Guild Wars 2

Bryzy.2719:

Different, harder content (read: not ALL future content) = more OPTIMAL for there to be variety in team builds. e.g. a boss that a full zerk team couldn’t take out else they’d all die would require variety in builds for support.

I already said it higher in the tread. Fractal level 80 without agony resistance was in the game at one point. You can’t really make harder than that and still ppl were playing zerker with meta build. They learned every single attack, they took the same support we have today and just optimized their use of it, like they optimized their use of dodge and active defense. So what you asking for is great, harder content is YEAH gimme more. But it wouldn’t change stuff the way you think it would. What you are asking already happen in the game and it didn’t do what you think it would. It’s not speculation, it ALREADY HAPPEN. Harder content = better management of your support while in zerker gear, not new support oriented build.

PorceleinEve.2973:

I don’t think you understand what folks mean when they say no choice. For many, myself included, choice isn’t you either lose something you already have for something else, or you keep what you have and kitten off. Technically sure that’s a choice. But when folks refer to choosing they mean choosing between 2 NEW options.

That’s just a human reaction and not a great one. We always want more and that’s normal, but it can be a pain in the kitten . Ppl never want nerf, they always want buff even if a nerf would be better in some situation. Its the same, you said it yourself.

Ppl would rather have a choice between Ranger+ or Druid. Not Ranger or Druid. What will happen when they gonna add another specialisation. They gonna ask between Ranger++, Druid+ and Spirit Master?.

What will happen when they realease another specialisation. Ranger+++, Druid++, Spirit Master+ and Warden? You see that it’s becoming stupid rather quickly. I understand what you mean and the reason behind ppl wanting always more and only more. That doesn’t mean that its a good instinct in the long run. Adding stuff just for the sake of adding stuff only make balancing harder, which will make the game less good overall. They will already have to balance 1 profession and 9 specialization, they don’t need to screw everything they worked for balancing the current 8 professions.

Bryzy.2719:

Nope. I’m not petitioning to make zerkers LESS viable (as I’ve said, I play 4 of my 5 characters with zerk builds). I’m petitioning to add more VARIETY and viable options to gameplay. I want more diversity. I want different builds to be equally as viable as zerker in some content.

Zerk is not a build its a gear and it have ZERO impact on your build. They could remove the gear all together or only have celestial gear if they want, it wouldn’t change much to the game. Gear are only passive buff that don’t really change HOW you play.

There is variety and not only viable, but good options to gameplay. You choice to play one build and only one build, that’s on you. You can be more optimized and play different build to fix the situation. You can be a little bit less optimized and play a lot of great build. You have the choice and the difference between all of these build will be really really small, especially if you play with pugs.

That said, more variety would be always welcome. I want condition to be fixed so sinister become on par with assassin and bezerker.

Bryzy.2719:

May I just direct everyone towards the fact that Anet are creating SPECIALISATIONS with HoT??

That in itself says they recognise the fact that there needs to be disparity between professions and role-taking in the game for it to be fun to play. So regardless of what you all say about role-taking being bad or ‘oh noes we can’t have da trinity’ – too late because that’s what Anet are leaning towards with this expansion.

Absolutely zero trinity will never happen in any MMO. The linear gameplay that GW2 has right now with its PvE set-up advocating a single meta is BORING. Plain and bloody simple. There’s no meta diversity, no variation and no tactical thought. Just mindless zergs of #MaxZerkOmg players running around seeing who can do the most damage.

Specialisation doesn’t necessarily equal what you think it will. I don’t see it that way. Maybe you are right, but I don’t think so. I see it as they gonna had more option, which is nice. I really doubt that they will give role taking like you said, but its a possibility.

The gameplay is linear if you choose to play it linear. Its boring if you play a particular playstyle that is boring to you. Its mindless zergs of max zerg omg players running around seeing who can do the most damage if you choose to play that.

Meta isn’t about max dps. If it would be, then all group would only play 5 elementalist and that’s it. But its not what we are seeing. We see warrior to buff group, we see guardian to keep the team alive, we see thief to stealth, we see mesmer for utilities, we see elementalist for dmg, we see engineer doing everything, we see ranger doing buffing, we don’t see necro (oups, sorry necro). There is role in the game, they are just not mandotary and that’s what is nice with that game.

You can play one build and one build only everywhere, a meta build that you copy paste from a web site without question and think that your are optimal. Or play 4-5 different build between path even during a path to have the right build for the right situation. Some profession have huge liberty with that, other have less optimal possibility.

You can play only optimized build and spit on all other build even if you don’t have ascended gear, even if you don’t have infusion, or food, or utilities or ideal party composition, etc. Or you can realized that its not either full cleric staff or meta build, there is stuff in between that ain’t optimized, but are still really good and would be more fun to play for you.

Elementalist is one of the Top profession in all game mode. Guardian in a Top profession in WvW only. Its good in pvp and pve, but not a Top profession. A lot of ppl put Guardian on Top for PvE, but that’s mostly for pugs since a guardian can keep a team alive.

