Guild Wars 2

Well, it’s both I only thank the Six i went to Arah prepared – having read about the bug, we had one person stay behind with the NPC throughout the final fight. Forewarned, forearmed.

Ok, have it reworded – instead of saying that dungeons are hard, ask people in this forum how can you improve your build. Post what stats on items you’re using, what traits, what utilities, what weapons – and ask the veteran dungeon runners what can you do to make it better.
The next time you are in dungeon, try not to rush it and try to follow the basic, intuitive things like ctrl+clicking one mob and focusing it down with other teammates, using all of your skills including your weapon swap (or other attunements on ele, or kits on engi), try not to overaggro things (aggro one mob/group from a safe distance and let them come to you).
If you have troubles fight a certain path, possibly a certain encounter, ask for help in the forums – post what was your team composition, just in general, and what was the problem – and where, of course. Wait for replies and try out what you get the next time you’re there.

All of the above doesn’t take weeks. Writing a thread ‘help me get better’ is as easy as replying to this thread, and takes about the same time. Then, tomorrow or in a few days – whenever you have a moment – read the replies, find the ‘prevailing consensus’, ask more questions if needed and try it out.
I’m pretty active in the forums lately and i’ve seen two or three threads outright stating ‘please help me improve’, and it was mostly about Arah. That’s something really worth doing – since there are enough dungeon veterans here, supposedly enough of them will try to help you if you only provide the necessary data and are willing to listen – i can at least assure that yours truly will try to help you if you let him. Things were tougher 5-7 weeks ago with less videos on yt, less people willing to share their strategies and just less dungeon vets in general.

I barely ever die there on either my guardian or my elementalist. Just slot the most defensive major traits your current traitlines allow, slot most defensive utilities, slow some cc, run pow/tough/vit gear along more toughness from jewelry and you’re set.
We get, at most, 1-2 people dead a time, and that’s mostly because of being unlucky or making a mistake, and we have all 5 running inside.

Someone made a video some time ago showing it’s doable even naked, no idea if it still works though.

I wonder, though, if it’s viable – not even possible, just if it makes sense – to try and kill all those mobs as they spawn. The running tactic seems working fine, though – si non confectus, non reficiat.

It’s like with GW1’s obsidian set, just done a bit earlier. The relative price of obsidian armor set, the most expensive and prestiguous set of the game, was very high in the beginning when ectos used to craft it cost over 20k a piece. Then, after some updated, new skills, consumables and stuff, new builds came up, making farming ectos pretty easy and they fell as low as 4,5k a glob. The amount of globs needed to craft the armor was the same all the time.
So someone who got their obsidian set ‘early on’ payed over 4 times more than someone who bought their set when ectos fell down – because of game updates. Sure, not as blatant as we are supposedly about to see now, but still it were the devs who drove the relative price of obsidian down, in a way.

What can be done about it?
Completely nothing.

But!
You craft legendaries for your own fun, first and foremost, and your own sense of accomplishment. If i were someone who has crafted a legendary already, i would feel even more accomplishment and showing-off rights knowing that i got it when it was harder. I could even boast that ‘back when i got my legendary…’.

Well, ele’s staff water skill 1 tends to disagree, healing and damaging at the same time.

Turns out i was right.
Eva’s initial comment – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/first#post703192
Eva’s clarification – http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/1772/serverstatusd.jpg

Taken from another thread, addressed at a player who claimed that dungeons are not fun because you constantly die there in one hit and they take no tactics to overcome, just wipezerging all the time:

…we all worked to get our gear. We were utter noobs when we came to GW2. We never mastered any of the GW1 elite areas, just done them a few times. We weren’t handed proper exotic gear on a silver plate; no one ever came to us telling us what gear should be go after in the first place. We figured that out on our own, simply noticing that if we get killed in one hit, we need to invest more in survivability. It’s not that hard to find out.
Then no one guided us through dungeons. We all tried different tactics at tougher spots, wasting as much as 2h to just lit the torches in CoF3. But instead of trying two times, dying and claiming it’s too hard, we just kept on trying until we succeeded. Thanks to this, right now we can overcome all those tasks much, much easier – and the dungeons are, indeed, easy for us.

They can be easy for everyone. If you are a ‘casual player’, which means you don’t have much time to min-max everything and just want to play, it might take you a bit longer to learn that stuff, but you are still not excluded from it. If you are a ‘casual player’, which means you don’t WANT to learn anything and you just want to mash buttons and swing your sword again at mobs… dungeons indeed might not be a place for you.
But i firmly believe that everyone wants to get better at something they suck at in the first place. It’s just that not everyone understands that GW2’s dungeons are not meant to be doable by any casual, totally random pug out there, that it takes time, patience and willingness to improve in order to overcome the obstacles of rough beginnings. Instead, lots of people die a few times in a dungeon run, do a few dungeon routes, possibly with other ‘like-minded’ people who refuse to learn on their failures, and then complain how dungeons are hard, unbalanced or not fun.

The ‘learn to play’ argument is very much in power, as much as i hate it to be. The only difference between you and me is that i sucked it up and spent my time in dungeons, trying to figure out how to improve, rather than on forum commenting how i’m constantly dying and it’s unfair. Because i were wiping all the time as well, until i stopped – because i’ve learnt to play.

Solid – we all worked to get our gear. We were utter noobs when we came to GW2. We never mastered any of the GW1 elite areas, just done them a few times. We weren’t handed proper exotic gear on a silver plate; no one ever came to us telling us what gear should be go after in the first place. We figured that out on our own, simply noticing that if we get killed in one hit, we need to invest more in survivability. It’s not that hard to find out.
Then no one guided us through dungeons. We all tried different tactics at tougher spots, wasting as much as 2h to just lit the torches in CoF3. But instead of trying two times, dying and claiming it’s too hard, we just kept on trying until we succeeded. Thanks to this, right now we can overcome all those tasks much, much easier – and the dungeons are, indeed, easy for us.

They can be easy for everyone. If you are a ‘casual player’, which means you don’t have much time to min-max everything and just want to play, it might take you a bit longer to learn that stuff, but you are still not excluded from it. If you are a ‘casual player’, which means you don’t WANT to learn anything and you just want to mash buttons and swing your sword again at mobs… dungeons indeed might not be a place for you.
But i firmly believe that everyone wants to get better at something they suck at in the first place. It’s just that not everyone understands that GW2’s dungeons are not meant to be doable by any casual, totally random pug out there, that it takes time, patience and willingness to improve in order to overcome the obstacles of rough beginnings. Instead, lots of people die a few times in a dungeon run, do a few dungeon routes, possibly with other ‘like-minded’ people who refuse to learn on their failures, and then complain how dungeons are hard, unbalanced or not fun.

