Guild Wars 2

Tarsius.3170:

• Shield of the Avenger skill: No longer destroys unblockable projectiles.

I assume this means it no longer works on Old Tom in the Uncategorized Fractal?

There is something else going on. I have the same issue with my guardian. I pop my shouts and still have it on me.

Silver.4798:

Again with the GS/sceptor/focus!! What is it about this weaponset thats so burst DPS synergistic I don’t see it, its driving me nuts!

Sceptor/Focus is basically the best ranged DPS weapon you have. Guardians have iether Melee, 600, 1200 ranged options. Staff is nice, but only 600 range is kind of limiting. The Sceptor is one of the highest DPS weapons for PvE and Focus provides a blink(#4) and damage mitigation(#5)

Also, for Flame Shaman Fractal, #2 is a nice ability, as it hits 15 times to take down the bubble. 2 Guardians can basically take it down without any help.

Silver.4798:

@ Xystus, I’m not trying to criticize anything you said, just making observations and asking for clarifications:

That’s a pretty heavy DPS build, I’m pretty worried about survivability when running this kind of build. Even if you go balls to the wall you cannot DPS a boss down in high level fractals or in Arah in 30s survivability is defn a big factor. Getting 2 or 3 shot is not fun, you do 0 damage when dead and become a burden on the team if they have to constantly rez you. Further, classes like thieves and warriors have, I feel, more potential for the DPS whereas guards seem to have a lot more ways of mitigating damage and provide support, while still doing a healthy (but not massive) DPS. I never tried this DPS heavy build but my gut instinct tells me that going this heavy in DPS I’d be playing a warrior with guard skills…

The caveat to everything I just said above is that maybe you have plenty of survivability with that build as it is. If that is the case, please explain how it works because the way I see it, for sure you will have to take several hard hits. I’m not sure how you will have enough blocks/heals/blinds/dodges to mitigate a hard hit.

Also you mentioned that condi aren’t an issue but the only condi cleanser I see are pure of voice and the passive trait. Is this generally enough to get by?

None taken. With this build I have done up to level 38 fractals and have completed every dungeon in game; includes P4 Arah.

The survivability comes from a lot of the passives with the traiting and damage mitigation.

Just from the traits, you gain +300 toughness and Vitality. When talking surviving, its more about mitigating damage and absorbing it. Its all about what you can do to keep Aegis up, dodging and throwing heals.

For that, you have Virtue of Courage, applied every 40 seconds or on use.
Valorous Defense Gain aegis when your health reaches 50%
Shelter gives you 2 seconds of block.
Renewed Focus gives you a few seconds of invuln, plus refreshes your virtues, including Courage.

Next you have dodging. When you dodge a few things happen:
Selfless Daring The end of your dodge roll heals nearby allies; which I believe includes you.
Vigorous Precision Gain 5 seconds of vigor when you deliver a critical hit. This effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds; you can keep up vigor which is endurance regen

Still, you now have boons: lots of protection/regen options.
Inspired Virtue Virtues now also apply the following boons: Justice: might, Resolve: regeneration, Courage: protection

Resolve and Courage add survivability alongside Stand Your Ground and Hold the Line.

These two traits are huge:
Pure of Voice Allies affected by shouts convert one condition to a boon
Altruistic Healing Applying a boon to allies heals you

Basically, every time you shout, you clean conditions and apply boons. Applying boons heals you. Also, because of Inspired Virtue, that throws out boons too! Its even more healing.

Basically, you have your heal spell, 3 virtues and 3 shouts that all give healing. Plus other weapon skills, that gives boons too. Like Wrath gives retaliation; that boon heals you.

Now, on certain fights, its necessary to pull out Wall of Reflection or Shield of the Avenger. By doing this, you add the ability to absorb/reflect damage.

When it comes down to it, this is how you mitigate damage:
1) Dodge
2) Block
3) Boons to buff/heal/cleanse

First of all, I don’t want to sound elitist and say “you must play this way”. These are my observations to how the game works and how I play.

