Guild Wars 2

Thaddeus.4891:

- They do not clearly communicate, make official post about what they consider exploit.

It can’t get more clear than this.

Chris Cleary.8017:

Standing on a rock/ledge/platform while the boss attempts to hit you from below (yes there are some bosses that still have abilities that hit you), is a problem with pathing and the boss not resetting when it can’t reach the target. This is exploiting a bug.

As for the rest of your post, it honestly doesn’t matter. The community can do what it wants in this case and either kill Mossman regularly or by exploit and the exploit will get fixed eventually regardless. No one can make them work faster, no fixing this issue isn’t a priority, and no I don’t think it should be. It doesn’t ruin Fractals because you can just as easily make groups with friends or pubs to do any other Fractals you want. I did 66/68/69 the other day just for fun. It went great.

The only thing I’m pushing here is that some people don’t seem to acknowledge that this is an exploit when it’s about the most obvious exploit ever.

They’re not going to ban anyone for using the Fractals exploits. They never have before, and they won’t ever in the future. That doesn’t change the fact that the tree is definitely an exploit, it’s just not an exploit they’ll ban over. Why, you may ask? Because people can be lured into doing it without knowing better, and there’s no way to derive intent for the use consistently and reliably. Furthermore, it isn’t impacting the economy because even if you’re lucky, it’s just giving you account bound goods at best, so the priority in resolving it is low.

The cliffside boss always drops the hammer. The bug happens when 2+ people try to pick up the hammer at the same time. Sometimes it vanishes when that happens.

Jess.6710:

No, just because he said it does not mean it came from a dev. Everything he says is “unofficial”.

You’re right, but I can assure you that I have spoken with a developer about it and the answer I received was on the order of “sigh Yeah.” No, I don’t have a screenshot, nor do I feel like throwing the particular dev under a bus. Furthermore, it’s an obvious exploit because it matches the very definition of an exploit that Chris Cleary posted years ago; there’s a particular angle where you can damage Mossman without him being able to hit you back with most of his attacks and without him resetting. It’s as clear-cut as it gets. Finally, if none of that convinces you to trust me, your forum specialist who reports directly to the developers, Izzy even posted a joke on Reddit about how they’ll “never give up, never surrender” regarding fixing exploits when the tree exploit was specifically the topic of the thread. Sheesh, people.

Shylock.4653:

Minion Master.

Minions Attack everything which attacks you, minions heal you and minions transfer your conditions to the enemy. You need to do literally nothing, eat a sandwich enjoy a cup of tea and let the minions play for you.

I’m convinced that hammer Guardian is more lazy because you can just run up to anything, auto attack, and both kill it and actually survive. In the case of the minion master you actually have to recast them when they die; that’s too much effort!

We’re still getting great people joining the guild, and we’re still recruiting more if there are people out there interested! We’ve got lots of fun events coming up on a weekly basis, and our guild hall is really coming along great! If you’d like to be a part of the group please message one of our officers! We’d love to talk to you and get a feel for if you’re a good fit.

You can probably by it back from Grandmaster Hobbs in LA if it’s for a precursor collection. Try that if you can’t get it from SB. Failing that, yes, put in a support ticket.

The laziest class is definitely hammer Guardian. Why? Heavy armor, passive bulk, AOE blocks, damage rotation is auto spam, auto spam gives players permanent protection. It doesn’t get much lazier than that.

They will have a gem store sale this coming weekend where they bring back the Bouquet of Roses and other such Valentine’s Day items. There will not be an event associated with it.

Stajan.4581:

Ok so if this is an exploit then so is stacking right in the middle of the board and killing him because that is all the tree is used for is to stack at.

This is not true. There are plenty of angles to stand at on the tree where Mossman is not invulnerable and cannot hit you with most, if not all, of his attacks. Just because it’s a little more finicky than the wooden post was doesn’t make it any less of an exploit.

• Power Engineer is substantially weaker than condition Engineer.
• Hammer’s evades move you (and thus the boss) around a lot.

Really, though, you can do whatever you want. You can have a Scrapper tank if you’d really like; it’ll work just fine for any of the current raid bosses. You just have to find a group willing to take you.

xiiliea.9356:

Nowadays, at the start of each week, I just don’t feel like doing anything at all, in case I miss a raid from my guild or LFG. Eventually, it’s making the game boring.

I think the best advice I could offer is to simply not wait. If your guild does raids encourage them to stick to a schedule (that’s what my guild does). If you pub try to gather as many friends as you can in a raid squad before pubbing and then pick up the stragglers from the LFG. The only time it’s really slow going is if you refuse to organize the raid yourself and insist on sitting on the LFG waiting alone instead of getting together your friends to get it started.

