Guild Wars 2

So theres no running back at all? Can’t imagine Lupicus like that!

Then I suppose you’ve never done Jotun path, ‘cos that’s basically how it is on Jotun path right now due to buggy waypoint. It takes minutes to run back to him, so if you die, it’s usually the end for you.

On another note, what boss are you talking about? I farm every path except seer daily and I don’t know of any final boss where you kite boss away from spawn room. My group kills every boss where they spawn.

I farm 3 paths of Arah every day (every path except Seer, mainly due to lack of time for most of my usual group to do all 4), and we never have any problems with any of the bosses. In fact, we regularly 3-4man Giganticus (sometimes due to AFK/DC, sometimes due to bug that cause 1 guy to drop through the floor and he can’t do anything to the boss all fight long), and the rest of the bosses are a joke.

—

Trash mobs in this dungeon are like mini-bosses. In fact, some of the trash is harder than the bosses themselves.

Correction, some of the bosses are like trash in that they are effortless (jotun stargazer, first boss forgotten path, last boss mursaat path, etc).

@ANET, if you’re reading this, please for the love of all that is holy in gaming, don’t cater to these lowest common denominators who are crying about difficulty.
In future dungeons, please scale all bosses to be on the same level as Giganticus/Subject Alpha/Simin (although without the bugs that are plaguing Simin, you may want to look into that at some point).
Also, Jotun path still has some really wonky waypoints, may want to look into that, as well.

TL;DR – Stop crying about difficulty, and stop going into explorer arah with full berserker gear. The only path that isn’t puggable is Seer, mainly due to Simin & her bugs requiring proper coordination to kill her. I’ve pugged every other path without more than a few wipes.

It’s slightly bugged at times, but the difficulty is acceptable. (It resets randomly, with ppl hitting him in the chamber)

In my experience, this only happens if

a) you run out of his room (not sure if just the one who has aggro runs out resets him, or if everyone who is in combat with him has to)
b) run to the far edge of the room to get out of combat (again, same as above)

Thank you, OP. I laughed pretty hard.
Giganticus Lupicus is actually the most fun boss in the game, right now. I wish more of the bosses were as challenging as he is.

Sadly, we have a lot of pathetic easymode bosses like Jotun Stargazer (seriously, stand around and reflect his attacks back at him with the crystals until he dies), Operative Brie (mursaat final boss) is a complete joke as well. Actually, the majority of the dungeon bosses are just a big pile of HP with maybe 1 mechanic you need to look out for. No complexity at all in the designs.

I hope they make future explorer dungeon paths have bosses like Giganticus, because I can see myself quickly growing tired of doing dungeons the way they are now.

PS: If you know what you’re doing, you can 3-4man Giganticus (done it a few times now).

I’ve yet to see any accessories with Toughness/Precision/Condition Damage available in any way outside of the Mist, which is a real let-down as a Necromancer, and from what I’ve been told it’s also the most desirable stat distribution for other professions running condition builds.

Are there any plans for making these stats attainable on accessories in the near future?

It’s bad enough that the least painful way of getting these stats on my armor is by farming 1300+ tokens from explorer dungeons, but at least it’s possible to get the stats for armor.

Well, in that case it’s no longer profitable to craft 4x lvl 80 rares and drop them into the forge anymore, unless you get very lucky with your rates. Started out today with over 8g, made about 5g worth of lvl 80 rare staves and dumped them into forge, didn’t get a single exotic. So that’s 5g out of the window.

:/

I must have dropped in about 28-32 lvl 80 rare staves today in the mystic forge, and not a single exotic out of it.
Yesterday I got several, doing the same thing. Did they severely reduce the chance of getting exotic upgrade, or am I just incredibly unlucky tonight?

What’s there to deal with? Pull them all and AoE them down. The only non-boss mobs in TA Explorer that are even remotely dangerous are the ones with the knockdown combo. Everything else melts to AoE and does little damage.

Of course, it should be a given that you’re using builds that actually have conditions/control effects. I for instance, play a condition necromancer, and just about all my AoEs have conditions, be it cripple, weakness, blind, vulnerability, chilled, poison, bleed and fear.

