Guild Wars 2

nearlight.3064:

I remember when I first started playing ele last year that people thought their DPS was terrible (specifically mean elitist warriors). But now look whos talking, Eles have finally gotten the respect we deserve! mwahahahah!

And for D/F might stackin dont forget that water 3 is now a blast too, and is a bit easier to use than comet.

We were talking about S/D or S/F might stacking. D/F might stacking is not as good, but that,s not the strength of D/F anyway.

petyr baelish.9675:

I made my previous post while in a dungeon which is why it was so short, I also made the mistake that a s/d ele stacks 18 might while it’s 15 with a rotation.

No you were right the first time. Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Churning Earth, Earthquake, Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Wave for 6 blast of 3 might each. 6 × 3 = 18 might. Same thing with D/F but you replace Churning Earth and Earthquake for Magnetic Wave and Comet.

petyr baelish.9675:

The point i’m trying to make here is that in the best possible situation a warriors personal dps is far below of that of an ele or a thief and not just 10 – 15%.

I’m pretty sure Xhyrox didn’t mean that Warrior have 10-15% less DPS than a Ele. I think he meant. You are better to use EA if you are the only Warrior because to get it you sacrifice 10-15% of your personnal DPS as a warrior to get a +150 power for all the party. I think it was just a minor misunderstanding here

cmud.5689:

You are wrong. Warriors are taken above Ele’s in dungeons or Thiefs for that matter, that the DPS is cleaving and still reasonable while they are able to effectively stack through the course of the dungeon. Add in, For Great Justice and banners and you are good to go. I am not saying you cant melee stack with Ele’s, but I can imagine it would be pretty bad.

No you are wrong. Warrior is use more often than Ele because :
1) They used to be view as the best DPS of the game. Because we didn’t had figure out how to be good on other profession yet. Ppl still seem to view the Warrior as TOP dps and not the average they have.
2) They can bring a lot of offensive support (FGJ, Banners, etc). For that several ppl take them, but you really one 1 to do that.
3) Warrior are easy to be good on. They rely on raw stats, meaning that even a poor player can survive (high hp and defense) wihtout dodging as much and can do good DPS (don’t need to care about the requirement for damage modifier). A group a warrior can also max vulnerability and might on easy mode. All that make Warrior obvious choice for pugs.
4) Most of the video on internet come from a moment in the game when Warrior were view as the best profession. Even if its not the case anymore, ppl check video and think that they are still the best profession for everything.

petyr baelish.9675:

Do as you wish. Just don’t spread the wrong information. 18 might = 35*18 = 630 power btw.

Are you talking about the Empower Allies? Because that a powerful trait for a warrior in a group to have. When the 1 warrior is there for party buffing, they usually don’t have a phalanx build (might come from eles mainly in that kind of group). So Empower Allies is a trade off between personnal DPS and party buffing. 150 power can seem to be not that high, but when you buff 2-3 Elementalist with high DPS, that make a difference. Empower Allies is a good thing to bring for a Axe only warrior, but its not the only good options. Its all these little buff that allow speed runner to get crazy high amount of dmg compare to normal group.

LordByron.8369:

Ele has also unreliable Attacks and slow CDs even on auto.
Reality.
Times you actually hit, some bosses are already have been killed by warriors.
Everytime you evade/heal etc, you lose lot of dps

To build offensively you die by a sneeze… (even a good ele placed in a bad Group will sleep on the floor, a warrior instead will carry the Group).

The ele FGS on a wall will make more DPS in 10sec than a warrior can do in a minute. The Ele LH can do more dmg than a warrior, ’’But’’ he also have to take care of might stacking meaning that a warrior can be him in the first 10sec. A staff Ele, have a constant burst dmg, that’s why he have the best DPS from Laval Front.

But you are right for the squishiess of a full glass Ele. THAT’S FREAKING HARD. This build was the hardest I ever had to learn, but you can do it. If i have 2 or 3 of my guildmate I now have no problem staying alive on my squishy Ele. But if i’m in a Bad pug, true, i’ll have a harder time. On some dungeon i can simply carrry the pug like a warrior do, but in some fight (the ones that have a lot of small attack), i’m in deep kitten. Ele are like a F1, they work like crazy in the right condition, but you don’t bring them on a dirty road. That’s where the Warrior shine with its raw brutal force. Each have their strength and weakness.

I would like to have to make this kind of decision lol

But I don’t get why you tried to tossed GS and Hammer in the mystic forge in the first place. Did you buy them in order to try to made more money? Or did you only toss the weapons you had in your inventory to see what you would get?

aelfwe.4239:

Basically 70% of party you find puggin isnt stackin 25 might, i would be curious to know how you guys join pugs party capable to hold 25 mights\25 vulnerability\fury xD

I don’t think that anyone is seeing max might/vulnerability in pugs. I often see max fury only because i bring 2min of fury on my ele

But it wasn’t the point. The point was that even if the staff give 12 stack of might to the party. This might only last for 10sec. Meaning that as a guardian, if you are good and have a bit of point in virtues, you will have might only for 1 or 2 attack of melee, the rest you will have it while AA in staff. Overall, your DPS will be A LOT less by using the staff, even if it empower. The only way for that to work well, would be to begin a staff and with immedialy for you GS, H or S/F. But don’t switch in the middle of the fight because that’s bad.

But you can stay, ya but it give might to the rest of the party. Again its only 10sec of might. Most of the time, pugs won’t make a good use of that might (bursting dmg at the moment you have the might) so you AA during the time you have less might. Empower is such a bad way to give might in PvE, that you better just DPS as much as you can, and not waste time on Empower.

