Guild Wars 2

Windsagio.1340:

In the case of instanced content though; it sets an expectation, everything else (fractals, aether path) gets fairly commonly mentioned as ‘not rewarding enough’.

Instanced content or not have nothing to do with it. It’s a time vs reward vs challenge (or difficulty balance.

Dungeon is easier than Fractal 50 so Fractal should have a better reward/hour.
Silverwaste is easier than Dungeon so Dungeon should have a better reward/hour.
etc, etc

CoF path 1 is twice as fast as most other dungeon, so it should reward half as much. TA Aetherpath is 3-4 times longer than normal dungeon so it should reward 3-4 times more.

Windsagio.1340:

Part of the problem there is that the time/effort/reward on most of the old dungeons is pretty far out of whack. It sets up an impossible expectation.

I don’t think its far out of whack. Its about 7gold per hour in good pugs group and up to around 10 gold per hour in organized group.

Silverwaste on the other end can give you 15-20 gold per hours wihtout much problem and it can even go up to 30 gold per hour in the right conditions.

laokoko.7403:

I’m kind of confused on focus. If all 3 block is used up, it won’t do any damage?

I’m just curious.

Exact. If he block 3 times, the skill don’t do damage.

Windsagio.1340:

Every time I see the rewards argument, whether to aether or to fractals, I kind of eyeroll.

It seems to say “We want new content! But if it’s not the optimal GP/hour then we won’t do it anyways!”

Ppl play the content they like the most, but having a nice Gold per hour is a nice addition because ppl also value having gold to get skins, gear and useful items. A good game should have both quality content AND a good reward balance. It doesn’t mean that it the game will reach the perfect balance, but they should all try to.

Zarox.2095:

But , What is EOTM ? And about the gear and weapons where can I get better of them?
And I like pvp I will try it when I will reach level 22.

EOTM = Edge of the Mist. It’s a kind of pvp/pve mode. Each server fight each other in WvW in a 1vs1vs1 setup. Each server have a color (red, green and blue). Edge of the mist is similar to WvW but All red server are together, all green server are together and all blue server are together. WvW have week long matches, while EOTM have 4 hours matches. WvW have a lasting effect as good server will get higher in rank, but EOTM really have little lasting effect. Almost no impact from 1 match to the other.

This make several difference. In WvW you play to win, there is a server’s pride, there is competition between server, and ppl want the best build while fighting there.

In EOTM ppl don’t really play to win the match, but more want the best reward out of it. Ppl usually go in WvW with a level 80 and good gear, but low level alt is common place in EOTM.

On the top left of your screen there is a little tower icon. In the window you have WvW on the left and EOTM on the right.

There is several ways of getting gear and weapons, but that’s mostly a concern when you reach level 80. Some ppl like to update their gear as they level up, but a lot of ppl just equip what they loot until level 80 and then look to gear up.

Zarox.2095:

And about the skill points in the game, I have 7 of them, Which skill should I take?

You gonna get crazy high amount of skill point in this game. Enough to unlock everything and then use the rest to craft stuff so don’t worry. Try out different thing and see what you prefer.

D/F is a good versatile weapon

D/D is not a really good combat setup in PvE, but give you more mobility while running around in the Open world. It’s a good compromise while leveling and doing map completion.

Staff is the highest dps weapon of the profession, but it use a lot of AoE, so it can be tricky when you are kitting stuff and they don’t stay in your AoE.

S/D or S/F is only a good weapon set if you use the Lighting Hammer (which you don’t have yet). This is more of a dungeon weapons set, not that efficient when you solo or level up.

As for leveling. At level 18 you can access Edge of the Mist. It’s a WvW mode where a lot of ppl are doing karma train and a good portion of the ppl there are leveling their alts. Ppl usually prefer to explore the game while leveling their first character, but if you don’t like doing that, you can try EOTM.

At level 22 you can PvP. It’s not a fast way to level up, but it can be the most enjoyable way of doing it. You are 100% equal to any other player in arena match. You can access to everything other ppl have access too from the start so veteran player have zero gear or build advantage over you. But not everybody like to PvP.

I prefer to talk about Coefficient, because damage are highly variable depending on your build.

Focus 4 can do dmg between 0.5 and 2.0 coefficient.
Focus 5 can do dmg of 2.5 coefficient but only if the shield is not destroyed.

Torch 4 can do dmg of 2.25 coefficient + burning.