1) Gameplay
There is no trinity(Tank/DPS/Healer). We are essentially all DPS. Most boss mobs hit hard to begin with. Dodging is your best defense. Ideally, you would go with whatever gives you the best DPS. Why make a fight last 3 minutes where you have to do a lot of dodging, when you can make it last 30 seconds?

(stole from my other post, talking about “trade spaces” for dps/surive)
The first place to look at is your Traits. Most classes can trait survivability, while not completely losing dps. Examples from a guardian:
Retributive Armor: 5% of toughness is given as a bonus to precision.
Empowering Might: Nearby allies gain might (5 seconds) when you land a critical hit.

Second is armor. For a guardian, we have a ton of ways to cleanse. So conditions shouldn’t be an issue. Therefore, if giving up DPS, go for toughness(Knights) gear. Reduce the overall damage as much as possibly (while giving yourself more % to crit).

Third is weapons, forth is the jewelry. I would recommend running full zerker here for 99% of pve.

2) Weapons
Greatsword is your best DPS friend. Hammer is great for control. I mostly use GS in PVE, while GS in PvP/WvW. Both are good.
While staff is GREAT, I find myself these days relying on Scepter/Focus for my combo in PvE.

3) Sigils
I primarily run Fire on my GS. At 45% base to crit and with buffs, I throw out that fire almost every swing it can proc. For the Scepter/Focus I do Fire/Force(5% damage).

4) Armor
Knights is a good set to start with. Think about getting a Beserker set too. You may find yourself wanting the extra DPS as you get better with mitigating damage.

5) Runes
On the cheap: exquisite jewels.
Otherwise, there are many options. I’m playing a boon duration build (link at the very bottom). Basically its 2x Major Monk, 2x Superior Monk, 2x Superior Water. Retaliation stays up for freaking ever. Getting close to 20 seconds of Fury is also nice. Might stays up a whole lot longer.
Other options can include Eagle(Pre/Crit), Scholor(Str/Crit), Divinity(Stats/Crit)*

*While I generally don’t like the idea of stat splitting on trinkets/jewelry, here divinity is good because of the 12+ to crit. But it is so expensive. My second set of Beserker I carry is Divinity runed.

I carry a Beserker(Boon), Beserker(Divinity) and Knights(Boon)

6) Jewelry
I would focus on Beserker; as the majority of your DPS stats will come from here. I dislike the stat splitting (all stats) here, as it cuts into DPS while only granting very marginal survivability.

7) skills
Shelter, just about all around best heal. 2seconds of damage mitigation and a heal. Can’t beat it. All the others react to damage that already hit you. If it hit you and you died, welp better luck next time. This can mitigate damage! Plus stack might. Its fun going against mobs that have channeled spells. In those two seconds you can generate a full 25 might stack.

Keep the shouts; only change Retreat with Hold the Line when you need to. Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger are good too, but situational. I normally run full shout.

8) Food
Sharpening Stones + DPS food (boon duration, crit chance, etc…)

9) My build
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h17|b.1g.h17.d.1g.h2|1g.b1g.1g.b1g.1g.71g.1g.71g.1g.71h.1g.71h|2s.d14.2s.d14.3s.d1e.2s.d14.3s.d1e.2s.d14|0.0.u56b.u28b.a0|1.1|w.19.18.16.0|e

I always tell people about the “trade spaces” for dps/survivability.

The first place to look at is your Traits. Most classes can trait survivability, while not completely losing dps. Examples from a guardian:
Retributive Armor: 5% of toughness is given as a bonus to precision.
Empowering Might: Nearby allies gain might (5 seconds) when you land a critical hit.

Second is armor. For a guardian, we have a ton of ways to cleanse. So conditions shouldn’t be an issue. Therefore, if giving up DPS, go for toughness(Knights) gear. Reduce the overall damage as much as possibly (while giving yourself more % to crit).

Third is weapons, forth is the jewelry. I would recommend running full zerker here for 99% of pve.

I run a 0/0/30/30/10 AH/PoV build with full zerker gear. So far I have done level 38 fractals with no issues other than poor play on my part when it does happen.

