes life extremely easier here. As you cannot use blind here, try using Glyph of Power to apply weakness while staying on the platform and use all the nuke skills (Ice bow, Lightning Storm) when the dredges are nicely rounded up. The rest are easy mode.

8. Aetherblade Fractal
Everything will be alright until the last boss’ room and everyone decides to stack in the corner. Ele will need a lot of stability and they melt very fast if DPS isn’t up there. If such is the case, go with traditional Caroussel method with your staff (because I really don’t know how to survive stacking with a mediocre group). I myself prefer Scepter/ Focus, given the CC and the quick single target burst of the set. Two things need to be watched out for; a. the pull and b. the confusion stack. I find Ether Renewal/Arcane Shield or Armor of Eath/ Glyph of Air/ Arcane Wave or Arcane Blast works really well here. Build wise, if using staff, 6/4/0/0/4, traited for Arcane Lightning and Arcane Mastery.

9. Thaumanova Reactor
It’s fairly easy life here as every trash mobs seem to focus on a tiny ledge/area. Blind. Blind. Blind them. Watch out for the ooze boss’ shield when you use Meteor Shower on him. For the last boss, if you have trouble surviving, I recommend having Glyph of Elemental Harmony/ Lightning Flash/ Arcane Shield or Mist Form/ Ice bow; other wise, Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Ice bow and Lightning Storm. Just don’t ever aggro the boss first.

10. Jade Maw
Again, blind is the beast here. The Colossus reflects all the range damage so you shouldn’t go with staff. Blind everything with Lightning Hammer and it’s so easy here. The Irukanji is tricky with their massive damage after stealth so Obsidian Focus helps a lot. The only thing I could think of staff is having a sigil of leeching and auto-attack the boss in Fire, but a rifle warrior or a ranger can do much better than you.

11. Molten Boss Fractal
a. Your group is experienced with melee-ing and ask for stacking. You should use x/F for Might stacking and Swirling Wind during burst (after reflects).
b. You group is a mess. Go with whatever you feel comfortable with. Staff is by far the better range weapon but S/F is easier to play with more protection. It’s really up to you. I would advise against Dagger MH because Molten Firestorm has the tendency to drift away to the edge (or gets pushed) and it’s really annoying for having no options to range him.

12. Mai Trin
Staff is totally do-able! Get your own protection from Conjure Earth Shield. As her shield goes down to 4 or less, feel free to burst her. Ice bow with Deep Freeze is really really solid to create these burst windows.

If you have any other specific questions, please do tell. It’s been a long time since I last was active in fractals so I may forget details here and there.

I don’t know about Miku’s (I didn’t read his lengthy text), but in my opinion, go with any weapon set you’re the most comfortable with. I have a fair share of bad pugging with no reflects, blind and condescending range heavy. If you don’t have the protection that you deserve to go all insanely high damage out, feel free to be selfish and use staff. Some pointers:

1. Swamp:

• Situation: No reflect, aegis, everybody range.
• Scenario 1 – Mossman: Staff is better than D/F to cleave all the wolves. You don’t want to deal with too many wolves on top of Mossman. If you are out of his range, use Magnetic Aura as soon as he goes out of stealth to reflect the axe. I recommend keeping an ice bow for Deep Freeze, Arcane Shield and Arcane Wave. You can use Lightning Flash if finding yourself in a pinch frequently. Build: 64004 (Renewing Stamina + Blasting Staff or Elemental Attunement) or 64022 (for Healing Ripple)

• Scenario 2 – Bloomhunger: Get Arcane Wave, Deep Freeze, Glyph of Storm, and Elite FGS. If you see he spits poison onto you while casting Meteor Storm, use Burning Retreat to quickly interrupt yourself.