So overall the focus will either protect you or do more dmg than torch. The thing is that you count the fire from the torch. It’s ok to count it if your group can’t maintain perma burning, but that happen rather rarely in a good group composition. You usually always want 1-2 Elementalist and if you have a guardian with that, you pretty much have perma burning with or without a torch. So even if the torch give burning, it don’t add any addition damage.

In short fight, Focus is usually the best choice because either it will do more dmg than Torch or it will protect you.

In longer fight where you don’t need to the protection from the focus, then yes Torch would be a better choice.

If you can’t maintain perma burning then torch can also be a good option, especially if you have some elementalist with you (they also have a 10% dmg modifier against foe with burning).

If you are in solo/dou, torch might be a good idea to keep burning higher. The fight are longer too.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Hey GW2’rs

So after playing this dumb game since launch with …

Any input is appreciated.

Maybe quit?

Hexin.5603:

My mesmer deals far more damage than my warrrior with auto attack when using the same weapon (GS) … I never understood that. And I was under the impression that Axe auto attack should be the highest dps in the game for autoattacks, save thief burst.

You mean your little numbers in your screeen are bigger? Good for you. Of course at 600+ range the Mesmer’s GS do more damage (Coefficient of 0.81 vs 0.7), but the Mesmer do this damage in almost triple the times. That bigger damage, but lower dps.

Cyninja.2954:

phys.7689:

experienced means whatever it means to the guy who opened it, aka its subjective, so some people will expect a lot, some people will expect a little

This.

Though in general experienced means:
- (basic) know the boss mechanics and you have the path completed before
- (advanced) know where to stack, which enemys to ignore, your professions role
- (jerk) couple of scrubs who think adding experienced or meta in the search title will make their run better go smooth usually not being able to hold up to their demands themselfes

Just a modification

- (basic) know where to stack, which enemys to ignore, your professions role
- (advanced) Knowing the why, not just the how, so he can adapt to different strategy, help maximizing party buffs, don’t cc boss for no reason, bring the best of their profession.
- (jerk) couple of scrubs who think adding experienced or meta in the search title will make their run better go smooth usually not being able to hold up to their demands themselfes

Like I said Torch is better for longer fight. That’s why you will usually see Focus in dungeon (shorter fight), while torch will be use in fractal (longer fight). They are both really good offhand weapons.

Abstract.9258:

Thaddeus.4891:

the Path 3 need some cleric gear to do the orb portion.

this is not true here are some examples of how to do it in berserker gear. Miku Video on warrior – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Qm-lzOofc Also one on guardian from abe -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM9y8c0963w

I don’t know why you put Guardian here since he’s on a warrior and that’s the profession I was talking about.

Miku use a Cleric Greatsword and Mango Pie to get througt it while saying that it’s not necessary to use them, but if you don’t you need to reach perfection to actually do it. Did you try running that without any cleric gear? That’s freaking hard and you fail more than you get it. Running it on a warrior wihtout any cleric gear is a nice challenge but you don’t do that if you try to learn how to solo (it gonna take you enough time already) or when you want to solo it to sell it.

Even on the guardian. You are always safer you use some cleric pieces to give you some room for error when you run solo almost everyday.

Here the things that I really don’t like about the proposition of ThyShadowPaladin.

- Mesmer runes? What is the motivation for that move? If you want to give a relatively cheap rune that don’t need you to stay at 90% hp, then propose Flame Legion. A far better choice than Mesmer rune.

- Retreat and Wall of Reflection are good utilities that he need to learn how to use, but then AH before useless since he won’t give that much boons to his party members. A more meaningful sustain healing would be Absolute Resolution.

- F1 blind is a big part of the survivability of a guardian in PvE and a relatively hard skill to use. Spamming F1 in the middle of the fight is something easy to forget when you are new and need to be learned as early as possible.

- Staff isn’t much of a good option. It’s not a bad option in that case since he should camp Hammer anyway. Mace/Focus will give him way more survivability option (regen + blind + 2 blocks), while boosting his dps rather than limiting it. Sceptre/Focus is also a better choice as it give him the option of going in range when thing get bad in melee for him.

I would see more something like this :
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWl8ApXolCxQI0ENR8QVVAg9TsFV61HRMcDA-ThCBABCYBRlq/cmSQsU+BwlUgijUQKaa0THQAPAAn2PgUA5pMC-e

Not ideal, but it give him mechanic that he can train and that will carry on if he want to play more offensive build later. For gear, it’s his choice to get the mix he feel the most comfortable with and switch back to berzerker when he feel ready.

