Guild Wars 2

Orangensaft.7139:

would 1 ele with 2 ice bows and meteor shower help maybe? (mesmer could take the second ice bow)

or is 1 warrior better than the dmg of 2x ice bow aoe and meteor shower?

Meteor shower radius is too big and ice bow has too long channel time.

Rising Dusk.2408:

It doesn’t bother me that players can beat him so quickly. I actually sort of wish he were harder so more pubs would fail and be forced to play better or stop trying. I love having a boss that people think of fondly as “that boss that is insanely tough”. That in itself is part of why GL is such a meaningful target for these speed clear groups, and not something else like L48 Fractal Grawl boss or whatever. That’s all why I really like the idea of making his projectiles unblockable.

Because grawl shaman isn’t about projectile defense, right?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Feedback is fine, the problem is that GL’s projectiles should be unblockable. That would really kick it up a notch in a positive way, in my opinion.

That would be great… for parties with less than 3 people.

realloc.5846:

Looks like you had a constant party for high level fractals. Of course, it allow much more diversity in builds and tactics. But its really not a general case.

And i dont understand, why you mention only a one-hit-ko attacks. There are a plenty of mobs in 70+ lvl fractals that hit for 4-5k, but do it often. I.E. kraits in oceanic fractal, non-vet dredges, some ascalon adds, etc. AH+PVT allows to withstand this income dps pressure while continue buffing/controlling/ressing, in contrast with other specs that have to focus only on evading/blocking without any useful contribution.

Instead of withstanding pressure it’s better to los, cc and then burst group of mobs. It goes much smoother and currently I don’t even have guardian in the team.

OP means fastest exploitable paths or fastest explorable paths?

lordkrall.7241:

Why assume they are not fixing the others before/at the same time as they add the new ones?

Because it’s anet?

realloc.5846:

I dont understand what you are talking about.

I got my personal fractal lvl 80 in pugs month ago, and didnt really noticed any troubles with AH gs/staff build. Of course, mobs on lvl 70+ hit like a truck. But AH+PVT gear provides enough survivability, allowing you to care about your party more than about yourself.

And I’ve got mine with 916 toughness, same with every member of the team. Getting hit for 25k+, once even for 48k by vets is not something you can tank or heal reliably. Not to mention that vets are much more durable than elites from standard dungeons (legendary dredge resonator).

Neko.9021:

The famous “proof” of the AH drawing aggro is the first part of the Harpie Fractal with the Flame Shaman and the Ettin. It does work there, really.

But I have a hard time finding another battle like that, or finding a battle where aggro AI can be manipulated in that manner.

It seems to me that it’s a case-by-case sort of thing, but other than that one fight, there’s a surprisingly small amount of battles where both:
-A. You want to draw aggro away from your group while everyone else DPSes
-B. The enemy AI actually falls for your shenanigans

I tested AH guardian on something like lvl 65 and ettin was glued to our warrior for the entire fight.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

It is also possible as Haviz said that fotm difficulty will get sufficiently tough at higher levels that even perma-protection+ring of warding for the party stops being useful for the bad trash pulls.

Even with prot some bosses instagib squishy proffesions like ele.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

I heard bad stories. Rumours of 20k+ heartseekers on cliffside and various auto attacks hitting for 10k+

Honestly I don’t even do fractals, I think it’s a really boring area. The damage numbers I listed could be present at 48 and I wouldn’t even know

Cliffside mobs dont hit that much with heartseeker but their lotus strike can hit for 20k+.

5 warriors a/s+gs probably.

spoj.9672:

better or worse?

Useless.

Broadicea.8294:

How much faster could the [SOLO] group kill Lupicus if they went with that team comp rather than 1 mesmer 4 warrrios, I wonder.

Team composition used in those speedkills needs as much burst as possible. His is more about sustained damage.

If anet unlocked levels 50+ fotm, a lot of people would change opinion on AH.

LordByron.8369:

They don t need to rely on profession negating any mechanic like a lot of guardians and warriors true?

I don’t really see how warriors negate mechanics. Guardians and especially mesmers do.

Wethospu.6437:

Wethospu.6437:

If you stay behind it this won’t happen. I have my groups just run frantically to get behind it the whole time and we don’t have a problem doing full melee.