If you’re running a bunch of signet GS warriors, and other such builds that are all glass cannon and no utility, then naturally you’re gonna wipe even on the easy trash packs.

Get toughness on your gear and use utility spec. I see too many people running around with berserker gear and glass cannon damage specs, thinking that they’re doing tons of damage. Reality is, however, that you don’t do any damage when you’re taking a dirt-nap.

As for skipping the dogs at the start, I never bother skipping them, ’cos they melt in ~15 sec anyway.

If you can’t complete the dungeon because of someone who is completely useless, then it’s very legit to kick them and get someone else.

Also, what I do is I just add to friend people I’ve done explorer dungeons with and who knew what they were doing, adding a note for them with the “set nickname” option on friend list that they’re good players and up for explorer dungeons (I ask them first if they’re fine with me whispering them next time I’m going explorer and they’re online).

As a result, I usually get very good groups for explorer dungeons, as most of the people I do them with are people I already played explorer dungeons with, + 1-2 randoms (some of which get added to that list of good players).

I have 400 Chef and regularly farm DEs in Orr, and as such come across all the Omnomberries I’ll ever need, so I pretty much always have the Omnomberry Bar buff up for +30% Magic Find and +40% Gold from monsters.

Aside from that, I either use:

A) Powerful Potion of X Slaying (where X is the relevant dungeon). They’re dirt cheap on the TP, or I can make them myself (also have 400 artificer). These give +10% damage vs X and -10% damage taken from X. They’re a little more expensive than the Tuning Crystals, though, and seem to disappear if you die (at least that’s happened to me many times now). I’m pretty sure the +% damage works the same way other +% damage buffs work, in that it does nothing with your condition damage, so I mostly just use it when I want more survivability.

or

B) Master Tuning Crystals for ~250 more condition damage (+6% of toughness to condition damage & +4% of vitality to condition damage). Can also make these, or buy them at ~2c a piece on the TP. Dirt cheap, and well worth your money if you’re running a condition spec. For power spec, there is a weaponsmith equivelent that gives power instead of condition damage.

I just did all 3 paths, and there were no such glitches for my group.

I can’t possibly be the only EU player who plays late nights and wants the Arah Explorer armor set?

How come the only way to sell items is through the trading post? Why no trading/bartering interface, or COD mail?

I like to craft exotics and sell them to players, but with the current system it’s a serious hassle, as at any point I can get unlucky and get instantly undercut by others on the TP when I list one of my crafted exotics, essentially forcing me to leave it there for many many days in the hopes that eventually all the ones that undercut me will sell, and mine will also sell, or take it down and lose a lot of silver (usually ~30-40s listing fees), and list it again, hoping that the same thing doesn’t happen all over again.

Here’s my Necromancer, lvl 80 salad of death.

Second path, is that Mursaat? Because back when I did Mursaat path with my guild a while back, we wiped once, I think, and it took about 3 and a half hours, simply because you have to run 5 miles between each objective.

Either shorten the length, or give more tokens for completing those really long paths.

Hi there.

Not looking for a guild, but not really sure where else to post this…
I’m a (mostly) night-time gamer on EU, and having quite a bit of difficulty finding people to do Arah Explorer with, as my server is Medium population, so even during the day it’s not too easy finding people to do Arah with.

I’m looking for someone to do Arah Explorable paths with during late evenings/nights.
I’ve got a microphone and Mumble/TS/VT/Skype, if need be, and don’t mind talking. Also, I realize it’s not easymode, and won’t quit after a couple of accidental pulls leading to wipes.

If you’re a night-time gamer on EU like me, and interested in doing Arah Explorer for tokens, whisper me in game. Server doesn’t matter, as you can group for dungeons with people from other servers.

SgtSarcasm.1653

It’s not a Necro thing, it’s a Dagger thing. Thieves #1 dagger also only hits 1 target, last I checked.

I never had much problem with Mesmers as Necromancer. Conditions work really well against them, and Necro has a lot of AoE you can use to kill off the illusions quickly while still damaging the Mesmer.