The ‘learn to play’ argument is very much in power, as much as i hate it to be. The only difference between you and me is that i sucked it up and spent my time in dungeons, trying to figure out how to improve, rather than on forum commenting how i’m constantly dying and it’s unfair. Because i were wiping all the time as well, until i stopped – because i’ve learnt to play.

Don’t run a glassy build and you won’t die in one hit. I don’t die in dungeons on my elementalist, who has the lowest health AND armor pools in the game – and if i do, it’s because of my mistake or being really, really unlucky (or, very rarely, because my whole team screws up).
One thing is unbalanced in the game at the moment – tanky builds are promoted all across the game. This is something i will never deny. But if you are tanky and you know what’s around the corner – or at least you follow general dungeon-sense – you will not die, or not that often. For example, my ele can eat the pull from Kholer (AC), get hit by his whole whirling combo and still survive – if i make a mistake of getting pulled in the first place.
Then there’s proper use of cc skills, and every profession has some knockbacks, knockdowns, chills, cripples, blinds, stuns… everyone.

Don’t try to rush it, be tanky enough, be tactical, use combo fields with your teammates, communicate with teammates and focus fire – and that’s it! You’ll breeze through all dungeons, including explorable Arah. Sure, sometimes it will take a wipe or two before you learn the puzzle mechanic involved – before you time your actions right with teammates (CoF3) or learn to imprison all orbs fast enough (Arah4). Other than that, we’ve gone through all Arah routes last weekend, without ever doing them earlier, and with no full party wipe at all – and all we are is just regular players, but properly geared and willing to learn rather than cry in the forums.

@Solid – i can assure you that you can do all routes of all dungeons without a single party wipe. If your party wipes, it’s only your fault, not a bad dungeon design. Just like in GW1 – doable, tactical, no need to die if you’re good enough; and if you can’t do FoW, it’s not FoW’s fault.

@OP – if you find dungeons tedious or boring, why bother farming them for gear? You can craft it, too. Sure, i get that there are different stat combos on dungeon gear – but there’s no exclusive dungeon stat, aka you can get the same stats from CoF, CoE and Arah, and CoF is not only very easy but also short enough not to feel it becoming a chore. And CoE is always fun – blowing that inquest dude up never gets old…
I mean – it it’s so boring, if it becomes a job and so on, why do it? Take a break, do some PvP, take it easy – it’s not like you absolutely have to get all that gear in a week. And if you’re farming a specific dungeon, i assume you’re doing it for the looks you like and want, thus making it your own choice to make it a chore…

You can do all 3 routes of AC, yielding the imo best pow/tough/vit gear, in about 1-1,5h. 180 tokens a day per character. It takes about a week of playing 1-1,5h a day to get full exotic armor set with best stats on it (same stats as SE and HotW). Yes, it’s repeating the same dungeon, but after farming AC you’re also left with lots of gold coins in your pocket, on top of the exotic gear…

I do story modes on my alts to let them open explorable instances in the future.
But if you need to do story mode now, find a helpful guild or look for puggies for a longer while before entering.

Just cutting in with a detail: ghosts in Ascalon do use cannons, especially around the Grendich Court in Diessa.

I have explained it if you’re interested to find out now – in my thread ‘After Arah’.

Porting through a closed door is exploiting, even if it’s a workaround of a very annoying bug.

Nico – that’s why i don’t pug, and when i do i’m just looking for 1-2 more players to my 3-4 man guild group. That’s why guilds are there – to help you organise stuff and keep constant parties up.
But we were beginners, too. I remember wiping in TA story, CONSTANTLY. It took us nearly 4h to finish it the first time. I remember wiping at Ramblus in AC the first time i saw him. I remember taking a lot of time to figure out puzzles and mechanics, like CoF3 indeed.
Right now we can run most of it blindfolded – and by ‘we’ i mean most people in my guild, as i don’t have a constant party of 5 clearing stuff together. I’m in a 150+ man guild, with ~80 active people, and each and everyone who has ever attempted dungeons with me is capable of doing nearly everything now, and not wiping constantly on trash or dungeon mechanics.
But we were beginners, too. We were utter noobs. I used to run carrion set on elementalist and claimed it to be the best possible. I used to lock myself out of swapping traits and utilities, because it was too much work for me back then.

Yet since then, i’ve learnt a lot. I taught others a lot and was taught by guildies and random pugs alike. But first of all, i kept myself open on all the game’s signals – tried to do it the way it was designed, intended and planned; built myself up to overcome any challenge rather than make the game more challenging because ‘i have to do it my way’.

I cannot agree that pugs are the basic way to do things in Guild Wars. Even ignoring the social aspect, guilding up is the common thing to do in order to find like-minded people who will enjoy playing together with each other, who will have the opportunity to try things together, fail, wipe and learn, overcoming obstacles and getting better together. After all, it’s an MMO games and the standard is to play multiplayer games with other people, make acquaintances if not friends, team up in some sort of way.
GW2’s open PvE content has been designed to be fully puggable – you never need to party up in Cursed Shore to finish a Temple event. Mind it, Balthazar chain is probably the hardest open PvE encounter right now, alike to a raid – but still, you don’t have to party up with others, you can do it with completely random people, total strangers – and move on.
Dungeons do not work that way, at least not all of them. If someone insists on pugging everything, they have to realise they cripple themselves. With multiguilding in place, you can be a member of your casual guild of real-life friends, but at the same time be on the roster of a more dungeon-oriented guild so that you don’t have to pug; heck, with 500 slots in guilds, your whole real life group could and should join something bigger, even if only for 24/7 guild buffs.

This is not a single player game with other members of your party being NPCs, or GW1 with its heroes. I realise it might take a while to find or forge a decent guild, but there are gazillions of guilds out there, with all kinds of activities, expectations, requirements and offers. For one, my guild is a PvX one, a laid-back group with next to no requirements but being a nice and helpful person, and we’re always open for newcomers; there are loads of guilds like this out there, with people willing to teach you dungeon runs if only you would put some effort in looking for them and then listening to what they say.

