Guild Wars 2

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

MikaHR.1978:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

If you don’t see the difference between quality-of-life changes and a grand strategy for a game that struggels to seperate itself from all others, you are delusional.

ANet is running a fair risk with the LS, they wouldn’t adapt it if it wasn’t directly related to lower sales.

You finally relized its pointless to discuss when someone cant discern even simplest of concept and ideas.

I have to admit it is hard.

Look, people like me just don’t buy stuff anymore. We are above that “get it now or it will be gone” attitude.
I am not alone, at least that’s my impression. The game is financed mostly by the in-game store at this time. Actually, I am hurting ANet by playing their game without buying stuff (they have to pay their bills anyway).

Whatever, with the LS going on like this, I will not buy anything in the near future. I have more fluff than my bank can hold anyway. What is the point of spending money?

I am sure they’re not expecting everyone to pay all the time. I actually agree with you, if you’re not enjoying the game you shouldnt pay. F2P (b2p is a subset of that) works because different players provide different value. Paying players provide monatory value which is of course extremely important but players who desire to pay for free are value as well, they provide player count which is also essential to an MMO.

as for the pointless to discuss because we “cant discern even simplest of concept and ideas.” I hope you two are honest enough with yourselves to realize that can be a two way street. Just like you may feel its hard to understand that us who like the LS for the stated reasons can not see and agree to the bad you yourselves see, we too find the opposite equally perplexing. We understand that diversity of opinion doesnt mean the other party fails to grasp even the simplest of concept and ideas but rather know/hope they simply they have other priorities and/or like different things. Thats why at least myself but as far as I can tell all others who defend the LS would never try to belittle any of your opinions with statements like these. It is a bit sad when in an arguement one party stops focusing on the argument at hand but instead try to belittle the other party. So far it was good discussing with you Kaiyanwan, dont let disrespectful people influence you negatively. People discussing the topic genuinely arnet likely to take you more seriously if you do.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to attack you personally. At this point I have made my point anyway.

Carighan.6758:

colesy.8490:

What a surprise, duelist and swordsman are the highest DPS.

But iZerker is good guys, I swear.

/rolls eyes

Wait, lemme check that duelist DPS versus a group of enemies… what do you mean, it only hits one target?

You are a bloody noob if you say that. Or that’s at least what the elitists will tell you… ^^

I just want some lore where Trahearne gets kicked so hard in his leaves, that he looks like a salad in winter…

MikaHR.1978:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

If you don’t see the difference between quality-of-life changes and a grand strategy for a game that struggels to seperate itself from all others, you are delusional.

ANet is running a fair risk with the LS, they wouldn’t adapt it if it wasn’t directly related to lower sales.

You finally relized its pointless to discuss when someone cant discern even simplest of concept and ideas.

I have to admit it is hard.

Look, people like me just don’t buy stuff anymore. We are above that “get it now or it will be gone” attitude.
I am not alone, at least that’s my impression. The game is financed mostly by the in-game store at this time. Actually, I am hurting ANet by playing their game without buying stuff (they have to pay their bills anyway).

Whatever, with the LS going on like this, I will not buy anything in the near future. I have more fluff than my bank can hold anyway. What is the point of spending money?

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

It is all about sales. Less people interested in the LS? Less people buying LS fluff off the store. Sales include the ingame store.
Less people logging in, less potential buyers for fluff in general.

Hey and if you believe everything people say, we would have gotten an update worth an expansion earlier this year…

Because every MMO makes an expansion during their first year.

Because ANet said so and didn’t?

It is all about sales. Less people interested in the LS? Less people buying LS fluff off the store. Sales include the ingame store.
Less people logging in, less potential buyers for fluff in general.

Hey and if you believe everything people say, we would have gotten an update worth an expansion earlier this year…

Kitten, where is Mr. Johanson, I need to talk with him about that LS stuff…

If you don’t see the difference between quality-of-life changes and a grand strategy for a game that struggels to seperate itself from all others, you are delusional.