There is nothing else than the profession themselve to fix.

If anet make condition good in group. Then necromancer will be a good profession in PvE. Engineer would also be better since they could bring a lot of vulnerability, while doing good damage in groups. But engineer would also need some more support.

If anet give some good support utilities to the ranger, give them more control over their pet and give them good melee option other than sword (this weapon can be hard to approach for several person). It wouldn’t also hurt if they try to change ranger image so not everybody roll a ranger to use a Bow (which lead to a large proportion of bearbow).

That’s at least a start. Would it be sufficient to make these 3 profession in the top? Maybe yes, maybe not. Probably that the ranger would become one of the TOP profession with frost spirit and spotter if they fixed some problem that the profession currently have. For the other two, they would at less be at par with some other profession, removing the need to exclude them from most of the run.

oniralas.9687:

nagr.1593:

Usually zerk stats for all classes. I think assassins is something like 0-1% better than zerk at best, so just go with power/precision/ferocity with power as main stat. Now that I’m comfortable with Ele I can go full zerk, but I know some like to add some toughness/vitality because its very squishy otherwise. try something like knights (power/precision/toughness) if you are starting out.

Doesn’t that pretty much illustrate how broken things are? The current state of power/brute force >>> everything is pretty bad.

Always easy to tell what the current metas are — just see what gear/runes cost the most on the TP

Not really. In PvE there will always have a best way to go. But still if zerker is the best gear, you still have several options in runes, sigil and trait. Could the game diverse more? Yes. Does the game feel broken? Not really. I still have a a lot of fun playing it even if it have a lot of room for improvement, like any other game, at all time.

Ele have the best dps NOT because of FGS btw. They can remove completly the FGS and ele would still have the higher DPS. The reason, why people were sure that Warrior had the best DPS in the beginning of the game is because ppl didn’t really know the HUGE advantage that a good build with damage multiplier can do. Warrior don’t have access to that much damage modifier so they have good dps whaterver you do. They get their offense and defense from raw stats, making them easy to be good with them, when compare to other profession.

Right now. Elementalist have the highest DPS because of they can more than double their damage with access to A LOT of damage modifiers at low tier of trait (you can get 5 or 6 of them in Adept tier (you can’t see that nowhere else). If you had to that FGS, then their 1st place is well secure.

Thief is second but only for single target. They can bring a lot of vulnerability, really quickly with FGS (like a Ele can if build correctly) and have access to a lot of damage modifiers.

Mesmer have the possibility to be one of the highest DPS of the game (if not the highest), but for that they need to drop the utilities that the focus bring (which is not the bets idea in a group for several fight), but they also need a bit of chance and they need time to reach that DPS potentiel. Since they need 3 good phantasm up, they usually reach their peak DPS when the fight is already finish (most of the time). Mesmer already need to reflect in order to get the 1st place, which is not possible in every fight. Feedback is one of the most powerful skill in the right hands and in the right situation.

Guardian have the possibility to get higher DPS than a Warrior. But for that they need a good build, they needs boons, they need the same buff as a Warrior (which they can’t bring by themselves so they need a warrior to buff them) and they need Aegis on them. The DPS of a guardian will fluctuate a lot during a fight, even if they have the potentiel to be better than a warrior, that doesn’t mean that they will reach that all the time. Also, usually the guardian need to concentrate more about the surviability of his team (reflect, aegis, blind, etc), decreasing the focus they have on their rotation to get the highest dps possible. While the warrior can concentrate to get the best damage out of their rotation (they take care of the support they bring after and before the fight, not really in the middle of it, freeing their concentration)

Like i said, warrior will most of the time have better DPS than the guardian. You need to be good with the rotation, but you get your Damage from your raw stats, meaning your DPS will be good almost constantly and won’t fluctuate as much as any of the other profession since you don’t really base your DPS on damage modifier that activate only in certain situation.

Oh comon guys, just relax already. I do some achievement hunting with my guild from time to time. A couple of friends, you try things out to complete achievement, it was always fun, we had a good laugh, everything is fine.

It exactly like if you go to the baseball field in your neighbouring and you have like 10 ppl playing soccer. Do you complain that they rob you of the opportunity to play baseball, do you complain to the city about how the local playground is flaw because you can play soccer on a baseball field?? No, its just life in society. Take 10 seconds to reload into another game of keg brawls and enjoy it, while other people enjoy something a little bit different than the devs planned. Nothing wrong with ppl enjoying different part of the game in different manners.

- Dungeons (Gold, loots and token that you can transform into gold). The faster you fight through them, the better. Get comfortable with the meta of you profession and if you can find you a little guild group for faster run.
- Playing TP. That’s the more profitable if you know what you are doing. But if you screw up you can lose money and a lot of people don’t find that fun.
- A lot of different kind of farm. They change over time, and their profitability also change over time. I include in there champion bags farm, bosses blitz farm, material farm, key farm, events farm, etc.

atheria.2837:

PvE is lonely.

PvP is lonely.

WvW is less lonely.

And now we wait.

?? I have no loneliness in this game.

In PvE, I play dungeon, guild missions and world bosses with my friends and guildmates and even when we need pugs for dungeon, I usually enough fun encounter to more than compensate for some occasional bad pug.

In PvP, sometimes I play alone, like I would on a Multiplayer FPS. But most of the time i play with friends, going in the same server and either playing together or against each other.

I raid with a specific guild in WvW where we have a lot of fun playing the game while we joke and talk.

