Guild Wars 2

Neural.1824:

spoj.9672:

Have you guys actually read the OP? Its an entirely optional gear check. People can set it so they cannot be gear checked.

It’s no different than having gear check available automatically. You’ll ignore/boot anyone that refuses to check the little box.

Read the OP. If you don’t check the box, you can’t even see much less join groups that require you to have the box checked. It’s people like you that can’t read simple things that are half of the reason for proposals like this.

This isn’t WoW, though. Full damage gear is very easy to get. It’s so easy to get there’s no excuse to not have it. And if you have it, in instanced PvE, there’s no excuse not to use it.

Rationalizations like “yeah, I contribute a lot less to my team, setting them up for more probable failure, but I am the last man standing and sometimes get to save the day because I set them up to fail” are pretty weak. It’s like justifying a healer guardian that does 10x less DPS than a good build, and justifying it because fights are going to last a long time and people might need healing because of it. Well duh, if you set your team up for a specific mode of failure, they’re more likely to fail via that specific mode. It’s not a strength of what you’re doing, so don’t pretend like it is.

Pax, when you say you finished CoF 1&2 in 15 minutes, do you mean per path, or combined? Just curious. If you mean combined, what team composition did you have for each path?

But then I won’t have the ability to join groups as my full-nomad’s healing guardian that does 1/12th of the DPS of a decent guardian, and provides no useful support for my team. like a decent guardian would provide.

It’s perfectly fair if I join groups where I am clearly not wanted because I will waste their time by my presence, but it’s not fair if they want to exclude me because I’m wasting their time. Those zerker elitists should be forced to play with me; after all, I don’t actually want to play with other people like me, because then we spend 1 hour on CM p3. That’s why I try and leech off of better groups.

When I do feel like an hour long CM p3, however, none of those filthy zerker elitists should join my group, because they’re toxic and awful and want to complete things too quickly. Everyone should accept me and do whatever I want, merely because I exist and am more important than they are.

Did I do justice to your reasoning as to why you don’t want a feature that allows us “zerker elitists” to find like-minded players (in terms of valuing efficiency and time) to play with more easily, while excluding players who are intentionally wasting our time for their own benefit?

Wethospu.6437:

So seems like some sort of a meeting to discuss rules and inform about gwscr changes might be good?

I think that would be a safe assumption.

Yes, it’s an exploit. ANET has said they will ban people selling paths (but it’s ANET, so I have no faith in their enforcement mechanism working reliably), and in the past they’ve put up invisible walls throughout the dungeon to try and prevent people from skipping “required” bosses. The only problem is there are so many possible off-the-intended-map paths throughout the dungeon that you can’t reasonably close them all off.

If you see someone selling an exploited path, please don’t buy from them, and also please report them. Support legitimate sellers who have put in the time to develop the skill to actually solo/duo/whatever the dungeon. It’s going to cost you the same amount of gold in any event.

A not uncommon criticism you’ll find here is that ANET should have just made the bosses that they want to be required, actually required to get the reward for completing the dungeon. If only they’d actually do this.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Not sure why armor damage is still in the game. Before, it was at least a tiny incentive to not die and was a bit of a money sink. Now all it does is serve to annoy people when they forget to repair every time they walk by a repair NPC.

Because you don’t want city hubs to appear dead, and thus must give players some tasks to do there, like vendoring trash and repairing their armor. I agree it’s annoying, but at the same time, there’s at least a decent reason for it: to make parts of the world seem alive, and not abandoned.

This is an extremely common bug.

When the Bone Wall is still up, your entire party needs to wipe and after everyone is dead, respawn at the waypoint. The Bone Wall will then be down, and you can attempt to fight the boss again.

ANET is probably never going to fix it, as it’s a bug, and it’s a not related to the gem store or the living story. They will, however, ignore the kitten out of your reports, so please don’t waste your own time sending reports ANET probably isn’t even going to read, much less act on.

Character select and log back in. Repair, then re-enter the fractal. As long as not everyone leaves at once to repair, you can repair without any loss of progress.

That’s hilarious. The communication we get in a parody of the communication we get is effectively indistinguishable from the actual communication we get.

It’s also sad.