ANet is running a fair risk with the LS, they wouldn’t adapt it if it wasn’t directly related to lower sales.

Did this path in the past, liked the lore, even though I ran with a pug and it took forever.

Replacing content instead of just adding new content and fixing the existing one is a fairly poor decision. Honestly, your living story has become more of a game breaker than it is an argument to play anyway…

Expand the game, don’t keep up the status quo by just taking as much stuff out as you add.

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Anet is making a change to the LS lately, they are shifting away from on-time LS to seasonal content and permanent content.
Why do you think they do so? The setup of a one-time event mmo was doomed to burn out players. And as I have explained will not bring back those who left.

I am 100% certain, that at one point most of the content will be permanent/seasonal and content that will disappear will mostly be just gem store fluff…

They did that because thats what a lot of players asked for. There is notion that Arenanet dont care about what their players said even if time and time again they course corrected based on feedback yet each time we act with surprise like this is the first time it happened / like they’d been forced to do it because they had no other choice.

The player feedback was probably no longer logging in and not returning. If you think any other feedback is sort of priority, you are delusional.

spoj.9672:

Alissah.9281:

Fixed that for you. Beginners cant properly use their evades, so they will take alot of damage. As one becomes more experienced, they will get hit less, thus affording to go with low toughness.

I think its up to the OP to decide with how much toughness they can go to not end up on the ground every fight, and how well they can use evades.

Berserker armor and soldier trinkets seemed like a good idea to me, because its easier to switch soldier for berserker trinkets (armor may have expensive skins etc).

When i got my mesmer to 80 (3rd level 80) i went straight for zerker gear. Honestly it was the most faceroll thing ive ever played to survive as a beginner. Yeah sure you are squishy and you go down very easily if you screw up, but you can waste dodges and invulns way more than you can on other classes. Its much easier to learn when you can spam dodges and blurred frenzy until you get the timing/tells right. Also deceptive evasion is very good for survivability.

Guardian is imo harder due to the very low hp pool and requiring good practise with virtue/utility use. Warrior is only safe due to the high hp pool, but it took me a while to get use to not dieing in some encounters. Mesmer I was fine pretty much right from the start and I wasnt even a very good player when i first got my mesmer to 80. As someone whos played most classes in dungeons with squishy builds and teammates, mesmer is definately the easiest to survive with.

Where were you a beginner exactly, when the mesmer was your third character at 80? Unless you have never touched a dungeon with any of your other two characters, you had enough experience to just go full melee. God forbid, other players are on their first character and have no idea what’s going on…

What do players do if they just cannot succeed in melee? They should never join a dungeon group ever?

Anet is making a change to the LS lately, they are shifting away from on-time LS to seasonal content and permanent content.
Why do you think they do so? The setup of a one-time event mmo was doomed to burn out players. And as I have explained will not bring back those who left.

I am 100% certain, that at one point most of the content will be permanent/seasonal and content that will disappear will mostly be just gem store fluff…

AndrewSX.3794:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

So what have you done in dungeons, before you went full DPS melee?

I went first in DGs full zerk meeleing stuff half of the time as noob back in the day and as mesmer i can say: it’s so easy that guards seems squishy compared to mes.

There is really no reason to use anything else, there isn’te even the argument “It’s hard so you must be skilled to pull it off”.

Do 1 single run with a backup ranged weapon for learning, as soon as you can predict and dodge the important stuff you’re set.

I was promoting the same thing, many have done so. Learn it, go full melee.
Backup ranged weapon GS for as long as you have no clue, everyone is happy. Everyone but one certain person maybe…

colesy.8490:

Beginners will spam evades, and having vigor will allow them to do so with ease until they learn when to evade properly.

Mesmers have a pretty fat HP pool especially when traited properly (10/30/0/30/0 has like 19k) so they can soak hits in berserker, plus they have a ton of CC, evade and block built in to their weapons.

