Guild Wars 2

Stack 10x might on everyone with an ele that can also heal and dish out loads of Aoe dmg and control.

We just did Arah 4 an hour ago, and we did Simin the way it’s intended.
We haven’t kept her poisoned.
We used the sparks. Nothing bugged at all, though it was hard to control them at the beginning; we got better over time. We let her regen to near full twice before we nailed the tactic.
We had 2 tanky guardians, 1 tanky warrior, 1 signet warrior and 1 thief, so not exactly the most dps out there.

She went down like a breeze once we’ve learnt to run the sparks.

Traits – i believe you should choose traits considering the trait bonuses, especially the major traits, and not the stat points you get from traitlines. It so happens, usually, that supportive/defensive trait effects are found in traitlines granting vit/tough/healing, and vice versa, but it’s not always so. Go for the effects, not extra 100 to some stat.
I also think you should go for major traits first and foremost (judging by ele, nec, guardian and war which i’ve played extensively so far) with minors being only a nice addition on the way. You won’t get those effects in any other way.
The same is true to runes – choose runes either granting some really sweet effect on 6 slotted or something like Mercy, with stat/effect progression.

If a guardian ragequits a dungeon, it’s either a bad guardian or just a typical ragequitter. Possibly someone who rerolled onto a guardian expecting it to be a breeze through everything, imba-immortal-invincible tank mowing through mobs. It’s not the case – even guardians go down and have to watch themselves.
Tbh anyone ragequitting a dungeon is just that, a ragequitter – of course sometimes it’s just about time left for sleep before getting up to work/school in the morning, sometimes you just have to leave regardless of the will to continue, but if that’s not the case and you simply ragequit, something’s wrong with you, not the dungeon – especially that countless people have already finished all routes in the game, proving they’re doable, even if bugged or a bit unbalanced here and there.

About the TA vine – we usually zerg the champion vine as well, as it’s much faster and we’re tanky enough to sustain the incoming damage. The lesser vines are terribly weak and the blossoms can be easily avoided – they are even helpful when you get downed as you can rally really fast on them.
One time we had 5 tanky guardians in TA – random guild group – so much facetanking! And it didn’t take us longer than usual, possibly even faster i’d say as no one ever got downed, no one ever wasted time to dodge too much etc.

Yes – tanky setups, even full tank setups, are the way to go in dungeons. It is even shown in the stats that come with legendaries. Yes, they are even useful in W3.
We can discuss if it’s fair or not, argue that it limits our build freedom and stuff, but any system is bound to have the better options and the suboptimal options. Absolute balance, with every profession, build and style equally viable, is a utopia – it’s good to long for it, to go after it, but it’s a wild chase that will never end.
It’s all about accepting and bending to the requirements of the game – you can’t choose the next block in Tetris, after all.

Eles can somewhat heal, remove conds and buff, guardians and somewhat tank. It’s not like in most other MMOs, you don’t have one person constantly healing and one person just keeping aggro on, but it’s there – as long as you’re fine with also dropping the big hits and dodging properly.

Point 2 is moot – i transmuted my exotic TA set onto the starter white light skin… yes, the one with the garter.

Final boss? You mean Simin or the Shard?

Just done Arah 4.
First try. No wipes. No resets. No problems with any of the bosses. No bugs except for a visual one – one of the prisons had the shields up all the time, but it didn’t cause any troubles. Simin is easy if you do her as she’s supposed to be done and not rushed.
I find Arah 4 the most fun of all Arah routes and much easier than Arah 2, not to mention the ape fight in Arah 1.
Took us ~2,5h.

Dungeon Master o/
If i could get it, everyone can – really, it’s a matter of adapting to the game rather than trying to bend it to your own will.

Monthly content updates.
Besides that – PvP – even the final story rewards point at W3. If you don’t like W3, go sPvP. If you don’t like PvP, hone your skills in running dungeons, especially Arah.
It’s what every MMO out there boils down to, isn’t it? After getting outgeared and levelled up, jump into PvP or keep farming PvE – whatever is more fun for you.

Not just basing on what Kuroin said, but it would be pretty silly if the status represented the ‘currently online’, as this would mean you can go over the server population cap, which is ridiculous.

I’m thinking about doing something like this (click) for the less popular dungeons as well, especially SE and CM – we’ll see how the Arah project turns out.

So you have high population at 4am? That still sounds way off – medium would make sense.
It’s much more likely that FULL means 5000/5000 accounts that took it as their homeworld (random number), while 4999/5000 shows as HIGH. That 5k is the absolute lowest for server cap, imho, and with that many people and still free server transfers having one people transfer away overnight isn’t that unlikely.

More speculations are welcome. Still looking for any dev words, even hints at it.