Anyway for both profession you will have a place and a good place in any game mode. Guardian will be easier and will be more of a support. If you want to use it at its max you gonna have a lot of stuff to do and remember. Like I said you can keep a team alive with your blind, aegis, stability, reflect, protection, etc. But if you screw up, it will show since your team could wipe (mostly for PvE and organized WvW). But if you play it casual and don’t go to far with it, its just an easy profession to play.

Elementalist is a high risk/high reward profession. If you play it right in PvE, you gonna have a hard time staying alive, but you gonna be able to dish out a lot of dmg and as you get better, you will die less and less. In PvP the elementalist have a lot of skills and you gonna need to use it. Its versatile and if you know how to play it you gonna be on top.

They already said that when you specialized you get some new stuff, but you also lose some of your old stuff. So its like if there would be 2 specialistion when HoT will be released. Ranger or Druid will be your choice.

They also said that they plan on releasing more specialisations over time.

Bryzy.2719:

Please read EDIT 2 in my original post.

That don’t answer my question. Edit 2 was simply, ‘’would be nice to have specialist in support, but not a single guys that heal and buff’‘. That doesn’t give what specific support you would want. What specifically you would want to change. The builds and how support work now? Or only change how encounter work to make them harder so we need to use more of our current support?

Bryzy.2719:

A single boss fight that hits hard in AoEs, puts out more CC, puts out more condition damage (compared with single boss fights we have currently in the game). DPS players will go down quicker than popped balloons without adequate stability, regen, vigor, protection, heals etc. In this scenario, no support-optimised players = dead DPS players = no dead boss.

From that i guess that’s the second choice? But here is the thing. It wouldn’t work the way you intend it to work. You probably don’t know that, but when they first introduced fractal there was way to get up to level 80 (even more). Back then we didn’t have enough AR to survive past level 40 so each single agony attack would almost instant kill you. Not down, but dead. Boss would hit you like a truck and would take forever to kill. And you know what? It didn’t change anything. It was harder, we brought more support and more skill to the table, but that’s it. It was all zerker, it was guardian and mesmer with reflect. We already can bring stability, regen, vigor, protection, etc. We already do this without needing to spec that much into them. Most ppl fight harder boss in range like Lupi or Archdiviner level 50. If they would melee those? Then whey would need more support. Don’t think much ppl can melee archdiviner for the whole fight without some protection and skale venom. With harder content, we start to figure out each and every single attack of the boss to not waste our dodge. We bring mesmer and guardian to help us out, we take potion, we take skale venom. We bring any advantage we can bring to the table. But in the end, there will always be the option to range it so that everybody will be able to complete the content even if they are not prepare correctly. And that won’t change, because that one of the core element of this game. There will always be a way to complete any content with any group.

You got to love that guy. He’s so funny. First he’s like :

Zenith.7301:

But by all means record that 5 ranger video and compare it to a video of 5 guardians or Warriors.

Zenith.7301:

Keep pretending as if the “lv50 fractal HEAVIES ONLY” daily posts on the LFG tool are some figment out of people’s imagination and people choose to favor heavies for no reason whatsoever.

then a bit of backpedaling

Zenith.7301:

Sure, they’re bad. Clearly rangers and necromancers come on equal footing to warrior/elementalist/thief/guardian.

But you still can see that he love himself some heavies.

Zenith.7301:

I said not having a guardian made it much harder so that’s why people kick you in high level fractals because a random group does not coordinate enough to play specs that are not as selfsufficient as the heavies.

I would take a ranger over a second warrior or guardian anytime. In a lot of encounter I I would take a ranger over 1 guardian.

Draknar.5748:

^^^ this is also true. However he’s going after ascended weapons which are far more useful than ascended armor and faster to obtain. He shouldn’t worry about ascended armor until he’s running FoTM40+

You are right, but he still just turned 80. He can’t really know what he gonna love to play and which gear is the best choice for that right now. He should try different possibilities and experiment and exotic is far better for that. What if he craft a soldier dagger for his thief or if after a couple of hours decided that Dire Thief is more fun or if he decide to switch profession. Most of us did those kind of mistake 2 years ago, but we did it with exotic gear, not ascended.

Pros and cons for every profession for each game mode is a lot of stuff to write man. It was already said, but good luck finding the tread. Here which profession are good where.

PvE : They are all good except Necromancer for dungeon/fractal. For open world any profession work just fine.

sPvP : They all do great. Engineer and Elementalist are on Top. Warrior and Thief are not far behind.

WvW zerg : GWEN is the meta. Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist and Necro. Engineer and Ranger and good too, but are mostly for pug zerg. Mesmer and Thief are specialist with specific role in organized zerg.

Night/Force is higher dps, but Air/Fire is better burst dmg. That’s why Night/Force is better for PvE, while Air/Fire is better in PvP.

I didn’t see anyone say the obvious to that guy. You just turned 80, you SHOULDN’T go for the ascended gear AT ALL. You don’t know the game or your profession yet. Ascended only give you a small advantage and you shouldn’t worry about it for now. Got a lot of friends that play for the last 2 years and still don’t have full ascended gear yet. It would be unfortunate that you craft an ascended gear and realize a couple months later that you crafted the wrong kind of gear.

