Guild Wars 2

Good idea, should be very easy to implement too.

Hello everyone!

First of all, gotta say I feel very lucky as I got Ubreakable Bell before I even knew what it is (opened only around 30 personalized boxes when it popped), and how enjoyable it can be. I did some Choir Bell mini game, and I noticed very bad misbehaviour of the Unbreakable Bell.

During the mini game – Choir Bell, you can play on the bells in much more fluent way. But if I pull out the Unbreakable Bell, all the melodies seem to be lagging a bit, which makes my music sound wrong. I can’t play as fast and as well as during the Choir Bell mini-game. I would love it even more, if you could fix it somehow.

I thought it might be due to overpopulated areas and some general lag issues, so I tried it in dungeons (5 men instances) and in some desolated low level areas – it would behave the same regardless of the zone where I was trying to master my poor musician talents. Can it be fixed?

Another thing, I was wondering what kind of sound will it make underwater, and I encountered weird bug in there. There were no melodies gives to my skill bar, and when i surfaced they were bugged – couldn’t play anything, neither drop the bell and use weapons. I had to switch my weapons in Hero panel and wait around 20 seconds for the bugged bell to disappear.

Yeah, I don’t like this pressure the party leader has in dungeons, as he can’t leave in the middle of a run due to the reason you just mentioned. I think it should be addressed as an issue which should be resolved soon. The instance should remain accessible for remaining party members.

@Lucas
Tsurugi nowhere mentioned he is a fullhater of running, he just pointed that he isn’t exactly good at doing it (and I think it should be a gorup effort to skip content properly, not “everyone is on their own, whoever fails is a nub” mentality), which I can understand – it takes practise and proper utility skills equipped, which might take a while to get used to.

The point of his thread is to point out this flawed design of instances resets, and if I were him – I would feel very bad about ruining run for other party members too. It’s not another rant about skipping issue.

I’ve seen tons of your comments on dungeon forums, and gotta say – I don’t agree with your views most of the time, and I have no idea what makes you think that “Dungeons are meant to be played, the way you imagine it to be”. Your words in the post above make me feel that I don’t want to run any dungeon with you. Not sure if it’s the impression you are trying to make on other players.

With all the skipping, average time would be 20-30 mins per 1 path. Some are faster, others are longer. Add 10 mins if it’s going to be pug.

Uhm, my group never even thoguht about kitting that part. We just storm through. Nobody dies. It was quite a surprise when we found out, that pugs always kite this part… no idea what’s up with them.

@Luke
What you say is not exactly true.

I encountered some DR as well, if my group did different dungeons paths one after another at quite decent speed. Any kind of DR should have been cleared on my account, as I haven’t played for two days before doing these runs.

We did CoF path 1 & path 2, took us around half an hour. Then HoTW path 1, around 15-20 minutes. Then we did AC all 3 paths.

Now, in AC dungeon I already hit DR.
Path 1 in AC – I got 60 tokens.
Path 2 in AC – I got 45 tokens.
Path 3 in AC – I got 30 tokens.

It happened not long ago, about three weeks ago or so. Since then I try to have a break after 2-3 dungeon runs. My theory is, that if you do 4 different paths within 1 hour, then you might encounter some DR for any further runs this day, even if they are all unique.

I don’t mind this kind of DR. Perhaps it just tells me I should have a break to catch a breath ^^

Yeah well, if you enjoy the cinematics, you don’t have to skip it. But the button should be there, I think, for those who have seen the scenes enough many times

There are some cinematics in Fractales, that could use the “Skip” button.

I mean, the cinematics are great when you watch them for the first time, but when you’ve seen them 20 times… you really want to skip them.

The cinematics which are missing the skip button:
- The begining of Sealed Giant fractale, the video with colossus.
- The begining of Grawl fractales, as also the scene with weirdo Shaman jumping into lava.
- The final of Raving Asuran fractale – I believe it’s a dungeon, not vista, I have no idea why we see this pointless video of a building there after defeating the golems. There is a skip button, fortunately.

Do you guys enjoy them, or would you prefer removing them too? Did I miss any other cinematic?

It’s exactly the reason why I hesitate a lot before I join any pug, and if possible, I just don’t do that.

I can’t stand the default and mindless approach of every pug: “Kite it you nub!!!!”. I’m also a guardian, and as I learned the mechanics of each boss in each dungeon, I can successfuly prevent knock downs, killing shots and many other nasty situations. It often counts party wide, so others don’t even have to worry about nasty moves. Killing bosses melee is often MUCH faster and easier, than using ranged weapons.

I’m glad my guildies have balls to do the stuff in manly way.