As for finding the right one, you should easily see which is the real one, mark it and when they get downed their invis makes a clone of themselves nearby which appears before the real Mesmer, and the real Mesmer has a red arrow above him/her.

sorrow.2364:

Devolution.5716:

muha almost lvl 80 with my new warrior… srsly nerf thiefs and they become useless it’s only some few buffs to other classes then they can match thiefs.
But at the same time thiefs with 10k crits = deadmeat if they fail just for 1 second.
Also try getting to Rank 10 with 1 class before QQ like kitten, i am doing fine as warrior atm having 0 problems killing thiefs and i can do the same with any other class.
I just need time to adjust myself on how to play the class…..

L2P srsly -Regards Devolutionz

So, you are saying that you have no problem dealing with Thieves with your Warrior?
Wow, who expected that? The easymode profession has no problems with an easymode profession!

Now, make an Elementalist/Necromancer, than go in sPvP. Tell me if you have no problems dealing with Thieves.

I play Necromancer and I annihilate thieves. One of the easiest profs for me to kill, because they’re all gimmick and all do the same thing, be it lotus spam, HS spam or PW (that’s pistol whip for the laymen) spam.

Dodge their initial burst and they’re a free kill.

PS: My necro build has 960ish toughness (D/D Power spec).

A newb

let’s compare moa morph (10 seconds is fu***** OP. this skill never miss target.)

Actually, it has a 3 second cast time, with a very obvious animation (hands raised in the air like they just don’t care). You can interrupt them during this cast to give it a 6 sec cooldown (I believe if you interrupt with a daze it’ll also trigger cooldown for some other abilities as well, at least according to my mesmer friend).
Either that, or you can simply count the seconds and dodge roll at the last second and laugh at their 180 sec cooldown that did nothing.

PS: I don’t play Mesmer, I play Necromancer.

Eh, I don’t see any problems with Guardians, really. Yes, they’re strong, but they’re not OP.

I play Necro, Guardian and Warrior (mostly Necro these days, as it’s the most fun profession), and as a Necro I shred Guardians to pieces.
Also, I don’t see why so many guardians claim that “killing a mesmer is the true test of skill for a guardian”. I never had much trouble killing mesmers with my guardian in tPvP, although I don’t play full bunker on my guardian, I play a sort of hybrid spec with good damage and decent defense. Then again, I also know how the animation for Moa looks like, and just dodge roll it at the last second. That’s really the only dangerous ability Mesmer has for a guardian.

Sin.8174:

New generation of gamers.

Spoiled rotten by technology, anonymity, and devs that cave in to demands.

I can only seeing it get worse with time. :/

Pretty much this. Anyone raging about the bugs in GW2 obviously haven’t been playing MMORPGs for long, as it’s a very common problem in MMORPGs.

Actually, GW2 has had a smoother start than a lot of other online games I’ve played over the last decade.

I remember on launch day of WoW (vanilla) the account management server was down for the first 6ish hours of the launch from midnight, so couldn’t even create my account and get online, and after that there was a lot of lags, bugs, server downtimes, class unbalances (remember rogues in vanilla wow? yeah).

AoC… People are complaining that they think GW2 was an unfinished game when they launched it… They obviously never played AoC at launch.

Aion, pretty much same as AoC, a severe lack of content at launch, as well as combat mechanics that were completely broken, severely unbalanced PvP due to some mechanics (aerial combat, ranged vs melee) and unbalanced classes.

Rift had a lot of bugs, lag and DC problems during the first week or so, and poorly balanced PvP.

For all of GW2s faults, I didn’t experience a whole lot of lag/DCs at launch. Some the first day, but it was quickly fixed. As for the PvP, it’s not completely balanced, but in MMORPGs it never really is. It’s pretty decent right now.
Don’t buy into all the whines about thieves, mesmers and warriors being OP. They’re just easier to faceroll newbs with, is all. Bad Greatsword Warrior > Bad <insert profession here>. Bad Greatsword Warrior < Good <insert profession here>.

