Guild Wars 2

Ryn.6459:

Taku.6352:

But the harpies drop powerful bloods.

By the way, I have to craft an ascended armor for my Engi… As I want to main him for fractals. The current meta would be assassins, right? I wondering, tho, wether anyone has actually tested a mix with sinistre stats.

I wouldn’t go sinister because of current issues with condi’s and condi’s in general. Now in the beta preview HoT seems to have removed the cap on bleeds but you still have the burning issues. I’m curious on the math assuming no stacking issues on the difference, but I’d still say Assassin or Zerk would be the way to go as even if sinister may edge out those two I doubt it’d be by a large margin at all, and until HoT is released we still have those stacking issues (and maybe even after HoT they haven’t said stacks are going away).

Spoj you hit the nail on the head. Rasimir, I’m not trying to say that people should all dive into hours of Lupi training or something like that. I simply think that if ANet had say made all newbie zone hearts a bit more informative the game would be better. Players would be better on average and it’d allow a greater depth of content without excluding people because everyone would know the basics.

If every zone outside a city included a few hearts that had say an NPC sitting there telling you “he’s winding up, be ready to dodge… ok, 1, 2, 3 now dodge!” it’d help people learn to dodge. If there was one that analysed your profession and the combo fields available it could do something like “now equip your <insert weapon>, and use <insert skill with field> and now use your <insert skill with finisher>” or something like that. Something that helped teach you combo fields having a NPC guide you through it. Have a caster start a cast and “see there is the signs of magic (red circle) take note of this and when you see it be ready to dodge it, 1, 2, dodge!”

They do have a couple of little training hearts, but quite frankly they suck, there’s little to no guidance and honestly they’re harder to get the right dodge/block on than many enemies in the game, which is silly and I’m sure most people opted to simply not do them.

If they put in training in ways that were fun and informative, not stressful or vague we’d see players skill levels at a much higher level. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not asking that they put in mandatory training regimes or anything, I just think the game could go so much further if it properly taught it’s players how to play. And if it’s done well, it could be a whole lot of fun. I’m sure some of you have played the Call of Duty games, but they have a little training field in them, first level of the game, you run through and shoot the targets that pop up, honestly, one of my favorite levels in each game. Simple but very fun. That’s the kind of thing I think the game needs, simply something that guides you along to learn all your tools, and if done right it’d be like the CoD training fields, so much fun people would just repeat it for enjoyment to try to push themselves to get better times and for perfection. But at the least no one would walk around not knowing about blasts in combo fields, or not understanding that when the enemy does his big windup that you should dodge. Or that a red circle often means either an immediate dodge, or a 1…2…dodge count.

This is what the NPE should have focused on, not reorganizing rewards and locking out skills.

Zui.9245:

Fractal drop rate research in terms of rares: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2s35nz/fractal_rare_drop_research_potential_problem/

The amount of rares is decent, but not really that good IMO. Compare it to what you can get in a world boss train in the same period of time, and it’s really underwhelming especially when comparing difficulties and the fact most of the world boss train can actually be spent AFK instead of playing the game.

AFK or actually working doesn’t matter. They’ve set this game up so you can get comparable rewards for doing nothing. The game isn’t made so that the most skilled players can receive the most rather that the most unskilled can still gain everything. I don’t necessarily agree but I see their reasoning in that they don’t want people to feel that they can’t get what they want simply because they can’t excell at the game. It makes sense, they want this to be a game where it’s about simply being around and getting your highly costly items. It promotes gem sales (moneys) without requiring a ton of effort (more people in that position).

My question is simple, how does fractals rewards actually compare to dungeons? Do people actually have the raw data to compare?

My point is not to claim that fractal rewards are good, or even reasonable. But to simply ask the question at the end of the day, how much money value do you get from fractals? I simply feel as if it’s grossly exaggerated in the area of “worthless” while I simply feel that it’s wrong to feel that way.

