Guild Wars 2

Level 18.

Dredge is the only one I’d consider to be hard. If your party isn’t good then you can get screwed with the switches at the beginning and it can take a very long time. With a good party it’s manageable but this one is the one that relies the most on a good party.

For the rest they aren’t difficult, it’s just a matter of which ones are longer and which ones are more annoying. Cliffside isn’t hard in the slightest but it takes forever, so it’s my second least favorite.

Tajz.9826:

Hey CD,FA folks, any tip on how to handle Tarnish Coast in general? What is their strong point NA/EU/Oceanic? And which guilds should we pay attention to?

Appreciate your help

Their offense is kind of lackluster. Compared to other servers when it comes to taking new structures they generally aren’t able to do so unless they have a significant lead in numbers.

Where they shine is in defense. Their defense is completely brutal and everything you take from them, you will have to earn, no PvDoor. Every tower and keep you take will be loaded with defensive siege and they’ll have a small army ready to defend even the most remote tower.

Thrym.9436:

Navzar.2938:

I don’t feel like it has as much synergy with the mainhand weapons for some reason.

This is my primary reason for not using it much, too. The focus itself is pretty good, but offhand dagger meshes very cleanly with mainhand dagger because it has the “right kind” of movement and defensive skills with some strong offensive uses as well. The scepter is just weak in general, which makes using a non-damage offhand all the more difficult to justify, especially when you can pump out comparable utility and maintain a much higher direct impact with the staff.

In other words, I think that a buff to scepter functionality would bring the focus into play much more often.

Scepter is definitely not weak in general. Especially in PvE.

The issue is that the 250 requisite mats for offensive infusions cost 40 copper each, and the one for defensive infusions cost 7 silver each, almost 20x the price.

Already a giant topic on this

At least you can salvage exotics or save them and put in the mystic forge. Rare backs are just something you get rid of for 2 silver.

Backstab thief is only good for the occasional cheese, it’s not really good for anything else.

So you doubled the drop rate of passion fruit or whatever it’s called to lower the cost of infusions.

Great, really, I like it. Step in the right direction for sure.

Now what about karka shells? Currently for me to get 250 karka shells for a vital infusion (+5 vit, +5 AR) it will cost me over 15 gold for the shells alone.

I think the drop rate of karka shells needs to be doubled, no, tripled to bring the cost down, because it’s insane. 15 gold for 5 vit is insane.

You’re about a month late with this. Really a quick search would have easily answered your question.

Waffler.1257:

Vorpal.4683:

Who knew that FA has more pve players than TC? I was expecting the wintersday stuff to hit TC harder, but it appears FA has suffered the most from it!

Server population limits were increased for the wintersday event, so it’s actually more likely that TC just got a fresh group of transfers to offset any decreased WvW activity due to people doing event stuff. If you look at the rating evolutions this week, there are relatively large swings in most tiers also supporting this.

There’s that, I know a lot of people took advantage of the increase to transfer to tarnished coast.

Also a lot of people from fort aspenwood (including myself) have lowered their WvW activity simply because they’re tired of the same thing. It’s incredibly frustrating to lose week after week after week to TC simply because we cannot match their numbers. I’m not complaining about it being unfair or anything, just explaining why our WvW activity has declined. When you go in week after week after week and lose every time because you cannot match the numbers TC puts out, you get discouraged and take a break from WvW.

I’ve gone from fractals level 4 to 18 in the past couple of weeks because I’ve been cutting back my WvW time.

A better option would be to allow us to buy vials/globs/shards so that you can infuse normal rings in the mystic forge.

Unfortunately the problem is rooted in the dungeon itself: at high levels the dungeon is disproportionately unforgiving against elementalists. This is because our survivability is based off of healing and regen, instead of raw hp and toughness. While we fare just fine in pvp with this since other players don’t have insane spike damage (outside of backstab), in the dungeon our survivability mechanism is completely nullified since monsters can easily one-shot our pitiful hp-pool, or otherwise not give us time to heal. This means that while warriors and most other classes can make a few mistakes dodging (since the hits that would 1hko us only bring them down to near death), as an elementalist you must play with a LOT more focus or face repeated deaths (which is probably why nobody wants to play with us anymore).

Speak for yourself.

I very rarely die in fractals, and I’m usually the last one to go down.

With my soldier’s set I’m sitting on 21k health and a base of 1536 toughness (1786 with rock barrier)

Anything that 1 hit kills me is going to 1 hit any one else.

