Guild Wars 2

I think that most zerker proponents will say that if you aren’t good enough to run full zerk mix in some knights gear till you are. Doesn’t stop zerk gear from being the best, it just means that if you can’t run it you should probably get some more basic 101 level practice in your class abilities. If you want to do group content don’t run with people who just wanting smooth/fast runs if you can’t manage the low skill requirements needed to survive dungeons with zerker gear. Making your own newbies/learning groups is always an option and better than forcing others to carry you.

SoliSnake.9457:

CM 1-3 are pretty fast too, but not many ppl like it

I like running those but most pugs don’t know the run, or they have different styles. Some people fight some of the trash to make the runs easier (that last bit is a 20 second fight to clear out the majority of the room, but some people prefer a full skip and risk a faceplant). So many pugs don’t know how to fight sure-shot seemis too, its funny watching them fail on him since he can knockdown lock people who aren’t careful. For the most part i just run with guardian or mesmer there because the reflects can pretty much carry the squishiest of pug groups.

You don’t even need to use stunbreaks on the gravelings, hell my guardian or mesmer (2 classes I play the most) doesn’t even bar stun breaks for most dungeon paths. In AC there are very few areas where you need to fight them (mostly its taking down the burrows or a few easily melted mobs). Dodge roll through them, use an aegis or evasion skill, and you are through the trash runs where they can cause problems. Do it right and you don’t even get the in combat slowness penalty.

I never understood why “greed” with only being concerned with receiving the rewards was bad in dungeons, but all the casuals are militant about “their” champ farm trains in Noobdale and Lazygorge Sound. Nobody ever fought champs until they made it (barely) rewarding. Nobody would be doing dungeons at all if it weren’t for the rewards, fun was had the first couple of months when they were still being done for the challenge of exploration and group fun. If you weren’t there you missed out on a completely different game experience that is like a soap bubble, short in life and quickly gone. Wanting to get the new game experience back is just not going to happen.

Anything worth doing more than once in a MMO gives a reward. Anything rewarding enough will be farmed. Anything rewarding enough but a pain to do will be sold (otherwise you would just do it yourself, its like people who don’t understand dungeon selling never took econ101). How about we make dungeons so rewarding you only have to do it once ever to get your full reward (account bound can’t sell whatever), to prevent people from “being greedy” about the rewards, meager as they are already (really, 5 gold is tiny, like a quarter dollar if you were to convert real money bought gems to gold), would anybody actually run them? No, the dungeons would be as deader than Timberline Falls or Snowden Drift’s map chat (actually would encourage selling as it would be impossible to get a non selling group after the initial wave, imagine if dungeons were like those living story instances where you only get rewarded once ever, dead after a week). How about if you made the content so hard that you couldn’t solo it? Yeah, there went any random scrub’s ability to complete any content since they would have to balance the difficulty on the handful of elite dungeon runners out there… The average casual player out there can’t even make it through SE 1 without being carried in my personal experience (seen entire team melt on the golems, team dps doesn’t go down even with only 1-2 players still up…) Make it so its just a body check event like CoF 1? Yeah, random Pugs can’t even do that reliably!

If you don’t like dungeon selling, don’t buy them. If you don’t like that you might possibly get kicked running arah, then play something else. Oh, you are wanting the rewards from that place without actually doing the work needed (like making in game friends who will run dungeons with you, social networking is after all by definition “work” and is required by most MMOs, GUILD Wars… hmm its like they want you to be in an organized group) and aren’t willing to pay, maybe you should move to a hug box game that gives no rewards but its a cool place to hang out with like minded friends built by Socialist Scandinavians. Like Habbo Hotel.

I actually never bothered with stability, I just dodge through the attacks that do knockdowns. Perhaps its a legacy from learning most areas on Mesmer and not liking the mantra.

Oh almost got me, thought they had patched it since I did it this morning.

Sola.7250:

Sadly your right, I’ve never run into jerks before but, doing dungeons there are more than a few.

To me the biggest issue is not doing anything to keep the group together, if one member falls behind and get’s downed nobody seems willing to go back and help them! If you are running the group keep everyone together it will help in the long run!