Appreciate the link Zui ( you’re awesome btw ) I just have a feeling that fractals are more rewarding than they are portrayed. I end up with half a dozen rares quite often, and a few exotics sometimes which translates to inscriptions/insignias and dark matter.

Could fractals use a boost, of course, but I really don’t want to see them as the go to gold farm because I simply don’t like the atmosphere that dungeons have been thrust into because of that.

I can’t help but feel that you never beat Zelda games, without either mastering the game or utilizing guide books you don’t really pass certain things. Same goes for many games. Games are about learning your tools and utilizing them correctly. While I don’t think that all of GW2 should require the use of all the mechanics, it certainly should teach them to people the best it can. And, right now, it simply doesn’t do that. Again, the game would have a much smaller gap between the good and bad if they properly taught people to utilize the available tools, that would again lead them to be able to create more challenging content that more people could pass.

Obtena.7952:

Jerus.4350:

A game should try to encourage players to master it.

I don’t think that’s true. Some people don’t play games to master them, yet enjoy them anyways regardless of how good they are at them. I can tell you the goal of this game isn’t to encourage people to master it, it’s to encourage people to play it and make money. I can see why those two things can be a contradiction for many players. This is exactly why GW2 is designed in this manner.

So why did they release a dodge tutorial? Why did games like Zelda and oldschool RPGs in general release official guide books? Why do most games make an attempt to show their players how to use the skills they gave them?

These games do it to promote skill in the game, which allows them to delve further, decreasing the gap between the good and bad to allow them to more easily satisfy the good while still being available to the bad, encompassing a wider audience.

Why does everyone forget the rewards you get throughout the fractal. They really are not nearly as bad as people make them out to be. While I’m sure they’re lower than dungeons, I’m very curious to know what the actual values are. Has anyone done research or kept track of things? Or is it simply that you spend like 3X the length of a dungeon for the same final chest reward enough for people to go ape kitten?

Obtena.7952:

It’s not really sad if you think about how the game is structured. There is no reason to train players to do that if they don’t want to do content where it’s needed. For instance, a player just doing open world stuff doesn’t need to dodge, look for attack tells and co-ordinate combo fields so to think that kind of player would know that is unreasonable.

The place the game really fails for this kind of thing is storymode dungeons, where these skills should be trained on players because of their introductory nature into more difficult, co-operative PVE content.

And that’s the problem in itself. A game should try to encourage players to master it. Now, whether it requires it or not that’s a different story. But, it should encourage and try to train it’s players to use the resources available. It’s not new for a game to really not accomplish that goal, most games I have played fall into that category. However, some have been successful. I think the fact that they put in a dodge tutorial is evident in itself. If every player understood the basic mechanics the depth of the game could go so much further, but outside a tiny little tutorial they really don’t do much to encourage players. They haven’t put proper time into tutorials and training the player to understand the GREAT mechanics they have built. That leads to a whole lot of people being completely oblivious to such mechanics.

While I don’t think every aspect of the game should require a skill level that’s say capable fo soloing lupi (really not that kittence you understand it) I do think the game could be far greater on it’s level of engaging players if it properly trained players to understand how it works.

Personally all I ask is for 1 more lupi, 1 more mai trin, just one more fun engaging and challenging bit of content, seriously all it would take is one fun thing to get me to buy the expansion. But, I still think that if the game trained it’s players a bit better, tried to actually teacht hem how it works, that you’d see a HUGE increase in player skill levels and that increase in challenge wouldn’t be as dramatic of a “can accomplish” vs “can’t accomplish” gap as it would currently be.

That’s assuming perfect conditions though isn’kitten What if you have a longer fight and 2 Ele’s and you want to use the earth Ele half way through, having already blown your lightning storm. What if you take too long to get to the transition on Grawl shaman and need to apply a long chill at the transition? /shrug, again, just saying I don’t think you lose nearly as much outside of optimal conditions as people imply.

Perfect conditions with a well trained group, sure. Likely to see that in a pug… no.

And again, my point is not that DF is better than staff, just that it’s not something any PUG group should ever scoff at, seen that swirling come in handy far too many times when fights take longer than they should or someone fails/forgets their reflect.

