Guild Wars 2

the boss is what spawns the Jade Colossi, not the tentacles. you can kill all of the tentacles before finishing the Jade’s off and not have any issues, but killing the boss would likely stop the ability of them to spawn.

Eldiora.5836:

I just hear a collective moan whenever cliffside pops up on 30+. Its not that its so hard but simply obnoxious long. Buggy where people just fall trough the floor and your group has to suicide. Or even more buggy and you can’t progress because of it.

good to know its a 30+ issue. as there is no reason to go that far i’ll likely not encounter it for a while as I’d rather redo lower levels to help guildies anyways

is it even possible to kill it before finishing them? (without using tentacle GS-5 pull trick)

my guess is the bug is there as you used a trick that got you enough crystals to avoid the 2nd phase change (and also 2nd round of agony) that you encountered a situation that the code isn’t prepared to handle (as it should be able to happen with the standard 1 crystal each).

LemurTron.9261:

ATMAvatar.5749:

I would prefer they group the available fractals into three distinct groups based upon difficulty and/or length and ensure that you get one of each group during a run. Getting dredge, grawl, and cliffside all together really sucks when compared against the luck of getting underwater, swamp, and ascalon, if only because you’ll take twice as long (or longer!) on the former versus the latter.

not a bad idea

in general I like randomness, which is part of the appeal of fractals. RNG even to some extent. Predictable = boring, imo.

But the above would also combat the rampantness of fotm squads cycling through myriad ‘first’ fractal instances just to start with one of the fast ones, which can also get a bit silly

too many times have i seen a group spend 5min (differnce in the length of a long one to a medium one) just to end up with the two long ones they are avoiding as number 2 and 3.

their should be a 5min wait after returning to the lab to be able to start over, fixes this problem instantly. (only issue with this currently is restarting due to a disconnect, but that is getting fixed next patch)

ATMAvatar.5749:

I would prefer they group the available fractals into three distinct groups based upon difficulty and/or length and ensure that you get one of each group during a run. Getting dredge, grawl, and cliffside all together really sucks when compared against the luck of getting underwater, swamp, and ascalon, if only because you’ll take twice as long (or longer!) on the former versus the latter.

the issue i see here is defining difficulty and length on a global scale can be rather difficult to do. What do i mean? depending on the group setup (same players) the hard fractal (class set A) may be easy and fast (class set while the easy fractal (class set A) may become the hard one (class set.

What really needs to be done is some minor adjustments for some of the longer ones to make them slightly shorter. mainly I’d just suggest removing one seal level from cliffside (this should make its length consistent with the others).

short ones, (swamp, and water ones) somewhat being forced to happen each time from draws from the blocks would bother many more people as many pugs still are unable to get the swamp (imo, due to communication only from chat) and i have seen far to many pugs that relies on just one or two to do the swim and if they dont make it they restart till the one good swimmer gets there. I would start seeing is anyone a good swimmer, if no one says yes the group does not run as they dont want to deal with a 100% swim or swamp.

while it is a little long, i personally enjoy cliffside, its one of the easier fractals. I have also never once encountered a bug in this fractal. I do know some have existed, and some still happen “now and then” and need to be fixed.

but please do not remove a fractal just because it has some issues, better option is an option to checkpoint without all dieing (or restart from last completed checkpoint, ie here the 2 seals would need to be done from start with new mobs on his first “bug” and in the second case start boss over)

you will likely get nothing but some unlocked black lion kits.

to be honest, if you spent 50skillpoints for 5 of a single stat, you should have know this would have been changed. you need to be responsible enough to know when something new (and optional) comes out and costs a ridiculous amount that it will likely be changed/adjusted. the “free” +5 AR item does the same thing for you (5 of 1 stat when you have 2k is nothing, even if you made 3 for 15, still nothing) and you should have waited.

Now should they do something to compensate? yes, but it will not be and shouldn’t be 45 skill points. (you yourself have said it seemed wrong but did it anyways)

the only reason i see doing this is due to the fractal tears and AR, but seeing how the lv1 doing a lv10 is still getting a lv1 daily, they are not moving up in AR and if they are ok to do lv10 why cant they do 19? 20 with no AR maybe an issue if its not someone you know when pugging.