The goal should be to have fun, not see how fast you can run!

People going back to pick up downed people is a good way to turn a bad break into a wipe. Being able to do trash runs without having your hand held is dungeon 101 level stuff, but apparently even running through the trash in open world is too hard for some given the complaints I’ve seen.

You don’t have to fight every mob, some mobs are really annoying and wipe disorganized pugs, skipping is safer even for inexperienced players for the most part. If they can’t figure out how to skip mobs then you don’t want or need them. They need to learn how the game works instead of forcing people to carry them. And no, its not “i made a simple mistake and nobody helped me, why so mean” Its, “Idk what I’m doing, come do this hard part for me so I can continue playing how I want you should be carrying me!”

Then just run more variety in dungeons with your group. Sure it will take longer for everybody to get kitted out. But you can take those tokens you don’t want/need and buy lvl 70+ gear with them and break them for ectos.

Laeki.6523:

how are necromancers doing in dungeons?

In my experience mostly considered to not be wanted. They don’t contribute much that is actually desired, and most seem to build for conditions which is bad in dungeons. They also lay down fields that prevent the desired ones from being used, and fear enemies out of stacks randomly (result of bad play for sure, but there it is). A well played one can contribute well enough, but that is rarer than a well played ranger.

Well it depends somewhat on dungeon, and the players in question. Mesmer is off many people’s rotation for many paths for instance. I would say the good dungeon groups have wars, guardians, and mesmers in them. If the player in question is good enough to use the class properly thiefs, eles, and rangers are solid additions. Most people are crap at those three, and I’ve seen so many scrub mesmers it should probably be added there. But that can be said of heal guards and tank wars too, its really build depending and how much synergy is present in the party.

In general as long as there is a good mix of required for dungeon skills (reflects, might stacks, aegis/protection, blinds, ect.) and everybody is specced for dps you can run with nearly anything.

I had that happen once before, 2 people left to level their characters, my DPS guardian got knocked back, but the other 2 guys were still attacking full speed. Yeah, healing like they weren’t even there. I jumped back in and it was losing life again, at about the same speed it was when there were 5 people there.

noelclover.9408:

Ran the AHEM (Ye Olde Strife025’s build) for a good long time.

It’s a nice combo and works very well for solo PvE and group PvE if you are going anchor (The only real way to validate the use of AH really.). Anchoring does work to some degree, at least from group/guild observations. No idea if things have changed and YMMV. Wonderful build if you’re starting out and don’t believe in running Clerics.

Not sure if it works with Berserker…

Works fine with zerker. I started out with knights and slowly introduced more and more zerk gear. Once I was used to it I realized it was too survivable still (wasted points on survivability is poor use of opportunity cost). So i switch over to a more meta dps/blind build and haven’t looked back.

I was able to make over 30 gold in one day, just doing dungeon paths and a few world bosses as they popped between runs. That is selling all mats, drops, salvaging token gear ect. I’m by no means a good player. I don’t know CoE well enough to farm and I don’t pug arah. Those were all pug runs so limited on only doing the easiest paths. AC1&3, CM1&3, TA both nightmares, SE 1&3, CoF 1&2, HotW123. It felt like half of that time was in HotW. Half hour on AC paths, same with CM, Little bit longer on TA (had a wipe on the trash run in foward), SE was like 25 minutes, CoF 25 minutes, HotW little less than an hour. Bout 4.5 hours actually in a dungeon, with 3 world bosses thrown in. I did part of it again after reset for another 1.5 hours for another 15ish gold.

AH is the definition of a selfish build. Its better to get used to dodges and using blinds/aegis/reflects and deal decent damage at the same time than to run AH, never die, but contribute nothing but poorly timed shouts/boons and leach off of dungeon runs.

In pve healing is a wasted stat and condition damage is of very limited utility. You also don’t need toughness in PVE. In fact Settlers is pretty much the worst combination of PVE gear stats you can come up with.

WvW is something I generally don’t do that often, so I prefer to not comment.