Shelter, hands down. ~2 seconds of blocking + a heal

It’s more about mitigating damage, rather than reacting too damage. That 2 seconds of blocking can do so much more for you than any of the other heals.

Looks like some networking issues if I am reading correctly. Lots of 70% packets lost.

Route for [GW2 Auth Gate:US/EU] (64.25.38.51)
——————————————————————-

• pathping.exe -w 500 -q 100 -4 64.25.38.51 <--*

Tracing route to 64.25.38.51 over a maximum of 30 hops

0 pc-Anonymous [192.168.1.5]
1 READYSHARE [192.168.1.1]
2 192.168.2.254
3 * * *
Computing statistics for 50 seconds…
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 pc-Anonymous [192.168.1.5]
3/ 100 = 3% |
1 3ms 3/ 100 = 3% 0/ 100 = 0% READYSHARE [192.168.1.1]
67/ 100 = 67% |
2 5ms 70/ 100 = 70% 0/ 100 = 0% 192.168.2.254

AR = Agony Resistance. This allows you to mitigate Agony damage and has no “level” or effects on your personal rewards.

It seems you are at a personal reward level of 8. Therefore, you get the max daily reward a level 8 would get. Which is only 1 daily per day and it would be a sub level 10 daily reward.

Once you hit level 10+, you can get 2 dailies. 1-9, 10-19. Once you hit 20+, you get 3 dailies, 1-9,10-10, and 20-29. And so on…

Which one are you trying to get?

Wolfheart.1938:

42 here, avoiding glitches or players that want to glitch all the time.

Dredges do give me a really hard time though, I’m a freaking tanky guardian using everything I have to survive and they always kill me 3 seconds in when standing on the freaking buttons.

Best way to do it, once inside do not hit the plates and clear one side. Two people kite, and the other get the buttons. You shouldn’t have issues dying on the buttons.

FakeyC.4518:

• Underground Facility:
  – Normal dredge at Rabsovich (Champion) now reset if you try to pull them out of room.

Tried doing this at difficulty 20. It makes this dungeon unbearable. You’re confined to a small room with over 50% ranged mobs that are immune to blind! Only way is to sloooowly grind the reinforcements by doing hit and runs in and out of the room. People already skipped this because of the length. So devs decided to make it even LONGER. WHAT THE HECK.

Its pretty easy to pull the boss and take him down first, then just destroy the trash afterwards. Overall, I still feel this encounter takes to much time.

Tough choice.
Here is something to remember. Asus makes all of Dell’s stuff. So when thinking about durability, Asus/Dell have the same tract record.

I would look at the specs of the cards compared to eachother. I run a 675 2gb on my system and it works out just fine.

I think I would choose the Lenovo over the ASUS with what is listed. But would be nice to see someone who had more experience with the 750 cards list their thoughts.

LordByron.8369:

matbe because mesmer is the most overrated PvE professions?

Also PvE is not THAT deep as some players claim it to be…

Its really the opposite…
The game difficulty is based around increasing damage and stats…..
Arriving to a point that makes damage so high that it ignore all defense….

Then its all about DPS

This is so true in my playing of the game. More DPS = shorter encounters & less defense needed. I’ve been trying to get that into the heads of my friends/guildies and so far have been unsuccessful.

Why gear defensively for a boss that requires you to do a lot of dodging and damage mitigation when you can gear beserker and take him down in 20 seconds?

Xuro.5861:

Trelonist.3879:

Xuro, omgosh. You must be a super duper awesome player. I’m so jealous!! girlycutesyface (O_o) I am not sure what you are trying to tell us. Are we so stupid and incompetent? Are you so awesome and wise? Ultimately it really doesn’t matter because the game should address the both of us. (brought to a more general level. The entire group of players is not consistently made of hardcore, super talented and experienced players and at least imho a game should cater to all of its players).

That is your biggest mistake, assuming this content was meant for everyone. Explorable Mode was meant for the raid orientated people, meaning only organised parties. The fact that we can PUG it so easily at the moment actually means it’s not hard enough currently.

Improve your skill and you will see how easy the dungeons really are. Nobody is to blame for your nearly failure in the dungeon except yourself and your team.