I’m using Superior Sigil of Life on my Staff, to stack up extra 250 Healing Power. I rarely get downed, in most dungeons I maintain my 25 stack the entire run so it’s quite nice buff for all my outgoing heals.

My Mace and Focus have Superior sigils of Water for more aoe heals on hits. For somebody who likes to be a healer, I find it the most efficient combination. I get a lot of Vigor from my critical hits (I spam skill 1 and 2 on staff for that purpose mostly, not for the numbers. I do laughable damage), so I can always dodge when it counts.

I guess it’s all about your own preference. I got bored of arguing with people, who are strongly defending their “Healing Power sucks” point of view.

However, if you play PvE, Dungeons specificaly, do not ignore Healing Power stat.
Even if people tell you that it scaled bad, and the healing you provide sucks – look at it from other perspective. You do AoE heal, if you are in a party – you should multiply your healing by 5, as it affects all the other party members. Not only you.

I’ve done over 300 dungeons runs I think, I’ve got a few Guildies who do it with me, and I usually don’t even have time to hit a foe, as I use all my healing abilities to keep them alive. Somebody mentioned it’s not possible here, to stand back and heal others, but it’s not true. You can, and you can do it very well. Not always, not in every group, but if people around you learn how much healing you provide and will have some trust, they will stick closer to you and have less worries about their own survival, making themselves even more efficient at killing.

Simple example.
Assuming you have ~1400 Healing Power and 0 0 30 30 10 traits, which configured properly grant a lot of healing and reduce cool downs of your most important healing skills.

Your Empower skill (staff) grants around 3k heal on final tick to all allies around.
In dungeon that’s 15k heal for the party – 3k for each party member. Without Healing Power you do only 2k for each member. So your party is missing 5k direct healing.

I’m using 2h Mastery, so I can use Empower every 16 seconds.
If you have no Healing Power at all, you heal for 15k HP (party wide) less per minute, from this skill only.
I think it’s A LOT heal you are missing, and it’s only from one skill.

Your dodge rolls, they can heal too. Without Healing Power the rolls heal for around 600-700 HP, with right amount of healing power, it’s almost 1,5k per roll. It’s also aoe heal. You can heal with rolls a lot, as you can maintain vigor up most of the time.

Regen – it heals better the longer it lasts, and the more healing you have.
With increased boon duration, my regen lasts around 11s and it gives over 3,5k healing. It’s also party range, with reduced shotus recharge time trait I can use regen a lot (as well as bonuses from virtues and Mace/Focus combo).

I could keep going on, as Guardian has so many healing skills and traits, that he can do healing very well. But the point is, if you invest some points into Healing Power, you and your party gain a lot from this. Many people use simple math and look at the small numbers in perspective of single player, but when you take into consideration full team – 5 people, and realize that all of them benefit from each 100 points of healing power you have, then it turns the table around. In my opinion, that is. I play in dungeons mostly.

By the way, I find it a very balanced set:
Full Cleric Trinket set (Power, Toughness, Healing Power)
Full TA Armor (Precision, Vitality, Healing Power).

You gain some armor, you gain vitality, you get some critical chance, but all of the pieces stack up Healing Power and turn you into very powerful healer… if you play it wisely, that is

CoE – Story Mode – the home missle sparks which follow party members. They can be reflected nicely with the Wall of Reflection, or consumed by the bubble that protects against projectiles.

I only allowed my friends to skip that boss, once they mastered it and never got down while spanking him

I agree, people who skip it because they can’t face it aren’t “pro” by any means, and could use this boss as training ground for further dungeon experiences. People who skip it, because they can beat that boss with eyes closed, thumbs tied and keyboard hidden in another room should be free to do so, though. In current state, this boss doesn’t benefit player in any way. Just a waste of time in regular runs.

@lehova
I used to believe that people skip it, because they are all so good. But I found out it was wrong assumption. Most players just keep dying there, and they simply avoid this boss, cuz they can’t keep up their Uber Pro 1337 player image if they fail miserably in such place

It doesn’t mean that you are one of those too. Just the majority is like that.

Can’t decide what armor and colors I like best, so I keep switching them all the time.
Here are a few shots in one.

Ironman Guardian.

Hello everyone.

I can’t put my finger on the exact mechanics that make these two dungeons more fun than any others, but I thought we really would need more fun dungeons like that. My guild and I enjoy CoE and Arah the most of all dungeons (we’ve done all of them, plenty of them been repeated countlessly many times). Anyone else feels like that?

On the begining they might be harsh, and I can understand (a bit) the haters who can’t get pass Giganticus Lupicus or Subject Alpha, which I find the most fun bosses in game. But the more we did it, the more we enjoyed.