Funnily enough, mesmer was the first class I went full DPS melee on, not my guardian and I can support the view that it was a safe class to do it on. Sometimes it actually feels like easy mode while all the heavies have less defenses and end up soaking more hits.

So what have you done in dungeons, before you went full DPS melee?

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Because people had the choice to buy it over monthes and then ANet reintroduced it three monthes after it became unavailable.
Kitten, you can still buy it today. How can you compare that to the LS that is gone?

Thats not the point, the point is how was the experience people who didnt buy that mission pack negatively effected? answer it wasnt. Its just an optional nice to have. Same thing here, Obviously its way better to have experienced every single part of the LS but how will the next update be negatively effected if you didn’t play say the MA dungeon update. Answer: it wouldn’t not in a single way.

But it is, people can live with not participating with content as long as they have the choice to do it at one point. This will let them play at their own pace.

It is all nice and well that you think that people should do this and that, and that there is still stuff ahead, but that is unfortunately not how most humans work.
They look back over the last few monthes and count what they have gained by not playing the game. Why it would entertain them again. Telling them what they have missed and what is lost forever will not motivate them much, even if there is stuff ahead.
There is no bargain in returning to the game to overcome the reasons they have left it for in the first place.
This is human behaviour 101, not rocket science.

Nybor.9687:

… I’m just saying its annoying seeing posts…

Sounds like moaning about moaning to me…

Galen Grey.4709:

but they will have a great time same as you did with the new content thats being released. Using Gw1 as an example… there was a bonus mission pack which had 4 missions in it. Each of those missions had you experience some of the lore. You got to play and experience Gwen captured by the charr. You got to experience Saul D’alessio and how the white mantle came to be. etc.. The pack was like $10 and while I have no idea how well it sold I have no doubt that some, possibly many people passed on it cause they might have thought its too expensive for what it offered (they’d be wrong cause it was really great) But my point is people who opted not to buy the mission pack, did they get to enjoy Gw1 any less? Did they miss out on what Gw1 had to offer just cause they didnt get to play some of the lore? Not really. As long as there is stuff for them to do and enjoy all of that what an extra bonus and so is this. A player who starts to do is still going to find new stuff to do every 2 weeks. Sure they missed a lot of updates and they missed the opportunity to experience first hand what is now just back story but they didnt miss the experience.. that keeps going, they will still get to experience what LS is perhaps better then we did.. even though it was just hte first cases there are still plenty of people who refer to the living story as nothing more then hanging up signs.

As for MA, AR return, we dont know how that will be implemented, it might be just fractals added to the current rotation or it might be what they did for the mini games and have an NPC who gives direct access to them. both MA and AR as they currently are too long for fractals anyway. But I have no idea what they’re gonna do we have to wait and see for that.

Because people had the choice to buy it over monthes and then ANet reintroduced it three monthes after it became unavailable.
Kitten, you can still buy it today. How can you compare that to the LS that is gone?

Are you moaning about moaning?

Galen Grey.4709:

why does it make no sense?

The events of the molten alliance effected the world in different ways. The dredge and the flame legion joined forces. The invasions ravaged outlining villages in wayfarer foothills and diessa plateau which in turn created refugees. Those refugees when on to build a lot of the infrastructure in southsun. The failure of those invasions resulted in scarlet escalating her actions and facilitating an alliance between the pirates and the inquest and a plot to take over the LA council from the inside. When that failed scarlet too a more direct role. She tried to kidnap queen Jennah and started invading all parts of tyria using not only the motlen alliance and aetherblade pirates but also the steam creatures.