Can’t you pretty much tank one hit on level 48?
Anyways I don’t know if he does more projectiles at higher levels but I will next time try stay directly behind him.

Even when staying behind him you might get hit by his agony attack. And we don’t have 4 aegises.

Below 20s.

lunyboy.8672:

Oh yes, the ultimate solution, elitism.

Also, tool kit doesn’t hit as hard as grenades, but of course you wouldn’t know that, since you don’t play engineer.

How does it make you feel that I could faceroll dungeons on your main, but you couldn’t kill skelks on mine?

Lol.

It’s classism or rather professionism than elitism.

lunyboy.8672:

That’s so cute, you actually don’t know how defiant works.

Also, Mai may be back depending on how the election goes. And that is OK, because your OP classes are still OP in that dungeon as well.

I can already see her having 26 stacks of defiance on higher levels and undodgeable agony. Assuming anet won’t change the mechanics ofcourse.

colesy.8490:

Cry more.

In the meantime, since 99% of rangers are absolute trash I’m not going to waste my time taking them on dungeon runs.

Most people in this thread probably don’t pug at all.

FirstBlood.7359:

AoE damage is largely irrelevant for dungeons. Trashmobs are easily avoided or, in the case of fractals, barely exist (except for the dredge fractal) in the first place. Phoenix, Churning Earth, Dragons Tooth – some of the most powerful AE spells out there – are more than enough.

There are many reasons why you want to fight the shaman in ranged combat, especially in a pug. The distance allows you to avoid the flame arrow just by movement, because it’s a projectile. If you’re in melee and it hits someone, then it would be mandatory to spread out. Not to mention, if he targets someone with his flamestorm AE.

I haven’t done 48 fotm for some time but on higher levels phoenix and dragon’s tooth are pitiful for clearing grubs and dredges.

Same thing can be said about almost any boss. Ranged is almost always less risky than close ranged combat. Plus, shaman prioritizes ranged players for flamestorm.

FirstBlood.7359:

CoF shouldn’t be used to measure the usefulness of a class, because it’s a fast, dull and easy dungeon. Let’s have a look at the opposite: vulcanic fractal level 48. A scepter/focus ele brings a strong anti-projectile spell, group healing, condition removal and high ranged damage to the party. For fractals I would choose an elementalist over a warrior any day.

Scepter/focus lacks sustained aoe damage. You either have to pick lightning hammer or just dagger/focus since there’s no need to range the boss except when you want to lure him into proper spot.

They often get invulnerability because you use reflects. So I don’t really see how saying “go melee” helps here.

You wish.

swiftpaw.6397:

If they don’t at least use entangle/MT I start getting annoyed. Never liked them there -.-

Are they unblockable?

Ranger dps is and never was bad but they lack utility. What could ranger offer against for instance grawl shaman? Just don’t say hunter’s call.

swiftpaw.6397:

0/15/0/30/25 Radience: VI , Honor: II, VIII, XI Virtues: VI, IX

Note the longer consecrations, this will enable you to get the most out of wall of reflection. As a note, if you are only guardian in group, I like to take shield over focus to fill in gaps in cooldowns between WoR and SoA for bosses that need longer amounts of reflect uptime.

You can spam virtue of justice on every kill which will, due to traits give AoE Blind and vulnerability, very nice on ascalon, kraits at jellyfish, and dredge if only for the might stacks since they cant be blinded.

Virtue of resolve (absolute resolution)- 3 condi removals right there from traits, or you can switch this out for indomitable courage for stability on aegis which is also very useful. Pure of voice, converts condis into boons- very nice. I like to run this with boon duration runes for a good effect or you can go the route of ruby orbs/scholar if you want more deeps, or even soldier if you feel you need even more condi rem.

Superior aria and empowering might- self explanitory

utilities- full bar of shouts. WoR and SoA when required, always have retreat on bar. Renewed focus- Use this and all your virtues often. I see many people hardly touch this. cooldown is low and having those 3 virtues up to use again is powerful stuff. Tome of courage for maw ( of course)

If this is a build strictly for fractals, you have too many condition removals. Direct damage is much more threatening than condition damage, especially on higher levels.

laharl.8435:

The infinite spiders just started a month or less ago.

I can clearly remember that few months back they were spawning if someone didn’t dodge her egg launch move (shake). Is it worse than this?

Wasn’t this boss changed in like October?