I sell arah with a guildmate and when we start the LFG we make sure to only let one ppl in at the time. If two or more and entering at the same time we kick them immediately and we are whispering them to invite them back when the first one pay. That way there is only 1 person that didn’t pay at anytime. Not perfect, but it limit the chance of us getting kicked out of the dungeon.

Support is as big in this game as dps. Maybe its not the kind of support you want but most profession have support meta build and even dps meta build have quit a good amount of support.

Protection, Weakness, Vulnerability, Might, Fury, Vigor, Blind, Aegis, Reflect, Condition Removal, etc. Some are underused, and the content is not hard enough so we don’t really need to go too strong in the support, but support is still super important in most dungeon/fractals. But i’m curious because you seem reasonable, what kind of support you would want more? Give precise example pls.

Mirta.5029:

Thaddeus.4891:

The problem with CoE is that the pre event is long and you don’t have a defend event like with CoF so it doesn’t stay open that often.

there is a defend event. At a point the place gets a big circle around it and you have to defend it from the inquest. The problem is whenever people have to do that the maximum amount of people I’ve seen at the entrance to do it was 2 counting myself. Others get out of the dungeon and port.

Oh you are right, i just checked on wiki. But I think I never saw this event ever. Each time i get out of the dungeon its either closed or open, I never saw a defend event. Maybe i’m just unlucky, but I usually always see the defend event of CoF. Maybe the duration of the event is too short compare to the length of a CoE path? Ppl never have enough time to get out of a path before the defend event finish.

Yup. I’m about to finish HotW for my Dungeoneer and even if it take a little more time, my group always fill. The maximum I had to wait for a complete group was 10min and it gave me just enough time to make some toast with nutella so perfect The problem with CoE is that the pre event is long and you don’t have a defend event like with CoF so it doesn’t stay open that often.

Capitol City.4856:

Actually I partly agree with this. Build freedom is extremely prevalent in Guild Wars 2 because you can get away with so many builds. But what ends up happening is that for veteran players, we don’t want to run whatever muck build we can, we want to run efficiently. And that’s when damage becomes the only build. And as explained above, no other roles are needed once you’re good enough because your utility skills cover every other base.
You’re right though, it’s because it’s a casual game. If they did make it so that other builds were needed, people wouldn’t be able to run whatever they wanted because at the very least the few builds that are needed now are mandatory. The real problem is that mandatory roles conflicts with the whole Guild Wars 2 philosophy: play how you want.
So what really needs to happen is when Heart of Thorns comes out, new challenging content can be released for veteran players only, a hard mode for dungeons or maybe just new dungeons that are incredibly difficult, where more diverse builds are required. The casuals will of course still be given content for them to run, maybe an easy mode version of these difficult dungeons, and then both parties can be appeased. I suppose we can only hope.

See i have a problem with that sentence : ‘’But what ends up happening is that for veteran players, we don’t want to run whatever muck build we can, we want to run efficiently. And that’s when damage becomes the only build. ’’

You don’t sound like a vetaran player. Meta build (PLS STOP USING ZERKER BUILD, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. zerker isn’t even the best option is several situation and its a gear), are build that go for the fastest, more efficient run possible. DPS is a major component, but its not the only things. Lets make a little experiment. Which profession have the best dps? Elementalist. How many records run do you see with 5 elementalist? ZERO. (maybe 1, i saw that I think in a run of AC once). So why do we bring other profession in RECORD run if its only about DPS? Why Fractal Guardian build is a meta build? Its less dps than GS + Sw/F build. Why the warrior meta build is GS + Axe/Mace, GS only is better dps. Why a thief bring Shadow refuge or Smokecreen in dungeon, its not a dps skills same with dagger storm which is less dps than thieves guild. Why do mesmer bring feedback over a 3rd mantra, its a dps lost or why they bring portal in record runs, its less dps. Why so many ppl are using D/F elementalist in fractal, staff have more dps. Why the meta build of guardian don’t always have bane signet on, its more dps.

Can you tell me why all those choice made by ppl that go through dungeon twice as fast as you and make records runs? Could it be because support is a huge part of the meta build. No it can’t be, its all and only DPS right?

But sorry, I was mean for no reason and in the end we agree. We want the same as you with HoT. More difficult content that will push us farther. Most of us are either doing record run or solo dungeon to get that right now.

Capitol City.4856:

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. DO YOU SEE. THE PROBLEM HERE. You say I’m a bad mesmer because I’m not switching out my skills, and you might be right, and yet I’m clearing every dungeon with ease? Level 40+ fractals with ease? It’s because I don’t have to switch over to the best build, I cover so much ground on the few utility skills I stick to, without consequence, that I can be a bad mesmer and still fly through “difficult content”. Thank you for illustrating my point.

OK NOW I understand your point. The thing is, its not build diversity the problem. The game was designed like this.