As a full Assassin’s Mesmer, if your group provides zero might and no banners, AND you don’t reflect anything, you have 1.2% less DPS than a full Berserker’s Mesmer. If you actually reflect attacks from foes with high power and/or your group can provide banners and stack might, you will surpass a Berserker’s Mesmer in terms of DPS (yeah, Assassin’s can be better than Berserker’s on Mesmer even if you don’t reflect anything).

This is a case of PUGs being clueless about what’s actually good.

If you can get it to work, a single dynamic page would be great.

GoD Obelisk.3057:

Zui.9245:

I see that one of Goku’s solos from back then on Guardian is off the wall. Looks like he used no Energy sigils and traited for vigor. Cool. It looks like NoTrigger’s solo is entirely on wall, though.

@Obelisk, if you step away from Lupicus when he’s on the wall (still remaining in the no-bubble zone, but within the rapid-fire zone) you can get him to rapid fire. If you’re doing on-wall with a Guardian, you should do this if solo when you have WoR off cooldown to bait out his rapid fires for massive damage.

I have absolutely no idea how one would manage to not trigger the attack at all while off the wall, though. Unless Spoj is talking about using some of the elevated terrain in there to essentially have the same situation as ‘on wall’, but technically without the wall, in which case, that’s really easy.

As for the life drain, you can get an idea who it’s on by watching the direction he is facing (even subtle angles of it). With enough practice, you can fairly accurately determine if it could be on you or not. If it could be on you, burn that dodge and see if you get evade frames. Otherwise, don’t.

Can i get a link please? Tried searching guardian lupi solo could not find it.

Lupi is coaxed off the wall shortly after he goes into phase 3. Obviously, there isn’t really any difference (other than slightly less locusts) for phase 1/2 on wall versus off wall.

I see that one of Goku’s solos from back then on Guardian is off the wall. Looks like he used no Energy sigils and traited for vigor. Cool. It looks like NoTrigger’s solo is entirely on wall, though.

@Obelisk, if you step away from Lupicus when he’s on the wall (still remaining in the no-bubble zone, but within the rapid-fire zone) you can get him to rapid fire. If you’re doing on-wall with a Guardian, you should do this if solo when you have WoR off cooldown to bait out his rapid fires for massive damage.

I have absolutely no idea how one would manage to not trigger the attack at all while off the wall, though. Unless Spoj is talking about using some of the elevated terrain in there to essentially have the same situation as ‘on wall’, but technically without the wall, in which case, that’s really easy.

As for the life drain, you can get an idea who it’s on by watching the direction he is facing (even subtle angles of it). With enough practice, you can fairly accurately determine if it could be on you or not. If it could be on you, burn that dodge and see if you get evade frames. Otherwise, don’t.

Generally speaking, though, things were fine with the GWSCR solution (before those involved stopped participating), which is currently functionally identical to the [DnT] records system in every respect other than it being on the [DnT] website. The only reason to change the system from what’s already in place on the [DnT] forums is to avoid appearance of impropriety, even in this case where no impropriety has occurred and if any does it’s transparently obvious (and easy to sort out, in the worst and very unlikely scenario, by moving to a different website). And yes, impropriety here is definitely easy to recognize, because video is objective and easy to analyze, as well as the fact the rules are also clear and objective.

If you’re going to re-do the system due to appearance of impropriety, I think you should re-do it not with a system that can redress errors in it after the fact, but which actively seeks to eliminate those errors before they occur. At the very least, if a record is to be rejected, a majority of approvers should second the rejection (which isn’t even onerous, because the first person to review it must have a reason why, and can simply say something like “check 4:38 and you’ll notice the thief uses a hylek pot for swiftness” or whatever), and thus, when actually rejected you can say something like “a majority of our approvers are rejecting this for X”, instead of something like “[possible person you’ve got a long standing, ugly, and public grudge with] has rejected your record because X”.

I’m one of the people who thought this would have gone better on gw2dungeons, before [DnT] (possible bias warning: my current guild) took it over from GWSCR. I’d like to see whatever system of hosting records there is be successful (which is why I’m posting here), but at the same time, I’m not really convinced it’s worth the effort to move from the current hosting setup to gw2dungeons.

Under the assumption that you’ve spoken to the people in [DnT] hosting records and they’ve agreed to let you take over, given the reason changing hosts, I can’t see any reason not to try and create a slightly better system, even if at the core, there probably won’t be any difference, and in any event, I’d be happy to support the system in whatever way I can (even though I really shouldn’t be doing anything, as there are certainly better people than me to fill each role). If you haven’t and plan to set up a competing record site, I have to say that I think that’s a bad idea for the community. Having multiple records websites will possibly divide the community (especially if the rulesets don’t remain unified), and I’m not sure I can really support that.