I love the variety of encounters in both dungeons (I won’t comment on path 1 and 4 in Arah, enough many people described the issues there, and I wholeheartly agree). We enjoy the puzzles (laser tunnel in CoE, passing the orb to ignite the lantherns in Arah), which are easy and very fun to do. They don’t require all 5 members to do them flawlessly, so they get easier on the impatient players, and you can always find 1 or 2 of those in your party. The mechanics, looks and environment of each boss are quite different and keep the dungeon being interesting to the very end.

It’s really hard for me to nail the exact difference. Could be music, colors of the envionment, unique mechanics, very fun puzzles or a mix of easy content with demanding one in a very balanced way. I think that CoE has perfect amount of foes in dungeon – I never feel like I want to skip anything in there. Maybe some other players could help to identify the source of fun in these two dungeons, so we could use it as nice feedback for the designers, so they could deliver us even more fun in future.

As a side note: Subject Alpha shouldn’t be nerfed as much as it is now. It used to be more fun before that patch, which caused many bugs with Alpha. It often seems to be stunned, it doesn’t do any attacks and just allows our party to bring it down by 40% of its HP before it starts doing some lazy moves again. HP of some bosses can be reduced, but let their mechanics be still challenging

Other than that, good job ANet on CoE. I would award it with the most fun dungeon title, so far. I really hope that more dungeons of this kind will be coming!

Wow, you really needed to boost your ego. To tone it down a bit, you are not the only one, and definitely not the first duo to do dugneons. People usually duo the explorables, as they are more rewarding.

Hehe, good idea with the Hounds. Alternatively you could send Champion Rinsen Chicken to defeat dragon. It should do well.

Wasn’t that obvious? I thought it was, but could be me.

Yeah, it’s absolutely doable.

You destroy all barriers on the way to boss, ignoring the patrols. Then you run back to a safe spot, which is right before the long bridge, to the right side. You can wait untill all patrols pass, and then you run back to boss. Kill the adds first, then run back again to the safe spot ignoring patrols. When the patrols pass by, run once more and focus on boss only. Ignore the patrols. If your team has some support (and dugneons should include that, obviously), you should be able to kill Golem without problems. Even with two patrols on you.

Bobobejumbo.4951:

I’m curious, how do people access the internet with no power?

Yeah. The thread title and opening post made no sense to me. I see no relation.

Answering your question, I think here is a clue:

http://www.youthblog.org/rodent%20pc%20power%20wheel.jpg

I don’t want to butt in much, but I can’t ignore the fact, that suprisingly many people belittle the meaning of Healing Power stat on Guardians. It almost seems as if one person said once “it scales poorly”, and everyone else follows this statement blindly. If this stat would be THAT useless, it wouldn’t be there in the first place, would it?

I’m guardian since the launch of GW2, few weeks after that I started successfully doing all dungeons, and still loving it. I have few armor and weapon sets, so I can switch between them as the situation demands, and I notice a huge difference in survivability of my party members if I stop using my Healing set. I run with steady group, most of them are sort of glasses though. They deal huge damage and kill foes quickly, I heal them and spread a lot of protective boons for them. Each my dodge roll heals for around 1,5k HP, and since I can do it twice within a short amount of time, I find it very useful. My regen boons heal for around 3k, if they last for 10s (and usually they do, if not longer). My virtue of resolve heals for around 3k as well. Empowering heals for another 2,8-3k. My symbols heal too with each tick. Healing Power affects every outgoing healing.

I can bring warriors back to full life within 10 seconds while they were close to reach the bottom of their HP pool. I can’t do that with half much Healing Power stat, and if I ignore that stat completely, I feel useless. Protection from Crit Hammer build is not enough for me. Retaliation and Regen are not enough either. Direct healing is necessary as well, in my opinion, to keep people alive.

My gameplay though, is based on a good teamwork between damage builds of my friends and my own full support build. They don’t have to run away from mobs and can keep attacking at astonishing speed, I take care of their survival. I call it a fair trade, as it works much better this way. If I went full offensive build, while my other members would go defensive, we would get much worse results. I checked it.

As an example, my best Warrior guildie that goes full DPS build and I easily duoed AC path 1 within 18 mins. He was dealing the damage, I kept him alive. We did the dungeon faster than it usually takes to 5 people in PuG. Imagine 3 Warriors and 2 guardians like that Or even 4 warriors and 1 guardian. I think that going full support and investing in healing Power is not bad idea at all, I’m loving it. Some people just prefer more agressive gameplay, so you can stick to your critical builds, which are fun to play too. But I don’t think you have ANY rights to diss people who actually do very well with totally opposite tactics and use some stats that you find useless. It all depends on your own personal preferences and the way your party members play. If they can take care of thesmelves, but deal poor damage – I switch to DPS sets and help with that. If my team requires protection and healing, but they deal more than enough damage, I don’t see a reason to waste my healing abilities just to increase the DPS a little bit more.

