Guild Wars 2

ibravitzk.8324:

About 2years ago i spend 600gold for ascended armor and now i wanna play another class cudnt anet have warned me earlier abou that?

Nah man. By now you were expected to have at least 3-4 full sets of ascended gear for all 9 of your characters. Get gud, mate.

(On a more serious note, thanks for the post; it was needed to break some of the tension that’s built up).

Mortifer.2946:

And there we are, back in the conclusion that only omni players playing multiple toons can enjoy the fun in the long run. Single toon players are in the mercy of a current state of the game.

/headdesk

If you have 1 toon total it would be unrealistic that it would be optimal to use for 100% of the content of the game. GW2 has at least made it to where toons are versatile enough to fill multiple roles, but that does not mean each toon will excel at every role. I’d imagine an uproar if I tried to present myself as the team Healer, but I was playing on a thief.

The point that many many many of us have tried to make is that no one is stopping you from having fun in the game with your 1 toon. Are Raids the 1 thing that Guards do not excel at? Currently, that would be a correct statement. So if your fun in the game is so dependent on using your 1 toon for this 1 content in the game with pugs you will find your fun crushed. Wait for Wing 2 or 3. Maybe in those instances Guards will be more worthwhile to use in a PUG situation. So right now you can accept that Guards are less than desired on a random team and instead go play content where Guards excel more at, or you can join/make your own static team where they compose a team that fills in your toon.

Why did I make the personal choice to spend so many hours and in-game resources to gear multiple toons? Because just like irl I enjoy being able to fill multiple roles and wear multiple hats. Versatility makes you more of a valuable asset to a team. Honestly, raids are still at the stage where the majority of the player base is more concerned with just being able to clear the content rather than goofing off. Hence, players are rather picky in their team selection versus the open arms you get in Fractals and Dungeons.

Mortifer.2946:

I think what is worth the most is to have fun and not to die. …with all respect

If that’s your stance on the subject after all the discussion that’s taken place on this thread I’d like to bring you back full circle to your opening question:

Mortifer.2946:

If I commit to it and reforge my armor/weapons and buy those 2 expesnive sigils and 6 runes, do you think a general PUG group would let me in with them for the whole run?

To answer that question I would bring up your point of “is it fun” and will it help you “not to die”. Ultimately, if your audience is the general PUG you’re going to be running into a lot of frustration since puglife is a lot of copypasta; you’re at the mercy of what they want. Granted, I’ve been in my share of smooth runs (both organized and pug) where there was a DH on the team. Would I personally slot in a DH in a team I was composing, or would I present myself as a DH to a potential PUG? No, not at all. Why? I don’t feel they contribute anything fantastic to the team. Don’t get me wrong, my second created character was a Guard (since Nov 2012), and I have more hours on that toon than I’m willing to admit. I fully enjoy using that toon in open world where I can make use of the majority of his skillset and unique attributes. Though, in a raid setting there’s not a whole lot I can offer.

Thaddeus.4891:

I’m still not sure about that these are new findings. I find that these number are pretty much in line with the number we used to see at the beginning of HoT if you add a Druid and Chronomancer buffer and that’s it.

I still want to compare orange to orange and I still have a hard time beliving that the Guardian outdps a Reaper or a Engineer. If 23K is the max in-game then Reaper can go higher than that if there is 2 Reaper. And Engineer, it probably depend on the skill of the engineer.

Hence the vacuum vs group comment I made. Everything looks great on paper, though I’m still looking at the numbers with a raised brow until I see live encounters.

Thaddeus.4891:

Lendruil.9061:

At least perma quickness should be a given in every serious raid group. Also cripple is basically permanent on the boss. The only thing that you maybe dont have always, depending of your squadcomposition, are the ranger buffs.

Ya of course. I was just pointing out that 23K isn’t abnormal if you talk about theorical max because at the beginning of HoT we used to talk about DH doing around 16-17k theorical dps without counting a Chronomancer and Druid in the equation. Now that they are more popular it’s normal that the DH dps increase. It’s not because the DH is better, but only because now we count 2 additionals buffer.

That’s kinda really what it boils down to when it comes to picking the raid roster though, is it not? Sure, in a vacuum setting a class might excel over other, but it’s in a group setting things matter the most.

Despite the “new” findings regarding DH DPS, I still don’t see it’s value (/PersonalOpinion). As in, I don’t see the unique contribution that a DH brings to the team. Sure, something like Rev got nerfed, but they’re still bringing perma fury, high might uptime, 50% additional boon duration, and Assassin’s Presence. They also have a quasi-invulnerability with they Consume Facet of Light when it comes to soaking a failed green circle or standing in a lit up pie piece.

Again, I’m not stating that DH is a terrible choice, it’s just that other classes are able to wear more hats in this first release of the raids; the many defensive tools that a DH offers aren’t as needed in the first wing. Are they nice to have? Sure. Can you build a team around it? Of course.

Mortifer.2946:

Ah sorry guys I still don’t get it why is it so important for you to cross some DPS line. In my opinion, any damage that is above 20K per second is so freaking high it doesn’t really matter if someone can dish out 3K more (or less).

We all know it, but people just like to push things to the limits.

Even assuming a generous 6 minute encounter something are “meaningless” as 3k on you damage rate means you’re contributing/depriving your team of 1.08M points worth of damage. Encounter goes on for 7 mins? That’s 1.26M points.

In that case I gotta ask myself, what’s more worthwhile? A class who can push out 23-25k worth of DPS with little utility to the team or a class maybe with 20-21k worth of DPS but who offers better utility/buffs to the team to compensate for its lack of personal damage?