On my warrior, I’m complete glass (PVE/dungeon), if I miss a Dodge, I either die 1-2 hits, or I survive and hope my heal is available.

On my guardian, also complete glass for same reasons, If I miss a dodge aegis usually gets it. Or I have protection up so its not a big hit. If the above aren’t true I probably get downed in 1-2 hits. But if not I can refresh aegis, go into invul mode to refresh virtues, pop shouts, spam blinds, use blocks…. Yeah, guardians are way easier to play IMHO. I play both classes in PVE/dungeon only and I have to say warriors are harder to play correctly, they have less margin for errors.

It is why guardians are turning into the ultimate PUG class in my experience.

zerotwo.4731:

notabot.3497:

Stacking is older than WP rushing.

Then they certainly help promote stacking don’t they.

In GW1 we had guys pulling entire areas into a tight little ball allowing the group to single rotation spike the entire pile. The dungeon “exploits” in this game are mild in comparison.

zerotwo.4731:

notabot.3497:

Well if you use your dungeon tokens to buy lvl 70+ rare armor and salvage them for ectos you can do OK for increasing your dungeon yields. You can also buy rabid,soldiers and a couple other stat group exotic weapons to salvage for ectos and inscriptions (not every time salvage, but they go for about 3-4 gold when you get them). So about 2 gold per run, some ectos/inscriptions, it adds up pretty quick. If you have good MF you can get some good drop rates too. I get 1-3 yellows from mobs in most paths now, and every 3-5 runs I get exotic drops, with a MF that is only 120 atm. Still, can only do that for a few hours because I run out of fast runs. My first legendary weapon took 3 months from start of actually doing it to finish, my second is 95 percent done and I only started 3 weeks ago and don’t play on weekends.

Tokens can be used to get 70 and 80 exotics. COF tokens and arah tokens.

Exotics cost more. Don’t really have a high enough ecto rate to justify spending so much more on them if are only going for the money/ecto. CoE, and HotW also work for the 70+ level that you need for ecto salvages.

Well if you use your dungeon tokens to buy lvl 70+ rare armor and salvage them for ectos you can do OK for increasing your dungeon yields. You can also buy rabid,soldiers and a couple other stat group exotic weapons to salvage for ectos and inscriptions (not every time salvage, but they go for about 3-4 gold when you get them). So about 2 gold per run, some ectos/inscriptions, it adds up pretty quick. If you have good MF you can get some good drop rates too. I get 1-3 yellows from mobs in most paths now, and every 3-5 runs I get exotic drops, with a MF that is only 120 atm. Still, can only do that for a few hours because I run out of fast runs. My first legendary weapon took 3 months from start of actually doing it to finish, my second is 95 percent done and I only started 3 weeks ago and don’t play on weekends.

Idk, I did it on release day with a guild group, very casual guild at that. Took about an hour due to learning the stuff, and the bosses other than the final melted pretty quick due to most of the party being glass cannon zerkers. I never went back because the mechanics were fun to learn once, but it just takes too long for it to be added to my dungeon rotation. I almost exclusively pug (due to being in casual/teaching guild, I teach our guild newbies how to run stuff a couple times a day too) and while I’ve found some real bad groups I’ve never had the degree of bad luck some people complain about. Perhaps its because I’ve been sticking to running the well known stuff, make sure everybody in the group knows the path, and main 2 reflect classes (mesmer and guardian).

In general aether path isn’t rewarding enough for the time investment, and the path I’ve heard is mostly being run by really bad pugs instead of dungeon farmers who can do it in their sleep. Also I’m getting really sick of all the aether/scarlet content in general. It better be leading to something actually interesting involving the main story line, or open up some of those blank spots on the map pretty kitten soon.

Stacking is older than WP rushing.

One of my fastest clears ever was 3 rangers with 2 mesmers (i was a mesmer). Amazingly none of the rangers had any of the trash builds (hint, if it has a bow its trash) so with 2 time warps and respectable dps we flew through the dungeon.

