Guild Wars 2

It used to be 6% but now it’s 1%. Yes, I have tested it myself.

Cynz.9437:

anyone know how much AR you need for lv 40+?

55 ar is enough to take 1%/tick. If you are planning to do level 40 you need either that or close to that coupled with coordination to maintain more or less constant group heals.

You get hit by agony more often in new content so it feels harder. The actual ridiculous thing with agony is that lvl 40 (and apparently 50) are basically ar checks which require you to have at least nearly enough ar to only take 1%dmg/tick. Since they are first levels after the rise of agony dmg, as long as people do levels in order those levels make sure agony is nothing but a healing reductions in levels past 40. That’s how you promote skill and creative play over gear checks!

If I add you are also not calculating the fact mace hits every target twice in melee range, would that be enough to finally convince butcher? I guess not. I mean, there is nothing wrong with having false information but please don’t ignorantly stick to it.

For butcher: If you happen to play in EU we can go and find 1-5 mobs (5 so you can utilize your axe 5 to its fullest) and see who kills those mobs faster. Your trait build using axe/axe or my trait build using axe/mace or axe/axe depending on what we want to test. If you want you can freely do your gs rotation or whatever and I can just spam axe 1. I just want this to end, I’m sad.

Have you removing and re-equipping the weapon with stacking sigil? At least in a situation where you swapped into stacking weapon while dead it used to be (is) possible for the sigil to bug so you won’t gain stacks for kills.

Jon.1376:

Wethospu.6437:

If you didn’t beat the boss you don’t deserve the end rewards. You played for fun and got lots of rewards during the run. Be happy.

Sometimes your progress just gets reset.

Are you serious? Most people to runs for tokens. No completion, no tokens(basically)

@OP just host it man and dare them to kick you lol

Tokens are just numbers. In case you feel like you lost something for not getting them, I advice you to mark up on a paper the number of tokens you missed. That way you can always see how many tokens you migh have got.

I wouldn’t even say it’s a minor thing, pretty major one to me. At least in melee range I can’t even see the whole of tentacles or shaman which makes reading their attacks a lot harder. I don’t know how much of a difference it is from range, but when shaman rises in the air before diving I can’t see him at all. Might be something they tested with p/p thief or didn’t test at all. If this is the kind of challenge they want us to have I’m out of words.

Better release fast no matter how many bugs there might be to avoid the need to comment on complaints. “We wanted to do something but it is too late now.”

Either Anet broke that thing while patching among others, or “forgot” to mention one can’t apply agony infusion higher than certain limit value at the moment.

Only rings and backpieces can be infused at the moment. Infused items have 2 infusion slots, just like 2 handed weapons. The difference is, while weapons have 2 offensive infusion slots, infused rings and backpieces each have 1 offensive or defensive infusion slot and 1 agony infusion slot. If you have a ring or backpiece with 2 infusion slots you should be able to use +11 infusion in the lower one of those 2 slots. That is how it should work, if it doesn’t something is bugged.

These infusions fill “agony infusion” slots instead of “offensive/defensive infusion” slots. Said slots can only be found in infused rings and backpieces.

Seems like 55 is enough to take 1% at lvl 40, so not more than that seems to be needed before higher levels are opened. That means you can get away with not crafting infusions for now.

We did levels 30 and 31. Pugs will struggle like is the case with new content every time. Overall my guess is difficulty of those levels is quite similar to old level 30s. Didn’t really run a whole lot of those before reset so hard to compare. At least they are by far easier than old 48 though, let alone higher levels.

Rewards still seem to suck: 1,2g for lvl 30, 1,3g for lvl 31. I think at least 2 of us got a ring from both end boss fights but even if the droprate was increased I doubt that is what people wanted.

Instabilities are refreshing but the way Anet pushed this update out is still ridiculous with resets, leaderboards and bugs. I have hard time imagining we would be challenged on the way to 50.

Bear was already op and now it gets even stronger.

Morsus.5106:

I just want it said that in the stream yesterday they said fotm was going to be easier for Necros/Rangers. Agony no longer applies to pets/minions.

If people used bears that wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

Try living story section.

Even if I don’t know what you are using your build to, I doubt you would have better adept choice than dual wielding. If you do however need to decide between those 2, take dual wielding over axe mastery.

Assuming 100% crit chance and 50% crit dmg from equipment, axe mastery gives you 0,1/2=0,05 dmg increase, which is equal to dual wielding, so that is the break even point. Both lower crit chance and higher crit dmg value work in the favor of dual wielding over axe mastery. Depending on how the rest of your build is like, I would assume your crit chance isn’t even close to 100% and your crit dmg modifier is greater than 2 meaning dual wielding is most likely the superior choice as long as you use an offhand that triggers it.