It’s actually a query, and i’d appreciate a dev response or a link to some dev information.

When you view servers from the character login screen, there’s the population status, from low to full. What does it actually show? The concurrent players logged in at that time (unlikely) or total number of accounts which have made this server their homeworld (likely)?

You can turn the icon on and off.
You can organise squads for shared chat, not sure if you can ping squad-wide stuff one the map though – but you can ping a location onto the squad chat.

I see no way of how commanders can be useful in dungeons, so i guess this thread belongs to Suggestions, not here.

Alpha – call the crystal as soon as possible and have OTHERS break it – it goes down in four-five hits, or one ele’s Lava Font. Blocks work while encapsuled – Retreat is a must in dungeons if you’re guardian, and not because of swiftness

Lupicus – been there with an inexperienced team (3 people attempted Lupi once/twice earlier but wiped, 2 people never seen the fight – we watched videos on yt though), 2 guards, 1 ele, 1 war, 1 mes – no one has died throughout the whole fight and we had only a few downs here and there.

Don’t try to rush bosses. Don’t run berserker gear.
Take your time and you’ll be fine – you will ‘waste’ much less time dealing less dmg, but dealing it ALL the time, than dying and running back from a waypoint.

Right now i’m only worried about the Simin fight in Arah 4 – yet to attempt it at all, just read lots of comments – i will report back once the route is done.

This very much.
I’d love to run the small UI

Be sure to ask people before bringing Illusion of Life to dungeons, or at least warn them – it may be easily confused with a proper hard res and backfire.

It still will surely be contested on a few servers, even if not bugged, and the Arah-unlocking chain event takes a bit. Not to mention much easier pugging for the longest PvE bit in the game.

Eles:

• cleric’s items are very mediocre – better go power/toughness/vitality armor (AC, SE or HotW), dolyak runes and sapphire jewelry – healing power from sapphires and water magic is more than enough; in general, healing power doesn’t influence party healing much;
• lesser elementals are very weak and die too fast to get their extra bonus up – glyph of storms is much better, providing extra AoE chill or blind, or extra object-DPS on burrows;
• glyph of renewal is good only for certain paths – better slot arcane wave instead;
• earth magic has VERY crappy major traits unless you’re running an auramancer, which is bad in PvE anyway;
• trait-wise, go 0/0/10/30/30 – earth’s embrace for stability at 50% hp is awesome, but you simply can’t be a supportive ele and ignore evasive arcana.

With the above setup, i’m at ~3k attack, i’m durable enough on my own to solo a lot in dungeons (soloing left side of the room at Hodgins, running all scepter pieces later, etc), and i can heal my party full or nearly full by combo: eruption -> cover it with geyser -> roll into geyser while in water -> pop arcane wave in the geyser.
Imba AoE healing and condition removal.

When not in need of healing, you still can stack 10x might on everyone using the above setup, or keep swiftness up on everyone.

We all know Arah gets bugged way too often – either the chain event gets stuck or the gates are still closed despite the waypoint being accessible.
We also know we can do dungeons cross-server, that part of guesting works.
Even if Arah wasn’t bugged, it still might be contested on some servers while being accessible elsewhere.

That’s why we get all those threads ‘Looking for server with working Arah’. It takes time to get an answer, though, and often is outdated. Some guys even offer a reward for getting them in, which is ridiculous in the first place.

It can all be organised so much easier.
I have created a guild specifically meant to be a friendlist extension, containing ONLY people interested in doing Arah. It’s called All We Need Is [Arah]. It’s meant to gather people who need to do Arah for achievements or who want to run Arah on a pretty daily basis.
The first and foremost goal of this project is to be able to easily find out where Arah is working at the very moment. You don’t have to represent a guild to see its roster, and active members along with their server – you can whisper someone from another server to ask if they have accessible Arah right now, saving a lot of time.
Then there’s the issue of having 3-4 people up for Arah and looking for 1-2 more. Yes, you can look for pugs on /map, but then you can bump into anyone. This project is focused on gathering Arah-oriented people who understand its requirements, possibly ran some routes already or at least have other dungeons done. You are ensured to find someone Arah-ready, even if not experienced.
Finally, it’s about getting pugs from ground up – you can always whisper some active people and ask for an Arah run, because why not?

To ensure the project’s working as intended, here’s a couple of rules:

1. PLEASE heed the guild’s name.
All We Need Is [Arah].
This means that we are already done with other dungeons. We are dungeon veterans, even if we’ve never been to Arah yet. We are equipped for Arah and understand its requirements – of time, patience and teamwork. We don’t mind watching boss fights on YT to execute them better.
If you’d like to do Arah ‘sometime later this month’, please don’t join the project yet.

