Guild Wars 2

So will it cost 250 ectos to add a +5 infusion to non-infused back pieces?

If so, and as long as we get our old infusion added as the new infusion type, then it would be fair.

How I understood it was that the +5 inherent agony resistance on infused rings and back pieces is being removed. They’re being replaced with 2 slots, 1 slot with +5 agony resistance, the other slot is for upgradeable resistance from the Artificer craft.

I do hope I’m wrong. Because that’s a ton of wasted Ecto’s if the removed the inherent resistance.

MercenaryK.4180:

The Shield isn’t a trash or garbage off-hand.

People either

• Don’t know when to use it
• Don’t know how to use it properly

Shield can be good in pvp, it’s quite amusing in Skyhammer. However it’s inferior to focus in pretty much every way in pve.

It has an internal cool down of 8 seconds I believe. So if you’re a warrior with sigil of energy on both swaps and the fast hands trait (5 sec swap), you may be swapping to early to proc the sigil. Also, the sigil will only proc in battle.

Conversely, I have seen this happen in very rare occasions on my guardian while in battle, but I have pretty bad ping.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Silentstorm.7531:

@Fadeway I’m trying several things still keeping the base way it’s used intacted. Some guys like speed clearing. I like carrying like I did in the latest video. That was a ultimate carry session. Due to I was trying to help two low geared people get an achievement and pull it off.

@Lonewolf
If you look through the post I never said it was set in stone. That’s why it’s a in between number 2.5. But what happen is it caught on not by my own doing actually. It works for what it’s being used as. It was never supposed to be a “dedicated” anything build. It was an idea that people embraced.

It was more the style of play then the build. Which is why I kept using it because it works. People can say what they like and complain. But at the end the of the day numbers don’t lie. I’m altering it now in anticipation for the next changes. And I’m still not going to rely on the virtue trait line. I’d never go beyond 10 if I go that far.

I’m a bit confused at why you’re commenting to me.

We comment how we want.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

laharl.8435:

Ascended ruined all the fair battles that used to happen in wvw! Oh wait, there’s never been a fair battle in wvw, ever.

The only way to make things absolutely fair is make everyone use the same class, same traits, same skills, same food, same groups sizes, no surprise attacks, no terrain advantages etc.

Before ascended, there was never a fair fight. If everyone in the game gets full ascended, there will still never be a fair fight. Get over it.

If someone breaks your thumb, is it alright for them to break the rest of your fingers because your hand is already broken?

Because for many people. This is why they play this game. They don’t care about dungeons. They don’t care about scarlet. They only care about smashing the enemy server. You may argue it’s not as severe as breaking a person’s limb but this is for many people breaking the limbs of the game they play.

WvW was never balanced, it was never meant to be a completely fair battlefield, which is quite obvious really. There are no broken fingers. Battles were just as fair before there was ascended. Ascended has changed absolutely nothing.

There at tons people that don’t even use food, which can have more of an effect than ascended. Look at traits and builds, not all are created equally. Some are over 1000%+ more effective than others. Ascended is nothing.

You should let us know of you’re NA or EU. If you’re NA, I do newb runs fairly often and can get you on one. No worries about sucking or getting kicked as I’m often the only one who has done the run before. I explain as we go. I’ll be on in 3ish hours. Send me an in game mail and I’ll add you.

Ascended ruined all the fair battles that used to happen in wvw! Oh wait, there’s never been a fair battle in wvw, ever.

The only way to make things absolutely fair is make everyone use the same class, same traits, same skills, same food, same groups sizes, no surprise attacks, no terrain advantages etc.

Before ascended, there was never a fair fight. If everyone in the game gets full ascended, there will still never be a fair fight. Get over it.

It seemed a fun fight, but my connection and hardware are too bad for it. The constant zerg below had me lagging like it was wvw. Let it be instanced in the future.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

I did a CoF run with a Pistol/Pistol + Shortbow thief… I don’t know much about thiefs. But I’m pretty sure that isn’t a recommended dps setup lol.