Are you really telling me that agony ticking for more is the thing making higher levels more challenging? I thought it was generally agreed it is mostly a gear check with a hint of “coordinated heals might get you through”. So mobs are the same all the way?

mtpelion.4562:

Wethospu.6437:

More like you have played through “normal” difficulty to unlock “hard” difficulty. Developers change something in the game and instead of being able to continue on “hard” difficulty you first have to redo “normal” difficulty. And then start “hard” from scratch.

Why shouldn’t you be able to continue on “hard” and go back to “normal” if needed?

They changed where “hard” starts, so you aren’t redoing anything. Levels 30-80 are gone, and new levels 30-50 are available. You’ve never done these levels 30-50 before so you are starting “hard” on day one.

As I posted in another thread. Do you think Anet will first say “kitten you” to people with the experience on the harder end of fractals and then implement something newer players have difficulties getting in?

lordkrall.7241:

Romo.3709:

I personally never been one to promote going past level 50 since it was obviously not intended. But that being said one of the devs responses was clearly that the curve up to level 50 is way easier than it was before. With that in mind, the challenge that was there to begin with is being taken away and “chips” are nowhere in sight.

Yes, they say that the CURVE will be less difficult. That does not mean that it will be less difficult overall, just that it will increase in difficulty in a more steady stream.

Also keep in mind that the difficulty of the Fractals have nothing at all to do with the Instabilities, so they might indeed increase the difficulty of the Fractals, even if the difficulty of the Fractals themselves are slightly lowered.

But why would Anet first say “kitten you” to people with the experience of doing content harder than lvl 30 and then make the new content harder than old so new people have difficulties getting into it? If you think about it that’s the last thing that could be happening.

Well, I’m happy to see there might still be hope, I really want to like ranger but I just can’t at the moment.

Having a team fully stacked with projectile defenses might have something to do with difficulty. Not to take anything away from you but in case you wanted more challenge.

mage.3570:

Zerk warriors are either utter-fail or super-runners.

Checklist of good zerk warriors:
1. Understands melee boss mechanics and times dodges and skills well.
2. Uses banners (discipline, strength) because it helps the entire team improve DPS.
3. Uses other banners (defense, tactics) occasionally for eles and guardians.
4. Uses elite banner under two conditions: (a) difficult resses, (b) improving team DPS further.
5. Switches to rifle (not longbow) for ranged damage.
6. Does a good amount of weapon-swapping in general, getting in and out of combat depending on skill cool-downs.
7. May trait banners for regeneration.
8. May run with shield and fully absorb first hits/distract enemies for several seconds for pulling or gathering.

Checklist of bad zerks:

1. Runs with multiple ‘selfish’ signets. Signets are fine for doing content solo, but bad in teams.
2. Does not understand the utility of banners.
3. Does not understand how the interactions of other team members create opportunities for burst damage.

I still have a long way ahead I see.

Wethospu.6437:

IIRC, with achievement points they let people stay at max. I’m also fine with staying at maximum level.
IIRC, with MF they allowed you to repick stats for your gear. I’m also fine with repicking my level.

Even if you tell me I’m dreaming I still can’t stop loving posts like this.

Dahkeus.8243:

^ So true. If the dec 10th patch does anything about this, I’ll actually make a legitimate return to my ranger (my first 80 and the main class I played for about the first 6 months or so).

I wouldn’t hold my breath. Not more than a week or 2 ago there was a dev commenting in a thread saying there are no plans for changing ranger sword aa. I can’t be bothered to search said thread, though.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

even if it’s compared to 1-80 … it would still be easy for most 80’s sooo anyway it will be a joke and most ppl will be on 50 after the time they have the gear or things that are needed if they would make it so you can choose the difficulty Level you want and get it once you complete it ( so you don’t have to farm low Level junk) than you would see lvl 50’s in a day:)

I’m fully aware of that, and no matter how the difficulty will be it won’t justify any of this for me.

Also that link describes the situation very well and it might open up some new points of view for several people who don’t see why anything would be wrong with the upcoming changes.

So do you think it didn’t come into Anet’s mind people would progress past 50 doing odd levels after Maw was locked, even if they have a history of doing odd fixing attemps they could certainly do better than that?
For me that’s more like a heads up “Don’t expect to get good loot from this point on” and a reason for them to ignore “Loot doesn’t scale past level x”.

The problem here is erasing progression in general with no beforehand communication in content that from the beginning was all about progressing.