I think it’ll be more profession dependant than enemy dependent. Like I said, curious to see the maths on Engineer with sinister vs Assassin. Between the bleeds and confusion stacks I’m curious how it stacks up to ferocity additions.

ArrDee.2573:

FalconBeta.9185:

The objective in stronghold turned from defending a point from someone or capturing a point from someone, to defending NPCs from someone, or Killing NPCs someone is trying to escort. The player Engangement is still there, and giving the reliance on these NPCs and the increased movement, I say its even more engaging than conquest.

I would like the objective for PvP to be PvP and not PvE or standing on point but maybe it’s just me!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

^^ This, I honestly have a mental block that keeps me from liking this game’s PVP because it seems far too often my best option is to avoid the fight than to try and fight. I mean in other games sometimes holding up and waiting to regroup is best but here, you literally run away from a fight because you are better off not “wasting your time”… that entire idea bugs me, that a fight can be a “waste of time”. I’d really like a deathmatch… however this is a bit off topic, just couldn’t agree more with my “frand” here

Just want to say, while it’s not meta, there are other builds that are not bad at all.

Take a look at these videos, trioing fractals with relative ease thanks to the pillar guard playing tank/healer. Sure you “can” do that with more optimized builds, but it’s a lot tougher and less forgiving… which is kind of the point of the options we have in this game. The actual play is the same as you’d do with a zerk (maybe couple knights for agro) guard but the execution is far smoother than the vast majority of guards can accomplish with a more meta build (I have played with 2 total, one is not me, i still suck at it).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

Props to Skady for putting out a bunch of videos to show the viability of such a setup and taking a beating for it, doesn’t mean you should stack multiple cleric guards, or really that you should use one, but it certainly demonstrates the power that they have to make things easier.

I’ve only ever noticed it on Turmaine and Balthazar, I thought it was a target specific attribute not so much a bug.

Don’t you take a pretty substantial dps loss for half a dozen seconds or so when you swap to earth/water/air to use that utility in combat though? Not saying Staff isn’t awesome and far more likely to be the optimal choice, it certainly is. Just saying I think DF is more consistent on it’s output and always a good option, not best but good. And in weaker groups that utility is pretty dang awesome.

ASP.8093:

No, no, I’m thinking like big stacks of might here. Ridiculous stacks.

5 stacks, 10s base duration(maybe 15 or 20s if it casts on the illusion and isn’t able to use boon duration). Traited with something gives fury as well. Could be interesting esp with a small melee radius, it’d likely help but not be OP in PVP also.

With that I’d honestly think that it could become meta, it’d allow Ele/War to go full dps, and mesmer’s even stacked full dps are rarely more than maybe 75% of their potential anyways due to the impractical mechanics of illusions all together. Your mesmer would stack the might, then run off and do their normal portal tricks.

(and to add when I say 5 stacks I’m thinking 5 stacks per illusion, so quick burst of 3 illusions = 15 stacks, pop 5 with 2 different shatters = full stacks).

Norns have bigger…

spoj.9672:

Its very unlikely unless they buff condition damage. The stack limit removal is just a QoL fix to make condition builds not completely useless in open world.

But i really doubt they will buff condition damage because it will break PvP. And i dont think they will create a split that big between PvE and PvP. I would be pleasantly surprised if they did. Although i still think having mostly direct damage should be better in most cases in group content (just not to the same extent it is now).

Aye, in general I’d agree, just really curious on Engi mainly, last I saw even current meta with assassin gear you’re looking at ~20% being condition damage.

If I’m not mistaken Condi can actually be better in solo scenarios. It’s simply that condi’s don’t gain from synergy as much. So even without the condi cap you’re still missing 25% extra damage from Vuln and Prec/Fero won’t help as much so you’re relying on a single stat. So I’d imagine Power builds will still be meta even without the condi cap, though I’d be curious if Sinister might make a play for a possible spot for maybe Engi?