Thaddeus beat me to the he majority of the reply points, and I only have this to add:

Tspatula.9086:

Of course, all of you posting about how everything is fine already have plenty of ascended gear and are working on gearing alt #4 or extra ascended set #3 or… I realize now that I made a big mistake, playing so much WvW has left me with zilch, well 2 ascended armor chests, 4 weapons and 10 rings (not infused) with healing stats, maybe 5 or so that were useful, oh and not a single precursor. That’s putting roughly 20 hours a week.

Do you know what us Fractal veterans had on day 1? RNG. You had to endure the agony (literally) of level progression and hope you got a ring in your drop. On top of that you were extremely lucky to get a ring that dropped in the stat combination you wanted. We didn’t have Pristine relics, and Guild Commendations and Laurels didn’t exist. Nowadays, you can walk into Fractal for your first time ever and already have a full set of ascended gear head to toe.

You only have 2 armor boxes, 4 weapons, and a selection of 10 rings? A lot of players new to Fractals would kill to have a head start like that. Though, you more or less discredited your thread by stating you invested your time in WvW. The reason we have a hoard of boxes and trinkets? We spent our time grinding the old fractals and dungeons relying on rng drops and accruing gold to craft what we needed from scratch.

So yeah, a lot of the veterans here have gone through the trials of having no gear at all with no way to get it. If you wanted to progress your level for the better rewards you either had to play the low levels over and over again until you got the drops or learn to dodge a lot since you would be tackling content with less AR than what was needed.

As far as Raids needing it? Still no. They give a team an edge and about a 10% damage boost on paper. However, even a coordinated team can clear the bosses with plenty of time left on the counter with relative ease.

Why doesn’t Guardian make the cut? The current wing simply does make use of all a Guardian has to offer.

So for the most part, there’s a general consensus/plea that Guards should have the Tank role. Okay, what does a Guard have to offer? Group Boons (stab, Aegis, Proc, Regen), condi clear, AoE stunbreak, Projectile management, Blinds, area denial, moderate healing, and moderate DPS (quick list, I know I’m missing things). Now how much of that do we actually need in the first wing?

The other problem is that Guardians relies on more active defenses than passive ones. In other words if you miss a dodge or don’t have the right boons/blocks up you’re in for a bad time. Compared to a Necro? That guy can just stand there and take a beating (to an extent) while dishing out a very respectable amount of damage. Chronotanks? Yeah, they rely on a healthy mix of active and passive defenses, but the buffs/boons they can simultaneously offer make them quite the contender for the Tank spot. Heck, I’ve even seen Warriors outshine a Guardian in the tanking role since, like a Necro, they can take a beat but offer party buffs at the same time.

So yeah….Guards got the short end of the stick on this wing. Maybe on the next wing we’ll be presented challenges that better cater to the package that a Guard can bring. I’m not saying that you can’t bring a Guard to tank, it’s just that other classes can fulfill that role with more efficiency and with more to offer so most teams will opt for the more optimal/efficient choice.

Ultimately though, if you’re not setting up your own runs you’re at the mercy of what you team is demanding. And seeing how Guards aren’t on the “meta list” I can understand why there’s a potential for gripes when you try to present yourself as a Guard tank.

Thaddeus.4891:

Rising Dusk.2408:

but since changing the LFG is a high-risk/high-effort development item it could land even later.

Not the first time you said that and I still don’t get it. How adding 2 tab is a high-rik/high-effort development???

Hell even if that’s too much for them they could renamed some of the useless LFG tab that already exist. Yes functionality between Squad and LFG is another beast and that will probably take longer. But new tabs so that Open World LFG isn’t a mess anymore?? I can’t believe this would take more than a couples of hours for 1 developer.

Do they really need to make us wait for a crucial and easy change just because they want to add complex optional stuff?? Everybody want it, the open world tab is just a bloody mess. Inexcusable.

+1

We’re already used to breaking off from squad to recruit. Not ideal, but it works I guess. But yeah, even an extra tab or two to clean up the open world tab would be phenomenal especially during weekends where posts are going up and down like crazy with all the interweaving events.

Overhaul the LFG to be squad compatible? I think the general consensus is that part can wait. It would be great to have, but we understand that taking a tool built for 5 man and making it 10-100 man compatible is not exactly straightforward.

Serious.6940:

Actually raids are inaccessible because they are too tough. If your squad is anything less than the absolute best players you are going to hit that 8 minute time limit. Not having a proper team that play together regularly, or even not having every player on voice comms, just makes that much worse.

Raids were not designed for pugs typing into the chat box. They were not designed for the average GW2 player. They were designed for the top few percent.

To make raids more accessible anet need to nurf it.

Had a spare hour last night and decided to do a quick VG kill. My regular group couldn’t form so I posted on LFG. Killed VG and did the events leading up to Gorsy with only 4 deaths of which only 2 were legitimate (the other 2 were dc’s/Leroy Jenkins). Only about 5-6 in the group were from a guild; the other 4-5 were pulled from LFG (myself included).

On Friday, I PUG’d a teaching group where half the team had 0 hours in raid time. Even with brand new noobs to the instance we got to the final phase within the hour.

So, to your claim that Raids are only for the few top percent? I would have to call that a stretch. Though I will agree the average player may not be up to the call since it requires just a tad bit more of self-motivation and commitment than what most are willing to put in.

