Guild Wars 2

When dead yes, but I don’t recall every losing mantra charges when downing.

I had a guard in my party that used scepter on those things once. His reply to my “you know they reflect projectiles right?” was “special tactics”. When I asked what those “tactics” were he replied with “I have retaliation”

For pugging I think the extra reflect helps, for for the type of organised runs [DnT] is used to I’m not sure a fight would ever last long enough that the warden + feedback wouldn’t be enough, and in those situations they’d probably have a guard for WoR or SoA.

The only time I think of where fights would take long enough to need a traited curtain for an organised group would be high level fractals.

I don’t think selling is a terrible thing. A.net states they’re ok with it as a “gentleman’s aggrement between two players” So if a person that only wants to do WvW wants to get a skin from Arah they don’t have to spend time learning/running the dungeon.

It lets them spend time doing the things they enjoy more while letting the people that enjoy the challenge of doing the dungeon 2/3 man get a bit of an extra reward. win/win for both parties. The main issue is people exploiting to sell which A.net (and the reputable sellers) are not ok with.

I think the coding would be possible to do with rewards on d/c or character swap, it would just be harder to implement (at least I think it would). In the case of a d/c it kind of makes sense since if you d/c right at the end you lose the reward anyway – at least mid run you could still get some of the kill bonus back. Character swap wouldn’t be too bad either as the instance owner can’t swap – why not apply to everyone else?

In my example I intended that to be personal reward delivered at end.

I doubt that would effect path selling as buyers are the people that don’t want to learn the path for whatever reason. Buyers aren’t going to see “I could get 100 tokens if I ran the path myself” rather “for 5 gold I get 60 tokens and don’t need to learn the path”. This is especially true when the bonus reward would take much longer for the buyer then the one minute it takes to get the 60 for 5 deal.

I doubt this would be something that could be easily retained over a character swap or d/c. The easiest way I could see this implemented would copying pre-existing code from stacking sigils and daily’s with slight edits – likely using the sigil for the root counter and the daily code to notice the difference between mob types. Without knowing anything about the game code, I can not say if that would be easy to modify to account for a d/c or swap, but my gut tells me no.

spoj.9672:

Its also the extra precision and crit damage. I wouldnt say its a big problem. But I will probably stick with 10/30/0/20/10.

This. Personal stats do get reflected in phantasm stats. So only taking 15 in dueling results in a loss of 15% crit damage and 150 precision (7~% crit chance) for them and you. That stats loss would also effect your reflect damage (beyond the ability to get 12% damage through mantras).

In places where reflects aren’t as needed (CoE) a 10/20/0/25/15 or 10/15/0/25/20 build may work better, but I don’t think the damage would be that noticeable compared to 10/30/0/20/10 to justify changing for a casual speed clear.

I love the direction this tread headed in.

Anyway, here’s my take on the idea trying to keep programming in mind.

Right now we have Daily Achievements, Slayer Achievements and Stacking Sigils that all track how many enemies a player kills. Daily achievements can track by region as well as by type (vet/champ/any) and stacking sigils are bound further then region, as they’ll reset after leaving a zone. Also all of these methods track kills which a player had a hand in.

What I would propose is starting up a hidden counter (using coding that already exists) that starts at the start of an instance to give out rewards on the completion of a path. This would track number of normal mobs, elites and optional champs killed.

Now going at the rate that a boss rewards a bag of goods giving 3 tokens I would propose the following conversion: Optional champs = 2; Elites = .7-.9; normal mobs = .05. This number would be rounded down upon finishing and would vary from player to player based on which mobs they tagged.

Basically the majority of mobs that respawn are normal (arah entrance comes to mind) But instead of no reward I figured a minimal reward with rounding down would be better and make it not worth players effort to bother farming.

The .7~.9 for silvers could be modified based on the length of the dungeon (CoF 1 for instance offering a better reward for silvers since there are more of them, and CoF 3 a lower reward).

So take CoE 3 for example. A full clear would yeild: 7 silvers at entrance + 5 golems in laser room + 4 during cannon event + 2 with abomination + 4 top of stairs + 6(?) destroyers = 28 silvers

Wolf, Abom and Crab are you’re optional champs

Finally I would estimate between 40-60 normal depending on how your tagging is during the golem event.

So a full clear would yeild: 19~25 from silvers (depending on .7 to .9), 6 from champs, and 2~3 from normals (based on tagging). 27~34 extra.

Compare this to a Pug speed clear that will skip the champ wolf (- 1 champ and 1 silver), the abom (-1 champ and 2 silvers), and the non-crabling destroyers (1 champ 6 silvers). Here we end up with 13~17 from silvers, 0 from champs and still have 2~3 from normals = 15~20 extra.

Distinguished Circle is a utility, but yes, point holds that if you find yourself needing it you could get another amulet to put an AR infusion in.

Anyway, except for the jade maw, all attacks that carry agony can be dodged. Check out Obal’s guide whenever you start doing fractals for how to dodge the attacks. He focuses on melee tactics, but the tells will still be the same at range for dodging the attacks.

Angelica Dream.7103:

What Slot Skills do you use for this build (PVE)?
..and is condition removal on the Slot Skill?

The question isn’t “what skills should I run” but “what skills does the situation require me to bring”

Feedback is going to be useless on your bar if mobs aren’t going to be using projectiles, same with condition removal if the mobs don’t use conditions.

That said here’s how how I view most of the skills:

Reflection

• Feedback: Whenever there are projectiles this should be on your bar
• Mimic: Mostly useful in higher level fractals for catching agony attacks and using them for quick mid-fractal boss kills. Note: you will have to eat the agony damage when catching the attack.