If you just started it’s normal to have some difficulty running full zerker build. The best option would be to use some more defensive gear like celestial, knight, soldier, valkyrie etc.

The best option would probably be your trinkets since they won’t cost you transmutation charge and new runes. Exotic trinket are relatively cheap. Take as much as you need to be comfortable playing and make you dungeon more fun. As you get better, learn how to play the game and learn the encounter, you can start to switch up your defensive pieces to more and more berserker. Make the transition at a pace you are comfortable with.

laokoko.7403:

So at least you can use torch. But 99% of the people use focus instead. I think only those pro players in pro group use torch.

Nope. Torch have a better dps than Focus only in longer fight, something that almost never happen with a good speed run group. Torch is mostly use by solo/duo when you need more fire to trigger trait that give 10% dmg when foes have fire on them.

But for pugs in general Focus or Torch, choice whatever you prefer.

Arkinos.7245:

Scholar if you only run perfectly organised groups.

Pack, Ogre or Ranger if you dont.

Ranger don’t work anymore for Warrior.

I’m solo more on my guardian but here some starting tips.

Arah path 2 is the easier to solo. Path 1 need 4 people for the Tar (but you can buy 3 helper for 1 gold each in the LFG just for that part, rest is soloable) and the Path 3 need some cleric gear to do the orb portion.

Some utilities/food that are good.
- Potion of Undead slaying should always be on you.
- For food, I prefer Omnomberry Ghost/Omnomberry Pie/Candied Dragon Roll for the added sustain. But some better dps food like Truffle Steak can be nice for Abomination (its a long fight, but super easy). I don’t like to swap food in the middle of my run unless i need too, but it’s an option.
- Harpy’s feather allow you to stealth you. You don’t need it, but it can help running some stuff, especially when you start. Since the change to stability, the last run of Arah path 2 can be super hard without stealth because of perma stun go through your stab in seconds.
- Pots of Hylek Potion give you switfness for when you run. The warrior don’t need it that much, but you can’t always switch your weapons to get that Sw/Warhorn kit to run faster. Solo are long, especially when you start, so all the speed you can get in between fight is super important.
- Fire elemental powder/ogre pet whistle give you a little boost in dps in some of the longer fight. Not needed, but can help a bit.

You will want to have as much dps as you can, so the standard 6/5/0/0/3 will do the job with berserker armor/trinket/weapons. For runes, Scholar won’t help you much since you won’t be at 90% of you hp much. Rune of Strength will be a better choice, but you can keep scholar if you have them and get a second armor set if you end up liking soloing dungeons.

For sigils and weapons there is different options depending on what you prefer. It’s always good to have different option. Force + Undead slaying for normal fight to Undead + Energy for more dodge oriented fight like Lupi. You should have GS + Axe/Mace for most of the time, but a Sw/Warhorn set for running and a offhand Sword (block) for lupi are good option to have.

Other than that look up youtube video of warrior solo.

Which profession are you the most comfortable with?

Sceptre/Dagger have a good burst and might stacking capability, but have terrible auto-attack, making it the worst Elementalist dps set. That’s why sceptre/x build always bring Lighting Hammer to patch up that deficiency.

Just to give you an idea. The auto-attack of the Lighting Hammer have almost 3 times more dps than the Sceptre Air auto-attack. In total by simply not using the Lighting Hammer you handicap yourself of around half of your potential dps.

Your trait pts allocation make you lose 300 ferocity and 300 precision compare to a 6/6/2/0/0 S/D + LH build. That’s minus 15% in term of dps.

For you trait themselves you lose Bolt to the heats (around a 6% dps) and Internal Fire (around 8-9% since most of your dmg should be done while in fire but not of it).

Arcane Lighting would give you around 4-5% more dps.

Arcane Fury give you around 20% uptime in fury, while Persisting Flames would make it 100% for a lost of around 9% of your dps.

Pyromancer’s Puissance, Elemental Attunement and blast should keep you at around 11 constant might, compare to 12-14 constant might with a standard S/D + LH build. That should only be a 1-3% lost in dps.

In final, a meta S/D + LH build would do around 2.5 times more dps than your build. That take into account that you would use a full beserker gear. But of course that only count the DPS and don’t take into account the defensive ability of your build over a meta build.

