Guild Wars 2

Kristine Heath.1483:

they offer less damage, less utility, no group buffs, and their minions cause more harm than good… whats the point of playing a necro over these other light armor classes? no one would choose a necro for their dungeon over a mes or an ele.

Sounds like a ranger trolling. I would agree with DPS and no DIRECT group buffs, the rest bullkitten. First off – minions more harm than good: in what sense, flesh golem offers a KD attack with 40s CD, the wraith a blind attack with a *20*s CD and the flesh wurm provides teleportation and the best part – you can run with 0 minions esp in a power build. Same cant be said about ranger.

More importantly Necros have their niche in WvW in leading and breaking zergs with Plague, flushing out thieves and mesmers and Marking for Siege Defense and Offense. Only thing I complain about is the crappy DPS even after Bleed is Power is applied (aka 10 stacks of might).

My Necro provides a Water Field too in PVE with a Healing Pod.

SynfulChaot.3169:

No misinterpreting. I agree with you in that it is now easier and that it is a skill check. I was responding to others saying it is harder now.

Apologies then

It is telling that the main ‘tactic’ for the old encounter was kite and rez-rush when you did die. The new encounter actually uses valid tactics and can be beaten without any deaths regardless of party makeup or party DPS.

Actually the old kiting was a skill check for warriors and guardians. Good guardians can solo until 80%+ and the best warrior can actually solo kite the entire thing or at least until 90%+ believe or not.

Maybe Wentospu and Puandro should combine forces and do a 2 man Youtube video of defend Magg.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Like with any instance, it can seem hard until you learn it. Instead of listing why you feel it is bad, spend the time to learn it. Most find the new encounter much easier than the old one.

It is telling that the main ‘tactic’ for the old encounter was kite and rez-rush when you did die. The new encounter actually uses valid tactics and can be beaten without any deaths regardless of party makeup or party DPS.

Seriously I mean if SynfulChaoT is referring to my thread and is either willfully misinterpreting my thread or lack any comprehension skills, what hope do I have in communicating a strategy to a similar teammate in a few sentences? Did I say at any point is it bad or hard? No, if 2 or more your teammates are at least average players and are in classes that does good DPS / have CC skills to carry the other 2 teammates, it becomes easy. If you die at all in this room (maybe excusable for glass cannon thieves but even then u should not be dead) u are a bad player regardless of the “tactics”.

PS:

Good luck with AC kholer if 3 guys get downed every time he pulls.

Big deal, most people can solo kholer with a little practice. It just takes more time.

And you dont seem to get the point, YTY. How the hell do you actually die at this stage POST PATCH? FYI those 2 dead weren’t thieves. One was a warrior in fact! I can understand if you were unlucky and the mobs happened to combo KD, stun etc you and can’t even rally, but only very rarely.

Good luck typing while playing. Not everyone is on VOIP. Calling target helps but switching target also takes a few precious seconds because you need to cancel ur current attack. If 2 or 3 guys have bad DPS, still not going to take down the assassin at point blank range.

Just admit it you never played with terribad pugs. It is almost as if you think that it is impossible to fail P2. No one can solo this stage even the solo Lupicus etc guys.

A very good party could very well 3 man it the whole way, but it is kind of stretching it. I very much doubt it is 2 mannable.

YTY.4712:

If you cannot call target on each of the assassins yourself you have no right to call it a gear/DPS check. It will only become one if the assassins are spotted way too late when they are like two or three steps from magg.

If you dont have enough DPS, assassins can be 6 or more steps away and you can’t stop the assassin solo. Preferably the assassins should be taken out by warriors and thieves, yes/no? As for calling target on assassins, I am usually on classes in P2 (ie necro) that do the AOE damage and dont require teammates to call target. And btw, trash mobs do damage to Magg as well especially if teammates insist on hugging close to Magg.

You want to know how I failed and ultimately RQ after 3 tries. On the 2nd try managed to get to 99% but 2 teammates were DEAD. Yes DEAD. Not downed but dead as a doornail.

And one or the other was dead in try 1 and 3 as well.

I forgot to mention tool kit skills, one in particular called Grenade Barrage. Its 8 grenades all at once and my engi is traited with vulnerability on crit. Engis complain about damage but I believe it is in context vs the Warrior (without resorting to convoluted juggling of weapons, traiting, etc). The player only needs to hit the HB button and insta 20-30k damage with many stacks of might being the difference, with far superior armor and health to boot

JJBigs.8456:

They help but they are not far superior above rangers, which is what started this.