2. In order to join, send me a mail in-game or whisper me in-game.
I will not answer to PMs or replies over forum.

3. Please have the courtesy to leave the guild once you’ve achieved what you wanted.
The number of slots in a guild is limited. Once you have done the routes you’ve needed for achievements and you’re not interested in farming Arah on a ~daily basis, please leave your spot.

4. Every once in a while, everyone will be kicked.
I am willing to pay my own gold to upgrade the guild’s roster size, at least up to 300 slots if the project proves to be popular and useful, but there’s still a hard limit.
Given the very random nature of people participating in the project, i have no idea if someone who’s joined will actually make use of it or leave once they’re done. Even if someone assures me they will farm Arah daily and having the extended Arah-friendlist makes it much easier for them, there’s no way i can tell it’s true.
That’s why the only way to handle it is by completely pruning the whole guild every so often. I can’t say how often will that be – a few days up to a week once the guild has become full, i guess, so that more people can participate in it.
When you get kicked out but you still need or make use of the project, just nudge me again and i will reinvite you – no problem!

5. The guild does NOT require anyone to represent it.
As mentioned earlier, you still can view the roster even if not representing a guild. It’s meant to work as an extended friendlist where everyone present will be more or less interested in doing Arah or will be able to give you info on current Arah status on their server. That’s IT.

6. I will shamelessly keep the guild bank for personal use.
I thought about doing the same as in my guild – making it public and keeping some useful food and potions of undead slaying there, but given the supposedly high rotation of members and the roster’s random nature, i don’t feel like investing anything more only to lose it to potential griefers.
Thank you for understanding.

7. You can donate for a permanent spot in the project and to say ‘thank you’.
For a low donation of 1g, i will grant you a custom rank and will omit you when pruning. It’s NOT any kind of ‘entry fee’ or anything – a donation that buys you convenience if you really find the whole project useful. You can also say ‘great idea!’ or ‘thanks for making my Arah organisation easier!’ with cash, especially that 1g is not much at this moment in game.

If it proves popular and useful, i probably will look for 2-3 people to help me with roster organisation, active on a daily basis and not minding the additional hassle around it.

Seras, the list will be complete with:

-if you don’t like leechers using mf, don’t take them to your party
-if you look for a puggie, ask them for their armor and if it’s mf, feel free to kick them

If one side of the argument is ‘free to run what they want’, the other side must be somewhat able to cater to their own wishes as well.

Ranger can also be built for some survivability – just go p/t/v armor, invest in defensive/support traits and get ruby jewelry and zerker weapons. ~40% crit chance is all you need, really.

Depends on your team composition too, i guess, but i’ll give it a try next time – pop the cannons, then rush down and jump him in 5 people. He doesn’t have much hp or armor, which might help, but then again, some professions don’t really have big spiky skills to drop in time.

Get him and the troll to fight and carry on with your dungeon – pick the Kholer’s chest once you’re done with the final boss. No need to waste time – if i were to afk wait the troll/Kholer fight, i’d rather kill them myself.

Kholer’s easy, but much too long for virtually no rewards you get. Waste 5 minutes in a dungeon run for a boring fight just to get a slice of garlic bread?
I mean, yes – the first few encounters with Kholer were fun. We still kill him from time to time, just for entertainment. But there’s no need to, no point in it, we don’t need the waypoint nor the chest, and the fight isn’t that fun once you’ve killed him gazillion of times (3 characters fully outfit with AC gear).

I wouldn’t mind if he was made not skippable – if everything in dungeons was non-skippable – but as long as there’s something to safely skip, it saves you some time. We also got a dev comment on it that it’s a legit tactic

One thing that is truly great and unique in GW2 in regard to PvE is that you can get top level and top gear on your own, aka there’s no barrier to get into dungeons that would require a group to break. Most games i know present a perpetual conundrum of how to get into groups/guilds if you don’t already have the gear that is obtainable via groups/guilds raiding. Consider Aion instance/abyss sets (unless something’s changed lately) – not just lots of time required to obtain one, but you also need a group running already, and groups don’t want to get people who aren’t already geared up – thus the vicious circles is ensured.

It’s not the case in GW2. You can get to lv80 in open PvE which is really easy. You can get lv80 exotics without much hassle – either craft them or just slowly farm AC in your masterwork gear until you get 1200 tears (takes about a week of doing all three routes daily, aka about 1-1,5h a day – for TOP armor set in the game!).

Yes, while GW2 isn’t a gear-based game, the gear does play an important role in every build. Yes, tanky builds are at the moment MUCH better and promoted, especially if you use sharpening stones and pump your power through other means. Yes, condition damage at the moment is a PvP-only statistic (though it’s not the thread to discuss condition damage in PvE).
It might change one day, might get balanced, tweaked, etc. But before it is, adapt!

