Guild Wars 2

Fleet of foot should have a shorter internal cooldown. Maybe down to 5 seconds or something. 10 seconds is pretty ridiculous considering how fast you can be hit with those conditions.

@ interceptor: Uh. I only said stability last for 3 seconds, which is what lyssa runes does. All the other boons are at 5 seconds.

And uh yeah, you should be bringing other condition cleanses too. I’m not arguing for that either. The only other runes you suggested was Scholar runes, and not everyone want to play the zerk backstab thief either. Arguing for lyssa runes is “horrid” for thief when we have Evade and Basilisk venom, I’m just not seeing your points. Thieves are one of the least classes with condition cleanses, so I’m happy of getting as much of it as possible. If you want to engage in a more fruitful discussion, don’t completely dismiss other people’s points or put words in their mouth.

It is dodgeable. Idk if it actually goes through aegis, I don’t think it does.

You can use apothecary for one piece but otherwise make the rest dire for condition roaming builds.

Even for WvW, staff is really only useful in zerg fights, which you probably don’t have time to appreciate the effects anyways. Put it on a class where you can actually appreciate the effects imo.

That’s boss.

/15chars

I just put “be experienced/lv80s” in my description. If I see someone under 1k ap, I usually decide whether to kick or not just by looking at their appearance since usually they lack exotic gears and experience (medium armor using pirate armor, lol). It’s really obvious.

Don’t worry about meta compositions, seriously. Having 4 warriors is also just unnecessary. You only need 1-2 for banners and other DPS classes can fulfill the exact role they would. In many cases I would pick 1-2 eles for fiery greatsword stack than having 2 more warriors.

As for the role of thief, your black powder and smoke screen can contribute a bit for your party members. You can also stack vulnerability with either venom share or sundering strikes while dishing out similar DPS output as other DPS classes. And lastly, Shadow Refuge is useful to skip and res downed members. So don’t sell yourself short about any meta comp, please.

TPMN.1483:

It seems the best builds still are 2x War, 2x Guard + 1 other now.
Previously there was a lot more versatility in the groups and many more runs being done.

FoTM seems pretty dead now unless you are doing a guild run – something needs to change. The whole infusion change creates an even bigger barrier than was there before (70 AR is the safe level of agony for a FoTM 50 run which is just another gold sink).

Um, regarding party makeup, it always seemed heavies was preferred for high-end fractals. The update didn’t seem to change anything. Necros and rangers are still suboptimal for these levels, guardians are still much needed for every level, etc.

And where did you even get the idea that FotM is pretty dead? There’s basically no changes to the sub30 FotMs and I imagine any party setup would still do them as usual as before. I also seem to have no problem finding parties daily for 49 fotm (I usually only know one other person in my party and the rest is lfgs).

Almost nobody does lv50 fotm before the update, and barely anything changed now. With ascended armor, there’s no need to rely on the +5 agony infusions when you can just buy versatile infusions into armors. I think the whole negativity is blown out of proportion here.

I agree with the above notion. Both sides are playing how they want to play. If you don’t want them, don’t join them. There are plenty of players on both sides to lfg with.

@ Travalene, lyssa runes with basilisk venom is great not because it gives all boons with a relative short cooldown, it’s the fact that lyssa runes remove all conditions on you when casted. Lyssa runes also gives you 3 seconds of stability, which compounded with SR, makes CC a useless counter for SR.

For a P/D condi build though, thieves guild is probably the go-to elite skill since it does CC and deals damage while you can remain in stealth. Too bad P/D condi builds often rely solely on P/D without ever weapon switching, it gets unpredictable if they were running D/P too.

Yeah uh, condition and burst aren’t really in the same page. You either rely mostly on condition damage, or mostly burst damage.

Though 0/30/30/0/10 is probably the closest thing to a hybrid. 30 in Crit Strikes will still make your backstab hit ridiculously hard while having some traits to make P/D do enough damage. 10 in Trickery gives you some versatility to deal more damage with caltrops upon dodge or gain fury for backstab/HS. You will probably be running P/D and D/P with this setup.