A big part of it is choosing the right weapons. If you go into fractals 20+ with a staff, you are going to die. So stop doing it.

I run dungeons with Scepter/Focus and I’m usually the tankiest person in the party.

I’m really tired of getting rare backs in fractals. Every time I get one I feel like it’s a complete waste because that’s an item that could have been a core/lodestone/exotic/salvageable rare.

Getting a rare isn’t supposed to be a bad feeling. You shouldn’t be disappointed by a level 80 rare. But that’s how I feel when I get one because it can’t be salvaged, and only sells for 2 silver.

I almost never seen any other elementalists using a focus, which really surprises me.

I think a lot of eles fail to realize the potential of this weapon.

I find that, especially paired with the scepter, a focus can easily turn you into a master of dungeons. Every ability of it is a godsend for dungeons and can make you completely indestructible. I first tried it in my very first dungeon, AC story mode when I was level 30. I tried other weapons and have always defaulted to S/F for dungeons. I’m currently on level 17 for fractals, and I am incredibly durable. I rarely die and if I do die, then I’m usually the last one to go down.

Brief overview of the abilities it gives :

Fire 4 : Flame wall, good damage, fire field, not a whole lot to say.

Fire 5 : When paired with the air trait that 80% of eles take, it gives you swiftness and fury. If you’re using the scepter than triggering it before you’re fire 2 – 4 -3 combo can really increase your damage. Also applies damage to nearby enemies.

Honestly fire abilities are a bit weak, but earth more than makes up for it.

Water 4 : Target enemy, press 4, apply chill. It’s a great ability that will save you many times. It also works on most bosses which is great, especially in fractals. Use it on dredge powersuit to keep him under the bucket of lava. Use it on the legendary grawl to buy time to pop his shield bubble.

Water 5 : Targeted daze. Also works on most bosses. It actually has a small AOE effect. Keep in mind though that it has a bit of a cast time and it will land where the target was, not where the target is, so it can miss moving targets. It’s an all around great ability.

Air 4 : This ability is why carrying a focus in WvWvW is absolutely mandatory for every elementalist. Why? Because it’s a giant area of effect that blocks all incoming projectiles, INCLUDING TREBUCHET HITS. 2/3 eles with coordination can completely mitigate all incoming damage from a trebuchet, if you’re in WvW and you don’t have a focus in your inventory or equipped, you’re wrong.

Other than that it’s still incredibly useful for dungeons. Use it to stop harpies knockback from downing you repeatedly, use it to stop attacks from siege in ascalon, use it when people are trying to hit you with projectiles really.

Air 5 : Single target knockback. Not terrible, not great. It will save you many times over. Use it to interrupt, use it to just buy some time.

Earth 4 : Now we’re getting to the really great abilities. Earth abilities alone justifies a focus. Magnetic wave. It gives you 3 seconds of reflection, it does damage to nearby enemies, and it cures 3 conditions. This ability is, quite simply, amazing.

Earth 5 : 4 seconds of complete invincibility. The only thing that can hit you through this is, I believe, agony. For everything else, you take no damage. 4 seconds of invincibility is huge and unlike mist form, you’re free to use all of your abilities.

The focus is severely underrated and I think a lot of people should really give it a shot.

Edit:

I mostly use it in dungeons. Actually that’s a lie. I only use it in dungeons. Elsewhere I would rather use an offhand dagger. It’s not very good elsewhere, but in dungeons it is king.

Usually my weapon layout is:

WvW : D/D. Staff when sieging/defending structures. Focus for blocking trebs.

sPvP : D/D all the way

Dynamic events : D/D usually, S/D for a couple

Dungeons : S/F all day every day.

leprekan.7248:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

People think that if they can’t get their legendary weapons RIGHT NOW then something is wrong. The idea of a long-term goal baffles most people in MMOs.

You sir seriously need help with reading comprehension. I have almost 1,300 HOURS logged in my pursuit of this item. How is that “RIGHT NOW”?

The issue is the rate that Dusk is rising out paces my ability to generate gold courtesy of DR. Anet is in direct control of that with their DR. To make it worse they SELL GOLD while crippling the ability of people to EARN it through game play. That is what most would call UNETHICAL.

While you are no doubt entitled to your opinion please consider that you are not omnipotent.

Cause I’m sure every hour of that was spent chasing a legendary.

How is it not a fix? How is removing a reliance on RNG not fix a problem of relying on RNG?

People think that if they can’t get their legendary weapons RIGHT NOW then something is wrong. The idea of a long-term goal baffles most people in MMOs.

