Guild Wars 2

iHeartbound.3074:

There should be absolutely zero reason that you can’t access Lion Arch if you aren’t level 35. It seems like you are just pushing EVEN MORE reasons on someone that they should buy HoT since that removes the level needed. My friend, a long time WoW player has started playing Gw2 with me. He was really looking forward to Halloween events coming up, and watched some old videos. But yet.. he can’t access this event till level 35!? We tried running there, pvp portal to lions arch.. Nothing works. You are punishing new players or people who maybe come to check out the game & try the halloween event? This also hurts you. I have never in my years of gaming played an MMO that made you have to be a certain level to participate in a festival event. You guys should remove the level 35 needed for festivals.

Your viewpoint is understandable but try to look at it from ours too. There are many people that believe even GW2 going free to play was a mistake. This was certainly not even an option when I got the core game for abt full price.

Therefore why do u feel u deserve more, given that ur not willing to spend a single cent on either the core game or the expansion? You mentioned your friend was a WoW veteran.. then maybe he would feel more comfortable with GW2 necessitating a $15/month subscription fee with only the initial month given free?

If you like the game so far, then show them that you support it by purchasing it.. Plus you get a much better price than before, about $15 or so each for the core game and HoT. This game is kind enough to not req a subscription, otherwise I wouldn’t even have considered it. You should never feel you are forced to do anything, true.. but I don’t think even WoW was as lenient to new players. If I remember correctly they don’t let new players lvl past 20? Just something to think about.

It will be thanksgiving in abt a month which means that ostensibly u should work on being thankful for what u are given, esp in a given scenario where not even a single cent is being asked of you. If you are that stringent on not having to spend more money than u have to, then there’s always black Friday and similar deals to consider before making the final decision. No one’s forcing you to do anything, you are essentially ‘free to play’ which for a long time as I mentioned was not even an option. Therefore I don’t understand how you feel they are punishing you to the extent u claim they are.

Fluffball.8307:

Toolbox.9375:

Fluffball.8307:

Warrior. It’s been the most consistent profession in GW2’s history. Very rarely is it out of meta in any game mode.

Really? o.o Is it just for their damage, or can they provide good support?

Banners and Phalanx Strength are staples of group support. They also have good damage. And you can trust a total noob to play a warrior well since they’re so simple. Really warriors have excelled at nearly everything since launch.

I’m pretty sure this guy is trolling lol he’s made at least 1 similar post to this previously and he’s always like “warrior is the only solution to any profession question” since he’s literally said something along those lines before.

Also I can agree that warriors are easy to play and that any total noob can play one competently, but ask yourself if that’s the case do you really want to limit yourself to playing a class that requires zero skill as he implies? It seems like honestly there are more players that have warrior in exclusion to any other class. As a direct result of this, most raid groups that post asking for PS warrior get one within the min, since its brain-dead and so easy to play. Whereas they post for any other class that requires significantly more skill and minimal room for error, such as chrono, ele, druid – then yeah those roles take much longer to fill.

It goes without saying, you don’t want to limit yourself to an easy, boring class when there are so many better options out there. It seems like you would make a competent player therefore you ought to take on a class more your caliber, like say chrono, ele, even necro. Even a guardian outputs way more dps than your average PS warrior and is just as useful in other game modes like pvp .. therefore do not ever limit yourself!

Chrono is not as strong in dps, but they have excellent group support and can provide tons of excellent boons like quickness and alacrity and help reflect hits or pull mobs together as needed. They make excellent tanks or support, even a condi build that’s being put together for them. Most raid groups nowadays require 2 chrono minimum, or at least they will soon.

Ele can play a variety of roles, dps, support (sustained but lower heal than druid), as well as condi. Yes they are more susceptible to dmg but usually this is compensated with a ranged wep like staff that provides defensive capabilities as well as being safe from melee-punishing mechanics that are a large part of fractals, for example. Besides which, once u figure out the ins and outs of the class u can certainly become better at surviving and mitigating dmg, at times even better than a heavy class like warrior! This class requires the highest amt of skill out of any other one imo so be prepared to work hard, the rewards are certainly worth it.

Again, feel free to try out diff classes to find one that meshes with your playstyle the most. It’s never a good idea to base ur choice of class on which is meta atm, as meta is always changing and classes dropping in/out of favor.. for example, necro at one point was so despised for pve they were outright kicked from groups sometimes, whereas now u see posts for 5 necro groups in high lvl fractals all the time. I will tell u honestly I feel handicapped as a warrior because at any one point my group can easily kick me and replace me with another in the matter of a heartbeat, as well in most raid bosses you only need to stack 1 warrior in a 10man group and easily 3-5x as many eles by comparison. These groups are used to doing this for a reason, it’s not hard to imagine why that is. Anyway hope this post was helpful to u

I mean I’ve done this boss a couple times and honestly with good group he’s easy like u die more often from the tiles under ur feet giving way than from boss continuously zapping u or something. I used to carry a stun break but since we did so well before I figure why not give it a shot who cares abt stun break like when will I ever need that. Also I was only carrying one banner cos yeah I recognize where it’s useful but it was rather for just me, and rest signets to help me dps better. Yeah of course I’m not stuck on meta and believe me when it’s needed I swap out for survivability but this boss is kinda a joke and if wasn’t for his melee launch that u don’t know when he’s gonna use even if it’s once in the whole fight then yeah u wouldn’t need stunbreak otherwise. Like I said sometimes it pays to be bold, other times not so much.

I do know that headbutt is a stun break, but it’s a real problem this fight bc if u use it without thinking like one of the tiles is missing in the direction ur facing, then u will fall headfirst to ur death so it’s gonna be a tough decision. Like in this case I was surrounded on almost all sides by empty tiles, so I don’t wanna be hasty in doing anything. Plus with headbutt ur always looking to use it off cd so ur not really thinking about stun break most of the time. I think mine was on cd too at the time.. but even if it wasn’t it would’ve done more harm than help. I mean I get what ur saying but it’s not exactly the best option for stun break here and when u need it it would usually be on cd anyway. all other heavy classes have access to more boons as well as an additional stun break outside of utility, but war doesn’t have this and even with the elite it’s not reliable most of the time tbh

As is always the case, crafting is always cheaper but as well more time-consuming since it requires so many currencies and mats. When I made sunrise and later twilight, the cost for both in regards was roughly 1.2k gold, though the precursor ended up being a huge portion of that since it sold on tp for around 700-900g at the time, but I imagine it’s a lot cheaper now cos of precursor crafting at all.

So think of this way would u wanna buy out legendary for 2k or craft one for half that much if you knew it take u 2-3 months to farm for all the necessary mats. As to which is faster route it generally depends how much gold u can make and how quickly. If you’re making around 20g a day then yeah I’d craft and u can do the math on whether it’s less time consuming to buy precursor from tp or craft it, but if u are earning alot more then yeah it might just make more sense to sit on ur gold and then later buy out the legendary since it would be faster. Again up to u what u wanna do but in general crafting is always cheaper than tp price except for a few choice exceptions which is actually not the case. Since it’s related to precursor crafting then I will list one example I used for Eureka crafting which I’m almost done with:

• Oiled Small Ancient Haft – base cost (mats): 4.2g, buy order (tp): 1g

So yeah u can see the difference between these two options. When using the wiki u can use ‘show base ingredients’ and it’ll automatically calc the mats cost so u don’t have to. Though sometimes there are workarounds that actually save even more cost from what wiki states, but I won’t bother listing these as u can figure them out

I didn’t mean aegis by itself, rather the virtue that grants it.. and yeah I had to read up on it cos it’s been years since I played guard but I remember there was some trait that grant u stunbreak when u activated that virtue or whatever. It’s some trait in virtues line and I guess it’s still part of guard meta so again.. not fair how easy it is for some. Look at other classes and u will see what i mean

I was wrong abt ele I guess I was talking abt their focus offhand skill in earth, even tho it’s insta cast it doesn’t rly break stun. But look they got a minor trait or something that meta recommends they take if they need it, my guess it’s not too bad a dps loss if they do take it. In both cases just as the guard one, it’s just insta stun break and has no reqs other than it being off cd. Plus it’s not utility slot skill so they don’t have to sacrifice any amount of dps either.

Rev obviously has stun break on changing stances, from a minor trait that’s actually part of their current meta. So considering that legends don’t take long to swap and the fact that they don’t have to sacrifice any dps either for this useful skill that they have access to basically all the time, yeah there also in better place than warrior.

