My mesmer is about to hit 80. I figure I’ll probably do something like colesy’s build. Would it benefit me to get an Assassin armor set for when I want huge reflects?
Also, Bloodlust or Perception? Or both for different situations?
CoF p1 is still probably the least painful to pug.
I’m tempted to say AC, but a lot of PUGs go there, so there’s more of a chance to find baddies? p2 is a no-no for pugs.
TA up maybe.
Other than that, I can’t offer much. I almost always run guild groups.
Oh, fotm30+ is usually safe. People that high already tend to know what they are doing.
CoF p1 has gone downhill. I joined a 1 mes/4 war zerk run yesterday. The run was setup by the mesmer, he was decent, knew what skills to use and when. The other 3 warriors were terrible. They all gs auto’d until their 100b was of cool down. Then they all 3 died at the Effigy.
Other than that, most runs are average for me. Had an exceptionally good (for pug) arah p2. I started a group for “arah p4 all zerkers, will explain run”. I got 1 zerker, apparently rabid and PVT are “dps builds” as I was told.
When he enrages, back up against the wall behind you. It will knock you into the wall but won’t knock you off of your rock. Then you can stand up and continue as normal.
But then you’re out of his range and he’ll come up for you, right? Maybe it’s just perfect positioning, I’ve never been able to get him satisfied with where I’m standing unless I’m really close to the edge.
The safe spot in the abomination is actually pretty OP, and yes, you can afk abomination but it’s really hard to actually make it a safe spot, it doesn’t always work.
How do you get it in a spot where you don’t need stability? You mean range it from somewhere?
I heard there was a safe spot for Abom. 2 hours spent learning to solo him for naught _
You have to pop a stability or invuln every now and then, so you can’t play the tp while you kill him, like Belka, which sucks because the abom has so much hp. Half the time it’s better to kill it legit so you don’t fall asleep. But it’s good to know how to kill him legit anyway.
Well, saying “if only the veteran will spend time to teach me we’ll much better off as a community” is a nice theory, but it’s a theory. I think everyone had beaten then “can’t teach, too much kitten” horse to dead so I offer another angle, it’s simply a conflict of interest.
Most veterans become good at something, they didn’t started out good with it. But when you do something almost everyday it becomes your interest that you just might as well figure out the best way to do it, and take the afford to do so. But let’s take the OP as an example, you never do this before, you had no interest in it, and now you want to do it not necessary because you want to, but because you want your tittle. So if you’re the type “I only gonna do it once, get it over with and put it behind me” you have far less incentive to learn, and this usually develop into a “what’s the big deal I dont care about running this again” mentality when someone else is trying to teach you. (Not refering to the OP specifically, but I can assure you this is the main reason why the “can you teach me this path” is usually actually “can you carry me through this path” in disguise")
I’ve taken well over 100 arah newbs through arah since I was first taught to do it. ^This is what I hear quite often, especially after long runs when I was the only dps build. So many people only run arah for their DM or legendary that they really don’t care about getting better at it. Even if a person didn’t buy their DM title, odds are they were carried for it, I know I was basically carried through my first dungeons.
Don’t join the lfg “experienced” or “speed” runs and think that’s a real speed run. Those are usually utter crap.
I ran Arah p4 and the old TAFU with CryxTryx. He’s a solid player. But you should get a warrior outfitted for speed running. Since most teams run at least 2 warriors, it’ll be easier to get a spot with one. Then after you run with the team for a while you can get your guardian in there. It would also help you to have a thief, ele or mesmer as well.
Thanks Laharl,
I do have a mesmer at 80 with full Beserker. I am working on a theif and would be willing to level a warrior as well. I’ve got some work to do.
The guys I’ve been running with lately are often in need of a mesmer for arah. Our usual mesmer hasn’t been playing lately. I’m doing another p4 run tonight ( taking some tanks so it could be a long one). But if it’s possible, we could run some arah duo. I can show you how to lupi melee, then you can practice solo when you have time. Running solo will also get you better at the trash runs.
Don’t join the lfg “experienced” or “speed” runs and think that’s a real speed run. Those are usually utter crap.
