Guild Wars 2

TL;DR

What sigils are AH/EM guardians running and why?

Negrul.5423:

Try reading the whole thread carefully before assuming that there’s only one person having difficulties with finding groups. Further more, if you read the thread carefully, you might find out that I only find it difficult to find groups with that class.

The only other person who said they have trouble finding a group is a zerk warrior…. Maybe you should read the whole thread as you seem to have missed a number of engi’s saying they always find a group quickly. I see every class in there every single day. Every group fills in less than 2 minutes. There are tons of groups that don’t specify anything, many groups even saying “anyone welcome”. The only people having trouble finding a group for CoF 1 are doing something wrong.

You do at least have the patience of a saint, searching for 40 mins (or possibly hours). I’d give up after 10 minutes. If you like, feel free to add me. We can do multiple runs with all kinds of different classes.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

I like the idea of one time only skins, if you keep an extra event like this around forever and the skins with it then it loses any sort of value and the side event also becomes stale even with added content. But if they only come back once a year with this with new content and different skins the whole thing remains fresh and gives you something to look forward to as well.

My feeling is the outrage too over not having enough time to farm the skins you want is highly laughable… you can farm enough bauble bubbles for a skin in around 5-6 hours.. you have 20 days… thats plenty of time to farm a couple of skins, you just need to sacrifice time from your current playing to do SAB. Even then if you can’t farm the skin you want… farm the most expensive one you want and then buy a couple at the end of the event if you cant make them.. yes the prices are going up now but there’s still 20 days of hardcore farmers who are going to yet again over-saturate the market with these skins dropping the price down another time or two before any permanent rise sets in.

Lastly, for those who haven’t started playing yet. From experience, you can rarely go into an MMO that has any sort of special events and expect to acquire everything from that event without having to either have been there or pay a pretty penny. It’s just one of those sad hard lessons you learn when gaming. The fact of the matter is, they’re offering something that’s true potential and popularity could never be attained by keeping it around permanently. By bringing it back annually they keep people looking forward to that time of the year and to see what new will come out… not just have wild expectations of month after month of updating it and trying to waste their time on developing something that is just an add-on. Whereas by making it annual they don’t have to waste the man-power on something that will go stale in a couple months, they can waste it on attempting to fix the other broken parts of the game that desperately desire more time spent on them.

Well said, spot on.

Lane.3410:

Rising Dusk.2408:

snip

Agree with all of this.

laharl.8435:

I definitely agree with this. Early adopters should get some sort of bonus, and stat-less skins are perfect. No one is freaking out because they can’t get Halloween skins, same will happen with these, except these are much more common. Having limited series’ within the game gives players more opportunity for unique looks. And that’s kind of a big thing in this game where most rewards are visual.

Early adopters of what? SAB? The game is almost 8 months old. :P

Halloween, seriously? Did you ignore how many people were livid about the greatsaw? Not to mention that most of the Halloween skins weren’t that great. Aside from the GS the only other nice ones were the staff and the shortbow, both of which can still be crafted.

The bigger issue at hand is that GW2 does not have enough cosmetic variety. This has been an ongoing complaint. People struggle for unique looks because there’s not that much choice and having one-time-only skins isn’t going to help that either.

People were mad about the Halloween gear because it was RNG, Super skins are extremely easy to get and you have a month to do it. Someone above mentioned that discontinuing skins will discourage new players. I don’t recall a single post of a new player who is livid about not having a chance at a Halloween skin.

When I’m new to a game I don’t expect to have access to every single item that has ever been released. The people who were there and took part in the event should have something to show for it. Everyone’s sense of entitlement is different however.

Lastly, discontinued skins will most assuredly lead to more unique looks. Sorry, but this part isn’t opinion, this is fact. Take the Halloween skins for example. When you see one, it is almost unique because you don’t see them very often. If there were still access (besides the TP), you would see them much more. This would be especially true with Super skins as they have proven aesthetic popularity.