PS: Before anyone starts screaming “omg you can say that ‘cos you’re probably playing those faceroll profs”. I play Necromancer.

Whiners are gonna whine. Ignore them.

EDIT: Regarding the DR to combat botting, that I think they could have done better. I personally play mostly tournament PvP, but the way the messed up the DR system for DEs and explorer dungeons is a little embarrassing. It’s my understanding, however, that they’re working on fixing them (the DR system for explorers is supposedly coming on the monday patch).

I’m playing D/D Power Necro in tPvP (that and defensive condition spec, depending on what my team needs), and I usually do really well for my team.

What most Necro players don’t seem to realize is that you can’t play the Necro the same way you play a Warrior, or a Thief. You don’t just run in and unload all your CDs (HB warrior) or all your initiative (Thief) and then hope that when the dust settles your opponent is dead.

For D/D Power build to work, you need to use a bunch of different abilities in the right order at the right time. If I land my combo on my target, they’re dead. Period. Close to 20k damage for full combo on 2000ish Toughness target, during which the target is either immobilized or knocked down for most of the combo.

Sometimes you want to open with the combo right away, other times you want to chip away at them a little first, then unload full combo on them. It depends on the spec/prof you’re fighting, and sometimes depends on previous encounters with them in that match.

I’ve had several players from very good teams complement me on my Necro in tPvP, after some very close tPvP matches.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/442/gfdgdfgdi.jpg/

PS: Little tip, save your #4 dagger for when you get immobilized or have lots of bleeds on you, and share the love with your opponent (sends up to 3 conditions from you to your target).

My only gripe with Necro is that the minion AI is horrible (and that I can’t dismiss them or put them to passive when I want to disengage and go elsewhere), and that we really have no stability buffs we can use to stomp people with, as all our stability buffs come from shape shifting into forms that can’t stomp (DS, Plague & Lich).

Alright, thanks for the replies.

Hi there.

As the title says, I’m looking for a EU guild that does a lot of Explorer Dungeons, as I find it’s more fun to do those with a pre-made group with VoIP than doing them with a bunch of randoms.

Server doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s an English speaking server (no [FR], [DE] or [SP]).

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I’m playing lvl 80 Nekomancer & Warrior (mostly the mancer, kind of bored with warrior).

I’m getting close to lvl 80 now on my Necromancer, and trying to figure out what stats to go for on my lvl 80 exotic items.

Can anyone tell me whether or not Power affects Condition Damage? Eventually I’m getting the Precision, Condition Damage & Toughness set from explorable dungeons, but until then I’ll make do with a rares, and unfortunately you can’t craft those 3 stats on 1 item.

Mindx.9610:

Spectral Armor – Gain life force as you take damage. Removed when you enter Death Shroud. Also applies protection.
This one NEEDS to add stability no question about it, why it doesnt already is beyond me.

It would make sense that if they were to rework a skill to give us Stability, it should be Spectral Armor. It should also have its CD lowered, as 90 seconds for what would be our only Stability boon that can be used while stomping is way too long.

As a compromise, they could remove the Life Force generation on it, and make the Stability only last 5 seconds, making it a ~40-60 sec CD. Either that, or keep the CD long, but allow us to stomp people in DS, Plague & Lich (although I guess that would require them to give those forms an animation for stomping, which I doubt they currently have.

Guardian can use a 5sec Stability boon to stomp every ~22ish sec (with the 20% shorter shout CD trait), also breaks stuns and gives retaliation (I think, not 100% sure if it was retaliation or something else).
Warriors can use a 8sec Stability boon to stomp every 40 sec.
Thieves can abuse stealth mechanics to get a free stomp (although they can still be hit by AoE CC, I believe (not 100% sure about this).
Most other profs can also stomp in the heat of battle with little chance of being interrupted, but not Necromancers.

My main gripes with Necro as is, is that we have no reliable Stability buffs for stomping in sPvP. Our only Stability buffs are gained upon using abilities that transform us into a new shape in which we cannot stomp (Can’t stomp in Lich & Plague form, or in DS).

