Guild Wars 2

Cherrylin.5869:

Interesting. What is your viewpoint on that only mesmers can make this portal then? Do you find that fair, or should others have a similar ability? I know some mesmers are making gold off it; what do you think about that?

I’m still on the fence whether or not other classes should be able to do such teleports. On one hand it would heavily favor having a mesmer class for this, but then again some classes I feel have advantage to jumping that if they can port ppl, mesmers would be utterly neglected in this respect. As an example, for me, my ranger with her perma-speed boost, medium sized toon, and a skill with LONG stability duration, actually makes going through jumping puzzles the EASIEST, as opposed to my mesmer where I need to equip focus for TEMPORARY speed boost (what happens when u need to hold something else, like torches in the EB JP dark room section ) and a mantra for stability that lasts abt 2 seconds each only? If my ranger could port, where would my mesmer be? :P so i’ll stay on the fence with this.

Mesmer ports making money? Look, I think it is entirely up to them if they want to charge, but so far, on my server at least, I haven’t seen any “Will port ppl up jp for X gold” or such. Most are like me, we happily offer portal services, and if people feel they wanna give gifts of some currency, then we happily accept. Otherwise, its a free service. So if you don’t wanna pay, I think we can still find other mesmers who would port for free. My chief worry therefore is gold4port becomes an epidemic like people only wanting CoF1 runs for dungeons. This CREATES a problem when there should’nt be one so I can only advise mesmers to not make mandatory fee for their services. Let’s keep things friendly and fun.

Well that’s my opinion.

I’m not gonna blame you however ur feelings are on the matter. It is a personal preference, but I have no objections as to how ppl get their titles. For me I only care that I can get the title, and I don’t want to make a fuss of how ppl do their stuff, as much as I don’t want ppl to fuss abt with how I do my stuff.

I hope mesmer portals will continue as it is, I don’t feel it as cheating at all. I love the idea in fact, so much that one of the reasons I worked on my jumping skills and made my last toon a mesmer is to i can help port ppl up. Yea i enjoy doing that.

I get the idea that challenging to obtain =/= heavy grinding. At its basic principle I can approve of what the OPs intention is. Problem is who gets the say on what is “challenging enough”? This is likely a VERY subjective issue and therefore there will ALWAYS be some who feel it is too hard and some who feel it is too easy.

Take the example of the Dungeon Master title, that was mentioned somewhere up there. Most especially after Simin, priestess of Dwayna boss in in Arah P4 was nerfed (very reduced health regen) a lot of people complained the DM title was not special anymore, as ANYONE can finish it. And yet till now I still hear people complaining they can’t finish that path. Difficulty is subjective, and while I get that this does not make the OP an elitist so to speak, I also don’t think anyone against the notion a ‘lazy entitled person’.

Yargesh.4965:

I am bad at jumping but the only puzzle so far that I absolutely cannot do is the southsun vent puzzle. Thank god for mesmers. I do not think they should be required to finish maps like the wall one, so that should be changed to get the skill point and view. Never had a huge problem with that one though several people on forums where very upset about it.

It took me months to do that southsun jp (skipping stones, it’s called) but I attribute my success in JPs recently due to the super adventure box farming and the fact that starting a new toon, a mesmer, requires me to be proficient at jumping because porting ppl up makes me feel good That said, I still get annoyed at jps because I still need multiple tries, especially skipping stones, but I’m getting fairly adept at the Eternal Battle grounds JP/ Obsidian Sanctum.

My first annoyance with JPs is the camera, which is both an issue regarding specific races (norn and charr have hard time) and the fact that there are places where things just OBSTRUCT your view. I hate jumping when i have to zoom in so close to my toon, i prefer to see a bigger picture so to speak, but with said obstructions it is either jump with zoomed in camera or jump blind.

My second annoyance is the ridiculousness of some JPs where i can’t figure out where to go next only to find that I have to jump onto some ledge so narrow that no person could realistically stand on it, let alone perform ‘acrobatics’ there; so narrow that it seems only rats could scurry on it, and yet THAT is the way you have to jump. I know, it’s a game, but really this kind of trick for jumping puzzles in a game like GW2 just seems silly and sorta breaks immersion for me. in fact it almost feels like an EXPLOIT.

cool. thanks for the replies guys :

… when we swap to a weapon kit (flamethrower, bomb, grenade etc), is it effected by the stats of the weapon we have (example, having a berzerker rifle/pistol, will it get us more crit dmg when using flamethrower as oppose to having maybe… a rabid weapon set?) as well as the sigils? (example, toon has sigil of air which has a chance for lighitning strike on crit, when swap to flamethrower kit, do we still get that chance to get lightning strike?)