I can’t say that I’ve ever run into a situation where I was asked a gearcheck, and I regularly do fractals in the 75+ range and raids. To check your gear they’ll just ask you to shift-click your gear and post it on chat, but that check can kinda be cheated since you can just link chat codes and virtually post any gear. Otherwise, in Fractals, they’ll just have you run into the agony orb in the staging area to see if your AR is up to par.

If a group is devastatingly serious they’ll ask you to link your character using a tool like GW2Efficiency where they can see you gear, build, inventory, etc. Though, this is extremely overkill in a PUG and is generally only seen when joining a guild/static group.

But no, the majority of PUG’s do not do checks of any sort.

Jahroots.6791:

Petrol.9086:

Why can’t people just play the kittening game. How lazy do you have to be to go out of your way to do as little as possible in a game you supposedly play for relaxation and fun.

People don’t really want to exploit these fights, it’s just preferable to the alternative.

Never mind all of the ‘Oh, but this fight is SO fast and easy to do legit’ talk. It’s rubbish, all of it. I’ve been in quite a few level 21 Swamp fracs where people got downed. Some even died. At the higher levels I’ve seen half the party go down in a few seconds attempting to fight him off the pole.

The problem with the fight is that you can hardly see what Mossy’s doing half the time through the spell effects and other players with their great big floppy wings and what not.

I’m sorry, but if you’re having problems with downing/dying players at scale 21 you clearly aren’t ready for anything beyond that or aren’t bringing the right team/gear. Even with all the flashiness and glamour there’s only one attack that you truly have to watch out for: his bouncing axe. During stealth he’ll throw this out of nowhere, but it’s easily mitigated. Out in the open he’ll do a quick shadowstep, cross his arms for a second or two, and then throw the attack. I’ll admit that I can’t always see his AA, but that attack got nerfed to the ground even at higher levels.

Other than that? There’s not really much else to the boss. If you’re having that much trouble with it bringing a Druid for perma Protection and Regen as well as heals. You can also bring a Chrono for high reflect uptime against his axe, and you’ll also get some offense buffing through Quickness and Alacrity.

Sansarah.3076:

So I’m not going to bother with this anymore, have your lfr section. But I’m telling you this, once this goes live, because why would it not? Check out the state the raids are in now, compared to a year or two from now.

ArenaNet will nerf raids into oblivion, because of the whines that will come to these forums, that the content is to hard. The raids take to long, the farm every week takes to much of their time. Rewards are way to bad compared to the effort it takes, why can’t I have The Ethernal title, etc. In the end, it may be in a worse state than fractals.

I’m sad to say, that I think, with this, it may end up being a slippery slope.

We already have an LFR section; it’s just piled in with the rest of the open world events. Adding a different section for raids will just help to clean up the tab because right now you got Silverwastes, Dry Top, VB Meta, AB Meta, TD Meta, DS Meta, Teq boss, Shatter boss, Jumping puzzles, Player instance nodes, miscellaneous open world achievements, and Raid LFR all piling into one tab. That doesn’t even include the posts that are incorrectly posted in open world either.

It’s not like we’re asking for a fully automated auto-join/auto-party. Those things tend to be disastrous and give a false sense of lesser quality of the content you queued up for; it’s not the content that was bad it was your team that was trash.

The quality and overall difficulty of the raid and possibly nerfing it? Well, that’s on the Anet team to decide, but a cleaner LFG tab should be completely independent of that decision. If they want to uphold they’re claim to being casual friendly I forsee a nerf of sort incoming. However, if they’re standing on the decision that raids are the only (currently) hardcore content then the difficulty is fine where it is right now. The only thing that will make them seem easier is the fact that more people have gotten hands on experience playing through them….which we would have more people if we have more polished tools.

Nokaru.7831:

Swampland is basically a boss fractal, but Mossman is a terrible boss. All he does is melee attack and throw daggers and sometimes at 10% health he gains some new skills.

I don’t understand why the developers keep on playing whack-a-mole with safe spots and exploits when the problem is that Mossman is just too easy to exploit in his current form. You don’t need to sterilize his arena, but instead just give him some meaningful skills to use.

Bingo. If they’re so insistent in keeping the scenery at least make it to where the boss can appropriately work with all aspects of the arena. Right now, his design seems works no differently than any other boss that’s programmed for open arena combat. Heck, let him shapeshift into a raven so he can fly around and attack everyone.

One set for Low levels and another set for High levels? That part doesn’t make any sense. Unless you’re trying to mix up your builds intentionally you’ll be able to progress through all 100 levels with the same set. When “HoT fractals” first came out it used to be that Condi builds surpassed Power builds due to Toughness scaling, but that’s been normalized since.

Prior to HoT, you still has to grab Ascended gear to go beyond the first tier of levels. Though depending on how high you wanted to go you would need a handful of trinkets all the way to needing weapons and a few armor pieces that are ascended. Nowadays you can get all the way through mid 60’s in fractal level through AR in trinkets alone with no additional armor or weapon ascended. If you want to progress to the higher levels? Well then, you’ll need to invest your money/resources to do that; nothing new than how the process used to be.

Right now, there’s not much of an incentive to hit the higher fractals. So, if you’re wanting to go higher the expense is completely on you. As far as Raids are concerned they use the same gear as what you would use in Fractals unless you’re going for a specialized build (healer, tank, etc). Statwise, Weapon and trinkets make the biggest impact (over 10%) while Ascended armor doesn’t even make 2% worth of numeric difference over weapon and trinkets alone.

The pricing for it all? Yeah, I agree that it’s a bit on the expensive side for the armor. Though the cost for weapons is relatively cheap. Trinkets have a different currency cost, but they almost felt free.