Also, pet AI is horrible, and I wish they’d at the very least give us controls for the minions to be set to:

-Passive (never attacking without being ordered to, and toggling Passive during combat makes it stop attacking and follow the Necromancer)
-Defensive (only attack when it or its master is being attacked)
-Aggressive (which is basically how it works now)

As the AI is now, the minions (In my case, the Flesh Golem) is often playing against me in sPvP, by keeping me in combat for a lot longer after I disengage from a fight to go and help elsewhere, causing me to run slower and thus arriving to my destination a lot slower than anyone else.

Example: On Kyhlo, I go help a team mate on one of the side nodes after he calls out that he has 2 incoming to him. We kill 1, and knowing that he can easily kill the second guy alone, and that Clocktower is now in danger of being lost, I disengage and run towards the Clocktower. However, my Flesh Golem has other plans, and just keeps attacking the last guy, keeping me in combat and reducing my movement speed because of that until I run so far that it eventually leashes.
Because of this, I arrive 3 seconds too late at Clocktower, my teams node defender is dead and Clocktower has been neutralized.

At the very least I would like to be able to dismiss my minions at will, instantly.

Ok, so me and my team just played vs a team with 2 mesmers who abused the living hell out of portal mechanics. Basically, they kept chaining portals so that they could instantly portal 2+ people to backup at any node we attacked, so every fight would be 2 of us vs 3 of them, 1 of us vs 2 of them, 3 of us vs 4 of them, etc.

Now, aside from joining in on the mesmer-train and doing the exact same thing as them, how else is it possible to counter this?

PS: I don’t think mesmer in general is OP, although they are strong. My only beef with them is portal.

I’m getting really fed up with the 4-6 hour queues on Far Shiverpeaks, so I’m wondering if there are any EU servers with short queues that don’t suffer from getting stomped due to being outnumbered?

Tried googling for it and searching through the forums, but couldn’t find anything on it.

OP, you should rename your warrior to “Jim E Rustle”. I love the reactions from a lot of people to this video.

I loathe the 8v8 hot join. I’m basically forced to play as bad as I can, strategically speaking, in order to get any decent amount of glory, and it’s not as if winning 2-3 matches in a row is gonna give me any chests with items that I can melt down for glue.
Winning a match gives ~20 bonus glory, I think.

So I pretty much just play tournaments these days, even if I have to solo queue (which is often the case, because my guild isn’t very active in the sPvP department), because if I practice in 8v8 it will pretty much make me a worse player in tPvP.

I really hope ANET gives us 5v5 hot join & make it so that the majority of the glory reward comes from actually winning, OR give an option to solo queue for tPvP in a separate system where you cannot join as a team (only solo queues, no 5man voip teams stomping anyone who solo queues).

OP is obviously trolling hard. I refuse to believe that anyone can be this delusional.

EDIT:

PS: To all those crying about warriors being too strong, and need to be toned down. Currently, the only warrior build that stomps is the knockdown + frenzy + hundred blades build, which is basically useless 56 seconds out of every 60 seconds.
Without knockdown/stun, hundred blades is incredibly easy to dodge, and without frenzy any CC wears off before it’s halfway through channeling.

Also, 9/10 HB builds have nothing in the way of condition removal, aside from the heal which has a fairly long cooldown and a casting time. As long as you play it a little smart and have at least 1 stun breaker and save it for the knockdown + frenzy + HB combo, you can stomp them quite easily.

Pretty sure thieves can teleport up onto the walls to avoid having to break them down, so you would only get an alert of your lord being under attack.

Well, if that’s true, then that’s definitely something ANET needs to look into, because even though I immediately started running from the graveyard and back to base when I heard “your lord is under attack”, with swiftness, he was still dead before I even got into our base…

Ok, so I’ve played several tournament matches now where there’s been some seriously shady things happening, ranging from my teams lord getting killed a few sec after the match begins, to thieves soloing him in less than 15 seconds, with no alert of our base being under attack ever being broadcast to our team (read: attacking the gates to our base).

Is this bug abuse, or am I missing something here? I’m 99% sure this isn’t how it’s supposed to work…

I’ve gotten 320 points I think (in niflhel), although that was a very long and close game (yesterday). That game got me 399 glory and 399 rank points.

