Guild Wars 2

Giganticus Lupicus because of his multiple stages and how he becomes much easier to fight when you learn how to dodge all the necessary attacks. I think he has the most individual mechanics compared to any other dungeon boss in the game.

Ioflux.4369:

Man, all these threads about people being too lazy to get better. The people who post these kind of threads need to stop thinking “we’re good players, we should be able to beat everything” and start thinking “if we can’t do this, we need to re-work our strategy, practice, and play better”. Yes, not everyone has the time to learn or learns at a much slower rate, but I guarantee in a few months time, most of these threads about AC being too hard will be a thing of the past once pugs learn how to do them with blindfolds on.

Yep. I remember after a few weeks after release, people were saying the old AC was “too hard” and/or “impossible”. Then a few months later, after people had taken the time to learn the mechanics, it became “too easy”. Aside from the bugs, I think most of the problems seem to be a teamwork problem and/or lack of experience with the new mechanics. Some PuGs will prefer 80s because it probably makes them feel more confident in the teams abilities, given that they have no idea who they will pick up. You’re grouping with strangers, so you either put some restrictions to put your mind at ease, or you can be patient and try to work together regardless of who or what is available for the challenge.

Part of the reasons that these dungeons get popular is that people spread word of how to beat the mechanics and others try it out. I never thought Arah would be a regular dungeon for my static team, but we’re running it in under an hour for two paths (usually 2-3 hours per path) thanks to weeks of practice and Strife’s video tutorials on youtube. The old AC paths used to take groups 40 minutes or so until people spread word about faster strategies.

Most of these complaints, I believe, are just initial shock reactions because the new AC is still unfamiliar to most (the bugs are very discouraging, though). I’m not going to throw labels around, but I’ll just say… maybe if given enough time, people will realize AC isn’t so bad.

If you have a team that can keep up anti projectiles and have good DPS, you could actually just rush underneath him, DPS him, and put up anti projectiles (chain them sequentially) when the spiders start shooting at you.

Strife’s Fwd/Up Guide (~8:00 in for boss fight): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOydGiQQDw&list=PLzYy8FVzP3HZG5KLZpSxML6qi8wikAU-a&index=4

My static team could do SE if we wanted, but… in terms of making money CoF and higher just offer better rewards because the rares from tokens can be salvaged into ecto.

Honestly, I would recommend getting started with a helpful guild or group of friends (that’s what I did first). I learned a lot about group teamwork with my static dungeon team, making it much easier to teach/carry/cooperate with PuGs.

There are a few PuGs out there who will be glad to help you figure things out, but there’s no guarantee. Most runners will probably want experienced players because they’re short on time or just don’t have the patience to keep teaching new players.

If you want to try the gw2lfg.com method above, make sure you explain that you’re new, so perhaps, someone will be willing to help you out.

Good luck!

Teevell.1684:

Yeah I know about guesting, and I’m glad you posted that here for anyone else having the same issue. I just Don’t like that I have to go to another server to do a dungeon. That’s just not right. And yeah, I did do a bug report.

Well, it’s actually common practice these days because many don’t want to wait for the event to open the dungeon and, also, you have a larger pool of players to choose from for your party if you go across servers (especially if you use gw2lfg.com or have friends from different servers). When I do my PuG runs for CoF during my static team’s off time, people travel to different servers all the time to open CoF where possible. I like to think of guesting as a neat way for players to reach out to others across servers, so we’re not separated and forced to play with only just the people on our own servers. What if your server did not have many players that did CoE, but there were other servers with lots of people doing CoE?

If that doesn’t convince you on the advantages of guesting and connecting with players across servers, then to each their own, I guess. :P

Hopefully, you’ve reported the bug, using the in-game bug report, indicating which server was having the issue.

In the meantime, guesting is probably your best option, since either the CoE event chain or CoE is likely available on another server. It’s free and it’s one of the game’s best features.

In case you don’t know how to guest:

• On the character selection screen, highlight the character you will play.
• Choose World Selection.
• Choose the server you want to guest to, and select guest.
• Select play.

