Guild Wars 2

A few things:

1. Berserkerarmor is not an insta win. If you have not set foot outside AC or world events and you use DnT youtube videos as proof that ‘zerk’ is very unfair, please think again. A McLaren is a great performance vehicle but don’t think you’ll win F1 just by getting behind the wheel. Try ‘zerking’ without knowing the basics of the game, and find yourself on the floor more often than not.

2. Berserker is not broken. It is indeed optimal for PvE given understanding of game mechanics, experience in damage evasion and mitigation, and solid team composition. The McLaren is not a broken vehicle because it out performs your WRX on the track. That WRX competes in different venues. In GW2, ‘zerk’ gear may be king in PvE but don’t forget that WvW and sPvP are the other 2/3 of the game. Just because you wanted to bring your WRX to the F1 track doesn’t mean you are entitled to stand on equal footing with the vehicles that compete there. They sure as heck are not entitled to that right if they compete in your venues.

3. Other stats could use a boost. Someone here had a great point about making Toughness scale damage put out by retaliation. Someone else mentioned scaling HP better and increasing active benefits through defensive stats. All ideas worth considering.

4. The vitriol needs to stop. I’ve said it elsewhere and will say it again. Speed clears and fun are not mutually exclusive. Many folks who speed clear dungeons do it because they enjoy that style of gameplay. These are folks with careers, school, children, etc… The groups I have had the pleasure of running with are all a blast to play with and about as ‘casual’ in attitude as it gets. We all play together and have learned to synergize with another. Saying you are a casual player is no excuse to force players who enjoy putting out high numbers and clearing in low times to have to spend more padded time behind a screen to achieve the same objective. A real ‘casual’ player logs on when they can between their jobs. They enjoy the time they have in whatever way they want.

5. While a buff to some stats is worth considering (with WvW taken heavily into consideration as well), if you are claiming “z3rk0r = f4cer0ll” and have not stepped foot outside the Zerg, AC, CoF you are not qualified to voice such a hostile opinion. Again, just because some folks can do it, doesn’t mean you can. There is a learning curve. That’s part of why a lot of folks don’t do it as well.

6. Remember, they QQ will not end here. Again, ‘zerk does not equal good’. Good players are good for a multitude of reasons. Many of them settled on Berserker armor because it allows them to play in an optimal fashion. They will do the same thing regardless of the meta. No changes will make bad players good.

So, if you’re being reasonable and saying there is a problem with the PvE structure that allows this to happen, I agree with you. Hopefully it is addressed and we see a lot more (traits hopefully) builds and setups that approach optimal or become a part of the meta. No reason condi folks should be left out in the cold like this.

However if you’re QQing that zerkers are unfair because you are unable to play them well or are getting left out of speed clear parties despite rolling unfavorable gear, then realize your situation will not change even if the meta does.

Nemesis.8593:

Wrath.7801:

I might be seeing things totally wrong here but it seems to me at least you need to spend hours learning what to do in all the dungeons before you go into them or you get abuse thrown at you or you get kicked out

(I haven’t done a dungeon yet due to the fact I really don’t want to spend hours on my time looking at what to do for what boss ect ect)

I have looked at youtube videos of people doing the dungeons and they seem to just rush through them at max speed is this what dungeons in gw2 are? Doesn’t seem a fun way to play the game.

I’m probs totally wrong but from a newbies point of view dungeons seem to be for the elite or the 5 man premade groups only

Don’t worry man, you are not the only one that feels this way… i am in no way a new player. I have actually done everything there is to do in this game long before these kind of people appeared in it, yet i do not support them…

There are hundreds maybe even thousands of them as of late, yet they are still a minority compared to everyone that plays GW2.

Don’t take it personally, they just use every means necessary to get the most profit out of the game, even if that means abusing and exploiting. Think of it as… if stealing would be legal… how much time before would pass before everyone does it. It’s not entirely their fault, they even said it… “what do you want us to do, play the game in a less effective just because it’s morally wrong to play it our way ?”… and that’s kind of true…

The game will change in time for the better, or it will die out… you just have to hang in there.

Man, where are folks getting this stuff. The guy is a new player. Why are you telling him the game is dying out and everyone is exploiting, etc..?

Don’t be put off by all of this. Just get into some dungeons, try them out. If you feel that you genuinely enjoy taking your time, do that. If you feel that you would enjoy learning how to efficiently clear dungeons (as a hobby, NOT a part time job lol), then go ahead and start planning for that.

There are no exploits involved in the latter either. And contrary to what you might hear, not all of these players are ‘eliteist pricks’. I’m sure some folks do it that way but everyone I ever clear with is skilled, polite, and a blast to play with. We have had enough practice at ALL of the dungeons and fractals that we can just BS with each other in chat and still pull solid times.