I noticed thiefs usually slow up skips that are easily doable without SR. Whenever a pug thief joins our arah group, we are all ready to do our skips, then the dude is like “wait 20 seconds for SR”. And I usually say, “Or we can do this skip in 5 seconds”.

And they never know how to use smoke screen for stealth. I’ve tried to explain it a couple times just before the Arah p1 run. I tell them how it works and say use smoke screen, we’ll run, when stealth is almost gone, drop shadow refuge. Half the time they don’t even use smoke screen at all. The other half of the time the do smoke screen, we get the full stealth, but then he instantly drops shadow refuge right there…I’ve seen this happen more than once

Mesket.5728:

laharl.8435:

Mesket.5728:

laharl.8435:

Mesket.5728:

Ariete.6509:

So er… am i the only one to have been in a spider queen pug fail attempt at stacking? It’s like most of my runs. I’m starting to think that i’m the problem…

Yes, it happens more often when EVERYONE is on a pure dps set and build and the party don’t know each other… switch to “support” utilities (what ever it has condi removal or group heals) and its cake again.

Pretty much the opposite of this. You usually die if the group has low dps. If everyone is high dps, the spider dies very quickly, like most everything in the game. I’ve only ever seen wipes in pugs with multiple below 80 players.

The day a boss (and their adds) hits with reduced damage because he has lower HP your answer will have any value… till that day comes. You just wasted some bits on the internet.

read again please… HE IS DYING RIGHT AFTER THE PULL BECAUSE THE BOSS DO X DAMAGE AND X CONDITIONS. Its not rocket science to survive that but if NOBODY can heal or remove condis not even for themselves, they will have troubles no matter how hard they can hit.

Besides, before more lies are spread… in a group with support players the only thing that kills you is boredom… HPs bar wont even reach 90%.

Like others said, if they’re dying right after the pull, it was a bad pull – nothing to do with build. There’s no reason to accuse me of lying, considering I’ve done it hundreds of times and you can easily find videos. The lie is that a full support team hp bars won’t even reach 90%, you wouldn’t be able to out dps all that damage.

Bolded makes no sense. Please elaborate a bit more.

The lie I accused you is that support players gets you killed. That is a fallacy usually coming from elitist kids sporting their full dps builds because they and their 4 friends can do a boss in 10 seconds. That is not what will happen in a pug team. Players buy that lie, build their characters following those video guy’s builds and fail. The saddest and pathetic part… is that when that 1 guy that bought the gw2 dream build from a video or an elitist post, come here and blame the other 4 for his failure.

Poison spray is a problem of bad pulling, but is not what I was talking about.

Nothing to elaborate on the bolded, I simply don’t believe it to be true. Feel free to post a video proving me wrong and I’ll gladly admit error.

I didn’t say support gets people killed. I said you usually die in the spider stack method because of low dps, high dps will kill the spider rather quickly. I admit, I did misinterpret your first post to say they should use support builds, when you were actually just talking about skills, my apologies for the misunderstanding. Of course there’s nothing wrong with running Shake it Off there, although I personally don’t because warrior dps utility skills are far too valuable.

Lastly, I run zerker meta builds in pugs all the time. In fact, I find the higher overall dps of the pug is directly proportionate to how smooth the run goes in general.

Mesket.5728:

laharl.8435:

Mesket.5728:

Ariete.6509:

So er… am i the only one to have been in a spider queen pug fail attempt at stacking? It’s like most of my runs. I’m starting to think that i’m the problem…

Yes, it happens more often when EVERYONE is on a pure dps set and build and the party don’t know each other… switch to “support” utilities (what ever it has condi removal or group heals) and its cake again.

Pretty much the opposite of this. You usually die if the group has low dps. If everyone is high dps, the spider dies very quickly, like most everything in the game. I’ve only ever seen wipes in pugs with multiple below 80 players.

The day a boss (and their adds) hits with reduced damage because he has lower HP your answer will have any value… till that day comes. You just wasted some bits on the internet.

read again please… HE IS DYING RIGHT AFTER THE PULL BECAUSE THE BOSS DO X DAMAGE AND X CONDITIONS. Its not rocket science to survive that but if NOBODY can heal or remove condis not even for themselves, they will have troubles no matter how hard they can hit.