About specific dungeons – the only hard moment of all the TA explorables is the Leurent fight, but there are no blossoms if you pull the group a little bit. HotW is easy if you are properly geared – the sad thing is that loads of people ignore their underwater gear and don’t go after that sweet lv79 aquabreather with pow/tough/vit, which is only 1 stat point weaker than its cond/prec/tough lv80 friend from Orr – which is also a decent choice; too many people ignore their underwater weapons. It’s not the fault of how dungeon is designed but of those people, sorry – we don’t run HotW because is kitten boring and much too easy, including the underwater part, and simply longer than AC which also yields pow/tough/vit gear. SE 1 & 2 are allegedly broken right now, but i don’t recall any troubles before the ‘patches’ – it took us a while to figure out that we have to kill both golems at the same time at SE 2, but that’s it – we kept killing one five times before we tried downing them both, without having anyone here downed; and we weren’t as experienced or geared up as now. And AC… sweet AC… let me just say i can solo the left side of the Hodgins’s room with my ele, and i’ve seen a warrior doing the same – not saying how pro i am, but how easy that encounter is if you, yourself, are prepared – 4 people are enough to destroy the right side and babysit Hodgins, even if they’re complete noobs and idiots.

It’s not the game that is tainted with gear treadmills or gear progression right now – and knowing ANet, it will never be, judging from GW1 as well; it’s the people coming from other MMOs who see gear treadmills kitten everywhere, becoming paranoid about gear progression and being locked out of content even if it only means wasting 15 minutes to get your armor infused.
What about certain locations, like Oola’s Lab or the Displaced Ogre fight, which require you to find a random drop somewhere in the map? It’s also based on RNG, chance, waste of time and stuff – treadmill?

@AHD:
It will be only Fractals’ mechanic right now and surely the devs will closely watch its reception to decide whether it should spread or stay only in Fractals.
Why a whole slot for it? We don’t know yet how infusion works, but given we will have three types of infusion, it will probably also grant additional things, not just defense against Agony.
Still, there’s absolutely no indication that Agony will be seen outside of Fractals, unless we’re to see Mursaat somewhere else.

If you can contribute more but you’re consciously not doing it because you’re greedy, you’re a rude person not respecting my time and i don’t want you in my groups – even if you can run all dungeon routes blindfolded and never make a mistake.
On the other hand, if someone is REALLY trying, putting all the effort they’ve got, asking how to improve, trying out the best build and combos they heard of and on top of that never ragequit – i’d take them anywhere with me, even if they constantly die in the beginning. I’m willing to take more time to do something and allow them to learn, give them opportunity to improve.

It’s about attitude, too, you know, not just min-maxing stuff. A noob willing to learn and become better is much more welcome than a greedy pro.
Problem is – just like you can’t see if someone’s using mf gear, you can’t also grade another person’s attitude – when it’s right. You can, however, judge someone bringing mf into dungeons as greedy kitten consciously dragging the total party output down or just slacking off, and all for just personal gain. Single player games are for that.

e:
Bolded the important parts for you.

e2:
Inbefore possible comment on it: yes, a noob that brought EVERYTHING they had, even if it’s not much, and tries to improve everywhere they can, stays focused but just needs more practice – they respect my time, just needs to get through the rough beginnings of dungeon delving. We all were there.
I actually like bringing guild noobs (when it comes to dungeons) with me as long as they listen and are willing to learn. I do not, however, take anyone in their mf gear with me, guildie or not.

Because you still could contribute more if you’re better than other players. The sole fact that you’re in a party with terrible players doesn’t mean you can slack off as well.

Way around it: after killing the spiders, find out who has the NPC leash (whom is the NPC following right now) and have that person stay in the spider chamber throughout the whole fight, with 4 other players killing the Stargazer. Workaround, yes, but works 100%.

The same player with the same level of ineptitude running mf gear is subpar to what he would be able to achieve when running a different setup, regardless of offensive/defensive choice, simply because they would get 3 useful stats instead of 2 useful and 1 greedy.

A bad player would be ‘less bad’ if they were running a 3-stat gear rather than an mf set; tanky gear would suit them best, as it’s most forgiving on mistakes. Mf setup is not tanky at all.
A good player, being really awesome with running glassy build, would be ‘more good’ if they were running a 3-stat gear rather than an mf set; the examplatory berserker/ruby setup would let them dish out more damage, aka contribute more damage to the overall party dps, aka get things done faster – for everyone, not just them.

I have nothing against taking lv35 people for my AC runs, or lv55 people into TA; i have not much against full glass cannon builds – i don’t trust people in general, and i don’t trust they will manage to pull the glass builds off, meaning everyone will have to res them all the time and we’ll just waste more time; but i am strongly against bringing mf into a dungeon first and foremost because it’s greedy and doesn’t contribute to total party efficiency in any way, defensive or offensive, while still not being as useful for the user as they might think given mf doesn’t work with chests (no higher chance to get lodestones etc).

Wasting a stat slot comes second to being a greedy, egocentric kitten, which is fine in open PvE, but not in a proper dungeon delving party.

e:
It all really boils down not to min-maxing everything, but to respecting your party members and their time. Bringing mf stat is unfair and rude, even if it doesn’t keep you wiping the floor all the time. It still takes the general party efficiency down, considering the same player with the same knowledge, experience and general skills, possibly bringing two gear sets – one mf and one not.
To add salt to the wound, bringing mf is a conscious choice – we may say that an elementalist running rampager set is not properly geared and stuff, but they’re probably not min-maxing stuff enough (or yet) to notice that condition damage sucks in PvE, especially on eles. It’s not about bringing the most efficient builds at all times, it’s about having respect to people you play with and bringing everything you humanly can, in the boundaries of your own skills and time, to the table.

Noticing that 3 defensive and/or offensive stats pumped up are better than 2, with the third slot wasted for greedy mf, is not really misinformation.

Ogden says the most in Arah. We also know that the dwarves are not dead (or we do not know that they are dead), but still in the Depths, fighting off destroyers as Rubicon foretold.

Do Arah 4. Together with some bits of info on bloodstones found in GW2, it will change your way of thinking about those objects. But… just do Arah 4 first.
I have summarised the lore found in Arah in my thread in this very forum, but it would be better if everyone interested done it on their own – we could compare our interpretations and fill some holes we might got.