I really think the problem posed in the thread’s title is a problem caused by your own actions. Naturally I think a raid LFG section could help get these people in the same area, but it’s not going to suddenly fill raid squads quicker.

Laraley.7695:

So people will queue on a class that isn’t popular and then switch after they get a match?

If they tried to switch after they get a match they’d only be allowed to switch to classes that aren’t already present on their team. I don’t see any issue with that.

doddbox.8153:

I’d be looking forward to a reduction in AA damage and a buff to HS/BS personally, there is nothing fun about mashing 1.

Unfortunately I can say with certainty that a damage buff to HS/BS won’t happen. The reason this buff happened to auto attacks and not the other skills is because Thief burst in PvP is already very strong. The only thing I could see them potentially doing with D/D is reducing the aftercast on HS/CnD/BS since that doesn’t actually affect the burst potential much.

Thorwyn.8469:

Yep, that’s about the numbers I got as well.

If you get the chance to be fully buffed: Banners+EA+Spotter+GotL+25 might+fury+quickness+frost spirit+rev ferocity+seaweed salad (I think I got all now), you might even reach 25k.

And yeah, as “Amicable Pugs”(why does your nickname have to be kitten?!?) said, you basically cant really do something wrong. Just auto attack and you’ll reach that high numbers.

That’s awesome; I’ll definitely have to give it a go on my VG kill next week. Thanks for doing great theorycrafting and DPS formulations!

Amicable Pugs.4503:

Hammer guard is 23k+ while losing nothing from using protection.

Jeez wow, is it really? Is the build on Metabattle accurate for rotation or is there any other stipulation on hitting that number? It just feels so much higher than I’m used to seeing even fully buffed in fractals.

I believe the meta classification was clarified recently to mean the things you’re most likely to see/use if you choose a particular class. This doesn’t necessarily mean these are the best builds for the raid, but more like “If you must bring a Guardian, have it run this.” In this context, I don’t really see anything wrong with the build; I think it is likely the best a Guardian can offer currently.

Did you bother to check prior to sending the gold that he was actually at the end? If he was and left the group, you could just finish the dungeon yourself. Anyway, report this to ANet via a support ticket. They’ll handle it.

spoj.9672:

I disagree. Its the same problem as pre patch revenant. Strong passive play and weaker active play is a poor balance and design decision.

The only reason why skills like Vault aren’t treated as “best DPS” is because they don’t benefit from quickness. In moments without quickness they shine just fine.

CedarDog.9723:

Yeah, was already done. Though from my last interaction with them, I’m not very confident in Customer Service’s ability to do anything.

First: don’t approach them with that attitude. Second: do keep pressing them until they hear you out and get on the same page. Third: don’t get frustrated if it takes some back-and-forth.

Good luck.

Manu.6078:

The first step in addressing these exploits is to reduce particle effects so you can see all animations of the boss.

The better (and cheaper) solution is to do what they did with raid humanoids—Make them much taller so they can’t get lost in the visual noise.

Thaddeus.4891:

Not the first time you said that and I still don’t get it. How adding 2 tab is a high-rik/high-effort development???

It isn’t, but adding 2 tabs is not the full solution. People still have to leave raid squads to advertise on the LFG. The proper solution is to obviously allow raid squads to be listed on the LFG, which is base functionality not currently present that they want to add.

I can’t speak for ANet as to why they’ve chosen not to add the tabs in the interim, though, but as usual I’d expect it to get lumped into other patches and maybe they’re just saving it to make a later patch bigger. I don’t have insight into that particular part of their development cycle.

Crystal Reid.2481:

I’m going to get these out to you before the next raid patch ships since this is a pretty simple fix. It’ll be in the patch notes when it goes live.

Excellent news. Thanks for the update.

joeytan.3865:

Any chance of an ETA for this raid patch (ie which month). Hopefully soon considering raiding/pve has been pretty boring for more then a month already. Being shard capped by Monday night(Monday afternoon is when raids reset for me) and logging in the rest of the week just to do fractal dailies is getting old.

I am fully expecting it to land in March before the Q2 spring patch in April.

Imagine if Mossman had a phase change every 25% of his HP where he transformed into a different Norn transformation and went enraged on people. Just that alone would improve the fight substantially.

They aren’t going to add a LFR tool. They will very likely revamp the LFG tool and make it so that you can list raid squads and make it so that there’s an LFG section for raids. I wouldn’t expect this before the second raid patch later in Q1, but since changing the LFG is a high-risk/high-effort development item it could land even later.

insanemaniac.2456:

i did so last night and the 3 pugs i got were actually the best ive seen since HoT launched and fractals got flooded with toxic baddies from dungeons.

This is totally true. A lot of the really good players only do the dailies with their guilds, but will be lured into pubs by the prospect of beating the snot out of Mossman legit. I consider myself a pretty good player and I certainly prioritize joining no-exploit runs over the standard fare.