Maybe this post has veered “off topic” a bit, but I kind of feel like it’s all on the broader topic of a speed clear records solution. Meh.

spoj.9672:

Many of the guard solo records were without energy sigils.

AFAIK those were done on the wall, though. The OP is asking about off wall.

I’d actually love to see an off wall guardian solo record, if one exists.

Who can approve records?

Anyone with a familiarity of the paths and with the time and interest. The more important question is who should? I propose the following.

1) Guilds with previous record involvement nominate members who are actually interested and (in the eyes of the nominating guild) capable.

2) Those nominated must have a reputation of acting like levelheaded, rational adults who can remain objective, and who don’t have a grudge against other guilds or members of the speed clear community (no matter how right/wrong they may be). This is to avoid any potential appearance of impropriety should any record ever not be approved for failing to conform to the rules. Certainly, determining actual impropriety (or lack of) in this case is simple, but it’s also simple if DnT were hosting the records, and it seems the whole purpose of moving hosts is to avoid any appearance of impropriety, even if virtually no one fears actual impropriety.

3) A person may not approve a record they are a part of, or the record of a guild for which they are a member (or have recently been a member). Again, this avoids any appearance of impropriety.

Who can edit the records table?

It doesn’t matter that much. I’d say let everyone who is approving records and who is also technically capable do it, while also occasionally doing it yourself for those who aren’t capable of doing it. This keeps the group of people small and exclusive enough to limit potential issues, but also large enough to not put the burden entirely on you.

Record posting

Having a forum or other similar medium specifically for this (without other topics cluttering it up) would be extremely useful. This allows which records still need approval to easily be determined, along with when they were submitted. Especially if all of my suggestions to avoid the appearance of impropriety are used (and I’d be somewhat puzzled if they’re not, if the whole motivation of this thing is to avoid any possible appearance of impropriety), it’s quite likely that records may be approved in a slightly different order than they are submitted. Even if those suggestions are not taken, it’s probable records will be approved in a different order than they’re submitted, just due to path length. In a new meta, if various different people submit a 33-minute Arah story record, alongside a few 3 minute CM records and records for other very quick paths like SE p1,/p3 AC story / AC p1, I’d imagine even if that Arah story was posted first, several of those ~3-4 minute records are going to be approved first, just due to time constraints of the people approving records. I wouldn’t even be surprised if on this forum, that Arah story record gets buried rather quickly and mostly forgotten about if it’s during the holidays or some other time of the year where those approving records are pressed for time.

A forum would also allow the multiple people approving records to communicate if they’re already working on approving a certain record, or whatnot. This forum could serve the same purpose, but I’m not sure everyone here would appreciate a topic being bumped with something that they might consider trivial/unimportant to them.

Furthermore, it allows anyone who wants to see past records to at least browse and find those records easily; this forum gets cluttered with other topics, and lacks a functional search feature (and will probably never have said feature). This could be addressed with website design elements though (like a separate by-path historical records table, which I think would be a fantastic idea).

dlonie.6547:

Jerus.4350:

Can also place those deployable mortars http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deployable_Mortar_Kit

This should agro the initial guys so they can pop their grubs and act the same as dlonie’s stability situation for the second guy. At least that’s what I remember seeing a friend do when he was showing me how to do it.

Oh my kitten, I’mma go grab a stack of those next time I’m on! Good tip! But uggggh….30 minute cd?

The cooldown can be pretty annoying. It’s just so excessively long. The placement to most reliably detonate all the aboms (~95% of the time all of them, ~99% of the time all but 1) AND get the grubs where you want them to aggro and fight the techs is a bit tricky (if I’m on and available, feel free to whisper and I can show you) and if you fail you can’t rely on the trick anymore unless you want to wait 30 minutes.

Selling a run is perfectly legal; don’t report it. Selling an exploited run is not; please report that. Pretending to sell a run and scamming people is also not legal; please report that.