While I don’t main a ranger, I play on mine as part of my daily cycle of alts that go through CoF path 1 and 2 speed clears when my static team is done with our nightly dungeon runs. I’ve never been kicked. I’m not sure what kind of groups you’re going into, but I typically look for ones that advertise the typical LFM messages and not something like speed farms, zerker groups, or anything specific for professions. Also, I don’t post LFGs because you typically don’t know what you’re getting into. I just scan for what I want kind of group I want on gw2lfg.com and /join them.

My advice is to get your ranger through the story modes of the dungeon you want, so that you can host your own groups. At least that way, you call the shots and kicking you would be detrimental to anyone joining your party.

While it’s true that rangers are low on the meta preferences, I personally would rather have a team form than wait around doing nothing. I’ve been on teams with weird comps that worked out well (i.e. 2 rangers 2 thieves 1 engineer), and completed path 1 and 2 in about 30 minutes. As long as there is cooperation between the players, I am satisfied with my team. It’s a nice casual stroll through the paths with the convenience of a speed clear.

People have every right to form their preferred team, so they should only be blamed if they don’t properly advertise what they want. If they advertise “LF1M p1/p2” and kick you out because of your profession, they need a lesson in clear communication. This particular scenario is why I don’t post LFG — people won’t read your message and pick you up, only to kick you because they expected something else.

Sometimes, you have to be one step ahead of the kind of players/groups you want to avoid. Filter more effectively for what you want or lead your own group (probably the best option) and call the shots.

Lightsbane.9012:

on any server.
1.) what made you choose and stay on the server you’re on?(guilds and friends aren’t a valid reason since transfers were free for four months)
Guilds and friends were my reason. Take it or leave it.

2.) what will it take for the wvw players to get you into wvw?
If it gave equal or better rewards in the time spent compared to PvE dungeons, I’d probably join in.

3.) wvw benefits your dungeon runs, do you not agree that helping us get the buffs you benefit from is the right thing to do?
That’s a game design issue. I could care less that the buffs exist.

4.)is it the repair bill that scares you out?(i know pve players with upwards of 200g, so the fact that they’re scared of a 10s repair bill is confusing)
No, it’s a number of things. To name a few: I’m tired of the pointless trash talk between allied players and sometimes commanders. I’m not a fan of zerg combat, which is why I enjoy tPvP and 5-man dungeons more — it focuses on the contribution of the individual player rather than the general “winning with larger numbers” style that WvW typically has.

5.) why would a risen priestess of milandru be impressed with your Sunrise?
I like my shinies. I don’t care what anyone says.

I enjoy it mainly because I have a static team that I play with on a nightly basis. No need to LFG or deal with PuG drama. Together, we find new ways to clear the dungeon, mess with team comps, learn more about new professions in the dungeon environment, etc. We try to help everyone get what they need from their dungeons and try to teach our new players. While I think the dungeons could use some reworking, I’m fine playing them while I wait for the changes.

I’m assuming you’re talking about this:

“Upgrade a regular ascended ring in the Mystic Forge using 1 Shard of Crystallized Mists Essence, 3 Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence, and 5 Vial of Condensed Mists Essence”

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ascended_equipment

As far as I know, the various grades of mist essences are used to upgrade an ascended ring, so that it gains +5 AR (not through the use of the infusion slot).

I just did this with my usual team. We just went underneath the boss immediately after killing the first 3 spiders and DPS’d him down. We didn’t get downed or anything — random mixed team comp.

I got the idea from one of Strife’s video guides: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOydGiQQDw

I never judge people by their titles, anyways. I need to see them in action to evaluate their skills. Using a title to judge someone’s dungeon skill is like expecting a certain profession to do what it does best to contribute to the party. For example, I’ve seen guardians just spam staff 1 and nothing else when they’re the only ones in the party comp that can keep mob groups under control.