Eles are actually one of the best dungeon classes for organized groups. But not so great when you get a group that overwrites the eles fire field when they are attempting to stack might with blast finishers. All to often the bad guardians (and there are a bunch of them) slap down the wrong field types making retaliation stacks occur instead of might stacks.

Necros also have this issue of slapping down fields that organized groups don’t want. While the class by itself if played correctly is decent enough, it doesn’t actually provide any combos/support that most groups want. Add in a low skill player base…

Engies can be amazing boon stackers, but most don’t even seem to know what a combo is let alone how to stack party buffs quickly and effectively.

Which really comes down to the reason for the war/guard meta for PUGs. Most people playing other classes suck at them. Really hard too. Like bear bow hard. You often don’t notice when a bad guard is in the group because he is probably still carrying you with his random prots/reflects/aegis unless you yourself are good enough to know what a well played guard plays like. Same with war. Even a bad build does more dps and provide more offensive support than the equivelent PUG trash builds other classes seem to show up with. But once you see what a well played warrior looks like you realize that 90 percent of the wars out there aren’t competent past using a GS or axe against walled enemies. I mean think of all those runs where you see wars with the wrong banners, too many signets, or no shouts on their bar. Or ones that can actually face tank a few hits and it’s obvious they don’t have purely offensive gear on.

When it comes to mesmers: They have very specific purpose when in dungeons. Usually it their access to reflects. Sometimes they are nice for using viel/mass invis, or portal, but those are very niche skipping techniques that good groups don’t actually need. Their DPS is a kludge, since much of it is reliant on getting phantasms up. Another use is boon stripping, but there are very few fights where that matters all that much. Still a valued dungeon class, but all to many of them use the wrong weapons (if its isn’t sword/X you are probably doing it wrong) and builds (if you don’t have focus reflect…)

Thief in my experience comes in two flavors. Amazing dungeon buddy or the guy you don’t bother raising if he downs. Skips, blinds, blast finisher spam… they can do a good job in an organized group/non terrible pug. But is heavily reliant on both the player and the party knowing how to use their skill set. Most party/player combinations don’t. All too often i see a thief camping shortbow and essentially leaching the dungeon, or using heartseeker till they are out uses then falling down dead when they fail to dodge back out of combat.

Skipping is intended. There are areas that obviously are intended as gauntlet areas. You aren’t supposed to really fight back in a gauntlet. There are also “bonus events” that are also meant to give players a skip or fight option. Stacking might not specifically be intended, but it a result of the code they made making too many reason to. Boons, con removal, revives, combos, cleaves, enemy AI…. list goes on an on for reasons to stack up.

I’ve carried teams with mesmer, guardian, warrior, and occasionally ele (its still sub 80 and I suck with it, but I can carry groups with frost bow and FGS). I have a 80 necro that I’ve used to teach some people, but I don’t like using it most of the time since I don’t know the ins and outs of it like my main 3. Its easier to carry with guard because of spamming aegis/blinds, but that isn’t the only way to carry. I’ve seen thiefs carry teams before (trash run escorts are very useful for bad pugs), IDK engies enough to comment, and a good ranger, while rare, can be amazing.

I don’t think “experienced” players are solely doing boss fights other than a post reset rush of them as they pop up on the tracker. If you actually did dungeon regularly you will find good to excellent groups even pugging for their daily path bonus chests. Problem is the really good dungeon runners are largely doing guild runs when they can because how bad “play how you want” players can be.

Also, IDK how I feel about “new players without tactics” Just because you are new doesn’t mean you automatically are bad and lack situation awareness. I’ve partied with Sub 1ks that don’t know the content but know how to play well enough to clear even tricky dungeon sections.

Most traps are instant down at the very worst, you can recover if the team works together. They are also easy to avoid with 10 seconds observation of them.

Just out of curiosity, outside of high fractals, what classes and fights are you talking about? I’ve seen every class in normal dungeon runs be effective. Sure some dungeons have classes that have a mechanic that trivializes fights, like reflects or frostbow ect, but honestly you don’t need them. If each player builds his character competently, gears it correctly, and doesn’t just spam skills on cooldown, everything can be done quickly and efficiently regardless of class.