HA HA HA.

True true. We need less life in our HP pool, it’s very hard to kill us right now. Our DPS is so high comparing to Warriros, that we deserve to reduce it by half, at least. I don’t understand why we have so much variety of conditions spam. We should have it reduced too. The amount of boons we can spread is ridiculous, I believe that one boon per minute should be more than enough.

I don’t get it. Guardian is the most nerfed class so far, and people keep trolling us, demanding even more nerfs. Is it just a sadistic intention? By name definition, we are G U A R D I A N S. We are supposed to be durable and spread protection around us. No idea what’s wrong with that. Are people really such bad players, that they can’t kill Guardians in pvp?

It’s enough to check forums of other profession to see which one requires some nerfs. For example Warrior – all of them are happily coming up with very bright ideas, how to make their Warriors even funnier – 2 handed shields, shields in both hands and other fun stuff. They haven’t been nerfed since a very long time, if ever. Their damage is few times bigger than ours (I just read today, someone was unhappy with 19k critical damage, right), yet it’s Guardian that requires additional nerfs

Usually I’m ignoring moronic posts, but the other day I would love to teleport right in front of the troll face and greet it with my Mighty Blow punch.

@ Ultramatum

I checked your build, it sounds interesting.
I’m glad you use that rune set, it’s exactly the same which I’m going to put on my 3rd armor set. I can’t give up Altruistic Healing easily, so I will use consumables for extra 20% boon duration, which will make 60% extra duration on ALL boons, and the build I’m using spreads so many boons, that it should be great addition for everyone.

You can use Empowering skill on your staff, and you should do it almost on recharge (your staff skills going to recharge 20% faster thanks to traits). You should use it while you stand in a middle of all your allies, or right in front of foes. It’s the best Guardian skill in my opinion. I can tank many bosses with this single skill, if my allies are around.
The Altruistic Healing gives you a lot of health with each second if there are allies around you. It’s actually around 10% of your HP per tick. In the end, it will heal all your allies (including yourself) by around 20% of your healthbar. It’s a lot. Not to mention the might boon for the ones who keep doing damage.

The Virtue of Resolve – use it whenever you see your allies going low on health, it should heal nearby allies by around 20% HP. Never use it for your own selfish regen, Altruistic Healing gives you much more health than anything else. You are spreading boons with each sneeze. You can use shouts to convert conditions into boons, your shouts also spread 2 boons each, you can use symbols to spread more boons, you can use Empowering, and your virtues. Almost every single thing you do, it gives you back some health. The numbers might seem small, but as they all accumulate – I rarely use the 6th slot healing skill for my own good.

Staff also gives you 2nd skill for a little bit of healing. Don’t understimate it, it helps too. Everything helps. Don’t forget about the light combo symbol you can put with staff. It can grant retaliation, swiftness, remove conditions – depending on what your allies use as combo finishers.

With this high Healing Power, and all your healing abilities, I am able to bring Glass Warrior, who is the best DPS dealer I’ve ever seen, back to 100% health when he was already at his 10% – within a few seconds. I dodge roll at his direction, use Virtues, use my shotus with regen and protection, then empowering, staff skill 2, one more dodge roll, light combo under his feet… and then you can switch weapons for more fun.

Sword + Focus are my best tanking skills for crowded places.
Mace + Focus allow me to tank single target, be it boss or champion.
Check their skills and abilites, you will understand why. I’m using 5 poitns in radiance to gain aoe blind with my Virtue of Justice. Along with the Sword teleport skill which also spreads aoe blind, it’s great crowd control. Focus both skills are simply awesome.

I probably couldn’t tell you all about this build, as there is so much fun in it, but if you ever get interested in testing it, I will be happy to help with advices, if you need any still. I am not doing much damage really (that is why I keep alternative armor set with pure DPS stats, just in case we encounter something that requires more damage), but that’s what Warriros are for. My friend is doing more damage on his own, than other 3 party members we are with. I keep him alive and booned, he does more than enough damage for both of us. It’s wonderful how well we work together.