10% more damage and 10% less incoming damage is quite a lot, especially if you don’t run a mediocre build between survivability and dps but specialise in either (or both, as is possible sometimes).
My only problem with potions is that they seem to wear off after deaths that occured 10+ minutes after using the potion, whereas food stays there even after a wipe.

Another thing is to consider using sharpening stones or attunement crystals – they are considered potions, can be used alongside with food, and can considerably boost your damage output if you run a tanky setup.

@Dolan,
Changing the build in LA, at the retrainer, is stupid. But since you can change your weapons, utilities and major traits ANY TIME you’re out of combat, why not do it if it would clearly help you?

It’s about not using minions or illusions during fights with Alpha or Lupicus phase 1. It’s about slotting revive skills for Lupicus if you’re with a mediocre team. It’s about slotting some extra control for CoF3 torches. It’s about swapping your usual flamethrower, working for most dungeons and routes, for grenades (and changing some major traits to follow it) because that next encounter is easier and gives you more room for error if you use grenades.

It’s really that simple, yet loads of people refuse to even consider it, to my constant bewilderment.

If ‘elitists’ requiring you to be lv80 and exotic-geared (what is a standard now if you’ve been playing since the release) for a dungeon run irritate you, just don’t play with them. Instead of ‘lfg for CoF’ shout ‘lf more people for CoF’ and invite them yourself. It’s that easy! Still, if random pugs annoy you in general, just as me, just don’t play with pugs in the first place.

Find a guild with decent people and run dungeons with them – even if you’re noobies, failing all the time, you will learn much better and faster together, if you run the same content in more or less the same team.
There are loads of guilds out there, and if you’re playing without one, or in a bad one, or in a small and inactive one, you’re missing out A LOT of the game – not just in the dungeon department, but also in the social one.

If you expect explorable dungeons, the true END-GAME PvE at the moment, to be ‘fast and easy’, play another game.
It’s fine that some routes take much longer and are harder than others – CoF3, CoE3, SE2. If you don’t like them, don’t farm them later – it’s that easy! – if you don’t like something in the game, don’t enjoy it, just play some other part of it – either format of PvP, open PvE, explore stuff and collect lore bits, get all alts to 80. Whatever works for you!
BUT. If you already get into something, be ready to change your build and attitude as is required by the specific format. What works in sPvP won’t work in dungeons, what works in open PvE won’t work in dungeons, what works in dungeons won’t work in W3. It’s completely fine – learn to adapt.
It’s also quite fine that some dungeon routes are longer/harder than others because people will still play them for the achievements or just to see on their own what’s the whole fuss about. If you don’t like CM or find it ‘to long and to hard’, get through it once and never go back – no one forces you to. I’d gladly farm CM as it’s not as impossibru as most people claim, but i like neither the stats nor the looks of CM gear and i have no reason to venture there unless to help guildies complete their achievements.

Try to understand that every game out there is and is SUPPOSED to be challenging and tough, at least in the beginning – though that ‘beginning’ part may last longer for some people (or games). Even Tetris isn’t that straightforward the first time you play it, but with practice you can learn to get loads of points – if you don’t whine that it’s too hard and complicated, there’s too much RNG and ragequit after your first two games, that is.

This rant was a part of my reply in Asagi’s ‘dungeons are unbalanced’, but i think it deserves its own spot to get a bit more interest and maybe nudge some of you out of some contemporary-gamer torpor.
I’ve done all dungeons except for Arah 4 (yet to attempt it), and i don’t find any route particularly broken, hard or demanding once you know what to do and actually do it rather than ignore and go your own way. I’ve done CoF3 several times in random setups, including complete CoF rookies; just done, for the nth time, all CoE routes yesterday; done 3 Arah paths in one day and other than being very long, there’s nothing particularly wrong with them; done all CM multiple times and as long as people aren’t glass cannons with old man’s reflexes and can call/follow targets, everything’s very easy there.
The only times i use voice communication is for PvP, and even that is not always true as there are roles in W3 that don’t require VoIP.

Your ‘hard’, ‘impossible’, ‘overtuned’ stuff is really easy if you try to fit to the design rather than bruteforcing the game YOU want to play it. If you were supposed to jump forward and left in an old platformer, you would do it rather than jump right. If you were supposed to input left right left down up lk in Mortal Kombat to get that sweet hit, you would do it. Now you are supposed to be able to survive in dungeon, control enemies and deal damage at the same time – and EVERY class, EVERY players is capable of doing so. Still, people keep refusing it, they want to ‘play the game their way’; sorry to burst the bubble, but you ALWAYS play the game the way it’s designed, supposed to be played – if it’s about the controls, about the most useful setup, about requirements for a certain map/mission/level/dungeon/boss, about anything really. You can’t play Settlers II without building an army, even if it’s what you want to do. You can’t play God of War skipping all enemies, even if you can skip a lot of them, because you want to be Kratos The Pacifist. You can’t refuse to tune your build in dungeons in GW2 to use everything you can because ‘this is my build and i won’t change it, if i can’t complete stuff with it then it’s broken!’