2. Urban Battleground:
Staff is a well rounded de-facto weapon here. A lot of CC and AoE damage that can be put into use. Get Arcane Shield, Glyph of Storm and Ice Bow. Build should be 66002, traited for Tempest Defense. Try to synchronize the Storms with your CC skill: Sandstorm with Unsteady Ground, Lightning Storm with Static Field and Ice bow. Burning Retreat should be ingrained in your reflex whenever you see an Ascalonian Warrior rushing towards you.

3. Uncategorized

• Situation: everyone panics and is left to his own device.
• Staff isn’t very good when you do the jumping puzzle part and ele has very limited access to stability. Nevertheless, I advise you to bring Sandstorm and Lightning Hammer here. Against the champion, I prefer D/F for their snaring/control skills, but dodging the Fire Shaman when you’re within his melee range requires a lot of practice with precision movement. Staff is doable if you can reflect his throwing fire ball and you can use Earth elemental as a relatively durable tank. I would even use Arcane Shield/Mist Form to pick up the down. For Old Tom, just go full offensive so you can burst him as fast as you can. For the last fight, I strongly advise using x/F so you can make use of Obsidian Flesh if getting focused by the Raving Asura. Of all kitty golems, Baron is the deadliest, but he is a vet, you can use LH to focus on him first then take your time for the other golems.

4. Snowblind

• Situations: lots and lots of knock back. No reflect.
• I admit I have never tried going full staff there because all the vet ice elementals gave me OCD about reflect. They are very annoying to deal with if you decide to use staff there. For the last boss, it doesn’t matter which weapon to use, just go full offensive.

5. Molten Furnace

• Situations: assuming the same useless group, plus mobs spike extremely hard.
• Nothing can save you, even D/F if you don’t react in time. Blind is key here. As the mob is group up, Sandstorm → Eruption → Lava Font → Meteor Shower → Lava Font → Lightning Hammer. For this map, I suggest keeping Lightning Hammer and Sandstorm up to the last test room, when I would get Ice bow, Glyph of Storm and Armor of Earth. Build wise, there isn’t much room to dodge, you can trait 64020 to get a bit of condi cleanse and more HP (die to burning slower).

exp.

“At least, I did one path of this dungeon once.”

FYI, a guildie got a Saphir’s Armor chest from Champion boxes looted in dungeons.

sMihaly.1492:

GW1:
“I’ve done The Deep-Hard Mode yesterday”
“Gz mate, good job”

GW2:
“I’ve done fotm 50 yday”
“Did you get something good?”
“Nothing”

This one? http://i.imgur.com/G9JVt0ws.jpg

It’s the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Holographic_Shattered_Dragon_Wing_Cover

Ropechef.6192:

Random thoughts are random…

So I was sitting there Julliening my 25 pounds of carrots…

I am the amicable Pug,

I just finished leveling and gearing my 13th character…

Somethings i have learned about The game and me along the way.

People who complain about " lack of Build variety" are far to narrow minded.

I created so many People to satisfy the need of whatever group I could come across. For at least myself when I ask you what you need me to bring, And you say “whatever” I will be looking at the rest of the party and trying to figure out what will benefit the group the most. If you give me something specific. I will have it. I may not be the best Dagger/ Focus Ele or what have you, but if thats what you need, I have it.

Although I could certainly gear and level a “solo” character, I have no real desire to. I truly Enjoy the Team Aspect that this Game provides. Having gotten some chances to have been picked up By Death N Taxes for some casual tours I have been privileged enough to run with some of the games best players. Something that makes them stand above and beyond so many others is the sense of “team” that they hold. Much like a Kitchen Brigade, They are a band of Pirates that are capable of amazing things. (( and some day i hope to be good enough to be counted among them.))

Black Gate Is number one in WvW not because of numbers or coverage. But because they are a server of teams. They function together and work together. and they Win together.

((shrug))
Random thoughts are random…….

So I’m sitting here reading your random thought.

These days I’m too elitist to not be annoyed by some random pugs oblivious by being carried and too obstinate to take an advice. My enjoyment just drifts off.

