oh kool, iv been wanting to do this story for so long
Story Mode Arah? It’s Story Mode, so I don’t see any issues.
However… I’m rather surprised people are saying you’re all ready etc etc when you haven’t given any details regarding your profession, let alone trait and stat build.
Dungeon difficulty is fine. Please learn the mechanics of each dungeon fight.
When going for Support, or Bomb builds in general, I very much prefer using a Shield for the extra Blast finisher.
Geared in Cleric’s or Apothecary’s, each Bomb is estimated to heal for 340 hp, Super Elixir gives 334 hp/s and Regeneration heals for 379 hp/s. If you swap out Radiation Field for Elixir R and Static Discharge for Kit Refinement, a full combo provides the group
3 Conditions removed per second (Super Elixir, Kit Refinement (Elixir Gun) and Toss Elixir R)
About 1,048 hp/s excluding Bombs (Super Elixir, Kit Refinement (Elixir Gun) and Regeneration)
20s of Retaliation (Detonate Healing Turret, Big Ol’ Bomb, Magnetic Inversion and Supply Crate inside Light field)
20% Revive per second
For context, I’ve run with a Pure of Voice build with 6/6 Soldier runes for about 200+ hours on my Guardian.
The trait still bugged ?
Yes. Retreat and Stand Your Ground are the only reliable ones the trait works with. Hold the Line and Save Yourselves have a 50% chance to fail.
How it works with Soldier rune ?
Pure of Voice will trigger first, converting a Condition into a Boon.
Next, Soldier rune triggers and removes another Condition.
And the Dredge can read the same written text you can.
Yeah…
So any idea why?
Just like in September/October, all people care to run is COF (then path 2). Sheep will be sheep until somebody makes some crazy reddit post to lead them elsewhere.
Just did this on a late Sunday run just to see how the Mansion was post-nerf. I’ve completed the Story mode four times so far across my five months of play. My last run consisted of my level 80 Guardian, a level 80 Hunter, a level 80 Elementalist, level 46 Thief and a level 65 Necromancer. It was also pretty much a PUG group with zero voice communication.
CM Story is pretty much hit and miss in terms of difficulty. It’s basically the first dungeon – excluding AC Explorable – that teaches you two important mechanics:
1 – There’s a time to melee, and there’s a time to stay at ranged.
You unlock weapon swap at level 7 and 8/10 people assume they can be headstrong and go full melee or full range; ask them to diversify and they whine like a 5-year old denied her ice cream.
Fights such as the first golem boss and the Champion Lieutenant immediately after can be fought in melee range, but you’ll always find it easier to just stay at a distance, using the fountain to block missiles and furniture to impede enemy movement.
2 – Identifying the most dangerous enemies and defeating them quickly
At the fourth encounter of the dungeon, you’ll be faced with a number of Silver-ranked Bandits, ranging from Cutpurses to Riflemen, even including a Saboteur. The intention for this fight is to recognise how significant the threat level of each individual mob and single them out.
In this case, you’ll likely start the encounter in the narrow confines of the stair case. While this makes sense in most cases, being able to gather the mobs up for AOE damage and all, the Saboteur is the monkey wrench in your perfect plan. If your group is able to recognise this and respond appropriately, this fight is very manageable.
In fact, I think Logan and Zojja spent most of our encounters dead
This is a known and grudgingly accepted fact. Destiny’s Edge may talk a big game, but they fall over all the same when being focused by every single enemy in sight.
“That’s for ‘commandeering’ my lollipop, big meanie Logan!”
I (the Guardian, wearing a set of soldier-based armor and large investment in the vitality and toughness trait lines) felt like I was being defended by tissue paper.
First of all, as a level 80, you’re downscaled to the stats of a level 40 in the dungeon. So in truth you’re no better than a level 40 with extra shiny gear.
Next, as a level 80 Guardian, you all so many tools to counteract 80% of the threat within Caudecus’ Manor. Learn to use them.
One-shotted.. no visible warning that I saw, just full health to dead in the blink of an eye.