You are presented with a challenge and think what can you use in your arsenal to overcome it. You DON’T try to beat that challenge with what you’re currently using if it outright sucks or just isn’t enough.

I wish the old times of gaming were back, or rather that old mentality of gamers was back. We used to play for fun, with no achievements, no stuff to gain in-game, no carrot to keep us going on. Enjoying the game while playing and the sweet feeling of success after overcoming constantly harder missions/levels/maps was enough. I cannot recall any entitlement 10+ years ago in gaming, just people having fun, appreciating the work of game developers.
And no one whined that the games are too challenging. Heck, we used to play games BECAUSE they were challenging. Nowadays if someone still plays point-and-click adventure games, and i mean proper stuff like good old Faust of Phantasmagoria, i bet they resort to online solutions when they get stuck for 5 minutes. Everyone seems to expect breezing through all and any content found in games, and they not only play to win (as fast and easily as possible), but also to be rewarded with some in-game pixels.

I weep at the contemporary gamers.

CoF3 torches:
Everyone brings blinds, blocks, invulnerability skills, fear and whatever you want. Best if it’s instant or over time.
So a necro brings Well of Darkness, warrior brings Fear Me, ele brings a staff (earth 3 is enough) but can resort to Mist Form or Arcane Shield, guardian brings Retreat, mesmer brings Decoy and Feedback, thief pops 5s stealth etc. I’m not familiar with rangers and engineers yet, but 6/8 classes are certain to handle the torches just fine. I had a ranger in my party once and we did fine, no idea how he did it though.
Get close to your torch. Kill random single mobs that you’ve pulled. Kill 2 mobs out of the 3 that spawn for each torch. Keep one of those alive. Keep in mind they’re all shooters. Run with that mob a bit and just facetank it without killing until everyone is in the same spot – you can use the rock on which the torch is to benefit from line of sight and get the mob closer for Fear Me.
Once everyone is ready, which means ‘by the torch, with just one mob, can hit F whenever’, someone counts down, eveyone pops their control skill(s) and hit F. Keep in mind that insta cast skills, like shouts or auras, can be used WHILE channeling the torch. Don’t shout Fear Me in the beginning, before popping the torch – do it as the mob is about to attack you.

Done it three times with no voice communication, with almost only people new to CoF3.
I guess it’s hard if you try to kill off all 3 mobs and light the torch within that small time window, and i guess it’s impossible for a glass cannon that refuses to chance weapons/utilities/traits for the occassion. Other than that – a fun and challenging spot.

Your ‘hard’, ‘impossible’, ‘overtuned’ stuff is really easy if you try to fit to the design rather than bruteforcing the game YOU want to play it. If you were supposed to jump forward and left in an old platformer, you would do it rather than jump right. If you were supposed to input left right left down up lk in Mortal Kombat to get that sweet hit, you would do it. Now you are supposed to be able to survive in dungeon, control enemies and deal damage at the same time – and EVERY class, EVERY players is capable of doing so. Still, people keep refusing it, they want to ‘play the game their way’; sorry to burst the bubble, but you ALWAYS play the game the way it’s designed, supposed to be played – if it’s about the controls, about the most useful setup, about requirements for a certain map/mission/level/dungeon/boss, about anything really. You can’t play Settlers II without building an army, even if it’s what you want to do. You can’t play God of War skipping all enemies, even if you can skip a lot of them, because you want to be Kratos The Pacifist. You can’t refuse to tune your build in dungeons in GW2 to use everything you can because ‘this is my build and i won’t change it, if i can’t complete stuff with it then it’s broken!’
You are presented with a challenge and think what can you use in your arsenal to overcome it. You DON’T try to beat that challenge with what you’re currently using if it outright sucks or just isn’t enough.

I wish the old times of gaming were back, or rather that old mentality of gamers was back. We used to play for fun, with no achievements, no stuff to gain in-game, no carrot to keep us going on. Enjoying the game while playing and the sweet feeling of success after overcoming constantly harder missions/levels/maps was enough. I cannot recall any entitlement 10+ years ago in gaming, just people having fun, appreciating the work of game developers.
And no one whined that the games are too challenging. Heck, we used to play games BECAUSE they were challenging. Nowadays if someone still plays point-and-click adventure games, and i mean proper stuff like good old Faust of Phantasmagoria, i bet they resort to online solutions when they get stuck for 5 minutes. Everyone seems to expect breezing through all and any content found in games, and they not only play to win (as fast and easily as possible), but also to be rewarded with some in-game pixels.