That’s what i assumed as well, trying to keep the discrepancies in-lore and not blaming the devs for forgetting stuff from GW1 or creating plot loopholes.
I remember GW1 stating that the gods created the bloodstones, sealed with blood of King Doric (hence blood part, i guess?), and that the bloodstones ‘represented’ (after wiki), controlled or somehow managed/channelled ‘schools’ of magic, or facets of magic. GW2’s Arah 4, however, explicitly states it was the Seers who have created the bloodstones, and out of the two i trust GW2’s lore sources for two reasons – (a) it’s more likely that the toons in-game have found out more about Dragons, Gods and related stuff throughout 250 years, especially now with the Dragons’ awakening and the Gods’ departure, and (b) it’s a much fresher material and it’s much more reliable from the storyteller point of view, as it’s understandable that the devs changed outlook on some stuff, decided to change or twist something etc.

Not throwing the GW1’s lore away and taking all the actions of the Gods into account, i got my theories presented above.

Linking Door of Komalie to bloodstones is the next step given that the bloodstones were a Seer creation, knowing about the Seer/Mursaat ‘hatred’ and the Mursaat betrayal. Still, GW1 lore may be true with it and it was the Mursaats only who took care of Komalie because they feared the Flameseeker Prophecies.

But this brings yet another twist, now that we know that the Forgotten weren’t Glint’s lackeys, as we were told in GW1, and they weren’t ‘put in the world by the Gods’, but they predate the Gods – at least in Tyria. We now know that Glint, while being a valuable ally and stuff, was actually freed from Kralkatorrik’s influence by the Forgotten and it was probably done by force (without her consent anyway – no Dragon champion would agree to break free before it has happened); i assume that Glint, while being independent and a faction on her own, was indebted to the Forgotten rather than their ‘leader’.
This alone shows the whole Flameseeker Prophecies in a new light, knowing that the Forgotten and the Seer were allied and fought the Dragons together, and together were betrayed by the Mursaat. The Flameseeker Prophecies might have been a plotted self-fulfilling prophecy in order to put the Mursaat in guard of the Komalie and, eventually, punish them hard for their betrayal with hands of another race.

Challenge accepted – leveling my warrior atm, as soon as she turns 80 she’s getting proper dungeon gear and is off to get me more tokens, as right now she’s running with some masterwork underleveled crap.

Oddly enough, i thought that CoE and CoF were some of the most problematic dungeons. I mentioned the all-hated CM and the supposedly tough Arah 4. Which ‘dungeons causing most grief’ have i omitted?

I compared what i have found in Arah and remember from GW2 in-game lore with all the lore known from GW1 and there are obvious discrepancies, some as big as outright stating that ‘the gods created the bloodstones to control magic’. I see two explanations for those differences, one does not rule out the other – (a) the scholars have found out much more old lore throughout 250 years and even more thanks to access to Orr and Arah now, and (b) the devs decided to rewrite some bits of the lore, causing more havoc than they possibly have foreseen in all the details – bit then they have the safe excuse in (a).
Either way, i believe we should base our knowledge and theories on GW2 lore and more contemporary out-of-the-game info, rather than old GW1 data.

With that in mind, Glint might have created the Flameseeker Prophecies as one of the mechanisms keeping the Mursaats in place, ensuring they would guard Komalie. After all, as it turns out, it was the Forgotten who ‘changed’ Glint, thus Glint was their powerful ally but also, let’s say, ‘subordinate’, and not the other way around as it seemed in GW1.
Side question – do we know of any in-game prophecies other than the Flameseeker ones? As in, do we know how divination works there, or at least do we have something to compare the Flameseeker Prophecies to? We have theorised that Glint might have been simply lying and manipulating everyone – as it turns out, possibly on someone else’s command or suggestion, aka the Forgotten/Seer/jotun alliance.

@Excelliate:
Exactly! That’s why they had to keep their legendary status quo and move away before they could have been unmasked
It’s just a theory, though, and it seems not that solid even to me, but it’s still the most likely option i see tbh, much more likely and fun from storyteller point of view than ‘the gods brought humans to Tyria, period’.

From what i understood from the articles, though, Agony will become unmanagable only later on in the Fractals, meaning you should naturally get enough infusion on the way to tone Agony down. The first few phases in Fractals should have no Agony or only some weak hits, while still potentially rewarding Ascended gear with infusion slots.
They never said anything making it look like a gear grind. It’s just the old Diablo mechanics – throw bigger monsters at players, but also reward them with better gear, so that the relative difficulty remains the same but the awesomeness of encounters rise.

I believe that 80%+ of people complaining about Agony are people new to the GW universe.

Nothing pointed at it in Arah or i have missed something, but i don’t think there was anything told outright.
I’d theorise that she wanted to cut away from Kralkatorrik, have a fresh start – the name ‘Glaust’ could have been hated and feared.

The new Ascended gear has 2~4 more stat points than exotic gear, + the infusion slot.

My theory about the Gods is that they were, indeed, only human leaders that brought the human race onto Tyria. Once there, they have found powerful artifacts of the old races, particularly the Seer bloodstones, and used them to become much more powerful than their subordinates via means of ‘high’ magic – some kind of magic much stronger than what our characters can use.
The fact that they ‘brought’ the human race to Tyria means that they had the means to travel cross-realms, either by some means of magic from their original world or other artifacts found there. Once securing their people in Tyria, they opened new portals and each of them found and took/conquered a realm for themselves, thus leading to the ‘creation’ of the Underworld, the Realm of Torment and so on. They were just different world/realms, in the Mists or not, which the Gods have found and took over.
Grenth being half-god, half-human when born only hints that the Gods and humans can (could) procreate and produce offspring, what seems impossible between as closely visually related races as humans and the norns – if it was possible, surely we would hear of human-norn hybrids by now, even as oddball NPCs. While there is no evidence to back up the cross-breeding restriction, lack of evidence supporting it is enough to outweigh the other assumption.

The rise to power of humans in Tyria, the Ascension of the Chosen, the shattering of the bloodstone, the rise of Dragons – all of that summed up for the Gods’ Exodus and, finally, total departure from Tyria. But i think it was the Abaddon’s gift of magic that made the Gods hide in Arah and then leave the Tyrian plane in the first place. After all, if the Gods were only old human leaders who got immortality and lots of power through magic drained from Dragons, they would lose a lot in the eyes of people who might find out what the Gods truly were – using the same magic, even if less powerful. It was safer to leave while they still were Gods rather than let humans and other races unmask their true identity, limitations and earlier exploits.