The only reason for loneliness in this game is the player itself.

maha.7902:

get him down to 1% twice and die

I did that, but on purpose. So I could practice several times in a row. I was so bad back then I’m still bad, just less than before.

Tak.6981:

the price of everything is going up. new players cant earn gold like 10 gold per hour, all prices on tp is getting way too high. to earn a stable income in champ farm etc you need a very high magic find, but we new players dont have any. been playing like ages and still got a little bit of gold. what to do now?

Well, of course a new player will be at a disadvantage compare to a veteran. We got almost 2 years under our belt during which not only did we get a lot more loots, but also a lot more information about the game itself. But don’t think that it was easier to get a legendary back in the days because it was a lot less expensive. We had a lot less money back then and collecting gold was a lot harder. Stuff were selling for less and dungeon didn’t gave us 1 gold or more for each path. I had to exchange about 75 gold with my friend to get my Golden Achievement and we were all afraid to be targeted by hacker if we were to show off our Golden Title. Right now 200 golds is something you can get a couple weeks or even a couple of days.

But anyway, its all about the guild you’re in and the if you fit or not into that guild. We had a new members a couple months (about 3-4 months) back that joined us and he always play with us, we show him the best way to get gold and playstyle. He have now a level 80 warrior with all ascended trinkets, he play the meta just fine, he’s about to start crafting his ascended armor and have about 500 gold in bank. If you have people to show you the ways, its not that hard for new player. But of course if you try to figure out things by yourself, then you are at the same points the veteran were in the early days of the game, when 50 gold was EPIC and AC was view as a freaking hard dungeon (took us 3 hours and we gave up the first time we did it). Ahh good old times.

Saylu.8271:

Behellagh.1468:

But that kind of activity isn’t market speculation. Market speculation doesn’t affect price unless huge amounts of supply is removed in anticipation like the mats you can trade for event boxes removes all the lower cost supply.

Monopolizing the market isn’t market speculation, it is much worse. Market speculation affect prices. Just because the price increase isn’t a huge amount, it doesn’t mean isn’t inflation.

Its not inflation man. Its a rise in price because of the offer and demand, but its not inflation. In both situation its end up in a rise in price, but they don’t come from the same source and don’t have the same impact.

Speculation will rise price on a particular item and usually item that are linked to it (if cooper ore increase in price, then with a certain lag, item that you can salvage cooper ore from will increase and usually cooper ingots will also increase. Why? Only because the offer/demand ratio changed. People buy large quantity of cooper ore because they are sure the price will increase in a incoming path. The price indeed go up but only because the sudden increase in demand (a false demand). Then the path hit, but there is no new use for cooper, so now we have a large increase in offer, but the demand get back to normal, decreasing the price. That’s speculation. In a real world economy, it can be dangerous because a lot of people will end with less money, so less people buying stuff, so less item produce, so less jobs, so less money, etc. But in the game, this concept of moving money around for an healthy economy just don’t exist (and player don’t need to eat so having zero gold is not a big deal).

Inflation on the other hand is money devaluation. Your money have a certain value, if you poor too much new money (printing it in real life, dungeon and loots in the game), then the value of each of your dollar will become less and less important. It not limited to certain items, its increase the prices of ALL items. From the cooper ore to the legendary.

Sartharina.3542:

I still think the problem with the game isn’t that there is a “Best way to handle dungeons”, but that it’s so homogenous and terrible-looking. Also – it has unbalanced the value of exotic gear.

People wouldn’t have a problem if the ‘ideal run’ used a blend of different types of gear and sigils, while moving about the battlefield with coordination and distinct placement (IE – not stacking into a pile of clipped polygons, nor just running around like decapitated chickens)

That’s ok if you think that, but its not totally true. Ya your right that for the gear specifically the choice is limited to berserker. But if you think that mean that its so homogenous, then your wrong. On my guardian i still can’t decide what I’m gonna play 2 years after the launch of the game. GS +S/F or GS + H. Two totally different weapons set that each give their advantage and disadvantage. Most speed clearer or meta user have almost all the weapons of their profession. I always have a GS, Sword, Focus, Hammer, Scepter and Staff in my inventory and several of use have different version of these weapons with different sigil depending what we are doing at the moment. Sigil of Night, Sigil of Force, Sigil of Accuracy, Sigil of Strenght, Sigil or Energy, Sigil of Bloodlust, Sigil of Perception, etc. You have several good option to choose here depending on your playstyle. For runes? Scholar or Strenght are the most popular, but Flame Legion and Ruby Orbs are some good options and they are cheap.

And when you come into trait, then you have some much possibility. 4/5/0/0/5, 4/6/2/0/2, 5/5/2/0/2, 3/5/0/4/2 and 5/5/0/40 and that are only build from Obal’s guide. I use 4/6/0/2/2 myself.

And for organisation and teamwork? When we speed run, my guildmate and I are talking and working together for the whole path, calling what each other will do to make sure that everybody know their part.

SijjvraVisz.7159:

I haven’t tried to find a guild yet, mainly because I typically try to “get into” a game before I try to find the right guild for me. Right now I only have an hour or three to play a day, as I have a 16 month old toddler and she keeps me pretty busy until she’s sleeping for the night or taking a nap. So my play time is pretty limited, which can be a barrier to finding and bonding with a guild, from my experience in other games. It’s a bummer but RL is definitely priority right now. Truth is, I’d be playing WoW but I want to save some money and I already own this game, so I’m trying to give it another shot.