Rising Dusk.2408:

savacli.8172:

The new tree and the old pole stuff? I still can’t be convinced it’s an exploit…

It is.

Source: I talk to ANet.

Regardless of my opinion that’s great to hear Anet has an official stand on that, but could we maybe get that broadcasted more openly? Even if they’re not fixing issues right away (which I still find rather odd and disappointing) it would be fantastic to have official callouts for controversy like this more readily accessible. Right now all we got is players pointing fingers or posts hidden deep within threads until a patch update comes out to “fix an issue that allowed players….”

Also, you missed quoting the other half of my sentence where I stated although I didn’t see the pole/tree tricks definable as an exploit I still see it as not the correct intention of the fight and needs to be addressed. Otherwise, if everyone is so loose with the term exploit you might as well drop ban hammers on the folks low manning VG and using Mes/Chrono Distortion to avoid the green circles.

TheFamster.7806:

I thought there are many guilds recruiting for raid in GW2 Looking for section? Did you try applying to any of them? While you may not get speedrun results but at least you can try with likeminded people at your own time.

The big problem with recruiting guilds is that a good majority of them are a core guild that does raids rather than just a standalone guild solely for raids.

In other words, you’re effectively signing up for a new guild in order to do raids. For some folks that may not be a problem taking up a new title. But it’s not that great of a deal for folks that belong to a more casual community that meets all their needs but just aren’t skilled/committed enough for raids.

spoj.9672:

Safespotting is an obvious exploit. Theres no grey area with it. Personally i wish GM’s took a bit more of an aggressive approach when it comes to clear cut exploits like this.

I’ll agree with safespotting being an exploit but not everything that’s been done with Mossy is an exploit. Luring Mossy underwater or running under the board of his little hut? Definitely an exploit without question. In underwater, the boss bugs out and has no attacks available to him. Hiding under the boards made it to where he couldn’t approach you with melee attacks and fully obstructed his ranged attacks.

The new tree and the old pole stuff? I still can’t be convinced it’s an exploit; it sure as hell was cheese though, and it wasn’t at all the intended way to deal with the fight. In those fights everything was working as programmed. Mossy attempts to reposition himself and will cast his range attack when it’s off CD. If you manage to pull him to the perfect spot you both avoid his melee attacks and obstruct his ranged attacks. However, Mossy’s will still attempt to reposition himself and will continue attacking. Nothing broke in the encounter other than your managed to get out of reach. The poor guy’s primary attacks are melee so why stand there and try to dodge when you can hop up to a place that makes his attacks become out of reach. Same thing with the wolves. They’re small and attack with melee. All a player has to do is gain vertical height and bam, you just avoided their attacks. However, if someone goofed or otherwise moved around Mossy and his wolves can make contact once again and no attacks are being avoided. If anything your team just became a bunch of neatly stacked targets for him to maul through.

If ban hammer starts coming down for cheese like this they might as well take away some of the architecture in Khylo otherwise we’d get reported for hopping up a few stairs to get out of melee range of an opponent’s attacks.

How to fix Mossy? If the fractal team is insistent on keeping the architecture for arty flavor they’ll need to give Mossy more ranged attacks and/or swap his wolves to something ranged. Otherwise, if Geometry Wars is such a heavy issue that it’s been given the label of exploit then tear down the whole thing and make it an open arena like Bloomy.

Lazze.9870:

Bad player, lots of complaints. Nothing new.

While extremely blunt I’d have to agree with you regarding this post.

SotP: Even without the trait, it’s pulsing Stab, swiftness, and can be heavily used in conjunction with rapid hitting pets like a Bristleback. The trait lowers down the CD by a bit, and it adds group Regen and Swiftness.

Entangle: Great skill to have in a condi/trap build. Though easily escapable, the roots can be devastating once you’ve worn down your target to the point where they can’t easily get out of them.

Glyph: In CAF it’s a great tool for extra healing in pressure situations. Non-CAF is odd to use since you want to intentionally take damage to make full use of the buff. Otherwise, you got a Glyph on a relatively short CD to proc Verdant Etching.

Spirit: Pulses a great deal of HP/s, offers AoE Revive, and can be traited to pulse Stab in intervals for 60s. If you know you’re going to be in a mobile situation, don’t use it. Otherwise you got a 1,000/1,500 radius to place it to maximize its pulses. Generally, I use this guy in Fractals or Raids since its heal pulses plus regen from Water Spirit keep the team very healthy and allows me to break away from camping staff.

Mapisto.2154:

And another question – can i change its stats later in the mystic forge?

Well, in a sense, yes. Yggdrasil, along with the other 8 Spec weps are just ascended weapons with a fancy skin on it. So if you throw it in the mystic toilet you’ll won’t get back Yggdrasil with new stats but rather an entirely new ascended staff with the stats you want. In other words:

Yggdrasil + Cleric’s Inscription + 5 globs + Book =/= Yggdrasil with Cleric stats.
Yggdrasil + Cleric’s Inscription + 5 globs + Book = Thedosus’ Spire

The only way to maintain the original item is to select from its 3 predefined stats. Though, if you toilet it you can technically just slap the skin back on it through your wardrobe.

Malchior.5732:

savacli.8172:

Varezenem.2813:

It would be incorrect to classify the revenant as a Jack of all trades unless we have access to all legends in combat. Similarly to engi or ele.
While it is possible to (in theory) perform a large variety of roles they all require a lot of specialization and have tradeoffs.

That’s what I mean. In preparation you can set the Rev to fill different roles with a good deal of ease and efficiency.

