Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,

I just finished my new video detailing the Dragon Bash festivities and achievements. I also talk a little about achieving the look and feel of first-person view in Guild Wars 2, where true first-person isn’t an option. Take a look. If you like it, stick around and check out the other Guild Wars 2 related videos.

Devona’s Rest, just opened two minutes ago.

That really was…
Switch the topic to just about anything else, and it could’ve passed for a real TV spot.

Based on a guild conversation a while back, I made a video exploring the roles and typical successes and failures of level systems in RPGs. Check it out, maybe stick around, here or in a comment (preferable!) let me know what you think and your views on the topic.

-Crawler

I posted the other day about a similar video I made, which ended up being much longer than I’d intended; in light of that, I made a cliffnotes version—much faster, much more energetic, much more fun. It showcases every warrior weapon and weapon skill in combat with commentary (and fun background music). Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/6uGyCQJyohQ

If you like it, maybe stick around and check out some other videos.

Hi everybody,

If anyone remembers me from several months ago, I took a break for a while, then recently came back. I’m also attempting to start a YouTune channel, one facet of which will be devoted to various things related to Guild Wars 2. Since members of my guild, people in PUGs, and people on the forums here sometimes ask for advice about weapons—and since I remember feeling overwhelmed myself when I started—I decided to throw together a video detailing the weapons available to the warrior. Compared to other videos I do, the editing in this one is minimal, but I thought some people might enjoy it and/or find it informative or helpful when first looking into the warrior profession.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoN5AWOjw1A

If you like it, check out the other two videos I’ve got up; they’re much more painstakingly edited, and also funnier. This one was designed more with informativeness in mind than humor or entertainment. So yeah, take a look if you’ve got a minute. Maybe you’ll like it.

-Crawler

It may be an issue having the minimap fill up with the icons, but making them visible only in WvW isn’t the solution. I don’t do WvW often at all. The only thing I do use the commander tag for is for organizing temple runs and other large-scale PvE when I want people in the map to gravitate towards whatever’s going on since I play during off hours. For example:
-I’m running around in Hrathi
-The events start to push into the centaur main encampment
-I call it out in map chat; nobody shows up
-I enable the commander tag; a few people show up, enough to do the final event

There are other uses for it outside of WvW, although that certainly is the main point of it. Also organizing teams to escort NPCs for certain temple chains, etc.

One warrior with a little survivability can tank the woman alone. Just smack her and run off behind one of the coffins so she follows you away from the man. Dodge her red circle move and the rest of her damage is piddly. If it’s a low dps group, I even kill her before they finish the man.

I’ll be going Knights when I get ascended pieces, guaranteed. I understand the damage output of berserker gear since I’ve run it before. When people say that you begin with toughness and graduate to glass cannon when you learn how to play, I think they forget the fact that toughness makes a person a higher target. That ‘inevitable damage’ happens a lot more than I think a lot of berserkers are giving it credit for; it just happens more often to the people with higher toughness, so they tend not to get it and not acknowledge it’s there. I can’t say how many times I’ve been in a dungeon or a big event, some guy flaunts the full berserker setup he’s using and how he didn’t die, and I’m saying to myself, “Yeah, because it targeted me the whole time.” Just my two cents on that one. Plus, with the right tweaking, damage output with Knight can still be acceptably high. If I have the GS out, I hit around 13-15k by the end of it because I run with high boon duration and keep high might stacks all the time.

Bottom line, I think if you want the toughness, it’s preference. You won’t get the highest damage; that’s fact. You will be a target more often, which gives the people who went full damage more opportunity to make use of it.

You know, that may be it. The only places I messed around had a lot of action going on, so it could’ve been server-side. I hadn’t thought to test it in low-population areas. My mistake. The dragon fight in Sparkfly didn’t have many people though—at least not that I could see, which I suppose isn’t saying much—but it may’ve been the sheer number of actions and mobs in the zone weighing it down as well. I’m not sure. Either way, I imagine massive changing to some core components once the culling fix goes live in March, so maybe something will improve then. Or break, maybe. Who really knows.

I don’t know if it’s the same thing you’re talking about, but I took a break for a week or so, came back today, and noticed something in the combat felt off. My attacks weren’t going off when I hit them, even though the button icon on the bar pressed in recognition of activating the skill. What it seems to be is that attacks I try to set off won’t go off if my character is in the middle of swinging his axe. If he’s doing the attack animation and happens to roll into the next part, I have to wait until the end now to use a skill. It’s strange. I’m not saying I used to be able to cancel the animation, but I’m definitely, definitely noticing a change here in the responsiveness of the attacks going off. Often times the only way for me to get the axe 2 attack to go off in the midst of combat now is to mash the button several times to make sure it gets into the queue. Same with my warhorn skills if I’m fighting. I hope it’s something unintentional, because it lowers my ability to respond to situational threats.