Condi cleanse

• Mantra of Resolve: My preferred condi cleanse as it’s an instant cast and can be used twice before CD (which is shorter than null field) also helps if your getting 4% damage per mantra.
• Null Field: For when you need both boon striping and condi cleanse or for situations where you need to clean more then 4 conditions at a time (AC necros, crusher boss in Arah)

Stun Breaks

• Mantra of Concentration: Stability, 4% damage with trait, two stun breaks on tap. (lowest CD)
• Decoy: Stun break + 3 seconds of stealth.
• Blink: Stun Break + teleport
• Signet of Midnight: Stun break + PBAoE blind
  -Of these three I like the mantra best for a combat stun break as it adds more utility, the middle two for trash runs. The last I mention for slow but hard hitting trash like undead abominations.

Trash running

• Veil + Mass Invis: I’ll have these stealth options on for most trash runs, but try to avoid using them unless I really need them to avoid having them locked on my bar with their high CD
• Portal: For helping team mates

Phantasms

• iDisenchanter: For mobs that constantly put boons on themselves (CoE golem)
• iDefender: I’ll like this for mobs that don’t project a hard hitting attack (Ice wolf champ in CoE) – it’s usefulness is debatable even in that situation

Damage boosts

• Signet of Inspiration: Doubles a party’s might stacks/fury time. Use for when a party is supplying decent might/fury. If they are keeping full or 0 might/fury this skill isn’t going to help. This can also be put together with Arcane thievery for bosses that but alot of boons on themselves (Jellyfish in underwater fractal who puts 25 might on himself)
• Mantra of Pain/Domination: I run the 4% mantra trait, So I’ll take these if nothing else is useful. MoP is also nice to pull/tag from 1200 range without needing a 1200 range weapon.

You do know which was was intended because they mark where your supposed to go with stars. If your skipping those stars to go somewhere else, you’re not doing the path as intended.

Other examples of “obvious” would be attacking a boss where it cannot attack you or preventing the boss from using any attacks.

On the other hand, restricting their move sets based on where/how you fight I wouldn’t see as an exploit.

Lupi will not shadow step in p2 if everyone is meleeing him, and he will not swipe in that phase if everyone is ranging. Does that mean full melee/range partys are exploiting for not allowing him to use his entire move set for that phase? I would say no, that instead your party is making a choice of which move set they want to face.

Now in the case of p3 wall. I know he can use the bubble when against the wall if the party is moving around too much. So avoiding that comes down to mechanic again and not the wall (as 0 bubbles can be duplicated outside of the wall).

That brings us to the rapid fire AoE. I honestly don’t know if lupi has a trigger for that attack or not. It seems like I can go some fights and not see it for over a minute and other fights he’ll be using it again before feedback is off CD.

My take would be if the effect of him not using the attack can be duplicated off the wall then it isn’t an exploit, the wall just makes the positioning easier. If it cannot be duplicated, then yes I would say it’s a minor exploit.

I say minor because this is only taking one attack out of his movepool, compared to other exploits/bugs that prevent a boss from doing anything/damaging the party.

So I’m a bit old school, but back in the early days of fractals, unless you grinded out the 2k~ish relics at 1-9 the only way you could get AR is by playing fractals at level 10+.

This taught people to dodge the attacks rather than survive them with AR.

So looking at it, 0 AR level 10s = 12% a tick

15AR level 20s = 12% a tick.

Look up some videos to learn the tells for various boss’s agony attacks so you can avoid them. Except for Jade Maw (where 15 AR is plenty for 20s), all the attacks are 100% avoidable.

Wow this has gotten off track.

OP doesn’t need help learning the game, he already has that from warrior which – if his guild name is anything to go off of – he plays berserker style.

He knows how to survive with the build/gear he has. What he’s asking for is things like “use aegis on the dragon’s tooth for the destroyer boss in CoE so your team mates can keep up dps and not dodge”.

Anyway, I’ll probably have to still suggest strife’s guides for this. He does a great job of explaining mechanics for most of the encounters, despite many of the guides being out of date. From there, look up videos by obal/dub/brazil/etc and you’ll be able to see how tactics have improved since the older videos.

Xyonon.3987:

Test new builds = knowledge = expirience = power.

This.

Also with the current 0/20/0/25/25 build you’re only grabbing IC because it’s only 5 points out of reach of phantasmal haste.

After the update 0/20/0/30/20 would probably be a better option or 0/25/0/25/20 if you want better stats and less utility.

As for what sigil to use I’ll post the math below if your want to learn how to do it yourself, but otherwise, feel free to give me your power/crit chance/crit damage as well as if there’s any food you typically use and I can run the numbers for you.

Math section for Average damage:
power * (1 + crit chance * (crit damage + .5)) [* damage mods]

• People have tested with builds over 100% crit chance and still reported non crits, so the crit chance number should never exceed 99% -> .99

Sigil of perception adds about 12% crit chance, bloodlust 250 power. Since you’re only testing which sigil is better, you don’t need to factor in damage mods (the higher value before mods will stay the same after)

Putting this into practice: I have 2250 power, 55% crit chance, 108% crit damage.