You can run the highest dps specs in the game but you need a team to leech from.

Charak.9761:

it totally does though.
In low fractals, as a guardian, people are stepping to side the of wall reflect and avenger shields, like its blocking their shots or something.

then in higher, people understand that guardians keep you healed/buffed and standing behind the wall makes you not take damage.

and I’m getting pretty tired of people running away from me when I go over to heal them

Solution? Run with no guardians.

Currently, weapons bought by shards of zhaitan have generic icons while those in pvp have theirs unique.

Abardagul.5849:

I’m surprised nobody has yet to mention the invisible ascalonian mage firestorm attack

-me with 25 stacks of precision: “aggro a group of ascalonian ball”

-“ascalonian mages started to raise one of their hands, obviously they are up to no good!”

-me: those mages are up to something. let me just………

-“YOu have been downed! Fight for your life!!”

-me: wtf! what the hell hit me?

-2 seconds later,the “firestorm” that had already killed me started its animation and begun raining down on my corpse.

me: ffffffffffffffùùùùù!!!!!

Most likely you died to flame burst, not firestorm.

Broadicea.8294:

What’s the end result if you nerf feedback? Pugs don’t use it to its potential. They’re not speedclearing Arah to get some crazy kitten rewards since it doesn’t reward kitten anyway and you’re better off doing CoF or CoE for monetary gain. You nerf feedback, and then DnT, DS, LoD and HC can’t do their crazy-kitten speedclears. That’s it. Pugs keep pugging (read: playing like kitten), and the few people who actually do use it properly will feel it.

A nerf to feedback is a kick in the gut to people who are good at the game, that’s about it.

It wasn’t DS but SOLO, just check the screenshot.

colesy.8490:

And so practically the one good boss fight in the game has been completely trivialised.

Stop giving Anet reasons to nerf feedback, they already hate our class enough the way it is.

All of us has solo’ed him numerous times on variety of classes, so it’s not like this fight is that hard. Besides, mesmers are the most overpowered classes on certain conditions and even high skritt tech looks prehistoric compared to them.

I’ve been preaching for at least half a year that reflects are too strong in pve and they have to be nerfed to the ground.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You’ve brought up having to support the team on a pure DPS build. He’s not asking about support. He’s asking about damage. Support is irrelevant here.

By support I don’t mean aegis, projectile defense and other defensive skills. You can make your elementalist one of the highest dps spec in the game but without support it loses quite a lot of damage potential. Same with probably every other class except warrior.

SkyChef.5432:

Regardless, it’s very, very impressive. Now I’m interesting about how long it would take 5 wars to do that. You guys should have enough experts in wars to do that w/o riding on the mesmer piggy back.

That would probably mean taking offhand sword instead of mace so we can have a more certain defense than two dodges for frenzied blast. But since the fastest solo was done in about 6m30s I would say, that by taking banners, it could be done in about 1 minute.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You’re changing the subject.

How so?

laharl.8435:

And 25% more Dredge per update protocol.

Hoping it’s the optimistic prognosis.

laharl.8435:

My heart skipped for a second….then flatlined again.

Doesn’t that mean you’re dead?

Maybe they fixed cliffside newest feature.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

People are just being drama queens. It’s really not hard to throw an advert up, saying ‘Group LF 1’.

Especially that most people are after final reward and not relics. Don’t see why anyone wouldn’t have joined group in 2nd fractal.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Pretty much every profession can do a lot of damage if you build them right.

There’s a difference between being able to deal a lot of damage and being able to deal a lot of damage while supporting your team at the same time. Not every proffesion has the latter build.

Dolan.3071:

@ Dub, So thats a no you haven’t tested it and just say it because someone else said it? Relax I’ll take your word for it.
I use either Empowered Allies or Inspiring Banners depending on the Warrior to banners situation, if all else is taken then I’d use Empowered. But really how does a difference of 10 points suddenly make it the most boring build? Nothing really changes in the play style…

There’s no need to test theoretical dps of certain builds because the math is very simple and proven to be correct. Just grab a piece of paper or a simple calculator.

Dub is pointing out that 30/0/0/10/30 build is much boring that 30/25/0/0/15 because the former one forces you to literally spam autoattacks while the other is more profficient with greatsword which arguably is more fun to play than staying in your axe set.