Ellisande.5218:

However at level 80 you are essentially just doing it for the purpose of the activity itself.

Oh no, you mean people playing the game to enjoy the game instead of playing it to improve their characters? Heresy!

Pay no mind to the others. Trolls like that—even if they don’t want to believe that’s what they are, though it is in this case—are a lot like monkeys; they like to throw crap at anyone who walks by. You found something you like, that you worked for, and that you’re proud of, and I applaud you for it. And even more for having the confidence to post it here, something which I doubt those who knocked your warrior have ever done.

It’s easy to be a critic.

I’ve had people come in and help already. It’s not a problem if they know not to let it hit anything. But if they don’t know that—you’re right. Bad things happen very quickly.

In my experience, that 30% might chance isn’t as high as it sounds. I remember using it for a few days with a build that had 100% crit and then scrapping it because I hardly noticed anything more than the basic ‘might on greatsword crit’ you get from the trait.

Motion seconded. I could see a point in this if it wasn’t totally circumventable by using the mouse, but given the fact that you can direct what you want to see, I’m inclined to believe this is more for aesthetics than anything. And in that regard, it’s only annoying.

The length of the run on the champion risen abominations’ charge is a problem. I completely agree, and I actually commented on this in a thread some time ago. However, if you play a warrior, can I suggest:
-Put the signet of stamina on your bar
-Use an axe/warhorn

You can literally stand right in front of him, swing away, then dodge through him every single time he attacks, rinse, and repeat. Keep him positioned so that no matter which way he’s facing—which side of him you’re on—if he charges, he’ll most likely hit a wall, and keep up the endurance buff from the warhorn whenever it’s off cooldown. It’s not perfect, but it’s by far the easiest method I’ve found for killing these things alone. I actually prefer them alone unless people understand Frenzy, otherwise things go south quick.

You bumped a week-old thread for that?

I tend to run it with an axe-warhorn/GS combo for dungeons with rifle and longbow on-call depending on the situation. Yaki is also right in that you can run a full berserker group with no support, but in normal dungeon runs, overworld, and the fractals I’ve done, I haven’t seen that roll come up on the dice very often. In the event everyone isn’t running full damage and facerolling whatever you’re doing, the warhorn is great support—especially if you’re the one carrying the team and need so survive an encounter solo after everyone else wipes and you can’t get them up.

I…actually did not know that. Can I get a source on it? I run a damage-heavy build, so I’ve never had problems, but that may—really, really may—go a long way toward explaining loot complaints cropping up all over the forums.

It’s pretty much been said already: niche situations. Specifically, certain bosses or movement-/dodge-heavy encounters. I don’t think I’ve ever been in another group running dungeons or overworld events with another warrior using the warhorn actively during combat, but I’ve been in more than a few where I was the only one left on the boss or champ, and very possibly the only reason I could solo it was because of the dodge from the warhorn and signet passive. The weakness is nice, but short-lived. Extra dodge for your entire party, however, can be very useful if used properly. Know the duration of the boon, the speed at which your endurance recovers, and the warhorn can be a great survival tool. But if you’re just standing still burning a boss or a pack of mobs, it’s not very useful; better to pull out the GS or the axe for whirling axe depending on your build, on-crit effects, and the number of targets.

Personally, warhorn still gets a vote from me because it’s saved my life more than once, as well as the people in the group with me who get the extra endurance.

The heck is the point of this thread?

It kind of is… The fight before really did seem difficult, but I think I prefer that to being able to stand in front of it with a greatsword and solo it every time I’m there at off hours.

For as many threads that reference small-group vs large-group complaints about WvWvW, I still don’t really understand it. Exactly what part of World…vs World…vs World sounds centered around anything small? Granted, you can do it there, run in small groups, but I liken it most of the time to me trying to solo or duo dungeons meant for five people. Doable, but not the brightest idea. I mean I guess maybe if they had a larger strategical purpose, running dolyaks or taking camps, harassing, etc. Most of these threads don’t seem to mention that, though. They just sound like they want five people to be able to beat ten or twenty, when everything about this game makes those very unlikely odds that require very specific coordination to accomplish—some methods of which have already been listed here or in other threads. If you want small-scale PvP, why not go do rated PvP with small groups? What am I missing here?