Go for D/P and/or 10/30/0/0/30 if you want to chase. D/D will not be able to catch up a warrior traited for roaming and disengaging (in most cases). 30 in Shadow Arts is mostly for your own sustainability and disengaging, it hardly is optimal to chase others. Infiltrator’s signet might be able to do it but meh, the problem is not having enough initiative to use HS spam and lacking enough skills to chase/immob.

Trash mobs = at least 3 or more enemies that can be 1-2shotted by pistol whip. If you’re using D/D, which is only single target, you need to beat them one at a time, when sword auto attack or pistol whip can get rid of 3 at once. DPS-wise the sword will trump D/D if you’re facing more than 3 enemies, which is often in dungeons and fractals.

In my opinion, 10/30/0/0/30 whether it’s D/P or S/P, relies too much on Steal as a crutch. I still prefer S/D despite the #2 slight nerf since it’s more unpredictable.

From my experience and reading guides, I’m unsure whether using S/P #3 is ever a good idea as opposed to just #1 chaining. It seems pretty rare you’ll ever get the full hit in. And after the evade phase is over, what then? Switch to sb for evades until you can get another steal/immob in?

S/P is by far more optimal than D/D. When you’re facing trash mobs you’re forced to go for sb cluster bomb spam which isn’t as helpful as S/P #5 or just spamming pistol whip. Trash mobs are not supposed to be fun, period. It has nothing to do with how OP or boring S/P is in PvE.

As I tl;dr’s in another thread, I find 10/30/30/0/0 the friendly build for newcomers. 30 in Shadow Arts gives you longer stealth, heals/regen for intiative/removing conditions on stealth, or venom share for the party. The last 10 points can be put in anything really.

Traits wise: If you’re just starting out, I recommend 0/30/30/10/0. Or 10/30/30/0/0.

30 in Shadow Arts gives you some leeway if you fail to dodge in high tier dungeon settings. V, IV, and XI is usually the way to go. I usually go for Venom Share (XII) since Skale Venom would give 15 stacks of vulnerability + torment if stacked for a boss fight.

After you’re comfortable, go for 25/30/15/0/0 or 25/30/0/0/15. I don’t really like 10/30/0/0/30 since it’s more of a PvP oriented build. It’s handy to pop fury for the party but I don’t see that much benefit going for more than 15 in Trickery as opposed to 25 in Deadly Arts. Sundering strikes + mug + 10% more dmg makes you hit like a truck.

Weapons-wise: D/D should rarely be used for dungeons unless you’re fighting a single boss considering there’s way more trash mobs than not. S/P is usually the go to weapon of choice for any trash mob fights. Pop pistol 5 and auto attack is usually the way to go. Your party will usually never take any damage and you Weaken enemies every 3rd strike. Don’t go ranged unless you have to. If you are, shortbow offers way more survivability (which is likely something you need anyways if you have to go ranged). P/P is mostly just underwhelming and usually kills you if bosses have retaliation (which they often do.)

Utility skills: If you have 30 in Shadow Arts, Skale Venom is the venom of choice as discussed earlier. Smoke screen is used for blocking projectiles and Shadow Refuge to heal/res or skipping parts of the dungeon/fotm. Blinding powder also isn’t terrible to have considering it’s a blast finisher and if you’re running 30 in Shadow Arts, it will restore 2 initiative and remove conditions and heal if traited.

The only signet that I use is signet of agility. Refilling endurance and curing a condition in addition to the passive crit boost is huge.

The third utility is most often a break stun skill, always have one if you’re unsure what the encounter will be like. I like Roll for Initiative or Shadowstep. Infiltrator’s signet isn’t really as good as the other two considering it doesn’t cure any other conditions and the passive effect is nearly pointless.

The other 3 venoms are pretty lackluster and traps are often never used for any situation. Shadow Trap is actually slightly useful in some situations and is a pretty fun skill to mess around with. The only real situation where this makes a run faster would be in arah p3 (the orbs part) or swamp fractal (the orbs part again, lol).

The new heal skill is kind of lackluster. If you’re not running Venom Share it’s pretty much inferior to Hide in Shadows and Evade. And even then it’s very situational since party members almost never rely a thief for heals, lol. It has some effectiveness for WvW zerg fights, but otherwise it’s usually never used for PvE.