If you’re looking for a group and don’t see one posted, try posting one yourself. Don’t be so lazy that you can only join groups other people have started.

oxtred.7658:

I know and I’m used to them using this “communication”, just wanted to let you know they are still around. Last time I checked they were in hotm, but if I ever see them in a dungeon…

But yeah, if they could stop faking communication with" we’re looking into it" posts and “we did what’s right” and actually do something not absolutely dense, it would be great.

Nothing is off the table? (Except you know, real, substantive communication. And more dungeons. And lots of other things, some of which are ‘officially’ not off the table, but almost certainly not on it…)

oxtred.7658:

If anyone remember that drama with the 2 tards who stole Enaretos’ ( Sam) instance, and were “banned” according to anet, they were online yesterday. Thoughts?

Also inb4 infraction.

They probably just didn’t tow the party line with respect to only calling temporary bans suspensions, and only referring to indefinite/permanent bans as bans. In fact, I can’t quite remember them saying anything about any kind of ban or suspension. It was more like ‘showed them the door’, and other similar language, depending on which case one might refer to.

Maybe they intended to be deliberately misleading, but I sincerely doubt that is the case. It’s insanely easy to use imprecise language and for someone to then interpret something from that which was not intended (and even something that wasn’t even actually stated).

The animation bugs frequently, for what appears to be a variety of reasons. I doubt ANET is going to fix it at this point.

Let’s assume a drop rate of 0.118 for fractal skins. Let’s assume we have 365 trials and 0 successes. What’s P(X=0)? Well, it’s just simple binomial probability. Plug and chug into a formula. It’s about 10^(-20).

So it’s very likely if you run 50’s every day for a year, you’re going to get a skin. It’s even pretty close to zero chance of not getting a skin. But it’s non-zero.

It’s quite wrong to say “it is literally not possible to never get a skin. because the probability of getting a skin is nonzero.”

Because you can demonstrate that it is mathematically possible, even though it is unlikely. Certainly, the limit of (1-0.118)^n (in the case k=0) as n approaches infinity is very small. Under the limit notation, it even equals zero. But anyone who has taken calculus knows that this doesn’t mean it’s actually zero. It means it approaches zero. It never reaches it; we could even divide it by another limit (for example) and get a finite non-zero answer… It can’t be actually zero. Thus, it must necessarily be possible, if not very improbable, for someone to never get a fractal skin. Even with infinite repetitions. Even given the probability of getting a skin is nonzero (the supposed cornerstone of your argument here). The only probability that would support your case is p = 1, and p != 1.

insanemaniac.2456:

spoj.9672:

Its still entirely possible to never get a skin though.

no, it isnt. it is literally not possible to never get a skin. because the probability of getting a skin is nonzero.

Are you telling me that for when p[sub]success[/sub] for a trial is not 1, that for an infinite number of trials you must necessarily have to have to a successful trial at some point? Really? Because I’m pretty sure the only statement you can make there is “almost surely”, and that’s a long way off from what you’re claiming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem#Almost_surely

And of course, the number of trials is definitely bounded by the human lifespan in this case. So we’re not even at “almost surely”. We’re not even close, since I am relatively certain the human lifespan is longer than the life span of GW2, too.

Do Warrior, and do it off the wall :P

Update: All of the slots for the NA and EU tours have been filled. Those who have expressed interest in going and gotten contact information to me (either via whisper, in game mail mail, posting it on reddit, or posting on the official forums) are set to come! (This excludes all of the generous people who volunteered to come along in the event I couldn’t find enough interested students!)

With that said, it’s totally possible that some of the people who are confirmed might not be online / might have their plans change / might have to leave early. If you’re still interested in the tour, definitely let me know, as there may potentially be a slot for you, even if it’s just for the last few paths. Even if you don’t get to come on the tour this weekend, I’ll likely do other tours in the future, and I’m more likely to do those future tours sooner if a lot of people are interested. There will also be VoDs of each tour available on my twitch (www.twitch.tv/zuistreams), and both tours will be streamed.

As always, if you’re interested in learning Arah feel free to join [Noob] (a non-rep teaching guild on EU and NA) and contact any of the Arah mentors (including myself). See here for more information about [Noob]: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Mentors-Noob/first

Ryn.6459:

Dub.1273:

Here is my guide on how to solo lupicus as a warrior. Full gothrough is in description.
http://youtu.be/iuMgBBlWz58

I know it was a joke, but I am finding that going full settlers is the best way to learn him, at least his tells. (importantly, now I can predict when he is going to kick).
I am dying at phase 2.
EDIT: back on warrior and melee by the way.