There is visible warning. Just be a little less ignorant and put two and two together. Yes, I admit that attack, for its lethality, ought to be a little more prominent, but when you notice that you always die when it fires its laser…
I just feel that the story mode of Caudecus’s Manor is poorly tuned in terms of difficulty.
Disagree. Difficulty, post-patch, is fine. I had my fair share of wipes running it in a group of 40s in September, true. As mentioned, it’s only gotten easier.
I just spent 3 hours in that dungeon only to have my teammates rage quit.
When you start with this, I can immediately see that this is not a problem with the dungeon, more a problem with the bad group you had. Besides the Champion Icebrood Wolf and Champion Destroyer Crab, the rest of the dungeon’s difficulty is fine. Both of the aforementioned Champions I normally skip because they are extremely difficult but the rewards are terribly bad.
2. Alpha’s earth attack is unblockable and gives no warning
I’m fine with all of his other attacks. You can time dodges. This one? Not really. On top of that my guardian with 2700 toughness would lose 70% of her health if he would hit me even once. And he would spam it on all of us non stop.
By the damage you’re taking, this sounds like his large AOE attack that targets every player and pet in range. This is mechanic-based attack and requires you to dodge in a timely manner. And it is blockable with Aegis, Shield of Wrath, etc. The main reason you think your Aegis is failing is because, when your group is stacked up or spaced incorrectly, you’ll be hit by multiple instances of the same attack, while Aegis only blocks one. If you’re stacked up, the only way to avoid the damage is to time your dodge appropriately. As a rule of thumb, when the circles appear, count to 2 and hit dodge; you will need to adjust and compensate for latency.
Each Well is a separate AOE and does its own independent damage, so a target will suffer the damage from both Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption together, if he/she stays in the AOE.
Well of Darkness is a great defensive tool, especially if you’re fighting a Thief or Hammer Warrior.
Personally, I run with Well of Corruption and Well of Darkness as Blind and Boon removal are higher priority for me, regardless of my personal damage. Furthermore, I have +90% Chill duration and Chilling Darkness, causing my Well of Darkness to be a severe hindrance for enemies caught in it.
Yes, just suffer with Reanimator and get Greater Marks. Even with a Power build, I never let go of my staff, whether roaming, defending or running with my guild raid.
I cannot understand those that complain about the barrel part…It’s stupidly easy and yet you find dozens of overly complicated tactics.
Is it so hard to have 1 person aggro to group by dropping his barrel, have the 4 others run and place their barrel correctly and while doing that have the one who dropped his keg pick up a new one and place it correctly ?But I guess, the keg part is “hard” because some players can’t place a keg in a red circle…
Me: Stand in the red circles on the floor and Weapon Swap to drop the barrels.
Lvl 80: What is weapon swap?
Path 3 is the quickest. My best time with a guild group was 30 minutes. Arah speed runs require Stealth, so unless you have a thief in the party, make sure people have either Ash Legion Spy Kits or Order of Whispers Spy Kits.
What’s a good ‘starter’ dungeon?
Ascalonian Catacombs, located in the Plains of Ashford. Level 30 Story Mode, Level 35 Explorable Mode. It’ll introduce you to some more complex combat concepts, but essentially the Story Mode of each dungeon will run you through each dungeon’s own unique mechanics, be it Spike Traps in Ascalonian Catacombs or Volatile Blossoms in Twilight Arbor.
How should I approach it?
Slowly and attentively. Never assume your level 80 full exotic plus Ascended will one-shot things. Take your time to survey each room, each monster.
How do I get groups who aren’t too PRO for me?
These forums, for one. Also check out Operation Union (see earlier posts).
Do people ever do stuff in a relaxed way, or is that just me?
Just your perception being marred by a few unfortunate experiences.
The clue was in the name of the game I guess. ‘Guild Wars’ requires that you have a ‘guild’ I should be surprised that I even got as far as I did before realising that you need half a dozen friends to join at the same time you do, to make it work.
You don’t. When joining a new community (i.e. GW2 in this case), never be afraid to do three things:
1) Say “Hi.”
2) Let people know you’re new and don’t necessary know who’s who and what’s what.
3) Learn things that are totally alien to you.