I currently run a pretty standard AH/EM build with Knight/Zerker equips. For general use I run full shout with Superior Rune of the Soldier set for condition removal upon shouting. I run mostly with Hammer and Staff, both currently equipped with Superior Sigil of Blood.

I plan to get rid of the Soldier rune set and run with Lyssa set. Then use Superior Sigil of Generosity on my staff for condition removal.

I’m wondering what the best Sigil for my hammer would be. I’m think Sigil of Strength would work great with my build. I’ll often stack might with Staff #4 then switch to hammer. Keeping more might stacks going coupled with Empowered Might would seem to compliment my build quite well.

I’m wondering what sigils other guards with similar builds are running. Is there merit in weapon switch type sigils? At least over crit proc sigils when using a crit build. Mind you this is a PvE build.

Negrul.5423:

Not sure I understand how someone can go from “it takes hours to find a group” with a specific class, to thinking " joined a bunch of groups who instantly kicked you"…

I always specify what class I will bring to the group, so my guess is that there’s not enough people interested in having that class in their dungeon.

You’re definitely doing something wrong. Maybe you’re spelling your name wrong or something. Literally no class has issues getting into CoF. You’re doing something wrong if you’re the only person in the game taking hours to find a CoF group. Try joining on groups already started, non-farm groups of course.

I run a Knight/Zerker guardian, lots of toughness. I almost always get aggro on phase 3, sometimes phase 2. If I stay alive the entire time he’s after me, then he aggro’s me the whole match.

Last night in phase 2 he shadow stepped to a necro every single time in phase 2. Phase 3 he switched to me and was on me for the entire phase 3.

Geikamir.6329:

Personally, I really like one-time skins. They are just cosmetic and it’s a good way to show prestige for vets of the game in a few years.

I definitely agree with this. Early adopters should get some sort of bonus, and stat-less skins are perfect. No one is freaking out because they can’t get Halloween skins, same will happen with these, except these are much more common. Having limited series’ within the game gives players more opportunity for unique looks. And that’s kind of a big thing in this game where most rewards are visual.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Diviner.7405:

In order to increase you chances of succeeding, you have to make sure everyone that doing it completely understand what the heck is going on. Communication is key.

This is the correct answer. Guild content is about coordination. If you truly work together, you don’t need nearly as many people to complete this content.

Well that comment totally missed the point. Of course we know that if a guild has good coordination they will have better success and need less people.

Some smaller guilds are completing this content, but it takes them MUCH longer and usually has many more fails than a large guild. Very large guilds trivialize this content. It is obvious to everyone paying attention that this content heavily favors large/very large guild. I find it insane that some people can’t see that.

I’ve played the content with large and small guilds, the difference is immense. It has left a divide between small and large guilds. Small guild can no longer grow, because they can’t offer this content to their members. If you are not in a large guild, you are hindering your progress. My guild has accepted that the guild will no longer grow. We can just hope to get at least one target down for the personal reward. Other than that, we are now stagnant.

I was excited about this content but I also had apprehension that this situation would be the case. My fears were laid to rest when a dev stated small guilds would be able to do this content as well. Then the missions came out, and I was right. Before the missions we were slowly but surely getting more members and building ourselves up.

Of course he has a back piece. He’s had a back piece and rings for months. He probably figured it was obvious and didnt need mentioning.

Jski.6180:

laharl.8435:

Fact – Guild Missions are a numbers game. The larger the guild, the larger the advantage. From unlocking the content, to finding the bounties, to killing the bounties.

My guild can no longer grow because of guild missions. When we get new people, they see that we are unable to do guild missions and they move on. At this point, being in a small guild is equal to holding yourself back from content and gear.

They are not comply numbers games there more then just guild bounties and even they scale with more ppl. Having more ppl only lets the bigger guilds play a bit more lazily its not so much easier just most of the guild dose not have to “work” for the rewards.