E.G. Vale Guard, I’ll have the typical Glint/Shiro for the encounter but swap over to Glint/Ventari or Jalis/Ventari for a more defensive stance in Orb consumption events following the boss fight. Then, it’s back to Glint/Shiro or Glint/Mallyx for the Ghost walls. At most I’m changing Legends and maybe one Spec. Or, the ever classical we engaged Blue Guardian, and our Mesmer/Necro is still zoning in. “One sec, let me hop out of battle and slot in Mallyx for the strip.”

Granted, I’ll agree Revs aren’t as versatile in battle when compared to Ele’s or Engi’s.

What you just described is something that a lot of classes can do.
Oh, you need Boon Strip? Well the Mesmer can just equip Sword, Necro can do a ton of stuff, Thief can do a few, etc.
Need some cleanses? Almost every class has some sort of AoE cleanse.
Need some healing? Again, most classes have something to help out.

Where it all matters is in battle, where the Revenant isn’t a Jack-of-all-Trades at all.

I’m coming from a more PvE viewpoint where I’m used to fiddling around with my build in between encounters. I recognize that all classes are versatile in it of themselves (one of the attractions that drew me into the game), but from my experience Rev felt like it had better versatility potential for preparation. In other words I could make a Healer Rev, but I’ll never outbuff a Druid Healer. I can make a Condi Rev, but I’ll never burn down entire nations like a Burnzerker or spread conditions like a Necro (a moment of silence for Mallyx v1). Though at the same time I’m light years ahead of a Thief Healer.

Back on topic though…

Is there room for improvement though? Absolutely, and I would have loved to have seen some work done on some of the lesser used Legends…..looking at you Jalis. So for now, until Sword 2 is fixed we’re just in a really odd spot.

Varezenem.2813:

It would be incorrect to classify the revenant as a Jack of all trades unless we have access to all legends in combat. Similarly to engi or ele.
While it is possible to (in theory) perform a large variety of roles they all require a lot of specialization and have tradeoffs.

That’s what I mean. In preparation you can set the Rev to fill different roles with a good deal of ease and efficiency.

E.G. Vale Guard, I’ll have the typical Glint/Shiro for the encounter but swap over to Glint/Ventari or Jalis/Ventari for a more defensive stance in Orb consumption events following the boss fight. Then, it’s back to Glint/Shiro or Glint/Mallyx for the Ghost walls. At most I’m changing Legends and maybe one Spec. Or, the ever classical we engaged Blue Guardian, and our Mesmer/Necro is still zoning in. “One sec, let me hop out of battle and slot in Mallyx for the strip.”

Granted, I’ll agree Revs aren’t as versatile in battle when compared to Ele’s or Engi’s.

TheLastNobody.8319:

From what I’ve seen on other threads and posts asking similar questions, it’s because they’re squishy, lack utility, don’t bring much else but stealth to the table, and are by design supposed to do higher than average damage. Rev meanwhile just farts boons and might all over the place and able to bring a lot of team utility with its various legends.

+1

Thief falls under your typical MMO’s Rogue archetype that’s really good at hiding and really good at frontloading damage. So, I am not at all surprised to see such a damage buff to our Rouge-ish players. Rev falls under the category of Jack-of-All-Trades which means the class should do quite well at adapting for various roles but should not excel at classes that are more dedicated to that role.

As far as the Sword nerf/buff? I have mixed feelings about it. The biggest gotcha being that the sustain damage was supposed to be offset to require incorporating Sword 2, but that skill is not the world’s greatest attack right now (only had a few bugs last night with it in a raid though). If that skill can be polished up I would be more on the “okay side” of the damage shift.

The auto-attack did feel too high especially since I was able to bring both damage and a great deal of team support at the same time. At least with Thieves, they may have exceptional attacks but don’t really offer much else to the group at the same time

ProtoGunner.4953:

It’s not that it is much easier if you ‘exploit’ it, just more convenient. And you don’t need to be really good to kill him on higher levels. As long as they don’t introduce interesting mechanics and/or lower his HP people will continue to kill him as convenient as possible.

+1

It’s just a really really boring fight made even more boring with the upping of his HP. Can the fight be made easier? Sure, I’ll grab my Druid and slot in traited Spirits and end up with perma Protection and Regen (nearly 300hp/s). At that point, even the passive healing from Water Spirit + Regen is enough to keep the team alive, freeing me up to grab a snack or something from the pantry. If I have a less than awesome team? Well, I guess I have to use the occasional CAF for a few heals now and then.

Nope, the Raven is definitely there at nights and doesn’t require any event of sort. From what I remember the term cemetery led me to believe the spawn occurred in a different spot of the town until I finally found the right area.

Here’s a video that shows all the raven spots.

90% of thread being ragey? Depends what sub-forum you’re at (a moment of silence for our thief broski’s).

If you’re looking to rage on this thread? Congrats, you did it! Grab the popcorn and watch the commentary roll in. My advice? Add something constructive. Rather than rage how about adding a note or two about what makes your guild successful or even offer advice to other who may be in the same boat. PUG’s lying about they qualifications? That’s been going on since the beginning of times, so we’re not getting anything new out of your rant.

Mosferre.1246:

I’m a complete nub in real terms to gw and gw2. Signed up at the end of September and started fractals in December. Love em to be honest – but then, they are all still new to me

Did the “Pole” things a week or two ago, and last night did mossman without the pole thing. Definitely seems easier/quicker without the Pole.. shrugs Maybe it was just the pug i was with?

