Guild Wars 2

No! I like it! I actually hadn’t seen him since launch. Recently I finished another map complete with my Warrior and ended up soloing the giant for fun.

It was actually a great time and a good chance to reminisce. I do agree that the event goes unfinished and that his health pool is huge. Maybe a health pool reduction would be in order. It is rather time consuming for a non-lv 80 and thus unrewarding.

The mechanics are sound though and a very fun solo, duo, group, etc. fight. In fact, there should be more bosses like the giant to teach new players the dodge mechanic of the game.

Thanks for the laugh OP.

Stacking/skipping/DPS/dodging = evil and exploit
Safe spot AFK ranging bosses like PuGs = as intended

That about right?

@ Drakent: Put on full Berserker’s gear. Trait yourself for full DPS in the Meta for whatever class you play. Record your dungeon gameplay and post it up! You’re adding to the noise with all this talk. It’s time to walk that walk.

The game is too easy and ruined right? Hope we can see some excellent runs from your end.

Check out some of the reputable guides on your class and the dungeons. Ani and DEKeyz are both stickied on the Elementalist sub.

There is no reason to be intimidated though. As with anything, there is a learning curve to dungeons. If you’ve asked your Guild Mates to help/teach you and they’ve refused, you should find yourself a new Guild.

I don’t recommend asking random PuGs for build/strategy help. That will likely lead you astray. I don’t think I’ve once run into a PuG Ele who knew what they were doing. It’s a very rewarding class though.

“Due to an overwhelming number of community complaints regarding the LFG tool function, we’ve decided to overhaul the way that parties are formed. After reading months of player feedback we decided that party creation was too complicated a feature for many players.

The new system will automatically ensure that every player is at all times in a full party of 5 random players. We feel that this will alleviate the confusion and difficulty many of our players are experiencing. We are also believe the ‘merge’ option was a confusing addition to the game and have removed the option from the LFG tool. Instead, parties will randomly be merged to ensure that every player in the game is, at all times, in a full 5 player party."

Hmm, I’m not in favor of a nearly 24% cut in total DPS. That is going to really drag out some times. That said, this change will really separate the wheat from the chaff.

Jerk: a stupid person or a person who is not well-liked or who treats other people badly

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been captured by Arah sellers and been forced to pay for path after path.

About time they drop the hammer. Can’t think of anything more malicious than selling an honest service for an honest price.

Another set of Sigils fades….

Yeah it sort of did. But I think we do need the timer on there if you’re gonna use it.

Polished up the videos:
Guardian
Elementalist

Hopefully they don’t get moved again :P I won’t get my hopes up though. So, some folks were saying they wouldn’t take a Thief. What was the reasoning behind this?

Because they think they are fixing condi damage by nerfing critical damage. Worries me as well. Shallow symptom fixes like this are disheartening.

Bummer. Well, I was going to repost edited videos anyways. Something nicer than the raw in addition to the Guard PoV.

Although everything will end up being re-done after the ferocity patch :P

Well…I’ve heard this was coming for some time. I don’t understand the reasoning though. Wasn’t their intent to make more sigils and runes viable? This is driving more people to Force/Night/Accuracy now. Or am I missing something?

HoB isn’t a great elite. RF is what you want on the bar most of the time and in some areas Tome of Wrath. Still, those guys were a bit out of line. I don’t know what they advertised for but if they had a problem with you, they should have kicked you from the start. If they didn’t ask you your bar, they should have just sucked it up. Very poor form to kick someone farther into the run if you need to find a PuG.

If they were actually serious about their times, they wouldn’t have played with PuGs.

Yay it doesn’t look like N64 this time Ani! I still can’t believe we didn’t keep an eye on the food/consumables and no one noticed :P

Pretty sure we can get it faster too but we just cannot bear the thought of more Dredge just yet. I’ll post up my viewpoint later today though once I figure out this whole timer thing.

@Jerem: We have Liahm trigger the dialogue so that we don’t have to wait as long. It does burn some seconds though. Is there something else that can skip the dialogue?

