Guild Wars 2

I don’t know that there’s a guide on trash running. You could just look at some runs from a guardians point of view.

Guardian is pretty easy. Staff 3 and Retreat for swiftness, Staff 5 can be useful for stopping mobs. You can use Contemplation of Purity and Virtue of Resolve (traited) for condi removal. Stand Your Ground for stability. Then between 3 aegis’s (Retreat, 2 Virtue of Courage) focus 5 (3 blocks), Shelter and Renewed Focus (invulns), you have the tools to easily make it through any trash run.

Part of the key for the harder runs is staying out of combat so you can run faster. Take the spider room in p2 for example. Make sure you have an aegis going in, as soon as it’s wiped, aegis again. You can easily get through without even entering combat.

IrisTheCasual.3742:

I think I’m gonna give up level 50 and just pugging 30 and below for a change then.

Anyways, I’m still sad. Need a hug \o/

hugs

If it’s that group I played with you that once, then you’re probably better off, for sanity’s sake.

I would check out Wethospu’s and Dro’s (Goku) videos and Purple Miku made a post in the warrior subsection with useful info a while back.

Haha, I’ve been duoing with lots of [Noob]s lately. It has been quite fun!

Aden Celeste.3650:

You would be surprised just how much the challenge in this game has diminished because of the stacking phenomenon. Just yesterday I went to COE with a pug group and they were all completely wiped by alpha about 3 times in a row because Alpha was moving more than usual and left the corner a lot (I survived all three times after seeing the group die extremely quickly and running away), until at one point I said: Let me kill it. They agreed, and Alpha was dead in about 3 minutes.

Thing is, most people want to make believe that stacking is a sound strategy, when in reality it may not be so. I know some things are best to stack to, but if it weakens your individual skills and abilities to adapt to random situations, then whats the point?

So the challenge is diminished because of stacking or stacking is hard? Not sure which..

Icewolfnector.1487:

Tree.3916:

Instead of utilizing the official forums to post unfounded complaints that most people don’t want to read, my honest advice from you is to start a blog where you can write things like this to your heart’s content.

First of all, you are neither a dev nor a moderator in this forum, so you have no right to tell me what I can and what I can’t write here.
Furthermore if people don’t want to read it, than why are you here?
What about making your own blog and complain there about posts you don’t like instead of this forum?

Sorry, but I don’t get why all of this hostile stuff here is really necessary. Sometimes people can get carried away by there emotions, exaggerate and stuff, but different people also make different experiences. There isn’t always only one truth.

Onwards…
I have to admit, maybe I exaggerated a bit in some points. But I was just so frustrated yesterday, because the last days I played, it was so difficult for me finding a proper group and everyone everywhere just stacked. Even in fractals, where I thought it wasn’t so popular like in AC.
It took me ages to form a party when I tried to make my own in fractals. Some people joined here and there but it just took to long and they left again and again.
Then I was kicked from a dungeon group where I was asked if I couldn’t change to a warrior or guardian.
Of course I don’t join those groups which say “full zerker speed run heavys only”.
All that just made me furious and I had to get this of my chest as it was kind of bothering me for some time now since I started to play actively again.

So now, why the title about “heavys”?
Mainly because they really make the whole stacking so common and successful. From what I have experienced it doesn’t really work with medium and light armour groups.
I mean, it’s not like I don’t like warrior or guardian, I also play them myself but the stacking stuff with them just annoyed me more and more.

Battledoll.1803:

Stacking can be viewed as “putting yourself at strategic position”. It has it purpose, a well thought one.

You have a Point there I agree and I’m sure there are people who still have a lot of fun with stacking, I never ruled that out. It just isn’t for me anymore.

Well I guess I just have to find a guild that has no problems with my fickle playing habits XD

Many of the forum regulars here play on a much higher skill level than the pugs you’re seeing in the lfg. They know the game and the mechanics much better. Ele’s are very sought after for any real speed run. Thieves and Mesmers are great for many paths. Stacking warriors is generally a no no for the fastest runs. And many real speed runs don’t include a guardian. Granted, these are optimal conditions.