For the most part it depends on your team. If everyone is appropriately geared (with AR) and know what attacks to avoid then the run is going to feel very smooth. Even more butter if you’re slapping on boons and buffs for more damage and/or mitigation.

Now if you get a lousy team where players are trying to sneak in with less than appropriate AR or are taking hits left and right? Then it might just be easier to jump into a tree where I can at least watch YouTube or something while AA-ing to make use of the extra time I’ll be in that fight.

There’s generally two types of people that fall into this category:

• The lazy casual
• The actual casual

The lazy casual could care less about what you (the general you) say and did not read your requirements and just wants to play the game. They bought the game and want to play it exactly the way they want to. Read a guide or “get gud”? Very very unlikely. They will call you out, call you an elitist or whatever simply because you have set a standard (reasonable or not) that he/she could care less about meeting. And yes, that same person will yell and scream at you for being a noob and a try-hard for kicking them even though that person clearly was waaay out of their league.

The actual casual player realistically has little to no time to improve their skills or be able to regularly practice the encounters’ mechanics. The initial glamour of the Raids has died so at this point they might be pretty desperate to join anything. Right now, most folks are wanting experienced players and even ask for pings on Insights or title checks. Said causal player missed the initial days of the Raids launch and no one has extended a helping hand to them. So what does said person do? Anything they can to get into the raids. If that means lying and crossing fingers hoping to not get caught? Well, I guess if that’s what it takes. I realize there are plenty of resources out there for newer players to Raids, but for this type of player it’s generally a time constraint as far as being able to do the research or being able to meet the times other players can work with them.

The lesson here? Welcome to working with PUG’s. You can find gems hidden in the dirt, but you’ll also come across a lot of dirt. If you’re posting LFG’s you can easily alleviate your disappointment/frustration by realizing not everyone is who they say they are (GASP! The Internet lied to me!!). If they look good on paper? Great, give ’em a shot and hope for the best. If they are the worst player ever and lied about everything? Give ’em a boot, maybe add a snarky remark or two, and play the PUG roulette again and hope for a better one.

Rising Dusk.2408:

savacli.8172:

Punish players for doing too much damage? That one’s just silly. We already have an enrage timer that’s telling us that we have to do so much damage in a certain block of time otherwise the boss’s damage output multiplies. With that suggestion you’re just asking players to play Goldilocks: not too much damage, not too little damage, but just the right amount..

I actually like the way Subject Six does it. He spawns a mob after having taken so much damage, so if the group’s damage is too low and if they’re tunnel visioning too hard he can easily heal back up and blow everyone up. I could see a raid boss employing something like this to force players to divert their attention from the boss momentarily to regain control of the rest of the encounter.

Subject 6 is different. What OP was suggesting was a static response to “too much damage” so that teams that would be hitting too hard would be punished by being spammed with mobs spawn and/or debuffs at a faster rate than what they could handle. Subject 6 does not go into disc mode as a response to damage or any action in particular but rather just has it as one of its attacks for use. In that case players, have the option to cease fire or can intentional break him (with unblockable CC) to carry on with the fight.

The whole summoning of “healer mobs” during the encounter isn’t anything new and is rather trivial since high DPS teams can ignore the obstacle altogether while lower DPS team have yet another hurdle to clear. Heck, in the case of Subject 6, those little guys just get nuked by the time they enter the AoE/Danger Zone

Ultimately, it’d be rather annoying to have a contradiction of “you gotta kill the boss fast!” while introducing a gimmick that hinders you or otherwise make you regulates your damage. It’s a raid: we know we have to do a lot of damage, we know we gotta be able to withstand a lot of damage.

SlyDevil.3952:

Bard specialization confirmed for mesmer?

/GrabsFlute

MY BODY IS READY!

Boss removes condi or otherwise uses them to its advantage? Maybe? The touchy subject would be some conditions are critical to a players’ functionality vs other classes just uses condi’s as a supplement.

Boss removes boons from players? That one wouldn’t be too bad so long as the removal is reasonable. Though with the average team comp those boons would come right back within moments so there wouldn’t be a terrible inconvenience from this gimmick.

Punish players for doing too much damage? That one’s just silly. We already have an enrage timer that’s telling us that we have to do so much damage in a certain block of time otherwise the boss’s damage output multiplies. With that suggestion you’re just asking players to play Goldilocks: not too much damage, not too little damage, but just the right amount.

ODB.6891:

You mean those strategies where you actually do damage to the boss to reduce his health bar? Is that the meta you are referring to? What other strategy would they be fine tuning….singing to the boss until it gives up?

But….but…that’s how I beat Ursela in Kingdom Hearts….

peeterske.9134:

LucianDK.8615:

Standing on the tree west of the entrance pool to mossman seems to be the new thing now. Players can damage him with little damage in return, and the challenge is completely gone once again.

Once again? The challenge was gone since HoT. Safespot or not, the content is faceroll. ;(

Yep….pre-HoT there was at least some challenge when Mossy hit like a truck.; one bouncing axe throw was enough to drop a few players that were caught off guard. Nowadays the “safespots” aren’t 100% fullproof, but the reduction in damage from FotM makes it to where you can easily ignore most blows from bosses.

SlyDevil.3952:

You can just have 1-2 engineers put down healing turrets to absorb some of his damage and provide heals every 15secs or less, I pugged a 56,67,77 after the patch with the group filling in ~1min and no problems with either boss(minus some dude who got one-shot and we 4manned 77).