They only scale up to 50 iirc. Also, try looking for a bounty with 8 guys, then try it with 100 and tell me numbers doesn’t help immensely. Same to be said for getting the influence to just unlock the missions.

I’ve done bounties with a 10 man guild and a ~350 man guild. There is a huge difference.

Fact – Guild Missions are a numbers game. The larger the guild, the larger the advantage. From unlocking the content, to finding the bounties, to killing the bounties.

My guild can no longer grow because of guild missions. When we get new people, they see that we are unable to do guild missions and they move on. At this point, being in a small guild is equal to holding yourself back from content and gear.

I would run with you but alas, I’m in America. You could try this guild.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Arah-Vets-grouping-together-EU-servers/first#post1614597

I’m in a guild of the same type on NA servers. I’ve never failed a run with them.

I would also recommend looking for path 3 for your first runs.

www.gw2lfg.com

/15 char

Jemmi.6058:

There is a +1 button on every post, that’d be your like button you wish for

Also, nicely posted, but I disagree.

You can play casually and still plan life around the game sometimes. i.e. “MOTD Guild Mission, bounty this Wednesday at 6pm!” so a member logs in at 6pm on Wednesday to do it. Doesn’t mean they are hardcore, but they did plan around logging in at that time.

You can also play hardcore but plan your game around your life. Say you are a student, you have exams coming up and put the game on hold for awhile while you study. Prior to that you were playing lengthy hours, have 100% map completion, PVP excessively, live on the forums, take the game very seriously, know every patch, run every dungeon etc etc (one could say hardcore).

Anyway, I do not think it’s quite so simple.

+1

That guy is a real jerk!

Now this is hardcore!

Well there you go. One more reason why it’s easy to find a regular CoF 1 group.

The thing is, you don’t have to be a good warrior to do CoF 1 zerk runs. There are probably tons of fail warriors in there, but you would never know because you kill everything so fast there is no chance of a wipe. If someone goes down, everyone continues killing because they will always easily rally the downed guy.

The only thing you need for these runs to work is gear. The mesmer needs maybe an ounce of skill, but the warriors just need to show up in the right gear, no skill needed.

I do regular runs with my guardian and zerker speed runs with my warrior. There is a huge difference, especially if you’re going to do multiple runs. My guardian runs can sometimes go somewhat fast if we have a bunch of dps builds, but NEVER as fast as war/mes zerker runs.

Never has my guardian been in a group that kills the slaver within a single Time Warp. My warrior does it all the time.

Sometimes, on my guardian, I get people that can’t make it through the rolling rocks on their first few tries. This never happens with my warrior zerk runs, because no one has to run through the rocks.

Sometimes my guardian has the highest dps in the group, which means taking down the gate isn’t that fast. In my warrior runs the gate is ALWAYS melted fast.

Sometimes my guardian runs take a couple minutes to kill the Effigy. In my warrior runs it ALWAYS goes down in less than a minute.

Every single encounter is ALWAYS faster in the zerk runs. The only encounter that isn’t much faster is the Acolytes and that’s because you have to wait for them to respawn.

All that said, I have never had an issue finding regular runs with my guardian. My group pretty much always fills in less than a minute.

I don’t think hardcore has to mean that you neglect your social/work life. I believe you can be successful in life and be a hardcore gamer. On average I get in about 2 hours of play time a night. Instead of spending that time spinning around LA, I’m in dungeons, farming or working on whatever goal I currently have for the entire time. When I was working on my legendary, almost every moment in game for over two months was spent doing the activities that would get me to my legendary.

I never have trouble finding groups for CoF or AC. Sure there’s a lot of people speed spamming CoF 1 but it’s still easy to get a non-zerker group.

I’ve played since October, had 1 drop. Funny thing is, I didn’t even know I had it. I must’ve identified it in a dungeon and quickly used it to make space. Luckily it was on the character I would want it on. Although I would have sold had I known about it, I’m now glad I have it.