Decked.8274:

Playing melee thief in dungeons is almost impossible, we need Death Blossom to dodge, not only to evade the attacks but also to move to the backs of the mobs

shouldn’t you already be behind the mob? so DB actually brings you infront of the mob and in harms way most of the time? Thiefs have more then enough dodge and one of the reasons i stopped running D/D condition with DB on my thief was the number of times the skill ends with me exactly where i do not want to be.

the linking of three fractals together and not being able to deathrun/repair is where the difficulty comes in. Now it may change at higher levels, but gear damage shouldnt be an issue.. if it has been its time to find a decent guild to build the base of your groups from.

length of fractals does vary some, but i do not find it to be that much variation as some find. some adjustment could be done to the longer ones to make them slightly quicker, but nothing major should be done. to be honest weighted draws for the fractals so you would not get to avoid 3x longest ones often and also be less likely for 3x shortest ones would be sufficient for me.

The swamp is the fastest run by far, but it is also often the longest/hardest one for pugs to do, but in a good group we all jump for joy when we see it.

cliffside is a bit long, but i do not find it that much longer unless your group sucks passing the hammer around and such. Dredge is a pain if you cant time the drop or the group isn’t doing the same method for some of the parts. grawl is short imo, only long if you struggle with the final boss.

If you were able to do fractals in a 1 at a time, or 2x or 3x(full run) and work towards advancement i think it would have to be done as 6x singles = 2x doubles = 1x triple to really keep the dificulty of working together to not die and do 3 tasks (+maw on evens). the ability to do the maw would also need to be adjusted in this setting also (maybe all need full xp in even to enter, must do maw to level up)

account DR, need to wait 2hrs to get full rewards when using another character.

and yes it has been like this since fractals came out (or longer i forget)

account levels + AR visible maybe be useful, but unless that lv41 fractal due has passed AR to his newly 80 alt who’s geared in full exotics, the alt is rather poor in lv30 fractal even with all the experience of the main toon.

as many have said, this most helps guilds so they can bring in a non-pug whos on vent/ts as a skilled guildy (w/o AR) who has done few fractals who listens to you over vent/ts is often more useful then a random pug (w/ 10 AR) on a level 10-19. While this may make it bad for people who pug and dont run with their guild (as those 5th spots are now filled in guild), it may just force them to find a good useful guild; which will better strengthen the community and give the game a better chance to flourish longer in the future.

No No No No and No!

grinding AC, TA, and others is already a much faster way to level a toon (fractals need AR to make worth wild which you need 80 to get, and also give much less exp for the time invested and no real tokens twords exotics at lv80).

if we put this into its own hub like sPvP it would just move most of the population there, still keeping the main world empty as you say. Also keeping the next tear of gear kept to just fractals limits game progression down the road. if anyone really thought that exotic would always be the top gear in the game (even years from now) they do not understand how MMOs keep alive. While they have already stated they are not going the treadmill of new gear set every few months, it is reasonable every year or so that you will need to work for something new to stay at the top (and this is nothing more than that).

I could argue that exotics are no more needed in the open world than ascended gear, the only advantage they have over yellow is they are better gear and better stats are better. ascended is better then exotic in terms of stats, thus a very valid reason they are just as needed everywhere as exotics are. I can see why someone who only wants to WvW might not like the gear, but this isnt just a PvP game, and if you only do one aspect of the game you shouldnt be as good as everyone who does all aspects. the additional stats from ascended isnt enough to keep it out of WvW, and if it becomes that large of a gap they will scale it back in WvW or do something to address this when the time comes (with just 2 rings and the back available it isn’t noticeable enough)

account wide issue is being addressed next month, but you still need AR on all to go into higher levels, but i guess that is account bound and can already be taken care of.

haviz.1340:

No one said you won’t be able to see the personal level of each party member. This system’s gonna be great for friends and guildies that have similar but not identical levels. It should be implemented from day one.

this guy got it correct, its great for friends and guilds. I have plenty of guildies who were left behind in the initial fractal push for w/e reason who now struggle to find groups (didn’t get them, people drop wasting time, get groups with very unskilled players) who have every bit of skill to be doing 20/30+ once they pick up some AR who can now jump in with us at higher (reasonable levels, under 20 till they have AR) levels to get pushed up in level.

when it comes to pugs, the thing you need to remember is some people just dont have the skill. if you are doing 20+, there will be people even with 30AR who are just not good players and can bring any group down. seeing their level or AR does not tell you everything you need to know, and this is why you should be trying to find a good active guild where 3-4 of the party members are guild members who you can depend on being good gamers.

Also seeing the fractal level of a char does not tell you everything. myself, my main (thief) is only on level 11 (but has 20 almost 25AR) because i have mainly been running my alt (guard) for fractals with the guild because the group setup runs so much easier (and other guards are all low level fractals). I have all the experience of higher level but if you simply see my thief (preferred char to use) you may think only on 11, never do anything hard. Many people will start using their alts with the change who have had rings passed to the alts and maybe even made backs for them and knowing the fractal level will tell you nothing.

the issues with a real LFG tool is it needs to not just put 5 random players together, but make intelligent options about classes (handle requests from partial groups, avoid groups with 3-4 of same class in the group (they work but only with communication, something that does not exist via in game text chat, not how pgs tend to go)).

gw2lfg is great, but how many times have you used the tool and see 3 light armor, 2 medium, and said well crap i guess we have to kite everything or drop someone and find someone who can take a hit or the consistently to make things much easier.

I am part of a smaller guild (80+ and growing with dedicated active players only), and it is rare we need to bring more then just 1 pug to run things, and gw2lfg does just as good of a job for this as an ingame tool. if your pugin everything and realy feel you need that ingame tool so bad, try finding a guild that does runs things during your playtime and helps their guildmates (that is the point of a guild isnt it?)

What i see everyone missing here is this, the change may not help making pugs easier at the very top levels, but it will surely make getting a guild group together for the higher levels so much easier.

I look at my guild (we have not done as many fractals a many), but we have so many who simply have given up and will only do them when a full guild group is made for their level (these players a great players, but still lv 2-5 fractals since they do not pug). With the change, the main groups from the guild that most often do 4 + 1pug and hope they know what they are doing (some people even in the teens are clueless about fractals) can now grab a guild member who is on lv3 and bring them into say lv 16 and all get something out of it. Now our member we bring may not have AR (but the pug may not have under the current system anyways), but we know they are smart and will do what are told to avoid agony and the few extras downs we will deal with for a run or two untill they get some AR (something you shouldn’t mind for a guild member, but wold be very annoyed with a pug who’s slacking and didn’t let you know no AR).

is the change perfect? no, but its a great step in the correct direction. For someone like myself i can now stop worrying about doing 2x a ay to keep both my thief (main) and guard (alt) at the same fractal level so i can use w/e one fits the group best (both have plenty of AR from passing rings and such around), and i know we will have good players in each run rather then crossing our fingers with the use of gw2lfg (will alos be better now since the does this person have stable connection question is also over)

my guess is the loot is be as if you in the level you set, the complexity of the adjusting each players loot drops based on their current max level would likely run into many issues.

The daily chest I can see having something like if your below lv 10 the daily is lv10 if your in level 10+ and otherwise it is your corresponding level. This alows us to get more chances at rings with new players to not hinder performance, but also keeps us from pulling someone into 26 and skipping the non-infused rings.