Hmm… I’m thinking of making my 13th character slot for key farming. You know, Wooden Potato’s way. But I don’t want to dedicate on this. I’m way too involved in this game.

People who complain about ‘lack of build variety’ don’t even know how to play their ‘build’ properly. They just smash the buttons and call it uninteresting. Bleh.

Or some one would enter the dungeon and immediately designates me a role, a build, and asks me to stick with it. Meta is It, I got It. But that’s not how I enjoy playing. Like,

Lua’s team is great. Atoi is awesome. They don’t stick with a perfect rotation. Yet, somehow they pull off everything effortlessly and smoothly. Hmm, like swapping to multiple weapons and change to different trait set during a run. Like noticing the lack of swiftness and calmly, quietly provide it. Which reminds me… like Sandy, or Marc, or Abe. I just appreciate their warm concern. Team fight spirit. Team fight. World v World.

Black Gate is great place to look for a big team fight. I like tagging all the guild raids. They did not ostracize me and I’m happy to offer my best.

The season was fun. Glad it ends in time.

Now, what should I try next…

Dub.1273:

Dub.1273:

I’m as useless as I have always been.

You’re my emotional support. So that’s fine!

Log: Ivan wants to change his guild tag.

Greetings to Mentors and everyone involved,

This coming weekend, I’m gonna do an over haul for the info pages of the Dungeon Mentors [Noob] thread. If there is anything you want to change particularly (inactivity, guild tag change), please leave a reply here so I can re-write your info accordingly.

In addition, [Noob] is always open for new Mentors and Staffs. If you are interested in joining our team and/or want a different assignment (for example, from meta to Arah only), please let me know swiftly.

Lastly, I want to make an addendum for Mentors who are located in Asia/Pacific/Australia areas and play actively during this time frame. If you want to be added in the list, speak up (softly).

To students who happen to read this message, if you would like to suggest any improvement to the guild, feel free to start a discussion.

Thanks all and with love,

Iris

We don’t only teach effective runs. At times, our mentors schedule All-welcome Arah tours during week-end for people who need the Dungeon Master Achievement as well. All you need is ask.

Ele: Lightning Flash
Guardian: Judge’s Intervention
Necro: Death Shroud skill #2 and Summon Wurm
Mesmer: Blink, Phase Retreat (some locations)

OP, those are all great choices, but do question yourself: Which classes are you most comfortable with?

For example, I find myself dying and play at much less potential as an warrior than as an ele (my main). My engi does combo not as fluidly as my ele. On top of that, playing ele has come naturally to me to instinctively know how to use which skills and when they are off CD. So when I need to be serious and focus, I know I can do my best with my ele. That’s why I invested on her a lot (full ascended armors, 4 legendaries, 5 ascended weapons and several alternate sets of armors and weapons for min-maxing)

Staff guard is good. Sometimes

Now if you can send me some words, instead of trolling here >.>

I just want to drop a note that all the invites have been sent. Thank you for your patience.

Most OH legendary weapons don’t have a foot step

Why don’t you make Meteorlogicus? It can be used by guard/mesmer/ele/necro.

Guardian. Because the biggest problem in fractals currently is stability. One hell of a problem.

TC is really scary when it comes to playing in a big number. Sometimes we BG can’t find a shadow of TC anywhere, yet bamf! they show up in 30-40 and swiftly take our keeps without any notice, or pour from out of nowhere and push us to defense. Our scouts have troubles following the movement of TC’s zerg.

Phantasm mesmer is cancerous for speed run, guys * whistle *.

Back to the first Tournament held by DnT, No FGS was clearly the crowd’s favorite. I bet they are even more popular than [SC]. Are they from a ‘pro’ guild? Nope. But their effort are widely recognized.

Very well done, [SC]. Your sacrifice is beautiful as well, Jerem <3

Jerus.4350:

I’ve actually yet to do SE2, personally just not a big achievement hunter so never felt the need to get the title and never had a group interested in SE2 so just never did it. It was the same with Aetherpath until recently when some cool kids carried me through

Contact Kevin. We [Club] could totally set that up with you for fun

You should be fine staying at max melee range. Source: http://gw2dungeons.net/?CLIFF

9/10
Very nice and original look. It just doesn’t exude the ‘death’ feeling that you have described. But I still like it since it’s different.