I weep at the contemporary gamers.

Open PvE – doesn’t really matter, probably magic find or berserker for faster kills.
Dungeons – tanky support all the way, also avoid condition damage. With power/toughness/vitality gear, you still push your attack over 3k.

The time needed to get back up to man the lasers is wasted, as well as it’s easy to drop into lava or get knocked back by an odd tooth and waste even more time.
There is a safe spot right outside of the destroyer’s bubble where 2 people with highest spike damage can stand all the time, have 3 people man the lasers (countdown for the first use, then just hit F when you have the occassion – very easy to coordinate) and stay up, and that’s basically it.

Oddly enough, gravelings in AC are counted as ghosts – but this is a totally different class than undead. There is Potion of Ghost Slaying, but the only way to get it is via the dungeon token merchant – buy the recipe for 200 tokens iirc and enjoy your potions. The only problem is that they come out soulbound.
You can remove the other question marks, except that there are no inquest in CoE explorables – mostly undead and golems.

That’s basically what i said.
The repeat DR is account-wide. The spam DR is account-wide.

One exception is that i’ve done AC2 on one character three times one day, spread in time, and first time was 60 tokens & 100% other rewards, second time was 20 tokens & 100% other rewards, and third was 10 tokens & 50% other rewards. Yes, i’m sure that no other DR mechanic hit.

It’s story mode for a reason – in the GW2’s story, this is how Zhaitan has fallen. After A LOT of preparations, weakening him with the megalaser, and so on. Maybe inducing pity was intentional?
Now go Arah explorables and mash 2 on bosses.

3 – get lv80 aquabreathers from Orr. Get proper exotic underwater lv80 weapons. Don’t waste dodges to just swim faster.
And that’s it! The bosses become a facetank fest.
Thank the Six there’s no invulnerable bug in those fights as during most underwater encounters.

5 – just keep the protection buff down from him, everything else is neglible and can be ignored.

To start with, just go melee range during most fights with Alpha and ignore all his AoEs…

Sorry Asagi – i’ve followed some of your posts, read quite a bit of them, replied to some, but you suffer from a little bit of the good ol’ L2P Need, as much as i hate to say it. If you die to a Deadeye as a guardian, you are doing something outright wrong unless you were really unlucky to get focused by two Deadeyes right after you’ve burnt your dodges for something as important – but that’s it, being unlucky, not a broken design; to start with, you shouldn’t aggro more than a group in Arah, and there’s never more than 2 Deadeyes per encounter. On my guardian – pow/tough/vit armor with the generic runes of Forge (i’m too cheap to upgrade my SE set), RUBY jewelry and p/t/v mace/shield combo – i have no problems running into two Deadeyes and surviving it, mainly via proper dodging, rupting (shield 5 ftw), blocking (mace 3, 3rd virtue, Retreat!), but sometimes even after eating a hit – i still have over 2,5k health, enough to dodge out, pop Renewed Focus if really needed and heal up with the signet.

I can totally agree that there’s one thing unbalanced – tanky builds are far superior to glass cannons in this game, especially that bunker builds still have considerable power – my ele has over 3k attack with 0 points in fire, with p/t/v armor, runes of Mercy and Sapphire jewelry. But that’s how the game is to be played right now – be tanky or have godly reflexes and never waste any of your skills without need.
And that’s all.

Some parts of dungeons are tricky – because of introduced mechanic, like jumping in CoF/CoE or some boss fights, like Alpha or even Lupicus amongst others – not really hard, but may be challenging and cause a few wipes for the first few times; then it’s pretty easy and enjoyable. Some parts are very long, either because of facetank-easy bosses with gazillions hp (HotW) or because of requiring a careful approach, aka wasting a lot of time for running, dodging, popping defensive utilities etc instead of just dpsing. Finally, some parts are indeed challenging and require proper usage of your skills, including using different major traits, weapons and utilities, but there’s nothing ‘not doable’ or ‘ridiculously hard’ or ‘ridiculously broken’ or ‘requiring a specific team of 5 guardians to complete’, as far as all dungeons except Arah 4 go – as that’s my last dungeon to do.

TA’s stonetouches? There are only 4 of them, 2 in the Malrona’s room with other spiders, then 2 separate after the room. Just focus them down – call the target and have everyone follow the call; also, don’t stay on top of each other as the paralyse is actually a small AoE – tiny, yet still AoE. I’ve pugged TA countless times, got over 2k tokens to outfit my necro with TA stuff, and stonetouches gave me a hard time maybe once or twice, when i was still new to TA and on glass cannon ele.