The encounters are all pretty much balanced. Some minor bugs here and there, aside. But overall, it requires learning the dungeon. I pug 99% of all dungeons I do; mostly using www.gw2lfg.com . The vast majority are completed within 30 minutes.

The only thing I can recommend is reading the wiki and other sites on the encounters and class forums to get ideas on how to improve your abilities.

elpeter,

From my days, long since past, of doing a TON of pc tech support;

Exception: c0000005
Memory at address 00000014 could not be read

c0000005 I think means memory cannot be accessed. Usually low number reference video card. I’m not sure what the preferred video card mem test is theses day.

Maybe take a look at this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/160729-nvidia-amd-video-card-test-occt.html

You’re download speed doesn’t really matter all that much in gaming. Usually the upload is the limiting factor.

As for testing speed; many sites use accelerators, which tend to give incorrect results. I prefer using “http://www.testmy.net”, select “Upload Test” and choose 33MB file.

While you have your game open, switch to windowed mode. Open a command prompt and type in “netstat”. This will bring up a bunch of connects. A few of these should be the connections to Anet’s servers. Should be several IPs that doesn’t have http or https associated with it. Then use http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup to see who the IP belongs to. Should be NCSoft Corp. In that same command window, do a “tracert ipaddress” and see if anything long the way times out or the ms jump real high.

It should start timing out once you get inside their network. So if you start setting the same first two octets, then you know you go to their site.

I do not believe Dagger/Dagger with Berserker gear is the true issue. Most likely either not knowing the encounter, not caring to know the encounter or just all around “baddie”.

With that said , I am only FOTM 6 on my thief , I plan on keeping my 0/30/25/15/0 build for fractals running full berserker. However, I do have a Valkyrie and Knight set kept in my backpack. That way I can test/swap in pieces.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1g.h17.a.1g.h2|5.1g.h1b|1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j.1g.71j|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8g.67|0.u6ab.p15.f2.0|39.1|57.5g.5a.5b.0|e

I choose the Signet of Agility over the other signets. Mainly because it refills my endurance and removes a condition. Having the ability to dodge 6 times in a row is nice.
Both Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder will stealth you and allies near you; which can hel kitten ticky situations. Shadow Refuge also provides “Combo Field: Dark”; when using the Short Bow inside, I gain Life Steal. If my health is low and my heal is on cool down; I dodge out, drop Refuge and plink away with the Short Bow to gain health.
D/P is neat concept. Black Powder(Combo Field: Smoke) + Heartseeker(Combo Finisher: Leap) = Combo Stealth
Then I follow up with a Back Stab.

For the Adept Trait in Critical Strikes, I constantly go between “Practiced Tolerance 5% of precision is converted into vitality” and “Side Strike +7% chance to critical hit when hitting a foe from behind or the side”; depending on whether I am going to be in a kiting fight (Dredge Fractal boss) or actually being able to stand behind the enemy.

Strength on the SB seems odd to some. But testing, I can pretty much keep up 10+ stacks of might with the bow out. I have a second bow slotted with Fire, just in case.

This is my guardian now:

0/0/30/30/10 AH/PoV
I run full beserker(have one set of divinity runed and one of boon duration 2MajMonk/2SupMonk/2SupWater) I use a GS with Sup Fire and my secondary changes. I mostly use a Septer/Focus with Fire/Force.

Done up to level 20 fractal (not high level, I know) and don’t have any issues staying alive or doing good dps.

Please run the Game Advisor:
To run Game Advisor:

Download Game Advisor from here: http://us.ncsoft.com/gameadvisor
Double click “Game Advisor.exe” to start the application.
Once started, click the icon for the game you wish to test. For Guild Wars 2, please use the Guild Wars button.
Once selected, click “Test Computer and Connection.”

Attach that and your ArenaNet.log file to your reply. ArenaNet.log can be found under Documents>Guild Wars 2 folder

Sounds like your ALT key is getting stuck somehow. alt+f4 will shut applications down.

I would just rebind the F1-F4 keys to something that is easier to work with; not because of the issue, just because F1-F4 keys take your fingers away from WASD for to long.