PUGs are always wrought with mismatches; it’s a 5-person blind date, if anything. Patience and tolerance will be your best allies, and of course, we’re here to answer what questions we can, assuming your frustrations don’t get the better of you.
I’m struggling to play at range. Any tips
Can you perhaps elaborate on the kind of difficulty you’re facing?
Seems like you’re making a sweeping statement based off of one encounter in CoF Path 1 and one more in Path 3.
Cute.
Runes are for armour, Sigils are for weapons
Also, all Sigils have a level requirement, whereby the level requirement of the weapon has to match or exceed that of the Sigil.
The Flame and Frost page gives a preview of the February 26 patch.
The other bosses are purely mechanics based and defensive stats merely provide you a buffer for mistakes, somewhat. However I’ll give some tips specific to Guardians, since you mentioned.
Champion Icebrood Wolf
The fight is all about avoiding its pounce attack. Aegis is perfect for the situation, and so is the Focus’ Shield of Wrath.
Subject Alpha
It’s all about the safety nets you can give your party mates. You achieve this through Aegis (Virtue of Courage) and Protection (Hold the Line, Shield of Judgement). Otherwise, you can also help cleanse the Burn condition with anything from Purging Flames to Absolute Resolution.
Mark T-B34RC3
The key to this fight is to remove its boons. You do this by preventing the bolts from each turret from reach the golem. The most brainless tactic to achieve this is to destroy the turrets, which works, but inefficient as they respawn rather quickly.
The smart way is to block and reflect the turret bolts. The Guardian has three ways to achieve this: Wall of Reflection, Shield of Absorption and Shield of the Avenger. By placing these in between the golem and the turrets, you stop it from receiving the boons granted by the associated turret. If you can otherwise rip its boons, all the better.
The game has been out for about six months now and people still don’t fully understand Subject Alpha. It’s a sweet creation borne from the brilliance of the Inquest Mind, fused with Dragon energy drinks, likes taking long walks through the Crucible…
He also has a few moves and is really one of the more involved dungeon boss fights in GW2.
Path 1: Submarine
He uses two attacks.
The first is a point-blank AOE flame burst that does 10-20% HP of damage and puts a Burn on victims. If there are enemies at range, this same attack will also spawn Dragon Teeth. Being silly and getting hit by the Dragon Teeth will usually instantly Down the fool.
The second attack is an Earth Spike attack hits in a cone. It’s very hard to dodge this in melee range, but the damage is quite manageable.
On the second and third encounters with Alpha, it will randomly encase a character in crystal. The crystal can be broken with direct damage and blinked out of with the appropriate skills. The crystal, if unbroken, will disable the victim for 30s. If the victim was caught out in range, this will mean likely death from a Dragon Tooth.
In order to avoid the headache of needing to dodge the Dragon Teeth, especially in the second and third fights when the party has to break the crystals, the strategy is to simply stack in melee range, then heal and cleanse through his attacks.
Throughout each encounter with Alpha, there will be Risen Thralls and Risen Tentacles that you can kill to Rally.
Path 2 & Path 3
Subject Alpha’s abilities in Paths 2 and 3 are somewhat different from 1 and a tad bit more complex.
While it retains its fire-based attack, it loses its Earth Spike attack. Instead of a cone, it will mark each enemy in the encounter with two concentric circles. At the centre you will notice one of two distinct visual effects: frost on the ground and mist in the air.
Frost on the ground telegraphs an earth-based attack (I strongly suggest the ANet dungeon team reconsider this vague visual effect). Anything outside of the inner circle will get hit with a fair amount of damage plus 6 stacks of Bleed. Simply standing still (assuming no other circles overlap your inner circle) will keep your character safe.
Mist in the air (again, I suggest a more prominent visual effect) telegraphs an ice-based attack. Anything standing inside the inner circle will be instantly Downed from massive damage. Simply walking out of inner circle will save your behind. Only one enemy will be targeted with the ice attack each cycle.
Most people only know to stack in melee range and “count to 2 and dodge”. It works, but some people just can’t count or take into consideration for latency/reaction time/hand-eye coordination.