I also run a sigil of battle which can keep 6 stacks of might up (1 stack of might = 35 power) so effectively 2460 power

Also I typically use life steal food in casual/pug runs, 21 extra percision = 1% bonus to crit chance, 3.3% gain putting me at 58%

2460 * (1 + .58 * ( 1.08 + .5) [* modifiers] = 4714 average damage (no sigil)

bloodlust version
(2460 + 250) * (1 + .58 * ( 1.08 + .5) [* modifiers] = 5193

perception version
2460 * (1 + (.58 + .12) * (1.08 + .5)) [* modifiers] = 5180

So for me, it is slightly better to run bloodlust.

That said, your power stat does not effect reflect damage; however crit chance does. If your going to be running something like Arah/Fractals where there is potentially a lot of damage you can do with reflects, perception will always be the stronger choice (unless it would put you over 99% crit chance).

I think you did everything you could. Between putting it in the advertisement and making sure you were the instance owner.

Only other thing I could think of is get a like minded friend and if they notice people trying to kick you, kick the person that voted to kick first.

Also Wethospu’s suggestion of restating the party’s description in party chat before starting.

But yeah, it happens everywhere. My favorite is when I join generic “path #” runs ask if anyone doesn’t know the path and have no reply. When it becomes apparent one or more doesn’t know the path and say wait up so I can explain, only to see them rush off into a fight.

I remember a pug I had on arah 4 once tell me about how his last attempt coined the hoard of dwayna tears at simin an “ocean of tears”

Perhaps we can have lupi use simin’s petrification and life regen tactics? Kill 5 priests of melandru to stop lupi’s life regen?

48 scale dredge clown car spawning Lupi’s instead of dredge XD

10(III)/30(changes – II, IV, IX, X, XI by situation)/0/20(II, VIII)/10(III)

0/20(II, IV)/0/25(II, VIII)/25(III, X)

I’ll nearly always trait my sword over pistol if It’s one or the other for the extra precision, though there are times the quicker magic bullet can help. Compounding power doesn’t help your clones damage, but it does help your personal/reflect damage. There really isn’t anything else attractive at that slot since you’re not planning on shattering much.

in the 0/20 build you take it as your forced to go through it to get to phantasmal haste and IC.

For the 10/30 build you grab it for extra reflect damage. Other variants not taking illusions are 15/30/0/25/0 (less reflect damage, higher phantasm damage, turns the daze mantra into 5 stacks of vuln on demand) and 10/30/0/30/0 (longer feedback or extra phantasm life and more phantasm damage in exchange for lesser reflect damage)

@ spiritus, also remember to factor into your numbers the 170 precision from banner of discipline (you’ll always want this banner if you’re only going to run one for the precision and crit damage over str’s only power) and 20% crit chance from fury (warrior can easily keep this up with signet of rage/battle standard + for great justice). From there you can run the numbers on if adding 250 power (stacked bloodlust) or 250 precision (stacked perception) works best for you.

Silentstorm.7531:

Like I said the difference isn’t even worth caring about. It’s all about what the player wants. I’m losing 200-400 in point damage. That’s all stop being drama mommas. When you play correctly that doesn’t matter.

Hell the 3.0 version that I did live stream the gap is even less. But your more vulnerable. Also consider I don’t have a ascended staff and still doing 1600. Don’t think I care enough to make a Ascended Staff. I rather make or buy the legendary one.

nearly 3k staff hit, self buffed/debuffed only. Build: 10/30/0/10/20.

Do I win?

Bright.9160:

durend.6237:

@ Bright. Hahahaha, I think you missed the first half of my post you quoted. I’ve been with you the whole time on “no AH”

I simply put that quote in there to agree with it XD

5 paragraphs though… I’d feel bad if you wrote that for nothing. Let’s say you convinced me not to revert to AH for the next 5 months

Lol, I got that as ‘well Bright, if you’re so logical, provide me logic why AH is bad’…

Nah, that’s too easy. I’d have to make it challenging “provide me with logic why AH is good”

I haven’t seen anything to give me that yet aside from “yay heals”

Still haven’t seen a counter argument to my “why not play a good build with defensive gear and work your way up” argument either >.>

@ Bright. Hahahaha, I think you missed the first half of my post you quoted. I’ve been with you the whole time on “no AH”

I simply put that quote in there to agree with it XD

5 paragraphs though… I’d feel bad if you wrote that for nothing. Let’s say you convinced me not to revert to AH for the next 5 months

Ok… I’ll bite.

damage forumla for average dps = power * (1 + crit chance % * (crit damage %)) * (total damage mods)

Damage modifiers also stack multiplicatively. So if you have 10% from zeal adapt and 10% from radiance 25 minor you don’t have a 20% increase but rather 1.1 * 1.1 = 21%

This effect will only increase further through other modifiers on sigils/food(potions)/other traits.

So if we start with full berserker gear with scholar we’ll have

2154 * ( 1 + .39 (.78[added crit damage] + .5[bass crit damage])) * (1.1[scholar] * 1.1 [potion] * 1.1 [slaying/night sigil])
= 2145 * (1 + .39 (1.28)) * 1.33
= 2154 * (1 + .499) * 1.33 <- here we see the first problem
= 2154 * 1.99
= 4286

Where marked we see the issue, crit damage is nerfed by crit chance. This will always be the case. People have done tests on the indestructible golems in heart of the mists with builds that have over 100% crit chance, and they would still miss crits on occasion, thus .99 is the best crit chance you’ll get.

Anyway, investing 10 points and zeal and 25 points in radiance we get this version

= 2254 (1 + .51 (1.28[unchanged from earlier]))(1.33[base from earlier] * 1.1[firey wrath] * 1.1 [radiant power] * 1.05[powerful blades])
= 2254 (1.65)(1.69)
= 6296 (2.79 total of crit mod * damage mod)

putting those same points into valor and the last five into radiance to improve crit chance

= 2145 * (1 + .41 (1.58)) * 1.33
= 4700 (2.19 total of crit mod * damage mod)

putting them into zeal instead is only slightly better at 4737.