Just asking to clarify, thanks in advance…

I really liked the dungeon. It seems well executed. I’ve ran it twice, and I can see how we can wipe if not careful. but seeing as I did the run with my regular party, we had fun going through it without too much distressing moments.

Some rewards are nice, but dungeon specific rewards that are also RNG based is my biggest dislike here. I never liked that. like fractal skins, im not putting any hope of ever seeing them. i never was lucky enough to get those. and relying on luck is just crap for me.

Anyhow, overall good job on new dungeon!

I do think the new AC varies greatly depending on the team and tactics. I’ve done it several times with some guildies that isn’t my usual party members, as well as pugs and we wiped a few times at spider queen, and many times we killed her just barely, with myself and maybe one or two more party members alive. Kholer is usually skipped, and one guy said because it’s simply suicide to fight him without first having the Cave troll boss to duel with him and weaken both.

Recently though I ran the new AC with my regular group of people; guildies who i ran dungeons with since november. I hardly changed my style or tactics much. we killed spider queen without too much fuss, a few downs once in a while and thts it. We fought kholer and feel that he doesnt kill u as fast with his pull and spin attacks as he used to and we negated his minions quickly that it wasn’t even an issue. Defend Hodgins room proved a little tougher, the guardian who usually can solo tank to guard hodgins cant do it alone anymore, and after failing twice we did things a little different… so after 4-5 burrows done, 2 of us went for the last burrows while the rest helps defend hodgins.

Path 2 the ghostbusters part there were some issues to traps bugging out, but we didnt wipe and took ghost eater down after triggering traps 3 times.

So is the new AC too hard? A lot of people think so. And prior to my recent run, I am inclined to agree. But after that run, it does seem do-able. Problem is, of course, this is in a group of mostly people who ran with each other since November. We practically tailored our toon’s build to complement each other. As the first dungeon, a lvl 35 dungeon, is that REALLY the benchmark of teams required to run it? Well I’m sure different people will have different thoughts on that.

LordByron.8369:

only neglected dungeon is SE…
Nobody likes dredges >_>

Also revamped AC…..for different reasons.

SE path 1 is Inquest, which is also a short path. Are they more preferable to dredge I wonder

I like the SE light armor and am really trying to horde the tokens for my mesmer :P. Slow process so far. it is quite sad more often than not ppl are asking for other dungeons more… particularly cof..

I’m divided on this. For certain I want more dungeons to run, because I just love the team-based play that dungeon offers. Certainly that there are rewards at the end that are better than most activities makes it nice too. I’ve run all paths (DM title) and the only challenge it seems is getting the right team to do runs. Get a bad team and we might take a llooong time to finish, otherwise its smooth.

But I also agree that content currently in existence needs polish. Still many people running dungeons make use of exploits. It just kills the excitement when the party resorts to such methods. Some fights also seem stale. But make no mistake in thinking I’m simply advocating just to notch up difficulty. Come on, not everyone is as skilled as the best players and just because some find things easy is no reason to ask for ruining other ppls fun by making it very hard. Make content interesting =/= make it hard.

As always I’m curious on one aspect. Speed run/skipping mobs. I dont consider running past some mobs an exploit. (i think knowing when to fight and when not to is an application of strategy). I do prefer killing mobs when possible though, its just for certainty not to be plagued by them if we have to go thru an area again. But should content really be gated so as to deny skipping at all, and what would likely be the result of that given that the playerbase at large do speed runs?

Current dungeons do have some puzzle aspect but the overhwlming majority of things you do are fights, which most of them can be made “efficient” simply by learning mechanics/dodge and bringing an ungodly amount of dps (4 zerkers wars and mes anyone? :P ). My impression of the idea in this thread is a bit less fighting, more exploration and thinking and chance encounters. Also there was mention of the issue for ‘>5 member party’.

Personally, I don’t find skipping should be an overly major consideration because I couldn’t care less whether I skip mobs or fight them. I don’t dedicate myself to dungeons for speedruns, and will happily whack and kill all trashmobs or run past stuff, depending on party leader. I don’t mean to offend with this statement, mind you. But @ Isi, you are probably right that some players would not like it. I wonder if that can be helped though because this is usually a concern for speed runners, and I don’t know if devs even made the current dungeons with a lot of thought to making it viable for speed running. Speed running is likely a product of players who want efficiency concerning time vs reward. Content I think, is developed based on testing player skill and coordination and of course problem solving abilities. What do you think? And how long SHOULD a dungeon be on average? Me, I think Arah is LONG but those < 6 minutes Cof speed runs is way to short to enjoy.

Randomized stuff…based on fractals, they do have varying difficulty. There is some balancing to be done in designing them I’m sure, but some would always be easier than the other. Case in point, swamp fractal. One boss is easier than the other, and not counting if u reroll, players don’t really have a choice on which they get.