Anyone play a ranger in PVP? Even after PVP balanced skills etc? Well in PVE I have yet to meet a lvl 80 ranger that uses MELEE on the rare occasion the fight is better suited to melee (Hint: Subject Alpha). The best thing about Engis they only need to get a few exo weapons as their weapons are all util skills ie Toolkit, Elixer gun etc.

As for healing, I think not many who dont play engi knows that if traited and timed properly with Kit Refinement you can have a perma Super elixir Heal (but this works only in theory as no one will bother to time exactly). Thats not the end of it. Drop the Supply Crate and it comes with a Healing Turret (alternatively equip Healing turret as heal) which gives Regen Boon which is seperate from Super Elixir. Wait – still not the end of it, equip Mortar as elite and you get yet ANOTHER stackable heal field (15s CD, 5s duration) separate from aforementioned Super Elixir and Healing Turret. An Engi could even use the consumable Med kit to drop more bandages etc. if he/she uses the Healing Turret.

And you know what? I use the Healing Seed turret in conjunction with a few of the above-mentioned which can be healed itself.

You get all this support + you can do good damage + various different attacks with grenades + like ranger, all at 1500 range when traited, although the downside is that grenades are slow moving. So tell me whether engi is better than ranger or not, notwithstanding the hindrance you call a pet (which rangers complain about all the time on their own forum).

Kamahl.3621:

However, now for the bad part – we don’t allow rangers in our group anymore. At least not on 30+.

Old Tom 5 ranger party anybody?

I find that consumables best complements my Necro. Healing Seed turret heals my minions esp my Ahem Flesh Wurm, the summoned Ember from Fire Elemental Powder accompanies my other minions absorbing damage and giving me a fire field and best of all the Skale Venom gives my Axe Necro perma weakness because I am traited for weakness on crit hit as well and they stack duration.

I am surprised no one re-mentioned the elephant in the room when it comes to rangers. Their pet cannot be stowed. Back in the day when I was still running CM and more recently HOTW, oh how I loathed rangers and their kitteny pets. Now that I dont run these 2 dungeons as often, I dont get kitten at them. In fact ranger is the best class to play if you are a noob or just, u know, bad. Just stay 1500 range and fire away and send in your pet.

Oh and btw, as for taking advantage of combo fields, the ranger is the ONLY class that doesnt have a blast finisher. Admittedly the mesmer has only one which is on torch which no one ever uses except the game designer apparently.

Problem with Plague is the CD though. I stick with my flesh golem most of the time.

At first I was leery of COF P2 as invariably if u are in a party that sucks, u will fail. But I come to appreciate as a filter for bad players (if they are not aware of the new mechanic post patch its ok). I mean if you actually die more than once in 2 or 3 tries in protecting Magg stage, I think its very unlikely you can chalk that up to bad luck.

I am being semi serious here; you can tell who knows how to play their profession and whether they know how to dodge or revive off enemies when downed. It’s even more telling to see who knows how to use food buffs/consumables if and when something hits the fan. Thus it is a nice filter for who to play with any dungeon harder than this.

Oh dear. Mod must be a serious quaggan fan. My first infraction for using the word K I T T E N. And I meant it in a joking way to poke fun at the forum censorship word replacement and at quaggan fans in general. Didnt know the word K I T T E N was really offensive to some ppl.

May as well as implement something for DISCONNECT as well. I was screwed when I was a few hits away from killing the boss and was disconnected. By the time I returned (which was about a minute) party has exited because they tot I exited too, despite my NOT looting the chest. So no XP, karma, G or tokens. And ppl ask why skip etc. etc.

No one mentioned mesmer? Then I guess I will put forward how I have used my mesmer to carry a party. Btw I am an average player, not some fighting game pro.