As far as PvE goes, Thief AA is not “too strong”. What it looks like in PvP will take a few months to settle out as people get used to the huge changes (different amulets, etc) and find niche builds that can beat other things. For the moment I would not expect it to be nerfed.

Otherwise, I agree with Cyninja.

Harper.4173:

Cool – if these are exploits and they’re aware of them – why no fix? I mean – when they passed over the pole thing – why not see what other terrain you can address?

They like to gather fixes together into larger patches. There was also a bunch of holiday paid time off being taken by members of the team prior to the Mossman pole fix. I presume they will fix the other exploits in short order.

Also, they’re actually working on new Fractals, which everyone has been clamoring for. This means the terrain artists allocated to Fractals development are using their time elsewhere, and their QA is focused on other things.

Follow-Up on CoR/SE Bug:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the Skills Team:

“Hey fellow Tyrians! We’d like to let you know the skills team is working on changes Coalescence of Ruin and Scorched Earth so that different players using those skills on a foe will each be able to hit. The current behavior was an unintended consequence introduced with the 1/26 build.

We’re implementing some background changes now and going to test them out as soon as our internal builds allow. It may still be some time before we’re able to get these changes to live, but they’re coming!"

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Skill-Changes-Coalescence-of-Ruin-and-Scorched-Earth/

Ryn.6459:

Anyone knows wether Anet is aware of the shared icd in CoR and Scorched fire fields?

Fairly sure they’re aware but I’ll make a point of bringing it up in my next report.

Vinceman.4572:

So either you “exploit” on the tree or you have a guard or mesmer with you that know how to play the class but that, my dear, is even rare than lvl 2 players meleeing.

My guild yolo melees him with Berserker/Chronomancer/Herald/Tempest and no fifth party member on 77. He dies at least 50% faster than the exploit methods with full parties.

Also for anyone who thinks this isn’t an exploit, it is. Source: I talk to ANet.

savacli.8172:

The new tree and the old pole stuff? I still can’t be convinced it’s an exploit…

It is.

Source: I talk to ANet.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

If we ignore big hitboxes (so no gorseval), how does tempest have top dps on VG? Scepter auto is garbage, so dps is not there. Lightning whip is good, but not great, i’m pretty certain thief sword/dagger/staff auto do more now with the boosts. That leaves staff aoe spam. It’s good, but imo not great. And ele lacks survivability in that build. If you go fire + air + only one potential defensive line, a ele making mistake is getting almost one shot. And staff auto’s are very meh.

Only fresh air + air overload (and sometimes burning), seems to work for me. But there’s still windows with no burst skill available (using auto attack) wich is the limiting factor of ele. Big hitbox, no question the meteor shower hitting non stop, outweights downside of weak auto. But on VG the situation (imo) is all diff.

Fresh Air D/W is huge DPS now since it got buffed substantially to motivate those builds. Additionally, Staff is still massive damage even without big hitboxes. That said, Fresh Air totally trumps Staff against small enemies or enemies that move a lot (ie. would walk out of Lava Font/MS). I definitely recommend Fresh Air against VG/Sab, but Staff against Gors. Staff also helps against Gors because it’s far easier and lower risk to manage orbs with Staff than it is with D/W. Also, Lightning Whip is pretty bloody good DPS on its own so don’t discount that when you have to use it.

fishball.7204:

Yeah i know i just don’t get why people feel the need to justify doing it legit as exciting lol.

Call me crazy, but the part about GW2 I enjoy is playing it.

randomguy.1283:

I agree, but that isn’t penalizing a group for having higher dps, its the same amount of mobs total either way, what I think was being suggested was that mobs would only spawn if dps is at a certain point, which is a terrible idea.

Ah, yes, in that case I certainly agree. Game design shouldn’t punish people being skilled and efficient players, and I can safely say that future raid content will not punish people for being “too good” at DPS.

I don’t know where anyone is getting the idea that it is 3 months out. It’s not. It’s just going to have to wait until the next major release, which is only a few weeks out for the removal of Lunar New Year.

In my opinion if you’re going to take Trickery > Daredevil and just autoattack with Dagger main hand, you should just bring a Tempest. At that point you are among the squishiest classes in the game using absolutely no defensive utilities or utility skills. You bring absolutely nothing to the group, and you’re not even the highest damage class. Tempest crushes that Thief build in every possible way.

It’s a different story if you use Daredevil and Staff, however. Firstly, Daredevil is required for Staff and staff has only marginally worse sustained DPS than D/D + Trickery. You should autoattack when you have quickness, but you should still dodge into your enemy every 4 seconds to ensure the 10% damage bonus is present. Vault is a DPS gain only if you’d need to dodge to survive an attack anyway or if you’re lacking quickness since it does not itself benefit from quickness. The addition of Vault and dodging adds a lot to your survivability, though, which makes you far less of a liability compared to the D/D build.