So again, don’t think that getting involved in ‘speed clear’ gameplay will put you into bed with some demographic of monstrous players and that you can never have fun again.

Elrey.5472:

Wrath, the community is kinda messed up right now. There’s too much elitism in the LFG, but there’s a way to avoid that. Only join groups that are not zerkers, rush runs, speed runs or anything that seems to be created from an impatient bad-attitude player. Going with newbies will be longer, yet more fun rewarding 90% of the times.

The kitten is strong in this one. Going with newbies is a good way for newbies to learn. It is not more “fun” or more rewarding. In literal terms, it is in no way more rewarding. The fun of it is subjective. See what you like.

You’ll have to start off in newbie groups. Don’t join anything speed run (like our angry friend here said) but also don’t be afraid to aim for them down the line. If you find that you got the gameplay down, have solid gear, and think you could have more fun melting through mobs, by all means start working on speed clears with your guild or team.

People make it seem like ‘having fun’ and ‘speed running’ are mutually exclusive.

This is a tricky situation. I hope they handle this wisely and adjust weak stats upwards instead of nerfing the DPS game.

I keep seeing the same post from angry players complaining about the DPS dominance. It seems most of these folks have never ventured outside P1 CoF or AC.

Having been in some exquisitely horrible PuGs before, I know that whatever is done to nerf DPS or even buff the damage dealt by enemies will hurt inexperienced players far more than it will harm the folks who regularly speed clear these dungeons.

Now to clarify, I don’t mean ‘z3rk0r guud. kasu4l bad’. I mean that inexperienced players as a whole will suffer. Excluding folks who play support roles because they enjoy them, I think most do because it helps them stay alive. Without DPS players, these sorts of groups will take even longer to complete content. Full zerk teams who run AC and CoF exclusively but lack understanding of the game past ‘where to stand and what to hit’ will also suffer greatly.

The trend is that inexperienced players will suffer the most. Experienced and good players, regardless of gear will bounce back fairly quickly I’m sure. To what end though? Speed clears will still be faster and the divide between ‘speeds’ and bad ‘pugs’ will be even greater.

Folks will still be ticked off that there are good players blazing through content.

I just have to chime in on this. The “play how you want” thing is being used very spitefully by certain folks in the community.

Look, “play how you want” means that you can play however you want and complete the content. The game, yes it is a game, is designed to be a fun hobby to occupy your time. You are supposed to enjoy the way you play and enjoy the game (in theory).

What “play how you want” doesn’t mean is that your chosen play-style will be the most efficient one. This isn’t an argument about speculating how much fun ‘elitists’ or ‘casuals’ respectively have. It’s just a statement. “Play how you want” is just a freedom from a rigid class system.

Now, this is where folks start being unreasonable. Just because you personally enjoy playing in Cleric gear, does not mean that you should be on equal DPS footing as a player in Berserker gear. “Play how you want” does not mean you can play free of consequences. If this were the case, zerk players would also have to benefit from the Toughness and Vitality of a PVT player. You weigh and evaluate your playstyle with your in game goals.

Do you want to clear dungeons and fractals very quickly and precisely with very little room for error? Is that fun for you? Then Berserker’s or Assassin’s are for you. Do you enjoy playing open world content exclusively? Well…any gear will work for you there. Do you like WvW? It would be best to build in some tankyness to your gear to succeed there. Do you really enjoy playing full support but only enjoy playing in dungeons? You can do that too BUT do understand that for all choices there are consequences as well. You will NOT have the damage output of a Berserker geared player.

I think this is where the “play how I want” is tripping folks up. Of course I don’t mean everyone. Just the loud PUG folks complaining about PvE for all the wrong reasons. They want all the benefits of DPS gear; they want high DPS, lightning fast clear times, well coordinated utilities and synergy without actually putting forth the time to achieve this. They did not learn to dodge and synergize. They did not strategize with their guilds or clear teams to perfect their timing. Nope. They simply hopped into an LFG group with whatever gear they had on and are now raging that they cannot complete content as fast as these good groups.

This is as absurd as me complaining that I did not qualify for the olympics 400 m despite never running track a day in my life. If you want to speed clear, put forth the time to learn it with a good team. Again, it’s a game that you can “play how you want”. If I want full Arah armor, I must play accordingly to get the tokens. Do I like Arah? Not particularly. Then I should weigh my desire for that armor against my desire to play in places that are not Arah.

tl;dr – “Play how you want” does not mean you can spec for toughness and yet still get the same clear time as an experienced zerker team

Something the ‘voice’ said immediately stood out to me. He says that she may have to kill “every last one of us.” Now this is peculiar because it’s a very exclusionary statement.