I ran Arah p4 and the old TAFU with CryxTryx. He’s a solid player. But you should get a warrior outfitted for speed running. Since most teams run at least 2 warriors, it’ll be easier to get a spot with one. Then after you run with the team for a while you can get your guardian in there. It would also help you to have a thief, ele or mesmer as well.
There really doesn’t need to be a guide. People just need to get used to equipping their trash running skills.
If you can get all pug players this knowledge prior to joining that would be great. Appreciate it.
My point is, there doesn’t need to be a guide to each individual trash run. Maybe just a guide on how to trash run. Some people just don’t change utilities throughout a dungeon.
In what world does p1 have the easiest skips? The skip after ooze is probably one of the most difficult in the game for less experienced players. P2 isnt really that long. P3 fights are so easy, only one that might be painful for some pug groups is the mage crusher. When looking back at my first experience in each arah path. P3 was definitely the most newbie friendly and p4 wasnt so bad either despite it being long.
Where’s your guide for helping pugs get through the second run without a mesmer? On my guardian I can do it in my sleep, but there is always that one guy who can’t seem to make it for the life of him.(even some pug warriors find a way to die there). Generally what I do to help people get through is pull the first group of risen to high right side, then let my pugy teammates go left so they can pass the Drakes and oozes with clean aggro while not having to deal with the risen putting them in combat early.
There really doesn’t need to be a guide. People just need to get used to equipping their trash running skills.
Use the lfg and note your level like others have said. You shouldn’t expect every level 80 to carry you through dungeons. Most of them are there to get tokens, not to drag dead weight to level them up. This game is “play how you want”, if someone wants to play with all 80’s, that’s their prerogative. Either switch to your 80 or find a group that’s cool with carrying you.
P3 only gives 1.5 gold but is probably the easiest for pugs. The fights and runs are all pretty easy.
The rest give 3 g. P2 and p1 are probably best if you’re pugging it. But if you have a high dps team that knows the dungeon, all paths are pretty quick.
I can only think of one encounter where the team may need to move out of my protection symbol: the guardian boss in CM who puts down her own symbol that does quite a bit of damage. In which case we move to a different LoS spot and I lay down another protection symbol…..
We just dps the bejesus out of that boss and hope the boss lays down regen symbols.
@Laharl – as Wukunlin (at least i think it was him) pointed this out for me on another thread, but as long you wait for your team to lay the fire field before starting to auto attack with your hammer the fire field should be fine, the blasts will work on the first field that was put down in case they’re overlaping.
Yes, I’m aware of the mechanics of fields. I’m not talking about the beginning of the fight, but in the middle. In my group, ele generally opens with fire field. We hit 25 stacks quite fast. Then guard will often use purging flames or hallowed ground for continued blasting to stay at 25. If the guard is spamming hammer auto, you’ll end up comboing that in the middle of fights.
The hammer is the best support weapon imo with pretty much 100% protection up time for the whole team out of the box.
Maybe if you’re running all warriors in a fight that requires no mobility.
In any organized group, people should be meleeing about 95% of fights, regardless of class. I rarely use hammer because I’m full dps and hammer screws over fire fields. But the op is asking for support. What provides better support?
I agree the condition removal is a bit weak at the moment but the Oct. 15 update should help with that. 15 Zeal with a Hammer is pretty amazing. I consistently put 5-8 stacks of vulnerability on targets. Paired with the GS warriors, it’s another 10% damage for the whole group all the time.
As for my health pool, I think it was partly to help buffer those conditions. I do think 18k might be a bit high though. I’m not awesome enough to roll full zerker and do dungeons with 10k health. Suggestions on a good health pool size? 16k? 17k?
With Clerics gear most of my damage is coming (and I do mean most in a team) from perma-retaliation on me and almost perma on my teammates. Runes I run on it are 2 Monk 2 Water and 2 Travelers. Lets me keep my buffs up for crazy long times…and one of those buffs also happens to be regen too :p
what if I tell you retaliation damage scales with your power?
I’d say Might stacks then take off the kid gloves and tell you Ozzy and Coley—and anyone else—that I roll up and smoke zerkers like a cheap blunt. bring your PvE junk into WvW and anyone who plays more than once a week knows just how long you’ll last against a havoc or a zerg. Frak: in a havoc or a zerg you’re glass cannon crud gets you dead at the gate cuz you’re over-reliant on dodges and no one’s going to waste time ressing a guardian that explodes in 15 seconds. Someone hits you and realizes just how soft you are, their mission in life becomes making sure you down ASAP if you don’t drop from AoE in the first place which you probably did because you are zerker thus you are leet.