Kichwas.7152:

That’s a tank / bunker build. You want to instead get a tanky build:
http://kichwas.wordpress.com/build-theory-how-to-be-tanky-but-not-a-tank-in-guild-wars-2/

- which comes down to a combination of various elements.

Being ‘closest’ or ‘first’ or ‘top DPS’ is unreliable and others can pull off of you just as easily if you went ‘bunker’. The key is doing many different things at the same time.

Also note that too much vitality can impair your ability to generate threat… Knights is better than Soldiers if you want to be tanky – but then takes other active play skills to survive condition damage. This is why guardians have it easy making tanky builds: low health and high armor – two items on the list built in for them. Though if they then go bunker, they lose that “advantage.”

That build I listed is the current anchor build which frankly doesn’t work half the time anyway. I read that stuff of yours and there’s no such thing as extremely diminishing returns near 2700-3000 armour. Here, there’s a plot of 1/armour which is the variable in damage formula. It looks pretty linear to me in that range.

Secondly, OP asked about fractals 30+ and in those fractals condition removal is almost not needed at all and certainly not the reason to build your character around.

Dolan.3071:

@ Haviz, if you’re going to take a potion, why not take the right one?

I’m not going to use icebrood potion for few mobs, then another one for undead, then for inquest, then for undead again etc.

@ Dub, 30/0/0/10/30
Have you actually tested it to prove that the +10% damage is added post-crit? This is actually a genuine question, no lip here. Also Forceful Greatsword might stacks are pathetic, 5 seconds? kitten please.

It’s been widely tested and proved how damage formula works. That build you posted, if you aren’t still aware, but empowered was stealth nerfed to same level of bountiful power and power of the virtous, so it’s good enough only for 1 warrior to use that build. Not to mention that this build is the most boring build ever.

Bosses in lvl 80 dungeons have around 1.500.000 hp, in high level fractals much more (since they don’t get any armour, just hp and damage). Even with 3000 power your retal will deal around 425 damage which is much less than autoattacks.

Clumsy.6257:

actually anyone that uses empower in large wvw fights knows about, you on the other hand have probably never used it in wvw, just tried it again dropped down to 500 hp healed to 14.5k with 5 people in range
HERES A TIP: instead of spouting off what the heal “should” be, why dont you go and test it… i know full well that whakittens “supposed” to heal is a tiny amount compared to what it actually does heal

So now it’s 14k with 300 healing power.

Uther Deathhand.1570:

I know about it. I play guardian mostly in dungeons and if positioned right( all 4 other party members near me) it does heal for about the same as a self-heal. Don’t bakitten till you try it.

More than self-heal skill is not the same as almost as much. He now claims it heals for 14k while before it was 12.5k.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

You have miscalculation here – it should be x6 because in zerg empower gives 12 might to You and up to 5 ppl in reach.
that’s interesting because on AC I also found myself full healling myself with Empower when all party was in reach – and I’m sure I saw some green 200’s

Feel the opness of this trait

It affects 4 people plus yourself, I gave you a benefit of doubt and just checked it.

Dolan.3071:

Oh? So +10% damage against bleeding targets is better than +15% from the Strength line? Or 15% crit chance (and a buttload of crit damage) from Discipline? Yeah didn’t think so. And so you run a potion that does absolutely nothing to the Icebrood at the start, the golems throughout, and the Destroyer, gee if only there was some generic buff you could take to improve damage against all targets…

Do you understand the difference between “none” and “worse”?

Right, you have a skill that heals you for more than self-heal skill and no one except you knows about it.

Sorry, my bad. You’d need 4288 healing power to heal for 12500.

Clumsy.6257:

i have no idea where your getting your numbers all i know is mid zerg ive used it literally from 90hp and healed to 12.5k

It would be true if someone else healed you at the same time or you had 13933 healing power. I think the former is more plausible.

Clumsy.6257:

best build possible for zergs is x/x/30/30/x put the last 10 points wherever you want, altruistic healing is huge in wvw, staff 4 is guaranteed 15k hp (im guessing i only have 12k hp) when a zerg is around, also in the honor – 20% shout cooldown, empowering might, and pure of voice is amazing for just about anything

Where did you get those numbers from? With 1000 healing power empower will heal for 2500 and altruistic healing for additional 4740. That’s not even a half of your alleged 15k.