New trait, Phantasmal Rage “when a shatter skill is activated with a phantasm, they will activate their attack again before shattering”. /shrug

exploit, yes, are you going to get busted, highly unlikely unless you try and sell it.

I hear ya OP as sometimes I’m also a bit annoyed when people come and start fighting with me as it’s not really what I was going for at the time. However, other times I’m like “heck yeah they die twice as fast, nothing to complain about” so… /shrug not sure I really agree, but I feel you on it, it can be annoying.

Ryn.6459:

I will have to disagree. For me, Guardian is the hardest profession to play properly. And is nothing to do with rotations…is just the knowledge that it demands. You forgot your wall? Congrats, you are responsible of the wipe.

Retreat/WoR then last one is Purging/Hallowed/SotA, with that you’re pretty much always covered without really having to know what’s ahead as much.

Either way, yeah to be a great Guard it’s certainly a high skill level, just saying being acceptable on guard is at least IMO easier than being acceptable on Ele.

Subbing for a game I feel is worthwhile is no problem to me. Hell I still have a sub for EQ taht I haven’t played in over a year. I won’t pay a sub for GW2 because they simply don’t give the kind of content updates that warrant a subscription.

Morte.5916:

Hey guys,

After a few months of daily dungeons, I think I’ve had most of the fun I’m going to have and I’m calling it quits. I wanted to say thanks for the help, especially the build/rotation guides from DnT (Nike, Brazil, DEKeyz, Obal) and the excellent advice I’ve had on the forums from spoj and Jerus.

Good luck with the record runs, and may none of your PUG guardians use staff.

GL to you too, nice thing about the game, no giant hill to climb if you ever feel the urge to poke your head in again

Dahlern.1708:

Hmm, I played on my friend’s account, Human Warrior, and liked it pretty much. I got to lvl 70 and only played PvE, which I liked.
Now I’ve bought the game and thinking of Elementalist or Guardian (mostly PvE!)
Also I wondered what race who’d fit.
- Is the Guardian “bad” if you doesn’t play with friends or together with someone?
I’m a kind of person that likes both middle-range and close range, so both the Staff and Great Sword.

thanks

With your “I like” part I’d definitely suggest Elementalist. However it’s a tougher play, Starting with a guardian might be a bit easier as it’s a bit more strait forward. If you’re confident in your play ability, Elementalist is awesome, D/F is a nice closer range build, lots and lots of fun, Staff is your long range option, however you don’t have a weapon swap so it’s one or the other, you can and should play staff close range most of the time anyways though so always have the option to back out if needed but there’s actually benefits to being in melee range still with it. But, if you’re not confident in your play it’s far easier to become decent with guardian than it is Ele,

Eponet.4829:

Is a fresh air elementalist build acceptable for dungeons?

The recommended builds seem kind of boring to me, as they recommend sitting in fire attunement for ages, so I was wondering if it would be possible for me to run a fresh air build instead, or would doing so get me constantly kicked?

DF is a fresh air build, lots of fun and swapping. S+LH is a bit more attunement swapping but more in spurts followed by LH for a while. Kinda like run your might rotation then back to LH. IIRC you can add fresh air to it though for a different rotation though you do lose efficiency with it due to having attunments on cooldowns and it not really all matching up perfect. Doing Scepter without LH is bad though, and Staff is a LOT of camping fire, really silly to ever go out of it.

I’d just suggest trying Zelyhn’s D/F rotation, tons of fun.Got your water rotation and earth rotation combined together for full rotation of awesomeness.

Satenia.9025:

Scaling rewards doesn’t have to be how the OP said. What I think is more of a system of say "participate in 1 wave on a tower defense in SW get copper reward, 2 get silver, and 3 gold, participate on all and X amount of kills you get platinum and an extra champ chest or something like that. Copper you get very very small reward. Get silver you get good rewards, but gold is required for shovels or something. That’s not asking for some strange feat, it’s simply asking that you participate through an event instead of a simple tag for reward once every 10 mins or something.