MikeRocks.9243:

laharl.8435:

Literally no one here would have expected this to be statistically accurate in the first place. Of course he’s spot on, just as everyone else is spot on, but they didn’t feel the need to voice the obvious. It’s simply a curiosity thing, get over yourself.

Then what you’re saying is that this is just a RNG kitten session disguised as science?

I can accept that.

Uh, no. No one is disguising it as science. Again, no one would have expected this topic to present a statistically accurate representation in the first place. But I guess things that are obvious to many aren’t so obvious to others. People that generally see the obvious don’t feel the need to voice it.

I too would like to see more hardcore content. But it can be done in Anet style. We don’t need uber stats. Rewards for extra hard content could just be skins, pets and titles. I think the hardcore content crowd just want the challenge with a reward of recognition, not bigger numbers on their gear.

marnick.4305:

I’d much rather suck at fractals than suck at life. There’s no hostility involved. Even if 4 fractals only took 4 hours, that’s still a lot of time to spend behind a screen. Most people would call such a person addicted.

So angry. He doesn’t even need to do 4 fractals everyday to have 100 rings. Even if he did, I fail to see how he sucks at life. I wish I had 4 hours of free time per day.

marnick.4305:

BadHabitZz.1856:

Might seem alot for you but i was doing high lvl fractals pretty early and before the FotM update i had ring from almost every chests thats 3-4 rings per day…

At 2 hours per fractal daily, that’s 6-8 hours per day consistently for months.

I’ve been playing FotM since the beginning too, but only managed to get up to 15 and currently have 2 dropped rings and 8 relics. I couldn’t have had more without either quitting my job or breaking my engagement.

I repeat. 100 rings don’t buy you a life.

I’ve never had a 2 hour daily.

I don’t even play a fractal every day and I have ~30 rings.

Why do gamers come on video game forums and tell other gamers to get a life because they’re playing a video game? I don’t get the needless hostility.

Are the bosses hard to solo?

Yeah, I was reading a topic earlier and hadn’t looked at the date. One comment mentioned using res rushing as a dungeon tactic. Then looked and saw the comment was two months old.

Why is The Collosus always the most expensive? The supply to demand ratio is closer than any of the other popular precursors.

Kuldred.2436:

MikeRocks.9243:

John Smith.4610:

Gasoline.2570:

Let’s see what the average will be

Statistically inaccurate

Surveying forums leads to massive biases including Sample Bias and Response Bias. In this case there are at least 3 other biases not being accounted for off the top of my head.

This is very true. The only people likely to post are either those that have opened a lot of chests and received nothing, or those who’ve opened very few and received one.

Not even accounting for the MASSIVE player base that doesn’t even touch the forums.

And this is exactly why you can NEVER obtain accurate data from a survey. OP may not like to hear it, but John Smith is spot on.

Literally no one here would have expected this to be statistically accurate in the first place. Of course he’s spot on, just as everyone else is spot on, but they didn’t feel the need to voice the obvious. It’s simply a curiosity thing, get over yourself.

I bought 50 keys. I don’t remember how many extra keys I got from chests though, about 8. I received 0 tickets, but I did get the tiger charr backpack, so I’m happy about that.

I imagine these weapons will become much more commonplace as time goes on.

I’ve yet to be kicked from a dungeon and I do tons of pug dungeons. I realize that there are people out there that grief. I also think that it should take 3 votes instead of 2 to kick. However, if you’re getting kicked from every other dungeon, I think you need to objectively look at your performance and/or behavior.

Vol.5241:

I guarantee you that if you spend nearly all that gold and you get nothing, you will get depressed and quit the game.

If you wish to gamble, always set a limit and leave yourself enough money to keep playing. In your case, I’d leave 50G alone. Gamble away the 250G.

But I always recommend saving and buying the precursor.