Its when you get players who don’t know their class at all, who gear incorrectly, trait poorly, and run around like chickens with their heads chopped off when things become difficult. The funny thing is most content can be carried by 1-2 good party members, so the poorer players don’t even know how bad they are until they get a party of only less capable players.

Even a full group of new player if they play in an organized manner can clear most paths with just a little bit of effort. We have come a long way from WP zerging like pugs did shortly after release, why don’t more people play like it?

I think what he was saying is due to how ele played at harder content they were better as ele/X where X defines their role more than the base class.

You don’t need a ele frostbow to do it, just some people with power based builds that can attack object effectively.

To be quite honest I would be disappointed if any of the dungeons were newb easy. Messing up and learning is how it was done to begin with. Now that all the dungeons have been reduced to their bare essence and put on youtube there is no excuse for the laziness of not knowing basic dungeon mechanics however. Not knowing basics in this day and age = fail at googling. Besides, once you know what to do nearly every dungeon in this game is relatively simple.

Step 1. Research your path. Youtube is a good resource.
Step 2. Have a build that isn’t terrible and know how to use it effectively in a dungeon setting. Terrible builds are ones that don’t include DPS as a main consideration.
Step 3. Execute strategy.
Step 4. Profit

I kinda like the spider queen. A good fight right off the bat before I waste time with a bunch of idiots. If they can listen to direction and/or figure out the mechanics quickly, i will stay in group and complete it, even if it takes longer due to others running clerics gear or bearbows (or, both on the same toon)

That being said I was in a group just yesterday doing story, they wanted a guide, but they wanted me to run a low level toon so it would be fun instead of a complete carry. So I hopped on my glass ele, level 40 something to help. Keep in mind I suck at ele since i have like 5 hours into it. I played it well enough to carry the party to the lovers anyways. But they were too “play how I want” to listen to directions and wiped. Instead of trying again the instance owner just quit complaining of “to hard”… Talk about a lazy wimp.

On the variations of dungeons. In GW1 they had these huge multi path dungeons that required organized groups to effectively clear. Emphasis on effectively. After a very short time of these areas the best builds and paths ways to run these became well known. A skillbar ping required on joining. Failed basic duty = kick. Suck too much and get kicked out of guild if it was a pve speed clear guild. The different paths were an illusion, it was all about running the same path order, pulling the same mobs, balling up the entire instance in one spike ball and clearing content in minutes that takes unorganized groups hours (or not at all). The dungeons in this game are easy by comparison.

Zaxares.5419:

Noah.4756:

You’re forgetting that salvaging dungeon weapons allows you to get inscriptions which can be used to level up your crafting to 500. I am fairly certain this will be applied to salvaging dungeon armor as well. So it is not totally useless.

Does that actually work? I was under the impression that only named, dropped Exotics had a chance to salvage their inscription off. (From what I heard, dungeon weapons do not give inscriptions when salvaged, and neither do crafted Soldier’s/Magi’s/etc. Exotics.)

If you salvage soldiers or rabid stats you can get the inscriptions off them. I’ve been doing for a good while, easy money.

I would rather have a skill barrier at the beginning than at then end that can’t be passed.

First time through I fought spider “legit” and at range. Also known as hard mode. Doable, and we got it on the first try with a pug group, couple of downs but no deads.

The burrows in P3 are easy, no dps check that is real. Random scrubs with power stats handle them perfectly. People packing Precision or healing sets are the only ones that have trouble with that part. 10 Seconds on the wiki could tell you that.

The different paths are when you choose at the begining. Non linear design is fine and all, but you can’t even keep a pug pointed in a single direction in single path, multipaths would be a train-wreck.

Troll even says bonus event, you can skip. You can also get good and learn to dodge.

Kholer is a cool boss, but 10 seconds looking at the map, or the wiki can tell you you can skip him. He is somewhat hard but doable with pugs. First time I ran we killed it with only 3 downs and no deads.

You want variety? Run other dungeons, you have lava, magitech, snow/water, corrupted gardens, bandit hideouts ect.