Alternatively, if spaced apart in such a way that nobody’s outer circle overlaps somebody else’s inner circle, the party can stand still and pelt Alpha with ranged attacks, only needing to avoid the occasional Dragon Tooth and Ice attack.
Besides the ambiguous visual tells for its one-shot attacks, my only other pet peeve with the Subject Alpha fight is how unfriendly it is to Condition Damage builds. Breaking party members out of Crystal Prisons are top priority, but utterly impossible to do in a timely manner when you’re geared in Rabid or similar gear with very low Power.
Video demonstration by FcSteezey
Now try doing all that on a class that has no counter for most of those things you mentioned, ie necro. no stability, no blocks/reflects, no evades, access to any quickness, and if you are about to throw out that old tired comment of “well they have such high hp and 2 health bars”…no, just no…
It’s easy to go around saying these dungeons are cake when you play classes that were obviously designed for them. The ONLY thing viable for a necro to do in this dungeon is remove conditions…which were never a threat to a necro to begin with >.>
Are you implying you’re running a 5-man Necro-only party or that you have a Necro that’s trying to solo the dungeon? Furthermore, Necros have great counters to many of the mechanics in the dungeon.
1) Bandit Saboteur – Move out of big red circles
2) Bandit Bomber – Dodge out of circles if you want, but you can generally tank the damage, even as a glass cannon
3) Bandit Cutpurse – Bleed and Poison are easily dealt with Deathly Swarm (Dagger off-hand), Putrid Mark (Staff), Consume Conditions, Signet of Plague and Well of Power.
4) Bandit Enforcer – Both attacks have a visible charge-up animation. Learn to time your dodge for those or run behind obstructions.
5) Bandit Rifleman – See #4 or just stand still while you DPS in melee or at range
6) Bandit Thug – Boons are countered by Corrupt Boon and Well of Corruption
7) Bandit Hooligan – Pack a stun breaker. Stability is more for convenience.
8) Bandit Archer – Low threat and low damage.
I’ve run the dungeon on a Guardian, Mesmer, Engineer and Necromancer, each has its own way of dealing with or outright countering each and every enemy. Most PUGs struggle because most people can’t be bothered to learn their own class beyond mashing buttons and using cookie cutter builds.
(edited by Ojimaru.8970)
The Mantra of Recovery/Mantra of Pain combo intrigues me, although I’m undecided whether the loss of DPS is worth the heal (probably yes in my case).
For context, yes, I do run in organised guild raids in WvW. That’s why Portal is mandatory for me regardless of the number of Mesmers we have available, which then makes Blink a necessity. So the last slot is either the promise of heal spam (which then suggests I should deck myself in Cleric gear) or daze spam (which then suggests I should deck in regular DPS gear).
Guess I’ll do the smart thing and get both.
Do you run Life Transfer heals or siphoning is 50 percent more effective?
If you’re leaning towards a more group support role, then Transfusion over Bloodthirst. But you did mention being the tank, which then suggests that you’ll be more concerned with personal well being, therefore Bloodthirst is a better option – assuming you pick up Vampiric Rituals.
Do you grab points in the minion tree or do you snag better DS or run up the power tree?
Death Magic opens up two of the better Tier 1 traits, i.e. Ritual of Protection and Greater Mark. These two are worth 20 points into Death Magic and suffering with Reanimator.
Staff plus Dagger WH would be some stunning aoe damage to wrap up your condition, but then you have to trait for Marks plus trait for wells, and you would lose the extended ds.
For tanky AOE, go for Axe Focus instead of Dagger Warhorn. Axe generates Life Force much faster, allowing you to stay in Death Shroud longer and make use of Unyielding Blast for AoE damage. Furthermore, you have easy access to long-duration Retaliation for some added damage.
The tone and wording used for your build description is… selfish, I suppose is the most diplomatic way to put it. When we make WvW builds, most of us aim to be either a great roamer or a distinguished asset to a group fight. However, from the words you use, it seems you’re only interested in “tagging” enemies for loot, as if WvW was just a Dynamic Event farm for you. This then leads you to build for “just enough damage” for kill credit, instead of maximum damage to outright kill or bring low enemy players, which seems to be the reason why you’re not going full Carrion, Rabid or Rampager to maximise Confusion damage.