All the lower level dungeons (under 70) doesn’t give ectos so rares shouldn’t be salvaged there.

Well, it is somewhat refreshing that hearts in this game can be so diverse.

But yeah, easily the most tedious heart in this game if I recall. The rabbit one is more fun for me since the ridiculous knockdowns the rabbits do is always worth a chuckle.

Aetherblade is just as long as arah p1/p2. If all experienced it finishes around the same period and if all new, it also take up ridiculously times up to 3 hours.

Nothing in life is fun if you keep doing the samethings repeatedly without new experiences.

Why even have a leaderboard of individual players when fractals is 5-party team?…

So very questionable.

Yes, there are easier methods to get that 1g. Still, you can only get those once per day. I have enough time to do these dungeons and still remain optimistic enough for that 1 extra g from dredge. I don’t like dredge either, but the rewards actually isn’t terrible for me to completely despise it.

I can understand the hate. The bomb part in dredge is easily the worst PvE experience I know. Without stealth the mad spawns can make the level nearly impossible without suiciding over and over.

I actually wouldn’t take cliffside over dredge. Dredge takes about maybe 30-40minutes. For 1g, that’s not terrible. Cliffside also takes pretty long yet it has like no rewards aside from the end chest. The beginning boss and end boss fight of that level give no reward and it takes pretty long. Also, cliffside suffers the same problem as dredge where people don’t do it the “legit” way. They fixed the end boss fight but the majority of 49ers still stack for the 2 seals due to outrageous spawns. Doing the 2 seals the legit way might make that level arguably the same length as Dredge.

^ #1 isn’t really true. You get at least 30 heavy miner’s bags which is about 1g and 2 champ bags. Meanwhile cliffside gives you practically nothing and no champ bags.

Yet another thread criticizing the level 80s from doing their thing.

Cmon people. Even when we didn’t have the lfg tool, we used the lfg website and specified for level 80s/experienced just the same.

Yes I remember when I was new and dying repeatedly in ACp1. But I won’t waste some random person’s time and ruining their fun just because I’m new. I’d ask people I can trust to lead me through it instead.

Usually people make Anomaly then if they have more time they make the ascended focus and transmute it. It’s just too cool of a weapon not to have.

Everyone knows they never check the dungeon forums, lol.

For CoE, CoF, Arah, and HotW, I am salvaging rare light armors for the ectos + silk scraps. 180 tokens is equivalent of 6 rare pieces with about 0.8 ectos per rare on average + 2 silk scraps per salvage.

I don’t have black lion salvage kits and I dunno how often insignias drop so I find this more consistent in terms of gold.

Most classes requires skill for you to master that class. Aside from sarcasm, even in PvE, a skillful player in that environment would be someone using berserker gear and survives longer than a tanky class/build. A case in point would be in higher difficulty dungeons like Arah, high level fractals, and TA aetherblade path.

Survivability depends on timing and precision, such traits are indicative of skill. It’s a skill-based game because skill determines how good you do in this game. There are various difficulties like mindlessly activities as Queensdale trains to roaming in WvW to tPvP organized fights with other teams, and etc. Just because there are easier difficulty activities in this game does not indicate the game takes no skill.

A game that’s not skill-based would mean regardless of skill, two players of varying skill would have the same outcome. A PvE example would be, both players can survive Arah runs equally well despite having two different skill levels. That is obviously not the case in guild wars 2.

zamalek.2154:

Make more dungeons like Dredge Fractal. Stacking in PvE is pathetic.

Make less dungeons like TA new path. Being unable to play with PUGs is pathetic.

Notsureifsrs, assuming smart trolling.

Yes, focus on power to 25 then precision to 30 the spend the last 15 in whichever you want. I prefer 15 in trickery since you can use steal to gain 10 seconds of swiftness, fury, and swiftness every 30 seconds.

Sword/pistol + shortbow is the most optimal. Pistol whip pretty much just owns everything in open world content. Get sigils of bloodlust in both weapons to get the power rolling. Use black powder if you feel like there’s slightly more mob and if health is low, just kite around using shortbow + clusterbomb to kill.

Horrible idea without suggesting viable alternatives to changing pretty much every skill in the weapon skills kitten nal.