CM? Bring projectile reflection, dodge properly, use all kinds of crowd control – everyone has some – blind, chill, cripple, put walls of any kind, go hammer, fear, use minions/illusions to tank, call out the most annoying targets and focus them down one by one. The only silly part of CM is the gate bombing – not because it’s hard but rather boring for the one aggroing and keeping all the mobs away.

Deadeyes are not a problem if you run a tanky build. I agree that dungeons punish glass cannons hard, but there’s an easy solution – don’t run a glass cannon.
I’m not one-shot in Arah on my ele by anything, be it Deadeye or Lupicus, and i’m still over 3k attack.

The thread is aimed to EXPLAIN how DR works in dungeons, not kitten about it. If you have any insight to share, any reliable info or experience – please tell us!

First thing – the timer on dungeons reset at midnight GMT, along with dailies. This means that if your dailies have reset, your dungeons have reset as well. When i say ‘a day’ (etc), it means from midnight GMT to midnight GMT; when i say ‘the reset’, it means the midnight GMT mark.

You will get hit by DR when…

1) …you run the same route twice a day, with the same toon.
The first time you do a route, say AC1, you get 60 tokens. The second time you do it the same day you get 20 tokens. Next – 10 tokens, 5 tokens, etc.
It’s the basic DR and it’s pretty straightforward.

2) …you run the same route in a quick succession, with different toons.
Do AC1 with toon A – get 60; relog onto another toon and do AC1 again – get 30 or 45.
NEEDED RESEARCH: what is the a time counter on it? How many tokens you get? Why?

3) …you run 5 (4?) dungoens within a given time window, supposedly about 2h.
It doesn’t matter if the toons are different or if the routes are different. If you do ‘too many’ runs (4 or 5) within a given time window, which is supposedly around 2h, you will get 30 or 45 tokens next time.
NEEDED RESEARCH: what’s the time window? How many routes can you do before the DR hits within it? How/when does it reset? 30 or 45 tokens – when and why?

4) …you are too fast.
If you finish a run ‘too fast’, you will be hit by DR and receive 30 or 45 tokens.
Taking anything above 30 minutes seems to be safe in all dungeons. Doing some runs in less than 30 minutes, about 20 minutes range, seems to trigger DR regardless of any other known DR mechanics pointed above.
NEEDED RESEARCH: what’s the exact minimum time requirement to avoid the DR? How many tokens do you get, 30 or 45?

Guardian has more blocks than others and running a tanky guardian lets you eat some hits and still survive with no problems. It’s also easier to res people with Signet of Mercy as a guardian, when you can’t dodge or the signet casting will interrupt, because you can afford getting hit once or twice and just heal it up full with 6.
But the same goes to everyone else – the more tanky you are, the less punished you will be when you do something wrong. If you don’t have godly reflexes, go tank all the way – you still get power in the major slot in power/toughness/vitality.

Gunnar’s Hold has had Arah open since the last patch, not bugged either.

Done all dungeons but Arah 4. No voice comm at all throughout it. Sometimes pugged, mostly with guildies – not people i’ve known for years though.
Nothing is hard if you’re willing to open up and learn, run a tanky build and actually play the encounter as it was intended. Tbh, i should have stopped reading the first post and closed the tab at “AC with overly difficult encounters” – AC is laughably easy, all three routes are farmable in about an hour per toon.

Point is, the dungeons are enjoyable.
Some fights are challenging – not hard or impossible, even the Leurent fight isn’t that tough if you properly manage your cc; just challenging. And they’re enjoyable thanks to that, because you feel rewarded just for beating a challenge.
Some are facetank easy – even done afk-way. They might become tedious – if you let them; if you do them too often, that is, without enjoying them each time. If you stop enjoying the HotW bosses, don’t do HotW too often, or don’t do it at all except for once for the achievement – it’s that easy, really! I hate the HotW underwater fights, and i hate the two big norn fights in either HotW 2 or 3, and i simply don’t run that dungeon. On the other hand, i honestly enjoy AC and i try to do it daily.

It’s just that – if you don’t find dungeons fun, don’t play them.

Had 2 guardians, war, necro and ele – only the necro died from time to time.
The next run, had 2 guardians (me and a different friend, not the one before), war, ele (the same duo) and a mesmer – got through with no deaths whatsoever.

Keep at range, stay mobile, use defensive utilities, use the elite banner for quick res, use defensive/supportive traits, run tanky build. Then just hone your personal reflexes and skills.

Had some experience earlier – got to Lupicus twice, on path 2 and path 1, only to have people wipe three times, see Lupicus reset because of either our fault or a bug, and then have someone ragequit.
Never beaten Lupi, never seen most stuff.