Either way you look at it the difference is 1.5k difference in DPS. I’ll applauded your build for taking 15 in radiance for the ability to spam blind + vuln for each mob killed, but you have to spend an extra 10 points to get that party support whereas the 10/25/x/x/x does not. That now leaves you 25 points to pick up party utility whereas the 10/25 build still has 45 points open for utility.

Yes your build can take damage better then 10/25, but that’s where I keep saying, build defense with armor and as you get better at using dodges/blinds/aegis/renewed focus/shelter/focus shield(for s/f builds) to mitigate damage improve to higher dps gear.

The problem with AH is that it is a crutch. You see green numbers covering you and think that is helping you stay alive. Earlier today when running SE I was with an AH guard. He was running low on health and swapped to staff for empower. I proceeded to watch his health spike up on each tick of empower and spike right back down for the hits he was forced to take due to planting himself with the skill for a 0 net gain.

All the hits however were ranged, so if he would of instead used wall of reflection, his would of still had 0 net gain health, but the mobs would of taken a lot more damage.

AH was his crutch, he noticed he was low, and instantly went to heal. Without that crutch he could of realized he could of used WoR and used the extra time to either kill the mobs or for his healing skill to come off CD.

basically: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LNep79qXLk

For pugging play, if you’re the only warrior doing a FGJ/banner of str/banner of disc is best if you can manage with no stun breaks.

If your used to more tanky builds you may want to start with some knight’s armor while your learning which attacks you cannot tank and need to dodge and put on the berserker gear when your more comfortable with that.

Also, slice of candied dragon rolls are still very cheap on the TP and the life steal on crit will help you alot with staying alive. Can’t remember if the guide mentions that or not.

Silentstorm.7531:

What happens when you still do that despite that Durend? Also your taking into account if you were trying to do support build. If that was the case I’d use a different build. I however was going for a dps/support. Designed to carry so to speak. Which is what I do with the combo.

Again no one can disprove that fact. Which is why its popular in the first place. But like I said all you doing is pushing people to me. Who dislike forum trash talkers. Whatever your goal is it’s failing big time. And at the end of the day. I’m still going to do what I do regardless no less popular. Don’t know what about it’s over some of you didn’t get. Judging how posts are vanishing maybe time for us all to be quiet.

That’s just the thing, beyond a 15/15 hammer, I’ve also suggested 20/25 GS build, a 10/30 s/f build. I have offered options for both maximum offense as well as with defense mixed in all the while keeping party utility as my number one goal. Sure all the builds are going to be mostly “support” and not “dps” when you put on defensive gear, but that’s the thing, I see potential for improvement in my fellow players and that with time they can equip the offensive gear and be both “dps and support”

Designed to carry so to speak.

I think this sentence proves perfectly what you see in your fellow players.

hybrid.5027:

The biggest factor of any comparison is player skill, I think everyone agrees to that. However; it seems illogical to me to assume that as a rule, the average player is capped to playing at a low level. There will be exceptions, but I can’t believe that it is the standard. Players end up capping their own ability due to self-imposed views of themselves, whether that is “this is too hard” or “I’m good enough to complete this, I don’t need to improve anymore”. Builds however, are a mathematical cap in potential.

I think this largely sums it up. When I suggested builds, it was with the mentality that every player isn’t going to start with a high level of skill, but that this skill level would grow over time. To this end, I suggested builds that offered the maximum possible payoff in the future in terms of damage, team utility, and – in the case of the 15/15 hammer builds – defense.

Now certainly a 0/0/30/30/10 or 0/0/30/20/20 will offer a more defensive set up than anything I listed, but for PvE content you are rarely doing much to help your party by just staying alive.

With skill growth in mind, it is much better to start playing with suboptimal gear in a build that has maximum payoff with optimal gear than to play with optimal gear but a sub optimal build.

When you’ve been playing with soldier’s gear and a “good” build, when you start getting comfortable with content and switch that first piece of gear to knight’s, there will be a marginal increase in damage taken and in dps, but your play style remains unchanged. The same will hold true for the second piece of knights… final piece of knights… first piece of berserkers… etc

On the other hand, if you’re playing with an AH build once you’re comfortable with content and wish to contribute more to the team, just one point out of valor and your whole play style has to change.

It is that reason why I will always strongly argue against builds taking AH in PvE. it locks you 30 deep in a trait line that’s only skill to support the party is Strength in Numbers which only requires a 10 point investment.

Compare this to playing a 15/15/0/20/10 hammer build wearing soldiers gear and you are: applying constant protection to your party, chain blinding trash mobs, stacking vuln, have the best reflect uptime skill, and can put the extra points into valor for team defense or virtues for condition cleansing.

It doesn’t matter if this player is the most casual that only plays 1 day a week and thus never improves to using better gear, they will always be doing more to support their party than a player with the same skill level putting 30 in valor with more offensive gear.

al·tru·is·tic

1. showing a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others; unselfish.

Guardian is not a primarily DPS class but a party support class, any DPS we do is bonus to the party. With that in mind, how altruistic are we being by locking up 30 trait points with the only interest of keeping us alive when they can be better spent supporting the party with us wearing defensive gear which has no relavance on party support?

For PvE soloing it really comes down to having knowledge of the encounter and what tools you have/need to get around that encounter.