My group and I didn’t understand the rockfall mechanic until I read this thread. We didn’t notice Grast’s mechanic at first because he was dead in a corner after being beat up so easily from Rumblus. After you revive him away from Rumblus, he just starts charging at Rumblus without a care in the world. My team was finally able to complete this path after we decided to aggro Rumblus before Grast. For a fight that is made more comfortable with the assistance of an NPC, the NPC does not know how to keep himself out of a bad situation. If something is done to remedy the flaws of the rockfall sequence of this fight mentioned above, I think this fight would be as interesting as it was intended.

Auesis.7301:

Aura.9530:

Am I the only one who sees problems w/ posts like this one? “Guides on ideal group comp.” As a developer I’d look at these threads and think that I have failed at what I set out to do. Removing the “trinity;” while a good idea has been poorly implemented here. If you have to choose “ideal” group comps, then something is seriously wrong with the game. This clearly means that either the stats are worth too much or too little; and/or that the skills certain classes have, need reworking. Even if the game isn’t “broken,” if players in the general community feel that you need the “ideal” comp to succeed in this game; you have failed at your idea and need to scrap it or tweak it.

This. The very notion that there is an “ideal” profession setup means that something is wrong. What happened to all of that “every profession can fulfil every role” business? It’s obviously not the case.

Well, you COULD do most dungeon content without the “ideal” professions. I think it’s just that the “top” professions are made more appealing based on how much their capabilities are suited for the current content design. The sad truth is people will want faster clears. Any profession comp can simply clear the content, but when optimization comes into place, players will certainly be more picky.

If you build with a high armor rating, you’re drawing mob attention more frequently from your allies (top of the aggro table). While you’re taking some of the pressure off of your teammates, you can stay alive longer with AH. That’s how I see it as support.

I actually use GS and sword/x on a lot of single target boss fights. One of the things I like about that mix is that both sets keep me in melee range quickly, so I don’t lose time running back to the fight.

The flying shaman boss in the volcano fractal is one such fight where I find this useful. I’ll start off with my GS, using aegis to block his PBAoE knockback, dodge his swooping lava font attack, switch to sword to zealot’s defense him at range, blink in when the lava font is gone, switch back to GS, and repeat in a similar fashion.

On the one hand, it would be really nice to use the weapon we find aesthetically pleasing. On the other hand, if all weapons performed equally, there would be no point in having unique weapons. I personally carry many of the guardian weapons in my inventory to switch for specific uses. I felt more depth to my character after I started learning how to utilize each weapons’ strengths. One of my favorite mixes for general trash fights is GS/Hammer, where I will pull mobs together with binding blade and keep them together with the hammer.

As far as dungeons go, you’ll find yourself fighting a boss a lot, so bring your sword and board to that encounter if you wish. That’s where it will be strong aside from blinking to run through trash mobs.

Praxis.4976:

I was hoping someone could help me out here, I tried CoE Teleporter path today, first time in CoE exp. It was a bit of a disaster really. Three of us were new to it and the other two kept tactics close to the chest… usually until we had found out the hard way.

Thanks for the stacking tip, that was never suggested by our ‘experienced’ party members and seems to be the prevalent tactic. We were all ranged classes and so kept our distance, there were times when the floor was entirely covered in aoe, the only way out was invulnerability from skills or a well timed dodge.

I read in another thread that was written months ago ‘mesmers beware’, I am now assuming this is because of clones… now this could explain some of our difficulty and the reason why that final room was almost entirely paved with aoes at times; aoes weren’t just x5 they were x8, 1 more for each active clone.

I just wondered if anyone could give me a firm positive or negative on this that’s up to date. Thinking about it now, that’s kind of the point actually isn’t it, with clones, they’re supposed to be just like the player so it does make sense they’d be targetted, I was just hoping for a definite ‘yes or no’ from some people with experience, before I launch into my next pug demanding that I and other mesmers create as few clones as possible.

Thanks in advance

If you’re talking about the icy circles that create earth spikes, the number of circles is irrelevant to survival because you’re supposed to dodge the impact (count 1…2…dodge) as the circle itself is harmless. We’ve had several mesmers that spammed clones to their heart’s content and we had no problems. This was with much of the room covered in the icy circles.