Phase transition: When learning, just ensure you have Balanced Stance / Dolyak Signet / Shake it Off on your bar to avoid or deal with the knockdown from the unavoidable phase change grub. Once you’re comfortable actually soloing lupicus, learn to use a fire elemental powder, ogre pet whistle, or your friendly dungeon NPC (if they’re still alive and conveniently located).

Swipe: Dodge / WWA through Lupicus when he pulls his arm back. You can also block it, but depending on exactly how far away you are, your sword 5 block might just block the knockback+big damage and leave you with 3 bleed stacks.

AoE (if low latency, and 3 or less targets for Lupi): When the first red circle is drawn on your character, dodge back. After that, you will wait for the next red circle to be drawn on your character, and either dodge again, whirlwind attack, or block and run to him. I’d recommend trying to end up at the end of your dodge/block in an ‘old’ AoE circle (where the damage has already hit, but the circle lingers for a bit).

Shadowstep: Dodge as he comes toward you (this should never happen). If he’s going to your NPC, run (may need to use “rush” to get there soon enough depending on distance) over there but don’t get there too early / if you get there too early dodge.

Ranged autoattack: Stay in melee. Don’t move (other than for AoE and Swipes) if you’re around elevated terrain, as sometimes you can get hit in melee around this terrain if you move.

You can infuse the rings and back piece. You can get 30 AR just from trinkets with +5 infusions, and then you can slot a +8, another +8, and a +9 into the Agony Infusion slots of Infused trinkets. This gets you 55 AR, enough to do level 49 (and since it’s on trinkets, it means you can do 49 on any character!).

Then you’d need 3 other +5 infusions somewhere else (ideally: armor, and not headpiece) to be able to do level 50.

Alternatively, you could go for all +10’s on your infused trinkets, meaning you’d only need 2 +5’s from armor. Decide for yourself if this is worth it over the alternative of 8, 8, 9.

Dub.1273:

Here is my guide on how to solo lupicus as a warrior. Full gothrough is in description.
http://youtu.be/iuMgBBlWz58

No Nomad’s? Too casual.

ChoChoBo.6503:

REPORT THEM FOR LFG SYSTEM ABUSE

That’s the very first step.

It happens to me all the time when I lfg for fractals, you go all the way through it to the final boss and suddenly you get booted.

You whisper them and ask them ’What’s up?’ they lie and say they got booted to. So what do you do? You friend them and see that they’re still in the fractal.

Report all of them and be done with it all. Tell them too and let them worry.

This doesn’t do kitten.

I joined a 19@shaman group awhile back (2+ weeks now?), and was booted after carrying them through the encounter and up to the molten firestorm on the boss fractal. Why? Because I didn’t agree to pay them money to stay in the group (gold demanded when duo encounter was starting). Mostly just to see if ANET might have potentially done anything. I haven’t seen any interruption in play that would indicate even a 24h suspension for these people. I did whisper them about it, saying I was going to report for LFG abuse. They thought it was extremely funny. I’d imagine they’ve been in that exact same situation before, and ANET still hasn’t done anything.

Unless you find lack of action on ANET’s part amusing, there is literally no reason to ever report for LFG abuse.

Support tickets for when your instances stolen are demonstrably more successful. Sometimes, appropriate action is taken (sometimes, with certainty, sometimes you just hope). And sometimes, you apparently get a response about WvW issues in response to something about PvE, Dungeons, and Scamming by other players. 50% of the reason to report is possible justice. The other 50% is to see how nonsensical of a response you might get.

Another educational tour on NA, and a first ever (for me) educational tour on EU. The EU tour will be on Saturday, January 3rd, and I will start forming a party at Noon U.S. Eastern Time / 5:00 PM GMT / 6:00 PM CET. The NA tour will be on Sunday, January 4th, and I will start forming a party at 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time.