This build Im using since very begining in all dungeons. I mean all dungeons, I’ve done all of them, and I found this build was useful everywhere. The way you use your shouts, as you learn your oponents is very important. Some encounters require good timing on stability, others require aegis, and some else require you to use the shouts as condition removals. I’m in love with the way my guardian can handle every situation and keep everyone alive, so I thought I would share There are probably plenty of guides around that have some deeper thoughts put on similar, or identical builds even, so you can do some more research if you like.

Hi,

I was testing many different ways of playing Guardian as I’ve been leveling.
The builds I am using now is the most efficient to my playingstyle, thus I love it the most.

The core traits development would be 0 0 30 30 0.
The last 10 points you can spend any way you like, I am using currently 0 5 30 30 5.
I use two sets of armors, and going to make third soon, as some situations require different runes and stats, but the very default one would be this:
Precision + Vitality + Healing Power (I’m using TA armor for that)
You can choose between Superior Soldier runes, or Superior runes of the Guardian. Soldier’s are better for my build, in my opinion.
All trinkets are Cleric exotics.
Weapons I use:
- Staff – it’s a must, your best friend.
- Secondary weapon sets are either Sword + Focus, Greatsword, Mace + Focus.

The utility skills: “Hold your line”, “Retreat”, “Stand your ground” – shouts combo.

• depending on situation, it’s good to change 1 or 2 shouts to some more usable skills. Some enviromental effects or particular foes demand some drastic changes in this build, but it’s good idea to keep at least 1 shout with you, if not 2.

Healing skill: The signet is very good for your own healing, but as you gain experience, you might appreciate Healing Breeze more, as it also heals your allies, and that’s what you gonna do.

Elite: Renewed Focus. It’s awesome!
Traits
Valor (30 points)
Strength in Numbers | Master trait is optional, pick whatever you like | Altruistic Healing
Honor (30 points)
Superior Aria (Shouts recharge 20% faster) | Two-Handed Mastery (Two-handed weapon skills recharge 20% faster) | Pure of Voice (Allies affected by shouts convert one condition to a boon)

I use 5 points in radiance for Minor trait effect, as well kitten points in Virtues for the Minor traits effect as well (extra boons on each virtue usage, and you should use them a lot with Renewed Focus).

How does it work?

Your armor stats give you a lot of Healing Power, as well as Vitality. Your trinkets give you a lot of Healing Power, as well as Toughness. You are able to heal a lot, yet you have quite a lot of Toughness and Vitality to take a few hits that could kill other players. The Power and Precision bonuses aren’t that important, but they are there too. You are focusing on healing your group, and you’ve got amazingly high healing ratio with this armor and trinket set. I suggest Staff with Healing Power as well, and the Superior Sigil of Life.

Whenever your groups is engaged in battle, you should use your shouts to spread the boons that keep everyone alive and well protected. You spread Protection, Retaliation, Regen and Stability as well as Aegis and Swiftness. Each of your virtues also can give extra boon, if you spent at least 5 poitns into Virtues trait line. Also, I usually keep 1 or 2 shouts recharged and I wait for my allies to get some conditions. Then I use my shouts to change their conditions into boons + extra boons from the shout itself. It’s amazing how many boons you alone can spread, and it’s only begining of the fun.

You can heal allies in amazingly many ways. Remember, your Healing Power is very high (you should have around 1400 Healing Power), so each your outgoing heal will be noticed by your allies, and appreciated.

Each time you dodge roll, and end up near your allies – they get healed by around 10% of their health (glasses can get even 15-20%). You can do it twice. If you keep spamming auto attack from staff, you should do plenty of critical hits with the precision bonus, which grants you Vigor from your Minor traits. Vigor increases stamina recharge, so you can dodge more and use more healing on allies. It’s awesome.

Thanks everyone who worked on implementing Karma system in dungeons. It was pretty much my only complaint about dungeons, so I’m glad it went live now

If you are also going to improve the loot quality, that’s gonna be great. Some people love doing dungeons, and dungeons only, so for us it’s the only source of drops, karma and gold. Would be nice if we had some better chances for rare drops with unique skins.

I’d also like an answer from Robert or ANet on this one, if possible.

I think that 300-350 Karma points reward should be given on the end of each dungeon, as if it was any other event. Those who think, that Karma is purely for public events – isn’t dungeon sort of public event? You meet up random people who were also looking for group, and you do the dungeon, together with them The fact, that it’s limited to 5 players should actually improve the karma reward rather than result in removing it compeltely. What’s the point in zerging events, when you do close to nothing effort and get your full reward? What about all the events I did all by myself, when nobody else was around? I didn’t have any impact on any other player, yet I received Karma as if there were other players playing with me.