So if I am a new player that joined the game today and tomorrow try out what I am assuming to be an assault on Scarlet’s hideout or one of her bases or whatever it turns out to be all of that is now lore and back story to the Scarlet character. Why are the charr and dredge fighting along side her? she was pivot to them coming together. Why are the aetherblade pirates so advanced compared to other pirates? cause Scarlet got them to join up with the inquest. Why are we fighting scarlet at all? She assassinated a member of LA council, tried to kidnap queen Jennah and is invading our homes. etc…

This is what makes LS so awesome.. in Gw1 using the same example we know the Charr invaded ascalon because they were trying to take their own land back after we forcefully drove them out. We only get to know that based on story (which isnt bad, thats not what I am saying here). In GW2 we get to play the back story as it builds future story up. If I join the game today all the LS up till now for me is just back story like humans taking over ascalon from the charr was back story. For us who were there we got to play it an experience it first hand however.

Thats what makes this a living story. Instead of having the world set in one fix time period with a written history explaining events preceding that time period you have a world thats evolving. Players get to play what in 2 weeks time will become history and back story to the game while setting the stage for the next update. I find that really cool personally.

Because that is what the op and many others feel. They feel like they have to rush through the LS. If they are away, they miss out the content. Missing out content makes them feel like they don’t want to come back as they a) missed it anyway and b) fear for the same happen again.
For every LS over, some people are left behind. They won’t just read what they’ve missed, it will be a worm in their shiny apple.
It’s like missing an episode of your favorite show. You want to know what happened, you want to see it, not just read a synopsis. You can rent or buy it, but unfortunately in GW2 it’s just over.
In fact, that’s actually how I stopped watching some shows, just because I missed an episode or two…

The problem is, if they want to make content that is essential for lore, it would have to be permanent.
The LS arcs are not meant to be that kind of story.
Let’s just say that the aetherblades are related to the awakening of a new elder dragon in TA. We would have at least some events left over (invasions, TA p4) so people would have context to the main story. Nontheless, it would be bad, as the villain was introduced in a LS that is over, so people new to the story would grief that they missed it.
Why would you do that to your customers.

On the other hand, bringing a plot to a final conclusion by showing the bigger picture at the end works perfectly fine in books. In games it just tells peope at the end of the arc what they’ve missed. I couldn’t think of a better way to kitten off your playerbase.

That is why the story telling in GW2 fails in combination with temporary (one-time) content. That is why ANet is avoiding to make anything happening in the LS relevant to the main story plot, the elder dragons and their defeat. This is why the LS feels boring and meaningless most of the time.

The game is going nowhere with the LS, we can only hope, they decide to do an expansion at some point…

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

If everything becomes lore than nothing is.
How about bringing things in context, like:
A nice backstory of the deepsea dragon forcing the karka and kraits to leave their domiciles. Giving a real backstory to the karka event might have included it into lore.

Otherwise it is just a random place, where something has happened without any real context or impact. It was just too encapsulated, a bubble of an event too small to offer any importance.

Lore is the bigger picture. Killing some random Mobs on an island where nothing happens is not.

Lore isn’t the bigger picture…you’re just calling it that. Lore is, at it’s most basic level, background information…no more no less.

Some of that appears in game and some of it doesn’t.

At least with your definition, we have an excuse for all writers at anet for their lousy story telling in GW2.

If everything becomes lore than nothing is.
How about bringing things in context, like:
A nice backstory of the deepsea dragon forcing the karka and kraits to leave their domiciles. Giving a real backstory to the karka event might have included it into lore.

Otherwise it is just a random place, where something has happened without any real context or impact. It was just too encapsulated, a bubble of an event too small to offer any importance.

Lore is the bigger picture. Killing some random Mobs on an island where nothing happens is not.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Players like to play. At their own pace. MMOs offer content, you can explore at your own pace. Normally, Devs add stuff, so there is more content you can discover at your own pace.
One time events are rare and between in other MMO’s for a reason, they annoy people who can not participate.

Making a whole game dependend on one time events (call it Living Story) destroys most players intent to play at their own pace, because it becomes mandatory to play at the pace of the dev cycle, if you want to experience the content.