You are complaining about armor repair in december of 2013. Good god can you get any more poor? 1 gold + normal rewards for completion, break everything and its not even close to that level of reward… Also the traps are easily avoidable and its not like you can’t revive, I’ve done it before.

HP sponges? Nah, nothing in AC is that bad. As long as you aren’t building for bad stuff that doesn’t contribute to damage nothing is a HP sponge. Most mobs go down quick enough even with low levels.

Catacombs in GW1 weren’t that exciting, nostalgia goggles much? Nothing even remotely challenging in there, and not even a real dungeon at that. Solo leveling content, and that is being charitable.

The similar content in GW1 largely consisted of pulling the enemy and balling them up so the party could kill entire zones with one skilled spike. Just like using LoS pulls to burst down trash mobs and elite mobs currently. Its not an exploit to use the dungeon’s actual design (corners and obstacles) and enemy AI (they know how it works and how players are likely to abuse AI) to clear it quickly and safely. They know about the trash running, and even have said that not all mobs need to be fought. They even know about the more legitimate non map clipping skips. Just look in CM, they even put the safebox for killing the riflemen in there, the broken railing to break aggro on the trash run to get there, and the random nailed to the floor riflemen. They made it so much of the dungeon can be laughed at by a skilled stealth thief.

IMHO the dungeons are pretty easy for the most part, once you understand the mechanics of them they are meant to be relatively easy. And it is, even on low level alts I’ve leveled up in AC explore. Heck even when I was on my main leveling I did CM and TA explore at the min level requirements without too much fail (I didn’t AC because I didn’t wander to Charr lands till I was 80). Early on there was informational resources from generous people sharing strategies which were very helpful.

Just because you are new to dungeons and on a low level alt doesn’t mean you can’t read strategies, watch youtube guides, and have a good build (as good as lowbies can be at least). There is still people who have to ask where to find out basic information that can be found by a 10 second google search. Anybody who can’t figure out how to learn basic content are lazy and discourteous to their party. I never go into established content without watching a guide and having a properly geared character. Even when leveling I kept my gear current when doing group content, anything else is being lazy and asking to be carried.

Mesket.5728:

Aha… this is so right as warriors are not married with heavy armor and melee weapons… its just a general view of the genre. There are plenty of bow warriors, cross bow warriors, naked barbarians with javelins and a lot more… but it doesn’t mean what it is expected by convention when rolling a class.

Many of the heavy skins actually look barbaric, or gladiator style. And the LB is sort of viable on warrior in specific areas. No javelins in game, and if we did get them maybe we could get them on guards since they are evolution of paragons. I still don’t know how ranger got equated to bows though. D&D 3.0? I don’t remember it before then at least. WoW hunters are probably what people are drawing off of, even in gw1 you didn’t have to use bow on ranger.

ranger =/= ranged. Ranger means mobility, specifically a type of troop that patrols an area. They aren’t married to bows by any means, heck the archetype for a ranger in LotR used a sword primarily (and when he got his legendary weapon used it exclusively iirc), and Drizzt from the Forgotten Realms books used TWO swords for most of his career, and only later on switched to a bow as a weapon swap.

The mechanics of the game favor melee, wanting to make a decent class bad by playing it in a way that flies in the face of the mechanics is foolish, especially since the entire argument is based on bad semantics.

Edit: not only is Drizzt a sword ranger, he also uses a dps cat.

I actually miss GW1 instances, none of this play how you want BS. You either had the build for the run, or they kicked you from the group. And if you were particularly obstinate about not wanting to be kicked, ejected from the guild.

If you want to play how you want, go play open world zones. Dungeons are group efforts and don’t want 99 percent of the builds out there because they are actually harmful for the team. If you want to make a casual fluff bunny clear everything but take 3 hours for CM group, go ahead, but good luck finding people like that every day.