Everything is viable in the game so that you can complete all content with whatever build you have. You can complete it naked, in zerker full dps, in clerics full healing build, etc. That’s not a problem that’s a design choice that was made day 1 of the game. It a game that is casual friendly at its core. Maybe the design choice is not appealing to you, but that’s the game they decided to do. What you see as lacking build diversity is freedom in build. You can complete content with any build. With better build you will complete it faster, with less good build it will take longer.

Capitol City.4856:

Alright, this is a good point, I should clarify. I said in a later post that I actually do switch out every now and then, but the skills I posted are what I also fall back to. Yes, I do have other utility skills, but they’re situational. I’m not actually changing my build by switching to them, I’m just temporarily making a switch for a current situation. That’s not a build change people, the build remains the same. And that’s not a solution, as I’ve said earlier, that’s throwing a blanket over the problem.

Then what change would be enough for you to consider that a change of build? Because for me there is a big difference between those two build.

Mesmer : Zerker gear + Scholar Runes + 6/4/0/0/4 traits + S/S & S/P weapons + 3 mantras against a single boss without need a reflect

or

Mesmer : Asssasin gear + Rangers Runes + 6/4/0/4/4 traits + S/S & S/F weapons + 2 mantras & feedback for a fight that need a lot of reflection.

That’s just two possibilities. And I still don’t understand. You don’t want to use other build that could help you go through a dungeon a bit faster. Why don’t you want to use other build that could run dungeon a little bit slower? Cause for only a couple second less you could have a GS build, you could use Staff as secondary (the phantasm is a hard hitter against some boss).You can create great build with about anything in the game. Hell I even help someone make a staff guardian build that is not that bad. You don’t use 100% optimized build so what does it change if you do it 95% of the speed or 90% of the speed? That open so much diversity, why don’t you want to use it? I understand that diversity is not that great if you want to be 100% optimized, but you already aren’t 100% optimized so what’s the big deal. There is sea of build that are super good even if they are not optimized.

Capitol City.4856:

. I run a mesmer for instance, and every. single. dungeon. I run the condition healing mantra, the stability mantra, and feedback for my three utility slots. My elite is always time warp, which rarely varies for mass invis. That’s it. Out of all the skills my class has, I can run those three utility skills and my dungeon runs never fail. We never wipe, we run through it quickly, and I’ve only used 3 abilities aside from my weapons (wich by the way is always sword focus, because once again, I don’t need any other abilities).

I understand that we CAN run these other builds. It’s possible to find a group that will run them. Yup. Cool. Unfortunately, you can feel the difference tremendously. Once you’re good enough, the zerker builds are the only builds worth running. .

Here you are saying that you can only use 1 build and that you shouldn’t use other build because they are bad and even if you want more buil diversity you don’t want to force yourself into bad build. You want other build to be good.

Capitol City.4856:

You guys keep saying I CAN switch my abilities, but I don’t need to. I’m running level 40 fractals with the same three skills.

Here you are saying that Ok there is better build that your current build, but why run them? I can complete everything with my current build.

You gonna have to explain the logic here.

You are using a general purpose build. Its a good build, but not the best. You don’t want to use other build are less good because they are less good, but you don’t want to use better build because you can complete everything with your current build?? I’m lost.

Capitol City.4856:

Everything you just said is correct. But this is where the problem begins. For those of you who are saying “zerker isn’t a build, it’s just a stat set!” you are so incorrect.

Zerker is not a build and never will be. It’s only an term that ppl use for a shortcut and frankly, ppl that use that are usually bad/ordinary players or ppl that just don’t use those build. There is no zerker trait, no zerker skills, no zerker runes, no zerker sigils. Ppl fixate on the gear and forget that its one of the least important aspect of your build.

Capitol City.4856:

It’s named after the stat set, yes, but what the zerker meta actually means is that you go into a dungeon with all damage gear, all damage stats, and a SELECT FEW SKILLS THAT YOU’LL RUN EVERY DUNGEON WITH. I run a mesmer for instance, and every. single. dungeon. I run the condition healing mantra, the stability mantra, and feedback for my three utility slots. My elite is always time warp, which rarely varies for mass invis. That’s it. Out of all the skills my class has, I can run those three utility skills and my dungeon runs never fail.

When I said that ppl using this term don’t really understand the concept behind it, that’s exactly what I mean. You play a tiny part of the Mesmer and you complain that there is only a tiny part of it? Mesmer, like most profession change between different trait, different utilities and weapons. Why use sword/focus when a fight don’t need a pull or reflect? Why don’t you change to Sw/Sw & Sw/Pistol against a boss. Why don’t you change your trait if your team need more reflect? Why don’t you take null field if you team need more condi removal? Why don’t you change you build depending if you are against a single boss or a bunch of mobs? Why don’t you change your utilities against bosses like the CoE Golem to remove its boons? If you want to play only one side of the Mesmer don’t complain that you can’t play other side because you should.