The game changes from a hidden grind (most games are, some more hidden than others) to a count-down grind, which feel like pressure. People want to get away from the everyday pressure if playing. This produces a paradox, and people will stop enjoying the game.

End of story, they will avoid the stress that is the result of the new content.

Not really… every MMO other has a back story… I dont know if you played GW1 but I am going to use that as an example. Before the time when you start playing Gw1 there are a lot of stuff that happened. You had the 3 guild wars. You had humans invasion and conquering of Ascalon from the Charr etc… You start playing the game after these events and are unable to take part. How is that any different then joining Gw2 today and never getting the opportunity to take part in the motlen alliance invasion? it isnt, it just becomes back story to your experiance nothing else.

Its not a problem just like in gw1 it wasnt a problem that we never get to take part in the original invasion of ascalon.

This makes no sense. You are talking of a background story, of lore, which is essential to build a world that is believable. It is everywhere around you, as it is part of why you are in the mystical world.

Tell me, what part of, for example, the molten alliance invasion has become lore, an epic event that has shaped the world so drastically, that future content is build on it.
We have 2 npcs left from that, but surely, the game is not building up on these former events.

The living story is mostly just trashing out fire and forget content, that has no influx on the bigger picture.

There’s in game lore, and then there’s the memory of an event, that becomes a personal sort of lore. I was there when the Karka invaded Southsun island. That lives on in my memory. I can talk about and share it.

Lore isn’t something you do, it’s something that was. The Karka invasion definitely was.

You bring up the example of the molten alliance, and say that’s not lore, but they’ve returned. It’s pretty clear to me that Scarlet got them together, probably so they could combine their technologies and she could steal the weapon.

I don’t know if you talked to the NPC, but there was a Durmond Priory NPC that had a theory that there was no way the charr and dredge would ever ally of their own accord. That was part of it. Now Scarlet appears. She was obviously using them.

They’re back in invasions, so that actually happened and there they are.

I was there at the karka event. And it was exactly that. An event which gave me some nice loot, especially the bag (as I got a random exotic).

It is forgotten by most, and has no real impact on anything. A one time event, not lore.

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Players like to play. At their own pace. MMOs offer content, you can explore at your own pace. Normally, Devs add stuff, so there is more content you can discover at your own pace.
One time events are rare and between in other MMO’s for a reason, they annoy people who can not participate.

Making a whole game dependend on one time events (call it Living Story) destroys most players intent to play at their own pace, because it becomes mandatory to play at the pace of the dev cycle, if you want to experience the content.

The game changes from a hidden grind (most games are, some more hidden than others) to a count-down grind, which feel like pressure. People want to get away from the everyday pressure if playing. This produces a paradox, and people will stop enjoying the game.

End of story, they will avoid the stress that is the result of the new content.

Not really… every MMO other has a back story… I dont know if you played GW1 but I am going to use that as an example. Before the time when you start playing Gw1 there are a lot of stuff that happened. You had the 3 guild wars. You had humans invasion and conquering of Ascalon from the Charr etc… You start playing the game after these events and are unable to take part. How is that any different then joining Gw2 today and never getting the opportunity to take part in the motlen alliance invasion? it isnt, it just becomes back story to your experiance nothing else.

Its not a problem just like in gw1 it wasnt a problem that we never get to take part in the original invasion of ascalon.

This makes no sense. You are talking of a background story, of lore, which is essential to build a world that is believable. It is everywhere around you, as it is part of why you are in the mystical world.

Tell me, what part of, for example, the molten alliance invasion has become lore, an epic event that has shaped the world so drastically, that future content is build on it.
We have 2 npcs left from that, but surely, the game is not building up on these former events.

The living story is mostly just trashing out fire and forget content, that has no influx on the bigger picture.

If I have 2 defeners out and one of them takes direct damage, will it split the damage with the second one?

Actually never tried this… ^^ But should be this way.