One more question that begs for an answer that can be theorised based on Arah findings is why the Gods have brought humans to Tyria. What was wrong with their original world? Was it just conquest? Doesn’t seem so. Was it exploration? Thirst of knowledge? Wanderlust? I don’t think so either.
They were fleeing.
The celestial beams shot across the universe, reaching the original human world later than Tyria, and awakening their own ‘Elder Dragons’. It might have been Giant kittenroaches there, or just primeval forces causing natural disasters like constant floods, droughs, hurricanes and so on, shattering their original world. Thus they had to leave and found Tyria.

Arah 4, the Seer path, is all about bloodstones.
It was the Seers that created the bloodstones.
It was the Gods who then used them – why, how and so on is yet to find out. What was told is that the Six took a Seer invention, a bloodstone (or its shard?) and put it in the place where Arah is now, and then built Arah around it. The bloodstone channels magic, and that place was full of raw magical energy.
Why that location? Zhaitan. As explicitly said in Arah 4, the Six didn’t know about Zhaitan. They were like the asura in EotN – they’ve found a spot with raw magic, and thought ‘awesome! let’s build some cool magical stuff here’, pretty much. They ‘drained’ (?) and channeled Zhaitan’s own power, deep in slumber under Arah’s location even before it was built, to… what?

This shows the Human Gods in a new light. They didn’t realise that they were building their capital city on an Elder Dragon. They didn’t realise that the magic they were using was coming from an Elder Dragon. They didn’t create the bloodstones but merely ‘enhanced’ them, found another use for them – i don’t really remember the exact quotes and i might have interpreted something wrong.

It seems that the Seer race managed to trap and channel the magic that Elder Dragons radiate. It seems that the Gods later found the bloodstone and used them, and possibly their shards, to ascend into actual godhood – to gain more power, so to speak. They might have been nothing more but regular human leader from that time who were first to figure out and exploit the inventions and the heritage of older races.
Then Abaddon might have thought it was wrong to keep all that magic to themselves, with the Seers gone and the Elder Dragons asleep, and ‘released’ the power trapped in the bloodstones – power drained from Dragons – onto the world, granting humans magic.
He was subsequently punished for it by imprisonment in a realm away from Tyria that has become the Realm of Torment, and now is home to Kormir, purified from Abaddon’s power. This means that the Gods were against releasing magic onto the world, they wanted to keep it for themselves – as possibly only high magic is what makes Gods and humans different.

All of it also means that the Tyrian magic does not come from Gods at all, but possibly from Dragons which then eat it back when they awake. They might also awaken because of their hunger in the first place – they become hungry once they’ve radiated enough magic out into the world. Then they want to eat as much as possible, regenerate the strength, and go on swallowing rampage. They get defeated, fall into slumber again until they become hungry again.
Think about it the next time you’re shooting fireballs.

Arah 3, the Forgotten path, tells us something about Glint, called Glaust back then.
She was a Kralkatorrik’s champion, probably a very high ranked one as well. The Forgotten found a way to break her connection to Kralkatorrik and free her will by a special cleansing ritual after trapping Glint. From what i understood, it took place in Arah, at the special altar built for the occassion, where we also purify and bring free will to an undead chicken in the Arah 3 finale, in order to test out the purifying ritual. It worked fine and the chicken ceased to be bloodthirsty – and became a normal chicken, even if still a bit undead.

This means that Glint was freed from Kralkatorrik’s influence after Arah has been built, with the Gods present and helping the Forgotten to break the connection. An Elder Dragon’s champion was somehow found – roaming or in slumber, more likely the latter – while the Dragons were still asleep, and purified from the Dragon’s corruption.
It also means that Glint was indeed ‘good’ and is explicitly said to have been a powerful and valuable ally.

Arah 2 deals with the Mursaat race.
First of all, we learn that they have fled the battlefield and abandoned the other races. They have found a way to ‘phase out’ from the world, walk onto another plane of existence, away from the Dragons. For that, they were tasked to guard the Door of Komalie.
We know quite a bit of things about the Mursaat from GW1. They were revered as gods by the White Mantle. They helped to prevent the charr invasion of Kryta soon before our characters arrived there, taking Saul D’Alessio away with them and ensuring constant flow of the Chosen to sacrifice on the Maguuman bloodstone, what empowered the Door of Komalie, keeping the Titans away. We know that becoming Ascended allows to see the Mursaat – otherwise they are the Unseen Ones, still phased out from the world to a degree.

This all begs for some theories that would explain the connection between all puzzles.

The phasing out thing. While we get phased out in Arah 2 ourselves for a while, we don’t completely leave Tyria for another world; i guess it’s just a glimpse at how phasing out would work given it enough time. The Mursaat fled the fight against the Dragons, and that would mean moving onto another plane of existence or to another world whatsoever, not just becoming invisible and partially invulnerable. Given that we are about to face Agony in Fractals of the Mists, we are to get Ascended gear there and we are about to Infuse it to gain protection against the Agony, i believe we are about to see the Mursaat in their flesh as bosses in late phases of Fractals. Fractals, or some of them, might be THE place the Mursaat had fled to.

Then there’s something about the connection between the bloodstone(s) and the Door of Komalie. The Door are a gateway from (possibly also into) the Realm of Torment, old Abaddon’s domain and prison, with lots of his wicked creations there. It actually is a door to the Foundry of Failed Creations in Realm of Torment, and it must be shut or else the Titans will flood Tyria, bringing flame and destruction. It’s what the Flameseeker Prophecies were about, with Khilbron being the Flameseeker.
The Mursaat had their White Mantle lackeys to find ‘the Chosen’, special people of Kryta with potential to ‘ascend’, using the Eye of Janthir (some Chosen-detection device of probably Mursaat origin, but it may predate them, as the task to guard Komalie was given upon them – probably they might have received the Eye from another race, possibly the Seer), and then sacrifice them on a bloodstone in the Maguuma Jungle. This powered up the Door of Komalie, constantly worn down by the pressure from the Realm of Torment.