Capitol City.4856:

What you fail to understand is that we’re not asking for a shift in the meta, we’re asking for an expansion of the meta. Imagine if I said “Eh, I’m getting bored of my zerker mesmer, I think I’ll switch over to condi damage.” And then I dropped my sword and focus for a scepter and torch. If that were viable, that would be amazing! And then I get bored of condi so I switch over to control. And then from control I decide I want to play a support mesmer. That would be the final result of solving the zerker meta problem.

The only problem here is the condition build. That’s a real problem in pve that need to be address. You are also free to play whatever build you want. You won’t be as effective as other build, but it will work and you won’t fail. And its not like a on/off switch. You can have build that are pretty good even if they are not the best option. Sword/Focus isn’t the best option most of the time, but that doesn’t stop you from playing it right now. You are using a zerger gear even if assassin would be better on a mesmer, that’s not stopping you from using it now.

Capitol City.4856:

So no, the stat isn’t the problem, in fact let’s change the name of the zerker meta problem right now. Let’s call it the “lack of build diversity” problem. And instead of just complaining and making endless threads about this issue, let’s discuss possibilities so that one day, when you get bored of your zerker build, you can say “hey, I think I’ll switch my build over to condi or support” and that wouldn’t be a bad thing to do.

There is a diversity in build but you don’t seem to be wiling to use it. There is different build and weapons that fit different situation. On my guardian I switch between 4 different build, use 12 different utilities and I always have 7 different kind of weapons on me for PvE and that doesn’t count the same weapons with different sigils.

Ya of course there is problem with the game and more build diversity would be nice. Condition damage being the biggest things since the beginning of the game. Sinister gear should be as popular as assassin and zerker but it isn’t. There is plenty of type of runes that would be awesome to have in PvE. They can add some trait that would create good new build, Phalanx is the perfect exemple of that. But when you are saying that you want to switch between dps and support build you can already do this right now. The speed run community advocate this in their build, support is super important in this game, most of the meta build have that, but ppl still only see the dps side because of zerker.

cafard.8953:

TPMN.1483:

canard: Then you break how the game was designed

Seriously how many more of these threads must we put up with!

It would occasionally break the recipe used for pretty every encounter until now. I’m afraid i fail to see why that would necessarily be a bad thing. Don’t we have enough dungeons already where we can enjoy the stack-and-dps experience? Fractals are an improvement already but there’s a lot more possibilities to explore i think.

We don’t care about stacking if you mean in a corner/wall. What it will break is the active defense. That’s THE MAJOR advantage of this game. The fact that you have to understand the encounter and time you skill to survive rather than just sit there and take the hit with cleric gear. THAT’S the point that you idea will break and that would be terribly bad.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Fallenfister.8341:

I had a shaman build warrior for support and buffing with banners and the war horn, it seems now form what I read that’s a worthless spec and should do something else?

I see people playing this build in the game today. What makes you feel it’s no longer effective?

Really Gaile really. Maybe because it was never effective.

TPMN.1483:

canard: Then you break how the game was designed

Seriously how many more of these threads must we put up with!

Canard LOL that’s a good one.

cafard.8953:

Just design encounters that disable/restrain active defenses. Bit like Blind-spamming dredges doen’t protect you much.

So how about fighting some bosses under a scorching heat that drains endurance? There go your dodges. Unblockable attacks? There goes aegis. Etc.

So basically dumb down the game so we rely more on passive defensive and less on active defence?

Yup always have a sword/pistol in your inventory.

D/D is for dmg

S/P is for surviability. Don’t be after to use in those spot where you don’t have enough dodge to survive like Alpha in CoE or under the shield in CoF.

The only weapons on the guardian that is worth camping in PvE is Hammer and Spectre (only for big slow boss like Lupi). Otherwise you should always swap between 2 weapons, unless one of those 2 weapons are a staff, then you should never swap to it in combat and only use it at the start of a fight.

4% Damage is FAR better than 25 power. The 4% dmg won’t show up anywhere, it will be multiply on your dmg when you attack.

Like Cyrill said, try Runes of the Pack. At first look it doesn’t seem that good, but in PvP the fury will boost your dmg by a lot. But it depend a lot on what build and profession you are using. You shouldn’t use the same runes for all your toons and all game modes.

Goony.2301:

So it seems as if these are my options…

- Ranger : Possibly a “sub-par” option, but considered undervalued.
- Elementalist : Possibly an “easier” option, but offers lots of damage and versatality
- Thief : Possibly lacking in range department, but very mobile and requires trickiness to maximize effectiveness.

I’m sad that rangers don’t seem to be wanted as much since the ranger class seems very similar to classes that I usually like.

I forgot to mention that I prefer smaller skirmishes, or even 1v1 fights, over big, huge battles. So I may still consider a GS/LB Ranger, but otherwise, I’ll look more into Elementalist and Thief. A shortbow Thief sounds like it may be interesting, so I’ll be looking into that for sure as well.

Thanks for all the input guys! Also, I didn’t realize F keys were so important – I’ll rebind them asap!

You almost got it.