399 strikes me as a very arbitrary number, so maybe that’s the cap.

PS: Was a perfectly legit game, I just happen to get my finger in many pies with my glory farm build (high mobility & big aoe damage, get all the kills & nodes).

Red Falcon.8257:

Warriors had their heals toned to be on par with each other, will our heals be balanced too?

In what universe? Warrior healing signet heals for 3620, mending heals for 5860 and healing surge heals between 6180 and 8740, depending on adrenaline level.

Wow you guys are getting pissy because you’re getting knocked off a jumping puzzle by griefers…. In a PVP area…. Just do what I do, apply stability, jump to where they are immediately afterward and launch theirkitten off the platform and gut them like a pig!

The thing about that is, between them keeping you in combat, and thus reducing your movement speed to the point where it’s nearly impossible to make most of the jumps, even with swiftness, and the fact that one of the most popular griefing spots is in a place where climbing up to a point where you can actually reach them takes almost a full minute, your stability is worth nothing.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/843/gw023l.jpg/

Notice how they’re building several arrow carts and catapults up there as well.
Also, since they have mesmers up there, they can just make portals to new people from their server coming in at the bottom of that room and instantly port them up, as well as the few of them that either fall down or get pulled down.

If the area was in any way possible to fight in from the lower ground, I wouldn’t mind this, but it is literally impossible to get up there when there’s a handful of people making arrow carts and camping the top, unless you come in and outnumber then 4:1, at least. Even then it would likely take forever.

My PvE build is Hammer + axe/warhorn with 20 toughness, 30 vitality, 20 burst, heavy CC build and I can swap major traits between healing shouts build with On My Mark for vulnerability bomb, and banner regen build, depending on what’s most needed (instant heals vs regens). My gear is all power/precision/toughness, sitting at over 2000 toughness right now.

I actually don’t meet that many signet GS warriors, although most of the warriors I group with do use GS (rarely more than 2 signets, tho).

I’ve been running a few tournaments now with rifle + axe/warhorn build now, and won quite a few with it, turning the tide a few times. It’s pretty much a slightly modified version of Taugrim’s old Run & Gun build.

Sure, I don’t have the high burst potential for 4 sec every 60 sec that HB warriors have, but I do pretty good sustained damage, and burst damage (kill shot & eviscerate), having done close to 10k crits on less tanky players, while still being fairly durable.

I also win most 1v1s when I’m defending nodes/using treb, only really losing vs some very gimmicky 1v1 builds such as moa mesmers and thieves who just pop their elite summon skill and go invis for 10 sec while their minions chip away at me.

I’ve also used a longbow build that did “ok”, but not quite as versatile as the rifle build (weaker 1v1, but stronger in team fight). Both those builds can easily solo svanir/chieftain, also (or steal them, as has been the case quite a few times now).

Although I suppose for a well coordinated team, you can’t really beat the HB warrior, if you run around with someone who just locks the target down while you combo them down in 3 sec while they’re stunned/knocked down.

I do wish there were some more viable builds for warriors, but it’s pretty much the same for all professions. Most only have 1-2 builds that are viable competitively, and then a few others that “do ok”.

PS: I do think a lot of players underestimate how strong the warhorn actually is when used right (5 gives weakness in AoE, which can be pretty huge, and axe in just 1 hand still does really good damage).

I’m playing rifle axe/warhorn warrior in sPvP (tournaments), and I can hold my own against 90-95% of the 1v1 encounters, as well as having several tools for snagging nodes from solo defenders. Also easily soloing svanir/chieftain on second map if needed (although the tactics we use rarely result in anyone soloing them).

It all really depends on your build, and your ability to dodge the important stuff.

PS: Most warriors underestimate how good the warhorn is as an offhand. #5 applies weakness around you when used, which drastically reduce your damage taken, and axe as main hand alone does very good melee damage.