What attracted me to Leo G’s post was that instead of randomizing between 2 bosses (as mentioned for example the swamp fractal) it’s instead one boss (same model and name) but different skillsets and abilities, so to speak. So u wont know before hand which kind of fight it will be until it starts.

Rewards. This is a whole different bag of issues this one. I am personally happy enough with rewards (the one you get after you complete the dungeon, incl the tokens) from current dungeon. Drops from chests in the dungeons could be better (I JUST KILLED A 10,000 YEAR OLD ZOMBIE GIGANTICUS LUPICUS AND YOU GAVE ME…1 COPPER? ARE YOU NUTS? hehehe :P ). But that’s me so I can’t really say for others.

@Isi – Troll boss in AC is a basic example of random boss tht might pop up at several possible points through out dungeon. If this mechanic is there already, so… :P Also, in dredge fractals for example, there’s a possibility for you to randomly get either one of two possible paths (which of course has different mechanics to do) and 2 possible end boss (with some differences in skills and challenge). This is basis for some randomness i spose.

@Milennin – harpy fracs, the likely answer is to make sure nobody in ur party starts before everyone is ready. But you’re absolutely right in that start location should be a safe spot where you can prepare ur character. Also it baffles me too how sometimes harpy can shoot u but u can’t shoot them back. :p needs refinement I suppose.

@Whitey – the basic ‘tank and spank’ will be ever present in games like these (though i agree we do have quite a number of these already). Especially in some encounters where you bring guardians along which can ‘protect’ or reflect incoming attacks allowing the rest of the party to stand still and just spam attacks. I don’t think this will ever be gone nor should it. Too much ‘thinking puzzle’ can be tiring too, so having different stuffs in intervals help keeps the pace entertaining.

@Leo G – i actually lol-ed reading that. yea reaching a boss and anxiously trying to see which ‘variant’ he is. sounds nice.

lag because of graphics or network connection?

I am experiencing lag as well when I run dungeons but its more of the network related kind (skills have 2-5 second delay before activating, all actions currently going on are held to loop for a looong time, characters just running into walls and such before all actions suddenly fast forwards). that aside. everything else is smooth.

Essence Snow.3194:

Shaman fractal objective and infused stone during frozen fractal

obviously this. and likely u won that ecto reward, essence… :P

OP— I’m more curious how you got that though?

Bear. because bear family are distantly related to the raccoon family, or so I read in the internet. Why is this important? well because…. oh, just look at my name

Seriously though, bear is strong and nurturing, which I feel is a fit for what I imagine my female norn warrior’s persona would be…

I’d rather not argue about people and their attitude here, but the idea and facts being pointed out. Millenin has some points to consider, but I think that is subjective still. JPs and such puzzle may get old pretty fast to some, but to me personally, speed running CoF1 gets old faster. I’m literally bored out of my mind with it. I’d rather test and improve my jumping on such challenges, but as i said subjective and thats my personal preference which some might share and others not.

When I heard harpy fractals gets knockback at lvl 10 +, considering i am slow at getting good at jumping, i thought i’d hate that kitten level. In fact, I find others even more annoying (grawl shaman, svanir fractal) and the harpy fractal, I’m starting to enjoy it more. Climbing up those steps as a group and trying to mitigate the knockdowns really was fun for me. I know, not everyone will feel the same, but I could also whine I dislike perfect timing dodge stuff, so should that be a bad thing in dungeons too? Again I stress, its subjective, but then if some ppl feel dungeons shud be harder, require more dodge in fights etc, then this is but one variant of difficulty/challenge. (The same goes for colossus fractal.)

The living story instances could be done solo or with groups, specifically mentioned here because in can be done with less than a full party. I did one solo, but the rest i did it a few times in a group of 2 or 3. It was enjoyable, it’s not really as big or as rewarding as the regular 5 man dungeon but yknow what, i had fun. I don’t think the discussed idea here should be a solo-able thing, but I don’t see much harm in making it viable for 2-4 ppl, instead of a full 5.

I also would like to add that this here thread is a discussion which hopefully ANet might look at and consider. I don’t think any of us should be too bothered about the specifics of ANet managing their resources. Best we can do for that is politely suggest. It is their job to decide what to allocate their resources on.

Wethospu.6437:

There’s a difference between being fun once or twice and being actually fun.

Not saying it applies in this case (didn’t read any posts) but it’s always good to keep in mind.

This is a good fact to consider. But as I pointed out, harpy fractal, i find it fun, so there’s potential at least that a good amount of people wud share the sentiment, i hope? :P It’s a change from just dungeons being a strictly/largely ‘vs mobs and bosses thing’.