I also do not think people will skip maw levels, some will, but not many players do more than 2 maybe 3 fractals a day and you want to get your daily in each day (we need the drops for AR, rings and substantially more relics to use towards a back), so while the even only gets your levels up, unless you already have AR from another char passing it to them, and cash for a back, it would not be the best way to advance.

my question is, what else are you going to use that gold to do? unless your really saving for a legendary its easy to come up with the cash to infuse the back in a few weeks.

did I need to spend ~85 gold for my quiver + infused? no, but what else was I going to do with the cash i made in the last 2 weeks? i don’t want a commander title and have all exotics for every slot on both my toons, so why not make it.

this still happens

style.6173:

The bigger issue in general is that it sucks to have a thief on your dungeon team. They are by far the weakest dungeon class.

This is simply not true. thief puts out great damage and are not a hindrance to any group, bad players are.

The real problem is that thief is a class that actually takes a lot more skill to play well then most due to its very squishy nature. A poorly played thief brings nothing to the dungeon as they will likely be downed way too much stopping their dps and the dps of the person who is always getting them back up (i normally just leave them down if this happens).

now that same “bad” player rolls a warrior or guardian and they will be downed much less due to the nature of the class making them not seem so useless as they did playing the thief.

many thiefs will try to switch to sb or p/p to avoid the constant downing because they are not skilled enough to run d/d or s/p, but the issue here is they are built for d/d (or s/p) and their build does not work well with p/p or sb further lowering their dps making them somewhat dead weight (though likely better then when they tried to melee as they are built for).

I have a fully geared 80 thief and guardian and i can and do switch them out all the time in guild groups and with the same other 4 players there is no difference in the time it takes us to clear the same dungeon depending on what toon i bring (assuming the group is not made of all squishy classes when i bring the thief).

Ensign.2189:

I’m be cautious about any straight comparisons of DPS between a Warrior and other classes, since the Warrior seems to out-DPS every other class in the game by 20% or so regardless of the situation. If Rifle is 20% stronger than the Thief’s P/P at dealing damage, that would be about par for the course, since Axe or Greatsword out-damage the Thief’s daggers or sword by 20% or so as well. Of course, if Rifle was only 20% stronger than P/P, then P/P would be a much better weapon set than it is now; it’s closer to 50% stronger at current numbers.

Tulisin.6945:

Dungeons: P/P actually shines in some boss fights that are single target and heavily favor range. Not really worth using outside of those fights though, for the same reasons P/P isn’t that great in the open world.

I’d hesitate to say it ‘shines’ in those fights, given that it’s still weaker than the ranged options available to most other classes. Still, in fights where you’re realistically not going to melee (Lupicus), and there aren’t going to be other people in stationary melee at all (which makes the blast finisher less sexy), and no adds (no AoE opportunities), then P/P will outperform Short Bow, and you gain effectiveness by swapping to it.

(you would also gain effectiveness by swapping to an alt for that fight, but that’s a lot more time consuming and doesn’t work for Fractals).

Granted, that encompasses, oh, half a dozen monsters in the entire game, so it’s not exactly a priority – but those are some of the more difficult encounters, so you might as well keep a pair in your pack for those situations if you’re going to be facing them.

So the issue that I have with this difference is that if we look at the post from JonathanSharp (a game designer) following the 12/14 patch notes they state that thief “Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game.”

now warriors “We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.”

from their point of view warrior should not do 20% more dmg in melee, and likely shouldn’t do 20% more at range either. This means that either they dont actually do this much more (you can not really tell in this game as we have no way to really accurately check dps) or we have a bit longer to wait until we reach the balance they are seeking.

Godsend.1643:

All those AoE blinds really add up in terms of defense. Mobs don’t fight like players in the way that they do one big attack around every 3 or 4 seconds. If those attacks hit for 4,000 damage, then four mobs missing their attacks saves some 16,000 damage. How many other skills/boons can help more than that?

the problem with blind in pve is that things that can be blinded it will not matter for, and things that it would matter for blind = 10% miss chance.

the only time blind is useful for PvE is maybe for trash in a group with no real tanky type builds that can take some damage.

no, this normally happens when your scaled up.

look at it this way, you can get exotics out of the chest, now lv45 no exotics, so no chance for exotics if not scaled up. higher level items also worth more normally, so you make more cash.