I don’t know much about other classes or their elite specs, haven’t played thief/mes in ages either but I’m abt 80% sure they have some sort of easy access to stun break aside from slotting utilities or something, or even if they have to its technically considered meta since small dps loss. Again no clue whatsoever abt necro/ranger or others since I don’t have them, but my hunch is they have something similar to prev ones.

So finally we come full circle back to warrior, which again – meta traitlines have nothing helpful for stun breaks, aside from a trait in berserker line that grants stun break on going berserk, but let’s be serious that seems like a pretty significant dps loss to take that trait hence why it’s not even considered in meta. Plus look to activate berserk mode there are two very hardset reqs, 1) you have to not be in berserk and off cd which isn’t as likely and 2) you need full adren. So yeah the fact that adren takes so long to build up and u can’t exactly build it up immediately when ur cc’d like knockdown or stun, makes the trait overall useless as compared to what other classes have. This in turn means u have no other option but to take stun break as utility skill which results in more than a little dps loss since u would be giving up banners or signets. I mean let’s face it like in raids where ur expected to bring two banners and stuff u don’t exactly have a free utility skill either, which basically means ur kittened as compared to other classes cos u don’t have any stun break whatsoever so just have to rely on others or not get cc’d at all. I mean tell me other classes have this same problem and ill believe u cos idk really

Fluffball.8307:

Warrior is always the answer for any profession-related question. Anet gives them everything. They’re dead easy to play, they’re impossible to kill, they have range, melee, condi, power, speed, group support, solo damage, etc. The anet logo might as well be a warrior.

While the strength of ur faith and belief in our class is much appreciated, sadly no there are too many warriors as is and most groups don’t need more than 1-2. Take a look at raids and how often u find urself stacking 3+ warriors that ur forced to kick one of them. So yeah warrior easy mode faceroll everything is kinda exaggerated, necro if anyone is deserving of that high praise lol given how they faceroll everything much easier I mean do u see 5 warrior groups in high lvl fractals ever succeeding lol no it’s a joke..

I confirm I die in wvw about once every 5min, some from solo situation when thief gank me and rest in zerg cos I’m too lazy to swap out zerk gear. I mean I think I’m not a bad warrior but let’s see when I type /deaths it just politely informs me I have more than 10k deaths so yeah.. we certainly die a lot. Sadly no our class is lacking in many areas like no boons like regen, prot or even fury with meta now and ye on top of that many feel it’s simple mechanics so it’s honestly overplayed more than ever atm. I’m all for class diversity tbh

hornswroggle.8023:

Get me the name of ONE weapon skill that breaks stun! Because I can’t find one for the life of me, at least not on “almost any other class”.
Letalone how many warrior stances break stun….

To quote myself my exact words were ‘wep skills or something’ so yeah I didn’t rly mean wep skills but I mean let’s face it almost every other class has some form of stun break outside their utility even if they have to trait for it, even if they trait for it that’s ok cos technically it’s considered meta.

I.e. rev has stance change to break stun (from a minor trait or somthing), ele has attune swap or rock mode if I’m remember this correctly, guard has aegis of course, I mean tell me if I’m wrong cos I don’t know classes like ranger and necro but it seems like almost any other class can bring some kind of stun break outside of utility or even if they have to without sacrificing much dps for the sake of it like say only needing to use it once per encounter if ever

I don’t mind honestly the nerf on necro and it wasn’t a direct nerf either cos those minions were way out of hand either way u ask me..

not only cos I don’t play necro neither. I tell u a story of a random pug story mayb like a day ago at bloomhunger we had 2 necro in grp very high ap much wow and everyone knows necro used to running selfish build so it’s ok. I manage to do fine melee every time I never down but look they have multiple down and at last phase ye it’s hard so we got 3 dead body piling up including a necro. What the other surviving necro do well why dps boss when at 10% right so he just focused on ressing dead body entire time. I do well ok I am keep his attention and kite away but I down as I run away from boss and some unseen aoe circles get me and I’m like help wtf are u doing (cos I’m downed long time and boss charges instead of leaps, plus there’s abt a 10sec window when boss is so far away but o guess what the necro doesn’t move a single inch he’s so focused on ressing and dead guy at 90% health alrdy. Then someone else in grp is targeting my downed body cos their like wtf is he/she doing but that’s aite np just let me die cos dead>downed and ye let’s face it I was good distraction nothing more. So yay for necro he resses 1 more after that and boss by this point alrdy at 5% and they saying omg just kill alrdy so ye they 3man boss with both necros alive so yay they got their wish and ye double necro power much wow.. told as well at end that I felt kittened cos idk maybe they think they’re superior class or something bc no problem they can facetank tougher bosses like bloomhunger without barely taking a scratch like wow such ego why not roll a necro urself and see what its all abt.. but more seriously tho I wouldn’t mind if the nerf hit them much harder or if it nerfed their skills instead of their pets but wow such attitude among those players is like the norm I swear.. I even ran with 4 necro group as war earlier and I downed/died so many times on ez fractal, ofc they provide no boons at all and instead ask innocently ‘yo what’s downing u so much bro?’ yeah I left after that one fractal cos I felt embarrassed and i learned my lesson never join a group with to many necros.. like srsly this is getting out of hand.

anet pls answer me how can u nerf rev when they are so much nicer ppl they have done nothing and they depend on chrono so much for pve and they have to change their build to always help there group cos they have only support very low dps on their own.. but instead u bring ur hammer down on the same class that u left kinda unfinished even before that and u only buff the dps of those self-motivated ppl who only want 5 necro group only facetank everything ez mode and run selfish builds is ok as long as entire group is doing it yay and look they despise anyone else even druids there like nuuuhh we too strong and unstoppable to need a puny healer, we are necros we have more lives than a cat does.. anet is promoting PHIW selfish condi builds instead of useful support roles that buff groups in group setting so whatever we have to accept it we have no choice guis

I died from having no stun break.. I’m not sure what happened. I got launched by boss or something and I was stunned literally for like 10s. The tile under me blinked for a couple secs then vanished, I was still stunned but was like wow I’m lucky cos I was midway between two tiles and I thot I could make it.. maybe.

But no, that stun is way too long. I feel kittened for playing a class like warrior that doesn’t have easy access to stun break except for utility, I like how almost every other class has a stun break on their wep skills or something except for warr. Like holy kitten was that an excessively long stun. Either trim it down or help fix our class lol I mean the solid tiles were kinda an unnecessary change tbh it wasn’t that hard to see the tiles blinking even when u were focused on dps’ing and plus the aesthetics took a dive too imo, but that melee knockback is like way hard to anticipate and its not as forgiving either as his other attacks. So pls do something abt this cos it’s embarrassing that any1 should die over this lol

I really dislike those LI groups, if you don’t have enough of them then u can’t join 75% of the groups on the LFG, and since raid content is alrdy being catered to a small percentage of player’s to use the OP’s words, imagine how much smaller margin that is reduced to when majority of groups themselves are eager to reduce this number even further by essentially time-gating it as they do. If I see an exp wing clear then I would be more than willing to join, but I never do or they’re always asking for specific roles that I can’t play. If I’m being honest I’m probably earning like 3-5 boss kills a week and that’s hardly enough to make a dent in anything in the long run.. So tell me how I’m expected to get anywhere other than square one. It’s like a never-ending conundrum, a situation where the snake almost inevitably ends up biting its own tail bc even though I’m newer to raids than others and getting less than a handful of LI in a week, other pro players in pro guilds are earning 2-3x more LI per week than me which in turn causes the LI reqs as necessitated to increase at a drastically similar rate as well.

Long story short, at times it feels raid content is limited not only to the elite players when in actuality it’s being restricted to like the most elitist of the elite. Raids essentially are being time-gated, and now they are also class-gated because you have to cycle between 2-3 classes that are usually required like 99.99% of the time, i.e. chronotank(s), druid, ele. If you’re disinclined to or simply unable to wrap your head around either of those classes or the roles they’re expected to play, then gg nice try but your out of luck. Let’s sideline all other classes and builds indefinitely since we’re so focused on holy trinity atm. Tank, healer, dps and all others can just quit raids in general bc let’s face it ur not needed. No one needs support like rev anymore, esp when that support is nerfed to the ground and dps is sub-par compared to other classes with more dedicated roles. This is essentially what raids are being reduced to.. first encouraged by the devs and then supported so unquestioningly by the top 4% or so of the pve player base themselves.

Ye, I confirm with bolt/howler their auras are both there. Howler aura is almost imperceptible, but then again it seems kinda lessened in the presence of a stronger, more ostentatious aura. And ye I can agree that with regards to footfalls, mainhand does seem to override this.