We know that all of the races (save perhaps Largos) we have encountered have so far been affected by Scarlet’s shenanigans. This would put the speaker solidly outside the realm of races we have encountered or are familiar with.

Additionally he says that Scarlet MIGHT have to kill all of us. He says something alone the lines of “even if she has to kill…” This sounds very conditional to me. It lets on that Scarlet’s goal may not be destruction of the world (or something along those lines) or killing for the sake of killing.

The third observation is really a combination of those last two points (and assumes that both are true). If we assume the voice is a 3rd party we have not yet encountered and that Scarlet is not necessarily seeking to destroy the main races (but is willing to if needed), it might be reasonable to think that this voice may be either the target of her actions or feels passively threatened by it.

He speaks to us about Scarlet being a threat, yet makes it clear he is not ‘one of us’. Why is he warning us? Is he neutral or an enemy?

Folks have been saying it could be a dragon. I’m not sure (since they are all supposed to be forces of nature without much cognitive ability…iirc). Anyways… things to consider.

Or it could just be an achievement grind fest with literally nothing I just talked about….annnnd I just let myself down with the LW yet again

Cruxiis.3574:

For this, Equipment wise, is it good? Or should I change the runes I am using? (leaning towards rune of pack because of WvW roaming and ignore traits I’m still working on it)

You may not want to hear this since you’re just starting out but you will need to have alternate sets if you want to be good in WvW and PvE. If you are ok with mediocrity in either, then don’t worry about it.

In simplest terms, PvE is largely about high DPS and utility to negate, avoid, or mitigate (for you and the team) large/often slow damage. You want to deal high damage quickly, with as little break in DPS time as possible since enemies worth killing have high pools of health.

In WvW, it is somewhat the opposite. Enemies you face have low HP pools but attack without set patterns and often unpredictable skills. You will have to deal with conditions on a more regular basis and very frequent (although not as hard hitting) attacks. Here you will need either more toughness, health, or healing to mitigate this as you will likely not be able to dodge and Aegis everything.

With those basics in mind, think about your build a bit more. Helps to put it in perspective that way so you can understand why certain things are useless in certain areas of the game.

Breaks off bread and feeds the troll

No, it’s not.

Eh it isn’t perfect but I think it’s close for heavy classes (and keeping with spirit of the Dervish). I think the Grenth Avatar looked more “regal” in a sense with the gilded cloth and all that. My version may be more “Nurgle” or something like that but…close nonetheless.

Swagg.9236:

Chris RJ.1843:

I liked ritualist in GW1. This is a good read as well.

However, I will have to staunchly disagree with everything you just said on account of your name.

It was a hastily-made mistake during BWE 1. It seemed a lot more passable 1 and a half years ago, and I was going to make an asura mesmer by the same name because it would technically be within lore bounds. Although I did wise up to making such a character name before the game even released, now I get to sit with this account name forever.

I guess that I can understand your initial reaction, though.

Haha just joking mate. I suppose if used in parody it is actually alright? idk… Seriously you put a lot of thought into this. It also stings a little to see community members put gems like this together (or the release calendar one fella put out) and compare it to what we get in game.

I liked the Rit a lot. The trouble is that Anet’s “no healer” mindset likely wont see them back in action. As far as Cantha and Elona go, they have backpedaled on this. Don’t recall which interview but they are choosing to remain silent on the idea. Also saying they haven’t ruled out expansions altogether.

Even if they don’t do a traditional expansion (which they should), WP has some excellent ideas about how to make it work. Although a traditional expansion would be great for the community. Think about it. What if they put a cryptic post on the website about some massive expansion in a year? Doesn’t even need to be a new continent (Tyria still has a lot to explore). Speculation would drive up excitement and the community would be back out exploring. Kind of how an MMO should be.

I liked ritualist in GW1. This is a good read as well.

However, I will have to staunchly disagree with everything you just said on account of your name.

I can see where the newbies are coming from on this one but frankly I cannot agree with it. Others have said it more in depth than I will, but basically it boils down to advertising your group. If I advertise a speed clear, and that’s about all I advertise if guild mates don’t want to run or we need a few adds, I expect people to read my LFG for ‘80, experienced, speed run, and zerker’. In my eyes, it is like a contract. Hit ‘join party’ and you agree that everything I put in my LFG describes you. When I find out it does not, I will know you lied to me and I will kick you…simple as that. Not only lied but basically said “screw you, I only want mine and I will waste your time to get it!”

You can argue all you like that lv 80 doesn’t mean skilled or zerker doesn’t mean skilled or that 6000 AP can still be bad. That’s fine but if that’s what I’m looking for, don’t try to deceive me. The ultimate annoyance with these sorts of scrub pugs comes from the way they join the group and try to stay silent and hidden. As if their lack of skill or failure to meet the criteria goes un-noticed.