I don’t think that should be an issues. In my guild we have a lot of different people. Some have kids not much older that your little girl. Some only play once or two a weeks, but that doesn’t change anything, they are still more than welcome and they part of the guild. We also get people that play several hours per day to the game and are in the guild for more than a year and they are still no really included in the guild. But that their choice. If the guild is active with a basic leadership, then its simply about your attitude. When I go into the game, I’m always on our VOIP and I play with my guildmate to the game. We decide together what to do next and when someone want to do something specific they need, we usually get together to do that.

On one side you have people that don’t come into the VOIP unless they are ask and play alone unless they have an offer to come join us.

and on the other side you have people that come on the VOIP first (even if they only chat because they don’t have a mic) and simply play with the rest of the guild.

That make all the difference. And for the second kind, we all always more than happy to show them all the things that we love about that game and why we are still playing it, almost two years after the release.

pdavis.8031:

While I agree with that, from my experience, it’s the mindset that TENDS to come with the gear. You see it even in this thread, with phrases like “Sub Par”, “Sub optimal”, “better skilled”, etc. It’s subtle, but it’s there. While a non DPS {insert gear here} build is “sub optimal” when compared to a DPS beserker build, doesn’t mean that gear set/build is bad, unless you are trying to do conditions with healing gear, and physical damage traits on the weapon sets that you don’t have, or something.

So while it may NOT be the gear in and of itself, but as you said, it’s a spring board for that behavior. Again, from my experience, its those running those builds and gearsets who tend to be the worst perpetrators of that behavior. I’ve yet to be chewed out by a cleric build for not doing x,y,z in a dungeon run. So yes, my issue is not with the gear itself, but the attitude that the gear fosters.

Sub Par, Sub Optimal, better skilled are not meant to be offensive. Its just the reality. We are not saying that a player that is using this kind of build is not skilled, only that he need less skill. I get killed in 2 shots with my beserker gear so i have place for only 2 mistake, while on a Valkyrie gear you could be killed in 3 or 4 shots and you have place for 2-3 mistakes not just 1. It doesn’t mean that you are less skilled, only that you don’t need as much skill. We are not saying that you are a suboptimal player, only that you are using a suboptimal build and gear.

We just need to keep it real. I used to have a AH build on my guardian. Did I used that for the party? No. Did I used that for my own survivability because I wasn’t sure enough of my self to run a better build? Totally. Each and single points of Vitality and toughness have ONLY 1 goal. To boost your own survivability.

Is that a bad thing? No at all, as long as you acknowledge it. I have a lot of guildmates with hybrid or tanky build. I like to play with them, but I make sure that they understand that they are doing that only for them. The problem is when you use a tanky or healing build and you think that you are giving something better for the group. No you are not. Its only for you and you only. Its ok, but people just need not to fool themselves. There is plenty of useful support in that game. There is not 1 meta, there is a lot of different good build for most professions. Plenty of choice depending on what you prefer.

Well the only thing that can change that is if you join a guild that will show you the game. Good luck with that. Its not that is hard to do. You just need to be lucky enough to find the right guild for you. A guild that focus on the right content for you and with people that you like to play with. Other than that, i don’t think that there is anything that we can say about the game that will change the way you view it. Not after a year.

I never really click with the game Skyrim, but I still acknowledge that its a great game. Sometime it just don’t click.

They are not saying that CC as a whole is viable, they simply gave you exemple of boss where CC is important. You asked for exemple of bosses where CC is viable, of course people will give you exactly that. That doesn’t mean that CC is a viable thing that will push ppl into building toward that (like you see in WvW or sPvP).

In theory Guardian can have better DPS than warrior. But they bring mainly party support (bind, aegis, reflect, etc), they don’t bring offensive support like the warrior can do (EA, Banner, FGJ, etc).

Ya, if you are fully boosted (from you and your party), the Guardian will do more DPS than a Warrior. But the guardian won’t take part in that DPS boosting that the Warrior bring. So usually, it serve no purpose at all to bring a guardian specifically for the DPS.

Usually the rules of thumb right now is take as much Elementalist as possible and switch some of them for specific profession that can bring specific stuff that you might need in a particular setting. It usually mean 1 Warrior for EA and Banners, a Guardian for party support (only when you need it), a thief if you need stealth, a mesmer if you need feedback or something else from them, etc.

ICEing.9237:

Ah ok that clears up a lot. Thanks a ton for the info! So optimal might stacking would be longbow + x/wh or longbow then swap for gs + x/wh

Only if you Solo stuff in PvE or you are still not able to melee some stuff in PvE (you should be able, if you are not, try to get better because its possible).

Normally, in dungeon on a warrior you mainly bring might from : For Great Justice and Forceful Greatsword. If you have the right build and runes of strength you will bring 25 stacks of might. With the build but not the runes, you will be a ordinary might stacker only. But you should use Longbow + x/wh since even if you bring more might, you do terrible damage. If you don’t want to get the runes of strength, you shouldn’t focus on might stacking too much, other profession do that better, just do your little part and its will far better.

Don’t go Minions master or ranger pls. Why? They use AI companion which is bad in PvE. For a ranger you need to have good control over your pets otherwise it gonna screw up stuff for your whole party. To have good control over your pet you kind of need to see things in advance so i don’t suggest that. Minions master is the same but in worst and should never be use in dungeon.

I think that the easiest would be warrior. Use a good build with something like greastword and axe/mace with maybe a longbow if you need a range backup. You can use a mix of knight and zerker gear so you have a little breathing room when it come to dodge. Or even full knight if you need to. Just don’t join dungeon group that ask for speed run, exp, fast run, zerker, etc.