Do you really think it’s easier to find a group for something like 17 than a group for 1/2/3?

Currently for:

Level 1 : 4 posting on gw2lfg

One that’s not even 10 minutes old looking for 2 members.

Level 23 : nothing

No LFM, no LFG, absolutely nothing.

leprekan.7248:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Sargon.2608:

Well it is really simple, A-Net want us to use the cashshop. Why do yhou think it is so difficult to make any gold ?

Except it’s not. That’s the entire point of this thread.

Feel free to send me 3 Dusk’s then (1 for me and 1 for two others in guild stuck on getting the precursor part). Please do not insult yourself with the “you don’t have to get a legendary” line … nobody has to get anything in a video game.

Sadly, thousands disagree with you on the ease of making gold in this tightly managed (DR FARMCODED NERFED) game. The bare minimum to get by sure but if you want to get Cultural or a Legendary then it is Anet steering you to the gem store. That is 1,200 + hours of TRYING to generate enough to get Dusk speaking.

Legendary’s are not meant to be obtained in a matter of weeks.

If you follow my advice then you can get a precursor in a couple of months.

Sargon.2608:

Well it is really simple, A-Net want us to use the cashshop. Why do yhou think it is so difficult to make any gold ?

Except it’s not. That’s the entire point of this thread.

I fail to see your point. If someone wants to do something a lot, then let them. You aren’t required to do 250 fractals for anything. It’s no different than anyone putting in a lot of WvW or spvp hours.

I see parties being made for level 1/2 more than any other level, except for 10.

People like to overexaggerate everything. If you listen to people on these forums about everything then every single fractal will have someone raging, 2 people disconnect, and every fractal bugging.

Are there any D/D eles that use signet of air?

Exotic armor is, for right now, the best armor you can get. So what game are you talking about where $15 can buy you a full set of the best gear in game?

Thanks for posting this.

In what game can $15 buy you full end-game gear?

And you think gold will increase sevenfold? It’ll go up but.. you need to get real.

Why wouldn’t they skip mobs?

The “trash” mobs aren’t very “trashy.” For something that would be considered “trash” they have a lot of health and can take a while to go down. Not to mention there’s a lot of them, and the rewards for killing them are fairly pitiful, their loot tables, quite frankly, suck.

Quite frankly, there’s no advantage to killing them instead of skipping them whenever skipping them is an option. Killing them takes much longer and doesn’t reward you.

250 ectos is for the back, that recipe is still there and still the only way to upgrade a back piece.

Budchgon.2108:

Good advice, sadly Fractals seems to be full of the worst type of players that are found in all mmo’s . If you do not know how to do each fractal exctly how it should be done for the fastest completion (mob skipping), or you ‘die’, or ask a question about what to do – you’ll be opening yourself upto a childish torrent of ‘omgnoob/ltp’ from the so called experts.

If you run fractals, make sure it is with a group of friends/guild not a pug!

Give it a rest.

There’s people who do that in all aspects of all games, you learn to ignore them.

Furthermore you’re hugely exaggerating how often that happens. I’m stitting at 77/100 for fractal frequenter and I’ve one seen one person like that.

Furthermore if you don’t know how to do fractals then you’re most likely at level 1/2/3 which means these “experts” are already higher levels.

So I’ve noticed that this is a fairly frequently discussed topic on these forums, how to make gold.

So I’ve though I would post my thoughts on the matter and possibly help out a few people with it.

So what would I know? Well I’ve made a fairly decent amount of gold playing Guild Wars 2. I’m not megarich, I don’t have a bank full of precursors. But I have been able to buy the items that I want, I’ve purchased a triforge pendant which cost me about 80 to 85 gold. An ascended back which cost me about 40 gold in materials. I’ve got full exotics and my gear is almost ideal, I’m just lacking a second ascended ring.

So, here’s a few things that should make it easier for you to to keep some spare gold in your inventory, and buy the things you want.

First off, a few general tips about gold.

If there’s another way to get it than buying it, that’s reasonable, get it that way

The main thing that comes to mind here is exotic armor. I see a lot of people who shell out 3 to 6 and even more for just one piece of exotic gear. Or craft it using very expensive materials. Note that even if you don’t buy the materials and farm them yourself, anything you use to craft is something that could have been sold, so yes you are spending gold to craft something, potential gold.