I am still puzzled HOW exactly the bloodstone sacrifices were able to power up the Komalie. The souls of ascension-worthy people were required to keep the batteries charged – ok, got it. But how the Maguuman bloodstone was able to transfer the captured power of the souls to a door in the Ring of Fire?
Given what we found out in Arah 4 (read below), i believe the Door of Komalie is another Seer invention, designed to be connected with the bloodstones, attuned to draw the ‘soul power’ captured by the bloodstones. This would also mean that the Seer race were overseeing the humiliation of the Mursaat and it was them who tasked them with guarding the door, providing them the bloodstones, the Door and possibly the Eye as well. This would also hint at the supposed hatred between the two races – it might not be hatred per se, just revenge and guard/prisoner kind of relationship, with the Seer being put in charge of the Mursaat guarding the Door.

I’ve done all Arah explorable paths quite recently and they’re HEAVY on lore, providing more questions than answers, but also sheding some light onto the conundrums of old.
Spoilers ahead!

Arah explorables in general are about the older races that came up together at one point to fight the ‘Six Great Swallowers’ – the dwarves, the jotun, the Seer, the Mursaat and the Forgotten.
There’s no ‘dwarf path’, but i think we have enough of dwarven lore all around, especially in GW1 – Tome of Rubicon, the idea of the Great Dwarf being the hivemind of dwarven community; we know about the dwarves as a race quite a lot. We did not, however, know anything about the other races; not much at least.
It is quite possible that more races fought the Dragons last time, sentient and not alike, but only those five actually survived. It is believed that the Dragons caused extinction of the Lupicus race, and we are hinted that they swallowed or destroyed most of the world back then.

Arah 1 is about the jotun.
We learn that they were not as bloodthirsty, stupid giants as we know them from GW1 or open PvE. They were astronomers, ‘stargazers’, and they’ve discovered that each time the Elder Dragons awake, new stars appear on the sky. We could even take a glimpse through an ancient jotun telescope at the end of the path.
This actually means a few things. First of all, the jotun race must be really, really old. If they’ve managed to find out a pattern and connect new stars to Elder Dragons, whatever it means, they must have witnessed at least two Dragons’ awakenings before.
Not much else is told about the jotun themselves, but it appears that they were scholars as well, given the sky observation, not just homicidal maniacs.

I have no idea what to think about the new stars popping up along with the Dragons’ awakening. It seems that it marks some connection between the Dragons and the very primal forces of the universe, not just Tyria, or that the Dragons are ‘controlled’, manipulated and awakened by something – or someone – from a world far away. The new stars might be actually some sort of beams that awake the primeval forces of magic all across the universe, manifested as Dragons on Tyria. Those beams might be either controlled by some unknown beings or simply a natural occurence.
The other way around – the Dragons actually popping new celestial bodies to appear – seems much too Tyrian-centric to me and doesn’t make much sense.

You guys do realise that Agony is old stuff, dating back to GW1, and that it foretells the return of the Mursaat? Probably we will see some Mursaat bosses using Agony in the Fractals, as the Fractals might be THE out-of-phase place they once fled to.
It’s more than just a new condition mechanic requiring you to gear up; it’s back to the roots of GW1 and most old GW1 vets will rejoice if it really brings the Mursaat back.

It will only be present in Fractals.
You will get gear to mitigate it in Fractals.

Sounds like a solid design of personal progression and overcoming a virtual challenge – what keeps most people captivated and what most people like.

You haven’t yet seen it, but you’re saying it’s certainly not fun. See my future, too!

@Max:
The main issue is that glass cannon builds are just that, glass – you CAN build your character to have bare minimum of vit/tough. However going the other way around, building like us for pow/tough/vit, aka being as tanky as possible in the game right now, yields a lot of power as well.
Taking the extremes into consideration, extreme tank has loads of power, while extreme crit build has no survivability. It may be a loophole in design, it may be something’s overlooked – or meant to be – but it’s there to use.
When more people actually understand it, pugging will become so much easier.

Having all dungeon routes balanced all across the game, or even within one dungeons, is simply impossible. You encounter a whole variety of different mechanics later on in dungeons – each route of CoF introduces at least 2 different mechanics which simply require different tactics. If you build up yourself for the encounter and coordinate the team, instead of running the same build and tactic as before, you will succeed everywhere in CoF, despite varying degree of difficulty coming from the difference in design.
But it’s apples and oranges, really. You can balance out two encounters ‘stand here and survive’, but you can’t balance out ‘control this point against enemies’ with ‘survive until 100% keeping the NPC alive’. It’s just different design – but swap your utilities and major traits, understand the encounter after wiping twice, and everything will come to you with relative ease.

Then there’s CoE, which routes are the most alike i think, given the 3 Alpha fights and the unique boss encounters being more of a fun design than an actual challenge. It is unbalanced, yes, but it seems to be meant that way.
CoE 1 is clearly the easiest and shortest, with Alpha being the most passive, not doing anything in melee, not encapsulating in crystals. CoE 2 has less room and nightmare adds, which are a bit tougher than CoE 1’s, but still easier than the destroyers in 3. Finally 3’s Alpha is the most lethal.
I don’t know about you, but i see a clear learning curve in CoE. People usually start new, unknown dungeons with the first path – because why not? Each route becoming a bit harder than the previous one makes sense – not from a perspective of someone who wants to farm that dungeon beyond any limits, but from a perspective of someone who explores it, delves into it for the first time.

Lots of dungeons and fights there are more of a fun design than a challenging one. Take the Stargazer in Arah 1 – the final boss which is VERY easy, yet quite fun and it’s clearly the design that is shown there. There are SOME encounters which are challenging even to an experienced player, still showing great design – take Lupicus. But i really can’t remember any encounter that was challenging, overly hard, unbalanced – when doing things as they’re meant to be done.
CM2? Have one person drop a barrel far away to lure all the mobs.
CoF3? Use your crowd control skills, stealth, Mist Form – whatever works.
Arah4? For some encounters, go ranged, even if you’re a melee-specced warrior.

People find dungeons too hard or unbalanced when they (a) try to run them with their usual builds and refuse to tweak them for encounter, (b) try to bruteforce them and refuse to find out what’s the working strategy and simply execute it, © ragequit after a wipe instead of trying to learn something from it (i still remember my first time in AC – took us 1,5h to do one route, my armor was broken twice – good times), (d) try to rush them – yes, bosses have loads of hp, yes, trash has loads of hp, yes, most dungeons take a while – but that’s their design and rushing them will only cause bad things happen.

