Guild Wars 2

I am not going to lie, I find the skips in Arah much harder than the boss fights themselves. I struggle with P3 running to wraithlord, P2 at the golem suit, P1 after the ooze (I haven’t tried P4 yet, but I have no doubt there will be something even more beastly in there). I usually run warrior through there, but even with warhorn, GS WW, signets of rage/dolyak/stamina and maybe “Shake it off” or Endure Pain I seem to end up going down almost half of the time on these skips. Now that we can retrait, does anyone have any suggestions for optimal skipping trait setups? Also, is it better to run with Healing Signet or Defiant Stance and its invulnerability?

I also use Ranger and Guardian as well, but I have an even harder time skipping with these guys.

You can either join a dungeon guild or roll the dice with LFG descriptions like “speed clear, please be experienced”

You will probably have much better luck using the in game LFG tool to find people to run with.

- Every dungeon will now cause perma-chill to slow down movements and attacks and make sure that dungeons take as long as the designers intended.

OP, for what it is worth, I can empathize with you, but I think you are being too impatient. Dungeons are “end game” content meaning that they represent some of the hardest content in the game. To me they are actually the most fun thing in the game at this point. That said, I went through the same growing pains as you in not understanding why people were stacking in certain places and why I couldn’t clear a level 35 dungeon with a bunch of other level 35 players at all.

I think the big problem is that the leap from PVE running around fighting things to dungeons is a HUGE step up. Unless you are soloing champs in PVE you haven’t really seen fights that will match what you see in dungeons. Further more, nothing out in PVE encourages (let alone requires) team coordination. If you want to prepare yourself I might suggest finding a partner and tag-teaming a couple of champs in mid to harder PVE zones so you begin to get used to watching your partner’s buffs and conditions alongside your own and then learn to watch boss mechanics so you can dodge/block/interrupt/etc.

Once you have that down then head back into dungeons because you will be more aware of what is happening. AC path 3 is probably not a great learning dungeon because of all the safe spotting but realize that people have been doing these dungeons for well over a year so they have found the “easiest” way to do some of these fights. I would suggest to try AC P1 instead so at least you get an open fight where you can see the mechanics of the last boss (unless the team shoves it into a wall which can happen). If you are up for it, SE P1 is also a really good learning dungeon in my opinion as well because there are a couple of bosses in there that have basic mechanics that will force you to do more than just stack and try to faceroll.

As has already been said here too, start your own group and advertise that you are new. I know there are a lot of people that will join in and show you the ropes if they know going in that it is a group of new people. Ask lots of questions when you get a group like this with an experienced person so you can learn why things are done the way they are and get tips about fights, character builds, etc.

But don’t give up. You are just getting to the fun part of the game and I think if you invest just a little bit more time you will really enjoy the dungeon experience in GW2.

Thanks.

And will that be the same going forward? If we loot another named weapon it will have an open slot or will there be some (new) named weapons with both slots filled?

I am sure it has already been asked, but I can’t find it anywhere… What is going to happen to named two-handed weapons after the patch? I would assume a second spot for a sigil will open up, but will it already be filled or can we plug in anything we want? For example, I have Entropy which has Superior Sigil of Blood already bound to it. Will the patch automatically add a second or can I pick my own for the second slot?

Maybe a better question is “how do we push the weak players closer to the better”? This zerker nerf is a start. 10%+ loss on DPS for many builds will making stacking the Spider Queen in AC, for example, that much tougher for non-meta groups and they might actually have to fight her in the open. Then they might see how simple the mechanics are and how easy the fight can be when you leave the comfy confines of the stairs. Even forcing players to survive a little longer by becoming aware of group conditions and/or buffs would be a win in many pug groups I have run with. There are too many fights that allow players not to get better because they can stack and survive long enough to beat a boss or a group without ever knowing what the enemies are actually doing. Fixing the AI might be the optimum solution, but in lieu of that I would say reducing damage to extend fights and then open up the trait system to allow constant tweaking might will force bad groups to get better and offer them a chance to do it (at least to some degree) at any time.

I am actually in [Noob] but haven’t been able to sync up on a mentored run yet…. good suggestion. laharl I am coming for you!

My poor selfish Guardian…. I do understand the point about the AH build. I went with a GS + S/F full DPS build originally and got crushed in most pugs I was running with. In general, pugs tend to be a bit selfish, uncoordinated and not focused on what the team needs (and also seemed to not have enough DPS and/or courage to melee to help take some aggro). So I would blow through my Aegis and Blinds and by that point if the boss or mob wasn’t dead I would have 100% of the aggro and then drop like a fly (queue experts saying “dodge better”). Thus the selfish and tougher AH build. This is why I was asking about a 2nd guardian in a party. Do 2 DPS guards that can alternate Aegis and blinds help survivability for a team that is still learning or not really? I think as I run with guildies I will move back in the pure DPS direction but in the wrong group my Guard = broken glass. (Also, for the record, I almost never use the staff for DPS, just Empower and then switch to Hammer until I need Empower for healing via AH…. still, point taken.)

Thanks for the link of records with videos…. that is awesome.

Interesting idea on how to pair Rangers. Perhaps we can try that too.

The key takeaway so far for me is still to go build an Ele for dungeon running as we typically go without today and obviously they bring the most critical elements to the table.

This is really good feedback guys.

I would say that as roles go, Guardians are pretty good for stacking might too (at least that is a role I play in most of my groups). I run a Hammer build to blast finish fire fields and generally use staff for Empower. To the earlier point about guardians, I do run Berserker gear on him, but I do trait for AH which I know is generally frowned upon but helps survivability greatly (especially when I pug).

From what I can tell here, Elementalists are pretty much the most critical to every path and there is a severe lack of them in my guild at this point. Guess we know what to make next. We have a lot of Rangers and Warriors. From what I understand, it never seems to make sense to run more than one Ranger in dungeons though Warriors can probably complement each other better with multiples. The suggestion for only one Guardian makes sense too I think though for groups that are still learning do you find that it is easier to with 2 of them for the extra defensive buffs?

So I am part of a relatively new guild that is starting to do more regular dungeon runs. We are all investing in new toons to give ourselves options for building optimal groups for dungeons. Recently on this forum I saw the three and a half minute CM3 run using thief/mesmer/guard/X/X and was impressed by how they used stealth/portal/reflect etc to quickly maneuver the content. It got me thinking about what the optimal party would be for each of dungeons or ideally each dungeon path. Obviously to avoid one of the standard rotating topics I will assume we can leave the all zerk thing as an assumed part of the answer and I am more interested in the utilities, weapons, etc that would be used.

For example, in AC bringing an ele or two for ice bows makes quick work of the gravelings. In TA a staff guardian can clear the blossoms exceptionally quick. I have generally brought reflects into most CM paths for the snipers and rocket turrets. Other than those, I really don’t have much idea for how to optimize a team and what skills are a “must” in certain dungeons.

Thoughts?

I would like to get an invite as a student as well please (NA). Thanks.