1) Ranger : They are in the middle right now. Not a top profession, but they are no longer in the bottom of the barrel like they used to be. Its a solid profession in both PvP and PvE. They will have good range build but mostly in PvP. For PvE their range weapons won’t be use that often if you want to do decent dmg. They are one of the easiest profession to play early on, but they still have some stigma from their old days, even if they don’t deserve it anymore.

2) Elementalist : Probably your best choice. They are the only profession with a range weapons as ther best PvE weapon. You probably won’t use it while leveling, but the staff is a beast in PvE Dungeons. Its not an easy profession is you want to maximize it. Lowest HP, Lowest Armor its all about dodge and position for a zerker Ele to survive in PvE. It also have the highest AoE DPS and Burst DPS of the game.

3) Thief : They have the best single-target DPS but their range weapons is mostly a support weapon, you don’t want to fight in PvE with them (even if you will always keep a shortbow with you for movement and blast). But Pistol can be a fun and good way to fight in PvP. Its the second squishiest profession after elementalist and like the ELe he will survive mostly because of active skills.

There is several things that will make dungeon hard or easier

- What level you are
- What quality of gear you have
- Your knowledge of the dungeon
- Your team

For exemple, when the game started we all had bad gear were low level and the entire team didn’t have a clue how things work in dungeon. Some took us 3 hours to complete, and sometimes we failed completing it. Now at level 80 and a team fully geared and a good knowledge of those dungeon we can do them in less than 15min with some record go as low at less than 5min. So you see the difference in difficulty can vary greatly.

So you have two main choice when it come to dungeon. Either you stay away from them until level 80 then gear in rare and ask for help in LFG or in the forums for ppl that can explain to you. Ask it because if you only ask for ppl to do the dungeon, they may not be ready to explain to you, they may only carry you while you have no idea what is going on or they can be mad if you didn’t tell them that it was your first time.

The other option is to go right aways in the dungeon as soon as you have the level for it. It will be harder and you will depend even more on your team. It will be doable, but you will be totally carried by your team. Again find some nice ppl to explain to you what’s going on in LFG, or the forums. Knowledge on the dungeon is THE major point for a nice smooth run.

Can we stop making those thread? There is clearly one side that thing there is a problem with the system while the other system thing the system is awesome and we only need new challenging content.

This will never end.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Adding material rewards is something I’ve been suggesting for a while. Glad someone else sees why that’d be good. 1 ( or more for the longer/harder paths) t6 crafting bag would certainly help. Even if its a bag which only contains 1 t6 material.

The other big problem is the removal of all the ground chests though. You don’t even get those more than once per path now. I’d like to see that reverted too.

ground chests and x t6 mats for repeat runs would definitely make them worth running on an alt (specifically an alt mind you, not over and over on the same char) without risk of gold influx.

I don’t think having 3 8 hour cycles for them would result in the huge influx of gold some are scared of though. Only a very small minority have that much free time to play for that long/across that kind of time zone (outside of weekends).

While I agree with the material over gold reward because it make gold mover around ppl and not create more gold out of nowhere (help the inflation problem). I don’t agree with the other part of the argument for rewarding doing the same path over and over.

Because its so hard to balance exactly the reward vs time, there will be a couple of dungeon that everybody will run because they give the most out of the time you spend there, while the rest of dungeon won’t get much attention. The only way to reduce that would be for Anet to keep a close look and fine tuning the reward as ppl find new way to improve their runs in dungeon, which isn’t something practical especially since never everybody can finish path at the same pace.

I can see your point that you lose too much reward in your second run of dungeon compare to for example what you lose by doing some other stuff twice. There is place for balancing stuff more, but I really thing that having the first run each day of something being more rewarding is a good concept.

Cathellos.4835:

Ok. Wow! This community is seriously helpful, I honestly thought I would get a insult, just for asking question. But I really appreciate clearing everything up.

Another question. Are there pets in this game? And if not, then what is the miniature creatures are for?

Ya there is couple of topic where ppl get really nasty here on the forums

Zerker meta/Holy Trinity/ViablevsEfficient in PvE/PHIW/Elistism/Diversity/etc Which are all closely related and are pretty much two sides battling each other while nobody is winning anything. Those tread are usually turning ugly fast with insult and name calling something, but they are super entertaining to read if you don’t take stuff to seriously and personal.

But other than that, the community is usually really helpful and won’t insult anyone.

Ranael.6423:

Out of curiosity, for Meta groups, I’d like to know:

- How much time do you need for AC p1 ? What does this time become when you only change your stuff (not trais, not strat) if you redo the same with PVT gear ? How does it shift for Arah p1 ?
-If a Meta solo player open a LFG “AC p1 zerk Meta only”, how much time is required to fill the group? If now the LFG is “AC p1” ? How does that translat with Arah p1?

For AC path 1 it usually take between 10-15min in speed run, the records is 4-5min. Never did it in PvT.

For Arah path 1 its about 15-20min, the record is like less than 10min if I remember correctly. Again, never did it in PvT gear so I don’t know.