You could also take a Staff Elementalist. If you take good DPS trait, but keep some PVT gear, you should doing ok and staff Elementalist is the only range that have good dps. You just need to stay medium range and keep to fire attunement for an easier time.

Allaraina.8614:

Flissy.4093:

So when they die your “tanky guard” can out DPS the healing of Alpha? Wow, you’re magic!

Do you have a better solution for what to do when everyone in your party consistently wipes but you? There’s still this problem with people dying. Your dps is 0 when you are dead. Most zerk pugs (in my experience) do not have the necessary gear/skill to pewpew down Alpha before taking condition damage.

Better solutions?
1) Quit a party that is so bad. Bad player with the right build (AKA zerker that die all the time) is 100 times worst than good player with bad build (AKA tanky player that know the encounters and don’t play idiotic build like minions or bearbow).
2) Do dungeon with some people of your guild. You can easily carry 1 or 2 bads with a solid core group.
3) Ask or join group with specific demands like speed run, exp, etc. This is not perfect, but I usually don’t have problem with pugs except once every 10 runs when a have a really bad party.

Its a side effect of the forums. We talk so much about how the meta with zerker gear is the best option, that a lot of people try that out without know how to use it. Meta are higher risk and higher reward. Its faster, but if you don’t know how to use it, then you will hurt your party more than anything. But we have to keep in mind that the community is not single minded. We all have our ideas. Some people can’t stand someone not using the meta, other encourage ppl to use the meta, but they should feel comfortable with it, other ppl know the meta is better, but prefer the safer way of a hybrid, and other are completely blind and find their healing guardian staff so kitten (but i keep you alive while you DPS dude).

For me, you should always try to go toward the meta and zerker gear for PVE because its the best options. But you should also have the skill to back it up. You can use hybrid build while you are learning and you can even stick with an hybrid if you are not confident with your skills or you just don’t play enough the game to develop these skills. But you should always know, you are using a supoptimal build for your own survivability and not to support your team and you should always at least try to get better at meta and not simply toss it aside. Meta is about DPS and zerker because that’s the best options currently with the information that most of the community have. If these information change over time or if someone figure out something completely new, the meta will evolve with that new information. If the best way would be to heal everything to death, then THAT would be the current meta. Its not the agenda of a particular group, its only the best solution the majority of player could find out with the information we have now.

Ghotistyx.6942:

It’s a stat that needs to be invested in, like any other. I’ve got one guardian who does exactly that. 2.2k healing power, and between staff, mace, and battle presence, i’m literally a walking healing signet handing out 400 tick regens and empowering for class heal levels of HP. Now, I’ll be the first to admit it’s really only useful in wvw, but that’s exactly where it’s the most welcome. It’s usefulness are like conditions, in that they take time to become more and more useful.

I agree to some extend. For me, healing power is useless because my group have a good regroup that heal everybody to full hp. I’m not even using my healing skill to heal me, but for the block. So healing power in my situation is more than useless. But for pugs zerg, healing power can be good.

Ya you can’t go wrong with that. You have the good base, after that it only adapting it for what you prefer. Myself i use melandru runes and full berserk trinkets. But that doesn’t mean that its better than you build, its just fix my playstyle and my need better. What you have is pretty much the standard meta so go for it.

Mace is really for sPvP. But if you really like it stick with it. PLEASE just don’t join any dungeon run where they ask for speed run, exp, fast run, zerker, etc. Or you will be kick (with good reason).

Mystogan.4157:

so wheres the dmg coming fmor? I’m used to high dmg from s/d

Well the standard x/x/x/6/6 build with PVT gear is not really about dmg. You do decent range pressure with Meteor Shower and Lava Front, but you aren’t that powerful. Still, you have enough survivability to stay alive near your frontlines, ready to use a water field to keep them alive or static field to stun the enemy. Its more a support build. Its also a good learning build for people new to organized zerg bursting or pug zerging. Once you are more comfortable you can change build (a lot of options). If the strenght of your group is the melee train, you may want to stay tanky to give them support fast, you could go with zerker gear to keep the defense ability of a x/x/x/6/6 build with the dmg to make the difference in fights, or you could stick with PVT gear and go for some damage modifier in your build for high risk/high reward gameplay. Or you could be a crazy person going full DPS and pray to good lol (that’s crazy but full as Hell ). But x/x/x/6/6 with PVT gear is a good starting point. You will have a lot to learn about positioning so have a lot of defensive option is good at the beginning.

@ Sirendor. Stacking is only one strategy use in dungeon. Get rid of stacking, ALL OF STACKING, and the situation is exactly the same as today. I stack nothing when I do Arah and I was playing meta way before I started to stack bosses. Get rid of stacking and it won’t change anything. Like they nerfed zerker and that don’t change anything. They could nerf to the groud zerk and the new meta could be condition and the situation will still be the same.

Mesket.5728:

My guardian recently hit 80 and I barely touched the staff other than map running… and I know that it is possible top 3 worst weapons for a dungeon run, but still, I know it can provide 12 mights, swiftness all the time, 2 heals and a wall to either keep mobs at bay or keep them close so they won’t run (also used wisely it could be a perma interrupt as it keeps knocking a target against a wall). Point is, even on its uselessness, it provides something; and if that is what makes him happy, then I don’t see it as much of an issue to deal with, asking him to change his way of playing so I can be doing another stupid thing in this game in a different scenario. I find it more fun-killer when a prick start bashing a player in the group rather than a player who does less damage than the rest.