My team and I are still practicing, but 4:07 is our fastest with 2 warriors, 1 guardian, 1 mesmer, and 1 thief. We’re still sloppy at phase 2 and 3 with so many teammates being downed, but at least the recoveries are fast. :P

DanH.5879:

i don’t want to be rude, but where the text:
“is our fault too (because of so many bugs we create and not test every scenario), so we must be also punished along with the players”
is, because i can not find it…
i mean, yes, some bug exploit, but there wouldn’t be bug exploiting if there were no bugs…

Again, he says this and admits:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Some things sneak by us and our QA. We make so much content that there’s bound to be something that gets by. We try to handle it as best we can though, and I can personally vouch that nobody here has the attitude of “ban them all” – we want to make the smallest impact with our punishment while sending the most clear message that certain behavior is not tolerated.

They’re not going to be able to catch everything. It’s the nature of software testing, even my software testing professor has taught me that. The content was probably a lot more bugged before its current state. It can only get better with more iterations, when people spot something that was not caught before.

This mechanic was really problematic for my static group and I when we first started doing dungeons. Eventually we learned just not to touch them unless we had a disable or if the scavengers were finished munching. The KD proximity is very misleading and frustrates many of the new players we teach. You could be standing behind it and get tortured by it.

Zenith.7301:

Lightrayne.7829:

Zenith.7301:

Iehova.9518:

Switch to GS and let guardians do hammer, it’s what they excel at.

Guardian GS is way better than hammer in dungeons.

But they’re good together when you have to kill mobs. Pull the group together and keep them in place, so your team can maximize their AoE damage in the focal point you created. This makes my PuG runs so much smoother because there’s less targeting chaos and kiting.

I prefer my greatsword+ mace/shield/focus because I actually do substantial healing with the mace and it allows me to stay in melee for high level fractals longer, when mobs can hit you easily for 8k and Ascalonian Mages+Warriors will pretty much 2-shot you if you don’t string blocks together.

I was referring to general dungeons, not fractals. I wouldn’t dare use guardian hammer for more damaging mobs in fractals, especially because the split second on the animation that roots you can get you killed.

Don’t most people use the gw2lfg.com site to START groups rather than LOOK for single members? I figured people LFG would just browse the lists repeatedly until they find someone posting GLFM/LFM for their content. When I post LFM, I get tons of people joining right away that searching for LFG posts doesn’t even matter. Is there actually an advantage to post LFG? (not sarcasm, serious question)

Speaking of miscommunication on gw2lfg.com, there’s also the issue of people posting blank comments or typing something as vague as “p1 and p2”; are they LFG or LFM? Some posters need to be clear on what they want in their groups. If you want specific professions, need an explorable host, or an uncontested server, please put that in the comments. Good communication gets you far.

Zenith.7301:

Iehova.9518:

Switch to GS and let guardians do hammer, it’s what they excel at.

Guardian GS is way better than hammer in dungeons.

But they’re good together when you have to kill mobs. Pull the group together and keep them in place, so your team can maximize their AoE damage in the focal point you created. This makes my PuG runs so much smoother because there’s less targeting chaos and kiting.

I’ve actually done this with PuGs several times. In fact, some were happy to see it because they had mastered it to the point where the fractal takes 5 mins or less. I’ll admit that it’s frustrating the first couple of times you do it because it’s still a bit unfamiliar, but once you learn it, like you learn any dungeon route, it’s easy.

If you need to feel progress, have the team just walk around without the wisps and study the paths for a few minutes. Try a few more times, then try to observe the layout again. Attempts without understanding the layout will only slow down your progress.

John.7025:

Just wondering, i think people are saying standard time for 4 warriors and a mesmer is 6-7mins

Yet i just had 6 games in a row of CoF p1 where by we always finished in under 5 were 7mins 1 was 8 mins. roles were, 1 Warrior, 2Ele, 1 mesmer, 1 ranger

honestly dont see why people are only wanting 4 warriors

I typically get it done in 10 mins or less without the “meta” teams unless something goes horribly wrong such as people dying at the first boss or messing up the boulder puzzle. My group advertisement always welcomes any profession, since I really only care if people know what they’re doing and ask questions if they are unsure of something.