I’m not sure abt ur actual question, but I usually don’t use bolt’s skin (I use some other costly extravagant one but its kinda dull so no one notices) and even though that has no aura the howler one is clearly visible. not sure if this applies if the mainhand is instead a legendary tho.

I didn’t mean it to sound so I depressing but I’m sorry if it came across that way and made you similarly feel down lol. But yeah I wasn’t rly answering ur question seriously and I know, it’s just like if someone asked me how would I describe how important MP’s are, I would say it’s just aesthetics and a feeling of relative comfort for the most part, not something you think about and bc of that — most of the masteries u can train are largely useless and the only reason u would get them would be to progress to the next higher one in the same track or bc u just have a lot of master points (MP’s) to use up and don’t have anything particular in mind. Ill list a couple examples I feel are largely useless and explain why I feel that way:

• Pact leader (idk exact name) – movement speed increased in cities. First off there’s an npc u can talk to increase ur speed, plus u can stack perma swiftness easy with some classes so it’s not needed

• Exalted gathering – seriously have no clue what exactly this does, I swear the wiki is deliberately unclear as well. I gather absolutely no nodes in Maguuma region (except for those bloodstone ones) so can’t imagine how this would help me except for some collections

• Fight the champion daily (Exalted/nunoch) – the loot is rubbish, not worth serious time wasted trying to solo duel champ or do with small group. The potoni guy is a dumb unfair fight anyway (can’t dodge his body smash attack and I guess only stability works so it’s broken mechanics and huge waste of time overall).

• speed mushrooms – only 20s of swiftness, really? I’m just lucky I can stack perma swiftness on my classes so easily, this is just kitten useless imo

• adrenal mushrooms – I dunno why u would ever use this except warrior. And they don’t exactly pop up enough that u can use them in the heat of the moment like in the mid of a fight

There may be others I forgotten to mention too, but yeah most of them don’t rly do much. They are like an AP system u can look at others and feel good about urself that u managed to max everything out.. big deal in the end eh. It’s only the gliding masteries and the mushrooms one that are useful for like map completion and stuff – rest are borderline useless I feel. I’m at mastery 164 now, I bumped up a couple cos I maxed out my maguuma masteries. Yeah, I’m working towards legendary too otherwise there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have even bothered.

Sorry if this viewpoint seems jaded to you, it’s just that masteries are a bit lacking compared to the amount of time and effort u need to unlock them. They’ve been a real let down to me and when it gets to the point when ur so used to them that u use them without thinking, it feels like jeez I’m not even using the greater part of masteries like wth am I doing wrong.. or maybe I’m doing it right and it just feels pointless.

Gimme a couple hours then I’ll log back in and take a look at what u mean (have bolt/howler but never rly noticed this simple interplay of auras as u mentioned)

My hunch is (again could be remembering this wrong) I saw both auras so dunno

Don’t forget boosters.. it looks like ur account is at least 3 years old so u should have plenty of that (assuming u have multiple alts).

Exp booster (laureate) + birthday blaster + potion of scarlet slaying + enchanted boost (if you have) + guild exp boost + exp enrichment/infusion + celebration bonus

So post patch.. looks like mes for raid content is still viable (thankfully). Even though boon sharing nerf by 50% or so from what I understand, the only change is now either no mes, or 2 mes in group. Also rev as the go-to complementary class got sidelined, so no place for them anymore in raid meta. That’s kinda sad since I play a rev as well, I hope this will change in an upcoming patch.

Anyway, I decide to repost here and just to share I am still working on unlocking chrono on my mes, kinda left it incomplete for a while as I was focusing on other things. I think I am pretty decently geared at this point, have ascended armor set with assassins and mostly berserker trinkets. The build site does mention commanders set but again not sure how viable that is post patch.. I am not against changing stats on armor but I understand it would be expensive. If it helps I got some soldiers trinkets in bank from fractal drops, and others that are stacking toughness. I’m looking for a solid build for raids that won’t require me to swap builds or change traits a lot. I get panicky when asked to change my build.. so would like to avoid this if possible. If tank is needed, I can learn to tank. I guess I just wanna be most useful to raid groups, not sure how sites like metabattle are reliable anymore. I would appreciate any build info and tips as well, thanks

AB.. ab is better than ds provided u join one of those MM groups.

look u don’t trust me try it yourself.. join only for octovine don’t need to do pre. Then kill fast, switch map and kill again. U get same exp even low low participation trust me..

You have reward tracks in wvw that give clovers and repeat it like 10 times and u have all up need.. Whereas pve doesn’t have that option even. So give us a reward track in pve that after all pve masteries are complete we can farm them for gift of battle or something. Since its not fair u can get pve stuff just by playing wvw, we should be able to get wvw stuff by playing pve.

What abt new legendaries.. and if they make any others it will be like this. They change it so u don’t need world completion u need on 4 easy maps or so that if u get on a hp train it’s very easy to get map completion on. Besides this is new content not old one, don’t buy hot if u hate exploring the new maps. Whereas look gift of battle is always the same. We have to farm wvw for it even on new legendaries nothing change, but they make pve easier than ever and wvw stays the same, same boring thing.

(Sorry I have to make second post.. but I don’t think I can trim the previous one down any more)

As for Ashym.. imagine this scenario: most of your group is melee. Thus most stack on him, resulting in him casting his fireball aoe on himself. What’s the best course of action here? Nothing, just stand around and wait him out.. unless u wanna go in and risk downing as a result. Thus, another dps loss only for melee. I’m not sure about his agony pulse thing but it’s similarly a dps loss. The range is maybe not 900 but a quick dodge backwards will mitigate most dmg. As opposed to max range.. well then, u don’t have to waste a dodge at all do u (as per your previous argument at one point). Besides the wiki does also clearly state again and again, ranged is the best and safest option for this fight.. which only agrees with my point that literally every fight is like that.

Let’s take chaos boss again as example.. constant melee hits that deal tons of dmg and also have a chance to daze u, whereas in comparison his mechanics that specifically target ranged only? None, absolutely none. Yes he does chase but he’s not fast enough to catch anyone, he only punishes melee and only does hits in close combat, and hits hard. The problem with tiles.. is maybe even worse than I thought. Can someone confirm that invuln does in fact protect u from dmg and confusion on tiles? I wasn’t rly paying attention but I think my invuln on warrior still let me take hits from tiles.. which is odd. I wouldn’t mind a little variation in his attack pattern either. Either get rid of daze, or limit it’s frequency and add another move as well. Something similar to jade armor, a small aoe tell around him followed by him whirling around in something similar to a bladestorm and anyone close to him can take insane dmg or risk getting pushing off the edge easily. It would make it more challenging but also it would make melee more useful than it is in the fight. How long can u sustain dps when ur forced to dodge out every 3rd hit, or risk getting downed by his punishing hits? Best case scenario your dps is halved.. adding the problem with tiles as well. Whereas ranged is still strong, throughout the entire fight yes? Yes I agree make melee high risk high reward but right now it’s just stupid hard.. and it’s not even noticeably rewarding as much as it is punishing and relentless. Classes like warrior don’t even have the sustained heal to deal with his constantly punishing hits, I shouldn’t have to be afraid of him downing me every time I get close or the tiles changing right under my feet, if his auto hit takes me down to low health then the tiles could finish me off especially with confusion added on bc there’s an added retribution on counter hit.Tell me ranged have this same problem. Again, difference between challenging and stupid hard as it is. Make melee have high risk but don’t discourage it altogether (they have done somewhat similar thing with bloomhunger imo).

About removing his condis when he goes invuln.. well, that’s kinda what invuln means. He’s protected from all hits including condi for the duration.. that means even if condi stacks weren’t removed, it still shouldn’t affect him. I dunno maybe I’m wrong but that’s how I see it

Bohantopa.5729:

Is there any mechanic used by a boss in fractals that only punish ranged users, and punishes them more than other mechanics used by the boss that similarly punish only melee users? That was my point.. and the answer is almost always no.