Orbys.4895:

Does a full vitality, or full toughness build hold any value? I know I wont be winning any dps races, but surely being a giant meat shield/wall has its perks?

Not really. You would think so as a new player but it ends up not being the case. The open world enemies are very forgiving regardless of your build to level. Unfortunately if you get used to ‘meat shielding’ you run the risk of adopting a very passive play style.

Check out Obal’s videos for building your 80 Guardian to get an idea of the style of gameplay expected from a Guardian in a group. That said, it’s also a great way to level. You can unlock Justice is Blind and Renewed Justice early on to help you deal with mobs!

Between your evades and blinds you will be just fine :P This will free up your Aegis to use on your leveling partners!

Edit: Neglected to actually answer your question! Power is a great one to level early.

That’s a good guild name.

Indeed. The current faces are rather disappointing. For one, there is little variety; they all look very ‘Anglo’ to me. I liked having my characters all look unique from another in GW1. I enjoyed armor collecting a lot and liked having characters of different genders and ethnicities . I realize not everyone really cares about this, but it would be nice to see some more variety.

Another thing is that even among the ‘Anglo’ faces, it seems like only 3-4 of them see mass use. A large portion are very awkward, especially for males.

Bah they should have done so from the start. I already have Abyss and Celestial for all my characters :P

Kind of a waste there…

It would be nice to see some variety in the human faces in my opinion. There is no reason we can’t have more Canthan and Elonan faces available to choose from.

Do they not allow you to pick from all stat sets? I didn’t see Zojja’s on the list. Perhaps it was left off in the example? I hardly get drops as it is. I’d hate to be stuck with a box that is essentially as useful as the 5 Uroboros Loops I have in bank.

Can non-legacy characters use the scrying pool? I 100% agree with this idea. I think it’s one that much of the community is in support of. Ideally this should be located in the Hero Screen though under an LS tab or perhaps a ‘library’ in Durmand or the player’s home instance.

It should have required some WvW to begin with in my opinion. That said, why 14? It seems like a pretty random number to go with.

I agree with the OP that the jokes were in poor taste. I don’t think it’s a case of morality though. I certainly don’t think that finding the jokes acceptable/in poor taste is any accurate reflection on the morality. Scarlet isn’t a real person. The reason I agree with the OP is that within the bounds of this fictional world, our Hero friends acted the way little children might inquire after a veteran’s war experiences.

I think they just came off as very juvenile regarding death and the taking of life. Instead of representing the burden and responsibility, they went with a ‘how cool was it’ approach. Perhaps not the best route.

How did it feel killing Scarlet? As a player, I am glad that pox is removed from this game and we can proceed with some decent storytelling.

As a ‘character’ though…it was doing what was needed. A whole city was burning outside with thousands dead. It is a joking matter as a player living beyond the 4th wall but the characters within should be taking it all a little more seriously.

Well, it seems this is one thing the community is generally in agreement about. LS season 1 could have been much better. I believe the mystery and ambiguity were a result of Anet not really knowing where they wanted this story to go. It’s clear from Braham’s, “It doesn’t matter now” that they didn’t have any solutions to tie it all together.

What’s done is done though. Looking at some of the features coming up it does look like Anet is listening to the community. I recognize a lot of the QoL changes as things that I’ve read many times on the forums.

Regarding the mediocre LS season 1, I think that they just wrapped it up and shelved it. That’s not necessarily too bad a thing right now. Perhaps they were just as ready to put it behind them as we are.

Slither Shade.4782:

I see where you went wrong. You quit in the first room of the first dungeon. Now get back in there and try again.

Make them instanced events, and I agree with you.

I’ve always found that there are not enough annoying dredge car segments in this game. I’m glad they’re finally getting around to adding more of them. Perhaps we can get a few more dredge cars before some NPC fixes :P

Not sure what the goal was with all of this. It seems in poor taste to stealth change like this. We were quite shocked in our TS running into these changes today. I can only imagine these paths will be nearly unaccessible for PuGs now. A shame because HoTW is hardly played at all as it is.