I expect the following:
- Know your class. This includes having melee weapons, and knowing what they do. We will melee everything, including Lupi, with the possible exception of Melandru (so make sure you have at least one ranged weapon you can equip if needed).
- Teamspeak 3. A microphone is not necessary, but you need to be able to connect and listen.
- Powerful potions of undead slaying and 66% chance life steal on critical food (e.g. Candied Dragon Rolls).
- A good attitude.
- You have watched Brazil’s Lupi Guide. Adapt what you learn to your class. If you have the time and interest, it may be helpful to find melee solo videos of someone who is playing your class, but this is in no way required or expected.
- If you are joining us for Path 4, you have watched this trio melee melandru video video. We are going to at least to attempt to melee this boss a few times. When watching the video, pay attention to the timing of the explosions around Melandru and aegis/block/dodge timing.
- If you are joining us for path 2, you have watched 0:55 to 1:12 of this video. Knowing the general route of the spider skip will help speed things up in the event we do not have a thief, and thus cannot simply stealth past everything as a group.

We will be doing the paths in reverse order (4, 3, 2 then 1). If you, for example, only need path 4 for your Dungeon Master title and don’t want to do any other paths feel free to leave after the path(s) you care about, as there will possibly be people waiting for the additional paths.

If you are interested, post here, or send me an in-game mail message. My NA account is Zui.9245 / Zui Plays Warrior and my EU account is Zui.2983 / Zui Euro Warrior. If you post here, please say whether you’re in it for NA or EU. If you send a mail message, just mail the appropriate account (NA for NA tour, EU for EU tour). Please indicate your experience level with Arah in your post or mail message, as I will attempt to prioritize less experienced players over very experienced ones (who might still want to come along for fun).

I will be streaming both the EU and NA tours. My twitch is twitch.tv/zuistreams.

How to practice dodging grubs: Engage lupi, and back off. Just run around (away from the locusts that will chase you) while watching him, and dodging grubs. Take a stunbreak and/or stability in case you fail. Move on after you’ve mastered this (as a warrior, with dodge and with whirlwind attack)

How to practice killing locusts (without worrying about the kick): Engage lupi, and back off. Dodge grubs. When locusts are spawned, practice circle strafing around them. Figure out how many you can withstand, and for how long. Figure out how to take no damage at all from them if you need to (honestly, circle-strafing them is easymode). Et cetera. You probably want to keep stability and/or a stunbreak here too, because you’ll probably mess up and fail to dodge some grubs.

How to practice the kick (without worrying about the locusts): Engage lupi and back off. Kill the locusts as they come, like you’ve practiced. When there are no locusts and he’s not doing anything, run up to him. He’ll very likely kick you. Dodge it and back off. Rinse and repeat.

Then basically just put it all together. Keep in mind that while backing off and strafing the locusts away from Lupi is extreme easymode (and probably not a bad idea to occasionally do if you’re in a sticky spot after say getting kicked or something), it’s not something that you should ever need to do once you’ve mastered phase 1.

This might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZZS4QIdid4&list=UUXb625IE1vjylfTRW3-B6Lg

It has slow motion footage of all his animations, including the kicks.

From Arah p4:

Champion Undead Knight – Undead
Hounds of Balthazar – Undead
Balthazar – Undead
Melanndru – Undead
Elite Gorillas – Undead (also, P1 gorillas, tested separately, are also Undead)
Lyssa – Undead
Grenth – First wraith that teleports is undead, subsequent spawning wraiths are. also undead
Orrian Weapons – Undead
Simin – Undead
Bloodstone – Undead
Grubs @ Grenth – Undead

Basically, absolutely everything is undead.

lordkrall.7241:

And once again: Should the very first punishment really be a permanent ban?

There’s a very big difference between the following cases:

Stole an instance once. Banned immediately after.

Stole instances 10 times. Banned after 10th time.

Stole an instance once. Had their own instance stolen at a later date. After they had their own instance stolen, attempted to get the people who stole from them banned.

Stole an instance once. Had their own instance stolen at a later date. After they had their own instance stolen, attempted to get the people who stole from them banned. Stole another instance after this occurred, too.

Et cetera.

There are still some people permanently banned for the snowflake exploit. An exploit that messed up the economy a little bit, but didn’t explicitly victimize individual players for personal gain. People who steal instances explicitly victimize individual players for personal gain, and they know for a fact that’s exactly what they’re doing. Some of them even know it’s a bannable offense, and do it anyway.

If it’s reasonable to permanently ban people for the snowflake exploit, it should be reasonable to do the same for instance stealing in at least some cases, as some cases of instance stealing are much worse and much more obviously wrong.