Started with path 2.
The first inquest boss was easy – she doesn’t drop the lightning balls on melee range, at least not so often; as long as you dodge away from the balls, you’ll be fine. If you keep dying at the first inquestie, you probably won’t make it through.
The golem corridor is really fun and works great if you know what you’re doing – don’t waste charges and get additional ones inside, keep swiftness up and stuff. Cool design – nice non-boss mechanic in a dungeon, enjoyable to execute.
The big ape next is pretty boring – again, facetank boss with way too much hp and nearly no threat to properly geared party.
Lupicus. Oh, Lupicus… he’s become an easy encounter by now. Once you know what you’re doing, how to properly dodge him, what skills to bring etc it becomes real fun. I didn’t want to believe people saying they enjoy that fight, i couldn’t see how it can be amusing – duh, how it can be done even. But now i do – it’s still a bit too long, Lupi’s hp could still be lowered (bad teams would wipe anyway, good teams wouldn’t waste that much time), but the design of the fight is top-notch.
The minefield is unfair – it’s much too easy to die on a mine popped by a party member, not you. Still, as in SE1, just rush through the mines and be done with it.
The next boss is really easy, another facetank and spank encounter, although i enjoyed the design.
I LOVED the underwater part – how it was done. Props for the torches and stuff.
The trash on the way to the final fight caused us the most troubles. Some well-placed mobs, annoying patrols, way too easy to fall down. But it’s how Arah 2 is – Deadeyes and the Inquest dudes are the most dangerous and will kill you more often than the bosses once you’ve learned the basics.
The final fight was fun, but then it was kinda short. While Lupi and most other bosses should have their hp lowered, this dudette should take a bit longer, imho, and the phasing out mechanic could have been used better.

Still – not a tough route, long though. Took us about 2:45, no one earlier has done Arah 2, only one person in the party has done Arah 1/3, others either done nothing at all or got to Lupi once or twice. No voice comms, no 5-guardian party.

Then we tackled path 3. The team composition has changed a bit – the veteran has left along with one guy, we got two semi-rookies who never beaten Lupicus.
It’s surely the farmable path – shortest and easiest.
The trash fights are nothing unusual, the bosses are mostly just facetank and beat the crap out of them.
Had a really painless run, too – no deaths at Lupicus, only some occassional downs. The Wraithlord’s champions are a joke; the Wraithlord fight is again boring tank and spank kind, but i liked the point capture element when we were supposed to protect the chicken.
Oh, yeah – the chicken! My need to buy a mini undead chicken got fueled substantially.

Then we decided to face path 1, starting already at midnight – took us 3h.
I hate those green oozes. Especially the champion ones.
The collective boss encounter was entertaining, very easy and enjoyable, boosting morale kind of thing.
The tar elemental is fun, especially that killing mesmer illusions counts as kills, fuels daily achievements and stuff. Friendly fire brings a lot of fun itself. If only the water geysers were a BIT better visible… Also – what’s with the blue water thingie in the middle?
Again, no problems at Lupi – had two deaths, but nothing threatening. Must have been the late hour.
The ape boss was ridiculous, though. We ended up having one of us aggro all the trash apes and run circles with them in the corridor, while the rest of us dpsed the boss down. From time to time some apes reset and came down on us. How is that fight supposed to work? How are you supposed to use the staff, considering it has 10s recharge on its only skill?
Having read about the bugs, we were cautious – after killing all the spiders, we checked who has the NPC’s leash and we had that person stay in the spider chamber, with the NPC, while the rest of us went to have some pong with the Stargazer. The shrinking fire ring almost got some of us, but i managed to notice it shrinking soon enough. Other than that, really fun fight – obviously a themed design rather than a challenge, such fight is a reward in itself, a moment to breathe and get all the stress off after a long and demanding dungeon. Thumbs up!

Got only Arah 4 left before my Dungeon Master, and having done all three other routes with real ease i can’t wait to have enough time to give it a shot o/

@Cromx – your points 1) and 2), while valid, are coming not from a bad design of dungeons but from a bad team. Don’t be a glass cannon, gear up, learn the route, use all the tricks – and you won’t be spending all time looking on the ground – or getting killed by blossoms at all – and you won’t be kiting for your life all the time.

It’s also bugged on Gunnar’s Hold – 2 merchants left, nothing ever happens, and can’t interact with the already captured NPCs in cages.

OK, have it your way – if you were a guardian in CM explorables, would you also refuse to slot Wall of Reflection and use Line of Warding, even though you are traited for greatsword and shouts and prefer that build?

I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to beat you in such competition.
Please reread my previous post – if there was a boss immune to bleeding, would you still stick to your condition damage bleeding-based build, or would you maybe swap some traits, utilities and change your weapons to actually, you know, deal damage?

You need 3 embellished jewels, not 1.