Instead there are many other ways to get it. Farming dungeons gives you better looking skins, and will actually give you money rather than costing money. If you have karma saved up, you can buy a piece of gear for 42k karma in Orr. WvW badges are another way (though Invaders gear is HIDEOUS)

Instead of spending 50 gold on 250 tier 6 mats, 50 ectos on an ascended back, you can get the 1850 relics for the prototype back. It sounds like a lot but if you do a level 8 and a level 10 once a day then you’ll be able to get 100 relics a day.

If there’s an alternative to acquiring something other than buying it, and that method is reasonable, you should do it.

You have to actually go and play the game

This is self explanatory really. You won’t get gold from sitting around in Lion’s Arch talking with the trolls that frequent map chat there. You won’t get anything from posting on the forums about how it’s a conspiracy from Anet to force you into buying gems.

Luxury items are just that, luxury items

You don’t HAVE to have that new mini pet. You don’t have to have those town clothes. You don’t need a permanent bank access item, you don’t have to have an abyss dye. Items that are considered cosmetics, or luxury items, or whatever, are not necessary. You don’t have to increase your bank space or add another bag slot for your inventory.

Now for how to best gain gold:

Dungeons

Say you need your exotics. Instead of buying, you farm dungeons. You get tokens and also get gold. How? Well rares/exotics can drop during dungeons making you some good money. Chests can give crystals/lodestones that are worth a lot of gold.

Bosses drop 10 silver now. With Omnomberry bar you make that 14 silver, per boss. At level 80 you get 26 silver from the completion reward. With an AC path 1 run you kill spider boss, kohler, and howling king for 14 silver each (42 silver) and then get 26 silver for completion. That’s 68 silver from coin drops and completion alone. It’s common to get at least 1 gold per AC run.

Dynamic events

You mainly want multi-stage events that spawn waves of mobs. The event to open Arah is probably the best. With a full magic find set equipped I would start out by gathering 2-3 scrap metals, turning them in and then running off to crusader angaria’s event. That event itself is bugged, so for 5 minutes you’ll just continually deal with waves of risen that you can AOE down and get great drops from. Then you run up to the promenade and deal with the giant. Afterwards you have to control another area that features a LOT of mobs that run down the steps in a giant group that you can just AOE to death and get great drops from. I don’t do this anymore but back when I did I would get around 2-3 gold in an hour.

Fractals

Fractals have become my new best way of obtaining gold. The drops there are great and you’ll usually get at least 1 gold per run, and that’s a bad run. Yes sometimes you’ll get nothing but some green items. But most runs I come out making some great coin. Over the last few days I’ve gotten about 15 gold and 50 ectos running fractals. Charged cores selling for 1 gold 30 silver, lodestones that can go from 1 gold to 3 gold (unless it’s a glacial, those are very cheap unfortunately.) Cores, lodestones, rares drop like candy there. Exotics aren’t unheard of either.

Do you want valuable things and 20+ gold on hand? Just follow these simple tips and you’ll get it no problem. I have never played the trading post, exploited, etc.

KratosAngel.7289:

Yeah it’s 1 tactic.
Another is, depending on your group, focus the bubble while being in melee range and have guardians pop block projectiles barriers, mesmers with feedback, eles with #4 with scepter while attuned to air etc …
In other words, focus bubble while protecting your party and then kill larvas.
This boss becomes incredibly easy with a guardian doing this anti projectiles barrier and then pulling all mobs at the same place

Scepter doesn’t have a #4

I think you’re referring to the focus.

Which I doubt your ele will have. I’ve run with a lot of eles and have never seen an ele besides myself use a focus in a dungeon.

Guardian

Guardian

Guardian

Also Guardian

Death Reincarnated.3570:

There are many players who are confound to one dungeon (FotM) because of the new content – this was pointed out by ANet to be a “bad decision”.

However, it seems to me that many people are complaining about Ascended gear, YET, most do FotM to get it.

Why do something you hate? No one is forcing you to do it…

This is such an oxymoron.

To stay competitive…. people don’t like it because you’re forced into it.

I’m wondering when we’ll be able to do fractals with people from another server without having to be able to get onto an overflow server.

When it gets to the time of day where populations are low then it becomes difficult to get onto an overflow server and that can essentially shut down fractals for anything except the most commonly done ones.

The fractals themselves are good. I find them very challenging and rewarding.

The issues people have with them are that they brought vertical progression to the game. Ever since the start it’s been assumed that exotics were as good as it gets, best of the best. Then they added ascended gear that is significantly stronger compared to exotics.

So people aren’t thrilled about a new tier for gear.