Here my point again is that you are nit-picking.. read my post again thoroughly, please. Blocks/reflects are not only thing that works at mai train.. timed correctly, movement skills also work in avoiding dmg and the wiki similarly corroborates this. You have burning retreat on staff with a much lower cd.. surely u can use that. Even in worst case scenario, so you will be forced to take a reflect/block as a utility skill. Do you realise other classes are forced to do something similar? Warrior has to take a utility for condi cleanse. Why should your class similarly not have to compensate for lacking in something else? Don’t argue that it’s because melee should have higher risk than ranged. It’s already the case in this fight, u only have to deal with one hit she uses only every 15sec or so and even then it’s not guaranteed she’s gonna target u. Whereas melee has to continuously deal with other issues.. bleeds on every auto, aoe half the time landing right on top of boss (need to interrupt dps only if melee), not to mention dodging her whip attack which has a shorter tell than her tele one.. if you aren’t aware that it requires much quicker reaction time to dodge this especially if closer than u clearly haven’t done this before. Your argument that the solution to dealing with her auto hit is to jump being her or stay at max melee range makes no sense. I stated most times I’m the only one meleeing this boss, which means 9/10 times she will hit me in melee. Going behind her solves nothing.. she turns with every auto hit. Max melee range does nothing, she just comes up closer to you. Honestly I’m starting to wonder if you’ve ever meleed this boss before. Melee is unsustainable for long without external heals.. thus in pug groups a necessity to jump out of close quarters and heal up, deal with bleeds etc. When I do this, there’s a good chance she can tele to me too when I get far enough. Thus it’s not a mechanic specifically against ranged users.. and also how I know that her tele by itself is not that damaging. It’s much lower dmg compared to her whip and auto bleeds, which u would only know if melee. When I’m anticipating her whip attack many times I have to stop dps and hang back a while, bc it’s borderline impossible to see when ur so close to her and channeling a burst skill. I can dodge it, but it has a shorter tell. You have lot more room with her tele attack that doesn’t punish u as much.

As for thaumanova boss.. again with a glass ele example. You agree he is an easy boss, how can u accuse him of having punishing mechanics? The entire point of the fight is to spread out, everyone even melee is lacking in buffs and heals and generally weaker as a result. Warrior has no condi cleanse on weps.. so sometimes the condi is enough to down me when I’m low health. Do u see me complain? No I swap to another class like rev when it’s obvious I can’t survive his focus fire along with condis from both his hits and some instabilities. I don’t complain how warrior is weak there cos of only condi cleanse on utility with a long cd. Just like you complain how you can’t “uncast” a fireball. You can’t uncast any skill, ever, especially if it’s an auto hit as opposed to a channeled one. If you have a problem with this then pls don’t blame the fight but instead blame the game.

When you bring up Archdiviner’s rush attack on ranged targets.. yes his targets have to be further away but doesn’t necessarily mean they are ranged dmg. Given the frequency with which he teles from one ranged player to another, it’s hard to keep up with him as melee even with a class like warrior. At that instant, bc he’s further away from you he might well decide to target you, despite u being a melee class. This happens often even after an invuln phase.. after the seal is struck, u need to close distance to him. Sometimes he will target you even as u move towards him. As well, on high lvls the windup on his hammer aoe is somewhat short. Short enough that, yes u will indeed have to dodge as melee. Besides your argument as it is.. that u have to waste an extra dodge as opposed to melee users.. It’s a weak one, anyone can tell u that. You won’t have time to just walk out when ur melee as u think, u could be channeling a skill and be forced to dodge. So if ur further back, simply dodge backwards once. What’s so hard about that?

Grawl shamans spin attack.. I honestly don’t know when it’s ever a problem since I’ve never seen it. The wiki doesn’t even mention it.. I have to wonder if it’s an actual mechanic. Either way, a mechanic that he rarely uses and maybe once in the fight hardly counts. I never see anyone down on him, especially if ranged.

It depends on ur perspective, what would u define to be ‘1st world’ problems? For instance it’s plausible someone can get lucky, and not even been doing fractals for long (maybe a month or so). A month is enough to buy out an infinite pot, yes? Plus someone can get lucky, I know I did. Endless fractal tonic is rare drop but it does happen. So that explains why I have 2 infinite pots now. I agree that most stuff from open world like meta chains alrdy fills up my bag enough. I get random junk I’m not sure whether to delete.. ascended scrolls, random collection items that I never ask for (bloodstone battery etc.) and top of that fotm related items.. which honestly takes up too much space all things considered. First there’s encryption keys.. then encryptions which when unlocked take up a 3rd bag slot. Doing a set of t4 dailies awards u three diff. set of chests that takes up 3 more slots (yay). Then add random junk u get but don’t ask for like resonating slivers and +1 agony infusions, which despite full stacks can take up to 2-3 bag slots easily. Then stuff that you want to get rid of asap: ascended rings u don’t need. All said, that’s sometimes like 12 slots alone. On top of that when u get single-use ascended kits that don’t stack, and mist pots that likewise don’t stack (even with their same kind, since there are like 9 diff. combinations or so).. it becomes a bit much. I know I don’t enjoy having to waste my time trying to seek out and destroy mist pots in my inv one by one, or having to find and group my single-use kits together so I can get rid of them asap.

Strangely enough, it’s only 3 I disagree on. I don’t mind bc I constantly keep a track of it.. plus it’s on same duration as most food or consumables so it’s easier to realise when u run out. Something like this I would consider a 1st world problem.

mia.8209:

And how many TTFs you get depends on luck/RNG – I usually get repair canisters.

There are various other ways to get those than BL chests and yeah I agree RNG on those is terrible most times. If you don’t have any chars at least 3 years old, not to worry there are other options. There’s a few of them from lvl 80 boost that u receive with HoT. Then there’s the achieve for them as well that I’ve never personally done.

In regards to switching alts, well maybe I could accept that. But basically a scroll or something that would do just that: allow u to transfer map completion from one alt to another. So if u have world completion on ur main, u can transfer it to an alt while removing all progress and wp’s from ur main. I don’t see anything technically wrong with that tbh.. but again not something I’d ever care for. It’s not true that everyone’s fighting u on it.. it’s just I guess when someone complains abt having no wps on alt, u usually assume they are just lazy or something. Plus it’s not fair to those of us with world completion on 2+ alts.. it would mean our hard work is meaningless then. But yeah swapping map completion progress between alts.. that’s not a bad idea imo. I could see why ppl could want that, esp since u can’t exactly switch professions on ur alts.

yeah man I agree they nerfed it prty hard to discourage ppl running them.. u should have been here a year ago the rewards were 3x what they are now.

It’s a shame they given up on ppl without hot too so it’s harder for them than ever before to make some gold

mia.8209:

• or if you’re rich you can buy Teleport to Friend gizmos from the store. Also requires friends to teleport to.

I have no friends, either in real life or in-game.. yet I’m still able to make use of one of those tele to friends. Haven’t bought with gems either. I got about 10 of them in tote from b’day gifts, since my account is kinda that old (not even playing since beta or release like some here). So where are u looking to get to? I’m just curious to know. Don’t say everywhere either cos yeah that’s kinda why u have a main in 1st place.

You can within few secs travel to any city or (ipso facto) any neighboring or connected region as well. If u need to get to hot maps, easier to use one of those teles. Honestly it’s not that hard..

Seera.5916:

And how do you think the WvW players feel about map completing PvE to get their Gift of Exploration?

Unless you wish to make a legendary weapon that was released after HoT, there is a means to get a legendary without stepping a foot into WvW: buying one straight off of the TP.

One should research how to make something before starting it.

However, I do think giving a PvP track for the Gift of Battle would be a good alternative means to do so given that players can now use legendary skins in PvP.

Wat u mean when say this? Eureka ab.. can’t on tp buy. Nor is GoE being require. So just GoB but explore only hot so yes.

(hes right to say so)

and what hard for explore hot? not entire world but just handful of annoying map

Allow me to edit ur s..

‘one should research how something make before post make’

I had a full post written out and hit ‘reply’ and it sent me to an error page (Oops something went wrong, were looking into this). So ye I keep it short cos I frustrated atm

Took me 2.5 days and I’m 3k away from gift of battle. That’s 85% u do some quick math (don’t need calculator eithr). So that’s 3-4 hrs per day, 1 hr on today so doesn’t rly count. I afking like half the time too. How u ask?

I’m terrible and wvw, just like u. So can solo cap those flag markers (dunno what u call em) and camps, esp when ur near keep so u just run off at that time cos u have enough time return back. Then once max participation.. /afk mode or clear bags. Till 10min run out, u get 30s warning after so u do something anything at all like k ill npc scout or cap a flag point. Then /afk again or browse on tp and repeat

I dislike wvw as well.. if way to buy with tokens I would. But it not bad honestly less than 10hrs if u do long stretch but ye I agree it huge waste of time

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well I think the fact that I can play just about any other activity in the game and pull in between 10-12 g/hr… Or I could go to AB multiloot and make 50g an hr… would be the crux of the problem.

A valid point, I give you that. What other easily accessible way remains to farm gold, that anet is ok with? Really only two obvious choices to the uninitiated layman.. gathering nodes and farming fractals. Either of which can hardly be considered rewarding in comparison.