In general: I dont use my illusions as sh tter fodder ie they sometimes take aggro off teammates and have signet of illusions up most of the time. I sometimes have phantasm defender up to take 50% of damage away from the warriors. More importantly I go in and out of melee to relieve pressure off the melee classes and blurred frenzy allows me to be invulnerable while dealing damage. Mesmers can do damage while dodging btw. And my particular build enables me to tank for a bit believe it or not. If I were to use my staff instead of my GS to offer more support, two words: Chaos Storm – a few seconds of daze and/or Aegis/protection to teammates. And of course there is Time Warp. Do ppl usually equip their rez teammates skills either as util or elite? 90% of the time I play the answer is No. I conserve my TW until the party is in danger of being overrun so they can clear the horde that is about to overwhelm them or when a few are downed so they can either bandage themselves faster or get rezzed faster. Furthermore, reflection – reflected damage is 2nd to none with Feedback and u have THREE reflect skills if u are traited for it. People forget that even without reflect focus skills traited the phantasm warden blocks all projectiles. Condition removal – see below legendary shaman. The only thing that mesmers can’t do obviously is to heal teammates for any significant health even when traited with phantasm regen, as the amount of health healed is too low.

Specifically, Lava Shaman: this is what prompted my post in the first place. True guardians can mitigate the flaming arrow easily with reflect, but as to how to take down the shield quickly (and safely), phantasm warden, phantasm berzerker and GS autoattack does a number on the shield quickly. Another thing which is even more fantastic, mesmers have got a pull skill called Temporal curtain which allows them to do damage to the lava elementals AND damage the shield at the same time with aforementioned phantasms. They can also Feedback the flaming arrow. As for condition removal, mesmers can do that too for teammates with both phantasmal disenchanter which has a 16s cd when traited and a pulsing conditional removal Null Field.

COE Project Alpha: No explanation required if you ever played COE. And I am no expert in playing project Alpha.

miserybusiness.3718:

I find Necromancers, as a class, completely flawed. Rangers, in many ways, are too. Atleast rangers have real viability in wvw.

I think you have not played enough WvW or encountered many necros. Wells, marks, Plague, conditions, conditions transfer, even minions summoning, etc.. support not to mention an AOE channeling attack that isnt immobile AND can flush out thieves since no targeting is required.

Alternatively look for farm parties whose sole purpose is to farm for mats, and roll specifically for Ascalon and Dredge.

Tiderus.3861:

Saulius.8430:

maybe kill something instead of skipping. i heard legend that it helps to get loot.

Trust me when I say this. When I go into the fractals, I go with guild mates. When we are done with fractals, everything that was there, except to constant spawning creatures seeing as there is no end to them, is dead. I don’t like skipping things in there due to the fact that, the one thing I decide to skip, could very well hold what I need. My problem is that it just doesn’t happen.

More anti-skipperist ideology. Never understand these ppl. RNG is RNG. OP STILL could have gotten nothing even though he killed everything in all his fracts runs amounting to spending the time equivalent of 50-100 more fracts of his 250 fract runs.

That being said, MF food helps a lot I find. And if you are really, really, really desperate for vials/globs/shards, I suggest solo farming in swamp with full MF gear/food/buffs etc. Usually 1 pops after 1/2 to 1 hr of farming.

WTB poll in forum.

randomfightfan.4091:

i carry with my thief daily. sadly your assumption was wrong in my case

I personally think thieves can save parties completely downed (happened to me a few times) but this is counterbalanced they get downed v easily themselves unless the player is skilled. People generally have a bad opinion of thieves being glass cannons and the many players playing thief really badly in PVE. I would have said the same thing about eles a month ago, but it seems that people playing elementalists have upped their game, at least in my experience.

If your party members are inexperienced in a particular encounter or just simply overwhelmed by it, which class will you pick to save the day? Definitely the answer will depend on individual skill levels, the specific fight in question and familiarity / experience with the class, I am simply curious as to what people think and how do they play?

Sadly I believe rangers/necros/engis/thieves aren’t going to be anybody’s answer. Personally I feel that as high the Warrior’s DPS is, it cant carry a party in general. It may be just that I don’t have the skill or the experience to play warrior at its most effective.

Hands up I made mistakes and left one party high and dry once in COF. I was hardly being malicious, I simply forgot I was the instance starter and was in a rush. By the time I realized my mistake it was too late.

I also screwed a Fractals party (low level thankfully) once by pressing the exit button because the daily chest was taking so long to appear and I had been farming COF path 1 prior to the Fracts. Majority of the party pressed ready as well though.

Actually I think its the player more than the class that is more important.