Zention.1849:

S/X is stupid to use in every damage orientated scenario, at least at the moment. Pure S/X builds are nothing near ‘meta’ game play.
When using LH + S/X might be sth to rethink – but with pugs, you will usually “lose” your LH because some random party member picks it up. Being stuck in air with S/X without LH lacks a lot of damage.

Could you pls give some evidence under which circumstances this would apply?

Also might will only be granted if the field blasted is a fire field. So stacking might during combat with S/X is..difficult, since classes tend to overwrite fire fields by casting sth else.
Also your fire field is just one. So stacking might, during fight and maintaining these ridiculous numbers, sounds quite impossible, when you’re the only member giving might – I’d say that you’re at least saying that there is someone else granting might once in a while otherwise these numbers can’t be obtained without prestacking.

But enlighten me, if I am wrong.

I don’t know what to answer you man. You are saying that S/X is kitten because pugs is taking your LH and putting all kind of fight field that make stacking might impossible. Yes it can be a problem in some party, but I usually have no problem with those thing. I put my LH a little on the side of the group so that ppl don’t pick it up on the stack my mistake and if I see some problem with some other combo field being put on the group often, I just put my fire field a bit on the side of the fight to blast it anyway.

If your point is that in really bad pugs, where ppl always take the LH and put all kind of field under bosses, S/X build are not that good, then yes you are right. But I don’t stay in terrible pugs.

And still the other day I put this description in the LFG.

‘’READ : All paths, 80s, EXPERIENCED ONLY’’ and got 2 ppl with less than 1k AP. They did the dungeon twice, so they considered themselves experienced.

Jerus.4350:

Thaddeus.4891:

Staff for the highest DPS

S/F or S/D for stacking might for your team while doing a bit less dmg than staff.

D/F have a little bit less dmg than the other two, stack less might than S/X, but it’s the most fun rotation and have the best survivability. Ideal for harder content like Fractal 50.

Just tossing this question out there, how much more might do you need to have S/F or D/F exceed staff in damage, or is it even possible? I know staff has a huge lead, but it really lacks in the might category without outside might additions from the group. IIRC it’s like 14-15k staff, 11.5-12.5 S+LH, and 11-12 D/F with full buffs, but what about without might?

Well staff will always do more damage than S/X, whatever the situation. I guess your question is at which points you are better off choosing S/X over Staff? Staff can do between 3 and 9 stack of might and keeping a constant 4-5 might, while S/F can do 18-21 stack of might, keeping a constant 14-16 might without outside help.

At the same amount of might, staff will do around 10% more dps than a S/F build, while keeping at minimum 9 more constant might for the whole party. So the question is what is better? 10% more dps on 1 elementalist or 270 power for the whole team. 270 power is around a 8-9% dps boost, so it’s always better to have a S/F elementalist over a Staff Elementalist if your party don’t max out might.

When I pug on my staff Elementalist and I see that the group can’t maintain 20 stack of might or more, I always switch to my S/F build. But I think that your question was more about the dps of the Elementalist alone. An elementalist Staff vs S/F will be very similar. The numbers are close enough that i don’t think you can give answer for generic build like Staff or S/F build. Traits and utilities choice will deeply alter the answer to that.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Here’s a short list for you:
1. cleave.
2. LoS.
3. AoE attacks have more projectiles hit due to walls.
4. spike res if needed.
5. mobs do not get out of melee range suddenly.
6. 100% guaranteed buff sharing.
7. safe dodges.

1) You can cleave while stacking on the boss anywhere, corner stacking isn’t an advantage here.
2) LoS is a strategy, this isn’t an advantage. LoS can give you two advantages. The first is to regroup several mobs into one spot to cleave them all, but Jerus was talking about bosses. Some specific boss have annoying mobs, but that pretty rare. The second advantage of LoS is to get a boss out of a zone. This can be useful in some situation like getting Bridgette in CM path 2 out of her symbol, but this can be done more effetively with boon ripping for a faster kill. Or Fyonna in TA UP to fight her out of the room full of eggs, but again a better strategy is to use CC to burst her in place. LoS is a good strategy when fighting a large group of mobs, but otherwise good team will use other strategy. Pugs use that strategy because it’s a simple, easy way of doing things done without coordination.
3) You are 100% right on this one.
4) See number 1
5) True, but very limited amount of bosses are moving out of melee range. Fyonna is one of them, but most bosses don’t move fast enough to get out of range of melee. Good coordinated team will still prefer to use CC Burst, but it’s true that corner stacking will make pugs life easier in those situation.
6) See number 1
7) See number 1