My thought is, am I really going to annoy this guy so I don’t get out of here 5 minutes later? what’s the point? to enter another dungeon 5 minutes earlier? Am I that kind of person? It’s just a video game…

For fun sake: Attitude > Skill. It would be different if we were talking about business where real money is involved, but for recreation? I prefer the guy that has fun by his own than the guy who can’t have fun if the rest is not doing what he thinks is best.

Its not a white and black issue. If I ask for speed clear, exp, fast run or something like that and you join on a clerics staff guardian, then i’ll kick you, because I ask for something in particular. But if i didn’t ask for something particular and a clearic staff guardian join, i won’t kick him. I’ll carry him and try to point him in the right direction (because clerics staff guardian is really like using a screwdriver on a nail, it work, it could be fun, its really not the right way of doing it). I don’t mind that he follow my advice or not. I’ll carry him with my team since i didn’t ask for something specific. And most of the time he won’t change anything for the path if the rest of the group is decent and he follow some basic direction (stack here, don’t aggro that, etc). But if there is 1 bearbow, 1 staff guardian and 1 minion master in my group, then it won’t take 5 more minutes, its will be A LOT MORE than that. 3 days ago, it took me 55min to go through a AC path 2. The party description was saying BE PRO OR BE KICK, so I joined since ac path 2 in a good pug group take less than 15-20min. But the party leader that created that description quit the party and they didn’t change it. By the time i figure out that 2 were relatively new and 1 had a freaking minon build that screw up half the stacks, it was too late. I had created the instance and i’m not a prick and kick everybody out of the instance, so i finished it with them. But it was 55min of frustration compare to a 45min of fun doing ALL the path of AC with my guild or a good pug group. I don’t mind if you play a staff guardian because you find that fun, but when your fun destroy my fun, then I prefer we go our separate ways so that everybody have fun.

I still don’t agree that there is a problem. Ya, its would be nice if you add more diversity to the gear that matter, making conditions on par with direct damage for PvE, making content harder with better AI.

Everybody wants that. But that won’t change the fact that there will always be meta and there will always be people that hate the very fact that a meta exist. Even if anet change all that, the situation will be different but we will have the SAME exact discussion. People will find the best way to play the game, this will be discuss for a while on the forums until the majority of the players find that some of the best way to play the game and they will call that the new meta. People will start to ask other to play like that because its the best and other people will complain that they can’t play how they want because of the stupid meta. Does the game need improvements? Yeah a lot, like every single game in the history. But there is not a big broken mechanics in the game that need to be fix and that will change everything.

Pandaman.4758:

I would argue there are a lot more people on trains than there are in dungeons in the NA servers. The dungeon LFG is completely empty when it’s not US prime time,

Ya, LFG usually fill up in second. That’s why you almost never see any LFG because they are already full. Also, you don’t see group that are complete without using the LFG (mainly guild group). I’m using LFG for not more than half of my run.

It not about having a issue with casual players that just don’t have enough time to dedicates to the game to become better. Its about mutual respect when we party up in a dungeon. We are into that dungeon together are when you see a staff guardian or bearbow ranger, you know that he bring so little to the party that he could just stay AFK at the beginning of the path while the rest of the group do the jobs. (That’s a figure of speech). Its like building something. You see someone working with you and he’s using a screwdriver to install nails. You ask him to use a hammer for that, because that’s a better option and you don’t want him to install 2 nails, while you are doing all the job. Its normal to ask him to use a hammer (even if it to build something for fun) and not a screwdriver. And its normal to ask someone in a dungeon to use a sword, a hammer or a greatsword in a dungeon and not a staff. Staff have its use in WvW but its really limited in dungeon.

Allaraina.8614:

I bring my tanky guard into CoE because I constantly run the risk of the full zerk players dying and wiping…. it happens almost every time I go to pug it. I’d really like to bring my mesmer or warrior in there more instead but wanting to finish the dungeon in less than 2 hours kinda overrides that….

~edit~
^—more to do with players not knowing how to play than the quality of zerk

I used to have my hybrid guardian (zerker gear with AH build) that I brought for some dungeon for the same reason. But the thing is, the meta guardian give have a lot more surviability than any hybrid or tanky guardian. You can keep your party alive a lot longer with blind, aegis and reflect from the meta, than from vitality, toughness and self heal.

If you have difficulty getting good pugs, maybe you should find a guild that go in dungeon with you. I usually have at least 1-2 guildmates with me most of the time. So even if we have bad pugs, we can carry them if we need too. But usually, we kick them if they are really bad and continue on our own while the slot fill itself. We start the dungeon even if we are two, we are not waiting for pugs, they can join us during the path.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I felt so old. Friday in TS someone told me they were 15. I felt like I had to sign off because I’d get in trouble for being a cougar or something.

I know the feeling (the age thing not the cougar ). Sadly i’m getting youngophobe as i’m getting older. They are getting on my nerve way too fast for it to be an healthy response.

I think that you can have fun learning any profession in that game. I have 8 character and here what I found fun to learn for each of them.