If there is a profession that I really dislike it has to be the ranger. Name me one thing that ranger brings to the table that other professions do not in PVE (water fields can be provided via healing pods). More importantly pets CANNOT be desummoned, aggroes when u dont want it to. I dont play PVP at all but I seriously doubt its popular there. In WvW ranger becomes slightly more useful but other professions are even better eg the much maligned necromancers and engineers.

The reason why rangers doesnt get so much flak is because bad / inexperienced players can get away with playing a ranged character.

PS: Edited because I tot OP said mesmer brought less utility than a thief.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Also I find that most people complain because these ‘tricks’ do not seem fun to them. Which from my experiences is usually caused by the people who do these ‘tricks’ are actually bad at them and try to rush the team through the dungeon. And here’s how I assume it works usually with these discoveries..

Actually its the converse with my experiences in AC. So many “elitists” in this game want to do Kholer (not because of loot but because of “elitist” anti-skip mentality) but get downed by him. Ditto for Howling King pre-patch.

Usually the better players are the IDC crowd.

haviz.1340:

Yasi.9065:

Because until last patch I actually enjoyed playing with new people every day

And now you have to “enjoy” it even more ;p

But I still don’t get what Dungeon Finder could do to solve this problem. You’re gonna play with bads anyway.

Well you dont have to WAIT for up to half an hour for the privilege of playing with bads and u dont have to keep hitting the refresh button for gw2lfg and alt tabbing hoping that u are fast enuff to get in in lf2m and lf1m groups.

Might I suggest: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Seed_Pod + blast / leap finishers. At 40c a pop, saves a lot of frustration

Err I once saw a post for a speed run / farm with the requirements: “High DPS and acceptable grammar required”.

This AOE proposed nerf is really scary to me because I enjoy playing a necromancer and a grenadier engineer wearing full berserker gear. Even they do considerable damage with AOE, still nothing compared to warrior and thief dps with the same gear albeit mostly to a single target. As so many have pointed out, a flat out nerf would render these two classes unplayable and even further ostracized if that was even possible. This really leaves a bad taste in my mouth and if the nerf was bad enough, force me to stop playing even though I have spent many hours getting the gear etc for my characters.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

If you run fast enough, you’ll continue to get 20 tokens, 26 silver at the completion of each run. So that 60 silver per run becomes 86 which means with 6 runs an hour then you’re getting 5 gold 16 silver in coin, plus 150+ tokens each run (which on average will net you around 4-5 ectos) meaning you’re making 6 gold an hour or more.

How does one “outrun” DR? You mean u complete one run in 5 minutes or less you dont get DR in the second consecutive run? I dont think DR works like that.

zencow.3651:

That’s what I used to think when I was a PVT believer 2 months ago. But once you play with full glass cannon elite crews you sorta get used things dying fast, then when you PuG and get ‘I never die!’ PVT/Cleric eles/guardians in your CoE team and Subject Alpha encounters takes 10 mins to kill as opposed to 30 seconds, it gets VERY BORING.

30s really? Youtube please. And please dont tell there isnt at least one mesmer in that party. As for a berserker geared guardian, I fail to see really how much more damage it does as opposed to a soldier geared guardian.

LFG Max DPSers only. Please link all gear thank you.

haviz.1340:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Since when did only max damage = decent damage? This thread is less about build, more about some players’ egos.

Going by your opinion I can use full MF gear when I wouldn’t have issues with survival, right? It deals “decent” damage afterall.

Sure, not that I would know. Especially during trash mobs. But I tot your beef is against players using PVT.

Since when did only max damage = decent damage? This thread is less about build, more about some players’ egos.

I rather not play with players who say they never die or get downed very rarely or players who want 4 teammates who will never die. Just saying.

Berserker’s armor just makes boss fights slightly faster in most cases, I dont see it as a game changer.

But thats my standard build for some of my classes regardless of dungeon. I am not really disagreeing with you, if they nerf the health etc like they did for COF path 1 boss, more players will do HOTW with me.

I prefer a Mystic forge approach where u put in 4 rings to come up with another random account bound Ascended ring. 4 Infused = 1 random infused etc.

With asterisk noted above. Is running HOTW path 2 sub 30 min considered par?

Oglaf.1074:

Malediktus.9250:

It would be too good money if they have less health.

You mean the gold vs. time spent would be on par with other dungeons? Yeah, I can see why we can’t have that!

It is on par with other dungeons without exploits except AC and COF. The only problem is you have to have a majority of glass cannon AOE DPSers (necros, eles, grenadiers engineers) etc. in your party.

