Guild Wars 2

Ayrilana.1396:

ANET has more important things to worry about than make dungeons solo-able for the handful of anti-social players that want GW2 to be a single player game like Skyrim. The is a massive MULTIPLAYER online game. You’re going to have to play with people.

Indeed. Instead they should make more of those solo story instances we have got lately

LordByron.8369:

with dagger mainhand you are forced in melee
for focus you give up fire 4 and earth5
earth 5 is usable with proper positioning
Also you give up a lot of aoe might potential.

if for daze you mean air5, its not.

Its subject to defiant.
This is for fractal….

Scepter/focus is still a better idea if you need a focus.

Focus has same amount of blast finishers as offhand dagger and both of them have 25s cooldown, while offhand dagger finishers have 30s and kitten cooldown. I’d say that with proper positioning focus offers much frequent blasts.

And by daze he meant comet.

Smooth Marc.8743:

@haviz
I was using 30 fire/ 30 air/10 water with signet of fire, arcane blast and arcane wave. The build works for phase 1 and 2 but falls apart in p3.

To be honest, probably any build works for p1 and p2.

Raif.9507:

That sir, is an interesting build. I’ve been trying to solo Lupi with the standard 0/10/0/30/30 build with D/D and it’s a nightmare on how long it takes with my balanced build as I seem to be on track for around 20-25 minutes. I think I’ll give this a shot.

I’ve even thought about trying the LH spec for a Lupi solo.

D/D is not the great idea, it doesn’t bring anything useful for that fight

Smooth Marc.8743:

Try out 0/30/0/20/20 or 10/30/0/20/10 dagger/focus.Pick up offensive traits like vital striking,air training etc.

For runes and gear go all berserker with scholar runes.If you’re worried about dying use valkrie armor and weapons(but keep berserker trinkets) with divinity or some other defensive rune set up.Like Byron said if you get hit your dead anyway so you might as well maximize the damage you do.

I use sigil of energy for extra endurance regen, but if you feel like you can stay alive without it use something else.

I honestly think 0/10/0/30/30 d/d is overrated in pve.Dagger offhand does not offer much on boss fights except extra healing.Churning earth and fire grab are on too long of a cool-down to make a difference and bosses are immune to knock downs.

I don’t think aura sharing is worth it, because auras are pretty worthless in pve except magnetic Aura.Evasive arcane is pretty much overkill for self healing.If you need that much healing you’re making too many mistakes.

This is a bit off topic, butI don’t think ele dps is as bad as you make it out to be.I was messing around soloing Lupicus as glass cannon ele, and my kill time was not that far off from my warrior’s (which is 7ish min).It’s a nightmare to stay alive in phase 3 so I’m still working on a kill, but I’m on pace for like 10-11 min kill.It’s only slower than a warrior because I’m forced to sit in water and earth attunment for extended periods of time in phase 3 so I don’t put sigil of energy on cool-down.

First person that actually agrees with me, nice. My only and best solo time was ~15 minutes with 0-30-0-20-20 but that was before “don’t-move” tactic became widely used so I had to take 2 traited cantrips. Which build are you using?

Maybe standard build isn’t something optimal and we have yet to see decent build?

Sacrai.6280:

Please don’t associate french speaking players and exploiters. There are morons in all sorts of countries speaking all sorts of languages. I have been lead to use that exploit by english speaking players, they are now in my blocked list.

But the last time I have a pleasure, all 4 french players went by that ship.

shimmerless.4560:

The silliest part is that a Ranger is passable (I don’t think it’s competitive given the nature of pets in dungeons, but it’s passable) in melee, while close to useless at range. I understand the whole risk-reward thing when it comes to balance but at what boardroom meeting did it make any sense for a Ranger to be most effective (relative to himself) in melee?

Entymology of word ranger is quite different than you think and has nothing to do with shooting arrows from range.