The idea of scaled rewards is sound, not all ideas on how it’s done will necessarily be good, but doesn’t mean that the idea of promoting active play with them wouldn’t be great, and furthering scale with bonus monetary value rewards would promote playing well.

Obtena.7952:

Evapor.6849:

I don’t agree with a few things you said, I believe hardcore players are the ones selling the copies, they are the ones that are constantly playing running around completing events, filling the world, helping noobs where necessary, They are the ones keeping the game alive. Many of the hardcore players that stream sell alot of copies for example last night in Phantaram’s stream (Pro pvp player) I seen at least 5-20 people asking where they could buy this game asking all sorts of questions because they were interested in the game, now lets compare that to the ‘casual’ players, casual players come and go they generally don’t play for very long.

That’s pretty speculative. So in your opinion, even though the game targets the ‘casual’ player very hard, it’s the hardcore players that keep it alive because they are so effective at marketing the game to the casual group? I’m not sure that’s very accurate. That’s an interesting spin because if I’m casual, only have a few free hours here and there, why would I waste my time watching some feed from a hardcore guy instead of playing the game? Why do I even care what that feed has to say when the game caters to however I want to play it?

Your theme in your posts is evident and lacks a recognition of what kind of player this game appeals to. If anything, the lack of challenge for the hardcore player makes them more fickle than some casual guy that pops in an out a few times a week.

Well the entire idea behind eSports is to throw money at some hardcore players so that they will continue to advertise the game to potential players as well as fuel a more hardcore devotion from current players.

Now we all know how poorly GW2’s eSports are doing but, yeah that’s the idea, get hardcore players to advertise for you.

Satenia.9025:

<snip>

They likely have less time available to play, don’t primarily play to be challenged to the maximum of their abilities and beyond, but rather like socializing and easy access to the content. But most important of all, it’s (the adult part of) these players who fund a game like GW2.

<snip>

Everything you say is fine except the bolded I have a problem with.

No one logs in every day wanting to repeatedly fail at things and be pushed to their limits. However, that is a major element of gaming. Repeated easy success, fun for a time, but sometimes you want to sink your teeth into something a bit more meaty. That’s what this game lacks at this point. It’s been too long since we’ve gotten a new challenging repeatable bit of content.

I’d say that’s one of the major problems of the game currently is the lack of true challenges, even the devs seem to agree at least publically. Look at all their recent claims of challenging group content. Will the deliver /shrug no clue, but fact is having something to push yourself on is a very important part of a healthy game, doesn’t mean it’ll be the most used and most played content, it just needs to be there which creates a problem with development resources and what not, but again, just something needs to be there and hopefully they actually pull it off.

As for the reward tiers, while the OP has a certain idea for it that may be undesireable the fact that it’s so easily to leech off people in this game is another major problem.

Tier based rewards are something that’s needed just to promote actually playing the game. Look at silverwastes and how easily people can just grab up rewards on the bosses and with one keystroke to tag things. It’s silly. The thresholds don’t need to be extreme but they should be there. A game should promote getting better at it, but at the very least it needs to promote actually playing.

And it’s not about chest thumping, it’s simply about the fact that this game doesn’t really motivate players to get better. Personally I’m not great, far from it, but I can do all the content… and well, why I don’t play as often as I used to is that I simply don’t have the motivation to get better, and getting better is something that’s fun to me and many gamers. You are right though a large portion of the demographic never wants to see how bad they are. They don’t want to learn, they don’t want to get better, because doing so means they have to accept that they were doing poorly before. That’s the reason things like scoresheets at the end of a dungeon are often controversial. They can be an amazing tool to improve, but far too often they just lead to toxicity between the chest thumpers and the people who want to keep their blinders on.

/shrug TL : DR – casual players can still be good and want to be good, GW2 doesn’t really motivate people to even play let alone get better, and the only reason we don’t have the motivational tools that could help this is because a lot of people are idiots (on both sides of the fence).