Then there are some dungeons that require a bare minimum of teamwork and if X people in your party are bad, you won’t succeed. Sometimes it’s 3 – like when jumping in CoE or going with the fiery balls in CoF1. Sometimes it’s 1 – like in CoF3. But that’s about teamwork and having everyone on the same page with their builds, skills and expectations, not about nerfing dungeons into oblivion because a pug of bad players can’t succeed.

Just notice and accept that if you are constantly dying or having problems with a dungeon, YOU are doing something wrong. Do NOT blame yourself and go cry in a corner, but do NOT blame the design either. Just notice that there’s room for improvement, think how could you get better and move in that direction – at your own speed.
Ask people for advice. The correct way would be to start a thread ‘i wipe in Arah, how can i get better, suggestions plz’, and not a ‘i wipe in Arah, it’s broken and unbalanced, nerf!!!!11’ one.

It might be something to do with the general mentality and a very casual approach to gaming – lots of people out there treat games as a pastime for kids or something to relieve their stress at, or as a habitual ritual of milking cows in Farmville, or as a means to do something with other people. But it extends beyond that – it’s an art and a hobby in its own right.
You can play tennis ignoring all the precautions, without any proper training and by just running around trying to hit the ball, playing with another rookie. It works, but is not comparable to playing tennis properly, with a proper warm-up, in proper clothing, with proper attitude in mind, with proper training throughout weeks/months/years.

GW2 is not much different – open PvE and some jobs in W3 are the ‘casual tennis’, where you can play any way you want it, when, how and with anyone you want; explorable dungeons are for enthusiasts who at least are willing to learn over time, just through playing, instead of mashing the ball back and forth.

I’m not a PR guy and the amount of crying and whining in this forum lately has gone through the roof.

@Sittaraha,
This is pretty silly when you compare gaming with sports. If you want to be successful in playing tennis, not hurt yourself and have much more fun, you have to follow some rules, train the techniques, hone your skills, simply get better after a rough beginning. If you want to play proper football, you need to learn all the rules and learn tricks like the offside trap.
Heck, if you want to learn to juggle or master the Rubic’s cube, you have to follow some wide-known patterns and standards – first learn about them, then train them until you’re comfortable with them, then expand onto harder things.

Gaming is no different. It’s a hobby like any other out there, and while some games or parts of those games are casual to the pain – you can just click click click and get stuff done, with no insight into the game whatsoever – there are also parts which require you to learn stuff and get through the tough beginnings.
GW2 is no different. You can swing your sword as much you like in open PvE and get through it with relative ease. You can’t, however, go into explorable dungeons and keep the same tactic – you have to develop your knowledge and skills as a player, learn more about your profession of choice, learn more about the encounters.

I’m not saying you should go onto the wiki and waste 3 hours a day just reading about stuff, memorising every spell and skill used by enemies. That would be silly, though some people sometimes do it. But just accept the fact that some content in games is meant to be challenging at the beginning, that it requires you to learn and practice it, and then it really becomes much easier and more enjoyable.
It’s fine if the learning process takes long for some, advancing slowly. Not everyone is apt at tweaking builds, not everyone will memorise all your character’s skills and traits in one day. That’s fine, really. The common problem is that people completely shut for any personal progression and blame the game for being too hard – in the beginning.
It’s like saying that tennis is a sport for masochists because your wrist hurts for the next week after first longer session of playing.

@RoRo:
Could you write your build then, please? In details. Could be a pm.

The only real problem i see with all the whining around is the fact that a lot of people refuse to even TRY to learn the game, to tweak builds, to change gear. They put all the blame on dungeons being too hard or unbalanced, or unfair, without even putting some effort on their side to adapt to it. We already have some Dungeon Masters out there, a lot of people close to it but just needing more time, and this alone proves that nothing is ‘too hard’ or ‘impossible’.

I wonder if people claiming that ‘X can’t be done’ (except for truly bugged stuff, like SE 1/2 now or some bugs outright blocking progression) took some time to actually think what THEY can do to help it. Tweaked their gear and build? Watched the fight on yt? Asked ‘what can i do to be better’?
It’s pretty much the same as with Arah being bugged now – everyone cries how it’s been bugged the last month, inaccessible and stuff, oh you evil devs fix it now! Instead of whining in the forums, i asked myself what WE, players, can do to somehow circumvent the problem – and i’ve started a EU Arah-oriented guild being an extended friendlist of those who need to do Arah.

The same goes about dungeons. It’s not about devs doing something, especially that numerous people has already proven that each dungeon run is doable – there are videos on youtube you can watch. It’s about asking yourself how can you get better at what you need to get done, hone your skills and then have loads of fun after beating something that was challenging for you. After all, it’s end-game we’re talking about.

I am playing my guardian in dungeons now, playing melee almost exclusively unless a certain boss is really unforgiving for melee (Lupicus – although i meleed him down in phase3 today for fun – and the first two bosses in Arah4). Mace/shield combo. I barely ever swap to scepter/focus, i barely ever get downed. I’ve done all explorable routes with her, including all Arah routes.
Tbh i find the all melee teams best in dungeons. 2 wars, 2 guards, 1 ele – or just 2 guards and 3 wars. So much dps, so much support through all the shouts, so much armor and health.

Do you want to know a secret?
We run power/toughness/vitality armor. We run toughness/vitality runes. We run ruby, emerald or sapphire jewelry. On everyone – from ele to warrior, only necro excluded.
It is true that you can do any dungeon with any profession combo. But not with any build combo. You still need survivability and support. Thing is, with tanky builds – like pow/tough/vit – you still get enough dps to mow through content. Yes, it’s a bit slower, but nobody ever gets downed, nobody dies to trash mobs, nobody has to run from a wp, we don’t get bosses reset on us. Sure, mistakes happen, sometimes we even wipe – but due to a stupid mistake on our end or simply being unlucky, not because dungeons are hard or broken.

I actually plan to fraps our next Arah run, probably in similar heavy-based team – although there are so many guildies who want to do Arah now that we’ve ‘breached’ it and can guide groups through. It is long – very long – bosses have gazillions of hp, most trash is not skippable – but it isn’t hard.