Edit: xD that un-targetable/invuln. dredge car was quite an interesting scramble

Haha indeed great timing by Snow Crows. The new troll isn’t so bad. I believe the health pool is actually lower than the original boss here. We were still able to maneuver and fear him to the wall but he was quite a shock to encounter today O.O

I only have to wonder why. Of the things that they could change, they just copy pasted a boss and didn’t bother testing him. Few enough people run P2 and P3 of HoTW. We coordinated for him a bit in TS but I wonder how PuGs will fare here. I’m sure most of them will no longer run this dungeon.

Edit: He actually did seem to die faster from rushes today although he was much more trollish

xD Luckily It has worked out fine for me but I don’t run fractals more than maybe once a week. Getting off pretty lucky there, or rather the poor kiter.

Although without the stealth the small movements thing worked for me/us every time.

Ah, I too look back to GW1 with my rose tinted shades. But if you do recall, there was a Meta in GW1 as well. There were absolutely Meta groups with optimal compositions depending on what dungeon you were running. Optimal runs farmed different areas with precise builds and certain classes. If you don’t remember “LFG X, Ping build”, then we certainly were not playing the same game :P

GW1 was by no stretch of the imagination a ‘play how you want game’. Ran a Necro? Better run SS or MM…or Orders. Don’t want to/cant? Kick. I think there is the illusion of more choice in GW1 because they added so much to that game since launch. What GW1 had that GW2 doesn’t is more skills (and by extension, more traits). More skills and more traits will allow for new and perhaps more efficient party compositions.

Hah yes. I blows me away how many people chose to just whine instead of optimizing their builds for the content. I only wish we had a build save feature like in GW1. I would be willing to bet that there is a huge portion of players who googled “Best X Build” and run it 24/7 through all content; no trait swap, no weapon changes, no utility changes.

O.o

I don’t know! We did it about a week ago. Although not everyone had a kit. May test though.

hannah mee.7925:

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

Hannah, I don’t think our strategy is the most efficient. Check the speed records; those guilds are currently the most efficient. This changes with experimentation of what works and what doesn’t. I don’t believe Wharr is saying that one team comp is the only way. He’s saying that Queen Malefide’s post betrays her ignorance.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I know that my minions are useless in a dungeon.

In GW1 “Charge” was useless in dungeons too but it had uses elsewhere. ‘I want to play one build everywhere’ hasn’t worked and still doesn’t work.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Does anyone still think fear is any good? All bosses are immune to it…not long enough to get any notable distance between you and an enemy.

Yes. Fear is good. It can be used in a number of ways though. Should read up onDefiance.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Who cares if you can put stacks of bleeding or stacks of vulnerability on the enemy, if your party can beat most mobs to death in mere seconds by just stacking in a corner. That damage over time is not that important.

Vulnerability is not a DOT. It is very usefull.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

So what is my role as a necro? I honestly don’t know.

Read up :P I’m certain there are some great Necromancers in the community.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But when everybody is stacking, it doesn’t really seem important to blind enemies.

It still is. That’s how how stacking works. It isn’t invulnerability. Not sure why folks still assume stacking is ‘press 1, stay invulnerable’.

hannah mee.7925:

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

There is diversification. This is how runs get better and faster! Trait loadouts are not individual. They’re not like GW1 attributes but rather like the GW1 skill bar. In GW1 the skill bar was a group puzzle. This is the same in GW2 with trait loadouts and utilities. The reason we don’t take Engineers is that we already cap vulnerability with Elementalists and Thieves. This doesn’t mean Engineer is useless. Rangers, for instance, do have a place in some dungeons. Some folks use them more, some less, and some not at all.