Our point is that yes corner stacking is a good strategy in some specific situation. Record run team will use it about 5-6 times when they do ALL dungeons. But in most situation, corner stacking is a slow but easy strategy. Most good coordinated team will rush to the boss, stacking might and kill it before the boss could have reach your corner. The time you wait for the boss to reach you is just too long to balance the advantage that the corner stacking give you. At the same time, corner stacking can limit you. It limit greatly the dps of all thief and rangers since they can’t really flank as easily. It also force you to dodge attack that you could simply move behind the boss to evade (see last boss SE path 3). You don’t dps while doing that dodge.

I didn’t test the cast time of these skill, but did you took into account the poison of the Lotus Strike?

Staff for the highest DPS

S/F or S/D for stacking might for your team while doing a bit less dmg than staff.

D/F have a little bit less dmg than the other two, stack less might than S/X, but it’s the most fun rotation and have the best survivability. Ideal for harder content like Fractal 50.

Yup i tried to do the achievement. I waited to kill him 3 times and each time he only move slowly north, and die. He don’t attack and drop nothing. Can’t do the achievement.

Nope there are not in dungeon. They scale in open world events tho.

I remember when Simin in Arah path 4 was so hard that even a full zerker group (which was rare at that time) with slaying potion, food and time wrap had an almost impossible mission to kill her. That stealth regen tho.

I remember when the regen on the Effigy in CoF path 1 was so intense that we had to poison him and kill the crystals in order to kill him. From a hard boss, to a joke in one path.

I remember when the burrows in AC path 3 were almost impossible.

I remember when you could do have half of CM by running on top of the dungeon and drop below directly at Victoria in path 1 and the final boss in path 3.

I remember TA forward/up.

And why would we do that? We solo dungeon on our toon just fine. If you are not able, it’s not really our problem.

Oh that sound a lot like the guy that entered my selling Arah path 4 yesterday, was that you? Don’t remember the name, maybe it’s not.

Yesterday my friends did AC all paths, 80s, experienced. Got 3 ppl not level 80 and a guy with 500 Achievement point that was on his first account. I sold Arah path 2 and 4 and got 4 ppl trying to get to us and that didn’t want or understood what was going on when we asked them to pay. Pugs have a hard time with word I guess.

sorudo.9054:

till the time i can take my necro and solo a dungeon i say BS, it’s not solo-able.
would love it tho, the whole reason why i never play dungeons anymore is because teams are to restricted and players are nowadays not patient enough to slow down and enjoy the time in a dungeon.

Some dungeon (especially Arah) is often faster in solo or duo than in pugs.

I agree with Jerus on that. I still prefer doing a solo or duo run and give away remaining place for free to some guildmate over doing Silverwaste. I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy Silverwaste, but I only enjoy it in small dose. Same with fractal. I enjoy doing fractal for the content, the reward isn’t that good.

HOLY CRAP. Guys, guys. Dodging and stacking is cheesy. Not even corner stacking (which good team use like 5 times in all dungeons), no no. Just playing near each other is cheesy. So let’s all play ranged at 1500 ranges and never dodge guys.

I bet you are wonderful in solo run Magnnus

Well it is more rewarding. You can sell spot after. Arah sell well between 6 and 18gold depending on which path. Path 2 is super easy to solo (30-45min) and you can make up between 24 to 32gold only in sell.

Never tried to sell other dungeon, but I guess you could sell other places for like 1 gold. I’m sure ppl will join it quickly, it a free path.

There is plenty of ways of running dungeons and the only way to get the run as you want is to play with ppl that want the same as you (guildmate or LFG description). Pugs never do dungeon as I do with my guildmate, they don’t go fast enough, don’t have enough dps, don’t stealth properly, stack in corner even when it’s not needed, use cc like idiots. I eat the pill because I’m pretty sure that the way I play is a pain in the kitten for other ppl. That’s what happen when you play with different ppl. They all gonna play differently.

The usual forum bug

Lawful.5314:

10% is still 10%.
4 times 10% isn’t 40%.
Math is simple.

Pretty sure its 10%, and pretty sure its 40%.