The irony is that I’m a pretty laid back dude and will usually ask them a few questions in the hopes of keeping them around. As long as they are not very bad players, it won’t be the worst thing. I don’t expect perfection when involving a LFG add anyways. These folks though just stay silent and ignore you. What are you supposed to do?

Maybe I’m taking it too much to heart but it’s like “How dare you?” Haha you know? First they join the group without meeting the criteria. They don’t care about you or your group mission. Then they have the audacity to run mediocre builds, with poor understanding of game mechanics, and all the while stay silent as if they are fooling an expert dungeon player. I know if you have DPS gear on…I see what weapons and utilities you use. If you don’t know what you’re doing, speak up! That’s the only way folks will help you.

lordhelmos.7623:

I vote to put him in Sorrows Embrace path 3 as “No-no Tron” to redirect the players to go the armory where Zadorjny is when they try to go past the giant chest.

Thank you for this gem. Actually did ‘lol’ from your comment.

Azure.8670:

Chris RJ.1843:

Figured I might as well. My Guard, Elijah Craige in a few sets of gear.

dude that look is a complete kittenen win. im looking for a new look for my norn guard but I think I need to be human to get your look. Tier 3 human chest right?

Thanks mate. Nice to hear. Well the bad news is that yes, it is Human T3 so you can’t get that exact look on a Norn. The good news is, you can actually get pretty close to a similar look.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Chris RJ.1843:

I can’t wait until Google gets its own domain. Then I could look up these questions because I’m sure they have been asked many times over.

What are daily quests for 500?

I’m not sure what you mean. If you are asking how does one use dailies to achieve 500 Achievement Points and the associated chest, then any daily completed on that particular day’s list will count toward your Achievement Point total. As will Monthly Achievements, or any other Achievement in-game. Good luck. =)

Haha nah you missed my point. Not asking anything. Telling people to stop asking this stupid question and just look it up. It gets asked far too often. If only they would check their daily tab for the meta or Google. it.

My Warrior, Chef Boyardie. Figured it was about time to get on this “post a picture” thing. He’s Sylvari in case you can’t tell :P

Aemon Malek overlooking Orr.

Figured I might as well. My Guard, Saint Nicolas Cage in a few sets of gear.

I can’t wait until Google gets its own domain. Then I could look up these questions because I’m sure they have been asked many times over.

What are daily quests for 500?

Not a boss encounter. Viral epidemic like in nilla WoW. Spread perma-weakness between all players that come in contact with each other. Then have mobs invade LA and destroy all players. GG

CMstorm.8679:

oh, well for mostly solo survival stuff, but how else can I make that build just as team supportive…that might not work so well just because AH is mainly a self-supportive kind of thing…

Either a really bad fail or a really poor coverup of a fail. If you’re trying to solo, why are you even considering AH to begin with? No doubt everyone has already made you aware of the meta. You surely know DPS is the way to go. If you will not go that route, and are very adamant about your trait line. Monks Med is at least more useful than AH if you are playing strictly solo.

Toro.1942:

Keep in mind that in GW2 there is no trilogy, no healers/tank, so healing power has a place in wvwvw but for pie the more active you are on you play style the better

The word you are looking for is trinity. There is no trinity in GW2. However, there also won’t be a trilogy if they don’t step their game up on this story.

I wish we got at least 25 cents each time someone came on raging or complaining about meta achievements. An extra 15 cent bonus should be thrown in for each person adamantly claiming for the meta to be “bugged” and “impossible” and Anet to be “morons” because the Meta requires 20 or so and there are only 17 or so in game.

It may be a little of both. I’m sure they knew people wouldn’t do this every day. It’s likely that the toxin level increases at a set pace of (X) antitoxin per day. Each personal injection would affect the formula as X+1, X+2, etc… So on a high volume day, the antitoxin level would increase by (X) + lets say 1000 or something. Of course as interest died down, and the tower could not remain forever, the (X) per day continued to tick away.

Asuran Female.

Are you trying to WvW or PvE mainly? If you are trying to PvE, you will end up running end game fractals and dungeons at some point. You want a Guardian for this. Necro has some solid play in WvW (as does a guard). As for a 1v1? It depends on the players.

Guards in WvW tend to run tankier builds because player damage is less predictable (and faster but in smaller increments). It can be tanked better than enemies in PvE (especially some champs, bosses, and high lv fractals). For this reason, if you are PvE main, you want to get used to playing a high sustain DPS Guard with some power/prec/crit gear (or ease into it with power/prec/toughness).

This is a great idea

Hello!