In regards to first point.. I’ve never really liked it. There should be nothing enjoyable about cutting down trees and selling them for a silver or two apiece. Even WoW had it designed better, to the point you actually felt a sense of accomplishment and self-worth at discovering hard-to-find copper vein locations and mining it before other players could chance upon it. Heck, you could even mine useful ore inside instances/dungeons. Do I feel even the tiniest bit of motivation to mine a mithril node that I encounter in certain fractal content? No, because it’s a waste of time and effort. I could sell a masterwork piece of gear at vendor price that would net me more profit in the end. It’s similar to how I barely think about the cost of wp’s anymore. It could be virtually negligible for all I care.

So the only other obvious choice that others run on a daily or semi-regular basis is fractals/raids. Let’s face it most of the player base is either unwilling to or unable to run raids on a regular basis (including me to some extent). So that leaves only fotm content. That’s on average about 5g/day from the encryptions alone assuming u do your dailies on time, sometimes less. How is that even considered passable by today’s standards? In an economy that is only increasing in prices and demand for most mats from years ago, content should be more rewarding not less. I feel that even cof p1 farm, despite it being on the same level as ab chest farm, was in its heyday more rewarding than farming fractal lvl40 or something as it stands now. Yes that was easily 15g/hr and didn’t require any skill or expertise either, but inevitably ended up being nerfed since it was likewise considered an exploit.

So here my point is.. When you have so many gold sinks should they not be similarly introducing gold farms just as viable as ab farm that most of player base is competent enough to participate in? That’s not to even mention those players who still don’t have access to HoT content and so feel just as equally left out. There are maybe a few options left to make 50g/hr (and that’s not an exaggerated claim.. as yours no doubt was) and those involve obscure and touch-and-go methods that most ppl aren’t even fully aware of or comfortable with. So why is there such a limited amount of ways to farm gold anymore? No don’t answer something like silverwastes farm because I wouldn’t mind if never stepped foot in that region again. Anet needs to introduces more ways in pve content that aren’t so time-intense and net u more than 10g/hr. I’m not even sure if even that’s possible aside from ab farm unless ur busy farming meta chains on the new maps all the time. Dailies netting you 2g for about a half hour of effort feels like a slap on the wrist after the hard-hit nerf to dungeon rewards. So if they keep culling the lucrative gold-making schemas such as ab chest farm, what’s left for the average player to turn to in order to compensate for this?

You don’t have to.

Doing any lvl either same as or above urs will increase your personal lvl by 1. So when I’m personal lvl 86 and I do 94 with a group, I would still gain one lvl. The main advantage of having a high personal lvl is that it allows u to join groups for higher tiers that award better loot. U might wanna look up what that means too

PS u only need to worry about personal fractal lvl if no one else in ur group can open a higher lvl than urs.. should make things easier

relax bro.. first thing you ought to do is to say a silent prayer to anet as they removed the repair costs many years ago, as many more ppl were complaining over that than wp’s as u do (look it up if you don’t believe me). Next is to stop worrying about wp travel fees. I used to be like u at one time too.. in fact I made a rather ineffective chef guide years ago when I was starting out. In the guide I always factored in wp costs and if it was close enough distance like in an adjacent zone to LA I would recommend u spend time talking there as opposed to paying a few silver for wp travel. In hindsight I was just a penniless newbie adopting a frugal playstyle that was unjustified for the most part.

So cheer up and work on lvling up, don’t concern yourself overmuch with travel costs. I know that’s kinda hypocritical, especially seeing as how there used to be much better and easier ways of farming gold back in the day when I was starting out. Cof farm alone used to net me like 15g an hour. Shame they nerfed that, then again it’s nothing compared to how they beat dungeons over the head with a spiked club. Imo compared to years ago there are fewer ways for non-expansion ppl to farm gold than there used to be. When they made it harder to earn gold by nerfing pve rewards as much as they did, they should have added other viable and alternate methods for newcomers to make gold. I’m not sure what advice to offer him as this doesn’t seem to be entirely his fault either. In fact if I wasn’t so adept at playing the tp like I have been, I could be making only like 5g a day from only fractals like I used to. Notice how the only real advice anyone can provide is gathering, something I used to hate hate doing and still do. Making gold by farming logs and ore that sell for a silver or two each? There has to be a better way and yes there was once.. making 1.5g in ~6min was a thing. I was never forced to turn to gathering like he might end up having to. But he doesn’t have much of a choice with dungeons in their near-death state.. and fotm especially the lower tiers can hardly be said to be more rewarding than that.

yeah that’s what I meant to suggest (though a bit more in general than that).

So look for other similar sellers like that. also they are official retailers u can trust them, seeing as how I got mine this way as well.

The game is already 30% off at this point.. or would u prefer it be less than say $28? I’m not sure what ur asking for tbh

Aeniklast.9283:

So what exactly do mastery levels do?

Once u figure out how to get mastery points for lvls.. u begin to farm for them. Once u learn how to farm for them, u begin to realise why u need them. Once u realise why u need them (e.g. mastery exp/pts.) u begin to farm for them with greater enthusiasm and interest. Once u start to farm for them with greater interest, u begin to realise how hopeless it all is and how u want to stop grinding and just unlock ur masteries alrdy so u can stop sucking and falling face flat on content that comes natural to everyone else. Once u realise how hopeless it all is, u get better at farming for said masteries. Once u get better at farming for ur masteries, u feel good about yourself since life is alot easier for u. Once u feel good about yourself, u start to feel bored and unmotivated as u realise how most of the masteries are largely useless, like how no I don’t wanna run faster in cities since it doesn’t stack with swiftness anyway. Once u realise how masteries are largely useless, u will either choose to max them out because u are basically being forced to or focus on something more worth ur time and effort (e.g. specialization unlocks and other content).

X T D.6458:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

X T D.6458:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Brimstar.9036:

It’s kind of ridiculous way to cheat the system to maximize your loot, we’re already seeing the repercussions of it effecting the economy of Ectoplasms dropping to nearly 20s a piece. What is ANET doing to fix this?

What exactly is it that you think is broken? What is wrong with ecto being 20s per glob? Is there a magic number which is too low? And another which is too high?

Cheap ecto is great for folks trying to complete legendaries or infuse their rings for fractals.

Sure, AB/ML is an unintended consequence of making so many exalted chests available so easily on every instance of successful AB maps. And sure it’s had an enormous impact on TP values for all sorts of things. But that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily horrible for everyone in the game.

On the surface, one might think well whats wrong with making it easier for people to get what they want. Here is the issue, when everything becomes cheap and easy to get, players get bored because there is no desire or drive to do anything because there is no challenge and you feel as though you put no effort into achieving anything because you just rely on a broken mechanic to do anything.

That’s an issue with game rewards generally and why ANet spends so much time balancing the economy, and using RNG, tokens, and skill as requirements for different sorts of skins.

However, that doesn’t, by itself, explain why the price of ecto is “broken”. What price is it that is acceptable? What’s too low? What’s too high? And who decides?

I don’t know what can be considered acceptable. But look at it this way, earlier this year ectos were over 40 silver each, now they are barely over 20 silver each. Even though anet is continuously releasing new sinks into the game especially since they have restarted work on new legendaries. But yet the price of ectos keeps falling. The need for ectos has only risen, and if the value has dropped by so much it only means there is way too much coming into the market causing the value to be unstable. And it doesn’t seem any sink in the game is enough to balance this out. It is not about whether or not there is an appropriate price, it is whether the value and incoming supply are in balance.

Read my post above lol. I know u probably didn’t get a chance to since u posted barely a few min after me, but the sink u have is much larger than u think. For instance if ecto price drop to 20s like u are worried about.. then I will personally buy out 10 stacks at a minimum if that ever happens.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Brimstar.9036:

It’s kind of ridiculous way to cheat the system to maximize your loot, we’re already seeing the repercussions of it effecting the economy of Ectoplasms dropping to nearly 20s a piece. What is ANET doing to fix this?

What exactly is it that you think is broken? What is wrong with ecto being 20s per glob? Is there a magic number which is too low? And another which is too high?

Cheap ecto is great for folks trying to complete legendaries or infuse their rings for fractals.

Sure, AB/ML is an unintended consequence of making so many exalted chests available so easily on every instance of successful AB maps. And sure it’s had an enormous impact on TP values for all sorts of things. But that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily horrible for everyone in the game.