The ideal is 100% offensive stats on gear and relying on traits/sigils/weapons to pick up the slack on the defensive side. For instance:

Main hand sword: blurred fenzy → 2 second distort every 12 or 9.6 seconds
offhand sword: block (one hit) every 15/12 seconds
focus w/ trait: reflection for 5 seconds on curtain every 20 (warden is also 5 seconds reflection)
sigil of energy: extra dodge every 9 seconds w/ weapon swap
blurred inscription + signet of midnight: instant cast 1 second of distortion every 30

Basically the concept is, the quicker you kill it, the less time you have to make a mistake.

Anyway, I’d suggest checking out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKONEej6EJ8

Also hit up some of the other videos on his channel, this guy has soloed/duoed some of the hardest content in this game and will probably be a great source of inspiration for you.

I personally prefer the 10/30/0/20/10 build. I run Arah and fractals alot, so I’ll prefer the extra reflect and personal damage, especially in situations where I find my phantasms not lasting long.

That said, I have messed around with the 0/20/0/25/25 and 10/10/0/25/25 phantasm builds. With no party buffs and using 1 duelist and 1 swordsman against heavy golems in heart of the mists, I found average kill times to be identical (4 swordsman attacks 3 duelists), due to the added damage of sharper images.

Anyway, that said. Phantasmal Strength is the stronger choice if your only getting one, if only for the ability to pick up glamour CDs and reflecting focus. Any mob that uses projectiles you’ll get far more damage off a feedback/traited curtain/warden than actual damage phantasms do. Also with that and 20 in dueling you can trait all of the relevant phantasms CDs anyway (sword/pistol/focus). Of those three, phantasmal haste doesn’t effect the swordsman, just the duelist (1 second) and warden(1.5 seconds)

12 seconds of swiftness of the focus + blink is generally enough. If your running at least 10 in dueling, you can swap whatever your normal trait is to far reaching manipulations to get that extra 300 distance.

Also, rune’s of the traveler are simply 100% NOT worth it for dungeons. Use Runes of the Centaur. Traveler runes are 25% movement speed compared to Centaur’s swiftness on heal (33%). Just swap out your healing skill to Mantra of Recovery before running sections and you can activate that swiftness any time it lapses. Between focus and this, you’ll have 100% swiftness uptime (lapsing for just a fragment of a second when you need to apply it with the curtain).

6 Centaur rune’s are also a fragment of the cost of only 1 traveler rune. So if you have a rune set you prefer for combat (for me personally I normally use scholar), you will not be sinking a lot of money into making a second armor set just for running.

The last thing, try your hardest to stay out of combat when making runs, use of stealths and blink can aid with this. Also be wary of anything that makes a clone. Phase retreat can be used as an extra blink forward if you target something behind you, but the range is short and the clone will instantly put you into combat slowing your speed down.

That reply was to Chopps

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Bright.9160:

I heard people like the new TA, you know, the dungeon where you can’t skip stuff.

Now Bright, where did you hear such a bold faced lie?

I think he’s basing his facts on the overwhelming amount of TA aether posts in the lfg tool.

I mean, look at all of them.

hybrid.5027:

Chopps.5047:

Why not use offhand training for a larger reflect bubble?

You have to.

All three videos you can see Call of the Wild on a 28 second CD over the normal 35. They all had the trait.

Where’s the naked double bow version?

Also story modes are generally easier to get “non-80” parties for. When you get to exp mode you’ll likely have to make your own posts something along the lines of “path 1, non-80, looking to learn the path” Still may take awhile to get a group, but it shouldn’t be impossible.

The best way I’d recommend would be to get a guild where members are willing to show you around. They’ll be more invested in the run and not end up rqing if something goes bad.

spoj.9672:

Having long dungeon paths is not good design. You alienate players with less play time. Which is why the dungeon lengths in gw2 are pretty good. And skipping is intended, they could of easily made it impossible to skip but they havent. They did actually increase the leash range in arah several months back to make it slightly harder to skip (they could of just made it infinite). The option to skip mobs promotes variety; clear mobs, run past mobs with brute force or stealth past. Being forced to take a thief or clearing every mob group is not good design.

What they need is a good incentive so there is a literal choice on skip or kill. Sure some paths like arah 3 have champ loot options, but that doesn’t help with any of the masses of silvers.

Now if say every silver mob dropped, say 2 silver, not only does %gold find become a meaningful stat again, but there is an incentive to clear trash (would also take out some of the disappointment when fractal 40+ runs hit dredge).

Bright.9160:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

I agree. I entered p2 with exp team. We don’t speed run perse’, but we very rarely get downed either. We play casually, but can still drop lupi in a 5ish minutes through timed reflects in phase 3. We exited dungeon and the same ‘vendor’ had already come out before us, even though they entered at the same time. How does one solo lupi and path 2 faster than an exp team that rarely gets downed and can handle lupi considerably faster than your average PuG? I smell a rat, but can’t prove it because I am not with them whilst they do the run. It maybe 5 of them run it and 4 of them leave so the final person nets optimal cash and then divides it afterwards.

You realize people have solo’ed lupi in under 5 minutes right? This means that your party of ‘experienced’ people does equal damage to a person on his own. And you’re surprised that someone can solo the path equally fast as you can run it with a full team? In fact, technically, that makes total sense.

Not to mention running tactics. If you have a necro/mesmer, unless you also have an ele passing them off a FGS you’ll be stuck waiting for them to catch up to the faster classes.