Besides, before more lies are spread… in a group with support players the only thing that kills you is boredom… HPs bar wont even reach 90%.

Like others said, if they’re dying right after the pull, it was a bad pull – nothing to do with build. There’s no reason to accuse me of lying, considering I’ve done it hundreds of times and you can easily find videos. The lie is that a full support team hp bars won’t even reach 90%, you wouldn’t be able to out dps all that damage.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

So you can’t even enter the boat to deaggro before the second half of the run? If so, I for see the price of this run bumping up a bit as the pugs die at it. :p

It’s faster to never go on the boat at all. Go to the right of the boat, you usually deaggro by the time you get to the wall. Makes for a nice clean start at the trash skip.

None of the other p2 exploits were fixed…

Pretty much every fight in the game can be done melee, and is faster melee assuming the party can live (risk vs reward). The only boss that comes to mind that you can’t melee legit is the ooze in arah p1.

In the case of Malrona, melee is more dangerous. If one person is melee and everyone else is range, the only person in danger is the person in melee. If the group is smart however, they can use the poison=extra damage mechanic then reflect and she’s dead in 5 seconds. There is still the danger in not knowing which attack she’ll open with. That tactic could be done with range as well, but groups that generally know about said mechanics are groups that full melee.

Mesket.5728:

Ariete.6509:

So er… am i the only one to have been in a spider queen pug fail attempt at stacking? It’s like most of my runs. I’m starting to think that i’m the problem…

Yes, it happens more often when EVERYONE is on a pure dps set and build and the party don’t know each other… switch to “support” utilities (what ever it has condi removal or group heals) and its cake again.

Pretty much the opposite of this. You usually die if the group has low dps. If everyone is high dps, the spider dies very quickly, like most everything in the game. I’ve only ever seen wipes in pugs with multiple below 80 players.

zerotwo.4731:

Always be aware of the person who started the instance. Sometimes players forget its them and want to leave to fix armor. When they mention they need to back out just remind them they are the instance owner. When pugging you have to expect issues. I suggest that you find a guild that does fractals and most of the problems will go away. I don’t think it has anything to do with the LFG tool. It works as intended.

Leaving to repair is fine. The instance owner just can’t switch characters or leave party.

Mesket.5728:

Melee > Range

Once you get the game mechanics it is: Be a “thief wannabe” (meaning all zerk, fastest weapon 130 range power based) or be criticized. It pretty much resolve to that.

The class you play or the build you like is irrelevant. Not like this is a role game after all.

Wait until someone “smart” pulls the card “because in fractal 48…” as it means anything.

wut

The visual effects are attached to the weapon skin. Think of them as the same thing.

GuzziHero.2467:

Morrigan.2809:

As for ascended- it is an abomination and I will never go there- I value my sanity

I agree. My interest in GW2 took a noticeable dip when that came out.

The ascended weapons are kind of grindy, but not that bad unless you really hate crafting (which I kind of do). I just crafted my first ascended weapon and I’ve been very lazy and casual about it. All the trinkets so far are quite easy to get, even for alts. Even ascended back pieces have a gold option to bypass the fractal grinding.

GW2 changes the formula to make it easy for everyone to be well geared stat-wise. And make a pvp where no one has a statistical advantage over another. Then people complain they have to play the game to get a certain style. Do you realize that player retention partly depends on long term rewards?

There are other mmo’s that go even further in giving the player everything without player effort. You should try Wizards 101, you’ll probably feel more at home there.

MastaNeenja.1537:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

MastaNeenja.1537:

As for OP, you’re playing the wrong game, sorry. It was advertised before the game was released that tank, healer, and dps (aka the trinity) would be done away with. You have essentially bought a screwdriver and are trying to hammer nails with it.

I personally hoped that they would replace the trinity with a less role focused, and more open experience. But instead of tank/healer/DPS, what we got was just DPS. The entire PVE game seems completely focused on DPS. Healing and Toughness have been greatly neglected, and are severely underpowered, while direct damage is way too effective.