For reference, I will be transferring to TC around the Wintersday time

A little bit about me
I main a Guardian but also have started playing extensively on my Warrior outside of WvW. I run a dungeon tour a couple times a week when I have time after work (to include a daily fractal run or two). This is my passion in the game. I like playing with high DPS parties and players who really know their class inside and out.

I gear Exotic/Ascended for AR and full berserker stats. I enjoy the utility of the Guardian class as well as most of the weapons in certain niche situations for dungeons and fractals. I enjoy burning down mobs and speeding through a path as a style of game play haha…but I’m a laid back guy and do enjoy a tight knit Guild community to joke around with.

What I’m looking for
I am looking for a Guild with at least an 80% focus on dungeons and fractals. I will lay out that I am not really looking for “New Guild hoping to get into fractals” or something similar. To me that sounds too much like nothing will result from it. I (and another friend of mine) have been looking for something similar for some time.

To be more specific I’m looking for something active with a group of players than can always play together, avoid PuGs, and develop great synergy and teamwork. As far as the Guild activities and WvW and all that…it is secondary to me. I’m sure there are always a few that will want to party for a fun matchup or something.

End note
If it seems like I’m being a kitten, I don’t mean to be. I have just had a lot of bad “PuG RNG” so to speak. Not every run has to be perfect haha…people do mess up. Lag happens, sometimes you lose focus…w/e it might be. However a death because of a mistake is different from a champ taking 10 minutes because 4/5 players are staff camping cleric gear. I would hope for a pretty cool group of people with a similar playstyle and mindset to me and my friend.

Let me know if your Guild is something like this and I’d love to meet and play!

IGN: Elijah Craige
SBI in NA moving to TC within the next week or two

Look Queen, I’m not gonna trade quotes and take up the whole thread haha. Basically, I’m not gonna argue it. I don’t think we are going to see eye to eye on this.

I’ll say this; AC would have been better to be the 2nd or 3rd dungeon. Difficulty wise, assuming you are totally new, it makes more sense.

The only points I’ll really make are that you can learn the dungeon as you play. That is what the trial and error option is. If you are new, you may expect it to take some time. Slow down, take your time, observe the traps, observer the mob patterns. It is not that hard even for a new player.

And regarding the traps tearing up PuGs, what doesn’t tear up PuGs? Generally PuGs are very bad baddies. Of course they would yolo through the traps and go, “Omg y i die so fAsT!?” If you are new, take your time and learn the encounter.

If they add more to it, I would rather it be in the form of new paths (and not taking out old ones). I like the dungeon paths are they are now. I assume you are a very casual player (in that you don’t really emphasize skill balance and efficiency). Please understand that adding random jumping and pointless encounters would be an affront to the speed clear community. Believe it or not, we actually have fun doing the dungeons and we don’t want to fight every mob. I think the enemies are just the right difficulty but again…if they were easier, it would make it even easier to do what we do.

I’m not sure the ‘casuals’, if I can call them that, would be ok with it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the attitude I tend to get from these folks is one of : I am mad because I am not doing this as efficiently therefore you should be slowed down to my pace. Any nerf Anet brings to the dungeon to try to level the field will not succeed in creating one uniform clear time. Clearers are generally much more skilled players and will of course do better in the content. They are generally the players that know their class, their skills, and how to use them. PuGs will QQ about hard enemies that take too much damage while staff camping in full PVT or Cleric (based on the people I’ve met).

OP, a good tactic for that section (given your team is not abysmal) is to keep moving through the mobs and circling them.

The main goal is to demolish those assassins. You can tag them or someone on your team will. A good setup for this section is either GS/ S+F or GS/Hammer or Hammer/S+F depending on the team comp.

From your stats I am inferring that you are not running a DPS build. That is the first thing that might be making your dungeon runs tough. Second, no one should be getting “agro”. Everyone should be gunning for the assassins. With Hammer/GS, drop purging flames to stack might and blast finish as you move through the mobs, keep spamming AA for prot if you are having trouble staying alive. GS leash and burst #2 skill on the mobs as well. It’s really about moving and killing quickly not standing still trying to “tank” or something silly like that.

Good luck. Message me if you are reallllly having difficulty.

To anyone who is new, I main a Guardian but play fairly extensively with my Ele and Warrior as well. I do a lot of dungeon speed clears and fractal runs with my Guardian and WvW mostly on my Warrior.

In the interest of steering new players right (and because I miss the gaming community of old where folks were helpful) I and my guild mates are usually available to help out. Shoot me a message in game (or here…but in game is better) and let me know a bit about you and what you’re trying to accomplish.

IGN: Elijah Craige

Doesn’t really matter at that point. You are still leveling and will go through armor quickly. If you are planning on gearing for PvE, go for gear with Power Precision and Crit. That will be the optimal setup for you. Now, eventually if you get into WvW you would do well to get an alt set.