For breakbars your best contribution is probably Basilisk Venom. Even without venom share it counts as a 300 power break between its two hits and requires minimal DPS loss compared to other options. Outside of that you shouldn’t need to bring more as it’s not really your responsibility in the group.

savacli.8172:

Ultimately, it’d be rather annoying to have a contradiction of “you gotta kill the boss fast!” while introducing a gimmick that hinders you or otherwise make you regulates your damage. It’s a raid: we know we have to do a lot of damage, we know we gotta be able to withstand a lot of damage.

I don’t necessarily agree. In a lot of cases it’s obvious you want to damage the boss, but having some reason to dial it back and manage some other mechanic is also very cool. If a boss spawns an add every 5% of his HP that he loses, and that mob is a very dangerous champion, I would consider that a fairly cool mechanic. You’d have to be able to stop DPS on a dime and manage that champion, then go back to the boss. Alternatively, some groups could run extra bulk that enables them to ignore the champion, burn through 15% of it’s life, and then handle 3 champs all at once. That might even be faster! That kind of mechanic, I think, would be totally valid and awesome to see in a raid encounter.

Thanks for the update, Gaile! You got the response out to us before I even had a chance to email the team!

We made valiant efforts to beat Sabetha the other night and came close, but no cigar! I expect we’ll get it in the coming weeks despite the changes to class balance. Either way, we’re still recruiting and still having fun on a daily basis so if anything we’re about as a guild interests you please reach out to one of our officers! We’d be happy to talk to you and see if you’re a good culture fit.

savacli.8172:

Punish players for doing too much damage? That one’s just silly. We already have an enrage timer that’s telling us that we have to do so much damage in a certain block of time otherwise the boss’s damage output multiplies. With that suggestion you’re just asking players to play Goldilocks: not too much damage, not too little damage, but just the right amount..

I actually like the way Subject Six does it. He spawns a mob after having taken so much damage, so if the group’s damage is too low and if they’re tunnel visioning too hard he can easily heal back up and blow everyone up. I could see a raid boss employing something like this to force players to divert their attention from the boss momentarily to regain control of the rest of the encounter.

This will be coming with the second raid patch later this quarter.

I think this was an accident. I’ll follow-up with them on it.

Many guilds do organized raids. You could apply to any of the speed clear guilds that have open applications, or even just scan the guild section in the official forums and see who is doing raids and apply to them. Those are really your best options.

56 is still totally reasonable to do, and I think 80 and 90 are also very easy and fast. The thing is that a lot of bad players with bad builds were doing the 67/77 split without enough AR because you could just auto attack AFK Mossman. People who want the loot will get geared up for it and figure it out, and if they don’t well I’m glad they’re not getting free loot from fractals for exploiting.

Rednik.3809:

Wrong. Back in f50 farming days underwater killing was a pretty rare encounter, because his HP was manageable even for a pug party. Pole became a thing ONLY because of his stupidly high HP.

You and I have had vastly different experiences, then.

Dahkeus.8243:

However, from the way I’m reading it now, not only does this change prevent double ticks, but this will probably negate a lot of burns if you have multiple people using Scorched Earth on the same target.

It doesn’t have problems like that for multiple people using it. It’s per-use of the skill, I just think the wording was difficult for them communicating it clearly in the patch notes.

Ryn.6459:

Dusk. Idk if has been suggested before. What about removing the fractal reward of all tiers once you have done it in one given level? Meaning if you do swamp 56, no reward for any other swamp lvl

Possible. I think their goal is to currently address all known/popular exploits related to Swamp and then see how people get their dailies. I also think they may have something bigger in the wings that will shake this up a lot once the rest of Ad Infinitum is added.

Rednik.3809:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Care to post a video or screenshot? Feel free to PM them to me too.

Here. It’s kinda old, but still was made after “fix” of UW. It’s kinda too long btw, so I don’t think it gonna be popular, because killing is way too slow with his inflated HP pool. Few new ground spots are already emerging.

Thanks, I’ll get that forwarded along. Also, people will exploit Mossman even if he is easier to kill overall, so I don’t think that’s the best solution. I would like them to figure out some way to better incentivize the other levels, though.

For the record, I agree with the OP that these collection items are pretty painful to acquire… especially considering how many dipoles you need to finish the collection.

Ven Zehn.6573:

I’ve gotten one ever (the 14g version), from the final chest of some random fractal a long time ago. I’ve never gotten the higher level one.

Interesting. I had no idea they dropped from the end boxes, and always assumed they were a mob drop.

Rednik.3809:

Underwater still works btw :^)

Care to post a video or screenshot? Feel free to PM them to me too.