Sure, there are lots of heavy only lfg’s. Partly because those stay on the lfg longer since they take longer to fill and partly because they don’t really know what constitutes as optimal. Personally, if I pugged more often, I’d exclude guardians because most are a horrible drain on the team. But it’s still remarkably easy to find groups with no prerequisite or to start your own.

Saying heavies ruined the fun in your title is kind asking for things to get heated.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

It wouldn’t. Zerk is optimal now because its the fastest way to get through dungeons, but mainly because of the bad design, poor mechanics, and certain holes in the game design(like corner stacking). If that was gone then zerk wouldn’t be optimal because it would be too difficult. The thing is there is nothing difficult baout running zerk now hen you can skip mobs or corner stack them in dungeons.

It’s not that difficult to run zerk even if you don;t corner LoS or skip.

Stacking is just full melee, people still need to dodge block reflect etc.

Being able to run 5 zerks – there is nothing wrong with that. From the point of view of a dark souls player (or any legit action game player) there REALLY isn’t anything wrong with that unless one is a crappy DS player.

Only thing i agree on is AI overhaul for more interesting bosses, 5-man zerk should still be as effective.

Most effective? Maybe, but not nearly as easy. Zerk for having very high dps by forcing the player to be more skilled on timing their skills, positioning, and dodges.

Easy? Tanky sets are the easy ones. Haven’t you seen the vids of Clerics tanking Alpha or running full Arah paths without dodging? Zerkers can’t do that, they have to use active mitigation to avoid damage. You’re watching speed runs, seeing big numbers and things dying fast and not realizing there’s more going on than that. It’s insanely easy for Clerics to finish any dungeon. Zerker will finish it faster obviously, but they have to work for it.

Rainweaver.7302:

Xia.3485:

I’m not a big fan of a death penalty. I do feel bosses should stomp players dead when they go down. Same with normal mobs, they should know how to stomp you.

I was not advocating death penalty, I just dont think you should have both the rally system and a non-existent penalty. As it stands, the only risk you have of dying is losing like 3 silver and a minute or two of your time walking back (maybe more if it’s WvW).

I really like your idea though. Being required to stomp toxic alliance mobs was a good start, hopefully they elaborate it more, both for stomping mobs and getting stomped by them.

laharl.8435:

Ok, so complain about the rally system in the forum and make better suggestions. But you may as well use the system while it’s in place.

There have been several complains about the rally system in this forum, specially regarding spvp. Yeah, you should use it while it’s in place (I do that, after all), but I don’t think it makes much sense to call people unskilled for not using a system that, in my opinion, trivializes skill in the first place (as in not getting downed).

I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re unskilled for not using the system, just ignorant of mechanics or possibly has bad combat awareness (which could be considered unskilled).

Embrace The Bold.7619:

Thaddeus.4891:

My main is a guardian so i never had any problem with the lack of reflect, aegis, stability, etc. But for the last couple month i play more on my Warrior and Ele for the speed clear.

It always frustrating to see people not using the the strength of the profession.

You don’t bind Malrona to the wall in TA before using your wall to reflect her AoE? Ok, if you are the only one with reflect it can be dangerous wihtout enough DPS.

But if you go melee the final Tree in the UP path and don’t bring neither wall of SoA, then you make me sad.

If you rush to stack for Golems or Bomber in SE, but don’t put a Wall of reflection. My little guardian heart broke a little more each time.

My personal fav is when I ask the guardian to use WoR on malorana so we can melee her. He puts it in front of himself as he continues spamming staff 1. GUARDIANS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THAT! the only time you should EVER use staff is to be a lawnmower THAT’S IT. Seriously! Stop its painful to watch like an ele using ice bow for its auto attack (if you do that I will cry irl).

Rant aside at the current state of the game the best you can do is run pugs tell people what to use and when and if they refuse kick them. If everyone were to do this they would either quit or get better. Unfortunately this will never happen.

You can melee just fine without a reflect.