I never created a zerk meta only because if i want a zerk meta run i’ll do it with my guild not with pugs. But from time to time I enter a full zerker run and its doesn’t take much time to fill. The problem is when the guy that started the instance start to ask ppl to pings and then ppl don’t do it and then ppl start to kick and bla bla bla. Mainly the reason why i never ask for zerk meta in a pug, that’s just awful.

Ppl not good enough to do that ‘’less-zerkable content’’ will stick with easier content, while good enough player will complete this content for a higher reward, but harder to do.

You already see this in game. Arah path 1 and 2 are some of the most rewarding dungeon right now, but still a lot of ppl prefer to do CoF and AC. Why? Because most ppl have an easier time doing AC and CoF even if the reward is a bit less good. Not everybody is able to make Arah path 1 and 2 fast enough to make them more rewarding than CoF or AC.

INF.8496:

If u love your T-shirt and still wearing it 5 years, you also go to china and pay the kid who made it extra 10 dolars?
Sorry, but for me its not extra, its what i except, and the reason why i bought it.
But i understand your (different) attitude
Besides, there is plenty ways to support developers another way (and more voluntarily, for those who really want to)
Btw, please dont see someone who dont want to “extra pay” as a bad guy or something.

WHAT. They don’t ask you to pay to continue to play the current game. You pay if you want the new content they gonna add. You see the world work this way

A company (Anet) hire ppl, pay a place to work, pay for licenses, pay for administration, pay for legal services, etc.

Will all that stuff they create content.

Then they sell that content to their player base.

If they did a good job, they usually got more money than they spent on the content so they can reinvent that money on new content and cycle continue. If they did a bad job, ppl don’t buy enough of that content, the company receive less money than their invested and they shut down the game before they become bankrupt.

There is nothing free in the world no matter what you ’’expect’’.

Lendruil.9061:

Necro is not only built about condition dmg, and his dps is not that low, however, he doesn’t have any kind of group support that can’t be done better by other classes.
Maybe the new Addon will change that?

I didn’t say that he was only build around condition dmg, but its one of his strong points, but its not good in PvE.

And ya it have a pretty low dps. He have a high burst with lich form and wells, but a pretty bad overall dps, especially since most of his hard hitting single are single target. But like I said, he have low dps if you compare him to all profession. Compare to guardian or mesmer he have decent dmg.

No. If I were you I would be using it only for the skin since Theodosus white weapons are pretty cool, but It would still be better to use exotic zerker over a cleric ascended and If you need some resistance while training with one of those three profession you are better with a small amount of soldier or knight gear and not cleric.

But using that weapons is not that big of a deal. Won’t be the best choice be if you gonna use it, guardian would have the most use of it.

MartinusDraco.8379:

Why do you consider Necromancer a poor choice for PvE?

Necromancer is in the low tier in term of DPS mostly because they are build around condition build rather than power build and that condition build are not that viable in PvE.

But other profession with low tier DPS have roles in PvE like the guardian that bring damage mitigation, the mesmer that bring utilities, the warrior that bring offensive buff to the party. The necromancer bring really few of those for the party.
- they don’t bring party buff
- they don’t have utilities
- they don’t give much boons to their party
- they give vulnerability but mostly single target
- they used to give AoE Weakness which is good but that got nerfed.
- etc.

So overall, they are pretty much on the bottom of the list when it come to group PvE.

Jerus.4350:

I’d say GWENV, Guardian Warrior Elementalist Necromancer and Veilbot…

Well it could be GWENVT, but Mesmer and Thief even if they almost essential in GvG have very limited role mostly as support to the zerg. And you usually only want a small amount of them.

Marthkus.4615:

There are lots of places around a boss.

Anet could also just add collision mechanics that prevent you from standing on people.

Yup and I use that space. My party move around bosses in a 300 range without problem and that’s stacking. What exactly is your definition of stacking? Are you talking about corner/wall stacking? Or are you talking about stacking all in the same spot?

Because both those definition of stacking are not good strategy in 80% of the fight in this game. They are old habit die hard for pugs that don’t really understand the encounters very well, but continue to play how they always played because they are used to it. There is no more FGS, so most good team kill the boss in place wihtout pulling him in a corner and other stuff like that. Yes some particular boss are better kill on a wall/corner, but they are very few.

There is a collision mechanics in the game. If you don’t have it, its because YOU deactivate it. So are you crying about that feature because is optional and you would want it to be mandatory?

1) Transmutation charge come from different source : log-in rewards, PvP tract rewards, map completions, black lion chest, etc. You can also buy them in the gem store, but if I used to by transmutation crystal for level 80 gear in the old days, you shouldn’t really need to buy them anymore because you should have a good amount of charge income.

2) Do what you want. This game let you free to do what you prefer to do and if that’s great for a lot of ppl, there is some ppl that constantly need guidance about what to do next and can get lost pretty easily in this game.

3) Same answer as Belzebu

Marthkus.4615:

Difference between needing zero dodge and having to dodge maybe 10 times per arah path is not huge.

You can dodge only 10 times in Arah? I can believe it if you were in a record run guild that kill stuff faster than anyone else and know all the animations. But I don’t know why, but I don’t thin you are so I call bullkitten on that one.