Anyone remember Aetherblade retreat? The final boss was pretty much anti zerk DPS in how it was set up and that dungeon caused a tsunami of tears.

It didn’t matter how fast the party burned down Mai’s health when she went invulnerable in lost health increments and it then became a dodge, heal survival test to live through the cannon fire.

There was probably a better way to do it but … temp content =/

I heard it may become a fractal but i’ll believe it when i see it

My party was full zerk for that path. I think we wiped once as we were figuring out the mechanics. In fact, obal got a bug where after we wiped and spawned from the waypoint, he somehow spawned right at the boss. By the time we ran up there, he already solo’d the stacks off of her and was dpsing.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Xae Isareth.1364:

In most situations you’re in far greater risk if try meleeing. Lupi anyone?

I disagree. Phase 2 Lupicus is actually more dangerous at range because his single target projectile attack (which can 1 shot squishies) does not affect you while in melee range, and his swipe is not too hard to dodge. Phase 3 Lupicus isn’t any more or less dangerous at range because he moves fast enough to necrid trap you even if you’re using a ranged weapon.

The single target projectiles are easily dodged, and the aoe are easier to dodge the further away from lupi you are, although if you know how to dodge the aoe in melee it’s quite easy. I would say range and melee are at near equal danger for phase 2.

For p3 it’s only dangerous for the person who has aggro if everyone else is ranging. If everyone is in melee, they are all in danger.

I think I bought $20 worth of gems about a year ago, other than that, nothing. I have ascended weapons, a legendary, hundreds of gold etc.

I had a strange one about a week ago. Lupi started the animation for necrid trap, so I used Stand Your Ground and dodged into him. He instantly did a 180 and necrid trap landed where I was dodging (behind him when he started the animation), it land before my dodge roll was finished. Since I had stability, I went right into the bubble and died.

People often think Simin is bugged when they have a low dps group and are doing bad spark pulls. They can’t get her below 50% and perceive it to be a bug.

adrian.4962:

clint.5681:

changing your mindset and playing gw2 as gw2.

Would love to, as soon as gw2 has a play style for dungeons. It’s just 5 man zergs. If you get the right mix in the zerg, nice, easy mode, if you don’t, wipe…

In the end you need a specific team build up with professions and builds. In fact gw2 with they “brilliant” dungeon system made things even worse than having 1 tank, 1 healer and X dsp. If you look in the LFP list you see stuff like “need warrior” or “need guardian”, but not any kind of warrior or guardian, they need specific builds.

Right now it’s worse than World of Warcraft from several years ago when you needed the exact number of classes and builds.

I understand what most of the fanboys are saying, but please look at the game with a more critical eye. If you think nothing is wrong, well, I don’t think there would be anything I can write here to change your mind

You don’t need any specific party composition to complete gw2 dungeons. Any composition can complete them. Certain compositions are however more efficient than the rest, and all builds being full dps is more efficient.

I’m in a dungeon guild where everyone is full on dps, we steamroll all dungeons and fractals. But I also pug often, I find it fun. Even in pugs I rarely see wipes because I know the dungeons well and can advise the pugs as we go. That’s with any party composition.

Anicetus.1253:

Wow, just tried pugging p4 for like half an hour with this advertisement:

READ: Path 4, speedrun, experienced people who’re able to communicate only, gear+traitcheck!

One “support” guardian (PVT) and one berserker/divinity warrior with 30/30/0/0/20 (level 90?) traits. Then the lfg tool bugged and i’m unable to set up a new lfg because im supressed due to excessive spamming. /anet

Gear and trait check mean nothing to people, probably just means have exotics pls. I have lfg’d for “high dps” and only gotten only 2 zerkers. The other two were PVT and Carrion, when questioned I was promptly informed they are high dps and that Carrion can be higher dps than zerk.

I haven’t had a level 90 yet though, he must faceroll everything!