Well those event chains don’t really pay out anything to players at this point. At launch they were something to do but at that time precursors also cost 10G. Get yourself to 80, learn your class, gear yourself well (Zerk for PvE) , and get into dungeons and fractals.

Hello. I am hoping this will be the best way to approach this.

I would like to add Arah to my rotation in the dungeon tours. I would like to find some folks that are equally interested in this.

A bit about me?
I main a Guardian Zerk/Scholar and rotate all my weapons according to the content. I play an active virtue style and enjoy the heck out of my utilities. I believe the Guardian offers the best utilities to the party as far as damage mitigation goes. As I said, I’ve been doing dungeon speed clears for some time now.

I am on SBI, NA server.

My dilema is this….
I am finding it difficult to fit Arah into a clear rotation. For all my clears I post “Thank You for Reading: Speed Clear Path ____ DPS only” and meet with a very high success rate for finding the type of players I am looking for. However with Arah I seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Many of the LFGs are just path sellers…power to them I guess. The rest are not the kind of PuG teams I care to gamble my time with.

I have done each of the paths a number of times but no more than 4 or so each to be sure. This is why I cannot claim to be ANY sort of expert on the workings of this dungeon. In an encounter I do my part to melt a mob and keep my team’s aegis and reflects up but as far as the safe routes, running paths, good stacking spots, etc… I still need practice on.

This is difficult to do on PuG parties that run some wacky ranged and tanky builds. I do not have the hours to spare on a single path of a dungeon. It isn’t fun for me to crawl along.

So…what am I looking for?
An experienced party or even just a few souls. Maybe just people in my boat as well. There are many guides to the dungeon by some great guilds. The folks I’m looking for though need to be folks who know their class inside and out and know the game well. If you have not been speed clearing dungeons, making forays into the instabilities in fractals, etc… you’re not the droids I’m looking for.

So, if you’re an experienced dungeon player and you want to add Arah to your repertoire of clears, let’s work something out. I have no trouble at all experimenting and trying out the best ways through a path with an DPS party that knows to play their classes. The problem comes with playing with folks that will drag a few second encounter into a 4 minute champ fight.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• No variety in dungeon lay out. It’s just tunnels and more tunnels. Why no vertical sections? Why no underwater bits, or platforming bits? So boring and uninspired.
• Inconsistent traps. Some traps hurt you, some instantly kill you (like the spike traps before Kholer). There is nothing fun about guaranteed armor repairs. It doesn’t feel fair or fun.

Again, yes…it’s kind of boring looking but it’s a ruined catacomb. I am of the opinion that dungeons don’t need jumping puzzle areas. I hate nothing more than annoying puzzles and JPs in dungeon and fractal content. Others disagree. Just different preferences. The less water and the less jumping, the better imo…

The traps are INSANELY easy to avoid. If someone goes down from traps in an experienced group, it is usually lag or lack of attention. There is nothing unpredictable about them. They are signaled by AoE circles. The fire is timed. This is your “platforming” bit. The spike traps let you step between them. My guess is that you’re roflsprinting yolostyle right to the end instead of taking care to avoid the traps.

They don’t instakill either It’s a down. If you are with a group of bad pugs, they probably don’t know about the chain and will let you die. But, it is very avoidable and even a down does not mean your doom.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• HP sponges. No one likes fighting enemies that take very long to kill, when nothing really exciting happens.
• And last but not least… is this the best they could come up with the Ascalon Catacombs? The Catacombs in GW1’s presearing were a better dungeon than this. I remember being really excited to see GW2’s Ascalon Catacombs. Boy did that excitement wash away quickly.

Taking too long = not enough DPS in the party. There is no reason to roll into this with 5 clerics spamming staff. The bosses in AC especially melt very nicely.

And the Cata in GW1 were full of a few low lv trash mobs to level from and do early monk, necro, and ranger quests. If anything there were some mysteries down there and the section with the gargoyles was cool.

I sort of agree with you on that though. I wish they would open up new paths and leave old ones untouched. Like in a few months they could release AC P4: set X amt of time after event Y, and it explores new areas or something like that…idk it’s a cool idea.

Where to begin?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• There is no difficulty curve for starters, just a difficulty wall.

It’s the first dungeon. What curve would you want? The story mode is very forgiving and by the time you are doing explorable, you will be 80. The idea is that maybe you learned a thing or two…judging by a lot of PuGs, maybe it’s not the case. Before everyone jumps down my throat, yes, you can do it with lv35. That’s how me and my friends did it back when it was released…and it has since become easier.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• There are many encounters that are trial and error. Such as Kholer and the Spider Queen. These are not bosses that are challenging, they are bosses that are almost a guaranteed wipe, unless you’ve fought them before. Terrible, I would never design bosses in a first time dungeon that way.