There is actually a magic number which is too low and I think most ppl are able to figure out what that is.. I guess it’s also a large part of why ecto price is dropping at such a slow rate as it has been, I.e. you look at past month it’s only dropped 2-3s when u would think it would more. I’m not claiming to know economics bc I don’t but it’s easy to see where this elusive magic number will be at any point since its kinda elastic in that sense. The general rule of thumb is most likely ecto won’t reduce to less than 150% of dust price, or if it is it won’t stay that way for long. It’s this dependency that kinda ensures stable price for ecto, I.e. many more ppl buying out ecto when it’s lower in price which will cause it to go back up. I know that I haven’t bought out more than half a stack of ecto in past month. By comparison, I buy maybe about a full stack of dust each day. If ecto price reduces any further than it does, then I might buy out ecto instead. So there u go, problrm solved. The economy goes nowhere so it’s unaffected as a result

tl;dr i hope ab farming continues. I don’t participate myself but I only profit off it. Ecto price reduces, dust also reduces, ecto goes back up as result. Problem solved

It’s always funny to me to see how even calling attention to a small thing will affect the market for what it’s linked to as ppl rush to sell or invest in it. Even more funnier when what u expect isn’t what actually happens. So looking at a site like gw2tp to keep a track of the trend since yesterday evening.. not surprising that it changed as much as it did. It’s the actual change that’s of interest. I’ve never good at reading the markets or prices.. explains why I lost out on quite a lot when dye market crashed like a year ago. I sometimes get lucky and manage like 100g in a couple hours… other times it takes a couple days and I’m basically broke the entire time. So it’s interesting to see how this changed in the span of a day. Price drops as supply goes up by early morning.. that much at least was counted on. Then by a hours ago or so.. price rises dramatically as supply continues to fall, to the highest point in whole month. If u look at trend the current price is only matched more than 2 months ago. Like I said, I can never read markets or know what’s gonna happen. Not even fully certain I was to blame tbh.

As it stands now the conv. ratio is up to 1: 1.38 but most likely it’s not reliable.

Bohantopa.5729:

These are terrible examples.. with every one u list u are actually proving our case more and more, that most fights are generally skewed in favor of ranged users. Is there some other reason that 90% of groups for fotm I find have more ranged players than melee ones? Many time I am only one meleeing boss (like bloomhunger, mai trin and chaos boss most often). You are clearly unaware of many things.. ur just throwing up examples of any boss that punishes ranged users in any way, when fact is melee users are punished more and often. Or do u think I’m wrong? Let’s go over the ones u list then.

• Mai trin does a very obvious tele attack that has a huge tell. U have more then enough time to swap sets to block or reflect if needed, even simply using movement skills will allow u to escape and not take damage. You fail to mention how her lightning whip attack can one-shot easily if ur stacked on top of her (happened to me occasionally) or deal significantly more dmg the closer u are to her. Her attack has a much shorter tell as well, as well it can’t be reflected or blocked either from what I’m aware, can only be dodged. Not to mention the fact that she applies bleed stacks with every auto hit, so if ur melee u can run up to 30 stacks and down easily if not cleansed. Do ranged users have this problem? Then there is aoe’s which almost always target an area close to Mai grin, which means if ur melee u will often have to interrupt ur hits. Does this happen to ranged users? No, because they have enough warning to move out of aoes while still hitting boss (don’t even need to dodge most times). This is probably worst example that u gave. Remember what I said about fights being more punishing for melee then ranged builds. Listing random examples of how ranged classes are inconvenienced doesn’t prove anything. For every single one u name I can name two other mechanics that are more lethal to melee players. How about subject 6? There’s another right there.

• Archdiviner’s mechanic that punishes ranged classes is a joke. How do I know? I’ve been far enough from him that he targets me. It’s easily dodgeable and has a significant enough tell. First he pauses, looks in ur direction (easier to see if spread out), then blinks and then reappears a moment later next to u. U have easily more than a second’s notice to dodge or move out of the way. That’s even more warning than Bloomhunger’s leap/pounce gives u. What about his melee punishing mechanics? Random aoe’s that spawn around him (most times on top of him), aoe hammer attack that usually one-shots players directly in front of him, and charged melee hit that stuns or KD’s melee users. You see? I just list 3 mechanics that are more punishing for melee classes for the one u gave.

• Thaumanova Anamoly is an easy boss once u get used to the mechanics. I’ve even duo’d him with rev starting from 25% when whole group alrdy wiped. The only other guy was a necro who was ranging whole time, he barely took dmg while I came very lose to downing once. PS u might wanna read up on wiki before making these claims. Not sure if it’s updated but it says that he only reflects hits when he starts spinning around and drops those orbs onto platforms. So at that time ur only bothered abt moving and dodging them – just stop to catch ur breath and u take no damage. What’s so hard abt it? I’ve even been one-shot when melee once when I was 60% health. Insta downed then I fell down. Explain to me what happened? It’s a rare chance sure but that was frustrating since I had no warning he’d do that. And yes something downed me before I fell, and wasn’t those orbs either.

• Grawl shaman – another terrible example, no group I’ve ever had has wiped at him. Thaumanova anomaly is arguably an easier boss and I had multiple group wipe on him sometimes. He also has a large windup aoe that only hits melee – e.g. if u panic and move away early, u lose out on like 10sec of dps each time he uses it. Whereas ranged users have anything similar that limits their dps? No using a glass ele here doesn’t do anything to prove ur case. Ele are generally squishy by design so u are just listing the only ranged class that is easy to down. No one ranging this boss even manages to die, so ur complaining over nothing yet again.

• Ashym is another similar example that works against u. He has more mechanics punishing melee than ranged, this is easy for anyone to see. He has that agony pulse thing that only affects melee players stacked close to him. His aoe he uses past 50% will more often than not target any npc’s or players stacked close to him. His whirl does significantly more damage if ur close to him afaik, whereas ranged u actually have a chance to dodge out of the way (slim chance, but better). I can confirm his leap also hits in melee range as he’s done to me once, as well him throwing orbs with GS hits u hard in the face if ur stacked close to him.

The thing abt rev is that u actually need to think outside the box if u wanna figure out how to survive, it doesn’t hold ur hand like say warrior with passive heal that u never have to worry about and so much stability or invuln or the fact that most useful utility skills like banners have a long cd or else have passive effect so u don’t need to be focused on them all the time. With rev it’s a completely diff story bc it’s all about rotations and spamming things off cd so it’s a little intimidating at 1st.

I think there’s some excellent pve guides on rev that explain evetything, especially on these forums (think it’s written by some guy named obal). There’s also things u are expected to figure out for yourself. You can stack perma prot, or else stack up to 30sec of prot for u and ur group before fight and before swapping stances. Try to experiment with such things.. as well when running solo, yeah u always wanna use f1 off cd as much as u can. Quickly stacking prot and then swapping to Jalis, and immediately activating the hammer skill — how well does this combo work? ur now at 40% dmg reduction already, which helps a lot. If you are low on health or in panic mode? Quickly swap to staff and use defensive manuevers to give yourself a little breathing space. One last thing to remember and its useful to know is that swapping stance is also a stun break, that few classes have access to unless they trait for or get utility for it (I.e. warrior).

You could always convert shards of mist essence to gold by using the following conv. ratios as below:

Best case scenario → 1 : 0.96
Sell fast (option #1) → 1 : 0.5
Sell fast (option #2) → 1 : 0.6

(yes, I made sure to get rid of all of mine before posting.. had like 28 shards just sitting in bank so not too bad).

kdaddy.5431:

I dont have any pcs from salvaging weapons or armor. And i was like who would do such a thing?

This post might help.

There a way to save up to 30% on price if it matters at all (not sure what exactly u want HoT for tho, if pve content bores u to tears and u seem to suck at PvP and WvW as u say u do).

PS u mention u do dailies a lot how many laurels and mystic coins u have saved up? Any long term plans at all

I saw there wasnt any changes so i went ahead and made a small edit to the page I mentioned, it looks accurate as it is now. I’m not sure if it’s worth editing the Salvage page as well since it is a special case but I just let it be.

I seen sites like metabattle and it kinda confusing me.. Then upcoming patch which might chnage things so dunno if I wanna wait. I’m still trying to unlock chrono on my mesmer (making prty good progress I think). Not to worry abt gear and stuff cos I have ascended armor set (assassins I think). But metabattle offers two diff options, for I guess like each build, and there lots more than one build for raid so I dunno.

I guess I wanna be most useful. Ppl I guess need one chrono in group only and usually it’s to tank and stuff (again, dunno how will this change soon). So s/s and shield offhand, maybe focus on case I guess. If I’m gonna tank Ill need practice but not for easy bosses like vg and stuff. Do I wanna tank? Unsure atm, I just wanna be more useful to group. If I’m asked to change my build I get all panicky.. so would rather not. They suggest option like assassins mix or commander armor set. I don’t wanna change stats on armor cos it’s expensive usually, but can if needed. I have some soldier trinkets and stuff from fractal drops, stored in bank. Otherwise I have mostly bersetker stuff on my mes. Going to build toughness if I wanna tank but I don’t wanna sacrifice too much. What build should I be looking at, or would it make sense to wait a while?