We are saving Tyria from some serious evil with each dungeon’s explorable path, Karma seems to be quite good way to make us feel like we are doing something good there

I can’t find any logical reason to keep Karma reward away from dungeon lovers, and I really hope that Karma will be added as dungeon reward anytime soon.

this post has been edited to remove a violation of the forum code of conduct.

Now it makes me wonder, where are all the people who were crying 1 months ago about dungeons being impossible, too difficult, ridiculously hard etc etc? Just as Devs said, 3 months after release people will complain that the dungeons are too easy. We are ~2 months after release now, and I already can find tons of people who seek for more challenge.

But yeah, I also mentioned it earlier – I would love it if we could see Underworld, FoW and DoA versions in GW2. I don’t believe they won’t appear here anymore, as they were the most enjoyable things to do in GW1 endgame. I’m awaiting new campaigns and updates with these addons. Hopefully they will be as enjoyable as in GW1.

I would suggest to kick this kind of guy the moment he starts becoming a nuisance. Before he would go naked and order around, I believe he would be booted from most parties. You were really nice to him. I wouldn’t call him elitist either, it was just a full of himself kiddo.

There are many very nice players you can encounter in dungeons, it’s just matter of luck to find them. But I think it’s easier to meet one rather than finding a rare drop from dungeon chest

My guildies and I also haven’t received any reward for doing UP path. First time ever it happened to us.

Did you visit Chantry of Secrets? There is a single PoI there. It’s Whispers base, many people miss that one. You can get there from Fort Trinity, the three portals.

So “y u mad”?
You said you’ve done TA 10 times. That’s just begining. TA was my first dungeon, and I was doing it when we would get 30 tokens for each unique path, and then 20 tokens for each repeated. I needed roughly around 50 runs to gather my armor pieces. Do you seriously think that anyone would bother to fight the same mobs over and over after this many runs, if there is a chance to skip them? First 10 times I fought them. Then my team learned all the mechanics, and it was only matter of time to get past the foes. Thus, we learned to skip mob packs, one by one, till we were able to skip around 80% of the dungeon. Runs were faster and more enjoyable.

Untill the moment you learn all the mechanics of the foes, the dungeons are fun. Once you reach this point, the only fun thing is to do speed clear.

If you are one of those who disapprove of skipping, you should look for people who think alike. There are many people who also want to clear the dungeon by fighting, so I’m sure you could form a formidable guild with those. But seriously, let the other players be, if they value their time a little more.

Not sure what team setup you had, I went to CoF for the first time yesterday, we picked 3rd path, and cleared the waves with no problems. We had 4 Soldier class players though, 2 Guardians+ 2 Warriors. I use healing, protection and quite ok damage build, others were DPS. Some people would be downed a few times, but we picked them up immediately, so it went smoothly.

I think that it’s good idea to keep one Guardian by your side, who can sacrifice damage for AoE protection and healing

I think it depends on “skill” definition.

In my opinion, skillful player pays attention to everything – envionment and game mechanics, as well as their own stats that will allow them to be more efficient at this, what they like doing the most. They also pay attention to the party, and do their best to fill the holes in other professions which they can cover with their own.

Gear and stats is one of the fundaments of each RPG game. You simply can’t take it away from players.

Exotic items can be found on TP or crafted at quite reasonable prices. People need to find their ways to get some ingame gold (it’s not hard, no need to buy gems for your €), and think about proper equipment too.

Well, he has a point.

People who go into dungeons for their first time, usually have random pieces of armor (low quality ones too), bad set of trinkets, bad weapons and absolutely no clue about synergy between their skills and traits, not only for their own benefit, but for the entire party.

The devil in me tells me, that Underworld and other elite areas will find their ways to GW2 I hope that feeling is right.

It is possible with PuG’s, if there is at least 1 person amongst them, who would be willing to tell everyone what is the best tactic to defeat those. Personally, I love Guardian for this job. Knights are fearsome with their Knocking Down combos, but Guardian can grant AOE stability with shout and consecration.

If you are attacking one of many patrol groups with Knights, call your target on the Knight and make sure it’s the highest priority target for everyone. Guardian should use stability, pull it to himself, and try to survive, while others will finish him. Aegis, Focus and Mace help with that. Good guardians use Vitality, Toughness and Healing bonuses, so they should withstand a few hits and block the others.

If you are facing the pack of 3 Knights and 1 Boss, right before the finall boss entrance, Guardian can also save the day. Use 1200+ range skill to aggro them from a safe distance, let only the Knight on the very left side get to you – block all others with Line of Warding. When you blocked all other Knights, swap weapon to Greatsword, move back and chain the Knight you lured. Jump back even farther, and pull with your Chain phase 2 ability. Cast all your stability buffs, finish him with your party, and pull another one.