Basically I use rifle most of the time unless I see that my opponent isn’t trying to run away from me or anything, for instance when I’m capping a node, where it does more damage, and use Kill Shot either directly after a CC (like rifle #5) or after I see them dodging twice. Also, sometimes you just gotta notice how your opponent plays. Many people, even in decent tournament teams, don’t dodge kill shots. At all. Once you figure that out you can adjust your playstyle.

Managed to get on today, but when I try to do sPvP I get horrible lag spikes.
Did a new pingpath, since it’s probably not a coincidence that I’m having horrible lag spikes today, after having those connection problems last night.

Some help with this would be appreciated.

Largos or Skritt. Oooh, shinies…

May your steps be relentless.

Nice to see yet another thread derail because of 2 massive egos stroking their inflated e-kittens.
Stay classy, gentlemen.

BTW, probably worth mentioning that after the first time the problem occurred last night I went and watched a movie, and when I came back I could play for a couple of hours or so, and then I got the same problem again all of a sudden.

Here’s the .txt from the Game Advisor.

Here’s the pingpath I did last night.

I use Hammer in PvE (both solo and in dungeons) as my primary, with sword+warhorn for secondary (only swapping out the secondary to rifle on fights where melee is just impossible, which is very few, actually).

I also use hammer as my primary for WvW and sPvP tournament play, although right now I’m running a longbow glass cannon build for glory farming hot-join sPvP, because playing smart in hot-join gets you no glory.

I really do wish they would make the Hammer a bit more responsive, though. Usually feels as if I’m playing with 1-2 second delay when I use the hammer, and anyone with half a brain in sPvP can dodge every backbreaker + earthshaker, because the animation is so slow and obvious.

In fact, I remember this 1v1 fight I had with another warrior who had the exact same build I use for tournaments, being Hammer + mace&shield, and we fought for a good 3+ min on the node because we both just kept dodge rolling each others backbreaker and earthshaker. In the end one of my team mates finally came along and the other warrior died. Longest fight I’ve ever had in sPvP.

I like my Hammer for PvE. Using a Hammer build with 30 points in the vitality trait line for PvE, and I can swap the major traits between shout heal build and banner regen build, depending on the group setup (group has lots of regen fields? go shout heal build. group lacking regen fields? go banner build).

Also, with my Hammer I have a 10 sec CD AoE stun, a 2 second knockdown, an AoE knockback, a ranged cone cripple and a fumble that hits everyone in front of me as a sort of cleave (fumble = 50% chance to glancing hit, glancing hits do only half damage).
That’s a lot of damage mitigated in dungeons, just from control.
Also, I still do about 70-80% of the damage a greatsword warrior does, while making life a hell of a lot easier for my group.

PS: If you want to see the big numbers, I’ve done 13k crits with Rifle glass cannon builds (volley). Those builds are completely worthless for anything else than single target damage, though, unless you’re going full ranged warrior and use a bow as your secondary. Also brings very little in the way of utility for your group, which is why I don’t advocate it.

I don’t mind downed state as a mechanic, but I do mind that some professions get way stronger abilities in downed state than others.

Ranger can interrupt 1 person, same with Warrior. Not sure about Engineers, but never seen them do anything funky in downed either, so guessing it’s the same with them. Necros have 1 single target fear as well. For all of these, you can easily finish them within 2-3 sec of them being downed as long as you just have 2 people finishing them at the same time, or one with Stability.
I don’t even mind the Guardians having an AoE knockback, because that’s all they have, and you only need 1 person to finish them after the knockback, or use stability to ignore it.
And as someone pointed out earlier, the Elementalist one is a complete joke, they don’t even have a single target interrupt, so one person without stability can easily finish them.

Thief and Mesmer on the other hand can pop invisibility and teleport while downed. Invisibility stops the stomp, being out of range stops the stomp. Even with stability you can’t finish them off, and even with 5 people it’s a hassle.

Sure, in 1v1 you can find the real mesmer fairly easily, and with thieves you have the option of just finishing them with attacks instead of stomping them, but that doesn’t change the fact that those 2 professions downed skills are way out of line compared to the other professions.

Either fix those 2 downed skill-sets so they’re on the same level as the rest, or remove downed all together in sPvP.