ZBoss.5610:

Thank you for all the suggestions. What would you suggest for sigils and runes? Scholar? Dolyak? Obviously force, but what other would be good to go with my weapons?

zerk scholar with force (as you said obviously), and then frailty/strength/night/accuracy/energy would be the main secondary ones. Frailty is great with groups that don’t cap vuln (most any pug), strenght for those that don’t cap might (again most any pug), night for night dungeons of course, and accuracy as a nice damage catch all option (the others are better but can be rendered useless), and energy is always a nice defensive fall back.

Neko, Meta PVE builds are not just about DPS, instead it’s about shedding any unnecessary attributes. In a meta group/build you’ll take the things you’re strong at and drop the stuff that can be covered by teammates or are unneeded. Condition cleanse is a big one, Guardians are amazing at it with purging flames and absolute resolution, getting them isn’t a huge loss for them. Engi’s can do decently as well with a combination of Elixir Gun and Elixir C, however the loss for Engi is pretty high not just in losing a utility slot and the potential damage from that but also the long animation length on fumigate makes it not as good as well as a large damage loss especially compared to the instant use of Absolute resolution.

So your team will default to the guardian, maybe mesmer/ele/thief for condi cleanses and not expect the Engi to be using fumigate in battle unless everything else is blown.

And well, this is why the meta exists. People think about this stuff, they plan it. Having a set and accepted meta makes it nice and easy to know what each person is expected to handle. You know the guardian will drop that WoR→Shield→WoR rotation so you don’t need to drop a swirling winds till after the second WoR. You know the thief is gonna stealth through a skip so running ahead would be dumb. As a thief you know your Ele’s are smart and will swap in blasts as necessary to keep the stealth flowing as long as you drop black powder so there’s no need for SR unless pathing something. The thief will manage defiance with headshot so don’t tough it especially if it’s at 1 or 2 unless previously discussed. You know the team will be using Deep Freezes.

While you may not consider it to fit the definition of "meta’ you use, when you look at the origins of the term being spending time outside the game to perform better while playing… well it seems to fit perfectly /shrug.

Halvorn.9831:

The point in question is: is it complicated to change it, so that only one fractal task appears per day and if this happened (no more double daily fractals) what do we loose?

I think we’d loose nothing and I think it shouldn’t be that complicated to change. That is all.

My 2 bonus chests on the days that would have been double fractal days… some of us enjoy that content and appreciate the bonus rewards.

Coldtart.4785:

Vayne.8563:

This would be far far ;more of an issue if there weren’t a daily cap for achievement points. Let’s say in the course of three years you get this a dozen times. It means it’ll take a dozen extra dailies at some point to MAX OUT your dailies anyway.

There’s no real reason to assume you NEED to do dailies every day since at some point they’ll stop counting anyway.

There are also PvP rooms set up for people who don’t like to PvP to get dailies fast WITHOUT PVPING.

That is to say the players in those rooms cooperate instead of compete so everyone gets the daily. It’s faster to do that for a single daily or even two than to do even the simplest fractal on the lowest level.

You may not enjoy doing it, but if you’re that uptight about getting those ten achievement points immediately there is another option.

So I have to choose between making progress or having fun? Why should I have to make that choice?

This is a game. Having fun is literally the only thing that matters. If a system requires me to choose between progress or fun, that system is bad.

That is exactly the choice someone who primarily runs fractals/dungeons has to make if they want to get dailies done. Maybe we should have a 4th “gametype” for dungeons/fractals.

Or Focus earth 4, or Dagger water 5, or Staff water 5, one on every option

Aggrostemma.1703:

This is not important! He DID it!

Elementalist is a hard-mode indeed! But you LEARN how to play this game properly… You will appreciate this later on… If you learn to play with ele there is nothing what can stop you from being an awesome skilled player! Keep it up and do not give up!

Good luck OP!