This then leads me to wonder what this build is really good for. Farming Badges for the Gift of Battle? Not very efficient when the easiest method is to spend 30 minutes or less to run the Jumping Challenges. Maybe loot? Can’t be, since WvW loot is abysmal when compared to PVE. Or maybe…. you’re just after the World Avenger achievement title?
PS:
There’s ton of combo, learn them, really.
This isn’t a tip, just a crass “l2pnoob” statement. Consider elaborating further.
Been trying out the build and doing my best to wrap my head around it. The one that still confuses me is Mantra of Pain. Testing it* reveals its abysmal DPS, i.e. 594 DPS. This is compared to 846 DPS with the Mind Slash chain or 780 DPS with Greatsword Spatial Surge.
At best, it’s a 2k heal every 5.25s. But I have to weigh that against a stun breaker (Blink), daze (Distraction), and Portal for WvW. For PVE, as noted, it’s DPS is lacking and classic dungeons don’t have situations where a badly injured character wouldn’t be better off fully disengaging from the fight to heal up. I’m not sure how effective it is at counteracting Agony as I don’t run Fractals.
Curious to have your (further) thoughts of this. Is Mantra of Pain really worth the slot?
* Testing Methodology
Heart of the Mist
6/6 PVP Mesmer runes
PVP Greatsword, PVP Sword, No Sigils
PVP Soldier Amulet with PVP Soldier Jewel
30/0/0/30/10, no Greatsword Training, with Harmonius Mantras
Target Golem - Heavy
Option: Stop Attacking On Target Change - ON
Set Mantra of Pain to autocast (1st preparation cast not counted)
Stopwatch count to 3.0s (+/- 0.3s)
Cast Power Spike
At 13.0s (+/- 0.3s), deselect target
All Power Spike damage tallied and divided by 10s
Repeat for Spatial Surge (max range) and Mind Slash
A dungeon, that has decent drop from trash, maybe chance at t6 mats, small chance at rares maybe etc…but does not really reward you at the end EXCEPT the chance at a pre-cursor or a super rare item like Volcanus.
It would be easy to medium difficulty to promote running it.
Would you guys run a dungeon with reduced silver, but increased trash drops and the chance to get a possible 200-500G+ item at the end? instead of now, where you get like 40s+ for dungeons, but chance at drops are like slim to none
I.e. you want a super easy, no-effort way of getting your legendary.
Keyword: LEGENDARY
As in, something that’s not supposed to be handed to you on silver puppy platter!
The fight wasn’t hard, at all. It’s just a tedious fight. The entire strategy revolved around repeating one set of actions over and over again for an extended time. That’s tedium, not difficulty. Reducing the time involved just hastens the inevitable and actually get people to run the path again.
Pretty spot on. The fight wasn’t overly difficult, just tediously long. We plan on revisiting this boss during our Phase 2 pass, but for now this should lower the tedium of this encounter.
Any word on revisiting Zhaitan? I refuse to believe you think that is a good boss encounter, especially after the nerfs on the 28th.
I haven’t done it since the patch but do you actually mean Zhaitan? That would not make any sense! Zhaitan is one of the easiest part of Arah story mode. I remember the patch notes mentioned something about the plaguebearers.
Yes I mean Zhaitan. He’s even more of a complete joke now, a glorified quicktime event after the nerfs rather than a boss. Between this and the OPs video we can see the dark path the dungeon designers are going. Nerfed content and casual pandering.
The Jan 28 patch was a band aid. The real dungeon revisit has yet to come. Chill.
Love how people complain about “poor dungeon design” based on their failure to coordinate as a group to complete a challenge.
“Oh noes, I can’t overcome this challenge. Must be the developer’s fault!”
Look at CM path 2 for instance, the many recent nerfs and exploit fixes has created an extremely poor instance,
This was comedy gold. Exploiting was the only way you found this game fun? What a punch line.
any mechanic that requires a high degree of accuracy/timing whilst underfire is in the realms of hardcore raids, and not dungeons.