It should work this way very well. Good luck

(it’s my favourite path in TA by the way)

“finikitten” = F I N I S H it.

Probably the “sh” ending and “it” make silly cats think it’s a kitten

As many said before me – you should not only try, but also keep in your bags all the weapons set allowed to our class. Some weeks ago I started doing dungeons, and now I use 5 sets of weapons. I switch between them depending on the situation (often I’d run away from battle, just to swap to more appropriate set, which was in my bags, and then come back with more helpful abilities).

I used to run Greatsword + Staff only. With Altruistic Healing and Shouts turning conditions to boons, I was quite powerful support and at same time offensive Guardian. It’s fun, but sometimes you encounter some bosses that hit hard, enough hard to wipe your entire party. For single target encounters, I strongly recommend Mace + Focus set. Some bosses kill you with single hit, but they take their time to do so, and that’s when Guardian can pretty much permanently block ALL the hits. Using Aegis blocks, using 3rd Mace skill and 5th Focus skill, as well as proper dodging timing – you are able to block everything if you watch your opponent carefully. At same time, you can deal some damage with mace, which wil grant extra heals and regen to you.

It works good on single targets though. When I’m crowded, I prefer Sword+Shield combo, for mass blinding and bouncing back the aggro crowded around me. I think, that Guardian offers powerful variety of weapon sets, which you should be able to use in almost every encounter. I wouldn’t recommend sticking to Greatsword only Use all the sets!

Mmm, not sure what’s going on, but a bunch of friends and I went to that dungeon yesterday, before the patch, and we cleared all 3 explorable routes within 3,5 hours or so. It was our first time there. I don’t think it was all THAT unbalanced and overpowered. The thing which was important to figure out quickly, was to time your dodge skill with the AOE that Subject Alpha uses. If you time it right, you evade everything. On last path, we’ve could dodge basically every of his AOE. It’s just matter of getting used to the mechanics. And we are not some ub3r pr0 hardcore players.

I would let it be as it is, it was pretty rewarding feeling to be able to dodge everything and stay alive all the time, right in front of him. If things get too easy, it will be just another regular PvE content, which won’t deliver to players that feeling of achievement. That’s my opinion though.

Nice post Rask, I wish I could put it just as nicely as you did
Just to add a note – I’ve been talking only about skipping groups in a “fair way”, not by using exploits like the one mentioned in the CoF dungeon (which I’ve never done).

Yeah, seriously – give me examples of a more efficient usage of the skills mentioned above Will you say, that swiftness is used so you can move faster between killing one foe to another? And invsibility is used just to revive your allies without being noticed, or lose aggro when you are barely alive? Well, I still won’t agree that that kind of usage is any more efficient Skipping is also a tactical approach, in my humble opinion. You just do “Retreat!”, but instead of literally running away, you run past them.

So, what about pulling. Do you use this “tactic”, or do you charge in and take all the foes in a pack, at once? Isn’t pulling also “cheating” in your dictionary? Or is pulling allowed as a “fair play”? What about kitting? Is it also cheating? Can you defeat Giganticus Lupicus in Arah without running around and kitting it from a safe distance?

We will probably not agree on that opinion, and as I mentioned, it’s very subjective. For me, skipping is same kind of tactic as pulling, tanking or kitting. Foes in dungeons require players to use optimally clever ways to f i n i s h it and avoid tremendous repairing costs, thus, we do just that. I understand that some people might dislike that, but I can’t find anything wrong about doing that still.

Also, I don’t see a point complaining about that. If you dislike skipping, don’t do that, and play with people who share your point. I bet there are even more of those than “skippers”. I’m sure you will love your 3 hours runs and repairing bills

Ah, now it’s a matter whether i deserve a prestige armor or not? Well, I find your argument very funny, to say the least And I will stop my discussion here, as I still think we won’t find a compromise, as you seem to be very upset about skipping and the rational arguments won’t find an undestanding.

Funny topic.

I do enjoy skipping all the unnecessary fights for plenty of reasons.
First of all, we’ve been given a very handy set of skills and abilities, like invisibility, swiftness, wardings and teleporting. I believe, that one of the reasons why it was given to players, is, that they could sneak past foes which they don’t need to fight. Being resourceful isn’t really anything wrong, and fighting the same AI over and over can drain all your patience away.