OP is probably mistaking Simin as the last boss, when I take newbs they usually think Simin is the last one. He said he heard the boss was notorious for giving pugs a headache, that sounds like Simin, not Bloodstone Shard. Simin often is a headache for low dps groups, and a 5 hour run definitely sounds like a low dps group.

redkat.1892:

Because my skills are not that great is why i want to practice dungeons solo or with my partner, and not ruin the rest of the group’s experience. I can kill many champions solo on pve and its fun, so im not that bad.

Thanks for the Arah P2 suggestion ill try that even if it takes me 3 days. Do i need to do Arah P1 first or something?

You need 4 people in Arah p1 at a certain point. And no, you don’t have to do them in any particular order.

You could try AC path 3, but you’ll have a tough time at the burrows unless your buddy is an ele, even then it’ll still be tough. Maybe a low level Snowblind fractal. Besides p2, Arah p3 is pretty easy duo until the end.

If you’re not experienced in dungeons I think you’ll have a rude awakening as to how unforgiving they can be. The videos make it look easy because we have over a year of built up tactics and experience, and they are very easy with proven tactics and builds. Coming in brand new and trying to solo/duo, while admiral, is going to be either a very time consuming endeavor, or a quick fail learning experience. Good luck sir!

Malediktus.9250:

a t s e.9614:

Yes I agree , ranging spider is an exploit you bypass 1 melee atack by ranging it. Ranging lupi is also an exploit ( 3 exploits) you bypass his kick, swing and life drain. Ranging the CoE golem is also an exploit you bypass his spinning atack . There’s many of them that he exploited if range all the boas

Another game I know solved this problem by giving every monster/boss a maximum attack range greater than player attack range for all their skills. This made kiting/stacking/whatevever obsolete

The monsters’ melee attacks have greater range than players ranged attacks? So basically the monsters’ have no melee attacks.

Many people have killed that spider hundreds of times. It’s easy to solo legit. So when there’s a faster, more efficient way, people will choose that. When these bosses are either more engaging or impossible to stack, people will do it differently. Look at lupi, you can skip him or glitch him but most people don’t because it’s a fun, engaging fight.

sorrychief.2563:

The weak die in Arah.

Notice my class, with lowest hp and armor in game full zerk make it through easily.

???

Didn’t know ele had so much hp. That’s almost 3.5k more than my guardian.

Oxxy.7068:

Any target will be perma burned in dungeons anyways, no need to pick torch just for that.
Also, if you’re bringing a guard without traiting into support just to deal loldps, your group would be better off with an ele or thief.

He’d still have support from utilities, which are very good with guardian.

Seems it’d be a better solo dps build than anything. He’d have over 100% crit chance with skills like sword 3, by himself. But all that crit chance would be wasted once banners and spotter are introduced. The solo fury uptime would be a waste in a group setting as well.

Apolyon.6937:

As Tree said, I should have posted this in the Suggestions thread. If a mod is reading this, can you move it?

laharl.8435:

I had over 500 fractals completed before I had a character reach 48. Got my warrior to 30 very early, then got guardian to 48 eventually. I got my first fractal skin at scale 46. At scale 48 I seem to get about 1 skin out of every 3 or 4 runs. It seems the chances of getting a skin are exponentially higher at 48.

@laharl do you usually play level 48, maybe 48 and higher levels, or do you still play lower levels in the 20’s and 30’s levels? In my observations, we had several runs at 48 were nobody from the party got a skin.

In any case, do not focus only on the skins please, even if it is the most popular issue, I would like to bring this thread to the attention of the devs so your opinions on the other problems will be much appreciated.

If your reward level isn’t at 48, you’ll have a substantially lower skin drop rate than someone whose reward level is 48, even if you run a 48. I leveled my guardian from scale 36 to 48 doing all 48’s. Skins didn’t reliably drop until my reward level was 48.

I mostly just run 48’s now, unless I’m leveling my warrior. I only run fractals for skins and the challenge. The group i usually run with melee’s everything, which i find very fun. The skin drop rate at 48 seems pretty decent, that’s really all I was talking about. Sure, the rest of the rewards could be better though.

Nope, the two guys I heard say it, specifically said torch 5 is awesome burst. One guy runs some 10/30/30 build that he claims is highest dps. I’m guessing it’s someone’s weird guide from the guardian forum.