Its not just design flaws like that
If “high degree of accuracy” is pressing one button after the countdown from 3, then it is not a design flaw but a flaw in the player’s hand-eye coordination (or just plain simple stubbornness to follow instructions).
placement of mobs ~ masses and masses of them
OF COURSE! The lair of Zhaitan, whose armies of Risen that has been threatening Tyria, is EMPTY. Makes PERFECT sense.
Here is a serious question I’m putting down here, how many dungeons both story and exp modes which ‘average’ pug group will most likely fail at some part of the instance and then breakup?
Arah Path 4.
FOTM 20-25
Unless your definition of “average” involves whiney children who think they deserve a gold medal just for participating…
Since other lava battles have gotten the safety net
Hm, let us consider this statement.
Crucible of Eternity @ Evolved Devourer – No safety net
Citadel of Flame @ Crea rescue – No safety net
Fractal of the Mist @ Ascended Grawl – No safety net
The encounter with Nokk, incidentally has a safety net, just not directly around Nokk’s platform.
I read a lot of exaggeration in the opening post (and even from some of the subsequent posts). I also see somebody mention that higher-level dungeons are easier to complete at their recommended level, which is partially true and I’ll address that first.
A main part of Guild Wars 2 combat is about dodging and moving out of red rings of badness, yes. But the next part of what defines a player’s skill is his/her ability to choose the right Utilities and weapons for a given situation and use them effectively. Unfortunately, at lower levels most players either don’t pick up the utilities that are truly good, don’t know how to use them, or just plainly don’t have the skill points to purchase them in the first place. Above all else, I believe this is what’s lacking from most beginner’s guides I see.
For dungeons in general, while group DPS, control and support are important, the thing that determines a good run from bad is knowing which mobs are your biggest threats and focusing the team’s effort in taken them down as quickly as possible.
In the case of Caudecus’ Manor, arranged in order of priority
1. Bandit Saboteur (large, high-damage, long duration AOE knock back)
2. Bandir Bomber (ranged AOE that stacks Vulnerability)
3. Bandit Cutpurse (capability to apply 12 stacks of Bleed in a single move)
4. Bandit Enforcer (two high burst damage ranged attacks)
5. Bandit Rifleman (one-shots most moving targets; significant damage otherwise)
6. Bandit Thug (grants allies Stability and Fury)
7. Bandit Hooligan (knockdowns and stuns)
8. Bandit Archer (generally annoying, but not threatening)
You’ll quickly notice that having projectile blocking and reflecting becomes absolutely incredible in this setting. Not a must, but definitely makes life easier. Also, in every path you’ll have to deal with the Cutpurse, so packing at least one form of Condition removal is necessary. Even a level 80 with full Exotics and Ascended items with Toughness and Vitality stats through the roof will hurt from one Cutpurse’s Leaping Death Blossom if unable to remove the Bleed stacks, let alone stacks from two Cutpurses being dumped on a glass cannon Elementalist.
If you’re going so deep into Corruption, why not consider Corrosive Poison Cloud for its Poison and Weakness?
The dude at 2:12, again the staff really doesnt help in close combat. When he turned into a dust storm or what ever it is, you could have switched to D shroud and used fear since you were already too close to start casting a mark.
That wouldn’t work because Tornado grants Stability while it is active.
Now, the only way I’ve ever seen it run is to have one tanking at the NPC
Tanking at the NPC is a mistake as adds will cleave and hit Hodgkins. Tank the adds on the other side of the table.
the tank ALWAYS seems to die
Are you running with a dedicated group or PUGs? Regardless, the supposed tank doesn’t know what he/she is doing. If they go into the fight without switching in defensive weapons, traits, armour and/or utilities, then of course they will die.
I still melt to these guys way faster than I did before the patch.
Again, dungeons aren’t solo endeavours. You may be doing a superb job, but can you be absolutely certain you can say the same for fellow party members?
The fight wasn’t hard, at all. It’s just a tedious fight. The entire strategy revolved around repeating one set of actions over and over again for an extended time. That’s tedium, not difficulty. Reducing the time involved just hastens the inevitable and actually get people to run the path again.