Genuinely happy to see someone suggested this. I am typically one of those that would always declare “I’m really not that good at precision jumping” but even I have to say this sounds a whole lot better than usual speed run dungeon farm.

Since I like most of what is said here, I would only add to not over-do with insta-kill traps/puzzle. Case in point is the rolling boulder puzzle of CoF p1 or laser puzzle of CoE. (prefer the latter than the former, personally speaking) I’m not saying never at all, but to keep it sparse. I always prefer at least a little room for recovering from mistakes, more so in puzzles. An example would be like Loreclaw Expanse Jp in plains of ashford. hit one trap wont kill you but bulldoze thru more than the one and ur dead.

ExZee.8109:

ExZee.8109:

Someone mistaking the term elitism here.

Your case has absolutely nothing to do with elitism. A group leader wanted to do speed farm CoF p1. The other group members joined thinking to do the same. While you may think 10 minutes is a decent time record, even pug groups can manage 7 minute runs with ping-gear-checked zerker warriors/mesmer that all know what they are doing. And pulling the Slave Driver is pretty much the basic of basics as the mesmer’s role in CoF p1 farming. While you may stick around for only a couple of runs, a lot of those groups farm p1 for HOURS, and a 3 minute difference per run is huge. So if the group leader’s not happy with your job, you should know you had every right to start your own group to enforce your own standards on speed farming.

He didn’t kick you because you weren’t as good as him (“I can do better than you, gtfo”), he kicked you because he thought you were the reason the group was not up to whatever standard he expected (“I can save time with a better mesmer”). This kind of reasoning has nothing to do with elitism.

From the thread that this one’s going to be merged into: Talk about elitism

Oh the irony in these kinds of posts are hilarious. Elitists who think they’re entitled to play the game however they want, even if it’s the most inefficient build for their profession and for the PvE content in context, with whoever they want, even if they be complete strangers who have no tolerance for your inefficiency, then call out on others to be “elitists” because they can’t accept your (the real) elitist playstyle.

I read that thread, posted on it and even clarified the OP for that thread’s supposed mistakes just to be sure. The person who kicked (or one among those who agree to kick) him even went so far as to say if it not for him they’d save 20 seconds.

20 seconds. Now I’m always all for people having the right to play as they want, be it slow or fast, skip content or kill mobs, despite my own preferences but making an issue over 20 seconds is petty. It could’ve been handled better given the issue was over ‘20 seconds’.

Now on this growing elitist issue, I for one think that the regularly given solution is sometimes easier said than done, experiences vary. some ppl may have had easier time, some ppl may have been unlucky to regularly stumbled on ‘speed-run-play-with-what-build-i-say-can-finish-fastest’ kind of group, to which leads to frustration, and eventual lashing out against these.

I dunno, maybe we shud start compiling a list of people who prefer to run no-skipping, any profession is welcome, ’i’m not in a hurry’ kind of groups. It might help those who are having a hard time finding such ppl?

Starbird.4029:

Vayne.8563:

Find a guild of like minded people and play with them. Make your own community. Solve your own problem. That’s my advice.

I play with my guild 90% of the time and never have the problems you’re describing.

That sounds like good advice on the surface, but unfortuantly ‘a guild of like minded people’ isn’t something that just falls into your lap. It can take months or years of searching, and on some servers it’s just not possible.

I am in the market for a decent guild though …:)

Getting a guild is a varying experience. I got into mine just about barely a month after I start playing and havent left since. But I do understand that such experiences can vary a lot. This is true of finding even groups to run dungeon with. Even in such ’like-minded guild" there are times we have to pug, and there we get exposed to the…“prevailing culture” of the moment :P

If you are on Ehmry Bay server I’d recommend you the guild I’m in. We do lots of PvE stuff, dungeons, missions etc, and some WvW as well as sPvP weekly events. That aside we also have a supprtive community where we help each other out to lvl toons, crafting skills, map clearing etc. I’d even go so far as to say my guild leader utterly despise the growing elitist dungeon running/farming trend.

also….. An elitist sandbox. Somehow that reminds me of EVE Online more. :P

Maybe explorable modes should all be set to lvl 80. I mean aside maybe from the rare items at the vendor, one of the main incentive to run dungeons are the weapons and armor, the exotic ones, which are lvl 80 gear. I’m really sorry but so long as it remains a “lvl 35 dungeon”, I strongly feel it should be made to reflect thus. Yes probably some would say you could do it on a lvl 35 toon, but then that’s if you’re already very experienced and it also requires a smaller margin for error, which demands even more skill on the players part, which I feel isn’t fair for those first timers.

Rizzy.8293:

Norn women are beautiful and don’t have kitten anime faces.
I wish I could have one for a wife.

I so agree with you :P

I’m having mixed feelings about this.