The proper way to reflect that encounter is to let yourself get hit with her poison spit first. Do not Condi cleanse it (guard should run shelter, not signet). Then reflect the next attack which will be aoe circle projectiles. Huge damage and can insta-kill.

SkyShroud.2865:

Rainweaver.7302:

Some people are complaining about others who don’t use the rally system properly, but in my opinion the whole rally mechanic contributes to the “noob bubble”.

What I see in most speed-run dungeon/fractals groups are people spamming their DPS rotations and not caring about getting downed, and still managing to successfully clear the content, simply because they keep rallying. This game already has an almost non-existent death penalty, so why make death even harder to happen?

Aww, I love the rally system. There are times when I get surrounded and thanks to the rally system, I managed to clear all.

However, there are people who didn’t take advantage of the rally system. When they are down, they didn’t take the initiative to hit a dying mobs or players to rally themselves up. They continue to allow themselves to remain down. I guess this also draw the lines between skilled and unskilled players.

Exactly. If I down, I target a close mob that is almost dead. Some players will kill the mob, some will stop dps to res….

Rainweaver.7302:

Some people are complaining about others who don’t use the rally system properly, but in my opinion the whole rally mechanic contributes to the “noob bubble”.

What I see in most speed-run dungeon/fractals groups are people spamming their DPS rotations and not caring about getting downed, and still managing to successfully clear the content, simply because they keep rallying. This game already has an almost non-existent death penalty, so why make death even harder to happen?

Ok, so complain about the rally system in the forum and make better suggestions. But you may as well use the system while it’s in place.

Lydell.8713:

OldSomalia.6180:

I would love to play a GW2 where people used consumables, (…)

I use food and oil in WvW extensively (i.e. if I’m not using them, it’s cause I forgot to refresh them.) Never ever felt the need to use the in PVE, though. It feels like adding a pistol on top of the tank that’s about to shoot fish in a barrel.

I’ll never understand people that say they only like to play optimally in one game mode. Makes me think they probably aren’t playing optimally in pvp either, probably using bad builds, bad tactics etc. just like they do in pve.

I wouldn’t pug most dungeons with 5 warriors. I don’t mind doing it with the guild for fun sometimes, but pugs are going to get into trouble on many paths with that setup.

tom.7468:

laharl.8435:

tom.7468:

Spiuk.8421:

Because it would be boring and groups would suck.

yea man warrior is just so underpowered worst in everything anet plz make us viable kthxbai

Sorry but 5 warrior groups are not as good as you seem to think they are.

That’s why they need to be buffed.

No, just need to diversify the party for optimal results, kind of. Stacking ele’s will result in more dps, but only one warrior is needed.

tom.7468:

Spiuk.8421:

Because it would be boring and groups would suck.

yea man warrior is just so underpowered worst in everything anet plz make us viable kthxbai

Sorry but 5 warrior groups are not as good as you seem to think they are.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I’m not watching the video or going to get into the normal politics of best PvE practices, but perhaps he was just demonstrating the possibility of personal face tanking.

/shrug.

I’ll play along and pretend that’s a good thing for a second. So then why not pull the golems together? It’s pretty standard that that’s the guardians job there. Heck, then he could prove his true awesomeness and face tank them all together, lol. Maybe the whole point of clerics is to go slow and improve the chances for a wipe, so pulling them together would go against that philosophy.

That was bad guardian play regardless of build.

/shrug

Anyway, we’ve already seen the videos of not dodging alpha in Clerics, even running entire paths without dodging and only using auto attacks. We already know it takes no skill to run in that gear, we really don’t need more proof.

“And if you think this looks good, wait until you see its full potential.”

I only watched 20 seconds and was thinking how bad it looked. He didn’t pull the golems together in Uncategorized, he was meleeing Archdiviner without using blocks or even trying to dodge his hammer smash, not using los when the rest of his team was (in the first 20 seconds!). I’d rather not learn guardian from a bad guardian.

Wow, I just decided to read the comments. This player base does not know this game…

Good one.

Bright’s ode to the cof p1 farmers to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody is a classic!

TooBz.3065:

I think the skill of the average player is fine. I’ve never run anything with people who are as bad as people here are pretending.