If you are new, everything is trial and error. This is a silly thing to complain about. Either someone will teach you, or you will look it up and learn prior, or you will fail and learn that way. Just like life…either do the prep work, or be ready to fail and learn the hard way.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• The burrows in path 3 are a DPS check that no random party will be able to just pass, unless they are already packing conjured weapons. DPS checks are bad. They have zero strategy about them, and mostly just annoy the heck out of players trying to play their class and have fun.

They have a pattern. Learn the pattern through fails or learn the pattern through research. It is doable without an ele. Easily, I may add. Of course the ele weapons are much appreciated. Bringing a DPS party not “random” like 3 bearbows and 2 healers makes all the difference in the world. It is fine as it is…by all means though, let the burrows be easier to melt and remove the gated aspect of that event. Then speed clear groups will finish EVEN faster and other can QQ about how unfair it is that doing more damage does more damage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• It’s linear from beginning to end. No alternative roads, just a long corridor. The dungeons splits up at Kholer’s room, but that’s about it. A corridor with one crossroad.

Yeah you’re right. It’s linear and pretty drab. It had some mystique the first time around though. Or the first few times. That’s the way of content you know? It is not visually poor, just a ruined catacomb. There are enough paths and tunnels though although granted you cannot do them all in one run.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• The troll spams insta kills. Terrible.
• Again Kholer. This Dolyakhumpin’ devil, he annoys me so much. He is everything unfair and unfun about GW2’s dungeons in a nutshell. And you know, his harpoon attack + whirlwind is pretty cool. But did they have to make this another insta-kill encounter? And there’s nothing that tells the players they can, or are expected to skip him. Most players expect a fair fight. Heck no. He’s harder than any of the end bosses in the dungeon.

None of my teams have yet to be instakilled by the troll. Mind you, a random roflpug may all run separately with all their speed signets on and such…Put a solid team together, run together, benefit from aegis, benefit from speed boosts, and make it without any problems.

Kohler is very skippable though. He’s there for anyone who enjoys the challenge or doesn’t worry about the time it will take. That said, you can stack him on the stairs opposite of the entry.

Perhaps you are not understanding the mechanics. She has ranged abilities and melee abilities. Kept at melee range, she will only use her melee ones (her spider mandibles). If you want to make it realistic, we can go ahead and say she can only eat foes that have been paralyzed and wrapped up or something like that….

Point is, your problem IS with the room geometry. Cornering her like that ensures she will at NO point drop a ranged attack. If you fight her outside the corner, she will move and attempt ranged attacks. The group is then responsible for closing the gap quickly enough to maintain 100% melee or to dodge the attacks accordingly. It doesn’t make the fight hard…the corner is just good for efficiency.

If they remove it, the show will go on. Yes it’s a bit silly but many bosses have ranged and melee abilities that they use accordingly.

The ooze boss in Arah is easier to handle at range for example. His melee is devastating to deal with.

Fortus.6175:

ranger DPS bad?! lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWQ-39_C8LI

People seriously need to stop running the bear bow…. you cant complain about a class if you keep playing it wrong. It surprises me seeing so many people actually believe rangers have problems. (other than the pet, I agree the pet is totally and utterly useless)

This. I meet a lot of Guards who are CONVINCED that their own class is a weak DPS class and their only option is to “tank” or “heal” or something equally absurd.

It’s a matter of know your class. That’s why I post on my LFG “Thank you for reading: LF DPS Speed Run Path _.” If I see range camping early enough on, we boot. Usually an advert like that draws the right people. Played with plenty of Rangers who contributed wholly to the team effort; spirits, spotter, and their damage is very solid too (frankly I don’t roll a Ranger and don’t know much on their DPS).

Hey at least they were respectful and kept their Living Story out of interesting content like Dungeons, Fractals, and WvW!

Factotum.2093:

No, I’m imagining an MMO where a lot of players intersecting in a corner and blindly casting random spells isn’t so efficient.

Make the fights actually require teamwork and positional awareness, improve the bosses’ AI (and give them multiple abilities to choose from), and suddenly things become a lot less exploitable and repetitive.

Like I said, I can’t really blame the players for trying to find the easiest way to win fights (that’s what being intelligent means). But I can blame the developers for making such dumb / boring bosses, and for taking so long to fix exploits.

Dungeon gameplay seems to rank somewhere below grass animation in Arena Net’s priority list.

I think everyone uses the Spider Queen as the example of this. You can play her out in the open if you wish but in the spirit of efficiency and a timely clear, she is fastest to stack and kill. If you really think about it, if they did remove that corner, she would still be 100% melee-able but rather would require folks to stay on top of her….like every other boss you encounter in a speed run. Don’t think removing that corner will prevent her from melting.