1. I’d love to see new designs and all coming into the game. With luck some of these weapons and armor would look really cool. This is always nice for me.

2. If you can add AR on these too, then I’m sure some friends of mine will be happy, and a happy friend makes a happy… me

3. Unless it’s as widely attainable on almost similiar level as exotics, I am really going to be frustrated. FotM is not really my thing, and if they make obtaining this a RNG issue like fractal weapon skins, then I’m going to hate it even more.

Lastly of course, I have never been too keen on ‘new, higher tier items’ being introduced, and it rather have the item tier cap (and level caps too while we are at it) stay the same throughout.

Afya.5842:

Please don’t…..cause I just started farming it for gold and ultimately my legendary…..(I know I jumped on the wagon a bit late….)

Please leave at least one route for farmers….

Worry not, there’s still a few other easy dungeon paths around. there will likely still be options for farming other than cof1, and this forums will definitely point the way

Fun for me is doing things my own way, (or our own way, for a party) and succeeding in a specific content regardless. It’s the thrill of experimenting and finding what suits us best and still complete the task at hand, be it dungeons or missions etc. Be a rebel and get rewarded for it.

Fun is also not being too focused on something that if it doesn’t go smooth you go all kitten off. Like that one time in WvW, this guildie of mine was caught not fighting in the middle of a siege. When the guild leader ask why he was not fighting, he said, “Wait, I’m telling a story here to this other guy”.. :p… And all around us, invaders and allies alike were dying… that was weird :p

because looking pretty is not cheap? :P haha..

seriously though, it is quite the leap in price from T2 to T3… and most T3 looks reaaallly cool. This is intentional yea? :P

timecookie.8570:

Ethics.4519:

hellokittyonline.7532:

why is this path so easy?

can we make this super hard please. Thanks

Go do Arah p4

Arah p4 is not “hard” by any stretch of the imagination. Just those 4 silver mobs at Grenth are perilous.

I really don’t think P4 Arah is that hard at all, save for Simin/priestess of dwayna, which require good coordination. Were it not for her, I’d rate it as easy if not more so than Arah P3 whish is the favourite arah farming path.

On the OP however, perhaps CoF 1 does need tweaking to make it harder. I certainly hope that won’t happen or at least not for a long time. Just because I’d rather not see “elites” invading other, more (personally) preferable, dungeons :P

..yeah I’m not a big fan of CoF

It should not always be “it has to be hard, no exceptions, L2P or get lost” kind of mindset. I think challenging content is nice and all, and the new AC boss mechanics seems cool, but they really did tune up the difficulty a lot. I know some people are just very good. Some people probably kite and beat champions at lvl 30, not just veterans. But a lot of people don’t.

Personally, when I first ran dungeons, I died a few times, sure. That’s a given. I didn’t dodge as well as I do now, my traits were all over the place so to speak. But it didn’t get to a point where the whole group just felt it was impossible and quit. But because it didn’t feel too bad, I was more willing to learn and practice until eventually I ran many dungeons without even getting downed. If I had stumbled into some steep and mind boggling overwhelming difficulty at that time, I’d have just left and won’t bother making my gameplay better. And this was in the previous, “easy” AC.

In that time as well, I’ve met many other players who takes much longer time to adapt and get better in their play to effectively run dungeons. So I really do think we should consider other people’s view point as well. I heard so much “dodge dodge dodge” arguments that I sometimes get the impression either you need to have super good, perfect timing reflex to dodge or you’re not just good enough. Seriously, I’m not that kind of twitchy gamer (and I sure hope games don’t boil down to just being twitchy good reflexes) so some things do need time and space to learn and practice. Thus, what seems easy to some, is not really that easy for others.

Ohh this should happen. If it does, I gotta start sketching again :P

I first started with an Asura Engineer. It was an interesting class but somewhat complicated, and having a close friend of mine playing guardian, I felt that I cannot keep up with him. The guy seems to be able to aggro so much stuff and then still win while I am frantically trying not to die (and failed at that nonetheless) so many times.

So I made a female Norn Warrior (because norn women are hot and even early on I had my eye on stag armor ) and lets just say I can bulldoze thru mobs in the open world faster than my guardian friend. I got this 2nd toon to 80 before going back to the engineer, getting it to 80 as well and building it for my WvW toon, which is soooo much more fun to use there than the warrior.

After my 2 lvl 80s are finalized, I made a human ranger. This is more for nostalgic reasons as the only time before gw2 that I ever delved in the gw series is in Gw1 BETA (sooo long ago and in the end i eventually went to EVE Online for my choice MMO at the time) and I had a ranger then. I should add that supprting this I just have a thing for owls and had to just get a pet owl (named ORLY, which im sure some ppl know why ). I was also UTTERLY dismayed at the many rangers in my guild who focus on super long range dps but utterly die when get ‘tapped’ by a boss (in our guild, they are usually among those whom we go “oh he’s dead.. again”) so I decided to make a tanky melee GS ranger. Dps on this toon is a bit mediocre, but I love the fact that I can outlast even some heavies in dungeons.