Just looked at the wiki, seems bugged and not working…

Ezzyz.6045:

Playing in melee taught me the mechanics to each boss more than staying at range with GS (I did once upon a time) ever did. To each their own, but with an on call invuln + dodging / reflects, I think you underestimate a mesmers melee lasting potential.

OP, last bit of advice would be to go through strife’s walkthroughs prior to entering the dungeon. An example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akoLjsITrk0

I was a guard / warrior until around feb, and those vids helped me get a solid understanding for the mesmer’s role in speed clearing. Not all of the vids are mes perspective iirc, but they all handle the mechanics of the fights well.

He still has a melee weapon set he can switch to for Sword2. He can use focus and get all the reflects. Dodging is not limited to any weapon set. He can get at range or stay there with the GS.

Speed clearing a dungeon is not everyones cup of tea. Most of them are easy enough to understand most mechanics after the first time.
If he is dying a lot in those instances, the other players might not be the most experienced ones either (maybe he is pugging alot).

Another advice would be: Join a guild with a dungeon focus. Many guilds help new members get used to the stuff and take time to explain things.

Keep the GS in your inventory at least. When you have died enough in melee range as only person close to the boss in a PUG, you will understand why.

Sounds like that tiny bit of content we got, that was promised as an update worth the amount of an expansion back in the days…

Free DLC, seriously?

Ezzyz.6045:

I’d assume that would be for the player mentality that melee = death while auto attacking from 1200 range is the best place to be.

More on the scepter, with the range, you’re guaranteed to benefit from party driven boons as well! For range scepter > gs.

For fights like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBdWsz4N92Y&feature=youtu.be
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7fWSETTFIg

you know, those 48+ fractal bosses that you just cannot melee.

The opener is asking for dungeon advice on a very basic level (at least I got the impression). Level 48+ fractals are obviously in no matter relevant at this point. If he had this much experience with the content, he would probably know a specc right now, that was working for him.

He wants more survivability as he dies a lot. Sending him in with pure melee and offensive specc might be the overkill as he stated that he is dying a lot with his current setup.

So the advice should be, learn the dungeon and the pulls/bosses. Nothing wrong with a GS in this case. He is not looking for super efficiency guys. He is not going to play with 100% efficiency anyway. Maybe he never will be the super dungeon raider, but not dropping on a ground every pull like a wet noodle will help him to enjoy getting through the instance.

If he gets addicted to running dungeons, he will be exprienced enough to roll mostly melee, but for now, he just wants to know what he can do to stay alive a bit longer.
Range will help to some extend.

My advice was:
Play (pure) melee when you know what you are doing.
I thought this was in your interest. And in the interest of the opener.

Using a scepter though is so different from your other statements, that I am surprised that you are defending it…

Simple, with your definition, even playing a first person shooter would be micromanagement, as long as you are paying extreme attention to small details.

Pulling the definition card is worthless as long as you do not set things in context.

colesy.8490:

mi·cro·man·age [ m?kr? mánnij ]

1.attend to small details in management: to control a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details

So yes, things like how far you are in your autoattack chain and then things like boons, their duration, intensity, cooldowns, environmental stat modifiers (e.g. banners), sequential skills and awareness of their duration (e.g. iLeap > swap) do count as micromanagement.

Hey, I can perfectly fine play the piano with 5 keys from my baby nephew. I am a pianist now, as it is a piano.

Nope.

Look, I understand that you want to promote your playstyle and stuff. And that is all cool, even though I think you have to work on transmitting your ideas.

But try to tell a korean starcraft player who is pressing 20 keys per second to micromanage his uncountable units that there is micromanagement in GW2.
He will look at the 19 skills on your bar -18 with a cooldown – and burst in tears…

Micromanagement in GW2? Seriously?
Sometimes I think people have absolutely no idea what they are talking about…

Players like to play. At their own pace. MMOs offer content, you can explore at your own pace. Normally, Devs add stuff, so there is more content you can discover at your own pace.
One time events are rare and between in other MMO’s for a reason, they annoy people who can not participate.