Most people dodge. Few people use consumables in PvE. But most use then in WvW. Frankly, they aren’t necessary to steamroll most of the content.

The skill gap from one player to another in this game can be immense. However, you only notice as you become more skilled and start playing will very skilled people. The lions share of this community thinks they’re skilled, but aren’t.

Darkobra.6439:

You can get through 99% of this game without realising you’re doing it. You can run any build, any class and succeed. PvE failure is impossible. Nobody has felt a need to grow or play better because of this. It’s why other games are becoming more and more appealing.

In my opinion, a 12 minute cof1 or a 1 hour arah path is a fail. It’s all relative.

Pulling AC bosses to walls for fgs has been a big thing among some groups for a long time (since before pugs even knew about fgs). It was one of the reasons I left an old guild, we’d spend too long getting them to the side when they could’ve already been dead. I tend to prefer jumping on them as soon as you can damage them. They all die so fast anyway, especially ghost eater.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Let me ask a fair question, to those that do not understand the argument I’m making about boss tells. Why don’t any of the bosses have an attack as clear as this one?

http://tinyurl.com/pma39bc

There are plenty of bosses in GW2 that have these massive aoe attacks that hit in a huge radius. But instead of actually seeing a large sphere-shaped explosion that grows in size, along with a clear sound effect, we get a big red circle on the ground and no sound effect.

I have to ask, why? Why would that be bad? Surely clear visualization is vastly superior to just a red ring? It would help the timing immensely. We would no longer have to watch for red circles, and could instead simply look and listen to what was happening on the screen.

If you haven’t noticed enemy animations, you’re really missing a whole depth to the game. It seems to me, the communication disconnect here is that you are playing the game on a very casual level, thus you really haven’t delved into the mechanics like many in this forum. It is clear through reading your posts you don’t have a very deep grasp on the game yet.

In my opinion, optional bosses should be extremely hard. Like Final Fantasy, the hardest bosses in the game are optional, they’re there for the people that want the challenge. If you don’t want the challenge, walk on by.

Warrior is fastest. Equip sword/warhorn and greatsword. Swiftness with signet of rage and war horn 4. Use sword 2, gs 3, gs 5 and Bulls Rush. You’re basically perma swiftness, perma gap closer, nothing can keep up with you.

The highest possible dps team in the game is 3 ele’s, 1 warrior and 1 ranger when your enemy is on a wall. When not on a wall it’s 3 ele’s, 1 warrior and 1 mesmer.

Ranger is included in the absolute highest attainable dps in the game. And only one warrior is included. Build your ranger good and you’re welcome in good speed run groups.

Shield was fixed months ago I believe.

A certain “hated” person bragging about kicking arah sellers. This is after I whispered him that he was too slow in kicking me.

Path 2 and 3 are both pretty easy duo, I used to duo them fairly often without voice chat playing sloppy as hell (as usual). Path 4 takes more skill and coordination, but is actually pretty fun. Path 1 you need 4 people at Shaggroth, otherwise I’d say it’s the easiest to solo or duo.

As far as skills for each encounter, I’d check out YouTube. Each encounter is different and that’s a lot to list. Joeythecreator is the only solo guardian vids I can think of offhand, but I’m sure there’s more.

I’m sure you probably make any class work with smart use of consumables like harpy feathers, whisper spy kit, portals etc. Try it out with your ranger!

I wouldn’t say soloing is faceroll with warrior. But some classes are better equipped for it.

Warrior obviously. But thief can be a good choice for p3. Easy stealth for the 4 at the door and gorrilas, solo orbs, lots of mobility for the wraithlord event.

Just try noting which skills you have that are finishers, when you see a field, blast it. For dungeons, fire fields are very common. Here is a vid where we made good use of fire fields for high dps throughout the run.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8W38rEAFY9U&feature=youtu.be

I’ve sent 200g via mail a few times, never had an issue.

I’ve personally never noticed clipping with it, but I’m also not as bothered by clipping as many people.