If you guys are really having trouble you can always bring a druid

Yeah, Druid made the daily a walk in the park. Water Spirit + Stone Spirit kept everyone up, and the regen/Heal-over-time provided enough AF to not have to camp Staff. The fight is pretty easy regardless of which strategy you take, it’s just frustrating being punished for dodging or ended up all the way in Narnia from a random fear.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Swamp fractal revamp inc.

Oh look! I can stand on top of the 507th blade of grass to avoid damage!!

fishball.7204:

You know if they revamp mossman it’ll just be ignored like aether path. I mean I kinda wish they did it but let’s face it people will just move to molten duo and do that instead of mossman if it becomes too challenging.

I would completely support that idea if Anet did something to incentive doing the more difficult/harder fractals. Personally, I enjoy the Aether Path with its puzzles and decent encounters, but I don’t see myself going through all that if I’m just getting some measly encryption boxes. If I wanted those I can just farm the faster ones.

Kthxbye?

Really though, “cutting DPS by half” is way too much of a stretched statement. The change to Condi Warrior was seen from miles away. Chrono’s took a hit in Alacrity, but you’re looking at a 40% reduction in CD vs the new current 25% in skill reduction. Unless you somehow have 100% uptime in Alacrity for the whole team I can’t see that making an overwhelming difference.

As far as “Anet making you buy more expensive gear”? Umm, not at all. It’s players’ choice, and we’ve seen countless of low man runs and less than optimally geared/comp’d teams to know the encounters can be completed without the new and shiny gearsets. If you all gambled and went with the pricier stuff knowing it had a good chance to be nerfed. Well, welcome to the definition of gambling.

Well, looks like the “fix” worked all of less than 24 hours before a new spot was found. Mossy still a sponge worth of HP? Still have punishing instabilities? Yep, not surprised at all.

The roots are fine the way they are. As Shadelang wrote, the trait excels in low man encounters but more easily gets nuked when you add more players. If an opponent is running enough to get 80% reduction on condi’s, then I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see him ignore my roots; he is indeed built to be as anti condi as possible. On the flip side though, we have the same tools to bump our condi duration by an additional 80% as well (came out to 77.27% on a super rough draft).

Blinks, shadow steps, resistance? Anticipate them, or better yet, bait them out. Granted some classes have more readily access to these tools than others. In which case, the timing on the baits/anticipation is tighter than other opponents would be.

It’s not the world’s greatest game changing trait, but it’s definitely not worthless.

I’ve seen teams split up for boon prioritization and such, but where does healing fall into all this? Do the heals prioritize members of the healer’s same team, or does the spell use the default proximity behavior for targeting?

Beyond that, are there classes that do better by themselves in a one man teams, or should everyone be in a 5 man team?

If anything the “off-topic” conversations are what’s keeping this thread alive it seems.

Of course anything that’s new is going to be challenging…..at first. It’s just that raids took a little longer to figure out since they were intentionally designed to be more challenging.

If that’s how you measure difficulty, sure, I’ll agree that the raids are challenging.

Now, I can fully appreciate the “look what I can do” runs that have been listed: 5 man VG, no up-draft Gorsy, etc. That’s where I draw the definition of challenging, and unfortunately the raids in their current state don’t meet that challenge.

For GW2 standards, the raids are challenging since the game as a whole caters to the casual player. So, it makes sense that the more hardcore/dedicated players can blow right through this. For a truly challenging content across the board the raids would need to be more dynamic or built in such a way that the crawl is more reactive than proactive. The way the content is right now we know exactly the way the encounters will play out everytime (minus some rng). Though, by the time you get to that extreme, you lose your casual audience since they cba to improve their skillset vs read a guide that tells them how to beat the game with the low-moderate skills they currently possess.

To OP,
Very great run. I look forward to trying it out with my guild when we get the chance.

Umm, have you tried turning it off and on again?

Really though, I have no clue what you’re trying to get out of this thread. Are you just typing out a rant? Are you looking for clarification on why players assume your skill? Are you needing help/advice with something in the game?

There is a lot of prioritization with that collection, and the wiki doesn’t do a great job of laying of the collection chronologically.

On the wiki, iirc, you go from “Guide to Rising a Raven” all the way to “Primed Raven” in the order listed. Then break off and start at the bottom at “Bow to Raven” and work your way up in reverse order until you get to “Tamed Spirit”. Technically you can do this part in any order so long as you start off with “Bow to Raven” and end up on “Tamed Spirit”.

Fianlly, finish off the collection by doing “Combine Raven and Spirit” and consuming the Hero challenge to complete “Raven’s Power”

I’m fairly certain that Nevermore Vol. 4 can be bought at any time, but I bought it upfront since it was effortless.

Server’s are broken up into NA and EU regions so that’s the only hard division between the servers. Though, for example, there’s nothing stopping a player from the NA region from signing up for an EU based server.

Otherwise, guilds are the soft divisions as they tend to have particular prime times or “business hours” that make them more or less appealing to players.

I personally run something similar to the “too much money” build that Wondrouswall linked.

• Pets: Bristleback (aka Nidorino) and Electric Wyvern for CC
• Second Weapon set: Sword/Axe or Sword/Warhorn
• Heal Skill: Trap or Water Spirit (traited).
• Utilities: Glyph of Empowerment/Tides and Frosty. I’ll switch out Tides for Sun Spirit when clearing trash.
• Elite: Unity or Shout Elite for the Orb events.

If needed I’ll throw in Cleric’s/Magi trinkets if the group I’m in is struggling.

The closest thing to the Assassin Mage would be a Thief, though they lack all of the magic “flavoring”. To a lesser extent a magi assassin could also be fulfilled by a Shiro channelling Revenant, but they lack the whole hiding in the shadows appeal.