Solo/duo clears are normally going to be composed of those faster classes, so not only are they going to be killing almost twice as fast (based on 5 min of your 5 man clears versus them running builds that have soloed in sub 5) but they’ll also be completing the running parts quicker.

Dolan.3071:

If I had to PuG Arah I would simply have to go Thief to trivialise trash skips, granted I take a Thief on casual p1 and p3 guild runs anyway. I would also leg it from Lupi’s Phase 2 AoE’s unless the Mesmer proved to be exceptional thus far.
But really, at least once a week there’s a “oh my god this happened in an Arah PuG” thread so I doubt I’ll ever man up enough to risk it.

Mesmer may not be as good as thief, but it can pull its own for aiding in trash skips (also doesn’t carry the risk of pugs running out of your SR)

p1:

• first skip is mostly on them, but veil + mass invis towards the end to leash anything chasing.
• second skip, continue running to where you fight the abomination on p2 place a portal take the waypoint run into range and get the team across.
• post lupi mesmer can get through the risen without drawing aggro (veil the first turn, decoy, mass invis, prestige, blink the second) from after that there’s a safe spot before the drakes to set a portal to bring your team through. Focus pull the drakes/gorillas forward to keep the party ooc for quicker running and the spiders normally prove no problems.

p2

• getting to belka is pretty much on them, but stealth just before the deadeye helps.
• stealths and blinks to get to the waypoint after, if the group has problems after that, portal to the abomination
• really hilarious when you get to rotten armada waypoint first on mesmer
• at brie if go up the ramp and get into the far back corner, you can portal from just north of reza’s waypoint

p3

• more portal magic from the hill above the mage crusher from the starting area

p4

• focus pull the spectral weapons/risen on the run to the melandru, alternatively stealth
• can portal from starting zone to hill for lyssa
• interrupt the spectral weapons again with focus, or stealth. stealth through the last room after the water.

I mostly take normal skills the first time running, but I’ll find the 72/90 second CD is worth it over watching another player fail the run 2/3x times after the first attempt.

a t s e.9614:

And with a decent party the CoF boss shouldn’t even be dodged because it dies too quickly.

By decent party you mean this group? Don’t take the advice given at the end of a world record run and try to apply it to a standard pug. Back in the days of CoF speedfarming where groups advertised sub 7 min runs or kick this advice could of been applicable, but the standard has really fallen since then.

Pretty much what xyonon said, A good dungeon build is never going to be a good WvW build and vice versa. Unless your looking to solo a group even, the open world content is easy enough that any build will get you by. I personally have PvE gear and WvW gear and swap both that and my traits every time I leave/enter WvW.

The biggest utility mesmer brings to dungeon groups is reflects. There are very few dungeons where a mesmer shouldn’t have 20 in inspiration to pick up glamour mastery and warden’s feedback.

So, Warden’s Feedback, that requires a focus. The sword really is the strongest main hand in dungeons. Not only is it mesmer’s best dps, the ability to use blurred frenzy defensively is invaluable to survival. I currently run sword and two offhands, but when I was first learning I ran sword/focus and a ranged option on swap (alot of mesmers still do this)

That said, for your ranged option, I would highly recommended scepter. Scepter is effective at any range (unlike GS) so you are free to stay close to the melee to reap the benefit of boons your allies are sharing. Also all mesmer offhands can be very useful in dungeons (torch for running sections, the others for combat).

So if you do decide to pick up the sword mainhand, I would do sword/focus & scepter pistol. If you absolutely will not touch the mainhand sword, I’d run scepter with the two offhands. Beyond reflects, the focus is used to position mobs with into the void and is often to useful to not have on hand. The magic bullet on pistol meanwhile is a lot more potent of a CC skill than the GS knock back and as I’ve already mentioned scepter allows you to stay in range of buffs allies are throwing out.

Anyway, the build: 0/20(II and IV or IX)/0/25(II, VIII)/25(III, X). If you go with a sword and scepter style, you’ll want IV in dueling, else wise IX. Basically this is focusing phantasm damage, so even if you have to switch out of sword main hand (or never take a sword to start with) your phantasms are still keeping up dps for you despite the loss of sword’s superior auto attack.

Since there is no trinity in this game, the expectation is that every party member contribute to DPS. That said, the anti-berserker mantra of “dead dps is no dps” is quite true. Lucky for you WvW armor is generally more defensive in nature, so you’ll probably want to get that armor first and as you find yourself better able to avoid damage in dungeons, you can start acquiring more berserker pieces and swap to them when entering into a run that you are familiar and comfortable with.

Is this for PvP? Cause your listed with PvP armor (solider runes/celestial ammy), and a 25% chance to crit yet you quote a 49% chance so I’m a little confused.

So if you 49% crit in PvP I’m going to assume your probably berserker ammy offensive runes, in which case I’d suggest picking up some defense as your current skills you have a 30 second shelter and a 90 second renewed focus and not much else. 5 in virtues for the boons on activation and 20 in valor (strength in numbers, purity, or even strength of the fallen) should help you here

If your the soldier/celestial, then I’d your probably good to pick up some offense, but I’d suggest either 5 more in zeal (scepter damage when your on swap) and 20 in virtues (condi removal or stability) or just flat out 25 in virtues. I’d also recommend picking up sanctuary to throw on bodies for resing/stomping so either ground targeted consecrations or reduced CD for the adapt major trait (retaliation duration if you don’t want the skill).

If this is for WvW I’ll suggest the same as above and but where I mention sanctuary is useful I’ll suggest Wall of Reflection instead

If this is for PvE, I’d suggest looking at this guide.