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Hmmm…. Yeah, you’re right. I’ve only seen “speed” videos. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a warrior not fight him against the wall. If anyone’s got a link to said videos, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

Here’s a Goku warrior no wall.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzu58sgTn1w

draconx.3102:

laharl.8435:

Basically just not using the wall would be the “legit” way. Putting lupi in the wall trivializes phase 3. Fighting him away from the wall requires better reflexes and better management of endurance.

I always have a hard time keeping him away from the wall in phase 1. Have to constantly move around to avoid locusts and end up inadvertantly pushing in the wrong direction

Fortunately he’s a bit easier to bring back to the middle in phase 2. As a mesmer, I wouldn’t want to fight in the wall on phase 3 or I’d miss all the opportunities to reflect his rapid fire

You can cheat with that too using wall. You can basically control when he can use frenzied blast. If your reflect is on cd, simply step onto his circle. Once it’s off cd, back out to just out of circle (out of bubble range, but in frenzied blast range). You can effectively make him not use frenzied blast when you don’t want him to and give him the opportunity to use it when your reflect is ready.

As for keeping him away from wall, as long as you don’t go in his circle, he won’t move in phase 1. I personally just strafe along the side of him, but I’ve also never done mesmer and I hear phase 1 can be a kitten.

Basically just not using the wall would be the “legit” way. Putting lupi in the wall trivializes phase 3. Fighting him away from the wall requires better reflexes and better management of endurance.

Most solo’s you’ve seen were probably for speed, in which wall is better, especially for warror or ele. But soloing away from the wall is more an exercise in skill.

Eh, tiny mistake in an otherwise solid guide. This guide gave me a little more faith in the dev team.

Dynnen.6405:

Meta means that you can’t balance kitten. I kittening hate that word with a passion. In DAoC you had balancing patches every 1-3 weeks. In this there has been stupid mechanics that have survived for nearly half a year…if not longer.

Another thing that I’ve always wondered…is it really night time in the instance? My eternity is Sunrise just as much as it is Twilight doing fractal 50s and the dungeons that I occasionally do.

If you watched that entire video that was posted you can see how little the class he understands outside of how it looks on paper. Having just one condi doesn’t work in any game mode so why is he even mentioning it…if you got off your horse once and awhile Mr White Knight you might eventually see how the flaws in the production of this game led to a poor foundation to build on. Also the patches to the game during the 3 open beta weekends were the worst thing got happen to this game…even worse than the 6.5 months of warrior buffs.

Also you signature…Aiming solely for the end game isn’t like renting a movie and skipping to the end. Its like going to a Mongolian BBQ joint and skipping all the useless crap you could fill your bowl with and sticking to the meat and veggies. The end game is where the game developers are supposed to show us an extremely challenging pve game, or a very dynamic pvp game. Currently we have wvw thats plagued by: aoe cap, small maps, condi spam, and a pretty big list of other problems. PvE that mainly focuses around moving through the dungeon as fast as possible, finding some trick to beating the boss, or getting 1 shot in lvl 50 fractals. And a completely broken PvP game. So when people like me play through an MMO and get the enjoyment out of it and expect to find something difficult and challenging at the end of the rabbit hole, you should understand that world exploration, item skin grinds, and massive zerg pve events was not what we were looking for.

Oh, I see. You don’t actually know anything about the game. Makes sense now.

Dynnen.6405:

laharl.8435:

Dynnen.6405:

1) Burning DPS build is pretty straight forward…take all the burning traits
2) This video shows how little they know about how this game actually works.
3) Sigil of night is really powerful?……………………………………………………………………………wow

Hmm, this video made me think they’re actually starting to figure the game out. And 10% damage increase from a sigil? Yeah, that’s pretty kitten good.

So…you swap it out when night time comes everytime? I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or serious =P

Min-maxers are crazy like that, swapping weapons and such. I have night weapons, stacking weapons, arah weapons, lupi specific weapons, cm weapons and force weapons for everything else. But I like to really min-max, one could just have force and stacking sets or night, force and stacking sets.

spoj.9672:

You have enough vuln with ranger, 3 ele and 1 war though. And engi has kitten dps so.

