Guild Wars 2

Yes you are right, I was wrong about Kohler. As I see it all the techniques on him are legit and I would not consider them exploits. I think it’s not fun, but it’s not an exploit.

Agent Belka (Arah p2 boss 1) is the right comparison.

Actually I am interested

I am interested because I want to train to solo lupicus, so any advice is welcomed.

I hear there is a guild that recruits players based on their lupicus solo … hm …

Well I have an other comparison instead of Kohler: the asura boss in Arah p2.

Let’s not talk about the exploit because that would be contrary to the forums rules and it would spoil the experience for many people.

I think on this encounter we can say that the exploiting technique has a drastically different concept and it is also out of the role-play frame.

I’m fine with “against a wall”

I’m not fine with “through the wall”

Edit: actually don’t quote me on that. I have seen this Kohler technique only once, so I could be wrong. I’ll try to find an other example less subject to debate.

Guys, the maths behind these calculations is not that hard.
It looks complicated only because Abraxax is being meticulous and aims for perfect accuracy, so that people can understand what he is talking about.

For Kohler, LoSing him is an obvious exploit. I don’t think there’s any debate on that. However, meleeing him is a technique that does not breach any of the two factors of the glitch check. It may be odd because of the poor design of the AI, but it is not an exploit.

For the mounds, yes there are several techniques, but all of them rely on exactly the same concepts.

The point is not to compare the efficiency of techniques, the point is to compare their concepts.

It’s … the secret PvE content. Namely lvl 70+ fractals. But shhhht, it’s secret!

That’s why, again, I asked you for the reasons why you disagree.

Just to be clear the reason why I believe we have to keep this possibility in mind is that there are not so many encounters with two very distinctive techniques involving such drastic differences in concepts. And those that do are not breaching the role-play frame of the game.

Kirschwasser.3972:

Where your explanation falls apart is that our original problem with your statement is that you said “we have to assume this is an exploit.”

That’s exactly what I did not say. I said, and I am repeating myself here (how hard is it to read the wall of texts that is two posts above), that we have to assume the possibility that it could be unintended.

It is possible, that’s all. The only thing that can disprove that is a dev expressing himself on the matter.

Okay okay okay, you guys need some handling. Let’s get to it!

There are not many encounters in this game where you can find a technique that drastically changes the concept of the encounter. In CoE the console can be done in two ways: continuously or by steps.
- Continuous way: you pass the hacking levels one by one, as fast as possible because for each level passed your life will be threatened more. So the rest of the group defends you by killing what they can, aggroing, and controlling the rest. It is therefore a defensive kind of event. It is a race against the clock.
- Step way: you pass multiple levels at once, after an initial step which allows a defender to be free to protect the multiple hackers in step two. This is done by killing everything in step one. Step one is offensive. After this step two is defensive, but so trivial that the event as a whole can be considered offensive. You have all the time you need during the event, and your life is at no point realistically threatened.
I hope by now the differences in concepts are clear.
The fact that there are two different concepts does not necessarily mean that one of them is a glitch. It could be very well intended that the devs allowed for such techniques to diverge and develop.

Howver, since we have two techniques with significant differences in their core concepts, it is possible to assume that maybe the second technique (the 1-4 stack-hacking) was not intended by the devs. This is merely a hypothesis.

The second technique fails to enter the role-play frame of the game. The reasons for this have been explained earlier in the thread so I will not repeat them here, but I would like to attract your attention to a detail: when the devs want the members of the group to do the same action at the same time they provide the role-play frame for it: many times you can find multiple consoles in the game conveniently placed so that each member involved has its own and no one needs to battle with the others’ shoulders to have access to a keyboard.

Therefore, until either a dev expresses himself on the matter or they fix the role-play factor of the second technique, the hypothesis that it was unintended gains strength.

Now lets use some comparisons. Let’s take a look at my good friend Kohler
(Edit 2: never mind Kohler, bad comparison, a good comparison is with the Asura boss in arah p2: Agent Belka)
There are two techniques to face Kohler: the obviously legitimate technique were you face him, and the exploit to LoS him. The exploit is clearly a change in concept since you only have to damage him, without worrying about avoiding his main attacks. Notice how the things you have to do to exploit him (not going to expand on that) are definitely out of the role-play frame.

It seems that there are some recurring facts common for this exploit in AC and the hypothesis of exploit in CoE. Now let’s see why these may exist.

It is possible that the devs can not, or do not want to fix these techniques (in terms of role-play fixing or exploit fixing, I am being general here) because they have other priorities. It will not come as a surprise to anybody here if I say that devs cannot spend time working on all the lacking aspects of the game at the same time. The reason why such fix may be low on the dev’s order of importance is because of the community. They know that fixing the possibility of doing the 1-4 stack-hacking will make the encounter harder or longer for most groups. This would therefore foster some resentment among the community. And in turn the devs would have to redesign the encounter. This is not a one-off: remember what happened to CoF p2! The defensive event was considered too difficult by the community at large, people used exploits, the devs fixed the exploits, people complained, the devs redesigned the encounter. On a side note, I really loved the encounter before the redesign.