“We had a few issues with this system that we made adjustments to. When high-level characters played in lower level zones, they were a bit too powerful, so the content was not as challenging as it could be. As a result of this, we also scaled down the rewards a bit too much.

As of the January 28 build, we made some changes to the dynamic scaling system to address these issues:

1.) We changed the formula for how attributes are calculated when the dynamic leveling adjustment system scales you down. This makes returning to lower level zones more fun and better balanced.
2.) We changed the formula for how rewards are calculated when scaled down to make it more rewarding for high-level players to visit lower level areas.

The goal is to more accurately reflect the attributes you should have at that level for a similarly geared character. While this will make some areas harder, our goal is to make all areas of Guild Wars 2 exciting and fun for players of any level. We also want players of all levels to feel like their time is well spent and rewarding in any map they go to."

You get a slight stat boost, but nothing game-breaking. That’s intentional. The vast majority of an 80’s advantage in low zones comes from traits, extra utility skills, and higher quality gear—that is, exotic versus masterwork, blue, or white. If I slap on blue level 80 gear, I do similar damage in a level 10, 20, 50 zone to what I did there on-level with the same build and quality gear. More, but similar. This is a large part of the ‘end-game’ in Guild Wars 2—which is already a topic people seem to complain about—so removing it only seems to be a bad idea.

That’s perfect. But it looks like you’re in an EU world, and I’m US so I can’t guest in and help you… Sorry…

To check what world you’re on, on the character select screen, on the bottom left I believe is an option to Select World. In the window that opens, you’ll see which world is your home. If you still need help, let us know where you’re at and I’ll drop by if I haven’t gone to bed yet.

The way I see it, down-scaling effectively makes the whole game end-game. I actually hate that term, to be honest. ‘End-game’. Normally it just means one zone or one ridiculously time-consuming dungeon or raid to run again, and again, and again…and again…ad nauseam. Or it’s PvP I can do to get better PvP gear so I can be better at PvP so I can get better PvP gear so I can be better at PvP… (Putting aside the fact that nothing bothered me more about WoW than a player with precisely zero skill winning because he had full top-tier PvP gear and nobody else in the map did).

If that’s what you want, you need to think outside the box or go to a game that caters to that. It’s not here. I’m glad it’s not here, honestly, and I know there are more than a few people who agree with me in that. Just about every other MMO I’ve played followed that design, and so I’m glad to have at least one that doesn’t.

That said, on the topic of end-game: Go find something you like. That’s what this is about here. Level 80? You scale down, so go back and play other zones if that’s what you like. Enjoy tougher content? Try dungeons or fractals. Mass PvP? Try WvWvW. Team PvP? Try the other one. Personally, I enjoy running around with guildies as they level, quest, run events, whatever. Do I get jack from it? Usually not, but I enjoy the heck out of it.

The point is the grind is here if you want it, but if your only incentive ever to do it was to get the ‘best’ gear statistically, that ISN’T here. Figure out what you like about the game, and do that. That’s the point, isn’t it? The content doesn’t have to be new for us to enjoy it, does it? Just enjoyable. If you can’t find something you (general, not you specific) really enjoy for the sake of just…enjoying it…in this game, I feel bad for you (again, you general). It’s got its fair share of problems, certainly, but I’ve found it gives more options for ‘end-game’ than nearly all other MMOs I’ve played. The real problem seems to be peoples’ nearsighted view of the term ‘end-game’.

I just tried this today with about the same results. It’s a shame, really. The zone is gorgeous; I love looking at a lot of it. But to play there for anything other than looking at the pretty colors is just…dumb. The events are nearly as interesting as other zones; the mobs are sparse; and they’re just not worth killing. It’s like a wasted zone at this point. In all the time I’ve spent wandering around there doing puzzles, completion, killing karka and testing out events, I haven’t ever seen one single other person there. Such a shame.

You’re not the only one. More than a few stat combination are missing, from what I’ve seen—Knight included, which is my preferred and pretty common, from what I’ve seen.

Anyone who’s read the other thread about Grenth being over-powered knows my stance on the fight, since I’ve defended its mechanics multiple times. The only problems with it, as I see it, are that it requires coordination and strategy and is placed in an overworld area where legions of uninformed players can rush in and botch the deal—which is just the nature of the beast, I suppose—and also that the loot isn’t worth the effort most of the time, so I agree with you on that. Off hours, small number of people, simple fight, sure I’ll do it. But peak play hours full of graveyard zerging and masses of people who don’t get it for a chest worth less than two camp defenses in Cursed Shore? Not my cup of tea, unless I’m really in the mood for a fight rather than a reward.