Incomingray.8075:

also hammer protection is not even remotely useful in pug wipe situations in say a 48 fractals,

Damage taken = incoming damage / armor (source)

incoming damage = 1,000,000 (hypothetical)

0/30/30/0/10 guard armor (full berserker and Strength in Numbers) = 2577

1,000,000 / 2577 = 388 damage taken

15/15/10/20/10 guard armor (same as above) + 100% uptime protection = 2377

(1,000,000 * .67) / 2377 = 282 damage taken

Protection doesn’t matter does it? Not to mention that the protection from the hammer doesn’t just effect you but your entire party.

“But AH can give protection too with Hold the Line”
-At best HtL is 15~% uptime. You simply are not going to have it when you need it.

“Hammer protection only helps people in melee”
-Wall of Reflection will protect those at range, as will ring of warding stop mobs from advancing on them.

“0/30/30/0/10 does more damage then 15/15/10/20/10”
-I’ll give you that one. But that’s on the strength of the radiance line – not valor. For the cost of 250 toughness (you’ll still get hit less hard with 100% protection and no valor than you would with full valor – 315 to 388 in the example above) you can run 15/25/0/20/10 and have better offense and defense than 0/30/30/0/10 (see my above post for the importance of damage multipliers over crit damage for this).

So if 30 in valor isn’t better offense and it isn’t better defense, we’re down to “I want AH”
AH will heal for 69 per boon, if that skill gives 1 boon to the whole party thats 345. most shouts are going to only do double that, same with activating virtues. The only true “burst” heals you’ll have are symbol of wrath which ticks 5 times giving 345-1725 depending on how many allies are in it and empower which is 828-4140 depending on how many allies are within 600 radius of you.

While that 4k max may look nice, using it requires:

1. All party members in range, not a 100% in a pug
2. All party members being alive, something an AH build cannot do very well.
3. You to plant yourself for 2.5 seconds, during this time you cannot evade attacks or you end up losing your healing. Mobs in level 40 fractals are more then able to do 4k damage over that time to negate this healing however
4. You to lock yourself into a low DPS weapon for 9 seconds

Meanwhile, you can be running life regen food (candied dragon rolls are less then a silver) for 325 life every second. That put together with vigor on crits and you’ll have plenty of sustainability through taking less damage (100% protection), having a constant heal, and being able to dodge when it matters more often. Not only this, but you are free continue using a weapon with decent DPS. If your still worried, grab signet mastery to essentially bring yourself to full life every 30 seconds.

haviz.1340:

DPS example for a guardian with a shout-heal warrior, I’ve seen everything.

I wanted to show fury in the example, but didn’t want to factor in banner of discipline. I was about to make that ranger a axe/warhorn terrible build so I didn’t have to do spotter either XD

Relentliss.2170:

I think a lot of blokes like the 30 points for the 30 crit damage. Can someone explain why that is bad.

average damage =
Base damage * ( 1 + Critical Chance * ( Critical Damage + 0.5) ) * Damage Mods

There is also the fact that increasing Critical Damage is additive. If I have 76% crit damage and use a food that gives me + 10% crit damage, I’ll have 86%.

Increasing Damage Mods is multiplicative. If my current mod is 1.39 (the number you’d get from scholar runes, night and force sigils and slaying potions) and I go into zeal for the 10% damage to burning foes and radiance for the 10% damage to foes with conditions I have not increased that number to 1.59, but 1.69.

1.39 * 1.1 * 1.1 = 1.69

Add in the 5% modifier for swords in radiance and were up to 1.77. 35 points spent, and the damage modifier has increased by .38 (1.39 -> 1.77). This number is then strait up multiplied to base damage.

On the other hand, with full berserker/scholar, we sit at 78% crit damage and 38% crit chance. 30 points into valor brings us up to 108% crit damage and the 5% of toughness is applied to percision brings crit chance to 41%.

Now let’s say we’re in a pug group with a shout-heal warrior and a ranger with spotter and a warhorn. perception stacks + spotter boost crit chance to 60% and fury brings it to 80%.

1 + crit chance (crit damage + .5) = 1 + .8 (1.08 + .5) = 2.26

The number that the 10/25/x/x/x build would get however (same party, same stacking sigil):
1 + .89 + (.78 + .5) = 2.14

put those numbers together with the ealier damage multipliers x/x/30/x/x would get
2.26 * 1.39 = 3.14 (total modifier to base damage)

and 10/25/x/x/x has
2.14 * 1.77 = 3.78 (total modifier to base damage)

The reasoning against going into valor after starting with 10/25/x/x/x is that there are better traits for party support in virtues as well as more damage mods. The only damage modifier in the valor line is mace specific (a weapon that has poor dps) and thus the tree should not be considered when specing for damage.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

CptAurellian.9537:

durend.6237:

15/15/10/20/10. you pick up a 10% damage modifier for the one you lost in radiance, you retain the VoJ blind/vuln spam.

What 10% modifier? The 10% crit damage? In that case, you are wrong – in the end, they will increase your total damage only by something like 3%, plusminus a bit.

Not that I want to make an argument for him; but our 2nd guard for our fractal team has been running that build. Works well, he just camps hammer. Allows him to be a pseudo-anchor, without really sacrificing anything (its sacrificing 10 points from virtues).

Not sure how helpful Strength in numbers actually is; but he (the guard) likes it.

Yeah, hammer camping here.

I was talking about using that over running a 0/30/30/0/10 build, 10% to burning foes (in zeal) is picked up when the 10% to foes with conditions is lost (shifting 15 points from radiance to zeal). 20 points shift out of valor to honor.