Nah, I won’t get depressed and quit. I’m still having lots of fun with the game. Sure I will be quite annoyed if I don’t get it, but I’ll just get back to having fun playing and build up the funds again. I’m mentally prepared to spend it all and come away with nothing, but I do hope that doesn’t happen.

And I’ve actually already limited myself. I have about 320g total, and probably another 50g in lodestones, ectos and such that I will sell off if I come away empty handed. The hard thing will be staying at my 300g limit if I still don’t have the precursor by then.

Jon.5761:

Well i just got 2 of the colossus, if u check my post if you dont believe me, took me 180g ish/ 1st i got from rares, second one i got from the exotics from the rares, ide say go for it, but thats just me anyway

Wow, that is awesome! Congratulations! Mind telling me what rares you used?

Oh man, so many different opinions. I was hoping there was one accepted way that considered the best. I guess RNG will be RNG.

My precursor, The Collosus, is usually the most expensive one on the TP. It usually ranges from 700g – 900g. I think right now it has dipped below 700g, but I don’t expect that to last long.

Ok, so I’m about to take the plunge. I’m trying to make The Juggernaut. I have a little over 300g to throw at it.

I’m wondering if it’s better to put in rares or exotics. What is generally cheaper in the long run?

Also, for the people that got precursors through the Mystic Forge, about how much did it cost you altogether?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Did you check your collectible bank tab in your bank? It’s possible to deposit Obsidian Shards, and as many as 250 of them can fit into there at once.

Omg, well I feel like an idiot now. I forgot all about that. I’m sure that’s where they’ll be after I get off work. Thank you very much!!!

Daywolf.2630:

Isaac.6041:

I think you still need at least 1 Mesmer to speed through the boulder puzzle. People are lazy u know and if u had 5 warriors trying to run through it it’s more likely one of them will die.

uhh my guard has an extra staff when needed for times like that. Fare thee well, mesmer, you are almost as useless as a ranger now, almost

Huh??

Last night I purchased a 250 count stack and a 233 count stack of Obsidian Shards from the Balthazar karma vendor. I traveled to Lion’s Arch to use the shards. Upon inspection I noticed the stack of 250 shards was gone, in it’s place was a single shard. I have double and triple checked my inventory, the missing shards are not there. My karma has also most definitely been debited for the shards.

Another interesting note is that the single Obsidian Shard will not compact into the stack of 233 shards.

I have contacted customer support and they have said there is nothing they can do. So I guess it’s 525,000 karma down the drain. I’m somewhat annoyed as now I have to grind out all that karma again. But has anyone else had an issue similar to this?

ZilentNight.5089:

Scootabuser.4915:

60 minutes / 7 minutes per run = 8.5 runs per hour
10 Gold / 8.5 Runs = 1.18 Gold Per run

Are you saying that you don’t get 1.18 Gold Per run?

Rofl 1.18g per run? hahahaha
You must be on some sort of high…

Slave driver: 16s (thats 10s + 4s(omnom) + 2s (Gilded Amulet)
Bonus Acolyte event: 10s
Final Boss: 16s
End Dungeon: 26s
16+ 10 + 16+26 = 68s

Also this is considering the end dungeon reward is 26s run afte run which is obviously not true, after first 2 runs you get DRed to half or less. Also the chests dont always drop you anything good, the average drop rate for rare/cores/lodestones is 1 in ever 3 runs. At the very most you walk away with 80s and thats your first run. This is after I give you an high estimate for everything.

Just because you love to do cof p1 doesnt mean it makes u 10g, whats more realistic is 4-5g per hr. This is simply due to ppl leaving after 1-2 runs, making groups, dungeon getting contested, people not always skipping cutscenes in time, People falling off cliffs.
Also now that quickness is nerfed, its going to be much closer to 4g/hr average from here on out. You obviously can get lucky with lodestones and exotics but thats not how you calculate average.

I imagine they’re talking about selling off all stuff too. I do CoF zerk runs but haven’t really paid attention to exactly how much I make. I can tell it’s pretty darn good for the time investment.