^^ This

And to the OP, as you get better you can change more into that similar archetype of fingerwiggler that the EQ wizard was. Might/fury stack, be earth attunement drop 2 skill, swap air, drop icebow, run into position while you channel Glyph of Storms, swap fire, drop either IB5 then 4 or just 4 onto the target, hit ib3, drop the bow, then drop a lava font and start summoning meteors of death. Things BLOW up once you get that done assuming they don’t run away

Keep practicing, and eventually you’ll get better at the active defense and when you do you can stack the damage and start blowing stuff up like the good ol’ days.

Aye tis true staff rotation is easy, DF… not so much, but a lot more fun once you learn it

I do want some challenging content, I love doing content that pushes me. However… not all the time, and I feel safe saying that’s the normal take on it. Challenge is fun, but not ALL the time. That’s where things get tricky.

I like the analogy of challenging content in an MMO being like a vegetarian/vegan option at a steakhouse. It’s surely not what brings customers in the door but having it there allows people to have fun without excluding people who aren’t there for the bulk of it.

If you like a challenge, here we have it, but it’s not our main goal.

That’s the take I think games need to have, it needs to exist but spending a bunch of time on it simply doesn’t make sense.

With that and this “potion” idea, I’m curiuos if they could do something a bit reverse of the OP’s thoughts. We take potions, if we have “hard mode” activated (potions to swap purchased in any city) we get greatly increased magic find from kills but enemies would have additional effects on their attacks that only activate when hard mode is on. So say Lupi in addition to his normal attacks if you get clipped by a Frenzied Blast hit you’d get a long duration chill. If you get hit by a lifesuck a locust would form. Get kicked and it’d do double damage ensuring a death. /shrug just a thought at something that might be less work and a bit more reasonable to implement without sucking other players into it who might not want the hard mode.

As for the “just play naked” /shrug your defenses are already very low with zerk, you’re basically just making things last longer which isn’t much fun IMO. Larger HP pools and simply harder hits generally don’t promote a fun challenge nearly as much as increased effects and making you react differently than just the standard “don’t get hit, and hit it” that you’re alraedy doing.

Again, not optimal in many situations, but never bad.

EcoRI.9273:

spoj.9672:

I gave up pugging as a thief in CM. Try to stealth the group with blasts and noone helps despite their being two eles and it being a “zerk meta” group. If im forced to play like a pug thief and wait for SR cooldown i would rather slit my wrists.

The last time i tried pugging on a thief i thought kitten these guys im blasting. They didnt help so stealth ran out faster. They didnt stack swiftness so they got left behind when i restacked mid skip. I just decided “kitten it” and went ahead. 3 out of 4 of them died because they couldnt keep up. The other guy somehow powered through on a warrior despite never using warhorn or mobility skills…. And then they had the nerve to complain despite not once blasting stealth or giving the group swiftness….

After that ordeal and other similar abominable runs i decided never to pug CM again.

Taking it 1 step further I wanted to try double field blasting by offsetting where stealth and swiftness are blasted at the same time in organized groups. Usually its met with hesitation or its not blasted correctly where one has more than the other.

No need to blast for swiftness, I’ll just drop my symbol of swiftness on the smoke field!

Meditate? naw Soloist Icy Wand spam ftw! I miss my bags and bags of clickies.

Thaddeus.4891:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Staff ele can’t be glass dps? And how do you know the pugs are non-zerkers?

To me, it sounds like you are too salty about others wanting you to play something else then what you want.

You can either stay d/f and find a group that doesn’t care or switch to want they want. Contrary to want you are trying to imply here, it’s zerker groups that ask me to switch weps most often.

The problem with that is that D/F zerker ele is one of the most powerful build anyway. That make no sense to attack a D/F ele, since it does more damage than Guardian, Warrior, Mesmer and Necro (around the same damage as a Ranger). I can understand if there is already a Warrior PS, but otherwise.