The game doesn’t multiply 10%x10%x10%, it just adds them up to 30% then multiplies your damage rating from there.
[/quote]

No you are completely wrong. Damage modifier are multiplicative not additive.

If you do 100 base damage and you have a sigil of force, a sigil of night and a rune of scholar for exemple. Your damage won’t be 100 x (1.05 + 1.1 + 1.1) = 100 x (1.25) = 125.

It will be 100 × 1.05 × 1.1 x 1.1 = 127.05. This was confirmed like 2 years ago.

rvvd.6548:

Thank you guys, But i noticed the arena that give max level is quit 0 effective in the real open world so i have to level up.. But leveling is not so much guided .. I mean i was level 15 and i finished that snowy map but i was with 0 clue where to go i kept exploring for 1-2 hours before i realized there is actually a 3- 4 more maps with 1-15 level .. I don’t know really shouldn’t be something telling me where to go now ?

GW2 is really free. You gonna have to find out everything here. There is no specific endgame, neither specific things you can do to level up. There is several ways of doing just about anything so you will have to figure it out by yourself. That’s kind of on purpose. They designed the game that way so ppl are free to play how they want. You already have like 10 times more information while leveling than we used to have when we first played the game 2 and a half years ago.

For PvE, it’s a megaserver. All server are regrouped in one. How much ppl you are seeing is really dependant on where you are. Starting map are really only for ppl that are leveling, so of course you won’t see much ppl, most ppl are playing on their level 80.

You can go into WvW at level 18 and in sPvP at level 22. In WvW, being lower level will hurt your performance (obviously), but playing in a zerg will make the experience pretty good (you are upleveled to level 80). There is also ETOM which is like WvW and where most ppl are upleveled there. In sPvP, whatever you level you have access to everything. Your character will as good if he’s level 22 or level 80.

Yup. Black Powder/Smoke Screen. At that point I usually take an Icebow on the ground because nobody is taking the freaking Icebow on the ground otherwise. Even my guildmate have a really hard time with that.

But there is several option possible. Yup the Line of Warding + Icebow work, but you need to have several ppl using Icebow and might stacking before would help. If i’m in an organized group, then i’ll stealth to Malrona directly so, this is more for Pugs or Half guild group/half pug, or guild group with not so good member in it. You can also have a guardian spaming F1 + Earth Glyph of storm. But you really need 2 source of AOE blind. Just one ain’t gonna cut it.

That’s why I like Thief smoke screen + Smoke field. You can take care of it all by yourself, without coordination.

Just to be sure, since you mentionned the FPS drop that make the game unplayable. There is option to optimize the settings. The change in camera what a huge one, and this could help fix the problem.

So clearly we are saying the same thing rotten. Still can’t figure out why you had to make your post in the first place.

I got a better solution for you. You don’t need to craft celestial gear, you can take a couple of celestial trinket, which will be easier and you will get about the same result.

Here D/D with Celestial Armor : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcM6cW4wxBf0APAC5fv2JKQ5qJfC-TlROwAcVCCY/Bi6BQp0rkyg3q/AA-w

Power : 1862
Crit Chance : 36%
Crit Dmg : 176%
Armor : 2578
HP : 16 315

Here with Knight Armor and Celestial trinkets (Soldier Amulet) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcM6cW4wxBf0APAC5fv2JKQ5qJfC-TlROwAA2fImSPi6BKpMgs6PZVCCA-w

Power : 1849
Crit Chance : 36%
Crit Dmg : 179%
Armor : 2506
HP : 16 745

You can play with your trinket to get the balance you prefer. And the good thing is that celestial trinket are as easy as any other trinket to get. So no need to wait after those crystal.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

wow you really bought their hype hook line and sinker…

You go on and on about how GW2 does not have grind then proceed to list:

luminescent armor (have to grind the same content 40-50 times to finish collection)
masteries (must grind to get ALL of them to complete the content, they are not optional)
precursors (must grind 1000g by running 500+ dungeons)
Vinewrath (currently farmed continuously in full grind mode)

Those are all far worse grinds than anything offered in WoW… in WoW you need to do a dungeon 3-5 times to get the gear you need, then you can do another dungeon… in GW2 you need to do a dungeon 30+ times to get a full gear set. GW2 is significantly more grindy than other MMO’s, I want it to be LESS grindy by offering dungeons like in other MMOs.