CptAurellian.9537:

Pretty sure the change interval is 5 seconds or more on 88.

point is even if it was 10 sec it wouldn’t change much. assuming you get him to purple tiles – he stays on purple that entire time. It only becomes a problem as u progress in fight and tile patterns start getting more complicated. its very easy to have him stand in a large area of purple tiles. so entire time until tiles change it renders him basically invulnerable to melee damage, which is not balanced in that sense. Plus his hits do cleave through huge chunk of your health.. so even if u have a lot more time to stick in place and melee him, theres still risk of him turning and hitting u or his circular attack interrupting ur hits whether it lands or doesn’t.

So here’s me getting first kill on sab with exp group. took us like 4 tries, though none of them was my fault in getting group wiped, random stuff happening we wcouldn’t plan for like someone downing mid-air, no one on cannons and our druid dying twice on flamewall (which was blamed on lag so that’s ok). It was group I posted for too, and asked for exp. Which doesn’t mean much since they still needed some tmie to get adjusted to it for some reason. Then again u can’t trust pugs as much as u trust yourself.

So little explanation on what i was responsible for. Not much honestly, it was kinda easy and got quite used to it on last attempt we had on boss. What I did majority of the time was, which I learned from what groups asked of me last time i ran it: I just stacked on top of him and dodged out when I had the bomb on me. I rarely ever got green bomb except when we were in flamewall phase and i was moving around, twice in same fight. I recognized what to do all time by 1st checking my minimap for the relevant icon as well looking on screen for person standing on platform. It wasn’t hard and was able to make throw 9/10 times. As well recognized from guide that if u do mess up once, chances are u will be tagged for one again soon. The fight was only really hectic past 25% or so, did get downed once on the small aoe’s but got ressed without problem. the only part that needed cc was the 2nd boss that come down, I didn’t even need to swap sets. So tell me why sab is so hard that exp pug groups are so distrustful of anyone that joins? If they want to finish on 1st try without wipes then they should post for LI and get similar-minded ppl in group. Again, they should but don’t most times. This is not my interpretation of post either, just the way it is. Its the system as it is, I am not claiming to adopt a new one but simply making use of the old one. This doesn’t mean that I necessarily approve of it the way that it is either.

@Absurdo.. I don’t advocate teaching anyone in pugs what build to run, esp. when its obvious they are running diff build than they are supposed to it makes much more sense to kick them and indeed have done so. However when a question of exp, yeah I can do something abt that if the person is willing to listen and adapt. If its not too hard to learn, explain it in simple terms and see if person follows advice. if not, kick him. If its a mechanic that u can’t teach (like gor’s ground pound or whatever) then yeah kick them since they should have general idea of it beforehand.

I also got this strange bug in my story I think (if I remember correctly same mission as urs). First time was like wtf, then I checked on what others said and cleared like 2/3 paths fully at least (kill everything rampage mode but turns out my bloodlust had a short fuse). Then I wiped a couple times in the room ahead, essentially like a death pit but I took as many of them down with me as I could. So that solved nothing other than my trashing my gear so I had to run out and start over again. Did a speed clear and that basically means I went through it like a madman with a death wish, npc struggling to keep up with me whole way. Then Brahma still wouldn’t talk to me, but at least he got a little further in conversation. Figuring I was doing something right, decided to do same thing I did last time. Headed to chak death room again to sate my anger over useless npc → wiped again. Then on 2nd time I was heading to same room again, this time tho Braham followed me and once he got a little further into the room his dialogue started, ended up finishing the story.

tl;dr: it appears this usually happens when going afk or something after u come to room with magister (from what I read). So I rerun and did everything insanely fast in speed clear mode. Talking to braham did nothing. Try heading to chak room, ahead (not go in). Braham should follow u, if not wipe then talk to him and make sure he follow u and try again. This worked for me so give it a shot

How about you share all the adventures u managed to get gold in and ill share all the ones I got gold in. I’m still like 4/12 for last mastery track too (excluding misc. ones like raid since im struggling on MP foremost). So what I have so far is all DS achievs, all insights and strongboxes that I need guide to hold my hand for, BF achievs, most other achievs except event chains in VB/TD cos I’m lazy and it takes too long. Haven’t gotten to EB either since I’m way behind on story (somewhere in season 2).

Chingalling.1208:

In short, I think there should be more weapons, armor, and back pieces that look cool enough and are exciting enough to be a proper reward worth perusing, and requires a significant amount of effort and commitment but not nearly as much as creating a legendary weapon does. What do you think? Also what do you look back on as your favorite parts of playing gw2?

I would rather slink into depression. I have the same armor set from 2-3 years ago. I have the same backpiece skin I’ve had for the same amt of time. Of the skins I have unlocked 90% of them are ones I wish I could sell back or have never gotten in 1st place. I have volcanus skin but wish I hadn’t got it, similar thing with the shiny backpiece. I have 4 legendary skins I haven’t used in months sometimes years and would trash all of them if I could.

One word to describe:

Most of old legendaries? Garish.
Most of new legendaries? Mistake.
New legendary backpiece? Yawn.
The outfits I currently use: Nada.
Armor sets (not cultural) that look good on charr? Non-existent.
Current outfits that work well for charr? Scary.
Upcoming legendary armor? …
Legendaries I currently use (skins)? Aite.
Gen2 Mace Legendary? * salivate*

Obviously some of the classes have either 1) limited mainhand wep sets or 2) some mainhand skills are much more useful than others as well as having low cd’s or somesuch.

So lets take a look at mesmer, not even the elite spec but years ago I remember their pve meta had wep sets like s/s and s/f (shared mainhand sword for both sets). The reasoning being, mes has only 2 mainhand weps to choose from. Scepter is ranged and has meh skills, while sword is melee and has much more useful skills for survivability (long evade/blur skill with low cd). Mes also has lot more useful offhand sets depending on a situation, hence need for 1h wep sets instead of 2h ones which are mostly for camping ranged and do meh damage with a unique skillset only really useful for kiting. So I guess thats the reason why they have it like that, I can’t speak abt necros cos I never bothered with one.

I forgot to mention this bc I didnt even realise it at the time but OP has a strong case because the 3rd hit (which dazes anyone nearby, and so basically discourages the use of melee dps since it interrupts any melee dmg being dealt to him) actually has a circular radius extending around him maybe till arms length, a little bit past his melee hit range. It’s similar to GS f1 kill on warr I guess in that someone in close proximity behind him would also get hit by the daze, putting all their skills on cd at same time. Honestly the entire mechanics of fight discourages any sort of melee builds since its hard to land a hit on him without it coming down to trading blows with him. His circular attack alone (and the fact it’s on his AA chain means he uses it maybe 30% of the time if he’s allowed to stand still, vs. basically never if his chain gets interrupted by him constantly moving around) would strongly dissuade prolonged melee combat. So even if a rangers pet is holding his attention, me sneaking up behind him solves nothing since I still have to backpedal away unless I want to get smacked by the last hit on his AA chain. Not to mention, the fact that his shield is constantly reapplied means he needs to be kited to the purple tiles. If I’m remembering it correctly, this is only a problem past midway through the fight or so when the area of purple tiles becomes larger to the point he’s basically surrounded on all sides by them, making it impossible to get close to him in order to sustain dps (a problem that anyone ranging him shouldn’t have).

Ill be honest, as melee class I am sometimes intimidated by fights that are more severely punishing towards melee combat. I honestly can’t name any encounters in fractals that would similarly discourage ranged combat, or at least not handicap them more than their melee counterparts would be. I see some punishing mechanics every now and then especially geared towards ranged users in open world.. but off the top of my head can’t think of an any in fractals (maybe in the molten fractal one to some degree). I like challenges like approaching bloomhunger from a melee perspective. But while they should be harder or more punishing towards melee, I feel it should also at the same time be more rewarding if used correctly or say in a certain way. This encounter is probably the worst example in fractals atm of mechanics being balanced and equally considerate of both melee/ranged builds.

I just don’t understand the attitude of most ppl in this thread, especially Absurdo who’s always against me. In my previous post I proved what exp is defined as (to me). I read up on the unmentioned mechanic in sab, since no one in that group bothered to explain a simple thing to me. I now consider myself exp enough to join an exp group for this boss. what’s wrong abt it? I don’t think of it as lying or deceiving others, at least when I got majority of mechanics down and know how to respond to it.