First of all, I see you have 4 gigs, but only 32 bit windows. 32bit windows cannot address the whole 4 gigs. So you are actually at 3.25gb of ram.

The good thing is: as long as you have a 64bit dvd to use, your Windows code will work. They don’t care about 32 vs 64bits.

I can’t say this will fix it, but I would suggest performing a clean install of your PC with 64-bit windows, making sure all drivers are up to date.

Also, try using the command line argument “-useOldFov” if you do not have a widescreen monitor.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line

It could help to know more about your setup. Could you run the following and post the output as an attachment.

To run Game Advisor:
Download Game Advisor from here: http://us.ncsoft.com/gameadvisor
Double click “Game Advisor.exe” to start the application.
Once started, click the icon for the game you wish to test. For Guild Wars 2, please use the Guild Wars button.
Once selected, click “Test Computer and Connection.”

What have you tried so far?

If you haven’t done anything, please try the following:

1) Delete the File ’Documents\Guild Wars 2\local.dat"
2) Start the game with the -repair option
3) Start the game with the -image option (unconfirmed, supposed to download all updates).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments

Kurt.9230:

Xystus.3241:

When I install nVidia drives, I always choose the “custom” install, and check the “clean install” box. I am running 314.22 on a mobile 675. You may want to give that a shot.

Also, you can delete your local.dat under “My documents\guild wars 2” folder. If that fails too, run the game with the -repair option.

Thanks for your comment. But I’ve tried “clean install” and also do repairing with “-repair” option. It still crashes even I set graphic settings to lowest level.

By the way, I’m using Geforce GTX 470 with latest driver.

Well kitten Can you post your ArenaNet.log file, located in Guild Wars 2 folder under your documents folder?

elpeter,

Looking at your crash report, I’m suspecting it is bad memory in your system.
I would suggestion running a memory test.

Here is one way that should work on Windows 7: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/715-memory-diagnostics-tool.html

There are other ways to do a memory test as well.

Could you attach the error report. It should be located on: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Guild Wars 2\ArenaNet.log and run a dxdiag and post that as well.

When I install nVidia drives, I always choose the “custom” install, and check the “clean install” box. I am running 314.22 on a mobile 675. You may want to give that a shot.

Also, you can delete your local.dat under “My documents\guild wars 2” folder. If that fails too, run the game with the -repair option.

Goto https://www.gw2lfg.com

Also,

Make sure the Awesomiumprocess.exe(or something like that) is running.

Retsuko.2035:

Xystus.3241:

The common thing across this thread seems to be the 7770 series cards, correct?
For most, it started recently and one of the latest patches? Was it the March patch, or one of the march patch fixes?

This could have something to do with the CULLING code changes. Which may require more card resources; who knows bringing a issue with the card to light.

I wouldn’t be surprised since i seen it happen the most when i’m shortly in LA around the mystic forge area. And thus the card somehow can’t handle big numbers of people?

Retsuko.2035,

That is what I am thinking. The CULLING code is supposed to work in WvW. However, it probably is still effecting PvE, just the options to increase number of characters is limited to the initial value. The same code is most likely being run, no matter where you are.

Now, we need to determine if the game itself cannot run on the 7770’s or there maybe a defect the game is bringing to light.

A similar event happened to be during a World of Warcraft patch a few years ago. Everything was running fine, until after a patched and they made some graphics changes. My computer was BSOD constantly in-game. The BSOD was referring to my video RAM and I could run other games just fine.
It ended up being faulty memory on the card; that for whatever reason that update found an issue. Luckily at the time, a friend had a spare card and he gave me and everything was fine again.
Last year, ASUS had a bad run of mobile nVidia 580 cards and they were dying left and right in laptops. I had to send two laptops back for full refunds. I ended up waiting until the 675s came out and got a new laptop with one of those.

mtf.6371:

Hey everyone. I have been playing this game since launch but beginning a few days ago every time I log in I get terrible lag. Nothing has changed with my computer/internet and all of my other online games/services work fine. The game loads fine and I have no trouble logging in. It runs smoothly but when I use a skill it just does nothing for 10 seconds before finally I see the animation, and it takes a few minutes for the online members of my guild/friend to register. Any idea what could be going on? Thanks!