While not resetting level might have some questionable effects on fractal past patch that is only because Anet chose to implement just these exact changes in this exact way. Similar changes could have without a problem been made without any resets.

Black Box.9312:

A well-played ranger can be as useful as a warrior in terms of offensive support in dungeons. The difference is that they have a higher skill curve to play effectively.

I have yet to see a ranger managing to evade as well as other classes do because of sword, and I don’t believe anyone can unless proven wrong. That being said ranger’s unique offensive support abilities are great as you say and I feel they are indeed sword #1 remake away from being great pve class. Funny thing is if sword chain was similar to other weapons in game ranger would actually be one of the more evasive professions.

Also don’t hate on bears, they are op and double bear is the only pet choice for me when i play ranger.

People really like the word one shot. No matter how high you go, even elementalist built without survivability will face more non one shot attacks than oneshots (might be close to 50-50 i think, hard to say). The fact many mobs have attacks that can oneshot you doesn’t mean they use solely those.

Korossive.7085:

I’m a mesmer and see things from a different perspective. I’m wanted in groups… but only 1 mesmer. Then there are kick-votes even before swamp started.

Ironically, with 2 mesmers you have a lot of reflects, and alternating TWs. Don’t understand it. I’ve done tens of frac 48’s and some of the best runs were with 2 x mesmer… oh well.

My opinion would be mesmer being one of the last classes to stack like you described being the case in many groups.

Mesmer dps is unreliable and in general case low due to relying on having phantasms alive or getting good reflects. Therefore mesmers are wanted because of their unique utility aspects. However stacking these utilities gives bad returns: 2 portals gives basically nothing 1 wouldn’t give, 2 temporal curtains for mob placement is seldom needed considering the fairly low cooldown and as reflects they are on the weak side compared to other options, 2 feedbacks are still efficient, I give you that. When it comes to timewarp mesmer himself scales awful with quickness compared to other classes, because of phantasms again, to the point where I would even approximate 1 tw means 4 people gaining quickness for 10s and 2 tws mean 3 people gaining quickness for 20s for a total of 20s individual quickness increase for the group while dealing on average lower dps without quickness.
In a situation where mesmer can keep 3 phantasm up, namely 3 wardens, a single one will cover all the reflects a group needs, second mesmer won’t bring much additional utility with phantasms.

So stacking mesmers gives the group extra reflect with feedback (awesome) and makes the total dps output a lot less stable, and of course extra utility in rare occasions where multiple pulls etc. might be needed. Why not get for example an additional guardian instead if you need more reflects. That will give your party blocks, blinds and other boons while adding a lot more dps on average, on top of adding the reflects an additional mesmer would give?

I have nothing against mesmers and I think their design is awesome for dungeon content, but I see them as “one per group only” when aiming for efficiency. Using multiple will no doubt get the job done without problems if the players behind the screen perform.

fadeaway.2807:

There was never any reward or incentive to grind to fractal 80 besides personal happiness. Anet can’t take that away from you.

In a game, for what can you not apply that logic in? Is it ok for Anet to reset anything? Personally I like the legendary comparison people have used regarding patch discussion. Would it be ok to take away all the existing legendaries, for example when adding new legendary weapons. After all, those weapons only required time invested and one most likely made/bought them because he wanted to do so and having one made them happy, so time is all you would be losing. You would also retain the knowledge you once had a legendary, so why would you still need it?

displacedTitan.6897:

Explain what has changed for you now? You have to run some new content with mistlock instability instead of grinding the same thing over and over? YOU STILL GOT TO 81, GRATZ TO YOU.

What this sounds like is that the “hardcore” crowd in this game are a bunch of cry babies.

What has changed is Anet is planning to remove the current by far most challenging pve content. They are replacing it with content that has no guarantees what so ever to be on the same level and at the very least will require time investment once again, while throwing away the past work, to reach the same challenge if that is even possible in the first place since making level 31 continue from where level 80 ends won’t be happening.

They had the possibility of implementing new content without reset but they chose not to for no apparent reason. What would have been the problem with adding new fractals and opening higher level maw chests for players whenever Anet feels like it, I think that’s all most of the people wanted and expected? Want to throw in some instabilities? You have all the levels above 50 to work with or you can even add them from level 1 on and I doubt people would complain, no reset needed. Leaderboards? For something like fractals that’s the most random kitten ever and still could be implemented without personal level reset.

Resetting progress, at least in my opinion without any real reasoning, in a game that is all about progressing in one way or another, for me can’t be compensated with items, titles, money etc. Sadly I’m not even too surprised stuff like this is going to happen.