All i can say is if your guild is not willing to help you do the lower level fractals then you need to find a new better guild filled with people who care for more then just themselves.

while I (and guild) prefer to run 10+ and evens only, we run lower level fractals (maybe with alts) to catch guildies up so we have a larger pool to do our dailies with and not need to run pugs. It is also helpful to get people your regularly running with up to 10+ for better gear to make other runs easier (not that many dung runs are hard)

We also know how bad most pugs are from 1-5 or so as people do not know what they are doing (unless you get someones alt) or have not progressed because they have unstable connections but keep trying to do fractals and thus tend to do them only if we have 3-4 from guild to run them.

I am not that high yet, but my guess is whatever % had been tied to the non-infused rings in the higher levels is now with the infused ring. no higher change of a drop, just when you get a ring it will be the infused one (if your doing lv26 you likely do not need the non-infused rings, unless it is for stats but we now have the tokin way to get that so your want the infused anyways)

Both work good, but the thing to be careful about with condition builds is with to many of them in a group (normally more then 1) your dmg is getting knocked down significantly when bleed cap is hit.

For this reason I tend to stay crit/power focused because it is rare that i do not find another condition build in my groups. And of the people i often run with, Thiefs have legit builds on both sides without giving up much, which i do not think is the case for all.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

You’ll have enough to make any two you’d like if you play all five days.

so we can only make 2? and only if we play the 5 days? what happened to being able to repeat in LA to ensure no one missed anything?

Also why can we not get the daily when we redo them in LA to get more cogs/mats to make all 5? and if we cant, where can we see each of the toys to know what 2 we may want to make

WHY WHY is it another timed puzzle? … My personal keymapping and play style (works great for pve what i mostly do) does not work well for these quick turns and jumps needed and with the wait between its not worth even doing, I can get presents faster by not doing the puzzle which means the only reason to keep doing it is the achievement (not worth the time imo)

Anet, next event try something like this:
Puzzle A and B, each with 2-3 difficulties

Puzzle A – timed puzzle with an easy mode (more time for those who are not fast jumpers/need to turn not as good with mouse or w/e) and a harder mode which is likely somewhere between this puzzle and the clock tower. Maybe add in a even harder (faster maybe? need complete the lower levels 1st) with each difficulty giving slightly more rewards. while the rewards may not need to be much better as the puzzle is faster so you can repeat it quicker.

Puzzle B – not timed, but difficult jumps, wind/bombs/(other creative obstacles {ppl tossing snowballs, avalanches, runaway rolling snow balls would have been here for wintersday} that need to be avoided/timed) with the higher difficulties having better rewards.

this would satisfy most everyone in giving multiple puzzle types (those who like timed and those who like more difficult ones that you can take your time on) and difficulties that can challenge the better jumpers and also not exclude people from the content.

Voltron.1043:

LOL! Reading this i feel like guardian was nerfed to ground. I was testing today my Hammer/AH 0/15/30/10/5 build in dungeons, and I dont feel diffrence. I still tank bosses, heal like crazy, and draw aggro nice, so whats the problem? Now I can make more dodges and dodges heal me. I have permanent Vigor now. And so many boons around I dont feel heal per sec drop. Now there is no even moment without Vigor

I undestand that if someone choose GS or Sword and was spamming crit autoattack, when each one was healing him, he will cry. But now you have to choose between DPS (Sword, Scepter, GS) and more tank/healing DPS (Hammer/Mace) and full Support/Heal (staff). I am glad becasue now Hammers are in better place since they heal more from Protection and Retalition, and Sword will be DPS weapon and no more free-heal each attack.

For me it wasnt nerf- it was balance change. Ur DPS or Tank/DPS? Now Choose. And try maybe something else with traits (I grabed Empowered Might today and testing it).

Having not read the guardian patch notes last night (looked at what they did for thief, then went to mess with him) and ended up running fractals and other dungeons on my guard as we were missing heavy’s I wouldn’t have ever noticed that there was a change that effects my AH build. (I run a tanky DPS shout AH build) As with normal my health was almost always 80% or higher but for after big hits from bosses, and even then I never felt even the slightest danger of being downed (unless i afk auto atk and don’t ever dodge).