The guardian shield skill 4 is a bash for some damage and then blocks the next 3 incoming attacks.
Wrong information is the absolute worst sort of information.
Shield of Judgement damages enemies in a cone and provides allies (including the Guardian) in the same area of effect Protection.
In WvW I run with +90% Chill duration (possible to go +100% with Sigil), Chilling Darkness, Well of Darkness and Well of Corruption. Well of Suffering is nice damage, but doesn’t provide the support I want during a group fight; roaming, yes, it’s great especially after landing a Dark Pact. The Chill duration also benefits Chillblains, Spinal Shivers (great for Boon removal) and Plague of Darkness.
For my third Utility, I never unslot Spectral Walk now, whether roaming or zerging. Besides the Swiftness and juking, the ability to base jump off impossible-to-survive cliffs with full confidence is invaluable. Enemy got an Arrow Cart or Baliista bothering your Trebs at Garrison or Hills? Jump down, surprise the invaders, break the cart and laugh. Then again, this is in the context of a Power/Well build; for Condition, Epidemic is a must-have.
Well of Blood is good for group fights, both as a heal and a Light Field (Retaliation and Cleansing). However I’ve switched back to Consume Conditions for the last several nights for want of personal Condition Removals. Its effectiveness is unquestionable, though, especially with Apothecary gear and Ritual of Protection.
Guardians also have this healing aura which has this blue and white symbol.
I assume it acts similar to Regeneration but it has it’s own unique symbol.
That’s Battle Presence.
Off the top of my head…
Frenzy (Warrior, Engineer)
Quickening Zephyr (Ranger, Engineer)
Haste (Thief, Engineer)
Quickness (Mesmer, Warrior, Ranger, Engineer)
Distortion (Mesmer)
Frost Armor
Fire Aura
Shock Aura
Stealth
Smiting (Guardian)
Rampage (Warrior, Engineer)
Tornado (Elementalist, Engineer)
Quickness speeds up everything. The “cast time” for the first 2 strikes is the animation and quickness speeds up the animation. It really increases DPS on the #1 attack for those 3s.
I can’t agree with that, especially after going through subcrazy’s video. There are scant few moments when Sigil of Rage triggers and most often he only gets one chain in, but there is no difference between Chain hits #1 and #2 with or without Quickness.
Thank you to the generous souls who decided to test this. I’m not really sure what the logic behind 10 daily achievements equating to a 15-30 minute dungeon run was, but it seems a little… off, to say the least.
10 laurels = stack of 10 agents, so 2.5g worth of wine comparatively. The logic is they’ve made an alternative to spending gold for upconverting which can get spendy. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I’ve never come out of any 15-30 min dungeon with 2.5g unless I’m super lucky with drops, so I wouldn’t consider it 10 days of dailies vs. 15-30 minutes, more like 2-3 hours, which may seem less expensive than 10 laurels right now regardless. In like 6 months from now when people are swimming in laurels after getting their amulet I think the agents will be more appealing than spending gold.
Even then, 10 Laurels = 30 random T6 Fine Crafting materials, which is probably going to be worth more than, or close to 2.5g. Failing that, there are the profession boxes which are supposed to give rares and exotics.
Dailies are horribly bugged right now. Your best bet is to find out what the actual daily requirements are, from guild mates, friends or just general map chat, and complete those. Your game WILL crash each time you complete a correct daily (assuming it has been displaying the incorrect ones), but you’ll get your Laurel and achievement all the same once all are done.
Why in gods name spite tree has 30% condition duration is beyond me.
Condition Duration complements the Axe-Focus build that Spite seems to favour, considering that both Masteries are contained within the trait line.
I have a positive bias towards Chilling Darkness because that’s the trait I built my Necro for. However I don’t see the synergy between Wells and Condition Damage. Personally, if I were to build Condition/Support, I’d still go for Corruption. As a Condition Necro, you’ll most likely be running Epidemic anyway. Pick up Plague Signet as passive group support and stun breaker and you’ve already helped your group a great deal by taking 12 stack of Bleed from your Warrior, then dumping it back on the Bandit Cutpurse while applying your Condition Damage bonus.