Feel free to message me on my NA account (this one) or my EU account (Zui Euro Warrior). If I’m available, I’ll happily help you.

From Arah p2:

Plague Carrier Abomination: Undead
Inquest Techs: Inquest, NOT Undead.
Elite Dominated Risen: Undead
Alphard: Undead.

From Arah p1:

Crystalline Entities – Undead
Orrian Spider (Normal) – Undead
Orrian Spider Hatchling – Undead
Elite Orrian Spider – Undead
Champion Orrian Spider – Undead
Elite Orrian Drake – Undead
Champion Orrian Drake – Undead
Korga – Undeead
Jotun – NOT Undead. Did not test Ghost.
Shoggroth – Elemental
Tar Elementals – Elemental

Didn’t realize so much of this still needed verification. I’ll try to tick off some more later.

CM (From Path 3)

Sure Shot Seamus: Bandit
Whalen: Bandit
Vallog: Bandit

Citadel of Flame (From p1)
Flame legion mobs: Flame legion
Slave Driver: Flame legion
Elite effigy: Flame legion (didn’t test end boss)

Oh, I should add that I verified that Scarlet potions don’t work on the Flame Legion. I was pretty sure this wasn’t the case, but some people still claim it is so…

I will identify the first seal you can run to as the first seal, and the second seal as the second seal. The game identifies the first seal as the “left” seal, and the second as the “right” seal (even though the “left” seal is on the right arm of the colossus, and the “right” seal is on the left arm… this is why I’m using first and second here).

If you accidentally kill both at the first seal, that’s fine. Just kill one at the second seal, and stack at the stack spot by the first seal (left side, before the corner, as if you were running from second to first). At that stack spot, sometimes the second seal chanter won’t lose aggro; use projectile absorb skills and moving to the opposite side of the stack spot (closer to the first seal) to deal with this; the first option lets you ignore it, the second will leash it. Do absolutely everything as you normally would other than this.

If you accidentally kill both at both seals, it’s going to be rough. You need to ask yourself whether or not your group is capable of putting down antiprojectile skills in a coordinated manner, and if you have enough. If this is the case, you can just run back and forth and basically just fight right on top of each seal, get your kill, hit the seal, and move to the other side. If not, you can do the same thing but while pulling them to the LoS/stack spots on both sides (and remembering you might have to use antiprojectile skills and/or move when stacking at the spot for the first seal, and in some rareish cases might have to do a similar thing when stacking at the second seal spot too). There are possibly better ways of doing it when you have this issue, but it’s better to just ensure you do not have this issue in the first place.

How to ensure you don’t have the issue in the first place? If you have any kind of knockback or pull skill, use it on the chanter people aren’t supposed to kill at the first seal. Clearly explain what’s supposed to happen. Get everyone to verbally agree. If they’re especially stupid, get them to rephrase in their own words what you just explained to them. If you have a friend and/or other competent player in the group, coordinate them via whisper and rapidly kick anyone who appears like they’re going to mess things up when you’re actually doing it. You can reinvite them immediately after the kick if you so wish, and explain why they got kicked.

Ryn.6459:

I can’t get a group for arah p4; anyone willing to help a poor arah rookie?
I am on EU.

I’m probably going to do an Arah tour next weekend (Jan 3 and Jan 4). I’m thinking about doing NA on Saturday (Jan 3), and EU on Sunday (Jan 4). This might not happen, but if it does I’ll be making a post here and on Reddit about it early next week.

Acotje.5689:

Cliffside should be tier 3 only.
Dredge should be tier 2 only.

And the freakin drill should drill faster ;_;

I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about. The weapons test fractal (Molten Furnace) is the one with the slow drill; the Dredge (Underground Facility) fractal does have a drill room (where you have to have 2 people stand on switches and one person do a channel on the panel to unlock the door), but that’s really not slow IMO, it’s a pretty appropriate channel time. Molten Furnace (slow drill fractal) is tier 2 only. Dredge (Underground Facility) is tier 3 only.

Korossive.7085:

Stats matter? when did that happen?

For open world type content, stats are almost entirely irrelevant. When we start talking instanced content, especially completing instanced content efficiently, stats begin to matter. Once we start talking about speed clear record attempts (group or solo) in instanced content, stats matter quite considerably.

Why the grind? Because almost immediately upon reaching level 80, you should have statistically the best equipment in the game. Err… Wait… Nevermind, grind is good. EVERYONE loves grind!