16 Legendary Insights
-1 healer’s ring
-1 Defender’s boots
-1 Multifarious pants
-1 Defender’s Dagger
-4 mini’s (2 VG, 1 Gors, 1 Sab)

Edit: forgot one

The whole thing just feels like a mess and is rather frustrating. First, the fractals were separated and completely took away the edge of having to be prepared for 3 random instances +1 boss. You could get an easy set of 3, or you could get a set that made you want to ragequit. So, it’s no surprise to see Swamp + Swamp + Swamp being the normal set. It’s rather fast and easy.

Outside of collection items, there is little to no incentive to run the more “difficult” fractals. Plus, it’s the same thing over an over again: lose your boons on dodge, land a crit and give your target a boon, mobs steal your boons, take a strike and receive a random condition, slower CD recovery while under the effect of a condition, grant agony to allies when huddled close.

I remember one thread where a dev was talking about skipping in dungeons. Basically, it boiled down to they weren’t so much concerned with the players performing the skip but rather WHY the player felt the skips were so necessary. In the case of fractals something like the “polestrats” were conceived because the content feels extremely stale and punishing. Something like the “lose boons on dodge” was much more appropriately addressed in the old fractal 49 where you didn’t completely nerf yourself, but there was at least incentive to not dodge wildly and watch your endurance meter.

The older instabilities felt far more original and introduced an organic feel to the runs. Anyone remember exploding Harpies or Mossy coming out of nowhere and practically pulling an RKO? And, by Dwayna, if someone didn’t find me something to slaughter I would contemplate killing the Ranger’s pet to satisfy my bloodlust on 43.

Anyways, I’ll happily label myself under the category “fractals are a chore”. But hey, at least I’m getting my ascended boxes, right?

psizone.8437:

savacli.8172:

How do you take that on? Either rush the healer fast enough to where he can’t react, or you can find a way to nullify the pets attack (coughprojectilecough) so you can focus more comfortably against the caster.

If the pet is dealing that much damage to you, focus on it, killing it will take it out of the fight for quite some time.

Even with Druid support a pet will die quickly under pressure from anyone with good damage.

If you’re not dealing enough damage due to being on the tanky side of things (in which case they really shouldn’t be a threat) then run, you are ill equiped for that encounter. You can’t have a build that can compete with every single other build out there.

Oh, I’m strictly a casual PvP player, so I was just talking generically from what I’ve seen in other games where I participated more aggressively in PvP. Nowadays, I tend to favor the Leroy Jenkins tactics since I just do unranked matches to take a break from my usual routine…..did I mention I only have 2 pips in Amber

Even so, I can understand the wisdom in sizing up your opponent. If the encounter is in your favor, great. Otherwise run away to avoid wasting time or play the designated decoy long enough for reinforcements to arrive. If it’s a somewhat even match, and you’ve figured out the blind spots in your opponent? Go for the kill, though be attentive as they may have found your own blinds spots as well.

I, for one, will admit to highly overlooking a Ranger’s pet. I started a Ranger pretty early on in the game, and the little guys always felt more of a burden than a blessing. Nowadays, I’ve picked the class back up since the Druid Elite was released, and it took a few weeks before I released just how much potential our companions have.

The way I see it, you have the perfect duo. Druids, in the healer role, can heal and buff very readily. Though, I would be surprised to see them take on a bunny (no, not the fractal bunny). Pets like the Bristleback hit like a truck, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them fall over from a moderate breeze. Mix the two of them together, and you get a healer with a very protective bodyguard and a gatling gun on 4 legs that’s seemingly invincible from all the heals and buffs he’s getting.

How do you take that on? Either rush the healer fast enough to where he can’t react, or you can find a way to nullify the pets attack (coughprojectilecough) so you can focus more comfortably against the caster.

Shadelang.3012:

/snip

TLDR; The bristleback itself isn’t OP. It has low enough defensive stats that killing it SHOULD be an option just as all dangerous pets are meant to have (Like cats). However druid synergy with the WK trait bark skin makes that very difficult. As a druid equipped with this minor trait can infact keep there pet alive almost indefinitely simply through self healing up to the threshhold the moment the pressure swaps from them to there pets. In other words there toolset is very well designed towards maintaining there burst machine. Where it SHOULD be possible to break that machine as part of an opposing players strategy.

I….I understand the world now O.O

Do you want to play the healer role with your Druid? Great! The class is well built for that and arguable does it better than most classes! Want to player the healer role with your Thief? Umm…..what?

I realize I’m being a little extreme with that example, but you wanting to play Guard in a raid kinda falls into that category. There are simply classes that can better fill the roles that are called upon in the raids. Can you do the raids with any class? Absolutely! But, based on your class selection you’ll end up making the encounter either more difficult or less difficult.

The way I see it you can make the encounter easy making sure you optimize the following:

-Class
-Gear
-Skill

In the case of the 10 man Guard kill? They chose to play a sub-optimal class (with respect to the roles in the raid) so they had to compensate with better skill assuming they were all optimally geared.

The same applies to any raid attempt. You can get away with “worse” classes if your team overall has better skill and gear. You can “cheat” your skill requirements if you have better gear (exo vs Asc) or classes that have an easier time with the encounter. Best-in-slot gear means nothing compared to teams in worse gear but are much more precise in skills rotations and coordination.

Dagger can be used when you know you’re going for the dodge overkill award (Sword 2, Sword 3, Dagger 4, and native dodges from endurance). There are a few places in PvE that can use it, but for the most part you’ll want OH Axe for the higher damage.