Making a whole game dependend on one time events (call it Living Story) destroys most players intent to play at their own pace, because it becomes mandatory to play at the pace of the dev cycle, if you want to experience the content.

The game changes from a hidden grind (most games are, some more hidden than others) to a count-down grind, which feel like pressure. People want to get away from the everyday pressure if playing. This produces a paradox, and people will stop enjoying the game.

End of story, they will avoid the stress that is the result of the new content.

The simple answer is, you are better off with a GS than with pure melee if you are playing solo. Pure melee is mainly used for speedrunning dungeons, but it only works well if:
- the mobs are close together
- you play in a melee oriented group for boon stacking
- if you know every move of your enemy
- if the distance between you and the mobs does not matter (group pulls)

Most of the time the mobs are just dead in the time it would take you to get into melee range anyway. And you take no damage which means no downtime.
Take a sword/x in your off set and you will do fine.

Speed clears are a different topic, people joining a group labeled as that are expected and expect efficiency.
The problem is the general elitist behaviour, like “if you use a GS you are bad”.
General statements like this are obviously a result of a group trying to set themselves above others by excluding variety, labeling them as the best. But instead of just staying in their own ivory tower, they feel the need to tell everyone how much better they are (false or true doesn’t even matter).
Elitism at it’s finest. Unfortunately ridiculously misplaced in a game like GW2.

The problem we encouter here, and why the Kuebler-Ross model is appropriate is, that the first MMO for a player is like the first love, a drastic experience, which they – unconsciously – want to have back in every new one. Therefore, many players try to make every new MMO to fit in their personal first experience and try to alter the game so it may become what they have lost.

Most of the conflict here is a result of people coming from a game that has/had dungeons as the center part and progression as motivation. They see dungeons as the pinnacle of gamplay and everything else is just for the unskilled.

This will cause frustration as this game is not working this way. Dungeons are not the center of the game. In fact, there has been no new classical dungeon (besides easy event dungeons) for over a year (Fractals leave space to argue though). Dungeons are a left over, and probably the least innovative part in game (and often just badly designed), that claimed to be new and innovative. So the developers spend very little time on this matter.

So “dungeoneers” or whatever you want to call people with this attitude will build their consciousness of elitism on other factors than progression as there is none. The only other “imaginary progression” is to beat the same content faster, which seperates them from others just beating the content.

And here we are, with an elitism that is not working and as a result we have this discussions as they try to defend their superiority. Also see “Denial”.

I am just working with the Kuebler-Ross model also known as the five stages of grief.

By showing dungeoneers that the GS is the optimal weapon in different situations (AoE, even if they have tons of excuses which is totally normal) we can pass denial.

We are now in the stage of anger, which we can see very well with cosley (even though the denial is strong with this one).

The anger will hold on longer, but when the dungeoneers will see, that there is more than just the caves they spend their time in, bargaining might start.

The last two steps I will think about if we ever get that far… ^^

spoj.9672:

Yes if you want to absolutely maximize aoe, start with a beserker and then go sword focus and stay sword focus.

Was that really so hard? So most of the time you just choose to be less effective because you are too lazy to switch your weapons.

Shame on you! ^^

Look, a dungeneer taking a specific dungeon situation to describe things in his favour.

Tell me, phantasm wise, in an AoE situation what is better:

If not traited:

1. A warden every 20sec.
2. A warden and a zerker every 20sec.
3. A warden and any of the other phantasms every 20sec.

If your conclusion is any different than the order 2. 3. 1., you are doing it wrong.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

They have cornered themselves with their own statements, and now getting defensive is their only way left to argue.

colesy.8490:

Then maybe you should get the hint and stop suggesting to people they use a weak weapon.

If somebody suggested using torch in PvE they would be unanimously told not to (except by play how you want carebears), but because of mesmers using the trashsword (literally for trash and the fact that it sucks) for so long they want to defend it more.