Also the quickness nerf barely affected the run. You can still kill the slaver in a single TW. And the effigy takes slightly longer than it did.

I very rarely specify “be experienced” in the lfg, only if I’m in a time crunch. About the only time I make any specifications is for CoF zerk runs. So if it’s not CoF 1 or 2 I usually ask if anyone is new at the beginning. Recently on Arah p3 I had a guy say “I’m new” then quickly say he will listen to direction and ping his gear if needed, as if we were going to kick him. I just like to know if anyone is new to know if I should explain as we go. I’ve also had another vet leave an instance when we found out we had 3 newbies and I wasn’t going to second a kick.

It sucks that a portion of the community are such jerks that some people are afraid to try new dungeons with pugs because of verbal abuse or being kicked.

Fallen Aeons.7650:

Have 6 legendarys

mind blown

Kumakichi.2583:

Rhukong.9547:

I would love to join and be a part of this if it is still active.

It’s very active and doing well. There are a great many players in the guild now and my advice would be pro-active about grouping. Its hard to gauge just how many groups are running thru Arah but if your not being asked then start asking others. Don’t wait for the groups to ask you.

Still seems active. Make sure to set your status to lfg. Also get in on scheduled groups using the page noted in the guild message.

There’s some very good players in the guild. Since I ran my first p3 with obal, I’ve been doing p3 with a semi-regular group from the guild, always smooth runs btw. I’ve now ran p3 with Arah newbies numerous times, usually pretty smooth, I just explain things along the way. Last night I ran my first p2 with a few different people from the guild. Usually with pugs or with my guild I’m leading the pack. Last night was a humbling experience being the weak link. I died multiple times, holding the party up. But everyone was super cool and patient, they even back tracked to help me get through.

Vol.5241:

Do people still take non mesmer/zerker warriors in Cof?

Try gw2lfg. Most groups don’t care what class you are. Even non zerk groups can manage 10 minutes.

I have a maxed warrior and guardian. I find guardian to be the most useful in the hardest dungeons. 30+ fractals and Arah.

Check out the elemental and guardian subforums here. There is a wealth of build information.

Coults.8492:

Why full berserker? I run a combo of berserker/knight on a shout guardian and run fine with other toons. Haven’t killed slave driver in 6 seconds tho, closer to 20 – 30 seconds.

Full zerker to kill fast of course. I generally run my guardian with Knight’s and some zerker as well. But I go full zerker in CoF 1 and other areas where we might have a full zerker team.

@Laharl: Sorry for the miscommunication, we don’t kick people mid run over things like that unless they’re either doing it frequently after we’ve asked them not to and they’ve also been doing some other things on that list. The main thing that comes into play on that category is when they do it mid-‘boss’ fight and cause unnecessary deaths (usually their own) or something to that extent.

You are correct that the majority of the time it is more annoying than kickable. I’ll edit the original post to indicate that.

My apologies for misunderstanding. You seem quite reasonable. Maybe with some editing, this post could be used a sticky. As long as it’s clear that kicking is an absolute last resort, then maybe this could help minimize kicking.

This does not need a sticky. It sounds like your group is quite harsh with the kicking. Level scaling has been adjusted, lower level characters are much more effective. Kicking people for things like pinging loot or typing is ridiculous. Sure misused Time Warps are slightly annoying, but not kickable. Same with a few other things, sure annoying, but not kickable.

The fact you’ve kicked and blocked “large amounts” makes you sound pretty ruthless. Maybe we need an etiquette of when not to kick.

Iehova.9518:

laharl.8435:

You seem to misunderstand the meaning of disorganized and sloppy.

A bunch of trakittenalking drunks recruited from guild chat a disorganized and sloppy group DOES make.

Maybe you should do game where you guys aren’t playing so sloppily and post it. You should easily have the fastest lupi kill evar if you actually try, since you are so completely awesome.