We have explained why the devs may lead some unintended bits in the game. We have explained how these bits may be unintended. While the stack-hacking technique may or may not be intended, until the devs address it in one way or an other, we have reasons to believe it is a glitch.

_

Edit: Gliiiiiitch!! I am an Asura I can see the glitches. I hate glitches, they annoy me, they hurt me under my skin… If you use glitches you hurt me. You wouldn’t want to hurt a poor little cute and friendly Asura like me, would you? I mean, what kind of inferior race would do that!? Know your place, subject.

Ok let’s take a look at what I said:

I would like to agree, but we have to assume that maybe it is not what the developers intended and that they just cannot or do not want to fix it for the time being, because they have their own priority list. Hence the second factor.

Now let’s see what we can understand from that:

we have to assume that maybe
Expressing of the existence of a possible alternative reality

it is not what the developers intended
Exposing that alternative reality

they just cannot or do not want to fix it for the time being
Reason for why this alternative might exist

because they have their own priority list
Reason for the reason of the possible existence of the alternative

I hope this clarifies the reasoning behind my assumption

Yeah it’s true, I really hate it when a warrior uses swirling wind or focus earth 5 and all I can do on my elementalist is raise my shield for a few seconds and hope that the wave will pass quickly before I can get back to the only thing I can do: damage.

I advocate the use of a build that contains supportive traits. Check my sig.

Look, it is true that most builds are “dps” oriented. But it is also true that we all throw in the necessary support, and the necessary tanking.
Actually if you look at traditional mmos, you get groups made of 3 dps, 1 tank and 1 healer.
Here in gw2 the 5 members of the group are 60% dps, 20% survivability and 20% support. I think it’s only logical that we invest most in our characteristic that pays out the most.

So your are right, it is a design problem. How can Anet fix this? Make us receive more damage, make the mobs sensitive and able to do controls, make the mobs have less health. If what I just said sound like a PvP encounter it is intentional: a perfect PvE world is a world where mobs do not need to have “unfair advantages” to be challenging.

Bright.9160:

Zelyhn.8069:

Well are talking in assumptions and hypothesis now, and I exposed mine.

FTFY

Fair enough. So where is that counter assumption of yours that makes mine wrong?

Acutally as elems we can use our class mechanics while depsing: we can attunement swap while wielding the hammer, and it is as exiting as using engi’s mechanics.

That being said I believe hammer builds are only good for mindless speedruns, and the real deal is with a Fresh Air build in challenging content. Content in which actually sharing the hammer rather than using it selfishly is more beneficial to the group. However in that challenging type of content our damage is assuredly low. Therefore my belief is that the hammer builds should actually be nerfed, so that Fresh Air builds can call for buffs.

Eat that controversial stuff

Dunduns?

I just tested in PvP with steady weapons and modifiers work as expected

Well are talking in theories now, and I exposed mine.

Hm ok, but why?

I get confused with double negatives, could you rephrase that?

I would like to agree, but we have to assume that maybe it is not what the developers intended and that they just cannot or do not want to fix it for the time being, because they have their own priority list. Hence the second factor.

Well until we get a developer to express himself on that we cannot know whether it is intended or not.
But we have a two-factor glitch check!
While it fails to convincingly pass the “unintended” glitch detection test, this technique falls into the “Role play” critical domain.
So it is officially a glitch.

I agree for the spider but 1-4 in CoE is obvious glitching.

Nono, you are right, I am quite convinced that conjurer is essential here
Time of hammer per use without conjurer: 14s
Time of hammer per use with conjurer: 23.5s
It’s not bolt to the heart and arcane lightning that will make up for that difference.

Forget all my previous results, I did an other mistake: the crit modifier goes down to 2.24 from 2.67 (and not 2.76).
So compared to 0/25/25/20/0,
- 25/0/25/20/0 is the same
- 20/0/25/25/0 is 2.7% better
But this is before bolt to the heart and arcane lightning, so in the end you loose damge.

The base breakpoint is 755

And I find 20/0/25/25/0 with 9 boons to be 0.7% worse than 0/25/25/20/0, again before bolt to the heart and bonus to cd,

I am not that sure:
compare 25/0/25/20/0 to 0/25/25/20/0 :
Crit modifier drops to 2.25 from 2.76 (same optimal conditions as before)
You gain 300 power
You gain two 0.05 amplifiers
I find a final damage gain of 2%

But also you loose 20% damage on targets with less than 33% hp, and you loose the 10% crit damage on arcane cast, which I did not include in my calculation.

_

Edit: actually I misread my result, the final change is a 2% damage drop !
@LordByron: Yes, I find that it is a poordev’s fix to the elem potency, and it is boring as hell. That’s why I have suggestions in my sig (hint!)

Edit2: actually you gain 250 power … I need an other coffee. So the damage drop is 3.3% (under 25 might and bloodlust)
So to sum up, 0/25/25/20/0 is 3.3% better + bolt to the heart and 10% cd on arcane cast

Dub.1273:

Lol, i forgot to take fury into account.