Typically, the people who are constantly farming P1 for an hour or so want warriors because of their high DPS. They want to clear P1 in such a short time that they have less of a risk getting caught by the event that opens CoF. Their goal is pretty much to make money as quickly as possible, so they have every right to make their group as optimal as possible for farming. This shouldn’t bother you when you can make your own group or join groups with less of a requirement. I’ve made/found many groups that do the casual speed clears.

I use this: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3|1.1g.h2|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x.1n.7x|4s.0.2s.0.3s.0.1n.67.1n.67.2u.0|0.0.u65b.u289.a6|0.0|e

I do a lot of harder dungeon content with my static group, and tanking is more about mitigation through use of skills and well-timed dodges. My near 3k toughness is merely used as a way to get aggro more frequently and to contribute to my crit chance. I’m using soldier runes to reduce/negate the effects of snares/roots that some enemies use because being stuck in one place can get you killed fast (i.e. flying shaman in volcano fractals).

I think armor rating much higher than 3000 isn’t really worth it. You’re not going to be invincible, especially when there’s a lot of bosses that use instant-down (or near instant down) mechanics. I’m not sure what you think of when the word “tanking” comes up, but in my experience with GW2, it’s getting aggro off of your allies and mitigating/avoiding lethal hits through proper skill use and timely dodges. Facetanking is mostly something you’ll find in other MMOs, and should not be applied here when facing the encounters with lethal attacks that ignore your high resistance.

1.) Yours as you are the one applying it.
2.) Yours as you are the one applying it.
3.) The durations will stack, but the highest effect will take effect until its unique duration wears off, then the next highest effect will take effect until its unique duration wears off, and so on..

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Effect_stacking

I actually don’t mind either way, but some people are just in there for the end rewards. If they wanted to farm, they might as well be in cursed shore with MF gear or doing other dungeons because it’s more profitable if you’re aiming for money. My static team skips mainly, so we can squeeze in as many dungeon runs as possible because a lot of our members have limited time to play. Fractals is our method of waiting out DR.

I honestly haven’t found fractals any more rewarding in gold than other dungeons or good farming methods, and killing those mobs doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything. If people have time to kill, they will kill the mobs for the hell of it. If they have something else they want to do or don’t have enough time, skipping is a better option. Asking for skip or kill, in my opinion, is a sign that someone in the group is being considerate of the intent of the others in the party. I prefer that over someone that just demands one or the other, especially when such a thing wasn’t enforced through the grouping advertisement.

It’s not only a guardian thing. It usually happens when weapon swap is on cooldown during a cutscene. As the others have said, you can work around it by clicking the swap button on the hero panel. If it really bothers you, try to avoid having a weapon swap cooldown when you know a cutscene is coming.

You only get a pristine relic for the daily if your personal reward level is 10 or higher.

If the current scale is higher than your personal reward level, you receive rewards equal to your personal reward level.

If the current scale is lower than your personal reward level, you receive rewards equal to the current scale and gain karma.

If you were able to receive the rewards in the way you wanted above, then what would be the point of scales? :P

I had a group the other day, where I was on my mesmer alt. The other guys were 2 thieves and 2 engineers. In CoF path 2, no one got downed, even during the Magg defense event. I was pretty impressed to have done a speed run with a PuG of that composition and skill level as it’s a rare sight to me. I’d honestly like to see more of these random compositions succeed in action.

IndigoSundown.5419:

For some people, dungeon running is all about speed. I read a thread yesterday that was a guide to speed running CoF Ex-1. One of the tips to GS Warriors was, “Only use Whirlwind Attack when the boss is up against the wall, you will lose more dps running back than WA will give you.”