You mean you didn’t change ISP; doesn’t mean something isn’t wrong between you and the GW2 server. It all depends on how your ISP routes your traffic.

An example: I was playing WoW and my server was in LA. My ISP was routing my traffic through Chicago. Between my town and Chicago was a bad link. However, my other games worked fine; because those servers were East Coast and I was being routed through Pittsburgh.

The Guild Wars 2 servers are in Texas; if memory serves me correctly. Its completely feasible that only GW2 seems to be effected and no other games.

Bring up a command window and type in “netstat” and then launch guild wars. See what new IP addresses appear. One of these is bound to be your server. Then try a “tracert IPADDRESS” and see if any issues appear.

It maybe the client, but I still wouldn’t rule out the card itself. Specifically if people are having the same issues.

The common thing across this thread seems to be the 7770 series cards, correct?
For most, it started recently and one of the latest patches? Was it the March patch, or one of the march patch fixes?

This could have something to do with the CULLING code changes. Which may require more card resources; who knows bringing a issue with the card to light.

From a game client standpoint; I would try the following. Under My Documents should be a “Guild Wars 2” folder. Inside is a file called “local.dat”. Delete that. Then start the game with the “-repair” option. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments
This should ensure the game client is in a non-corrupted state.

Also, install the latest drivers (non-beta) for the card.

The idea here is to remove as many variables as possible. If you can think of anything else to standardize on, it would be a good idea if all tried it.

Stormcrow.7513:

Laptops are not very good for playing video games unless you want to spend a lot of money.
i5 3570k with a good aftermarket cooler that will allow you to overclock is a good starting point.

I wouldn’t say that. I got an Asus GT50vt a several years back, on sale, for about $800 and that lasted me 3 years. It held up on everything until Battlefield 3 came around.

The big downside is not being able to upgrade it easily. Over time, a desktop will cost much less than a laptop. A rough estimate would be a laptop will cost 1.5x the $ as a desktop.

If you’re going beyond 3 traps constantly, I would look at what is going on. It maybe a gear/level thing; for me, he normally dies after 2 traps. Sometimes I need a 3rd.

Zavs.4985:

I agree this needs to be fixed. It’s worse when you’re new to a dungeon (especially fracs), you let the people you’re playing with know that you are indeed, new to the dungeon. Yet they still flame you/kick you. People need to learn. I’ve only been kicked once, but I’m sure it happens a lot. The guy attempting to explain was a tool, and the rest of the team weren’t exactly skilled. No-one brought a ranged attack for the Legendary Dredge suit, so it was all on me to deal ALL the dps.

TBH, I agree with a previous post. You should try to stick with Guildies for such gameplay, however it’s not always possible and you’ve gotta jump in with randomers.

I have never been in a group; agian, I’ve done a ton of pug instances and now Fractals. I have never been in a group where we kicked anyone for inexperience; as long as they were honest. If you say, “i’ve never done this before” or “last time we did this, it was a struggle, is there another way” I will always explain and help the player out.

With seeing how some things change at different stages of the fractals; I usually start out saying “I haven’t done this on this tier yet, anything I should know?”.

I have kicked people before who obviously didn’t know the fight and would constantly wipe us and remained silent.

mosspit.8936:

Maybe I can direct you to here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Arah-Vets-grouping-together-to-do-Arah-Runs/page/5#post1777898

I have gotten 2 invites from this thread including path 4. The teams were very helpful. Chill and competent. Even when things went wrong (npc bugged), they didnt mind trying again.

But then again 2 runs are hardly any guarantee that you might not get a negative experience. Doesn’t hurt to try.

I’ve done a few runs with them also. All have gone well.

I know in the NE of the united states, a lot of people (usually from the Boston area) have a pronunciation like that. Words that end in a “soft a” sound get an R at the end. eg) Idear, Cubar, etc…

I would recommend deleting your local.dat file found in Documents>Guild Wars 2, then starting the game with the -repair option. See if that solves the issue.