So yes, please bring your zerk on in. I love farming you scrubs. You guys make me skill points and loot bags snaps fingers all day long and I laugh when you roll in here on a BnW about skill balance.
Just like all the other PvE scrubs we’ve been rolling over the last couple months. One of the best Commanders in our server is an AH guardian. He’s a hardass but he knows how to drop the hammer. And he also knows why high HP is important.
Do you? Sorry, redundant question. Actually, not sorry. Stopped being sorry halfway through reading page two. And as for redundant: You folk really need to think about why high HP is important and strong healing from a guardian is useful. But you guys don’t seem to understand that dirty word “think”. You just know how to spike AI and troll forums until you kitten others off.
The fact that you can’t even recognize the optimal build for pve, which is easy compared to pvp, leads me to believe you’re too ignorant on game mechanics to run a good pvp build and use proper rotations.
I recently tried to solo this famous boss on my kitten and I stumbled into some problems. For example, I dont know how to handle kitten and he always kills me with kitten.
I am using kitten as gear and kitten traits. I also watched this kittenty video, but I cannot figure out, what happens at/how he avoids/how he can kitten.
How is that pay to win? I think he’s asking for a template so he can readily switch build without respecing every time.
When something is sold in the shop which is not a purely cosmetic item, but effects game play, it is considered a pay-to-win item.
So if I can instantly switch my d/d stealth thief to something else (say with pistols) instantly within wvw, anytime I want without any real repercussions, and the other guy can’t, then I have the advantage. Paying real money for an advantage, forcing others to do the same to keep up, is pay-to-win. Really bad way to go, would be huge criticism for anet.
Obviously you wouldn’t be able to change mid battle, maybe not even in WvW at all.
Although I believe spec templates should be standard in this game, if it did come in the form of the gem shop, I’d certainly buy it.
If you did the harder versions of both Simin and TAFU Nightmare Tree for your DM, then you waited an awful long time to run TAFU after completing Arah p4.
I’ll go ahead and admit that I wasn’t in any hurry to try do it with 3 rangers. The pets don’t dodge and if you want to chain reflects, it means you aren’t doing (much) damage.
I don’t think that means it wasn’t easy, mostly just that Pet mechanics need to be looked at and that Rangers were a detriment in that dungeon path.
Sure, you wouldn’t be able to do the reflect method with that party comp. You have to adapt your strategy to what the party composition is capable of. This boss has been solo’d by at least an engi and ele, I thought it had been solo’d by a ranger as well.
ITT: “Blah blah blah, TA F/U is Soooo easy!”
“It’s not broken, just challenging for us super-pro players.”
“That path is Faceroll, dirty casuals are ruining our game.”
And yet. Still no 3r2n runs. I guess you got out of it now, though.
When you are in the nursing home, reliving your glory days as a true dungeon master to the staff, you will remember this. You missed your chance to prove how easy this path was, and now that it’s gone, everyone knows how full of kitten you are.
Feel free to try it on the replacement path, though, I am sure you will claim it is just as easy.
What would 3r2n prove? The path is easy for any party composition (I’ve 4 manned it) and the boss has been solo’d.
me and 2 more frieds we’re running CoF today, and we needed 2 more to complete aprty so we went to lfg tool. Went smooth until the boss where this 2 guys kicked us (they were 2 guys from riverside (DE) with commander tags). they got reported, and i hope they get a ban.
But yeah it sucks, even on cof, wich is fast and effortless, great community.
You don’t know how to prevent it? You have to be person who open the dungeon, everytime! You should see party icons also, when you will see “kick” icon you have to dismiss it as quick as possible….
I’ve yet to be myself, but I’m pretty sure you don’t see the kick prompt if you’re the one being kicked.
The best example is aetherize dungeon. While you zerkers have to time your perfect dodge and pattern in order to survive cannon phases, I can just mildly and halfheartedly dodge those cannons while capable of taking more than 4 hits of cannons, and always be the last few people who survive the cannons in a PUG.