Further support through Corruption is achieved through Corrupt Boon and Corrosive Poison Cloud. If it’s just easy thrash mobs to get through, don’t be afraid to switch in Blood is Power to speed things up a tad.
Lastly, don’t forget about the support capability from your weapons! Mark of Blood doesn’t only Bleed, but provides Regeneration to you and your allies. Chillblains isn’t just about the Poison, but Chills the enemy and allowing them to be kited much more easily. Ascalonian Necromancer pops a Signet of Spite on your poor Warriors? No biggie. Throw down a Putrid Mark (and Epidemic, duh) and laugh… and laugh…. and laugh… Reaper’s Mark is a Fear and Deathly Swarm may transfer a condition, but also drops a Blind on the target.
Wait? Blind? What’s so good about that?
Try Blinding a Graveling Scavenger just before its knockdown leap and you’ll enjoy how invaluable that Condition is in the correct situation.
Sigil of Rage isn’t that great for Necromancer Dagger because the “auto-attack” chain only has cast time for the third hit, which in itself is 0.25s. The first two hits are instant and therefore not affected by Quickness.
And I am really not sure about the Warhorn, it just feels…not worth it? The locust is only good for the swiftness which isn’t very helpful in combat, and the daze is nice but isn’t the most effective thing.
You’re still missing a WHOLE component of Locust Swarm: Point-blank Area of Effect Cripple. That’s Swiftness for you and Cripple on your target, i.e. an 83% movement speed advantage!
And Daze not effective? That only means you’re spamming the skill mindlessly. Once you experience the satisfaction of interrupting a heal or Hundred Blades or Unload, you’ll never say Daze is not effective.
Of course! We need uniforms for every single class. As if seeing everybody in COF gear wasn’t bad enough…
There are armour that are themed towards each profession, just as well that these armour pieces can be worn by other professions. You simply have to realise that these pieces aren’t always Level 80 Exotics.
Buy 500 Basic quality (White) Heavy Armour from the Trading Post for Coppers and 20 stacks of Basic Salvage Kit. Get your monthly achievement and resell all the materials at a profit.
How much condition damage are you packing, because if it’s less then 400 I’d swap the staff for anything+focus.
Agree with this. The utility you get from staff is not worth the huge drop in DPS whenever you switch to it in a power build.
I disagree. A 10s drop in DPS is worth it for the range, AoE Regeneration, AoE Chill and Poison, AoE Condition Removal, Blast Finisher and bomb shell, and AoE Fear.
it does start from his hand whats pretty high
That’s another problem with the projectile. It’s supposed to pierce, but in a PvP scenario or even most PVE scenarios, you’ll only hit one target due to the angle of the projectile. Worse yet, thanks too to the angle and lack of speed, it’s easy to for the projectile to miss.
Dagger-Dagger is fine for Power builds. Not as much damage as Dagger-Focus for the lack of Reaper’s Touch, but you trade that for the utility of Deathly Swarm (Condition Removal + Blind) and Enfeebling Shroud (large AOE Weakness).
Exploring dungeons in GW2 is never about who has what roles; this is because every profession, regardless if their decked as a glass cannon or beefy tank, has the capability to Control the fight, Support the party and hand out generous proportion of Damage.
Instead, consider how you can best handle each situation with your particular profession.
If you know you will die easily, then do your best at staying alive. This means if a mob is attacking you, or going to attack you, you find some way to Cripple, Chill, Knockdown, Knockback or Stun the attacker and run away until you are sure you have lost aggro.
If you have specifically chosen a lot of Vitality and/or Toughness in your build, then charge into the fray. However, if you find that your health is dropping fast and you are out of escapes, i.e. out of Endurance to dodge and evasion skills are on cooldown, then you back away from the fight, dropping whatever crowd control on the mob on your way out. From afar, you can continue to contribute to the fight by switching to your ranged weapons, assuming you have a set equipped, until your HP, Endurance and cooldowns permit you to wade back into the thick of matters.
If you have support skills, be it buffs, debuffs, group-wide heals and/or condition removals, then be sure to be liberal with them at the right moments.