I got a fractal scepter a week ago. Looks great on my guardian.

That feel when you’ve stacked trash mobs and a necro fear them off in different directions.

Don’t need no necros or rangers. The majority of them I see use CC and get trash mobs out of a stack. It’s slightly annoying.

Traveler runes for roaming. Lyssa runes I find is decent for zerging material. You basically get the 8 seconds of stability from dagger storm then the additional 5 seconds from lyssa. If you’re cheap lyssa runes could fill roaming roles as well. You could use venom share in a small group to make more usage out of Basilisk venom. Remember though, the great thing about lyssa runes is it removes all your conditions when you cast the elite skill. Considering our condition removal is limited, this can be very useful.

I don’t recommend any straight up damage runes unless you’re confident enough to maintain health and timing dodges.

As for fleet of shadows, it should be the must-use trait for DD thieves. You need all the speed you can get to execute that backstab. The extra 25% is not negligible just because you have traveler runes or the speed signet. Considering you only have limited time to accomplish the backstab, this helps loads.

Arah p2 hidden changes is one of the lowest moves I’ve seen Anet done in relation to dungeons. I usually don’t complain that much about whatever mind goes through the developers, but this was low. Real low.

A hidden patch of this calibre literally kittened my run over and extended to about 1-2hrs. The fact of the matter is, the Alphard fight severely punishes you for missing one dodge. This fight is now mostly about using reflect as a crutch and dragging the guy in some corner. Maybe Anet don’t like to deal with dungeons since all they get is negative feedback. But fueling this negativity with more of these hidden changes will only make it worse.

The dungeon daily reward is 2g, usually people would expect more than 2g considering you’re also getting the chests and loot bags from mobs. And the tokens. …And achievement points.

And I don’t agree with the one of the easiest runs comment at all, lol. By that standard every dungeon except for Arah would be beyond easiest.

It’s not speculation. Pets/minions and NPCs are already stealing aggro when they’re around. I just wish they never attack or get aggro at all. So yeah, the AI is just that bad.

It’s more like the majority of players ignore this path like the plague.

I’ve already got that scepter of dreams and sold it for 250g. From tp data a bunch of them came out when the dungeon was released, and now there’s only like 0-2 for each piece. I can only assume it’s that there aren’t many players that do this regularly, and not that the items are super rare. (well it is an exotic like any other from a dungeon chest but I don’t think it’s as rare as precursors).

33, 43 is much harder.

Stomping encourages me to kill and then use the cow on people, lol. Wish I had the cow finisher though.

People seriously need to whine less about non-zerk guardians. I see no purpose running zerk in all the low tier/easy dungeons when the difference in speed is negligible. If you really must be anal about speed, don’t run with pugs at all. The time you waste kicking that non-zerk guardian probably balance it out when you do get that zerk class you want in these easy dungeons.

Aetherblade is a level 80 dungeon. It shouldn’t be compared to the other 2 paths in twilight arbor anyways. And I believe the devs made this in mind so it can be compared to Arah. They wanted to make a challenging dungeon with great rewards (exotic dreams weapons easily 100g+), so not sure where you’re coming from that it can’t be compared to the top tier dungeons in this game.

Yet another stealth needs to be nerfed thread.

Just punish thieves by revealing stealth if they miss a hit (backstab, any skill that deals damage but hits no target). It would really weed out all the bad thieves and make the class more challenging to play. If you’re blinded, it works the same way. Any physical damage moves which you miss a strike should be able to reveal you considering, realistically, they’re swinging pretty hard for that backstab, or whatever they’re doing.

It’s not way too long. Fractals are longer. Arah paths can be longer. It all depends on how experienced your party members are.

I take it you got Dredge again? Hah.

Can’t gauge their thinking in buffing Dredge to be harder when it’s the one that needed a debuff the longest.

I try to do Aetherblade if I can gather guildies on a 2-3day basis per week.

Coordination and experience is needed. There’s barely any stackable positions and the boss fights are somewhat refreshing.

I only wish it gave 3g instead of 2g. It takes just about as long as arah paths even with a fully experienced group (just because there isn’t much stuff you can skip).

Fractals have too much loot you can’t sell. Dungeon’s raw gold output with time invested is clearly superior.