My last toon which I started very recently is an asura mesmer, because Asuras are cool and Kudu being my favourite villain, I wanted to see him in personal story and outside of the SE/CoE story dungeons (which i didnt on my engineer coz i picked different paths). I figured i got 3 lvl 80s now and should try a trickier class. I consulted some ppl in forums and started to try stuff myself. It was tricky but I think I’m starting to see how to use the class now. Currently at lvl 28, still new.

I am one of the people that prefer to kill mobs than skipping. My philosophy of such things is always abt maximizing the margin for recouping from mistakes, ie if u get killed and have to run through an area again its easier to do if enemies are cleared. More so when skipping such mobs are very difficult (i dont dispute skipping does require skill, at times…), and more so if u have to do it alone or without the full party. Some mobs i think are meant to be bypassed (like in CM) though I do not feel the same for any mob in CoF1.

That said, people have a right to do things the way they want to, or play as they would prefer, and as such there will always be groups that would skip as much as possible to ‘maximize time efficiency’. So the best solution is of course to make your own group if you prefer not to skip content.

I would however like to add that while there will always some of us that prefer not to skip, to whack as many enemies as we can in our path, but ‘making our own group’ can sometimes be daunting. with SOOO many other ppl and groups would rather be doing speedruns/skip-a-lot-of-stuff, it can take some time and effort to gather a full party of like minded content-clearers. This sort of thing does lead to frustration so I can understand if some end up attacking their perceived source of irritation; namely the constant demand of ppl wanting to skip content.

nachtnebel.9168:

Jemmi.6058:

There are fundamental differences in GW1 to GW2 that made that possible. For example, skill progression.

Adding more levels in a new area will allow for you to progress through it and enjoy new story content. The levelling can help pace you through the area, so that the new content can be experienced a rate intended by the dev’s. It can also help with adding challenging personal story content.

You don’t need to increase the level cap to do that, you can achieve the same by using the Personal Story. Level cap increases serve no purpose besides resetting the gear treadmill which, at least in my book, is something bad and completely unnecessary.

I’m aware of the fact that they said they will probably raise the level cap one day. I don’t like the idea and I probably will stop playing GW2 if they really do that.

Well, since it’s published somewhere, likely it will get a cap increase one day, though not too soon I hope. Maybe when there’s a “proper, full expansion” rather than just monthly bonus contents.

That said, I agree this isn’t really the way to go. With level cap increase I’m sure there’ll be >lvl80 content, which needs/best run with appropriate levels of >lvl80 gear, which of course means once again, grind for gear (mats/gold/tokens/drops etc) just for us to get at the relative top spot of being a “maxed out” and just needing to improve personal skills to do contents, which most of us already are curently.

same here… no warning what so ever… hmm

Vayne.8563:

Khal Drogo.9631:

RageQuit.5687:

Completely agree since mesmers are not expected to contribute much by way of DPS, you should have told those l33t warriors they did not do their job. I do believe OP was unlucky enough to become the scapegoat for their mistakes.

An efficient run of CoF P1 is 5m30s – 6m for comparison. Next time you see those warriors – tell them to l2p. :P

If I am not mistaken, you must be in a fixed group and maxed everything to the hilt to get 5 min 30s – 6 min consistently and not have a single mistake when it comes to the effigy + cleared the acolytes without any random CC affecting any of the team.

Maybe there should be a CoF path 1 olympics or something so speed runners could compete against each other for their respective servers.

lol…Second this. They should also allow spectating for this. Coz that’s where I’d rather be in such things

Sorry to hear that OP. But I would also add to stress that not all guild majority parties are like that. In our guild, when doing dungeon runs even with pugs, we don’t discriminate classes, we don’t ask to ping gear or require ‘zerk only’ crap, nor do we kick ppl. In fact in my entire time doing dungeons, we never kicked a person, even a pug. Unless under extreme circumstances, which never happened in my personal experience yet. Most of the time, we’d rather just all agree to quit than specifically abusing one person. We also don’t really prefer exploit/glitches. These are more or less the ettiquette laid down by our guild leader.

I think if we were to be behaving like the group the OP mentioned, the guild leader would kick us out of guild :P

goldenwing.8473:

For the few and I stress few players out here who do use other players without giving back to the community, I can understand the word “parasitic”.

I understand there are players who embrace the “use players as if they are bots”. There are several other gear-centric MMO’s where this sense of non-respectful entitlement is the norm. The “self-focused only” behavior has been allowed and fostered by the game developers themselves, who also publicly disdain their own customer base.