You are just a troll cosley. In fact the GS+S/x is our best weapon combo in mostly any situation. You just can’t accept it. It’s ok, play the way you want, even if it is suboptimal. That’s what most people promote here anywhere.

spoj.9672:

Best aoe is sword focus.

What is a better AoE combo:

GS + S/F
or
S/F + S/F

Therefore our best AoE is a combination of GS and S/F. Not jst S/F.

Sorry for sort of ruining your thread, but I got so tired of opening a topic and the first thing you see each time is GS bashing, no matter of context or validity.

If you do not know the dungeon, running in with only melee equip can fairly fast result in suicide as most bosses have instagib attacks. Dead meat is doing exactly zero damage though.
If you do not know the boss or mechanics, most PuGs will be ok for you to stay back with a GS. If you know the fight well enough, do damage by fighting in melee without dying.

And: Milk scepter was a bad choice.

The wiki is a useful source for information, and I use it in my guide too, does that make i t obsolete?.
Your guide is simply all a new mesmer could ask for and more. It is a great piece of help and commitment.

Some people have just a hard time to say “thank you”, ’cause they are not able to produce anything of value by themselves.

LordByron.8369:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Doing the same dungeon over and over is still a mindless grind. At least in open world PvE, the conditions are new most of the time…
And hey, I know who started all this hate. It wasn’t me.

not really…

If you play with random party compositions but most of all with random people, you see lot of different tactics and things changes a lot.

Unfortunately some dungeons like coe are played in the same way by everyone, but fotms for example are a different game each time……

No, the hardcore dungeoneers only mantra is: stack melee, avoid all attacks as you know them from grinding the same boss forever, loot.
There is no other tactic. That’s it. Or you are bad.

My point is still valid, anywhere, besides grinding dungeon bosses, the GS+S/x is better than S/x and S/x.

Haters gonna hate though.

colesy.8490:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Dungeons:

Unless you are mindlessly grinding dungeons, skipping trash and think that is fun (hey if that is what you like, more power to you), GS is your best option.

Yeah, the dungeons are the reason we all bought this game, so we can grind them.

So you can take a jab at our playstyle but we can’t say anything about yours without QQQQQQQQQ?

Because we want to play the best we can, that means we are “mindlesly grinding dungeons”?

Also, I can’t even remember the last group I played with that fights avoidable trash, and that includes both organised groups, random pugs on gw2lfg and pugs from the in-game lfg. Skipping trash is also probably more skillful than killing it, you can completely screw up skips in Arah, whereas LoSing mobs and bursting you can probably do half asleep.

Doing the same dungeon over and over is still a mindless grind. At least in open world PvE, the conditions are new most of the time…
And hey, I know who started all this hate. It wasn’t me.

Ezzyz.6045:

Also torch bombing with portal exit inside a zerg will have a much greater impact than Your izerker / auto attack. ^^

I was talking about about PvE zergs, like temple events and stuff, you might realize they exist, if you would ever leave the dungeons… ^^

Why again would you bring that up in this thread, but I will bite…

You should use a GS for everything in PvE but hardcore dungeon boss grinding. I know I will get flamed for that but let’s see.

Open word:
Killing stuff on the way, getting into melee range with S/x and S/x is too slow.
In DE’s you won’t tag kitten with S/x, S/x.
Leveling with S/x,S/x? Probably as fast as Staff,Scepter/Torch…

Dungeons:

Trash dies fast, cast iZerker, switch to S/x, more AoE, better dmg.

Unless you are mindlessly grinding dungeons, skipping trash and think that is fun (hey if that is what you like, more power to you), GS is your best option.

If you like to play in the open world, GS is your best option. If you are a solo player, GS is your best option. If you like loot in DE’s, GS is your best option. If you run in a zerg, GS is your best option. ^^

Yeah, the dungeons are the reason we all bought this game, so we can grind them.