All told we have:

• lost 150 precision gained 150 power
• lost a 5% damage mod with sword, gained vuln stacking on hammer auto
• lost 200 personal toughness, AH and likely %5 of toughness > precision gained perma party protection and vigor on crits (200 vitality I suppose as well)

I don’t have an exact number on the difference in DPS, but it’s clearly not going to be as high. This isn’t a build an organized team would use in any place outside of high fractals.

But, I’d be much happier entering a random pug and seeing a guardian running this over an AH build. This supports the entire party helping everyone stay alive, AH only helps the guard stay alive.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I can understand not reviving defeated players. Dead is dead and it can be a waste to res them. But that said, if a pro player makes a slight error in judgment and gets merely downed mid-fight and you cannot rally them due to the nature of the boss, not ressing them is only hurting your run’s time further.

Isn’t that what we were talking about? Any time you go to res your rooted and there is a risk involved, that is very manageable when it is only 2-3 seconds to pick someone up from downed but is much larger against a fully dead person.

That risk I’m only going to take if I think that player will absolutely make an impact and not go right back down and even then only if I think doing so will not be quicker then finishing with a 4 or 3 man group.

Incomingray.8075:

I don’t think the 10 in honor and 15 extra in virtues provide much extra useful support for most pug groups, strength in numbers helps, not being too squishy while still doing good dps helps me… basically for me my ‘ah build’(it’s not about AH at all) is just to do good single target damage without going down too easy when things go wrong as they often do in pug land… 2handers AH and sigil of stamina full zerk makes trash really easy in lev40/50 fractals.

Why not take a hammer? I’m not saying ignore valor, but having 100% uptime on a 33% damage reduction seems alot more useful than 200 extra toughness.

Not to mention if your doing single target dps that isn’t going to be much use in cliffside/dredge.

15/15/10/20/10. you pick up a 10% damage modifier for the one you lost in radiance, you retain the VoJ blind/vuln spam. Your auto attack is now applying vuln. You gain vigor on crit hits (other honor traits to make larger and longer symbols). And you retain the ability to go between Unscathed to MoC. Also for the end bosses where you’d be better with a 1h sword/scepter you can pick up shout CDs and empowering might (most pugs are bad at retaining might stacks).

Also the constant uptime on protection effects not just you (as 200 toughness from 30 valor does) but your whole party (or at least the ones that are meleeing).

Xyonon.3987:

Thats the point of the whole build. I enjoyed playing mantras and realized they are sometimes better than reflection, nullfield, or glamour in general. So I want a build wich allows me to switch the traits between glamour and mantra without retraiting depending on the situation. This is what I like to have. Thats why it requires a useful duelling 30 skill if i’m not using mantras

Right, so thought 1: I’ve never used Furious interruption, but I think it could potentially work like dazzling, aka still proc even if a boss has defiant if you time it when a boss would be interrupted.

2: Blurred Inscriptions + signet of midnight is a nice defensive combo, but locks up a utility slot. same would apply to far reaching if you need blink for something (troll res someone with illusion of life from far away?)

3: retaliation when you block? desperate decoy? yeah… I’m running out of ideas here

A note on clones on dodge however, they’ll only ever override clones unless you have 3 phantasms up. Against a boss like lupi that’s going to kill your clones left and right, this can be useful so he has extra targets so your feedback gets more damage (alternatively to draw fire away from you). Also, granted for such a boss, you’ll also want damage mods for your feedback.

If your going PvP (WvW), doing a large norn can just take up space making click targeting difficult and just more stuff in general for opponenets to look through. Counter argument is, it’s difficult to see what a small sized asura is doing (but if your teammates are small sized asura hiding between your large norn clones…)

Stacking power is rarely a bad thing while leveling. Nor is GS and queensdale champ train.

I’d get your power gear first, as you can use it for both shatter and phantasms. From there you could start getting some condi gear and play a hybrid build while finishing your condi set(I made a pretty extended post on that in This thread if your interested in what a hybrid type build would look like. Do note however, that was all theory crafting, I haven’t tested how that plays in game).

Use free cam. Unbind your map rotation keys, change them to strafe keys.

1-5: normal
mouse 3: heal
utility 1: Q
utility 2: shift mouse 3
utility 3: E
Elite: X/shift number
F1-4: Shift 1-4/Alt1-4

Alternativly, if you have the extra mouse buttons, mouse 4 and 5 and shift mouse 4 and 5 for your elites.

Free cam helps alot. Takes a bit of getting used too, but once you get in the habbit of clicking mouse 2 any time you need to make sharp turns, the added keybinds on Q and E help alot.

Can someone please explain to me, what is the point of a build that takes AH as well as Unscathed Contender? What is the point of a trait that helps you only when you are not getting hit in a build centered around healing itself from damage.

Or better phrased for the people claiming they can keep it up most of the time. Why are you playing a build centered around healing yourself when your not planning on taking damage?

spoj.9672:

Or necro. DS fear and still got access to a root on dps weapon.

Id be curious to see which is faster seeing as warrior wont be able to get might and fury with the no utility rule.

I was thinking necro too. I normally use stability for the transformation, necro is the best class to get this with the no utility rule.

But you guys seem to be planning on skipping the transformations altogether. I know some mob can be interrupted despite defiant (Ice ele’s heal in fractals), this guy work the same way? or you guys just going to fight the defiant stacks?

Edit: More food for thought. Thief with slight of hand. Would be extra effective depending on what they can steal off him.