ANet does not do this.

Thankfully there is a majority of players here who come from old school games which many of these entitled players have never experienced. For those minority of players that believe they are entitled (my time is important), having only experienced the MMO’s that support their self-focus, may explain their behavior. It does not, however, in the end, excuse it.

I am speaking of the ultra-fanatical self-focused players, which are a small minority in this game.

I am slightly perplexed about the desire to adhere to this playstyle in this game where gear-centric “status” has limited value. Especially regarding legendaries, which can easily be bought on the tradepost, and may actually indicate only that someone has opened their wallet to “buy” their way to some supposed level of “success” in all probability supporting gold sellers in the process. (Apologies to those who actually worked hard to earn them, it is impossible to tell the difference.) I digress.

There is nothing wrong with wanting speed runs. There is nothing wrong with advertising for them. It’s a playstyle that some enjoy.

When it uses the community, without giving back, except for rudeness and disrespect, then it has crossed from playstyle preference to negative social impact.

The GW2 community as a whole can then choose to ignore those few players or tolerate their behavior. And in tolerating, may actually send the message this behavior is not only acceptable, it is welcomed within the larger community instead of only within the smaller circle of like-minded players.

The discussion on this thread is dealing with exactly that issue, which is important for the healthy growth of GW2’s culture as it forms within the first year.

And as long as the discussion is civil, it is important to air concerns, including viewpoints of speedrunners.

Well, I couldn’t have said it better myself :P

Crossplay.2067:

I hate how people keep saying, for pve, condition damage on mesmers is horrible. Yes, confusion is but burning, bleeding and vulnerability are not. In nearly full rampager gear (three trinkets are carrion), I’m able to kill faster with my staff than with sword/focus. I thought it was a fluke at first but I tested it a few times around Orr and the results were the same every time. And no, it’s not my runes because they give me 190 vitality and 50 power.

I don’t think conditions are all that bad as a few guildies I ran with have quite good condition-build mesmers. I am however intrigued that you say burning, bleeding are fine but not confusion. When I was on the receiving end of it, they seem to kinda hurt Maybe someone can explain to me?

Also I did ran my new mesmer toon up to lvl 10 recently and I gotta ask, clones doing 0 dmg, that is intended? Phantasms are nice btw

emikochan.8504:

I loved the upgrade to AC explorable, I can’t wait til it’s done to CoF

If this will happen, I’m gonna start farming several other dungeons before those dungeons get heavily invaded by the “elite-all-zerker-perfect-execution-only” crowd :P SE or HotW is where I’ll go to now! hehehe… As for Cof, I’m bored of it, so I am gladly taking time off it.

On the topic at hand, I see it got down finally to whose priorities are higher and such. My opinion is always that everyone has a right to do things as the way they want to. It’s certainly ok if some people want to look for only a very very very specific kind of ppl to fill in their party slots for their perfect runs. It’s certainly ok if they feel they can find other ppl to replace a party member they feel is less efficient. But I do think it’s not ok if they do it rather rudely. I don’t feel justifying rudeness is ok at all. That’s the way I see it.

mesme.5028:

Generalraccoon, what lvl do dungeons start at?:) ill try WvWvW too and guesting.

dungeons technically begin at lvl 30, where you can do the story mode for the lowest dungeon. Exploration mode starts at lvl 35.

That said, the dungeon in question, Ascalonian Catacoms (in plains of ashford) has been changed to be more challenging and most ppl often run that at much higher lvls (some groups demand lvl80 toons).

Mystic.5934:

I purposely don’t join any speed run because of stories like this. I know everything that would be required of a speed run mesmer, and I do do those in pug cof runs. But if I ever see someone in my party gear checking or booting for being a noob, I’m leaving that party.

I do wonder what the difference in time is between how much they can shave off with a 100% efficient mesmer vs. time to find said mesmer. I’d love to hear that they then spent half an hour interviewing mesmers to find one would make their runs 1 minute shorter… then only do 10 runs with them!

From what i gather, the time shaved off per run with this “maximum efficiency” is a few seconds to sseveral minutes. However these are people farming for gold usually and will do runs many times, so collectively the small amount adds up significantly in the end. I don’t really like it but this is my understanding of it. So it’s tough when people who want fun, to learn and explore stuff, gets mixed up with ppl like this because what they’re doing is more like a serious job than playing a game.

There are lots of elements in this game that has a single player feel to it than most MMOs I think.

At lvl8, its too low for dungeons in this game, but run around the starter area map and do events and reknown hearts, sometimes you’ll find fellow players (new ones even) whom you can party with there. Maybe from there, some might even introduce you to a guild, where hopefully even more social experience would follow.