Judging people’s ability by that silly number. I put a large amount of people with >6k on block list while I know few very good players with <4k.

fakeblood.2576:

Still think we should have 3 weapon sets f2-f4 sorta like ele attunement a wouldn’t be hard to implement and would give more complexity to the class.. And we are warriors master of arms

You don’t really want that. Ele’s cooldowns are much longer than other classes.

zoran.4826:

Staff auto attack heal 450 per swing works thru hammer auto attack plus the 100 ish from soothing mist to group xtra 200 to self from signet. It may not sound like much but it can make or break some fights like fire fractal where warriors self healing often isn’t enough. In the 30+

I just tested this nonsense in-game and the results say it’s a nonsense and doesn’t work. You can’t heal with staff when you have hammer equipped, sorry. Plus, even if it had healed, it’s 395. I won’t comment part about fractals because I’d be probably infracted or yet again banned.

Again, what heals except soothing mist which should heal for 92.5 health per second and healing ripple that heals for 1552 but can’t be used with soothing mist with your current build?

How do you heal your party with each hit?

Zenith.7301:

The daze also has a delivery delay, which is awful, and the knockdown is single target whereas earthquake is not only a blast finisher but an aoe knockdown.

Earthquake is 45 seconds cd, Comet is 25s, both are blast finishers. (any idea why four-five-s is censored?). Daze in pve equals to knockdown or stun

I just don’t see where your damage rotation is going when you’re missing out on churning earth and fire grab and flame circle for a substantial aoe sequence that you don’t get with any other weaponset besides the staff.

Churning earth damage is horrible for its recharge, same as firegrab.

I just don’t think an ele with dagger air auto spam and focus is going to be desirable over a guardian who can output similar single target damage, MUCH better aoe damage, and better support outside personal survival.

Okay, now you’ve made my day. Guardian much better aoe damage? gg…

Ratty.5176:

Yeah I can definitely absorb more damage on my Ele than my Guard. When I need it Protection, Regen, 7s of Invulnerability, 3 blocks and Earth Shield + healing. The Guard can’t chain nearly that much together, though it does have higher base Toughness and Armor. The real advantage the Guard is he can give Aegis to the rest of the group and can have Reflects up more often.

Higher base toughness? What are you talking about? And it’s 10s of invulnerability.

Zenith.7301:

The focus guts all your burst, you lose the aoe cc, and you lose ring of fire/firegrab/earthquake for might stacking and big aoe.

Focus has actually better might stacking than offhand dagger. You have 2 blast finishers, both with 25s cd. You don’t lose cc because launch is often not wanted when you los mobs, you just want kd or daze which, again focus supplies with 25s cd (instead of 45). Only thing you lose with focus is burst but in pve burst loses to steady and stable damage.

I can gear my ele pvt with berk jewels and weapons, and he won’t do the damage of my guardian on the same set, ever.

Also, unlike the guardian, ele sustained is absolutely dreadful. The way they designed the ele hurts him in pve because he’s balanced for pvp by having multiple damage skills on long cooldowns, but in pve autoattack is most classes’ bulk of sustained damage outside skills like 100b/Whirling Wrath. And ele autoattacks not only have no meaningful cleaving outside lightning whip, but even single target ele autoattacks are pitiful damage.

In pvp, where access to burning from dragon’s breath is a boon, is actually a weakness in pve because attacks with split attribute benefits usually have terrible stat scaling. This is partly why the ranger’s kit sucks as well — abilities that combine direct damage and condition application are usually terrible because the direct damage portion scales terrible and has low base, and because conditions are terrible in pve you don’t gear to support them (and the conditions baseline are so weak).

I love playing my ele because he’s fun, but outside explorables with lightning hammer spec, running high level fractals lightning hammer is just being a warrior without the utility and much more risk. In every aspect he’s overshadowed by the guardian for pve purposes.

The problem in this game has always been that the toolkit of the guardian and warrior are so much superior to the toolkits offered by other classes. At least the thief can bring the best single target spike capacity, and shadow refuge/daggerstorm/projectile destruction, but the rest of the classes just don’t bring anything unique to compete that a warrior/guardian don’t do better.

My last fractals runs with ele instead of guardian were much smoother.

zoran.4826:

i play both, and theres no contest a dps meter isnt even required. ele 25/20/0/25/0 top dps by far in the game and it has as more grp healing than an altruistic guard. dont be a sad panda because you rolled a war cause a forum said its the best dps lol

Truly fun and challenging build. And so team independent.