Guess since this is the l2p guardian thread.

I’ve been told in game a few time now that torch is the best guardian burst and that all dps guards should run it, I’ve also been seeing guards running torch more. I used it when I leveled for a while, but didn’t really see it as great. Is there something I don’t know about torch?

viciouspike.8624:

I was really tired last night and I guess I didn’t convey what I was thinking too well. I have a level 25, or so, Guardian right now and when I am running around open world I only seem to hit 2 maybe 3 things tops with sword.

Whereas with staff I can hit 5 wouldn’t it be better to just throw it on the staff and slap everything once or twice and let the rest of the group kill the rest of the trash I mean you will be carrying them mostly through the dungeon anyway might as well let them get your stacks for you.

You still easily get tags on most trash pulls with sword/focus. Plus, you would only need to get half as many tags anyway, since you have 2 sigils. I almost always get 25 stacks from just the spiders at the beginning of arah p2. You’re doing actual damage with sword as well.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I put a stacking sigil on my guardian’s staff.

No double stacking?

I had over 500 fractals completed before I had a character reach 48. Got my warrior to 30 very early, then got guardian to 48 eventually. I got my first fractal skin at scale 46. At scale 48 I seem to get about 1 skin out of every 3 or 4 runs. It seems the chances of getting a skin are exponentially higher at 48.

Very nice, good job guys!

Anyone want to copy paste? I don’t have a Twitter.

Ropechef.6192:

MIght be an interesting thing to see…

DnT, rT, HC, LOD, (and any I am forgetting)

Challenge. Kill time for Lupi with 25 stacks of empower.

Thinking something like staying out at range and letting the grubs get eaten. timer starts at 25 stacks and first charge in?

Given that I have seen you guys do the Ice Elemental in fracs in 5? min, this may not be to hard, but I still would love to see it.

Ice Elemental was 25 seconds.

Agreed, deserves sticky. Plus he always updates his builds and strategies..

Eh, I don’t know about taking advice from the guardian subforum unless it’s for a pvp build, even then there are still a number crap builds being thrown around. If you’re doing dungeons you want advice from the people here.

Also, in organized groups, your party will be depending on you for survival. A good guardian can allow his group to run full dps utilities.

Watch obal’s Guardian fractal guides.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Video-Guide-for-Fractals-Shown-at-48/first#post2322691

swiftpaw.6397:

mosspit.8936:

swiftpaw.6397:

Syn Sity.5826:

Wow… how many people can possibly make the same exact post?

Everyone complains I’m not helpful enough, I’m just a nasty troll. THEN I TRY TO HELP BUT NOOOOO someone’s already helped. Well. kitten them I’m gonna say my kitten anyway. MY HELP IS BETTER.

I think we are just not used to it thats all :p

I am such a nice person though T_T

So nice that people are disappointed when the “foul mouth” girl isn’t on the stream.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Oh, oh. I get it now.
My bad. I didn’t mean to say anything about melee vs ranged, I’m more talking like power vs. conditions. (vs. any other which way you can build your character in PvE that’s totally rotting on the shelf right now.)

I guess glass cannon would have probably been the better word choice.

Ran an Arah p3 yesterday, one guy used his wvw warrior condition build and we didn’t even notice. Although it’d obviously be more noticeable if all 5 were condition. I think it’s time for a 5 man condition lupi kill, for science!

Skills like guardians greatsword pull and mesmer focus pull should also be removed. They’re being exploited by stacking the enemies together, it’s horrible.

While we’re at it, lets remove AOE’s and cleave or anything that encourages stacking, Anet didn’t intend for these skills to hit multiple enemies.

Yaki.9563:

I don’t understand Lupi kill videos. Is he some kind of test dummy DPS test? He certainly seems to take no skill, judging by the video.

This is similar to what I think when I watch a speed kill from a game I don’t play. I don’t understand the mechanics and skilled players are making it look easy. Basically the same is going on here. Skilled players are making it look easy and you don’t understand the mechanics.