I will say this change can effect heavy DPS crit builds who wanted to be a tank too, but lets get real you shouldn’t be doing mass damage and still be tanking like a pro. If you want to be a great tank for your group, you need to give up some dps, and if you want to be dps you need to give up some heal/tankyness.

crewthief.8649:

Empowering Might + omnomberry pie + Superior Sigil of Blood, is still very good survivability. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s highly suggested. I’m just thinking that they basically made Empowering Might a requirement for maximizing an AH build now.

On a completely unrelated side note…why on Earth haven’t I levelled a Thief, they got buffed this patch! LMAO!

if your having a hard time surviving with this minor change, Thief would absolutely not be the class for you.

the problem with all things done is that there is no target dummy that you can realy see long time frame dps. Crit builds especially need to be tested over a 3-5min time frame to get average dps to take into account for long chains of crits (or lack of them) on the major skills.

if they are giving us patch build version 5, they can push the previous most complete version and then the “switch” patch contains anything they changed from build version 4 to version 5 and whatever is needed to make it live on the server, which is much smaller.

this is very useful when they place patches with such great timing in terms of the number who would be online.. but oh well, guess i will not be playing till tomorrow as this will take forever

Lasaonar.9132:

Chax.5369:

You kidding me? It CANT be that hard to give the europes a decent timeframe. The patch will arrive in the late night for us. Can’t you just make it fair? Like now: Its 9:26 pm here, noon in the US, thats fair…

You’ll have to file a complaint to the Office of Time Wizards. They can relocate you to a different time zone.

this is why they need to have set times to release big patches such as todays. We all know sometimes it will be 30min-1hr behind schedule, but not having “time zone” based servers and giving no time frame can waste a hole evening of a player whos not in the same time zone as the server. if they know it was a 3pm pst planned launch they can just know they will not see it till the next day, and maybe even go to bed early to get up early to have there fun rather than staying up waiting for nothing.

the devs have posted on twitter that there will be snow before you sleep, but i am sure some of the players in some timezones have gone to sleep on the 14th without snow in GW2!

I’d be happy with the patch notes to see what bugs have been adjusted, what changes i will need to make to my characters builds/play and such. to be honest, I’m more waiting for that then the wintersday stuff that comes today!

given they still do not know what time they can get this out today gives me chills, expect ALOT of bugs as they didnt give themselves enough time to fully test the final version (should have been ready 2-3 days ago with patch being today) to have only very minor hot fix type issues before sending out today…

the best and smartest fix is to make FoTM like EVERY other dung, if all 5 are in LA (no matter the server) they get ported into the same instance when the first person enters (or in some cases when each member of the group enters they enter the same instance when the enter dung port does not work).

This 100% removes the issue of needing an overflow, and when you play at a less populated time of the day getting an overflow is not always easy. a /overflow that moves you to an overflow would work as well, but the just not needing overflow to group with people from another server (like every other dung) just makes more sense.

I’d love to see the following:

1. vital shot keeps same dmg, speed reduced to 1/4sec to attack, drop the bleed and replace it with 1 stack of vulnerability.

2. replace body shot with something else, not sure the best option. while i do not think pistols are a condition wepon i’d like to not see bleed on it, but maybe a criple (or knockback) with reasonable dmg (enough to use it in a normal rotation and not just for the added skill)

Now i do not expect this i what we wil get, but it will be nice. I guess we will find out tomorrow.

same issue in here today, will not open it before again

Still nothing from Mac Support, but I have fixed it using the above fix.

note, i did need to use terminal to find the folder and remove it, but then launched and small download and it worked.

Support just replied as I was writing this with a massively long email I am not going to read.

my support ticket got passed on to the Mac guys so hopefully they are working on something. I’d like it fixed now, but as long as its worked out before the event starts tomorrow I’ll be happy

talking with a few friends on vent, it seems only Mountain lion users are having this issue. wonder how long it will take to get fixed…

same issue here…