It all depends on how you build as a team, not as an individual. Five players all running yolo builds without coordinating can never be optimal. My bet is that people just trait up for w/e and then just roll parties. It is a give and take. You sacrifice some trait points for group benefits. You give up utilities for group benefits.

hannah mee.7925:

In GW2, with its open world design, there’s not much chance of anything that inventive to ever work…

Oh I’m certain that if the open world required more coordination, the outcry would be legendary.

Hmm it’s more a mechanics fight than anything. I haven’t really PUGed this in a long time so I’m not sure the level of understanding that PUGs have with this one.

Her first phase can somewhat just be stacked while she and Horrik speak. Sticking together closely will keep her nearly stationary and keep her well in the AoE of Horrik’s lightning attack. I assume most of the PUG problems here arise from player scattering to the four corners of the map and Mai keeping 10 stacks. Also, do keep an eye on her direction if you are far from her as you can tell when she will target you and shoot.

Like maxinion said, stealth is a great way to make the cannon sections less tedious. You can SR all together (if you have a thief in the party) and then have people use their individual Ash Legion Spy Kits. Other than that, just don’t go ham running around during cannon phases. Pick a spot and just avoid cannons by the smallest movements you can.

Astral Projections.7320:

Guardian or ranger. Guardian because they are very tanky. Ranger because you can let your pet hold agro while you stand off at range and shoot it.

Watch out for advice like this. Play like this guy, and you’ll be terrible forever. Just how bad are you and how new?

My advice? Play an Ele and gear him/her for the highest DMG output your level can afford. Why? Because you won’t get to lean on Aegis. You won’t get to lean on Healing Signet and a high health pool. You’ll learn to dodge, you’ll learn to use your mobility. You’ll learn to mitigate damage. Do this, and you’ll be a much better player for it.

Then if you do play a Guardian, you won’t be the one who wastes all of his Aegis on himself because he can’t stay alive. You wont be the Warrior ranging any remotely difficult boss because you didn’t learn how to dodge but just ‘face-tanked’ easy mobs. You wont be the Ranger QQing because no group will take him in full PVT/Bearbow.

Lindbur.2537:

Dungeonception O_O

My thoughts exactly

Well intentioned post and likely meant for PUGs. Yes? As many have said, there are not really many nevers. Even the most obscure and seemingly useless skills/weapons can have a use somewhere. I’ll certainly agree that a lot of these fall under the ‘niche’ category and are incredibly situational but that sort of experimentation with new methods is what makes speed runs faster and possible in different content.

Embrace The Bold.7619:

Well I’d say the bigger problem is your guardian is running S/F not the fact he put one WoR in the wrong spot. To be fair, it’s more your fault for allowing him to range. Most pug guards just don’t know what wor does. They also use aegis on themselves only, not their groups so if hes meleeing its no longer an issue.

Fixed that for you. I don’t PUG often and I generally don’t expect a high level of coordination or skill from PUGs. So, my WTF moment is actually a positive one.

Having missed much of the reset tour, a few from my guild made up the difference the next day. Posted for a random. No requirements to party; expecting to just bring someone along and carry. We’re already running through when a Ranger joins; 25% movement speed…as expected.

Unlock WP for him, next encounter I notice I’m getting Spotter. I see Frost Spirit modifier go up as well and the Ranger contributing in melee. Of course I didn’t ever really ask for his build or gear (didn’t advertise for anything) but it was a very cool WTF moment to see a PUG defy all expectations.

Should head back to the drawing board with this one.
“…switched out for Toughness which is ideal because we tend to die a lot.”

This build needs a lot of work. Also, I’m not sure you understand the survivability that a Guardian has ‘built in’ if you are leaning on 112 extra toughness to stay alive. My point is that those trait points are wasted on what could have been Berserker trinkets. The Zerk Guard should have no trouble staying alive at all; it is one of the most forgiving classes to play full glass. Seems to me that you are CD skill spamming and wasting virtues left and right. I’m not really seeing any skill rotation or weapon swap; results in DPS loss especially with the time spent using GS light field.