Additionally you can also enter WvWvW, it will scale up your charater to lvl 80 standards, and there it’s all about people doing stuff; siegeing, raiding, battling etc.

As I follow this thread, I have to say, I realized that while I have done runs with pugs, it’s always one of my team mates that post or search for ppl at gw2lfg. I’ve never been to that site myself until just now. Looking at all the “speed run, exp only” and most especially “full zerk, ping gear” comments… I had to just lol. It’s like an epidemic :P I’m so thankful to be in good guild :P

20 seconds is just weak reasoning to behave all rude.

Pyro, thanks for that link. That is in fact a very fun read of a guide. The “lazy” concept I think should work well for me

Let me get this straight. The OP’s mistake was:
1. Didnt pull slave driver into the wall.
2. Didnt time warp fast enough.
3. Didn’t cast feedback fast enough.

And for that you get kicked? OMG I am so thankful for being in my guild then. I’d have been kicked a hundred times over by such people. I ran several CoF p1 farms recently. We never really did #1, is it really THAT necessary? As for the other 2 points, well, I get that some people want to do fast runs and all but I feel like that just crosses the line. It’s not like the OP didn’t do it at all.

Thanks @ Benjamin for the info. I’ll certainly look into it

Oh my bad. But yes, thats what i meant. In many references, thats what toon usually is for such games so I didn’t really think much of clarifying.

Hi!

I’m going to be blunt here and say that when it comes to mesmers, I’m a complete noob. I have 3 lvl 80s (Warrior, Engineer, Ranger) and I’ve had thoughts on making a mesmer since it seems in my guild, every person and their grandmas have a mesmer alt (exaggeration, i know ) but the idea of clones and all these deception-like skills intrigue me so I started an Asura mesmer (why asura? because i love those little goblins! ) . There are literally SO many builds and tips and guides that I feel quite lost as to where to go. And I don’t really have the time to read through ALL the related threads anyways.

I’m not aiming to specifically carbon copy a guide for my build. So I’m here to ask a few things.

1. Conditions vs Crits. In terms of dealing damage, which type is preferable for mesmers. I’m usually a fan of crits over conditions as the latter seems a tad underwhelming, but a few mesmer heavy players tend to focus on condition builds. So I’m curious to know the pros and cons, not simply which is better.

2. Keep clones or kill them. Basically are clones and phantasms better off being shattered at every opportunity, or is there a viability in not using shatter but to keep the clones around (in fights of course)?

3. Tanking. Or survival. Lasting in a fight. My preferred activities are dungeon running and WvW. With my warrior, I stack up toughness until armor rating is above 3k. Somehow I don’t think that’s the way to go here. I’m typically not a ‘all-the-time-100%-perfect-dodge-twitchy’ kind of player, so I’m interested to know how survival is with this class.

4. Better ranged or melee? Sword seems to be the only melee weapon, if i’m not mistaken. how viable is a mesmer in melee?

Ok, thank you for your time.

Ohh this is very nice thread. I’ll post mine too.

This is my ranger. Using Temple Headpiece, Krytan Chestpiece (gemstore), Vigil leggings, and the rest are crafted leather armor.

edit: oh forgot, this is a new lvl 80 toon, so she hasnt much dyes, so I’m largely using ebony yes for the most part. Many of the colors are starter colors anyways.

ah yea almost forgot… What Aura said there.

My first toon maybe uniformed with gear from mostly its family, but having been experiementing with mix and match gears, I think it is a very good idea to make designs that can be mix and matched easily with other gears. I would think this kind of diversity is good for the game. In this specific case, the “tab” is an eyesore :P

I must say running around with my recently-turned-lvl80 Ranger inWvW is awesome. I’m specced more for survival/tank as opposed to range+dps but i still had fun killing ppl.

In dungeons, I have to admit that I’m somewhere between the 2 opposing arguments in regards to pet survivability. Certainly running bear/bear, I switch a lot and try to control the pets more, leading them to survive ‘some’ boss fights. But at times they do die so quick that there’s little I can do about it. Largely I suppose because with swapping still in cooldown, my pet sadly got smack in the middle of several aoe rings.

The up-side to that is with tanky build I still survive easily enough, in melee, for the swapping cooldown to finish.

I dunno, I think pets need more specialization or abilites or something since an overall simple buff, as a dev said, will make them too good in open world.

panzer.6034:

One more that uses the T2 chest with the T3 legs!

haha i used to use T2 chest with the T3 leggings too… it is very sexy

that said, I was in the end going after a ‘sexy but not to revealing look’ so T3 chest seems more for that.

Also… PLEASE FIX THE TAB THING ON THE T3 NORN (FEMALE) CULTURAL LEGGGINGS! thank you ! hehe..