I can see a few hiccups with trying to implement something like this, but if done correctly—that is to say, looked at from all sides so that boon duration doesn’t lead to permanent stealth on an attentive player—I think it could add a new dimension to the stealth ability, certainly.

Sorry to make two threads so quickly, but they’re on completely different topics and I’m a little short on time.

Anyone familiar with Lord of the Rings Online might know what I mean when I mention skirmishes. They were basically instanced encounters you could enter alone via a specific NPC in larger cities, like a special kind of dungeon or quest chain type deal. The big thing about them, though, was that you could select difficulty options for the encounter, which determined your loot, experience, and other various rewards.

For example, I could choose one skirmish encounter—say, defending a gate or castle whose name escapes me—then set it to Level 30, meaning the encounter would assume the player was level 30 with regard to monster levels and difficulty, and then I could select Party of 2, Party of 3, Party of 4 etc, which determined how many monsters spawned at a time and whether or not certain stronger monsters spawned at all (or gave new attacks to existing monsters). Many of the actual dungeons followed a similar principal to some extent.

I liked the design of these because if I wanted loot, I could set it to the appropriate level—or even a higher level—get a party together and give it a go. If I just wanted to experience the content and screw around, I could set it to an extremely low difficulty and get no reward at all besides the fun I had running through. And if I had a friend and we wanted to test our limits, we could slowly crank up the notches until we couldn’t handle it anymore, just to see what we could really do.

This kind of difficulty scaling is an option I feel is missing here. Granted, most games don’t have it, but it was extremely popular for all the reasons I’ve listed, so I thought maybe we could consider it here as well. Fractals are similar, but they still require a base group of five, whereas the kind of user-defined difficulty scaling I’m suggesting allows for solo or duo play as well.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting any unique drops, or even good drop rates, or even drops at all for that matter; I really don’t care. I just loved the idea of being able to toy with different difficulty scales with a partner. I realize the monumental nature of the task, but even so, I felt obligated to at least throw the hat in the ring. I know that I, my friend, and a few others would enjoy this kind of content, not for rewards but for fun, and with a player base this large, we can’t be the only ones. It wouldn’t get in anyone’s way, but would give us some fun things to do.

A brief summation of the skirmish dynamic:

-Level difficulty affects the level of the monsters spawned
-Party number affects the number, and in some cases types, of mobs spawned
-Different skirmishes were unlocked at certain levels, by completing other skirmishes, or by buying them from the cash shop
-Mob type spawn-sets and (in our case) veteran/champion mob types were RNG each new encounter
-Certain other random events would occur inside the skirmishes—a giant bear one time, or a special champion another, or another small event—and had an associated achievement (again, just for fun). Each skirmish might’ve had five or six of these possible random encounters, with maybe one or two rolling each encounter

As a side-note, I also enjoyed being able to scale down a dungeon to the point where I got no rewards but could run through with a friend to see the content without forming a whole party, just to experience it.

Thanks for reading.

So let me open this by saying that I’m one of those people who never played Guild Wars—you know, the first one. However, poking through some of the lore today, I came across this thing where if somebody got banned or suspended, Dhuum, the original big bad boss of death, actually appeared in game and struck down the character. That’s…possibly the most awesome way to ban somebody I’ve ever seen. Any chance we could get that here? Or did it stop at some point?

The only one I consistently see again, and again, and again are those Pact soldiers waiting for an escort to Meddler’s. God bless ’em, rezzed or not, they stand there waiting—and waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

Seriously. Every time I’m in Cursed Shore. (Devona’s Rest)

True, I’ve tried ignoring the shades with masses of people present as well. Hit or miss, as I’ve seen it. Either whoever is on the boss burns it fast enough, or they don’t, the shades pile up, and everybody dies. Even with a group that size, designating ten or twelve out of twenty to handle shades would suffice, I think. Trouble is getting five strategic people together to do it is hard enough, let alone twenty.

I finished one, helped a friend finish his, and am helping another friend with his Twilight, and I agree with a lot of this. It feels good to finish, but not nearly as good as it could have. They look cool, but they could feel so much more…legendary…if there was a series of quests or something involved with acquiring them, anything besides this massive material-fest.

Apparently not everyone, given the crazy thread about it that was going strong until a few days ago where I had to argue—over and over again—that this was the way to do that fight.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this video.