You can’t because it’s t2 utility.

randomfightfan.4091:

Use shelter and renewed focus. You should never have any problem with anything ever again. You won’t need any dodges or shadowsteps when you walk through their front line and out he back without taking any damage. Then you also have the best healing in the game to repair any damage you might have sustained. Guardian is the only class I’ve ever seen walk out of multiple mages bursting them and take 0 damage. All other classes would either be dead or have to have blown a dodge or 2 prematurely.

I don’t even use feline grace but I agree, thieves and mesmers are god in fractals (shame all the thiefisms keep getting nerfed though). Guards are up in top tier too though.

Self-proclaimed best tank eu once said that elementalist is the best class to absorb damage. I agree with him.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

as much as id love a ticket (i still want a fractal shield, pistol, rifle, scepter, focus, staff*2 and dagger*2)… i wouldnt like to see this implemented… the randomness adds an extra layer of prestige

- i was lucky enough to get my hammer (which is awesome) on one of my first 20+ runs…. also got a trident at some point… but meh
- farming 20-28 on two character each day for the skins i want

Wholeheartedly and fully agree! PRNG is always a great addition because it adds a layer of unexpectedness.

It’s not their mechanis, it’s an anti-exploit mechanic because in the past people were attacking bosses/mobs from higher ground. You have to thank them for that.

They go invulnerable because you reflect their projectiles from too far away. Solution? Don’t use reflects!

Neish.7853:

No Ele – No Ranger – No Necro – No Thief

Does that mean I could join with my engy?

Nikaido.3457:

And lupicus really doesn’t give a crap if you wear PVT gear or not. People who don’t dodge the AoE during phase 2 die, it’s technically impossible to tank that AoE (Maybe with full sentinel gear? The fact is, I’ve known people who were wearing PVT from head to toe, and not dodging the AoE from phase 2 still kills them). The only thing PVT buys you is the ability to take a kick in melee (and be downed to 20% hp) or take one more tick in a bubble. If you don’t dodge or use stability you still die. And god forbid you don’t dodge the lifesteal from phase 3 because you can take a little bit more damage in your PVT because you will actually be doing negative DPS and I’ve seen Lupicus go back to phase 2 from 3 back and forth as in a comedy streak in various pugs who didn’t dodge it much. If you do negative dps during lupicus you’re basically a leech.

Never checked it but perhaps guardian with prot (hammer, HtL), signet of judgement, perfect inscriptions and sentinel gear would be able to actually pull that off. If my calculactions are correct (here’s the build) he would have 24k and 91.5% damage reduction with protection up and 58.5% without.

Glad to see term “negative dps” is getting more attention!

Nikaido.3457:

No, I’ve never done what you are asking for nor do I even have the intent to, high level for most people here means a level that will actually have a chance for a reward, since what you mean by “high level” are levels we are not even supposed to do (we can only do them with someone who had access to them before they closed the maw at lvl 50. Normal progression is shut at 48.).

I’m already tired of the terrible reward from doing 48, and almost completely stopped fractals, there is absolutely no way whatsoever that I’d think about strategies that might or might not work at 50+. The terrible RNG at 48 for skins is already enough, doing fractals without even completing a daily is such a pointless activity..

As it is right now, 50+ is a no man’s land that could dramatically change once, or if, anet intends to open it again.

Fair enough. One more question though it’s been already derailed. Generally, if you run 2 guardians, one of them is “anchor” 0/0/30/30/10 (V,VI,XI; III,VII,XI; VI) with runes of soldier and another is damage oriented 0/30/0/30/10 (VI,X,XI; II,VIII,XI; VI) with ruby orbs/rune of scholar, right?

Nikaido.3457:

Yes because between the high dps and like Razeor said, rotating aegis you quickly stop his melee phases all the time. It seems that his AoE agony is triggered by % of HP because in high dps groups his melee phase never last long enough to hurt he keeps going back to AoE agony which is pretty easy to dodge. As long as you keep hitting him a lot he’ll never stay in his “hammer/autoattack” phase for long.

Just look at strife’s video, it works pretty much the same on lvl 48 except that you do need to avoid agony there, unlike 30.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rd5QrD21Oc

As for the cat golem obal already posted a video which shows how to deal with it in the typical zerk faceroll way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYs7bo-qlds
At level 48. And it’s usually much smoother with a good mesmer, his video has 3 warrior / 2 guard.