Then I have to RISK MY LIFE and WASTE MORE TIME saving those zerker noobs who die in the cannon phases. I rather they stay alive but do less damage.
Let’s see if i get what you’re saying here: You run Tanky gear to allow bad play. Neat, next person please step foward, this one is a lost cause.
Margin of error =/= bad play.
A full zerk people will die in 1~2 hits by cannons, plus not all of them have free access to vigor, meaaning less dodge.
So if you zerker make one mistake and go down, it is us who’ll need to help you out to cover your mistake….
So why not increase your own range of “margin of error”?
Don’t tell me you can always play perfect, because the reality I experienced for more than a year of playing GW2 tells me that it’s far from true.
Seriously, I can’t feel anything even when you go full zerk…
The boss may die 30 secs faster, but I don’t really care, I just don’t want to see you die and I have to cover your mistake.
You should try playing with a good team zerker team sometime. I assure you, you’ll save much more than 30 seconds. Good dps teams finish many dungeons in half (or less) time it takes a support/tanky team.
For those who said toughness is worthless and zerker is the only choice,
gl with content like Aetherize dungeon, high level fotm dredges, high level fotm cliff and new Teq the Sunless.
Let’s see how your “burstiness” will contribute to the team.
Personally I don’t use cleric either, but I use knight instead.
Different to other people, I use all stats ascended trinkets to kick up my hp to a manageable level(~18000) while not sacrificing my offensive power entirely.
All stat trinkets also give some minor bonus on healing and condition as well, plus its crit damage is actually just slightly lower than berserker.
Someone has never seen a speed run vid. Yeah, we do all that in full zerk.
I use clerics when running supports/tanky builds. The HoT makes me feel more viable to the team as a support toon. Particularly like the higher numbers with Battle Presence.
For more solo play or dungeons, I still fall back on my PVT karma set.
Ah, excellent. Excellent.
I refer to the class subforums as Bizarro world, where good and bad have switched places.
You won’t ever die, and killing people is laughably easy. You will give perma regen, plus whatever buff you want. You can bring back lords instantly in wvw along with some of your team. You will regen around 800 health a second depending.
He also said he wanted damage/burst role, then said he runs Valkyrie and an AH build….go figure.
Guang, you should list the conditionals for that DPS to be met. Otherwise we’re going to end up with Mesmers who have an average of 1 phantasm per minute claiming they do uber DPS.
Uh, sure.
Mesmer: 10/30/0/0/30, Sw/Sw and Sw/P. Must maintain 3 phantasms and all Mantras. Phantasms worth approximately 2.4k each.
Thief: 25/30/0/0/15, D/D. Rotation is one auto-attack chain, C&D, Backstab every 4 seconds. Must always flank.
Elementalist: 30/15/25/0/0 or 30/20/10/10/0, staff. All hits of Lava Font must connect.
Guardian: 10/30/30/0/0, GS + Sw/X. Rotation is WW > Symbol > AA > WW > sword AA for 10s, repeat. All hits of WW must connect.
Necromancer: 30/25/0/0/15, D/F + WH. Must maintain all minions. Minions worth about 1.1k in total.
Warrior: 30/0/0/10/30 Axe/M + Axe/Sw. Must always complete AA chain before swapping or using skills.
Ranger: 20/30/5/15/0 Sw/Wh + Sw/A. Pet must survive.
Engineer: 30/5/0/10/25 P/S with Grenade Kit. Throw Freeze and Shrapnel grenades on cooldown.
Seems like a fast guard rotation. Isn’t including gs5 and sword AA for ~14 secs optimal?
A tough (P/V/T?) build that does NOT use shouts. I’m a bit of a hipster and don’t like running what everyone else is (yes it’s the best, but to me it’s REALLY boring as well).
Go!
Best? Have you seen how powerful a well-played meditation build is? The damage is ungodly
With all the uproar about how everyone should be 100% berserker dps-focused, it’s nice to hear a story of how a tanky, defensive focused player can make a positive difference in a group.
How do we know he was defensive focused? I spend every night in my full zerk guard ressing PVT’s at lupi. Erry nite..
Why do you rezz them?
Because I still have issues in phase 3 solo, and ressing in phase 2 is easy enough on guard.
With all the uproar about how everyone should be 100% berserker dps-focused, it’s nice to hear a story of how a tanky, defensive focused player can make a positive difference in a group.