P.S. @mehyaM: I know exactly what you mean. I gave up trying to explain it to people in-game, how the fight’s supposed to work. Nobody ever listens. Now I can kindly point them to this.

I have this happen a lot too, so no, it’s not just you. My friend also had it happen while we were playing together (happened to us at the same time). I just assumed it was due to more people actually being in the immediate area since Orr is now fun to play, although I can’t be sure since I never really kept track before. It is frustrating, though. I see all the players (I think?) but have a pack of mobs spawn on me defending Penitent camp. Seems to happen more for me in that one than any of the others.

Fair point there, honestly. If you know how not to get hit, a berserker can really speed up a run. On the flip-side, if you don’t know how not to get hit, your team can get real sick of you real quick.

That said, honestly man? It’s a game. Don’t min-max the hell out of it or you’ll suck the fun out. I know it sounds stupid, but just find something you like and roll with it. If you’re focused on being top tier awesome in high-end PvE content, a warrior’s not really the best option anyway. Find what you like, and enjoy it. I liked the zealot build in Diablo II, fury builds in WoW (even if they weren’t always that effective), so I run something similar here because it’s fun for me and fits my play style. If people don’t like it, whatever; there are other groups, and anybody taking the game that seriously probably isn’t much fun to play with anyway. I work for eight hours every day; I come here to play.

You’ve got some really great builds posted here. On the off chance you want to stick with the axe-axe/greatsword thing you’ve got going, I actually use that for a lot of PvE content. If you do want to keep it, my recommendation is to start with Knight gear, get as much precision as you can, then make use of the 66% chance to steal health on crit food. Four/five targets or less with the greatsword and you’ll steal enough health not to take a dent and also deal nice damage, and with whirling axe and the speed of the axe’s auto attack (sometimes switching to the sword for the swirly whirly dodge) you can stand in a pack of 10+ mobs and feel next to nothing, and they’ll be mostly dead in less than 20 seconds. If you play with it, you can get around 99% crit with fury, which should be active essentially all the time if you’ve got axes on, For Great Justice, and the signet of rage.

I like a lot of the builds on here. This is just the one I play with most of the time.

I missed the part where it’s unavoidable. The circles don’t overlap enough so as to cause major problems anymore, and they appear and trigger in a chain instead of all at once, allowing you to dodge one, then move back to that space a few seconds later to dodge another if you have to. Also, I don’t really see the point in calling the people in charge of making and fixing the game lazy. It’s akin to insulting your team members; all it does is decrease morale. Unless you’ve been inside the room with the people in charge here, assume they’re doing the best they can. That or, you know, do it yourself* and stop tearing down the people who are. Let’s do try to keep things civil and not resort to insults or name-calling, shall we?

I’ve seen fake difficulty (Diablo III at launch, fair example), and this isn’t it.

*www.kickstarter.com

I’m saying I’ve done it with five and six and would try it with three or four. Without the shades in the room, I’ve fought him alone for upwards of three or five minutes while people tried to run back. I get the impression that people in this game are stuck on the idea that more players on an event by default makes it easier, which in my experience has almost always (barring the Maw maybe, which I’ve never been there to do with less than twenty something people) been wrong. Many group events I’ve been able to do alone or with one or two people, but as soon as random folks start flooding it and the difficulty scale slides up, it fails. The temple bosses are group events. In this game, a group consists of five people. Destiny’s Edge nearly killed a dragon with what, six? If it can’t be done with that, something isn’t working properly.

As for the circles on the ground, I don’t know what else to say. Prior to the nerf after the patch, it was ludicrously hard; the circles overlapped and linked three, four, five in a row. I’ve done it more than a few times since then, and I haven’t seen it nearly that bad. I guess I can’t be sure how much of that is like or what have you, but statistically, if it’s as bad as people are saying, I should’ve encountered something to give me that indication by now. Every time I see people calling out, “Need more for Grenth!” in chat, I basically ignore it at this point; more does not mean better. It means higher chance of people not carrying their weight, until you reach stupidly high numbers of players, at which point the mob wins out if it graveyard zergs long enough.

I do run full toughness gear, so I’m not sure how much that helps me in this regard, but I haven’t seen anything close to actual damage from the priest himself. He does the ice shard AoE thing; one dodge or step three feet to the left or right. He does the other AoE everyone hates, which is more difficult to dodge, certainly, but not difficult enough as to be called broken (anymore). I tried it twice before the nerf and agreed with everyone it was broken, since (much) more often than not, none of us could avoid the circles through two dodge rolls. Now, barring the occasional statistical outlier, the only reason we get hit is because we’re so focused on avoiding some pack of shades that’s going to one-shot us.