Sorry to burst bubbles here but the best group compositions in this game do not change much. It’s just a matter of “do we need more reflect / a couple more aegis”.

When I say higher level I don’t mean video with 30 or 48 but higher. For cliffside his mes have been hit for just a 10k. At higher levels it’s 20k+. Playing 30 is faceroll with almost any composition, without so-called anchor which I don’t even use because it doesn’t simply work. Secondly, obal’s vid shows exactly what I’m getting at. Asura isn’t the problem. Check what one specific golem does to his team and have in mind that on higher level you won’t burst him that fast and he does much more damage.

Now, I’m not saying that zerker doesn’t work, in fact we all use it. I’m saying you can’t facetank everything on higher levels because mistiming a dodge means not 66% dmg but 100% even with prot. Unless I’m wrong and you can find me some video.

Nikaido.3457:

You only trade 2 war for 2 guard for 48 fractals. It’s not like there is a huge variation of classes in speedrunning. For other dungeons you just trade one war for one guard.

Does that allow you to facetank 20k archdiviner autoattacks without glitching him on higher level?

Not to mention that randomfightfan was talking about content (I think), not just CoF.

LordByron.8369:

4warriors + 1 mesmers can facetank things and never stop attacking

Its not only dps…its more pull mobs there, and keep them where they are while enhancing party damage.

(for example into the void => TW => iLeap => signet; null field etc etc)

I ll tell you more…
As a mesmer the FIRST time you learn a speed run is actually fun and an interesting elaborate strategy……that as everything can be repeated ad nauseam with no risk once you learn it.

Run high level fractals (cliffside with archdiviner and even uncategorized kitten golems) with such team composition and tell me how does it work for you. Eagerly waiting for an answer.

LordByron.8369:

because you should not even ever talk of pve nor say FOOL to anyone.

Why shouldn’t I talk about pve? Are you self-proclaimed bestest pver? Check this great qoute of yours:

at lupicus mesmer reflects are just USELESS because lupicus model is huge.

That’s why I called you a fool since you said the most stupid thing I’ve read on these forums since december. Keep up the good work!

That video shows feedback on lupicus

Same IDENTICAL thing used to works on various bosses.

1st anet removed the damage from reflected projectile (NB only on multimple projectiles not single ones)

Then on april 30th proceeded to make the undestructible…

Seems clear that such amount of damage is “unintended” and will be patched as they will notice it.

There was a debate wether or not reflecting fields weren t infact supposed to reflect projectiles.

The answer is they are not supposed to negate boss mechanics as dredge, old tom And……..lupicus!

I showed you that video exactly because it’s about projectile reflections. Do you have some issues with reading comprehension? Even with those reflections mesmer killed lupi slower than ele without reflects.

LordByron.8369:

i am tired to answer to your trolling….

I ll just give 4 reasons:
1) how that prove something about dps?
2) old tom <==
3) legendary dredge suit <==
4) phase 2

……who was the fool?
Oh maybe you don t even understand the answer…..play some pve and you will find.

I don’t even know what you’re moaning about now, it’s really hard to decipher. Are you saying that mesmer has more dps and utility than ele in those enounters? Maybe your ele is that bad…

LordByron.8369:

Until they patch the glitch….your trolling attempt is clearer now…cya

What glitch? Using reflects on projectiles is now a glitch, yay! Few months back I read that dodging was an exploit.

Watch this and stop making a fool of yourself.

LordByron.8369:

Superficial analisys
1) at lupicus mesmer reflects are just USELESS because lupicus model is huge.
2) ele has lot of personal reflects/evasions that despite being not that good in a party, they are decent for soloing.
3)if nbody takes mesmer for dps and mesmer does more dps than ele than there is a problem

You obviosuly lack experience/expertise here. If doing about 150-200k dmg every 32s while being immune to damage is useless then I lack words comment that. On top of that, eles reflects don’t work there unless you use them in conjuction with mistform/obsidian flesh. If you think ele has a lot of reflects/evasions, please check mesmer again. And again, people take mesmer for utility. Play one for a change and tell me how high are your deeps.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Yes mesmer does more dmg

Comparing fastest known to me times of lupi solo done by both classes it’s ele with 15 minutes and mesmer with 17 minutes and that’s an encounter where projectile reflections are highly favourable. Mesmer could do more damage if his phantasms weren’t dying from a sneeze and weren’t mostly single-targetted. No one takes mesmer for damage.