Well when you see someone use combos to stack more than the usual 3-6 stacks of might and keep team fury going while doing their own DPS its a sign that the player is at least competent. When you see a player dodge out of friendly firefields, not use finishers, down frequently, use bad dungeon weapons (usually ranged ones), have a bear on their rotation, too many signets that are left on passive, and similar stuff, it means they are bad. A low AP player just means they are new. A high AP player means they have played a bunch. Time =/= quality. Hell I’m 6k+ and barely competent. Yeah, I can carry a bad pug as long as they follow directions, but I can’t solo any content, and I need to watch a video guide before doing new things. I’ve known low AP players who blew threw content I shy away from. Heck the guys blowing through dungeons before we knew how to do them had APs when they did them at levels that groups filter out now.

They are just bads who think AP means they are good. Had that happen recently a couple of kitten quality warriors got on a ele’s case about having only 600 AP and being underleveled in SE 3, kittened so much they downed since they were typing and not fighting. They then left the instance in the middle of a fight. Another guy kept repeating basic instructions the entire time. Eventually I just had enough and told him to shut-up, the 600 AP ele was the only person other than me (1hand sword zerk guardian) stacking might and boons since the rest of the party was only 1 step above bear-bows they had no room to kitten about a guy who played his class correctly and had watched the vids before going in.

The only way they can make that happen is if they give faster attacks to the enemies. Currently the bosses just hit you so hard they 1-2 shot you regardless of tankiness. lots of small attacks that you can’t dodge all the time is really the only way to encourage healing/survivability. Dodging/blocking/aegis/evade/invul + high dps is just currently better than building for survivability at the expense of dps.

yes speccing for survivability won’t slow things down to much if you don’t go whole hog on it. But if that becomes the meta 5 guys going AH or its equivalent in other classes will. Then you get into the guys who go with cleric shout heal warriors or water camped eles and you get into full “this fight is too long” mode on every single boss. Just the other night I carried a party in CM that insisted on ranging and the other guards camped staff… Took 10 minutes to kill Frost, which is longer than most of the dungeon should have taken.

Wait, I was under the impression that legendaries are soulbound. Is this not the case?

Either way ranged combat is kinda crappy for mesmers in dungeons. Sword with offhand swaps (focus, pistol, sword) is the preferred, and dungeon groups hate mesmers that camp a GS or staff, and honestly don’t like either on the rotation (because your dps or build is bad as a result).

HotW p1 is one of the fastest runs in the game. P2-3 aren’t hard but they can be time consuming. But honestly I would recomend HotW over the other options, as I dislike TA and it HotW is easier with even bad pugs.

Range combat doesn’t work for clearing dungeons, boon support and damage potential just doesn’t support it. Like it or hate it this makes ranged dps/support a non entity. Deal with it. Nothing in the ranger class discriptions says they have to use a bow in every and all situations either. They give you access to melee/short range weapons like sword and axe for situations where they are better. Like in dungeons.

Its better to go 4 man than deal with a bearbow, kick the leaches.

While I’m no expert mesmer player, it is my main from launch. Mostly PVE/Dungeon The only main weapon you need is sword. Pistol/focus/other sword offhand, swap offhand, main weapon same in both sets. If you know you need range (like in open world) then either staff or GS works, but its open world so its not like it matters, you are just tagging/killing stuff.

As for gear, full zerk, you have so much avoid/invul/reflect available its not like you actually are threatened if you know enough to dodge the big stuff. Don’t even need heals or runes of vamp, just put in ruby orbs or scholar runes.

As for traits, lots of builds, but honestly choose the ones that give you reflects on focus and a bunch of direct damage support. Conditions are worthless in dungeons, fights are too short for the condition damage to matter, and the stacks cap out so you lose even more effectiveness.

Might be a bit hard to learn, but its better to learn how to play the best way rather than get bad habits from tanky builds.

Ranger =/= ranged. How often did Strider use a bow in LotR? How often does Drizzt use a bow in classic FR novels (not the post 4ed tripe)? This isn’t a WoW hunter. The selfish player is the one who ignores the game mechanics and plays in a way that doesnt add to group dps, and doesn’t recieve boons, and doesn’t give boons either. Nothing like seeing all the mechanics of the game and saying NOPE, Ill Play How I Want.