Except for a half a dozen dungeon runs (probably done well over 400), I have pugged everything else. I have never been kicked.

This isn’t meant to be an insult, but maybe you need to look at how you are coming across to others.

I solo’ed everything with absolutely no issues.

0/5/30/30/5 build; AH/PoV
Full Beserker gear

Soryuju.8164:

April Fool’s? I haven’t played today, but I can’t imagine this is real, considering AH heals for about 70 per tick, and the Sigil of Strength, EM’s sigil counterpart, has a 2s ICD. 10s ICD for both of them? I don’t think so.

BAH. I’ve been had!

I played yesterday and saw no internal cooldown. I was procing like mad with the staff skill.

I was using Superior Sigil of Strength for a while and didn’t find it helpful. I switch to Superior Sigil of Fire for extra AOE damage and am liking that better. Between the buffs I get and the crit I receive from gear, I would still choose fire of accuracy.

Good info and ideas for sPVP. I’ve been itch for a while now to try out my guardian and have been hesitant.

Same thing happened to me. I did a fractal level 6 (I was level 5). I am still level 5…

I agree with Feandro,

I normally run full beserker gear, traited 0/5/30/30/5. I have more than enough to keep me up.

Luciusbrimstone.7925:

—Ranged attacks, Scepter Guardians, Pistol Thieves, Rangers, Rifle Warriors, Thieves

This is a large category but mostly the problem here is ranged attacks. Ranged attacks are not ideal in almost every situation; ranged attacks do less damage and generally have less synergy with other players. Scepter guardians, Rifle Warriors, Pistol Thieves and Rangers are the largest offenders: these builds/weapons offer very little to group situations and strike me as either selfish (the character putting their well being above the groups), lazy, unskilled (can’t dodge effectively) or all of the above. When I see someone playing primarily with ranged attacks it sets off a red flag.

Rangers and Thieves, though… I’ve had a high amount (close to 90%) of bad experiences with people that play these classes. I’ve only seen one — one — ranger use one of their melee alternatives (I want to emphasize this: I’ve run about 6 paths daily since mid September. That’s a lot of dungeons and a lot of rangers). Often I don’t see a ranger contribute in any meaningful way to a group. For example, there is a healing field that rangers have: It’s incredible and I never see it. Why? I just don’t get it. As for thief, well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that has been specced towards anything close to support. When I say support I mean ANYTHING that assists the group aside from damage: really, just play warrior or something if that’s all you want to do. There isn’t a whole lot there, sure, but there are things and I never — literally never — have seen a thief build towards them or even have them on the side. So, when I see a thief, I have a mental red flag about the player.

I find it sad that you seem to have experienced bad thieves. However, the thief does not have a whole lot of “support” traits; compared to something as a guardian.

On my thief, I do play something a little different; maybe closer to PVP, but find is hell of fun in dungeons. Still, I try to offer any support I can give.

My main set is Dagger/Pistol + Short Bow.
The Dagger/Pistol gives me two blinds (Shadow Shot and Black Powder) and a Daze (Headshot). While not always effective on bosses; this does help mitigate damage at the melee range in many circumstances.

As for Utilities I primary use Signet of Agility (refills endurance and cures a condition of nearby allies) and Shadow Refuge. Shadow Refuge is rather nice, not because it stealths. I set it up quiet often to allow health regeneration. The physical projectiles through the field allows for Life Steal. My other utility will change based on situation. Mostly I run with Blinding Powder; but will most change to Smoke Screen for projectile reflection.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

You need the rune in your aqua breather as well. It’s not a bug.

That is correct.

When you go underwater you take off your helm and put on your breather. This same type of rules apply to weapon swapping.

You can buy a level 80 masterwork aqua breather in cursed shore.

Welp, just happened to me again. Because of all the server hoppers, I was booted to an overflow and lost out on the dragon.

I was running up the ramp after the spider queen in AC. I messed up my infiltrators arrow and ended up hitting a trap, only to panic and roll into another trap. I reached the top with “0” health. As I was letting my party know, you can live with 0 health, I get hit by a gargoyle flame.