SoliSnake.9457:

play a d\d ele full zeker aint so much easy

It is. Speaking from experience.

LordByron.8369:

1) mesmer is still low dps to compensate for utilities (ele don t have), in theory ranger has way more dps….in practice pet are an issue.
warrior/thief/guardian for example each outdps an ele by a lot…
2) agree
3) in PVE it is without ANY doubt……what makes it difficult? LOCKED in short range (afaik air 1 is not 300) with no surviving mechanic, NO decent stability uptime, NO projectile reflect at all and awful defence utilities…..
And skills like fire 3 earth 3 that are vital, have a long time that Leaves you vulnerable to oneshotting Attacks from mobs…

4) dunno i play only 40+ since a lot…..i just know that you hit way higher cof/arah etc than many fotm bosses or Champions…

5)how can people still be in denial despite even devs PRE NERF told how bad ele is PvE…..(and the nerf hit hard as you know)

the point is if somone here thinks ele is fine pve i personally don t think there s a chance for a discussion.

1) If you have triple cantrips as your utility than yes, mesmer has much more utilites.

3) So how’s that different from any dual melee set when your skills have 130 range? Air has 300 range.

4) I play 50+ and they have same armour. Your pugs can’t properly stack mights/fury/vulns.

5) Never have I said that ele doesn’t need help in pve.

Lots of funny stuff here.

• Mesmer has better dps than just a ranger so I wouldn’t compare mesmer to ele.
• Hitting for 8k firegrab is pathetically low and might have been decent if it had been done in TA.
• d/d ele is hardly the most difficult weapon set. Exactly what makes it difficult? 300-600 range?
• Bosses on higher fractals have same armour as those on low levels. Only hp and damage increases.

So much thread derail.

Broadicea.8294:

He put you out of your misery because of your group comp.

He definitely needs more faceroll team composition.

Dub.1273:

His hammer attack is actually two attacks. Shield Stance for example works well, Guardian Focus 5 too, Aegis… not at all.

Another nerf to engineer shield ;(

tom.7468:

To the “omg ranger sucks” guys. This is my ranger spirit guidance in tournament. The team i was in was a pug group we had no strategy at all. The ones we were fighting was a organized team all from the same guild. And guess what we won i didn’t even die. we had 2 so called underpowered rangers and dominated them. Now this is something to think about. All classes can do well when played right.

Nice!

Anubarak.3012:

@haviz: Its more about his heal, WoR, aegis and so on… Even without Toughness/Vitality he’ll pull aggro. I’m one hit as a thief (maybe with luck I have about 5% HP left) so if I don’t dodge his autoattack I’m down at lvl 48.

I almost don’t get his aggro as a guardian. And if I do, I got 1 shotted when he hit me at 48+. So heals have no use.

Nikaido.3457:

You don’t want more than one person having any sort of toughness in the group. It completely breaks doing things like kiting the ettin otherwise. I have never successfully taken the ettin on me in a pug with other people wearing toughness gear, while in our typical run we can always get him to stick completely to the anchor. Another tough guard = aggro ping pong between the two.

Toughness isn’t the only aggro mechanic. Unless warrior with no chest piece equipped (1764 defense) gets more aggro than 2 other heavies (2127 defense). He also can’t do the most damage since he lacks 101 power and 5% crit dmg.

Anubarak.3012:

Yeah I would really like to see a group melee him with 1 thief, 1 nekro, 1 ele, 1 ingi and 1 ranger…
Does anyone ever melee him without guardians?

Does having 1 guardian with no toughness/vitality counts?

obal.3218:

I’ve taken a mesmer, thief, and an ele as a 5th spot and they tend to do just fine. Having optimal groups and strategies for 40+ isn’t really a lol. It’s needed unless you want to be in there for a lot longer.

Any idea what is 2nd guardian running?

obal.3218:

Mossman is no match for my harem. Now if only they didn’t have manly voices on mumble….