ANET’s probable response if they actually responded, and did so honestly: As per our communications policy, we will not communicate with you about this. This is so we don’t string you along. But we’re working on big stuff you’ll enjoy. Please don’t point out the contradiction between sentence 2 and 3, as we will not acknowledge that we’re stringing you along due to our policy that supposedly exists so we don’t string you along.

For the people claiming that this is for “lazy” people who don’t want to put in “effort”, keep in mind it was trivial to check 5+ of the previous dalies just by logging in and playing whatever you wanted to play (so long as it wasn’t just PvP), then logging off.

For example, I could log in and run Arah p1 to p4, then log out, and be almost certain I’d have finished my daily over the course of things. Using today’s daily as an example, if I logged in and just ran Arah p1 to p4, I would complete absolutely nothing. This is practically the same thing as putting in “no effort” to doing the daily, and getting rewarded under the old system, but under the new system a lot of players are forced to seek out and engage with content they don’t find fun.

Luckily, some people PvP, and it’s pretty easy to get the daily just from PvP, then do other things you actually also want to play. If I were logging in and had a “just feel like running some pve content I find fun” day, though, I’d tick ZERO off.

And it’s not like any of the new Daily options are even remotely difficult. The absolute only thing they are happen to be time consuming. That’s it. You might as well just add a ‘get 10 AP by standing around in LA and chatting with friends for 30 minutes" feature; that’s about equivalently hard, and even harder because it’s going to probably take more time!

Jerus.4350:

dlonie.6547:

lol high five Cookies FTW!

My favorite lately has been just joining the “p3” / “story” / “p2 at last boss” groups listed in “Open World Content”. Fun times.

I’ve also discovered that some of the most fun pugs are found by seeking out SEp2 PUGs. Always a laid back, easy-going group, if you’re into that sort of thing. Not terribly skilled, but motivated. Plus you usually get to be the hero, because nobody knows that path, lol.

Still never done that path been sitting with only that left for dungeon master for months.

This problem can be fixed. Sounds like we’re possibly 4/5 already. This needs to happen.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Aden Celeste.3650:

Hi OP:

I actually think the dungeons are quite easy. The real issue is how so far it has been left without a clear direction as to what the developers want players to do. Sure, they have never criticized stacking, but I really dont see how a group of passionate developers agreed to allow for such abuse of terrain, enemy AI and exploits.

If anything, I do agree with a leveling system, that would be extremely cool. I would also add to make it so that the more mobs you kill in a dungeon, the more loot (rare loot chance?) you get at the end. Also, some optional boss fights for the other non-popular dungeons with a real incentive to explore the whole thing.

I thought of something: what if there were no more dungeon tokens, instead mobs had a chance to drop a dungeon box that contained an armor or weapon piece, to which you can pick the stats you want? That would most definitely pick up interest in killing the mobs, which can reward a player with an exotic piece they can salvage for gold ^__^

You know what, I was thinking about this more the other day. I think perhaps the best evidence I can give to defend stacking as a legitimate technique, besides of course how buffs work in this game, is the cliffside fractal. For the chest seal there are two concentric rings of fire with a small area in the middle where the two rings don’t overlap. This location, beyond any reasonable doubt, was DESIGNED for stacking. The developers DESIGNED a small safe area so your party is essentially FORCED to stack if you don’t want to run through the fire with every hammer hit.

I agree with your interpretation, but there could be an alternative explanation:

The colossus is supposed to blow to quell the flames on the circles. He even actually does this some of the time. Perhaps it was intended not for players to stack, but for players to use this RNG-based mechanic to find a safe place to stand and fight, and also to allow the seal to be hit without standing in the red circles every so often.

Fixing the forum bug.

“trying to solo does not work in a dungeon like Arah.”

Good point (?), let’s examine this for a second. Arah has a story mode and four paths…

Story mode: Soloable, except for the minor and near-irrelevant gate at the start, which requires 1 other person to just stand in place for awhile.

Path 1: Soloable, except for the tar boss, which requires 3 other people to spawn the boss.

Path 2: Entirely soloable.

Path 3: Entirely soloable.

Path 4: Nearly entirely soloable. One boss, Simin, will require you to merely have a friend to speed up the kiting of some mobs into circles; an extremely minor part of the path.