The point is that people speed running want to spend as little time as possible to get the reward. They perhaps perceive that a level 80 with full trait points, and presumably exotic gear, will have better numbers than a lower level character. Better numbers are going to yield better results, assuming equal skill. Skill can be taught, but no amount of teaching can improve a lower level character’s numbers.

Since GW2 is a game to “play as you want,” it’s perhaps better to let them play as they want than to complain about their preferences on the forums.

Yep. It’s pretty much people honestly stating what they want and what they feel most comfortable playing with. It’s like how some groups specifically need at least 1-2 heavy classes.

Nothing is stopping you from attempting to form your own group, and there is more than one method to complete the dungeon (avoiding exploits, of course). Clearly state what you are looking for. Efficient communication makes a difference.

JJBigs.8456:

I would like to try playing my mediums/light armors in CoE but have no idea where to start, all I have is zerker gear atm and dont wanna buy bad armor or armor just for CoE. Also want to be able to do some damage so if anyone has a guide for that, it would be appreciated. Not so much specific classes, just in general for non-heavy.

My static dungeon team and I do CoE every night, and we have plenty of light/medium armor classes coming with us from time to time. From experience, I have to say that the dungeon is more about learning the mechanics rather than trying to gain a statistical advantage in survivability. Typically, the reason you down/die is due to mistiming a dodge roll or other relevant survival skill, no matter how much toughness/vitality you have. The light/medium classes that run with us rarely down/die because they use the appropriate skills for every situation and time their survivability tactics accordingly. I’m not sure if this applies to the CoE PuG community, but with a coordinated group, you can just focus on offensive stats to kill things quicker, which effectively means you survive better.

If it helps, full soldier runes turns all your shouts into condition removal:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Soldier

You don’t have to post anything if you are looking to JOIN a group. Just type /join <group maker’s name> after browsing for what you want. If you believe that makes you a gold spammer target, I don’t even know what to say anymore…..

Tori.8192:

It’s now Feb. 2013, after the “change” to dungeons. This however, is my first encounter with the Front Door last Subject Alpha boss. There is now room to sufficiently spread out the team to ‘avoid’ affecting each other on his targetted AOE’s; I found as an Ele, I was quadruple targeted in an instant ( I got four overlapping concentric circles enough that two dodge moves would never get me out). I also saw the entire floor of the miniscule area filled with overlapping AOE targets more than once, thrown simultaneously. He only spawned essences twice and only a few. I’ve got Exotic gear for the most part and still I got the “one shot wonder” with all protections available in place + Guardian boons.

Now, I’m still outfitting my Ele for the best lvl 80 gear, and I’m just learning this dungeon, so I’m more than willing to admit, it could all “just be me”. That said, I’m here to learn so any helpful remarks are welcome.

So, can someone please assess any differences from the above since the “dungeon patch” – someone who knows this dungeon much better than I?

Just to add, my experience here was almost an assured permanent aggro until I was dead if I was attuned to water.

Thanks in advance!

One of the best ways to fight him is have the entire team stack up on him and force him against the wall, even if you don’t have a melee weapon. Friendly AoEs/cleaves will help free your teammates from crystals, and you can pick up downed people really quickly in between his AoE spikes. When it comes time to dodge the multi-circle attack, you’re more concerned about dodging the point of impact rather than the marked area, so dodge after 2 seconds, which is about the time the spikes hit.

Oglaf.1074:

LyzeUH.1398:

Well yesterday I was doing CoE and we were stacking Alpha…one of my rangers was attacking the boss with his Longbow in melee range…I don’t even…someone explain…please…

Its easier to avoid his attacks in melee on most paths. Like his big ice AoE can’t target you if you’re humping him.

I think he’s referring to the ranger’s weapon of choice for the situation as that severely gimps any damage contribution. A shortbow, for example, would be more ideal because its damage is not affected by range and gives an extra dodge on skill 3.

This usually happens to me when I’m doing a leap and an enemy immobilizes/knocks me back. I rarely encounter it, though.

I’d like this idea as long as it doesn’t create a zerging mentality like the open world. Perhaps, have a couple groups coordinate at different areas of the map doing different things to help everyone progress (The Deep had some of this).