Such a shame.

obal.3218:

You could just melee him which is better. Here is a 4min melee run at 48. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XYjjRaOlfI

All you have to do is dodge his charging axe attack which has a decent tell and time to evade it. If 2 people die one kites while the others revive then we start meleeing again. It takes a lot less time. You just need some reflects and a capable guardian or 2. Once I started to melee him I never went back. Ranging takes forever and if you wipe doing it you will be sad at all the time you wasted.

Interesting that every character beside yours is human female.

Nikaido.3457:

Oh yes it does matter a lot. If you die you’ll make a lot of enemies rally. So zerg vs zerg is all about being bunky as hell. “Come as anything and contribute enough” ? if you come as zerker and go down inside the zerg you let other people in the enemy zerg rally on you.
This isn’t PVE. In wvwvw being a good bunker is king because wvwvw is all about the zerg and people dying in your zerg are a huge liability.

And a coordinated guild run zerg will do a lot better than a random zerg of players who aren’t using the right builds. Having things like having constant retaliation in your group can make a lot of difference.

The only time I played zvz as a guardian I just spammed staff autoattacks to tag as many people as possible (in that process I was doing a lot of damage) and literally never went down. zvz isn’t pvp either, it’s mostly about having bigger numbers and spamming combo fields plus finishers. It’s very casual and unbalanced, imho it doesn’t matter what you run.

Does a build matter in zvz at all? I feel like I could come as anything and contribute enough.

Bright.9160:

That closest to his position is wrong. It’s pretty random. He will usually focus his grubs on 2-3 people tops. Or that might be because he’s usually at phase 2 by the time he cast 3 grubs…

He meant last grub which is theoretically unavoidable but there are few ways anyway.

As for his Phase 2 AoE, it’s easily dodgeable. The thing is that the red rings closest to him will get hit first and the far ones last, because the far projectiles have longer travel time. Just dodge backwards once and dodge forward right after that. Because you dodged the closer projectiles first, and you go forward again, you won’t get hit.

Projectiles landing near his position can hit you even after 2s after initial ones. It’s not 100% guaranteed you won’t get hit unless you have less players in party.

EDIT: fun fact. You can actually dodge the dome if he casts it, but your window is so small that it’s almost entirely luck based if you manage to pull it off. He will turn to the person he’ll dome, and once he stops moving, that’s when you dodge. In that time, you should have enough time to cover the distance from the center of the dome to the edge, and you will be outside of the edge right as the dome pops up. I’ve only been able to do it like 3 times though.

You can’t dodge necrid trap if you are its target. You can use skills like whirling attack to get some distance from him and it will work if you are fast enough. Also, if he casts it on someone else (and you’d get in its range) and you dodge towards closer edge it won’t entrap you.

Zelyhn.8069:

He will not do anything if perma los’ed.

Could you elaborate?

It’s really easy to understand

randomfightfan.4091:

It only renews on the first few that are there originally. Any others that spawn after wouldn’t count assuming all on-kill skills work the same. At least that’s how it works for warrior last I’ve seen. You can rally off them from downed but if you use vengance, you can’t save yourself from dying.

Yes, basically mobs that spawn indefinitely don’t drop anything, don’t give sigil stacks, can’t get sweet revenge and VoJ don’t renew. Thief and ele is still better than guardian there.

Nikaido.3457:

A DPS guardian can perma blind these mob nearly as much as your thief, sorry man if you thought it was something that made your thief special. Virtue of justice regenerates on kill -> virtue of justice blinds -> blinds puts vulnerability on mobs and it’s AoE. Couple that with greatsword blind and sword/focus two blinds and you can do so much blind it’s not funny. Of course, most pugs on gw2lfg asking for a guardian probably want a “tank” in full PVT and AH trait set up so that guy probably wouldn’t do much blinding particularly if he wields a hammer.

Anyway, blinds are one of the reasons why we do a dual “anchor guardian” + “dps guardian” set up in speedclears groups for FOTM. Not the only reason, but there is great synergy having two guardian with wildly different builds.

Can’t really recall if it’s true for arm seals but it’s certainly true for chest seal – virtue of justice don’t renew itself on those mobs there.

randomfightfan.4091:

Why didn’t you use your pets though. I’m sure a lot of rangers would like to know.

Negative dps.

TundraQualle.8204:

Congratulations!

Sadly, your pet was 99% of the fight dead meat

Pet can’t be alive because it would make his dps negative basically.