This, I mean even with a PS war having swirling winds ready as well as things like ring of earth or magnetic wave all right at your finger tips without getting stuck in the wrong attunement… there’s nothing to complain about. Especially when many fights are doable with the majority of it being channeling Ice Bow/Glyph of Storms, then quick swap to whips to finish it off. The beauty of D/F is that it’s flexible and can do well in any situation, that’s not quite the same for staff or scepter+LH builds which are more specialized (no moving targets with staff, and LH dependancy on scepter just for example). DF may not be ideal in many situations but it’s never a bad option. And, it’s the most fun so…

5X Engi fractals/dungeons are the only way to go

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

laokoko.7403:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

laokoko.7403:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Don’t care if it’s 1,000 relics for a skin, at least then you’d be guaranteed a reward at the end of the tunnel if RNG hasn’t blessed you along the way.

Obviously dont’ care if it’s 1,000 relics. Most people run 2 fractal a day could finish it in 2 month. And people’ll keep complaining fractal drop is bad.

Sorry, I meant pristine relics.

I’ll have a good laugh if Anet make it 1000 pristine relics. I was thinking more like 100 daily 50 fractal. Sounds more reasonable.

So after 100 days you’ll get a skin of your choosing if you run fractal 50 every day.

Don’t really care about the number, just about the principle.

This, I mean honestly I run fractals for the fun, I just hate RNG with a deep burning passion

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Sarahfull.4930:

Its already clear that mostly everyone ( not me ) hates the RNG that fractals has and thus wishes the rewards to not be as rare and more on a reward tree system.

Sarah I understand where you’re coming from, but it is possible to simultaneously add guaranteed rewards without making the skins any less rare and prestigious.

Exactly, Personally it took me 3 years and countless hours farming some things back in EQ, since then I’ve always hated RNG. Now I was also lucky with some drops, getting them on my first kill while others spent the same time I did camping those other 3 year long hunts. I just like the idea of being able to slowly progress towards something over having to pray to RNGesus for luck.

+1 for EQ! (know what you mean by the mountain of issues with the game, but it still will always hold a special spot in my heart).

Dodges/interrupts/obsidian flesh, maybe pull out arcane shield, should be good to go, D/F is a lot of fun and good damage, just don’t forget to stack might and let the sparks fly.

Nyx.7342:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

phys.7689:

man yall basically hate everything.

Nobody hates DF
DF is love, DF is life.

Guildies sometimes force me to play staff when i dont want to ;_;

I just wish staff was more than mainly fire. I mean you can get a little more out of it with starting in earth but there’s no fun rotation for it, just let out the hellfire and watch things burn.

DF to me is the most fun, S+LH is fun but frustrating at times when either I down or someone picks up the LH it gets annoying fast. DF is just consistent fun.

dang so you mean I just wasted 15mins? :b, ohh well, yeah can confirm just did it got 24s from what I saw though figure that was just mistimed and 25 is possible.

Not sure, that’s what I was thinking. If I have the motivation I’m gonna test tonight but we’ll see what wins out, the whiskey or my curiosity

Arantheal.7396:

that assumes that the stack-cap for stealth is indeed 5.
but the timer also got reseted while we had 14 or 13sec left, so clearly while 5 stacks were present (one of them just being partly present, but still counting towards the stack-cap).
If we indeed had reached the stack-cap, the timer would have been impossible to reset above 12sec.

And that assumes you can’t overwrite stacks doesn’kitten

Gotta try to find an experiment that eliminates all possible alternatives.

Arantheal.7396:

I’ve done the experiment with a friendly thief in Heart of the mist right now:
multiple turret-blasts + smoke-screen + thief shortbow never stacked stealth beyond 14sec stealth.
So the hardcap is 15sec, immediately ticking down after receiving it. Every further blasts simply resets the stealth duration back to 15sec (assuming that you still had 12 or more seconds left)

effectively that means, 3 engis with toss Elixir S will reach the hardcap and every further insta-toss is a waste.

edit: “kitten ” does not receive a kitten^^
edit 2: actually it doesm except in the word assuming. meh.

This is not a valid test. What you hit was the 5 stack cap. What is being asked is if you use stealths that are greater than 3s each could you exceed the time. If you have 5 5s stealths instead of 5 3s stealths would it allow 25s stealth? That’s the question.

When I just want to chill I go hang with my homeboy Lupicus.