Kumakichi.2583:

Hmm.. I suppose if you had enough people this would be great. I’m in a max’d out guild and was in another max’d limit guild before that. Neither one would have enough people to run something with 10 people I dont think. Its usually a challenge to get 5 together from guild. I know thats amazing that out of 500 guild members you can’t even get 5 people together but I guess a lot of those are alts or casuals? If it wasn’t for gw2lfg I’d never get groups for anything!

That may be a case of what the focus of the guild is. I run a dungeon contacts list (I don’t consider it a technical guild, given that it’s mainly used as a roster for dungeon runners) that contains 35 people (usually 10 people on during US night times), and we form groups quite easily nearly every day because it’s so heavily focused on doing dungeon runs at that time frame. Everyone pretty much knows each other. Numbers don’t always make up for quality, in my experience, and I was from a 1000+ member guild alliance back in GW1.

Kumakichi.2583:

I’ve tried condition build in PvE and I’ve group with many players who were condition builds. Its not very good in PvE due to the mechanics of most bosses and even trash mobs. So its good in PvP but not in PvE. Its just the way the game is setup and maybe perhaps down the road they might add PvE content that would favor condition builds. But for now you should just focus on a direct damage or support build if you really want to contribute to a group.

On top of that, several dungeons require you to destroy objects, which conditions pretty much can’t touch. At the very least, I don’t think conditions should be a primary damage source until some changes are made to how condition damage works.

I think they should do a buff system with this, similar to the bounties you would get in GW1 from interacting with a dungeon resurrection shrine. These were used to get rep points for your PvE skills and other temporary bonuses (+X HP, +X energy, etc.), but a system for magic find would be interesting and may encourage trash killing.

I think the RNG element for vials, globs, and shards needs to not be the primary source of obtaining those. At the very least, the extra rings should salvage into one of those mats or a certain number of relics should allow you to purchase them. The best thing that those mats have going for them is that you can easily upgrade/salvage them to obtain the higher or lower tier.

It’s RNG. I get bad loot some days and I get good loot some other days. Regular dungeons are more reliable for money stuff anyways, so I just do fractals with my static group mainly for relics. Fractals is our way to wait out DR.

Striezel.8192:

Erebus.3897:

i looted 2 cores from a single run today, because magic find!…. i guess im not sure….

MF doesn’t affect chests. as far as i know MF triggers upon defeatening a foe.

I got your evidence.

Izzy on MF on chests:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

They only work on creature kills, chests however have a better table then normal kills. We wanted to avoid the game play of killing a boss and then having to equip your whole Magic Find set before opening the chest.

Also magic find is calculated from when the creature is killed so it’s also not viable to use your normal gear set kill a boss then switch to magic find.

JJBigs.8456:

the non farming way would be to craft a quiver or a book. this would require 1 of mist essence vial only, and 0 tokens. just the infusion 75 token cost.

Yep, I forgot to mention that. However, it will cost you a bit of coin if you don’t already have the items, but if you want it badly enough, more power to you. I personally do like the looks, though.

Quiver/book recipes here if you need it: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vial_of_Condensed_Mists_Essence

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prototype_Fractal_Capacitor_

All you need is the vial to drop and most of the other mats are acquired via the relics from 1-9. After that, you can get a simple versatile infusion (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Simple_Infusion) for +5 AR, which costs 75 relics. At the very least, this will cut the agony damage in half.

I feel comfortable carrying on my guardian because of how much support they dish out and the fact that they can be a frontliner to take pressure off of the team.

Well, it was intended to be easier for people with AR unless your team is sufficient at avoiding/negating/mitigating agony. Why is it Anet’s fault when it is working as advertised? They stated that you need agony for that difficulty to survive those attacks.

I’ve fallen off many of those kinds of terrain with more than just DB. Sometimes, I miss invisible walls for scenarios like that. In any case, why not just ask your group to re-locate the mobs? You don’t have to fight on the bridge, and also, those encounters are just a really small portion of the runs, anyways.