Ah, I haven’t run with that setup in an organized way, so I didn’t know if they could keep full vuln

My thinking was 3 ele’s so everyone would have an fgs. Warrior would run OMM instead of FGJ.

When I ran with 3 ele’s, 1 war and 1 engi, when we weren’t using fgs the war and engi gave 25 vuln.

Ran with 3 ele’s, 1 warrior and 1 engi before. It was some pretty sweet dps.

Mmm, 3 ele, 1 warrior, 1 ranger.

I hate how on guardian if you have aegis up, that ranged attack will take it, even though the attack wouldn’t have hit you. I also suspect the same is happening in phase 2 during the barrage. I’ll use aegis and stand in my wall and it will always take the aegis even when solo and there are very few aoe, when you can often stand in the wall and not get hit at all without aegis. That sounds confusing…

Iris Ng.9845:

Play how you want, as long as you have the skills to back yourself up. I went ahead and asked a friend to solo Queen Spider in his own way. We all know the person is wearing zerk, and never an advocate for stacking :p He used his traits and utilities to their fullest potential. What I’m trying to say here is:

-The game is not that easy for an average player. It seems easy only to some who actually have perfected their skills and knowledge.
- Saying that dungeons are easy with berserker gears alone is completely delusional.
- Cleric or any supportive build/gears make dungeons easier, but zerker makes completing them faster.
- If you don’t want to follow the meta and want to enjoy the challenge, then don’t do it.
- If you want the game to change to encourage more support/control, chances are zerkers still triumph, because everyone has access to healing and utilities, remember?
- The only rational thing to do is playing the way you want but not messing around with others.

Disclaimer: I purposely died so that Sandy could solo. And yes, it was my monumental effort to help clear the arena of spider hatchlings and gargoyles. This picture is by no means an indication of my skills :’p

You needed a PVT to scrape your lame zerker butt off the floor!

Corpse Flakes.5369:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Here we go with another thread which causes me to feel woe for humanity.

“Lol zerk bads” “lol zerk no skill” “lolpvt4eva” y’all don’t seem to get that if it was sooooooo easy then everyone would be soloing Lupicus. But you aren’t, and you can’t, and it’s hard for some of us even in 5 player parties to do a fight in less time than a coordinated skilled player can solo.

I get that you don’t want to feel inferior…. But when you say stuff like this it’s just… Sad. :/

Edit: btw OP I think your idea is great.

Lupicus really isn’t that hard. I’ve soloed him on my Cleric/soldier Guardian, my Berserker/Valk thief, and my knights/soldiers necro. It’s not really even the armor it’s about knowing the fight.

Now do it without training wheels.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Mystic.5934:

I like to make parties named “absolutely no zerkers allowed” because I don’t want to spend the entire run scraping you off the floor.

This comment never gets old.

It’s a classic!

spoj.9672:

Still dont understand why people think theres no support or control in the meta. We use it more than the average player. Because we actually know how it works. We understand defiant and when to interrupt bosses and when to strip those defiant stacks. We understand when to position mobs. We understand when to soft cc and kite. We understand when to use debuffs and buffs to reduce risk and speed up kill times.

Im not just making this up. I run full meta but I wont shy away from using a hammer on my warrior in fractals in certain situations. There are plenty of places where you should adapt. The problem comes that in regular dungeons its too easy to keep pretty much the optimal dps stuff and make it work.

People watch record run videos and see big numbers and stuff dying fast . That’s all they know, they don’t know what else is going on so they just assume all it takes is dps and nothing else.

This same topic is going in General Discussion with even more people that don’t understand the game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/LFG-tool-zerk-nerf

Dual.8953:

haviz.1340:

What stops you from running utility centered specs? Random pugs?

The meta. If you want to be considered a respectable dungeoneer, you have to cast your pure utility build aside and run a meta build; or parties will only accept you except out of charity or apathy. (more common then it sounds) I guess it really all comes down to pride.

Lol, seriously is there some totally different lfg tool out there? The majority of lfg’s have no prerequisite.