Hilda Raven.8641:

Okay I see you’re obviously not getting it.

Dungeons are designed to be challenging activities.

10 mins, running past everything and farming tokens is not a challenging activity.

Nor is it forcing everyone to play my way.

Wasabi have you noticed the past updates at all?

Go read the update forum, pretty sure you will find
“Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to skip content.” and similar for other dungeons in the past.
Which means it is not intended.

Funny why should people play the way the way dungeons are designed. CM exp is the best example: you can either stealth your way in or pull mobs from the next room in order to progress. Not sure if the designers made CM with thieves and mesmers in mind or not.

Why should you have a problem with people who don’t want to kill mobs that take an extra 2 min to kill if they choose not to? If it doesnt matter either way, you wouldn’t be complaining and asking for a patch for it to be compulsory. And how is killing mobs challenging etc in most cases? HOTW path 1 patrolling wolves is a good example in my opinion: you can either skip these and go straight to troll or just kill them all. I prefer killing as I play aoe glass cannons in HOTW and they may drop T6 mats (even the odd rare and the very small chance of exo) but I completely understand if the party wants to skip because its time consuming/boring/dangerous to their builds/classes.

I wonder who will keep running the same dungeon over and over and over again if there weren’t after the rewards, because repetition sure isnt fun. TBH if they hadn’t implemented the boss gold system, I wouldnt be playing GW2 until the next major expansion pack comes along.

XGhoul.7426:

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Uhm no, i guess he prefer to play with players playing, not carried nor constantly revved/rezzed thanks to their pathetic glass cannont oneshot-died build

I never die on a fractal 30+ run, usually go down 1-2 times MAX, glass cannon is not for everyone if you can’t dodge/weapon swap properly.

Glass cannons dont die from one shot. It takes three shots. Obviously XGhoul ONLY runs with elite players like himself, rarely gets cliffside and doesnt even try to res teammates at all.

Hilda Raven.8641:

…a room full of silvers…

Where? Everyone would like to know.

I propose guilds with “kill every mob that exists, that will exist or ever existed” member rules. Makes life easier for the rest of us and we know who to avoid.

I wish these guys go into open world and get stuck there killing infinite spawns.

Grenadier Engis are the kings and queens of HOTW.

It only works if you dont play it consecutively across characters within a few hours. If not, you will incur Diminished Returns. (please check wiki for more detailed explanation).

RedStar.4218:

Accidentally found that bug, but…really ? I’m sorry but after reading so many posts on subject alpha I can’t believe anyone find him hard in path 1 or 2…Maybe it’s because we generally have 2 guardians when doing this but we don’t even bother to dodge anything.
That’s the main reason why I hate exploits : players aren’t getting better. They simply bug it and then one day, they come crying about another boss with similar mechanics that they can’t exploit.

So not having to dodge or anything on Subject Alpha makes one a better player? So enemy attack mechanics thwarted by certain classes’ skills are not exploits while using the terrain to that same end result are? Morally superior my behind.

Ashur Etil Lani.4518:

1 good jumper + portal gun + waypoint = run under 10 minutes.
Thats 60 tokens, so what if ori is worth less than gossamer my point still stands.
If you don’t use the candelabra exploits in cof path 1 that path is longer.

Err what? Whats the candelabra exploit? A good team speed run for COF path 1 is under 9 minutes without special gear etc. You get 2 bosses gold on their bodies and 3 chests. Thats why people are willing to ignore DR for COF. Unless u count mesmer portals as exploits, its 100% legit.

Ashur Etil Lani.4518:

You can skip everything but the bossfight on path 3 Arah by jumping and walking up the walls, you don’t even have to trigger the path to do it.
This gives you 60 dungeon tokens in 10 minutes or less if everyone knows how to jump up walls. If you have, like me more than one level 80 you can get quite a lot of tokens. Those tokens you exchange for the rare armor pieces not the dungeon armor. You proceed to salvage those armor pieces. You get ectos and orichalcum out of them.
That hurts the economy.

Actually gossamer is better than ori and this depends on RNG, as well as the number of ectos u can salvage. COF path 1 legit speedruns are still more profitable, even faster and requires less skill. If you are talking about Arah gear, I personally think it looks terrible. If Anet wants to encourage non-repetitive play, then it should have better scaling of rewards.