Here is my necro. She does not symbolize as a servant of death! It’s the opposite of her religious belief. As a shaman of the Raven spirit, she cures conditions and uses wit (not minions) to win against the enemy. She is towering huge, like a walking artillery at the front line of any battles. That is where she is feared as the harbinger of death, a very painful death.

Necro has a huge burst and is quite good for short encounters as well as fractal of the mist where inexperienced ele would have a hard time with keeping up their survival.

For staff, it’s all about awareness of your position. I’ve tried pure staff, no LH last night in fotm 30. It’s just plain easy and lazy.

Bumping! Sexy kitten hug for everyone \o/

Helos.3215:

Hey Predator, requests seem to have dried up a little recently so I though I’d ask for another

I have a female Charr necro, and I’d like an outfit that has no elements of skulls/death/green/black/evilthings in it. I’d like it to look almost sexy, classy and dignified, only please stay away from typical girly pinks + purples

It’s just my bit of arrangement while RoyalPredator isn’t here

I went with an opulent, courtier theme and a rich jewel palette.

Ben K.6238:

Wouldn’t exactly call DK capable of open-field… Janggun yes, back in the day, although I’d be curious to see how something the size of WM would work these days.

Jang Gun is back!!! I’m in Black Gate and had a pleasure running with him this past weekend. If he’s online during the Korea prime time, he often brings enough [WM] to make a decent raid team and rouse up a huge zerg. (They have two or three fantastic mesmer and amazing frontline). We rushed the enemy blobs so hard until most of [WM] went to bed. At this point, our zerg was sorta falling apart as Jang Gun isn’t a communicative type (language-barrier) and many new players in BG don’t know and/or agree with his style of fighting. Jang Gun’s group is still the best for its “sticking-tight-to-the-commander-and-fighting-hard” kind of zergs.

I’m not a regular in Black Gate but from my time in Gandara [EU], I would nominate Lord Aragorn [Val], very courteous and educating.

Dub.1273:

Iris Ng.9845:

I love brainstorming. If RNG is a concerning factor, then how’s about going wild with RNG?

Let’s call it the “precursor tournament” and give the first place to the team who gets dusk first?

Oh, you
Nat from [SC] would totally win this one, hands down. He pulled dozen of precursors from the forge by sheer will.

Like this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/fangen/Affordable-Art-1G-Sketches-and-More-FULL/first

Pretty nice. Even paid commisions with discount is nice, too.

I have an idea of asking artists for giving out free commisions to our streamers. It requires someone with a good connection to approach the artists :p

Oh, participants don’t have to stream. But, they are encouraged to volunteer for streaming. If you are a streamer, here are some benefits:

• Instant publishment to your stream. Participating in a tournament is always a hotter topic than some daily zerging/farming/dungeon tour.
• You may earn a (small) bonus prize from our generous sponsors.
  From the host’s point of view, if you have greater than 30% of participants are able to stream, it is feasible to just roll the dice to distribute the streamers out for each team.

To Giannis, here is the flow of my thought:

• This tournament has risks; the biggest one being RNG that the skill levels won’t be even and other teammates can be the deciding factor of my own chance of winning
• Thus, it can’t go with the normal ‘face-off’ format.
• To lessen the risk, I propose a method to advance-to-the-next-round-by-not-losing. For the first few rounds, it is fairly easy to make sure my group not fail by being competent enough, proactively using communication and paying attention at the group’s synergy. Take a look at our regular pugging routine, the run always goes smoothly when the mood is relaxing and people know how to run that path.
• By shuffling through different teams, (and if surviving through the mayhem), I get to know others’ strengths and weaknesses as well as have fairly equal chance to group up with good players.
• Bad groups get eliminated eventually (Sorry, can’t help). There are always reasons for a huge flop. May it be a lack of communication that makes the group fails at a stealth skip or my group can’t handle the heat of a single boss (looking at you, Lupi).
• Even if I can totally carry the rest of my group and solo-finish the whole dungeon, it is still a pug fail experience, right? It’s not that entertaining to watch so I don’t really deserve that top prize (Top prize= top-notch performance). But worry not, I am still likely to get the Audience’s Choice award.
• Now let’s think about the groups which are slightly more competitive than mine and most likely winners. In later rounds, they have to work a hell lot with others to secure their (personal) win. That means no bull-kitten, no yolo, no mistake, no in-fighting. It can be intense but their RNG right now is down to some mishap during the run. It can’t be because of the four other noobs that ruins my pug.
• Eventually, the winners emerge. They are probably the friendliest, loveliest, most talented, caring, patient, adaptive, enjoyable people whom all of us want to add to our “Pug Wish list”. (They are real, some always get invited into runs more often than us. They are already pug winner!)
• After writing this, I realize it boils down to social skills more than anything. But heck, it is a community event. So, why not?

GiannisPapapa.4961:

I might have misread but how exactly does this idea of a tournament eliminate RNG?

It doesn’t eliminate RNG. Staying true to its name, it embraces the chaos of pugging and rewards people who make it a good sport.

I propose that each registrant should indicate their ability to stream when signing up. Ideally, we want to have at least 6-7 streamers in a 20 people pool. Then we just have to roll the dice/shuffle over and over until we get at least one streamer in a group.

Maybe, giving a bonus for ‘streaming’ in the participant prize :>

We can totally have more than one dungeon path per round and tally the scores. Smart people having experiences with their previous group members may want to devise strategies to help their current group counter-play the others. I think it’s fun, too. I know some are really into theory-crafting.

I love brainstorming. If RNG is a concerning factor, then how’s about going wild with RNG?

Firstly, since it’s a PUG, the victory of this competition depends much on the individual skills, leadership and social interaction. I would suggest shifting the prize to focus on exceptional individuals. For instance, winners are entitled MVPs (Most-Valuable Players) and/or Audience-choice MVPs.

Secondly, RNG is only fair when it’s truely random (imho). Make it a solo challenge! The format would change to something similar to Musical Chairs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_chairs):

• Let’s say, there are 20 participants randomly divided into 4 groups.
• In the first round, 4 groups compete in the same dungeon path. The slowest group will get eliminated.
• After the first round, the remaining 15 players get shuffled into new 3 groups.
• In the second round, the slowest group loses out.
• In the last round, the remaining 10 players get shuffled again and compete as in two new groups.
• The victorious group will be named MVPs. They deserve it for lasting through this pugging mayhem.
• 5 more Audience-choice MVPs will be rewarded to excellent players of the failing pugs. Their groups may have lost but their great effort of carrying their party members should be recognized and rewarded.

Thirdly, this tournament is simply for a refreshing fun. Based on my history, I have been pugging with quite a lot of elite guilds and players. I have witnessed plenty of hilarious fails as well surprising comebacks when people adapted to a lesser experienced player like me. Then I start to notice what sets a legendary player from good ones, and group players from solo ones.

Hey guys, the invites have been sent out to you. As a reminder, our guild has mentors actively playing in both regions, NA and EU. Please check out their ranks before you contact the mentors in your region. I hope the new mentees receive the help they are seeking for.

Hey guys, I have sent out the invites to requestors up to a week ago. Let me know if you are missed.

It almost solo’d Lupicus!

- I… Am… Groot ?!!
- Oh, Groot! No, please. No!

Come back and see a very, very lovely mesmer :x

frifox.5283:

PvE: Return of the Engi

Rise of the engi.*

Just want to say hello to everyone and pass this info around:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/events/PvP-Win-a-Precursor-from-1v1-Tournament