1) Guardian. Playing the meta, I had so much fun to learn how to support my team. Blind, aegis and reflect to keep my group at 90% hp is challenging, rewarding and fun.
2) Warrior. BIG NUMBERS. How the heck can I reach higher number with my 100 blades? So much competition between me and one of my friend, but I have to admit, he got the best of me. But its not fair, Warrior is its main, not mine ;(
3) Elementalist. OMFG playing the meta for dungeon. 2 Dodge, no vigor, no protection, no blind, no aegis, no HP, no toughness, no HEAL?? How can i survive? But i did. It took time and hard work. I was on the ground begging for rez more than anything during the first weeks, but I did it. Location, location, location. I’m proud of me now
4) Mesmer. Love and hate story. I hate it a low level, love it at level 80 when i learn how to shatter, then hate it again, then love it with all the phantasm, then hate it when I see the dmg, then love it when i see the utilities. Its a really different gamestyle. You love or hate it.
5) Engineer. Mastering the art of pitching grenade at 1500 range on a moving target, while you are running. That’s the stuff. I still get confuse, when i need to switch with all these kits in the middle of a 1vs1 duel. That’s awesome, even if sometime i don’t even fully understand what the heck i’m doing.
6) Thief. I will hunt you down. You are two against me? No problem, i should be able to win that fight. And if i don’t? Then its my fault and i need to find out what i did wrong. What a powerfull feeling, turning around your target that can’t see you, until the point when you feel you have the advantage. Its also terrible good to backstab a stealth thief because you figure out that thief are so predictable when they are stealth.

7-8) Never really had fun leveling or playing Necro or Rangers. That doesn’t mean they are bad right? But, its just the way I feel.

@Saye. You are totally right on the first one. The concept of dynamic events is nice, but feel totally unrewarding right now. You do it once or twice, then simply forget about it.

But for the 2 other points, you are wrong.
2) Playing the TP. A lot of people like that part of the game, so why would you care? They pay for the game to play how they want (btw saying that they only play the TP and not the game simply because you saw one or two video of someone is pretty fool). Now, you probably don’t really now economy because playing the TP actually help to decrease the inflation. Inflation is created by influx of money. In a economy not base on gold (like ours), the money is created by the country. A country could simply print unlimited amount of money and do whatever they want, but by doing that, the inflation will drop the value of each dollar, leaving them with about the same about of purchase power they started with (in fact they will have less, because they will create a crash but… its another story). The same thing apply to the game. Gold that are created from thin air (doing dungeon, selling stuff you loots, etc) will increase inflation, gold that disappear in the thin air (15% of the TP, buying stuff from vendors, etc) will decrease the inflation. In the perfect world or perfect game economy, these amount would be equal and no inflation would exist, but that’s never the case. Anyway, bottom line is playing TP is not only a nice content that some people love, but that also a HUGE factor in an healthy game economy. Getting ride of that, will not only never happen, it should never happen without risking of breaking the game.

3) Path selling. That been discuss several times already. That a service that is good for both sides. One person skilled can solo content and then sell their service to some people that don’t have the skill, the friends or the times to complete that content. That’s a win-win situation that DON’T affect you at all. I’m not a path seller and i’ll never buy for a path. But that doesn’t mean that i can get on my high horses and judge people that do any of those.

In theory, reworking the dungeon reward would be a really good thing. Its true that right now, Dungeon reward is high compare to any other source of income. Fractal is rewarding when you still need some ascended stuff (like rings and back item), but rapidly become pretty unrewarding once you reach level 50. sPvP and WvW is getting better, but that is still lower income. It would be nice if the game had a real balance between challenge and reward. The more challenging and risky something is, the more rewarding it is. So that every part of the game feal rewarding to a certain population of player. But the way Anet handle things in the game is only nerfing stuff that become too much rewarding, they are not balancing.

S/D without Light Hammer. Its a terribly bad build in PvE.

He didn’t said that Healing Power do nothing. Only that it does very little for you and that’s true. Its useless in a PvE settings and for WvW, most heal come from blasting water field and these blast usually come from several source, leaving healing power again, pretty useless. Now, if you pug in a WvW zerg, healing power could be ok. Not a really good setup, but its could work. I know there is some specific setup with healing power that work. I’m not a fan, but I know they exist.

Yup the Torch trait is pretty standard for Guardian DPS build that is not using a sword. You absolutely want the 10% dmg against foe on fire from 25pts into radiance. That’s a huge DPS increase (better than any 10pts you would want to put somewhere else). Also, signet is really not a good idea. The shelter is just too good as a additional block (I more often use my healing skill as a block, than as a healing skill).

@ Spot. I switch a lot between Gs + Sw/F and Gs + Hammer build. Usually, when I’m on my Gs + H build I use 3/5/0/4/2. This way I only need to switch the trait in Virtues to Master of Consecration when i need support (CM, TA, SE, Arah, Fractals) or to Unscathed Contender when i don’t need support for more DPS (AC, CoF, CoE). I’m lazy and don’t want to change build completely each time. I’m also not a fan of going 5pts into virtues. Power of Vitures usualy only give you 2-5% damage and Absolute Resolution is more about your own survivability than support. I prefer not losing the reduce cooldown on my retreat and the 2sec of symbol for constant protection. I like this support better, but at this point these are all good build, with good dps. Better choose what you prefer to play.

And btw nice job about the flame legion rune. I prefer to stay with my Scholar Runes myself (strength only for my might stacking Ele), but still that a really good options for a lot of people. I will definitively talk about that to other people in my guild that don’t have too much gold.

For Dungeons

Elementalist
- Light Hammer + S/X might stacking build. Good DPS, good might stacking
- Staff. Best DPS, give 100% fury

Warrior
- EA Pure Axe. Good Party buff and good DPS
- GS + A/M. Best DPS, but less party buff, when you already have a EA Warrior
- Phalanx Warrior for might stacking. Best when you pug, but useless if you already have might stacking.

Guardian
- GS + Sw/F or GS + Hammer. Bring a lot of blind, aegis, reflect to keep the party alive and at 90% HP to boost the damage of the party in rough situation.