If your build had not explicitly been stated as PvE Zerker Guard, it could be mistaken for a ‘tankier’ hybrid with utilities I’d expect to see in WvW. The points put into the Honor line are also very much wasted in my opinion. If you are however relying on your crit. damage to stack your might, you would be better off stacking dual sigils of perception (which are generally more beneficial for a Guardian anyways). Aside from the stacking set, you should have an alt set for pure % modifiers to further increase your DPS.

So, let’s forget you were trying to make a DPS build. You’re neglecting some of the best utilities for a grab bag of utilities you’re not traited for. You have 2 meditations on your bar but are not traited with Valor (1) : Meditation Mastery. Now Valor is nearly equally useless to trait in as a DPS Guardian. However, it does have the benefit of raising your critical damage so it is a better option if you are set on using Meditations in PvE. A better option to avoid traiting into a nearly useless PvE trait to justify using Meditations? Trait into virtues instead for (VI) : Master of Consecrations. This will give you the condition cleanses you are looking for with PF and you will also be a greater asset to your team through the short CD utility of situational Consecrations. (IX) : Absolute Resolution will give you an additional condition cleanse; I see you were spamming it during your rotation demo. With AR, you will find that it is a much more useful virtue to both you and your team.

For the OP: Recommend spending a little more time with the class to get familiar.

For new Players: There are far better guides out there. 3/10

I’ve taken the liberty of laying them all out on this table for easier viewing. As you can see, the variety is staggering.

Well, in a way they do guard but there is just a disconnect between the application of the class and the PUG understanding of the class. The same people that think 4 Guardians using Aegis at the same time is smart, are the same ones who insist on full heavy parties. That’s really all I’ve got on this one.

Basically, don’t bother with a slow, ignorant party.

Solution:
Keep explorable the way it is. It’s fine and enjoyable for many people.

Add vanquisher mode. Slightly raise difficulty of some of the trash, give +75% the gold reward for vanquisher runs.

This doesn’t ruin dungeons and also adds something for those folks who like to kill everything and not skip.

You can really feel the sadness and disappointment in his words. At least I do everytime I read that.

I found a good Engineer PUG during a fractal run. That said, you don’t really need an Engineer to stack vuln. in a meta party. Other classes can do it while putting out much more damage.

There’s no reason you can’t find a group aimed at more casual runs though. It will still beat PUGing. No reason to delete your post :P

Yeah. I think that’s one of the ‘suspension of disbelief’ moments that are excusable in an MMO though. Moving forward (East into Maguuma) I expect to see a few new dungeons (including Bloodstone Fen from old map). It would be a mistake not to advance the rest of the dungeons with at least a path or two each.

They could kill a few birds with shockingly few stones here as well. Arah can show both progression in cleansing and lore regarding the Gods. Anyways…perhaps I hope for too much.

Yeah. Seems like just a lot of dead end stories. I don’t think there’s a “canon” Explorable story though; I don’t think they all allow for more than one path to count as canon.

I’d love to see new paths that advance these frozen storylines. My only fear here is that we will get ‘gimmick bosses’ and time gated events.

Still, I’d love if they patch NPC issues and give us some more content to play.

^ I would like these threads if they were not all asking for longer, time gated, forced paths.

The only thing they should improve with the dungeons is the buggy NPC AI. Past that, the best thing they could do, is advance the stories of these dungeons. It has been more than a year since launch. Surely each dungeon could have a new path or two added.

Try to find a few people who can run with you on a fairly routine basis. It will be a much more enjoyable experience. Iris covered some good team comps. I like having a Ranger with us anywhere we can spare a slot.

I would advise against stacking Guardians. There isn’t really a benefit to doing so.

@Goddess: There really isn’t a need for bringing more Warriors than thieves. Really just looking for the party stat bonus from Warriors and some specific utility. Thieves will put out higher damage and especially so with the summoned weapons. But that’s really just splitting hairs on ‘optimal’ team comps.

Really any of these above will depend on the kind of players the OP knows (Edit: ‘read’ I would rather have 2 good Warriors than 1 good one and a bad thief).