Second of all, some players simply don’t have time to run a full length explorable path, which could take over an hour or two, while they could save a lot of time by skipping everything that could be skipped. Not all of us are old enough to enjoy our retirement

Third of all, the skipping gives me the most adrenaline rush in this game. I think many other players simply enjoy it as well. The foes aren’t easy to skip, especially the Knights in TA, who can knock you down and pin down to the ground. It does require a nice cooperation between teammates, and utilizing a lot of different skills from different professions, to make it a successful skip. Exaclty as much you need to fight those, it’s just a shorter and more efficient way.

On the other hand, I do understand people who dislike skipping, as they either feel like they should clear all the foes in the area, or they feel like it’s not “honorable” to run away and pass by some foes or they are simply worried about their survival and repairing costs. I know that there are many reasons to hesitate, that’s why I always ask people in my party whether they are fine with skipping, or they prefer fighting all the foes. I am fine with both options, but if posisble, I would like to skip. I do want fancy looking armors and weapons too, but I can’t spend enough time to do it slow way.

As a side note: do the people who don’t approve of skipping also fight every single foe in their sight whenever they expore all the zones? I don’t think so, and I guess it’s the same with Dungeons for me.

I used to kill every single “red dot” on my compass when I played GW1. After some time I learned Speed Clearning, and it totally turned me on. It was the most enjoyable part of the game. Not for the loot, not for the profit, but the perfect cooperation with my friends, synergy between our skills and adrenaline rush. I simply love it, and I wouldn’t like it one bit, if Arena.Net would disable all the possibilities of skipping foes.

So whether you like something or not, try to consider the other half of the unvierse, which might enjoy doing things in a different way than you’d do. It’s a very subjective matter, and I believe that the parties should agree upon skipping or clearing on the very begining of the dungeon, just as I try do it.

Hi,
I would be happy to join experienced players. I already collected full armour, but I’d like 2-3 more weapons from there too, so I could do some more runs. I don’t mind playing with pug, but they often take my good word of advice as “bossing”, which can be a bit annoying.

If possible, I’d like to run all the paths. I enjoy all of them, while going UP is quite boring. FF is my favorite route I think.

IGN: Razzy Angelo
Class: Guardian
European, Desolation

The dungeons are very good.

I’ve been reading the forums here for a few days, while I have some spare time at work.
And now I wonder – who exactly are the people complaining about dungeons updates? I think that the vast majority enjoys the game so much, that they wouldn’t even think about checking some boring forums. This is why there are not many of us who fight back with the hatred. I’ve met many nice new people while I’ve been doing the TA dungeon (which I enjoy a lot), and I don’t think any of them would bother to check the forums here.

In my very humble opinion, all the complaints were sparked and ignited by a few brave farmers, who tried to turn all the dungeons into gold mines for their own profit (often they would sell the gold for real money, and spam your ingame mailbox with links to their goldmines). Once ANet sealed their easy ways of earning gold in game, they sparked a huge flamewar on the forums. Sadly, crowd control works IRL too, so all the sheeps followed the raging few black sheeps, and now we’ve reached this unpleasant state – mostly negative feedback from angered players.

I don’t like it.

If you cool down a bit and think about it, the amount of effort you need to put to get Dungeon armor set is actually less than Obsidian Armor in GW1, or any other prestige armor in other games. The silver rewards cuts after completing an epxlorable dungeon should reduce the ridiculous prices at Trading Post, as people won’t be able to afford items that were worth 120 gold and more. Trust them, ANet has its own economists too, who will do their best to find a good solution for a balanced ingame prices of the items, which will let all the players buy and sell items at reasonable price.

All the good players won’t complain about the patches and changes, they will take the challenge. Bad players will start crying and complaining.

Actually, tokens reward could remain there still, but adding an extra chance for some very rare drop with some unique skin would be a good idea. It could be like the gold drops in GW1 dungeon chests, some with very rare and unique skins (Bone Dragon Staff SC runs were never boring to people, even if they were done repeateadly for months).

Oh and by the way, I really liked the Factions missions rewards system. The faster you completed a mission, the better reward you got. What about implementing it to the dungeons in GW2, and giving better chest rewards to those who really master the dungeon and are able to kill each boss within some ridiculously short amount of time?

Yeah, let’s get 150 traits point, so we can max all the lines.

That would make all the crafting pretty much effortless. But I have to admit, this kind of thoguht crossed my mind many times too.

I’ve encountered some people looking for groups or guilds, but it’s a little hard to help people who chose different Home Worlds. Do you think it would be okay to put an info about our Home World in our forum profiles? The forum profile is linked to our account anyway. It should be easier for developers too, as you could easily check which jungle is the bug (if there will be any bugs reported ) from.

I added a quickly made suggestion, how it could look and help. If it’s not possible due to some security reasons, then too bad.