Also: Please don’t call me out for a video on something that A) never happened, B) I never said happened, and C) you imagined happened out of some defensive reflex.

I’m really not trying to be argumentative. I just don’t see this fight as broken anymore. It is very difficult, especially compared to other overworld events where you can throw damage and/or players at it at much lower ratios and expect to win. The guys upstairs already said they wanted it to be a challenge for experienced players, and I believe that’s what it is at this point. That’s all. To prove I’m not trying to sound mean or conceited or something stupid, here’s a smiley face: ^_^

Is this the underwater one inside a cave or whatever? I find if you’ve got somebody with a high crit build with crit healing food to tank her from a distance, it’s not nearly as bad as having five or six people swimming around like mad. I remember having a ton of trouble with this on-level, but with the build I run now, a mesmer friend and I managed to duo it. He was a few levels below though, so he only did some damage, couldn’t really afford to get hit. Still, you’re right though. The risk-time-reward ratio just doesn’t cut it.

The only problem with this event is the reward, but that’s the same for essentially every temple, excluding Balthazar if you need it for shards. I’ve done this with five people. Line of sight the priest to the back of the chamber where he won’t hurt Deadrun and where the ceiling is partially lower. Three people with high DPS get the shadow debuff and burn the shades so they don’t pile up. Burn them fast enough and there’s time for their stacking debuff to wear off before any more respawn. The other two stay on the priest. Since the nerf, avoiding the AoE circles when you’re not scrambling to get away from shades isn’t nearly as difficult as it was. The trouble with this is when there’s a group of 10+ people ignoring the shades convinced they can burn the priest down before it’s an issue, then they get him below 10% and fail to the army of shades mowing them down. The shades pile up, people start running, eventually one of them gets onto Deadrun, and it’s over. The only way I’ve ever seen a group who refused to designate shade killers win is through graveyard zerging or just rushing it with 30 people, which is devoid of strategy anyway.

As a side-note: I’ve given up trying to do this event when there are more than five people and less than twenty. Too disorganized, too many shades, too much scrambling, and inevitable failure at 8% boss health. Huge waste of time.

Besides the obvious leashing issue with the charge—which should probably be fixed somehow, since it’s incredibly annoying—you absolutely must NOT let it hit things to build frenzy. If it builds frenzy, people will die. I saw the same thing killing it with a bunch of random people last night: People went into melee range, didn’t dodge; it hit people, built to 23 stacks of frenzy, and all but me and three other people ranging it died. Range and dodge, or melee and dodge if you can.

The champ/vet drop rate I can agree with, that there’s a problem there somewhere; often when I get a champ, the drop is blue or nothing. Sometimes a green. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten a rare—this coming from someone who routinely kills them on-call for guildies and actively runs around to solo them because he likes the fights. That being said, while I certainly can’t speak for all of the zones, I can say that I often run the volcano chain, Hinterlands chain, and farm Cursed Shore for hours with a friend of mine and consistently fill my bags (full slots, 18 slot bags each) with gear and materials every hour if I’m in Orr, and every hour and a half to two hours anywhere else if we’re consistently killing. Mostly blues, generally five or six greens, and one or two rares. This is with zero magic find since I consider it a wasted stat most of the time because of my build. Also, anywhere from one to three unidentified dyes.

I’ve never fought the one outside the waypoint in Cursed Shore, but I do take two Champion Abominations in an event chain in Straights of Devastation. The charge attack always gave us enough warning to dodge if we were paying attention—unless we let it build frenzy, in which case everything it does becomes almost instant. However, I do agree with the charge distance; we try to angle them toward rocks for precisely the reason you mention: if we don’t, we’re afraid he’ll run too far, leash, and reset. It’s also bothersome that he’ll be chasing someone, turn another direction to do the pre-charge animation, then turn a third, completely different direction to charge at a player. It’s probably intended, but I find it strange he turns one direction to begin the animation, then charges another. Kind of a fake-out. We just both end up dodging, just in case.

Are you letting it build frenzy?

Here’s what I got after playing with some of the dye colors. Sunrise doesn’t really match, but that’s because it came from a friend who had to stop playing. I made Frostfang myself, so that one matches the look pretty well.

Thank you!

I’m required to post at least 15 characters, so um…thank you again!