SE 1 and SE 2 is currently bugged, with dev confirmation. Still, i used to farm all SE routes (except 2, as it’s too long to farm – done it 5+ times though to help people with achievements – i still remember the first time, took us a while to figure out you need to kill both golems at once, fun times) – in fact my guardian has SE armor set (p/t/v as well, although with default runes of the forge, i’m too cheap).

You don’t need to reset your traits in dungeons, and if you do, something’s wrong with your build. Just swap major traits if you need – that should be enough. Same goes for weapons and utilities – the fact that i mostly use mace/shield on guardian or staff on ele doesn’t mean i don’t have all the other weapons in my inventory, just in case they got useful.

I did play Runes of Magic and got turned out by the gear treadmill there, even though i had a quite well outfitted mage/priest up and running. The major flaw of RoM’s dungeons, as opposed to GW2’s, was aggro based on the dps-meter – you needed one awesome tank, one extra off-tank, one decent healer, one decent supporter who could take over healing if needed, and everyone else could go full dps.
It’s not the case here. You are responsible for your own survival. If you are the first or second to die or get downed in a dungeon run, you’re doing something wrong – if it doesn’t happen a lot, you probably made a mistake and it’s fine; if it does, you might need some more time with your character, understanding your skills, combos, cycles, understanding the game’s mechanics, understanding the encounters you’re facing in dungeons and properly preparing for them.

CoF3 strategy took us 2 hours. We all were there for the first time and we all were wiping at the torches for 2 hours straight. One guy was near to ragequit. But you know what? We told ourselves – one more try. We told ourselves – let’s try a different approach. How about leaving one mob alive? How about controlling it with something? Oh, wait, it didn’t work because Bobbie hit F too late. Let’s try again. Oh, great! Worked awesome!
Then we wasted another hour trying to hold our ground in the blue field. We kept wiping – we weren’t prepared for those mobs. First time in CoF3, not fully exotic geared, not that experienced with the dungeons yet. Now it’s a walk in a park, but then we kept dying, resping and going again.
But then, guess what – we did it. Without watching anything on yt, googling answers or dropping people. We swore to never venture into CoF3 again, which we obviously have broken many times by now, but that feeling of accomplishment is not to be found in your usual daily AC run. This is what makes wiping, paying repair bills and changing your builds worth it – the sweet taste of success after overcoming a serious challenge.
Right now doing CoF3 torches takes us 3 tries tops, with no one dying. We got better – because we tried, kept pushing and thinking until we finally made it, instead of ragequitting and whining how broken and unbalanced it is. Now it’s a piece of cake – without voip or any special preparation.

If you need ‘several minutes’ for trash and you die to ‘two hits’ from trash mobs, you’re doing something very wrong. I facetank most veteran mobs in dungeons with my guardian. I facetank or outright ignore at least half of the incoming damage on my ele – i can heal it up or pop Arcane Shield when needed.
We did CoE1 earlier today – all Alpha fights were facetanked with the game minimised, as he doesn’t drop any AoEs on melee range. Find it out as we did and use it – then enjoy arguing with people in this forum while your toon is bashing the boss down.
We did Arah4 today, first our time there – it’s the most fun and certainly one of the easiest dungeons in the game, although it’s long and unforgiving – but it’s hard to make a fatal mistake.

The problem with glass cannons is that nearly no one can actually play them.
On paper, you should gear yourself up to have the bare minimum of self survivability so you NEVER get downed in a dungeon run, throw in some party support, and go all out on damage with other stats. It’s hard to level it out in practice, though, and at the same time pow/tough/vit gear still has power in its major slot. 3k attack alongside 30% crit chance and 50-60 crit dmg on tanks still can deal high damage and mow through mobs while being much more forgiving for players and just safer.
If you really can run full glass cannon and 2 dodges are enough for you in Arah, be my guest – just don’t die and don’t make others revive you every fight.

I’d somewhat understand mf in some dungeons if chests were affected – getting potentially more lodestones and specific skin rares might be not that bad. But as it is now, it’s not only silly, but also shows greed – something inherently bad in any human culture out there. It becomes a matter of principle, too – others are bringing everything they can to the table, even if it means less experience and general skill than you, and you run mf gear which only – potentially! – benefits you, while dragging the party performance down. GW2’s greed in its worst.

Now, i don’t pug but mainly because of people who can’t dodge, use 10 levels too weak fine equipment or just refuse to cooperate. Running mf is really far on my why-not-to-pug list.

I tend to aggro one group, run BACK with it as it makes the mobs spread and just throw a lot of cc on them. Works fine. Spreading the mobs more helps, too, aka running back until all mobs but 2-3 reset – useful when pugging.

@RoRo:
This means using support/survival traits and utility skills, aka not utilising your glass cannon to its full potential. A glass elementalist running Armor of Earth, Mist Form and Lightning Flash, traiting cantrips and slotting traits for endurance regeneration is not a full glass cannon. A tanky elementalist can use offensive traits and utilities.
It all levels out. The difference is that you sacrifice offensive EFFECTS to get offensive STATS.

If you have done Lupicus or the Melandru priest with a truly fully glass team – video or didn’t happen, sorry.

See, magic find is a glass cannon setup – well, let’s say glass gun. If you can run a glassy build and not die, by not running a proper glass cannon you are making the run slower, essentially wasting your own time as well, as you could get those tokens faster.
With all your knowledge, experience and ability to coordinate with people and not die without those extra hp/armor bits, you could dish out much more damage than you do using mf in the major stat slot.
And this exactly means dragging the general performance down. Not wiping, dying all the time or whatever – but consciously and willingly making the run slower than it could be, even for yourself.

What gets me personally annoyed is the fact of doing it consciously. If someone is new to a dungeon and dies at each group, they have the potential to learn and get better at it. If someone isn’t smart enough for something, probably they will understand their errors sooner or later.

It gets even more so silly now that we know that mf doesn’t work with chests. We don’t kill that many mobs in dungeons to make mf worth it even for the user, especially when compared to doing the run faster, aka making just a bit less money – or the same, as mf is still rng – but doing it considerably faster. This means more time for other dungeons, aka more cash and tokens in the long run.
It probably doesn’t affect you much if you run only one route per sitting – 10 extra minutes don’t make a difference then. However if you do all the routes, wasting extra 30+ minutes total because two people run mf instead of berserker (if they’re so super awesome with glassy builds indeed), is outright silly.