I do feel I am too good for training runs, so u are right. In fact, I just ran with exp group for VG not an hour ago.. what happened? 3 wipes on a simple boss, got on 4th try. various complications, the rev was running hammer build and asked for kill proof, didn’t know what that meant -> insta-kick. A bit over the top for exp group not mentioning kill proof, but whatever. Then another person not speak English who said he was thai (doesn’t explain anything) who was over the top on toughness so tank was having problem and we also kick him. Then two more wipes cause they couldn’t stay on green.. I even had to step in once but we failed anyway. So if such a simple boss exp means nothing, what does that say majority of players who join them? Tell me I am a worse person/player than them bc I am more dishonest than them, and that skill doesn’t factor at all.

I take advice as long as it makes sense to me. you still haven’t defending half of your first post, esp why group time differs from the actual time (which is same as all). for instance I agree to do training run for matt with my guild. but no one else saying anything that make sense to me. I guarantee once I join exp group for sab and finish with minimal wipes some1 like Fatalyz will jump in to say how that was easy too, since I don’t have a bigger role or tank role etc.

Miellyn.6847:

The sapper bombs are on the same level of importance as the heavy bombs or flame wall. If you fail them, you fail the boss fight.
You don’t throw them anywhere else than the plattforms during a cannon spawn. Hitting Sabetha or one of her companions with them is a DPS loss.

“There is another AoE that originates from middle of the platform and shoot out red orbs. If any of the orbs touches you, it will create red circle AoEs that act like gravity well and lift you up. These circular AoEs will also increase your debuff stacks.”

From the Dulfy guide. You just disqualified yourself. Joined experienced groups without experience and didn’t read guides properly.

Explaining things to people doesn’t make them experienced. It makes them educated. Experience comes from doing the mechanic. So no, you are still new in your #2.

The middle ground between training runs and experienced runs would be a raiding guild, not a PUG.

My point is that even failure in one mechanic in exp groups for raids will 90% of time result in kick by leader even if it’s one that has high chance of wiping the group. So say the group wiped at 50% or less and all had to type /gg cos of one person’s mistake, they would have wasted less then 5min for that. It’s easier to kick that person cos u don’t trust him and replace him with a guildie. But to give an example, many times esp after dungeon nerf (because no one was running dungeons, so hard to get exp on a path) i would have ppl for easy path like CoF p1 that didn’t know what to do at the gate part bc they were new and had no clue what to do. Was it much easier to kick them and replace them? yes. But almost always we would explain it to them, bc it was a simple mechanic that required teamwork and yes group couldn’t progress otherwise, plus risk of a wipe longer that it took. Sometimes it took a similar amount of time before the guy figured out what to do. Other times we got impatient when he took too long or wouldn’t listen so we kicked him and got another, and that’s ok too. If we forget the inconvenience of everyone in raids being forced to type /gg and start over, actual time wasted for whole group has been on a similar order to previous example. So why is it failure is so punishing for exp groups, and when it’s only one person it’s almost guaranteed a kick rather than explaining to them what they doing wrong in simplest terms?

So maybe I didn’t read every part of guide but like sometimes it hard for me to put things together. In the section on sapper bombs, nothing mentioned about where to look or figure it out by using minimap. It’s explained much later but in a separate section, but how to use this to figure out what to do (and I understand now since an earlier poster pointed it out to me, and if you still don’t think this qualifies me to repeat this mechanic correctly with exp group cos I’m not exp or don’t know where my special action key is, then defend urself by saying why and let’s see what outcome is.

Yes I did read that part in Dulfy guide that u mentioned carefully. It says the AoE circles will increase ur own stacks, but nothing else. The previous poster was saying how it would hurt my groups chances bc it would end up reducing our DPS output. If this is true then ill admit I’m wrong and didn’t know.

So on the point of experience requiring hands-on training, ‘experience’ is defined also as ‘knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed (or encountered)’. Is it ok to say that knowledge can be imparted, from one person to another? A person makes a guide, another person reads it and is educated, thus acquiring knowledge he is considered experienced. I agree that for some things like tanking certain bosses, that requires practice only without which u can’t have experience (someone can’t exactly tell u how to tank or how to play ur class). But for dps role even Fatalyz agreed with me saying as long as u don’t have an important role to play like tank, then experience can come from knowledge itself since most times it’s not hard to figure out where to go, or how to do it. Tell me I’m wrong though, if u can give an example that doesn’t involve matt (or KC cos I haven’t gotten around to doing it) then ill accept it. I agree for matt I might have to ask my guild for training run, I’m in just one atm.

Oh Snapalope.1378:

I think the gist of this thread is the OP thinks being honest half of the time is not lying. So you think you know Xera or Sabe when you don’t even know what madness and green bombs do. Very interesting.

Ill add to this in seperate post cos I don’t want to address it in same one (diff topic). So it’s simple really. Ill try to be concise I’m sorry I have this problem that u guys point out: I join exp groups as opposed to LI groups cos I know those are the ‘elitist’ groups that want to run at record time and finish without wipe, cos wipe is bad. I get it and I respect that so even if I could join LI groups (by falsifying it or somesuch), I wouldn’t. Not only cos I know it’s wrong and don’t wanna be dishonest, but also cos I know I’m not speed run material and able to help kill boss on 1st try. Below that there’s only exp or training run, no middle ground in between. Do you ever see post for just ‘Sab’ or something similar? If so tell me and ill join it. So yes, I join exp group when not fully exp. Further, I read guide and watch example kill before I join. I view it as trial run with somewhat competent ppl. Everyone else views it as dishonest and worthy of insta-kick. But tell me why raid content is so competitive. Not cos it’s insanely challenging. But mostly bc players make it that way. Why don’t they post for LI if they are so concerned abt not wiping, or saving a few min? They can do but don’t.

So ask yourself what type of person would u be given a sityation:

You see semi-competent person for exp group in Sab, unaware of the simplest mechanic like green bombs but he manage to do everything else fine, like run away from flamewall and move away from group when he have timed bomb so he don’t wipe them. He even volunteer for big bombs and he gets them on time. But he throws green bomb at boss like a non-exp person, so stupid that it makes you seriously doubt him and it also makes you kinda annoyed and insulted at same time. You have to act fast and make a choice cos ur leader of group and others getting impatient.

1. The mechanic is very simple, so just make it seem harder than it is. Tell entire order that u memorized in chat, thus shaming that person’s lack of skill and making yourself seem smarter. Let him stay, so we wipe again but it’s not his fault. But u strongly suspect it is cos he’s only one not exp (it’s obv). Feeling insulted at someone not reading ur post, as well feeling angry ur group alrdy wiped twice due to a stupid oversight, proceed to silent kick him and replace him with ur guildie who’s run the boss at least 100 times before. You trust him, his failure rate is essentially negligible. You finish without wipe (hopefully) and forget abt what happened.

2. The guy does seem competent for most part. You press him ask if he’s new to raids. He says he’s done a couple bosses, can provide kill proof if needed. You say it’s ok, bc this is a diff boss than he’s used to and kill proof means nothing since he could’ve been carried or bought from a raid sell post anyway. You figure yeah why not give him a shot. Worst you can do is waste 5-9min (assuming of course u wiped at 50% like last time – if not than he’s doing better, but he gets boot anyway if boss not killed). You explain the mechanic to him, it’s simple enough so u make sure he understands that. Say something along lines of ‘you wanna be on the lookout for cannons, the direction they spawn is indicated by the crossed swords on minimap. Order is preferable to be aware of but that can come later. You see a person on jump pad, throw with your special action key to that launch pad. It’s easy, see? But mess it up again we kick u, sorry man.’ Then you call ready check and try again. Worst case scenario, guy messes up again and gets group killed at 50%, again.. wasted 5min but that’s ok since ur not doing record run, he’s just unteachable tho so yeah either tell him or leave or kick him outright. Or (hopefully) he learns this simple mechanic, doesn’t mess up again cos u taught him well and u finish fine without wiping again. So that’s not bad, 5min lost is nothing and u can feel good as person abt helping a guy out whos trying to get his first kill on boss. Now he’s exp since he learned something, and u feel as capable leader since u gave him good advice that he followed on first try without wiping group (that’s a relief cos u woulda kicked him anyway, u don’t have enough time to sit around train a newbie).

So pick which person u would choose to be.. If person #1 then you are like most ppl on this thread, who hold steadfast to ‘exp is for exp’. If your the 2nd kind of person then yeah I respect u cos it’s what I would do too. I might hate on noobs and be a hypocrite half the time but at least I have decency to spend a little bit of time and effort to help out someone who’s clearly not completely unexp’d as they would seem.