How do we know he was defensive focused? I spend every night in my full zerk guard ressing PVT’s at lupi. Erry nite..
Just form a group for beginners and ask for someone who is experienced to guide. A lot of us kitten about pugs being bad but that’s mostly directed at the ones who act like hot kitten but are in fact terrible. So long as you’re not objectively terrible at the game in terms of build + dodging most people don’t mind guiding newbies who follow directions. Most of the bosses in Arah are pretty easy so long as you do what people tell you, i.e. don’t try to range Abom because you think it’ll be safer. Melee him like people tell you and just circle around him and he’ll never hit you.
As for Lupicus, there really is no “safe” way to range him so the strategy is actually pretty simple:
1) Stack for phase 1. Kill all grubs and locusts as they spawn.
2) Bring invul/blocks/reflects for phase 2. Shield of Absorption and similar projectile-blocking skills with a large enough area of effect will protect you from Lupicus’s spray, and stuff like Shield Stance or Counterattack will get you through it clean one time.
3) If Lupicus is chasing you in phase 3, turn and run from him. Don’t just back away.
You will down against him if you range. There’s no way to avoid his projectiles at range so he is pretty much guaranteed to down you eventually. Just run around and heal as much as possible and try to keep most of the party up. That’s what most Arah pugs do.
You can dodge his projectile at range, or use other methods of evade or reflect. Melee is better because you don’t have to worry about it at all, but that’s not recommended for beginners.
I’ve used the lfg tool only for arah so far. Every single person I’ve got was brand new to the dungeon. So i think the lfg has definitely brought more people into dungeons. Some were ok, some bad. They all basically get free completion anyway, then say if they knew arah was so easy they’d have tried it long ago…
The “fake it til you make it” guys are the worst. Just say you’re new right away please. Deadeyes aren’t an OMG OHK SO OP!!!
If I join an Arah group via gw2lfg.com, its more likely than not that I will be kicked at the last boss so either their buddy gets in for the 3g, or they just sell the spot on gw2lfg for as much as 20g for people trying to get dungeon master. I gave up on Arah altogether because of the rampant exploitation of the kick option.
I pug 2, 3 sometimes all 4 arah paths per day lately. Probably 4-5,000 shards of zhaitan from pugging alone. I’ve never been kicked, ever. I don’t see how it’s possible that you get kicked more often than you don’t.
C’mon guys, griefing like this does happen, but it’s a pretty rare occurrence. Coming in here and saying it’s so rampant you get griefed 15 times a day is over-doing it. At least tone down the falsehoods to believability.
Why is anyone still even running condition builds in PvE? Direct damage is superior in virtually every way.
I’m not saying “Stop whining!”. I’m saying keep kittening in the forums because this does need addressed. But for god’s sake, change to direct damage so you aren’t so useless until Anet does finally fix this.
You cant use conditions or crit on this boss so it not that unfair,all pure dps gear will suffer dont matter what build you are using
There is a huge difference between losing about half your damage and losing all your damage. Against Tequatl, condition builds do no damage past base weapon damage, which is extremely low. Power builds still benefit from power.
You don’t need to make it all ascended. Just use exotic. Better than being useless.
They already address that they can’t increase the condition cap because of the limitation of their servers.
Dpsing teq is purely power builds at the moment.
Then they should just take condition damage out of the game entirely.
They need to stop beating around the bush and start dealing with the real issues. This content should have never made it into the game when the damage system doesn’t even function properly.
Why is anyone still even running condition builds in PvE? Direct damage is superior in virtually every way.
I’m not saying “Stop whining!”. I’m saying keep kittening in the forums because this does need addressed. But for god’s sake, change to direct damage so you aren’t so useless until Anet does finally fix this.
Because the option is given by ArenaNet. As infuriating as it is you really can’t blame the players for this. We need to hold them accountable for their bad design instead of bickering with one another.
As I said in my post, “keep kittening in the forums because this does need addressed”. I’m not blaming the players, I blame Anet. I’m saying the players may as well make themselves useful until this is resolved. Why choose to be useless when you don’t have to be? Actively try to improve the situation by keeping on Anet’s kitten , but at least make the best of a bad situation while you’re in it.