Marthkus.4615:

My quick suggestion.
For every ally you share space with, increase the damage multiplier by one. That way 5 man stacks take 5x damage.

If the zerk meta didn’t stack, I would have far less problems with it.

So everybody should be range? Because i need to stack on the boss if i want to melee him so what should i do? Swing my GS in the air hoping for the boss to die somehow because I shouldn’t stack on him? We should play together to have might and fury because those boons have a limited range for sharing? My guardian would only use aegis and reflect for himself because ppl shouldn’t be stacking next to me? How is that better?

Marthkus.4615:

Ranael.6423:

Marthkus.4615:

Some sort of anti-stack measure would destroy every noob-zerk pug group out there.

Most the zerks I see that stack in pug groups do not know how to dodge. They should not be able to get away with that.

Can you explain a bit more your point? Naively I would think that stacking under a boss makes the entire group directly in the range of the things they have to dodge… so if those you describe are bad at dodging they are then more exposed while stacked no?

Here are the situations I see
1) Boss goes down before it can kill even zerkers
2) Enemies like kohler spawn adds that go down regularly enough so that zerkers do not even have to dodge the spin. Even if they go down, they just get right back up again.
3) Boon poop, Aegis/reflection spam negating all the damage without having to dodge.

I see dodges in zerker groups in crucible of eternity against the alpha subject AOE, In arah, and higher level fractals.

Aside from those situations, I do not see zerkers dodge. Heck, when I run zerker I do not need to dodge or even click my negate damage stances.

Stacking is fast, but I think it should be an awful idea. In practice it is only bad for non-80, non-zerk groups who don’t DPS fast enough.

Stacking is not a problem by itself and its encourage be several things in the game. The two main reason to stack is because of melee and boons sharing. And there is no problem whatsoever with that. Of course some particular stacking tactic can be a kitteneezy, but those are specific problem that come from the encounter design and not the mechanics.

1) It depend. Some boss are really just too easy and even pugs can down some of these boss before he can do anything (mostly AC have this problem, but some other boss as well). I agree that’s a problem, but again that’s a problem with the encounter. I mostly only run Arah and rarely in a full party now because making sure you dodge all the attack at the right time is so much fun.

2) Completely true. Some boss have nice adds that make the fight harder, but give you a small chance of rally if you group help you. But a lot of boss like kholer have stupid weak adds that die only because of the AoE and are really only rally bot. Again, its failed design in the encounter. If i go down in a fight like Lupi or HotW path 1 boss, you gonna have to work together to get your friend up and that’s a way better design.

3) That’s just untrue in most situation. Yes if you take some simple fight a guardian can negate most damage, but for the vast majority of the time that just isn’t true. In all the best fight in the game that isn’t true at least. This complain it just weird are you really saying that you don’t need to dodge in zerker? I would like to see that. Zero dodge in a full zerker group, lets make some video of that. How many dungeon could be made like that?

That discussion go over and over as ppl complain about specific stuff in the game and blame it on zerker and the games mechanics, while clearly some fight don’t have these problem. Its all about how encounters are designed, the age of the content as ppl get better and better at it and the level of difficulty of that content.

I did Arah P2 duo yesterday after reset and the bone wall thing is still working.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Trying to solo a Dungeon is simply doing the content WRONG.

HEY I like to solo dungeon. Don’t like that word ’’wrong’’.

sarcasm on / Every profession should do the same exact dmg for all of their skills. #balance.

That would make such a more interesting game. / sarcasm off

PvE (Dungeons) : Except necromancer, all profession are good, but Ele, thief and Warrior come out on top. You can also add Guardian to that list, but only if you are a pug that need some babysitting.

sPvP : All profession are in a good place with Elementalist, Engineer, Warrior and Thief being on top right now.

WvW : GWEN is the meta, Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Necromancer.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_S/A_LB_Spotter

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/05/gw2-ranger-pve-class-guide-by-lorek-and-cell/

Its your choice Aither for you armor. You shouldn’t play with knight if you want a good build. Zerker will also push you to understand more the games mechanics and improve your game because each mistake will be costlier. Your dmg will be improve which will help more you team than a knight armor. But at the end its really only depend on what you want to do.

If there is no new dungeons, no new fractals and no raid, then I’ll be disappointed, but dungeon is not the only things that I do in this game so i’ll still buy the expansion for the new maps, mastery, new profession, specialization and PvP.

Darkness.9732:

kitten how many warriors here. You deserve a super nerf and I truly hope You’ ll get it one day.

I main a Ranger in PvP and you just don’t understand balance. Balance is not making all skill equal. Its the sum of all skill that much be equal.

Eviscerate take time to build up and is a one shot. Your pet can be swap, deal dmg and make some special attack that are FAR more practical than eviscerate. Your complain make no sense at all, you just don’t get one shot and complain about it. Try to understand what happen and learn how to recognize an Axe glass canon warrior because you know that eviscerate will come. L2P, stop cyring.