I expected nothing more than that and even still forums will be flooded with nerf nao threads. Also that quote screams for some clarification in my opinion. Less difficult curve compared to what? Current 1-50 compared to new 1-50 or something else?

Either nobody will hit lvl 50 and the content will be nerfed or the ladder will be full of lvl 50s. My wish would be lvl 31 being equal to current lvl 80 but there is no way that’s going to be the case.

Can one get infraction for derailing thread?

haviz.1340:

That’s actually what pros do and I would also like to add that I do that as well.

I thought you used embers only?

Well, if you pull off like 30 min dredges then you are right about not making whole rotation as fast. I don’t think I have done that fast of a dredge run, then again the style I’ve played those levels (basically play what you want, screw team composition) is probably not even close to optimal.

Dredge might be a bit more unforgiving than other fractals for those compositions. I doubt I would have as much fun and challenge with optimised group compositions and those are the reasons for me to run high fractals in the first place.

hybrid.5027:

Dredge fractal takes ~20 minutes at lvl48, which isn’t really that unreasonable

Problem is the increase in time beyond lvl 48. As I said earlier it reaches the point where you do a set of 3 fractals in equal time as just doing dredge.

In high lvls dredge is way over the top though. To the point where doing a full round of 3 any other fractals (well, at least assuming swamp start) takes basically less or equal time compared to just doing dredge.

It can be done in lvl 48 which is probably enough for most people. Majority of groups probably won’t succeed in lvl 48 and thos who do probably knew this already. I know that when you talk about high lvls you don’t mean lvl 48 and I agree making use of that tactic succesfully would seem unlikely in your high lvls.

Demus.4860:

Oh you guys, always getting infractions

Anyways, I think it’s arguable if wall stacking is ok or not, really just came to this thread to say that I don’t think lupi skipping is ok on any level because I felt noobgood’s post kind of implied that. Keep on infracting!

How do you feel about avoiding domes then? That is by far more dangerous attack since it’s the only one that requires certain cooldowns to be used to manage, and the way of making lupi not use it is greatly similar to avoiding barrage if you ask me. I don’t like the fact there is a way to make lupicus not use these 2 attacks but I would not call them exploits, more like questionable design.

Hexen.2930:

What a wonder that our tick is this high. deserved to be somewhere <100

I would assume it’s more or less the same in every server which explains the tick.

I decided to do some field testing and killed Belka with standard 30/25/0/0/15 berserker build (without using crack shot). Regarding utilities i chose to boost my dmg only with signet of might and signet of fury passives leaving other utilities unused .

lb(skills 1 3 5): 5:09, 5:20
rifle(1 3 4): 5:12, 5:04
rifle(1 2 3 4): 5:04, 5:09.

Without a group, in a raw dmg situation against a single target (boss) rifle seems to be at least equal and would most likely pull ahead if traited. Lb lacks in condition department for a fight like this with poor vuln stacking and bleed uptime causing loss of attack of opportunity.

I’m aware sample size is small and there are lots of ifs about buffs, group participation etc. I just wanted to do an easy test that would give some sort of information about relative strengths of these two weapons. Considering how seldom I use either of these weapons and that I’ll probably never make my choice between them according to performance in this kind of situation I’m somewhat surprised I had the strength to do even 6 kills.

What about 4 of the group going for certain goal before triggering the timer by interacting with npc or triggering a cutscene? I think that might cause problems unless it’s decided that all have to stand next to each other while triggering it, at which point why not just start timing when first people moves or uses a skill in the instance?

I kind of like Wethopu’s option 1. Time starting when someone moves would clear other debates, and time stopping at end reward is a clear solid option aswell. This would get the result as close to whole dungeon running process as possible while still excluding loading times other than cutscenes.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

GS is not better DPS, so if you hate GS playstyle you can just camp axe. I myself only use GS for the evades on lupi and when fighting alpha in weaker groups.

I would imagine alpha is one of the prime examples where gs is worth using dmg-wise and not just for utility? Wall allows you to fully utilize gs burst without needing auto attacks unless using quickness.

I’m not doing spreadsheet wars myself, but I think the calculations ending up in similar dps between pure axe and gs/axe don’t expect such a gs favoring situation.

Yes, I should have been more specific. Obviously the modifiers left out would have to be the ones shared by all the tested builds. Vuln might not be a problem for most of the builds but still that is something one might need to take into account when testing.

Yes, and I’ve never disagreed with you about it, but for some unknown reason not all seem to agree they are irrelevant. While some of the tested builds would probably cause vulnerability in their standard rotations which would end up being a problem, I can’t come up with a reason why other dmg modifiers would be needed.