Sadly yes, I think they don’t really do much with the dungeons. It would be cool to get new paths here and there (that DON’T override existing ones and deal with living story). Why can there not be new paths that just tell more of the dungeon’s story? Also the bugs that were in dungeons a few months back…well…they’re still here.

Gnat.9405:

I have 125g atm to put into crafting my Legendary. I have a bunch of materials as well as most of my lodestones, and my gifts of mastery, metal, and clovers. Should I buy T6? Lodes? Save for Precursor? Runestones??

No offense mate, but 125G is not going to get you far. It’s sort of like saying you made you’ve got $10,000 and are ready to start putting in payments for a Ferrari.

If I were you, I would keep playing, and keep farming. You get a lot of the T6 just doing dungeons/fractals/WvW with high enough MF. When should you get serious about the Legendary?

1) Precursor drops
2) You have enough gold that buying EVERYTHING for the gifts just seems an inconvenient setback

Good luck.

Mystic.5934:

any items above white in rarity are “unnecessary”
However, I do believe ascended should not have any time-gated bs, and they should be TP-able (same as legendaries are)

Don’t be absurd. The OP has a valid concern and you respond with something like that? Go ahead and play the game in white gear. Please.

However I agree that the Ascended should be TP-able. Imo, the Legendaries SHOULDN’T be.

But to the OP’s concern, a reason for doing it is because it encourages play in all aspects of the game. I think their reasoning is that the stat difference from Exotic to Ascended is small enough that players who will not craft, will not suffer any disadvantage. It is to be seen how this plays out in the future.

Dat caps lock doe.

You have to press “Interact” on it for Vista clear and XP gain.

I still stand by AC being an easy Dungeon. To the point someone else made on here, I think the lv 35 req refers more to the story (as there is some Destiny’s Edge material). As for the content, I believe Anet have said many times that dungeons are end game content. If you want to do end game content with a lv 35 toon in mastercraft gear, expect more of a challenge.

That said, it IS doable with lv 35s. When it released we DID do it with lv 35s. Since then, it has gotten much easier. It is still an easy dungeon. My problem isn’t so much with the OP but rather all the folks crying about the supposed difficulty of this dungeon who seem to refuse gearing themselves properly for a dungeon run. No! This dungeon does not need un-skippable trash, the removal of LoS or something like that…

If you don’t enjoy those mechanics, don’t do them. The fact of the matter is, even if they remove those aspects, skilled players and speed clearers will be very much ok. The folks asking for difficulty nerfs will be EVEN more upset with this dungeon.

I think AC is fine the way it is (difficulty wise). Yes there is a learning curve. Yes you will have more trouble at lv 35 than lv 80. Folks need to learn their classes, learn the gear, and learn the game! Suggesting a difficulty nerf (of an already nerfed dungeon) would be akin to saying university exams should be easier because middle schoolers are having trouble passing them.

As others have said, they were much harder at launch. They are fine now. If you are new, find someone who’s been around the block a bit, isn’t a kittenhead, and is willing to teach you. On the flipside, be willing to learn from them.

Now if there IS something to fix in AC, it’s Hodgins and his refusal to cue his dialogue.

This is a dungeon I run very rarely. I don’t have guild mates that do any dungeon content. I can burn through dungeon tour on the other dungeons with a “Please Read: Speed Only” advert but when it comes to Arah I just have not done it often enough to post something like that.

So the options are either 1) People who have never run and it will take 2 hours, 2) Get lucky with a decent group, 3) Not really an option but more an observation – a lot of the LFGs are just path sellers

To the OPs point, maybe folks are not really so scared of this but rather avoid it as an inconvenience. It’s a weird catch 22; I may not know the dungeon well enough for a speed runner but it is too slow running it with the poorly geared players you find in “First time evar” runs.

I asked Lauren about this today. She had no idea what I was talking about or what ‘ascended armor’ is.

So my guess is it sounds like you don’t need Lauren involved in this at all.

Heard a good deal about both of these servers actually. Good things so far. I will certainly be guesting a bit in the coming days. Will also keep reading the input as it comes in!

Thanks for the replies all. Not Canadian by the way, Jayne :P

To clarify what I meant by “dedication to victory”, I’m just referring to the mindset of the community. Not necessarily that folks have to spend all day chasing a win but more the mindset of not giving up. Maybe a hint of that old “server pride” that you saw in older games comes to mind.

You’re down a particular week; do people come to put up a fight? Or do they leave because it isn’t a profitable “train” or something like that. Anyways, I appreciate the input and will keep reading more as it comes out. I do intend to guest a bunch of servers over a period of time and try all your suggestions (a shame you cant guest WvW but I can see why haha).