Then there’s the RNG element. Pretty much everything you would want from fractals is dropped by RNG. Want to make a back piece? RNG to get a vial. Want to infuse it? You need either 5 vials or a glob, RNG. Fractal weapons? RNG. Ascended rings? Once a day you can do a level 10 daily for a chance to get a ring, and if you DO get a ring, you have to hope it’s the one with the stats you want cause if not then you have to either use a ring with undesirable stats, or stick with your exotics until you get a new ascended ring. I know people who have done the level 10 daily 12+ times without getting any rings, meanwhile I’ve gotten 2 rings in 3 tries.

The issue that if someone disconnects during the dungeon, they don’t get to rejoin the party.

Finding a group for a specific fractal level can be very difficult, I’m on 13 right now and it’s been fairly tough finding a group.

The grind. If you want an ascended back there are two ways to get one. One requires farming 1850 fractal relics. Best way to farm them is to get to higher levels of course. 1850 relics is a LOT of fractal runs. The other way is with 250 tier 6 mats, 50 ectos, and a vial. 250 tier 6 mats and 50 ectos is a significant amount of gold. Some of the backs can even get to 60+ gold.

I dunno about CD, but tarnished coast has a significant numbers advantage over us at least 85-90% of the time.

Furienify.5738:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

I figured TC would have a bit more class.

I needed a couple events for my daily so I head into TC borderlands which is pretty much empty. I intercept a dolyak and kill it, one event down. Kill a sentry, another down.

At this time a random warrior decided he wanted to fight me, fair enough. I kite a bit to get my health up and he goes down fairly quickly. As I just finish stomping him, a thief decides to join in. Once again I kite him a bit to get my health up, and he goes down fairly quickly. At this point a group of somewhere between 10 and 15 decides they were going to fight. They eventually kill me but not until after I get a kill of my own.

As I finally go down I’m treated to a nice bit of /laugh from TC. After killing 3 and eventually being taken down by 10 people.

Stay classy.

Let me guess. It was a Thief with the [TSP] tag, right? He’s been /laughing whenever our zerg rolls over smaller numbers all through the CDBL and TCBL fights. I don’t think many of us like him all that much, either.

Edit: Hey, CD, d’you guys still have that Naughty Ninja Squad [Poo] around?

Dunno if it was a thief but it was a TSP tag.

Populations are down, this is obvious wherever you go.

Breakout event isn’t PvE……

I figured TC would have a bit more class.

I needed a couple events for my daily so I head into TC borderlands which is pretty much empty. I intercept a dolyak and kill it, one event down. Kill a sentry, another down.

At this time a random warrior decided he wanted to fight me, fair enough. I kite a bit to get my health up and he goes down fairly quickly. As I just finish stomping him, a thief decides to join in. Once again I kite him a bit to get my health up, and he goes down fairly quickly. At this point a group of somewhere between 10 and 15 decides they were going to fight. They eventually kill me but not until after I get a kill of my own.

As I finally go down I’m treated to a nice bit of /laugh from TC. After killing 3 and eventually being taken down by 10 people.

Stay classy.

Just checked.

Fort aspenwood.

Everything except Lion’s Arch is empty.

Everything that can be contested is contested. (especially dungeon entrances)

Outmanned buff in every map in WvW.

And yet, somehow, we’re “full”

If it’s red it’s dead. I have no intentions of handing free siege over to other servers and would expect them to do the same. I will kill any invaders I see in the jumping puzzles.

what? Why?

That makes no sense, especially since it’s so easy to max a crafting level.

If that were the case people would just buy materials on the trading post, craft stuff with them, and then sell the items.

Then there would be no reason to get the back pieces or rings. Or anything except ascended armor/weapons.

And the armor/weapons would have to look pretty damn fancy to justify the increased cost/effort.

Not a huge deal, very few people will ever get anything more than the simple +5 agony resist infusion. Paying 20 gold for 5 stat points is a little crazy.

Tam Xi Meng.5846:

There is a website called gw2lfg.com which is very convenient. You don’t need to subscribe/log in. You just post your character name and what you are looking for and here you have a group within a few seconds.

Reading must be hard.

Medazolam.3058:

If you guild wont help you, time to find a more helpful guild. The guild I am in always goes out of their way to help me and in turn I help the new people.

That’s not the point. I shouldn’t be relying on people who gain nothing from it to do a fractal level for no other reason than to help me.

People still farm karma? I’ve bought a full set of the karma gear for my thief, a few pieces for myself and still have more karma than I know what to do with.

I’m in a guild with almost 400 members.