Thief
- Usually Sword/Pistol will allow you to survive when the party stack, other than that the thief usually bring stealth to skip and vulnerability (pretty good with the FGS for almost instant 25 vulnerability).

Mesmer
- Sw/Sw, Sw/Pistol or Sw/Focus. Any 2 of those 3 set are good. Mesmer usually bring utilities but good Mesmer can bring a good amount of DPS. Master the art of Feedback for some powerful damage on certain boss. Mesmer are the best to stack a boss (focus pull) at a specific place.

Engineer and Rangers can do good, but they are less popular. On engineer make sure you can put a lot of vulnerability, while on ranger bring frost spirit and spotter.

Its true that for some content, the megaservers can be a pain.

- On some occasions my party was spread across different server, not a bid deal, but shouldn’t happen at all.
- For TEQ and Triple Wurm or even some LS event (but to be honest just the Crown Pavillon needed enough organization to cause some problem).
- Guild Missions was a mess when the megaservers went one. A lot of taxi, but right now its not that bad. But doing a Guild Puzzle with 2 other guild can be messy, not fun at all and even stressful. Guild Puzzle should be an instance.
- It completely destroy nodes farming on a regular basis
- It harder than ever to get to a particular temples, you need to do it or be lucky enough to get on a map where its already open. (Especially a problem with balthazar.)
- CoF is done fast when its close, but CoE can be a pain in the kitten to do some day.

But other than that (and maybe some other problem that I forgot about), megaserver is actually quit nice. The map are always alive, having some chat going on most of the time. The maps i’m sent in is usually the good one with people from my servers, guild, party and friends. Normal events are easier to do, there is always people to do world events and normal events. I think that megaservers is a really good thing, but they have a lot of work to repair some of the stuff that was broken by the megaserver.

Don’t gamble. It only work on big scale. If you have more than a thousands gold you can make several attemps at getting a precusors, sell them and then use the gold to make more precursors. If you only want Spark, buy it on the TP.

Just make trash mobs drop something of minimal value. Take for exemple CoE. These little crabs in path 3. Not that many ppl are skipping them. They don’t drop a precusor, but you can drop 5-10 Tier 5 maybe 1 or 2 Tier 6 if you are lucky. The Risen in the stairs after the door bursting cannon? Some group kill, other skip. But its not a universal skip like other useless trash mobs. Rewards should be proportional to the time and effort you put into killing stuff. If the Rewards ratio is bad, people skip, if its good, people don’t skip. Simple.

People that don’t use the best tools that their profession has to offer in a dungeon.

- No banner (strength and discipline only) from warrior
- No might, fury or FGS from Ele (don’t need all, but at least some of those at some point)
- No spotter or frost spirit from Rangers
- No blind or Aegis or Binding Blades or Walls from a Guardian
- No stealth from a Thief???
- No Vulnerability from a Engineer. Come on.
- No Time Wrap or Pull or Push from a Mesmer.
- No … I don’t really care what you bring or don’t bring with your Necro honestly.

Edit : Oh and people that bring low level even if they have 5000 k Achivement points. Bring you level 80 and switch at the end like everybody else.

Well, right now Dungeon is not only for skin. Most people still use exotic for their Alts and Dungeon is one of the best way to get gold (and token are a good source of gold). But still, its true that i would like to see ascended armor/weapons from dungeon token.

I don’t think you can say oh exotic are 1.5G and ascended are 75G so it need to cost 15000 tokens. Because exotic lost a lot of its value in the recents months. Most people either already have all the exotic they need or they go for ascended. If you want to get 75G in the game, it could take about 10 hours (average, it could be between 30sec or 1 years depending on the person). In 10 hours of game you could get about 2000-3000 tokens. So i think it would be nice that each ascended pieces cost about that. 2500 token would be a nice number. Someone that do all 2 paths, everyday will have a piece each 12-13 days, which is not that bad. Its longer than with crafting thats for sure, since you will need to do dungeon for 78 days to get all the tokens for a complete armor. So everall, it would be better (money and time wise) to craft your ascended stuff (especially if you want to craft several of them), but casual will be able to get their armor on the long run without spend too much gold (its will just take time).

As a thief you will also want to bring vulnerability. A thief, using FGS will give 25 stacks of vulnerability.

Lankybrit.4598:

Kind of interested to see what motivates someone to want a Legendary.

For me its for 4 reasons.

1) The looks. I go for legendary that I find awesome looking.
2) QoL : With the stats change and now the swapping between character. I can’t count how many time I used these feature and how many times I wanted to use them on ascended or extotic gear. Because what I want in the game change a lot over time.
3) A bit of Prestige. It was nice when people stopped you to talk about your cool looking greastword. Now it doesn’t happen anymore, but in my guild its a regular topic (we like to pat ourselves in the back ). We even have a ‘’Legendary Hall of Fame’’ just for fun.
4) I like to have this goal. I like the game, but without any goal (skin) i wouldn’t be playing PvE as much as I do right now. I would only play WvW and sPvP with my friends dragging me into PvE once in a while. Why? Because I spent 20 months in PvE. I’ve done it all. But when I have a goal and I play with my friend, then suddenly I still like to go in PvE, even for the same dungeon I did a thousand times. And what better goal in the long term than a Legendary.

I don’t think so. You played a dangerous game using your precursor. I wouldn’t do that in a million year with any of my precursors lol.

Same thing happen to me yesterday. Trying to organized the boss blitz, but in the middle of Boom-Boom, i couldn’t chat anymore. At least, i could ask my friend over our VOIP so he could continue to talk for me, but that was stupid. Especially since it last for pretty much the remaining of the fight.