Nevertheless: 25/0/25/20/0 or 20/0/25/25/0 are “better” than 0/25/25/20/0.

Better because of conjurer?

Welcome to my cave!

Dub.1273:

Zelyhn.8069:

Not really:
Going from 30 in air to 10 brings your crit modifier down form 2.76 to 2.41

More like from (1+0.8*1.75) to (1+0.71*1.55).
But you are right, you can’t take out much point of air, it’s the most important trait line for stats, sometimes even better than adding more amplifiers.

Unless I missed something:
- air: 300 precision / 30 cd
- banner: 170 preci / 15 cd
- hammer: 180 preci / 5 cd
-scholar: 3 + 5 cd
You get 70% crit chance and 178% crit damage (including base)
- signet of fire: 9% crit chance
- fury: 20% crit chance
Total crit chance is 99%

Edit: with 728 preci and 70 cd from gear

spoj.9672:

I believe the highest dps ele is 25/0/25/20/0? But you leave vuln and fury to other members of the group or a second ele.

0/25/25/20 is better because of the stats, modifiers, and because of the 10% bonus crit damage on arcane spell cast

Broadicea.8294:

30/10/10/20 should be higher deeps if the rest of the party takes care of all the vuln though, right?

Not really:
Going from 30 in air to 10 brings your crit modifier down form 2.76 to 2.41 (air attributes, hammer attibutes, discipline banner, sigil of fire, fury, zerker, scholar) wich is a 13% dps loss. Compared to the 10% earth provides, it is not a gain.
And these are just the stats, if we take the 10% bonus crit damage from the air trait line on casting arcane spell then the difference is even higher.

So I guess the best build would be 30/20/10/10/10, if I am not mistaken.
(crit modifier of 2.58, -7% damage from air, 10% from earth to compensate)

Edit: or 30/20/20/10/0 for serrated stones

So the proper speedrun LH build would be 30/30/0/10/0?

Well I don’t mean to sound arrogant but you would still have to be “carried” (no connotation) to deal your damage: if you do the might stacking rotation between each use of the hammer than you are locked out of water for 13s (13 / 30 * 0.2 = 9% less damage), so it would be better to always remain in water and have the group provide the fire fields.
But you could argue that the loss in damage is insignificant compared to the value of the might and fury stacking that the rotation provides.

Anyway I need to hide in my cave for a while now and reflect on my future.

Wow now I feel dumb.

30/25/x/x/x ?

What’s the point in the 25 in air if you are not going to take 20 in water?

I do level 70+ fractal runs with 3 eles and it is smooth

As always Abraxax it is a pleasure to read maths well done

The elem is quite strong at the moment.

You can do more damage than warriors in a casual run by using a Lightning Hammer build.

In challenging runs you can use a Fresh Air build (check my sig), you will then do a bit less damage than warriors but your utility and support will make you at least as valuable.

You can do whatever you want anywhere.
But if you want to do it well then you will have to think again

Lurch.9517:

End of which game? The one we were playing before ascended gear or the one after because they are very different games

You mean like 5% different, right?

It’s ok bro, I understand. I won’t tell anyone, it will be our little secret.

It’s a lively 10:30 here in Holland, the weather is awful as usual but it’s a good day to hear about your hatred for exploits!

Edit: silly me, I said “here” instead of “hear”

Sunny Dungeon for sale
230 000 gold
Fully furnished.
Great location, awesome neighborhood.
Good standing, clean and well maintained. Previous occupant took care of all the ghosts and spiders.

Well you edited your post, that’s unfair practice but I caught ya on time you sneaky sneaky!

Now the whole world will know
There is no more hiding
You cannot take your words back
Your fate is sealed
At this point you’d better spit it all
Just tell them what you thought all along, tell you despise exploits, tell them you regret
Maybe they will forgive you
Join the crusade, join the light side, you can still do some good in this world
Be our beacon of hope, hopefully the people will forget the mistakes in your past…

swiftpaw.6397:

LordByron.8369:

i agree if someone decides to los kohler or melee spider queen is choosing to take advantage of lack of balance thus should not complain if the game is easy.

Coming up tonight at 11, Meleeing the spider boss is exploiting. More information on ranged and pvt gear revealed at 8.

Aaaaand stay tuned: right after a short commercial break an exclusive revelation on how our guest Swiftpaw just admitted that LoSing Kholler is an exploit, don’t miss it!

WvW is not endgame, it’s PvP with PvE gear

Level 70+ fractals is endgame. The rest is too easy…

I personally have no problem with quick methods. Actually I would encourage people to use them. It is a more advanced way to play the game so it seems perfectly fine to me. At the same time I would encourage Anet to develop a smarter AI, but that’s an other topic.

What I am against are the few obvious exploits/glitches that truly denature encounters. For instance, stack-hacking the console in CoE, or LoSing Kholler in AC.

I am going to repeat again: I am completely in favor of fast gameplay. I appreciate clever techniques, advanced strategies and accurate practise, but I want to see beautiful play!

Because it does not. Conjured weapons have a fixed average weapon damage (969 if I am not mistaken).