Grind is not an objective term, it’s a subjective one. I don’t view gw2 as grind for two reasons.
1) Maximal gear is relatively easy to get, and once you have it there is nothing that you can’t do in the game. Even exotic allow you to have access to almost everything in the game. In some other game, you need to complete task A to get gear A. You need gear A to complete task B to get gear B. You need gear B to do task C to get gear C, etc, etc. In GW2 you do you gear once and you can never think about it again.

2) For most stuff, you have several way to reach your goal. I want a Legendary? I can farm the material, I can do dungeon, I can do Silverwaste, I can do PvP, I can play the TP, etc. Most stuff can be bought so you can do what you prefer, get the gold and buy what you need. I don’t have to farm Totem by Grawls in Frostgorge Sound or farming Charged Lodestone in Orr.

That’s how I feel about grind, other ppl feel differently and that’s ok.

EcoRI.9273:

Honestly in dungeons with optimal play(as in if you want to blaze through dungeons) in consideration, I can’t see defiance stripping with a thief being a good reason to bring them. Most bosses die before you can even remove all the defiance for a second shot at CC. And even if you can do so for some bosses, it is not optimal play, it is safe play( which then goes into the same catagory as why some people bring a healer guardian to dungeons.).

For most encounter yes, but here some example where a defiance ripping capability of the thief will be useful.
- Arah path 1 : The Tar is quite tough to kill. Even in a record run, it take about 50sec to kill. In this situation, it’s better to use Icebow one after the other, rather than all in one shot. In normal speed run or pugs run the Tar will take enough time to kill than 2 or even 3 rounds of Icebow will probably be needed.
- HotW path 1 : The final boss can be a pain in the kitten and hard to melee. A thief keeping the boss wihtout defiant and Icebow to keep the boss almost perma Deep Freeze is the most efficient way of doing this boss that i know off.
- Arah Path 2 : An efficient way or killing him is by using cc to interrupt his beserker mode. It’s faster and your team can continue to dpsing.

That’s three places that come to mind quickly where the cc capability of the Thief is more efficient.

EcoRI.9273:

As for blinds, you bring thieves to stealth skip trashmob, if you are fighting trashmobs, you are doing something suboptimally.

You are right, but I think that you are talking through your hat here. For exemple in TA up, in record run you at Malrona you gonna stealth to here, only kill the last group of spider and kill Malrona. In 99% of the party won’t do that. They will kill all spiders before fighting Malrona. Aggroing all groups in one shot with a thief blinding them is a far superior technique than aggroing these groups one by one.

Same with TA foward in the last fight before the final boss. In a record run, all three adds will die in seconds, while Leurent is Deep Freeze. But that’s aint gonna happen in most group. These adds will land a couple of hits before dying and either a guardian or a thief will be of great help if you want your group to kill all 4 mobs in one shot.

Yes you are right that in optimal situation, you never gonna need the thief blind. But unless you are in a record run guild, almost nobody will be able to reach optimal situation.

spoj.9672:

And with a LH build you can swap to dagger before spawning the LH. So if in a pug you run out of LH charges you atleast have a decent weapon set if the boss is still alive.

True. How many times I end up with no LH because I downed or because a pug (Or one of my trolling guildmate) took it.

Can we all go on ours Medi Guardian and Double kit condi Engineer and fight him on his thief pretty please. That’s will be funny.

Morte.5916:

Tangent: (why) are dagger/focus eles welcome in lower level dungeons?

ISTM they don’t DPS like staff or buff like scepter, they’re just eles who wanted to be less squishy. They often turn up with defensive utilities and no icebow.

If I wanted to play a medium DPS character less squishy than staff/scepter ele, I’d play dual banner warrior or frostspotter ranger. But I am not well versed in the theorycrafting of this game. Enlighten me.

Well it still does 10-15% more dps than a Warrior or Guardian. True overall it give less than S/X or Staff elementalist, but it’s a decent build that still bring some might and vulnerability to the group. I won’t bring one in a record run, but other than, D/F is more than good. It’s also more fun to play for a lot of ppl. If they bring or not Icebow isn’t related to the build. Most if not all Elementalist should bring Icebow, whatever their build.

rotten.9753:

10% is 10%. Math is simple.

Yes, but it’s multiplicative. So the more damage modifier you have the higher their impact will be.

If i do 100 damage and I put a 10% modifier, I now do 110 damage. I i take another 10%, I now do 121 damage, which is 21% more damage than originally. When you add up two sigils, runes, vulnerability and trait that number can go really high.